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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:38:55 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/12092-0.txt b/12092-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..be9b8df --- /dev/null +++ b/12092-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10342 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12092 *** + +THE OXFORD MOVEMENT + +TWELVE YEARS 1833-1845 + +R.W. CHURCH, M.A., D.C.L. + +SOMETIME DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S AND FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD + + + + +ADVERTISEMENT + + +The revision of these papers was a task to which the late Dean of St. +Paul's gave all the work he could during the last months of his life. At +the time of his death, fourteen of the papers had, so far as can be +judged, received the form in which he wished them to be published; and +these, of course, are printed here exactly as he left them. One more he +had all but prepared for publication; the last four were mainly in the +condition in which, six years ago, he had them privately put into type, +for the convenience of his own further work upon them, and for the +reading of two or three intimate friends. Those into whose care his work +has now come have tried, with the help of his pencilled notes, to bring +these four papers as nearly as they can into the form which they believe +he would have had them take. But it has seemed better to leave unaltered +a sentence here and there to which he might have given a more perfect +shape, rather than to run the risk of swerving from the thought which +was in his mind. + +It is possible that the Dean would have made considerable changes in +the preface which is here printed; for only that which seems the first +draft of it has been found. But even thus it serves to show his wish and +purpose for the work he had in hand; and it has therefore been thought +best to publish it. Leave has been obtained to add here some fragments +from a letter which, three years ago, he wrote to Lord Acton about these +papers: + +"If I ever publish them, I must say distinctly what I want to do, which +is, not to pretend to write a history of the movement, or to account for +it or adequately to judge it and put it in its due place in relation to +the religious and philosophical history of the time, but simply to +preserve a contemporary memorial of what seems to me to have been a true +and noble effort which passed before my eyes, a short scene of religious +earnestness and aspiration, with all that was in it of self-devotion, +affectionateness, and high and refined and varied character, displayed +under circumstances which are scarcely intelligible to men of the +present time; so enormous have been the changes in what was assumed and +acted upon, and thought practicable and reasonable, 'fifty years since.' +For their time and opportunities, the men of the movement, with all +their imperfect equipment and their mistakes, still seem to me the salt +of their generation.... I wish to leave behind me a record that one who +lived with them, and lived long beyond most of them, believed in the +reality of their goodness and height of character, and still looks back +with deepest reverence to those forgotten men as the companions to whose +teaching and example he owes an infinite debt, and not he only, but +religious society in England of all kinds." + +_January_ 31st, 1891. + + + + +PREFACE + + +The following pages relate to that stage in the Church revival of this +century which is familiarly known as the Oxford Movement, or, to use its +nickname, the Tractarian Movement. Various side influences and +conditions affected it at its beginning and in its course; but the +impelling and governing force was, throughout the years with which these +pages are concerned, at Oxford. It was naturally and justly associated +with Oxford, from which it received some of its most marked +characteristics. Oxford men started it and guided it. At Oxford were +raised its first hopes, and Oxford was the scene of its first successes. +At Oxford were its deep disappointments, and its apparently fatal +defeat. And it won and lost, as a champion of English theology and +religion, a man of genius, whose name is among the illustrious names of +his age, a name which will always be connected with modern Oxford, and +is likely to be long remembered wherever the English language is +studied. + +We are sometimes told that enough has been written about the Oxford +Movement, and that the world is rather tired of the subject. A good deal +has certainly been both said and written about it, and more is probably +still to come; and it is true that other interests, more immediate or +more attractive, have thrown into the background what is severed from us +by the interval of half a century. Still that movement had a good deal +to do with what is going on in everyday life among us now; and feelings +both of hostility to it, and of sympathy with it, are still lively and +keen among those to whom religion is a serious subject, and even among +some who are neutral in the questions which it raised, but who find in +it a study of thought and character. I myself doubt whether the interest +of it is so exhausted as is sometimes assumed. If it is, these pages +will soon find their appropriate resting-place. But I venture to present +them, because, though a good many judgments upon the movement have been +put forth, they have come mostly from those who have been more or less +avowedly opposed to it.[1] The men of most account among those who were +attracted by it and represented it have, with one illustrious exception, +passed away. A survivor of the generation which it stirred so deeply may +not have much that is new to tell about it. He may not be able to affect +much the judgment which will finally be accepted about it. But the fact +is not unimportant, that a number of able and earnest men, men who both +intellectually and morally would have been counted at the moment as part +of the promise of the coming time, were fascinated and absorbed by it. +It turned and governed their lives, lifting them out of custom and +convention to efforts after something higher, something worthier of what +they were. It seemed worth while to exhibit the course of the movement +as it looked to these men--as it seemed to them viewed from the inside. +My excuse for adding to so much that has been already written is, that I +was familiar with many of the chief actors in the movement. And I do not +like that the remembrance of friends and associates, men of singular +purity of life and purpose, who raised the tone of living round them, +and by their example, if not by their ideas, recalled both Oxford and +the Church to a truer sense of their responsibilities, should, because +no one would take the trouble to put things on record, "pass away like a +dream." + +The following pages were, for the most part, written, and put into +printed shape, in 1884 and 1885. Since they were written, books have +appeared, some of them important ones, going over most of the same +ground; while yet more volumes may be expected. We have had ingenious +theories of the genesis of the movement, and the filiation of its ideas. +Attempts have been made to alter the proportions of the scene and of the +several parts played upon it, and to reduce the common estimate of the +weight and influence of some of the most prominent personages. The +point of view of those who have thus written is not mine, and they tell +their story (with a full right so to do) as I tell mine. But I do not +purpose to compare and adjust our respective accounts--to attack theirs, +or to defend my own. I have not gone through their books to find +statements to except to, or to qualify. The task would be a tiresome and +unprofitable one. I understand their point of view, though I do not +accept it. I do not doubt their good faith, and I hope that they will +allow mine. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] It is hardly necessary to say that these and the following words +were written before Dr. Newman's death, and the publication of his +letters. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I +THE CHURCH IN THE REFORM DAYS + +CHAPTER II +THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVEMENT--JOHN KEBLE + +CHAPTER III +RICHARD HURRELL FROUDE + +CHAPTER IV +MR. NEWMAN'S EARLY FRIENDS--ISAAC WILLIAMS + +CHAPTER V +CHARLES MARRIOTT + +CHAPTER VI +THE OXFORD TRACTS + +CHAPTER VII +THE TRACTARIANS + +CHAPTER VIII +SUBSCRIPTION AT MATRICULATION AND ADMISSION OF DISSENTERS + +CHAPTER IX +DR. HAMPDEN + +CHAPTER X +GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT, 1835-1840 + +CHAPTER XI +THE ROMAN QUESTION + +CHAPTER XII +CHANGES + +CHAPTER XIII +THE AUTHORITIES AND THE MOVEMENT + +CHAPTER XIV +NO. 90 + +CHAPTER XV +AFTER NO. 90 + +CHAPTER XVI +THE THREE DEFEATS: ISAAC WILLIAMS, MACMULLEN, PUSEY + +CHAPTER XVII +W.G. WARD + +CHAPTER XVIII +THE IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH + +CHAPTER XIX +THE CATASTROPHE + + + + +THE OXFORD MOVEMENT + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE CHURCH IN THE REFORM DAYS + + +What is called the Oxford or Tractarian movement began, without doubt, +in a vigorous effort for the immediate defence of the Church against +serious dangers, arising from the violent and threatening temper of the +days of the Reform Bill. It was one of several and widely differing +efforts. Viewed superficially it had its origin in the accident of an +urgent necessity.[2] The Church was really at the moment imperilled amid +the crude revolutionary projects of the Reform epoch;[3] and something +bolder and more effective than the ordinary apologies for the Church +was the call of the hour. The official leaders of the Church were almost +stunned and bewildered by the fierce outbreak of popular hostility. The +answers put forth on its behalf to the clamour for extensive and even +destructive change were the work of men surprised in a moment of +security. They scarcely recognised the difference between what was +indefensible and what must be fought for to the death; they mistook +subordinate or unimportant points for the key of their position: in +their compromises or in their resistance they wanted the guidance of +clear and adequate principles, and they were vacillating and +ineffective. But stronger and far-seeing minds perceived the need of a +broad and intelligible basis on which to maintain the cause of the +Church. For the air was full of new ideas; the temper of the time was +bold and enterprising. It was felt by men who looked forward, that to +hold their own they must have something more to show than custom or +alleged expediency--they must sound the depths of their own convictions, +and not be afraid to assert the claims of these convictions on men's +reason and imagination as well as on their associations and feelings. +The same dangers and necessities acted differently on different minds; +but among those who were awakened by them to the presence of a great +crisis were the first movers in what came to be known as the Tractarian +movement. The stir around them, the perils which seemed to threaten, +were a call to them to examine afresh the meaning of their familiar +words and professions. + +For the Church, as it had been in the quiet days of the eighteenth +century, was scarcely adapted to the needs of more stirring times. The +idea of clerical life had certainly sunk, both in fact and in the +popular estimate of it. The disproportion between the purposes for which +the Church with its ministry was founded and the actual tone of feeling +among those responsible for its service had become too great. Men were +afraid of principles; the one thing they most shrank from was the +suspicion of enthusiasm. Bishop Lavington wrote a book to hold up to +scorn the enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists; and what would have +seemed reasonable and natural in matters of religion and worship in the +age of Cranmer, in the age of Hooker, in the age of Andrewes, or in the +age of Ken, seemed extravagant in the age which reflected the spirit of +Tillotson and Secker, and even Porteus. The typical clergyman in English +pictures of the manners of the day, in the _Vicar of Wakefield,_ in Miss +Austen's novels, in Crabbe's _Parish Register,_ is represented, often +quite unsuspiciously, as a kindly and respectable person, but certainly +not alive to the greatness of his calling. He was often much, very much, +to the society round him. When communication was so difficult and +infrequent, he filled a place in the country life of England which no +one else could fill. He was often the patriarch of his parish, its +ruler, its doctor, its lawyer, its magistrate, as well as its teacher, +before whom vice trembled and rebellion dared not show itself. The idea +of the priest was not quite forgotten; but there was much--much even of +what was good and useful--to obscure it. The beauty of the English +Church in this time was its family life of purity and simplicity; its +blot was quiet worldliness. It has sometimes been the fashion in later +days of strife and disquiet to regret that unpretending estimate of +clerical duty and those easy-going days; as it has sometimes been the +fashion to regret the pomp and dignity with which well-born or scholarly +bishops, furnished with ample leisure and splendid revenues, presided in +unapproachable state over their clergy and held their own among the +great county families. Most things have a side for which something can +be said; and we may truthfully and thankfully recall that among the +clergy of those days there were not a few but many instances, not only +of gentle manners, and warm benevolence, and cultivated intelligence, +but of simple piety and holy life.[4] But the fortunes of the Church are +not safe in the hands of a clergy, of which a great part take their +obligations easily. It was slumbering and sleeping when the visitation +of days of change and trouble came upon it. + +Against this state of things the Oxford movement was a determined +revolt; but, as has been said, it was not the only one, nor the first. A +profound discontent at the state of religion in England had taken +possession of many powerful and serious minds in the generation which +was rising into manhood at the close of the first quarter of the +century; and others besides the leaders of the movement were feeling +their way to firmer ground. Other writers of very different principles, +and with different objects, had become alive, among other things, to the +importance of true ideas about the Church, impatient at the ignorance +and shallowness of the current views of it, and alarmed at the dangers +which menaced it. Two Oxford teachers who commanded much attention by +their force and boldness--Dr. Whately and Dr. Arnold--had developed +their theories about the nature, constitution, and functions of the +Church. They were dissatisfied with the general stagnation of religious +opinion, on this as on other subjects. They agreed in resenting the +unintelligent shortsightedness which relegated such a matter to a third +or fourth rank in the scale of religious teaching. They agreed also in +seizing the spiritual aspect of the Church, and in raising the idea of +it above the level of the poor and worldly conceptions on the assumption +of which questions relating to it were popularly discussed. But in their +fundamental principles they were far apart. I assume, on the authority +of Cardinal Newman, what was widely believed in Oxford, and never +apparently denied, that the volume entitled _Letters of an +Episcopalian_,[5] 1826, was, in some sense at least, the work of Dr. +Whately. In it is sketched forth the conception of an organised body, +introduced into the world by Christ Himself, endowed with definite +spiritual powers and with no other, and, whether connected with the +State or not, having an independent existence and inalienable claims, +with its own objects and laws, with its own moral standard and spirit +and character. From this book Cardinal Newman tells us that he learnt +his theory of the Church, though it was, after all, but the theory +received from the first appearance of Christian history; and he records +also the deep impression which it made on others. Dr. Arnold's view was +a much simpler one. He divided the world into Christians and +non-Christians: Christians were all who professed to believe in Christ +as a Divine Person and to worship Him,[6] and the brotherhood, the +"Societas" of Christians, was all that was meant by "the Church" in the +New Testament. It mattered, of course, to the conscience of each +Christian what he had made up his mind to believe, but to no one else. +Church organisation was, according to circumstances, partly inevitable +or expedient, partly mischievous, but in no case of divine authority. +Teaching, ministering the word, was a thing of divine appointment, but +not so the mode of exercising it, either as to persons, forms, or +methods. Sacraments there were, signs and pledges of divine love and +help, in every action of life, in every sight of nature, and eminently +two most touching ones, recommended to Christians by the Redeemer +Himself; but except as a matter of mere order, one man might deal with +these as lawfully as another. Church history there was, fruitful in +interest, instruction, and warning; for it was the record of the long +struggle of the true idea of the Church against the false, and of the +fatal disappearance of the true before the forces of blindness and +wickedness.[7] Dr. Arnold's was a passionate attempt to place the true +idea in the light. Of the difficulties of his theory he made light +account. There was the vivid central truth which glowed through his soul +and quickened all his thoughts. He became its champion and militant +apostle. These doctrines, combined with his strong political liberalism, +made the Midlands hot for Dr. Arnold. But he liked the fighting, as he +thought, against the narrow and frightened orthodoxy round him. And he +was in the thick of this fighting when another set of ideas about the +Church--the ideas on which alone it seemed to a number of earnest and +anxious minds that the cause of the Church could be maintained--the +ideas which were the beginning of the Oxford movement, crossed his path. +It was the old orthodox tradition of the Church, with fresh life put +into it, which he flattered himself that he had so triumphantly +demolished. This intrusion of a despised rival to his own teaching about +the Church--teaching in which he believed with deep and fervent +conviction--profoundly irritated him; all the more that it came from men +who had been among his friends, and who, he thought, should have known +better.[8] + +But neither Dr. Whately's nor Dr. Arnold's attempts to put the old +subject of the Church in a new light gained much hold on the public +mind. One was too abstract; the other too unhistorical and +revolutionary. Both in Oxford and in the country were men whose hearts +burned within them for something less speculative and vague, something +more reverent and less individual, more in sympathy with the inherited +spirit of the Church. It did not need much searching to find in the +facts and history of the Church ample evidence of principles distinct +and inspiring, which, however long latent, or overlaid by superficial +accretions, were as well fitted as they ever were to animate its +defenders in the struggle with the unfriendly opinion of the day. They +could not open their Prayer-Books, and think of what they read there, +without seeing that on the face of it the Church claimed to be something +very different from what it was assumed to be in the current +controversies of the time, very different from a mere institution of the +State, from a vague collection of Christian professions from one form +or denomination of religion among many, distinguished by larger +privileges and larger revenues. They could not help seeing that it +claimed an origin not short of the Apostles of Christ, and took for +granted that it was to speak and teach with their authority and that of +their Master. These were theological commonplaces; but now, the pressure +of events and of competing ideas made them to be felt as real and +momentous truths. Amid the confusions and inconsistencies of the +semi-political controversy on Church reform, and on the defects and +rights of the Church, which was going on in Parliament, in the press, +and in pamphlets, the deeper thoughts of those who were interested in +its fortunes were turned to what was intrinsic and characteristic in its +constitution: and while these thoughts in some instances only issued in +theory and argument, in others they led to practical resolves to act +upon them and enforce them. + +At the end of the first quarter of the century, say about 1825-30, two +characteristic forms of Church of England Christianity were popularly +recognised. One inherited the traditions of a learned and sober +Anglicanism, claiming as the authorities for its theology the great line +of English divines from Hooker to Waterland, finding its patterns of +devotion in Bishop Wilson, Bishop Horne, and the "Whole Duty of Man," +but not forgetful of Andrewes, Jeremy Taylor, and Ken,--preaching, +without passion or excitement, scholarlike, careful, wise, often +vigorously reasoned discourses on the capital points of faith and +morals, and exhibiting in its adherents, who were many and important, +all the varieties of a great and far-descended school, which claimed for +itself rightful possession of the ground which it held. There was +nothing effeminate about it, as there was nothing fanatical; there was +nothing extreme or foolish about it; it was a manly school, distrustful +of high-wrought feelings and professions, cultivating self-command and +shy of display, and setting up as its mark, in contrast to what seemed +to it sentimental weakness, a reasonable and serious idea of duty. The +divinity which it propounded, though it rested on learning, was rather +that of strong common sense than of the schools of erudition. Its better +members were highly cultivated, benevolent men, intolerant of +irregularities both of doctrine and life, whose lives were governed by +an unostentatious but solid and unfaltering piety, ready to burst forth +on occasion into fervid devotion. Its worse members were jobbers and +hunters after preferment, pluralists who built fortunes and endowed +families out of the Church, or country gentlemen in orders, who rode to +hounds and shot and danced and farmed, and often did worse things. Its +average was what naturally in England would be the average, in a state +of things in which great religious institutions have been for a long +time settled and unmolested--kindly, helpful, respectable, sociable +persons of good sense and character, workers rather in a fashion of +routine which no one thought of breaking, sometimes keeping up their +University learning, and apt to employ it in odd and not very profitable +inquiries; apt, too, to value themselves on their cheerfulness and quick +wit; but often dull and dogmatic and quarrelsome, often insufferably +pompous. The custom of daily service and even of fasting was kept up +more widely than is commonly supposed. The Eucharist, though sparingly +administered, and though it had been profaned by the operation of the +Test Acts, was approached by religious people with deep reverence. But +besides the better, and the worse, and the average members of this, +which called itself the Church party, there stood out a number of men of +active and original minds, who, starting from the traditions of the +party, were in advance of it in thought and knowledge, or in the desire +to carry principles into action. At the Universities learning was still +represented by distinguished names. At Oxford, Dr. Routh was still +living and at work, and Van Mildert was not forgotten. Bishop Lloyd, if +he had lived, would have played a considerable part; and a young man of +vast industry and great Oriental learning, Mr. Pusey, was coming on the +scene. Davison, in an age which had gone mad about the study of +prophecy, had taught a more intelligent and sober way of regarding it; +and Mr. John Miller's Bampton Lectures, now probably only remembered by +a striking sentence, quoted in a note to the _Christian Year,_[9] had +impressed his readers with a deeper sense of the uses of Scripture. +Cambridge, besides scholars like Bishop Kaye, and accomplished writers +like Mr. Le Bas and Mr. Lyall, could boast of Mr. Hugh James Rose, the +most eminent person of his generation as a divine. But the influence of +this learned theology was at the time not equal to its value. Sound +requires atmosphere; and there was as yet no atmosphere in the public +mind in which the voice of this theology could be heard. The person who +first gave body and force to Church theology, not to be mistaken or +ignored, was Dr. Hook. His massive and thorough Churchmanship was the +independent growth of his own thoughts and reading. Resolute, through +good report and evil report, rough but very generous, stern both against +Popery and Puritanism, he had become a power in the Midlands and the +North, and first Coventry, then Leeds, were the centres of a new +influence. He was the apostle of the Church to the great middle class. + +These were the orthodox Churchmen, whom their rivals, and not their +rivals only,[10] denounced as dry, unspiritual, formal, unevangelical, +self-righteous; teachers of mere morality at their best, allies and +servants of the world at their worst. In the party which at this time +had come to be looked upon popularly as best entitled to be the +_religious_ party, whether they were admired as Evangelicals, or abused +as Calvinists, or laughed at as the Saints, were inheritors not of +Anglican traditions, but of those which had grown up among the zealous +clergymen and laymen who had sympathised with the great Methodist +revival, and whose theology and life had been profoundly affected by it. +It was the second or third generation of those whose religious ideas had +been formed and governed by the influence of teachers like Hervey, +Romaine, Cecil, Venn, Fletcher, Newton, and Thomas Scott. The fathers of +the Evangelical school were men of naturally strong and vigorous +understandings, robust and rugged, and sometimes eccentric, but quite +able to cope with the controversialists, like Bishop Tomline, who +attacked them. These High Church controversialists were too half-hearted +and too shallow, and understood their own principles too imperfectly, to +be a match for antagonists who were in deadly earnest, and put them to +shame by their zeal and courage. But Newton and Romaine and the Milners +were too limited and narrow in their compass of ideas to found a +powerful theology. They undoubtedly often quickened conscience. But +their system was a one-sided and unnatural one, indeed in the hands of +some of its expounders threatening morality and soundness of +character.[11] It had none of the sweep which carried the justification +doctrines of Luther, or the systematic predestinarianism of Calvin, or +the "platform of discipline" of John Knox and the Puritans. It had to +deal with a society which laid stress on what was "reasonable," or +"polite," or "ingenious," or "genteel," and unconsciously it had come to +have respect to these requirements. The one thing by which its preachers +carried disciples with them was their undoubted and serious piety, and +their brave, though often fantastic and inconsistent, protest against +the world. They won consideration and belief by the mild persecution +which this protest brought on them--by being proscribed as enthusiasts +by comfortable dignitaries, and mocked as "Methodists" and "Saints" by +wits and worldlings. But the austere spirit of Newton and Thomas Scott +had, between 1820 and 1830, given way a good deal to the influence of +increasing popularity. The profession of Evangelical religion had been +made more than respectable by the adhesion of men of position and +weight. Preached in the pulpits of fashionable chapels, this religion +proved to be no more exacting than its "High and Dry" rival. It gave a +gentle stimulus to tempers which required to be excited by novelty. It +recommended itself by gifts of flowing words or high-pitched rhetoric to +those who expected _some_ demands to be made on them, so that these +demands were not too strict. Yet Evangelical religion had not been +unfruitful, especially in public results. It had led Howard and +Elizabeth Fry to assail the brutalities of the prisons. It had led +Clarkson and Wilberforce to overthrow the slave trade, and ultimately +slavery itself. It had created great Missionary Societies. It had given +motive and impetus to countless philanthropic schemes. What it failed in +was the education and development of character; and this was the result +of the increasing meagreness of its writing and preaching. There were +still Evangelical preachers of force and eloquence--Robert Hall, Edward +Irving, Chalmers, Jay of Bath--but they were not Churchmen. The circle +of themes dwelt on by this school in the Church was a contracted one, +and no one had found the way of enlarging it. It shrank, in its fear of +mere moralising, in its horror of the idea of merit or of the value of +good works, from coming into contact with the manifold realities of the +spirit of man: it never seemed to get beyond the "first beginnings" of +Christian teaching, the call to repent, the assurance of forgiveness: it +had nothing to say to the long and varied process of building up the new +life of truth and goodness: it was nervously afraid of departing from +the consecrated phrases of its school, and in the perpetual iteration of +them it lost hold of the meaning they may once have had. It too often +found its guarantee for faithfulness in jealous suspicions, and in +fierce bigotries, and at length it presented all the characteristics of +an exhausted teaching and a spent enthusiasm. Claiming to be exclusively +spiritual, fervent, unworldly, the sole announcer of the free grace of +God amid self-righteousness and sin, it had come, in fact, to be on very +easy terms with the world. Yet it kept its hold on numbers of +spiritually-minded persons, for in truth there seemed to be nothing +better for those who saw in the affections the main field of religion. +But even of these good men, the monotonous language sounded to all but +themselves inconceivably hollow and wearisome; and in the hands of the +average teachers of the school, the idea of religion was becoming poor +and thin and unreal. + +But besides these two great parties, each of them claiming to represent +the authentic and unchanging mind of the Church, there were independent +thinkers who took their place with neither and criticised both. Paley +had still his disciples at Cambridge, or if not disciples, yet +representatives of his masculine but not very profound and reverent way +of thinking; and a critical school, represented by names afterwards +famous, Connop Thirlwall and Julius Hare, strongly influenced by German +speculation, both in theology and history, began to attract attention. +And at Cambridge was growing, slowly and out of sight, a mind and an +influence which were to be at once the counterpart and the rival of the +Oxford movement, its ally for a short moment, and then its earnest and +often bitter enemy. In spite of the dominant teaching identified with +the name of Mr. Simeon, Frederic Maurice, with John Sterling and other +members of the Apostles' Club, was feeling for something truer and +nobler than the conventionalities of the religious world.[12] In Oxford, +mostly in a different way, more dry, more dialectical, and, perhaps it +may be said, more sober, definite, and ambitious of clearness, the same +spirit was at work. There was a certain drift towards Dissent among the +warmer spirits. Under the leading of Whately, questions were asked about +what was supposed to be beyond dispute with both Churchmen and +Evangelicals. Current phrases, the keynotes of many a sermon, were +fearlessly taken to pieces. Men were challenged to examine the meaning +of their words. They were cautioned or ridiculed as the case might be, +on the score of "confusion of thought" and "inaccuracy of mind"; they +were convicted of great logical sins, _ignoratio elenchi,_ or +_undistributed middle terms;_ and bold theories began to make their +appearance about religious principles and teaching, which did not easily +accommodate themselves to popular conceptions. In very different ways +and degrees, Davison, Copleston, Whately, Hawkins, Milman, and not +least, a brilliant naturalised Spaniard who sowed the seeds of doubt +around him, Blanco White, had broken through a number of accepted +opinions, and had presented some startling ideas to men who had thought +that all religious questions lay between the orthodoxy of Lambeth and +the orthodoxy of Clapham and Islington. And thus the foundation was +laid, at least, at Oxford of what was then called the Liberal School of +Theology. Its theories and paradoxes, then commonly associated with the +"_Noetic_" character of one college, Oriel, were thought startling and +venturesome when discussed in steady-going common-rooms and country +parsonages; but they were still cautious and old-fashioned compared +with what was to come after them. The distance is indeed great between +those early disturbers of lecture-rooms and University pulpits, and +their successors. + +While this was going on within the Church, there was a great movement of +thought going on in the country. It was the time when Bentham's +utilitarianism had at length made its way into prominence and +importance. It had gained a hold on a number of powerful minds in +society and political life. It was threatening to become the dominant +and popular philosophy. It began, in some ways beneficially, to affect +and even control legislation. It made desperate attempts to take +possession of the whole province of morals. It forced those who saw +through its mischief, who hated and feared it, to seek a reason, and a +solid and strong one, for the faith which was in them as to the reality +of conscience and the mysterious distinction between right and wrong. +And it entered into a close alliance with science, which was beginning +to assert its claims, since then risen so high, to a new and undefined +supremacy, not only in the general concerns of the world, but specially +in education. It was the day of Holland House. It was the time when a +Society of which Lord Brougham was the soul, and which comprised a great +number of important political and important scientific names, was +definitely formed for the _Diffusion of Useful Knowledge_. Their labours +are hardly remembered now in the great changes for which they paved the +way; but the Society was the means of getting written and of publishing +at a cheap rate a number of original and excellent books on science, +biography, and history. It was the time of the _Library of Useful +Knowledge,_ and its companion, the _Library of Entertaining Knowledge;_ +of the _Penny Magazine,_ and its Church rival, the _Saturday Magazine,_ +of the _Penny Cyclopaedia,_ and _Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia,_ and +_Murray's Family Library_: popular series, which contained much of the +work of the ablest men of the day, and which, though for the most part +superseded now, were full of interest then. Another creation of this +epoch, and an unmistakable indication of its tendencies, was the British +Association for the Advancement of Science, which met for the first time +at Oxford in June 1832, not without a good deal of jealousy and +misgiving, partly unreasonable, partly not unfounded, among men in whose +hearts the cause and fortunes of religion were supreme. + +Thus the time was ripe for great collisions of principles and aims; for +the decomposition of elements which had been hitherto united; for +sifting them out of their old combinations, and regrouping them +according to their more natural affinities. It was a time for the +formation and development of unexpected novelties in teaching and +practical effort. There was a great historic Church party, imperfectly +conscious of its position and responsibilities;[13] there was an active +but declining pietistic school, resting on a feeble intellectual basis +and narrow and meagre interpretations of Scripture, and strong only in +its circle of philanthropic work; there was, confronting both, a rising +body of inquisitive and, in some ways, menacing thought. To men deeply +interested in religion, the ground seemed confused and treacherous. +There was room, and there was a call, for new effort; but to find the +resources for it, it seemed necessary to cut down deep below the level +of what even good men accepted as the adequate expression of +Christianity, and its fit application to the conditions of the +nineteenth century. It came to pass that there were men who had the +heart to make this attempt. As was said at starting, the actual movement +began in the conviction that a great and sudden danger to the Church was +at hand, and that an unusual effort must be made to meet it. But if the +occasion was in a measure accidental, there was nothing haphazard or +tentative in the line chosen to encounter the danger. From the first it +was deliberately and distinctly taken. The choice of it was the result +of convictions which had been forming before the occasion came which +called on them. The religious ideas which governed the minds of those +who led the movement had been traced, in outline at least, firmly and +without faltering. + +The movement had its spring in the consciences and character of its +leaders. To these men religion really meant the most awful and most +seriously personal thing on earth. It had not only a theological basis; +it had still more deeply a moral one. What that basis was is shown in a +variety of indications of ethical temper and habits, before the +movement, in those who afterwards directed it. The _Christian Year_ was +published in 1827, and tells us distinctly by what kind of standard Mr. +Keble moulded his judgment and aims. What Mr. Keble's influence and +teaching did, in training an apt pupil to deep and severe views of truth +and duty, is to be seen in the records of purpose and self-discipline, +often so painful, but always so lofty and sincere, of Mr. Hurrell +Froude's journal. But these indications are most forcibly given in Mr. +Newman's earliest preaching. As tutor at Oriel, Mr. Newman had made what +efforts he could, sometimes disturbing to the authorities, to raise the +standard of conduct and feeling among his pupils. When he became a +parish priest, his preaching took a singularly practical and +plain-spoken character. The first sermon of the series, a typical +sermon, "Holiness necessary for future Blessedness," a sermon which has +made many readers grave when they laid it down, was written in 1826, +before he came to St. Mary's; and as he began he continued. No sermons, +except those which his great opposite, Dr. Arnold, was preaching at +Rugby, had appealed to conscience with such directness and force. A +passionate and sustained earnestness after a high moral rule, seriously +realised in conduct, is the dominant character of these sermons. They +showed the strong reaction against slackness of fibre in the religious +life; against the poverty, softness; restlessness, worldliness, the +blunted and impaired sense of truth, which reigned with little check in +the recognised fashions of professing Christianity; the want of depth +both of thought and feeling; the strange blindness to the real +sternness, nay the austerity, of the New Testament. Out of this ground +the movement grew. Even more than a theological reform, it was a protest +against the loose unreality of ordinary religious morality. In the first +stage of the movement, moral earnestness and enthusiasm gave its impulse +to theological interest and zeal. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] The suppression of the Irish bishoprics. Palmer, _Narrative_ (1883), +pp. 44, 101. Maurice, _Life_, i. 180. + +[3] "The Church, as it now stands, no human power can save" (Arnold to +Tyler, June 1832. _Life,_ i. 326). "Nothing, as it seems to me, can save +the Church but an union with the Dissenters; now they are leagued with +the antichristian party, and no merely internal reforms will satisfy +them" (Arnold to Whately, January 1833, i. 348). He afterwards thought +this exaggerated (_Life,_ i. 336). "The Church has been for one hundred +years without any government, and in such a stormy season it will not go +on much longer without a rudder" (Whately to Bp. Copleston, July 1832. +_Life_, i, 167). "If such an arrangement of the Executive Government is +completed, it will be a difficult, but great and glorious feat for your +Lordship's ministry to preserve the establishment from utter overthrow" +(Whately to Lord Grey, May 1832. _Life_, i. 156). It is remarkable that +Dean Stanley should have been satisfied with ascribing to the movement +an "origin _entirely political_" and should have seen a proof of this +"thoroughly political origin" in Newman's observing the date of Mr. +Keble's sermon "National Apostasy" as the birthday of the movement, +_Edin. Rev._ April 1880, pp. 309, 310. + +[4] Readers of Wordsworth will remember the account of Mr. R. Walker +(Notes to the "River Duddon"). + +[5] Compare _Life of Whately_ (ed. 1866), i. 52, 68. + +[6] Arnold to W. Smith, _Life_, i. 356-358; ii. 32. + +[7] _Life_, i. 225 _sqq_. + +[8] "I am vexed to find how much hopeless bigotry lingers in minds, οἶς +ἥκιστα ἕχρη" (Arnold to Whately, Sept. 1832. _Life,_ i. 331; ii. 3-7). + +[9] St. Bartholomew's Day + +[10] "The mere barren orthodoxy which, from all that I can hear, is +characteristic of Oxford." Maurice in 1829 (_Life,_ i. 103). In 1832 he +speaks of his "high endeavours to rouse Oxford from its lethargy having +so signally failed" (i. 143). + +[11] Abbey and Overton, _English Church in the Eighteenth Century,_ ii. +180, 204. + +[12] _V._ Maurice, _Life,_ i. 108-111; Trench's _Letters;_ Carlyle's +_Sterling_. + +[13] "In what concerns the Established Church, the House of Commons +seems to feel no other principle than that of vulgar policy. The old +High Church race is worn out." Alex. Knox (June 1816), i. 54. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVEMENT--JOHN KEBLE + + +Long before the Oxford movement was thought of, or had any definite +shape, a number of its characteristic principles and ideas had taken +strong hold of the mind of a man of great ability and great seriousness, +who, after a brilliant career at Oxford as student and tutor, had +exchanged the University for a humble country cure. John Keble, by some +years the senior, but the college friend and intimate of Arnold, was the +son of a Gloucestershire country clergyman of strong character and +considerable scholarship. He taught and educated his two sons at home, +and then sent them to Oxford, where both of them made their mark, and +the elder, John, a mere boy when he first appeared at his college, +Corpus, carried off almost everything that the University could give in +the way of distinction. He won a double first; he won the Latin and +English Essays in the same year; and he won what was the still greater +honour of an Oriel Fellowship. His honours were borne with meekness and +simplicity; to his attainments he joined a temper of singular sweetness +and modesty, capable at the same time, when necessary, of austere +strength and strictness of principle. He had become one of the most +distinguished men in Oxford, when about the year 1823 he felt himself +bound to give himself more exclusively to the work of a clergyman, and +left Oxford to be his father's curate. There was nothing very unusual in +his way of life, or singular and showy in his work as a clergyman; he +went in and out among the poor, he was not averse to society, he +preached plain, unpretending, earnest sermons; he kept up his literary +interests. But he was a deeply convinced Churchman, finding his standard +and pattern of doctrine and devotion in the sober earnestness and +dignity of the Prayer Book, and looking with great and intelligent +dislike at the teaching and practical working of the more popular system +which, under the name of Evangelical Christianity, was aspiring to +dominate religious opinion, and which, often combining some of the most +questionable features of Methodism and Calvinism, denounced with fierce +intolerance everything that deviated from its formulas and watchwords. +And as his loyalty to the Church of England was profound and intense, +all who had shared her fortunes, good or bad, or who professed to serve +her, had a place in his affections; and any policy which threatened to +injure or oppress her, and any principles which were hostile to her +influence and teaching, roused his indignation and resistance. He was a +strong Tory, and by conviction and religious temper a thorough High +Churchman. + +But there was nothing in him to foreshadow the leader in a bold and +wide-reaching movement. He was absolutely without ambition. He hated +show and mistrusted excitement. The thought of preferment was steadily +put aside both from temper and definite principle. He had no popular +aptitudes, and was very suspicious of them. He had no care for the +possession of influence; he had deliberately chosen the _fallentis +semita vitae,_ and to be what his father had been, a faithful and +contented country parson, was all that he desired. But idleness was not +in his nature. Born a poet, steeped in all that is noblest and tenderest +and most beautiful in Greek and Roman literature, with the keenest +sympathy with that new school of poetry which, with Wordsworth as its +representative, was searching out the deeper relations between nature +and the human soul, he found in poetical composition a vent and relief +for feelings stirred by the marvels of glory and of awfulness, and by +the sorrows and blessings, amid which human life is passed. But his +poetry was for a long time only for himself and his intimate friends; +his indulgence in poetical composition was partly playful, and it was +not till after much hesitation on his own part and also on theirs, and +with a contemptuous undervaluing of his work, which continued to the end +of his life, that the anonymous little book of poems was published which +has since become familiar wherever English is read, as the _Christian +year_. His serious interests were public ones. Though living in the +shade, he followed with anxiety and increasing disquiet the changes +which went on so rapidly and so formidably, during the end of the first +quarter of this century, in opinion and in the possession of political +power. It became more and more plain that great changes were at hand, +though not so plain what they would be. It seemed likely that power +would come into the hands of men and parties hostile to the Church in +their principles, and ready to use to its prejudice the advantages which +its position as an establishment gave them; and the anticipation grew in +Keble's mind, that in the struggles which seemed likely, not only for +the legal rights but for the faith of the Church, the Church might have +both to claim more, and to suffer more, at the hands of Government. Yet +though these thoughts filled his mind, and strong things were said in +the intercourse with friends about what was going on about them, no +definite course of action had been even contemplated when Keble went +into the country in 1823. There was nothing to distinguish him from +numbers of able clergymen all over England, who were looking on with +interest, with anxiety, often with indignation, at what was going on. +Mr. Keble had not many friends and was no party chief. He was a +brilliant university scholar overlaying the plain, unworldly country +parson; an old-fashioned English Churchman, with great veneration for +the Church and its bishops, and a great dislike of Rome, Dissent, and +Methodism, but with a quick heart; with a frank, gay humility of soul, +with great contempt of appearances, great enjoyment of nature, great +unselfishness, strict and severe principles of morals and duty. + +What was it that turned him by degrees into so prominent and so +influential a person? It was the result of the action of his convictions +and ideas, and still more of his character, on the energetic and +fearless mind of a pupil and disciple, Richard Hurrell Froude. Froude +was Keble's pupil at Oriel, and when Keble left Oriel for his curacy at +the beginning of the Long Vacation of 1823, he took Froude with him to +read for his degree. He took with him ultimately two other pupils, +Robert Wilberforce and Isaac Williams of Trinity. One of them, Isaac +Williams, has left some reminiscences of the time, and of the terms on +which the young men were with their tutor, then one of the most famous +men at Oxford. They were on terms of the utmost freedom. "Master is the +greatest boy of them all," was the judgment of the rustic who was +gardener, groom, and parish clerk to Mr. Keble. Froude's was a keen +logical mind, not easily satisfied, contemptuous of compromises and +evasions, and disposed on occasion to be mischievous and aggressive; and +with Keble, as with anybody else, he was ready to dispute and try every +form of dialectical experiment. But he was open to higher influences +than those of logic, and in Keble he saw what subdued and won him to +boundless veneration and affection. Keble won the love of the whole +little society; but in Froude he had gained a disciple who was to be the +mouthpiece and champion of his ideas, and who was to react on himself +and carry him forward to larger enterprises and bolder resolutions than +by himself he would have thought of. Froude took in from Keble all he +had to communicate--principles, convictions, moral rules and standards +of life, hopes, fears, antipathies. And his keenly-tempered intellect, +and his determination and high courage, gave a point and an impulse of +their own to Keble's views and purposes. As things came to look darker, +and dangers seemed more serious to the Church, its faith or its rights, +the interchange of thought between master and disciple, in talk and in +letter, pointed more and more to the coming necessity of action; and +Froude at least had no objections to the business of an agitator. But +all this was very gradual; things did not yet go beyond discussion; +ideas, views, arguments were examined and compared; and Froude, with all +his dash, felt as Keble felt, that he had much to learn about himself, +as well as about books and things. In his respect for antiquity, in his +dislike of the novelties which were invading Church rules and +sentiments, as well as its creeds, in his jealousy of the State, as well +as in his seriousness of self-discipline, he accepted Keble's guidance +and influence more and more; and from Keble he had more than one lesson +of self-distrust, more than one warning against the temptations of +intellect. "Froude told me many years after," writes one of his friends, +"that Keble once, before parting with him, seemed to have something on +his mind which he wished to say, but shrank from saying, while waiting, +I think, for a coach. At last he said, just before parting, 'Froude, you +thought Law's _Serious Call_ was a clever book; it seemed to me as if +you had said the Day of Judgment will be a pretty sight.' This speech, +Froude told me, had a great effect on his after life."[14] + +At Easter 1826 Froude was elected Fellow of Oriel. He came back to +Oxford, charged with Keble's thoughts and feelings, and from his more +eager and impatient temper, more on the look-out for ways of giving them +effect. The next year he became tutor, and he held the tutorship till +1830. But he found at Oriel a colleague, a little his senior in age and +standing, of whom Froude and his friends as yet knew little except that +he was a man of great ability, that he had been a favourite of +Whately's, and that in a loose and rough way he was counted among the +few Liberals and Evangelicals in Oxford. This was Mr. Newman. Keble had +been shy of him, and Froude would at first judge him by Keble's +standard. But Newman was just at this time "moving," as he expresses it, +"out of the shadow of Liberalism." Living not apart like Keble, but in +the same college, and meeting every day, Froude and Newman could not but +be either strongly and permanently repelled, or strongly attracted. They +were attracted; attracted with a force which at last united them in the +deepest and most unreserved friendship. Of the steps of this great +change in the mind and fortunes of each of them we have no record: +intimacies of this kind grow in college out of unnoticed and +unremembered talks, agreeing or differing, out of unconscious +disclosures of temper and purpose, out of walks and rides and quiet +breakfasts and common-room arguments, out of admirations and dislikes, +out of letters and criticisms and questions; and nobody can tell +afterwards how they have come about. The change was gradual and +deliberate. Froude's friends in Gloucestershire, the Keble family, had +their misgivings about Newman's supposed liberalism; they did not much +want to have to do with him. His subtle and speculative temper did not +always square with Froude's theology. "N. is a fellow that I like more, +the more I think of him," Froude wrote in 1828; "only I would give a few +odd pence if he were not a heretic."[15] But Froude, who saw him every +day, and was soon associated with him in the tutorship, found a spirit +more akin to his own in depth and freedom and daring, than he had yet +encountered. And Froude found Newman just in that maturing state of +religious opinion in which a powerful mind like Froude's would be likely +to act decisively. Each acted on the other. Froude represented Keble's +ideas, Keble's enthusiasm. Newman gave shape, foundation, consistency, +elevation to the Anglican theology, when he accepted it, which Froude +had learned from Keble. "I knew him first," we read in the _Apologia_, +"in 1826, and was in the closest and most affectionate friendship with +him from about 1829 till his death in 1836."[16] But this was not all. +Through Froude, Newman came to know and to be intimate with Keble; and +a sort of _camaraderie_ arose, of very independent and outspoken people, +who acknowledged Keble as their master and counsellor. + +"The true and primary author of it" (the Tractarian movement), we read +in the _Apologia_, "as is usual with great motive powers, was out of +sight.... Need I say that I am speaking of John Keble?" The statement is +strictly true. Froude never would have been the man he was but for his +daily and hourly intercourse with Keble; and Froude brought to bear upon +Newman's mind, at a critical period of its development, Keble's ideas +and feelings about religion and the Church, Keble's reality of thought +and purpose, Keble's transparent and saintly simplicity. And Froude, as +we know from a well-known saying of his,[17] brought Keble and Newman to +understand one another, when the elder man was shy and suspicious of the +younger, and the younger, though full of veneration for the elder, was +hardly yet in full sympathy with what was most characteristic and most +cherished in the elder's religious convictions. Keble attracted and +moulded Froude: he impressed Froude with his strong Churchmanship, his +severity and reality of life, his poetry and high standard of scholarly +excellence. Froude learned from him to be anti-Erastian, +anti-methodistical, anti-sentimental, and as strong in his hatred of the +world, as contemptuous of popular approval, as any Methodist. Yet all +this might merely have made a strong impression, or formed one more +marked school of doctrine, without the fierce energy which received it +and which it inspired. But Froude, in accepting Keble's ideas, resolved +to make them active, public, aggressive; and he found in Newman a +colleague whose bold originality responded to his own. Together they +worked as tutors; together they worked when their tutorships came to an +end; together they worked when thrown into companionship in their +Mediterranean voyage in the winter of 1832 and the spring of 1833. They +came back, full of aspirations and anxieties which spurred them on; +their thoughts had broken out in papers sent home from time to time to +Rose's _British Magazine_--"Home Thoughts Abroad," and the "Lyra +Apostolica." Then came the meeting at Hadleigh, and the beginning of the +Tracts. Keble had given the inspiration, Froude had given the impulse; +then Newman took up the work, and the impulse henceforward, and the +direction, were his. + +Doubtless, many thought and felt like them about the perils which beset +the Church and religion. Loyalty to the Church, belief in her divine +mission, allegiance to her authority, readiness to do battle for her +claims, were anything but extinct in her ministers and laity. The +elements were all about of sound and devoted Churchmanship. Higher ideas +of the Church than the popular and political notion of it, higher +conceptions of Christian doctrine than those of the ordinary evangelical +theology--echoes of the meditations of a remarkable Irishman, Mr. +Alexander Knox--had in many quarters attracted attention in the works +and sermons of his disciple. Bishop Jebb, though it was not till the +movement had taken shape that their full significance was realised. +Others besides Keble and Froude and Newman were seriously considering +what could best be done to arrest the current which was running strong +against the Church, and discussing schemes of resistance and defence. +Others were stirring up themselves and their brethren to meet the new +emergencies, to respond to the new call. Some of these were in +communication with the Oriel men, and ultimately took part with them in +organising vigorous measures. But it was not till Mr. Newman made up his +mind to force on the public mind, in a way which could not be evaded, +the great article of the Creed--"I believe one Catholic and Apostolic +Church"--that the movement began. And for the first part of its course, +it was concentrated at Oxford. It was the direct result of the +searchings of heart and the communings for seven years, from 1826 to +1833, of the three men who have been the subject of this chapter. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[14] Isaac Williams's MS. Memoir. + +[15] _Rem._ i. 232, 233. In 1828, Newman had preferred Hawkins to Keble, +for Provost. + +[16] _Apol._ p. 84. + +[17] _Remains_, i. 438; _Apol._ p. 77. "Do you know the story of the +murderer who had done one good thing in his life? Well, if I was asked +what good deed I have ever done, I should say I had brought Keble and +Newman to understand each other." + + + + +CHAPTER III[18] + +RICHARD HURRELL FROUDE + + +The names of those who took the lead in this movement are +familiar--Keble, Newman, Pusey, Hugh James Rose, William Palmer. Much +has been written about them by friends and enemies, and also by one of +themselves, and any special notice of them is not to the purpose of the +present narrative. But besides these, there were men who are now almost +forgotten, but who at the time interested their contemporaries, because +they were supposed to represent in a marked way the spirit and character +of the movement, or to have exercised influence upon it. They ought not +to be overlooked in an account of it. One of them has been already +mentioned, Mr. Hurrell Froude. Two others were Mr. Isaac Williams and +Mr. Charles Marriott. They were all three of them men whom those who +knew them could never forget--could never cease to admire and love. + +Hurrell Froude soon passed away before the brunt of the fighting came. +His name is associated with Mr. Newman and Mr. Keble, but it is little +more than a name to those who now talk of the origin of the movement. +Yet all who remember him agree in assigning to him an importance as +great as that of any, in that little knot of men whose thoughts and +whose courage gave birth to it. + +Richard Hurrell Froude was born in 1803, and was thus two years younger +than Mr. Newman, who was born in 1801. He went to Eton, and in 1821 to +Oriel, where he was a pupil of Mr. Keble, and where he was elected +Fellow, along with Robert Wilberforce, at Easter 1826. He was College +Tutor from 1827 to 1830, having Mr. Newman and R. Wilberforce for +colleagues. His health failed in 1831 and led to much absence in warm +climates. He went with Mr. Newman to the south of Europe in 1832-33, and +was with him at Rome. The next two winters, with the intervening year, +he spent in the West Indies. Early in 1836 he died at Dartington--his +birthplace. He was at the Hadleigh meeting, in July 1833, when the +foundations of the movement were laid; he went abroad that winter, and +was not much in England afterwards. It was through correspondence that +he kept up his intercourse with his friends. + +Thus he was early cut off from direct and personal action on the course +which things took. But it would be a great mistake to suppose that his +influence on the line taken and on the minds of others was +inconsiderable. It would be more true to say that with one exception no +one was more responsible for the impulse which led to the movement; no +one had more to do with shaping its distinct aims and its moral spirit +and character in its first stage; no one was more daring and more clear, +as far as he saw, in what he was prepared for. There was no one to whom +his friends so much looked up with admiration and enthusiasm. There was +no "wasted shade"[19] in Hurrell Froude's disabled, prematurely +shortened life. + +Like Henry Martyn he was made by strong and even merciless +self-discipline over a strong and for a long time refractory nature. He +was a man of great gifts, with much that was most attractive and noble; +but joined with this them was originally in his character a vein of +perversity and mischief, always in danger of breaking out, and with +which he kept up a long and painful struggle. His inmost thought and +knowledge of himself have been laid bare in the papers which his friends +published after his death. He was in the habit of probing his motives to +the bottom, and of recording without mercy what he thought his +self-deceits and affectations. The religious world of the day made merry +over his methods of self-discipline; but whatever may be said of them, +and such things are not easy to judge of, one thing is manifest, that +they were true and sincere efforts to conquer what he thought evil in +himself, to keep himself in order, to bring his inmost self into +subjection to the law and will of God. The self-chastening, which his +private papers show, is no passion or value for asceticism, but a purely +moral effort after self-command and honesty of character; and what makes +the struggle so touching is its perfect reality and truth. He "turned +his thoughts on that desolate wilderness, his own conscience, and said +what he saw there."[20] A man who has had a good deal to conquer in +himself, and has gone a good way to conquer it, is not apt to be +indulgent to self-deceit or indolence, or even weakness. The basis of +Froude's character was a demand which would not be put off for what was +real and thorough; an implacable scorn and hatred for what he counted +shams and pretences. "His highest ambition," he used to say, "was to be +a humdrum."[21] The intellectual and the moral parts of his character +were of a piece. The tricks and flimsinesses of a bad argument provoked +him as much as the imposture and "flash" of insincere sentiment and fine +talking; he might be conscious of "flash" in himself and his friends, +and he would admit it unequivocally; but it was as unbearable to him to +pretend not to see a fallacy as soon as it was detected, as it would +have been to him to arrive at the right answer of a sum or a problem by +tampering with the processes. Such a man, with strong affections and +keen perception of all forms of beauty, and with the deepest desire to +be reverent towards all that had a right to reverence, would find +himself in the most irritating state of opposition and impatience with +much that passed as religion round him. Principles not attempted to be +understood and carried into practice, smooth self-complacency among +those who looked down on a blind and unspiritual world, the continual +provocation of worthless reasoning and ignorant platitudes, the dull +unconscious stupidity of people who could not see that the times were +critical--that truth had to be defended, and that it was no easy or +light-hearted business to defend it--threw him into an habitual attitude +of defiance, and half-amused, half-earnest contradiction, which made him +feared by loose reasoners and pretentious talkers, and even by quiet +easy-going friends, who unexpectedly found themselves led on blindfold, +with the utmost gravity, into traps and absurdities by the wiles of his +mischievous dialectic. This was the outside look of his relentless +earnestness. People who did not like him, or his views, and who, +perhaps, had winced under his irony, naturally put down his strong +language, which on occasion could certainly be unceremonious, to +flippancy and arrogance. But within the circle of those whom he trusted, +or of those who needed at anytime his help, another side disclosed +itself--a side of the most genuine warmth of affection, an awful reality +of devoutness, which it was his great and habitual effort to keep +hidden, a high simplicity of unworldliness and generosity, and in spite +of his daring mockeries of what was commonplace or showy, the most +sincere and deeply felt humility with himself. Dangerous as he was often +thought to be in conversation, one of the features of his character +which has impressed itself on the memory of one who knew him well, was +his "patient, winning considerateness in discussion, which, with other +qualities, endeared him to those to whom he opened his heart."[22] "It +is impossible," writes James Mozley in 1833, with a mixture of +amusement, speaking of the views about celibacy which were beginning to +be current, "to talk with Froude without committing one's self on such +subjects as these, so that by and by I expect the tergiversants will be +a considerable party." His letters, with their affectionately playful +addresses, δαιμόνιε, αἰνότατε, πέπον, _Carissime, "Sir, my dear friend"_ +or "Ἀργείων ὄχ' ἄριστε, have you not been a spoon?" are full of the most +delightful ease and _verve_ and sympathy. + +With a keen sense of English faults he was, as Cardinal Newman has said, +"an Englishman to the backbone"; and he was, further, a fastidious, +high-tempered English gentleman, in spite of his declaiming about +"pampered aristocrats" and the "gentleman heresy." His friends thought +of him as of the "young Achilles," with his high courage, and noble +form, and "eagle eye," made for such great things, but appointed so soon +to die. "Who can refrain from tears at the thought of that bright and +beautiful Froude?" is the expression of one of them shortly before his +death, and when it was quite certain that the doom which had so long +hung over him was at hand.[23] He had the love of doing, for the mere +sake of doing, what was difficult or even dangerous to do, which is the +mainspring of characteristic English sports and games. He loved the sea; +he liked to sail his own boat, and enjoyed rough weather, and took +interest in the niceties of seamanship and shipcraft. He was a bold +rider across country. With a powerful grasp on mathematical truths and +principles, he entered with whole-hearted zest into inviting problems, +or into practical details of mechanical or hydrostatic or astronomical +science. His letters are full of such observations, put in a way which +he thought would interest his friends, and marked by his strong habit of +getting into touch with what was real and of the substance of questions. +He applied his thoughts to architecture with a power and originality +which at the time were not common. No one who only cared for this world +could be more attracted and interested than he was by the wonder and +beauty of its facts and appearances. With the deepest allegiance to his +home and reverence for its ties and authority, a home of the +old-fashioned ecclesiastical sort, sober, manly, religious, orderly, he +carried into his wider life the feelings with which he had been brought +up; bold as he was, his reason and his character craved for authority, +but authority which morally and reasonably he could respect. Mr. Keble's +goodness and purity subdued him, and disposed him to accept without +reserve his master's teaching: and towards Mr. Keble, along with an +outside show of playful criticism and privileged impertinence, there was +a reverence which governed Froude's whole nature. In the wild and rough +heyday of reform, he was a Tory of the Tories. But when authority failed +him, from cowardice or stupidity or self-interest, he could not easily +pardon it; and he was ready to startle his friends by proclaiming +himself a Radical, prepared for the sake of the highest and greatest +interests to sacrifice all second-rate and subordinate ones. + +When his friends, after his death, published selections from his +journals and letters, the world was shocked by what seemed his amazing +audacity both of thought and expression about a number of things and +persons which it was customary to regard as almost beyond the reach of +criticism. The _Remains_ lent themselves admirably to the controversial +process of culling choice phrases and sentences and epithets +surprisingly at variance with conventional and popular estimates. +Friends were pained and disturbed; foes naturally enough could not hold +in their overflowing exultation at such a disclosure of the spirit of +the movement. Sermons and newspapers drew attention to Froude's +extravagances with horror and disgust. The truth is that if the off-hand +sayings in conversation or letters of any man of force and wit and +strong convictions about the things and persons that he condemns, were +made known to the world, they would by themselves have much the same +look of flippancy, injustice, impertinence to those who disagreed in +opinion with the speaker or writer they are allowed for, or they are not +allowed for by others, according to what is known of his general +character. The friends who published Froude's _Remains_ knew what he +was; they knew the place and proportion of the fierce and scornful +passages; they knew that they really did not go beyond the liberty and +the frank speaking which most people give themselves in the _abandon_ +and understood exaggeration of intimate correspondence and talk. But +they miscalculated the effect on those who did not know him, or whose +interest it was to make the most of the advantage given them. They seem +to have expected that the picture which they presented of their friend's +transparent sincerity and singleness of aim, manifested amid so much +pain and self-abasement, would have touched readers more. They +miscalculated in supposing that the proofs of so much reality of +religious earnestness would carry off the offence of vehement language, +which without these proofs might naturally be thought to show mere +random violence. At any rate the result was much natural and genuine +irritation, which they were hardly prepared for. Whether on general +grounds they were wise in startling and vexing friends, and putting +fresh weapons into the hands of opponents by their frank disclosure of +so unconventional a character, is a question which may have more than +one answer; but one thing is certain, they were not wise, if they only +desired to forward the immediate interests of their party or cause. It +was not the act of cunning conspirators; it was the act of men who were +ready to show their hands, and take the consequences. Undoubtedly, they +warned off many who had so far gone along with the movement, and who now +drew back. But if the publication was a mistake, it was the mistake of +men confident in their own straight-forwardness. + +There is a natural Nemesis to all over-strong and exaggerated language. +The weight of Froude's judgments was lessened by the disclosure of his +strong words, and his dashing fashion of condemnation and dislike gave +a precedent for the violence of shallower men. But to those who look +back on them now, though there can be no wonder that at the time they +excited such an outcry, their outspoken boldness hardly excites +surprise. Much of it might naturally be put down to the force of first +impressions; much of it is the vehemence of an Englishman who claims the +liberty of criticising and finding fault at home; much of it was the +inevitable vehemence of a reformer. Much of it seems clear foresight of +what has since come to be recognised. His judgments on the Reformers, +startling as they were at the time, are not so very different, as to the +facts of the case, from what most people on all sides now agree in; and +as to their temper and theology, from what most churchmen would now +agree in. Whatever allowances may be made for the difficulties of their +time, and these allowances ought to be very great, and however well they +may have done parts of their work, such as the translations and +adaptations of the Prayer Book, it is safe to say that the divines of +the Reformation never can be again, with their confessed Calvinism, with +their shifting opinions, their extravagant deference to the foreign +oracles of Geneva and Zurich, their subservience to bad men in power, +the heroes and saints of churchmen. But when all this is said, it still +remains true that Froude was often intemperate and unjust. In the hands +of the most self-restrained and considerate of its leaders, the movement +must anyhow have provoked strong opposition, and given great offence. +The surprise and the general ignorance were too great; the assault was +too rude and unexpected. But Froude's strong language gave it a +needless exasperation. + +Froude was a man strong in abstract thought and imagination, who wanted +adequate knowledge. His canons of judgment were not enlarged, corrected, +and strengthened by any reading or experience commensurate with his +original powers of reasoning or invention. He was quite conscious of it, +and did his best to fill up the gap in his intellectual equipment. He +showed what he might have done under more favouring circumstances in a +very interesting volume on Becket's history and letters. But +circumstances were hopelessly against him; he had not time, he had not +health and strength, for the learning which he so needed, which he so +longed for. But wherever he could, he learned. He was quite ready to +submit his prepossessions to the test and limitation of facts. Eager and +quick-sighted, he was often apt to be hasty in conclusions from +imperfect or insufficient premisses; but even about what he saw most +clearly he was willing to hold himself in suspense, when he found that +there was something more to know. Cardinal Newman has noted two +deficiencies which, in his opinion, were noticeable in Froude. "He had +no turn for theology as such"; and, further, he goes on: "I should say +that his power of entering into the minds of others was not equal to his +other gifts"--a remark which he illustrates by saying that Froude could +not believe that "I really held the Roman Church to be antichristian." +The want of this power--in which he stood in such sharp contrast to his +friend--might be either a strength or a weakness; a strength, if his +business was only to fight; a weakness, if it was to attract and +persuade. But Froude was made for conflict, not to win disciples. Some +wild solemn poetry, marked by deep feeling and direct expression, is +scattered through his letters,[24] kindled always by things and thoughts +of the highest significance, and breaking forth with force and fire. But +probably the judgment passed on him by a clever friend, from the +examination of his handwriting, was a true one: "This fellow has a great +deal of imagination, but not the imagination of a poet." He felt that +even beyond poetry there are higher things than anything that +imagination can work upon. It was a feeling which made him blind to the +grandeur of Milton's poetry. He saw in it only an intrusion into the +most sacred of sanctities. + +It was this fearless and powerful spirit, keen and quick to see +inferences and intolerant of compromises, that the disturbances of Roman +Catholic Emancipation and of the Reform time roused from the common +round of pursuits, natural to a serious and thoughtful clergyman of +scholarlike mind and as yet no definite objects, and brought him with +all his enthusiasm and thoroughness into a companionship with men who +had devoted their lives, and given up every worldly object, to save the +Church by raising it to its original idea and spirit. Keble had lifted +his pupil's thoughts above mere dry and unintelligent orthodoxy, and +Froude had entered with earnest purpose into Church ways of practical +self-discipline and self-correction. Bishop Lloyd's lectures had taught +him and others, to the surprise of many, that the familiar and venerated +Prayer Book was but the reflexion of mediaeval and primitive devotion, +still embodied in its Latin forms in the Roman Service books; and so +indirectly had planted in their minds the idea of the historical +connexion, and in a very profound way the spiritual sympathy, of the +modern with the pre-Reformation Church. But it is not till 1829 or 1830 +that we begin in his _Remains_ to see in him the sense of a pressing and +anxious crisis in religious matters. In the summer of 1829 he came more +closely than hitherto across Mr. Newman's path. They had been Fellows +together since 1826, and Tutors since 1827. Mr. Froude, with his Toryism +and old-fashioned churchmanship, would not unnaturally be shy of a +friend of Whately's with his reputation for theological liberalism. +Froude's first letter to Mr. Newman is in August 1828. It is the letter +of a friendly and sympathising colleague in college work, glad to be +free from the "images of impudent undergraduates"; he inserts some lines +of verse, talks about Dollond and telescopes, and relates how he and a +friend got up at half-past two in the morning, and walked half a mile +to see Mercury rise; he writes about his mathematical studies and +reading for orders, and how a friend had "read half through Prideaux and +yet accuses himself of idleness"; but there is no interchange of +intimate thought. Mr. Newman was at this time, as he has told us, +drifting away from under the shadow of liberalism; and in Froude he +found a man who, without being a liberal, was as quick-sighted, as +courageous, and as alive to great thoughts and new hopes as himself. +Very different in many ways, they were in this alike, that the +commonplace notions of religion and the Church were utterly +unsatisfactory to them, and that each had the capacity for affectionate +and whole-hearted friendship. The friendship began and lasted on, +growing stronger and deeper to the end. And this was not all. Froude's +friendship with Mr. Newman overcame Mr. Keble's hesitations about Mr. +Newman's supposed liberalism. Mr. Newman has put on record what he +thought and felt about Froude; no one, probably, of the many whom +Cardinal Newman's long life has brought round him, ever occupied +Froude's place in his heart. The correspondence shows in part the way in +which Froude's spirit rose, under the sense of having such a friend to +work with in the cause which day by day grew greater and more sacred in +the eyes of both. Towards Mr. Keble Froude felt like a son to a father; +towards Mr. Newman like a soldier to his comrade, and him the most +splendid and boldest of warriors. Each mind caught fire from the other, +till the high enthusiasm of the one was quenched in an early death. + +Shortly after this friendship began, the course of events also began +which finally gave birth to the Oxford movement. The break-up of parties +caused by the Roman Catholic emancipation was followed by the French and +Belgian revolutions of 1830, and these changes gave a fresh stimulus to +all the reforming parties in England--Whigs, Radicals, and liberal +religionists. Froude's letters mark the influence of these changes on +his mind. They stirred in him the fiercest disgust and indignation, and +as soon as the necessity of battle became evident to save the +Church--and such a necessity was evident--he threw himself into it with +all his heart, and his attitude was henceforth that of a determined and +uncompromising combatant. "Froude is growing stronger and stronger in +his sentiments every day," writes James Mozley, in 1832, "and cuts about +him on all sides. It is extremely fine to hear him talk. The aristocracy +of the country at present are the chief objects of his vituperation, and +he decidedly sets himself against the modern character of the gentleman, +and thinks that the Church will eventually depend for its support, as it +always did in its most influential times, on the very poorest classes." +"I would not set down anything that Froude says for his deliberate +opinion," writes James Mozley a year later, "for he really hates the +present state of things so excessively that any change would be a relief +to him." ... "Froude is staying up, and I see a great deal of him." ... +"Froude is most enthusiastic in his plans, and says, 'What fun it is +living in such times as these! how could one now go back to the times of +old Tory humbug?'" From henceforth his position among his friends was +that of the most impatient and aggressive of reformers, the one who most +urged on his fellows to outspoken language and a bold line of action. +They were not men to hang back and be afraid, but they were cautious and +considerate of popular alarms and prejudices, compared with Froude's +fearlessness. Other minds were indeed moving--minds as strong as his, +indeed, it may be, deeper, more complex, more amply furnished, with a +wider range of vision and a greater command of the field. But while he +lived, he appears as the one who spurs on and incites, where others +hesitate. He is the one by whom are visibly most felt the _gaudia +certaminis,_ and the confidence of victory, and the most profound +contempt for the men and the ideas of the boastful and short-sighted +present. + +In this unsparing and absorbing warfare, what did Froude aim at--what +was the object he sought to bring about, what were the obstacles he +sought to overthrow? + +He was accused, as was most natural, of Romanising; of wishing to bring +back Popery. It is perfectly certain that this was not what he meant, +though he did not care for the imputation of it. He was, perhaps, the +first Englishman who attempted to do justice to Rome, and to use +friendly language of it, without the intention of joining it. But what +he fought for was not Rome, not even a restoration of unity, but a +Church of England such as it was conceived of by the Caroline divines +and the Non-jurors. The great break-up of 1830 had forced on men the +anxious question, "What is the Church as spoken of in England? Is it the +Church of Christ?" and the answers were various. Hooker had said it was +"the nation"; and in entirely altered circumstances, with some +qualifications. Dr. Arnold said the same. It was "the Establishment" +according to the lawyers and politicians, both Whig and Tory. It was an +invisible and mystical body, said the Evangelicals. It was the aggregate +of separate congregations, said the Nonconformists. It was the +parliamentary creation of the Reformation, said the Erastians. The true +Church was the communion of the Pope, the pretended Church was a +legalised schism, said the Roman Catholics. All these ideas were +floating about, loose and vague, among people who talked much about the +Church. Whately, with his clear sense, had laid down that it was a +divine religious society, distinct in its origin and existence, distinct +in its attributes from any other. But this idea had fallen dead, till +Froude and his friends put new life into it Froude accepted Whately's +idea that the Church of England was the one historic uninterrupted +Church, than which there could be no other, locally in England; but into +this Froude read a great deal that never was and never could be in +Whately's thoughts. Whately had gone very far in viewing the Church from +without as a great and sacred corporate body. Casting aside the Erastian +theory, he had claimed its right to exist, and if necessary, govern +itself, separate from the state. He had recognised excommunication as +its natural and indefeasible instrument of government. But what the +internal life of the Church was, what should be its teaching and organic +system, and what was the standard and proof of these, Whately had left +unsaid. And this outline Froude filled up. For this he went the way to +which the Prayer Book, with its Offices, its Liturgy, its Ordination +services, pointed him. With the divines who had specially valued the +Prayer Book, and taught in its spirit, Bishop Wilson, William Law, +Hammond, Ken, Laud, Andrewes, he went back to the times and the sources +from which the Prayer Book came to us, the early Church, the reforming +Church for such with all its faults it was--of the eleventh, twelfth, +and thirteenth centuries, before the hopelessly corrupt and fatal times +of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which led to the break-up of +the sixteenth. Thus to the great question, What is the Church? he gave +without hesitation, and gave to the end, the same answer that Anglicans +gave and are giving still. But he added two points which were then very +new to the ears of English Churchmen: (1) that there were great and to +most people unsuspected faults and shortcomings in the English Church, +for some of which the Reformation was gravely responsible; (2) that the +Roman Church was more right than we had been taught to think in many +parts both of principle and practice, and that our quarrel with it on +these points arose from our own ignorance and prejudices. To people who +had taken for granted all their lives that the Church was thoroughly +"Protestant" and thoroughly right in its Protestantism, and that Rome +was Antichrist, these confident statements came with a shock. He did not +enter much into dogmatic questions. As far as can be judged from his +_Remains_, the one point of doctrine on which he laid stress, as being +inadequately recognised and taught in the then condition of the English +Church, was the primitive doctrine of the Eucharist. His other +criticisms pointed to practical and moral matters; the spirit of +Erastianism, the low standard of life and purpose and self-discipline in +the clergy, the low tone of the current religious teaching. The +Evangelical teaching seemed to him a system of unreal words. The +opposite school was too self-complacent, too comfortable, too secure in +its social and political alliances; and he was bent on shaming people +into severer notions. "We will have a _vocabularium apostolicum,_ and I +will start it with four words: 'pampered aristocrats,' 'resident +gentlemen,' 'smug parsons,' and _'pauperes Christi'_. I shall use the +first on all occasions; it seems to me just to hit the thing." "I think +of putting the view forward (about new monasteries), under the title of +a 'Project for Reviving Religion in Great Towns.' Certainly colleges of +unmarried priests (who might, of course, retire to a living, when they +could and liked) would be the cheapest possible way of providing +effectively for the spiritual wants of a large population." And his +great quarrel with the existing state of things was that the spiritual +objects of the Church were overlaid and lost sight of in the anxiety not +to lose its political position. In this direction he was, as he +proclaims himself, an out-and-out Radical, and he was prepared at once +to go very far. "If a national Church means a Church without discipline, +my argument for discipline is an argument against a national Church; and +the best thing we can do is to unnationalise ours as soon as possible"; +"let us tell the truth and shame the devil; let us give up a _national_ +Church and have a _real_ one." His criticism did not diminish in +severity, or his proposals become less daring, as he felt that his time +was growing short and the hand of death was upon him. But to the end, +the elevation and improvement of the English Church remained his great +purpose. To his friend, as we know, the Roman Church was _either_ the +Truth or Antichrist. To Froude it was neither the whole Truth nor +Antichrist; but like the English Church itself, a great and defective +Church, whose defects were the opposite to ours, and which we should do +wisely to learn from rather than abuse. But to the last his allegiance +never wavered to the English Church. + +It is very striking to come from Froude's boisterous freedom in his +letters to his sermons and the papers he prepared for publication. In +his sermons his manner of writing is severe and restrained even to +dryness. If they startle it is by the force and searching point of an +idea, not by any strength of words. The style is chastened, simple, +calm, with the most careful avoidance of over-statement or anything +rhetorical. And so in his papers, his mode of argument, forcible and +cogent as it is, avoids all appearance of exaggeration or even +illustrative expansion; it is all muscle and sinew; it is modelled on +the argumentative style of Bishop Butler, and still more, of William +Law. No one could suppose from these papers Froude's fiery impetuosity, +or the frank daring of his disrespectful vocabulary. Those who can read +between the lines can trace the grave irony which clung everywhere to +his deep earnestness. + +There was yet another side of Froude's character which was little +thought of by his critics, or recognised by all his friends. With all +his keenness of judgment and all his readiness for conflict, some who +knew him best were impressed by the melancholy which hung over his life, +and which, though he ignored it, they could detect. It is remembered +still by Cardinal Newman. "I thought," wrote Mr. Isaac Williams, "that +knowing him, I better understood Hamlet, a person most natural, but so +original as to be unlike any one else, hiding depth of delicate thought +in apparent extravagances. _Hamlet_, and the _Georgics_ of Virgil, he +used to say, he should have bound together." "Isaac Williams," wrote Mr. +Copeland, "mentioned to me a remark made on Froude by S. Wilberforce in +his early days: 'They talk of Froude's fun, but somehow I cannot be in a +room with him alone for ten minutes without feeling so intensely +melancholy, that I do not know what to do with myself. At Brightstone, +in my Eden days, he was with me, and I was overwhelmed with the deep +sense which possessed him of yearning which nothing could satisfy and of +the unsatisfying nature of all things.'"[25] + +Froude often reminds us of Pascal. Both had that peculiarly bright, +brilliant, sharp-cutting intellect which passes with ease through the +coverings and disguises which veil realities from men. Both had +mathematical powers of unusual originality and clearness; both had the +same imaginative faculty; both had the same keen interest in practical +problems of science; both felt and followed the attraction of deeper and +more awful interests. Both had the same love of beauty; both suppressed +it. Both had the same want of wide or deep learning; they made skilful +use of what books came to their hand, and used their reading as few +readers are able to use it; but their real instrument of work was their +own quick and strong insight, and power of close and vigorous reasoning. +Both had the greatest contempt for fashionable and hollow "shadows of +religion." Both had the same definite, unflinching judgment. Both used +the same clear and direct language. Both had a certain grim delight in +the irony with which they pursued their opponents. In both it is +probable that their unmeasured and unsparing criticism recoiled on the +cause which they had at heart. But in the case of both of them it was +not the temper of the satirist, it was no mere love of attacking what +was vulnerable, and indulgence in the cruel pleasure of stinging and +putting to shame, which inspired them. Their souls were moved by the +dishonour done to religion, by public evils and public dangers. Both of +them died young, before their work was done. They placed before +themselves the loftiest and most unselfish objects, the restoration of +truth and goodness in the Church, and to that they gave their life and +all that they had. And what they called on others to be they were +themselves. They were alike in the sternness, the reality, the +perseverance, almost unintelligible in its methods to ordinary men, of +their moral and spiritual self-discipline. + + +SUPPLEMENTARY TO CHAPTER III[26] + +Hurrell Froude was, when I, as an undergraduate, first knew him in 1828, +tall and very thin, with something of a stoop, with a large skull and +forehead, but not a large face, delicate features, and penetrating gray +eyes, not exactly piercing, but bright with internal conceptions, and +ready to assume an expression of amusement, careful attention, inquiry, +or stern disgust, but with a basis of softness. His manner was cordial +and familiar, and assured you, as you knew him well, of his affectionate +feeling, which encouraged you to speak your mind (within certain +limits), subject to the consideration that if you said anything absurd +it would not be allowed to fall to the ground. He had more of the +undergraduate in him than any "don" whom I ever knew; absolutely unlike +Newman in being always ready to skate, sail, or ride with his +friends--and, if in a scrape, not pharisaical as to his means of getting +out of it. I remember, _e.g._, climbing Merton gate with him in my +undergraduate days, when we had been out too late boating or skating. +And unless authority or substantial decorum was really threatened he was +very lenient--or rather had an amused sympathy with the irregularities +that are mere matters of mischief or high spirits. In lecture it was, +_mutatis mutandis_, the same man. Seeing, from his _Remains_, the "high +view of his own capacities of which he could not divest himself," and +his determination not to exhibit or be puffed up by it, and looking back +on his tutorial manner (I was in his lectures both in classics and +mathematics), it was strange how he disguised, not only his _sense_ of +superiority, but the appearance of it, so that his pupils felt him more +as a fellow-student than as the refined scholar or mathematician which +he was. This was partly owing to his carelessness of those formulae, +the familiarity with which gives even second-rate lecturers a position +of superiority which is less visible in those who, like their pupils, +are themselves always struggling with principles--and partly to an +effort, perhaps sometimes overdone, not to put himself above the level +of others. In a lecture on the _Supplices_ of Aeschylus, I have heard +him say _tout bonnement,_ "I can't construe that--what do you make of +it, A.B.?" turning to the supposed best scholar in the lecture; or, when +an objection was started to his mode of getting through a difficulty, +"Ah! I had not thought of that--perhaps your way is the best." And this +mode of dealing with himself and the undergraduates whom he liked, made +them like him, but also made them really undervalue his talent, which, +as we now see, was what he meant they should do. At the same time, +though watchful over his own vanity, he was keen and prompt in +snubs--playful and challenging retort--to those he liked, but in the +nature of scornful exposure, when he had to do with coarseness or +coxcombry, or shallow display of sentiment. It was a paradoxical +consequence of his suppression of egotism that he was more solicitous to +show that you were wrong than that he was right. + +He also wanted, like Socrates or Bishop Butler, to make others, if +possible, think for themselves. + +However, it is not to be inferred that his conversation was made of +controversy. To a certain extent it turned that way, because he was fond +of paradox. (His brother William used to say that he, William, never +felt he had really mastered a principle till he had thrown it into a +paradox.) And paradox, of course, invites contradiction, and so +controversy. On subjects upon which he considered himself more or less +an apostle, he liked to stir people's minds by what startled them, +waking them up, or giving them "nuts to crack." An almost solemn gravity +with amusement twinkling behind it--not invisible--and ready to burst +forth into a bright low laugh when gravity had been played out, was a +very frequent posture with him. + +But he was thoroughly ready to amuse and instruct, or to be amused and +instructed, as an eager and earnest speaker or listener on most matters +of interest. I do not remember that he had any great turn for beauty of +colour; he had none, I think, or next to none, for music--nor do I +remember in him any great love of humour--but for beauty of physical +form, for mechanics, for mathematics, for poetry which had a root in +true feeling, for wit (including that perception of a quasi-logical +absurdity of position), for history, for domestic incidents, his +sympathy was always lively, and he would throw himself naturally and +warmly into them. From his general demeanour (I need scarcely say) the +"odour of sanctity" was wholly absent. I am not sure that his height and +depth of aim and lively versatility of talent did not leave his +_compassionate_ sympathies rather undeveloped; certainly to himself, +and, I suspect, largely in the case of others, he would view suffering +not as a thing to be cockered up or made much of, though of course to be +alleviated if possible, but to be viewed calmly as a Providential +discipline for those who can mitigate, or have to endure it. + +J.H.N. was once reading me a letter just received from him in which (in +answer to J.H.N.'s account of his work and the possibility of his +breaking down) he said in substance: "I daresay you have more to do than +your health will bear, but I would not have you give up anything except +perhaps the deanery" (of Oriel). And then J.H.N. paused, with a kind of +inner exultant chuckle, and said, "Ah! there's a Basil for you"; as if +the friendship which sacrificed its friend, as it would sacrifice itself +to a cause, was the friendship which was really worth having. + +As I came to know him in a more manly way, as a brother Fellow, friend, +and collaborateur, the character of "ecclesiastical agitator" was of +course added to this. + +In this capacity his great pleasure was taking bulls by their horns. +Like the "gueux" of the Low Countries, he would have met half-way any +opprobrious nickname, and I believe coined the epithet "apostolical" for +his party because it was connected with everything in Spain which was +most obnoxious to the British public. I remember one day his grievously +shocking Palmer of Worcester, a man of an opposite texture, when a +council in J.H.N.'s rooms had been called to consider some memorial or +other to which Palmer wanted to collect the signatures of many, and +particularly of dignified persons, but in which Froude wished to express +the determined opinions of a few. Froude stretched out his long length +on Newman's sofa, and broke in upon one of Palmer's judicious harangues +about Bishops and Archdeacons and such like, with the ejaculation, "I +don't see why we should disguise from ourselves that our object is to +dictate to the clergy of this country, and I, for one, do not want any +one else to get on the box." He thought that true Churchmen must be few +before they were many--that the sin of the clergy in all ages was that +they tried to make out that Christians were many when they were only +few, and sacrificed to this object the force derivable from downright +and unmistakable enforcement of truth in speech or action. + +As simplicity in thought, word, and deed formed no small part of his +ideal, his tastes in architecture, painting, sculpture, rhetoric, or +poetry were severe. He had no patience with what was artistically +dissolute, luscious, or decorated more than in proportion to its +animating idea--wishy-washy or sentimental. The ornamental parts of his +own rooms (in which I lived in his absence) were a slab of marble to +wash upon, a print of Rubens's "Deposition," and a head (life-size) of +the Apollo Belvidere. And I remember still the tall scorn, with +something of surprise, with which, on entering my undergraduate room, he +looked down on some Venuses, Cupids, and Hebes, which, freshman-like, I +had bought from an Italian. + +He was not very easy even under conventional vulgarity, still less under +the vulgarity of egotism; but, being essentially a partisan, he could +put up with both in a man who was really in earnest and on the right +side. Nothing, however, I think, would have induced him to tolerate +false sentiment, and he would, I think, if he had lived, have exerted +himself very trenchantly to prevent his cause being adulterated by it. + +He was, I should say, sometimes misled by a theory that genius cut +through a subject by logic or intuition, without looking to the right or +left, while common sense was always testing every step by consideration +of surroundings (I have not got his terse mode of statement), and that +genius was right, or at least had only to be corrected here and there by +common sense. This, I take it, would hardly have answered if his +trenchancy had not been in practice corrected by J.H.N.'s wider +political circumspection. + +He submitted, I suppose, to J.H.N.'s axiom, that if the movement was to +do anything it must become "respectable"; but it was against his nature. + +He would (as we see in the _Remains_) have wished Ken to have the +"courage of his convictions" by excommunicating the Jurors in William +III.'s time, and setting up a little Catholic Church, like the +Jansenists in Holland. He was not (as has been observed) a theologian, +but he was as jealous for orthodoxy as if he were. He spoke slightingly +of Heber as having ignorantly or carelessly communicated with (?) +Monophysites. But he probably knew no more about that and other +heresies than a man of active and penetrating mind would derive from +text-books. And I think it likely enough--not that his reverence for the +Eucharist, but--that his special attention to the details of Eucharistic +doctrine was due to the consideration that it was the foundation of +ecclesiastical discipline and authority--matters on which his mind +fastened itself with enthusiasm. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[18] I ought to say that I was not personally acquainted with Mr. +Froude. I have subjoined to this chapter some recollections of him by +Lord Blachford, who was his pupil and an intimate friend. + +[19] "In this mortal journeying wasted shade Is worse than wasted +sunshine." + +HENRY TAYLOR, _Sicilian Summer_, v. 3. + +[20] _Remains_, Second Part, i. 47. + +[21] _Remains_, i. 82. + +[22] _Apologia_, p. 84. + +[23] The following shows the feeling about him in friends apt to be +severe critics:--"The contents of the present collection are rather +fragments and sketches than complete compositions. This might be +expected in the works of a man whose days were few and interrupted by +illness, if indeed that may be called an interruption, which was every +day sensibly drawing him to his grave. In Mr. Froude's case, however, we +cannot set down much of this incompleteness to the score of illness. The +strength of his religious impressions, the boldness and clearness of his +views, his long habits of self-denial, and his unconquerable energy of +mind, triumphed over weakness and decay, till men with all their health +and strength about them might gaze upon his attenuated form, struck with +a certain awe of wonderment at the brightness of his wit, the +intenseness of his mental vision, and the iron strength of his +argument.... We will venture a remark as to that ironical turn, which +certainly does appear in various shapes in the first part of these +_Remains_. Unpleasant as irony may sometimes be, there need not go with +it, and in this instance there did not go with it, the smallest real +asperity of temper. Who that remembers the inexpressible sweetness of +his smile, and the deep and melancholy pity with which he would speak of +those whom he felt to be the victims of modern delusions, would not be +forward to contradict such a suspicion? Such expressions, we will +venture to say, and not harshness, anger, or gloom, animate the features +of that countenance which will never cease to haunt the memory of those +who knew him. His irony arose from that peculiar mode in which he viewed +all earthly things, himself and all that was dear to him not excepted. +It was his poetry." From an article in the _British Critic_, April 1840, +p. 396, by Mr. Thomas Mozley, quoted in _Letters of J.B. Mozley,_ p. +102. + +[24] Such as the "Daniel" in the _Lyra Apostolica,_ the "Dialogue +between Old Self and New Self," and the lines in the _Remains_ (i 208, +209). + +[25] A few references to the _Remains_ illustrating this are subjoined +if any one cares to compare them with these recollections, i. 7, 13, 18, +26, 106, 184, 199, 200-204. + +[26] I am indebted for these recollections to the late Lord Blachford. +They were written in Oct. 1884. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MR. NEWMAN'S EARLY FRIENDS--ISAAC WILLIAMS + + +In the early days of the movement, among Mr. Newman's greatest friends, +and much in his confidence, were two Fellows of Trinity--a college +which never forgot that Newman had once belonged to it,--Isaac Williams +and William John Copeland. In mind and character very different, they +were close friends, with the affection which was characteristic of those +days; and for both of them Mr. Newman "had the love which passes that of +common relation."[27] Isaac Williams was born among the mountains of +Wales, and had the true poetic gift, though his power of expression was +often not equal to what he wanted to say. Copeland was a Londoner, bred +up in the strict school of Churchmanship represented by Mr. Norris of +Hackney, tempered by sympathies with the Non-jurors. At Oxford he lived, +along with Isaac Williams, in the very heart of the movement, which was +the interest of his life; but he lived, self-forgetting or +self-effacing, a wonderful mixture of tender and inexhaustible sympathy, +and of quick and keen wit, which yet, somehow or other, in that time of +exasperation and bitterness, made him few enemies. He knew more than +most men of the goings on of the movement, and he ought to have been its +chronicler. But he was fastidious and hard to satisfy, and he left his +task till it was too late. + +Isaac Williams was born in Wales in 1802, a year after Newman, ten years +after John Keble. His early life was spent in London, but his affection +for Wales and its mountain scenery was great and undiminished to the end +of his life. At Harrow, where Henry Drury was his tutor, he made his +mark by his mastery of Latin composition and his devotion to Latin +language and literature. "I was so used to think in Latin that when I +had to write an English theme, which was but seldom, I had to translate +my ideas, which ran in Latin, into English";[28] and later in life he +complained of the Latin current which disturbed him when he had to write +English. He was also a great cricketer; and he describes himself as +coming up to Trinity, where he soon got a scholarship, an ambitious and +careless youth, who had never heard a word about Christianity, and to +whom religion, its aims and its restraints, were a mere name. + +This was changed by what, in the language of devotional schools, would +have been called his conversion. It came about, as men speak, as the +result of accidents; but the whole course of his thoughts and life was +turned into a channel from which it nevermore diverged. An old Welsh +clergyman gave the undergraduate an introduction to John Keble, who then +held a place in Oxford almost unique. But the Trinity undergraduate and +the Oriel don saw little of one another till Isaac Williams won the +Latin prize poem, _Ars Geologica_. Keble then called on Isaac Williams +and offered his help in criticising the poem and polishing it for +printing. The two men plainly took to one another at first sight; and +that service was followed by a most unexpected invitation on Keble's +part. He had chanced to come to Williams's room, and on Williams saying +that he had no plan of reading for the approaching vacation, Keble said, +"I am going to leave Oxford for good. Suppose you come and read with me. +The Provost has asked me to take Wilberforce, and I declined; but if you +would come, you would be companions." Keble was going down to Southrop, +a little curacy near his father's; there Williams joined him, with two +more--Robert Wilberforce and R.H. Froude; and there the Long Vacation of +1823 was spent, and Isaac Williams's character and course determined. +"It was this very trivial accident, this short walk of a few yards, and +a few words spoken, which was the turning-point of my life. If a +merciful God had miraculously interposed to arrest my course, I could +not have had a stronger assurance of His presence than I always had in +looking back to that day." It determined Isaac Williams's character, +and it determined for good and all his theological position. He had +before him all day long in John Keble a spectacle which was absolutely +new to him. Ambitious as a rising and successful scholar at college, he +saw a man, looked up to and wondered at by every one, absolutely without +pride and without ambition. He saw the most distinguished academic of +his day, to whom every prospect was open, retiring from Oxford in the +height of his fame to bury himself with a few hundreds of +Gloucestershire peasants in a miserable curacy. He saw this man caring +for and respecting the ignorant and poor as much as others respected the +great and the learned. He saw this man, who had made what the world +would call so great a sacrifice, apparently unconscious that he had made +any sacrifice at all, gay, unceremonious, bright, full of play as a boy, +ready with his pupils for any exercise, mental or muscular--for a hard +ride, or a crabbed bit of Aeschylus, or a logic fence with disputatious +and paradoxical undergraduates, giving and taking on even ground. These +pupils saw one, the depth of whose religion none could doubt, "always +endeavouring to do them good as it were unknown to themselves and in +secret, and ever avoiding that his kindness should be felt and +acknowledged"; showing in the whole course of daily life the purity of +Christian love, and taking the utmost pains to make no profession or +show of it. This unostentatious and undemonstrative religion--so frank, +so generous in all its ways--was to Isaac Williams "quite a new world." +It turned his mind in upon itself in the deepest reverence, but also +with something of morbid despair of ever reaching such a standard. It +drove all dreams of ambition out of his mind. It made humility, +self-restraint, self-abasement, objects of unceasing, possibly not +always wise and healthy, effort. But the result was certainly a +character of great sweetness, tenderness, and lowly unselfishness, +pure, free from all worldliness, and deeply resigned to the will of God. +He caught from Mr. Keble, like Froude, two characteristic habits of +mind--a strong depreciation of mere intellect compared with the less +showy excellences of faithfulness to conscience and duty; and a horror +and hatred of everything that seemed like display or the desire of +applause or of immediate effect. Intellectual depreciators of intellect +may deceive themselves, and do not always escape the snare which they +fear; but in Isaac Williams there was a very genuine carrying out of the +Psalmist's words: "Surely I have behaved and quieted myself; I refrain +my soul and keep it low, as a child that is weaned from his mother." +This fear of display in a man of singularly delicate and fastidious +taste came to have something forced and morbid in it. It seemed +sometimes as if in preaching or talking he aimed at being dull and +clumsy. But in all that he did and wrote he aimed at being true at all +costs and in the very depths of his heart; and though, in his words, we +may wish sometimes for what we should feel to be more natural and +healthy in tone, we never can doubt that we are in the presence of one +who shrank from all conscious unreality like poison. + +From Keble, or, it may be said, from the Kebles, he received his +theology. The Kebles were all of them men of the old-fashioned High +Church orthodoxy, of the Prayer Book and the Catechism--the orthodoxy +which was professed at Oxford, which was represented in London by Norris +of Hackney and Joshua Watson; which valued in religion sobriety, +reverence, and deference to authority, and in teaching, sound learning +and the wisdom of the great English divines; which vehemently disliked +the Evangelicals and Methodists for their poor and loose theology, their +love of excitement and display, their hunting after popularity. This +Church of England divinity was the theology of the old Vicar of Coln St. +Aldwyn's, a good scholar and a good parish priest, who had brought up +his two sons at home to be scholars; and had impressed his solid and +manly theology on them so strongly that amid all changes they remained +at bottom true to their paternal training. John Keble added to it great +attainments and brilliant gifts of imagination and poetry; but he never +lost the plain, downright, almost awkward ways of conversation and +manner of his simple home--ways which might have seemed abrupt and rough +but for the singular sweetness and charm of his nature. To those who +looked on the outside he was always the homely, rigidly orthodox country +clergyman. On Isaac Williams, with his ethical standard, John Keble also +impressed his ideas of religious truth; he made him an old-fashioned +High Churchman, suspicious of excitement and "effect," suspicious of the +loud-talking religious world, suspicious of its novelties and +shallowness, and clinging with his whole soul to ancient ways and sound +Church of England doctrine reflected in the Prayer Book. And from John +Keble's influence he passed under the influence of Thomas Keble, the +Vicar of Bisley, a man of sterner type than his brother, with strong and +definite opinions on all subjects; curt and keen in speech; intolerant +of all that seemed to threaten wholesome teaching and the interests of +the Church; and equally straightforward, equally simple, in manners and +life. Under him Isaac Williams began his career as a clergyman; he spent +two years of solitary and monotonous life in a small cure, seeking +comfort from solitude in poetical composition ("It was very calm and +subduing," he writes); and then he was recalled to Oxford as Fellow and +Tutor of his college, to meet a new and stronger influence, which it was +part of the work and trial of the rest of his life both to assimilate +and to resist. + +For, with Newman, with whom he now came into contact, he did both. There +opened to him from intercourse with Newman a new world of thought; and +yet while feeling and answering to its charm, he never was quite at ease +with him. But Williams and Froude had always been great friends since +the reading party of 1823, in spite of Froude's audacities. Froude was +now residing in Oxford, and had become Newman's most intimate friend, +and he brought Newman and Williams together. "Living at that time," he +says, "so much with Froude, I was now in consequence for the first time +brought into intercourse with Newman. We almost daily walked and often +dined together." Newman and Froude had ceased to be tutors; their +thoughts were turned to theology and the condition of the Church. Newman +had definitely broken with the Evangelicals, to whom he had been +supposed to belong, and Whately's influence over him was waning, and +with Froude he looked up to Keble as the pattern of religious wisdom. He +had accepted the position of a Churchman as it was understood by Keble +and Froude; and thus there was nothing to hinder Williams's full +sympathy with him. But from the first there seems to have been an almost +impalpable bar between them, which is the more remarkable because +Williams appears to have seen with equanimity Froude's apparently more +violent and dangerous outbreaks of paradox and antipathy. Possibly, +after the catastrophe, he may, in looking back, have exaggerated his +early alarms. But from the first he says he saw in Newman what he had +learned to look upon as the gravest of dangers--the preponderance of +intellect among the elements of character and as the guide of life. "I +was greatly delighted and charmed with Newman, who was extremely kind to +me, but did not altogether trust his opinions; and though Froude was in +the habit of stating things in an extreme and paradoxical manner, yet +one always felt conscious of a ground of entire confidence and +agreement; but it was not so with Newman, even though one appeared more +in unison with his more moderate views." + +But, in spite of all this, Newman offered and Isaac Williams accepted +the curacy of St. Mary's. "Things at Oxford [1830-32] at that time were +very dull." "Froude and I seemed entirely alone, with Newman only +secretly, as it were, beginning to sympathise. I became at once very +much attached to Newman, won by his kindness and delighted by his good +and wonderful qualities; and he proposed that I should be his curate at +St. Mary's.... I can remember a strong feeling of difference I first +felt on acting together with him from what I had been accustomed to: +that he was in the habit of looking for effect, and for what was +sensibly effective, which from the Bisley and Fairford School I had been +long habituated to avoid; but to do one's duty in faith and leave it to +God, and that all the more earnestly, because there were no sympathies +from without to answer. There was a felt but unexpressed difference of +this kind, but perhaps it became afterwards harmonised as we acted +together."[29] + +Thus early, among those most closely united, there appeared the +beginnings of those different currents which became so divergent as time +went on. Isaac Williams, dear as he was to Newman, and returning to the +full Newman's affection, yet represented from the first the views of +what Williams spoke of as the "Bisley and Fairford School," which, +though sympathising and co-operating with the movement, was never quite +easy about it, and was not sparing of its criticism on the stir and +agitation of the Tracts. + +Isaac Williams threw himself heartily into the early stages of the +movement; in his poetry into its imaginative and poetical side, and also +into its practical and self-denying side. But he would have been quite +content with its silent working, and its apparent want of visible +success. He would have been quite content with preaching simple homely +sermons on the obvious but hard duties of daily life, and not seeing +much come of them; with finding a slow abatement of the self-indulgent +habits of university life, with keeping Fridays, with less wine in +common room. The Bisley maxims bade men to be very stiff and +uncompromising in their witness and in their duties, but to make no show +and expect no recognition or immediate fruit, and to be silent under +misconstruction. But his was not a mind which realised great +possibilities of change in the inherited ways of the English Church. The +spirit of change, so keenly discerned by Newman, as being both certain +and capable of being turned to good account as well as bad, to him was +unintelligible or bad. More reality, more severity and consistency, +deeper habits of self-discipline on the accepted lines of English Church +orthodoxy, would have satisfied him as the aim of the movement, as it +undoubtedly was a large part of its aim; though with Froude and Newman +it also aimed at a widening of ideas, of interests and sympathies, +beyond what had been common in the English Church. + +In the history of the movement Isaac Williams took a forward part in two +of its events, with one of which his connexion was most natural, with +the other grotesquely and ludicrously incongruous. The one was the plan +and starting of the series of _Plain Sermons_ in 1839, to which not only +the Kebles, Williams, and Copeland contributed their volumes, but also +Newman and Dr. Pusey. Isaac Williams has left the following account of +his share in the work. + +"It seemed at this time (about 1838-39) as if Oxford, from the strength +of principle shown there (and an almost unanimous and concentrated +energy), was becoming a rallying point for the whole kingdom: but I +watched from the beginning and saw greater dangers among ourselves than +those from without; which I endeavoured to obviate by publishing the +_Plain Sermons_. [_Plain Sermons_, by contributors to the _Tracts for +the Times_, 1st Series, January 1839.] I attempted in vain to get the +Kebles to publish, in order to keep pace with Newman, and so maintain a +more practical turn in the movement. I remember C. Cornish (C.L. +Cornish, Fellow and Tutor of Exeter) coming to me and saying as we +walked in Trinity Gardens, 'People are a little afraid of being carried +away by Newman's brilliancy; they want more of the steady sobriety of +the Kebles infused into the movement to keep us safe; we have so much +sail and want ballast.' And the effect of the publication of the _Plain +Sermons_ was at the time very quieting. In first undertaking the _Plain +Sermons_, I had no encouragement from any one, not even from John Keble; +acquiescence was all that I could gain. But I have heard J.K. mention a +saying of Judge Coleridge, long before the _Tracts_ were thought of: 'If +you want to propagate your opinions you should lend your sermons; the +clergy would then preach them, and adopt your opinions.' Now this has +been the effect of the publication of the _Plain Sermons_." + +Isaac Williams, if any man, represented in the movement the moderate and +unobtrusive way of religious teaching. But it was his curious fate to be +dragged into the front ranks of the fray, and to be singled out as +almost the most wicked and dangerous of the Tractarians. He had the +strange fortune to produce the first of the Tracts[30] which was by +itself held up to popular indignation as embodying all the mischief of +the series and the secret aims of the movement. The Tract had another +effect. It made Williams the object of the first great Tractarian battle +in the University, the contest for the Poetry Professorship: the first +decisive and open trial of strength, and the first Tractarian defeat. +The contest, even more than the result, distressed him greatly; and the +course of things in the movement itself aggravated his distress. His +general distrust of intellectual restlessness had now passed into the +special and too well grounded fear that the movement, in some of its +most prominent representatives, was going definitely in the direction of +Rome. A new generation was rising into influence, to whom the old Church +watchwords and maxims, the old Church habits of mind, the old Church +convictions, had completely lost their force, and were become almost +objects of dislike and scorn; and for this change Newman's approval and +countenance were freely and not very scrupulously quoted. Williams's +relation to him had long been a curious mixture of the most affectionate +attachment and intimacy with growing distrust and sense of divergence. +Newman was now giving more and more distinct warning that he was likely +to go where Williams could not follow him, and the pain on both sides +was growing. But things moved fast, and at length the strain broke. + +The estrangement was inevitable; but both cherished the warmest feelings +of affection, even though such a friendship had been broken. But Oxford +became distasteful to Williams, and he soon afterwards left it for +Bisley and Stinchcombe, the living of his brother-in-law, Sir G. +Prevost. There he married (22d June 1842), and spent the remainder of +his life devoting himself to the preparation of those devotional +commentaries, which are still so well known. He suffered for the +greatest part of his life from a distressing and disabling chronic +asthma--from the time that he came back to Oxford as Fellow and +Tutor--and he died in 1865. The old friends met once more shortly before +Isaac Williams's death; Newman came to see him, and at his departure +Williams accompanied him to the station. + +Isaac Williams wrote a great deal of poetry, first during his solitary +curacy at Windrush, and afterwards at Oxford. It was in a lower and +sadder key than the _Christian Year_, which no doubt first inspired it; +it wanted the elasticity and freshness and variety of Keble's verse, and +it was often careless in structure and wanting in concentration. But it +was the outpouring of a very beautiful mind, deeply impressed with the +realities of failure in the Church and religion, as well as in human +life, full of tenderness and pathetic sweetness, and seeking a vent for +its feelings, and relief for its trouble, in calling up before itself +the images of God's goodness and kingdom of which nature and the world +are full. His poetry is a witness to the depth and earnestness and +genuine delicacy of what seemed hard and narrow in the Bisley School; +there are passages in it which are not easily forgotten; but it was not +strong enough to arrest the excitement which soon set in, and with its +continual obscurity and its want of finish it never had the recognition +really due to its excellence. Newman thought it too soft. It certainly +wanted the fire and boldness and directness which he threw into his own +verse when he wrote; but serious earnestness and severity of tone it +certainly did not want. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[27] Mozley, _Reminiscences_, i. 18. + +[28] I. Williams, _MS. Memoir_. + +[29] I. Williams, _MS. Memoir_. + +[30] The history of this famous Tract, No. 80, on _Reserve in +communicating Religious Knowledge_, belongs to a later stage of the +movement. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CHARLES MARRIOTT + + +Charles Marriott was a man who was drawn into the movement, almost in +spite of himself, by the attraction of the character of the leaders, +the greatness of its object, and the purity and nobleness of the motives +which prompted it. He was naturally a man of metaphysical mind, given +almost from a child to abstract and indeed abstruse thought.[31] He had +been a student of S.T. Coleridge, whom the Oriel men disliked as a misty +thinker. He used to discuss Coleridge with a man little known then, but +who gained a high reputation on the Continent as a first-rate Greek +scholar, and became afterwards Professor of Greek in the University of +Sydney, Charles Badham. Marriott also appreciated Hampden as a +philosopher, whom the Oriel men thoroughly distrusted as a theologian. +He might easily under different conditions have become a divine of the +type of F.D. Maurice. He was by disposition averse to anything like +party, and the rough and sharp proceedings which party action sometimes +seems to make natural. His temper was eminently sober, cautious and +conciliatory in his way of looking at important questions. He was a man +with many friends of different sorts and ways, and of boundless though +undemonstrative sympathy. His original tendencies would have made him an +eclectic, recognising the strength of position in opposing schools or +theories, and welcoming all that was good and high in them. He was +profoundly and devotedly religious, without show, without extravagance. +His father, who died when he was only fourteen, had been a distinguished +man in his time. He was a Christ Church man, and one of two in the first +of the Oxford Honour lists in 1802, with E. Copleston, H. Phillpotts, +and S.P. Rigaud for his examiners. He was afterwards tutor to the Earl +of Dalkeith, and he became the friend of Walter Scott, who dedicated to +him the Second Canto of _Marmion_; and having ready and graceful +poetical talent, he contributed several ballads to the _Minstrelsy of +the Scottish Border, The Feast of Spurs_, and _Archie Armstrong's Aith_. +He was a good preacher; his sympathies--of friendship, perhaps, rather +than of definite opinion--were with men like Mr. John Bowdler and the +Thorntons. While he lived he taught Charles Marriott himself. After his +death, Charles, a studious boy, with ways of his own of learning, and +though successful and sure in his work, very slow in the process of +doing it, after a short and discouraging experiment at Rugby, went to +read with a private tutor till he went to Oxford. He was first at +Exeter, and then gained a scholarship at Balliol. He gained a Classical +First Class and a Mathematical Second in the Michaelmas Term of 1832, +and the following Easter he was elected Fellow at Oriel. + +For a man of his power and attainments he was as a speaker, and in +conversation, surprisingly awkward. He had a sturdy, penetrating, +tenacious, but embarrassed intellect--embarrassed, at least, by the +crowd and range of jostling thoughts, in its outward processes and +manifestations, for he thoroughly trusted its inner workings, and was +confident of the accuracy of the results, even when helplessly unable to +justify them at the moment.[32] In matters of business he seemed at +first sight utterly unpractical. In discussing with keen, rapid, and +experienced men like the Provost, the value of leases, or some question +of the management of College property, Marriott, who always took great +interest in such inquiries, frequently maintained some position which to +the quicker wits round him seemed a paradox or a mare's nest. Yet it +often happened that after a dispute, carried on with a brisk fire of not +always respectful objections to Marriott's view, and in which his only +advantage was the patience with which he clumsily, yet surely, brought +out the real point of the matter, overlooked by others, the debate +ended in the recognition that he had been right. It was often a strange +and almost distressing sight to see the difficulty under which he +sometimes laboured of communicating his thoughts, as a speaker at a +meeting, or as a teacher to his hearers, or even in the easiness of +familiar talk. The comfort was that he was not really discouraged. He +was wrestling with his own refractory faculty of exposition and speech; +it may be, he was busy deeper down in the recesses and storehouses of +his mind; but he was too much taken up with the effort to notice what +people thought of it, or even if they smiled; and what he had to say was +so genuine and veracious, as an expression of his meaning, so full of +benevolence, charity, and generosity, and often so weighty and +unexpected, that men felt it a shame to think much of the peculiarities +of his long look of blank silence, and the odd, clumsy explanations +which followed it. He was a man, under an uncouth exterior, of the +noblest and most affectionate nature; most patient, indulgent, and +hopeful to all in whom he took an interest, even when they sorely tried +his kindness and his faith in them. Where he loved and trusted and +admired, he was apt to rate very highly, sometimes too highly. His +gratitude was boundless. He was one of those who deliberately gave up +the prospect of domestic life, to which he was naturally drawn, for the +sake of his cause. Capable of abstract thought beyond most men of his +time, and never unwilling to share his thoughts with those at all +disposed to venture with him into deep waters, he was always ready to +converse or to discuss on much more ordinary ground. As an undergraduate +and a young bachelor, he had attained, without seeking it, a position of +almost unexampled authority in the junior University world that was +hardly reached by any one for many years at least after him. He was +hopeless as a speaker in the Union; but with all his halting and +bungling speeches, that democratic and sometimes noisy assembly bore +from him with kindly amusement and real respect what they would bear +from no one else, and he had an influence in its sometimes turbulent +debates which seems unaccountable. He was the _vir pietate gravis_. In a +once popular squib, occasioned by one of the fiercest of these debates, +this unique position is noticed and commemorated-- + + Οὐδ' ἔλαθεν Μαρίωτα, φιλαίτατον Ὠρειήλων + + * * * * * + + Ἦλθε μέγα γρώνων, Μασιχοῖς καὶ πᾶσ' ἀγαπητός, + Καὶ σμείλων, προσέφη πάντας κείνδοις ἐπέεσιν.[33] + +His ways and his talk were such as to call forth not unfrequent mirth +among those who most revered him. He would meet you and look you in the +face without speaking a word. He was not without humour; but his jokes, +carried off by a little laugh of his own, were apt to be recondite in +their meaning and allusions. With his great power of sympathy, he yet +did not easily divine other men's lighter or subtler moods, and odd and +sometimes even distressing mistakes were the consequence. His health was +weak, and a chronic tenderness of throat and chest made him take +precautions which sometimes seemed whimsical; and his well-known figure +in a black cloak, with a black veil over his college cap, and a black +comforter round his neck, which at one time in Oxford acquired his name, +sometimes startled little boys and sleepy college porters when he came +on them suddenly at night. + +With more power than most men of standing alone, and of arranging his +observations on life and the world in ways of his own, he had +pre-eminently above all men round him, in the highest and noblest form, +the spirit of a disciple. Like most human things, discipleship has its +good and its evil, its strong and its poor and dangerous side; but it +really has, what is much forgotten now, a good and a strong side. Both +in philosophy and religion, the μαθητὴς is a distinct character, and +Charles Marriott was an example of it at its best. He had its manly and +reasonable humility, its generous trustfulness, its self-forgetfulness; +he had, too, the enthusiasm of having and recognising a great master and +teacher, and doing what he wanted done; and he learned from the love of +his master to love what he believed truth still more. The character of +the disciple does not save a man from difficulties, from trouble and +perplexity; but it tends to save him from idols of his own making. It is +something, in the trials of life and faith, to have the consciousness of +knowing or having known some one greater and better and wiser than +oneself, of having felt the spell of his guidance and example. +Marriott's mind, quick to see what was real and strong, and at once +reverent to it as soon as he saw it, came very much, as an undergraduate +at Balliol, under the influence of a very able and brilliant tutor, +Moberly, afterwards Headmaster of Winchester and Bishop of Salisbury; +and to the last his deference and affection to his old tutor remained +unimpaired. But he came under a still more potent charm when he moved to +Oriel, and became the friend of Mr. Newman. Master and disciple were as +unlike as any two men could be; they were united by their sympathy in +the great crisis round them, by their absorbing devotion to the cause of +true religion. Marriott brought to the movement, and especially to its +chief, a great University character, and an unswerving and touching +fidelity. He placed himself, his life, and all that he could do, at the +service of the great effort to elevate and animate the Church; to the +last he would gladly have done so under him whom he first acknowledged +as his master. This was not to be; and he transferred his allegiance, as +unreservedly, with equal loyalty and self-sacrifice, to his successor. +But to the end, while his powers lasted, with all his great gifts and +attainments, with every temptation to an independent position and +self-chosen employment, he continued a disciple. He believed in men +wiser than himself; he occupied himself with what they thought best for +him to do. + +This work was, for the most part, in what was done to raise the standard +of knowledge of early Christian literature, and to make that knowledge +accurate and scholarlike. He was, for a time, the Principal of the +Theological College at Chichester, under Bishop Otter. He was also for a +time Tutor at Oriel, and later, Vicar of St. Mary's. He was long bent on +setting on foot some kind of Hall for poor students; and he took over +from Mr. Newman the buildings at Littlemore, which he turned into a +place for printing religious works. But though he was connected more or +less closely with numberless schemes of Christian work in Oxford and out +of it, his special work was that of a theological student. Marriott had +much to do with the Library of the Fathers, with correcting +translations, collating manuscripts, editing texts.[34] Somehow, the +most interesting portions hardly came to his share; and what he did in +the way of original writing, little as it was, causes regret that so +much of his time was spent on the drudgery of editing. Some sermons, a +little volume of _Thoughts on Private Devotion_, and another on the +_Epistle to the Romans_, are nearly all that he has left of his own. +Novelty of manner or thought in them there is none, still less anything +brilliant or sharp in observation or style; but there is an undefinable +sense, in their calm, severe pages, of a deep and serious mind dwelling +on deep and very serious things. It is impossible not to wish that a +man who could so write and impress people might have had the leisure to +write more. + +But Marriott never had any leisure. It has been said above that he +placed himself at the service of those whom he counted his teachers. But +the truth is that he was at every one's service who wanted or who asked +his help. He had a large, and what must have been often a burdensome, +correspondence. With pupils or friends he was always ready for some +extra bit of reading. To strangers he was always ready to show attention +and hospitality, though Marriott's parties were as quaint as himself. +His breakfast parties in his own room were things to have seen--a crowd +of undergraduates, finding their way with difficulty amid lanes and +piles of books, amid a scarcity of chairs and room, and the host, +perfectly unconscious of anything grotesque, sitting silent during the +whole of the meal, but perfectly happy, at the head of the table. But +there was no claimant on his purse or his interest who was too strange +for his sympathy--raw freshmen, bores of every kind, broken-down +tradesmen, old women, distressed foreigners, converted Jews, all the odd +and helpless wanderers from beaten ways, were to be heard of at +Marriott's rooms; and all, more or less, had a share of his time and +thoughts, and perhaps counsel. He was sensible of worry as he grew +older; but he never relaxed his efforts to do what any one asked of him. +There must be even now some still living who know what no one else +knows, how much they owe, with no direct claim on him, to Charles +Marriott's inexhaustible patience and charity. The pains which he would +take with even the most uncongenial and unpromising men, who somehow had +come in his way, and seemed thrown on his charge, the patience with +which he would bear and condone their follies and even worse, were not +to be told, for, indeed, few knew what they were. + +"He was always ready to be the friend of any one whose conduct gave +proofs of high principle, however inferior to himself in knowledge or +acquirements, and his friendship once gained was not easily lost. I +believe there was nothing in his power which he was not ready to do for +a friend who wanted his help. It is not easy to state instances of such +kindness without revealing what for many reasons had better be left +untold. But many such have come to my knowledge, and I believe there are +many more known only to himself and to those who derived benefit from +his disinterested friendship."[35] + +Marriott's great contribution to the movement was his solid, simple +goodness, his immovable hope, his confidence that things would come +right. With much imaginativeness open to poetical grandeur and charm, +and not without some power of giving expression to feeling, he was +destitute of all that made so many others of his friends interesting as +men. He was nothing, as a person to know and observe, to the genius of +the two Mozleys, to the brilliant social charm of Frederic Faber, to the +keen, refined intelligence of Mark Pattison, to the originality and +clever eccentricity of William Palmer of Magdalen. And he was nothing as +a man of practical power for organising and carrying out successful +schemes: such power was not much found at Oxford in those days. But his +faith in his cause, as the cause of goodness and truth, was proof +against mockery or suspicion or disaster. When ominous signs disturbed +other people he saw none. He had an almost perverse subtlety of mind +which put a favourable interpretation on what seemed most formidable. As +his master drew more and more out of sympathy with the English Church, +Marriott, resolutely loyal to it and to him, refused to understand hints +and indications which to others were but too plain. He vexed and even +provoked Newman, in the last agonies of the struggle, by the optimism +with which he clung to useless theories and impossible hopes. For that +unquenchable hoping against hope, and hope unabated still when the +catastrophe had come, the English Church at least owes him deep +gratitude. Throughout those anxious years he never despaired of her. + +All through his life he was a beacon and an incitement to those who +wished to make a good use of their lives. In him all men could see, +whatever their opinions and however little they liked him, the +simplicity and the truth of a self-denying life of suffering--for he was +never well--of zealous hard work, unstinted, unrecompensed; of unabated +lofty hopes for the great interests of the Church and the University; of +deep unpretending matter-of-course godliness and goodness--without "form +or comeliness" to attract any but those who cared for them, for +themselves alone. It is almost a sacred duty to those who remember one +who cared nothing for his own name or fame to recall what is the +truth--that no one did more to persuade those round him of the solid +underground religious reality of the movement. Mr. Thomas Mozley, among +other generous notices of men whom the world and their contemporaries +have forgotten, has said what is not more than justice.[36] Speaking of +the enthusiasm of the movement, and the spirit of its members, "There +had never been seen at Oxford, indeed seldom anywhere, so large and +noble a sacrifice of the most precious gifts and powers to a sacred +cause," he points out what each of the leaders gave to it: "Charles +Marriott threw in his scholarship and something more, for he might have +been a philosopher, and he had poetry in his veins, being the son of the +well-known author of the 'Devonshire Lane.' No one sacrificed himself so +entirely to the cause, giving to it all that he had and all that he was, +as Charles Marriott. He did not gather large congregations; he did not +write works of genius to spread his name over the land, and to all time; +he had few of the pleasures or even of the comforts that spontaneously +offer themselves in any field of enterprise. He laboured day and night +in the search and defence of Divine Truth. His admirers were not the +thousands, but the scholars who could really appreciate. I confess to +have been a little ashamed of myself when Bishop Burgess asked me about +Charles Marriott, as one of the most eminent scholars of the day. +Through sheer ignorance I had failed in adequate appreciation." In his +later years he became a member of the new Hebdomadal Council at Oxford, +and took considerable part in working the new constitution of the +University. In an epidemic of smallpox at Oxford in 1854, he took his +full share in looking after the sick, and caught the disorder; but he +recovered. At length, in the midst of troublesome work and many +anxieties, his life of toil was arrested by a severe paralytic seizure, +29th June 1855. He partially rallied, and survived for some time longer; +but his labours were ended. He died at Bradfield, 25th September 1858. +He was worn out by variety and pressure of unintermitted labour, which +he would scarcely allow any change or holiday to relieve. Exhaustion +made illness, when it came, fatal. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[31] "He told me," writes a relative, "that questions about trade used +to occupy him very early in life. He used to ponder how it could be +right to sell things for more than they cost you." + +[32] "He had his own way of doing everything, and used most stoutly to +protest that it was quite impossible that he should do it in any +other."--_MS. Memoir_ by his brother, John Marriott. + +[33] _Uniomachia_, 1833. + +[34] "This became the main task of his life us long as health was +continued to him. All who knew him well will remember how laboriously he +worked at it, and how, in one shape or another, it was always on hand. +Either he was translating, or correcting the translation of others; or +he was collating MSS., or correcting the press. This last work was +carried on at all times and wherever he was--on a journey, after +dinner--even in a boat, he would pull out a sheet and go to write upon +it in haste to get it finished for the next post. The number of volumes +in the Library of the Fathers which bear the signature C.M. attest his +diligence."--John Marriott's Memoir of him (MS.) + +[35] J.M., _MS. Memoir_. + +[36] _Rem._ i. 447. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE OXFORD TRACTS + + +"On 14th July 1833," we read in Cardinal Newman's _Apologia_, "Mr. Keble +preached the assize sermon in the University Pulpit. It was published +under the title of _National Apostasy_. I have ever considered and kept +the day as the start of the religious movement of 1833."[37] + +This memorable sermon was a strong expression of the belief common to a +large body of Churchmen amid the triumphs of the Reform Bill, that the +new governors of the country were preparing to invade the rights, and to +alter the constitution, and even the public documents, of the Church. +The suppression of ten Irish Bishoprics, in defiance of Church opinion, +showed how ready the Government was to take liberties in a high-handed +way with the old adjustments of the relations of Church and State. +Churchmen had hitherto taken for granted that England was "a nation +which had for centuries acknowledged, as an essential part of its +theory of government, that, _as_ a Christian nation, she is also a part +of Christ's Church, and bound, in all her legislation and policy, by the +fundamental laws of that Church." When "a Government and people, so +constituted, threw off the restraint which in many respects such a +principle would impose upon them, nay, disavowed the principle itself," +this, to those whose ideas Mr. Keble represented, seemed nothing short +of a "direct disavowal of the sovereignty of God. If it be true anywhere +that such enactments are forced on the legislature by public opinion, is +Apostasy too hard a word to describe the temper of such a nation?" The +sermon was a call to face in earnest a changed state of things, full of +immediate and pressing danger; to consider how it was to be met by +Christians and Churchmen, and to watch motives and tempers. "Surely it +will be no unworthy principle if any man is more circumspect in his +behaviour, more watchful and fearful of himself, more earnest in his +petitions for spiritual aid, from a dread of disparaging the holy name +of the English Church in her hour of peril by his own personal fault and +negligence. As to those who, either by station or temper, feel +themselves more deeply interested, they cannot be too careful in +reminding themselves that one chief danger in times of change and +excitement arises from their tendency to engross the whole mind. Public +concerns, ecclesiastical or civil, will prove indeed ruinous to those +who permit them to occupy all their care and thought, neglecting or +undervaluing ordinary duties, more especially those of a devotional +kind. These cautions being duly observed, I do not see how any person +can devote himself too entirely to the cause of the Apostolic Church in +these realms. There may be, as far as he knows, but a very few to +sympathise with him. He may have to wait long, and very likely pass out +of this world, before he see any abatement in the triumph of disorder +and irreligion. But, _if he be consistent_, he possesses to the utmost +the personal consolations of a good Christian; and as a true Churchman, +he has the encouragement which no other cause in the world can impart in +the same degree: he is calmly, soberly, demonstrably _sure_ that, sooner +or later, _his will be the winning side_, and that the victory will be +complete, universal, eternal." + +But if Mr. Keble's sermon was the first word of the movement, its first +step was taken in a small meeting of friends, at Mr. Hugh James Rose's +parsonage at Hadleigh, in Suffolk, between the 25th and the 29th of the +same July. At this little gathering, the ideas and anxieties which for +some time past had filled the thoughts of a number of earnest Churchmen, +and had brought them into communication with one another, came to a +head, and issued in the determination to move. Mr. Rose, a man of high +character and distinction in his day, who had recently started the +_British Magazine_, as an organ of Church teaching and opinion, was the +natural person to bring about such a meeting.[38] It was arranged that a +few representative men, or as many as were able, should meet towards the +end of July at Hadleigh Rectory. They were men in full agreement on the +main questions, but with great differences in temperament and habits of +thought. Mr. Rose was the person of most authority, and next to him, Mr. +Palmer; and these, with Mr. A. Perceval, formed as it were the right +wing of the little council. Their Oxford allies were the three Oriel +men, Mr. Keble, Mr. Froude, and Mr. Newman, now fresh from his escape +from death in a foreign land, and from the long solitary musings in his +Mediterranean orange-boat, full of joyful vigour and ready for +enterprise and work.[39] In the result, Mr. Keble and Mr. Newman were +not present, but they were in active correspondence with the others.[40] +From this meeting resulted the _Tracts for the Times_, and the agitation +connected with them. + +These friends were all devoted Churchmen, but, as has been said, each +had his marked character, not only as a man but as a Churchman. The most +important among them was as yet the least prominent. Two of them were +men of learning, acquainted with the great world of London, and who, +with all their zeal, had some of the caution which comes of such +experience. At the time, the most conspicuous was Mr. Hugh James Rose. + +Mr. Rose was a man whose name and whose influence, as his friends +thought, have been overshadowed and overlooked in the popular view of +the Church revival. It owed to him, they held, not only its first +impulse, but all that was best and most hopeful in it; and when it lost +him, it lost its wisest and ablest guide and inspirer. It is certainly +true that when that revival began he was a much more distinguished and +important person than any of the other persons interested in it. As far +as could be seen at the time, he was the most accomplished divine and +teacher in the English Church. He was a really learned man. He had the +intellect and energy and literary skill to use his learning. He was a +man of singularly elevated and religious character; he had something of +the eye and temper of a statesman, and he had already a high position. +He was profoundly loyal to the Church, and keenly interested in whatever +affected its condition and its fortunes. As early as 1825 he had in some +lectures at Cambridge called the attention of English Churchmen to the +state of religious thought and speculation in Germany, and to the +mischiefs likely to react on English theology from the rationalising +temper and methods which had supplanted the old Lutheran teaching; and +this had led to a sharp controversy with Mr. Pusey, as he was then, who +thought that Mr. Rose[41] had both exaggerated the fact itself and had +not adequately given the historical account of it. He had the prudence, +but not the backwardness, of a man of large knowledge, and considerable +experience of the world. More alive to difficulties and dangers than his +younger associates, he showed his courage and his unselfish earnestness +in his frank sympathy with them, daring and outspoken as they were, and +in his willingness to share with them the risks of an undertaking of +which no one knew better than he what were likely to be the +difficulties. He certainly was a person who might be expected to have a +chief part in directing anything with which he was connected. His +countenance and his indirect influence were very important elements, +both in the stirring of thought which led to the Hadleigh resolutions, +and in giving its form to what was then decided upon. But his action in +the movement was impeded by his failure in health, and cut short by his +early death, January 1839. How he would have influenced the course of +things if he had lived, it is not now easy to say. He must have been +reckoned with as one of the chiefs. He would have been opposed to +anything that really tended towards Rome. But there is no reason to +think that he would have shrunk from any step only because it was bold. +He had sympathy for courage and genius, and he had knowledge and +authority which would have commanded respect for his judgment and +opinion. But it is too much to say either that the movement could not +have been without him, or that it was specially his design and plan, or +that he alone could have given the impulse which led to it; though it +seemed at one time as if he was to be its leader and chief. Certainly he +was the most valuable and the most loyal of its early auxiliaries. + +Another coadjutor, whose part at the time also seemed rather that of a +chief, was Mr. William Palmer, of Worcester College. He had been +educated at Trinity College, Dublin, but he had transferred his home to +Oxford, both in the University and the city. He was a man of exact and +scholastic mind, well equipped at all points in controversial theology, +strong in clear theories and precise definitions, familiar with +objections current in the schools and with the answers to them, and well +versed in all the questions, arguments, and authorities belonging to the +great debate with Rome. He had definite and well-arranged ideas about +the nature and office of the Church; and, from his study of the Roman +controversy, he had at command the distinctions necessary to +discriminate between things which popular views confused, and to protect +the doctrines characteristic of the Church from being identified with +Romanism. Especially he had given great attention to the public +devotional language and forms of the Church, and had produced by far the +best book in the English language on the history and significance of the +offices of the English Church--the _Origines Liturgicae_, published at +the University Press in 1832. It was a book to give a man authority with +divines and scholars; and among those with whom at this time he acted no +one had so compact and defensible a theory, even if it was somewhat +rigid and technical, of the peculiar constitution of the English Church +as Mr. Palmer. With the deepest belief in this theory, he saw great +dangers threatening, partly from general ignorance and looseness of +thought, partly from antagonistic ideas and principles only too distinct +and too popular; and he threw all his learning and zeal on the side of +those who, like himself, were alive to those dangers, and were prepared +for a great effort to counteract them. + +The little company which met at Hadleigh Rectory, from 25th to 29th July +1833, met--as other knots of men have often met, to discuss a question +or a policy, or to found an association, or a league, or a newspaper--to +lay down the outlines of some practical scheme of work; but with little +foresight of the venture they were making, or of the momentous issues +which depended on their meeting. Later on, when controversy began, it +became a favourite rhetorical device to call it by the ugly name of a +"conspiracy." Certainly Froude called it so, and Mr. Palmer; and Mr. +Perceval wrote a narrative to answer the charge. It was a "conspiracy," +as any other meeting would be of men with an object which other men +dislike. + +Of the Oriel men, only Froude went to Hadleigh. Keble and Newman were +both absent, but in close correspondence with the others. Their plans +had not taken any definite shape; but they were ready for any sacrifice +and service, and they were filled with wrath against the insolence of +those who thought that the Church was given over into their hands, and +against the apathy and cowardice of those who let her enemies have their +way. Yet with much impatience and many stern determinations in their +hearts, they were all of them men to be swayed by the judgment and +experience of their friends. + +The state of mind under which the four friends met at the Hadleigh +conference has been very distinctly and deliberately recorded by all of +them. Churchmen in our days hardly realise what the face of things then +looked like to men who, if they felt deeply, were no mere fanatics or +alarmists, but sober and sagacious observers, not affected by mere +cries, but seeing dearly beneath the surface of things their certain and +powerful tendencies. "We felt ourselves," writes Mr. Palmer some years +afterwards,[42] "assailed by enemies from without and foes within. Our +Prelates insulted and threatened by Ministers of State. In Ireland ten +bishoprics suppressed. We were advised to feel thankful that a more +sweeping measure had not been adopted. What was to come next?... Was the +same principle of concession to popular clamour ... to be exemplified in +the dismemberment of the English Church?... We were overwhelmed with +pamphlets on Church reform. Lord Henley, brother-in-law of Sir Robert +Peel, Dr. Burton, and others of name and influence led the way. Dr. +Arnold of Rugby ventured to propose that all sects should be united by +Act of Parliament with the Church of England. Reports, apparently well +founded, were prevalent that some of the Prelates were favourable to +alterations in the Liturgy. Pamphlets were in wide circulation +recommending the abolition of the Creeds (at least in public worship), +especially urging the expulsion of the Athanasian Creed; the removal of +all mention of the Blessed Trinity; of the doctrine of baptismal +regeneration; of the practice of absolution. We knew not to what quarter +to look for support. A Prelacy threatened and apparently intimidated; a +Government making its power subservient to agitators, who avowedly +sought the destruction of the Church ... And, worst of all, _no +principle in the public mind to which we could appeal_; an utter +ignorance of all rational grounds of attachment to the Church; an +oblivion of its spiritual character, as an institution not of man but of +God; the grossest Erastianism most widely prevalent, especially amongst +all classes of politicians. There was in all this enough to appal the +stoutest heart; and those who can recall the feeling of those days will +at once remember the deep depression into which the Church had fallen, +and the gloomy forebodings universally prevalent." + +"Before the spirit and temper of those who met at the conference is +condemned as extravagant," writes Mr. Perceval in 1842,[43] "let the +reader call to mind what was then actually the condition as well as the +prospect of the Church and nation: an agrarian and civic insurrection +against the bishops and clergy, and all who desired to adhere to the +existing institutions of the country; the populace goaded on, openly by +the speeches, covertly (as was fully believed at the time) by the paid +emissaries of the ministers of the Crown; the chief of those ministers +in his place in Parliament bidding the bishops 'set their house in +order'; the mob taking him at his word, and burning to the ground the +palace of the Bishop of Bristol, with the public buildings of the city, +while they shouted the Premier's name in triumph on the ruins." The +pressing imminence of the danger is taken for granted by the calmest and +most cautious of the party, Mr. Rose, in a letter of February 1833. +"That something is requisite, is certain. The only thing is, that +whatever is done ought to be _quickly_ done, for the danger is +immediate, and _I should have little fear if I thought that we could +stand for ten or fifteen years as we are_."[44] In the _Apologia_ +Cardinal Newman recalls what was before him in those days. "The Whigs +had come into power; Lord Grey had told the bishops to 'set their house +in order,' and some of the prelates had been insulted and threatened in +the streets of London. The vital question was. How were we to keep the +Church from being Liberalised? There was so much apathy on the subject +in some quarters, such imbecile alarm in others; the true principles of +Churchmanship seemed so radically decayed, and there was such +distraction in the councils of the clergy. The Bishop of London of the +day, an active and open-hearted man, had been for years engaged in +diluting the high orthodoxy of the Church by the introduction of the +Evangelical body into places of influence and trust. He had deeply +offended men who agreed with myself by an off-hand saying (as it was +reported) to the effect that belief in the apostolical succession had +gone out with the Non-jurors. '_We can count you_,' he said to some of +the gravest and most venerated persons of the old school.... I felt +affection for my own Church, but not tenderness: I felt dismay at her +prospects, anger and scorn at her do-nothing perplexity. I thought that +if Liberalism once got a footing within her, it was sure of victory in +the event. I saw that Reformation principles were powerless to rescue +her. As to leaving her, the thought never crossed my imagination: still +I ever kept before me that there was something greater than the +Established Church, and that that was the Church Catholic and Apostolic, +set up from the beginning, of which she was but the local presence and +organ. She was nothing unless she was this. She must be dealt with +strongly or she would be lost. There was need of a second Reformation." + +"If _I thought that we could stand ten or fifteen years as we are_, I +should have little fear," said Mr. Rose. He felt that, if only he could +secure a respite, he had the means and the hope of opening the eyes of +Churchmen. They were secure and idle from long prosperity, and now they +were scared and perplexed by the suddenness of an attack for which they +were wholly unprepared. But he had confidence in his own convictions. +He had around him ability and zeal, in which he had the best reason to +trust. He might hope, if he had time, to turn the tide. But this time to +stand to arms was just what he had not. The danger, he felt, was upon +him. He could not wait. So he acquiesced in an agitation which so +cautious and steady a man would otherwise hardly have chosen. "That +_something must be done_ is certain. The only thing is, that whatever is +done ought to be _quickly_ done." Nothing can show more forcibly the +imminence and pressure of the crisis than words like these, not merely +from Froude and his friends, but from such a man as Mr. Hugh James Rose. + +"Something must be done," but what? This was not so easy to say. It was +obvious that men must act in concert, and must write; but beyond these +general points, questions and difficulties arose. The first idea that +suggested itself at Hadleigh was a form of association, which would have +been something like the _English Church Union_ or the _Church Defence +Association_ of our days. It probably was Mr. Palmer's idea; and for +some time the attempt to carry it into effect was followed up at Oxford. +Plans of "Association" were drawn up and rejected. The endeavour brought +out differences of opinion--differences as to the rightness or the +policy of specific mention of doctrines; differences as to the union of +Church and State, on the importance of maintaining which, as long as +possible, Mr. Newman sided with Mr. Palmer against Mr. Keble's more +uncompromising view. A "_third_ formulary" was at length adopted. +"Events," it said, "have occurred within the last few years calculated +to inspire the true members and friends of the Church with the deepest +uneasiness." It went on to notice that political changes had thrown +power into the hands of the professed enemies of the Church as an +establishment; but it was not merely as an establishment that it was in +most serious danger. "Every one," it says, "who has become acquainted +with the literature of the day, must have observed the sedulous attempts +made in various quarters to reconcile members of the Church to +alterations in its doctrines and discipline. Projects of change, which +include the annihilation of our Creeds and the removal of doctrinal +statements incidentally contained in our worship, have been boldly and +assiduously put forth. Our services have been subjected to licentious +criticism, with the view of superseding some of them and of entirely +remodelling others. The very elementary principles of our ritual and +discipline have been rudely questioned; our apostolical polity has been +ridiculed and denied." The condition of the times made these things +more than ordinarily alarming, and the pressing danger was urged as a +reason for the formation, by members of the Church in various parts of +the kingdom, of an association on a few broad principles of union for +the defence of the Church. "They feel strongly," said the authors of the +paper, "that no fear of the appearance of forwardness should dissuade +them from a design, which seems to be demanded of them by their +affection towards that spiritual community to which they owe their hopes +of the world to come; and by a sense of duty to that God and Saviour who +is its Founder and Defender." But the plan of an Association, or of +separate Associations, which was circulated in the autumn of 1833, came +to nothing. "Jealousy was entertained of it in high quarters." Froude +objected to any association less wide than the Church itself. Newman had +a horror of committees and meetings and great people in London. And +thus, in spite of Mr. Palmer's efforts, favoured by a certain number of +influential and dignified friends, the Association would not work. But +the stir about it was not without result. Mr. Palmer travelled about the +country with the view of bringing the state of things before the clergy. +In place of the Association, an Address to the Archbishop of Canterbury +was resolved upon. It was drawn up by Mr. Palmer, who undertook the +business of circulating it. In spite of great difficulties and trouble +of the alarm of friends like Mr. Rose, who was afraid that it would +cause schism in the Church; of the general timidity of the dignified +clergy; of the distrust and the crotchets of others; of the coldness of +the bishops and the opposition of some of them--it was presented with +the signatures of some 7000 clergy to the Archbishop in February 1834. +It bore the names, among others, of Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, Master +of Trinity; Dr. Gilbert, of Brasenose College; Dr. Faussett, and Mr. +Keble. And this was not all. A Lay Address followed. There were +difficulties about the first form proposed, which was thought to say too +much about the doctrine and discipline of the Church; and it was laid +aside for one with more vague expressions about the "consecration of the +State," and the practical benefits of the Established Church. In this +form it was signed by 230,000 heads of families, and presented to the +Archbishop in the following May. "From these two events," writes Mr. +Perceval in 1842, "we may date the commencement of the turn of the tide, +which had threatened to overwhelm our Church and our religion."[45] +There can, at any rate, be little doubt that as regards the external +position of the Church in the country, this agitation was a success. It +rallied the courage of Churchmen, and showed that they were stronger and +more resolute than their enemies thought. The revolutionary temper of +the times had thrown all Churchmen on the Conservative side; and these +addresses were partly helped by political Conservatism, and also reacted +in its favour. + +Some of the Hadleigh friends would probably have been content to go on +in this course, raising and keeping alive a strong feeling in favour of +things as they were, creating a general sympathy with the Church, and +confidence in the peculiar excellency of its wise and sober +institutions, sedulously but cautiously endeavouring to correct popular +mistakes about them, and to diffuse a sounder knowledge and a sounder +tone of religious feeling. This is what Mr. H.J. Rose would have wished, +only he felt that he could not insure the "ten or fifteen years" which +he wanted to work this gradual change. Both he and Mr. Palmer would have +made London, to use a military term, their base of operations. The Oriel +men, on the other hand, thought that "Universities are the natural +centres of intellectual movements"; they were for working more +spontaneously in the freedom of independent study; they had little faith +in organisation; "living movements," they said, "do not come of +committees." But at Hadleigh it was settled that there was writing to be +done, in some way or other; and on this, divergence of opinion soon +showed itself, both as to the matter and the tone of what was to be +written. + +For the writers of real force, the men of genius, were the three Oriel +men, with less experience, at that time, with less extensive learning, +than Mr. Rose and Mr. Palmer. But they were bolder and keener spirits; +they pierced more deeply into the real condition and prospects of the +times; they were not disposed to smooth over and excuse what they +thought hollow and untrue, to put up with decorous compromises and +half-measures, to be patient towards apathy, negligence, or insolence. +They certainly had more in them of the temper of warfare. We know from +their own avowals that a great anger possessed them, that they were +indignant at the sacred idea of the Church being lost and smothered by +selfishness and stupidity; they were animated by the spirit which makes +men lose patience with abuses and their apologists, and gives them no +peace till they speak out. Mr. Newman felt that, though associations and +addresses might be very well, what the Church and the clergy and the +country wanted was plain speaking; and that plain speaking could not be +got by any papers put forth as joint manifestoes, or with the revision +and sanction of "safe" and "judicious" advisers. It was necessary to +write, and to write as each man felt: and he determined that each man +should write and speak for himself, though working in concert and +sympathy with others towards the supreme end--the cause and interests of +the Church. + +And thus were born the _Tracts for the Times._[46] For a time Mr. +Palmer's line and Mr. Newman's line ran on side by side; but Mr. +Palmer's plan had soon done all that it could do, important as that was; +it gradually faded out of sight, and the attention of all who cared for, +or who feared or who hated the movement, was concentrated on the "Oxford +Tracts." They were the watchword and the symbol of an enterprise which +all soon felt to be a remarkable one--remarkable, if in nothing else, in +the form in which it was started. Great changes and movements have been +begun in various ways; in secret and underground communications, in +daring acts of self-devotion or violence, in the organisation of an +institution, in the persistent display of a particular temper and set of +habits, especially in the form of a stirring and enthralling eloquence, +in popular preaching, in fierce appeals to the passions. But though +tracts had become in later times familiar instruments of religious +action, they had, from the fashion of using them, become united in the +minds of many with rather disparaging associations. The pertinacity of +good ladies who pressed them on chance strangers, and who extolled their +efficacy as if it was that of a quack medicine, had lowered the general +respect for them. The last thing that could have been thought of was a +great religions revolution set in motion by tracts and leaflets, and +taking its character and name from them. + +But the ring of these early Tracts was something very different from +anything of the kind yet known in England. They were clear, brief, stern +appeals to conscience and reason, sparing of words, utterly without +rhetoric, intense in purpose. They were like the short, sharp, rapid +utterances of men in pain and danger and pressing emergency. The first +one gave the keynote of the series. Mr. Newman "had out of his own head +begun the Tracts": he wrote the opening one in a mood which he has +himself described. He was in the "exultation of health restored and home +regained": he felt, he says, an "exuberant and joyous energy which he +never had before or since"; "his health and strength had come back to +him with such a rebound" that some of his friends did not know him. "I +had the consciousness that I was employed in that work which I had been +dreaming about, and which I felt to be so momentous and inspiring. I had +a supreme confidence in our cause; we were upholding that primitive +Christianity which was delivered for all time by the early teachers of +the Church, and which was registered and attested in the Anglican +formularies and by the Anglican divines. That ancient religion had +well-nigh faded out of the land through the political changes of the +last 150 years, and it must be restored. It would be, in fact, a second +Reformation--a better Reformation, for it would return, not to the +sixteenth century, but to the seventeenth. No time was to be lost, for +the Whigs had come to do their worst, and the rescue might come too +late. Bishoprics were already in course of suppression; Church property +was in course of confiscation; sees would be soon receiving unsuitable +occupants. We knew enough to begin preaching, and there was no one else +to preach. I felt," he goes on,[47] with a characteristic recollection +of his own experience when he started on his voyage with Froude in the +_Hermes_, "as on a vessel, which first gets under weigh, and then clears +out the deck, and stores away luggage and live stock into their proper +receptacles." The first three Tracts bear the date of 9th September +1833. They were the first public utterance of the movement. The opening +words of this famous series deserve to be recalled. They are new to most +of the present generation. + + TO MY BRETHREN IN THE SACRED MINISTRY, THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS OF + THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IN ENGLAND, ORDAINED THEREUNTO BY THE HOLY GHOST + AND THE IMPOSITION OF HANDS. + + FELLOW-LABOURERS,--I am but one of yourselves--Presbyter; and + therefore I conceal my name, lest I should take too much on myself by + speaking in my own person. Yet speak I must; for the times are very + evil, yet no one speaks against them. + + Is not this so? Do not we "look one upon another," yet perform + nothing? Do we not all confess the peril into which the Church is + come, yet sit still each in his own retirement, as if mountains and + seas cut off brother from brother? Therefore suffer me, while I try to + draw you forth from those pleasant retreats, which it has been our + blessedness hitherto to enjoy, to contemplate the condition and + prospects of our Holy Mother in a practical way; so that one and all + may unlearn that idle habit, which has grown upon us, of owning the + state of things to be bad, yet doing nothing to remedy it. + + Consider a moment. Is it fair, is it dutiful, to suffer our bishops to + stand the brunt of the battle without doing our part to support them? + Upon them comes "the care of all the Churches." This cannot be helped; + indeed it is their glory. Not one of us would wish in the least to + deprive them of the duties, the toils, the responsibilities of their + high office. And, black event as it would be for the country, yet (as + far as they are concerned) we could not wish them a more blessed + termination of their course than the spoiling of their goods and + martyrdom. + + To them then we willingly and affectionately relinquish their high + privileges and honours; we encroach not upon the rights of the + SUCCESSORS OF THE APOSTLES; we touch not their sword and crozier. Yet + surely we may be their shield-bearers in the battle without offence; + and by our voice and deeds be to them what Luke and Timothy were to + St. Paul. + + Now then let me come at once to the subject which leads me to address + you. Should the Government and the Country so far forget their God as + to cast off the Church, to deprive it of its temporal honours and + substance, _on what_ will you rest the claim of respect and attention + which you make upon your flocks? Hitherto you have been upheld by your + birth, your education, your wealth, your connexions; should these + secular advantages cease, on what must Christ's Ministers depend? Is + not this a serious practical question? We know how miserable is the + state of religious bodies not supported by the State. Look at the + Dissenters on all sides of you, and you will see at once that their + Ministers, depending simply upon the people, become the _creatures_ of + the people. Are you content that this should be your case? Alas! can a + greater evil befall Christians, than for their teachers to be guided + by them, instead of guiding? How can we "hold fast the form of sound + words," and "keep that which is committed to our trust," if our + influence is to depend simply on our popularity? Is it not our very + office to _oppose_ the world? Can we then allow ourselves to _court_ + it? to preach smooth things and prophesy deceits? to make the way of + life easy to the rich and indolent, and to bribe the humbler classes + by excitements and strong intoxicating doctrine? Surely it must not be + so;--and the question recurs, _on what_ are we to rest our authority + when the State deserts us? + + Christ has not left His Church without claim of its own upon the + attention of men. Surely not. Hard Master He cannot be, to bid us + oppose the world, yet give us no credentials for so doing. There are + some who rest their divine mission on their own unsupported assertion; + others, who rest it upon their popularity; others, on their success; + and others, who rest it upon their temporal distinctions. This last + case has, perhaps, been too much our own; I fear we have neglected the + real ground on which our authority is built--OUR APOSTOLICAL DESCENT. + + We have been born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of + the will of man, but of God. The Lord Jesus Christ gave His Spirit to + His Apostles; they in turn laid their hands on those who should + succeed them; and these again on others; and so the sacred gift has + been handed down to our present bishops, who have appointed us as + their assistants, and in some sense representatives. + + Now every one of us believes this. I know that some will at first deny + they do; still they do believe it. Only, it is not sufficiently, + practically impressed on their minds. + + They _do_ believe it; for it _is_ the doctrine of the Ordination + Service, which they have recognised as truth in the most solemn season + of their lives. In order, then, not to prove, but to remind and + impress, I entreat your attention to the words used when you were made + ministers of Christ's Church. + + The office of Deacon was thus committed to you: "Take thou authority + to execute the office of a Deacon in the Church of God committed unto + thee: In the name, etc." + + And the Priesthood thus: + + "Receive the Holy Ghost, for the office and work of a Priest, in the + Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands. + Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou + dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a faithful dispenser of + the Word of God, and of His Holy Sacraments: In the name, etc." + + These, I say, were words spoken to us, and received by us, when we + were brought nearer to God than at any other time of our lives. I know + the grace of ordination is contained in the laying on of hands, not in + any form of words;--yet in our own case (as has ever been usual in the + Church) words of blessing have accompanied the act. Thus we have + confessed before God our belief that the bishop who ordained us gave + us the Holy Ghost, gave us the power to bind and to loose, to + administer the Sacraments, and to preach. Now _how_ is he able to give + these great gifts? _Whence_ is his right? Are these words idle (which + would be taking God's name in vain), or do they express merely a wish + (which surely is very far below their meaning), or do they not rather + indicate that the speaker is conveying a gift? Surely they can mean + nothing short of this. But whence, I ask, his right to do so? Has he + any right, except as having received the power from those who + consecrated him to be a bishop? He could not give what he had never + received. It is plain then that he but _transmits_; and that the + Christian Ministry is a _succession_. And if we trace back the power + of ordination from hand to hand, of course we shall come to the + Apostles at last. We know we do, as a plain historical fact; and + therefore all we, who have been ordained clergy, in the very form of + our ordination acknowledged the doctrine of the APOSTOLICAL + SUCCESSION. + + And for the same reason, we must necessarily consider none to be + _really_ ordained who have not _thus_ been ordained. For if ordination + is a divine ordinance, it must be necessary; and if it is not a divine + ordinance, how dare we use it? Therefore all who use it, all of _us_, + must consider it necessary. As well might we pretend the Sacraments + are not necessary to salvation, while we make use of the offices in + the Liturgy; for when God appoints means of grace, they are _the_ + means. + + I do not see how any one can escape from this plain view of the + subject, except (as I have already hinted) by declaring that the words + do not mean all that they say. But only reflect what a most unseemly + time for random words is that in which ministers are set apart for + their office. Do we not adopt a Liturgy _in order to_ hinder + inconsiderate idle language, and shall we, in the most sacred of all + services, write down, subscribe, and use again and again forms of + speech which have not been weighed, and cannot be taken strictly? + + Therefore, my dear brethren, act up to your professions. Let it not + be said that you have neglected a gift; for if you have the Spirit of + the Apostles on you, surely this _is_ a great gift. "Stir up the gift + of God which is in you." Make much of it. Show your value of it. Keep + it before your minds as an honourable badge, far higher than that + secular respectability, or cultivation, or polish, or learning, or + rank, which gives you a hearing with the many. Tell _them_ of your + gift. The times will soon drive you to do this, if you mean to be + still anything. But wait not for the times. Do not be compelled, by + the world's forsaking you, to recur as if unwillingly to the high + source of your authority. Speak out now, before you are forced, both + as glorying in your privilege and to insure your rightful honour from + your people. A notion has gone abroad that they can take away your + power. They think they have given and can take it away. They think it + lies in the Church property, and they know that they have politically + the power to confiscate that property. They have been deluded into a + notion that present palpable usefulness, producible results, + acceptableness to your flocks, that these and such like are the tests + of your divine commission. Enlighten them in this matter. Exalt our + Holy Fathers the bishops, as the representatives of the Apostles, and + the Angels of the Churches; and magnify your office, as being ordained + by them to take part in their Ministry. + + But, if you will not adopt my view of the subject, which I offer to + you, not doubtingly, yet (I hope) respectfully, at all events, CHOOSE + YOUR SIDE. To remain neuter much longer will be itself to take a part. + _Choose_ your side; since side you shortly must, with one or other + party, even though you do nothing. Fear to be of those whose line is + decided for them by chance circumstances, and who may perchance find + themselves with the enemies of Christ, while they think but to remove + themselves from worldly politics. Such abstinence is impossible in + troublous times. HE THAT IS NOT WITH ME IS AGAINST ME, AND HE THAT + GATHERETH NOT WITH ME SCATTERETH ABROAD. + +While Mr. Palmer was working at the Association and the Address, Mr. +Newman with his friends was sending forth the Tracts, one after another, +in rapid succession, through the autumn and winter of 1833. They were +short papers, in many cases mere short notes, on the great questions +which had suddenly sprung into such interest, and were felt to be full +of momentous consequence,--the true and essential nature of the +Christian Church, its relation to the primitive ages, its authority and +its polity and government, the current objections to its claims in +England, to its doctrines and its services, the length of the prayers, +the Burial Service, the proposed alterations in the Liturgy, the neglect +of discipline, the sins and corruptions of each branch of Christendom. +The same topics were enforced and illustrated again and again as the +series went on; and then there came extracts from English divines, like +Bishop Beveridge, Bishop Wilson, and Bishop Cosin, and under the title +"Records of the Church," translations from the early Fathers, Ignatius, +Justin, Irenaeus, and others. Mr. Palmer contributed to one of these +papers, and later on Mr. Perceval wrote two or three; but for the most +part these early Tracts were written by Mr. Newman, though Mr. Keble and +one or two others also helped. Afterwards, other writers joined in the +series. They were at first not only published with a notice that any one +might republish them with any alterations he pleased, but they were +distributed by zealous coadjutors, ready to take any trouble in the +cause. Mr. Mozley has described how he rode about Northamptonshire, +from parsonage to parsonage, with bundles of the Tracts. The _Apologia_ +records the same story. "I called upon clergy," says the writer, "in +various parts of the country, whether I was acquainted with them or not, +and I attended at the houses of friends where several of them were from +time to time assembled.... I did not care whether my visits were made to +High Church or Low Church: I wished to make a strong pull in union with +all who were opposed to the principles of Liberalism, whoever they might +be." He adds that he does not think that much came of these visits, or +of letters written with the same purpose, "except that they advertised +the fact that a rally in favour of the Church was commencing." + +The early Tracts were intended to startle the world, and they succeeded +in doing so. Their very form, as short earnest leaflets, was perplexing; +for they came, not from the class of religionists who usually deal in +such productions, but from distinguished University scholars, picked men +of a picked college; and from men, too, who as a school were the +representatives of soberness and self-control in religious feeling and +language, and whose usual style of writing was specially marked by its +severe avoidance of excitement and novelty; the school from which had +lately come the _Christian Year_, with its memorable motto "_In +quietness and confidence shall be your strength_." Their matter was +equally unusual. Undoubtedly they "brought strange things to the ears" +of their generation. To Churchmen now these "strange things" are such +familiar commonplaces, that it is hard to realise how they should have +made so much stir. But they were novelties, partly audacious, partly +unintelligible, then. The strong and peremptory language of the Tracts, +their absence of qualifications or explanations, frightened friends like +Mr. Palmer, who, so far, had no ground to quarrel with their doctrine, +and he wished them to be discontinued. The story went that one of the +bishops, on reading one of the Tracts on the Apostolical Succession, +could not make up his mind whether he held the doctrine or not. They +fell on a time of profound and inexcusable ignorance on the subjects +they discussed, and they did not spare it. The cry of Romanism was +inevitable, and was soon raised, though there was absolutely nothing in +them but had the indisputable sanction of the Prayer Book, and of the +most authoritative Anglican divines. There was no Romanism in them, nor +anything that showed a tendency to it. But custom, and the prevalence of +other systems and ways, and the interest of later speculations, and the +slackening of professional reading and scholarship in the Church, had +made their readers forget some of the most obvious facts in Church +history, and the most certain Church principles; and men were at sea as +to what they knew or believed on the points on which the Tracts +challenged them. The scare was not creditable; it was like the Italian +scare about cholera with its quarantines and fumigations; but it was +natural. The theological knowledge and learning were wanting which would +have been familiar with the broad line of difference between what is +Catholic and what is specially Roman. There were many whose teaching was +impugned, for it was really Calvinist or Zwinglian, and not Anglican. +There were hopeful and ambitious theological Liberals, who recognised in +that appeal to Anglicanism the most effective counter-stroke to their +own schemes and theories. There were many whom the movement forced to +think, who did not want such addition to their responsibilities. It +cannot be thought surprising that the new Tracts were received with +surprise, dismay, ridicule, and indignation. But they also at once +called forth a response of eager sympathy from numbers to whom they +brought unhoped-for relief and light in a day of gloom, of rebuke and +blasphemy. Mr. Keble, in the preface to his famous assize sermon, had +hazarded the belief that there were "hundreds, nay, thousands of +Christians, and that there soon will be tens of thousands, unaffectedly +anxious to be rightly guided" in regard to subjects that concern the +Church. The belief was soon justified. + +When the first forty-six Tracts were collected into a volume towards the +end of 1834, the following "advertisement" explaining their nature and +objects was prefixed to it. It is a contemporary and authoritative +account of what was the mind of the leaders of the movement; and it has +a significance beyond the occasion which prompted it. + + The following-Tracts were published with the object of + contributing-something towards the practical revival of doctrines, + which, although held by the great divines of our Church, at present + have become obsolete with the majority of her members, and are + withdrawn from public view even by the more learned and orthodox few + who still adhere to them. The Apostolic succession, the Holy Catholic + Church, were principles of action in the minds of our predecessors of + the seventeenth century; but, in proportion as the maintenance of the + Church has been secured by law, her ministers have been under the + temptation of leaning on an arm of flesh instead of her own + divinely-provided discipline, a temptation increased by political + events and arrangements which need not here be more than alluded to. A + lamentable increase of sectarianism has followed; being occasioned (in + addition to other more obvious causes), first, by the cold aspect + which the new Church doctrines have presented to the religious + sensibilities of the mind, next to their meagreness in suggesting + motives to restrain it from seeking out a more influential discipline. + Doubtless obedience to the law of the land, and the careful + maintenance of "decency and order" (the topics in usage among us), + are plain duties of the Gospel, and a reasonable ground for keeping in + communion with the Established Church; yet, if Providence has + graciously provided for our weakness more interesting and constraining + motives, it is a sin thanklessly to neglect them; just as it would be + a mistake to rest the duties of temperance or justice on the mere law + of natural religion, when they are mercifully sanctioned in the Gospel + by the more winning authority of our Saviour Christ. Experience has + shown the inefficacy of the mere injunctions of Church order, however + scripturally enforced, in restraining from schism the awakened and + anxious sinner; who goes to a dissenting preacher "because" (as he + expresses it) "he gets good from him": and though he does not stand + excused in God's sight for yielding to the temptation, surely the + ministers of the Church are not blameless if, by keeping back the more + gracious and consoling truths provided for the little ones of Christ, + they indirectly lead him into it. Had he been taught as a child, that + the Sacraments, not preaching, are the sources of Divine Grace; that + the Apostolical ministry had a virtue in it which went out over the + whole Church, when sought by the prayer of faith; that fellowship with + it was a gift and privilege, as well as a duty, we could not have had + so many wanderers from our fold, nor so many cold hearts within it. + + This instance may suggest many others of the superior _influence_ of + an apostolical over a mere secular method of teaching. The awakened + mind knows its wants, but cannot provide for them; and in its hunger + will feed upon ashes, if it cannot obtain the pure milk of the word. + Methodism and Popery are in different ways the refuge of those whom + the Church stints of the gifts of grace; they are the foster-mothers + of abandoned children. The neglect of the daily service, the + desecration of festivals, the Eucharist scantily administered, + insubordination permitted in all ranks of the Church, orders and + offices imperfectly developed, the want of societies for particular + religious objects, and the like deficiencies, lead the feverish mind, + desirous of a vent to its feelings, and a stricter rule of life, to + the smaller religious communities, to prayer and Bible meetings, and + ill-advised institutions and societies, on the one hand, on the other, + to the solemn and captivating services by which Popery gains its + proselytes. Moreover, the multitude of men cannot teach or guide + themselves; and an injunction given them to depend on their private + judgment, cruel in itself, is doubly hurtful, as throwing them on such + teachers as speak daringly and promise largely, and not only aid but + supersede individual exertion. + + These remarks may serve as a clue, for those who care to pursue it, to + the views which have led to the publication of the following Tracts. + The Church of Christ was intended to cope with human nature in all its + forms, and surely the gifts vouchsafed it are adequate for that + gracious purpose. There are zealous sons and servants of her English + branch, who see with sorrow that she is defrauded of her full + usefulness by particular theories and principles of the present age, + which interfere with the execution of one portion of her commission; + and while they consider that the revival of this portion of truth is + especially adapted to break up existing parties in the Church, and to + form instead a bond of union among all who love the Lord Jesus Christ + in sincerity, they believe that nothing but these neglected doctrines, + faithfully preached, will repress that extension of Popery, for which + the ever multiplying divisions of the religious world are too clearly + preparing the way. + +Another publication ought to be noticed, a result of the Hadleigh +meeting, which exhibited the leading ideas of the conference, and +especially of the more "conservative" members of it. This was a little +work in question and answer, called the "Churchman's Manual," drawn up +in part some time before the meeting by Mr. Perceval, and submitted to +the revision of Mr. Rose and Mr. Palmer. It was intended to be a +supplement to the "Church Catechism," as to the nature and claims of the +Church and its Ministers. It is a terse, clear, careful, and, as was +inevitable, rather dry summary of the Anglican theory, and of the +position which the English Church holds to the Roman Church, and to the +Dissenters. It was further revised at the conference, and "some +important suggestions were made by Froude"; and then Mr. Perceval, who +had great hopes from the publication, and spared himself no pains to +make it perfect, submitted it for revision and advice to a number of +representative Churchmen. The Scotch Bishops whom he consulted were warm +in approval, especially the venerable and saintly Bishop Jolly; as were +also a number of men of weight and authority in England: Judge Allan +Park, Joshua Watson, Mr. Sikes of Guilsborough, Mr. Churton of Crayke, +Mr. H.H. Norris, Dr. Wordsworth, and Dr. Routh. It was then laid before +the Archbishop for correction, or, if desirable, suppression; and for +his sanction if approved. The answer was what might have been expected, +that there was no objection to it, but that official sanction must be +declined on general grounds. After all this Mr. Perceval not unnaturally +claimed for it special importance. It was really, he observed, the +"first Tract," systematically put forth, and its preparation "apparently +gave rise" to the series; and it was the only one which received the +approval of all immediately concerned in the movement. "The care +bestowed on it," he says, "probably exceeds that which any theological +publication in the English communion received for a long time;" and +further, it shows "that the foundation of the movement with which Mr. +Rose was connected, was laid with all the care and circumspection that +reason could well suggest." It appears to have had a circulation, but +there is no reason to think that it had any considerable influence, one +way or other, on opinion in the Church. When it was referred to in +after-years by Mr. Perceval in his own vindication, it was almost +forgotten. More interesting, if not more important, Tracts had thrown it +into the shade. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[37] _Apol._ p. 100. + +[38] Palmer, _Narrative_, 1843 (republished 1883), pp. 5, 18. + +[39] Palmer (1883), pp. 40, 43, "June 1833, when he joined us at +Oxford." + +[40] See Palmer's account (1883), pp. 45-47, and (1843), pp. 6,7. + +[41] "Mr. Rose ... was the one commanding figure and very lovable man, +that the frightened and discomfited Church people were now rallying +round. Few people have left so distinct an impression of themselves as +this gentleman. For many years after, when he was no more, and Newman +had left Rose's standpoint far behind, he could never speak of him or +think of him without renewed tenderness" (Mr. T. Mozley, +_Reminiscences_, i. 308). + +In November 1838, shortly before Mr. Rose's death, Mr. Newman had +dedicated a volume of sermons to him--"who, when hearts were failing, +bade us stir up the gift that was in us, and betake ourselves to our +true mother" (_Parochial Sermons_, vol. iv.) + +[42] _Narrative of Events connected with the publication of Tracts for +the Times_, by W. Palmer (published 1843, republished 1883), pp. 96-100 +(abridged). + +[43] _Collection of Papers connected with the Theological Movement of_ +1833, by A.P. Perceval (1842), p. 25. + +[44] Palmer's _Narrative_ (1833), p. 101 + +[45] _Collection of Papers_, p. 12. + +[46] "That portentous birth of time, the _Tracts for the +Times._"--Mozley, _Remin_, i. 311. + +[47] Froude, _Remains_, i. 265. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE TRACTARIANS + + +Thus had been started--hurriedly perhaps, yet not without counting the +cost--a great enterprise, which had for its object to rouse the Church +from its lethargy, and to strengthen and purify religion, by making it +deeper and more real; and they who had put their hands to the plough +were not to look back any more. It was not a popular appeal; it +addressed itself not to the many but to the few; it sought to inspire +and to teach the teachers. There was no thought as yet of acting on the +middle classes, or on the ignorance and wretchedness of the great towns, +though Newman had laid down that the Church must rest on the people, and +Froude looked forward to colleges of unmarried priests as the true way +to evangelise the crowds. There was no display about this attempt, no +eloquence, nothing attractive in the way of original speculation or +sentimental interest. It was suspicious, perhaps too suspicious, of the +excitement and want of soberness, almost inevitable in strong appeals to +the masses of mankind. It brought no new doctrine, but professed to go +back to what was obvious and old-fashioned and commonplace. It taught +people to think less of preaching than of what in an age of excitement +were invidiously called forms--of the sacraments and services of the +Church. It discouraged, even to the verge of an intended dryness, all +that was showy, all that in thought or expression or manner it condemned +under the name of "flash." It laid stress on the exercise of an inner +and unseen self-discipline, and the cultivation of the less interesting +virtues of industry, humility, self-distrust, and obedience. If from its +writers proceeded works which had impressed people--a volume like the +_Christian Year_, poems original in their force and their tenderness, +like some of those in the _Lyra Apostolica_, sermons which arrested the +hearers by their keenness and pathetic undertone--the force of all this +was not the result of literary ambition and effort, but the reflexion, +unconscious, unsought, of thought and feeling that could not otherwise +express itself, and that was thrown into moulds shaped by habitual +refinement and cultivated taste. It was from the first a movement from +which, as much by instinct and temper as by deliberate intention, +self-seeking in all its forms was excluded. Those whom it influenced +looked not for great things for themselves, nor thought of making a mark +in the world. + +The first year after the Hadleigh meeting (1834) passed uneventfully. +The various addresses in which Mr. Palmer was interested, the election +and installation of the Duke of Wellington as Chancellor, the enthusiasm +and hopes called forth by the occasion, were public and prominent +matters. The Tracts were steadily swelling in number; the busy +distribution of them had ceased, and they had begun to excite interest +and give rise to questions. Mr. Palmer, who had never liked the Tracts, +became more uneasy; yet he did not altogether refuse to contribute to +them. Others gave their help, among them Mr. Perceval, Froude, the two +Kebles, and Mr. Newman's friend, a layman, Mr. J. Bowden; some of the +younger scholars furnished translations from the Fathers; but the bulk +and most forcible of the Tracts were still the work of Mr. Newman. But +the Tracts were not the most powerful instruments in drawing sympathy to +the movement. None but those who remember them can adequately estimate +the effect of Mr. Newman's four o'clock sermons at St. Mary's.[48] The +world knows them, has heard a great deal about them, has passed its +various judgments on them. But it hardly realises that without those +sermons the movement might never have gone on, certainly would never +have been what it was. Even people who heard them continually, and felt +them to be different from any other sermons, hardly estimated their real +power, or knew at the time the influence which the sermons were having +upon them. Plain, direct, unornamented, clothed in English that was only +pure and lucid, free from any faults of taste, strong in their +flexibility and perfect command both of language and thought, they were +the expression of a piercing and large insight into character and +conscience and motives, of a sympathy at once most tender and most stern +with the tempted and the wavering, of an absolute and burning faith in +God and His counsels, in His love, in His judgments, in the awful glory +of His generosity and His magnificence. They made men think of the +things which the preacher spoke of, and not of the sermon or the +preacher. Since 1828 this preaching had been going on at St. Mary's, +growing in purpose and directness as the years went on, though it could +hardly be more intense than in some of its earliest examples. While men +were reading and talking about the Tracts, they were hearing the +sermons; and in the sermons they heard the living meaning, and reason, +and bearing of the Tracts, their ethical affinities, their moral +standard. The sermons created a moral atmosphere, in which men judged +the questions in debate. It was no dry theological correctness and +completeness which were sought for. No love of privilege, no formal +hierarchical claims, urged on the writers. What they thought in danger, +what they aspired to revive and save, was the very life of religion, the +truth and substance of all that makes it the hope of human society. + +But indeed, by this time, out of the little company of friends which a +common danger and a common loyalty to the Church had brought together, +one Mr. Newman, had drawn ahead, and was now in the front. Unsought +for, as the _Apologia_ makes so clear--unsought for, as the contemporary +letters of observing friends attest--unsought for, as the whole tenor of +his life has proved--the position of leader in a great crisis came to +him, because it must come. He was not unconscious that, as he had felt +in his sickness in Sicily, he "had a work to do." But there was shyness +and self-distrust in his nature as well as energy; and it was the force +of genius, and a lofty character, and the statesman's eye, taking in and +judging accurately the whole of a complicated scene, which conferred the +gifts, and imposed inevitably and without dispute the obligations and +responsibilities of leadership. Dr. Pusey of course was a friend of +great account, but he was as yet in the background, a venerated and +rather awful person, from his position not mixing in the easy +intercourse of common-room life, but to be consulted on emergencies. +Round Mr. Newman gathered, with a curious mixture of freedom, devotion, +and awe--for, with unlimited power of sympathy, he was exacting and even +austere in his friendships--the best men of his college, either +Fellows--R. Wilberforce, Thomas Mozley, Frederic Rogers, J.F. Christie; +or old pupils--Henry Wilberforce, R.F. Wilson, William Froude, Robert +Williams, S.F. Wood, James Bliss, James Mozley; and in addition some +outsiders--Woodgate of St. John's, Isaac Williams and Copeland, of his +old College, Trinity. These, members of his intimate circle, were bound +to him not merely by enthusiastic admiration and confidence, but by a +tenderness of affection, a mixture of the gratitude and reliance of +discipleship with the warm love of friendship, of which one has to go +back far for examples, and which has had nothing like it in our days at +Oxford. And Newman was making his mark as a writer. The _Arians_, though +an imperfect book, was one which, for originality and subtlety of +thought, was something very unlike the usual theological writing of the +day. There was no doubt of his power, and his mind was brimming over +with ideas on the great questions which were rising into view. It was +clear to all who know him that he could speak on them as no one else +could. + +Towards the end of 1834, and in the course of 1835, an event happened +which had a great and decisive influence on the character and fortunes +of the movement. This was the accession to it of Dr. Pusey. He had +looked favourably on it from the first, partly from his friendship with +Mr. Newman, partly from the workings of his own mind. But he had nothing +to do with the starting of it, except that he early contributed an +elaborate paper on "Fasting." The Oxford branch of the movement, as +distinguished from that which Mr. Palmer represented, consisted up to +1834 almost exclusively of junior men, personal friends of Mr. Newman, +and most of them Oriel men. Mr. Newman's deep convictions, his fiery +enthusiasm, had given the Tracts their first stamp and impress, and had +sent them flying over the country among the clergy on his own +responsibility. They answered their purpose. They led to widespread and +sometimes deep searchings of heart; to some they seemed to speak forth +what had been long dormant within them, what their minds had +unconsciously and vaguely thought and longed for; to some they seemed a +challenge pregnant with danger. But still they were but an outburst of +individual feeling and zeal, which, if nothing more came of its +fragmentary displays, might blaze and come to nothing. There was +nothing yet which spoke outwardly of the consistency and weight of a +serious attempt to influence opinion and to produce a practical and +lasting effect on the generation which was passing. Cardinal Newman, in +the _Apologia_, has attributed to Dr. Pusey's unreserved adhesion to the +cause which the Tracts represented a great change in regard to the +weight and completeness of what was written and done. "Dr. Pusey," he +writes, "gave us at once a position and a name. Without him we should +have had no chance, especially at the early date of 1834, of making any +serious resistance to the liberal aggression. But Dr. Pusey was a +Professor and Canon of Christ Church; he had a vast influence in +consequence of his deep religious seriousness, the munificence of his +charities, his Professorship, his family connexions, and his easy +relations with the University authorities. He was to the movement all +that Mr. Rose might have been, with that indispensable addition, which +was wanting to Mr. Rose, the intimate friendship and the familiar daily +society of the persons who had commenced it. And he had that special +claim on their attachment which lies in the living presence of a +faithful and loyal affectionateness. There was henceforth a man who +could be the head and centre of the zealous people in every part of the +country who were adopting the new opinions; and not only so, but there +was one who furnished the movement with a front to the world, and gained +for it a recognition from other parties in the University."[49] + +This is not too much to say of the effect of Dr. Pusey's adhesion. It +gave the movement a second head, in close sympathy with its original +leader, but in many ways very different from him. Dr. Pusey became, as +it were, its official chief in the eyes of the world. He became also, in +a remarkable degree, a guarantee for its stability and steadiness: a +guarantee that its chiefs knew what they were about, and meant nothing +but what was for the benefit of the English Church. "He was," we read in +the _Apologia_, "a man of large designs; he had a hopeful, sanguine +mind; he had no fear of others; he was haunted by no intellectual +perplexities.... If confidence in his position is (as it is) a first +essential in the leader of a party, Dr. Pusey had it." An inflexible +patience, a serene composure, a meek, resolute self-possession, was the +habit of his mind, and never deserted him in the most trying days. He +never for an instant, as the paragraph witnesses, wavered or doubted +about the position of the English Church. + +He was eminently, as his friend justly observes, "a man of large +designs." It is doubtless true, as the _Apologia_ goes on to say, that +it was due to the place which he now took in the movement that great +changes were made in the form and character of the Tracts. To Dr. +Pusey's mind, accustomed to large and exhaustive theological reading, +they wanted fulness, completeness, the importance given by careful +arrangement and abundant knowledge. It was not for nothing that he had +passed an apprenticeship among the divines of Germany, and been the +friend and correspondent of Tholuck, Schleiermacher, Ewald, and Sack. He +knew the meaning of real learning. In controversy it was his +sledge-hammer and battle-mace, and he had the strong and sinewy hand to +use it with effect. He observed that when attention had been roused to +the ancient doctrines of the Church by the startling and peremptory +language of the earlier Tracts, fairness and justice demanded that these +doctrines should be fully and carefully explained and defended against +misrepresentation and mistake. Forgetfulness and ignorance had thrown +these doctrines so completely into the shade that, identified as they +were with the best English divinity, they now wore the air of amazing +novelties; and it was only due to honest inquirers to satisfy them with +solid and adequate proof. "Dr. Pusey's influence was felt at once. He +saw that there ought to be more sobriety, more gravity, more careful +pains, more sense of responsibility in the Tracts and in the whole +movement." At the end of 1835 Dr. Pusey gave an example of what he +meant. In place of the "short and incomplete papers," such as the +earlier Tracts had been, Nos. 67, 68, and 69 formed the three parts of a +closely-printed pamphlet of more than 300 pages.[50] It was a treatise +on Baptism, perhaps the most elaborate that has yet appeared in the +English language. "It is to be regarded," says the advertisement to the +second volume of the Tracts, "not as an inquiry into a single or +isolated doctrine, but as a delineation and serious examination of a +modern system of theology, of extensive popularity and great +speciousness, in its elementary and characteristic principles." The +Tract on Baptism was like the advance of a battery of heavy artillery on +a field where the battle has been hitherto carried on by skirmishing and +musketry. It altered the look of things and the condition of the +fighting. After No. 67 the earlier form of the Tracts appeared no more. +Except two or three reprints from writers like Bishop Wilson, the Tracts +from No. 70 to No. 90 were either grave and carefully worked out essays +on some question arising out of the discussions of the time, or else +those ponderous _catenae_ of patristic or Anglican divinity, by which +the historical continuity and Church authority of various points of +doctrine were established. + +Dr. Pusey was indeed a man of "large designs." The vision rose before +him of a revived and instructed Church, earnest in purpose and strict in +life, and of a great Christian University roused and quickened to a +sense of its powers and responsibilities. He thought of the enormous +advantages offered by its magnificent foundations for serious study and +the production of works for which time and deep learning and continuous +labour were essential. Such works, in the hands of single-minded +students, living lives of simplicity and hard toil, had in the case of +the Portroyalists, the Oratorians, and above all, the Benedictines of +St. Maur, splendidly redeemed the Church of France, in otherwise evil +days, from the reproach of idleness and self-indulgence. He found under +his hand men who had in them something of the making of students; and he +hoped to see college fellowships filled more and more by such men, and +the life of a college fellow more and more recognised as that of a man +to whom learning, and especially sacred learning, was his call and +sufficient object, as pastoral or educational work might be the call of +others. Where fellowships were not to be had, he encouraged such men to +stay up in Oxford; he took them into his own house; later, he tried a +kind of hall to receive them. And by way of beginning at once, and +giving them something to do, he planned on a large scale a series of +translations and also editions of the Fathers. It was announced, with an +elaborate prospectus, in 1836, under the title, in conformity with the +usage of the time, which had _Libraries of Useful Knowledge, etc._, of a +_Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church anterior to the Division +of the East and West_, under the editorship of Dr. Pusey, Mr. Keble, +and Mr. Newman. It was dedicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and +had a considerable number of Bishops among its subscribers. Down to a +very late date, the _Library of the Fathers_, in which Charles Marriott +came to take a leading part, was a matter of much concern to Dr. Pusey. +And to bring men together, and to interest them in theological subjects, +he had evening meetings at his own house, where papers were read and +discussed. "Some persons," writes a gossiping chronicler of the +time,[51] "thought that these meetings were liable to the statute, _De +conventiculis illicitis reprimendis_." Some important papers were the +result of these meetings; but the meetings themselves were irresistibly +sleepy, and in time they were discontinued. But indefatigable and +powerful in all these beginnings Dr. Pusey stirred men to activity and +saw great ground of hope. He was prepared for opposition, but he had +boundless reliance on his friends and his cause. His forecast of the +future, of great days in store for the Church of England, was, not +unreasonably, one of great promise. Ten years might work wonders. The +last fear that occurred to him was that within ten years a hopeless +rift, not of affection but of conviction, would have run through that +company of friends, and parted irrevocably their course and work in +life. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[48] The subjoined extracts record the impression made by Mr. Newman's +preaching on contemporaries well qualified to judge, and standing +respectively in very different relations to the movement. This is the +judgment of a very close observer, and very independent critic, James +Mozley. In an article in the _Christian Remembrancer_, January 1846 (p. +169), after speaking of the obvious reasons of Mr. Newman's +influence, he proceeds:-- + + We inquire further, and we find that this influence has been of a + peculiarly ethical and inward kind; that it has touched the deepest + part of our minds, and that the great work on which it has been + founded is a practical, religious one--his Sermons. We speak not from + our own fixed impression, however deeply felt, but from what we have + heard and observed everywhere, from the natural, incidental, + unconscious remarks dropped from persons' mouths, and evidently + showing what they thought and felt. For ourselves, we must say, one of + Mr. Newman's sermons is to us a marvellous production. It has perfect + power, and perfect nature; but the latter it is which makes it so + great. A sermon of Mr. Newman's enters into all our feelings, ideas, + modes of viewing things. He wonderfully realises a state of mind, + enters into a difficulty, a temptation, a disappointment, a grief; he + goes into the different turns and incidental, unconscious symptoms of + a case, with notions which come into the head and go out again, and + are forgotten, till some chance recalls them.... To take the first + instance that happens to occur to us ... we have often been struck by + the keen way in which he enters into a regular tradesman's + vice--avarice, fortune-getting, amassing capital, and so on. This is + not a temper to which we can imagine Mr. Newman ever having felt in + his own mind even the temptation; but he understands it, and the + temptation to it, as perfectly as any merchant could. No man of + business could express it more naturally, more pungently, more _ex + animo_.... So with the view that worldly men take of religion, in a + certain sense, he quite enters into it, and the world's point of view: + he sees, with a regular worldly man's eye, religion vanishing into + nothing, and becoming an unreality, while the visible system of life + and facts, politics and society, gets more and more solid and grows + upon him. The whole influence of the world on the imagination; the + weight of example; the force of repetition; the way in which maxims, + rules, sentiments, by being simply sounded in the ear from day to day, + seem to prove themselves, and make themselves believed by being often + heard,--every part of the easy, natural, passive process by which a + man becomes a man of the world is entered into, as if the preacher + were going to justify or excuse him, rather than condemn him. Nay, he + enters deeply into what even scepticism has to say for itself; he puts + himself into the infidel's state of mind, in which the world, as a + great fact, seems to give the lie to all religions, converting them + into phenomena which counterbalance and negative each other, and he + goes down into that lowest abyss and bottom of things, at which the + intellect undercuts spiritual truth altogether. He enters into the + ordinary common states of mind just in the same way. He is most + consoling, most sympathetic. He sets before persons their own feelings + with such truth of detail, such natural expressive touches, that they + seem not to be ordinary states of mind which everybody has, but very + peculiar ones; for he and the reader seem to be the only two persons + in the world that have them in common. Here is the point. Persons look + into Mr. Newman's sermons and see their own thoughts in them. This is, + after all, what as much as anything gives a book hold upon minds.... + Wonderful pathetic power, that can so intimately, so subtilely and + kindly, deal with the soul!--and wonderful soul that can be so dealt + with. + +Compare with this the judgment pronounced by one of quite a different +school, the late Principal Shairp:-- + + Both Dr. Pusey and Mr. Keble at that time were quite second in + importance to Mr. Newman. The centre from which his power went forth + was the pulpit of St. Mary's, with those wonderful afternoon sermons. + Sunday after Sunday, year by year, they went on, each continuing and + deepening the impression produced by the last. As the hour interfered + with the dinner-hour of the Colleges, most men preferred a warm dinner + without Newman's sermon to a cold one with it; so the audience was not + crowded--the large church little more than half filled. The service + was very simple, no pomp, no ritualism; for it was characteristic of + the leading men of the movement that they left these things to the + weaker brethren. Their thoughts, at all events, were set on great + questions which touched the heart of unseen things. About the service, + the most remarkable thing was the beauty, the silver intonation of Mr. + Newman's voice as he read the lessons.... When he began to preach, a + stranger was not likely to be much struck. Here was no vehemence, no + declamation, no show of elaborated argument, so that one who came + prepared to hear "a great intellectual effort" was almost sure to go + away disappointed. Indeed, we believe that if he had preached one of + his St. Mary's sermons before a Scotch town congregation, they would + have thought the preacher a "silly body".... Those who never heard him + might fancy that his sermons would generally be about apostolical + succession, or rights of the Church, or against Dissenters. Nothing of + the kind. You might hear him preach for weeks without an allusion to + these things. What there was of High Church teaching was implied + rather than enforced. The local, the temporary, and the modern were + ennobled by the presence of the Catholic truth belonging to all ages + that pervaded the whole. His power showed itself chiefly in the new + and unlooked-for way in which he touched into life old truths, moral + or spiritual, which all Christians acknowledge, but most have ceased + to feel--when he spoke of "unreal words," of the "individuality of the + soul," of the "invisible world," of a "particular Providence," or + again, of the "ventures of faith," "warfare the condition of victory," + "the Cross of Christ the measure of the world," "the Church a Home for + the lonely." As he spoke, how the old truth became new; how it came + home with a meaning never felt before! He laid his finger how gently, + yet how powerfully, on some inner place in the hearer's heart, and + told him things about himself he had never known till then. Subtlest + truths, which it would have taken philosophers pages of circumlocution + and big words to state, were dropt out by the way in a sentence or two + of the most transparent Saxon. What delicacy of style, yet what + strength! how simple, yet how suggestive! how homely, yet how refined! + how penetrating, yet how tender-hearted! If now and then there was a + forlorn undertone which at the time seemed inexplicable, you might be + perplexed at the drift of what he said, but you felt all the more + drawn to the speaker. ... After hearing these sermons you might come + away still not believing the tenets peculiar to the High Church + system; but you would be harder than most men, if you did not feel + more than ever ashamed of coarseness, selfishness, worldliness, if you + did not feel the things of faith brought closer to the soul.--_John + Keble,_ by J. C. Shairp, Professor of Humanity, St. Andrews (1866), + pp. 12-17. + +I venture to add the judgment of another contemporary, on the effect of +this preaching, from the _Reminiscences_ of Sir F. Doyle, p. 145:-- + + That great man's extraordinary genius drew all those within his + sphere, like a magnet, to attach themselves to him and his doctrines. + Nay, before he became a Romanist, what we may call his mesmeric + influence acted not only on his Tractarian adherents, but even in some + degree on outsiders like myself. Whenever I was at Oxford, I used to + go regularly on Sunday afternoons to listen to his sermon at St. + Mary's, and I have never heard such preaching since. I do not know + whether it is a mere fancy of mine, or whether those who know him + better will accept and endorse my belief, that one element of his + wonderful power showed itself after this fashion. He always began as + if he had determined to set forth his idea of the truth in the + plainest and simplest language--language, as men say, "intelligible to + the meanest understanding." But his ardent zeal and fine poetical + imagination were not thus to be controlled. As I hung upon his words, + it seemed to me as if I could trace behind his will, and pressing, so + to speak, against it, a rush of thoughts, of feelings which he kept + struggling to hold back, but in the end they were generally too strong + for him, and poured themselves out in a torrent of eloquence all the + more impetuous from having been so long repressed. The effect of these + outbursts was irresistible, and carried his hearers beyond themselves + at once. Even when his efforts of self-restraint were more successful, + those very efforts gave a life and colour to his style which riveted + the attention of all within the reach of his voice. Mr. Justin + McCarthy, in his _History of Our Own Times_, says of him: "In all the + arts that make a great preacher or orator, Cardinal Newman was + deficient. His manner was constrained and ungraceful, and even + awkward; his voice was thin and weak, his bearing was not at first + impressive in any way--a gaunt emaciated figure, a sharp eagle face, + and a cold meditative eye, rather repelled than attracted those who + saw him for the first time." I do not think Mr. McCarthy's phrases + very happily chosen to convey his meaning. Surely a gaunt emaciated + frame and a sharp eagle face are the very characteristics which we + should picture to ourselves as belonging to Peter the Hermit, or + Scott's Ephraim Macbriar in _Old Mortality_. However unimpressive the + look of an eagle may be in Mr. McCarthy's opinion, I do not agree with + him about Dr. Newman. + + When I knew him at Oxford, these somewhat disparaging remarks would + not have been applicable. His manner, it is true, may have been + self-repressed, constrained it was not. His bearing was neither + awkward nor ungraceful; it was simply quiet and calm, because under + strict control; but beneath that calmness, intense feeling, I think, + was obvious to those who had any instinct of sympathy with him. But if + Mr. McCarthy's acquaintance with him only began when he took office in + an Irish Catholic university, I can quite understand that (flexibility + not being one of his special gifts) he may have failed now and again + to bring himself into perfect harmony with an Irish audience. He was + probably too much of a typical Englishman for his place; nevertheless + Mr. McCarthy, though he does not seem to have admired him in the + pulpit, is fully sensible of his intellectual powers and general + eminence. + + Dr. Pusey, who used every now and then to take Newman's duties at St. + Mary's, was to me a much less interesting person. [A learned man, no + doubt, but dull and tedious as a preacher.] Certainly, in spite of the + name Puseyism having been given to the Oxford attempt at a new + Catholic departure, he was not the Columbus of that voyage of + discovery undertaken to find a safer haven for the Church of England. + I may, however, be more or less unjust to him, as I owe him a sort of + grudge. His discourses were not only less attractive than those of Dr. + Newman, but always much longer, and the result of this was that the + learned Canon of Christ Church generally made me late for dinner at my + College, a calamity never inflicted on his All Souls' hearers by the + terser and swifter fellow of Oriel whom he was replacing. + + +[49] _Apologia_, p 136. + +[50] It swelled in the second edition to 400 pages [in spite of the fact +that in that edition the historical range of the treatise was greatly +reduced]. + +[51] _Recollections of Oxford_, by G.V. Cox, p. 278. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SUBSCRIPTION AT MATRICULATION AND ADMISSION OF DISSENTERS + + +"Depend upon it," an earnest High Churchman of the Joshua Watson type +had said to one of Mr. Newman's friends, who was a link between the old +Churchmanship and the new--"depend upon it, the day will come when those +great doctrines" connected with the Church, "now buried, will be brought +out to the light of the day, and then the effect will be quite +fearful."[52] With the publication of the _Tracts for the Times_, and +the excitement caused by them, the day had come. + +Their unflinching and severe proclamation of Church principles and +Church doctrines coincided with a state of feeling and opinion in the +country, in which two very different tendencies might be observed. They +fell on the public mind just when one of these tendencies would help +them, and the other be fiercely hostile. On the one hand, the issue of +the political controversy with the Roman Catholics, their triumph all +along the line, and the now scarcely disguised contempt shown by their +political representatives for the pledges and explanations on which +their relief was supposed to have been conceded, had left the public +mind sore, angry, and suspicious. Orthodox and Evangelicals were alike +alarmed and indignant; and the Evangelicals, always doctrinally jealous +of Popery, and of anything "unsound" in that direction, had been roused +to increased irritation by the proceedings of the Reformation Society, +which had made it its business to hold meetings and discussions all over +the country, where fervid and sometimes eloquent and able Irishmen, like +Mr. E. Tottenham, afterwards of Laura Chapel, Bath, had argued and +declaimed, with Roman text-books in hand, on such questions as the Right +of Private Judgment, the Rule of Faith, and the articles of the +Tridentine Creed--not always with the effect which they intended on +those who heard them, with whom their arguments, and those which they +elicited from their opponents, sometimes left behind uncomfortable +misgivings, and questions even more serious than the controversy itself. +On the other hand, in quarters quite unconnected with the recognised +religious schools, interest had been independently and strongly awakened +in the minds of theologians and philosophical thinkers, in regard to the +idea, history, and relations to society of the Christian Church. In +Ireland, a recluse, who was the centre of a small knot of earnest +friends, a man of deep piety and great freedom and originality of mind, +Mr. Alexander Knox, had been led, partly, it may be, by his intimacy +with John Wesley, to think out for himself the character and true +constitution of the Church, and the nature of the doctrines which it was +commissioned to teach. In England, another recluse, of splendid genius +and wayward humour, had dealt in his own way, with far-reaching insight, +with vast reading, and often with impressive eloquence, with the same +subject; and his profound sympathy and faith had been shared and +reflected by a great poet. What Coleridge and Wordsworth had put in the +forefront of their speculations and poetry, as the object of their +profoundest interest, and of their highest hopes for mankind, might, of +course, fail to appear in the same light to others; but it could not +fail, in those days at least, to attract attention, as a matter of grave +and well-founded importance. Coleridge's theories of the Church were his +own, and were very wide of theories recognised by any of those who had +to deal practically with the question, and who were influenced, in one +way or another, by the traditional doctrines of theologians. But +Coleridge had lifted the subject to a very high level. He had taken the +simple but all-important step of viewing the Church in its spiritual +character as first and foremost and above all things essentially a +religious society of divine institution, not dependent on the creation +or will of man, or on the privileges and honours which man might think +fit to assign to it; and he had undoubtedly familiarised the minds of +many with this way of regarding it, however imperfect, or cloudy, or +unpractical they might find the development of his ideas, and his +deductions from them. And in Oxford the questions which had stirred the +friends at Hadleigh had stirred others also, and had waked up various +responses. Whately's acute mind had not missed these questions, and had +given original if insufficient answers to them. Blanco White knew only +too well their bearing and importance, and had laboured, not without +success, to leave behind him his own impress on the way in which they +should be dealt with. Dr. Hampden, the man in Oxford best acquainted +with Aristotle's works and with the scholastic philosophy, had thrown +Christian doctrines into a philosophical calculus which seemed to leave +them little better than the inventions of men. On the other hand, a +brilliant scholar, whose after-career was strangely full of great +successes and deplorable disasters, William Sewell of Exeter College, +had opened, in a way new to Oxford, the wealth and magnificence of +Plato; and his thoughts had been dazzled by seeming to find in the +truths and facts of the Christian Church the counterpart and realisation +of the grandest of Plato's imaginations. The subjects treated with such +dogmatic severity and such impetuous earnestness in the Tracts were, in +one shape or another, in all men's minds, when these Tracts broke on the +University and English society with their peremptory call to men "to +take their side." + +There was just a moment of surprise and uncertainty--uncertainty as to +what the Tracts meant; whether they were to be a new weapon against the +enemies of the Church, or were simply extravagant and preposterous +novelties--just a certain perplexity and hesitation at their conflicting +aspects; on the one hand, the known and high character of the writers, +their evident determination and confidence in their cause, the +attraction of their religious warmth and unselfishness and nobleness, +the dim consciousness that much that they said was undeniable; and on +the other hand, the apparent wildness and recklessness of their words: +and then public opinion began steadily to take its "ply," and to be +agreed in condemning them. It soon went farther, and became vehement in +reprobating them as scandalous and dangerous publications. They incensed +the Evangelicals by their alleged Romanism, and their unsound views +about justification, good works, and the sacraments; they angered the +"two-bottle orthodox" by their asceticism--the steady men, by their +audacity and strong words--the liberals, by their dogmatic severity; +their seriously practical bearing was early disclosed in a tract on +"Fasting." But while they repelled strongly, they attracted strongly; +they touched many consciences, they won many hearts, they opened new +thoughts and hopes to many minds. One of the mischiefs of the Tracts, +and of those sermons at St. Mary's which were the commentaries on them, +was that so many people seemed to like them and to be struck by them. +The gathering storm muttered and growled for some time at a distance, +and men seemed to be taking time to make up their minds; but it began to +lour from early days, till after various threatenings it broke in a +furious article in the _Edinburgh_, by Dr. Arnold, on the "Oxford +Malignants"; and the Tract-writers and their friends became, what they +long continued to be, the most unpopular and suspected body of men in +the Church, whom everybody was at liberty to insult, both as dishonest +and absurd, of whom nothing was too cruel to say, nothing too ridiculous +to believe. It is only equitable to take into account the unprepared +state of the public mind, the surprise and novelty of even the +commonest things when put in a new light, the prejudices which the +Tract-writers were thought wantonly to offend and defy, their militant +and uncompromising attitude, where principles were at stake. But +considering what these men were known to be in character and life, what +was the emergency and what were the pressing motives which called for +action, and what is thought of them now that their course is run, it is +strange indeed to remember who they were, to whom the courtesies of +controversy were denied, not only by the vulgar herd of pamphleteers, +but by men of ability and position, some of whom had been their familiar +friends. Of course a nickname was soon found for them: the word +"Tractarian" was invented, and Archbishop Whately thought it worth +while, but not successfully, to improve it into "Tractites." Archbishop +Whately, always ingenious, appears to have suspected that the real but +concealed object of the movement was to propagate a secret infidelity; +they were "Children of the Mist," or "Veiled Prophets";[53] and he +seriously suggested to a friend who was writing against it,--"this +rapidly spreading pestilence,"--to parallel it, in its characteristics +and modes of working, with Indian Thuggee.[54] + +But these things were of gradual growth. Towards the end of 1834 a +question appeared in Oxford interesting to numbers besides Mr. Newman +and his friends, which was to lead to momentous consequences. The old, +crude ideas of change in the Church had come to appear, even to their +advocates, for the present impracticable, and there was no more talk for +a long time of schemes which had been in favour two years before. The +ground was changed, and a point was now brought forward on the Liberal +side, for which a good deal might be plausibly said. This was the +requirement of subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles from young men +at matriculation; and a strong pamphlet advocating its abolition, with +the express purpose of admitting Dissenters, was published by Dr. +Hampden, the Bampton Lecturer of two years before. + +Oxford had always been one of the great schools of the Church. Its +traditions, its tone, its customs, its rules, all expressed or presumed +the closest attachment to that way of religion which was specially +identified with the Church, in its doctrinal and historical aspect. +Oxford was emphatically definite, dogmatic, orthodox, compared even with +Cambridge, which had largely favoured the Evangelical school, and had +leanings to Liberalism. Oxford, unlike Cambridge, gave notice of its +attitude by requiring every one who matriculated to subscribe the +Thirty-nine Articles: the theory of its Tutorial system, of its lectures +and examinations, implied what of late years in the better colleges, +though certainly not everywhere, had been realised in fact--a +considerable amount of religious and theological teaching. And whatever +might have been said originally of the lay character of the University, +the colleges, which had become coextensive with the University, were for +the most part, in the intention of their founders, meant to educate and +support theological students on their foundations for the service of the +Church. It became in time the fashion to call them lay institutions: +legally they may have been so, but judged by their statutes, they were +nearly all of them as ecclesiastical as the Chapter of a Cathedral. And +Oxford was the fulcrum from which the theological revival hoped to move +the Church. It was therefore a shock and a challenge of no light kind, +when not merely the proposal was made to abolish the matriculation +subscription with the express object of attracting Dissenters, and to +get Parliament to force the change on the University if the University +resisted, but the proposal itself was vindicated and enforced in a +pamphlet by Dr. Hampden by a definite and precise theory which stopped +not short of the position that all creeds and formularies--everything +which represented the authority of the teaching Church--however +incidentally and temporarily useful, were in their own nature the +inventions of a mistaken and corrupt philosophy, and invasions of +Christian liberty. This was cutting deep with a vengeance, though the +author of the theory seemed alone unable to see it. It went to the root +of the whole mutter; and if Dr. Hampden was right, there was neither +Church nor doctrine worth contending for, except as men contend about +the Newtonian or the undulatory theory of light. + +No one ought now to affect, as some people used to affect at the time, +that the question was of secondary importance, and turned mainly on the +special fitness of the Thirty-nine Articles to be offered for the proof +of a young man's belief. It was a much more critical question. It was +really, however disguised, the question, asked then for the first time, +and since finally decided, whether Oxford was to continue to be a +school of the Church of England; and it also involved the wider +question, what part belief in definite religion should have in higher +education. It is speciously said that you have no right to forestall a +young man's inquiries and convictions by imposing on him in his early +years opinions which to him become prejudices. And if the world +consisted simply of individuals, entirely insulated and self-sufficing; +if men could be taught anything whatever, without presuming what is +believed by those who teach them; and if the attempt to exclude +religious prejudice did not necessarily, by the mere force of the +attempt, involve the creation of anti-religious prejudice, these +reasoners, who try in vain to get out of the conditions which hem them +in, might have more to say for themselves. To the men who had made such +an effort to restore a living confidence in the Church, the demand +implied giving up all that they had done and all that they hoped for. It +was not the time for yielding even a clumsy proof of the religious +character of the University. And the beginning of a long and doubtful +war was inevitable. + +A war of pamphlets ensued. By the one side the distinction was strongly +insisted on between mere instruction and education, the distinctly +religious character of the University education was not perhaps +overstated in its theory, but portrayed in stronger colours than was +everywhere the fact; and assertions were made, which sound strange in +their boldness now, of the independent and constitutional right to +self-government in the great University corporations. By the other side, +the ordinary arguments were used, about the injustice and mischief of +exclusion, and the hurtfulness of tests, especially such tests as the +Articles applied to young and ignorant men. Two pamphlets had more than +a passing interest: one, by a then unknown writer who signed himself +_Rusticus_, and whose name was Mr. F.D. Maurice, defended subscription +on the ground that the Articles were signed, not as tests and +confessions of faith, but as "conditions of thought," the expressly +stated conditions, such as there must be in all teaching, under which +the learners are willing to learn and the teacher to teach: and he +developed his view at great length, with great wealth of original +thought and illustration and much eloquence, but with that fatal want of +clearness which, as so often afterwards, came from his struggles to +embrace in one large view what appeared opposite aspects of a difficult +subject. The other was the pamphlet, already referred to, by Dr. +Hampden: and of which the importance arose, not from its conclusions, +but from its reasons. Its ground was the distinction which he had argued +out at great length in his Bampton Lectures--the distinction between the +"Divine facts" of revelation, and all human interpretations of them and +inferences from them. "Divine facts," he maintained, were of course +binding on all Christians, and in matter of fact were accepted by all +who called themselves Christians, including Unitarians. Human +interpretations and inferences--and all Church formularies were +such--were binding on no one but those who had reason to think them +true; and therefore least of all on undergraduates who could not have +examined them. The distinction, when first put forward, seemed to mean +much; at a later time it was explained to mean very little. But at +present its value as a ground of argument against the old system of the +University was thought much of by its author and his friends. A warning +note was at once given that its significance was perceived and +appreciated. Mr. Newman, in acknowledging a presentation copy, added +words which foreshadowed much that was to follow. "While I respect," he +wrote, "the tone of piety which the pamphlet displays, I dare not trust +myself to put on paper my feelings about the principles contained in it; +_tending, as they do, in my opinion, to make ship-wreck of Christian +faith_. I also lament that, by its appearance, the first step has been +taken towards interrupting that peace and mutual good understanding +which has prevailed so long in this place, and which, if once seriously +disturbed, will be succeeded by discussions the more intractable, +because justified in the minds of those who resist innovation by a +feeling of imperative duty." "Since that time," he goes on in the +_Apologia_, where he quotes this letter, "Phaeton has got into the +chariot of the sun."[55] But they were early days then; and when the +Heads of Houses, who the year before had joined with the great body of +the University in a declaration against the threatened legislation, were +persuaded to propose to the Oxford Convocation the abolition of +subscription at matriculation in May 1835, this proposal was rejected by +a majority of five to one. + +This large majority was a genuine expression of the sense of the +University. It was not specially a "Tractarian" success, though most of +the arguments which contributed to it came from men who more or less +sympathised with the effort to make a vigorous fight for the Church and +its teaching; and it showed that they who had made the effort had +touched springs of thought and feeling, and awakened new hopes and +interest in those around them, in Oxford, and in the country. But graver +events were at hand. Towards the end of the year (1835), Dr. Burton, the +Regius Professor of Divinity, suddenly died, still a young man. And Lord +Melbourne was induced to appoint as his successor, and as the head of +the theological teaching of the University, the writer who had just a +second time seemed to lay the axe to the root of all theology; who had +just reasserted that he looked upon creeds, and all the documents which +embodied the traditional doctrine and collective thought of the Church, +as invested by ignorance and prejudice with an authority which was +without foundation, and which was misleading and mischievous. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[52] The conversation between Mr. Sikes of Guilsborough and Mr. Copeland +is given in full in Dr. Pusey's _Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury_ +(1842), pp. 32-34. + +[53] "Dr. Wilson was mightily pleased with my calling the traditionals +the 'Children of the Mist.' The title of 'Veiled Prophets' he thought +too severe" (1838), _Life_, ed. 1875, p. 167. Compare "Hints to +Transcendentalists for Working Infidel Designs through Tractarianism," a +_jeu d'esprit_ (1840), _ib._ p. 188. "As for the suspicion of secret +infidelity, I have said no more than I sincerely feel," _ib._ p. 181. + +[54] "It would be a curious thing if you (the Provost of Oriel) were to +bring into your Bampton Lectures a mention of the Thugs.... Observe +their submissive piety, their faith in long-preserved _tradition_, their +regular succession of ordinations to their offices, their _faith_ in the +sacramental virtue of the consecrated governor; in short, compare our +religion with the _Thuggee, putting out of account all those +considerations which the traditionists deprecate the discussion of,_ +and where is the difference?" (1840), _ib._ p. 194. + +[55] _Apologia_, pp. 131, 132. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +DR. HAMPDEN + + +The stage on which what is called the Oxford movement ran through its +course had a special character of its own, unlike the circumstances in +which other religious efforts had done their work. The scene of +Jansenism had been a great capital, a brilliant society, the precincts +of a court, the cells of a convent, the studies and libraries of the +doctors of the Sorbonne, the council chambers of the Vatican. The scene +of Methodism had been English villages and country towns, the moors of +Cornwall, and the collieries of Bristol, at length London fashionable +chapels. The scene of this new movement was as like as it could be in +our modern world to a Greek _polis_, or an Italian self-centred city of +the Middle Ages. Oxford stood by itself in its meadows by the rivers, +having its relations with all England, but, like its sister at +Cambridge, living a life of its own, unlike that of any other spot in +England, with its privileged powers, and exemptions from the general +law, with its special mode of government and police, its usages and +tastes and traditions, and even costume, which the rest of England +looked at from the outside, much interested but much puzzled, or knew +only by transient visits. And Oxford was as proud and jealous of its own +ways as Athens or Florence; and like them it had its quaint fashions of +polity; its democratic Convocation and its oligarchy; its social ranks; +its discipline, severe in theory and usually lax in fact; its +self-governed bodies and corporations within itself; its faculties and +colleges, like the guilds and "arts" of Florence; its internal rivalries +and discords; its "sets" and factions. Like these, too, it professed a +special recognition of the supremacy of religion; it claimed to be a +home of worship and religious training, _Dominus illuminatio mea_, a +claim too often falsified in the habit and tempers of life. It was a +small sphere, but it was a conspicuous one; for there was much strong +and energetic character, brought out by the aims and conditions of +University life; and though moving in a separate orbit, the influence of +the famous place over the outside England, though imperfectly +understood, was recognised and great. These conditions affected the +character of the movement, and of the conflicts which it caused. Oxford +claimed to be eminently the guardian of "true religion and sound +learning"; and therefore it was eminently the place where religion +should be recalled to its purity and strength, and also the place where +there ought to be the most vigilant jealousy against the perversions and +corruptions of religion, Oxford was a place where every one knew his +neighbour, and measured him, and was more or less friendly or repellent; +where the customs of life brought men together every day and all day, in +converse or discussion; and where every fresh statement or every new +step taken furnished endless material for speculation or debate, in +common rooms or in the afternoon walk. And for this reason, too, +feelings were apt to be more keen and intense and personal than in the +larger scenes of life; the man who was disliked or distrusted was so +close to his neighbours that he was more irritating than if he had been +obscured by a crowd; the man who attracted confidence and kindled +enthusiasm, whose voice was continually in men's ears, and whose private +conversation and life was something ever new in its sympathy and charm, +created in those about him not mere admiration, but passionate +friendship, or unreserved discipleship. And these feelings passed from +individuals into parties; the small factions of a limited area. Men +struck blows and loved and hated in those days in Oxford as they hardly +did on the wider stage of London politics or general religious +controversy. + +The conflicts which for a time turned Oxford into a kind of image of +what Florence was in the days of Savonarola, with its nicknames, +Puseyites, and Neomaniacs, and High and Dry, counterparts to the +_Piagnoni_ and _Arrabbiati_, of the older strife, began around a student +of retired habits, interested more than was usual at Oxford in abstruse +philosophy, and the last person who might be expected to be the occasion +of great dissensions in the University. Dr. Hampden was a man who, with +no definite intentions of innovating on the received doctrines of the +Church--indeed, as his sermons showed, with a full acceptance of +them--had taken a very difficult subject for a course of Bampton +Lectures, without at all fathoming its depth and reach, and had got into +a serious scrape in consequence. Personally he was a man of serious but +cold religion, having little sympathy with others, and consequently not +able to attract any. His isolation during the whole of his career is +remarkable; he attached no one, as Whately or Arnold attached men. His +mind, which was a speculative one, was not one, in its own order, of the +first class. He had not the grasp nor the subtlety necessary for his +task. He had a certain power of statement, but little of co-ordination; +he seems not to have had the power of seeing when his ideas were really +irreconcilable, and he thought that simply by insisting on his +distinctly orthodox statements he not only balanced, but neutralised, +and did away with his distinctly unorthodox ones. He had read a good +deal of Aristotle and something of the Schoolmen, which probably no one +else in Oxford had done except Blanco White; and the temptation of +having read what no one else knows anything about sometimes leads men to +make an unprofitable use of their special knowledge, which they consider +their monopoly. + +The creed and dogmas of the Christian Church are at least in their +broad features, not a speculation, but a fact. That not only the +Apostles' Creed, but the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creeds, are +assumed as facts by the whole of anything that can be called the Church, +is as certain as the reception by the same body, and for the same time, +of the Scriptures. Not only the Creed, but, up to the sixteenth century, +the hierarchy, and not only Creed and hierarchy and Scriptures, but the +sacramental idea as expressed in the liturgies, are equally in the same +class of facts. Of course it is open to any one to question the genuine +origin of any of these great portions of the constitution of the Church; +but the Church is so committed to them that he cannot enter on his +destructive criticism without having to criticise, not one only, but all +these beliefs, and without soon having to face the question whether the +whole idea of the Church, as a real and divinely ordained society, with +a definite doctrine and belief, is not a delusion, and whether +Christianity, whatever it is, is addressed solely to each individual, +one by one, to make what he can of it. It need hardly be said that +within the limits of what the Church is committed to there is room for +very wide differences of opinion; it is also true that these limits +have, in different times of the Church, been illegitimately and +mischievously narrowed by prevailing opinions, and by documents and +formularies respecting it. But though we may claim not to be bound by +the Augsburg Confession, or by the Lambeth articles, or the Synod of +Dort, or the Bull _Unigenitus_, it does not follow that, if there is a +Church at all, there is no more binding authority in the theology of the +Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. And it is the province of the divine who +believes in a Church at all, and in its office to be the teacher and +witness of religious truth, to distinguish between the infinitely +varying degrees of authority with which professed representations of +portions of this truth are propounded for acceptance. It may be +difficult or impossible to agree on a theory of inspiration; but that +the Church doctrine of some kind of special inspiration of Scripture is +part of Christianity is, unless Christianity be a dream, certain. No one +can reasonably doubt, with history before him, that the answer of the +Christian Church was, the first time the question was asked, and has +continued to be through ages of controversy, _against_ Arianism, +_against_ Socinianism, _against_ Pelagianism, _against_ Zwinglianism. It +does not follow that the Church has settled everything, or that there +are not hundreds of questions which it is vain and presumptuous to +attempt to settle by any alleged authority. + +Dr. Hampden was in fact unexceptionably, even rigidly orthodox in his +acceptance of Church doctrine and Church creeds. He had published a +volume of sermons containing, among other things, an able statement of +the Scriptural argument for the doctrine of the Trinity, and an equally +able defence of the Athanasian Creed. But he felt that there are +formularies which may be only the interpretations of doctrine and +inferences from Scripture of a particular time or set of men; and he +was desirous of putting into their proper place the authority of such +formularies. His object was to put an interval between them and the +Scriptures from which they professed to be derived, and to prevent them +from claiming the command over faith and conscience which was due only +to the authentic evidences of God's revelation. He wished to make room +for a deeper sense of the weight of Scripture. He proposed to himself +the same thing which was aimed at by the German divines, Arndt, +Calixtus, and Spener, when they rose up against the grinding oppression +which Lutheran dogmatism had raised on its _Symbolical Books_,[56] and +which had come to outdo the worst extravagances of scholasticism. This +seems to have been his object--a fair and legitimate one. But in arguing +against investing the Thirty-nine Articles with an authority which did +not belong to them, he unquestionably, without seeing what he was doing, +went much farther--where he never meant to go. In fact, he so stated his +argument that he took in with the Thirty-nine Articles every expression +of collective belief, every document, however venerable, which the +Church had sanctioned from the first. Strangely enough, without +observing it, he took in--what he meant to separate by a wide interval +from what he called dogma--the doctrine of the infallible authority and +sufficiency of Scripture. In denying the worth of the _consensus_ and +immemorial judgment of the Church, he cut from under him the claim to +that which he accepted as the source and witness of "divine facts." He +did not mean to do this, or to do many other things; but from want of +clearness of head, he certainly, in these writings which were complained +of, did it. He was, in temper and habit, too desirous to be "orthodox," +as Whately feared, to accept in its consequences his own theory. The +theory which he put forward in his Bampton Lectures, and on which he +founded his plan of comprehension in his pamphlet on Dissent, left +nothing standing but the authority of the letter of Scripture. All +else--right or wrong as it might be--was "speculation," "human +inference," "dogma." With perfect consistency, he did not pretend to +take even the Creeds out of this category. But the truth was, he did not +consciously mean all that he said; and when keener and more powerful and +more theological minds pointed out with relentless accuracy what he _had +said_ he was profuse and overflowing with explanations, which showed how +little he had perceived the drift of his words. There is not the least +reason to doubt the sincerity of these explanations; but at the same +time they showed the unfitness of a man who had so to explain away his +own speculations to be the official guide and teacher of the clergy. The +criticisms on his language, and the objections to it, were made before +these explanations were given; and though he gave them, he was furious +with those who called for them, and he never for a moment admitted that +there was anything seriously wrong or mistaken in what he had said. To +those who pointed out the meaning and effect of his words and theories, +he replied by the assertion of his personal belief. If words mean +anything, he had said that neither Unitarians nor any one else could get +behind the bare letter, and what he called "facts," of Scripture, which +all equally accepted in good faith; and that therefore there was no +reason for excluding Unitarians as long as they accepted the "facts." +But when it was pointed out that this reasoning reduced all belief in +the realities behind the bare letter to the level of personal and +private opinion, he answered by saying that he valued supremely the +Creeds and Articles, and by giving a statement of the great Christian +doctrines which he held, and which the Church taught. But he never +explained what their authority could be with any one but himself. There +might be interpretations and inferences from Scripture, by the hundred +or the thousand, but no one certain and authoritative one; none that +warranted an organised Church, much more a Catholic and Apostolic +Church, founded on the assumption of this interpretation being the one +true faith, the one truth of the Bible. The point was brought out +forcibly in a famous pamphlet written by Mr. Newman, though without his +name, called "Elucidations of Dr. Hampden's Theological Statements." +This pamphlet was a favourite object of attack on the part of Dr. +Hampden's supporters as a flagrant instance of unfairness and garbled +extracts. No one, they said, ever read the Bampton Lectures, but took +their estimate of the work from Mr. Newman's quotations. Extracts are +often open to the charge of unfairness, and always to suspicion. But in +this case there was no need of unfairness. Dr. Hampden's theory lay on +the very surface of his Hampton Lectures and pamphlet; and any unbiassed +judge may be challenged to read these works of his, and say whether the +extracts in the "Elucidations" do not adequately represent Dr. Hampden's +statements and arguments, and whether the comments on them are forced or +strained. They do not represent his explanations, for the explanations +had not been given; and when the explanations came, though they said +many things which showed that Dr. Hampden did not mean to be unorthodox +and unevangelical, but only anti-scholastic and anti-Roman, they did not +unsay a word which he had said. And what this was, what had been Dr. +Hampden's professed theological theory up to the time when the +University heard the news of his appointment, the "Elucidations" +represent as fairly as any adverse statement can represent the subject +of its attack. + +In quieter times such an appointment might have passed with nothing more +than a paper controversy or protest, or more probably without more than +conversational criticism. But these wore not quiet and unsuspicious +times. There was reason for disquiet. It was fresh in men's minds what +language and speculation like that of the Bampton Lectures had come to +in the case of Whately's intimate friend, Blanco White. The +unquestionable hostility of Whately's school to the old ideas of the +Church had roused alarm and a strong spirit of resistance in Churchmen. +Each party was on the watch, and there certainly was something at stake +for both parties. Coupled with some recent events, and with the part +which Dr. Hampden had taken on the subscription question, the +appointment naturally seemed significant. Probably it was not so +significant as it seemed on the part at least of Lord Melbourne, who had +taken pains to find a fit man. Dr. Hampden was said to have been +recommended by Bishop Copleston, and not disallowed by Archbishop +Howley. In the University, up to this time, there had been no +authoritative protest against Dr. Hampden's writings. And there were not +many Liberals to choose from. In the appointment there is hardly +sufficient ground to blame Lord Melbourne. But the outcry against it at +Oxford, when it came, was so instantaneous, so strong, and so unusual, +that it might have warned Lord Melbourne that he had been led into a +mistake, out of which it would be wise to seek at least a way of escape. +Doubtless it was a strong measure for the University to protest as it +did; but it was also a strong measure, at least in those days, for a +Minister of the Crown to force so extremely unacceptable a Regius +Professor of Divinity on a great University. Dr. Hampden offered to +resign; and there would have been plenty of opportunities to compensate +him for his sacrifice of a post which could only be a painful one. But +the temper of both sides was up. The remonstrances from Oxford were +treated with something like contempt, and the affair was hurried through +till there was no retreating; and Dr. Hampden became Regius Professor. + +Mr. Palmer has recorded how various efforts were made to neutralise the +effect of the appointment. But the Heads of Houses, though angry, were +cautious. They evaded the responsibility of stating Dr. Hampden's +unsound positions; but to mark their distrust, brought in a proposal to +deprive him of his vote in the choice of Select Preachers till the +University should otherwise determine. It was defeated in Convocation by +the veto of the two Proctors (March 1836), who exercised their right +with the full approval of Dr. Hampden's friends, and the indignation of +the large majority of the University. But it was not unfairly used: it +could have only a suspending effect, of which no one had a right to +complain; and when new Proctors came into office, the proposal was +introduced again, and carried (May 1836) by 474 to 94. The Liberal +minority had increased since the vote on subscription, and Dr. Hampden +went on with his work as if nothing had happened. The attempt was twice +made to rescind the vote: first, after the outcry about the Ninetieth +Tract and the contest about the Poetry Professorship, by a simple +repeal, which was rejected by 334 to 219 (June 1842); and next, +indirectly by a statute enlarging the Professor's powers over Divinity +degrees, which was also rejected by 341 to 21 (May 1844). From first to +last, these things and others were the unfortunate incidents of an +unfortunate appointment. + +The "persecution of Dr. Hampden" has been an unfailing subject of +reproach to the party of the Oxford movement, since the days when the +_Edinburgh Review_ held them up to public scorn and hatred in an article +of strange violence. They certainly had their full share in the +opposition to him, and in the measures by which that opposition was +carried out. But it would be the greatest mistake to suppose that in +this matter they stood alone. All in the University at this time, except +a small minority, were of one mind, Heads of Houses and country parsons, +Evangelicals and High Churchmen--all who felt that the grounds of a +definite belief were seriously threatened by Dr. Hampden's speculations. +All were angry at the appointment; all were agreed that something ought +to be done to hinder the mischief of it. In this matter Mr. Newman and +his friends were absolutely at one with everybody round them, with those +who were soon to be their implacable opponents. Whatever deeper view +they might have of the evil which had been done by the appointment, and +however much graver and more permanent their objections to it, they were +responsible only as the whole University was responsible for what was +done against Dr. Hampden. It was convenient afterwards to single them +out, and to throw this responsibility and the odium of it on them alone; +and when they came under the popular ban, it was forgotten that Dr. +Gilbert, the Principal of Brasenose, Dr. Symons, the Warden of Wadham, +Dr. Faussett, afterwards the denouncer of Dr. Pusey, Mr. Vaughan Thomas, +and Mr. Hill of St. Edmund Hall, were quite as forward at the time as +Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman in protesting against Dr. Hampden, and in the +steps to make their protest effective. Mr. Palmer, in his +_Narrative_,[57] anxious to dissociate himself from the movement under +Mr. Newman's influence, has perhaps underrated the part taken by Mr. +Newman and Dr. Pusey; for they, any rate, did most of the argumentative +work. But as far as personal action goes, it is true, as he says, that +the "movement against Dr. Hampden was not guided by the Tract writers." +"The condemnation of Dr. Hampden, then, was not carried by the Tract +writers; it was carried by the _independent_ body of the University. The +fact is that, had those writers taken any leading part, the measure +would have been a failure, for the number of their friends at that time +was a _very small proportion_ to the University at large, and there was +a general feeling of distrust in the soundness of their views." + +We are a long way from those days in time, and still more in habits and +sentiment; and a manifold and varied experience has taught most of us +some lessons against impatience and violent measures. But if we put +ourselves back equitably into the ways of thinking prevalent then, the +excitement about Dr. Hampden will not seem so unreasonable or so +unjustifiable as it is sometimes assumed to be. The University +legislation, indeed, to which it led was poor and petty, doing small and +annoying things, because the University rulers dared not commit +themselves to definite charges. But, in the first place, the provocation +was great on the part of the Government in putting into the chief +theological chair an unwelcome man who could only save his orthodoxy by +making his speculations mean next to nothing--whose _primâ facie_ +unguarded and startling statements were resolved into truisms put in a +grand and obscure form. And in the next place, it was assumed in those +days to be the most natural and obvious thing in the world to condemn +unsound doctrine, and to exclude unsound teachers. The principle was +accepted as indisputable, however slack might have been in recent times +the application of it. That it was accepted, not on one side only, but +on all, was soon to be shown by the subsequent course of events. No one +suffered more severely and more persistently from its application than +the Tractarians; no one was more ready to apply it to them than Dr. +Hampden with his friends; no one approved and encouraged its vigorous +enforcement against them more than Dr. Whately. The idle distinction set +up, that they were not merely unsound but dishonest, was a mere insolent +pretext to save trouble in argument, and to heighten the charge against +them; no one could seriously doubt that they wrote in good faith as much +as Dr. Whately or Dr. Faussett. But unless acts like Dr. Pusey's +suspension, and the long proscription that went on for years after it, +were mere instances of vindictive retaliation, the reproach of +persecution must be shared by all parties then, and by none more than by +the party which in general terms most denounced it. Those who think the +Hampden agitation unique in its injustice ought to ask themselves what +their party would have done if at any time between 1836 and 1843 Mr. +Newman had been placed in Dr. Hampden's seat. + +People in our days mean by religious persecution what happens when the +same sort of repressive policy is applied to a religious party as is +applied to vaccination recusants, or to the "Peculiar People." All +religious persecution, from the days of Socrates, has taken a legal +form, and justified itself on legal grounds. It is the action of +authority, or of strong social judgments backed by authority, against a +set of opinions, or the expression of them in word or act--usually +innovating opinions, but not by any means necessarily such. The +disciples of M. Monod, the "Momiers" of Geneva, were persecuted by the +Liberals of Geneva, not because they broke away from the creed of +Calvin, but because they adhered to it. The word is not properly applied +to the incidental effects in the way of disadvantage, resulting from +some broad constitutional settlement--from the government of the Church +being Episcopal and not Presbyterian, or its creed Nicene and not +Arian--any more than it is persecution for a nation to change its +government, or for a legitimist to have to live under a republic, or for +a Christian to have to live in an infidel state, though persecution may +follow from these conditions. But the _privilegium_ passed against Dr. +Hampden was an act of persecution, though a mild one compared with what +afterwards fell on his opponents with his full sanction. Persecution is +the natural impulse, in those who think a certain thing right and +important or worth guarding, to disable those who, thinking it wrong, +are trying to discredit and upset it, and to substitute something +different. It implies a state of war, and the resort to the most +available weapons to inflict damage on those who are regarded as +rebellious and dangerous. These weapons were formidable enough once: +they are not without force still. But in its mildest form--personal +disqualification or proscription--it is a disturbance which only war +justifies. It may, of course, make itself odious by its modes of +proceeding, by meanness and shabbiness and violence, by underhand and +ignoble methods of misrepresentation and slander, or by cruelty and +plain injustice; and then the odium of these things fairly falls upon +it. But it is very hard to draw the line between conscientious +repression, feeling itself bound to do what is possible to prevent +mischief, and what those who are opposed, if they are the weaker party, +of course call persecution. + +If persecution implies a state of war in which one side is stronger, and +the other weaker, it is hardly a paradox to say that (1) no one has a +right to complain of persecution as such, apart from odious +accompaniments, any more than of superior numbers or hard blows in +battle; and (2) that every one has a right to take advantage and make +the most of being persecuted, by appeals to sympathy and the principle +of doing as you would be done by. No one likes to be accused of +persecution, and few people like to give up the claim to use it, if +necessary. But no one can help observing in the course of events the +strange way in which, in almost all cases, the "wheel comes full +circle." Δράσαντι παθεῖν--_Chi la fa, l' aspetti_,[58] are some of the +expressions of Greek awe and Italian shrewdness representing the +experience of the world on this subject; on a large scale and a small. +Protestants and Catholics, Churchmen and Nonconformists, have all in +their turn made full proof of what seems like a law of action and +reaction. Except in cases beyond debate, cases where no justification is +possible, the note of failure is upon this mode of repression. +Providence, by the visible Nemesis which it seems always to bring round, +by the regularity with which it has enforced the rule that infliction +and suffering are bound together and in time duly change places, seems +certainly and clearly to have declared against it. It may be that no +innovating party has a right to complain of persecution; but the +question is not for them. It is for those who have the power, and who +are tempted to think that they have the call, to persecute. It is for +them to consider whether it is right, or wise, or useful for their +cause; whether it is agreeable to what seems the leading of Providence +to have recourse to it. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[56] See Pusey's _Theology of Germany_ (1828), p. 18 _sqq_. + +[57] _Narrative_ pp. 29, 30, ed. 1841; p 131. ed. 1883. + +[58] Δράσαντι παθεῖν, Τριγέρων μῦθος τάδε φωνεῖ. Aesch. _Choeph_. 310. +Italian proverb, in _Landucci, Diario Fiorentino_, 1513, p. 343. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT + +1835-1840 + + +By the end of 1835, the band of friends, whom great fears and great +hopes for the Church had united, and others who sympathised with them +both within and outside the University, had grown into what those who +disliked them naturally called a party. The Hampden controversy, though +but an episode in the history of the movement, was an important one, and +undoubtedly gave a great impulse to it. Dr. Hampden's attitude and +language seemed to be its justification--a palpable instance of what the +Church had to expect. And in this controversy, though the feeling +against Dr. Hampden's views was so widely shared, and though the +majority which voted against him was a very mixed one, and contained +some who hoped that the next time they were called to vote it might be +against the Tractarians, yet the leaders of the movement had undertaken +the responsibility, conspicuously and almost alone, of pointing out +definitely and argumentatively the objections to Dr. Hampden's teaching. +The number of Mr. Newman's friends might be, as Mr. Palmer says, +insignificant, but it was they who had taken the trouble to understand +and give expression to the true reasons for alarm.[59] Even in this +hasty and imperfect way, the discussion revealed to many how much deeper +and more various the treatment of the subject was in the hands of Mr. +Newman and Dr. Pusey compared with the ordinary criticisms on Dr. +Hampden. He had learned in too subtle a school to be much touched by the +popular exceptions to his theories, however loudly expressed. The +mischief was much deeper. It was that he had, unconsciously, no doubt, +undermined the foundation of definite Christian belief, and had resolved +it into a philosophy, so-called scholastic, which was now exploded. It +was the sense of the perilous issues to which this diluted form of +Blanco White's speculations, so recklessly patronised by Whately, was +leading theological teaching in the University, which opened the eyes of +many to the meaning of the movement, and brought some fresh friends to +its side. + +There was no attempt to form a party, or to proselytise; there was no +organisation, no distinct and recognised party marks. "I would not have +it called a party," writes Dr. Newman in the _Apologia_. But a party it +could not help being: quietly and spontaneously it had grown to be what +community of ideas, aims, and sympathies, naturally, and without blame, +leads men to become. And it had acquired a number of recognised +nicknames, to friends and enemies the sign of growing concentration. For +the questions started in the Tracts and outside them became of +increasing interest to the more intelligent men who had finished their +University course and were preparing to enter into life, the Bachelors +and younger Masters of Arts. One by one they passed from various states +of mind--alienation, suspicion, fear, indifference, blank +ignorance--into a consciousness that something beyond the mere +commonplace of religious novelty and eccentricity, of which there had +been a good deal recently, was before them; that doctrines and +statements running counter to the received religious language of the +day, doctrines about which, in confident prejudice, they had perhaps +bandied about off-hand judgments, had more to say for themselves than +was thought at first; that the questions thus raised drove them in on +themselves, and appealed to their honesty and seriousness; and that, at +any rate, in the men who were arresting so much attention, however +extravagant their teaching might be called, there was a remarkable +degree of sober and reserved force, an earnestness of conviction which +could not be doubted, an undeniable and subtle power of touching souls +and attracting sympathies. One by one, and in many different ways, these +young men went through various stages of curiosity, of surprise, of +perplexity, of doubt, of misgiving, of interest; some were frightened, +and wavered, and drew back more or less reluctantly; others, in spite of +themselves, in spite of opposing influences, were led on step by step, +hardly knowing whither, by a spell which they could not resist, of +intellectual, or still more, moral pressure. Some found their old home +teaching completed, explained, lighted up, by that of the new school. +Others, shocked at first at hearing the old watchwords and traditions of +their homes decried and put aside, found themselves, when they least +expected it, passing from the letter to the spirit, from the technical +and formal theory to the wide and living truth. And thus, though many of +course held aloof, and not a few became hostile, a large number, one by +one, some rapidly, others slowly, some unreservedly, others with large +and jealous reserves, more and more took in the leading idea of the +movement, accepted the influence of its chiefs, and looked to them for +instruction and guidance. As it naturally happens, when a number of +minds are drawn together by a common and strong interest, some men, by +circumstances, or by strength of conviction, or by the mutual affinities +of tastes and character, came more and more into direct personal and +intimate relations with the leaders, took service, as it were, under +them, and prepared to throw themselves into their plans of work. Others, +in various moods, but more independent, more critical, more disturbed +about consequences, or unpersuaded on special points, formed a kind of +fringe of friendly neutrality about the more thoroughgoing portion of +the party. And outside of these were thoughtful and able men, to whom +the whole movement, with much that was utterly displeasing and utterly +perplexing, had the interest of being a break-up of stagnation and dull +indolence in a place which ought to have the highest spiritual and +intellectual aims; who, whatever repelled them, could not help feeling +that great ideas, great prospects, a new outburst of bold thought, a new +effort of moral purpose and force, had disturbed the old routine; could +not help being fascinated, if only as by a spectacle, by the strange and +unwonted teaching, which partly made them smile, partly perhaps +permanently disgusted them, but which also, they could not deny, spoke +in a language more fearless, more pathetic, more subtle, and yet more +human, than they had heard from the religious teachers of the day. And +thus the circle of persons interested in the Tracts, of persons who +sympathised with their views, of persons who more and more gave a warm +and earnest adherence to them, was gradually extended in the +University--and, in time, in the country also. The truth was that the +movement, in its many sides, had almost monopolised for the time both +the intelligence and the highest religious earnestness of the +University,[60] and either in curiosity or inquiry, in approval or in +condemnation, all that was deepest and most vigorous, all that was most +refined, most serious, most high-toned, and most promising in Oxford was +drawn to the issues which it raised. It is hardly too much to say that +wherever men spoke seriously of the grounds and prospects of religion, +in Oxford, or in Vacation reading-parties, in their walks and social +meetings, in their studies or in common-room, the "Tractarian" +doctrines, whether assented to or laughed at, deplored or fiercely +denounced, were sure to come to the front. All subjects in discussion +seemed to lead up to them--art and poetry, Gothic architecture and +German romance and painting, the philosophy of language, and the novels +of Walter Scott and Miss Austen, Coleridge's transcendentalism and +Bishop Butler's practical wisdom, Plato's ideas and Aristotle's +analysis. It was difficult to keep them out of lecture-rooms and +examinations for Fellowships. + +But in addition to the intrinsic interest of the questions and +discussions which the movement opened, personal influence played a great +and decisive part in it. As it became a party, it had chiefs. It was not +merely as leaders of thought but as teachers with their disciples, as +friends with friends, as witnesses and examples of high self-rule and +refined purity and goodness, that the chiefs whose names were in all +men's mouths won the hearts and trust of so many, in the crowds that +stood about them. Foremost, of course, ever since he had thrown himself +into it in 1835, was Dr. Pusey. His position, his dignified office, his +learning, his solidity and seriousness of character, his high standard +of religious life, the charm of his charity, and the sweetness of his +temper naturally gave him the first place in the movement in Oxford and +the world. It came to be especially associated with him. Its enemies +fastened on it a nickname from his name, and this nickname, partly from +a greater smoothness of sound, partly from an odd suggestion of +something funny in it, came more into use than others; and the terms +_Puseismus, Puséisme, Puseista_ found their way into German +lecture-halls and Paris salons and remote convents and police offices in +Italy and Sicily; indeed, in the shape of πουζεισμός it might be lighted +on in a Greek newspaper. Dr. Pusey was a person who commanded the utmost +interest and reverence; he was more in communication with the great +world outside than Oxford people generally, and lived much in retirement +from Oxford society; but to all interested in the movement he was its +representative and highest authority. He and Mr. Newman had the fullest +confidence in one another, though conscious at times of not perfect +agreement; yet each had a line of his own, and each of them was apt to +do things out of his own head. Dr. Pusey was accessible to all who +wished to see him; but he did not encourage visits which wasted time. +And the person who was pre-eminently, not only before their eyes, but +within their reach in the ordinary intercourse of man with man, was Mr. +Newman. Mr. Newman, who lived in College in the ordinary way of a +resident Fellow, met other university men, older or younger, on equal +terms. As time went on, a certain wonder and awe gathered round him. +People were a little afraid of him; but the fear was in themselves, not +created by any intentional stiffness or coldness on his part. He did not +try to draw men to him, he was no proselytiser; he shrank with fear and +repugnance from the character--it was an invasion of the privileges of +the heart.[61] But if men came to him, he was accessible; he allowed his +friends to bring their friends to him, and met them more than half-way. +He was impatient of mere idle worldliness, of conceit and impertinence, +of men who gave themselves airs; he was very impatient of pompous and +solemn emptiness. But he was very patient with those whom he believed to +sympathise with what was nearest his heart; no one, probably, of his +power and penetration and sense of the absurd, was ever so ready to +comply with the two demands which a witty prelate proposed to put into +the examination in the Consecration Service of Bishops: "Wilt thou +answer thy letters?" "Wilt thou suffer fools gladly?" But courteous, +affable, easy as he was, he was a keen trier of character; he gauged, +and men felt that he gauged, their motives, their reality and soundness +of purpose; he let them see, if they at all came into his intimacy, +that if _they_ were not, _he_, at any rate, was in the deepest earnest. +And at an early period, in a memorable sermon,[62] the vivid impression +of which at the time still haunts the recollection of some who heard it, +he gave warning to his friends and to those whom his influence touched, +that no child's play lay before them; that they were making, it might be +without knowing it, the "Ventures of Faith." But feeling that he had +much to say, and that a university was a place for the circulation and +discussion of ideas, he let himself be seen and known and felt, both +publicly and in private. He had his breakfast parties and his evening +gatherings. His conversation ranged widely, marked by its peculiar +stamp--entire ease, unstudied perfection of apt and clean-cut words, +unexpected glimpses of a sure and piercing judgment. At times, at more +private meetings, the violin, which he knew how to touch, came into +play. + +He had great gifts for leadership. But as a party chief he was also +deficient in some of the qualities which make a successful one. His +doctrine of the Church had the disadvantage of an apparently +intermediate and ambiguous position, refusing the broad, intelligible +watchwords and reasonings of popular religionism. It was not without +clearness and strength; but such a position naturally often leads to +what seem over-subtle modes of argument, seemingly over-subtle because +deeper and more original than the common ones; and he seemed sometimes +to want sobriety in his use of dialectic weapons, which he wielded with +such force and effect. Over-subtlety in the leader of a party tends to +perplex friends and give a handle to opponents. And with all his +confidence in his cause, and also in his power and his call to use it, +he had a curious shyness and self-distrust as to his own way of doing +what he had to do; he was afraid of "wilfulness," of too great reliance +on intellect. He had long been accustomed to observe and judge himself, +and while conscious of his force, he was fully alive to the drawbacks, +moral and intellectual, which wait on the highest powers. When attacks +were made on him by authorities, as in the case of the Tract No. 90, his +more eager friends thought him too submissive; they would have liked a +more combative temper and would not accept his view that confidence in +him was lost, because it might be shaken.[63] But if he bent before +official authority the disapproval of friends was a severer trouble. +Most tender in his affections, most trustful in his confidence, craving +for sympathy, it came like a shock and chill when things did not go +right between himself and his friends. He was too sensitive under such +disapproval for a successful party chief. The true party leader takes +these things as part of that tiresome human stupidity and perverseness +with which he must make his account. Perhaps they sting for the moment, +but he brushes them away and goes forward, soon forgetting them. But +with Mr. Newman, his cause was identified with his friendships and even +his family affections. And as a leader, he was embarrassed by the +keenness with which he sympathised with the doubts and fears of friends; +want of sympathy and signs of distrust darkened the prospect of the +future; they fell like a blight on his stores of hope, never +over-abundant; they tempted him, not to assert himself, but to throw up +the game as convicted of unfitness, and retire for good and all to his +books and silence. "Let them," he seemed to say, "have their way, as +they will not let me have mine; they have the right to take theirs, only +not to make me take it." In spite of his enthusiasm and energy, his +unceasing work, his occasional bursts of severe punishment inflicted on +those who provoked him, there was always present this keen +sensitiveness, the source of so much joy and so much pain. He would not +have been himself without it. But he would have been a much more +powerful and much more formidable combatant if he had cared less for +what his friends felt, and followed more unhesitatingly his own line and +judgment. This keen sensitiveness made him more quickly alive than other +people to all that lay round him and before; it made him quicker to +discern danger and disaster; it led him to give up hope and to retire +from the contest long before he had a right to do so. The experience of +later years shows that he had despaired too soon. Such delicate +sensitiveness, leading to impatience, was not capable of coping with the +rough work involved in the task of reform, which he had undertaken. + +All this time the four o'clock sermons at St. Mary's were always going +on. But, besides these, he anticipated a freedom--familiar now, but +unknown then--of public lecturing. In Advent and after Easter a company, +never very large, used to gather on a week-day afternoon in Adam de +Brome's Chapel--the old Chapel of "Our Lady of Littlemore"--to hear him +lecture on some theological subject. It is a dark, dreary appendage to +St. Mary's on the north side, in which Adam de Brome, Edward II.'s +almoner, and the founder of Oriel College, is supposed to lie, beneath +an unshapely tomb, covered by a huge slab of Purbeck marble, from which +the brass has been stripped. The place is called a chapel, but is more +like a court or place of business, for which, indeed, it was used in the +old days by one of the Faculties of the House of Convocation, which held +its assemblies there. At the end is a high seat and desk for the person +presiding, and an enclosure and a table for officials below him; and +round the rest of the dingy walls run benches fixed to the wall, dingy +as the walls themselves. But it also had another use. On occasions of a +university sermon, a few minutes before it began, the Heads of Houses +assembled, as they still assemble, in the chapel, ranging themselves on +the benches round the walls. The Vice-Chancellor has his seat on one +side, the preacher, with the two Proctors below him, sits opposite; and +there all sit in their robes, more or less grand, according to the day, +till the beadle comes to announce that it is time to form the procession +into church. This desolate place Mr. Newman turned into his +lecture-room; in it he delivered the lectures which afterwards became +the volume on the _Prophetical Character of the Church_, or _Romanism +and Popular Protestantism_; the lectures which formed the volume on +_Justification_; those on _Antichrist_, and on _Rationalism and the +Canon of Scripture_, which afterwards became Nos. 83 and 85 of the +_Tracts for the Times_.[64] The force, the boldness, the freedom from +the trammels of commonplace, the breadth of view and grasp of the +subject which marked those lectures, may be seen in them still. But it +is difficult to realise now the interest with which they were heard at +the time by the first listeners to that clear and perfectly modulated +voice, opening to them fresh and original ways of regarding questions +which seemed worn out and exhausted. The volumes which grew out of the +Adam de Brome lectures were some of the most characteristic portions of +the theological literature of the early movement. They certainly greatly +influenced the course of thought in it, and some of its most serious +issues. + +The movement was not one of mere opinion. It took two distinct though +connected lines. It was, on the one hand, theological; on the other, +resolutely practical. Theologically, it dealt with great questions of +religious principle--What is the Church? Is it a reality or a mode of +speech? On what grounds does it rest? How may it be known? Is it among +us? How is it to be discriminated from its rivals or counterfeits? What +is its essential constitution? What does it teach? What are its +shortcomings? Does it nerd reform? But, on the other hand, the movement +was marked by its deep earnestness on the practical side of genuine +Christian life. Very early in the movement (1833) a series of +sketches of primitive Christian life appeared in the _British +Magazine_--afterwards collected under the title of the _Church of the +Fathers_ (1840)--to remind people who were becoming interested in +ancient and patristic theology that, besides the doctrines to be found +in the vast folios of the Fathers, there were to be sought in them and +laid to heart the temptations and trials, the aspirations and moral +possibilities of actual life, "the tone and modes of thought, the habits +and manners of the early times of the Church." The note struck in the +first of Mr. Newman's published sermons--"Holiness necessary for future +blessedness"--was never allowed to be out of mind. The movement was, +above all, a moral one; it was nothing, allowed to be nothing, if it +was not this.[65] Seriousness, reverence, the fear of insincere words +and unsound professions, were essential in the character, which alone it +would tolerate in those who made common cause with it. + +Its ethical tendency was shown in two things, which were characteristic +of it. One was the increased care for the Gospels, and study of them, +compared with other parts of the Bible. Evangelical theology had dwelt +upon the work of Christ, and laid comparatively little stress on His +example, or the picture left us of His Personality and Life. It regarded +the Epistles of St. Paul as the last word of the Gospel message. People +who can recall the popular teaching, which was spoken of then as "sound" +and "faithful," and "preaching Christ," can remember how the Epistles +were ransacked for texts to prove the "sufficiency of Scripture" or the +"right of private judgment," or the distinction between justification +and sanctification, while the Gospel narrative was imperfectly studied +and was felt to be much less interesting. The movement made a great +change. The great Name stood no longer for an abstract symbol of +doctrine, but for a living Master, who could teach as well as save. And +not forgetting whither He had gone and what He was, the readers of +Scripture now sought Him eagerly in those sacred records, where we can +almost see and hear His going in and out among men. It was a change in +the look and use of Scripture, which some can still look back to as an +epoch in their religious history. The other feature was the increased +and practical sense of the necessity of self-discipline, of taking real +trouble with one's self to keep thoughts and wishes in order, to lay the +foundation of habits, to acquire the power of self-control. Deeply fixed +in the mind of the teachers, this serious governance of life, this +direction and purification of its aims, laid strong hold on the +consciences of those who accepted their teaching. This training was not +showy; it was sometimes austere, even extravagantly austere; but it was +true, and enduring, and it issued often in a steady and unconscious +elevation of the religious character. How this character was fed and +nurtured and encouraged--how, too, it was frankly warned of its dangers, +may be seen in those _Parochial Sermons_ at St. Mary's, under whose +inspiration it was developed, and which will always be the best +commentary on the character thus formed. Even among those who ultimately +parted from the movement, with judgment more or less unfavourable to its +theology and general line, it left, as if uneffaceable, this moral +stamp; this value for sincerity and simplicity of feeling and life, this +keen sense of the awfulness of things unseen. There was something _sui +generis_ in the profoundly serious, profoundly reverent tone, about +everything that touched religion in all who had ever come strongly under +its influence. + +Of course the party soon had the faults of a party, real and +imputed.[66] Is it conceivable that there should ever have been a +religious movement, which has not provoked smiles from those outside of +it, and which has not lent itself to caricature? There were weaker +members of it, and headstrong ones, and imitative ones; there were +grotesque and absurd ones; some were deeper, some shallower; some liked +it for its excitement, and some liked it for its cause; there were those +who were for pushing on, and those who were for holding back; there were +men of combat, and men of peace; there were those whom it made conceited +and self-important, and those whom it drove into seriousness, anxiety, +and retirement. But, whatever faults it had, a pure and high spirit +ruled in it; there were no disloyal members, and there were none who +sought their own in it, or thought of high things for themselves in +joining it. It was this whole-heartedness, this supreme reverence for +moral goodness, more even than the great ability of the leaders, and in +spite of mistakes and failures, which gave its cohesion and its momentum +to the movement in its earlier stages. + +The state of feeling and opinion among Churchmen towards the end of +1835, two years after the Tracts had begun, is thus sketched by one who +was anxiously observing it, in the preface to the second volume of the +Tracts (November 1835). + + In completing the second volume of a publication, to which the + circumstances of the day have given rise, it may be right to allude to + a change which has taken place in them since the date of its + commencement. At that time, in consequence of long security, the + attention of members of our Church had been but partially engaged, in + ascertaining the grounds of their adherence to it; but the imminent + peril to all which is dear to them which has since been confessed, has + naturally turned their thoughts that way, and obliged them to defend + it on one or other of the principles which are usually put forward in + its behalf. Discussions have thus been renewed in various quarters, on + points which had long remained undisturbed; and though numbers + continue undecided in opinion, or take up a temporary position in some + one of the hundred middle points which may be assumed between the two + main theories in which the question issues; and others, again, have + deliberately entrenched themselves in the modern or ultra-Protestant + alternative; yet, on the whole, there has been much hearty and + intelligent adoption, and much respectful study, of those more + primitive views maintained by our great Divines. As the altered state + of public information and opinion has a necessary bearing on the + efforts of those who desire to excite attention to the subject (in + which number the writers of these Tracts are to be included), it will + not be inappropriate briefly to state in this place what it is + conceived is the present position of the great body of Churchmen with + reference to it. + + While we have cause to be thankful for the sounder and more accurate + language, which is now very generally adopted among well-judging men + on ecclesiastical subjects, we must beware of over-estimating what has + been done, and so becoming sanguine in our hopes of success, or + slackening our exertions to secure it. Many more persons, doubtless, + have taken up a profession of the main doctrine in question, that, + namely, of the one Catholic and Apostolic Church, than fully enter + into it. This was to be expected, it being the peculiarity of all + religious teaching, that words are imparted before ideas. A child + learns his Creed or Catechism before he understands it; and in + beginning any deep subject we are all but children to the end of our + lives. The instinctive perception of a rightly instructed mind, _primâ + facie_ force of the argument, or the authority of our celebrated + writers, have all had their due and extensive influence in furthering + the reception of the doctrine, when once it was openly maintained; to + which must be added the prospect of the loss of State protection, + which made it necessary to look out for other reasons for adherence to + the Church besides that of obedience to the civil magistrate. Nothing + which has spread quickly has been received thoroughly. Doubtless there + are a number of seriously-minded persons who think that they admit the + doctrine in question much more fully than they do, and who would be + startled at seeing that realised in particulars which they confess in + an abstract form. Many there are who do not at all feel that it is + capable of a practical application; and while they bring it forward on + special occasions, in formal expositions of faith, or in answer to a + direct interrogatory, let it slip from their minds almost entirely in + their daily conduct or their religious teaching, from the long and + inveterate habit of thinking and acting without it. We must not, then, + at all be surprised at finding that to modify the principles and + motives on which men act is not the work of a day; nor at undergoing + disappointments, at witnessing relapses, misconceptions, sudden + disgusts, and, on the other hand, abuses and perversions of the true + doctrine, in the case of those who have taken it up with more warmth + than discernment. + +From the end of 1835, or the beginning of 1836, the world outside of +Oxford began to be alive to the force and the rapid growth of this new +and, to the world at large, not very intelligible movement. The ideas +which had laid hold so powerfully on a number of leading minds in the +University began to work with a spell, which seemed to many +inexplicable, on others unconnected with them. This rapidity of +expansion, viewed as a feature of a party, was noticed on all sides, by +enemies no less than friends. In an article in the _British Critic_ of +April 1839, by Mr. Newman, on the State of Religious Parties, the fact +is illustrated from contemporary notices. + + There is at the present moment a reaction in the Church, and a growing + reaction, towards the views which it has been the endeavours [of the + Tract writers] and, as it seemed at the commencement, _almost hopeless + endeavours_, to advocate. The fairness of the prospect at present is + proved by the attack made on them by the public journals, and is + confessed by the more candid and the more violent among their + opponents. Thus the amiable Mr. Bickersteth speaks of it as having + manifested itself "with the _most rapid_ growth of the hot-bed of + these evil days." The scoffing author of the _Via Media_ says: "At + this moment the Via is _crowded_ with young enthusiasts who never + presume to argue, except against the propriety of arguing at all." The + candid Mr. Baden-Powell, who sees more of the difficulties of the + controversy than the rest of their antagonists pot together, says that + it is clear that "these views ... have been extensively adopted, and + are daily gaining ground among a considerable and influential portion + of the members, as well as the ministers of the Established Church." + The author of the _Natural History of Enthusiasm_ says: "The spread of + these doctrines is in fact having the effect of rendering all other + distinctions obsolete. Soon there will be no middle ground left, and + every man, especially every clergyman, will be compelled to make his + choice between the two." ... The Bishop of Chester speaks of the + subject "daily assuming a more serious and alarming aspect": a + gossiping writer of the moment describes these doctrines as having + insinuated themselves not only into popular churches and fashionable + chapels, and the columns of newspapers, but "into the House of + Commons." + +And the writer of the article goes on:-- + + Now, if there be any truth in these remarks, it is plainly idle and + perverse to refer the change of opinions which is now going on to the + acts of two or three individuals, as is sometimes done. Of course + every event in human affairs has a beginning; and a beginning implies + a when, and a where, and a by whom, and how. But except in these + necessary circumstance, the phenomenon in question is in a manner + quite independent of things visible and historical. It is not here or + there; it has no progress, no causes, no fortunes: it is not a + movement, it is a spirit, it is a spirit afloat, neither "in the + secret chambers" nor "in the desert," but everywhere. It is within us, + rising up in the heart where it was least expected, and working its + way, though not in secret, yet so subtly and impalpably, as hardly to + admit of precaution or encounter on any ordinary human rules of + opposition. It is an adversary in the air, a something one and entire, + a whole wherever it is, unapproachable and incapable of being grasped, + as being the result of causes far deeper than political or other + visible agencies, the spiritual awakening of spiritual wants. + + Nothing can show more strikingly the truth of this representation than + to refer to what may be called the theological history of the + individuals who, whatever be their differences from each other on + important or unimportant points, yet are associated together in the + advocacy of the doctrines in question. Dr. Hook and Mr. Churton + represent the High Church dignitaries of the last generation; Mr. + Perceval, the Tory aristocracy; Mr. Keble is of the country clergy, + and comes from valleys and woods, far removed both from notoriety and + noise; Mr. Palmer and Mr. Todd are of Ireland; Dr. Pusey became what + he is from among the Universities of Germany, and after a severe and + tedious analysis of Arabic MSS. Mr. Dodsworth is said to have begun in + the study of Prophecy; Mr. Newman to have been much indebted to the + friendship of Archbishop Whately; Mr. Froude, if any one, gained his + views from his own mind. Others have passed over from Calvinism and + kindred religions. + +Years afterwards, and in changed circumstances, the same writer has left +the following record of what came before his experience in those +years:--[67] + + From beginnings so small (I said), from elements of thought so + fortuitous, with prospects so unpromising, the Anglo-Catholic party + suddenly became a power in the National Church, and an object of + alarm to her rulers and friends. Its originators would have found it + difficult to say what they aimed at of a practical kind: rather, they + put forth views and principles, for their own sake, because they were + true, as if they were obliged to say them; and, as they might be + themselves surprised at their earnestness in uttering them, they had + as great cause to be surprised at the success which attended their + propagation. And, in fact, they could only say that those doctrines + were in the air; that to assert was to prove, and that to explain was + to persuade; and that the movement in which they were taking part was + the birth of a crisis rather than of a place. In a very few years a + school of opinion was formed, fixed in its principles, indefinite and + progressive in their range; and it extended itself into every part of + the country. If we inquire what the world thought of it, we have still + more to raise our wonder; for, not to mention the excitement it caused + in England, the movement and its party-names were known to the police + of Italy and to the backwoods-men of America. And so it proceeded, + getting stronger and stronger every year, till it came into collision + with the Nation and that Church of the Nation, which it began by + professing especially to serve. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[59] "I answered, the person whom we were opposing had committed himself +in writing, and we ought to commit ourselves, too."--_Apologia_, p. 143. + +[60] "I very much doubt between Oxford and Cambridge for my boy. Oxford, +which I should otherwise prefer, on many accounts, has at present +two-thirds of the steady-reading men, Rabbinists, _i.e._ Puseyites." But +this was probably an exaggeration.--Whately's _Life_; letter of Oct. +1838, p. 163 (ed. 1875). + +[61] "The sagacious and aspiring man of the world, the scrutiniser +of the heart, the conspirator against its privileges and +rights."--_Prophetical Office of the Church_, p. 132. + +[62] _Parochial Sermons_, iv. 20. Feb. 1836. + +[63] _Vide_ J.B. Mozley, _Letters_, pp. 114, 115. "Confidence in me was +lost, but I had already lost confidence in myself." This, to a friend +like J.B. Mozley, seemed exaggeration. "Though admiring the letter [to +the Vice Chancellor] I confess, for my own part, I think a general +confession of humility was irrelevant to the present occasion, the +question being simply on a point of theological interpretation. I have +always had a prejudice against general confessions." Mozley plainly +thought Newman's attitude too meek. He would have liked something more +spirited and pugnacious. + +[64] _Romanism and Popular Protestantism_, from 1834 to 1836, published +March 1837; _Justification_, after Easter 1837, published March 1838; +_Canon of Scripture_, published May 1838; _Antichrist_, published June +1838. + +[65] Cf. _Lyra Apostolica_, No. 65: + + _Thou_ to wax fierce + In the cause of the Lord! + + * * * * * + + Anger and zeal, + And the joy of the brave, + Who bade _thee_ to feel, + Sin's slave? + + +[66] This weak side was portrayed with severity in a story published by +Mr. Newman in 1848, after he left the English Church--_Loss and Gain_. + +[67] _Apologia_, p. 156. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE ROMAN QUESTION + + +The Hampden controversy had contributed to bring to the front a +question, which from the first starting of the Tracts had made itself +felt, but which now became a pressing one. If the Church of England +claimed to be part of the Catholic Church, what was the answer of the +Church of England to the claims and charges of the Church of Rome? What +were the true distinctions between the doctrines of the two Churches on +the great points on which they were supposed to be at issue? The vague +outcry of Popery had of course been raised both against the general +doctrine of the Church, enforced in the Tracts, and against special +doctrines and modes of speaking, popularly identified with Romanism; and +the answer had been an appeal to the authority of the most learned and +authoritative of our writers. But, of course, to the general public this +learning was new; and the cry went on with a dreary and stupid monotony. +But the charges against Dr. Hampden led his defenders to adopt as their +best weapon an aggressive policy. To the attack on his orthodoxy, the +counter buffet was the charge against his chief opponents of secret or +open Romanising. In its keenest and most popular form it was put forth +in a mocking pamphlet written probably under Whately's inspiration by +his most trusted confidant, Dr. Dickinson, in which, in the form of a +"Pastoral Epistle from his Holiness the Pope to some Members of the +University of Oxford," the Tract-writers are made to appear as the +emissaries and secret tools of Rome, as in a _jeu d'esprit_ of Whately's +they are made to appear as the veiled prophets of infidelity.[68] It was +clever, but not clever enough to stand, at least in Oxford, against Dr. +Pusey's dignified and gravely earnest _Remonstrance_ against its +injustice and trifling. But the fire of all Dr. Hampden's friends had +been drawn on the leaders of the movement. With them, and almost alone +with them, the opposition to him was made a personal matter. As time +went on, those who had been as hot as they against Dr. Hampden managed +to get their part in the business forgotten. Old scores between +Orthodox, Evangelicals, and Liberals were wiped out, and the Tractarians +were left to bear alone the odium of the "persecution" of Dr. Hampden. +It must be said that they showed no signs of caring for it. + +But the Roman controversy was looming in earnest, and it was idle to +expect to keep it long out of sight. The Tracts had set forth with +startling vehemence the forgotten claims of the Church. One reason why +this had been done was the belief, as stated in the first volume of +them, "that nothing but these neglected doctrines, faithfully preached, +will repress the extension of Popery, for which the ever-multiplying +divisions of the religious world are too clearly preparing the way."[69] +The question, What _is_ the Church? was one which the conditions of the +times would not permit men any longer to leave alone. It had become +urgent to meet it clearly and decisively. "We could not move a step in +comfort till this was done."[70] "The controversy with the Romanists," +writes Mr. Newman in No. 71 of the Tracts, about the end of 1835, "has +overtaken us 'like a summer's cloud.' We find ourselves in various parts +of the country preparing for it, yet, when we look back, we cannot +trace the steps by which we arrived at our present position. We do not +recollect what our feelings were this time last year on the subject; +what was the state of our apprehensions and anticipations. All we know +is, that here we are, from long security ignorant why we are not Roman +Catholics, and they on the other side are said to be spreading and +strengthening on all sides of us, vaunting of their success, real or +apparent, and taunting us with our inability to argue with them." + +The attitude taken by Mr. Newman at this time, as regards the Roman +Church, both in the Tracts and in his book on _Romanism and Popular +Protestantism_, published in the early months of 1836, was a new one. He +had started, as he tells us, with the common belief that the Pope was +Antichrist, and that the case was so clear against the whole system, +doctrinal and practical, of the Church of Rome, that it scarcely needed +further examination. His feeling against Rome had been increased by the +fierce struggle about Emancipation, and by the political conduct of the +Roman Catholic party afterwards; and his growing dissatisfaction with +the ordinary Protestantism had no visible effect in softening this +feeling. Hurrell Froude's daring questions had made his friends feel +that there might be more to be known about the subject than they yet +knew; yet what the fellow-travellers saw of things abroad in their visit +to the South in 1832 did not impress them favourably. "They are wretched +Tridentines everywhere," was Froude's comment. But attention had been +drawn to the subject, and its deep interest and importance and +difficulty recognised. Men began to read with new eyes. Froude's keen +and deep sense of shortcomings at home disposed him to claim equity and +candour in judging of the alleged faults and corruptions of the Church +abroad. It did more, it disposed him--naturally enough, but still +unfairly, and certainly without adequate knowledge--to treat Roman +shortcomings with an indulgence which he refused to English. Mr. Newman, +knowing more, and more comprehensive in his view of things, and +therefore more cautious and guarded than Froude, was much less ready to +allow a favourable interpretation of the obvious allegations against +Rome. But thought and reading, and the authority of our own leading +divines, had brought him to the conviction that whatever was to be said +against the modern Roman Church--and the charges against it were very +heavy--it was still, amid serious corruption and error, a teacher to the +nations of the Christian creed and hope; it had not forfeited, any more +than the English Church, its title to be a part of that historic body +which connects us with the Apostles of our Lord. It had a strong and +consistent theory to oppose to its assailants; it had much more to say +for itself than the popular traditions supposed. This was no new idea in +Anglican divinity, however ill it might sort with the current language +of Protestant controversy. But our old divines, more easily satisfied +than we with the course of things at home under the protection of the +Stuart kings, and stung to bitter recrimination by the insults and the +unscrupulous political intrigues of Roman Catholic agents, had exhausted +the language of vituperation against a great aggressive rival, which was +threatening everything that they held dear. They had damaged their own +character for fairness, and overlaid their substantial grounds of +objection and complaint, by this unbalanced exaggeration. Mr. Newman, in +his study of these matters, early saw both the need and the difficulty +of discrimination in the Roman controversy. It had to be waged, not as +of old, with penal legislation behind, but against adversaries who +could now make themselves listened to, and before a public sufficiently +robust in its Protestantism, to look with amused interest on a +dialectical triumph of the Roman over the Anglican claims. Romanism, he +thought, was fatal both to his recent hopes for the English Church, and +to the honour and welfare of Christianity at large. But in opposing it, +ground loosely taken of old must be carefully examined, and if +untenable, abandoned. Arguments which proved too much, which availed +against any Church at all, must be given up. Popular objections, arising +from ignorance or misconception, must be reduced to their true limits or +laid aside. The controversy was sure to be a real one, and nothing but +what was real and would stand scrutiny was worth anything in it. + +Mr. Newman had always been impressed with the greatness of the Roman +Church. Of old it had seemed to him great with the greatness of +Antichrist. Now it seemed great with the strange weird greatness of a +wonderful mixed system, commanding from its extent of sway and its +imperial authority, complicated and mysterious in its organisation and +influence, in its devotion and its superstitions, and surpassing every +other form of religion both in its good and its evil.[71] What now +presented itself to Mr. Newman's thoughts, instead of the old notion of +a pure Church on one side, and a corrupt Church on the other, sharply +opposed to one another, was the more reasonable supposition of two great +portions of the divided Church, each with its realities of history and +fact and character, each with its special claims and excellences, each +with its special sins and corruptions, and neither realising in practice +and fact all it professed to be on paper; each of which further, in the +conflicts of past days, had deeply, almost unpardonably, wronged the +other. The Church of England was in possession, with its own call and +its immense work to do, and striving to do it. Whatever the Church of +Rome was abroad, it was here an intruder and a disturber. That to his +mind was the fact and the true position of things; and this ought to +govern the character and course of controversy. The true line was not to +denounce and abuse wholesale, not to attack with any argument, good or +bad, not to deny or ignore what was solid in the Roman ground, and good +and elevated in the Roman system, but admitting all that fairly ought to +be admitted, to bring into prominence, not for mere polemical +denunciation, but for grave and reasonable and judicial condemnation, +all that was extravagant and arrogant in Roman assumptions, and all that +was base, corrupt, and unchristian in the popular religion, which, with +all its claims to infallibility and authority, Rome not only permitted +but encouraged. For us to condemn Rome wholesale, as was ordinarily the +fashion, even in respectable writers, was as wrong, as unfair, as +unprofitable to the cause of truth and Christianity, as the Roman +charges against us were felt by us to be ignorant and unjust. Rome +professes like England to continue the constitution, doctrine, +traditions, and spirit of the ancient and undivided Church: and so far +as she does so--and she does so in a great degree--we can have no +quarrel with her. But in a great degree also, she does this only in +profession and as a theory: she claims the witness and suffrage of +antiquity, but she interprets it at her own convenience and by her own +authority. We cannot claim exemption from mistakes, from deviations from +our own standard and principles, any more than Rome; but while she +remains as she is, and makes the monstrous claims of infallibility and +supremacy, there is nothing for English Churchmen but to resist her. +Union is impossible. Submission is impossible. What we have to beware of +for our own sake, as well as for our cause, are false arguments, unreal +objections, ignorant allegations. There is enough on the very surface, +in her audacious assertions and high-handed changes, for popular +arguments against her, without having recourse to exaggeration and +falsehood; she may be a very faulty Church, without being Babylon and +Antichrist. And in the higher forms of argument, there is abundance in +those provinces of ancient theology and ecclesiastical history and law, +which Protestant controversialists have commonly surrendered and left +open to their opponents, to supply a more telling weapon than any which +these controversialists have used. + +This line, though substantially involved in the theory of our most +learned divines, from Andrewes to Wake, was new in its moderation and +reasonable caution; in its abstention from insult and vague abuse, in +its recognition of the _primâ facie_ strength of much of the Roman case, +in its fearless attempt, in defiance of the deepest prejudices, to face +the facts and conditions of the question. Mr. Newman dared to know and +to acknowledge much that our insular self-satisfaction did not know, and +did not care to know, of real Christian life in the Church of Rome. He +dared to admit that much that was popularly held to be Popish was +ancient, Catholic, edifying; he dared to warn Churchmen that the loose +unsifted imputations, so securely hazarded against Rome, were both +discreditable and dangerous. All this, from one whose condemnation of +Rome was decisive and severe, was novel. The attempt, both in its spirit +and its ability, was not unworthy of being part of the general effort to +raise the standard of thought and teaching in the English Church. It +recalled men from slovenly prejudices to the study of the real facts of +the living world. It narrowed the front of battle, but it strengthened +it enormously. The volume on _Romanism and Popular Protestantism_ is not +an exhaustive survey of the controversy with Rome or of the theory of +the Church. There are great portions of the subject, both theological +and historical, which it did not fall within the scope of the book to +touch. It was unsystematic and incomplete. But so far as its argument +extended, it almost formed an epoch in this kind of controversial +writing. It showed the command of a man of learning over all the +technical points and minutiae of a question highly scholastical in its +conceptions and its customary treatment, and it presented this question +in its bearings and consequences on life and practice with the freedom +and breadth of the most vigorous popular writing. The indictment against +Rome was no vague or general one. It was one of those arguments which +cut the ground from under a great established structure of reasonings +and proofs. And its conclusions, clear and measured, but stern, were +the more impressive, because they came from one who did not disguise his +feeling that there was much in what was preserved in the Roman system to +admire and to learn from. + +The point which he chose for his assault was indeed the key of the Roman +position--the doctrine of Infallibility. He was naturally led to this +side of the question by the stress which the movement had laid on the +idea of the Church as the witness and teacher of revealed truth: and the +immediate challenge given by the critics or opponents of the movement +was, how to distinguish this lofty idea of the Church, with its claim to +authority, if it was at all substantial, from the imposing and +consistent theory of Romanism. He urged against the Roman claim of +Infallibility two leading objections. One was the way in which the +assumed infallibility of the present Church was made to override and +supersede, in fact, what in words was so ostentatiously put forward, the +historical evidence of antiquity to doctrine, expressed by the phrase, +the "consent of the Fathers." The other objection was the inherent +contradiction of the notion of infallibility to the conditions of human +reception of teaching and knowledge, and its practical uselessness as an +assurance of truth, its partly delusive, partly mischievous, working. +But he felt, as all deep minds must feel, that it is easier to overthrow +the Roman theory of Church authority than to replace it by another, +equally complete and commanding, and more unassailable. He was quite +alive to the difficulties of the Anglican position; but he was a +disciple in the school of Bishop Butler, and had learned as a first +principle to recognise the limitations of human knowledge, and the +unphilosophical folly of trying to round off into finished and +pretentious schemes our fragmentary yet certain notices of our own +condition and of God's dealings with it. He followed his teacher in +insisting on the reality and importance of moral evidence as opposed to +demonstrative proof; and he followed the great Anglican divines in +asserting that there was a true authority, varying in its degrees, in +the historic Church; that on the most fundamental points of religion +this authority was trustworthy and supreme; that on many other questions +it was clear and weighty, though it could not decide everything. This +view of the "prophetical office of the Church" had the dialectical +disadvantage of appearing to be a compromise, to many minds a fatal +disadvantage. It got the name of the _Via Media_; a satisfactory one to +practical men like Dr. Hook, to whom it recommended itself for use in +popular teaching; but to others, in aftertimes, an ill-sounding phrase +of dislike, which summed up the weakness of the Anglican case. Yet it +only answered to the certain fact, that in the early and undivided +Church there was such a thing as authority, and there was no such thing +known as Infallibility. It was an appeal to the facts of history and +human nature against the logical exigencies of a theory. Men must +transcend the conditions of our experience if they want the certainty +which the theory of Infallibility speaks of. + +There were especially two weak points in this view of Anglicanism. Mr. +Newman felt and admitted them, and of course they were forced on his +attention by controversialists on both sides; by the Ultra Protestant +school, whose modes of dealing with Scripture he had exposed with +merciless logic and by the now eager Roman disputants, of whom Dr. +Wiseman was the able and not over-scrupulous chief. The first of these +points was that the authority of the undivided Church, which Anglicanism +invoked, though it completely covered the great foundations of Christian +doctrine, our faith as to the nature of God, did not cover with equal +completeness other important points of controversy, such as those +raised at the Reformation as to the Sacraments, and the justification of +the sinner. The Anglican answer was that though the formal and conciliar +authority was not the same in each case, the patristic literature of the +time of the great councils, all that it took for granted and preserved +as current belief and practice, all that resulted from the questions and +debates of the time, formed a body of proof, which carried with it moral +evidence only short of authoritative definition, and was so regarded in +the Anglican formularies. These formularies implied the authority of the +Church to speak; and what was defined on this authority was based on +good evidence, though there were portions of its teaching which had even +better. The other point was more serious. "Your theory," was the +objection, "is nothing but a paper theory; it never was a reality; it +never can be. There may be an ideal halting-place, there is neither a +logical nor an actual one, between Romanism and the ordinary negations +of Protestantism." The answer to the challenge then was, "Let us see if +it cannot be realised. It has recognised foundations to build upon, and +the impediments and interruptions which have hindered it are well known. +Let us see if it will not turn out something more than a paper theory." +That was the answer given at the time, abandoned ten years afterwards. +But this at least may be said, that the longer experience of the last +fifty years has shown that the Church of England has been working more +and more on such a theory, and that the Church of England, whatever its +faults may be, is certainly not a Church only on paper. + +But on the principles laid down in this volume, the Roman controversy, +in its varying forms, was carried on--for the time by Mr. Newman, +permanently by the other leaders of the movement. In its main outlines, +the view has become the accepted Anglican view. Many other most +important matters have come into the debate. The publicly altered +attitude of the Papacy has indefinitely widened the breach between +England and Rome. But the fundamental idea of the relations and +character of the two Churches remains the same as it was shadowed forth +in 1836. + +One very important volume on these questions ought not to be passed by +without notice. This was the _Treatise on the Church of Christ_, 1838, +by Mr. W. Palmer, who had already by his _Origines_ of the English +Ritual, 1832, done much to keep up that interest of Churchmen in the +early devotional language of the Church, which had first been called +forth by Bishop Lloyd's lectures on the Prayer Book. The _Treatise on +the Church_ was an honour to English theology and learning; in point of +plan and structure we have few books like it.[72] It is comprehensive, +methodical, well-compacted, and, from its own point of view, +exhaustive. It is written with full knowledge of the state of the +question at the time, both on the Anglican side and on the Roman. Its +author evades no objection, and is aware of most. It is rigorous in +form, and has no place for anything but substantial argument. It is a +book which, as the _Apologia_ tells us, commanded the respect of such an +accomplished controversialist as Perrone; and, it may be added, of a +theologian of an opposite school, Dr. Döllinger. It is also one on which +the highest value has been set by Mr. Gladstone. It is remarkable that +it did not exercise more influence on religious thought in Oxford at the +critical time when it appeared. But it had defects, and the moment was +against it. It was dry and formal--inevitably so, from the scientific +plan deliberately adopted for it; it treated as problems of the +theological schools, to be discussed by the rules of severe and +passionless disputation, questions which were once more, after the +interval of more than a century, beginning to touch hearts and +consciences, and were felt to be fraught with the gravest practical +issues. And Mr. Newman, in his mode of dealing with them, unsystematic, +incomplete, unsatisfactory in many ways as it was, yet saw in them not +abstract and scholastic inquiries, however important, but matters in +which not only sound argument, but sympathy and quick intelligence of +the conditions and working of the living minds around him, were needed +to win their attention and interest. To persons accustomed to Mr. +Newman's habit of mind and way of writing, his ease, his frankness, his +candour, his impatience of conventionality, his piercing insight into +the very centre of questions, his ever-ready recognition of nature and +reality, his range of thought, his bright and clear and fearless style +of argument, his undisplayed but never unfelt consciousness of the true +awfulness of anything connected with religion, any stiff and heavy way +of treating questions which he had treated would have seemed +unattractive and unpersuasive. He had spoiled his friends for any mere +technical handling, however skilful, of great and critical subjects. He +himself pointed out in a review the unique merit and the real value of +Mr. Palmer's book, pointing out also, significantly enough, where it +fell short, both in substance and in manner. Observing that the +"scientific" system of the English Church is not yet "sufficiently +cleared and adjusted," and adding a variety of instances of this +deficiency, he lets us see what he wanted done, where difficulties most +pressed upon himself, and where Mr. Palmer had missed the real substance +of such difficulties. Looking at it by the light of after-events, we can +see the contradiction and reaction produced by Mr. Palmer's too +optimist statements. Still, Mr. Newman's praise was sincere and +discriminating. But Mr. Palmer's book, though never forgotten, scarcely +became, what it at another time might well have become, an English +text-book. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[68] Whately's _Life_, ed. 1875, pp. 187-190. + +[69] Advertisement to vol. i. 1st Nov. 1834. + +[70] _Apologia_, p. 139. + +[71] Vide _Lyra Apostolica_, Nos. 170, 172: + + How shall I name thee, Light of the wide West, + Or heinous error-seat?... + Oh, that thy creed were sound! + For thou dost soothe the heart, thou Church of Rome, + By thy unwearied watch and varied round + Of service, in thy Saviour's holy home. + +And comp. No. 171, _The Cruel Church_. + +[72] "The most important theological work which has lately appeared is +Mr. Palmer's _Treatise on the Church_.... Whatever judgment may be +formed of the conclusions to which he has come on the variety of points +which he had to consider, we cannot contemplate without admiration, and +(if it were right) without envy, the thorough treatment which his +subject has received at his hands. It is indeed a work quite in +character with the religious movement which has commenced in various +parts of the Church, displaying a magnificence of design similar to that +of the Bishop of London's plan of fifty new churches, and Dr. Pusey, of +Oxford's, projected translation of the Fathers."--_Brit. Crit._. July +1838. Short Notices. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +CHANGES + + +The first seven years of the movement, as it is said in the _Apologia_, +had been years of prosperity. There had been mistakes; there had been +opposition; there had been distrust and uneasiness. There was in some +places a ban on the friends of Mr. Newman; men like Mr. James Mozley and +Mr. Mark Pattison found their connexion with him a difficulty in the way +of fellowships. But on the whole, things had gone smoothly, without any +great breakdown, or any open collision with authority. But after 1840 +another period was to begin of trouble and disaster. The seeds of this +had been partially sown before in the days of quiet, and the time was +come for their development. Differences in the party itself had been +growing sharper; differences between the more cautious and the more +fearless, between the more steady-going and the more subtle thinkers. +The contrast between the familiar and customary, and the new--between +the unknown or forgotten, and a mass of knowledge only recently +realised--became more pronounced. Consequences of a practical kind, real +or supposed; began to show themselves, and to press. And above all, a +second generation, without the sobering experience of the first, was +starting from where the first had reached to, and, in some instances, +was rising up against their teachers' caution and patience. The usual +dangers of all earnest and aggressive assertions of great principles +appeared: contempt for everything in opinion and practice that was not +advanced, men vying with each other in bold inferences, in the pleasure +of "talking strong." With this grew fear and exasperation on the other +side, misunderstandings, misgivings, strainings of mutual confidence, +within. Dr. Hook alternated between violent bursts of irritation and +disgust, and equally strong returns of sympathy, admiration, and +gratitude; and he represented a large amount of feeling among Churchmen. +It was but too clear that storms were at hand. They came perhaps quicker +than they were anticipated. + +Towards the end of 1838, a proposal was brought forward, for which in +its direct aspect much might plausibly be said, but which was in +intention and indirectly a test question, meant to put the Tractarians +in a difficulty, and to obtain the weight of authority in the University +against them. It was proposed to raise a subscription, and to erect a +monument in Oxford, to the martyrs of the Reformation, Cranmer, Ridley, +and Latimer. Considering that the current and popular language dated +the Church of England from the Reformation of the sixteenth century, and +cited the Reformers as ultimate and paramount authorities on its +doctrine, there was nothing unreasonable in such a proposal. Dr. Hook, +strong Churchman as he was, "called to union on the principles of the +English Reformation." But the criticism which had been set afloat by the +movement had discovered and realised, what defenders of the English +Church had hitherto felt it an act of piety to disbelieve, when put +before them by Romanists like Lingard, and radicals like Cobbett. that +the Reformers had been accomplices in many indefensible acts, and had +been inconsistent and untrustworthy theologians. Providentially, it was +felt, the force of old convictions and tradition and the historical +events of the time had obliged them to respect the essentials of +Catholic truth and polity and usage; we owed to them much that was +beautiful and devotional in the Prayer Book; and their Articles, clear +in all matters decided by the early theology, avoided foreign extremes +in dealing with later controversies. But their own individual language +was often far in advance of the public and official language of +formularies, in the direction of the great Protestant authorities of +Geneva and Zurich. There were still, even among the movement party, many +who respected the Reformers for the work which they had attempted, and +partly and imperfectly done, to be more wisely and soberly carried on by +their successors of the seventeenth century. But the charges against +their Calvinistic and even Zwinglian language were hard to parry; even +to those who respected them for their connexion with our present order +of things, their learning, their soundness, their authority appeared to +be greatly exaggerated; and the reaction from excessive veneration made +others dislike and depreciate them. This was the state of feeling when +the Martyrs' Memorial was started. It was eagerly pressed with ingenious +and persevering arguments by Mr. Golightly, the indefatigable and +long-labouring opponent of all that savoured of Tractarianism. The +appeal seemed so specious that at first many even of the party gave in +their adhesion. Even Dr. Pusey was disposed to subscribe to it. But Mr. +Newman, as was natural, held aloof; and his friends for the most part +did the same. It was what was expected and intended. They were either to +commit themselves to the Reformation as understood by the promoters of +the Memorial; or they were to be marked as showing their disloyalty to +it. The subscription was successful. The Memorial was set up, and stood, +a derisive though unofficial sign of the judgment of the University +against them. + +But the "Memorial" made little difference to the progress of the +movement. It was an indication of hostility in reserve, but this was +all; it formed an ornament to the city, but failed as a religious and +effective protest. Up to the spring of 1839, Anglicanism, placed on an +intellectual basin by Mr. Newman, developed practically in different +ways by Dr. Pusey and Dr. Hook, sanctioned in theory by divines who +represented the old divinity of the English Church, like Bishop +Phillpotts and Mr. H.J. Rose, could speak with confident and hopeful +voice. It might well seem that it was on its way to win over the coming +generations of the English clergy. It had on its side all that gives +interest and power to a cause,--thought, force of character, unselfish +earnestness; it had unity of idea and agreement in purpose, and was +cemented by the bonds of warm affection and common sympathies. It had +the promise of a nobler religion, as energetic and as spiritual as +Puritanism and Wesleyanism, while it drew its inspiration, its canons of +doctrine, its moral standards, from purer and more venerable +sources;--from communion, not with individual teachers and partial +traditions, but with the consenting teaching and authoritative documents +of the continuous Catholic Church. + +Anglicanism was agreed, up to this time--the summer of 1839--as to its +general principles. Charges of an inclination to Roman views had been +promptly and stoutly met; nor was there really anything but the +ignorance or ill-feeling of the accusers to throw doubt on the sincerity +of these disavowals. The deepest and strongest mind in the movement was +satisfied; and his steadiness of conviction could be appealed to if his +followers talked wildly and rashly. He had kept one unwavering path; he +had not shrunk from facing with fearless honesty the real living array +of reasons which the most serious Roman advocates could put forward. +With a frankness new in controversy, he had not been afraid to state +them with a force which few of his opponents could have put forth. With +an eye ever open to that supreme Judge of all our controversies, who +listens to them on His throne on high, he had with conscientious +fairness admitted what he saw to be good and just on the side of his +adversaries, conceded what in the confused wrangle of conflicting claims +he judged ought to be conceded. But after all admissions and all +concessions, the comparative strength of his own case appeared all the +more undeniable. He had stripped it of its weaknesses, its incumbrances, +its falsehoods; and it did not seem the weaker for being presented in +its real aspect and on its real grounds. People felt that he had gone to +the bottom of the question as no one had yet dared to do. He was yet +staunch in his convictions; and they could feel secure. + +But a change was at hand. In the course of 1839, the little cloud showed +itself in the outlook of the future; the little rift opened, small and +hardly perceptible, which was to widen into an impassable gulf. +Anglicanism started with undoubted confidence in its own foundations and +its own position, as much against Romanism as against the more recent +forms of religion. In the consciousness of its strength, it could afford +to make admissions and to refrain from tempting but unworthy arguments +in controversy with Rome; indeed the necessity of such controversy had +come upon it unexpectedly and by surprise. With English frankness, in +its impatience of abuses and desire for improvement within, it had dwelt +strongly on the faults and shortcomings of the English Church which it +desired to remedy; but while allowing what was undeniably excellent in +Rome, it had been equally outspoken and emphatic in condemnation of the +evils of Rome. What is there to wonder at in such a position? It is the +position of every honest reforming movement, at least in England. But +Anglican self-reliance was unshaken, and Anglican hope waxed stronger as +the years went on, and the impression made by Anglican teaching became +wider and deeper. Outside attacks, outside persecution, could now do +little harm; the time was past for that. What might have happened had +things gone on as they began, it is idle to inquire. But at the moment +when all seemed to promise fair, the one fatal influence, the presence +of internal uncertainty and doubt, showed itself. The body of men who +had so for acted together began to show a double aspect. While one +portion of it continued on the old lines, holding the old ground, +defending the old principles, and attempting to apply them for the +improvement of the practical system of the English Church, another +portion had asked the question, and were pursuing the anxious inquiry, +whether the English Church was a true Church at all, a true portion of +the one uninterrupted Catholic Church of the Redeemer. And the question +had forced itself with importunate persistence on the leading mind of +the movement. From this time the fate of Tractarianism, as a party, was +decided. + +In this overthrow of confidence, two sets of influences may be traced. + +1. One, which came from above, from the highest leading authority in the +movement, was the unsettlement of Mr. Newman's mind. He has told the +story, the story as he believed of his enfranchisement and deliverance; +and he has told the story, though the story of a deliverance, with so +keen a feeling of its pathetic and tragic character,--as it is indeed +the most tragic story of a conversion to peace and hope on record,--that +it will never cease to be read where the English language is spoken. Up +to the summer of 1839, his view of the English position had satisfied +him--satisfied him, that is, as a tenable one in the anomalies of +existing Christendom. All seemed clear and hopeful, and the one thing to +be thought of was to raise the English Church to the height of its own +standard. But in the autumn of that year (1839), as he has told us, a +change took place. In the summer of 1839, he had set himself to study +the history of the Monophysite controversy. "I have no reason," he +writes, "to suppose that the thought of Rome came across my mind at +all.... It was during this course of reading that for the first time a +doubt came across me of the tenableness of Anglicanism. I had seen the +shadow of a hand on the wall. He who has seen a ghost cannot be as if he +had never seen it. The heavens had opened and closed again." To less +imaginative and slower minds this seems an overwrought description of a +phenomenon, which must present itself sometime or other to all who +search the foundations of conviction; and by itself he was for the time +proof against its force. "The thought for the moment had been, The +Church of Rome will be found right after all; and then it had vanished. +My old convictions remained as before." But another blow came, and then +another. An article by Dr. Wiseman on the Donatists greatly disturbed +him. The words of St. Augustine about the Donatists, _securus judicat +orbis terrarum_, rang continually in his ears, like words out of the +sky. He found the threatenings of the Monophysite controversy renewed in +the _Arian_: "the ghost had come a second time." It was a "most +uncomfortable article," he writes in his letters; "the first real hit +from Romanism which has happened to me"; it gave him, as he says, "a +stomach-ache." But he still held his ground, and returned his answer to +the attack in an article in the _British Critic_, on the "Catholicity of +the English Church." He did not mean to take the attack for more than it +was worth, an able bit of _ex parte_ statement. But it told on him, as +nothing had yet told on him. What it did, was to "open a vista which was +closed before, and of which he could not see the end"; "we are not at +the bottom of things," was the sting it left behind From this time, the +hope and exultation with which, in spite of checks and misgivings, he +had watched the movement, gave way to uneasiness and distress. A new +struggle was beginning, a long struggle with himself, a long struggle +between rival claims which would not be denied, each equally imperious, +and involving fatal consequences if by mistake the wrong one was +admitted. And it was not only the effect of these thoughts on his own +mind which filled him with grief and trouble. He always thought much for +others; and now there was the misery of perhaps unsettling +others--others who had trusted him with their very souls--others, to +whom it was impossible to explain the conflicts which were passing in +his own mind. It was so bitter to unsettle their hope and confidence. +All through this time, more trying than his own difficulties, were the +perplexities and sorrows which he foresaw for those whom he loved. Very +illogical and inconsecutive, doubtless; if only he had had the hard +heart of a proselytiser, he would have seen that it was his duty to +undermine and shatter their old convictions. But he cared more for the +tempers and beliefs in which he was at one with his Anglican friends, +than for those in which they could not follow him. But the struggle came +on gradually. What he feared at first was not the triumph of Rome, but +the break-up of the English Church; the apparent probability of a great +schism in it. "I fear I see more clearly that we are working up to a +schism in the English Church, that is, a split between Peculiars and +Apostolicals ... I never can be surprised at individuals going off to +Rome, but that is not my chief fear, but a schism; that is, those two +parties, which have hitherto got on together as they could, from the +times of Puritanism downwards, gathering up into clear, tangible, and +direct forces, and colliding. Our Church is not at one with itself, +there is no denying it." That was at first the disaster before him. His +thought for himself began to turn, not to Rome, but to a new life +without office and authority, but still within the English Church. "You +see, if things come to the worst, I should turn brother of charity in +London." And he began to prepare for a move from Oxford, from St. +Mary's, from his fellowship. He bought land at Littlemore, and began to +plant. He asks his brother-in-law for plans for building what he calls a +μονή. He looks forward to its becoming a sort of Monastic school, but +still connected with the University. + +In Mr. Newman's view of the debate between England and Rome, he had all +along dwelt on two broad features, _Apostolicity_ and _Catholicity_, +likeness to the Apostolic teaching, and likeness to the uninterrupted +unity and extent of the undivided Church; and of those two features he +found the first signally wanting in Rome, and the second signally +wanting in England. When he began to distrust his own reasonings, still +the disturbing and repelling element in Rome was the alleged defect of +Apostolicity, the contrast between primitive and Roman religion; while +the attractive one was the apparent widely extended Catholicity in all +lands, East and West, continents and isles, of the world-wide spiritual +empire of the Pope. It is these two great points which may be traced in +their action on his mind at this crisis. The contrast between early and +Roman doctrine and practice, in a variety of ways, some of them most +grave and important, was long a great difficulty in the way of +attempting to identify the Roman Church, absolutely and exclusively, +with the Primitive Church. The study of antiquity indisposed him, +indeed, more and more to the existing system of the English Church; its +claims to model itself on the purity and simplicity of the Early Church +seemed to him, in the light of its documents, and still more of the +facts of history and life, more and more questionable. But modern Rome +was just as distant from the Early Church though it preserved many +ancient features, lost or unvalued by England. Still, Rome was not the +same thing as the Early Church; and Mr. Newman ultimately sought a way +out of his difficulty--and indeed there was no other--in the famous +doctrine of Development. But when the difficulty about _Apostolicity_ +was thus provided for, then the force of the great vision of the +Catholic Church came upon him, unchecked and irresistible. That was a +thing present, visible, undeniable as a fact of nature; that was a thing +at once old and new; it belonged as truly, as manifestly, to the recent +and modern world of democracy and science, as it did to the Middle Ages +and the Fathers, to the world of Gregory and Innocent, to the world of +Athanasius and Augustine. The majesty, the vastness of an imperial +polity, outlasting all states and kingdoms, all social changes and +political revolutions, answered at once to the promises of the +prophecies, and to the antecedent idea of the universal kingdom of God. +Before this great idea, embodied in concrete form, and not a paper +doctrine, partial scandals and abuses seemed to sink into +insignificance. Objections seemed petty and ignoble; the pretence of +rival systems impertinent and absurd. He resented almost with impatience +anything in the way of theory or explanation which seemed to him narrow, +technical, dialectical. He would look at nothing but what had on it the +mark of greatness and largeness which befitted the awful subject, and +was worthy of arresting the eye and attention of an ecclesiastical +statesman, alive to mighty interests, compared to which even the most +serious human affairs were dwarfed and obscured. But all this was +gradual in coming. His recognition of the claims of the English Church, +faulty and imperfect as he thought it, did not give way suddenly and at +once. It survived the rude shock of 1839, From first to almost the last +she was owned as his "mother"--owned in passionate accents of +disappointment and despair as a Church which knew not how to use its +gifts; yet still, even though life seemed failing her, and her power of +teaching and ruling seemed paralysed, his mother; and as long as there +seemed to him a prospect of restoration to health, it was his duty to +stay by her.[73] This was his first attitude for three or four years +after 1839. He could not speak of her with the enthusiasm and triumph of +the first years of the movement. When he fought her battles, it was with +the sense that her imperfections made his task the harder. Still he +clung to the belief that she held a higher standard than she had yet +acted up to, and discouraged and perplexed he yet maintained her cause. +But now two things happened. The Roman claims, as was natural when +always before him, seemed to him more and more indisputable. And in +England his interpretation of Anglican theology seemed to be more and +more contradicted, disavowed, condemned, by all that spoke with any +authority in the Church. The University was not an ecclesiastical body, +yet it had practically much weight in matters of theology; it +informally, but effectually, declared against him. The Bishops, one by +one, of course only spoke as individuals; but they were the official +spokesmen of the Church, and their consent, though not the act of a +Synod, was weighty--they too had declared against him. And finally that +vague but powerful voice of public opinion, which claims to represent at +once the cool judgment of the unbiassed, and the passion of the +zealous--it too declared against him. Could he claim to understand the +mind of the Church better than its own organs? + +Then at length a change came; and it was marked outwardly by a curious +retractation of his severe language about Rome, published in a paper +called the _Conservative Journal_, in January 1843; and more distinctly, +by his resignation of St. Mary's in September 1843, a step contemplated +for some time, and by his announcement that he was preparing to resign +his fellowship. From this time he felt that he could no longer hold +office, or be a champion of the English Church; from this time, it was +only a matter of waiting, waiting to make quite certain that he was +right and was under no delusion, when he should leave her for the Roman +Communion. And to his intimate friends, to his sisters, he gave notice +that this was now impending. To the world outside, all that was known +was that he was much unsettled and distressed by difficulties. + +It may be asked why this change was not at this time communicated, not +to a few intimates, but to the world? Why did he not at this time hoist +his quarantine flag and warn every one that he was dangerous to come +near? So keen a mind must, it was said, have by this time foreseen how +things would end; he ought to have given earlier notice. His answer was +that he was sincerely desirous of avoiding, as far as possible, what +might prejudice the Church in which he had ministered, even at the +moment of leaving her. He saw his own way becoming clearer and clearer; +but he saw it for himself alone. He was not one of those who forced the +convictions of others; he was not one of those who think it a great +thing to be followed in a serious change by a crowd of disciples. +Whatever might be at the end, it was now an agonising wrench to part +from the English body, to part from the numbers of friends whose loyalty +was immovable, to part from numbers who had trusted and learned from +him. Of course, if he was in the right way, he could wish them nothing +better than that they should follow him. But they were in God's hands; +it was not his business to unsettle them; it was not his business to +ensnare and coerce their faith. And so he tried for this time to steer +his course alone. He wished to avoid observation. He was silent on all +that went on round him, exciting as some of the incidents were. He would +not he hurried; he would give himself full time; he would do what he +could to make sure that he was not acting under the influence of a +delusion. + +The final result of all this was long in coming; there was, we know, a +bitter agony of five years, a prolonged and obstinate and cruel struggle +between the deepest affections and ever-growing convictions. But this +struggle, as has been said, did not begin with the conviction in which +it ended. It began and long continued with the belief that though +England was wrong, Rome was not right; that though the Roman argument +seemed more and more unanswerable, there were insuperable difficulties +of certain fact which made the Roman conclusion incredible; that there +was so much good and truth in England, with all its defects and faults, +which was unaccountable and unintelligible on the Roman hypothesis; that +the real upshot was that the whole state of things in Christendom was +abnormal; that to English Churchmen the English Church had immediate and +direct claims which nothing but the most irresistible counter-claims +could overcome or neutralise--the claims of a shipwrecked body cut off +from country and home, yet as a shipwrecked body still organised, and +with much saved from the wreck, and not to be deserted, as long as it +held together, in an uncertain attempt to rejoin its lost unity. +Resignation, retirement, silence, lay communion, the hope of ultimate, +though perhaps long-deferred reunion--these were his first thoughts. +Misgivings could not be helped, would not be denied, but need not be +paraded, were to be kept at arm's-length as long as possible. This is +the picture presented in the autobiography of these painful and dreary +years; and there is every evidence that it is a faithful one. It is +conceivable, though not very probable, that such a course might go on +indefinitely. It is conceivable that under different circumstances he +might, like other perplexed and doubting seekers after truth, have +worked round through doubt and perplexity to his first conviction. But +the actual result, as it came, was natural enough; and it was +accelerated by provocation, by opponents without, and by the pressure of +advanced and impatient followers and disciples in the party itself. + +2. This last was the second of the two influences spoken of above. It +worked from below, as the first worked from above. + +Discussions and agitations, such as accompanied the movement, however +much under the control of the moral and intellectual ascendancy of the +leaders, could not of course be guaranteed from escaping from that +control. And as the time went on, men joined the movement who had but +qualified sympathy with that passionate love and zeal for the actual +English Church, that acquaintance with its historical theology, and that +temper of discipline, sobriety, and self-distrust, which marked its +first representatives. These younger disciples shared in the growing +excitement of the society round them. They were attracted by visible +height of character, and brilliant intellectual power. They were alive +to vast and original prospects, opening a new world which should be a +contrast to the worn-out interest of the old. Some of these were men of +wide and abstruse learning; quaint and eccentric scholars both in habit +and look, students of the ancient type, who even fifty years ago seemed +out of date to their generation. Some were men of considerable force of +mind, destined afterwards to leave a mark on their age as thinkers and +writers. To the former class belonged Charles Seager, and John Brande +Morris, of Exeter College, both learned Orientalists, steeped in +recondite knowledge of all kinds; men who had worked their way to +knowledge through hardship and grinding labour, and not to be outdone in +Germany itself for devouring love of learning and a scholar's plainness +of life. In the other class may be mentioned Frederic Faber, J.D. +Dalgairns, and W.G. Ward, men who have all since risen to eminence in +their different spheres. Faber was a man with a high gift of +imagination, remarkable powers of assimilating knowledge, and a great +richness and novelty and elegance of thought, which with much melody of +voice made him ultimately a very attractive preacher. If the promise of +his powers has not been adequately fulfilled, it is partly to be traced +to a want of severity of taste and self-restraint, but his name will +live in some of his hymns, and in some very beautiful portions of his +devotional writings. Dalgairns's mind was of a different order. "That +man has an eye for theology," was the remark of a competent judge on +some early paper of Dalgairns's which came before him. He had something +of the Frenchman about him. There was in him, in his Oxford days, a +bright and frank briskness, a mixture of modesty and arch daring, which +gave him an almost boyish appearance; but beneath this boyish appearance +there was a subtle and powerful intellect, alive to the problems of +religious philosophy, and impatient of any but the most thorough +solutions of them; while, on the other hand, the religious affections +were part of his nature, and mind and will and heart yielded an +unreserved and absolute obedience to the leading and guidance of faith. +In his later days, with his mind at ease, Father Dalgairns threw himself +into the great battle with unbelief; and few men have commanded more +the respect of opponents not much given to think well of the arguments +for religion, by the freshness and the solidity of his reasoning. At +this time, enthusiastic in temper, and acute and exacting as a thinker, +he found the Church movement just, as it were, on the turn of the wave. +He was attracted to it at first by its reaction against what was unreal +and shallow, by its affinities with what was deep in idea and earnest in +life; then, and finally, he was repelled from it, by its want of +completeness, by its English acquiescence in compromise, by its +hesitations and clinging to insular associations and sympathies, which +had little interest for him. + +Another person, who was at this time even more prominent in the advanced +portion of the movement party, and whose action had more decisive +influence on its course, was Mr. W.G. Ward, Fellow of Balliol. Mr. Ward, +who was first at Christ Church, had distinguished himself greatly at the +Oxford Union as a vigorous speaker, at first on the Tory side; he came +afterwards under the influence of Arthur Stanley, then fresh from Rugby, +and naturally learned to admire Dr. Arnold; but Dr. Arnold's religious +doctrines did not satisfy him; the movement, with its boldness and +originality of idea and ethical character, had laid strong hold on him, +and he passed into one of the most thoroughgoing adherents of Mr. +Newman. There was something to smile at in his person, and in some of +his ways--his unbusiness-like habits, his joyousness of manner, his racy +stories; but few more powerful intellects passed through Oxford in his +time, and he has justified his University reputation by his distinction +since, both as a Roman Catholic theologian and professor, and as a +profound metaphysical thinker, the equal antagonist on their own ground +of J. Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. But his intellect at that time +was as remarkable for its defects as for its powers. He used to divide +his friends, and thinking people in general, into those who had facts +and did not know what to do with them, and those who had in perfection +the logical faculties, but wanted the facts to reason upon. He belonged +himself to the latter class. He had, not unnaturally, boundless +confidence in his argumentative powers; they were subtle, piercing, +nimble, never at a loss, and they included a power of exposition which, +if it was not always succinct and lively, was always weighty and +impressive. Premises in his hands were not long in bringing forth their +conclusions; and if abstractions always corresponded exactly to their +concrete embodiments, and ideals were fulfilled in realities, no one +could point out more perspicuously and decisively the practical +judgments on them which reason must sanction. But that knowledge of +things and of men which mere power of reasoning will not give was not +one of his special endowments. The study of facts, often in their +complicated and perplexing reality, was not to his taste. He was apt to +accept them on what he considered adequate authority, and his +argumentation, formidable as it always was, recalled, even when most +unanswerable at the moment, the application of pure mathematics without +allowance for the actual forces, often difficult to ascertain except by +experiment, which would have to be taken account of in practice. + +The tendency of this section of able men was unquestionably Romewards, +almost from the beginning of their connexion with the movement. Both the +theory and the actual system of Rome, so far as they understood it, had +attractions for them which nothing else had. But with whatever +perplexity and perhaps impatience, Mr. Newman's power held them back. He +kept before their minds continually those difficulties of fact which +stood in the way of their absolute and peremptory conclusions, and of +which they were not much inclined to take account. He insisted on those +features, neither few nor unimportant nor hard to see, which proved the +continuity of the English Church with the Church Universal. Sharing +their sense of anomaly in the Anglican theory and position, he pointed +out with his own force and insight that anomaly was not in England only, +but everywhere. There was much to regret, there was much to improve, +there were many unwelcome and dangerous truths, _invidiosi veri_, to be +told and defended at any cost. But patience, as well as honesty and +courage, was a Christian virtue; and they who had received their +Christianity at the hands of the English Church had duties towards it +from which neither dissatisfaction nor the idea of something better +could absolve them. _Spartam nactus es, hanc exorna_ is the motto for +every one whose lot is cast in any portion of Christ's Church. And as +long as he could speak with this conviction, the strongest of them could +not break away from his restraint. It was when the tremendous question +took shape, Is the English Church a true Church, a real part of the +Church Catholic?--when the question became to his mind more and more +doubtful, at length desperate--that they, of course, became more +difficult to satisfy, more confident in their own allegations, more +unchecked in their sympathies, and, in consequence, in their dislikes. +And in the continued effort--for it did continue--to make them pause and +wait and hope, they reacted on him; they asked him questions which he +found it hard to answer; they pressed him with inferences which he might +put by, but of which he felt the sting; they forced on him all the +indications, of which every day brought its contribution, that the +actual living system of the English Church was against what he had +taught to be Catholic, that its energetic temper and spirit condemned +and rejected him. What was it that private men were staunch and +undismayed? What was it that month by month all over England hearts and +minds were attracted to his side, felt the spell of his teaching, gave +him their confidence? Suspicion and disapprobation, which had only too +much to ground itself upon, had taken possession of the high places of +the Church. Authority in all its shapes had pronounced as decisively as +his opponents could wish; as decisively as they too could wish, who +desired no longer a barrier between themselves and Rome. + +Thus a great and momentous change had come over the movement, over its +action and prospects. It had started in a heroic effort to save the +English Church. The claims, the blessings, the divinity of the English +Church, as a true branch of Catholic Christendom, had been assumed as +the foundation of all that was felt and said and attempted. The English +Church was the one object to which English Christians were called upon +to turn their thoughts. Its spirit animated the _Christian Year_, and +the teaching of those whom the _Christian Year_ represented. Its +interests were what called forth the zeal and the indignation recorded +in Froude's _Remains_. No one seriously thought of Rome, except as a +hopelessly corrupt system, though it had some good and Catholic things, +which it was Christian and honest to recognise. The movement of 1833 +started out of the Anti-Roman feelings of the Emancipation time. It was +Anti-Roman as much as it was Anti-Sectarian and Anti-Erastian. It was to +avert the danger of people becoming Romanists from ignorance of Church +principles. This was all changed in one important section of the party. +The fundamental conceptions and assumptions were reversed. It was not +the Roman Church, but the English Church, which was put on its trial; it +was not the Roman Church, but the English, which was to be, if possible, +apologised for, perhaps borne with for a time, but which was to be +regarded as deeply fallen, holding an untenable position, and +incomparably, unpardonably, below both the standard and the practical +system of the Roman Church. From this point of view the object of the +movement was no longer to elevate and improve an independent English +Church, but to approximate it as far as possible to what was assumed to +be undeniable--the perfect Catholicity of Rome. More almost than ideas +and assumptions, the tone of feeling changed. It had been, towards the +English Church, affectionate, enthusiastic, reverential, hopeful. It +became contemptuous, critical, intolerant, hostile with the hostility +not merely of alienation but disgust This was not of course the work of +a moment, but it was of very rapid growth. "How I hate these Anglicans!" +was the expression of one of the younger men of this section, an +intemperate and insolent specimen of it. It did not represent the tone +or the language of the leader to whom the advanced section deferred, +vexed as he often was with the course of his own thoughts, and irritated +and impatient at the course of things without. But it expressed but too +truly the difference between 1833 and 1840. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[73] See Sermons on _Subjects of the Day_, 1843. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE AUTHORITIES AND THE MOVEMENT + + +While the movement was making itself felt as a moral force, without a +parallel in Oxford for more than two centuries, and was impressing +deeply and permanently some of the most promising men in the rising +generation in the University, what was the attitude of the University +authorities? What was the attitude of the Bishops? + +At Oxford it was that of contemptuous indifference, passing into +helpless and passionate hostility. There is no sadder passage to be +found in the history of Oxford than the behaviour and policy of the +heads of this great Christian University towards the religious movement +which was stirring the interest, the hopes, the fears of Oxford. The +movement was, for its first years at least, a loyal and earnest effort +to serve the cause of the Church. Its objects were clear and reasonable; +it aimed at creating a sincere and intelligent zeal for the Church, and +at making the Church itself worthy of the great position which her +friends claimed for her. Its leaders were men well known in the +University, in the first rank in point of ability and character; men of +learning, who knew what they were talking about; men of religious and +pure, if also severe lives. They were not men merely of speculation and +criticism, but men ready to forego anything, to devote everything for +the practical work of elevating religious thought and life. All this did +not necessarily make their purposes and attempts wise and good; but it +did entitle them to respectful attention. If they spoke language new to +the popular mind or the "religious world," it was not new--at least it +ought not to have been new--to orthodox Churchmen, with opportunities of +study and acquainted with our best divinity. If their temper was eager +and enthusiastic, they alleged the presence of a great and perilous +crisis. Their appeal was mainly not to the general public, but to the +sober and the learned; to those to whom was entrusted the formation of +faith and character in the future clergy of the Church; to those who +were responsible for the discipline and moral tone of the first +University of Christendom, and who held their conspicuous position on +the understanding of that responsibility. It behoved the heads of the +University to be cautious, even to be suspicious; movements might be +hollow or dangerous things. But it behoved them also to become +acquainted with so striking a phenomenon as this; to judge it by what it +appealed to--the learning of English divines, the standard of a high and +generous moral rule; to recognise its aims at least, with equity and +sympathy, if some of its methods and arguments seemed questionable. The +men of the movement were not mere hostile innovators; they were fighting +for what the University and its chiefs held dear and sacred, the +privileges and safety of the Church. It was the natural part of the +heads of the University to act as moderators; at any rate, to have +shown, with whatever reserve, that they appreciated what they needed +time to judge of. But while on the one side there was burning and +devouring earnestness, and that power of conviction which doubles the +strength of the strong, there was on the other a serene ignoring of all +that was going on, worthy of a set of dignified French _abbés_ on the +eve of the Revolution. This sublime or imbecile security was +occasionally interrupted by bursts of irritation at some fresh piece of +Tractarian oddness or audacity, or at some strange story which made its +way from the gossip of common rooms to the society of the Heads of +Houses. And there was always ready a stick to beat the offenders; +everything could be called Popish. But for the most part they looked on, +with smiles, with jokes, sometimes with scolding.[74] Thus the men who +by their place ought to have been able to gauge and control the +movement, who might have been expected to meet half-way a serious +attempt to brace up the religious and moral tone of the place, so +incalculably important in days confessed to be anxious ones, simply set +their faces steadily to discountenance and discredit it. They were good +and respectable men, living comfortably in a certain state and ease. +Their lives were mostly simple compared with the standard of the outer +world, though Fellows of Colleges thought them luxurious. But they were +blind and dull as tea-table gossips as to what was the meaning of the +movement, as to what might come of it, as to what use might be made of +it by wise and just and generous recognition, and, if need be, by wise +and just criticism and repression. There were points of danger in it; +but they could only see what _seemed_ to be dangerous, whether it was +so or not; and they multiplied these points of danger by all that was +good and hopeful in it. It perplexed and annoyed them; they had not +imagination nor moral elevation to take in what it aimed at; they were +content with the routine which they had inherited; and, so that men read +for honours and took first classes, it did not seem to them strange or a +profanation that a whole mixed crowd of undergraduates should be +expected to go on a certain Sunday in term, willing or unwilling, fit or +unlit, to the Sacrament, and be fined if they did not appear. Doubtless +we are all of us too prone to be content with the customary, and to be +prejudiced against the novel, nor is this condition of things without +advantage. But we must bear our condemnation if we stick to the +customary too long, and so miss our signal opportunities. In their +apathy, in their self-satisfied ignorance, in their dulness of +apprehension and forethought, the authorities of the University let pass +the great opportunity of their time. As it usually happens, when this +posture of lofty ignoring what is palpable and active, and the object of +everybody's thought, goes on too long, it is apt to turn into impatient +dislike and bitter antipathy. The Heads of Houses drifted insensibly +into this position. They had not taken the trouble to understand the +movement, to discriminate between its aspects, to put themselves frankly +into communication with its leading persons, to judge with the knowledge +and justice of scholars and clergymen of its designs and ways. They let +themselves be diverted from this, their proper though troublesome task, +by distrust, by the jealousies of their position, by the impossibility +of conceiving that anything so strange could really be true and sound. +And at length they found themselves going along with the outside current +of uninstructed and ignoble prejudice, in a settled and pronounced +dislike, which took for granted that all was wrong in the movement, +which admitted any ill-natured surmise and foolish misrepresentation, +and really allowed itself to acquiesce in the belief that men so well +known in Oxford, once so admired and honoured, had sunk down to +deliberate corrupters of the truth, and palterers with their own +intellects and consciences. It came in a few years to be understood on +both sides, that the authorities were in direct antagonism to the +movement; and though their efforts in opposition to it were feeble and +petty, it went on under the dead weight of official University +disapproval. It would have been a great thing for the English +Church--though it is hard to see how, things being as they were, it +could have come about--if the movement had gone on, at least with the +friendly interest, if not with the support, of the University rulers. +Instead of that, after the first two or three years there was one long +and bitter fight in Oxford, with the anger on one side created by the +belief of vague but growing dangers, and a sense of incapacity in +resisting them, and with deep resentment at injustice and stupidity on +the other. + +The Bishops were farther from the immediate scene of the movement, and +besides, had other things to think of. Three or four of them might be +considered theologians--Archbishop Howley, Phillpotts of Exeter, Kaye of +Lincoln, Marsh of Peterborough. Two or three belonged to the Evangelical +school, Ryder of Lichfield, and the two Sumners at Winchester and +Chester. The most prominent among them, and next to the Bishop of Exeter +the ablest, alive to the real dangers of the Church, anxious to infuse +vigour into its work, and busy with plans for extending its influence, +was Blomfield, Bishop of London. But Blomfield was not at his best as a +divine, and, for a man of his unquestionable power, singularly unsure of +his own mind. He knew, in fact, that when the questions raised by the +Tracts came before him he was unqualified to deal with them; he was no +better furnished by thought or knowledge or habits to judge of them than +the average Bishop of the time, appointed, as was so often the case, for +political or personal reasons. At the first start of the movement, the +Bishops not unnaturally waited to see what would come of it. It was +indeed an effort in favour of the Church, but it was in irresponsible +hands, begun by men whose words were strong and vehement and of unusual +sound, and who, while they called on the clergy to rally round their +fathers the Bishops, did not shrink from wishing for the Bishops the +fortunes of the early days: "we could not wish them a more blessed +termination of their course than the spoiling of their goods and +martyrdom."[76] It may reasonably be supposed that such good wishes were +not to the taste of all of them. As the movement developed, besides that +it would seem to them extravagant and violent, they would be perplexed +by its doctrine. It took strong ground for the Church; but it did so in +the teeth of religious opinions and prejudices, which were popular and +intolerant. For a moment the Bishops were in a difficulty; on the one +hand, no one for generations had so exalted the office of a Bishop as +the Tractarians; no one had claimed for it so high and sacred an origin; +no one had urged with such practical earnestness the duty of Churchmen +to recognise and maintain the unique authority of the Episcopate against +its despisers or oppressors. On the other hand, this was just the time +when the Evangelical party, after long disfavour, was beginning to gain +recognition, for the sake of its past earnestness and good works, with +men in power, and with ecclesiastical authorities of a different and +hitherto hostile school; and in the Tractarian movement the Evangelical +party saw from the first its natural enemy. The Bishops could not have +anything to do with the Tractarians without deeply offending the +Evangelicals. The result was that, for the present, the Bishops held +aloof. They let the movement run on by itself. Sharp sarcasms, +worldly-wise predictions, kind messages of approval, kind cautions, +passed from mouth to mouth, or in private correspondence from high +quarters, which showed that the movement was watched. But for some time +the authorities spoke neither good nor bad of it publicly. In his Charge +at the close of 1836, Bishop Phillpotts spoke in clear and unfaltering +language--language remarkable for its bold decision--of the necessity of +setting forth the true idea of the Church and the sacraments; but he was +silent about the call of the same kind which had come from Oxford. It +would have been well if the other Bishops later on, in their charges, +had followed his example. The Bishop of Oxford, in his Charge of 1838, +referred to the movement in balanced terms of praise and warning. The +first who condemned the movement was the Bishop of Chester, J. Bird +Sumner; in a later Charge he came to describe it as the work of Satan; +in 1838 he only denounced the "undermining of the foundations of our +Protestant Church by men who dwell within her walls," and the bad faith +of those "who sit in the Reformers' seat, and traduce the Reformation." + +These were grave mistakes on the part of those who were responsible for +the government of the University and the Church. They treated as absurd, +mischievous, and at length traitorous, an effort, than which nothing +could be more sincere, to serve the Church, to place its claims on +adequate grounds, to elevate the standard of duty in its clergy, and in +all its members. To have missed the aim of the movement and to have been +occupied and irritated by obnoxious details and vulgar suspicions was a +blunder which gave the measure of those who made it, and led to great +evils. They alienated those who wished for nothing better than to help +them in their true work. Their "unkindness" was felt to be, in Bacon's +phrase,[77] _injuriae potentiorum_. But on the side of the party of the +movement there were mistakes also. + +1. The rapidity with which the movement had grown, showing that some +deep need had long been obscurely felt, which the movement promised to +meet,[78] had been too great to be altogether wholesome. When we compare +what was commonly received before 1833, in teaching, in habits of life, +in the ordinary assumptions of history, in the ideas and modes of +worship, public and private--the almost sacramental conception of +preaching, the neglect of the common prayer of the Prayer Book, the +slight regard to the sacraments--with what the teaching of the Tracts +and their writers had impressed for good and all, five years later, on +numbers of earnest people, the change seems astonishing. The change was +a beneficial one and it was a permanent one. The minds which it +affected, it affected profoundly. Still it was but a short time, for +young minds especially, to have come to a decision on great and debated +questions. There was the possibility, the danger, of men having been +captivated and carried away by the excitement and interest of the time; +of not having looked all round and thought out the difficulties before +them; of having embraced opinions without sufficiently knowing their +grounds or counting the cost or considering the consequences. There was +the danger of precipitate judgment, of ill-balanced and disproportionate +views of what was true and all-important. There was an inevitable +feverishness in the way in which the movement was begun, in the way in +which it went on. Those affected by it were themselves surprised at the +swiftness of the pace. When a cause so great and so sacred seemed thus +to be flourishing, and carrying along with it men's assent and +sympathies, it was hardly wonderful that there should often be +exaggeration, impatience at resistance, scant consideration for the +slowness or the scruples or the alarms of others. Eager and sanguine men +talked as if their work was accomplished, when in truth it was but +beginning. No one gave more serious warnings against this and other +dangers than the leaders; and their warnings were needed.[79] + +2. Another mistake, akin to the last, was the frequent forgetfulness of +the apostolic maxim, "All things are lawful for me, but all things are +not expedient." In what almost amounted to a revolution in many of the +religious ideas of the time, it was especially important to keep +distinct the great central truths, the restoration of which to their +proper place justified and made it necessary, and the many subordinate +points allied with them and naturally following from them, which yet +were not necessary to their establishment or acceptance. But it was on +these subordinate points that the interest of a certain number of +followers of the movement was fastened. Conclusions which they had a +perfect right to come to, practices innocent and edifying to themselves, +but of secondary account, began to be thrust forward into prominence, +whether or not these instances of self-will really helped the common +cause, whether or not they gave a handle to ill-nature and ill-will. +Suspicion must always have attached to such a movement as this; but a +great deal of it was provoked by indiscreet defiance, which was rather +glad to provoke it. + +3. Apart from these incidents--common wherever a number of men are +animated with zeal for an inspiring cause--there were what to us now +seem mistakes made in the conduct itself of the movement. Considering +the difficulties of the work, it is wonderful that there were not more; +and none of them were discreditable, none but what arose from the +limitation of human powers matched against confused and baffling +circumstances. + +In the position claimed for the Church of England, confessedly unique +and anomalous in the history of Christendom, between Roman authority and +infallibility on one side, and Protestant freedom of private judgment on +the other, the question would at once arise as to the grounds of belief. +What, if any, are the foundations of conviction and certitude, apart +from personal inquiry, and examination of opposing arguments on +different sides of the case, and satisfactory logical conclusions? The +old antithesis between Faith and Reason, and the various problems +connected with it, could not but come to the front, and require to be +dealt with. It is a question which faces us from a hundred sides, and, +subtly and insensibly transforming itself, looks different from them +all. It was among the earliest attempted to be solved by the chief +intellectual leader of the movement, and it has occupied his mind to the +last.[80] However near the human mind seems to come to a solution, it +only, if so be, comes near; it never arrives. In the early days of the +movement it found prevailing the specious but shallow view that +everything in the search for truth was to be done by mere producible and +explicit argumentation; and yet it was obvious that of this two-thirds +of the world are absolutely incapable. Against this Mr. Newman and his +followers pressed, what was as manifestly certain in fact as it accorded +with any deep and comprehensive philosophy of the formation and growth +of human belief, that not arguments only, but the whole condition of the +mind to which they were addressed--and not the reasonings only which +could be stated, but those which went on darkly in the mind, and which +"there was not at the moment strength to bring forth," real and weighty +reasons which acted like the obscure rays of the spectrum, with their +proper force, yet eluding distinct observation--had their necessary and +inevitable and legitimate place in determining belief. All this was +perfectly true; but it is obvious how easily it might be taken hold of, +on very opposite sides, as a ground for saying that Tractarian or Church +views did not care about argument, or, indeed, rather preferred weak +arguments to strong ones in the practical work of life. It was ludicrous +to say it in a field of controversy, which, on the "Tractarian" side, +was absolutely bristling with argument, keen, subtle, deep, living +argument, and in which the victory in argument was certainly not always +with those who ventured to measure swords with Mr. Newman or Dr. Pusey. +Still, the scoff could be plausibly pointed at the "young enthusiasts +who crowded the Via Media, and who never presumed to argue, except +against the propriety of arguing at all." There was a good deal of +foolish sneering at reason; there was a good deal of silly bravado about +not caring whether the avowed grounds of opinions taken up were strong +or feeble. It was not merely the assent of a learner to his teacher, of +a mind without means of instruction to the belief which it has +inherited, or of one new to the ways and conditions of life to the +unproved assertions and opinions of one to whom experience had given an +open and sure eye. It was a positive carelessness, almost accounted +meritorious, to inquire and think, when their leaders called them to do +so. "The Gospel of Christ is not a matter of mere argument." It is not, +indeed, when it comes in its full reality, in half a hundred different +ways, known and unsearchable, felt and unfelt, moral and intellectual, +on the awakened and quickened soul. But the wildest fanatic can take the +same words into his mouth. Their true meaning was variously and +abundantly illustrated, especially in Mr. Newman's sermons. Still, the +adequate, the emphatic warning against their early abuse was hardly +pressed on the public opinion and sentiment of the party of the movement +with the force which really was requisite. To the end there were men who +took up their belief avowedly on insufficient and precarious grounds, +glorying in the venturesomeness of their faith and courage, and +justifying their temper of mind and their intellectual attitude by +alleging misinterpreted language of their wiser and deeper teachers. A +recoil from Whately's hard and barren dialectics, a sympathy with many +tender and refined natures which the movement had touched, made the +leaders patient with intellectual feebleness when it was joined with +real goodness and Christian temper; but this also sometimes made them +less impatient than they might well have been with that curious form of +conceit and affectation which veils itself under an intended and +supposed humility, a supposed distrust of self and its own powers. + +Another difficult matter, not altogether successfully managed--at least +from the original point of view of the movement, and of those who saw in +it a great effort for the good of the English Church--was the treatment +of the Roman controversy. The general line which the leaders proposed to +take was the one which was worthy of Christian and truth-loving +teachers. They took a new departure; and it was not less just than it +was brave, when, recognising to the full the overwhelming reasons why +"we should not be Romanists," they refused to take up the popular and +easy method of regarding the Roman Church as apostate and antichristian; +and declined to commit themselves to the vulgar and indiscriminate abuse +of it which was the discreditable legacy of the old days of controversy. +They did what all the world was loudly professing to do, they looked +facts in the face; they found, as any one would find who looked for +himself into the realities of the Roman Church, that though the bad was +often as bad as could be, there was still, and there had been all +along, goodness of the highest type, excellence both of system and of +personal life which it was monstrous to deny, and which we might well +admire and envy. To ignore all this was to fail in the first duty, not +merely of Christians, but of honest men; and we at home were not so +blameless that we could safely take this lofty tone of contemptuous +superiority. If Rome would only leave us alone, there would be +estrangement, lamentable enough among Christians, but there need be no +bitterness. But Rome would not leave us alone. The moment that there +were signs of awakening energy in England, that moment was chosen by its +agents, for now it could be done safely, to assail and thwart the +English Church. Doubtless they were within their rights, but this made +controversy inevitable, and for controversy the leaders of the movement +prepared themselves. It was an obstacle which they seemed hardly to have +expected, but which the nature of things placed in their way. But the +old style of controversy was impossible; impossible because it was so +coarse, impossible because it was so hollow. + +If the argument (says the writer of Tract 71, in words which are +applicable to every controversy) is radically unreal, or (what may be +called) rhetorical or sophistical, it may serve the purpose of +encouraging those who are really convinced, though scarcely without +doing mischief to them, but certainly it will offend and alienate the +more acute and sensible; while those who are in doubt, and who desire +some real and substantial ground for their faith, will not bear to be +put off with such shadows. The arguments (he continues) which we use +must be such as are likely to convince serious and earnest minds, which +are really seeking for the truth, not amusing themselves with +intellectual combats, or desiring to support an existing opinion anyhow. +However popular these latter methods may be, of however long standing, +however easy both to find and to use, they are a scandal; and while they +lower our religious standard from the first, they are sure of hurting +our cause in the end. + +And on this principle the line of argument in _The Prophetical Office of +the Church_ was taken by Mr. Newman. It was certainly no make-believe, +or unreal argument. It was a forcible and original way of putting part +of the case against Rome. It was part of the case, a very important +part; but it was not the whole case, and it ought to have been evident +from the first that in this controversy we could not afford to do +without the whole case. The argument from the claim of infallibility +said nothing of what are equally real parts of the case--the practical +working of the Roman Church, its system of government, the part which it +and its rulers have played in the history of the world. Rome has not +such a clean record of history, it has not such a clean account of what +is done and permitted in its dominions under an authority supposed to be +irresistible, that it can claim to be the one pure and perfect Church, +entitled to judge and correct and govern all other Churches. And if the +claim is made, there is no help for it, we must not shrink from the task +of giving the answer.[81] And, as experience has shown, the more that +rigid good faith is kept to in giving the answer, the more that +strictness and severity of even understatement are observed, the more +convincing will be the result that the Roman Church cannot be that which +it is alleged to be in its necessary theory and ideal. + +But this task was never adequately undertaken. It was one of no easy +execution.[82] Other things, apparently more immediately pressing, +intervened. There was no question for the present of perfect and +unfeigned confidence in the English Church, with whatever regrets for +its shortcomings, and desires for its improvement But to the outside +world it seemed as if there were a reluctance to face seriously the +whole of the Roman controversy; a disposition to be indulgent to Roman +defects, and unfairly hard on English faults. How mischievously this +told in the course of opinion outside and inside of the movement; how it +was misinterpreted and misrepresented; how these misinterpretations and +misrepresentations, with the bitterness and injustice which they +engendered, helped to realise themselves, was seen but too clearly at a +later stage. + +4. Lastly, looking back on the publications, regarded as characteristic +of the party, it is difficult not to feel that some of them gave an +unfortunate and unnecessary turn to things. + +The book which made most stir and caused the greatest outcry was +Froude's _Remains_. It was undoubtedly a bold experiment; but it was not +merely boldness. Except that it might be perverted into an excuse by the +shallow and thoughtless for merely "strong talk," it may fairly be said +that it was right and wise to let the world know the full measure and +depth of conviction which gave birth to the movement; and Froude's +_Remains_ did that in an unsuspiciously genuine way that nothing else +could have done. And, besides, it was worth while for its own sake to +exhibit with fearless honesty such a character, so high, so true, so +refined, so heroic. So again, Dr. Pusey's Tract on Baptism was a bold +book, and one which brought heavy imputations and misconstructions on +the party. In the teaching of his long life, Dr. Pusey has abundantly +dispelled the charges of harshness and over-severity which were urged, +not always very scrupulously, against the doctrine of the Tract on +Post-baptismal Sin. But it was written to redress the balance against +the fatally easy doctrines then in fashion; it was like the Portroyalist +protest against the fashionable Jesuits; it was one-sided, and +sometimes, in his earnestness, unguarded; and it wanted as yet the +complement of encouragement, consolation, and tenderness which his +future teaching was to supply so amply. But it was a blow struck, not +before it was necessary, by a strong hand; and it may safely be said +that it settled the place of the sacrament of baptism in the living +system of the English Church, which the negations and vagueness of the +Evangelical party had gravely endangered. But two other essays appeared +in the Tracts, most innocent in themselves, which ten or twenty years +later would have been judged simply on their merits, but which at the +time became potent weapons against Tractarianism. They were the +productions of two poets--of two of the most beautiful and religious +minds of their time; but in that stage of the movement it is hardly too +much to say that they were out of place. The cause of the movement +needed clear explanations; definite statements of doctrines which were +popularly misunderstood; plain, convincing reasoning on the issues which +were raised by it; a careful laying out of the ground on which English +theology was to be strengthened and enriched. Such were Mr. Newman's +_Lectures on Justification_, a work which made its lasting mark on +English theological thought; Mr. Keble's masterly exposition of the +meaning of Tradition; and not least, the important collections which +were documentary and historical evidence of the character of English +theology, the so-called laborious _Catenas_. These were the real tasks +of the hour, and they needed all that labour and industry could give. +But the first of these inopportune Tracts was an elaborate essay, by Mr. +Keble, on the "Mysticism of the Fathers in the use and interpretation of +Scripture." It was hardly what the practical needs of the time required, +and it took away men's thoughts from them; the prospect was hopeless +that in that state of men's minds it should be understood, except by a +very few; it merely helped to add another charge, the vague but +mischievous charge of mysticism, to the list of accusations against the +Tracts. The other, to the astonishment of every one, was like the +explosion of a mine. That it should be criticised and objected to was +natural; but the extraordinary irritation caused by it could hardly have +been anticipated. Written in the most devout and reverent spirit by one +of the gentlest and most refined of scholars, and full of deep +Scriptural knowledge, it furnished for some years the material for the +most savage attacks and the bitterest sneers to the opponents of the +movement. It was called "On Reserve in communicating Religious +Knowledge"; and it was a protest against the coarseness and shallowness +which threw the most sacred words about at random in loud and +declamatory appeals, and which especially dragged in the awful mystery +of the Atonement, under the crudest and most vulgar conception of it, as +a ready topic of excitement in otherwise commonplace and helpless +preaching. The word "Reserve" was enough. It meant that the +Tract-writers avowed the principle of keeping back part of the counsel +of God. It meant, further, that the real spirit of the party was +disclosed; its love of secret and crooked methods, its indifference to +knowledge, its disingenuous professions, its deliberate concealments, +its holding doctrines and its pursuit of aims which it dared not avow, +its _disciplina arcani_, its conspiracies, its Jesuitical spirit. All +this kind of abuse was flung plentifully on the party as the controversy +became warm; and it mainly justified itself by the Tract on "Reserve." +The Tract was in many ways a beautiful and suggestive essay, full of +deep and original thoughts, though composed in that spirit of the +recluse which was characteristic of the writer, and which is in strong +contrast with the energetic temper of to-day.[83] But it could well have +been spared at the moment, and it certainly offered itself to an +unfortunate use. The suspiciousness which so innocently it helped to +awaken and confirm was never again allayed. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[74] Fifty years ago there was much greater contrast than now between +old and young. There was more outward respect for the authorities, and +among the younger men, graduates and undergraduates, more inward +amusement at foibles and eccentricities. There still lingered the +survivals of a more old-fashioned type of University life and character, +which, quite apart from the movements of religious opinion, provoked +those νεανιεύματα ἰδιωτῶν εἰς τοὐς ἄρχοντας,[75] _impertinences of +irresponsible juniors towards superiors_, which Wordsworth, speaking of +a yet earlier time, remembered at Cambridge-- + + "In serious mood, but oftener, I confess, + With playful zest of fancy, did we note + (How could we less?) the manners and the ways + Of those who lived distinguished by the badge + Of good or ill report; or those with whom + By frame of Academic discipline + We were perforce connected, men whose sway + And known authority of office served + To set our minds on edge, and did no more. + Nor wanted we rich pastime of this kind, + Found everywhere, but chiefly in the ring + Of the grave Elders, men unsecured, grotesque + In character, tricked out like aged trees + Which through the lapse of their infirmity + Give ready place to any random seed + That chooses to be reared upon their trunks." + + _Prelude_, bk. iii. + + +[75] Plat. _R.P._ iii. 390. + +[76] _Tracts for the Times_, No. 1, 9th September 1833. + +[77] _An Advertisement touching the Controversies of the Church of +England:_ printed in the _Resuscitatio_, p. 138 (ed. 1671). + +[78] See Mr. Newman's article, "The State of Religious Parties," in the +_British Critic_, April 1839, reprinted in his _Essays Historical and +Critical_, 1871, Vol. 1., essay vi. + +[79] "It would not be at all surprising, though, in spite of the +earnestness of the principal advocates of the views in question, for +which every one seems to give them credit, there should be among their +followers much that is enthusiastic, extravagant, or excessive. All +these aberrations will be and are imputed to the doctrines from which +they proceed; nor unnaturally, but hardly fairly, for aberrations there +must be, whatever the doctrine is, while the human heart is sensitive, +capricious, and wayward.... There will ever be a number of persons +professing the opinions of a movement party, who talk loudly and +strangely, do odd and fierce things, display themselves unnecessarily, +and disgust other people; there will ever be those who are too young to +be wise, too generous to be cautious, too warm to be sober, or too +intellectual to be humble; of whom human sagacity cannot determine, only +the event, and perhaps not even that, whether they feel what they +say, or how far; whether they are to be encouraged or +discountenanced."--_British Critic_, April 1839, "State of Religious +Parties," p. 405. + +[80] Cardinal Newman, _Grammar of Assent_. + +[81] The argument from history is sketched fairly, but only sketched in +_The Prophetic Office_, Lect. xiv. + +[82] In the Roman controversy it is sometimes hard to be just without +appearing to mean more than is said; for the obligation of justice +sometimes forces one who wishes to be a fair judge to be apparently an +apologist or advocate. Yet the supreme duty in religious controversy is +justice. But for the very reason that these controversialists wished to +be just to Rome, they were bound to be just against her. They meant to +be so; but events passed quickly, and leisure never came for a work +which involved a serious appeal to history. + +[83] _Vide_ a striking review in the _British Critic_, April 1839, +partly correcting and guarding the view given in the Tract. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +NO. 90 + + +The formation of a strong Romanising section in the Tractarian party was +obviously damaging to the party and dangerous to the Church. It was _pro +tanto_ a verification of the fundamental charge against the party, a +charge which on paper they had met successfully, but which acquired +double force when this paper defence was traversed by facts. And a great +blow was impending over the Church, if the zeal and ability which the +movement had called forth and animated were to be sucked away from the +Church, and not only lost to it, but educated into a special instrument +against it. But the divergence became clear only gradually, and the hope +that after all it was only temporary and would ultimately disappear was +long kept up by the tenacity with which Mr. Newman, in spite of +misgivings and disturbing thoughts, still recognised the gifts and +claims of the English Church. And on the other hand, the bulk of the +party, and its other Oxford leaders, Dr. Pusey, Mr. Keble, Mr. Isaac +Williams, Mr. Marriott, were quite unaffected by the disquieting +apprehensions which were beginning to beset Mr. Newman. With a humbling +consciousness of the practical shortcomings of the English Church, with +a ready disposition to be honest and just towards Rome, and even to +minimise our differences with it, they had not admitted for a moment any +doubt of the reality of the English Church. The class of arguments which +specially laid hold of Mr. Newman's mind did not tell upon them--the +peculiar aspect of early precedents, about which, moreover, a good deal +of criticism was possible; or the large and sweeping conception of a +vast, ever-growing, imperial Church, great enough to make flaws and +imperfections of no account, which appealed so strongly to his +statesmanlike imagination. Their content with the Church in which they +had been brought up, in which they had been taught religion, and in +which they had taken service, their deep and affectionate loyalty and +piety to it, in spite of all its faults, remained unimpaired; and +unimpaired, also, was their sense of vast masses of practical evil in +the Roman Church, evils from which they shrank both as Englishmen and as +Christians, and which seemed as incurable as they were undeniable. +Beyond the hope which they vaguely cherished that some day or other, by +some great act of Divine mercy, these evils might disappear, and the +whole Church become once more united, there was nothing to draw them +towards Rome; submission was out of the question, and they could only +see in its attitude in England the hostility of a jealous and +unscrupulous disturber of their Master's work. The movement still went +on, with its original purpose, and on its original lines, in spite of +the presence in it, and even the co-operation, of men who might one day +have other views, and serious and fatal differences with their old +friends. + +The change of religion when it comes on a man gradually,--when it is not +welcomed from the first, but, on the contrary, long resisted, must +always be a mysterious and perplexing process, hard to realise and +follow by the person most deeply interested, veiled and clouded to +lookers-on, because naturally belonging to the deepest depths of the +human conscience, and inevitably, and without much fault on either side, +liable to be misinterpreted and misunderstood. And this process is all +the more tangled when it goes on, not in an individual mind, travelling +in its own way on its own path, little affected by others, and little +affecting them, but in a representative person, with the +responsibilities of a great cause upon him, bound by closest ties of +every kind to friends, colleagues, and disciples, thinking, feeling, +leading, pointing out the way for hundreds who love and depend on him. +Views and feelings vary from day to day, according to the events and +conditions of the day. How shall he speak, and how shall he be silent? +How shall he let doubts and difficulties appear, yet how shall he +suppress them?--doubts which may grow and become hopeless, but which, on +the other hand, may be solved and disappear. How shall he go on as if +nothing had happened, when all the foundations of the world seem to have +sunk from under him? Yet how shall he disclose the dreadful secret, when +he is not yet quite sure whether his mind will not still rally from its +terror and despair? He must in honesty, in kindness, give some warning, +yet how much? and how to prevent it being taken for more than it means? +There are counter-considerations, to which he cannot shut his eyes. +There are friends who will not believe his warnings. There are watchful +enemies who are on the look-out for proofs of disingenuousness and bad +faith. He could cut through his difficulties at once by making the +plunge in obedience to this or that plausible sign or train of +reasoning, but his conscience and good faith will not let him take +things so easily; and yet he knows that if he hangs on, he will be +accused by and by, perhaps speciously, of having been dishonest and +deceiving. So subtle, so shifting, so impalpable are the steps by which +a faith is disintegrated; so evanescent, and impossible to follow, the +shades by which one set of convictions pass into others wholly opposite; +for it is not knowledge and intellect alone which come into play, but +all the moral tastes and habits of the character, its likings and +dislikings, its weakness and its strength, its triumphs and its +vexations, its keenness and its insensibilities, which are in full +action, while the intellect alone seems to be busy with its problems. A +picture has been given us, belonging to this time, of the process, by a +great master of human nature, and a great sufferer under the process; it +is, perhaps, the greatest attempt ever made to describe it; but it is +not wholly successful. It tells us much, for it is written with touching +good faith, but the complete effect as an intelligible whole is wanting. + +"In the spring of 1839," we read in the _Apologia_, "my position in the +Anglican Church was at its height. I had a supreme confidence in my +controversial _status_, and I had a great and still growing success in +recommending it to others."[84] This, then, may be taken as the point +from which, in the writer's own estimate, the change is to be traced. He +refers for illustration of his state of mind to the remarkable article +on the "State of Religious Parties," in the April number of the _British +Critic_ for 1839, which he has since republished under the title of +"Prospects of the Anglican Church."[85] "I have looked over it now," he +writes in 1864, "for the first time since it was published; and have +been struck by it for this reason: it contains _the last words which I +ever spoke as an Anglican to Anglicans_.... It may now be read as my +parting address and valediction, made to my friends. I little knew it at +the time." He thus describes the position which he took in the article +referred to:-- + + Conscious as I was that my opinions in religious matters were not + gained, as the world said, from Roman sources, but were, on the + contrary, the birth of my own mind and of the circumstances in which I + had been placed, I had a scorn of the imputations which were heaped + upon me. It was true that I held a large, bold system of religion, + very unlike the Protestantism of the day, but it was the concentration + and adjustment of the statements of great Anglican authorities, and I + had as much right to do so as the Evangelical party had, and more + right than the Liberal, to hold their own respective doctrines. As I + spoke on occasion of Tract 90, I claimed, on behalf of the writer, + that he might hold in the Anglican Church a comprecation of the Saints + with Bramhall; and the Mass, all but Transubstantiation, with + Andrewes; or with Hooker that Transubstantiation itself is not a point + for Churches to part communion upon; or with Hammond that a General + Council, truly such, never did, never shall err in a matter of faith; + or with Bull that man lost inward grace by the Fall; or with Thorndike + that penance is a propitiation for post-baptismal sin; or with + Pearson that the all-powerful name of Jesus is no otherwise given than + in the Catholic Church. "Two can play at that game" was often in my + mouth, when men of Protestant sentiments appealed to the Articles, + Homilies, and Reformers, in the sense that if they had a right to + speak loud I had both the liberty and the means of giving them tit for + tat. I thought that the Anglican Church had been tyrannised over by a + Party, and I aimed at bringing into effect the promise contained in + the motto to the _Lyra_: "They shall know the difference now." I only + asked to be allowed to show them the difference. + + I have said already (he goes on) that though the object of the + movement was to withstand the Liberalism of the day, I found and felt + that this could not be done by negatives. It was necessary for me to + have a positive Church theory erected on a definite basis. This took + me to the great Anglican divines; and then, of course, I found at once + that it was impossible to form any such theory without cutting across + the teaching of the Church of Rome. Thus came in the Roman + controversy. When I first turned myself to it I had neither doubt on + the subject, nor suspicion that doubt would ever come on me. It was in + this state of mind that I began to read up Bellarmine on the one hand, + and numberless Anglican writers on the other.[86] + +And he quotes from the article the language which he used, to show the +necessity of providing some clear and strong basis for religious thought +in view of the impending conflict of principles, religious and +anti-religious, "Catholic and Rationalist," which to far-seeing men, +even at that comparatively early time, seemed inevitable:-- + + Then indeed will be the stern encounter, when two real and living + principles, simple, entire, and consistent, one in the Church, the + other out of it, at length rush upon each other, contending not for + names and words, a half view, but for elementary notions and + distinctive moral characters. Men will not keep standing in that very + attitude which you call sound Church-of-Englandism or orthodox + Protestantism. They will take one view or another, but it will be a + consistent one ... it will be real.... Is it sensible, sober, + judicious, to be so very angry with the writers of the day who point + to the fact, that our divines of the seventeenth century have occupied + a ground which is the true and intelligible mean between extremes?... + Would you rather have your sons and your daughters members of the + Church of England or of the Church of Rome?[87] + +"The last words that I spoke as an Anglican to Anglicans,"--so he +describes this statement of his position and its reasons; so it seems to +him, as he looks back. And yet in the intimate and frank disclosures +which he makes, he has shown us much that indicates both that his +Anglicanism lasted much longer and that his Roman sympathies began to +stir much earlier. This only shows the enormous difficulties of +measuring accurately the steps of a transition state. The mind, in such +a strain of buffeting, is never in one stay. The old seems impregnable, +yet it has been undermined; the new is indignantly and honestly +repelled, and yet leaves behind it its never-to-be-forgotten and +unaccountable spell. The story, as he tells it, goes on, how, in the +full swing and confidence of his Anglicanism, and in the course of his +secure and fearless study of antiquity, appearance after appearance +presented itself, unexpected, threatening, obstinate, in the history of +the Early Church, by which this confidence was first shaken and then +utterly broken down in the summer of 1839. And he speaks as though all +had been over after two years from that summer: "From the end of 1841 I +was on my death-bed, as regards my membership with the Anglican Church, +though at the time I became aware of it only by degrees." In truth, it +was only the end which showed that it was a "death-bed." He had not yet +died to allegiance or "to hope, then or for some time afterwards." He +speaks in later years of the result, and reads what was then in the +light of what followed. But after all that had happened, and much, of +course, disturbing happened in 1841, he was a long way off from what +then could have been spoken of as "a death-bed." Deep and painful +misgivings may assail the sincerest faith; they are not fatal signs till +faith has finally given way. + +What is true is, that the whole state of religion, and the whole aspect +of Christianity in the world, had come to seem to him portentously +strange and anomalous. No theory would take in and suit all the facts, +which the certainties of history and experience presented. Neither in +England, nor in Rome, and much less anywhere else, did the old, to which +all appealed, agree with the new; it might agree variously in this point +or in that, in others there were contrarieties which it was vain to +reconcile. Facts were against the English claim to be a Catholic +Church--how could Catholicity be shut up in one island? How could +England assert its continuity of doctrine? Facts were against the Roman +claim to be an infallible, and a perfect, and the whole Church--how +could that be perfect which was marked in the face of day with enormous +and undeniable corruptions? How could that be infallible which was +irreconcilable with ancient teaching? How could that be the whole +Church, which, to say nothing of the break-up in the West, ignored, as +if it had no existence, the ancient and uninterrupted Eastern Church? +Theory after theory came up, and was tried, and was found wanting. Each +had much to say for itself, its strong points, its superiority over its +rivals in dealing with the difficulties of the case, its plausibilities +and its imaginative attractions. But all had their tender spot, and +flinched when they were touched in earnest. In the confusions and sins +and divisions of the last fifteen centuries, profound disorganisation +had fastened on the Western Church. Christendom was not, could not be +pretended to be, what it had been in the fourth century; and whichever +way men looked the reasons were not hard to see. The first and +characteristic feeling of the movement, one which Mr. Newman had done so +much to deepen, was that of shame and humiliation at the disorder at +home, as well as in every part of the Church. It was not in Rome only, +or in England only; it was everywhere. What had been peculiar to +Anglicanism among all its rivals, was that it had emphatically and +without reserve confessed it. + +With this view of the dislocation and the sins of the Church, he could +at once with perfect consistency recognise the shortcomings of the +English branch of the Church, and yet believe and maintain that it was +a true and living branch. The English fragment was not what it should +be, was indeed much that it should not be; the same could be said of the +Roman, though in different respects. This, as he himself reminds us, was +no new thing to his mind when the unsettlement of 1839 began. "At the +end of 1835, or the beginning of 1836, I had the whole state of the +question before me, on which, to my mind, the decision between the +Churches depended." It did not, he says, depend on the claims of the +Pope, as centre of unity; "it turned on the Faith of the Church"; "there +was a contrariety of _claims_ between the Roman and Anglican religions"; +and up to 1839, with the full weight of Roman arguments recognised, with +the full consciousness of Anglican disadvantages, he yet spoke clearly +for Anglicanism. Even when misgivings became serious, the balance still +inclined without question the old way. He hardly spoke stronger in 1834 +than he did in 1841, after No. 90. + + And now (he writes in his Letter to the Bishop of Oxford[88]) having + said, I trust, as much as your Lordship requires on the subject of + Romanism, I will add a few words, to complete my explanation, in + acknowledgment of the inestimable privilege I feel in being a member + of that Church over which your Lordship, with others, presides. + Indeed, did I not feel it to be a privilege which I am able to seek + nowhere else on earth, why should I be at this moment writing to your + Lordship? What motive have I for an unreserved and joyful submission + to your authority, but the feeling that the Church in which your + Lordship rules is a divinely-ordained channel of supernatural grace to + the souls of her members? Why should I not prefer my own opinion, and + my own way of acting, to that of the Bishop's, except that I know full + well that in matters indifferent I should be acting lightly towards + the Spouse of Christ and the awful Presence which dwells in her, if I + hesitated a moment to put your Lordship's will before my own? I know + full well that your Lordship's kindness to me personally would be in + itself quite enough to win any but the most insensible heart, and, did + a clear matter of conscience occur in which I felt bound to act for + myself, my feelings towards your Lordship would be a most severe trial + to me, independently of the higher considerations to which I have + alluded; but I trust I have shown my dutifulness to you prior to the + influence of personal motives; and this I have done because I think + that to belong to the Catholic Church is the first of all privileges + here below, as involving in it heavenly privileges, and because I + consider the Church over which your Lordship presides to be the + Catholic Church in this country. Surely then I have no need to profess + in words, I will not say my attachment, but my deep reverence towards + the Mother of Saints, when I am showing it in action; yet that words + may not be altogether wanting, I beg to lay before your Lordship the + following extract from a defence of the English Church, which I wrote + against a Roman controversialist in the course of the last year. + + "The Church is emphatically a living body, and there can be no greater + proof of a particular communion being part of the Church than the + appearance in it of a continued and abiding energy, nor a more + melancholy proof of its being a corpse than torpidity. We say an + energy continued and abiding, for accident will cause the activity of + a moment, and an external principle give the semblance of self-motion. + On the other hand, even a living body may for a while be asleep. + + * * * * * + + "It concerns, then, those who deny that we are the true Church because + we have not at present this special note, intercommunion with other + Christians, to show cause why the Roman Church in the tenth century + should be so accounted, with profligates, or rather the profligate + mothers of profligate sons for her supreme rulers. And still + notwithstanding life _is_ a note of the Church; she alone revives, + even if she declines; heretical and schismatical bodies cannot keep + life; they gradually became cold, stiff, and insensible. + + * * * * * + + "Now if there ever were a Church on whom the experiment has been + tried, whether it had life in it or not, the English is that one. For + three centuries it has endured all vicissitudes of fortune. It has + endured in trouble and prosperity, under seduction, and under + oppression. It has been practised upon by theorists, browbeaten by + sophists, intimidated by princes, betrayed by false sons, laid waste + by tyranny, corrupted by wealth, torn by schism, and persecuted by + fanaticism. Revolutions have come upon it sharply and suddenly, to and + fro, hot and cold, as if to try what it was made of. + + It has been a sort of battlefield on which opposite principles have + been tried. No opinion, however extreme any way, but may be found, as + the Romanists are not slow to reproach us, among its Bishops and + Divines. Yet what has been its career upon the whole? Which way has it + been moving through 300 years? Where does it find itself at the end? + Lutherans have tended to Rationalism; Calvinists have become + Socinians; but what has it become? As far as its Formularies are + concerned, it may be said all along to have grown towards a more + perfect Catholicism than that with which it started at the time of its + estrangement; every act, every crisis which marks its course, has been + upward. + + * * * * * + + "What a note of the Church is the mere production of a man like + Butler, a pregnant fact much to be meditated on! and how strange it + is, if it be as it seems to be, that the real influence of his work is + only just now beginning! and who can prophesy in what it will end? + Thus our Divines grow with centuries, expanding after their death in + the minds of their readers into more and more exact Catholicism as + years roll on. + + * * * * * + + "Look across the Atlantic to the daughter Churches of England in the + States: 'Shall one that is barren bear a child in her old age?' yet + 'the barren hath borne seven.' Schismatic branches put out their + leaves at once, in an expiring effort; our Church has waited three + centuries, and then blossoms like Aaron's rod, budding and blooming + and yielding fruit, while the rest are dry. And lastly, look at the + present position of the Church at home; there, too, we shall find a + note of the true City of God, the Holy Jerusalem. She is in warfare + with the world, as the Church Militant should be; she is rebuking the + world, she is hated, she is pillaged by the world. + + * * * * * + + "Much might be said on this subject. At all times, since Christianity + came into the world, an open contest has been going on between + religion and irreligion; and the true Church, of course, has ever been + on the religious side. This, then, is a sure test in every age _where_ + the Christian should stand.... Now, applying this simple criterion to + the public Parties of this DAY, it is very plain that the English + Church is at present on God's side, and therefore, so far, God's + Church; we are sorry to be obliged to add that there is as little + doubt on which side English Romanism is. + + * * * * * + + "As for the English Church, surely she has notes enough, 'the signs of + an Apostle in all patience, and signs and wonders and mighty deeds.' + She has the note of possession, the note of freedom from party-titles; + the note of life, a tough life and a vigorous; she has ancient + descent, unbroken continuance, agreement in doctrine with the ancient + Church. Those of Bellarmine's Notes, which she certainly has not, are + intercommunion with Christendom, the glory of miracles, and the + prophetical light, but the question is, whether she has not enough of + Divinity about her to satisfy her sister Churches on their own + principles, that she is one body with them." + + This may be sufficient to show my feelings towards my Church, as far + as Statements on paper can show them. + +How earnestly, how sincerely he clung to the English Church, even after +he describes himself on his "death-bed," no one can doubt. The charm of +the _Apologia_ is the perfect candour with which he records fluctuations +which to many are inconceivable and unintelligible, the different and +sometimes opposite and irreconcilable states of mind through which he +passed, with no attempt to make one fit into another. It is clear, from +what he tells us, that his words in 1839 were not his _last_ words as an +Anglican to Anglicans. With whatever troubles of mind, he strove to be a +loyal and faithful Anglican long after that. He spoke as an Anglican. He +fought for Anglicanism. The theory, as he says, may have gone by the +board, in the intellectual storms raised by the histories of the +Monophysites and Donatists. "By these great words of the ancient +father--_Securus judicat orbis terrarum_"--the theory of the _Via Media_ +was "absolutely pulverised." He was "sore," as he says in 1840, "about +the great Anglican divines, as if they had taken me in, and made me say +strong things against Rome, which facts did not justify."[89] Yes, he +felt, as other men do not feel, the weak points of even a strong +argument, the exaggerations and unfairness of controversialists on his +own side, the consciousness that you cannot have things in fact, or in +theory, or in reasoning, smoothly and exactly as it would be convenient, +and as you would like to have them. But his conclusion, on the whole, +was unshaken. There was enough, and amply enough, in the English Church +to bind him to its allegiance, to satisfy him of its truth and its life, +enough in the Roman to warn him away. In the confusions of Christendom, +in the strong and obstinate differences of schools and parties in the +English Church, he, living in days of inquiry and criticism, claimed to +take and recommend a theological position on many controverted +questions, which many might think a new one, and which might not be +exactly that occupied by any existing school or party.[90] "We are all," +he writes to an intimate friend on 22d April 1842, a year after No. 90, +"much quieter and more resigned than we were, and are remarkably +desirous of building up a position, and proving that the English theory +is tenable, or rather the English state of things. If the Bishops would +leave us alone, the fever would subside." + +He wanted, when all other parties were claiming room for their +speculations, to claim room for his own preference for ancient doctrine. +He wished to make out that no branch of the Church had authoritatively +committed itself to language which was hopelessly and fatally +irreconcilable with Christian truth. But he claimed nothing but what he +could maintain to be fairly within the authorised formularies of the +English Church. He courted inquiry, he courted argument. If his claim +seemed a new one, if his avowed leaning to ancient and Catholic views +seemed to make him more tolerant than had been customary, not to Roman +abuses, but to Roman authoritative language, it was part of the more +accurate and the more temperate and charitable thought of our day +compared with past times. It was part of the same change which has +brought Church opinions from the unmitigated Calvinism of the Lambeth +Articles to what the authorities of those days would have denounced, +without a doubt, as Arminianism. Hooker was gravely and seriously +accused to the Council for saying that a Papist could be saved, and had +some difficulty to clear himself; it was as natural then as it is +amazing now.[91] + +But with this sincere loyalty to the English Church, as he believed it +to be, there was, no doubt, in the background the haunting and +disquieting misgiving that the attempt to connect more closely the +modern Church with the ancient, and this widened theology in a direction +which had been hitherto specially and jealously barred, was putting the +English Church on its trial. Would it bear it? Would it respond to the +call to rise to a higher and wider type of doctrine, to a higher +standard of life? Would it justify what Mr. Newman had placed in the +forefront among the notes of the true Church, the note of Sanctity? +Would the _Via Media_ make up for its incompleteness as a theory by +developing into reality and fruitfulness of actual results? Would the +Church bear to be told of its defaults? Would it allow to the +maintainers of Catholic and Anglican principles the liberty which +others claimed, and which by large and powerful bodies of opinion was +denied to Anglicans? Or would it turn out on trial, that the _Via Media_ +was an idea without substance, a dialectical fiction, a mere theological +expedient for getting out of difficulties, unrecognised, and when put +forward, disowned? Would it turn out that the line of thought and +teaching which connected the modern with the ancient Church was but the +private and accidental opinion of Hooker and Andrewes and Bull and +Wilson, unauthorised in the English Church, uncongenial to its spirit, +if not contradictory to its formularies? It is only just to Mr. Newman +to say, that even after some of his friends were frightened, he long +continued to hope for the best; but undoubtedly, more and more, his +belief in the reality of the English Church was undergoing a very +severe, and as time went on, discouraging testing. + +In this state of things he published the Tract No. 90. It was occasioned +by the common allegation, on the side of some of the advanced section of +the Tractarians, as well as on the side of their opponents, that the +Thirty-nine Articles were hopelessly irreconcilable with that Catholic +teaching which Mr. Newman had defended on the authority of our great +divines, but which both the parties above mentioned were ready to +identify with the teaching of the Roman Church. The Tract was intended, +by a rigorous examination of the language of the Articles, to traverse +this allegation. It sought to show that all that was clearly and +undoubtedly Catholic, this language left untouched:[92] that it was +doubtful whether even the formal definitions of the Council of Trent +were directly and intentionally contradicted; and that what were really +aimed at were the abuses and perversions of a great popular and +authorised system, tyrannical by the force of custom and the obstinate +refusal of any real reformation. + + It is often urged (says the writer), and sometimes felt and granted, + that there are in the Articles propositions or terms inconsistent with + the Catholic faith; or, at least, if persons do not go so far as to + feel the objection as of force, they are perplexed how best to answer + it, or how most simply to explain the passages on which it is made to + rest. The following Tract is drawn up with the view of showing how + groundless the objection is, and further, of approximating towards the + argumentative answer to it, of which most men have an implicit + apprehension, though they may have nothing more. That there are real + difficulties to a Catholic Christian in the ecclesiastical position of + our Church at this day, no one can deny; but the statements of the + Articles are not in the number, and it may be right at the present + moment to insist upon this. + +When met by the objection that the ideas of the framers of the Articles +were well known, and that it was notorious that they had meant to put an +insuperable barrier between the English Church and everything that +savoured of Rome, the writer replied that the actual English Church +received the Articles not from them but from a much later authority, +that we are bound by their words not by their private sentiments either +as theologians or ecclesiastical politicians, and that in fact they had +intended the Articles to comprehend a great body of their countrymen, +who would have been driven away by any extreme and anti-Catholic +declarations even against Rome. The temper of compromise is +characteristic of the English as contrasted with the foreign +Reformation. It is visible, not only in the Articles, but in the polity +of the English Church, which clung so obstinately to the continuity and +forms of the ancient hierarchical system, it is visible in the +sacramental offices of the Prayer Book, which left so much out to +satisfy the Protestants, and left so much in to satisfy the Catholics. + +The Tract went in detail through the Articles which were commonly looked +upon as either anti-Catholic or anti-Roman. It went through them with a +dry logical way of interpretation, such as a professed theologian might +use, who was accustomed to all the niceties of language and the +distinctions of the science. It was the way in which they would be +likely to be examined and construed by a purely legal court. The effect +of it, doubtless, was like that produced on ordinary minds by the +refinements of a subtle advocate, or by the judicial interpretation of +an Act of Parliament which the judges do not like; and some of the +interpretations undoubtedly seemed far-fetched and artificial. Yet some +of those which were pointed to at the time as flagrant instances of +extravagant misinterpretation have now come to look different. Nothing +could exceed the scorn poured on the interpretation of the Twenty-second +Article, that it condemns the "_Roman_" doctrine of Purgatory, but not +_all_ doctrine of purgatory as a place of gradual purification beyond +death. But in our days a school very far removed from Mr. Newman's would +require and would claim to make the same distinction. And so with the +interpretation of the "Sacrifices of Masses" in the same article. It was +the fashion in 1841 to see in this the condemnation of all doctrine of a +sacrifice in the Eucharist; and when Mr. Newman confined the phrase to +the gross abuses connected with the Mass, this was treated as an affront +to common sense and honesty. Since then we have become better acquainted +with the language of the ancient liturgies--, and no instructed +theologian could now venture to treat Mr. Newman's distinction as idle. +There was in fact nothing new in his distinctions on these two points. +They had already been made in two of the preceding Tracts, the reprint +of Archbishop Ussher on Prayers for the Dead, and the Catena on the +Eucharistie Sacrifice; and in both cases the distinctions were supported +by a great mass of Anglican authority.[93] + +But the Tract had sufficient novelty about it to account for most of +the excitement which it caused. Its dryness and negative curtness were +provoking. It was not a positive argument, it was not an appeal to +authorities; it was a paring down of language, alleged in certain +portions of the Articles to be somewhat loose, to its barest meaning; +and to those to whom that language had always seemed to speak with +fulness and decision, it seemed like sapping and undermining a cherished +bulwark. Then it seemed to ask for more liberty than the writer in his +position at that time needed; and the object of such an indefinite +claim, in order to remove, if possible, misunderstandings between two +long-alienated branches of the Western Church, was one to excite in many +minds profound horror and dismay. That it maintained without flinching +and as strongly as ever the position and the claim of the English Church +was nothing to the purpose; the admission, both that Rome, though +wrong, might not be as wrong as we thought her, and that the language of +the Articles, though unquestionably condemnatory of much, was not +condemnatory of as much as people thought, and might possibly be even +harmonised with Roman authoritative language, was looked upon as +incompatible with loyalty to the English Church. + +The question which the Tract had opened, what the Articles meant and to +what men were bound by accepting them, was a most legitimate one for +discussion; and it was most natural also that any one should hesitate to +answer it as the Tract answered it. But it was distinctly a question for +discussion. It was not so easy for any of the parties in the Church to +give a clear and consistent answer, as that the matter ought at once to +have been carried out of the region of discussion. The Articles were the +Articles of a Church which had seen as great differences as those +between the Church of Edward VI and the Church of the Restoration. Take +them broadly as the condemnation--strong but loose in expression, as, +for instance, in the language on the "five, commonly called +Sacraments"--of a powerful and well-known antagonist system, and there +was no difficulty about them. But take them as scientific and accurate +and precise enunciations of a systematic theology, and difficulties +begin at once, with every one who does not hold the special and +well-marked doctrines of the age when the German and Swiss authorities +ruled supreme. The course of events from that day to this has shown +more than once, in surprising and even startling examples, how much +those who at the time least thought that they needed such strict +construing of the language of the Articles, and were fierce in +denouncing the "kind of interpretation" said to be claimed in No. 90, +have since found that they require a good deal more elasticity of +reading than even it asked for. The "whirligig of time" was thought to +have brought "its revenges," when Mr. Newman, who had called for the +exercise of authority against Dr. Hampden, found himself, five years +afterwards, under the ban of the same authority. The difference between +Mr. Newman's case and Dr. Hampden's, both as to the alleged offence and +the position of the men, was considerable. But the "whirligig of time" +brought about even stranger "revenges," when not only Mr. Gorham and Mr. +H.B. Wilson in their own defence, but the tribunals which had to decide +on their cases, carried the strictness of reading and the latitude of +interpretation, quite as far, to say the least, as anything in No. 90. + +Unhappily Tract 90 was met at Oxford, not with argument, but with panic +and wrath.[94] There is always a sting in every charge, to which other +parts of it seem subordinate. No. 90 was charged of course with false +doctrine, with false history, and with false reasoning; but the emphatic +part of the charge, the short and easy method which dispensed from the +necessity of theological examination and argument, was that it was +dishonest and immoral. Professors of Divinity, and accomplished +scholars, such as there were in Oxford, might very well have considered +it an occasion to dispute both the general principle of the Tract, if it +was so dangerous, and the illustrations, in the abundance of which the +writer had so frankly thrown open his position to searching criticism. +It was a crisis in which much might have been usefully said, if there +had been any one to say it; much too, to make any one feel, if he was +competent to feel, that he had a good deal to think about in his own +position, and that it would be well to ascertain what was tenable and +what untenable in it. But it seemed as if the opportunity must not be +lost for striking a blow. The Tract was published on 27th February. On +the 8th of March four Senior Tutors, one of whom was Mr. H.B. Wilson, of +St. John's, and another Mr. Tait, of Balliol, addressed the Editor of +the Tract, charging No. 90 with suggesting and opening a way, by which +men might, at least in the case of Roman views, violate their solemn +engagements to their University. On the 15th of March, the Board of +Heads of Houses, refusing to wait for Mr. Newman's defence, which was +known to be coming, and which bears date 13th March, published their +judgment They declared that in No. 90 "modes of interpretation were +suggested, and have since been advocated in other publications +purporting to be written by members of the University, by which +subscription to the Articles might be reconciled with the adoption of +Roman Catholic error." And they announced their resolution, "That modes +of interpretation, such as are suggested in the said Tract, evading +rather than explaining the sense of the Thirty-nine Articles, and +reconciling subscription to them with the adoption of errors which they +are designed to counteract, defeat the object, and are inconsistent with +the due observance of the above-mentioned statutes."[95] + +It was an ungenerous and stupid blunder, such as men make, when they +think or are told that "something must be done," and do not know what. +It gave the writer an opportunity, of which he took full advantage, of +showing his superiority in temper, in courtesy, and in reason, to those +who had not so much condemned as insulted him. He was immediately ready +with his personal expression of apology and regret, and also with his +reassertion in more developed argument of the principle of the Tract; +and this was followed up by further explanations in a letter to the +Bishop. And in spite of the invidious position in which the Board had +tried to place him, not merely as an unsound divine, but as a dishonest +man teaching others to palter with their engagements, the crisis drew +forth strong support and sympathy where they were not perhaps to be +expected. It rallied to him, at least for the time, some of the friends +who had begun to hold aloof. Mr. Palmer, of Worcester, Mr. Perceval, Dr. +Hook, with reserves according to each man's point of view, yet came +forward in his defence. The Board was made to feel that they had been +driven by violent and partisan instigations to commit themselves to a +very foolish as well as a very passionate and impotent step; that they +had by very questionable authority simply thrown an ill-sounding and +ill-mannered word at an argument on a very difficult question, to which +they themselves certainly were not prepared with a clear and +satisfactory answer; that they had made the double mistake of declaring +war against a formidable antagonist, and of beginning it by creating the +impression that they had treated him shabbily, and were really afraid to +come to close quarters with him. As the excitement of hasty counsels +subsided, the sense of this began to awake in some of them; they tried +to represent the off-hand and ambiguous words of the condemnation as not +meaning all that they had been taken to mean. But the seed of bitterness +had been sown. Very little light was thrown, in the strife of pamphlets +which ensued, on the main subject dealt with in No. 90, the authority +and interpretation of such formularies as our Articles. The easier and +more tempting and very fertile topic of debate was the honesty and good +faith of the various disputants. Of the four Tutors, only one, Mr. H.B. +Wilson, published an explanation of their part in the matter; it was a +clumsy, ill-written and laboured pamphlet, which hardly gave promise of +the intellectual vigour subsequently displayed by Mr. Wilson, when he +appeared, not as the defender, but the assailant of received opinions. +The more distinguished of the combatants were Mr. Ward and Mr. R. Lowe. +Mr. Ward, with his usual dialectical skill, not only defended the Tract, +but pushed its argument yet further, in claiming tolerance for doctrines +alleged to be Roman. Mr. Lowe, not troubling himself either with +theological history or the relation of other parties in the Church to +the formularies, threw his strength into the popular and plausible topic +of dishonesty, and into a bitter and unqualified invective against the +bad faith and immorality manifested in the teaching of which No. 90 was +the outcome. Dr. Faussett, as was to be expected, threw himself into the +fray with his accustomed zest and violence, and caused some amusement at +Oxford, first by exposing himself to the merciless wit of a reviewer in +the _British Critic_, and then by the fright into which he was thrown by +a rumour that his reelection to his professorship would be endangered by +Tractarian votes.[96] But the storm, at Oxford at least, seemed to die +out. The difficulty which at one moment threatened of a strike among +some of the college Tutors passed; and things went back to their +ordinary course. But an epoch and a new point of departure had come into +the movement. Things after No. 90 were never the same as to language and +hopes and prospects as they had been before; it was the date from which +a new set of conditions in men's thoughts and attitude had to be +reckoned. Each side felt that a certain liberty had been claimed and +had been peremptorily denied. And this was more than confirmed by the +public language of the greater part of the Bishops. The charges against +the Tractarian party of Romanising, and of flagrant dishonesty, long +urged by irresponsible opponents, were now formally adopted by the +University authorities, and specially directed against the foremost man +of the party. From that time the fate of the party at Oxford was +determined. It must break up. Sooner or later, there must be a secession +more or less discrediting and disabling those who remained. And so the +break-up came, and yet, so well grounded and so congenial to the English +Church were the leading principles of the movement, that not even that +disastrous and apparently hopeless wreck prevented them from again +asserting their claim and becoming once more active and powerful. The +_Via Media_, whether or not logically consistent, was a thing of genuine +English growth, and was at least a working theory. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[84] _Apologia_, p. 180. + +[85] _Essays Critical and Historical_, 1871. + +[86] _Apologia_, pp. 181, 182. Comp. _Letter to Jelf_, p. 18. + +[87] _British Critic_, April 1839, pp. 419-426. Condensed in the +_Apologia_, pp. 192-194. + +[88] _Letter to the Bishop of Oxford_ (29th March 1841), pp. 33-40. +Comp. _Letter to Jelf_, pp. 7, 8. + +[89] _Apologia_, pp. 212, 221. + +[90] _Letter to Jelf_ [especially p. 19]. + +[91] _Walton's Life_, i. 59 (Oxford: 1845). + +[92] No. 90, p. 24. + +[93] The following letter of Mr. James Mozley (8th March 1841) gives the +first impression of the Tract:--"A new Tract has come out this week, and +is beginning to make a sensation. It is on the Articles, and shows that +they bear a highly Catholic meaning; and that many doctrines, of which +the Romanist are corruptions, may be held consistently with them. This +is no more than what we know as a matter of history, for the Articles +were expressly worded to bring in Roman Catholics. But people are +astonished and confused at the idea now, as if it were quite new. And +they have been so accustomed for a long time to look at the Articles as +on a par with the Creed, that they think, I suppose, that if they +subscribe to them they are bound to hold whatever doctrines (not +positively stated in them) are merely not condemned. So if they will +have a Tractarian sense, they are thereby all Tractarians.... It is, of +course, highly complimentary to the whole set of us to be so very much +surprised that we should think what we held to be consistent with the +Articles which we have subscribed." See also a clever Whateleian +pamphlet, "The Controversy between Tract No. 90 and the Oxford Tutors." +(How and Parsons, 1841.) + +[94] See J.B. Mozley's _Letters_, 13th March 1841. + +[95] _Scil._, those cited in the preamble to this resolution. + +[96] J.B. Mozley's _Letters_, 13th July 1841. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +AFTER NO. 90 + + +The proceedings about No. 90 were a declaration of war on the part of +the Oxford authorities against the Tractarian party. The suspicions, +alarms, antipathies, jealousies, which had long been smouldering among +those in power, had at last taken shape in a definite act. And it was a +turning-point in the history of the movement. After this it never was +exactly what it had been hitherto. It had been so far a movement within +the English Church, for its elevation and reform indeed, but at every +step invoking its authority with deep respect, acknowledging allegiance +to its rulers in unqualified and even excessive terms, and aiming +loyally to make it in reality all that it was in its devotional language +and its classical literature. But after what passed about No. 90 a +change came. The party came under an official ban and stigma. The common +consequences of harsh treatment on the tendencies and thought of a +party, which considers itself unjustly proscribed, showed themselves +more and more. Its mind was divided; its temper was exasperated; while +the attitude of the governing authorities hardened more into determined +hostility. From the time of the censure, and especially after the events +connected with it,--the contest for the Poetry Professorship and the +renewed Hampden question,--it may be said that the characteristic +tempers of the Corcyrean sedition were reproduced on a small scale in +Oxford.[97] The scare of Popery, not without foundation--the reaction +against it, also not without foundation--had thrown the wisest off their +balance; and what of those who were not wise? In the heat of those days +there were few Tractarians who did not think Dr. Wynter, Dr. Faussett, +and Dr. Symons heretics in theology and persecutors in temper, despisers +of Christian devotion and self-denial. There were few of the party of +the Heads who did not think every Tractarian a dishonest and perjured +traitor, equivocating about his most solemn engagements, the ignorant +slave of childish superstitions which he was conspiring to bring back. +It was the day of the violent on both sides: the courtesies of life were +forgotten; men were afraid of being weak in their censures, their +dislike, and their opposition; old friendships were broken up, and men +believed the worst of those whom a few years back they had loved and +honoured. + +It is not agreeable to recall these long extinct animosities, but they +are part of the history of that time, and affected the course in which +things ran. And it is easy to blame, it is hard to do justice to, the +various persons and parties who contributed to the events of that +strange and confused time. All was new, and unusual, and without +precedent in Oxford; a powerful and enthusiastic school reviving old +doctrines in a way to make them seem novelties, and creating a wild +panic from a quarter where it was the least expected; the terror of this +panic acting on authorities not in the least prepared for such a trial +of their sagacity, patience, and skill, driving them to unexampled +severity, and to a desperate effort to expel the disturbing +innovators--among them some of the first men in Oxford in character and +ability--from their places in the University.[98] In order to do justice +on each side at this distance of time, we are bound to make +allowance--both for the alarm and the mistaken violence of the +authorities, and for the disaffection, the irritation, the strange +methods which grew up in the worried and suspected party--for the +difficulties which beset both sides in the conflict, and the +counter-influences which drew them hither and thither. But the facts are +as they are; and even then a calmer temper was possible to those who +willed it; and in the heat of the strife there were men among the +authorities, as well as in the unpopular party, who kept their balance, +while others lost it. + +Undoubtedly the publication of No. 90 was the occasion of the aggravated +form which dissension took, and not unnaturally. Yet it was anything but +what it was taken to mean by the authorities, an intentional move in +favour of Rome. It was intended to reconcile a large and growing class +of minds, penetrated and disgusted with the ignorance and injustice of +much of the current controversial assumptions against Rome, to a larger +and more defensible view of the position of the English Church. And this +was done by calling attention to that which was not now for the first +time observed--to the loose and unguarded mode of speaking visible in +the later controversial Articles, and to the contrast between them and +the technical and precise theology of the first five Articles. The +Articles need not mean all which they were supposed popularly to mean +against what was Catholic in Roman doctrine. This was urged in simple +good faith; it was but the necessary assumption of all who held with the +Catholic theology, which the Tractarians all along maintained that they +had a right to teach; it left plenty of ground of difference with +unreformed and usurping Rome. And we know that the storm which No. 90 +raised took the writer by surprise. He did not expect that he should +give such deep offence. But if he thought of the effect on one set of +minds, he forgot the probable effect on another; and he forgot, or +under-estimated, the effect not only of the things said, but of the way +in which they were said.[99] No. 90 was a surprise, in the state of +ordinary theological knowledge at the time. It was a strong thing to say +that the Articles left a great deal of formal Roman language untouched; +but to work this out in dry, bald, technical logic, on the face of it, +narrow in scope, often merely ingenious, was even a greater +stumbling-block. It was, undoubtedly, a great miscalculation, such as +men of keen and far-reaching genius sometimes make. They mistake the +strength and set of the tide; they imagine that minds round them are +going as fast as their own. We can see, looking back, that such an +interpretation of the Articles, with the view then taken of them in +Oxford as the theological text-book, and in the condition of men's +minds, could not but be a great shock. + +And what seemed to give a sinister significance to No. 90 was that, as +has been said, a strong current was beginning to set in the direction of +Rome. It was not yet of the nature, nor of the force, which was +imagined. The authorities suspected it where it was not. They accepted +any contemptible bit of gossip collected by ignorance or ill-nature as a +proof of it. The constitutional frankness of Englishmen in finding fault +with what is their own--disgust at pompous glorification--scepticism as +to our insular claims against all the rest of Christendom to be exactly +right, to be alone, "pure and apostolic"; real increase and enlargement +of knowledge, theological and historical; criticism on portions of our +Reformation history; admiration for characters in mediaeval times; +eagerness, over-generous it might be, to admit and repair wrong to an +opponent unjustly accused; all were set down together with other more +unequivocal signs as "leanings to Rome." It was clear that there was a +current setting towards Rome; but it was as clear that there was a much +stronger current in the party as a whole, setting in the opposite +direction. To those who chose to see and to distinguish, the love, the +passionate loyalty of the bulk of the Tractarians to the English Church +was as evident and unquestionable as any public fact could be. At this +time there was no reason to call in question the strong assurances +given by the writer of No. 90 himself of his yet unshaken faith in the +English Church. But all these important features of the +movement--witnessing, indeed, to deep searchings of heart, but to a +genuine desire to serve the English Church--were overlooked in the one +overwhelming fear which had taken possession of the authorities. +Alarming symptoms of a disposition to acknowledge and even exaggerate +the claims and the attractions of the Roman system were indeed apparent. +No doubt there were reasons for disquiet and anxiety. But the test of +manliness and wisdom, in the face of such reasons, is how men measure +their proportion, and how they meet the danger. + +The Heads saw a real danger before them; but they met it in a wrong and +unworthy way. They committed two great errors. In the first place, like +the Jesuits in their quarrel with Portroyal and the Jansenists, they +entirely failed to recognise the moral elevation and religious purpose +of the men whom they opposed. There was that before them which it was to +their deep discredit that they did not see. The movement, whatever else +it was, or whatever else it became, was in its first stages a movement +for deeper religion, for a more real and earnest self-discipline, for a +loftier morality, for more genuine self-devotion to a serious life, than +had ever been seen in Oxford. It was an honest attempt to raise Oxford +life, which by all evidence needed raising, to something more laborious +and something more religious, to something more worthy of the great +Christian foundations of Oxford than the rivalry of colleges and of the +schools, the mere literary atmosphere of the tutor's lecture-room, and +the easy and gentlemanly and somewhat idle fellowship of the +common-rooms. It was the effort of men who had all the love of +scholarship, and the feeling for it of the Oxford of their day, to add +to this the habits of Christian students and the pursuit of Christian +learning. If all this was dangerous and uncongenial to Oxford, so much +the worse for Oxford, with its great opportunities and great +professions--_Dominus illuminatio mea_. But certainly this mark of moral +purpose and moral force was so plain in the movement that the rulers of +Oxford had no right to mistake it. When the names come back to our minds +of those who led and most represented the Tractarians, it must be a +matter of surprise to any man who has not almost parted with the idea of +Christian goodness, that this feature of the movement could escape or +fail to impress those who had known well all their lives long what these +leaders were. But amid the clamour and the tell-tale gossip, and, it +must be admitted, the folly round them, they missed it. Perhaps they +were bewildered. But they must have the blame, the heavy blame, which +belongs to all those who, when good is before them, do not recognise it +according to its due measure.[100] + +In the next place, the authorities attacked and condemned the +Tractarian teaching at once violently and ignorantly, and in them +ignorance of the ground on which the battle was fought was hardly +pardonable. Doubtless the Tractarian language was in many respects novel +and strange. But Oxford was not only a city of libraries, it was the +home of what was especially accounted Church theology; and the +Tractarian teaching, in its foundation and main outlines, had little but +what ought to have been perfectly familiar to any one who chose to take +the trouble to study the great Church of England writers. To one who, +like Dr. Routh of Magdalen, had gone below the surface, and was +acquainted with the questions debated by those divines, there was +nothing startling in what so alarmed his brethren, whether he agreed +with it or not; and to him the indiscriminate charge of Popery meant +nothing. But Dr. Routh stood alone among his brother Heads in his +knowledge of what English theology was. To most of them it was an +unexplored and misty region; some of the ablest, under the influence of +Dr. Whately's vigorous and scornful discipline, had learned to slight +it. But there it was. Whether it was read or not, its great names were +pronounced with honour, and quoted on occasion. From Hooker to Van +Mildert, there was an unbroken thread of common principles giving +continuity to a line of Church teachers. The Puritan line of doctrine, +though it could claim much sanction among the divines of the +Reformation--the Latitudinarian idea, though it had the countenance of +famous names and powerful intellects--never could aspire to the special +title of Church theology. And the teaching which had that name, both in +praise, and often in dispraise, as technical, scholastic, unspiritual, +transcendental, nay, even Popish, countenanced the Tractarians. They +were sneered at for their ponderous _Catenae_ of authorities; but on the +ground on which this debate raged, the appeal was a pertinent and solid +one. Yet to High Church Oxford and its rulers, all this was strange +doctrine. Proof and quotation might lie before their eyes, but their +minds still ran in one groove, and they could not realise what they saw. +The words meant no harm in the venerable folio; they meant perilous +heresy in the modern Tract. When the authorities had to judge of the +questions raised by the movement, they were unprovided with the adequate +knowledge; and this was knowledge which they ought to have possessed for +its own sake, as doctors of the Theological Faculty of the University. + +And it was not only for their want of learning, manifest all through the +controversy, that they were to blame. Their most telling charge against +the Tractarians, which was embodied in the censure of No. 90, was the +charge of dishonesty. The charge is a very handy one against opponents, +and it may rest on good grounds; but those who think right to make it +ought, both as a matter of policy and as a matter of conscience, to be +quite assured of their own position. The Articles are a public, common +document. It is the differing interpretations of a common document which +create political and religious parties; and only shallowness and +prejudice will impute to an opponent dishonesty without strong and clear +reason. Mr. Newman's interpretation in No. 90,--new, not in claiming for +the Articles a Catholic meaning, but in _limiting_, though it does not +deny, their anti-Roman scope, was fairly open to criticism. It might be +taken as a challenge, and as a challenge might have to be met. But it +would have been both fair and wise in the Heads, before proceeding to +unusual extremities, to have shown that they had fully considered their +own theological doctrines in relation to the Church formularies. They +all had obvious difficulties, and in some cases formidable ones. The +majority of them were what would have been called in older controversial +days frank Arminians, shutting their eyes by force of custom to the look +of some of the Articles, which, if of Lutheran origin, had been claimed +from the first by Calvinists. The Evangelicals had long confessed +difficulties, at least, in the Baptismal Service and the Visitation +Office; while the men most loud in denunciation of dishonesty were the +divines of Whately's school, who had been undermining the authority of +all creeds and articles, and had never been tired of proclaiming their +dislike of that solemn Athanasian Creed to which Prayer Book and +Articles alike bound them. Men with these difficulties daily before them +had no right to ignore them. Doubtless they all had their explanations +which they _bona fide_ believed in. But what was there that excluded Mr. +Newman from the claim to _bona fides_? He had attacked no foundation of +Christianity; he had denied or doubted no article of the Creed. He gave +his explanations, certainly not more far-fetched than those of some of +his judges. In a Church divided by many conflicting views, and therefore +bound to all possible tolerance, he had adopted one view which certainly +was unpopular and perhaps was dangerous. He might be confuted, he might +be accused, or, if so be, convicted of error, perhaps of heresy. But +nothing of this kind was attempted. The incompatibility of his view, not +merely with the Articles, but with morality in signing what all, of +whatever party, had signed, was asserted in a censure, which evaded the +responsibility of specifying the point which it condemned. The alarm of +treachery and conspiracy is one of the most maddening of human impulses. +The Heads of Houses, instead of moderating and sobering it, with the +authority of instructed and sagacious rulers, blew it into a flame. And +they acted in such a hurry that all sense of proportion and dignity was +lost. They peremptorily refused to wait even a few days, as the writer +requested, and as was due to his character, for explanation. They dared +not risk an appeal to the University at large. They dared not abide the +effect of discussion on the blow which they were urged to strike. They +chose, that they might strike without delay, the inexpressibly childish +step of sticking up at the Schools' gates, and at College butteries, +without trial, or conviction, or sentence, a notice declaring that +certain modes of signing the Articles suggested in a certain Tract were +dishonest. It was, they said, to protect undergraduates; as if +undergraduates would be affected by a vague assertion on a difficult +subject, about which nothing was more certain than that those who issued +the notice were not agreed among themselves. + +The men who acted thus were good and conscientious men, who thought +themselves in the presence of a great danger. It is only fair to +remember this. But it is also impossible to be fair to the party of the +movement without remembering this deplorable failure in consistency, in +justice, in temper, in charity, on the part of those in power in the +University. The drift towards Rome had not yet become an unmanageable +rush; and though there were cases in which nothing could have stopped +its course, there is no reason to doubt that generous and equitable +dealing, a more considerate reasonableness, a larger and more +comprehensive judgment of facts, and a more patient waiting for strong +first impressions to justify and verify themselves, would have averted +much mischief. There was much that was to be regretted from this time +forward in the temper and spirit of the movement party. But that which +nourished and strengthened impatience, exaggeration of language and +views, scorn of things as they were, intolerance of everything +moderate, both in men and in words, was the consciousness with which +every man got up in the morning and passed the day, of the bitter +hostility of those foremost in place in Oxford--of their incompetence to +judge fairly--of their incapacity to apprehend what was high and earnest +in those whom they condemned--of the impossibility of getting them to +imagine that Tractarians could be anything but fools or traitors--of +their hopeless blindness to any fact or any teaching to which they were +not accustomed. If the authorities could only have stopped to consider +whether after all they were not dealing with real thought and real wish +to do right, they might after all have disliked the movement, but they +would have seen that which would have kept them from violence. They +would not listen, they would not inquire, they would not consider. Could +such ignorance, could such wrong possibly be without mischievous +influence on those who were the victims of it, much more on friends and +disciples who knew and loved them? The Tractarians had been preaching +that the Church of England, with all its Protestant feeling and all its +Protestant acts and history, was yet, as it professed to be, part and +parcel of the great historic Catholic Church, which had framed the +Creeds, which had continued the Sacraments, which had preached and +taught out of the Bible, which had given us our immemorial prayers. They +had spared no pains to make out this great commonplace from history and +theology: nor had they spared pains, while insisting on this dominant +feature in the English Church, to draw strongly and broadly the lines +which distinguished it from Rome. Was it wonderful, when all guarding +and explanatory limitations were contemptuously tossed aside by +"all-daring ignorance," and all was lumped together in the +indiscriminate charge of "Romanising," that there should have been some +to take the authorities at their word? Was it wonderful when men were +told that the Church of England was no place for them, that they were +breaking their vows and violating solemn engagements by acting as its +ministers, and that in order to preserve the respect of honest men they +should leave it--that the question of change, far off as it had once +seemed, came within "measurable distance"? The generation to which they +belonged had been brought up with strong exhortations to be real, and to +hate shams; and now the question was forced on them whether it was not a +sham for the English Church to call itself Catholic; whether a body of +teaching which was denounced by its authorities, however it might look +on paper and be defended by learning, could be more than a plausible +literary hypothesis in contrast to the great working system of which the +head was Rome. When we consider the singular and anomalous position on +any theory, including the Roman, of the English Church; with what great +differences its various features and elements have been prominent at +different times; how largely its history has been marked by +contradictory facts and appearances; and how hard it is for any one to +keep all, according to their real importance, simultaneously in view; +when we remember also what are the temptations of human nature in great +collisions of religious belief, the excitement and passion of the time, +the mixed character of all religious zeal, the natural inevitable anger +which accompanies it when resisted, the fervour which welcomes +self-sacrifice for the truth; and when we think of all this kept aglow +by the continuous provocation of unfair and harsh dealing from persons +who were scarcely entitled to be severe judges; the wonder is, human +nature being what it is, not that so many went, but that so many stayed. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[97] Τόλμα ἀλόγιστος ἀνδρία φιλέταιρος ἐνομίσθη ... τὸ δὲ σῶφρον τοῦ +ἀνάνδρου πρόσχημα, καὶ τὸ πρὸς ἄπαν ξυνετὸν ἐπὶ πᾶν ἀργόν τὸ δὲ +ὲμπλήκτως ὀξὐ ἀνδρὸς μοίρᾳ προσετέθη ... καὶ ὁ μὲν χαλεπαίνων πιστὸς +ἀεί, ὁ δὲ ἀντιλέγων αὐτῷ ὕποπτος.--Thuc. iii. 82. "Reckless daring was +held to be loyal courage; moderation was the disguise of unmanly +weakness; to know everything was to do nothing; frantic energy was the +true character of a man; the lover of violence was always trusted, and +his opponent suspected."--Jowett's translation. + +[98] One of the strangest features in the conflict was the entire +misconception shown of what Mr. Newman was--the blindness to his real +character and objects--the imputation to him not merely of grave faults, +but of small and mean ones. His critics could not rise above the poorest +measure of his intellect and motives. One of the ablest of them, who had +once been his friend, in a farewell letter of kindly remonstrance, +specifies certain Roman errors, which he hopes that Mr. Newman will not +fall into--adoring images and worshipping saints--as if the pleasure and +privilege of worshipping images and saints were to Mr. Newman the +inducement to join Rome and break the ties of a lifetime. And so of his +moral qualities. A prominent Evangelical leader, Dr. Close of +Cheltenham, afterwards Dean of Carlisle, at a complimentary dinner, in +which he himself gloried in the "foul, personal abuse to which he had +been subjected in his zeal for truth," proceeded to give his judgment on +Mr. Newman: "When I first read No. 90, I did not then know the author; +but I said then, and I repeat here, _not with any personal reference to +the author_, that I should be sorry to trust the author of that Tract +with my purse,"--Report of Speech in _Cheltenham Examiner_, 1st March +1843. + +[99] οὐ γὰρ ἀπόχρη τὸ ἔχειν ἄ δεῖ λέγειν, ἀλλ' ἀνάγκη καὶ ταῦτο ὠς δεῖ +είπεῖν.--Arist. _Rhet._ iii. I. + +[100] Dr. Richards, the Rector of Exeter, seems to have stood apart from +his brother heads.--Cf. _Letters of the Rev. J.B. Mozley_, p. 113. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE THREE DEFEATS: + +ISAAC WILLIAMS, MACMULLEN, PUSEY + + +The year 1841, though it had begun in storm, and though signs were not +wanting of further disturbance, was at Oxford, outwardly at least, a +peaceable one. A great change had happened; but, when the first burst of +excitement was over, men settled down to their usual work, their +lectures, or their reading, or their parishes, and by Easter things +seemed to go on as before. The ordinary habits of University life +resumed their course with a curious quietness. There was, no doubt, much +trouble brooding underneath. Mr. Ward and others continued a war of +pamphlets; and in June Mr. Ward was dismissed from his Mathematical +Lectureship at Balliol. But faith in the great leader was still strong. +No. 90, if it had shocked or disquieted some, had elicited equally +remarkable expressions of confidence and sympathy from others who might +have been, at least, silent. The events of the spring had made men +conscious of what their leader was, and called forth warm and +enthusiastic affection. It was not in vain that, whatever might be +thought of the wisdom or the reasonings of No. 90, he had shown the +height of his character and the purity and greatness of his religious +purpose; and that being what he was, in the eyes of all Oxford, he had +been treated with contumely, and had borne it with patience and loyal +submission. There were keen observers, to whom that patience told of +future dangers; they would have liked him to show more fight. But he +gave no signs of defeat, nor, outwardly, of disquiet; he forbore to +retaliate at Oxford: and the sermons at St. Mary's continued, +penetrating and searching as ever, perhaps with something more pathetic +and anxious in their undertone than before. + +But if he forbore at Oxford, he did not let things pass outside. Sir +Robert Peel, in opening a reading-room at Tamworth, had spoken loosely, +in the conventional and pompous way then fashionable, of the +all-sufficing and exclusive blessings of knowledge. While Mr. Newman was +correcting the proofs of No. 90, he was also writing to the _Times_ the +famous letters of _Catholicus_; a warning to eminent public men of the +danger of declaiming on popular commonplaces without due examination of +their worth. But all seemed quiet. "In the summer of 1841," we read in +the _Apologia_, "I found myself at Littlemore without any harass or +anxiety on my mind. I had determined to put aside all controversy, and +set myself down to my translation of St. Athanasius." Outside of Oxford +there was a gathering of friends in the summer at the consecration of +one of Mr. Keble's district churches, Ampfield--an occasion less common +and more noticeable then than now. Again, what was a new thought then, a +little band of young Oxford men, ten or twelve, taxed themselves to +build a new church, which was ultimately placed at Bussage, in Mr. +Thomas Keble's parish. One of Mr. Keble's curates, Mr. Peter Young, had +been refused Priest's orders by the Bishop of Winchester, for alleged +unsoundness on the doctrine of the Eucharist. Mr. Selwyn, not without +misgivings on the part of the Whig powers, had been appointed Bishop of +New Zealand. Dr. Arnold had been appointed to the Chair of Modern +History at Oxford. In the course of the year there passed away one who +had had a very real though unacknowledged influence on much that had +happened--Mr. Blanco White. And at the end of the year, 29th October, +Mr. Keble gave his last lecture on Poetry, and finished a course the +most original and memorable ever delivered from his chair. + +Towards the end of the year two incidents, besides some roughly-worded +Episcopal charges, disturbed this quiet. They were only indirectly +connected with theological controversy at Oxford; but they had great +ultimate influence on it, and they helped to marshal parties and +consolidate animosities. One was the beginning of the contest for the +Poetry Professorship which Mr. Keble had vacated. There was no one of +equal eminence to succeed him; but there was in Oxford a man of +undoubted poetical genius, of refined taste and subtle thought, though +of unequal power, who had devoted his gifts to the same great purpose +for which Mr. Keble had written the _Christian Year._ No one who has +looked into the _Baptistery_, whatever his feeling towards the writer, +can doubt whether Mr. Isaac Williams was a poet and knew what poetry +meant. He was an intimate friend of Mr. Keble and Mr. Newman, and so he +was styled a Tractarian; but no name offered itself so obviously to the +electors as his, and in due time his friends announced their intention +of bringing him forward. His competitor was Mr. (afterwards Archdeacon) +Garbett of Brasenose, the college of Heber and Milman, an accomplished +gentleman of high culture, believed to have an acquaintance, not common +then in Oxford, with foreign literature, whose qualifications stood high +in the opinion of his University friends, but who had given no evidence +to the public of his claims to the office. It was inevitable, it was no +one's special fault, that the question of theological opinions should +intrude itself; but at first it was only in private that objections were +raised or candidatures recommended on theological grounds. But rumours +were abroad that the authorities of Brasenose were canvassing their +college on these grounds: and in an unlucky moment for Mr. Williams, Dr. +Pusey, not without the knowledge, but without the assenting judgment of +Mr. Newman, thought it well to send forth a circular in Christ Church +first, but soon with wider publicity, asking support for Mr. Williams as +a person whose known religious views would ensure his making his office +minister to religious truth. Nothing could be more innocently meant. It +was the highest purpose to which that office could be devoted. But the +mistake was seen on all sides as soon as made. The Principal of Mr. +Garbett's college. Dr. Gilbert, like a general jumping on his antagonist +whom he has caught in the act of a false move, put forth a dignified +counter-appeal, alleging that he had not raised this issue, but adding +that as it had been raised and avowed on the other side, he was quite +willing that it should be taken into account, and the dangers duly +considered of that teaching with which Dr. Pusey's letter had identified +Mr. Williams. No one from that moment could prevent the contest from +becoming almost entirely a theological one, which was to try the +strength of the party of the movement. Attempts were made, but in vain, +to divest it of this character. The war of pamphlets and leaflets +dispersed in the common-rooms, which usually accompanied these contests, +began, and the year closed with preparations for a severe struggle when +the University met in the following January. + +The other matter was the establishment of the Anglo-Prussian bishopric +at Jerusalem. It was the object of the ambition of M. Bunsen to pave the +way for a recognition, by the English Church, of the new State Church +of Prussia, and ultimately for some closer alliance between the two +bodies; and the plan of a Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem, nominated +alternately by England and Prussia, consecrated by English Bishops, and +exercising jurisdiction over English and German Protestants in +Palestine, was proposed by him to Archbishop Howley and Bishop +Blomfield, and somewhat hastily and incautiously accepted by them. To +Mr. Newman, fighting a hard battle, as he felt it, for the historical +and constitutional catholicity of the English Church, this step on their +part came as a practical and even ostentatious contradiction of his +arguments. England, it seemed, which was out of communion with the East +and with Rome, could lightly enter into close communion with Lutherans +and Calvinists against them both. He recorded an indignant and even +bitter protest; and though the scheme had its warm apologists, such as +Dr. Hook and Mr. F. Maurice, it had its keen-sighted critics, and it was +never received with favour by the Church at large. And, indeed, it was +only active for mischief. It created irritation, suspicion, discord in +England, while no German cared a straw about it. Never was an ambitious +scheme so marked by impotence and failure from its first steps to its +last. But it was one, as the _Apologia_ informs us,[101] in the chain of +events which destroyed Mr. Newman's belief in the English Church. "It +was one of the blows," he writes, "which broke me." + +The next year, 1842, opened with war; war between the University +authorities and the party of the movement, which was to continue in +various forms and with little intermission till the strange and pathetic +events of 1845 suspended the righting and stunned the fighters, and for +a time hushed even anger in feelings of amazement, sorrow, and fear. +Those events imposed stillness on all who had taken part in the strife, +like the blowing up of the _Orient_ at the battle of the Nile. + +As soon as the University met in January 1842, the contest for the +Poetry Professorship was settled. There was no meeting of Convocation, +but a comparison of votes gave a majority of three to two to Mr. +Garbett,[102] and Mr. Williams withdrew. The Tractarians had been +distinctly beaten; it was their first defeat as a party. It seems as if +this encouraged the Hebdomadal Board to a move, which would be felt as a +blow against the Tractarians, and which, as an act of reparation to Dr. +Hampden, would give satisfaction to the ablest section of their own +supporters, the theological Liberals. They proposed to repeal the +disqualification which had been imposed on Dr. Hampden in 1836. But they +had miscalculated. It was too evidently a move to take advantage of the +recent Tractarian discomfiture to whitewash Dr. Hampden's Liberalism. +The proposal, and the way in which it was made, roused a strong feeling +among the residents; a request to withdraw it received the signatures +not only of moderate Anglicans and independent men, like Mr. Francis +Faber of Magdalen, Mr. Sewell, the Greswells, and Mr. W. Palmer of +Worcester, but of Mr. Tait of Balliol, and Mr. Golightly. Dr. Hampden's +own attitude did not help it. There was great want of dignity in his +ostentatious profession of orthodoxy and attachment to the Articles, in +his emphatic adoption of Evangelical phraseology, and in his unmeasured +denunciation of his opponents, and especially of those whom he viewed as +most responsible for the censure of 1836--the "Tractarians" or +"Romanisers." And the difficulty with those who had passed and who now +proposed to withdraw the censure, was that Dr. Hampden persistently and +loudly declared that he had nothing to retract, and retracted nothing; +and if it was right to pass it in 1836, it would not be right to +withdraw it in 1842. At the last moment, Mr. Tait and Mr. Piers +Claughton of University made an attempt to get something from Dr. +Hampden which might pass as a withdrawal of what was supposed to be +dangerous in his Bampton Lectures; and there were some even among Mr. +Newman's friends, who, disliking from the first the form of the censure, +might have found in such a withdrawal a reason for voting for its +repeal. But Dr. Hampden was obdurate. The measure was pressed, and in +June it was thrown out in Convocation by a majority of three to +two[103]--the same proportion, though in smaller numbers, as in the vote +against Mr. Williams. The measure was not an honest one on the part of +the Hebdomadal Board, and deserved to be defeated. Among the pamphlets +which the discussion produced, two by Mr. James Mozley gave early +evidence, by their force of statement and their trenchant logic, of the +power with which he was to take part in the questions which agitated the +University. + +Dr. Hampden took his revenge, and it was not a noble one. The fellows of +certain colleges were obliged to proceed to the B.D. degree on pain of +forfeiting their fellowships. The exercises for the degree, which, by +the Statutes, took the old-fashioned shape of formal Latin disputations +between Opponents and Respondents on given theses in the Divinity +School, had by an arrangement introduced by Dr. Burton, with no +authority from the Statutes, come to consist of two English essays on +subjects chosen by the candidate and approved by the Divinity Professor. +The exercises for the degree had long ceased to be looked upon as very +serious matters, and certainly were never regarded as tests of the +soundness of the candidate's faith. They were usually on well-worn +commonplaces, of which the Regius Professor kept a stock, and about +which no one troubled himself but the person who wanted the degree. It +was not a creditable system, but it was of a piece with the prevalent +absence of any serious examination for the superior degrees. It would +have been quite befitting his position, if Dr. Hampden had called the +attention of the authorities to the evil of sham exercises for degrees +in his own important Faculty. It would have been quite right to make a +vigorous effort on public grounds to turn these sham trials into +realities; to use them, like the examination for the B.A. degree, as +tests of knowledge and competent ability. Such a move on his part would +have been in harmony with the legislation which had recently added two +theological Professors to the Faculty, and had sketched out, however +imperfectly, the outlines of a revived theological school. + +This is what, with good reason, Dr. Hampden might have attempted on +general grounds, and had he been successful (though this in the +suspicious state of University feeling was not very likely) he would +have gained in a regular and lawful way that power of embarrassing his +opponents which he was resolved to use in defiance of all existing +custom. But such was not the course which he chose. Mr. Macmullen of +Corpus, who, in pursuance of the College Statutes, had to proceed to the +B.D. degree, applied, as the custom was, for theses to the Professor. +Mr. Macmullen was known to hold the opinions of the movement school; of +course he was called a Tractarian; he had put his name to some of the +many papers which expressed the sentiments of his friends on current +events. Dr. Hampden sent him two propositions, which the candidate was +to support, framed so as to commit him to assertions which Mr. +Macmullen, whose high Anglican opinions were well known, could not +consistently make. It was a novel and unexampled act on the part of the +Professor, to turn what had been a mere formal exercise into a sharp and +sweeping test of doctrine, which would place all future Divinity degrees +in the University at his mercy; and the case was made more serious, when +the very form of exercise which the Professor used as an instrument of +such formidable power was itself without question unstatutable and +illegal, and had been simply connived at by the authorities. To +introduce by his own authority a new feature into a system which he had +no business to use at all, and to do this for the first time with the +manifest purpose of annoying an obnoxious individual, was, on Dr. +Hampden's part, to do more to discredit his chair and himself, than the +censure of the University could do; and it was as unwise as it was +unworthy. The strength of his own case before the public was that he +could be made to appear as the victim of a personal and partisan attack; +yet on the first opportunity he acts in the spirit of an inquisitor, and +that not in fair conflict with some one worthy of his hostility, but to +wreak an injury, in a matter of private interest, on an individual, in +no way known to him or opposed to him, except as holding certain +unpopular opinions. + +Mr. Macmullen was not the person to take such treatment quietly. The +right was substantially on his side, and the Professor, and the +University authorities who more or less played into the hands of the +Professor in defence of his illegal and ultimately untenable claims, +appeared before the University, the one as a persecutor, the others as +rulers who were afraid to do justice on behalf of an ill-used man +because he was a Tractarian. The right course was perfectly clear. It +was to put an end to these unauthorised exercises, and to recall both +candidates and Professor to the statutable system which imposed +disputations conducted under the moderatorship of the Professor, but +which gave him no veto, at the time, on the theological sufficiency of +the disputations, leaving him to state his objections, if he was not +satisfied, when the candidate's degree was asked for in the House of +Congregation. This course, after some hesitation, was followed, but only +partially; and without allowing or disallowing the Professor's claim to +a veto, the Vice-Chancellor on his own responsibility stopped the +degree. A vexatious dispute lingered on for two or three years, with +actions in the Vice-Chancellor's Court, and distinguished lawyers to +plead for each side, and appeals to the University Court of Delegates, +who reversed the decision of the Vice-Chancellor's assessor. Somehow or +other, Mr. Macmullen at last got his degree, but at the cost of a great +deal of ill-blood in Oxford, for which Dr. Hampden, by his unwarranted +interference, and the University authorities, by their questionable +devices to save the credit and claims of one of their own body, must be +held mainly responsible. + +Before the matter was ended, they were made to feel, in rather a +startling way, how greatly they had lost the confidence of the +University. One of the attempts to find a way out of the tangle of the +dispute was the introduction, in February 1844, of a Statute which +should give to the Professor the power which was now contested, and +practically place all the Divinity degrees under the control of a Board +in conjunction with the Vice-Chancellor.[104] The proposed legislation +raised such indignation in the University, that the Hebdomadal Board +took back their scheme for further revision, and introduced it again in +a modified shape, which still however gave new powers to the Professor +and the Vice-Chancellor. But the University would have none of it. No +one could say that the defeat of the altered Statute by 341 to 21 was +the work merely of a party.[105] It was the most decisive vote given in +the course of these conflicts. And it was observed that on the same day +Mr. Macmullen's degree was vetoed by the Vice-Chancellor at the instance +of Dr. Hampden at 10 o'clock in Congregation, and the Hebdomadal Board, +which had supported him, received the vote of want of confidence at noon +in Convocation. + +Nothing could show more decisively that the authorities in the +Hebdomadal Board were out of touch with the feeling of the University, +or, at all events, of that part of it which was resident. The residents +were not, as a body, identified with the Tractarians; it would be more +true to say that the residents, as a body, looked on this marked school +with misgiving and apprehension; but they saw what manner of men these +Tractarians were; they lived with them in college and common-room; their +behaviour was before their brethren as a whole, with its strength and +its weakness, its moral elevation and its hazardous excitement, its +sincerity of purpose and its one-sidedness of judgment and sympathy, its +unfairness to what was English, its over-value for what was foreign. +Types of those who looked at things more or less independently were Mr. +Hussey of Christ Church, Mr. C.P. Eden of Oriel, Mr. Sewell of Exeter, +Mr. Francis Faber of Magdalen, Dr. Greenhill of Trinity, Mr. Wall of +Balliol, Mr. Hobhouse of Merton, with some of the more consistent +Liberals, like Mr. Stanley of University, and latterly Mr. Tait. Men of +this kind, men of high character and weight in Oxford, found much to +dislike and regret in the Tractarians. But they could also see that the +leaders of the Hebdomadal Board laboured under a fatal incapacity to +recognise what these unpopular Tractarians were doing for the cause of +true and deep religion; they could see that the judgment of the Heads of +Houses, living as they did apart, in a kind of superior state, was +narrow, ill-informed, and harsh, and that the warfare which they waged +was petty, irritating, and profitless; while they also saw with great +clearness that under cover of suppressing "Puseyism," the policy of the +Board was, in fact, tending to increase and strengthen the power of an +irresponsible and incompetent oligarchy, not only over a troublesome +party, but over the whole body of residents. To the great honour of +Oxford it must be said, that throughout these trying times, on to the +very end, there was in the body of Masters a spirit of fairness, a +recognition of the force both of argument and character, a dislike of +high-handedness and shabbiness, which was in strong and painful contrast +to the short-sighted violence in which the Hebdomadal Board was +unhappily induced to put their trust, and which proved at last the main +cause of the overthrow of their power. When changes began to threaten +Oxford, there was no one to say a word for them. + +But, for the moment, in spite of this defeat in Convocation, they had no +misgivings as to the wisdom of their course or the force of their +authority. There was, no doubt, much urging from outside, both on +political and theological grounds, to make them use their power to stay +the plague of Tractarianism; and they were led by three able and +resolute men, unfortunately unable to understand the moral or the +intellectual character of the movement, and having the highest dislike +and disdain for it in both aspects--Dr. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, the +last remaining disciple of Whately's school, a man of rigid +conscientiousness, and very genuine though undemonstrative piety, of +great kindliness in private life, of keen and alert intellect, but not +of breadth and knowledge proportionate to his intellectual power; Dr. +Symons, Warden of Wadham, a courageous witness for Evangelical divinity +in the days when Evangelicals were not in fashion in Oxford, a man of +ponderous and pedantic learning and considerable practical acuteness; +and Dr. Cardwell, Principal of St. Alban's Hall, more a man of the world +than his colleagues, with considerable knowledge of portions of English +Church history. Under the inspiration of these chiefs, the authorities +had adopted, as far as they could, the policy of combat; and the +Vice-Chancellor of the time, Dr. Wynter of St. John's, a kind-hearted +man, but quite unfit to moderate among the strong wills and fierce +tempers round him, was induced to single out for the severest blow yet +struck, the most distinguished person in the ranks of the movement, Dr. +Pusey himself. + +Dr. Pusey was a person with whom it was not wise to meddle, unless his +assailants could make out a case without a flaw. He was without question +the most venerated person in Oxford. Without an equal, in Oxford at +least, in the depth and range of his learning, he stood out yet more +impressively among his fellows in the lofty moral elevation and +simplicity of his life, the blamelessness of his youth, and the profound +devotion of his manhood, to which the family sorrows of his later years, +and the habits which grew out of them, added a kind of pathetic and +solemn interest. Stern and severe in his teaching at one time,--at least +as he was understood,--beyond even the severity of Puritanism, he was +yet overflowing with affection, tender and sympathetic to all who came +near him, and, in the midst of continual controversy, he endeavoured, +with deep conscientiousness, to avoid the bitternesses of controversy. +He was the last man to attack; much more the last man to be unfair to. +The men who ruled in Oxford contrived, in attacking him, to make almost +every mistake which it was possible to make. + +On the 24th of May 1843 Dr. Pusey, intending to balance and complement +the severer, and, to many, the disquieting aspects of doctrine in his +work on Baptism, preached on the Holy Eucharist as a comfort to the +penitent. He spoke of it as a disciple of Andrewes and Bramhall would +speak of it; it was a high Anglican sermon, full, after the example of +the Homilies, Jeremy Taylor, and devotional writers like George Herbert +and Bishop Ken, of the fervid language of the Fathers; and that was all. +Beyond this it did not go; its phraseology was strictly within Anglican +limits. In the course of the week that followed, the University was +surprised by the announcement that Dr. Faussett, the Margaret Professor +of Divinity, had "_delated_" the sermon to the Vice-Chancellor as +teaching heresy; and even more surprised at the news that the +Vice-Chancellor had commenced proceedings. The Statutes provided that +when a sermon was complained of, or _delated_ to the Vice-Chancellor, +the Vice-Chancellor should demand a copy of the sermon, and summoning to +him as his assessors Six Doctors of Divinity, should examine the +language complained of, and, if necessary, condemn and punish the +preacher. The Statute is thus drawn up in general terms, and prescribes +nothing as to the mode in which the examination into the alleged offence +is to be carried on; that is, it leaves it to the Vice-Chancellor's +discretion. What happened was this. The sermon was asked for, but the +name of the accuser was not given; the Statute did not enjoin it. The +sermon was sent, with a request from Dr. Pusey that he might have a +hearing. The Six Doctors were appointed, five of them being Dr. Hawkins, +Dr. Symons, Dr. Jenkyns, Dr. Ogilvie, Dr. Jelf; the Statute said the +Regius Professor was, if possible, to be one of the number; as he was +under the ban of a special Statute, he was spared the task, and his +place was taken by the next Divinity Professor, Dr. Faussett, the person +who had preferred the charge, and who was thus, from having been +accuser, promoted to be a judge. To Dr. Pusey's request for a hearing, +no answer was returned; the Statute, no doubt, said nothing of a +hearing. But after the deliberations of the judges were concluded, and +after the decision to condemn the sermon had been reached, one of them, +Dr. Pusey's old friend, Dr. Jelf, was privately charged with certain +communications from the Vice-Chancellor, on which the seal of absolute +secrecy was imposed, and which, in fact, we believe, have never been +divulged from that _day_ to this. Whatever passed between the +Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Jelf, and Dr. Pusey, it had no effect in arresting +the sentence; and it came out, in informal ways, and through Dr. Pusey +himself, that on the 2d of June Dr. Pusey had been accused and condemned +for having taught doctrine contrary to that of the Church of England, +and that by the authority of the Vice-Chancellor he was suspended from +preaching within the University for two years. But no formal +notification of the transaction was ever made to the University. + +The summary suppression of erroneous and dangerous teaching had long +been a recognised part of the University discipline; and with the ideas +then accepted of the religious character of the University, it was +natural that some such power as that given in the Statutes should be +provided. The power, even after all the changes in Oxford, exists still, +and has been recently appealed to. Dr. Pusey, as a member of the +University, had no more right than any other preacher to complain of his +doctrine being thus solemnly called in question. But it is strange that +it should not have occurred to the authorities that, under the +conditions of modern times, and against a man like Dr. Pusey, such power +should be warily used. For it was not only arbitrary power, such as was +exerted in the condemnation of No. 90, but it was arbitrary power acting +under the semblance of a judicial inquiry, with accusers, examination, +trial, judges, and a heavy penalty. The act of a court of justice which +sets at defiance the rules of justice is a very different thing from a +straightforward act of arbitrary power, because it pretends to be what +it is not. The information against Dr. Pusey, if accepted, involved a +trial--that was the fixed condition and point of departure from which +there was no escaping--and if a trial be held, then, if it be not a fair +trial, the proceeding becomes, according to English notions, a flagrant +and cowardly wrong. All this, all the intrinsic injustice, all the +scandal and discredit in the eyes of honest men, was forgotten in the +obstinate and blind confidence in the letter of a vague Statute. The +accused was not allowed to defend or explain himself; he was refused the +knowledge of the definite charges against him; he was refused, in spite +of his earnest entreaties, a hearing, even an appearance in the presence +of his judges. The Statute, it was said, enjoined none of these things. +The name of his accuser was not told him; he was left to learn it by +report To the end of the business all was wrought in secrecy; no one +knows to this day how the examination of the sermon was conducted, or +what were the opinions of the judges. The Statute, it was said, neither +enjoined nor implied publicity. To this day no one knows what were the +definite passages, what was the express or necessarily involved heresy +or contradiction of the formularies, on which the condemnation was +based; nor--except on the supposition of gross ignorance of English +divinity on the part of the judges--is it easy for a reader to put his +finger on the probably incriminated passages. To make the proceedings +still more unlike ordinary public justice, informal and private +communications were carried on between the judge and the accused, in +which the accused was bound to absolute silence, and forbidden to +consult his nearest friends. + +And of the judges what can be said but that they were, with one +exception, the foremost and sternest opponents of all that was +identified with Dr. Pusey's name; and that one of them was the colleague +who had volunteered to accuse him? Dr. Faussett's share in the matter is +intelligible; hating the movement in all its parts, he struck with the +vehemence of a mediaeval zealot. But that men like Dr. Hawkins and Dr. +Ogilvie, one of them reputed to be a theologian, the other one of the +shrewdest and most cautious of men, and in ordinary matters one of the +most conscientious and fairest, should not have seen what justice, or at +least the show of justice, demanded, and what the refusal of that demand +would look like, and that they should have persuaded the Vice-Chancellor +to accept the entire responsibility of haughtily refusing it, is, even +to those who remember the excitement of those days, a subject of wonder. +The plea was actually put forth that such opportunities of defence of +his language and teaching as Dr. Pusey asked for would have led to the +"inconvenience" of an interminable debate, and confronting of texts and +authorities.[106] The fact, with Dr. Pusey as the accused person, is +likely enough; but in a criminal charge with a heavy penalty, it would +have been better for the reputation of the judges to have submitted to +the inconvenience. + +It was a great injustice and a great blunder--a blunder, because the +gratuitous defiance of accepted rules of fairness neutralised whatever +there might seem to be of boldness and strength in the blow. They were +afraid to meet Dr. Pusey face to face. They were afraid to publish the +reasons of their condemnation. The effect on the University, both on +resident and non-resident members, was not to be misunderstood. The +Protestantism of the Vice-Chancellor and the Six Doctors was, of course, +extolled by partisans in the press with reckless ignorance and reckless +contempt at once for common justice and their own consistency. One +person of some distinction at Oxford ventured to make himself the +mouthpiece of those who were bold enough to defend the proceeding--the +recently-elected Professor of Poetry, Mr. Garbett. But deep offence was +given among the wiser and more reasonable men who had a regard for the +character of the University. A request to know the grounds of the +sentence from men who were certainly of no party was curtly refused by +the Vice-Chancellor, with a suggestion that it did not concern them. A +more important memorial was sent from London, showing how persons at a +distance were shocked by the unaccountable indifference to the +appearance of justice in the proceeding. It was signed among others by +Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Justice Coleridge. The Vice-Chancellor lost his +temper. He sent back the memorial to London "by the hands of his bedel," +as if that in some way stamped his official disapprobation more than if +it had been returned through the post. And he proceeded, in language +wonderful even for that moment, as "Resident Governor" of the +University, to reprimand statesmen and lawyers of eminence and high +character, not merely for presuming to interfere with his own duties, +but for forgetting the oaths on the strength of which they had received +their degrees, and for coming very near to that high, almost highest, +academical crime, the crime of being _perturbatores pacis_--breaking the +peace of the University. + +Such foolishness, affecting dignity, only made more to talk of. If the +men who ruled the University had wished to disgust and alienate the +Masters of Arts, and especially the younger ones who were coming forward +into power and influence, they could not have done better. The chronic +jealousy and distrust of the time were deepened. And all this was +aggravated by what went on in private. A system of espionage, +whisperings, backbitings, and miserable tittle-tattle, sometimes of the +most slanderous or the most ridiculous kind, was set going all over +Oxford. Never in Oxford, before or since, were busybodies more truculent +or more unscrupulous. Difficulties arose between Heads of Colleges and +their tutors. Candidates for fellowships were closely examined as to +their opinions and their associates. Men applying for testimonials were +cross-questioned on No. 90, as to the infallibility of general councils, +purgatory, the worship of images, the _Ora pro nobis_ and the +intercession of the saints: the real critical questions upon which men's +minds were working being absolutely uncomprehended and ignored. It was a +miserable state of misunderstanding and distrust, and none of the +University leaders had the temper and the manliness to endeavour with +justice and knowledge to get to the bottom of it. It was enough to +suppose that a Popish Conspiracy was being carried on. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[101] Pp. 243, 253. + +[102] Garbett, 921. Williams, 623. + +[103] The numbers were 334 to 219. + +[104] _Christian Remembrancer_, vol. ix. p. 175. + +[105] Ibid. pp. 177-179. + +[106] Cf. _British Critic_, No. xlvii. pp. 221-223. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +W.G. WARD + + +If only the Oxford authorities could have had patience--if only they +could have known more largely and more truly the deep changes that were +at work everywhere, and how things were beginning to look in the eyes of +the generation that was coming, perhaps many things might have been +different. Yes, it was true that there was a strong current setting +towards Rome. It was acting on some of the most vigorous of the younger +men. It was acting powerfully on the foremost mind in Oxford. Whither, +if not arrested, it was carrying them was clear, but as yet it was by no +means clear at what rate; and time, and thought, and being left alone +and dealt with justly, have a great effect on men's minds. Extravagance, +disproportion, mischievous, dangerous exaggeration, in much that was +said and taught--all this might have settled down, as so many things are +in the habit of settling down, into reasonable and practical shapes, +after a first burst of crudeness and strain--as, in fact, it _did_ +settle down at last. For Anglicanism itself was not Roman; friends and +foes said it was not, to reproach as well as to defend it. It was not +Roman in Dr. Pusey, though he was not afraid to acknowledge what was +good in Rome. It was not Roman in Mr. Keble and his friends, in Dr. +Moberly of Winchester, and the Barters. It was not Roman in Mr. Isaac +Williams, Mr. Copeland, and Mr. Woodgate, each of them a centre of +influence in Oxford and the country. It was not Roman in the devoted +Charles Marriott, or in Isaac Williams's able and learned pupil, Mr. +Arthur Haddan. It was not Roman in Mr. James Mozley, after Mr. Newman, +the most forcible and impressive of the Oxford writers. A distinctively +English party grew up, both in Oxford and away from it, strong in +eminent names, in proportion as Roman sympathies showed themselves. +These men were, in any fair judgment, as free from Romanising as any of +their accusers; but they made their appeal for patience and fair +judgment in vain. If only the rulers could have had patience:--but +patience is a difficult virtue in the presence of what seem pressing +dangers. Their policy was wrong, stupid, unjust, pernicious. It was a +deplorable mistake, and all will wish now that the discredit of it did +not rest on the history of Oxford. And yet it was the mistake of upright +and conscientious men. + +Doubtless there was danger; the danger was that a number of men would +certainly not acquiesce much longer in Anglicanism, while the Heads +continued absolutely blind to what was really in these men's thoughts. +For the Heads could not conceive the attraction which the Roman Church +had for a religious man; they talked in the old-fashioned way about the +absurdity of the Roman system. They could not understand how reasonable +men could turn Roman Catholics. They accounted for it by supposing a +silly hankering after the pomp or the frippery of Roman Catholic +worship, and at best a craving after the romantic and sentimental. Their +thoughts dwelt continually on image worship and the adoration of saints. +But what really was astir was something much deeper--something much more +akin to the new and strong forces which were beginning to act in very +different directions from this in English society--forces which were not +only leading minds to Rome, but making men Utilitarians, Rationalists, +Positivists, and, though the word had not yet been coined, Agnostics. +The men who doubted about the English Church saw in Rome a strong, +logical, consistent theory of religion, not of yesterday nor to-day--not +only comprehensive and profound, but actually in full work, and fruitful +in great results; and this, in contrast to the alleged and undeniable +anomalies and shortcomings of Protestantism and Anglicanism. And next, +there was the immense amount which they saw in Rome of self-denial and +self-devotion; the surrender of home and family in the clergy; the great +organised ministry of women in works of mercy; the resolute abandonment +of the world and its attractions in the religious life. If in England +there flourished the homely and modest types of goodness, it was in Rome +that, at that day at least, men must look for the heroic. They were not +indisposed to the idea that a true Church which had lost all this might +yet regain it, and they were willing to wait and see what the English +Church would do to recover what it had lost; but there was obviously a +long way to make up, and they came to think that there was no chance of +its overtaking its true position. Of course they knew all that was so +loudly urged about the abuses and mischiefs growing out of the professed +severity of Rome. They knew that in spite of it foreign society was lax; +that the discipline of the confessional was often exercised with a light +rein. But if the good side of it was real, they easily accounted for the +bad: the bad did not destroy, it was a tacit witness to the good. And +they knew the Latin Church mainly from France, where it was more in +earnest, and exhibited more moral life and intellectual activity, than, +as far as Englishmen knew, in Italy or Spain. There was a strong rebound +from insular ignorance and unfairness, when English travellers came on +the poorly-paid but often intelligent and hard-working French clergy; on +the great works of mercy in the towns; on the originality and eloquence +of De Maistre, La Mennais, Lacordaire, Montalembert. + +These ideas took possession of a remarkable mind, the index and organ of +a remarkable character. Mr. W.G. Ward had learned the interest of +earnest religion from Dr. Arnold, in part through his close friend +Arthur Stanley. But if there was ever any tendency in him to combine +with the peculiar elements of the Rugby School, it was interrupted in +its _nascent_ state, as chemists speak, by the intervention of a still +more potent affinity, the personality of Mr. Newman. Mr. Ward had +developed in the Oxford Union, and in a wide social circle of the most +rising men of the time--including Tait, Cardwell, Lowe, Roundell +Palmer--a very unusual dialectical skill and power of argumentative +statement: qualities which seemed to point to the House of Commons. But +Mr. Newman's ideas gave him material, not only for argument but for +thought. The lectures and sermons at St. Mary's subdued and led him +captive. The impression produced on him was expressed in the formula +that primitive Christianity might have been corrupted into Popery, but +that Protestantism never could.[107] For a moment he hung in the wind. +He might have been one of the earliest of Broad Churchmen. He might have +been a Utilitarian and Necessitarian follower of Mr. J.S. Mill. But +moral influences of a higher kind prevailed. And he became, in the most +thoroughgoing yet independent fashion, a disciple of Mr. Newman. He +brought to his new side a fresh power of controversial writing; but his +chief influence was a social one, from his bright and attractive +conversation, his bold and startling candour, his frank, not to say +reckless, fearlessness of consequences, his unrivalled skill in logical +fence, his unfailing good-humour and love of fun, in which his personal +clumsiness set off the vivacity and nimbleness of his joyous moods. "He +was," says Mr. Mozley, "a great musical critic, knew all the operas, and +was an admirable buffo singer."--No one could doubt that, having +started, Mr. Ward would go far and probably go fast. + +Mr. Ward was well known in Oxford, and his language might have warned +the Heads that if there was a drift towards Rome, it came from something +much more serious than a hankering after a sentimental ritual or +mediaeval legends. In Mr. Ward's writings in the _British Critic_, as in +his conversation--and he wrote much and at great length--three ideas +were manifestly at the bottom of his attraction to Rome. One was that +Rome did, and, he believed, nothing else did, keep up the continuous +recognition of the supernatural element in religion, that consciousness +of an ever-present power not of this world which is so prominent a +feature in the New Testament, and which is spoken of there as a +permanent and characteristic element in the Gospel dispensation. The +Roman view of the nature and offices of the Church, of man's relations +to the unseen world, of devotion, of the Eucharist and of the Sacraments +in general, assumed and put forward this supernatural aspect; other +systems ignored it or made it mean nothing, unless in secret to the +individual and converted soul. In the next place he revolted--no weaker +word can be used--from the popular exhibition in England, more or less +Lutheran and Calvinistic, of the doctrine of justification. The +ostentatious separation of justification from morality, with all its +theological refinements and fictions, seemed to him profoundly +unscriptural, profoundly unreal and hollow, or else profoundly immoral. +In conscience and moral honesty and strict obedience he saw the only +safe and trustworthy guidance in regard to the choice and formation of +religious opinions; it was a principle on which all his philosophy was +built, that "careful and individual moral discipline is the only +possible basis on which Christian faith and practice can be reared." In +the third place he was greatly affected, not merely by the paramount +place of sanctity in the Roman theology and the professed Roman system, +but by the standard of saintliness which he found there, involving +complete and heroic self-sacrifice for great religious ends, complete +abandonment of the world, painful and continuous self-discipline, +purified and exalted religious affections, beside which English piety +and goodness at its best, in such examples as George Herbert and Ken and +Bishop Wilson, seemed unambitious and pale and tame, of a different +order from the Roman, and less closely resembling what we read of in the +first ages and in the New Testament. Whether such views were right or +wrong, exaggerated or unbalanced, accurate or superficial, they were +matters fit to interest grave men; but there is no reason to think that +they made the slightest impression on the authorities of the University. + +On the other hand, Mr. Ward, with the greatest good-humour, was +unreservedly defiant and aggressive. There was something intolerably +provoking in his mixture of jauntiness and seriousness, his avowal of +utter personal unworthiness and his undoubting certainty of being in the +right, his downright charges of heresy and his ungrudging readiness to +make allowance for the heretics and give them credit for special virtues +greater than those of the orthodox. He was not a person to hide his own +views or to let others hide theirs. He lived in an atmosphere of +discussion with all around him, friends or opponents, fellows and tutors +in common-rooms, undergraduates after lecture or out walking. The most +amusing, the most tolerant man in Oxford, he had round him perpetually +some of the cleverest and brightest scholars and thinkers of the place; +and where he was, there was debate, cross-questioning, pushing +inferences, starting alarming problems, beating out ideas, trying the +stuff and mettle of mental capacity. Not always with real knowledge, or +a real sense of fact, but always rapid and impetuous, taking in the +whole dialectical chess-board at a glance, he gave no quarter, and a man +found himself in a perilous corner before he perceived the drift of the +game; but it was to clear his own thought, not--for he was much too +good-natured--to embarrass another. If the old scholastic disputations +had been still in use at Oxford, his triumphs would have been signal and +memorable. His success, compared with that of other leaders of the +movement, in influencing life and judgment, was a pre-eminently +intellectual success; and it cut two ways. The stress which he laid on +the moral side of questions, his own generosity, his earnestness on +behalf of fair play and good faith, elevated and purified intercourse. +But he did not always win assent in proportion to his power of argument. +Abstract reasoning, in matters with which human action is concerned, may +be too absolute to be convincing. It may not leave sufficient margin for +the play and interference of actual experience. And Mr. Ward, having +perfect confidence in his conclusions, rather liked to leave them in a +startling form, which he innocently declared to be manifest and +inevitable. And so stories of Ward's audacity and paradoxes flew all +over Oxford, shocking and perplexing grave heads with fear of they knew +not what. Dr. Jenkyns, the Master of Balliol, one of those curious +mixtures of pompous absurdity with genuine shrewdness which used to pass +across the University stage, not clever himself but an unfailing judge +of a clever man, as a jockey might be of a horse, liking Ward and proud +of him for his cleverness, was aghast at his monstrous and +unintelligible language, and driven half wild with it. Mr. Tait, a +fellow-tutor, though living on terms of hearty friendship with Ward, +prevailed on the Master after No. 90 to dismiss Ward from the office of +teaching mathematics. It seemed a petty step thus to mix up theology +with mathematics, though it was not so absurd as it looked, for Ward +brought in theology everywhere, and discussed it when his mathematics +were done. But Ward accepted it frankly and defended it. It was natural, +he said, that Tait, thinking his principles mischievous, should wish to +silence him as a teacher; and their friendship remained unbroken. + +Mr. Ward's theological position was really a provisional one, though, at +starting at least, he would not have allowed it. He had no early or +traditional attachment to the English Church, such as that which acted +so strongly on the leaders of the movement: but he found himself a +member of it, and Mr. Newman had interpreted it to him. He so accepted +it, quite loyally and in earnest, as a point of departure. But he +proceeded at once to put "our Church" (as he called it) on its trial, in +comparison with its own professions, and with the ideal standard of a +Church which he had thought out for himself; and this rapidly led to +grave consequences. He accepted from authority which satisfied him both +intellectually and morally the main scheme of Catholic theology, as the +deepest and truest philosophy of religion, satisfying at once conscience +and intellect. The Catholic theology gave him, among other things, the +idea and the notes of the Church; with these, in part at least, the +English Church agreed; but in other respects, and these very serious +ones, it differed widely; it seemed inconsistent and anomalous. The +English Church was separate and isolated from Christendom. It was +supposed to differ widely from other Churches in doctrine. It admitted +variety of opinion and teaching, even to the point of tolerating alleged +heresy. With such data as these, he entered on an investigation which +ultimately came to the question whether the English Church could claim +to be a part of the Church Catholic. He postulated from the first, what +he afterwards developed in the book in which his Anglican position +culminated,--the famous _Ideal_,--the existence at some time or another +of a Catholic Church which not only aimed at, but fulfilled all the +conditions of a perfect Church in creed, communion, discipline, and +life. Of course the English and, as at starting he held, the Roman +Church, fell far short of this perfection. But at starting, the moral +which he drew was, not to leave the English Church, but to do his best +to raise it up to what it ought to be. Whether he took in all the +conditions of the problem, whether it was not far more complicated and +difficult than he supposed, whether his knowledge of the facts of the +case was accurate and adequate, whether he was always fair in his +comparisons and judgments, and whether he did not overlook elements of +the gravest importance in the inquiry; whether, in fact, save for +certain strong and broad lines common to the whole historic Church, the +reign of anomaly, inconsistency, difficulty did not extend much farther +over the whole field of debate than he chose to admit: all this is +fairly open to question. But within the limits which he laid down, and +within which he confined his reasonings, he used his materials with +skill and force; and even those who least agreed with him and were most +sensible of the strong and hardly disguised bias which so greatly +affected the value of his judgments, could not deny the frankness and +the desire to be fair and candid, with which, as far as intention went, +he conducted his argument. His first appearance as a writer was in the +controversy, as has been said before, on the subject of No. 90. That +tract had made the well-worn distinction between what was Catholic and +what was distinctively Roman, and had urged--what had been urged over +and over again by English divines--that the Articles, in their +condemnation of what was Roman, were drawn in such a way as to leave +untouched what was unquestionably Catholic. They were drawn indeed by +Protestants, but by men who also earnestly professed to hold with the +old Catholic doctors and disavowed any purpose to depart from their +teaching, and who further had to meet the views and gain the assent of +men who were much less Protestant than themselves--men who were willing +to break with the Pope and condemn the abuses associated with his name, +but by no means willing to break with the old theology. The Articles +were the natural result of a compromise between two strong parties--the +Catholics agreeing that the abuses should be condemned, so that the +Catholic doctrine was not touched; the Protestants insisting that, so +that the Catholic doctrine was not touched, the abuses of it should be +denounced with great severity: that there should be no question about +the condemnation of the abuses, and of the system which had maintained +them. The Articles were undoubtedly anti-Roman; that was obvious from +the historical position of the English Church, which in a very real +sense was anti-Roman; but were they so anti-Roman as to exclude +doctrines which English divines had over and over again maintained as +Catholic and distinguished from Romanism, but which the popular opinion, +at this time or that, identified therewith?[108] With flagrant +ignorance--ignorance of the history of thought and teaching in the +English Church, ignorance far more inexcusable of the state of parties +and their several notorious difficulties in relation to the various +formularies of the Church, it was maintained on the other side that the +"Articles construed by themselves" left no doubt that they were not only +anti-Roman but anti-Catholic, and that nothing but the grossest +dishonesty and immorality could allow any doubt on the subject. + +Neither estimate was logical enough to satisfy Mr. Ward. The charge of +insincerity, he retorted with great effect on those who made it: if +words meant anything, the Ordination Service, the Visitation Service, +and the Baptismal Service were far greater difficulties to Evangelicals, +and to Latitudinarians like Whately and Hampden, than the words of any +Article could be to Catholics; and there was besides the tone of the +whole Prayer Book, intelligible, congenial, on Catholic assumptions, and +on no other. But as to the Articles themselves, he was indisposed to +accept the defence made for them. He criticised indeed with acuteness +and severity the attempt to make the loose language of many of them +intolerant of primitive doctrine; but he frankly accepted the allegation +that apart from this or that explanation, their general look, as regards +later controversies, was visibly against, not only Roman doctrines or +Roman abuses, but that whole system of principles and mode of viewing +religion which he called Catholic. They were, he said, _patient_ of a +Catholic meaning, but _ambitious_ of a Protestant meaning; whatever +their logic was, their rhetoric was Protestant. It was just possible, +but not more, for a Catholic to subscribe to them. But they were the +creation and the legacy of a bad age, and though they had not +extinguished Catholic teaching and Catholic belief in the English +Church, they had been a serious hindrance to it, and a support to its +opponents. + +This was going beyond the position of No. 90. No. 90 had made light of +the difficulties of the Articles. + +That there are real difficulties to a Catholic Christian in the +ecclesiastical position of our Church at this day, no one can deny; but +the statements of the Articles are not in the number. Our present scope +is merely to show that, while our Prayer Book is acknowledged on all +hands to be of Catholic origin, our Articles also--the offspring of an +uncatholic age--are, through God's good providence, to say the least, +not uncatholic, and may be subscribed by those who aim at being Catholic +in heart and doctrine. + + +Mr. Ward not only went beyond this position, but in the teeth of these +statements; and he gave a new aspect and new issues to the whole +controversy. The Articles, to him, were a difficulty, which they were +not to the writer of No. 90, or to Dr. Pusey, or to Mr. Keble. To him +they were not only the "offspring of an uncatholic age," but in +themselves uncatholic; and his answer to the charge of dishonest +subscription was, not that the Articles "in their natural meaning are +Catholic,"[109] but that the system of the English Church is a +compromise between what is Catholic and what is Protestant, and that +the Protestant parties in it are involved in even greater difficulties, +in relation to subscription and use of its formularies, than the +Catholic. He admitted that he _did_ evade the spirit, but accepted the +"statements of the Articles," maintaining that this was the intention of +their original sanctioners. With characteristic boldness, inventing a +phrase which has become famous, he wrote: "Our twelfth Article is as +plain as words can make it on the Evangelical side; of course I think +its natural meaning may be explained away, for I subscribe it myself in +a non-natural sense":[110] but he showed that Evangelicals, high church +Anglicans, and Latitudinarians were equally obliged to have recourse to +explanations, which to all but themselves were unsatisfactory. + +But he went a step beyond this. Hitherto the distinction had been +uniformly insisted upon between what was Catholic and what was Roman; +between what was witnessed to by the primitive and the undivided Church, +and what had been developed beyond that in the Schools, and by the +definitions and decisions of Rome, and in the enormous mass of its +post-Reformation theology, at once so comprehensive, and so minute in +application. This distinction was the foundation of what was, +characteristically, Anglican theology, from Hooker downwards. This +distinction, at least for all important purposes, Mr. Ward gradually +gave up. It was to a certain degree recognised in his early controversy +about No. 90; but it gradually grew fainter till at last it avowedly +disappeared. The Anglican writers had drawn their ideas and their +inspiration from the Fathers; the Fathers lived long ago, and the +teaching drawn from them, however spiritual and lofty, wanted the modern +look, and seemed to recognise insufficiently modern needs. The Roman +applications of the same principles were definite and practical, and Mr. +Ward's mind, essentially one of his own century, and little alive to +what touched more imaginative and sensitive minds, turned at once to +Roman sources for the interpretation of what was Catholic. In the +_British Critic_, and still more in the remarkable volume in which his +Oxford controversies culminated, the substitution of _Roman_ for the old +conception of _Catholic_ appears, and the absolute identification of +Roman with Catholic. Roman authorities become more and more the measure +and rule of what is Catholic. They belong to the present in a way in +which the older fountains of teaching do not; in the recognised teaching +of the Latin Church, they have taken their place and superseded them. + +It was characteristic of Mr. Ward that his chief quarrel with the +Articles was not about the Sacraments, not about their language on +alleged Roman errors, but about the doctrine of grace, the relation of +the soul of man to the law, the forgiveness, the holiness of God,--the +doctrine, that is, in all its bearings, of justification. Mr. Newman had +examined this doctrine and the various language held about it with great +care, very firmly but very temperately, and had attempted to reconcile +with each other all but the extreme Lutheran statements. It was, he +said, among really religious men, a question of words. He had recognised +the faulty state of things in the pre-Reformation Church, the faulty +ideas about forgiveness, merit, grace, and works, from which the +Protestant language was a reaction, natural, if often excessive; and in +the English authoritative form of this language, he had found nothing +but what was perfectly capable of a sound and true meaning. From the +first, Mr. Ward's judgment was far more severe than this. To him, the +whole structure of the Articles on Justification and the doctrines +connected with it seemed based on the Lutheran theory, and for this +theory, as fundamentally and hopelessly immoral, he could not find words +sufficiently expressive of detestation and loathing. For the basis of +his own theory of religious knowledge was a moral basis; men came to the +knowledge of religious truth primarily not by the intellect, but by +absolute and unfailing loyalty to conscience and moral light; and a +doctrine which separated faith from morality and holiness, which made +man's highest good and his acceptance with God independent of what he +was as a moral agent, which relegated the realities of moral discipline +and goodness to a secondary and subordinate place,--as a mere sequel to +follow, almost mechanically and of course, on an act or feeling which +had nothing moral in it,--which substituted a fictitious and imputed +righteousness for an inherent and infused and real one, seemed to him +to confound the eternal foundations of right and wrong, and to be a +blasphemy against all that was true and sacred in religion. + +Of the Lutheran doctrine[111] of justification, and the principle of +private judgment, I have argued that, in their abstract nature and +necessary tendency, they sink below atheism itself.... A religious +person who shall be sufficiently clear-headed to understand the meaning +of words, is warranted in rejecting Lutheranism on the very same grounds +which would induce him to reject atheism, viz. as being the +contradiction of truths which he feels on most certain grounds to be +first principles.[112] + +There is nothing which he looks back on with so much satisfaction in his +writings as on this, that he has "ventured to characterise that hateful +and fearful type of Antichrist in terms not wholly inadequate to its +prodigious demerits."[113] + +Mr. Ward had started with a very definite idea of the Church and of its +notes and tests. It was obvious that the Anglican Church--and so, it was +thought, the Roman--failed to satisfy these notes in their +completeness; but it seemed, at least at first, to satisfy some of them, +and to do this so remarkably, and in such strong contrast to other +religious bodies, that in England at all events it seemed the true +representative and branch of the Church Catholic; and the duty of +adhering to it and serving it was fully recognised, even by those who +most felt its apparent departure from the more Catholic principles and +temper preserved in many points by the Roman Church. From this point of +view Mr. Ward avowedly began. But the position gradually gave way before +his relentless and dissolving logic. The whole course of his writing in +the _British Critic_ may be said to have consisted in a prolonged and +disparaging comparison of the English Church, in theory, in doctrine, in +moral and devotional temper, in discipline of character, in education, +in its public and authoritative tone in regard to social, political, and +moral questions, and in the type and standard of its clergy, with those +of the Catholic Church, which to him was represented by the mediaeval +and later Roman Church. And in the general result, and in all important +matters, the comparison became more and more fatally disadvantageous to +the English Church. In the perplexing condition of Christendom, it had +just enough good and promise to justify those who had been brought up in +it remaining where they were, as long as they saw any prospect of +improving it, and till they were driven out. That was a +duty--uncomfortable and thankless as it was, and open to any amount of +misconstruction and misrepresentation--which they owed to their +brethren, and to the Lord of the Church. But it involved plain speaking +and its consequences; and Mr. Ward never shrank from either. + +Most people, looking back, would probably agree, whatever their general +judgment on these matters, and whatever they may think of Mr. Ward's +case, that he was, at the time at least, the most unpersuasive of +writers. Considering his great acuteness, and the frequent originality +of his remarks--considering, further, his moral earnestness, and the +place which the moral aspects of things occupy in his thoughts, this is +remarkable; but so it is. In the first place, in dealing with these +eventful questions, which came home with such awful force to thousands +of awakened minds and consciences, full of hope and full of fear, there +was an entire and ostentatious want of sympathy with all that was +characteristically English in matters of religion. This arose partly +from his deep dislike to habits, very marked in Englishmen, but not +peculiar to them, of self-satisfaction and national self-glorification; +but it drove him into a welcoming of opposite foreign ways, of which he +really knew little, except superficially. Next, his boundless confidence +in the accuracy of his logical processes led him to habits of extreme +and absolute statement, which to those who did not agree with him, and +also to some who did, bore on their face the character of +over-statement, exaggeration, extravagance, not redeemed by an +occasional and somewhat ostentatious candour, often at the expense of +his own side and in favour of opponents to whom he could afford to be +frank. And further, while to the English Church he was merciless in the +searching severity of his judgment, he seemed to be blind to the whole +condition of things to which she, as well as her rival, had for the last +three centuries been subjected, and in which she had played a part at +least as important for Christian faith as that sustained by any portion +of Christendom; blind to all her special and characteristic excellences, +where these did not fit the pattern of the continental types (obviously, +in countless instances, matters of national and local character and +habits); blind to the enormous difficulties in which the political game +of her Roman opponents had placed her; blind to the fact that, judged +with the same adverse bias and prepossessions, the same unsparing +rigour, the same refusal to give real weight to what was good, on the +ground that it was mixed with something lower, the Roman Church would +show just as much deflection from the ideal as the English. Indeed, he +would have done a great service--people would have been far more +disposed to attend to his really interesting, and, to English readers, +novel, proofs of the moral and devotional character of the Roman popular +discipline, if he had not been so unfair on the English: if he had not +ignored the plain fact that just such a picture as he gave of the +English Church, as failing in required notes, might be found of the +Roman before the Reformation, say in the writings of Gerson, and in our +own days in those of Rosmini. Mr. Ward, if any one, appealed to fair +judgment; and to this fair judgment he presented allegations on the face +of them violent and monstrous. The English Church, according to him, was +in the anomalous position of being "gifted with the power of dispensing +sacramental grace,"[114] and yet, at the same time, "_wholly destitute_ +of external notes, and _wholly indefensible_ as to her position, by +external, historical, ecclesiastical arguments": and he for his part +declares, correcting Mr. Newman, who speaks of "outward notes as partly +gone and partly going," that he is "_wholly unable_ to discern the +outward notes of which Mr. Newman speaks, during any part of the last +three hundred years." He might as well have said at once that she did +not exist, if the outward aspects of a Church--orders, creeds, +sacraments, and, in some degree at any rate, preaching and witnessing +for righteousness--are not some of the "outward notes" of a Church. +"Should the pure light of the Gospel be ever restored to _this +benighted land_,"[115] he writes, at the beginning, as the last extract +was written at the end, of his controversial career at Oxford. Is not +such writing as if he wished to emulate in a reverse sense the folly and +falsehood of those who spoke of English Protestants having a monopoly +of the Gospel? He was unpersuasive, he irritated and repelled, in spite +of his wish to be fair and candid, in spite of having so much to teach, +in spite of such vigour of statement and argument, because on the face +of all his writings he was so extravagantly one-sided, so incapable of +an equitable view, so much a slave to the unreality of extremes. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[107] Cf. T. Mozley, _Reminiscences_, vol. ii. p. 5. + +[108] In dealing with the Articles either as a test or as a text-book, +this question was manifestly both an honest and a reasonable one. As a +test, and therefore penal, they must be construed strictly; like +judicial decisions, they only ruled as much as was necessary, and in the +wide field of theology confined themselves to the points at issue at the +moment. And as a text-book for instruction, it was obvious that while on +some points they were precise and clear, on others they were vague and +imperfect. The first five Articles left no room for doubt. When the +compilers came to the controversies of their day, for all their strong +language, they left all kinds of questions unanswered. For instance, +they actually left unnoticed the primacy, and much more the +infallibility of the Pope. They condemned the "sacrifices of +Masses"--did they condemn the ancient and universal doctrine of a +Eucharistic sacrifice? They condemned the Romish doctrine of Purgatory, +with its popular tenet of material fire--did that exclude every doctrine +of purgation after death? They condemned Transubstantiation--did they +condemn the Real Presence? They condemned a great popular system--did +they condemn that of which it was a corruption and travesty? These +questions could not be foreclosed, unless on the assumption that there +was no doctrine on such points which could be called Catholic _except +the Roman_. The inquiry was not new; and divines so stoutly anti-Roman +as Dr. Hook and Mr. W. Palmer of Worcester had answered it substantially +in the same sense as Mr. Newman in No. 90. + +[109] W.G. Ward, _The Ideal of a Christian Church_, p. 478. + +[110] _The Ideal, etc._, p. 479. + +[111] It is curious, and characteristic of the unhistorical quality of +Mr. Ward's mind, that his whole hostility should have been concentrated +on Luther and Lutheranism--on Luther, the enthusiastic, declamatory, +unsystematic denouncer of practical abuses, with his strong attachments +to portions of orthodoxy, rather than on Calvin, with his cold love of +power, and the iron consistency and strength of his logical +anti-Catholic system, which has really lived and moulded Protestantism, +while Lutheranism as a religion has passed into countless different +forms. Luther was to Calvin as Carlyle to J.S. Mill or Herbert Spencer; +he defied system. But Luther had burst into outrageous paradoxes, which +fastened on Mr. Ward's imagination.--Yet outrageous language is not +always the most dangerous. Nobody would really find a provocation to +sin, or an excuse for it, in Luther's _Pecca fortiter_ any more than in +Escobar's ridiculous casuistry. There may be much more mischief in the +delicate unrealities of a fashionable preacher, or in many a smooth +sentimental treatise on the religious affections. + +[112] _The Ideal, etc._, pp. 587, 305. + +[113] Ibid. p. 305. + +[114] _Ideal,_ p 286. + +[115] _British Critic_ October 1841, p. 340. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH + + +No. 90, with the explanations of it given by Mr. Newman and the other +leaders of the movement, might have raised an important and not very +easy question, but one in no way different from the general character of +the matters in debate in the theological controversy of the time. But +No. 90, with the comments on it of Mr. Ward, was quite another matter, +and finally broke up the party of the movement. It was one thing to show +how much there is in common between England and Rome, and quite another +to argue that there is no difference. Mr. Ward's refusal to allow a +reasonable and a Catholic interpretation to the doctrine of the Articles +on Justification, though such an understanding of it had not only been +maintained by Bishop Bull and the later orthodox divines, but was +impressed on all the popular books of devotion, such as the _Whole Duty +of Man_ and Bishop Wilson's _Sacra Privata_; and along with this, the +extreme claim to hold compatible with the Articles the "whole cycle of +Roman doctrine," introduced entirely new conditions into the whole +question. _Non hoec in foedera_ was the natural reflection of numbers of +those who most sympathised with the Tractarian school. The English +Church might have many shortcomings and want many improvements; but +after all she had something to say for herself in her quarrel with Rome; +and the witness of experience for fifteen hundred years must be not +merely qualified and corrected, but absolutely wiped out, if the +allegation were to be accepted that Rome was blameless in all that +quarrel, and had no part in bringing about the confusions of +Christendom. And this contention was more and more enforced in Mr. +Ward's articles in the _British Critic_--enforced, more effectively than +by direct statement, by continual and passing assumption and +implication. They were papers of considerable power and acuteness, and +of great earnestness in their constant appeal to the moral criteria of +truth; though Mr. Ward was not then at his best as a writer, and they +were in composition heavy, diffuse, monotonous, and wearisome. But the +attitude of deep depreciation, steady, systematic, unrelieved, in regard +to that which ought, if acknowledged at all, to deserve the highest +reverence among all things on earth, in regard to an institution which, +with whatever faults, he himself in words still recognised as the Church +of God, was an indefensible and an unwholesome paradox. The analogy is a +commonly accepted one between the Church and the family. How could any +household go on in which there was at work an _animus_ of unceasing and +relentless, though possibly too just criticism, on its characteristic +and perhaps serious faults; and of comparisons, also possibly most just, +with the better ways of other families? It might be the honest desire of +reform and improvement; but charity, patience, equitableness, are +virtues of men in society, as well as strict justice and the desire of +improvement. In the case of the family, such action could only lead to +daily misery and the wasting and dying out of home affections. In the +case of a Church, it must come to the sundering of ties which ought no +longer to bind. Mr. Ward all along insisted that there was no necessity +for looking forward to such an event. He wished to raise, purify, reform +the Church in which Providence had placed him; utterly dissatisfied as +he was with it, intellectually and morally, convinced more and more that +it was wrong, dismally, fearfully wrong, it was his duty, he thought, to +abide in it without looking to consequences; but it was also his duty to +shake the faith of any one he could in its present claims and working, +and to hold up an incomparably purer model of truth and holiness. That +his purpose was what he considered real reform, there is no reason to +doubt, though he chose to shut his eyes to what must come of it. The +position was an unnatural one, but he had great faith in his own +well-fenced logical creations, and defied the objections of a homelier +common sense. He was not content to wait in silence the slow and sad +changes of old convictions, the painful decay and disappearance of +long-cherished ties. His mind was too active, restless, unreserved. To +the last he persisted in forcing on the world, professedly to influence +it, really to defy it, the most violent assertions which he could +formulate of the most paradoxical claims on friends and opponents which +had ever been made. + +Mr. Ward's influence was felt also in another way; though here it is not +easy to measure the degree of its force. He was in the habit of +appealing to Mr. Newman to pronounce on the soundness of his principles +and inferences, with the view of getting Mr. Newman's sanction for them +against more timid or more dissatisfied friends; and he would come down +with great glee on objectors to some new and startling position, with +the reply, "Newman says so," Every one knows from the _Apologia_ what +was Mr. Newman's state of mind after 1841--a state of perplexity, +distress, anxiety; he was moving undoubtedly in one direction, but +moving slowly, painfully, reluctantly, intermittently, with views +sometimes clear, sometimes clouded, of that terribly complicated +problem, the answer to which was full of such consequences to himself +and to others. No one ever felt more keenly that it was no mere affair +of dexterous or brilliant logic; if logic could have settled it, the +question would never have arisen. But in this fevered state, with mind, +soul, heart all torn and distracted by the tremendous responsibilities +pressing on him, wishing above everything to be quiet, to be silent, at +least not to speak except at his own times and when he saw the +occasion, he had, besides bearing his own difficulties, to return +off-hand and at the moment some response to questions which he had not +framed, which he did not care for, on which he felt no call to +pronounce, which he was not perhaps yet ready to face, and to answer +which he must commit himself irrevocably and publicly to more than he +was prepared for. Every one is familiar with the proverbial distribution +of parts in the asking and the answering of questions; but when the +asker is no fool, but one of the sharpest-witted of mankind, asking with +little consideration for the condition or the wishes of the answerer, +with great power to force the answer he wants, and with no great +tenderness in the use he makes of it, the situation becomes a trying +one. Mr. Ward was continually forcing on Mr. Newman so-called +irresistible inferences; "If you say so and so, surely you must also say +something more?" Avowedly ignorant of facts and depending for them on +others, he was only concerned with logical consistency. And accordingly +Mr. Newman, with whom producible logical consistency was indeed a great +thing, but with whom it was very far from being everything, had +continually to accept conclusions which he would rather have kept in +abeyance, to make admissions which were used without their +qualifications, to push on and sanction extreme ideas which he himself +shrank from because they were extreme. But it was all over with his +command of time, his liberty to make up his mind slowly on the great +decision. He had to go at Mr. Ward's pace, and not his own. He had to +take Mr. Ward's questions, not when he wanted to have them and at his +own time, but at Mr. Ward's. No one can tell how much this state of +things affected the working of Mr. Newman's mind in that pause of +hesitation before the final step; how far it accelerated the view which +he ultimately took of his position. No one can tell, for many other +influences were mixed up with this one. But there is no doubt that Mr. +Newman felt the annoyance and the unfairness of this perpetual +questioning for the benefit of Mr. Ward's theories, and there can be +little doubt that, in effect, it drove him onwards and cut short his +time of waiting. Engineers tell us that, in the case of a ship rolling +in a sea-way, when the periodic times of the ship's roll coincide with +those of the undulations of the waves, a condition of things arises +highly dangerous to the ship's stability. So the agitations of Mr. +Newman's mind were reinforced by the impulses of Mr. Ward's.[116] + +But the great question between England and Rome was not the only matter +which engaged Mr. Ward's active mind. In the course of his articles in +the _British Critic_ he endeavoured to develop in large outlines a +philosophy of religious belief. Restless on all matters without a +theory, he felt the need of a theory of the true method of reaching, +verifying, and judging of religious truth; it seemed to him necessary +especially to a popular religion, such as Christianity claimed to be; +and it was not the least of the points on which he congratulated himself +that he had worked out a view which extended greatly the province and +office of conscience, and of fidelity to it, and greatly narrowed the +province and office of the mere intellect in the case of the great mass +of mankind. The Oxford writers had all along laid stress on the +paramount necessity of the single eye and disciplined heart in accepting +or judging religion; moral subjects could be only appreciated by moral +experience; purity, reverence, humility were as essential in such +questions as zeal, industry, truthfulness, honesty; religious truth is a +gift as well as a conquest; and they dwelt on the great maxims of the +New Testament: "To him that hath shall be given"; "If any man will do +the will of the Father, he shall know of the doctrine." But though Mr. +Newman especially had thrown out deep and illuminating thoughts on this +difficult question, it had not been treated systematically; and this +treatment Mr. Ward attempted to give to it. It was a striking and +powerful effort, full of keen insight into human experience and acute +observations on its real laws and conditions; but on the face of it, it +was laboured and strained; it chose its own ground, and passed unnoticed +neighbouring regions under different conditions; it left undealt with +the infinite variety of circumstances, history, capacities, natural +temperament, and those unexplored depths of will and character, +affecting choice and judgment, the realities of which have been brought +home to us by our later ethical literature. Up to a certain point his +task was easy. It is easy to say that a bad life, a rebellious temper, a +selfish spirit are hopeless disqualifications for judging spiritual +things; that we must take something for granted in learning any truths +whatever; that men must act as moral creatures to attain insight into +moral truths, to realise and grasp them as things, and not abstractions +and words. But then came the questions--What is that moral training, +which, in the case of the good heart, will be practically infallible in +leading into truth? And what is that type of character, of saintliness, +which gives authority which we cannot do wrong in following; where, if +question and controversy arise, is the common measure binding on both +sides; and can even the saints, with their immense variations and +apparent mixtures and failings, furnish that type? And next, where, in +the investigations which may be endlessly diversified, does intellect +properly come in and give its help? For come in somewhere, of course it +must; and the conspicuous dominance of the intellectual element in Mr. +Ward's treatment of the subject is palpable on the face of it. His +attempt is to make out a theory of the reasonableness of unproducible; +because unanalysed, reasons; reasons which, though the individual cannot +state them, may be as real and as legitimately active as the obscure +rays of the spectrum. But though the discussion in Mr. Ward's hands was +suggestive of much, though he might expose the superciliousness of +Whately or the shallowness of Mr. Goode, and show himself no unequal +antagonist to Mr. J.S. Mill, it left great difficulties unanswered, and +it had too much the appearance of being directed to a particular end, +that of guarding the Catholic view of a popular religion from formidable +objections. + +The moral side of religion had been from the first a prominent subject +in the teaching of the movement Its protests had been earnest and +constant against intellectual self-sufficiency, and the notion that mere +shrewdness and cleverness were competent judges of Christian truth, or +that soundness of judgment in religious matters was compatible with +arrogance or an imperfect moral standard; and it revolted against the +conventional and inconsistent severity of Puritanism, which was shocked +at dancing but indulged freely in good dinners, and was ostentatious in +using the phrases of spiritual life and in marking a separation from the +world, while it surrounded itself with all the luxuries of modern +inventiveness. But this moral teaching was confined to the statement of +principles, and it was carried out in actual life with the utmost +dislike of display and with a shrinking from strong professions. The +motto of Froude's _Remains_, which embodied his characteristic temper, +was an expression of the feeling of the school: + + Se sub serenis vultibus + Austera virtus occulit: + Timet videri, ne suum, + Dum prodit, amittat decus,[117] + +The heroic strictness and self-denial of the early Church were the +objects of admiration, as what ought to be the standard of Christians; +but people did not yet like to talk much about attempts to copy them. +Such a book as the _Church of the Fathers_ brought out with great force +and great sympathy the ascetic temper and the value put on celibacy in +the early days, and it made a deep impression; but nothing was yet +formulated as characteristic and accepted doctrine. + +It was not unnatural that this should change. The principles exemplified +in the high Christian lives of antiquity became concrete in definite +rules and doctrines, and these rules and doctrines were most readily +found in the forms in which the Roman schools and teachers had embodied +them. The distinction between the secular life and the life of +"religion," with all its consequences, became an accepted one. Celibacy +came to be regarded as an obvious part of the self-sacrifice of a +clergyman's life, and the belief and the profession of it formed a test, +understood if not avowed, by which the more advanced or resolute members +of the party were distinguished from the rest. This came home to men on +the threshold of life with a keener and closer touch than questions +about doctrine. It was the subject of many a bitter, agonising struggle +which no one knew anything of; it was with many the act of a supreme +self-oblation. The idea of the single life may be a utilitarian one as +well as a religious one. It may be chosen with no thought of +renunciation or self-denial, for the greater convenience and freedom of +the student or the philosopher, the soldier or the man of affairs. It +may also be chosen without any special feeling of a sacrifice by the +clergyman, as most helpful for his work. But the idea of celibacy, in +those whom it affected at Oxford, was in the highest degree a religious +and romantic one. The hold which it had on the leader of the movement +made itself felt, though little was directly said. To shrink from it was +a mark of want of strength or intelligence, of an unmanly preference for +English home life, of insensibility to the generous devotion and purity +of the saints. It cannot be doubted that at this period of the movement +the power of this idea over imagination and conscience was one of the +strongest forces in the direction of Rome. + +Of all these ideas Mr. Ward's articles in the _British Critic_ were the +vigorous and unintermittent exposition. He spoke out, and without +hesitation. There was a perpetual contrast implied, when it was not +forcibly insisted on, between all that had usually been esteemed highest +in the moral temper of the English Church, always closely connected with +home life and much variety of character, and the loftier and bolder but +narrower standard of Roman piety. And Mr. Ward was seconded in the +_British Critic_ by other writers, all fervid in the same cause, some +able and eloquent. The most distinguished of his allies was Mr. Oakeley, +Fellow of Balliol and minister of Margaret Chapel in London. Mr. Oakeley +was, perhaps, the first to realise the capacities of the Anglican ritual +for impressive devotional use, and his services, in spite of the +disadvantages of the time, and also of his chapel, are still remembered +by some as having realised for them, in a way never since surpassed, the +secrets and the consolations of the worship of the Church. Mr. Oakeley, +without much learning, was master of a facile and elegant pen. He was a +man who followed a trusted leader with chivalrous boldness, and was not +afraid of strengthening his statements. Without Mr. Ward's force and +originality, his articles were more attractive reading. His article on +"Jewel" was more than anything else a landmark in the progress of Roman +ideas.[118] + +From the time of Mr. Ward's connexion with the _British Critic_, its +anti-Anglican articles had given rise to complaints which did not become +less loud as time went on. He was a troublesome contributor to his +editor, Mr. T. Mozley, and he made the hair of many of his readers +stand on end with his denunciations of things English and eulogies of +things Roman. + + My first troubles (writes Mr. Mozley) were with Oakeley and Ward. I + will not say that I hesitated much as to the truth of what they wrote, + for in that matter I was inclined to go very far, at least in the way + of toleration. Yet it appeared to me quite impossible either that any + great number of English Churchmen would ever go so far, or that the + persons possessing authority in the Church would fail to protest, not + to say more.... As to Ward I did but touch a filament or two in one of + his monstrous cobwebs, and off he ran instantly to Newman to complain + of my gratuitous impertinence. Many years after I was forcibly + reminded of him by a pretty group of a little Cupid flying to his + mother to show a wasp-sting he had just received. Newman was then in + this difficulty. He did not disagree with what Ward had written; but, + on the other hand, he had given neither me nor Ward to understand that + he was likely to step in between us. In fact, he wished to be entirely + clear of the editorship. This, however, was a thing that Ward could + not or would not understand.[119] + +The discontent of readers of the _British Critic_ was great. It was +expressed in various ways, and was represented by a pamphlet of Mr. W. +Palmer's of Worcester, in which he contrasted, with words of severe +condemnation, the later writers in the Review with the teaching of the +earlier _Tracts for the Times_, and denounced the "Romanising" tendency +shown in its articles. In the autumn of 1843 the Review came to an end. +A field of work was thus cut off from Mr. Ward. Full of the interest of +the ideas which possessed him, always equipped and cheerfully ready for +the argumentative encounter, and keenly relishing the _certaminis +gaudia_, he at once seized the occasion of Mr. Palmer's pamphlet to +state what he considered his position, and to set himself right in the +eyes of all fair and intelligent readers. He intended a long pamphlet. +It gradually grew under his hands--he was not yet gifted with the power +of compression and arrangement--into a volume of 600 pages: the famous +_Ideal of a Christian Church, considered in Comparison with Existing +Practice_, published in the summer of 1844. + +The _Ideal_ is a ponderous and unattractive volume, ill arranged and +rambling, which its style and other circumstances have caused to be +almost forgotten. But there are interesting discussions in it which may +still repay perusal for their own sakes. The object of the book was +twofold. Starting with an "ideal" of what the Christian Church may be +expected to be in its various relations to men, it assumes that the +Roman Church, and only the Roman Church, satisfies the conditions of +what a Church ought to be, and it argues in detail that the English +Church, in spite of its professions, utterly and absolutely fails to +fulfil them. It is _plaidoirie_ against everything English, on the +ground that it cannot be Catholic because it is not Roman. It was not +consistent, for while the writer alleged that "our Church totally +neglected her duties both as guardian of and witness to morality, and as +witness and teacher of orthodoxy," yet he saw no difficulty in +attributing the revival of Catholic truth to "the inherent vitality and +powers of our own Church."[120] But this was not the sting and +provocation of the book. That lay in the developed claim, put forward by +implication in Mr. Ward's previous writings, and now repeated in the +broadest and most unqualified form, to hold his position in the English +Church, avowing and teaching all Roman doctrine. + + We find (he exclaims), oh, most joyful, most wonderful, most + unexpected sight! we find the whole cycle of Roman doctrine gradually + possessing numbers of English Churchmen.... Three years have passed + since I said plainly that in subscribing the Articles I renounce no + Roman doctrine; yet I retain my fellowship which I hold on the tenure + of subscription, and have received no ecclesiastical censure in any + shape.[121] + +There was much to learn from the book; much that might bring home to the +most loyal Churchman a sense of shortcomings, a burning desire for +improvement; much that might give every one a great deal to think about, +on some of the deepest problems of the intellectual and religious life. +But it could not be expected that such a challenge, in such sentences as +these, should remain unnoticed. + +The book came out in the Long Vacation, and it was not till the +University met in October that signs of storm began to appear. But +before it broke an incident occurred which inflamed men's tempers. Dr. +Wynter's reign as Vice-Chancellor had come to a close, and the next +person, according to the usual custom of succession, was Dr. Symons, +Warden of Wadham. Dr. Symons had never concealed his strong hostility to +the movement, and he had been one of Dr. Pusey's judges. The prospect of +a partisan Vice-Chancellor, certainly very determined, and supposed not +to be over-scrupulous, was alarming. The consent of Convocation to the +Chancellor's nomination of his substitute had always been given in +words, though no instance of its having been refused was known, at least +in recent times. But a great jealousy about the rights of Convocation +had been growing up under the late autocratic policy of the Heads, and +there was a disposition to assert, and even to stretch these rights, a +disposition not confined to the party of the movement. It was proposed +to challenge Dr. Symons's nomination. Great doubts were felt and +expressed about the wisdom of the proposal; but at length opposition was +resolved upon. The step was a warning to the Heads, who had been +provoking enough; but there was not enough to warrant such a violent +departure from usage, and it was the act of exasperation rather than of +wisdom. The blame for it must be shared between the few who fiercely +urged it, and the many who disapproved and acquiesced. On the day of +nomination, the scrutiny was allowed, _salvâ auctoritate Cancellarii_; +but Dr. Symons's opponents were completely defeated by 883 to 183. It +counted, not unreasonably, as a "Puseyite defeat." + +The attempt and its result made it certain that in the attack that was +sure to come on Mr. Ward's book, he would meet with no mercy. As soon as +term began the Board of Heads of Houses took up the matter; they were +earnestly exhorted to it by a letter of Archbishop Whately's, which was +read at the Board. But they wanted no pressing, nor is it astonishing +that they could not understand the claim to hold the "whole cycle" of +Roman doctrine in the English Church. Mr. Ward's view was that he was +loyally doing the best he could for "our Church," not only in showing up +its heresies and faults, but in urging that the only remedy was +wholesale submission to Rome. To the University authorities this was +taking advantage of his position in the Church to assail and if possible +destroy it. And to numbers of much more sober and moderate Churchmen, +sympathisers with the general spirit of the movement, it was evident +that Mr. Ward had long passed the point when tolerance could be fairly +asked, consistently with any respect for the English Church, for such +sweeping and paradoxical contradictions, by her own servants, of her +claims and title. Mr. Ward's manner also, which, while it was serious +enough in his writings, was easy and even jocular in social intercourse, +left the impression, in reality a most unfair impression, that he was +playing and amusing himself with these momentous questions. + +A Committee of the Board examined the book; a number of startling +propositions were with ease picked out, some preliminary skirmishing as +to matters of form took place, and in December 1844 the Board announced +that they proposed to submit to Convocation without delay three +measures:--(1) to condemn Mr. Ward's book; (2) to degrade Mr. Ward by +depriving him of all his University degrees; and (3) whereas the +existing Statutes gave the Vice-Chancellor power of calling on any +member of the University at any time to prove his orthodoxy by +subscribing the Articles, to add to this a declaration, to be henceforth +made by the subscriber, that he took them in the sense in which "they +were both first published and were now imposed by the University," with +the penalty of expulsion against any one, lay or clerical, who thrice +refused subscription with this declaration. + +As usual, the Board entirely mistook the temper of the University, and +by their violence and want of judgment turned the best chance they ever +had, of carrying the University with them, into what their blunders +really made an ignominious defeat. If they had contented themselves with +the condemnation, in almost any terms, of Mr. Ward's book, and even of +its author, the condemnation would have been overwhelming. A certain +number of men would have still stood by Mr. Ward, either from friendship +or sympathy, or from independence of judgment, or from dislike of the +policy of the Board; but they would have been greatly outnumbered. The +degradation--the Board did not venture on the logical consequence, +expulsion--was a poor and even ridiculous measure of punishment; to +reduce Mr. Ward to an undergraduate _in statu pupillari_, and a +commoner's short gown, was a thing to amuse rather than terrify. The +personal punishment seemed unworthy when they dared not go farther, +while to many the condemnation of the book seemed penalty enough; and +the condemnation of the book by these voters was weakened by their +refusal to carry it into personal disgrace and disadvantage. Still, if +these two measures had stood by themselves, they could not have been +resisted, and the triumph of the Board would have been a signal one. But +they could not rest. They must needs attempt to put upon subscription, +just when its difficulties were beginning to be felt, not by one party, +but by all, an interpretation which set the University and Church in a +flame. The cry, almost the shriek, arose that it was a new test, and a +test which took for granted what certainly needed proof, that the sense +in which the Articles were first understood and published was exactly +the same as that in which the University now received and imposed them. +It was in vain that explanations, assurances, protests, were proffered; +no new test, it was said, was thought of--the Board would never think of +such a thing; it was only something to ensure good faith and honesty. +But it was utterly useless to contend against the storm. A test it was, +and a new test no one would have. It was clear that, if the third +proposal was pushed, it would endanger the votes about Mr. Ward. After +some fruitless attempts at justification the Board had, in the course +of a month, to recognise that it had made a great mistake. The +condemnation of Mr. Ward was to come on, on the 13th of February; and on +the 23d of January the Vice-Chancellor, in giving notice of it, +announced that the third proposal was withdrawn. + +It might have been thought that this was lesson enough to leave well +alone. The Heads were sure of votes against Mr. Ward, more or less +numerous; they were sure of a victory which would be a severe blow, not +only to Mr. Ward and his special followers, but to the Tractarian party +with which he had been so closely connected. But those bitter and +intemperate spirits which had so long led them wrong were not to be +taught prudence even by their last experience. The mischief makers were +at work, flitting about the official lodgings at Wadham and Oriel. Could +not something be done, even at this late hour, to make up for the loss +of the test? Could not something be done to disgrace a greater name than +Mr. Ward's? Could not the opportunity which was coming of rousing the +feeling of the University against the disciple be turned to account to +drag forth his supposed master from his retirement and impunity, and +brand the author of No. 90 with the public stigma--no longer this time +of a Hebdomadal censure, but of a University condemnation? The +temptation was irresistible to a number of disappointed +partisans--kindly, generous, good-natured men in private life, but +implacable in their fierce fanaticism. In their impetuous vehemence +they would not even stop to think what would be said of the conditions +and circumstances under which they pressed their point. On the 23d of +January the Vice-Chancellor had withdrawn the test. On the 25th of +January--those curious in coincidences may observe that it was the date +of No. 90 in 1841--a circular was issued inviting signatures for a +requisition to the Board, asking them to propose, in the approaching +Convocation of the 13th of February, a formal censure of the principles +of No. 90. The invitation to sign was issued in the names of Dr. +Faussett and Dr. Ellerton of Magdalen. It received between four and five +hundred signatures, as far as was known; but it was withheld by the +Vice-Chancellor from the inspection of those who officially had a right +to have it before them. On the 4th of February its prayer came before +the Hebdomadal Board. The objection of haste--that not ten days +intervened between this new and momentous proposal and the day of +voting--was brushed aside. The members of the Board were mad enough not +to see, not merely the odiousness of the course, but the aggravated +odiousness of hurry. The proposal was voted by the majority, _sans +phrase._ And they ventured, amid all the excitement and irritation of +the moment, to offer for the sanction of the University a decree framed +in the words of their own censure. + +The interval before the Convocation was short, but it was long enough +for decisive opinions on the proposal of the Board to be formed and +expressed. Leading men in London, Mr. Gladstone among them, were clear +that it was an occasion for the exercise of the joint veto with which +the Proctors were invested. The veto was intended, if for anything, to +save the University from inconsiderate and hasty measures; and seldom, +except in revolutionary times, had so momentous and so unexpected a +measure been urged on with such unseemly haste. The feeling of the +younger Liberals, Mr. Stanley, Mr. Donkin, Mr. Jowett, Dr. Greenhill, +was in the same direction. On the 10th of February the Proctors +announced to the Board their intention to veto the third proposal. But +of course the thing went forward. The Proctors were friends of Mr. +Newman, and the Heads believed that this would counterbalance any effect +from their act of authority. It is possible that the announcement may +have been regarded as a mere menace, too audacious to be fulfilled. On +the 13th of February, amid slush and snow, Convocation met in the +Theatre. Mr. Ward asked leave to defend himself in English, and occupied +one of the rostra, usually devoted to the recital of prize poems and +essays. He spoke with vigour and ability, dividing his speech, and +resting in the interval between the two portions in the rostrum.[122] +There was no other address, and the voting began. The first vote, the +condemnation of the book, was carried by 777 to 386. The second, by a +more evenly balanced division, 569 to 511. When the Vice-Chancellor put +the third, the Proctors rose, and the senior Proctor, Mr. Guillemard of +Trinity, stopped it in the words, _Nobis procuratoribus non placet_. +Such a step, of course, only suspended the vote, and the year of office +of these Proctors was nearly run. But they had expressed the feeling of +those whom they represented. It was shown not only in a largely-signed +address of thanks. All attempts to revive the decree at the expiration +of their year of office failed. The wiser heads in the Hebdomadal Board +recognised at last that they had better hold their hand. Mistakes men +may commit, and defeats they may undergo, and yet lose nothing that +concerns their character for acting as men of a high standard ought to +act. But in this case, mistakes and defeat were the least of what the +Board brought on themselves. This was the last act of a long and +deliberately pursued course of conduct; and if it was the last, it was +because it was the upshot and climax, and neither the University nor any +one else would endure that it should go on any longer. The proposed +attack on Mr. Newman betrayed how helpless they were, and to what paltry +acts of worrying it was, in their judgment, right and judicious to +condescend. It gave a measure of their statesmanship, wisdom, and good +feeling in defending the interests of the Church; and it made a very +deep and lasting impression on all who were interested in the honour and +welfare of Oxford. Men must have blinded themselves to the plainest +effects of their own actions who could have laid themselves open to such +a description of their conduct as is contained in the following extract +from a paper of the time--a passage of which the indignant and pathetic +undertone reflected the indignation and the sympathy of hundreds of men +of widely differing opinions. + + The vote is an answer to a cry--that cry is one of dishonesty, and + this dishonesty the proposed resolution, as plainly as it dares to say + anything, insinuates. On this part of the question, those who have + ever been honoured by Mr. Newman's friendship must feel it dangerous + to allow themselves thus to speak. And yet they must speak; for no one + else can appreciate it as truly as they do. When they see the person + whom they have been accustomed to revere as few men are revered, whose + labours, whose greatness, whose tenderness, whose singleness and + holiness of purpose, they have been permitted to know intimately--not + allowed even the poor privilege of satisfying, by silence and + retirement--by the relinquishment of preferment, position, and + influence--the persevering hostility of persons whom they cannot help + comparing with him--not permitted even to submit in peace to those + irregular censures, to which he seems to have been even morbidly + alive, but dragged forth to suffer an oblique and tardy condemnation; + called again to account for matters now long ago accounted for; on + which a judgment has been pronounced, which, whatever others may think + of it, he at least has accepted as conclusive--when they contrast his + merits, his submission, his treatment, which they see and know, with + the merits, the bearing, the fortunes of those who are doggedly + pursuing him, it does become very difficult to speak without sullying + what it is a kind of pleasure to feel is _his_ cause by using hard + words, or betraying it by not using them. It is too difficult to + speak, as ought to be spoken, of this ungenerous and gratuitous + afterthought--too difficult to keep clear of what, at least, will be + _thought_ exaggeration; too difficult to do justice to what they feel + to be undoubtedly true; and I will not attempt to say more than enough + to mark an opinion which ought to be plainly avowed, as to the nature + of this procedure.[123] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[116] A pencilled note indicates that this illustration was suggested by +experiments in naval engineering carried on at one time by Mr. W. +Froude. Cf. T. Mozley, _Reminiscences_, vol. ii. p. 17. + +[117] Hymn in Paris Breviary, _Commune Sanctarum Mulierum_. + +[118] _Reminiscences_, ii. 243, 244. Cf. _British Critic_, July 1841. + +[119] _Reminiscences,_ ii. 223. + +[120] _Ideal_, p. 566. + +[121] _Ibid._ pp. 565-567. + +[122] It is part of the history of the time, that during those anxious +days, Mr. Ward was engaged to be married. The engagement came to the +knowledge of his friends, to their great astonishment and amusement, +very soon after the events in the Theatre. + +[123] From a _Short Appeal to Members of Convocation on the proposed +Censure on No. 90_. By Frederic Rogers, Fellow of Oriel. (Dated +Saturday, 8th of February 1845.) + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE CATASTROPHE + + +The events of February were a great shock. The routine of Oxford had +been broken as it had never been broken by the fiercest strifes before. +Condemnations had been before passed on opinions, and even on persons. +But to see an eminent man, of blameless life, a fellow of one of the +first among the Colleges, solemnly deprived of his degree and all that +the degree carried with it, and that on a charge in which bad faith and +treachery were combined with alleged heresy, was a novel experience, +where the kindnesses of daily companionship and social intercourse still +asserted themselves as paramount to official ideas of position. And +when, besides this, people realised what more had been attempted, and by +how narrow a chance a still heavier blow had been averted from one +towards whom so many hearts warmed, how narrowly a yoke had been escaped +which would have seemed to subject all religious thought in the +University to the caprice or the blind zeal of a partisan official, the +sense of relief was mixed with the still present memory of a desperate +peril And then came the question as to what was to come next. That the +old policy of the Board would be revived and pursued when the end of the +Proctors' year delivered it from their inconvenient presence, was soon +understood to be out of the question. The very violence of the measures +attempted had its reaction, which stopped anything further. The +opponents of Tractarianism, Orthodox and Liberal, were for the moment +gorged with their success. What men waited to see was the effect on the +party of the movement; how it would influence the advanced portion of +it; how it would influence the little company who had looked on in +silence from their retirement at Littlemore. The more serious aspect of +recent events was succeeded for the moment by a certain comic contrast, +created by Mr. Ward's engagement to be married, which was announced +within a week of his degradation, and which gave the common-rooms +something to smile at after the strain and excitement of the scene in +the Theatre. But that passed, and the graver outlook of the situation +occupied men's thoughts. + +There was a widespread feeling of insecurity. Friends did not know of +friends, how their minds were working, how they might go. Anxious +letters passed, the writers not daring to say too much, or reveal too +much alarm. And yet there was still some hope that at least with the +great leader matters were not desperate. To his own friends he gave +warning; he had already done so in a way to leave little to expect but +at last to lose him; he spoke of resigning his fellowship in October, +though he wished to defer this till the following June; but nothing +final had been said publicly. Even at the last it was only anticipated +by some that he would retire into lay communion. But that silence was +awful and ominous. He showed no signs of being affected by what had +passed in Oxford. He privately thanked the Proctors for saving him from +what would have distressed him; but he made no comments on the measures +themselves. Still it could not but be a climax of everything as far as +Oxford was concerned. And he was a man who saw signs in such events. + +It was inevitable that the events of the end of 1844 and the beginning +of 1845 should bring with them a great crisis in the development of +religious opinion, in the relations of its different forms to one +another, and further, in the thoughts of many minds as to their personal +position, their duty, and their prospects. There had been such a crisis +in 1841 at the publication of No. 90. After the discussions which +followed that tract, Anglican theology could never be quite the same +that it had been before. It was made to feel the sense of some grave +wants, which, however they might be supplied in the future, could no +longer be unnoticed or uncared for. And individuals, amid the strife of +tongues, had felt, some strongly and practically, but a much larger +number dimly and reluctantly, the possibility, unwelcome to most, but +not without interest to others, of having to face the strange and at +one time inconceivable task of revising the very foundations of their +religion. And such a revision had since that time been going on more or +less actively in many minds; in some cases with very decisive results. +But after the explosion caused by Mr. Ward's book, a crisis of a much +more grave and wide-reaching sort had arrived. To ordinary lookers-on it +naturally seemed that a shattering and decisive blow had been struck at +the Tractarian party and their cause; struck, indeed, formally and +officially, only at its extravagances, but struck, none the less, +virtually, at the premisses which led to these extravagances, and at the +party, which, while disapproving them, shrank, with whatever +motives,--policy, generosity, or secret sympathy,--from joining in the +condemnation of them. It was more than a defeat, it was a rout, in which +they were driven and chased headlong from the field; a wreck in which +their boasts and hopes of the last few years met the fate which wise men +had always anticipated. Oxford repudiated them. Their theories, their +controversial successes, their learned arguments, their appeals to the +imagination, all seemed to go down, and to be swept away like chaff, +before the breath of straightforward common sense and honesty. +Henceforth there was a badge affixed to them and all who belonged to +them, a badge of suspicion and discredit, and even shame, which bade men +beware of them, an overthrow under which it seemed wonderful that they +could raise their heads or expect a hearing. It is true, that to those +who looked below the surface, the overthrow might have seemed almost too +showy and theatrical to be quite all that it was generally thought to +be. There had been too much passion, and too little looking forward to +the next steps, in the proceedings of the victors. There was too much +blindness to weak points of their own position, too much forgetfulness +of the wise generosity of cautious warfare. The victory was easy to win; +the next moment it was quite obvious that they did not know what to do +with it, and were at their wits' end to understand what it meant. And +the defeated party, though defeated signally and conspicuously in the +sight of the Church and the country, had in it too large a proportion of +the serious and able men of the University, with too clear and high a +purpose, and too distinct a sense of the strength and reality of their +ground, to be in as disadvantageous a condition as from a distance might +be imagined. A closer view would have discovered how much sympathy there +was for their objects and for their main principles in many who greatly +disapproved of much in the recent course and tendency of the movement. +It might have been seen how the unwise measures of the Heads had +awakened convictions among many who were not naturally on their side, +that it was necessary both on the ground of justice and policy to arrest +all extreme measures, and to give a breathing time to the minority. +Confidence in their prospects as a party might have been impaired in the +Tractarians; but confidence in their principles; confidence that they +had rightly interpreted the spirit, the claims, and the duties of the +English Church, confidence that devotion to its cause was the call of +God, whatever might happen to their own fortunes, this confidence was +unshaken by the catastrophe of February. + +But that crisis had another important result, not much noticed then, but +one which made itself abundantly evident in the times that followed. The +decisive breach between the old parties in the Church, both Orthodox and +Evangelical, and the new party of the movement, with the violent and +apparently irretrievable discomfiture of the latter as the rising force +in Oxford, opened the way and cleared the ground for the formation and +the power of a third school of opinion, which was to be the most +formidable rival of the Tractarians, and whose leaders were eventually +to succeed where the Tractarians had failed, in becoming the masters and +the reformers of the University. Liberalism had hitherto been +represented in Oxford in forms which though respectable from +intellectual vigour were unattractive, sometimes even repulsive. They +were dry, cold, supercilious, critical; they wanted enthusiasm; they +were out of sympathy with religion and the religious temper and aims. +They played, without knowing it, on the edge of the most dangerous +questions. The older Oxford Liberals were either intellectually +aristocratic, dissecting the inaccuracies or showing up the paralogisms +of the current orthodoxy, or they were poor in character, Liberals from +the zest of sneering and mocking at what was received and established, +or from the convenience of getting rid of strict and troublesome rules +of life. They patronised Dissenters; they gave Whig votes; they made +free, in a mild way, with the pet conventions and prejudices of Tories +and High Churchmen. There was nothing inspiring in them, however much +men might respect their correct and sincere lives. But a younger set of +men brought, mainly from Rugby and Arnold's teaching, a new kind of +Liberalism. It was much bolder and more independent than the older +forms, less inclined to put up with the traditional, more searching and +inquisitive in its methods, more suspicious and daring in its criticism; +but it was much larger in its views and its sympathies, and, above all, +it was imaginative, it was enthusiastic, and, without much of the +devotional temper, it was penetrated by a sense of the reality and +seriousness of religion. It saw greater hopes in the present and the +future than the Tractarians. It disliked their reverence for the past +and the received as inconsistent with what seemed evidence of the +providential order of great and fruitful change. It could not enter into +their discipline of character, and shrank from it as antiquated, +unnatural, and narrow. But these younger Liberals were interested in the +Tractarian innovators, and, in a degree, sympathised with them as a +party of movement who had had the courage to risk and sacrifice much for +an unworldly end. And they felt that their own opportunity was come when +all the parties which claimed to represent the orthodoxy of the English +Church appeared to have broken for good with one another, and when their +differences had thrown so much doubt and disparagement on so important +and revered a symbol of orthodoxy as the Thirty-nine Articles. They +looked on partly with amusement, partly with serious anxiety, at the +dispute; they discriminated with impartiality between the strong and the +weak points in the arguments on both sides: and they enforced with the +same impartiality on both of them the reasons, arising out of the +difficulties in which each party was involved, for new and large +measures, for a policy of forbearance and toleration. They inflicted on +the beaten side, sometimes with more ingenuity than fairness, the lesson +that the "wheel had come round full circle" with them; that they were +but reaping as they themselves had sown:--but now that there seemed +little more to fear from the Tractarians, the victorious authorities +were the power which the Liberals had to keep in check. They used their +influence, such as it was (and it was not then what it was afterwards), +to protect the weaker party. It was a favourite boast of Dean Stanley's +in after-times, that the intervention of the Liberals had saved the +Tractarians from complete disaster. It is quite true that the younger +Liberals disapproved the continuance of harsh measures, and some of them +exerted themselves against such measures. They did so in many ways and +for various reasons; from consistency, from feelings of personal +kindness, from a sense of justice, from a sense of interest--some in a +frank and generous spirit, others with contemptuous indifference. But +the debt of the Tractarians to their Liberal friends in 1845 was not so +great as Dean Stanley, thinking of the Liberal party as what it had +ultimately grown to be, supposed to be the case. The Liberals of his +school were then still a little flock: a very distinguished and a very +earnest set of men, but too young and too few as yet to hold the balance +in such a contest. The Tractarians were saved by what they were and what +they had done, and could do, themselves. But it is also true, that out +of these feuds and discords, the Liberal party which was to be dominant +in Oxford took its rise, soon to astonish old-fashioned Heads of Houses +with new and deep forms of doubt more audacious than Tractarianism, and +ultimately to overthrow not only the victorious authorities, but the +ancient position of the Church, and to recast from top to bottom the +institutions of the University. The 13th of February was not only the +final defeat and conclusion of the first stage of the movement. It was +the birthday of the modern Liberalism of Oxford. + +But it was also a crisis in the history of many lives. From that moment, +the decision of a number of good and able men, who had once promised to +be among the most valuable servants of the English Church, became +clear. If it were doubtful before, in many cases, whether they would +stay with her, the doubt existed no longer. It was now only a question +of time when they would break the tie and renounce their old +allegiance. In the bitter, and in many cases agonising struggle which +they had gone through as to their duty to God and conscience, a sign +seemed now to be given them which they could not mistake. They were +invited, on one side, to come; they were told sternly and scornfully, on +the other, to go. They could no longer be accused of impatience if they +brought their doubts to an end, and made up their minds that their call +was to submit to the claims of Rome, that their place was in its +communion. + +Yet there was a pause. It was no secret what was coming. But men +lingered. It was not till the summer that the first drops of the storm +began to fall. Then through the autumn and the next year, friends, whose +names and forms were familiar in Oxford, one by one disappeared and were +lost to it. Fellowships, livings, curacies, intended careers, were given +up. Mr. Ward went. Mr. Capes, who had long followed Mr. Ward's line, and +had spent his private means to build a church near Bridgewater, went +also. Mr. Oakeley resigned Margaret Chapel and went. Mr. Ambrose St. +John, Mr. Coffin, Mr. Dalgairns, Mr. Faber, Mr. T. Meyrick, Mr. Albany +Christie, Mr. R. Simpson of Oriel, were received in various places and +various ways, and in the next year, Mr. J.S. Northcote, Mr. J.B. +Morris, Mr. G. Ryder, Mr. David Lewis. On the 3d of October 1845 Mr. +Newman requested the Provost of Oriel to remove his name from the books +of the College and University, but without giving any reason. The 6th of +October is the date of the "Advertisement" to the work which had +occupied Mr. Newman through the year--the _Essay on the Development of +Christian Doctrine_. On the 8th he was, as he has told us in the +_Apologia_, received by Father Dominic, the Passionist. To the +"Advertisement" are subjoined the following words: + + _Postscript_.--Since the above was written the Author has joined the + Catholic Church. It was his intention and wish to have carried his + volume through the press before deciding finally on this step. But + when he got some way in the printing, he recognised in himself a + conviction of the truth of the conclusion, to which the discussion + leads, so clear as to preclude further deliberation. Shortly + afterwards circumstances gave him the opportunity of acting on it, and + he felt that he had no warrant for refusing to act on it. + +So the reality of what had been so long and often so lightly talked +about by those who dared it, provoked it, or hoped for it, had come +indeed; and a considerable portion of English society learned what it +was to be novices in a religious system, hitherto not only alien and +unknown, but dreaded, or else to have lost friends and relatives, who +were suddenly transformed into severe and uncompromising opponents, +speaking in unfamiliar terms, and sharply estranged in sympathies and +rules of life. Some of them, especially those who had caught the spirit +of their leader, began life anew, took their position as humble learners +in the Roman Schools, and made the most absolute sacrifice of a whole +lifetime that a man can make. To others the change came and was accepted +as an emancipation, not only from the bonds of Anglicanism, but from the +obligations of orders and priestly vows and devotion. In some cases, +where they were married, there was no help for it. But in almost all +cases there was a great surrender of what English life has to offer to +those brought up in it. Of the defeated party, those who remained had +much to think about, between grief at the breaking of old ties, and the +loss of dear friends, and perplexities about their own position. The +anxiety, the sorrow at differing and parting, seem now almost +extravagant and unintelligible. There are those who sneer at the +"distress" of that time. There had not been the same suffering, the same +estrangement, when Churchmen turned dissenters, like Bulteel and Baptist +Noel. But the movement had raised the whole scale of feeling about +religious matters so high, the questions were felt to be so momentous, +the stake and the issue so precious, the "Loss and Gain" so immense, +that to differ on such subjects was the differing on the greatest things +which men could differ about. But in a time of distress, of which few +analogous situations in our days can give the measure, the leaders stood +firm. Dr. Pusey, Mr. Keble, Mr. Marriott accepted, with unshaken faith +in the cause of the English Church, the terrible separation. They +submitted to the blow--submitted to the reproach of having been +associates of those who had betrayed hopes and done so much mischief; +submitted to the charge of inconsistency, insincerity, cowardice; but +they did not flinch. Their unshrinking attitude was a new point of +departure for those who believed in the Catholic foundation of the +English Church. + +Among those deeply affected by these changes, there were many who had +been absolutely uninfluenced by the strong Roman current. They had +recognised many good things in the Roman Church; they were fully alive +to many shortcomings in the English Church; but the possibility of +submission to the Roman claims had never been a question with them. A +typical example of such minds was Mr. Isaac Williams, a pupil of Mr. +Keble, an intimate friend of Mr. Newman, a man of simple and saintly +life, with heart and soul steeped in the ancient theology of undivided +Christendom, and for that very reason untempted by the newer principles +and fashions of Rome. There were numbers who thought like him; but there +were others also, who were forced in afresh upon themselves, and who had +to ask themselves why they stayed, when a teacher, to whom they had +looked up as they had to Mr. Newman, and into whose confidence they had +been admitted, thought it his duty to go. With some the ultimate, though +delayed, decision was to follow him. With others, the old and fair +_proejudicium_ against the claims of Rome, which had always asserted +itself even against the stringent logic of Mr. Ward and the deep and +subtle ideas of Mr. Newman, became, when closed with, and tested face to +face in the light of fact and history, the settled conviction of life. +Some extracts from contemporary papers, real records of the private +perplexities and troubles actually felt at the time, may illustrate what +was passing in the minds of some whom knowledge and love of Mr. Newman +failed to make his followers in his ultimate step. The first extract +belongs to some years before, but it is part of the same train of +thinking.[124] + + As to myself, I am getting into a very unsettled state as to aims and + prospects. I mean that as things are going on, a man does not know + where he is going to; one cannot imagine what state of things to look + forward to; in what way, and under what circumstances, one's coming + life--if it does come--is to be spent; what is to become of one. I + cannot at all imagine myself a convert; but how am I likely, in the + probable state of things, to be able to serve as an English clergyman? + Shall I ever get Priest's orders? Shall I be able to continue always + serving? What is one's line to be; what ought to be one's aims; or can + one have any? + + The storm is not yet come: how it may come, and how soon it may blow + over, and what it may leave behind, is doubtful; but some sort of + crisis, I think, must come before things settle. With the Bishops + against us, and Puritanism aggressive, we may see strange things + before the end. + +When the "storm" had at length come, though, before its final violence, +the same writer continues: + + The present hopeless check and weight to our party--what has for the + time absolutely crushed us--is the total loss of confidence arising + from the strong tendency, no longer to be dissembled or explained + away, among many of us to Rome. I see no chance of our recovery, or + getting our heads above water from this, at least in England, for + years to come. And it is a check which will one day be far greater + than it is now. Under the circumstances--having not the most distant + thought of leaving the English Church myself, and yet having no means + of escaping the very natural suspicion of Romanising without giving up + my best friends and the most saint-like men in England--how am I to + view my position? What am I witnessing to? What, if need be, is one to + suffer for? A man has no leaning towards Rome, does not feel, as + others do, the strength of her exclusive claims to allegiance, the + perfection of her system, its right so to overbalance all the good + found in ours as to make ours absolutely untrustworthy for a Christian + to rest in, notwithstanding all circumstances of habit, position, and + national character; has such doubts on the Roman theory of the + Church, the Ultramontane, and such instincts not only against many of + their popular religious customs and practical ways of going on, but + against their principles of belief (_e.g._ divine faith = relics), as + to repel him from any wish to sacrifice his own communion for theirs; + yet withal, and without any great right on his part to complain, is + set down as a man who may any day, and certainly will some day, go + over; and he has no lawful means of removing the suspicion:--why is it + _tanti_ to submit to this? + + However little sympathy we Englishmen have with Rome, the Western + Churches under Rome are really living and holy branches of the Church + Catholic; corruptions they may have, so may we; but putting these + aside, they are Catholic Christians, or Catholic Christianity has + failed out of the world: we are no more [Catholic] than they. But + this, _public opinion_ has not for centuries, and _does not now_, + realise or allow. So no one can express in reality and detail a + practical belief in their Catholicity, in their equality (setting one + thing against another) with us as Christians, without being suspected + of what such belief continually leads to--disloyalty to the English + Church. Yet such belief is nevertheless well-grounded and right, and + there is no great hope for the Church till it gains ground, soberly, + powerfully, and apart from all low views of proselytising, or fear of + danger. What therefore the disadvantage of those among us who do not + really deserve the imputation of Romanising may be meant for, is to + break this practical belief to the English Church. We may be silenced, + but, without any wish to leave the English Church, we cannot give up + the belief, that the Western Church under Rome is a true, living, + venerable branch of the Christian Church. There are dangers in such a + belief, but they must be provided against, they do not affect the + truth of the belief. + +Such searchings of heart were necessarily rendered more severe and acute +by Mr. Newman's act. There was no longer any respite; his dearest +friends must choose between him and the English Church. And the choice +was made, by those who did not follow him, on a principle little +honoured or believed in at the time on either side, Roman or +Protestant; but a principle which in the long-run restored hope and +energy to a cause which was supposed to be lost. It was not the revival +of the old _Via Media_; it was not the assertion of the superiority of +the English Church; it was not a return to the old-fashioned and +ungenerous methods of controversy with Rome--one-sided in all cases, +ignorant, coarse, unchristian in many. It was not the proposal of a new +theory of the Church--its functions, authority and teaching, a +counter-ideal to Mr. Ward's imposing _Ideal_ It was the resolute and +serious appeal from brilliant logic, and keen sarcasm, and pathetic and +impressive eloquence, to reality and experience, as well as to history, +as to the positive and substantial characteristics of the traditional +and actually existing English Church, shown not on paper but in work, +and in spite of contradictory appearances and inconsistent elements; and +along with this, an attempt to put in a fair and just light the +comparative excellences and defects of other parts of Christendom, +excellences to be ungrudgingly admitted, but not to be allowed to bar +the recognition of defects. The feeling which had often stirred, even +when things looked at the worst, that Mr. Newman had dealt unequally and +hardly with the English Church, returned with gathered strength. The +English Church was after all as well worth living in and fighting for as +any other; it was not only in England that light and dark, in teaching +and in life, were largely intermingled, and the mixture had to be +largely allowed for. We had our Sparta, a noble, if a rough and an +incomplete one; patiently to do our best for it was better than leaving +it to its fate, in obedience to signs and reasonings which the heat of +strife might well make delusive. It was one hopeful token, that boasting +had to be put away from us for a long time to come. In these days of +stress and sorrow were laid the beginnings of a school, whose main +purpose was to see things as they are; which had learned by experience +to distrust unqualified admiration and unqualified disparagement; +determined not to be blinded even by genius to plain certainties; not +afraid to honour all that is great and beneficent in Rome, not afraid +with English frankness to criticise freely at home; but not to be won +over, in one case, by the good things, to condone and accept the bad +things; and not deterred, in the other, from service, from love, from +self-sacrifice, by the presence of much to regret and to resist. + +All this new sense of independence, arising from the sense of having +been left almost desolate by the disappearance of a great stay and light +in men's daily life, led to various and different results. In some +minds, after a certain trial, it actually led men back to that Romeward +tendency from which they had at first recoiled. In others, the break-up +of the movement under such a chief led them on, more or less, and some +very far, into a career of speculative Liberalism like that of Mr. +Blanco White, the publication of whose biography coincided with Mr. +Newman's change. In many others, especially in London and the towns, it +led to new and increasing efforts to popularise in various ways--through +preaching, organisation, greater attention to the meaning, the +solemnities, and the fitnesses of worship--the ideas of the Church +movement. Dr. Pusey and Mr. Keble were still the recognised chiefs of +the continued yet remodelled movement. It had its quarterly organ, the +_Christian Remembrancer_, which had taken the place of the old _British +Critic_ in the autumn of 1844. A number of able Cambridge men had thrown +their knowledge and thoroughness of work into the _Ecclesiologist_. +There were newspapers--the _English Churchman_, and, starting in 1846 +from small and difficult beginnings, in the face of long discouragement +and at times despair, the _Guardian_. One mind of great and rare power, +though only recognised for what he was much later in his life, one +undaunted heart, undismayed, almost undepressed, so that those who knew +not its inner fires thought him cold and stoical, had lifted itself +above the wreck at Oxford. The shock which had cowed and almost crushed +some of Mr. Newman's friends roused and fired Mr. James Mozley. + + To take leave of Mr. Newman (he writes on the morrow of the event) is + a heavy task. His step was not unforeseen; but when it is come those + who knew him feel the fact as a real change within them--feel as if + they were entering upon a fresh stage of their own life. May that very + change turn to their profit, and discipline them by its hardness! It + may do so if they will use it so. Let nobody complain; a time must + come, sooner or later, in every one's life, when he has to part with + advantages, connexions, supports, consolations, that he has had + hitherto, and face a new state of things. Every one knows that he is + not always to have all that he has now: he says to himself, "What + shall I do when this or that stay, or connexion, is gone?" and the + answer is, "That he will do without it." ... The time comes when this + is taken away; and then the mind is left alone, and is thrown back + upon itself, as the expression is. But no religious mind tolerates the + notion of being really thrown upon itself; this is only to say in + other words, that it is thrown back upon God.... Secret mental + consolations, whether of innocent self-flattery or reposing + confidence, are over; a more real and graver life begins--a firmer, + harder disinterestedness, able to go on its course by itself. Let them + see in the change a call to greater earnestness, sincerer simplicity, + and more solid manliness. What were weaknesses before will be sins + now.[125] + +"A new stage has begun. Let no one complain":--this, the expression of +individual feeling, represents pretty accurately the temper into which +the Church party settled when the first shock was over. They knew that +henceforward they had difficult times before them. They knew that they +must work under suspicion, even under proscription. They knew that they +must expect to see men among themselves perplexed, unsettled, swept away +by the influences which had affected Mr. Newman, and still more by the +precedent of his example. They knew that they must be prepared to lose +friends and fellow-helpers, and to lose them sometimes unexpectedly and +suddenly, as the wont was so often at this time. Above all, they knew +that they had a new form of antagonism to reckon with, harder than any +they had yet encountered. It had the peculiar sad bitterness which +belongs to civil war, when men's foes are they of their own +households--the bitterness arising out of interrupted intimacy and +affection. Neither side could be held blameless; the charge from the one +of betrayal and desertion was answered by the charge from the other of +insincerity and faithlessness to conscience, and by natural but not +always very fair attempts to proselytise; and undoubtedly, the English +Church, and those who adhered to it, had, for some years after 1845, to +hear from the lips of old friends the most cruel and merciless +invectives which knowledge of her weak points, wit, argumentative power, +eloquence, and the triumphant exultation at once of deliverance and +superiority could frame. It was such writing and such preaching as had +certainly never been seen on the Roman side before, at least in England. +Whether it was adapted to its professed purpose may perhaps be doubted; +but the men who went certainly lost none of their vigour as +controversialists or their culture as scholars. Not to speak of Mr. +Newman, such men as Mr. Oakeley, Mr. Ward, Mr. Faber, and Mr. Dalgairns +more than fulfilled in the great world of London their reputation at +Oxford. This was all in prospect before the eyes of those who had +elected to cast in their lot with the English Church. It was not an +encouraging position. The old enthusiastic sanguineness had been +effectually quenched. Their Liberal critics and their Liberal friends +have hardly yet ceased to remind them how sorry a figure they cut in the +eyes of men of the world, and in the eyes of men of bold and effective +thinking.[126] The "poor Puseyites" are spoken of in tones half of pity +and half of sneer. Their part seemed played out. There seemed nothing +more to make them of importance. They had not succeeded in Catholicising +the English Church, they had not even shaken it by a wide secession. +Henceforth they were only marked men. All that could be said for them +was, that at the worst, they did not lose heart. They had not forgotten +the lessons of their earlier time. + +It is not my purpose to pursue farther the course of the movement. All +the world knows that it was not, in fact, killed or even much arrested +by the shock of 1845. But after 1845, its field was at least as much out +of Oxford as in it. As long as Mr. Newman remained, Oxford was +necessarily its centre, necessarily, even after he had seemed to +withdraw from it. When he left his place vacant, the direction of it was +not removed from Oxford, but it was largely shared by men in London and +the country. It ceased to be strongly and prominently Academical. No +one in deed held such a position as Dr. Pusey's and Mr. Keble's; but +though Dr. Pusey continued to be a great power at Oxford, he now became +every day a much greater power outside of it; while Mr. Keble was now +less than ever an Academic, and became more and more closely connected +with men out of Oxford, his friends in London and his neighbours at +Hursley and Winchester. The cause which Mr. Newman had given up in +despair was found to be deeply interesting in ever new parts of the +country: and it passed gradually into the hands of new leaders more +widely acquainted with English society. It passed into the hands of the +Wilberforces, and Archdeacon Manning; of Mr. Bennett, Mr. Dodsworth, Mr. +W. Scott, Dr. Irons, Mr. E. Hawkins, and Mr. Upton Richards in London. +It had the sympathy and counsels of men of weight, or men who were +rising into eminence and importance--some of the Judges, Mr. Gladstone, +Mr. Roundell Palmer, Mr. Frederic Rogers, Mr. Mountague Bernard, Mr. +Hope Scott (as he afterwards was), Mr. Badeley, and a brilliant recruit +from Cambridge, Mr. Beresford Hope. It attracted the sympathy of another +boast of Cambridge, the great Bishop of New Zealand, and his friend Mr. +Whytehead. Those times were the link between what we are now, so changed +in many ways, and the original impulse given at Oxford; but to those +times I am as much of an outsider as most of the foremost in them were +outsiders to Oxford in the earlier days. Those times are almost more +important than the history of the movement; for, besides vindicating it, +they carried on its work to achievements and successes which, even in +the most sanguine days of "Tractarianism," had not presented themselves +to men's minds, much less to their hopes. But that story must be told by +others. + +"Show thy servants thy work, and their children thy glory." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[124] Compare Mozley's _Reminiscences_, ii. 1-3. + +[125] _Christian Remembrancer_, January 1846, pp. 167, 168. + +[126] _E.g._ the Warden of Merton's _History of the University of +Oxford,_ p. 212. "The first panic was succeeded by a reaction; some +devoted adherents followed him (Mr. Newman) to Rome; others relapsed +into lifeless conformity; and the University soon resumed its wonted +tranquillity." "_Lifeless_ conformity" sounds odd connected with Dr. +Pusey or Mr. J.B. Mozley, and the London men who were the founders of +the so-called Ritualist schools. + + + + +INDEX + + +Addresses to Archbishop of Canterbury, by clergy and laity +Anglicanism, its features in 1830 + Newman's views on + Newman's interpretation of +_Apologia_, quotations from +Apostolic Succession + Newman's insistence on + its foundation on Prayer Book +Apostolitity of English Church +Archbishop of Canterbury. _See_ Addresses, and Howley +_Arians_, the +Arnold, Dr., theories on the Church + his proposal to unite all sects by law + attack on Tractarians + Professorship at Oxford + his influence shown in rise of third school +Articles, the, and Dissenters + subscription of. _See_ Dr. Hampden, and Thirty-nine Articles + +Baptism, Tract on +_Baptistery_, the +Bennett, Mr. +Bentham. _see_ Utilitarianism +Bernard, Mr. Mountague +Bishoprics, suppression of ten Irish +Bishops' attitude to movement + the first Tract on +Blachford, Lord, reminiscences of Froude +Bliss, James +Blomfield, Bishop +British Association, a sign of the times +_British Critic_ on the movement +_British Magazine_ +Brougham, Lord +Bunsen, M., and the Bishopric of Jerusalem +Burton, Dr. + +Cambridge, critical school of theology +Capes, Mr. +Cardwell, Dr. +Catastrophe, the +Catholicity of English Church +_Catholicus's_ letters to the _Times_ +Celibacy, observations on +Celibate clergy scheme +Changes in movement +_Christian Remembrancer_ +_Christian Year_ +Christianity, Church of England, two schools of +Christie, Albany +Christie, J.F. +Church, the, in eighteenth century + Dr. Whately's theories on + Dr. Arnold's theories + Coleridge's theories + Apostolic origin of + various conceptions of + political attacks on + public mind indifferent to + Dr. Pusey's theories on + theological aspect of + practical aspect of + and the Roman question + Catholicity of + and the doctrine of Development +_Church of the Fathers_ +"Churchman's Manual" + Scotch Bishops on +Churton, Mr. (of Crayke) +Claughton, Mr. Piers +Clergy of eighteenth century, character of +Close, Dr. (of Cheltenham) +Coffin, Mr. +Coleridge, Mr. Justice +Coleridge, S.T., influence on Charles Marriott + Church theories +_Conservative Journal_, Newman's language towards Rome +Copeland, William John +Cornish, C.L. +Creeds, the, pamphlets on + authority of + +Dalgairns, Mr. +Defeats, the Three, 312-335. _See also_ Isaac Williams, + Macmullen, and Pusey +Dickinson, Dr., "Pastoral Epistle from his Holiness the Pope" +Diffusion of Useful Knowledge Society +Dissenters and the Articles. _See also_ Thirty-nine Articles +Dodsworth, Mr. +Dominic, Father, receives Newman into Church of Rome +Donkin, Mr. +Doyle, Sir F., on Newman's sermons + +_Ecclesiologist_ founded +Eden, C.P. +_Edinburgh Review_, article by Dr. Arnold on Tractarians +"Elucidations of Dr. Hampden's Theological Statements" +_English Churchman_ founded +Evangelicism in 1830, character of + +Faber, Francis +Faber, Frederic +Fasting, Tract on +Faussett, Dr. + attack on Dr. Pusey +Froude, Richard Hurrell + pupil of Keble + Fellow of Oriel + first meeting with Newman + early estimate of Newman + travels with Newman + influence on the movement + his severe self-discipline + character + Mozley's remarks on + correspondence + his _Remains_ published + effect of publication + a modern estimate of the _Remains_ + events of 1830 + theory of the Church + sermons and writings + Lord Blachford's reminiscences of +Froude, William + +Garbett, Mr., elected Professor of Poetry +Gilbert, Dr. +Gladstone, Mr. +Golightly, Mr. +Gorham, Mr. +_Grammar of Assent_ on Faith and Reason +Greenhill, Dr. +_Guardian_ founded +Guillemard, Mr. + +Haddan, A. +Hadleigh, Conference of leaders at + policy adopted +Hampden, Dr. + advocates abolition of subscription of Articles + his election as Professor of Divinity + outcry against election of + Bampton Lectures + so-called "persecution" of + modern estimate of the "persecution" + deprived of vote for Select Preachers + his action in the B.D. degree contest +Hare, Julius +Hawkins, Dr. +Hawkins, E. +Hill, Mr. +Hobhouse, Mr. +Holland House +"Home Thoughts Abroad" +Hook, Dr. +Hope, Mr. Beresford +Howley, Archbishop +Hussey, Mr. + +_Ideal of a Christian Church_, _See_ W.G. Ward +Infallibility, views on +Irons, Dr. + +Jebb, Bishop +Jelf, Dr. +Jenkyns, Dr. +Jerusalem, Bishopric of +Jerusalem, Bishopric of, Newman's protest against +Jolly, Bishop +Jowett, Mr. + +Kaye, Bishop +Keble, John + brilliant Oxford career + suspicions of Evangelicism + a strong Tory + his poetic nature + influence on Froude + his pupils + sermon on _National Apostasy_ + tract on "Mysticism of the Fathers" + resigns Poetry Professorship +Keble, Thomas +Knox, Alexander + +Law's _Serious Call_, Keble's remark on +Le Bas, Mr. +_Lectures on Justification_, Newman's, influence of +_Letter to the Bishop of Oxford_, Newman's +Letters of an Episcopalian +Lewis, D. +_Library of the Fathers_ +Lloyd's, Bishop, Lectures, influence of +Lowe, R. +Lyall, Mr. +_Lyra Apostolica_ + +Macmullen, Mr. + his contest on B.D. degree +Manning, Archdeacon +Marriott, Charles + influenced by Coleridge and Dr. Hampden + aversion to party action + Scholar of Balliol + Fellow of Oriel + Newman's influence on + Moberly's influence on + Principal of Chichester Theological College + scheme of poor students' hall + Tutor of Oriel + Vicar of St. Mary's + his sermons + rooms and parties + share in _Library of the Fathers_ + Mozley's estimate of + death +Marsh, Bishop +"Martyrs' Memorial," connexion with the movement +Maurice, F.D., views of +Melbourne, Lord +Meyrick, T. +Miller, John (of Worcester), Bampton Lectures, influence of +Moberly, Dr. (of Winchester) +Monophysite Controversy +Morris, John Brande +Mozley, James + on Newman's sermons + on "No. 90" +Mozley, Thomas + on Charles Marriott + on Froude +"Mysticism of the Fathers in the use and interpretation of Scripture," + Keble's Tract on + +National Apostasy, Keble's sermon on +Newman, John Henry-- + his early preaching + meeting with Froude + Froude's early estimate of + on Apostolic Succession, _q.v._ + on Infallibility + attitude at different times to Rome + early friends + first Tract, written by + his four o'clock sermons + chief coadjutors of + views on subscription of Articles + on Dr. Hampden's theology + character + Lectures + _Lectures on Justification_ + Anglicanism, views on + resigns St. Mary's + not a proselytiser + _Letter to Bishop of Oxford_ + interpretation of Church formularies + on the Articles, _See_ "No. 90" + _Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine_ + joins Church of Rome +Nicknames +"No. 90" + Newman's attitude on + object to defend Catholicity of the Articles + its reception + charge of dishonesty against + condemned by Board of Heads + pamphlet war on + the crisis of the movement + events after + +Oakeley, Mr. + article on "Jewel" +Ogilvie, Dr. +Ordination, validity of +_Origines Liturgicae_ +Oxford, Liberal School of Theology + Orthodoxy + as a Church School +Oxford Movement-- + political conditions of + beginnings of + Keble the primary author of + early writings towards + the leaders + forced on the originators + object of + accession of Dr. Pusey and his influence + gradual growth of + attitude to Romanism + changes in + tendency to Romanism + in origin anti-Roman + attitude of University authorities towards + attitude of Bishops towards + mistakes in conduct of +Oxford Movement-- + rise of third school + secessions to Rome + +Palmer, William, share in movement + _Origines Liturgicae_ + _Narrative_ + _Treatise on the Church of Christ_ +Palmer, Mr. Roundell +Park, Judge Allan +_Parochial Sermons_ +Pattison, Mark +Peel, Sir Robert +Perceval, A., share in movement +Phillpotts, Bishop +_Plain Sermons_ +Poetry Professorship, contest for, made a theological one +_Prophetical Office of the Church_ +"Prospects of the Anglican Church" + Newman's after-thoughts on +Pusey, Dr. + joins the movement + effect of his adhesion + his _Remonstrance_ + tract on Baptism + attack on him + sermon on the Holy Eucharist "delated" to Vice-Chancellor + unfairness of proceedings against + memorial to Vice-Chancellor, on his case + +"Records of the Church" +Reform days, state of Church +Reformers, early, views of +_Remonstrance_ +"Reserve in communicating Religious Knowledge," Isaac + Williams's tract on +Richards, Mr. Upton +Rogers, Frederic +_Romanism and Popular Protestantism_ +Romanism + misconceptions of + Newman's attitude towards + tendency in party of movement towards +Rose, Hugh James + an estimate of + lectures on German speculation + controversy with Dr. Pusey + early death +Routh, Dr. +_Rusticus_, pamphlets by +Ryder, G. + +St. John, Mr. Ambrose +Scott, Mr. Hope +Scott, W. +Seager, Charles +Selwyn, Bishop +Sewell, William +Shairp, Principal, on Newman's sermons +Sikes, Mr. (of Guilsborough) +Simpson, Mr. +Stanley, Mr. Arthur +Sterling, John +Subscription. _See_ Thirty-nine Articles +Sumner, J. Bird, Bishop +Symons, Dr. + opposition to, as Vice-Chancellor + +Tait, Mr. (of Balliol) +Theologians of 1830 +Third party in Church-- + rise of + influence +Thirlwall, Connop +Thirty-nine Articles, subscription of + Dr. Hampden and subscription + pamphlet war on subscription + Newman on subscription + their Catholicity + _And see_ W.G. Ward "No. 90" on +Thomas, Vaughan +_Times_, letters of _Catholicus_ to +Tottenham, E. +Tractarian doctrines, discussion of + Movement. _See_ Oxford +Tractarians, excitement against +Tract, text of the first +Tracts, the-- + topics of + mode of circulating + reception of + accused of Romanism + first volume of + later numbers, character of + public opinion against + "No. 90," _q.v._ + contributors to + on "Reserve," _q.v._ + on "Mysticism," _q.v._ +_Treatise on the Church of Christ_ + +Utilitarianism, influence on religious belief + +_Via Media_ + +Wall, Mr. +Ward, W.G. + dismissed from Balliol Lectureship + writings on Romanism + his criticisms of English Church + _Ideal of a Christian Church_ + on "No. 90" + on the Articles + hostility to Lutheranism + his philosophy of religion + his book condemned + himself "degraded" + joins Church of Rome +Watson, Joshua +Wellington, Duke of +Whately, Dr.-- + theories on Church + opposed to Tractarians + _Letters of an Episcopalian_ +White, Blanco +Whytehead, Mr. +Wilberforce, Henry +Wilberforce, Robert +Williams, Isaac +Williams, Isaac, Keble's influence on + Fellow of Trinity + connexion with Newman + divergences from Newman + contributions to _Plain Sermons_ + aversion to Rome + his poetry + defeated for Poetry Professorship + Tract on "Reserve" +Wilson, H.B. +Wilson, R.F. +Wiseman, Dr. + article on Donatists +Wood, S.F. +Woodgate, Mr. +Wordsworth, Dr. +Wynter, Dr. + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Oxford Movement, by R.W. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c63bd37 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #12092 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12092) diff --git a/old/12092-0.txt b/old/12092-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3bb2e89 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12092-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10765 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Oxford Movement, by R.W. Church + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Oxford Movement + Twelve Years, 1833-1845 + +Author: R.W. Church + +Release Date: April 20, 2004 [EBook #12092] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OXFORD MOVEMENT *** + + + + +Produced by PG Distributed Proofreaders. Produced from images provided +by the Million Book Project. + + + + + +THE OXFORD MOVEMENT + +TWELVE YEARS 1833-1845 + +R.W. CHURCH, M.A., D.C.L. + +SOMETIME DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S AND FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD + + + + +ADVERTISEMENT + + +The revision of these papers was a task to which the late Dean of St. +Paul's gave all the work he could during the last months of his life. At +the time of his death, fourteen of the papers had, so far as can be +judged, received the form in which he wished them to be published; and +these, of course, are printed here exactly as he left them. One more he +had all but prepared for publication; the last four were mainly in the +condition in which, six years ago, he had them privately put into type, +for the convenience of his own further work upon them, and for the +reading of two or three intimate friends. Those into whose care his work +has now come have tried, with the help of his pencilled notes, to bring +these four papers as nearly as they can into the form which they believe +he would have had them take. But it has seemed better to leave unaltered +a sentence here and there to which he might have given a more perfect +shape, rather than to run the risk of swerving from the thought which +was in his mind. + +It is possible that the Dean would have made considerable changes in +the preface which is here printed; for only that which seems the first +draft of it has been found. But even thus it serves to show his wish and +purpose for the work he had in hand; and it has therefore been thought +best to publish it. Leave has been obtained to add here some fragments +from a letter which, three years ago, he wrote to Lord Acton about these +papers: + +"If I ever publish them, I must say distinctly what I want to do, which +is, not to pretend to write a history of the movement, or to account for +it or adequately to judge it and put it in its due place in relation to +the religious and philosophical history of the time, but simply to +preserve a contemporary memorial of what seems to me to have been a true +and noble effort which passed before my eyes, a short scene of religious +earnestness and aspiration, with all that was in it of self-devotion, +affectionateness, and high and refined and varied character, displayed +under circumstances which are scarcely intelligible to men of the +present time; so enormous have been the changes in what was assumed and +acted upon, and thought practicable and reasonable, 'fifty years since.' +For their time and opportunities, the men of the movement, with all +their imperfect equipment and their mistakes, still seem to me the salt +of their generation.... I wish to leave behind me a record that one who +lived with them, and lived long beyond most of them, believed in the +reality of their goodness and height of character, and still looks back +with deepest reverence to those forgotten men as the companions to whose +teaching and example he owes an infinite debt, and not he only, but +religious society in England of all kinds." + +_January_ 31st, 1891. + + + + +PREFACE + + +The following pages relate to that stage in the Church revival of this +century which is familiarly known as the Oxford Movement, or, to use its +nickname, the Tractarian Movement. Various side influences and +conditions affected it at its beginning and in its course; but the +impelling and governing force was, throughout the years with which these +pages are concerned, at Oxford. It was naturally and justly associated +with Oxford, from which it received some of its most marked +characteristics. Oxford men started it and guided it. At Oxford were +raised its first hopes, and Oxford was the scene of its first successes. +At Oxford were its deep disappointments, and its apparently fatal +defeat. And it won and lost, as a champion of English theology and +religion, a man of genius, whose name is among the illustrious names of +his age, a name which will always be connected with modern Oxford, and +is likely to be long remembered wherever the English language is +studied. + +We are sometimes told that enough has been written about the Oxford +Movement, and that the world is rather tired of the subject. A good deal +has certainly been both said and written about it, and more is probably +still to come; and it is true that other interests, more immediate or +more attractive, have thrown into the background what is severed from us +by the interval of half a century. Still that movement had a good deal +to do with what is going on in everyday life among us now; and feelings +both of hostility to it, and of sympathy with it, are still lively and +keen among those to whom religion is a serious subject, and even among +some who are neutral in the questions which it raised, but who find in +it a study of thought and character. I myself doubt whether the interest +of it is so exhausted as is sometimes assumed. If it is, these pages +will soon find their appropriate resting-place. But I venture to present +them, because, though a good many judgments upon the movement have been +put forth, they have come mostly from those who have been more or less +avowedly opposed to it.[1] The men of most account among those who were +attracted by it and represented it have, with one illustrious exception, +passed away. A survivor of the generation which it stirred so deeply may +not have much that is new to tell about it. He may not be able to affect +much the judgment which will finally be accepted about it. But the fact +is not unimportant, that a number of able and earnest men, men who both +intellectually and morally would have been counted at the moment as part +of the promise of the coming time, were fascinated and absorbed by it. +It turned and governed their lives, lifting them out of custom and +convention to efforts after something higher, something worthier of what +they were. It seemed worth while to exhibit the course of the movement +as it looked to these men--as it seemed to them viewed from the inside. +My excuse for adding to so much that has been already written is, that I +was familiar with many of the chief actors in the movement. And I do not +like that the remembrance of friends and associates, men of singular +purity of life and purpose, who raised the tone of living round them, +and by their example, if not by their ideas, recalled both Oxford and +the Church to a truer sense of their responsibilities, should, because +no one would take the trouble to put things on record, "pass away like a +dream." + +The following pages were, for the most part, written, and put into +printed shape, in 1884 and 1885. Since they were written, books have +appeared, some of them important ones, going over most of the same +ground; while yet more volumes may be expected. We have had ingenious +theories of the genesis of the movement, and the filiation of its ideas. +Attempts have been made to alter the proportions of the scene and of the +several parts played upon it, and to reduce the common estimate of the +weight and influence of some of the most prominent personages. The +point of view of those who have thus written is not mine, and they tell +their story (with a full right so to do) as I tell mine. But I do not +purpose to compare and adjust our respective accounts--to attack theirs, +or to defend my own. I have not gone through their books to find +statements to except to, or to qualify. The task would be a tiresome and +unprofitable one. I understand their point of view, though I do not +accept it. I do not doubt their good faith, and I hope that they will +allow mine. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] It is hardly necessary to say that these and the following words +were written before Dr. Newman's death, and the publication of his +letters. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I +THE CHURCH IN THE REFORM DAYS + +CHAPTER II +THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVEMENT--JOHN KEBLE + +CHAPTER III +RICHARD HURRELL FROUDE + +CHAPTER IV +MR. NEWMAN'S EARLY FRIENDS--ISAAC WILLIAMS + +CHAPTER V +CHARLES MARRIOTT + +CHAPTER VI +THE OXFORD TRACTS + +CHAPTER VII +THE TRACTARIANS + +CHAPTER VIII +SUBSCRIPTION AT MATRICULATION AND ADMISSION OF DISSENTERS + +CHAPTER IX +DR. HAMPDEN + +CHAPTER X +GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT, 1835-1840 + +CHAPTER XI +THE ROMAN QUESTION + +CHAPTER XII +CHANGES + +CHAPTER XIII +THE AUTHORITIES AND THE MOVEMENT + +CHAPTER XIV +NO. 90 + +CHAPTER XV +AFTER NO. 90 + +CHAPTER XVI +THE THREE DEFEATS: ISAAC WILLIAMS, MACMULLEN, PUSEY + +CHAPTER XVII +W.G. WARD + +CHAPTER XVIII +THE IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH + +CHAPTER XIX +THE CATASTROPHE + + + + +THE OXFORD MOVEMENT + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE CHURCH IN THE REFORM DAYS + + +What is called the Oxford or Tractarian movement began, without doubt, +in a vigorous effort for the immediate defence of the Church against +serious dangers, arising from the violent and threatening temper of the +days of the Reform Bill. It was one of several and widely differing +efforts. Viewed superficially it had its origin in the accident of an +urgent necessity.[2] The Church was really at the moment imperilled amid +the crude revolutionary projects of the Reform epoch;[3] and something +bolder and more effective than the ordinary apologies for the Church +was the call of the hour. The official leaders of the Church were almost +stunned and bewildered by the fierce outbreak of popular hostility. The +answers put forth on its behalf to the clamour for extensive and even +destructive change were the work of men surprised in a moment of +security. They scarcely recognised the difference between what was +indefensible and what must be fought for to the death; they mistook +subordinate or unimportant points for the key of their position: in +their compromises or in their resistance they wanted the guidance of +clear and adequate principles, and they were vacillating and +ineffective. But stronger and far-seeing minds perceived the need of a +broad and intelligible basis on which to maintain the cause of the +Church. For the air was full of new ideas; the temper of the time was +bold and enterprising. It was felt by men who looked forward, that to +hold their own they must have something more to show than custom or +alleged expediency--they must sound the depths of their own convictions, +and not be afraid to assert the claims of these convictions on men's +reason and imagination as well as on their associations and feelings. +The same dangers and necessities acted differently on different minds; +but among those who were awakened by them to the presence of a great +crisis were the first movers in what came to be known as the Tractarian +movement. The stir around them, the perils which seemed to threaten, +were a call to them to examine afresh the meaning of their familiar +words and professions. + +For the Church, as it had been in the quiet days of the eighteenth +century, was scarcely adapted to the needs of more stirring times. The +idea of clerical life had certainly sunk, both in fact and in the +popular estimate of it. The disproportion between the purposes for which +the Church with its ministry was founded and the actual tone of feeling +among those responsible for its service had become too great. Men were +afraid of principles; the one thing they most shrank from was the +suspicion of enthusiasm. Bishop Lavington wrote a book to hold up to +scorn the enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists; and what would have +seemed reasonable and natural in matters of religion and worship in the +age of Cranmer, in the age of Hooker, in the age of Andrewes, or in the +age of Ken, seemed extravagant in the age which reflected the spirit of +Tillotson and Secker, and even Porteus. The typical clergyman in English +pictures of the manners of the day, in the _Vicar of Wakefield,_ in Miss +Austen's novels, in Crabbe's _Parish Register,_ is represented, often +quite unsuspiciously, as a kindly and respectable person, but certainly +not alive to the greatness of his calling. He was often much, very much, +to the society round him. When communication was so difficult and +infrequent, he filled a place in the country life of England which no +one else could fill. He was often the patriarch of his parish, its +ruler, its doctor, its lawyer, its magistrate, as well as its teacher, +before whom vice trembled and rebellion dared not show itself. The idea +of the priest was not quite forgotten; but there was much--much even of +what was good and useful--to obscure it. The beauty of the English +Church in this time was its family life of purity and simplicity; its +blot was quiet worldliness. It has sometimes been the fashion in later +days of strife and disquiet to regret that unpretending estimate of +clerical duty and those easy-going days; as it has sometimes been the +fashion to regret the pomp and dignity with which well-born or scholarly +bishops, furnished with ample leisure and splendid revenues, presided in +unapproachable state over their clergy and held their own among the +great county families. Most things have a side for which something can +be said; and we may truthfully and thankfully recall that among the +clergy of those days there were not a few but many instances, not only +of gentle manners, and warm benevolence, and cultivated intelligence, +but of simple piety and holy life.[4] But the fortunes of the Church are +not safe in the hands of a clergy, of which a great part take their +obligations easily. It was slumbering and sleeping when the visitation +of days of change and trouble came upon it. + +Against this state of things the Oxford movement was a determined +revolt; but, as has been said, it was not the only one, nor the first. A +profound discontent at the state of religion in England had taken +possession of many powerful and serious minds in the generation which +was rising into manhood at the close of the first quarter of the +century; and others besides the leaders of the movement were feeling +their way to firmer ground. Other writers of very different principles, +and with different objects, had become alive, among other things, to the +importance of true ideas about the Church, impatient at the ignorance +and shallowness of the current views of it, and alarmed at the dangers +which menaced it. Two Oxford teachers who commanded much attention by +their force and boldness--Dr. Whately and Dr. Arnold--had developed +their theories about the nature, constitution, and functions of the +Church. They were dissatisfied with the general stagnation of religious +opinion, on this as on other subjects. They agreed in resenting the +unintelligent shortsightedness which relegated such a matter to a third +or fourth rank in the scale of religious teaching. They agreed also in +seizing the spiritual aspect of the Church, and in raising the idea of +it above the level of the poor and worldly conceptions on the assumption +of which questions relating to it were popularly discussed. But in their +fundamental principles they were far apart. I assume, on the authority +of Cardinal Newman, what was widely believed in Oxford, and never +apparently denied, that the volume entitled _Letters of an +Episcopalian_,[5] 1826, was, in some sense at least, the work of Dr. +Whately. In it is sketched forth the conception of an organised body, +introduced into the world by Christ Himself, endowed with definite +spiritual powers and with no other, and, whether connected with the +State or not, having an independent existence and inalienable claims, +with its own objects and laws, with its own moral standard and spirit +and character. From this book Cardinal Newman tells us that he learnt +his theory of the Church, though it was, after all, but the theory +received from the first appearance of Christian history; and he records +also the deep impression which it made on others. Dr. Arnold's view was +a much simpler one. He divided the world into Christians and +non-Christians: Christians were all who professed to believe in Christ +as a Divine Person and to worship Him,[6] and the brotherhood, the +"Societas" of Christians, was all that was meant by "the Church" in the +New Testament. It mattered, of course, to the conscience of each +Christian what he had made up his mind to believe, but to no one else. +Church organisation was, according to circumstances, partly inevitable +or expedient, partly mischievous, but in no case of divine authority. +Teaching, ministering the word, was a thing of divine appointment, but +not so the mode of exercising it, either as to persons, forms, or +methods. Sacraments there were, signs and pledges of divine love and +help, in every action of life, in every sight of nature, and eminently +two most touching ones, recommended to Christians by the Redeemer +Himself; but except as a matter of mere order, one man might deal with +these as lawfully as another. Church history there was, fruitful in +interest, instruction, and warning; for it was the record of the long +struggle of the true idea of the Church against the false, and of the +fatal disappearance of the true before the forces of blindness and +wickedness.[7] Dr. Arnold's was a passionate attempt to place the true +idea in the light. Of the difficulties of his theory he made light +account. There was the vivid central truth which glowed through his soul +and quickened all his thoughts. He became its champion and militant +apostle. These doctrines, combined with his strong political liberalism, +made the Midlands hot for Dr. Arnold. But he liked the fighting, as he +thought, against the narrow and frightened orthodoxy round him. And he +was in the thick of this fighting when another set of ideas about the +Church--the ideas on which alone it seemed to a number of earnest and +anxious minds that the cause of the Church could be maintained--the +ideas which were the beginning of the Oxford movement, crossed his path. +It was the old orthodox tradition of the Church, with fresh life put +into it, which he flattered himself that he had so triumphantly +demolished. This intrusion of a despised rival to his own teaching about +the Church--teaching in which he believed with deep and fervent +conviction--profoundly irritated him; all the more that it came from men +who had been among his friends, and who, he thought, should have known +better.[8] + +But neither Dr. Whately's nor Dr. Arnold's attempts to put the old +subject of the Church in a new light gained much hold on the public +mind. One was too abstract; the other too unhistorical and +revolutionary. Both in Oxford and in the country were men whose hearts +burned within them for something less speculative and vague, something +more reverent and less individual, more in sympathy with the inherited +spirit of the Church. It did not need much searching to find in the +facts and history of the Church ample evidence of principles distinct +and inspiring, which, however long latent, or overlaid by superficial +accretions, were as well fitted as they ever were to animate its +defenders in the struggle with the unfriendly opinion of the day. They +could not open their Prayer-Books, and think of what they read there, +without seeing that on the face of it the Church claimed to be something +very different from what it was assumed to be in the current +controversies of the time, very different from a mere institution of the +State, from a vague collection of Christian professions from one form +or denomination of religion among many, distinguished by larger +privileges and larger revenues. They could not help seeing that it +claimed an origin not short of the Apostles of Christ, and took for +granted that it was to speak and teach with their authority and that of +their Master. These were theological commonplaces; but now, the pressure +of events and of competing ideas made them to be felt as real and +momentous truths. Amid the confusions and inconsistencies of the +semi-political controversy on Church reform, and on the defects and +rights of the Church, which was going on in Parliament, in the press, +and in pamphlets, the deeper thoughts of those who were interested in +its fortunes were turned to what was intrinsic and characteristic in its +constitution: and while these thoughts in some instances only issued in +theory and argument, in others they led to practical resolves to act +upon them and enforce them. + +At the end of the first quarter of the century, say about 1825-30, two +characteristic forms of Church of England Christianity were popularly +recognised. One inherited the traditions of a learned and sober +Anglicanism, claiming as the authorities for its theology the great line +of English divines from Hooker to Waterland, finding its patterns of +devotion in Bishop Wilson, Bishop Horne, and the "Whole Duty of Man," +but not forgetful of Andrewes, Jeremy Taylor, and Ken,--preaching, +without passion or excitement, scholarlike, careful, wise, often +vigorously reasoned discourses on the capital points of faith and +morals, and exhibiting in its adherents, who were many and important, +all the varieties of a great and far-descended school, which claimed for +itself rightful possession of the ground which it held. There was +nothing effeminate about it, as there was nothing fanatical; there was +nothing extreme or foolish about it; it was a manly school, distrustful +of high-wrought feelings and professions, cultivating self-command and +shy of display, and setting up as its mark, in contrast to what seemed +to it sentimental weakness, a reasonable and serious idea of duty. The +divinity which it propounded, though it rested on learning, was rather +that of strong common sense than of the schools of erudition. Its better +members were highly cultivated, benevolent men, intolerant of +irregularities both of doctrine and life, whose lives were governed by +an unostentatious but solid and unfaltering piety, ready to burst forth +on occasion into fervid devotion. Its worse members were jobbers and +hunters after preferment, pluralists who built fortunes and endowed +families out of the Church, or country gentlemen in orders, who rode to +hounds and shot and danced and farmed, and often did worse things. Its +average was what naturally in England would be the average, in a state +of things in which great religious institutions have been for a long +time settled and unmolested--kindly, helpful, respectable, sociable +persons of good sense and character, workers rather in a fashion of +routine which no one thought of breaking, sometimes keeping up their +University learning, and apt to employ it in odd and not very profitable +inquiries; apt, too, to value themselves on their cheerfulness and quick +wit; but often dull and dogmatic and quarrelsome, often insufferably +pompous. The custom of daily service and even of fasting was kept up +more widely than is commonly supposed. The Eucharist, though sparingly +administered, and though it had been profaned by the operation of the +Test Acts, was approached by religious people with deep reverence. But +besides the better, and the worse, and the average members of this, +which called itself the Church party, there stood out a number of men of +active and original minds, who, starting from the traditions of the +party, were in advance of it in thought and knowledge, or in the desire +to carry principles into action. At the Universities learning was still +represented by distinguished names. At Oxford, Dr. Routh was still +living and at work, and Van Mildert was not forgotten. Bishop Lloyd, if +he had lived, would have played a considerable part; and a young man of +vast industry and great Oriental learning, Mr. Pusey, was coming on the +scene. Davison, in an age which had gone mad about the study of +prophecy, had taught a more intelligent and sober way of regarding it; +and Mr. John Miller's Bampton Lectures, now probably only remembered by +a striking sentence, quoted in a note to the _Christian Year,_[9] had +impressed his readers with a deeper sense of the uses of Scripture. +Cambridge, besides scholars like Bishop Kaye, and accomplished writers +like Mr. Le Bas and Mr. Lyall, could boast of Mr. Hugh James Rose, the +most eminent person of his generation as a divine. But the influence of +this learned theology was at the time not equal to its value. Sound +requires atmosphere; and there was as yet no atmosphere in the public +mind in which the voice of this theology could be heard. The person who +first gave body and force to Church theology, not to be mistaken or +ignored, was Dr. Hook. His massive and thorough Churchmanship was the +independent growth of his own thoughts and reading. Resolute, through +good report and evil report, rough but very generous, stern both against +Popery and Puritanism, he had become a power in the Midlands and the +North, and first Coventry, then Leeds, were the centres of a new +influence. He was the apostle of the Church to the great middle class. + +These were the orthodox Churchmen, whom their rivals, and not their +rivals only,[10] denounced as dry, unspiritual, formal, unevangelical, +self-righteous; teachers of mere morality at their best, allies and +servants of the world at their worst. In the party which at this time +had come to be looked upon popularly as best entitled to be the +_religious_ party, whether they were admired as Evangelicals, or abused +as Calvinists, or laughed at as the Saints, were inheritors not of +Anglican traditions, but of those which had grown up among the zealous +clergymen and laymen who had sympathised with the great Methodist +revival, and whose theology and life had been profoundly affected by it. +It was the second or third generation of those whose religious ideas had +been formed and governed by the influence of teachers like Hervey, +Romaine, Cecil, Venn, Fletcher, Newton, and Thomas Scott. The fathers of +the Evangelical school were men of naturally strong and vigorous +understandings, robust and rugged, and sometimes eccentric, but quite +able to cope with the controversialists, like Bishop Tomline, who +attacked them. These High Church controversialists were too half-hearted +and too shallow, and understood their own principles too imperfectly, to +be a match for antagonists who were in deadly earnest, and put them to +shame by their zeal and courage. But Newton and Romaine and the Milners +were too limited and narrow in their compass of ideas to found a +powerful theology. They undoubtedly often quickened conscience. But +their system was a one-sided and unnatural one, indeed in the hands of +some of its expounders threatening morality and soundness of +character.[11] It had none of the sweep which carried the justification +doctrines of Luther, or the systematic predestinarianism of Calvin, or +the "platform of discipline" of John Knox and the Puritans. It had to +deal with a society which laid stress on what was "reasonable," or +"polite," or "ingenious," or "genteel," and unconsciously it had come to +have respect to these requirements. The one thing by which its preachers +carried disciples with them was their undoubted and serious piety, and +their brave, though often fantastic and inconsistent, protest against +the world. They won consideration and belief by the mild persecution +which this protest brought on them--by being proscribed as enthusiasts +by comfortable dignitaries, and mocked as "Methodists" and "Saints" by +wits and worldlings. But the austere spirit of Newton and Thomas Scott +had, between 1820 and 1830, given way a good deal to the influence of +increasing popularity. The profession of Evangelical religion had been +made more than respectable by the adhesion of men of position and +weight. Preached in the pulpits of fashionable chapels, this religion +proved to be no more exacting than its "High and Dry" rival. It gave a +gentle stimulus to tempers which required to be excited by novelty. It +recommended itself by gifts of flowing words or high-pitched rhetoric to +those who expected _some_ demands to be made on them, so that these +demands were not too strict. Yet Evangelical religion had not been +unfruitful, especially in public results. It had led Howard and +Elizabeth Fry to assail the brutalities of the prisons. It had led +Clarkson and Wilberforce to overthrow the slave trade, and ultimately +slavery itself. It had created great Missionary Societies. It had given +motive and impetus to countless philanthropic schemes. What it failed in +was the education and development of character; and this was the result +of the increasing meagreness of its writing and preaching. There were +still Evangelical preachers of force and eloquence--Robert Hall, Edward +Irving, Chalmers, Jay of Bath--but they were not Churchmen. The circle +of themes dwelt on by this school in the Church was a contracted one, +and no one had found the way of enlarging it. It shrank, in its fear of +mere moralising, in its horror of the idea of merit or of the value of +good works, from coming into contact with the manifold realities of the +spirit of man: it never seemed to get beyond the "first beginnings" of +Christian teaching, the call to repent, the assurance of forgiveness: it +had nothing to say to the long and varied process of building up the new +life of truth and goodness: it was nervously afraid of departing from +the consecrated phrases of its school, and in the perpetual iteration of +them it lost hold of the meaning they may once have had. It too often +found its guarantee for faithfulness in jealous suspicions, and in +fierce bigotries, and at length it presented all the characteristics of +an exhausted teaching and a spent enthusiasm. Claiming to be exclusively +spiritual, fervent, unworldly, the sole announcer of the free grace of +God amid self-righteousness and sin, it had come, in fact, to be on very +easy terms with the world. Yet it kept its hold on numbers of +spiritually-minded persons, for in truth there seemed to be nothing +better for those who saw in the affections the main field of religion. +But even of these good men, the monotonous language sounded to all but +themselves inconceivably hollow and wearisome; and in the hands of the +average teachers of the school, the idea of religion was becoming poor +and thin and unreal. + +But besides these two great parties, each of them claiming to represent +the authentic and unchanging mind of the Church, there were independent +thinkers who took their place with neither and criticised both. Paley +had still his disciples at Cambridge, or if not disciples, yet +representatives of his masculine but not very profound and reverent way +of thinking; and a critical school, represented by names afterwards +famous, Connop Thirlwall and Julius Hare, strongly influenced by German +speculation, both in theology and history, began to attract attention. +And at Cambridge was growing, slowly and out of sight, a mind and an +influence which were to be at once the counterpart and the rival of the +Oxford movement, its ally for a short moment, and then its earnest and +often bitter enemy. In spite of the dominant teaching identified with +the name of Mr. Simeon, Frederic Maurice, with John Sterling and other +members of the Apostles' Club, was feeling for something truer and +nobler than the conventionalities of the religious world.[12] In Oxford, +mostly in a different way, more dry, more dialectical, and, perhaps it +may be said, more sober, definite, and ambitious of clearness, the same +spirit was at work. There was a certain drift towards Dissent among the +warmer spirits. Under the leading of Whately, questions were asked about +what was supposed to be beyond dispute with both Churchmen and +Evangelicals. Current phrases, the keynotes of many a sermon, were +fearlessly taken to pieces. Men were challenged to examine the meaning +of their words. They were cautioned or ridiculed as the case might be, +on the score of "confusion of thought" and "inaccuracy of mind"; they +were convicted of great logical sins, _ignoratio elenchi,_ or +_undistributed middle terms;_ and bold theories began to make their +appearance about religious principles and teaching, which did not easily +accommodate themselves to popular conceptions. In very different ways +and degrees, Davison, Copleston, Whately, Hawkins, Milman, and not +least, a brilliant naturalised Spaniard who sowed the seeds of doubt +around him, Blanco White, had broken through a number of accepted +opinions, and had presented some startling ideas to men who had thought +that all religious questions lay between the orthodoxy of Lambeth and +the orthodoxy of Clapham and Islington. And thus the foundation was +laid, at least, at Oxford of what was then called the Liberal School of +Theology. Its theories and paradoxes, then commonly associated with the +"_Noetic_" character of one college, Oriel, were thought startling and +venturesome when discussed in steady-going common-rooms and country +parsonages; but they were still cautious and old-fashioned compared +with what was to come after them. The distance is indeed great between +those early disturbers of lecture-rooms and University pulpits, and +their successors. + +While this was going on within the Church, there was a great movement of +thought going on in the country. It was the time when Bentham's +utilitarianism had at length made its way into prominence and +importance. It had gained a hold on a number of powerful minds in +society and political life. It was threatening to become the dominant +and popular philosophy. It began, in some ways beneficially, to affect +and even control legislation. It made desperate attempts to take +possession of the whole province of morals. It forced those who saw +through its mischief, who hated and feared it, to seek a reason, and a +solid and strong one, for the faith which was in them as to the reality +of conscience and the mysterious distinction between right and wrong. +And it entered into a close alliance with science, which was beginning +to assert its claims, since then risen so high, to a new and undefined +supremacy, not only in the general concerns of the world, but specially +in education. It was the day of Holland House. It was the time when a +Society of which Lord Brougham was the soul, and which comprised a great +number of important political and important scientific names, was +definitely formed for the _Diffusion of Useful Knowledge_. Their labours +are hardly remembered now in the great changes for which they paved the +way; but the Society was the means of getting written and of publishing +at a cheap rate a number of original and excellent books on science, +biography, and history. It was the time of the _Library of Useful +Knowledge,_ and its companion, the _Library of Entertaining Knowledge;_ +of the _Penny Magazine,_ and its Church rival, the _Saturday Magazine,_ +of the _Penny Cyclopaedia,_ and _Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia,_ and +_Murray's Family Library_: popular series, which contained much of the +work of the ablest men of the day, and which, though for the most part +superseded now, were full of interest then. Another creation of this +epoch, and an unmistakable indication of its tendencies, was the British +Association for the Advancement of Science, which met for the first time +at Oxford in June 1832, not without a good deal of jealousy and +misgiving, partly unreasonable, partly not unfounded, among men in whose +hearts the cause and fortunes of religion were supreme. + +Thus the time was ripe for great collisions of principles and aims; for +the decomposition of elements which had been hitherto united; for +sifting them out of their old combinations, and regrouping them +according to their more natural affinities. It was a time for the +formation and development of unexpected novelties in teaching and +practical effort. There was a great historic Church party, imperfectly +conscious of its position and responsibilities;[13] there was an active +but declining pietistic school, resting on a feeble intellectual basis +and narrow and meagre interpretations of Scripture, and strong only in +its circle of philanthropic work; there was, confronting both, a rising +body of inquisitive and, in some ways, menacing thought. To men deeply +interested in religion, the ground seemed confused and treacherous. +There was room, and there was a call, for new effort; but to find the +resources for it, it seemed necessary to cut down deep below the level +of what even good men accepted as the adequate expression of +Christianity, and its fit application to the conditions of the +nineteenth century. It came to pass that there were men who had the +heart to make this attempt. As was said at starting, the actual movement +began in the conviction that a great and sudden danger to the Church was +at hand, and that an unusual effort must be made to meet it. But if the +occasion was in a measure accidental, there was nothing haphazard or +tentative in the line chosen to encounter the danger. From the first it +was deliberately and distinctly taken. The choice of it was the result +of convictions which had been forming before the occasion came which +called on them. The religious ideas which governed the minds of those +who led the movement had been traced, in outline at least, firmly and +without faltering. + +The movement had its spring in the consciences and character of its +leaders. To these men religion really meant the most awful and most +seriously personal thing on earth. It had not only a theological basis; +it had still more deeply a moral one. What that basis was is shown in a +variety of indications of ethical temper and habits, before the +movement, in those who afterwards directed it. The _Christian Year_ was +published in 1827, and tells us distinctly by what kind of standard Mr. +Keble moulded his judgment and aims. What Mr. Keble's influence and +teaching did, in training an apt pupil to deep and severe views of truth +and duty, is to be seen in the records of purpose and self-discipline, +often so painful, but always so lofty and sincere, of Mr. Hurrell +Froude's journal. But these indications are most forcibly given in Mr. +Newman's earliest preaching. As tutor at Oriel, Mr. Newman had made what +efforts he could, sometimes disturbing to the authorities, to raise the +standard of conduct and feeling among his pupils. When he became a +parish priest, his preaching took a singularly practical and +plain-spoken character. The first sermon of the series, a typical +sermon, "Holiness necessary for future Blessedness," a sermon which has +made many readers grave when they laid it down, was written in 1826, +before he came to St. Mary's; and as he began he continued. No sermons, +except those which his great opposite, Dr. Arnold, was preaching at +Rugby, had appealed to conscience with such directness and force. A +passionate and sustained earnestness after a high moral rule, seriously +realised in conduct, is the dominant character of these sermons. They +showed the strong reaction against slackness of fibre in the religious +life; against the poverty, softness; restlessness, worldliness, the +blunted and impaired sense of truth, which reigned with little check in +the recognised fashions of professing Christianity; the want of depth +both of thought and feeling; the strange blindness to the real +sternness, nay the austerity, of the New Testament. Out of this ground +the movement grew. Even more than a theological reform, it was a protest +against the loose unreality of ordinary religious morality. In the first +stage of the movement, moral earnestness and enthusiasm gave its impulse +to theological interest and zeal. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] The suppression of the Irish bishoprics. Palmer, _Narrative_ (1883), +pp. 44, 101. Maurice, _Life_, i. 180. + +[3] "The Church, as it now stands, no human power can save" (Arnold to +Tyler, June 1832. _Life,_ i. 326). "Nothing, as it seems to me, can save +the Church but an union with the Dissenters; now they are leagued with +the antichristian party, and no merely internal reforms will satisfy +them" (Arnold to Whately, January 1833, i. 348). He afterwards thought +this exaggerated (_Life,_ i. 336). "The Church has been for one hundred +years without any government, and in such a stormy season it will not go +on much longer without a rudder" (Whately to Bp. Copleston, July 1832. +_Life_, i, 167). "If such an arrangement of the Executive Government is +completed, it will be a difficult, but great and glorious feat for your +Lordship's ministry to preserve the establishment from utter overthrow" +(Whately to Lord Grey, May 1832. _Life_, i. 156). It is remarkable that +Dean Stanley should have been satisfied with ascribing to the movement +an "origin _entirely political_" and should have seen a proof of this +"thoroughly political origin" in Newman's observing the date of Mr. +Keble's sermon "National Apostasy" as the birthday of the movement, +_Edin. Rev._ April 1880, pp. 309, 310. + +[4] Readers of Wordsworth will remember the account of Mr. R. Walker +(Notes to the "River Duddon"). + +[5] Compare _Life of Whately_ (ed. 1866), i. 52, 68. + +[6] Arnold to W. Smith, _Life_, i. 356-358; ii. 32. + +[7] _Life_, i. 225 _sqq_. + +[8] "I am vexed to find how much hopeless bigotry lingers in minds, οἶς +ἥκιστα ἕχρη" (Arnold to Whately, Sept. 1832. _Life,_ i. 331; ii. 3-7). + +[9] St. Bartholomew's Day + +[10] "The mere barren orthodoxy which, from all that I can hear, is +characteristic of Oxford." Maurice in 1829 (_Life,_ i. 103). In 1832 he +speaks of his "high endeavours to rouse Oxford from its lethargy having +so signally failed" (i. 143). + +[11] Abbey and Overton, _English Church in the Eighteenth Century,_ ii. +180, 204. + +[12] _V._ Maurice, _Life,_ i. 108-111; Trench's _Letters;_ Carlyle's +_Sterling_. + +[13] "In what concerns the Established Church, the House of Commons +seems to feel no other principle than that of vulgar policy. The old +High Church race is worn out." Alex. Knox (June 1816), i. 54. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVEMENT--JOHN KEBLE + + +Long before the Oxford movement was thought of, or had any definite +shape, a number of its characteristic principles and ideas had taken +strong hold of the mind of a man of great ability and great seriousness, +who, after a brilliant career at Oxford as student and tutor, had +exchanged the University for a humble country cure. John Keble, by some +years the senior, but the college friend and intimate of Arnold, was the +son of a Gloucestershire country clergyman of strong character and +considerable scholarship. He taught and educated his two sons at home, +and then sent them to Oxford, where both of them made their mark, and +the elder, John, a mere boy when he first appeared at his college, +Corpus, carried off almost everything that the University could give in +the way of distinction. He won a double first; he won the Latin and +English Essays in the same year; and he won what was the still greater +honour of an Oriel Fellowship. His honours were borne with meekness and +simplicity; to his attainments he joined a temper of singular sweetness +and modesty, capable at the same time, when necessary, of austere +strength and strictness of principle. He had become one of the most +distinguished men in Oxford, when about the year 1823 he felt himself +bound to give himself more exclusively to the work of a clergyman, and +left Oxford to be his father's curate. There was nothing very unusual in +his way of life, or singular and showy in his work as a clergyman; he +went in and out among the poor, he was not averse to society, he +preached plain, unpretending, earnest sermons; he kept up his literary +interests. But he was a deeply convinced Churchman, finding his standard +and pattern of doctrine and devotion in the sober earnestness and +dignity of the Prayer Book, and looking with great and intelligent +dislike at the teaching and practical working of the more popular system +which, under the name of Evangelical Christianity, was aspiring to +dominate religious opinion, and which, often combining some of the most +questionable features of Methodism and Calvinism, denounced with fierce +intolerance everything that deviated from its formulas and watchwords. +And as his loyalty to the Church of England was profound and intense, +all who had shared her fortunes, good or bad, or who professed to serve +her, had a place in his affections; and any policy which threatened to +injure or oppress her, and any principles which were hostile to her +influence and teaching, roused his indignation and resistance. He was a +strong Tory, and by conviction and religious temper a thorough High +Churchman. + +But there was nothing in him to foreshadow the leader in a bold and +wide-reaching movement. He was absolutely without ambition. He hated +show and mistrusted excitement. The thought of preferment was steadily +put aside both from temper and definite principle. He had no popular +aptitudes, and was very suspicious of them. He had no care for the +possession of influence; he had deliberately chosen the _fallentis +semita vitae,_ and to be what his father had been, a faithful and +contented country parson, was all that he desired. But idleness was not +in his nature. Born a poet, steeped in all that is noblest and tenderest +and most beautiful in Greek and Roman literature, with the keenest +sympathy with that new school of poetry which, with Wordsworth as its +representative, was searching out the deeper relations between nature +and the human soul, he found in poetical composition a vent and relief +for feelings stirred by the marvels of glory and of awfulness, and by +the sorrows and blessings, amid which human life is passed. But his +poetry was for a long time only for himself and his intimate friends; +his indulgence in poetical composition was partly playful, and it was +not till after much hesitation on his own part and also on theirs, and +with a contemptuous undervaluing of his work, which continued to the end +of his life, that the anonymous little book of poems was published which +has since become familiar wherever English is read, as the _Christian +year_. His serious interests were public ones. Though living in the +shade, he followed with anxiety and increasing disquiet the changes +which went on so rapidly and so formidably, during the end of the first +quarter of this century, in opinion and in the possession of political +power. It became more and more plain that great changes were at hand, +though not so plain what they would be. It seemed likely that power +would come into the hands of men and parties hostile to the Church in +their principles, and ready to use to its prejudice the advantages which +its position as an establishment gave them; and the anticipation grew in +Keble's mind, that in the struggles which seemed likely, not only for +the legal rights but for the faith of the Church, the Church might have +both to claim more, and to suffer more, at the hands of Government. Yet +though these thoughts filled his mind, and strong things were said in +the intercourse with friends about what was going on about them, no +definite course of action had been even contemplated when Keble went +into the country in 1823. There was nothing to distinguish him from +numbers of able clergymen all over England, who were looking on with +interest, with anxiety, often with indignation, at what was going on. +Mr. Keble had not many friends and was no party chief. He was a +brilliant university scholar overlaying the plain, unworldly country +parson; an old-fashioned English Churchman, with great veneration for +the Church and its bishops, and a great dislike of Rome, Dissent, and +Methodism, but with a quick heart; with a frank, gay humility of soul, +with great contempt of appearances, great enjoyment of nature, great +unselfishness, strict and severe principles of morals and duty. + +What was it that turned him by degrees into so prominent and so +influential a person? It was the result of the action of his convictions +and ideas, and still more of his character, on the energetic and +fearless mind of a pupil and disciple, Richard Hurrell Froude. Froude +was Keble's pupil at Oriel, and when Keble left Oriel for his curacy at +the beginning of the Long Vacation of 1823, he took Froude with him to +read for his degree. He took with him ultimately two other pupils, +Robert Wilberforce and Isaac Williams of Trinity. One of them, Isaac +Williams, has left some reminiscences of the time, and of the terms on +which the young men were with their tutor, then one of the most famous +men at Oxford. They were on terms of the utmost freedom. "Master is the +greatest boy of them all," was the judgment of the rustic who was +gardener, groom, and parish clerk to Mr. Keble. Froude's was a keen +logical mind, not easily satisfied, contemptuous of compromises and +evasions, and disposed on occasion to be mischievous and aggressive; and +with Keble, as with anybody else, he was ready to dispute and try every +form of dialectical experiment. But he was open to higher influences +than those of logic, and in Keble he saw what subdued and won him to +boundless veneration and affection. Keble won the love of the whole +little society; but in Froude he had gained a disciple who was to be the +mouthpiece and champion of his ideas, and who was to react on himself +and carry him forward to larger enterprises and bolder resolutions than +by himself he would have thought of. Froude took in from Keble all he +had to communicate--principles, convictions, moral rules and standards +of life, hopes, fears, antipathies. And his keenly-tempered intellect, +and his determination and high courage, gave a point and an impulse of +their own to Keble's views and purposes. As things came to look darker, +and dangers seemed more serious to the Church, its faith or its rights, +the interchange of thought between master and disciple, in talk and in +letter, pointed more and more to the coming necessity of action; and +Froude at least had no objections to the business of an agitator. But +all this was very gradual; things did not yet go beyond discussion; +ideas, views, arguments were examined and compared; and Froude, with all +his dash, felt as Keble felt, that he had much to learn about himself, +as well as about books and things. In his respect for antiquity, in his +dislike of the novelties which were invading Church rules and +sentiments, as well as its creeds, in his jealousy of the State, as well +as in his seriousness of self-discipline, he accepted Keble's guidance +and influence more and more; and from Keble he had more than one lesson +of self-distrust, more than one warning against the temptations of +intellect. "Froude told me many years after," writes one of his friends, +"that Keble once, before parting with him, seemed to have something on +his mind which he wished to say, but shrank from saying, while waiting, +I think, for a coach. At last he said, just before parting, 'Froude, you +thought Law's _Serious Call_ was a clever book; it seemed to me as if +you had said the Day of Judgment will be a pretty sight.' This speech, +Froude told me, had a great effect on his after life."[14] + +At Easter 1826 Froude was elected Fellow of Oriel. He came back to +Oxford, charged with Keble's thoughts and feelings, and from his more +eager and impatient temper, more on the look-out for ways of giving them +effect. The next year he became tutor, and he held the tutorship till +1830. But he found at Oriel a colleague, a little his senior in age and +standing, of whom Froude and his friends as yet knew little except that +he was a man of great ability, that he had been a favourite of +Whately's, and that in a loose and rough way he was counted among the +few Liberals and Evangelicals in Oxford. This was Mr. Newman. Keble had +been shy of him, and Froude would at first judge him by Keble's +standard. But Newman was just at this time "moving," as he expresses it, +"out of the shadow of Liberalism." Living not apart like Keble, but in +the same college, and meeting every day, Froude and Newman could not but +be either strongly and permanently repelled, or strongly attracted. They +were attracted; attracted with a force which at last united them in the +deepest and most unreserved friendship. Of the steps of this great +change in the mind and fortunes of each of them we have no record: +intimacies of this kind grow in college out of unnoticed and +unremembered talks, agreeing or differing, out of unconscious +disclosures of temper and purpose, out of walks and rides and quiet +breakfasts and common-room arguments, out of admirations and dislikes, +out of letters and criticisms and questions; and nobody can tell +afterwards how they have come about. The change was gradual and +deliberate. Froude's friends in Gloucestershire, the Keble family, had +their misgivings about Newman's supposed liberalism; they did not much +want to have to do with him. His subtle and speculative temper did not +always square with Froude's theology. "N. is a fellow that I like more, +the more I think of him," Froude wrote in 1828; "only I would give a few +odd pence if he were not a heretic."[15] But Froude, who saw him every +day, and was soon associated with him in the tutorship, found a spirit +more akin to his own in depth and freedom and daring, than he had yet +encountered. And Froude found Newman just in that maturing state of +religious opinion in which a powerful mind like Froude's would be likely +to act decisively. Each acted on the other. Froude represented Keble's +ideas, Keble's enthusiasm. Newman gave shape, foundation, consistency, +elevation to the Anglican theology, when he accepted it, which Froude +had learned from Keble. "I knew him first," we read in the _Apologia_, +"in 1826, and was in the closest and most affectionate friendship with +him from about 1829 till his death in 1836."[16] But this was not all. +Through Froude, Newman came to know and to be intimate with Keble; and +a sort of _camaraderie_ arose, of very independent and outspoken people, +who acknowledged Keble as their master and counsellor. + +"The true and primary author of it" (the Tractarian movement), we read +in the _Apologia_, "as is usual with great motive powers, was out of +sight.... Need I say that I am speaking of John Keble?" The statement is +strictly true. Froude never would have been the man he was but for his +daily and hourly intercourse with Keble; and Froude brought to bear upon +Newman's mind, at a critical period of its development, Keble's ideas +and feelings about religion and the Church, Keble's reality of thought +and purpose, Keble's transparent and saintly simplicity. And Froude, as +we know from a well-known saying of his,[17] brought Keble and Newman to +understand one another, when the elder man was shy and suspicious of the +younger, and the younger, though full of veneration for the elder, was +hardly yet in full sympathy with what was most characteristic and most +cherished in the elder's religious convictions. Keble attracted and +moulded Froude: he impressed Froude with his strong Churchmanship, his +severity and reality of life, his poetry and high standard of scholarly +excellence. Froude learned from him to be anti-Erastian, +anti-methodistical, anti-sentimental, and as strong in his hatred of the +world, as contemptuous of popular approval, as any Methodist. Yet all +this might merely have made a strong impression, or formed one more +marked school of doctrine, without the fierce energy which received it +and which it inspired. But Froude, in accepting Keble's ideas, resolved +to make them active, public, aggressive; and he found in Newman a +colleague whose bold originality responded to his own. Together they +worked as tutors; together they worked when their tutorships came to an +end; together they worked when thrown into companionship in their +Mediterranean voyage in the winter of 1832 and the spring of 1833. They +came back, full of aspirations and anxieties which spurred them on; +their thoughts had broken out in papers sent home from time to time to +Rose's _British Magazine_--"Home Thoughts Abroad," and the "Lyra +Apostolica." Then came the meeting at Hadleigh, and the beginning of the +Tracts. Keble had given the inspiration, Froude had given the impulse; +then Newman took up the work, and the impulse henceforward, and the +direction, were his. + +Doubtless, many thought and felt like them about the perils which beset +the Church and religion. Loyalty to the Church, belief in her divine +mission, allegiance to her authority, readiness to do battle for her +claims, were anything but extinct in her ministers and laity. The +elements were all about of sound and devoted Churchmanship. Higher ideas +of the Church than the popular and political notion of it, higher +conceptions of Christian doctrine than those of the ordinary evangelical +theology--echoes of the meditations of a remarkable Irishman, Mr. +Alexander Knox--had in many quarters attracted attention in the works +and sermons of his disciple. Bishop Jebb, though it was not till the +movement had taken shape that their full significance was realised. +Others besides Keble and Froude and Newman were seriously considering +what could best be done to arrest the current which was running strong +against the Church, and discussing schemes of resistance and defence. +Others were stirring up themselves and their brethren to meet the new +emergencies, to respond to the new call. Some of these were in +communication with the Oriel men, and ultimately took part with them in +organising vigorous measures. But it was not till Mr. Newman made up his +mind to force on the public mind, in a way which could not be evaded, +the great article of the Creed--"I believe one Catholic and Apostolic +Church"--that the movement began. And for the first part of its course, +it was concentrated at Oxford. It was the direct result of the +searchings of heart and the communings for seven years, from 1826 to +1833, of the three men who have been the subject of this chapter. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[14] Isaac Williams's MS. Memoir. + +[15] _Rem._ i. 232, 233. In 1828, Newman had preferred Hawkins to Keble, +for Provost. + +[16] _Apol._ p. 84. + +[17] _Remains_, i. 438; _Apol._ p. 77. "Do you know the story of the +murderer who had done one good thing in his life? Well, if I was asked +what good deed I have ever done, I should say I had brought Keble and +Newman to understand each other." + + + + +CHAPTER III[18] + +RICHARD HURRELL FROUDE + + +The names of those who took the lead in this movement are +familiar--Keble, Newman, Pusey, Hugh James Rose, William Palmer. Much +has been written about them by friends and enemies, and also by one of +themselves, and any special notice of them is not to the purpose of the +present narrative. But besides these, there were men who are now almost +forgotten, but who at the time interested their contemporaries, because +they were supposed to represent in a marked way the spirit and character +of the movement, or to have exercised influence upon it. They ought not +to be overlooked in an account of it. One of them has been already +mentioned, Mr. Hurrell Froude. Two others were Mr. Isaac Williams and +Mr. Charles Marriott. They were all three of them men whom those who +knew them could never forget--could never cease to admire and love. + +Hurrell Froude soon passed away before the brunt of the fighting came. +His name is associated with Mr. Newman and Mr. Keble, but it is little +more than a name to those who now talk of the origin of the movement. +Yet all who remember him agree in assigning to him an importance as +great as that of any, in that little knot of men whose thoughts and +whose courage gave birth to it. + +Richard Hurrell Froude was born in 1803, and was thus two years younger +than Mr. Newman, who was born in 1801. He went to Eton, and in 1821 to +Oriel, where he was a pupil of Mr. Keble, and where he was elected +Fellow, along with Robert Wilberforce, at Easter 1826. He was College +Tutor from 1827 to 1830, having Mr. Newman and R. Wilberforce for +colleagues. His health failed in 1831 and led to much absence in warm +climates. He went with Mr. Newman to the south of Europe in 1832-33, and +was with him at Rome. The next two winters, with the intervening year, +he spent in the West Indies. Early in 1836 he died at Dartington--his +birthplace. He was at the Hadleigh meeting, in July 1833, when the +foundations of the movement were laid; he went abroad that winter, and +was not much in England afterwards. It was through correspondence that +he kept up his intercourse with his friends. + +Thus he was early cut off from direct and personal action on the course +which things took. But it would be a great mistake to suppose that his +influence on the line taken and on the minds of others was +inconsiderable. It would be more true to say that with one exception no +one was more responsible for the impulse which led to the movement; no +one had more to do with shaping its distinct aims and its moral spirit +and character in its first stage; no one was more daring and more clear, +as far as he saw, in what he was prepared for. There was no one to whom +his friends so much looked up with admiration and enthusiasm. There was +no "wasted shade"[19] in Hurrell Froude's disabled, prematurely +shortened life. + +Like Henry Martyn he was made by strong and even merciless +self-discipline over a strong and for a long time refractory nature. He +was a man of great gifts, with much that was most attractive and noble; +but joined with this them was originally in his character a vein of +perversity and mischief, always in danger of breaking out, and with +which he kept up a long and painful struggle. His inmost thought and +knowledge of himself have been laid bare in the papers which his friends +published after his death. He was in the habit of probing his motives to +the bottom, and of recording without mercy what he thought his +self-deceits and affectations. The religious world of the day made merry +over his methods of self-discipline; but whatever may be said of them, +and such things are not easy to judge of, one thing is manifest, that +they were true and sincere efforts to conquer what he thought evil in +himself, to keep himself in order, to bring his inmost self into +subjection to the law and will of God. The self-chastening, which his +private papers show, is no passion or value for asceticism, but a purely +moral effort after self-command and honesty of character; and what makes +the struggle so touching is its perfect reality and truth. He "turned +his thoughts on that desolate wilderness, his own conscience, and said +what he saw there."[20] A man who has had a good deal to conquer in +himself, and has gone a good way to conquer it, is not apt to be +indulgent to self-deceit or indolence, or even weakness. The basis of +Froude's character was a demand which would not be put off for what was +real and thorough; an implacable scorn and hatred for what he counted +shams and pretences. "His highest ambition," he used to say, "was to be +a humdrum."[21] The intellectual and the moral parts of his character +were of a piece. The tricks and flimsinesses of a bad argument provoked +him as much as the imposture and "flash" of insincere sentiment and fine +talking; he might be conscious of "flash" in himself and his friends, +and he would admit it unequivocally; but it was as unbearable to him to +pretend not to see a fallacy as soon as it was detected, as it would +have been to him to arrive at the right answer of a sum or a problem by +tampering with the processes. Such a man, with strong affections and +keen perception of all forms of beauty, and with the deepest desire to +be reverent towards all that had a right to reverence, would find +himself in the most irritating state of opposition and impatience with +much that passed as religion round him. Principles not attempted to be +understood and carried into practice, smooth self-complacency among +those who looked down on a blind and unspiritual world, the continual +provocation of worthless reasoning and ignorant platitudes, the dull +unconscious stupidity of people who could not see that the times were +critical--that truth had to be defended, and that it was no easy or +light-hearted business to defend it--threw him into an habitual attitude +of defiance, and half-amused, half-earnest contradiction, which made him +feared by loose reasoners and pretentious talkers, and even by quiet +easy-going friends, who unexpectedly found themselves led on blindfold, +with the utmost gravity, into traps and absurdities by the wiles of his +mischievous dialectic. This was the outside look of his relentless +earnestness. People who did not like him, or his views, and who, +perhaps, had winced under his irony, naturally put down his strong +language, which on occasion could certainly be unceremonious, to +flippancy and arrogance. But within the circle of those whom he trusted, +or of those who needed at anytime his help, another side disclosed +itself--a side of the most genuine warmth of affection, an awful reality +of devoutness, which it was his great and habitual effort to keep +hidden, a high simplicity of unworldliness and generosity, and in spite +of his daring mockeries of what was commonplace or showy, the most +sincere and deeply felt humility with himself. Dangerous as he was often +thought to be in conversation, one of the features of his character +which has impressed itself on the memory of one who knew him well, was +his "patient, winning considerateness in discussion, which, with other +qualities, endeared him to those to whom he opened his heart."[22] "It +is impossible," writes James Mozley in 1833, with a mixture of +amusement, speaking of the views about celibacy which were beginning to +be current, "to talk with Froude without committing one's self on such +subjects as these, so that by and by I expect the tergiversants will be +a considerable party." His letters, with their affectionately playful +addresses, δαιμόνιε, αἰνότατε, πέπον, _Carissime, "Sir, my dear friend"_ +or "Ἀργείων ὄχ' ἄριστε, have you not been a spoon?" are full of the most +delightful ease and _verve_ and sympathy. + +With a keen sense of English faults he was, as Cardinal Newman has said, +"an Englishman to the backbone"; and he was, further, a fastidious, +high-tempered English gentleman, in spite of his declaiming about +"pampered aristocrats" and the "gentleman heresy." His friends thought +of him as of the "young Achilles," with his high courage, and noble +form, and "eagle eye," made for such great things, but appointed so soon +to die. "Who can refrain from tears at the thought of that bright and +beautiful Froude?" is the expression of one of them shortly before his +death, and when it was quite certain that the doom which had so long +hung over him was at hand.[23] He had the love of doing, for the mere +sake of doing, what was difficult or even dangerous to do, which is the +mainspring of characteristic English sports and games. He loved the sea; +he liked to sail his own boat, and enjoyed rough weather, and took +interest in the niceties of seamanship and shipcraft. He was a bold +rider across country. With a powerful grasp on mathematical truths and +principles, he entered with whole-hearted zest into inviting problems, +or into practical details of mechanical or hydrostatic or astronomical +science. His letters are full of such observations, put in a way which +he thought would interest his friends, and marked by his strong habit of +getting into touch with what was real and of the substance of questions. +He applied his thoughts to architecture with a power and originality +which at the time were not common. No one who only cared for this world +could be more attracted and interested than he was by the wonder and +beauty of its facts and appearances. With the deepest allegiance to his +home and reverence for its ties and authority, a home of the +old-fashioned ecclesiastical sort, sober, manly, religious, orderly, he +carried into his wider life the feelings with which he had been brought +up; bold as he was, his reason and his character craved for authority, +but authority which morally and reasonably he could respect. Mr. Keble's +goodness and purity subdued him, and disposed him to accept without +reserve his master's teaching: and towards Mr. Keble, along with an +outside show of playful criticism and privileged impertinence, there was +a reverence which governed Froude's whole nature. In the wild and rough +heyday of reform, he was a Tory of the Tories. But when authority failed +him, from cowardice or stupidity or self-interest, he could not easily +pardon it; and he was ready to startle his friends by proclaiming +himself a Radical, prepared for the sake of the highest and greatest +interests to sacrifice all second-rate and subordinate ones. + +When his friends, after his death, published selections from his +journals and letters, the world was shocked by what seemed his amazing +audacity both of thought and expression about a number of things and +persons which it was customary to regard as almost beyond the reach of +criticism. The _Remains_ lent themselves admirably to the controversial +process of culling choice phrases and sentences and epithets +surprisingly at variance with conventional and popular estimates. +Friends were pained and disturbed; foes naturally enough could not hold +in their overflowing exultation at such a disclosure of the spirit of +the movement. Sermons and newspapers drew attention to Froude's +extravagances with horror and disgust. The truth is that if the off-hand +sayings in conversation or letters of any man of force and wit and +strong convictions about the things and persons that he condemns, were +made known to the world, they would by themselves have much the same +look of flippancy, injustice, impertinence to those who disagreed in +opinion with the speaker or writer they are allowed for, or they are not +allowed for by others, according to what is known of his general +character. The friends who published Froude's _Remains_ knew what he +was; they knew the place and proportion of the fierce and scornful +passages; they knew that they really did not go beyond the liberty and +the frank speaking which most people give themselves in the _abandon_ +and understood exaggeration of intimate correspondence and talk. But +they miscalculated the effect on those who did not know him, or whose +interest it was to make the most of the advantage given them. They seem +to have expected that the picture which they presented of their friend's +transparent sincerity and singleness of aim, manifested amid so much +pain and self-abasement, would have touched readers more. They +miscalculated in supposing that the proofs of so much reality of +religious earnestness would carry off the offence of vehement language, +which without these proofs might naturally be thought to show mere +random violence. At any rate the result was much natural and genuine +irritation, which they were hardly prepared for. Whether on general +grounds they were wise in startling and vexing friends, and putting +fresh weapons into the hands of opponents by their frank disclosure of +so unconventional a character, is a question which may have more than +one answer; but one thing is certain, they were not wise, if they only +desired to forward the immediate interests of their party or cause. It +was not the act of cunning conspirators; it was the act of men who were +ready to show their hands, and take the consequences. Undoubtedly, they +warned off many who had so far gone along with the movement, and who now +drew back. But if the publication was a mistake, it was the mistake of +men confident in their own straight-forwardness. + +There is a natural Nemesis to all over-strong and exaggerated language. +The weight of Froude's judgments was lessened by the disclosure of his +strong words, and his dashing fashion of condemnation and dislike gave +a precedent for the violence of shallower men. But to those who look +back on them now, though there can be no wonder that at the time they +excited such an outcry, their outspoken boldness hardly excites +surprise. Much of it might naturally be put down to the force of first +impressions; much of it is the vehemence of an Englishman who claims the +liberty of criticising and finding fault at home; much of it was the +inevitable vehemence of a reformer. Much of it seems clear foresight of +what has since come to be recognised. His judgments on the Reformers, +startling as they were at the time, are not so very different, as to the +facts of the case, from what most people on all sides now agree in; and +as to their temper and theology, from what most churchmen would now +agree in. Whatever allowances may be made for the difficulties of their +time, and these allowances ought to be very great, and however well they +may have done parts of their work, such as the translations and +adaptations of the Prayer Book, it is safe to say that the divines of +the Reformation never can be again, with their confessed Calvinism, with +their shifting opinions, their extravagant deference to the foreign +oracles of Geneva and Zurich, their subservience to bad men in power, +the heroes and saints of churchmen. But when all this is said, it still +remains true that Froude was often intemperate and unjust. In the hands +of the most self-restrained and considerate of its leaders, the movement +must anyhow have provoked strong opposition, and given great offence. +The surprise and the general ignorance were too great; the assault was +too rude and unexpected. But Froude's strong language gave it a +needless exasperation. + +Froude was a man strong in abstract thought and imagination, who wanted +adequate knowledge. His canons of judgment were not enlarged, corrected, +and strengthened by any reading or experience commensurate with his +original powers of reasoning or invention. He was quite conscious of it, +and did his best to fill up the gap in his intellectual equipment. He +showed what he might have done under more favouring circumstances in a +very interesting volume on Becket's history and letters. But +circumstances were hopelessly against him; he had not time, he had not +health and strength, for the learning which he so needed, which he so +longed for. But wherever he could, he learned. He was quite ready to +submit his prepossessions to the test and limitation of facts. Eager and +quick-sighted, he was often apt to be hasty in conclusions from +imperfect or insufficient premisses; but even about what he saw most +clearly he was willing to hold himself in suspense, when he found that +there was something more to know. Cardinal Newman has noted two +deficiencies which, in his opinion, were noticeable in Froude. "He had +no turn for theology as such"; and, further, he goes on: "I should say +that his power of entering into the minds of others was not equal to his +other gifts"--a remark which he illustrates by saying that Froude could +not believe that "I really held the Roman Church to be antichristian." +The want of this power--in which he stood in such sharp contrast to his +friend--might be either a strength or a weakness; a strength, if his +business was only to fight; a weakness, if it was to attract and +persuade. But Froude was made for conflict, not to win disciples. Some +wild solemn poetry, marked by deep feeling and direct expression, is +scattered through his letters,[24] kindled always by things and thoughts +of the highest significance, and breaking forth with force and fire. But +probably the judgment passed on him by a clever friend, from the +examination of his handwriting, was a true one: "This fellow has a great +deal of imagination, but not the imagination of a poet." He felt that +even beyond poetry there are higher things than anything that +imagination can work upon. It was a feeling which made him blind to the +grandeur of Milton's poetry. He saw in it only an intrusion into the +most sacred of sanctities. + +It was this fearless and powerful spirit, keen and quick to see +inferences and intolerant of compromises, that the disturbances of Roman +Catholic Emancipation and of the Reform time roused from the common +round of pursuits, natural to a serious and thoughtful clergyman of +scholarlike mind and as yet no definite objects, and brought him with +all his enthusiasm and thoroughness into a companionship with men who +had devoted their lives, and given up every worldly object, to save the +Church by raising it to its original idea and spirit. Keble had lifted +his pupil's thoughts above mere dry and unintelligent orthodoxy, and +Froude had entered with earnest purpose into Church ways of practical +self-discipline and self-correction. Bishop Lloyd's lectures had taught +him and others, to the surprise of many, that the familiar and venerated +Prayer Book was but the reflexion of mediaeval and primitive devotion, +still embodied in its Latin forms in the Roman Service books; and so +indirectly had planted in their minds the idea of the historical +connexion, and in a very profound way the spiritual sympathy, of the +modern with the pre-Reformation Church. But it is not till 1829 or 1830 +that we begin in his _Remains_ to see in him the sense of a pressing and +anxious crisis in religious matters. In the summer of 1829 he came more +closely than hitherto across Mr. Newman's path. They had been Fellows +together since 1826, and Tutors since 1827. Mr. Froude, with his Toryism +and old-fashioned churchmanship, would not unnaturally be shy of a +friend of Whately's with his reputation for theological liberalism. +Froude's first letter to Mr. Newman is in August 1828. It is the letter +of a friendly and sympathising colleague in college work, glad to be +free from the "images of impudent undergraduates"; he inserts some lines +of verse, talks about Dollond and telescopes, and relates how he and a +friend got up at half-past two in the morning, and walked half a mile +to see Mercury rise; he writes about his mathematical studies and +reading for orders, and how a friend had "read half through Prideaux and +yet accuses himself of idleness"; but there is no interchange of +intimate thought. Mr. Newman was at this time, as he has told us, +drifting away from under the shadow of liberalism; and in Froude he +found a man who, without being a liberal, was as quick-sighted, as +courageous, and as alive to great thoughts and new hopes as himself. +Very different in many ways, they were in this alike, that the +commonplace notions of religion and the Church were utterly +unsatisfactory to them, and that each had the capacity for affectionate +and whole-hearted friendship. The friendship began and lasted on, +growing stronger and deeper to the end. And this was not all. Froude's +friendship with Mr. Newman overcame Mr. Keble's hesitations about Mr. +Newman's supposed liberalism. Mr. Newman has put on record what he +thought and felt about Froude; no one, probably, of the many whom +Cardinal Newman's long life has brought round him, ever occupied +Froude's place in his heart. The correspondence shows in part the way in +which Froude's spirit rose, under the sense of having such a friend to +work with in the cause which day by day grew greater and more sacred in +the eyes of both. Towards Mr. Keble Froude felt like a son to a father; +towards Mr. Newman like a soldier to his comrade, and him the most +splendid and boldest of warriors. Each mind caught fire from the other, +till the high enthusiasm of the one was quenched in an early death. + +Shortly after this friendship began, the course of events also began +which finally gave birth to the Oxford movement. The break-up of parties +caused by the Roman Catholic emancipation was followed by the French and +Belgian revolutions of 1830, and these changes gave a fresh stimulus to +all the reforming parties in England--Whigs, Radicals, and liberal +religionists. Froude's letters mark the influence of these changes on +his mind. They stirred in him the fiercest disgust and indignation, and +as soon as the necessity of battle became evident to save the +Church--and such a necessity was evident--he threw himself into it with +all his heart, and his attitude was henceforth that of a determined and +uncompromising combatant. "Froude is growing stronger and stronger in +his sentiments every day," writes James Mozley, in 1832, "and cuts about +him on all sides. It is extremely fine to hear him talk. The aristocracy +of the country at present are the chief objects of his vituperation, and +he decidedly sets himself against the modern character of the gentleman, +and thinks that the Church will eventually depend for its support, as it +always did in its most influential times, on the very poorest classes." +"I would not set down anything that Froude says for his deliberate +opinion," writes James Mozley a year later, "for he really hates the +present state of things so excessively that any change would be a relief +to him." ... "Froude is staying up, and I see a great deal of him." ... +"Froude is most enthusiastic in his plans, and says, 'What fun it is +living in such times as these! how could one now go back to the times of +old Tory humbug?'" From henceforth his position among his friends was +that of the most impatient and aggressive of reformers, the one who most +urged on his fellows to outspoken language and a bold line of action. +They were not men to hang back and be afraid, but they were cautious and +considerate of popular alarms and prejudices, compared with Froude's +fearlessness. Other minds were indeed moving--minds as strong as his, +indeed, it may be, deeper, more complex, more amply furnished, with a +wider range of vision and a greater command of the field. But while he +lived, he appears as the one who spurs on and incites, where others +hesitate. He is the one by whom are visibly most felt the _gaudia +certaminis,_ and the confidence of victory, and the most profound +contempt for the men and the ideas of the boastful and short-sighted +present. + +In this unsparing and absorbing warfare, what did Froude aim at--what +was the object he sought to bring about, what were the obstacles he +sought to overthrow? + +He was accused, as was most natural, of Romanising; of wishing to bring +back Popery. It is perfectly certain that this was not what he meant, +though he did not care for the imputation of it. He was, perhaps, the +first Englishman who attempted to do justice to Rome, and to use +friendly language of it, without the intention of joining it. But what +he fought for was not Rome, not even a restoration of unity, but a +Church of England such as it was conceived of by the Caroline divines +and the Non-jurors. The great break-up of 1830 had forced on men the +anxious question, "What is the Church as spoken of in England? Is it the +Church of Christ?" and the answers were various. Hooker had said it was +"the nation"; and in entirely altered circumstances, with some +qualifications. Dr. Arnold said the same. It was "the Establishment" +according to the lawyers and politicians, both Whig and Tory. It was an +invisible and mystical body, said the Evangelicals. It was the aggregate +of separate congregations, said the Nonconformists. It was the +parliamentary creation of the Reformation, said the Erastians. The true +Church was the communion of the Pope, the pretended Church was a +legalised schism, said the Roman Catholics. All these ideas were +floating about, loose and vague, among people who talked much about the +Church. Whately, with his clear sense, had laid down that it was a +divine religious society, distinct in its origin and existence, distinct +in its attributes from any other. But this idea had fallen dead, till +Froude and his friends put new life into it Froude accepted Whately's +idea that the Church of England was the one historic uninterrupted +Church, than which there could be no other, locally in England; but into +this Froude read a great deal that never was and never could be in +Whately's thoughts. Whately had gone very far in viewing the Church from +without as a great and sacred corporate body. Casting aside the Erastian +theory, he had claimed its right to exist, and if necessary, govern +itself, separate from the state. He had recognised excommunication as +its natural and indefeasible instrument of government. But what the +internal life of the Church was, what should be its teaching and organic +system, and what was the standard and proof of these, Whately had left +unsaid. And this outline Froude filled up. For this he went the way to +which the Prayer Book, with its Offices, its Liturgy, its Ordination +services, pointed him. With the divines who had specially valued the +Prayer Book, and taught in its spirit, Bishop Wilson, William Law, +Hammond, Ken, Laud, Andrewes, he went back to the times and the sources +from which the Prayer Book came to us, the early Church, the reforming +Church for such with all its faults it was--of the eleventh, twelfth, +and thirteenth centuries, before the hopelessly corrupt and fatal times +of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which led to the break-up of +the sixteenth. Thus to the great question, What is the Church? he gave +without hesitation, and gave to the end, the same answer that Anglicans +gave and are giving still. But he added two points which were then very +new to the ears of English Churchmen: (1) that there were great and to +most people unsuspected faults and shortcomings in the English Church, +for some of which the Reformation was gravely responsible; (2) that the +Roman Church was more right than we had been taught to think in many +parts both of principle and practice, and that our quarrel with it on +these points arose from our own ignorance and prejudices. To people who +had taken for granted all their lives that the Church was thoroughly +"Protestant" and thoroughly right in its Protestantism, and that Rome +was Antichrist, these confident statements came with a shock. He did not +enter much into dogmatic questions. As far as can be judged from his +_Remains_, the one point of doctrine on which he laid stress, as being +inadequately recognised and taught in the then condition of the English +Church, was the primitive doctrine of the Eucharist. His other +criticisms pointed to practical and moral matters; the spirit of +Erastianism, the low standard of life and purpose and self-discipline in +the clergy, the low tone of the current religious teaching. The +Evangelical teaching seemed to him a system of unreal words. The +opposite school was too self-complacent, too comfortable, too secure in +its social and political alliances; and he was bent on shaming people +into severer notions. "We will have a _vocabularium apostolicum,_ and I +will start it with four words: 'pampered aristocrats,' 'resident +gentlemen,' 'smug parsons,' and _'pauperes Christi'_. I shall use the +first on all occasions; it seems to me just to hit the thing." "I think +of putting the view forward (about new monasteries), under the title of +a 'Project for Reviving Religion in Great Towns.' Certainly colleges of +unmarried priests (who might, of course, retire to a living, when they +could and liked) would be the cheapest possible way of providing +effectively for the spiritual wants of a large population." And his +great quarrel with the existing state of things was that the spiritual +objects of the Church were overlaid and lost sight of in the anxiety not +to lose its political position. In this direction he was, as he +proclaims himself, an out-and-out Radical, and he was prepared at once +to go very far. "If a national Church means a Church without discipline, +my argument for discipline is an argument against a national Church; and +the best thing we can do is to unnationalise ours as soon as possible"; +"let us tell the truth and shame the devil; let us give up a _national_ +Church and have a _real_ one." His criticism did not diminish in +severity, or his proposals become less daring, as he felt that his time +was growing short and the hand of death was upon him. But to the end, +the elevation and improvement of the English Church remained his great +purpose. To his friend, as we know, the Roman Church was _either_ the +Truth or Antichrist. To Froude it was neither the whole Truth nor +Antichrist; but like the English Church itself, a great and defective +Church, whose defects were the opposite to ours, and which we should do +wisely to learn from rather than abuse. But to the last his allegiance +never wavered to the English Church. + +It is very striking to come from Froude's boisterous freedom in his +letters to his sermons and the papers he prepared for publication. In +his sermons his manner of writing is severe and restrained even to +dryness. If they startle it is by the force and searching point of an +idea, not by any strength of words. The style is chastened, simple, +calm, with the most careful avoidance of over-statement or anything +rhetorical. And so in his papers, his mode of argument, forcible and +cogent as it is, avoids all appearance of exaggeration or even +illustrative expansion; it is all muscle and sinew; it is modelled on +the argumentative style of Bishop Butler, and still more, of William +Law. No one could suppose from these papers Froude's fiery impetuosity, +or the frank daring of his disrespectful vocabulary. Those who can read +between the lines can trace the grave irony which clung everywhere to +his deep earnestness. + +There was yet another side of Froude's character which was little +thought of by his critics, or recognised by all his friends. With all +his keenness of judgment and all his readiness for conflict, some who +knew him best were impressed by the melancholy which hung over his life, +and which, though he ignored it, they could detect. It is remembered +still by Cardinal Newman. "I thought," wrote Mr. Isaac Williams, "that +knowing him, I better understood Hamlet, a person most natural, but so +original as to be unlike any one else, hiding depth of delicate thought +in apparent extravagances. _Hamlet_, and the _Georgics_ of Virgil, he +used to say, he should have bound together." "Isaac Williams," wrote Mr. +Copeland, "mentioned to me a remark made on Froude by S. Wilberforce in +his early days: 'They talk of Froude's fun, but somehow I cannot be in a +room with him alone for ten minutes without feeling so intensely +melancholy, that I do not know what to do with myself. At Brightstone, +in my Eden days, he was with me, and I was overwhelmed with the deep +sense which possessed him of yearning which nothing could satisfy and of +the unsatisfying nature of all things.'"[25] + +Froude often reminds us of Pascal. Both had that peculiarly bright, +brilliant, sharp-cutting intellect which passes with ease through the +coverings and disguises which veil realities from men. Both had +mathematical powers of unusual originality and clearness; both had the +same imaginative faculty; both had the same keen interest in practical +problems of science; both felt and followed the attraction of deeper and +more awful interests. Both had the same love of beauty; both suppressed +it. Both had the same want of wide or deep learning; they made skilful +use of what books came to their hand, and used their reading as few +readers are able to use it; but their real instrument of work was their +own quick and strong insight, and power of close and vigorous reasoning. +Both had the greatest contempt for fashionable and hollow "shadows of +religion." Both had the same definite, unflinching judgment. Both used +the same clear and direct language. Both had a certain grim delight in +the irony with which they pursued their opponents. In both it is +probable that their unmeasured and unsparing criticism recoiled on the +cause which they had at heart. But in the case of both of them it was +not the temper of the satirist, it was no mere love of attacking what +was vulnerable, and indulgence in the cruel pleasure of stinging and +putting to shame, which inspired them. Their souls were moved by the +dishonour done to religion, by public evils and public dangers. Both of +them died young, before their work was done. They placed before +themselves the loftiest and most unselfish objects, the restoration of +truth and goodness in the Church, and to that they gave their life and +all that they had. And what they called on others to be they were +themselves. They were alike in the sternness, the reality, the +perseverance, almost unintelligible in its methods to ordinary men, of +their moral and spiritual self-discipline. + + +SUPPLEMENTARY TO CHAPTER III[26] + +Hurrell Froude was, when I, as an undergraduate, first knew him in 1828, +tall and very thin, with something of a stoop, with a large skull and +forehead, but not a large face, delicate features, and penetrating gray +eyes, not exactly piercing, but bright with internal conceptions, and +ready to assume an expression of amusement, careful attention, inquiry, +or stern disgust, but with a basis of softness. His manner was cordial +and familiar, and assured you, as you knew him well, of his affectionate +feeling, which encouraged you to speak your mind (within certain +limits), subject to the consideration that if you said anything absurd +it would not be allowed to fall to the ground. He had more of the +undergraduate in him than any "don" whom I ever knew; absolutely unlike +Newman in being always ready to skate, sail, or ride with his +friends--and, if in a scrape, not pharisaical as to his means of getting +out of it. I remember, _e.g._, climbing Merton gate with him in my +undergraduate days, when we had been out too late boating or skating. +And unless authority or substantial decorum was really threatened he was +very lenient--or rather had an amused sympathy with the irregularities +that are mere matters of mischief or high spirits. In lecture it was, +_mutatis mutandis_, the same man. Seeing, from his _Remains_, the "high +view of his own capacities of which he could not divest himself," and +his determination not to exhibit or be puffed up by it, and looking back +on his tutorial manner (I was in his lectures both in classics and +mathematics), it was strange how he disguised, not only his _sense_ of +superiority, but the appearance of it, so that his pupils felt him more +as a fellow-student than as the refined scholar or mathematician which +he was. This was partly owing to his carelessness of those formulae, +the familiarity with which gives even second-rate lecturers a position +of superiority which is less visible in those who, like their pupils, +are themselves always struggling with principles--and partly to an +effort, perhaps sometimes overdone, not to put himself above the level +of others. In a lecture on the _Supplices_ of Aeschylus, I have heard +him say _tout bonnement,_ "I can't construe that--what do you make of +it, A.B.?" turning to the supposed best scholar in the lecture; or, when +an objection was started to his mode of getting through a difficulty, +"Ah! I had not thought of that--perhaps your way is the best." And this +mode of dealing with himself and the undergraduates whom he liked, made +them like him, but also made them really undervalue his talent, which, +as we now see, was what he meant they should do. At the same time, +though watchful over his own vanity, he was keen and prompt in +snubs--playful and challenging retort--to those he liked, but in the +nature of scornful exposure, when he had to do with coarseness or +coxcombry, or shallow display of sentiment. It was a paradoxical +consequence of his suppression of egotism that he was more solicitous to +show that you were wrong than that he was right. + +He also wanted, like Socrates or Bishop Butler, to make others, if +possible, think for themselves. + +However, it is not to be inferred that his conversation was made of +controversy. To a certain extent it turned that way, because he was fond +of paradox. (His brother William used to say that he, William, never +felt he had really mastered a principle till he had thrown it into a +paradox.) And paradox, of course, invites contradiction, and so +controversy. On subjects upon which he considered himself more or less +an apostle, he liked to stir people's minds by what startled them, +waking them up, or giving them "nuts to crack." An almost solemn gravity +with amusement twinkling behind it--not invisible--and ready to burst +forth into a bright low laugh when gravity had been played out, was a +very frequent posture with him. + +But he was thoroughly ready to amuse and instruct, or to be amused and +instructed, as an eager and earnest speaker or listener on most matters +of interest. I do not remember that he had any great turn for beauty of +colour; he had none, I think, or next to none, for music--nor do I +remember in him any great love of humour--but for beauty of physical +form, for mechanics, for mathematics, for poetry which had a root in +true feeling, for wit (including that perception of a quasi-logical +absurdity of position), for history, for domestic incidents, his +sympathy was always lively, and he would throw himself naturally and +warmly into them. From his general demeanour (I need scarcely say) the +"odour of sanctity" was wholly absent. I am not sure that his height and +depth of aim and lively versatility of talent did not leave his +_compassionate_ sympathies rather undeveloped; certainly to himself, +and, I suspect, largely in the case of others, he would view suffering +not as a thing to be cockered up or made much of, though of course to be +alleviated if possible, but to be viewed calmly as a Providential +discipline for those who can mitigate, or have to endure it. + +J.H.N. was once reading me a letter just received from him in which (in +answer to J.H.N.'s account of his work and the possibility of his +breaking down) he said in substance: "I daresay you have more to do than +your health will bear, but I would not have you give up anything except +perhaps the deanery" (of Oriel). And then J.H.N. paused, with a kind of +inner exultant chuckle, and said, "Ah! there's a Basil for you"; as if +the friendship which sacrificed its friend, as it would sacrifice itself +to a cause, was the friendship which was really worth having. + +As I came to know him in a more manly way, as a brother Fellow, friend, +and collaborateur, the character of "ecclesiastical agitator" was of +course added to this. + +In this capacity his great pleasure was taking bulls by their horns. +Like the "gueux" of the Low Countries, he would have met half-way any +opprobrious nickname, and I believe coined the epithet "apostolical" for +his party because it was connected with everything in Spain which was +most obnoxious to the British public. I remember one day his grievously +shocking Palmer of Worcester, a man of an opposite texture, when a +council in J.H.N.'s rooms had been called to consider some memorial or +other to which Palmer wanted to collect the signatures of many, and +particularly of dignified persons, but in which Froude wished to express +the determined opinions of a few. Froude stretched out his long length +on Newman's sofa, and broke in upon one of Palmer's judicious harangues +about Bishops and Archdeacons and such like, with the ejaculation, "I +don't see why we should disguise from ourselves that our object is to +dictate to the clergy of this country, and I, for one, do not want any +one else to get on the box." He thought that true Churchmen must be few +before they were many--that the sin of the clergy in all ages was that +they tried to make out that Christians were many when they were only +few, and sacrificed to this object the force derivable from downright +and unmistakable enforcement of truth in speech or action. + +As simplicity in thought, word, and deed formed no small part of his +ideal, his tastes in architecture, painting, sculpture, rhetoric, or +poetry were severe. He had no patience with what was artistically +dissolute, luscious, or decorated more than in proportion to its +animating idea--wishy-washy or sentimental. The ornamental parts of his +own rooms (in which I lived in his absence) were a slab of marble to +wash upon, a print of Rubens's "Deposition," and a head (life-size) of +the Apollo Belvidere. And I remember still the tall scorn, with +something of surprise, with which, on entering my undergraduate room, he +looked down on some Venuses, Cupids, and Hebes, which, freshman-like, I +had bought from an Italian. + +He was not very easy even under conventional vulgarity, still less under +the vulgarity of egotism; but, being essentially a partisan, he could +put up with both in a man who was really in earnest and on the right +side. Nothing, however, I think, would have induced him to tolerate +false sentiment, and he would, I think, if he had lived, have exerted +himself very trenchantly to prevent his cause being adulterated by it. + +He was, I should say, sometimes misled by a theory that genius cut +through a subject by logic or intuition, without looking to the right or +left, while common sense was always testing every step by consideration +of surroundings (I have not got his terse mode of statement), and that +genius was right, or at least had only to be corrected here and there by +common sense. This, I take it, would hardly have answered if his +trenchancy had not been in practice corrected by J.H.N.'s wider +political circumspection. + +He submitted, I suppose, to J.H.N.'s axiom, that if the movement was to +do anything it must become "respectable"; but it was against his nature. + +He would (as we see in the _Remains_) have wished Ken to have the +"courage of his convictions" by excommunicating the Jurors in William +III.'s time, and setting up a little Catholic Church, like the +Jansenists in Holland. He was not (as has been observed) a theologian, +but he was as jealous for orthodoxy as if he were. He spoke slightingly +of Heber as having ignorantly or carelessly communicated with (?) +Monophysites. But he probably knew no more about that and other +heresies than a man of active and penetrating mind would derive from +text-books. And I think it likely enough--not that his reverence for the +Eucharist, but--that his special attention to the details of Eucharistic +doctrine was due to the consideration that it was the foundation of +ecclesiastical discipline and authority--matters on which his mind +fastened itself with enthusiasm. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[18] I ought to say that I was not personally acquainted with Mr. +Froude. I have subjoined to this chapter some recollections of him by +Lord Blachford, who was his pupil and an intimate friend. + +[19] "In this mortal journeying wasted shade Is worse than wasted +sunshine." + +HENRY TAYLOR, _Sicilian Summer_, v. 3. + +[20] _Remains_, Second Part, i. 47. + +[21] _Remains_, i. 82. + +[22] _Apologia_, p. 84. + +[23] The following shows the feeling about him in friends apt to be +severe critics:--"The contents of the present collection are rather +fragments and sketches than complete compositions. This might be +expected in the works of a man whose days were few and interrupted by +illness, if indeed that may be called an interruption, which was every +day sensibly drawing him to his grave. In Mr. Froude's case, however, we +cannot set down much of this incompleteness to the score of illness. The +strength of his religious impressions, the boldness and clearness of his +views, his long habits of self-denial, and his unconquerable energy of +mind, triumphed over weakness and decay, till men with all their health +and strength about them might gaze upon his attenuated form, struck with +a certain awe of wonderment at the brightness of his wit, the +intenseness of his mental vision, and the iron strength of his +argument.... We will venture a remark as to that ironical turn, which +certainly does appear in various shapes in the first part of these +_Remains_. Unpleasant as irony may sometimes be, there need not go with +it, and in this instance there did not go with it, the smallest real +asperity of temper. Who that remembers the inexpressible sweetness of +his smile, and the deep and melancholy pity with which he would speak of +those whom he felt to be the victims of modern delusions, would not be +forward to contradict such a suspicion? Such expressions, we will +venture to say, and not harshness, anger, or gloom, animate the features +of that countenance which will never cease to haunt the memory of those +who knew him. His irony arose from that peculiar mode in which he viewed +all earthly things, himself and all that was dear to him not excepted. +It was his poetry." From an article in the _British Critic_, April 1840, +p. 396, by Mr. Thomas Mozley, quoted in _Letters of J.B. Mozley,_ p. +102. + +[24] Such as the "Daniel" in the _Lyra Apostolica,_ the "Dialogue +between Old Self and New Self," and the lines in the _Remains_ (i 208, +209). + +[25] A few references to the _Remains_ illustrating this are subjoined +if any one cares to compare them with these recollections, i. 7, 13, 18, +26, 106, 184, 199, 200-204. + +[26] I am indebted for these recollections to the late Lord Blachford. +They were written in Oct. 1884. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MR. NEWMAN'S EARLY FRIENDS--ISAAC WILLIAMS + + +In the early days of the movement, among Mr. Newman's greatest friends, +and much in his confidence, were two Fellows of Trinity--a college +which never forgot that Newman had once belonged to it,--Isaac Williams +and William John Copeland. In mind and character very different, they +were close friends, with the affection which was characteristic of those +days; and for both of them Mr. Newman "had the love which passes that of +common relation."[27] Isaac Williams was born among the mountains of +Wales, and had the true poetic gift, though his power of expression was +often not equal to what he wanted to say. Copeland was a Londoner, bred +up in the strict school of Churchmanship represented by Mr. Norris of +Hackney, tempered by sympathies with the Non-jurors. At Oxford he lived, +along with Isaac Williams, in the very heart of the movement, which was +the interest of his life; but he lived, self-forgetting or +self-effacing, a wonderful mixture of tender and inexhaustible sympathy, +and of quick and keen wit, which yet, somehow or other, in that time of +exasperation and bitterness, made him few enemies. He knew more than +most men of the goings on of the movement, and he ought to have been its +chronicler. But he was fastidious and hard to satisfy, and he left his +task till it was too late. + +Isaac Williams was born in Wales in 1802, a year after Newman, ten years +after John Keble. His early life was spent in London, but his affection +for Wales and its mountain scenery was great and undiminished to the end +of his life. At Harrow, where Henry Drury was his tutor, he made his +mark by his mastery of Latin composition and his devotion to Latin +language and literature. "I was so used to think in Latin that when I +had to write an English theme, which was but seldom, I had to translate +my ideas, which ran in Latin, into English";[28] and later in life he +complained of the Latin current which disturbed him when he had to write +English. He was also a great cricketer; and he describes himself as +coming up to Trinity, where he soon got a scholarship, an ambitious and +careless youth, who had never heard a word about Christianity, and to +whom religion, its aims and its restraints, were a mere name. + +This was changed by what, in the language of devotional schools, would +have been called his conversion. It came about, as men speak, as the +result of accidents; but the whole course of his thoughts and life was +turned into a channel from which it nevermore diverged. An old Welsh +clergyman gave the undergraduate an introduction to John Keble, who then +held a place in Oxford almost unique. But the Trinity undergraduate and +the Oriel don saw little of one another till Isaac Williams won the +Latin prize poem, _Ars Geologica_. Keble then called on Isaac Williams +and offered his help in criticising the poem and polishing it for +printing. The two men plainly took to one another at first sight; and +that service was followed by a most unexpected invitation on Keble's +part. He had chanced to come to Williams's room, and on Williams saying +that he had no plan of reading for the approaching vacation, Keble said, +"I am going to leave Oxford for good. Suppose you come and read with me. +The Provost has asked me to take Wilberforce, and I declined; but if you +would come, you would be companions." Keble was going down to Southrop, +a little curacy near his father's; there Williams joined him, with two +more--Robert Wilberforce and R.H. Froude; and there the Long Vacation of +1823 was spent, and Isaac Williams's character and course determined. +"It was this very trivial accident, this short walk of a few yards, and +a few words spoken, which was the turning-point of my life. If a +merciful God had miraculously interposed to arrest my course, I could +not have had a stronger assurance of His presence than I always had in +looking back to that day." It determined Isaac Williams's character, +and it determined for good and all his theological position. He had +before him all day long in John Keble a spectacle which was absolutely +new to him. Ambitious as a rising and successful scholar at college, he +saw a man, looked up to and wondered at by every one, absolutely without +pride and without ambition. He saw the most distinguished academic of +his day, to whom every prospect was open, retiring from Oxford in the +height of his fame to bury himself with a few hundreds of +Gloucestershire peasants in a miserable curacy. He saw this man caring +for and respecting the ignorant and poor as much as others respected the +great and the learned. He saw this man, who had made what the world +would call so great a sacrifice, apparently unconscious that he had made +any sacrifice at all, gay, unceremonious, bright, full of play as a boy, +ready with his pupils for any exercise, mental or muscular--for a hard +ride, or a crabbed bit of Aeschylus, or a logic fence with disputatious +and paradoxical undergraduates, giving and taking on even ground. These +pupils saw one, the depth of whose religion none could doubt, "always +endeavouring to do them good as it were unknown to themselves and in +secret, and ever avoiding that his kindness should be felt and +acknowledged"; showing in the whole course of daily life the purity of +Christian love, and taking the utmost pains to make no profession or +show of it. This unostentatious and undemonstrative religion--so frank, +so generous in all its ways--was to Isaac Williams "quite a new world." +It turned his mind in upon itself in the deepest reverence, but also +with something of morbid despair of ever reaching such a standard. It +drove all dreams of ambition out of his mind. It made humility, +self-restraint, self-abasement, objects of unceasing, possibly not +always wise and healthy, effort. But the result was certainly a +character of great sweetness, tenderness, and lowly unselfishness, +pure, free from all worldliness, and deeply resigned to the will of God. +He caught from Mr. Keble, like Froude, two characteristic habits of +mind--a strong depreciation of mere intellect compared with the less +showy excellences of faithfulness to conscience and duty; and a horror +and hatred of everything that seemed like display or the desire of +applause or of immediate effect. Intellectual depreciators of intellect +may deceive themselves, and do not always escape the snare which they +fear; but in Isaac Williams there was a very genuine carrying out of the +Psalmist's words: "Surely I have behaved and quieted myself; I refrain +my soul and keep it low, as a child that is weaned from his mother." +This fear of display in a man of singularly delicate and fastidious +taste came to have something forced and morbid in it. It seemed +sometimes as if in preaching or talking he aimed at being dull and +clumsy. But in all that he did and wrote he aimed at being true at all +costs and in the very depths of his heart; and though, in his words, we +may wish sometimes for what we should feel to be more natural and +healthy in tone, we never can doubt that we are in the presence of one +who shrank from all conscious unreality like poison. + +From Keble, or, it may be said, from the Kebles, he received his +theology. The Kebles were all of them men of the old-fashioned High +Church orthodoxy, of the Prayer Book and the Catechism--the orthodoxy +which was professed at Oxford, which was represented in London by Norris +of Hackney and Joshua Watson; which valued in religion sobriety, +reverence, and deference to authority, and in teaching, sound learning +and the wisdom of the great English divines; which vehemently disliked +the Evangelicals and Methodists for their poor and loose theology, their +love of excitement and display, their hunting after popularity. This +Church of England divinity was the theology of the old Vicar of Coln St. +Aldwyn's, a good scholar and a good parish priest, who had brought up +his two sons at home to be scholars; and had impressed his solid and +manly theology on them so strongly that amid all changes they remained +at bottom true to their paternal training. John Keble added to it great +attainments and brilliant gifts of imagination and poetry; but he never +lost the plain, downright, almost awkward ways of conversation and +manner of his simple home--ways which might have seemed abrupt and rough +but for the singular sweetness and charm of his nature. To those who +looked on the outside he was always the homely, rigidly orthodox country +clergyman. On Isaac Williams, with his ethical standard, John Keble also +impressed his ideas of religious truth; he made him an old-fashioned +High Churchman, suspicious of excitement and "effect," suspicious of the +loud-talking religious world, suspicious of its novelties and +shallowness, and clinging with his whole soul to ancient ways and sound +Church of England doctrine reflected in the Prayer Book. And from John +Keble's influence he passed under the influence of Thomas Keble, the +Vicar of Bisley, a man of sterner type than his brother, with strong and +definite opinions on all subjects; curt and keen in speech; intolerant +of all that seemed to threaten wholesome teaching and the interests of +the Church; and equally straightforward, equally simple, in manners and +life. Under him Isaac Williams began his career as a clergyman; he spent +two years of solitary and monotonous life in a small cure, seeking +comfort from solitude in poetical composition ("It was very calm and +subduing," he writes); and then he was recalled to Oxford as Fellow and +Tutor of his college, to meet a new and stronger influence, which it was +part of the work and trial of the rest of his life both to assimilate +and to resist. + +For, with Newman, with whom he now came into contact, he did both. There +opened to him from intercourse with Newman a new world of thought; and +yet while feeling and answering to its charm, he never was quite at ease +with him. But Williams and Froude had always been great friends since +the reading party of 1823, in spite of Froude's audacities. Froude was +now residing in Oxford, and had become Newman's most intimate friend, +and he brought Newman and Williams together. "Living at that time," he +says, "so much with Froude, I was now in consequence for the first time +brought into intercourse with Newman. We almost daily walked and often +dined together." Newman and Froude had ceased to be tutors; their +thoughts were turned to theology and the condition of the Church. Newman +had definitely broken with the Evangelicals, to whom he had been +supposed to belong, and Whately's influence over him was waning, and +with Froude he looked up to Keble as the pattern of religious wisdom. He +had accepted the position of a Churchman as it was understood by Keble +and Froude; and thus there was nothing to hinder Williams's full +sympathy with him. But from the first there seems to have been an almost +impalpable bar between them, which is the more remarkable because +Williams appears to have seen with equanimity Froude's apparently more +violent and dangerous outbreaks of paradox and antipathy. Possibly, +after the catastrophe, he may, in looking back, have exaggerated his +early alarms. But from the first he says he saw in Newman what he had +learned to look upon as the gravest of dangers--the preponderance of +intellect among the elements of character and as the guide of life. "I +was greatly delighted and charmed with Newman, who was extremely kind to +me, but did not altogether trust his opinions; and though Froude was in +the habit of stating things in an extreme and paradoxical manner, yet +one always felt conscious of a ground of entire confidence and +agreement; but it was not so with Newman, even though one appeared more +in unison with his more moderate views." + +But, in spite of all this, Newman offered and Isaac Williams accepted +the curacy of St. Mary's. "Things at Oxford [1830-32] at that time were +very dull." "Froude and I seemed entirely alone, with Newman only +secretly, as it were, beginning to sympathise. I became at once very +much attached to Newman, won by his kindness and delighted by his good +and wonderful qualities; and he proposed that I should be his curate at +St. Mary's.... I can remember a strong feeling of difference I first +felt on acting together with him from what I had been accustomed to: +that he was in the habit of looking for effect, and for what was +sensibly effective, which from the Bisley and Fairford School I had been +long habituated to avoid; but to do one's duty in faith and leave it to +God, and that all the more earnestly, because there were no sympathies +from without to answer. There was a felt but unexpressed difference of +this kind, but perhaps it became afterwards harmonised as we acted +together."[29] + +Thus early, among those most closely united, there appeared the +beginnings of those different currents which became so divergent as time +went on. Isaac Williams, dear as he was to Newman, and returning to the +full Newman's affection, yet represented from the first the views of +what Williams spoke of as the "Bisley and Fairford School," which, +though sympathising and co-operating with the movement, was never quite +easy about it, and was not sparing of its criticism on the stir and +agitation of the Tracts. + +Isaac Williams threw himself heartily into the early stages of the +movement; in his poetry into its imaginative and poetical side, and also +into its practical and self-denying side. But he would have been quite +content with its silent working, and its apparent want of visible +success. He would have been quite content with preaching simple homely +sermons on the obvious but hard duties of daily life, and not seeing +much come of them; with finding a slow abatement of the self-indulgent +habits of university life, with keeping Fridays, with less wine in +common room. The Bisley maxims bade men to be very stiff and +uncompromising in their witness and in their duties, but to make no show +and expect no recognition or immediate fruit, and to be silent under +misconstruction. But his was not a mind which realised great +possibilities of change in the inherited ways of the English Church. The +spirit of change, so keenly discerned by Newman, as being both certain +and capable of being turned to good account as well as bad, to him was +unintelligible or bad. More reality, more severity and consistency, +deeper habits of self-discipline on the accepted lines of English Church +orthodoxy, would have satisfied him as the aim of the movement, as it +undoubtedly was a large part of its aim; though with Froude and Newman +it also aimed at a widening of ideas, of interests and sympathies, +beyond what had been common in the English Church. + +In the history of the movement Isaac Williams took a forward part in two +of its events, with one of which his connexion was most natural, with +the other grotesquely and ludicrously incongruous. The one was the plan +and starting of the series of _Plain Sermons_ in 1839, to which not only +the Kebles, Williams, and Copeland contributed their volumes, but also +Newman and Dr. Pusey. Isaac Williams has left the following account of +his share in the work. + +"It seemed at this time (about 1838-39) as if Oxford, from the strength +of principle shown there (and an almost unanimous and concentrated +energy), was becoming a rallying point for the whole kingdom: but I +watched from the beginning and saw greater dangers among ourselves than +those from without; which I endeavoured to obviate by publishing the +_Plain Sermons_. [_Plain Sermons_, by contributors to the _Tracts for +the Times_, 1st Series, January 1839.] I attempted in vain to get the +Kebles to publish, in order to keep pace with Newman, and so maintain a +more practical turn in the movement. I remember C. Cornish (C.L. +Cornish, Fellow and Tutor of Exeter) coming to me and saying as we +walked in Trinity Gardens, 'People are a little afraid of being carried +away by Newman's brilliancy; they want more of the steady sobriety of +the Kebles infused into the movement to keep us safe; we have so much +sail and want ballast.' And the effect of the publication of the _Plain +Sermons_ was at the time very quieting. In first undertaking the _Plain +Sermons_, I had no encouragement from any one, not even from John Keble; +acquiescence was all that I could gain. But I have heard J.K. mention a +saying of Judge Coleridge, long before the _Tracts_ were thought of: 'If +you want to propagate your opinions you should lend your sermons; the +clergy would then preach them, and adopt your opinions.' Now this has +been the effect of the publication of the _Plain Sermons_." + +Isaac Williams, if any man, represented in the movement the moderate and +unobtrusive way of religious teaching. But it was his curious fate to be +dragged into the front ranks of the fray, and to be singled out as +almost the most wicked and dangerous of the Tractarians. He had the +strange fortune to produce the first of the Tracts[30] which was by +itself held up to popular indignation as embodying all the mischief of +the series and the secret aims of the movement. The Tract had another +effect. It made Williams the object of the first great Tractarian battle +in the University, the contest for the Poetry Professorship: the first +decisive and open trial of strength, and the first Tractarian defeat. +The contest, even more than the result, distressed him greatly; and the +course of things in the movement itself aggravated his distress. His +general distrust of intellectual restlessness had now passed into the +special and too well grounded fear that the movement, in some of its +most prominent representatives, was going definitely in the direction of +Rome. A new generation was rising into influence, to whom the old Church +watchwords and maxims, the old Church habits of mind, the old Church +convictions, had completely lost their force, and were become almost +objects of dislike and scorn; and for this change Newman's approval and +countenance were freely and not very scrupulously quoted. Williams's +relation to him had long been a curious mixture of the most affectionate +attachment and intimacy with growing distrust and sense of divergence. +Newman was now giving more and more distinct warning that he was likely +to go where Williams could not follow him, and the pain on both sides +was growing. But things moved fast, and at length the strain broke. + +The estrangement was inevitable; but both cherished the warmest feelings +of affection, even though such a friendship had been broken. But Oxford +became distasteful to Williams, and he soon afterwards left it for +Bisley and Stinchcombe, the living of his brother-in-law, Sir G. +Prevost. There he married (22d June 1842), and spent the remainder of +his life devoting himself to the preparation of those devotional +commentaries, which are still so well known. He suffered for the +greatest part of his life from a distressing and disabling chronic +asthma--from the time that he came back to Oxford as Fellow and +Tutor--and he died in 1865. The old friends met once more shortly before +Isaac Williams's death; Newman came to see him, and at his departure +Williams accompanied him to the station. + +Isaac Williams wrote a great deal of poetry, first during his solitary +curacy at Windrush, and afterwards at Oxford. It was in a lower and +sadder key than the _Christian Year_, which no doubt first inspired it; +it wanted the elasticity and freshness and variety of Keble's verse, and +it was often careless in structure and wanting in concentration. But it +was the outpouring of a very beautiful mind, deeply impressed with the +realities of failure in the Church and religion, as well as in human +life, full of tenderness and pathetic sweetness, and seeking a vent for +its feelings, and relief for its trouble, in calling up before itself +the images of God's goodness and kingdom of which nature and the world +are full. His poetry is a witness to the depth and earnestness and +genuine delicacy of what seemed hard and narrow in the Bisley School; +there are passages in it which are not easily forgotten; but it was not +strong enough to arrest the excitement which soon set in, and with its +continual obscurity and its want of finish it never had the recognition +really due to its excellence. Newman thought it too soft. It certainly +wanted the fire and boldness and directness which he threw into his own +verse when he wrote; but serious earnestness and severity of tone it +certainly did not want. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[27] Mozley, _Reminiscences_, i. 18. + +[28] I. Williams, _MS. Memoir_. + +[29] I. Williams, _MS. Memoir_. + +[30] The history of this famous Tract, No. 80, on _Reserve in +communicating Religious Knowledge_, belongs to a later stage of the +movement. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CHARLES MARRIOTT + + +Charles Marriott was a man who was drawn into the movement, almost in +spite of himself, by the attraction of the character of the leaders, +the greatness of its object, and the purity and nobleness of the motives +which prompted it. He was naturally a man of metaphysical mind, given +almost from a child to abstract and indeed abstruse thought.[31] He had +been a student of S.T. Coleridge, whom the Oriel men disliked as a misty +thinker. He used to discuss Coleridge with a man little known then, but +who gained a high reputation on the Continent as a first-rate Greek +scholar, and became afterwards Professor of Greek in the University of +Sydney, Charles Badham. Marriott also appreciated Hampden as a +philosopher, whom the Oriel men thoroughly distrusted as a theologian. +He might easily under different conditions have become a divine of the +type of F.D. Maurice. He was by disposition averse to anything like +party, and the rough and sharp proceedings which party action sometimes +seems to make natural. His temper was eminently sober, cautious and +conciliatory in his way of looking at important questions. He was a man +with many friends of different sorts and ways, and of boundless though +undemonstrative sympathy. His original tendencies would have made him an +eclectic, recognising the strength of position in opposing schools or +theories, and welcoming all that was good and high in them. He was +profoundly and devotedly religious, without show, without extravagance. +His father, who died when he was only fourteen, had been a distinguished +man in his time. He was a Christ Church man, and one of two in the first +of the Oxford Honour lists in 1802, with E. Copleston, H. Phillpotts, +and S.P. Rigaud for his examiners. He was afterwards tutor to the Earl +of Dalkeith, and he became the friend of Walter Scott, who dedicated to +him the Second Canto of _Marmion_; and having ready and graceful +poetical talent, he contributed several ballads to the _Minstrelsy of +the Scottish Border, The Feast of Spurs_, and _Archie Armstrong's Aith_. +He was a good preacher; his sympathies--of friendship, perhaps, rather +than of definite opinion--were with men like Mr. John Bowdler and the +Thorntons. While he lived he taught Charles Marriott himself. After his +death, Charles, a studious boy, with ways of his own of learning, and +though successful and sure in his work, very slow in the process of +doing it, after a short and discouraging experiment at Rugby, went to +read with a private tutor till he went to Oxford. He was first at +Exeter, and then gained a scholarship at Balliol. He gained a Classical +First Class and a Mathematical Second in the Michaelmas Term of 1832, +and the following Easter he was elected Fellow at Oriel. + +For a man of his power and attainments he was as a speaker, and in +conversation, surprisingly awkward. He had a sturdy, penetrating, +tenacious, but embarrassed intellect--embarrassed, at least, by the +crowd and range of jostling thoughts, in its outward processes and +manifestations, for he thoroughly trusted its inner workings, and was +confident of the accuracy of the results, even when helplessly unable to +justify them at the moment.[32] In matters of business he seemed at +first sight utterly unpractical. In discussing with keen, rapid, and +experienced men like the Provost, the value of leases, or some question +of the management of College property, Marriott, who always took great +interest in such inquiries, frequently maintained some position which to +the quicker wits round him seemed a paradox or a mare's nest. Yet it +often happened that after a dispute, carried on with a brisk fire of not +always respectful objections to Marriott's view, and in which his only +advantage was the patience with which he clumsily, yet surely, brought +out the real point of the matter, overlooked by others, the debate +ended in the recognition that he had been right. It was often a strange +and almost distressing sight to see the difficulty under which he +sometimes laboured of communicating his thoughts, as a speaker at a +meeting, or as a teacher to his hearers, or even in the easiness of +familiar talk. The comfort was that he was not really discouraged. He +was wrestling with his own refractory faculty of exposition and speech; +it may be, he was busy deeper down in the recesses and storehouses of +his mind; but he was too much taken up with the effort to notice what +people thought of it, or even if they smiled; and what he had to say was +so genuine and veracious, as an expression of his meaning, so full of +benevolence, charity, and generosity, and often so weighty and +unexpected, that men felt it a shame to think much of the peculiarities +of his long look of blank silence, and the odd, clumsy explanations +which followed it. He was a man, under an uncouth exterior, of the +noblest and most affectionate nature; most patient, indulgent, and +hopeful to all in whom he took an interest, even when they sorely tried +his kindness and his faith in them. Where he loved and trusted and +admired, he was apt to rate very highly, sometimes too highly. His +gratitude was boundless. He was one of those who deliberately gave up +the prospect of domestic life, to which he was naturally drawn, for the +sake of his cause. Capable of abstract thought beyond most men of his +time, and never unwilling to share his thoughts with those at all +disposed to venture with him into deep waters, he was always ready to +converse or to discuss on much more ordinary ground. As an undergraduate +and a young bachelor, he had attained, without seeking it, a position of +almost unexampled authority in the junior University world that was +hardly reached by any one for many years at least after him. He was +hopeless as a speaker in the Union; but with all his halting and +bungling speeches, that democratic and sometimes noisy assembly bore +from him with kindly amusement and real respect what they would bear +from no one else, and he had an influence in its sometimes turbulent +debates which seems unaccountable. He was the _vir pietate gravis_. In a +once popular squib, occasioned by one of the fiercest of these debates, +this unique position is noticed and commemorated-- + + Οὐδ' ἔλαθεν Μαρίωτα, φιλαίτατον Ὠρειήλων + + * * * * * + + Ἦλθε μέγα γρώνων, Μασιχοῖς καὶ πᾶσ' ἀγαπητός, + Καὶ σμείλων, προσέφη πάντας κείνδοις ἐπέεσιν.[33] + +His ways and his talk were such as to call forth not unfrequent mirth +among those who most revered him. He would meet you and look you in the +face without speaking a word. He was not without humour; but his jokes, +carried off by a little laugh of his own, were apt to be recondite in +their meaning and allusions. With his great power of sympathy, he yet +did not easily divine other men's lighter or subtler moods, and odd and +sometimes even distressing mistakes were the consequence. His health was +weak, and a chronic tenderness of throat and chest made him take +precautions which sometimes seemed whimsical; and his well-known figure +in a black cloak, with a black veil over his college cap, and a black +comforter round his neck, which at one time in Oxford acquired his name, +sometimes startled little boys and sleepy college porters when he came +on them suddenly at night. + +With more power than most men of standing alone, and of arranging his +observations on life and the world in ways of his own, he had +pre-eminently above all men round him, in the highest and noblest form, +the spirit of a disciple. Like most human things, discipleship has its +good and its evil, its strong and its poor and dangerous side; but it +really has, what is much forgotten now, a good and a strong side. Both +in philosophy and religion, the μαθητὴς is a distinct character, and +Charles Marriott was an example of it at its best. He had its manly and +reasonable humility, its generous trustfulness, its self-forgetfulness; +he had, too, the enthusiasm of having and recognising a great master and +teacher, and doing what he wanted done; and he learned from the love of +his master to love what he believed truth still more. The character of +the disciple does not save a man from difficulties, from trouble and +perplexity; but it tends to save him from idols of his own making. It is +something, in the trials of life and faith, to have the consciousness of +knowing or having known some one greater and better and wiser than +oneself, of having felt the spell of his guidance and example. +Marriott's mind, quick to see what was real and strong, and at once +reverent to it as soon as he saw it, came very much, as an undergraduate +at Balliol, under the influence of a very able and brilliant tutor, +Moberly, afterwards Headmaster of Winchester and Bishop of Salisbury; +and to the last his deference and affection to his old tutor remained +unimpaired. But he came under a still more potent charm when he moved to +Oriel, and became the friend of Mr. Newman. Master and disciple were as +unlike as any two men could be; they were united by their sympathy in +the great crisis round them, by their absorbing devotion to the cause of +true religion. Marriott brought to the movement, and especially to its +chief, a great University character, and an unswerving and touching +fidelity. He placed himself, his life, and all that he could do, at the +service of the great effort to elevate and animate the Church; to the +last he would gladly have done so under him whom he first acknowledged +as his master. This was not to be; and he transferred his allegiance, as +unreservedly, with equal loyalty and self-sacrifice, to his successor. +But to the end, while his powers lasted, with all his great gifts and +attainments, with every temptation to an independent position and +self-chosen employment, he continued a disciple. He believed in men +wiser than himself; he occupied himself with what they thought best for +him to do. + +This work was, for the most part, in what was done to raise the standard +of knowledge of early Christian literature, and to make that knowledge +accurate and scholarlike. He was, for a time, the Principal of the +Theological College at Chichester, under Bishop Otter. He was also for a +time Tutor at Oriel, and later, Vicar of St. Mary's. He was long bent on +setting on foot some kind of Hall for poor students; and he took over +from Mr. Newman the buildings at Littlemore, which he turned into a +place for printing religious works. But though he was connected more or +less closely with numberless schemes of Christian work in Oxford and out +of it, his special work was that of a theological student. Marriott had +much to do with the Library of the Fathers, with correcting +translations, collating manuscripts, editing texts.[34] Somehow, the +most interesting portions hardly came to his share; and what he did in +the way of original writing, little as it was, causes regret that so +much of his time was spent on the drudgery of editing. Some sermons, a +little volume of _Thoughts on Private Devotion_, and another on the +_Epistle to the Romans_, are nearly all that he has left of his own. +Novelty of manner or thought in them there is none, still less anything +brilliant or sharp in observation or style; but there is an undefinable +sense, in their calm, severe pages, of a deep and serious mind dwelling +on deep and very serious things. It is impossible not to wish that a +man who could so write and impress people might have had the leisure to +write more. + +But Marriott never had any leisure. It has been said above that he +placed himself at the service of those whom he counted his teachers. But +the truth is that he was at every one's service who wanted or who asked +his help. He had a large, and what must have been often a burdensome, +correspondence. With pupils or friends he was always ready for some +extra bit of reading. To strangers he was always ready to show attention +and hospitality, though Marriott's parties were as quaint as himself. +His breakfast parties in his own room were things to have seen--a crowd +of undergraduates, finding their way with difficulty amid lanes and +piles of books, amid a scarcity of chairs and room, and the host, +perfectly unconscious of anything grotesque, sitting silent during the +whole of the meal, but perfectly happy, at the head of the table. But +there was no claimant on his purse or his interest who was too strange +for his sympathy--raw freshmen, bores of every kind, broken-down +tradesmen, old women, distressed foreigners, converted Jews, all the odd +and helpless wanderers from beaten ways, were to be heard of at +Marriott's rooms; and all, more or less, had a share of his time and +thoughts, and perhaps counsel. He was sensible of worry as he grew +older; but he never relaxed his efforts to do what any one asked of him. +There must be even now some still living who know what no one else +knows, how much they owe, with no direct claim on him, to Charles +Marriott's inexhaustible patience and charity. The pains which he would +take with even the most uncongenial and unpromising men, who somehow had +come in his way, and seemed thrown on his charge, the patience with +which he would bear and condone their follies and even worse, were not +to be told, for, indeed, few knew what they were. + +"He was always ready to be the friend of any one whose conduct gave +proofs of high principle, however inferior to himself in knowledge or +acquirements, and his friendship once gained was not easily lost. I +believe there was nothing in his power which he was not ready to do for +a friend who wanted his help. It is not easy to state instances of such +kindness without revealing what for many reasons had better be left +untold. But many such have come to my knowledge, and I believe there are +many more known only to himself and to those who derived benefit from +his disinterested friendship."[35] + +Marriott's great contribution to the movement was his solid, simple +goodness, his immovable hope, his confidence that things would come +right. With much imaginativeness open to poetical grandeur and charm, +and not without some power of giving expression to feeling, he was +destitute of all that made so many others of his friends interesting as +men. He was nothing, as a person to know and observe, to the genius of +the two Mozleys, to the brilliant social charm of Frederic Faber, to the +keen, refined intelligence of Mark Pattison, to the originality and +clever eccentricity of William Palmer of Magdalen. And he was nothing as +a man of practical power for organising and carrying out successful +schemes: such power was not much found at Oxford in those days. But his +faith in his cause, as the cause of goodness and truth, was proof +against mockery or suspicion or disaster. When ominous signs disturbed +other people he saw none. He had an almost perverse subtlety of mind +which put a favourable interpretation on what seemed most formidable. As +his master drew more and more out of sympathy with the English Church, +Marriott, resolutely loyal to it and to him, refused to understand hints +and indications which to others were but too plain. He vexed and even +provoked Newman, in the last agonies of the struggle, by the optimism +with which he clung to useless theories and impossible hopes. For that +unquenchable hoping against hope, and hope unabated still when the +catastrophe had come, the English Church at least owes him deep +gratitude. Throughout those anxious years he never despaired of her. + +All through his life he was a beacon and an incitement to those who +wished to make a good use of their lives. In him all men could see, +whatever their opinions and however little they liked him, the +simplicity and the truth of a self-denying life of suffering--for he was +never well--of zealous hard work, unstinted, unrecompensed; of unabated +lofty hopes for the great interests of the Church and the University; of +deep unpretending matter-of-course godliness and goodness--without "form +or comeliness" to attract any but those who cared for them, for +themselves alone. It is almost a sacred duty to those who remember one +who cared nothing for his own name or fame to recall what is the +truth--that no one did more to persuade those round him of the solid +underground religious reality of the movement. Mr. Thomas Mozley, among +other generous notices of men whom the world and their contemporaries +have forgotten, has said what is not more than justice.[36] Speaking of +the enthusiasm of the movement, and the spirit of its members, "There +had never been seen at Oxford, indeed seldom anywhere, so large and +noble a sacrifice of the most precious gifts and powers to a sacred +cause," he points out what each of the leaders gave to it: "Charles +Marriott threw in his scholarship and something more, for he might have +been a philosopher, and he had poetry in his veins, being the son of the +well-known author of the 'Devonshire Lane.' No one sacrificed himself so +entirely to the cause, giving to it all that he had and all that he was, +as Charles Marriott. He did not gather large congregations; he did not +write works of genius to spread his name over the land, and to all time; +he had few of the pleasures or even of the comforts that spontaneously +offer themselves in any field of enterprise. He laboured day and night +in the search and defence of Divine Truth. His admirers were not the +thousands, but the scholars who could really appreciate. I confess to +have been a little ashamed of myself when Bishop Burgess asked me about +Charles Marriott, as one of the most eminent scholars of the day. +Through sheer ignorance I had failed in adequate appreciation." In his +later years he became a member of the new Hebdomadal Council at Oxford, +and took considerable part in working the new constitution of the +University. In an epidemic of smallpox at Oxford in 1854, he took his +full share in looking after the sick, and caught the disorder; but he +recovered. At length, in the midst of troublesome work and many +anxieties, his life of toil was arrested by a severe paralytic seizure, +29th June 1855. He partially rallied, and survived for some time longer; +but his labours were ended. He died at Bradfield, 25th September 1858. +He was worn out by variety and pressure of unintermitted labour, which +he would scarcely allow any change or holiday to relieve. Exhaustion +made illness, when it came, fatal. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[31] "He told me," writes a relative, "that questions about trade used +to occupy him very early in life. He used to ponder how it could be +right to sell things for more than they cost you." + +[32] "He had his own way of doing everything, and used most stoutly to +protest that it was quite impossible that he should do it in any +other."--_MS. Memoir_ by his brother, John Marriott. + +[33] _Uniomachia_, 1833. + +[34] "This became the main task of his life us long as health was +continued to him. All who knew him well will remember how laboriously he +worked at it, and how, in one shape or another, it was always on hand. +Either he was translating, or correcting the translation of others; or +he was collating MSS., or correcting the press. This last work was +carried on at all times and wherever he was--on a journey, after +dinner--even in a boat, he would pull out a sheet and go to write upon +it in haste to get it finished for the next post. The number of volumes +in the Library of the Fathers which bear the signature C.M. attest his +diligence."--John Marriott's Memoir of him (MS.) + +[35] J.M., _MS. Memoir_. + +[36] _Rem._ i. 447. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE OXFORD TRACTS + + +"On 14th July 1833," we read in Cardinal Newman's _Apologia_, "Mr. Keble +preached the assize sermon in the University Pulpit. It was published +under the title of _National Apostasy_. I have ever considered and kept +the day as the start of the religious movement of 1833."[37] + +This memorable sermon was a strong expression of the belief common to a +large body of Churchmen amid the triumphs of the Reform Bill, that the +new governors of the country were preparing to invade the rights, and to +alter the constitution, and even the public documents, of the Church. +The suppression of ten Irish Bishoprics, in defiance of Church opinion, +showed how ready the Government was to take liberties in a high-handed +way with the old adjustments of the relations of Church and State. +Churchmen had hitherto taken for granted that England was "a nation +which had for centuries acknowledged, as an essential part of its +theory of government, that, _as_ a Christian nation, she is also a part +of Christ's Church, and bound, in all her legislation and policy, by the +fundamental laws of that Church." When "a Government and people, so +constituted, threw off the restraint which in many respects such a +principle would impose upon them, nay, disavowed the principle itself," +this, to those whose ideas Mr. Keble represented, seemed nothing short +of a "direct disavowal of the sovereignty of God. If it be true anywhere +that such enactments are forced on the legislature by public opinion, is +Apostasy too hard a word to describe the temper of such a nation?" The +sermon was a call to face in earnest a changed state of things, full of +immediate and pressing danger; to consider how it was to be met by +Christians and Churchmen, and to watch motives and tempers. "Surely it +will be no unworthy principle if any man is more circumspect in his +behaviour, more watchful and fearful of himself, more earnest in his +petitions for spiritual aid, from a dread of disparaging the holy name +of the English Church in her hour of peril by his own personal fault and +negligence. As to those who, either by station or temper, feel +themselves more deeply interested, they cannot be too careful in +reminding themselves that one chief danger in times of change and +excitement arises from their tendency to engross the whole mind. Public +concerns, ecclesiastical or civil, will prove indeed ruinous to those +who permit them to occupy all their care and thought, neglecting or +undervaluing ordinary duties, more especially those of a devotional +kind. These cautions being duly observed, I do not see how any person +can devote himself too entirely to the cause of the Apostolic Church in +these realms. There may be, as far as he knows, but a very few to +sympathise with him. He may have to wait long, and very likely pass out +of this world, before he see any abatement in the triumph of disorder +and irreligion. But, _if he be consistent_, he possesses to the utmost +the personal consolations of a good Christian; and as a true Churchman, +he has the encouragement which no other cause in the world can impart in +the same degree: he is calmly, soberly, demonstrably _sure_ that, sooner +or later, _his will be the winning side_, and that the victory will be +complete, universal, eternal." + +But if Mr. Keble's sermon was the first word of the movement, its first +step was taken in a small meeting of friends, at Mr. Hugh James Rose's +parsonage at Hadleigh, in Suffolk, between the 25th and the 29th of the +same July. At this little gathering, the ideas and anxieties which for +some time past had filled the thoughts of a number of earnest Churchmen, +and had brought them into communication with one another, came to a +head, and issued in the determination to move. Mr. Rose, a man of high +character and distinction in his day, who had recently started the +_British Magazine_, as an organ of Church teaching and opinion, was the +natural person to bring about such a meeting.[38] It was arranged that a +few representative men, or as many as were able, should meet towards the +end of July at Hadleigh Rectory. They were men in full agreement on the +main questions, but with great differences in temperament and habits of +thought. Mr. Rose was the person of most authority, and next to him, Mr. +Palmer; and these, with Mr. A. Perceval, formed as it were the right +wing of the little council. Their Oxford allies were the three Oriel +men, Mr. Keble, Mr. Froude, and Mr. Newman, now fresh from his escape +from death in a foreign land, and from the long solitary musings in his +Mediterranean orange-boat, full of joyful vigour and ready for +enterprise and work.[39] In the result, Mr. Keble and Mr. Newman were +not present, but they were in active correspondence with the others.[40] +From this meeting resulted the _Tracts for the Times_, and the agitation +connected with them. + +These friends were all devoted Churchmen, but, as has been said, each +had his marked character, not only as a man but as a Churchman. The most +important among them was as yet the least prominent. Two of them were +men of learning, acquainted with the great world of London, and who, +with all their zeal, had some of the caution which comes of such +experience. At the time, the most conspicuous was Mr. Hugh James Rose. + +Mr. Rose was a man whose name and whose influence, as his friends +thought, have been overshadowed and overlooked in the popular view of +the Church revival. It owed to him, they held, not only its first +impulse, but all that was best and most hopeful in it; and when it lost +him, it lost its wisest and ablest guide and inspirer. It is certainly +true that when that revival began he was a much more distinguished and +important person than any of the other persons interested in it. As far +as could be seen at the time, he was the most accomplished divine and +teacher in the English Church. He was a really learned man. He had the +intellect and energy and literary skill to use his learning. He was a +man of singularly elevated and religious character; he had something of +the eye and temper of a statesman, and he had already a high position. +He was profoundly loyal to the Church, and keenly interested in whatever +affected its condition and its fortunes. As early as 1825 he had in some +lectures at Cambridge called the attention of English Churchmen to the +state of religious thought and speculation in Germany, and to the +mischiefs likely to react on English theology from the rationalising +temper and methods which had supplanted the old Lutheran teaching; and +this had led to a sharp controversy with Mr. Pusey, as he was then, who +thought that Mr. Rose[41] had both exaggerated the fact itself and had +not adequately given the historical account of it. He had the prudence, +but not the backwardness, of a man of large knowledge, and considerable +experience of the world. More alive to difficulties and dangers than his +younger associates, he showed his courage and his unselfish earnestness +in his frank sympathy with them, daring and outspoken as they were, and +in his willingness to share with them the risks of an undertaking of +which no one knew better than he what were likely to be the +difficulties. He certainly was a person who might be expected to have a +chief part in directing anything with which he was connected. His +countenance and his indirect influence were very important elements, +both in the stirring of thought which led to the Hadleigh resolutions, +and in giving its form to what was then decided upon. But his action in +the movement was impeded by his failure in health, and cut short by his +early death, January 1839. How he would have influenced the course of +things if he had lived, it is not now easy to say. He must have been +reckoned with as one of the chiefs. He would have been opposed to +anything that really tended towards Rome. But there is no reason to +think that he would have shrunk from any step only because it was bold. +He had sympathy for courage and genius, and he had knowledge and +authority which would have commanded respect for his judgment and +opinion. But it is too much to say either that the movement could not +have been without him, or that it was specially his design and plan, or +that he alone could have given the impulse which led to it; though it +seemed at one time as if he was to be its leader and chief. Certainly he +was the most valuable and the most loyal of its early auxiliaries. + +Another coadjutor, whose part at the time also seemed rather that of a +chief, was Mr. William Palmer, of Worcester College. He had been +educated at Trinity College, Dublin, but he had transferred his home to +Oxford, both in the University and the city. He was a man of exact and +scholastic mind, well equipped at all points in controversial theology, +strong in clear theories and precise definitions, familiar with +objections current in the schools and with the answers to them, and well +versed in all the questions, arguments, and authorities belonging to the +great debate with Rome. He had definite and well-arranged ideas about +the nature and office of the Church; and, from his study of the Roman +controversy, he had at command the distinctions necessary to +discriminate between things which popular views confused, and to protect +the doctrines characteristic of the Church from being identified with +Romanism. Especially he had given great attention to the public +devotional language and forms of the Church, and had produced by far the +best book in the English language on the history and significance of the +offices of the English Church--the _Origines Liturgicae_, published at +the University Press in 1832. It was a book to give a man authority with +divines and scholars; and among those with whom at this time he acted no +one had so compact and defensible a theory, even if it was somewhat +rigid and technical, of the peculiar constitution of the English Church +as Mr. Palmer. With the deepest belief in this theory, he saw great +dangers threatening, partly from general ignorance and looseness of +thought, partly from antagonistic ideas and principles only too distinct +and too popular; and he threw all his learning and zeal on the side of +those who, like himself, were alive to those dangers, and were prepared +for a great effort to counteract them. + +The little company which met at Hadleigh Rectory, from 25th to 29th July +1833, met--as other knots of men have often met, to discuss a question +or a policy, or to found an association, or a league, or a newspaper--to +lay down the outlines of some practical scheme of work; but with little +foresight of the venture they were making, or of the momentous issues +which depended on their meeting. Later on, when controversy began, it +became a favourite rhetorical device to call it by the ugly name of a +"conspiracy." Certainly Froude called it so, and Mr. Palmer; and Mr. +Perceval wrote a narrative to answer the charge. It was a "conspiracy," +as any other meeting would be of men with an object which other men +dislike. + +Of the Oriel men, only Froude went to Hadleigh. Keble and Newman were +both absent, but in close correspondence with the others. Their plans +had not taken any definite shape; but they were ready for any sacrifice +and service, and they were filled with wrath against the insolence of +those who thought that the Church was given over into their hands, and +against the apathy and cowardice of those who let her enemies have their +way. Yet with much impatience and many stern determinations in their +hearts, they were all of them men to be swayed by the judgment and +experience of their friends. + +The state of mind under which the four friends met at the Hadleigh +conference has been very distinctly and deliberately recorded by all of +them. Churchmen in our days hardly realise what the face of things then +looked like to men who, if they felt deeply, were no mere fanatics or +alarmists, but sober and sagacious observers, not affected by mere +cries, but seeing dearly beneath the surface of things their certain and +powerful tendencies. "We felt ourselves," writes Mr. Palmer some years +afterwards,[42] "assailed by enemies from without and foes within. Our +Prelates insulted and threatened by Ministers of State. In Ireland ten +bishoprics suppressed. We were advised to feel thankful that a more +sweeping measure had not been adopted. What was to come next?... Was the +same principle of concession to popular clamour ... to be exemplified in +the dismemberment of the English Church?... We were overwhelmed with +pamphlets on Church reform. Lord Henley, brother-in-law of Sir Robert +Peel, Dr. Burton, and others of name and influence led the way. Dr. +Arnold of Rugby ventured to propose that all sects should be united by +Act of Parliament with the Church of England. Reports, apparently well +founded, were prevalent that some of the Prelates were favourable to +alterations in the Liturgy. Pamphlets were in wide circulation +recommending the abolition of the Creeds (at least in public worship), +especially urging the expulsion of the Athanasian Creed; the removal of +all mention of the Blessed Trinity; of the doctrine of baptismal +regeneration; of the practice of absolution. We knew not to what quarter +to look for support. A Prelacy threatened and apparently intimidated; a +Government making its power subservient to agitators, who avowedly +sought the destruction of the Church ... And, worst of all, _no +principle in the public mind to which we could appeal_; an utter +ignorance of all rational grounds of attachment to the Church; an +oblivion of its spiritual character, as an institution not of man but of +God; the grossest Erastianism most widely prevalent, especially amongst +all classes of politicians. There was in all this enough to appal the +stoutest heart; and those who can recall the feeling of those days will +at once remember the deep depression into which the Church had fallen, +and the gloomy forebodings universally prevalent." + +"Before the spirit and temper of those who met at the conference is +condemned as extravagant," writes Mr. Perceval in 1842,[43] "let the +reader call to mind what was then actually the condition as well as the +prospect of the Church and nation: an agrarian and civic insurrection +against the bishops and clergy, and all who desired to adhere to the +existing institutions of the country; the populace goaded on, openly by +the speeches, covertly (as was fully believed at the time) by the paid +emissaries of the ministers of the Crown; the chief of those ministers +in his place in Parliament bidding the bishops 'set their house in +order'; the mob taking him at his word, and burning to the ground the +palace of the Bishop of Bristol, with the public buildings of the city, +while they shouted the Premier's name in triumph on the ruins." The +pressing imminence of the danger is taken for granted by the calmest and +most cautious of the party, Mr. Rose, in a letter of February 1833. +"That something is requisite, is certain. The only thing is, that +whatever is done ought to be _quickly_ done, for the danger is +immediate, and _I should have little fear if I thought that we could +stand for ten or fifteen years as we are_."[44] In the _Apologia_ +Cardinal Newman recalls what was before him in those days. "The Whigs +had come into power; Lord Grey had told the bishops to 'set their house +in order,' and some of the prelates had been insulted and threatened in +the streets of London. The vital question was. How were we to keep the +Church from being Liberalised? There was so much apathy on the subject +in some quarters, such imbecile alarm in others; the true principles of +Churchmanship seemed so radically decayed, and there was such +distraction in the councils of the clergy. The Bishop of London of the +day, an active and open-hearted man, had been for years engaged in +diluting the high orthodoxy of the Church by the introduction of the +Evangelical body into places of influence and trust. He had deeply +offended men who agreed with myself by an off-hand saying (as it was +reported) to the effect that belief in the apostolical succession had +gone out with the Non-jurors. '_We can count you_,' he said to some of +the gravest and most venerated persons of the old school.... I felt +affection for my own Church, but not tenderness: I felt dismay at her +prospects, anger and scorn at her do-nothing perplexity. I thought that +if Liberalism once got a footing within her, it was sure of victory in +the event. I saw that Reformation principles were powerless to rescue +her. As to leaving her, the thought never crossed my imagination: still +I ever kept before me that there was something greater than the +Established Church, and that that was the Church Catholic and Apostolic, +set up from the beginning, of which she was but the local presence and +organ. She was nothing unless she was this. She must be dealt with +strongly or she would be lost. There was need of a second Reformation." + +"If _I thought that we could stand ten or fifteen years as we are_, I +should have little fear," said Mr. Rose. He felt that, if only he could +secure a respite, he had the means and the hope of opening the eyes of +Churchmen. They were secure and idle from long prosperity, and now they +were scared and perplexed by the suddenness of an attack for which they +were wholly unprepared. But he had confidence in his own convictions. +He had around him ability and zeal, in which he had the best reason to +trust. He might hope, if he had time, to turn the tide. But this time to +stand to arms was just what he had not. The danger, he felt, was upon +him. He could not wait. So he acquiesced in an agitation which so +cautious and steady a man would otherwise hardly have chosen. "That +_something must be done_ is certain. The only thing is, that whatever is +done ought to be _quickly_ done." Nothing can show more forcibly the +imminence and pressure of the crisis than words like these, not merely +from Froude and his friends, but from such a man as Mr. Hugh James Rose. + +"Something must be done," but what? This was not so easy to say. It was +obvious that men must act in concert, and must write; but beyond these +general points, questions and difficulties arose. The first idea that +suggested itself at Hadleigh was a form of association, which would have +been something like the _English Church Union_ or the _Church Defence +Association_ of our days. It probably was Mr. Palmer's idea; and for +some time the attempt to carry it into effect was followed up at Oxford. +Plans of "Association" were drawn up and rejected. The endeavour brought +out differences of opinion--differences as to the rightness or the +policy of specific mention of doctrines; differences as to the union of +Church and State, on the importance of maintaining which, as long as +possible, Mr. Newman sided with Mr. Palmer against Mr. Keble's more +uncompromising view. A "_third_ formulary" was at length adopted. +"Events," it said, "have occurred within the last few years calculated +to inspire the true members and friends of the Church with the deepest +uneasiness." It went on to notice that political changes had thrown +power into the hands of the professed enemies of the Church as an +establishment; but it was not merely as an establishment that it was in +most serious danger. "Every one," it says, "who has become acquainted +with the literature of the day, must have observed the sedulous attempts +made in various quarters to reconcile members of the Church to +alterations in its doctrines and discipline. Projects of change, which +include the annihilation of our Creeds and the removal of doctrinal +statements incidentally contained in our worship, have been boldly and +assiduously put forth. Our services have been subjected to licentious +criticism, with the view of superseding some of them and of entirely +remodelling others. The very elementary principles of our ritual and +discipline have been rudely questioned; our apostolical polity has been +ridiculed and denied." The condition of the times made these things +more than ordinarily alarming, and the pressing danger was urged as a +reason for the formation, by members of the Church in various parts of +the kingdom, of an association on a few broad principles of union for +the defence of the Church. "They feel strongly," said the authors of the +paper, "that no fear of the appearance of forwardness should dissuade +them from a design, which seems to be demanded of them by their +affection towards that spiritual community to which they owe their hopes +of the world to come; and by a sense of duty to that God and Saviour who +is its Founder and Defender." But the plan of an Association, or of +separate Associations, which was circulated in the autumn of 1833, came +to nothing. "Jealousy was entertained of it in high quarters." Froude +objected to any association less wide than the Church itself. Newman had +a horror of committees and meetings and great people in London. And +thus, in spite of Mr. Palmer's efforts, favoured by a certain number of +influential and dignified friends, the Association would not work. But +the stir about it was not without result. Mr. Palmer travelled about the +country with the view of bringing the state of things before the clergy. +In place of the Association, an Address to the Archbishop of Canterbury +was resolved upon. It was drawn up by Mr. Palmer, who undertook the +business of circulating it. In spite of great difficulties and trouble +of the alarm of friends like Mr. Rose, who was afraid that it would +cause schism in the Church; of the general timidity of the dignified +clergy; of the distrust and the crotchets of others; of the coldness of +the bishops and the opposition of some of them--it was presented with +the signatures of some 7000 clergy to the Archbishop in February 1834. +It bore the names, among others, of Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, Master +of Trinity; Dr. Gilbert, of Brasenose College; Dr. Faussett, and Mr. +Keble. And this was not all. A Lay Address followed. There were +difficulties about the first form proposed, which was thought to say too +much about the doctrine and discipline of the Church; and it was laid +aside for one with more vague expressions about the "consecration of the +State," and the practical benefits of the Established Church. In this +form it was signed by 230,000 heads of families, and presented to the +Archbishop in the following May. "From these two events," writes Mr. +Perceval in 1842, "we may date the commencement of the turn of the tide, +which had threatened to overwhelm our Church and our religion."[45] +There can, at any rate, be little doubt that as regards the external +position of the Church in the country, this agitation was a success. It +rallied the courage of Churchmen, and showed that they were stronger and +more resolute than their enemies thought. The revolutionary temper of +the times had thrown all Churchmen on the Conservative side; and these +addresses were partly helped by political Conservatism, and also reacted +in its favour. + +Some of the Hadleigh friends would probably have been content to go on +in this course, raising and keeping alive a strong feeling in favour of +things as they were, creating a general sympathy with the Church, and +confidence in the peculiar excellency of its wise and sober +institutions, sedulously but cautiously endeavouring to correct popular +mistakes about them, and to diffuse a sounder knowledge and a sounder +tone of religious feeling. This is what Mr. H.J. Rose would have wished, +only he felt that he could not insure the "ten or fifteen years" which +he wanted to work this gradual change. Both he and Mr. Palmer would have +made London, to use a military term, their base of operations. The Oriel +men, on the other hand, thought that "Universities are the natural +centres of intellectual movements"; they were for working more +spontaneously in the freedom of independent study; they had little faith +in organisation; "living movements," they said, "do not come of +committees." But at Hadleigh it was settled that there was writing to be +done, in some way or other; and on this, divergence of opinion soon +showed itself, both as to the matter and the tone of what was to be +written. + +For the writers of real force, the men of genius, were the three Oriel +men, with less experience, at that time, with less extensive learning, +than Mr. Rose and Mr. Palmer. But they were bolder and keener spirits; +they pierced more deeply into the real condition and prospects of the +times; they were not disposed to smooth over and excuse what they +thought hollow and untrue, to put up with decorous compromises and +half-measures, to be patient towards apathy, negligence, or insolence. +They certainly had more in them of the temper of warfare. We know from +their own avowals that a great anger possessed them, that they were +indignant at the sacred idea of the Church being lost and smothered by +selfishness and stupidity; they were animated by the spirit which makes +men lose patience with abuses and their apologists, and gives them no +peace till they speak out. Mr. Newman felt that, though associations and +addresses might be very well, what the Church and the clergy and the +country wanted was plain speaking; and that plain speaking could not be +got by any papers put forth as joint manifestoes, or with the revision +and sanction of "safe" and "judicious" advisers. It was necessary to +write, and to write as each man felt: and he determined that each man +should write and speak for himself, though working in concert and +sympathy with others towards the supreme end--the cause and interests of +the Church. + +And thus were born the _Tracts for the Times._[46] For a time Mr. +Palmer's line and Mr. Newman's line ran on side by side; but Mr. +Palmer's plan had soon done all that it could do, important as that was; +it gradually faded out of sight, and the attention of all who cared for, +or who feared or who hated the movement, was concentrated on the "Oxford +Tracts." They were the watchword and the symbol of an enterprise which +all soon felt to be a remarkable one--remarkable, if in nothing else, in +the form in which it was started. Great changes and movements have been +begun in various ways; in secret and underground communications, in +daring acts of self-devotion or violence, in the organisation of an +institution, in the persistent display of a particular temper and set of +habits, especially in the form of a stirring and enthralling eloquence, +in popular preaching, in fierce appeals to the passions. But though +tracts had become in later times familiar instruments of religious +action, they had, from the fashion of using them, become united in the +minds of many with rather disparaging associations. The pertinacity of +good ladies who pressed them on chance strangers, and who extolled their +efficacy as if it was that of a quack medicine, had lowered the general +respect for them. The last thing that could have been thought of was a +great religions revolution set in motion by tracts and leaflets, and +taking its character and name from them. + +But the ring of these early Tracts was something very different from +anything of the kind yet known in England. They were clear, brief, stern +appeals to conscience and reason, sparing of words, utterly without +rhetoric, intense in purpose. They were like the short, sharp, rapid +utterances of men in pain and danger and pressing emergency. The first +one gave the keynote of the series. Mr. Newman "had out of his own head +begun the Tracts": he wrote the opening one in a mood which he has +himself described. He was in the "exultation of health restored and home +regained": he felt, he says, an "exuberant and joyous energy which he +never had before or since"; "his health and strength had come back to +him with such a rebound" that some of his friends did not know him. "I +had the consciousness that I was employed in that work which I had been +dreaming about, and which I felt to be so momentous and inspiring. I had +a supreme confidence in our cause; we were upholding that primitive +Christianity which was delivered for all time by the early teachers of +the Church, and which was registered and attested in the Anglican +formularies and by the Anglican divines. That ancient religion had +well-nigh faded out of the land through the political changes of the +last 150 years, and it must be restored. It would be, in fact, a second +Reformation--a better Reformation, for it would return, not to the +sixteenth century, but to the seventeenth. No time was to be lost, for +the Whigs had come to do their worst, and the rescue might come too +late. Bishoprics were already in course of suppression; Church property +was in course of confiscation; sees would be soon receiving unsuitable +occupants. We knew enough to begin preaching, and there was no one else +to preach. I felt," he goes on,[47] with a characteristic recollection +of his own experience when he started on his voyage with Froude in the +_Hermes_, "as on a vessel, which first gets under weigh, and then clears +out the deck, and stores away luggage and live stock into their proper +receptacles." The first three Tracts bear the date of 9th September +1833. They were the first public utterance of the movement. The opening +words of this famous series deserve to be recalled. They are new to most +of the present generation. + + TO MY BRETHREN IN THE SACRED MINISTRY, THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS OF + THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IN ENGLAND, ORDAINED THEREUNTO BY THE HOLY GHOST + AND THE IMPOSITION OF HANDS. + + FELLOW-LABOURERS,--I am but one of yourselves--Presbyter; and + therefore I conceal my name, lest I should take too much on myself by + speaking in my own person. Yet speak I must; for the times are very + evil, yet no one speaks against them. + + Is not this so? Do not we "look one upon another," yet perform + nothing? Do we not all confess the peril into which the Church is + come, yet sit still each in his own retirement, as if mountains and + seas cut off brother from brother? Therefore suffer me, while I try to + draw you forth from those pleasant retreats, which it has been our + blessedness hitherto to enjoy, to contemplate the condition and + prospects of our Holy Mother in a practical way; so that one and all + may unlearn that idle habit, which has grown upon us, of owning the + state of things to be bad, yet doing nothing to remedy it. + + Consider a moment. Is it fair, is it dutiful, to suffer our bishops to + stand the brunt of the battle without doing our part to support them? + Upon them comes "the care of all the Churches." This cannot be helped; + indeed it is their glory. Not one of us would wish in the least to + deprive them of the duties, the toils, the responsibilities of their + high office. And, black event as it would be for the country, yet (as + far as they are concerned) we could not wish them a more blessed + termination of their course than the spoiling of their goods and + martyrdom. + + To them then we willingly and affectionately relinquish their high + privileges and honours; we encroach not upon the rights of the + SUCCESSORS OF THE APOSTLES; we touch not their sword and crozier. Yet + surely we may be their shield-bearers in the battle without offence; + and by our voice and deeds be to them what Luke and Timothy were to + St. Paul. + + Now then let me come at once to the subject which leads me to address + you. Should the Government and the Country so far forget their God as + to cast off the Church, to deprive it of its temporal honours and + substance, _on what_ will you rest the claim of respect and attention + which you make upon your flocks? Hitherto you have been upheld by your + birth, your education, your wealth, your connexions; should these + secular advantages cease, on what must Christ's Ministers depend? Is + not this a serious practical question? We know how miserable is the + state of religious bodies not supported by the State. Look at the + Dissenters on all sides of you, and you will see at once that their + Ministers, depending simply upon the people, become the _creatures_ of + the people. Are you content that this should be your case? Alas! can a + greater evil befall Christians, than for their teachers to be guided + by them, instead of guiding? How can we "hold fast the form of sound + words," and "keep that which is committed to our trust," if our + influence is to depend simply on our popularity? Is it not our very + office to _oppose_ the world? Can we then allow ourselves to _court_ + it? to preach smooth things and prophesy deceits? to make the way of + life easy to the rich and indolent, and to bribe the humbler classes + by excitements and strong intoxicating doctrine? Surely it must not be + so;--and the question recurs, _on what_ are we to rest our authority + when the State deserts us? + + Christ has not left His Church without claim of its own upon the + attention of men. Surely not. Hard Master He cannot be, to bid us + oppose the world, yet give us no credentials for so doing. There are + some who rest their divine mission on their own unsupported assertion; + others, who rest it upon their popularity; others, on their success; + and others, who rest it upon their temporal distinctions. This last + case has, perhaps, been too much our own; I fear we have neglected the + real ground on which our authority is built--OUR APOSTOLICAL DESCENT. + + We have been born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of + the will of man, but of God. The Lord Jesus Christ gave His Spirit to + His Apostles; they in turn laid their hands on those who should + succeed them; and these again on others; and so the sacred gift has + been handed down to our present bishops, who have appointed us as + their assistants, and in some sense representatives. + + Now every one of us believes this. I know that some will at first deny + they do; still they do believe it. Only, it is not sufficiently, + practically impressed on their minds. + + They _do_ believe it; for it _is_ the doctrine of the Ordination + Service, which they have recognised as truth in the most solemn season + of their lives. In order, then, not to prove, but to remind and + impress, I entreat your attention to the words used when you were made + ministers of Christ's Church. + + The office of Deacon was thus committed to you: "Take thou authority + to execute the office of a Deacon in the Church of God committed unto + thee: In the name, etc." + + And the Priesthood thus: + + "Receive the Holy Ghost, for the office and work of a Priest, in the + Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands. + Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou + dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a faithful dispenser of + the Word of God, and of His Holy Sacraments: In the name, etc." + + These, I say, were words spoken to us, and received by us, when we + were brought nearer to God than at any other time of our lives. I know + the grace of ordination is contained in the laying on of hands, not in + any form of words;--yet in our own case (as has ever been usual in the + Church) words of blessing have accompanied the act. Thus we have + confessed before God our belief that the bishop who ordained us gave + us the Holy Ghost, gave us the power to bind and to loose, to + administer the Sacraments, and to preach. Now _how_ is he able to give + these great gifts? _Whence_ is his right? Are these words idle (which + would be taking God's name in vain), or do they express merely a wish + (which surely is very far below their meaning), or do they not rather + indicate that the speaker is conveying a gift? Surely they can mean + nothing short of this. But whence, I ask, his right to do so? Has he + any right, except as having received the power from those who + consecrated him to be a bishop? He could not give what he had never + received. It is plain then that he but _transmits_; and that the + Christian Ministry is a _succession_. And if we trace back the power + of ordination from hand to hand, of course we shall come to the + Apostles at last. We know we do, as a plain historical fact; and + therefore all we, who have been ordained clergy, in the very form of + our ordination acknowledged the doctrine of the APOSTOLICAL + SUCCESSION. + + And for the same reason, we must necessarily consider none to be + _really_ ordained who have not _thus_ been ordained. For if ordination + is a divine ordinance, it must be necessary; and if it is not a divine + ordinance, how dare we use it? Therefore all who use it, all of _us_, + must consider it necessary. As well might we pretend the Sacraments + are not necessary to salvation, while we make use of the offices in + the Liturgy; for when God appoints means of grace, they are _the_ + means. + + I do not see how any one can escape from this plain view of the + subject, except (as I have already hinted) by declaring that the words + do not mean all that they say. But only reflect what a most unseemly + time for random words is that in which ministers are set apart for + their office. Do we not adopt a Liturgy _in order to_ hinder + inconsiderate idle language, and shall we, in the most sacred of all + services, write down, subscribe, and use again and again forms of + speech which have not been weighed, and cannot be taken strictly? + + Therefore, my dear brethren, act up to your professions. Let it not + be said that you have neglected a gift; for if you have the Spirit of + the Apostles on you, surely this _is_ a great gift. "Stir up the gift + of God which is in you." Make much of it. Show your value of it. Keep + it before your minds as an honourable badge, far higher than that + secular respectability, or cultivation, or polish, or learning, or + rank, which gives you a hearing with the many. Tell _them_ of your + gift. The times will soon drive you to do this, if you mean to be + still anything. But wait not for the times. Do not be compelled, by + the world's forsaking you, to recur as if unwillingly to the high + source of your authority. Speak out now, before you are forced, both + as glorying in your privilege and to insure your rightful honour from + your people. A notion has gone abroad that they can take away your + power. They think they have given and can take it away. They think it + lies in the Church property, and they know that they have politically + the power to confiscate that property. They have been deluded into a + notion that present palpable usefulness, producible results, + acceptableness to your flocks, that these and such like are the tests + of your divine commission. Enlighten them in this matter. Exalt our + Holy Fathers the bishops, as the representatives of the Apostles, and + the Angels of the Churches; and magnify your office, as being ordained + by them to take part in their Ministry. + + But, if you will not adopt my view of the subject, which I offer to + you, not doubtingly, yet (I hope) respectfully, at all events, CHOOSE + YOUR SIDE. To remain neuter much longer will be itself to take a part. + _Choose_ your side; since side you shortly must, with one or other + party, even though you do nothing. Fear to be of those whose line is + decided for them by chance circumstances, and who may perchance find + themselves with the enemies of Christ, while they think but to remove + themselves from worldly politics. Such abstinence is impossible in + troublous times. HE THAT IS NOT WITH ME IS AGAINST ME, AND HE THAT + GATHERETH NOT WITH ME SCATTERETH ABROAD. + +While Mr. Palmer was working at the Association and the Address, Mr. +Newman with his friends was sending forth the Tracts, one after another, +in rapid succession, through the autumn and winter of 1833. They were +short papers, in many cases mere short notes, on the great questions +which had suddenly sprung into such interest, and were felt to be full +of momentous consequence,--the true and essential nature of the +Christian Church, its relation to the primitive ages, its authority and +its polity and government, the current objections to its claims in +England, to its doctrines and its services, the length of the prayers, +the Burial Service, the proposed alterations in the Liturgy, the neglect +of discipline, the sins and corruptions of each branch of Christendom. +The same topics were enforced and illustrated again and again as the +series went on; and then there came extracts from English divines, like +Bishop Beveridge, Bishop Wilson, and Bishop Cosin, and under the title +"Records of the Church," translations from the early Fathers, Ignatius, +Justin, Irenaeus, and others. Mr. Palmer contributed to one of these +papers, and later on Mr. Perceval wrote two or three; but for the most +part these early Tracts were written by Mr. Newman, though Mr. Keble and +one or two others also helped. Afterwards, other writers joined in the +series. They were at first not only published with a notice that any one +might republish them with any alterations he pleased, but they were +distributed by zealous coadjutors, ready to take any trouble in the +cause. Mr. Mozley has described how he rode about Northamptonshire, +from parsonage to parsonage, with bundles of the Tracts. The _Apologia_ +records the same story. "I called upon clergy," says the writer, "in +various parts of the country, whether I was acquainted with them or not, +and I attended at the houses of friends where several of them were from +time to time assembled.... I did not care whether my visits were made to +High Church or Low Church: I wished to make a strong pull in union with +all who were opposed to the principles of Liberalism, whoever they might +be." He adds that he does not think that much came of these visits, or +of letters written with the same purpose, "except that they advertised +the fact that a rally in favour of the Church was commencing." + +The early Tracts were intended to startle the world, and they succeeded +in doing so. Their very form, as short earnest leaflets, was perplexing; +for they came, not from the class of religionists who usually deal in +such productions, but from distinguished University scholars, picked men +of a picked college; and from men, too, who as a school were the +representatives of soberness and self-control in religious feeling and +language, and whose usual style of writing was specially marked by its +severe avoidance of excitement and novelty; the school from which had +lately come the _Christian Year_, with its memorable motto "_In +quietness and confidence shall be your strength_." Their matter was +equally unusual. Undoubtedly they "brought strange things to the ears" +of their generation. To Churchmen now these "strange things" are such +familiar commonplaces, that it is hard to realise how they should have +made so much stir. But they were novelties, partly audacious, partly +unintelligible, then. The strong and peremptory language of the Tracts, +their absence of qualifications or explanations, frightened friends like +Mr. Palmer, who, so far, had no ground to quarrel with their doctrine, +and he wished them to be discontinued. The story went that one of the +bishops, on reading one of the Tracts on the Apostolical Succession, +could not make up his mind whether he held the doctrine or not. They +fell on a time of profound and inexcusable ignorance on the subjects +they discussed, and they did not spare it. The cry of Romanism was +inevitable, and was soon raised, though there was absolutely nothing in +them but had the indisputable sanction of the Prayer Book, and of the +most authoritative Anglican divines. There was no Romanism in them, nor +anything that showed a tendency to it. But custom, and the prevalence of +other systems and ways, and the interest of later speculations, and the +slackening of professional reading and scholarship in the Church, had +made their readers forget some of the most obvious facts in Church +history, and the most certain Church principles; and men were at sea as +to what they knew or believed on the points on which the Tracts +challenged them. The scare was not creditable; it was like the Italian +scare about cholera with its quarantines and fumigations; but it was +natural. The theological knowledge and learning were wanting which would +have been familiar with the broad line of difference between what is +Catholic and what is specially Roman. There were many whose teaching was +impugned, for it was really Calvinist or Zwinglian, and not Anglican. +There were hopeful and ambitious theological Liberals, who recognised in +that appeal to Anglicanism the most effective counter-stroke to their +own schemes and theories. There were many whom the movement forced to +think, who did not want such addition to their responsibilities. It +cannot be thought surprising that the new Tracts were received with +surprise, dismay, ridicule, and indignation. But they also at once +called forth a response of eager sympathy from numbers to whom they +brought unhoped-for relief and light in a day of gloom, of rebuke and +blasphemy. Mr. Keble, in the preface to his famous assize sermon, had +hazarded the belief that there were "hundreds, nay, thousands of +Christians, and that there soon will be tens of thousands, unaffectedly +anxious to be rightly guided" in regard to subjects that concern the +Church. The belief was soon justified. + +When the first forty-six Tracts were collected into a volume towards the +end of 1834, the following "advertisement" explaining their nature and +objects was prefixed to it. It is a contemporary and authoritative +account of what was the mind of the leaders of the movement; and it has +a significance beyond the occasion which prompted it. + + The following-Tracts were published with the object of + contributing-something towards the practical revival of doctrines, + which, although held by the great divines of our Church, at present + have become obsolete with the majority of her members, and are + withdrawn from public view even by the more learned and orthodox few + who still adhere to them. The Apostolic succession, the Holy Catholic + Church, were principles of action in the minds of our predecessors of + the seventeenth century; but, in proportion as the maintenance of the + Church has been secured by law, her ministers have been under the + temptation of leaning on an arm of flesh instead of her own + divinely-provided discipline, a temptation increased by political + events and arrangements which need not here be more than alluded to. A + lamentable increase of sectarianism has followed; being occasioned (in + addition to other more obvious causes), first, by the cold aspect + which the new Church doctrines have presented to the religious + sensibilities of the mind, next to their meagreness in suggesting + motives to restrain it from seeking out a more influential discipline. + Doubtless obedience to the law of the land, and the careful + maintenance of "decency and order" (the topics in usage among us), + are plain duties of the Gospel, and a reasonable ground for keeping in + communion with the Established Church; yet, if Providence has + graciously provided for our weakness more interesting and constraining + motives, it is a sin thanklessly to neglect them; just as it would be + a mistake to rest the duties of temperance or justice on the mere law + of natural religion, when they are mercifully sanctioned in the Gospel + by the more winning authority of our Saviour Christ. Experience has + shown the inefficacy of the mere injunctions of Church order, however + scripturally enforced, in restraining from schism the awakened and + anxious sinner; who goes to a dissenting preacher "because" (as he + expresses it) "he gets good from him": and though he does not stand + excused in God's sight for yielding to the temptation, surely the + ministers of the Church are not blameless if, by keeping back the more + gracious and consoling truths provided for the little ones of Christ, + they indirectly lead him into it. Had he been taught as a child, that + the Sacraments, not preaching, are the sources of Divine Grace; that + the Apostolical ministry had a virtue in it which went out over the + whole Church, when sought by the prayer of faith; that fellowship with + it was a gift and privilege, as well as a duty, we could not have had + so many wanderers from our fold, nor so many cold hearts within it. + + This instance may suggest many others of the superior _influence_ of + an apostolical over a mere secular method of teaching. The awakened + mind knows its wants, but cannot provide for them; and in its hunger + will feed upon ashes, if it cannot obtain the pure milk of the word. + Methodism and Popery are in different ways the refuge of those whom + the Church stints of the gifts of grace; they are the foster-mothers + of abandoned children. The neglect of the daily service, the + desecration of festivals, the Eucharist scantily administered, + insubordination permitted in all ranks of the Church, orders and + offices imperfectly developed, the want of societies for particular + religious objects, and the like deficiencies, lead the feverish mind, + desirous of a vent to its feelings, and a stricter rule of life, to + the smaller religious communities, to prayer and Bible meetings, and + ill-advised institutions and societies, on the one hand, on the other, + to the solemn and captivating services by which Popery gains its + proselytes. Moreover, the multitude of men cannot teach or guide + themselves; and an injunction given them to depend on their private + judgment, cruel in itself, is doubly hurtful, as throwing them on such + teachers as speak daringly and promise largely, and not only aid but + supersede individual exertion. + + These remarks may serve as a clue, for those who care to pursue it, to + the views which have led to the publication of the following Tracts. + The Church of Christ was intended to cope with human nature in all its + forms, and surely the gifts vouchsafed it are adequate for that + gracious purpose. There are zealous sons and servants of her English + branch, who see with sorrow that she is defrauded of her full + usefulness by particular theories and principles of the present age, + which interfere with the execution of one portion of her commission; + and while they consider that the revival of this portion of truth is + especially adapted to break up existing parties in the Church, and to + form instead a bond of union among all who love the Lord Jesus Christ + in sincerity, they believe that nothing but these neglected doctrines, + faithfully preached, will repress that extension of Popery, for which + the ever multiplying divisions of the religious world are too clearly + preparing the way. + +Another publication ought to be noticed, a result of the Hadleigh +meeting, which exhibited the leading ideas of the conference, and +especially of the more "conservative" members of it. This was a little +work in question and answer, called the "Churchman's Manual," drawn up +in part some time before the meeting by Mr. Perceval, and submitted to +the revision of Mr. Rose and Mr. Palmer. It was intended to be a +supplement to the "Church Catechism," as to the nature and claims of the +Church and its Ministers. It is a terse, clear, careful, and, as was +inevitable, rather dry summary of the Anglican theory, and of the +position which the English Church holds to the Roman Church, and to the +Dissenters. It was further revised at the conference, and "some +important suggestions were made by Froude"; and then Mr. Perceval, who +had great hopes from the publication, and spared himself no pains to +make it perfect, submitted it for revision and advice to a number of +representative Churchmen. The Scotch Bishops whom he consulted were warm +in approval, especially the venerable and saintly Bishop Jolly; as were +also a number of men of weight and authority in England: Judge Allan +Park, Joshua Watson, Mr. Sikes of Guilsborough, Mr. Churton of Crayke, +Mr. H.H. Norris, Dr. Wordsworth, and Dr. Routh. It was then laid before +the Archbishop for correction, or, if desirable, suppression; and for +his sanction if approved. The answer was what might have been expected, +that there was no objection to it, but that official sanction must be +declined on general grounds. After all this Mr. Perceval not unnaturally +claimed for it special importance. It was really, he observed, the +"first Tract," systematically put forth, and its preparation "apparently +gave rise" to the series; and it was the only one which received the +approval of all immediately concerned in the movement. "The care +bestowed on it," he says, "probably exceeds that which any theological +publication in the English communion received for a long time;" and +further, it shows "that the foundation of the movement with which Mr. +Rose was connected, was laid with all the care and circumspection that +reason could well suggest." It appears to have had a circulation, but +there is no reason to think that it had any considerable influence, one +way or other, on opinion in the Church. When it was referred to in +after-years by Mr. Perceval in his own vindication, it was almost +forgotten. More interesting, if not more important, Tracts had thrown it +into the shade. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[37] _Apol._ p. 100. + +[38] Palmer, _Narrative_, 1843 (republished 1883), pp. 5, 18. + +[39] Palmer (1883), pp. 40, 43, "June 1833, when he joined us at +Oxford." + +[40] See Palmer's account (1883), pp. 45-47, and (1843), pp. 6,7. + +[41] "Mr. Rose ... was the one commanding figure and very lovable man, +that the frightened and discomfited Church people were now rallying +round. Few people have left so distinct an impression of themselves as +this gentleman. For many years after, when he was no more, and Newman +had left Rose's standpoint far behind, he could never speak of him or +think of him without renewed tenderness" (Mr. T. Mozley, +_Reminiscences_, i. 308). + +In November 1838, shortly before Mr. Rose's death, Mr. Newman had +dedicated a volume of sermons to him--"who, when hearts were failing, +bade us stir up the gift that was in us, and betake ourselves to our +true mother" (_Parochial Sermons_, vol. iv.) + +[42] _Narrative of Events connected with the publication of Tracts for +the Times_, by W. Palmer (published 1843, republished 1883), pp. 96-100 +(abridged). + +[43] _Collection of Papers connected with the Theological Movement of_ +1833, by A.P. Perceval (1842), p. 25. + +[44] Palmer's _Narrative_ (1833), p. 101 + +[45] _Collection of Papers_, p. 12. + +[46] "That portentous birth of time, the _Tracts for the +Times._"--Mozley, _Remin_, i. 311. + +[47] Froude, _Remains_, i. 265. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE TRACTARIANS + + +Thus had been started--hurriedly perhaps, yet not without counting the +cost--a great enterprise, which had for its object to rouse the Church +from its lethargy, and to strengthen and purify religion, by making it +deeper and more real; and they who had put their hands to the plough +were not to look back any more. It was not a popular appeal; it +addressed itself not to the many but to the few; it sought to inspire +and to teach the teachers. There was no thought as yet of acting on the +middle classes, or on the ignorance and wretchedness of the great towns, +though Newman had laid down that the Church must rest on the people, and +Froude looked forward to colleges of unmarried priests as the true way +to evangelise the crowds. There was no display about this attempt, no +eloquence, nothing attractive in the way of original speculation or +sentimental interest. It was suspicious, perhaps too suspicious, of the +excitement and want of soberness, almost inevitable in strong appeals to +the masses of mankind. It brought no new doctrine, but professed to go +back to what was obvious and old-fashioned and commonplace. It taught +people to think less of preaching than of what in an age of excitement +were invidiously called forms--of the sacraments and services of the +Church. It discouraged, even to the verge of an intended dryness, all +that was showy, all that in thought or expression or manner it condemned +under the name of "flash." It laid stress on the exercise of an inner +and unseen self-discipline, and the cultivation of the less interesting +virtues of industry, humility, self-distrust, and obedience. If from its +writers proceeded works which had impressed people--a volume like the +_Christian Year_, poems original in their force and their tenderness, +like some of those in the _Lyra Apostolica_, sermons which arrested the +hearers by their keenness and pathetic undertone--the force of all this +was not the result of literary ambition and effort, but the reflexion, +unconscious, unsought, of thought and feeling that could not otherwise +express itself, and that was thrown into moulds shaped by habitual +refinement and cultivated taste. It was from the first a movement from +which, as much by instinct and temper as by deliberate intention, +self-seeking in all its forms was excluded. Those whom it influenced +looked not for great things for themselves, nor thought of making a mark +in the world. + +The first year after the Hadleigh meeting (1834) passed uneventfully. +The various addresses in which Mr. Palmer was interested, the election +and installation of the Duke of Wellington as Chancellor, the enthusiasm +and hopes called forth by the occasion, were public and prominent +matters. The Tracts were steadily swelling in number; the busy +distribution of them had ceased, and they had begun to excite interest +and give rise to questions. Mr. Palmer, who had never liked the Tracts, +became more uneasy; yet he did not altogether refuse to contribute to +them. Others gave their help, among them Mr. Perceval, Froude, the two +Kebles, and Mr. Newman's friend, a layman, Mr. J. Bowden; some of the +younger scholars furnished translations from the Fathers; but the bulk +and most forcible of the Tracts were still the work of Mr. Newman. But +the Tracts were not the most powerful instruments in drawing sympathy to +the movement. None but those who remember them can adequately estimate +the effect of Mr. Newman's four o'clock sermons at St. Mary's.[48] The +world knows them, has heard a great deal about them, has passed its +various judgments on them. But it hardly realises that without those +sermons the movement might never have gone on, certainly would never +have been what it was. Even people who heard them continually, and felt +them to be different from any other sermons, hardly estimated their real +power, or knew at the time the influence which the sermons were having +upon them. Plain, direct, unornamented, clothed in English that was only +pure and lucid, free from any faults of taste, strong in their +flexibility and perfect command both of language and thought, they were +the expression of a piercing and large insight into character and +conscience and motives, of a sympathy at once most tender and most stern +with the tempted and the wavering, of an absolute and burning faith in +God and His counsels, in His love, in His judgments, in the awful glory +of His generosity and His magnificence. They made men think of the +things which the preacher spoke of, and not of the sermon or the +preacher. Since 1828 this preaching had been going on at St. Mary's, +growing in purpose and directness as the years went on, though it could +hardly be more intense than in some of its earliest examples. While men +were reading and talking about the Tracts, they were hearing the +sermons; and in the sermons they heard the living meaning, and reason, +and bearing of the Tracts, their ethical affinities, their moral +standard. The sermons created a moral atmosphere, in which men judged +the questions in debate. It was no dry theological correctness and +completeness which were sought for. No love of privilege, no formal +hierarchical claims, urged on the writers. What they thought in danger, +what they aspired to revive and save, was the very life of religion, the +truth and substance of all that makes it the hope of human society. + +But indeed, by this time, out of the little company of friends which a +common danger and a common loyalty to the Church had brought together, +one Mr. Newman, had drawn ahead, and was now in the front. Unsought +for, as the _Apologia_ makes so clear--unsought for, as the contemporary +letters of observing friends attest--unsought for, as the whole tenor of +his life has proved--the position of leader in a great crisis came to +him, because it must come. He was not unconscious that, as he had felt +in his sickness in Sicily, he "had a work to do." But there was shyness +and self-distrust in his nature as well as energy; and it was the force +of genius, and a lofty character, and the statesman's eye, taking in and +judging accurately the whole of a complicated scene, which conferred the +gifts, and imposed inevitably and without dispute the obligations and +responsibilities of leadership. Dr. Pusey of course was a friend of +great account, but he was as yet in the background, a venerated and +rather awful person, from his position not mixing in the easy +intercourse of common-room life, but to be consulted on emergencies. +Round Mr. Newman gathered, with a curious mixture of freedom, devotion, +and awe--for, with unlimited power of sympathy, he was exacting and even +austere in his friendships--the best men of his college, either +Fellows--R. Wilberforce, Thomas Mozley, Frederic Rogers, J.F. Christie; +or old pupils--Henry Wilberforce, R.F. Wilson, William Froude, Robert +Williams, S.F. Wood, James Bliss, James Mozley; and in addition some +outsiders--Woodgate of St. John's, Isaac Williams and Copeland, of his +old College, Trinity. These, members of his intimate circle, were bound +to him not merely by enthusiastic admiration and confidence, but by a +tenderness of affection, a mixture of the gratitude and reliance of +discipleship with the warm love of friendship, of which one has to go +back far for examples, and which has had nothing like it in our days at +Oxford. And Newman was making his mark as a writer. The _Arians_, though +an imperfect book, was one which, for originality and subtlety of +thought, was something very unlike the usual theological writing of the +day. There was no doubt of his power, and his mind was brimming over +with ideas on the great questions which were rising into view. It was +clear to all who know him that he could speak on them as no one else +could. + +Towards the end of 1834, and in the course of 1835, an event happened +which had a great and decisive influence on the character and fortunes +of the movement. This was the accession to it of Dr. Pusey. He had +looked favourably on it from the first, partly from his friendship with +Mr. Newman, partly from the workings of his own mind. But he had nothing +to do with the starting of it, except that he early contributed an +elaborate paper on "Fasting." The Oxford branch of the movement, as +distinguished from that which Mr. Palmer represented, consisted up to +1834 almost exclusively of junior men, personal friends of Mr. Newman, +and most of them Oriel men. Mr. Newman's deep convictions, his fiery +enthusiasm, had given the Tracts their first stamp and impress, and had +sent them flying over the country among the clergy on his own +responsibility. They answered their purpose. They led to widespread and +sometimes deep searchings of heart; to some they seemed to speak forth +what had been long dormant within them, what their minds had +unconsciously and vaguely thought and longed for; to some they seemed a +challenge pregnant with danger. But still they were but an outburst of +individual feeling and zeal, which, if nothing more came of its +fragmentary displays, might blaze and come to nothing. There was +nothing yet which spoke outwardly of the consistency and weight of a +serious attempt to influence opinion and to produce a practical and +lasting effect on the generation which was passing. Cardinal Newman, in +the _Apologia_, has attributed to Dr. Pusey's unreserved adhesion to the +cause which the Tracts represented a great change in regard to the +weight and completeness of what was written and done. "Dr. Pusey," he +writes, "gave us at once a position and a name. Without him we should +have had no chance, especially at the early date of 1834, of making any +serious resistance to the liberal aggression. But Dr. Pusey was a +Professor and Canon of Christ Church; he had a vast influence in +consequence of his deep religious seriousness, the munificence of his +charities, his Professorship, his family connexions, and his easy +relations with the University authorities. He was to the movement all +that Mr. Rose might have been, with that indispensable addition, which +was wanting to Mr. Rose, the intimate friendship and the familiar daily +society of the persons who had commenced it. And he had that special +claim on their attachment which lies in the living presence of a +faithful and loyal affectionateness. There was henceforth a man who +could be the head and centre of the zealous people in every part of the +country who were adopting the new opinions; and not only so, but there +was one who furnished the movement with a front to the world, and gained +for it a recognition from other parties in the University."[49] + +This is not too much to say of the effect of Dr. Pusey's adhesion. It +gave the movement a second head, in close sympathy with its original +leader, but in many ways very different from him. Dr. Pusey became, as +it were, its official chief in the eyes of the world. He became also, in +a remarkable degree, a guarantee for its stability and steadiness: a +guarantee that its chiefs knew what they were about, and meant nothing +but what was for the benefit of the English Church. "He was," we read in +the _Apologia_, "a man of large designs; he had a hopeful, sanguine +mind; he had no fear of others; he was haunted by no intellectual +perplexities.... If confidence in his position is (as it is) a first +essential in the leader of a party, Dr. Pusey had it." An inflexible +patience, a serene composure, a meek, resolute self-possession, was the +habit of his mind, and never deserted him in the most trying days. He +never for an instant, as the paragraph witnesses, wavered or doubted +about the position of the English Church. + +He was eminently, as his friend justly observes, "a man of large +designs." It is doubtless true, as the _Apologia_ goes on to say, that +it was due to the place which he now took in the movement that great +changes were made in the form and character of the Tracts. To Dr. +Pusey's mind, accustomed to large and exhaustive theological reading, +they wanted fulness, completeness, the importance given by careful +arrangement and abundant knowledge. It was not for nothing that he had +passed an apprenticeship among the divines of Germany, and been the +friend and correspondent of Tholuck, Schleiermacher, Ewald, and Sack. He +knew the meaning of real learning. In controversy it was his +sledge-hammer and battle-mace, and he had the strong and sinewy hand to +use it with effect. He observed that when attention had been roused to +the ancient doctrines of the Church by the startling and peremptory +language of the earlier Tracts, fairness and justice demanded that these +doctrines should be fully and carefully explained and defended against +misrepresentation and mistake. Forgetfulness and ignorance had thrown +these doctrines so completely into the shade that, identified as they +were with the best English divinity, they now wore the air of amazing +novelties; and it was only due to honest inquirers to satisfy them with +solid and adequate proof. "Dr. Pusey's influence was felt at once. He +saw that there ought to be more sobriety, more gravity, more careful +pains, more sense of responsibility in the Tracts and in the whole +movement." At the end of 1835 Dr. Pusey gave an example of what he +meant. In place of the "short and incomplete papers," such as the +earlier Tracts had been, Nos. 67, 68, and 69 formed the three parts of a +closely-printed pamphlet of more than 300 pages.[50] It was a treatise +on Baptism, perhaps the most elaborate that has yet appeared in the +English language. "It is to be regarded," says the advertisement to the +second volume of the Tracts, "not as an inquiry into a single or +isolated doctrine, but as a delineation and serious examination of a +modern system of theology, of extensive popularity and great +speciousness, in its elementary and characteristic principles." The +Tract on Baptism was like the advance of a battery of heavy artillery on +a field where the battle has been hitherto carried on by skirmishing and +musketry. It altered the look of things and the condition of the +fighting. After No. 67 the earlier form of the Tracts appeared no more. +Except two or three reprints from writers like Bishop Wilson, the Tracts +from No. 70 to No. 90 were either grave and carefully worked out essays +on some question arising out of the discussions of the time, or else +those ponderous _catenae_ of patristic or Anglican divinity, by which +the historical continuity and Church authority of various points of +doctrine were established. + +Dr. Pusey was indeed a man of "large designs." The vision rose before +him of a revived and instructed Church, earnest in purpose and strict in +life, and of a great Christian University roused and quickened to a +sense of its powers and responsibilities. He thought of the enormous +advantages offered by its magnificent foundations for serious study and +the production of works for which time and deep learning and continuous +labour were essential. Such works, in the hands of single-minded +students, living lives of simplicity and hard toil, had in the case of +the Portroyalists, the Oratorians, and above all, the Benedictines of +St. Maur, splendidly redeemed the Church of France, in otherwise evil +days, from the reproach of idleness and self-indulgence. He found under +his hand men who had in them something of the making of students; and he +hoped to see college fellowships filled more and more by such men, and +the life of a college fellow more and more recognised as that of a man +to whom learning, and especially sacred learning, was his call and +sufficient object, as pastoral or educational work might be the call of +others. Where fellowships were not to be had, he encouraged such men to +stay up in Oxford; he took them into his own house; later, he tried a +kind of hall to receive them. And by way of beginning at once, and +giving them something to do, he planned on a large scale a series of +translations and also editions of the Fathers. It was announced, with an +elaborate prospectus, in 1836, under the title, in conformity with the +usage of the time, which had _Libraries of Useful Knowledge, etc._, of a +_Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church anterior to the Division +of the East and West_, under the editorship of Dr. Pusey, Mr. Keble, +and Mr. Newman. It was dedicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and +had a considerable number of Bishops among its subscribers. Down to a +very late date, the _Library of the Fathers_, in which Charles Marriott +came to take a leading part, was a matter of much concern to Dr. Pusey. +And to bring men together, and to interest them in theological subjects, +he had evening meetings at his own house, where papers were read and +discussed. "Some persons," writes a gossiping chronicler of the +time,[51] "thought that these meetings were liable to the statute, _De +conventiculis illicitis reprimendis_." Some important papers were the +result of these meetings; but the meetings themselves were irresistibly +sleepy, and in time they were discontinued. But indefatigable and +powerful in all these beginnings Dr. Pusey stirred men to activity and +saw great ground of hope. He was prepared for opposition, but he had +boundless reliance on his friends and his cause. His forecast of the +future, of great days in store for the Church of England, was, not +unreasonably, one of great promise. Ten years might work wonders. The +last fear that occurred to him was that within ten years a hopeless +rift, not of affection but of conviction, would have run through that +company of friends, and parted irrevocably their course and work in +life. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[48] The subjoined extracts record the impression made by Mr. Newman's +preaching on contemporaries well qualified to judge, and standing +respectively in very different relations to the movement. This is the +judgment of a very close observer, and very independent critic, James +Mozley. In an article in the _Christian Remembrancer_, January 1846 (p. +169), after speaking of the obvious reasons of Mr. Newman's +influence, he proceeds:-- + + We inquire further, and we find that this influence has been of a + peculiarly ethical and inward kind; that it has touched the deepest + part of our minds, and that the great work on which it has been + founded is a practical, religious one--his Sermons. We speak not from + our own fixed impression, however deeply felt, but from what we have + heard and observed everywhere, from the natural, incidental, + unconscious remarks dropped from persons' mouths, and evidently + showing what they thought and felt. For ourselves, we must say, one of + Mr. Newman's sermons is to us a marvellous production. It has perfect + power, and perfect nature; but the latter it is which makes it so + great. A sermon of Mr. Newman's enters into all our feelings, ideas, + modes of viewing things. He wonderfully realises a state of mind, + enters into a difficulty, a temptation, a disappointment, a grief; he + goes into the different turns and incidental, unconscious symptoms of + a case, with notions which come into the head and go out again, and + are forgotten, till some chance recalls them.... To take the first + instance that happens to occur to us ... we have often been struck by + the keen way in which he enters into a regular tradesman's + vice--avarice, fortune-getting, amassing capital, and so on. This is + not a temper to which we can imagine Mr. Newman ever having felt in + his own mind even the temptation; but he understands it, and the + temptation to it, as perfectly as any merchant could. No man of + business could express it more naturally, more pungently, more _ex + animo_.... So with the view that worldly men take of religion, in a + certain sense, he quite enters into it, and the world's point of view: + he sees, with a regular worldly man's eye, religion vanishing into + nothing, and becoming an unreality, while the visible system of life + and facts, politics and society, gets more and more solid and grows + upon him. The whole influence of the world on the imagination; the + weight of example; the force of repetition; the way in which maxims, + rules, sentiments, by being simply sounded in the ear from day to day, + seem to prove themselves, and make themselves believed by being often + heard,--every part of the easy, natural, passive process by which a + man becomes a man of the world is entered into, as if the preacher + were going to justify or excuse him, rather than condemn him. Nay, he + enters deeply into what even scepticism has to say for itself; he puts + himself into the infidel's state of mind, in which the world, as a + great fact, seems to give the lie to all religions, converting them + into phenomena which counterbalance and negative each other, and he + goes down into that lowest abyss and bottom of things, at which the + intellect undercuts spiritual truth altogether. He enters into the + ordinary common states of mind just in the same way. He is most + consoling, most sympathetic. He sets before persons their own feelings + with such truth of detail, such natural expressive touches, that they + seem not to be ordinary states of mind which everybody has, but very + peculiar ones; for he and the reader seem to be the only two persons + in the world that have them in common. Here is the point. Persons look + into Mr. Newman's sermons and see their own thoughts in them. This is, + after all, what as much as anything gives a book hold upon minds.... + Wonderful pathetic power, that can so intimately, so subtilely and + kindly, deal with the soul!--and wonderful soul that can be so dealt + with. + +Compare with this the judgment pronounced by one of quite a different +school, the late Principal Shairp:-- + + Both Dr. Pusey and Mr. Keble at that time were quite second in + importance to Mr. Newman. The centre from which his power went forth + was the pulpit of St. Mary's, with those wonderful afternoon sermons. + Sunday after Sunday, year by year, they went on, each continuing and + deepening the impression produced by the last. As the hour interfered + with the dinner-hour of the Colleges, most men preferred a warm dinner + without Newman's sermon to a cold one with it; so the audience was not + crowded--the large church little more than half filled. The service + was very simple, no pomp, no ritualism; for it was characteristic of + the leading men of the movement that they left these things to the + weaker brethren. Their thoughts, at all events, were set on great + questions which touched the heart of unseen things. About the service, + the most remarkable thing was the beauty, the silver intonation of Mr. + Newman's voice as he read the lessons.... When he began to preach, a + stranger was not likely to be much struck. Here was no vehemence, no + declamation, no show of elaborated argument, so that one who came + prepared to hear "a great intellectual effort" was almost sure to go + away disappointed. Indeed, we believe that if he had preached one of + his St. Mary's sermons before a Scotch town congregation, they would + have thought the preacher a "silly body".... Those who never heard him + might fancy that his sermons would generally be about apostolical + succession, or rights of the Church, or against Dissenters. Nothing of + the kind. You might hear him preach for weeks without an allusion to + these things. What there was of High Church teaching was implied + rather than enforced. The local, the temporary, and the modern were + ennobled by the presence of the Catholic truth belonging to all ages + that pervaded the whole. His power showed itself chiefly in the new + and unlooked-for way in which he touched into life old truths, moral + or spiritual, which all Christians acknowledge, but most have ceased + to feel--when he spoke of "unreal words," of the "individuality of the + soul," of the "invisible world," of a "particular Providence," or + again, of the "ventures of faith," "warfare the condition of victory," + "the Cross of Christ the measure of the world," "the Church a Home for + the lonely." As he spoke, how the old truth became new; how it came + home with a meaning never felt before! He laid his finger how gently, + yet how powerfully, on some inner place in the hearer's heart, and + told him things about himself he had never known till then. Subtlest + truths, which it would have taken philosophers pages of circumlocution + and big words to state, were dropt out by the way in a sentence or two + of the most transparent Saxon. What delicacy of style, yet what + strength! how simple, yet how suggestive! how homely, yet how refined! + how penetrating, yet how tender-hearted! If now and then there was a + forlorn undertone which at the time seemed inexplicable, you might be + perplexed at the drift of what he said, but you felt all the more + drawn to the speaker. ... After hearing these sermons you might come + away still not believing the tenets peculiar to the High Church + system; but you would be harder than most men, if you did not feel + more than ever ashamed of coarseness, selfishness, worldliness, if you + did not feel the things of faith brought closer to the soul.--_John + Keble,_ by J. C. Shairp, Professor of Humanity, St. Andrews (1866), + pp. 12-17. + +I venture to add the judgment of another contemporary, on the effect of +this preaching, from the _Reminiscences_ of Sir F. Doyle, p. 145:-- + + That great man's extraordinary genius drew all those within his + sphere, like a magnet, to attach themselves to him and his doctrines. + Nay, before he became a Romanist, what we may call his mesmeric + influence acted not only on his Tractarian adherents, but even in some + degree on outsiders like myself. Whenever I was at Oxford, I used to + go regularly on Sunday afternoons to listen to his sermon at St. + Mary's, and I have never heard such preaching since. I do not know + whether it is a mere fancy of mine, or whether those who know him + better will accept and endorse my belief, that one element of his + wonderful power showed itself after this fashion. He always began as + if he had determined to set forth his idea of the truth in the + plainest and simplest language--language, as men say, "intelligible to + the meanest understanding." But his ardent zeal and fine poetical + imagination were not thus to be controlled. As I hung upon his words, + it seemed to me as if I could trace behind his will, and pressing, so + to speak, against it, a rush of thoughts, of feelings which he kept + struggling to hold back, but in the end they were generally too strong + for him, and poured themselves out in a torrent of eloquence all the + more impetuous from having been so long repressed. The effect of these + outbursts was irresistible, and carried his hearers beyond themselves + at once. Even when his efforts of self-restraint were more successful, + those very efforts gave a life and colour to his style which riveted + the attention of all within the reach of his voice. Mr. Justin + McCarthy, in his _History of Our Own Times_, says of him: "In all the + arts that make a great preacher or orator, Cardinal Newman was + deficient. His manner was constrained and ungraceful, and even + awkward; his voice was thin and weak, his bearing was not at first + impressive in any way--a gaunt emaciated figure, a sharp eagle face, + and a cold meditative eye, rather repelled than attracted those who + saw him for the first time." I do not think Mr. McCarthy's phrases + very happily chosen to convey his meaning. Surely a gaunt emaciated + frame and a sharp eagle face are the very characteristics which we + should picture to ourselves as belonging to Peter the Hermit, or + Scott's Ephraim Macbriar in _Old Mortality_. However unimpressive the + look of an eagle may be in Mr. McCarthy's opinion, I do not agree with + him about Dr. Newman. + + When I knew him at Oxford, these somewhat disparaging remarks would + not have been applicable. His manner, it is true, may have been + self-repressed, constrained it was not. His bearing was neither + awkward nor ungraceful; it was simply quiet and calm, because under + strict control; but beneath that calmness, intense feeling, I think, + was obvious to those who had any instinct of sympathy with him. But if + Mr. McCarthy's acquaintance with him only began when he took office in + an Irish Catholic university, I can quite understand that (flexibility + not being one of his special gifts) he may have failed now and again + to bring himself into perfect harmony with an Irish audience. He was + probably too much of a typical Englishman for his place; nevertheless + Mr. McCarthy, though he does not seem to have admired him in the + pulpit, is fully sensible of his intellectual powers and general + eminence. + + Dr. Pusey, who used every now and then to take Newman's duties at St. + Mary's, was to me a much less interesting person. [A learned man, no + doubt, but dull and tedious as a preacher.] Certainly, in spite of the + name Puseyism having been given to the Oxford attempt at a new + Catholic departure, he was not the Columbus of that voyage of + discovery undertaken to find a safer haven for the Church of England. + I may, however, be more or less unjust to him, as I owe him a sort of + grudge. His discourses were not only less attractive than those of Dr. + Newman, but always much longer, and the result of this was that the + learned Canon of Christ Church generally made me late for dinner at my + College, a calamity never inflicted on his All Souls' hearers by the + terser and swifter fellow of Oriel whom he was replacing. + + +[49] _Apologia_, p 136. + +[50] It swelled in the second edition to 400 pages [in spite of the fact +that in that edition the historical range of the treatise was greatly +reduced]. + +[51] _Recollections of Oxford_, by G.V. Cox, p. 278. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SUBSCRIPTION AT MATRICULATION AND ADMISSION OF DISSENTERS + + +"Depend upon it," an earnest High Churchman of the Joshua Watson type +had said to one of Mr. Newman's friends, who was a link between the old +Churchmanship and the new--"depend upon it, the day will come when those +great doctrines" connected with the Church, "now buried, will be brought +out to the light of the day, and then the effect will be quite +fearful."[52] With the publication of the _Tracts for the Times_, and +the excitement caused by them, the day had come. + +Their unflinching and severe proclamation of Church principles and +Church doctrines coincided with a state of feeling and opinion in the +country, in which two very different tendencies might be observed. They +fell on the public mind just when one of these tendencies would help +them, and the other be fiercely hostile. On the one hand, the issue of +the political controversy with the Roman Catholics, their triumph all +along the line, and the now scarcely disguised contempt shown by their +political representatives for the pledges and explanations on which +their relief was supposed to have been conceded, had left the public +mind sore, angry, and suspicious. Orthodox and Evangelicals were alike +alarmed and indignant; and the Evangelicals, always doctrinally jealous +of Popery, and of anything "unsound" in that direction, had been roused +to increased irritation by the proceedings of the Reformation Society, +which had made it its business to hold meetings and discussions all over +the country, where fervid and sometimes eloquent and able Irishmen, like +Mr. E. Tottenham, afterwards of Laura Chapel, Bath, had argued and +declaimed, with Roman text-books in hand, on such questions as the Right +of Private Judgment, the Rule of Faith, and the articles of the +Tridentine Creed--not always with the effect which they intended on +those who heard them, with whom their arguments, and those which they +elicited from their opponents, sometimes left behind uncomfortable +misgivings, and questions even more serious than the controversy itself. +On the other hand, in quarters quite unconnected with the recognised +religious schools, interest had been independently and strongly awakened +in the minds of theologians and philosophical thinkers, in regard to the +idea, history, and relations to society of the Christian Church. In +Ireland, a recluse, who was the centre of a small knot of earnest +friends, a man of deep piety and great freedom and originality of mind, +Mr. Alexander Knox, had been led, partly, it may be, by his intimacy +with John Wesley, to think out for himself the character and true +constitution of the Church, and the nature of the doctrines which it was +commissioned to teach. In England, another recluse, of splendid genius +and wayward humour, had dealt in his own way, with far-reaching insight, +with vast reading, and often with impressive eloquence, with the same +subject; and his profound sympathy and faith had been shared and +reflected by a great poet. What Coleridge and Wordsworth had put in the +forefront of their speculations and poetry, as the object of their +profoundest interest, and of their highest hopes for mankind, might, of +course, fail to appear in the same light to others; but it could not +fail, in those days at least, to attract attention, as a matter of grave +and well-founded importance. Coleridge's theories of the Church were his +own, and were very wide of theories recognised by any of those who had +to deal practically with the question, and who were influenced, in one +way or another, by the traditional doctrines of theologians. But +Coleridge had lifted the subject to a very high level. He had taken the +simple but all-important step of viewing the Church in its spiritual +character as first and foremost and above all things essentially a +religious society of divine institution, not dependent on the creation +or will of man, or on the privileges and honours which man might think +fit to assign to it; and he had undoubtedly familiarised the minds of +many with this way of regarding it, however imperfect, or cloudy, or +unpractical they might find the development of his ideas, and his +deductions from them. And in Oxford the questions which had stirred the +friends at Hadleigh had stirred others also, and had waked up various +responses. Whately's acute mind had not missed these questions, and had +given original if insufficient answers to them. Blanco White knew only +too well their bearing and importance, and had laboured, not without +success, to leave behind him his own impress on the way in which they +should be dealt with. Dr. Hampden, the man in Oxford best acquainted +with Aristotle's works and with the scholastic philosophy, had thrown +Christian doctrines into a philosophical calculus which seemed to leave +them little better than the inventions of men. On the other hand, a +brilliant scholar, whose after-career was strangely full of great +successes and deplorable disasters, William Sewell of Exeter College, +had opened, in a way new to Oxford, the wealth and magnificence of +Plato; and his thoughts had been dazzled by seeming to find in the +truths and facts of the Christian Church the counterpart and realisation +of the grandest of Plato's imaginations. The subjects treated with such +dogmatic severity and such impetuous earnestness in the Tracts were, in +one shape or another, in all men's minds, when these Tracts broke on the +University and English society with their peremptory call to men "to +take their side." + +There was just a moment of surprise and uncertainty--uncertainty as to +what the Tracts meant; whether they were to be a new weapon against the +enemies of the Church, or were simply extravagant and preposterous +novelties--just a certain perplexity and hesitation at their conflicting +aspects; on the one hand, the known and high character of the writers, +their evident determination and confidence in their cause, the +attraction of their religious warmth and unselfishness and nobleness, +the dim consciousness that much that they said was undeniable; and on +the other hand, the apparent wildness and recklessness of their words: +and then public opinion began steadily to take its "ply," and to be +agreed in condemning them. It soon went farther, and became vehement in +reprobating them as scandalous and dangerous publications. They incensed +the Evangelicals by their alleged Romanism, and their unsound views +about justification, good works, and the sacraments; they angered the +"two-bottle orthodox" by their asceticism--the steady men, by their +audacity and strong words--the liberals, by their dogmatic severity; +their seriously practical bearing was early disclosed in a tract on +"Fasting." But while they repelled strongly, they attracted strongly; +they touched many consciences, they won many hearts, they opened new +thoughts and hopes to many minds. One of the mischiefs of the Tracts, +and of those sermons at St. Mary's which were the commentaries on them, +was that so many people seemed to like them and to be struck by them. +The gathering storm muttered and growled for some time at a distance, +and men seemed to be taking time to make up their minds; but it began to +lour from early days, till after various threatenings it broke in a +furious article in the _Edinburgh_, by Dr. Arnold, on the "Oxford +Malignants"; and the Tract-writers and their friends became, what they +long continued to be, the most unpopular and suspected body of men in +the Church, whom everybody was at liberty to insult, both as dishonest +and absurd, of whom nothing was too cruel to say, nothing too ridiculous +to believe. It is only equitable to take into account the unprepared +state of the public mind, the surprise and novelty of even the +commonest things when put in a new light, the prejudices which the +Tract-writers were thought wantonly to offend and defy, their militant +and uncompromising attitude, where principles were at stake. But +considering what these men were known to be in character and life, what +was the emergency and what were the pressing motives which called for +action, and what is thought of them now that their course is run, it is +strange indeed to remember who they were, to whom the courtesies of +controversy were denied, not only by the vulgar herd of pamphleteers, +but by men of ability and position, some of whom had been their familiar +friends. Of course a nickname was soon found for them: the word +"Tractarian" was invented, and Archbishop Whately thought it worth +while, but not successfully, to improve it into "Tractites." Archbishop +Whately, always ingenious, appears to have suspected that the real but +concealed object of the movement was to propagate a secret infidelity; +they were "Children of the Mist," or "Veiled Prophets";[53] and he +seriously suggested to a friend who was writing against it,--"this +rapidly spreading pestilence,"--to parallel it, in its characteristics +and modes of working, with Indian Thuggee.[54] + +But these things were of gradual growth. Towards the end of 1834 a +question appeared in Oxford interesting to numbers besides Mr. Newman +and his friends, which was to lead to momentous consequences. The old, +crude ideas of change in the Church had come to appear, even to their +advocates, for the present impracticable, and there was no more talk for +a long time of schemes which had been in favour two years before. The +ground was changed, and a point was now brought forward on the Liberal +side, for which a good deal might be plausibly said. This was the +requirement of subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles from young men +at matriculation; and a strong pamphlet advocating its abolition, with +the express purpose of admitting Dissenters, was published by Dr. +Hampden, the Bampton Lecturer of two years before. + +Oxford had always been one of the great schools of the Church. Its +traditions, its tone, its customs, its rules, all expressed or presumed +the closest attachment to that way of religion which was specially +identified with the Church, in its doctrinal and historical aspect. +Oxford was emphatically definite, dogmatic, orthodox, compared even with +Cambridge, which had largely favoured the Evangelical school, and had +leanings to Liberalism. Oxford, unlike Cambridge, gave notice of its +attitude by requiring every one who matriculated to subscribe the +Thirty-nine Articles: the theory of its Tutorial system, of its lectures +and examinations, implied what of late years in the better colleges, +though certainly not everywhere, had been realised in fact--a +considerable amount of religious and theological teaching. And whatever +might have been said originally of the lay character of the University, +the colleges, which had become coextensive with the University, were for +the most part, in the intention of their founders, meant to educate and +support theological students on their foundations for the service of the +Church. It became in time the fashion to call them lay institutions: +legally they may have been so, but judged by their statutes, they were +nearly all of them as ecclesiastical as the Chapter of a Cathedral. And +Oxford was the fulcrum from which the theological revival hoped to move +the Church. It was therefore a shock and a challenge of no light kind, +when not merely the proposal was made to abolish the matriculation +subscription with the express object of attracting Dissenters, and to +get Parliament to force the change on the University if the University +resisted, but the proposal itself was vindicated and enforced in a +pamphlet by Dr. Hampden by a definite and precise theory which stopped +not short of the position that all creeds and formularies--everything +which represented the authority of the teaching Church--however +incidentally and temporarily useful, were in their own nature the +inventions of a mistaken and corrupt philosophy, and invasions of +Christian liberty. This was cutting deep with a vengeance, though the +author of the theory seemed alone unable to see it. It went to the root +of the whole mutter; and if Dr. Hampden was right, there was neither +Church nor doctrine worth contending for, except as men contend about +the Newtonian or the undulatory theory of light. + +No one ought now to affect, as some people used to affect at the time, +that the question was of secondary importance, and turned mainly on the +special fitness of the Thirty-nine Articles to be offered for the proof +of a young man's belief. It was a much more critical question. It was +really, however disguised, the question, asked then for the first time, +and since finally decided, whether Oxford was to continue to be a +school of the Church of England; and it also involved the wider +question, what part belief in definite religion should have in higher +education. It is speciously said that you have no right to forestall a +young man's inquiries and convictions by imposing on him in his early +years opinions which to him become prejudices. And if the world +consisted simply of individuals, entirely insulated and self-sufficing; +if men could be taught anything whatever, without presuming what is +believed by those who teach them; and if the attempt to exclude +religious prejudice did not necessarily, by the mere force of the +attempt, involve the creation of anti-religious prejudice, these +reasoners, who try in vain to get out of the conditions which hem them +in, might have more to say for themselves. To the men who had made such +an effort to restore a living confidence in the Church, the demand +implied giving up all that they had done and all that they hoped for. It +was not the time for yielding even a clumsy proof of the religious +character of the University. And the beginning of a long and doubtful +war was inevitable. + +A war of pamphlets ensued. By the one side the distinction was strongly +insisted on between mere instruction and education, the distinctly +religious character of the University education was not perhaps +overstated in its theory, but portrayed in stronger colours than was +everywhere the fact; and assertions were made, which sound strange in +their boldness now, of the independent and constitutional right to +self-government in the great University corporations. By the other side, +the ordinary arguments were used, about the injustice and mischief of +exclusion, and the hurtfulness of tests, especially such tests as the +Articles applied to young and ignorant men. Two pamphlets had more than +a passing interest: one, by a then unknown writer who signed himself +_Rusticus_, and whose name was Mr. F.D. Maurice, defended subscription +on the ground that the Articles were signed, not as tests and +confessions of faith, but as "conditions of thought," the expressly +stated conditions, such as there must be in all teaching, under which +the learners are willing to learn and the teacher to teach: and he +developed his view at great length, with great wealth of original +thought and illustration and much eloquence, but with that fatal want of +clearness which, as so often afterwards, came from his struggles to +embrace in one large view what appeared opposite aspects of a difficult +subject. The other was the pamphlet, already referred to, by Dr. +Hampden: and of which the importance arose, not from its conclusions, +but from its reasons. Its ground was the distinction which he had argued +out at great length in his Bampton Lectures--the distinction between the +"Divine facts" of revelation, and all human interpretations of them and +inferences from them. "Divine facts," he maintained, were of course +binding on all Christians, and in matter of fact were accepted by all +who called themselves Christians, including Unitarians. Human +interpretations and inferences--and all Church formularies were +such--were binding on no one but those who had reason to think them +true; and therefore least of all on undergraduates who could not have +examined them. The distinction, when first put forward, seemed to mean +much; at a later time it was explained to mean very little. But at +present its value as a ground of argument against the old system of the +University was thought much of by its author and his friends. A warning +note was at once given that its significance was perceived and +appreciated. Mr. Newman, in acknowledging a presentation copy, added +words which foreshadowed much that was to follow. "While I respect," he +wrote, "the tone of piety which the pamphlet displays, I dare not trust +myself to put on paper my feelings about the principles contained in it; +_tending, as they do, in my opinion, to make ship-wreck of Christian +faith_. I also lament that, by its appearance, the first step has been +taken towards interrupting that peace and mutual good understanding +which has prevailed so long in this place, and which, if once seriously +disturbed, will be succeeded by discussions the more intractable, +because justified in the minds of those who resist innovation by a +feeling of imperative duty." "Since that time," he goes on in the +_Apologia_, where he quotes this letter, "Phaeton has got into the +chariot of the sun."[55] But they were early days then; and when the +Heads of Houses, who the year before had joined with the great body of +the University in a declaration against the threatened legislation, were +persuaded to propose to the Oxford Convocation the abolition of +subscription at matriculation in May 1835, this proposal was rejected by +a majority of five to one. + +This large majority was a genuine expression of the sense of the +University. It was not specially a "Tractarian" success, though most of +the arguments which contributed to it came from men who more or less +sympathised with the effort to make a vigorous fight for the Church and +its teaching; and it showed that they who had made the effort had +touched springs of thought and feeling, and awakened new hopes and +interest in those around them, in Oxford, and in the country. But graver +events were at hand. Towards the end of the year (1835), Dr. Burton, the +Regius Professor of Divinity, suddenly died, still a young man. And Lord +Melbourne was induced to appoint as his successor, and as the head of +the theological teaching of the University, the writer who had just a +second time seemed to lay the axe to the root of all theology; who had +just reasserted that he looked upon creeds, and all the documents which +embodied the traditional doctrine and collective thought of the Church, +as invested by ignorance and prejudice with an authority which was +without foundation, and which was misleading and mischievous. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[52] The conversation between Mr. Sikes of Guilsborough and Mr. Copeland +is given in full in Dr. Pusey's _Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury_ +(1842), pp. 32-34. + +[53] "Dr. Wilson was mightily pleased with my calling the traditionals +the 'Children of the Mist.' The title of 'Veiled Prophets' he thought +too severe" (1838), _Life_, ed. 1875, p. 167. Compare "Hints to +Transcendentalists for Working Infidel Designs through Tractarianism," a +_jeu d'esprit_ (1840), _ib._ p. 188. "As for the suspicion of secret +infidelity, I have said no more than I sincerely feel," _ib._ p. 181. + +[54] "It would be a curious thing if you (the Provost of Oriel) were to +bring into your Bampton Lectures a mention of the Thugs.... Observe +their submissive piety, their faith in long-preserved _tradition_, their +regular succession of ordinations to their offices, their _faith_ in the +sacramental virtue of the consecrated governor; in short, compare our +religion with the _Thuggee, putting out of account all those +considerations which the traditionists deprecate the discussion of,_ +and where is the difference?" (1840), _ib._ p. 194. + +[55] _Apologia_, pp. 131, 132. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +DR. HAMPDEN + + +The stage on which what is called the Oxford movement ran through its +course had a special character of its own, unlike the circumstances in +which other religious efforts had done their work. The scene of +Jansenism had been a great capital, a brilliant society, the precincts +of a court, the cells of a convent, the studies and libraries of the +doctors of the Sorbonne, the council chambers of the Vatican. The scene +of Methodism had been English villages and country towns, the moors of +Cornwall, and the collieries of Bristol, at length London fashionable +chapels. The scene of this new movement was as like as it could be in +our modern world to a Greek _polis_, or an Italian self-centred city of +the Middle Ages. Oxford stood by itself in its meadows by the rivers, +having its relations with all England, but, like its sister at +Cambridge, living a life of its own, unlike that of any other spot in +England, with its privileged powers, and exemptions from the general +law, with its special mode of government and police, its usages and +tastes and traditions, and even costume, which the rest of England +looked at from the outside, much interested but much puzzled, or knew +only by transient visits. And Oxford was as proud and jealous of its own +ways as Athens or Florence; and like them it had its quaint fashions of +polity; its democratic Convocation and its oligarchy; its social ranks; +its discipline, severe in theory and usually lax in fact; its +self-governed bodies and corporations within itself; its faculties and +colleges, like the guilds and "arts" of Florence; its internal rivalries +and discords; its "sets" and factions. Like these, too, it professed a +special recognition of the supremacy of religion; it claimed to be a +home of worship and religious training, _Dominus illuminatio mea_, a +claim too often falsified in the habit and tempers of life. It was a +small sphere, but it was a conspicuous one; for there was much strong +and energetic character, brought out by the aims and conditions of +University life; and though moving in a separate orbit, the influence of +the famous place over the outside England, though imperfectly +understood, was recognised and great. These conditions affected the +character of the movement, and of the conflicts which it caused. Oxford +claimed to be eminently the guardian of "true religion and sound +learning"; and therefore it was eminently the place where religion +should be recalled to its purity and strength, and also the place where +there ought to be the most vigilant jealousy against the perversions and +corruptions of religion, Oxford was a place where every one knew his +neighbour, and measured him, and was more or less friendly or repellent; +where the customs of life brought men together every day and all day, in +converse or discussion; and where every fresh statement or every new +step taken furnished endless material for speculation or debate, in +common rooms or in the afternoon walk. And for this reason, too, +feelings were apt to be more keen and intense and personal than in the +larger scenes of life; the man who was disliked or distrusted was so +close to his neighbours that he was more irritating than if he had been +obscured by a crowd; the man who attracted confidence and kindled +enthusiasm, whose voice was continually in men's ears, and whose private +conversation and life was something ever new in its sympathy and charm, +created in those about him not mere admiration, but passionate +friendship, or unreserved discipleship. And these feelings passed from +individuals into parties; the small factions of a limited area. Men +struck blows and loved and hated in those days in Oxford as they hardly +did on the wider stage of London politics or general religious +controversy. + +The conflicts which for a time turned Oxford into a kind of image of +what Florence was in the days of Savonarola, with its nicknames, +Puseyites, and Neomaniacs, and High and Dry, counterparts to the +_Piagnoni_ and _Arrabbiati_, of the older strife, began around a student +of retired habits, interested more than was usual at Oxford in abstruse +philosophy, and the last person who might be expected to be the occasion +of great dissensions in the University. Dr. Hampden was a man who, with +no definite intentions of innovating on the received doctrines of the +Church--indeed, as his sermons showed, with a full acceptance of +them--had taken a very difficult subject for a course of Bampton +Lectures, without at all fathoming its depth and reach, and had got into +a serious scrape in consequence. Personally he was a man of serious but +cold religion, having little sympathy with others, and consequently not +able to attract any. His isolation during the whole of his career is +remarkable; he attached no one, as Whately or Arnold attached men. His +mind, which was a speculative one, was not one, in its own order, of the +first class. He had not the grasp nor the subtlety necessary for his +task. He had a certain power of statement, but little of co-ordination; +he seems not to have had the power of seeing when his ideas were really +irreconcilable, and he thought that simply by insisting on his +distinctly orthodox statements he not only balanced, but neutralised, +and did away with his distinctly unorthodox ones. He had read a good +deal of Aristotle and something of the Schoolmen, which probably no one +else in Oxford had done except Blanco White; and the temptation of +having read what no one else knows anything about sometimes leads men to +make an unprofitable use of their special knowledge, which they consider +their monopoly. + +The creed and dogmas of the Christian Church are at least in their +broad features, not a speculation, but a fact. That not only the +Apostles' Creed, but the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creeds, are +assumed as facts by the whole of anything that can be called the Church, +is as certain as the reception by the same body, and for the same time, +of the Scriptures. Not only the Creed, but, up to the sixteenth century, +the hierarchy, and not only Creed and hierarchy and Scriptures, but the +sacramental idea as expressed in the liturgies, are equally in the same +class of facts. Of course it is open to any one to question the genuine +origin of any of these great portions of the constitution of the Church; +but the Church is so committed to them that he cannot enter on his +destructive criticism without having to criticise, not one only, but all +these beliefs, and without soon having to face the question whether the +whole idea of the Church, as a real and divinely ordained society, with +a definite doctrine and belief, is not a delusion, and whether +Christianity, whatever it is, is addressed solely to each individual, +one by one, to make what he can of it. It need hardly be said that +within the limits of what the Church is committed to there is room for +very wide differences of opinion; it is also true that these limits +have, in different times of the Church, been illegitimately and +mischievously narrowed by prevailing opinions, and by documents and +formularies respecting it. But though we may claim not to be bound by +the Augsburg Confession, or by the Lambeth articles, or the Synod of +Dort, or the Bull _Unigenitus_, it does not follow that, if there is a +Church at all, there is no more binding authority in the theology of the +Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. And it is the province of the divine who +believes in a Church at all, and in its office to be the teacher and +witness of religious truth, to distinguish between the infinitely +varying degrees of authority with which professed representations of +portions of this truth are propounded for acceptance. It may be +difficult or impossible to agree on a theory of inspiration; but that +the Church doctrine of some kind of special inspiration of Scripture is +part of Christianity is, unless Christianity be a dream, certain. No one +can reasonably doubt, with history before him, that the answer of the +Christian Church was, the first time the question was asked, and has +continued to be through ages of controversy, _against_ Arianism, +_against_ Socinianism, _against_ Pelagianism, _against_ Zwinglianism. It +does not follow that the Church has settled everything, or that there +are not hundreds of questions which it is vain and presumptuous to +attempt to settle by any alleged authority. + +Dr. Hampden was in fact unexceptionably, even rigidly orthodox in his +acceptance of Church doctrine and Church creeds. He had published a +volume of sermons containing, among other things, an able statement of +the Scriptural argument for the doctrine of the Trinity, and an equally +able defence of the Athanasian Creed. But he felt that there are +formularies which may be only the interpretations of doctrine and +inferences from Scripture of a particular time or set of men; and he +was desirous of putting into their proper place the authority of such +formularies. His object was to put an interval between them and the +Scriptures from which they professed to be derived, and to prevent them +from claiming the command over faith and conscience which was due only +to the authentic evidences of God's revelation. He wished to make room +for a deeper sense of the weight of Scripture. He proposed to himself +the same thing which was aimed at by the German divines, Arndt, +Calixtus, and Spener, when they rose up against the grinding oppression +which Lutheran dogmatism had raised on its _Symbolical Books_,[56] and +which had come to outdo the worst extravagances of scholasticism. This +seems to have been his object--a fair and legitimate one. But in arguing +against investing the Thirty-nine Articles with an authority which did +not belong to them, he unquestionably, without seeing what he was doing, +went much farther--where he never meant to go. In fact, he so stated his +argument that he took in with the Thirty-nine Articles every expression +of collective belief, every document, however venerable, which the +Church had sanctioned from the first. Strangely enough, without +observing it, he took in--what he meant to separate by a wide interval +from what he called dogma--the doctrine of the infallible authority and +sufficiency of Scripture. In denying the worth of the _consensus_ and +immemorial judgment of the Church, he cut from under him the claim to +that which he accepted as the source and witness of "divine facts." He +did not mean to do this, or to do many other things; but from want of +clearness of head, he certainly, in these writings which were complained +of, did it. He was, in temper and habit, too desirous to be "orthodox," +as Whately feared, to accept in its consequences his own theory. The +theory which he put forward in his Bampton Lectures, and on which he +founded his plan of comprehension in his pamphlet on Dissent, left +nothing standing but the authority of the letter of Scripture. All +else--right or wrong as it might be--was "speculation," "human +inference," "dogma." With perfect consistency, he did not pretend to +take even the Creeds out of this category. But the truth was, he did not +consciously mean all that he said; and when keener and more powerful and +more theological minds pointed out with relentless accuracy what he _had +said_ he was profuse and overflowing with explanations, which showed how +little he had perceived the drift of his words. There is not the least +reason to doubt the sincerity of these explanations; but at the same +time they showed the unfitness of a man who had so to explain away his +own speculations to be the official guide and teacher of the clergy. The +criticisms on his language, and the objections to it, were made before +these explanations were given; and though he gave them, he was furious +with those who called for them, and he never for a moment admitted that +there was anything seriously wrong or mistaken in what he had said. To +those who pointed out the meaning and effect of his words and theories, +he replied by the assertion of his personal belief. If words mean +anything, he had said that neither Unitarians nor any one else could get +behind the bare letter, and what he called "facts," of Scripture, which +all equally accepted in good faith; and that therefore there was no +reason for excluding Unitarians as long as they accepted the "facts." +But when it was pointed out that this reasoning reduced all belief in +the realities behind the bare letter to the level of personal and +private opinion, he answered by saying that he valued supremely the +Creeds and Articles, and by giving a statement of the great Christian +doctrines which he held, and which the Church taught. But he never +explained what their authority could be with any one but himself. There +might be interpretations and inferences from Scripture, by the hundred +or the thousand, but no one certain and authoritative one; none that +warranted an organised Church, much more a Catholic and Apostolic +Church, founded on the assumption of this interpretation being the one +true faith, the one truth of the Bible. The point was brought out +forcibly in a famous pamphlet written by Mr. Newman, though without his +name, called "Elucidations of Dr. Hampden's Theological Statements." +This pamphlet was a favourite object of attack on the part of Dr. +Hampden's supporters as a flagrant instance of unfairness and garbled +extracts. No one, they said, ever read the Bampton Lectures, but took +their estimate of the work from Mr. Newman's quotations. Extracts are +often open to the charge of unfairness, and always to suspicion. But in +this case there was no need of unfairness. Dr. Hampden's theory lay on +the very surface of his Hampton Lectures and pamphlet; and any unbiassed +judge may be challenged to read these works of his, and say whether the +extracts in the "Elucidations" do not adequately represent Dr. Hampden's +statements and arguments, and whether the comments on them are forced or +strained. They do not represent his explanations, for the explanations +had not been given; and when the explanations came, though they said +many things which showed that Dr. Hampden did not mean to be unorthodox +and unevangelical, but only anti-scholastic and anti-Roman, they did not +unsay a word which he had said. And what this was, what had been Dr. +Hampden's professed theological theory up to the time when the +University heard the news of his appointment, the "Elucidations" +represent as fairly as any adverse statement can represent the subject +of its attack. + +In quieter times such an appointment might have passed with nothing more +than a paper controversy or protest, or more probably without more than +conversational criticism. But these wore not quiet and unsuspicious +times. There was reason for disquiet. It was fresh in men's minds what +language and speculation like that of the Bampton Lectures had come to +in the case of Whately's intimate friend, Blanco White. The +unquestionable hostility of Whately's school to the old ideas of the +Church had roused alarm and a strong spirit of resistance in Churchmen. +Each party was on the watch, and there certainly was something at stake +for both parties. Coupled with some recent events, and with the part +which Dr. Hampden had taken on the subscription question, the +appointment naturally seemed significant. Probably it was not so +significant as it seemed on the part at least of Lord Melbourne, who had +taken pains to find a fit man. Dr. Hampden was said to have been +recommended by Bishop Copleston, and not disallowed by Archbishop +Howley. In the University, up to this time, there had been no +authoritative protest against Dr. Hampden's writings. And there were not +many Liberals to choose from. In the appointment there is hardly +sufficient ground to blame Lord Melbourne. But the outcry against it at +Oxford, when it came, was so instantaneous, so strong, and so unusual, +that it might have warned Lord Melbourne that he had been led into a +mistake, out of which it would be wise to seek at least a way of escape. +Doubtless it was a strong measure for the University to protest as it +did; but it was also a strong measure, at least in those days, for a +Minister of the Crown to force so extremely unacceptable a Regius +Professor of Divinity on a great University. Dr. Hampden offered to +resign; and there would have been plenty of opportunities to compensate +him for his sacrifice of a post which could only be a painful one. But +the temper of both sides was up. The remonstrances from Oxford were +treated with something like contempt, and the affair was hurried through +till there was no retreating; and Dr. Hampden became Regius Professor. + +Mr. Palmer has recorded how various efforts were made to neutralise the +effect of the appointment. But the Heads of Houses, though angry, were +cautious. They evaded the responsibility of stating Dr. Hampden's +unsound positions; but to mark their distrust, brought in a proposal to +deprive him of his vote in the choice of Select Preachers till the +University should otherwise determine. It was defeated in Convocation by +the veto of the two Proctors (March 1836), who exercised their right +with the full approval of Dr. Hampden's friends, and the indignation of +the large majority of the University. But it was not unfairly used: it +could have only a suspending effect, of which no one had a right to +complain; and when new Proctors came into office, the proposal was +introduced again, and carried (May 1836) by 474 to 94. The Liberal +minority had increased since the vote on subscription, and Dr. Hampden +went on with his work as if nothing had happened. The attempt was twice +made to rescind the vote: first, after the outcry about the Ninetieth +Tract and the contest about the Poetry Professorship, by a simple +repeal, which was rejected by 334 to 219 (June 1842); and next, +indirectly by a statute enlarging the Professor's powers over Divinity +degrees, which was also rejected by 341 to 21 (May 1844). From first to +last, these things and others were the unfortunate incidents of an +unfortunate appointment. + +The "persecution of Dr. Hampden" has been an unfailing subject of +reproach to the party of the Oxford movement, since the days when the +_Edinburgh Review_ held them up to public scorn and hatred in an article +of strange violence. They certainly had their full share in the +opposition to him, and in the measures by which that opposition was +carried out. But it would be the greatest mistake to suppose that in +this matter they stood alone. All in the University at this time, except +a small minority, were of one mind, Heads of Houses and country parsons, +Evangelicals and High Churchmen--all who felt that the grounds of a +definite belief were seriously threatened by Dr. Hampden's speculations. +All were angry at the appointment; all were agreed that something ought +to be done to hinder the mischief of it. In this matter Mr. Newman and +his friends were absolutely at one with everybody round them, with those +who were soon to be their implacable opponents. Whatever deeper view +they might have of the evil which had been done by the appointment, and +however much graver and more permanent their objections to it, they were +responsible only as the whole University was responsible for what was +done against Dr. Hampden. It was convenient afterwards to single them +out, and to throw this responsibility and the odium of it on them alone; +and when they came under the popular ban, it was forgotten that Dr. +Gilbert, the Principal of Brasenose, Dr. Symons, the Warden of Wadham, +Dr. Faussett, afterwards the denouncer of Dr. Pusey, Mr. Vaughan Thomas, +and Mr. Hill of St. Edmund Hall, were quite as forward at the time as +Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman in protesting against Dr. Hampden, and in the +steps to make their protest effective. Mr. Palmer, in his +_Narrative_,[57] anxious to dissociate himself from the movement under +Mr. Newman's influence, has perhaps underrated the part taken by Mr. +Newman and Dr. Pusey; for they, any rate, did most of the argumentative +work. But as far as personal action goes, it is true, as he says, that +the "movement against Dr. Hampden was not guided by the Tract writers." +"The condemnation of Dr. Hampden, then, was not carried by the Tract +writers; it was carried by the _independent_ body of the University. The +fact is that, had those writers taken any leading part, the measure +would have been a failure, for the number of their friends at that time +was a _very small proportion_ to the University at large, and there was +a general feeling of distrust in the soundness of their views." + +We are a long way from those days in time, and still more in habits and +sentiment; and a manifold and varied experience has taught most of us +some lessons against impatience and violent measures. But if we put +ourselves back equitably into the ways of thinking prevalent then, the +excitement about Dr. Hampden will not seem so unreasonable or so +unjustifiable as it is sometimes assumed to be. The University +legislation, indeed, to which it led was poor and petty, doing small and +annoying things, because the University rulers dared not commit +themselves to definite charges. But, in the first place, the provocation +was great on the part of the Government in putting into the chief +theological chair an unwelcome man who could only save his orthodoxy by +making his speculations mean next to nothing--whose _primâ facie_ +unguarded and startling statements were resolved into truisms put in a +grand and obscure form. And in the next place, it was assumed in those +days to be the most natural and obvious thing in the world to condemn +unsound doctrine, and to exclude unsound teachers. The principle was +accepted as indisputable, however slack might have been in recent times +the application of it. That it was accepted, not on one side only, but +on all, was soon to be shown by the subsequent course of events. No one +suffered more severely and more persistently from its application than +the Tractarians; no one was more ready to apply it to them than Dr. +Hampden with his friends; no one approved and encouraged its vigorous +enforcement against them more than Dr. Whately. The idle distinction set +up, that they were not merely unsound but dishonest, was a mere insolent +pretext to save trouble in argument, and to heighten the charge against +them; no one could seriously doubt that they wrote in good faith as much +as Dr. Whately or Dr. Faussett. But unless acts like Dr. Pusey's +suspension, and the long proscription that went on for years after it, +were mere instances of vindictive retaliation, the reproach of +persecution must be shared by all parties then, and by none more than by +the party which in general terms most denounced it. Those who think the +Hampden agitation unique in its injustice ought to ask themselves what +their party would have done if at any time between 1836 and 1843 Mr. +Newman had been placed in Dr. Hampden's seat. + +People in our days mean by religious persecution what happens when the +same sort of repressive policy is applied to a religious party as is +applied to vaccination recusants, or to the "Peculiar People." All +religious persecution, from the days of Socrates, has taken a legal +form, and justified itself on legal grounds. It is the action of +authority, or of strong social judgments backed by authority, against a +set of opinions, or the expression of them in word or act--usually +innovating opinions, but not by any means necessarily such. The +disciples of M. Monod, the "Momiers" of Geneva, were persecuted by the +Liberals of Geneva, not because they broke away from the creed of +Calvin, but because they adhered to it. The word is not properly applied +to the incidental effects in the way of disadvantage, resulting from +some broad constitutional settlement--from the government of the Church +being Episcopal and not Presbyterian, or its creed Nicene and not +Arian--any more than it is persecution for a nation to change its +government, or for a legitimist to have to live under a republic, or for +a Christian to have to live in an infidel state, though persecution may +follow from these conditions. But the _privilegium_ passed against Dr. +Hampden was an act of persecution, though a mild one compared with what +afterwards fell on his opponents with his full sanction. Persecution is +the natural impulse, in those who think a certain thing right and +important or worth guarding, to disable those who, thinking it wrong, +are trying to discredit and upset it, and to substitute something +different. It implies a state of war, and the resort to the most +available weapons to inflict damage on those who are regarded as +rebellious and dangerous. These weapons were formidable enough once: +they are not without force still. But in its mildest form--personal +disqualification or proscription--it is a disturbance which only war +justifies. It may, of course, make itself odious by its modes of +proceeding, by meanness and shabbiness and violence, by underhand and +ignoble methods of misrepresentation and slander, or by cruelty and +plain injustice; and then the odium of these things fairly falls upon +it. But it is very hard to draw the line between conscientious +repression, feeling itself bound to do what is possible to prevent +mischief, and what those who are opposed, if they are the weaker party, +of course call persecution. + +If persecution implies a state of war in which one side is stronger, and +the other weaker, it is hardly a paradox to say that (1) no one has a +right to complain of persecution as such, apart from odious +accompaniments, any more than of superior numbers or hard blows in +battle; and (2) that every one has a right to take advantage and make +the most of being persecuted, by appeals to sympathy and the principle +of doing as you would be done by. No one likes to be accused of +persecution, and few people like to give up the claim to use it, if +necessary. But no one can help observing in the course of events the +strange way in which, in almost all cases, the "wheel comes full +circle." Δράσαντι παθεῖν--_Chi la fa, l' aspetti_,[58] are some of the +expressions of Greek awe and Italian shrewdness representing the +experience of the world on this subject; on a large scale and a small. +Protestants and Catholics, Churchmen and Nonconformists, have all in +their turn made full proof of what seems like a law of action and +reaction. Except in cases beyond debate, cases where no justification is +possible, the note of failure is upon this mode of repression. +Providence, by the visible Nemesis which it seems always to bring round, +by the regularity with which it has enforced the rule that infliction +and suffering are bound together and in time duly change places, seems +certainly and clearly to have declared against it. It may be that no +innovating party has a right to complain of persecution; but the +question is not for them. It is for those who have the power, and who +are tempted to think that they have the call, to persecute. It is for +them to consider whether it is right, or wise, or useful for their +cause; whether it is agreeable to what seems the leading of Providence +to have recourse to it. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[56] See Pusey's _Theology of Germany_ (1828), p. 18 _sqq_. + +[57] _Narrative_ pp. 29, 30, ed. 1841; p 131. ed. 1883. + +[58] Δράσαντι παθεῖν, Τριγέρων μῦθος τάδε φωνεῖ. Aesch. _Choeph_. 310. +Italian proverb, in _Landucci, Diario Fiorentino_, 1513, p. 343. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT + +1835-1840 + + +By the end of 1835, the band of friends, whom great fears and great +hopes for the Church had united, and others who sympathised with them +both within and outside the University, had grown into what those who +disliked them naturally called a party. The Hampden controversy, though +but an episode in the history of the movement, was an important one, and +undoubtedly gave a great impulse to it. Dr. Hampden's attitude and +language seemed to be its justification--a palpable instance of what the +Church had to expect. And in this controversy, though the feeling +against Dr. Hampden's views was so widely shared, and though the +majority which voted against him was a very mixed one, and contained +some who hoped that the next time they were called to vote it might be +against the Tractarians, yet the leaders of the movement had undertaken +the responsibility, conspicuously and almost alone, of pointing out +definitely and argumentatively the objections to Dr. Hampden's teaching. +The number of Mr. Newman's friends might be, as Mr. Palmer says, +insignificant, but it was they who had taken the trouble to understand +and give expression to the true reasons for alarm.[59] Even in this +hasty and imperfect way, the discussion revealed to many how much deeper +and more various the treatment of the subject was in the hands of Mr. +Newman and Dr. Pusey compared with the ordinary criticisms on Dr. +Hampden. He had learned in too subtle a school to be much touched by the +popular exceptions to his theories, however loudly expressed. The +mischief was much deeper. It was that he had, unconsciously, no doubt, +undermined the foundation of definite Christian belief, and had resolved +it into a philosophy, so-called scholastic, which was now exploded. It +was the sense of the perilous issues to which this diluted form of +Blanco White's speculations, so recklessly patronised by Whately, was +leading theological teaching in the University, which opened the eyes of +many to the meaning of the movement, and brought some fresh friends to +its side. + +There was no attempt to form a party, or to proselytise; there was no +organisation, no distinct and recognised party marks. "I would not have +it called a party," writes Dr. Newman in the _Apologia_. But a party it +could not help being: quietly and spontaneously it had grown to be what +community of ideas, aims, and sympathies, naturally, and without blame, +leads men to become. And it had acquired a number of recognised +nicknames, to friends and enemies the sign of growing concentration. For +the questions started in the Tracts and outside them became of +increasing interest to the more intelligent men who had finished their +University course and were preparing to enter into life, the Bachelors +and younger Masters of Arts. One by one they passed from various states +of mind--alienation, suspicion, fear, indifference, blank +ignorance--into a consciousness that something beyond the mere +commonplace of religious novelty and eccentricity, of which there had +been a good deal recently, was before them; that doctrines and +statements running counter to the received religious language of the +day, doctrines about which, in confident prejudice, they had perhaps +bandied about off-hand judgments, had more to say for themselves than +was thought at first; that the questions thus raised drove them in on +themselves, and appealed to their honesty and seriousness; and that, at +any rate, in the men who were arresting so much attention, however +extravagant their teaching might be called, there was a remarkable +degree of sober and reserved force, an earnestness of conviction which +could not be doubted, an undeniable and subtle power of touching souls +and attracting sympathies. One by one, and in many different ways, these +young men went through various stages of curiosity, of surprise, of +perplexity, of doubt, of misgiving, of interest; some were frightened, +and wavered, and drew back more or less reluctantly; others, in spite of +themselves, in spite of opposing influences, were led on step by step, +hardly knowing whither, by a spell which they could not resist, of +intellectual, or still more, moral pressure. Some found their old home +teaching completed, explained, lighted up, by that of the new school. +Others, shocked at first at hearing the old watchwords and traditions of +their homes decried and put aside, found themselves, when they least +expected it, passing from the letter to the spirit, from the technical +and formal theory to the wide and living truth. And thus, though many of +course held aloof, and not a few became hostile, a large number, one by +one, some rapidly, others slowly, some unreservedly, others with large +and jealous reserves, more and more took in the leading idea of the +movement, accepted the influence of its chiefs, and looked to them for +instruction and guidance. As it naturally happens, when a number of +minds are drawn together by a common and strong interest, some men, by +circumstances, or by strength of conviction, or by the mutual affinities +of tastes and character, came more and more into direct personal and +intimate relations with the leaders, took service, as it were, under +them, and prepared to throw themselves into their plans of work. Others, +in various moods, but more independent, more critical, more disturbed +about consequences, or unpersuaded on special points, formed a kind of +fringe of friendly neutrality about the more thoroughgoing portion of +the party. And outside of these were thoughtful and able men, to whom +the whole movement, with much that was utterly displeasing and utterly +perplexing, had the interest of being a break-up of stagnation and dull +indolence in a place which ought to have the highest spiritual and +intellectual aims; who, whatever repelled them, could not help feeling +that great ideas, great prospects, a new outburst of bold thought, a new +effort of moral purpose and force, had disturbed the old routine; could +not help being fascinated, if only as by a spectacle, by the strange and +unwonted teaching, which partly made them smile, partly perhaps +permanently disgusted them, but which also, they could not deny, spoke +in a language more fearless, more pathetic, more subtle, and yet more +human, than they had heard from the religious teachers of the day. And +thus the circle of persons interested in the Tracts, of persons who +sympathised with their views, of persons who more and more gave a warm +and earnest adherence to them, was gradually extended in the +University--and, in time, in the country also. The truth was that the +movement, in its many sides, had almost monopolised for the time both +the intelligence and the highest religious earnestness of the +University,[60] and either in curiosity or inquiry, in approval or in +condemnation, all that was deepest and most vigorous, all that was most +refined, most serious, most high-toned, and most promising in Oxford was +drawn to the issues which it raised. It is hardly too much to say that +wherever men spoke seriously of the grounds and prospects of religion, +in Oxford, or in Vacation reading-parties, in their walks and social +meetings, in their studies or in common-room, the "Tractarian" +doctrines, whether assented to or laughed at, deplored or fiercely +denounced, were sure to come to the front. All subjects in discussion +seemed to lead up to them--art and poetry, Gothic architecture and +German romance and painting, the philosophy of language, and the novels +of Walter Scott and Miss Austen, Coleridge's transcendentalism and +Bishop Butler's practical wisdom, Plato's ideas and Aristotle's +analysis. It was difficult to keep them out of lecture-rooms and +examinations for Fellowships. + +But in addition to the intrinsic interest of the questions and +discussions which the movement opened, personal influence played a great +and decisive part in it. As it became a party, it had chiefs. It was not +merely as leaders of thought but as teachers with their disciples, as +friends with friends, as witnesses and examples of high self-rule and +refined purity and goodness, that the chiefs whose names were in all +men's mouths won the hearts and trust of so many, in the crowds that +stood about them. Foremost, of course, ever since he had thrown himself +into it in 1835, was Dr. Pusey. His position, his dignified office, his +learning, his solidity and seriousness of character, his high standard +of religious life, the charm of his charity, and the sweetness of his +temper naturally gave him the first place in the movement in Oxford and +the world. It came to be especially associated with him. Its enemies +fastened on it a nickname from his name, and this nickname, partly from +a greater smoothness of sound, partly from an odd suggestion of +something funny in it, came more into use than others; and the terms +_Puseismus, Puséisme, Puseista_ found their way into German +lecture-halls and Paris salons and remote convents and police offices in +Italy and Sicily; indeed, in the shape of πουζεισμός it might be lighted +on in a Greek newspaper. Dr. Pusey was a person who commanded the utmost +interest and reverence; he was more in communication with the great +world outside than Oxford people generally, and lived much in retirement +from Oxford society; but to all interested in the movement he was its +representative and highest authority. He and Mr. Newman had the fullest +confidence in one another, though conscious at times of not perfect +agreement; yet each had a line of his own, and each of them was apt to +do things out of his own head. Dr. Pusey was accessible to all who +wished to see him; but he did not encourage visits which wasted time. +And the person who was pre-eminently, not only before their eyes, but +within their reach in the ordinary intercourse of man with man, was Mr. +Newman. Mr. Newman, who lived in College in the ordinary way of a +resident Fellow, met other university men, older or younger, on equal +terms. As time went on, a certain wonder and awe gathered round him. +People were a little afraid of him; but the fear was in themselves, not +created by any intentional stiffness or coldness on his part. He did not +try to draw men to him, he was no proselytiser; he shrank with fear and +repugnance from the character--it was an invasion of the privileges of +the heart.[61] But if men came to him, he was accessible; he allowed his +friends to bring their friends to him, and met them more than half-way. +He was impatient of mere idle worldliness, of conceit and impertinence, +of men who gave themselves airs; he was very impatient of pompous and +solemn emptiness. But he was very patient with those whom he believed to +sympathise with what was nearest his heart; no one, probably, of his +power and penetration and sense of the absurd, was ever so ready to +comply with the two demands which a witty prelate proposed to put into +the examination in the Consecration Service of Bishops: "Wilt thou +answer thy letters?" "Wilt thou suffer fools gladly?" But courteous, +affable, easy as he was, he was a keen trier of character; he gauged, +and men felt that he gauged, their motives, their reality and soundness +of purpose; he let them see, if they at all came into his intimacy, +that if _they_ were not, _he_, at any rate, was in the deepest earnest. +And at an early period, in a memorable sermon,[62] the vivid impression +of which at the time still haunts the recollection of some who heard it, +he gave warning to his friends and to those whom his influence touched, +that no child's play lay before them; that they were making, it might be +without knowing it, the "Ventures of Faith." But feeling that he had +much to say, and that a university was a place for the circulation and +discussion of ideas, he let himself be seen and known and felt, both +publicly and in private. He had his breakfast parties and his evening +gatherings. His conversation ranged widely, marked by its peculiar +stamp--entire ease, unstudied perfection of apt and clean-cut words, +unexpected glimpses of a sure and piercing judgment. At times, at more +private meetings, the violin, which he knew how to touch, came into +play. + +He had great gifts for leadership. But as a party chief he was also +deficient in some of the qualities which make a successful one. His +doctrine of the Church had the disadvantage of an apparently +intermediate and ambiguous position, refusing the broad, intelligible +watchwords and reasonings of popular religionism. It was not without +clearness and strength; but such a position naturally often leads to +what seem over-subtle modes of argument, seemingly over-subtle because +deeper and more original than the common ones; and he seemed sometimes +to want sobriety in his use of dialectic weapons, which he wielded with +such force and effect. Over-subtlety in the leader of a party tends to +perplex friends and give a handle to opponents. And with all his +confidence in his cause, and also in his power and his call to use it, +he had a curious shyness and self-distrust as to his own way of doing +what he had to do; he was afraid of "wilfulness," of too great reliance +on intellect. He had long been accustomed to observe and judge himself, +and while conscious of his force, he was fully alive to the drawbacks, +moral and intellectual, which wait on the highest powers. When attacks +were made on him by authorities, as in the case of the Tract No. 90, his +more eager friends thought him too submissive; they would have liked a +more combative temper and would not accept his view that confidence in +him was lost, because it might be shaken.[63] But if he bent before +official authority the disapproval of friends was a severer trouble. +Most tender in his affections, most trustful in his confidence, craving +for sympathy, it came like a shock and chill when things did not go +right between himself and his friends. He was too sensitive under such +disapproval for a successful party chief. The true party leader takes +these things as part of that tiresome human stupidity and perverseness +with which he must make his account. Perhaps they sting for the moment, +but he brushes them away and goes forward, soon forgetting them. But +with Mr. Newman, his cause was identified with his friendships and even +his family affections. And as a leader, he was embarrassed by the +keenness with which he sympathised with the doubts and fears of friends; +want of sympathy and signs of distrust darkened the prospect of the +future; they fell like a blight on his stores of hope, never +over-abundant; they tempted him, not to assert himself, but to throw up +the game as convicted of unfitness, and retire for good and all to his +books and silence. "Let them," he seemed to say, "have their way, as +they will not let me have mine; they have the right to take theirs, only +not to make me take it." In spite of his enthusiasm and energy, his +unceasing work, his occasional bursts of severe punishment inflicted on +those who provoked him, there was always present this keen +sensitiveness, the source of so much joy and so much pain. He would not +have been himself without it. But he would have been a much more +powerful and much more formidable combatant if he had cared less for +what his friends felt, and followed more unhesitatingly his own line and +judgment. This keen sensitiveness made him more quickly alive than other +people to all that lay round him and before; it made him quicker to +discern danger and disaster; it led him to give up hope and to retire +from the contest long before he had a right to do so. The experience of +later years shows that he had despaired too soon. Such delicate +sensitiveness, leading to impatience, was not capable of coping with the +rough work involved in the task of reform, which he had undertaken. + +All this time the four o'clock sermons at St. Mary's were always going +on. But, besides these, he anticipated a freedom--familiar now, but +unknown then--of public lecturing. In Advent and after Easter a company, +never very large, used to gather on a week-day afternoon in Adam de +Brome's Chapel--the old Chapel of "Our Lady of Littlemore"--to hear him +lecture on some theological subject. It is a dark, dreary appendage to +St. Mary's on the north side, in which Adam de Brome, Edward II.'s +almoner, and the founder of Oriel College, is supposed to lie, beneath +an unshapely tomb, covered by a huge slab of Purbeck marble, from which +the brass has been stripped. The place is called a chapel, but is more +like a court or place of business, for which, indeed, it was used in the +old days by one of the Faculties of the House of Convocation, which held +its assemblies there. At the end is a high seat and desk for the person +presiding, and an enclosure and a table for officials below him; and +round the rest of the dingy walls run benches fixed to the wall, dingy +as the walls themselves. But it also had another use. On occasions of a +university sermon, a few minutes before it began, the Heads of Houses +assembled, as they still assemble, in the chapel, ranging themselves on +the benches round the walls. The Vice-Chancellor has his seat on one +side, the preacher, with the two Proctors below him, sits opposite; and +there all sit in their robes, more or less grand, according to the day, +till the beadle comes to announce that it is time to form the procession +into church. This desolate place Mr. Newman turned into his +lecture-room; in it he delivered the lectures which afterwards became +the volume on the _Prophetical Character of the Church_, or _Romanism +and Popular Protestantism_; the lectures which formed the volume on +_Justification_; those on _Antichrist_, and on _Rationalism and the +Canon of Scripture_, which afterwards became Nos. 83 and 85 of the +_Tracts for the Times_.[64] The force, the boldness, the freedom from +the trammels of commonplace, the breadth of view and grasp of the +subject which marked those lectures, may be seen in them still. But it +is difficult to realise now the interest with which they were heard at +the time by the first listeners to that clear and perfectly modulated +voice, opening to them fresh and original ways of regarding questions +which seemed worn out and exhausted. The volumes which grew out of the +Adam de Brome lectures were some of the most characteristic portions of +the theological literature of the early movement. They certainly greatly +influenced the course of thought in it, and some of its most serious +issues. + +The movement was not one of mere opinion. It took two distinct though +connected lines. It was, on the one hand, theological; on the other, +resolutely practical. Theologically, it dealt with great questions of +religious principle--What is the Church? Is it a reality or a mode of +speech? On what grounds does it rest? How may it be known? Is it among +us? How is it to be discriminated from its rivals or counterfeits? What +is its essential constitution? What does it teach? What are its +shortcomings? Does it nerd reform? But, on the other hand, the movement +was marked by its deep earnestness on the practical side of genuine +Christian life. Very early in the movement (1833) a series of +sketches of primitive Christian life appeared in the _British +Magazine_--afterwards collected under the title of the _Church of the +Fathers_ (1840)--to remind people who were becoming interested in +ancient and patristic theology that, besides the doctrines to be found +in the vast folios of the Fathers, there were to be sought in them and +laid to heart the temptations and trials, the aspirations and moral +possibilities of actual life, "the tone and modes of thought, the habits +and manners of the early times of the Church." The note struck in the +first of Mr. Newman's published sermons--"Holiness necessary for future +blessedness"--was never allowed to be out of mind. The movement was, +above all, a moral one; it was nothing, allowed to be nothing, if it +was not this.[65] Seriousness, reverence, the fear of insincere words +and unsound professions, were essential in the character, which alone it +would tolerate in those who made common cause with it. + +Its ethical tendency was shown in two things, which were characteristic +of it. One was the increased care for the Gospels, and study of them, +compared with other parts of the Bible. Evangelical theology had dwelt +upon the work of Christ, and laid comparatively little stress on His +example, or the picture left us of His Personality and Life. It regarded +the Epistles of St. Paul as the last word of the Gospel message. People +who can recall the popular teaching, which was spoken of then as "sound" +and "faithful," and "preaching Christ," can remember how the Epistles +were ransacked for texts to prove the "sufficiency of Scripture" or the +"right of private judgment," or the distinction between justification +and sanctification, while the Gospel narrative was imperfectly studied +and was felt to be much less interesting. The movement made a great +change. The great Name stood no longer for an abstract symbol of +doctrine, but for a living Master, who could teach as well as save. And +not forgetting whither He had gone and what He was, the readers of +Scripture now sought Him eagerly in those sacred records, where we can +almost see and hear His going in and out among men. It was a change in +the look and use of Scripture, which some can still look back to as an +epoch in their religious history. The other feature was the increased +and practical sense of the necessity of self-discipline, of taking real +trouble with one's self to keep thoughts and wishes in order, to lay the +foundation of habits, to acquire the power of self-control. Deeply fixed +in the mind of the teachers, this serious governance of life, this +direction and purification of its aims, laid strong hold on the +consciences of those who accepted their teaching. This training was not +showy; it was sometimes austere, even extravagantly austere; but it was +true, and enduring, and it issued often in a steady and unconscious +elevation of the religious character. How this character was fed and +nurtured and encouraged--how, too, it was frankly warned of its dangers, +may be seen in those _Parochial Sermons_ at St. Mary's, under whose +inspiration it was developed, and which will always be the best +commentary on the character thus formed. Even among those who ultimately +parted from the movement, with judgment more or less unfavourable to its +theology and general line, it left, as if uneffaceable, this moral +stamp; this value for sincerity and simplicity of feeling and life, this +keen sense of the awfulness of things unseen. There was something _sui +generis_ in the profoundly serious, profoundly reverent tone, about +everything that touched religion in all who had ever come strongly under +its influence. + +Of course the party soon had the faults of a party, real and +imputed.[66] Is it conceivable that there should ever have been a +religious movement, which has not provoked smiles from those outside of +it, and which has not lent itself to caricature? There were weaker +members of it, and headstrong ones, and imitative ones; there were +grotesque and absurd ones; some were deeper, some shallower; some liked +it for its excitement, and some liked it for its cause; there were those +who were for pushing on, and those who were for holding back; there were +men of combat, and men of peace; there were those whom it made conceited +and self-important, and those whom it drove into seriousness, anxiety, +and retirement. But, whatever faults it had, a pure and high spirit +ruled in it; there were no disloyal members, and there were none who +sought their own in it, or thought of high things for themselves in +joining it. It was this whole-heartedness, this supreme reverence for +moral goodness, more even than the great ability of the leaders, and in +spite of mistakes and failures, which gave its cohesion and its momentum +to the movement in its earlier stages. + +The state of feeling and opinion among Churchmen towards the end of +1835, two years after the Tracts had begun, is thus sketched by one who +was anxiously observing it, in the preface to the second volume of the +Tracts (November 1835). + + In completing the second volume of a publication, to which the + circumstances of the day have given rise, it may be right to allude to + a change which has taken place in them since the date of its + commencement. At that time, in consequence of long security, the + attention of members of our Church had been but partially engaged, in + ascertaining the grounds of their adherence to it; but the imminent + peril to all which is dear to them which has since been confessed, has + naturally turned their thoughts that way, and obliged them to defend + it on one or other of the principles which are usually put forward in + its behalf. Discussions have thus been renewed in various quarters, on + points which had long remained undisturbed; and though numbers + continue undecided in opinion, or take up a temporary position in some + one of the hundred middle points which may be assumed between the two + main theories in which the question issues; and others, again, have + deliberately entrenched themselves in the modern or ultra-Protestant + alternative; yet, on the whole, there has been much hearty and + intelligent adoption, and much respectful study, of those more + primitive views maintained by our great Divines. As the altered state + of public information and opinion has a necessary bearing on the + efforts of those who desire to excite attention to the subject (in + which number the writers of these Tracts are to be included), it will + not be inappropriate briefly to state in this place what it is + conceived is the present position of the great body of Churchmen with + reference to it. + + While we have cause to be thankful for the sounder and more accurate + language, which is now very generally adopted among well-judging men + on ecclesiastical subjects, we must beware of over-estimating what has + been done, and so becoming sanguine in our hopes of success, or + slackening our exertions to secure it. Many more persons, doubtless, + have taken up a profession of the main doctrine in question, that, + namely, of the one Catholic and Apostolic Church, than fully enter + into it. This was to be expected, it being the peculiarity of all + religious teaching, that words are imparted before ideas. A child + learns his Creed or Catechism before he understands it; and in + beginning any deep subject we are all but children to the end of our + lives. The instinctive perception of a rightly instructed mind, _primâ + facie_ force of the argument, or the authority of our celebrated + writers, have all had their due and extensive influence in furthering + the reception of the doctrine, when once it was openly maintained; to + which must be added the prospect of the loss of State protection, + which made it necessary to look out for other reasons for adherence to + the Church besides that of obedience to the civil magistrate. Nothing + which has spread quickly has been received thoroughly. Doubtless there + are a number of seriously-minded persons who think that they admit the + doctrine in question much more fully than they do, and who would be + startled at seeing that realised in particulars which they confess in + an abstract form. Many there are who do not at all feel that it is + capable of a practical application; and while they bring it forward on + special occasions, in formal expositions of faith, or in answer to a + direct interrogatory, let it slip from their minds almost entirely in + their daily conduct or their religious teaching, from the long and + inveterate habit of thinking and acting without it. We must not, then, + at all be surprised at finding that to modify the principles and + motives on which men act is not the work of a day; nor at undergoing + disappointments, at witnessing relapses, misconceptions, sudden + disgusts, and, on the other hand, abuses and perversions of the true + doctrine, in the case of those who have taken it up with more warmth + than discernment. + +From the end of 1835, or the beginning of 1836, the world outside of +Oxford began to be alive to the force and the rapid growth of this new +and, to the world at large, not very intelligible movement. The ideas +which had laid hold so powerfully on a number of leading minds in the +University began to work with a spell, which seemed to many +inexplicable, on others unconnected with them. This rapidity of +expansion, viewed as a feature of a party, was noticed on all sides, by +enemies no less than friends. In an article in the _British Critic_ of +April 1839, by Mr. Newman, on the State of Religious Parties, the fact +is illustrated from contemporary notices. + + There is at the present moment a reaction in the Church, and a growing + reaction, towards the views which it has been the endeavours [of the + Tract writers] and, as it seemed at the commencement, _almost hopeless + endeavours_, to advocate. The fairness of the prospect at present is + proved by the attack made on them by the public journals, and is + confessed by the more candid and the more violent among their + opponents. Thus the amiable Mr. Bickersteth speaks of it as having + manifested itself "with the _most rapid_ growth of the hot-bed of + these evil days." The scoffing author of the _Via Media_ says: "At + this moment the Via is _crowded_ with young enthusiasts who never + presume to argue, except against the propriety of arguing at all." The + candid Mr. Baden-Powell, who sees more of the difficulties of the + controversy than the rest of their antagonists pot together, says that + it is clear that "these views ... have been extensively adopted, and + are daily gaining ground among a considerable and influential portion + of the members, as well as the ministers of the Established Church." + The author of the _Natural History of Enthusiasm_ says: "The spread of + these doctrines is in fact having the effect of rendering all other + distinctions obsolete. Soon there will be no middle ground left, and + every man, especially every clergyman, will be compelled to make his + choice between the two." ... The Bishop of Chester speaks of the + subject "daily assuming a more serious and alarming aspect": a + gossiping writer of the moment describes these doctrines as having + insinuated themselves not only into popular churches and fashionable + chapels, and the columns of newspapers, but "into the House of + Commons." + +And the writer of the article goes on:-- + + Now, if there be any truth in these remarks, it is plainly idle and + perverse to refer the change of opinions which is now going on to the + acts of two or three individuals, as is sometimes done. Of course + every event in human affairs has a beginning; and a beginning implies + a when, and a where, and a by whom, and how. But except in these + necessary circumstance, the phenomenon in question is in a manner + quite independent of things visible and historical. It is not here or + there; it has no progress, no causes, no fortunes: it is not a + movement, it is a spirit, it is a spirit afloat, neither "in the + secret chambers" nor "in the desert," but everywhere. It is within us, + rising up in the heart where it was least expected, and working its + way, though not in secret, yet so subtly and impalpably, as hardly to + admit of precaution or encounter on any ordinary human rules of + opposition. It is an adversary in the air, a something one and entire, + a whole wherever it is, unapproachable and incapable of being grasped, + as being the result of causes far deeper than political or other + visible agencies, the spiritual awakening of spiritual wants. + + Nothing can show more strikingly the truth of this representation than + to refer to what may be called the theological history of the + individuals who, whatever be their differences from each other on + important or unimportant points, yet are associated together in the + advocacy of the doctrines in question. Dr. Hook and Mr. Churton + represent the High Church dignitaries of the last generation; Mr. + Perceval, the Tory aristocracy; Mr. Keble is of the country clergy, + and comes from valleys and woods, far removed both from notoriety and + noise; Mr. Palmer and Mr. Todd are of Ireland; Dr. Pusey became what + he is from among the Universities of Germany, and after a severe and + tedious analysis of Arabic MSS. Mr. Dodsworth is said to have begun in + the study of Prophecy; Mr. Newman to have been much indebted to the + friendship of Archbishop Whately; Mr. Froude, if any one, gained his + views from his own mind. Others have passed over from Calvinism and + kindred religions. + +Years afterwards, and in changed circumstances, the same writer has left +the following record of what came before his experience in those +years:--[67] + + From beginnings so small (I said), from elements of thought so + fortuitous, with prospects so unpromising, the Anglo-Catholic party + suddenly became a power in the National Church, and an object of + alarm to her rulers and friends. Its originators would have found it + difficult to say what they aimed at of a practical kind: rather, they + put forth views and principles, for their own sake, because they were + true, as if they were obliged to say them; and, as they might be + themselves surprised at their earnestness in uttering them, they had + as great cause to be surprised at the success which attended their + propagation. And, in fact, they could only say that those doctrines + were in the air; that to assert was to prove, and that to explain was + to persuade; and that the movement in which they were taking part was + the birth of a crisis rather than of a place. In a very few years a + school of opinion was formed, fixed in its principles, indefinite and + progressive in their range; and it extended itself into every part of + the country. If we inquire what the world thought of it, we have still + more to raise our wonder; for, not to mention the excitement it caused + in England, the movement and its party-names were known to the police + of Italy and to the backwoods-men of America. And so it proceeded, + getting stronger and stronger every year, till it came into collision + with the Nation and that Church of the Nation, which it began by + professing especially to serve. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[59] "I answered, the person whom we were opposing had committed himself +in writing, and we ought to commit ourselves, too."--_Apologia_, p. 143. + +[60] "I very much doubt between Oxford and Cambridge for my boy. Oxford, +which I should otherwise prefer, on many accounts, has at present +two-thirds of the steady-reading men, Rabbinists, _i.e._ Puseyites." But +this was probably an exaggeration.--Whately's _Life_; letter of Oct. +1838, p. 163 (ed. 1875). + +[61] "The sagacious and aspiring man of the world, the scrutiniser +of the heart, the conspirator against its privileges and +rights."--_Prophetical Office of the Church_, p. 132. + +[62] _Parochial Sermons_, iv. 20. Feb. 1836. + +[63] _Vide_ J.B. Mozley, _Letters_, pp. 114, 115. "Confidence in me was +lost, but I had already lost confidence in myself." This, to a friend +like J.B. Mozley, seemed exaggeration. "Though admiring the letter [to +the Vice Chancellor] I confess, for my own part, I think a general +confession of humility was irrelevant to the present occasion, the +question being simply on a point of theological interpretation. I have +always had a prejudice against general confessions." Mozley plainly +thought Newman's attitude too meek. He would have liked something more +spirited and pugnacious. + +[64] _Romanism and Popular Protestantism_, from 1834 to 1836, published +March 1837; _Justification_, after Easter 1837, published March 1838; +_Canon of Scripture_, published May 1838; _Antichrist_, published June +1838. + +[65] Cf. _Lyra Apostolica_, No. 65: + + _Thou_ to wax fierce + In the cause of the Lord! + + * * * * * + + Anger and zeal, + And the joy of the brave, + Who bade _thee_ to feel, + Sin's slave? + + +[66] This weak side was portrayed with severity in a story published by +Mr. Newman in 1848, after he left the English Church--_Loss and Gain_. + +[67] _Apologia_, p. 156. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE ROMAN QUESTION + + +The Hampden controversy had contributed to bring to the front a +question, which from the first starting of the Tracts had made itself +felt, but which now became a pressing one. If the Church of England +claimed to be part of the Catholic Church, what was the answer of the +Church of England to the claims and charges of the Church of Rome? What +were the true distinctions between the doctrines of the two Churches on +the great points on which they were supposed to be at issue? The vague +outcry of Popery had of course been raised both against the general +doctrine of the Church, enforced in the Tracts, and against special +doctrines and modes of speaking, popularly identified with Romanism; and +the answer had been an appeal to the authority of the most learned and +authoritative of our writers. But, of course, to the general public this +learning was new; and the cry went on with a dreary and stupid monotony. +But the charges against Dr. Hampden led his defenders to adopt as their +best weapon an aggressive policy. To the attack on his orthodoxy, the +counter buffet was the charge against his chief opponents of secret or +open Romanising. In its keenest and most popular form it was put forth +in a mocking pamphlet written probably under Whately's inspiration by +his most trusted confidant, Dr. Dickinson, in which, in the form of a +"Pastoral Epistle from his Holiness the Pope to some Members of the +University of Oxford," the Tract-writers are made to appear as the +emissaries and secret tools of Rome, as in a _jeu d'esprit_ of Whately's +they are made to appear as the veiled prophets of infidelity.[68] It was +clever, but not clever enough to stand, at least in Oxford, against Dr. +Pusey's dignified and gravely earnest _Remonstrance_ against its +injustice and trifling. But the fire of all Dr. Hampden's friends had +been drawn on the leaders of the movement. With them, and almost alone +with them, the opposition to him was made a personal matter. As time +went on, those who had been as hot as they against Dr. Hampden managed +to get their part in the business forgotten. Old scores between +Orthodox, Evangelicals, and Liberals were wiped out, and the Tractarians +were left to bear alone the odium of the "persecution" of Dr. Hampden. +It must be said that they showed no signs of caring for it. + +But the Roman controversy was looming in earnest, and it was idle to +expect to keep it long out of sight. The Tracts had set forth with +startling vehemence the forgotten claims of the Church. One reason why +this had been done was the belief, as stated in the first volume of +them, "that nothing but these neglected doctrines, faithfully preached, +will repress the extension of Popery, for which the ever-multiplying +divisions of the religious world are too clearly preparing the way."[69] +The question, What _is_ the Church? was one which the conditions of the +times would not permit men any longer to leave alone. It had become +urgent to meet it clearly and decisively. "We could not move a step in +comfort till this was done."[70] "The controversy with the Romanists," +writes Mr. Newman in No. 71 of the Tracts, about the end of 1835, "has +overtaken us 'like a summer's cloud.' We find ourselves in various parts +of the country preparing for it, yet, when we look back, we cannot +trace the steps by which we arrived at our present position. We do not +recollect what our feelings were this time last year on the subject; +what was the state of our apprehensions and anticipations. All we know +is, that here we are, from long security ignorant why we are not Roman +Catholics, and they on the other side are said to be spreading and +strengthening on all sides of us, vaunting of their success, real or +apparent, and taunting us with our inability to argue with them." + +The attitude taken by Mr. Newman at this time, as regards the Roman +Church, both in the Tracts and in his book on _Romanism and Popular +Protestantism_, published in the early months of 1836, was a new one. He +had started, as he tells us, with the common belief that the Pope was +Antichrist, and that the case was so clear against the whole system, +doctrinal and practical, of the Church of Rome, that it scarcely needed +further examination. His feeling against Rome had been increased by the +fierce struggle about Emancipation, and by the political conduct of the +Roman Catholic party afterwards; and his growing dissatisfaction with +the ordinary Protestantism had no visible effect in softening this +feeling. Hurrell Froude's daring questions had made his friends feel +that there might be more to be known about the subject than they yet +knew; yet what the fellow-travellers saw of things abroad in their visit +to the South in 1832 did not impress them favourably. "They are wretched +Tridentines everywhere," was Froude's comment. But attention had been +drawn to the subject, and its deep interest and importance and +difficulty recognised. Men began to read with new eyes. Froude's keen +and deep sense of shortcomings at home disposed him to claim equity and +candour in judging of the alleged faults and corruptions of the Church +abroad. It did more, it disposed him--naturally enough, but still +unfairly, and certainly without adequate knowledge--to treat Roman +shortcomings with an indulgence which he refused to English. Mr. Newman, +knowing more, and more comprehensive in his view of things, and +therefore more cautious and guarded than Froude, was much less ready to +allow a favourable interpretation of the obvious allegations against +Rome. But thought and reading, and the authority of our own leading +divines, had brought him to the conviction that whatever was to be said +against the modern Roman Church--and the charges against it were very +heavy--it was still, amid serious corruption and error, a teacher to the +nations of the Christian creed and hope; it had not forfeited, any more +than the English Church, its title to be a part of that historic body +which connects us with the Apostles of our Lord. It had a strong and +consistent theory to oppose to its assailants; it had much more to say +for itself than the popular traditions supposed. This was no new idea in +Anglican divinity, however ill it might sort with the current language +of Protestant controversy. But our old divines, more easily satisfied +than we with the course of things at home under the protection of the +Stuart kings, and stung to bitter recrimination by the insults and the +unscrupulous political intrigues of Roman Catholic agents, had exhausted +the language of vituperation against a great aggressive rival, which was +threatening everything that they held dear. They had damaged their own +character for fairness, and overlaid their substantial grounds of +objection and complaint, by this unbalanced exaggeration. Mr. Newman, in +his study of these matters, early saw both the need and the difficulty +of discrimination in the Roman controversy. It had to be waged, not as +of old, with penal legislation behind, but against adversaries who +could now make themselves listened to, and before a public sufficiently +robust in its Protestantism, to look with amused interest on a +dialectical triumph of the Roman over the Anglican claims. Romanism, he +thought, was fatal both to his recent hopes for the English Church, and +to the honour and welfare of Christianity at large. But in opposing it, +ground loosely taken of old must be carefully examined, and if +untenable, abandoned. Arguments which proved too much, which availed +against any Church at all, must be given up. Popular objections, arising +from ignorance or misconception, must be reduced to their true limits or +laid aside. The controversy was sure to be a real one, and nothing but +what was real and would stand scrutiny was worth anything in it. + +Mr. Newman had always been impressed with the greatness of the Roman +Church. Of old it had seemed to him great with the greatness of +Antichrist. Now it seemed great with the strange weird greatness of a +wonderful mixed system, commanding from its extent of sway and its +imperial authority, complicated and mysterious in its organisation and +influence, in its devotion and its superstitions, and surpassing every +other form of religion both in its good and its evil.[71] What now +presented itself to Mr. Newman's thoughts, instead of the old notion of +a pure Church on one side, and a corrupt Church on the other, sharply +opposed to one another, was the more reasonable supposition of two great +portions of the divided Church, each with its realities of history and +fact and character, each with its special claims and excellences, each +with its special sins and corruptions, and neither realising in practice +and fact all it professed to be on paper; each of which further, in the +conflicts of past days, had deeply, almost unpardonably, wronged the +other. The Church of England was in possession, with its own call and +its immense work to do, and striving to do it. Whatever the Church of +Rome was abroad, it was here an intruder and a disturber. That to his +mind was the fact and the true position of things; and this ought to +govern the character and course of controversy. The true line was not to +denounce and abuse wholesale, not to attack with any argument, good or +bad, not to deny or ignore what was solid in the Roman ground, and good +and elevated in the Roman system, but admitting all that fairly ought to +be admitted, to bring into prominence, not for mere polemical +denunciation, but for grave and reasonable and judicial condemnation, +all that was extravagant and arrogant in Roman assumptions, and all that +was base, corrupt, and unchristian in the popular religion, which, with +all its claims to infallibility and authority, Rome not only permitted +but encouraged. For us to condemn Rome wholesale, as was ordinarily the +fashion, even in respectable writers, was as wrong, as unfair, as +unprofitable to the cause of truth and Christianity, as the Roman +charges against us were felt by us to be ignorant and unjust. Rome +professes like England to continue the constitution, doctrine, +traditions, and spirit of the ancient and undivided Church: and so far +as she does so--and she does so in a great degree--we can have no +quarrel with her. But in a great degree also, she does this only in +profession and as a theory: she claims the witness and suffrage of +antiquity, but she interprets it at her own convenience and by her own +authority. We cannot claim exemption from mistakes, from deviations from +our own standard and principles, any more than Rome; but while she +remains as she is, and makes the monstrous claims of infallibility and +supremacy, there is nothing for English Churchmen but to resist her. +Union is impossible. Submission is impossible. What we have to beware of +for our own sake, as well as for our cause, are false arguments, unreal +objections, ignorant allegations. There is enough on the very surface, +in her audacious assertions and high-handed changes, for popular +arguments against her, without having recourse to exaggeration and +falsehood; she may be a very faulty Church, without being Babylon and +Antichrist. And in the higher forms of argument, there is abundance in +those provinces of ancient theology and ecclesiastical history and law, +which Protestant controversialists have commonly surrendered and left +open to their opponents, to supply a more telling weapon than any which +these controversialists have used. + +This line, though substantially involved in the theory of our most +learned divines, from Andrewes to Wake, was new in its moderation and +reasonable caution; in its abstention from insult and vague abuse, in +its recognition of the _primâ facie_ strength of much of the Roman case, +in its fearless attempt, in defiance of the deepest prejudices, to face +the facts and conditions of the question. Mr. Newman dared to know and +to acknowledge much that our insular self-satisfaction did not know, and +did not care to know, of real Christian life in the Church of Rome. He +dared to admit that much that was popularly held to be Popish was +ancient, Catholic, edifying; he dared to warn Churchmen that the loose +unsifted imputations, so securely hazarded against Rome, were both +discreditable and dangerous. All this, from one whose condemnation of +Rome was decisive and severe, was novel. The attempt, both in its spirit +and its ability, was not unworthy of being part of the general effort to +raise the standard of thought and teaching in the English Church. It +recalled men from slovenly prejudices to the study of the real facts of +the living world. It narrowed the front of battle, but it strengthened +it enormously. The volume on _Romanism and Popular Protestantism_ is not +an exhaustive survey of the controversy with Rome or of the theory of +the Church. There are great portions of the subject, both theological +and historical, which it did not fall within the scope of the book to +touch. It was unsystematic and incomplete. But so far as its argument +extended, it almost formed an epoch in this kind of controversial +writing. It showed the command of a man of learning over all the +technical points and minutiae of a question highly scholastical in its +conceptions and its customary treatment, and it presented this question +in its bearings and consequences on life and practice with the freedom +and breadth of the most vigorous popular writing. The indictment against +Rome was no vague or general one. It was one of those arguments which +cut the ground from under a great established structure of reasonings +and proofs. And its conclusions, clear and measured, but stern, were +the more impressive, because they came from one who did not disguise his +feeling that there was much in what was preserved in the Roman system to +admire and to learn from. + +The point which he chose for his assault was indeed the key of the Roman +position--the doctrine of Infallibility. He was naturally led to this +side of the question by the stress which the movement had laid on the +idea of the Church as the witness and teacher of revealed truth: and the +immediate challenge given by the critics or opponents of the movement +was, how to distinguish this lofty idea of the Church, with its claim to +authority, if it was at all substantial, from the imposing and +consistent theory of Romanism. He urged against the Roman claim of +Infallibility two leading objections. One was the way in which the +assumed infallibility of the present Church was made to override and +supersede, in fact, what in words was so ostentatiously put forward, the +historical evidence of antiquity to doctrine, expressed by the phrase, +the "consent of the Fathers." The other objection was the inherent +contradiction of the notion of infallibility to the conditions of human +reception of teaching and knowledge, and its practical uselessness as an +assurance of truth, its partly delusive, partly mischievous, working. +But he felt, as all deep minds must feel, that it is easier to overthrow +the Roman theory of Church authority than to replace it by another, +equally complete and commanding, and more unassailable. He was quite +alive to the difficulties of the Anglican position; but he was a +disciple in the school of Bishop Butler, and had learned as a first +principle to recognise the limitations of human knowledge, and the +unphilosophical folly of trying to round off into finished and +pretentious schemes our fragmentary yet certain notices of our own +condition and of God's dealings with it. He followed his teacher in +insisting on the reality and importance of moral evidence as opposed to +demonstrative proof; and he followed the great Anglican divines in +asserting that there was a true authority, varying in its degrees, in +the historic Church; that on the most fundamental points of religion +this authority was trustworthy and supreme; that on many other questions +it was clear and weighty, though it could not decide everything. This +view of the "prophetical office of the Church" had the dialectical +disadvantage of appearing to be a compromise, to many minds a fatal +disadvantage. It got the name of the _Via Media_; a satisfactory one to +practical men like Dr. Hook, to whom it recommended itself for use in +popular teaching; but to others, in aftertimes, an ill-sounding phrase +of dislike, which summed up the weakness of the Anglican case. Yet it +only answered to the certain fact, that in the early and undivided +Church there was such a thing as authority, and there was no such thing +known as Infallibility. It was an appeal to the facts of history and +human nature against the logical exigencies of a theory. Men must +transcend the conditions of our experience if they want the certainty +which the theory of Infallibility speaks of. + +There were especially two weak points in this view of Anglicanism. Mr. +Newman felt and admitted them, and of course they were forced on his +attention by controversialists on both sides; by the Ultra Protestant +school, whose modes of dealing with Scripture he had exposed with +merciless logic and by the now eager Roman disputants, of whom Dr. +Wiseman was the able and not over-scrupulous chief. The first of these +points was that the authority of the undivided Church, which Anglicanism +invoked, though it completely covered the great foundations of Christian +doctrine, our faith as to the nature of God, did not cover with equal +completeness other important points of controversy, such as those +raised at the Reformation as to the Sacraments, and the justification of +the sinner. The Anglican answer was that though the formal and conciliar +authority was not the same in each case, the patristic literature of the +time of the great councils, all that it took for granted and preserved +as current belief and practice, all that resulted from the questions and +debates of the time, formed a body of proof, which carried with it moral +evidence only short of authoritative definition, and was so regarded in +the Anglican formularies. These formularies implied the authority of the +Church to speak; and what was defined on this authority was based on +good evidence, though there were portions of its teaching which had even +better. The other point was more serious. "Your theory," was the +objection, "is nothing but a paper theory; it never was a reality; it +never can be. There may be an ideal halting-place, there is neither a +logical nor an actual one, between Romanism and the ordinary negations +of Protestantism." The answer to the challenge then was, "Let us see if +it cannot be realised. It has recognised foundations to build upon, and +the impediments and interruptions which have hindered it are well known. +Let us see if it will not turn out something more than a paper theory." +That was the answer given at the time, abandoned ten years afterwards. +But this at least may be said, that the longer experience of the last +fifty years has shown that the Church of England has been working more +and more on such a theory, and that the Church of England, whatever its +faults may be, is certainly not a Church only on paper. + +But on the principles laid down in this volume, the Roman controversy, +in its varying forms, was carried on--for the time by Mr. Newman, +permanently by the other leaders of the movement. In its main outlines, +the view has become the accepted Anglican view. Many other most +important matters have come into the debate. The publicly altered +attitude of the Papacy has indefinitely widened the breach between +England and Rome. But the fundamental idea of the relations and +character of the two Churches remains the same as it was shadowed forth +in 1836. + +One very important volume on these questions ought not to be passed by +without notice. This was the _Treatise on the Church of Christ_, 1838, +by Mr. W. Palmer, who had already by his _Origines_ of the English +Ritual, 1832, done much to keep up that interest of Churchmen in the +early devotional language of the Church, which had first been called +forth by Bishop Lloyd's lectures on the Prayer Book. The _Treatise on +the Church_ was an honour to English theology and learning; in point of +plan and structure we have few books like it.[72] It is comprehensive, +methodical, well-compacted, and, from its own point of view, +exhaustive. It is written with full knowledge of the state of the +question at the time, both on the Anglican side and on the Roman. Its +author evades no objection, and is aware of most. It is rigorous in +form, and has no place for anything but substantial argument. It is a +book which, as the _Apologia_ tells us, commanded the respect of such an +accomplished controversialist as Perrone; and, it may be added, of a +theologian of an opposite school, Dr. Döllinger. It is also one on which +the highest value has been set by Mr. Gladstone. It is remarkable that +it did not exercise more influence on religious thought in Oxford at the +critical time when it appeared. But it had defects, and the moment was +against it. It was dry and formal--inevitably so, from the scientific +plan deliberately adopted for it; it treated as problems of the +theological schools, to be discussed by the rules of severe and +passionless disputation, questions which were once more, after the +interval of more than a century, beginning to touch hearts and +consciences, and were felt to be fraught with the gravest practical +issues. And Mr. Newman, in his mode of dealing with them, unsystematic, +incomplete, unsatisfactory in many ways as it was, yet saw in them not +abstract and scholastic inquiries, however important, but matters in +which not only sound argument, but sympathy and quick intelligence of +the conditions and working of the living minds around him, were needed +to win their attention and interest. To persons accustomed to Mr. +Newman's habit of mind and way of writing, his ease, his frankness, his +candour, his impatience of conventionality, his piercing insight into +the very centre of questions, his ever-ready recognition of nature and +reality, his range of thought, his bright and clear and fearless style +of argument, his undisplayed but never unfelt consciousness of the true +awfulness of anything connected with religion, any stiff and heavy way +of treating questions which he had treated would have seemed +unattractive and unpersuasive. He had spoiled his friends for any mere +technical handling, however skilful, of great and critical subjects. He +himself pointed out in a review the unique merit and the real value of +Mr. Palmer's book, pointing out also, significantly enough, where it +fell short, both in substance and in manner. Observing that the +"scientific" system of the English Church is not yet "sufficiently +cleared and adjusted," and adding a variety of instances of this +deficiency, he lets us see what he wanted done, where difficulties most +pressed upon himself, and where Mr. Palmer had missed the real substance +of such difficulties. Looking at it by the light of after-events, we can +see the contradiction and reaction produced by Mr. Palmer's too +optimist statements. Still, Mr. Newman's praise was sincere and +discriminating. But Mr. Palmer's book, though never forgotten, scarcely +became, what it at another time might well have become, an English +text-book. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[68] Whately's _Life_, ed. 1875, pp. 187-190. + +[69] Advertisement to vol. i. 1st Nov. 1834. + +[70] _Apologia_, p. 139. + +[71] Vide _Lyra Apostolica_, Nos. 170, 172: + + How shall I name thee, Light of the wide West, + Or heinous error-seat?... + Oh, that thy creed were sound! + For thou dost soothe the heart, thou Church of Rome, + By thy unwearied watch and varied round + Of service, in thy Saviour's holy home. + +And comp. No. 171, _The Cruel Church_. + +[72] "The most important theological work which has lately appeared is +Mr. Palmer's _Treatise on the Church_.... Whatever judgment may be +formed of the conclusions to which he has come on the variety of points +which he had to consider, we cannot contemplate without admiration, and +(if it were right) without envy, the thorough treatment which his +subject has received at his hands. It is indeed a work quite in +character with the religious movement which has commenced in various +parts of the Church, displaying a magnificence of design similar to that +of the Bishop of London's plan of fifty new churches, and Dr. Pusey, of +Oxford's, projected translation of the Fathers."--_Brit. Crit._. July +1838. Short Notices. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +CHANGES + + +The first seven years of the movement, as it is said in the _Apologia_, +had been years of prosperity. There had been mistakes; there had been +opposition; there had been distrust and uneasiness. There was in some +places a ban on the friends of Mr. Newman; men like Mr. James Mozley and +Mr. Mark Pattison found their connexion with him a difficulty in the way +of fellowships. But on the whole, things had gone smoothly, without any +great breakdown, or any open collision with authority. But after 1840 +another period was to begin of trouble and disaster. The seeds of this +had been partially sown before in the days of quiet, and the time was +come for their development. Differences in the party itself had been +growing sharper; differences between the more cautious and the more +fearless, between the more steady-going and the more subtle thinkers. +The contrast between the familiar and customary, and the new--between +the unknown or forgotten, and a mass of knowledge only recently +realised--became more pronounced. Consequences of a practical kind, real +or supposed; began to show themselves, and to press. And above all, a +second generation, without the sobering experience of the first, was +starting from where the first had reached to, and, in some instances, +was rising up against their teachers' caution and patience. The usual +dangers of all earnest and aggressive assertions of great principles +appeared: contempt for everything in opinion and practice that was not +advanced, men vying with each other in bold inferences, in the pleasure +of "talking strong." With this grew fear and exasperation on the other +side, misunderstandings, misgivings, strainings of mutual confidence, +within. Dr. Hook alternated between violent bursts of irritation and +disgust, and equally strong returns of sympathy, admiration, and +gratitude; and he represented a large amount of feeling among Churchmen. +It was but too clear that storms were at hand. They came perhaps quicker +than they were anticipated. + +Towards the end of 1838, a proposal was brought forward, for which in +its direct aspect much might plausibly be said, but which was in +intention and indirectly a test question, meant to put the Tractarians +in a difficulty, and to obtain the weight of authority in the University +against them. It was proposed to raise a subscription, and to erect a +monument in Oxford, to the martyrs of the Reformation, Cranmer, Ridley, +and Latimer. Considering that the current and popular language dated +the Church of England from the Reformation of the sixteenth century, and +cited the Reformers as ultimate and paramount authorities on its +doctrine, there was nothing unreasonable in such a proposal. Dr. Hook, +strong Churchman as he was, "called to union on the principles of the +English Reformation." But the criticism which had been set afloat by the +movement had discovered and realised, what defenders of the English +Church had hitherto felt it an act of piety to disbelieve, when put +before them by Romanists like Lingard, and radicals like Cobbett. that +the Reformers had been accomplices in many indefensible acts, and had +been inconsistent and untrustworthy theologians. Providentially, it was +felt, the force of old convictions and tradition and the historical +events of the time had obliged them to respect the essentials of +Catholic truth and polity and usage; we owed to them much that was +beautiful and devotional in the Prayer Book; and their Articles, clear +in all matters decided by the early theology, avoided foreign extremes +in dealing with later controversies. But their own individual language +was often far in advance of the public and official language of +formularies, in the direction of the great Protestant authorities of +Geneva and Zurich. There were still, even among the movement party, many +who respected the Reformers for the work which they had attempted, and +partly and imperfectly done, to be more wisely and soberly carried on by +their successors of the seventeenth century. But the charges against +their Calvinistic and even Zwinglian language were hard to parry; even +to those who respected them for their connexion with our present order +of things, their learning, their soundness, their authority appeared to +be greatly exaggerated; and the reaction from excessive veneration made +others dislike and depreciate them. This was the state of feeling when +the Martyrs' Memorial was started. It was eagerly pressed with ingenious +and persevering arguments by Mr. Golightly, the indefatigable and +long-labouring opponent of all that savoured of Tractarianism. The +appeal seemed so specious that at first many even of the party gave in +their adhesion. Even Dr. Pusey was disposed to subscribe to it. But Mr. +Newman, as was natural, held aloof; and his friends for the most part +did the same. It was what was expected and intended. They were either to +commit themselves to the Reformation as understood by the promoters of +the Memorial; or they were to be marked as showing their disloyalty to +it. The subscription was successful. The Memorial was set up, and stood, +a derisive though unofficial sign of the judgment of the University +against them. + +But the "Memorial" made little difference to the progress of the +movement. It was an indication of hostility in reserve, but this was +all; it formed an ornament to the city, but failed as a religious and +effective protest. Up to the spring of 1839, Anglicanism, placed on an +intellectual basin by Mr. Newman, developed practically in different +ways by Dr. Pusey and Dr. Hook, sanctioned in theory by divines who +represented the old divinity of the English Church, like Bishop +Phillpotts and Mr. H.J. Rose, could speak with confident and hopeful +voice. It might well seem that it was on its way to win over the coming +generations of the English clergy. It had on its side all that gives +interest and power to a cause,--thought, force of character, unselfish +earnestness; it had unity of idea and agreement in purpose, and was +cemented by the bonds of warm affection and common sympathies. It had +the promise of a nobler religion, as energetic and as spiritual as +Puritanism and Wesleyanism, while it drew its inspiration, its canons of +doctrine, its moral standards, from purer and more venerable +sources;--from communion, not with individual teachers and partial +traditions, but with the consenting teaching and authoritative documents +of the continuous Catholic Church. + +Anglicanism was agreed, up to this time--the summer of 1839--as to its +general principles. Charges of an inclination to Roman views had been +promptly and stoutly met; nor was there really anything but the +ignorance or ill-feeling of the accusers to throw doubt on the sincerity +of these disavowals. The deepest and strongest mind in the movement was +satisfied; and his steadiness of conviction could be appealed to if his +followers talked wildly and rashly. He had kept one unwavering path; he +had not shrunk from facing with fearless honesty the real living array +of reasons which the most serious Roman advocates could put forward. +With a frankness new in controversy, he had not been afraid to state +them with a force which few of his opponents could have put forth. With +an eye ever open to that supreme Judge of all our controversies, who +listens to them on His throne on high, he had with conscientious +fairness admitted what he saw to be good and just on the side of his +adversaries, conceded what in the confused wrangle of conflicting claims +he judged ought to be conceded. But after all admissions and all +concessions, the comparative strength of his own case appeared all the +more undeniable. He had stripped it of its weaknesses, its incumbrances, +its falsehoods; and it did not seem the weaker for being presented in +its real aspect and on its real grounds. People felt that he had gone to +the bottom of the question as no one had yet dared to do. He was yet +staunch in his convictions; and they could feel secure. + +But a change was at hand. In the course of 1839, the little cloud showed +itself in the outlook of the future; the little rift opened, small and +hardly perceptible, which was to widen into an impassable gulf. +Anglicanism started with undoubted confidence in its own foundations and +its own position, as much against Romanism as against the more recent +forms of religion. In the consciousness of its strength, it could afford +to make admissions and to refrain from tempting but unworthy arguments +in controversy with Rome; indeed the necessity of such controversy had +come upon it unexpectedly and by surprise. With English frankness, in +its impatience of abuses and desire for improvement within, it had dwelt +strongly on the faults and shortcomings of the English Church which it +desired to remedy; but while allowing what was undeniably excellent in +Rome, it had been equally outspoken and emphatic in condemnation of the +evils of Rome. What is there to wonder at in such a position? It is the +position of every honest reforming movement, at least in England. But +Anglican self-reliance was unshaken, and Anglican hope waxed stronger as +the years went on, and the impression made by Anglican teaching became +wider and deeper. Outside attacks, outside persecution, could now do +little harm; the time was past for that. What might have happened had +things gone on as they began, it is idle to inquire. But at the moment +when all seemed to promise fair, the one fatal influence, the presence +of internal uncertainty and doubt, showed itself. The body of men who +had so for acted together began to show a double aspect. While one +portion of it continued on the old lines, holding the old ground, +defending the old principles, and attempting to apply them for the +improvement of the practical system of the English Church, another +portion had asked the question, and were pursuing the anxious inquiry, +whether the English Church was a true Church at all, a true portion of +the one uninterrupted Catholic Church of the Redeemer. And the question +had forced itself with importunate persistence on the leading mind of +the movement. From this time the fate of Tractarianism, as a party, was +decided. + +In this overthrow of confidence, two sets of influences may be traced. + +1. One, which came from above, from the highest leading authority in the +movement, was the unsettlement of Mr. Newman's mind. He has told the +story, the story as he believed of his enfranchisement and deliverance; +and he has told the story, though the story of a deliverance, with so +keen a feeling of its pathetic and tragic character,--as it is indeed +the most tragic story of a conversion to peace and hope on record,--that +it will never cease to be read where the English language is spoken. Up +to the summer of 1839, his view of the English position had satisfied +him--satisfied him, that is, as a tenable one in the anomalies of +existing Christendom. All seemed clear and hopeful, and the one thing to +be thought of was to raise the English Church to the height of its own +standard. But in the autumn of that year (1839), as he has told us, a +change took place. In the summer of 1839, he had set himself to study +the history of the Monophysite controversy. "I have no reason," he +writes, "to suppose that the thought of Rome came across my mind at +all.... It was during this course of reading that for the first time a +doubt came across me of the tenableness of Anglicanism. I had seen the +shadow of a hand on the wall. He who has seen a ghost cannot be as if he +had never seen it. The heavens had opened and closed again." To less +imaginative and slower minds this seems an overwrought description of a +phenomenon, which must present itself sometime or other to all who +search the foundations of conviction; and by itself he was for the time +proof against its force. "The thought for the moment had been, The +Church of Rome will be found right after all; and then it had vanished. +My old convictions remained as before." But another blow came, and then +another. An article by Dr. Wiseman on the Donatists greatly disturbed +him. The words of St. Augustine about the Donatists, _securus judicat +orbis terrarum_, rang continually in his ears, like words out of the +sky. He found the threatenings of the Monophysite controversy renewed in +the _Arian_: "the ghost had come a second time." It was a "most +uncomfortable article," he writes in his letters; "the first real hit +from Romanism which has happened to me"; it gave him, as he says, "a +stomach-ache." But he still held his ground, and returned his answer to +the attack in an article in the _British Critic_, on the "Catholicity of +the English Church." He did not mean to take the attack for more than it +was worth, an able bit of _ex parte_ statement. But it told on him, as +nothing had yet told on him. What it did, was to "open a vista which was +closed before, and of which he could not see the end"; "we are not at +the bottom of things," was the sting it left behind From this time, the +hope and exultation with which, in spite of checks and misgivings, he +had watched the movement, gave way to uneasiness and distress. A new +struggle was beginning, a long struggle with himself, a long struggle +between rival claims which would not be denied, each equally imperious, +and involving fatal consequences if by mistake the wrong one was +admitted. And it was not only the effect of these thoughts on his own +mind which filled him with grief and trouble. He always thought much for +others; and now there was the misery of perhaps unsettling +others--others who had trusted him with their very souls--others, to +whom it was impossible to explain the conflicts which were passing in +his own mind. It was so bitter to unsettle their hope and confidence. +All through this time, more trying than his own difficulties, were the +perplexities and sorrows which he foresaw for those whom he loved. Very +illogical and inconsecutive, doubtless; if only he had had the hard +heart of a proselytiser, he would have seen that it was his duty to +undermine and shatter their old convictions. But he cared more for the +tempers and beliefs in which he was at one with his Anglican friends, +than for those in which they could not follow him. But the struggle came +on gradually. What he feared at first was not the triumph of Rome, but +the break-up of the English Church; the apparent probability of a great +schism in it. "I fear I see more clearly that we are working up to a +schism in the English Church, that is, a split between Peculiars and +Apostolicals ... I never can be surprised at individuals going off to +Rome, but that is not my chief fear, but a schism; that is, those two +parties, which have hitherto got on together as they could, from the +times of Puritanism downwards, gathering up into clear, tangible, and +direct forces, and colliding. Our Church is not at one with itself, +there is no denying it." That was at first the disaster before him. His +thought for himself began to turn, not to Rome, but to a new life +without office and authority, but still within the English Church. "You +see, if things come to the worst, I should turn brother of charity in +London." And he began to prepare for a move from Oxford, from St. +Mary's, from his fellowship. He bought land at Littlemore, and began to +plant. He asks his brother-in-law for plans for building what he calls a +μονή. He looks forward to its becoming a sort of Monastic school, but +still connected with the University. + +In Mr. Newman's view of the debate between England and Rome, he had all +along dwelt on two broad features, _Apostolicity_ and _Catholicity_, +likeness to the Apostolic teaching, and likeness to the uninterrupted +unity and extent of the undivided Church; and of those two features he +found the first signally wanting in Rome, and the second signally +wanting in England. When he began to distrust his own reasonings, still +the disturbing and repelling element in Rome was the alleged defect of +Apostolicity, the contrast between primitive and Roman religion; while +the attractive one was the apparent widely extended Catholicity in all +lands, East and West, continents and isles, of the world-wide spiritual +empire of the Pope. It is these two great points which may be traced in +their action on his mind at this crisis. The contrast between early and +Roman doctrine and practice, in a variety of ways, some of them most +grave and important, was long a great difficulty in the way of +attempting to identify the Roman Church, absolutely and exclusively, +with the Primitive Church. The study of antiquity indisposed him, +indeed, more and more to the existing system of the English Church; its +claims to model itself on the purity and simplicity of the Early Church +seemed to him, in the light of its documents, and still more of the +facts of history and life, more and more questionable. But modern Rome +was just as distant from the Early Church though it preserved many +ancient features, lost or unvalued by England. Still, Rome was not the +same thing as the Early Church; and Mr. Newman ultimately sought a way +out of his difficulty--and indeed there was no other--in the famous +doctrine of Development. But when the difficulty about _Apostolicity_ +was thus provided for, then the force of the great vision of the +Catholic Church came upon him, unchecked and irresistible. That was a +thing present, visible, undeniable as a fact of nature; that was a thing +at once old and new; it belonged as truly, as manifestly, to the recent +and modern world of democracy and science, as it did to the Middle Ages +and the Fathers, to the world of Gregory and Innocent, to the world of +Athanasius and Augustine. The majesty, the vastness of an imperial +polity, outlasting all states and kingdoms, all social changes and +political revolutions, answered at once to the promises of the +prophecies, and to the antecedent idea of the universal kingdom of God. +Before this great idea, embodied in concrete form, and not a paper +doctrine, partial scandals and abuses seemed to sink into +insignificance. Objections seemed petty and ignoble; the pretence of +rival systems impertinent and absurd. He resented almost with impatience +anything in the way of theory or explanation which seemed to him narrow, +technical, dialectical. He would look at nothing but what had on it the +mark of greatness and largeness which befitted the awful subject, and +was worthy of arresting the eye and attention of an ecclesiastical +statesman, alive to mighty interests, compared to which even the most +serious human affairs were dwarfed and obscured. But all this was +gradual in coming. His recognition of the claims of the English Church, +faulty and imperfect as he thought it, did not give way suddenly and at +once. It survived the rude shock of 1839, From first to almost the last +she was owned as his "mother"--owned in passionate accents of +disappointment and despair as a Church which knew not how to use its +gifts; yet still, even though life seemed failing her, and her power of +teaching and ruling seemed paralysed, his mother; and as long as there +seemed to him a prospect of restoration to health, it was his duty to +stay by her.[73] This was his first attitude for three or four years +after 1839. He could not speak of her with the enthusiasm and triumph of +the first years of the movement. When he fought her battles, it was with +the sense that her imperfections made his task the harder. Still he +clung to the belief that she held a higher standard than she had yet +acted up to, and discouraged and perplexed he yet maintained her cause. +But now two things happened. The Roman claims, as was natural when +always before him, seemed to him more and more indisputable. And in +England his interpretation of Anglican theology seemed to be more and +more contradicted, disavowed, condemned, by all that spoke with any +authority in the Church. The University was not an ecclesiastical body, +yet it had practically much weight in matters of theology; it +informally, but effectually, declared against him. The Bishops, one by +one, of course only spoke as individuals; but they were the official +spokesmen of the Church, and their consent, though not the act of a +Synod, was weighty--they too had declared against him. And finally that +vague but powerful voice of public opinion, which claims to represent at +once the cool judgment of the unbiassed, and the passion of the +zealous--it too declared against him. Could he claim to understand the +mind of the Church better than its own organs? + +Then at length a change came; and it was marked outwardly by a curious +retractation of his severe language about Rome, published in a paper +called the _Conservative Journal_, in January 1843; and more distinctly, +by his resignation of St. Mary's in September 1843, a step contemplated +for some time, and by his announcement that he was preparing to resign +his fellowship. From this time he felt that he could no longer hold +office, or be a champion of the English Church; from this time, it was +only a matter of waiting, waiting to make quite certain that he was +right and was under no delusion, when he should leave her for the Roman +Communion. And to his intimate friends, to his sisters, he gave notice +that this was now impending. To the world outside, all that was known +was that he was much unsettled and distressed by difficulties. + +It may be asked why this change was not at this time communicated, not +to a few intimates, but to the world? Why did he not at this time hoist +his quarantine flag and warn every one that he was dangerous to come +near? So keen a mind must, it was said, have by this time foreseen how +things would end; he ought to have given earlier notice. His answer was +that he was sincerely desirous of avoiding, as far as possible, what +might prejudice the Church in which he had ministered, even at the +moment of leaving her. He saw his own way becoming clearer and clearer; +but he saw it for himself alone. He was not one of those who forced the +convictions of others; he was not one of those who think it a great +thing to be followed in a serious change by a crowd of disciples. +Whatever might be at the end, it was now an agonising wrench to part +from the English body, to part from the numbers of friends whose loyalty +was immovable, to part from numbers who had trusted and learned from +him. Of course, if he was in the right way, he could wish them nothing +better than that they should follow him. But they were in God's hands; +it was not his business to unsettle them; it was not his business to +ensnare and coerce their faith. And so he tried for this time to steer +his course alone. He wished to avoid observation. He was silent on all +that went on round him, exciting as some of the incidents were. He would +not he hurried; he would give himself full time; he would do what he +could to make sure that he was not acting under the influence of a +delusion. + +The final result of all this was long in coming; there was, we know, a +bitter agony of five years, a prolonged and obstinate and cruel struggle +between the deepest affections and ever-growing convictions. But this +struggle, as has been said, did not begin with the conviction in which +it ended. It began and long continued with the belief that though +England was wrong, Rome was not right; that though the Roman argument +seemed more and more unanswerable, there were insuperable difficulties +of certain fact which made the Roman conclusion incredible; that there +was so much good and truth in England, with all its defects and faults, +which was unaccountable and unintelligible on the Roman hypothesis; that +the real upshot was that the whole state of things in Christendom was +abnormal; that to English Churchmen the English Church had immediate and +direct claims which nothing but the most irresistible counter-claims +could overcome or neutralise--the claims of a shipwrecked body cut off +from country and home, yet as a shipwrecked body still organised, and +with much saved from the wreck, and not to be deserted, as long as it +held together, in an uncertain attempt to rejoin its lost unity. +Resignation, retirement, silence, lay communion, the hope of ultimate, +though perhaps long-deferred reunion--these were his first thoughts. +Misgivings could not be helped, would not be denied, but need not be +paraded, were to be kept at arm's-length as long as possible. This is +the picture presented in the autobiography of these painful and dreary +years; and there is every evidence that it is a faithful one. It is +conceivable, though not very probable, that such a course might go on +indefinitely. It is conceivable that under different circumstances he +might, like other perplexed and doubting seekers after truth, have +worked round through doubt and perplexity to his first conviction. But +the actual result, as it came, was natural enough; and it was +accelerated by provocation, by opponents without, and by the pressure of +advanced and impatient followers and disciples in the party itself. + +2. This last was the second of the two influences spoken of above. It +worked from below, as the first worked from above. + +Discussions and agitations, such as accompanied the movement, however +much under the control of the moral and intellectual ascendancy of the +leaders, could not of course be guaranteed from escaping from that +control. And as the time went on, men joined the movement who had but +qualified sympathy with that passionate love and zeal for the actual +English Church, that acquaintance with its historical theology, and that +temper of discipline, sobriety, and self-distrust, which marked its +first representatives. These younger disciples shared in the growing +excitement of the society round them. They were attracted by visible +height of character, and brilliant intellectual power. They were alive +to vast and original prospects, opening a new world which should be a +contrast to the worn-out interest of the old. Some of these were men of +wide and abstruse learning; quaint and eccentric scholars both in habit +and look, students of the ancient type, who even fifty years ago seemed +out of date to their generation. Some were men of considerable force of +mind, destined afterwards to leave a mark on their age as thinkers and +writers. To the former class belonged Charles Seager, and John Brande +Morris, of Exeter College, both learned Orientalists, steeped in +recondite knowledge of all kinds; men who had worked their way to +knowledge through hardship and grinding labour, and not to be outdone in +Germany itself for devouring love of learning and a scholar's plainness +of life. In the other class may be mentioned Frederic Faber, J.D. +Dalgairns, and W.G. Ward, men who have all since risen to eminence in +their different spheres. Faber was a man with a high gift of +imagination, remarkable powers of assimilating knowledge, and a great +richness and novelty and elegance of thought, which with much melody of +voice made him ultimately a very attractive preacher. If the promise of +his powers has not been adequately fulfilled, it is partly to be traced +to a want of severity of taste and self-restraint, but his name will +live in some of his hymns, and in some very beautiful portions of his +devotional writings. Dalgairns's mind was of a different order. "That +man has an eye for theology," was the remark of a competent judge on +some early paper of Dalgairns's which came before him. He had something +of the Frenchman about him. There was in him, in his Oxford days, a +bright and frank briskness, a mixture of modesty and arch daring, which +gave him an almost boyish appearance; but beneath this boyish appearance +there was a subtle and powerful intellect, alive to the problems of +religious philosophy, and impatient of any but the most thorough +solutions of them; while, on the other hand, the religious affections +were part of his nature, and mind and will and heart yielded an +unreserved and absolute obedience to the leading and guidance of faith. +In his later days, with his mind at ease, Father Dalgairns threw himself +into the great battle with unbelief; and few men have commanded more +the respect of opponents not much given to think well of the arguments +for religion, by the freshness and the solidity of his reasoning. At +this time, enthusiastic in temper, and acute and exacting as a thinker, +he found the Church movement just, as it were, on the turn of the wave. +He was attracted to it at first by its reaction against what was unreal +and shallow, by its affinities with what was deep in idea and earnest in +life; then, and finally, he was repelled from it, by its want of +completeness, by its English acquiescence in compromise, by its +hesitations and clinging to insular associations and sympathies, which +had little interest for him. + +Another person, who was at this time even more prominent in the advanced +portion of the movement party, and whose action had more decisive +influence on its course, was Mr. W.G. Ward, Fellow of Balliol. Mr. Ward, +who was first at Christ Church, had distinguished himself greatly at the +Oxford Union as a vigorous speaker, at first on the Tory side; he came +afterwards under the influence of Arthur Stanley, then fresh from Rugby, +and naturally learned to admire Dr. Arnold; but Dr. Arnold's religious +doctrines did not satisfy him; the movement, with its boldness and +originality of idea and ethical character, had laid strong hold on him, +and he passed into one of the most thoroughgoing adherents of Mr. +Newman. There was something to smile at in his person, and in some of +his ways--his unbusiness-like habits, his joyousness of manner, his racy +stories; but few more powerful intellects passed through Oxford in his +time, and he has justified his University reputation by his distinction +since, both as a Roman Catholic theologian and professor, and as a +profound metaphysical thinker, the equal antagonist on their own ground +of J. Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. But his intellect at that time +was as remarkable for its defects as for its powers. He used to divide +his friends, and thinking people in general, into those who had facts +and did not know what to do with them, and those who had in perfection +the logical faculties, but wanted the facts to reason upon. He belonged +himself to the latter class. He had, not unnaturally, boundless +confidence in his argumentative powers; they were subtle, piercing, +nimble, never at a loss, and they included a power of exposition which, +if it was not always succinct and lively, was always weighty and +impressive. Premises in his hands were not long in bringing forth their +conclusions; and if abstractions always corresponded exactly to their +concrete embodiments, and ideals were fulfilled in realities, no one +could point out more perspicuously and decisively the practical +judgments on them which reason must sanction. But that knowledge of +things and of men which mere power of reasoning will not give was not +one of his special endowments. The study of facts, often in their +complicated and perplexing reality, was not to his taste. He was apt to +accept them on what he considered adequate authority, and his +argumentation, formidable as it always was, recalled, even when most +unanswerable at the moment, the application of pure mathematics without +allowance for the actual forces, often difficult to ascertain except by +experiment, which would have to be taken account of in practice. + +The tendency of this section of able men was unquestionably Romewards, +almost from the beginning of their connexion with the movement. Both the +theory and the actual system of Rome, so far as they understood it, had +attractions for them which nothing else had. But with whatever +perplexity and perhaps impatience, Mr. Newman's power held them back. He +kept before their minds continually those difficulties of fact which +stood in the way of their absolute and peremptory conclusions, and of +which they were not much inclined to take account. He insisted on those +features, neither few nor unimportant nor hard to see, which proved the +continuity of the English Church with the Church Universal. Sharing +their sense of anomaly in the Anglican theory and position, he pointed +out with his own force and insight that anomaly was not in England only, +but everywhere. There was much to regret, there was much to improve, +there were many unwelcome and dangerous truths, _invidiosi veri_, to be +told and defended at any cost. But patience, as well as honesty and +courage, was a Christian virtue; and they who had received their +Christianity at the hands of the English Church had duties towards it +from which neither dissatisfaction nor the idea of something better +could absolve them. _Spartam nactus es, hanc exorna_ is the motto for +every one whose lot is cast in any portion of Christ's Church. And as +long as he could speak with this conviction, the strongest of them could +not break away from his restraint. It was when the tremendous question +took shape, Is the English Church a true Church, a real part of the +Church Catholic?--when the question became to his mind more and more +doubtful, at length desperate--that they, of course, became more +difficult to satisfy, more confident in their own allegations, more +unchecked in their sympathies, and, in consequence, in their dislikes. +And in the continued effort--for it did continue--to make them pause and +wait and hope, they reacted on him; they asked him questions which he +found it hard to answer; they pressed him with inferences which he might +put by, but of which he felt the sting; they forced on him all the +indications, of which every day brought its contribution, that the +actual living system of the English Church was against what he had +taught to be Catholic, that its energetic temper and spirit condemned +and rejected him. What was it that private men were staunch and +undismayed? What was it that month by month all over England hearts and +minds were attracted to his side, felt the spell of his teaching, gave +him their confidence? Suspicion and disapprobation, which had only too +much to ground itself upon, had taken possession of the high places of +the Church. Authority in all its shapes had pronounced as decisively as +his opponents could wish; as decisively as they too could wish, who +desired no longer a barrier between themselves and Rome. + +Thus a great and momentous change had come over the movement, over its +action and prospects. It had started in a heroic effort to save the +English Church. The claims, the blessings, the divinity of the English +Church, as a true branch of Catholic Christendom, had been assumed as +the foundation of all that was felt and said and attempted. The English +Church was the one object to which English Christians were called upon +to turn their thoughts. Its spirit animated the _Christian Year_, and +the teaching of those whom the _Christian Year_ represented. Its +interests were what called forth the zeal and the indignation recorded +in Froude's _Remains_. No one seriously thought of Rome, except as a +hopelessly corrupt system, though it had some good and Catholic things, +which it was Christian and honest to recognise. The movement of 1833 +started out of the Anti-Roman feelings of the Emancipation time. It was +Anti-Roman as much as it was Anti-Sectarian and Anti-Erastian. It was to +avert the danger of people becoming Romanists from ignorance of Church +principles. This was all changed in one important section of the party. +The fundamental conceptions and assumptions were reversed. It was not +the Roman Church, but the English Church, which was put on its trial; it +was not the Roman Church, but the English, which was to be, if possible, +apologised for, perhaps borne with for a time, but which was to be +regarded as deeply fallen, holding an untenable position, and +incomparably, unpardonably, below both the standard and the practical +system of the Roman Church. From this point of view the object of the +movement was no longer to elevate and improve an independent English +Church, but to approximate it as far as possible to what was assumed to +be undeniable--the perfect Catholicity of Rome. More almost than ideas +and assumptions, the tone of feeling changed. It had been, towards the +English Church, affectionate, enthusiastic, reverential, hopeful. It +became contemptuous, critical, intolerant, hostile with the hostility +not merely of alienation but disgust This was not of course the work of +a moment, but it was of very rapid growth. "How I hate these Anglicans!" +was the expression of one of the younger men of this section, an +intemperate and insolent specimen of it. It did not represent the tone +or the language of the leader to whom the advanced section deferred, +vexed as he often was with the course of his own thoughts, and irritated +and impatient at the course of things without. But it expressed but too +truly the difference between 1833 and 1840. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[73] See Sermons on _Subjects of the Day_, 1843. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE AUTHORITIES AND THE MOVEMENT + + +While the movement was making itself felt as a moral force, without a +parallel in Oxford for more than two centuries, and was impressing +deeply and permanently some of the most promising men in the rising +generation in the University, what was the attitude of the University +authorities? What was the attitude of the Bishops? + +At Oxford it was that of contemptuous indifference, passing into +helpless and passionate hostility. There is no sadder passage to be +found in the history of Oxford than the behaviour and policy of the +heads of this great Christian University towards the religious movement +which was stirring the interest, the hopes, the fears of Oxford. The +movement was, for its first years at least, a loyal and earnest effort +to serve the cause of the Church. Its objects were clear and reasonable; +it aimed at creating a sincere and intelligent zeal for the Church, and +at making the Church itself worthy of the great position which her +friends claimed for her. Its leaders were men well known in the +University, in the first rank in point of ability and character; men of +learning, who knew what they were talking about; men of religious and +pure, if also severe lives. They were not men merely of speculation and +criticism, but men ready to forego anything, to devote everything for +the practical work of elevating religious thought and life. All this did +not necessarily make their purposes and attempts wise and good; but it +did entitle them to respectful attention. If they spoke language new to +the popular mind or the "religious world," it was not new--at least it +ought not to have been new--to orthodox Churchmen, with opportunities of +study and acquainted with our best divinity. If their temper was eager +and enthusiastic, they alleged the presence of a great and perilous +crisis. Their appeal was mainly not to the general public, but to the +sober and the learned; to those to whom was entrusted the formation of +faith and character in the future clergy of the Church; to those who +were responsible for the discipline and moral tone of the first +University of Christendom, and who held their conspicuous position on +the understanding of that responsibility. It behoved the heads of the +University to be cautious, even to be suspicious; movements might be +hollow or dangerous things. But it behoved them also to become +acquainted with so striking a phenomenon as this; to judge it by what it +appealed to--the learning of English divines, the standard of a high and +generous moral rule; to recognise its aims at least, with equity and +sympathy, if some of its methods and arguments seemed questionable. The +men of the movement were not mere hostile innovators; they were fighting +for what the University and its chiefs held dear and sacred, the +privileges and safety of the Church. It was the natural part of the +heads of the University to act as moderators; at any rate, to have +shown, with whatever reserve, that they appreciated what they needed +time to judge of. But while on the one side there was burning and +devouring earnestness, and that power of conviction which doubles the +strength of the strong, there was on the other a serene ignoring of all +that was going on, worthy of a set of dignified French _abbés_ on the +eve of the Revolution. This sublime or imbecile security was +occasionally interrupted by bursts of irritation at some fresh piece of +Tractarian oddness or audacity, or at some strange story which made its +way from the gossip of common rooms to the society of the Heads of +Houses. And there was always ready a stick to beat the offenders; +everything could be called Popish. But for the most part they looked on, +with smiles, with jokes, sometimes with scolding.[74] Thus the men who +by their place ought to have been able to gauge and control the +movement, who might have been expected to meet half-way a serious +attempt to brace up the religious and moral tone of the place, so +incalculably important in days confessed to be anxious ones, simply set +their faces steadily to discountenance and discredit it. They were good +and respectable men, living comfortably in a certain state and ease. +Their lives were mostly simple compared with the standard of the outer +world, though Fellows of Colleges thought them luxurious. But they were +blind and dull as tea-table gossips as to what was the meaning of the +movement, as to what might come of it, as to what use might be made of +it by wise and just and generous recognition, and, if need be, by wise +and just criticism and repression. There were points of danger in it; +but they could only see what _seemed_ to be dangerous, whether it was +so or not; and they multiplied these points of danger by all that was +good and hopeful in it. It perplexed and annoyed them; they had not +imagination nor moral elevation to take in what it aimed at; they were +content with the routine which they had inherited; and, so that men read +for honours and took first classes, it did not seem to them strange or a +profanation that a whole mixed crowd of undergraduates should be +expected to go on a certain Sunday in term, willing or unwilling, fit or +unlit, to the Sacrament, and be fined if they did not appear. Doubtless +we are all of us too prone to be content with the customary, and to be +prejudiced against the novel, nor is this condition of things without +advantage. But we must bear our condemnation if we stick to the +customary too long, and so miss our signal opportunities. In their +apathy, in their self-satisfied ignorance, in their dulness of +apprehension and forethought, the authorities of the University let pass +the great opportunity of their time. As it usually happens, when this +posture of lofty ignoring what is palpable and active, and the object of +everybody's thought, goes on too long, it is apt to turn into impatient +dislike and bitter antipathy. The Heads of Houses drifted insensibly +into this position. They had not taken the trouble to understand the +movement, to discriminate between its aspects, to put themselves frankly +into communication with its leading persons, to judge with the knowledge +and justice of scholars and clergymen of its designs and ways. They let +themselves be diverted from this, their proper though troublesome task, +by distrust, by the jealousies of their position, by the impossibility +of conceiving that anything so strange could really be true and sound. +And at length they found themselves going along with the outside current +of uninstructed and ignoble prejudice, in a settled and pronounced +dislike, which took for granted that all was wrong in the movement, +which admitted any ill-natured surmise and foolish misrepresentation, +and really allowed itself to acquiesce in the belief that men so well +known in Oxford, once so admired and honoured, had sunk down to +deliberate corrupters of the truth, and palterers with their own +intellects and consciences. It came in a few years to be understood on +both sides, that the authorities were in direct antagonism to the +movement; and though their efforts in opposition to it were feeble and +petty, it went on under the dead weight of official University +disapproval. It would have been a great thing for the English +Church--though it is hard to see how, things being as they were, it +could have come about--if the movement had gone on, at least with the +friendly interest, if not with the support, of the University rulers. +Instead of that, after the first two or three years there was one long +and bitter fight in Oxford, with the anger on one side created by the +belief of vague but growing dangers, and a sense of incapacity in +resisting them, and with deep resentment at injustice and stupidity on +the other. + +The Bishops were farther from the immediate scene of the movement, and +besides, had other things to think of. Three or four of them might be +considered theologians--Archbishop Howley, Phillpotts of Exeter, Kaye of +Lincoln, Marsh of Peterborough. Two or three belonged to the Evangelical +school, Ryder of Lichfield, and the two Sumners at Winchester and +Chester. The most prominent among them, and next to the Bishop of Exeter +the ablest, alive to the real dangers of the Church, anxious to infuse +vigour into its work, and busy with plans for extending its influence, +was Blomfield, Bishop of London. But Blomfield was not at his best as a +divine, and, for a man of his unquestionable power, singularly unsure of +his own mind. He knew, in fact, that when the questions raised by the +Tracts came before him he was unqualified to deal with them; he was no +better furnished by thought or knowledge or habits to judge of them than +the average Bishop of the time, appointed, as was so often the case, for +political or personal reasons. At the first start of the movement, the +Bishops not unnaturally waited to see what would come of it. It was +indeed an effort in favour of the Church, but it was in irresponsible +hands, begun by men whose words were strong and vehement and of unusual +sound, and who, while they called on the clergy to rally round their +fathers the Bishops, did not shrink from wishing for the Bishops the +fortunes of the early days: "we could not wish them a more blessed +termination of their course than the spoiling of their goods and +martyrdom."[76] It may reasonably be supposed that such good wishes were +not to the taste of all of them. As the movement developed, besides that +it would seem to them extravagant and violent, they would be perplexed +by its doctrine. It took strong ground for the Church; but it did so in +the teeth of religious opinions and prejudices, which were popular and +intolerant. For a moment the Bishops were in a difficulty; on the one +hand, no one for generations had so exalted the office of a Bishop as +the Tractarians; no one had claimed for it so high and sacred an origin; +no one had urged with such practical earnestness the duty of Churchmen +to recognise and maintain the unique authority of the Episcopate against +its despisers or oppressors. On the other hand, this was just the time +when the Evangelical party, after long disfavour, was beginning to gain +recognition, for the sake of its past earnestness and good works, with +men in power, and with ecclesiastical authorities of a different and +hitherto hostile school; and in the Tractarian movement the Evangelical +party saw from the first its natural enemy. The Bishops could not have +anything to do with the Tractarians without deeply offending the +Evangelicals. The result was that, for the present, the Bishops held +aloof. They let the movement run on by itself. Sharp sarcasms, +worldly-wise predictions, kind messages of approval, kind cautions, +passed from mouth to mouth, or in private correspondence from high +quarters, which showed that the movement was watched. But for some time +the authorities spoke neither good nor bad of it publicly. In his Charge +at the close of 1836, Bishop Phillpotts spoke in clear and unfaltering +language--language remarkable for its bold decision--of the necessity of +setting forth the true idea of the Church and the sacraments; but he was +silent about the call of the same kind which had come from Oxford. It +would have been well if the other Bishops later on, in their charges, +had followed his example. The Bishop of Oxford, in his Charge of 1838, +referred to the movement in balanced terms of praise and warning. The +first who condemned the movement was the Bishop of Chester, J. Bird +Sumner; in a later Charge he came to describe it as the work of Satan; +in 1838 he only denounced the "undermining of the foundations of our +Protestant Church by men who dwell within her walls," and the bad faith +of those "who sit in the Reformers' seat, and traduce the Reformation." + +These were grave mistakes on the part of those who were responsible for +the government of the University and the Church. They treated as absurd, +mischievous, and at length traitorous, an effort, than which nothing +could be more sincere, to serve the Church, to place its claims on +adequate grounds, to elevate the standard of duty in its clergy, and in +all its members. To have missed the aim of the movement and to have been +occupied and irritated by obnoxious details and vulgar suspicions was a +blunder which gave the measure of those who made it, and led to great +evils. They alienated those who wished for nothing better than to help +them in their true work. Their "unkindness" was felt to be, in Bacon's +phrase,[77] _injuriae potentiorum_. But on the side of the party of the +movement there were mistakes also. + +1. The rapidity with which the movement had grown, showing that some +deep need had long been obscurely felt, which the movement promised to +meet,[78] had been too great to be altogether wholesome. When we compare +what was commonly received before 1833, in teaching, in habits of life, +in the ordinary assumptions of history, in the ideas and modes of +worship, public and private--the almost sacramental conception of +preaching, the neglect of the common prayer of the Prayer Book, the +slight regard to the sacraments--with what the teaching of the Tracts +and their writers had impressed for good and all, five years later, on +numbers of earnest people, the change seems astonishing. The change was +a beneficial one and it was a permanent one. The minds which it +affected, it affected profoundly. Still it was but a short time, for +young minds especially, to have come to a decision on great and debated +questions. There was the possibility, the danger, of men having been +captivated and carried away by the excitement and interest of the time; +of not having looked all round and thought out the difficulties before +them; of having embraced opinions without sufficiently knowing their +grounds or counting the cost or considering the consequences. There was +the danger of precipitate judgment, of ill-balanced and disproportionate +views of what was true and all-important. There was an inevitable +feverishness in the way in which the movement was begun, in the way in +which it went on. Those affected by it were themselves surprised at the +swiftness of the pace. When a cause so great and so sacred seemed thus +to be flourishing, and carrying along with it men's assent and +sympathies, it was hardly wonderful that there should often be +exaggeration, impatience at resistance, scant consideration for the +slowness or the scruples or the alarms of others. Eager and sanguine men +talked as if their work was accomplished, when in truth it was but +beginning. No one gave more serious warnings against this and other +dangers than the leaders; and their warnings were needed.[79] + +2. Another mistake, akin to the last, was the frequent forgetfulness of +the apostolic maxim, "All things are lawful for me, but all things are +not expedient." In what almost amounted to a revolution in many of the +religious ideas of the time, it was especially important to keep +distinct the great central truths, the restoration of which to their +proper place justified and made it necessary, and the many subordinate +points allied with them and naturally following from them, which yet +were not necessary to their establishment or acceptance. But it was on +these subordinate points that the interest of a certain number of +followers of the movement was fastened. Conclusions which they had a +perfect right to come to, practices innocent and edifying to themselves, +but of secondary account, began to be thrust forward into prominence, +whether or not these instances of self-will really helped the common +cause, whether or not they gave a handle to ill-nature and ill-will. +Suspicion must always have attached to such a movement as this; but a +great deal of it was provoked by indiscreet defiance, which was rather +glad to provoke it. + +3. Apart from these incidents--common wherever a number of men are +animated with zeal for an inspiring cause--there were what to us now +seem mistakes made in the conduct itself of the movement. Considering +the difficulties of the work, it is wonderful that there were not more; +and none of them were discreditable, none but what arose from the +limitation of human powers matched against confused and baffling +circumstances. + +In the position claimed for the Church of England, confessedly unique +and anomalous in the history of Christendom, between Roman authority and +infallibility on one side, and Protestant freedom of private judgment on +the other, the question would at once arise as to the grounds of belief. +What, if any, are the foundations of conviction and certitude, apart +from personal inquiry, and examination of opposing arguments on +different sides of the case, and satisfactory logical conclusions? The +old antithesis between Faith and Reason, and the various problems +connected with it, could not but come to the front, and require to be +dealt with. It is a question which faces us from a hundred sides, and, +subtly and insensibly transforming itself, looks different from them +all. It was among the earliest attempted to be solved by the chief +intellectual leader of the movement, and it has occupied his mind to the +last.[80] However near the human mind seems to come to a solution, it +only, if so be, comes near; it never arrives. In the early days of the +movement it found prevailing the specious but shallow view that +everything in the search for truth was to be done by mere producible and +explicit argumentation; and yet it was obvious that of this two-thirds +of the world are absolutely incapable. Against this Mr. Newman and his +followers pressed, what was as manifestly certain in fact as it accorded +with any deep and comprehensive philosophy of the formation and growth +of human belief, that not arguments only, but the whole condition of the +mind to which they were addressed--and not the reasonings only which +could be stated, but those which went on darkly in the mind, and which +"there was not at the moment strength to bring forth," real and weighty +reasons which acted like the obscure rays of the spectrum, with their +proper force, yet eluding distinct observation--had their necessary and +inevitable and legitimate place in determining belief. All this was +perfectly true; but it is obvious how easily it might be taken hold of, +on very opposite sides, as a ground for saying that Tractarian or Church +views did not care about argument, or, indeed, rather preferred weak +arguments to strong ones in the practical work of life. It was ludicrous +to say it in a field of controversy, which, on the "Tractarian" side, +was absolutely bristling with argument, keen, subtle, deep, living +argument, and in which the victory in argument was certainly not always +with those who ventured to measure swords with Mr. Newman or Dr. Pusey. +Still, the scoff could be plausibly pointed at the "young enthusiasts +who crowded the Via Media, and who never presumed to argue, except +against the propriety of arguing at all." There was a good deal of +foolish sneering at reason; there was a good deal of silly bravado about +not caring whether the avowed grounds of opinions taken up were strong +or feeble. It was not merely the assent of a learner to his teacher, of +a mind without means of instruction to the belief which it has +inherited, or of one new to the ways and conditions of life to the +unproved assertions and opinions of one to whom experience had given an +open and sure eye. It was a positive carelessness, almost accounted +meritorious, to inquire and think, when their leaders called them to do +so. "The Gospel of Christ is not a matter of mere argument." It is not, +indeed, when it comes in its full reality, in half a hundred different +ways, known and unsearchable, felt and unfelt, moral and intellectual, +on the awakened and quickened soul. But the wildest fanatic can take the +same words into his mouth. Their true meaning was variously and +abundantly illustrated, especially in Mr. Newman's sermons. Still, the +adequate, the emphatic warning against their early abuse was hardly +pressed on the public opinion and sentiment of the party of the movement +with the force which really was requisite. To the end there were men who +took up their belief avowedly on insufficient and precarious grounds, +glorying in the venturesomeness of their faith and courage, and +justifying their temper of mind and their intellectual attitude by +alleging misinterpreted language of their wiser and deeper teachers. A +recoil from Whately's hard and barren dialectics, a sympathy with many +tender and refined natures which the movement had touched, made the +leaders patient with intellectual feebleness when it was joined with +real goodness and Christian temper; but this also sometimes made them +less impatient than they might well have been with that curious form of +conceit and affectation which veils itself under an intended and +supposed humility, a supposed distrust of self and its own powers. + +Another difficult matter, not altogether successfully managed--at least +from the original point of view of the movement, and of those who saw in +it a great effort for the good of the English Church--was the treatment +of the Roman controversy. The general line which the leaders proposed to +take was the one which was worthy of Christian and truth-loving +teachers. They took a new departure; and it was not less just than it +was brave, when, recognising to the full the overwhelming reasons why +"we should not be Romanists," they refused to take up the popular and +easy method of regarding the Roman Church as apostate and antichristian; +and declined to commit themselves to the vulgar and indiscriminate abuse +of it which was the discreditable legacy of the old days of controversy. +They did what all the world was loudly professing to do, they looked +facts in the face; they found, as any one would find who looked for +himself into the realities of the Roman Church, that though the bad was +often as bad as could be, there was still, and there had been all +along, goodness of the highest type, excellence both of system and of +personal life which it was monstrous to deny, and which we might well +admire and envy. To ignore all this was to fail in the first duty, not +merely of Christians, but of honest men; and we at home were not so +blameless that we could safely take this lofty tone of contemptuous +superiority. If Rome would only leave us alone, there would be +estrangement, lamentable enough among Christians, but there need be no +bitterness. But Rome would not leave us alone. The moment that there +were signs of awakening energy in England, that moment was chosen by its +agents, for now it could be done safely, to assail and thwart the +English Church. Doubtless they were within their rights, but this made +controversy inevitable, and for controversy the leaders of the movement +prepared themselves. It was an obstacle which they seemed hardly to have +expected, but which the nature of things placed in their way. But the +old style of controversy was impossible; impossible because it was so +coarse, impossible because it was so hollow. + +If the argument (says the writer of Tract 71, in words which are +applicable to every controversy) is radically unreal, or (what may be +called) rhetorical or sophistical, it may serve the purpose of +encouraging those who are really convinced, though scarcely without +doing mischief to them, but certainly it will offend and alienate the +more acute and sensible; while those who are in doubt, and who desire +some real and substantial ground for their faith, will not bear to be +put off with such shadows. The arguments (he continues) which we use +must be such as are likely to convince serious and earnest minds, which +are really seeking for the truth, not amusing themselves with +intellectual combats, or desiring to support an existing opinion anyhow. +However popular these latter methods may be, of however long standing, +however easy both to find and to use, they are a scandal; and while they +lower our religious standard from the first, they are sure of hurting +our cause in the end. + +And on this principle the line of argument in _The Prophetical Office of +the Church_ was taken by Mr. Newman. It was certainly no make-believe, +or unreal argument. It was a forcible and original way of putting part +of the case against Rome. It was part of the case, a very important +part; but it was not the whole case, and it ought to have been evident +from the first that in this controversy we could not afford to do +without the whole case. The argument from the claim of infallibility +said nothing of what are equally real parts of the case--the practical +working of the Roman Church, its system of government, the part which it +and its rulers have played in the history of the world. Rome has not +such a clean record of history, it has not such a clean account of what +is done and permitted in its dominions under an authority supposed to be +irresistible, that it can claim to be the one pure and perfect Church, +entitled to judge and correct and govern all other Churches. And if the +claim is made, there is no help for it, we must not shrink from the task +of giving the answer.[81] And, as experience has shown, the more that +rigid good faith is kept to in giving the answer, the more that +strictness and severity of even understatement are observed, the more +convincing will be the result that the Roman Church cannot be that which +it is alleged to be in its necessary theory and ideal. + +But this task was never adequately undertaken. It was one of no easy +execution.[82] Other things, apparently more immediately pressing, +intervened. There was no question for the present of perfect and +unfeigned confidence in the English Church, with whatever regrets for +its shortcomings, and desires for its improvement But to the outside +world it seemed as if there were a reluctance to face seriously the +whole of the Roman controversy; a disposition to be indulgent to Roman +defects, and unfairly hard on English faults. How mischievously this +told in the course of opinion outside and inside of the movement; how it +was misinterpreted and misrepresented; how these misinterpretations and +misrepresentations, with the bitterness and injustice which they +engendered, helped to realise themselves, was seen but too clearly at a +later stage. + +4. Lastly, looking back on the publications, regarded as characteristic +of the party, it is difficult not to feel that some of them gave an +unfortunate and unnecessary turn to things. + +The book which made most stir and caused the greatest outcry was +Froude's _Remains_. It was undoubtedly a bold experiment; but it was not +merely boldness. Except that it might be perverted into an excuse by the +shallow and thoughtless for merely "strong talk," it may fairly be said +that it was right and wise to let the world know the full measure and +depth of conviction which gave birth to the movement; and Froude's +_Remains_ did that in an unsuspiciously genuine way that nothing else +could have done. And, besides, it was worth while for its own sake to +exhibit with fearless honesty such a character, so high, so true, so +refined, so heroic. So again, Dr. Pusey's Tract on Baptism was a bold +book, and one which brought heavy imputations and misconstructions on +the party. In the teaching of his long life, Dr. Pusey has abundantly +dispelled the charges of harshness and over-severity which were urged, +not always very scrupulously, against the doctrine of the Tract on +Post-baptismal Sin. But it was written to redress the balance against +the fatally easy doctrines then in fashion; it was like the Portroyalist +protest against the fashionable Jesuits; it was one-sided, and +sometimes, in his earnestness, unguarded; and it wanted as yet the +complement of encouragement, consolation, and tenderness which his +future teaching was to supply so amply. But it was a blow struck, not +before it was necessary, by a strong hand; and it may safely be said +that it settled the place of the sacrament of baptism in the living +system of the English Church, which the negations and vagueness of the +Evangelical party had gravely endangered. But two other essays appeared +in the Tracts, most innocent in themselves, which ten or twenty years +later would have been judged simply on their merits, but which at the +time became potent weapons against Tractarianism. They were the +productions of two poets--of two of the most beautiful and religious +minds of their time; but in that stage of the movement it is hardly too +much to say that they were out of place. The cause of the movement +needed clear explanations; definite statements of doctrines which were +popularly misunderstood; plain, convincing reasoning on the issues which +were raised by it; a careful laying out of the ground on which English +theology was to be strengthened and enriched. Such were Mr. Newman's +_Lectures on Justification_, a work which made its lasting mark on +English theological thought; Mr. Keble's masterly exposition of the +meaning of Tradition; and not least, the important collections which +were documentary and historical evidence of the character of English +theology, the so-called laborious _Catenas_. These were the real tasks +of the hour, and they needed all that labour and industry could give. +But the first of these inopportune Tracts was an elaborate essay, by Mr. +Keble, on the "Mysticism of the Fathers in the use and interpretation of +Scripture." It was hardly what the practical needs of the time required, +and it took away men's thoughts from them; the prospect was hopeless +that in that state of men's minds it should be understood, except by a +very few; it merely helped to add another charge, the vague but +mischievous charge of mysticism, to the list of accusations against the +Tracts. The other, to the astonishment of every one, was like the +explosion of a mine. That it should be criticised and objected to was +natural; but the extraordinary irritation caused by it could hardly have +been anticipated. Written in the most devout and reverent spirit by one +of the gentlest and most refined of scholars, and full of deep +Scriptural knowledge, it furnished for some years the material for the +most savage attacks and the bitterest sneers to the opponents of the +movement. It was called "On Reserve in communicating Religious +Knowledge"; and it was a protest against the coarseness and shallowness +which threw the most sacred words about at random in loud and +declamatory appeals, and which especially dragged in the awful mystery +of the Atonement, under the crudest and most vulgar conception of it, as +a ready topic of excitement in otherwise commonplace and helpless +preaching. The word "Reserve" was enough. It meant that the +Tract-writers avowed the principle of keeping back part of the counsel +of God. It meant, further, that the real spirit of the party was +disclosed; its love of secret and crooked methods, its indifference to +knowledge, its disingenuous professions, its deliberate concealments, +its holding doctrines and its pursuit of aims which it dared not avow, +its _disciplina arcani_, its conspiracies, its Jesuitical spirit. All +this kind of abuse was flung plentifully on the party as the controversy +became warm; and it mainly justified itself by the Tract on "Reserve." +The Tract was in many ways a beautiful and suggestive essay, full of +deep and original thoughts, though composed in that spirit of the +recluse which was characteristic of the writer, and which is in strong +contrast with the energetic temper of to-day.[83] But it could well have +been spared at the moment, and it certainly offered itself to an +unfortunate use. The suspiciousness which so innocently it helped to +awaken and confirm was never again allayed. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[74] Fifty years ago there was much greater contrast than now between +old and young. There was more outward respect for the authorities, and +among the younger men, graduates and undergraduates, more inward +amusement at foibles and eccentricities. There still lingered the +survivals of a more old-fashioned type of University life and character, +which, quite apart from the movements of religious opinion, provoked +those νεανιεύματα ἰδιωτῶν εἰς τοὐς ἄρχοντας,[75] _impertinences of +irresponsible juniors towards superiors_, which Wordsworth, speaking of +a yet earlier time, remembered at Cambridge-- + + "In serious mood, but oftener, I confess, + With playful zest of fancy, did we note + (How could we less?) the manners and the ways + Of those who lived distinguished by the badge + Of good or ill report; or those with whom + By frame of Academic discipline + We were perforce connected, men whose sway + And known authority of office served + To set our minds on edge, and did no more. + Nor wanted we rich pastime of this kind, + Found everywhere, but chiefly in the ring + Of the grave Elders, men unsecured, grotesque + In character, tricked out like aged trees + Which through the lapse of their infirmity + Give ready place to any random seed + That chooses to be reared upon their trunks." + + _Prelude_, bk. iii. + + +[75] Plat. _R.P._ iii. 390. + +[76] _Tracts for the Times_, No. 1, 9th September 1833. + +[77] _An Advertisement touching the Controversies of the Church of +England:_ printed in the _Resuscitatio_, p. 138 (ed. 1671). + +[78] See Mr. Newman's article, "The State of Religious Parties," in the +_British Critic_, April 1839, reprinted in his _Essays Historical and +Critical_, 1871, Vol. 1., essay vi. + +[79] "It would not be at all surprising, though, in spite of the +earnestness of the principal advocates of the views in question, for +which every one seems to give them credit, there should be among their +followers much that is enthusiastic, extravagant, or excessive. All +these aberrations will be and are imputed to the doctrines from which +they proceed; nor unnaturally, but hardly fairly, for aberrations there +must be, whatever the doctrine is, while the human heart is sensitive, +capricious, and wayward.... There will ever be a number of persons +professing the opinions of a movement party, who talk loudly and +strangely, do odd and fierce things, display themselves unnecessarily, +and disgust other people; there will ever be those who are too young to +be wise, too generous to be cautious, too warm to be sober, or too +intellectual to be humble; of whom human sagacity cannot determine, only +the event, and perhaps not even that, whether they feel what they +say, or how far; whether they are to be encouraged or +discountenanced."--_British Critic_, April 1839, "State of Religious +Parties," p. 405. + +[80] Cardinal Newman, _Grammar of Assent_. + +[81] The argument from history is sketched fairly, but only sketched in +_The Prophetic Office_, Lect. xiv. + +[82] In the Roman controversy it is sometimes hard to be just without +appearing to mean more than is said; for the obligation of justice +sometimes forces one who wishes to be a fair judge to be apparently an +apologist or advocate. Yet the supreme duty in religious controversy is +justice. But for the very reason that these controversialists wished to +be just to Rome, they were bound to be just against her. They meant to +be so; but events passed quickly, and leisure never came for a work +which involved a serious appeal to history. + +[83] _Vide_ a striking review in the _British Critic_, April 1839, +partly correcting and guarding the view given in the Tract. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +NO. 90 + + +The formation of a strong Romanising section in the Tractarian party was +obviously damaging to the party and dangerous to the Church. It was _pro +tanto_ a verification of the fundamental charge against the party, a +charge which on paper they had met successfully, but which acquired +double force when this paper defence was traversed by facts. And a great +blow was impending over the Church, if the zeal and ability which the +movement had called forth and animated were to be sucked away from the +Church, and not only lost to it, but educated into a special instrument +against it. But the divergence became clear only gradually, and the hope +that after all it was only temporary and would ultimately disappear was +long kept up by the tenacity with which Mr. Newman, in spite of +misgivings and disturbing thoughts, still recognised the gifts and +claims of the English Church. And on the other hand, the bulk of the +party, and its other Oxford leaders, Dr. Pusey, Mr. Keble, Mr. Isaac +Williams, Mr. Marriott, were quite unaffected by the disquieting +apprehensions which were beginning to beset Mr. Newman. With a humbling +consciousness of the practical shortcomings of the English Church, with +a ready disposition to be honest and just towards Rome, and even to +minimise our differences with it, they had not admitted for a moment any +doubt of the reality of the English Church. The class of arguments which +specially laid hold of Mr. Newman's mind did not tell upon them--the +peculiar aspect of early precedents, about which, moreover, a good deal +of criticism was possible; or the large and sweeping conception of a +vast, ever-growing, imperial Church, great enough to make flaws and +imperfections of no account, which appealed so strongly to his +statesmanlike imagination. Their content with the Church in which they +had been brought up, in which they had been taught religion, and in +which they had taken service, their deep and affectionate loyalty and +piety to it, in spite of all its faults, remained unimpaired; and +unimpaired, also, was their sense of vast masses of practical evil in +the Roman Church, evils from which they shrank both as Englishmen and as +Christians, and which seemed as incurable as they were undeniable. +Beyond the hope which they vaguely cherished that some day or other, by +some great act of Divine mercy, these evils might disappear, and the +whole Church become once more united, there was nothing to draw them +towards Rome; submission was out of the question, and they could only +see in its attitude in England the hostility of a jealous and +unscrupulous disturber of their Master's work. The movement still went +on, with its original purpose, and on its original lines, in spite of +the presence in it, and even the co-operation, of men who might one day +have other views, and serious and fatal differences with their old +friends. + +The change of religion when it comes on a man gradually,--when it is not +welcomed from the first, but, on the contrary, long resisted, must +always be a mysterious and perplexing process, hard to realise and +follow by the person most deeply interested, veiled and clouded to +lookers-on, because naturally belonging to the deepest depths of the +human conscience, and inevitably, and without much fault on either side, +liable to be misinterpreted and misunderstood. And this process is all +the more tangled when it goes on, not in an individual mind, travelling +in its own way on its own path, little affected by others, and little +affecting them, but in a representative person, with the +responsibilities of a great cause upon him, bound by closest ties of +every kind to friends, colleagues, and disciples, thinking, feeling, +leading, pointing out the way for hundreds who love and depend on him. +Views and feelings vary from day to day, according to the events and +conditions of the day. How shall he speak, and how shall he be silent? +How shall he let doubts and difficulties appear, yet how shall he +suppress them?--doubts which may grow and become hopeless, but which, on +the other hand, may be solved and disappear. How shall he go on as if +nothing had happened, when all the foundations of the world seem to have +sunk from under him? Yet how shall he disclose the dreadful secret, when +he is not yet quite sure whether his mind will not still rally from its +terror and despair? He must in honesty, in kindness, give some warning, +yet how much? and how to prevent it being taken for more than it means? +There are counter-considerations, to which he cannot shut his eyes. +There are friends who will not believe his warnings. There are watchful +enemies who are on the look-out for proofs of disingenuousness and bad +faith. He could cut through his difficulties at once by making the +plunge in obedience to this or that plausible sign or train of +reasoning, but his conscience and good faith will not let him take +things so easily; and yet he knows that if he hangs on, he will be +accused by and by, perhaps speciously, of having been dishonest and +deceiving. So subtle, so shifting, so impalpable are the steps by which +a faith is disintegrated; so evanescent, and impossible to follow, the +shades by which one set of convictions pass into others wholly opposite; +for it is not knowledge and intellect alone which come into play, but +all the moral tastes and habits of the character, its likings and +dislikings, its weakness and its strength, its triumphs and its +vexations, its keenness and its insensibilities, which are in full +action, while the intellect alone seems to be busy with its problems. A +picture has been given us, belonging to this time, of the process, by a +great master of human nature, and a great sufferer under the process; it +is, perhaps, the greatest attempt ever made to describe it; but it is +not wholly successful. It tells us much, for it is written with touching +good faith, but the complete effect as an intelligible whole is wanting. + +"In the spring of 1839," we read in the _Apologia_, "my position in the +Anglican Church was at its height. I had a supreme confidence in my +controversial _status_, and I had a great and still growing success in +recommending it to others."[84] This, then, may be taken as the point +from which, in the writer's own estimate, the change is to be traced. He +refers for illustration of his state of mind to the remarkable article +on the "State of Religious Parties," in the April number of the _British +Critic_ for 1839, which he has since republished under the title of +"Prospects of the Anglican Church."[85] "I have looked over it now," he +writes in 1864, "for the first time since it was published; and have +been struck by it for this reason: it contains _the last words which I +ever spoke as an Anglican to Anglicans_.... It may now be read as my +parting address and valediction, made to my friends. I little knew it at +the time." He thus describes the position which he took in the article +referred to:-- + + Conscious as I was that my opinions in religious matters were not + gained, as the world said, from Roman sources, but were, on the + contrary, the birth of my own mind and of the circumstances in which I + had been placed, I had a scorn of the imputations which were heaped + upon me. It was true that I held a large, bold system of religion, + very unlike the Protestantism of the day, but it was the concentration + and adjustment of the statements of great Anglican authorities, and I + had as much right to do so as the Evangelical party had, and more + right than the Liberal, to hold their own respective doctrines. As I + spoke on occasion of Tract 90, I claimed, on behalf of the writer, + that he might hold in the Anglican Church a comprecation of the Saints + with Bramhall; and the Mass, all but Transubstantiation, with + Andrewes; or with Hooker that Transubstantiation itself is not a point + for Churches to part communion upon; or with Hammond that a General + Council, truly such, never did, never shall err in a matter of faith; + or with Bull that man lost inward grace by the Fall; or with Thorndike + that penance is a propitiation for post-baptismal sin; or with + Pearson that the all-powerful name of Jesus is no otherwise given than + in the Catholic Church. "Two can play at that game" was often in my + mouth, when men of Protestant sentiments appealed to the Articles, + Homilies, and Reformers, in the sense that if they had a right to + speak loud I had both the liberty and the means of giving them tit for + tat. I thought that the Anglican Church had been tyrannised over by a + Party, and I aimed at bringing into effect the promise contained in + the motto to the _Lyra_: "They shall know the difference now." I only + asked to be allowed to show them the difference. + + I have said already (he goes on) that though the object of the + movement was to withstand the Liberalism of the day, I found and felt + that this could not be done by negatives. It was necessary for me to + have a positive Church theory erected on a definite basis. This took + me to the great Anglican divines; and then, of course, I found at once + that it was impossible to form any such theory without cutting across + the teaching of the Church of Rome. Thus came in the Roman + controversy. When I first turned myself to it I had neither doubt on + the subject, nor suspicion that doubt would ever come on me. It was in + this state of mind that I began to read up Bellarmine on the one hand, + and numberless Anglican writers on the other.[86] + +And he quotes from the article the language which he used, to show the +necessity of providing some clear and strong basis for religious thought +in view of the impending conflict of principles, religious and +anti-religious, "Catholic and Rationalist," which to far-seeing men, +even at that comparatively early time, seemed inevitable:-- + + Then indeed will be the stern encounter, when two real and living + principles, simple, entire, and consistent, one in the Church, the + other out of it, at length rush upon each other, contending not for + names and words, a half view, but for elementary notions and + distinctive moral characters. Men will not keep standing in that very + attitude which you call sound Church-of-Englandism or orthodox + Protestantism. They will take one view or another, but it will be a + consistent one ... it will be real.... Is it sensible, sober, + judicious, to be so very angry with the writers of the day who point + to the fact, that our divines of the seventeenth century have occupied + a ground which is the true and intelligible mean between extremes?... + Would you rather have your sons and your daughters members of the + Church of England or of the Church of Rome?[87] + +"The last words that I spoke as an Anglican to Anglicans,"--so he +describes this statement of his position and its reasons; so it seems to +him, as he looks back. And yet in the intimate and frank disclosures +which he makes, he has shown us much that indicates both that his +Anglicanism lasted much longer and that his Roman sympathies began to +stir much earlier. This only shows the enormous difficulties of +measuring accurately the steps of a transition state. The mind, in such +a strain of buffeting, is never in one stay. The old seems impregnable, +yet it has been undermined; the new is indignantly and honestly +repelled, and yet leaves behind it its never-to-be-forgotten and +unaccountable spell. The story, as he tells it, goes on, how, in the +full swing and confidence of his Anglicanism, and in the course of his +secure and fearless study of antiquity, appearance after appearance +presented itself, unexpected, threatening, obstinate, in the history of +the Early Church, by which this confidence was first shaken and then +utterly broken down in the summer of 1839. And he speaks as though all +had been over after two years from that summer: "From the end of 1841 I +was on my death-bed, as regards my membership with the Anglican Church, +though at the time I became aware of it only by degrees." In truth, it +was only the end which showed that it was a "death-bed." He had not yet +died to allegiance or "to hope, then or for some time afterwards." He +speaks in later years of the result, and reads what was then in the +light of what followed. But after all that had happened, and much, of +course, disturbing happened in 1841, he was a long way off from what +then could have been spoken of as "a death-bed." Deep and painful +misgivings may assail the sincerest faith; they are not fatal signs till +faith has finally given way. + +What is true is, that the whole state of religion, and the whole aspect +of Christianity in the world, had come to seem to him portentously +strange and anomalous. No theory would take in and suit all the facts, +which the certainties of history and experience presented. Neither in +England, nor in Rome, and much less anywhere else, did the old, to which +all appealed, agree with the new; it might agree variously in this point +or in that, in others there were contrarieties which it was vain to +reconcile. Facts were against the English claim to be a Catholic +Church--how could Catholicity be shut up in one island? How could +England assert its continuity of doctrine? Facts were against the Roman +claim to be an infallible, and a perfect, and the whole Church--how +could that be perfect which was marked in the face of day with enormous +and undeniable corruptions? How could that be infallible which was +irreconcilable with ancient teaching? How could that be the whole +Church, which, to say nothing of the break-up in the West, ignored, as +if it had no existence, the ancient and uninterrupted Eastern Church? +Theory after theory came up, and was tried, and was found wanting. Each +had much to say for itself, its strong points, its superiority over its +rivals in dealing with the difficulties of the case, its plausibilities +and its imaginative attractions. But all had their tender spot, and +flinched when they were touched in earnest. In the confusions and sins +and divisions of the last fifteen centuries, profound disorganisation +had fastened on the Western Church. Christendom was not, could not be +pretended to be, what it had been in the fourth century; and whichever +way men looked the reasons were not hard to see. The first and +characteristic feeling of the movement, one which Mr. Newman had done so +much to deepen, was that of shame and humiliation at the disorder at +home, as well as in every part of the Church. It was not in Rome only, +or in England only; it was everywhere. What had been peculiar to +Anglicanism among all its rivals, was that it had emphatically and +without reserve confessed it. + +With this view of the dislocation and the sins of the Church, he could +at once with perfect consistency recognise the shortcomings of the +English branch of the Church, and yet believe and maintain that it was +a true and living branch. The English fragment was not what it should +be, was indeed much that it should not be; the same could be said of the +Roman, though in different respects. This, as he himself reminds us, was +no new thing to his mind when the unsettlement of 1839 began. "At the +end of 1835, or the beginning of 1836, I had the whole state of the +question before me, on which, to my mind, the decision between the +Churches depended." It did not, he says, depend on the claims of the +Pope, as centre of unity; "it turned on the Faith of the Church"; "there +was a contrariety of _claims_ between the Roman and Anglican religions"; +and up to 1839, with the full weight of Roman arguments recognised, with +the full consciousness of Anglican disadvantages, he yet spoke clearly +for Anglicanism. Even when misgivings became serious, the balance still +inclined without question the old way. He hardly spoke stronger in 1834 +than he did in 1841, after No. 90. + + And now (he writes in his Letter to the Bishop of Oxford[88]) having + said, I trust, as much as your Lordship requires on the subject of + Romanism, I will add a few words, to complete my explanation, in + acknowledgment of the inestimable privilege I feel in being a member + of that Church over which your Lordship, with others, presides. + Indeed, did I not feel it to be a privilege which I am able to seek + nowhere else on earth, why should I be at this moment writing to your + Lordship? What motive have I for an unreserved and joyful submission + to your authority, but the feeling that the Church in which your + Lordship rules is a divinely-ordained channel of supernatural grace to + the souls of her members? Why should I not prefer my own opinion, and + my own way of acting, to that of the Bishop's, except that I know full + well that in matters indifferent I should be acting lightly towards + the Spouse of Christ and the awful Presence which dwells in her, if I + hesitated a moment to put your Lordship's will before my own? I know + full well that your Lordship's kindness to me personally would be in + itself quite enough to win any but the most insensible heart, and, did + a clear matter of conscience occur in which I felt bound to act for + myself, my feelings towards your Lordship would be a most severe trial + to me, independently of the higher considerations to which I have + alluded; but I trust I have shown my dutifulness to you prior to the + influence of personal motives; and this I have done because I think + that to belong to the Catholic Church is the first of all privileges + here below, as involving in it heavenly privileges, and because I + consider the Church over which your Lordship presides to be the + Catholic Church in this country. Surely then I have no need to profess + in words, I will not say my attachment, but my deep reverence towards + the Mother of Saints, when I am showing it in action; yet that words + may not be altogether wanting, I beg to lay before your Lordship the + following extract from a defence of the English Church, which I wrote + against a Roman controversialist in the course of the last year. + + "The Church is emphatically a living body, and there can be no greater + proof of a particular communion being part of the Church than the + appearance in it of a continued and abiding energy, nor a more + melancholy proof of its being a corpse than torpidity. We say an + energy continued and abiding, for accident will cause the activity of + a moment, and an external principle give the semblance of self-motion. + On the other hand, even a living body may for a while be asleep. + + * * * * * + + "It concerns, then, those who deny that we are the true Church because + we have not at present this special note, intercommunion with other + Christians, to show cause why the Roman Church in the tenth century + should be so accounted, with profligates, or rather the profligate + mothers of profligate sons for her supreme rulers. And still + notwithstanding life _is_ a note of the Church; she alone revives, + even if she declines; heretical and schismatical bodies cannot keep + life; they gradually became cold, stiff, and insensible. + + * * * * * + + "Now if there ever were a Church on whom the experiment has been + tried, whether it had life in it or not, the English is that one. For + three centuries it has endured all vicissitudes of fortune. It has + endured in trouble and prosperity, under seduction, and under + oppression. It has been practised upon by theorists, browbeaten by + sophists, intimidated by princes, betrayed by false sons, laid waste + by tyranny, corrupted by wealth, torn by schism, and persecuted by + fanaticism. Revolutions have come upon it sharply and suddenly, to and + fro, hot and cold, as if to try what it was made of. + + It has been a sort of battlefield on which opposite principles have + been tried. No opinion, however extreme any way, but may be found, as + the Romanists are not slow to reproach us, among its Bishops and + Divines. Yet what has been its career upon the whole? Which way has it + been moving through 300 years? Where does it find itself at the end? + Lutherans have tended to Rationalism; Calvinists have become + Socinians; but what has it become? As far as its Formularies are + concerned, it may be said all along to have grown towards a more + perfect Catholicism than that with which it started at the time of its + estrangement; every act, every crisis which marks its course, has been + upward. + + * * * * * + + "What a note of the Church is the mere production of a man like + Butler, a pregnant fact much to be meditated on! and how strange it + is, if it be as it seems to be, that the real influence of his work is + only just now beginning! and who can prophesy in what it will end? + Thus our Divines grow with centuries, expanding after their death in + the minds of their readers into more and more exact Catholicism as + years roll on. + + * * * * * + + "Look across the Atlantic to the daughter Churches of England in the + States: 'Shall one that is barren bear a child in her old age?' yet + 'the barren hath borne seven.' Schismatic branches put out their + leaves at once, in an expiring effort; our Church has waited three + centuries, and then blossoms like Aaron's rod, budding and blooming + and yielding fruit, while the rest are dry. And lastly, look at the + present position of the Church at home; there, too, we shall find a + note of the true City of God, the Holy Jerusalem. She is in warfare + with the world, as the Church Militant should be; she is rebuking the + world, she is hated, she is pillaged by the world. + + * * * * * + + "Much might be said on this subject. At all times, since Christianity + came into the world, an open contest has been going on between + religion and irreligion; and the true Church, of course, has ever been + on the religious side. This, then, is a sure test in every age _where_ + the Christian should stand.... Now, applying this simple criterion to + the public Parties of this DAY, it is very plain that the English + Church is at present on God's side, and therefore, so far, God's + Church; we are sorry to be obliged to add that there is as little + doubt on which side English Romanism is. + + * * * * * + + "As for the English Church, surely she has notes enough, 'the signs of + an Apostle in all patience, and signs and wonders and mighty deeds.' + She has the note of possession, the note of freedom from party-titles; + the note of life, a tough life and a vigorous; she has ancient + descent, unbroken continuance, agreement in doctrine with the ancient + Church. Those of Bellarmine's Notes, which she certainly has not, are + intercommunion with Christendom, the glory of miracles, and the + prophetical light, but the question is, whether she has not enough of + Divinity about her to satisfy her sister Churches on their own + principles, that she is one body with them." + + This may be sufficient to show my feelings towards my Church, as far + as Statements on paper can show them. + +How earnestly, how sincerely he clung to the English Church, even after +he describes himself on his "death-bed," no one can doubt. The charm of +the _Apologia_ is the perfect candour with which he records fluctuations +which to many are inconceivable and unintelligible, the different and +sometimes opposite and irreconcilable states of mind through which he +passed, with no attempt to make one fit into another. It is clear, from +what he tells us, that his words in 1839 were not his _last_ words as an +Anglican to Anglicans. With whatever troubles of mind, he strove to be a +loyal and faithful Anglican long after that. He spoke as an Anglican. He +fought for Anglicanism. The theory, as he says, may have gone by the +board, in the intellectual storms raised by the histories of the +Monophysites and Donatists. "By these great words of the ancient +father--_Securus judicat orbis terrarum_"--the theory of the _Via Media_ +was "absolutely pulverised." He was "sore," as he says in 1840, "about +the great Anglican divines, as if they had taken me in, and made me say +strong things against Rome, which facts did not justify."[89] Yes, he +felt, as other men do not feel, the weak points of even a strong +argument, the exaggerations and unfairness of controversialists on his +own side, the consciousness that you cannot have things in fact, or in +theory, or in reasoning, smoothly and exactly as it would be convenient, +and as you would like to have them. But his conclusion, on the whole, +was unshaken. There was enough, and amply enough, in the English Church +to bind him to its allegiance, to satisfy him of its truth and its life, +enough in the Roman to warn him away. In the confusions of Christendom, +in the strong and obstinate differences of schools and parties in the +English Church, he, living in days of inquiry and criticism, claimed to +take and recommend a theological position on many controverted +questions, which many might think a new one, and which might not be +exactly that occupied by any existing school or party.[90] "We are all," +he writes to an intimate friend on 22d April 1842, a year after No. 90, +"much quieter and more resigned than we were, and are remarkably +desirous of building up a position, and proving that the English theory +is tenable, or rather the English state of things. If the Bishops would +leave us alone, the fever would subside." + +He wanted, when all other parties were claiming room for their +speculations, to claim room for his own preference for ancient doctrine. +He wished to make out that no branch of the Church had authoritatively +committed itself to language which was hopelessly and fatally +irreconcilable with Christian truth. But he claimed nothing but what he +could maintain to be fairly within the authorised formularies of the +English Church. He courted inquiry, he courted argument. If his claim +seemed a new one, if his avowed leaning to ancient and Catholic views +seemed to make him more tolerant than had been customary, not to Roman +abuses, but to Roman authoritative language, it was part of the more +accurate and the more temperate and charitable thought of our day +compared with past times. It was part of the same change which has +brought Church opinions from the unmitigated Calvinism of the Lambeth +Articles to what the authorities of those days would have denounced, +without a doubt, as Arminianism. Hooker was gravely and seriously +accused to the Council for saying that a Papist could be saved, and had +some difficulty to clear himself; it was as natural then as it is +amazing now.[91] + +But with this sincere loyalty to the English Church, as he believed it +to be, there was, no doubt, in the background the haunting and +disquieting misgiving that the attempt to connect more closely the +modern Church with the ancient, and this widened theology in a direction +which had been hitherto specially and jealously barred, was putting the +English Church on its trial. Would it bear it? Would it respond to the +call to rise to a higher and wider type of doctrine, to a higher +standard of life? Would it justify what Mr. Newman had placed in the +forefront among the notes of the true Church, the note of Sanctity? +Would the _Via Media_ make up for its incompleteness as a theory by +developing into reality and fruitfulness of actual results? Would the +Church bear to be told of its defaults? Would it allow to the +maintainers of Catholic and Anglican principles the liberty which +others claimed, and which by large and powerful bodies of opinion was +denied to Anglicans? Or would it turn out on trial, that the _Via Media_ +was an idea without substance, a dialectical fiction, a mere theological +expedient for getting out of difficulties, unrecognised, and when put +forward, disowned? Would it turn out that the line of thought and +teaching which connected the modern with the ancient Church was but the +private and accidental opinion of Hooker and Andrewes and Bull and +Wilson, unauthorised in the English Church, uncongenial to its spirit, +if not contradictory to its formularies? It is only just to Mr. Newman +to say, that even after some of his friends were frightened, he long +continued to hope for the best; but undoubtedly, more and more, his +belief in the reality of the English Church was undergoing a very +severe, and as time went on, discouraging testing. + +In this state of things he published the Tract No. 90. It was occasioned +by the common allegation, on the side of some of the advanced section of +the Tractarians, as well as on the side of their opponents, that the +Thirty-nine Articles were hopelessly irreconcilable with that Catholic +teaching which Mr. Newman had defended on the authority of our great +divines, but which both the parties above mentioned were ready to +identify with the teaching of the Roman Church. The Tract was intended, +by a rigorous examination of the language of the Articles, to traverse +this allegation. It sought to show that all that was clearly and +undoubtedly Catholic, this language left untouched:[92] that it was +doubtful whether even the formal definitions of the Council of Trent +were directly and intentionally contradicted; and that what were really +aimed at were the abuses and perversions of a great popular and +authorised system, tyrannical by the force of custom and the obstinate +refusal of any real reformation. + + It is often urged (says the writer), and sometimes felt and granted, + that there are in the Articles propositions or terms inconsistent with + the Catholic faith; or, at least, if persons do not go so far as to + feel the objection as of force, they are perplexed how best to answer + it, or how most simply to explain the passages on which it is made to + rest. The following Tract is drawn up with the view of showing how + groundless the objection is, and further, of approximating towards the + argumentative answer to it, of which most men have an implicit + apprehension, though they may have nothing more. That there are real + difficulties to a Catholic Christian in the ecclesiastical position of + our Church at this day, no one can deny; but the statements of the + Articles are not in the number, and it may be right at the present + moment to insist upon this. + +When met by the objection that the ideas of the framers of the Articles +were well known, and that it was notorious that they had meant to put an +insuperable barrier between the English Church and everything that +savoured of Rome, the writer replied that the actual English Church +received the Articles not from them but from a much later authority, +that we are bound by their words not by their private sentiments either +as theologians or ecclesiastical politicians, and that in fact they had +intended the Articles to comprehend a great body of their countrymen, +who would have been driven away by any extreme and anti-Catholic +declarations even against Rome. The temper of compromise is +characteristic of the English as contrasted with the foreign +Reformation. It is visible, not only in the Articles, but in the polity +of the English Church, which clung so obstinately to the continuity and +forms of the ancient hierarchical system, it is visible in the +sacramental offices of the Prayer Book, which left so much out to +satisfy the Protestants, and left so much in to satisfy the Catholics. + +The Tract went in detail through the Articles which were commonly looked +upon as either anti-Catholic or anti-Roman. It went through them with a +dry logical way of interpretation, such as a professed theologian might +use, who was accustomed to all the niceties of language and the +distinctions of the science. It was the way in which they would be +likely to be examined and construed by a purely legal court. The effect +of it, doubtless, was like that produced on ordinary minds by the +refinements of a subtle advocate, or by the judicial interpretation of +an Act of Parliament which the judges do not like; and some of the +interpretations undoubtedly seemed far-fetched and artificial. Yet some +of those which were pointed to at the time as flagrant instances of +extravagant misinterpretation have now come to look different. Nothing +could exceed the scorn poured on the interpretation of the Twenty-second +Article, that it condemns the "_Roman_" doctrine of Purgatory, but not +_all_ doctrine of purgatory as a place of gradual purification beyond +death. But in our days a school very far removed from Mr. Newman's would +require and would claim to make the same distinction. And so with the +interpretation of the "Sacrifices of Masses" in the same article. It was +the fashion in 1841 to see in this the condemnation of all doctrine of a +sacrifice in the Eucharist; and when Mr. Newman confined the phrase to +the gross abuses connected with the Mass, this was treated as an affront +to common sense and honesty. Since then we have become better acquainted +with the language of the ancient liturgies--, and no instructed +theologian could now venture to treat Mr. Newman's distinction as idle. +There was in fact nothing new in his distinctions on these two points. +They had already been made in two of the preceding Tracts, the reprint +of Archbishop Ussher on Prayers for the Dead, and the Catena on the +Eucharistie Sacrifice; and in both cases the distinctions were supported +by a great mass of Anglican authority.[93] + +But the Tract had sufficient novelty about it to account for most of +the excitement which it caused. Its dryness and negative curtness were +provoking. It was not a positive argument, it was not an appeal to +authorities; it was a paring down of language, alleged in certain +portions of the Articles to be somewhat loose, to its barest meaning; +and to those to whom that language had always seemed to speak with +fulness and decision, it seemed like sapping and undermining a cherished +bulwark. Then it seemed to ask for more liberty than the writer in his +position at that time needed; and the object of such an indefinite +claim, in order to remove, if possible, misunderstandings between two +long-alienated branches of the Western Church, was one to excite in many +minds profound horror and dismay. That it maintained without flinching +and as strongly as ever the position and the claim of the English Church +was nothing to the purpose; the admission, both that Rome, though +wrong, might not be as wrong as we thought her, and that the language of +the Articles, though unquestionably condemnatory of much, was not +condemnatory of as much as people thought, and might possibly be even +harmonised with Roman authoritative language, was looked upon as +incompatible with loyalty to the English Church. + +The question which the Tract had opened, what the Articles meant and to +what men were bound by accepting them, was a most legitimate one for +discussion; and it was most natural also that any one should hesitate to +answer it as the Tract answered it. But it was distinctly a question for +discussion. It was not so easy for any of the parties in the Church to +give a clear and consistent answer, as that the matter ought at once to +have been carried out of the region of discussion. The Articles were the +Articles of a Church which had seen as great differences as those +between the Church of Edward VI and the Church of the Restoration. Take +them broadly as the condemnation--strong but loose in expression, as, +for instance, in the language on the "five, commonly called +Sacraments"--of a powerful and well-known antagonist system, and there +was no difficulty about them. But take them as scientific and accurate +and precise enunciations of a systematic theology, and difficulties +begin at once, with every one who does not hold the special and +well-marked doctrines of the age when the German and Swiss authorities +ruled supreme. The course of events from that day to this has shown +more than once, in surprising and even startling examples, how much +those who at the time least thought that they needed such strict +construing of the language of the Articles, and were fierce in +denouncing the "kind of interpretation" said to be claimed in No. 90, +have since found that they require a good deal more elasticity of +reading than even it asked for. The "whirligig of time" was thought to +have brought "its revenges," when Mr. Newman, who had called for the +exercise of authority against Dr. Hampden, found himself, five years +afterwards, under the ban of the same authority. The difference between +Mr. Newman's case and Dr. Hampden's, both as to the alleged offence and +the position of the men, was considerable. But the "whirligig of time" +brought about even stranger "revenges," when not only Mr. Gorham and Mr. +H.B. Wilson in their own defence, but the tribunals which had to decide +on their cases, carried the strictness of reading and the latitude of +interpretation, quite as far, to say the least, as anything in No. 90. + +Unhappily Tract 90 was met at Oxford, not with argument, but with panic +and wrath.[94] There is always a sting in every charge, to which other +parts of it seem subordinate. No. 90 was charged of course with false +doctrine, with false history, and with false reasoning; but the emphatic +part of the charge, the short and easy method which dispensed from the +necessity of theological examination and argument, was that it was +dishonest and immoral. Professors of Divinity, and accomplished +scholars, such as there were in Oxford, might very well have considered +it an occasion to dispute both the general principle of the Tract, if it +was so dangerous, and the illustrations, in the abundance of which the +writer had so frankly thrown open his position to searching criticism. +It was a crisis in which much might have been usefully said, if there +had been any one to say it; much too, to make any one feel, if he was +competent to feel, that he had a good deal to think about in his own +position, and that it would be well to ascertain what was tenable and +what untenable in it. But it seemed as if the opportunity must not be +lost for striking a blow. The Tract was published on 27th February. On +the 8th of March four Senior Tutors, one of whom was Mr. H.B. Wilson, of +St. John's, and another Mr. Tait, of Balliol, addressed the Editor of +the Tract, charging No. 90 with suggesting and opening a way, by which +men might, at least in the case of Roman views, violate their solemn +engagements to their University. On the 15th of March, the Board of +Heads of Houses, refusing to wait for Mr. Newman's defence, which was +known to be coming, and which bears date 13th March, published their +judgment They declared that in No. 90 "modes of interpretation were +suggested, and have since been advocated in other publications +purporting to be written by members of the University, by which +subscription to the Articles might be reconciled with the adoption of +Roman Catholic error." And they announced their resolution, "That modes +of interpretation, such as are suggested in the said Tract, evading +rather than explaining the sense of the Thirty-nine Articles, and +reconciling subscription to them with the adoption of errors which they +are designed to counteract, defeat the object, and are inconsistent with +the due observance of the above-mentioned statutes."[95] + +It was an ungenerous and stupid blunder, such as men make, when they +think or are told that "something must be done," and do not know what. +It gave the writer an opportunity, of which he took full advantage, of +showing his superiority in temper, in courtesy, and in reason, to those +who had not so much condemned as insulted him. He was immediately ready +with his personal expression of apology and regret, and also with his +reassertion in more developed argument of the principle of the Tract; +and this was followed up by further explanations in a letter to the +Bishop. And in spite of the invidious position in which the Board had +tried to place him, not merely as an unsound divine, but as a dishonest +man teaching others to palter with their engagements, the crisis drew +forth strong support and sympathy where they were not perhaps to be +expected. It rallied to him, at least for the time, some of the friends +who had begun to hold aloof. Mr. Palmer, of Worcester, Mr. Perceval, Dr. +Hook, with reserves according to each man's point of view, yet came +forward in his defence. The Board was made to feel that they had been +driven by violent and partisan instigations to commit themselves to a +very foolish as well as a very passionate and impotent step; that they +had by very questionable authority simply thrown an ill-sounding and +ill-mannered word at an argument on a very difficult question, to which +they themselves certainly were not prepared with a clear and +satisfactory answer; that they had made the double mistake of declaring +war against a formidable antagonist, and of beginning it by creating the +impression that they had treated him shabbily, and were really afraid to +come to close quarters with him. As the excitement of hasty counsels +subsided, the sense of this began to awake in some of them; they tried +to represent the off-hand and ambiguous words of the condemnation as not +meaning all that they had been taken to mean. But the seed of bitterness +had been sown. Very little light was thrown, in the strife of pamphlets +which ensued, on the main subject dealt with in No. 90, the authority +and interpretation of such formularies as our Articles. The easier and +more tempting and very fertile topic of debate was the honesty and good +faith of the various disputants. Of the four Tutors, only one, Mr. H.B. +Wilson, published an explanation of their part in the matter; it was a +clumsy, ill-written and laboured pamphlet, which hardly gave promise of +the intellectual vigour subsequently displayed by Mr. Wilson, when he +appeared, not as the defender, but the assailant of received opinions. +The more distinguished of the combatants were Mr. Ward and Mr. R. Lowe. +Mr. Ward, with his usual dialectical skill, not only defended the Tract, +but pushed its argument yet further, in claiming tolerance for doctrines +alleged to be Roman. Mr. Lowe, not troubling himself either with +theological history or the relation of other parties in the Church to +the formularies, threw his strength into the popular and plausible topic +of dishonesty, and into a bitter and unqualified invective against the +bad faith and immorality manifested in the teaching of which No. 90 was +the outcome. Dr. Faussett, as was to be expected, threw himself into the +fray with his accustomed zest and violence, and caused some amusement at +Oxford, first by exposing himself to the merciless wit of a reviewer in +the _British Critic_, and then by the fright into which he was thrown by +a rumour that his reelection to his professorship would be endangered by +Tractarian votes.[96] But the storm, at Oxford at least, seemed to die +out. The difficulty which at one moment threatened of a strike among +some of the college Tutors passed; and things went back to their +ordinary course. But an epoch and a new point of departure had come into +the movement. Things after No. 90 were never the same as to language and +hopes and prospects as they had been before; it was the date from which +a new set of conditions in men's thoughts and attitude had to be +reckoned. Each side felt that a certain liberty had been claimed and +had been peremptorily denied. And this was more than confirmed by the +public language of the greater part of the Bishops. The charges against +the Tractarian party of Romanising, and of flagrant dishonesty, long +urged by irresponsible opponents, were now formally adopted by the +University authorities, and specially directed against the foremost man +of the party. From that time the fate of the party at Oxford was +determined. It must break up. Sooner or later, there must be a secession +more or less discrediting and disabling those who remained. And so the +break-up came, and yet, so well grounded and so congenial to the English +Church were the leading principles of the movement, that not even that +disastrous and apparently hopeless wreck prevented them from again +asserting their claim and becoming once more active and powerful. The +_Via Media_, whether or not logically consistent, was a thing of genuine +English growth, and was at least a working theory. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[84] _Apologia_, p. 180. + +[85] _Essays Critical and Historical_, 1871. + +[86] _Apologia_, pp. 181, 182. Comp. _Letter to Jelf_, p. 18. + +[87] _British Critic_, April 1839, pp. 419-426. Condensed in the +_Apologia_, pp. 192-194. + +[88] _Letter to the Bishop of Oxford_ (29th March 1841), pp. 33-40. +Comp. _Letter to Jelf_, pp. 7, 8. + +[89] _Apologia_, pp. 212, 221. + +[90] _Letter to Jelf_ [especially p. 19]. + +[91] _Walton's Life_, i. 59 (Oxford: 1845). + +[92] No. 90, p. 24. + +[93] The following letter of Mr. James Mozley (8th March 1841) gives the +first impression of the Tract:--"A new Tract has come out this week, and +is beginning to make a sensation. It is on the Articles, and shows that +they bear a highly Catholic meaning; and that many doctrines, of which +the Romanist are corruptions, may be held consistently with them. This +is no more than what we know as a matter of history, for the Articles +were expressly worded to bring in Roman Catholics. But people are +astonished and confused at the idea now, as if it were quite new. And +they have been so accustomed for a long time to look at the Articles as +on a par with the Creed, that they think, I suppose, that if they +subscribe to them they are bound to hold whatever doctrines (not +positively stated in them) are merely not condemned. So if they will +have a Tractarian sense, they are thereby all Tractarians.... It is, of +course, highly complimentary to the whole set of us to be so very much +surprised that we should think what we held to be consistent with the +Articles which we have subscribed." See also a clever Whateleian +pamphlet, "The Controversy between Tract No. 90 and the Oxford Tutors." +(How and Parsons, 1841.) + +[94] See J.B. Mozley's _Letters_, 13th March 1841. + +[95] _Scil._, those cited in the preamble to this resolution. + +[96] J.B. Mozley's _Letters_, 13th July 1841. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +AFTER NO. 90 + + +The proceedings about No. 90 were a declaration of war on the part of +the Oxford authorities against the Tractarian party. The suspicions, +alarms, antipathies, jealousies, which had long been smouldering among +those in power, had at last taken shape in a definite act. And it was a +turning-point in the history of the movement. After this it never was +exactly what it had been hitherto. It had been so far a movement within +the English Church, for its elevation and reform indeed, but at every +step invoking its authority with deep respect, acknowledging allegiance +to its rulers in unqualified and even excessive terms, and aiming +loyally to make it in reality all that it was in its devotional language +and its classical literature. But after what passed about No. 90 a +change came. The party came under an official ban and stigma. The common +consequences of harsh treatment on the tendencies and thought of a +party, which considers itself unjustly proscribed, showed themselves +more and more. Its mind was divided; its temper was exasperated; while +the attitude of the governing authorities hardened more into determined +hostility. From the time of the censure, and especially after the events +connected with it,--the contest for the Poetry Professorship and the +renewed Hampden question,--it may be said that the characteristic +tempers of the Corcyrean sedition were reproduced on a small scale in +Oxford.[97] The scare of Popery, not without foundation--the reaction +against it, also not without foundation--had thrown the wisest off their +balance; and what of those who were not wise? In the heat of those days +there were few Tractarians who did not think Dr. Wynter, Dr. Faussett, +and Dr. Symons heretics in theology and persecutors in temper, despisers +of Christian devotion and self-denial. There were few of the party of +the Heads who did not think every Tractarian a dishonest and perjured +traitor, equivocating about his most solemn engagements, the ignorant +slave of childish superstitions which he was conspiring to bring back. +It was the day of the violent on both sides: the courtesies of life were +forgotten; men were afraid of being weak in their censures, their +dislike, and their opposition; old friendships were broken up, and men +believed the worst of those whom a few years back they had loved and +honoured. + +It is not agreeable to recall these long extinct animosities, but they +are part of the history of that time, and affected the course in which +things ran. And it is easy to blame, it is hard to do justice to, the +various persons and parties who contributed to the events of that +strange and confused time. All was new, and unusual, and without +precedent in Oxford; a powerful and enthusiastic school reviving old +doctrines in a way to make them seem novelties, and creating a wild +panic from a quarter where it was the least expected; the terror of this +panic acting on authorities not in the least prepared for such a trial +of their sagacity, patience, and skill, driving them to unexampled +severity, and to a desperate effort to expel the disturbing +innovators--among them some of the first men in Oxford in character and +ability--from their places in the University.[98] In order to do justice +on each side at this distance of time, we are bound to make +allowance--both for the alarm and the mistaken violence of the +authorities, and for the disaffection, the irritation, the strange +methods which grew up in the worried and suspected party--for the +difficulties which beset both sides in the conflict, and the +counter-influences which drew them hither and thither. But the facts are +as they are; and even then a calmer temper was possible to those who +willed it; and in the heat of the strife there were men among the +authorities, as well as in the unpopular party, who kept their balance, +while others lost it. + +Undoubtedly the publication of No. 90 was the occasion of the aggravated +form which dissension took, and not unnaturally. Yet it was anything but +what it was taken to mean by the authorities, an intentional move in +favour of Rome. It was intended to reconcile a large and growing class +of minds, penetrated and disgusted with the ignorance and injustice of +much of the current controversial assumptions against Rome, to a larger +and more defensible view of the position of the English Church. And this +was done by calling attention to that which was not now for the first +time observed--to the loose and unguarded mode of speaking visible in +the later controversial Articles, and to the contrast between them and +the technical and precise theology of the first five Articles. The +Articles need not mean all which they were supposed popularly to mean +against what was Catholic in Roman doctrine. This was urged in simple +good faith; it was but the necessary assumption of all who held with the +Catholic theology, which the Tractarians all along maintained that they +had a right to teach; it left plenty of ground of difference with +unreformed and usurping Rome. And we know that the storm which No. 90 +raised took the writer by surprise. He did not expect that he should +give such deep offence. But if he thought of the effect on one set of +minds, he forgot the probable effect on another; and he forgot, or +under-estimated, the effect not only of the things said, but of the way +in which they were said.[99] No. 90 was a surprise, in the state of +ordinary theological knowledge at the time. It was a strong thing to say +that the Articles left a great deal of formal Roman language untouched; +but to work this out in dry, bald, technical logic, on the face of it, +narrow in scope, often merely ingenious, was even a greater +stumbling-block. It was, undoubtedly, a great miscalculation, such as +men of keen and far-reaching genius sometimes make. They mistake the +strength and set of the tide; they imagine that minds round them are +going as fast as their own. We can see, looking back, that such an +interpretation of the Articles, with the view then taken of them in +Oxford as the theological text-book, and in the condition of men's +minds, could not but be a great shock. + +And what seemed to give a sinister significance to No. 90 was that, as +has been said, a strong current was beginning to set in the direction of +Rome. It was not yet of the nature, nor of the force, which was +imagined. The authorities suspected it where it was not. They accepted +any contemptible bit of gossip collected by ignorance or ill-nature as a +proof of it. The constitutional frankness of Englishmen in finding fault +with what is their own--disgust at pompous glorification--scepticism as +to our insular claims against all the rest of Christendom to be exactly +right, to be alone, "pure and apostolic"; real increase and enlargement +of knowledge, theological and historical; criticism on portions of our +Reformation history; admiration for characters in mediaeval times; +eagerness, over-generous it might be, to admit and repair wrong to an +opponent unjustly accused; all were set down together with other more +unequivocal signs as "leanings to Rome." It was clear that there was a +current setting towards Rome; but it was as clear that there was a much +stronger current in the party as a whole, setting in the opposite +direction. To those who chose to see and to distinguish, the love, the +passionate loyalty of the bulk of the Tractarians to the English Church +was as evident and unquestionable as any public fact could be. At this +time there was no reason to call in question the strong assurances +given by the writer of No. 90 himself of his yet unshaken faith in the +English Church. But all these important features of the +movement--witnessing, indeed, to deep searchings of heart, but to a +genuine desire to serve the English Church--were overlooked in the one +overwhelming fear which had taken possession of the authorities. +Alarming symptoms of a disposition to acknowledge and even exaggerate +the claims and the attractions of the Roman system were indeed apparent. +No doubt there were reasons for disquiet and anxiety. But the test of +manliness and wisdom, in the face of such reasons, is how men measure +their proportion, and how they meet the danger. + +The Heads saw a real danger before them; but they met it in a wrong and +unworthy way. They committed two great errors. In the first place, like +the Jesuits in their quarrel with Portroyal and the Jansenists, they +entirely failed to recognise the moral elevation and religious purpose +of the men whom they opposed. There was that before them which it was to +their deep discredit that they did not see. The movement, whatever else +it was, or whatever else it became, was in its first stages a movement +for deeper religion, for a more real and earnest self-discipline, for a +loftier morality, for more genuine self-devotion to a serious life, than +had ever been seen in Oxford. It was an honest attempt to raise Oxford +life, which by all evidence needed raising, to something more laborious +and something more religious, to something more worthy of the great +Christian foundations of Oxford than the rivalry of colleges and of the +schools, the mere literary atmosphere of the tutor's lecture-room, and +the easy and gentlemanly and somewhat idle fellowship of the +common-rooms. It was the effort of men who had all the love of +scholarship, and the feeling for it of the Oxford of their day, to add +to this the habits of Christian students and the pursuit of Christian +learning. If all this was dangerous and uncongenial to Oxford, so much +the worse for Oxford, with its great opportunities and great +professions--_Dominus illuminatio mea_. But certainly this mark of moral +purpose and moral force was so plain in the movement that the rulers of +Oxford had no right to mistake it. When the names come back to our minds +of those who led and most represented the Tractarians, it must be a +matter of surprise to any man who has not almost parted with the idea of +Christian goodness, that this feature of the movement could escape or +fail to impress those who had known well all their lives long what these +leaders were. But amid the clamour and the tell-tale gossip, and, it +must be admitted, the folly round them, they missed it. Perhaps they +were bewildered. But they must have the blame, the heavy blame, which +belongs to all those who, when good is before them, do not recognise it +according to its due measure.[100] + +In the next place, the authorities attacked and condemned the +Tractarian teaching at once violently and ignorantly, and in them +ignorance of the ground on which the battle was fought was hardly +pardonable. Doubtless the Tractarian language was in many respects novel +and strange. But Oxford was not only a city of libraries, it was the +home of what was especially accounted Church theology; and the +Tractarian teaching, in its foundation and main outlines, had little but +what ought to have been perfectly familiar to any one who chose to take +the trouble to study the great Church of England writers. To one who, +like Dr. Routh of Magdalen, had gone below the surface, and was +acquainted with the questions debated by those divines, there was +nothing startling in what so alarmed his brethren, whether he agreed +with it or not; and to him the indiscriminate charge of Popery meant +nothing. But Dr. Routh stood alone among his brother Heads in his +knowledge of what English theology was. To most of them it was an +unexplored and misty region; some of the ablest, under the influence of +Dr. Whately's vigorous and scornful discipline, had learned to slight +it. But there it was. Whether it was read or not, its great names were +pronounced with honour, and quoted on occasion. From Hooker to Van +Mildert, there was an unbroken thread of common principles giving +continuity to a line of Church teachers. The Puritan line of doctrine, +though it could claim much sanction among the divines of the +Reformation--the Latitudinarian idea, though it had the countenance of +famous names and powerful intellects--never could aspire to the special +title of Church theology. And the teaching which had that name, both in +praise, and often in dispraise, as technical, scholastic, unspiritual, +transcendental, nay, even Popish, countenanced the Tractarians. They +were sneered at for their ponderous _Catenae_ of authorities; but on the +ground on which this debate raged, the appeal was a pertinent and solid +one. Yet to High Church Oxford and its rulers, all this was strange +doctrine. Proof and quotation might lie before their eyes, but their +minds still ran in one groove, and they could not realise what they saw. +The words meant no harm in the venerable folio; they meant perilous +heresy in the modern Tract. When the authorities had to judge of the +questions raised by the movement, they were unprovided with the adequate +knowledge; and this was knowledge which they ought to have possessed for +its own sake, as doctors of the Theological Faculty of the University. + +And it was not only for their want of learning, manifest all through the +controversy, that they were to blame. Their most telling charge against +the Tractarians, which was embodied in the censure of No. 90, was the +charge of dishonesty. The charge is a very handy one against opponents, +and it may rest on good grounds; but those who think right to make it +ought, both as a matter of policy and as a matter of conscience, to be +quite assured of their own position. The Articles are a public, common +document. It is the differing interpretations of a common document which +create political and religious parties; and only shallowness and +prejudice will impute to an opponent dishonesty without strong and clear +reason. Mr. Newman's interpretation in No. 90,--new, not in claiming for +the Articles a Catholic meaning, but in _limiting_, though it does not +deny, their anti-Roman scope, was fairly open to criticism. It might be +taken as a challenge, and as a challenge might have to be met. But it +would have been both fair and wise in the Heads, before proceeding to +unusual extremities, to have shown that they had fully considered their +own theological doctrines in relation to the Church formularies. They +all had obvious difficulties, and in some cases formidable ones. The +majority of them were what would have been called in older controversial +days frank Arminians, shutting their eyes by force of custom to the look +of some of the Articles, which, if of Lutheran origin, had been claimed +from the first by Calvinists. The Evangelicals had long confessed +difficulties, at least, in the Baptismal Service and the Visitation +Office; while the men most loud in denunciation of dishonesty were the +divines of Whately's school, who had been undermining the authority of +all creeds and articles, and had never been tired of proclaiming their +dislike of that solemn Athanasian Creed to which Prayer Book and +Articles alike bound them. Men with these difficulties daily before them +had no right to ignore them. Doubtless they all had their explanations +which they _bona fide_ believed in. But what was there that excluded Mr. +Newman from the claim to _bona fides_? He had attacked no foundation of +Christianity; he had denied or doubted no article of the Creed. He gave +his explanations, certainly not more far-fetched than those of some of +his judges. In a Church divided by many conflicting views, and therefore +bound to all possible tolerance, he had adopted one view which certainly +was unpopular and perhaps was dangerous. He might be confuted, he might +be accused, or, if so be, convicted of error, perhaps of heresy. But +nothing of this kind was attempted. The incompatibility of his view, not +merely with the Articles, but with morality in signing what all, of +whatever party, had signed, was asserted in a censure, which evaded the +responsibility of specifying the point which it condemned. The alarm of +treachery and conspiracy is one of the most maddening of human impulses. +The Heads of Houses, instead of moderating and sobering it, with the +authority of instructed and sagacious rulers, blew it into a flame. And +they acted in such a hurry that all sense of proportion and dignity was +lost. They peremptorily refused to wait even a few days, as the writer +requested, and as was due to his character, for explanation. They dared +not risk an appeal to the University at large. They dared not abide the +effect of discussion on the blow which they were urged to strike. They +chose, that they might strike without delay, the inexpressibly childish +step of sticking up at the Schools' gates, and at College butteries, +without trial, or conviction, or sentence, a notice declaring that +certain modes of signing the Articles suggested in a certain Tract were +dishonest. It was, they said, to protect undergraduates; as if +undergraduates would be affected by a vague assertion on a difficult +subject, about which nothing was more certain than that those who issued +the notice were not agreed among themselves. + +The men who acted thus were good and conscientious men, who thought +themselves in the presence of a great danger. It is only fair to +remember this. But it is also impossible to be fair to the party of the +movement without remembering this deplorable failure in consistency, in +justice, in temper, in charity, on the part of those in power in the +University. The drift towards Rome had not yet become an unmanageable +rush; and though there were cases in which nothing could have stopped +its course, there is no reason to doubt that generous and equitable +dealing, a more considerate reasonableness, a larger and more +comprehensive judgment of facts, and a more patient waiting for strong +first impressions to justify and verify themselves, would have averted +much mischief. There was much that was to be regretted from this time +forward in the temper and spirit of the movement party. But that which +nourished and strengthened impatience, exaggeration of language and +views, scorn of things as they were, intolerance of everything +moderate, both in men and in words, was the consciousness with which +every man got up in the morning and passed the day, of the bitter +hostility of those foremost in place in Oxford--of their incompetence to +judge fairly--of their incapacity to apprehend what was high and earnest +in those whom they condemned--of the impossibility of getting them to +imagine that Tractarians could be anything but fools or traitors--of +their hopeless blindness to any fact or any teaching to which they were +not accustomed. If the authorities could only have stopped to consider +whether after all they were not dealing with real thought and real wish +to do right, they might after all have disliked the movement, but they +would have seen that which would have kept them from violence. They +would not listen, they would not inquire, they would not consider. Could +such ignorance, could such wrong possibly be without mischievous +influence on those who were the victims of it, much more on friends and +disciples who knew and loved them? The Tractarians had been preaching +that the Church of England, with all its Protestant feeling and all its +Protestant acts and history, was yet, as it professed to be, part and +parcel of the great historic Catholic Church, which had framed the +Creeds, which had continued the Sacraments, which had preached and +taught out of the Bible, which had given us our immemorial prayers. They +had spared no pains to make out this great commonplace from history and +theology: nor had they spared pains, while insisting on this dominant +feature in the English Church, to draw strongly and broadly the lines +which distinguished it from Rome. Was it wonderful, when all guarding +and explanatory limitations were contemptuously tossed aside by +"all-daring ignorance," and all was lumped together in the +indiscriminate charge of "Romanising," that there should have been some +to take the authorities at their word? Was it wonderful when men were +told that the Church of England was no place for them, that they were +breaking their vows and violating solemn engagements by acting as its +ministers, and that in order to preserve the respect of honest men they +should leave it--that the question of change, far off as it had once +seemed, came within "measurable distance"? The generation to which they +belonged had been brought up with strong exhortations to be real, and to +hate shams; and now the question was forced on them whether it was not a +sham for the English Church to call itself Catholic; whether a body of +teaching which was denounced by its authorities, however it might look +on paper and be defended by learning, could be more than a plausible +literary hypothesis in contrast to the great working system of which the +head was Rome. When we consider the singular and anomalous position on +any theory, including the Roman, of the English Church; with what great +differences its various features and elements have been prominent at +different times; how largely its history has been marked by +contradictory facts and appearances; and how hard it is for any one to +keep all, according to their real importance, simultaneously in view; +when we remember also what are the temptations of human nature in great +collisions of religious belief, the excitement and passion of the time, +the mixed character of all religious zeal, the natural inevitable anger +which accompanies it when resisted, the fervour which welcomes +self-sacrifice for the truth; and when we think of all this kept aglow +by the continuous provocation of unfair and harsh dealing from persons +who were scarcely entitled to be severe judges; the wonder is, human +nature being what it is, not that so many went, but that so many stayed. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[97] Τόλμα ἀλόγιστος ἀνδρία φιλέταιρος ἐνομίσθη ... τὸ δὲ σῶφρον τοῦ +ἀνάνδρου πρόσχημα, καὶ τὸ πρὸς ἄπαν ξυνετὸν ἐπὶ πᾶν ἀργόν τὸ δὲ +ὲμπλήκτως ὀξὐ ἀνδρὸς μοίρᾳ προσετέθη ... καὶ ὁ μὲν χαλεπαίνων πιστὸς +ἀεί, ὁ δὲ ἀντιλέγων αὐτῷ ὕποπτος.--Thuc. iii. 82. "Reckless daring was +held to be loyal courage; moderation was the disguise of unmanly +weakness; to know everything was to do nothing; frantic energy was the +true character of a man; the lover of violence was always trusted, and +his opponent suspected."--Jowett's translation. + +[98] One of the strangest features in the conflict was the entire +misconception shown of what Mr. Newman was--the blindness to his real +character and objects--the imputation to him not merely of grave faults, +but of small and mean ones. His critics could not rise above the poorest +measure of his intellect and motives. One of the ablest of them, who had +once been his friend, in a farewell letter of kindly remonstrance, +specifies certain Roman errors, which he hopes that Mr. Newman will not +fall into--adoring images and worshipping saints--as if the pleasure and +privilege of worshipping images and saints were to Mr. Newman the +inducement to join Rome and break the ties of a lifetime. And so of his +moral qualities. A prominent Evangelical leader, Dr. Close of +Cheltenham, afterwards Dean of Carlisle, at a complimentary dinner, in +which he himself gloried in the "foul, personal abuse to which he had +been subjected in his zeal for truth," proceeded to give his judgment on +Mr. Newman: "When I first read No. 90, I did not then know the author; +but I said then, and I repeat here, _not with any personal reference to +the author_, that I should be sorry to trust the author of that Tract +with my purse,"--Report of Speech in _Cheltenham Examiner_, 1st March +1843. + +[99] οὐ γὰρ ἀπόχρη τὸ ἔχειν ἄ δεῖ λέγειν, ἀλλ' ἀνάγκη καὶ ταῦτο ὠς δεῖ +είπεῖν.--Arist. _Rhet._ iii. I. + +[100] Dr. Richards, the Rector of Exeter, seems to have stood apart from +his brother heads.--Cf. _Letters of the Rev. J.B. Mozley_, p. 113. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE THREE DEFEATS: + +ISAAC WILLIAMS, MACMULLEN, PUSEY + + +The year 1841, though it had begun in storm, and though signs were not +wanting of further disturbance, was at Oxford, outwardly at least, a +peaceable one. A great change had happened; but, when the first burst of +excitement was over, men settled down to their usual work, their +lectures, or their reading, or their parishes, and by Easter things +seemed to go on as before. The ordinary habits of University life +resumed their course with a curious quietness. There was, no doubt, much +trouble brooding underneath. Mr. Ward and others continued a war of +pamphlets; and in June Mr. Ward was dismissed from his Mathematical +Lectureship at Balliol. But faith in the great leader was still strong. +No. 90, if it had shocked or disquieted some, had elicited equally +remarkable expressions of confidence and sympathy from others who might +have been, at least, silent. The events of the spring had made men +conscious of what their leader was, and called forth warm and +enthusiastic affection. It was not in vain that, whatever might be +thought of the wisdom or the reasonings of No. 90, he had shown the +height of his character and the purity and greatness of his religious +purpose; and that being what he was, in the eyes of all Oxford, he had +been treated with contumely, and had borne it with patience and loyal +submission. There were keen observers, to whom that patience told of +future dangers; they would have liked him to show more fight. But he +gave no signs of defeat, nor, outwardly, of disquiet; he forbore to +retaliate at Oxford: and the sermons at St. Mary's continued, +penetrating and searching as ever, perhaps with something more pathetic +and anxious in their undertone than before. + +But if he forbore at Oxford, he did not let things pass outside. Sir +Robert Peel, in opening a reading-room at Tamworth, had spoken loosely, +in the conventional and pompous way then fashionable, of the +all-sufficing and exclusive blessings of knowledge. While Mr. Newman was +correcting the proofs of No. 90, he was also writing to the _Times_ the +famous letters of _Catholicus_; a warning to eminent public men of the +danger of declaiming on popular commonplaces without due examination of +their worth. But all seemed quiet. "In the summer of 1841," we read in +the _Apologia_, "I found myself at Littlemore without any harass or +anxiety on my mind. I had determined to put aside all controversy, and +set myself down to my translation of St. Athanasius." Outside of Oxford +there was a gathering of friends in the summer at the consecration of +one of Mr. Keble's district churches, Ampfield--an occasion less common +and more noticeable then than now. Again, what was a new thought then, a +little band of young Oxford men, ten or twelve, taxed themselves to +build a new church, which was ultimately placed at Bussage, in Mr. +Thomas Keble's parish. One of Mr. Keble's curates, Mr. Peter Young, had +been refused Priest's orders by the Bishop of Winchester, for alleged +unsoundness on the doctrine of the Eucharist. Mr. Selwyn, not without +misgivings on the part of the Whig powers, had been appointed Bishop of +New Zealand. Dr. Arnold had been appointed to the Chair of Modern +History at Oxford. In the course of the year there passed away one who +had had a very real though unacknowledged influence on much that had +happened--Mr. Blanco White. And at the end of the year, 29th October, +Mr. Keble gave his last lecture on Poetry, and finished a course the +most original and memorable ever delivered from his chair. + +Towards the end of the year two incidents, besides some roughly-worded +Episcopal charges, disturbed this quiet. They were only indirectly +connected with theological controversy at Oxford; but they had great +ultimate influence on it, and they helped to marshal parties and +consolidate animosities. One was the beginning of the contest for the +Poetry Professorship which Mr. Keble had vacated. There was no one of +equal eminence to succeed him; but there was in Oxford a man of +undoubted poetical genius, of refined taste and subtle thought, though +of unequal power, who had devoted his gifts to the same great purpose +for which Mr. Keble had written the _Christian Year._ No one who has +looked into the _Baptistery_, whatever his feeling towards the writer, +can doubt whether Mr. Isaac Williams was a poet and knew what poetry +meant. He was an intimate friend of Mr. Keble and Mr. Newman, and so he +was styled a Tractarian; but no name offered itself so obviously to the +electors as his, and in due time his friends announced their intention +of bringing him forward. His competitor was Mr. (afterwards Archdeacon) +Garbett of Brasenose, the college of Heber and Milman, an accomplished +gentleman of high culture, believed to have an acquaintance, not common +then in Oxford, with foreign literature, whose qualifications stood high +in the opinion of his University friends, but who had given no evidence +to the public of his claims to the office. It was inevitable, it was no +one's special fault, that the question of theological opinions should +intrude itself; but at first it was only in private that objections were +raised or candidatures recommended on theological grounds. But rumours +were abroad that the authorities of Brasenose were canvassing their +college on these grounds: and in an unlucky moment for Mr. Williams, Dr. +Pusey, not without the knowledge, but without the assenting judgment of +Mr. Newman, thought it well to send forth a circular in Christ Church +first, but soon with wider publicity, asking support for Mr. Williams as +a person whose known religious views would ensure his making his office +minister to religious truth. Nothing could be more innocently meant. It +was the highest purpose to which that office could be devoted. But the +mistake was seen on all sides as soon as made. The Principal of Mr. +Garbett's college. Dr. Gilbert, like a general jumping on his antagonist +whom he has caught in the act of a false move, put forth a dignified +counter-appeal, alleging that he had not raised this issue, but adding +that as it had been raised and avowed on the other side, he was quite +willing that it should be taken into account, and the dangers duly +considered of that teaching with which Dr. Pusey's letter had identified +Mr. Williams. No one from that moment could prevent the contest from +becoming almost entirely a theological one, which was to try the +strength of the party of the movement. Attempts were made, but in vain, +to divest it of this character. The war of pamphlets and leaflets +dispersed in the common-rooms, which usually accompanied these contests, +began, and the year closed with preparations for a severe struggle when +the University met in the following January. + +The other matter was the establishment of the Anglo-Prussian bishopric +at Jerusalem. It was the object of the ambition of M. Bunsen to pave the +way for a recognition, by the English Church, of the new State Church +of Prussia, and ultimately for some closer alliance between the two +bodies; and the plan of a Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem, nominated +alternately by England and Prussia, consecrated by English Bishops, and +exercising jurisdiction over English and German Protestants in +Palestine, was proposed by him to Archbishop Howley and Bishop +Blomfield, and somewhat hastily and incautiously accepted by them. To +Mr. Newman, fighting a hard battle, as he felt it, for the historical +and constitutional catholicity of the English Church, this step on their +part came as a practical and even ostentatious contradiction of his +arguments. England, it seemed, which was out of communion with the East +and with Rome, could lightly enter into close communion with Lutherans +and Calvinists against them both. He recorded an indignant and even +bitter protest; and though the scheme had its warm apologists, such as +Dr. Hook and Mr. F. Maurice, it had its keen-sighted critics, and it was +never received with favour by the Church at large. And, indeed, it was +only active for mischief. It created irritation, suspicion, discord in +England, while no German cared a straw about it. Never was an ambitious +scheme so marked by impotence and failure from its first steps to its +last. But it was one, as the _Apologia_ informs us,[101] in the chain of +events which destroyed Mr. Newman's belief in the English Church. "It +was one of the blows," he writes, "which broke me." + +The next year, 1842, opened with war; war between the University +authorities and the party of the movement, which was to continue in +various forms and with little intermission till the strange and pathetic +events of 1845 suspended the righting and stunned the fighters, and for +a time hushed even anger in feelings of amazement, sorrow, and fear. +Those events imposed stillness on all who had taken part in the strife, +like the blowing up of the _Orient_ at the battle of the Nile. + +As soon as the University met in January 1842, the contest for the +Poetry Professorship was settled. There was no meeting of Convocation, +but a comparison of votes gave a majority of three to two to Mr. +Garbett,[102] and Mr. Williams withdrew. The Tractarians had been +distinctly beaten; it was their first defeat as a party. It seems as if +this encouraged the Hebdomadal Board to a move, which would be felt as a +blow against the Tractarians, and which, as an act of reparation to Dr. +Hampden, would give satisfaction to the ablest section of their own +supporters, the theological Liberals. They proposed to repeal the +disqualification which had been imposed on Dr. Hampden in 1836. But they +had miscalculated. It was too evidently a move to take advantage of the +recent Tractarian discomfiture to whitewash Dr. Hampden's Liberalism. +The proposal, and the way in which it was made, roused a strong feeling +among the residents; a request to withdraw it received the signatures +not only of moderate Anglicans and independent men, like Mr. Francis +Faber of Magdalen, Mr. Sewell, the Greswells, and Mr. W. Palmer of +Worcester, but of Mr. Tait of Balliol, and Mr. Golightly. Dr. Hampden's +own attitude did not help it. There was great want of dignity in his +ostentatious profession of orthodoxy and attachment to the Articles, in +his emphatic adoption of Evangelical phraseology, and in his unmeasured +denunciation of his opponents, and especially of those whom he viewed as +most responsible for the censure of 1836--the "Tractarians" or +"Romanisers." And the difficulty with those who had passed and who now +proposed to withdraw the censure, was that Dr. Hampden persistently and +loudly declared that he had nothing to retract, and retracted nothing; +and if it was right to pass it in 1836, it would not be right to +withdraw it in 1842. At the last moment, Mr. Tait and Mr. Piers +Claughton of University made an attempt to get something from Dr. +Hampden which might pass as a withdrawal of what was supposed to be +dangerous in his Bampton Lectures; and there were some even among Mr. +Newman's friends, who, disliking from the first the form of the censure, +might have found in such a withdrawal a reason for voting for its +repeal. But Dr. Hampden was obdurate. The measure was pressed, and in +June it was thrown out in Convocation by a majority of three to +two[103]--the same proportion, though in smaller numbers, as in the vote +against Mr. Williams. The measure was not an honest one on the part of +the Hebdomadal Board, and deserved to be defeated. Among the pamphlets +which the discussion produced, two by Mr. James Mozley gave early +evidence, by their force of statement and their trenchant logic, of the +power with which he was to take part in the questions which agitated the +University. + +Dr. Hampden took his revenge, and it was not a noble one. The fellows of +certain colleges were obliged to proceed to the B.D. degree on pain of +forfeiting their fellowships. The exercises for the degree, which, by +the Statutes, took the old-fashioned shape of formal Latin disputations +between Opponents and Respondents on given theses in the Divinity +School, had by an arrangement introduced by Dr. Burton, with no +authority from the Statutes, come to consist of two English essays on +subjects chosen by the candidate and approved by the Divinity Professor. +The exercises for the degree had long ceased to be looked upon as very +serious matters, and certainly were never regarded as tests of the +soundness of the candidate's faith. They were usually on well-worn +commonplaces, of which the Regius Professor kept a stock, and about +which no one troubled himself but the person who wanted the degree. It +was not a creditable system, but it was of a piece with the prevalent +absence of any serious examination for the superior degrees. It would +have been quite befitting his position, if Dr. Hampden had called the +attention of the authorities to the evil of sham exercises for degrees +in his own important Faculty. It would have been quite right to make a +vigorous effort on public grounds to turn these sham trials into +realities; to use them, like the examination for the B.A. degree, as +tests of knowledge and competent ability. Such a move on his part would +have been in harmony with the legislation which had recently added two +theological Professors to the Faculty, and had sketched out, however +imperfectly, the outlines of a revived theological school. + +This is what, with good reason, Dr. Hampden might have attempted on +general grounds, and had he been successful (though this in the +suspicious state of University feeling was not very likely) he would +have gained in a regular and lawful way that power of embarrassing his +opponents which he was resolved to use in defiance of all existing +custom. But such was not the course which he chose. Mr. Macmullen of +Corpus, who, in pursuance of the College Statutes, had to proceed to the +B.D. degree, applied, as the custom was, for theses to the Professor. +Mr. Macmullen was known to hold the opinions of the movement school; of +course he was called a Tractarian; he had put his name to some of the +many papers which expressed the sentiments of his friends on current +events. Dr. Hampden sent him two propositions, which the candidate was +to support, framed so as to commit him to assertions which Mr. +Macmullen, whose high Anglican opinions were well known, could not +consistently make. It was a novel and unexampled act on the part of the +Professor, to turn what had been a mere formal exercise into a sharp and +sweeping test of doctrine, which would place all future Divinity degrees +in the University at his mercy; and the case was made more serious, when +the very form of exercise which the Professor used as an instrument of +such formidable power was itself without question unstatutable and +illegal, and had been simply connived at by the authorities. To +introduce by his own authority a new feature into a system which he had +no business to use at all, and to do this for the first time with the +manifest purpose of annoying an obnoxious individual, was, on Dr. +Hampden's part, to do more to discredit his chair and himself, than the +censure of the University could do; and it was as unwise as it was +unworthy. The strength of his own case before the public was that he +could be made to appear as the victim of a personal and partisan attack; +yet on the first opportunity he acts in the spirit of an inquisitor, and +that not in fair conflict with some one worthy of his hostility, but to +wreak an injury, in a matter of private interest, on an individual, in +no way known to him or opposed to him, except as holding certain +unpopular opinions. + +Mr. Macmullen was not the person to take such treatment quietly. The +right was substantially on his side, and the Professor, and the +University authorities who more or less played into the hands of the +Professor in defence of his illegal and ultimately untenable claims, +appeared before the University, the one as a persecutor, the others as +rulers who were afraid to do justice on behalf of an ill-used man +because he was a Tractarian. The right course was perfectly clear. It +was to put an end to these unauthorised exercises, and to recall both +candidates and Professor to the statutable system which imposed +disputations conducted under the moderatorship of the Professor, but +which gave him no veto, at the time, on the theological sufficiency of +the disputations, leaving him to state his objections, if he was not +satisfied, when the candidate's degree was asked for in the House of +Congregation. This course, after some hesitation, was followed, but only +partially; and without allowing or disallowing the Professor's claim to +a veto, the Vice-Chancellor on his own responsibility stopped the +degree. A vexatious dispute lingered on for two or three years, with +actions in the Vice-Chancellor's Court, and distinguished lawyers to +plead for each side, and appeals to the University Court of Delegates, +who reversed the decision of the Vice-Chancellor's assessor. Somehow or +other, Mr. Macmullen at last got his degree, but at the cost of a great +deal of ill-blood in Oxford, for which Dr. Hampden, by his unwarranted +interference, and the University authorities, by their questionable +devices to save the credit and claims of one of their own body, must be +held mainly responsible. + +Before the matter was ended, they were made to feel, in rather a +startling way, how greatly they had lost the confidence of the +University. One of the attempts to find a way out of the tangle of the +dispute was the introduction, in February 1844, of a Statute which +should give to the Professor the power which was now contested, and +practically place all the Divinity degrees under the control of a Board +in conjunction with the Vice-Chancellor.[104] The proposed legislation +raised such indignation in the University, that the Hebdomadal Board +took back their scheme for further revision, and introduced it again in +a modified shape, which still however gave new powers to the Professor +and the Vice-Chancellor. But the University would have none of it. No +one could say that the defeat of the altered Statute by 341 to 21 was +the work merely of a party.[105] It was the most decisive vote given in +the course of these conflicts. And it was observed that on the same day +Mr. Macmullen's degree was vetoed by the Vice-Chancellor at the instance +of Dr. Hampden at 10 o'clock in Congregation, and the Hebdomadal Board, +which had supported him, received the vote of want of confidence at noon +in Convocation. + +Nothing could show more decisively that the authorities in the +Hebdomadal Board were out of touch with the feeling of the University, +or, at all events, of that part of it which was resident. The residents +were not, as a body, identified with the Tractarians; it would be more +true to say that the residents, as a body, looked on this marked school +with misgiving and apprehension; but they saw what manner of men these +Tractarians were; they lived with them in college and common-room; their +behaviour was before their brethren as a whole, with its strength and +its weakness, its moral elevation and its hazardous excitement, its +sincerity of purpose and its one-sidedness of judgment and sympathy, its +unfairness to what was English, its over-value for what was foreign. +Types of those who looked at things more or less independently were Mr. +Hussey of Christ Church, Mr. C.P. Eden of Oriel, Mr. Sewell of Exeter, +Mr. Francis Faber of Magdalen, Dr. Greenhill of Trinity, Mr. Wall of +Balliol, Mr. Hobhouse of Merton, with some of the more consistent +Liberals, like Mr. Stanley of University, and latterly Mr. Tait. Men of +this kind, men of high character and weight in Oxford, found much to +dislike and regret in the Tractarians. But they could also see that the +leaders of the Hebdomadal Board laboured under a fatal incapacity to +recognise what these unpopular Tractarians were doing for the cause of +true and deep religion; they could see that the judgment of the Heads of +Houses, living as they did apart, in a kind of superior state, was +narrow, ill-informed, and harsh, and that the warfare which they waged +was petty, irritating, and profitless; while they also saw with great +clearness that under cover of suppressing "Puseyism," the policy of the +Board was, in fact, tending to increase and strengthen the power of an +irresponsible and incompetent oligarchy, not only over a troublesome +party, but over the whole body of residents. To the great honour of +Oxford it must be said, that throughout these trying times, on to the +very end, there was in the body of Masters a spirit of fairness, a +recognition of the force both of argument and character, a dislike of +high-handedness and shabbiness, which was in strong and painful contrast +to the short-sighted violence in which the Hebdomadal Board was +unhappily induced to put their trust, and which proved at last the main +cause of the overthrow of their power. When changes began to threaten +Oxford, there was no one to say a word for them. + +But, for the moment, in spite of this defeat in Convocation, they had no +misgivings as to the wisdom of their course or the force of their +authority. There was, no doubt, much urging from outside, both on +political and theological grounds, to make them use their power to stay +the plague of Tractarianism; and they were led by three able and +resolute men, unfortunately unable to understand the moral or the +intellectual character of the movement, and having the highest dislike +and disdain for it in both aspects--Dr. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, the +last remaining disciple of Whately's school, a man of rigid +conscientiousness, and very genuine though undemonstrative piety, of +great kindliness in private life, of keen and alert intellect, but not +of breadth and knowledge proportionate to his intellectual power; Dr. +Symons, Warden of Wadham, a courageous witness for Evangelical divinity +in the days when Evangelicals were not in fashion in Oxford, a man of +ponderous and pedantic learning and considerable practical acuteness; +and Dr. Cardwell, Principal of St. Alban's Hall, more a man of the world +than his colleagues, with considerable knowledge of portions of English +Church history. Under the inspiration of these chiefs, the authorities +had adopted, as far as they could, the policy of combat; and the +Vice-Chancellor of the time, Dr. Wynter of St. John's, a kind-hearted +man, but quite unfit to moderate among the strong wills and fierce +tempers round him, was induced to single out for the severest blow yet +struck, the most distinguished person in the ranks of the movement, Dr. +Pusey himself. + +Dr. Pusey was a person with whom it was not wise to meddle, unless his +assailants could make out a case without a flaw. He was without question +the most venerated person in Oxford. Without an equal, in Oxford at +least, in the depth and range of his learning, he stood out yet more +impressively among his fellows in the lofty moral elevation and +simplicity of his life, the blamelessness of his youth, and the profound +devotion of his manhood, to which the family sorrows of his later years, +and the habits which grew out of them, added a kind of pathetic and +solemn interest. Stern and severe in his teaching at one time,--at least +as he was understood,--beyond even the severity of Puritanism, he was +yet overflowing with affection, tender and sympathetic to all who came +near him, and, in the midst of continual controversy, he endeavoured, +with deep conscientiousness, to avoid the bitternesses of controversy. +He was the last man to attack; much more the last man to be unfair to. +The men who ruled in Oxford contrived, in attacking him, to make almost +every mistake which it was possible to make. + +On the 24th of May 1843 Dr. Pusey, intending to balance and complement +the severer, and, to many, the disquieting aspects of doctrine in his +work on Baptism, preached on the Holy Eucharist as a comfort to the +penitent. He spoke of it as a disciple of Andrewes and Bramhall would +speak of it; it was a high Anglican sermon, full, after the example of +the Homilies, Jeremy Taylor, and devotional writers like George Herbert +and Bishop Ken, of the fervid language of the Fathers; and that was all. +Beyond this it did not go; its phraseology was strictly within Anglican +limits. In the course of the week that followed, the University was +surprised by the announcement that Dr. Faussett, the Margaret Professor +of Divinity, had "_delated_" the sermon to the Vice-Chancellor as +teaching heresy; and even more surprised at the news that the +Vice-Chancellor had commenced proceedings. The Statutes provided that +when a sermon was complained of, or _delated_ to the Vice-Chancellor, +the Vice-Chancellor should demand a copy of the sermon, and summoning to +him as his assessors Six Doctors of Divinity, should examine the +language complained of, and, if necessary, condemn and punish the +preacher. The Statute is thus drawn up in general terms, and prescribes +nothing as to the mode in which the examination into the alleged offence +is to be carried on; that is, it leaves it to the Vice-Chancellor's +discretion. What happened was this. The sermon was asked for, but the +name of the accuser was not given; the Statute did not enjoin it. The +sermon was sent, with a request from Dr. Pusey that he might have a +hearing. The Six Doctors were appointed, five of them being Dr. Hawkins, +Dr. Symons, Dr. Jenkyns, Dr. Ogilvie, Dr. Jelf; the Statute said the +Regius Professor was, if possible, to be one of the number; as he was +under the ban of a special Statute, he was spared the task, and his +place was taken by the next Divinity Professor, Dr. Faussett, the person +who had preferred the charge, and who was thus, from having been +accuser, promoted to be a judge. To Dr. Pusey's request for a hearing, +no answer was returned; the Statute, no doubt, said nothing of a +hearing. But after the deliberations of the judges were concluded, and +after the decision to condemn the sermon had been reached, one of them, +Dr. Pusey's old friend, Dr. Jelf, was privately charged with certain +communications from the Vice-Chancellor, on which the seal of absolute +secrecy was imposed, and which, in fact, we believe, have never been +divulged from that _day_ to this. Whatever passed between the +Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Jelf, and Dr. Pusey, it had no effect in arresting +the sentence; and it came out, in informal ways, and through Dr. Pusey +himself, that on the 2d of June Dr. Pusey had been accused and condemned +for having taught doctrine contrary to that of the Church of England, +and that by the authority of the Vice-Chancellor he was suspended from +preaching within the University for two years. But no formal +notification of the transaction was ever made to the University. + +The summary suppression of erroneous and dangerous teaching had long +been a recognised part of the University discipline; and with the ideas +then accepted of the religious character of the University, it was +natural that some such power as that given in the Statutes should be +provided. The power, even after all the changes in Oxford, exists still, +and has been recently appealed to. Dr. Pusey, as a member of the +University, had no more right than any other preacher to complain of his +doctrine being thus solemnly called in question. But it is strange that +it should not have occurred to the authorities that, under the +conditions of modern times, and against a man like Dr. Pusey, such power +should be warily used. For it was not only arbitrary power, such as was +exerted in the condemnation of No. 90, but it was arbitrary power acting +under the semblance of a judicial inquiry, with accusers, examination, +trial, judges, and a heavy penalty. The act of a court of justice which +sets at defiance the rules of justice is a very different thing from a +straightforward act of arbitrary power, because it pretends to be what +it is not. The information against Dr. Pusey, if accepted, involved a +trial--that was the fixed condition and point of departure from which +there was no escaping--and if a trial be held, then, if it be not a fair +trial, the proceeding becomes, according to English notions, a flagrant +and cowardly wrong. All this, all the intrinsic injustice, all the +scandal and discredit in the eyes of honest men, was forgotten in the +obstinate and blind confidence in the letter of a vague Statute. The +accused was not allowed to defend or explain himself; he was refused the +knowledge of the definite charges against him; he was refused, in spite +of his earnest entreaties, a hearing, even an appearance in the presence +of his judges. The Statute, it was said, enjoined none of these things. +The name of his accuser was not told him; he was left to learn it by +report To the end of the business all was wrought in secrecy; no one +knows to this day how the examination of the sermon was conducted, or +what were the opinions of the judges. The Statute, it was said, neither +enjoined nor implied publicity. To this day no one knows what were the +definite passages, what was the express or necessarily involved heresy +or contradiction of the formularies, on which the condemnation was +based; nor--except on the supposition of gross ignorance of English +divinity on the part of the judges--is it easy for a reader to put his +finger on the probably incriminated passages. To make the proceedings +still more unlike ordinary public justice, informal and private +communications were carried on between the judge and the accused, in +which the accused was bound to absolute silence, and forbidden to +consult his nearest friends. + +And of the judges what can be said but that they were, with one +exception, the foremost and sternest opponents of all that was +identified with Dr. Pusey's name; and that one of them was the colleague +who had volunteered to accuse him? Dr. Faussett's share in the matter is +intelligible; hating the movement in all its parts, he struck with the +vehemence of a mediaeval zealot. But that men like Dr. Hawkins and Dr. +Ogilvie, one of them reputed to be a theologian, the other one of the +shrewdest and most cautious of men, and in ordinary matters one of the +most conscientious and fairest, should not have seen what justice, or at +least the show of justice, demanded, and what the refusal of that demand +would look like, and that they should have persuaded the Vice-Chancellor +to accept the entire responsibility of haughtily refusing it, is, even +to those who remember the excitement of those days, a subject of wonder. +The plea was actually put forth that such opportunities of defence of +his language and teaching as Dr. Pusey asked for would have led to the +"inconvenience" of an interminable debate, and confronting of texts and +authorities.[106] The fact, with Dr. Pusey as the accused person, is +likely enough; but in a criminal charge with a heavy penalty, it would +have been better for the reputation of the judges to have submitted to +the inconvenience. + +It was a great injustice and a great blunder--a blunder, because the +gratuitous defiance of accepted rules of fairness neutralised whatever +there might seem to be of boldness and strength in the blow. They were +afraid to meet Dr. Pusey face to face. They were afraid to publish the +reasons of their condemnation. The effect on the University, both on +resident and non-resident members, was not to be misunderstood. The +Protestantism of the Vice-Chancellor and the Six Doctors was, of course, +extolled by partisans in the press with reckless ignorance and reckless +contempt at once for common justice and their own consistency. One +person of some distinction at Oxford ventured to make himself the +mouthpiece of those who were bold enough to defend the proceeding--the +recently-elected Professor of Poetry, Mr. Garbett. But deep offence was +given among the wiser and more reasonable men who had a regard for the +character of the University. A request to know the grounds of the +sentence from men who were certainly of no party was curtly refused by +the Vice-Chancellor, with a suggestion that it did not concern them. A +more important memorial was sent from London, showing how persons at a +distance were shocked by the unaccountable indifference to the +appearance of justice in the proceeding. It was signed among others by +Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Justice Coleridge. The Vice-Chancellor lost his +temper. He sent back the memorial to London "by the hands of his bedel," +as if that in some way stamped his official disapprobation more than if +it had been returned through the post. And he proceeded, in language +wonderful even for that moment, as "Resident Governor" of the +University, to reprimand statesmen and lawyers of eminence and high +character, not merely for presuming to interfere with his own duties, +but for forgetting the oaths on the strength of which they had received +their degrees, and for coming very near to that high, almost highest, +academical crime, the crime of being _perturbatores pacis_--breaking the +peace of the University. + +Such foolishness, affecting dignity, only made more to talk of. If the +men who ruled the University had wished to disgust and alienate the +Masters of Arts, and especially the younger ones who were coming forward +into power and influence, they could not have done better. The chronic +jealousy and distrust of the time were deepened. And all this was +aggravated by what went on in private. A system of espionage, +whisperings, backbitings, and miserable tittle-tattle, sometimes of the +most slanderous or the most ridiculous kind, was set going all over +Oxford. Never in Oxford, before or since, were busybodies more truculent +or more unscrupulous. Difficulties arose between Heads of Colleges and +their tutors. Candidates for fellowships were closely examined as to +their opinions and their associates. Men applying for testimonials were +cross-questioned on No. 90, as to the infallibility of general councils, +purgatory, the worship of images, the _Ora pro nobis_ and the +intercession of the saints: the real critical questions upon which men's +minds were working being absolutely uncomprehended and ignored. It was a +miserable state of misunderstanding and distrust, and none of the +University leaders had the temper and the manliness to endeavour with +justice and knowledge to get to the bottom of it. It was enough to +suppose that a Popish Conspiracy was being carried on. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[101] Pp. 243, 253. + +[102] Garbett, 921. Williams, 623. + +[103] The numbers were 334 to 219. + +[104] _Christian Remembrancer_, vol. ix. p. 175. + +[105] Ibid. pp. 177-179. + +[106] Cf. _British Critic_, No. xlvii. pp. 221-223. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +W.G. WARD + + +If only the Oxford authorities could have had patience--if only they +could have known more largely and more truly the deep changes that were +at work everywhere, and how things were beginning to look in the eyes of +the generation that was coming, perhaps many things might have been +different. Yes, it was true that there was a strong current setting +towards Rome. It was acting on some of the most vigorous of the younger +men. It was acting powerfully on the foremost mind in Oxford. Whither, +if not arrested, it was carrying them was clear, but as yet it was by no +means clear at what rate; and time, and thought, and being left alone +and dealt with justly, have a great effect on men's minds. Extravagance, +disproportion, mischievous, dangerous exaggeration, in much that was +said and taught--all this might have settled down, as so many things are +in the habit of settling down, into reasonable and practical shapes, +after a first burst of crudeness and strain--as, in fact, it _did_ +settle down at last. For Anglicanism itself was not Roman; friends and +foes said it was not, to reproach as well as to defend it. It was not +Roman in Dr. Pusey, though he was not afraid to acknowledge what was +good in Rome. It was not Roman in Mr. Keble and his friends, in Dr. +Moberly of Winchester, and the Barters. It was not Roman in Mr. Isaac +Williams, Mr. Copeland, and Mr. Woodgate, each of them a centre of +influence in Oxford and the country. It was not Roman in the devoted +Charles Marriott, or in Isaac Williams's able and learned pupil, Mr. +Arthur Haddan. It was not Roman in Mr. James Mozley, after Mr. Newman, +the most forcible and impressive of the Oxford writers. A distinctively +English party grew up, both in Oxford and away from it, strong in +eminent names, in proportion as Roman sympathies showed themselves. +These men were, in any fair judgment, as free from Romanising as any of +their accusers; but they made their appeal for patience and fair +judgment in vain. If only the rulers could have had patience:--but +patience is a difficult virtue in the presence of what seem pressing +dangers. Their policy was wrong, stupid, unjust, pernicious. It was a +deplorable mistake, and all will wish now that the discredit of it did +not rest on the history of Oxford. And yet it was the mistake of upright +and conscientious men. + +Doubtless there was danger; the danger was that a number of men would +certainly not acquiesce much longer in Anglicanism, while the Heads +continued absolutely blind to what was really in these men's thoughts. +For the Heads could not conceive the attraction which the Roman Church +had for a religious man; they talked in the old-fashioned way about the +absurdity of the Roman system. They could not understand how reasonable +men could turn Roman Catholics. They accounted for it by supposing a +silly hankering after the pomp or the frippery of Roman Catholic +worship, and at best a craving after the romantic and sentimental. Their +thoughts dwelt continually on image worship and the adoration of saints. +But what really was astir was something much deeper--something much more +akin to the new and strong forces which were beginning to act in very +different directions from this in English society--forces which were not +only leading minds to Rome, but making men Utilitarians, Rationalists, +Positivists, and, though the word had not yet been coined, Agnostics. +The men who doubted about the English Church saw in Rome a strong, +logical, consistent theory of religion, not of yesterday nor to-day--not +only comprehensive and profound, but actually in full work, and fruitful +in great results; and this, in contrast to the alleged and undeniable +anomalies and shortcomings of Protestantism and Anglicanism. And next, +there was the immense amount which they saw in Rome of self-denial and +self-devotion; the surrender of home and family in the clergy; the great +organised ministry of women in works of mercy; the resolute abandonment +of the world and its attractions in the religious life. If in England +there flourished the homely and modest types of goodness, it was in Rome +that, at that day at least, men must look for the heroic. They were not +indisposed to the idea that a true Church which had lost all this might +yet regain it, and they were willing to wait and see what the English +Church would do to recover what it had lost; but there was obviously a +long way to make up, and they came to think that there was no chance of +its overtaking its true position. Of course they knew all that was so +loudly urged about the abuses and mischiefs growing out of the professed +severity of Rome. They knew that in spite of it foreign society was lax; +that the discipline of the confessional was often exercised with a light +rein. But if the good side of it was real, they easily accounted for the +bad: the bad did not destroy, it was a tacit witness to the good. And +they knew the Latin Church mainly from France, where it was more in +earnest, and exhibited more moral life and intellectual activity, than, +as far as Englishmen knew, in Italy or Spain. There was a strong rebound +from insular ignorance and unfairness, when English travellers came on +the poorly-paid but often intelligent and hard-working French clergy; on +the great works of mercy in the towns; on the originality and eloquence +of De Maistre, La Mennais, Lacordaire, Montalembert. + +These ideas took possession of a remarkable mind, the index and organ of +a remarkable character. Mr. W.G. Ward had learned the interest of +earnest religion from Dr. Arnold, in part through his close friend +Arthur Stanley. But if there was ever any tendency in him to combine +with the peculiar elements of the Rugby School, it was interrupted in +its _nascent_ state, as chemists speak, by the intervention of a still +more potent affinity, the personality of Mr. Newman. Mr. Ward had +developed in the Oxford Union, and in a wide social circle of the most +rising men of the time--including Tait, Cardwell, Lowe, Roundell +Palmer--a very unusual dialectical skill and power of argumentative +statement: qualities which seemed to point to the House of Commons. But +Mr. Newman's ideas gave him material, not only for argument but for +thought. The lectures and sermons at St. Mary's subdued and led him +captive. The impression produced on him was expressed in the formula +that primitive Christianity might have been corrupted into Popery, but +that Protestantism never could.[107] For a moment he hung in the wind. +He might have been one of the earliest of Broad Churchmen. He might have +been a Utilitarian and Necessitarian follower of Mr. J.S. Mill. But +moral influences of a higher kind prevailed. And he became, in the most +thoroughgoing yet independent fashion, a disciple of Mr. Newman. He +brought to his new side a fresh power of controversial writing; but his +chief influence was a social one, from his bright and attractive +conversation, his bold and startling candour, his frank, not to say +reckless, fearlessness of consequences, his unrivalled skill in logical +fence, his unfailing good-humour and love of fun, in which his personal +clumsiness set off the vivacity and nimbleness of his joyous moods. "He +was," says Mr. Mozley, "a great musical critic, knew all the operas, and +was an admirable buffo singer."--No one could doubt that, having +started, Mr. Ward would go far and probably go fast. + +Mr. Ward was well known in Oxford, and his language might have warned +the Heads that if there was a drift towards Rome, it came from something +much more serious than a hankering after a sentimental ritual or +mediaeval legends. In Mr. Ward's writings in the _British Critic_, as in +his conversation--and he wrote much and at great length--three ideas +were manifestly at the bottom of his attraction to Rome. One was that +Rome did, and, he believed, nothing else did, keep up the continuous +recognition of the supernatural element in religion, that consciousness +of an ever-present power not of this world which is so prominent a +feature in the New Testament, and which is spoken of there as a +permanent and characteristic element in the Gospel dispensation. The +Roman view of the nature and offices of the Church, of man's relations +to the unseen world, of devotion, of the Eucharist and of the Sacraments +in general, assumed and put forward this supernatural aspect; other +systems ignored it or made it mean nothing, unless in secret to the +individual and converted soul. In the next place he revolted--no weaker +word can be used--from the popular exhibition in England, more or less +Lutheran and Calvinistic, of the doctrine of justification. The +ostentatious separation of justification from morality, with all its +theological refinements and fictions, seemed to him profoundly +unscriptural, profoundly unreal and hollow, or else profoundly immoral. +In conscience and moral honesty and strict obedience he saw the only +safe and trustworthy guidance in regard to the choice and formation of +religious opinions; it was a principle on which all his philosophy was +built, that "careful and individual moral discipline is the only +possible basis on which Christian faith and practice can be reared." In +the third place he was greatly affected, not merely by the paramount +place of sanctity in the Roman theology and the professed Roman system, +but by the standard of saintliness which he found there, involving +complete and heroic self-sacrifice for great religious ends, complete +abandonment of the world, painful and continuous self-discipline, +purified and exalted religious affections, beside which English piety +and goodness at its best, in such examples as George Herbert and Ken and +Bishop Wilson, seemed unambitious and pale and tame, of a different +order from the Roman, and less closely resembling what we read of in the +first ages and in the New Testament. Whether such views were right or +wrong, exaggerated or unbalanced, accurate or superficial, they were +matters fit to interest grave men; but there is no reason to think that +they made the slightest impression on the authorities of the University. + +On the other hand, Mr. Ward, with the greatest good-humour, was +unreservedly defiant and aggressive. There was something intolerably +provoking in his mixture of jauntiness and seriousness, his avowal of +utter personal unworthiness and his undoubting certainty of being in the +right, his downright charges of heresy and his ungrudging readiness to +make allowance for the heretics and give them credit for special virtues +greater than those of the orthodox. He was not a person to hide his own +views or to let others hide theirs. He lived in an atmosphere of +discussion with all around him, friends or opponents, fellows and tutors +in common-rooms, undergraduates after lecture or out walking. The most +amusing, the most tolerant man in Oxford, he had round him perpetually +some of the cleverest and brightest scholars and thinkers of the place; +and where he was, there was debate, cross-questioning, pushing +inferences, starting alarming problems, beating out ideas, trying the +stuff and mettle of mental capacity. Not always with real knowledge, or +a real sense of fact, but always rapid and impetuous, taking in the +whole dialectical chess-board at a glance, he gave no quarter, and a man +found himself in a perilous corner before he perceived the drift of the +game; but it was to clear his own thought, not--for he was much too +good-natured--to embarrass another. If the old scholastic disputations +had been still in use at Oxford, his triumphs would have been signal and +memorable. His success, compared with that of other leaders of the +movement, in influencing life and judgment, was a pre-eminently +intellectual success; and it cut two ways. The stress which he laid on +the moral side of questions, his own generosity, his earnestness on +behalf of fair play and good faith, elevated and purified intercourse. +But he did not always win assent in proportion to his power of argument. +Abstract reasoning, in matters with which human action is concerned, may +be too absolute to be convincing. It may not leave sufficient margin for +the play and interference of actual experience. And Mr. Ward, having +perfect confidence in his conclusions, rather liked to leave them in a +startling form, which he innocently declared to be manifest and +inevitable. And so stories of Ward's audacity and paradoxes flew all +over Oxford, shocking and perplexing grave heads with fear of they knew +not what. Dr. Jenkyns, the Master of Balliol, one of those curious +mixtures of pompous absurdity with genuine shrewdness which used to pass +across the University stage, not clever himself but an unfailing judge +of a clever man, as a jockey might be of a horse, liking Ward and proud +of him for his cleverness, was aghast at his monstrous and +unintelligible language, and driven half wild with it. Mr. Tait, a +fellow-tutor, though living on terms of hearty friendship with Ward, +prevailed on the Master after No. 90 to dismiss Ward from the office of +teaching mathematics. It seemed a petty step thus to mix up theology +with mathematics, though it was not so absurd as it looked, for Ward +brought in theology everywhere, and discussed it when his mathematics +were done. But Ward accepted it frankly and defended it. It was natural, +he said, that Tait, thinking his principles mischievous, should wish to +silence him as a teacher; and their friendship remained unbroken. + +Mr. Ward's theological position was really a provisional one, though, at +starting at least, he would not have allowed it. He had no early or +traditional attachment to the English Church, such as that which acted +so strongly on the leaders of the movement: but he found himself a +member of it, and Mr. Newman had interpreted it to him. He so accepted +it, quite loyally and in earnest, as a point of departure. But he +proceeded at once to put "our Church" (as he called it) on its trial, in +comparison with its own professions, and with the ideal standard of a +Church which he had thought out for himself; and this rapidly led to +grave consequences. He accepted from authority which satisfied him both +intellectually and morally the main scheme of Catholic theology, as the +deepest and truest philosophy of religion, satisfying at once conscience +and intellect. The Catholic theology gave him, among other things, the +idea and the notes of the Church; with these, in part at least, the +English Church agreed; but in other respects, and these very serious +ones, it differed widely; it seemed inconsistent and anomalous. The +English Church was separate and isolated from Christendom. It was +supposed to differ widely from other Churches in doctrine. It admitted +variety of opinion and teaching, even to the point of tolerating alleged +heresy. With such data as these, he entered on an investigation which +ultimately came to the question whether the English Church could claim +to be a part of the Church Catholic. He postulated from the first, what +he afterwards developed in the book in which his Anglican position +culminated,--the famous _Ideal_,--the existence at some time or another +of a Catholic Church which not only aimed at, but fulfilled all the +conditions of a perfect Church in creed, communion, discipline, and +life. Of course the English and, as at starting he held, the Roman +Church, fell far short of this perfection. But at starting, the moral +which he drew was, not to leave the English Church, but to do his best +to raise it up to what it ought to be. Whether he took in all the +conditions of the problem, whether it was not far more complicated and +difficult than he supposed, whether his knowledge of the facts of the +case was accurate and adequate, whether he was always fair in his +comparisons and judgments, and whether he did not overlook elements of +the gravest importance in the inquiry; whether, in fact, save for +certain strong and broad lines common to the whole historic Church, the +reign of anomaly, inconsistency, difficulty did not extend much farther +over the whole field of debate than he chose to admit: all this is +fairly open to question. But within the limits which he laid down, and +within which he confined his reasonings, he used his materials with +skill and force; and even those who least agreed with him and were most +sensible of the strong and hardly disguised bias which so greatly +affected the value of his judgments, could not deny the frankness and +the desire to be fair and candid, with which, as far as intention went, +he conducted his argument. His first appearance as a writer was in the +controversy, as has been said before, on the subject of No. 90. That +tract had made the well-worn distinction between what was Catholic and +what was distinctively Roman, and had urged--what had been urged over +and over again by English divines--that the Articles, in their +condemnation of what was Roman, were drawn in such a way as to leave +untouched what was unquestionably Catholic. They were drawn indeed by +Protestants, but by men who also earnestly professed to hold with the +old Catholic doctors and disavowed any purpose to depart from their +teaching, and who further had to meet the views and gain the assent of +men who were much less Protestant than themselves--men who were willing +to break with the Pope and condemn the abuses associated with his name, +but by no means willing to break with the old theology. The Articles +were the natural result of a compromise between two strong parties--the +Catholics agreeing that the abuses should be condemned, so that the +Catholic doctrine was not touched; the Protestants insisting that, so +that the Catholic doctrine was not touched, the abuses of it should be +denounced with great severity: that there should be no question about +the condemnation of the abuses, and of the system which had maintained +them. The Articles were undoubtedly anti-Roman; that was obvious from +the historical position of the English Church, which in a very real +sense was anti-Roman; but were they so anti-Roman as to exclude +doctrines which English divines had over and over again maintained as +Catholic and distinguished from Romanism, but which the popular opinion, +at this time or that, identified therewith?[108] With flagrant +ignorance--ignorance of the history of thought and teaching in the +English Church, ignorance far more inexcusable of the state of parties +and their several notorious difficulties in relation to the various +formularies of the Church, it was maintained on the other side that the +"Articles construed by themselves" left no doubt that they were not only +anti-Roman but anti-Catholic, and that nothing but the grossest +dishonesty and immorality could allow any doubt on the subject. + +Neither estimate was logical enough to satisfy Mr. Ward. The charge of +insincerity, he retorted with great effect on those who made it: if +words meant anything, the Ordination Service, the Visitation Service, +and the Baptismal Service were far greater difficulties to Evangelicals, +and to Latitudinarians like Whately and Hampden, than the words of any +Article could be to Catholics; and there was besides the tone of the +whole Prayer Book, intelligible, congenial, on Catholic assumptions, and +on no other. But as to the Articles themselves, he was indisposed to +accept the defence made for them. He criticised indeed with acuteness +and severity the attempt to make the loose language of many of them +intolerant of primitive doctrine; but he frankly accepted the allegation +that apart from this or that explanation, their general look, as regards +later controversies, was visibly against, not only Roman doctrines or +Roman abuses, but that whole system of principles and mode of viewing +religion which he called Catholic. They were, he said, _patient_ of a +Catholic meaning, but _ambitious_ of a Protestant meaning; whatever +their logic was, their rhetoric was Protestant. It was just possible, +but not more, for a Catholic to subscribe to them. But they were the +creation and the legacy of a bad age, and though they had not +extinguished Catholic teaching and Catholic belief in the English +Church, they had been a serious hindrance to it, and a support to its +opponents. + +This was going beyond the position of No. 90. No. 90 had made light of +the difficulties of the Articles. + +That there are real difficulties to a Catholic Christian in the +ecclesiastical position of our Church at this day, no one can deny; but +the statements of the Articles are not in the number. Our present scope +is merely to show that, while our Prayer Book is acknowledged on all +hands to be of Catholic origin, our Articles also--the offspring of an +uncatholic age--are, through God's good providence, to say the least, +not uncatholic, and may be subscribed by those who aim at being Catholic +in heart and doctrine. + + +Mr. Ward not only went beyond this position, but in the teeth of these +statements; and he gave a new aspect and new issues to the whole +controversy. The Articles, to him, were a difficulty, which they were +not to the writer of No. 90, or to Dr. Pusey, or to Mr. Keble. To him +they were not only the "offspring of an uncatholic age," but in +themselves uncatholic; and his answer to the charge of dishonest +subscription was, not that the Articles "in their natural meaning are +Catholic,"[109] but that the system of the English Church is a +compromise between what is Catholic and what is Protestant, and that +the Protestant parties in it are involved in even greater difficulties, +in relation to subscription and use of its formularies, than the +Catholic. He admitted that he _did_ evade the spirit, but accepted the +"statements of the Articles," maintaining that this was the intention of +their original sanctioners. With characteristic boldness, inventing a +phrase which has become famous, he wrote: "Our twelfth Article is as +plain as words can make it on the Evangelical side; of course I think +its natural meaning may be explained away, for I subscribe it myself in +a non-natural sense":[110] but he showed that Evangelicals, high church +Anglicans, and Latitudinarians were equally obliged to have recourse to +explanations, which to all but themselves were unsatisfactory. + +But he went a step beyond this. Hitherto the distinction had been +uniformly insisted upon between what was Catholic and what was Roman; +between what was witnessed to by the primitive and the undivided Church, +and what had been developed beyond that in the Schools, and by the +definitions and decisions of Rome, and in the enormous mass of its +post-Reformation theology, at once so comprehensive, and so minute in +application. This distinction was the foundation of what was, +characteristically, Anglican theology, from Hooker downwards. This +distinction, at least for all important purposes, Mr. Ward gradually +gave up. It was to a certain degree recognised in his early controversy +about No. 90; but it gradually grew fainter till at last it avowedly +disappeared. The Anglican writers had drawn their ideas and their +inspiration from the Fathers; the Fathers lived long ago, and the +teaching drawn from them, however spiritual and lofty, wanted the modern +look, and seemed to recognise insufficiently modern needs. The Roman +applications of the same principles were definite and practical, and Mr. +Ward's mind, essentially one of his own century, and little alive to +what touched more imaginative and sensitive minds, turned at once to +Roman sources for the interpretation of what was Catholic. In the +_British Critic_, and still more in the remarkable volume in which his +Oxford controversies culminated, the substitution of _Roman_ for the old +conception of _Catholic_ appears, and the absolute identification of +Roman with Catholic. Roman authorities become more and more the measure +and rule of what is Catholic. They belong to the present in a way in +which the older fountains of teaching do not; in the recognised teaching +of the Latin Church, they have taken their place and superseded them. + +It was characteristic of Mr. Ward that his chief quarrel with the +Articles was not about the Sacraments, not about their language on +alleged Roman errors, but about the doctrine of grace, the relation of +the soul of man to the law, the forgiveness, the holiness of God,--the +doctrine, that is, in all its bearings, of justification. Mr. Newman had +examined this doctrine and the various language held about it with great +care, very firmly but very temperately, and had attempted to reconcile +with each other all but the extreme Lutheran statements. It was, he +said, among really religious men, a question of words. He had recognised +the faulty state of things in the pre-Reformation Church, the faulty +ideas about forgiveness, merit, grace, and works, from which the +Protestant language was a reaction, natural, if often excessive; and in +the English authoritative form of this language, he had found nothing +but what was perfectly capable of a sound and true meaning. From the +first, Mr. Ward's judgment was far more severe than this. To him, the +whole structure of the Articles on Justification and the doctrines +connected with it seemed based on the Lutheran theory, and for this +theory, as fundamentally and hopelessly immoral, he could not find words +sufficiently expressive of detestation and loathing. For the basis of +his own theory of religious knowledge was a moral basis; men came to the +knowledge of religious truth primarily not by the intellect, but by +absolute and unfailing loyalty to conscience and moral light; and a +doctrine which separated faith from morality and holiness, which made +man's highest good and his acceptance with God independent of what he +was as a moral agent, which relegated the realities of moral discipline +and goodness to a secondary and subordinate place,--as a mere sequel to +follow, almost mechanically and of course, on an act or feeling which +had nothing moral in it,--which substituted a fictitious and imputed +righteousness for an inherent and infused and real one, seemed to him +to confound the eternal foundations of right and wrong, and to be a +blasphemy against all that was true and sacred in religion. + +Of the Lutheran doctrine[111] of justification, and the principle of +private judgment, I have argued that, in their abstract nature and +necessary tendency, they sink below atheism itself.... A religious +person who shall be sufficiently clear-headed to understand the meaning +of words, is warranted in rejecting Lutheranism on the very same grounds +which would induce him to reject atheism, viz. as being the +contradiction of truths which he feels on most certain grounds to be +first principles.[112] + +There is nothing which he looks back on with so much satisfaction in his +writings as on this, that he has "ventured to characterise that hateful +and fearful type of Antichrist in terms not wholly inadequate to its +prodigious demerits."[113] + +Mr. Ward had started with a very definite idea of the Church and of its +notes and tests. It was obvious that the Anglican Church--and so, it was +thought, the Roman--failed to satisfy these notes in their +completeness; but it seemed, at least at first, to satisfy some of them, +and to do this so remarkably, and in such strong contrast to other +religious bodies, that in England at all events it seemed the true +representative and branch of the Church Catholic; and the duty of +adhering to it and serving it was fully recognised, even by those who +most felt its apparent departure from the more Catholic principles and +temper preserved in many points by the Roman Church. From this point of +view Mr. Ward avowedly began. But the position gradually gave way before +his relentless and dissolving logic. The whole course of his writing in +the _British Critic_ may be said to have consisted in a prolonged and +disparaging comparison of the English Church, in theory, in doctrine, in +moral and devotional temper, in discipline of character, in education, +in its public and authoritative tone in regard to social, political, and +moral questions, and in the type and standard of its clergy, with those +of the Catholic Church, which to him was represented by the mediaeval +and later Roman Church. And in the general result, and in all important +matters, the comparison became more and more fatally disadvantageous to +the English Church. In the perplexing condition of Christendom, it had +just enough good and promise to justify those who had been brought up in +it remaining where they were, as long as they saw any prospect of +improving it, and till they were driven out. That was a +duty--uncomfortable and thankless as it was, and open to any amount of +misconstruction and misrepresentation--which they owed to their +brethren, and to the Lord of the Church. But it involved plain speaking +and its consequences; and Mr. Ward never shrank from either. + +Most people, looking back, would probably agree, whatever their general +judgment on these matters, and whatever they may think of Mr. Ward's +case, that he was, at the time at least, the most unpersuasive of +writers. Considering his great acuteness, and the frequent originality +of his remarks--considering, further, his moral earnestness, and the +place which the moral aspects of things occupy in his thoughts, this is +remarkable; but so it is. In the first place, in dealing with these +eventful questions, which came home with such awful force to thousands +of awakened minds and consciences, full of hope and full of fear, there +was an entire and ostentatious want of sympathy with all that was +characteristically English in matters of religion. This arose partly +from his deep dislike to habits, very marked in Englishmen, but not +peculiar to them, of self-satisfaction and national self-glorification; +but it drove him into a welcoming of opposite foreign ways, of which he +really knew little, except superficially. Next, his boundless confidence +in the accuracy of his logical processes led him to habits of extreme +and absolute statement, which to those who did not agree with him, and +also to some who did, bore on their face the character of +over-statement, exaggeration, extravagance, not redeemed by an +occasional and somewhat ostentatious candour, often at the expense of +his own side and in favour of opponents to whom he could afford to be +frank. And further, while to the English Church he was merciless in the +searching severity of his judgment, he seemed to be blind to the whole +condition of things to which she, as well as her rival, had for the last +three centuries been subjected, and in which she had played a part at +least as important for Christian faith as that sustained by any portion +of Christendom; blind to all her special and characteristic excellences, +where these did not fit the pattern of the continental types (obviously, +in countless instances, matters of national and local character and +habits); blind to the enormous difficulties in which the political game +of her Roman opponents had placed her; blind to the fact that, judged +with the same adverse bias and prepossessions, the same unsparing +rigour, the same refusal to give real weight to what was good, on the +ground that it was mixed with something lower, the Roman Church would +show just as much deflection from the ideal as the English. Indeed, he +would have done a great service--people would have been far more +disposed to attend to his really interesting, and, to English readers, +novel, proofs of the moral and devotional character of the Roman popular +discipline, if he had not been so unfair on the English: if he had not +ignored the plain fact that just such a picture as he gave of the +English Church, as failing in required notes, might be found of the +Roman before the Reformation, say in the writings of Gerson, and in our +own days in those of Rosmini. Mr. Ward, if any one, appealed to fair +judgment; and to this fair judgment he presented allegations on the face +of them violent and monstrous. The English Church, according to him, was +in the anomalous position of being "gifted with the power of dispensing +sacramental grace,"[114] and yet, at the same time, "_wholly destitute_ +of external notes, and _wholly indefensible_ as to her position, by +external, historical, ecclesiastical arguments": and he for his part +declares, correcting Mr. Newman, who speaks of "outward notes as partly +gone and partly going," that he is "_wholly unable_ to discern the +outward notes of which Mr. Newman speaks, during any part of the last +three hundred years." He might as well have said at once that she did +not exist, if the outward aspects of a Church--orders, creeds, +sacraments, and, in some degree at any rate, preaching and witnessing +for righteousness--are not some of the "outward notes" of a Church. +"Should the pure light of the Gospel be ever restored to _this +benighted land_,"[115] he writes, at the beginning, as the last extract +was written at the end, of his controversial career at Oxford. Is not +such writing as if he wished to emulate in a reverse sense the folly and +falsehood of those who spoke of English Protestants having a monopoly +of the Gospel? He was unpersuasive, he irritated and repelled, in spite +of his wish to be fair and candid, in spite of having so much to teach, +in spite of such vigour of statement and argument, because on the face +of all his writings he was so extravagantly one-sided, so incapable of +an equitable view, so much a slave to the unreality of extremes. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[107] Cf. T. Mozley, _Reminiscences_, vol. ii. p. 5. + +[108] In dealing with the Articles either as a test or as a text-book, +this question was manifestly both an honest and a reasonable one. As a +test, and therefore penal, they must be construed strictly; like +judicial decisions, they only ruled as much as was necessary, and in the +wide field of theology confined themselves to the points at issue at the +moment. And as a text-book for instruction, it was obvious that while on +some points they were precise and clear, on others they were vague and +imperfect. The first five Articles left no room for doubt. When the +compilers came to the controversies of their day, for all their strong +language, they left all kinds of questions unanswered. For instance, +they actually left unnoticed the primacy, and much more the +infallibility of the Pope. They condemned the "sacrifices of +Masses"--did they condemn the ancient and universal doctrine of a +Eucharistic sacrifice? They condemned the Romish doctrine of Purgatory, +with its popular tenet of material fire--did that exclude every doctrine +of purgation after death? They condemned Transubstantiation--did they +condemn the Real Presence? They condemned a great popular system--did +they condemn that of which it was a corruption and travesty? These +questions could not be foreclosed, unless on the assumption that there +was no doctrine on such points which could be called Catholic _except +the Roman_. The inquiry was not new; and divines so stoutly anti-Roman +as Dr. Hook and Mr. W. Palmer of Worcester had answered it substantially +in the same sense as Mr. Newman in No. 90. + +[109] W.G. Ward, _The Ideal of a Christian Church_, p. 478. + +[110] _The Ideal, etc._, p. 479. + +[111] It is curious, and characteristic of the unhistorical quality of +Mr. Ward's mind, that his whole hostility should have been concentrated +on Luther and Lutheranism--on Luther, the enthusiastic, declamatory, +unsystematic denouncer of practical abuses, with his strong attachments +to portions of orthodoxy, rather than on Calvin, with his cold love of +power, and the iron consistency and strength of his logical +anti-Catholic system, which has really lived and moulded Protestantism, +while Lutheranism as a religion has passed into countless different +forms. Luther was to Calvin as Carlyle to J.S. Mill or Herbert Spencer; +he defied system. But Luther had burst into outrageous paradoxes, which +fastened on Mr. Ward's imagination.--Yet outrageous language is not +always the most dangerous. Nobody would really find a provocation to +sin, or an excuse for it, in Luther's _Pecca fortiter_ any more than in +Escobar's ridiculous casuistry. There may be much more mischief in the +delicate unrealities of a fashionable preacher, or in many a smooth +sentimental treatise on the religious affections. + +[112] _The Ideal, etc._, pp. 587, 305. + +[113] Ibid. p. 305. + +[114] _Ideal,_ p 286. + +[115] _British Critic_ October 1841, p. 340. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH + + +No. 90, with the explanations of it given by Mr. Newman and the other +leaders of the movement, might have raised an important and not very +easy question, but one in no way different from the general character of +the matters in debate in the theological controversy of the time. But +No. 90, with the comments on it of Mr. Ward, was quite another matter, +and finally broke up the party of the movement. It was one thing to show +how much there is in common between England and Rome, and quite another +to argue that there is no difference. Mr. Ward's refusal to allow a +reasonable and a Catholic interpretation to the doctrine of the Articles +on Justification, though such an understanding of it had not only been +maintained by Bishop Bull and the later orthodox divines, but was +impressed on all the popular books of devotion, such as the _Whole Duty +of Man_ and Bishop Wilson's _Sacra Privata_; and along with this, the +extreme claim to hold compatible with the Articles the "whole cycle of +Roman doctrine," introduced entirely new conditions into the whole +question. _Non hoec in foedera_ was the natural reflection of numbers of +those who most sympathised with the Tractarian school. The English +Church might have many shortcomings and want many improvements; but +after all she had something to say for herself in her quarrel with Rome; +and the witness of experience for fifteen hundred years must be not +merely qualified and corrected, but absolutely wiped out, if the +allegation were to be accepted that Rome was blameless in all that +quarrel, and had no part in bringing about the confusions of +Christendom. And this contention was more and more enforced in Mr. +Ward's articles in the _British Critic_--enforced, more effectively than +by direct statement, by continual and passing assumption and +implication. They were papers of considerable power and acuteness, and +of great earnestness in their constant appeal to the moral criteria of +truth; though Mr. Ward was not then at his best as a writer, and they +were in composition heavy, diffuse, monotonous, and wearisome. But the +attitude of deep depreciation, steady, systematic, unrelieved, in regard +to that which ought, if acknowledged at all, to deserve the highest +reverence among all things on earth, in regard to an institution which, +with whatever faults, he himself in words still recognised as the Church +of God, was an indefensible and an unwholesome paradox. The analogy is a +commonly accepted one between the Church and the family. How could any +household go on in which there was at work an _animus_ of unceasing and +relentless, though possibly too just criticism, on its characteristic +and perhaps serious faults; and of comparisons, also possibly most just, +with the better ways of other families? It might be the honest desire of +reform and improvement; but charity, patience, equitableness, are +virtues of men in society, as well as strict justice and the desire of +improvement. In the case of the family, such action could only lead to +daily misery and the wasting and dying out of home affections. In the +case of a Church, it must come to the sundering of ties which ought no +longer to bind. Mr. Ward all along insisted that there was no necessity +for looking forward to such an event. He wished to raise, purify, reform +the Church in which Providence had placed him; utterly dissatisfied as +he was with it, intellectually and morally, convinced more and more that +it was wrong, dismally, fearfully wrong, it was his duty, he thought, to +abide in it without looking to consequences; but it was also his duty to +shake the faith of any one he could in its present claims and working, +and to hold up an incomparably purer model of truth and holiness. That +his purpose was what he considered real reform, there is no reason to +doubt, though he chose to shut his eyes to what must come of it. The +position was an unnatural one, but he had great faith in his own +well-fenced logical creations, and defied the objections of a homelier +common sense. He was not content to wait in silence the slow and sad +changes of old convictions, the painful decay and disappearance of +long-cherished ties. His mind was too active, restless, unreserved. To +the last he persisted in forcing on the world, professedly to influence +it, really to defy it, the most violent assertions which he could +formulate of the most paradoxical claims on friends and opponents which +had ever been made. + +Mr. Ward's influence was felt also in another way; though here it is not +easy to measure the degree of its force. He was in the habit of +appealing to Mr. Newman to pronounce on the soundness of his principles +and inferences, with the view of getting Mr. Newman's sanction for them +against more timid or more dissatisfied friends; and he would come down +with great glee on objectors to some new and startling position, with +the reply, "Newman says so," Every one knows from the _Apologia_ what +was Mr. Newman's state of mind after 1841--a state of perplexity, +distress, anxiety; he was moving undoubtedly in one direction, but +moving slowly, painfully, reluctantly, intermittently, with views +sometimes clear, sometimes clouded, of that terribly complicated +problem, the answer to which was full of such consequences to himself +and to others. No one ever felt more keenly that it was no mere affair +of dexterous or brilliant logic; if logic could have settled it, the +question would never have arisen. But in this fevered state, with mind, +soul, heart all torn and distracted by the tremendous responsibilities +pressing on him, wishing above everything to be quiet, to be silent, at +least not to speak except at his own times and when he saw the +occasion, he had, besides bearing his own difficulties, to return +off-hand and at the moment some response to questions which he had not +framed, which he did not care for, on which he felt no call to +pronounce, which he was not perhaps yet ready to face, and to answer +which he must commit himself irrevocably and publicly to more than he +was prepared for. Every one is familiar with the proverbial distribution +of parts in the asking and the answering of questions; but when the +asker is no fool, but one of the sharpest-witted of mankind, asking with +little consideration for the condition or the wishes of the answerer, +with great power to force the answer he wants, and with no great +tenderness in the use he makes of it, the situation becomes a trying +one. Mr. Ward was continually forcing on Mr. Newman so-called +irresistible inferences; "If you say so and so, surely you must also say +something more?" Avowedly ignorant of facts and depending for them on +others, he was only concerned with logical consistency. And accordingly +Mr. Newman, with whom producible logical consistency was indeed a great +thing, but with whom it was very far from being everything, had +continually to accept conclusions which he would rather have kept in +abeyance, to make admissions which were used without their +qualifications, to push on and sanction extreme ideas which he himself +shrank from because they were extreme. But it was all over with his +command of time, his liberty to make up his mind slowly on the great +decision. He had to go at Mr. Ward's pace, and not his own. He had to +take Mr. Ward's questions, not when he wanted to have them and at his +own time, but at Mr. Ward's. No one can tell how much this state of +things affected the working of Mr. Newman's mind in that pause of +hesitation before the final step; how far it accelerated the view which +he ultimately took of his position. No one can tell, for many other +influences were mixed up with this one. But there is no doubt that Mr. +Newman felt the annoyance and the unfairness of this perpetual +questioning for the benefit of Mr. Ward's theories, and there can be +little doubt that, in effect, it drove him onwards and cut short his +time of waiting. Engineers tell us that, in the case of a ship rolling +in a sea-way, when the periodic times of the ship's roll coincide with +those of the undulations of the waves, a condition of things arises +highly dangerous to the ship's stability. So the agitations of Mr. +Newman's mind were reinforced by the impulses of Mr. Ward's.[116] + +But the great question between England and Rome was not the only matter +which engaged Mr. Ward's active mind. In the course of his articles in +the _British Critic_ he endeavoured to develop in large outlines a +philosophy of religious belief. Restless on all matters without a +theory, he felt the need of a theory of the true method of reaching, +verifying, and judging of religious truth; it seemed to him necessary +especially to a popular religion, such as Christianity claimed to be; +and it was not the least of the points on which he congratulated himself +that he had worked out a view which extended greatly the province and +office of conscience, and of fidelity to it, and greatly narrowed the +province and office of the mere intellect in the case of the great mass +of mankind. The Oxford writers had all along laid stress on the +paramount necessity of the single eye and disciplined heart in accepting +or judging religion; moral subjects could be only appreciated by moral +experience; purity, reverence, humility were as essential in such +questions as zeal, industry, truthfulness, honesty; religious truth is a +gift as well as a conquest; and they dwelt on the great maxims of the +New Testament: "To him that hath shall be given"; "If any man will do +the will of the Father, he shall know of the doctrine." But though Mr. +Newman especially had thrown out deep and illuminating thoughts on this +difficult question, it had not been treated systematically; and this +treatment Mr. Ward attempted to give to it. It was a striking and +powerful effort, full of keen insight into human experience and acute +observations on its real laws and conditions; but on the face of it, it +was laboured and strained; it chose its own ground, and passed unnoticed +neighbouring regions under different conditions; it left undealt with +the infinite variety of circumstances, history, capacities, natural +temperament, and those unexplored depths of will and character, +affecting choice and judgment, the realities of which have been brought +home to us by our later ethical literature. Up to a certain point his +task was easy. It is easy to say that a bad life, a rebellious temper, a +selfish spirit are hopeless disqualifications for judging spiritual +things; that we must take something for granted in learning any truths +whatever; that men must act as moral creatures to attain insight into +moral truths, to realise and grasp them as things, and not abstractions +and words. But then came the questions--What is that moral training, +which, in the case of the good heart, will be practically infallible in +leading into truth? And what is that type of character, of saintliness, +which gives authority which we cannot do wrong in following; where, if +question and controversy arise, is the common measure binding on both +sides; and can even the saints, with their immense variations and +apparent mixtures and failings, furnish that type? And next, where, in +the investigations which may be endlessly diversified, does intellect +properly come in and give its help? For come in somewhere, of course it +must; and the conspicuous dominance of the intellectual element in Mr. +Ward's treatment of the subject is palpable on the face of it. His +attempt is to make out a theory of the reasonableness of unproducible; +because unanalysed, reasons; reasons which, though the individual cannot +state them, may be as real and as legitimately active as the obscure +rays of the spectrum. But though the discussion in Mr. Ward's hands was +suggestive of much, though he might expose the superciliousness of +Whately or the shallowness of Mr. Goode, and show himself no unequal +antagonist to Mr. J.S. Mill, it left great difficulties unanswered, and +it had too much the appearance of being directed to a particular end, +that of guarding the Catholic view of a popular religion from formidable +objections. + +The moral side of religion had been from the first a prominent subject +in the teaching of the movement Its protests had been earnest and +constant against intellectual self-sufficiency, and the notion that mere +shrewdness and cleverness were competent judges of Christian truth, or +that soundness of judgment in religious matters was compatible with +arrogance or an imperfect moral standard; and it revolted against the +conventional and inconsistent severity of Puritanism, which was shocked +at dancing but indulged freely in good dinners, and was ostentatious in +using the phrases of spiritual life and in marking a separation from the +world, while it surrounded itself with all the luxuries of modern +inventiveness. But this moral teaching was confined to the statement of +principles, and it was carried out in actual life with the utmost +dislike of display and with a shrinking from strong professions. The +motto of Froude's _Remains_, which embodied his characteristic temper, +was an expression of the feeling of the school: + + Se sub serenis vultibus + Austera virtus occulit: + Timet videri, ne suum, + Dum prodit, amittat decus,[117] + +The heroic strictness and self-denial of the early Church were the +objects of admiration, as what ought to be the standard of Christians; +but people did not yet like to talk much about attempts to copy them. +Such a book as the _Church of the Fathers_ brought out with great force +and great sympathy the ascetic temper and the value put on celibacy in +the early days, and it made a deep impression; but nothing was yet +formulated as characteristic and accepted doctrine. + +It was not unnatural that this should change. The principles exemplified +in the high Christian lives of antiquity became concrete in definite +rules and doctrines, and these rules and doctrines were most readily +found in the forms in which the Roman schools and teachers had embodied +them. The distinction between the secular life and the life of +"religion," with all its consequences, became an accepted one. Celibacy +came to be regarded as an obvious part of the self-sacrifice of a +clergyman's life, and the belief and the profession of it formed a test, +understood if not avowed, by which the more advanced or resolute members +of the party were distinguished from the rest. This came home to men on +the threshold of life with a keener and closer touch than questions +about doctrine. It was the subject of many a bitter, agonising struggle +which no one knew anything of; it was with many the act of a supreme +self-oblation. The idea of the single life may be a utilitarian one as +well as a religious one. It may be chosen with no thought of +renunciation or self-denial, for the greater convenience and freedom of +the student or the philosopher, the soldier or the man of affairs. It +may also be chosen without any special feeling of a sacrifice by the +clergyman, as most helpful for his work. But the idea of celibacy, in +those whom it affected at Oxford, was in the highest degree a religious +and romantic one. The hold which it had on the leader of the movement +made itself felt, though little was directly said. To shrink from it was +a mark of want of strength or intelligence, of an unmanly preference for +English home life, of insensibility to the generous devotion and purity +of the saints. It cannot be doubted that at this period of the movement +the power of this idea over imagination and conscience was one of the +strongest forces in the direction of Rome. + +Of all these ideas Mr. Ward's articles in the _British Critic_ were the +vigorous and unintermittent exposition. He spoke out, and without +hesitation. There was a perpetual contrast implied, when it was not +forcibly insisted on, between all that had usually been esteemed highest +in the moral temper of the English Church, always closely connected with +home life and much variety of character, and the loftier and bolder but +narrower standard of Roman piety. And Mr. Ward was seconded in the +_British Critic_ by other writers, all fervid in the same cause, some +able and eloquent. The most distinguished of his allies was Mr. Oakeley, +Fellow of Balliol and minister of Margaret Chapel in London. Mr. Oakeley +was, perhaps, the first to realise the capacities of the Anglican ritual +for impressive devotional use, and his services, in spite of the +disadvantages of the time, and also of his chapel, are still remembered +by some as having realised for them, in a way never since surpassed, the +secrets and the consolations of the worship of the Church. Mr. Oakeley, +without much learning, was master of a facile and elegant pen. He was a +man who followed a trusted leader with chivalrous boldness, and was not +afraid of strengthening his statements. Without Mr. Ward's force and +originality, his articles were more attractive reading. His article on +"Jewel" was more than anything else a landmark in the progress of Roman +ideas.[118] + +From the time of Mr. Ward's connexion with the _British Critic_, its +anti-Anglican articles had given rise to complaints which did not become +less loud as time went on. He was a troublesome contributor to his +editor, Mr. T. Mozley, and he made the hair of many of his readers +stand on end with his denunciations of things English and eulogies of +things Roman. + + My first troubles (writes Mr. Mozley) were with Oakeley and Ward. I + will not say that I hesitated much as to the truth of what they wrote, + for in that matter I was inclined to go very far, at least in the way + of toleration. Yet it appeared to me quite impossible either that any + great number of English Churchmen would ever go so far, or that the + persons possessing authority in the Church would fail to protest, not + to say more.... As to Ward I did but touch a filament or two in one of + his monstrous cobwebs, and off he ran instantly to Newman to complain + of my gratuitous impertinence. Many years after I was forcibly + reminded of him by a pretty group of a little Cupid flying to his + mother to show a wasp-sting he had just received. Newman was then in + this difficulty. He did not disagree with what Ward had written; but, + on the other hand, he had given neither me nor Ward to understand that + he was likely to step in between us. In fact, he wished to be entirely + clear of the editorship. This, however, was a thing that Ward could + not or would not understand.[119] + +The discontent of readers of the _British Critic_ was great. It was +expressed in various ways, and was represented by a pamphlet of Mr. W. +Palmer's of Worcester, in which he contrasted, with words of severe +condemnation, the later writers in the Review with the teaching of the +earlier _Tracts for the Times_, and denounced the "Romanising" tendency +shown in its articles. In the autumn of 1843 the Review came to an end. +A field of work was thus cut off from Mr. Ward. Full of the interest of +the ideas which possessed him, always equipped and cheerfully ready for +the argumentative encounter, and keenly relishing the _certaminis +gaudia_, he at once seized the occasion of Mr. Palmer's pamphlet to +state what he considered his position, and to set himself right in the +eyes of all fair and intelligent readers. He intended a long pamphlet. +It gradually grew under his hands--he was not yet gifted with the power +of compression and arrangement--into a volume of 600 pages: the famous +_Ideal of a Christian Church, considered in Comparison with Existing +Practice_, published in the summer of 1844. + +The _Ideal_ is a ponderous and unattractive volume, ill arranged and +rambling, which its style and other circumstances have caused to be +almost forgotten. But there are interesting discussions in it which may +still repay perusal for their own sakes. The object of the book was +twofold. Starting with an "ideal" of what the Christian Church may be +expected to be in its various relations to men, it assumes that the +Roman Church, and only the Roman Church, satisfies the conditions of +what a Church ought to be, and it argues in detail that the English +Church, in spite of its professions, utterly and absolutely fails to +fulfil them. It is _plaidoirie_ against everything English, on the +ground that it cannot be Catholic because it is not Roman. It was not +consistent, for while the writer alleged that "our Church totally +neglected her duties both as guardian of and witness to morality, and as +witness and teacher of orthodoxy," yet he saw no difficulty in +attributing the revival of Catholic truth to "the inherent vitality and +powers of our own Church."[120] But this was not the sting and +provocation of the book. That lay in the developed claim, put forward by +implication in Mr. Ward's previous writings, and now repeated in the +broadest and most unqualified form, to hold his position in the English +Church, avowing and teaching all Roman doctrine. + + We find (he exclaims), oh, most joyful, most wonderful, most + unexpected sight! we find the whole cycle of Roman doctrine gradually + possessing numbers of English Churchmen.... Three years have passed + since I said plainly that in subscribing the Articles I renounce no + Roman doctrine; yet I retain my fellowship which I hold on the tenure + of subscription, and have received no ecclesiastical censure in any + shape.[121] + +There was much to learn from the book; much that might bring home to the +most loyal Churchman a sense of shortcomings, a burning desire for +improvement; much that might give every one a great deal to think about, +on some of the deepest problems of the intellectual and religious life. +But it could not be expected that such a challenge, in such sentences as +these, should remain unnoticed. + +The book came out in the Long Vacation, and it was not till the +University met in October that signs of storm began to appear. But +before it broke an incident occurred which inflamed men's tempers. Dr. +Wynter's reign as Vice-Chancellor had come to a close, and the next +person, according to the usual custom of succession, was Dr. Symons, +Warden of Wadham. Dr. Symons had never concealed his strong hostility to +the movement, and he had been one of Dr. Pusey's judges. The prospect of +a partisan Vice-Chancellor, certainly very determined, and supposed not +to be over-scrupulous, was alarming. The consent of Convocation to the +Chancellor's nomination of his substitute had always been given in +words, though no instance of its having been refused was known, at least +in recent times. But a great jealousy about the rights of Convocation +had been growing up under the late autocratic policy of the Heads, and +there was a disposition to assert, and even to stretch these rights, a +disposition not confined to the party of the movement. It was proposed +to challenge Dr. Symons's nomination. Great doubts were felt and +expressed about the wisdom of the proposal; but at length opposition was +resolved upon. The step was a warning to the Heads, who had been +provoking enough; but there was not enough to warrant such a violent +departure from usage, and it was the act of exasperation rather than of +wisdom. The blame for it must be shared between the few who fiercely +urged it, and the many who disapproved and acquiesced. On the day of +nomination, the scrutiny was allowed, _salvâ auctoritate Cancellarii_; +but Dr. Symons's opponents were completely defeated by 883 to 183. It +counted, not unreasonably, as a "Puseyite defeat." + +The attempt and its result made it certain that in the attack that was +sure to come on Mr. Ward's book, he would meet with no mercy. As soon as +term began the Board of Heads of Houses took up the matter; they were +earnestly exhorted to it by a letter of Archbishop Whately's, which was +read at the Board. But they wanted no pressing, nor is it astonishing +that they could not understand the claim to hold the "whole cycle" of +Roman doctrine in the English Church. Mr. Ward's view was that he was +loyally doing the best he could for "our Church," not only in showing up +its heresies and faults, but in urging that the only remedy was +wholesale submission to Rome. To the University authorities this was +taking advantage of his position in the Church to assail and if possible +destroy it. And to numbers of much more sober and moderate Churchmen, +sympathisers with the general spirit of the movement, it was evident +that Mr. Ward had long passed the point when tolerance could be fairly +asked, consistently with any respect for the English Church, for such +sweeping and paradoxical contradictions, by her own servants, of her +claims and title. Mr. Ward's manner also, which, while it was serious +enough in his writings, was easy and even jocular in social intercourse, +left the impression, in reality a most unfair impression, that he was +playing and amusing himself with these momentous questions. + +A Committee of the Board examined the book; a number of startling +propositions were with ease picked out, some preliminary skirmishing as +to matters of form took place, and in December 1844 the Board announced +that they proposed to submit to Convocation without delay three +measures:--(1) to condemn Mr. Ward's book; (2) to degrade Mr. Ward by +depriving him of all his University degrees; and (3) whereas the +existing Statutes gave the Vice-Chancellor power of calling on any +member of the University at any time to prove his orthodoxy by +subscribing the Articles, to add to this a declaration, to be henceforth +made by the subscriber, that he took them in the sense in which "they +were both first published and were now imposed by the University," with +the penalty of expulsion against any one, lay or clerical, who thrice +refused subscription with this declaration. + +As usual, the Board entirely mistook the temper of the University, and +by their violence and want of judgment turned the best chance they ever +had, of carrying the University with them, into what their blunders +really made an ignominious defeat. If they had contented themselves with +the condemnation, in almost any terms, of Mr. Ward's book, and even of +its author, the condemnation would have been overwhelming. A certain +number of men would have still stood by Mr. Ward, either from friendship +or sympathy, or from independence of judgment, or from dislike of the +policy of the Board; but they would have been greatly outnumbered. The +degradation--the Board did not venture on the logical consequence, +expulsion--was a poor and even ridiculous measure of punishment; to +reduce Mr. Ward to an undergraduate _in statu pupillari_, and a +commoner's short gown, was a thing to amuse rather than terrify. The +personal punishment seemed unworthy when they dared not go farther, +while to many the condemnation of the book seemed penalty enough; and +the condemnation of the book by these voters was weakened by their +refusal to carry it into personal disgrace and disadvantage. Still, if +these two measures had stood by themselves, they could not have been +resisted, and the triumph of the Board would have been a signal one. But +they could not rest. They must needs attempt to put upon subscription, +just when its difficulties were beginning to be felt, not by one party, +but by all, an interpretation which set the University and Church in a +flame. The cry, almost the shriek, arose that it was a new test, and a +test which took for granted what certainly needed proof, that the sense +in which the Articles were first understood and published was exactly +the same as that in which the University now received and imposed them. +It was in vain that explanations, assurances, protests, were proffered; +no new test, it was said, was thought of--the Board would never think of +such a thing; it was only something to ensure good faith and honesty. +But it was utterly useless to contend against the storm. A test it was, +and a new test no one would have. It was clear that, if the third +proposal was pushed, it would endanger the votes about Mr. Ward. After +some fruitless attempts at justification the Board had, in the course +of a month, to recognise that it had made a great mistake. The +condemnation of Mr. Ward was to come on, on the 13th of February; and on +the 23d of January the Vice-Chancellor, in giving notice of it, +announced that the third proposal was withdrawn. + +It might have been thought that this was lesson enough to leave well +alone. The Heads were sure of votes against Mr. Ward, more or less +numerous; they were sure of a victory which would be a severe blow, not +only to Mr. Ward and his special followers, but to the Tractarian party +with which he had been so closely connected. But those bitter and +intemperate spirits which had so long led them wrong were not to be +taught prudence even by their last experience. The mischief makers were +at work, flitting about the official lodgings at Wadham and Oriel. Could +not something be done, even at this late hour, to make up for the loss +of the test? Could not something be done to disgrace a greater name than +Mr. Ward's? Could not the opportunity which was coming of rousing the +feeling of the University against the disciple be turned to account to +drag forth his supposed master from his retirement and impunity, and +brand the author of No. 90 with the public stigma--no longer this time +of a Hebdomadal censure, but of a University condemnation? The +temptation was irresistible to a number of disappointed +partisans--kindly, generous, good-natured men in private life, but +implacable in their fierce fanaticism. In their impetuous vehemence +they would not even stop to think what would be said of the conditions +and circumstances under which they pressed their point. On the 23d of +January the Vice-Chancellor had withdrawn the test. On the 25th of +January--those curious in coincidences may observe that it was the date +of No. 90 in 1841--a circular was issued inviting signatures for a +requisition to the Board, asking them to propose, in the approaching +Convocation of the 13th of February, a formal censure of the principles +of No. 90. The invitation to sign was issued in the names of Dr. +Faussett and Dr. Ellerton of Magdalen. It received between four and five +hundred signatures, as far as was known; but it was withheld by the +Vice-Chancellor from the inspection of those who officially had a right +to have it before them. On the 4th of February its prayer came before +the Hebdomadal Board. The objection of haste--that not ten days +intervened between this new and momentous proposal and the day of +voting--was brushed aside. The members of the Board were mad enough not +to see, not merely the odiousness of the course, but the aggravated +odiousness of hurry. The proposal was voted by the majority, _sans +phrase._ And they ventured, amid all the excitement and irritation of +the moment, to offer for the sanction of the University a decree framed +in the words of their own censure. + +The interval before the Convocation was short, but it was long enough +for decisive opinions on the proposal of the Board to be formed and +expressed. Leading men in London, Mr. Gladstone among them, were clear +that it was an occasion for the exercise of the joint veto with which +the Proctors were invested. The veto was intended, if for anything, to +save the University from inconsiderate and hasty measures; and seldom, +except in revolutionary times, had so momentous and so unexpected a +measure been urged on with such unseemly haste. The feeling of the +younger Liberals, Mr. Stanley, Mr. Donkin, Mr. Jowett, Dr. Greenhill, +was in the same direction. On the 10th of February the Proctors +announced to the Board their intention to veto the third proposal. But +of course the thing went forward. The Proctors were friends of Mr. +Newman, and the Heads believed that this would counterbalance any effect +from their act of authority. It is possible that the announcement may +have been regarded as a mere menace, too audacious to be fulfilled. On +the 13th of February, amid slush and snow, Convocation met in the +Theatre. Mr. Ward asked leave to defend himself in English, and occupied +one of the rostra, usually devoted to the recital of prize poems and +essays. He spoke with vigour and ability, dividing his speech, and +resting in the interval between the two portions in the rostrum.[122] +There was no other address, and the voting began. The first vote, the +condemnation of the book, was carried by 777 to 386. The second, by a +more evenly balanced division, 569 to 511. When the Vice-Chancellor put +the third, the Proctors rose, and the senior Proctor, Mr. Guillemard of +Trinity, stopped it in the words, _Nobis procuratoribus non placet_. +Such a step, of course, only suspended the vote, and the year of office +of these Proctors was nearly run. But they had expressed the feeling of +those whom they represented. It was shown not only in a largely-signed +address of thanks. All attempts to revive the decree at the expiration +of their year of office failed. The wiser heads in the Hebdomadal Board +recognised at last that they had better hold their hand. Mistakes men +may commit, and defeats they may undergo, and yet lose nothing that +concerns their character for acting as men of a high standard ought to +act. But in this case, mistakes and defeat were the least of what the +Board brought on themselves. This was the last act of a long and +deliberately pursued course of conduct; and if it was the last, it was +because it was the upshot and climax, and neither the University nor any +one else would endure that it should go on any longer. The proposed +attack on Mr. Newman betrayed how helpless they were, and to what paltry +acts of worrying it was, in their judgment, right and judicious to +condescend. It gave a measure of their statesmanship, wisdom, and good +feeling in defending the interests of the Church; and it made a very +deep and lasting impression on all who were interested in the honour and +welfare of Oxford. Men must have blinded themselves to the plainest +effects of their own actions who could have laid themselves open to such +a description of their conduct as is contained in the following extract +from a paper of the time--a passage of which the indignant and pathetic +undertone reflected the indignation and the sympathy of hundreds of men +of widely differing opinions. + + The vote is an answer to a cry--that cry is one of dishonesty, and + this dishonesty the proposed resolution, as plainly as it dares to say + anything, insinuates. On this part of the question, those who have + ever been honoured by Mr. Newman's friendship must feel it dangerous + to allow themselves thus to speak. And yet they must speak; for no one + else can appreciate it as truly as they do. When they see the person + whom they have been accustomed to revere as few men are revered, whose + labours, whose greatness, whose tenderness, whose singleness and + holiness of purpose, they have been permitted to know intimately--not + allowed even the poor privilege of satisfying, by silence and + retirement--by the relinquishment of preferment, position, and + influence--the persevering hostility of persons whom they cannot help + comparing with him--not permitted even to submit in peace to those + irregular censures, to which he seems to have been even morbidly + alive, but dragged forth to suffer an oblique and tardy condemnation; + called again to account for matters now long ago accounted for; on + which a judgment has been pronounced, which, whatever others may think + of it, he at least has accepted as conclusive--when they contrast his + merits, his submission, his treatment, which they see and know, with + the merits, the bearing, the fortunes of those who are doggedly + pursuing him, it does become very difficult to speak without sullying + what it is a kind of pleasure to feel is _his_ cause by using hard + words, or betraying it by not using them. It is too difficult to + speak, as ought to be spoken, of this ungenerous and gratuitous + afterthought--too difficult to keep clear of what, at least, will be + _thought_ exaggeration; too difficult to do justice to what they feel + to be undoubtedly true; and I will not attempt to say more than enough + to mark an opinion which ought to be plainly avowed, as to the nature + of this procedure.[123] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[116] A pencilled note indicates that this illustration was suggested by +experiments in naval engineering carried on at one time by Mr. W. +Froude. Cf. T. Mozley, _Reminiscences_, vol. ii. p. 17. + +[117] Hymn in Paris Breviary, _Commune Sanctarum Mulierum_. + +[118] _Reminiscences_, ii. 243, 244. Cf. _British Critic_, July 1841. + +[119] _Reminiscences,_ ii. 223. + +[120] _Ideal_, p. 566. + +[121] _Ibid._ pp. 565-567. + +[122] It is part of the history of the time, that during those anxious +days, Mr. Ward was engaged to be married. The engagement came to the +knowledge of his friends, to their great astonishment and amusement, +very soon after the events in the Theatre. + +[123] From a _Short Appeal to Members of Convocation on the proposed +Censure on No. 90_. By Frederic Rogers, Fellow of Oriel. (Dated +Saturday, 8th of February 1845.) + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE CATASTROPHE + + +The events of February were a great shock. The routine of Oxford had +been broken as it had never been broken by the fiercest strifes before. +Condemnations had been before passed on opinions, and even on persons. +But to see an eminent man, of blameless life, a fellow of one of the +first among the Colleges, solemnly deprived of his degree and all that +the degree carried with it, and that on a charge in which bad faith and +treachery were combined with alleged heresy, was a novel experience, +where the kindnesses of daily companionship and social intercourse still +asserted themselves as paramount to official ideas of position. And +when, besides this, people realised what more had been attempted, and by +how narrow a chance a still heavier blow had been averted from one +towards whom so many hearts warmed, how narrowly a yoke had been escaped +which would have seemed to subject all religious thought in the +University to the caprice or the blind zeal of a partisan official, the +sense of relief was mixed with the still present memory of a desperate +peril And then came the question as to what was to come next. That the +old policy of the Board would be revived and pursued when the end of the +Proctors' year delivered it from their inconvenient presence, was soon +understood to be out of the question. The very violence of the measures +attempted had its reaction, which stopped anything further. The +opponents of Tractarianism, Orthodox and Liberal, were for the moment +gorged with their success. What men waited to see was the effect on the +party of the movement; how it would influence the advanced portion of +it; how it would influence the little company who had looked on in +silence from their retirement at Littlemore. The more serious aspect of +recent events was succeeded for the moment by a certain comic contrast, +created by Mr. Ward's engagement to be married, which was announced +within a week of his degradation, and which gave the common-rooms +something to smile at after the strain and excitement of the scene in +the Theatre. But that passed, and the graver outlook of the situation +occupied men's thoughts. + +There was a widespread feeling of insecurity. Friends did not know of +friends, how their minds were working, how they might go. Anxious +letters passed, the writers not daring to say too much, or reveal too +much alarm. And yet there was still some hope that at least with the +great leader matters were not desperate. To his own friends he gave +warning; he had already done so in a way to leave little to expect but +at last to lose him; he spoke of resigning his fellowship in October, +though he wished to defer this till the following June; but nothing +final had been said publicly. Even at the last it was only anticipated +by some that he would retire into lay communion. But that silence was +awful and ominous. He showed no signs of being affected by what had +passed in Oxford. He privately thanked the Proctors for saving him from +what would have distressed him; but he made no comments on the measures +themselves. Still it could not but be a climax of everything as far as +Oxford was concerned. And he was a man who saw signs in such events. + +It was inevitable that the events of the end of 1844 and the beginning +of 1845 should bring with them a great crisis in the development of +religious opinion, in the relations of its different forms to one +another, and further, in the thoughts of many minds as to their personal +position, their duty, and their prospects. There had been such a crisis +in 1841 at the publication of No. 90. After the discussions which +followed that tract, Anglican theology could never be quite the same +that it had been before. It was made to feel the sense of some grave +wants, which, however they might be supplied in the future, could no +longer be unnoticed or uncared for. And individuals, amid the strife of +tongues, had felt, some strongly and practically, but a much larger +number dimly and reluctantly, the possibility, unwelcome to most, but +not without interest to others, of having to face the strange and at +one time inconceivable task of revising the very foundations of their +religion. And such a revision had since that time been going on more or +less actively in many minds; in some cases with very decisive results. +But after the explosion caused by Mr. Ward's book, a crisis of a much +more grave and wide-reaching sort had arrived. To ordinary lookers-on it +naturally seemed that a shattering and decisive blow had been struck at +the Tractarian party and their cause; struck, indeed, formally and +officially, only at its extravagances, but struck, none the less, +virtually, at the premisses which led to these extravagances, and at the +party, which, while disapproving them, shrank, with whatever +motives,--policy, generosity, or secret sympathy,--from joining in the +condemnation of them. It was more than a defeat, it was a rout, in which +they were driven and chased headlong from the field; a wreck in which +their boasts and hopes of the last few years met the fate which wise men +had always anticipated. Oxford repudiated them. Their theories, their +controversial successes, their learned arguments, their appeals to the +imagination, all seemed to go down, and to be swept away like chaff, +before the breath of straightforward common sense and honesty. +Henceforth there was a badge affixed to them and all who belonged to +them, a badge of suspicion and discredit, and even shame, which bade men +beware of them, an overthrow under which it seemed wonderful that they +could raise their heads or expect a hearing. It is true, that to those +who looked below the surface, the overthrow might have seemed almost too +showy and theatrical to be quite all that it was generally thought to +be. There had been too much passion, and too little looking forward to +the next steps, in the proceedings of the victors. There was too much +blindness to weak points of their own position, too much forgetfulness +of the wise generosity of cautious warfare. The victory was easy to win; +the next moment it was quite obvious that they did not know what to do +with it, and were at their wits' end to understand what it meant. And +the defeated party, though defeated signally and conspicuously in the +sight of the Church and the country, had in it too large a proportion of +the serious and able men of the University, with too clear and high a +purpose, and too distinct a sense of the strength and reality of their +ground, to be in as disadvantageous a condition as from a distance might +be imagined. A closer view would have discovered how much sympathy there +was for their objects and for their main principles in many who greatly +disapproved of much in the recent course and tendency of the movement. +It might have been seen how the unwise measures of the Heads had +awakened convictions among many who were not naturally on their side, +that it was necessary both on the ground of justice and policy to arrest +all extreme measures, and to give a breathing time to the minority. +Confidence in their prospects as a party might have been impaired in the +Tractarians; but confidence in their principles; confidence that they +had rightly interpreted the spirit, the claims, and the duties of the +English Church, confidence that devotion to its cause was the call of +God, whatever might happen to their own fortunes, this confidence was +unshaken by the catastrophe of February. + +But that crisis had another important result, not much noticed then, but +one which made itself abundantly evident in the times that followed. The +decisive breach between the old parties in the Church, both Orthodox and +Evangelical, and the new party of the movement, with the violent and +apparently irretrievable discomfiture of the latter as the rising force +in Oxford, opened the way and cleared the ground for the formation and +the power of a third school of opinion, which was to be the most +formidable rival of the Tractarians, and whose leaders were eventually +to succeed where the Tractarians had failed, in becoming the masters and +the reformers of the University. Liberalism had hitherto been +represented in Oxford in forms which though respectable from +intellectual vigour were unattractive, sometimes even repulsive. They +were dry, cold, supercilious, critical; they wanted enthusiasm; they +were out of sympathy with religion and the religious temper and aims. +They played, without knowing it, on the edge of the most dangerous +questions. The older Oxford Liberals were either intellectually +aristocratic, dissecting the inaccuracies or showing up the paralogisms +of the current orthodoxy, or they were poor in character, Liberals from +the zest of sneering and mocking at what was received and established, +or from the convenience of getting rid of strict and troublesome rules +of life. They patronised Dissenters; they gave Whig votes; they made +free, in a mild way, with the pet conventions and prejudices of Tories +and High Churchmen. There was nothing inspiring in them, however much +men might respect their correct and sincere lives. But a younger set of +men brought, mainly from Rugby and Arnold's teaching, a new kind of +Liberalism. It was much bolder and more independent than the older +forms, less inclined to put up with the traditional, more searching and +inquisitive in its methods, more suspicious and daring in its criticism; +but it was much larger in its views and its sympathies, and, above all, +it was imaginative, it was enthusiastic, and, without much of the +devotional temper, it was penetrated by a sense of the reality and +seriousness of religion. It saw greater hopes in the present and the +future than the Tractarians. It disliked their reverence for the past +and the received as inconsistent with what seemed evidence of the +providential order of great and fruitful change. It could not enter into +their discipline of character, and shrank from it as antiquated, +unnatural, and narrow. But these younger Liberals were interested in the +Tractarian innovators, and, in a degree, sympathised with them as a +party of movement who had had the courage to risk and sacrifice much for +an unworldly end. And they felt that their own opportunity was come when +all the parties which claimed to represent the orthodoxy of the English +Church appeared to have broken for good with one another, and when their +differences had thrown so much doubt and disparagement on so important +and revered a symbol of orthodoxy as the Thirty-nine Articles. They +looked on partly with amusement, partly with serious anxiety, at the +dispute; they discriminated with impartiality between the strong and the +weak points in the arguments on both sides: and they enforced with the +same impartiality on both of them the reasons, arising out of the +difficulties in which each party was involved, for new and large +measures, for a policy of forbearance and toleration. They inflicted on +the beaten side, sometimes with more ingenuity than fairness, the lesson +that the "wheel had come round full circle" with them; that they were +but reaping as they themselves had sown:--but now that there seemed +little more to fear from the Tractarians, the victorious authorities +were the power which the Liberals had to keep in check. They used their +influence, such as it was (and it was not then what it was afterwards), +to protect the weaker party. It was a favourite boast of Dean Stanley's +in after-times, that the intervention of the Liberals had saved the +Tractarians from complete disaster. It is quite true that the younger +Liberals disapproved the continuance of harsh measures, and some of them +exerted themselves against such measures. They did so in many ways and +for various reasons; from consistency, from feelings of personal +kindness, from a sense of justice, from a sense of interest--some in a +frank and generous spirit, others with contemptuous indifference. But +the debt of the Tractarians to their Liberal friends in 1845 was not so +great as Dean Stanley, thinking of the Liberal party as what it had +ultimately grown to be, supposed to be the case. The Liberals of his +school were then still a little flock: a very distinguished and a very +earnest set of men, but too young and too few as yet to hold the balance +in such a contest. The Tractarians were saved by what they were and what +they had done, and could do, themselves. But it is also true, that out +of these feuds and discords, the Liberal party which was to be dominant +in Oxford took its rise, soon to astonish old-fashioned Heads of Houses +with new and deep forms of doubt more audacious than Tractarianism, and +ultimately to overthrow not only the victorious authorities, but the +ancient position of the Church, and to recast from top to bottom the +institutions of the University. The 13th of February was not only the +final defeat and conclusion of the first stage of the movement. It was +the birthday of the modern Liberalism of Oxford. + +But it was also a crisis in the history of many lives. From that moment, +the decision of a number of good and able men, who had once promised to +be among the most valuable servants of the English Church, became +clear. If it were doubtful before, in many cases, whether they would +stay with her, the doubt existed no longer. It was now only a question +of time when they would break the tie and renounce their old +allegiance. In the bitter, and in many cases agonising struggle which +they had gone through as to their duty to God and conscience, a sign +seemed now to be given them which they could not mistake. They were +invited, on one side, to come; they were told sternly and scornfully, on +the other, to go. They could no longer be accused of impatience if they +brought their doubts to an end, and made up their minds that their call +was to submit to the claims of Rome, that their place was in its +communion. + +Yet there was a pause. It was no secret what was coming. But men +lingered. It was not till the summer that the first drops of the storm +began to fall. Then through the autumn and the next year, friends, whose +names and forms were familiar in Oxford, one by one disappeared and were +lost to it. Fellowships, livings, curacies, intended careers, were given +up. Mr. Ward went. Mr. Capes, who had long followed Mr. Ward's line, and +had spent his private means to build a church near Bridgewater, went +also. Mr. Oakeley resigned Margaret Chapel and went. Mr. Ambrose St. +John, Mr. Coffin, Mr. Dalgairns, Mr. Faber, Mr. T. Meyrick, Mr. Albany +Christie, Mr. R. Simpson of Oriel, were received in various places and +various ways, and in the next year, Mr. J.S. Northcote, Mr. J.B. +Morris, Mr. G. Ryder, Mr. David Lewis. On the 3d of October 1845 Mr. +Newman requested the Provost of Oriel to remove his name from the books +of the College and University, but without giving any reason. The 6th of +October is the date of the "Advertisement" to the work which had +occupied Mr. Newman through the year--the _Essay on the Development of +Christian Doctrine_. On the 8th he was, as he has told us in the +_Apologia_, received by Father Dominic, the Passionist. To the +"Advertisement" are subjoined the following words: + + _Postscript_.--Since the above was written the Author has joined the + Catholic Church. It was his intention and wish to have carried his + volume through the press before deciding finally on this step. But + when he got some way in the printing, he recognised in himself a + conviction of the truth of the conclusion, to which the discussion + leads, so clear as to preclude further deliberation. Shortly + afterwards circumstances gave him the opportunity of acting on it, and + he felt that he had no warrant for refusing to act on it. + +So the reality of what had been so long and often so lightly talked +about by those who dared it, provoked it, or hoped for it, had come +indeed; and a considerable portion of English society learned what it +was to be novices in a religious system, hitherto not only alien and +unknown, but dreaded, or else to have lost friends and relatives, who +were suddenly transformed into severe and uncompromising opponents, +speaking in unfamiliar terms, and sharply estranged in sympathies and +rules of life. Some of them, especially those who had caught the spirit +of their leader, began life anew, took their position as humble learners +in the Roman Schools, and made the most absolute sacrifice of a whole +lifetime that a man can make. To others the change came and was accepted +as an emancipation, not only from the bonds of Anglicanism, but from the +obligations of orders and priestly vows and devotion. In some cases, +where they were married, there was no help for it. But in almost all +cases there was a great surrender of what English life has to offer to +those brought up in it. Of the defeated party, those who remained had +much to think about, between grief at the breaking of old ties, and the +loss of dear friends, and perplexities about their own position. The +anxiety, the sorrow at differing and parting, seem now almost +extravagant and unintelligible. There are those who sneer at the +"distress" of that time. There had not been the same suffering, the same +estrangement, when Churchmen turned dissenters, like Bulteel and Baptist +Noel. But the movement had raised the whole scale of feeling about +religious matters so high, the questions were felt to be so momentous, +the stake and the issue so precious, the "Loss and Gain" so immense, +that to differ on such subjects was the differing on the greatest things +which men could differ about. But in a time of distress, of which few +analogous situations in our days can give the measure, the leaders stood +firm. Dr. Pusey, Mr. Keble, Mr. Marriott accepted, with unshaken faith +in the cause of the English Church, the terrible separation. They +submitted to the blow--submitted to the reproach of having been +associates of those who had betrayed hopes and done so much mischief; +submitted to the charge of inconsistency, insincerity, cowardice; but +they did not flinch. Their unshrinking attitude was a new point of +departure for those who believed in the Catholic foundation of the +English Church. + +Among those deeply affected by these changes, there were many who had +been absolutely uninfluenced by the strong Roman current. They had +recognised many good things in the Roman Church; they were fully alive +to many shortcomings in the English Church; but the possibility of +submission to the Roman claims had never been a question with them. A +typical example of such minds was Mr. Isaac Williams, a pupil of Mr. +Keble, an intimate friend of Mr. Newman, a man of simple and saintly +life, with heart and soul steeped in the ancient theology of undivided +Christendom, and for that very reason untempted by the newer principles +and fashions of Rome. There were numbers who thought like him; but there +were others also, who were forced in afresh upon themselves, and who had +to ask themselves why they stayed, when a teacher, to whom they had +looked up as they had to Mr. Newman, and into whose confidence they had +been admitted, thought it his duty to go. With some the ultimate, though +delayed, decision was to follow him. With others, the old and fair +_proejudicium_ against the claims of Rome, which had always asserted +itself even against the stringent logic of Mr. Ward and the deep and +subtle ideas of Mr. Newman, became, when closed with, and tested face to +face in the light of fact and history, the settled conviction of life. +Some extracts from contemporary papers, real records of the private +perplexities and troubles actually felt at the time, may illustrate what +was passing in the minds of some whom knowledge and love of Mr. Newman +failed to make his followers in his ultimate step. The first extract +belongs to some years before, but it is part of the same train of +thinking.[124] + + As to myself, I am getting into a very unsettled state as to aims and + prospects. I mean that as things are going on, a man does not know + where he is going to; one cannot imagine what state of things to look + forward to; in what way, and under what circumstances, one's coming + life--if it does come--is to be spent; what is to become of one. I + cannot at all imagine myself a convert; but how am I likely, in the + probable state of things, to be able to serve as an English clergyman? + Shall I ever get Priest's orders? Shall I be able to continue always + serving? What is one's line to be; what ought to be one's aims; or can + one have any? + + The storm is not yet come: how it may come, and how soon it may blow + over, and what it may leave behind, is doubtful; but some sort of + crisis, I think, must come before things settle. With the Bishops + against us, and Puritanism aggressive, we may see strange things + before the end. + +When the "storm" had at length come, though, before its final violence, +the same writer continues: + + The present hopeless check and weight to our party--what has for the + time absolutely crushed us--is the total loss of confidence arising + from the strong tendency, no longer to be dissembled or explained + away, among many of us to Rome. I see no chance of our recovery, or + getting our heads above water from this, at least in England, for + years to come. And it is a check which will one day be far greater + than it is now. Under the circumstances--having not the most distant + thought of leaving the English Church myself, and yet having no means + of escaping the very natural suspicion of Romanising without giving up + my best friends and the most saint-like men in England--how am I to + view my position? What am I witnessing to? What, if need be, is one to + suffer for? A man has no leaning towards Rome, does not feel, as + others do, the strength of her exclusive claims to allegiance, the + perfection of her system, its right so to overbalance all the good + found in ours as to make ours absolutely untrustworthy for a Christian + to rest in, notwithstanding all circumstances of habit, position, and + national character; has such doubts on the Roman theory of the + Church, the Ultramontane, and such instincts not only against many of + their popular religious customs and practical ways of going on, but + against their principles of belief (_e.g._ divine faith = relics), as + to repel him from any wish to sacrifice his own communion for theirs; + yet withal, and without any great right on his part to complain, is + set down as a man who may any day, and certainly will some day, go + over; and he has no lawful means of removing the suspicion:--why is it + _tanti_ to submit to this? + + However little sympathy we Englishmen have with Rome, the Western + Churches under Rome are really living and holy branches of the Church + Catholic; corruptions they may have, so may we; but putting these + aside, they are Catholic Christians, or Catholic Christianity has + failed out of the world: we are no more [Catholic] than they. But + this, _public opinion_ has not for centuries, and _does not now_, + realise or allow. So no one can express in reality and detail a + practical belief in their Catholicity, in their equality (setting one + thing against another) with us as Christians, without being suspected + of what such belief continually leads to--disloyalty to the English + Church. Yet such belief is nevertheless well-grounded and right, and + there is no great hope for the Church till it gains ground, soberly, + powerfully, and apart from all low views of proselytising, or fear of + danger. What therefore the disadvantage of those among us who do not + really deserve the imputation of Romanising may be meant for, is to + break this practical belief to the English Church. We may be silenced, + but, without any wish to leave the English Church, we cannot give up + the belief, that the Western Church under Rome is a true, living, + venerable branch of the Christian Church. There are dangers in such a + belief, but they must be provided against, they do not affect the + truth of the belief. + +Such searchings of heart were necessarily rendered more severe and acute +by Mr. Newman's act. There was no longer any respite; his dearest +friends must choose between him and the English Church. And the choice +was made, by those who did not follow him, on a principle little +honoured or believed in at the time on either side, Roman or +Protestant; but a principle which in the long-run restored hope and +energy to a cause which was supposed to be lost. It was not the revival +of the old _Via Media_; it was not the assertion of the superiority of +the English Church; it was not a return to the old-fashioned and +ungenerous methods of controversy with Rome--one-sided in all cases, +ignorant, coarse, unchristian in many. It was not the proposal of a new +theory of the Church--its functions, authority and teaching, a +counter-ideal to Mr. Ward's imposing _Ideal_ It was the resolute and +serious appeal from brilliant logic, and keen sarcasm, and pathetic and +impressive eloquence, to reality and experience, as well as to history, +as to the positive and substantial characteristics of the traditional +and actually existing English Church, shown not on paper but in work, +and in spite of contradictory appearances and inconsistent elements; and +along with this, an attempt to put in a fair and just light the +comparative excellences and defects of other parts of Christendom, +excellences to be ungrudgingly admitted, but not to be allowed to bar +the recognition of defects. The feeling which had often stirred, even +when things looked at the worst, that Mr. Newman had dealt unequally and +hardly with the English Church, returned with gathered strength. The +English Church was after all as well worth living in and fighting for as +any other; it was not only in England that light and dark, in teaching +and in life, were largely intermingled, and the mixture had to be +largely allowed for. We had our Sparta, a noble, if a rough and an +incomplete one; patiently to do our best for it was better than leaving +it to its fate, in obedience to signs and reasonings which the heat of +strife might well make delusive. It was one hopeful token, that boasting +had to be put away from us for a long time to come. In these days of +stress and sorrow were laid the beginnings of a school, whose main +purpose was to see things as they are; which had learned by experience +to distrust unqualified admiration and unqualified disparagement; +determined not to be blinded even by genius to plain certainties; not +afraid to honour all that is great and beneficent in Rome, not afraid +with English frankness to criticise freely at home; but not to be won +over, in one case, by the good things, to condone and accept the bad +things; and not deterred, in the other, from service, from love, from +self-sacrifice, by the presence of much to regret and to resist. + +All this new sense of independence, arising from the sense of having +been left almost desolate by the disappearance of a great stay and light +in men's daily life, led to various and different results. In some +minds, after a certain trial, it actually led men back to that Romeward +tendency from which they had at first recoiled. In others, the break-up +of the movement under such a chief led them on, more or less, and some +very far, into a career of speculative Liberalism like that of Mr. +Blanco White, the publication of whose biography coincided with Mr. +Newman's change. In many others, especially in London and the towns, it +led to new and increasing efforts to popularise in various ways--through +preaching, organisation, greater attention to the meaning, the +solemnities, and the fitnesses of worship--the ideas of the Church +movement. Dr. Pusey and Mr. Keble were still the recognised chiefs of +the continued yet remodelled movement. It had its quarterly organ, the +_Christian Remembrancer_, which had taken the place of the old _British +Critic_ in the autumn of 1844. A number of able Cambridge men had thrown +their knowledge and thoroughness of work into the _Ecclesiologist_. +There were newspapers--the _English Churchman_, and, starting in 1846 +from small and difficult beginnings, in the face of long discouragement +and at times despair, the _Guardian_. One mind of great and rare power, +though only recognised for what he was much later in his life, one +undaunted heart, undismayed, almost undepressed, so that those who knew +not its inner fires thought him cold and stoical, had lifted itself +above the wreck at Oxford. The shock which had cowed and almost crushed +some of Mr. Newman's friends roused and fired Mr. James Mozley. + + To take leave of Mr. Newman (he writes on the morrow of the event) is + a heavy task. His step was not unforeseen; but when it is come those + who knew him feel the fact as a real change within them--feel as if + they were entering upon a fresh stage of their own life. May that very + change turn to their profit, and discipline them by its hardness! It + may do so if they will use it so. Let nobody complain; a time must + come, sooner or later, in every one's life, when he has to part with + advantages, connexions, supports, consolations, that he has had + hitherto, and face a new state of things. Every one knows that he is + not always to have all that he has now: he says to himself, "What + shall I do when this or that stay, or connexion, is gone?" and the + answer is, "That he will do without it." ... The time comes when this + is taken away; and then the mind is left alone, and is thrown back + upon itself, as the expression is. But no religious mind tolerates the + notion of being really thrown upon itself; this is only to say in + other words, that it is thrown back upon God.... Secret mental + consolations, whether of innocent self-flattery or reposing + confidence, are over; a more real and graver life begins--a firmer, + harder disinterestedness, able to go on its course by itself. Let them + see in the change a call to greater earnestness, sincerer simplicity, + and more solid manliness. What were weaknesses before will be sins + now.[125] + +"A new stage has begun. Let no one complain":--this, the expression of +individual feeling, represents pretty accurately the temper into which +the Church party settled when the first shock was over. They knew that +henceforward they had difficult times before them. They knew that they +must work under suspicion, even under proscription. They knew that they +must expect to see men among themselves perplexed, unsettled, swept away +by the influences which had affected Mr. Newman, and still more by the +precedent of his example. They knew that they must be prepared to lose +friends and fellow-helpers, and to lose them sometimes unexpectedly and +suddenly, as the wont was so often at this time. Above all, they knew +that they had a new form of antagonism to reckon with, harder than any +they had yet encountered. It had the peculiar sad bitterness which +belongs to civil war, when men's foes are they of their own +households--the bitterness arising out of interrupted intimacy and +affection. Neither side could be held blameless; the charge from the one +of betrayal and desertion was answered by the charge from the other of +insincerity and faithlessness to conscience, and by natural but not +always very fair attempts to proselytise; and undoubtedly, the English +Church, and those who adhered to it, had, for some years after 1845, to +hear from the lips of old friends the most cruel and merciless +invectives which knowledge of her weak points, wit, argumentative power, +eloquence, and the triumphant exultation at once of deliverance and +superiority could frame. It was such writing and such preaching as had +certainly never been seen on the Roman side before, at least in England. +Whether it was adapted to its professed purpose may perhaps be doubted; +but the men who went certainly lost none of their vigour as +controversialists or their culture as scholars. Not to speak of Mr. +Newman, such men as Mr. Oakeley, Mr. Ward, Mr. Faber, and Mr. Dalgairns +more than fulfilled in the great world of London their reputation at +Oxford. This was all in prospect before the eyes of those who had +elected to cast in their lot with the English Church. It was not an +encouraging position. The old enthusiastic sanguineness had been +effectually quenched. Their Liberal critics and their Liberal friends +have hardly yet ceased to remind them how sorry a figure they cut in the +eyes of men of the world, and in the eyes of men of bold and effective +thinking.[126] The "poor Puseyites" are spoken of in tones half of pity +and half of sneer. Their part seemed played out. There seemed nothing +more to make them of importance. They had not succeeded in Catholicising +the English Church, they had not even shaken it by a wide secession. +Henceforth they were only marked men. All that could be said for them +was, that at the worst, they did not lose heart. They had not forgotten +the lessons of their earlier time. + +It is not my purpose to pursue farther the course of the movement. All +the world knows that it was not, in fact, killed or even much arrested +by the shock of 1845. But after 1845, its field was at least as much out +of Oxford as in it. As long as Mr. Newman remained, Oxford was +necessarily its centre, necessarily, even after he had seemed to +withdraw from it. When he left his place vacant, the direction of it was +not removed from Oxford, but it was largely shared by men in London and +the country. It ceased to be strongly and prominently Academical. No +one in deed held such a position as Dr. Pusey's and Mr. Keble's; but +though Dr. Pusey continued to be a great power at Oxford, he now became +every day a much greater power outside of it; while Mr. Keble was now +less than ever an Academic, and became more and more closely connected +with men out of Oxford, his friends in London and his neighbours at +Hursley and Winchester. The cause which Mr. Newman had given up in +despair was found to be deeply interesting in ever new parts of the +country: and it passed gradually into the hands of new leaders more +widely acquainted with English society. It passed into the hands of the +Wilberforces, and Archdeacon Manning; of Mr. Bennett, Mr. Dodsworth, Mr. +W. Scott, Dr. Irons, Mr. E. Hawkins, and Mr. Upton Richards in London. +It had the sympathy and counsels of men of weight, or men who were +rising into eminence and importance--some of the Judges, Mr. Gladstone, +Mr. Roundell Palmer, Mr. Frederic Rogers, Mr. Mountague Bernard, Mr. +Hope Scott (as he afterwards was), Mr. Badeley, and a brilliant recruit +from Cambridge, Mr. Beresford Hope. It attracted the sympathy of another +boast of Cambridge, the great Bishop of New Zealand, and his friend Mr. +Whytehead. Those times were the link between what we are now, so changed +in many ways, and the original impulse given at Oxford; but to those +times I am as much of an outsider as most of the foremost in them were +outsiders to Oxford in the earlier days. Those times are almost more +important than the history of the movement; for, besides vindicating it, +they carried on its work to achievements and successes which, even in +the most sanguine days of "Tractarianism," had not presented themselves +to men's minds, much less to their hopes. But that story must be told by +others. + +"Show thy servants thy work, and their children thy glory." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[124] Compare Mozley's _Reminiscences_, ii. 1-3. + +[125] _Christian Remembrancer_, January 1846, pp. 167, 168. + +[126] _E.g._ the Warden of Merton's _History of the University of +Oxford,_ p. 212. "The first panic was succeeded by a reaction; some +devoted adherents followed him (Mr. Newman) to Rome; others relapsed +into lifeless conformity; and the University soon resumed its wonted +tranquillity." "_Lifeless_ conformity" sounds odd connected with Dr. +Pusey or Mr. J.B. Mozley, and the London men who were the founders of +the so-called Ritualist schools. + + + + +INDEX + + +Addresses to Archbishop of Canterbury, by clergy and laity +Anglicanism, its features in 1830 + Newman's views on + Newman's interpretation of +_Apologia_, quotations from +Apostolic Succession + Newman's insistence on + its foundation on Prayer Book +Apostolitity of English Church +Archbishop of Canterbury. _See_ Addresses, and Howley +_Arians_, the +Arnold, Dr., theories on the Church + his proposal to unite all sects by law + attack on Tractarians + Professorship at Oxford + his influence shown in rise of third school +Articles, the, and Dissenters + subscription of. _See_ Dr. Hampden, and Thirty-nine Articles + +Baptism, Tract on +_Baptistery_, the +Bennett, Mr. +Bentham. _see_ Utilitarianism +Bernard, Mr. Mountague +Bishoprics, suppression of ten Irish +Bishops' attitude to movement + the first Tract on +Blachford, Lord, reminiscences of Froude +Bliss, James +Blomfield, Bishop +British Association, a sign of the times +_British Critic_ on the movement +_British Magazine_ +Brougham, Lord +Bunsen, M., and the Bishopric of Jerusalem +Burton, Dr. + +Cambridge, critical school of theology +Capes, Mr. +Cardwell, Dr. +Catastrophe, the +Catholicity of English Church +_Catholicus's_ letters to the _Times_ +Celibacy, observations on +Celibate clergy scheme +Changes in movement +_Christian Remembrancer_ +_Christian Year_ +Christianity, Church of England, two schools of +Christie, Albany +Christie, J.F. +Church, the, in eighteenth century + Dr. Whately's theories on + Dr. Arnold's theories + Coleridge's theories + Apostolic origin of + various conceptions of + political attacks on + public mind indifferent to + Dr. Pusey's theories on + theological aspect of + practical aspect of + and the Roman question + Catholicity of + and the doctrine of Development +_Church of the Fathers_ +"Churchman's Manual" + Scotch Bishops on +Churton, Mr. (of Crayke) +Claughton, Mr. Piers +Clergy of eighteenth century, character of +Close, Dr. (of Cheltenham) +Coffin, Mr. +Coleridge, Mr. Justice +Coleridge, S.T., influence on Charles Marriott + Church theories +_Conservative Journal_, Newman's language towards Rome +Copeland, William John +Cornish, C.L. +Creeds, the, pamphlets on + authority of + +Dalgairns, Mr. +Defeats, the Three, 312-335. _See also_ Isaac Williams, + Macmullen, and Pusey +Dickinson, Dr., "Pastoral Epistle from his Holiness the Pope" +Diffusion of Useful Knowledge Society +Dissenters and the Articles. _See also_ Thirty-nine Articles +Dodsworth, Mr. +Dominic, Father, receives Newman into Church of Rome +Donkin, Mr. +Doyle, Sir F., on Newman's sermons + +_Ecclesiologist_ founded +Eden, C.P. +_Edinburgh Review_, article by Dr. Arnold on Tractarians +"Elucidations of Dr. Hampden's Theological Statements" +_English Churchman_ founded +Evangelicism in 1830, character of + +Faber, Francis +Faber, Frederic +Fasting, Tract on +Faussett, Dr. + attack on Dr. Pusey +Froude, Richard Hurrell + pupil of Keble + Fellow of Oriel + first meeting with Newman + early estimate of Newman + travels with Newman + influence on the movement + his severe self-discipline + character + Mozley's remarks on + correspondence + his _Remains_ published + effect of publication + a modern estimate of the _Remains_ + events of 1830 + theory of the Church + sermons and writings + Lord Blachford's reminiscences of +Froude, William + +Garbett, Mr., elected Professor of Poetry +Gilbert, Dr. +Gladstone, Mr. +Golightly, Mr. +Gorham, Mr. +_Grammar of Assent_ on Faith and Reason +Greenhill, Dr. +_Guardian_ founded +Guillemard, Mr. + +Haddan, A. +Hadleigh, Conference of leaders at + policy adopted +Hampden, Dr. + advocates abolition of subscription of Articles + his election as Professor of Divinity + outcry against election of + Bampton Lectures + so-called "persecution" of + modern estimate of the "persecution" + deprived of vote for Select Preachers + his action in the B.D. degree contest +Hare, Julius +Hawkins, Dr. +Hawkins, E. +Hill, Mr. +Hobhouse, Mr. +Holland House +"Home Thoughts Abroad" +Hook, Dr. +Hope, Mr. Beresford +Howley, Archbishop +Hussey, Mr. + +_Ideal of a Christian Church_, _See_ W.G. Ward +Infallibility, views on +Irons, Dr. + +Jebb, Bishop +Jelf, Dr. +Jenkyns, Dr. +Jerusalem, Bishopric of +Jerusalem, Bishopric of, Newman's protest against +Jolly, Bishop +Jowett, Mr. + +Kaye, Bishop +Keble, John + brilliant Oxford career + suspicions of Evangelicism + a strong Tory + his poetic nature + influence on Froude + his pupils + sermon on _National Apostasy_ + tract on "Mysticism of the Fathers" + resigns Poetry Professorship +Keble, Thomas +Knox, Alexander + +Law's _Serious Call_, Keble's remark on +Le Bas, Mr. +_Lectures on Justification_, Newman's, influence of +_Letter to the Bishop of Oxford_, Newman's +Letters of an Episcopalian +Lewis, D. +_Library of the Fathers_ +Lloyd's, Bishop, Lectures, influence of +Lowe, R. +Lyall, Mr. +_Lyra Apostolica_ + +Macmullen, Mr. + his contest on B.D. degree +Manning, Archdeacon +Marriott, Charles + influenced by Coleridge and Dr. Hampden + aversion to party action + Scholar of Balliol + Fellow of Oriel + Newman's influence on + Moberly's influence on + Principal of Chichester Theological College + scheme of poor students' hall + Tutor of Oriel + Vicar of St. Mary's + his sermons + rooms and parties + share in _Library of the Fathers_ + Mozley's estimate of + death +Marsh, Bishop +"Martyrs' Memorial," connexion with the movement +Maurice, F.D., views of +Melbourne, Lord +Meyrick, T. +Miller, John (of Worcester), Bampton Lectures, influence of +Moberly, Dr. (of Winchester) +Monophysite Controversy +Morris, John Brande +Mozley, James + on Newman's sermons + on "No. 90" +Mozley, Thomas + on Charles Marriott + on Froude +"Mysticism of the Fathers in the use and interpretation of Scripture," + Keble's Tract on + +National Apostasy, Keble's sermon on +Newman, John Henry-- + his early preaching + meeting with Froude + Froude's early estimate of + on Apostolic Succession, _q.v._ + on Infallibility + attitude at different times to Rome + early friends + first Tract, written by + his four o'clock sermons + chief coadjutors of + views on subscription of Articles + on Dr. Hampden's theology + character + Lectures + _Lectures on Justification_ + Anglicanism, views on + resigns St. Mary's + not a proselytiser + _Letter to Bishop of Oxford_ + interpretation of Church formularies + on the Articles, _See_ "No. 90" + _Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine_ + joins Church of Rome +Nicknames +"No. 90" + Newman's attitude on + object to defend Catholicity of the Articles + its reception + charge of dishonesty against + condemned by Board of Heads + pamphlet war on + the crisis of the movement + events after + +Oakeley, Mr. + article on "Jewel" +Ogilvie, Dr. +Ordination, validity of +_Origines Liturgicae_ +Oxford, Liberal School of Theology + Orthodoxy + as a Church School +Oxford Movement-- + political conditions of + beginnings of + Keble the primary author of + early writings towards + the leaders + forced on the originators + object of + accession of Dr. Pusey and his influence + gradual growth of + attitude to Romanism + changes in + tendency to Romanism + in origin anti-Roman + attitude of University authorities towards + attitude of Bishops towards + mistakes in conduct of +Oxford Movement-- + rise of third school + secessions to Rome + +Palmer, William, share in movement + _Origines Liturgicae_ + _Narrative_ + _Treatise on the Church of Christ_ +Palmer, Mr. Roundell +Park, Judge Allan +_Parochial Sermons_ +Pattison, Mark +Peel, Sir Robert +Perceval, A., share in movement +Phillpotts, Bishop +_Plain Sermons_ +Poetry Professorship, contest for, made a theological one +_Prophetical Office of the Church_ +"Prospects of the Anglican Church" + Newman's after-thoughts on +Pusey, Dr. + joins the movement + effect of his adhesion + his _Remonstrance_ + tract on Baptism + attack on him + sermon on the Holy Eucharist "delated" to Vice-Chancellor + unfairness of proceedings against + memorial to Vice-Chancellor, on his case + +"Records of the Church" +Reform days, state of Church +Reformers, early, views of +_Remonstrance_ +"Reserve in communicating Religious Knowledge," Isaac + Williams's tract on +Richards, Mr. Upton +Rogers, Frederic +_Romanism and Popular Protestantism_ +Romanism + misconceptions of + Newman's attitude towards + tendency in party of movement towards +Rose, Hugh James + an estimate of + lectures on German speculation + controversy with Dr. Pusey + early death +Routh, Dr. +_Rusticus_, pamphlets by +Ryder, G. + +St. John, Mr. Ambrose +Scott, Mr. Hope +Scott, W. +Seager, Charles +Selwyn, Bishop +Sewell, William +Shairp, Principal, on Newman's sermons +Sikes, Mr. (of Guilsborough) +Simpson, Mr. +Stanley, Mr. Arthur +Sterling, John +Subscription. _See_ Thirty-nine Articles +Sumner, J. Bird, Bishop +Symons, Dr. + opposition to, as Vice-Chancellor + +Tait, Mr. (of Balliol) +Theologians of 1830 +Third party in Church-- + rise of + influence +Thirlwall, Connop +Thirty-nine Articles, subscription of + Dr. Hampden and subscription + pamphlet war on subscription + Newman on subscription + their Catholicity + _And see_ W.G. Ward "No. 90" on +Thomas, Vaughan +_Times_, letters of _Catholicus_ to +Tottenham, E. +Tractarian doctrines, discussion of + Movement. _See_ Oxford +Tractarians, excitement against +Tract, text of the first +Tracts, the-- + topics of + mode of circulating + reception of + accused of Romanism + first volume of + later numbers, character of + public opinion against + "No. 90," _q.v._ + contributors to + on "Reserve," _q.v._ + on "Mysticism," _q.v._ +_Treatise on the Church of Christ_ + +Utilitarianism, influence on religious belief + +_Via Media_ + +Wall, Mr. +Ward, W.G. + dismissed from Balliol Lectureship + writings on Romanism + his criticisms of English Church + _Ideal of a Christian Church_ + on "No. 90" + on the Articles + hostility to Lutheranism + his philosophy of religion + his book condemned + himself "degraded" + joins Church of Rome +Watson, Joshua +Wellington, Duke of +Whately, Dr.-- + theories on Church + opposed to Tractarians + _Letters of an Episcopalian_ +White, Blanco +Whytehead, Mr. +Wilberforce, Henry +Wilberforce, Robert +Williams, Isaac +Williams, Isaac, Keble's influence on + Fellow of Trinity + connexion with Newman + divergences from Newman + contributions to _Plain Sermons_ + aversion to Rome + his poetry + defeated for Poetry Professorship + Tract on "Reserve" +Wilson, H.B. +Wilson, R.F. +Wiseman, Dr. + article on Donatists +Wood, S.F. +Woodgate, Mr. +Wordsworth, Dr. +Wynter, Dr. + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Oxford Movement, by R.W. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/12092-0.zip b/old/12092-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c5de0d2 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12092-0.zip diff --git a/old/12092-8.txt b/old/12092-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1ed8b17 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12092-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10766 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Oxford Movement, by R.W. Church + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Oxford Movement + Twelve Years, 1833-1845 + +Author: R.W. Church + +Release Date: April 20, 2004 [EBook #12092] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OXFORD MOVEMENT *** + + + + +Produced by PG Distributed Proofreaders. Produced from images provided +by the Million Book Project. + + + + + + + + + + + +THE OXFORD MOVEMENT + +TWELVE YEARS 1833-1845 + +R.W. CHURCH, M.A., D.C.L. + +SOMETIME DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S AND FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD + + + + +ADVERTISEMENT + + +The revision of these papers was a task to which the late Dean of St. +Paul's gave all the work he could during the last months of his life. At +the time of his death, fourteen of the papers had, so far as can be +judged, received the form in which he wished them to be published; and +these, of course, are printed here exactly as he left them. One more he +had all but prepared for publication; the last four were mainly in the +condition in which, six years ago, he had them privately put into type, +for the convenience of his own further work upon them, and for the +reading of two or three intimate friends. Those into whose care his work +has now come have tried, with the help of his pencilled notes, to bring +these four papers as nearly as they can into the form which they believe +he would have had them take. But it has seemed better to leave unaltered +a sentence here and there to which he might have given a more perfect +shape, rather than to run the risk of swerving from the thought which +was in his mind. + +It is possible that the Dean would have made considerable changes in +the preface which is here printed; for only that which seems the first +draft of it has been found. But even thus it serves to show his wish and +purpose for the work he had in hand; and it has therefore been thought +best to publish it. Leave has been obtained to add here some fragments +from a letter which, three years ago, he wrote to Lord Acton about these +papers: + +"If I ever publish them, I must say distinctly what I want to do, which +is, not to pretend to write a history of the movement, or to account for +it or adequately to judge it and put it in its due place in relation to +the religious and philosophical history of the time, but simply to +preserve a contemporary memorial of what seems to me to have been a true +and noble effort which passed before my eyes, a short scene of religious +earnestness and aspiration, with all that was in it of self-devotion, +affectionateness, and high and refined and varied character, displayed +under circumstances which are scarcely intelligible to men of the +present time; so enormous have been the changes in what was assumed and +acted upon, and thought practicable and reasonable, 'fifty years since.' +For their time and opportunities, the men of the movement, with all +their imperfect equipment and their mistakes, still seem to me the salt +of their generation.... I wish to leave behind me a record that one who +lived with them, and lived long beyond most of them, believed in the +reality of their goodness and height of character, and still looks back +with deepest reverence to those forgotten men as the companions to whose +teaching and example he owes an infinite debt, and not he only, but +religious society in England of all kinds." + +_January_ 31st, 1891. + + + + +PREFACE + + +The following pages relate to that stage in the Church revival of this +century which is familiarly known as the Oxford Movement, or, to use its +nickname, the Tractarian Movement. Various side influences and +conditions affected it at its beginning and in its course; but the +impelling and governing force was, throughout the years with which these +pages are concerned, at Oxford. It was naturally and justly associated +with Oxford, from which it received some of its most marked +characteristics. Oxford men started it and guided it. At Oxford were +raised its first hopes, and Oxford was the scene of its first successes. +At Oxford were its deep disappointments, and its apparently fatal +defeat. And it won and lost, as a champion of English theology and +religion, a man of genius, whose name is among the illustrious names of +his age, a name which will always be connected with modern Oxford, and +is likely to be long remembered wherever the English language is +studied. + +We are sometimes told that enough has been written about the Oxford +Movement, and that the world is rather tired of the subject. A good deal +has certainly been both said and written about it, and more is probably +still to come; and it is true that other interests, more immediate or +more attractive, have thrown into the background what is severed from us +by the interval of half a century. Still that movement had a good deal +to do with what is going on in everyday life among us now; and feelings +both of hostility to it, and of sympathy with it, are still lively and +keen among those to whom religion is a serious subject, and even among +some who are neutral in the questions which it raised, but who find in +it a study of thought and character. I myself doubt whether the interest +of it is so exhausted as is sometimes assumed. If it is, these pages +will soon find their appropriate resting-place. But I venture to present +them, because, though a good many judgments upon the movement have been +put forth, they have come mostly from those who have been more or less +avowedly opposed to it.[1] The men of most account among those who were +attracted by it and represented it have, with one illustrious exception, +passed away. A survivor of the generation which it stirred so deeply may +not have much that is new to tell about it. He may not be able to affect +much the judgment which will finally be accepted about it. But the fact +is not unimportant, that a number of able and earnest men, men who both +intellectually and morally would have been counted at the moment as part +of the promise of the coming time, were fascinated and absorbed by it. +It turned and governed their lives, lifting them out of custom and +convention to efforts after something higher, something worthier of what +they were. It seemed worth while to exhibit the course of the movement +as it looked to these men--as it seemed to them viewed from the inside. +My excuse for adding to so much that has been already written is, that I +was familiar with many of the chief actors in the movement. And I do not +like that the remembrance of friends and associates, men of singular +purity of life and purpose, who raised the tone of living round them, +and by their example, if not by their ideas, recalled both Oxford and +the Church to a truer sense of their responsibilities, should, because +no one would take the trouble to put things on record, "pass away like a +dream." + +The following pages were, for the most part, written, and put into +printed shape, in 1884 and 1885. Since they were written, books have +appeared, some of them important ones, going over most of the same +ground; while yet more volumes may be expected. We have had ingenious +theories of the genesis of the movement, and the filiation of its ideas. +Attempts have been made to alter the proportions of the scene and of the +several parts played upon it, and to reduce the common estimate of the +weight and influence of some of the most prominent personages. The +point of view of those who have thus written is not mine, and they tell +their story (with a full right so to do) as I tell mine. But I do not +purpose to compare and adjust our respective accounts--to attack theirs, +or to defend my own. I have not gone through their books to find +statements to except to, or to qualify. The task would be a tiresome and +unprofitable one. I understand their point of view, though I do not +accept it. I do not doubt their good faith, and I hope that they will +allow mine. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] It is hardly necessary to say that these and the following words +were written before Dr. Newman's death, and the publication of his +letters. + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I +THE CHURCH IN THE REFORM DAYS + +CHAPTER II +THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVEMENT--JOHN KEBLE + +CHAPTER III +RICHARD HURRELL FROUDE + +CHAPTER IV +MR. NEWMAN'S EARLY FRIENDS--ISAAC WILLIAMS + +CHAPTER V +CHARLES MARRIOTT + +CHAPTER VI +THE OXFORD TRACTS + +CHAPTER VII +THE TRACTARIANS + +CHAPTER VIII +SUBSCRIPTION AT MATRICULATION AND ADMISSION OF DISSENTERS + +CHAPTER IX +DR. HAMPDEN + +CHAPTER X +GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT, 1835-1840 + +CHAPTER XI +THE ROMAN QUESTION + +CHAPTER XII +CHANGES + +CHAPTER XIII +THE AUTHORITIES AND THE MOVEMENT + +CHAPTER XIV +NO. 90 + +CHAPTER XV +AFTER NO. 90 + +CHAPTER XVI +THE THREE DEFEATS: ISAAC WILLIAMS, MACMULLEN, PUSEY + +CHAPTER XVII +W.G. WARD + +CHAPTER XVIII +THE IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH + +CHAPTER XIX +THE CATASTROPHE + + + + + +THE OXFORD MOVEMENT + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE CHURCH IN THE REFORM DAYS + + +What is called the Oxford or Tractarian movement began, without doubt, +in a vigorous effort for the immediate defence of the Church against +serious dangers, arising from the violent and threatening temper of the +days of the Reform Bill. It was one of several and widely differing +efforts. Viewed superficially it had its origin in the accident of an +urgent necessity.[2] The Church was really at the moment imperilled amid +the crude revolutionary projects of the Reform epoch;[3] and something +bolder and more effective than the ordinary apologies for the Church +was the call of the hour. The official leaders of the Church were almost +stunned and bewildered by the fierce outbreak of popular hostility. The +answers put forth on its behalf to the clamour for extensive and even +destructive change were the work of men surprised in a moment of +security. They scarcely recognised the difference between what was +indefensible and what must be fought for to the death; they mistook +subordinate or unimportant points for the key of their position: in +their compromises or in their resistance they wanted the guidance of +clear and adequate principles, and they were vacillating and +ineffective. But stronger and far-seeing minds perceived the need of a +broad and intelligible basis on which to maintain the cause of the +Church. For the air was full of new ideas; the temper of the time was +bold and enterprising. It was felt by men who looked forward, that to +hold their own they must have something more to show than custom or +alleged expediency--they must sound the depths of their own convictions, +and not be afraid to assert the claims of these convictions on men's +reason and imagination as well as on their associations and feelings. +The same dangers and necessities acted differently on different minds; +but among those who were awakened by them to the presence of a great +crisis were the first movers in what came to be known as the Tractarian +movement. The stir around them, the perils which seemed to threaten, +were a call to them to examine afresh the meaning of their familiar +words and professions. + +For the Church, as it had been in the quiet days of the eighteenth +century, was scarcely adapted to the needs of more stirring times. The +idea of clerical life had certainly sunk, both in fact and in the +popular estimate of it. The disproportion between the purposes for which +the Church with its ministry was founded and the actual tone of feeling +among those responsible for its service had become too great. Men were +afraid of principles; the one thing they most shrank from was the +suspicion of enthusiasm. Bishop Lavington wrote a book to hold up to +scorn the enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists; and what would have +seemed reasonable and natural in matters of religion and worship in the +age of Cranmer, in the age of Hooker, in the age of Andrewes, or in the +age of Ken, seemed extravagant in the age which reflected the spirit of +Tillotson and Secker, and even Porteus. The typical clergyman in English +pictures of the manners of the day, in the _Vicar of Wakefield,_ in Miss +Austen's novels, in Crabbe's _Parish Register,_ is represented, often +quite unsuspiciously, as a kindly and respectable person, but certainly +not alive to the greatness of his calling. He was often much, very much, +to the society round him. When communication was so difficult and +infrequent, he filled a place in the country life of England which no +one else could fill. He was often the patriarch of his parish, its +ruler, its doctor, its lawyer, its magistrate, as well as its teacher, +before whom vice trembled and rebellion dared not show itself. The idea +of the priest was not quite forgotten; but there was much--much even of +what was good and useful--to obscure it. The beauty of the English +Church in this time was its family life of purity and simplicity; its +blot was quiet worldliness. It has sometimes been the fashion in later +days of strife and disquiet to regret that unpretending estimate of +clerical duty and those easy-going days; as it has sometimes been the +fashion to regret the pomp and dignity with which well-born or scholarly +bishops, furnished with ample leisure and splendid revenues, presided in +unapproachable state over their clergy and held their own among the +great county families. Most things have a side for which something can +be said; and we may truthfully and thankfully recall that among the +clergy of those days there were not a few but many instances, not only +of gentle manners, and warm benevolence, and cultivated intelligence, +but of simple piety and holy life.[4] But the fortunes of the Church are +not safe in the hands of a clergy, of which a great part take their +obligations easily. It was slumbering and sleeping when the visitation +of days of change and trouble came upon it. + +Against this state of things the Oxford movement was a determined +revolt; but, as has been said, it was not the only one, nor the first. A +profound discontent at the state of religion in England had taken +possession of many powerful and serious minds in the generation which +was rising into manhood at the close of the first quarter of the +century; and others besides the leaders of the movement were feeling +their way to firmer ground. Other writers of very different principles, +and with different objects, had become alive, among other things, to the +importance of true ideas about the Church, impatient at the ignorance +and shallowness of the current views of it, and alarmed at the dangers +which menaced it. Two Oxford teachers who commanded much attention by +their force and boldness--Dr. Whately and Dr. Arnold--had developed +their theories about the nature, constitution, and functions of the +Church. They were dissatisfied with the general stagnation of religious +opinion, on this as on other subjects. They agreed in resenting the +unintelligent shortsightedness which relegated such a matter to a third +or fourth rank in the scale of religious teaching. They agreed also in +seizing the spiritual aspect of the Church, and in raising the idea of +it above the level of the poor and worldly conceptions on the assumption +of which questions relating to it were popularly discussed. But in their +fundamental principles they were far apart. I assume, on the authority +of Cardinal Newman, what was widely believed in Oxford, and never +apparently denied, that the volume entitled _Letters of an +Episcopalian_,[5] 1826, was, in some sense at least, the work of Dr. +Whately. In it is sketched forth the conception of an organised body, +introduced into the world by Christ Himself, endowed with definite +spiritual powers and with no other, and, whether connected with the +State or not, having an independent existence and inalienable claims, +with its own objects and laws, with its own moral standard and spirit +and character. From this book Cardinal Newman tells us that he learnt +his theory of the Church, though it was, after all, but the theory +received from the first appearance of Christian history; and he records +also the deep impression which it made on others. Dr. Arnold's view was +a much simpler one. He divided the world into Christians and +non-Christians: Christians were all who professed to believe in Christ +as a Divine Person and to worship Him,[6] and the brotherhood, the +"Societas" of Christians, was all that was meant by "the Church" in the +New Testament. It mattered, of course, to the conscience of each +Christian what he had made up his mind to believe, but to no one else. +Church organisation was, according to circumstances, partly inevitable +or expedient, partly mischievous, but in no case of divine authority. +Teaching, ministering the word, was a thing of divine appointment, but +not so the mode of exercising it, either as to persons, forms, or +methods. Sacraments there were, signs and pledges of divine love and +help, in every action of life, in every sight of nature, and eminently +two most touching ones, recommended to Christians by the Redeemer +Himself; but except as a matter of mere order, one man might deal with +these as lawfully as another. Church history there was, fruitful in +interest, instruction, and warning; for it was the record of the long +struggle of the true idea of the Church against the false, and of the +fatal disappearance of the true before the forces of blindness and +wickedness.[7] Dr. Arnold's was a passionate attempt to place the true +idea in the light. Of the difficulties of his theory he made light +account. There was the vivid central truth which glowed through his soul +and quickened all his thoughts. He became its champion and militant +apostle. These doctrines, combined with his strong political liberalism, +made the Midlands hot for Dr. Arnold. But he liked the fighting, as he +thought, against the narrow and frightened orthodoxy round him. And he +was in the thick of this fighting when another set of ideas about the +Church--the ideas on which alone it seemed to a number of earnest and +anxious minds that the cause of the Church could be maintained--the +ideas which were the beginning of the Oxford movement, crossed his path. +It was the old orthodox tradition of the Church, with fresh life put +into it, which he flattered himself that he had so triumphantly +demolished. This intrusion of a despised rival to his own teaching about +the Church--teaching in which he believed with deep and fervent +conviction--profoundly irritated him; all the more that it came from men +who had been among his friends, and who, he thought, should have known +better.[8] + +But neither Dr. Whately's nor Dr. Arnold's attempts to put the old +subject of the Church in a new light gained much hold on the public +mind. One was too abstract; the other too unhistorical and +revolutionary. Both in Oxford and in the country were men whose hearts +burned within them for something less speculative and vague, something +more reverent and less individual, more in sympathy with the inherited +spirit of the Church. It did not need much searching to find in the +facts and history of the Church ample evidence of principles distinct +and inspiring, which, however long latent, or overlaid by superficial +accretions, were as well fitted as they ever were to animate its +defenders in the struggle with the unfriendly opinion of the day. They +could not open their Prayer-Books, and think of what they read there, +without seeing that on the face of it the Church claimed to be something +very different from what it was assumed to be in the current +controversies of the time, very different from a mere institution of the +State, from a vague collection of Christian professions from one form +or denomination of religion among many, distinguished by larger +privileges and larger revenues. They could not help seeing that it +claimed an origin not short of the Apostles of Christ, and took for +granted that it was to speak and teach with their authority and that of +their Master. These were theological commonplaces; but now, the pressure +of events and of competing ideas made them to be felt as real and +momentous truths. Amid the confusions and inconsistencies of the +semi-political controversy on Church reform, and on the defects and +rights of the Church, which was going on in Parliament, in the press, +and in pamphlets, the deeper thoughts of those who were interested in +its fortunes were turned to what was intrinsic and characteristic in its +constitution: and while these thoughts in some instances only issued in +theory and argument, in others they led to practical resolves to act +upon them and enforce them. + +At the end of the first quarter of the century, say about 1825-30, two +characteristic forms of Church of England Christianity were popularly +recognised. One inherited the traditions of a learned and sober +Anglicanism, claiming as the authorities for its theology the great line +of English divines from Hooker to Waterland, finding its patterns of +devotion in Bishop Wilson, Bishop Horne, and the "Whole Duty of Man," +but not forgetful of Andrewes, Jeremy Taylor, and Ken,--preaching, +without passion or excitement, scholarlike, careful, wise, often +vigorously reasoned discourses on the capital points of faith and +morals, and exhibiting in its adherents, who were many and important, +all the varieties of a great and far-descended school, which claimed for +itself rightful possession of the ground which it held. There was +nothing effeminate about it, as there was nothing fanatical; there was +nothing extreme or foolish about it; it was a manly school, distrustful +of high-wrought feelings and professions, cultivating self-command and +shy of display, and setting up as its mark, in contrast to what seemed +to it sentimental weakness, a reasonable and serious idea of duty. The +divinity which it propounded, though it rested on learning, was rather +that of strong common sense than of the schools of erudition. Its better +members were highly cultivated, benevolent men, intolerant of +irregularities both of doctrine and life, whose lives were governed by +an unostentatious but solid and unfaltering piety, ready to burst forth +on occasion into fervid devotion. Its worse members were jobbers and +hunters after preferment, pluralists who built fortunes and endowed +families out of the Church, or country gentlemen in orders, who rode to +hounds and shot and danced and farmed, and often did worse things. Its +average was what naturally in England would be the average, in a state +of things in which great religious institutions have been for a long +time settled and unmolested--kindly, helpful, respectable, sociable +persons of good sense and character, workers rather in a fashion of +routine which no one thought of breaking, sometimes keeping up their +University learning, and apt to employ it in odd and not very profitable +inquiries; apt, too, to value themselves on their cheerfulness and quick +wit; but often dull and dogmatic and quarrelsome, often insufferably +pompous. The custom of daily service and even of fasting was kept up +more widely than is commonly supposed. The Eucharist, though sparingly +administered, and though it had been profaned by the operation of the +Test Acts, was approached by religious people with deep reverence. But +besides the better, and the worse, and the average members of this, +which called itself the Church party, there stood out a number of men of +active and original minds, who, starting from the traditions of the +party, were in advance of it in thought and knowledge, or in the desire +to carry principles into action. At the Universities learning was still +represented by distinguished names. At Oxford, Dr. Routh was still +living and at work, and Van Mildert was not forgotten. Bishop Lloyd, if +he had lived, would have played a considerable part; and a young man of +vast industry and great Oriental learning, Mr. Pusey, was coming on the +scene. Davison, in an age which had gone mad about the study of +prophecy, had taught a more intelligent and sober way of regarding it; +and Mr. John Miller's Bampton Lectures, now probably only remembered by +a striking sentence, quoted in a note to the _Christian Year,_[9] had +impressed his readers with a deeper sense of the uses of Scripture. +Cambridge, besides scholars like Bishop Kaye, and accomplished writers +like Mr. Le Bas and Mr. Lyall, could boast of Mr. Hugh James Rose, the +most eminent person of his generation as a divine. But the influence of +this learned theology was at the time not equal to its value. Sound +requires atmosphere; and there was as yet no atmosphere in the public +mind in which the voice of this theology could be heard. The person who +first gave body and force to Church theology, not to be mistaken or +ignored, was Dr. Hook. His massive and thorough Churchmanship was the +independent growth of his own thoughts and reading. Resolute, through +good report and evil report, rough but very generous, stern both against +Popery and Puritanism, he had become a power in the Midlands and the +North, and first Coventry, then Leeds, were the centres of a new +influence. He was the apostle of the Church to the great middle class. + +These were the orthodox Churchmen, whom their rivals, and not their +rivals only,[10] denounced as dry, unspiritual, formal, unevangelical, +self-righteous; teachers of mere morality at their best, allies and +servants of the world at their worst. In the party which at this time +had come to be looked upon popularly as best entitled to be the +_religious_ party, whether they were admired as Evangelicals, or abused +as Calvinists, or laughed at as the Saints, were inheritors not of +Anglican traditions, but of those which had grown up among the zealous +clergymen and laymen who had sympathised with the great Methodist +revival, and whose theology and life had been profoundly affected by it. +It was the second or third generation of those whose religious ideas had +been formed and governed by the influence of teachers like Hervey, +Romaine, Cecil, Venn, Fletcher, Newton, and Thomas Scott. The fathers of +the Evangelical school were men of naturally strong and vigorous +understandings, robust and rugged, and sometimes eccentric, but quite +able to cope with the controversialists, like Bishop Tomline, who +attacked them. These High Church controversialists were too half-hearted +and too shallow, and understood their own principles too imperfectly, to +be a match for antagonists who were in deadly earnest, and put them to +shame by their zeal and courage. But Newton and Romaine and the Milners +were too limited and narrow in their compass of ideas to found a +powerful theology. They undoubtedly often quickened conscience. But +their system was a one-sided and unnatural one, indeed in the hands of +some of its expounders threatening morality and soundness of +character.[11] It had none of the sweep which carried the justification +doctrines of Luther, or the systematic predestinarianism of Calvin, or +the "platform of discipline" of John Knox and the Puritans. It had to +deal with a society which laid stress on what was "reasonable," or +"polite," or "ingenious," or "genteel," and unconsciously it had come to +have respect to these requirements. The one thing by which its preachers +carried disciples with them was their undoubted and serious piety, and +their brave, though often fantastic and inconsistent, protest against +the world. They won consideration and belief by the mild persecution +which this protest brought on them--by being proscribed as enthusiasts +by comfortable dignitaries, and mocked as "Methodists" and "Saints" by +wits and worldlings. But the austere spirit of Newton and Thomas Scott +had, between 1820 and 1830, given way a good deal to the influence of +increasing popularity. The profession of Evangelical religion had been +made more than respectable by the adhesion of men of position and +weight. Preached in the pulpits of fashionable chapels, this religion +proved to be no more exacting than its "High and Dry" rival. It gave a +gentle stimulus to tempers which required to be excited by novelty. It +recommended itself by gifts of flowing words or high-pitched rhetoric to +those who expected _some_ demands to be made on them, so that these +demands were not too strict. Yet Evangelical religion had not been +unfruitful, especially in public results. It had led Howard and +Elizabeth Fry to assail the brutalities of the prisons. It had led +Clarkson and Wilberforce to overthrow the slave trade, and ultimately +slavery itself. It had created great Missionary Societies. It had given +motive and impetus to countless philanthropic schemes. What it failed in +was the education and development of character; and this was the result +of the increasing meagreness of its writing and preaching. There were +still Evangelical preachers of force and eloquence--Robert Hall, Edward +Irving, Chalmers, Jay of Bath--but they were not Churchmen. The circle +of themes dwelt on by this school in the Church was a contracted one, +and no one had found the way of enlarging it. It shrank, in its fear of +mere moralising, in its horror of the idea of merit or of the value of +good works, from coming into contact with the manifold realities of the +spirit of man: it never seemed to get beyond the "first beginnings" of +Christian teaching, the call to repent, the assurance of forgiveness: it +had nothing to say to the long and varied process of building up the new +life of truth and goodness: it was nervously afraid of departing from +the consecrated phrases of its school, and in the perpetual iteration of +them it lost hold of the meaning they may once have had. It too often +found its guarantee for faithfulness in jealous suspicions, and in +fierce bigotries, and at length it presented all the characteristics of +an exhausted teaching and a spent enthusiasm. Claiming to be exclusively +spiritual, fervent, unworldly, the sole announcer of the free grace of +God amid self-righteousness and sin, it had come, in fact, to be on very +easy terms with the world. Yet it kept its hold on numbers of +spiritually-minded persons, for in truth there seemed to be nothing +better for those who saw in the affections the main field of religion. +But even of these good men, the monotonous language sounded to all but +themselves inconceivably hollow and wearisome; and in the hands of the +average teachers of the school, the idea of religion was becoming poor +and thin and unreal. + +But besides these two great parties, each of them claiming to represent +the authentic and unchanging mind of the Church, there were independent +thinkers who took their place with neither and criticised both. Paley +had still his disciples at Cambridge, or if not disciples, yet +representatives of his masculine but not very profound and reverent way +of thinking; and a critical school, represented by names afterwards +famous, Connop Thirlwall and Julius Hare, strongly influenced by German +speculation, both in theology and history, began to attract attention. +And at Cambridge was growing, slowly and out of sight, a mind and an +influence which were to be at once the counterpart and the rival of the +Oxford movement, its ally for a short moment, and then its earnest and +often bitter enemy. In spite of the dominant teaching identified with +the name of Mr. Simeon, Frederic Maurice, with John Sterling and other +members of the Apostles' Club, was feeling for something truer and +nobler than the conventionalities of the religious world.[12] In Oxford, +mostly in a different way, more dry, more dialectical, and, perhaps it +may be said, more sober, definite, and ambitious of clearness, the same +spirit was at work. There was a certain drift towards Dissent among the +warmer spirits. Under the leading of Whately, questions were asked about +what was supposed to be beyond dispute with both Churchmen and +Evangelicals. Current phrases, the keynotes of many a sermon, were +fearlessly taken to pieces. Men were challenged to examine the meaning +of their words. They were cautioned or ridiculed as the case might be, +on the score of "confusion of thought" and "inaccuracy of mind"; they +were convicted of great logical sins, _ignoratio elenchi,_ or +_undistributed middle terms;_ and bold theories began to make their +appearance about religious principles and teaching, which did not easily +accommodate themselves to popular conceptions. In very different ways +and degrees, Davison, Copleston, Whately, Hawkins, Milman, and not +least, a brilliant naturalised Spaniard who sowed the seeds of doubt +around him, Blanco White, had broken through a number of accepted +opinions, and had presented some startling ideas to men who had thought +that all religious questions lay between the orthodoxy of Lambeth and +the orthodoxy of Clapham and Islington. And thus the foundation was +laid, at least, at Oxford of what was then called the Liberal School of +Theology. Its theories and paradoxes, then commonly associated with the +"_Noetic_" character of one college, Oriel, were thought startling and +venturesome when discussed in steady-going common-rooms and country +parsonages; but they were still cautious and old-fashioned compared +with what was to come after them. The distance is indeed great between +those early disturbers of lecture-rooms and University pulpits, and +their successors. + +While this was going on within the Church, there was a great movement of +thought going on in the country. It was the time when Bentham's +utilitarianism had at length made its way into prominence and +importance. It had gained a hold on a number of powerful minds in +society and political life. It was threatening to become the dominant +and popular philosophy. It began, in some ways beneficially, to affect +and even control legislation. It made desperate attempts to take +possession of the whole province of morals. It forced those who saw +through its mischief, who hated and feared it, to seek a reason, and a +solid and strong one, for the faith which was in them as to the reality +of conscience and the mysterious distinction between right and wrong. +And it entered into a close alliance with science, which was beginning +to assert its claims, since then risen so high, to a new and undefined +supremacy, not only in the general concerns of the world, but specially +in education. It was the day of Holland House. It was the time when a +Society of which Lord Brougham was the soul, and which comprised a great +number of important political and important scientific names, was +definitely formed for the _Diffusion of Useful Knowledge_. Their labours +are hardly remembered now in the great changes for which they paved the +way; but the Society was the means of getting written and of publishing +at a cheap rate a number of original and excellent books on science, +biography, and history. It was the time of the _Library of Useful +Knowledge,_ and its companion, the _Library of Entertaining Knowledge;_ +of the _Penny Magazine,_ and its Church rival, the _Saturday Magazine,_ +of the _Penny Cyclopaedia,_ and _Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia,_ and +_Murray's Family Library_: popular series, which contained much of the +work of the ablest men of the day, and which, though for the most part +superseded now, were full of interest then. Another creation of this +epoch, and an unmistakable indication of its tendencies, was the British +Association for the Advancement of Science, which met for the first time +at Oxford in June 1832, not without a good deal of jealousy and +misgiving, partly unreasonable, partly not unfounded, among men in whose +hearts the cause and fortunes of religion were supreme. + +Thus the time was ripe for great collisions of principles and aims; for +the decomposition of elements which had been hitherto united; for +sifting them out of their old combinations, and regrouping them +according to their more natural affinities. It was a time for the +formation and development of unexpected novelties in teaching and +practical effort. There was a great historic Church party, imperfectly +conscious of its position and responsibilities;[13] there was an active +but declining pietistic school, resting on a feeble intellectual basis +and narrow and meagre interpretations of Scripture, and strong only in +its circle of philanthropic work; there was, confronting both, a rising +body of inquisitive and, in some ways, menacing thought. To men deeply +interested in religion, the ground seemed confused and treacherous. +There was room, and there was a call, for new effort; but to find the +resources for it, it seemed necessary to cut down deep below the level +of what even good men accepted as the adequate expression of +Christianity, and its fit application to the conditions of the +nineteenth century. It came to pass that there were men who had the +heart to make this attempt. As was said at starting, the actual movement +began in the conviction that a great and sudden danger to the Church was +at hand, and that an unusual effort must be made to meet it. But if the +occasion was in a measure accidental, there was nothing haphazard or +tentative in the line chosen to encounter the danger. From the first it +was deliberately and distinctly taken. The choice of it was the result +of convictions which had been forming before the occasion came which +called on them. The religious ideas which governed the minds of those +who led the movement had been traced, in outline at least, firmly and +without faltering. + +The movement had its spring in the consciences and character of its +leaders. To these men religion really meant the most awful and most +seriously personal thing on earth. It had not only a theological basis; +it had still more deeply a moral one. What that basis was is shown in a +variety of indications of ethical temper and habits, before the +movement, in those who afterwards directed it. The _Christian Year_ was +published in 1827, and tells us distinctly by what kind of standard Mr. +Keble moulded his judgment and aims. What Mr. Keble's influence and +teaching did, in training an apt pupil to deep and severe views of truth +and duty, is to be seen in the records of purpose and self-discipline, +often so painful, but always so lofty and sincere, of Mr. Hurrell +Froude's journal. But these indications are most forcibly given in Mr. +Newman's earliest preaching. As tutor at Oriel, Mr. Newman had made what +efforts he could, sometimes disturbing to the authorities, to raise the +standard of conduct and feeling among his pupils. When he became a +parish priest, his preaching took a singularly practical and +plain-spoken character. The first sermon of the series, a typical +sermon, "Holiness necessary for future Blessedness," a sermon which has +made many readers grave when they laid it down, was written in 1826, +before he came to St. Mary's; and as he began he continued. No sermons, +except those which his great opposite, Dr. Arnold, was preaching at +Rugby, had appealed to conscience with such directness and force. A +passionate and sustained earnestness after a high moral rule, seriously +realised in conduct, is the dominant character of these sermons. They +showed the strong reaction against slackness of fibre in the religious +life; against the poverty, softness; restlessness, worldliness, the +blunted and impaired sense of truth, which reigned with little check in +the recognised fashions of professing Christianity; the want of depth +both of thought and feeling; the strange blindness to the real +sternness, nay the austerity, of the New Testament. Out of this ground +the movement grew. Even more than a theological reform, it was a protest +against the loose unreality of ordinary religious morality. In the first +stage of the movement, moral earnestness and enthusiasm gave its impulse +to theological interest and zeal. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] The suppression of the Irish bishoprics. Palmer, _Narrative_ (1883), +pp. 44, 101. Maurice, _Life_, i. 180. + +[3] "The Church, as it now stands, no human power can save" (Arnold to +Tyler, June 1832. _Life,_ i. 326). "Nothing, as it seems to me, can save +the Church but an union with the Dissenters; now they are leagued with +the antichristian party, and no merely internal reforms will satisfy +them" (Arnold to Whately, January 1833, i. 348). He afterwards thought +this exaggerated (_Life,_ i. 336). "The Church has been for one hundred +years without any government, and in such a stormy season it will not go +on much longer without a rudder" (Whately to Bp. Copleston, July 1832. +_Life_, i, 167). "If such an arrangement of the Executive Government is +completed, it will be a difficult, but great and glorious feat for your +Lordship's ministry to preserve the establishment from utter overthrow" +(Whately to Lord Grey, May 1832. _Life_, i. 156). It is remarkable that +Dean Stanley should have been satisfied with ascribing to the movement +an "origin _entirely political_" and should have seen a proof of this +"thoroughly political origin" in Newman's observing the date of Mr. +Keble's sermon "National Apostasy" as the birthday of the movement, +_Edin. Rev._ April 1880, pp. 309, 310. + +[4] Readers of Wordsworth will remember the account of Mr. R. Walker +(Notes to the "River Duddon"). + +[5] Compare _Life of Whately_ (ed. 1866), i. 52, 68. + +[6] Arnold to W. Smith, _Life_, i. 356-358; ii. 32. + +[7] _Life_, i. 225 _sqq_. + +[8] "I am vexed to find how much hopeless bigotry lingers in minds, +[Greek: ois haekista hechrae]" (Arnold to Whately, Sept. 1832. _Life,_ +i. 331; ii. 3-7). + +[9] St. Bartholomew's Day + +[10] "The mere barren orthodoxy which, from all that I can hear, is +characteristic of Oxford." Maurice in 1829 (_Life,_ i. 103). In 1832 he +speaks of his "high endeavours to rouse Oxford from its lethargy having +so signally failed" (i. 143). + +[11] Abbey and Overton, _English Church in the Eighteenth Century,_ ii. +180, 204. + +[12] _V._ Maurice, _Life,_ i. 108-111; Trench's _Letters;_ Carlyle's +_Sterling_. + +[13] "In what concerns the Established Church, the House of Commons +seems to feel no other principle than that of vulgar policy. The old +High Church race is worn out." Alex. Knox (June 1816), i. 54. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVEMENT--JOHN KEBLE + + +Long before the Oxford movement was thought of, or had any definite +shape, a number of its characteristic principles and ideas had taken +strong hold of the mind of a man of great ability and great seriousness, +who, after a brilliant career at Oxford as student and tutor, had +exchanged the University for a humble country cure. John Keble, by some +years the senior, but the college friend and intimate of Arnold, was the +son of a Gloucestershire country clergyman of strong character and +considerable scholarship. He taught and educated his two sons at home, +and then sent them to Oxford, where both of them made their mark, and +the elder, John, a mere boy when he first appeared at his college, +Corpus, carried off almost everything that the University could give in +the way of distinction. He won a double first; he won the Latin and +English Essays in the same year; and he won what was the still greater +honour of an Oriel Fellowship. His honours were borne with meekness and +simplicity; to his attainments he joined a temper of singular sweetness +and modesty, capable at the same time, when necessary, of austere +strength and strictness of principle. He had become one of the most +distinguished men in Oxford, when about the year 1823 he felt himself +bound to give himself more exclusively to the work of a clergyman, and +left Oxford to be his father's curate. There was nothing very unusual in +his way of life, or singular and showy in his work as a clergyman; he +went in and out among the poor, he was not averse to society, he +preached plain, unpretending, earnest sermons; he kept up his literary +interests. But he was a deeply convinced Churchman, finding his standard +and pattern of doctrine and devotion in the sober earnestness and +dignity of the Prayer Book, and looking with great and intelligent +dislike at the teaching and practical working of the more popular system +which, under the name of Evangelical Christianity, was aspiring to +dominate religious opinion, and which, often combining some of the most +questionable features of Methodism and Calvinism, denounced with fierce +intolerance everything that deviated from its formulas and watchwords. +And as his loyalty to the Church of England was profound and intense, +all who had shared her fortunes, good or bad, or who professed to serve +her, had a place in his affections; and any policy which threatened to +injure or oppress her, and any principles which were hostile to her +influence and teaching, roused his indignation and resistance. He was a +strong Tory, and by conviction and religious temper a thorough High +Churchman. + +But there was nothing in him to foreshadow the leader in a bold and +wide-reaching movement. He was absolutely without ambition. He hated +show and mistrusted excitement. The thought of preferment was steadily +put aside both from temper and definite principle. He had no popular +aptitudes, and was very suspicious of them. He had no care for the +possession of influence; he had deliberately chosen the _fallentis +semita vitae,_ and to be what his father had been, a faithful and +contented country parson, was all that he desired. But idleness was not +in his nature. Born a poet, steeped in all that is noblest and tenderest +and most beautiful in Greek and Roman literature, with the keenest +sympathy with that new school of poetry which, with Wordsworth as its +representative, was searching out the deeper relations between nature +and the human soul, he found in poetical composition a vent and relief +for feelings stirred by the marvels of glory and of awfulness, and by +the sorrows and blessings, amid which human life is passed. But his +poetry was for a long time only for himself and his intimate friends; +his indulgence in poetical composition was partly playful, and it was +not till after much hesitation on his own part and also on theirs, and +with a contemptuous undervaluing of his work, which continued to the end +of his life, that the anonymous little book of poems was published which +has since become familiar wherever English is read, as the _Christian +year_. His serious interests were public ones. Though living in the +shade, he followed with anxiety and increasing disquiet the changes +which went on so rapidly and so formidably, during the end of the first +quarter of this century, in opinion and in the possession of political +power. It became more and more plain that great changes were at hand, +though not so plain what they would be. It seemed likely that power +would come into the hands of men and parties hostile to the Church in +their principles, and ready to use to its prejudice the advantages which +its position as an establishment gave them; and the anticipation grew in +Keble's mind, that in the struggles which seemed likely, not only for +the legal rights but for the faith of the Church, the Church might have +both to claim more, and to suffer more, at the hands of Government. Yet +though these thoughts filled his mind, and strong things were said in +the intercourse with friends about what was going on about them, no +definite course of action had been even contemplated when Keble went +into the country in 1823. There was nothing to distinguish him from +numbers of able clergymen all over England, who were looking on with +interest, with anxiety, often with indignation, at what was going on. +Mr. Keble had not many friends and was no party chief. He was a +brilliant university scholar overlaying the plain, unworldly country +parson; an old-fashioned English Churchman, with great veneration for +the Church and its bishops, and a great dislike of Rome, Dissent, and +Methodism, but with a quick heart; with a frank, gay humility of soul, +with great contempt of appearances, great enjoyment of nature, great +unselfishness, strict and severe principles of morals and duty. + +What was it that turned him by degrees into so prominent and so +influential a person? It was the result of the action of his convictions +and ideas, and still more of his character, on the energetic and +fearless mind of a pupil and disciple, Richard Hurrell Froude. Froude +was Keble's pupil at Oriel, and when Keble left Oriel for his curacy at +the beginning of the Long Vacation of 1823, he took Froude with him to +read for his degree. He took with him ultimately two other pupils, +Robert Wilberforce and Isaac Williams of Trinity. One of them, Isaac +Williams, has left some reminiscences of the time, and of the terms on +which the young men were with their tutor, then one of the most famous +men at Oxford. They were on terms of the utmost freedom. "Master is the +greatest boy of them all," was the judgment of the rustic who was +gardener, groom, and parish clerk to Mr. Keble. Froude's was a keen +logical mind, not easily satisfied, contemptuous of compromises and +evasions, and disposed on occasion to be mischievous and aggressive; and +with Keble, as with anybody else, he was ready to dispute and try every +form of dialectical experiment. But he was open to higher influences +than those of logic, and in Keble he saw what subdued and won him to +boundless veneration and affection. Keble won the love of the whole +little society; but in Froude he had gained a disciple who was to be the +mouthpiece and champion of his ideas, and who was to react on himself +and carry him forward to larger enterprises and bolder resolutions than +by himself he would have thought of. Froude took in from Keble all he +had to communicate--principles, convictions, moral rules and standards +of life, hopes, fears, antipathies. And his keenly-tempered intellect, +and his determination and high courage, gave a point and an impulse of +their own to Keble's views and purposes. As things came to look darker, +and dangers seemed more serious to the Church, its faith or its rights, +the interchange of thought between master and disciple, in talk and in +letter, pointed more and more to the coming necessity of action; and +Froude at least had no objections to the business of an agitator. But +all this was very gradual; things did not yet go beyond discussion; +ideas, views, arguments were examined and compared; and Froude, with all +his dash, felt as Keble felt, that he had much to learn about himself, +as well as about books and things. In his respect for antiquity, in his +dislike of the novelties which were invading Church rules and +sentiments, as well as its creeds, in his jealousy of the State, as well +as in his seriousness of self-discipline, he accepted Keble's guidance +and influence more and more; and from Keble he had more than one lesson +of self-distrust, more than one warning against the temptations of +intellect. "Froude told me many years after," writes one of his friends, +"that Keble once, before parting with him, seemed to have something on +his mind which he wished to say, but shrank from saying, while waiting, +I think, for a coach. At last he said, just before parting, 'Froude, you +thought Law's _Serious Call_ was a clever book; it seemed to me as if +you had said the Day of Judgment will be a pretty sight.' This speech, +Froude told me, had a great effect on his after life."[14] + +At Easter 1826 Froude was elected Fellow of Oriel. He came back to +Oxford, charged with Keble's thoughts and feelings, and from his more +eager and impatient temper, more on the look-out for ways of giving them +effect. The next year he became tutor, and he held the tutorship till +1830. But he found at Oriel a colleague, a little his senior in age and +standing, of whom Froude and his friends as yet knew little except that +he was a man of great ability, that he had been a favourite of +Whately's, and that in a loose and rough way he was counted among the +few Liberals and Evangelicals in Oxford. This was Mr. Newman. Keble had +been shy of him, and Froude would at first judge him by Keble's +standard. But Newman was just at this time "moving," as he expresses it, +"out of the shadow of Liberalism." Living not apart like Keble, but in +the same college, and meeting every day, Froude and Newman could not but +be either strongly and permanently repelled, or strongly attracted. They +were attracted; attracted with a force which at last united them in the +deepest and most unreserved friendship. Of the steps of this great +change in the mind and fortunes of each of them we have no record: +intimacies of this kind grow in college out of unnoticed and +unremembered talks, agreeing or differing, out of unconscious +disclosures of temper and purpose, out of walks and rides and quiet +breakfasts and common-room arguments, out of admirations and dislikes, +out of letters and criticisms and questions; and nobody can tell +afterwards how they have come about. The change was gradual and +deliberate. Froude's friends in Gloucestershire, the Keble family, had +their misgivings about Newman's supposed liberalism; they did not much +want to have to do with him. His subtle and speculative temper did not +always square with Froude's theology. "N. is a fellow that I like more, +the more I think of him," Froude wrote in 1828; "only I would give a few +odd pence if he were not a heretic."[15] But Froude, who saw him every +day, and was soon associated with him in the tutorship, found a spirit +more akin to his own in depth and freedom and daring, than he had yet +encountered. And Froude found Newman just in that maturing state of +religious opinion in which a powerful mind like Froude's would be likely +to act decisively. Each acted on the other. Froude represented Keble's +ideas, Keble's enthusiasm. Newman gave shape, foundation, consistency, +elevation to the Anglican theology, when he accepted it, which Froude +had learned from Keble. "I knew him first," we read in the _Apologia_, +"in 1826, and was in the closest and most affectionate friendship with +him from about 1829 till his death in 1836."[16] But this was not all. +Through Froude, Newman came to know and to be intimate with Keble; and +a sort of _camaraderie_ arose, of very independent and outspoken people, +who acknowledged Keble as their master and counsellor. + +"The true and primary author of it" (the Tractarian movement), we read +in the _Apologia_, "as is usual with great motive powers, was out of +sight.... Need I say that I am speaking of John Keble?" The statement is +strictly true. Froude never would have been the man he was but for his +daily and hourly intercourse with Keble; and Froude brought to bear upon +Newman's mind, at a critical period of its development, Keble's ideas +and feelings about religion and the Church, Keble's reality of thought +and purpose, Keble's transparent and saintly simplicity. And Froude, as +we know from a well-known saying of his,[17] brought Keble and Newman to +understand one another, when the elder man was shy and suspicious of the +younger, and the younger, though full of veneration for the elder, was +hardly yet in full sympathy with what was most characteristic and most +cherished in the elder's religious convictions. Keble attracted and +moulded Froude: he impressed Froude with his strong Churchmanship, his +severity and reality of life, his poetry and high standard of scholarly +excellence. Froude learned from him to be anti-Erastian, +anti-methodistical, anti-sentimental, and as strong in his hatred of the +world, as contemptuous of popular approval, as any Methodist. Yet all +this might merely have made a strong impression, or formed one more +marked school of doctrine, without the fierce energy which received it +and which it inspired. But Froude, in accepting Keble's ideas, resolved +to make them active, public, aggressive; and he found in Newman a +colleague whose bold originality responded to his own. Together they +worked as tutors; together they worked when their tutorships came to an +end; together they worked when thrown into companionship in their +Mediterranean voyage in the winter of 1832 and the spring of 1833. They +came back, full of aspirations and anxieties which spurred them on; +their thoughts had broken out in papers sent home from time to time to +Rose's _British Magazine_--"Home Thoughts Abroad," and the "Lyra +Apostolica." Then came the meeting at Hadleigh, and the beginning of the +Tracts. Keble had given the inspiration, Froude had given the impulse; +then Newman took up the work, and the impulse henceforward, and the +direction, were his. + +Doubtless, many thought and felt like them about the perils which beset +the Church and religion. Loyalty to the Church, belief in her divine +mission, allegiance to her authority, readiness to do battle for her +claims, were anything but extinct in her ministers and laity. The +elements were all about of sound and devoted Churchmanship. Higher ideas +of the Church than the popular and political notion of it, higher +conceptions of Christian doctrine than those of the ordinary evangelical +theology--echoes of the meditations of a remarkable Irishman, Mr. +Alexander Knox--had in many quarters attracted attention in the works +and sermons of his disciple. Bishop Jebb, though it was not till the +movement had taken shape that their full significance was realised. +Others besides Keble and Froude and Newman were seriously considering +what could best be done to arrest the current which was running strong +against the Church, and discussing schemes of resistance and defence. +Others were stirring up themselves and their brethren to meet the new +emergencies, to respond to the new call. Some of these were in +communication with the Oriel men, and ultimately took part with them in +organising vigorous measures. But it was not till Mr. Newman made up his +mind to force on the public mind, in a way which could not be evaded, +the great article of the Creed--"I believe one Catholic and Apostolic +Church"--that the movement began. And for the first part of its course, +it was concentrated at Oxford. It was the direct result of the +searchings of heart and the communings for seven years, from 1826 to +1833, of the three men who have been the subject of this chapter. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[14] Isaac Williams's MS. Memoir. + +[15] _Rem._ i. 232, 233. In 1828, Newman had preferred Hawkins to Keble, +for Provost. + +[16] _Apol._ p. 84. + +[17] _Remains_, i. 438; _Apol._ p. 77. "Do you know the story of the +murderer who had done one good thing in his life? Well, if I was asked +what good deed I have ever done, I should say I had brought Keble and +Newman to understand each other." + + + + +CHAPTER III[18] + +RICHARD HURRELL FROUDE + + +The names of those who took the lead in this movement are +familiar--Keble, Newman, Pusey, Hugh James Rose, William Palmer. Much +has been written about them by friends and enemies, and also by one of +themselves, and any special notice of them is not to the purpose of the +present narrative. But besides these, there were men who are now almost +forgotten, but who at the time interested their contemporaries, because +they were supposed to represent in a marked way the spirit and character +of the movement, or to have exercised influence upon it. They ought not +to be overlooked in an account of it. One of them has been already +mentioned, Mr. Hurrell Froude. Two others were Mr. Isaac Williams and +Mr. Charles Marriott. They were all three of them men whom those who +knew them could never forget--could never cease to admire and love. + +Hurrell Froude soon passed away before the brunt of the fighting came. +His name is associated with Mr. Newman and Mr. Keble, but it is little +more than a name to those who now talk of the origin of the movement. +Yet all who remember him agree in assigning to him an importance as +great as that of any, in that little knot of men whose thoughts and +whose courage gave birth to it. + +Richard Hurrell Froude was born in 1803, and was thus two years younger +than Mr. Newman, who was born in 1801. He went to Eton, and in 1821 to +Oriel, where he was a pupil of Mr. Keble, and where he was elected +Fellow, along with Robert Wilberforce, at Easter 1826. He was College +Tutor from 1827 to 1830, having Mr. Newman and R. Wilberforce for +colleagues. His health failed in 1831 and led to much absence in warm +climates. He went with Mr. Newman to the south of Europe in 1832-33, and +was with him at Rome. The next two winters, with the intervening year, +he spent in the West Indies. Early in 1836 he died at Dartington--his +birthplace. He was at the Hadleigh meeting, in July 1833, when the +foundations of the movement were laid; he went abroad that winter, and +was not much in England afterwards. It was through correspondence that +he kept up his intercourse with his friends. + +Thus he was early cut off from direct and personal action on the course +which things took. But it would be a great mistake to suppose that his +influence on the line taken and on the minds of others was +inconsiderable. It would be more true to say that with one exception no +one was more responsible for the impulse which led to the movement; no +one had more to do with shaping its distinct aims and its moral spirit +and character in its first stage; no one was more daring and more clear, +as far as he saw, in what he was prepared for. There was no one to whom +his friends so much looked up with admiration and enthusiasm. There was +no "wasted shade"[19] in Hurrell Froude's disabled, prematurely +shortened life. + +Like Henry Martyn he was made by strong and even merciless +self-discipline over a strong and for a long time refractory nature. He +was a man of great gifts, with much that was most attractive and noble; +but joined with this them was originally in his character a vein of +perversity and mischief, always in danger of breaking out, and with +which he kept up a long and painful struggle. His inmost thought and +knowledge of himself have been laid bare in the papers which his friends +published after his death. He was in the habit of probing his motives to +the bottom, and of recording without mercy what he thought his +self-deceits and affectations. The religious world of the day made merry +over his methods of self-discipline; but whatever may be said of them, +and such things are not easy to judge of, one thing is manifest, that +they were true and sincere efforts to conquer what he thought evil in +himself, to keep himself in order, to bring his inmost self into +subjection to the law and will of God. The self-chastening, which his +private papers show, is no passion or value for asceticism, but a purely +moral effort after self-command and honesty of character; and what makes +the struggle so touching is its perfect reality and truth. He "turned +his thoughts on that desolate wilderness, his own conscience, and said +what he saw there."[20] A man who has had a good deal to conquer in +himself, and has gone a good way to conquer it, is not apt to be +indulgent to self-deceit or indolence, or even weakness. The basis of +Froude's character was a demand which would not be put off for what was +real and thorough; an implacable scorn and hatred for what he counted +shams and pretences. "His highest ambition," he used to say, "was to be +a humdrum."[21] The intellectual and the moral parts of his character +were of a piece. The tricks and flimsinesses of a bad argument provoked +him as much as the imposture and "flash" of insincere sentiment and fine +talking; he might be conscious of "flash" in himself and his friends, +and he would admit it unequivocally; but it was as unbearable to him to +pretend not to see a fallacy as soon as it was detected, as it would +have been to him to arrive at the right answer of a sum or a problem by +tampering with the processes. Such a man, with strong affections and +keen perception of all forms of beauty, and with the deepest desire to +be reverent towards all that had a right to reverence, would find +himself in the most irritating state of opposition and impatience with +much that passed as religion round him. Principles not attempted to be +understood and carried into practice, smooth self-complacency among +those who looked down on a blind and unspiritual world, the continual +provocation of worthless reasoning and ignorant platitudes, the dull +unconscious stupidity of people who could not see that the times were +critical--that truth had to be defended, and that it was no easy or +light-hearted business to defend it--threw him into an habitual attitude +of defiance, and half-amused, half-earnest contradiction, which made him +feared by loose reasoners and pretentious talkers, and even by quiet +easy-going friends, who unexpectedly found themselves led on blindfold, +with the utmost gravity, into traps and absurdities by the wiles of his +mischievous dialectic. This was the outside look of his relentless +earnestness. People who did not like him, or his views, and who, +perhaps, had winced under his irony, naturally put down his strong +language, which on occasion could certainly be unceremonious, to +flippancy and arrogance. But within the circle of those whom he trusted, +or of those who needed at anytime his help, another side disclosed +itself--a side of the most genuine warmth of affection, an awful reality +of devoutness, which it was his great and habitual effort to keep +hidden, a high simplicity of unworldliness and generosity, and in spite +of his daring mockeries of what was commonplace or showy, the most +sincere and deeply felt humility with himself. Dangerous as he was often +thought to be in conversation, one of the features of his character +which has impressed itself on the memory of one who knew him well, was +his "patient, winning considerateness in discussion, which, with other +qualities, endeared him to those to whom he opened his heart."[22] "It +is impossible," writes James Mozley in 1833, with a mixture of +amusement, speaking of the views about celibacy which were beginning to +be current, "to talk with Froude without committing one's self on such +subjects as these, so that by and by I expect the tergiversants will be +a considerable party." His letters, with their affectionately playful +addresses, [Greek: daimonie, ainotate, pepon], _Carissime, "Sir, my dear +friend"_ or "[Greek: Argeion och' ariste], have you not been a spoon?" +are full of the most delightful ease and _verve_ and sympathy. + +With a keen sense of English faults he was, as Cardinal Newman has said, +"an Englishman to the backbone"; and he was, further, a fastidious, +high-tempered English gentleman, in spite of his declaiming about +"pampered aristocrats" and the "gentleman heresy." His friends thought +of him as of the "young Achilles," with his high courage, and noble +form, and "eagle eye," made for such great things, but appointed so soon +to die. "Who can refrain from tears at the thought of that bright and +beautiful Froude?" is the expression of one of them shortly before his +death, and when it was quite certain that the doom which had so long +hung over him was at hand.[23] He had the love of doing, for the mere +sake of doing, what was difficult or even dangerous to do, which is the +mainspring of characteristic English sports and games. He loved the sea; +he liked to sail his own boat, and enjoyed rough weather, and took +interest in the niceties of seamanship and shipcraft. He was a bold +rider across country. With a powerful grasp on mathematical truths and +principles, he entered with whole-hearted zest into inviting problems, +or into practical details of mechanical or hydrostatic or astronomical +science. His letters are full of such observations, put in a way which +he thought would interest his friends, and marked by his strong habit of +getting into touch with what was real and of the substance of questions. +He applied his thoughts to architecture with a power and originality +which at the time were not common. No one who only cared for this world +could be more attracted and interested than he was by the wonder and +beauty of its facts and appearances. With the deepest allegiance to his +home and reverence for its ties and authority, a home of the +old-fashioned ecclesiastical sort, sober, manly, religious, orderly, he +carried into his wider life the feelings with which he had been brought +up; bold as he was, his reason and his character craved for authority, +but authority which morally and reasonably he could respect. Mr. Keble's +goodness and purity subdued him, and disposed him to accept without +reserve his master's teaching: and towards Mr. Keble, along with an +outside show of playful criticism and privileged impertinence, there was +a reverence which governed Froude's whole nature. In the wild and rough +heyday of reform, he was a Tory of the Tories. But when authority failed +him, from cowardice or stupidity or self-interest, he could not easily +pardon it; and he was ready to startle his friends by proclaiming +himself a Radical, prepared for the sake of the highest and greatest +interests to sacrifice all second-rate and subordinate ones. + +When his friends, after his death, published selections from his +journals and letters, the world was shocked by what seemed his amazing +audacity both of thought and expression about a number of things and +persons which it was customary to regard as almost beyond the reach of +criticism. The _Remains_ lent themselves admirably to the controversial +process of culling choice phrases and sentences and epithets +surprisingly at variance with conventional and popular estimates. +Friends were pained and disturbed; foes naturally enough could not hold +in their overflowing exultation at such a disclosure of the spirit of +the movement. Sermons and newspapers drew attention to Froude's +extravagances with horror and disgust. The truth is that if the off-hand +sayings in conversation or letters of any man of force and wit and +strong convictions about the things and persons that he condemns, were +made known to the world, they would by themselves have much the same +look of flippancy, injustice, impertinence to those who disagreed in +opinion with the speaker or writer they are allowed for, or they are not +allowed for by others, according to what is known of his general +character. The friends who published Froude's _Remains_ knew what he +was; they knew the place and proportion of the fierce and scornful +passages; they knew that they really did not go beyond the liberty and +the frank speaking which most people give themselves in the _abandon_ +and understood exaggeration of intimate correspondence and talk. But +they miscalculated the effect on those who did not know him, or whose +interest it was to make the most of the advantage given them. They seem +to have expected that the picture which they presented of their friend's +transparent sincerity and singleness of aim, manifested amid so much +pain and self-abasement, would have touched readers more. They +miscalculated in supposing that the proofs of so much reality of +religious earnestness would carry off the offence of vehement language, +which without these proofs might naturally be thought to show mere +random violence. At any rate the result was much natural and genuine +irritation, which they were hardly prepared for. Whether on general +grounds they were wise in startling and vexing friends, and putting +fresh weapons into the hands of opponents by their frank disclosure of +so unconventional a character, is a question which may have more than +one answer; but one thing is certain, they were not wise, if they only +desired to forward the immediate interests of their party or cause. It +was not the act of cunning conspirators; it was the act of men who were +ready to show their hands, and take the consequences. Undoubtedly, they +warned off many who had so far gone along with the movement, and who now +drew back. But if the publication was a mistake, it was the mistake of +men confident in their own straight-forwardness. + +There is a natural Nemesis to all over-strong and exaggerated language. +The weight of Froude's judgments was lessened by the disclosure of his +strong words, and his dashing fashion of condemnation and dislike gave +a precedent for the violence of shallower men. But to those who look +back on them now, though there can be no wonder that at the time they +excited such an outcry, their outspoken boldness hardly excites +surprise. Much of it might naturally be put down to the force of first +impressions; much of it is the vehemence of an Englishman who claims the +liberty of criticising and finding fault at home; much of it was the +inevitable vehemence of a reformer. Much of it seems clear foresight of +what has since come to be recognised. His judgments on the Reformers, +startling as they were at the time, are not so very different, as to the +facts of the case, from what most people on all sides now agree in; and +as to their temper and theology, from what most churchmen would now +agree in. Whatever allowances may be made for the difficulties of their +time, and these allowances ought to be very great, and however well they +may have done parts of their work, such as the translations and +adaptations of the Prayer Book, it is safe to say that the divines of +the Reformation never can be again, with their confessed Calvinism, with +their shifting opinions, their extravagant deference to the foreign +oracles of Geneva and Zurich, their subservience to bad men in power, +the heroes and saints of churchmen. But when all this is said, it still +remains true that Froude was often intemperate and unjust. In the hands +of the most self-restrained and considerate of its leaders, the movement +must anyhow have provoked strong opposition, and given great offence. +The surprise and the general ignorance were too great; the assault was +too rude and unexpected. But Froude's strong language gave it a +needless exasperation. + +Froude was a man strong in abstract thought and imagination, who wanted +adequate knowledge. His canons of judgment were not enlarged, corrected, +and strengthened by any reading or experience commensurate with his +original powers of reasoning or invention. He was quite conscious of it, +and did his best to fill up the gap in his intellectual equipment. He +showed what he might have done under more favouring circumstances in a +very interesting volume on Becket's history and letters. But +circumstances were hopelessly against him; he had not time, he had not +health and strength, for the learning which he so needed, which he so +longed for. But wherever he could, he learned. He was quite ready to +submit his prepossessions to the test and limitation of facts. Eager and +quick-sighted, he was often apt to be hasty in conclusions from +imperfect or insufficient premisses; but even about what he saw most +clearly he was willing to hold himself in suspense, when he found that +there was something more to know. Cardinal Newman has noted two +deficiencies which, in his opinion, were noticeable in Froude. "He had +no turn for theology as such"; and, further, he goes on: "I should say +that his power of entering into the minds of others was not equal to his +other gifts"--a remark which he illustrates by saying that Froude could +not believe that "I really held the Roman Church to be antichristian." +The want of this power--in which he stood in such sharp contrast to his +friend--might be either a strength or a weakness; a strength, if his +business was only to fight; a weakness, if it was to attract and +persuade. But Froude was made for conflict, not to win disciples. Some +wild solemn poetry, marked by deep feeling and direct expression, is +scattered through his letters,[24] kindled always by things and thoughts +of the highest significance, and breaking forth with force and fire. But +probably the judgment passed on him by a clever friend, from the +examination of his handwriting, was a true one: "This fellow has a great +deal of imagination, but not the imagination of a poet." He felt that +even beyond poetry there are higher things than anything that +imagination can work upon. It was a feeling which made him blind to the +grandeur of Milton's poetry. He saw in it only an intrusion into the +most sacred of sanctities. + +It was this fearless and powerful spirit, keen and quick to see +inferences and intolerant of compromises, that the disturbances of Roman +Catholic Emancipation and of the Reform time roused from the common +round of pursuits, natural to a serious and thoughtful clergyman of +scholarlike mind and as yet no definite objects, and brought him with +all his enthusiasm and thoroughness into a companionship with men who +had devoted their lives, and given up every worldly object, to save the +Church by raising it to its original idea and spirit. Keble had lifted +his pupil's thoughts above mere dry and unintelligent orthodoxy, and +Froude had entered with earnest purpose into Church ways of practical +self-discipline and self-correction. Bishop Lloyd's lectures had taught +him and others, to the surprise of many, that the familiar and venerated +Prayer Book was but the reflexion of mediaeval and primitive devotion, +still embodied in its Latin forms in the Roman Service books; and so +indirectly had planted in their minds the idea of the historical +connexion, and in a very profound way the spiritual sympathy, of the +modern with the pre-Reformation Church. But it is not till 1829 or 1830 +that we begin in his _Remains_ to see in him the sense of a pressing and +anxious crisis in religious matters. In the summer of 1829 he came more +closely than hitherto across Mr. Newman's path. They had been Fellows +together since 1826, and Tutors since 1827. Mr. Froude, with his Toryism +and old-fashioned churchmanship, would not unnaturally be shy of a +friend of Whately's with his reputation for theological liberalism. +Froude's first letter to Mr. Newman is in August 1828. It is the letter +of a friendly and sympathising colleague in college work, glad to be +free from the "images of impudent undergraduates"; he inserts some lines +of verse, talks about Dollond and telescopes, and relates how he and a +friend got up at half-past two in the morning, and walked half a mile +to see Mercury rise; he writes about his mathematical studies and +reading for orders, and how a friend had "read half through Prideaux and +yet accuses himself of idleness"; but there is no interchange of +intimate thought. Mr. Newman was at this time, as he has told us, +drifting away from under the shadow of liberalism; and in Froude he +found a man who, without being a liberal, was as quick-sighted, as +courageous, and as alive to great thoughts and new hopes as himself. +Very different in many ways, they were in this alike, that the +commonplace notions of religion and the Church were utterly +unsatisfactory to them, and that each had the capacity for affectionate +and whole-hearted friendship. The friendship began and lasted on, +growing stronger and deeper to the end. And this was not all. Froude's +friendship with Mr. Newman overcame Mr. Keble's hesitations about Mr. +Newman's supposed liberalism. Mr. Newman has put on record what he +thought and felt about Froude; no one, probably, of the many whom +Cardinal Newman's long life has brought round him, ever occupied +Froude's place in his heart. The correspondence shows in part the way in +which Froude's spirit rose, under the sense of having such a friend to +work with in the cause which day by day grew greater and more sacred in +the eyes of both. Towards Mr. Keble Froude felt like a son to a father; +towards Mr. Newman like a soldier to his comrade, and him the most +splendid and boldest of warriors. Each mind caught fire from the other, +till the high enthusiasm of the one was quenched in an early death. + +Shortly after this friendship began, the course of events also began +which finally gave birth to the Oxford movement. The break-up of parties +caused by the Roman Catholic emancipation was followed by the French and +Belgian revolutions of 1830, and these changes gave a fresh stimulus to +all the reforming parties in England--Whigs, Radicals, and liberal +religionists. Froude's letters mark the influence of these changes on +his mind. They stirred in him the fiercest disgust and indignation, and +as soon as the necessity of battle became evident to save the +Church--and such a necessity was evident--he threw himself into it with +all his heart, and his attitude was henceforth that of a determined and +uncompromising combatant. "Froude is growing stronger and stronger in +his sentiments every day," writes James Mozley, in 1832, "and cuts about +him on all sides. It is extremely fine to hear him talk. The aristocracy +of the country at present are the chief objects of his vituperation, and +he decidedly sets himself against the modern character of the gentleman, +and thinks that the Church will eventually depend for its support, as it +always did in its most influential times, on the very poorest classes." +"I would not set down anything that Froude says for his deliberate +opinion," writes James Mozley a year later, "for he really hates the +present state of things so excessively that any change would be a relief +to him." ... "Froude is staying up, and I see a great deal of him." ... +"Froude is most enthusiastic in his plans, and says, 'What fun it is +living in such times as these! how could one now go back to the times of +old Tory humbug?'" From henceforth his position among his friends was +that of the most impatient and aggressive of reformers, the one who most +urged on his fellows to outspoken language and a bold line of action. +They were not men to hang back and be afraid, but they were cautious and +considerate of popular alarms and prejudices, compared with Froude's +fearlessness. Other minds were indeed moving--minds as strong as his, +indeed, it may be, deeper, more complex, more amply furnished, with a +wider range of vision and a greater command of the field. But while he +lived, he appears as the one who spurs on and incites, where others +hesitate. He is the one by whom are visibly most felt the _gaudia +certaminis,_ and the confidence of victory, and the most profound +contempt for the men and the ideas of the boastful and short-sighted +present. + +In this unsparing and absorbing warfare, what did Froude aim at--what +was the object he sought to bring about, what were the obstacles he +sought to overthrow? + +He was accused, as was most natural, of Romanising; of wishing to bring +back Popery. It is perfectly certain that this was not what he meant, +though he did not care for the imputation of it. He was, perhaps, the +first Englishman who attempted to do justice to Rome, and to use +friendly language of it, without the intention of joining it. But what +he fought for was not Rome, not even a restoration of unity, but a +Church of England such as it was conceived of by the Caroline divines +and the Non-jurors. The great break-up of 1830 had forced on men the +anxious question, "What is the Church as spoken of in England? Is it the +Church of Christ?" and the answers were various. Hooker had said it was +"the nation"; and in entirely altered circumstances, with some +qualifications. Dr. Arnold said the same. It was "the Establishment" +according to the lawyers and politicians, both Whig and Tory. It was an +invisible and mystical body, said the Evangelicals. It was the aggregate +of separate congregations, said the Nonconformists. It was the +parliamentary creation of the Reformation, said the Erastians. The true +Church was the communion of the Pope, the pretended Church was a +legalised schism, said the Roman Catholics. All these ideas were +floating about, loose and vague, among people who talked much about the +Church. Whately, with his clear sense, had laid down that it was a +divine religious society, distinct in its origin and existence, distinct +in its attributes from any other. But this idea had fallen dead, till +Froude and his friends put new life into it Froude accepted Whately's +idea that the Church of England was the one historic uninterrupted +Church, than which there could be no other, locally in England; but into +this Froude read a great deal that never was and never could be in +Whately's thoughts. Whately had gone very far in viewing the Church from +without as a great and sacred corporate body. Casting aside the Erastian +theory, he had claimed its right to exist, and if necessary, govern +itself, separate from the state. He had recognised excommunication as +its natural and indefeasible instrument of government. But what the +internal life of the Church was, what should be its teaching and organic +system, and what was the standard and proof of these, Whately had left +unsaid. And this outline Froude filled up. For this he went the way to +which the Prayer Book, with its Offices, its Liturgy, its Ordination +services, pointed him. With the divines who had specially valued the +Prayer Book, and taught in its spirit, Bishop Wilson, William Law, +Hammond, Ken, Laud, Andrewes, he went back to the times and the sources +from which the Prayer Book came to us, the early Church, the reforming +Church for such with all its faults it was--of the eleventh, twelfth, +and thirteenth centuries, before the hopelessly corrupt and fatal times +of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which led to the break-up of +the sixteenth. Thus to the great question, What is the Church? he gave +without hesitation, and gave to the end, the same answer that Anglicans +gave and are giving still. But he added two points which were then very +new to the ears of English Churchmen: (1) that there were great and to +most people unsuspected faults and shortcomings in the English Church, +for some of which the Reformation was gravely responsible; (2) that the +Roman Church was more right than we had been taught to think in many +parts both of principle and practice, and that our quarrel with it on +these points arose from our own ignorance and prejudices. To people who +had taken for granted all their lives that the Church was thoroughly +"Protestant" and thoroughly right in its Protestantism, and that Rome +was Antichrist, these confident statements came with a shock. He did not +enter much into dogmatic questions. As far as can be judged from his +_Remains_, the one point of doctrine on which he laid stress, as being +inadequately recognised and taught in the then condition of the English +Church, was the primitive doctrine of the Eucharist. His other +criticisms pointed to practical and moral matters; the spirit of +Erastianism, the low standard of life and purpose and self-discipline in +the clergy, the low tone of the current religious teaching. The +Evangelical teaching seemed to him a system of unreal words. The +opposite school was too self-complacent, too comfortable, too secure in +its social and political alliances; and he was bent on shaming people +into severer notions. "We will have a _vocabularium apostolicum,_ and I +will start it with four words: 'pampered aristocrats,' 'resident +gentlemen,' 'smug parsons,' and _'pauperes Christi'_. I shall use the +first on all occasions; it seems to me just to hit the thing." "I think +of putting the view forward (about new monasteries), under the title of +a 'Project for Reviving Religion in Great Towns.' Certainly colleges of +unmarried priests (who might, of course, retire to a living, when they +could and liked) would be the cheapest possible way of providing +effectively for the spiritual wants of a large population." And his +great quarrel with the existing state of things was that the spiritual +objects of the Church were overlaid and lost sight of in the anxiety not +to lose its political position. In this direction he was, as he +proclaims himself, an out-and-out Radical, and he was prepared at once +to go very far. "If a national Church means a Church without discipline, +my argument for discipline is an argument against a national Church; and +the best thing we can do is to unnationalise ours as soon as possible"; +"let us tell the truth and shame the devil; let us give up a _national_ +Church and have a _real_ one." His criticism did not diminish in +severity, or his proposals become less daring, as he felt that his time +was growing short and the hand of death was upon him. But to the end, +the elevation and improvement of the English Church remained his great +purpose. To his friend, as we know, the Roman Church was _either_ the +Truth or Antichrist. To Froude it was neither the whole Truth nor +Antichrist; but like the English Church itself, a great and defective +Church, whose defects were the opposite to ours, and which we should do +wisely to learn from rather than abuse. But to the last his allegiance +never wavered to the English Church. + +It is very striking to come from Froude's boisterous freedom in his +letters to his sermons and the papers he prepared for publication. In +his sermons his manner of writing is severe and restrained even to +dryness. If they startle it is by the force and searching point of an +idea, not by any strength of words. The style is chastened, simple, +calm, with the most careful avoidance of over-statement or anything +rhetorical. And so in his papers, his mode of argument, forcible and +cogent as it is, avoids all appearance of exaggeration or even +illustrative expansion; it is all muscle and sinew; it is modelled on +the argumentative style of Bishop Butler, and still more, of William +Law. No one could suppose from these papers Froude's fiery impetuosity, +or the frank daring of his disrespectful vocabulary. Those who can read +between the lines can trace the grave irony which clung everywhere to +his deep earnestness. + +There was yet another side of Froude's character which was little +thought of by his critics, or recognised by all his friends. With all +his keenness of judgment and all his readiness for conflict, some who +knew him best were impressed by the melancholy which hung over his life, +and which, though he ignored it, they could detect. It is remembered +still by Cardinal Newman. "I thought," wrote Mr. Isaac Williams, "that +knowing him, I better understood Hamlet, a person most natural, but so +original as to be unlike any one else, hiding depth of delicate thought +in apparent extravagances. _Hamlet_, and the _Georgics_ of Virgil, he +used to say, he should have bound together." "Isaac Williams," wrote Mr. +Copeland, "mentioned to me a remark made on Froude by S. Wilberforce in +his early days: 'They talk of Froude's fun, but somehow I cannot be in a +room with him alone for ten minutes without feeling so intensely +melancholy, that I do not know what to do with myself. At Brightstone, +in my Eden days, he was with me, and I was overwhelmed with the deep +sense which possessed him of yearning which nothing could satisfy and of +the unsatisfying nature of all things.'"[25] + +Froude often reminds us of Pascal. Both had that peculiarly bright, +brilliant, sharp-cutting intellect which passes with ease through the +coverings and disguises which veil realities from men. Both had +mathematical powers of unusual originality and clearness; both had the +same imaginative faculty; both had the same keen interest in practical +problems of science; both felt and followed the attraction of deeper and +more awful interests. Both had the same love of beauty; both suppressed +it. Both had the same want of wide or deep learning; they made skilful +use of what books came to their hand, and used their reading as few +readers are able to use it; but their real instrument of work was their +own quick and strong insight, and power of close and vigorous reasoning. +Both had the greatest contempt for fashionable and hollow "shadows of +religion." Both had the same definite, unflinching judgment. Both used +the same clear and direct language. Both had a certain grim delight in +the irony with which they pursued their opponents. In both it is +probable that their unmeasured and unsparing criticism recoiled on the +cause which they had at heart. But in the case of both of them it was +not the temper of the satirist, it was no mere love of attacking what +was vulnerable, and indulgence in the cruel pleasure of stinging and +putting to shame, which inspired them. Their souls were moved by the +dishonour done to religion, by public evils and public dangers. Both of +them died young, before their work was done. They placed before +themselves the loftiest and most unselfish objects, the restoration of +truth and goodness in the Church, and to that they gave their life and +all that they had. And what they called on others to be they were +themselves. They were alike in the sternness, the reality, the +perseverance, almost unintelligible in its methods to ordinary men, of +their moral and spiritual self-discipline. + + +SUPPLEMENTARY TO CHAPTER III[26] + +Hurrell Froude was, when I, as an undergraduate, first knew him in 1828, +tall and very thin, with something of a stoop, with a large skull and +forehead, but not a large face, delicate features, and penetrating gray +eyes, not exactly piercing, but bright with internal conceptions, and +ready to assume an expression of amusement, careful attention, inquiry, +or stern disgust, but with a basis of softness. His manner was cordial +and familiar, and assured you, as you knew him well, of his affectionate +feeling, which encouraged you to speak your mind (within certain +limits), subject to the consideration that if you said anything absurd +it would not be allowed to fall to the ground. He had more of the +undergraduate in him than any "don" whom I ever knew; absolutely unlike +Newman in being always ready to skate, sail, or ride with his +friends--and, if in a scrape, not pharisaical as to his means of getting +out of it. I remember, _e.g._, climbing Merton gate with him in my +undergraduate days, when we had been out too late boating or skating. +And unless authority or substantial decorum was really threatened he was +very lenient--or rather had an amused sympathy with the irregularities +that are mere matters of mischief or high spirits. In lecture it was, +_mutatis mutandis_, the same man. Seeing, from his _Remains_, the "high +view of his own capacities of which he could not divest himself," and +his determination not to exhibit or be puffed up by it, and looking back +on his tutorial manner (I was in his lectures both in classics and +mathematics), it was strange how he disguised, not only his _sense_ of +superiority, but the appearance of it, so that his pupils felt him more +as a fellow-student than as the refined scholar or mathematician which +he was. This was partly owing to his carelessness of those formulae, +the familiarity with which gives even second-rate lecturers a position +of superiority which is less visible in those who, like their pupils, +are themselves always struggling with principles--and partly to an +effort, perhaps sometimes overdone, not to put himself above the level +of others. In a lecture on the _Supplices_ of Aeschylus, I have heard +him say _tout bonnement,_ "I can't construe that--what do you make of +it, A.B.?" turning to the supposed best scholar in the lecture; or, when +an objection was started to his mode of getting through a difficulty, +"Ah! I had not thought of that--perhaps your way is the best." And this +mode of dealing with himself and the undergraduates whom he liked, made +them like him, but also made them really undervalue his talent, which, +as we now see, was what he meant they should do. At the same time, +though watchful over his own vanity, he was keen and prompt in +snubs--playful and challenging retort--to those he liked, but in the +nature of scornful exposure, when he had to do with coarseness or +coxcombry, or shallow display of sentiment. It was a paradoxical +consequence of his suppression of egotism that he was more solicitous to +show that you were wrong than that he was right. + +He also wanted, like Socrates or Bishop Butler, to make others, if +possible, think for themselves. + +However, it is not to be inferred that his conversation was made of +controversy. To a certain extent it turned that way, because he was fond +of paradox. (His brother William used to say that he, William, never +felt he had really mastered a principle till he had thrown it into a +paradox.) And paradox, of course, invites contradiction, and so +controversy. On subjects upon which he considered himself more or less +an apostle, he liked to stir people's minds by what startled them, +waking them up, or giving them "nuts to crack." An almost solemn gravity +with amusement twinkling behind it--not invisible--and ready to burst +forth into a bright low laugh when gravity had been played out, was a +very frequent posture with him. + +But he was thoroughly ready to amuse and instruct, or to be amused and +instructed, as an eager and earnest speaker or listener on most matters +of interest. I do not remember that he had any great turn for beauty of +colour; he had none, I think, or next to none, for music--nor do I +remember in him any great love of humour--but for beauty of physical +form, for mechanics, for mathematics, for poetry which had a root in +true feeling, for wit (including that perception of a quasi-logical +absurdity of position), for history, for domestic incidents, his +sympathy was always lively, and he would throw himself naturally and +warmly into them. From his general demeanour (I need scarcely say) the +"odour of sanctity" was wholly absent. I am not sure that his height and +depth of aim and lively versatility of talent did not leave his +_compassionate_ sympathies rather undeveloped; certainly to himself, +and, I suspect, largely in the case of others, he would view suffering +not as a thing to be cockered up or made much of, though of course to be +alleviated if possible, but to be viewed calmly as a Providential +discipline for those who can mitigate, or have to endure it. + +J.H.N. was once reading me a letter just received from him in which (in +answer to J.H.N.'s account of his work and the possibility of his +breaking down) he said in substance: "I daresay you have more to do than +your health will bear, but I would not have you give up anything except +perhaps the deanery" (of Oriel). And then J.H.N. paused, with a kind of +inner exultant chuckle, and said, "Ah! there's a Basil for you"; as if +the friendship which sacrificed its friend, as it would sacrifice itself +to a cause, was the friendship which was really worth having. + +As I came to know him in a more manly way, as a brother Fellow, friend, +and collaborateur, the character of "ecclesiastical agitator" was of +course added to this. + +In this capacity his great pleasure was taking bulls by their horns. +Like the "gueux" of the Low Countries, he would have met half-way any +opprobrious nickname, and I believe coined the epithet "apostolical" for +his party because it was connected with everything in Spain which was +most obnoxious to the British public. I remember one day his grievously +shocking Palmer of Worcester, a man of an opposite texture, when a +council in J.H.N.'s rooms had been called to consider some memorial or +other to which Palmer wanted to collect the signatures of many, and +particularly of dignified persons, but in which Froude wished to express +the determined opinions of a few. Froude stretched out his long length +on Newman's sofa, and broke in upon one of Palmer's judicious harangues +about Bishops and Archdeacons and such like, with the ejaculation, "I +don't see why we should disguise from ourselves that our object is to +dictate to the clergy of this country, and I, for one, do not want any +one else to get on the box." He thought that true Churchmen must be few +before they were many--that the sin of the clergy in all ages was that +they tried to make out that Christians were many when they were only +few, and sacrificed to this object the force derivable from downright +and unmistakable enforcement of truth in speech or action. + +As simplicity in thought, word, and deed formed no small part of his +ideal, his tastes in architecture, painting, sculpture, rhetoric, or +poetry were severe. He had no patience with what was artistically +dissolute, luscious, or decorated more than in proportion to its +animating idea--wishy-washy or sentimental. The ornamental parts of his +own rooms (in which I lived in his absence) were a slab of marble to +wash upon, a print of Rubens's "Deposition," and a head (life-size) of +the Apollo Belvidere. And I remember still the tall scorn, with +something of surprise, with which, on entering my undergraduate room, he +looked down on some Venuses, Cupids, and Hebes, which, freshman-like, I +had bought from an Italian. + +He was not very easy even under conventional vulgarity, still less under +the vulgarity of egotism; but, being essentially a partisan, he could +put up with both in a man who was really in earnest and on the right +side. Nothing, however, I think, would have induced him to tolerate +false sentiment, and he would, I think, if he had lived, have exerted +himself very trenchantly to prevent his cause being adulterated by it. + +He was, I should say, sometimes misled by a theory that genius cut +through a subject by logic or intuition, without looking to the right or +left, while common sense was always testing every step by consideration +of surroundings (I have not got his terse mode of statement), and that +genius was right, or at least had only to be corrected here and there by +common sense. This, I take it, would hardly have answered if his +trenchancy had not been in practice corrected by J.H.N.'s wider +political circumspection. + +He submitted, I suppose, to J.H.N.'s axiom, that if the movement was to +do anything it must become "respectable"; but it was against his nature. + +He would (as we see in the _Remains_) have wished Ken to have the +"courage of his convictions" by excommunicating the Jurors in William +III.'s time, and setting up a little Catholic Church, like the +Jansenists in Holland. He was not (as has been observed) a theologian, +but he was as jealous for orthodoxy as if he were. He spoke slightingly +of Heber as having ignorantly or carelessly communicated with (?) +Monophysites. But he probably knew no more about that and other +heresies than a man of active and penetrating mind would derive from +text-books. And I think it likely enough--not that his reverence for the +Eucharist, but--that his special attention to the details of Eucharistic +doctrine was due to the consideration that it was the foundation of +ecclesiastical discipline and authority--matters on which his mind +fastened itself with enthusiasm. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[18] I ought to say that I was not personally acquainted with Mr. +Froude. I have subjoined to this chapter some recollections of him by +Lord Blachford, who was his pupil and an intimate friend. + +[19] "In this mortal journeying wasted shade Is worse than wasted +sunshine." + +HENRY TAYLOR, _Sicilian Summer_, v. 3. + +[20] _Remains_, Second Part, i. 47. + +[21] _Remains_, i. 82. + +[22] _Apologia_, p. 84. + +[23] The following shows the feeling about him in friends apt to be +severe critics:--"The contents of the present collection are rather +fragments and sketches than complete compositions. This might be +expected in the works of a man whose days were few and interrupted by +illness, if indeed that may be called an interruption, which was every +day sensibly drawing him to his grave. In Mr. Froude's case, however, we +cannot set down much of this incompleteness to the score of illness. The +strength of his religious impressions, the boldness and clearness of his +views, his long habits of self-denial, and his unconquerable energy of +mind, triumphed over weakness and decay, till men with all their health +and strength about them might gaze upon his attenuated form, struck with +a certain awe of wonderment at the brightness of his wit, the +intenseness of his mental vision, and the iron strength of his +argument.... We will venture a remark as to that ironical turn, which +certainly does appear in various shapes in the first part of these +_Remains_. Unpleasant as irony may sometimes be, there need not go with +it, and in this instance there did not go with it, the smallest real +asperity of temper. Who that remembers the inexpressible sweetness of +his smile, and the deep and melancholy pity with which he would speak of +those whom he felt to be the victims of modern delusions, would not be +forward to contradict such a suspicion? Such expressions, we will +venture to say, and not harshness, anger, or gloom, animate the features +of that countenance which will never cease to haunt the memory of those +who knew him. His irony arose from that peculiar mode in which he viewed +all earthly things, himself and all that was dear to him not excepted. +It was his poetry." From an article in the _British Critic_, April 1840, +p. 396, by Mr. Thomas Mozley, quoted in _Letters of J.B. Mozley,_ p. +102. + +[24] Such as the "Daniel" in the _Lyra Apostolica,_ the "Dialogue +between Old Self and New Self," and the lines in the _Remains_ (i 208, +209). + +[25] A few references to the _Remains_ illustrating this are subjoined +if any one cares to compare them with these recollections, i. 7, 13, 18, +26, 106, 184, 199, 200-204. + +[26] I am indebted for these recollections to the late Lord Blachford. +They were written in Oct. 1884. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MR. NEWMAN'S EARLY FRIENDS--ISAAC WILLIAMS + + +In the early days of the movement, among Mr. Newman's greatest friends, +and much in his confidence, were two Fellows of Trinity--a college which +never forgot that Newman had once belonged to it,--Isaac Williams and +William John Copeland. In mind and character very different, they were +close friends, with the affection which was characteristic of those +days; and for both of them Mr. Newman "had the love which passes that of +common relation."[27] Isaac Williams was born among the mountains of +Wales, and had the true poetic gift, though his power of expression was +often not equal to what he wanted to say. Copeland was a Londoner, bred +up in the strict school of Churchmanship represented by Mr. Norris of +Hackney, tempered by sympathies with the Non-jurors. At Oxford he lived, +along with Isaac Williams, in the very heart of the movement, which was +the interest of his life; but he lived, self-forgetting or +self-effacing, a wonderful mixture of tender and inexhaustible sympathy, +and of quick and keen wit, which yet, somehow or other, in that time of +exasperation and bitterness, made him few enemies. He knew more than +most men of the goings on of the movement, and he ought to have been its +chronicler. But he was fastidious and hard to satisfy, and he left his +task till it was too late. + +Isaac Williams was born in Wales in 1802, a year after Newman, ten years +after John Keble. His early life was spent in London, but his affection +for Wales and its mountain scenery was great and undiminished to the end +of his life. At Harrow, where Henry Drury was his tutor, he made his +mark by his mastery of Latin composition and his devotion to Latin +language and literature. "I was so used to think in Latin that when I +had to write an English theme, which was but seldom, I had to translate +my ideas, which ran in Latin, into English";[28] and later in life he +complained of the Latin current which disturbed him when he had to write +English. He was also a great cricketer; and he describes himself as +coming up to Trinity, where he soon got a scholarship, an ambitious and +careless youth, who had never heard a word about Christianity, and to +whom religion, its aims and its restraints, were a mere name. + +This was changed by what, in the language of devotional schools, would +have been called his conversion. It came about, as men speak, as the +result of accidents; but the whole course of his thoughts and life was +turned into a channel from which it nevermore diverged. An old Welsh +clergyman gave the undergraduate an introduction to John Keble, who then +held a place in Oxford almost unique. But the Trinity undergraduate and +the Oriel don saw little of one another till Isaac Williams won the +Latin prize poem, _Ars Geologica_. Keble then called on Isaac Williams +and offered his help in criticising the poem and polishing it for +printing. The two men plainly took to one another at first sight; and +that service was followed by a most unexpected invitation on Keble's +part. He had chanced to come to Williams's room, and on Williams saying +that he had no plan of reading for the approaching vacation, Keble said, +"I am going to leave Oxford for good. Suppose you come and read with me. +The Provost has asked me to take Wilberforce, and I declined; but if you +would come, you would be companions." Keble was going down to Southrop, +a little curacy near his father's; there Williams joined him, with two +more--Robert Wilberforce and R.H. Froude; and there the Long Vacation of +1823 was spent, and Isaac Williams's character and course determined. +"It was this very trivial accident, this short walk of a few yards, and +a few words spoken, which was the turning-point of my life. If a +merciful God had miraculously interposed to arrest my course, I could +not have had a stronger assurance of His presence than I always had in +looking back to that day." It determined Isaac Williams's character, +and it determined for good and all his theological position. He had +before him all day long in John Keble a spectacle which was absolutely +new to him. Ambitious as a rising and successful scholar at college, he +saw a man, looked up to and wondered at by every one, absolutely without +pride and without ambition. He saw the most distinguished academic of +his day, to whom every prospect was open, retiring from Oxford in the +height of his fame to bury himself with a few hundreds of +Gloucestershire peasants in a miserable curacy. He saw this man caring +for and respecting the ignorant and poor as much as others respected the +great and the learned. He saw this man, who had made what the world +would call so great a sacrifice, apparently unconscious that he had made +any sacrifice at all, gay, unceremonious, bright, full of play as a boy, +ready with his pupils for any exercise, mental or muscular--for a hard +ride, or a crabbed bit of Aeschylus, or a logic fence with disputatious +and paradoxical undergraduates, giving and taking on even ground. These +pupils saw one, the depth of whose religion none could doubt, "always +endeavouring to do them good as it were unknown to themselves and in +secret, and ever avoiding that his kindness should be felt and +acknowledged"; showing in the whole course of daily life the purity of +Christian love, and taking the utmost pains to make no profession or +show of it. This unostentatious and undemonstrative religion--so frank, +so generous in all its ways--was to Isaac Williams "quite a new world." +It turned his mind in upon itself in the deepest reverence, but also +with something of morbid despair of ever reaching such a standard. It +drove all dreams of ambition out of his mind. It made humility, +self-restraint, self-abasement, objects of unceasing, possibly not +always wise and healthy, effort. But the result was certainly a +character of great sweetness, tenderness, and lowly unselfishness, pure, +free from all worldliness, and deeply resigned to the will of God. He +caught from Mr. Keble, like Froude, two characteristic habits of mind--a +strong depreciation of mere intellect compared with the less showy +excellences of faithfulness to conscience and duty; and a horror and +hatred of everything that seemed like display or the desire of applause +or of immediate effect. Intellectual depreciators of intellect may +deceive themselves, and do not always escape the snare which they fear; +but in Isaac Williams there was a very genuine carrying out of the +Psalmist's words: "Surely I have behaved and quieted myself; I refrain +my soul and keep it low, as a child that is weaned from his mother." +This fear of display in a man of singularly delicate and fastidious +taste came to have something forced and morbid in it. It seemed +sometimes as if in preaching or talking he aimed at being dull and +clumsy. But in all that he did and wrote he aimed at being true at all +costs and in the very depths of his heart; and though, in his words, we +may wish sometimes for what we should feel to be more natural and +healthy in tone, we never can doubt that we are in the presence of one +who shrank from all conscious unreality like poison. + +From Keble, or, it may be said, from the Kebles, he received his +theology. The Kebles were all of them men of the old-fashioned High +Church orthodoxy, of the Prayer Book and the Catechism--the orthodoxy +which was professed at Oxford, which was represented in London by Norris +of Hackney and Joshua Watson; which valued in religion sobriety, +reverence, and deference to authority, and in teaching, sound learning +and the wisdom of the great English divines; which vehemently disliked +the Evangelicals and Methodists for their poor and loose theology, their +love of excitement and display, their hunting after popularity. This +Church of England divinity was the theology of the old Vicar of Coln St. +Aldwyn's, a good scholar and a good parish priest, who had brought up +his two sons at home to be scholars; and had impressed his solid and +manly theology on them so strongly that amid all changes they remained +at bottom true to their paternal training. John Keble added to it great +attainments and brilliant gifts of imagination and poetry; but he never +lost the plain, downright, almost awkward ways of conversation and +manner of his simple home--ways which might have seemed abrupt and rough +but for the singular sweetness and charm of his nature. To those who +looked on the outside he was always the homely, rigidly orthodox country +clergyman. On Isaac Williams, with his ethical standard, John Keble also +impressed his ideas of religious truth; he made him an old-fashioned +High Churchman, suspicious of excitement and "effect," suspicious of the +loud-talking religious world, suspicious of its novelties and +shallowness, and clinging with his whole soul to ancient ways and sound +Church of England doctrine reflected in the Prayer Book. And from John +Keble's influence he passed under the influence of Thomas Keble, the +Vicar of Bisley, a man of sterner type than his brother, with strong +and definite opinions on all subjects; curt and keen in speech; +intolerant of all that seemed to threaten wholesome teaching and the +interests of the Church; and equally straightforward, equally simple, in +manners and life. Under him Isaac Williams began his career as a +clergyman; he spent two years of solitary and monotonous life in a small +cure, seeking comfort from solitude in poetical composition ("It was +very calm and subduing," he writes); and then he was recalled to Oxford +as Fellow and Tutor of his college, to meet a new and stronger +influence, which it was part of the work and trial of the rest of his +life both to assimilate and to resist. + +For, with Newman, with whom he now came into contact, he did both. There +opened to him from intercourse with Newman a new world of thought; and +yet while feeling and answering to its charm, he never was quite at ease +with him. But Williams and Froude had always been great friends since +the reading party of 1823, in spite of Froude's audacities. Froude was +now residing in Oxford, and had become Newman's most intimate friend, +and he brought Newman and Williams together. "Living at that time," he +says, "so much with Froude, I was now in consequence for the first time +brought into intercourse with Newman. We almost daily walked and often +dined together." Newman and Froude had ceased to be tutors; their +thoughts were turned to theology and the condition of the Church. Newman +had definitely broken with the Evangelicals, to whom he had been +supposed to belong, and Whately's influence over him was waning, and +with Froude he looked up to Keble as the pattern of religious wisdom. He +had accepted the position of a Churchman as it was understood by Keble +and Froude; and thus there was nothing to hinder Williams's full +sympathy with him. But from the first there seems to have been an almost +impalpable bar between them, which is the more remarkable because +Williams appears to have seen with equanimity Froude's apparently more +violent and dangerous outbreaks of paradox and antipathy. Possibly, +after the catastrophe, he may, in looking back, have exaggerated his +early alarms. But from the first he says he saw in Newman what he had +learned to look upon as the gravest of dangers--the preponderance of +intellect among the elements of character and as the guide of life. "I +was greatly delighted and charmed with Newman, who was extremely kind to +me, but did not altogether trust his opinions; and though Froude was in +the habit of stating things in an extreme and paradoxical manner, yet +one always felt conscious of a ground of entire confidence and +agreement; but it was not so with Newman, even though one appeared more +in unison with his more moderate views." + +But, in spite of all this, Newman offered and Isaac Williams accepted +the curacy of St. Mary's. "Things at Oxford [1830-32] at that time were +very dull." "Froude and I seemed entirely alone, with Newman only +secretly, as it were, beginning to sympathise. I became at once very +much attached to Newman, won by his kindness and delighted by his good +and wonderful qualities; and he proposed that I should be his curate at +St. Mary's.... I can remember a strong feeling of difference I first +felt on acting together with him from what I had been accustomed to: +that he was in the habit of looking for effect, and for what was +sensibly effective, which from the Bisley and Fairford School I had been +long habituated to avoid; but to do one's duty in faith and leave it to +God, and that all the more earnestly, because there were no sympathies +from without to answer. There was a felt but unexpressed difference of +this kind, but perhaps it became afterwards harmonised as we acted +together."[29] + +Thus early, among those most closely united, there appeared the +beginnings of those different currents which became so divergent as time +went on. Isaac Williams, dear as he was to Newman, and returning to the +full Newman's affection, yet represented from the first the views of +what Williams spoke of as the "Bisley and Fairford School," which, +though sympathising and co-operating with the movement, was never quite +easy about it, and was not sparing of its criticism on the stir and +agitation of the Tracts. + +Isaac Williams threw himself heartily into the early stages of the +movement; in his poetry into its imaginative and poetical side, and also +into its practical and self-denying side. But he would have been quite +content with its silent working, and its apparent want of visible +success. He would have been quite content with preaching simple homely +sermons on the obvious but hard duties of daily life, and not seeing +much come of them; with finding a slow abatement of the self-indulgent +habits of university life, with keeping Fridays, with less wine in +common room. The Bisley maxims bade men to be very stiff and +uncompromising in their witness and in their duties, but to make no show +and expect no recognition or immediate fruit, and to be silent under +misconstruction. But his was not a mind which realised great +possibilities of change in the inherited ways of the English Church. The +spirit of change, so keenly discerned by Newman, as being both certain +and capable of being turned to good account as well as bad, to him was +unintelligible or bad. More reality, more severity and consistency, +deeper habits of self-discipline on the accepted lines of English Church +orthodoxy, would have satisfied him as the aim of the movement, as it +undoubtedly was a large part of its aim; though with Froude and Newman +it also aimed at a widening of ideas, of interests and sympathies, +beyond what had been common in the English Church. + +In the history of the movement Isaac Williams took a forward part in two +of its events, with one of which his connexion was most natural, with +the other grotesquely and ludicrously incongruous. The one was the plan +and starting of the series of _Plain Sermons_ in 1839, to which not only +the Kebles, Williams, and Copeland contributed their volumes, but also +Newman and Dr. Pusey. Isaac Williams has left the following account of +his share in the work. + +"It seemed at this time (about 1838-39) as if Oxford, from the strength +of principle shown there (and an almost unanimous and concentrated +energy), was becoming a rallying point for the whole kingdom: but I +watched from the beginning and saw greater dangers among ourselves than +those from without; which I endeavoured to obviate by publishing the +_Plain Sermons_. [_Plain Sermons_, by contributors to the _Tracts for +the Times_, 1st Series, January 1839.] I attempted in vain to get the +Kebles to publish, in order to keep pace with Newman, and so maintain a +more practical turn in the movement. I remember C. Cornish (C.L. +Cornish, Fellow and Tutor of Exeter) coming to me and saying as we +walked in Trinity Gardens, 'People are a little afraid of being carried +away by Newman's brilliancy; they want more of the steady sobriety of +the Kebles infused into the movement to keep us safe; we have so much +sail and want ballast.' And the effect of the publication of the _Plain +Sermons_ was at the time very quieting. In first undertaking the _Plain +Sermons_, I had no encouragement from any one, not even from John Keble; +acquiescence was all that I could gain. But I have heard J.K. mention a +saying of Judge Coleridge, long before the _Tracts_ were thought of: 'If +you want to propagate your opinions you should lend your sermons; the +clergy would then preach them, and adopt your opinions.' Now this has +been the effect of the publication of the _Plain Sermons_." + +Isaac Williams, if any man, represented in the movement the moderate and +unobtrusive way of religious teaching. But it was his curious fate to be +dragged into the front ranks of the fray, and to be singled out as +almost the most wicked and dangerous of the Tractarians. He had the +strange fortune to produce the first of the Tracts[30] which was by +itself held up to popular indignation as embodying all the mischief of +the series and the secret aims of the movement. The Tract had another +effect. It made Williams the object of the first great Tractarian battle +in the University, the contest for the Poetry Professorship: the first +decisive and open trial of strength, and the first Tractarian defeat. +The contest, even more than the result, distressed him greatly; and the +course of things in the movement itself aggravated his distress. His +general distrust of intellectual restlessness had now passed into the +special and too well grounded fear that the movement, in some of its +most prominent representatives, was going definitely in the direction of +Rome. A new generation was rising into influence, to whom the old Church +watchwords and maxims, the old Church habits of mind, the old Church +convictions, had completely lost their force, and were become almost +objects of dislike and scorn; and for this change Newman's approval and +countenance were freely and not very scrupulously quoted. Williams's +relation to him had long been a curious mixture of the most affectionate +attachment and intimacy with growing distrust and sense of divergence. +Newman was now giving more and more distinct warning that he was likely +to go where Williams could not follow him, and the pain on both sides +was growing. But things moved fast, and at length the strain broke. + +The estrangement was inevitable; but both cherished the warmest feelings +of affection, even though such a friendship had been broken. But Oxford +became distasteful to Williams, and he soon afterwards left it for +Bisley and Stinchcombe, the living of his brother-in-law, Sir G. +Prevost. There he married (22d June 1842), and spent the remainder of +his life devoting himself to the preparation of those devotional +commentaries, which are still so well known. He suffered for the +greatest part of his life from a distressing and disabling chronic +asthma--from the time that he came back to Oxford as Fellow and +Tutor--and he died in 1865. The old friends met once more shortly before +Isaac Williams's death; Newman came to see him, and at his departure +Williams accompanied him to the station. + +Isaac Williams wrote a great deal of poetry, first during his solitary +curacy at Windrush, and afterwards at Oxford. It was in a lower and +sadder key than the _Christian Year_, which no doubt first inspired it; +it wanted the elasticity and freshness and variety of Keble's verse, +and it was often careless in structure and wanting in concentration. But +it was the outpouring of a very beautiful mind, deeply impressed with +the realities of failure in the Church and religion, as well as in human +life, full of tenderness and pathetic sweetness, and seeking a vent for +its feelings, and relief for its trouble, in calling up before itself +the images of God's goodness and kingdom of which nature and the world +are full. His poetry is a witness to the depth and earnestness and +genuine delicacy of what seemed hard and narrow in the Bisley School; +there are passages in it which are not easily forgotten; but it was not +strong enough to arrest the excitement which soon set in, and with its +continual obscurity and its want of finish it never had the recognition +really due to its excellence. Newman thought it too soft. It certainly +wanted the fire and boldness and directness which he threw into his own +verse when he wrote; but serious earnestness and severity of tone it +certainly did not want. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[27] Mozley, _Reminiscences_, i. 18. + +[28] I. Williams, _MS. Memoir_. + +[29] I. Williams, _MS. Memoir_. + +[30] The history of this famous Tract, No. 80, on _Reserve in +communicating Religious Knowledge_, belongs to a later stage of the +movement. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CHARLES MARRIOTT + + +Charles Marriott was a man who was drawn into the movement, almost in +spite of himself, by the attraction of the character of the leaders, the +greatness of its object, and the purity and nobleness of the motives +which prompted it. He was naturally a man of metaphysical mind, given +almost from a child to abstract and indeed abstruse thought.[31] He had +been a student of S.T. Coleridge, whom the Oriel men disliked as a misty +thinker. He used to discuss Coleridge with a man little known then, but +who gained a high reputation on the Continent as a first-rate Greek +scholar, and became afterwards Professor of Greek in the University of +Sydney, Charles Badham. Marriott also appreciated Hampden as a +philosopher, whom the Oriel men thoroughly distrusted as a theologian. +He might easily under different conditions have become a divine of the +type of F.D. Maurice. He was by disposition averse to anything like +party, and the rough and sharp proceedings which party action sometimes +seems to make natural. His temper was eminently sober, cautious and +conciliatory in his way of looking at important questions. He was a man +with many friends of different sorts and ways, and of boundless though +undemonstrative sympathy. His original tendencies would have made him an +eclectic, recognising the strength of position in opposing schools or +theories, and welcoming all that was good and high in them. He was +profoundly and devotedly religious, without show, without extravagance. +His father, who died when he was only fourteen, had been a distinguished +man in his time. He was a Christ Church man, and one of two in the first +of the Oxford Honour lists in 1802, with E. Copleston, H. Phillpotts, +and S.P. Rigaud for his examiners. He was afterwards tutor to the Earl +of Dalkeith, and he became the friend of Walter Scott, who dedicated to +him the Second Canto of _Marmion_; and having ready and graceful +poetical talent, he contributed several ballads to the _Minstrelsy of +the Scottish Border, The Feast of Spurs_, and _Archie Armstrong's Aith_. +He was a good preacher; his sympathies--of friendship, perhaps, rather +than of definite opinion--were with men like Mr. John Bowdler and the +Thorntons. While he lived he taught Charles Marriott himself. After his +death, Charles, a studious boy, with ways of his own of learning, and +though successful and sure in his work, very slow in the process of +doing it, after a short and discouraging experiment at Rugby, went to +read with a private tutor till he went to Oxford. He was first at +Exeter, and then gained a scholarship at Balliol. He gained a Classical +First Class and a Mathematical Second in the Michaelmas Term of 1832, +and the following Easter he was elected Fellow at Oriel. + +For a man of his power and attainments he was as a speaker, and in +conversation, surprisingly awkward. He had a sturdy, penetrating, +tenacious, but embarrassed intellect--embarrassed, at least, by the +crowd and range of jostling thoughts, in its outward processes and +manifestations, for he thoroughly trusted its inner workings, and was +confident of the accuracy of the results, even when helplessly unable to +justify them at the moment.[32] In matters of business he seemed at +first sight utterly unpractical. In discussing with keen, rapid, and +experienced men like the Provost, the value of leases, or some question +of the management of College property, Marriott, who always took great +interest in such inquiries, frequently maintained some position which to +the quicker wits round him seemed a paradox or a mare's nest. Yet it +often happened that after a dispute, carried on with a brisk fire of not +always respectful objections to Marriott's view, and in which his only +advantage was the patience with which he clumsily, yet surely, brought +out the real point of the matter, overlooked by others, the debate +ended in the recognition that he had been right. It was often a strange +and almost distressing sight to see the difficulty under which he +sometimes laboured of communicating his thoughts, as a speaker at a +meeting, or as a teacher to his hearers, or even in the easiness of +familiar talk. The comfort was that he was not really discouraged. He +was wrestling with his own refractory faculty of exposition and speech; +it may be, he was busy deeper down in the recesses and storehouses of +his mind; but he was too much taken up with the effort to notice what +people thought of it, or even if they smiled; and what he had to say was +so genuine and veracious, as an expression of his meaning, so full of +benevolence, charity, and generosity, and often so weighty and +unexpected, that men felt it a shame to think much of the peculiarities +of his long look of blank silence, and the odd, clumsy explanations +which followed it. He was a man, under an uncouth exterior, of the +noblest and most affectionate nature; most patient, indulgent, and +hopeful to all in whom he took an interest, even when they sorely tried +his kindness and his faith in them. Where he loved and trusted and +admired, he was apt to rate very highly, sometimes too highly. His +gratitude was boundless. He was one of those who deliberately gave up +the prospect of domestic life, to which he was naturally drawn, for the +sake of his cause. Capable of abstract thought beyond most men of his +time, and never unwilling to share his thoughts with those at all +disposed to venture with him into deep waters, he was always ready to +converse or to discuss on much more ordinary ground. As an undergraduate +and a young bachelor, he had attained, without seeking it, a position of +almost unexampled authority in the junior University world that was +hardly reached by any one for many years at least after him. He was +hopeless as a speaker in the Union; but with all his halting and +bungling speeches, that democratic and sometimes noisy assembly bore +from him with kindly amusement and real respect what they would bear +from no one else, and he had an influence in its sometimes turbulent +debates which seems unaccountable. He was the _vir pietate gravis_. In a +once popular squib, occasioned by one of the fiercest of these debates, +this unique position is noticed and commemorated-- + + [Greek: Oud' elathen Mariota, philaitaton Oreiaelon] + + * * * * * + + [Greek: Aelthe mega gronon, Masichois kai pas' agapaetos, + Kai smeilon, prosephae pantas keindois epeesin].[33] + +His ways and his talk were such as to call forth not unfrequent mirth +among those who most revered him. He would meet you and look you in the +face without speaking a word. He was not without humour; but his jokes, +carried off by a little laugh of his own, were apt to be recondite in +their meaning and allusions. With his great power of sympathy, he yet +did not easily divine other men's lighter or subtler moods, and odd and +sometimes even distressing mistakes were the consequence. His health was +weak, and a chronic tenderness of throat and chest made him take +precautions which sometimes seemed whimsical; and his well-known figure +in a black cloak, with a black veil over his college cap, and a black +comforter round his neck, which at one time in Oxford acquired his name, +sometimes startled little boys and sleepy college porters when he came +on them suddenly at night. + +With more power than most men of standing alone, and of arranging his +observations on life and the world in ways of his own, he had +pre-eminently above all men round him, in the highest and noblest form, +the spirit of a disciple. Like most human things, discipleship has its +good and its evil, its strong and its poor and dangerous side; but it +really has, what is much forgotten now, a good and a strong side. Both +in philosophy and religion, the [Greek: mathaetaes] is a distinct +character, and Charles Marriott was an example of it at its best. He had +its manly and reasonable humility, its generous trustfulness, its +self-forgetfulness; he had, too, the enthusiasm of having and +recognising a great master and teacher, and doing what he wanted done; +and he learned from the love of his master to love what he believed +truth still more. The character of the disciple does not save a man from +difficulties, from trouble and perplexity; but it tends to save him from +idols of his own making. It is something, in the trials of life and +faith, to have the consciousness of knowing or having known some one +greater and better and wiser than oneself, of having felt the spell of +his guidance and example. Marriott's mind, quick to see what was real +and strong, and at once reverent to it as soon as he saw it, came very +much, as an undergraduate at Balliol, under the influence of a very able +and brilliant tutor, Moberly, afterwards Headmaster of Winchester and +Bishop of Salisbury; and to the last his deference and affection to his +old tutor remained unimpaired. But he came under a still more potent +charm when he moved to Oriel, and became the friend of Mr. Newman. +Master and disciple were as unlike as any two men could be; they were +united by their sympathy in the great crisis round them, by their +absorbing devotion to the cause of true religion. Marriott brought to +the movement, and especially to its chief, a great University character, +and an unswerving and touching fidelity. He placed himself, his life, +and all that he could do, at the service of the great effort to elevate +and animate the Church; to the last he would gladly have done so under +him whom he first acknowledged as his master. This was not to be; and he +transferred his allegiance, as unreservedly, with equal loyalty and +self-sacrifice, to his successor. But to the end, while his powers +lasted, with all his great gifts and attainments, with every temptation +to an independent position and self-chosen employment, he continued a +disciple. He believed in men wiser than himself; he occupied himself +with what they thought best for him to do. + +This work was, for the most part, in what was done to raise the standard +of knowledge of early Christian literature, and to make that knowledge +accurate and scholarlike. He was, for a time, the Principal of the +Theological College at Chichester, under Bishop Otter. He was also for a +time Tutor at Oriel, and later, Vicar of St. Mary's. He was long bent on +setting on foot some kind of Hall for poor students; and he took over +from Mr. Newman the buildings at Littlemore, which he turned into a +place for printing religious works. But though he was connected more or +less closely with numberless schemes of Christian work in Oxford and out +of it, his special work was that of a theological student. Marriott had +much to do with the Library of the Fathers, with correcting +translations, collating manuscripts, editing texts.[34] Somehow, the +most interesting portions hardly came to his share; and what he did in +the way of original writing, little as it was, causes regret that so +much of his time was spent on the drudgery of editing. Some sermons, a +little volume of _Thoughts on Private Devotion_, and another on the +_Epistle to the Romans_, are nearly all that he has left of his own. +Novelty of manner or thought in them there is none, still less anything +brilliant or sharp in observation or style; but there is an undefinable +sense, in their calm, severe pages, of a deep and serious mind dwelling +on deep and very serious things. It is impossible not to wish that a man +who could so write and impress people might have had the leisure to +write more. + +But Marriott never had any leisure. It has been said above that he +placed himself at the service of those whom he counted his teachers. But +the truth is that he was at every one's service who wanted or who asked +his help. He had a large, and what must have been often a burdensome, +correspondence. With pupils or friends he was always ready for some +extra bit of reading. To strangers he was always ready to show attention +and hospitality, though Marriott's parties were as quaint as himself. +His breakfast parties in his own room were things to have seen--a crowd +of undergraduates, finding their way with difficulty amid lanes and +piles of books, amid a scarcity of chairs and room, and the host, +perfectly unconscious of anything grotesque, sitting silent during the +whole of the meal, but perfectly happy, at the head of the table. But +there was no claimant on his purse or his interest who was too strange +for his sympathy--raw freshmen, bores of every kind, broken-down +tradesmen, old women, distressed foreigners, converted Jews, all the odd +and helpless wanderers from beaten ways, were to be heard of at +Marriott's rooms; and all, more or less, had a share of his time and +thoughts, and perhaps counsel. He was sensible of worry as he grew +older; but he never relaxed his efforts to do what any one asked of him. +There must be even now some still living who know what no one else +knows, how much they owe, with no direct claim on him, to Charles +Marriott's inexhaustible patience and charity. The pains which he would +take with even the most uncongenial and unpromising men, who somehow had +come in his way, and seemed thrown on his charge, the patience with +which he would bear and condone their follies and even worse, were not +to be told, for, indeed, few knew what they were. + +"He was always ready to be the friend of any one whose conduct gave +proofs of high principle, however inferior to himself in knowledge or +acquirements, and his friendship once gained was not easily lost. I +believe there was nothing in his power which he was not ready to do for +a friend who wanted his help. It is not easy to state instances of such +kindness without revealing what for many reasons had better be left +untold. But many such have come to my knowledge, and I believe there are +many more known only to himself and to those who derived benefit from +his disinterested friendship."[35] + +Marriott's great contribution to the movement was his solid, simple +goodness, his immovable hope, his confidence that things would come +right. With much imaginativeness open to poetical grandeur and charm, +and not without some power of giving expression to feeling, he was +destitute of all that made so many others of his friends interesting as +men. He was nothing, as a person to know and observe, to the genius of +the two Mozleys, to the brilliant social charm of Frederic Faber, to the +keen, refined intelligence of Mark Pattison, to the originality and +clever eccentricity of William Palmer of Magdalen. And he was nothing as +a man of practical power for organising and carrying out successful +schemes: such power was not much found at Oxford in those days. But his +faith in his cause, as the cause of goodness and truth, was proof +against mockery or suspicion or disaster. When ominous signs disturbed +other people he saw none. He had an almost perverse subtlety of mind +which put a favourable interpretation on what seemed most formidable. As +his master drew more and more out of sympathy with the English Church, +Marriott, resolutely loyal to it and to him, refused to understand hints +and indications which to others were but too plain. He vexed and even +provoked Newman, in the last agonies of the struggle, by the optimism +with which he clung to useless theories and impossible hopes. For that +unquenchable hoping against hope, and hope unabated still when the +catastrophe had come, the English Church at least owes him deep +gratitude. Throughout those anxious years he never despaired of her. + +All through his life he was a beacon and an incitement to those who +wished to make a good use of their lives. In him all men could see, +whatever their opinions and however little they liked him, the +simplicity and the truth of a self-denying life of suffering--for he was +never well--of zealous hard work, unstinted, unrecompensed; of unabated +lofty hopes for the great interests of the Church and the University; of +deep unpretending matter-of-course godliness and goodness--without "form +or comeliness" to attract any but those who cared for them, for +themselves alone. It is almost a sacred duty to those who remember one +who cared nothing for his own name or fame to recall what is the +truth--that no one did more to persuade those round him of the solid +underground religious reality of the movement. Mr. Thomas Mozley, among +other generous notices of men whom the world and their contemporaries +have forgotten, has said what is not more than justice.[36] Speaking of +the enthusiasm of the movement, and the spirit of its members, "There +had never been seen at Oxford, indeed seldom anywhere, so large and +noble a sacrifice of the most precious gifts and powers to a sacred +cause," he points out what each of the leaders gave to it: "Charles +Marriott threw in his scholarship and something more, for he might have +been a philosopher, and he had poetry in his veins, being the son of the +well-known author of the 'Devonshire Lane.' No one sacrificed himself so +entirely to the cause, giving to it all that he had and all that he was, +as Charles Marriott. He did not gather large congregations; he did not +write works of genius to spread his name over the land, and to all time; +he had few of the pleasures or even of the comforts that spontaneously +offer themselves in any field of enterprise. He laboured day and night +in the search and defence of Divine Truth. His admirers were not the +thousands, but the scholars who could really appreciate. I confess to +have been a little ashamed of myself when Bishop Burgess asked me about +Charles Marriott, as one of the most eminent scholars of the day. +Through sheer ignorance I had failed in adequate appreciation." In his +later years he became a member of the new Hebdomadal Council at Oxford, +and took considerable part in working the new constitution of the +University. In an epidemic of smallpox at Oxford in 1854, he took his +full share in looking after the sick, and caught the disorder; but he +recovered. At length, in the midst of troublesome work and many +anxieties, his life of toil was arrested by a severe paralytic seizure, +29th June 1855. He partially rallied, and survived for some time longer; +but his labours were ended. He died at Bradfield, 25th September 1858. +He was worn out by variety and pressure of unintermitted labour, which +he would scarcely allow any change or holiday to relieve. Exhaustion +made illness, when it came, fatal. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[31] "He told me," writes a relative, "that questions about trade used +to occupy him very early in life. He used to ponder how it could be +right to sell things for more than they cost you." + +[32] "He had his own way of doing everything, and used most stoutly to +protest that it was quite impossible that he should do it in any +other."--_MS. Memoir_ by his brother, John Marriott. + +[33] _Uniomachia_, 1833. + +[34] "This became the main task of his life us long as health was +continued to him. All who knew him well will remember how laboriously he +worked at it, and how, in one shape or another, it was always on hand. +Either he was translating, or correcting the translation of others; or +he was collating MSS., or correcting the press. This last work was +carried on at all times and wherever he was--on a journey, after +dinner--even in a boat, he would pull out a sheet and go to write upon +it in haste to get it finished for the next post. The number of volumes +in the Library of the Fathers which bear the signature C.M. attest his +diligence."--John Marriott's Memoir of him (MS.) + +[35] J.M., _MS. Memoir_. + +[36] _Rem._ i. 447. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE OXFORD TRACTS + + +"On 14th July 1833," we read in Cardinal Newman's _Apologia_, "Mr. Keble +preached the assize sermon in the University Pulpit. It was published +under the title of _National Apostasy_. I have ever considered and kept +the day as the start of the religious movement of 1833."[37] + +This memorable sermon was a strong expression of the belief common to a +large body of Churchmen amid the triumphs of the Reform Bill, that the +new governors of the country were preparing to invade the rights, and to +alter the constitution, and even the public documents, of the Church. +The suppression of ten Irish Bishoprics, in defiance of Church opinion, +showed how ready the Government was to take liberties in a high-handed +way with the old adjustments of the relations of Church and State. +Churchmen had hitherto taken for granted that England was "a nation +which had for centuries acknowledged, as an essential part of its +theory of government, that, _as_ a Christian nation, she is also a part +of Christ's Church, and bound, in all her legislation and policy, by the +fundamental laws of that Church." When "a Government and people, so +constituted, threw off the restraint which in many respects such a +principle would impose upon them, nay, disavowed the principle itself," +this, to those whose ideas Mr. Keble represented, seemed nothing short +of a "direct disavowal of the sovereignty of God. If it be true anywhere +that such enactments are forced on the legislature by public opinion, is +Apostasy too hard a word to describe the temper of such a nation?" The +sermon was a call to face in earnest a changed state of things, full of +immediate and pressing danger; to consider how it was to be met by +Christians and Churchmen, and to watch motives and tempers. "Surely it +will be no unworthy principle if any man is more circumspect in his +behaviour, more watchful and fearful of himself, more earnest in his +petitions for spiritual aid, from a dread of disparaging the holy name +of the English Church in her hour of peril by his own personal fault and +negligence. As to those who, either by station or temper, feel +themselves more deeply interested, they cannot be too careful in +reminding themselves that one chief danger in times of change and +excitement arises from their tendency to engross the whole mind. Public +concerns, ecclesiastical or civil, will prove indeed ruinous to those +who permit them to occupy all their care and thought, neglecting or +undervaluing ordinary duties, more especially those of a devotional +kind. These cautions being duly observed, I do not see how any person +can devote himself too entirely to the cause of the Apostolic Church in +these realms. There may be, as far as he knows, but a very few to +sympathise with him. He may have to wait long, and very likely pass out +of this world, before he see any abatement in the triumph of disorder +and irreligion. But, _if he be consistent_, he possesses to the utmost +the personal consolations of a good Christian; and as a true Churchman, +he has the encouragement which no other cause in the world can impart in +the same degree: he is calmly, soberly, demonstrably _sure_ that, sooner +or later, _his will be the winning side_, and that the victory will be +complete, universal, eternal." + +But if Mr. Keble's sermon was the first word of the movement, its first +step was taken in a small meeting of friends, at Mr. Hugh James Rose's +parsonage at Hadleigh, in Suffolk, between the 25th and the 29th of the +same July. At this little gathering, the ideas and anxieties which for +some time past had filled the thoughts of a number of earnest Churchmen, +and had brought them into communication with one another, came to a +head, and issued in the determination to move. Mr. Rose, a man of high +character and distinction in his day, who had recently started the +_British Magazine_, as an organ of Church teaching and opinion, was the +natural person to bring about such a meeting.[38] It was arranged that a +few representative men, or as many as were able, should meet towards the +end of July at Hadleigh Rectory. They were men in full agreement on the +main questions, but with great differences in temperament and habits of +thought. Mr. Rose was the person of most authority, and next to him, Mr. +Palmer; and these, with Mr. A. Perceval, formed as it were the right +wing of the little council. Their Oxford allies were the three Oriel +men, Mr. Keble, Mr. Froude, and Mr. Newman, now fresh from his escape +from death in a foreign land, and from the long solitary musings in his +Mediterranean orange-boat, full of joyful vigour and ready for +enterprise and work.[39] In the result, Mr. Keble and Mr. Newman were +not present, but they were in active correspondence with the others.[40] +From this meeting resulted the _Tracts for the Times_, and the agitation +connected with them. + +These friends were all devoted Churchmen, but, as has been said, each +had his marked character, not only as a man but as a Churchman. The most +important among them was as yet the least prominent. Two of them were +men of learning, acquainted with the great world of London, and who, +with all their zeal, had some of the caution which comes of such +experience. At the time, the most conspicuous was Mr. Hugh James Rose. + +Mr. Rose was a man whose name and whose influence, as his friends +thought, have been overshadowed and overlooked in the popular view of +the Church revival. It owed to him, they held, not only its first +impulse, but all that was best and most hopeful in it; and when it lost +him, it lost its wisest and ablest guide and inspirer. It is certainly +true that when that revival began he was a much more distinguished and +important person than any of the other persons interested in it. As far +as could be seen at the time, he was the most accomplished divine and +teacher in the English Church. He was a really learned man. He had the +intellect and energy and literary skill to use his learning. He was a +man of singularly elevated and religious character; he had something of +the eye and temper of a statesman, and he had already a high position. +He was profoundly loyal to the Church, and keenly interested in whatever +affected its condition and its fortunes. As early as 1825 he had in some +lectures at Cambridge called the attention of English Churchmen to the +state of religious thought and speculation in Germany, and to the +mischiefs likely to react on English theology from the rationalising +temper and methods which had supplanted the old Lutheran teaching; and +this had led to a sharp controversy with Mr. Pusey, as he was then, who +thought that Mr. Rose[41] had both exaggerated the fact itself and had +not adequately given the historical account of it. He had the prudence, +but not the backwardness, of a man of large knowledge, and considerable +experience of the world. More alive to difficulties and dangers than his +younger associates, he showed his courage and his unselfish earnestness +in his frank sympathy with them, daring and outspoken as they were, and +in his willingness to share with them the risks of an undertaking of +which no one knew better than he what were likely to be the +difficulties. He certainly was a person who might be expected to have a +chief part in directing anything with which he was connected. His +countenance and his indirect influence were very important elements, +both in the stirring of thought which led to the Hadleigh resolutions, +and in giving its form to what was then decided upon. But his action in +the movement was impeded by his failure in health, and cut short by his +early death, January 1839. How he would have influenced the course of +things if he had lived, it is not now easy to say. He must have been +reckoned with as one of the chiefs. He would have been opposed to +anything that really tended towards Rome. But there is no reason to +think that he would have shrunk from any step only because it was bold. +He had sympathy for courage and genius, and he had knowledge and +authority which would have commanded respect for his judgment and +opinion. But it is too much to say either that the movement could not +have been without him, or that it was specially his design and plan, or +that he alone could have given the impulse which led to it; though it +seemed at one time as if he was to be its leader and chief. Certainly he +was the most valuable and the most loyal of its early auxiliaries. + +Another coadjutor, whose part at the time also seemed rather that of a +chief, was Mr. William Palmer, of Worcester College. He had been +educated at Trinity College, Dublin, but he had transferred his home to +Oxford, both in the University and the city. He was a man of exact and +scholastic mind, well equipped at all points in controversial theology, +strong in clear theories and precise definitions, familiar with +objections current in the schools and with the answers to them, and well +versed in all the questions, arguments, and authorities belonging to the +great debate with Rome. He had definite and well-arranged ideas about +the nature and office of the Church; and, from his study of the Roman +controversy, he had at command the distinctions necessary to +discriminate between things which popular views confused, and to protect +the doctrines characteristic of the Church from being identified with +Romanism. Especially he had given great attention to the public +devotional language and forms of the Church, and had produced by far the +best book in the English language on the history and significance of the +offices of the English Church--the _Origines Liturgicae_, published at +the University Press in 1832. It was a book to give a man authority with +divines and scholars; and among those with whom at this time he acted no +one had so compact and defensible a theory, even if it was somewhat +rigid and technical, of the peculiar constitution of the English Church +as Mr. Palmer. With the deepest belief in this theory, he saw great +dangers threatening, partly from general ignorance and looseness of +thought, partly from antagonistic ideas and principles only too +distinct and too popular; and he threw all his learning and zeal on the +side of those who, like himself, were alive to those dangers, and were +prepared for a great effort to counteract them. + +The little company which met at Hadleigh Rectory, from 25th to 29th July +1833, met--as other knots of men have often met, to discuss a question +or a policy, or to found an association, or a league, or a newspaper--to +lay down the outlines of some practical scheme of work; but with little +foresight of the venture they were making, or of the momentous issues +which depended on their meeting. Later on, when controversy began, it +became a favourite rhetorical device to call it by the ugly name of a +"conspiracy." Certainly Froude called it so, and Mr. Palmer; and Mr. +Perceval wrote a narrative to answer the charge. It was a "conspiracy," +as any other meeting would be of men with an object which other men +dislike. + +Of the Oriel men, only Froude went to Hadleigh. Keble and Newman were +both absent, but in close correspondence with the others. Their plans +had not taken any definite shape; but they were ready for any sacrifice +and service, and they were filled with wrath against the insolence of +those who thought that the Church was given over into their hands, and +against the apathy and cowardice of those who let her enemies have their +way. Yet with much impatience and many stern determinations in their +hearts, they were all of them men to be swayed by the judgment and +experience of their friends. + +The state of mind under which the four friends met at the Hadleigh +conference has been very distinctly and deliberately recorded by all of +them. Churchmen in our days hardly realise what the face of things then +looked like to men who, if they felt deeply, were no mere fanatics or +alarmists, but sober and sagacious observers, not affected by mere +cries, but seeing dearly beneath the surface of things their certain and +powerful tendencies. "We felt ourselves," writes Mr. Palmer some years +afterwards,[42] "assailed by enemies from without and foes within. Our +Prelates insulted and threatened by Ministers of State. In Ireland ten +bishoprics suppressed. We were advised to feel thankful that a more +sweeping measure had not been adopted. What was to come next?... Was the +same principle of concession to popular clamour ... to be exemplified in +the dismemberment of the English Church?... We were overwhelmed with +pamphlets on Church reform. Lord Henley, brother-in-law of Sir Robert +Peel, Dr. Burton, and others of name and influence led the way. Dr. +Arnold of Rugby ventured to propose that all sects should be united by +Act of Parliament with the Church of England. Reports, apparently well +founded, were prevalent that some of the Prelates were favourable to +alterations in the Liturgy. Pamphlets were in wide circulation +recommending the abolition of the Creeds (at least in public worship), +especially urging the expulsion of the Athanasian Creed; the removal of +all mention of the Blessed Trinity; of the doctrine of baptismal +regeneration; of the practice of absolution. We knew not to what quarter +to look for support. A Prelacy threatened and apparently intimidated; a +Government making its power subservient to agitators, who avowedly +sought the destruction of the Church ... And, worst of all, _no +principle in the public mind to which we could appeal_; an utter +ignorance of all rational grounds of attachment to the Church; an +oblivion of its spiritual character, as an institution not of man but of +God; the grossest Erastianism most widely prevalent, especially amongst +all classes of politicians. There was in all this enough to appal the +stoutest heart; and those who can recall the feeling of those days will +at once remember the deep depression into which the Church had fallen, +and the gloomy forebodings universally prevalent." + +"Before the spirit and temper of those who met at the conference is +condemned as extravagant," writes Mr. Perceval in 1842,[43] "let the +reader call to mind what was then actually the condition as well as the +prospect of the Church and nation: an agrarian and civic insurrection +against the bishops and clergy, and all who desired to adhere to the +existing institutions of the country; the populace goaded on, openly by +the speeches, covertly (as was fully believed at the time) by the paid +emissaries of the ministers of the Crown; the chief of those ministers +in his place in Parliament bidding the bishops 'set their house in +order'; the mob taking him at his word, and burning to the ground the +palace of the Bishop of Bristol, with the public buildings of the city, +while they shouted the Premier's name in triumph on the ruins." The +pressing imminence of the danger is taken for granted by the calmest and +most cautious of the party, Mr. Rose, in a letter of February 1833. +"That something is requisite, is certain. The only thing is, that +whatever is done ought to be _quickly_ done, for the danger is +immediate, and _I should have little fear if I thought that we could +stand for ten or fifteen years as we are_."[44] In the _Apologia_ +Cardinal Newman recalls what was before him in those days. "The Whigs +had come into power; Lord Grey had told the bishops to 'set their house +in order,' and some of the prelates had been insulted and threatened in +the streets of London. The vital question was. How were we to keep the +Church from being Liberalised? There was so much apathy on the subject +in some quarters, such imbecile alarm in others; the true principles of +Churchmanship seemed so radically decayed, and there was such +distraction in the councils of the clergy. The Bishop of London of the +day, an active and open-hearted man, had been for years engaged in +diluting the high orthodoxy of the Church by the introduction of the +Evangelical body into places of influence and trust. He had deeply +offended men who agreed with myself by an off-hand saying (as it was +reported) to the effect that belief in the apostolical succession had +gone out with the Non-jurors. '_We can count you_,' he said to some of +the gravest and most venerated persons of the old school.... I felt +affection for my own Church, but not tenderness: I felt dismay at her +prospects, anger and scorn at her do-nothing perplexity. I thought that +if Liberalism once got a footing within her, it was sure of victory in +the event. I saw that Reformation principles were powerless to rescue +her. As to leaving her, the thought never crossed my imagination: still +I ever kept before me that there was something greater than the +Established Church, and that that was the Church Catholic and Apostolic, +set up from the beginning, of which she was but the local presence and +organ. She was nothing unless she was this. She must be dealt with +strongly or she would be lost. There was need of a second Reformation." + +"If _I thought that we could stand ten or fifteen years as we are_, I +should have little fear," said Mr. Rose. He felt that, if only he could +secure a respite, he had the means and the hope of opening the eyes of +Churchmen. They were secure and idle from long prosperity, and now they +were scared and perplexed by the suddenness of an attack for which they +were wholly unprepared. But he had confidence in his own convictions. He +had around him ability and zeal, in which he had the best reason to +trust. He might hope, if he had time, to turn the tide. But this time +to stand to arms was just what he had not. The danger, he felt, was upon +him. He could not wait. So he acquiesced in an agitation which so +cautious and steady a man would otherwise hardly have chosen. "That +_something must be done_ is certain. The only thing is, that whatever is +done ought to be _quickly_ done." Nothing can show more forcibly the +imminence and pressure of the crisis than words like these, not merely +from Froude and his friends, but from such a man as Mr. Hugh James Rose. + +"Something must be done," but what? This was not so easy to say. It was +obvious that men must act in concert, and must write; but beyond these +general points, questions and difficulties arose. The first idea that +suggested itself at Hadleigh was a form of association, which would have +been something like the _English Church Union_ or the _Church Defence +Association_ of our days. It probably was Mr. Palmer's idea; and for +some time the attempt to carry it into effect was followed up at Oxford. +Plans of "Association" were drawn up and rejected. The endeavour brought +out differences of opinion--differences as to the rightness or the +policy of specific mention of doctrines; differences as to the union of +Church and State, on the importance of maintaining which, as long as +possible, Mr. Newman sided with Mr. Palmer against Mr. Keble's more +uncompromising view. A "_third_ formulary" was at length adopted. +"Events," it said, "have occurred within the last few years calculated +to inspire the true members and friends of the Church with the deepest +uneasiness." It went on to notice that political changes had thrown +power into the hands of the professed enemies of the Church as an +establishment; but it was not merely as an establishment that it was in +most serious danger. "Every one," it says, "who has become acquainted +with the literature of the day, must have observed the sedulous attempts +made in various quarters to reconcile members of the Church to +alterations in its doctrines and discipline. Projects of change, which +include the annihilation of our Creeds and the removal of doctrinal +statements incidentally contained in our worship, have been boldly and +assiduously put forth. Our services have been subjected to licentious +criticism, with the view of superseding some of them and of entirely +remodelling others. The very elementary principles of our ritual and +discipline have been rudely questioned; our apostolical polity has been +ridiculed and denied." The condition of the times made these things +more than ordinarily alarming, and the pressing danger was urged as a +reason for the formation, by members of the Church in various parts of +the kingdom, of an association on a few broad principles of union for +the defence of the Church. "They feel strongly," said the authors of the +paper, "that no fear of the appearance of forwardness should dissuade +them from a design, which seems to be demanded of them by their +affection towards that spiritual community to which they owe their hopes +of the world to come; and by a sense of duty to that God and Saviour who +is its Founder and Defender." But the plan of an Association, or of +separate Associations, which was circulated in the autumn of 1833, came +to nothing. "Jealousy was entertained of it in high quarters." Froude +objected to any association less wide than the Church itself. Newman had +a horror of committees and meetings and great people in London. And +thus, in spite of Mr. Palmer's efforts, favoured by a certain number of +influential and dignified friends, the Association would not work. But +the stir about it was not without result. Mr. Palmer travelled about the +country with the view of bringing the state of things before the clergy. +In place of the Association, an Address to the Archbishop of Canterbury +was resolved upon. It was drawn up by Mr. Palmer, who undertook the +business of circulating it. In spite of great difficulties and trouble +of the alarm of friends like Mr. Rose, who was afraid that it would +cause schism in the Church; of the general timidity of the dignified +clergy; of the distrust and the crotchets of others; of the coldness of +the bishops and the opposition of some of them--it was presented with +the signatures of some 7000 clergy to the Archbishop in February 1834. +It bore the names, among others, of Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, Master +of Trinity; Dr. Gilbert, of Brasenose College; Dr. Faussett, and Mr. +Keble. And this was not all. A Lay Address followed. There were +difficulties about the first form proposed, which was thought to say too +much about the doctrine and discipline of the Church; and it was laid +aside for one with more vague expressions about the "consecration of the +State," and the practical benefits of the Established Church. In this +form it was signed by 230,000 heads of families, and presented to the +Archbishop in the following May. "From these two events," writes Mr. +Perceval in 1842, "we may date the commencement of the turn of the tide, +which had threatened to overwhelm our Church and our religion."[45] +There can, at any rate, be little doubt that as regards the external +position of the Church in the country, this agitation was a success. It +rallied the courage of Churchmen, and showed that they were stronger and +more resolute than their enemies thought. The revolutionary temper of +the times had thrown all Churchmen on the Conservative side; and these +addresses were partly helped by political Conservatism, and also reacted +in its favour. + +Some of the Hadleigh friends would probably have been content to go on +in this course, raising and keeping alive a strong feeling in favour of +things as they were, creating a general sympathy with the Church, and +confidence in the peculiar excellency of its wise and sober +institutions, sedulously but cautiously endeavouring to correct popular +mistakes about them, and to diffuse a sounder knowledge and a sounder +tone of religious feeling. This is what Mr. H.J. Rose would have wished, +only he felt that he could not insure the "ten or fifteen years" which +he wanted to work this gradual change. Both he and Mr. Palmer would have +made London, to use a military term, their base of operations. The Oriel +men, on the other hand, thought that "Universities are the natural +centres of intellectual movements"; they were for working more +spontaneously in the freedom of independent study; they had little faith +in organisation; "living movements," they said, "do not come of +committees." But at Hadleigh it was settled that there was writing to be +done, in some way or other; and on this, divergence of opinion soon +showed itself, both as to the matter and the tone of what was to be +written. + +For the writers of real force, the men of genius, were the three Oriel +men, with less experience, at that time, with less extensive learning, +than Mr. Rose and Mr. Palmer. But they were bolder and keener spirits; +they pierced more deeply into the real condition and prospects of the +times; they were not disposed to smooth over and excuse what they +thought hollow and untrue, to put up with decorous compromises and +half-measures, to be patient towards apathy, negligence, or insolence. +They certainly had more in them of the temper of warfare. We know from +their own avowals that a great anger possessed them, that they were +indignant at the sacred idea of the Church being lost and smothered by +selfishness and stupidity; they were animated by the spirit which makes +men lose patience with abuses and their apologists, and gives them no +peace till they speak out. Mr. Newman felt that, though associations and +addresses might be very well, what the Church and the clergy and the +country wanted was plain speaking; and that plain speaking could not be +got by any papers put forth as joint manifestoes, or with the revision +and sanction of "safe" and "judicious" advisers. It was necessary to +write, and to write as each man felt: and he determined that each man +should write and speak for himself, though working in concert and +sympathy with others towards the supreme end--the cause and interests of +the Church. + +And thus were born the _Tracts for the Times._[46] For a time Mr. +Palmer's line and Mr. Newman's line ran on side by side; but Mr. +Palmer's plan had soon done all that it could do, important as that was; +it gradually faded out of sight, and the attention of all who cared for, +or who feared or who hated the movement, was concentrated on the "Oxford +Tracts." They were the watchword and the symbol of an enterprise which +all soon felt to be a remarkable one--remarkable, if in nothing else, in +the form in which it was started. Great changes and movements have been +begun in various ways; in secret and underground communications, in +daring acts of self-devotion or violence, in the organisation of an +institution, in the persistent display of a particular temper and set of +habits, especially in the form of a stirring and enthralling eloquence, +in popular preaching, in fierce appeals to the passions. But though +tracts had become in later times familiar instruments of religious +action, they had, from the fashion of using them, become united in the +minds of many with rather disparaging associations. The pertinacity of +good ladies who pressed them on chance strangers, and who extolled their +efficacy as if it was that of a quack medicine, had lowered the general +respect for them. The last thing that could have been thought of was a +great religions revolution set in motion by tracts and leaflets, and +taking its character and name from them. + +But the ring of these early Tracts was something very different from +anything of the kind yet known in England. They were clear, brief, stern +appeals to conscience and reason, sparing of words, utterly without +rhetoric, intense in purpose. They were like the short, sharp, rapid +utterances of men in pain and danger and pressing emergency. The first +one gave the keynote of the series. Mr. Newman "had out of his own head +begun the Tracts": he wrote the opening one in a mood which he has +himself described. He was in the "exultation of health restored and home +regained": he felt, he says, an "exuberant and joyous energy which he +never had before or since"; "his health and strength had come back to +him with such a rebound" that some of his friends did not know him. "I +had the consciousness that I was employed in that work which I had been +dreaming about, and which I felt to be so momentous and inspiring. I had +a supreme confidence in our cause; we were upholding that primitive +Christianity which was delivered for all time by the early teachers of +the Church, and which was registered and attested in the Anglican +formularies and by the Anglican divines. That ancient religion had +well-nigh faded out of the land through the political changes of the +last 150 years, and it must be restored. It would be, in fact, a second +Reformation--a better Reformation, for it would return, not to the +sixteenth century, but to the seventeenth. No time was to be lost, for +the Whigs had come to do their worst, and the rescue might come too +late. Bishoprics were already in course of suppression; Church property +was in course of confiscation; sees would be soon receiving unsuitable +occupants. We knew enough to begin preaching, and there was no one else +to preach. I felt," he goes on,[47] with a characteristic recollection +of his own experience when he started on his voyage with Froude in the +_Hermes_, "as on a vessel, which first gets under weigh, and then clears +out the deck, and stores away luggage and live stock into their proper +receptacles." The first three Tracts bear the date of 9th September +1833. They were the first public utterance of the movement. The opening +words of this famous series deserve to be recalled. They are new to most +of the present generation. + + TO MY BRETHREN IN THE SACRED MINISTRY, THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS OF + THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IN ENGLAND, ORDAINED THEREUNTO BY THE HOLY GHOST + AND THE IMPOSITION OF HANDS. + + FELLOW-LABOURERS,--I am but one of yourselves--Presbyter; and + therefore I conceal my name, lest I should take too much on myself by + speaking in my own person. Yet speak I must; for the times are very + evil, yet no one speaks against them. + + Is not this so? Do not we "look one upon another," yet perform + nothing? Do we not all confess the peril into which the Church is + come, yet sit still each in his own retirement, as if mountains and + seas cut off brother from brother? Therefore suffer me, while I try to + draw you forth from those pleasant retreats, which it has been our + blessedness hitherto to enjoy, to contemplate the condition and + prospects of our Holy Mother in a practical way; so that one and all + may unlearn that idle habit, which has grown upon us, of owning the + state of things to be bad, yet doing nothing to remedy it. + + Consider a moment. Is it fair, is it dutiful, to suffer our bishops to + stand the brunt of the battle without doing our part to support them? + Upon them comes "the care of all the Churches." This cannot be helped; + indeed it is their glory. Not one of us would wish in the least to + deprive them of the duties, the toils, the responsibilities of their + high office. And, black event as it would be for the country, yet (as + far as they are concerned) we could not wish them a more blessed + termination of their course than the spoiling of their goods and + martyrdom. + + To them then we willingly and affectionately relinquish their high + privileges and honours; we encroach not upon the rights of the + SUCCESSORS OF THE APOSTLES; we touch not their sword and crozier. Yet + surely we may be their shield-bearers in the battle without offence; + and by our voice and deeds be to them what Luke and Timothy were to + St. Paul. + + Now then let me come at once to the subject which leads me to address + you. Should the Government and the Country so far forget their God as + to cast off the Church, to deprive it of its temporal honours and + substance, _on what_ will you rest the claim of respect and attention + which you make upon your flocks? Hitherto you have been upheld by your + birth, your education, your wealth, your connexions; should these + secular advantages cease, on what must Christ's Ministers depend? Is + not this a serious practical question? We know how miserable is the + state of religious bodies not supported by the State. Look at the + Dissenters on all sides of you, and you will see at once that their + Ministers, depending simply upon the people, become the _creatures_ of + the people. Are you content that this should be your case? Alas! can a + greater evil befall Christians, than for their teachers to be guided + by them, instead of guiding? How can we "hold fast the form of sound + words," and "keep that which is committed to our trust," if our + influence is to depend simply on our popularity? Is it not our very + office to _oppose_ the world? Can we then allow ourselves to _court_ + it? to preach smooth things and prophesy deceits? to make the way of + life easy to the rich and indolent, and to bribe the humbler classes + by excitements and strong intoxicating doctrine? Surely it must not be + so;--and the question recurs, _on what_ are we to rest our authority + when the State deserts us? + + Christ has not left His Church without claim of its own upon the + attention of men. Surely not. Hard Master He cannot be, to bid us + oppose the world, yet give us no credentials for so doing. There are + some who rest their divine mission on their own unsupported assertion; + others, who rest it upon their popularity; others, on their success; + and others, who rest it upon their temporal distinctions. This last + case has, perhaps, been too much our own; I fear we have neglected the + real ground on which our authority is built--OUR APOSTOLICAL DESCENT. + + We have been born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of + the will of man, but of God. The Lord Jesus Christ gave His Spirit to + His Apostles; they in turn laid their hands on those who should + succeed them; and these again on others; and so the sacred gift has + been handed down to our present bishops, who have appointed us as + their assistants, and in some sense representatives. + + Now every one of us believes this. I know that some will at first deny + they do; still they do believe it. Only, it is not sufficiently, + practically impressed on their minds. + + They _do_ believe it; for it _is_ the doctrine of the Ordination + Service, which they have recognised as truth in the most solemn season + of their lives. In order, then, not to prove, but to remind and + impress, I entreat your attention to the words used when you were made + ministers of Christ's Church. + + The office of Deacon was thus committed to you: "Take thou authority + to execute the office of a Deacon in the Church of God committed unto + thee: In the name, etc." + + And the Priesthood thus: + + "Receive the Holy Ghost, for the office and work of a Priest, in the + Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands. + Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou + dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a faithful dispenser of + the Word of God, and of His Holy Sacraments: In the name, etc." + + These, I say, were words spoken to us, and received by us, when we + were brought nearer to God than at any other time of our lives. I know + the grace of ordination is contained in the laying on of hands, not in + any form of words;--yet in our own case (as has ever been usual in the + Church) words of blessing have accompanied the act. Thus we have + confessed before God our belief that the bishop who ordained us gave + us the Holy Ghost, gave us the power to bind and to loose, to + administer the Sacraments, and to preach. Now _how_ is he able to give + these great gifts? _Whence_ is his right? Are these words idle (which + would be taking God's name in vain), or do they express merely a wish + (which surely is very far below their meaning), or do they not rather + indicate that the speaker is conveying a gift? Surely they can mean + nothing short of this. But whence, I ask, his right to do so? Has he + any right, except as having received the power from those who + consecrated him to be a bishop? He could not give what he had never + received. It is plain then that he but _transmits_; and that the + Christian Ministry is a _succession_. And if we trace back the power + of ordination from hand to hand, of course we shall come to the + Apostles at last. We know we do, as a plain historical fact; and + therefore all we, who have been ordained clergy, in the very form of + our ordination acknowledged the doctrine of the APOSTOLICAL + SUCCESSION. + + And for the same reason, we must necessarily consider none to be + _really_ ordained who have not _thus_ been ordained. For if ordination + is a divine ordinance, it must be necessary; and if it is not a divine + ordinance, how dare we use it? Therefore all who use it, all of _us_, + must consider it necessary. As well might we pretend the Sacraments + are not necessary to salvation, while we make use of the offices in + the Liturgy; for when God appoints means of grace, they are _the_ + means. + + I do not see how any one can escape from this plain view of the + subject, except (as I have already hinted) by declaring that the words + do not mean all that they say. But only reflect what a most unseemly + time for random words is that in which ministers are set apart for + their office. Do we not adopt a Liturgy _in order to_ hinder + inconsiderate idle language, and shall we, in the most sacred of all + services, write down, subscribe, and use again and again forms of + speech which have not been weighed, and cannot be taken strictly? + + Therefore, my dear brethren, act up to your professions. Let it not + be said that you have neglected a gift; for if you have the Spirit of + the Apostles on you, surely this _is_ a great gift. "Stir up the gift + of God which is in you." Make much of it. Show your value of it. Keep + it before your minds as an honourable badge, far higher than that + secular respectability, or cultivation, or polish, or learning, or + rank, which gives you a hearing with the many. Tell _them_ of your + gift. The times will soon drive you to do this, if you mean to be + still anything. But wait not for the times. Do not be compelled, by + the world's forsaking you, to recur as if unwillingly to the high + source of your authority. Speak out now, before you are forced, both + as glorying in your privilege and to insure your rightful honour from + your people. A notion has gone abroad that they can take away your + power. They think they have given and can take it away. They think it + lies in the Church property, and they know that they have politically + the power to confiscate that property. They have been deluded into a + notion that present palpable usefulness, producible results, + acceptableness to your flocks, that these and such like are the tests + of your divine commission. Enlighten them in this matter. Exalt our + Holy Fathers the bishops, as the representatives of the Apostles, and + the Angels of the Churches; and magnify your office, as being ordained + by them to take part in their Ministry. + + But, if you will not adopt my view of the subject, which I offer to + you, not doubtingly, yet (I hope) respectfully, at all events, CHOOSE + YOUR SIDE. To remain neuter much longer will be itself to take a part. + _Choose_ your side; since side you shortly must, with one or other + party, even though you do nothing. Fear to be of those whose line is + decided for them by chance circumstances, and who may perchance find + themselves with the enemies of Christ, while they think but to remove + themselves from worldly politics. Such abstinence is impossible in + troublous times. HE THAT IS NOT WITH ME IS AGAINST ME, AND HE THAT + GATHERETH NOT WITH ME SCATTERETH ABROAD. + +While Mr. Palmer was working at the Association and the Address, Mr. +Newman with his friends was sending forth the Tracts, one after another, +in rapid succession, through the autumn and winter of 1833. They were +short papers, in many cases mere short notes, on the great questions +which had suddenly sprung into such interest, and were felt to be full +of momentous consequence,--the true and essential nature of the +Christian Church, its relation to the primitive ages, its authority and +its polity and government, the current objections to its claims in +England, to its doctrines and its services, the length of the prayers, +the Burial Service, the proposed alterations in the Liturgy, the neglect +of discipline, the sins and corruptions of each branch of Christendom. +The same topics were enforced and illustrated again and again as the +series went on; and then there came extracts from English divines, like +Bishop Beveridge, Bishop Wilson, and Bishop Cosin, and under the title +"Records of the Church," translations from the early Fathers, Ignatius, +Justin, Irenaeus, and others. Mr. Palmer contributed to one of these +papers, and later on Mr. Perceval wrote two or three; but for the most +part these early Tracts were written by Mr. Newman, though Mr. Keble and +one or two others also helped. Afterwards, other writers joined in the +series. They were at first not only published with a notice that any one +might republish them with any alterations he pleased, but they were +distributed by zealous coadjutors, ready to take any trouble in the +cause. Mr. Mozley has described how he rode about Northamptonshire, from +parsonage to parsonage, with bundles of the Tracts. The _Apologia_ +records the same story. "I called upon clergy," says the writer, "in +various parts of the country, whether I was acquainted with them or not, +and I attended at the houses of friends where several of them were from +time to time assembled.... I did not care whether my visits were made to +High Church or Low Church: I wished to make a strong pull in union with +all who were opposed to the principles of Liberalism, whoever they might +be." He adds that he does not think that much came of these visits, or +of letters written with the same purpose, "except that they advertised +the fact that a rally in favour of the Church was commencing." + +The early Tracts were intended to startle the world, and they succeeded +in doing so. Their very form, as short earnest leaflets, was perplexing; +for they came, not from the class of religionists who usually deal in +such productions, but from distinguished University scholars, picked men +of a picked college; and from men, too, who as a school were the +representatives of soberness and self-control in religious feeling and +language, and whose usual style of writing was specially marked by its +severe avoidance of excitement and novelty; the school from which had +lately come the _Christian Year_, with its memorable motto "_In +quietness and confidence shall be your strength_." Their matter was +equally unusual. Undoubtedly they "brought strange things to the ears" +of their generation. To Churchmen now these "strange things" are such +familiar commonplaces, that it is hard to realise how they should have +made so much stir. But they were novelties, partly audacious, partly +unintelligible, then. The strong and peremptory language of the Tracts, +their absence of qualifications or explanations, frightened friends like +Mr. Palmer, who, so far, had no ground to quarrel with their doctrine, +and he wished them to be discontinued. The story went that one of the +bishops, on reading one of the Tracts on the Apostolical Succession, +could not make up his mind whether he held the doctrine or not. They +fell on a time of profound and inexcusable ignorance on the subjects +they discussed, and they did not spare it. The cry of Romanism was +inevitable, and was soon raised, though there was absolutely nothing in +them but had the indisputable sanction of the Prayer Book, and of the +most authoritative Anglican divines. There was no Romanism in them, nor +anything that showed a tendency to it. But custom, and the prevalence of +other systems and ways, and the interest of later speculations, and the +slackening of professional reading and scholarship in the Church, had +made their readers forget some of the most obvious facts in Church +history, and the most certain Church principles; and men were at sea as +to what they knew or believed on the points on which the Tracts +challenged them. The scare was not creditable; it was like the Italian +scare about cholera with its quarantines and fumigations; but it was +natural. The theological knowledge and learning were wanting which +would have been familiar with the broad line of difference between what +is Catholic and what is specially Roman. There were many whose teaching +was impugned, for it was really Calvinist or Zwinglian, and not +Anglican. There were hopeful and ambitious theological Liberals, who +recognised in that appeal to Anglicanism the most effective +counter-stroke to their own schemes and theories. There were many whom +the movement forced to think, who did not want such addition to their +responsibilities. It cannot be thought surprising that the new Tracts +were received with surprise, dismay, ridicule, and indignation. But they +also at once called forth a response of eager sympathy from numbers to +whom they brought unhoped-for relief and light in a day of gloom, of +rebuke and blasphemy. Mr. Keble, in the preface to his famous assize +sermon, had hazarded the belief that there were "hundreds, nay, +thousands of Christians, and that there soon will be tens of thousands, +unaffectedly anxious to be rightly guided" in regard to subjects that +concern the Church. The belief was soon justified. + +When the first forty-six Tracts were collected into a volume towards the +end of 1834, the following "advertisement" explaining their nature and +objects was prefixed to it. It is a contemporary and authoritative +account of what was the mind of the leaders of the movement; and it has +a significance beyond the occasion which prompted it. + + The following-Tracts were published with the object of + contributing-something towards the practical revival of doctrines, + which, although held by the great divines of our Church, at present + have become obsolete with the majority of her members, and are + withdrawn from public view even by the more learned and orthodox few + who still adhere to them. The Apostolic succession, the Holy Catholic + Church, were principles of action in the minds of our predecessors of + the seventeenth century; but, in proportion as the maintenance of the + Church has been secured by law, her ministers have been under the + temptation of leaning on an arm of flesh instead of her own + divinely-provided discipline, a temptation increased by political + events and arrangements which need not here be more than alluded to. A + lamentable increase of sectarianism has followed; being occasioned (in + addition to other more obvious causes), first, by the cold aspect + which the new Church doctrines have presented to the religious + sensibilities of the mind, next to their meagreness in suggesting + motives to restrain it from seeking out a more influential discipline. + Doubtless obedience to the law of the land, and the careful + maintenance of "decency and order" (the topics in usage among us), + are plain duties of the Gospel, and a reasonable ground for keeping in + communion with the Established Church; yet, if Providence has + graciously provided for our weakness more interesting and constraining + motives, it is a sin thanklessly to neglect them; just as it would be + a mistake to rest the duties of temperance or justice on the mere law + of natural religion, when they are mercifully sanctioned in the Gospel + by the more winning authority of our Saviour Christ. Experience has + shown the inefficacy of the mere injunctions of Church order, however + scripturally enforced, in restraining from schism the awakened and + anxious sinner; who goes to a dissenting preacher "because" (as he + expresses it) "he gets good from him": and though he does not stand + excused in God's sight for yielding to the temptation, surely the + ministers of the Church are not blameless if, by keeping back the more + gracious and consoling truths provided for the little ones of Christ, + they indirectly lead him into it. Had he been taught as a child, that + the Sacraments, not preaching, are the sources of Divine Grace; that + the Apostolical ministry had a virtue in it which went out over the + whole Church, when sought by the prayer of faith; that fellowship with + it was a gift and privilege, as well as a duty, we could not have had + so many wanderers from our fold, nor so many cold hearts within it. + + This instance may suggest many others of the superior _influence_ of + an apostolical over a mere secular method of teaching. The awakened + mind knows its wants, but cannot provide for them; and in its hunger + will feed upon ashes, if it cannot obtain the pure milk of the word. + Methodism and Popery are in different ways the refuge of those whom + the Church stints of the gifts of grace; they are the foster-mothers + of abandoned children. The neglect of the daily service, the + desecration of festivals, the Eucharist scantily administered, + insubordination permitted in all ranks of the Church, orders and + offices imperfectly developed, the want of societies for particular + religious objects, and the like deficiencies, lead the feverish mind, + desirous of a vent to its feelings, and a stricter rule of life, to + the smaller religious communities, to prayer and Bible meetings, and + ill-advised institutions and societies, on the one hand, on the other, + to the solemn and captivating services by which Popery gains its + proselytes. Moreover, the multitude of men cannot teach or guide + themselves; and an injunction given them to depend on their private + judgment, cruel in itself, is doubly hurtful, as throwing them on such + teachers as speak daringly and promise largely, and not only aid but + supersede individual exertion. + + These remarks may serve as a clue, for those who care to pursue it, to + the views which have led to the publication of the following Tracts. + The Church of Christ was intended to cope with human nature in all its + forms, and surely the gifts vouchsafed it are adequate for that + gracious purpose. There are zealous sons and servants of her English + branch, who see with sorrow that she is defrauded of her full + usefulness by particular theories and principles of the present age, + which interfere with the execution of one portion of her commission; + and while they consider that the revival of this portion of truth is + especially adapted to break up existing parties in the Church, and to + form instead a bond of union among all who love the Lord Jesus Christ + in sincerity, they believe that nothing but these neglected doctrines, + faithfully preached, will repress that extension of Popery, for which + the ever multiplying divisions of the religious world are too clearly + preparing the way. + +Another publication ought to be noticed, a result of the Hadleigh +meeting, which exhibited the leading ideas of the conference, and +especially of the more "conservative" members of it. This was a little +work in question and answer, called the "Churchman's Manual," drawn up +in part some time before the meeting by Mr. Perceval, and submitted to +the revision of Mr. Rose and Mr. Palmer. It was intended to be a +supplement to the "Church Catechism," as to the nature and claims of the +Church and its Ministers. It is a terse, clear, careful, and, as was +inevitable, rather dry summary of the Anglican theory, and of the +position which the English Church holds to the Roman Church, and to the +Dissenters. It was further revised at the conference, and "some +important suggestions were made by Froude"; and then Mr. Perceval, who +had great hopes from the publication, and spared himself no pains to +make it perfect, submitted it for revision and advice to a number of +representative Churchmen. The Scotch Bishops whom he consulted were warm +in approval, especially the venerable and saintly Bishop Jolly; as were +also a number of men of weight and authority in England: Judge Allan +Park, Joshua Watson, Mr. Sikes of Guilsborough, Mr. Churton of Crayke, +Mr. H.H. Norris, Dr. Wordsworth, and Dr. Routh. It was then laid before +the Archbishop for correction, or, if desirable, suppression; and for +his sanction if approved. The answer was what might have been expected, +that there was no objection to it, but that official sanction must be +declined on general grounds. After all this Mr. Perceval not unnaturally +claimed for it special importance. It was really, he observed, the +"first Tract," systematically put forth, and its preparation "apparently +gave rise" to the series; and it was the only one which received the +approval of all immediately concerned in the movement. "The care +bestowed on it," he says, "probably exceeds that which any theological +publication in the English communion received for a long time;" and +further, it shows "that the foundation of the movement with which Mr. +Rose was connected, was laid with all the care and circumspection that +reason could well suggest." It appears to have had a circulation, but +there is no reason to think that it had any considerable influence, one +way or other, on opinion in the Church. When it was referred to in +after-years by Mr. Perceval in his own vindication, it was almost +forgotten. More interesting, if not more important, Tracts had thrown it +into the shade. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[37] _Apol._ p. 100. + +[38] Palmer, _Narrative_, 1843 (republished 1883), pp. 5, 18. + +[39] Palmer (1883), pp. 40, 43, "June 1833, when he joined us at +Oxford." + +[40] See Palmer's account (1883), pp. 45-47, and (1843), pp. 6,7. + +[41] "Mr. Rose ... was the one commanding figure and very lovable man, +that the frightened and discomfited Church people were now rallying +round. Few people have left so distinct an impression of themselves as +this gentleman. For many years after, when he was no more, and Newman +had left Rose's standpoint far behind, he could never speak of him or +think of him without renewed tenderness" (Mr. T. Mozley, +_Reminiscences_, i. 308). + +In November 1838, shortly before Mr. Rose's death, Mr. Newman had +dedicated a volume of sermons to him--"who, when hearts were failing, +bade us stir up the gift that was in us, and betake ourselves to our +true mother" (_Parochial Sermons_, vol. iv.) + +[42] _Narrative of Events connected with the publication of Tracts for +the Times_, by W. Palmer (published 1843, republished 1883), pp. 96-100 +(abridged). + +[43] _Collection of Papers connected with the Theological Movement of_ +1833, by A.P. Perceval (1842), p. 25. + +[44] Palmer's _Narrative_ (1833), p. 101 + +[45] _Collection of Papers_, p. 12. + +[46] "That portentous birth of time, the _Tracts for the +Times._"--Mozley, _Remin_, i. 311. + +[47] Froude, _Remains_, i. 265. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE TRACTARIANS + + +Thus had been started--hurriedly perhaps, yet not without counting the +cost--a great enterprise, which had for its object to rouse the Church +from its lethargy, and to strengthen and purify religion, by making it +deeper and more real; and they who had put their hands to the plough +were not to look back any more. It was not a popular appeal; it +addressed itself not to the many but to the few; it sought to inspire +and to teach the teachers. There was no thought as yet of acting on the +middle classes, or on the ignorance and wretchedness of the great towns, +though Newman had laid down that the Church must rest on the people, and +Froude looked forward to colleges of unmarried priests as the true way +to evangelise the crowds. There was no display about this attempt, no +eloquence, nothing attractive in the way of original speculation or +sentimental interest. It was suspicious, perhaps too suspicious, of the +excitement and want of soberness, almost inevitable in strong appeals to +the masses of mankind. It brought no new doctrine, but professed to go +back to what was obvious and old-fashioned and commonplace. It taught +people to think less of preaching than of what in an age of excitement +were invidiously called forms--of the sacraments and services of the +Church. It discouraged, even to the verge of an intended dryness, all +that was showy, all that in thought or expression or manner it condemned +under the name of "flash." It laid stress on the exercise of an inner +and unseen self-discipline, and the cultivation of the less interesting +virtues of industry, humility, self-distrust, and obedience. If from its +writers proceeded works which had impressed people--a volume like the +_Christian Year_, poems original in their force and their tenderness, +like some of those in the _Lyra Apostolica_, sermons which arrested the +hearers by their keenness and pathetic undertone--the force of all this +was not the result of literary ambition and effort, but the reflexion, +unconscious, unsought, of thought and feeling that could not otherwise +express itself, and that was thrown into moulds shaped by habitual +refinement and cultivated taste. It was from the first a movement from +which, as much by instinct and temper as by deliberate intention, +self-seeking in all its forms was excluded. Those whom it influenced +looked not for great things for themselves, nor thought of making a mark +in the world. + +The first year after the Hadleigh meeting (1834) passed uneventfully. +The various addresses in which Mr. Palmer was interested, the election +and installation of the Duke of Wellington as Chancellor, the enthusiasm +and hopes called forth by the occasion, were public and prominent +matters. The Tracts were steadily swelling in number; the busy +distribution of them had ceased, and they had begun to excite interest +and give rise to questions. Mr. Palmer, who had never liked the Tracts, +became more uneasy; yet he did not altogether refuse to contribute to +them. Others gave their help, among them Mr. Perceval, Froude, the two +Kebles, and Mr. Newman's friend, a layman, Mr. J. Bowden; some of the +younger scholars furnished translations from the Fathers; but the bulk +and most forcible of the Tracts were still the work of Mr. Newman. But +the Tracts were not the most powerful instruments in drawing sympathy to +the movement. None but those who remember them can adequately estimate +the effect of Mr. Newman's four o'clock sermons at St. Mary's.[48] The +world knows them, has heard a great deal about them, has passed its +various judgments on them. But it hardly realises that without those +sermons the movement might never have gone on, certainly would never +have been what it was. Even people who heard them continually, and felt +them to be different from any other sermons, hardly estimated their real +power, or knew at the time the influence which the sermons were having +upon them. Plain, direct, unornamented, clothed in English that was only +pure and lucid, free from any faults of taste, strong in their +flexibility and perfect command both of language and thought, they were +the expression of a piercing and large insight into character and +conscience and motives, of a sympathy at once most tender and most stern +with the tempted and the wavering, of an absolute and burning faith in +God and His counsels, in His love, in His judgments, in the awful glory +of His generosity and His magnificence. They made men think of the +things which the preacher spoke of, and not of the sermon or the +preacher. Since 1828 this preaching had been going on at St. Mary's, +growing in purpose and directness as the years went on, though it could +hardly be more intense than in some of its earliest examples. While men +were reading and talking about the Tracts, they were hearing the +sermons; and in the sermons they heard the living meaning, and reason, +and bearing of the Tracts, their ethical affinities, their moral +standard. The sermons created a moral atmosphere, in which men judged +the questions in debate. It was no dry theological correctness and +completeness which were sought for. No love of privilege, no formal +hierarchical claims, urged on the writers. What they thought in danger, +what they aspired to revive and save, was the very life of religion, the +truth and substance of all that makes it the hope of human society. + +But indeed, by this time, out of the little company of friends which a +common danger and a common loyalty to the Church had brought together, +one Mr. Newman, had drawn ahead, and was now in the front. Unsought +for, as the _Apologia_ makes so clear--unsought for, as the contemporary +letters of observing friends attest--unsought for, as the whole tenor of +his life has proved--the position of leader in a great crisis came to +him, because it must come. He was not unconscious that, as he had felt +in his sickness in Sicily, he "had a work to do." But there was shyness +and self-distrust in his nature as well as energy; and it was the force +of genius, and a lofty character, and the statesman's eye, taking in and +judging accurately the whole of a complicated scene, which conferred the +gifts, and imposed inevitably and without dispute the obligations and +responsibilities of leadership. Dr. Pusey of course was a friend of +great account, but he was as yet in the background, a venerated and +rather awful person, from his position not mixing in the easy +intercourse of common-room life, but to be consulted on emergencies. +Round Mr. Newman gathered, with a curious mixture of freedom, devotion, +and awe--for, with unlimited power of sympathy, he was exacting and even +austere in his friendships--the best men of his college, either +Fellows--R. Wilberforce, Thomas Mozley, Frederic Rogers, J.F. Christie; +or old pupils--Henry Wilberforce, R.F. Wilson, William Froude, Robert +Williams, S.F. Wood, James Bliss, James Mozley; and in addition some +outsiders--Woodgate of St. John's, Isaac Williams and Copeland, of his +old College, Trinity. These, members of his intimate circle, were bound +to him not merely by enthusiastic admiration and confidence, but by a +tenderness of affection, a mixture of the gratitude and reliance of +discipleship with the warm love of friendship, of which one has to go +back far for examples, and which has had nothing like it in our days at +Oxford. And Newman was making his mark as a writer. The _Arians_, though +an imperfect book, was one which, for originality and subtlety of +thought, was something very unlike the usual theological writing of the +day. There was no doubt of his power, and his mind was brimming over +with ideas on the great questions which were rising into view. It was +clear to all who know him that he could speak on them as no one else +could. + +Towards the end of 1834, and in the course of 1835, an event happened +which had a great and decisive influence on the character and fortunes +of the movement. This was the accession to it of Dr. Pusey. He had +looked favourably on it from the first, partly from his friendship with +Mr. Newman, partly from the workings of his own mind. But he had nothing +to do with the starting of it, except that he early contributed an +elaborate paper on "Fasting." The Oxford branch of the movement, as +distinguished from that which Mr. Palmer represented, consisted up to +1834 almost exclusively of junior men, personal friends of Mr. Newman, +and most of them Oriel men. Mr. Newman's deep convictions, his fiery +enthusiasm, had given the Tracts their first stamp and impress, and had +sent them flying over the country among the clergy on his own +responsibility. They answered their purpose. They led to widespread and +sometimes deep searchings of heart; to some they seemed to speak forth +what had been long dormant within them, what their minds had +unconsciously and vaguely thought and longed for; to some they seemed a +challenge pregnant with danger. But still they were but an outburst of +individual feeling and zeal, which, if nothing more came of its +fragmentary displays, might blaze and come to nothing. There was nothing +yet which spoke outwardly of the consistency and weight of a serious +attempt to influence opinion and to produce a practical and lasting +effect on the generation which was passing. Cardinal Newman, in the +_Apologia_, has attributed to Dr. Pusey's unreserved adhesion to the +cause which the Tracts represented a great change in regard to the +weight and completeness of what was written and done. "Dr. Pusey," he +writes, "gave us at once a position and a name. Without him we should +have had no chance, especially at the early date of 1834, of making any +serious resistance to the liberal aggression. But Dr. Pusey was a +Professor and Canon of Christ Church; he had a vast influence in +consequence of his deep religious seriousness, the munificence of his +charities, his Professorship, his family connexions, and his easy +relations with the University authorities. He was to the movement all +that Mr. Rose might have been, with that indispensable addition, which +was wanting to Mr. Rose, the intimate friendship and the familiar daily +society of the persons who had commenced it. And he had that special +claim on their attachment which lies in the living presence of a +faithful and loyal affectionateness. There was henceforth a man who +could be the head and centre of the zealous people in every part of the +country who were adopting the new opinions; and not only so, but there +was one who furnished the movement with a front to the world, and gained +for it a recognition from other parties in the University."[49] + +This is not too much to say of the effect of Dr. Pusey's adhesion. It +gave the movement a second head, in close sympathy with its original +leader, but in many ways very different from him. Dr. Pusey became, as +it were, its official chief in the eyes of the world. He became also, in +a remarkable degree, a guarantee for its stability and steadiness: a +guarantee that its chiefs knew what they were about, and meant nothing +but what was for the benefit of the English Church. "He was," we read in +the _Apologia_, "a man of large designs; he had a hopeful, sanguine +mind; he had no fear of others; he was haunted by no intellectual +perplexities.... If confidence in his position is (as it is) a first +essential in the leader of a party, Dr. Pusey had it." An inflexible +patience, a serene composure, a meek, resolute self-possession, was the +habit of his mind, and never deserted him in the most trying days. He +never for an instant, as the paragraph witnesses, wavered or doubted +about the position of the English Church. + +He was eminently, as his friend justly observes, "a man of large +designs." It is doubtless true, as the _Apologia_ goes on to say, that +it was due to the place which he now took in the movement that great +changes were made in the form and character of the Tracts. To Dr. +Pusey's mind, accustomed to large and exhaustive theological reading, +they wanted fulness, completeness, the importance given by careful +arrangement and abundant knowledge. It was not for nothing that he had +passed an apprenticeship among the divines of Germany, and been the +friend and correspondent of Tholuck, Schleiermacher, Ewald, and Sack. He +knew the meaning of real learning. In controversy it was his +sledge-hammer and battle-mace, and he had the strong and sinewy hand to +use it with effect. He observed that when attention had been roused to +the ancient doctrines of the Church by the startling and peremptory +language of the earlier Tracts, fairness and justice demanded that these +doctrines should be fully and carefully explained and defended against +misrepresentation and mistake. Forgetfulness and ignorance had thrown +these doctrines so completely into the shade that, identified as they +were with the best English divinity, they now wore the air of amazing +novelties; and it was only due to honest inquirers to satisfy them with +solid and adequate proof. "Dr. Pusey's influence was felt at once. He +saw that there ought to be more sobriety, more gravity, more careful +pains, more sense of responsibility in the Tracts and in the whole +movement." At the end of 1835 Dr. Pusey gave an example of what he +meant. In place of the "short and incomplete papers," such as the +earlier Tracts had been, Nos. 67, 68, and 69 formed the three parts of a +closely-printed pamphlet of more than 300 pages.[50] It was a treatise +on Baptism, perhaps the most elaborate that has yet appeared in the +English language. "It is to be regarded," says the advertisement to the +second volume of the Tracts, "not as an inquiry into a single or +isolated doctrine, but as a delineation and serious examination of a +modern system of theology, of extensive popularity and great +speciousness, in its elementary and characteristic principles." The +Tract on Baptism was like the advance of a battery of heavy artillery on +a field where the battle has been hitherto carried on by skirmishing and +musketry. It altered the look of things and the condition of the +fighting. After No. 67 the earlier form of the Tracts appeared no more. +Except two or three reprints from writers like Bishop Wilson, the Tracts +from No. 70 to No. 90 were either grave and carefully worked out essays +on some question arising out of the discussions of the time, or else +those ponderous _catenae_ of patristic or Anglican divinity, by which +the historical continuity and Church authority of various points of +doctrine were established. + +Dr. Pusey was indeed a man of "large designs." The vision rose before +him of a revived and instructed Church, earnest in purpose and strict in +life, and of a great Christian University roused and quickened to a +sense of its powers and responsibilities. He thought of the enormous +advantages offered by its magnificent foundations for serious study and +the production of works for which time and deep learning and continuous +labour were essential. Such works, in the hands of single-minded +students, living lives of simplicity and hard toil, had in the case of +the Portroyalists, the Oratorians, and above all, the Benedictines of +St. Maur, splendidly redeemed the Church of France, in otherwise evil +days, from the reproach of idleness and self-indulgence. He found under +his hand men who had in them something of the making of students; and he +hoped to see college fellowships filled more and more by such men, and +the life of a college fellow more and more recognised as that of a man +to whom learning, and especially sacred learning, was his call and +sufficient object, as pastoral or educational work might be the call of +others. Where fellowships were not to be had, he encouraged such men to +stay up in Oxford; he took them into his own house; later, he tried a +kind of hall to receive them. And by way of beginning at once, and +giving them something to do, he planned on a large scale a series of +translations and also editions of the Fathers. It was announced, with an +elaborate prospectus, in 1836, under the title, in conformity with the +usage of the time, which had _Libraries of Useful Knowledge, etc._, of a +_Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church anterior to the Division +of the East and West_, under the editorship of Dr. Pusey, Mr. Keble, +and Mr. Newman. It was dedicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and +had a considerable number of Bishops among its subscribers. Down to a +very late date, the _Library of the Fathers_, in which Charles Marriott +came to take a leading part, was a matter of much concern to Dr. Pusey. +And to bring men together, and to interest them in theological subjects, +he had evening meetings at his own house, where papers were read and +discussed. "Some persons," writes a gossiping chronicler of the +time,[51] "thought that these meetings were liable to the statute, _De +conventiculis illicitis reprimendis_." Some important papers were the +result of these meetings; but the meetings themselves were irresistibly +sleepy, and in time they were discontinued. But indefatigable and +powerful in all these beginnings Dr. Pusey stirred men to activity and +saw great ground of hope. He was prepared for opposition, but he had +boundless reliance on his friends and his cause. His forecast of the +future, of great days in store for the Church of England, was, not +unreasonably, one of great promise. Ten years might work wonders. The +last fear that occurred to him was that within ten years a hopeless +rift, not of affection but of conviction, would have run through that +company of friends, and parted irrevocably their course and work in +life. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[48] The subjoined extracts record the impression made by Mr. Newman's +preaching on contemporaries well qualified to judge, and standing +respectively in very different relations to the movement. This is the +judgment of a very close observer, and very independent critic, James +Mozley. In an article in the _Christian Remembrancer_, January 1846 (p. +169), after speaking of the obvious reasons of Mr. Newman's influence, +he proceeds:-- + + We inquire further, and we find that this influence has been of a + peculiarly ethical and inward kind; that it has touched the deepest + part of our minds, and that the great work on which it has been + founded is a practical, religious one--his Sermons. We speak not from + our own fixed impression, however deeply felt, but from what we have + heard and observed everywhere, from the natural, incidental, + unconscious remarks dropped from persons' mouths, and evidently + showing what they thought and felt. For ourselves, we must say, one of + Mr. Newman's sermons is to us a marvellous production. It has perfect + power, and perfect nature; but the latter it is which makes it so + great. A sermon of Mr. Newman's enters into all our feelings, ideas, + modes of viewing things. He wonderfully realises a state of mind, + enters into a difficulty, a temptation, a disappointment, a grief; he + goes into the different turns and incidental, unconscious symptoms of + a case, with notions which come into the head and go out again, and + are forgotten, till some chance recalls them.... To take the first + instance that happens to occur to us ... we have often been struck by + the keen way in which he enters into a regular tradesman's + vice--avarice, fortune-getting, amassing capital, and so on. This is + not a temper to which we can imagine Mr. Newman ever having felt in + his own mind even the temptation; but he understands it, and the + temptation to it, as perfectly as any merchant could. No man of + business could express it more naturally, more pungently, more _ex + animo_.... So with the view that worldly men take of religion, in a + certain sense, he quite enters into it, and the world's point of view: + he sees, with a regular worldly man's eye, religion vanishing into + nothing, and becoming an unreality, while the visible system of life + and facts, politics and society, gets more and more solid and grows + upon him. The whole influence of the world on the imagination; the + weight of example; the force of repetition; the way in which maxims, + rules, sentiments, by being simply sounded in the ear from day to day, + seem to prove themselves, and make themselves believed by being often + heard,--every part of the easy, natural, passive process by which a + man becomes a man of the world is entered into, as if the preacher + were going to justify or excuse him, rather than condemn him. Nay, he + enters deeply into what even scepticism has to say for itself; he puts + himself into the infidel's state of mind, in which the world, as a + great fact, seems to give the lie to all religions, converting them + into phenomena which counterbalance and negative each other, and he + goes down into that lowest abyss and bottom of things, at which the + intellect undercuts spiritual truth altogether. He enters into the + ordinary common states of mind just in the same way. He is most + consoling, most sympathetic. He sets before persons their own feelings + with such truth of detail, such natural expressive touches, that they + seem not to be ordinary states of mind which everybody has, but very + peculiar ones; for he and the reader seem to be the only two persons + in the world that have them in common. Here is the point. Persons look + into Mr. Newman's sermons and see their own thoughts in them. This is, + after all, what as much as anything gives a book hold upon minds.... + Wonderful pathetic power, that can so intimately, so subtilely and + kindly, deal with the soul!--and wonderful soul that can be so dealt + with. + +Compare with this the judgment pronounced by one of quite a different +school, the late Principal Shairp:-- + + Both Dr. Pusey and Mr. Keble at that time were quite second in + importance to Mr. Newman. The centre from which his power went forth + was the pulpit of St. Mary's, with those wonderful afternoon sermons. + Sunday after Sunday, year by year, they went on, each continuing and + deepening the impression produced by the last. As the hour interfered + with the dinner-hour of the Colleges, most men preferred a warm dinner + without Newman's sermon to a cold one with it; so the audience was not + crowded--the large church little more than half filled. The service + was very simple, no pomp, no ritualism; for it was characteristic of + the leading men of the movement that they left these things to the + weaker brethren. Their thoughts, at all events, were set on great + questions which touched the heart of unseen things. About the service, + the most remarkable thing was the beauty, the silver intonation of Mr. + Newman's voice as he read the lessons.... When he began to preach, a + stranger was not likely to be much struck. Here was no vehemence, no + declamation, no show of elaborated argument, so that one who came + prepared to hear "a great intellectual effort" was almost sure to go + away disappointed. Indeed, we believe that if he had preached one of + his St. Mary's sermons before a Scotch town congregation, they would + have thought the preacher a "silly body".... Those who never heard him + might fancy that his sermons would generally be about apostolical + succession, or rights of the Church, or against Dissenters. Nothing of + the kind. You might hear him preach for weeks without an allusion to + these things. What there was of High Church teaching was implied + rather than enforced. The local, the temporary, and the modern were + ennobled by the presence of the Catholic truth belonging to all ages + that pervaded the whole. His power showed itself chiefly in the new + and unlooked-for way in which he touched into life old truths, moral + or spiritual, which all Christians acknowledge, but most have ceased + to feel--when he spoke of "unreal words," of the "individuality of the + soul," of the "invisible world," of a "particular Providence," or + again, of the "ventures of faith," "warfare the condition of victory," + "the Cross of Christ the measure of the world," "the Church a Home for + the lonely." As he spoke, how the old truth became new; how it came + home with a meaning never felt before! He laid his finger how gently, + yet how powerfully, on some inner place in the hearer's heart, and + told him things about himself he had never known till then. Subtlest + truths, which it would have taken philosophers pages of circumlocution + and big words to state, were dropt out by the way in a sentence or two + of the most transparent Saxon. What delicacy of style, yet what + strength! how simple, yet how suggestive! how homely, yet how refined! + how penetrating, yet how tender-hearted! If now and then there was a + forlorn undertone which at the time seemed inexplicable, you might be + perplexed at the drift of what he said, but you felt all the more + drawn to the speaker. ... After hearing these sermons you might come + away still not believing the tenets peculiar to the High Church + system; but you would be harder than most men, if you did not feel + more than ever ashamed of coarseness, selfishness, worldliness, if you + did not feel the things of faith brought closer to the soul.--_John + Keble,_ by J. C. Shairp, Professor of Humanity, St. Andrews (1866), + pp. 12-17. + +I venture to add the judgment of another contemporary, on the effect of +this preaching, from the _Reminiscences_ of Sir F. Doyle, p. 145:-- + + That great man's extraordinary genius drew all those within his + sphere, like a magnet, to attach themselves to him and his doctrines. + Nay, before he became a Romanist, what we may call his mesmeric + influence acted not only on his Tractarian adherents, but even in some + degree on outsiders like myself. Whenever I was at Oxford, I used to + go regularly on Sunday afternoons to listen to his sermon at St. + Mary's, and I have never heard such preaching since. I do not know + whether it is a mere fancy of mine, or whether those who know him + better will accept and endorse my belief, that one element of his + wonderful power showed itself after this fashion. He always began as + if he had determined to set forth his idea of the truth in the + plainest and simplest language--language, as men say, "intelligible to + the meanest understanding." But his ardent zeal and fine poetical + imagination were not thus to be controlled. As I hung upon his words, + it seemed to me as if I could trace behind his will, and pressing, so + to speak, against it, a rush of thoughts, of feelings which he kept + struggling to hold back, but in the end they were generally too strong + for him, and poured themselves out in a torrent of eloquence all the + more impetuous from having been so long repressed. The effect of these + outbursts was irresistible, and carried his hearers beyond themselves + at once. Even when his efforts of self-restraint were more successful, + those very efforts gave a life and colour to his style which riveted + the attention of all within the reach of his voice. Mr. Justin + McCarthy, in his _History of Our Own Times_, says of him: "In all the + arts that make a great preacher or orator, Cardinal Newman was + deficient. His manner was constrained and ungraceful, and even + awkward; his voice was thin and weak, his bearing was not at first + impressive in any way--a gaunt emaciated figure, a sharp eagle face, + and a cold meditative eye, rather repelled than attracted those who + saw him for the first time." I do not think Mr. McCarthy's phrases + very happily chosen to convey his meaning. Surely a gaunt emaciated + frame and a sharp eagle face are the very characteristics which we + should picture to ourselves as belonging to Peter the Hermit, or + Scott's Ephraim Macbriar in _Old Mortality_. However unimpressive the + look of an eagle may be in Mr. McCarthy's opinion, I do not agree with + him about Dr. Newman. + + When I knew him at Oxford, these somewhat disparaging remarks would + not have been applicable. His manner, it is true, may have been + self-repressed, constrained it was not. His bearing was neither + awkward nor ungraceful; it was simply quiet and calm, because under + strict control; but beneath that calmness, intense feeling, I think, + was obvious to those who had any instinct of sympathy with him. But if + Mr. McCarthy's acquaintance with him only began when he took office in + an Irish Catholic university, I can quite understand that (flexibility + not being one of his special gifts) he may have failed now and again + to bring himself into perfect harmony with an Irish audience. He was + probably too much of a typical Englishman for his place; nevertheless + Mr. McCarthy, though he does not seem to have admired him in the + pulpit, is fully sensible of his intellectual powers and general + eminence. + + Dr. Pusey, who used every now and then to take Newman's duties at St. + Mary's, was to me a much less interesting person. [A learned man, no + doubt, but dull and tedious as a preacher.] Certainly, in spite of the + name Puseyism having been given to the Oxford attempt at a new + Catholic departure, he was not the Columbus of that voyage of + discovery undertaken to find a safer haven for the Church of England. + I may, however, be more or less unjust to him, as I owe him a sort of + grudge. His discourses were not only less attractive than those of Dr. + Newman, but always much longer, and the result of this was that the + learned Canon of Christ Church generally made me late for dinner at my + College, a calamity never inflicted on his All Souls' hearers by the + terser and swifter fellow of Oriel whom he was replacing. + + +[49] _Apologia_, p 136. + +[50] It swelled in the second edition to 400 pages [in spite of the fact +that in that edition the historical range of the treatise was greatly +reduced]. + +[51] _Recollections of Oxford_, by G.V. Cox, p. 278. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SUBSCRIPTION AT MATRICULATION AND ADMISSION OF DISSENTERS + + +"Depend upon it," an earnest High Churchman of the Joshua Watson type +had said to one of Mr. Newman's friends, who was a link between the old +Churchmanship and the new--"depend upon it, the day will come when those +great doctrines" connected with the Church, "now buried, will be brought +out to the light of the day, and then the effect will be quite +fearful."[52] With the publication of the _Tracts for the Times_, and +the excitement caused by them, the day had come. + +Their unflinching and severe proclamation of Church principles and +Church doctrines coincided with a state of feeling and opinion in the +country, in which two very different tendencies might be observed. They +fell on the public mind just when one of these tendencies would help +them, and the other be fiercely hostile. On the one hand, the issue of +the political controversy with the Roman Catholics, their triumph all +along the line, and the now scarcely disguised contempt shown by their +political representatives for the pledges and explanations on which +their relief was supposed to have been conceded, had left the public +mind sore, angry, and suspicious. Orthodox and Evangelicals were alike +alarmed and indignant; and the Evangelicals, always doctrinally jealous +of Popery, and of anything "unsound" in that direction, had been roused +to increased irritation by the proceedings of the Reformation Society, +which had made it its business to hold meetings and discussions all over +the country, where fervid and sometimes eloquent and able Irishmen, like +Mr. E. Tottenham, afterwards of Laura Chapel, Bath, had argued and +declaimed, with Roman text-books in hand, on such questions as the Right +of Private Judgment, the Rule of Faith, and the articles of the +Tridentine Creed--not always with the effect which they intended on +those who heard them, with whom their arguments, and those which they +elicited from their opponents, sometimes left behind uncomfortable +misgivings, and questions even more serious than the controversy itself. +On the other hand, in quarters quite unconnected with the recognised +religious schools, interest had been independently and strongly awakened +in the minds of theologians and philosophical thinkers, in regard to the +idea, history, and relations to society of the Christian Church. In +Ireland, a recluse, who was the centre of a small knot of earnest +friends, a man of deep piety and great freedom and originality of mind, +Mr. Alexander Knox, had been led, partly, it may be, by his intimacy +with John Wesley, to think out for himself the character and true +constitution of the Church, and the nature of the doctrines which it was +commissioned to teach. In England, another recluse, of splendid genius +and wayward humour, had dealt in his own way, with far-reaching insight, +with vast reading, and often with impressive eloquence, with the same +subject; and his profound sympathy and faith had been shared and +reflected by a great poet. What Coleridge and Wordsworth had put in the +forefront of their speculations and poetry, as the object of their +profoundest interest, and of their highest hopes for mankind, might, of +course, fail to appear in the same light to others; but it could not +fail, in those days at least, to attract attention, as a matter of +grave and well-founded importance. Coleridge's theories of the Church +were his own, and were very wide of theories recognised by any of those +who had to deal practically with the question, and who were influenced, +in one way or another, by the traditional doctrines of theologians. But +Coleridge had lifted the subject to a very high level. He had taken the +simple but all-important step of viewing the Church in its spiritual +character as first and foremost and above all things essentially a +religious society of divine institution, not dependent on the creation +or will of man, or on the privileges and honours which man might think +fit to assign to it; and he had undoubtedly familiarised the minds of +many with this way of regarding it, however imperfect, or cloudy, or +unpractical they might find the development of his ideas, and his +deductions from them. And in Oxford the questions which had stirred the +friends at Hadleigh had stirred others also, and had waked up various +responses. Whately's acute mind had not missed these questions, and had +given original if insufficient answers to them. Blanco White knew only +too well their bearing and importance, and had laboured, not without +success, to leave behind him his own impress on the way in which they +should be dealt with. Dr. Hampden, the man in Oxford best acquainted +with Aristotle's works and with the scholastic philosophy, had thrown +Christian doctrines into a philosophical calculus which seemed to leave +them little better than the inventions of men. On the other hand, a +brilliant scholar, whose after-career was strangely full of great +successes and deplorable disasters, William Sewell of Exeter College, +had opened, in a way new to Oxford, the wealth and magnificence of +Plato; and his thoughts had been dazzled by seeming to find in the +truths and facts of the Christian Church the counterpart and realisation +of the grandest of Plato's imaginations. The subjects treated with such +dogmatic severity and such impetuous earnestness in the Tracts were, in +one shape or another, in all men's minds, when these Tracts broke on the +University and English society with their peremptory call to men "to +take their side." + +There was just a moment of surprise and uncertainty--uncertainty as to +what the Tracts meant; whether they were to be a new weapon against the +enemies of the Church, or were simply extravagant and preposterous +novelties--just a certain perplexity and hesitation at their conflicting +aspects; on the one hand, the known and high character of the writers, +their evident determination and confidence in their cause, the +attraction of their religious warmth and unselfishness and nobleness, +the dim consciousness that much that they said was undeniable; and on +the other hand, the apparent wildness and recklessness of their words: +and then public opinion began steadily to take its "ply," and to be +agreed in condemning them. It soon went farther, and became vehement in +reprobating them as scandalous and dangerous publications. They incensed +the Evangelicals by their alleged Romanism, and their unsound views +about justification, good works, and the sacraments; they angered the +"two-bottle orthodox" by their asceticism--the steady men, by their +audacity and strong words--the liberals, by their dogmatic severity; +their seriously practical bearing was early disclosed in a tract on +"Fasting." But while they repelled strongly, they attracted strongly; +they touched many consciences, they won many hearts, they opened new +thoughts and hopes to many minds. One of the mischiefs of the Tracts, +and of those sermons at St. Mary's which were the commentaries on them, +was that so many people seemed to like them and to be struck by them. +The gathering storm muttered and growled for some time at a distance, +and men seemed to be taking time to make up their minds; but it began to +lour from early days, till after various threatenings it broke in a +furious article in the _Edinburgh_, by Dr. Arnold, on the "Oxford +Malignants"; and the Tract-writers and their friends became, what they +long continued to be, the most unpopular and suspected body of men in +the Church, whom everybody was at liberty to insult, both as dishonest +and absurd, of whom nothing was too cruel to say, nothing too ridiculous +to believe. It is only equitable to take into account the unprepared +state of the public mind, the surprise and novelty of even the commonest +things when put in a new light, the prejudices which the Tract-writers +were thought wantonly to offend and defy, their militant and +uncompromising attitude, where principles were at stake. But considering +what these men were known to be in character and life, what was the +emergency and what were the pressing motives which called for action, +and what is thought of them now that their course is run, it is strange +indeed to remember who they were, to whom the courtesies of controversy +were denied, not only by the vulgar herd of pamphleteers, but by men of +ability and position, some of whom had been their familiar friends. Of +course a nickname was soon found for them: the word "Tractarian" was +invented, and Archbishop Whately thought it worth while, but not +successfully, to improve it into "Tractites." Archbishop Whately, always +ingenious, appears to have suspected that the real but concealed object +of the movement was to propagate a secret infidelity; they were +"Children of the Mist," or "Veiled Prophets";[53] and he seriously +suggested to a friend who was writing against it,--"this rapidly +spreading pestilence,"--to parallel it, in its characteristics and modes +of working, with Indian Thuggee.[54] + +But these things were of gradual growth. Towards the end of 1834 a +question appeared in Oxford interesting to numbers besides Mr. Newman +and his friends, which was to lead to momentous consequences. The old, +crude ideas of change in the Church had come to appear, even to their +advocates, for the present impracticable, and there was no more talk for +a long time of schemes which had been in favour two years before. The +ground was changed, and a point was now brought forward on the Liberal +side, for which a good deal might be plausibly said. This was the +requirement of subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles from young men +at matriculation; and a strong pamphlet advocating its abolition, with +the express purpose of admitting Dissenters, was published by Dr. +Hampden, the Bampton Lecturer of two years before. + +Oxford had always been one of the great schools of the Church. Its +traditions, its tone, its customs, its rules, all expressed or presumed +the closest attachment to that way of religion which was specially +identified with the Church, in its doctrinal and historical aspect. +Oxford was emphatically definite, dogmatic, orthodox, compared even with +Cambridge, which had largely favoured the Evangelical school, and had +leanings to Liberalism. Oxford, unlike Cambridge, gave notice of its +attitude by requiring every one who matriculated to subscribe the +Thirty-nine Articles: the theory of its Tutorial system, of its lectures +and examinations, implied what of late years in the better colleges, +though certainly not everywhere, had been realised in fact--a +considerable amount of religious and theological teaching. And whatever +might have been said originally of the lay character of the University, +the colleges, which had become coextensive with the University, were for +the most part, in the intention of their founders, meant to educate and +support theological students on their foundations for the service of the +Church. It became in time the fashion to call them lay institutions: +legally they may have been so, but judged by their statutes, they were +nearly all of them as ecclesiastical as the Chapter of a Cathedral. And +Oxford was the fulcrum from which the theological revival hoped to move +the Church. It was therefore a shock and a challenge of no light kind, +when not merely the proposal was made to abolish the matriculation +subscription with the express object of attracting Dissenters, and to +get Parliament to force the change on the University if the University +resisted, but the proposal itself was vindicated and enforced in a +pamphlet by Dr. Hampden by a definite and precise theory which stopped +not short of the position that all creeds and formularies--everything +which represented the authority of the teaching Church--however +incidentally and temporarily useful, were in their own nature the +inventions of a mistaken and corrupt philosophy, and invasions of +Christian liberty. This was cutting deep with a vengeance, though the +author of the theory seemed alone unable to see it. It went to the root +of the whole mutter; and if Dr. Hampden was right, there was neither +Church nor doctrine worth contending for, except as men contend about +the Newtonian or the undulatory theory of light. + +No one ought now to affect, as some people used to affect at the time, +that the question was of secondary importance, and turned mainly on the +special fitness of the Thirty-nine Articles to be offered for the proof +of a young man's belief. It was a much more critical question. It was +really, however disguised, the question, asked then for the first time, +and since finally decided, whether Oxford was to continue to be a +school of the Church of England; and it also involved the wider +question, what part belief in definite religion should have in higher +education. It is speciously said that you have no right to forestall a +young man's inquiries and convictions by imposing on him in his early +years opinions which to him become prejudices. And if the world +consisted simply of individuals, entirely insulated and self-sufficing; +if men could be taught anything whatever, without presuming what is +believed by those who teach them; and if the attempt to exclude +religious prejudice did not necessarily, by the mere force of the +attempt, involve the creation of anti-religious prejudice, these +reasoners, who try in vain to get out of the conditions which hem them +in, might have more to say for themselves. To the men who had made such +an effort to restore a living confidence in the Church, the demand +implied giving up all that they had done and all that they hoped for. It +was not the time for yielding even a clumsy proof of the religious +character of the University. And the beginning of a long and doubtful +war was inevitable. + +A war of pamphlets ensued. By the one side the distinction was strongly +insisted on between mere instruction and education, the distinctly +religious character of the University education was not perhaps +overstated in its theory, but portrayed in stronger colours than was +everywhere the fact; and assertions were made, which sound strange in +their boldness now, of the independent and constitutional right to +self-government in the great University corporations. By the other side, +the ordinary arguments were used, about the injustice and mischief of +exclusion, and the hurtfulness of tests, especially such tests as the +Articles applied to young and ignorant men. Two pamphlets had more than +a passing interest: one, by a then unknown writer who signed himself +_Rusticus_, and whose name was Mr. F.D. Maurice, defended subscription +on the ground that the Articles were signed, not as tests and +confessions of faith, but as "conditions of thought," the expressly +stated conditions, such as there must be in all teaching, under which +the learners are willing to learn and the teacher to teach: and he +developed his view at great length, with great wealth of original +thought and illustration and much eloquence, but with that fatal want of +clearness which, as so often afterwards, came from his struggles to +embrace in one large view what appeared opposite aspects of a difficult +subject. The other was the pamphlet, already referred to, by Dr. +Hampden: and of which the importance arose, not from its conclusions, +but from its reasons. Its ground was the distinction which he had argued +out at great length in his Bampton Lectures--the distinction between the +"Divine facts" of revelation, and all human interpretations of them and +inferences from them. "Divine facts," he maintained, were of course +binding on all Christians, and in matter of fact were accepted by all +who called themselves Christians, including Unitarians. Human +interpretations and inferences--and all Church formularies were +such--were binding on no one but those who had reason to think them +true; and therefore least of all on undergraduates who could not have +examined them. The distinction, when first put forward, seemed to mean +much; at a later time it was explained to mean very little. But at +present its value as a ground of argument against the old system of the +University was thought much of by its author and his friends. A warning +note was at once given that its significance was perceived and +appreciated. Mr. Newman, in acknowledging a presentation copy, added +words which foreshadowed much that was to follow. "While I respect," he +wrote, "the tone of piety which the pamphlet displays, I dare not trust +myself to put on paper my feelings about the principles contained in it; +_tending, as they do, in my opinion, to make ship-wreck of Christian +faith_. I also lament that, by its appearance, the first step has been +taken towards interrupting that peace and mutual good understanding +which has prevailed so long in this place, and which, if once seriously +disturbed, will be succeeded by discussions the more intractable, +because justified in the minds of those who resist innovation by a +feeling of imperative duty." "Since that time," he goes on in the +_Apologia_, where he quotes this letter, "Phaeton has got into the +chariot of the sun."[55] But they were early days then; and when the +Heads of Houses, who the year before had joined with the great body of +the University in a declaration against the threatened legislation, were +persuaded to propose to the Oxford Convocation the abolition of +subscription at matriculation in May 1835, this proposal was rejected by +a majority of five to one. + +This large majority was a genuine expression of the sense of the +University. It was not specially a "Tractarian" success, though most of +the arguments which contributed to it came from men who more or less +sympathised with the effort to make a vigorous fight for the Church and +its teaching; and it showed that they who had made the effort had +touched springs of thought and feeling, and awakened new hopes and +interest in those around them, in Oxford, and in the country. But graver +events were at hand. Towards the end of the year (1835), Dr. Burton, the +Regius Professor of Divinity, suddenly died, still a young man. And Lord +Melbourne was induced to appoint as his successor, and as the head of +the theological teaching of the University, the writer who had just a +second time seemed to lay the axe to the root of all theology; who had +just reasserted that he looked upon creeds, and all the documents which +embodied the traditional doctrine and collective thought of the Church, +as invested by ignorance and prejudice with an authority which was +without foundation, and which was misleading and mischievous. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[52] The conversation between Mr. Sikes of Guilsborough and Mr. Copeland +is given in full in Dr. Pusey's _Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury_ +(1842), pp. 32-34. + +[53] "Dr. Wilson was mightily pleased with my calling the traditionals +the 'Children of the Mist.' The title of 'Veiled Prophets' he thought +too severe" (1838), _Life_, ed. 1875, p. 167. Compare "Hints to +Transcendentalists for Working Infidel Designs through Tractarianism," a +_jeu d'esprit_ (1840), _ib._ p. 188. "As for the suspicion of secret +infidelity, I have said no more than I sincerely feel," _ib._ p. 181. + +[54] "It would be a curious thing if you (the Provost of Oriel) were to +bring into your Bampton Lectures a mention of the Thugs.... Observe +their submissive piety, their faith in long-preserved _tradition_, their +regular succession of ordinations to their offices, their _faith_ in the +sacramental virtue of the consecrated governor; in short, compare our +religion with the _Thuggee, putting out of account all those +considerations which the traditionists deprecate the discussion of,_ and +where is the difference?" (1840), _ib._ p. 194. + +[55] _Apologia_, pp. 131, 132. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +DR. HAMPDEN + + +The stage on which what is called the Oxford movement ran through its +course had a special character of its own, unlike the circumstances in +which other religious efforts had done their work. The scene of +Jansenism had been a great capital, a brilliant society, the precincts +of a court, the cells of a convent, the studies and libraries of the +doctors of the Sorbonne, the council chambers of the Vatican. The scene +of Methodism had been English villages and country towns, the moors of +Cornwall, and the collieries of Bristol, at length London fashionable +chapels. The scene of this new movement was as like as it could be in +our modern world to a Greek _polis_, or an Italian self-centred city of +the Middle Ages. Oxford stood by itself in its meadows by the rivers, +having its relations with all England, but, like its sister at +Cambridge, living a life of its own, unlike that of any other spot in +England, with its privileged powers, and exemptions from the general +law, with its special mode of government and police, its usages and +tastes and traditions, and even costume, which the rest of England +looked at from the outside, much interested but much puzzled, or knew +only by transient visits. And Oxford was as proud and jealous of its own +ways as Athens or Florence; and like them it had its quaint fashions of +polity; its democratic Convocation and its oligarchy; its social ranks; +its discipline, severe in theory and usually lax in fact; its +self-governed bodies and corporations within itself; its faculties and +colleges, like the guilds and "arts" of Florence; its internal rivalries +and discords; its "sets" and factions. Like these, too, it professed a +special recognition of the supremacy of religion; it claimed to be a +home of worship and religious training, _Dominus illuminatio mea_, a +claim too often falsified in the habit and tempers of life. It was a +small sphere, but it was a conspicuous one; for there was much strong +and energetic character, brought out by the aims and conditions of +University life; and though moving in a separate orbit, the influence of +the famous place over the outside England, though imperfectly +understood, was recognised and great. These conditions affected the +character of the movement, and of the conflicts which it caused. Oxford +claimed to be eminently the guardian of "true religion and sound +learning"; and therefore it was eminently the place where religion +should be recalled to its purity and strength, and also the place where +there ought to be the most vigilant jealousy against the perversions and +corruptions of religion, Oxford was a place where every one knew his +neighbour, and measured him, and was more or less friendly or repellent; +where the customs of life brought men together every day and all day, in +converse or discussion; and where every fresh statement or every new +step taken furnished endless material for speculation or debate, in +common rooms or in the afternoon walk. And for this reason, too, +feelings were apt to be more keen and intense and personal than in the +larger scenes of life; the man who was disliked or distrusted was so +close to his neighbours that he was more irritating than if he had been +obscured by a crowd; the man who attracted confidence and kindled +enthusiasm, whose voice was continually in men's ears, and whose private +conversation and life was something ever new in its sympathy and charm, +created in those about him not mere admiration, but passionate +friendship, or unreserved discipleship. And these feelings passed from +individuals into parties; the small factions of a limited area. Men +struck blows and loved and hated in those days in Oxford as they hardly +did on the wider stage of London politics or general religious +controversy. + +The conflicts which for a time turned Oxford into a kind of image of +what Florence was in the days of Savonarola, with its nicknames, +Puseyites, and Neomaniacs, and High and Dry, counterparts to the +_Piagnoni_ and _Arrabbiati_, of the older strife, began around a student +of retired habits, interested more than was usual at Oxford in abstruse +philosophy, and the last person who might be expected to be the occasion +of great dissensions in the University. Dr. Hampden was a man who, with +no definite intentions of innovating on the received doctrines of the +Church--indeed, as his sermons showed, with a full acceptance of +them--had taken a very difficult subject for a course of Bampton +Lectures, without at all fathoming its depth and reach, and had got into +a serious scrape in consequence. Personally he was a man of serious but +cold religion, having little sympathy with others, and consequently not +able to attract any. His isolation during the whole of his career is +remarkable; he attached no one, as Whately or Arnold attached men. His +mind, which was a speculative one, was not one, in its own order, of the +first class. He had not the grasp nor the subtlety necessary for his +task. He had a certain power of statement, but little of co-ordination; +he seems not to have had the power of seeing when his ideas were really +irreconcilable, and he thought that simply by insisting on his +distinctly orthodox statements he not only balanced, but neutralised, +and did away with his distinctly unorthodox ones. He had read a good +deal of Aristotle and something of the Schoolmen, which probably no one +else in Oxford had done except Blanco White; and the temptation of +having read what no one else knows anything about sometimes leads men to +make an unprofitable use of their special knowledge, which they consider +their monopoly. + +The creed and dogmas of the Christian Church are at least in their +broad features, not a speculation, but a fact. That not only the +Apostles' Creed, but the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creeds, are +assumed as facts by the whole of anything that can be called the Church, +is as certain as the reception by the same body, and for the same time, +of the Scriptures. Not only the Creed, but, up to the sixteenth century, +the hierarchy, and not only Creed and hierarchy and Scriptures, but the +sacramental idea as expressed in the liturgies, are equally in the same +class of facts. Of course it is open to any one to question the genuine +origin of any of these great portions of the constitution of the Church; +but the Church is so committed to them that he cannot enter on his +destructive criticism without having to criticise, not one only, but all +these beliefs, and without soon having to face the question whether the +whole idea of the Church, as a real and divinely ordained society, with +a definite doctrine and belief, is not a delusion, and whether +Christianity, whatever it is, is addressed solely to each individual, +one by one, to make what he can of it. It need hardly be said that +within the limits of what the Church is committed to there is room for +very wide differences of opinion; it is also true that these limits +have, in different times of the Church, been illegitimately and +mischievously narrowed by prevailing opinions, and by documents and +formularies respecting it. But though we may claim not to be bound by +the Augsburg Confession, or by the Lambeth articles, or the Synod of +Dort, or the Bull _Unigenitus_, it does not follow that, if there is a +Church at all, there is no more binding authority in the theology of the +Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. And it is the province of the divine who +believes in a Church at all, and in its office to be the teacher and +witness of religious truth, to distinguish between the infinitely +varying degrees of authority with which professed representations of +portions of this truth are propounded for acceptance. It may be +difficult or impossible to agree on a theory of inspiration; but that +the Church doctrine of some kind of special inspiration of Scripture is +part of Christianity is, unless Christianity be a dream, certain. No one +can reasonably doubt, with history before him, that the answer of the +Christian Church was, the first time the question was asked, and has +continued to be through ages of controversy, _against_ Arianism, +_against_ Socinianism, _against_ Pelagianism, _against_ Zwinglianism. It +does not follow that the Church has settled everything, or that there +are not hundreds of questions which it is vain and presumptuous to +attempt to settle by any alleged authority. + +Dr. Hampden was in fact unexceptionably, even rigidly orthodox in his +acceptance of Church doctrine and Church creeds. He had published a +volume of sermons containing, among other things, an able statement of +the Scriptural argument for the doctrine of the Trinity, and an equally +able defence of the Athanasian Creed. But he felt that there are +formularies which may be only the interpretations of doctrine and +inferences from Scripture of a particular time or set of men; and he +was desirous of putting into their proper place the authority of such +formularies. His object was to put an interval between them and the +Scriptures from which they professed to be derived, and to prevent them +from claiming the command over faith and conscience which was due only +to the authentic evidences of God's revelation. He wished to make room +for a deeper sense of the weight of Scripture. He proposed to himself +the same thing which was aimed at by the German divines, Arndt, +Calixtus, and Spener, when they rose up against the grinding oppression +which Lutheran dogmatism had raised on its _Symbolical Books_,[56] and +which had come to outdo the worst extravagances of scholasticism. This +seems to have been his object--a fair and legitimate one. But in arguing +against investing the Thirty-nine Articles with an authority which did +not belong to them, he unquestionably, without seeing what he was +doing, went much farther--where he never meant to go. In fact, he so +stated his argument that he took in with the Thirty-nine Articles every +expression of collective belief, every document, however venerable, +which the Church had sanctioned from the first. Strangely enough, +without observing it, he took in--what he meant to separate by a wide +interval from what he called dogma--the doctrine of the infallible +authority and sufficiency of Scripture. In denying the worth of the +_consensus_ and immemorial judgment of the Church, he cut from under +him the claim to that which he accepted as the source and witness of +"divine facts." He did not mean to do this, or to do many other things; +but from want of clearness of head, he certainly, in these writings +which were complained of, did it. He was, in temper and habit, too +desirous to be "orthodox," as Whately feared, to accept in its +consequences his own theory. The theory which he put forward in his +Bampton Lectures, and on which he founded his plan of comprehension in +his pamphlet on Dissent, left nothing standing but the authority of the +letter of Scripture. All else--right or wrong as it might be--was +"speculation," "human inference," "dogma." With perfect consistency, he +did not pretend to take even the Creeds out of this category. But the +truth was, he did not consciously mean all that he said; and when keener +and more powerful and more theological minds pointed out with relentless +accuracy what he _had said_ he was profuse and overflowing with +explanations, which showed how little he had perceived the drift of his +words. There is not the least reason to doubt the sincerity of these +explanations; but at the same time they showed the unfitness of a man +who had so to explain away his own speculations to be the official guide +and teacher of the clergy. The criticisms on his language, and the +objections to it, were made before these explanations were given; and +though he gave them, he was furious with those who called for them, and +he never for a moment admitted that there was anything seriously wrong +or mistaken in what he had said. To those who pointed out the meaning +and effect of his words and theories, he replied by the assertion of his +personal belief. If words mean anything, he had said that neither +Unitarians nor any one else could get behind the bare letter, and what +he called "facts," of Scripture, which all equally accepted in good +faith; and that therefore there was no reason for excluding Unitarians +as long as they accepted the "facts." But when it was pointed out that +this reasoning reduced all belief in the realities behind the bare +letter to the level of personal and private opinion, he answered by +saying that he valued supremely the Creeds and Articles, and by giving a +statement of the great Christian doctrines which he held, and which the +Church taught. But he never explained what their authority could be with +any one but himself. There might be interpretations and inferences from +Scripture, by the hundred or the thousand, but no one certain and +authoritative one; none that warranted an organised Church, much more a +Catholic and Apostolic Church, founded on the assumption of this +interpretation being the one true faith, the one truth of the Bible. The +point was brought out forcibly in a famous pamphlet written by Mr. +Newman, though without his name, called "Elucidations of Dr. Hampden's +Theological Statements." This pamphlet was a favourite object of attack +on the part of Dr. Hampden's supporters as a flagrant instance of +unfairness and garbled extracts. No one, they said, ever read the +Bampton Lectures, but took their estimate of the work from Mr. Newman's +quotations. Extracts are often open to the charge of unfairness, and +always to suspicion. But in this case there was no need of unfairness. +Dr. Hampden's theory lay on the very surface of his Hampton Lectures and +pamphlet; and any unbiassed judge may be challenged to read these works +of his, and say whether the extracts in the "Elucidations" do not +adequately represent Dr. Hampden's statements and arguments, and whether +the comments on them are forced or strained. They do not represent his +explanations, for the explanations had not been given; and when the +explanations came, though they said many things which showed that Dr. +Hampden did not mean to be unorthodox and unevangelical, but only +anti-scholastic and anti-Roman, they did not unsay a word which he had +said. And what this was, what had been Dr. Hampden's professed +theological theory up to the time when the University heard the news of +his appointment, the "Elucidations" represent as fairly as any adverse +statement can represent the subject of its attack. + +In quieter times such an appointment might have passed with nothing more +than a paper controversy or protest, or more probably without more than +conversational criticism. But these wore not quiet and unsuspicious +times. There was reason for disquiet. It was fresh in men's minds what +language and speculation like that of the Bampton Lectures had come to +in the case of Whately's intimate friend, Blanco White. The +unquestionable hostility of Whately's school to the old ideas of the +Church had roused alarm and a strong spirit of resistance in Churchmen. +Each party was on the watch, and there certainly was something at stake +for both parties. Coupled with some recent events, and with the part +which Dr. Hampden had taken on the subscription question, the +appointment naturally seemed significant. Probably it was not so +significant as it seemed on the part at least of Lord Melbourne, who had +taken pains to find a fit man. Dr. Hampden was said to have been +recommended by Bishop Copleston, and not disallowed by Archbishop +Howley. In the University, up to this time, there had been no +authoritative protest against Dr. Hampden's writings. And there were not +many Liberals to choose from. In the appointment there is hardly +sufficient ground to blame Lord Melbourne. But the outcry against it at +Oxford, when it came, was so instantaneous, so strong, and so unusual, +that it might have warned Lord Melbourne that he had been led into a +mistake, out of which it would be wise to seek at least a way of escape. +Doubtless it was a strong measure for the University to protest as it +did; but it was also a strong measure, at least in those days, for a +Minister of the Crown to force so extremely unacceptable a Regius +Professor of Divinity on a great University. Dr. Hampden offered to +resign; and there would have been plenty of opportunities to compensate +him for his sacrifice of a post which could only be a painful one. But +the temper of both sides was up. The remonstrances from Oxford were +treated with something like contempt, and the affair was hurried through +till there was no retreating; and Dr. Hampden became Regius Professor. + +Mr. Palmer has recorded how various efforts were made to neutralise the +effect of the appointment. But the Heads of Houses, though angry, were +cautious. They evaded the responsibility of stating Dr. Hampden's +unsound positions; but to mark their distrust, brought in a proposal to +deprive him of his vote in the choice of Select Preachers till the +University should otherwise determine. It was defeated in Convocation by +the veto of the two Proctors (March 1836), who exercised their right +with the full approval of Dr. Hampden's friends, and the indignation of +the large majority of the University. But it was not unfairly used: it +could have only a suspending effect, of which no one had a right to +complain; and when new Proctors came into office, the proposal was +introduced again, and carried (May 1836) by 474 to 94. The Liberal +minority had increased since the vote on subscription, and Dr. Hampden +went on with his work as if nothing had happened. The attempt was twice +made to rescind the vote: first, after the outcry about the Ninetieth +Tract and the contest about the Poetry Professorship, by a simple +repeal, which was rejected by 334 to 219 (June 1842); and next, +indirectly by a statute enlarging the Professor's powers over Divinity +degrees, which was also rejected by 341 to 21 (May 1844). From first to +last, these things and others were the unfortunate incidents of an +unfortunate appointment. + +The "persecution of Dr. Hampden" has been an unfailing subject of +reproach to the party of the Oxford movement, since the days when the +_Edinburgh Review_ held them up to public scorn and hatred in an article +of strange violence. They certainly had their full share in the +opposition to him, and in the measures by which that opposition was +carried out. But it would be the greatest mistake to suppose that in +this matter they stood alone. All in the University at this time, except +a small minority, were of one mind, Heads of Houses and country parsons, +Evangelicals and High Churchmen--all who felt that the grounds of a +definite belief were seriously threatened by Dr. Hampden's speculations. +All were angry at the appointment; all were agreed that something ought +to be done to hinder the mischief of it. In this matter Mr. Newman and +his friends were absolutely at one with everybody round them, with those +who were soon to be their implacable opponents. Whatever deeper view +they might have of the evil which had been done by the appointment, and +however much graver and more permanent their objections to it, they were +responsible only as the whole University was responsible for what was +done against Dr. Hampden. It was convenient afterwards to single them +out, and to throw this responsibility and the odium of it on them alone; +and when they came under the popular ban, it was forgotten that Dr. +Gilbert, the Principal of Brasenose, Dr. Symons, the Warden of Wadham, +Dr. Faussett, afterwards the denouncer of Dr. Pusey, Mr. Vaughan Thomas, +and Mr. Hill of St. Edmund Hall, were quite as forward at the time as +Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman in protesting against Dr. Hampden, and in the +steps to make their protest effective. Mr. Palmer, in his +_Narrative_,[57] anxious to dissociate himself from the movement under +Mr. Newman's influence, has perhaps underrated the part taken by Mr. +Newman and Dr. Pusey; for they, any rate, did most of the argumentative +work. But as far as personal action goes, it is true, as he says, that +the "movement against Dr. Hampden was not guided by the Tract writers." +"The condemnation of Dr. Hampden, then, was not carried by the Tract +writers; it was carried by the _independent_ body of the University. The +fact is that, had those writers taken any leading part, the measure +would have been a failure, for the number of their friends at that time +was a _very small proportion_ to the University at large, and there was +a general feeling of distrust in the soundness of their views." + +We are a long way from those days in time, and still more in habits and +sentiment; and a manifold and varied experience has taught most of us +some lessons against impatience and violent measures. But if we put +ourselves back equitably into the ways of thinking prevalent then, the +excitement about Dr. Hampden will not seem so unreasonable or so +unjustifiable as it is sometimes assumed to be. The University +legislation, indeed, to which it led was poor and petty, doing small and +annoying things, because the University rulers dared not commit +themselves to definite charges. But, in the first place, the provocation +was great on the part of the Government in putting into the chief +theological chair an unwelcome man who could only save his orthodoxy by +making his speculations mean next to nothing--whose _prim facie_ +unguarded and startling statements were resolved into truisms put in a +grand and obscure form. And in the next place, it was assumed in those +days to be the most natural and obvious thing in the world to condemn +unsound doctrine, and to exclude unsound teachers. The principle was +accepted as indisputable, however slack might have been in recent times +the application of it. That it was accepted, not on one side only, but +on all, was soon to be shown by the subsequent course of events. No one +suffered more severely and more persistently from its application than +the Tractarians; no one was more ready to apply it to them than Dr. +Hampden with his friends; no one approved and encouraged its vigorous +enforcement against them more than Dr. Whately. The idle distinction set +up, that they were not merely unsound but dishonest, was a mere insolent +pretext to save trouble in argument, and to heighten the charge against +them; no one could seriously doubt that they wrote in good faith as much +as Dr. Whately or Dr. Faussett. But unless acts like Dr. Pusey's +suspension, and the long proscription that went on for years after it, +were mere instances of vindictive retaliation, the reproach of +persecution must be shared by all parties then, and by none more than by +the party which in general terms most denounced it. Those who think the +Hampden agitation unique in its injustice ought to ask themselves what +their party would have done if at any time between 1836 and 1843 Mr. +Newman had been placed in Dr. Hampden's seat. + +People in our days mean by religious persecution what happens when the +same sort of repressive policy is applied to a religious party as is +applied to vaccination recusants, or to the "Peculiar People." All +religious persecution, from the days of Socrates, has taken a legal +form, and justified itself on legal grounds. It is the action of +authority, or of strong social judgments backed by authority, against a +set of opinions, or the expression of them in word or act--usually +innovating opinions, but not by any means necessarily such. The +disciples of M. Monod, the "Momiers" of Geneva, were persecuted by the +Liberals of Geneva, not because they broke away from the creed of +Calvin, but because they adhered to it. The word is not properly applied +to the incidental effects in the way of disadvantage, resulting from +some broad constitutional settlement--from the government of the Church +being Episcopal and not Presbyterian, or its creed Nicene and not +Arian--any more than it is persecution for a nation to change its +government, or for a legitimist to have to live under a republic, or for +a Christian to have to live in an infidel state, though persecution may +follow from these conditions. But the _privilegium_ passed against Dr. +Hampden was an act of persecution, though a mild one compared with what +afterwards fell on his opponents with his full sanction. Persecution is +the natural impulse, in those who think a certain thing right and +important or worth guarding, to disable those who, thinking it wrong, +are trying to discredit and upset it, and to substitute something +different. It implies a state of war, and the resort to the most +available weapons to inflict damage on those who are regarded as +rebellious and dangerous. These weapons were formidable enough once: +they are not without force still. But in its mildest form--personal +disqualification or proscription--it is a disturbance which only war +justifies. It may, of course, make itself odious by its modes of +proceeding, by meanness and shabbiness and violence, by underhand and +ignoble methods of misrepresentation and slander, or by cruelty and +plain injustice; and then the odium of these things fairly falls upon +it. But it is very hard to draw the line between conscientious +repression, feeling itself bound to do what is possible to prevent +mischief, and what those who are opposed, if they are the weaker party, +of course call persecution. + +If persecution implies a state of war in which one side is stronger, and +the other weaker, it is hardly a paradox to say that (1) no one has a +right to complain of persecution as such, apart from odious +accompaniments, any more than of superior numbers or hard blows in +battle; and (2) that every one has a right to take advantage and make +the most of being persecuted, by appeals to sympathy and the principle +of doing as you would be done by. No one likes to be accused of +persecution, and few people like to give up the claim to use it, if +necessary. But no one can help observing in the course of events the +strange way in which, in almost all cases, the "wheel comes full +circle." [Greek: Drasanti pathein]--_Chi la fa, l' aspetti_,[58] are +some of the expressions of Greek awe and Italian shrewdness representing +the experience of the world on this subject; on a large scale and a +small. Protestants and Catholics, Churchmen and Nonconformists, have all +in their turn made full proof of what seems like a law of action and +reaction. Except in cases beyond debate, cases where no justification is +possible, the note of failure is upon this mode of repression. +Providence, by the visible Nemesis which it seems always to bring round, +by the regularity with which it has enforced the rule that infliction +and suffering are bound together and in time duly change places, seems +certainly and clearly to have declared against it. It may be that no +innovating party has a right to complain of persecution; but the +question is not for them. It is for those who have the power, and who +are tempted to think that they have the call, to persecute. It is for +them to consider whether it is right, or wise, or useful for their +cause; whether it is agreeable to what seems the leading of Providence +to have recourse to it. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[56] See Pusey's _Theology of Germany_ (1828), p. 18 _sqq_. + +[57] _Narrative_ pp. 29, 30, ed. 1841; p 131. ed. 1883. + +[58] [Greek: Drasanti pathein, Trigeron mythos tade phonei.] Aesch. +_Choeph_. 310. Italian proverb, in _Landucci, Diario Fiorentino_, 1513, +p. 343. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT + +1835-1840 + + +By the end of 1835, the band of friends, whom great fears and great +hopes for the Church had united, and others who sympathised with them +both within and outside the University, had grown into what those who +disliked them naturally called a party. The Hampden controversy, though +but an episode in the history of the movement, was an important one, and +undoubtedly gave a great impulse to it. Dr. Hampden's attitude and +language seemed to be its justification--a palpable instance of what the +Church had to expect. And in this controversy, though the feeling +against Dr. Hampden's views was so widely shared, and though the +majority which voted against him was a very mixed one, and contained +some who hoped that the next time they were called to vote it might be +against the Tractarians, yet the leaders of the movement had undertaken +the responsibility, conspicuously and almost alone, of pointing out +definitely and argumentatively the objections to Dr. Hampden's teaching. +The number of Mr. Newman's friends might be, as Mr. Palmer says, +insignificant, but it was they who had taken the trouble to understand +and give expression to the true reasons for alarm.[59] Even in this +hasty and imperfect way, the discussion revealed to many how much deeper +and more various the treatment of the subject was in the hands of Mr. +Newman and Dr. Pusey compared with the ordinary criticisms on Dr. +Hampden. He had learned in too subtle a school to be much touched by the +popular exceptions to his theories, however loudly expressed. The +mischief was much deeper. It was that he had, unconsciously, no doubt, +undermined the foundation of definite Christian belief, and had resolved +it into a philosophy, so-called scholastic, which was now exploded. It +was the sense of the perilous issues to which this diluted form of +Blanco White's speculations, so recklessly patronised by Whately, was +leading theological teaching in the University, which opened the eyes of +many to the meaning of the movement, and brought some fresh friends to +its side. + +There was no attempt to form a party, or to proselytise; there was no +organisation, no distinct and recognised party marks. "I would not have +it called a party," writes Dr. Newman in the _Apologia_. But a party it +could not help being: quietly and spontaneously it had grown to be what +community of ideas, aims, and sympathies, naturally, and without blame, +leads men to become. And it had acquired a number of recognised +nicknames, to friends and enemies the sign of growing concentration. For +the questions started in the Tracts and outside them became of +increasing interest to the more intelligent men who had finished their +University course and were preparing to enter into life, the Bachelors +and younger Masters of Arts. One by one they passed from various states +of mind--alienation, suspicion, fear, indifference, blank +ignorance--into a consciousness that something beyond the mere +commonplace of religious novelty and eccentricity, of which there had +been a good deal recently, was before them; that doctrines and +statements running counter to the received religious language of the +day, doctrines about which, in confident prejudice, they had perhaps +bandied about off-hand judgments, had more to say for themselves than +was thought at first; that the questions thus raised drove them in on +themselves, and appealed to their honesty and seriousness; and that, at +any rate, in the men who were arresting so much attention, however +extravagant their teaching might be called, there was a remarkable +degree of sober and reserved force, an earnestness of conviction which +could not be doubted, an undeniable and subtle power of touching souls +and attracting sympathies. One by one, and in many different ways, these +young men went through various stages of curiosity, of surprise, of +perplexity, of doubt, of misgiving, of interest; some were frightened, +and wavered, and drew back more or less reluctantly; others, in spite of +themselves, in spite of opposing influences, were led on step by step, +hardly knowing whither, by a spell which they could not resist, of +intellectual, or still more, moral pressure. Some found their old home +teaching completed, explained, lighted up, by that of the new school. +Others, shocked at first at hearing the old watchwords and traditions of +their homes decried and put aside, found themselves, when they least +expected it, passing from the letter to the spirit, from the technical +and formal theory to the wide and living truth. And thus, though many of +course held aloof, and not a few became hostile, a large number, one by +one, some rapidly, others slowly, some unreservedly, others with large +and jealous reserves, more and more took in the leading idea of the +movement, accepted the influence of its chiefs, and looked to them for +instruction and guidance. As it naturally happens, when a number of +minds are drawn together by a common and strong interest, some men, by +circumstances, or by strength of conviction, or by the mutual affinities +of tastes and character, came more and more into direct personal and +intimate relations with the leaders, took service, as it were, under +them, and prepared to throw themselves into their plans of work. Others, +in various moods, but more independent, more critical, more disturbed +about consequences, or unpersuaded on special points, formed a kind of +fringe of friendly neutrality about the more thoroughgoing portion of +the party. And outside of these were thoughtful and able men, to whom +the whole movement, with much that was utterly displeasing and utterly +perplexing, had the interest of being a break-up of stagnation and dull +indolence in a place which ought to have the highest spiritual and +intellectual aims; who, whatever repelled them, could not help feeling +that great ideas, great prospects, a new outburst of bold thought, a new +effort of moral purpose and force, had disturbed the old routine; could +not help being fascinated, if only as by a spectacle, by the strange and +unwonted teaching, which partly made them smile, partly perhaps +permanently disgusted them, but which also, they could not deny, spoke +in a language more fearless, more pathetic, more subtle, and yet more +human, than they had heard from the religious teachers of the day. And +thus the circle of persons interested in the Tracts, of persons who +sympathised with their views, of persons who more and more gave a warm +and earnest adherence to them, was gradually extended in the +University--and, in time, in the country also. The truth was that the +movement, in its many sides, had almost monopolised for the time both +the intelligence and the highest religious earnestness of the +University,[60] and either in curiosity or inquiry, in approval or in +condemnation, all that was deepest and most vigorous, all that was most +refined, most serious, most high-toned, and most promising in Oxford was +drawn to the issues which it raised. It is hardly too much to say that +wherever men spoke seriously of the grounds and prospects of religion, +in Oxford, or in Vacation reading-parties, in their walks and social +meetings, in their studies or in common-room, the "Tractarian" +doctrines, whether assented to or laughed at, deplored or fiercely +denounced, were sure to come to the front. All subjects in discussion +seemed to lead up to them--art and poetry, Gothic architecture and +German romance and painting, the philosophy of language, and the novels +of Walter Scott and Miss Austen, Coleridge's transcendentalism and +Bishop Butler's practical wisdom, Plato's ideas and Aristotle's +analysis. It was difficult to keep them out of lecture-rooms and +examinations for Fellowships. + +But in addition to the intrinsic interest of the questions and +discussions which the movement opened, personal influence played a great +and decisive part in it. As it became a party, it had chiefs. It was not +merely as leaders of thought but as teachers with their disciples, as +friends with friends, as witnesses and examples of high self-rule and +refined purity and goodness, that the chiefs whose names were in all +men's mouths won the hearts and trust of so many, in the crowds that +stood about them. Foremost, of course, ever since he had thrown himself +into it in 1835, was Dr. Pusey. His position, his dignified office, his +learning, his solidity and seriousness of character, his high standard +of religious life, the charm of his charity, and the sweetness of his +temper naturally gave him the first place in the movement in Oxford and +the world. It came to be especially associated with him. Its enemies +fastened on it a nickname from his name, and this nickname, partly from +a greater smoothness of sound, partly from an odd suggestion of +something funny in it, came more into use than others; and the terms +_Puseismus, Pusisme, Puseista_ found their way into German +lecture-halls and Paris salons and remote convents and police offices in +Italy and Sicily; indeed, in the shape of [Greek: pouzeismos] it might +be lighted on in a Greek newspaper. Dr. Pusey was a person who commanded +the utmost interest and reverence; he was more in communication with the +great world outside than Oxford people generally, and lived much in +retirement from Oxford society; but to all interested in the movement he +was its representative and highest authority. He and Mr. Newman had the +fullest confidence in one another, though conscious at times of not +perfect agreement; yet each had a line of his own, and each of them was +apt to do things out of his own head. Dr. Pusey was accessible to all +who wished to see him; but he did not encourage visits which wasted +time. And the person who was pre-eminently, not only before their eyes, +but within their reach in the ordinary intercourse of man with man, was +Mr. Newman. Mr. Newman, who lived in College in the ordinary way of a +resident Fellow, met other university men, older or younger, on equal +terms. As time went on, a certain wonder and awe gathered round him. +People were a little afraid of him; but the fear was in themselves, not +created by any intentional stiffness or coldness on his part. He did not +try to draw men to him, he was no proselytiser; he shrank with fear and +repugnance from the character--it was an invasion of the privileges of +the heart.[61] But if men came to him, he was accessible; he allowed his +friends to bring their friends to him, and met them more than half-way. +He was impatient of mere idle worldliness, of conceit and impertinence, +of men who gave themselves airs; he was very impatient of pompous and +solemn emptiness. But he was very patient with those whom he believed to +sympathise with what was nearest his heart; no one, probably, of his +power and penetration and sense of the absurd, was ever so ready to +comply with the two demands which a witty prelate proposed to put into +the examination in the Consecration Service of Bishops: "Wilt thou +answer thy letters?" "Wilt thou suffer fools gladly?" But courteous, +affable, easy as he was, he was a keen trier of character; he gauged, +and men felt that he gauged, their motives, their reality and soundness +of purpose; he let them see, if they at all came into his intimacy, +that if _they_ were not, _he_, at any rate, was in the deepest earnest. +And at an early period, in a memorable sermon,[62] the vivid impression +of which at the time still haunts the recollection of some who heard it, +he gave warning to his friends and to those whom his influence touched, +that no child's play lay before them; that they were making, it might be +without knowing it, the "Ventures of Faith." But feeling that he had +much to say, and that a university was a place for the circulation and +discussion of ideas, he let himself be seen and known and felt, both +publicly and in private. He had his breakfast parties and his evening +gatherings. His conversation ranged widely, marked by its peculiar +stamp--entire ease, unstudied perfection of apt and clean-cut words, +unexpected glimpses of a sure and piercing judgment. At times, at more +private meetings, the violin, which he knew how to touch, came into +play. + +He had great gifts for leadership. But as a party chief he was also +deficient in some of the qualities which make a successful one. His +doctrine of the Church had the disadvantage of an apparently +intermediate and ambiguous position, refusing the broad, intelligible +watchwords and reasonings of popular religionism. It was not without +clearness and strength; but such a position naturally often leads to +what seem over-subtle modes of argument, seemingly over-subtle because +deeper and more original than the common ones; and he seemed sometimes +to want sobriety in his use of dialectic weapons, which he wielded with +such force and effect. Over-subtlety in the leader of a party tends to +perplex friends and give a handle to opponents. And with all his +confidence in his cause, and also in his power and his call to use it, +he had a curious shyness and self-distrust as to his own way of doing +what he had to do; he was afraid of "wilfulness," of too great reliance +on intellect. He had long been accustomed to observe and judge himself, +and while conscious of his force, he was fully alive to the drawbacks, +moral and intellectual, which wait on the highest powers. When attacks +were made on him by authorities, as in the case of the Tract No. 90, his +more eager friends thought him too submissive; they would have liked a +more combative temper and would not accept his view that confidence in +him was lost, because it might be shaken.[63] But if he bent before +official authority the disapproval of friends was a severer trouble. +Most tender in his affections, most trustful in his confidence, craving +for sympathy, it came like a shock and chill when things did not go +right between himself and his friends. He was too sensitive under such +disapproval for a successful party chief. The true party leader takes +these things as part of that tiresome human stupidity and perverseness +with which he must make his account. Perhaps they sting for the moment, +but he brushes them away and goes forward, soon forgetting them. But +with Mr. Newman, his cause was identified with his friendships and even +his family affections. And as a leader, he was embarrassed by the +keenness with which he sympathised with the doubts and fears of friends; +want of sympathy and signs of distrust darkened the prospect of the +future; they fell like a blight on his stores of hope, never +over-abundant; they tempted him, not to assert himself, but to throw up +the game as convicted of unfitness, and retire for good and all to his +books and silence. "Let them," he seemed to say, "have their way, as +they will not let me have mine; they have the right to take theirs, only +not to make me take it." In spite of his enthusiasm and energy, his +unceasing work, his occasional bursts of severe punishment inflicted on +those who provoked him, there was always present this keen +sensitiveness, the source of so much joy and so much pain. He would not +have been himself without it. But he would have been a much more +powerful and much more formidable combatant if he had cared less for +what his friends felt, and followed more unhesitatingly his own line and +judgment. This keen sensitiveness made him more quickly alive than other +people to all that lay round him and before; it made him quicker to +discern danger and disaster; it led him to give up hope and to retire +from the contest long before he had a right to do so. The experience of +later years shows that he had despaired too soon. Such delicate +sensitiveness, leading to impatience, was not capable of coping with the +rough work involved in the task of reform, which he had undertaken. + +All this time the four o'clock sermons at St. Mary's were always going +on. But, besides these, he anticipated a freedom--familiar now, but +unknown then--of public lecturing. In Advent and after Easter a company, +never very large, used to gather on a week-day afternoon in Adam de +Brome's Chapel--the old Chapel of "Our Lady of Littlemore"--to hear him +lecture on some theological subject. It is a dark, dreary appendage to +St. Mary's on the north side, in which Adam de Brome, Edward II.'s +almoner, and the founder of Oriel College, is supposed to lie, beneath +an unshapely tomb, covered by a huge slab of Purbeck marble, from which +the brass has been stripped. The place is called a chapel, but is more +like a court or place of business, for which, indeed, it was used in the +old days by one of the Faculties of the House of Convocation, which held +its assemblies there. At the end is a high seat and desk for the person +presiding, and an enclosure and a table for officials below him; and +round the rest of the dingy walls run benches fixed to the wall, dingy +as the walls themselves. But it also had another use. On occasions of a +university sermon, a few minutes before it began, the Heads of Houses +assembled, as they still assemble, in the chapel, ranging themselves on +the benches round the walls. The Vice-Chancellor has his seat on one +side, the preacher, with the two Proctors below him, sits opposite; and +there all sit in their robes, more or less grand, according to the day, +till the beadle comes to announce that it is time to form the procession +into church. This desolate place Mr. Newman turned into his +lecture-room; in it he delivered the lectures which afterwards became +the volume on the _Prophetical Character of the Church_, or _Romanism +and Popular Protestantism_; the lectures which formed the volume on +_Justification_; those on _Antichrist_, and on _Rationalism and the +Canon of Scripture_, which afterwards became Nos. 83 and 85 of the +_Tracts for the Times_.[64] The force, the boldness, the freedom from +the trammels of commonplace, the breadth of view and grasp of the +subject which marked those lectures, may be seen in them still. But it +is difficult to realise now the interest with which they were heard at +the time by the first listeners to that clear and perfectly modulated +voice, opening to them fresh and original ways of regarding questions +which seemed worn out and exhausted. The volumes which grew out of the +Adam de Brome lectures were some of the most characteristic portions of +the theological literature of the early movement. They certainly greatly +influenced the course of thought in it, and some of its most serious +issues. + +The movement was not one of mere opinion. It took two distinct though +connected lines. It was, on the one hand, theological; on the other, +resolutely practical. Theologically, it dealt with great questions of +religious principle--What is the Church? Is it a reality or a mode of +speech? On what grounds does it rest? How may it be known? Is it among +us? How is it to be discriminated from its rivals or counterfeits? What +is its essential constitution? What does it teach? What are its +shortcomings? Does it nerd reform? But, on the other hand, the movement +was marked by its deep earnestness on the practical side of genuine +Christian life. Very early in the movement (1833) a series of +sketches of primitive Christian life appeared in the _British +Magazine_--afterwards collected under the title of the _Church of the +Fathers_ (1840)--to remind people who were becoming interested in +ancient and patristic theology that, besides the doctrines to be found +in the vast folios of the Fathers, there were to be sought in them and +laid to heart the temptations and trials, the aspirations and moral +possibilities of actual life, "the tone and modes of thought, the habits +and manners of the early times of the Church." The note struck in the +first of Mr. Newman's published sermons--"Holiness necessary for future +blessedness"--was never allowed to be out of mind. The movement was, +above all, a moral one; it was nothing, allowed to be nothing, if it +was not this.[65] Seriousness, reverence, the fear of insincere words +and unsound professions, were essential in the character, which alone it +would tolerate in those who made common cause with it. + +Its ethical tendency was shown in two things, which were characteristic +of it. One was the increased care for the Gospels, and study of them, +compared with other parts of the Bible. Evangelical theology had dwelt +upon the work of Christ, and laid comparatively little stress on His +example, or the picture left us of His Personality and Life. It regarded +the Epistles of St. Paul as the last word of the Gospel message. People +who can recall the popular teaching, which was spoken of then as "sound" +and "faithful," and "preaching Christ," can remember how the Epistles +were ransacked for texts to prove the "sufficiency of Scripture" or the +"right of private judgment," or the distinction between justification +and sanctification, while the Gospel narrative was imperfectly studied +and was felt to be much less interesting. The movement made a great +change. The great Name stood no longer for an abstract symbol of +doctrine, but for a living Master, who could teach as well as save. And +not forgetting whither He had gone and what He was, the readers of +Scripture now sought Him eagerly in those sacred records, where we can +almost see and hear His going in and out among men. It was a change in +the look and use of Scripture, which some can still look back to as an +epoch in their religious history. The other feature was the increased +and practical sense of the necessity of self-discipline, of taking real +trouble with one's self to keep thoughts and wishes in order, to lay the +foundation of habits, to acquire the power of self-control. Deeply fixed +in the mind of the teachers, this serious governance of life, this +direction and purification of its aims, laid strong hold on the +consciences of those who accepted their teaching. This training was not +showy; it was sometimes austere, even extravagantly austere; but it was +true, and enduring, and it issued often in a steady and unconscious +elevation of the religious character. How this character was fed and +nurtured and encouraged--how, too, it was frankly warned of its dangers, +may be seen in those _Parochial Sermons_ at St. Mary's, under whose +inspiration it was developed, and which will always be the best +commentary on the character thus formed. Even among those who ultimately +parted from the movement, with judgment more or less unfavourable to its +theology and general line, it left, as if uneffaceable, this moral +stamp; this value for sincerity and simplicity of feeling and life, this +keen sense of the awfulness of things unseen. There was something _sui +generis_ in the profoundly serious, profoundly reverent tone, about +everything that touched religion in all who had ever come strongly under +its influence. + +Of course the party soon had the faults of a party, real and +imputed.[66] Is it conceivable that there should ever have been a +religious movement, which has not provoked smiles from those outside of +it, and which has not lent itself to caricature? There were weaker +members of it, and headstrong ones, and imitative ones; there were +grotesque and absurd ones; some were deeper, some shallower; some liked +it for its excitement, and some liked it for its cause; there were those +who were for pushing on, and those who were for holding back; there were +men of combat, and men of peace; there were those whom it made conceited +and self-important, and those whom it drove into seriousness, anxiety, +and retirement. But, whatever faults it had, a pure and high spirit +ruled in it; there were no disloyal members, and there were none who +sought their own in it, or thought of high things for themselves in +joining it. It was this whole-heartedness, this supreme reverence for +moral goodness, more even than the great ability of the leaders, and in +spite of mistakes and failures, which gave its cohesion and its momentum +to the movement in its earlier stages. + +The state of feeling and opinion among Churchmen towards the end of +1835, two years after the Tracts had begun, is thus sketched by one who +was anxiously observing it, in the preface to the second volume of the +Tracts (November 1835). + + In completing the second volume of a publication, to which the + circumstances of the day have given rise, it may be right to allude to + a change which has taken place in them since the date of its + commencement. At that time, in consequence of long security, the + attention of members of our Church had been but partially engaged, in + ascertaining the grounds of their adherence to it; but the imminent + peril to all which is dear to them which has since been confessed, has + naturally turned their thoughts that way, and obliged them to defend + it on one or other of the principles which are usually put forward in + its behalf. Discussions have thus been renewed in various quarters, on + points which had long remained undisturbed; and though numbers + continue undecided in opinion, or take up a temporary position in some + one of the hundred middle points which may be assumed between the two + main theories in which the question issues; and others, again, have + deliberately entrenched themselves in the modern or ultra-Protestant + alternative; yet, on the whole, there has been much hearty and + intelligent adoption, and much respectful study, of those more + primitive views maintained by our great Divines. As the altered state + of public information and opinion has a necessary bearing on the + efforts of those who desire to excite attention to the subject (in + which number the writers of these Tracts are to be included), it will + not be inappropriate briefly to state in this place what it is + conceived is the present position of the great body of Churchmen with + reference to it. + + While we have cause to be thankful for the sounder and more accurate + language, which is now very generally adopted among well-judging men + on ecclesiastical subjects, we must beware of over-estimating what has + been done, and so becoming sanguine in our hopes of success, or + slackening our exertions to secure it. Many more persons, doubtless, + have taken up a profession of the main doctrine in question, that, + namely, of the one Catholic and Apostolic Church, than fully enter + into it. This was to be expected, it being the peculiarity of all + religious teaching, that words are imparted before ideas. A child + learns his Creed or Catechism before he understands it; and in + beginning any deep subject we are all but children to the end of our + lives. The instinctive perception of a rightly instructed mind, _prim + facie_ force of the argument, or the authority of our celebrated + writers, have all had their due and extensive influence in furthering + the reception of the doctrine, when once it was openly maintained; to + which must be added the prospect of the loss of State protection, + which made it necessary to look out for other reasons for adherence to + the Church besides that of obedience to the civil magistrate. Nothing + which has spread quickly has been received thoroughly. Doubtless there + are a number of seriously-minded persons who think that they admit the + doctrine in question much more fully than they do, and who would be + startled at seeing that realised in particulars which they confess in + an abstract form. Many there are who do not at all feel that it is + capable of a practical application; and while they bring it forward on + special occasions, in formal expositions of faith, or in answer to a + direct interrogatory, let it slip from their minds almost entirely in + their daily conduct or their religious teaching, from the long and + inveterate habit of thinking and acting without it. We must not, then, + at all be surprised at finding that to modify the principles and + motives on which men act is not the work of a day; nor at undergoing + disappointments, at witnessing relapses, misconceptions, sudden + disgusts, and, on the other hand, abuses and perversions of the true + doctrine, in the case of those who have taken it up with more warmth + than discernment. + +From the end of 1835, or the beginning of 1836, the world outside of +Oxford began to be alive to the force and the rapid growth of this new +and, to the world at large, not very intelligible movement. The ideas +which had laid hold so powerfully on a number of leading minds in the +University began to work with a spell, which seemed to many +inexplicable, on others unconnected with them. This rapidity of +expansion, viewed as a feature of a party, was noticed on all sides, by +enemies no less than friends. In an article in the _British Critic_ of +April 1839, by Mr. Newman, on the State of Religious Parties, the fact +is illustrated from contemporary notices. + + There is at the present moment a reaction in the Church, and a growing + reaction, towards the views which it has been the endeavours [of the + Tract writers] and, as it seemed at the commencement, _almost hopeless + endeavours_, to advocate. The fairness of the prospect at present is + proved by the attack made on them by the public journals, and is + confessed by the more candid and the more violent among their + opponents. Thus the amiable Mr. Bickersteth speaks of it as having + manifested itself "with the _most rapid_ growth of the hot-bed of + these evil days." The scoffing author of the _Via Media_ says: "At + this moment the Via is _crowded_ with young enthusiasts who never + presume to argue, except against the propriety of arguing at all." The + candid Mr. Baden-Powell, who sees more of the difficulties of the + controversy than the rest of their antagonists pot together, says that + it is clear that "these views ... have been extensively adopted, and + are daily gaining ground among a considerable and influential portion + of the members, as well as the ministers of the Established Church." + The author of the _Natural History of Enthusiasm_ says: "The spread of + these doctrines is in fact having the effect of rendering all other + distinctions obsolete. Soon there will be no middle ground left, and + every man, especially every clergyman, will be compelled to make his + choice between the two." ... The Bishop of Chester speaks of the + subject "daily assuming a more serious and alarming aspect": a + gossiping writer of the moment describes these doctrines as having + insinuated themselves not only into popular churches and fashionable + chapels, and the columns of newspapers, but "into the House of + Commons." + +And the writer of the article goes on:-- + + Now, if there be any truth in these remarks, it is plainly idle and + perverse to refer the change of opinions which is now going on to the + acts of two or three individuals, as is sometimes done. Of course + every event in human affairs has a beginning; and a beginning implies + a when, and a where, and a by whom, and how. But except in these + necessary circumstance, the phenomenon in question is in a manner + quite independent of things visible and historical. It is not here or + there; it has no progress, no causes, no fortunes: it is not a + movement, it is a spirit, it is a spirit afloat, neither "in the + secret chambers" nor "in the desert," but everywhere. It is within us, + rising up in the heart where it was least expected, and working its + way, though not in secret, yet so subtly and impalpably, as hardly to + admit of precaution or encounter on any ordinary human rules of + opposition. It is an adversary in the air, a something one and entire, + a whole wherever it is, unapproachable and incapable of being + grasped, as being the result of causes far deeper than political or + other visible agencies, the spiritual awakening of spiritual wants. + + Nothing can show more strikingly the truth of this representation than + to refer to what may be called the theological history of the + individuals who, whatever be their differences from each other on + important or unimportant points, yet are associated together in the + advocacy of the doctrines in question. Dr. Hook and Mr. Churton + represent the High Church dignitaries of the last generation; Mr. + Perceval, the Tory aristocracy; Mr. Keble is of the country clergy, + and comes from valleys and woods, far removed both from notoriety and + noise; Mr. Palmer and Mr. Todd are of Ireland; Dr. Pusey became what + he is from among the Universities of Germany, and after a severe and + tedious analysis of Arabic MSS. Mr. Dodsworth is said to have begun in + the study of Prophecy; Mr. Newman to have been much indebted to the + friendship of Archbishop Whately; Mr. Froude, if any one, gained his + views from his own mind. Others have passed over from Calvinism and + kindred religions. + +Years afterwards, and in changed circumstances, the same writer has left +the following record of what came before his experience in those +years:--[67] + + From beginnings so small (I said), from elements of thought so + fortuitous, with prospects so unpromising, the Anglo-Catholic party + suddenly became a power in the National Church, and an object of alarm + to her rulers and friends. Its originators would have found it + difficult to say what they aimed at of a practical kind: rather, they + put forth views and principles, for their own sake, because they were + true, as if they were obliged to say them; and, as they might be + themselves surprised at their earnestness in uttering them, they had + as great cause to be surprised at the success which attended their + propagation. And, in fact, they could only say that those doctrines + were in the air; that to assert was to prove, and that to explain was + to persuade; and that the movement in which they were taking part was + the birth of a crisis rather than of a place. In a very few years a + school of opinion was formed, fixed in its principles, indefinite and + progressive in their range; and it extended itself into every part of + the country. If we inquire what the world thought of it, we have still + more to raise our wonder; for, not to mention the excitement it caused + in England, the movement and its party-names were known to the police + of Italy and to the backwoods-men of America. And so it proceeded, + getting stronger and stronger every year, till it came into collision + with the Nation and that Church of the Nation, which it began by + professing especially to serve. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[59] "I answered, the person whom we were opposing had committed himself +in writing, and we ought to commit ourselves, too."--_Apologia_, p. 143. + +[60] "I very much doubt between Oxford and Cambridge for my boy. Oxford, +which I should otherwise prefer, on many accounts, has at present +two-thirds of the steady-reading men, Rabbinists, _i.e._ Puseyites." But +this was probably an exaggeration.--Whately's _Life_; letter of Oct. +1838, p. 163 (ed. 1875). + +[61] "The sagacious and aspiring man of the world, the scrutiniser +of the heart, the conspirator against its privileges and +rights."--_Prophetical Office of the Church_, p. 132. + +[62] _Parochial Sermons_, iv. 20. Feb. 1836. + +[63] _Vide_ J.B. Mozley, _Letters_, pp. 114, 115. "Confidence in me was +lost, but I had already lost confidence in myself." This, to a friend +like J.B. Mozley, seemed exaggeration. "Though admiring the letter [to +the Vice Chancellor] I confess, for my own part, I think a general +confession of humility was irrelevant to the present occasion, the +question being simply on a point of theological interpretation. I have +always had a prejudice against general confessions." Mozley plainly +thought Newman's attitude too meek. He would have liked something more +spirited and pugnacious. + +[64] _Romanism and Popular Protestantism_, from 1834 to 1836, published +March 1837; _Justification_, after Easter 1837, published March 1838; +_Canon of Scripture_, published May 1838; _Antichrist_, published June +1838. + +[65] Cf. _Lyra Apostolica_, No. 65: + + _Thou_ to wax fierce + In the cause of the Lord! + + * * * * * + + Anger and zeal, + And the joy of the brave, + Who bade _thee_ to feel, + Sin's slave? + + +[66] This weak side was portrayed with severity in a story published by +Mr. Newman in 1848, after he left the English Church--_Loss and Gain_. + +[67] _Apologia_, p. 156. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE ROMAN QUESTION + + +The Hampden controversy had contributed to bring to the front a +question, which from the first starting of the Tracts had made itself +felt, but which now became a pressing one. If the Church of England +claimed to be part of the Catholic Church, what was the answer of the +Church of England to the claims and charges of the Church of Rome? What +were the true distinctions between the doctrines of the two Churches on +the great points on which they were supposed to be at issue? The vague +outcry of Popery had of course been raised both against the general +doctrine of the Church, enforced in the Tracts, and against special +doctrines and modes of speaking, popularly identified with Romanism; and +the answer had been an appeal to the authority of the most learned and +authoritative of our writers. But, of course, to the general public this +learning was new; and the cry went on with a dreary and stupid monotony. +But the charges against Dr. Hampden led his defenders to adopt as their +best weapon an aggressive policy. To the attack on his orthodoxy, the +counter buffet was the charge against his chief opponents of secret or +open Romanising. In its keenest and most popular form it was put forth +in a mocking pamphlet written probably under Whately's inspiration by +his most trusted confidant, Dr. Dickinson, in which, in the form of a +"Pastoral Epistle from his Holiness the Pope to some Members of the +University of Oxford," the Tract-writers are made to appear as the +emissaries and secret tools of Rome, as in a _jeu d'esprit_ of Whately's +they are made to appear as the veiled prophets of infidelity.[68] It was +clever, but not clever enough to stand, at least in Oxford, against Dr. +Pusey's dignified and gravely earnest _Remonstrance_ against its +injustice and trifling. But the fire of all Dr. Hampden's friends had +been drawn on the leaders of the movement. With them, and almost alone +with them, the opposition to him was made a personal matter. As time +went on, those who had been as hot as they against Dr. Hampden managed +to get their part in the business forgotten. Old scores between +Orthodox, Evangelicals, and Liberals were wiped out, and the Tractarians +were left to bear alone the odium of the "persecution" of Dr. Hampden. +It must be said that they showed no signs of caring for it. + +But the Roman controversy was looming in earnest, and it was idle to +expect to keep it long out of sight. The Tracts had set forth with +startling vehemence the forgotten claims of the Church. One reason why +this had been done was the belief, as stated in the first volume of +them, "that nothing but these neglected doctrines, faithfully preached, +will repress the extension of Popery, for which the ever-multiplying +divisions of the religious world are too clearly preparing the way."[69] +The question, What _is_ the Church? was one which the conditions of the +times would not permit men any longer to leave alone. It had become +urgent to meet it clearly and decisively. "We could not move a step in +comfort till this was done."[70] "The controversy with the Romanists," +writes Mr. Newman in No. 71 of the Tracts, about the end of 1835, "has +overtaken us 'like a summer's cloud.' We find ourselves in various parts +of the country preparing for it, yet, when we look back, we cannot trace +the steps by which we arrived at our present position. We do not +recollect what our feelings were this time last year on the subject; +what was the state of our apprehensions and anticipations. All we know +is, that here we are, from long security ignorant why we are not Roman +Catholics, and they on the other side are said to be spreading and +strengthening on all sides of us, vaunting of their success, real or +apparent, and taunting us with our inability to argue with them." + +The attitude taken by Mr. Newman at this time, as regards the Roman +Church, both in the Tracts and in his book on _Romanism and Popular +Protestantism_, published in the early months of 1836, was a new one. He +had started, as he tells us, with the common belief that the Pope was +Antichrist, and that the case was so clear against the whole system, +doctrinal and practical, of the Church of Rome, that it scarcely needed +further examination. His feeling against Rome had been increased by the +fierce struggle about Emancipation, and by the political conduct of the +Roman Catholic party afterwards; and his growing dissatisfaction with +the ordinary Protestantism had no visible effect in softening this +feeling. Hurrell Froude's daring questions had made his friends feel +that there might be more to be known about the subject than they yet +knew; yet what the fellow-travellers saw of things abroad in their visit +to the South in 1832 did not impress them favourably. "They are wretched +Tridentines everywhere," was Froude's comment. But attention had been +drawn to the subject, and its deep interest and importance and +difficulty recognised. Men began to read with new eyes. Froude's keen +and deep sense of shortcomings at home disposed him to claim equity and +candour in judging of the alleged faults and corruptions of the Church +abroad. It did more, it disposed him--naturally enough, but still +unfairly, and certainly without adequate knowledge--to treat Roman +shortcomings with an indulgence which he refused to English. Mr. Newman, +knowing more, and more comprehensive in his view of things, and +therefore more cautious and guarded than Froude, was much less ready to +allow a favourable interpretation of the obvious allegations against +Rome. But thought and reading, and the authority of our own leading +divines, had brought him to the conviction that whatever was to be said +against the modern Roman Church--and the charges against it were very +heavy--it was still, amid serious corruption and error, a teacher to the +nations of the Christian creed and hope; it had not forfeited, any more +than the English Church, its title to be a part of that historic body +which connects us with the Apostles of our Lord. It had a strong and +consistent theory to oppose to its assailants; it had much more to say +for itself than the popular traditions supposed. This was no new idea in +Anglican divinity, however ill it might sort with the current language +of Protestant controversy. But our old divines, more easily satisfied +than we with the course of things at home under the protection of the +Stuart kings, and stung to bitter recrimination by the insults and the +unscrupulous political intrigues of Roman Catholic agents, had exhausted +the language of vituperation against a great aggressive rival, which was +threatening everything that they held dear. They had damaged their own +character for fairness, and overlaid their substantial grounds of +objection and complaint, by this unbalanced exaggeration. Mr. Newman, in +his study of these matters, early saw both the need and the difficulty +of discrimination in the Roman controversy. It had to be waged, not as +of old, with penal legislation behind, but against adversaries who +could now make themselves listened to, and before a public sufficiently +robust in its Protestantism, to look with amused interest on a +dialectical triumph of the Roman over the Anglican claims. Romanism, he +thought, was fatal both to his recent hopes for the English Church, and +to the honour and welfare of Christianity at large. But in opposing it, +ground loosely taken of old must be carefully examined, and if +untenable, abandoned. Arguments which proved too much, which availed +against any Church at all, must be given up. Popular objections, arising +from ignorance or misconception, must be reduced to their true limits or +laid aside. The controversy was sure to be a real one, and nothing but +what was real and would stand scrutiny was worth anything in it. + +Mr. Newman had always been impressed with the greatness of the Roman +Church. Of old it had seemed to him great with the greatness of +Antichrist. Now it seemed great with the strange weird greatness of a +wonderful mixed system, commanding from its extent of sway and its +imperial authority, complicated and mysterious in its organisation and +influence, in its devotion and its superstitions, and surpassing every +other form of religion both in its good and its evil.[71] What now +presented itself to Mr. Newman's thoughts, instead of the old notion of +a pure Church on one side, and a corrupt Church on the other, sharply +opposed to one another, was the more reasonable supposition of two great +portions of the divided Church, each with its realities of history and +fact and character, each with its special claims and excellences, each +with its special sins and corruptions, and neither realising in practice +and fact all it professed to be on paper; each of which further, in the +conflicts of past days, had deeply, almost unpardonably, wronged the +other. The Church of England was in possession, with its own call and +its immense work to do, and striving to do it. Whatever the Church of +Rome was abroad, it was here an intruder and a disturber. That to his +mind was the fact and the true position of things; and this ought to +govern the character and course of controversy. The true line was not to +denounce and abuse wholesale, not to attack with any argument, good or +bad, not to deny or ignore what was solid in the Roman ground, and good +and elevated in the Roman system, but admitting all that fairly ought to +be admitted, to bring into prominence, not for mere polemical +denunciation, but for grave and reasonable and judicial condemnation, +all that was extravagant and arrogant in Roman assumptions, and all that +was base, corrupt, and unchristian in the popular religion, which, with +all its claims to infallibility and authority, Rome not only permitted +but encouraged. For us to condemn Rome wholesale, as was ordinarily the +fashion, even in respectable writers, was as wrong, as unfair, as +unprofitable to the cause of truth and Christianity, as the Roman +charges against us were felt by us to be ignorant and unjust. Rome +professes like England to continue the constitution, doctrine, +traditions, and spirit of the ancient and undivided Church: and so far +as she does so--and she does so in a great degree--we can have no +quarrel with her. But in a great degree also, she does this only in +profession and as a theory: she claims the witness and suffrage of +antiquity, but she interprets it at her own convenience and by her own +authority. We cannot claim exemption from mistakes, from deviations from +our own standard and principles, any more than Rome; but while she +remains as she is, and makes the monstrous claims of infallibility and +supremacy, there is nothing for English Churchmen but to resist her. +Union is impossible. Submission is impossible. What we have to beware of +for our own sake, as well as for our cause, are false arguments, unreal +objections, ignorant allegations. There is enough on the very surface, +in her audacious assertions and high-handed changes, for popular +arguments against her, without having recourse to exaggeration and +falsehood; she may be a very faulty Church, without being Babylon and +Antichrist. And in the higher forms of argument, there is abundance in +those provinces of ancient theology and ecclesiastical history and law, +which Protestant controversialists have commonly surrendered and left +open to their opponents, to supply a more telling weapon than any which +these controversialists have used. + +This line, though substantially involved in the theory of our most +learned divines, from Andrewes to Wake, was new in its moderation and +reasonable caution; in its abstention from insult and vague abuse, in +its recognition of the _prim facie_ strength of much of the Roman case, +in its fearless attempt, in defiance of the deepest prejudices, to face +the facts and conditions of the question. Mr. Newman dared to know and +to acknowledge much that our insular self-satisfaction did not know, and +did not care to know, of real Christian life in the Church of Rome. He +dared to admit that much that was popularly held to be Popish was +ancient, Catholic, edifying; he dared to warn Churchmen that the loose +unsifted imputations, so securely hazarded against Rome, were both +discreditable and dangerous. All this, from one whose condemnation of +Rome was decisive and severe, was novel. The attempt, both in its spirit +and its ability, was not unworthy of being part of the general effort to +raise the standard of thought and teaching in the English Church. It +recalled men from slovenly prejudices to the study of the real facts of +the living world. It narrowed the front of battle, but it strengthened +it enormously. The volume on _Romanism and Popular Protestantism_ is not +an exhaustive survey of the controversy with Rome or of the theory of +the Church. There are great portions of the subject, both theological +and historical, which it did not fall within the scope of the book to +touch. It was unsystematic and incomplete. But so far as its argument +extended, it almost formed an epoch in this kind of controversial +writing. It showed the command of a man of learning over all the +technical points and minutiae of a question highly scholastical in its +conceptions and its customary treatment, and it presented this question +in its bearings and consequences on life and practice with the freedom +and breadth of the most vigorous popular writing. The indictment against +Rome was no vague or general one. It was one of those arguments which +cut the ground from under a great established structure of reasonings +and proofs. And its conclusions, clear and measured, but stern, were the +more impressive, because they came from one who did not disguise his +feeling that there was much in what was preserved in the Roman system +to admire and to learn from. + +The point which he chose for his assault was indeed the key of the Roman +position--the doctrine of Infallibility. He was naturally led to this +side of the question by the stress which the movement had laid on the +idea of the Church as the witness and teacher of revealed truth: and the +immediate challenge given by the critics or opponents of the movement +was, how to distinguish this lofty idea of the Church, with its claim to +authority, if it was at all substantial, from the imposing and +consistent theory of Romanism. He urged against the Roman claim of +Infallibility two leading objections. One was the way in which the +assumed infallibility of the present Church was made to override and +supersede, in fact, what in words was so ostentatiously put forward, the +historical evidence of antiquity to doctrine, expressed by the phrase, +the "consent of the Fathers." The other objection was the inherent +contradiction of the notion of infallibility to the conditions of human +reception of teaching and knowledge, and its practical uselessness as an +assurance of truth, its partly delusive, partly mischievous, working. +But he felt, as all deep minds must feel, that it is easier to overthrow +the Roman theory of Church authority than to replace it by another, +equally complete and commanding, and more unassailable. He was quite +alive to the difficulties of the Anglican position; but he was a +disciple in the school of Bishop Butler, and had learned as a first +principle to recognise the limitations of human knowledge, and the +unphilosophical folly of trying to round off into finished and +pretentious schemes our fragmentary yet certain notices of our own +condition and of God's dealings with it. He followed his teacher in +insisting on the reality and importance of moral evidence as opposed to +demonstrative proof; and he followed the great Anglican divines in +asserting that there was a true authority, varying in its degrees, in +the historic Church; that on the most fundamental points of religion +this authority was trustworthy and supreme; that on many other questions +it was clear and weighty, though it could not decide everything. This +view of the "prophetical office of the Church" had the dialectical +disadvantage of appearing to be a compromise, to many minds a fatal +disadvantage. It got the name of the _Via Media_; a satisfactory one to +practical men like Dr. Hook, to whom it recommended itself for use in +popular teaching; but to others, in aftertimes, an ill-sounding phrase +of dislike, which summed up the weakness of the Anglican case. Yet it +only answered to the certain fact, that in the early and undivided +Church there was such a thing as authority, and there was no such thing +known as Infallibility. It was an appeal to the facts of history and +human nature against the logical exigencies of a theory. Men must +transcend the conditions of our experience if they want the certainty +which the theory of Infallibility speaks of. + +There were especially two weak points in this view of Anglicanism. Mr. +Newman felt and admitted them, and of course they were forced on his +attention by controversialists on both sides; by the Ultra Protestant +school, whose modes of dealing with Scripture he had exposed with +merciless logic and by the now eager Roman disputants, of whom Dr. +Wiseman was the able and not over-scrupulous chief. The first of these +points was that the authority of the undivided Church, which Anglicanism +invoked, though it completely covered the great foundations of Christian +doctrine, our faith as to the nature of God, did not cover with equal +completeness other important points of controversy, such as those +raised at the Reformation as to the Sacraments, and the justification of +the sinner. The Anglican answer was that though the formal and conciliar +authority was not the same in each case, the patristic literature of the +time of the great councils, all that it took for granted and preserved +as current belief and practice, all that resulted from the questions and +debates of the time, formed a body of proof, which carried with it moral +evidence only short of authoritative definition, and was so regarded in +the Anglican formularies. These formularies implied the authority of the +Church to speak; and what was defined on this authority was based on +good evidence, though there were portions of its teaching which had even +better. The other point was more serious. "Your theory," was the +objection, "is nothing but a paper theory; it never was a reality; it +never can be. There may be an ideal halting-place, there is neither a +logical nor an actual one, between Romanism and the ordinary negations +of Protestantism." The answer to the challenge then was, "Let us see if +it cannot be realised. It has recognised foundations to build upon, and +the impediments and interruptions which have hindered it are well known. +Let us see if it will not turn out something more than a paper theory." +That was the answer given at the time, abandoned ten years afterwards. +But this at least may be said, that the longer experience of the last +fifty years has shown that the Church of England has been working more +and more on such a theory, and that the Church of England, whatever its +faults may be, is certainly not a Church only on paper. + +But on the principles laid down in this volume, the Roman controversy, +in its varying forms, was carried on--for the time by Mr. Newman, +permanently by the other leaders of the movement. In its main outlines, +the view has become the accepted Anglican view. Many other most +important matters have come into the debate. The publicly altered +attitude of the Papacy has indefinitely widened the breach between +England and Rome. But the fundamental idea of the relations and +character of the two Churches remains the same as it was shadowed forth +in 1836. + +One very important volume on these questions ought not to be passed by +without notice. This was the _Treatise on the Church of Christ_, 1838, +by Mr. W. Palmer, who had already by his _Origines_ of the English +Ritual, 1832, done much to keep up that interest of Churchmen in the +early devotional language of the Church, which had first been called +forth by Bishop Lloyd's lectures on the Prayer Book. The _Treatise on +the Church_ was an honour to English theology and learning; in point of +plan and structure we have few books like it.[72] It is comprehensive, +methodical, well-compacted, and, from its own point of view, +exhaustive. It is written with full knowledge of the state of the +question at the time, both on the Anglican side and on the Roman. Its +author evades no objection, and is aware of most. It is rigorous in +form, and has no place for anything but substantial argument. It is a +book which, as the _Apologia_ tells us, commanded the respect of such an +accomplished controversialist as Perrone; and, it may be added, of a +theologian of an opposite school, Dr. Dllinger. It is also one on which +the highest value has been set by Mr. Gladstone. It is remarkable that +it did not exercise more influence on religious thought in Oxford at the +critical time when it appeared. But it had defects, and the moment was +against it. It was dry and formal--inevitably so, from the scientific +plan deliberately adopted for it; it treated as problems of the +theological schools, to be discussed by the rules of severe and +passionless disputation, questions which were once more, after the +interval of more than a century, beginning to touch hearts and +consciences, and were felt to be fraught with the gravest practical +issues. And Mr. Newman, in his mode of dealing with them, unsystematic, +incomplete, unsatisfactory in many ways as it was, yet saw in them not +abstract and scholastic inquiries, however important, but matters in +which not only sound argument, but sympathy and quick intelligence of +the conditions and working of the living minds around him, were needed +to win their attention and interest. To persons accustomed to Mr. +Newman's habit of mind and way of writing, his ease, his frankness, his +candour, his impatience of conventionality, his piercing insight into +the very centre of questions, his ever-ready recognition of nature and +reality, his range of thought, his bright and clear and fearless style +of argument, his undisplayed but never unfelt consciousness of the true +awfulness of anything connected with religion, any stiff and heavy way +of treating questions which he had treated would have seemed +unattractive and unpersuasive. He had spoiled his friends for any mere +technical handling, however skilful, of great and critical subjects. He +himself pointed out in a review the unique merit and the real value of +Mr. Palmer's book, pointing out also, significantly enough, where it +fell short, both in substance and in manner. Observing that the +"scientific" system of the English Church is not yet "sufficiently +cleared and adjusted," and adding a variety of instances of this +deficiency, he lets us see what he wanted done, where difficulties most +pressed upon himself, and where Mr. Palmer had missed the real substance +of such difficulties. Looking at it by the light of after-events, we can +see the contradiction and reaction produced by Mr. Palmer's too +optimist statements. Still, Mr. Newman's praise was sincere and +discriminating. But Mr. Palmer's book, though never forgotten, scarcely +became, what it at another time might well have become, an English +text-book. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[68] Whately's _Life_, ed. 1875, pp. 187-190. + +[69] Advertisement to vol. i. 1st Nov. 1834. + +[70] _Apologia_, p. 139. + +[71] Vide _Lyra Apostolica_, Nos. 170, 172: + + How shall I name thee, Light of the wide West, + Or heinous error-seat?... + Oh, that thy creed were sound! + For thou dost soothe the heart, thou Church of Rome, + By thy unwearied watch and varied round + Of service, in thy Saviour's holy home. + +And comp. No. 171, _The Cruel Church_. + +[72] "The most important theological work which has lately appeared is +Mr. Palmer's _Treatise on the Church_.... Whatever judgment may be +formed of the conclusions to which he has come on the variety of points +which he had to consider, we cannot contemplate without admiration, and +(if it were right) without envy, the thorough treatment which his +subject has received at his hands. It is indeed a work quite in +character with the religious movement which has commenced in various +parts of the Church, displaying a magnificence of design similar to that +of the Bishop of London's plan of fifty new churches, and Dr. Pusey, of +Oxford's, projected translation of the Fathers."--_Brit. Crit._. July +1838. Short Notices. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +CHANGES + + +The first seven years of the movement, as it is said in the _Apologia_, +had been years of prosperity. There had been mistakes; there had been +opposition; there had been distrust and uneasiness. There was in some +places a ban on the friends of Mr. Newman; men like Mr. James Mozley and +Mr. Mark Pattison found their connexion with him a difficulty in the way +of fellowships. But on the whole, things had gone smoothly, without any +great breakdown, or any open collision with authority. But after 1840 +another period was to begin of trouble and disaster. The seeds of this +had been partially sown before in the days of quiet, and the time was +come for their development. Differences in the party itself had been +growing sharper; differences between the more cautious and the more +fearless, between the more steady-going and the more subtle thinkers. +The contrast between the familiar and customary, and the new--between +the unknown or forgotten, and a mass of knowledge only recently +realised--became more pronounced. Consequences of a practical kind, real +or supposed; began to show themselves, and to press. And above all, a +second generation, without the sobering experience of the first, was +starting from where the first had reached to, and, in some instances, +was rising up against their teachers' caution and patience. The usual +dangers of all earnest and aggressive assertions of great principles +appeared: contempt for everything in opinion and practice that was not +advanced, men vying with each other in bold inferences, in the pleasure +of "talking strong." With this grew fear and exasperation on the other +side, misunderstandings, misgivings, strainings of mutual confidence, +within. Dr. Hook alternated between violent bursts of irritation and +disgust, and equally strong returns of sympathy, admiration, and +gratitude; and he represented a large amount of feeling among Churchmen. +It was but too clear that storms were at hand. They came perhaps quicker +than they were anticipated. + +Towards the end of 1838, a proposal was brought forward, for which in +its direct aspect much might plausibly be said, but which was in +intention and indirectly a test question, meant to put the Tractarians +in a difficulty, and to obtain the weight of authority in the University +against them. It was proposed to raise a subscription, and to erect a +monument in Oxford, to the martyrs of the Reformation, Cranmer, Ridley, +and Latimer. Considering that the current and popular language dated +the Church of England from the Reformation of the sixteenth century, and +cited the Reformers as ultimate and paramount authorities on its +doctrine, there was nothing unreasonable in such a proposal. Dr. Hook, +strong Churchman as he was, "called to union on the principles of the +English Reformation." But the criticism which had been set afloat by the +movement had discovered and realised, what defenders of the English +Church had hitherto felt it an act of piety to disbelieve, when put +before them by Romanists like Lingard, and radicals like Cobbett. that +the Reformers had been accomplices in many indefensible acts, and had +been inconsistent and untrustworthy theologians. Providentially, it was +felt, the force of old convictions and tradition and the historical +events of the time had obliged them to respect the essentials of +Catholic truth and polity and usage; we owed to them much that was +beautiful and devotional in the Prayer Book; and their Articles, clear +in all matters decided by the early theology, avoided foreign extremes +in dealing with later controversies. But their own individual language +was often far in advance of the public and official language of +formularies, in the direction of the great Protestant authorities of +Geneva and Zurich. There were still, even among the movement party, many +who respected the Reformers for the work which they had attempted, and +partly and imperfectly done, to be more wisely and soberly carried on by +their successors of the seventeenth century. But the charges against +their Calvinistic and even Zwinglian language were hard to parry; even +to those who respected them for their connexion with our present order +of things, their learning, their soundness, their authority appeared to +be greatly exaggerated; and the reaction from excessive veneration made +others dislike and depreciate them. This was the state of feeling when +the Martyrs' Memorial was started. It was eagerly pressed with ingenious +and persevering arguments by Mr. Golightly, the indefatigable and +long-labouring opponent of all that savoured of Tractarianism. The +appeal seemed so specious that at first many even of the party gave in +their adhesion. Even Dr. Pusey was disposed to subscribe to it. But Mr. +Newman, as was natural, held aloof; and his friends for the most part +did the same. It was what was expected and intended. They were either to +commit themselves to the Reformation as understood by the promoters of +the Memorial; or they were to be marked as showing their disloyalty to +it. The subscription was successful. The Memorial was set up, and stood, +a derisive though unofficial sign of the judgment of the University +against them. + +But the "Memorial" made little difference to the progress of the +movement. It was an indication of hostility in reserve, but this was +all; it formed an ornament to the city, but failed as a religious and +effective protest. Up to the spring of 1839, Anglicanism, placed on an +intellectual basin by Mr. Newman, developed practically in different +ways by Dr. Pusey and Dr. Hook, sanctioned in theory by divines who +represented the old divinity of the English Church, like Bishop +Phillpotts and Mr. H.J. Rose, could speak with confident and hopeful +voice. It might well seem that it was on its way to win over the coming +generations of the English clergy. It had on its side all that gives +interest and power to a cause,--thought, force of character, unselfish +earnestness; it had unity of idea and agreement in purpose, and was +cemented by the bonds of warm affection and common sympathies. It had +the promise of a nobler religion, as energetic and as spiritual as +Puritanism and Wesleyanism, while it drew its inspiration, its canons of +doctrine, its moral standards, from purer and more venerable +sources;--from communion, not with individual teachers and partial +traditions, but with the consenting teaching and authoritative documents +of the continuous Catholic Church. + +Anglicanism was agreed, up to this time--the summer of 1839--as to its +general principles. Charges of an inclination to Roman views had been +promptly and stoutly met; nor was there really anything but the +ignorance or ill-feeling of the accusers to throw doubt on the sincerity +of these disavowals. The deepest and strongest mind in the movement was +satisfied; and his steadiness of conviction could be appealed to if his +followers talked wildly and rashly. He had kept one unwavering path; he +had not shrunk from facing with fearless honesty the real living array +of reasons which the most serious Roman advocates could put forward. +With a frankness new in controversy, he had not been afraid to state +them with a force which few of his opponents could have put forth. With +an eye ever open to that supreme Judge of all our controversies, who +listens to them on His throne on high, he had with conscientious +fairness admitted what he saw to be good and just on the side of his +adversaries, conceded what in the confused wrangle of conflicting claims +he judged ought to be conceded. But after all admissions and all +concessions, the comparative strength of his own case appeared all the +more undeniable. He had stripped it of its weaknesses, its incumbrances, +its falsehoods; and it did not seem the weaker for being presented in +its real aspect and on its real grounds. People felt that he had gone to +the bottom of the question as no one had yet dared to do. He was yet +staunch in his convictions; and they could feel secure. + +But a change was at hand. In the course of 1839, the little cloud showed +itself in the outlook of the future; the little rift opened, small and +hardly perceptible, which was to widen into an impassable gulf. +Anglicanism started with undoubted confidence in its own foundations and +its own position, as much against Romanism as against the more recent +forms of religion. In the consciousness of its strength, it could afford +to make admissions and to refrain from tempting but unworthy arguments +in controversy with Rome; indeed the necessity of such controversy had +come upon it unexpectedly and by surprise. With English frankness, in +its impatience of abuses and desire for improvement within, it had dwelt +strongly on the faults and shortcomings of the English Church which it +desired to remedy; but while allowing what was undeniably excellent in +Rome, it had been equally outspoken and emphatic in condemnation of the +evils of Rome. What is there to wonder at in such a position? It is the +position of every honest reforming movement, at least in England. But +Anglican self-reliance was unshaken, and Anglican hope waxed stronger as +the years went on, and the impression made by Anglican teaching became +wider and deeper. Outside attacks, outside persecution, could now do +little harm; the time was past for that. What might have happened had +things gone on as they began, it is idle to inquire. But at the moment +when all seemed to promise fair, the one fatal influence, the presence +of internal uncertainty and doubt, showed itself. The body of men who +had so for acted together began to show a double aspect. While one +portion of it continued on the old lines, holding the old ground, +defending the old principles, and attempting to apply them for the +improvement of the practical system of the English Church, another +portion had asked the question, and were pursuing the anxious inquiry, +whether the English Church was a true Church at all, a true portion of +the one uninterrupted Catholic Church of the Redeemer. And the question +had forced itself with importunate persistence on the leading mind of +the movement. From this time the fate of Tractarianism, as a party, was +decided. + +In this overthrow of confidence, two sets of influences may be traced. + +1. One, which came from above, from the highest leading authority in the +movement, was the unsettlement of Mr. Newman's mind. He has told the +story, the story as he believed of his enfranchisement and deliverance; +and he has told the story, though the story of a deliverance, with so +keen a feeling of its pathetic and tragic character,--as it is indeed +the most tragic story of a conversion to peace and hope on record,--that +it will never cease to be read where the English language is spoken. Up +to the summer of 1839, his view of the English position had satisfied +him--satisfied him, that is, as a tenable one in the anomalies of +existing Christendom. All seemed clear and hopeful, and the one thing to +be thought of was to raise the English Church to the height of its own +standard. But in the autumn of that year (1839), as he has told us, a +change took place. In the summer of 1839, he had set himself to study +the history of the Monophysite controversy. "I have no reason," he +writes, "to suppose that the thought of Rome came across my mind at +all.... It was during this course of reading that for the first time a +doubt came across me of the tenableness of Anglicanism. I had seen the +shadow of a hand on the wall. He who has seen a ghost cannot be as if he +had never seen it. The heavens had opened and closed again." To less +imaginative and slower minds this seems an overwrought description of a +phenomenon, which must present itself sometime or other to all who +search the foundations of conviction; and by itself he was for the time +proof against its force. "The thought for the moment had been, The +Church of Rome will be found right after all; and then it had vanished. +My old convictions remained as before." But another blow came, and then +another. An article by Dr. Wiseman on the Donatists greatly disturbed +him. The words of St. Augustine about the Donatists, _securus judicat +orbis terrarum_, rang continually in his ears, like words out of the +sky. He found the threatenings of the Monophysite controversy renewed in +the _Arian_: "the ghost had come a second time." It was a "most +uncomfortable article," he writes in his letters; "the first real hit +from Romanism which has happened to me"; it gave him, as he says, "a +stomach-ache." But he still held his ground, and returned his answer to +the attack in an article in the _British Critic_, on the "Catholicity of +the English Church." He did not mean to take the attack for more than it +was worth, an able bit of _ex parte_ statement. But it told on him, as +nothing had yet told on him. What it did, was to "open a vista which was +closed before, and of which he could not see the end"; "we are not at +the bottom of things," was the sting it left behind From this time, the +hope and exultation with which, in spite of checks and misgivings, he +had watched the movement, gave way to uneasiness and distress. A new +struggle was beginning, a long struggle with himself, a long struggle +between rival claims which would not be denied, each equally imperious, +and involving fatal consequences if by mistake the wrong one was +admitted. And it was not only the effect of these thoughts on his own +mind which filled him with grief and trouble. He always thought much for +others; and now there was the misery of perhaps unsettling +others--others who had trusted him with their very souls--others, to +whom it was impossible to explain the conflicts which were passing in +his own mind. It was so bitter to unsettle their hope and confidence. +All through this time, more trying than his own difficulties, were the +perplexities and sorrows which he foresaw for those whom he loved. Very +illogical and inconsecutive, doubtless; if only he had had the hard +heart of a proselytiser, he would have seen that it was his duty to +undermine and shatter their old convictions. But he cared more for the +tempers and beliefs in which he was at one with his Anglican friends, +than for those in which they could not follow him. But the struggle came +on gradually. What he feared at first was not the triumph of Rome, but +the break-up of the English Church; the apparent probability of a great +schism in it. "I fear I see more clearly that we are working up to a +schism in the English Church, that is, a split between Peculiars and +Apostolicals ... I never can be surprised at individuals going off to +Rome, but that is not my chief fear, but a schism; that is, those two +parties, which have hitherto got on together as they could, from the +times of Puritanism downwards, gathering up into clear, tangible, and +direct forces, and colliding. Our Church is not at one with itself, +there is no denying it." That was at first the disaster before him. His +thought for himself began to turn, not to Rome, but to a new life +without office and authority, but still within the English Church. "You +see, if things come to the worst, I should turn brother of charity in +London." And he began to prepare for a move from Oxford, from St. +Mary's, from his fellowship. He bought land at Littlemore, and began to +plant. He asks his brother-in-law for plans for building what he calls a +[Greek: monea]. He looks forward to its becoming a sort of Monastic +school, but still connected with the University. + +In Mr. Newman's view of the debate between England and Rome, he had all +along dwelt on two broad features, _Apostolicity_ and _Catholicity_, +likeness to the Apostolic teaching, and likeness to the uninterrupted +unity and extent of the undivided Church; and of those two features he +found the first signally wanting in Rome, and the second signally +wanting in England. When he began to distrust his own reasonings, still +the disturbing and repelling element in Rome was the alleged defect of +Apostolicity, the contrast between primitive and Roman religion; while +the attractive one was the apparent widely extended Catholicity in all +lands, East and West, continents and isles, of the world-wide spiritual +empire of the Pope. It is these two great points which may be traced in +their action on his mind at this crisis. The contrast between early and +Roman doctrine and practice, in a variety of ways, some of them most +grave and important, was long a great difficulty in the way of +attempting to identify the Roman Church, absolutely and exclusively, +with the Primitive Church. The study of antiquity indisposed him, +indeed, more and more to the existing system of the English Church; its +claims to model itself on the purity and simplicity of the Early Church +seemed to him, in the light of its documents, and still more of the +facts of history and life, more and more questionable. But modern Rome +was just as distant from the Early Church though it preserved many +ancient features, lost or unvalued by England. Still, Rome was not the +same thing as the Early Church; and Mr. Newman ultimately sought a way +out of his difficulty--and indeed there was no other--in the famous +doctrine of Development. But when the difficulty about _Apostolicity_ +was thus provided for, then the force of the great vision of the +Catholic Church came upon him, unchecked and irresistible. That was a +thing present, visible, undeniable as a fact of nature; that was a thing +at once old and new; it belonged as truly, as manifestly, to the recent +and modern world of democracy and science, as it did to the Middle Ages +and the Fathers, to the world of Gregory and Innocent, to the world of +Athanasius and Augustine. The majesty, the vastness of an imperial +polity, outlasting all states and kingdoms, all social changes and +political revolutions, answered at once to the promises of the +prophecies, and to the antecedent idea of the universal kingdom of God. +Before this great idea, embodied in concrete form, and not a paper +doctrine, partial scandals and abuses seemed to sink into +insignificance. Objections seemed petty and ignoble; the pretence of +rival systems impertinent and absurd. He resented almost with impatience +anything in the way of theory or explanation which seemed to him narrow, +technical, dialectical. He would look at nothing but what had on it the +mark of greatness and largeness which befitted the awful subject, and +was worthy of arresting the eye and attention of an ecclesiastical +statesman, alive to mighty interests, compared to which even the most +serious human affairs were dwarfed and obscured. But all this was +gradual in coming. His recognition of the claims of the English Church, +faulty and imperfect as he thought it, did not give way suddenly and at +once. It survived the rude shock of 1839, From first to almost the last +she was owned as his "mother"--owned in passionate accents of +disappointment and despair as a Church which knew not how to use its +gifts; yet still, even though life seemed failing her, and her power of +teaching and ruling seemed paralysed, his mother; and as long as there +seemed to him a prospect of restoration to health, it was his duty to +stay by her.[73] This was his first attitude for three or four years +after 1839. He could not speak of her with the enthusiasm and triumph of +the first years of the movement. When he fought her battles, it was with +the sense that her imperfections made his task the harder. Still he +clung to the belief that she held a higher standard than she had yet +acted up to, and discouraged and perplexed he yet maintained her cause. +But now two things happened. The Roman claims, as was natural when +always before him, seemed to him more and more indisputable. And in +England his interpretation of Anglican theology seemed to be more and +more contradicted, disavowed, condemned, by all that spoke with any +authority in the Church. The University was not an ecclesiastical body, +yet it had practically much weight in matters of theology; it +informally, but effectually, declared against him. The Bishops, one by +one, of course only spoke as individuals; but they were the official +spokesmen of the Church, and their consent, though not the act of a +Synod, was weighty--they too had declared against him. And finally that +vague but powerful voice of public opinion, which claims to represent at +once the cool judgment of the unbiassed, and the passion of the +zealous--it too declared against him. Could he claim to understand the +mind of the Church better than its own organs? + +Then at length a change came; and it was marked outwardly by a curious +retractation of his severe language about Rome, published in a paper +called the _Conservative Journal_, in January 1843; and more distinctly, +by his resignation of St. Mary's in September 1843, a step contemplated +for some time, and by his announcement that he was preparing to resign +his fellowship. From this time he felt that he could no longer hold +office, or be a champion of the English Church; from this time, it was +only a matter of waiting, waiting to make quite certain that he was +right and was under no delusion, when he should leave her for the Roman +Communion. And to his intimate friends, to his sisters, he gave notice +that this was now impending. To the world outside, all that was known +was that he was much unsettled and distressed by difficulties. + +It may be asked why this change was not at this time communicated, not +to a few intimates, but to the world? Why did he not at this time hoist +his quarantine flag and warn every one that he was dangerous to come +near? So keen a mind must, it was said, have by this time foreseen how +things would end; he ought to have given earlier notice. His answer was +that he was sincerely desirous of avoiding, as far as possible, what +might prejudice the Church in which he had ministered, even at the +moment of leaving her. He saw his own way becoming clearer and clearer; +but he saw it for himself alone. He was not one of those who forced the +convictions of others; he was not one of those who think it a great +thing to be followed in a serious change by a crowd of disciples. +Whatever might be at the end, it was now an agonising wrench to part +from the English body, to part from the numbers of friends whose loyalty +was immovable, to part from numbers who had trusted and learned from +him. Of course, if he was in the right way, he could wish them nothing +better than that they should follow him. But they were in God's hands; +it was not his business to unsettle them; it was not his business to +ensnare and coerce their faith. And so he tried for this time to steer +his course alone. He wished to avoid observation. He was silent on all +that went on round him, exciting as some of the incidents were. He would +not he hurried; he would give himself full time; he would do what he +could to make sure that he was not acting under the influence of a +delusion. + +The final result of all this was long in coming; there was, we know, a +bitter agony of five years, a prolonged and obstinate and cruel struggle +between the deepest affections and ever-growing convictions. But this +struggle, as has been said, did not begin with the conviction in which +it ended. It began and long continued with the belief that though +England was wrong, Rome was not right; that though the Roman argument +seemed more and more unanswerable, there were insuperable difficulties +of certain fact which made the Roman conclusion incredible; that there +was so much good and truth in England, with all its defects and faults, +which was unaccountable and unintelligible on the Roman hypothesis; that +the real upshot was that the whole state of things in Christendom was +abnormal; that to English Churchmen the English Church had immediate and +direct claims which nothing but the most irresistible counter-claims +could overcome or neutralise--the claims of a shipwrecked body cut off +from country and home, yet as a shipwrecked body still organised, and +with much saved from the wreck, and not to be deserted, as long as it +held together, in an uncertain attempt to rejoin its lost unity. +Resignation, retirement, silence, lay communion, the hope of ultimate, +though perhaps long-deferred reunion--these were his first thoughts. +Misgivings could not be helped, would not be denied, but need not be +paraded, were to be kept at arm's-length as long as possible. This is +the picture presented in the autobiography of these painful and dreary +years; and there is every evidence that it is a faithful one. It is +conceivable, though not very probable, that such a course might go on +indefinitely. It is conceivable that under different circumstances he +might, like other perplexed and doubting seekers after truth, have +worked round through doubt and perplexity to his first conviction. But +the actual result, as it came, was natural enough; and it was +accelerated by provocation, by opponents without, and by the pressure of +advanced and impatient followers and disciples in the party itself. + +2. This last was the second of the two influences spoken of above. It +worked from below, as the first worked from above. + +Discussions and agitations, such as accompanied the movement, however +much under the control of the moral and intellectual ascendancy of the +leaders, could not of course be guaranteed from escaping from that +control. And as the time went on, men joined the movement who had but +qualified sympathy with that passionate love and zeal for the actual +English Church, that acquaintance with its historical theology, and that +temper of discipline, sobriety, and self-distrust, which marked its +first representatives. These younger disciples shared in the growing +excitement of the society round them. They were attracted by visible +height of character, and brilliant intellectual power. They were alive +to vast and original prospects, opening a new world which should be a +contrast to the worn-out interest of the old. Some of these were men of +wide and abstruse learning; quaint and eccentric scholars both in habit +and look, students of the ancient type, who even fifty years ago seemed +out of date to their generation. Some were men of considerable force of +mind, destined afterwards to leave a mark on their age as thinkers and +writers. To the former class belonged Charles Seager, and John Brande +Morris, of Exeter College, both learned Orientalists, steeped in +recondite knowledge of all kinds; men who had worked their way to +knowledge through hardship and grinding labour, and not to be outdone in +Germany itself for devouring love of learning and a scholar's plainness +of life. In the other class may be mentioned Frederic Faber, J.D. +Dalgairns, and W.G. Ward, men who have all since risen to eminence in +their different spheres. Faber was a man with a high gift of +imagination, remarkable powers of assimilating knowledge, and a great +richness and novelty and elegance of thought, which with much melody of +voice made him ultimately a very attractive preacher. If the promise of +his powers has not been adequately fulfilled, it is partly to be traced +to a want of severity of taste and self-restraint, but his name will +live in some of his hymns, and in some very beautiful portions of his +devotional writings. Dalgairns's mind was of a different order. "That +man has an eye for theology," was the remark of a competent judge on +some early paper of Dalgairns's which came before him. He had something +of the Frenchman about him. There was in him, in his Oxford days, a +bright and frank briskness, a mixture of modesty and arch daring, which +gave him an almost boyish appearance; but beneath this boyish appearance +there was a subtle and powerful intellect, alive to the problems of +religious philosophy, and impatient of any but the most thorough +solutions of them; while, on the other hand, the religious affections +were part of his nature, and mind and will and heart yielded an +unreserved and absolute obedience to the leading and guidance of faith. +In his later days, with his mind at ease, Father Dalgairns threw himself +into the great battle with unbelief; and few men have commanded more +the respect of opponents not much given to think well of the arguments +for religion, by the freshness and the solidity of his reasoning. At +this time, enthusiastic in temper, and acute and exacting as a thinker, +he found the Church movement just, as it were, on the turn of the wave. +He was attracted to it at first by its reaction against what was unreal +and shallow, by its affinities with what was deep in idea and earnest in +life; then, and finally, he was repelled from it, by its want of +completeness, by its English acquiescence in compromise, by its +hesitations and clinging to insular associations and sympathies, which +had little interest for him. + +Another person, who was at this time even more prominent in the advanced +portion of the movement party, and whose action had more decisive +influence on its course, was Mr. W.G. Ward, Fellow of Balliol. Mr. Ward, +who was first at Christ Church, had distinguished himself greatly at the +Oxford Union as a vigorous speaker, at first on the Tory side; he came +afterwards under the influence of Arthur Stanley, then fresh from Rugby, +and naturally learned to admire Dr. Arnold; but Dr. Arnold's religious +doctrines did not satisfy him; the movement, with its boldness and +originality of idea and ethical character, had laid strong hold on him, +and he passed into one of the most thoroughgoing adherents of Mr. +Newman. There was something to smile at in his person, and in some of +his ways--his unbusiness-like habits, his joyousness of manner, his racy +stories; but few more powerful intellects passed through Oxford in his +time, and he has justified his University reputation by his distinction +since, both as a Roman Catholic theologian and professor, and as a +profound metaphysical thinker, the equal antagonist on their own ground +of J. Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. But his intellect at that time +was as remarkable for its defects as for its powers. He used to divide +his friends, and thinking people in general, into those who had facts +and did not know what to do with them, and those who had in perfection +the logical faculties, but wanted the facts to reason upon. He belonged +himself to the latter class. He had, not unnaturally, boundless +confidence in his argumentative powers; they were subtle, piercing, +nimble, never at a loss, and they included a power of exposition which, +if it was not always succinct and lively, was always weighty and +impressive. Premises in his hands were not long in bringing forth their +conclusions; and if abstractions always corresponded exactly to their +concrete embodiments, and ideals were fulfilled in realities, no one +could point out more perspicuously and decisively the practical +judgments on them which reason must sanction. But that knowledge of +things and of men which mere power of reasoning will not give was not +one of his special endowments. The study of facts, often in their +complicated and perplexing reality, was not to his taste. He was apt to +accept them on what he considered adequate authority, and his +argumentation, formidable as it always was, recalled, even when most +unanswerable at the moment, the application of pure mathematics without +allowance for the actual forces, often difficult to ascertain except by +experiment, which would have to be taken account of in practice. + +The tendency of this section of able men was unquestionably Romewards, +almost from the beginning of their connexion with the movement. Both the +theory and the actual system of Rome, so far as they understood it, had +attractions for them which nothing else had. But with whatever +perplexity and perhaps impatience, Mr. Newman's power held them back. He +kept before their minds continually those difficulties of fact which +stood in the way of their absolute and peremptory conclusions, and of +which they were not much inclined to take account. He insisted on those +features, neither few nor unimportant nor hard to see, which proved the +continuity of the English Church with the Church Universal. Sharing +their sense of anomaly in the Anglican theory and position, he pointed +out with his own force and insight that anomaly was not in England only, +but everywhere. There was much to regret, there was much to improve, +there were many unwelcome and dangerous truths, _invidiosi veri_, to be +told and defended at any cost. But patience, as well as honesty and +courage, was a Christian virtue; and they who had received their +Christianity at the hands of the English Church had duties towards it +from which neither dissatisfaction nor the idea of something better +could absolve them. _Spartam nactus es, hanc exorna_ is the motto for +every one whose lot is cast in any portion of Christ's Church. And as +long as he could speak with this conviction, the strongest of them could +not break away from his restraint. It was when the tremendous question +took shape, Is the English Church a true Church, a real part of the +Church Catholic?--when the question became to his mind more and more +doubtful, at length desperate--that they, of course, became more +difficult to satisfy, more confident in their own allegations, more +unchecked in their sympathies, and, in consequence, in their dislikes. +And in the continued effort--for it did continue--to make them pause and +wait and hope, they reacted on him; they asked him questions which he +found it hard to answer; they pressed him with inferences which he might +put by, but of which he felt the sting; they forced on him all the +indications, of which every day brought its contribution, that the +actual living system of the English Church was against what he had +taught to be Catholic, that its energetic temper and spirit condemned +and rejected him. What was it that private men were staunch and +undismayed? What was it that month by month all over England hearts and +minds were attracted to his side, felt the spell of his teaching, gave +him their confidence? Suspicion and disapprobation, which had only too +much to ground itself upon, had taken possession of the high places of +the Church. Authority in all its shapes had pronounced as decisively as +his opponents could wish; as decisively as they too could wish, who +desired no longer a barrier between themselves and Rome. + +Thus a great and momentous change had come over the movement, over its +action and prospects. It had started in a heroic effort to save the +English Church. The claims, the blessings, the divinity of the English +Church, as a true branch of Catholic Christendom, had been assumed as +the foundation of all that was felt and said and attempted. The English +Church was the one object to which English Christians were called upon +to turn their thoughts. Its spirit animated the _Christian Year_, and +the teaching of those whom the _Christian Year_ represented. Its +interests were what called forth the zeal and the indignation recorded +in Froude's _Remains_. No one seriously thought of Rome, except as a +hopelessly corrupt system, though it had some good and Catholic things, +which it was Christian and honest to recognise. The movement of 1833 +started out of the Anti-Roman feelings of the Emancipation time. It was +Anti-Roman as much as it was Anti-Sectarian and Anti-Erastian. It was to +avert the danger of people becoming Romanists from ignorance of Church +principles. This was all changed in one important section of the party. +The fundamental conceptions and assumptions were reversed. It was not +the Roman Church, but the English Church, which was put on its trial; it +was not the Roman Church, but the English, which was to be, if possible, +apologised for, perhaps borne with for a time, but which was to be +regarded as deeply fallen, holding an untenable position, and +incomparably, unpardonably, below both the standard and the practical +system of the Roman Church. From this point of view the object of the +movement was no longer to elevate and improve an independent English +Church, but to approximate it as far as possible to what was assumed to +be undeniable--the perfect Catholicity of Rome. More almost than ideas +and assumptions, the tone of feeling changed. It had been, towards the +English Church, affectionate, enthusiastic, reverential, hopeful. It +became contemptuous, critical, intolerant, hostile with the hostility +not merely of alienation but disgust This was not of course the work of +a moment, but it was of very rapid growth. "How I hate these Anglicans!" +was the expression of one of the younger men of this section, an +intemperate and insolent specimen of it. It did not represent the tone +or the language of the leader to whom the advanced section deferred, +vexed as he often was with the course of his own thoughts, and +irritated and impatient at the course of things without. But it +expressed but too truly the difference between 1833 and 1840. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[73] See Sermons on _Subjects of the Day_, 1843. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE AUTHORITIES AND THE MOVEMENT + + +While the movement was making itself felt as a moral force, without a +parallel in Oxford for more than two centuries, and was impressing +deeply and permanently some of the most promising men in the rising +generation in the University, what was the attitude of the University +authorities? What was the attitude of the Bishops? + +At Oxford it was that of contemptuous indifference, passing into +helpless and passionate hostility. There is no sadder passage to be +found in the history of Oxford than the behaviour and policy of the +heads of this great Christian University towards the religious movement +which was stirring the interest, the hopes, the fears of Oxford. The +movement was, for its first years at least, a loyal and earnest effort +to serve the cause of the Church. Its objects were clear and reasonable; +it aimed at creating a sincere and intelligent zeal for the Church, and +at making the Church itself worthy of the great position which her +friends claimed for her. Its leaders were men well known in the +University, in the first rank in point of ability and character; men of +learning, who knew what they were talking about; men of religious and +pure, if also severe lives. They were not men merely of speculation and +criticism, but men ready to forego anything, to devote everything for +the practical work of elevating religious thought and life. All this did +not necessarily make their purposes and attempts wise and good; but it +did entitle them to respectful attention. If they spoke language new to +the popular mind or the "religious world," it was not new--at least it +ought not to have been new--to orthodox Churchmen, with opportunities of +study and acquainted with our best divinity. If their temper was eager +and enthusiastic, they alleged the presence of a great and perilous +crisis. Their appeal was mainly not to the general public, but to the +sober and the learned; to those to whom was entrusted the formation of +faith and character in the future clergy of the Church; to those who +were responsible for the discipline and moral tone of the first +University of Christendom, and who held their conspicuous position on +the understanding of that responsibility. It behoved the heads of the +University to be cautious, even to be suspicious; movements might be +hollow or dangerous things. But it behoved them also to become +acquainted with so striking a phenomenon as this; to judge it by what it +appealed to--the learning of English divines, the standard of a high and +generous moral rule; to recognise its aims at least, with equity and +sympathy, if some of its methods and arguments seemed questionable. The +men of the movement were not mere hostile innovators; they were fighting +for what the University and its chiefs held dear and sacred, the +privileges and safety of the Church. It was the natural part of the +heads of the University to act as moderators; at any rate, to have +shown, with whatever reserve, that they appreciated what they needed +time to judge of. But while on the one side there was burning and +devouring earnestness, and that power of conviction which doubles the +strength of the strong, there was on the other a serene ignoring of all +that was going on, worthy of a set of dignified French _abbs_ on the +eve of the Revolution. This sublime or imbecile security was +occasionally interrupted by bursts of irritation at some fresh piece of +Tractarian oddness or audacity, or at some strange story which made its +way from the gossip of common rooms to the society of the Heads of +Houses. And there was always ready a stick to beat the offenders; +everything could be called Popish. But for the most part they looked on, +with smiles, with jokes, sometimes with scolding.[74] Thus the men who +by their place ought to have been able to gauge and control the +movement, who might have been expected to meet half-way a serious +attempt to brace up the religious and moral tone of the place, so +incalculably important in days confessed to be anxious ones, simply set +their faces steadily to discountenance and discredit it. They were good +and respectable men, living comfortably in a certain state and ease. +Their lives were mostly simple compared with the standard of the outer +world, though Fellows of Colleges thought them luxurious. But they were +blind and dull as tea-table gossips as to what was the meaning of the +movement, as to what might come of it, as to what use might be made of +it by wise and just and generous recognition, and, if need be, by wise +and just criticism and repression. There were points of danger in it; +but they could only see what _seemed_ to be dangerous, whether it was +so or not; and they multiplied these points of danger by all that was +good and hopeful in it. It perplexed and annoyed them; they had not +imagination nor moral elevation to take in what it aimed at; they were +content with the routine which they had inherited; and, so that men read +for honours and took first classes, it did not seem to them strange or a +profanation that a whole mixed crowd of undergraduates should be +expected to go on a certain Sunday in term, willing or unwilling, fit or +unlit, to the Sacrament, and be fined if they did not appear. Doubtless +we are all of us too prone to be content with the customary, and to be +prejudiced against the novel, nor is this condition of things without +advantage. But we must bear our condemnation if we stick to the +customary too long, and so miss our signal opportunities. In their +apathy, in their self-satisfied ignorance, in their dulness of +apprehension and forethought, the authorities of the University let pass +the great opportunity of their time. As it usually happens, when this +posture of lofty ignoring what is palpable and active, and the object of +everybody's thought, goes on too long, it is apt to turn into impatient +dislike and bitter antipathy. The Heads of Houses drifted insensibly +into this position. They had not taken the trouble to understand the +movement, to discriminate between its aspects, to put themselves frankly +into communication with its leading persons, to judge with the knowledge +and justice of scholars and clergymen of its designs and ways. They let +themselves be diverted from this, their proper though troublesome task, +by distrust, by the jealousies of their position, by the impossibility +of conceiving that anything so strange could really be true and sound. +And at length they found themselves going along with the outside +current of uninstructed and ignoble prejudice, in a settled and +pronounced dislike, which took for granted that all was wrong in the +movement, which admitted any ill-natured surmise and foolish +misrepresentation, and really allowed itself to acquiesce in the belief +that men so well known in Oxford, once so admired and honoured, had sunk +down to deliberate corrupters of the truth, and palterers with their own +intellects and consciences. It came in a few years to be understood on +both sides, that the authorities were in direct antagonism to the +movement; and though their efforts in opposition to it were feeble and +petty, it went on under the dead weight of official University +disapproval. It would have been a great thing for the English +Church--though it is hard to see how, things being as they were, it +could have come about--if the movement had gone on, at least with the +friendly interest, if not with the support, of the University rulers. +Instead of that, after the first two or three years there was one long +and bitter fight in Oxford, with the anger on one side created by the +belief of vague but growing dangers, and a sense of incapacity in +resisting them, and with deep resentment at injustice and stupidity on +the other. + +The Bishops were farther from the immediate scene of the movement, and +besides, had other things to think of. Three or four of them might be +considered theologians--Archbishop Howley, Phillpotts of Exeter, Kaye of +Lincoln, Marsh of Peterborough. Two or three belonged to the Evangelical +school, Ryder of Lichfield, and the two Sumners at Winchester and +Chester. The most prominent among them, and next to the Bishop of Exeter +the ablest, alive to the real dangers of the Church, anxious to infuse +vigour into its work, and busy with plans for extending its influence, +was Blomfield, Bishop of London. But Blomfield was not at his best as a +divine, and, for a man of his unquestionable power, singularly unsure of +his own mind. He knew, in fact, that when the questions raised by the +Tracts came before him he was unqualified to deal with them; he was no +better furnished by thought or knowledge or habits to judge of them than +the average Bishop of the time, appointed, as was so often the case, for +political or personal reasons. At the first start of the movement, the +Bishops not unnaturally waited to see what would come of it. It was +indeed an effort in favour of the Church, but it was in irresponsible +hands, begun by men whose words were strong and vehement and of unusual +sound, and who, while they called on the clergy to rally round their +fathers the Bishops, did not shrink from wishing for the Bishops the +fortunes of the early days: "we could not wish them a more blessed +termination of their course than the spoiling of their goods and +martyrdom."[76] It may reasonably be supposed that such good wishes were +not to the taste of all of them. As the movement developed, besides that +it would seem to them extravagant and violent, they would be perplexed +by its doctrine. It took strong ground for the Church; but it did so in +the teeth of religious opinions and prejudices, which were popular and +intolerant. For a moment the Bishops were in a difficulty; on the one +hand, no one for generations had so exalted the office of a Bishop as +the Tractarians; no one had claimed for it so high and sacred an origin; +no one had urged with such practical earnestness the duty of Churchmen +to recognise and maintain the unique authority of the Episcopate against +its despisers or oppressors. On the other hand, this was just the time +when the Evangelical party, after long disfavour, was beginning to gain +recognition, for the sake of its past earnestness and good works, with +men in power, and with ecclesiastical authorities of a different and +hitherto hostile school; and in the Tractarian movement the Evangelical +party saw from the first its natural enemy. The Bishops could not have +anything to do with the Tractarians without deeply offending the +Evangelicals. The result was that, for the present, the Bishops held +aloof. They let the movement run on by itself. Sharp sarcasms, +worldly-wise predictions, kind messages of approval, kind cautions, +passed from mouth to mouth, or in private correspondence from high +quarters, which showed that the movement was watched. But for some time +the authorities spoke neither good nor bad of it publicly. In his Charge +at the close of 1836, Bishop Phillpotts spoke in clear and unfaltering +language--language remarkable for its bold decision--of the necessity of +setting forth the true idea of the Church and the sacraments; but he was +silent about the call of the same kind which had come from Oxford. It +would have been well if the other Bishops later on, in their charges, +had followed his example. The Bishop of Oxford, in his Charge of 1838, +referred to the movement in balanced terms of praise and warning. The +first who condemned the movement was the Bishop of Chester, J. Bird +Sumner; in a later Charge he came to describe it as the work of Satan; +in 1838 he only denounced the "undermining of the foundations of our +Protestant Church by men who dwell within her walls," and the bad faith +of those "who sit in the Reformers' seat, and traduce the Reformation." + +These were grave mistakes on the part of those who were responsible for +the government of the University and the Church. They treated as absurd, +mischievous, and at length traitorous, an effort, than which nothing +could be more sincere, to serve the Church, to place its claims on +adequate grounds, to elevate the standard of duty in its clergy, and in +all its members. To have missed the aim of the movement and to have been +occupied and irritated by obnoxious details and vulgar suspicions was a +blunder which gave the measure of those who made it, and led to great +evils. They alienated those who wished for nothing better than to help +them in their true work. Their "unkindness" was felt to be, in Bacon's +phrase,[77] _injuriae potentiorum_. But on the side of the party of the +movement there were mistakes also. + +1. The rapidity with which the movement had grown, showing that some +deep need had long been obscurely felt, which the movement promised to +meet,[78] had been too great to be altogether wholesome. When we compare +what was commonly received before 1833, in teaching, in habits of life, +in the ordinary assumptions of history, in the ideas and modes of +worship, public and private--the almost sacramental conception of +preaching, the neglect of the common prayer of the Prayer Book, the +slight regard to the sacraments--with what the teaching of the Tracts +and their writers had impressed for good and all, five years later, on +numbers of earnest people, the change seems astonishing. The change was +a beneficial one and it was a permanent one. The minds which it +affected, it affected profoundly. Still it was but a short time, for +young minds especially, to have come to a decision on great and debated +questions. There was the possibility, the danger, of men having been +captivated and carried away by the excitement and interest of the time; +of not having looked all round and thought out the difficulties before +them; of having embraced opinions without sufficiently knowing their +grounds or counting the cost or considering the consequences. There was +the danger of precipitate judgment, of ill-balanced and disproportionate +views of what was true and all-important. There was an inevitable +feverishness in the way in which the movement was begun, in the way in +which it went on. Those affected by it were themselves surprised at the +swiftness of the pace. When a cause so great and so sacred seemed thus +to be flourishing, and carrying along with it men's assent and +sympathies, it was hardly wonderful that there should often be +exaggeration, impatience at resistance, scant consideration for the +slowness or the scruples or the alarms of others. Eager and sanguine men +talked as if their work was accomplished, when in truth it was but +beginning. No one gave more serious warnings against this and other +dangers than the leaders; and their warnings were needed.[79] + +2. Another mistake, akin to the last, was the frequent forgetfulness of +the apostolic maxim, "All things are lawful for me, but all things are +not expedient." In what almost amounted to a revolution in many of the +religious ideas of the time, it was especially important to keep +distinct the great central truths, the restoration of which to their +proper place justified and made it necessary, and the many subordinate +points allied with them and naturally following from them, which yet +were not necessary to their establishment or acceptance. But it was on +these subordinate points that the interest of a certain number of +followers of the movement was fastened. Conclusions which they had a +perfect right to come to, practices innocent and edifying to themselves, +but of secondary account, began to be thrust forward into prominence, +whether or not these instances of self-will really helped the common +cause, whether or not they gave a handle to ill-nature and ill-will. +Suspicion must always have attached to such a movement as this; but a +great deal of it was provoked by indiscreet defiance, which was rather +glad to provoke it. + +3. Apart from these incidents--common wherever a number of men are +animated with zeal for an inspiring cause--there were what to us now +seem mistakes made in the conduct itself of the movement. Considering +the difficulties of the work, it is wonderful that there were not more; +and none of them were discreditable, none but what arose from the +limitation of human powers matched against confused and baffling +circumstances. + +In the position claimed for the Church of England, confessedly unique +and anomalous in the history of Christendom, between Roman authority and +infallibility on one side, and Protestant freedom of private judgment on +the other, the question would at once arise as to the grounds of belief. +What, if any, are the foundations of conviction and certitude, apart +from personal inquiry, and examination of opposing arguments on +different sides of the case, and satisfactory logical conclusions? The +old antithesis between Faith and Reason, and the various problems +connected with it, could not but come to the front, and require to be +dealt with. It is a question which faces us from a hundred sides, and, +subtly and insensibly transforming itself, looks different from them +all. It was among the earliest attempted to be solved by the chief +intellectual leader of the movement, and it has occupied his mind to the +last.[80] However near the human mind seems to come to a solution, it +only, if so be, comes near; it never arrives. In the early days of the +movement it found prevailing the specious but shallow view that +everything in the search for truth was to be done by mere producible and +explicit argumentation; and yet it was obvious that of this two-thirds +of the world are absolutely incapable. Against this Mr. Newman and his +followers pressed, what was as manifestly certain in fact as it accorded +with any deep and comprehensive philosophy of the formation and growth +of human belief, that not arguments only, but the whole condition of the +mind to which they were addressed--and not the reasonings only which +could be stated, but those which went on darkly in the mind, and which +"there was not at the moment strength to bring forth," real and weighty +reasons which acted like the obscure rays of the spectrum, with their +proper force, yet eluding distinct observation--had their necessary and +inevitable and legitimate place in determining belief. All this was +perfectly true; but it is obvious how easily it might be taken hold of, +on very opposite sides, as a ground for saying that Tractarian or Church +views did not care about argument, or, indeed, rather preferred weak +arguments to strong ones in the practical work of life. It was ludicrous +to say it in a field of controversy, which, on the "Tractarian" side, +was absolutely bristling with argument, keen, subtle, deep, living +argument, and in which the victory in argument was certainly not always +with those who ventured to measure swords with Mr. Newman or Dr. Pusey. +Still, the scoff could be plausibly pointed at the "young enthusiasts +who crowded the Via Media, and who never presumed to argue, except +against the propriety of arguing at all." There was a good deal of +foolish sneering at reason; there was a good deal of silly bravado about +not caring whether the avowed grounds of opinions taken up were strong +or feeble. It was not merely the assent of a learner to his teacher, of +a mind without means of instruction to the belief which it has +inherited, or of one new to the ways and conditions of life to the +unproved assertions and opinions of one to whom experience had given an +open and sure eye. It was a positive carelessness, almost accounted +meritorious, to inquire and think, when their leaders called them to do +so. "The Gospel of Christ is not a matter of mere argument." It is not, +indeed, when it comes in its full reality, in half a hundred different +ways, known and unsearchable, felt and unfelt, moral and intellectual, +on the awakened and quickened soul. But the wildest fanatic can take the +same words into his mouth. Their true meaning was variously and +abundantly illustrated, especially in Mr. Newman's sermons. Still, the +adequate, the emphatic warning against their early abuse was hardly +pressed on the public opinion and sentiment of the party of the movement +with the force which really was requisite. To the end there were men who +took up their belief avowedly on insufficient and precarious grounds, +glorying in the venturesomeness of their faith and courage, and +justifying their temper of mind and their intellectual attitude by +alleging misinterpreted language of their wiser and deeper teachers. A +recoil from Whately's hard and barren dialectics, a sympathy with many +tender and refined natures which the movement had touched, made the +leaders patient with intellectual feebleness when it was joined with +real goodness and Christian temper; but this also sometimes made them +less impatient than they might well have been with that curious form of +conceit and affectation which veils itself under an intended and +supposed humility, a supposed distrust of self and its own powers. + +Another difficult matter, not altogether successfully managed--at least +from the original point of view of the movement, and of those who saw in +it a great effort for the good of the English Church--was the treatment +of the Roman controversy. The general line which the leaders proposed to +take was the one which was worthy of Christian and truth-loving +teachers. They took a new departure; and it was not less just than it +was brave, when, recognising to the full the overwhelming reasons why +"we should not be Romanists," they refused to take up the popular and +easy method of regarding the Roman Church as apostate and antichristian; +and declined to commit themselves to the vulgar and indiscriminate abuse +of it which was the discreditable legacy of the old days of controversy. +They did what all the world was loudly professing to do, they looked +facts in the face; they found, as any one would find who looked for +himself into the realities of the Roman Church, that though the bad was +often as bad as could be, there was still, and there had been all +along, goodness of the highest type, excellence both of system and of +personal life which it was monstrous to deny, and which we might well +admire and envy. To ignore all this was to fail in the first duty, not +merely of Christians, but of honest men; and we at home were not so +blameless that we could safely take this lofty tone of contemptuous +superiority. If Rome would only leave us alone, there would be +estrangement, lamentable enough among Christians, but there need be no +bitterness. But Rome would not leave us alone. The moment that there +were signs of awakening energy in England, that moment was chosen by its +agents, for now it could be done safely, to assail and thwart the +English Church. Doubtless they were within their rights, but this made +controversy inevitable, and for controversy the leaders of the movement +prepared themselves. It was an obstacle which they seemed hardly to have +expected, but which the nature of things placed in their way. But the +old style of controversy was impossible; impossible because it was so +coarse, impossible because it was so hollow. + +If the argument (says the writer of Tract 71, in words which are +applicable to every controversy) is radically unreal, or (what may be +called) rhetorical or sophistical, it may serve the purpose of +encouraging those who are really convinced, though scarcely without +doing mischief to them, but certainly it will offend and alienate the +more acute and sensible; while those who are in doubt, and who desire +some real and substantial ground for their faith, will not bear to be +put off with such shadows. The arguments (he continues) which we use +must be such as are likely to convince serious and earnest minds, which +are really seeking for the truth, not amusing themselves with +intellectual combats, or desiring to support an existing opinion anyhow. +However popular these latter methods may be, of however long standing, +however easy both to find and to use, they are a scandal; and while they +lower our religious standard from the first, they are sure of hurting +our cause in the end. + +And on this principle the line of argument in _The Prophetical Office of +the Church_ was taken by Mr. Newman. It was certainly no make-believe, +or unreal argument. It was a forcible and original way of putting part +of the case against Rome. It was part of the case, a very important +part; but it was not the whole case, and it ought to have been evident +from the first that in this controversy we could not afford to do +without the whole case. The argument from the claim of infallibility +said nothing of what are equally real parts of the case--the practical +working of the Roman Church, its system of government, the part which it +and its rulers have played in the history of the world. Rome has not +such a clean record of history, it has not such a clean account of what +is done and permitted in its dominions under an authority supposed to be +irresistible, that it can claim to be the one pure and perfect Church, +entitled to judge and correct and govern all other Churches. And if the +claim is made, there is no help for it, we must not shrink from the task +of giving the answer.[81] And, as experience has shown, the more that +rigid good faith is kept to in giving the answer, the more that +strictness and severity of even understatement are observed, the more +convincing will be the result that the Roman Church cannot be that which +it is alleged to be in its necessary theory and ideal. + +But this task was never adequately undertaken. It was one of no easy +execution.[82] Other things, apparently more immediately pressing, +intervened. There was no question for the present of perfect and +unfeigned confidence in the English Church, with whatever regrets for +its shortcomings, and desires for its improvement But to the outside +world it seemed as if there were a reluctance to face seriously the +whole of the Roman controversy; a disposition to be indulgent to Roman +defects, and unfairly hard on English faults. How mischievously this +told in the course of opinion outside and inside of the movement; how it +was misinterpreted and misrepresented; how these misinterpretations and +misrepresentations, with the bitterness and injustice which they +engendered, helped to realise themselves, was seen but too clearly at a +later stage. + +4. Lastly, looking back on the publications, regarded as characteristic +of the party, it is difficult not to feel that some of them gave an +unfortunate and unnecessary turn to things. + +The book which made most stir and caused the greatest outcry was +Froude's _Remains_. It was undoubtedly a bold experiment; but it was not +merely boldness. Except that it might be perverted into an excuse by the +shallow and thoughtless for merely "strong talk," it may fairly be said +that it was right and wise to let the world know the full measure and +depth of conviction which gave birth to the movement; and Froude's +_Remains_ did that in an unsuspiciously genuine way that nothing else +could have done. And, besides, it was worth while for its own sake to +exhibit with fearless honesty such a character, so high, so true, so +refined, so heroic. So again, Dr. Pusey's Tract on Baptism was a bold +book, and one which brought heavy imputations and misconstructions on +the party. In the teaching of his long life, Dr. Pusey has abundantly +dispelled the charges of harshness and over-severity which were urged, +not always very scrupulously, against the doctrine of the Tract on +Post-baptismal Sin. But it was written to redress the balance against +the fatally easy doctrines then in fashion; it was like the Portroyalist +protest against the fashionable Jesuits; it was one-sided, and +sometimes, in his earnestness, unguarded; and it wanted as yet the +complement of encouragement, consolation, and tenderness which his +future teaching was to supply so amply. But it was a blow struck, not +before it was necessary, by a strong hand; and it may safely be said +that it settled the place of the sacrament of baptism in the living +system of the English Church, which the negations and vagueness of the +Evangelical party had gravely endangered. But two other essays appeared +in the Tracts, most innocent in themselves, which ten or twenty years +later would have been judged simply on their merits, but which at the +time became potent weapons against Tractarianism. They were the +productions of two poets--of two of the most beautiful and religious +minds of their time; but in that stage of the movement it is hardly too +much to say that they were out of place. The cause of the movement +needed clear explanations; definite statements of doctrines which were +popularly misunderstood; plain, convincing reasoning on the issues which +were raised by it; a careful laying out of the ground on which English +theology was to be strengthened and enriched. Such were Mr. Newman's +_Lectures on Justification_, a work which made its lasting mark on +English theological thought; Mr. Keble's masterly exposition of the +meaning of Tradition; and not least, the important collections which +were documentary and historical evidence of the character of English +theology, the so-called laborious _Catenas_. These were the real tasks +of the hour, and they needed all that labour and industry could give. +But the first of these inopportune Tracts was an elaborate essay, by Mr. +Keble, on the "Mysticism of the Fathers in the use and interpretation of +Scripture." It was hardly what the practical needs of the time required, +and it took away men's thoughts from them; the prospect was hopeless +that in that state of men's minds it should be understood, except by a +very few; it merely helped to add another charge, the vague but +mischievous charge of mysticism, to the list of accusations against the +Tracts. The other, to the astonishment of every one, was like the +explosion of a mine. That it should be criticised and objected to was +natural; but the extraordinary irritation caused by it could hardly have +been anticipated. Written in the most devout and reverent spirit by one +of the gentlest and most refined of scholars, and full of deep +Scriptural knowledge, it furnished for some years the material for the +most savage attacks and the bitterest sneers to the opponents of the +movement. It was called "On Reserve in communicating Religious +Knowledge"; and it was a protest against the coarseness and shallowness +which threw the most sacred words about at random in loud and +declamatory appeals, and which especially dragged in the awful mystery +of the Atonement, under the crudest and most vulgar conception of it, as +a ready topic of excitement in otherwise commonplace and helpless +preaching. The word "Reserve" was enough. It meant that the +Tract-writers avowed the principle of keeping back part of the counsel +of God. It meant, further, that the real spirit of the party was +disclosed; its love of secret and crooked methods, its indifference to +knowledge, its disingenuous professions, its deliberate concealments, +its holding doctrines and its pursuit of aims which it dared not avow, +its _disciplina arcani_, its conspiracies, its Jesuitical spirit. All +this kind of abuse was flung plentifully on the party as the controversy +became warm; and it mainly justified itself by the Tract on "Reserve." +The Tract was in many ways a beautiful and suggestive essay, full of +deep and original thoughts, though composed in that spirit of the +recluse which was characteristic of the writer, and which is in strong +contrast with the energetic temper of to-day.[83] But it could well have +been spared at the moment, and it certainly offered itself to an +unfortunate use. The suspiciousness which so innocently it helped to +awaken and confirm was never again allayed. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[74] Fifty years ago there was much greater contrast than now between +old and young. There was more outward respect for the authorities, and +among the younger men, graduates and undergraduates, more inward +amusement at foibles and eccentricities. There still lingered the +survivals of a more old-fashioned type of University life and character, +which, quite apart from the movements of religious opinion, provoked +those [Greek: neanieumata idioton eis tous archontas],[75] +_impertinences of irresponsible juniors towards superiors_, which +Wordsworth, speaking of a yet earlier time, remembered at Cambridge-- + + "In serious mood, but oftener, I confess, + With playful zest of fancy, did we note + (How could we less?) the manners and the ways + Of those who lived distinguished by the badge + Of good or ill report; or those with whom + By frame of Academic discipline + We were perforce connected, men whose sway + And known authority of office served + To set our minds on edge, and did no more. + Nor wanted we rich pastime of this kind, + Found everywhere, but chiefly in the ring + Of the grave Elders, men unsecured, grotesque + In character, tricked out like aged trees + Which through the lapse of their infirmity + Give ready place to any random seed + That chooses to be reared upon their trunks." + + _Prelude_, bk. iii. + + +[75] Plat. _R.P._ iii. 390. + +[76] _Tracts for the Times_, No. 1, 9th September 1833. + +[77] _An Advertisement touching the Controversies of the Church of +England:_ printed in the _Resuscitatio_, p. 138 (ed. 1671). + +[78] See Mr. Newman's article, "The State of Religious Parties," in the +_British Critic_, April 1839, reprinted in his _Essays Historical and +Critical_, 1871, Vol. 1., essay vi. + +[79] "It would not be at all surprising, though, in spite of the +earnestness of the principal advocates of the views in question, for +which every one seems to give them credit, there should be among their +followers much that is enthusiastic, extravagant, or excessive. All +these aberrations will be and are imputed to the doctrines from which +they proceed; nor unnaturally, but hardly fairly, for aberrations there +must be, whatever the doctrine is, while the human heart is sensitive, +capricious, and wayward.... There will ever be a number of persons +professing the opinions of a movement party, who talk loudly and +strangely, do odd and fierce things, display themselves unnecessarily, +and disgust other people; there will ever be those who are too young to +be wise, too generous to be cautious, too warm to be sober, or too +intellectual to be humble; of whom human sagacity cannot determine, +only the event, and perhaps not even that, whether they feel what +they say, or how far; whether they are to be encouraged or +discountenanced."--_British Critic_, April 1839, "State of Religious +Parties," p. 405. + +[80] Cardinal Newman, _Grammar of Assent_. + +[81] The argument from history is sketched fairly, but only sketched in +_The Prophetic Office_, Lect. xiv. + +[82] In the Roman controversy it is sometimes hard to be just without +appearing to mean more than is said; for the obligation of justice +sometimes forces one who wishes to be a fair judge to be apparently an +apologist or advocate. Yet the supreme duty in religious controversy is +justice. But for the very reason that these controversialists wished to +be just to Rome, they were bound to be just against her. They meant to +be so; but events passed quickly, and leisure never came for a work +which involved a serious appeal to history. + +[83] _Vide_ a striking review in the _British Critic_, April 1839, +partly correcting and guarding the view given in the Tract. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +NO. 90 + + +The formation of a strong Romanising section in the Tractarian party was +obviously damaging to the party and dangerous to the Church. It was _pro +tanto_ a verification of the fundamental charge against the party, a +charge which on paper they had met successfully, but which acquired +double force when this paper defence was traversed by facts. And a great +blow was impending over the Church, if the zeal and ability which the +movement had called forth and animated were to be sucked away from the +Church, and not only lost to it, but educated into a special instrument +against it. But the divergence became clear only gradually, and the hope +that after all it was only temporary and would ultimately disappear was +long kept up by the tenacity with which Mr. Newman, in spite of +misgivings and disturbing thoughts, still recognised the gifts and +claims of the English Church. And on the other hand, the bulk of the +party, and its other Oxford leaders, Dr. Pusey, Mr. Keble, Mr. Isaac +Williams, Mr. Marriott, were quite unaffected by the disquieting +apprehensions which were beginning to beset Mr. Newman. With a humbling +consciousness of the practical shortcomings of the English Church, with +a ready disposition to be honest and just towards Rome, and even to +minimise our differences with it, they had not admitted for a moment any +doubt of the reality of the English Church. The class of arguments which +specially laid hold of Mr. Newman's mind did not tell upon them--the +peculiar aspect of early precedents, about which, moreover, a good deal +of criticism was possible; or the large and sweeping conception of a +vast, ever-growing, imperial Church, great enough to make flaws and +imperfections of no account, which appealed so strongly to his +statesmanlike imagination. Their content with the Church in which they +had been brought up, in which they had been taught religion, and in +which they had taken service, their deep and affectionate loyalty and +piety to it, in spite of all its faults, remained unimpaired; and +unimpaired, also, was their sense of vast masses of practical evil in +the Roman Church, evils from which they shrank both as Englishmen and as +Christians, and which seemed as incurable as they were undeniable. +Beyond the hope which they vaguely cherished that some day or other, by +some great act of Divine mercy, these evils might disappear, and the +whole Church become once more united, there was nothing to draw them +towards Rome; submission was out of the question, and they could only +see in its attitude in England the hostility of a jealous and +unscrupulous disturber of their Master's work. The movement still went +on, with its original purpose, and on its original lines, in spite of +the presence in it, and even the co-operation, of men who might one day +have other views, and serious and fatal differences with their old +friends. + +The change of religion when it comes on a man gradually,--when it is not +welcomed from the first, but, on the contrary, long resisted, must +always be a mysterious and perplexing process, hard to realise and +follow by the person most deeply interested, veiled and clouded to +lookers-on, because naturally belonging to the deepest depths of the +human conscience, and inevitably, and without much fault on either side, +liable to be misinterpreted and misunderstood. And this process is all +the more tangled when it goes on, not in an individual mind, travelling +in its own way on its own path, little affected by others, and little +affecting them, but in a representative person, with the +responsibilities of a great cause upon him, bound by closest ties of +every kind to friends, colleagues, and disciples, thinking, feeling, +leading, pointing out the way for hundreds who love and depend on him. +Views and feelings vary from day to day, according to the events and +conditions of the day. How shall he speak, and how shall he be silent? +How shall he let doubts and difficulties appear, yet how shall he +suppress them?--doubts which may grow and become hopeless, but which, on +the other hand, may be solved and disappear. How shall he go on as if +nothing had happened, when all the foundations of the world seem to have +sunk from under him? Yet how shall he disclose the dreadful secret, when +he is not yet quite sure whether his mind will not still rally from its +terror and despair? He must in honesty, in kindness, give some warning, +yet how much? and how to prevent it being taken for more than it means? +There are counter-considerations, to which he cannot shut his eyes. +There are friends who will not believe his warnings. There are watchful +enemies who are on the look-out for proofs of disingenuousness and bad +faith. He could cut through his difficulties at once by making the +plunge in obedience to this or that plausible sign or train of +reasoning, but his conscience and good faith will not let him take +things so easily; and yet he knows that if he hangs on, he will be +accused by and by, perhaps speciously, of having been dishonest and +deceiving. So subtle, so shifting, so impalpable are the steps by which +a faith is disintegrated; so evanescent, and impossible to follow, the +shades by which one set of convictions pass into others wholly opposite; +for it is not knowledge and intellect alone which come into play, but +all the moral tastes and habits of the character, its likings and +dislikings, its weakness and its strength, its triumphs and its +vexations, its keenness and its insensibilities, which are in full +action, while the intellect alone seems to be busy with its problems. A +picture has been given us, belonging to this time, of the process, by a +great master of human nature, and a great sufferer under the process; it +is, perhaps, the greatest attempt ever made to describe it; but it is +not wholly successful. It tells us much, for it is written with touching +good faith, but the complete effect as an intelligible whole is wanting. + +"In the spring of 1839," we read in the _Apologia_, "my position in the +Anglican Church was at its height. I had a supreme confidence in my +controversial _status_, and I had a great and still growing success in +recommending it to others."[84] This, then, may be taken as the point +from which, in the writer's own estimate, the change is to be traced. He +refers for illustration of his state of mind to the remarkable article +on the "State of Religious Parties," in the April number of the _British +Critic_ for 1839, which he has since republished under the title of +"Prospects of the Anglican Church."[85] "I have looked over it now," he +writes in 1864, "for the first time since it was published; and have +been struck by it for this reason: it contains _the last words which I +ever spoke as an Anglican to Anglicans_.... It may now be read as my +parting address and valediction, made to my friends. I little knew it at +the time." He thus describes the position which he took in the article +referred to:-- + + Conscious as I was that my opinions in religious matters were not + gained, as the world said, from Roman sources, but were, on the + contrary, the birth of my own mind and of the circumstances in which I + had been placed, I had a scorn of the imputations which were heaped + upon me. It was true that I held a large, bold system of religion, + very unlike the Protestantism of the day, but it was the concentration + and adjustment of the statements of great Anglican authorities, and I + had as much right to do so as the Evangelical party had, and more + right than the Liberal, to hold their own respective doctrines. As I + spoke on occasion of Tract 90, I claimed, on behalf of the writer, + that he might hold in the Anglican Church a comprecation of the Saints + with Bramhall; and the Mass, all but Transubstantiation, with + Andrewes; or with Hooker that Transubstantiation itself is not a point + for Churches to part communion upon; or with Hammond that a General + Council, truly such, never did, never shall err in a matter of faith; + or with Bull that man lost inward grace by the Fall; or with Thorndike + that penance is a propitiation for post-baptismal sin; or with Pearson + that the all-powerful name of Jesus is no otherwise given than in the + Catholic Church. "Two can play at that game" was often in my mouth, + when men of Protestant sentiments appealed to the Articles, Homilies, + and Reformers, in the sense that if they had a right to speak loud I + had both the liberty and the means of giving them tit for tat. I + thought that the Anglican Church had been tyrannised over by a Party, + and I aimed at bringing into effect the promise contained in the motto + to the _Lyra_: "They shall know the difference now." I only asked to + be allowed to show them the difference. + + I have said already (he goes on) that though the object of the + movement was to withstand the Liberalism of the day, I found and felt + that this could not be done by negatives. It was necessary for me to + have a positive Church theory erected on a definite basis. This took + me to the great Anglican divines; and then, of course, I found at once + that it was impossible to form any such theory without cutting across + the teaching of the Church of Rome. Thus came in the Roman + controversy. When I first turned myself to it I had neither doubt on + the subject, nor suspicion that doubt would ever come on me. It was in + this state of mind that I began to read up Bellarmine on the one hand, + and numberless Anglican writers on the other.[86] + +And he quotes from the article the language which he used, to show the +necessity of providing some clear and strong basis for religious thought +in view of the impending conflict of principles, religious and +anti-religious, "Catholic and Rationalist," which to far-seeing men, +even at that comparatively early time, seemed inevitable:-- + + Then indeed will be the stern encounter, when two real and living + principles, simple, entire, and consistent, one in the Church, the + other out of it, at length rush upon each other, contending not for + names and words, a half view, but for elementary notions and + distinctive moral characters. Men will not keep standing in that very + attitude which you call sound Church-of-Englandism or orthodox + Protestantism. They will take one view or another, but it will be a + consistent one ... it will be real.... Is it sensible, sober, + judicious, to be so very angry with the writers of the day who point + to the fact, that our divines of the seventeenth century have occupied + a ground which is the true and intelligible mean between extremes?... + Would you rather have your sons and your daughters members of the + Church of England or of the Church of Rome?[87] + +"The last words that I spoke as an Anglican to Anglicans,"--so he +describes this statement of his position and its reasons; so it seems to +him, as he looks back. And yet in the intimate and frank disclosures +which he makes, he has shown us much that indicates both that his +Anglicanism lasted much longer and that his Roman sympathies began to +stir much earlier. This only shows the enormous difficulties of +measuring accurately the steps of a transition state. The mind, in such +a strain of buffeting, is never in one stay. The old seems impregnable, +yet it has been undermined; the new is indignantly and honestly +repelled, and yet leaves behind it its never-to-be-forgotten and +unaccountable spell. The story, as he tells it, goes on, how, in the +full swing and confidence of his Anglicanism, and in the course of his +secure and fearless study of antiquity, appearance after appearance +presented itself, unexpected, threatening, obstinate, in the history of +the Early Church, by which this confidence was first shaken and then +utterly broken down in the summer of 1839. And he speaks as though all +had been over after two years from that summer: "From the end of 1841 I +was on my death-bed, as regards my membership with the Anglican Church, +though at the time I became aware of it only by degrees." In truth, it +was only the end which showed that it was a "death-bed." He had not yet +died to allegiance or "to hope, then or for some time afterwards." He +speaks in later years of the result, and reads what was then in the +light of what followed. But after all that had happened, and much, of +course, disturbing happened in 1841, he was a long way off from what +then could have been spoken of as "a death-bed." Deep and painful +misgivings may assail the sincerest faith; they are not fatal signs till +faith has finally given way. + +What is true is, that the whole state of religion, and the whole aspect +of Christianity in the world, had come to seem to him portentously +strange and anomalous. No theory would take in and suit all the facts, +which the certainties of history and experience presented. Neither in +England, nor in Rome, and much less anywhere else, did the old, to which +all appealed, agree with the new; it might agree variously in this point +or in that, in others there were contrarieties which it was vain to +reconcile. Facts were against the English claim to be a Catholic +Church--how could Catholicity be shut up in one island? How could +England assert its continuity of doctrine? Facts were against the Roman +claim to be an infallible, and a perfect, and the whole Church--how +could that be perfect which was marked in the face of day with enormous +and undeniable corruptions? How could that be infallible which was +irreconcilable with ancient teaching? How could that be the whole +Church, which, to say nothing of the break-up in the West, ignored, as +if it had no existence, the ancient and uninterrupted Eastern Church? +Theory after theory came up, and was tried, and was found wanting. Each +had much to say for itself, its strong points, its superiority over its +rivals in dealing with the difficulties of the case, its plausibilities +and its imaginative attractions. But all had their tender spot, and +flinched when they were touched in earnest. In the confusions and sins +and divisions of the last fifteen centuries, profound disorganisation +had fastened on the Western Church. Christendom was not, could not be +pretended to be, what it had been in the fourth century; and whichever +way men looked the reasons were not hard to see. The first and +characteristic feeling of the movement, one which Mr. Newman had done so +much to deepen, was that of shame and humiliation at the disorder at +home, as well as in every part of the Church. It was not in Rome only, +or in England only; it was everywhere. What had been peculiar to +Anglicanism among all its rivals, was that it had emphatically and +without reserve confessed it. + +With this view of the dislocation and the sins of the Church, he could +at once with perfect consistency recognise the shortcomings of the +English branch of the Church, and yet believe and maintain that it was +a true and living branch. The English fragment was not what it should +be, was indeed much that it should not be; the same could be said of the +Roman, though in different respects. This, as he himself reminds us, was +no new thing to his mind when the unsettlement of 1839 began. "At the +end of 1835, or the beginning of 1836, I had the whole state of the +question before me, on which, to my mind, the decision between the +Churches depended." It did not, he says, depend on the claims of the +Pope, as centre of unity; "it turned on the Faith of the Church"; "there +was a contrariety of _claims_ between the Roman and Anglican religions"; +and up to 1839, with the full weight of Roman arguments recognised, with +the full consciousness of Anglican disadvantages, he yet spoke clearly +for Anglicanism. Even when misgivings became serious, the balance still +inclined without question the old way. He hardly spoke stronger in 1834 +than he did in 1841, after No. 90. + + And now (he writes in his Letter to the Bishop of Oxford[88]) having + said, I trust, as much as your Lordship requires on the subject of + Romanism, I will add a few words, to complete my explanation, in + acknowledgment of the inestimable privilege I feel in being a member + of that Church over which your Lordship, with others, presides. + Indeed, did I not feel it to be a privilege which I am able to seek + nowhere else on earth, why should I be at this moment writing to your + Lordship? What motive have I for an unreserved and joyful submission + to your authority, but the feeling that the Church in which your + Lordship rules is a divinely-ordained channel of supernatural grace to + the souls of her members? Why should I not prefer my own opinion, and + my own way of acting, to that of the Bishop's, except that I know full + well that in matters indifferent I should be acting lightly towards + the Spouse of Christ and the awful Presence which dwells in her, if I + hesitated a moment to put your Lordship's will before my own? I know + full well that your Lordship's kindness to me personally would be in + itself quite enough to win any but the most insensible heart, and, did + a clear matter of conscience occur in which I felt bound to act for + myself, my feelings towards your Lordship would be a most severe trial + to me, independently of the higher considerations to which I have + alluded; but I trust I have shown my dutifulness to you prior to the + influence of personal motives; and this I have done because I think + that to belong to the Catholic Church is the first of all privileges + here below, as involving in it heavenly privileges, and because I + consider the Church over which your Lordship presides to be the + Catholic Church in this country. Surely then I have no need to profess + in words, I will not say my attachment, but my deep reverence towards + the Mother of Saints, when I am showing it in action; yet that words + may not be altogether wanting, I beg to lay before your Lordship the + following extract from a defence of the English Church, which I wrote + against a Roman controversialist in the course of the last year. + + "The Church is emphatically a living body, and there can be no greater + proof of a particular communion being part of the Church than the + appearance in it of a continued and abiding energy, nor a more + melancholy proof of its being a corpse than torpidity. We say an + energy continued and abiding, for accident will cause the activity of + a moment, and an external principle give the semblance of self-motion. + On the other hand, even a living body may for a while be asleep. + + * * * * * + + "It concerns, then, those who deny that we are the true Church because + we have not at present this special note, intercommunion with other + Christians, to show cause why the Roman Church in the tenth century + should be so accounted, with profligates, or rather the profligate + mothers of profligate sons for her supreme rulers. And still + notwithstanding life _is_ a note of the Church; she alone revives, + even if she declines; heretical and schismatical bodies cannot keep + life; they gradually became cold, stiff, and insensible. + + * * * * * + + "Now if there ever were a Church on whom the experiment has been + tried, whether it had life in it or not, the English is that one. For + three centuries it has endured all vicissitudes of fortune. It has + endured in trouble and prosperity, under seduction, and under + oppression. It has been practised upon by theorists, browbeaten by + sophists, intimidated by princes, betrayed by false sons, laid waste + by tyranny, corrupted by wealth, torn by schism, and persecuted by + fanaticism. Revolutions have come upon it sharply and suddenly, to and + fro, hot and cold, as if to try what it was made of. + + "It has been a sort of battlefield on which opposite principles have + been tried. No opinion, however extreme any way, but may be found, as + the Romanists are not slow to reproach us, among its Bishops and + Divines. Yet what has been its career upon the whole? Which way has it + been moving through 300 years? Where does it find itself at the end? + Lutherans have tended to Rationalism; Calvinists have become + Socinians; but what has it become? As far as its Formularies are + concerned, it may be said all along to have grown towards a more + perfect Catholicism than that with which it started at the time of its + estrangement; every act, every crisis which marks its course, has been + upward. + + * * * * * + + "What a note of the Church is the mere production of a man like + Butler, a pregnant fact much to be meditated on! and how strange it + is, if it be as it seems to be, that the real influence of his work is + only just now beginning! and who can prophesy in what it will end? + Thus our Divines grow with centuries, expanding after their death in + the minds of their readers into more and more exact Catholicism as + years roll on. + + * * * * * + + "Look across the Atlantic to the daughter Churches of England in the + States: 'Shall one that is barren bear a child in her old age?' yet + 'the barren hath borne seven.' Schismatic branches put out their + leaves at once, in an expiring effort; our Church has waited three + centuries, and then blossoms like Aaron's rod, budding and blooming + and yielding fruit, while the rest are dry. And lastly, look at the + present position of the Church at home; there, too, we shall find a + note of the true City of God, the Holy Jerusalem. She is in warfare + with the world, as the Church Militant should be; she is rebuking the + world, she is hated, she is pillaged by the world. + + * * * * * + + "Much might be said on this subject. At all times, since Christianity + came into the world, an open contest has been going on between + religion and irreligion; and the true Church, of course, has ever been + on the religious side. This, then, is a sure test in every age _where_ + the Christian should stand.... Now, applying this simple criterion to + the public Parties of this DAY, it is very plain that the English + Church is at present on God's side, and therefore, so far, God's + Church; we are sorry to be obliged to add that there is as little + doubt on which side English Romanism is. + + * * * * * + + "As for the English Church, surely she has notes enough, 'the signs of + an Apostle in all patience, and signs and wonders and mighty deeds.' + She has the note of possession, the note of freedom from party-titles; + the note of life, a tough life and a vigorous; she has ancient + descent, unbroken continuance, agreement in doctrine with the ancient + Church. Those of Bellarmine's Notes, which she certainly has not, are + intercommunion with Christendom, the glory of miracles, and the + prophetical light, but the question is, whether she has not enough of + Divinity about her to satisfy her sister Churches on their own + principles, that she is one body with them." + + This may be sufficient to show my feelings towards my Church, as far + as Statements on paper can show them. + +How earnestly, how sincerely he clung to the English Church, even after +he describes himself on his "death-bed," no one can doubt. The charm of +the _Apologia_ is the perfect candour with which he records fluctuations +which to many are inconceivable and unintelligible, the different and +sometimes opposite and irreconcilable states of mind through which he +passed, with no attempt to make one fit into another. It is clear, from +what he tells us, that his words in 1839 were not his _last_ words as an +Anglican to Anglicans. With whatever troubles of mind, he strove to be a +loyal and faithful Anglican long after that. He spoke as an Anglican. He +fought for Anglicanism. The theory, as he says, may have gone by the +board, in the intellectual storms raised by the histories of the +Monophysites and Donatists. "By these great words of the ancient +father--_Securus judicat orbis terrarum_"--the theory of the _Via Media_ +was "absolutely pulverised." He was "sore," as he says in 1840, "about +the great Anglican divines, as if they had taken me in, and made me say +strong things against Rome, which facts did not justify."[89] Yes, he +felt, as other men do not feel, the weak points of even a strong +argument, the exaggerations and unfairness of controversialists on his +own side, the consciousness that you cannot have things in fact, or in +theory, or in reasoning, smoothly and exactly as it would be convenient, +and as you would like to have them. But his conclusion, on the whole, +was unshaken. There was enough, and amply enough, in the English Church +to bind him to its allegiance, to satisfy him of its truth and its life, +enough in the Roman to warn him away. In the confusions of Christendom, +in the strong and obstinate differences of schools and parties in the +English Church, he, living in days of inquiry and criticism, claimed to +take and recommend a theological position on many controverted +questions, which many might think a new one, and which might not be +exactly that occupied by any existing school or party.[90] "We are all," +he writes to an intimate friend on 22d April 1842, a year after No. 90, +"much quieter and more resigned than we were, and are remarkably +desirous of building up a position, and proving that the English theory +is tenable, or rather the English state of things. If the Bishops would +leave us alone, the fever would subside." + +He wanted, when all other parties were claiming room for their +speculations, to claim room for his own preference for ancient doctrine. +He wished to make out that no branch of the Church had authoritatively +committed itself to language which was hopelessly and fatally +irreconcilable with Christian truth. But he claimed nothing but what he +could maintain to be fairly within the authorised formularies of the +English Church. He courted inquiry, he courted argument. If his claim +seemed a new one, if his avowed leaning to ancient and Catholic views +seemed to make him more tolerant than had been customary, not to Roman +abuses, but to Roman authoritative language, it was part of the more +accurate and the more temperate and charitable thought of our day +compared with past times. It was part of the same change which has +brought Church opinions from the unmitigated Calvinism of the Lambeth +Articles to what the authorities of those days would have denounced, +without a doubt, as Arminianism. Hooker was gravely and seriously +accused to the Council for saying that a Papist could be saved, and had +some difficulty to clear himself; it was as natural then as it is +amazing now.[91] + +But with this sincere loyalty to the English Church, as he believed it +to be, there was, no doubt, in the background the haunting and +disquieting misgiving that the attempt to connect more closely the +modern Church with the ancient, and this widened theology in a direction +which had been hitherto specially and jealously barred, was putting the +English Church on its trial. Would it bear it? Would it respond to the +call to rise to a higher and wider type of doctrine, to a higher +standard of life? Would it justify what Mr. Newman had placed in the +forefront among the notes of the true Church, the note of Sanctity? +Would the _Via Media_ make up for its incompleteness as a theory by +developing into reality and fruitfulness of actual results? Would the +Church bear to be told of its defaults? Would it allow to the +maintainers of Catholic and Anglican principles the liberty which +others claimed, and which by large and powerful bodies of opinion was +denied to Anglicans? Or would it turn out on trial, that the _Via Media_ +was an idea without substance, a dialectical fiction, a mere theological +expedient for getting out of difficulties, unrecognised, and when put +forward, disowned? Would it turn out that the line of thought and +teaching which connected the modern with the ancient Church was but the +private and accidental opinion of Hooker and Andrewes and Bull and +Wilson, unauthorised in the English Church, uncongenial to its spirit, +if not contradictory to its formularies? It is only just to Mr. Newman +to say, that even after some of his friends were frightened, he long +continued to hope for the best; but undoubtedly, more and more, his +belief in the reality of the English Church was undergoing a very +severe, and as time went on, discouraging testing. + +In this state of things he published the Tract No. 90. It was occasioned +by the common allegation, on the side of some of the advanced section of +the Tractarians, as well as on the side of their opponents, that the +Thirty-nine Articles were hopelessly irreconcilable with that Catholic +teaching which Mr. Newman had defended on the authority of our great +divines, but which both the parties above mentioned were ready to +identify with the teaching of the Roman Church. The Tract was intended, +by a rigorous examination of the language of the Articles, to traverse +this allegation. It sought to show that all that was clearly and +undoubtedly Catholic, this language left untouched:[92] that it was +doubtful whether even the formal definitions of the Council of Trent +were directly and intentionally contradicted; and that what were really +aimed at were the abuses and perversions of a great popular and +authorised system, tyrannical by the force of custom and the obstinate +refusal of any real reformation. + + It is often urged (says the writer), and sometimes felt and granted, + that there are in the Articles propositions or terms inconsistent with + the Catholic faith; or, at least, if persons do not go so far as to + feel the objection as of force, they are perplexed how best to answer + it, or how most simply to explain the passages on which it is made to + rest. The following Tract is drawn up with the view of showing how + groundless the objection is, and further, of approximating towards the + argumentative answer to it, of which most men have an implicit + apprehension, though they may have nothing more. That there are real + difficulties to a Catholic Christian in the ecclesiastical position of + our Church at this day, no one can deny; but the statements of the + Articles are not in the number, and it may be right at the present + moment to insist upon this. + +When met by the objection that the ideas of the framers of the Articles +were well known, and that it was notorious that they had meant to put an +insuperable barrier between the English Church and everything that +savoured of Rome, the writer replied that the actual English Church +received the Articles not from them but from a much later authority, +that we are bound by their words not by their private sentiments either +as theologians or ecclesiastical politicians, and that in fact they had +intended the Articles to comprehend a great body of their countrymen, +who would have been driven away by any extreme and anti-Catholic +declarations even against Rome. The temper of compromise is +characteristic of the English as contrasted with the foreign +Reformation. It is visible, not only in the Articles, but in the polity +of the English Church, which clung so obstinately to the continuity and +forms of the ancient hierarchical system, it is visible in the +sacramental offices of the Prayer Book, which left so much out to +satisfy the Protestants, and left so much in to satisfy the Catholics. + +The Tract went in detail through the Articles which were commonly looked +upon as either anti-Catholic or anti-Roman. It went through them with a +dry logical way of interpretation, such as a professed theologian might +use, who was accustomed to all the niceties of language and the +distinctions of the science. It was the way in which they would be +likely to be examined and construed by a purely legal court. The effect +of it, doubtless, was like that produced on ordinary minds by the +refinements of a subtle advocate, or by the judicial interpretation of +an Act of Parliament which the judges do not like; and some of the +interpretations undoubtedly seemed far-fetched and artificial. Yet some +of those which were pointed to at the time as flagrant instances of +extravagant misinterpretation have now come to look different. Nothing +could exceed the scorn poured on the interpretation of the Twenty-second +Article, that it condemns the "_Roman_" doctrine of Purgatory, but not +_all_ doctrine of purgatory as a place of gradual purification beyond +death. But in our days a school very far removed from Mr. Newman's would +require and would claim to make the same distinction. And so with the +interpretation of the "Sacrifices of Masses" in the same article. It was +the fashion in 1841 to see in this the condemnation of all doctrine of a +sacrifice in the Eucharist; and when Mr. Newman confined the phrase to +the gross abuses connected with the Mass, this was treated as an affront +to common sense and honesty. Since then we have become better acquainted +with the language of the ancient liturgies--, and no instructed +theologian could now venture to treat Mr. Newman's distinction as idle. +There was in fact nothing new in his distinctions on these two points. +They had already been made in two of the preceding Tracts, the reprint +of Archbishop Ussher on Prayers for the Dead, and the Catena on the +Eucharistie Sacrifice; and in both cases the distinctions were supported +by a great mass of Anglican authority.[93] + +But the Tract had sufficient novelty about it to account for most of +the excitement which it caused. Its dryness and negative curtness were +provoking. It was not a positive argument, it was not an appeal to +authorities; it was a paring down of language, alleged in certain +portions of the Articles to be somewhat loose, to its barest meaning; +and to those to whom that language had always seemed to speak with +fulness and decision, it seemed like sapping and undermining a cherished +bulwark. Then it seemed to ask for more liberty than the writer in his +position at that time needed; and the object of such an indefinite +claim, in order to remove, if possible, misunderstandings between two +long-alienated branches of the Western Church, was one to excite in many +minds profound horror and dismay. That it maintained without flinching +and as strongly as ever the position and the claim of the English Church +was nothing to the purpose; the admission, both that Rome, though +wrong, might not be as wrong as we thought her, and that the language of +the Articles, though unquestionably condemnatory of much, was not +condemnatory of as much as people thought, and might possibly be even +harmonised with Roman authoritative language, was looked upon as +incompatible with loyalty to the English Church. + +The question which the Tract had opened, what the Articles meant and to +what men were bound by accepting them, was a most legitimate one for +discussion; and it was most natural also that any one should hesitate to +answer it as the Tract answered it. But it was distinctly a question for +discussion. It was not so easy for any of the parties in the Church to +give a clear and consistent answer, as that the matter ought at once to +have been carried out of the region of discussion. The Articles were the +Articles of a Church which had seen as great differences as those +between the Church of Edward VI and the Church of the Restoration. Take +them broadly as the condemnation--strong but loose in expression, as, +for instance, in the language on the "five, commonly called +Sacraments"--of a powerful and well-known antagonist system, and there +was no difficulty about them. But take them as scientific and accurate +and precise enunciations of a systematic theology, and difficulties +begin at once, with every one who does not hold the special and +well-marked doctrines of the age when the German and Swiss authorities +ruled supreme. The course of events from that day to this has shown +more than once, in surprising and even startling examples, how much +those who at the time least thought that they needed such strict +construing of the language of the Articles, and were fierce in +denouncing the "kind of interpretation" said to be claimed in No. 90, +have since found that they require a good deal more elasticity of +reading than even it asked for. The "whirligig of time" was thought to +have brought "its revenges," when Mr. Newman, who had called for the +exercise of authority against Dr. Hampden, found himself, five years +afterwards, under the ban of the same authority. The difference between +Mr. Newman's case and Dr. Hampden's, both as to the alleged offence and +the position of the men, was considerable. But the "whirligig of time" +brought about even stranger "revenges," when not only Mr. Gorham and Mr. +H.B. Wilson in their own defence, but the tribunals which had to decide +on their cases, carried the strictness of reading and the latitude of +interpretation, quite as far, to say the least, as anything in No. 90. + +Unhappily Tract 90 was met at Oxford, not with argument, but with panic +and wrath.[94] There is always a sting in every charge, to which other +parts of it seem subordinate. No. 90 was charged of course with false +doctrine, with false history, and with false reasoning; but the emphatic +part of the charge, the short and easy method which dispensed from the +necessity of theological examination and argument, was that it was +dishonest and immoral. Professors of Divinity, and accomplished +scholars, such as there were in Oxford, might very well have considered +it an occasion to dispute both the general principle of the Tract, if it +was so dangerous, and the illustrations, in the abundance of which the +writer had so frankly thrown open his position to searching criticism. +It was a crisis in which much might have been usefully said, if there +had been any one to say it; much too, to make any one feel, if he was +competent to feel, that he had a good deal to think about in his own +position, and that it would be well to ascertain what was tenable and +what untenable in it. But it seemed as if the opportunity must not be +lost for striking a blow. The Tract was published on 27th February. On +the 8th of March four Senior Tutors, one of whom was Mr. H.B. Wilson, of +St. John's, and another Mr. Tait, of Balliol, addressed the Editor of +the Tract, charging No. 90 with suggesting and opening a way, by which +men might, at least in the case of Roman views, violate their solemn +engagements to their University. On the 15th of March, the Board of +Heads of Houses, refusing to wait for Mr. Newman's defence, which was +known to be coming, and which bears date 13th March, published their +judgment They declared that in No. 90 "modes of interpretation were +suggested, and have since been advocated in other publications +purporting to be written by members of the University, by which +subscription to the Articles might be reconciled with the adoption of +Roman Catholic error." And they announced their resolution, "That modes +of interpretation, such as are suggested in the said Tract, evading +rather than explaining the sense of the Thirty-nine Articles, and +reconciling subscription to them with the adoption of errors which they +are designed to counteract, defeat the object, and are inconsistent with +the due observance of the above-mentioned statutes."[95] + +It was an ungenerous and stupid blunder, such as men make, when they +think or are told that "something must be done," and do not know what. +It gave the writer an opportunity, of which he took full advantage, of +showing his superiority in temper, in courtesy, and in reason, to those +who had not so much condemned as insulted him. He was immediately ready +with his personal expression of apology and regret, and also with his +reassertion in more developed argument of the principle of the Tract; +and this was followed up by further explanations in a letter to the +Bishop. And in spite of the invidious position in which the Board had +tried to place him, not merely as an unsound divine, but as a dishonest +man teaching others to palter with their engagements, the crisis drew +forth strong support and sympathy where they were not perhaps to be +expected. It rallied to him, at least for the time, some of the friends +who had begun to hold aloof. Mr. Palmer, of Worcester, Mr. Perceval, Dr. +Hook, with reserves according to each man's point of view, yet came +forward in his defence. The Board was made to feel that they had been +driven by violent and partisan instigations to commit themselves to a +very foolish as well as a very passionate and impotent step; that they +had by very questionable authority simply thrown an ill-sounding and +ill-mannered word at an argument on a very difficult question, to which +they themselves certainly were not prepared with a clear and +satisfactory answer; that they had made the double mistake of declaring +war against a formidable antagonist, and of beginning it by creating the +impression that they had treated him shabbily, and were really afraid to +come to close quarters with him. As the excitement of hasty counsels +subsided, the sense of this began to awake in some of them; they tried +to represent the off-hand and ambiguous words of the condemnation as not +meaning all that they had been taken to mean. But the seed of bitterness +had been sown. Very little light was thrown, in the strife of pamphlets +which ensued, on the main subject dealt with in No. 90, the authority +and interpretation of such formularies as our Articles. The easier and +more tempting and very fertile topic of debate was the honesty and good +faith of the various disputants. Of the four Tutors, only one, Mr. H.B. +Wilson, published an explanation of their part in the matter; it was a +clumsy, ill-written and laboured pamphlet, which hardly gave promise of +the intellectual vigour subsequently displayed by Mr. Wilson, when he +appeared, not as the defender, but the assailant of received opinions. +The more distinguished of the combatants were Mr. Ward and Mr. R. Lowe. +Mr. Ward, with his usual dialectical skill, not only defended the Tract, +but pushed its argument yet further, in claiming tolerance for doctrines +alleged to be Roman. Mr. Lowe, not troubling himself either with +theological history or the relation of other parties in the Church to +the formularies, threw his strength into the popular and plausible topic +of dishonesty, and into a bitter and unqualified invective against the +bad faith and immorality manifested in the teaching of which No. 90 was +the outcome. Dr. Faussett, as was to be expected, threw himself into the +fray with his accustomed zest and violence, and caused some amusement at +Oxford, first by exposing himself to the merciless wit of a reviewer in +the _British Critic_, and then by the fright into which he was thrown by +a rumour that his reelection to his professorship would be endangered by +Tractarian votes.[96] But the storm, at Oxford at least, seemed to die +out. The difficulty which at one moment threatened of a strike among +some of the college Tutors passed; and things went back to their +ordinary course. But an epoch and a new point of departure had come into +the movement. Things after No. 90 were never the same as to language and +hopes and prospects as they had been before; it was the date from which +a new set of conditions in men's thoughts and attitude had to be +reckoned. Each side felt that a certain liberty had been claimed and +had been peremptorily denied. And this was more than confirmed by the +public language of the greater part of the Bishops. The charges against +the Tractarian party of Romanising, and of flagrant dishonesty, long +urged by irresponsible opponents, were now formally adopted by the +University authorities, and specially directed against the foremost man +of the party. From that time the fate of the party at Oxford was +determined. It must break up. Sooner or later, there must be a secession +more or less discrediting and disabling those who remained. And so the +break-up came, and yet, so well grounded and so congenial to the English +Church were the leading principles of the movement, that not even that +disastrous and apparently hopeless wreck prevented them from again +asserting their claim and becoming once more active and powerful. The +_Via Media_, whether or not logically consistent, was a thing of genuine +English growth, and was at least a working theory. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[84] _Apologia_, p. 180. + +[85] _Essays Critical and Historical_, 1871. + +[86] _Apologia_, pp. 181, 182. Comp. _Letter to Jelf_, p. 18. + +[87] _British Critic_, April 1839, pp. 419-426. Condensed in the +_Apologia_, pp. 192-194. + +[88] _Letter to the Bishop of Oxford_ (29th March 1841), pp. 33-40. +Comp. _Letter to Jelf_, pp. 7, 8. + +[89] _Apologia_, pp. 212, 221. + +[90] _Letter to Jelf_ [especially p. 19]. + +[91] _Walton's Life_, i. 59 (Oxford: 1845). + +[92] No. 90, p. 24. + +[93] The following letter of Mr. James Mozley (8th March 1841) gives the +first impression of the Tract:--"A new Tract has come out this week, and +is beginning to make a sensation. It is on the Articles, and shows that +they bear a highly Catholic meaning; and that many doctrines, of which +the Romanist are corruptions, may be held consistently with them. This +is no more than what we know as a matter of history, for the Articles +were expressly worded to bring in Roman Catholics. But people are +astonished and confused at the idea now, as if it were quite new. And +they have been so accustomed for a long time to look at the Articles as +on a par with the Creed, that they think, I suppose, that if they +subscribe to them they are bound to hold whatever doctrines (not +positively stated in them) are merely not condemned. So if they will +have a Tractarian sense, they are thereby all Tractarians.... It is, of +course, highly complimentary to the whole set of us to be so very much +surprised that we should think what we held to be consistent with the +Articles which we have subscribed." See also a clever Whateleian +pamphlet, "The Controversy between Tract No. 90 and the Oxford Tutors." +(How and Parsons, 1841.) + +[94] See J.B. Mozley's _Letters_, 13th March 1841. + +[95] _Scil._, those cited in the preamble to this resolution. + +[96] J.B. Mozley's _Letters_, 13th July 1841. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +AFTER NO. 90 + + +The proceedings about No. 90 were a declaration of war on the part of +the Oxford authorities against the Tractarian party. The suspicions, +alarms, antipathies, jealousies, which had long been smouldering among +those in power, had at last taken shape in a definite act. And it was a +turning-point in the history of the movement. After this it never was +exactly what it had been hitherto. It had been so far a movement within +the English Church, for its elevation and reform indeed, but at every +step invoking its authority with deep respect, acknowledging allegiance +to its rulers in unqualified and even excessive terms, and aiming +loyally to make it in reality all that it was in its devotional language +and its classical literature. But after what passed about No. 90 a +change came. The party came under an official ban and stigma. The common +consequences of harsh treatment on the tendencies and thought of a +party, which considers itself unjustly proscribed, showed themselves +more and more. Its mind was divided; its temper was exasperated; while +the attitude of the governing authorities hardened more into determined +hostility. From the time of the censure, and especially after the events +connected with it,--the contest for the Poetry Professorship and the +renewed Hampden question,--it may be said that the characteristic +tempers of the Corcyrean sedition were reproduced on a small scale in +Oxford.[97] The scare of Popery, not without foundation--the reaction +against it, also not without foundation--had thrown the wisest off their +balance; and what of those who were not wise? In the heat of those days +there were few Tractarians who did not think Dr. Wynter, Dr. Faussett, +and Dr. Symons heretics in theology and persecutors in temper, despisers +of Christian devotion and self-denial. There were few of the party of +the Heads who did not think every Tractarian a dishonest and perjured +traitor, equivocating about his most solemn engagements, the ignorant +slave of childish superstitions which he was conspiring to bring back. +It was the day of the violent on both sides: the courtesies of life were +forgotten; men were afraid of being weak in their censures, their +dislike, and their opposition; old friendships were broken up, and men +believed the worst of those whom a few years back they had loved and +honoured. + +It is not agreeable to recall these long extinct animosities, but they +are part of the history of that time, and affected the course in which +things ran. And it is easy to blame, it is hard to do justice to, the +various persons and parties who contributed to the events of that +strange and confused time. All was new, and unusual, and without +precedent in Oxford; a powerful and enthusiastic school reviving old +doctrines in a way to make them seem novelties, and creating a wild +panic from a quarter where it was the least expected; the terror of this +panic acting on authorities not in the least prepared for such a trial +of their sagacity, patience, and skill, driving them to unexampled +severity, and to a desperate effort to expel the disturbing +innovators--among them some of the first men in Oxford in character and +ability--from their places in the University.[98] In order to do justice +on each side at this distance of time, we are bound to make +allowance--both for the alarm and the mistaken violence of the +authorities, and for the disaffection, the irritation, the strange +methods which grew up in the worried and suspected party--for the +difficulties which beset both sides in the conflict, and the +counter-influences which drew them hither and thither. But the facts are +as they are; and even then a calmer temper was possible to those who +willed it; and in the heat of the strife there were men among the +authorities, as well as in the unpopular party, who kept their balance, +while others lost it. + +Undoubtedly the publication of No. 90 was the occasion of the aggravated +form which dissension took, and not unnaturally. Yet it was anything but +what it was taken to mean by the authorities, an intentional move in +favour of Rome. It was intended to reconcile a large and growing class +of minds, penetrated and disgusted with the ignorance and injustice of +much of the current controversial assumptions against Rome, to a larger +and more defensible view of the position of the English Church. And this +was done by calling attention to that which was not now for the first +time observed--to the loose and unguarded mode of speaking visible in +the later controversial Articles, and to the contrast between them and +the technical and precise theology of the first five Articles. The +Articles need not mean all which they were supposed popularly to mean +against what was Catholic in Roman doctrine. This was urged in simple +good faith; it was but the necessary assumption of all who held with the +Catholic theology, which the Tractarians all along maintained that they +had a right to teach; it left plenty of ground of difference with +unreformed and usurping Rome. And we know that the storm which No. 90 +raised took the writer by surprise. He did not expect that he should +give such deep offence. But if he thought of the effect on one set of +minds, he forgot the probable effect on another; and he forgot, or +under-estimated, the effect not only of the things said, but of the way +in which they were said.[99] No. 90 was a surprise, in the state of +ordinary theological knowledge at the time. It was a strong thing to say +that the Articles left a great deal of formal Roman language untouched; +but to work this out in dry, bald, technical logic, on the face of it, +narrow in scope, often merely ingenious, was even a greater +stumbling-block. It was, undoubtedly, a great miscalculation, such as +men of keen and far-reaching genius sometimes make. They mistake the +strength and set of the tide; they imagine that minds round them are +going as fast as their own. We can see, looking back, that such an +interpretation of the Articles, with the view then taken of them in +Oxford as the theological text-book, and in the condition of men's +minds, could not but be a great shock. + +And what seemed to give a sinister significance to No. 90 was that, as +has been said, a strong current was beginning to set in the direction of +Rome. It was not yet of the nature, nor of the force, which was +imagined. The authorities suspected it where it was not. They accepted +any contemptible bit of gossip collected by ignorance or ill-nature as a +proof of it. The constitutional frankness of Englishmen in finding fault +with what is their own--disgust at pompous glorification--scepticism as +to our insular claims against all the rest of Christendom to be exactly +right, to be alone, "pure and apostolic"; real increase and enlargement +of knowledge, theological and historical; criticism on portions of our +Reformation history; admiration for characters in mediaeval times; +eagerness, over-generous it might be, to admit and repair wrong to an +opponent unjustly accused; all were set down together with other more +unequivocal signs as "leanings to Rome." It was clear that there was a +current setting towards Rome; but it was as clear that there was a much +stronger current in the party as a whole, setting in the opposite +direction. To those who chose to see and to distinguish, the love, the +passionate loyalty of the bulk of the Tractarians to the English Church +was as evident and unquestionable as any public fact could be. At this +time there was no reason to call in question the strong assurances +given by the writer of No. 90 himself of his yet unshaken faith in the +English Church. But all these important features of the +movement--witnessing, indeed, to deep searchings of heart, but to a +genuine desire to serve the English Church--were overlooked in the one +overwhelming fear which had taken possession of the authorities. +Alarming symptoms of a disposition to acknowledge and even exaggerate +the claims and the attractions of the Roman system were indeed apparent. +No doubt there were reasons for disquiet and anxiety. But the test of +manliness and wisdom, in the face of such reasons, is how men measure +their proportion, and how they meet the danger. + +The Heads saw a real danger before them; but they met it in a wrong and +unworthy way. They committed two great errors. In the first place, like +the Jesuits in their quarrel with Portroyal and the Jansenists, they +entirely failed to recognise the moral elevation and religious purpose +of the men whom they opposed. There was that before them which it was to +their deep discredit that they did not see. The movement, whatever else +it was, or whatever else it became, was in its first stages a movement +for deeper religion, for a more real and earnest self-discipline, for a +loftier morality, for more genuine self-devotion to a serious life, than +had ever been seen in Oxford. It was an honest attempt to raise Oxford +life, which by all evidence needed raising, to something more laborious +and something more religious, to something more worthy of the great +Christian foundations of Oxford than the rivalry of colleges and of the +schools, the mere literary atmosphere of the tutor's lecture-room, and +the easy and gentlemanly and somewhat idle fellowship of the +common-rooms. It was the effort of men who had all the love of +scholarship, and the feeling for it of the Oxford of their day, to add +to this the habits of Christian students and the pursuit of Christian +learning. If all this was dangerous and uncongenial to Oxford, so much +the worse for Oxford, with its great opportunities and great +professions--_Dominus illuminatio mea_. But certainly this mark of moral +purpose and moral force was so plain in the movement that the rulers of +Oxford had no right to mistake it. When the names come back to our minds +of those who led and most represented the Tractarians, it must be a +matter of surprise to any man who has not almost parted with the idea of +Christian goodness, that this feature of the movement could escape or +fail to impress those who had known well all their lives long what these +leaders were. But amid the clamour and the tell-tale gossip, and, it +must be admitted, the folly round them, they missed it. Perhaps they +were bewildered. But they must have the blame, the heavy blame, which +belongs to all those who, when good is before them, do not recognise it +according to its due measure.[100] + +In the next place, the authorities attacked and condemned the +Tractarian teaching at once violently and ignorantly, and in them +ignorance of the ground on which the battle was fought was hardly +pardonable. Doubtless the Tractarian language was in many respects novel +and strange. But Oxford was not only a city of libraries, it was the +home of what was especially accounted Church theology; and the +Tractarian teaching, in its foundation and main outlines, had little but +what ought to have been perfectly familiar to any one who chose to take +the trouble to study the great Church of England writers. To one who, +like Dr. Routh of Magdalen, had gone below the surface, and was +acquainted with the questions debated by those divines, there was +nothing startling in what so alarmed his brethren, whether he agreed +with it or not; and to him the indiscriminate charge of Popery meant +nothing. But Dr. Routh stood alone among his brother Heads in his +knowledge of what English theology was. To most of them it was an +unexplored and misty region; some of the ablest, under the influence of +Dr. Whately's vigorous and scornful discipline, had learned to slight +it. But there it was. Whether it was read or not, its great names were +pronounced with honour, and quoted on occasion. From Hooker to Van +Mildert, there was an unbroken thread of common principles giving +continuity to a line of Church teachers. The Puritan line of doctrine, +though it could claim much sanction among the divines of the +Reformation--the Latitudinarian idea, though it had the countenance of +famous names and powerful intellects--never could aspire to the special +title of Church theology. And the teaching which had that name, both in +praise, and often in dispraise, as technical, scholastic, unspiritual, +transcendental, nay, even Popish, countenanced the Tractarians. They +were sneered at for their ponderous _Catenae_ of authorities; but on the +ground on which this debate raged, the appeal was a pertinent and solid +one. Yet to High Church Oxford and its rulers, all this was strange +doctrine. Proof and quotation might lie before their eyes, but their +minds still ran in one groove, and they could not realise what they saw. +The words meant no harm in the venerable folio; they meant perilous +heresy in the modern Tract. When the authorities had to judge of the +questions raised by the movement, they were unprovided with the adequate +knowledge; and this was knowledge which they ought to have possessed for +its own sake, as doctors of the Theological Faculty of the University. + +And it was not only for their want of learning, manifest all through the +controversy, that they were to blame. Their most telling charge against +the Tractarians, which was embodied in the censure of No. 90, was the +charge of dishonesty. The charge is a very handy one against opponents, +and it may rest on good grounds; but those who think right to make it +ought, both as a matter of policy and as a matter of conscience, to be +quite assured of their own position. The Articles are a public, common +document. It is the differing interpretations of a common document which +create political and religious parties; and only shallowness and +prejudice will impute to an opponent dishonesty without strong and clear +reason. Mr. Newman's interpretation in No. 90,--new, not in claiming for +the Articles a Catholic meaning, but in _limiting_, though it does not +deny, their anti-Roman scope, was fairly open to criticism. It might be +taken as a challenge, and as a challenge might have to be met. But it +would have been both fair and wise in the Heads, before proceeding to +unusual extremities, to have shown that they had fully considered their +own theological doctrines in relation to the Church formularies. They +all had obvious difficulties, and in some cases formidable ones. The +majority of them were what would have been called in older controversial +days frank Arminians, shutting their eyes by force of custom to the look +of some of the Articles, which, if of Lutheran origin, had been claimed +from the first by Calvinists. The Evangelicals had long confessed +difficulties, at least, in the Baptismal Service and the Visitation +Office; while the men most loud in denunciation of dishonesty were the +divines of Whately's school, who had been undermining the authority of +all creeds and articles, and had never been tired of proclaiming their +dislike of that solemn Athanasian Creed to which Prayer Book and +Articles alike bound them. Men with these difficulties daily before them +had no right to ignore them. Doubtless they all had their explanations +which they _bona fide_ believed in. But what was there that excluded Mr. +Newman from the claim to _bona fides_? He had attacked no foundation of +Christianity; he had denied or doubted no article of the Creed. He gave +his explanations, certainly not more far-fetched than those of some of +his judges. In a Church divided by many conflicting views, and therefore +bound to all possible tolerance, he had adopted one view which certainly +was unpopular and perhaps was dangerous. He might be confuted, he might +be accused, or, if so be, convicted of error, perhaps of heresy. But +nothing of this kind was attempted. The incompatibility of his view, not +merely with the Articles, but with morality in signing what all, of +whatever party, had signed, was asserted in a censure, which evaded the +responsibility of specifying the point which it condemned. The alarm of +treachery and conspiracy is one of the most maddening of human impulses. +The Heads of Houses, instead of moderating and sobering it, with the +authority of instructed and sagacious rulers, blew it into a flame. And +they acted in such a hurry that all sense of proportion and dignity was +lost. They peremptorily refused to wait even a few days, as the writer +requested, and as was due to his character, for explanation. They dared +not risk an appeal to the University at large. They dared not abide the +effect of discussion on the blow which they were urged to strike. They +chose, that they might strike without delay, the inexpressibly childish +step of sticking up at the Schools' gates, and at College butteries, +without trial, or conviction, or sentence, a notice declaring that +certain modes of signing the Articles suggested in a certain Tract were +dishonest. It was, they said, to protect undergraduates; as if +undergraduates would be affected by a vague assertion on a difficult +subject, about which nothing was more certain than that those who issued +the notice were not agreed among themselves. + +The men who acted thus were good and conscientious men, who thought +themselves in the presence of a great danger. It is only fair to +remember this. But it is also impossible to be fair to the party of the +movement without remembering this deplorable failure in consistency, in +justice, in temper, in charity, on the part of those in power in the +University. The drift towards Rome had not yet become an unmanageable +rush; and though there were cases in which nothing could have stopped +its course, there is no reason to doubt that generous and equitable +dealing, a more considerate reasonableness, a larger and more +comprehensive judgment of facts, and a more patient waiting for strong +first impressions to justify and verify themselves, would have averted +much mischief. There was much that was to be regretted from this time +forward in the temper and spirit of the movement party. But that which +nourished and strengthened impatience, exaggeration of language and +views, scorn of things as they were, intolerance of everything +moderate, both in men and in words, was the consciousness with which +every man got up in the morning and passed the day, of the bitter +hostility of those foremost in place in Oxford--of their incompetence to +judge fairly--of their incapacity to apprehend what was high and earnest +in those whom they condemned--of the impossibility of getting them to +imagine that Tractarians could be anything but fools or traitors--of +their hopeless blindness to any fact or any teaching to which they were +not accustomed. If the authorities could only have stopped to consider +whether after all they were not dealing with real thought and real wish +to do right, they might after all have disliked the movement, but they +would have seen that which would have kept them from violence. They +would not listen, they would not inquire, they would not consider. Could +such ignorance, could such wrong possibly be without mischievous +influence on those who were the victims of it, much more on friends and +disciples who knew and loved them? The Tractarians had been preaching +that the Church of England, with all its Protestant feeling and all its +Protestant acts and history, was yet, as it professed to be, part and +parcel of the great historic Catholic Church, which had framed the +Creeds, which had continued the Sacraments, which had preached and +taught out of the Bible, which had given us our immemorial prayers. They +had spared no pains to make out this great commonplace from history and +theology: nor had they spared pains, while insisting on this dominant +feature in the English Church, to draw strongly and broadly the lines +which distinguished it from Rome. Was it wonderful, when all guarding +and explanatory limitations were contemptuously tossed aside by +"all-daring ignorance," and all was lumped together in the +indiscriminate charge of "Romanising," that there should have been some +to take the authorities at their word? Was it wonderful when men were +told that the Church of England was no place for them, that they were +breaking their vows and violating solemn engagements by acting as its +ministers, and that in order to preserve the respect of honest men they +should leave it--that the question of change, far off as it had once +seemed, came within "measurable distance"? The generation to which they +belonged had been brought up with strong exhortations to be real, and to +hate shams; and now the question was forced on them whether it was not a +sham for the English Church to call itself Catholic; whether a body of +teaching which was denounced by its authorities, however it might look +on paper and be defended by learning, could be more than a plausible +literary hypothesis in contrast to the great working system of which the +head was Rome. When we consider the singular and anomalous position on +any theory, including the Roman, of the English Church; with what great +differences its various features and elements have been prominent at +different times; how largely its history has been marked by +contradictory facts and appearances; and how hard it is for any one to +keep all, according to their real importance, simultaneously in view; +when we remember also what are the temptations of human nature in great +collisions of religious belief, the excitement and passion of the time, +the mixed character of all religious zeal, the natural inevitable anger +which accompanies it when resisted, the fervour which welcomes +self-sacrifice for the truth; and when we think of all this kept aglow +by the continuous provocation of unfair and harsh dealing from persons +who were scarcely entitled to be severe judges; the wonder is, human +nature being what it is, not that so many went, but that so many stayed. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[97] [Greek: Tolma alogistos andria philetairos enomisthae ... to de +sophron tou anandrou proschaema, kai to pros apan xyneton epi pan argon +to de emplaektos oxuandros moira prosetethae ... kai ho men chalepainon +pistos aei, ho de antilegon auto upoptos.]--Thuc. iii. 82. "Reckless +daring was held to be loyal courage; moderation was the disguise of +unmanly weakness; to know everything was to do nothing; frantic energy +was the true character of a man; the lover of violence was always +trusted, and his opponent suspected."--Jowett's translation. + +[98] One of the strangest features in the conflict was the entire +misconception shown of what Mr. Newman was--the blindness to his real +character and objects--the imputation to him not merely of grave faults, +but of small and mean ones. His critics could not rise above the poorest +measure of his intellect and motives. One of the ablest of them, who had +once been his friend, in a farewell letter of kindly remonstrance, +specifies certain Roman errors, which he hopes that Mr. Newman will not +fall into--adoring images and worshipping saints--as if the pleasure and +privilege of worshipping images and saints were to Mr. Newman the +inducement to join Rome and break the ties of a lifetime. And so of his +moral qualities. A prominent Evangelical leader, Dr. Close of +Cheltenham, afterwards Dean of Carlisle, at a complimentary dinner, in +which he himself gloried in the "foul, personal abuse to which he had +been subjected in his zeal for truth," proceeded to give his judgment on +Mr. Newman: "When I first read No. 90, I did not then know the author; +but I said then, and I repeat here, _not with any personal reference to +the author_, that I should be sorry to trust the author of that Tract +with my purse,"--Report of Speech in _Cheltenham Examiner_, 1st March +1843. + +[99] [Greek: ou gar apochrae to echein a dei legein, all' anankae kai +tauto os dei eipein.]--Arist. _Rhet._ iii. I. + +[100] Dr. Richards, the Rector of Exeter, seems to have stood apart from +his brother heads.--Cf. _Letters of the Rev. J.B. Mozley_, p. 113. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE THREE DEFEATS: + +ISAAC WILLIAMS, MACMULLEN, PUSEY + + +The year 1841, though it had begun in storm, and though signs were not +wanting of further disturbance, was at Oxford, outwardly at least, a +peaceable one. A great change had happened; but, when the first burst of +excitement was over, men settled down to their usual work, their +lectures, or their reading, or their parishes, and by Easter things +seemed to go on as before. The ordinary habits of University life +resumed their course with a curious quietness. There was, no doubt, much +trouble brooding underneath. Mr. Ward and others continued a war of +pamphlets; and in June Mr. Ward was dismissed from his Mathematical +Lectureship at Balliol. But faith in the great leader was still strong. +No. 90, if it had shocked or disquieted some, had elicited equally +remarkable expressions of confidence and sympathy from others who might +have been, at least, silent. The events of the spring had made men +conscious of what their leader was, and called forth warm and +enthusiastic affection. It was not in vain that, whatever might be +thought of the wisdom or the reasonings of No. 90, he had shown the +height of his character and the purity and greatness of his religious +purpose; and that being what he was, in the eyes of all Oxford, he had +been treated with contumely, and had borne it with patience and loyal +submission. There were keen observers, to whom that patience told of +future dangers; they would have liked him to show more fight. But he +gave no signs of defeat, nor, outwardly, of disquiet; he forbore to +retaliate at Oxford: and the sermons at St. Mary's continued, +penetrating and searching as ever, perhaps with something more pathetic +and anxious in their undertone than before. + +But if he forbore at Oxford, he did not let things pass outside. Sir +Robert Peel, in opening a reading-room at Tamworth, had spoken loosely, +in the conventional and pompous way then fashionable, of the +all-sufficing and exclusive blessings of knowledge. While Mr. Newman was +correcting the proofs of No. 90, he was also writing to the _Times_ the +famous letters of _Catholicus_; a warning to eminent public men of the +danger of declaiming on popular commonplaces without due examination of +their worth. But all seemed quiet. "In the summer of 1841," we read in +the _Apologia_, "I found myself at Littlemore without any harass or +anxiety on my mind. I had determined to put aside all controversy, and +set myself down to my translation of St. Athanasius." Outside of Oxford +there was a gathering of friends in the summer at the consecration of +one of Mr. Keble's district churches, Ampfield--an occasion less common +and more noticeable then than now. Again, what was a new thought then, a +little band of young Oxford men, ten or twelve, taxed themselves to +build a new church, which was ultimately placed at Bussage, in Mr. +Thomas Keble's parish. One of Mr. Keble's curates, Mr. Peter Young, had +been refused Priest's orders by the Bishop of Winchester, for alleged +unsoundness on the doctrine of the Eucharist. Mr. Selwyn, not without +misgivings on the part of the Whig powers, had been appointed Bishop of +New Zealand. Dr. Arnold had been appointed to the Chair of Modern +History at Oxford. In the course of the year there passed away one who +had had a very real though unacknowledged influence on much that had +happened--Mr. Blanco White. And at the end of the year, 29th October, +Mr. Keble gave his last lecture on Poetry, and finished a course the +most original and memorable ever delivered from his chair. + +Towards the end of the year two incidents, besides some roughly-worded +Episcopal charges, disturbed this quiet. They were only indirectly +connected with theological controversy at Oxford; but they had great +ultimate influence on it, and they helped to marshal parties and +consolidate animosities. One was the beginning of the contest for the +Poetry Professorship which Mr. Keble had vacated. There was no one of +equal eminence to succeed him; but there was in Oxford a man of +undoubted poetical genius, of refined taste and subtle thought, though +of unequal power, who had devoted his gifts to the same great purpose +for which Mr. Keble had written the _Christian Year._ No one who has +looked into the _Baptistery_, whatever his feeling towards the writer, +can doubt whether Mr. Isaac Williams was a poet and knew what poetry +meant. He was an intimate friend of Mr. Keble and Mr. Newman, and so he +was styled a Tractarian; but no name offered itself so obviously to the +electors as his, and in due time his friends announced their intention +of bringing him forward. His competitor was Mr. (afterwards Archdeacon) +Garbett of Brasenose, the college of Heber and Milman, an accomplished +gentleman of high culture, believed to have an acquaintance, not common +then in Oxford, with foreign literature, whose qualifications stood high +in the opinion of his University friends, but who had given no evidence +to the public of his claims to the office. It was inevitable, it was no +one's special fault, that the question of theological opinions should +intrude itself; but at first it was only in private that objections were +raised or candidatures recommended on theological grounds. But rumours +were abroad that the authorities of Brasenose were canvassing their +college on these grounds: and in an unlucky moment for Mr. Williams, Dr. +Pusey, not without the knowledge, but without the assenting judgment of +Mr. Newman, thought it well to send forth a circular in Christ Church +first, but soon with wider publicity, asking support for Mr. Williams as +a person whose known religious views would ensure his making his office +minister to religious truth. Nothing could be more innocently meant. It +was the highest purpose to which that office could be devoted. But the +mistake was seen on all sides as soon as made. The Principal of Mr. +Garbett's college. Dr. Gilbert, like a general jumping on his antagonist +whom he has caught in the act of a false move, put forth a dignified +counter-appeal, alleging that he had not raised this issue, but adding +that as it had been raised and avowed on the other side, he was quite +willing that it should be taken into account, and the dangers duly +considered of that teaching with which Dr. Pusey's letter had identified +Mr. Williams. No one from that moment could prevent the contest from +becoming almost entirely a theological one, which was to try the +strength of the party of the movement. Attempts were made, but in vain, +to divest it of this character. The war of pamphlets and leaflets +dispersed in the common-rooms, which usually accompanied these contests, +began, and the year closed with preparations for a severe struggle when +the University met in the following January. + +The other matter was the establishment of the Anglo-Prussian bishopric +at Jerusalem. It was the object of the ambition of M. Bunsen to pave the +way for a recognition, by the English Church, of the new State Church +of Prussia, and ultimately for some closer alliance between the two +bodies; and the plan of a Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem, nominated +alternately by England and Prussia, consecrated by English Bishops, and +exercising jurisdiction over English and German Protestants in +Palestine, was proposed by him to Archbishop Howley and Bishop +Blomfield, and somewhat hastily and incautiously accepted by them. To +Mr. Newman, fighting a hard battle, as he felt it, for the historical +and constitutional catholicity of the English Church, this step on their +part came as a practical and even ostentatious contradiction of his +arguments. England, it seemed, which was out of communion with the East +and with Rome, could lightly enter into close communion with Lutherans +and Calvinists against them both. He recorded an indignant and even +bitter protest; and though the scheme had its warm apologists, such as +Dr. Hook and Mr. F. Maurice, it had its keen-sighted critics, and it was +never received with favour by the Church at large. And, indeed, it was +only active for mischief. It created irritation, suspicion, discord in +England, while no German cared a straw about it. Never was an ambitious +scheme so marked by impotence and failure from its first steps to its +last. But it was one, as the _Apologia_ informs us,[101] in the chain of +events which destroyed Mr. Newman's belief in the English Church. "It +was one of the blows," he writes, "which broke me." + +The next year, 1842, opened with war; war between the University +authorities and the party of the movement, which was to continue in +various forms and with little intermission till the strange and pathetic +events of 1845 suspended the righting and stunned the fighters, and for +a time hushed even anger in feelings of amazement, sorrow, and fear. +Those events imposed stillness on all who had taken part in the strife, +like the blowing up of the _Orient_ at the battle of the Nile. + +As soon as the University met in January 1842, the contest for the +Poetry Professorship was settled. There was no meeting of Convocation, +but a comparison of votes gave a majority of three to two to Mr. +Garbett,[102] and Mr. Williams withdrew. The Tractarians had been +distinctly beaten; it was their first defeat as a party. It seems as if +this encouraged the Hebdomadal Board to a move, which would be felt as a +blow against the Tractarians, and which, as an act of reparation to Dr. +Hampden, would give satisfaction to the ablest section of their own +supporters, the theological Liberals. They proposed to repeal the +disqualification which had been imposed on Dr. Hampden in 1836. But they +had miscalculated. It was too evidently a move to take advantage of the +recent Tractarian discomfiture to whitewash Dr. Hampden's Liberalism. +The proposal, and the way in which it was made, roused a strong feeling +among the residents; a request to withdraw it received the signatures +not only of moderate Anglicans and independent men, like Mr. Francis +Faber of Magdalen, Mr. Sewell, the Greswells, and Mr. W. Palmer of +Worcester, but of Mr. Tait of Balliol, and Mr. Golightly. Dr. Hampden's +own attitude did not help it. There was great want of dignity in his +ostentatious profession of orthodoxy and attachment to the Articles, in +his emphatic adoption of Evangelical phraseology, and in his unmeasured +denunciation of his opponents, and especially of those whom he viewed as +most responsible for the censure of 1836--the "Tractarians" or +"Romanisers." And the difficulty with those who had passed and who now +proposed to withdraw the censure, was that Dr. Hampden persistently and +loudly declared that he had nothing to retract, and retracted nothing; +and if it was right to pass it in 1836, it would not be right to +withdraw it in 1842. At the last moment, Mr. Tait and Mr. Piers +Claughton of University made an attempt to get something from Dr. +Hampden which might pass as a withdrawal of what was supposed to be +dangerous in his Bampton Lectures; and there were some even among Mr. +Newman's friends, who, disliking from the first the form of the censure, +might have found in such a withdrawal a reason for voting for its +repeal. But Dr. Hampden was obdurate. The measure was pressed, and in +June it was thrown out in Convocation by a majority of three to +two[103]--the same proportion, though in smaller numbers, as in the vote +against Mr. Williams. The measure was not an honest one on the part of +the Hebdomadal Board, and deserved to be defeated. Among the pamphlets +which the discussion produced, two by Mr. James Mozley gave early +evidence, by their force of statement and their trenchant logic, of the +power with which he was to take part in the questions which agitated the +University. + +Dr. Hampden took his revenge, and it was not a noble one. The fellows of +certain colleges were obliged to proceed to the B.D. degree on pain of +forfeiting their fellowships. The exercises for the degree, which, by +the Statutes, took the old-fashioned shape of formal Latin disputations +between Opponents and Respondents on given theses in the Divinity +School, had by an arrangement introduced by Dr. Burton, with no +authority from the Statutes, come to consist of two English essays on +subjects chosen by the candidate and approved by the Divinity Professor. +The exercises for the degree had long ceased to be looked upon as very +serious matters, and certainly were never regarded as tests of the +soundness of the candidate's faith. They were usually on well-worn +commonplaces, of which the Regius Professor kept a stock, and about +which no one troubled himself but the person who wanted the degree. It +was not a creditable system, but it was of a piece with the prevalent +absence of any serious examination for the superior degrees. It would +have been quite befitting his position, if Dr. Hampden had called the +attention of the authorities to the evil of sham exercises for degrees +in his own important Faculty. It would have been quite right to make a +vigorous effort on public grounds to turn these sham trials into +realities; to use them, like the examination for the B.A. degree, as +tests of knowledge and competent ability. Such a move on his part would +have been in harmony with the legislation which had recently added two +theological Professors to the Faculty, and had sketched out, however +imperfectly, the outlines of a revived theological school. + +This is what, with good reason, Dr. Hampden might have attempted on +general grounds, and had he been successful (though this in the +suspicious state of University feeling was not very likely) he would +have gained in a regular and lawful way that power of embarrassing his +opponents which he was resolved to use in defiance of all existing +custom. But such was not the course which he chose. Mr. Macmullen of +Corpus, who, in pursuance of the College Statutes, had to proceed to the +B.D. degree, applied, as the custom was, for theses to the Professor. +Mr. Macmullen was known to hold the opinions of the movement school; of +course he was called a Tractarian; he had put his name to some of the +many papers which expressed the sentiments of his friends on current +events. Dr. Hampden sent him two propositions, which the candidate was +to support, framed so as to commit him to assertions which Mr. +Macmullen, whose high Anglican opinions were well known, could not +consistently make. It was a novel and unexampled act on the part of the +Professor, to turn what had been a mere formal exercise into a sharp and +sweeping test of doctrine, which would place all future Divinity degrees +in the University at his mercy; and the case was made more serious, when +the very form of exercise which the Professor used as an instrument of +such formidable power was itself without question unstatutable and +illegal, and had been simply connived at by the authorities. To +introduce by his own authority a new feature into a system which he had +no business to use at all, and to do this for the first time with the +manifest purpose of annoying an obnoxious individual, was, on Dr. +Hampden's part, to do more to discredit his chair and himself, than the +censure of the University could do; and it was as unwise as it was +unworthy. The strength of his own case before the public was that he +could be made to appear as the victim of a personal and partisan attack; +yet on the first opportunity he acts in the spirit of an inquisitor, and +that not in fair conflict with some one worthy of his hostility, but to +wreak an injury, in a matter of private interest, on an individual, in +no way known to him or opposed to him, except as holding certain +unpopular opinions. + +Mr. Macmullen was not the person to take such treatment quietly. The +right was substantially on his side, and the Professor, and the +University authorities who more or less played into the hands of the +Professor in defence of his illegal and ultimately untenable claims, +appeared before the University, the one as a persecutor, the others as +rulers who were afraid to do justice on behalf of an ill-used man +because he was a Tractarian. The right course was perfectly clear. It +was to put an end to these unauthorised exercises, and to recall both +candidates and Professor to the statutable system which imposed +disputations conducted under the moderatorship of the Professor, but +which gave him no veto, at the time, on the theological sufficiency of +the disputations, leaving him to state his objections, if he was not +satisfied, when the candidate's degree was asked for in the House of +Congregation. This course, after some hesitation, was followed, but only +partially; and without allowing or disallowing the Professor's claim to +a veto, the Vice-Chancellor on his own responsibility stopped the +degree. A vexatious dispute lingered on for two or three years, with +actions in the Vice-Chancellor's Court, and distinguished lawyers to +plead for each side, and appeals to the University Court of Delegates, +who reversed the decision of the Vice-Chancellor's assessor. Somehow or +other, Mr. Macmullen at last got his degree, but at the cost of a great +deal of ill-blood in Oxford, for which Dr. Hampden, by his unwarranted +interference, and the University authorities, by their questionable +devices to save the credit and claims of one of their own body, must be +held mainly responsible. + +Before the matter was ended, they were made to feel, in rather a +startling way, how greatly they had lost the confidence of the +University. One of the attempts to find a way out of the tangle of the +dispute was the introduction, in February 1844, of a Statute which +should give to the Professor the power which was now contested, and +practically place all the Divinity degrees under the control of a Board +in conjunction with the Vice-Chancellor.[104] The proposed legislation +raised such indignation in the University, that the Hebdomadal Board +took back their scheme for further revision, and introduced it again in +a modified shape, which still however gave new powers to the Professor +and the Vice-Chancellor. But the University would have none of it. No +one could say that the defeat of the altered Statute by 341 to 21 was +the work merely of a party.[105] It was the most decisive vote given in +the course of these conflicts. And it was observed that on the same day +Mr. Macmullen's degree was vetoed by the Vice-Chancellor at the instance +of Dr. Hampden at 10 o'clock in Congregation, and the Hebdomadal Board, +which had supported him, received the vote of want of confidence at noon +in Convocation. + +Nothing could show more decisively that the authorities in the +Hebdomadal Board were out of touch with the feeling of the University, +or, at all events, of that part of it which was resident. The residents +were not, as a body, identified with the Tractarians; it would be more +true to say that the residents, as a body, looked on this marked school +with misgiving and apprehension; but they saw what manner of men these +Tractarians were; they lived with them in college and common-room; their +behaviour was before their brethren as a whole, with its strength and +its weakness, its moral elevation and its hazardous excitement, its +sincerity of purpose and its one-sidedness of judgment and sympathy, its +unfairness to what was English, its over-value for what was foreign. +Types of those who looked at things more or less independently were Mr. +Hussey of Christ Church, Mr. C.P. Eden of Oriel, Mr. Sewell of Exeter, +Mr. Francis Faber of Magdalen, Dr. Greenhill of Trinity, Mr. Wall of +Balliol, Mr. Hobhouse of Merton, with some of the more consistent +Liberals, like Mr. Stanley of University, and latterly Mr. Tait. Men of +this kind, men of high character and weight in Oxford, found much to +dislike and regret in the Tractarians. But they could also see that the +leaders of the Hebdomadal Board laboured under a fatal incapacity to +recognise what these unpopular Tractarians were doing for the cause of +true and deep religion; they could see that the judgment of the Heads of +Houses, living as they did apart, in a kind of superior state, was +narrow, ill-informed, and harsh, and that the warfare which they waged +was petty, irritating, and profitless; while they also saw with great +clearness that under cover of suppressing "Puseyism," the policy of the +Board was, in fact, tending to increase and strengthen the power of an +irresponsible and incompetent oligarchy, not only over a troublesome +party, but over the whole body of residents. To the great honour of +Oxford it must be said, that throughout these trying times, on to the +very end, there was in the body of Masters a spirit of fairness, a +recognition of the force both of argument and character, a dislike of +high-handedness and shabbiness, which was in strong and painful contrast +to the short-sighted violence in which the Hebdomadal Board was +unhappily induced to put their trust, and which proved at last the main +cause of the overthrow of their power. When changes began to threaten +Oxford, there was no one to say a word for them. + +But, for the moment, in spite of this defeat in Convocation, they had no +misgivings as to the wisdom of their course or the force of their +authority. There was, no doubt, much urging from outside, both on +political and theological grounds, to make them use their power to stay +the plague of Tractarianism; and they were led by three able and +resolute men, unfortunately unable to understand the moral or the +intellectual character of the movement, and having the highest dislike +and disdain for it in both aspects--Dr. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, the +last remaining disciple of Whately's school, a man of rigid +conscientiousness, and very genuine though undemonstrative piety, of +great kindliness in private life, of keen and alert intellect, but not +of breadth and knowledge proportionate to his intellectual power; Dr. +Symons, Warden of Wadham, a courageous witness for Evangelical divinity +in the days when Evangelicals were not in fashion in Oxford, a man of +ponderous and pedantic learning and considerable practical acuteness; +and Dr. Cardwell, Principal of St. Alban's Hall, more a man of the world +than his colleagues, with considerable knowledge of portions of English +Church history. Under the inspiration of these chiefs, the authorities +had adopted, as far as they could, the policy of combat; and the +Vice-Chancellor of the time, Dr. Wynter of St. John's, a kind-hearted +man, but quite unfit to moderate among the strong wills and fierce +tempers round him, was induced to single out for the severest blow yet +struck, the most distinguished person in the ranks of the movement, Dr. +Pusey himself. + +Dr. Pusey was a person with whom it was not wise to meddle, unless his +assailants could make out a case without a flaw. He was without question +the most venerated person in Oxford. Without an equal, in Oxford at +least, in the depth and range of his learning, he stood out yet more +impressively among his fellows in the lofty moral elevation and +simplicity of his life, the blamelessness of his youth, and the profound +devotion of his manhood, to which the family sorrows of his later years, +and the habits which grew out of them, added a kind of pathetic and +solemn interest. Stern and severe in his teaching at one time,--at least +as he was understood,--beyond even the severity of Puritanism, he was +yet overflowing with affection, tender and sympathetic to all who came +near him, and, in the midst of continual controversy, he endeavoured, +with deep conscientiousness, to avoid the bitternesses of controversy. +He was the last man to attack; much more the last man to be unfair to. +The men who ruled in Oxford contrived, in attacking him, to make almost +every mistake which it was possible to make. + +On the 24th of May 1843 Dr. Pusey, intending to balance and complement +the severer, and, to many, the disquieting aspects of doctrine in his +work on Baptism, preached on the Holy Eucharist as a comfort to the +penitent. He spoke of it as a disciple of Andrewes and Bramhall would +speak of it; it was a high Anglican sermon, full, after the example of +the Homilies, Jeremy Taylor, and devotional writers like George Herbert +and Bishop Ken, of the fervid language of the Fathers; and that was all. +Beyond this it did not go; its phraseology was strictly within Anglican +limits. In the course of the week that followed, the University was +surprised by the announcement that Dr. Faussett, the Margaret Professor +of Divinity, had "_delated_" the sermon to the Vice-Chancellor as +teaching heresy; and even more surprised at the news that the +Vice-Chancellor had commenced proceedings. The Statutes provided that +when a sermon was complained of, or _delated_ to the Vice-Chancellor, +the Vice-Chancellor should demand a copy of the sermon, and summoning to +him as his assessors Six Doctors of Divinity, should examine the +language complained of, and, if necessary, condemn and punish the +preacher. The Statute is thus drawn up in general terms, and prescribes +nothing as to the mode in which the examination into the alleged offence +is to be carried on; that is, it leaves it to the Vice-Chancellor's +discretion. What happened was this. The sermon was asked for, but the +name of the accuser was not given; the Statute did not enjoin it. The +sermon was sent, with a request from Dr. Pusey that he might have a +hearing. The Six Doctors were appointed, five of them being Dr. Hawkins, +Dr. Symons, Dr. Jenkyns, Dr. Ogilvie, Dr. Jelf; the Statute said the +Regius Professor was, if possible, to be one of the number; as he was +under the ban of a special Statute, he was spared the task, and his +place was taken by the next Divinity Professor, Dr. Faussett, the person +who had preferred the charge, and who was thus, from having been +accuser, promoted to be a judge. To Dr. Pusey's request for a hearing, +no answer was returned; the Statute, no doubt, said nothing of a +hearing. But after the deliberations of the judges were concluded, and +after the decision to condemn the sermon had been reached, one of them, +Dr. Pusey's old friend, Dr. Jelf, was privately charged with certain +communications from the Vice-Chancellor, on which the seal of absolute +secrecy was imposed, and which, in fact, we believe, have never been +divulged from that _day_ to this. Whatever passed between the +Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Jelf, and Dr. Pusey, it had no effect in arresting +the sentence; and it came out, in informal ways, and through Dr. Pusey +himself, that on the 2d of June Dr. Pusey had been accused and condemned +for having taught doctrine contrary to that of the Church of England, +and that by the authority of the Vice-Chancellor he was suspended from +preaching within the University for two years. But no formal +notification of the transaction was ever made to the University. + +The summary suppression of erroneous and dangerous teaching had long +been a recognised part of the University discipline; and with the ideas +then accepted of the religious character of the University, it was +natural that some such power as that given in the Statutes should be +provided. The power, even after all the changes in Oxford, exists still, +and has been recently appealed to. Dr. Pusey, as a member of the +University, had no more right than any other preacher to complain of his +doctrine being thus solemnly called in question. But it is strange that +it should not have occurred to the authorities that, under the +conditions of modern times, and against a man like Dr. Pusey, such power +should be warily used. For it was not only arbitrary power, such as was +exerted in the condemnation of No. 90, but it was arbitrary power acting +under the semblance of a judicial inquiry, with accusers, examination, +trial, judges, and a heavy penalty. The act of a court of justice which +sets at defiance the rules of justice is a very different thing from a +straightforward act of arbitrary power, because it pretends to be what +it is not. The information against Dr. Pusey, if accepted, involved a +trial--that was the fixed condition and point of departure from which +there was no escaping--and if a trial be held, then, if it be not a fair +trial, the proceeding becomes, according to English notions, a flagrant +and cowardly wrong. All this, all the intrinsic injustice, all the +scandal and discredit in the eyes of honest men, was forgotten in the +obstinate and blind confidence in the letter of a vague Statute. The +accused was not allowed to defend or explain himself; he was refused the +knowledge of the definite charges against him; he was refused, in spite +of his earnest entreaties, a hearing, even an appearance in the presence +of his judges. The Statute, it was said, enjoined none of these things. +The name of his accuser was not told him; he was left to learn it by +report To the end of the business all was wrought in secrecy; no one +knows to this day how the examination of the sermon was conducted, or +what were the opinions of the judges. The Statute, it was said, neither +enjoined nor implied publicity. To this day no one knows what were the +definite passages, what was the express or necessarily involved heresy +or contradiction of the formularies, on which the condemnation was +based; nor--except on the supposition of gross ignorance of English +divinity on the part of the judges--is it easy for a reader to put his +finger on the probably incriminated passages. To make the proceedings +still more unlike ordinary public justice, informal and private +communications were carried on between the judge and the accused, in +which the accused was bound to absolute silence, and forbidden to +consult his nearest friends. + +And of the judges what can be said but that they were, with one +exception, the foremost and sternest opponents of all that was +identified with Dr. Pusey's name; and that one of them was the colleague +who had volunteered to accuse him? Dr. Faussett's share in the matter is +intelligible; hating the movement in all its parts, he struck with the +vehemence of a mediaeval zealot. But that men like Dr. Hawkins and Dr. +Ogilvie, one of them reputed to be a theologian, the other one of the +shrewdest and most cautious of men, and in ordinary matters one of the +most conscientious and fairest, should not have seen what justice, or at +least the show of justice, demanded, and what the refusal of that demand +would look like, and that they should have persuaded the Vice-Chancellor +to accept the entire responsibility of haughtily refusing it, is, even +to those who remember the excitement of those days, a subject of wonder. +The plea was actually put forth that such opportunities of defence of +his language and teaching as Dr. Pusey asked for would have led to the +"inconvenience" of an interminable debate, and confronting of texts and +authorities.[106] The fact, with Dr. Pusey as the accused person, is +likely enough; but in a criminal charge with a heavy penalty, it would +have been better for the reputation of the judges to have submitted to +the inconvenience. + +It was a great injustice and a great blunder--a blunder, because the +gratuitous defiance of accepted rules of fairness neutralised whatever +there might seem to be of boldness and strength in the blow. They were +afraid to meet Dr. Pusey face to face. They were afraid to publish the +reasons of their condemnation. The effect on the University, both on +resident and non-resident members, was not to be misunderstood. The +Protestantism of the Vice-Chancellor and the Six Doctors was, of course, +extolled by partisans in the press with reckless ignorance and reckless +contempt at once for common justice and their own consistency. One +person of some distinction at Oxford ventured to make himself the +mouthpiece of those who were bold enough to defend the proceeding--the +recently-elected Professor of Poetry, Mr. Garbett. But deep offence was +given among the wiser and more reasonable men who had a regard for the +character of the University. A request to know the grounds of the +sentence from men who were certainly of no party was curtly refused by +the Vice-Chancellor, with a suggestion that it did not concern them. A +more important memorial was sent from London, showing how persons at a +distance were shocked by the unaccountable indifference to the +appearance of justice in the proceeding. It was signed among others by +Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Justice Coleridge. The Vice-Chancellor lost his +temper. He sent back the memorial to London "by the hands of his bedel," +as if that in some way stamped his official disapprobation more than if +it had been returned through the post. And he proceeded, in language +wonderful even for that moment, as "Resident Governor" of the +University, to reprimand statesmen and lawyers of eminence and high +character, not merely for presuming to interfere with his own duties, +but for forgetting the oaths on the strength of which they had received +their degrees, and for coming very near to that high, almost highest, +academical crime, the crime of being _perturbatores pacis_--breaking the +peace of the University. + +Such foolishness, affecting dignity, only made more to talk of. If the +men who ruled the University had wished to disgust and alienate the +Masters of Arts, and especially the younger ones who were coming forward +into power and influence, they could not have done better. The chronic +jealousy and distrust of the time were deepened. And all this was +aggravated by what went on in private. A system of espionage, +whisperings, backbitings, and miserable tittle-tattle, sometimes of the +most slanderous or the most ridiculous kind, was set going all over +Oxford. Never in Oxford, before or since, were busybodies more truculent +or more unscrupulous. Difficulties arose between Heads of Colleges and +their tutors. Candidates for fellowships were closely examined as to +their opinions and their associates. Men applying for testimonials were +cross-questioned on No. 90, as to the infallibility of general councils, +purgatory, the worship of images, the _Ora pro nobis_ and the +intercession of the saints: the real critical questions upon which men's +minds were working being absolutely uncomprehended and ignored. It was a +miserable state of misunderstanding and distrust, and none of the +University leaders had the temper and the manliness to endeavour with +justice and knowledge to get to the bottom of it. It was enough to +suppose that a Popish Conspiracy was being carried on. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[101] Pp. 243, 253. + +[102] Garbett, 921. Williams, 623. + +[103] The numbers were 334 to 219. + +[104] _Christian Remembrancer_, vol. ix. p. 175. + +[105] Ibid. pp. 177-179. + +[106] Cf. _British Critic_, No. xlvii. pp. 221-223. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +W.G. WARD + + +If only the Oxford authorities could have had patience--if only they +could have known more largely and more truly the deep changes that were +at work everywhere, and how things were beginning to look in the eyes of +the generation that was coming, perhaps many things might have been +different. Yes, it was true that there was a strong current setting +towards Rome. It was acting on some of the most vigorous of the younger +men. It was acting powerfully on the foremost mind in Oxford. Whither, +if not arrested, it was carrying them was clear, but as yet it was by no +means clear at what rate; and time, and thought, and being left alone +and dealt with justly, have a great effect on men's minds. Extravagance, +disproportion, mischievous, dangerous exaggeration, in much that was +said and taught--all this might have settled down, as so many things are +in the habit of settling down, into reasonable and practical shapes, +after a first burst of crudeness and strain--as, in fact, it _did_ +settle down at last. For Anglicanism itself was not Roman; friends and +foes said it was not, to reproach as well as to defend it. It was not +Roman in Dr. Pusey, though he was not afraid to acknowledge what was +good in Rome. It was not Roman in Mr. Keble and his friends, in Dr. +Moberly of Winchester, and the Barters. It was not Roman in Mr. Isaac +Williams, Mr. Copeland, and Mr. Woodgate, each of them a centre of +influence in Oxford and the country. It was not Roman in the devoted +Charles Marriott, or in Isaac Williams's able and learned pupil, Mr. +Arthur Haddan. It was not Roman in Mr. James Mozley, after Mr. Newman, +the most forcible and impressive of the Oxford writers. A distinctively +English party grew up, both in Oxford and away from it, strong in +eminent names, in proportion as Roman sympathies showed themselves. +These men were, in any fair judgment, as free from Romanising as any of +their accusers; but they made their appeal for patience and fair +judgment in vain. If only the rulers could have had patience:--but +patience is a difficult virtue in the presence of what seem pressing +dangers. Their policy was wrong, stupid, unjust, pernicious. It was a +deplorable mistake, and all will wish now that the discredit of it did +not rest on the history of Oxford. And yet it was the mistake of upright +and conscientious men. + +Doubtless there was danger; the danger was that a number of men would +certainly not acquiesce much longer in Anglicanism, while the Heads +continued absolutely blind to what was really in these men's thoughts. +For the Heads could not conceive the attraction which the Roman Church +had for a religious man; they talked in the old-fashioned way about the +absurdity of the Roman system. They could not understand how reasonable +men could turn Roman Catholics. They accounted for it by supposing a +silly hankering after the pomp or the frippery of Roman Catholic +worship, and at best a craving after the romantic and sentimental. Their +thoughts dwelt continually on image worship and the adoration of saints. +But what really was astir was something much deeper--something much more +akin to the new and strong forces which were beginning to act in very +different directions from this in English society--forces which were not +only leading minds to Rome, but making men Utilitarians, Rationalists, +Positivists, and, though the word had not yet been coined, Agnostics. +The men who doubted about the English Church saw in Rome a strong, +logical, consistent theory of religion, not of yesterday nor to-day--not +only comprehensive and profound, but actually in full work, and fruitful +in great results; and this, in contrast to the alleged and undeniable +anomalies and shortcomings of Protestantism and Anglicanism. And next, +there was the immense amount which they saw in Rome of self-denial and +self-devotion; the surrender of home and family in the clergy; the great +organised ministry of women in works of mercy; the resolute abandonment +of the world and its attractions in the religious life. If in England +there flourished the homely and modest types of goodness, it was in Rome +that, at that day at least, men must look for the heroic. They were not +indisposed to the idea that a true Church which had lost all this might +yet regain it, and they were willing to wait and see what the English +Church would do to recover what it had lost; but there was obviously a +long way to make up, and they came to think that there was no chance of +its overtaking its true position. Of course they knew all that was so +loudly urged about the abuses and mischiefs growing out of the professed +severity of Rome. They knew that in spite of it foreign society was lax; +that the discipline of the confessional was often exercised with a light +rein. But if the good side of it was real, they easily accounted for the +bad: the bad did not destroy, it was a tacit witness to the good. And +they knew the Latin Church mainly from France, where it was more in +earnest, and exhibited more moral life and intellectual activity, than, +as far as Englishmen knew, in Italy or Spain. There was a strong rebound +from insular ignorance and unfairness, when English travellers came on +the poorly-paid but often intelligent and hard-working French clergy; on +the great works of mercy in the towns; on the originality and eloquence +of De Maistre, La Mennais, Lacordaire, Montalembert. + +These ideas took possession of a remarkable mind, the index and organ of +a remarkable character. Mr. W.G. Ward had learned the interest of +earnest religion from Dr. Arnold, in part through his close friend +Arthur Stanley. But if there was ever any tendency in him to combine +with the peculiar elements of the Rugby School, it was interrupted in +its _nascent_ state, as chemists speak, by the intervention of a still +more potent affinity, the personality of Mr. Newman. Mr. Ward had +developed in the Oxford Union, and in a wide social circle of the most +rising men of the time--including Tait, Cardwell, Lowe, Roundell +Palmer--a very unusual dialectical skill and power of argumentative +statement: qualities which seemed to point to the House of Commons. But +Mr. Newman's ideas gave him material, not only for argument but for +thought. The lectures and sermons at St. Mary's subdued and led him +captive. The impression produced on him was expressed in the formula +that primitive Christianity might have been corrupted into Popery, but +that Protestantism never could.[107] For a moment he hung in the wind. +He might have been one of the earliest of Broad Churchmen. He might have +been a Utilitarian and Necessitarian follower of Mr. J.S. Mill. But +moral influences of a higher kind prevailed. And he became, in the most +thoroughgoing yet independent fashion, a disciple of Mr. Newman. He +brought to his new side a fresh power of controversial writing; but his +chief influence was a social one, from his bright and attractive +conversation, his bold and startling candour, his frank, not to say +reckless, fearlessness of consequences, his unrivalled skill in logical +fence, his unfailing good-humour and love of fun, in which his personal +clumsiness set off the vivacity and nimbleness of his joyous moods. "He +was," says Mr. Mozley, "a great musical critic, knew all the operas, and +was an admirable buffo singer."--No one could doubt that, having +started, Mr. Ward would go far and probably go fast. + +Mr. Ward was well known in Oxford, and his language might have warned +the Heads that if there was a drift towards Rome, it came from something +much more serious than a hankering after a sentimental ritual or +mediaeval legends. In Mr. Ward's writings in the _British Critic_, as in +his conversation--and he wrote much and at great length--three ideas +were manifestly at the bottom of his attraction to Rome. One was that +Rome did, and, he believed, nothing else did, keep up the continuous +recognition of the supernatural element in religion, that consciousness +of an ever-present power not of this world which is so prominent a +feature in the New Testament, and which is spoken of there as a +permanent and characteristic element in the Gospel dispensation. The +Roman view of the nature and offices of the Church, of man's relations +to the unseen world, of devotion, of the Eucharist and of the Sacraments +in general, assumed and put forward this supernatural aspect; other +systems ignored it or made it mean nothing, unless in secret to the +individual and converted soul. In the next place he revolted--no weaker +word can be used--from the popular exhibition in England, more or less +Lutheran and Calvinistic, of the doctrine of justification. The +ostentatious separation of justification from morality, with all its +theological refinements and fictions, seemed to him profoundly +unscriptural, profoundly unreal and hollow, or else profoundly immoral. +In conscience and moral honesty and strict obedience he saw the only +safe and trustworthy guidance in regard to the choice and formation of +religious opinions; it was a principle on which all his philosophy was +built, that "careful and individual moral discipline is the only +possible basis on which Christian faith and practice can be reared." In +the third place he was greatly affected, not merely by the paramount +place of sanctity in the Roman theology and the professed Roman system, +but by the standard of saintliness which he found there, involving +complete and heroic self-sacrifice for great religious ends, complete +abandonment of the world, painful and continuous self-discipline, +purified and exalted religious affections, beside which English piety +and goodness at its best, in such examples as George Herbert and Ken and +Bishop Wilson, seemed unambitious and pale and tame, of a different +order from the Roman, and less closely resembling what we read of in the +first ages and in the New Testament. Whether such views were right or +wrong, exaggerated or unbalanced, accurate or superficial, they were +matters fit to interest grave men; but there is no reason to think that +they made the slightest impression on the authorities of the University. + +On the other hand, Mr. Ward, with the greatest good-humour, was +unreservedly defiant and aggressive. There was something intolerably +provoking in his mixture of jauntiness and seriousness, his avowal of +utter personal unworthiness and his undoubting certainty of being in the +right, his downright charges of heresy and his ungrudging readiness to +make allowance for the heretics and give them credit for special virtues +greater than those of the orthodox. He was not a person to hide his own +views or to let others hide theirs. He lived in an atmosphere of +discussion with all around him, friends or opponents, fellows and tutors +in common-rooms, undergraduates after lecture or out walking. The most +amusing, the most tolerant man in Oxford, he had round him perpetually +some of the cleverest and brightest scholars and thinkers of the place; +and where he was, there was debate, cross-questioning, pushing +inferences, starting alarming problems, beating out ideas, trying the +stuff and mettle of mental capacity. Not always with real knowledge, or +a real sense of fact, but always rapid and impetuous, taking in the +whole dialectical chess-board at a glance, he gave no quarter, and a man +found himself in a perilous corner before he perceived the drift of the +game; but it was to clear his own thought, not--for he was much too +good-natured--to embarrass another. If the old scholastic disputations +had been still in use at Oxford, his triumphs would have been signal and +memorable. His success, compared with that of other leaders of the +movement, in influencing life and judgment, was a pre-eminently +intellectual success; and it cut two ways. The stress which he laid on +the moral side of questions, his own generosity, his earnestness on +behalf of fair play and good faith, elevated and purified intercourse. +But he did not always win assent in proportion to his power of argument. +Abstract reasoning, in matters with which human action is concerned, may +be too absolute to be convincing. It may not leave sufficient margin for +the play and interference of actual experience. And Mr. Ward, having +perfect confidence in his conclusions, rather liked to leave them in a +startling form, which he innocently declared to be manifest and +inevitable. And so stories of Ward's audacity and paradoxes flew all +over Oxford, shocking and perplexing grave heads with fear of they knew +not what. Dr. Jenkyns, the Master of Balliol, one of those curious +mixtures of pompous absurdity with genuine shrewdness which used to pass +across the University stage, not clever himself but an unfailing judge +of a clever man, as a jockey might be of a horse, liking Ward and proud +of him for his cleverness, was aghast at his monstrous and +unintelligible language, and driven half wild with it. Mr. Tait, a +fellow-tutor, though living on terms of hearty friendship with Ward, +prevailed on the Master after No. 90 to dismiss Ward from the office of +teaching mathematics. It seemed a petty step thus to mix up theology +with mathematics, though it was not so absurd as it looked, for Ward +brought in theology everywhere, and discussed it when his mathematics +were done. But Ward accepted it frankly and defended it. It was natural, +he said, that Tait, thinking his principles mischievous, should wish to +silence him as a teacher; and their friendship remained unbroken. + +Mr. Ward's theological position was really a provisional one, though, at +starting at least, he would not have allowed it. He had no early or +traditional attachment to the English Church, such as that which acted +so strongly on the leaders of the movement: but he found himself a +member of it, and Mr. Newman had interpreted it to him. He so accepted +it, quite loyally and in earnest, as a point of departure. But he +proceeded at once to put "our Church" (as he called it) on its trial, in +comparison with its own professions, and with the ideal standard of a +Church which he had thought out for himself; and this rapidly led to +grave consequences. He accepted from authority which satisfied him both +intellectually and morally the main scheme of Catholic theology, as the +deepest and truest philosophy of religion, satisfying at once conscience +and intellect. The Catholic theology gave him, among other things, the +idea and the notes of the Church; with these, in part at least, the +English Church agreed; but in other respects, and these very serious +ones, it differed widely; it seemed inconsistent and anomalous. The +English Church was separate and isolated from Christendom. It was +supposed to differ widely from other Churches in doctrine. It admitted +variety of opinion and teaching, even to the point of tolerating alleged +heresy. With such data as these, he entered on an investigation which +ultimately came to the question whether the English Church could claim +to be a part of the Church Catholic. He postulated from the first, what +he afterwards developed in the book in which his Anglican position +culminated,--the famous _Ideal_,--the existence at some time or another +of a Catholic Church which not only aimed at, but fulfilled all the +conditions of a perfect Church in creed, communion, discipline, and +life. Of course the English and, as at starting he held, the Roman +Church, fell far short of this perfection. But at starting, the moral +which he drew was, not to leave the English Church, but to do his best +to raise it up to what it ought to be. Whether he took in all the +conditions of the problem, whether it was not far more complicated and +difficult than he supposed, whether his knowledge of the facts of the +case was accurate and adequate, whether he was always fair in his +comparisons and judgments, and whether he did not overlook elements of +the gravest importance in the inquiry; whether, in fact, save for +certain strong and broad lines common to the whole historic Church, the +reign of anomaly, inconsistency, difficulty did not extend much farther +over the whole field of debate than he chose to admit: all this is +fairly open to question. But within the limits which he laid down, and +within which he confined his reasonings, he used his materials with +skill and force; and even those who least agreed with him and were most +sensible of the strong and hardly disguised bias which so greatly +affected the value of his judgments, could not deny the frankness and +the desire to be fair and candid, with which, as far as intention went, +he conducted his argument. His first appearance as a writer was in the +controversy, as has been said before, on the subject of No. 90. That +tract had made the well-worn distinction between what was Catholic and +what was distinctively Roman, and had urged--what had been urged over +and over again by English divines--that the Articles, in their +condemnation of what was Roman, were drawn in such a way as to leave +untouched what was unquestionably Catholic. They were drawn indeed by +Protestants, but by men who also earnestly professed to hold with the +old Catholic doctors and disavowed any purpose to depart from their +teaching, and who further had to meet the views and gain the assent of +men who were much less Protestant than themselves--men who were willing +to break with the Pope and condemn the abuses associated with his name, +but by no means willing to break with the old theology. The Articles +were the natural result of a compromise between two strong parties--the +Catholics agreeing that the abuses should be condemned, so that the +Catholic doctrine was not touched; the Protestants insisting that, so +that the Catholic doctrine was not touched, the abuses of it should be +denounced with great severity: that there should be no question about +the condemnation of the abuses, and of the system which had maintained +them. The Articles were undoubtedly anti-Roman; that was obvious from +the historical position of the English Church, which in a very real +sense was anti-Roman; but were they so anti-Roman as to exclude +doctrines which English divines had over and over again maintained as +Catholic and distinguished from Romanism, but which the popular opinion, +at this time or that, identified therewith?[108] With flagrant +ignorance--ignorance of the history of thought and teaching in the +English Church, ignorance far more inexcusable of the state of parties +and their several notorious difficulties in relation to the various +formularies of the Church, it was maintained on the other side that the +"Articles construed by themselves" left no doubt that they were not only +anti-Roman but anti-Catholic, and that nothing but the grossest +dishonesty and immorality could allow any doubt on the subject. + +Neither estimate was logical enough to satisfy Mr. Ward. The charge of +insincerity, he retorted with great effect on those who made it: if +words meant anything, the Ordination Service, the Visitation Service, +and the Baptismal Service were far greater difficulties to Evangelicals, +and to Latitudinarians like Whately and Hampden, than the words of any +Article could be to Catholics; and there was besides the tone of the +whole Prayer Book, intelligible, congenial, on Catholic assumptions, and +on no other. But as to the Articles themselves, he was indisposed to +accept the defence made for them. He criticised indeed with acuteness +and severity the attempt to make the loose language of many of them +intolerant of primitive doctrine; but he frankly accepted the allegation +that apart from this or that explanation, their general look, as regards +later controversies, was visibly against, not only Roman doctrines or +Roman abuses, but that whole system of principles and mode of viewing +religion which he called Catholic. They were, he said, _patient_ of a +Catholic meaning, but _ambitious_ of a Protestant meaning; whatever +their logic was, their rhetoric was Protestant. It was just possible, +but not more, for a Catholic to subscribe to them. But they were the +creation and the legacy of a bad age, and though they had not +extinguished Catholic teaching and Catholic belief in the English +Church, they had been a serious hindrance to it, and a support to its +opponents. + +This was going beyond the position of No. 90. No. 90 had made light of +the difficulties of the Articles. + +That there are real difficulties to a Catholic Christian in the +ecclesiastical position of our Church at this day, no one can deny; but +the statements of the Articles are not in the number. Our present scope +is merely to show that, while our Prayer Book is acknowledged on all +hands to be of Catholic origin, our Articles also--the offspring of an +uncatholic age--are, through God's good providence, to say the least, +not uncatholic, and may be subscribed by those who aim at being Catholic +in heart and doctrine. + + +Mr. Ward not only went beyond this position, but in the teeth of these +statements; and he gave a new aspect and new issues to the whole +controversy. The Articles, to him, were a difficulty, which they were +not to the writer of No. 90, or to Dr. Pusey, or to Mr. Keble. To him +they were not only the "offspring of an uncatholic age," but in +themselves uncatholic; and his answer to the charge of dishonest +subscription was, not that the Articles "in their natural meaning are +Catholic,"[109] but that the system of the English Church is a +compromise between what is Catholic and what is Protestant, and that +the Protestant parties in it are involved in even greater difficulties, +in relation to subscription and use of its formularies, than the +Catholic. He admitted that he _did_ evade the spirit, but accepted the +"statements of the Articles," maintaining that this was the intention of +their original sanctioners. With characteristic boldness, inventing a +phrase which has become famous, he wrote: "Our twelfth Article is as +plain as words can make it on the Evangelical side; of course I think +its natural meaning may be explained away, for I subscribe it myself in +a non-natural sense":[110] but he showed that Evangelicals, high church +Anglicans, and Latitudinarians were equally obliged to have recourse to +explanations, which to all but themselves were unsatisfactory. + +But he went a step beyond this. Hitherto the distinction had been +uniformly insisted upon between what was Catholic and what was Roman; +between what was witnessed to by the primitive and the undivided Church, +and what had been developed beyond that in the Schools, and by the +definitions and decisions of Rome, and in the enormous mass of its +post-Reformation theology, at once so comprehensive, and so minute in +application. This distinction was the foundation of what was, +characteristically, Anglican theology, from Hooker downwards. This +distinction, at least for all important purposes, Mr. Ward gradually +gave up. It was to a certain degree recognised in his early controversy +about No. 90; but it gradually grew fainter till at last it avowedly +disappeared. The Anglican writers had drawn their ideas and their +inspiration from the Fathers; the Fathers lived long ago, and the +teaching drawn from them, however spiritual and lofty, wanted the modern +look, and seemed to recognise insufficiently modern needs. The Roman +applications of the same principles were definite and practical, and Mr. +Ward's mind, essentially one of his own century, and little alive to +what touched more imaginative and sensitive minds, turned at once to +Roman sources for the interpretation of what was Catholic. In the +_British Critic_, and still more in the remarkable volume in which his +Oxford controversies culminated, the substitution of _Roman_ for the old +conception of _Catholic_ appears, and the absolute identification of +Roman with Catholic. Roman authorities become more and more the measure +and rule of what is Catholic. They belong to the present in a way in +which the older fountains of teaching do not; in the recognised teaching +of the Latin Church, they have taken their place and superseded them. + +It was characteristic of Mr. Ward that his chief quarrel with the +Articles was not about the Sacraments, not about their language on +alleged Roman errors, but about the doctrine of grace, the relation of +the soul of man to the law, the forgiveness, the holiness of God,--the +doctrine, that is, in all its bearings, of justification. Mr. Newman had +examined this doctrine and the various language held about it with great +care, very firmly but very temperately, and had attempted to reconcile +with each other all but the extreme Lutheran statements. It was, he +said, among really religious men, a question of words. He had recognised +the faulty state of things in the pre-Reformation Church, the faulty +ideas about forgiveness, merit, grace, and works, from which the +Protestant language was a reaction, natural, if often excessive; and in +the English authoritative form of this language, he had found nothing +but what was perfectly capable of a sound and true meaning. From the +first, Mr. Ward's judgment was far more severe than this. To him, the +whole structure of the Articles on Justification and the doctrines +connected with it seemed based on the Lutheran theory, and for this +theory, as fundamentally and hopelessly immoral, he could not find words +sufficiently expressive of detestation and loathing. For the basis of +his own theory of religious knowledge was a moral basis; men came to the +knowledge of religious truth primarily not by the intellect, but by +absolute and unfailing loyalty to conscience and moral light; and a +doctrine which separated faith from morality and holiness, which made +man's highest good and his acceptance with God independent of what he +was as a moral agent, which relegated the realities of moral discipline +and goodness to a secondary and subordinate place,--as a mere sequel to +follow, almost mechanically and of course, on an act or feeling which +had nothing moral in it,--which substituted a fictitious and imputed +righteousness for an inherent and infused and real one, seemed to him +to confound the eternal foundations of right and wrong, and to be a +blasphemy against all that was true and sacred in religion. + +Of the Lutheran doctrine[111] of justification, and the principle of +private judgment, I have argued that, in their abstract nature and +necessary tendency, they sink below atheism itself.... A religious +person who shall be sufficiently clear-headed to understand the meaning +of words, is warranted in rejecting Lutheranism on the very same grounds +which would induce him to reject atheism, viz. as being the +contradiction of truths which he feels on most certain grounds to be +first principles.[112] + +There is nothing which he looks back on with so much satisfaction in his +writings as on this, that he has "ventured to characterise that hateful +and fearful type of Antichrist in terms not wholly inadequate to its +prodigious demerits."[113] + +Mr. Ward had started with a very definite idea of the Church and of its +notes and tests. It was obvious that the Anglican Church--and so, it was +thought, the Roman--failed to satisfy these notes in their completeness; +but it seemed, at least at first, to satisfy some of them, and to do +this so remarkably, and in such strong contrast to other religious +bodies, that in England at all events it seemed the true representative +and branch of the Church Catholic; and the duty of adhering to it and +serving it was fully recognised, even by those who most felt its +apparent departure from the more Catholic principles and temper +preserved in many points by the Roman Church. From this point of view +Mr. Ward avowedly began. But the position gradually gave way before his +relentless and dissolving logic. The whole course of his writing in the +_British Critic_ may be said to have consisted in a prolonged and +disparaging comparison of the English Church, in theory, in doctrine, in +moral and devotional temper, in discipline of character, in education, +in its public and authoritative tone in regard to social, political, and +moral questions, and in the type and standard of its clergy, with those +of the Catholic Church, which to him was represented by the mediaeval +and later Roman Church. And in the general result, and in all important +matters, the comparison became more and more fatally disadvantageous to +the English Church. In the perplexing condition of Christendom, it had +just enough good and promise to justify those who had been brought up in +it remaining where they were, as long as they saw any prospect of +improving it, and till they were driven out. That was a +duty--uncomfortable and thankless as it was, and open to any amount of +misconstruction and misrepresentation--which they owed to their +brethren, and to the Lord of the Church. But it involved plain speaking +and its consequences; and Mr. Ward never shrank from either. + +Most people, looking back, would probably agree, whatever their general +judgment on these matters, and whatever they may think of Mr. Ward's +case, that he was, at the time at least, the most unpersuasive of +writers. Considering his great acuteness, and the frequent originality +of his remarks--considering, further, his moral earnestness, and the +place which the moral aspects of things occupy in his thoughts, this is +remarkable; but so it is. In the first place, in dealing with these +eventful questions, which came home with such awful force to thousands +of awakened minds and consciences, full of hope and full of fear, there +was an entire and ostentatious want of sympathy with all that was +characteristically English in matters of religion. This arose partly +from his deep dislike to habits, very marked in Englishmen, but not +peculiar to them, of self-satisfaction and national self-glorification; +but it drove him into a welcoming of opposite foreign ways, of which he +really knew little, except superficially. Next, his boundless confidence +in the accuracy of his logical processes led him to habits of extreme +and absolute statement, which to those who did not agree with him, and +also to some who did, bore on their face the character of +over-statement, exaggeration, extravagance, not redeemed by an +occasional and somewhat ostentatious candour, often at the expense of +his own side and in favour of opponents to whom he could afford to be +frank. And further, while to the English Church he was merciless in the +searching severity of his judgment, he seemed to be blind to the whole +condition of things to which she, as well as her rival, had for the last +three centuries been subjected, and in which she had played a part at +least as important for Christian faith as that sustained by any portion +of Christendom; blind to all her special and characteristic excellences, +where these did not fit the pattern of the continental types (obviously, +in countless instances, matters of national and local character and +habits); blind to the enormous difficulties in which the political game +of her Roman opponents had placed her; blind to the fact that, judged +with the same adverse bias and prepossessions, the same unsparing +rigour, the same refusal to give real weight to what was good, on the +ground that it was mixed with something lower, the Roman Church would +show just as much deflection from the ideal as the English. Indeed, he +would have done a great service--people would have been far more +disposed to attend to his really interesting, and, to English readers, +novel, proofs of the moral and devotional character of the Roman popular +discipline, if he had not been so unfair on the English: if he had not +ignored the plain fact that just such a picture as he gave of the +English Church, as failing in required notes, might be found of the +Roman before the Reformation, say in the writings of Gerson, and in our +own days in those of Rosmini. Mr. Ward, if any one, appealed to fair +judgment; and to this fair judgment he presented allegations on the face +of them violent and monstrous. The English Church, according to him, was +in the anomalous position of being "gifted with the power of dispensing +sacramental grace,"[114] and yet, at the same time, "_wholly destitute_ +of external notes, and _wholly indefensible_ as to her position, by +external, historical, ecclesiastical arguments": and he for his part +declares, correcting Mr. Newman, who speaks of "outward notes as partly +gone and partly going," that he is "_wholly unable_ to discern the +outward notes of which Mr. Newman speaks, during any part of the last +three hundred years." He might as well have said at once that she did +not exist, if the outward aspects of a Church--orders, creeds, +sacraments, and, in some degree at any rate, preaching and witnessing +for righteousness--are not some of the "outward notes" of a Church. +"Should the pure light of the Gospel be ever restored to _this benighted +land_,"[115] he writes, at the beginning, as the last extract was +written at the end, of his controversial career at Oxford. Is not such +writing as if he wished to emulate in a reverse sense the folly and +falsehood of those who spoke of English Protestants having a monopoly +of the Gospel? He was unpersuasive, he irritated and repelled, in spite +of his wish to be fair and candid, in spite of having so much to teach, +in spite of such vigour of statement and argument, because on the face +of all his writings he was so extravagantly one-sided, so incapable of +an equitable view, so much a slave to the unreality of extremes. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[107] Cf. T. Mozley, _Reminiscences_, vol. ii. p. 5. + +[108] In dealing with the Articles either as a test or as a text-book, +this question was manifestly both an honest and a reasonable one. As a +test, and therefore penal, they must be construed strictly; like +judicial decisions, they only ruled as much as was necessary, and in the +wide field of theology confined themselves to the points at issue at the +moment. And as a text-book for instruction, it was obvious that while on +some points they were precise and clear, on others they were vague and +imperfect. The first five Articles left no room for doubt. When the +compilers came to the controversies of their day, for all their strong +language, they left all kinds of questions unanswered. For instance, +they actually left unnoticed the primacy, and much more the +infallibility of the Pope. They condemned the "sacrifices of +Masses"--did they condemn the ancient and universal doctrine of a +Eucharistic sacrifice? They condemned the Romish doctrine of Purgatory, +with its popular tenet of material fire--did that exclude every doctrine +of purgation after death? They condemned Transubstantiation--did they +condemn the Real Presence? They condemned a great popular system--did +they condemn that of which it was a corruption and travesty? These +questions could not be foreclosed, unless on the assumption that there +was no doctrine on such points which could be called Catholic _except +the Roman_. The inquiry was not new; and divines so stoutly anti-Roman +as Dr. Hook and Mr. W. Palmer of Worcester had answered it substantially +in the same sense as Mr. Newman in No. 90. + +[109] W.G. Ward, _The Ideal of a Christian Church_, p. 478. + +[110] _The Ideal, etc._, p. 479. + +[111] It is curious, and characteristic of the unhistorical quality of +Mr. Ward's mind, that his whole hostility should have been concentrated +on Luther and Lutheranism--on Luther, the enthusiastic, declamatory, +unsystematic denouncer of practical abuses, with his strong attachments +to portions of orthodoxy, rather than on Calvin, with his cold love of +power, and the iron consistency and strength of his logical +anti-Catholic system, which has really lived and moulded Protestantism, +while Lutheranism as a religion has passed into countless different +forms. Luther was to Calvin as Carlyle to J.S. Mill or Herbert Spencer; +he defied system. But Luther had burst into outrageous paradoxes, which +fastened on Mr. Ward's imagination.--Yet outrageous language is not +always the most dangerous. Nobody would really find a provocation to +sin, or an excuse for it, in Luther's _Pecca fortiter_ any more than in +Escobar's ridiculous casuistry. There may be much more mischief in the +delicate unrealities of a fashionable preacher, or in many a smooth +sentimental treatise on the religious affections. + +[112] _The Ideal, etc._, pp. 587, 305. + +[113] Ibid. p. 305. + +[114] _Ideal,_ p 286. + +[115] _British Critic_ October 1841, p. 340. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH + + +No. 90, with the explanations of it given by Mr. Newman and the other +leaders of the movement, might have raised an important and not very +easy question, but one in no way different from the general character of +the matters in debate in the theological controversy of the time. But +No. 90, with the comments on it of Mr. Ward, was quite another matter, +and finally broke up the party of the movement. It was one thing to show +how much there is in common between England and Rome, and quite another +to argue that there is no difference. Mr. Ward's refusal to allow a +reasonable and a Catholic interpretation to the doctrine of the Articles +on Justification, though such an understanding of it had not only been +maintained by Bishop Bull and the later orthodox divines, but was +impressed on all the popular books of devotion, such as the _Whole Duty +of Man_ and Bishop Wilson's _Sacra Privata_; and along with this, the +extreme claim to hold compatible with the Articles the "whole cycle of +Roman doctrine," introduced entirely new conditions into the whole +question. _Non hoec in foedera_ was the natural reflection of numbers of +those who most sympathised with the Tractarian school. The English +Church might have many shortcomings and want many improvements; but +after all she had something to say for herself in her quarrel with Rome; +and the witness of experience for fifteen hundred years must be not +merely qualified and corrected, but absolutely wiped out, if the +allegation were to be accepted that Rome was blameless in all that +quarrel, and had no part in bringing about the confusions of +Christendom. And this contention was more and more enforced in Mr. +Ward's articles in the _British Critic_--enforced, more effectively than +by direct statement, by continual and passing assumption and +implication. They were papers of considerable power and acuteness, and +of great earnestness in their constant appeal to the moral criteria of +truth; though Mr. Ward was not then at his best as a writer, and they +were in composition heavy, diffuse, monotonous, and wearisome. But the +attitude of deep depreciation, steady, systematic, unrelieved, in regard +to that which ought, if acknowledged at all, to deserve the highest +reverence among all things on earth, in regard to an institution which, +with whatever faults, he himself in words still recognised as the Church +of God, was an indefensible and an unwholesome paradox. The analogy is a +commonly accepted one between the Church and the family. How could any +household go on in which there was at work an _animus_ of unceasing and +relentless, though possibly too just criticism, on its characteristic +and perhaps serious faults; and of comparisons, also possibly most just, +with the better ways of other families? It might be the honest desire of +reform and improvement; but charity, patience, equitableness, are +virtues of men in society, as well as strict justice and the desire of +improvement. In the case of the family, such action could only lead to +daily misery and the wasting and dying out of home affections. In the +case of a Church, it must come to the sundering of ties which ought no +longer to bind. Mr. Ward all along insisted that there was no necessity +for looking forward to such an event. He wished to raise, purify, reform +the Church in which Providence had placed him; utterly dissatisfied as +he was with it, intellectually and morally, convinced more and more that +it was wrong, dismally, fearfully wrong, it was his duty, he thought, to +abide in it without looking to consequences; but it was also his duty to +shake the faith of any one he could in its present claims and working, +and to hold up an incomparably purer model of truth and holiness. That +his purpose was what he considered real reform, there is no reason to +doubt, though he chose to shut his eyes to what must come of it. The +position was an unnatural one, but he had great faith in his own +well-fenced logical creations, and defied the objections of a homelier +common sense. He was not content to wait in silence the slow and sad +changes of old convictions, the painful decay and disappearance of +long-cherished ties. His mind was too active, restless, unreserved. To +the last he persisted in forcing on the world, professedly to influence +it, really to defy it, the most violent assertions which he could +formulate of the most paradoxical claims on friends and opponents which +had ever been made. + +Mr. Ward's influence was felt also in another way; though here it is not +easy to measure the degree of its force. He was in the habit of +appealing to Mr. Newman to pronounce on the soundness of his principles +and inferences, with the view of getting Mr. Newman's sanction for them +against more timid or more dissatisfied friends; and he would come down +with great glee on objectors to some new and startling position, with +the reply, "Newman says so," Every one knows from the _Apologia_ what +was Mr. Newman's state of mind after 1841--a state of perplexity, +distress, anxiety; he was moving undoubtedly in one direction, but +moving slowly, painfully, reluctantly, intermittently, with views +sometimes clear, sometimes clouded, of that terribly complicated +problem, the answer to which was full of such consequences to himself +and to others. No one ever felt more keenly that it was no mere affair +of dexterous or brilliant logic; if logic could have settled it, the +question would never have arisen. But in this fevered state, with mind, +soul, heart all torn and distracted by the tremendous responsibilities +pressing on him, wishing above everything to be quiet, to be silent, at +least not to speak except at his own times and when he saw the +occasion, he had, besides bearing his own difficulties, to return +off-hand and at the moment some response to questions which he had not +framed, which he did not care for, on which he felt no call to +pronounce, which he was not perhaps yet ready to face, and to answer +which he must commit himself irrevocably and publicly to more than he +was prepared for. Every one is familiar with the proverbial distribution +of parts in the asking and the answering of questions; but when the +asker is no fool, but one of the sharpest-witted of mankind, asking with +little consideration for the condition or the wishes of the answerer, +with great power to force the answer he wants, and with no great +tenderness in the use he makes of it, the situation becomes a trying +one. Mr. Ward was continually forcing on Mr. Newman so-called +irresistible inferences; "If you say so and so, surely you must also say +something more?" Avowedly ignorant of facts and depending for them on +others, he was only concerned with logical consistency. And accordingly +Mr. Newman, with whom producible logical consistency was indeed a great +thing, but with whom it was very far from being everything, had +continually to accept conclusions which he would rather have kept in +abeyance, to make admissions which were used without their +qualifications, to push on and sanction extreme ideas which he himself +shrank from because they were extreme. But it was all over with his +command of time, his liberty to make up his mind slowly on the great +decision. He had to go at Mr. Ward's pace, and not his own. He had to +take Mr. Ward's questions, not when he wanted to have them and at his +own time, but at Mr. Ward's. No one can tell how much this state of +things affected the working of Mr. Newman's mind in that pause of +hesitation before the final step; how far it accelerated the view which +he ultimately took of his position. No one can tell, for many other +influences were mixed up with this one. But there is no doubt that Mr. +Newman felt the annoyance and the unfairness of this perpetual +questioning for the benefit of Mr. Ward's theories, and there can be +little doubt that, in effect, it drove him onwards and cut short his +time of waiting. Engineers tell us that, in the case of a ship rolling +in a sea-way, when the periodic times of the ship's roll coincide with +those of the undulations of the waves, a condition of things arises +highly dangerous to the ship's stability. So the agitations of Mr. +Newman's mind were reinforced by the impulses of Mr. Ward's.[116] + +But the great question between England and Rome was not the only matter +which engaged Mr. Ward's active mind. In the course of his articles in +the _British Critic_ he endeavoured to develop in large outlines a +philosophy of religious belief. Restless on all matters without a +theory, he felt the need of a theory of the true method of reaching, +verifying, and judging of religious truth; it seemed to him necessary +especially to a popular religion, such as Christianity claimed to be; +and it was not the least of the points on which he congratulated himself +that he had worked out a view which extended greatly the province and +office of conscience, and of fidelity to it, and greatly narrowed the +province and office of the mere intellect in the case of the great mass +of mankind. The Oxford writers had all along laid stress on the +paramount necessity of the single eye and disciplined heart in accepting +or judging religion; moral subjects could be only appreciated by moral +experience; purity, reverence, humility were as essential in such +questions as zeal, industry, truthfulness, honesty; religious truth is a +gift as well as a conquest; and they dwelt on the great maxims of the +New Testament: "To him that hath shall be given"; "If any man will do +the will of the Father, he shall know of the doctrine." But though Mr. +Newman especially had thrown out deep and illuminating thoughts on this +difficult question, it had not been treated systematically; and this +treatment Mr. Ward attempted to give to it. It was a striking and +powerful effort, full of keen insight into human experience and acute +observations on its real laws and conditions; but on the face of it, it +was laboured and strained; it chose its own ground, and passed unnoticed +neighbouring regions under different conditions; it left undealt with +the infinite variety of circumstances, history, capacities, natural +temperament, and those unexplored depths of will and character, +affecting choice and judgment, the realities of which have been brought +home to us by our later ethical literature. Up to a certain point his +task was easy. It is easy to say that a bad life, a rebellious temper, a +selfish spirit are hopeless disqualifications for judging spiritual +things; that we must take something for granted in learning any truths +whatever; that men must act as moral creatures to attain insight into +moral truths, to realise and grasp them as things, and not abstractions +and words. But then came the questions--What is that moral training, +which, in the case of the good heart, will be practically infallible in +leading into truth? And what is that type of character, of saintliness, +which gives authority which we cannot do wrong in following; where, if +question and controversy arise, is the common measure binding on both +sides; and can even the saints, with their immense variations and +apparent mixtures and failings, furnish that type? And next, where, in +the investigations which may be endlessly diversified, does intellect +properly come in and give its help? For come in somewhere, of course it +must; and the conspicuous dominance of the intellectual element in Mr. +Ward's treatment of the subject is palpable on the face of it. His +attempt is to make out a theory of the reasonableness of unproducible; +because unanalysed, reasons; reasons which, though the individual cannot +state them, may be as real and as legitimately active as the obscure +rays of the spectrum. But though the discussion in Mr. Ward's hands was +suggestive of much, though he might expose the superciliousness of +Whately or the shallowness of Mr. Goode, and show himself no unequal +antagonist to Mr. J.S. Mill, it left great difficulties unanswered, and +it had too much the appearance of being directed to a particular end, +that of guarding the Catholic view of a popular religion from formidable +objections. + +The moral side of religion had been from the first a prominent subject +in the teaching of the movement Its protests had been earnest and +constant against intellectual self-sufficiency, and the notion that mere +shrewdness and cleverness were competent judges of Christian truth, or +that soundness of judgment in religious matters was compatible with +arrogance or an imperfect moral standard; and it revolted against the +conventional and inconsistent severity of Puritanism, which was shocked +at dancing but indulged freely in good dinners, and was ostentatious in +using the phrases of spiritual life and in marking a separation from the +world, while it surrounded itself with all the luxuries of modern +inventiveness. But this moral teaching was confined to the statement of +principles, and it was carried out in actual life with the utmost +dislike of display and with a shrinking from strong professions. The +motto of Froude's _Remains_, which embodied his characteristic temper, +was an expression of the feeling of the school: + + Se sub serenis vultibus + Austera virtus occulit: + Timet videri, ne suum, + Dum prodit, amittat decus,[117] + +The heroic strictness and self-denial of the early Church were the +objects of admiration, as what ought to be the standard of Christians; +but people did not yet like to talk much about attempts to copy them. +Such a book as the _Church of the Fathers_ brought out with great force +and great sympathy the ascetic temper and the value put on celibacy in +the early days, and it made a deep impression; but nothing was yet +formulated as characteristic and accepted doctrine. + +It was not unnatural that this should change. The principles exemplified +in the high Christian lives of antiquity became concrete in definite +rules and doctrines, and these rules and doctrines were most readily +found in the forms in which the Roman schools and teachers had embodied +them. The distinction between the secular life and the life of +"religion," with all its consequences, became an accepted one. Celibacy +came to be regarded as an obvious part of the self-sacrifice of a +clergyman's life, and the belief and the profession of it formed a test, +understood if not avowed, by which the more advanced or resolute members +of the party were distinguished from the rest. This came home to men on +the threshold of life with a keener and closer touch than questions +about doctrine. It was the subject of many a bitter, agonising struggle +which no one knew anything of; it was with many the act of a supreme +self-oblation. The idea of the single life may be a utilitarian one as +well as a religious one. It may be chosen with no thought of +renunciation or self-denial, for the greater convenience and freedom of +the student or the philosopher, the soldier or the man of affairs. It +may also be chosen without any special feeling of a sacrifice by the +clergyman, as most helpful for his work. But the idea of celibacy, in +those whom it affected at Oxford, was in the highest degree a religious +and romantic one. The hold which it had on the leader of the movement +made itself felt, though little was directly said. To shrink from it was +a mark of want of strength or intelligence, of an unmanly preference for +English home life, of insensibility to the generous devotion and purity +of the saints. It cannot be doubted that at this period of the movement +the power of this idea over imagination and conscience was one of the +strongest forces in the direction of Rome. + +Of all these ideas Mr. Ward's articles in the _British Critic_ were the +vigorous and unintermittent exposition. He spoke out, and without +hesitation. There was a perpetual contrast implied, when it was not +forcibly insisted on, between all that had usually been esteemed highest +in the moral temper of the English Church, always closely connected with +home life and much variety of character, and the loftier and bolder but +narrower standard of Roman piety. And Mr. Ward was seconded in the +_British Critic_ by other writers, all fervid in the same cause, some +able and eloquent. The most distinguished of his allies was Mr. Oakeley, +Fellow of Balliol and minister of Margaret Chapel in London. Mr. Oakeley +was, perhaps, the first to realise the capacities of the Anglican ritual +for impressive devotional use, and his services, in spite of the +disadvantages of the time, and also of his chapel, are still remembered +by some as having realised for them, in a way never since surpassed, the +secrets and the consolations of the worship of the Church. Mr. Oakeley, +without much learning, was master of a facile and elegant pen. He was a +man who followed a trusted leader with chivalrous boldness, and was not +afraid of strengthening his statements. Without Mr. Ward's force and +originality, his articles were more attractive reading. His article on +"Jewel" was more than anything else a landmark in the progress of Roman +ideas.[118] + +From the time of Mr. Ward's connexion with the _British Critic_, its +anti-Anglican articles had given rise to complaints which did not become +less loud as time went on. He was a troublesome contributor to his +editor, Mr. T. Mozley, and he made the hair of many of his readers stand +on end with his denunciations of things English and eulogies of things +Roman. + + My first troubles (writes Mr. Mozley) were with Oakeley and Ward. I + will not say that I hesitated much as to the truth of what they wrote, + for in that matter I was inclined to go very far, at least in the way + of toleration. Yet it appeared to me quite impossible either that any + great number of English Churchmen would ever go so far, or that the + persons possessing authority in the Church would fail to protest, not + to say more.... As to Ward I did but touch a filament or two in one of + his monstrous cobwebs, and off he ran instantly to Newman to complain + of my gratuitous impertinence. Many years after I was forcibly + reminded of him by a pretty group of a little Cupid flying to his + mother to show a wasp-sting he had just received. Newman was then in + this difficulty. He did not disagree with what Ward had written; but, + on the other hand, he had given neither me nor Ward to understand that + he was likely to step in between us. In fact, he wished to be entirely + clear of the editorship. This, however, was a thing that Ward could + not or would not understand.[119] + +The discontent of readers of the _British Critic_ was great. It was +expressed in various ways, and was represented by a pamphlet of Mr. W. +Palmer's of Worcester, in which he contrasted, with words of severe +condemnation, the later writers in the Review with the teaching of the +earlier _Tracts for the Times_, and denounced the "Romanising" tendency +shown in its articles. In the autumn of 1843 the Review came to an end. +A field of work was thus cut off from Mr. Ward. Full of the interest of +the ideas which possessed him, always equipped and cheerfully ready for +the argumentative encounter, and keenly relishing the _certaminis +gaudia_, he at once seized the occasion of Mr. Palmer's pamphlet to +state what he considered his position, and to set himself right in the +eyes of all fair and intelligent readers. He intended a long pamphlet. +It gradually grew under his hands--he was not yet gifted with the power +of compression and arrangement--into a volume of 600 pages: the famous +_Ideal of a Christian Church, considered in Comparison with Existing +Practice_, published in the summer of 1844. + +The _Ideal_ is a ponderous and unattractive volume, ill arranged and +rambling, which its style and other circumstances have caused to be +almost forgotten. But there are interesting discussions in it which may +still repay perusal for their own sakes. The object of the book was +twofold. Starting with an "ideal" of what the Christian Church may be +expected to be in its various relations to men, it assumes that the +Roman Church, and only the Roman Church, satisfies the conditions of +what a Church ought to be, and it argues in detail that the English +Church, in spite of its professions, utterly and absolutely fails to +fulfil them. It is _plaidoirie_ against everything English, on the +ground that it cannot be Catholic because it is not Roman. It was not +consistent, for while the writer alleged that "our Church totally +neglected her duties both as guardian of and witness to morality, and +as witness and teacher of orthodoxy," yet he saw no difficulty in +attributing the revival of Catholic truth to "the inherent vitality and +powers of our own Church."[120] But this was not the sting and +provocation of the book. That lay in the developed claim, put forward by +implication in Mr. Ward's previous writings, and now repeated in the +broadest and most unqualified form, to hold his position in the English +Church, avowing and teaching all Roman doctrine. + + We find (he exclaims), oh, most joyful, most wonderful, most + unexpected sight! we find the whole cycle of Roman doctrine gradually + possessing numbers of English Churchmen.... Three years have passed + since I said plainly that in subscribing the Articles I renounce no + Roman doctrine; yet I retain my fellowship which I hold on the tenure + of subscription, and have received no ecclesiastical censure in any + shape.[121] + +There was much to learn from the book; much that might bring home to the +most loyal Churchman a sense of shortcomings, a burning desire for +improvement; much that might give every one a great deal to think about, +on some of the deepest problems of the intellectual and religious life. +But it could not be expected that such a challenge, in such sentences as +these, should remain unnoticed. + +The book came out in the Long Vacation, and it was not till the +University met in October that signs of storm began to appear. But +before it broke an incident occurred which inflamed men's tempers. Dr. +Wynter's reign as Vice-Chancellor had come to a close, and the next +person, according to the usual custom of succession, was Dr. Symons, +Warden of Wadham. Dr. Symons had never concealed his strong hostility to +the movement, and he had been one of Dr. Pusey's judges. The prospect of +a partisan Vice-Chancellor, certainly very determined, and supposed not +to be over-scrupulous, was alarming. The consent of Convocation to the +Chancellor's nomination of his substitute had always been given in +words, though no instance of its having been refused was known, at least +in recent times. But a great jealousy about the rights of Convocation +had been growing up under the late autocratic policy of the Heads, and +there was a disposition to assert, and even to stretch these rights, a +disposition not confined to the party of the movement. It was proposed +to challenge Dr. Symons's nomination. Great doubts were felt and +expressed about the wisdom of the proposal; but at length opposition was +resolved upon. The step was a warning to the Heads, who had been +provoking enough; but there was not enough to warrant such a violent +departure from usage, and it was the act of exasperation rather than of +wisdom. The blame for it must be shared between the few who fiercely +urged it, and the many who disapproved and acquiesced. On the day of +nomination, the scrutiny was allowed, _salv auctoritate Cancellarii_; +but Dr. Symons's opponents were completely defeated by 883 to 183. It +counted, not unreasonably, as a "Puseyite defeat." + +The attempt and its result made it certain that in the attack that was +sure to come on Mr. Ward's book, he would meet with no mercy. As soon as +term began the Board of Heads of Houses took up the matter; they were +earnestly exhorted to it by a letter of Archbishop Whately's, which was +read at the Board. But they wanted no pressing, nor is it astonishing +that they could not understand the claim to hold the "whole cycle" of +Roman doctrine in the English Church. Mr. Ward's view was that he was +loyally doing the best he could for "our Church," not only in showing up +its heresies and faults, but in urging that the only remedy was +wholesale submission to Rome. To the University authorities this was +taking advantage of his position in the Church to assail and if possible +destroy it. And to numbers of much more sober and moderate Churchmen, +sympathisers with the general spirit of the movement, it was evident +that Mr. Ward had long passed the point when tolerance could be fairly +asked, consistently with any respect for the English Church, for such +sweeping and paradoxical contradictions, by her own servants, of her +claims and title. Mr. Ward's manner also, which, while it was serious +enough in his writings, was easy and even jocular in social intercourse, +left the impression, in reality a most unfair impression, that he was +playing and amusing himself with these momentous questions. + +A Committee of the Board examined the book; a number of startling +propositions were with ease picked out, some preliminary skirmishing as +to matters of form took place, and in December 1844 the Board announced +that they proposed to submit to Convocation without delay three +measures:--(1) to condemn Mr. Ward's book; (2) to degrade Mr. Ward by +depriving him of all his University degrees; and (3) whereas the +existing Statutes gave the Vice-Chancellor power of calling on any +member of the University at any time to prove his orthodoxy by +subscribing the Articles, to add to this a declaration, to be henceforth +made by the subscriber, that he took them in the sense in which "they +were both first published and were now imposed by the University," with +the penalty of expulsion against any one, lay or clerical, who thrice +refused subscription with this declaration. + +As usual, the Board entirely mistook the temper of the University, and +by their violence and want of judgment turned the best chance they ever +had, of carrying the University with them, into what their blunders +really made an ignominious defeat. If they had contented themselves with +the condemnation, in almost any terms, of Mr. Ward's book, and even of +its author, the condemnation would have been overwhelming. A certain +number of men would have still stood by Mr. Ward, either from friendship +or sympathy, or from independence of judgment, or from dislike of the +policy of the Board; but they would have been greatly outnumbered. The +degradation--the Board did not venture on the logical consequence, +expulsion--was a poor and even ridiculous measure of punishment; to +reduce Mr. Ward to an undergraduate _in statu pupillari_, and a +commoner's short gown, was a thing to amuse rather than terrify. The +personal punishment seemed unworthy when they dared not go farther, +while to many the condemnation of the book seemed penalty enough; and +the condemnation of the book by these voters was weakened by their +refusal to carry it into personal disgrace and disadvantage. Still, if +these two measures had stood by themselves, they could not have been +resisted, and the triumph of the Board would have been a signal one. But +they could not rest. They must needs attempt to put upon subscription, +just when its difficulties were beginning to be felt, not by one party, +but by all, an interpretation which set the University and Church in a +flame. The cry, almost the shriek, arose that it was a new test, and a +test which took for granted what certainly needed proof, that the sense +in which the Articles were first understood and published was exactly +the same as that in which the University now received and imposed them. +It was in vain that explanations, assurances, protests, were proffered; +no new test, it was said, was thought of--the Board would never think of +such a thing; it was only something to ensure good faith and honesty. +But it was utterly useless to contend against the storm. A test it was, +and a new test no one would have. It was clear that, if the third +proposal was pushed, it would endanger the votes about Mr. Ward. After +some fruitless attempts at justification the Board had, in the course +of a month, to recognise that it had made a great mistake. The +condemnation of Mr. Ward was to come on, on the 13th of February; and on +the 23d of January the Vice-Chancellor, in giving notice of it, +announced that the third proposal was withdrawn. + +It might have been thought that this was lesson enough to leave well +alone. The Heads were sure of votes against Mr. Ward, more or less +numerous; they were sure of a victory which would be a severe blow, not +only to Mr. Ward and his special followers, but to the Tractarian party +with which he had been so closely connected. But those bitter and +intemperate spirits which had so long led them wrong were not to be +taught prudence even by their last experience. The mischief makers were +at work, flitting about the official lodgings at Wadham and Oriel. Could +not something be done, even at this late hour, to make up for the loss +of the test? Could not something be done to disgrace a greater name than +Mr. Ward's? Could not the opportunity which was coming of rousing the +feeling of the University against the disciple be turned to account to +drag forth his supposed master from his retirement and impunity, and +brand the author of No. 90 with the public stigma--no longer this time +of a Hebdomadal censure, but of a University condemnation? The +temptation was irresistible to a number of disappointed +partisans--kindly, generous, good-natured men in private life, but +implacable in their fierce fanaticism. In their impetuous vehemence +they would not even stop to think what would be said of the conditions +and circumstances under which they pressed their point. On the 23d of +January the Vice-Chancellor had withdrawn the test. On the 25th of +January--those curious in coincidences may observe that it was the date +of No. 90 in 1841--a circular was issued inviting signatures for a +requisition to the Board, asking them to propose, in the approaching +Convocation of the 13th of February, a formal censure of the principles +of No. 90. The invitation to sign was issued in the names of Dr. +Faussett and Dr. Ellerton of Magdalen. It received between four and five +hundred signatures, as far as was known; but it was withheld by the +Vice-Chancellor from the inspection of those who officially had a right +to have it before them. On the 4th of February its prayer came before +the Hebdomadal Board. The objection of haste--that not ten days +intervened between this new and momentous proposal and the day of +voting--was brushed aside. The members of the Board were mad enough not +to see, not merely the odiousness of the course, but the aggravated +odiousness of hurry. The proposal was voted by the majority, _sans +phrase._ And they ventured, amid all the excitement and irritation of +the moment, to offer for the sanction of the University a decree framed +in the words of their own censure. + +The interval before the Convocation was short, but it was long enough +for decisive opinions on the proposal of the Board to be formed and +expressed. Leading men in London, Mr. Gladstone among them, were clear +that it was an occasion for the exercise of the joint veto with which +the Proctors were invested. The veto was intended, if for anything, to +save the University from inconsiderate and hasty measures; and seldom, +except in revolutionary times, had so momentous and so unexpected a +measure been urged on with such unseemly haste. The feeling of the +younger Liberals, Mr. Stanley, Mr. Donkin, Mr. Jowett, Dr. Greenhill, +was in the same direction. On the 10th of February the Proctors +announced to the Board their intention to veto the third proposal. But +of course the thing went forward. The Proctors were friends of Mr. +Newman, and the Heads believed that this would counterbalance any effect +from their act of authority. It is possible that the announcement may +have been regarded as a mere menace, too audacious to be fulfilled. On +the 13th of February, amid slush and snow, Convocation met in the +Theatre. Mr. Ward asked leave to defend himself in English, and occupied +one of the rostra, usually devoted to the recital of prize poems and +essays. He spoke with vigour and ability, dividing his speech, and +resting in the interval between the two portions in the rostrum.[122] +There was no other address, and the voting began. The first vote, the +condemnation of the book, was carried by 777 to 386. The second, by a +more evenly balanced division, 569 to 511. When the Vice-Chancellor put +the third, the Proctors rose, and the senior Proctor, Mr. Guillemard of +Trinity, stopped it in the words, _Nobis procuratoribus non placet_. +Such a step, of course, only suspended the vote, and the year of office +of these Proctors was nearly run. But they had expressed the feeling of +those whom they represented. It was shown not only in a largely-signed +address of thanks. All attempts to revive the decree at the expiration +of their year of office failed. The wiser heads in the Hebdomadal Board +recognised at last that they had better hold their hand. Mistakes men +may commit, and defeats they may undergo, and yet lose nothing that +concerns their character for acting as men of a high standard ought to +act. But in this case, mistakes and defeat were the least of what the +Board brought on themselves. This was the last act of a long and +deliberately pursued course of conduct; and if it was the last, it was +because it was the upshot and climax, and neither the University nor any +one else would endure that it should go on any longer. The proposed +attack on Mr. Newman betrayed how helpless they were, and to what paltry +acts of worrying it was, in their judgment, right and judicious to +condescend. It gave a measure of their statesmanship, wisdom, and good +feeling in defending the interests of the Church; and it made a very +deep and lasting impression on all who were interested in the honour and +welfare of Oxford. Men must have blinded themselves to the plainest +effects of their own actions who could have laid themselves open to such +a description of their conduct as is contained in the following extract +from a paper of the time--a passage of which the indignant and pathetic +undertone reflected the indignation and the sympathy of hundreds of men +of widely differing opinions. + + The vote is an answer to a cry--that cry is one of dishonesty, and + this dishonesty the proposed resolution, as plainly as it dares to say + anything, insinuates. On this part of the question, those who have + ever been honoured by Mr. Newman's friendship must feel it dangerous + to allow themselves thus to speak. And yet they must speak; for no one + else can appreciate it as truly as they do. When they see the person + whom they have been accustomed to revere as few men are revered, whose + labours, whose greatness, whose tenderness, whose singleness and + holiness of purpose, they have been permitted to know intimately--not + allowed even the poor privilege of satisfying, by silence and + retirement--by the relinquishment of preferment, position, and + influence--the persevering hostility of persons whom they cannot help + comparing with him--not permitted even to submit in peace to those + irregular censures, to which he seems to have been even morbidly + alive, but dragged forth to suffer an oblique and tardy condemnation; + called again to account for matters now long ago accounted for; on + which a judgment has been pronounced, which, whatever others may think + of it, he at least has accepted as conclusive--when they contrast his + merits, his submission, his treatment, which they see and know, with + the merits, the bearing, the fortunes of those who are doggedly + pursuing him, it does become very difficult to speak without sullying + what it is a kind of pleasure to feel is _his_ cause by using hard + words, or betraying it by not using them. It is too difficult to + speak, as ought to be spoken, of this ungenerous and gratuitous + afterthought--too difficult to keep clear of what, at least, will be + _thought_ exaggeration; too difficult to do justice to what they feel + to be undoubtedly true; and I will not attempt to say more than enough + to mark an opinion which ought to be plainly avowed, as to the nature + of this procedure.[123] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[116] A pencilled note indicates that this illustration was suggested by +experiments in naval engineering carried on at one time by Mr. W. +Froude. Cf. T. Mozley, _Reminiscences_, vol. ii. p. 17. + +[117] Hymn in Paris Breviary, _Commune Sanctarum Mulierum_. + +[118] _Reminiscences_, ii. 243, 244. Cf. _British Critic_, July 1841. + +[119] _Reminiscences,_ ii. 223. + +[120] _Ideal_, p. 566. + +[121] _Ibid._ pp. 565-567. + +[122] It is part of the history of the time, that during those anxious +days, Mr. Ward was engaged to be married. The engagement came to the +knowledge of his friends, to their great astonishment and amusement, +very soon after the events in the Theatre. + +[123] From a _Short Appeal to Members of Convocation on the proposed +Censure on No. 90_. By Frederic Rogers, Fellow of Oriel. (Dated +Saturday, 8th of February 1845.) + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE CATASTROPHE + + +The events of February were a great shock. The routine of Oxford had +been broken as it had never been broken by the fiercest strifes before. +Condemnations had been before passed on opinions, and even on persons. +But to see an eminent man, of blameless life, a fellow of one of the +first among the Colleges, solemnly deprived of his degree and all that +the degree carried with it, and that on a charge in which bad faith and +treachery were combined with alleged heresy, was a novel experience, +where the kindnesses of daily companionship and social intercourse still +asserted themselves as paramount to official ideas of position. And +when, besides this, people realised what more had been attempted, and by +how narrow a chance a still heavier blow had been averted from one +towards whom so many hearts warmed, how narrowly a yoke had been escaped +which would have seemed to subject all religious thought in the +University to the caprice or the blind zeal of a partisan official, the +sense of relief was mixed with the still present memory of a desperate +peril And then came the question as to what was to come next. That the +old policy of the Board would be revived and pursued when the end of the +Proctors' year delivered it from their inconvenient presence, was soon +understood to be out of the question. The very violence of the measures +attempted had its reaction, which stopped anything further. The +opponents of Tractarianism, Orthodox and Liberal, were for the moment +gorged with their success. What men waited to see was the effect on the +party of the movement; how it would influence the advanced portion of +it; how it would influence the little company who had looked on in +silence from their retirement at Littlemore. The more serious aspect of +recent events was succeeded for the moment by a certain comic contrast, +created by Mr. Ward's engagement to be married, which was announced +within a week of his degradation, and which gave the common-rooms +something to smile at after the strain and excitement of the scene in +the Theatre. But that passed, and the graver outlook of the situation +occupied men's thoughts. + +There was a widespread feeling of insecurity. Friends did not know of +friends, how their minds were working, how they might go. Anxious +letters passed, the writers not daring to say too much, or reveal too +much alarm. And yet there was still some hope that at least with the +great leader matters were not desperate. To his own friends he gave +warning; he had already done so in a way to leave little to expect but +at last to lose him; he spoke of resigning his fellowship in October, +though he wished to defer this till the following June; but nothing +final had been said publicly. Even at the last it was only anticipated +by some that he would retire into lay communion. But that silence was +awful and ominous. He showed no signs of being affected by what had +passed in Oxford. He privately thanked the Proctors for saving him from +what would have distressed him; but he made no comments on the measures +themselves. Still it could not but be a climax of everything as far as +Oxford was concerned. And he was a man who saw signs in such events. + +It was inevitable that the events of the end of 1844 and the beginning +of 1845 should bring with them a great crisis in the development of +religious opinion, in the relations of its different forms to one +another, and further, in the thoughts of many minds as to their personal +position, their duty, and their prospects. There had been such a crisis +in 1841 at the publication of No. 90. After the discussions which +followed that tract, Anglican theology could never be quite the same +that it had been before. It was made to feel the sense of some grave +wants, which, however they might be supplied in the future, could no +longer be unnoticed or uncared for. And individuals, amid the strife of +tongues, had felt, some strongly and practically, but a much larger +number dimly and reluctantly, the possibility, unwelcome to most, but +not without interest to others, of having to face the strange and at +one time inconceivable task of revising the very foundations of their +religion. And such a revision had since that time been going on more or +less actively in many minds; in some cases with very decisive results. +But after the explosion caused by Mr. Ward's book, a crisis of a much +more grave and wide-reaching sort had arrived. To ordinary lookers-on it +naturally seemed that a shattering and decisive blow had been struck at +the Tractarian party and their cause; struck, indeed, formally and +officially, only at its extravagances, but struck, none the less, +virtually, at the premisses which led to these extravagances, and at the +party, which, while disapproving them, shrank, with whatever +motives,--policy, generosity, or secret sympathy,--from joining in the +condemnation of them. It was more than a defeat, it was a rout, in which +they were driven and chased headlong from the field; a wreck in which +their boasts and hopes of the last few years met the fate which wise men +had always anticipated. Oxford repudiated them. Their theories, their +controversial successes, their learned arguments, their appeals to the +imagination, all seemed to go down, and to be swept away like chaff, +before the breath of straightforward common sense and honesty. +Henceforth there was a badge affixed to them and all who belonged to +them, a badge of suspicion and discredit, and even shame, which bade men +beware of them, an overthrow under which it seemed wonderful that they +could raise their heads or expect a hearing. It is true, that to those +who looked below the surface, the overthrow might have seemed almost too +showy and theatrical to be quite all that it was generally thought to +be. There had been too much passion, and too little looking forward to +the next steps, in the proceedings of the victors. There was too much +blindness to weak points of their own position, too much forgetfulness +of the wise generosity of cautious warfare. The victory was easy to win; +the next moment it was quite obvious that they did not know what to do +with it, and were at their wits' end to understand what it meant. And +the defeated party, though defeated signally and conspicuously in the +sight of the Church and the country, had in it too large a proportion of +the serious and able men of the University, with too clear and high a +purpose, and too distinct a sense of the strength and reality of their +ground, to be in as disadvantageous a condition as from a distance might +be imagined. A closer view would have discovered how much sympathy there +was for their objects and for their main principles in many who greatly +disapproved of much in the recent course and tendency of the movement. +It might have been seen how the unwise measures of the Heads had +awakened convictions among many who were not naturally on their side, +that it was necessary both on the ground of justice and policy to arrest +all extreme measures, and to give a breathing time to the minority. +Confidence in their prospects as a party might have been impaired in the +Tractarians; but confidence in their principles; confidence that they +had rightly interpreted the spirit, the claims, and the duties of the +English Church, confidence that devotion to its cause was the call of +God, whatever might happen to their own fortunes, this confidence was +unshaken by the catastrophe of February. + +But that crisis had another important result, not much noticed then, but +one which made itself abundantly evident in the times that followed. The +decisive breach between the old parties in the Church, both Orthodox and +Evangelical, and the new party of the movement, with the violent and +apparently irretrievable discomfiture of the latter as the rising force +in Oxford, opened the way and cleared the ground for the formation and +the power of a third school of opinion, which was to be the most +formidable rival of the Tractarians, and whose leaders were eventually +to succeed where the Tractarians had failed, in becoming the masters and +the reformers of the University. Liberalism had hitherto been +represented in Oxford in forms which though respectable from +intellectual vigour were unattractive, sometimes even repulsive. They +were dry, cold, supercilious, critical; they wanted enthusiasm; they +were out of sympathy with religion and the religious temper and aims. +They played, without knowing it, on the edge of the most dangerous +questions. The older Oxford Liberals were either intellectually +aristocratic, dissecting the inaccuracies or showing up the paralogisms +of the current orthodoxy, or they were poor in character, Liberals from +the zest of sneering and mocking at what was received and established, +or from the convenience of getting rid of strict and troublesome rules +of life. They patronised Dissenters; they gave Whig votes; they made +free, in a mild way, with the pet conventions and prejudices of Tories +and High Churchmen. There was nothing inspiring in them, however much +men might respect their correct and sincere lives. But a younger set of +men brought, mainly from Rugby and Arnold's teaching, a new kind of +Liberalism. It was much bolder and more independent than the older +forms, less inclined to put up with the traditional, more searching and +inquisitive in its methods, more suspicious and daring in its criticism; +but it was much larger in its views and its sympathies, and, above all, +it was imaginative, it was enthusiastic, and, without much of the +devotional temper, it was penetrated by a sense of the reality and +seriousness of religion. It saw greater hopes in the present and the +future than the Tractarians. It disliked their reverence for the past +and the received as inconsistent with what seemed evidence of the +providential order of great and fruitful change. It could not enter into +their discipline of character, and shrank from it as antiquated, +unnatural, and narrow. But these younger Liberals were interested in the +Tractarian innovators, and, in a degree, sympathised with them as a +party of movement who had had the courage to risk and sacrifice much for +an unworldly end. And they felt that their own opportunity was come +when all the parties which claimed to represent the orthodoxy of the +English Church appeared to have broken for good with one another, and +when their differences had thrown so much doubt and disparagement on so +important and revered a symbol of orthodoxy as the Thirty-nine Articles. +They looked on partly with amusement, partly with serious anxiety, at +the dispute; they discriminated with impartiality between the strong and +the weak points in the arguments on both sides: and they enforced with +the same impartiality on both of them the reasons, arising out of the +difficulties in which each party was involved, for new and large +measures, for a policy of forbearance and toleration. They inflicted on +the beaten side, sometimes with more ingenuity than fairness, the lesson +that the "wheel had come round full circle" with them; that they were +but reaping as they themselves had sown:--but now that there seemed +little more to fear from the Tractarians, the victorious authorities +were the power which the Liberals had to keep in check. They used their +influence, such as it was (and it was not then what it was afterwards), +to protect the weaker party. It was a favourite boast of Dean Stanley's +in after-times, that the intervention of the Liberals had saved the +Tractarians from complete disaster. It is quite true that the younger +Liberals disapproved the continuance of harsh measures, and some of them +exerted themselves against such measures. They did so in many ways and +for various reasons; from consistency, from feelings of personal +kindness, from a sense of justice, from a sense of interest--some in a +frank and generous spirit, others with contemptuous indifference. But +the debt of the Tractarians to their Liberal friends in 1845 was not so +great as Dean Stanley, thinking of the Liberal party as what it had +ultimately grown to be, supposed to be the case. The Liberals of his +school were then still a little flock: a very distinguished and a very +earnest set of men, but too young and too few as yet to hold the balance +in such a contest. The Tractarians were saved by what they were and what +they had done, and could do, themselves. But it is also true, that out +of these feuds and discords, the Liberal party which was to be dominant +in Oxford took its rise, soon to astonish old-fashioned Heads of Houses +with new and deep forms of doubt more audacious than Tractarianism, and +ultimately to overthrow not only the victorious authorities, but the +ancient position of the Church, and to recast from top to bottom the +institutions of the University. The 13th of February was not only the +final defeat and conclusion of the first stage of the movement. It was +the birthday of the modern Liberalism of Oxford. + +But it was also a crisis in the history of many lives. From that moment, +the decision of a number of good and able men, who had once promised to +be among the most valuable servants of the English Church, became clear. +If it were doubtful before, in many cases, whether they would stay with +her, the doubt existed no longer. It was now only a question of time +when they would break the tie and renounce their old allegiance. In the +bitter, and in many cases agonising struggle which they had gone through +as to their duty to God and conscience, a sign seemed now to be given +them which they could not mistake. They were invited, on one side, to +come; they were told sternly and scornfully, on the other, to go. They +could no longer be accused of impatience if they brought their doubts to +an end, and made up their minds that their call was to submit to the +claims of Rome, that their place was in its communion. + +Yet there was a pause. It was no secret what was coming. But men +lingered. It was not till the summer that the first drops of the storm +began to fall. Then through the autumn and the next year, friends, whose +names and forms were familiar in Oxford, one by one disappeared and were +lost to it. Fellowships, livings, curacies, intended careers, were given +up. Mr. Ward went. Mr. Capes, who had long followed Mr. Ward's line, and +had spent his private means to build a church near Bridgewater, went +also. Mr. Oakeley resigned Margaret Chapel and went. Mr. Ambrose St. +John, Mr. Coffin, Mr. Dalgairns, Mr. Faber, Mr. T. Meyrick, Mr. Albany +Christie, Mr. R. Simpson of Oriel, were received in various places and +various ways, and in the next year, Mr. J.S. Northcote, Mr. J.B. Morris, +Mr. G. Ryder, Mr. David Lewis. On the 3d of October 1845 Mr. Newman +requested the Provost of Oriel to remove his name from the books of the +College and University, but without giving any reason. The 6th of +October is the date of the "Advertisement" to the work which had +occupied Mr. Newman through the year--the _Essay on the Development of +Christian Doctrine_. On the 8th he was, as he has told us in the +_Apologia_, received by Father Dominic, the Passionist. To the +"Advertisement" are subjoined the following words: + + _Postscript_.--Since the above was written the Author has joined the + Catholic Church. It was his intention and wish to have carried his + volume through the press before deciding finally on this step. But + when he got some way in the printing, he recognised in himself a + conviction of the truth of the conclusion, to which the discussion + leads, so clear as to preclude further deliberation. Shortly + afterwards circumstances gave him the opportunity of acting on it, and + he felt that he had no warrant for refusing to act on it. + +So the reality of what had been so long and often so lightly talked +about by those who dared it, provoked it, or hoped for it, had come +indeed; and a considerable portion of English society learned what it +was to be novices in a religious system, hitherto not only alien and +unknown, but dreaded, or else to have lost friends and relatives, who +were suddenly transformed into severe and uncompromising opponents, +speaking in unfamiliar terms, and sharply estranged in sympathies and +rules of life. Some of them, especially those who had caught the spirit +of their leader, began life anew, took their position as humble learners +in the Roman Schools, and made the most absolute sacrifice of a whole +lifetime that a man can make. To others the change came and was accepted +as an emancipation, not only from the bonds of Anglicanism, but from the +obligations of orders and priestly vows and devotion. In some cases, +where they were married, there was no help for it. But in almost all +cases there was a great surrender of what English life has to offer to +those brought up in it. Of the defeated party, those who remained had +much to think about, between grief at the breaking of old ties, and the +loss of dear friends, and perplexities about their own position. The +anxiety, the sorrow at differing and parting, seem now almost +extravagant and unintelligible. There are those who sneer at the +"distress" of that time. There had not been the same suffering, the same +estrangement, when Churchmen turned dissenters, like Bulteel and Baptist +Noel. But the movement had raised the whole scale of feeling about +religious matters so high, the questions were felt to be so momentous, +the stake and the issue so precious, the "Loss and Gain" so immense, +that to differ on such subjects was the differing on the greatest things +which men could differ about. But in a time of distress, of which few +analogous situations in our days can give the measure, the leaders stood +firm. Dr. Pusey, Mr. Keble, Mr. Marriott accepted, with unshaken faith +in the cause of the English Church, the terrible separation. They +submitted to the blow--submitted to the reproach of having been +associates of those who had betrayed hopes and done so much mischief; +submitted to the charge of inconsistency, insincerity, cowardice; but +they did not flinch. Their unshrinking attitude was a new point of +departure for those who believed in the Catholic foundation of the +English Church. + +Among those deeply affected by these changes, there were many who had +been absolutely uninfluenced by the strong Roman current. They had +recognised many good things in the Roman Church; they were fully alive +to many shortcomings in the English Church; but the possibility of +submission to the Roman claims had never been a question with them. A +typical example of such minds was Mr. Isaac Williams, a pupil of Mr. +Keble, an intimate friend of Mr. Newman, a man of simple and saintly +life, with heart and soul steeped in the ancient theology of undivided +Christendom, and for that very reason untempted by the newer principles +and fashions of Rome. There were numbers who thought like him; but there +were others also, who were forced in afresh upon themselves, and who had +to ask themselves why they stayed, when a teacher, to whom they had +looked up as they had to Mr. Newman, and into whose confidence they had +been admitted, thought it his duty to go. With some the ultimate, though +delayed, decision was to follow him. With others, the old and fair +_proejudicium_ against the claims of Rome, which had always asserted +itself even against the stringent logic of Mr. Ward and the deep and +subtle ideas of Mr. Newman, became, when closed with, and tested face to +face in the light of fact and history, the settled conviction of life. +Some extracts from contemporary papers, real records of the private +perplexities and troubles actually felt at the time, may illustrate what +was passing in the minds of some whom knowledge and love of Mr. Newman +failed to make his followers in his ultimate step. The first extract +belongs to some years before, but it is part of the same train of +thinking.[124] + + As to myself, I am getting into a very unsettled state as to aims and + prospects. I mean that as things are going on, a man does not know + where he is going to; one cannot imagine what state of things to look + forward to; in what way, and under what circumstances, one's coming + life--if it does come--is to be spent; what is to become of one. I + cannot at all imagine myself a convert; but how am I likely, in the + probable state of things, to be able to serve as an English clergyman? + Shall I ever get Priest's orders? Shall I be able to continue always + serving? What is one's line to be; what ought to be one's aims; or can + one have any? + + The storm is not yet come: how it may come, and how soon it may blow + over, and what it may leave behind, is doubtful; but some sort of + crisis, I think, must come before things settle. With the Bishops + against us, and Puritanism aggressive, we may see strange things + before the end. + +When the "storm" had at length come, though, before its final violence, +the same writer continues: + + The present hopeless check and weight to our party--what has for the + time absolutely crushed us--is the total loss of confidence arising + from the strong tendency, no longer to be dissembled or explained + away, among many of us to Rome. I see no chance of our recovery, or + getting our heads above water from this, at least in England, for + years to come. And it is a check which will one day be far greater + than it is now. Under the circumstances--having not the most distant + thought of leaving the English Church myself, and yet having no means + of escaping the very natural suspicion of Romanising without giving up + my best friends and the most saint-like men in England--how am I to + view my position? What am I witnessing to? What, if need be, is one to + suffer for? A man has no leaning towards Rome, does not feel, as + others do, the strength of her exclusive claims to allegiance, the + perfection of her system, its right so to overbalance all the good + found in ours as to make ours absolutely untrustworthy for a Christian + to rest in, notwithstanding all circumstances of habit, position, and + national character; has such doubts on the Roman theory of the Church, + the Ultramontane, and such instincts not only against many of their + popular religious customs and practical ways of going on, but against + their principles of belief (_e.g._ divine faith = relics), as to repel + him from any wish to sacrifice his own communion for theirs; yet + withal, and without any great right on his part to complain, is set + down as a man who may any day, and certainly will some day, go over; + and he has no lawful means of removing the suspicion:--why is it + _tanti_ to submit to this? + + However little sympathy we Englishmen have with Rome, the Western + Churches under Rome are really living and holy branches of the Church + Catholic; corruptions they may have, so may we; but putting these + aside, they are Catholic Christians, or Catholic Christianity has + failed out of the world: we are no more [Catholic] than they. But + this, _public opinion_ has not for centuries, and _does not now_, + realise or allow. So no one can express in reality and detail a + practical belief in their Catholicity, in their equality (setting one + thing against another) with us as Christians, without being suspected + of what such belief continually leads to--disloyalty to the English + Church. Yet such belief is nevertheless well-grounded and right, and + there is no great hope for the Church till it gains ground, soberly, + powerfully, and apart from all low views of proselytising, or fear of + danger. What therefore the disadvantage of those among us who do not + really deserve the imputation of Romanising may be meant for, is to + break this practical belief to the English Church. We may be silenced, + but, without any wish to leave the English Church, we cannot give up + the belief, that the Western Church under Rome is a true, living, + venerable branch of the Christian Church. There are dangers in such a + belief, but they must be provided against, they do not affect the + truth of the belief. + +Such searchings of heart were necessarily rendered more severe and acute +by Mr. Newman's act. There was no longer any respite; his dearest +friends must choose between him and the English Church. And the choice +was made, by those who did not follow him, on a principle little +honoured or believed in at the time on either side, Roman or +Protestant; but a principle which in the long-run restored hope and +energy to a cause which was supposed to be lost. It was not the revival +of the old _Via Media_; it was not the assertion of the superiority of +the English Church; it was not a return to the old-fashioned and +ungenerous methods of controversy with Rome--one-sided in all cases, +ignorant, coarse, unchristian in many. It was not the proposal of a new +theory of the Church--its functions, authority and teaching, a +counter-ideal to Mr. Ward's imposing _Ideal_ It was the resolute and +serious appeal from brilliant logic, and keen sarcasm, and pathetic and +impressive eloquence, to reality and experience, as well as to history, +as to the positive and substantial characteristics of the traditional +and actually existing English Church, shown not on paper but in work, +and in spite of contradictory appearances and inconsistent elements; and +along with this, an attempt to put in a fair and just light the +comparative excellences and defects of other parts of Christendom, +excellences to be ungrudgingly admitted, but not to be allowed to bar +the recognition of defects. The feeling which had often stirred, even +when things looked at the worst, that Mr. Newman had dealt unequally and +hardly with the English Church, returned with gathered strength. The +English Church was after all as well worth living in and fighting for as +any other; it was not only in England that light and dark, in teaching +and in life, were largely intermingled, and the mixture had to be +largely allowed for. We had our Sparta, a noble, if a rough and an +incomplete one; patiently to do our best for it was better than leaving +it to its fate, in obedience to signs and reasonings which the heat of +strife might well make delusive. It was one hopeful token, that boasting +had to be put away from us for a long time to come. In these days of +stress and sorrow were laid the beginnings of a school, whose main +purpose was to see things as they are; which had learned by experience +to distrust unqualified admiration and unqualified disparagement; +determined not to be blinded even by genius to plain certainties; not +afraid to honour all that is great and beneficent in Rome, not afraid +with English frankness to criticise freely at home; but not to be won +over, in one case, by the good things, to condone and accept the bad +things; and not deterred, in the other, from service, from love, from +self-sacrifice, by the presence of much to regret and to resist. + +All this new sense of independence, arising from the sense of having +been left almost desolate by the disappearance of a great stay and light +in men's daily life, led to various and different results. In some +minds, after a certain trial, it actually led men back to that Romeward +tendency from which they had at first recoiled. In others, the break-up +of the movement under such a chief led them on, more or less, and some +very far, into a career of speculative Liberalism like that of Mr. +Blanco White, the publication of whose biography coincided with Mr. +Newman's change. In many others, especially in London and the towns, it +led to new and increasing efforts to popularise in various ways--through +preaching, organisation, greater attention to the meaning, the +solemnities, and the fitnesses of worship--the ideas of the Church +movement. Dr. Pusey and Mr. Keble were still the recognised chiefs of +the continued yet remodelled movement. It had its quarterly organ, the +_Christian Remembrancer_, which had taken the place of the old _British +Critic_ in the autumn of 1844. A number of able Cambridge men had thrown +their knowledge and thoroughness of work into the _Ecclesiologist_. +There were newspapers--the _English Churchman_, and, starting in 1846 +from small and difficult beginnings, in the face of long discouragement +and at times despair, the _Guardian_. One mind of great and rare power, +though only recognised for what he was much later in his life, one +undaunted heart, undismayed, almost undepressed, so that those who knew +not its inner fires thought him cold and stoical, had lifted itself +above the wreck at Oxford. The shock which had cowed and almost crushed +some of Mr. Newman's friends roused and fired Mr. James Mozley. + + To take leave of Mr. Newman (he writes on the morrow of the event) is + a heavy task. His step was not unforeseen; but when it is come those + who knew him feel the fact as a real change within them--feel as if + they were entering upon a fresh stage of their own life. May that very + change turn to their profit, and discipline them by its hardness! It + may do so if they will use it so. Let nobody complain; a time must + come, sooner or later, in every one's life, when he has to part with + advantages, connexions, supports, consolations, that he has had + hitherto, and face a new state of things. Every one knows that he is + not always to have all that he has now: he says to himself, "What + shall I do when this or that stay, or connexion, is gone?" and the + answer is, "That he will do without it." ... The time comes when this + is taken away; and then the mind is left alone, and is thrown back + upon itself, as the expression is. But no religious mind tolerates the + notion of being really thrown upon itself; this is only to say in + other words, that it is thrown back upon God.... Secret mental + consolations, whether of innocent self-flattery or reposing + confidence, are over; a more real and graver life begins--a firmer, + harder disinterestedness, able to go on its course by itself. Let them + see in the change a call to greater earnestness, sincerer simplicity, + and more solid manliness. What were weaknesses before will be sins + now.[125] + +"A new stage has begun. Let no one complain":--this, the expression of +individual feeling, represents pretty accurately the temper into which +the Church party settled when the first shock was over. They knew that +henceforward they had difficult times before them. They knew that they +must work under suspicion, even under proscription. They knew that they +must expect to see men among themselves perplexed, unsettled, swept +away by the influences which had affected Mr. Newman, and still more by +the precedent of his example. They knew that they must be prepared to +lose friends and fellow-helpers, and to lose them sometimes unexpectedly +and suddenly, as the wont was so often at this time. Above all, they +knew that they had a new form of antagonism to reckon with, harder than +any they had yet encountered. It had the peculiar sad bitterness which +belongs to civil war, when men's foes are they of their own +households--the bitterness arising out of interrupted intimacy and +affection. Neither side could be held blameless; the charge from the one +of betrayal and desertion was answered by the charge from the other of +insincerity and faithlessness to conscience, and by natural but not +always very fair attempts to proselytise; and undoubtedly, the English +Church, and those who adhered to it, had, for some years after 1845, to +hear from the lips of old friends the most cruel and merciless +invectives which knowledge of her weak points, wit, argumentative power, +eloquence, and the triumphant exultation at once of deliverance and +superiority could frame. It was such writing and such preaching as had +certainly never been seen on the Roman side before, at least in England. +Whether it was adapted to its professed purpose may perhaps be doubted; +but the men who went certainly lost none of their vigour as +controversialists or their culture as scholars. Not to speak of Mr. +Newman, such men as Mr. Oakeley, Mr. Ward, Mr. Faber, and Mr. Dalgairns +more than fulfilled in the great world of London their reputation at +Oxford. This was all in prospect before the eyes of those who had +elected to cast in their lot with the English Church. It was not an +encouraging position. The old enthusiastic sanguineness had been +effectually quenched. Their Liberal critics and their Liberal friends +have hardly yet ceased to remind them how sorry a figure they cut in the +eyes of men of the world, and in the eyes of men of bold and effective +thinking.[126] The "poor Puseyites" are spoken of in tones half of pity +and half of sneer. Their part seemed played out. There seemed nothing +more to make them of importance. They had not succeeded in Catholicising +the English Church, they had not even shaken it by a wide secession. +Henceforth they were only marked men. All that could be said for them +was, that at the worst, they did not lose heart. They had not forgotten +the lessons of their earlier time. + +It is not my purpose to pursue farther the course of the movement. All +the world knows that it was not, in fact, killed or even much arrested +by the shock of 1845. But after 1845, its field was at least as much out +of Oxford as in it. As long as Mr. Newman remained, Oxford was +necessarily its centre, necessarily, even after he had seemed to +withdraw from it. When he left his place vacant, the direction of it was +not removed from Oxford, but it was largely shared by men in London and +the country. It ceased to be strongly and prominently Academical. No +one in deed held such a position as Dr. Pusey's and Mr. Keble's; but +though Dr. Pusey continued to be a great power at Oxford, he now became +every day a much greater power outside of it; while Mr. Keble was now +less than ever an Academic, and became more and more closely connected +with men out of Oxford, his friends in London and his neighbours at +Hursley and Winchester. The cause which Mr. Newman had given up in +despair was found to be deeply interesting in ever new parts of the +country: and it passed gradually into the hands of new leaders more +widely acquainted with English society. It passed into the hands of the +Wilberforces, and Archdeacon Manning; of Mr. Bennett, Mr. Dodsworth, Mr. +W. Scott, Dr. Irons, Mr. E. Hawkins, and Mr. Upton Richards in London. +It had the sympathy and counsels of men of weight, or men who were +rising into eminence and importance--some of the Judges, Mr. Gladstone, +Mr. Roundell Palmer, Mr. Frederic Rogers, Mr. Mountague Bernard, Mr. +Hope Scott (as he afterwards was), Mr. Badeley, and a brilliant recruit +from Cambridge, Mr. Beresford Hope. It attracted the sympathy of another +boast of Cambridge, the great Bishop of New Zealand, and his friend Mr. +Whytehead. Those times were the link between what we are now, so changed +in many ways, and the original impulse given at Oxford; but to those +times I am as much of an outsider as most of the foremost in them were +outsiders to Oxford in the earlier days. Those times are almost more +important than the history of the movement; for, besides vindicating it, +they carried on its work to achievements and successes which, even in +the most sanguine days of "Tractarianism," had not presented themselves +to men's minds, much less to their hopes. But that story must be told by +others. + +"Show thy servants thy work, and their children thy glory." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[124] Compare Mozley's _Reminiscences_, ii. 1-3. + +[125] _Christian Remembrancer_, January 1846, pp. 167, 168. + +[126] _E.g._ the Warden of Merton's _History of the University of +Oxford,_ p. 212. "The first panic was succeeded by a reaction; some +devoted adherents followed him (Mr. Newman) to Rome; others relapsed +into lifeless conformity; and the University soon resumed its wonted +tranquillity." "_Lifeless_ conformity" sounds odd connected with Dr. +Pusey or Mr. J.B. Mozley, and the London men who were the founders of +the so-called Ritualist schools. + + + + +INDEX + + +Addresses to Archbishop of Canterbury, by clergy and laity +Anglicanism, its features in 1830 + Newman's views on + Newman's interpretation of +_Apologia_, quotations from +Apostolic Succession + Newman's insistence on + its foundation on Prayer Book +Apostolitity of English Church +Archbishop of Canterbury. _See_ Addresses, and Howley +_Arians_, the +Arnold, Dr., theories on the Church + his proposal to unite all sects by law + attack on Tractarians + Professorship at Oxford + his influence shown in rise of third school +Articles, the, and Dissenters + subscription of. _See_ Dr. Hampden, and Thirty-nine Articles + +Baptism, Tract on +_Baptistery_, the +Bennett, Mr. +Bentham. _see_ Utilitarianism +Bernard, Mr. Mountague +Bishoprics, suppression of ten Irish +Bishops' attitude to movement + the first Tract on +Blachford, Lord, reminiscences of Froude +Bliss, James +Blomfield, Bishop +British Association, a sign of the times +_British Critic_ on the movement +_British Magazine_ +Brougham, Lord +Bunsen, M., and the Bishopric of Jerusalem +Burton, Dr. + +Cambridge, critical school of theology +Capes, Mr. +Cardwell, Dr. +Catastrophe, the +Catholicity of English Church +_Catholicus's_ letters to the _Times_ +Celibacy, observations on +Celibate clergy scheme +Changes in movement +_Christian Remembrancer_ +_Christian Year_ +Christianity, Church of England, two schools of +Christie, Albany +Christie, J.F. +Church, the, in eighteenth century + Dr. Whately's theories on + Dr. Arnold's theories + Coleridge's theories + Apostolic origin of + various conceptions of + political attacks on + public mind indifferent to + Dr. Pusey's theories on + theological aspect of + practical aspect of + and the Roman question + Catholicity of + and the doctrine of Development +_Church of the Fathers_ +"Churchman's Manual" + Scotch Bishops on +Churton, Mr. (of Crayke) +Claughton, Mr. Piers +Clergy of eighteenth century, character of +Close, Dr. (of Cheltenham) +Coffin, Mr. +Coleridge, Mr. Justice +Coleridge, S.T., influence on Charles Marriott + Church theories +_Conservative Journal_, Newman's language towards Rome +Copeland, William John +Cornish, C.L. +Creeds, the, pamphlets on + authority of + +Dalgairns, Mr. +Defeats, the Three, 312-335. _See also_ Isaac Williams, + Macmullen, and Pusey +Dickinson, Dr., "Pastoral Epistle from his Holiness the Pope" +Diffusion of Useful Knowledge Society +Dissenters and the Articles. _See also_ Thirty-nine Articles +Dodsworth, Mr. +Dominic, Father, receives Newman into Church of Rome +Donkin, Mr. +Doyle, Sir F., on Newman's sermons + +_Ecclesiologist_ founded +Eden, C.P. +_Edinburgh Review_, article by Dr. Arnold on Tractarians +"Elucidations of Dr. Hampden's Theological Statements" +_English Churchman_ founded +Evangelicism in 1830, character of + +Faber, Francis +Faber, Frederic +Fasting, Tract on +Faussett, Dr. + attack on Dr. Pusey +Froude, Richard Hurrell + pupil of Keble + Fellow of Oriel + first meeting with Newman + early estimate of Newman + travels with Newman + influence on the movement + his severe self-discipline + character + Mozley's remarks on + correspondence + his _Remains_ published + effect of publication + a modern estimate of the _Remains_ + events of 1830 + theory of the Church + sermons and writings + Lord Blachford's reminiscences of +Froude, William + +Garbett, Mr., elected Professor of Poetry +Gilbert, Dr. +Gladstone, Mr. +Golightly, Mr. +Gorham, Mr. +_Grammar of Assent_ on Faith and Reason +Greenhill, Dr. +_Guardian_ founded +Guillemard, Mr. + +Haddan, A. +Hadleigh, Conference of leaders at + policy adopted +Hampden, Dr. + advocates abolition of subscription of Articles + his election as Professor of Divinity + outcry against election of + Bampton Lectures + so-called "persecution" of + modern estimate of the "persecution" + deprived of vote for Select Preachers + his action in the B.D. degree contest +Hare, Julius +Hawkins, Dr. +Hawkins, E. +Hill, Mr. +Hobhouse, Mr. +Holland House +"Home Thoughts Abroad" +Hook, Dr. +Hope, Mr. Beresford +Howley, Archbishop +Hussey, Mr. + +_Ideal of a Christian Church_, _See_ W.G. Ward +Infallibility, views on +Irons, Dr. + +Jebb, Bishop +Jelf, Dr. +Jenkyns, Dr. +Jerusalem, Bishopric of +Jerusalem, Bishopric of, Newman's protest against +Jolly, Bishop +Jowett, Mr. + +Kaye, Bishop +Keble, John + brilliant Oxford career + suspicions of Evangelicism + a strong Tory + his poetic nature + influence on Froude + his pupils + sermon on _National Apostasy_ + tract on "Mysticism of the Fathers" + resigns Poetry Professorship +Keble, Thomas +Knox, Alexander + +Law's _Serious Call_, Keble's remark on +Le Bas, Mr. +_Lectures on Justification_, Newman's, influence of +_Letter to the Bishop of Oxford_, Newman's +Letters of an Episcopalian +Lewis, D. +_Library of the Fathers_ +Lloyd's, Bishop, Lectures, influence of +Lowe, R. +Lyall, Mr. +_Lyra Apostolica_ + +Macmullen, Mr. + his contest on B.D. degree +Manning, Archdeacon +Marriott, Charles + influenced by Coleridge and Dr. Hampden + aversion to party action + Scholar of Balliol + Fellow of Oriel + Newman's influence on + Moberly's influence on + Principal of Chichester Theological College + scheme of poor students' hall + Tutor of Oriel + Vicar of St. Mary's + his sermons + rooms and parties + share in _Library of the Fathers_ + Mozley's estimate of + death +Marsh, Bishop +"Martyrs' Memorial," connexion with the movement +Maurice, F.D., views of +Melbourne, Lord +Meyrick, T. +Miller, John (of Worcester), Bampton Lectures, influence of +Moberly, Dr. (of Winchester) +Monophysite Controversy +Morris, John Brande +Mozley, James + on Newman's sermons + on "No. 90" +Mozley, Thomas + on Charles Marriott + on Froude +"Mysticism of the Fathers in the use and interpretation of Scripture," + Keble's Tract on + +National Apostasy, Keble's sermon on +Newman, John Henry-- + his early preaching + meeting with Froude + Froude's early estimate of + on Apostolic Succession, _q.v._ + on Infallibility + attitude at different times to Rome + early friends + first Tract, written by + his four o'clock sermons + chief coadjutors of + views on subscription of Articles + on Dr. Hampden's theology + character + Lectures + _Lectures on Justification_ + Anglicanism, views on + resigns St. Mary's + not a proselytiser + _Letter to Bishop of Oxford_ + interpretation of Church formularies + on the Articles, _See_ "No. 90" + _Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine_ + joins Church of Rome +Nicknames +"No. 90" + Newman's attitude on + object to defend Catholicity of the Articles + its reception + charge of dishonesty against + condemned by Board of Heads + pamphlet war on + the crisis of the movement + events after + +Oakeley, Mr. + article on "Jewel" +Ogilvie, Dr. +Ordination, validity of +_Origines Liturgicae_ +Oxford, Liberal School of Theology + Orthodoxy + as a Church School +Oxford Movement-- + political conditions of + beginnings of + Keble the primary author of + early writings towards + the leaders + forced on the originators + object of + accession of Dr. Pusey and his influence + gradual growth of + attitude to Romanism + changes in + tendency to Romanism + in origin anti-Roman + attitude of University authorities towards + attitude of Bishops towards + mistakes in conduct of +Oxford Movement-- + rise of third school + secessions to Rome + +Palmer, William, share in movement + _Origines Liturgicae_ + _Narrative_ + _Treatise on the Church of Christ_ +Palmer, Mr. Roundell +Park, Judge Allan +_Parochial Sermons_ +Pattison, Mark +Peel, Sir Robert +Perceval, A., share in movement +Phillpotts, Bishop +_Plain Sermons_ +Poetry Professorship, contest for, made a theological one +_Prophetical Office of the Church_ +"Prospects of the Anglican Church" + Newman's after-thoughts on +Pusey, Dr. + joins the movement + effect of his adhesion + his _Remonstrance_ + tract on Baptism + attack on him + sermon on the Holy Eucharist "delated" to Vice-Chancellor + unfairness of proceedings against + memorial to Vice-Chancellor, on his case + +"Records of the Church" +Reform days, state of Church +Reformers, early, views of +_Remonstrance_ +"Reserve in communicating Religious Knowledge," Isaac + Williams's tract on +Richards, Mr. Upton +Rogers, Frederic +_Romanism and Popular Protestantism_ +Romanism + misconceptions of + Newman's attitude towards + tendency in party of movement towards +Rose, Hugh James + an estimate of + lectures on German speculation + controversy with Dr. Pusey + early death +Routh, Dr. +_Rusticus_, pamphlets by +Ryder, G. + +St. John, Mr. Ambrose +Scott, Mr. Hope +Scott, W. +Seager, Charles +Selwyn, Bishop +Sewell, William +Shairp, Principal, on Newman's sermons +Sikes, Mr. (of Guilsborough) +Simpson, Mr. +Stanley, Mr. Arthur +Sterling, John +Subscription. _See_ Thirty-nine Articles +Sumner, J. Bird, Bishop +Symons, Dr. + opposition to, as Vice-Chancellor + +Tait, Mr. (of Balliol) +Theologians of 1830 +Third party in Church-- + rise of + influence +Thirlwall, Connop +Thirty-nine Articles, subscription of + Dr. Hampden and subscription + pamphlet war on subscription + Newman on subscription + their Catholicity + _And see_ W.G. Ward "No. 90" on +Thomas, Vaughan +_Times_, letters of _Catholicus_ to +Tottenham, E. +Tractarian doctrines, discussion of + Movement. _See_ Oxford +Tractarians, excitement against +Tract, text of the first +Tracts, the-- + topics of + mode of circulating + reception of + accused of Romanism + first volume of + later numbers, character of + public opinion against + "No. 90," _q.v._ + contributors to + on "Reserve," _q.v._ + on "Mysticism," _q.v._ +_Treatise on the Church of Christ_ + +Utilitarianism, influence on religious belief + +_Via Media_ + +Wall, Mr. +Ward, W.G. + dismissed from Balliol Lectureship + writings on Romanism + his criticisms of English Church + _Ideal of a Christian Church_ + on "No. 90" + on the Articles + hostility to Lutheranism + his philosophy of religion + his book condemned + himself "degraded" + joins Church of Rome +Watson, Joshua +Wellington, Duke of +Whately, Dr.-- + theories on Church + opposed to Tractarians + _Letters of an Episcopalian_ +White, Blanco +Whytehead, Mr. +Wilberforce, Henry +Wilberforce, Robert +Williams, Isaac +Williams, Isaac, Keble's influence on + Fellow of Trinity + connexion with Newman + divergences from Newman + contributions to _Plain Sermons_ + aversion to Rome + his poetry + defeated for Poetry Professorship + Tract on "Reserve" +Wilson, H.B. +Wilson, R.F. +Wiseman, Dr. + article on Donatists +Wood, S.F. +Woodgate, Mr. +Wordsworth, Dr. +Wynter, Dr. + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Oxford Movement, by R.W. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/12092-8.zip b/old/12092-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b20736a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12092-8.zip diff --git a/old/12092.txt b/old/12092.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..270db8d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12092.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10766 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Oxford Movement, by R.W. Church + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Oxford Movement + Twelve Years, 1833-1845 + +Author: R.W. Church + +Release Date: April 20, 2004 [EBook #12092] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OXFORD MOVEMENT *** + + + + +Produced by PG Distributed Proofreaders. Produced from images provided +by the Million Book Project. + + + + + + + + + + + +THE OXFORD MOVEMENT + +TWELVE YEARS 1833-1845 + +R.W. CHURCH, M.A., D.C.L. + +SOMETIME DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S AND FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD + + + + +ADVERTISEMENT + + +The revision of these papers was a task to which the late Dean of St. +Paul's gave all the work he could during the last months of his life. At +the time of his death, fourteen of the papers had, so far as can be +judged, received the form in which he wished them to be published; and +these, of course, are printed here exactly as he left them. One more he +had all but prepared for publication; the last four were mainly in the +condition in which, six years ago, he had them privately put into type, +for the convenience of his own further work upon them, and for the +reading of two or three intimate friends. Those into whose care his work +has now come have tried, with the help of his pencilled notes, to bring +these four papers as nearly as they can into the form which they believe +he would have had them take. But it has seemed better to leave unaltered +a sentence here and there to which he might have given a more perfect +shape, rather than to run the risk of swerving from the thought which +was in his mind. + +It is possible that the Dean would have made considerable changes in +the preface which is here printed; for only that which seems the first +draft of it has been found. But even thus it serves to show his wish and +purpose for the work he had in hand; and it has therefore been thought +best to publish it. Leave has been obtained to add here some fragments +from a letter which, three years ago, he wrote to Lord Acton about these +papers: + +"If I ever publish them, I must say distinctly what I want to do, which +is, not to pretend to write a history of the movement, or to account for +it or adequately to judge it and put it in its due place in relation to +the religious and philosophical history of the time, but simply to +preserve a contemporary memorial of what seems to me to have been a true +and noble effort which passed before my eyes, a short scene of religious +earnestness and aspiration, with all that was in it of self-devotion, +affectionateness, and high and refined and varied character, displayed +under circumstances which are scarcely intelligible to men of the +present time; so enormous have been the changes in what was assumed and +acted upon, and thought practicable and reasonable, 'fifty years since.' +For their time and opportunities, the men of the movement, with all +their imperfect equipment and their mistakes, still seem to me the salt +of their generation.... I wish to leave behind me a record that one who +lived with them, and lived long beyond most of them, believed in the +reality of their goodness and height of character, and still looks back +with deepest reverence to those forgotten men as the companions to whose +teaching and example he owes an infinite debt, and not he only, but +religious society in England of all kinds." + +_January_ 31st, 1891. + + + + +PREFACE + + +The following pages relate to that stage in the Church revival of this +century which is familiarly known as the Oxford Movement, or, to use its +nickname, the Tractarian Movement. Various side influences and +conditions affected it at its beginning and in its course; but the +impelling and governing force was, throughout the years with which these +pages are concerned, at Oxford. It was naturally and justly associated +with Oxford, from which it received some of its most marked +characteristics. Oxford men started it and guided it. At Oxford were +raised its first hopes, and Oxford was the scene of its first successes. +At Oxford were its deep disappointments, and its apparently fatal +defeat. And it won and lost, as a champion of English theology and +religion, a man of genius, whose name is among the illustrious names of +his age, a name which will always be connected with modern Oxford, and +is likely to be long remembered wherever the English language is +studied. + +We are sometimes told that enough has been written about the Oxford +Movement, and that the world is rather tired of the subject. A good deal +has certainly been both said and written about it, and more is probably +still to come; and it is true that other interests, more immediate or +more attractive, have thrown into the background what is severed from us +by the interval of half a century. Still that movement had a good deal +to do with what is going on in everyday life among us now; and feelings +both of hostility to it, and of sympathy with it, are still lively and +keen among those to whom religion is a serious subject, and even among +some who are neutral in the questions which it raised, but who find in +it a study of thought and character. I myself doubt whether the interest +of it is so exhausted as is sometimes assumed. If it is, these pages +will soon find their appropriate resting-place. But I venture to present +them, because, though a good many judgments upon the movement have been +put forth, they have come mostly from those who have been more or less +avowedly opposed to it.[1] The men of most account among those who were +attracted by it and represented it have, with one illustrious exception, +passed away. A survivor of the generation which it stirred so deeply may +not have much that is new to tell about it. He may not be able to affect +much the judgment which will finally be accepted about it. But the fact +is not unimportant, that a number of able and earnest men, men who both +intellectually and morally would have been counted at the moment as part +of the promise of the coming time, were fascinated and absorbed by it. +It turned and governed their lives, lifting them out of custom and +convention to efforts after something higher, something worthier of what +they were. It seemed worth while to exhibit the course of the movement +as it looked to these men--as it seemed to them viewed from the inside. +My excuse for adding to so much that has been already written is, that I +was familiar with many of the chief actors in the movement. And I do not +like that the remembrance of friends and associates, men of singular +purity of life and purpose, who raised the tone of living round them, +and by their example, if not by their ideas, recalled both Oxford and +the Church to a truer sense of their responsibilities, should, because +no one would take the trouble to put things on record, "pass away like a +dream." + +The following pages were, for the most part, written, and put into +printed shape, in 1884 and 1885. Since they were written, books have +appeared, some of them important ones, going over most of the same +ground; while yet more volumes may be expected. We have had ingenious +theories of the genesis of the movement, and the filiation of its ideas. +Attempts have been made to alter the proportions of the scene and of the +several parts played upon it, and to reduce the common estimate of the +weight and influence of some of the most prominent personages. The +point of view of those who have thus written is not mine, and they tell +their story (with a full right so to do) as I tell mine. But I do not +purpose to compare and adjust our respective accounts--to attack theirs, +or to defend my own. I have not gone through their books to find +statements to except to, or to qualify. The task would be a tiresome and +unprofitable one. I understand their point of view, though I do not +accept it. I do not doubt their good faith, and I hope that they will +allow mine. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] It is hardly necessary to say that these and the following words +were written before Dr. Newman's death, and the publication of his +letters. + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I +THE CHURCH IN THE REFORM DAYS + +CHAPTER II +THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVEMENT--JOHN KEBLE + +CHAPTER III +RICHARD HURRELL FROUDE + +CHAPTER IV +MR. NEWMAN'S EARLY FRIENDS--ISAAC WILLIAMS + +CHAPTER V +CHARLES MARRIOTT + +CHAPTER VI +THE OXFORD TRACTS + +CHAPTER VII +THE TRACTARIANS + +CHAPTER VIII +SUBSCRIPTION AT MATRICULATION AND ADMISSION OF DISSENTERS + +CHAPTER IX +DR. HAMPDEN + +CHAPTER X +GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT, 1835-1840 + +CHAPTER XI +THE ROMAN QUESTION + +CHAPTER XII +CHANGES + +CHAPTER XIII +THE AUTHORITIES AND THE MOVEMENT + +CHAPTER XIV +NO. 90 + +CHAPTER XV +AFTER NO. 90 + +CHAPTER XVI +THE THREE DEFEATS: ISAAC WILLIAMS, MACMULLEN, PUSEY + +CHAPTER XVII +W.G. WARD + +CHAPTER XVIII +THE IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH + +CHAPTER XIX +THE CATASTROPHE + + + + + +THE OXFORD MOVEMENT + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE CHURCH IN THE REFORM DAYS + + +What is called the Oxford or Tractarian movement began, without doubt, +in a vigorous effort for the immediate defence of the Church against +serious dangers, arising from the violent and threatening temper of the +days of the Reform Bill. It was one of several and widely differing +efforts. Viewed superficially it had its origin in the accident of an +urgent necessity.[2] The Church was really at the moment imperilled amid +the crude revolutionary projects of the Reform epoch;[3] and something +bolder and more effective than the ordinary apologies for the Church +was the call of the hour. The official leaders of the Church were almost +stunned and bewildered by the fierce outbreak of popular hostility. The +answers put forth on its behalf to the clamour for extensive and even +destructive change were the work of men surprised in a moment of +security. They scarcely recognised the difference between what was +indefensible and what must be fought for to the death; they mistook +subordinate or unimportant points for the key of their position: in +their compromises or in their resistance they wanted the guidance of +clear and adequate principles, and they were vacillating and +ineffective. But stronger and far-seeing minds perceived the need of a +broad and intelligible basis on which to maintain the cause of the +Church. For the air was full of new ideas; the temper of the time was +bold and enterprising. It was felt by men who looked forward, that to +hold their own they must have something more to show than custom or +alleged expediency--they must sound the depths of their own convictions, +and not be afraid to assert the claims of these convictions on men's +reason and imagination as well as on their associations and feelings. +The same dangers and necessities acted differently on different minds; +but among those who were awakened by them to the presence of a great +crisis were the first movers in what came to be known as the Tractarian +movement. The stir around them, the perils which seemed to threaten, +were a call to them to examine afresh the meaning of their familiar +words and professions. + +For the Church, as it had been in the quiet days of the eighteenth +century, was scarcely adapted to the needs of more stirring times. The +idea of clerical life had certainly sunk, both in fact and in the +popular estimate of it. The disproportion between the purposes for which +the Church with its ministry was founded and the actual tone of feeling +among those responsible for its service had become too great. Men were +afraid of principles; the one thing they most shrank from was the +suspicion of enthusiasm. Bishop Lavington wrote a book to hold up to +scorn the enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists; and what would have +seemed reasonable and natural in matters of religion and worship in the +age of Cranmer, in the age of Hooker, in the age of Andrewes, or in the +age of Ken, seemed extravagant in the age which reflected the spirit of +Tillotson and Secker, and even Porteus. The typical clergyman in English +pictures of the manners of the day, in the _Vicar of Wakefield,_ in Miss +Austen's novels, in Crabbe's _Parish Register,_ is represented, often +quite unsuspiciously, as a kindly and respectable person, but certainly +not alive to the greatness of his calling. He was often much, very much, +to the society round him. When communication was so difficult and +infrequent, he filled a place in the country life of England which no +one else could fill. He was often the patriarch of his parish, its +ruler, its doctor, its lawyer, its magistrate, as well as its teacher, +before whom vice trembled and rebellion dared not show itself. The idea +of the priest was not quite forgotten; but there was much--much even of +what was good and useful--to obscure it. The beauty of the English +Church in this time was its family life of purity and simplicity; its +blot was quiet worldliness. It has sometimes been the fashion in later +days of strife and disquiet to regret that unpretending estimate of +clerical duty and those easy-going days; as it has sometimes been the +fashion to regret the pomp and dignity with which well-born or scholarly +bishops, furnished with ample leisure and splendid revenues, presided in +unapproachable state over their clergy and held their own among the +great county families. Most things have a side for which something can +be said; and we may truthfully and thankfully recall that among the +clergy of those days there were not a few but many instances, not only +of gentle manners, and warm benevolence, and cultivated intelligence, +but of simple piety and holy life.[4] But the fortunes of the Church are +not safe in the hands of a clergy, of which a great part take their +obligations easily. It was slumbering and sleeping when the visitation +of days of change and trouble came upon it. + +Against this state of things the Oxford movement was a determined +revolt; but, as has been said, it was not the only one, nor the first. A +profound discontent at the state of religion in England had taken +possession of many powerful and serious minds in the generation which +was rising into manhood at the close of the first quarter of the +century; and others besides the leaders of the movement were feeling +their way to firmer ground. Other writers of very different principles, +and with different objects, had become alive, among other things, to the +importance of true ideas about the Church, impatient at the ignorance +and shallowness of the current views of it, and alarmed at the dangers +which menaced it. Two Oxford teachers who commanded much attention by +their force and boldness--Dr. Whately and Dr. Arnold--had developed +their theories about the nature, constitution, and functions of the +Church. They were dissatisfied with the general stagnation of religious +opinion, on this as on other subjects. They agreed in resenting the +unintelligent shortsightedness which relegated such a matter to a third +or fourth rank in the scale of religious teaching. They agreed also in +seizing the spiritual aspect of the Church, and in raising the idea of +it above the level of the poor and worldly conceptions on the assumption +of which questions relating to it were popularly discussed. But in their +fundamental principles they were far apart. I assume, on the authority +of Cardinal Newman, what was widely believed in Oxford, and never +apparently denied, that the volume entitled _Letters of an +Episcopalian_,[5] 1826, was, in some sense at least, the work of Dr. +Whately. In it is sketched forth the conception of an organised body, +introduced into the world by Christ Himself, endowed with definite +spiritual powers and with no other, and, whether connected with the +State or not, having an independent existence and inalienable claims, +with its own objects and laws, with its own moral standard and spirit +and character. From this book Cardinal Newman tells us that he learnt +his theory of the Church, though it was, after all, but the theory +received from the first appearance of Christian history; and he records +also the deep impression which it made on others. Dr. Arnold's view was +a much simpler one. He divided the world into Christians and +non-Christians: Christians were all who professed to believe in Christ +as a Divine Person and to worship Him,[6] and the brotherhood, the +"Societas" of Christians, was all that was meant by "the Church" in the +New Testament. It mattered, of course, to the conscience of each +Christian what he had made up his mind to believe, but to no one else. +Church organisation was, according to circumstances, partly inevitable +or expedient, partly mischievous, but in no case of divine authority. +Teaching, ministering the word, was a thing of divine appointment, but +not so the mode of exercising it, either as to persons, forms, or +methods. Sacraments there were, signs and pledges of divine love and +help, in every action of life, in every sight of nature, and eminently +two most touching ones, recommended to Christians by the Redeemer +Himself; but except as a matter of mere order, one man might deal with +these as lawfully as another. Church history there was, fruitful in +interest, instruction, and warning; for it was the record of the long +struggle of the true idea of the Church against the false, and of the +fatal disappearance of the true before the forces of blindness and +wickedness.[7] Dr. Arnold's was a passionate attempt to place the true +idea in the light. Of the difficulties of his theory he made light +account. There was the vivid central truth which glowed through his soul +and quickened all his thoughts. He became its champion and militant +apostle. These doctrines, combined with his strong political liberalism, +made the Midlands hot for Dr. Arnold. But he liked the fighting, as he +thought, against the narrow and frightened orthodoxy round him. And he +was in the thick of this fighting when another set of ideas about the +Church--the ideas on which alone it seemed to a number of earnest and +anxious minds that the cause of the Church could be maintained--the +ideas which were the beginning of the Oxford movement, crossed his path. +It was the old orthodox tradition of the Church, with fresh life put +into it, which he flattered himself that he had so triumphantly +demolished. This intrusion of a despised rival to his own teaching about +the Church--teaching in which he believed with deep and fervent +conviction--profoundly irritated him; all the more that it came from men +who had been among his friends, and who, he thought, should have known +better.[8] + +But neither Dr. Whately's nor Dr. Arnold's attempts to put the old +subject of the Church in a new light gained much hold on the public +mind. One was too abstract; the other too unhistorical and +revolutionary. Both in Oxford and in the country were men whose hearts +burned within them for something less speculative and vague, something +more reverent and less individual, more in sympathy with the inherited +spirit of the Church. It did not need much searching to find in the +facts and history of the Church ample evidence of principles distinct +and inspiring, which, however long latent, or overlaid by superficial +accretions, were as well fitted as they ever were to animate its +defenders in the struggle with the unfriendly opinion of the day. They +could not open their Prayer-Books, and think of what they read there, +without seeing that on the face of it the Church claimed to be something +very different from what it was assumed to be in the current +controversies of the time, very different from a mere institution of the +State, from a vague collection of Christian professions from one form +or denomination of religion among many, distinguished by larger +privileges and larger revenues. They could not help seeing that it +claimed an origin not short of the Apostles of Christ, and took for +granted that it was to speak and teach with their authority and that of +their Master. These were theological commonplaces; but now, the pressure +of events and of competing ideas made them to be felt as real and +momentous truths. Amid the confusions and inconsistencies of the +semi-political controversy on Church reform, and on the defects and +rights of the Church, which was going on in Parliament, in the press, +and in pamphlets, the deeper thoughts of those who were interested in +its fortunes were turned to what was intrinsic and characteristic in its +constitution: and while these thoughts in some instances only issued in +theory and argument, in others they led to practical resolves to act +upon them and enforce them. + +At the end of the first quarter of the century, say about 1825-30, two +characteristic forms of Church of England Christianity were popularly +recognised. One inherited the traditions of a learned and sober +Anglicanism, claiming as the authorities for its theology the great line +of English divines from Hooker to Waterland, finding its patterns of +devotion in Bishop Wilson, Bishop Horne, and the "Whole Duty of Man," +but not forgetful of Andrewes, Jeremy Taylor, and Ken,--preaching, +without passion or excitement, scholarlike, careful, wise, often +vigorously reasoned discourses on the capital points of faith and +morals, and exhibiting in its adherents, who were many and important, +all the varieties of a great and far-descended school, which claimed for +itself rightful possession of the ground which it held. There was +nothing effeminate about it, as there was nothing fanatical; there was +nothing extreme or foolish about it; it was a manly school, distrustful +of high-wrought feelings and professions, cultivating self-command and +shy of display, and setting up as its mark, in contrast to what seemed +to it sentimental weakness, a reasonable and serious idea of duty. The +divinity which it propounded, though it rested on learning, was rather +that of strong common sense than of the schools of erudition. Its better +members were highly cultivated, benevolent men, intolerant of +irregularities both of doctrine and life, whose lives were governed by +an unostentatious but solid and unfaltering piety, ready to burst forth +on occasion into fervid devotion. Its worse members were jobbers and +hunters after preferment, pluralists who built fortunes and endowed +families out of the Church, or country gentlemen in orders, who rode to +hounds and shot and danced and farmed, and often did worse things. Its +average was what naturally in England would be the average, in a state +of things in which great religious institutions have been for a long +time settled and unmolested--kindly, helpful, respectable, sociable +persons of good sense and character, workers rather in a fashion of +routine which no one thought of breaking, sometimes keeping up their +University learning, and apt to employ it in odd and not very profitable +inquiries; apt, too, to value themselves on their cheerfulness and quick +wit; but often dull and dogmatic and quarrelsome, often insufferably +pompous. The custom of daily service and even of fasting was kept up +more widely than is commonly supposed. The Eucharist, though sparingly +administered, and though it had been profaned by the operation of the +Test Acts, was approached by religious people with deep reverence. But +besides the better, and the worse, and the average members of this, +which called itself the Church party, there stood out a number of men of +active and original minds, who, starting from the traditions of the +party, were in advance of it in thought and knowledge, or in the desire +to carry principles into action. At the Universities learning was still +represented by distinguished names. At Oxford, Dr. Routh was still +living and at work, and Van Mildert was not forgotten. Bishop Lloyd, if +he had lived, would have played a considerable part; and a young man of +vast industry and great Oriental learning, Mr. Pusey, was coming on the +scene. Davison, in an age which had gone mad about the study of +prophecy, had taught a more intelligent and sober way of regarding it; +and Mr. John Miller's Bampton Lectures, now probably only remembered by +a striking sentence, quoted in a note to the _Christian Year,_[9] had +impressed his readers with a deeper sense of the uses of Scripture. +Cambridge, besides scholars like Bishop Kaye, and accomplished writers +like Mr. Le Bas and Mr. Lyall, could boast of Mr. Hugh James Rose, the +most eminent person of his generation as a divine. But the influence of +this learned theology was at the time not equal to its value. Sound +requires atmosphere; and there was as yet no atmosphere in the public +mind in which the voice of this theology could be heard. The person who +first gave body and force to Church theology, not to be mistaken or +ignored, was Dr. Hook. His massive and thorough Churchmanship was the +independent growth of his own thoughts and reading. Resolute, through +good report and evil report, rough but very generous, stern both against +Popery and Puritanism, he had become a power in the Midlands and the +North, and first Coventry, then Leeds, were the centres of a new +influence. He was the apostle of the Church to the great middle class. + +These were the orthodox Churchmen, whom their rivals, and not their +rivals only,[10] denounced as dry, unspiritual, formal, unevangelical, +self-righteous; teachers of mere morality at their best, allies and +servants of the world at their worst. In the party which at this time +had come to be looked upon popularly as best entitled to be the +_religious_ party, whether they were admired as Evangelicals, or abused +as Calvinists, or laughed at as the Saints, were inheritors not of +Anglican traditions, but of those which had grown up among the zealous +clergymen and laymen who had sympathised with the great Methodist +revival, and whose theology and life had been profoundly affected by it. +It was the second or third generation of those whose religious ideas had +been formed and governed by the influence of teachers like Hervey, +Romaine, Cecil, Venn, Fletcher, Newton, and Thomas Scott. The fathers of +the Evangelical school were men of naturally strong and vigorous +understandings, robust and rugged, and sometimes eccentric, but quite +able to cope with the controversialists, like Bishop Tomline, who +attacked them. These High Church controversialists were too half-hearted +and too shallow, and understood their own principles too imperfectly, to +be a match for antagonists who were in deadly earnest, and put them to +shame by their zeal and courage. But Newton and Romaine and the Milners +were too limited and narrow in their compass of ideas to found a +powerful theology. They undoubtedly often quickened conscience. But +their system was a one-sided and unnatural one, indeed in the hands of +some of its expounders threatening morality and soundness of +character.[11] It had none of the sweep which carried the justification +doctrines of Luther, or the systematic predestinarianism of Calvin, or +the "platform of discipline" of John Knox and the Puritans. It had to +deal with a society which laid stress on what was "reasonable," or +"polite," or "ingenious," or "genteel," and unconsciously it had come to +have respect to these requirements. The one thing by which its preachers +carried disciples with them was their undoubted and serious piety, and +their brave, though often fantastic and inconsistent, protest against +the world. They won consideration and belief by the mild persecution +which this protest brought on them--by being proscribed as enthusiasts +by comfortable dignitaries, and mocked as "Methodists" and "Saints" by +wits and worldlings. But the austere spirit of Newton and Thomas Scott +had, between 1820 and 1830, given way a good deal to the influence of +increasing popularity. The profession of Evangelical religion had been +made more than respectable by the adhesion of men of position and +weight. Preached in the pulpits of fashionable chapels, this religion +proved to be no more exacting than its "High and Dry" rival. It gave a +gentle stimulus to tempers which required to be excited by novelty. It +recommended itself by gifts of flowing words or high-pitched rhetoric to +those who expected _some_ demands to be made on them, so that these +demands were not too strict. Yet Evangelical religion had not been +unfruitful, especially in public results. It had led Howard and +Elizabeth Fry to assail the brutalities of the prisons. It had led +Clarkson and Wilberforce to overthrow the slave trade, and ultimately +slavery itself. It had created great Missionary Societies. It had given +motive and impetus to countless philanthropic schemes. What it failed in +was the education and development of character; and this was the result +of the increasing meagreness of its writing and preaching. There were +still Evangelical preachers of force and eloquence--Robert Hall, Edward +Irving, Chalmers, Jay of Bath--but they were not Churchmen. The circle +of themes dwelt on by this school in the Church was a contracted one, +and no one had found the way of enlarging it. It shrank, in its fear of +mere moralising, in its horror of the idea of merit or of the value of +good works, from coming into contact with the manifold realities of the +spirit of man: it never seemed to get beyond the "first beginnings" of +Christian teaching, the call to repent, the assurance of forgiveness: it +had nothing to say to the long and varied process of building up the new +life of truth and goodness: it was nervously afraid of departing from +the consecrated phrases of its school, and in the perpetual iteration of +them it lost hold of the meaning they may once have had. It too often +found its guarantee for faithfulness in jealous suspicions, and in +fierce bigotries, and at length it presented all the characteristics of +an exhausted teaching and a spent enthusiasm. Claiming to be exclusively +spiritual, fervent, unworldly, the sole announcer of the free grace of +God amid self-righteousness and sin, it had come, in fact, to be on very +easy terms with the world. Yet it kept its hold on numbers of +spiritually-minded persons, for in truth there seemed to be nothing +better for those who saw in the affections the main field of religion. +But even of these good men, the monotonous language sounded to all but +themselves inconceivably hollow and wearisome; and in the hands of the +average teachers of the school, the idea of religion was becoming poor +and thin and unreal. + +But besides these two great parties, each of them claiming to represent +the authentic and unchanging mind of the Church, there were independent +thinkers who took their place with neither and criticised both. Paley +had still his disciples at Cambridge, or if not disciples, yet +representatives of his masculine but not very profound and reverent way +of thinking; and a critical school, represented by names afterwards +famous, Connop Thirlwall and Julius Hare, strongly influenced by German +speculation, both in theology and history, began to attract attention. +And at Cambridge was growing, slowly and out of sight, a mind and an +influence which were to be at once the counterpart and the rival of the +Oxford movement, its ally for a short moment, and then its earnest and +often bitter enemy. In spite of the dominant teaching identified with +the name of Mr. Simeon, Frederic Maurice, with John Sterling and other +members of the Apostles' Club, was feeling for something truer and +nobler than the conventionalities of the religious world.[12] In Oxford, +mostly in a different way, more dry, more dialectical, and, perhaps it +may be said, more sober, definite, and ambitious of clearness, the same +spirit was at work. There was a certain drift towards Dissent among the +warmer spirits. Under the leading of Whately, questions were asked about +what was supposed to be beyond dispute with both Churchmen and +Evangelicals. Current phrases, the keynotes of many a sermon, were +fearlessly taken to pieces. Men were challenged to examine the meaning +of their words. They were cautioned or ridiculed as the case might be, +on the score of "confusion of thought" and "inaccuracy of mind"; they +were convicted of great logical sins, _ignoratio elenchi,_ or +_undistributed middle terms;_ and bold theories began to make their +appearance about religious principles and teaching, which did not easily +accommodate themselves to popular conceptions. In very different ways +and degrees, Davison, Copleston, Whately, Hawkins, Milman, and not +least, a brilliant naturalised Spaniard who sowed the seeds of doubt +around him, Blanco White, had broken through a number of accepted +opinions, and had presented some startling ideas to men who had thought +that all religious questions lay between the orthodoxy of Lambeth and +the orthodoxy of Clapham and Islington. And thus the foundation was +laid, at least, at Oxford of what was then called the Liberal School of +Theology. Its theories and paradoxes, then commonly associated with the +"_Noetic_" character of one college, Oriel, were thought startling and +venturesome when discussed in steady-going common-rooms and country +parsonages; but they were still cautious and old-fashioned compared +with what was to come after them. The distance is indeed great between +those early disturbers of lecture-rooms and University pulpits, and +their successors. + +While this was going on within the Church, there was a great movement of +thought going on in the country. It was the time when Bentham's +utilitarianism had at length made its way into prominence and +importance. It had gained a hold on a number of powerful minds in +society and political life. It was threatening to become the dominant +and popular philosophy. It began, in some ways beneficially, to affect +and even control legislation. It made desperate attempts to take +possession of the whole province of morals. It forced those who saw +through its mischief, who hated and feared it, to seek a reason, and a +solid and strong one, for the faith which was in them as to the reality +of conscience and the mysterious distinction between right and wrong. +And it entered into a close alliance with science, which was beginning +to assert its claims, since then risen so high, to a new and undefined +supremacy, not only in the general concerns of the world, but specially +in education. It was the day of Holland House. It was the time when a +Society of which Lord Brougham was the soul, and which comprised a great +number of important political and important scientific names, was +definitely formed for the _Diffusion of Useful Knowledge_. Their labours +are hardly remembered now in the great changes for which they paved the +way; but the Society was the means of getting written and of publishing +at a cheap rate a number of original and excellent books on science, +biography, and history. It was the time of the _Library of Useful +Knowledge,_ and its companion, the _Library of Entertaining Knowledge;_ +of the _Penny Magazine,_ and its Church rival, the _Saturday Magazine,_ +of the _Penny Cyclopaedia,_ and _Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia,_ and +_Murray's Family Library_: popular series, which contained much of the +work of the ablest men of the day, and which, though for the most part +superseded now, were full of interest then. Another creation of this +epoch, and an unmistakable indication of its tendencies, was the British +Association for the Advancement of Science, which met for the first time +at Oxford in June 1832, not without a good deal of jealousy and +misgiving, partly unreasonable, partly not unfounded, among men in whose +hearts the cause and fortunes of religion were supreme. + +Thus the time was ripe for great collisions of principles and aims; for +the decomposition of elements which had been hitherto united; for +sifting them out of their old combinations, and regrouping them +according to their more natural affinities. It was a time for the +formation and development of unexpected novelties in teaching and +practical effort. There was a great historic Church party, imperfectly +conscious of its position and responsibilities;[13] there was an active +but declining pietistic school, resting on a feeble intellectual basis +and narrow and meagre interpretations of Scripture, and strong only in +its circle of philanthropic work; there was, confronting both, a rising +body of inquisitive and, in some ways, menacing thought. To men deeply +interested in religion, the ground seemed confused and treacherous. +There was room, and there was a call, for new effort; but to find the +resources for it, it seemed necessary to cut down deep below the level +of what even good men accepted as the adequate expression of +Christianity, and its fit application to the conditions of the +nineteenth century. It came to pass that there were men who had the +heart to make this attempt. As was said at starting, the actual movement +began in the conviction that a great and sudden danger to the Church was +at hand, and that an unusual effort must be made to meet it. But if the +occasion was in a measure accidental, there was nothing haphazard or +tentative in the line chosen to encounter the danger. From the first it +was deliberately and distinctly taken. The choice of it was the result +of convictions which had been forming before the occasion came which +called on them. The religious ideas which governed the minds of those +who led the movement had been traced, in outline at least, firmly and +without faltering. + +The movement had its spring in the consciences and character of its +leaders. To these men religion really meant the most awful and most +seriously personal thing on earth. It had not only a theological basis; +it had still more deeply a moral one. What that basis was is shown in a +variety of indications of ethical temper and habits, before the +movement, in those who afterwards directed it. The _Christian Year_ was +published in 1827, and tells us distinctly by what kind of standard Mr. +Keble moulded his judgment and aims. What Mr. Keble's influence and +teaching did, in training an apt pupil to deep and severe views of truth +and duty, is to be seen in the records of purpose and self-discipline, +often so painful, but always so lofty and sincere, of Mr. Hurrell +Froude's journal. But these indications are most forcibly given in Mr. +Newman's earliest preaching. As tutor at Oriel, Mr. Newman had made what +efforts he could, sometimes disturbing to the authorities, to raise the +standard of conduct and feeling among his pupils. When he became a +parish priest, his preaching took a singularly practical and +plain-spoken character. The first sermon of the series, a typical +sermon, "Holiness necessary for future Blessedness," a sermon which has +made many readers grave when they laid it down, was written in 1826, +before he came to St. Mary's; and as he began he continued. No sermons, +except those which his great opposite, Dr. Arnold, was preaching at +Rugby, had appealed to conscience with such directness and force. A +passionate and sustained earnestness after a high moral rule, seriously +realised in conduct, is the dominant character of these sermons. They +showed the strong reaction against slackness of fibre in the religious +life; against the poverty, softness; restlessness, worldliness, the +blunted and impaired sense of truth, which reigned with little check in +the recognised fashions of professing Christianity; the want of depth +both of thought and feeling; the strange blindness to the real +sternness, nay the austerity, of the New Testament. Out of this ground +the movement grew. Even more than a theological reform, it was a protest +against the loose unreality of ordinary religious morality. In the first +stage of the movement, moral earnestness and enthusiasm gave its impulse +to theological interest and zeal. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] The suppression of the Irish bishoprics. Palmer, _Narrative_ (1883), +pp. 44, 101. Maurice, _Life_, i. 180. + +[3] "The Church, as it now stands, no human power can save" (Arnold to +Tyler, June 1832. _Life,_ i. 326). "Nothing, as it seems to me, can save +the Church but an union with the Dissenters; now they are leagued with +the antichristian party, and no merely internal reforms will satisfy +them" (Arnold to Whately, January 1833, i. 348). He afterwards thought +this exaggerated (_Life,_ i. 336). "The Church has been for one hundred +years without any government, and in such a stormy season it will not go +on much longer without a rudder" (Whately to Bp. Copleston, July 1832. +_Life_, i, 167). "If such an arrangement of the Executive Government is +completed, it will be a difficult, but great and glorious feat for your +Lordship's ministry to preserve the establishment from utter overthrow" +(Whately to Lord Grey, May 1832. _Life_, i. 156). It is remarkable that +Dean Stanley should have been satisfied with ascribing to the movement +an "origin _entirely political_" and should have seen a proof of this +"thoroughly political origin" in Newman's observing the date of Mr. +Keble's sermon "National Apostasy" as the birthday of the movement, +_Edin. Rev._ April 1880, pp. 309, 310. + +[4] Readers of Wordsworth will remember the account of Mr. R. Walker +(Notes to the "River Duddon"). + +[5] Compare _Life of Whately_ (ed. 1866), i. 52, 68. + +[6] Arnold to W. Smith, _Life_, i. 356-358; ii. 32. + +[7] _Life_, i. 225 _sqq_. + +[8] "I am vexed to find how much hopeless bigotry lingers in minds, +[Greek: ois haekista hechrae]" (Arnold to Whately, Sept. 1832. _Life,_ +i. 331; ii. 3-7). + +[9] St. Bartholomew's Day + +[10] "The mere barren orthodoxy which, from all that I can hear, is +characteristic of Oxford." Maurice in 1829 (_Life,_ i. 103). In 1832 he +speaks of his "high endeavours to rouse Oxford from its lethargy having +so signally failed" (i. 143). + +[11] Abbey and Overton, _English Church in the Eighteenth Century,_ ii. +180, 204. + +[12] _V._ Maurice, _Life,_ i. 108-111; Trench's _Letters;_ Carlyle's +_Sterling_. + +[13] "In what concerns the Established Church, the House of Commons +seems to feel no other principle than that of vulgar policy. The old +High Church race is worn out." Alex. Knox (June 1816), i. 54. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVEMENT--JOHN KEBLE + + +Long before the Oxford movement was thought of, or had any definite +shape, a number of its characteristic principles and ideas had taken +strong hold of the mind of a man of great ability and great seriousness, +who, after a brilliant career at Oxford as student and tutor, had +exchanged the University for a humble country cure. John Keble, by some +years the senior, but the college friend and intimate of Arnold, was the +son of a Gloucestershire country clergyman of strong character and +considerable scholarship. He taught and educated his two sons at home, +and then sent them to Oxford, where both of them made their mark, and +the elder, John, a mere boy when he first appeared at his college, +Corpus, carried off almost everything that the University could give in +the way of distinction. He won a double first; he won the Latin and +English Essays in the same year; and he won what was the still greater +honour of an Oriel Fellowship. His honours were borne with meekness and +simplicity; to his attainments he joined a temper of singular sweetness +and modesty, capable at the same time, when necessary, of austere +strength and strictness of principle. He had become one of the most +distinguished men in Oxford, when about the year 1823 he felt himself +bound to give himself more exclusively to the work of a clergyman, and +left Oxford to be his father's curate. There was nothing very unusual in +his way of life, or singular and showy in his work as a clergyman; he +went in and out among the poor, he was not averse to society, he +preached plain, unpretending, earnest sermons; he kept up his literary +interests. But he was a deeply convinced Churchman, finding his standard +and pattern of doctrine and devotion in the sober earnestness and +dignity of the Prayer Book, and looking with great and intelligent +dislike at the teaching and practical working of the more popular system +which, under the name of Evangelical Christianity, was aspiring to +dominate religious opinion, and which, often combining some of the most +questionable features of Methodism and Calvinism, denounced with fierce +intolerance everything that deviated from its formulas and watchwords. +And as his loyalty to the Church of England was profound and intense, +all who had shared her fortunes, good or bad, or who professed to serve +her, had a place in his affections; and any policy which threatened to +injure or oppress her, and any principles which were hostile to her +influence and teaching, roused his indignation and resistance. He was a +strong Tory, and by conviction and religious temper a thorough High +Churchman. + +But there was nothing in him to foreshadow the leader in a bold and +wide-reaching movement. He was absolutely without ambition. He hated +show and mistrusted excitement. The thought of preferment was steadily +put aside both from temper and definite principle. He had no popular +aptitudes, and was very suspicious of them. He had no care for the +possession of influence; he had deliberately chosen the _fallentis +semita vitae,_ and to be what his father had been, a faithful and +contented country parson, was all that he desired. But idleness was not +in his nature. Born a poet, steeped in all that is noblest and tenderest +and most beautiful in Greek and Roman literature, with the keenest +sympathy with that new school of poetry which, with Wordsworth as its +representative, was searching out the deeper relations between nature +and the human soul, he found in poetical composition a vent and relief +for feelings stirred by the marvels of glory and of awfulness, and by +the sorrows and blessings, amid which human life is passed. But his +poetry was for a long time only for himself and his intimate friends; +his indulgence in poetical composition was partly playful, and it was +not till after much hesitation on his own part and also on theirs, and +with a contemptuous undervaluing of his work, which continued to the end +of his life, that the anonymous little book of poems was published which +has since become familiar wherever English is read, as the _Christian +year_. His serious interests were public ones. Though living in the +shade, he followed with anxiety and increasing disquiet the changes +which went on so rapidly and so formidably, during the end of the first +quarter of this century, in opinion and in the possession of political +power. It became more and more plain that great changes were at hand, +though not so plain what they would be. It seemed likely that power +would come into the hands of men and parties hostile to the Church in +their principles, and ready to use to its prejudice the advantages which +its position as an establishment gave them; and the anticipation grew in +Keble's mind, that in the struggles which seemed likely, not only for +the legal rights but for the faith of the Church, the Church might have +both to claim more, and to suffer more, at the hands of Government. Yet +though these thoughts filled his mind, and strong things were said in +the intercourse with friends about what was going on about them, no +definite course of action had been even contemplated when Keble went +into the country in 1823. There was nothing to distinguish him from +numbers of able clergymen all over England, who were looking on with +interest, with anxiety, often with indignation, at what was going on. +Mr. Keble had not many friends and was no party chief. He was a +brilliant university scholar overlaying the plain, unworldly country +parson; an old-fashioned English Churchman, with great veneration for +the Church and its bishops, and a great dislike of Rome, Dissent, and +Methodism, but with a quick heart; with a frank, gay humility of soul, +with great contempt of appearances, great enjoyment of nature, great +unselfishness, strict and severe principles of morals and duty. + +What was it that turned him by degrees into so prominent and so +influential a person? It was the result of the action of his convictions +and ideas, and still more of his character, on the energetic and +fearless mind of a pupil and disciple, Richard Hurrell Froude. Froude +was Keble's pupil at Oriel, and when Keble left Oriel for his curacy at +the beginning of the Long Vacation of 1823, he took Froude with him to +read for his degree. He took with him ultimately two other pupils, +Robert Wilberforce and Isaac Williams of Trinity. One of them, Isaac +Williams, has left some reminiscences of the time, and of the terms on +which the young men were with their tutor, then one of the most famous +men at Oxford. They were on terms of the utmost freedom. "Master is the +greatest boy of them all," was the judgment of the rustic who was +gardener, groom, and parish clerk to Mr. Keble. Froude's was a keen +logical mind, not easily satisfied, contemptuous of compromises and +evasions, and disposed on occasion to be mischievous and aggressive; and +with Keble, as with anybody else, he was ready to dispute and try every +form of dialectical experiment. But he was open to higher influences +than those of logic, and in Keble he saw what subdued and won him to +boundless veneration and affection. Keble won the love of the whole +little society; but in Froude he had gained a disciple who was to be the +mouthpiece and champion of his ideas, and who was to react on himself +and carry him forward to larger enterprises and bolder resolutions than +by himself he would have thought of. Froude took in from Keble all he +had to communicate--principles, convictions, moral rules and standards +of life, hopes, fears, antipathies. And his keenly-tempered intellect, +and his determination and high courage, gave a point and an impulse of +their own to Keble's views and purposes. As things came to look darker, +and dangers seemed more serious to the Church, its faith or its rights, +the interchange of thought between master and disciple, in talk and in +letter, pointed more and more to the coming necessity of action; and +Froude at least had no objections to the business of an agitator. But +all this was very gradual; things did not yet go beyond discussion; +ideas, views, arguments were examined and compared; and Froude, with all +his dash, felt as Keble felt, that he had much to learn about himself, +as well as about books and things. In his respect for antiquity, in his +dislike of the novelties which were invading Church rules and +sentiments, as well as its creeds, in his jealousy of the State, as well +as in his seriousness of self-discipline, he accepted Keble's guidance +and influence more and more; and from Keble he had more than one lesson +of self-distrust, more than one warning against the temptations of +intellect. "Froude told me many years after," writes one of his friends, +"that Keble once, before parting with him, seemed to have something on +his mind which he wished to say, but shrank from saying, while waiting, +I think, for a coach. At last he said, just before parting, 'Froude, you +thought Law's _Serious Call_ was a clever book; it seemed to me as if +you had said the Day of Judgment will be a pretty sight.' This speech, +Froude told me, had a great effect on his after life."[14] + +At Easter 1826 Froude was elected Fellow of Oriel. He came back to +Oxford, charged with Keble's thoughts and feelings, and from his more +eager and impatient temper, more on the look-out for ways of giving them +effect. The next year he became tutor, and he held the tutorship till +1830. But he found at Oriel a colleague, a little his senior in age and +standing, of whom Froude and his friends as yet knew little except that +he was a man of great ability, that he had been a favourite of +Whately's, and that in a loose and rough way he was counted among the +few Liberals and Evangelicals in Oxford. This was Mr. Newman. Keble had +been shy of him, and Froude would at first judge him by Keble's +standard. But Newman was just at this time "moving," as he expresses it, +"out of the shadow of Liberalism." Living not apart like Keble, but in +the same college, and meeting every day, Froude and Newman could not but +be either strongly and permanently repelled, or strongly attracted. They +were attracted; attracted with a force which at last united them in the +deepest and most unreserved friendship. Of the steps of this great +change in the mind and fortunes of each of them we have no record: +intimacies of this kind grow in college out of unnoticed and +unremembered talks, agreeing or differing, out of unconscious +disclosures of temper and purpose, out of walks and rides and quiet +breakfasts and common-room arguments, out of admirations and dislikes, +out of letters and criticisms and questions; and nobody can tell +afterwards how they have come about. The change was gradual and +deliberate. Froude's friends in Gloucestershire, the Keble family, had +their misgivings about Newman's supposed liberalism; they did not much +want to have to do with him. His subtle and speculative temper did not +always square with Froude's theology. "N. is a fellow that I like more, +the more I think of him," Froude wrote in 1828; "only I would give a few +odd pence if he were not a heretic."[15] But Froude, who saw him every +day, and was soon associated with him in the tutorship, found a spirit +more akin to his own in depth and freedom and daring, than he had yet +encountered. And Froude found Newman just in that maturing state of +religious opinion in which a powerful mind like Froude's would be likely +to act decisively. Each acted on the other. Froude represented Keble's +ideas, Keble's enthusiasm. Newman gave shape, foundation, consistency, +elevation to the Anglican theology, when he accepted it, which Froude +had learned from Keble. "I knew him first," we read in the _Apologia_, +"in 1826, and was in the closest and most affectionate friendship with +him from about 1829 till his death in 1836."[16] But this was not all. +Through Froude, Newman came to know and to be intimate with Keble; and +a sort of _camaraderie_ arose, of very independent and outspoken people, +who acknowledged Keble as their master and counsellor. + +"The true and primary author of it" (the Tractarian movement), we read +in the _Apologia_, "as is usual with great motive powers, was out of +sight.... Need I say that I am speaking of John Keble?" The statement is +strictly true. Froude never would have been the man he was but for his +daily and hourly intercourse with Keble; and Froude brought to bear upon +Newman's mind, at a critical period of its development, Keble's ideas +and feelings about religion and the Church, Keble's reality of thought +and purpose, Keble's transparent and saintly simplicity. And Froude, as +we know from a well-known saying of his,[17] brought Keble and Newman to +understand one another, when the elder man was shy and suspicious of the +younger, and the younger, though full of veneration for the elder, was +hardly yet in full sympathy with what was most characteristic and most +cherished in the elder's religious convictions. Keble attracted and +moulded Froude: he impressed Froude with his strong Churchmanship, his +severity and reality of life, his poetry and high standard of scholarly +excellence. Froude learned from him to be anti-Erastian, +anti-methodistical, anti-sentimental, and as strong in his hatred of the +world, as contemptuous of popular approval, as any Methodist. Yet all +this might merely have made a strong impression, or formed one more +marked school of doctrine, without the fierce energy which received it +and which it inspired. But Froude, in accepting Keble's ideas, resolved +to make them active, public, aggressive; and he found in Newman a +colleague whose bold originality responded to his own. Together they +worked as tutors; together they worked when their tutorships came to an +end; together they worked when thrown into companionship in their +Mediterranean voyage in the winter of 1832 and the spring of 1833. They +came back, full of aspirations and anxieties which spurred them on; +their thoughts had broken out in papers sent home from time to time to +Rose's _British Magazine_--"Home Thoughts Abroad," and the "Lyra +Apostolica." Then came the meeting at Hadleigh, and the beginning of the +Tracts. Keble had given the inspiration, Froude had given the impulse; +then Newman took up the work, and the impulse henceforward, and the +direction, were his. + +Doubtless, many thought and felt like them about the perils which beset +the Church and religion. Loyalty to the Church, belief in her divine +mission, allegiance to her authority, readiness to do battle for her +claims, were anything but extinct in her ministers and laity. The +elements were all about of sound and devoted Churchmanship. Higher ideas +of the Church than the popular and political notion of it, higher +conceptions of Christian doctrine than those of the ordinary evangelical +theology--echoes of the meditations of a remarkable Irishman, Mr. +Alexander Knox--had in many quarters attracted attention in the works +and sermons of his disciple. Bishop Jebb, though it was not till the +movement had taken shape that their full significance was realised. +Others besides Keble and Froude and Newman were seriously considering +what could best be done to arrest the current which was running strong +against the Church, and discussing schemes of resistance and defence. +Others were stirring up themselves and their brethren to meet the new +emergencies, to respond to the new call. Some of these were in +communication with the Oriel men, and ultimately took part with them in +organising vigorous measures. But it was not till Mr. Newman made up his +mind to force on the public mind, in a way which could not be evaded, +the great article of the Creed--"I believe one Catholic and Apostolic +Church"--that the movement began. And for the first part of its course, +it was concentrated at Oxford. It was the direct result of the +searchings of heart and the communings for seven years, from 1826 to +1833, of the three men who have been the subject of this chapter. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[14] Isaac Williams's MS. Memoir. + +[15] _Rem._ i. 232, 233. In 1828, Newman had preferred Hawkins to Keble, +for Provost. + +[16] _Apol._ p. 84. + +[17] _Remains_, i. 438; _Apol._ p. 77. "Do you know the story of the +murderer who had done one good thing in his life? Well, if I was asked +what good deed I have ever done, I should say I had brought Keble and +Newman to understand each other." + + + + +CHAPTER III[18] + +RICHARD HURRELL FROUDE + + +The names of those who took the lead in this movement are +familiar--Keble, Newman, Pusey, Hugh James Rose, William Palmer. Much +has been written about them by friends and enemies, and also by one of +themselves, and any special notice of them is not to the purpose of the +present narrative. But besides these, there were men who are now almost +forgotten, but who at the time interested their contemporaries, because +they were supposed to represent in a marked way the spirit and character +of the movement, or to have exercised influence upon it. They ought not +to be overlooked in an account of it. One of them has been already +mentioned, Mr. Hurrell Froude. Two others were Mr. Isaac Williams and +Mr. Charles Marriott. They were all three of them men whom those who +knew them could never forget--could never cease to admire and love. + +Hurrell Froude soon passed away before the brunt of the fighting came. +His name is associated with Mr. Newman and Mr. Keble, but it is little +more than a name to those who now talk of the origin of the movement. +Yet all who remember him agree in assigning to him an importance as +great as that of any, in that little knot of men whose thoughts and +whose courage gave birth to it. + +Richard Hurrell Froude was born in 1803, and was thus two years younger +than Mr. Newman, who was born in 1801. He went to Eton, and in 1821 to +Oriel, where he was a pupil of Mr. Keble, and where he was elected +Fellow, along with Robert Wilberforce, at Easter 1826. He was College +Tutor from 1827 to 1830, having Mr. Newman and R. Wilberforce for +colleagues. His health failed in 1831 and led to much absence in warm +climates. He went with Mr. Newman to the south of Europe in 1832-33, and +was with him at Rome. The next two winters, with the intervening year, +he spent in the West Indies. Early in 1836 he died at Dartington--his +birthplace. He was at the Hadleigh meeting, in July 1833, when the +foundations of the movement were laid; he went abroad that winter, and +was not much in England afterwards. It was through correspondence that +he kept up his intercourse with his friends. + +Thus he was early cut off from direct and personal action on the course +which things took. But it would be a great mistake to suppose that his +influence on the line taken and on the minds of others was +inconsiderable. It would be more true to say that with one exception no +one was more responsible for the impulse which led to the movement; no +one had more to do with shaping its distinct aims and its moral spirit +and character in its first stage; no one was more daring and more clear, +as far as he saw, in what he was prepared for. There was no one to whom +his friends so much looked up with admiration and enthusiasm. There was +no "wasted shade"[19] in Hurrell Froude's disabled, prematurely +shortened life. + +Like Henry Martyn he was made by strong and even merciless +self-discipline over a strong and for a long time refractory nature. He +was a man of great gifts, with much that was most attractive and noble; +but joined with this them was originally in his character a vein of +perversity and mischief, always in danger of breaking out, and with +which he kept up a long and painful struggle. His inmost thought and +knowledge of himself have been laid bare in the papers which his friends +published after his death. He was in the habit of probing his motives to +the bottom, and of recording without mercy what he thought his +self-deceits and affectations. The religious world of the day made merry +over his methods of self-discipline; but whatever may be said of them, +and such things are not easy to judge of, one thing is manifest, that +they were true and sincere efforts to conquer what he thought evil in +himself, to keep himself in order, to bring his inmost self into +subjection to the law and will of God. The self-chastening, which his +private papers show, is no passion or value for asceticism, but a purely +moral effort after self-command and honesty of character; and what makes +the struggle so touching is its perfect reality and truth. He "turned +his thoughts on that desolate wilderness, his own conscience, and said +what he saw there."[20] A man who has had a good deal to conquer in +himself, and has gone a good way to conquer it, is not apt to be +indulgent to self-deceit or indolence, or even weakness. The basis of +Froude's character was a demand which would not be put off for what was +real and thorough; an implacable scorn and hatred for what he counted +shams and pretences. "His highest ambition," he used to say, "was to be +a humdrum."[21] The intellectual and the moral parts of his character +were of a piece. The tricks and flimsinesses of a bad argument provoked +him as much as the imposture and "flash" of insincere sentiment and fine +talking; he might be conscious of "flash" in himself and his friends, +and he would admit it unequivocally; but it was as unbearable to him to +pretend not to see a fallacy as soon as it was detected, as it would +have been to him to arrive at the right answer of a sum or a problem by +tampering with the processes. Such a man, with strong affections and +keen perception of all forms of beauty, and with the deepest desire to +be reverent towards all that had a right to reverence, would find +himself in the most irritating state of opposition and impatience with +much that passed as religion round him. Principles not attempted to be +understood and carried into practice, smooth self-complacency among +those who looked down on a blind and unspiritual world, the continual +provocation of worthless reasoning and ignorant platitudes, the dull +unconscious stupidity of people who could not see that the times were +critical--that truth had to be defended, and that it was no easy or +light-hearted business to defend it--threw him into an habitual attitude +of defiance, and half-amused, half-earnest contradiction, which made him +feared by loose reasoners and pretentious talkers, and even by quiet +easy-going friends, who unexpectedly found themselves led on blindfold, +with the utmost gravity, into traps and absurdities by the wiles of his +mischievous dialectic. This was the outside look of his relentless +earnestness. People who did not like him, or his views, and who, +perhaps, had winced under his irony, naturally put down his strong +language, which on occasion could certainly be unceremonious, to +flippancy and arrogance. But within the circle of those whom he trusted, +or of those who needed at anytime his help, another side disclosed +itself--a side of the most genuine warmth of affection, an awful reality +of devoutness, which it was his great and habitual effort to keep +hidden, a high simplicity of unworldliness and generosity, and in spite +of his daring mockeries of what was commonplace or showy, the most +sincere and deeply felt humility with himself. Dangerous as he was often +thought to be in conversation, one of the features of his character +which has impressed itself on the memory of one who knew him well, was +his "patient, winning considerateness in discussion, which, with other +qualities, endeared him to those to whom he opened his heart."[22] "It +is impossible," writes James Mozley in 1833, with a mixture of +amusement, speaking of the views about celibacy which were beginning to +be current, "to talk with Froude without committing one's self on such +subjects as these, so that by and by I expect the tergiversants will be +a considerable party." His letters, with their affectionately playful +addresses, [Greek: daimonie, ainotate, pepon], _Carissime, "Sir, my dear +friend"_ or "[Greek: Argeion och' ariste], have you not been a spoon?" +are full of the most delightful ease and _verve_ and sympathy. + +With a keen sense of English faults he was, as Cardinal Newman has said, +"an Englishman to the backbone"; and he was, further, a fastidious, +high-tempered English gentleman, in spite of his declaiming about +"pampered aristocrats" and the "gentleman heresy." His friends thought +of him as of the "young Achilles," with his high courage, and noble +form, and "eagle eye," made for such great things, but appointed so soon +to die. "Who can refrain from tears at the thought of that bright and +beautiful Froude?" is the expression of one of them shortly before his +death, and when it was quite certain that the doom which had so long +hung over him was at hand.[23] He had the love of doing, for the mere +sake of doing, what was difficult or even dangerous to do, which is the +mainspring of characteristic English sports and games. He loved the sea; +he liked to sail his own boat, and enjoyed rough weather, and took +interest in the niceties of seamanship and shipcraft. He was a bold +rider across country. With a powerful grasp on mathematical truths and +principles, he entered with whole-hearted zest into inviting problems, +or into practical details of mechanical or hydrostatic or astronomical +science. His letters are full of such observations, put in a way which +he thought would interest his friends, and marked by his strong habit of +getting into touch with what was real and of the substance of questions. +He applied his thoughts to architecture with a power and originality +which at the time were not common. No one who only cared for this world +could be more attracted and interested than he was by the wonder and +beauty of its facts and appearances. With the deepest allegiance to his +home and reverence for its ties and authority, a home of the +old-fashioned ecclesiastical sort, sober, manly, religious, orderly, he +carried into his wider life the feelings with which he had been brought +up; bold as he was, his reason and his character craved for authority, +but authority which morally and reasonably he could respect. Mr. Keble's +goodness and purity subdued him, and disposed him to accept without +reserve his master's teaching: and towards Mr. Keble, along with an +outside show of playful criticism and privileged impertinence, there was +a reverence which governed Froude's whole nature. In the wild and rough +heyday of reform, he was a Tory of the Tories. But when authority failed +him, from cowardice or stupidity or self-interest, he could not easily +pardon it; and he was ready to startle his friends by proclaiming +himself a Radical, prepared for the sake of the highest and greatest +interests to sacrifice all second-rate and subordinate ones. + +When his friends, after his death, published selections from his +journals and letters, the world was shocked by what seemed his amazing +audacity both of thought and expression about a number of things and +persons which it was customary to regard as almost beyond the reach of +criticism. The _Remains_ lent themselves admirably to the controversial +process of culling choice phrases and sentences and epithets +surprisingly at variance with conventional and popular estimates. +Friends were pained and disturbed; foes naturally enough could not hold +in their overflowing exultation at such a disclosure of the spirit of +the movement. Sermons and newspapers drew attention to Froude's +extravagances with horror and disgust. The truth is that if the off-hand +sayings in conversation or letters of any man of force and wit and +strong convictions about the things and persons that he condemns, were +made known to the world, they would by themselves have much the same +look of flippancy, injustice, impertinence to those who disagreed in +opinion with the speaker or writer they are allowed for, or they are not +allowed for by others, according to what is known of his general +character. The friends who published Froude's _Remains_ knew what he +was; they knew the place and proportion of the fierce and scornful +passages; they knew that they really did not go beyond the liberty and +the frank speaking which most people give themselves in the _abandon_ +and understood exaggeration of intimate correspondence and talk. But +they miscalculated the effect on those who did not know him, or whose +interest it was to make the most of the advantage given them. They seem +to have expected that the picture which they presented of their friend's +transparent sincerity and singleness of aim, manifested amid so much +pain and self-abasement, would have touched readers more. They +miscalculated in supposing that the proofs of so much reality of +religious earnestness would carry off the offence of vehement language, +which without these proofs might naturally be thought to show mere +random violence. At any rate the result was much natural and genuine +irritation, which they were hardly prepared for. Whether on general +grounds they were wise in startling and vexing friends, and putting +fresh weapons into the hands of opponents by their frank disclosure of +so unconventional a character, is a question which may have more than +one answer; but one thing is certain, they were not wise, if they only +desired to forward the immediate interests of their party or cause. It +was not the act of cunning conspirators; it was the act of men who were +ready to show their hands, and take the consequences. Undoubtedly, they +warned off many who had so far gone along with the movement, and who now +drew back. But if the publication was a mistake, it was the mistake of +men confident in their own straight-forwardness. + +There is a natural Nemesis to all over-strong and exaggerated language. +The weight of Froude's judgments was lessened by the disclosure of his +strong words, and his dashing fashion of condemnation and dislike gave +a precedent for the violence of shallower men. But to those who look +back on them now, though there can be no wonder that at the time they +excited such an outcry, their outspoken boldness hardly excites +surprise. Much of it might naturally be put down to the force of first +impressions; much of it is the vehemence of an Englishman who claims the +liberty of criticising and finding fault at home; much of it was the +inevitable vehemence of a reformer. Much of it seems clear foresight of +what has since come to be recognised. His judgments on the Reformers, +startling as they were at the time, are not so very different, as to the +facts of the case, from what most people on all sides now agree in; and +as to their temper and theology, from what most churchmen would now +agree in. Whatever allowances may be made for the difficulties of their +time, and these allowances ought to be very great, and however well they +may have done parts of their work, such as the translations and +adaptations of the Prayer Book, it is safe to say that the divines of +the Reformation never can be again, with their confessed Calvinism, with +their shifting opinions, their extravagant deference to the foreign +oracles of Geneva and Zurich, their subservience to bad men in power, +the heroes and saints of churchmen. But when all this is said, it still +remains true that Froude was often intemperate and unjust. In the hands +of the most self-restrained and considerate of its leaders, the movement +must anyhow have provoked strong opposition, and given great offence. +The surprise and the general ignorance were too great; the assault was +too rude and unexpected. But Froude's strong language gave it a +needless exasperation. + +Froude was a man strong in abstract thought and imagination, who wanted +adequate knowledge. His canons of judgment were not enlarged, corrected, +and strengthened by any reading or experience commensurate with his +original powers of reasoning or invention. He was quite conscious of it, +and did his best to fill up the gap in his intellectual equipment. He +showed what he might have done under more favouring circumstances in a +very interesting volume on Becket's history and letters. But +circumstances were hopelessly against him; he had not time, he had not +health and strength, for the learning which he so needed, which he so +longed for. But wherever he could, he learned. He was quite ready to +submit his prepossessions to the test and limitation of facts. Eager and +quick-sighted, he was often apt to be hasty in conclusions from +imperfect or insufficient premisses; but even about what he saw most +clearly he was willing to hold himself in suspense, when he found that +there was something more to know. Cardinal Newman has noted two +deficiencies which, in his opinion, were noticeable in Froude. "He had +no turn for theology as such"; and, further, he goes on: "I should say +that his power of entering into the minds of others was not equal to his +other gifts"--a remark which he illustrates by saying that Froude could +not believe that "I really held the Roman Church to be antichristian." +The want of this power--in which he stood in such sharp contrast to his +friend--might be either a strength or a weakness; a strength, if his +business was only to fight; a weakness, if it was to attract and +persuade. But Froude was made for conflict, not to win disciples. Some +wild solemn poetry, marked by deep feeling and direct expression, is +scattered through his letters,[24] kindled always by things and thoughts +of the highest significance, and breaking forth with force and fire. But +probably the judgment passed on him by a clever friend, from the +examination of his handwriting, was a true one: "This fellow has a great +deal of imagination, but not the imagination of a poet." He felt that +even beyond poetry there are higher things than anything that +imagination can work upon. It was a feeling which made him blind to the +grandeur of Milton's poetry. He saw in it only an intrusion into the +most sacred of sanctities. + +It was this fearless and powerful spirit, keen and quick to see +inferences and intolerant of compromises, that the disturbances of Roman +Catholic Emancipation and of the Reform time roused from the common +round of pursuits, natural to a serious and thoughtful clergyman of +scholarlike mind and as yet no definite objects, and brought him with +all his enthusiasm and thoroughness into a companionship with men who +had devoted their lives, and given up every worldly object, to save the +Church by raising it to its original idea and spirit. Keble had lifted +his pupil's thoughts above mere dry and unintelligent orthodoxy, and +Froude had entered with earnest purpose into Church ways of practical +self-discipline and self-correction. Bishop Lloyd's lectures had taught +him and others, to the surprise of many, that the familiar and venerated +Prayer Book was but the reflexion of mediaeval and primitive devotion, +still embodied in its Latin forms in the Roman Service books; and so +indirectly had planted in their minds the idea of the historical +connexion, and in a very profound way the spiritual sympathy, of the +modern with the pre-Reformation Church. But it is not till 1829 or 1830 +that we begin in his _Remains_ to see in him the sense of a pressing and +anxious crisis in religious matters. In the summer of 1829 he came more +closely than hitherto across Mr. Newman's path. They had been Fellows +together since 1826, and Tutors since 1827. Mr. Froude, with his Toryism +and old-fashioned churchmanship, would not unnaturally be shy of a +friend of Whately's with his reputation for theological liberalism. +Froude's first letter to Mr. Newman is in August 1828. It is the letter +of a friendly and sympathising colleague in college work, glad to be +free from the "images of impudent undergraduates"; he inserts some lines +of verse, talks about Dollond and telescopes, and relates how he and a +friend got up at half-past two in the morning, and walked half a mile +to see Mercury rise; he writes about his mathematical studies and +reading for orders, and how a friend had "read half through Prideaux and +yet accuses himself of idleness"; but there is no interchange of +intimate thought. Mr. Newman was at this time, as he has told us, +drifting away from under the shadow of liberalism; and in Froude he +found a man who, without being a liberal, was as quick-sighted, as +courageous, and as alive to great thoughts and new hopes as himself. +Very different in many ways, they were in this alike, that the +commonplace notions of religion and the Church were utterly +unsatisfactory to them, and that each had the capacity for affectionate +and whole-hearted friendship. The friendship began and lasted on, +growing stronger and deeper to the end. And this was not all. Froude's +friendship with Mr. Newman overcame Mr. Keble's hesitations about Mr. +Newman's supposed liberalism. Mr. Newman has put on record what he +thought and felt about Froude; no one, probably, of the many whom +Cardinal Newman's long life has brought round him, ever occupied +Froude's place in his heart. The correspondence shows in part the way in +which Froude's spirit rose, under the sense of having such a friend to +work with in the cause which day by day grew greater and more sacred in +the eyes of both. Towards Mr. Keble Froude felt like a son to a father; +towards Mr. Newman like a soldier to his comrade, and him the most +splendid and boldest of warriors. Each mind caught fire from the other, +till the high enthusiasm of the one was quenched in an early death. + +Shortly after this friendship began, the course of events also began +which finally gave birth to the Oxford movement. The break-up of parties +caused by the Roman Catholic emancipation was followed by the French and +Belgian revolutions of 1830, and these changes gave a fresh stimulus to +all the reforming parties in England--Whigs, Radicals, and liberal +religionists. Froude's letters mark the influence of these changes on +his mind. They stirred in him the fiercest disgust and indignation, and +as soon as the necessity of battle became evident to save the +Church--and such a necessity was evident--he threw himself into it with +all his heart, and his attitude was henceforth that of a determined and +uncompromising combatant. "Froude is growing stronger and stronger in +his sentiments every day," writes James Mozley, in 1832, "and cuts about +him on all sides. It is extremely fine to hear him talk. The aristocracy +of the country at present are the chief objects of his vituperation, and +he decidedly sets himself against the modern character of the gentleman, +and thinks that the Church will eventually depend for its support, as it +always did in its most influential times, on the very poorest classes." +"I would not set down anything that Froude says for his deliberate +opinion," writes James Mozley a year later, "for he really hates the +present state of things so excessively that any change would be a relief +to him." ... "Froude is staying up, and I see a great deal of him." ... +"Froude is most enthusiastic in his plans, and says, 'What fun it is +living in such times as these! how could one now go back to the times of +old Tory humbug?'" From henceforth his position among his friends was +that of the most impatient and aggressive of reformers, the one who most +urged on his fellows to outspoken language and a bold line of action. +They were not men to hang back and be afraid, but they were cautious and +considerate of popular alarms and prejudices, compared with Froude's +fearlessness. Other minds were indeed moving--minds as strong as his, +indeed, it may be, deeper, more complex, more amply furnished, with a +wider range of vision and a greater command of the field. But while he +lived, he appears as the one who spurs on and incites, where others +hesitate. He is the one by whom are visibly most felt the _gaudia +certaminis,_ and the confidence of victory, and the most profound +contempt for the men and the ideas of the boastful and short-sighted +present. + +In this unsparing and absorbing warfare, what did Froude aim at--what +was the object he sought to bring about, what were the obstacles he +sought to overthrow? + +He was accused, as was most natural, of Romanising; of wishing to bring +back Popery. It is perfectly certain that this was not what he meant, +though he did not care for the imputation of it. He was, perhaps, the +first Englishman who attempted to do justice to Rome, and to use +friendly language of it, without the intention of joining it. But what +he fought for was not Rome, not even a restoration of unity, but a +Church of England such as it was conceived of by the Caroline divines +and the Non-jurors. The great break-up of 1830 had forced on men the +anxious question, "What is the Church as spoken of in England? Is it the +Church of Christ?" and the answers were various. Hooker had said it was +"the nation"; and in entirely altered circumstances, with some +qualifications. Dr. Arnold said the same. It was "the Establishment" +according to the lawyers and politicians, both Whig and Tory. It was an +invisible and mystical body, said the Evangelicals. It was the aggregate +of separate congregations, said the Nonconformists. It was the +parliamentary creation of the Reformation, said the Erastians. The true +Church was the communion of the Pope, the pretended Church was a +legalised schism, said the Roman Catholics. All these ideas were +floating about, loose and vague, among people who talked much about the +Church. Whately, with his clear sense, had laid down that it was a +divine religious society, distinct in its origin and existence, distinct +in its attributes from any other. But this idea had fallen dead, till +Froude and his friends put new life into it Froude accepted Whately's +idea that the Church of England was the one historic uninterrupted +Church, than which there could be no other, locally in England; but into +this Froude read a great deal that never was and never could be in +Whately's thoughts. Whately had gone very far in viewing the Church from +without as a great and sacred corporate body. Casting aside the Erastian +theory, he had claimed its right to exist, and if necessary, govern +itself, separate from the state. He had recognised excommunication as +its natural and indefeasible instrument of government. But what the +internal life of the Church was, what should be its teaching and organic +system, and what was the standard and proof of these, Whately had left +unsaid. And this outline Froude filled up. For this he went the way to +which the Prayer Book, with its Offices, its Liturgy, its Ordination +services, pointed him. With the divines who had specially valued the +Prayer Book, and taught in its spirit, Bishop Wilson, William Law, +Hammond, Ken, Laud, Andrewes, he went back to the times and the sources +from which the Prayer Book came to us, the early Church, the reforming +Church for such with all its faults it was--of the eleventh, twelfth, +and thirteenth centuries, before the hopelessly corrupt and fatal times +of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which led to the break-up of +the sixteenth. Thus to the great question, What is the Church? he gave +without hesitation, and gave to the end, the same answer that Anglicans +gave and are giving still. But he added two points which were then very +new to the ears of English Churchmen: (1) that there were great and to +most people unsuspected faults and shortcomings in the English Church, +for some of which the Reformation was gravely responsible; (2) that the +Roman Church was more right than we had been taught to think in many +parts both of principle and practice, and that our quarrel with it on +these points arose from our own ignorance and prejudices. To people who +had taken for granted all their lives that the Church was thoroughly +"Protestant" and thoroughly right in its Protestantism, and that Rome +was Antichrist, these confident statements came with a shock. He did not +enter much into dogmatic questions. As far as can be judged from his +_Remains_, the one point of doctrine on which he laid stress, as being +inadequately recognised and taught in the then condition of the English +Church, was the primitive doctrine of the Eucharist. His other +criticisms pointed to practical and moral matters; the spirit of +Erastianism, the low standard of life and purpose and self-discipline in +the clergy, the low tone of the current religious teaching. The +Evangelical teaching seemed to him a system of unreal words. The +opposite school was too self-complacent, too comfortable, too secure in +its social and political alliances; and he was bent on shaming people +into severer notions. "We will have a _vocabularium apostolicum,_ and I +will start it with four words: 'pampered aristocrats,' 'resident +gentlemen,' 'smug parsons,' and _'pauperes Christi'_. I shall use the +first on all occasions; it seems to me just to hit the thing." "I think +of putting the view forward (about new monasteries), under the title of +a 'Project for Reviving Religion in Great Towns.' Certainly colleges of +unmarried priests (who might, of course, retire to a living, when they +could and liked) would be the cheapest possible way of providing +effectively for the spiritual wants of a large population." And his +great quarrel with the existing state of things was that the spiritual +objects of the Church were overlaid and lost sight of in the anxiety not +to lose its political position. In this direction he was, as he +proclaims himself, an out-and-out Radical, and he was prepared at once +to go very far. "If a national Church means a Church without discipline, +my argument for discipline is an argument against a national Church; and +the best thing we can do is to unnationalise ours as soon as possible"; +"let us tell the truth and shame the devil; let us give up a _national_ +Church and have a _real_ one." His criticism did not diminish in +severity, or his proposals become less daring, as he felt that his time +was growing short and the hand of death was upon him. But to the end, +the elevation and improvement of the English Church remained his great +purpose. To his friend, as we know, the Roman Church was _either_ the +Truth or Antichrist. To Froude it was neither the whole Truth nor +Antichrist; but like the English Church itself, a great and defective +Church, whose defects were the opposite to ours, and which we should do +wisely to learn from rather than abuse. But to the last his allegiance +never wavered to the English Church. + +It is very striking to come from Froude's boisterous freedom in his +letters to his sermons and the papers he prepared for publication. In +his sermons his manner of writing is severe and restrained even to +dryness. If they startle it is by the force and searching point of an +idea, not by any strength of words. The style is chastened, simple, +calm, with the most careful avoidance of over-statement or anything +rhetorical. And so in his papers, his mode of argument, forcible and +cogent as it is, avoids all appearance of exaggeration or even +illustrative expansion; it is all muscle and sinew; it is modelled on +the argumentative style of Bishop Butler, and still more, of William +Law. No one could suppose from these papers Froude's fiery impetuosity, +or the frank daring of his disrespectful vocabulary. Those who can read +between the lines can trace the grave irony which clung everywhere to +his deep earnestness. + +There was yet another side of Froude's character which was little +thought of by his critics, or recognised by all his friends. With all +his keenness of judgment and all his readiness for conflict, some who +knew him best were impressed by the melancholy which hung over his life, +and which, though he ignored it, they could detect. It is remembered +still by Cardinal Newman. "I thought," wrote Mr. Isaac Williams, "that +knowing him, I better understood Hamlet, a person most natural, but so +original as to be unlike any one else, hiding depth of delicate thought +in apparent extravagances. _Hamlet_, and the _Georgics_ of Virgil, he +used to say, he should have bound together." "Isaac Williams," wrote Mr. +Copeland, "mentioned to me a remark made on Froude by S. Wilberforce in +his early days: 'They talk of Froude's fun, but somehow I cannot be in a +room with him alone for ten minutes without feeling so intensely +melancholy, that I do not know what to do with myself. At Brightstone, +in my Eden days, he was with me, and I was overwhelmed with the deep +sense which possessed him of yearning which nothing could satisfy and of +the unsatisfying nature of all things.'"[25] + +Froude often reminds us of Pascal. Both had that peculiarly bright, +brilliant, sharp-cutting intellect which passes with ease through the +coverings and disguises which veil realities from men. Both had +mathematical powers of unusual originality and clearness; both had the +same imaginative faculty; both had the same keen interest in practical +problems of science; both felt and followed the attraction of deeper and +more awful interests. Both had the same love of beauty; both suppressed +it. Both had the same want of wide or deep learning; they made skilful +use of what books came to their hand, and used their reading as few +readers are able to use it; but their real instrument of work was their +own quick and strong insight, and power of close and vigorous reasoning. +Both had the greatest contempt for fashionable and hollow "shadows of +religion." Both had the same definite, unflinching judgment. Both used +the same clear and direct language. Both had a certain grim delight in +the irony with which they pursued their opponents. In both it is +probable that their unmeasured and unsparing criticism recoiled on the +cause which they had at heart. But in the case of both of them it was +not the temper of the satirist, it was no mere love of attacking what +was vulnerable, and indulgence in the cruel pleasure of stinging and +putting to shame, which inspired them. Their souls were moved by the +dishonour done to religion, by public evils and public dangers. Both of +them died young, before their work was done. They placed before +themselves the loftiest and most unselfish objects, the restoration of +truth and goodness in the Church, and to that they gave their life and +all that they had. And what they called on others to be they were +themselves. They were alike in the sternness, the reality, the +perseverance, almost unintelligible in its methods to ordinary men, of +their moral and spiritual self-discipline. + + +SUPPLEMENTARY TO CHAPTER III[26] + +Hurrell Froude was, when I, as an undergraduate, first knew him in 1828, +tall and very thin, with something of a stoop, with a large skull and +forehead, but not a large face, delicate features, and penetrating gray +eyes, not exactly piercing, but bright with internal conceptions, and +ready to assume an expression of amusement, careful attention, inquiry, +or stern disgust, but with a basis of softness. His manner was cordial +and familiar, and assured you, as you knew him well, of his affectionate +feeling, which encouraged you to speak your mind (within certain +limits), subject to the consideration that if you said anything absurd +it would not be allowed to fall to the ground. He had more of the +undergraduate in him than any "don" whom I ever knew; absolutely unlike +Newman in being always ready to skate, sail, or ride with his +friends--and, if in a scrape, not pharisaical as to his means of getting +out of it. I remember, _e.g._, climbing Merton gate with him in my +undergraduate days, when we had been out too late boating or skating. +And unless authority or substantial decorum was really threatened he was +very lenient--or rather had an amused sympathy with the irregularities +that are mere matters of mischief or high spirits. In lecture it was, +_mutatis mutandis_, the same man. Seeing, from his _Remains_, the "high +view of his own capacities of which he could not divest himself," and +his determination not to exhibit or be puffed up by it, and looking back +on his tutorial manner (I was in his lectures both in classics and +mathematics), it was strange how he disguised, not only his _sense_ of +superiority, but the appearance of it, so that his pupils felt him more +as a fellow-student than as the refined scholar or mathematician which +he was. This was partly owing to his carelessness of those formulae, +the familiarity with which gives even second-rate lecturers a position +of superiority which is less visible in those who, like their pupils, +are themselves always struggling with principles--and partly to an +effort, perhaps sometimes overdone, not to put himself above the level +of others. In a lecture on the _Supplices_ of Aeschylus, I have heard +him say _tout bonnement,_ "I can't construe that--what do you make of +it, A.B.?" turning to the supposed best scholar in the lecture; or, when +an objection was started to his mode of getting through a difficulty, +"Ah! I had not thought of that--perhaps your way is the best." And this +mode of dealing with himself and the undergraduates whom he liked, made +them like him, but also made them really undervalue his talent, which, +as we now see, was what he meant they should do. At the same time, +though watchful over his own vanity, he was keen and prompt in +snubs--playful and challenging retort--to those he liked, but in the +nature of scornful exposure, when he had to do with coarseness or +coxcombry, or shallow display of sentiment. It was a paradoxical +consequence of his suppression of egotism that he was more solicitous to +show that you were wrong than that he was right. + +He also wanted, like Socrates or Bishop Butler, to make others, if +possible, think for themselves. + +However, it is not to be inferred that his conversation was made of +controversy. To a certain extent it turned that way, because he was fond +of paradox. (His brother William used to say that he, William, never +felt he had really mastered a principle till he had thrown it into a +paradox.) And paradox, of course, invites contradiction, and so +controversy. On subjects upon which he considered himself more or less +an apostle, he liked to stir people's minds by what startled them, +waking them up, or giving them "nuts to crack." An almost solemn gravity +with amusement twinkling behind it--not invisible--and ready to burst +forth into a bright low laugh when gravity had been played out, was a +very frequent posture with him. + +But he was thoroughly ready to amuse and instruct, or to be amused and +instructed, as an eager and earnest speaker or listener on most matters +of interest. I do not remember that he had any great turn for beauty of +colour; he had none, I think, or next to none, for music--nor do I +remember in him any great love of humour--but for beauty of physical +form, for mechanics, for mathematics, for poetry which had a root in +true feeling, for wit (including that perception of a quasi-logical +absurdity of position), for history, for domestic incidents, his +sympathy was always lively, and he would throw himself naturally and +warmly into them. From his general demeanour (I need scarcely say) the +"odour of sanctity" was wholly absent. I am not sure that his height and +depth of aim and lively versatility of talent did not leave his +_compassionate_ sympathies rather undeveloped; certainly to himself, +and, I suspect, largely in the case of others, he would view suffering +not as a thing to be cockered up or made much of, though of course to be +alleviated if possible, but to be viewed calmly as a Providential +discipline for those who can mitigate, or have to endure it. + +J.H.N. was once reading me a letter just received from him in which (in +answer to J.H.N.'s account of his work and the possibility of his +breaking down) he said in substance: "I daresay you have more to do than +your health will bear, but I would not have you give up anything except +perhaps the deanery" (of Oriel). And then J.H.N. paused, with a kind of +inner exultant chuckle, and said, "Ah! there's a Basil for you"; as if +the friendship which sacrificed its friend, as it would sacrifice itself +to a cause, was the friendship which was really worth having. + +As I came to know him in a more manly way, as a brother Fellow, friend, +and collaborateur, the character of "ecclesiastical agitator" was of +course added to this. + +In this capacity his great pleasure was taking bulls by their horns. +Like the "gueux" of the Low Countries, he would have met half-way any +opprobrious nickname, and I believe coined the epithet "apostolical" for +his party because it was connected with everything in Spain which was +most obnoxious to the British public. I remember one day his grievously +shocking Palmer of Worcester, a man of an opposite texture, when a +council in J.H.N.'s rooms had been called to consider some memorial or +other to which Palmer wanted to collect the signatures of many, and +particularly of dignified persons, but in which Froude wished to express +the determined opinions of a few. Froude stretched out his long length +on Newman's sofa, and broke in upon one of Palmer's judicious harangues +about Bishops and Archdeacons and such like, with the ejaculation, "I +don't see why we should disguise from ourselves that our object is to +dictate to the clergy of this country, and I, for one, do not want any +one else to get on the box." He thought that true Churchmen must be few +before they were many--that the sin of the clergy in all ages was that +they tried to make out that Christians were many when they were only +few, and sacrificed to this object the force derivable from downright +and unmistakable enforcement of truth in speech or action. + +As simplicity in thought, word, and deed formed no small part of his +ideal, his tastes in architecture, painting, sculpture, rhetoric, or +poetry were severe. He had no patience with what was artistically +dissolute, luscious, or decorated more than in proportion to its +animating idea--wishy-washy or sentimental. The ornamental parts of his +own rooms (in which I lived in his absence) were a slab of marble to +wash upon, a print of Rubens's "Deposition," and a head (life-size) of +the Apollo Belvidere. And I remember still the tall scorn, with +something of surprise, with which, on entering my undergraduate room, he +looked down on some Venuses, Cupids, and Hebes, which, freshman-like, I +had bought from an Italian. + +He was not very easy even under conventional vulgarity, still less under +the vulgarity of egotism; but, being essentially a partisan, he could +put up with both in a man who was really in earnest and on the right +side. Nothing, however, I think, would have induced him to tolerate +false sentiment, and he would, I think, if he had lived, have exerted +himself very trenchantly to prevent his cause being adulterated by it. + +He was, I should say, sometimes misled by a theory that genius cut +through a subject by logic or intuition, without looking to the right or +left, while common sense was always testing every step by consideration +of surroundings (I have not got his terse mode of statement), and that +genius was right, or at least had only to be corrected here and there by +common sense. This, I take it, would hardly have answered if his +trenchancy had not been in practice corrected by J.H.N.'s wider +political circumspection. + +He submitted, I suppose, to J.H.N.'s axiom, that if the movement was to +do anything it must become "respectable"; but it was against his nature. + +He would (as we see in the _Remains_) have wished Ken to have the +"courage of his convictions" by excommunicating the Jurors in William +III.'s time, and setting up a little Catholic Church, like the +Jansenists in Holland. He was not (as has been observed) a theologian, +but he was as jealous for orthodoxy as if he were. He spoke slightingly +of Heber as having ignorantly or carelessly communicated with (?) +Monophysites. But he probably knew no more about that and other +heresies than a man of active and penetrating mind would derive from +text-books. And I think it likely enough--not that his reverence for the +Eucharist, but--that his special attention to the details of Eucharistic +doctrine was due to the consideration that it was the foundation of +ecclesiastical discipline and authority--matters on which his mind +fastened itself with enthusiasm. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[18] I ought to say that I was not personally acquainted with Mr. +Froude. I have subjoined to this chapter some recollections of him by +Lord Blachford, who was his pupil and an intimate friend. + +[19] "In this mortal journeying wasted shade Is worse than wasted +sunshine." + +HENRY TAYLOR, _Sicilian Summer_, v. 3. + +[20] _Remains_, Second Part, i. 47. + +[21] _Remains_, i. 82. + +[22] _Apologia_, p. 84. + +[23] The following shows the feeling about him in friends apt to be +severe critics:--"The contents of the present collection are rather +fragments and sketches than complete compositions. This might be +expected in the works of a man whose days were few and interrupted by +illness, if indeed that may be called an interruption, which was every +day sensibly drawing him to his grave. In Mr. Froude's case, however, we +cannot set down much of this incompleteness to the score of illness. The +strength of his religious impressions, the boldness and clearness of his +views, his long habits of self-denial, and his unconquerable energy of +mind, triumphed over weakness and decay, till men with all their health +and strength about them might gaze upon his attenuated form, struck with +a certain awe of wonderment at the brightness of his wit, the +intenseness of his mental vision, and the iron strength of his +argument.... We will venture a remark as to that ironical turn, which +certainly does appear in various shapes in the first part of these +_Remains_. Unpleasant as irony may sometimes be, there need not go with +it, and in this instance there did not go with it, the smallest real +asperity of temper. Who that remembers the inexpressible sweetness of +his smile, and the deep and melancholy pity with which he would speak of +those whom he felt to be the victims of modern delusions, would not be +forward to contradict such a suspicion? Such expressions, we will +venture to say, and not harshness, anger, or gloom, animate the features +of that countenance which will never cease to haunt the memory of those +who knew him. His irony arose from that peculiar mode in which he viewed +all earthly things, himself and all that was dear to him not excepted. +It was his poetry." From an article in the _British Critic_, April 1840, +p. 396, by Mr. Thomas Mozley, quoted in _Letters of J.B. Mozley,_ p. +102. + +[24] Such as the "Daniel" in the _Lyra Apostolica,_ the "Dialogue +between Old Self and New Self," and the lines in the _Remains_ (i 208, +209). + +[25] A few references to the _Remains_ illustrating this are subjoined +if any one cares to compare them with these recollections, i. 7, 13, 18, +26, 106, 184, 199, 200-204. + +[26] I am indebted for these recollections to the late Lord Blachford. +They were written in Oct. 1884. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MR. NEWMAN'S EARLY FRIENDS--ISAAC WILLIAMS + + +In the early days of the movement, among Mr. Newman's greatest friends, +and much in his confidence, were two Fellows of Trinity--a college which +never forgot that Newman had once belonged to it,--Isaac Williams and +William John Copeland. In mind and character very different, they were +close friends, with the affection which was characteristic of those +days; and for both of them Mr. Newman "had the love which passes that of +common relation."[27] Isaac Williams was born among the mountains of +Wales, and had the true poetic gift, though his power of expression was +often not equal to what he wanted to say. Copeland was a Londoner, bred +up in the strict school of Churchmanship represented by Mr. Norris of +Hackney, tempered by sympathies with the Non-jurors. At Oxford he lived, +along with Isaac Williams, in the very heart of the movement, which was +the interest of his life; but he lived, self-forgetting or +self-effacing, a wonderful mixture of tender and inexhaustible sympathy, +and of quick and keen wit, which yet, somehow or other, in that time of +exasperation and bitterness, made him few enemies. He knew more than +most men of the goings on of the movement, and he ought to have been its +chronicler. But he was fastidious and hard to satisfy, and he left his +task till it was too late. + +Isaac Williams was born in Wales in 1802, a year after Newman, ten years +after John Keble. His early life was spent in London, but his affection +for Wales and its mountain scenery was great and undiminished to the end +of his life. At Harrow, where Henry Drury was his tutor, he made his +mark by his mastery of Latin composition and his devotion to Latin +language and literature. "I was so used to think in Latin that when I +had to write an English theme, which was but seldom, I had to translate +my ideas, which ran in Latin, into English";[28] and later in life he +complained of the Latin current which disturbed him when he had to write +English. He was also a great cricketer; and he describes himself as +coming up to Trinity, where he soon got a scholarship, an ambitious and +careless youth, who had never heard a word about Christianity, and to +whom religion, its aims and its restraints, were a mere name. + +This was changed by what, in the language of devotional schools, would +have been called his conversion. It came about, as men speak, as the +result of accidents; but the whole course of his thoughts and life was +turned into a channel from which it nevermore diverged. An old Welsh +clergyman gave the undergraduate an introduction to John Keble, who then +held a place in Oxford almost unique. But the Trinity undergraduate and +the Oriel don saw little of one another till Isaac Williams won the +Latin prize poem, _Ars Geologica_. Keble then called on Isaac Williams +and offered his help in criticising the poem and polishing it for +printing. The two men plainly took to one another at first sight; and +that service was followed by a most unexpected invitation on Keble's +part. He had chanced to come to Williams's room, and on Williams saying +that he had no plan of reading for the approaching vacation, Keble said, +"I am going to leave Oxford for good. Suppose you come and read with me. +The Provost has asked me to take Wilberforce, and I declined; but if you +would come, you would be companions." Keble was going down to Southrop, +a little curacy near his father's; there Williams joined him, with two +more--Robert Wilberforce and R.H. Froude; and there the Long Vacation of +1823 was spent, and Isaac Williams's character and course determined. +"It was this very trivial accident, this short walk of a few yards, and +a few words spoken, which was the turning-point of my life. If a +merciful God had miraculously interposed to arrest my course, I could +not have had a stronger assurance of His presence than I always had in +looking back to that day." It determined Isaac Williams's character, +and it determined for good and all his theological position. He had +before him all day long in John Keble a spectacle which was absolutely +new to him. Ambitious as a rising and successful scholar at college, he +saw a man, looked up to and wondered at by every one, absolutely without +pride and without ambition. He saw the most distinguished academic of +his day, to whom every prospect was open, retiring from Oxford in the +height of his fame to bury himself with a few hundreds of +Gloucestershire peasants in a miserable curacy. He saw this man caring +for and respecting the ignorant and poor as much as others respected the +great and the learned. He saw this man, who had made what the world +would call so great a sacrifice, apparently unconscious that he had made +any sacrifice at all, gay, unceremonious, bright, full of play as a boy, +ready with his pupils for any exercise, mental or muscular--for a hard +ride, or a crabbed bit of Aeschylus, or a logic fence with disputatious +and paradoxical undergraduates, giving and taking on even ground. These +pupils saw one, the depth of whose religion none could doubt, "always +endeavouring to do them good as it were unknown to themselves and in +secret, and ever avoiding that his kindness should be felt and +acknowledged"; showing in the whole course of daily life the purity of +Christian love, and taking the utmost pains to make no profession or +show of it. This unostentatious and undemonstrative religion--so frank, +so generous in all its ways--was to Isaac Williams "quite a new world." +It turned his mind in upon itself in the deepest reverence, but also +with something of morbid despair of ever reaching such a standard. It +drove all dreams of ambition out of his mind. It made humility, +self-restraint, self-abasement, objects of unceasing, possibly not +always wise and healthy, effort. But the result was certainly a +character of great sweetness, tenderness, and lowly unselfishness, pure, +free from all worldliness, and deeply resigned to the will of God. He +caught from Mr. Keble, like Froude, two characteristic habits of mind--a +strong depreciation of mere intellect compared with the less showy +excellences of faithfulness to conscience and duty; and a horror and +hatred of everything that seemed like display or the desire of applause +or of immediate effect. Intellectual depreciators of intellect may +deceive themselves, and do not always escape the snare which they fear; +but in Isaac Williams there was a very genuine carrying out of the +Psalmist's words: "Surely I have behaved and quieted myself; I refrain +my soul and keep it low, as a child that is weaned from his mother." +This fear of display in a man of singularly delicate and fastidious +taste came to have something forced and morbid in it. It seemed +sometimes as if in preaching or talking he aimed at being dull and +clumsy. But in all that he did and wrote he aimed at being true at all +costs and in the very depths of his heart; and though, in his words, we +may wish sometimes for what we should feel to be more natural and +healthy in tone, we never can doubt that we are in the presence of one +who shrank from all conscious unreality like poison. + +From Keble, or, it may be said, from the Kebles, he received his +theology. The Kebles were all of them men of the old-fashioned High +Church orthodoxy, of the Prayer Book and the Catechism--the orthodoxy +which was professed at Oxford, which was represented in London by Norris +of Hackney and Joshua Watson; which valued in religion sobriety, +reverence, and deference to authority, and in teaching, sound learning +and the wisdom of the great English divines; which vehemently disliked +the Evangelicals and Methodists for their poor and loose theology, their +love of excitement and display, their hunting after popularity. This +Church of England divinity was the theology of the old Vicar of Coln St. +Aldwyn's, a good scholar and a good parish priest, who had brought up +his two sons at home to be scholars; and had impressed his solid and +manly theology on them so strongly that amid all changes they remained +at bottom true to their paternal training. John Keble added to it great +attainments and brilliant gifts of imagination and poetry; but he never +lost the plain, downright, almost awkward ways of conversation and +manner of his simple home--ways which might have seemed abrupt and rough +but for the singular sweetness and charm of his nature. To those who +looked on the outside he was always the homely, rigidly orthodox country +clergyman. On Isaac Williams, with his ethical standard, John Keble also +impressed his ideas of religious truth; he made him an old-fashioned +High Churchman, suspicious of excitement and "effect," suspicious of the +loud-talking religious world, suspicious of its novelties and +shallowness, and clinging with his whole soul to ancient ways and sound +Church of England doctrine reflected in the Prayer Book. And from John +Keble's influence he passed under the influence of Thomas Keble, the +Vicar of Bisley, a man of sterner type than his brother, with strong +and definite opinions on all subjects; curt and keen in speech; +intolerant of all that seemed to threaten wholesome teaching and the +interests of the Church; and equally straightforward, equally simple, in +manners and life. Under him Isaac Williams began his career as a +clergyman; he spent two years of solitary and monotonous life in a small +cure, seeking comfort from solitude in poetical composition ("It was +very calm and subduing," he writes); and then he was recalled to Oxford +as Fellow and Tutor of his college, to meet a new and stronger +influence, which it was part of the work and trial of the rest of his +life both to assimilate and to resist. + +For, with Newman, with whom he now came into contact, he did both. There +opened to him from intercourse with Newman a new world of thought; and +yet while feeling and answering to its charm, he never was quite at ease +with him. But Williams and Froude had always been great friends since +the reading party of 1823, in spite of Froude's audacities. Froude was +now residing in Oxford, and had become Newman's most intimate friend, +and he brought Newman and Williams together. "Living at that time," he +says, "so much with Froude, I was now in consequence for the first time +brought into intercourse with Newman. We almost daily walked and often +dined together." Newman and Froude had ceased to be tutors; their +thoughts were turned to theology and the condition of the Church. Newman +had definitely broken with the Evangelicals, to whom he had been +supposed to belong, and Whately's influence over him was waning, and +with Froude he looked up to Keble as the pattern of religious wisdom. He +had accepted the position of a Churchman as it was understood by Keble +and Froude; and thus there was nothing to hinder Williams's full +sympathy with him. But from the first there seems to have been an almost +impalpable bar between them, which is the more remarkable because +Williams appears to have seen with equanimity Froude's apparently more +violent and dangerous outbreaks of paradox and antipathy. Possibly, +after the catastrophe, he may, in looking back, have exaggerated his +early alarms. But from the first he says he saw in Newman what he had +learned to look upon as the gravest of dangers--the preponderance of +intellect among the elements of character and as the guide of life. "I +was greatly delighted and charmed with Newman, who was extremely kind to +me, but did not altogether trust his opinions; and though Froude was in +the habit of stating things in an extreme and paradoxical manner, yet +one always felt conscious of a ground of entire confidence and +agreement; but it was not so with Newman, even though one appeared more +in unison with his more moderate views." + +But, in spite of all this, Newman offered and Isaac Williams accepted +the curacy of St. Mary's. "Things at Oxford [1830-32] at that time were +very dull." "Froude and I seemed entirely alone, with Newman only +secretly, as it were, beginning to sympathise. I became at once very +much attached to Newman, won by his kindness and delighted by his good +and wonderful qualities; and he proposed that I should be his curate at +St. Mary's.... I can remember a strong feeling of difference I first +felt on acting together with him from what I had been accustomed to: +that he was in the habit of looking for effect, and for what was +sensibly effective, which from the Bisley and Fairford School I had been +long habituated to avoid; but to do one's duty in faith and leave it to +God, and that all the more earnestly, because there were no sympathies +from without to answer. There was a felt but unexpressed difference of +this kind, but perhaps it became afterwards harmonised as we acted +together."[29] + +Thus early, among those most closely united, there appeared the +beginnings of those different currents which became so divergent as time +went on. Isaac Williams, dear as he was to Newman, and returning to the +full Newman's affection, yet represented from the first the views of +what Williams spoke of as the "Bisley and Fairford School," which, +though sympathising and co-operating with the movement, was never quite +easy about it, and was not sparing of its criticism on the stir and +agitation of the Tracts. + +Isaac Williams threw himself heartily into the early stages of the +movement; in his poetry into its imaginative and poetical side, and also +into its practical and self-denying side. But he would have been quite +content with its silent working, and its apparent want of visible +success. He would have been quite content with preaching simple homely +sermons on the obvious but hard duties of daily life, and not seeing +much come of them; with finding a slow abatement of the self-indulgent +habits of university life, with keeping Fridays, with less wine in +common room. The Bisley maxims bade men to be very stiff and +uncompromising in their witness and in their duties, but to make no show +and expect no recognition or immediate fruit, and to be silent under +misconstruction. But his was not a mind which realised great +possibilities of change in the inherited ways of the English Church. The +spirit of change, so keenly discerned by Newman, as being both certain +and capable of being turned to good account as well as bad, to him was +unintelligible or bad. More reality, more severity and consistency, +deeper habits of self-discipline on the accepted lines of English Church +orthodoxy, would have satisfied him as the aim of the movement, as it +undoubtedly was a large part of its aim; though with Froude and Newman +it also aimed at a widening of ideas, of interests and sympathies, +beyond what had been common in the English Church. + +In the history of the movement Isaac Williams took a forward part in two +of its events, with one of which his connexion was most natural, with +the other grotesquely and ludicrously incongruous. The one was the plan +and starting of the series of _Plain Sermons_ in 1839, to which not only +the Kebles, Williams, and Copeland contributed their volumes, but also +Newman and Dr. Pusey. Isaac Williams has left the following account of +his share in the work. + +"It seemed at this time (about 1838-39) as if Oxford, from the strength +of principle shown there (and an almost unanimous and concentrated +energy), was becoming a rallying point for the whole kingdom: but I +watched from the beginning and saw greater dangers among ourselves than +those from without; which I endeavoured to obviate by publishing the +_Plain Sermons_. [_Plain Sermons_, by contributors to the _Tracts for +the Times_, 1st Series, January 1839.] I attempted in vain to get the +Kebles to publish, in order to keep pace with Newman, and so maintain a +more practical turn in the movement. I remember C. Cornish (C.L. +Cornish, Fellow and Tutor of Exeter) coming to me and saying as we +walked in Trinity Gardens, 'People are a little afraid of being carried +away by Newman's brilliancy; they want more of the steady sobriety of +the Kebles infused into the movement to keep us safe; we have so much +sail and want ballast.' And the effect of the publication of the _Plain +Sermons_ was at the time very quieting. In first undertaking the _Plain +Sermons_, I had no encouragement from any one, not even from John Keble; +acquiescence was all that I could gain. But I have heard J.K. mention a +saying of Judge Coleridge, long before the _Tracts_ were thought of: 'If +you want to propagate your opinions you should lend your sermons; the +clergy would then preach them, and adopt your opinions.' Now this has +been the effect of the publication of the _Plain Sermons_." + +Isaac Williams, if any man, represented in the movement the moderate and +unobtrusive way of religious teaching. But it was his curious fate to be +dragged into the front ranks of the fray, and to be singled out as +almost the most wicked and dangerous of the Tractarians. He had the +strange fortune to produce the first of the Tracts[30] which was by +itself held up to popular indignation as embodying all the mischief of +the series and the secret aims of the movement. The Tract had another +effect. It made Williams the object of the first great Tractarian battle +in the University, the contest for the Poetry Professorship: the first +decisive and open trial of strength, and the first Tractarian defeat. +The contest, even more than the result, distressed him greatly; and the +course of things in the movement itself aggravated his distress. His +general distrust of intellectual restlessness had now passed into the +special and too well grounded fear that the movement, in some of its +most prominent representatives, was going definitely in the direction of +Rome. A new generation was rising into influence, to whom the old Church +watchwords and maxims, the old Church habits of mind, the old Church +convictions, had completely lost their force, and were become almost +objects of dislike and scorn; and for this change Newman's approval and +countenance were freely and not very scrupulously quoted. Williams's +relation to him had long been a curious mixture of the most affectionate +attachment and intimacy with growing distrust and sense of divergence. +Newman was now giving more and more distinct warning that he was likely +to go where Williams could not follow him, and the pain on both sides +was growing. But things moved fast, and at length the strain broke. + +The estrangement was inevitable; but both cherished the warmest feelings +of affection, even though such a friendship had been broken. But Oxford +became distasteful to Williams, and he soon afterwards left it for +Bisley and Stinchcombe, the living of his brother-in-law, Sir G. +Prevost. There he married (22d June 1842), and spent the remainder of +his life devoting himself to the preparation of those devotional +commentaries, which are still so well known. He suffered for the +greatest part of his life from a distressing and disabling chronic +asthma--from the time that he came back to Oxford as Fellow and +Tutor--and he died in 1865. The old friends met once more shortly before +Isaac Williams's death; Newman came to see him, and at his departure +Williams accompanied him to the station. + +Isaac Williams wrote a great deal of poetry, first during his solitary +curacy at Windrush, and afterwards at Oxford. It was in a lower and +sadder key than the _Christian Year_, which no doubt first inspired it; +it wanted the elasticity and freshness and variety of Keble's verse, +and it was often careless in structure and wanting in concentration. But +it was the outpouring of a very beautiful mind, deeply impressed with +the realities of failure in the Church and religion, as well as in human +life, full of tenderness and pathetic sweetness, and seeking a vent for +its feelings, and relief for its trouble, in calling up before itself +the images of God's goodness and kingdom of which nature and the world +are full. His poetry is a witness to the depth and earnestness and +genuine delicacy of what seemed hard and narrow in the Bisley School; +there are passages in it which are not easily forgotten; but it was not +strong enough to arrest the excitement which soon set in, and with its +continual obscurity and its want of finish it never had the recognition +really due to its excellence. Newman thought it too soft. It certainly +wanted the fire and boldness and directness which he threw into his own +verse when he wrote; but serious earnestness and severity of tone it +certainly did not want. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[27] Mozley, _Reminiscences_, i. 18. + +[28] I. Williams, _MS. Memoir_. + +[29] I. Williams, _MS. Memoir_. + +[30] The history of this famous Tract, No. 80, on _Reserve in +communicating Religious Knowledge_, belongs to a later stage of the +movement. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CHARLES MARRIOTT + + +Charles Marriott was a man who was drawn into the movement, almost in +spite of himself, by the attraction of the character of the leaders, the +greatness of its object, and the purity and nobleness of the motives +which prompted it. He was naturally a man of metaphysical mind, given +almost from a child to abstract and indeed abstruse thought.[31] He had +been a student of S.T. Coleridge, whom the Oriel men disliked as a misty +thinker. He used to discuss Coleridge with a man little known then, but +who gained a high reputation on the Continent as a first-rate Greek +scholar, and became afterwards Professor of Greek in the University of +Sydney, Charles Badham. Marriott also appreciated Hampden as a +philosopher, whom the Oriel men thoroughly distrusted as a theologian. +He might easily under different conditions have become a divine of the +type of F.D. Maurice. He was by disposition averse to anything like +party, and the rough and sharp proceedings which party action sometimes +seems to make natural. His temper was eminently sober, cautious and +conciliatory in his way of looking at important questions. He was a man +with many friends of different sorts and ways, and of boundless though +undemonstrative sympathy. His original tendencies would have made him an +eclectic, recognising the strength of position in opposing schools or +theories, and welcoming all that was good and high in them. He was +profoundly and devotedly religious, without show, without extravagance. +His father, who died when he was only fourteen, had been a distinguished +man in his time. He was a Christ Church man, and one of two in the first +of the Oxford Honour lists in 1802, with E. Copleston, H. Phillpotts, +and S.P. Rigaud for his examiners. He was afterwards tutor to the Earl +of Dalkeith, and he became the friend of Walter Scott, who dedicated to +him the Second Canto of _Marmion_; and having ready and graceful +poetical talent, he contributed several ballads to the _Minstrelsy of +the Scottish Border, The Feast of Spurs_, and _Archie Armstrong's Aith_. +He was a good preacher; his sympathies--of friendship, perhaps, rather +than of definite opinion--were with men like Mr. John Bowdler and the +Thorntons. While he lived he taught Charles Marriott himself. After his +death, Charles, a studious boy, with ways of his own of learning, and +though successful and sure in his work, very slow in the process of +doing it, after a short and discouraging experiment at Rugby, went to +read with a private tutor till he went to Oxford. He was first at +Exeter, and then gained a scholarship at Balliol. He gained a Classical +First Class and a Mathematical Second in the Michaelmas Term of 1832, +and the following Easter he was elected Fellow at Oriel. + +For a man of his power and attainments he was as a speaker, and in +conversation, surprisingly awkward. He had a sturdy, penetrating, +tenacious, but embarrassed intellect--embarrassed, at least, by the +crowd and range of jostling thoughts, in its outward processes and +manifestations, for he thoroughly trusted its inner workings, and was +confident of the accuracy of the results, even when helplessly unable to +justify them at the moment.[32] In matters of business he seemed at +first sight utterly unpractical. In discussing with keen, rapid, and +experienced men like the Provost, the value of leases, or some question +of the management of College property, Marriott, who always took great +interest in such inquiries, frequently maintained some position which to +the quicker wits round him seemed a paradox or a mare's nest. Yet it +often happened that after a dispute, carried on with a brisk fire of not +always respectful objections to Marriott's view, and in which his only +advantage was the patience with which he clumsily, yet surely, brought +out the real point of the matter, overlooked by others, the debate +ended in the recognition that he had been right. It was often a strange +and almost distressing sight to see the difficulty under which he +sometimes laboured of communicating his thoughts, as a speaker at a +meeting, or as a teacher to his hearers, or even in the easiness of +familiar talk. The comfort was that he was not really discouraged. He +was wrestling with his own refractory faculty of exposition and speech; +it may be, he was busy deeper down in the recesses and storehouses of +his mind; but he was too much taken up with the effort to notice what +people thought of it, or even if they smiled; and what he had to say was +so genuine and veracious, as an expression of his meaning, so full of +benevolence, charity, and generosity, and often so weighty and +unexpected, that men felt it a shame to think much of the peculiarities +of his long look of blank silence, and the odd, clumsy explanations +which followed it. He was a man, under an uncouth exterior, of the +noblest and most affectionate nature; most patient, indulgent, and +hopeful to all in whom he took an interest, even when they sorely tried +his kindness and his faith in them. Where he loved and trusted and +admired, he was apt to rate very highly, sometimes too highly. His +gratitude was boundless. He was one of those who deliberately gave up +the prospect of domestic life, to which he was naturally drawn, for the +sake of his cause. Capable of abstract thought beyond most men of his +time, and never unwilling to share his thoughts with those at all +disposed to venture with him into deep waters, he was always ready to +converse or to discuss on much more ordinary ground. As an undergraduate +and a young bachelor, he had attained, without seeking it, a position of +almost unexampled authority in the junior University world that was +hardly reached by any one for many years at least after him. He was +hopeless as a speaker in the Union; but with all his halting and +bungling speeches, that democratic and sometimes noisy assembly bore +from him with kindly amusement and real respect what they would bear +from no one else, and he had an influence in its sometimes turbulent +debates which seems unaccountable. He was the _vir pietate gravis_. In a +once popular squib, occasioned by one of the fiercest of these debates, +this unique position is noticed and commemorated-- + + [Greek: Oud' elathen Mariota, philaitaton Oreiaelon] + + * * * * * + + [Greek: Aelthe mega gronon, Masichois kai pas' agapaetos, + Kai smeilon, prosephae pantas keindois epeesin].[33] + +His ways and his talk were such as to call forth not unfrequent mirth +among those who most revered him. He would meet you and look you in the +face without speaking a word. He was not without humour; but his jokes, +carried off by a little laugh of his own, were apt to be recondite in +their meaning and allusions. With his great power of sympathy, he yet +did not easily divine other men's lighter or subtler moods, and odd and +sometimes even distressing mistakes were the consequence. His health was +weak, and a chronic tenderness of throat and chest made him take +precautions which sometimes seemed whimsical; and his well-known figure +in a black cloak, with a black veil over his college cap, and a black +comforter round his neck, which at one time in Oxford acquired his name, +sometimes startled little boys and sleepy college porters when he came +on them suddenly at night. + +With more power than most men of standing alone, and of arranging his +observations on life and the world in ways of his own, he had +pre-eminently above all men round him, in the highest and noblest form, +the spirit of a disciple. Like most human things, discipleship has its +good and its evil, its strong and its poor and dangerous side; but it +really has, what is much forgotten now, a good and a strong side. Both +in philosophy and religion, the [Greek: mathaetaes] is a distinct +character, and Charles Marriott was an example of it at its best. He had +its manly and reasonable humility, its generous trustfulness, its +self-forgetfulness; he had, too, the enthusiasm of having and +recognising a great master and teacher, and doing what he wanted done; +and he learned from the love of his master to love what he believed +truth still more. The character of the disciple does not save a man from +difficulties, from trouble and perplexity; but it tends to save him from +idols of his own making. It is something, in the trials of life and +faith, to have the consciousness of knowing or having known some one +greater and better and wiser than oneself, of having felt the spell of +his guidance and example. Marriott's mind, quick to see what was real +and strong, and at once reverent to it as soon as he saw it, came very +much, as an undergraduate at Balliol, under the influence of a very able +and brilliant tutor, Moberly, afterwards Headmaster of Winchester and +Bishop of Salisbury; and to the last his deference and affection to his +old tutor remained unimpaired. But he came under a still more potent +charm when he moved to Oriel, and became the friend of Mr. Newman. +Master and disciple were as unlike as any two men could be; they were +united by their sympathy in the great crisis round them, by their +absorbing devotion to the cause of true religion. Marriott brought to +the movement, and especially to its chief, a great University character, +and an unswerving and touching fidelity. He placed himself, his life, +and all that he could do, at the service of the great effort to elevate +and animate the Church; to the last he would gladly have done so under +him whom he first acknowledged as his master. This was not to be; and he +transferred his allegiance, as unreservedly, with equal loyalty and +self-sacrifice, to his successor. But to the end, while his powers +lasted, with all his great gifts and attainments, with every temptation +to an independent position and self-chosen employment, he continued a +disciple. He believed in men wiser than himself; he occupied himself +with what they thought best for him to do. + +This work was, for the most part, in what was done to raise the standard +of knowledge of early Christian literature, and to make that knowledge +accurate and scholarlike. He was, for a time, the Principal of the +Theological College at Chichester, under Bishop Otter. He was also for a +time Tutor at Oriel, and later, Vicar of St. Mary's. He was long bent on +setting on foot some kind of Hall for poor students; and he took over +from Mr. Newman the buildings at Littlemore, which he turned into a +place for printing religious works. But though he was connected more or +less closely with numberless schemes of Christian work in Oxford and out +of it, his special work was that of a theological student. Marriott had +much to do with the Library of the Fathers, with correcting +translations, collating manuscripts, editing texts.[34] Somehow, the +most interesting portions hardly came to his share; and what he did in +the way of original writing, little as it was, causes regret that so +much of his time was spent on the drudgery of editing. Some sermons, a +little volume of _Thoughts on Private Devotion_, and another on the +_Epistle to the Romans_, are nearly all that he has left of his own. +Novelty of manner or thought in them there is none, still less anything +brilliant or sharp in observation or style; but there is an undefinable +sense, in their calm, severe pages, of a deep and serious mind dwelling +on deep and very serious things. It is impossible not to wish that a man +who could so write and impress people might have had the leisure to +write more. + +But Marriott never had any leisure. It has been said above that he +placed himself at the service of those whom he counted his teachers. But +the truth is that he was at every one's service who wanted or who asked +his help. He had a large, and what must have been often a burdensome, +correspondence. With pupils or friends he was always ready for some +extra bit of reading. To strangers he was always ready to show attention +and hospitality, though Marriott's parties were as quaint as himself. +His breakfast parties in his own room were things to have seen--a crowd +of undergraduates, finding their way with difficulty amid lanes and +piles of books, amid a scarcity of chairs and room, and the host, +perfectly unconscious of anything grotesque, sitting silent during the +whole of the meal, but perfectly happy, at the head of the table. But +there was no claimant on his purse or his interest who was too strange +for his sympathy--raw freshmen, bores of every kind, broken-down +tradesmen, old women, distressed foreigners, converted Jews, all the odd +and helpless wanderers from beaten ways, were to be heard of at +Marriott's rooms; and all, more or less, had a share of his time and +thoughts, and perhaps counsel. He was sensible of worry as he grew +older; but he never relaxed his efforts to do what any one asked of him. +There must be even now some still living who know what no one else +knows, how much they owe, with no direct claim on him, to Charles +Marriott's inexhaustible patience and charity. The pains which he would +take with even the most uncongenial and unpromising men, who somehow had +come in his way, and seemed thrown on his charge, the patience with +which he would bear and condone their follies and even worse, were not +to be told, for, indeed, few knew what they were. + +"He was always ready to be the friend of any one whose conduct gave +proofs of high principle, however inferior to himself in knowledge or +acquirements, and his friendship once gained was not easily lost. I +believe there was nothing in his power which he was not ready to do for +a friend who wanted his help. It is not easy to state instances of such +kindness without revealing what for many reasons had better be left +untold. But many such have come to my knowledge, and I believe there are +many more known only to himself and to those who derived benefit from +his disinterested friendship."[35] + +Marriott's great contribution to the movement was his solid, simple +goodness, his immovable hope, his confidence that things would come +right. With much imaginativeness open to poetical grandeur and charm, +and not without some power of giving expression to feeling, he was +destitute of all that made so many others of his friends interesting as +men. He was nothing, as a person to know and observe, to the genius of +the two Mozleys, to the brilliant social charm of Frederic Faber, to the +keen, refined intelligence of Mark Pattison, to the originality and +clever eccentricity of William Palmer of Magdalen. And he was nothing as +a man of practical power for organising and carrying out successful +schemes: such power was not much found at Oxford in those days. But his +faith in his cause, as the cause of goodness and truth, was proof +against mockery or suspicion or disaster. When ominous signs disturbed +other people he saw none. He had an almost perverse subtlety of mind +which put a favourable interpretation on what seemed most formidable. As +his master drew more and more out of sympathy with the English Church, +Marriott, resolutely loyal to it and to him, refused to understand hints +and indications which to others were but too plain. He vexed and even +provoked Newman, in the last agonies of the struggle, by the optimism +with which he clung to useless theories and impossible hopes. For that +unquenchable hoping against hope, and hope unabated still when the +catastrophe had come, the English Church at least owes him deep +gratitude. Throughout those anxious years he never despaired of her. + +All through his life he was a beacon and an incitement to those who +wished to make a good use of their lives. In him all men could see, +whatever their opinions and however little they liked him, the +simplicity and the truth of a self-denying life of suffering--for he was +never well--of zealous hard work, unstinted, unrecompensed; of unabated +lofty hopes for the great interests of the Church and the University; of +deep unpretending matter-of-course godliness and goodness--without "form +or comeliness" to attract any but those who cared for them, for +themselves alone. It is almost a sacred duty to those who remember one +who cared nothing for his own name or fame to recall what is the +truth--that no one did more to persuade those round him of the solid +underground religious reality of the movement. Mr. Thomas Mozley, among +other generous notices of men whom the world and their contemporaries +have forgotten, has said what is not more than justice.[36] Speaking of +the enthusiasm of the movement, and the spirit of its members, "There +had never been seen at Oxford, indeed seldom anywhere, so large and +noble a sacrifice of the most precious gifts and powers to a sacred +cause," he points out what each of the leaders gave to it: "Charles +Marriott threw in his scholarship and something more, for he might have +been a philosopher, and he had poetry in his veins, being the son of the +well-known author of the 'Devonshire Lane.' No one sacrificed himself so +entirely to the cause, giving to it all that he had and all that he was, +as Charles Marriott. He did not gather large congregations; he did not +write works of genius to spread his name over the land, and to all time; +he had few of the pleasures or even of the comforts that spontaneously +offer themselves in any field of enterprise. He laboured day and night +in the search and defence of Divine Truth. His admirers were not the +thousands, but the scholars who could really appreciate. I confess to +have been a little ashamed of myself when Bishop Burgess asked me about +Charles Marriott, as one of the most eminent scholars of the day. +Through sheer ignorance I had failed in adequate appreciation." In his +later years he became a member of the new Hebdomadal Council at Oxford, +and took considerable part in working the new constitution of the +University. In an epidemic of smallpox at Oxford in 1854, he took his +full share in looking after the sick, and caught the disorder; but he +recovered. At length, in the midst of troublesome work and many +anxieties, his life of toil was arrested by a severe paralytic seizure, +29th June 1855. He partially rallied, and survived for some time longer; +but his labours were ended. He died at Bradfield, 25th September 1858. +He was worn out by variety and pressure of unintermitted labour, which +he would scarcely allow any change or holiday to relieve. Exhaustion +made illness, when it came, fatal. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[31] "He told me," writes a relative, "that questions about trade used +to occupy him very early in life. He used to ponder how it could be +right to sell things for more than they cost you." + +[32] "He had his own way of doing everything, and used most stoutly to +protest that it was quite impossible that he should do it in any +other."--_MS. Memoir_ by his brother, John Marriott. + +[33] _Uniomachia_, 1833. + +[34] "This became the main task of his life us long as health was +continued to him. All who knew him well will remember how laboriously he +worked at it, and how, in one shape or another, it was always on hand. +Either he was translating, or correcting the translation of others; or +he was collating MSS., or correcting the press. This last work was +carried on at all times and wherever he was--on a journey, after +dinner--even in a boat, he would pull out a sheet and go to write upon +it in haste to get it finished for the next post. The number of volumes +in the Library of the Fathers which bear the signature C.M. attest his +diligence."--John Marriott's Memoir of him (MS.) + +[35] J.M., _MS. Memoir_. + +[36] _Rem._ i. 447. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE OXFORD TRACTS + + +"On 14th July 1833," we read in Cardinal Newman's _Apologia_, "Mr. Keble +preached the assize sermon in the University Pulpit. It was published +under the title of _National Apostasy_. I have ever considered and kept +the day as the start of the religious movement of 1833."[37] + +This memorable sermon was a strong expression of the belief common to a +large body of Churchmen amid the triumphs of the Reform Bill, that the +new governors of the country were preparing to invade the rights, and to +alter the constitution, and even the public documents, of the Church. +The suppression of ten Irish Bishoprics, in defiance of Church opinion, +showed how ready the Government was to take liberties in a high-handed +way with the old adjustments of the relations of Church and State. +Churchmen had hitherto taken for granted that England was "a nation +which had for centuries acknowledged, as an essential part of its +theory of government, that, _as_ a Christian nation, she is also a part +of Christ's Church, and bound, in all her legislation and policy, by the +fundamental laws of that Church." When "a Government and people, so +constituted, threw off the restraint which in many respects such a +principle would impose upon them, nay, disavowed the principle itself," +this, to those whose ideas Mr. Keble represented, seemed nothing short +of a "direct disavowal of the sovereignty of God. If it be true anywhere +that such enactments are forced on the legislature by public opinion, is +Apostasy too hard a word to describe the temper of such a nation?" The +sermon was a call to face in earnest a changed state of things, full of +immediate and pressing danger; to consider how it was to be met by +Christians and Churchmen, and to watch motives and tempers. "Surely it +will be no unworthy principle if any man is more circumspect in his +behaviour, more watchful and fearful of himself, more earnest in his +petitions for spiritual aid, from a dread of disparaging the holy name +of the English Church in her hour of peril by his own personal fault and +negligence. As to those who, either by station or temper, feel +themselves more deeply interested, they cannot be too careful in +reminding themselves that one chief danger in times of change and +excitement arises from their tendency to engross the whole mind. Public +concerns, ecclesiastical or civil, will prove indeed ruinous to those +who permit them to occupy all their care and thought, neglecting or +undervaluing ordinary duties, more especially those of a devotional +kind. These cautions being duly observed, I do not see how any person +can devote himself too entirely to the cause of the Apostolic Church in +these realms. There may be, as far as he knows, but a very few to +sympathise with him. He may have to wait long, and very likely pass out +of this world, before he see any abatement in the triumph of disorder +and irreligion. But, _if he be consistent_, he possesses to the utmost +the personal consolations of a good Christian; and as a true Churchman, +he has the encouragement which no other cause in the world can impart in +the same degree: he is calmly, soberly, demonstrably _sure_ that, sooner +or later, _his will be the winning side_, and that the victory will be +complete, universal, eternal." + +But if Mr. Keble's sermon was the first word of the movement, its first +step was taken in a small meeting of friends, at Mr. Hugh James Rose's +parsonage at Hadleigh, in Suffolk, between the 25th and the 29th of the +same July. At this little gathering, the ideas and anxieties which for +some time past had filled the thoughts of a number of earnest Churchmen, +and had brought them into communication with one another, came to a +head, and issued in the determination to move. Mr. Rose, a man of high +character and distinction in his day, who had recently started the +_British Magazine_, as an organ of Church teaching and opinion, was the +natural person to bring about such a meeting.[38] It was arranged that a +few representative men, or as many as were able, should meet towards the +end of July at Hadleigh Rectory. They were men in full agreement on the +main questions, but with great differences in temperament and habits of +thought. Mr. Rose was the person of most authority, and next to him, Mr. +Palmer; and these, with Mr. A. Perceval, formed as it were the right +wing of the little council. Their Oxford allies were the three Oriel +men, Mr. Keble, Mr. Froude, and Mr. Newman, now fresh from his escape +from death in a foreign land, and from the long solitary musings in his +Mediterranean orange-boat, full of joyful vigour and ready for +enterprise and work.[39] In the result, Mr. Keble and Mr. Newman were +not present, but they were in active correspondence with the others.[40] +From this meeting resulted the _Tracts for the Times_, and the agitation +connected with them. + +These friends were all devoted Churchmen, but, as has been said, each +had his marked character, not only as a man but as a Churchman. The most +important among them was as yet the least prominent. Two of them were +men of learning, acquainted with the great world of London, and who, +with all their zeal, had some of the caution which comes of such +experience. At the time, the most conspicuous was Mr. Hugh James Rose. + +Mr. Rose was a man whose name and whose influence, as his friends +thought, have been overshadowed and overlooked in the popular view of +the Church revival. It owed to him, they held, not only its first +impulse, but all that was best and most hopeful in it; and when it lost +him, it lost its wisest and ablest guide and inspirer. It is certainly +true that when that revival began he was a much more distinguished and +important person than any of the other persons interested in it. As far +as could be seen at the time, he was the most accomplished divine and +teacher in the English Church. He was a really learned man. He had the +intellect and energy and literary skill to use his learning. He was a +man of singularly elevated and religious character; he had something of +the eye and temper of a statesman, and he had already a high position. +He was profoundly loyal to the Church, and keenly interested in whatever +affected its condition and its fortunes. As early as 1825 he had in some +lectures at Cambridge called the attention of English Churchmen to the +state of religious thought and speculation in Germany, and to the +mischiefs likely to react on English theology from the rationalising +temper and methods which had supplanted the old Lutheran teaching; and +this had led to a sharp controversy with Mr. Pusey, as he was then, who +thought that Mr. Rose[41] had both exaggerated the fact itself and had +not adequately given the historical account of it. He had the prudence, +but not the backwardness, of a man of large knowledge, and considerable +experience of the world. More alive to difficulties and dangers than his +younger associates, he showed his courage and his unselfish earnestness +in his frank sympathy with them, daring and outspoken as they were, and +in his willingness to share with them the risks of an undertaking of +which no one knew better than he what were likely to be the +difficulties. He certainly was a person who might be expected to have a +chief part in directing anything with which he was connected. His +countenance and his indirect influence were very important elements, +both in the stirring of thought which led to the Hadleigh resolutions, +and in giving its form to what was then decided upon. But his action in +the movement was impeded by his failure in health, and cut short by his +early death, January 1839. How he would have influenced the course of +things if he had lived, it is not now easy to say. He must have been +reckoned with as one of the chiefs. He would have been opposed to +anything that really tended towards Rome. But there is no reason to +think that he would have shrunk from any step only because it was bold. +He had sympathy for courage and genius, and he had knowledge and +authority which would have commanded respect for his judgment and +opinion. But it is too much to say either that the movement could not +have been without him, or that it was specially his design and plan, or +that he alone could have given the impulse which led to it; though it +seemed at one time as if he was to be its leader and chief. Certainly he +was the most valuable and the most loyal of its early auxiliaries. + +Another coadjutor, whose part at the time also seemed rather that of a +chief, was Mr. William Palmer, of Worcester College. He had been +educated at Trinity College, Dublin, but he had transferred his home to +Oxford, both in the University and the city. He was a man of exact and +scholastic mind, well equipped at all points in controversial theology, +strong in clear theories and precise definitions, familiar with +objections current in the schools and with the answers to them, and well +versed in all the questions, arguments, and authorities belonging to the +great debate with Rome. He had definite and well-arranged ideas about +the nature and office of the Church; and, from his study of the Roman +controversy, he had at command the distinctions necessary to +discriminate between things which popular views confused, and to protect +the doctrines characteristic of the Church from being identified with +Romanism. Especially he had given great attention to the public +devotional language and forms of the Church, and had produced by far the +best book in the English language on the history and significance of the +offices of the English Church--the _Origines Liturgicae_, published at +the University Press in 1832. It was a book to give a man authority with +divines and scholars; and among those with whom at this time he acted no +one had so compact and defensible a theory, even if it was somewhat +rigid and technical, of the peculiar constitution of the English Church +as Mr. Palmer. With the deepest belief in this theory, he saw great +dangers threatening, partly from general ignorance and looseness of +thought, partly from antagonistic ideas and principles only too +distinct and too popular; and he threw all his learning and zeal on the +side of those who, like himself, were alive to those dangers, and were +prepared for a great effort to counteract them. + +The little company which met at Hadleigh Rectory, from 25th to 29th July +1833, met--as other knots of men have often met, to discuss a question +or a policy, or to found an association, or a league, or a newspaper--to +lay down the outlines of some practical scheme of work; but with little +foresight of the venture they were making, or of the momentous issues +which depended on their meeting. Later on, when controversy began, it +became a favourite rhetorical device to call it by the ugly name of a +"conspiracy." Certainly Froude called it so, and Mr. Palmer; and Mr. +Perceval wrote a narrative to answer the charge. It was a "conspiracy," +as any other meeting would be of men with an object which other men +dislike. + +Of the Oriel men, only Froude went to Hadleigh. Keble and Newman were +both absent, but in close correspondence with the others. Their plans +had not taken any definite shape; but they were ready for any sacrifice +and service, and they were filled with wrath against the insolence of +those who thought that the Church was given over into their hands, and +against the apathy and cowardice of those who let her enemies have their +way. Yet with much impatience and many stern determinations in their +hearts, they were all of them men to be swayed by the judgment and +experience of their friends. + +The state of mind under which the four friends met at the Hadleigh +conference has been very distinctly and deliberately recorded by all of +them. Churchmen in our days hardly realise what the face of things then +looked like to men who, if they felt deeply, were no mere fanatics or +alarmists, but sober and sagacious observers, not affected by mere +cries, but seeing dearly beneath the surface of things their certain and +powerful tendencies. "We felt ourselves," writes Mr. Palmer some years +afterwards,[42] "assailed by enemies from without and foes within. Our +Prelates insulted and threatened by Ministers of State. In Ireland ten +bishoprics suppressed. We were advised to feel thankful that a more +sweeping measure had not been adopted. What was to come next?... Was the +same principle of concession to popular clamour ... to be exemplified in +the dismemberment of the English Church?... We were overwhelmed with +pamphlets on Church reform. Lord Henley, brother-in-law of Sir Robert +Peel, Dr. Burton, and others of name and influence led the way. Dr. +Arnold of Rugby ventured to propose that all sects should be united by +Act of Parliament with the Church of England. Reports, apparently well +founded, were prevalent that some of the Prelates were favourable to +alterations in the Liturgy. Pamphlets were in wide circulation +recommending the abolition of the Creeds (at least in public worship), +especially urging the expulsion of the Athanasian Creed; the removal of +all mention of the Blessed Trinity; of the doctrine of baptismal +regeneration; of the practice of absolution. We knew not to what quarter +to look for support. A Prelacy threatened and apparently intimidated; a +Government making its power subservient to agitators, who avowedly +sought the destruction of the Church ... And, worst of all, _no +principle in the public mind to which we could appeal_; an utter +ignorance of all rational grounds of attachment to the Church; an +oblivion of its spiritual character, as an institution not of man but of +God; the grossest Erastianism most widely prevalent, especially amongst +all classes of politicians. There was in all this enough to appal the +stoutest heart; and those who can recall the feeling of those days will +at once remember the deep depression into which the Church had fallen, +and the gloomy forebodings universally prevalent." + +"Before the spirit and temper of those who met at the conference is +condemned as extravagant," writes Mr. Perceval in 1842,[43] "let the +reader call to mind what was then actually the condition as well as the +prospect of the Church and nation: an agrarian and civic insurrection +against the bishops and clergy, and all who desired to adhere to the +existing institutions of the country; the populace goaded on, openly by +the speeches, covertly (as was fully believed at the time) by the paid +emissaries of the ministers of the Crown; the chief of those ministers +in his place in Parliament bidding the bishops 'set their house in +order'; the mob taking him at his word, and burning to the ground the +palace of the Bishop of Bristol, with the public buildings of the city, +while they shouted the Premier's name in triumph on the ruins." The +pressing imminence of the danger is taken for granted by the calmest and +most cautious of the party, Mr. Rose, in a letter of February 1833. +"That something is requisite, is certain. The only thing is, that +whatever is done ought to be _quickly_ done, for the danger is +immediate, and _I should have little fear if I thought that we could +stand for ten or fifteen years as we are_."[44] In the _Apologia_ +Cardinal Newman recalls what was before him in those days. "The Whigs +had come into power; Lord Grey had told the bishops to 'set their house +in order,' and some of the prelates had been insulted and threatened in +the streets of London. The vital question was. How were we to keep the +Church from being Liberalised? There was so much apathy on the subject +in some quarters, such imbecile alarm in others; the true principles of +Churchmanship seemed so radically decayed, and there was such +distraction in the councils of the clergy. The Bishop of London of the +day, an active and open-hearted man, had been for years engaged in +diluting the high orthodoxy of the Church by the introduction of the +Evangelical body into places of influence and trust. He had deeply +offended men who agreed with myself by an off-hand saying (as it was +reported) to the effect that belief in the apostolical succession had +gone out with the Non-jurors. '_We can count you_,' he said to some of +the gravest and most venerated persons of the old school.... I felt +affection for my own Church, but not tenderness: I felt dismay at her +prospects, anger and scorn at her do-nothing perplexity. I thought that +if Liberalism once got a footing within her, it was sure of victory in +the event. I saw that Reformation principles were powerless to rescue +her. As to leaving her, the thought never crossed my imagination: still +I ever kept before me that there was something greater than the +Established Church, and that that was the Church Catholic and Apostolic, +set up from the beginning, of which she was but the local presence and +organ. She was nothing unless she was this. She must be dealt with +strongly or she would be lost. There was need of a second Reformation." + +"If _I thought that we could stand ten or fifteen years as we are_, I +should have little fear," said Mr. Rose. He felt that, if only he could +secure a respite, he had the means and the hope of opening the eyes of +Churchmen. They were secure and idle from long prosperity, and now they +were scared and perplexed by the suddenness of an attack for which they +were wholly unprepared. But he had confidence in his own convictions. He +had around him ability and zeal, in which he had the best reason to +trust. He might hope, if he had time, to turn the tide. But this time +to stand to arms was just what he had not. The danger, he felt, was upon +him. He could not wait. So he acquiesced in an agitation which so +cautious and steady a man would otherwise hardly have chosen. "That +_something must be done_ is certain. The only thing is, that whatever is +done ought to be _quickly_ done." Nothing can show more forcibly the +imminence and pressure of the crisis than words like these, not merely +from Froude and his friends, but from such a man as Mr. Hugh James Rose. + +"Something must be done," but what? This was not so easy to say. It was +obvious that men must act in concert, and must write; but beyond these +general points, questions and difficulties arose. The first idea that +suggested itself at Hadleigh was a form of association, which would have +been something like the _English Church Union_ or the _Church Defence +Association_ of our days. It probably was Mr. Palmer's idea; and for +some time the attempt to carry it into effect was followed up at Oxford. +Plans of "Association" were drawn up and rejected. The endeavour brought +out differences of opinion--differences as to the rightness or the +policy of specific mention of doctrines; differences as to the union of +Church and State, on the importance of maintaining which, as long as +possible, Mr. Newman sided with Mr. Palmer against Mr. Keble's more +uncompromising view. A "_third_ formulary" was at length adopted. +"Events," it said, "have occurred within the last few years calculated +to inspire the true members and friends of the Church with the deepest +uneasiness." It went on to notice that political changes had thrown +power into the hands of the professed enemies of the Church as an +establishment; but it was not merely as an establishment that it was in +most serious danger. "Every one," it says, "who has become acquainted +with the literature of the day, must have observed the sedulous attempts +made in various quarters to reconcile members of the Church to +alterations in its doctrines and discipline. Projects of change, which +include the annihilation of our Creeds and the removal of doctrinal +statements incidentally contained in our worship, have been boldly and +assiduously put forth. Our services have been subjected to licentious +criticism, with the view of superseding some of them and of entirely +remodelling others. The very elementary principles of our ritual and +discipline have been rudely questioned; our apostolical polity has been +ridiculed and denied." The condition of the times made these things +more than ordinarily alarming, and the pressing danger was urged as a +reason for the formation, by members of the Church in various parts of +the kingdom, of an association on a few broad principles of union for +the defence of the Church. "They feel strongly," said the authors of the +paper, "that no fear of the appearance of forwardness should dissuade +them from a design, which seems to be demanded of them by their +affection towards that spiritual community to which they owe their hopes +of the world to come; and by a sense of duty to that God and Saviour who +is its Founder and Defender." But the plan of an Association, or of +separate Associations, which was circulated in the autumn of 1833, came +to nothing. "Jealousy was entertained of it in high quarters." Froude +objected to any association less wide than the Church itself. Newman had +a horror of committees and meetings and great people in London. And +thus, in spite of Mr. Palmer's efforts, favoured by a certain number of +influential and dignified friends, the Association would not work. But +the stir about it was not without result. Mr. Palmer travelled about the +country with the view of bringing the state of things before the clergy. +In place of the Association, an Address to the Archbishop of Canterbury +was resolved upon. It was drawn up by Mr. Palmer, who undertook the +business of circulating it. In spite of great difficulties and trouble +of the alarm of friends like Mr. Rose, who was afraid that it would +cause schism in the Church; of the general timidity of the dignified +clergy; of the distrust and the crotchets of others; of the coldness of +the bishops and the opposition of some of them--it was presented with +the signatures of some 7000 clergy to the Archbishop in February 1834. +It bore the names, among others, of Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, Master +of Trinity; Dr. Gilbert, of Brasenose College; Dr. Faussett, and Mr. +Keble. And this was not all. A Lay Address followed. There were +difficulties about the first form proposed, which was thought to say too +much about the doctrine and discipline of the Church; and it was laid +aside for one with more vague expressions about the "consecration of the +State," and the practical benefits of the Established Church. In this +form it was signed by 230,000 heads of families, and presented to the +Archbishop in the following May. "From these two events," writes Mr. +Perceval in 1842, "we may date the commencement of the turn of the tide, +which had threatened to overwhelm our Church and our religion."[45] +There can, at any rate, be little doubt that as regards the external +position of the Church in the country, this agitation was a success. It +rallied the courage of Churchmen, and showed that they were stronger and +more resolute than their enemies thought. The revolutionary temper of +the times had thrown all Churchmen on the Conservative side; and these +addresses were partly helped by political Conservatism, and also reacted +in its favour. + +Some of the Hadleigh friends would probably have been content to go on +in this course, raising and keeping alive a strong feeling in favour of +things as they were, creating a general sympathy with the Church, and +confidence in the peculiar excellency of its wise and sober +institutions, sedulously but cautiously endeavouring to correct popular +mistakes about them, and to diffuse a sounder knowledge and a sounder +tone of religious feeling. This is what Mr. H.J. Rose would have wished, +only he felt that he could not insure the "ten or fifteen years" which +he wanted to work this gradual change. Both he and Mr. Palmer would have +made London, to use a military term, their base of operations. The Oriel +men, on the other hand, thought that "Universities are the natural +centres of intellectual movements"; they were for working more +spontaneously in the freedom of independent study; they had little faith +in organisation; "living movements," they said, "do not come of +committees." But at Hadleigh it was settled that there was writing to be +done, in some way or other; and on this, divergence of opinion soon +showed itself, both as to the matter and the tone of what was to be +written. + +For the writers of real force, the men of genius, were the three Oriel +men, with less experience, at that time, with less extensive learning, +than Mr. Rose and Mr. Palmer. But they were bolder and keener spirits; +they pierced more deeply into the real condition and prospects of the +times; they were not disposed to smooth over and excuse what they +thought hollow and untrue, to put up with decorous compromises and +half-measures, to be patient towards apathy, negligence, or insolence. +They certainly had more in them of the temper of warfare. We know from +their own avowals that a great anger possessed them, that they were +indignant at the sacred idea of the Church being lost and smothered by +selfishness and stupidity; they were animated by the spirit which makes +men lose patience with abuses and their apologists, and gives them no +peace till they speak out. Mr. Newman felt that, though associations and +addresses might be very well, what the Church and the clergy and the +country wanted was plain speaking; and that plain speaking could not be +got by any papers put forth as joint manifestoes, or with the revision +and sanction of "safe" and "judicious" advisers. It was necessary to +write, and to write as each man felt: and he determined that each man +should write and speak for himself, though working in concert and +sympathy with others towards the supreme end--the cause and interests of +the Church. + +And thus were born the _Tracts for the Times._[46] For a time Mr. +Palmer's line and Mr. Newman's line ran on side by side; but Mr. +Palmer's plan had soon done all that it could do, important as that was; +it gradually faded out of sight, and the attention of all who cared for, +or who feared or who hated the movement, was concentrated on the "Oxford +Tracts." They were the watchword and the symbol of an enterprise which +all soon felt to be a remarkable one--remarkable, if in nothing else, in +the form in which it was started. Great changes and movements have been +begun in various ways; in secret and underground communications, in +daring acts of self-devotion or violence, in the organisation of an +institution, in the persistent display of a particular temper and set of +habits, especially in the form of a stirring and enthralling eloquence, +in popular preaching, in fierce appeals to the passions. But though +tracts had become in later times familiar instruments of religious +action, they had, from the fashion of using them, become united in the +minds of many with rather disparaging associations. The pertinacity of +good ladies who pressed them on chance strangers, and who extolled their +efficacy as if it was that of a quack medicine, had lowered the general +respect for them. The last thing that could have been thought of was a +great religions revolution set in motion by tracts and leaflets, and +taking its character and name from them. + +But the ring of these early Tracts was something very different from +anything of the kind yet known in England. They were clear, brief, stern +appeals to conscience and reason, sparing of words, utterly without +rhetoric, intense in purpose. They were like the short, sharp, rapid +utterances of men in pain and danger and pressing emergency. The first +one gave the keynote of the series. Mr. Newman "had out of his own head +begun the Tracts": he wrote the opening one in a mood which he has +himself described. He was in the "exultation of health restored and home +regained": he felt, he says, an "exuberant and joyous energy which he +never had before or since"; "his health and strength had come back to +him with such a rebound" that some of his friends did not know him. "I +had the consciousness that I was employed in that work which I had been +dreaming about, and which I felt to be so momentous and inspiring. I had +a supreme confidence in our cause; we were upholding that primitive +Christianity which was delivered for all time by the early teachers of +the Church, and which was registered and attested in the Anglican +formularies and by the Anglican divines. That ancient religion had +well-nigh faded out of the land through the political changes of the +last 150 years, and it must be restored. It would be, in fact, a second +Reformation--a better Reformation, for it would return, not to the +sixteenth century, but to the seventeenth. No time was to be lost, for +the Whigs had come to do their worst, and the rescue might come too +late. Bishoprics were already in course of suppression; Church property +was in course of confiscation; sees would be soon receiving unsuitable +occupants. We knew enough to begin preaching, and there was no one else +to preach. I felt," he goes on,[47] with a characteristic recollection +of his own experience when he started on his voyage with Froude in the +_Hermes_, "as on a vessel, which first gets under weigh, and then clears +out the deck, and stores away luggage and live stock into their proper +receptacles." The first three Tracts bear the date of 9th September +1833. They were the first public utterance of the movement. The opening +words of this famous series deserve to be recalled. They are new to most +of the present generation. + + TO MY BRETHREN IN THE SACRED MINISTRY, THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS OF + THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IN ENGLAND, ORDAINED THEREUNTO BY THE HOLY GHOST + AND THE IMPOSITION OF HANDS. + + FELLOW-LABOURERS,--I am but one of yourselves--Presbyter; and + therefore I conceal my name, lest I should take too much on myself by + speaking in my own person. Yet speak I must; for the times are very + evil, yet no one speaks against them. + + Is not this so? Do not we "look one upon another," yet perform + nothing? Do we not all confess the peril into which the Church is + come, yet sit still each in his own retirement, as if mountains and + seas cut off brother from brother? Therefore suffer me, while I try to + draw you forth from those pleasant retreats, which it has been our + blessedness hitherto to enjoy, to contemplate the condition and + prospects of our Holy Mother in a practical way; so that one and all + may unlearn that idle habit, which has grown upon us, of owning the + state of things to be bad, yet doing nothing to remedy it. + + Consider a moment. Is it fair, is it dutiful, to suffer our bishops to + stand the brunt of the battle without doing our part to support them? + Upon them comes "the care of all the Churches." This cannot be helped; + indeed it is their glory. Not one of us would wish in the least to + deprive them of the duties, the toils, the responsibilities of their + high office. And, black event as it would be for the country, yet (as + far as they are concerned) we could not wish them a more blessed + termination of their course than the spoiling of their goods and + martyrdom. + + To them then we willingly and affectionately relinquish their high + privileges and honours; we encroach not upon the rights of the + SUCCESSORS OF THE APOSTLES; we touch not their sword and crozier. Yet + surely we may be their shield-bearers in the battle without offence; + and by our voice and deeds be to them what Luke and Timothy were to + St. Paul. + + Now then let me come at once to the subject which leads me to address + you. Should the Government and the Country so far forget their God as + to cast off the Church, to deprive it of its temporal honours and + substance, _on what_ will you rest the claim of respect and attention + which you make upon your flocks? Hitherto you have been upheld by your + birth, your education, your wealth, your connexions; should these + secular advantages cease, on what must Christ's Ministers depend? Is + not this a serious practical question? We know how miserable is the + state of religious bodies not supported by the State. Look at the + Dissenters on all sides of you, and you will see at once that their + Ministers, depending simply upon the people, become the _creatures_ of + the people. Are you content that this should be your case? Alas! can a + greater evil befall Christians, than for their teachers to be guided + by them, instead of guiding? How can we "hold fast the form of sound + words," and "keep that which is committed to our trust," if our + influence is to depend simply on our popularity? Is it not our very + office to _oppose_ the world? Can we then allow ourselves to _court_ + it? to preach smooth things and prophesy deceits? to make the way of + life easy to the rich and indolent, and to bribe the humbler classes + by excitements and strong intoxicating doctrine? Surely it must not be + so;--and the question recurs, _on what_ are we to rest our authority + when the State deserts us? + + Christ has not left His Church without claim of its own upon the + attention of men. Surely not. Hard Master He cannot be, to bid us + oppose the world, yet give us no credentials for so doing. There are + some who rest their divine mission on their own unsupported assertion; + others, who rest it upon their popularity; others, on their success; + and others, who rest it upon their temporal distinctions. This last + case has, perhaps, been too much our own; I fear we have neglected the + real ground on which our authority is built--OUR APOSTOLICAL DESCENT. + + We have been born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of + the will of man, but of God. The Lord Jesus Christ gave His Spirit to + His Apostles; they in turn laid their hands on those who should + succeed them; and these again on others; and so the sacred gift has + been handed down to our present bishops, who have appointed us as + their assistants, and in some sense representatives. + + Now every one of us believes this. I know that some will at first deny + they do; still they do believe it. Only, it is not sufficiently, + practically impressed on their minds. + + They _do_ believe it; for it _is_ the doctrine of the Ordination + Service, which they have recognised as truth in the most solemn season + of their lives. In order, then, not to prove, but to remind and + impress, I entreat your attention to the words used when you were made + ministers of Christ's Church. + + The office of Deacon was thus committed to you: "Take thou authority + to execute the office of a Deacon in the Church of God committed unto + thee: In the name, etc." + + And the Priesthood thus: + + "Receive the Holy Ghost, for the office and work of a Priest, in the + Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands. + Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou + dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a faithful dispenser of + the Word of God, and of His Holy Sacraments: In the name, etc." + + These, I say, were words spoken to us, and received by us, when we + were brought nearer to God than at any other time of our lives. I know + the grace of ordination is contained in the laying on of hands, not in + any form of words;--yet in our own case (as has ever been usual in the + Church) words of blessing have accompanied the act. Thus we have + confessed before God our belief that the bishop who ordained us gave + us the Holy Ghost, gave us the power to bind and to loose, to + administer the Sacraments, and to preach. Now _how_ is he able to give + these great gifts? _Whence_ is his right? Are these words idle (which + would be taking God's name in vain), or do they express merely a wish + (which surely is very far below their meaning), or do they not rather + indicate that the speaker is conveying a gift? Surely they can mean + nothing short of this. But whence, I ask, his right to do so? Has he + any right, except as having received the power from those who + consecrated him to be a bishop? He could not give what he had never + received. It is plain then that he but _transmits_; and that the + Christian Ministry is a _succession_. And if we trace back the power + of ordination from hand to hand, of course we shall come to the + Apostles at last. We know we do, as a plain historical fact; and + therefore all we, who have been ordained clergy, in the very form of + our ordination acknowledged the doctrine of the APOSTOLICAL + SUCCESSION. + + And for the same reason, we must necessarily consider none to be + _really_ ordained who have not _thus_ been ordained. For if ordination + is a divine ordinance, it must be necessary; and if it is not a divine + ordinance, how dare we use it? Therefore all who use it, all of _us_, + must consider it necessary. As well might we pretend the Sacraments + are not necessary to salvation, while we make use of the offices in + the Liturgy; for when God appoints means of grace, they are _the_ + means. + + I do not see how any one can escape from this plain view of the + subject, except (as I have already hinted) by declaring that the words + do not mean all that they say. But only reflect what a most unseemly + time for random words is that in which ministers are set apart for + their office. Do we not adopt a Liturgy _in order to_ hinder + inconsiderate idle language, and shall we, in the most sacred of all + services, write down, subscribe, and use again and again forms of + speech which have not been weighed, and cannot be taken strictly? + + Therefore, my dear brethren, act up to your professions. Let it not + be said that you have neglected a gift; for if you have the Spirit of + the Apostles on you, surely this _is_ a great gift. "Stir up the gift + of God which is in you." Make much of it. Show your value of it. Keep + it before your minds as an honourable badge, far higher than that + secular respectability, or cultivation, or polish, or learning, or + rank, which gives you a hearing with the many. Tell _them_ of your + gift. The times will soon drive you to do this, if you mean to be + still anything. But wait not for the times. Do not be compelled, by + the world's forsaking you, to recur as if unwillingly to the high + source of your authority. Speak out now, before you are forced, both + as glorying in your privilege and to insure your rightful honour from + your people. A notion has gone abroad that they can take away your + power. They think they have given and can take it away. They think it + lies in the Church property, and they know that they have politically + the power to confiscate that property. They have been deluded into a + notion that present palpable usefulness, producible results, + acceptableness to your flocks, that these and such like are the tests + of your divine commission. Enlighten them in this matter. Exalt our + Holy Fathers the bishops, as the representatives of the Apostles, and + the Angels of the Churches; and magnify your office, as being ordained + by them to take part in their Ministry. + + But, if you will not adopt my view of the subject, which I offer to + you, not doubtingly, yet (I hope) respectfully, at all events, CHOOSE + YOUR SIDE. To remain neuter much longer will be itself to take a part. + _Choose_ your side; since side you shortly must, with one or other + party, even though you do nothing. Fear to be of those whose line is + decided for them by chance circumstances, and who may perchance find + themselves with the enemies of Christ, while they think but to remove + themselves from worldly politics. Such abstinence is impossible in + troublous times. HE THAT IS NOT WITH ME IS AGAINST ME, AND HE THAT + GATHERETH NOT WITH ME SCATTERETH ABROAD. + +While Mr. Palmer was working at the Association and the Address, Mr. +Newman with his friends was sending forth the Tracts, one after another, +in rapid succession, through the autumn and winter of 1833. They were +short papers, in many cases mere short notes, on the great questions +which had suddenly sprung into such interest, and were felt to be full +of momentous consequence,--the true and essential nature of the +Christian Church, its relation to the primitive ages, its authority and +its polity and government, the current objections to its claims in +England, to its doctrines and its services, the length of the prayers, +the Burial Service, the proposed alterations in the Liturgy, the neglect +of discipline, the sins and corruptions of each branch of Christendom. +The same topics were enforced and illustrated again and again as the +series went on; and then there came extracts from English divines, like +Bishop Beveridge, Bishop Wilson, and Bishop Cosin, and under the title +"Records of the Church," translations from the early Fathers, Ignatius, +Justin, Irenaeus, and others. Mr. Palmer contributed to one of these +papers, and later on Mr. Perceval wrote two or three; but for the most +part these early Tracts were written by Mr. Newman, though Mr. Keble and +one or two others also helped. Afterwards, other writers joined in the +series. They were at first not only published with a notice that any one +might republish them with any alterations he pleased, but they were +distributed by zealous coadjutors, ready to take any trouble in the +cause. Mr. Mozley has described how he rode about Northamptonshire, from +parsonage to parsonage, with bundles of the Tracts. The _Apologia_ +records the same story. "I called upon clergy," says the writer, "in +various parts of the country, whether I was acquainted with them or not, +and I attended at the houses of friends where several of them were from +time to time assembled.... I did not care whether my visits were made to +High Church or Low Church: I wished to make a strong pull in union with +all who were opposed to the principles of Liberalism, whoever they might +be." He adds that he does not think that much came of these visits, or +of letters written with the same purpose, "except that they advertised +the fact that a rally in favour of the Church was commencing." + +The early Tracts were intended to startle the world, and they succeeded +in doing so. Their very form, as short earnest leaflets, was perplexing; +for they came, not from the class of religionists who usually deal in +such productions, but from distinguished University scholars, picked men +of a picked college; and from men, too, who as a school were the +representatives of soberness and self-control in religious feeling and +language, and whose usual style of writing was specially marked by its +severe avoidance of excitement and novelty; the school from which had +lately come the _Christian Year_, with its memorable motto "_In +quietness and confidence shall be your strength_." Their matter was +equally unusual. Undoubtedly they "brought strange things to the ears" +of their generation. To Churchmen now these "strange things" are such +familiar commonplaces, that it is hard to realise how they should have +made so much stir. But they were novelties, partly audacious, partly +unintelligible, then. The strong and peremptory language of the Tracts, +their absence of qualifications or explanations, frightened friends like +Mr. Palmer, who, so far, had no ground to quarrel with their doctrine, +and he wished them to be discontinued. The story went that one of the +bishops, on reading one of the Tracts on the Apostolical Succession, +could not make up his mind whether he held the doctrine or not. They +fell on a time of profound and inexcusable ignorance on the subjects +they discussed, and they did not spare it. The cry of Romanism was +inevitable, and was soon raised, though there was absolutely nothing in +them but had the indisputable sanction of the Prayer Book, and of the +most authoritative Anglican divines. There was no Romanism in them, nor +anything that showed a tendency to it. But custom, and the prevalence of +other systems and ways, and the interest of later speculations, and the +slackening of professional reading and scholarship in the Church, had +made their readers forget some of the most obvious facts in Church +history, and the most certain Church principles; and men were at sea as +to what they knew or believed on the points on which the Tracts +challenged them. The scare was not creditable; it was like the Italian +scare about cholera with its quarantines and fumigations; but it was +natural. The theological knowledge and learning were wanting which +would have been familiar with the broad line of difference between what +is Catholic and what is specially Roman. There were many whose teaching +was impugned, for it was really Calvinist or Zwinglian, and not +Anglican. There were hopeful and ambitious theological Liberals, who +recognised in that appeal to Anglicanism the most effective +counter-stroke to their own schemes and theories. There were many whom +the movement forced to think, who did not want such addition to their +responsibilities. It cannot be thought surprising that the new Tracts +were received with surprise, dismay, ridicule, and indignation. But they +also at once called forth a response of eager sympathy from numbers to +whom they brought unhoped-for relief and light in a day of gloom, of +rebuke and blasphemy. Mr. Keble, in the preface to his famous assize +sermon, had hazarded the belief that there were "hundreds, nay, +thousands of Christians, and that there soon will be tens of thousands, +unaffectedly anxious to be rightly guided" in regard to subjects that +concern the Church. The belief was soon justified. + +When the first forty-six Tracts were collected into a volume towards the +end of 1834, the following "advertisement" explaining their nature and +objects was prefixed to it. It is a contemporary and authoritative +account of what was the mind of the leaders of the movement; and it has +a significance beyond the occasion which prompted it. + + The following-Tracts were published with the object of + contributing-something towards the practical revival of doctrines, + which, although held by the great divines of our Church, at present + have become obsolete with the majority of her members, and are + withdrawn from public view even by the more learned and orthodox few + who still adhere to them. The Apostolic succession, the Holy Catholic + Church, were principles of action in the minds of our predecessors of + the seventeenth century; but, in proportion as the maintenance of the + Church has been secured by law, her ministers have been under the + temptation of leaning on an arm of flesh instead of her own + divinely-provided discipline, a temptation increased by political + events and arrangements which need not here be more than alluded to. A + lamentable increase of sectarianism has followed; being occasioned (in + addition to other more obvious causes), first, by the cold aspect + which the new Church doctrines have presented to the religious + sensibilities of the mind, next to their meagreness in suggesting + motives to restrain it from seeking out a more influential discipline. + Doubtless obedience to the law of the land, and the careful + maintenance of "decency and order" (the topics in usage among us), + are plain duties of the Gospel, and a reasonable ground for keeping in + communion with the Established Church; yet, if Providence has + graciously provided for our weakness more interesting and constraining + motives, it is a sin thanklessly to neglect them; just as it would be + a mistake to rest the duties of temperance or justice on the mere law + of natural religion, when they are mercifully sanctioned in the Gospel + by the more winning authority of our Saviour Christ. Experience has + shown the inefficacy of the mere injunctions of Church order, however + scripturally enforced, in restraining from schism the awakened and + anxious sinner; who goes to a dissenting preacher "because" (as he + expresses it) "he gets good from him": and though he does not stand + excused in God's sight for yielding to the temptation, surely the + ministers of the Church are not blameless if, by keeping back the more + gracious and consoling truths provided for the little ones of Christ, + they indirectly lead him into it. Had he been taught as a child, that + the Sacraments, not preaching, are the sources of Divine Grace; that + the Apostolical ministry had a virtue in it which went out over the + whole Church, when sought by the prayer of faith; that fellowship with + it was a gift and privilege, as well as a duty, we could not have had + so many wanderers from our fold, nor so many cold hearts within it. + + This instance may suggest many others of the superior _influence_ of + an apostolical over a mere secular method of teaching. The awakened + mind knows its wants, but cannot provide for them; and in its hunger + will feed upon ashes, if it cannot obtain the pure milk of the word. + Methodism and Popery are in different ways the refuge of those whom + the Church stints of the gifts of grace; they are the foster-mothers + of abandoned children. The neglect of the daily service, the + desecration of festivals, the Eucharist scantily administered, + insubordination permitted in all ranks of the Church, orders and + offices imperfectly developed, the want of societies for particular + religious objects, and the like deficiencies, lead the feverish mind, + desirous of a vent to its feelings, and a stricter rule of life, to + the smaller religious communities, to prayer and Bible meetings, and + ill-advised institutions and societies, on the one hand, on the other, + to the solemn and captivating services by which Popery gains its + proselytes. Moreover, the multitude of men cannot teach or guide + themselves; and an injunction given them to depend on their private + judgment, cruel in itself, is doubly hurtful, as throwing them on such + teachers as speak daringly and promise largely, and not only aid but + supersede individual exertion. + + These remarks may serve as a clue, for those who care to pursue it, to + the views which have led to the publication of the following Tracts. + The Church of Christ was intended to cope with human nature in all its + forms, and surely the gifts vouchsafed it are adequate for that + gracious purpose. There are zealous sons and servants of her English + branch, who see with sorrow that she is defrauded of her full + usefulness by particular theories and principles of the present age, + which interfere with the execution of one portion of her commission; + and while they consider that the revival of this portion of truth is + especially adapted to break up existing parties in the Church, and to + form instead a bond of union among all who love the Lord Jesus Christ + in sincerity, they believe that nothing but these neglected doctrines, + faithfully preached, will repress that extension of Popery, for which + the ever multiplying divisions of the religious world are too clearly + preparing the way. + +Another publication ought to be noticed, a result of the Hadleigh +meeting, which exhibited the leading ideas of the conference, and +especially of the more "conservative" members of it. This was a little +work in question and answer, called the "Churchman's Manual," drawn up +in part some time before the meeting by Mr. Perceval, and submitted to +the revision of Mr. Rose and Mr. Palmer. It was intended to be a +supplement to the "Church Catechism," as to the nature and claims of the +Church and its Ministers. It is a terse, clear, careful, and, as was +inevitable, rather dry summary of the Anglican theory, and of the +position which the English Church holds to the Roman Church, and to the +Dissenters. It was further revised at the conference, and "some +important suggestions were made by Froude"; and then Mr. Perceval, who +had great hopes from the publication, and spared himself no pains to +make it perfect, submitted it for revision and advice to a number of +representative Churchmen. The Scotch Bishops whom he consulted were warm +in approval, especially the venerable and saintly Bishop Jolly; as were +also a number of men of weight and authority in England: Judge Allan +Park, Joshua Watson, Mr. Sikes of Guilsborough, Mr. Churton of Crayke, +Mr. H.H. Norris, Dr. Wordsworth, and Dr. Routh. It was then laid before +the Archbishop for correction, or, if desirable, suppression; and for +his sanction if approved. The answer was what might have been expected, +that there was no objection to it, but that official sanction must be +declined on general grounds. After all this Mr. Perceval not unnaturally +claimed for it special importance. It was really, he observed, the +"first Tract," systematically put forth, and its preparation "apparently +gave rise" to the series; and it was the only one which received the +approval of all immediately concerned in the movement. "The care +bestowed on it," he says, "probably exceeds that which any theological +publication in the English communion received for a long time;" and +further, it shows "that the foundation of the movement with which Mr. +Rose was connected, was laid with all the care and circumspection that +reason could well suggest." It appears to have had a circulation, but +there is no reason to think that it had any considerable influence, one +way or other, on opinion in the Church. When it was referred to in +after-years by Mr. Perceval in his own vindication, it was almost +forgotten. More interesting, if not more important, Tracts had thrown it +into the shade. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[37] _Apol._ p. 100. + +[38] Palmer, _Narrative_, 1843 (republished 1883), pp. 5, 18. + +[39] Palmer (1883), pp. 40, 43, "June 1833, when he joined us at +Oxford." + +[40] See Palmer's account (1883), pp. 45-47, and (1843), pp. 6,7. + +[41] "Mr. Rose ... was the one commanding figure and very lovable man, +that the frightened and discomfited Church people were now rallying +round. Few people have left so distinct an impression of themselves as +this gentleman. For many years after, when he was no more, and Newman +had left Rose's standpoint far behind, he could never speak of him or +think of him without renewed tenderness" (Mr. T. Mozley, +_Reminiscences_, i. 308). + +In November 1838, shortly before Mr. Rose's death, Mr. Newman had +dedicated a volume of sermons to him--"who, when hearts were failing, +bade us stir up the gift that was in us, and betake ourselves to our +true mother" (_Parochial Sermons_, vol. iv.) + +[42] _Narrative of Events connected with the publication of Tracts for +the Times_, by W. Palmer (published 1843, republished 1883), pp. 96-100 +(abridged). + +[43] _Collection of Papers connected with the Theological Movement of_ +1833, by A.P. Perceval (1842), p. 25. + +[44] Palmer's _Narrative_ (1833), p. 101 + +[45] _Collection of Papers_, p. 12. + +[46] "That portentous birth of time, the _Tracts for the +Times._"--Mozley, _Remin_, i. 311. + +[47] Froude, _Remains_, i. 265. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE TRACTARIANS + + +Thus had been started--hurriedly perhaps, yet not without counting the +cost--a great enterprise, which had for its object to rouse the Church +from its lethargy, and to strengthen and purify religion, by making it +deeper and more real; and they who had put their hands to the plough +were not to look back any more. It was not a popular appeal; it +addressed itself not to the many but to the few; it sought to inspire +and to teach the teachers. There was no thought as yet of acting on the +middle classes, or on the ignorance and wretchedness of the great towns, +though Newman had laid down that the Church must rest on the people, and +Froude looked forward to colleges of unmarried priests as the true way +to evangelise the crowds. There was no display about this attempt, no +eloquence, nothing attractive in the way of original speculation or +sentimental interest. It was suspicious, perhaps too suspicious, of the +excitement and want of soberness, almost inevitable in strong appeals to +the masses of mankind. It brought no new doctrine, but professed to go +back to what was obvious and old-fashioned and commonplace. It taught +people to think less of preaching than of what in an age of excitement +were invidiously called forms--of the sacraments and services of the +Church. It discouraged, even to the verge of an intended dryness, all +that was showy, all that in thought or expression or manner it condemned +under the name of "flash." It laid stress on the exercise of an inner +and unseen self-discipline, and the cultivation of the less interesting +virtues of industry, humility, self-distrust, and obedience. If from its +writers proceeded works which had impressed people--a volume like the +_Christian Year_, poems original in their force and their tenderness, +like some of those in the _Lyra Apostolica_, sermons which arrested the +hearers by their keenness and pathetic undertone--the force of all this +was not the result of literary ambition and effort, but the reflexion, +unconscious, unsought, of thought and feeling that could not otherwise +express itself, and that was thrown into moulds shaped by habitual +refinement and cultivated taste. It was from the first a movement from +which, as much by instinct and temper as by deliberate intention, +self-seeking in all its forms was excluded. Those whom it influenced +looked not for great things for themselves, nor thought of making a mark +in the world. + +The first year after the Hadleigh meeting (1834) passed uneventfully. +The various addresses in which Mr. Palmer was interested, the election +and installation of the Duke of Wellington as Chancellor, the enthusiasm +and hopes called forth by the occasion, were public and prominent +matters. The Tracts were steadily swelling in number; the busy +distribution of them had ceased, and they had begun to excite interest +and give rise to questions. Mr. Palmer, who had never liked the Tracts, +became more uneasy; yet he did not altogether refuse to contribute to +them. Others gave their help, among them Mr. Perceval, Froude, the two +Kebles, and Mr. Newman's friend, a layman, Mr. J. Bowden; some of the +younger scholars furnished translations from the Fathers; but the bulk +and most forcible of the Tracts were still the work of Mr. Newman. But +the Tracts were not the most powerful instruments in drawing sympathy to +the movement. None but those who remember them can adequately estimate +the effect of Mr. Newman's four o'clock sermons at St. Mary's.[48] The +world knows them, has heard a great deal about them, has passed its +various judgments on them. But it hardly realises that without those +sermons the movement might never have gone on, certainly would never +have been what it was. Even people who heard them continually, and felt +them to be different from any other sermons, hardly estimated their real +power, or knew at the time the influence which the sermons were having +upon them. Plain, direct, unornamented, clothed in English that was only +pure and lucid, free from any faults of taste, strong in their +flexibility and perfect command both of language and thought, they were +the expression of a piercing and large insight into character and +conscience and motives, of a sympathy at once most tender and most stern +with the tempted and the wavering, of an absolute and burning faith in +God and His counsels, in His love, in His judgments, in the awful glory +of His generosity and His magnificence. They made men think of the +things which the preacher spoke of, and not of the sermon or the +preacher. Since 1828 this preaching had been going on at St. Mary's, +growing in purpose and directness as the years went on, though it could +hardly be more intense than in some of its earliest examples. While men +were reading and talking about the Tracts, they were hearing the +sermons; and in the sermons they heard the living meaning, and reason, +and bearing of the Tracts, their ethical affinities, their moral +standard. The sermons created a moral atmosphere, in which men judged +the questions in debate. It was no dry theological correctness and +completeness which were sought for. No love of privilege, no formal +hierarchical claims, urged on the writers. What they thought in danger, +what they aspired to revive and save, was the very life of religion, the +truth and substance of all that makes it the hope of human society. + +But indeed, by this time, out of the little company of friends which a +common danger and a common loyalty to the Church had brought together, +one Mr. Newman, had drawn ahead, and was now in the front. Unsought +for, as the _Apologia_ makes so clear--unsought for, as the contemporary +letters of observing friends attest--unsought for, as the whole tenor of +his life has proved--the position of leader in a great crisis came to +him, because it must come. He was not unconscious that, as he had felt +in his sickness in Sicily, he "had a work to do." But there was shyness +and self-distrust in his nature as well as energy; and it was the force +of genius, and a lofty character, and the statesman's eye, taking in and +judging accurately the whole of a complicated scene, which conferred the +gifts, and imposed inevitably and without dispute the obligations and +responsibilities of leadership. Dr. Pusey of course was a friend of +great account, but he was as yet in the background, a venerated and +rather awful person, from his position not mixing in the easy +intercourse of common-room life, but to be consulted on emergencies. +Round Mr. Newman gathered, with a curious mixture of freedom, devotion, +and awe--for, with unlimited power of sympathy, he was exacting and even +austere in his friendships--the best men of his college, either +Fellows--R. Wilberforce, Thomas Mozley, Frederic Rogers, J.F. Christie; +or old pupils--Henry Wilberforce, R.F. Wilson, William Froude, Robert +Williams, S.F. Wood, James Bliss, James Mozley; and in addition some +outsiders--Woodgate of St. John's, Isaac Williams and Copeland, of his +old College, Trinity. These, members of his intimate circle, were bound +to him not merely by enthusiastic admiration and confidence, but by a +tenderness of affection, a mixture of the gratitude and reliance of +discipleship with the warm love of friendship, of which one has to go +back far for examples, and which has had nothing like it in our days at +Oxford. And Newman was making his mark as a writer. The _Arians_, though +an imperfect book, was one which, for originality and subtlety of +thought, was something very unlike the usual theological writing of the +day. There was no doubt of his power, and his mind was brimming over +with ideas on the great questions which were rising into view. It was +clear to all who know him that he could speak on them as no one else +could. + +Towards the end of 1834, and in the course of 1835, an event happened +which had a great and decisive influence on the character and fortunes +of the movement. This was the accession to it of Dr. Pusey. He had +looked favourably on it from the first, partly from his friendship with +Mr. Newman, partly from the workings of his own mind. But he had nothing +to do with the starting of it, except that he early contributed an +elaborate paper on "Fasting." The Oxford branch of the movement, as +distinguished from that which Mr. Palmer represented, consisted up to +1834 almost exclusively of junior men, personal friends of Mr. Newman, +and most of them Oriel men. Mr. Newman's deep convictions, his fiery +enthusiasm, had given the Tracts their first stamp and impress, and had +sent them flying over the country among the clergy on his own +responsibility. They answered their purpose. They led to widespread and +sometimes deep searchings of heart; to some they seemed to speak forth +what had been long dormant within them, what their minds had +unconsciously and vaguely thought and longed for; to some they seemed a +challenge pregnant with danger. But still they were but an outburst of +individual feeling and zeal, which, if nothing more came of its +fragmentary displays, might blaze and come to nothing. There was nothing +yet which spoke outwardly of the consistency and weight of a serious +attempt to influence opinion and to produce a practical and lasting +effect on the generation which was passing. Cardinal Newman, in the +_Apologia_, has attributed to Dr. Pusey's unreserved adhesion to the +cause which the Tracts represented a great change in regard to the +weight and completeness of what was written and done. "Dr. Pusey," he +writes, "gave us at once a position and a name. Without him we should +have had no chance, especially at the early date of 1834, of making any +serious resistance to the liberal aggression. But Dr. Pusey was a +Professor and Canon of Christ Church; he had a vast influence in +consequence of his deep religious seriousness, the munificence of his +charities, his Professorship, his family connexions, and his easy +relations with the University authorities. He was to the movement all +that Mr. Rose might have been, with that indispensable addition, which +was wanting to Mr. Rose, the intimate friendship and the familiar daily +society of the persons who had commenced it. And he had that special +claim on their attachment which lies in the living presence of a +faithful and loyal affectionateness. There was henceforth a man who +could be the head and centre of the zealous people in every part of the +country who were adopting the new opinions; and not only so, but there +was one who furnished the movement with a front to the world, and gained +for it a recognition from other parties in the University."[49] + +This is not too much to say of the effect of Dr. Pusey's adhesion. It +gave the movement a second head, in close sympathy with its original +leader, but in many ways very different from him. Dr. Pusey became, as +it were, its official chief in the eyes of the world. He became also, in +a remarkable degree, a guarantee for its stability and steadiness: a +guarantee that its chiefs knew what they were about, and meant nothing +but what was for the benefit of the English Church. "He was," we read in +the _Apologia_, "a man of large designs; he had a hopeful, sanguine +mind; he had no fear of others; he was haunted by no intellectual +perplexities.... If confidence in his position is (as it is) a first +essential in the leader of a party, Dr. Pusey had it." An inflexible +patience, a serene composure, a meek, resolute self-possession, was the +habit of his mind, and never deserted him in the most trying days. He +never for an instant, as the paragraph witnesses, wavered or doubted +about the position of the English Church. + +He was eminently, as his friend justly observes, "a man of large +designs." It is doubtless true, as the _Apologia_ goes on to say, that +it was due to the place which he now took in the movement that great +changes were made in the form and character of the Tracts. To Dr. +Pusey's mind, accustomed to large and exhaustive theological reading, +they wanted fulness, completeness, the importance given by careful +arrangement and abundant knowledge. It was not for nothing that he had +passed an apprenticeship among the divines of Germany, and been the +friend and correspondent of Tholuck, Schleiermacher, Ewald, and Sack. He +knew the meaning of real learning. In controversy it was his +sledge-hammer and battle-mace, and he had the strong and sinewy hand to +use it with effect. He observed that when attention had been roused to +the ancient doctrines of the Church by the startling and peremptory +language of the earlier Tracts, fairness and justice demanded that these +doctrines should be fully and carefully explained and defended against +misrepresentation and mistake. Forgetfulness and ignorance had thrown +these doctrines so completely into the shade that, identified as they +were with the best English divinity, they now wore the air of amazing +novelties; and it was only due to honest inquirers to satisfy them with +solid and adequate proof. "Dr. Pusey's influence was felt at once. He +saw that there ought to be more sobriety, more gravity, more careful +pains, more sense of responsibility in the Tracts and in the whole +movement." At the end of 1835 Dr. Pusey gave an example of what he +meant. In place of the "short and incomplete papers," such as the +earlier Tracts had been, Nos. 67, 68, and 69 formed the three parts of a +closely-printed pamphlet of more than 300 pages.[50] It was a treatise +on Baptism, perhaps the most elaborate that has yet appeared in the +English language. "It is to be regarded," says the advertisement to the +second volume of the Tracts, "not as an inquiry into a single or +isolated doctrine, but as a delineation and serious examination of a +modern system of theology, of extensive popularity and great +speciousness, in its elementary and characteristic principles." The +Tract on Baptism was like the advance of a battery of heavy artillery on +a field where the battle has been hitherto carried on by skirmishing and +musketry. It altered the look of things and the condition of the +fighting. After No. 67 the earlier form of the Tracts appeared no more. +Except two or three reprints from writers like Bishop Wilson, the Tracts +from No. 70 to No. 90 were either grave and carefully worked out essays +on some question arising out of the discussions of the time, or else +those ponderous _catenae_ of patristic or Anglican divinity, by which +the historical continuity and Church authority of various points of +doctrine were established. + +Dr. Pusey was indeed a man of "large designs." The vision rose before +him of a revived and instructed Church, earnest in purpose and strict in +life, and of a great Christian University roused and quickened to a +sense of its powers and responsibilities. He thought of the enormous +advantages offered by its magnificent foundations for serious study and +the production of works for which time and deep learning and continuous +labour were essential. Such works, in the hands of single-minded +students, living lives of simplicity and hard toil, had in the case of +the Portroyalists, the Oratorians, and above all, the Benedictines of +St. Maur, splendidly redeemed the Church of France, in otherwise evil +days, from the reproach of idleness and self-indulgence. He found under +his hand men who had in them something of the making of students; and he +hoped to see college fellowships filled more and more by such men, and +the life of a college fellow more and more recognised as that of a man +to whom learning, and especially sacred learning, was his call and +sufficient object, as pastoral or educational work might be the call of +others. Where fellowships were not to be had, he encouraged such men to +stay up in Oxford; he took them into his own house; later, he tried a +kind of hall to receive them. And by way of beginning at once, and +giving them something to do, he planned on a large scale a series of +translations and also editions of the Fathers. It was announced, with an +elaborate prospectus, in 1836, under the title, in conformity with the +usage of the time, which had _Libraries of Useful Knowledge, etc._, of a +_Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church anterior to the Division +of the East and West_, under the editorship of Dr. Pusey, Mr. Keble, +and Mr. Newman. It was dedicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and +had a considerable number of Bishops among its subscribers. Down to a +very late date, the _Library of the Fathers_, in which Charles Marriott +came to take a leading part, was a matter of much concern to Dr. Pusey. +And to bring men together, and to interest them in theological subjects, +he had evening meetings at his own house, where papers were read and +discussed. "Some persons," writes a gossiping chronicler of the +time,[51] "thought that these meetings were liable to the statute, _De +conventiculis illicitis reprimendis_." Some important papers were the +result of these meetings; but the meetings themselves were irresistibly +sleepy, and in time they were discontinued. But indefatigable and +powerful in all these beginnings Dr. Pusey stirred men to activity and +saw great ground of hope. He was prepared for opposition, but he had +boundless reliance on his friends and his cause. His forecast of the +future, of great days in store for the Church of England, was, not +unreasonably, one of great promise. Ten years might work wonders. The +last fear that occurred to him was that within ten years a hopeless +rift, not of affection but of conviction, would have run through that +company of friends, and parted irrevocably their course and work in +life. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[48] The subjoined extracts record the impression made by Mr. Newman's +preaching on contemporaries well qualified to judge, and standing +respectively in very different relations to the movement. This is the +judgment of a very close observer, and very independent critic, James +Mozley. In an article in the _Christian Remembrancer_, January 1846 (p. +169), after speaking of the obvious reasons of Mr. Newman's influence, +he proceeds:-- + + We inquire further, and we find that this influence has been of a + peculiarly ethical and inward kind; that it has touched the deepest + part of our minds, and that the great work on which it has been + founded is a practical, religious one--his Sermons. We speak not from + our own fixed impression, however deeply felt, but from what we have + heard and observed everywhere, from the natural, incidental, + unconscious remarks dropped from persons' mouths, and evidently + showing what they thought and felt. For ourselves, we must say, one of + Mr. Newman's sermons is to us a marvellous production. It has perfect + power, and perfect nature; but the latter it is which makes it so + great. A sermon of Mr. Newman's enters into all our feelings, ideas, + modes of viewing things. He wonderfully realises a state of mind, + enters into a difficulty, a temptation, a disappointment, a grief; he + goes into the different turns and incidental, unconscious symptoms of + a case, with notions which come into the head and go out again, and + are forgotten, till some chance recalls them.... To take the first + instance that happens to occur to us ... we have often been struck by + the keen way in which he enters into a regular tradesman's + vice--avarice, fortune-getting, amassing capital, and so on. This is + not a temper to which we can imagine Mr. Newman ever having felt in + his own mind even the temptation; but he understands it, and the + temptation to it, as perfectly as any merchant could. No man of + business could express it more naturally, more pungently, more _ex + animo_.... So with the view that worldly men take of religion, in a + certain sense, he quite enters into it, and the world's point of view: + he sees, with a regular worldly man's eye, religion vanishing into + nothing, and becoming an unreality, while the visible system of life + and facts, politics and society, gets more and more solid and grows + upon him. The whole influence of the world on the imagination; the + weight of example; the force of repetition; the way in which maxims, + rules, sentiments, by being simply sounded in the ear from day to day, + seem to prove themselves, and make themselves believed by being often + heard,--every part of the easy, natural, passive process by which a + man becomes a man of the world is entered into, as if the preacher + were going to justify or excuse him, rather than condemn him. Nay, he + enters deeply into what even scepticism has to say for itself; he puts + himself into the infidel's state of mind, in which the world, as a + great fact, seems to give the lie to all religions, converting them + into phenomena which counterbalance and negative each other, and he + goes down into that lowest abyss and bottom of things, at which the + intellect undercuts spiritual truth altogether. He enters into the + ordinary common states of mind just in the same way. He is most + consoling, most sympathetic. He sets before persons their own feelings + with such truth of detail, such natural expressive touches, that they + seem not to be ordinary states of mind which everybody has, but very + peculiar ones; for he and the reader seem to be the only two persons + in the world that have them in common. Here is the point. Persons look + into Mr. Newman's sermons and see their own thoughts in them. This is, + after all, what as much as anything gives a book hold upon minds.... + Wonderful pathetic power, that can so intimately, so subtilely and + kindly, deal with the soul!--and wonderful soul that can be so dealt + with. + +Compare with this the judgment pronounced by one of quite a different +school, the late Principal Shairp:-- + + Both Dr. Pusey and Mr. Keble at that time were quite second in + importance to Mr. Newman. The centre from which his power went forth + was the pulpit of St. Mary's, with those wonderful afternoon sermons. + Sunday after Sunday, year by year, they went on, each continuing and + deepening the impression produced by the last. As the hour interfered + with the dinner-hour of the Colleges, most men preferred a warm dinner + without Newman's sermon to a cold one with it; so the audience was not + crowded--the large church little more than half filled. The service + was very simple, no pomp, no ritualism; for it was characteristic of + the leading men of the movement that they left these things to the + weaker brethren. Their thoughts, at all events, were set on great + questions which touched the heart of unseen things. About the service, + the most remarkable thing was the beauty, the silver intonation of Mr. + Newman's voice as he read the lessons.... When he began to preach, a + stranger was not likely to be much struck. Here was no vehemence, no + declamation, no show of elaborated argument, so that one who came + prepared to hear "a great intellectual effort" was almost sure to go + away disappointed. Indeed, we believe that if he had preached one of + his St. Mary's sermons before a Scotch town congregation, they would + have thought the preacher a "silly body".... Those who never heard him + might fancy that his sermons would generally be about apostolical + succession, or rights of the Church, or against Dissenters. Nothing of + the kind. You might hear him preach for weeks without an allusion to + these things. What there was of High Church teaching was implied + rather than enforced. The local, the temporary, and the modern were + ennobled by the presence of the Catholic truth belonging to all ages + that pervaded the whole. His power showed itself chiefly in the new + and unlooked-for way in which he touched into life old truths, moral + or spiritual, which all Christians acknowledge, but most have ceased + to feel--when he spoke of "unreal words," of the "individuality of the + soul," of the "invisible world," of a "particular Providence," or + again, of the "ventures of faith," "warfare the condition of victory," + "the Cross of Christ the measure of the world," "the Church a Home for + the lonely." As he spoke, how the old truth became new; how it came + home with a meaning never felt before! He laid his finger how gently, + yet how powerfully, on some inner place in the hearer's heart, and + told him things about himself he had never known till then. Subtlest + truths, which it would have taken philosophers pages of circumlocution + and big words to state, were dropt out by the way in a sentence or two + of the most transparent Saxon. What delicacy of style, yet what + strength! how simple, yet how suggestive! how homely, yet how refined! + how penetrating, yet how tender-hearted! If now and then there was a + forlorn undertone which at the time seemed inexplicable, you might be + perplexed at the drift of what he said, but you felt all the more + drawn to the speaker. ... After hearing these sermons you might come + away still not believing the tenets peculiar to the High Church + system; but you would be harder than most men, if you did not feel + more than ever ashamed of coarseness, selfishness, worldliness, if you + did not feel the things of faith brought closer to the soul.--_John + Keble,_ by J. C. Shairp, Professor of Humanity, St. Andrews (1866), + pp. 12-17. + +I venture to add the judgment of another contemporary, on the effect of +this preaching, from the _Reminiscences_ of Sir F. Doyle, p. 145:-- + + That great man's extraordinary genius drew all those within his + sphere, like a magnet, to attach themselves to him and his doctrines. + Nay, before he became a Romanist, what we may call his mesmeric + influence acted not only on his Tractarian adherents, but even in some + degree on outsiders like myself. Whenever I was at Oxford, I used to + go regularly on Sunday afternoons to listen to his sermon at St. + Mary's, and I have never heard such preaching since. I do not know + whether it is a mere fancy of mine, or whether those who know him + better will accept and endorse my belief, that one element of his + wonderful power showed itself after this fashion. He always began as + if he had determined to set forth his idea of the truth in the + plainest and simplest language--language, as men say, "intelligible to + the meanest understanding." But his ardent zeal and fine poetical + imagination were not thus to be controlled. As I hung upon his words, + it seemed to me as if I could trace behind his will, and pressing, so + to speak, against it, a rush of thoughts, of feelings which he kept + struggling to hold back, but in the end they were generally too strong + for him, and poured themselves out in a torrent of eloquence all the + more impetuous from having been so long repressed. The effect of these + outbursts was irresistible, and carried his hearers beyond themselves + at once. Even when his efforts of self-restraint were more successful, + those very efforts gave a life and colour to his style which riveted + the attention of all within the reach of his voice. Mr. Justin + McCarthy, in his _History of Our Own Times_, says of him: "In all the + arts that make a great preacher or orator, Cardinal Newman was + deficient. His manner was constrained and ungraceful, and even + awkward; his voice was thin and weak, his bearing was not at first + impressive in any way--a gaunt emaciated figure, a sharp eagle face, + and a cold meditative eye, rather repelled than attracted those who + saw him for the first time." I do not think Mr. McCarthy's phrases + very happily chosen to convey his meaning. Surely a gaunt emaciated + frame and a sharp eagle face are the very characteristics which we + should picture to ourselves as belonging to Peter the Hermit, or + Scott's Ephraim Macbriar in _Old Mortality_. However unimpressive the + look of an eagle may be in Mr. McCarthy's opinion, I do not agree with + him about Dr. Newman. + + When I knew him at Oxford, these somewhat disparaging remarks would + not have been applicable. His manner, it is true, may have been + self-repressed, constrained it was not. His bearing was neither + awkward nor ungraceful; it was simply quiet and calm, because under + strict control; but beneath that calmness, intense feeling, I think, + was obvious to those who had any instinct of sympathy with him. But if + Mr. McCarthy's acquaintance with him only began when he took office in + an Irish Catholic university, I can quite understand that (flexibility + not being one of his special gifts) he may have failed now and again + to bring himself into perfect harmony with an Irish audience. He was + probably too much of a typical Englishman for his place; nevertheless + Mr. McCarthy, though he does not seem to have admired him in the + pulpit, is fully sensible of his intellectual powers and general + eminence. + + Dr. Pusey, who used every now and then to take Newman's duties at St. + Mary's, was to me a much less interesting person. [A learned man, no + doubt, but dull and tedious as a preacher.] Certainly, in spite of the + name Puseyism having been given to the Oxford attempt at a new + Catholic departure, he was not the Columbus of that voyage of + discovery undertaken to find a safer haven for the Church of England. + I may, however, be more or less unjust to him, as I owe him a sort of + grudge. His discourses were not only less attractive than those of Dr. + Newman, but always much longer, and the result of this was that the + learned Canon of Christ Church generally made me late for dinner at my + College, a calamity never inflicted on his All Souls' hearers by the + terser and swifter fellow of Oriel whom he was replacing. + + +[49] _Apologia_, p 136. + +[50] It swelled in the second edition to 400 pages [in spite of the fact +that in that edition the historical range of the treatise was greatly +reduced]. + +[51] _Recollections of Oxford_, by G.V. Cox, p. 278. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SUBSCRIPTION AT MATRICULATION AND ADMISSION OF DISSENTERS + + +"Depend upon it," an earnest High Churchman of the Joshua Watson type +had said to one of Mr. Newman's friends, who was a link between the old +Churchmanship and the new--"depend upon it, the day will come when those +great doctrines" connected with the Church, "now buried, will be brought +out to the light of the day, and then the effect will be quite +fearful."[52] With the publication of the _Tracts for the Times_, and +the excitement caused by them, the day had come. + +Their unflinching and severe proclamation of Church principles and +Church doctrines coincided with a state of feeling and opinion in the +country, in which two very different tendencies might be observed. They +fell on the public mind just when one of these tendencies would help +them, and the other be fiercely hostile. On the one hand, the issue of +the political controversy with the Roman Catholics, their triumph all +along the line, and the now scarcely disguised contempt shown by their +political representatives for the pledges and explanations on which +their relief was supposed to have been conceded, had left the public +mind sore, angry, and suspicious. Orthodox and Evangelicals were alike +alarmed and indignant; and the Evangelicals, always doctrinally jealous +of Popery, and of anything "unsound" in that direction, had been roused +to increased irritation by the proceedings of the Reformation Society, +which had made it its business to hold meetings and discussions all over +the country, where fervid and sometimes eloquent and able Irishmen, like +Mr. E. Tottenham, afterwards of Laura Chapel, Bath, had argued and +declaimed, with Roman text-books in hand, on such questions as the Right +of Private Judgment, the Rule of Faith, and the articles of the +Tridentine Creed--not always with the effect which they intended on +those who heard them, with whom their arguments, and those which they +elicited from their opponents, sometimes left behind uncomfortable +misgivings, and questions even more serious than the controversy itself. +On the other hand, in quarters quite unconnected with the recognised +religious schools, interest had been independently and strongly awakened +in the minds of theologians and philosophical thinkers, in regard to the +idea, history, and relations to society of the Christian Church. In +Ireland, a recluse, who was the centre of a small knot of earnest +friends, a man of deep piety and great freedom and originality of mind, +Mr. Alexander Knox, had been led, partly, it may be, by his intimacy +with John Wesley, to think out for himself the character and true +constitution of the Church, and the nature of the doctrines which it was +commissioned to teach. In England, another recluse, of splendid genius +and wayward humour, had dealt in his own way, with far-reaching insight, +with vast reading, and often with impressive eloquence, with the same +subject; and his profound sympathy and faith had been shared and +reflected by a great poet. What Coleridge and Wordsworth had put in the +forefront of their speculations and poetry, as the object of their +profoundest interest, and of their highest hopes for mankind, might, of +course, fail to appear in the same light to others; but it could not +fail, in those days at least, to attract attention, as a matter of +grave and well-founded importance. Coleridge's theories of the Church +were his own, and were very wide of theories recognised by any of those +who had to deal practically with the question, and who were influenced, +in one way or another, by the traditional doctrines of theologians. But +Coleridge had lifted the subject to a very high level. He had taken the +simple but all-important step of viewing the Church in its spiritual +character as first and foremost and above all things essentially a +religious society of divine institution, not dependent on the creation +or will of man, or on the privileges and honours which man might think +fit to assign to it; and he had undoubtedly familiarised the minds of +many with this way of regarding it, however imperfect, or cloudy, or +unpractical they might find the development of his ideas, and his +deductions from them. And in Oxford the questions which had stirred the +friends at Hadleigh had stirred others also, and had waked up various +responses. Whately's acute mind had not missed these questions, and had +given original if insufficient answers to them. Blanco White knew only +too well their bearing and importance, and had laboured, not without +success, to leave behind him his own impress on the way in which they +should be dealt with. Dr. Hampden, the man in Oxford best acquainted +with Aristotle's works and with the scholastic philosophy, had thrown +Christian doctrines into a philosophical calculus which seemed to leave +them little better than the inventions of men. On the other hand, a +brilliant scholar, whose after-career was strangely full of great +successes and deplorable disasters, William Sewell of Exeter College, +had opened, in a way new to Oxford, the wealth and magnificence of +Plato; and his thoughts had been dazzled by seeming to find in the +truths and facts of the Christian Church the counterpart and realisation +of the grandest of Plato's imaginations. The subjects treated with such +dogmatic severity and such impetuous earnestness in the Tracts were, in +one shape or another, in all men's minds, when these Tracts broke on the +University and English society with their peremptory call to men "to +take their side." + +There was just a moment of surprise and uncertainty--uncertainty as to +what the Tracts meant; whether they were to be a new weapon against the +enemies of the Church, or were simply extravagant and preposterous +novelties--just a certain perplexity and hesitation at their conflicting +aspects; on the one hand, the known and high character of the writers, +their evident determination and confidence in their cause, the +attraction of their religious warmth and unselfishness and nobleness, +the dim consciousness that much that they said was undeniable; and on +the other hand, the apparent wildness and recklessness of their words: +and then public opinion began steadily to take its "ply," and to be +agreed in condemning them. It soon went farther, and became vehement in +reprobating them as scandalous and dangerous publications. They incensed +the Evangelicals by their alleged Romanism, and their unsound views +about justification, good works, and the sacraments; they angered the +"two-bottle orthodox" by their asceticism--the steady men, by their +audacity and strong words--the liberals, by their dogmatic severity; +their seriously practical bearing was early disclosed in a tract on +"Fasting." But while they repelled strongly, they attracted strongly; +they touched many consciences, they won many hearts, they opened new +thoughts and hopes to many minds. One of the mischiefs of the Tracts, +and of those sermons at St. Mary's which were the commentaries on them, +was that so many people seemed to like them and to be struck by them. +The gathering storm muttered and growled for some time at a distance, +and men seemed to be taking time to make up their minds; but it began to +lour from early days, till after various threatenings it broke in a +furious article in the _Edinburgh_, by Dr. Arnold, on the "Oxford +Malignants"; and the Tract-writers and their friends became, what they +long continued to be, the most unpopular and suspected body of men in +the Church, whom everybody was at liberty to insult, both as dishonest +and absurd, of whom nothing was too cruel to say, nothing too ridiculous +to believe. It is only equitable to take into account the unprepared +state of the public mind, the surprise and novelty of even the commonest +things when put in a new light, the prejudices which the Tract-writers +were thought wantonly to offend and defy, their militant and +uncompromising attitude, where principles were at stake. But considering +what these men were known to be in character and life, what was the +emergency and what were the pressing motives which called for action, +and what is thought of them now that their course is run, it is strange +indeed to remember who they were, to whom the courtesies of controversy +were denied, not only by the vulgar herd of pamphleteers, but by men of +ability and position, some of whom had been their familiar friends. Of +course a nickname was soon found for them: the word "Tractarian" was +invented, and Archbishop Whately thought it worth while, but not +successfully, to improve it into "Tractites." Archbishop Whately, always +ingenious, appears to have suspected that the real but concealed object +of the movement was to propagate a secret infidelity; they were +"Children of the Mist," or "Veiled Prophets";[53] and he seriously +suggested to a friend who was writing against it,--"this rapidly +spreading pestilence,"--to parallel it, in its characteristics and modes +of working, with Indian Thuggee.[54] + +But these things were of gradual growth. Towards the end of 1834 a +question appeared in Oxford interesting to numbers besides Mr. Newman +and his friends, which was to lead to momentous consequences. The old, +crude ideas of change in the Church had come to appear, even to their +advocates, for the present impracticable, and there was no more talk for +a long time of schemes which had been in favour two years before. The +ground was changed, and a point was now brought forward on the Liberal +side, for which a good deal might be plausibly said. This was the +requirement of subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles from young men +at matriculation; and a strong pamphlet advocating its abolition, with +the express purpose of admitting Dissenters, was published by Dr. +Hampden, the Bampton Lecturer of two years before. + +Oxford had always been one of the great schools of the Church. Its +traditions, its tone, its customs, its rules, all expressed or presumed +the closest attachment to that way of religion which was specially +identified with the Church, in its doctrinal and historical aspect. +Oxford was emphatically definite, dogmatic, orthodox, compared even with +Cambridge, which had largely favoured the Evangelical school, and had +leanings to Liberalism. Oxford, unlike Cambridge, gave notice of its +attitude by requiring every one who matriculated to subscribe the +Thirty-nine Articles: the theory of its Tutorial system, of its lectures +and examinations, implied what of late years in the better colleges, +though certainly not everywhere, had been realised in fact--a +considerable amount of religious and theological teaching. And whatever +might have been said originally of the lay character of the University, +the colleges, which had become coextensive with the University, were for +the most part, in the intention of their founders, meant to educate and +support theological students on their foundations for the service of the +Church. It became in time the fashion to call them lay institutions: +legally they may have been so, but judged by their statutes, they were +nearly all of them as ecclesiastical as the Chapter of a Cathedral. And +Oxford was the fulcrum from which the theological revival hoped to move +the Church. It was therefore a shock and a challenge of no light kind, +when not merely the proposal was made to abolish the matriculation +subscription with the express object of attracting Dissenters, and to +get Parliament to force the change on the University if the University +resisted, but the proposal itself was vindicated and enforced in a +pamphlet by Dr. Hampden by a definite and precise theory which stopped +not short of the position that all creeds and formularies--everything +which represented the authority of the teaching Church--however +incidentally and temporarily useful, were in their own nature the +inventions of a mistaken and corrupt philosophy, and invasions of +Christian liberty. This was cutting deep with a vengeance, though the +author of the theory seemed alone unable to see it. It went to the root +of the whole mutter; and if Dr. Hampden was right, there was neither +Church nor doctrine worth contending for, except as men contend about +the Newtonian or the undulatory theory of light. + +No one ought now to affect, as some people used to affect at the time, +that the question was of secondary importance, and turned mainly on the +special fitness of the Thirty-nine Articles to be offered for the proof +of a young man's belief. It was a much more critical question. It was +really, however disguised, the question, asked then for the first time, +and since finally decided, whether Oxford was to continue to be a +school of the Church of England; and it also involved the wider +question, what part belief in definite religion should have in higher +education. It is speciously said that you have no right to forestall a +young man's inquiries and convictions by imposing on him in his early +years opinions which to him become prejudices. And if the world +consisted simply of individuals, entirely insulated and self-sufficing; +if men could be taught anything whatever, without presuming what is +believed by those who teach them; and if the attempt to exclude +religious prejudice did not necessarily, by the mere force of the +attempt, involve the creation of anti-religious prejudice, these +reasoners, who try in vain to get out of the conditions which hem them +in, might have more to say for themselves. To the men who had made such +an effort to restore a living confidence in the Church, the demand +implied giving up all that they had done and all that they hoped for. It +was not the time for yielding even a clumsy proof of the religious +character of the University. And the beginning of a long and doubtful +war was inevitable. + +A war of pamphlets ensued. By the one side the distinction was strongly +insisted on between mere instruction and education, the distinctly +religious character of the University education was not perhaps +overstated in its theory, but portrayed in stronger colours than was +everywhere the fact; and assertions were made, which sound strange in +their boldness now, of the independent and constitutional right to +self-government in the great University corporations. By the other side, +the ordinary arguments were used, about the injustice and mischief of +exclusion, and the hurtfulness of tests, especially such tests as the +Articles applied to young and ignorant men. Two pamphlets had more than +a passing interest: one, by a then unknown writer who signed himself +_Rusticus_, and whose name was Mr. F.D. Maurice, defended subscription +on the ground that the Articles were signed, not as tests and +confessions of faith, but as "conditions of thought," the expressly +stated conditions, such as there must be in all teaching, under which +the learners are willing to learn and the teacher to teach: and he +developed his view at great length, with great wealth of original +thought and illustration and much eloquence, but with that fatal want of +clearness which, as so often afterwards, came from his struggles to +embrace in one large view what appeared opposite aspects of a difficult +subject. The other was the pamphlet, already referred to, by Dr. +Hampden: and of which the importance arose, not from its conclusions, +but from its reasons. Its ground was the distinction which he had argued +out at great length in his Bampton Lectures--the distinction between the +"Divine facts" of revelation, and all human interpretations of them and +inferences from them. "Divine facts," he maintained, were of course +binding on all Christians, and in matter of fact were accepted by all +who called themselves Christians, including Unitarians. Human +interpretations and inferences--and all Church formularies were +such--were binding on no one but those who had reason to think them +true; and therefore least of all on undergraduates who could not have +examined them. The distinction, when first put forward, seemed to mean +much; at a later time it was explained to mean very little. But at +present its value as a ground of argument against the old system of the +University was thought much of by its author and his friends. A warning +note was at once given that its significance was perceived and +appreciated. Mr. Newman, in acknowledging a presentation copy, added +words which foreshadowed much that was to follow. "While I respect," he +wrote, "the tone of piety which the pamphlet displays, I dare not trust +myself to put on paper my feelings about the principles contained in it; +_tending, as they do, in my opinion, to make ship-wreck of Christian +faith_. I also lament that, by its appearance, the first step has been +taken towards interrupting that peace and mutual good understanding +which has prevailed so long in this place, and which, if once seriously +disturbed, will be succeeded by discussions the more intractable, +because justified in the minds of those who resist innovation by a +feeling of imperative duty." "Since that time," he goes on in the +_Apologia_, where he quotes this letter, "Phaeton has got into the +chariot of the sun."[55] But they were early days then; and when the +Heads of Houses, who the year before had joined with the great body of +the University in a declaration against the threatened legislation, were +persuaded to propose to the Oxford Convocation the abolition of +subscription at matriculation in May 1835, this proposal was rejected by +a majority of five to one. + +This large majority was a genuine expression of the sense of the +University. It was not specially a "Tractarian" success, though most of +the arguments which contributed to it came from men who more or less +sympathised with the effort to make a vigorous fight for the Church and +its teaching; and it showed that they who had made the effort had +touched springs of thought and feeling, and awakened new hopes and +interest in those around them, in Oxford, and in the country. But graver +events were at hand. Towards the end of the year (1835), Dr. Burton, the +Regius Professor of Divinity, suddenly died, still a young man. And Lord +Melbourne was induced to appoint as his successor, and as the head of +the theological teaching of the University, the writer who had just a +second time seemed to lay the axe to the root of all theology; who had +just reasserted that he looked upon creeds, and all the documents which +embodied the traditional doctrine and collective thought of the Church, +as invested by ignorance and prejudice with an authority which was +without foundation, and which was misleading and mischievous. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[52] The conversation between Mr. Sikes of Guilsborough and Mr. Copeland +is given in full in Dr. Pusey's _Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury_ +(1842), pp. 32-34. + +[53] "Dr. Wilson was mightily pleased with my calling the traditionals +the 'Children of the Mist.' The title of 'Veiled Prophets' he thought +too severe" (1838), _Life_, ed. 1875, p. 167. Compare "Hints to +Transcendentalists for Working Infidel Designs through Tractarianism," a +_jeu d'esprit_ (1840), _ib._ p. 188. "As for the suspicion of secret +infidelity, I have said no more than I sincerely feel," _ib._ p. 181. + +[54] "It would be a curious thing if you (the Provost of Oriel) were to +bring into your Bampton Lectures a mention of the Thugs.... Observe +their submissive piety, their faith in long-preserved _tradition_, their +regular succession of ordinations to their offices, their _faith_ in the +sacramental virtue of the consecrated governor; in short, compare our +religion with the _Thuggee, putting out of account all those +considerations which the traditionists deprecate the discussion of,_ and +where is the difference?" (1840), _ib._ p. 194. + +[55] _Apologia_, pp. 131, 132. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +DR. HAMPDEN + + +The stage on which what is called the Oxford movement ran through its +course had a special character of its own, unlike the circumstances in +which other religious efforts had done their work. The scene of +Jansenism had been a great capital, a brilliant society, the precincts +of a court, the cells of a convent, the studies and libraries of the +doctors of the Sorbonne, the council chambers of the Vatican. The scene +of Methodism had been English villages and country towns, the moors of +Cornwall, and the collieries of Bristol, at length London fashionable +chapels. The scene of this new movement was as like as it could be in +our modern world to a Greek _polis_, or an Italian self-centred city of +the Middle Ages. Oxford stood by itself in its meadows by the rivers, +having its relations with all England, but, like its sister at +Cambridge, living a life of its own, unlike that of any other spot in +England, with its privileged powers, and exemptions from the general +law, with its special mode of government and police, its usages and +tastes and traditions, and even costume, which the rest of England +looked at from the outside, much interested but much puzzled, or knew +only by transient visits. And Oxford was as proud and jealous of its own +ways as Athens or Florence; and like them it had its quaint fashions of +polity; its democratic Convocation and its oligarchy; its social ranks; +its discipline, severe in theory and usually lax in fact; its +self-governed bodies and corporations within itself; its faculties and +colleges, like the guilds and "arts" of Florence; its internal rivalries +and discords; its "sets" and factions. Like these, too, it professed a +special recognition of the supremacy of religion; it claimed to be a +home of worship and religious training, _Dominus illuminatio mea_, a +claim too often falsified in the habit and tempers of life. It was a +small sphere, but it was a conspicuous one; for there was much strong +and energetic character, brought out by the aims and conditions of +University life; and though moving in a separate orbit, the influence of +the famous place over the outside England, though imperfectly +understood, was recognised and great. These conditions affected the +character of the movement, and of the conflicts which it caused. Oxford +claimed to be eminently the guardian of "true religion and sound +learning"; and therefore it was eminently the place where religion +should be recalled to its purity and strength, and also the place where +there ought to be the most vigilant jealousy against the perversions and +corruptions of religion, Oxford was a place where every one knew his +neighbour, and measured him, and was more or less friendly or repellent; +where the customs of life brought men together every day and all day, in +converse or discussion; and where every fresh statement or every new +step taken furnished endless material for speculation or debate, in +common rooms or in the afternoon walk. And for this reason, too, +feelings were apt to be more keen and intense and personal than in the +larger scenes of life; the man who was disliked or distrusted was so +close to his neighbours that he was more irritating than if he had been +obscured by a crowd; the man who attracted confidence and kindled +enthusiasm, whose voice was continually in men's ears, and whose private +conversation and life was something ever new in its sympathy and charm, +created in those about him not mere admiration, but passionate +friendship, or unreserved discipleship. And these feelings passed from +individuals into parties; the small factions of a limited area. Men +struck blows and loved and hated in those days in Oxford as they hardly +did on the wider stage of London politics or general religious +controversy. + +The conflicts which for a time turned Oxford into a kind of image of +what Florence was in the days of Savonarola, with its nicknames, +Puseyites, and Neomaniacs, and High and Dry, counterparts to the +_Piagnoni_ and _Arrabbiati_, of the older strife, began around a student +of retired habits, interested more than was usual at Oxford in abstruse +philosophy, and the last person who might be expected to be the occasion +of great dissensions in the University. Dr. Hampden was a man who, with +no definite intentions of innovating on the received doctrines of the +Church--indeed, as his sermons showed, with a full acceptance of +them--had taken a very difficult subject for a course of Bampton +Lectures, without at all fathoming its depth and reach, and had got into +a serious scrape in consequence. Personally he was a man of serious but +cold religion, having little sympathy with others, and consequently not +able to attract any. His isolation during the whole of his career is +remarkable; he attached no one, as Whately or Arnold attached men. His +mind, which was a speculative one, was not one, in its own order, of the +first class. He had not the grasp nor the subtlety necessary for his +task. He had a certain power of statement, but little of co-ordination; +he seems not to have had the power of seeing when his ideas were really +irreconcilable, and he thought that simply by insisting on his +distinctly orthodox statements he not only balanced, but neutralised, +and did away with his distinctly unorthodox ones. He had read a good +deal of Aristotle and something of the Schoolmen, which probably no one +else in Oxford had done except Blanco White; and the temptation of +having read what no one else knows anything about sometimes leads men to +make an unprofitable use of their special knowledge, which they consider +their monopoly. + +The creed and dogmas of the Christian Church are at least in their +broad features, not a speculation, but a fact. That not only the +Apostles' Creed, but the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creeds, are +assumed as facts by the whole of anything that can be called the Church, +is as certain as the reception by the same body, and for the same time, +of the Scriptures. Not only the Creed, but, up to the sixteenth century, +the hierarchy, and not only Creed and hierarchy and Scriptures, but the +sacramental idea as expressed in the liturgies, are equally in the same +class of facts. Of course it is open to any one to question the genuine +origin of any of these great portions of the constitution of the Church; +but the Church is so committed to them that he cannot enter on his +destructive criticism without having to criticise, not one only, but all +these beliefs, and without soon having to face the question whether the +whole idea of the Church, as a real and divinely ordained society, with +a definite doctrine and belief, is not a delusion, and whether +Christianity, whatever it is, is addressed solely to each individual, +one by one, to make what he can of it. It need hardly be said that +within the limits of what the Church is committed to there is room for +very wide differences of opinion; it is also true that these limits +have, in different times of the Church, been illegitimately and +mischievously narrowed by prevailing opinions, and by documents and +formularies respecting it. But though we may claim not to be bound by +the Augsburg Confession, or by the Lambeth articles, or the Synod of +Dort, or the Bull _Unigenitus_, it does not follow that, if there is a +Church at all, there is no more binding authority in the theology of the +Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. And it is the province of the divine who +believes in a Church at all, and in its office to be the teacher and +witness of religious truth, to distinguish between the infinitely +varying degrees of authority with which professed representations of +portions of this truth are propounded for acceptance. It may be +difficult or impossible to agree on a theory of inspiration; but that +the Church doctrine of some kind of special inspiration of Scripture is +part of Christianity is, unless Christianity be a dream, certain. No one +can reasonably doubt, with history before him, that the answer of the +Christian Church was, the first time the question was asked, and has +continued to be through ages of controversy, _against_ Arianism, +_against_ Socinianism, _against_ Pelagianism, _against_ Zwinglianism. It +does not follow that the Church has settled everything, or that there +are not hundreds of questions which it is vain and presumptuous to +attempt to settle by any alleged authority. + +Dr. Hampden was in fact unexceptionably, even rigidly orthodox in his +acceptance of Church doctrine and Church creeds. He had published a +volume of sermons containing, among other things, an able statement of +the Scriptural argument for the doctrine of the Trinity, and an equally +able defence of the Athanasian Creed. But he felt that there are +formularies which may be only the interpretations of doctrine and +inferences from Scripture of a particular time or set of men; and he +was desirous of putting into their proper place the authority of such +formularies. His object was to put an interval between them and the +Scriptures from which they professed to be derived, and to prevent them +from claiming the command over faith and conscience which was due only +to the authentic evidences of God's revelation. He wished to make room +for a deeper sense of the weight of Scripture. He proposed to himself +the same thing which was aimed at by the German divines, Arndt, +Calixtus, and Spener, when they rose up against the grinding oppression +which Lutheran dogmatism had raised on its _Symbolical Books_,[56] and +which had come to outdo the worst extravagances of scholasticism. This +seems to have been his object--a fair and legitimate one. But in arguing +against investing the Thirty-nine Articles with an authority which did +not belong to them, he unquestionably, without seeing what he was +doing, went much farther--where he never meant to go. In fact, he so +stated his argument that he took in with the Thirty-nine Articles every +expression of collective belief, every document, however venerable, +which the Church had sanctioned from the first. Strangely enough, +without observing it, he took in--what he meant to separate by a wide +interval from what he called dogma--the doctrine of the infallible +authority and sufficiency of Scripture. In denying the worth of the +_consensus_ and immemorial judgment of the Church, he cut from under +him the claim to that which he accepted as the source and witness of +"divine facts." He did not mean to do this, or to do many other things; +but from want of clearness of head, he certainly, in these writings +which were complained of, did it. He was, in temper and habit, too +desirous to be "orthodox," as Whately feared, to accept in its +consequences his own theory. The theory which he put forward in his +Bampton Lectures, and on which he founded his plan of comprehension in +his pamphlet on Dissent, left nothing standing but the authority of the +letter of Scripture. All else--right or wrong as it might be--was +"speculation," "human inference," "dogma." With perfect consistency, he +did not pretend to take even the Creeds out of this category. But the +truth was, he did not consciously mean all that he said; and when keener +and more powerful and more theological minds pointed out with relentless +accuracy what he _had said_ he was profuse and overflowing with +explanations, which showed how little he had perceived the drift of his +words. There is not the least reason to doubt the sincerity of these +explanations; but at the same time they showed the unfitness of a man +who had so to explain away his own speculations to be the official guide +and teacher of the clergy. The criticisms on his language, and the +objections to it, were made before these explanations were given; and +though he gave them, he was furious with those who called for them, and +he never for a moment admitted that there was anything seriously wrong +or mistaken in what he had said. To those who pointed out the meaning +and effect of his words and theories, he replied by the assertion of his +personal belief. If words mean anything, he had said that neither +Unitarians nor any one else could get behind the bare letter, and what +he called "facts," of Scripture, which all equally accepted in good +faith; and that therefore there was no reason for excluding Unitarians +as long as they accepted the "facts." But when it was pointed out that +this reasoning reduced all belief in the realities behind the bare +letter to the level of personal and private opinion, he answered by +saying that he valued supremely the Creeds and Articles, and by giving a +statement of the great Christian doctrines which he held, and which the +Church taught. But he never explained what their authority could be with +any one but himself. There might be interpretations and inferences from +Scripture, by the hundred or the thousand, but no one certain and +authoritative one; none that warranted an organised Church, much more a +Catholic and Apostolic Church, founded on the assumption of this +interpretation being the one true faith, the one truth of the Bible. The +point was brought out forcibly in a famous pamphlet written by Mr. +Newman, though without his name, called "Elucidations of Dr. Hampden's +Theological Statements." This pamphlet was a favourite object of attack +on the part of Dr. Hampden's supporters as a flagrant instance of +unfairness and garbled extracts. No one, they said, ever read the +Bampton Lectures, but took their estimate of the work from Mr. Newman's +quotations. Extracts are often open to the charge of unfairness, and +always to suspicion. But in this case there was no need of unfairness. +Dr. Hampden's theory lay on the very surface of his Hampton Lectures and +pamphlet; and any unbiassed judge may be challenged to read these works +of his, and say whether the extracts in the "Elucidations" do not +adequately represent Dr. Hampden's statements and arguments, and whether +the comments on them are forced or strained. They do not represent his +explanations, for the explanations had not been given; and when the +explanations came, though they said many things which showed that Dr. +Hampden did not mean to be unorthodox and unevangelical, but only +anti-scholastic and anti-Roman, they did not unsay a word which he had +said. And what this was, what had been Dr. Hampden's professed +theological theory up to the time when the University heard the news of +his appointment, the "Elucidations" represent as fairly as any adverse +statement can represent the subject of its attack. + +In quieter times such an appointment might have passed with nothing more +than a paper controversy or protest, or more probably without more than +conversational criticism. But these wore not quiet and unsuspicious +times. There was reason for disquiet. It was fresh in men's minds what +language and speculation like that of the Bampton Lectures had come to +in the case of Whately's intimate friend, Blanco White. The +unquestionable hostility of Whately's school to the old ideas of the +Church had roused alarm and a strong spirit of resistance in Churchmen. +Each party was on the watch, and there certainly was something at stake +for both parties. Coupled with some recent events, and with the part +which Dr. Hampden had taken on the subscription question, the +appointment naturally seemed significant. Probably it was not so +significant as it seemed on the part at least of Lord Melbourne, who had +taken pains to find a fit man. Dr. Hampden was said to have been +recommended by Bishop Copleston, and not disallowed by Archbishop +Howley. In the University, up to this time, there had been no +authoritative protest against Dr. Hampden's writings. And there were not +many Liberals to choose from. In the appointment there is hardly +sufficient ground to blame Lord Melbourne. But the outcry against it at +Oxford, when it came, was so instantaneous, so strong, and so unusual, +that it might have warned Lord Melbourne that he had been led into a +mistake, out of which it would be wise to seek at least a way of escape. +Doubtless it was a strong measure for the University to protest as it +did; but it was also a strong measure, at least in those days, for a +Minister of the Crown to force so extremely unacceptable a Regius +Professor of Divinity on a great University. Dr. Hampden offered to +resign; and there would have been plenty of opportunities to compensate +him for his sacrifice of a post which could only be a painful one. But +the temper of both sides was up. The remonstrances from Oxford were +treated with something like contempt, and the affair was hurried through +till there was no retreating; and Dr. Hampden became Regius Professor. + +Mr. Palmer has recorded how various efforts were made to neutralise the +effect of the appointment. But the Heads of Houses, though angry, were +cautious. They evaded the responsibility of stating Dr. Hampden's +unsound positions; but to mark their distrust, brought in a proposal to +deprive him of his vote in the choice of Select Preachers till the +University should otherwise determine. It was defeated in Convocation by +the veto of the two Proctors (March 1836), who exercised their right +with the full approval of Dr. Hampden's friends, and the indignation of +the large majority of the University. But it was not unfairly used: it +could have only a suspending effect, of which no one had a right to +complain; and when new Proctors came into office, the proposal was +introduced again, and carried (May 1836) by 474 to 94. The Liberal +minority had increased since the vote on subscription, and Dr. Hampden +went on with his work as if nothing had happened. The attempt was twice +made to rescind the vote: first, after the outcry about the Ninetieth +Tract and the contest about the Poetry Professorship, by a simple +repeal, which was rejected by 334 to 219 (June 1842); and next, +indirectly by a statute enlarging the Professor's powers over Divinity +degrees, which was also rejected by 341 to 21 (May 1844). From first to +last, these things and others were the unfortunate incidents of an +unfortunate appointment. + +The "persecution of Dr. Hampden" has been an unfailing subject of +reproach to the party of the Oxford movement, since the days when the +_Edinburgh Review_ held them up to public scorn and hatred in an article +of strange violence. They certainly had their full share in the +opposition to him, and in the measures by which that opposition was +carried out. But it would be the greatest mistake to suppose that in +this matter they stood alone. All in the University at this time, except +a small minority, were of one mind, Heads of Houses and country parsons, +Evangelicals and High Churchmen--all who felt that the grounds of a +definite belief were seriously threatened by Dr. Hampden's speculations. +All were angry at the appointment; all were agreed that something ought +to be done to hinder the mischief of it. In this matter Mr. Newman and +his friends were absolutely at one with everybody round them, with those +who were soon to be their implacable opponents. Whatever deeper view +they might have of the evil which had been done by the appointment, and +however much graver and more permanent their objections to it, they were +responsible only as the whole University was responsible for what was +done against Dr. Hampden. It was convenient afterwards to single them +out, and to throw this responsibility and the odium of it on them alone; +and when they came under the popular ban, it was forgotten that Dr. +Gilbert, the Principal of Brasenose, Dr. Symons, the Warden of Wadham, +Dr. Faussett, afterwards the denouncer of Dr. Pusey, Mr. Vaughan Thomas, +and Mr. Hill of St. Edmund Hall, were quite as forward at the time as +Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman in protesting against Dr. Hampden, and in the +steps to make their protest effective. Mr. Palmer, in his +_Narrative_,[57] anxious to dissociate himself from the movement under +Mr. Newman's influence, has perhaps underrated the part taken by Mr. +Newman and Dr. Pusey; for they, any rate, did most of the argumentative +work. But as far as personal action goes, it is true, as he says, that +the "movement against Dr. Hampden was not guided by the Tract writers." +"The condemnation of Dr. Hampden, then, was not carried by the Tract +writers; it was carried by the _independent_ body of the University. The +fact is that, had those writers taken any leading part, the measure +would have been a failure, for the number of their friends at that time +was a _very small proportion_ to the University at large, and there was +a general feeling of distrust in the soundness of their views." + +We are a long way from those days in time, and still more in habits and +sentiment; and a manifold and varied experience has taught most of us +some lessons against impatience and violent measures. But if we put +ourselves back equitably into the ways of thinking prevalent then, the +excitement about Dr. Hampden will not seem so unreasonable or so +unjustifiable as it is sometimes assumed to be. The University +legislation, indeed, to which it led was poor and petty, doing small and +annoying things, because the University rulers dared not commit +themselves to definite charges. But, in the first place, the provocation +was great on the part of the Government in putting into the chief +theological chair an unwelcome man who could only save his orthodoxy by +making his speculations mean next to nothing--whose _prima facie_ +unguarded and startling statements were resolved into truisms put in a +grand and obscure form. And in the next place, it was assumed in those +days to be the most natural and obvious thing in the world to condemn +unsound doctrine, and to exclude unsound teachers. The principle was +accepted as indisputable, however slack might have been in recent times +the application of it. That it was accepted, not on one side only, but +on all, was soon to be shown by the subsequent course of events. No one +suffered more severely and more persistently from its application than +the Tractarians; no one was more ready to apply it to them than Dr. +Hampden with his friends; no one approved and encouraged its vigorous +enforcement against them more than Dr. Whately. The idle distinction set +up, that they were not merely unsound but dishonest, was a mere insolent +pretext to save trouble in argument, and to heighten the charge against +them; no one could seriously doubt that they wrote in good faith as much +as Dr. Whately or Dr. Faussett. But unless acts like Dr. Pusey's +suspension, and the long proscription that went on for years after it, +were mere instances of vindictive retaliation, the reproach of +persecution must be shared by all parties then, and by none more than by +the party which in general terms most denounced it. Those who think the +Hampden agitation unique in its injustice ought to ask themselves what +their party would have done if at any time between 1836 and 1843 Mr. +Newman had been placed in Dr. Hampden's seat. + +People in our days mean by religious persecution what happens when the +same sort of repressive policy is applied to a religious party as is +applied to vaccination recusants, or to the "Peculiar People." All +religious persecution, from the days of Socrates, has taken a legal +form, and justified itself on legal grounds. It is the action of +authority, or of strong social judgments backed by authority, against a +set of opinions, or the expression of them in word or act--usually +innovating opinions, but not by any means necessarily such. The +disciples of M. Monod, the "Momiers" of Geneva, were persecuted by the +Liberals of Geneva, not because they broke away from the creed of +Calvin, but because they adhered to it. The word is not properly applied +to the incidental effects in the way of disadvantage, resulting from +some broad constitutional settlement--from the government of the Church +being Episcopal and not Presbyterian, or its creed Nicene and not +Arian--any more than it is persecution for a nation to change its +government, or for a legitimist to have to live under a republic, or for +a Christian to have to live in an infidel state, though persecution may +follow from these conditions. But the _privilegium_ passed against Dr. +Hampden was an act of persecution, though a mild one compared with what +afterwards fell on his opponents with his full sanction. Persecution is +the natural impulse, in those who think a certain thing right and +important or worth guarding, to disable those who, thinking it wrong, +are trying to discredit and upset it, and to substitute something +different. It implies a state of war, and the resort to the most +available weapons to inflict damage on those who are regarded as +rebellious and dangerous. These weapons were formidable enough once: +they are not without force still. But in its mildest form--personal +disqualification or proscription--it is a disturbance which only war +justifies. It may, of course, make itself odious by its modes of +proceeding, by meanness and shabbiness and violence, by underhand and +ignoble methods of misrepresentation and slander, or by cruelty and +plain injustice; and then the odium of these things fairly falls upon +it. But it is very hard to draw the line between conscientious +repression, feeling itself bound to do what is possible to prevent +mischief, and what those who are opposed, if they are the weaker party, +of course call persecution. + +If persecution implies a state of war in which one side is stronger, and +the other weaker, it is hardly a paradox to say that (1) no one has a +right to complain of persecution as such, apart from odious +accompaniments, any more than of superior numbers or hard blows in +battle; and (2) that every one has a right to take advantage and make +the most of being persecuted, by appeals to sympathy and the principle +of doing as you would be done by. No one likes to be accused of +persecution, and few people like to give up the claim to use it, if +necessary. But no one can help observing in the course of events the +strange way in which, in almost all cases, the "wheel comes full +circle." [Greek: Drasanti pathein]--_Chi la fa, l' aspetti_,[58] are +some of the expressions of Greek awe and Italian shrewdness representing +the experience of the world on this subject; on a large scale and a +small. Protestants and Catholics, Churchmen and Nonconformists, have all +in their turn made full proof of what seems like a law of action and +reaction. Except in cases beyond debate, cases where no justification is +possible, the note of failure is upon this mode of repression. +Providence, by the visible Nemesis which it seems always to bring round, +by the regularity with which it has enforced the rule that infliction +and suffering are bound together and in time duly change places, seems +certainly and clearly to have declared against it. It may be that no +innovating party has a right to complain of persecution; but the +question is not for them. It is for those who have the power, and who +are tempted to think that they have the call, to persecute. It is for +them to consider whether it is right, or wise, or useful for their +cause; whether it is agreeable to what seems the leading of Providence +to have recourse to it. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[56] See Pusey's _Theology of Germany_ (1828), p. 18 _sqq_. + +[57] _Narrative_ pp. 29, 30, ed. 1841; p 131. ed. 1883. + +[58] [Greek: Drasanti pathein, Trigeron mythos tade phonei.] Aesch. +_Choeph_. 310. Italian proverb, in _Landucci, Diario Fiorentino_, 1513, +p. 343. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT + +1835-1840 + + +By the end of 1835, the band of friends, whom great fears and great +hopes for the Church had united, and others who sympathised with them +both within and outside the University, had grown into what those who +disliked them naturally called a party. The Hampden controversy, though +but an episode in the history of the movement, was an important one, and +undoubtedly gave a great impulse to it. Dr. Hampden's attitude and +language seemed to be its justification--a palpable instance of what the +Church had to expect. And in this controversy, though the feeling +against Dr. Hampden's views was so widely shared, and though the +majority which voted against him was a very mixed one, and contained +some who hoped that the next time they were called to vote it might be +against the Tractarians, yet the leaders of the movement had undertaken +the responsibility, conspicuously and almost alone, of pointing out +definitely and argumentatively the objections to Dr. Hampden's teaching. +The number of Mr. Newman's friends might be, as Mr. Palmer says, +insignificant, but it was they who had taken the trouble to understand +and give expression to the true reasons for alarm.[59] Even in this +hasty and imperfect way, the discussion revealed to many how much deeper +and more various the treatment of the subject was in the hands of Mr. +Newman and Dr. Pusey compared with the ordinary criticisms on Dr. +Hampden. He had learned in too subtle a school to be much touched by the +popular exceptions to his theories, however loudly expressed. The +mischief was much deeper. It was that he had, unconsciously, no doubt, +undermined the foundation of definite Christian belief, and had resolved +it into a philosophy, so-called scholastic, which was now exploded. It +was the sense of the perilous issues to which this diluted form of +Blanco White's speculations, so recklessly patronised by Whately, was +leading theological teaching in the University, which opened the eyes of +many to the meaning of the movement, and brought some fresh friends to +its side. + +There was no attempt to form a party, or to proselytise; there was no +organisation, no distinct and recognised party marks. "I would not have +it called a party," writes Dr. Newman in the _Apologia_. But a party it +could not help being: quietly and spontaneously it had grown to be what +community of ideas, aims, and sympathies, naturally, and without blame, +leads men to become. And it had acquired a number of recognised +nicknames, to friends and enemies the sign of growing concentration. For +the questions started in the Tracts and outside them became of +increasing interest to the more intelligent men who had finished their +University course and were preparing to enter into life, the Bachelors +and younger Masters of Arts. One by one they passed from various states +of mind--alienation, suspicion, fear, indifference, blank +ignorance--into a consciousness that something beyond the mere +commonplace of religious novelty and eccentricity, of which there had +been a good deal recently, was before them; that doctrines and +statements running counter to the received religious language of the +day, doctrines about which, in confident prejudice, they had perhaps +bandied about off-hand judgments, had more to say for themselves than +was thought at first; that the questions thus raised drove them in on +themselves, and appealed to their honesty and seriousness; and that, at +any rate, in the men who were arresting so much attention, however +extravagant their teaching might be called, there was a remarkable +degree of sober and reserved force, an earnestness of conviction which +could not be doubted, an undeniable and subtle power of touching souls +and attracting sympathies. One by one, and in many different ways, these +young men went through various stages of curiosity, of surprise, of +perplexity, of doubt, of misgiving, of interest; some were frightened, +and wavered, and drew back more or less reluctantly; others, in spite of +themselves, in spite of opposing influences, were led on step by step, +hardly knowing whither, by a spell which they could not resist, of +intellectual, or still more, moral pressure. Some found their old home +teaching completed, explained, lighted up, by that of the new school. +Others, shocked at first at hearing the old watchwords and traditions of +their homes decried and put aside, found themselves, when they least +expected it, passing from the letter to the spirit, from the technical +and formal theory to the wide and living truth. And thus, though many of +course held aloof, and not a few became hostile, a large number, one by +one, some rapidly, others slowly, some unreservedly, others with large +and jealous reserves, more and more took in the leading idea of the +movement, accepted the influence of its chiefs, and looked to them for +instruction and guidance. As it naturally happens, when a number of +minds are drawn together by a common and strong interest, some men, by +circumstances, or by strength of conviction, or by the mutual affinities +of tastes and character, came more and more into direct personal and +intimate relations with the leaders, took service, as it were, under +them, and prepared to throw themselves into their plans of work. Others, +in various moods, but more independent, more critical, more disturbed +about consequences, or unpersuaded on special points, formed a kind of +fringe of friendly neutrality about the more thoroughgoing portion of +the party. And outside of these were thoughtful and able men, to whom +the whole movement, with much that was utterly displeasing and utterly +perplexing, had the interest of being a break-up of stagnation and dull +indolence in a place which ought to have the highest spiritual and +intellectual aims; who, whatever repelled them, could not help feeling +that great ideas, great prospects, a new outburst of bold thought, a new +effort of moral purpose and force, had disturbed the old routine; could +not help being fascinated, if only as by a spectacle, by the strange and +unwonted teaching, which partly made them smile, partly perhaps +permanently disgusted them, but which also, they could not deny, spoke +in a language more fearless, more pathetic, more subtle, and yet more +human, than they had heard from the religious teachers of the day. And +thus the circle of persons interested in the Tracts, of persons who +sympathised with their views, of persons who more and more gave a warm +and earnest adherence to them, was gradually extended in the +University--and, in time, in the country also. The truth was that the +movement, in its many sides, had almost monopolised for the time both +the intelligence and the highest religious earnestness of the +University,[60] and either in curiosity or inquiry, in approval or in +condemnation, all that was deepest and most vigorous, all that was most +refined, most serious, most high-toned, and most promising in Oxford was +drawn to the issues which it raised. It is hardly too much to say that +wherever men spoke seriously of the grounds and prospects of religion, +in Oxford, or in Vacation reading-parties, in their walks and social +meetings, in their studies or in common-room, the "Tractarian" +doctrines, whether assented to or laughed at, deplored or fiercely +denounced, were sure to come to the front. All subjects in discussion +seemed to lead up to them--art and poetry, Gothic architecture and +German romance and painting, the philosophy of language, and the novels +of Walter Scott and Miss Austen, Coleridge's transcendentalism and +Bishop Butler's practical wisdom, Plato's ideas and Aristotle's +analysis. It was difficult to keep them out of lecture-rooms and +examinations for Fellowships. + +But in addition to the intrinsic interest of the questions and +discussions which the movement opened, personal influence played a great +and decisive part in it. As it became a party, it had chiefs. It was not +merely as leaders of thought but as teachers with their disciples, as +friends with friends, as witnesses and examples of high self-rule and +refined purity and goodness, that the chiefs whose names were in all +men's mouths won the hearts and trust of so many, in the crowds that +stood about them. Foremost, of course, ever since he had thrown himself +into it in 1835, was Dr. Pusey. His position, his dignified office, his +learning, his solidity and seriousness of character, his high standard +of religious life, the charm of his charity, and the sweetness of his +temper naturally gave him the first place in the movement in Oxford and +the world. It came to be especially associated with him. Its enemies +fastened on it a nickname from his name, and this nickname, partly from +a greater smoothness of sound, partly from an odd suggestion of +something funny in it, came more into use than others; and the terms +_Puseismus, Puseisme, Puseista_ found their way into German +lecture-halls and Paris salons and remote convents and police offices in +Italy and Sicily; indeed, in the shape of [Greek: pouzeismos] it might +be lighted on in a Greek newspaper. Dr. Pusey was a person who commanded +the utmost interest and reverence; he was more in communication with the +great world outside than Oxford people generally, and lived much in +retirement from Oxford society; but to all interested in the movement he +was its representative and highest authority. He and Mr. Newman had the +fullest confidence in one another, though conscious at times of not +perfect agreement; yet each had a line of his own, and each of them was +apt to do things out of his own head. Dr. Pusey was accessible to all +who wished to see him; but he did not encourage visits which wasted +time. And the person who was pre-eminently, not only before their eyes, +but within their reach in the ordinary intercourse of man with man, was +Mr. Newman. Mr. Newman, who lived in College in the ordinary way of a +resident Fellow, met other university men, older or younger, on equal +terms. As time went on, a certain wonder and awe gathered round him. +People were a little afraid of him; but the fear was in themselves, not +created by any intentional stiffness or coldness on his part. He did not +try to draw men to him, he was no proselytiser; he shrank with fear and +repugnance from the character--it was an invasion of the privileges of +the heart.[61] But if men came to him, he was accessible; he allowed his +friends to bring their friends to him, and met them more than half-way. +He was impatient of mere idle worldliness, of conceit and impertinence, +of men who gave themselves airs; he was very impatient of pompous and +solemn emptiness. But he was very patient with those whom he believed to +sympathise with what was nearest his heart; no one, probably, of his +power and penetration and sense of the absurd, was ever so ready to +comply with the two demands which a witty prelate proposed to put into +the examination in the Consecration Service of Bishops: "Wilt thou +answer thy letters?" "Wilt thou suffer fools gladly?" But courteous, +affable, easy as he was, he was a keen trier of character; he gauged, +and men felt that he gauged, their motives, their reality and soundness +of purpose; he let them see, if they at all came into his intimacy, +that if _they_ were not, _he_, at any rate, was in the deepest earnest. +And at an early period, in a memorable sermon,[62] the vivid impression +of which at the time still haunts the recollection of some who heard it, +he gave warning to his friends and to those whom his influence touched, +that no child's play lay before them; that they were making, it might be +without knowing it, the "Ventures of Faith." But feeling that he had +much to say, and that a university was a place for the circulation and +discussion of ideas, he let himself be seen and known and felt, both +publicly and in private. He had his breakfast parties and his evening +gatherings. His conversation ranged widely, marked by its peculiar +stamp--entire ease, unstudied perfection of apt and clean-cut words, +unexpected glimpses of a sure and piercing judgment. At times, at more +private meetings, the violin, which he knew how to touch, came into +play. + +He had great gifts for leadership. But as a party chief he was also +deficient in some of the qualities which make a successful one. His +doctrine of the Church had the disadvantage of an apparently +intermediate and ambiguous position, refusing the broad, intelligible +watchwords and reasonings of popular religionism. It was not without +clearness and strength; but such a position naturally often leads to +what seem over-subtle modes of argument, seemingly over-subtle because +deeper and more original than the common ones; and he seemed sometimes +to want sobriety in his use of dialectic weapons, which he wielded with +such force and effect. Over-subtlety in the leader of a party tends to +perplex friends and give a handle to opponents. And with all his +confidence in his cause, and also in his power and his call to use it, +he had a curious shyness and self-distrust as to his own way of doing +what he had to do; he was afraid of "wilfulness," of too great reliance +on intellect. He had long been accustomed to observe and judge himself, +and while conscious of his force, he was fully alive to the drawbacks, +moral and intellectual, which wait on the highest powers. When attacks +were made on him by authorities, as in the case of the Tract No. 90, his +more eager friends thought him too submissive; they would have liked a +more combative temper and would not accept his view that confidence in +him was lost, because it might be shaken.[63] But if he bent before +official authority the disapproval of friends was a severer trouble. +Most tender in his affections, most trustful in his confidence, craving +for sympathy, it came like a shock and chill when things did not go +right between himself and his friends. He was too sensitive under such +disapproval for a successful party chief. The true party leader takes +these things as part of that tiresome human stupidity and perverseness +with which he must make his account. Perhaps they sting for the moment, +but he brushes them away and goes forward, soon forgetting them. But +with Mr. Newman, his cause was identified with his friendships and even +his family affections. And as a leader, he was embarrassed by the +keenness with which he sympathised with the doubts and fears of friends; +want of sympathy and signs of distrust darkened the prospect of the +future; they fell like a blight on his stores of hope, never +over-abundant; they tempted him, not to assert himself, but to throw up +the game as convicted of unfitness, and retire for good and all to his +books and silence. "Let them," he seemed to say, "have their way, as +they will not let me have mine; they have the right to take theirs, only +not to make me take it." In spite of his enthusiasm and energy, his +unceasing work, his occasional bursts of severe punishment inflicted on +those who provoked him, there was always present this keen +sensitiveness, the source of so much joy and so much pain. He would not +have been himself without it. But he would have been a much more +powerful and much more formidable combatant if he had cared less for +what his friends felt, and followed more unhesitatingly his own line and +judgment. This keen sensitiveness made him more quickly alive than other +people to all that lay round him and before; it made him quicker to +discern danger and disaster; it led him to give up hope and to retire +from the contest long before he had a right to do so. The experience of +later years shows that he had despaired too soon. Such delicate +sensitiveness, leading to impatience, was not capable of coping with the +rough work involved in the task of reform, which he had undertaken. + +All this time the four o'clock sermons at St. Mary's were always going +on. But, besides these, he anticipated a freedom--familiar now, but +unknown then--of public lecturing. In Advent and after Easter a company, +never very large, used to gather on a week-day afternoon in Adam de +Brome's Chapel--the old Chapel of "Our Lady of Littlemore"--to hear him +lecture on some theological subject. It is a dark, dreary appendage to +St. Mary's on the north side, in which Adam de Brome, Edward II.'s +almoner, and the founder of Oriel College, is supposed to lie, beneath +an unshapely tomb, covered by a huge slab of Purbeck marble, from which +the brass has been stripped. The place is called a chapel, but is more +like a court or place of business, for which, indeed, it was used in the +old days by one of the Faculties of the House of Convocation, which held +its assemblies there. At the end is a high seat and desk for the person +presiding, and an enclosure and a table for officials below him; and +round the rest of the dingy walls run benches fixed to the wall, dingy +as the walls themselves. But it also had another use. On occasions of a +university sermon, a few minutes before it began, the Heads of Houses +assembled, as they still assemble, in the chapel, ranging themselves on +the benches round the walls. The Vice-Chancellor has his seat on one +side, the preacher, with the two Proctors below him, sits opposite; and +there all sit in their robes, more or less grand, according to the day, +till the beadle comes to announce that it is time to form the procession +into church. This desolate place Mr. Newman turned into his +lecture-room; in it he delivered the lectures which afterwards became +the volume on the _Prophetical Character of the Church_, or _Romanism +and Popular Protestantism_; the lectures which formed the volume on +_Justification_; those on _Antichrist_, and on _Rationalism and the +Canon of Scripture_, which afterwards became Nos. 83 and 85 of the +_Tracts for the Times_.[64] The force, the boldness, the freedom from +the trammels of commonplace, the breadth of view and grasp of the +subject which marked those lectures, may be seen in them still. But it +is difficult to realise now the interest with which they were heard at +the time by the first listeners to that clear and perfectly modulated +voice, opening to them fresh and original ways of regarding questions +which seemed worn out and exhausted. The volumes which grew out of the +Adam de Brome lectures were some of the most characteristic portions of +the theological literature of the early movement. They certainly greatly +influenced the course of thought in it, and some of its most serious +issues. + +The movement was not one of mere opinion. It took two distinct though +connected lines. It was, on the one hand, theological; on the other, +resolutely practical. Theologically, it dealt with great questions of +religious principle--What is the Church? Is it a reality or a mode of +speech? On what grounds does it rest? How may it be known? Is it among +us? How is it to be discriminated from its rivals or counterfeits? What +is its essential constitution? What does it teach? What are its +shortcomings? Does it nerd reform? But, on the other hand, the movement +was marked by its deep earnestness on the practical side of genuine +Christian life. Very early in the movement (1833) a series of +sketches of primitive Christian life appeared in the _British +Magazine_--afterwards collected under the title of the _Church of the +Fathers_ (1840)--to remind people who were becoming interested in +ancient and patristic theology that, besides the doctrines to be found +in the vast folios of the Fathers, there were to be sought in them and +laid to heart the temptations and trials, the aspirations and moral +possibilities of actual life, "the tone and modes of thought, the habits +and manners of the early times of the Church." The note struck in the +first of Mr. Newman's published sermons--"Holiness necessary for future +blessedness"--was never allowed to be out of mind. The movement was, +above all, a moral one; it was nothing, allowed to be nothing, if it +was not this.[65] Seriousness, reverence, the fear of insincere words +and unsound professions, were essential in the character, which alone it +would tolerate in those who made common cause with it. + +Its ethical tendency was shown in two things, which were characteristic +of it. One was the increased care for the Gospels, and study of them, +compared with other parts of the Bible. Evangelical theology had dwelt +upon the work of Christ, and laid comparatively little stress on His +example, or the picture left us of His Personality and Life. It regarded +the Epistles of St. Paul as the last word of the Gospel message. People +who can recall the popular teaching, which was spoken of then as "sound" +and "faithful," and "preaching Christ," can remember how the Epistles +were ransacked for texts to prove the "sufficiency of Scripture" or the +"right of private judgment," or the distinction between justification +and sanctification, while the Gospel narrative was imperfectly studied +and was felt to be much less interesting. The movement made a great +change. The great Name stood no longer for an abstract symbol of +doctrine, but for a living Master, who could teach as well as save. And +not forgetting whither He had gone and what He was, the readers of +Scripture now sought Him eagerly in those sacred records, where we can +almost see and hear His going in and out among men. It was a change in +the look and use of Scripture, which some can still look back to as an +epoch in their religious history. The other feature was the increased +and practical sense of the necessity of self-discipline, of taking real +trouble with one's self to keep thoughts and wishes in order, to lay the +foundation of habits, to acquire the power of self-control. Deeply fixed +in the mind of the teachers, this serious governance of life, this +direction and purification of its aims, laid strong hold on the +consciences of those who accepted their teaching. This training was not +showy; it was sometimes austere, even extravagantly austere; but it was +true, and enduring, and it issued often in a steady and unconscious +elevation of the religious character. How this character was fed and +nurtured and encouraged--how, too, it was frankly warned of its dangers, +may be seen in those _Parochial Sermons_ at St. Mary's, under whose +inspiration it was developed, and which will always be the best +commentary on the character thus formed. Even among those who ultimately +parted from the movement, with judgment more or less unfavourable to its +theology and general line, it left, as if uneffaceable, this moral +stamp; this value for sincerity and simplicity of feeling and life, this +keen sense of the awfulness of things unseen. There was something _sui +generis_ in the profoundly serious, profoundly reverent tone, about +everything that touched religion in all who had ever come strongly under +its influence. + +Of course the party soon had the faults of a party, real and +imputed.[66] Is it conceivable that there should ever have been a +religious movement, which has not provoked smiles from those outside of +it, and which has not lent itself to caricature? There were weaker +members of it, and headstrong ones, and imitative ones; there were +grotesque and absurd ones; some were deeper, some shallower; some liked +it for its excitement, and some liked it for its cause; there were those +who were for pushing on, and those who were for holding back; there were +men of combat, and men of peace; there were those whom it made conceited +and self-important, and those whom it drove into seriousness, anxiety, +and retirement. But, whatever faults it had, a pure and high spirit +ruled in it; there were no disloyal members, and there were none who +sought their own in it, or thought of high things for themselves in +joining it. It was this whole-heartedness, this supreme reverence for +moral goodness, more even than the great ability of the leaders, and in +spite of mistakes and failures, which gave its cohesion and its momentum +to the movement in its earlier stages. + +The state of feeling and opinion among Churchmen towards the end of +1835, two years after the Tracts had begun, is thus sketched by one who +was anxiously observing it, in the preface to the second volume of the +Tracts (November 1835). + + In completing the second volume of a publication, to which the + circumstances of the day have given rise, it may be right to allude to + a change which has taken place in them since the date of its + commencement. At that time, in consequence of long security, the + attention of members of our Church had been but partially engaged, in + ascertaining the grounds of their adherence to it; but the imminent + peril to all which is dear to them which has since been confessed, has + naturally turned their thoughts that way, and obliged them to defend + it on one or other of the principles which are usually put forward in + its behalf. Discussions have thus been renewed in various quarters, on + points which had long remained undisturbed; and though numbers + continue undecided in opinion, or take up a temporary position in some + one of the hundred middle points which may be assumed between the two + main theories in which the question issues; and others, again, have + deliberately entrenched themselves in the modern or ultra-Protestant + alternative; yet, on the whole, there has been much hearty and + intelligent adoption, and much respectful study, of those more + primitive views maintained by our great Divines. As the altered state + of public information and opinion has a necessary bearing on the + efforts of those who desire to excite attention to the subject (in + which number the writers of these Tracts are to be included), it will + not be inappropriate briefly to state in this place what it is + conceived is the present position of the great body of Churchmen with + reference to it. + + While we have cause to be thankful for the sounder and more accurate + language, which is now very generally adopted among well-judging men + on ecclesiastical subjects, we must beware of over-estimating what has + been done, and so becoming sanguine in our hopes of success, or + slackening our exertions to secure it. Many more persons, doubtless, + have taken up a profession of the main doctrine in question, that, + namely, of the one Catholic and Apostolic Church, than fully enter + into it. This was to be expected, it being the peculiarity of all + religious teaching, that words are imparted before ideas. A child + learns his Creed or Catechism before he understands it; and in + beginning any deep subject we are all but children to the end of our + lives. The instinctive perception of a rightly instructed mind, _prima + facie_ force of the argument, or the authority of our celebrated + writers, have all had their due and extensive influence in furthering + the reception of the doctrine, when once it was openly maintained; to + which must be added the prospect of the loss of State protection, + which made it necessary to look out for other reasons for adherence to + the Church besides that of obedience to the civil magistrate. Nothing + which has spread quickly has been received thoroughly. Doubtless there + are a number of seriously-minded persons who think that they admit the + doctrine in question much more fully than they do, and who would be + startled at seeing that realised in particulars which they confess in + an abstract form. Many there are who do not at all feel that it is + capable of a practical application; and while they bring it forward on + special occasions, in formal expositions of faith, or in answer to a + direct interrogatory, let it slip from their minds almost entirely in + their daily conduct or their religious teaching, from the long and + inveterate habit of thinking and acting without it. We must not, then, + at all be surprised at finding that to modify the principles and + motives on which men act is not the work of a day; nor at undergoing + disappointments, at witnessing relapses, misconceptions, sudden + disgusts, and, on the other hand, abuses and perversions of the true + doctrine, in the case of those who have taken it up with more warmth + than discernment. + +From the end of 1835, or the beginning of 1836, the world outside of +Oxford began to be alive to the force and the rapid growth of this new +and, to the world at large, not very intelligible movement. The ideas +which had laid hold so powerfully on a number of leading minds in the +University began to work with a spell, which seemed to many +inexplicable, on others unconnected with them. This rapidity of +expansion, viewed as a feature of a party, was noticed on all sides, by +enemies no less than friends. In an article in the _British Critic_ of +April 1839, by Mr. Newman, on the State of Religious Parties, the fact +is illustrated from contemporary notices. + + There is at the present moment a reaction in the Church, and a growing + reaction, towards the views which it has been the endeavours [of the + Tract writers] and, as it seemed at the commencement, _almost hopeless + endeavours_, to advocate. The fairness of the prospect at present is + proved by the attack made on them by the public journals, and is + confessed by the more candid and the more violent among their + opponents. Thus the amiable Mr. Bickersteth speaks of it as having + manifested itself "with the _most rapid_ growth of the hot-bed of + these evil days." The scoffing author of the _Via Media_ says: "At + this moment the Via is _crowded_ with young enthusiasts who never + presume to argue, except against the propriety of arguing at all." The + candid Mr. Baden-Powell, who sees more of the difficulties of the + controversy than the rest of their antagonists pot together, says that + it is clear that "these views ... have been extensively adopted, and + are daily gaining ground among a considerable and influential portion + of the members, as well as the ministers of the Established Church." + The author of the _Natural History of Enthusiasm_ says: "The spread of + these doctrines is in fact having the effect of rendering all other + distinctions obsolete. Soon there will be no middle ground left, and + every man, especially every clergyman, will be compelled to make his + choice between the two." ... The Bishop of Chester speaks of the + subject "daily assuming a more serious and alarming aspect": a + gossiping writer of the moment describes these doctrines as having + insinuated themselves not only into popular churches and fashionable + chapels, and the columns of newspapers, but "into the House of + Commons." + +And the writer of the article goes on:-- + + Now, if there be any truth in these remarks, it is plainly idle and + perverse to refer the change of opinions which is now going on to the + acts of two or three individuals, as is sometimes done. Of course + every event in human affairs has a beginning; and a beginning implies + a when, and a where, and a by whom, and how. But except in these + necessary circumstance, the phenomenon in question is in a manner + quite independent of things visible and historical. It is not here or + there; it has no progress, no causes, no fortunes: it is not a + movement, it is a spirit, it is a spirit afloat, neither "in the + secret chambers" nor "in the desert," but everywhere. It is within us, + rising up in the heart where it was least expected, and working its + way, though not in secret, yet so subtly and impalpably, as hardly to + admit of precaution or encounter on any ordinary human rules of + opposition. It is an adversary in the air, a something one and entire, + a whole wherever it is, unapproachable and incapable of being + grasped, as being the result of causes far deeper than political or + other visible agencies, the spiritual awakening of spiritual wants. + + Nothing can show more strikingly the truth of this representation than + to refer to what may be called the theological history of the + individuals who, whatever be their differences from each other on + important or unimportant points, yet are associated together in the + advocacy of the doctrines in question. Dr. Hook and Mr. Churton + represent the High Church dignitaries of the last generation; Mr. + Perceval, the Tory aristocracy; Mr. Keble is of the country clergy, + and comes from valleys and woods, far removed both from notoriety and + noise; Mr. Palmer and Mr. Todd are of Ireland; Dr. Pusey became what + he is from among the Universities of Germany, and after a severe and + tedious analysis of Arabic MSS. Mr. Dodsworth is said to have begun in + the study of Prophecy; Mr. Newman to have been much indebted to the + friendship of Archbishop Whately; Mr. Froude, if any one, gained his + views from his own mind. Others have passed over from Calvinism and + kindred religions. + +Years afterwards, and in changed circumstances, the same writer has left +the following record of what came before his experience in those +years:--[67] + + From beginnings so small (I said), from elements of thought so + fortuitous, with prospects so unpromising, the Anglo-Catholic party + suddenly became a power in the National Church, and an object of alarm + to her rulers and friends. Its originators would have found it + difficult to say what they aimed at of a practical kind: rather, they + put forth views and principles, for their own sake, because they were + true, as if they were obliged to say them; and, as they might be + themselves surprised at their earnestness in uttering them, they had + as great cause to be surprised at the success which attended their + propagation. And, in fact, they could only say that those doctrines + were in the air; that to assert was to prove, and that to explain was + to persuade; and that the movement in which they were taking part was + the birth of a crisis rather than of a place. In a very few years a + school of opinion was formed, fixed in its principles, indefinite and + progressive in their range; and it extended itself into every part of + the country. If we inquire what the world thought of it, we have still + more to raise our wonder; for, not to mention the excitement it caused + in England, the movement and its party-names were known to the police + of Italy and to the backwoods-men of America. And so it proceeded, + getting stronger and stronger every year, till it came into collision + with the Nation and that Church of the Nation, which it began by + professing especially to serve. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[59] "I answered, the person whom we were opposing had committed himself +in writing, and we ought to commit ourselves, too."--_Apologia_, p. 143. + +[60] "I very much doubt between Oxford and Cambridge for my boy. Oxford, +which I should otherwise prefer, on many accounts, has at present +two-thirds of the steady-reading men, Rabbinists, _i.e._ Puseyites." But +this was probably an exaggeration.--Whately's _Life_; letter of Oct. +1838, p. 163 (ed. 1875). + +[61] "The sagacious and aspiring man of the world, the scrutiniser +of the heart, the conspirator against its privileges and +rights."--_Prophetical Office of the Church_, p. 132. + +[62] _Parochial Sermons_, iv. 20. Feb. 1836. + +[63] _Vide_ J.B. Mozley, _Letters_, pp. 114, 115. "Confidence in me was +lost, but I had already lost confidence in myself." This, to a friend +like J.B. Mozley, seemed exaggeration. "Though admiring the letter [to +the Vice Chancellor] I confess, for my own part, I think a general +confession of humility was irrelevant to the present occasion, the +question being simply on a point of theological interpretation. I have +always had a prejudice against general confessions." Mozley plainly +thought Newman's attitude too meek. He would have liked something more +spirited and pugnacious. + +[64] _Romanism and Popular Protestantism_, from 1834 to 1836, published +March 1837; _Justification_, after Easter 1837, published March 1838; +_Canon of Scripture_, published May 1838; _Antichrist_, published June +1838. + +[65] Cf. _Lyra Apostolica_, No. 65: + + _Thou_ to wax fierce + In the cause of the Lord! + + * * * * * + + Anger and zeal, + And the joy of the brave, + Who bade _thee_ to feel, + Sin's slave? + + +[66] This weak side was portrayed with severity in a story published by +Mr. Newman in 1848, after he left the English Church--_Loss and Gain_. + +[67] _Apologia_, p. 156. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE ROMAN QUESTION + + +The Hampden controversy had contributed to bring to the front a +question, which from the first starting of the Tracts had made itself +felt, but which now became a pressing one. If the Church of England +claimed to be part of the Catholic Church, what was the answer of the +Church of England to the claims and charges of the Church of Rome? What +were the true distinctions between the doctrines of the two Churches on +the great points on which they were supposed to be at issue? The vague +outcry of Popery had of course been raised both against the general +doctrine of the Church, enforced in the Tracts, and against special +doctrines and modes of speaking, popularly identified with Romanism; and +the answer had been an appeal to the authority of the most learned and +authoritative of our writers. But, of course, to the general public this +learning was new; and the cry went on with a dreary and stupid monotony. +But the charges against Dr. Hampden led his defenders to adopt as their +best weapon an aggressive policy. To the attack on his orthodoxy, the +counter buffet was the charge against his chief opponents of secret or +open Romanising. In its keenest and most popular form it was put forth +in a mocking pamphlet written probably under Whately's inspiration by +his most trusted confidant, Dr. Dickinson, in which, in the form of a +"Pastoral Epistle from his Holiness the Pope to some Members of the +University of Oxford," the Tract-writers are made to appear as the +emissaries and secret tools of Rome, as in a _jeu d'esprit_ of Whately's +they are made to appear as the veiled prophets of infidelity.[68] It was +clever, but not clever enough to stand, at least in Oxford, against Dr. +Pusey's dignified and gravely earnest _Remonstrance_ against its +injustice and trifling. But the fire of all Dr. Hampden's friends had +been drawn on the leaders of the movement. With them, and almost alone +with them, the opposition to him was made a personal matter. As time +went on, those who had been as hot as they against Dr. Hampden managed +to get their part in the business forgotten. Old scores between +Orthodox, Evangelicals, and Liberals were wiped out, and the Tractarians +were left to bear alone the odium of the "persecution" of Dr. Hampden. +It must be said that they showed no signs of caring for it. + +But the Roman controversy was looming in earnest, and it was idle to +expect to keep it long out of sight. The Tracts had set forth with +startling vehemence the forgotten claims of the Church. One reason why +this had been done was the belief, as stated in the first volume of +them, "that nothing but these neglected doctrines, faithfully preached, +will repress the extension of Popery, for which the ever-multiplying +divisions of the religious world are too clearly preparing the way."[69] +The question, What _is_ the Church? was one which the conditions of the +times would not permit men any longer to leave alone. It had become +urgent to meet it clearly and decisively. "We could not move a step in +comfort till this was done."[70] "The controversy with the Romanists," +writes Mr. Newman in No. 71 of the Tracts, about the end of 1835, "has +overtaken us 'like a summer's cloud.' We find ourselves in various parts +of the country preparing for it, yet, when we look back, we cannot trace +the steps by which we arrived at our present position. We do not +recollect what our feelings were this time last year on the subject; +what was the state of our apprehensions and anticipations. All we know +is, that here we are, from long security ignorant why we are not Roman +Catholics, and they on the other side are said to be spreading and +strengthening on all sides of us, vaunting of their success, real or +apparent, and taunting us with our inability to argue with them." + +The attitude taken by Mr. Newman at this time, as regards the Roman +Church, both in the Tracts and in his book on _Romanism and Popular +Protestantism_, published in the early months of 1836, was a new one. He +had started, as he tells us, with the common belief that the Pope was +Antichrist, and that the case was so clear against the whole system, +doctrinal and practical, of the Church of Rome, that it scarcely needed +further examination. His feeling against Rome had been increased by the +fierce struggle about Emancipation, and by the political conduct of the +Roman Catholic party afterwards; and his growing dissatisfaction with +the ordinary Protestantism had no visible effect in softening this +feeling. Hurrell Froude's daring questions had made his friends feel +that there might be more to be known about the subject than they yet +knew; yet what the fellow-travellers saw of things abroad in their visit +to the South in 1832 did not impress them favourably. "They are wretched +Tridentines everywhere," was Froude's comment. But attention had been +drawn to the subject, and its deep interest and importance and +difficulty recognised. Men began to read with new eyes. Froude's keen +and deep sense of shortcomings at home disposed him to claim equity and +candour in judging of the alleged faults and corruptions of the Church +abroad. It did more, it disposed him--naturally enough, but still +unfairly, and certainly without adequate knowledge--to treat Roman +shortcomings with an indulgence which he refused to English. Mr. Newman, +knowing more, and more comprehensive in his view of things, and +therefore more cautious and guarded than Froude, was much less ready to +allow a favourable interpretation of the obvious allegations against +Rome. But thought and reading, and the authority of our own leading +divines, had brought him to the conviction that whatever was to be said +against the modern Roman Church--and the charges against it were very +heavy--it was still, amid serious corruption and error, a teacher to the +nations of the Christian creed and hope; it had not forfeited, any more +than the English Church, its title to be a part of that historic body +which connects us with the Apostles of our Lord. It had a strong and +consistent theory to oppose to its assailants; it had much more to say +for itself than the popular traditions supposed. This was no new idea in +Anglican divinity, however ill it might sort with the current language +of Protestant controversy. But our old divines, more easily satisfied +than we with the course of things at home under the protection of the +Stuart kings, and stung to bitter recrimination by the insults and the +unscrupulous political intrigues of Roman Catholic agents, had exhausted +the language of vituperation against a great aggressive rival, which was +threatening everything that they held dear. They had damaged their own +character for fairness, and overlaid their substantial grounds of +objection and complaint, by this unbalanced exaggeration. Mr. Newman, in +his study of these matters, early saw both the need and the difficulty +of discrimination in the Roman controversy. It had to be waged, not as +of old, with penal legislation behind, but against adversaries who +could now make themselves listened to, and before a public sufficiently +robust in its Protestantism, to look with amused interest on a +dialectical triumph of the Roman over the Anglican claims. Romanism, he +thought, was fatal both to his recent hopes for the English Church, and +to the honour and welfare of Christianity at large. But in opposing it, +ground loosely taken of old must be carefully examined, and if +untenable, abandoned. Arguments which proved too much, which availed +against any Church at all, must be given up. Popular objections, arising +from ignorance or misconception, must be reduced to their true limits or +laid aside. The controversy was sure to be a real one, and nothing but +what was real and would stand scrutiny was worth anything in it. + +Mr. Newman had always been impressed with the greatness of the Roman +Church. Of old it had seemed to him great with the greatness of +Antichrist. Now it seemed great with the strange weird greatness of a +wonderful mixed system, commanding from its extent of sway and its +imperial authority, complicated and mysterious in its organisation and +influence, in its devotion and its superstitions, and surpassing every +other form of religion both in its good and its evil.[71] What now +presented itself to Mr. Newman's thoughts, instead of the old notion of +a pure Church on one side, and a corrupt Church on the other, sharply +opposed to one another, was the more reasonable supposition of two great +portions of the divided Church, each with its realities of history and +fact and character, each with its special claims and excellences, each +with its special sins and corruptions, and neither realising in practice +and fact all it professed to be on paper; each of which further, in the +conflicts of past days, had deeply, almost unpardonably, wronged the +other. The Church of England was in possession, with its own call and +its immense work to do, and striving to do it. Whatever the Church of +Rome was abroad, it was here an intruder and a disturber. That to his +mind was the fact and the true position of things; and this ought to +govern the character and course of controversy. The true line was not to +denounce and abuse wholesale, not to attack with any argument, good or +bad, not to deny or ignore what was solid in the Roman ground, and good +and elevated in the Roman system, but admitting all that fairly ought to +be admitted, to bring into prominence, not for mere polemical +denunciation, but for grave and reasonable and judicial condemnation, +all that was extravagant and arrogant in Roman assumptions, and all that +was base, corrupt, and unchristian in the popular religion, which, with +all its claims to infallibility and authority, Rome not only permitted +but encouraged. For us to condemn Rome wholesale, as was ordinarily the +fashion, even in respectable writers, was as wrong, as unfair, as +unprofitable to the cause of truth and Christianity, as the Roman +charges against us were felt by us to be ignorant and unjust. Rome +professes like England to continue the constitution, doctrine, +traditions, and spirit of the ancient and undivided Church: and so far +as she does so--and she does so in a great degree--we can have no +quarrel with her. But in a great degree also, she does this only in +profession and as a theory: she claims the witness and suffrage of +antiquity, but she interprets it at her own convenience and by her own +authority. We cannot claim exemption from mistakes, from deviations from +our own standard and principles, any more than Rome; but while she +remains as she is, and makes the monstrous claims of infallibility and +supremacy, there is nothing for English Churchmen but to resist her. +Union is impossible. Submission is impossible. What we have to beware of +for our own sake, as well as for our cause, are false arguments, unreal +objections, ignorant allegations. There is enough on the very surface, +in her audacious assertions and high-handed changes, for popular +arguments against her, without having recourse to exaggeration and +falsehood; she may be a very faulty Church, without being Babylon and +Antichrist. And in the higher forms of argument, there is abundance in +those provinces of ancient theology and ecclesiastical history and law, +which Protestant controversialists have commonly surrendered and left +open to their opponents, to supply a more telling weapon than any which +these controversialists have used. + +This line, though substantially involved in the theory of our most +learned divines, from Andrewes to Wake, was new in its moderation and +reasonable caution; in its abstention from insult and vague abuse, in +its recognition of the _prima facie_ strength of much of the Roman case, +in its fearless attempt, in defiance of the deepest prejudices, to face +the facts and conditions of the question. Mr. Newman dared to know and +to acknowledge much that our insular self-satisfaction did not know, and +did not care to know, of real Christian life in the Church of Rome. He +dared to admit that much that was popularly held to be Popish was +ancient, Catholic, edifying; he dared to warn Churchmen that the loose +unsifted imputations, so securely hazarded against Rome, were both +discreditable and dangerous. All this, from one whose condemnation of +Rome was decisive and severe, was novel. The attempt, both in its spirit +and its ability, was not unworthy of being part of the general effort to +raise the standard of thought and teaching in the English Church. It +recalled men from slovenly prejudices to the study of the real facts of +the living world. It narrowed the front of battle, but it strengthened +it enormously. The volume on _Romanism and Popular Protestantism_ is not +an exhaustive survey of the controversy with Rome or of the theory of +the Church. There are great portions of the subject, both theological +and historical, which it did not fall within the scope of the book to +touch. It was unsystematic and incomplete. But so far as its argument +extended, it almost formed an epoch in this kind of controversial +writing. It showed the command of a man of learning over all the +technical points and minutiae of a question highly scholastical in its +conceptions and its customary treatment, and it presented this question +in its bearings and consequences on life and practice with the freedom +and breadth of the most vigorous popular writing. The indictment against +Rome was no vague or general one. It was one of those arguments which +cut the ground from under a great established structure of reasonings +and proofs. And its conclusions, clear and measured, but stern, were the +more impressive, because they came from one who did not disguise his +feeling that there was much in what was preserved in the Roman system +to admire and to learn from. + +The point which he chose for his assault was indeed the key of the Roman +position--the doctrine of Infallibility. He was naturally led to this +side of the question by the stress which the movement had laid on the +idea of the Church as the witness and teacher of revealed truth: and the +immediate challenge given by the critics or opponents of the movement +was, how to distinguish this lofty idea of the Church, with its claim to +authority, if it was at all substantial, from the imposing and +consistent theory of Romanism. He urged against the Roman claim of +Infallibility two leading objections. One was the way in which the +assumed infallibility of the present Church was made to override and +supersede, in fact, what in words was so ostentatiously put forward, the +historical evidence of antiquity to doctrine, expressed by the phrase, +the "consent of the Fathers." The other objection was the inherent +contradiction of the notion of infallibility to the conditions of human +reception of teaching and knowledge, and its practical uselessness as an +assurance of truth, its partly delusive, partly mischievous, working. +But he felt, as all deep minds must feel, that it is easier to overthrow +the Roman theory of Church authority than to replace it by another, +equally complete and commanding, and more unassailable. He was quite +alive to the difficulties of the Anglican position; but he was a +disciple in the school of Bishop Butler, and had learned as a first +principle to recognise the limitations of human knowledge, and the +unphilosophical folly of trying to round off into finished and +pretentious schemes our fragmentary yet certain notices of our own +condition and of God's dealings with it. He followed his teacher in +insisting on the reality and importance of moral evidence as opposed to +demonstrative proof; and he followed the great Anglican divines in +asserting that there was a true authority, varying in its degrees, in +the historic Church; that on the most fundamental points of religion +this authority was trustworthy and supreme; that on many other questions +it was clear and weighty, though it could not decide everything. This +view of the "prophetical office of the Church" had the dialectical +disadvantage of appearing to be a compromise, to many minds a fatal +disadvantage. It got the name of the _Via Media_; a satisfactory one to +practical men like Dr. Hook, to whom it recommended itself for use in +popular teaching; but to others, in aftertimes, an ill-sounding phrase +of dislike, which summed up the weakness of the Anglican case. Yet it +only answered to the certain fact, that in the early and undivided +Church there was such a thing as authority, and there was no such thing +known as Infallibility. It was an appeal to the facts of history and +human nature against the logical exigencies of a theory. Men must +transcend the conditions of our experience if they want the certainty +which the theory of Infallibility speaks of. + +There were especially two weak points in this view of Anglicanism. Mr. +Newman felt and admitted them, and of course they were forced on his +attention by controversialists on both sides; by the Ultra Protestant +school, whose modes of dealing with Scripture he had exposed with +merciless logic and by the now eager Roman disputants, of whom Dr. +Wiseman was the able and not over-scrupulous chief. The first of these +points was that the authority of the undivided Church, which Anglicanism +invoked, though it completely covered the great foundations of Christian +doctrine, our faith as to the nature of God, did not cover with equal +completeness other important points of controversy, such as those +raised at the Reformation as to the Sacraments, and the justification of +the sinner. The Anglican answer was that though the formal and conciliar +authority was not the same in each case, the patristic literature of the +time of the great councils, all that it took for granted and preserved +as current belief and practice, all that resulted from the questions and +debates of the time, formed a body of proof, which carried with it moral +evidence only short of authoritative definition, and was so regarded in +the Anglican formularies. These formularies implied the authority of the +Church to speak; and what was defined on this authority was based on +good evidence, though there were portions of its teaching which had even +better. The other point was more serious. "Your theory," was the +objection, "is nothing but a paper theory; it never was a reality; it +never can be. There may be an ideal halting-place, there is neither a +logical nor an actual one, between Romanism and the ordinary negations +of Protestantism." The answer to the challenge then was, "Let us see if +it cannot be realised. It has recognised foundations to build upon, and +the impediments and interruptions which have hindered it are well known. +Let us see if it will not turn out something more than a paper theory." +That was the answer given at the time, abandoned ten years afterwards. +But this at least may be said, that the longer experience of the last +fifty years has shown that the Church of England has been working more +and more on such a theory, and that the Church of England, whatever its +faults may be, is certainly not a Church only on paper. + +But on the principles laid down in this volume, the Roman controversy, +in its varying forms, was carried on--for the time by Mr. Newman, +permanently by the other leaders of the movement. In its main outlines, +the view has become the accepted Anglican view. Many other most +important matters have come into the debate. The publicly altered +attitude of the Papacy has indefinitely widened the breach between +England and Rome. But the fundamental idea of the relations and +character of the two Churches remains the same as it was shadowed forth +in 1836. + +One very important volume on these questions ought not to be passed by +without notice. This was the _Treatise on the Church of Christ_, 1838, +by Mr. W. Palmer, who had already by his _Origines_ of the English +Ritual, 1832, done much to keep up that interest of Churchmen in the +early devotional language of the Church, which had first been called +forth by Bishop Lloyd's lectures on the Prayer Book. The _Treatise on +the Church_ was an honour to English theology and learning; in point of +plan and structure we have few books like it.[72] It is comprehensive, +methodical, well-compacted, and, from its own point of view, +exhaustive. It is written with full knowledge of the state of the +question at the time, both on the Anglican side and on the Roman. Its +author evades no objection, and is aware of most. It is rigorous in +form, and has no place for anything but substantial argument. It is a +book which, as the _Apologia_ tells us, commanded the respect of such an +accomplished controversialist as Perrone; and, it may be added, of a +theologian of an opposite school, Dr. Doellinger. It is also one on which +the highest value has been set by Mr. Gladstone. It is remarkable that +it did not exercise more influence on religious thought in Oxford at the +critical time when it appeared. But it had defects, and the moment was +against it. It was dry and formal--inevitably so, from the scientific +plan deliberately adopted for it; it treated as problems of the +theological schools, to be discussed by the rules of severe and +passionless disputation, questions which were once more, after the +interval of more than a century, beginning to touch hearts and +consciences, and were felt to be fraught with the gravest practical +issues. And Mr. Newman, in his mode of dealing with them, unsystematic, +incomplete, unsatisfactory in many ways as it was, yet saw in them not +abstract and scholastic inquiries, however important, but matters in +which not only sound argument, but sympathy and quick intelligence of +the conditions and working of the living minds around him, were needed +to win their attention and interest. To persons accustomed to Mr. +Newman's habit of mind and way of writing, his ease, his frankness, his +candour, his impatience of conventionality, his piercing insight into +the very centre of questions, his ever-ready recognition of nature and +reality, his range of thought, his bright and clear and fearless style +of argument, his undisplayed but never unfelt consciousness of the true +awfulness of anything connected with religion, any stiff and heavy way +of treating questions which he had treated would have seemed +unattractive and unpersuasive. He had spoiled his friends for any mere +technical handling, however skilful, of great and critical subjects. He +himself pointed out in a review the unique merit and the real value of +Mr. Palmer's book, pointing out also, significantly enough, where it +fell short, both in substance and in manner. Observing that the +"scientific" system of the English Church is not yet "sufficiently +cleared and adjusted," and adding a variety of instances of this +deficiency, he lets us see what he wanted done, where difficulties most +pressed upon himself, and where Mr. Palmer had missed the real substance +of such difficulties. Looking at it by the light of after-events, we can +see the contradiction and reaction produced by Mr. Palmer's too +optimist statements. Still, Mr. Newman's praise was sincere and +discriminating. But Mr. Palmer's book, though never forgotten, scarcely +became, what it at another time might well have become, an English +text-book. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[68] Whately's _Life_, ed. 1875, pp. 187-190. + +[69] Advertisement to vol. i. 1st Nov. 1834. + +[70] _Apologia_, p. 139. + +[71] Vide _Lyra Apostolica_, Nos. 170, 172: + + How shall I name thee, Light of the wide West, + Or heinous error-seat?... + Oh, that thy creed were sound! + For thou dost soothe the heart, thou Church of Rome, + By thy unwearied watch and varied round + Of service, in thy Saviour's holy home. + +And comp. No. 171, _The Cruel Church_. + +[72] "The most important theological work which has lately appeared is +Mr. Palmer's _Treatise on the Church_.... Whatever judgment may be +formed of the conclusions to which he has come on the variety of points +which he had to consider, we cannot contemplate without admiration, and +(if it were right) without envy, the thorough treatment which his +subject has received at his hands. It is indeed a work quite in +character with the religious movement which has commenced in various +parts of the Church, displaying a magnificence of design similar to that +of the Bishop of London's plan of fifty new churches, and Dr. Pusey, of +Oxford's, projected translation of the Fathers."--_Brit. Crit._. July +1838. Short Notices. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +CHANGES + + +The first seven years of the movement, as it is said in the _Apologia_, +had been years of prosperity. There had been mistakes; there had been +opposition; there had been distrust and uneasiness. There was in some +places a ban on the friends of Mr. Newman; men like Mr. James Mozley and +Mr. Mark Pattison found their connexion with him a difficulty in the way +of fellowships. But on the whole, things had gone smoothly, without any +great breakdown, or any open collision with authority. But after 1840 +another period was to begin of trouble and disaster. The seeds of this +had been partially sown before in the days of quiet, and the time was +come for their development. Differences in the party itself had been +growing sharper; differences between the more cautious and the more +fearless, between the more steady-going and the more subtle thinkers. +The contrast between the familiar and customary, and the new--between +the unknown or forgotten, and a mass of knowledge only recently +realised--became more pronounced. Consequences of a practical kind, real +or supposed; began to show themselves, and to press. And above all, a +second generation, without the sobering experience of the first, was +starting from where the first had reached to, and, in some instances, +was rising up against their teachers' caution and patience. The usual +dangers of all earnest and aggressive assertions of great principles +appeared: contempt for everything in opinion and practice that was not +advanced, men vying with each other in bold inferences, in the pleasure +of "talking strong." With this grew fear and exasperation on the other +side, misunderstandings, misgivings, strainings of mutual confidence, +within. Dr. Hook alternated between violent bursts of irritation and +disgust, and equally strong returns of sympathy, admiration, and +gratitude; and he represented a large amount of feeling among Churchmen. +It was but too clear that storms were at hand. They came perhaps quicker +than they were anticipated. + +Towards the end of 1838, a proposal was brought forward, for which in +its direct aspect much might plausibly be said, but which was in +intention and indirectly a test question, meant to put the Tractarians +in a difficulty, and to obtain the weight of authority in the University +against them. It was proposed to raise a subscription, and to erect a +monument in Oxford, to the martyrs of the Reformation, Cranmer, Ridley, +and Latimer. Considering that the current and popular language dated +the Church of England from the Reformation of the sixteenth century, and +cited the Reformers as ultimate and paramount authorities on its +doctrine, there was nothing unreasonable in such a proposal. Dr. Hook, +strong Churchman as he was, "called to union on the principles of the +English Reformation." But the criticism which had been set afloat by the +movement had discovered and realised, what defenders of the English +Church had hitherto felt it an act of piety to disbelieve, when put +before them by Romanists like Lingard, and radicals like Cobbett. that +the Reformers had been accomplices in many indefensible acts, and had +been inconsistent and untrustworthy theologians. Providentially, it was +felt, the force of old convictions and tradition and the historical +events of the time had obliged them to respect the essentials of +Catholic truth and polity and usage; we owed to them much that was +beautiful and devotional in the Prayer Book; and their Articles, clear +in all matters decided by the early theology, avoided foreign extremes +in dealing with later controversies. But their own individual language +was often far in advance of the public and official language of +formularies, in the direction of the great Protestant authorities of +Geneva and Zurich. There were still, even among the movement party, many +who respected the Reformers for the work which they had attempted, and +partly and imperfectly done, to be more wisely and soberly carried on by +their successors of the seventeenth century. But the charges against +their Calvinistic and even Zwinglian language were hard to parry; even +to those who respected them for their connexion with our present order +of things, their learning, their soundness, their authority appeared to +be greatly exaggerated; and the reaction from excessive veneration made +others dislike and depreciate them. This was the state of feeling when +the Martyrs' Memorial was started. It was eagerly pressed with ingenious +and persevering arguments by Mr. Golightly, the indefatigable and +long-labouring opponent of all that savoured of Tractarianism. The +appeal seemed so specious that at first many even of the party gave in +their adhesion. Even Dr. Pusey was disposed to subscribe to it. But Mr. +Newman, as was natural, held aloof; and his friends for the most part +did the same. It was what was expected and intended. They were either to +commit themselves to the Reformation as understood by the promoters of +the Memorial; or they were to be marked as showing their disloyalty to +it. The subscription was successful. The Memorial was set up, and stood, +a derisive though unofficial sign of the judgment of the University +against them. + +But the "Memorial" made little difference to the progress of the +movement. It was an indication of hostility in reserve, but this was +all; it formed an ornament to the city, but failed as a religious and +effective protest. Up to the spring of 1839, Anglicanism, placed on an +intellectual basin by Mr. Newman, developed practically in different +ways by Dr. Pusey and Dr. Hook, sanctioned in theory by divines who +represented the old divinity of the English Church, like Bishop +Phillpotts and Mr. H.J. Rose, could speak with confident and hopeful +voice. It might well seem that it was on its way to win over the coming +generations of the English clergy. It had on its side all that gives +interest and power to a cause,--thought, force of character, unselfish +earnestness; it had unity of idea and agreement in purpose, and was +cemented by the bonds of warm affection and common sympathies. It had +the promise of a nobler religion, as energetic and as spiritual as +Puritanism and Wesleyanism, while it drew its inspiration, its canons of +doctrine, its moral standards, from purer and more venerable +sources;--from communion, not with individual teachers and partial +traditions, but with the consenting teaching and authoritative documents +of the continuous Catholic Church. + +Anglicanism was agreed, up to this time--the summer of 1839--as to its +general principles. Charges of an inclination to Roman views had been +promptly and stoutly met; nor was there really anything but the +ignorance or ill-feeling of the accusers to throw doubt on the sincerity +of these disavowals. The deepest and strongest mind in the movement was +satisfied; and his steadiness of conviction could be appealed to if his +followers talked wildly and rashly. He had kept one unwavering path; he +had not shrunk from facing with fearless honesty the real living array +of reasons which the most serious Roman advocates could put forward. +With a frankness new in controversy, he had not been afraid to state +them with a force which few of his opponents could have put forth. With +an eye ever open to that supreme Judge of all our controversies, who +listens to them on His throne on high, he had with conscientious +fairness admitted what he saw to be good and just on the side of his +adversaries, conceded what in the confused wrangle of conflicting claims +he judged ought to be conceded. But after all admissions and all +concessions, the comparative strength of his own case appeared all the +more undeniable. He had stripped it of its weaknesses, its incumbrances, +its falsehoods; and it did not seem the weaker for being presented in +its real aspect and on its real grounds. People felt that he had gone to +the bottom of the question as no one had yet dared to do. He was yet +staunch in his convictions; and they could feel secure. + +But a change was at hand. In the course of 1839, the little cloud showed +itself in the outlook of the future; the little rift opened, small and +hardly perceptible, which was to widen into an impassable gulf. +Anglicanism started with undoubted confidence in its own foundations and +its own position, as much against Romanism as against the more recent +forms of religion. In the consciousness of its strength, it could afford +to make admissions and to refrain from tempting but unworthy arguments +in controversy with Rome; indeed the necessity of such controversy had +come upon it unexpectedly and by surprise. With English frankness, in +its impatience of abuses and desire for improvement within, it had dwelt +strongly on the faults and shortcomings of the English Church which it +desired to remedy; but while allowing what was undeniably excellent in +Rome, it had been equally outspoken and emphatic in condemnation of the +evils of Rome. What is there to wonder at in such a position? It is the +position of every honest reforming movement, at least in England. But +Anglican self-reliance was unshaken, and Anglican hope waxed stronger as +the years went on, and the impression made by Anglican teaching became +wider and deeper. Outside attacks, outside persecution, could now do +little harm; the time was past for that. What might have happened had +things gone on as they began, it is idle to inquire. But at the moment +when all seemed to promise fair, the one fatal influence, the presence +of internal uncertainty and doubt, showed itself. The body of men who +had so for acted together began to show a double aspect. While one +portion of it continued on the old lines, holding the old ground, +defending the old principles, and attempting to apply them for the +improvement of the practical system of the English Church, another +portion had asked the question, and were pursuing the anxious inquiry, +whether the English Church was a true Church at all, a true portion of +the one uninterrupted Catholic Church of the Redeemer. And the question +had forced itself with importunate persistence on the leading mind of +the movement. From this time the fate of Tractarianism, as a party, was +decided. + +In this overthrow of confidence, two sets of influences may be traced. + +1. One, which came from above, from the highest leading authority in the +movement, was the unsettlement of Mr. Newman's mind. He has told the +story, the story as he believed of his enfranchisement and deliverance; +and he has told the story, though the story of a deliverance, with so +keen a feeling of its pathetic and tragic character,--as it is indeed +the most tragic story of a conversion to peace and hope on record,--that +it will never cease to be read where the English language is spoken. Up +to the summer of 1839, his view of the English position had satisfied +him--satisfied him, that is, as a tenable one in the anomalies of +existing Christendom. All seemed clear and hopeful, and the one thing to +be thought of was to raise the English Church to the height of its own +standard. But in the autumn of that year (1839), as he has told us, a +change took place. In the summer of 1839, he had set himself to study +the history of the Monophysite controversy. "I have no reason," he +writes, "to suppose that the thought of Rome came across my mind at +all.... It was during this course of reading that for the first time a +doubt came across me of the tenableness of Anglicanism. I had seen the +shadow of a hand on the wall. He who has seen a ghost cannot be as if he +had never seen it. The heavens had opened and closed again." To less +imaginative and slower minds this seems an overwrought description of a +phenomenon, which must present itself sometime or other to all who +search the foundations of conviction; and by itself he was for the time +proof against its force. "The thought for the moment had been, The +Church of Rome will be found right after all; and then it had vanished. +My old convictions remained as before." But another blow came, and then +another. An article by Dr. Wiseman on the Donatists greatly disturbed +him. The words of St. Augustine about the Donatists, _securus judicat +orbis terrarum_, rang continually in his ears, like words out of the +sky. He found the threatenings of the Monophysite controversy renewed in +the _Arian_: "the ghost had come a second time." It was a "most +uncomfortable article," he writes in his letters; "the first real hit +from Romanism which has happened to me"; it gave him, as he says, "a +stomach-ache." But he still held his ground, and returned his answer to +the attack in an article in the _British Critic_, on the "Catholicity of +the English Church." He did not mean to take the attack for more than it +was worth, an able bit of _ex parte_ statement. But it told on him, as +nothing had yet told on him. What it did, was to "open a vista which was +closed before, and of which he could not see the end"; "we are not at +the bottom of things," was the sting it left behind From this time, the +hope and exultation with which, in spite of checks and misgivings, he +had watched the movement, gave way to uneasiness and distress. A new +struggle was beginning, a long struggle with himself, a long struggle +between rival claims which would not be denied, each equally imperious, +and involving fatal consequences if by mistake the wrong one was +admitted. And it was not only the effect of these thoughts on his own +mind which filled him with grief and trouble. He always thought much for +others; and now there was the misery of perhaps unsettling +others--others who had trusted him with their very souls--others, to +whom it was impossible to explain the conflicts which were passing in +his own mind. It was so bitter to unsettle their hope and confidence. +All through this time, more trying than his own difficulties, were the +perplexities and sorrows which he foresaw for those whom he loved. Very +illogical and inconsecutive, doubtless; if only he had had the hard +heart of a proselytiser, he would have seen that it was his duty to +undermine and shatter their old convictions. But he cared more for the +tempers and beliefs in which he was at one with his Anglican friends, +than for those in which they could not follow him. But the struggle came +on gradually. What he feared at first was not the triumph of Rome, but +the break-up of the English Church; the apparent probability of a great +schism in it. "I fear I see more clearly that we are working up to a +schism in the English Church, that is, a split between Peculiars and +Apostolicals ... I never can be surprised at individuals going off to +Rome, but that is not my chief fear, but a schism; that is, those two +parties, which have hitherto got on together as they could, from the +times of Puritanism downwards, gathering up into clear, tangible, and +direct forces, and colliding. Our Church is not at one with itself, +there is no denying it." That was at first the disaster before him. His +thought for himself began to turn, not to Rome, but to a new life +without office and authority, but still within the English Church. "You +see, if things come to the worst, I should turn brother of charity in +London." And he began to prepare for a move from Oxford, from St. +Mary's, from his fellowship. He bought land at Littlemore, and began to +plant. He asks his brother-in-law for plans for building what he calls a +[Greek: monea]. He looks forward to its becoming a sort of Monastic +school, but still connected with the University. + +In Mr. Newman's view of the debate between England and Rome, he had all +along dwelt on two broad features, _Apostolicity_ and _Catholicity_, +likeness to the Apostolic teaching, and likeness to the uninterrupted +unity and extent of the undivided Church; and of those two features he +found the first signally wanting in Rome, and the second signally +wanting in England. When he began to distrust his own reasonings, still +the disturbing and repelling element in Rome was the alleged defect of +Apostolicity, the contrast between primitive and Roman religion; while +the attractive one was the apparent widely extended Catholicity in all +lands, East and West, continents and isles, of the world-wide spiritual +empire of the Pope. It is these two great points which may be traced in +their action on his mind at this crisis. The contrast between early and +Roman doctrine and practice, in a variety of ways, some of them most +grave and important, was long a great difficulty in the way of +attempting to identify the Roman Church, absolutely and exclusively, +with the Primitive Church. The study of antiquity indisposed him, +indeed, more and more to the existing system of the English Church; its +claims to model itself on the purity and simplicity of the Early Church +seemed to him, in the light of its documents, and still more of the +facts of history and life, more and more questionable. But modern Rome +was just as distant from the Early Church though it preserved many +ancient features, lost or unvalued by England. Still, Rome was not the +same thing as the Early Church; and Mr. Newman ultimately sought a way +out of his difficulty--and indeed there was no other--in the famous +doctrine of Development. But when the difficulty about _Apostolicity_ +was thus provided for, then the force of the great vision of the +Catholic Church came upon him, unchecked and irresistible. That was a +thing present, visible, undeniable as a fact of nature; that was a thing +at once old and new; it belonged as truly, as manifestly, to the recent +and modern world of democracy and science, as it did to the Middle Ages +and the Fathers, to the world of Gregory and Innocent, to the world of +Athanasius and Augustine. The majesty, the vastness of an imperial +polity, outlasting all states and kingdoms, all social changes and +political revolutions, answered at once to the promises of the +prophecies, and to the antecedent idea of the universal kingdom of God. +Before this great idea, embodied in concrete form, and not a paper +doctrine, partial scandals and abuses seemed to sink into +insignificance. Objections seemed petty and ignoble; the pretence of +rival systems impertinent and absurd. He resented almost with impatience +anything in the way of theory or explanation which seemed to him narrow, +technical, dialectical. He would look at nothing but what had on it the +mark of greatness and largeness which befitted the awful subject, and +was worthy of arresting the eye and attention of an ecclesiastical +statesman, alive to mighty interests, compared to which even the most +serious human affairs were dwarfed and obscured. But all this was +gradual in coming. His recognition of the claims of the English Church, +faulty and imperfect as he thought it, did not give way suddenly and at +once. It survived the rude shock of 1839, From first to almost the last +she was owned as his "mother"--owned in passionate accents of +disappointment and despair as a Church which knew not how to use its +gifts; yet still, even though life seemed failing her, and her power of +teaching and ruling seemed paralysed, his mother; and as long as there +seemed to him a prospect of restoration to health, it was his duty to +stay by her.[73] This was his first attitude for three or four years +after 1839. He could not speak of her with the enthusiasm and triumph of +the first years of the movement. When he fought her battles, it was with +the sense that her imperfections made his task the harder. Still he +clung to the belief that she held a higher standard than she had yet +acted up to, and discouraged and perplexed he yet maintained her cause. +But now two things happened. The Roman claims, as was natural when +always before him, seemed to him more and more indisputable. And in +England his interpretation of Anglican theology seemed to be more and +more contradicted, disavowed, condemned, by all that spoke with any +authority in the Church. The University was not an ecclesiastical body, +yet it had practically much weight in matters of theology; it +informally, but effectually, declared against him. The Bishops, one by +one, of course only spoke as individuals; but they were the official +spokesmen of the Church, and their consent, though not the act of a +Synod, was weighty--they too had declared against him. And finally that +vague but powerful voice of public opinion, which claims to represent at +once the cool judgment of the unbiassed, and the passion of the +zealous--it too declared against him. Could he claim to understand the +mind of the Church better than its own organs? + +Then at length a change came; and it was marked outwardly by a curious +retractation of his severe language about Rome, published in a paper +called the _Conservative Journal_, in January 1843; and more distinctly, +by his resignation of St. Mary's in September 1843, a step contemplated +for some time, and by his announcement that he was preparing to resign +his fellowship. From this time he felt that he could no longer hold +office, or be a champion of the English Church; from this time, it was +only a matter of waiting, waiting to make quite certain that he was +right and was under no delusion, when he should leave her for the Roman +Communion. And to his intimate friends, to his sisters, he gave notice +that this was now impending. To the world outside, all that was known +was that he was much unsettled and distressed by difficulties. + +It may be asked why this change was not at this time communicated, not +to a few intimates, but to the world? Why did he not at this time hoist +his quarantine flag and warn every one that he was dangerous to come +near? So keen a mind must, it was said, have by this time foreseen how +things would end; he ought to have given earlier notice. His answer was +that he was sincerely desirous of avoiding, as far as possible, what +might prejudice the Church in which he had ministered, even at the +moment of leaving her. He saw his own way becoming clearer and clearer; +but he saw it for himself alone. He was not one of those who forced the +convictions of others; he was not one of those who think it a great +thing to be followed in a serious change by a crowd of disciples. +Whatever might be at the end, it was now an agonising wrench to part +from the English body, to part from the numbers of friends whose loyalty +was immovable, to part from numbers who had trusted and learned from +him. Of course, if he was in the right way, he could wish them nothing +better than that they should follow him. But they were in God's hands; +it was not his business to unsettle them; it was not his business to +ensnare and coerce their faith. And so he tried for this time to steer +his course alone. He wished to avoid observation. He was silent on all +that went on round him, exciting as some of the incidents were. He would +not he hurried; he would give himself full time; he would do what he +could to make sure that he was not acting under the influence of a +delusion. + +The final result of all this was long in coming; there was, we know, a +bitter agony of five years, a prolonged and obstinate and cruel struggle +between the deepest affections and ever-growing convictions. But this +struggle, as has been said, did not begin with the conviction in which +it ended. It began and long continued with the belief that though +England was wrong, Rome was not right; that though the Roman argument +seemed more and more unanswerable, there were insuperable difficulties +of certain fact which made the Roman conclusion incredible; that there +was so much good and truth in England, with all its defects and faults, +which was unaccountable and unintelligible on the Roman hypothesis; that +the real upshot was that the whole state of things in Christendom was +abnormal; that to English Churchmen the English Church had immediate and +direct claims which nothing but the most irresistible counter-claims +could overcome or neutralise--the claims of a shipwrecked body cut off +from country and home, yet as a shipwrecked body still organised, and +with much saved from the wreck, and not to be deserted, as long as it +held together, in an uncertain attempt to rejoin its lost unity. +Resignation, retirement, silence, lay communion, the hope of ultimate, +though perhaps long-deferred reunion--these were his first thoughts. +Misgivings could not be helped, would not be denied, but need not be +paraded, were to be kept at arm's-length as long as possible. This is +the picture presented in the autobiography of these painful and dreary +years; and there is every evidence that it is a faithful one. It is +conceivable, though not very probable, that such a course might go on +indefinitely. It is conceivable that under different circumstances he +might, like other perplexed and doubting seekers after truth, have +worked round through doubt and perplexity to his first conviction. But +the actual result, as it came, was natural enough; and it was +accelerated by provocation, by opponents without, and by the pressure of +advanced and impatient followers and disciples in the party itself. + +2. This last was the second of the two influences spoken of above. It +worked from below, as the first worked from above. + +Discussions and agitations, such as accompanied the movement, however +much under the control of the moral and intellectual ascendancy of the +leaders, could not of course be guaranteed from escaping from that +control. And as the time went on, men joined the movement who had but +qualified sympathy with that passionate love and zeal for the actual +English Church, that acquaintance with its historical theology, and that +temper of discipline, sobriety, and self-distrust, which marked its +first representatives. These younger disciples shared in the growing +excitement of the society round them. They were attracted by visible +height of character, and brilliant intellectual power. They were alive +to vast and original prospects, opening a new world which should be a +contrast to the worn-out interest of the old. Some of these were men of +wide and abstruse learning; quaint and eccentric scholars both in habit +and look, students of the ancient type, who even fifty years ago seemed +out of date to their generation. Some were men of considerable force of +mind, destined afterwards to leave a mark on their age as thinkers and +writers. To the former class belonged Charles Seager, and John Brande +Morris, of Exeter College, both learned Orientalists, steeped in +recondite knowledge of all kinds; men who had worked their way to +knowledge through hardship and grinding labour, and not to be outdone in +Germany itself for devouring love of learning and a scholar's plainness +of life. In the other class may be mentioned Frederic Faber, J.D. +Dalgairns, and W.G. Ward, men who have all since risen to eminence in +their different spheres. Faber was a man with a high gift of +imagination, remarkable powers of assimilating knowledge, and a great +richness and novelty and elegance of thought, which with much melody of +voice made him ultimately a very attractive preacher. If the promise of +his powers has not been adequately fulfilled, it is partly to be traced +to a want of severity of taste and self-restraint, but his name will +live in some of his hymns, and in some very beautiful portions of his +devotional writings. Dalgairns's mind was of a different order. "That +man has an eye for theology," was the remark of a competent judge on +some early paper of Dalgairns's which came before him. He had something +of the Frenchman about him. There was in him, in his Oxford days, a +bright and frank briskness, a mixture of modesty and arch daring, which +gave him an almost boyish appearance; but beneath this boyish appearance +there was a subtle and powerful intellect, alive to the problems of +religious philosophy, and impatient of any but the most thorough +solutions of them; while, on the other hand, the religious affections +were part of his nature, and mind and will and heart yielded an +unreserved and absolute obedience to the leading and guidance of faith. +In his later days, with his mind at ease, Father Dalgairns threw himself +into the great battle with unbelief; and few men have commanded more +the respect of opponents not much given to think well of the arguments +for religion, by the freshness and the solidity of his reasoning. At +this time, enthusiastic in temper, and acute and exacting as a thinker, +he found the Church movement just, as it were, on the turn of the wave. +He was attracted to it at first by its reaction against what was unreal +and shallow, by its affinities with what was deep in idea and earnest in +life; then, and finally, he was repelled from it, by its want of +completeness, by its English acquiescence in compromise, by its +hesitations and clinging to insular associations and sympathies, which +had little interest for him. + +Another person, who was at this time even more prominent in the advanced +portion of the movement party, and whose action had more decisive +influence on its course, was Mr. W.G. Ward, Fellow of Balliol. Mr. Ward, +who was first at Christ Church, had distinguished himself greatly at the +Oxford Union as a vigorous speaker, at first on the Tory side; he came +afterwards under the influence of Arthur Stanley, then fresh from Rugby, +and naturally learned to admire Dr. Arnold; but Dr. Arnold's religious +doctrines did not satisfy him; the movement, with its boldness and +originality of idea and ethical character, had laid strong hold on him, +and he passed into one of the most thoroughgoing adherents of Mr. +Newman. There was something to smile at in his person, and in some of +his ways--his unbusiness-like habits, his joyousness of manner, his racy +stories; but few more powerful intellects passed through Oxford in his +time, and he has justified his University reputation by his distinction +since, both as a Roman Catholic theologian and professor, and as a +profound metaphysical thinker, the equal antagonist on their own ground +of J. Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. But his intellect at that time +was as remarkable for its defects as for its powers. He used to divide +his friends, and thinking people in general, into those who had facts +and did not know what to do with them, and those who had in perfection +the logical faculties, but wanted the facts to reason upon. He belonged +himself to the latter class. He had, not unnaturally, boundless +confidence in his argumentative powers; they were subtle, piercing, +nimble, never at a loss, and they included a power of exposition which, +if it was not always succinct and lively, was always weighty and +impressive. Premises in his hands were not long in bringing forth their +conclusions; and if abstractions always corresponded exactly to their +concrete embodiments, and ideals were fulfilled in realities, no one +could point out more perspicuously and decisively the practical +judgments on them which reason must sanction. But that knowledge of +things and of men which mere power of reasoning will not give was not +one of his special endowments. The study of facts, often in their +complicated and perplexing reality, was not to his taste. He was apt to +accept them on what he considered adequate authority, and his +argumentation, formidable as it always was, recalled, even when most +unanswerable at the moment, the application of pure mathematics without +allowance for the actual forces, often difficult to ascertain except by +experiment, which would have to be taken account of in practice. + +The tendency of this section of able men was unquestionably Romewards, +almost from the beginning of their connexion with the movement. Both the +theory and the actual system of Rome, so far as they understood it, had +attractions for them which nothing else had. But with whatever +perplexity and perhaps impatience, Mr. Newman's power held them back. He +kept before their minds continually those difficulties of fact which +stood in the way of their absolute and peremptory conclusions, and of +which they were not much inclined to take account. He insisted on those +features, neither few nor unimportant nor hard to see, which proved the +continuity of the English Church with the Church Universal. Sharing +their sense of anomaly in the Anglican theory and position, he pointed +out with his own force and insight that anomaly was not in England only, +but everywhere. There was much to regret, there was much to improve, +there were many unwelcome and dangerous truths, _invidiosi veri_, to be +told and defended at any cost. But patience, as well as honesty and +courage, was a Christian virtue; and they who had received their +Christianity at the hands of the English Church had duties towards it +from which neither dissatisfaction nor the idea of something better +could absolve them. _Spartam nactus es, hanc exorna_ is the motto for +every one whose lot is cast in any portion of Christ's Church. And as +long as he could speak with this conviction, the strongest of them could +not break away from his restraint. It was when the tremendous question +took shape, Is the English Church a true Church, a real part of the +Church Catholic?--when the question became to his mind more and more +doubtful, at length desperate--that they, of course, became more +difficult to satisfy, more confident in their own allegations, more +unchecked in their sympathies, and, in consequence, in their dislikes. +And in the continued effort--for it did continue--to make them pause and +wait and hope, they reacted on him; they asked him questions which he +found it hard to answer; they pressed him with inferences which he might +put by, but of which he felt the sting; they forced on him all the +indications, of which every day brought its contribution, that the +actual living system of the English Church was against what he had +taught to be Catholic, that its energetic temper and spirit condemned +and rejected him. What was it that private men were staunch and +undismayed? What was it that month by month all over England hearts and +minds were attracted to his side, felt the spell of his teaching, gave +him their confidence? Suspicion and disapprobation, which had only too +much to ground itself upon, had taken possession of the high places of +the Church. Authority in all its shapes had pronounced as decisively as +his opponents could wish; as decisively as they too could wish, who +desired no longer a barrier between themselves and Rome. + +Thus a great and momentous change had come over the movement, over its +action and prospects. It had started in a heroic effort to save the +English Church. The claims, the blessings, the divinity of the English +Church, as a true branch of Catholic Christendom, had been assumed as +the foundation of all that was felt and said and attempted. The English +Church was the one object to which English Christians were called upon +to turn their thoughts. Its spirit animated the _Christian Year_, and +the teaching of those whom the _Christian Year_ represented. Its +interests were what called forth the zeal and the indignation recorded +in Froude's _Remains_. No one seriously thought of Rome, except as a +hopelessly corrupt system, though it had some good and Catholic things, +which it was Christian and honest to recognise. The movement of 1833 +started out of the Anti-Roman feelings of the Emancipation time. It was +Anti-Roman as much as it was Anti-Sectarian and Anti-Erastian. It was to +avert the danger of people becoming Romanists from ignorance of Church +principles. This was all changed in one important section of the party. +The fundamental conceptions and assumptions were reversed. It was not +the Roman Church, but the English Church, which was put on its trial; it +was not the Roman Church, but the English, which was to be, if possible, +apologised for, perhaps borne with for a time, but which was to be +regarded as deeply fallen, holding an untenable position, and +incomparably, unpardonably, below both the standard and the practical +system of the Roman Church. From this point of view the object of the +movement was no longer to elevate and improve an independent English +Church, but to approximate it as far as possible to what was assumed to +be undeniable--the perfect Catholicity of Rome. More almost than ideas +and assumptions, the tone of feeling changed. It had been, towards the +English Church, affectionate, enthusiastic, reverential, hopeful. It +became contemptuous, critical, intolerant, hostile with the hostility +not merely of alienation but disgust This was not of course the work of +a moment, but it was of very rapid growth. "How I hate these Anglicans!" +was the expression of one of the younger men of this section, an +intemperate and insolent specimen of it. It did not represent the tone +or the language of the leader to whom the advanced section deferred, +vexed as he often was with the course of his own thoughts, and +irritated and impatient at the course of things without. But it +expressed but too truly the difference between 1833 and 1840. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[73] See Sermons on _Subjects of the Day_, 1843. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE AUTHORITIES AND THE MOVEMENT + + +While the movement was making itself felt as a moral force, without a +parallel in Oxford for more than two centuries, and was impressing +deeply and permanently some of the most promising men in the rising +generation in the University, what was the attitude of the University +authorities? What was the attitude of the Bishops? + +At Oxford it was that of contemptuous indifference, passing into +helpless and passionate hostility. There is no sadder passage to be +found in the history of Oxford than the behaviour and policy of the +heads of this great Christian University towards the religious movement +which was stirring the interest, the hopes, the fears of Oxford. The +movement was, for its first years at least, a loyal and earnest effort +to serve the cause of the Church. Its objects were clear and reasonable; +it aimed at creating a sincere and intelligent zeal for the Church, and +at making the Church itself worthy of the great position which her +friends claimed for her. Its leaders were men well known in the +University, in the first rank in point of ability and character; men of +learning, who knew what they were talking about; men of religious and +pure, if also severe lives. They were not men merely of speculation and +criticism, but men ready to forego anything, to devote everything for +the practical work of elevating religious thought and life. All this did +not necessarily make their purposes and attempts wise and good; but it +did entitle them to respectful attention. If they spoke language new to +the popular mind or the "religious world," it was not new--at least it +ought not to have been new--to orthodox Churchmen, with opportunities of +study and acquainted with our best divinity. If their temper was eager +and enthusiastic, they alleged the presence of a great and perilous +crisis. Their appeal was mainly not to the general public, but to the +sober and the learned; to those to whom was entrusted the formation of +faith and character in the future clergy of the Church; to those who +were responsible for the discipline and moral tone of the first +University of Christendom, and who held their conspicuous position on +the understanding of that responsibility. It behoved the heads of the +University to be cautious, even to be suspicious; movements might be +hollow or dangerous things. But it behoved them also to become +acquainted with so striking a phenomenon as this; to judge it by what it +appealed to--the learning of English divines, the standard of a high and +generous moral rule; to recognise its aims at least, with equity and +sympathy, if some of its methods and arguments seemed questionable. The +men of the movement were not mere hostile innovators; they were fighting +for what the University and its chiefs held dear and sacred, the +privileges and safety of the Church. It was the natural part of the +heads of the University to act as moderators; at any rate, to have +shown, with whatever reserve, that they appreciated what they needed +time to judge of. But while on the one side there was burning and +devouring earnestness, and that power of conviction which doubles the +strength of the strong, there was on the other a serene ignoring of all +that was going on, worthy of a set of dignified French _abbes_ on the +eve of the Revolution. This sublime or imbecile security was +occasionally interrupted by bursts of irritation at some fresh piece of +Tractarian oddness or audacity, or at some strange story which made its +way from the gossip of common rooms to the society of the Heads of +Houses. And there was always ready a stick to beat the offenders; +everything could be called Popish. But for the most part they looked on, +with smiles, with jokes, sometimes with scolding.[74] Thus the men who +by their place ought to have been able to gauge and control the +movement, who might have been expected to meet half-way a serious +attempt to brace up the religious and moral tone of the place, so +incalculably important in days confessed to be anxious ones, simply set +their faces steadily to discountenance and discredit it. They were good +and respectable men, living comfortably in a certain state and ease. +Their lives were mostly simple compared with the standard of the outer +world, though Fellows of Colleges thought them luxurious. But they were +blind and dull as tea-table gossips as to what was the meaning of the +movement, as to what might come of it, as to what use might be made of +it by wise and just and generous recognition, and, if need be, by wise +and just criticism and repression. There were points of danger in it; +but they could only see what _seemed_ to be dangerous, whether it was +so or not; and they multiplied these points of danger by all that was +good and hopeful in it. It perplexed and annoyed them; they had not +imagination nor moral elevation to take in what it aimed at; they were +content with the routine which they had inherited; and, so that men read +for honours and took first classes, it did not seem to them strange or a +profanation that a whole mixed crowd of undergraduates should be +expected to go on a certain Sunday in term, willing or unwilling, fit or +unlit, to the Sacrament, and be fined if they did not appear. Doubtless +we are all of us too prone to be content with the customary, and to be +prejudiced against the novel, nor is this condition of things without +advantage. But we must bear our condemnation if we stick to the +customary too long, and so miss our signal opportunities. In their +apathy, in their self-satisfied ignorance, in their dulness of +apprehension and forethought, the authorities of the University let pass +the great opportunity of their time. As it usually happens, when this +posture of lofty ignoring what is palpable and active, and the object of +everybody's thought, goes on too long, it is apt to turn into impatient +dislike and bitter antipathy. The Heads of Houses drifted insensibly +into this position. They had not taken the trouble to understand the +movement, to discriminate between its aspects, to put themselves frankly +into communication with its leading persons, to judge with the knowledge +and justice of scholars and clergymen of its designs and ways. They let +themselves be diverted from this, their proper though troublesome task, +by distrust, by the jealousies of their position, by the impossibility +of conceiving that anything so strange could really be true and sound. +And at length they found themselves going along with the outside +current of uninstructed and ignoble prejudice, in a settled and +pronounced dislike, which took for granted that all was wrong in the +movement, which admitted any ill-natured surmise and foolish +misrepresentation, and really allowed itself to acquiesce in the belief +that men so well known in Oxford, once so admired and honoured, had sunk +down to deliberate corrupters of the truth, and palterers with their own +intellects and consciences. It came in a few years to be understood on +both sides, that the authorities were in direct antagonism to the +movement; and though their efforts in opposition to it were feeble and +petty, it went on under the dead weight of official University +disapproval. It would have been a great thing for the English +Church--though it is hard to see how, things being as they were, it +could have come about--if the movement had gone on, at least with the +friendly interest, if not with the support, of the University rulers. +Instead of that, after the first two or three years there was one long +and bitter fight in Oxford, with the anger on one side created by the +belief of vague but growing dangers, and a sense of incapacity in +resisting them, and with deep resentment at injustice and stupidity on +the other. + +The Bishops were farther from the immediate scene of the movement, and +besides, had other things to think of. Three or four of them might be +considered theologians--Archbishop Howley, Phillpotts of Exeter, Kaye of +Lincoln, Marsh of Peterborough. Two or three belonged to the Evangelical +school, Ryder of Lichfield, and the two Sumners at Winchester and +Chester. The most prominent among them, and next to the Bishop of Exeter +the ablest, alive to the real dangers of the Church, anxious to infuse +vigour into its work, and busy with plans for extending its influence, +was Blomfield, Bishop of London. But Blomfield was not at his best as a +divine, and, for a man of his unquestionable power, singularly unsure of +his own mind. He knew, in fact, that when the questions raised by the +Tracts came before him he was unqualified to deal with them; he was no +better furnished by thought or knowledge or habits to judge of them than +the average Bishop of the time, appointed, as was so often the case, for +political or personal reasons. At the first start of the movement, the +Bishops not unnaturally waited to see what would come of it. It was +indeed an effort in favour of the Church, but it was in irresponsible +hands, begun by men whose words were strong and vehement and of unusual +sound, and who, while they called on the clergy to rally round their +fathers the Bishops, did not shrink from wishing for the Bishops the +fortunes of the early days: "we could not wish them a more blessed +termination of their course than the spoiling of their goods and +martyrdom."[76] It may reasonably be supposed that such good wishes were +not to the taste of all of them. As the movement developed, besides that +it would seem to them extravagant and violent, they would be perplexed +by its doctrine. It took strong ground for the Church; but it did so in +the teeth of religious opinions and prejudices, which were popular and +intolerant. For a moment the Bishops were in a difficulty; on the one +hand, no one for generations had so exalted the office of a Bishop as +the Tractarians; no one had claimed for it so high and sacred an origin; +no one had urged with such practical earnestness the duty of Churchmen +to recognise and maintain the unique authority of the Episcopate against +its despisers or oppressors. On the other hand, this was just the time +when the Evangelical party, after long disfavour, was beginning to gain +recognition, for the sake of its past earnestness and good works, with +men in power, and with ecclesiastical authorities of a different and +hitherto hostile school; and in the Tractarian movement the Evangelical +party saw from the first its natural enemy. The Bishops could not have +anything to do with the Tractarians without deeply offending the +Evangelicals. The result was that, for the present, the Bishops held +aloof. They let the movement run on by itself. Sharp sarcasms, +worldly-wise predictions, kind messages of approval, kind cautions, +passed from mouth to mouth, or in private correspondence from high +quarters, which showed that the movement was watched. But for some time +the authorities spoke neither good nor bad of it publicly. In his Charge +at the close of 1836, Bishop Phillpotts spoke in clear and unfaltering +language--language remarkable for its bold decision--of the necessity of +setting forth the true idea of the Church and the sacraments; but he was +silent about the call of the same kind which had come from Oxford. It +would have been well if the other Bishops later on, in their charges, +had followed his example. The Bishop of Oxford, in his Charge of 1838, +referred to the movement in balanced terms of praise and warning. The +first who condemned the movement was the Bishop of Chester, J. Bird +Sumner; in a later Charge he came to describe it as the work of Satan; +in 1838 he only denounced the "undermining of the foundations of our +Protestant Church by men who dwell within her walls," and the bad faith +of those "who sit in the Reformers' seat, and traduce the Reformation." + +These were grave mistakes on the part of those who were responsible for +the government of the University and the Church. They treated as absurd, +mischievous, and at length traitorous, an effort, than which nothing +could be more sincere, to serve the Church, to place its claims on +adequate grounds, to elevate the standard of duty in its clergy, and in +all its members. To have missed the aim of the movement and to have been +occupied and irritated by obnoxious details and vulgar suspicions was a +blunder which gave the measure of those who made it, and led to great +evils. They alienated those who wished for nothing better than to help +them in their true work. Their "unkindness" was felt to be, in Bacon's +phrase,[77] _injuriae potentiorum_. But on the side of the party of the +movement there were mistakes also. + +1. The rapidity with which the movement had grown, showing that some +deep need had long been obscurely felt, which the movement promised to +meet,[78] had been too great to be altogether wholesome. When we compare +what was commonly received before 1833, in teaching, in habits of life, +in the ordinary assumptions of history, in the ideas and modes of +worship, public and private--the almost sacramental conception of +preaching, the neglect of the common prayer of the Prayer Book, the +slight regard to the sacraments--with what the teaching of the Tracts +and their writers had impressed for good and all, five years later, on +numbers of earnest people, the change seems astonishing. The change was +a beneficial one and it was a permanent one. The minds which it +affected, it affected profoundly. Still it was but a short time, for +young minds especially, to have come to a decision on great and debated +questions. There was the possibility, the danger, of men having been +captivated and carried away by the excitement and interest of the time; +of not having looked all round and thought out the difficulties before +them; of having embraced opinions without sufficiently knowing their +grounds or counting the cost or considering the consequences. There was +the danger of precipitate judgment, of ill-balanced and disproportionate +views of what was true and all-important. There was an inevitable +feverishness in the way in which the movement was begun, in the way in +which it went on. Those affected by it were themselves surprised at the +swiftness of the pace. When a cause so great and so sacred seemed thus +to be flourishing, and carrying along with it men's assent and +sympathies, it was hardly wonderful that there should often be +exaggeration, impatience at resistance, scant consideration for the +slowness or the scruples or the alarms of others. Eager and sanguine men +talked as if their work was accomplished, when in truth it was but +beginning. No one gave more serious warnings against this and other +dangers than the leaders; and their warnings were needed.[79] + +2. Another mistake, akin to the last, was the frequent forgetfulness of +the apostolic maxim, "All things are lawful for me, but all things are +not expedient." In what almost amounted to a revolution in many of the +religious ideas of the time, it was especially important to keep +distinct the great central truths, the restoration of which to their +proper place justified and made it necessary, and the many subordinate +points allied with them and naturally following from them, which yet +were not necessary to their establishment or acceptance. But it was on +these subordinate points that the interest of a certain number of +followers of the movement was fastened. Conclusions which they had a +perfect right to come to, practices innocent and edifying to themselves, +but of secondary account, began to be thrust forward into prominence, +whether or not these instances of self-will really helped the common +cause, whether or not they gave a handle to ill-nature and ill-will. +Suspicion must always have attached to such a movement as this; but a +great deal of it was provoked by indiscreet defiance, which was rather +glad to provoke it. + +3. Apart from these incidents--common wherever a number of men are +animated with zeal for an inspiring cause--there were what to us now +seem mistakes made in the conduct itself of the movement. Considering +the difficulties of the work, it is wonderful that there were not more; +and none of them were discreditable, none but what arose from the +limitation of human powers matched against confused and baffling +circumstances. + +In the position claimed for the Church of England, confessedly unique +and anomalous in the history of Christendom, between Roman authority and +infallibility on one side, and Protestant freedom of private judgment on +the other, the question would at once arise as to the grounds of belief. +What, if any, are the foundations of conviction and certitude, apart +from personal inquiry, and examination of opposing arguments on +different sides of the case, and satisfactory logical conclusions? The +old antithesis between Faith and Reason, and the various problems +connected with it, could not but come to the front, and require to be +dealt with. It is a question which faces us from a hundred sides, and, +subtly and insensibly transforming itself, looks different from them +all. It was among the earliest attempted to be solved by the chief +intellectual leader of the movement, and it has occupied his mind to the +last.[80] However near the human mind seems to come to a solution, it +only, if so be, comes near; it never arrives. In the early days of the +movement it found prevailing the specious but shallow view that +everything in the search for truth was to be done by mere producible and +explicit argumentation; and yet it was obvious that of this two-thirds +of the world are absolutely incapable. Against this Mr. Newman and his +followers pressed, what was as manifestly certain in fact as it accorded +with any deep and comprehensive philosophy of the formation and growth +of human belief, that not arguments only, but the whole condition of the +mind to which they were addressed--and not the reasonings only which +could be stated, but those which went on darkly in the mind, and which +"there was not at the moment strength to bring forth," real and weighty +reasons which acted like the obscure rays of the spectrum, with their +proper force, yet eluding distinct observation--had their necessary and +inevitable and legitimate place in determining belief. All this was +perfectly true; but it is obvious how easily it might be taken hold of, +on very opposite sides, as a ground for saying that Tractarian or Church +views did not care about argument, or, indeed, rather preferred weak +arguments to strong ones in the practical work of life. It was ludicrous +to say it in a field of controversy, which, on the "Tractarian" side, +was absolutely bristling with argument, keen, subtle, deep, living +argument, and in which the victory in argument was certainly not always +with those who ventured to measure swords with Mr. Newman or Dr. Pusey. +Still, the scoff could be plausibly pointed at the "young enthusiasts +who crowded the Via Media, and who never presumed to argue, except +against the propriety of arguing at all." There was a good deal of +foolish sneering at reason; there was a good deal of silly bravado about +not caring whether the avowed grounds of opinions taken up were strong +or feeble. It was not merely the assent of a learner to his teacher, of +a mind without means of instruction to the belief which it has +inherited, or of one new to the ways and conditions of life to the +unproved assertions and opinions of one to whom experience had given an +open and sure eye. It was a positive carelessness, almost accounted +meritorious, to inquire and think, when their leaders called them to do +so. "The Gospel of Christ is not a matter of mere argument." It is not, +indeed, when it comes in its full reality, in half a hundred different +ways, known and unsearchable, felt and unfelt, moral and intellectual, +on the awakened and quickened soul. But the wildest fanatic can take the +same words into his mouth. Their true meaning was variously and +abundantly illustrated, especially in Mr. Newman's sermons. Still, the +adequate, the emphatic warning against their early abuse was hardly +pressed on the public opinion and sentiment of the party of the movement +with the force which really was requisite. To the end there were men who +took up their belief avowedly on insufficient and precarious grounds, +glorying in the venturesomeness of their faith and courage, and +justifying their temper of mind and their intellectual attitude by +alleging misinterpreted language of their wiser and deeper teachers. A +recoil from Whately's hard and barren dialectics, a sympathy with many +tender and refined natures which the movement had touched, made the +leaders patient with intellectual feebleness when it was joined with +real goodness and Christian temper; but this also sometimes made them +less impatient than they might well have been with that curious form of +conceit and affectation which veils itself under an intended and +supposed humility, a supposed distrust of self and its own powers. + +Another difficult matter, not altogether successfully managed--at least +from the original point of view of the movement, and of those who saw in +it a great effort for the good of the English Church--was the treatment +of the Roman controversy. The general line which the leaders proposed to +take was the one which was worthy of Christian and truth-loving +teachers. They took a new departure; and it was not less just than it +was brave, when, recognising to the full the overwhelming reasons why +"we should not be Romanists," they refused to take up the popular and +easy method of regarding the Roman Church as apostate and antichristian; +and declined to commit themselves to the vulgar and indiscriminate abuse +of it which was the discreditable legacy of the old days of controversy. +They did what all the world was loudly professing to do, they looked +facts in the face; they found, as any one would find who looked for +himself into the realities of the Roman Church, that though the bad was +often as bad as could be, there was still, and there had been all +along, goodness of the highest type, excellence both of system and of +personal life which it was monstrous to deny, and which we might well +admire and envy. To ignore all this was to fail in the first duty, not +merely of Christians, but of honest men; and we at home were not so +blameless that we could safely take this lofty tone of contemptuous +superiority. If Rome would only leave us alone, there would be +estrangement, lamentable enough among Christians, but there need be no +bitterness. But Rome would not leave us alone. The moment that there +were signs of awakening energy in England, that moment was chosen by its +agents, for now it could be done safely, to assail and thwart the +English Church. Doubtless they were within their rights, but this made +controversy inevitable, and for controversy the leaders of the movement +prepared themselves. It was an obstacle which they seemed hardly to have +expected, but which the nature of things placed in their way. But the +old style of controversy was impossible; impossible because it was so +coarse, impossible because it was so hollow. + +If the argument (says the writer of Tract 71, in words which are +applicable to every controversy) is radically unreal, or (what may be +called) rhetorical or sophistical, it may serve the purpose of +encouraging those who are really convinced, though scarcely without +doing mischief to them, but certainly it will offend and alienate the +more acute and sensible; while those who are in doubt, and who desire +some real and substantial ground for their faith, will not bear to be +put off with such shadows. The arguments (he continues) which we use +must be such as are likely to convince serious and earnest minds, which +are really seeking for the truth, not amusing themselves with +intellectual combats, or desiring to support an existing opinion anyhow. +However popular these latter methods may be, of however long standing, +however easy both to find and to use, they are a scandal; and while they +lower our religious standard from the first, they are sure of hurting +our cause in the end. + +And on this principle the line of argument in _The Prophetical Office of +the Church_ was taken by Mr. Newman. It was certainly no make-believe, +or unreal argument. It was a forcible and original way of putting part +of the case against Rome. It was part of the case, a very important +part; but it was not the whole case, and it ought to have been evident +from the first that in this controversy we could not afford to do +without the whole case. The argument from the claim of infallibility +said nothing of what are equally real parts of the case--the practical +working of the Roman Church, its system of government, the part which it +and its rulers have played in the history of the world. Rome has not +such a clean record of history, it has not such a clean account of what +is done and permitted in its dominions under an authority supposed to be +irresistible, that it can claim to be the one pure and perfect Church, +entitled to judge and correct and govern all other Churches. And if the +claim is made, there is no help for it, we must not shrink from the task +of giving the answer.[81] And, as experience has shown, the more that +rigid good faith is kept to in giving the answer, the more that +strictness and severity of even understatement are observed, the more +convincing will be the result that the Roman Church cannot be that which +it is alleged to be in its necessary theory and ideal. + +But this task was never adequately undertaken. It was one of no easy +execution.[82] Other things, apparently more immediately pressing, +intervened. There was no question for the present of perfect and +unfeigned confidence in the English Church, with whatever regrets for +its shortcomings, and desires for its improvement But to the outside +world it seemed as if there were a reluctance to face seriously the +whole of the Roman controversy; a disposition to be indulgent to Roman +defects, and unfairly hard on English faults. How mischievously this +told in the course of opinion outside and inside of the movement; how it +was misinterpreted and misrepresented; how these misinterpretations and +misrepresentations, with the bitterness and injustice which they +engendered, helped to realise themselves, was seen but too clearly at a +later stage. + +4. Lastly, looking back on the publications, regarded as characteristic +of the party, it is difficult not to feel that some of them gave an +unfortunate and unnecessary turn to things. + +The book which made most stir and caused the greatest outcry was +Froude's _Remains_. It was undoubtedly a bold experiment; but it was not +merely boldness. Except that it might be perverted into an excuse by the +shallow and thoughtless for merely "strong talk," it may fairly be said +that it was right and wise to let the world know the full measure and +depth of conviction which gave birth to the movement; and Froude's +_Remains_ did that in an unsuspiciously genuine way that nothing else +could have done. And, besides, it was worth while for its own sake to +exhibit with fearless honesty such a character, so high, so true, so +refined, so heroic. So again, Dr. Pusey's Tract on Baptism was a bold +book, and one which brought heavy imputations and misconstructions on +the party. In the teaching of his long life, Dr. Pusey has abundantly +dispelled the charges of harshness and over-severity which were urged, +not always very scrupulously, against the doctrine of the Tract on +Post-baptismal Sin. But it was written to redress the balance against +the fatally easy doctrines then in fashion; it was like the Portroyalist +protest against the fashionable Jesuits; it was one-sided, and +sometimes, in his earnestness, unguarded; and it wanted as yet the +complement of encouragement, consolation, and tenderness which his +future teaching was to supply so amply. But it was a blow struck, not +before it was necessary, by a strong hand; and it may safely be said +that it settled the place of the sacrament of baptism in the living +system of the English Church, which the negations and vagueness of the +Evangelical party had gravely endangered. But two other essays appeared +in the Tracts, most innocent in themselves, which ten or twenty years +later would have been judged simply on their merits, but which at the +time became potent weapons against Tractarianism. They were the +productions of two poets--of two of the most beautiful and religious +minds of their time; but in that stage of the movement it is hardly too +much to say that they were out of place. The cause of the movement +needed clear explanations; definite statements of doctrines which were +popularly misunderstood; plain, convincing reasoning on the issues which +were raised by it; a careful laying out of the ground on which English +theology was to be strengthened and enriched. Such were Mr. Newman's +_Lectures on Justification_, a work which made its lasting mark on +English theological thought; Mr. Keble's masterly exposition of the +meaning of Tradition; and not least, the important collections which +were documentary and historical evidence of the character of English +theology, the so-called laborious _Catenas_. These were the real tasks +of the hour, and they needed all that labour and industry could give. +But the first of these inopportune Tracts was an elaborate essay, by Mr. +Keble, on the "Mysticism of the Fathers in the use and interpretation of +Scripture." It was hardly what the practical needs of the time required, +and it took away men's thoughts from them; the prospect was hopeless +that in that state of men's minds it should be understood, except by a +very few; it merely helped to add another charge, the vague but +mischievous charge of mysticism, to the list of accusations against the +Tracts. The other, to the astonishment of every one, was like the +explosion of a mine. That it should be criticised and objected to was +natural; but the extraordinary irritation caused by it could hardly have +been anticipated. Written in the most devout and reverent spirit by one +of the gentlest and most refined of scholars, and full of deep +Scriptural knowledge, it furnished for some years the material for the +most savage attacks and the bitterest sneers to the opponents of the +movement. It was called "On Reserve in communicating Religious +Knowledge"; and it was a protest against the coarseness and shallowness +which threw the most sacred words about at random in loud and +declamatory appeals, and which especially dragged in the awful mystery +of the Atonement, under the crudest and most vulgar conception of it, as +a ready topic of excitement in otherwise commonplace and helpless +preaching. The word "Reserve" was enough. It meant that the +Tract-writers avowed the principle of keeping back part of the counsel +of God. It meant, further, that the real spirit of the party was +disclosed; its love of secret and crooked methods, its indifference to +knowledge, its disingenuous professions, its deliberate concealments, +its holding doctrines and its pursuit of aims which it dared not avow, +its _disciplina arcani_, its conspiracies, its Jesuitical spirit. All +this kind of abuse was flung plentifully on the party as the controversy +became warm; and it mainly justified itself by the Tract on "Reserve." +The Tract was in many ways a beautiful and suggestive essay, full of +deep and original thoughts, though composed in that spirit of the +recluse which was characteristic of the writer, and which is in strong +contrast with the energetic temper of to-day.[83] But it could well have +been spared at the moment, and it certainly offered itself to an +unfortunate use. The suspiciousness which so innocently it helped to +awaken and confirm was never again allayed. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[74] Fifty years ago there was much greater contrast than now between +old and young. There was more outward respect for the authorities, and +among the younger men, graduates and undergraduates, more inward +amusement at foibles and eccentricities. There still lingered the +survivals of a more old-fashioned type of University life and character, +which, quite apart from the movements of religious opinion, provoked +those [Greek: neanieumata idioton eis tous archontas],[75] +_impertinences of irresponsible juniors towards superiors_, which +Wordsworth, speaking of a yet earlier time, remembered at Cambridge-- + + "In serious mood, but oftener, I confess, + With playful zest of fancy, did we note + (How could we less?) the manners and the ways + Of those who lived distinguished by the badge + Of good or ill report; or those with whom + By frame of Academic discipline + We were perforce connected, men whose sway + And known authority of office served + To set our minds on edge, and did no more. + Nor wanted we rich pastime of this kind, + Found everywhere, but chiefly in the ring + Of the grave Elders, men unsecured, grotesque + In character, tricked out like aged trees + Which through the lapse of their infirmity + Give ready place to any random seed + That chooses to be reared upon their trunks." + + _Prelude_, bk. iii. + + +[75] Plat. _R.P._ iii. 390. + +[76] _Tracts for the Times_, No. 1, 9th September 1833. + +[77] _An Advertisement touching the Controversies of the Church of +England:_ printed in the _Resuscitatio_, p. 138 (ed. 1671). + +[78] See Mr. Newman's article, "The State of Religious Parties," in the +_British Critic_, April 1839, reprinted in his _Essays Historical and +Critical_, 1871, Vol. 1., essay vi. + +[79] "It would not be at all surprising, though, in spite of the +earnestness of the principal advocates of the views in question, for +which every one seems to give them credit, there should be among their +followers much that is enthusiastic, extravagant, or excessive. All +these aberrations will be and are imputed to the doctrines from which +they proceed; nor unnaturally, but hardly fairly, for aberrations there +must be, whatever the doctrine is, while the human heart is sensitive, +capricious, and wayward.... There will ever be a number of persons +professing the opinions of a movement party, who talk loudly and +strangely, do odd and fierce things, display themselves unnecessarily, +and disgust other people; there will ever be those who are too young to +be wise, too generous to be cautious, too warm to be sober, or too +intellectual to be humble; of whom human sagacity cannot determine, +only the event, and perhaps not even that, whether they feel what +they say, or how far; whether they are to be encouraged or +discountenanced."--_British Critic_, April 1839, "State of Religious +Parties," p. 405. + +[80] Cardinal Newman, _Grammar of Assent_. + +[81] The argument from history is sketched fairly, but only sketched in +_The Prophetic Office_, Lect. xiv. + +[82] In the Roman controversy it is sometimes hard to be just without +appearing to mean more than is said; for the obligation of justice +sometimes forces one who wishes to be a fair judge to be apparently an +apologist or advocate. Yet the supreme duty in religious controversy is +justice. But for the very reason that these controversialists wished to +be just to Rome, they were bound to be just against her. They meant to +be so; but events passed quickly, and leisure never came for a work +which involved a serious appeal to history. + +[83] _Vide_ a striking review in the _British Critic_, April 1839, +partly correcting and guarding the view given in the Tract. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +NO. 90 + + +The formation of a strong Romanising section in the Tractarian party was +obviously damaging to the party and dangerous to the Church. It was _pro +tanto_ a verification of the fundamental charge against the party, a +charge which on paper they had met successfully, but which acquired +double force when this paper defence was traversed by facts. And a great +blow was impending over the Church, if the zeal and ability which the +movement had called forth and animated were to be sucked away from the +Church, and not only lost to it, but educated into a special instrument +against it. But the divergence became clear only gradually, and the hope +that after all it was only temporary and would ultimately disappear was +long kept up by the tenacity with which Mr. Newman, in spite of +misgivings and disturbing thoughts, still recognised the gifts and +claims of the English Church. And on the other hand, the bulk of the +party, and its other Oxford leaders, Dr. Pusey, Mr. Keble, Mr. Isaac +Williams, Mr. Marriott, were quite unaffected by the disquieting +apprehensions which were beginning to beset Mr. Newman. With a humbling +consciousness of the practical shortcomings of the English Church, with +a ready disposition to be honest and just towards Rome, and even to +minimise our differences with it, they had not admitted for a moment any +doubt of the reality of the English Church. The class of arguments which +specially laid hold of Mr. Newman's mind did not tell upon them--the +peculiar aspect of early precedents, about which, moreover, a good deal +of criticism was possible; or the large and sweeping conception of a +vast, ever-growing, imperial Church, great enough to make flaws and +imperfections of no account, which appealed so strongly to his +statesmanlike imagination. Their content with the Church in which they +had been brought up, in which they had been taught religion, and in +which they had taken service, their deep and affectionate loyalty and +piety to it, in spite of all its faults, remained unimpaired; and +unimpaired, also, was their sense of vast masses of practical evil in +the Roman Church, evils from which they shrank both as Englishmen and as +Christians, and which seemed as incurable as they were undeniable. +Beyond the hope which they vaguely cherished that some day or other, by +some great act of Divine mercy, these evils might disappear, and the +whole Church become once more united, there was nothing to draw them +towards Rome; submission was out of the question, and they could only +see in its attitude in England the hostility of a jealous and +unscrupulous disturber of their Master's work. The movement still went +on, with its original purpose, and on its original lines, in spite of +the presence in it, and even the co-operation, of men who might one day +have other views, and serious and fatal differences with their old +friends. + +The change of religion when it comes on a man gradually,--when it is not +welcomed from the first, but, on the contrary, long resisted, must +always be a mysterious and perplexing process, hard to realise and +follow by the person most deeply interested, veiled and clouded to +lookers-on, because naturally belonging to the deepest depths of the +human conscience, and inevitably, and without much fault on either side, +liable to be misinterpreted and misunderstood. And this process is all +the more tangled when it goes on, not in an individual mind, travelling +in its own way on its own path, little affected by others, and little +affecting them, but in a representative person, with the +responsibilities of a great cause upon him, bound by closest ties of +every kind to friends, colleagues, and disciples, thinking, feeling, +leading, pointing out the way for hundreds who love and depend on him. +Views and feelings vary from day to day, according to the events and +conditions of the day. How shall he speak, and how shall he be silent? +How shall he let doubts and difficulties appear, yet how shall he +suppress them?--doubts which may grow and become hopeless, but which, on +the other hand, may be solved and disappear. How shall he go on as if +nothing had happened, when all the foundations of the world seem to have +sunk from under him? Yet how shall he disclose the dreadful secret, when +he is not yet quite sure whether his mind will not still rally from its +terror and despair? He must in honesty, in kindness, give some warning, +yet how much? and how to prevent it being taken for more than it means? +There are counter-considerations, to which he cannot shut his eyes. +There are friends who will not believe his warnings. There are watchful +enemies who are on the look-out for proofs of disingenuousness and bad +faith. He could cut through his difficulties at once by making the +plunge in obedience to this or that plausible sign or train of +reasoning, but his conscience and good faith will not let him take +things so easily; and yet he knows that if he hangs on, he will be +accused by and by, perhaps speciously, of having been dishonest and +deceiving. So subtle, so shifting, so impalpable are the steps by which +a faith is disintegrated; so evanescent, and impossible to follow, the +shades by which one set of convictions pass into others wholly opposite; +for it is not knowledge and intellect alone which come into play, but +all the moral tastes and habits of the character, its likings and +dislikings, its weakness and its strength, its triumphs and its +vexations, its keenness and its insensibilities, which are in full +action, while the intellect alone seems to be busy with its problems. A +picture has been given us, belonging to this time, of the process, by a +great master of human nature, and a great sufferer under the process; it +is, perhaps, the greatest attempt ever made to describe it; but it is +not wholly successful. It tells us much, for it is written with touching +good faith, but the complete effect as an intelligible whole is wanting. + +"In the spring of 1839," we read in the _Apologia_, "my position in the +Anglican Church was at its height. I had a supreme confidence in my +controversial _status_, and I had a great and still growing success in +recommending it to others."[84] This, then, may be taken as the point +from which, in the writer's own estimate, the change is to be traced. He +refers for illustration of his state of mind to the remarkable article +on the "State of Religious Parties," in the April number of the _British +Critic_ for 1839, which he has since republished under the title of +"Prospects of the Anglican Church."[85] "I have looked over it now," he +writes in 1864, "for the first time since it was published; and have +been struck by it for this reason: it contains _the last words which I +ever spoke as an Anglican to Anglicans_.... It may now be read as my +parting address and valediction, made to my friends. I little knew it at +the time." He thus describes the position which he took in the article +referred to:-- + + Conscious as I was that my opinions in religious matters were not + gained, as the world said, from Roman sources, but were, on the + contrary, the birth of my own mind and of the circumstances in which I + had been placed, I had a scorn of the imputations which were heaped + upon me. It was true that I held a large, bold system of religion, + very unlike the Protestantism of the day, but it was the concentration + and adjustment of the statements of great Anglican authorities, and I + had as much right to do so as the Evangelical party had, and more + right than the Liberal, to hold their own respective doctrines. As I + spoke on occasion of Tract 90, I claimed, on behalf of the writer, + that he might hold in the Anglican Church a comprecation of the Saints + with Bramhall; and the Mass, all but Transubstantiation, with + Andrewes; or with Hooker that Transubstantiation itself is not a point + for Churches to part communion upon; or with Hammond that a General + Council, truly such, never did, never shall err in a matter of faith; + or with Bull that man lost inward grace by the Fall; or with Thorndike + that penance is a propitiation for post-baptismal sin; or with Pearson + that the all-powerful name of Jesus is no otherwise given than in the + Catholic Church. "Two can play at that game" was often in my mouth, + when men of Protestant sentiments appealed to the Articles, Homilies, + and Reformers, in the sense that if they had a right to speak loud I + had both the liberty and the means of giving them tit for tat. I + thought that the Anglican Church had been tyrannised over by a Party, + and I aimed at bringing into effect the promise contained in the motto + to the _Lyra_: "They shall know the difference now." I only asked to + be allowed to show them the difference. + + I have said already (he goes on) that though the object of the + movement was to withstand the Liberalism of the day, I found and felt + that this could not be done by negatives. It was necessary for me to + have a positive Church theory erected on a definite basis. This took + me to the great Anglican divines; and then, of course, I found at once + that it was impossible to form any such theory without cutting across + the teaching of the Church of Rome. Thus came in the Roman + controversy. When I first turned myself to it I had neither doubt on + the subject, nor suspicion that doubt would ever come on me. It was in + this state of mind that I began to read up Bellarmine on the one hand, + and numberless Anglican writers on the other.[86] + +And he quotes from the article the language which he used, to show the +necessity of providing some clear and strong basis for religious thought +in view of the impending conflict of principles, religious and +anti-religious, "Catholic and Rationalist," which to far-seeing men, +even at that comparatively early time, seemed inevitable:-- + + Then indeed will be the stern encounter, when two real and living + principles, simple, entire, and consistent, one in the Church, the + other out of it, at length rush upon each other, contending not for + names and words, a half view, but for elementary notions and + distinctive moral characters. Men will not keep standing in that very + attitude which you call sound Church-of-Englandism or orthodox + Protestantism. They will take one view or another, but it will be a + consistent one ... it will be real.... Is it sensible, sober, + judicious, to be so very angry with the writers of the day who point + to the fact, that our divines of the seventeenth century have occupied + a ground which is the true and intelligible mean between extremes?... + Would you rather have your sons and your daughters members of the + Church of England or of the Church of Rome?[87] + +"The last words that I spoke as an Anglican to Anglicans,"--so he +describes this statement of his position and its reasons; so it seems to +him, as he looks back. And yet in the intimate and frank disclosures +which he makes, he has shown us much that indicates both that his +Anglicanism lasted much longer and that his Roman sympathies began to +stir much earlier. This only shows the enormous difficulties of +measuring accurately the steps of a transition state. The mind, in such +a strain of buffeting, is never in one stay. The old seems impregnable, +yet it has been undermined; the new is indignantly and honestly +repelled, and yet leaves behind it its never-to-be-forgotten and +unaccountable spell. The story, as he tells it, goes on, how, in the +full swing and confidence of his Anglicanism, and in the course of his +secure and fearless study of antiquity, appearance after appearance +presented itself, unexpected, threatening, obstinate, in the history of +the Early Church, by which this confidence was first shaken and then +utterly broken down in the summer of 1839. And he speaks as though all +had been over after two years from that summer: "From the end of 1841 I +was on my death-bed, as regards my membership with the Anglican Church, +though at the time I became aware of it only by degrees." In truth, it +was only the end which showed that it was a "death-bed." He had not yet +died to allegiance or "to hope, then or for some time afterwards." He +speaks in later years of the result, and reads what was then in the +light of what followed. But after all that had happened, and much, of +course, disturbing happened in 1841, he was a long way off from what +then could have been spoken of as "a death-bed." Deep and painful +misgivings may assail the sincerest faith; they are not fatal signs till +faith has finally given way. + +What is true is, that the whole state of religion, and the whole aspect +of Christianity in the world, had come to seem to him portentously +strange and anomalous. No theory would take in and suit all the facts, +which the certainties of history and experience presented. Neither in +England, nor in Rome, and much less anywhere else, did the old, to which +all appealed, agree with the new; it might agree variously in this point +or in that, in others there were contrarieties which it was vain to +reconcile. Facts were against the English claim to be a Catholic +Church--how could Catholicity be shut up in one island? How could +England assert its continuity of doctrine? Facts were against the Roman +claim to be an infallible, and a perfect, and the whole Church--how +could that be perfect which was marked in the face of day with enormous +and undeniable corruptions? How could that be infallible which was +irreconcilable with ancient teaching? How could that be the whole +Church, which, to say nothing of the break-up in the West, ignored, as +if it had no existence, the ancient and uninterrupted Eastern Church? +Theory after theory came up, and was tried, and was found wanting. Each +had much to say for itself, its strong points, its superiority over its +rivals in dealing with the difficulties of the case, its plausibilities +and its imaginative attractions. But all had their tender spot, and +flinched when they were touched in earnest. In the confusions and sins +and divisions of the last fifteen centuries, profound disorganisation +had fastened on the Western Church. Christendom was not, could not be +pretended to be, what it had been in the fourth century; and whichever +way men looked the reasons were not hard to see. The first and +characteristic feeling of the movement, one which Mr. Newman had done so +much to deepen, was that of shame and humiliation at the disorder at +home, as well as in every part of the Church. It was not in Rome only, +or in England only; it was everywhere. What had been peculiar to +Anglicanism among all its rivals, was that it had emphatically and +without reserve confessed it. + +With this view of the dislocation and the sins of the Church, he could +at once with perfect consistency recognise the shortcomings of the +English branch of the Church, and yet believe and maintain that it was +a true and living branch. The English fragment was not what it should +be, was indeed much that it should not be; the same could be said of the +Roman, though in different respects. This, as he himself reminds us, was +no new thing to his mind when the unsettlement of 1839 began. "At the +end of 1835, or the beginning of 1836, I had the whole state of the +question before me, on which, to my mind, the decision between the +Churches depended." It did not, he says, depend on the claims of the +Pope, as centre of unity; "it turned on the Faith of the Church"; "there +was a contrariety of _claims_ between the Roman and Anglican religions"; +and up to 1839, with the full weight of Roman arguments recognised, with +the full consciousness of Anglican disadvantages, he yet spoke clearly +for Anglicanism. Even when misgivings became serious, the balance still +inclined without question the old way. He hardly spoke stronger in 1834 +than he did in 1841, after No. 90. + + And now (he writes in his Letter to the Bishop of Oxford[88]) having + said, I trust, as much as your Lordship requires on the subject of + Romanism, I will add a few words, to complete my explanation, in + acknowledgment of the inestimable privilege I feel in being a member + of that Church over which your Lordship, with others, presides. + Indeed, did I not feel it to be a privilege which I am able to seek + nowhere else on earth, why should I be at this moment writing to your + Lordship? What motive have I for an unreserved and joyful submission + to your authority, but the feeling that the Church in which your + Lordship rules is a divinely-ordained channel of supernatural grace to + the souls of her members? Why should I not prefer my own opinion, and + my own way of acting, to that of the Bishop's, except that I know full + well that in matters indifferent I should be acting lightly towards + the Spouse of Christ and the awful Presence which dwells in her, if I + hesitated a moment to put your Lordship's will before my own? I know + full well that your Lordship's kindness to me personally would be in + itself quite enough to win any but the most insensible heart, and, did + a clear matter of conscience occur in which I felt bound to act for + myself, my feelings towards your Lordship would be a most severe trial + to me, independently of the higher considerations to which I have + alluded; but I trust I have shown my dutifulness to you prior to the + influence of personal motives; and this I have done because I think + that to belong to the Catholic Church is the first of all privileges + here below, as involving in it heavenly privileges, and because I + consider the Church over which your Lordship presides to be the + Catholic Church in this country. Surely then I have no need to profess + in words, I will not say my attachment, but my deep reverence towards + the Mother of Saints, when I am showing it in action; yet that words + may not be altogether wanting, I beg to lay before your Lordship the + following extract from a defence of the English Church, which I wrote + against a Roman controversialist in the course of the last year. + + "The Church is emphatically a living body, and there can be no greater + proof of a particular communion being part of the Church than the + appearance in it of a continued and abiding energy, nor a more + melancholy proof of its being a corpse than torpidity. We say an + energy continued and abiding, for accident will cause the activity of + a moment, and an external principle give the semblance of self-motion. + On the other hand, even a living body may for a while be asleep. + + * * * * * + + "It concerns, then, those who deny that we are the true Church because + we have not at present this special note, intercommunion with other + Christians, to show cause why the Roman Church in the tenth century + should be so accounted, with profligates, or rather the profligate + mothers of profligate sons for her supreme rulers. And still + notwithstanding life _is_ a note of the Church; she alone revives, + even if she declines; heretical and schismatical bodies cannot keep + life; they gradually became cold, stiff, and insensible. + + * * * * * + + "Now if there ever were a Church on whom the experiment has been + tried, whether it had life in it or not, the English is that one. For + three centuries it has endured all vicissitudes of fortune. It has + endured in trouble and prosperity, under seduction, and under + oppression. It has been practised upon by theorists, browbeaten by + sophists, intimidated by princes, betrayed by false sons, laid waste + by tyranny, corrupted by wealth, torn by schism, and persecuted by + fanaticism. Revolutions have come upon it sharply and suddenly, to and + fro, hot and cold, as if to try what it was made of. + + "It has been a sort of battlefield on which opposite principles have + been tried. No opinion, however extreme any way, but may be found, as + the Romanists are not slow to reproach us, among its Bishops and + Divines. Yet what has been its career upon the whole? Which way has it + been moving through 300 years? Where does it find itself at the end? + Lutherans have tended to Rationalism; Calvinists have become + Socinians; but what has it become? As far as its Formularies are + concerned, it may be said all along to have grown towards a more + perfect Catholicism than that with which it started at the time of its + estrangement; every act, every crisis which marks its course, has been + upward. + + * * * * * + + "What a note of the Church is the mere production of a man like + Butler, a pregnant fact much to be meditated on! and how strange it + is, if it be as it seems to be, that the real influence of his work is + only just now beginning! and who can prophesy in what it will end? + Thus our Divines grow with centuries, expanding after their death in + the minds of their readers into more and more exact Catholicism as + years roll on. + + * * * * * + + "Look across the Atlantic to the daughter Churches of England in the + States: 'Shall one that is barren bear a child in her old age?' yet + 'the barren hath borne seven.' Schismatic branches put out their + leaves at once, in an expiring effort; our Church has waited three + centuries, and then blossoms like Aaron's rod, budding and blooming + and yielding fruit, while the rest are dry. And lastly, look at the + present position of the Church at home; there, too, we shall find a + note of the true City of God, the Holy Jerusalem. She is in warfare + with the world, as the Church Militant should be; she is rebuking the + world, she is hated, she is pillaged by the world. + + * * * * * + + "Much might be said on this subject. At all times, since Christianity + came into the world, an open contest has been going on between + religion and irreligion; and the true Church, of course, has ever been + on the religious side. This, then, is a sure test in every age _where_ + the Christian should stand.... Now, applying this simple criterion to + the public Parties of this DAY, it is very plain that the English + Church is at present on God's side, and therefore, so far, God's + Church; we are sorry to be obliged to add that there is as little + doubt on which side English Romanism is. + + * * * * * + + "As for the English Church, surely she has notes enough, 'the signs of + an Apostle in all patience, and signs and wonders and mighty deeds.' + She has the note of possession, the note of freedom from party-titles; + the note of life, a tough life and a vigorous; she has ancient + descent, unbroken continuance, agreement in doctrine with the ancient + Church. Those of Bellarmine's Notes, which she certainly has not, are + intercommunion with Christendom, the glory of miracles, and the + prophetical light, but the question is, whether she has not enough of + Divinity about her to satisfy her sister Churches on their own + principles, that she is one body with them." + + This may be sufficient to show my feelings towards my Church, as far + as Statements on paper can show them. + +How earnestly, how sincerely he clung to the English Church, even after +he describes himself on his "death-bed," no one can doubt. The charm of +the _Apologia_ is the perfect candour with which he records fluctuations +which to many are inconceivable and unintelligible, the different and +sometimes opposite and irreconcilable states of mind through which he +passed, with no attempt to make one fit into another. It is clear, from +what he tells us, that his words in 1839 were not his _last_ words as an +Anglican to Anglicans. With whatever troubles of mind, he strove to be a +loyal and faithful Anglican long after that. He spoke as an Anglican. He +fought for Anglicanism. The theory, as he says, may have gone by the +board, in the intellectual storms raised by the histories of the +Monophysites and Donatists. "By these great words of the ancient +father--_Securus judicat orbis terrarum_"--the theory of the _Via Media_ +was "absolutely pulverised." He was "sore," as he says in 1840, "about +the great Anglican divines, as if they had taken me in, and made me say +strong things against Rome, which facts did not justify."[89] Yes, he +felt, as other men do not feel, the weak points of even a strong +argument, the exaggerations and unfairness of controversialists on his +own side, the consciousness that you cannot have things in fact, or in +theory, or in reasoning, smoothly and exactly as it would be convenient, +and as you would like to have them. But his conclusion, on the whole, +was unshaken. There was enough, and amply enough, in the English Church +to bind him to its allegiance, to satisfy him of its truth and its life, +enough in the Roman to warn him away. In the confusions of Christendom, +in the strong and obstinate differences of schools and parties in the +English Church, he, living in days of inquiry and criticism, claimed to +take and recommend a theological position on many controverted +questions, which many might think a new one, and which might not be +exactly that occupied by any existing school or party.[90] "We are all," +he writes to an intimate friend on 22d April 1842, a year after No. 90, +"much quieter and more resigned than we were, and are remarkably +desirous of building up a position, and proving that the English theory +is tenable, or rather the English state of things. If the Bishops would +leave us alone, the fever would subside." + +He wanted, when all other parties were claiming room for their +speculations, to claim room for his own preference for ancient doctrine. +He wished to make out that no branch of the Church had authoritatively +committed itself to language which was hopelessly and fatally +irreconcilable with Christian truth. But he claimed nothing but what he +could maintain to be fairly within the authorised formularies of the +English Church. He courted inquiry, he courted argument. If his claim +seemed a new one, if his avowed leaning to ancient and Catholic views +seemed to make him more tolerant than had been customary, not to Roman +abuses, but to Roman authoritative language, it was part of the more +accurate and the more temperate and charitable thought of our day +compared with past times. It was part of the same change which has +brought Church opinions from the unmitigated Calvinism of the Lambeth +Articles to what the authorities of those days would have denounced, +without a doubt, as Arminianism. Hooker was gravely and seriously +accused to the Council for saying that a Papist could be saved, and had +some difficulty to clear himself; it was as natural then as it is +amazing now.[91] + +But with this sincere loyalty to the English Church, as he believed it +to be, there was, no doubt, in the background the haunting and +disquieting misgiving that the attempt to connect more closely the +modern Church with the ancient, and this widened theology in a direction +which had been hitherto specially and jealously barred, was putting the +English Church on its trial. Would it bear it? Would it respond to the +call to rise to a higher and wider type of doctrine, to a higher +standard of life? Would it justify what Mr. Newman had placed in the +forefront among the notes of the true Church, the note of Sanctity? +Would the _Via Media_ make up for its incompleteness as a theory by +developing into reality and fruitfulness of actual results? Would the +Church bear to be told of its defaults? Would it allow to the +maintainers of Catholic and Anglican principles the liberty which +others claimed, and which by large and powerful bodies of opinion was +denied to Anglicans? Or would it turn out on trial, that the _Via Media_ +was an idea without substance, a dialectical fiction, a mere theological +expedient for getting out of difficulties, unrecognised, and when put +forward, disowned? Would it turn out that the line of thought and +teaching which connected the modern with the ancient Church was but the +private and accidental opinion of Hooker and Andrewes and Bull and +Wilson, unauthorised in the English Church, uncongenial to its spirit, +if not contradictory to its formularies? It is only just to Mr. Newman +to say, that even after some of his friends were frightened, he long +continued to hope for the best; but undoubtedly, more and more, his +belief in the reality of the English Church was undergoing a very +severe, and as time went on, discouraging testing. + +In this state of things he published the Tract No. 90. It was occasioned +by the common allegation, on the side of some of the advanced section of +the Tractarians, as well as on the side of their opponents, that the +Thirty-nine Articles were hopelessly irreconcilable with that Catholic +teaching which Mr. Newman had defended on the authority of our great +divines, but which both the parties above mentioned were ready to +identify with the teaching of the Roman Church. The Tract was intended, +by a rigorous examination of the language of the Articles, to traverse +this allegation. It sought to show that all that was clearly and +undoubtedly Catholic, this language left untouched:[92] that it was +doubtful whether even the formal definitions of the Council of Trent +were directly and intentionally contradicted; and that what were really +aimed at were the abuses and perversions of a great popular and +authorised system, tyrannical by the force of custom and the obstinate +refusal of any real reformation. + + It is often urged (says the writer), and sometimes felt and granted, + that there are in the Articles propositions or terms inconsistent with + the Catholic faith; or, at least, if persons do not go so far as to + feel the objection as of force, they are perplexed how best to answer + it, or how most simply to explain the passages on which it is made to + rest. The following Tract is drawn up with the view of showing how + groundless the objection is, and further, of approximating towards the + argumentative answer to it, of which most men have an implicit + apprehension, though they may have nothing more. That there are real + difficulties to a Catholic Christian in the ecclesiastical position of + our Church at this day, no one can deny; but the statements of the + Articles are not in the number, and it may be right at the present + moment to insist upon this. + +When met by the objection that the ideas of the framers of the Articles +were well known, and that it was notorious that they had meant to put an +insuperable barrier between the English Church and everything that +savoured of Rome, the writer replied that the actual English Church +received the Articles not from them but from a much later authority, +that we are bound by their words not by their private sentiments either +as theologians or ecclesiastical politicians, and that in fact they had +intended the Articles to comprehend a great body of their countrymen, +who would have been driven away by any extreme and anti-Catholic +declarations even against Rome. The temper of compromise is +characteristic of the English as contrasted with the foreign +Reformation. It is visible, not only in the Articles, but in the polity +of the English Church, which clung so obstinately to the continuity and +forms of the ancient hierarchical system, it is visible in the +sacramental offices of the Prayer Book, which left so much out to +satisfy the Protestants, and left so much in to satisfy the Catholics. + +The Tract went in detail through the Articles which were commonly looked +upon as either anti-Catholic or anti-Roman. It went through them with a +dry logical way of interpretation, such as a professed theologian might +use, who was accustomed to all the niceties of language and the +distinctions of the science. It was the way in which they would be +likely to be examined and construed by a purely legal court. The effect +of it, doubtless, was like that produced on ordinary minds by the +refinements of a subtle advocate, or by the judicial interpretation of +an Act of Parliament which the judges do not like; and some of the +interpretations undoubtedly seemed far-fetched and artificial. Yet some +of those which were pointed to at the time as flagrant instances of +extravagant misinterpretation have now come to look different. Nothing +could exceed the scorn poured on the interpretation of the Twenty-second +Article, that it condemns the "_Roman_" doctrine of Purgatory, but not +_all_ doctrine of purgatory as a place of gradual purification beyond +death. But in our days a school very far removed from Mr. Newman's would +require and would claim to make the same distinction. And so with the +interpretation of the "Sacrifices of Masses" in the same article. It was +the fashion in 1841 to see in this the condemnation of all doctrine of a +sacrifice in the Eucharist; and when Mr. Newman confined the phrase to +the gross abuses connected with the Mass, this was treated as an affront +to common sense and honesty. Since then we have become better acquainted +with the language of the ancient liturgies--, and no instructed +theologian could now venture to treat Mr. Newman's distinction as idle. +There was in fact nothing new in his distinctions on these two points. +They had already been made in two of the preceding Tracts, the reprint +of Archbishop Ussher on Prayers for the Dead, and the Catena on the +Eucharistie Sacrifice; and in both cases the distinctions were supported +by a great mass of Anglican authority.[93] + +But the Tract had sufficient novelty about it to account for most of +the excitement which it caused. Its dryness and negative curtness were +provoking. It was not a positive argument, it was not an appeal to +authorities; it was a paring down of language, alleged in certain +portions of the Articles to be somewhat loose, to its barest meaning; +and to those to whom that language had always seemed to speak with +fulness and decision, it seemed like sapping and undermining a cherished +bulwark. Then it seemed to ask for more liberty than the writer in his +position at that time needed; and the object of such an indefinite +claim, in order to remove, if possible, misunderstandings between two +long-alienated branches of the Western Church, was one to excite in many +minds profound horror and dismay. That it maintained without flinching +and as strongly as ever the position and the claim of the English Church +was nothing to the purpose; the admission, both that Rome, though +wrong, might not be as wrong as we thought her, and that the language of +the Articles, though unquestionably condemnatory of much, was not +condemnatory of as much as people thought, and might possibly be even +harmonised with Roman authoritative language, was looked upon as +incompatible with loyalty to the English Church. + +The question which the Tract had opened, what the Articles meant and to +what men were bound by accepting them, was a most legitimate one for +discussion; and it was most natural also that any one should hesitate to +answer it as the Tract answered it. But it was distinctly a question for +discussion. It was not so easy for any of the parties in the Church to +give a clear and consistent answer, as that the matter ought at once to +have been carried out of the region of discussion. The Articles were the +Articles of a Church which had seen as great differences as those +between the Church of Edward VI and the Church of the Restoration. Take +them broadly as the condemnation--strong but loose in expression, as, +for instance, in the language on the "five, commonly called +Sacraments"--of a powerful and well-known antagonist system, and there +was no difficulty about them. But take them as scientific and accurate +and precise enunciations of a systematic theology, and difficulties +begin at once, with every one who does not hold the special and +well-marked doctrines of the age when the German and Swiss authorities +ruled supreme. The course of events from that day to this has shown +more than once, in surprising and even startling examples, how much +those who at the time least thought that they needed such strict +construing of the language of the Articles, and were fierce in +denouncing the "kind of interpretation" said to be claimed in No. 90, +have since found that they require a good deal more elasticity of +reading than even it asked for. The "whirligig of time" was thought to +have brought "its revenges," when Mr. Newman, who had called for the +exercise of authority against Dr. Hampden, found himself, five years +afterwards, under the ban of the same authority. The difference between +Mr. Newman's case and Dr. Hampden's, both as to the alleged offence and +the position of the men, was considerable. But the "whirligig of time" +brought about even stranger "revenges," when not only Mr. Gorham and Mr. +H.B. Wilson in their own defence, but the tribunals which had to decide +on their cases, carried the strictness of reading and the latitude of +interpretation, quite as far, to say the least, as anything in No. 90. + +Unhappily Tract 90 was met at Oxford, not with argument, but with panic +and wrath.[94] There is always a sting in every charge, to which other +parts of it seem subordinate. No. 90 was charged of course with false +doctrine, with false history, and with false reasoning; but the emphatic +part of the charge, the short and easy method which dispensed from the +necessity of theological examination and argument, was that it was +dishonest and immoral. Professors of Divinity, and accomplished +scholars, such as there were in Oxford, might very well have considered +it an occasion to dispute both the general principle of the Tract, if it +was so dangerous, and the illustrations, in the abundance of which the +writer had so frankly thrown open his position to searching criticism. +It was a crisis in which much might have been usefully said, if there +had been any one to say it; much too, to make any one feel, if he was +competent to feel, that he had a good deal to think about in his own +position, and that it would be well to ascertain what was tenable and +what untenable in it. But it seemed as if the opportunity must not be +lost for striking a blow. The Tract was published on 27th February. On +the 8th of March four Senior Tutors, one of whom was Mr. H.B. Wilson, of +St. John's, and another Mr. Tait, of Balliol, addressed the Editor of +the Tract, charging No. 90 with suggesting and opening a way, by which +men might, at least in the case of Roman views, violate their solemn +engagements to their University. On the 15th of March, the Board of +Heads of Houses, refusing to wait for Mr. Newman's defence, which was +known to be coming, and which bears date 13th March, published their +judgment They declared that in No. 90 "modes of interpretation were +suggested, and have since been advocated in other publications +purporting to be written by members of the University, by which +subscription to the Articles might be reconciled with the adoption of +Roman Catholic error." And they announced their resolution, "That modes +of interpretation, such as are suggested in the said Tract, evading +rather than explaining the sense of the Thirty-nine Articles, and +reconciling subscription to them with the adoption of errors which they +are designed to counteract, defeat the object, and are inconsistent with +the due observance of the above-mentioned statutes."[95] + +It was an ungenerous and stupid blunder, such as men make, when they +think or are told that "something must be done," and do not know what. +It gave the writer an opportunity, of which he took full advantage, of +showing his superiority in temper, in courtesy, and in reason, to those +who had not so much condemned as insulted him. He was immediately ready +with his personal expression of apology and regret, and also with his +reassertion in more developed argument of the principle of the Tract; +and this was followed up by further explanations in a letter to the +Bishop. And in spite of the invidious position in which the Board had +tried to place him, not merely as an unsound divine, but as a dishonest +man teaching others to palter with their engagements, the crisis drew +forth strong support and sympathy where they were not perhaps to be +expected. It rallied to him, at least for the time, some of the friends +who had begun to hold aloof. Mr. Palmer, of Worcester, Mr. Perceval, Dr. +Hook, with reserves according to each man's point of view, yet came +forward in his defence. The Board was made to feel that they had been +driven by violent and partisan instigations to commit themselves to a +very foolish as well as a very passionate and impotent step; that they +had by very questionable authority simply thrown an ill-sounding and +ill-mannered word at an argument on a very difficult question, to which +they themselves certainly were not prepared with a clear and +satisfactory answer; that they had made the double mistake of declaring +war against a formidable antagonist, and of beginning it by creating the +impression that they had treated him shabbily, and were really afraid to +come to close quarters with him. As the excitement of hasty counsels +subsided, the sense of this began to awake in some of them; they tried +to represent the off-hand and ambiguous words of the condemnation as not +meaning all that they had been taken to mean. But the seed of bitterness +had been sown. Very little light was thrown, in the strife of pamphlets +which ensued, on the main subject dealt with in No. 90, the authority +and interpretation of such formularies as our Articles. The easier and +more tempting and very fertile topic of debate was the honesty and good +faith of the various disputants. Of the four Tutors, only one, Mr. H.B. +Wilson, published an explanation of their part in the matter; it was a +clumsy, ill-written and laboured pamphlet, which hardly gave promise of +the intellectual vigour subsequently displayed by Mr. Wilson, when he +appeared, not as the defender, but the assailant of received opinions. +The more distinguished of the combatants were Mr. Ward and Mr. R. Lowe. +Mr. Ward, with his usual dialectical skill, not only defended the Tract, +but pushed its argument yet further, in claiming tolerance for doctrines +alleged to be Roman. Mr. Lowe, not troubling himself either with +theological history or the relation of other parties in the Church to +the formularies, threw his strength into the popular and plausible topic +of dishonesty, and into a bitter and unqualified invective against the +bad faith and immorality manifested in the teaching of which No. 90 was +the outcome. Dr. Faussett, as was to be expected, threw himself into the +fray with his accustomed zest and violence, and caused some amusement at +Oxford, first by exposing himself to the merciless wit of a reviewer in +the _British Critic_, and then by the fright into which he was thrown by +a rumour that his reelection to his professorship would be endangered by +Tractarian votes.[96] But the storm, at Oxford at least, seemed to die +out. The difficulty which at one moment threatened of a strike among +some of the college Tutors passed; and things went back to their +ordinary course. But an epoch and a new point of departure had come into +the movement. Things after No. 90 were never the same as to language and +hopes and prospects as they had been before; it was the date from which +a new set of conditions in men's thoughts and attitude had to be +reckoned. Each side felt that a certain liberty had been claimed and +had been peremptorily denied. And this was more than confirmed by the +public language of the greater part of the Bishops. The charges against +the Tractarian party of Romanising, and of flagrant dishonesty, long +urged by irresponsible opponents, were now formally adopted by the +University authorities, and specially directed against the foremost man +of the party. From that time the fate of the party at Oxford was +determined. It must break up. Sooner or later, there must be a secession +more or less discrediting and disabling those who remained. And so the +break-up came, and yet, so well grounded and so congenial to the English +Church were the leading principles of the movement, that not even that +disastrous and apparently hopeless wreck prevented them from again +asserting their claim and becoming once more active and powerful. The +_Via Media_, whether or not logically consistent, was a thing of genuine +English growth, and was at least a working theory. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[84] _Apologia_, p. 180. + +[85] _Essays Critical and Historical_, 1871. + +[86] _Apologia_, pp. 181, 182. Comp. _Letter to Jelf_, p. 18. + +[87] _British Critic_, April 1839, pp. 419-426. Condensed in the +_Apologia_, pp. 192-194. + +[88] _Letter to the Bishop of Oxford_ (29th March 1841), pp. 33-40. +Comp. _Letter to Jelf_, pp. 7, 8. + +[89] _Apologia_, pp. 212, 221. + +[90] _Letter to Jelf_ [especially p. 19]. + +[91] _Walton's Life_, i. 59 (Oxford: 1845). + +[92] No. 90, p. 24. + +[93] The following letter of Mr. James Mozley (8th March 1841) gives the +first impression of the Tract:--"A new Tract has come out this week, and +is beginning to make a sensation. It is on the Articles, and shows that +they bear a highly Catholic meaning; and that many doctrines, of which +the Romanist are corruptions, may be held consistently with them. This +is no more than what we know as a matter of history, for the Articles +were expressly worded to bring in Roman Catholics. But people are +astonished and confused at the idea now, as if it were quite new. And +they have been so accustomed for a long time to look at the Articles as +on a par with the Creed, that they think, I suppose, that if they +subscribe to them they are bound to hold whatever doctrines (not +positively stated in them) are merely not condemned. So if they will +have a Tractarian sense, they are thereby all Tractarians.... It is, of +course, highly complimentary to the whole set of us to be so very much +surprised that we should think what we held to be consistent with the +Articles which we have subscribed." See also a clever Whateleian +pamphlet, "The Controversy between Tract No. 90 and the Oxford Tutors." +(How and Parsons, 1841.) + +[94] See J.B. Mozley's _Letters_, 13th March 1841. + +[95] _Scil._, those cited in the preamble to this resolution. + +[96] J.B. Mozley's _Letters_, 13th July 1841. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +AFTER NO. 90 + + +The proceedings about No. 90 were a declaration of war on the part of +the Oxford authorities against the Tractarian party. The suspicions, +alarms, antipathies, jealousies, which had long been smouldering among +those in power, had at last taken shape in a definite act. And it was a +turning-point in the history of the movement. After this it never was +exactly what it had been hitherto. It had been so far a movement within +the English Church, for its elevation and reform indeed, but at every +step invoking its authority with deep respect, acknowledging allegiance +to its rulers in unqualified and even excessive terms, and aiming +loyally to make it in reality all that it was in its devotional language +and its classical literature. But after what passed about No. 90 a +change came. The party came under an official ban and stigma. The common +consequences of harsh treatment on the tendencies and thought of a +party, which considers itself unjustly proscribed, showed themselves +more and more. Its mind was divided; its temper was exasperated; while +the attitude of the governing authorities hardened more into determined +hostility. From the time of the censure, and especially after the events +connected with it,--the contest for the Poetry Professorship and the +renewed Hampden question,--it may be said that the characteristic +tempers of the Corcyrean sedition were reproduced on a small scale in +Oxford.[97] The scare of Popery, not without foundation--the reaction +against it, also not without foundation--had thrown the wisest off their +balance; and what of those who were not wise? In the heat of those days +there were few Tractarians who did not think Dr. Wynter, Dr. Faussett, +and Dr. Symons heretics in theology and persecutors in temper, despisers +of Christian devotion and self-denial. There were few of the party of +the Heads who did not think every Tractarian a dishonest and perjured +traitor, equivocating about his most solemn engagements, the ignorant +slave of childish superstitions which he was conspiring to bring back. +It was the day of the violent on both sides: the courtesies of life were +forgotten; men were afraid of being weak in their censures, their +dislike, and their opposition; old friendships were broken up, and men +believed the worst of those whom a few years back they had loved and +honoured. + +It is not agreeable to recall these long extinct animosities, but they +are part of the history of that time, and affected the course in which +things ran. And it is easy to blame, it is hard to do justice to, the +various persons and parties who contributed to the events of that +strange and confused time. All was new, and unusual, and without +precedent in Oxford; a powerful and enthusiastic school reviving old +doctrines in a way to make them seem novelties, and creating a wild +panic from a quarter where it was the least expected; the terror of this +panic acting on authorities not in the least prepared for such a trial +of their sagacity, patience, and skill, driving them to unexampled +severity, and to a desperate effort to expel the disturbing +innovators--among them some of the first men in Oxford in character and +ability--from their places in the University.[98] In order to do justice +on each side at this distance of time, we are bound to make +allowance--both for the alarm and the mistaken violence of the +authorities, and for the disaffection, the irritation, the strange +methods which grew up in the worried and suspected party--for the +difficulties which beset both sides in the conflict, and the +counter-influences which drew them hither and thither. But the facts are +as they are; and even then a calmer temper was possible to those who +willed it; and in the heat of the strife there were men among the +authorities, as well as in the unpopular party, who kept their balance, +while others lost it. + +Undoubtedly the publication of No. 90 was the occasion of the aggravated +form which dissension took, and not unnaturally. Yet it was anything but +what it was taken to mean by the authorities, an intentional move in +favour of Rome. It was intended to reconcile a large and growing class +of minds, penetrated and disgusted with the ignorance and injustice of +much of the current controversial assumptions against Rome, to a larger +and more defensible view of the position of the English Church. And this +was done by calling attention to that which was not now for the first +time observed--to the loose and unguarded mode of speaking visible in +the later controversial Articles, and to the contrast between them and +the technical and precise theology of the first five Articles. The +Articles need not mean all which they were supposed popularly to mean +against what was Catholic in Roman doctrine. This was urged in simple +good faith; it was but the necessary assumption of all who held with the +Catholic theology, which the Tractarians all along maintained that they +had a right to teach; it left plenty of ground of difference with +unreformed and usurping Rome. And we know that the storm which No. 90 +raised took the writer by surprise. He did not expect that he should +give such deep offence. But if he thought of the effect on one set of +minds, he forgot the probable effect on another; and he forgot, or +under-estimated, the effect not only of the things said, but of the way +in which they were said.[99] No. 90 was a surprise, in the state of +ordinary theological knowledge at the time. It was a strong thing to say +that the Articles left a great deal of formal Roman language untouched; +but to work this out in dry, bald, technical logic, on the face of it, +narrow in scope, often merely ingenious, was even a greater +stumbling-block. It was, undoubtedly, a great miscalculation, such as +men of keen and far-reaching genius sometimes make. They mistake the +strength and set of the tide; they imagine that minds round them are +going as fast as their own. We can see, looking back, that such an +interpretation of the Articles, with the view then taken of them in +Oxford as the theological text-book, and in the condition of men's +minds, could not but be a great shock. + +And what seemed to give a sinister significance to No. 90 was that, as +has been said, a strong current was beginning to set in the direction of +Rome. It was not yet of the nature, nor of the force, which was +imagined. The authorities suspected it where it was not. They accepted +any contemptible bit of gossip collected by ignorance or ill-nature as a +proof of it. The constitutional frankness of Englishmen in finding fault +with what is their own--disgust at pompous glorification--scepticism as +to our insular claims against all the rest of Christendom to be exactly +right, to be alone, "pure and apostolic"; real increase and enlargement +of knowledge, theological and historical; criticism on portions of our +Reformation history; admiration for characters in mediaeval times; +eagerness, over-generous it might be, to admit and repair wrong to an +opponent unjustly accused; all were set down together with other more +unequivocal signs as "leanings to Rome." It was clear that there was a +current setting towards Rome; but it was as clear that there was a much +stronger current in the party as a whole, setting in the opposite +direction. To those who chose to see and to distinguish, the love, the +passionate loyalty of the bulk of the Tractarians to the English Church +was as evident and unquestionable as any public fact could be. At this +time there was no reason to call in question the strong assurances +given by the writer of No. 90 himself of his yet unshaken faith in the +English Church. But all these important features of the +movement--witnessing, indeed, to deep searchings of heart, but to a +genuine desire to serve the English Church--were overlooked in the one +overwhelming fear which had taken possession of the authorities. +Alarming symptoms of a disposition to acknowledge and even exaggerate +the claims and the attractions of the Roman system were indeed apparent. +No doubt there were reasons for disquiet and anxiety. But the test of +manliness and wisdom, in the face of such reasons, is how men measure +their proportion, and how they meet the danger. + +The Heads saw a real danger before them; but they met it in a wrong and +unworthy way. They committed two great errors. In the first place, like +the Jesuits in their quarrel with Portroyal and the Jansenists, they +entirely failed to recognise the moral elevation and religious purpose +of the men whom they opposed. There was that before them which it was to +their deep discredit that they did not see. The movement, whatever else +it was, or whatever else it became, was in its first stages a movement +for deeper religion, for a more real and earnest self-discipline, for a +loftier morality, for more genuine self-devotion to a serious life, than +had ever been seen in Oxford. It was an honest attempt to raise Oxford +life, which by all evidence needed raising, to something more laborious +and something more religious, to something more worthy of the great +Christian foundations of Oxford than the rivalry of colleges and of the +schools, the mere literary atmosphere of the tutor's lecture-room, and +the easy and gentlemanly and somewhat idle fellowship of the +common-rooms. It was the effort of men who had all the love of +scholarship, and the feeling for it of the Oxford of their day, to add +to this the habits of Christian students and the pursuit of Christian +learning. If all this was dangerous and uncongenial to Oxford, so much +the worse for Oxford, with its great opportunities and great +professions--_Dominus illuminatio mea_. But certainly this mark of moral +purpose and moral force was so plain in the movement that the rulers of +Oxford had no right to mistake it. When the names come back to our minds +of those who led and most represented the Tractarians, it must be a +matter of surprise to any man who has not almost parted with the idea of +Christian goodness, that this feature of the movement could escape or +fail to impress those who had known well all their lives long what these +leaders were. But amid the clamour and the tell-tale gossip, and, it +must be admitted, the folly round them, they missed it. Perhaps they +were bewildered. But they must have the blame, the heavy blame, which +belongs to all those who, when good is before them, do not recognise it +according to its due measure.[100] + +In the next place, the authorities attacked and condemned the +Tractarian teaching at once violently and ignorantly, and in them +ignorance of the ground on which the battle was fought was hardly +pardonable. Doubtless the Tractarian language was in many respects novel +and strange. But Oxford was not only a city of libraries, it was the +home of what was especially accounted Church theology; and the +Tractarian teaching, in its foundation and main outlines, had little but +what ought to have been perfectly familiar to any one who chose to take +the trouble to study the great Church of England writers. To one who, +like Dr. Routh of Magdalen, had gone below the surface, and was +acquainted with the questions debated by those divines, there was +nothing startling in what so alarmed his brethren, whether he agreed +with it or not; and to him the indiscriminate charge of Popery meant +nothing. But Dr. Routh stood alone among his brother Heads in his +knowledge of what English theology was. To most of them it was an +unexplored and misty region; some of the ablest, under the influence of +Dr. Whately's vigorous and scornful discipline, had learned to slight +it. But there it was. Whether it was read or not, its great names were +pronounced with honour, and quoted on occasion. From Hooker to Van +Mildert, there was an unbroken thread of common principles giving +continuity to a line of Church teachers. The Puritan line of doctrine, +though it could claim much sanction among the divines of the +Reformation--the Latitudinarian idea, though it had the countenance of +famous names and powerful intellects--never could aspire to the special +title of Church theology. And the teaching which had that name, both in +praise, and often in dispraise, as technical, scholastic, unspiritual, +transcendental, nay, even Popish, countenanced the Tractarians. They +were sneered at for their ponderous _Catenae_ of authorities; but on the +ground on which this debate raged, the appeal was a pertinent and solid +one. Yet to High Church Oxford and its rulers, all this was strange +doctrine. Proof and quotation might lie before their eyes, but their +minds still ran in one groove, and they could not realise what they saw. +The words meant no harm in the venerable folio; they meant perilous +heresy in the modern Tract. When the authorities had to judge of the +questions raised by the movement, they were unprovided with the adequate +knowledge; and this was knowledge which they ought to have possessed for +its own sake, as doctors of the Theological Faculty of the University. + +And it was not only for their want of learning, manifest all through the +controversy, that they were to blame. Their most telling charge against +the Tractarians, which was embodied in the censure of No. 90, was the +charge of dishonesty. The charge is a very handy one against opponents, +and it may rest on good grounds; but those who think right to make it +ought, both as a matter of policy and as a matter of conscience, to be +quite assured of their own position. The Articles are a public, common +document. It is the differing interpretations of a common document which +create political and religious parties; and only shallowness and +prejudice will impute to an opponent dishonesty without strong and clear +reason. Mr. Newman's interpretation in No. 90,--new, not in claiming for +the Articles a Catholic meaning, but in _limiting_, though it does not +deny, their anti-Roman scope, was fairly open to criticism. It might be +taken as a challenge, and as a challenge might have to be met. But it +would have been both fair and wise in the Heads, before proceeding to +unusual extremities, to have shown that they had fully considered their +own theological doctrines in relation to the Church formularies. They +all had obvious difficulties, and in some cases formidable ones. The +majority of them were what would have been called in older controversial +days frank Arminians, shutting their eyes by force of custom to the look +of some of the Articles, which, if of Lutheran origin, had been claimed +from the first by Calvinists. The Evangelicals had long confessed +difficulties, at least, in the Baptismal Service and the Visitation +Office; while the men most loud in denunciation of dishonesty were the +divines of Whately's school, who had been undermining the authority of +all creeds and articles, and had never been tired of proclaiming their +dislike of that solemn Athanasian Creed to which Prayer Book and +Articles alike bound them. Men with these difficulties daily before them +had no right to ignore them. Doubtless they all had their explanations +which they _bona fide_ believed in. But what was there that excluded Mr. +Newman from the claim to _bona fides_? He had attacked no foundation of +Christianity; he had denied or doubted no article of the Creed. He gave +his explanations, certainly not more far-fetched than those of some of +his judges. In a Church divided by many conflicting views, and therefore +bound to all possible tolerance, he had adopted one view which certainly +was unpopular and perhaps was dangerous. He might be confuted, he might +be accused, or, if so be, convicted of error, perhaps of heresy. But +nothing of this kind was attempted. The incompatibility of his view, not +merely with the Articles, but with morality in signing what all, of +whatever party, had signed, was asserted in a censure, which evaded the +responsibility of specifying the point which it condemned. The alarm of +treachery and conspiracy is one of the most maddening of human impulses. +The Heads of Houses, instead of moderating and sobering it, with the +authority of instructed and sagacious rulers, blew it into a flame. And +they acted in such a hurry that all sense of proportion and dignity was +lost. They peremptorily refused to wait even a few days, as the writer +requested, and as was due to his character, for explanation. They dared +not risk an appeal to the University at large. They dared not abide the +effect of discussion on the blow which they were urged to strike. They +chose, that they might strike without delay, the inexpressibly childish +step of sticking up at the Schools' gates, and at College butteries, +without trial, or conviction, or sentence, a notice declaring that +certain modes of signing the Articles suggested in a certain Tract were +dishonest. It was, they said, to protect undergraduates; as if +undergraduates would be affected by a vague assertion on a difficult +subject, about which nothing was more certain than that those who issued +the notice were not agreed among themselves. + +The men who acted thus were good and conscientious men, who thought +themselves in the presence of a great danger. It is only fair to +remember this. But it is also impossible to be fair to the party of the +movement without remembering this deplorable failure in consistency, in +justice, in temper, in charity, on the part of those in power in the +University. The drift towards Rome had not yet become an unmanageable +rush; and though there were cases in which nothing could have stopped +its course, there is no reason to doubt that generous and equitable +dealing, a more considerate reasonableness, a larger and more +comprehensive judgment of facts, and a more patient waiting for strong +first impressions to justify and verify themselves, would have averted +much mischief. There was much that was to be regretted from this time +forward in the temper and spirit of the movement party. But that which +nourished and strengthened impatience, exaggeration of language and +views, scorn of things as they were, intolerance of everything +moderate, both in men and in words, was the consciousness with which +every man got up in the morning and passed the day, of the bitter +hostility of those foremost in place in Oxford--of their incompetence to +judge fairly--of their incapacity to apprehend what was high and earnest +in those whom they condemned--of the impossibility of getting them to +imagine that Tractarians could be anything but fools or traitors--of +their hopeless blindness to any fact or any teaching to which they were +not accustomed. If the authorities could only have stopped to consider +whether after all they were not dealing with real thought and real wish +to do right, they might after all have disliked the movement, but they +would have seen that which would have kept them from violence. They +would not listen, they would not inquire, they would not consider. Could +such ignorance, could such wrong possibly be without mischievous +influence on those who were the victims of it, much more on friends and +disciples who knew and loved them? The Tractarians had been preaching +that the Church of England, with all its Protestant feeling and all its +Protestant acts and history, was yet, as it professed to be, part and +parcel of the great historic Catholic Church, which had framed the +Creeds, which had continued the Sacraments, which had preached and +taught out of the Bible, which had given us our immemorial prayers. They +had spared no pains to make out this great commonplace from history and +theology: nor had they spared pains, while insisting on this dominant +feature in the English Church, to draw strongly and broadly the lines +which distinguished it from Rome. Was it wonderful, when all guarding +and explanatory limitations were contemptuously tossed aside by +"all-daring ignorance," and all was lumped together in the +indiscriminate charge of "Romanising," that there should have been some +to take the authorities at their word? Was it wonderful when men were +told that the Church of England was no place for them, that they were +breaking their vows and violating solemn engagements by acting as its +ministers, and that in order to preserve the respect of honest men they +should leave it--that the question of change, far off as it had once +seemed, came within "measurable distance"? The generation to which they +belonged had been brought up with strong exhortations to be real, and to +hate shams; and now the question was forced on them whether it was not a +sham for the English Church to call itself Catholic; whether a body of +teaching which was denounced by its authorities, however it might look +on paper and be defended by learning, could be more than a plausible +literary hypothesis in contrast to the great working system of which the +head was Rome. When we consider the singular and anomalous position on +any theory, including the Roman, of the English Church; with what great +differences its various features and elements have been prominent at +different times; how largely its history has been marked by +contradictory facts and appearances; and how hard it is for any one to +keep all, according to their real importance, simultaneously in view; +when we remember also what are the temptations of human nature in great +collisions of religious belief, the excitement and passion of the time, +the mixed character of all religious zeal, the natural inevitable anger +which accompanies it when resisted, the fervour which welcomes +self-sacrifice for the truth; and when we think of all this kept aglow +by the continuous provocation of unfair and harsh dealing from persons +who were scarcely entitled to be severe judges; the wonder is, human +nature being what it is, not that so many went, but that so many stayed. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[97] [Greek: Tolma alogistos andria philetairos enomisthae ... to de +sophron tou anandrou proschaema, kai to pros apan xyneton epi pan argon +to de emplaektos oxuandros moira prosetethae ... kai ho men chalepainon +pistos aei, ho de antilegon auto upoptos.]--Thuc. iii. 82. "Reckless +daring was held to be loyal courage; moderation was the disguise of +unmanly weakness; to know everything was to do nothing; frantic energy +was the true character of a man; the lover of violence was always +trusted, and his opponent suspected."--Jowett's translation. + +[98] One of the strangest features in the conflict was the entire +misconception shown of what Mr. Newman was--the blindness to his real +character and objects--the imputation to him not merely of grave faults, +but of small and mean ones. His critics could not rise above the poorest +measure of his intellect and motives. One of the ablest of them, who had +once been his friend, in a farewell letter of kindly remonstrance, +specifies certain Roman errors, which he hopes that Mr. Newman will not +fall into--adoring images and worshipping saints--as if the pleasure and +privilege of worshipping images and saints were to Mr. Newman the +inducement to join Rome and break the ties of a lifetime. And so of his +moral qualities. A prominent Evangelical leader, Dr. Close of +Cheltenham, afterwards Dean of Carlisle, at a complimentary dinner, in +which he himself gloried in the "foul, personal abuse to which he had +been subjected in his zeal for truth," proceeded to give his judgment on +Mr. Newman: "When I first read No. 90, I did not then know the author; +but I said then, and I repeat here, _not with any personal reference to +the author_, that I should be sorry to trust the author of that Tract +with my purse,"--Report of Speech in _Cheltenham Examiner_, 1st March +1843. + +[99] [Greek: ou gar apochrae to echein a dei legein, all' anankae kai +tauto os dei eipein.]--Arist. _Rhet._ iii. I. + +[100] Dr. Richards, the Rector of Exeter, seems to have stood apart from +his brother heads.--Cf. _Letters of the Rev. J.B. Mozley_, p. 113. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE THREE DEFEATS: + +ISAAC WILLIAMS, MACMULLEN, PUSEY + + +The year 1841, though it had begun in storm, and though signs were not +wanting of further disturbance, was at Oxford, outwardly at least, a +peaceable one. A great change had happened; but, when the first burst of +excitement was over, men settled down to their usual work, their +lectures, or their reading, or their parishes, and by Easter things +seemed to go on as before. The ordinary habits of University life +resumed their course with a curious quietness. There was, no doubt, much +trouble brooding underneath. Mr. Ward and others continued a war of +pamphlets; and in June Mr. Ward was dismissed from his Mathematical +Lectureship at Balliol. But faith in the great leader was still strong. +No. 90, if it had shocked or disquieted some, had elicited equally +remarkable expressions of confidence and sympathy from others who might +have been, at least, silent. The events of the spring had made men +conscious of what their leader was, and called forth warm and +enthusiastic affection. It was not in vain that, whatever might be +thought of the wisdom or the reasonings of No. 90, he had shown the +height of his character and the purity and greatness of his religious +purpose; and that being what he was, in the eyes of all Oxford, he had +been treated with contumely, and had borne it with patience and loyal +submission. There were keen observers, to whom that patience told of +future dangers; they would have liked him to show more fight. But he +gave no signs of defeat, nor, outwardly, of disquiet; he forbore to +retaliate at Oxford: and the sermons at St. Mary's continued, +penetrating and searching as ever, perhaps with something more pathetic +and anxious in their undertone than before. + +But if he forbore at Oxford, he did not let things pass outside. Sir +Robert Peel, in opening a reading-room at Tamworth, had spoken loosely, +in the conventional and pompous way then fashionable, of the +all-sufficing and exclusive blessings of knowledge. While Mr. Newman was +correcting the proofs of No. 90, he was also writing to the _Times_ the +famous letters of _Catholicus_; a warning to eminent public men of the +danger of declaiming on popular commonplaces without due examination of +their worth. But all seemed quiet. "In the summer of 1841," we read in +the _Apologia_, "I found myself at Littlemore without any harass or +anxiety on my mind. I had determined to put aside all controversy, and +set myself down to my translation of St. Athanasius." Outside of Oxford +there was a gathering of friends in the summer at the consecration of +one of Mr. Keble's district churches, Ampfield--an occasion less common +and more noticeable then than now. Again, what was a new thought then, a +little band of young Oxford men, ten or twelve, taxed themselves to +build a new church, which was ultimately placed at Bussage, in Mr. +Thomas Keble's parish. One of Mr. Keble's curates, Mr. Peter Young, had +been refused Priest's orders by the Bishop of Winchester, for alleged +unsoundness on the doctrine of the Eucharist. Mr. Selwyn, not without +misgivings on the part of the Whig powers, had been appointed Bishop of +New Zealand. Dr. Arnold had been appointed to the Chair of Modern +History at Oxford. In the course of the year there passed away one who +had had a very real though unacknowledged influence on much that had +happened--Mr. Blanco White. And at the end of the year, 29th October, +Mr. Keble gave his last lecture on Poetry, and finished a course the +most original and memorable ever delivered from his chair. + +Towards the end of the year two incidents, besides some roughly-worded +Episcopal charges, disturbed this quiet. They were only indirectly +connected with theological controversy at Oxford; but they had great +ultimate influence on it, and they helped to marshal parties and +consolidate animosities. One was the beginning of the contest for the +Poetry Professorship which Mr. Keble had vacated. There was no one of +equal eminence to succeed him; but there was in Oxford a man of +undoubted poetical genius, of refined taste and subtle thought, though +of unequal power, who had devoted his gifts to the same great purpose +for which Mr. Keble had written the _Christian Year._ No one who has +looked into the _Baptistery_, whatever his feeling towards the writer, +can doubt whether Mr. Isaac Williams was a poet and knew what poetry +meant. He was an intimate friend of Mr. Keble and Mr. Newman, and so he +was styled a Tractarian; but no name offered itself so obviously to the +electors as his, and in due time his friends announced their intention +of bringing him forward. His competitor was Mr. (afterwards Archdeacon) +Garbett of Brasenose, the college of Heber and Milman, an accomplished +gentleman of high culture, believed to have an acquaintance, not common +then in Oxford, with foreign literature, whose qualifications stood high +in the opinion of his University friends, but who had given no evidence +to the public of his claims to the office. It was inevitable, it was no +one's special fault, that the question of theological opinions should +intrude itself; but at first it was only in private that objections were +raised or candidatures recommended on theological grounds. But rumours +were abroad that the authorities of Brasenose were canvassing their +college on these grounds: and in an unlucky moment for Mr. Williams, Dr. +Pusey, not without the knowledge, but without the assenting judgment of +Mr. Newman, thought it well to send forth a circular in Christ Church +first, but soon with wider publicity, asking support for Mr. Williams as +a person whose known religious views would ensure his making his office +minister to religious truth. Nothing could be more innocently meant. It +was the highest purpose to which that office could be devoted. But the +mistake was seen on all sides as soon as made. The Principal of Mr. +Garbett's college. Dr. Gilbert, like a general jumping on his antagonist +whom he has caught in the act of a false move, put forth a dignified +counter-appeal, alleging that he had not raised this issue, but adding +that as it had been raised and avowed on the other side, he was quite +willing that it should be taken into account, and the dangers duly +considered of that teaching with which Dr. Pusey's letter had identified +Mr. Williams. No one from that moment could prevent the contest from +becoming almost entirely a theological one, which was to try the +strength of the party of the movement. Attempts were made, but in vain, +to divest it of this character. The war of pamphlets and leaflets +dispersed in the common-rooms, which usually accompanied these contests, +began, and the year closed with preparations for a severe struggle when +the University met in the following January. + +The other matter was the establishment of the Anglo-Prussian bishopric +at Jerusalem. It was the object of the ambition of M. Bunsen to pave the +way for a recognition, by the English Church, of the new State Church +of Prussia, and ultimately for some closer alliance between the two +bodies; and the plan of a Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem, nominated +alternately by England and Prussia, consecrated by English Bishops, and +exercising jurisdiction over English and German Protestants in +Palestine, was proposed by him to Archbishop Howley and Bishop +Blomfield, and somewhat hastily and incautiously accepted by them. To +Mr. Newman, fighting a hard battle, as he felt it, for the historical +and constitutional catholicity of the English Church, this step on their +part came as a practical and even ostentatious contradiction of his +arguments. England, it seemed, which was out of communion with the East +and with Rome, could lightly enter into close communion with Lutherans +and Calvinists against them both. He recorded an indignant and even +bitter protest; and though the scheme had its warm apologists, such as +Dr. Hook and Mr. F. Maurice, it had its keen-sighted critics, and it was +never received with favour by the Church at large. And, indeed, it was +only active for mischief. It created irritation, suspicion, discord in +England, while no German cared a straw about it. Never was an ambitious +scheme so marked by impotence and failure from its first steps to its +last. But it was one, as the _Apologia_ informs us,[101] in the chain of +events which destroyed Mr. Newman's belief in the English Church. "It +was one of the blows," he writes, "which broke me." + +The next year, 1842, opened with war; war between the University +authorities and the party of the movement, which was to continue in +various forms and with little intermission till the strange and pathetic +events of 1845 suspended the righting and stunned the fighters, and for +a time hushed even anger in feelings of amazement, sorrow, and fear. +Those events imposed stillness on all who had taken part in the strife, +like the blowing up of the _Orient_ at the battle of the Nile. + +As soon as the University met in January 1842, the contest for the +Poetry Professorship was settled. There was no meeting of Convocation, +but a comparison of votes gave a majority of three to two to Mr. +Garbett,[102] and Mr. Williams withdrew. The Tractarians had been +distinctly beaten; it was their first defeat as a party. It seems as if +this encouraged the Hebdomadal Board to a move, which would be felt as a +blow against the Tractarians, and which, as an act of reparation to Dr. +Hampden, would give satisfaction to the ablest section of their own +supporters, the theological Liberals. They proposed to repeal the +disqualification which had been imposed on Dr. Hampden in 1836. But they +had miscalculated. It was too evidently a move to take advantage of the +recent Tractarian discomfiture to whitewash Dr. Hampden's Liberalism. +The proposal, and the way in which it was made, roused a strong feeling +among the residents; a request to withdraw it received the signatures +not only of moderate Anglicans and independent men, like Mr. Francis +Faber of Magdalen, Mr. Sewell, the Greswells, and Mr. W. Palmer of +Worcester, but of Mr. Tait of Balliol, and Mr. Golightly. Dr. Hampden's +own attitude did not help it. There was great want of dignity in his +ostentatious profession of orthodoxy and attachment to the Articles, in +his emphatic adoption of Evangelical phraseology, and in his unmeasured +denunciation of his opponents, and especially of those whom he viewed as +most responsible for the censure of 1836--the "Tractarians" or +"Romanisers." And the difficulty with those who had passed and who now +proposed to withdraw the censure, was that Dr. Hampden persistently and +loudly declared that he had nothing to retract, and retracted nothing; +and if it was right to pass it in 1836, it would not be right to +withdraw it in 1842. At the last moment, Mr. Tait and Mr. Piers +Claughton of University made an attempt to get something from Dr. +Hampden which might pass as a withdrawal of what was supposed to be +dangerous in his Bampton Lectures; and there were some even among Mr. +Newman's friends, who, disliking from the first the form of the censure, +might have found in such a withdrawal a reason for voting for its +repeal. But Dr. Hampden was obdurate. The measure was pressed, and in +June it was thrown out in Convocation by a majority of three to +two[103]--the same proportion, though in smaller numbers, as in the vote +against Mr. Williams. The measure was not an honest one on the part of +the Hebdomadal Board, and deserved to be defeated. Among the pamphlets +which the discussion produced, two by Mr. James Mozley gave early +evidence, by their force of statement and their trenchant logic, of the +power with which he was to take part in the questions which agitated the +University. + +Dr. Hampden took his revenge, and it was not a noble one. The fellows of +certain colleges were obliged to proceed to the B.D. degree on pain of +forfeiting their fellowships. The exercises for the degree, which, by +the Statutes, took the old-fashioned shape of formal Latin disputations +between Opponents and Respondents on given theses in the Divinity +School, had by an arrangement introduced by Dr. Burton, with no +authority from the Statutes, come to consist of two English essays on +subjects chosen by the candidate and approved by the Divinity Professor. +The exercises for the degree had long ceased to be looked upon as very +serious matters, and certainly were never regarded as tests of the +soundness of the candidate's faith. They were usually on well-worn +commonplaces, of which the Regius Professor kept a stock, and about +which no one troubled himself but the person who wanted the degree. It +was not a creditable system, but it was of a piece with the prevalent +absence of any serious examination for the superior degrees. It would +have been quite befitting his position, if Dr. Hampden had called the +attention of the authorities to the evil of sham exercises for degrees +in his own important Faculty. It would have been quite right to make a +vigorous effort on public grounds to turn these sham trials into +realities; to use them, like the examination for the B.A. degree, as +tests of knowledge and competent ability. Such a move on his part would +have been in harmony with the legislation which had recently added two +theological Professors to the Faculty, and had sketched out, however +imperfectly, the outlines of a revived theological school. + +This is what, with good reason, Dr. Hampden might have attempted on +general grounds, and had he been successful (though this in the +suspicious state of University feeling was not very likely) he would +have gained in a regular and lawful way that power of embarrassing his +opponents which he was resolved to use in defiance of all existing +custom. But such was not the course which he chose. Mr. Macmullen of +Corpus, who, in pursuance of the College Statutes, had to proceed to the +B.D. degree, applied, as the custom was, for theses to the Professor. +Mr. Macmullen was known to hold the opinions of the movement school; of +course he was called a Tractarian; he had put his name to some of the +many papers which expressed the sentiments of his friends on current +events. Dr. Hampden sent him two propositions, which the candidate was +to support, framed so as to commit him to assertions which Mr. +Macmullen, whose high Anglican opinions were well known, could not +consistently make. It was a novel and unexampled act on the part of the +Professor, to turn what had been a mere formal exercise into a sharp and +sweeping test of doctrine, which would place all future Divinity degrees +in the University at his mercy; and the case was made more serious, when +the very form of exercise which the Professor used as an instrument of +such formidable power was itself without question unstatutable and +illegal, and had been simply connived at by the authorities. To +introduce by his own authority a new feature into a system which he had +no business to use at all, and to do this for the first time with the +manifest purpose of annoying an obnoxious individual, was, on Dr. +Hampden's part, to do more to discredit his chair and himself, than the +censure of the University could do; and it was as unwise as it was +unworthy. The strength of his own case before the public was that he +could be made to appear as the victim of a personal and partisan attack; +yet on the first opportunity he acts in the spirit of an inquisitor, and +that not in fair conflict with some one worthy of his hostility, but to +wreak an injury, in a matter of private interest, on an individual, in +no way known to him or opposed to him, except as holding certain +unpopular opinions. + +Mr. Macmullen was not the person to take such treatment quietly. The +right was substantially on his side, and the Professor, and the +University authorities who more or less played into the hands of the +Professor in defence of his illegal and ultimately untenable claims, +appeared before the University, the one as a persecutor, the others as +rulers who were afraid to do justice on behalf of an ill-used man +because he was a Tractarian. The right course was perfectly clear. It +was to put an end to these unauthorised exercises, and to recall both +candidates and Professor to the statutable system which imposed +disputations conducted under the moderatorship of the Professor, but +which gave him no veto, at the time, on the theological sufficiency of +the disputations, leaving him to state his objections, if he was not +satisfied, when the candidate's degree was asked for in the House of +Congregation. This course, after some hesitation, was followed, but only +partially; and without allowing or disallowing the Professor's claim to +a veto, the Vice-Chancellor on his own responsibility stopped the +degree. A vexatious dispute lingered on for two or three years, with +actions in the Vice-Chancellor's Court, and distinguished lawyers to +plead for each side, and appeals to the University Court of Delegates, +who reversed the decision of the Vice-Chancellor's assessor. Somehow or +other, Mr. Macmullen at last got his degree, but at the cost of a great +deal of ill-blood in Oxford, for which Dr. Hampden, by his unwarranted +interference, and the University authorities, by their questionable +devices to save the credit and claims of one of their own body, must be +held mainly responsible. + +Before the matter was ended, they were made to feel, in rather a +startling way, how greatly they had lost the confidence of the +University. One of the attempts to find a way out of the tangle of the +dispute was the introduction, in February 1844, of a Statute which +should give to the Professor the power which was now contested, and +practically place all the Divinity degrees under the control of a Board +in conjunction with the Vice-Chancellor.[104] The proposed legislation +raised such indignation in the University, that the Hebdomadal Board +took back their scheme for further revision, and introduced it again in +a modified shape, which still however gave new powers to the Professor +and the Vice-Chancellor. But the University would have none of it. No +one could say that the defeat of the altered Statute by 341 to 21 was +the work merely of a party.[105] It was the most decisive vote given in +the course of these conflicts. And it was observed that on the same day +Mr. Macmullen's degree was vetoed by the Vice-Chancellor at the instance +of Dr. Hampden at 10 o'clock in Congregation, and the Hebdomadal Board, +which had supported him, received the vote of want of confidence at noon +in Convocation. + +Nothing could show more decisively that the authorities in the +Hebdomadal Board were out of touch with the feeling of the University, +or, at all events, of that part of it which was resident. The residents +were not, as a body, identified with the Tractarians; it would be more +true to say that the residents, as a body, looked on this marked school +with misgiving and apprehension; but they saw what manner of men these +Tractarians were; they lived with them in college and common-room; their +behaviour was before their brethren as a whole, with its strength and +its weakness, its moral elevation and its hazardous excitement, its +sincerity of purpose and its one-sidedness of judgment and sympathy, its +unfairness to what was English, its over-value for what was foreign. +Types of those who looked at things more or less independently were Mr. +Hussey of Christ Church, Mr. C.P. Eden of Oriel, Mr. Sewell of Exeter, +Mr. Francis Faber of Magdalen, Dr. Greenhill of Trinity, Mr. Wall of +Balliol, Mr. Hobhouse of Merton, with some of the more consistent +Liberals, like Mr. Stanley of University, and latterly Mr. Tait. Men of +this kind, men of high character and weight in Oxford, found much to +dislike and regret in the Tractarians. But they could also see that the +leaders of the Hebdomadal Board laboured under a fatal incapacity to +recognise what these unpopular Tractarians were doing for the cause of +true and deep religion; they could see that the judgment of the Heads of +Houses, living as they did apart, in a kind of superior state, was +narrow, ill-informed, and harsh, and that the warfare which they waged +was petty, irritating, and profitless; while they also saw with great +clearness that under cover of suppressing "Puseyism," the policy of the +Board was, in fact, tending to increase and strengthen the power of an +irresponsible and incompetent oligarchy, not only over a troublesome +party, but over the whole body of residents. To the great honour of +Oxford it must be said, that throughout these trying times, on to the +very end, there was in the body of Masters a spirit of fairness, a +recognition of the force both of argument and character, a dislike of +high-handedness and shabbiness, which was in strong and painful contrast +to the short-sighted violence in which the Hebdomadal Board was +unhappily induced to put their trust, and which proved at last the main +cause of the overthrow of their power. When changes began to threaten +Oxford, there was no one to say a word for them. + +But, for the moment, in spite of this defeat in Convocation, they had no +misgivings as to the wisdom of their course or the force of their +authority. There was, no doubt, much urging from outside, both on +political and theological grounds, to make them use their power to stay +the plague of Tractarianism; and they were led by three able and +resolute men, unfortunately unable to understand the moral or the +intellectual character of the movement, and having the highest dislike +and disdain for it in both aspects--Dr. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, the +last remaining disciple of Whately's school, a man of rigid +conscientiousness, and very genuine though undemonstrative piety, of +great kindliness in private life, of keen and alert intellect, but not +of breadth and knowledge proportionate to his intellectual power; Dr. +Symons, Warden of Wadham, a courageous witness for Evangelical divinity +in the days when Evangelicals were not in fashion in Oxford, a man of +ponderous and pedantic learning and considerable practical acuteness; +and Dr. Cardwell, Principal of St. Alban's Hall, more a man of the world +than his colleagues, with considerable knowledge of portions of English +Church history. Under the inspiration of these chiefs, the authorities +had adopted, as far as they could, the policy of combat; and the +Vice-Chancellor of the time, Dr. Wynter of St. John's, a kind-hearted +man, but quite unfit to moderate among the strong wills and fierce +tempers round him, was induced to single out for the severest blow yet +struck, the most distinguished person in the ranks of the movement, Dr. +Pusey himself. + +Dr. Pusey was a person with whom it was not wise to meddle, unless his +assailants could make out a case without a flaw. He was without question +the most venerated person in Oxford. Without an equal, in Oxford at +least, in the depth and range of his learning, he stood out yet more +impressively among his fellows in the lofty moral elevation and +simplicity of his life, the blamelessness of his youth, and the profound +devotion of his manhood, to which the family sorrows of his later years, +and the habits which grew out of them, added a kind of pathetic and +solemn interest. Stern and severe in his teaching at one time,--at least +as he was understood,--beyond even the severity of Puritanism, he was +yet overflowing with affection, tender and sympathetic to all who came +near him, and, in the midst of continual controversy, he endeavoured, +with deep conscientiousness, to avoid the bitternesses of controversy. +He was the last man to attack; much more the last man to be unfair to. +The men who ruled in Oxford contrived, in attacking him, to make almost +every mistake which it was possible to make. + +On the 24th of May 1843 Dr. Pusey, intending to balance and complement +the severer, and, to many, the disquieting aspects of doctrine in his +work on Baptism, preached on the Holy Eucharist as a comfort to the +penitent. He spoke of it as a disciple of Andrewes and Bramhall would +speak of it; it was a high Anglican sermon, full, after the example of +the Homilies, Jeremy Taylor, and devotional writers like George Herbert +and Bishop Ken, of the fervid language of the Fathers; and that was all. +Beyond this it did not go; its phraseology was strictly within Anglican +limits. In the course of the week that followed, the University was +surprised by the announcement that Dr. Faussett, the Margaret Professor +of Divinity, had "_delated_" the sermon to the Vice-Chancellor as +teaching heresy; and even more surprised at the news that the +Vice-Chancellor had commenced proceedings. The Statutes provided that +when a sermon was complained of, or _delated_ to the Vice-Chancellor, +the Vice-Chancellor should demand a copy of the sermon, and summoning to +him as his assessors Six Doctors of Divinity, should examine the +language complained of, and, if necessary, condemn and punish the +preacher. The Statute is thus drawn up in general terms, and prescribes +nothing as to the mode in which the examination into the alleged offence +is to be carried on; that is, it leaves it to the Vice-Chancellor's +discretion. What happened was this. The sermon was asked for, but the +name of the accuser was not given; the Statute did not enjoin it. The +sermon was sent, with a request from Dr. Pusey that he might have a +hearing. The Six Doctors were appointed, five of them being Dr. Hawkins, +Dr. Symons, Dr. Jenkyns, Dr. Ogilvie, Dr. Jelf; the Statute said the +Regius Professor was, if possible, to be one of the number; as he was +under the ban of a special Statute, he was spared the task, and his +place was taken by the next Divinity Professor, Dr. Faussett, the person +who had preferred the charge, and who was thus, from having been +accuser, promoted to be a judge. To Dr. Pusey's request for a hearing, +no answer was returned; the Statute, no doubt, said nothing of a +hearing. But after the deliberations of the judges were concluded, and +after the decision to condemn the sermon had been reached, one of them, +Dr. Pusey's old friend, Dr. Jelf, was privately charged with certain +communications from the Vice-Chancellor, on which the seal of absolute +secrecy was imposed, and which, in fact, we believe, have never been +divulged from that _day_ to this. Whatever passed between the +Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Jelf, and Dr. Pusey, it had no effect in arresting +the sentence; and it came out, in informal ways, and through Dr. Pusey +himself, that on the 2d of June Dr. Pusey had been accused and condemned +for having taught doctrine contrary to that of the Church of England, +and that by the authority of the Vice-Chancellor he was suspended from +preaching within the University for two years. But no formal +notification of the transaction was ever made to the University. + +The summary suppression of erroneous and dangerous teaching had long +been a recognised part of the University discipline; and with the ideas +then accepted of the religious character of the University, it was +natural that some such power as that given in the Statutes should be +provided. The power, even after all the changes in Oxford, exists still, +and has been recently appealed to. Dr. Pusey, as a member of the +University, had no more right than any other preacher to complain of his +doctrine being thus solemnly called in question. But it is strange that +it should not have occurred to the authorities that, under the +conditions of modern times, and against a man like Dr. Pusey, such power +should be warily used. For it was not only arbitrary power, such as was +exerted in the condemnation of No. 90, but it was arbitrary power acting +under the semblance of a judicial inquiry, with accusers, examination, +trial, judges, and a heavy penalty. The act of a court of justice which +sets at defiance the rules of justice is a very different thing from a +straightforward act of arbitrary power, because it pretends to be what +it is not. The information against Dr. Pusey, if accepted, involved a +trial--that was the fixed condition and point of departure from which +there was no escaping--and if a trial be held, then, if it be not a fair +trial, the proceeding becomes, according to English notions, a flagrant +and cowardly wrong. All this, all the intrinsic injustice, all the +scandal and discredit in the eyes of honest men, was forgotten in the +obstinate and blind confidence in the letter of a vague Statute. The +accused was not allowed to defend or explain himself; he was refused the +knowledge of the definite charges against him; he was refused, in spite +of his earnest entreaties, a hearing, even an appearance in the presence +of his judges. The Statute, it was said, enjoined none of these things. +The name of his accuser was not told him; he was left to learn it by +report To the end of the business all was wrought in secrecy; no one +knows to this day how the examination of the sermon was conducted, or +what were the opinions of the judges. The Statute, it was said, neither +enjoined nor implied publicity. To this day no one knows what were the +definite passages, what was the express or necessarily involved heresy +or contradiction of the formularies, on which the condemnation was +based; nor--except on the supposition of gross ignorance of English +divinity on the part of the judges--is it easy for a reader to put his +finger on the probably incriminated passages. To make the proceedings +still more unlike ordinary public justice, informal and private +communications were carried on between the judge and the accused, in +which the accused was bound to absolute silence, and forbidden to +consult his nearest friends. + +And of the judges what can be said but that they were, with one +exception, the foremost and sternest opponents of all that was +identified with Dr. Pusey's name; and that one of them was the colleague +who had volunteered to accuse him? Dr. Faussett's share in the matter is +intelligible; hating the movement in all its parts, he struck with the +vehemence of a mediaeval zealot. But that men like Dr. Hawkins and Dr. +Ogilvie, one of them reputed to be a theologian, the other one of the +shrewdest and most cautious of men, and in ordinary matters one of the +most conscientious and fairest, should not have seen what justice, or at +least the show of justice, demanded, and what the refusal of that demand +would look like, and that they should have persuaded the Vice-Chancellor +to accept the entire responsibility of haughtily refusing it, is, even +to those who remember the excitement of those days, a subject of wonder. +The plea was actually put forth that such opportunities of defence of +his language and teaching as Dr. Pusey asked for would have led to the +"inconvenience" of an interminable debate, and confronting of texts and +authorities.[106] The fact, with Dr. Pusey as the accused person, is +likely enough; but in a criminal charge with a heavy penalty, it would +have been better for the reputation of the judges to have submitted to +the inconvenience. + +It was a great injustice and a great blunder--a blunder, because the +gratuitous defiance of accepted rules of fairness neutralised whatever +there might seem to be of boldness and strength in the blow. They were +afraid to meet Dr. Pusey face to face. They were afraid to publish the +reasons of their condemnation. The effect on the University, both on +resident and non-resident members, was not to be misunderstood. The +Protestantism of the Vice-Chancellor and the Six Doctors was, of course, +extolled by partisans in the press with reckless ignorance and reckless +contempt at once for common justice and their own consistency. One +person of some distinction at Oxford ventured to make himself the +mouthpiece of those who were bold enough to defend the proceeding--the +recently-elected Professor of Poetry, Mr. Garbett. But deep offence was +given among the wiser and more reasonable men who had a regard for the +character of the University. A request to know the grounds of the +sentence from men who were certainly of no party was curtly refused by +the Vice-Chancellor, with a suggestion that it did not concern them. A +more important memorial was sent from London, showing how persons at a +distance were shocked by the unaccountable indifference to the +appearance of justice in the proceeding. It was signed among others by +Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Justice Coleridge. The Vice-Chancellor lost his +temper. He sent back the memorial to London "by the hands of his bedel," +as if that in some way stamped his official disapprobation more than if +it had been returned through the post. And he proceeded, in language +wonderful even for that moment, as "Resident Governor" of the +University, to reprimand statesmen and lawyers of eminence and high +character, not merely for presuming to interfere with his own duties, +but for forgetting the oaths on the strength of which they had received +their degrees, and for coming very near to that high, almost highest, +academical crime, the crime of being _perturbatores pacis_--breaking the +peace of the University. + +Such foolishness, affecting dignity, only made more to talk of. If the +men who ruled the University had wished to disgust and alienate the +Masters of Arts, and especially the younger ones who were coming forward +into power and influence, they could not have done better. The chronic +jealousy and distrust of the time were deepened. And all this was +aggravated by what went on in private. A system of espionage, +whisperings, backbitings, and miserable tittle-tattle, sometimes of the +most slanderous or the most ridiculous kind, was set going all over +Oxford. Never in Oxford, before or since, were busybodies more truculent +or more unscrupulous. Difficulties arose between Heads of Colleges and +their tutors. Candidates for fellowships were closely examined as to +their opinions and their associates. Men applying for testimonials were +cross-questioned on No. 90, as to the infallibility of general councils, +purgatory, the worship of images, the _Ora pro nobis_ and the +intercession of the saints: the real critical questions upon which men's +minds were working being absolutely uncomprehended and ignored. It was a +miserable state of misunderstanding and distrust, and none of the +University leaders had the temper and the manliness to endeavour with +justice and knowledge to get to the bottom of it. It was enough to +suppose that a Popish Conspiracy was being carried on. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[101] Pp. 243, 253. + +[102] Garbett, 921. Williams, 623. + +[103] The numbers were 334 to 219. + +[104] _Christian Remembrancer_, vol. ix. p. 175. + +[105] Ibid. pp. 177-179. + +[106] Cf. _British Critic_, No. xlvii. pp. 221-223. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +W.G. WARD + + +If only the Oxford authorities could have had patience--if only they +could have known more largely and more truly the deep changes that were +at work everywhere, and how things were beginning to look in the eyes of +the generation that was coming, perhaps many things might have been +different. Yes, it was true that there was a strong current setting +towards Rome. It was acting on some of the most vigorous of the younger +men. It was acting powerfully on the foremost mind in Oxford. Whither, +if not arrested, it was carrying them was clear, but as yet it was by no +means clear at what rate; and time, and thought, and being left alone +and dealt with justly, have a great effect on men's minds. Extravagance, +disproportion, mischievous, dangerous exaggeration, in much that was +said and taught--all this might have settled down, as so many things are +in the habit of settling down, into reasonable and practical shapes, +after a first burst of crudeness and strain--as, in fact, it _did_ +settle down at last. For Anglicanism itself was not Roman; friends and +foes said it was not, to reproach as well as to defend it. It was not +Roman in Dr. Pusey, though he was not afraid to acknowledge what was +good in Rome. It was not Roman in Mr. Keble and his friends, in Dr. +Moberly of Winchester, and the Barters. It was not Roman in Mr. Isaac +Williams, Mr. Copeland, and Mr. Woodgate, each of them a centre of +influence in Oxford and the country. It was not Roman in the devoted +Charles Marriott, or in Isaac Williams's able and learned pupil, Mr. +Arthur Haddan. It was not Roman in Mr. James Mozley, after Mr. Newman, +the most forcible and impressive of the Oxford writers. A distinctively +English party grew up, both in Oxford and away from it, strong in +eminent names, in proportion as Roman sympathies showed themselves. +These men were, in any fair judgment, as free from Romanising as any of +their accusers; but they made their appeal for patience and fair +judgment in vain. If only the rulers could have had patience:--but +patience is a difficult virtue in the presence of what seem pressing +dangers. Their policy was wrong, stupid, unjust, pernicious. It was a +deplorable mistake, and all will wish now that the discredit of it did +not rest on the history of Oxford. And yet it was the mistake of upright +and conscientious men. + +Doubtless there was danger; the danger was that a number of men would +certainly not acquiesce much longer in Anglicanism, while the Heads +continued absolutely blind to what was really in these men's thoughts. +For the Heads could not conceive the attraction which the Roman Church +had for a religious man; they talked in the old-fashioned way about the +absurdity of the Roman system. They could not understand how reasonable +men could turn Roman Catholics. They accounted for it by supposing a +silly hankering after the pomp or the frippery of Roman Catholic +worship, and at best a craving after the romantic and sentimental. Their +thoughts dwelt continually on image worship and the adoration of saints. +But what really was astir was something much deeper--something much more +akin to the new and strong forces which were beginning to act in very +different directions from this in English society--forces which were not +only leading minds to Rome, but making men Utilitarians, Rationalists, +Positivists, and, though the word had not yet been coined, Agnostics. +The men who doubted about the English Church saw in Rome a strong, +logical, consistent theory of religion, not of yesterday nor to-day--not +only comprehensive and profound, but actually in full work, and fruitful +in great results; and this, in contrast to the alleged and undeniable +anomalies and shortcomings of Protestantism and Anglicanism. And next, +there was the immense amount which they saw in Rome of self-denial and +self-devotion; the surrender of home and family in the clergy; the great +organised ministry of women in works of mercy; the resolute abandonment +of the world and its attractions in the religious life. If in England +there flourished the homely and modest types of goodness, it was in Rome +that, at that day at least, men must look for the heroic. They were not +indisposed to the idea that a true Church which had lost all this might +yet regain it, and they were willing to wait and see what the English +Church would do to recover what it had lost; but there was obviously a +long way to make up, and they came to think that there was no chance of +its overtaking its true position. Of course they knew all that was so +loudly urged about the abuses and mischiefs growing out of the professed +severity of Rome. They knew that in spite of it foreign society was lax; +that the discipline of the confessional was often exercised with a light +rein. But if the good side of it was real, they easily accounted for the +bad: the bad did not destroy, it was a tacit witness to the good. And +they knew the Latin Church mainly from France, where it was more in +earnest, and exhibited more moral life and intellectual activity, than, +as far as Englishmen knew, in Italy or Spain. There was a strong rebound +from insular ignorance and unfairness, when English travellers came on +the poorly-paid but often intelligent and hard-working French clergy; on +the great works of mercy in the towns; on the originality and eloquence +of De Maistre, La Mennais, Lacordaire, Montalembert. + +These ideas took possession of a remarkable mind, the index and organ of +a remarkable character. Mr. W.G. Ward had learned the interest of +earnest religion from Dr. Arnold, in part through his close friend +Arthur Stanley. But if there was ever any tendency in him to combine +with the peculiar elements of the Rugby School, it was interrupted in +its _nascent_ state, as chemists speak, by the intervention of a still +more potent affinity, the personality of Mr. Newman. Mr. Ward had +developed in the Oxford Union, and in a wide social circle of the most +rising men of the time--including Tait, Cardwell, Lowe, Roundell +Palmer--a very unusual dialectical skill and power of argumentative +statement: qualities which seemed to point to the House of Commons. But +Mr. Newman's ideas gave him material, not only for argument but for +thought. The lectures and sermons at St. Mary's subdued and led him +captive. The impression produced on him was expressed in the formula +that primitive Christianity might have been corrupted into Popery, but +that Protestantism never could.[107] For a moment he hung in the wind. +He might have been one of the earliest of Broad Churchmen. He might have +been a Utilitarian and Necessitarian follower of Mr. J.S. Mill. But +moral influences of a higher kind prevailed. And he became, in the most +thoroughgoing yet independent fashion, a disciple of Mr. Newman. He +brought to his new side a fresh power of controversial writing; but his +chief influence was a social one, from his bright and attractive +conversation, his bold and startling candour, his frank, not to say +reckless, fearlessness of consequences, his unrivalled skill in logical +fence, his unfailing good-humour and love of fun, in which his personal +clumsiness set off the vivacity and nimbleness of his joyous moods. "He +was," says Mr. Mozley, "a great musical critic, knew all the operas, and +was an admirable buffo singer."--No one could doubt that, having +started, Mr. Ward would go far and probably go fast. + +Mr. Ward was well known in Oxford, and his language might have warned +the Heads that if there was a drift towards Rome, it came from something +much more serious than a hankering after a sentimental ritual or +mediaeval legends. In Mr. Ward's writings in the _British Critic_, as in +his conversation--and he wrote much and at great length--three ideas +were manifestly at the bottom of his attraction to Rome. One was that +Rome did, and, he believed, nothing else did, keep up the continuous +recognition of the supernatural element in religion, that consciousness +of an ever-present power not of this world which is so prominent a +feature in the New Testament, and which is spoken of there as a +permanent and characteristic element in the Gospel dispensation. The +Roman view of the nature and offices of the Church, of man's relations +to the unseen world, of devotion, of the Eucharist and of the Sacraments +in general, assumed and put forward this supernatural aspect; other +systems ignored it or made it mean nothing, unless in secret to the +individual and converted soul. In the next place he revolted--no weaker +word can be used--from the popular exhibition in England, more or less +Lutheran and Calvinistic, of the doctrine of justification. The +ostentatious separation of justification from morality, with all its +theological refinements and fictions, seemed to him profoundly +unscriptural, profoundly unreal and hollow, or else profoundly immoral. +In conscience and moral honesty and strict obedience he saw the only +safe and trustworthy guidance in regard to the choice and formation of +religious opinions; it was a principle on which all his philosophy was +built, that "careful and individual moral discipline is the only +possible basis on which Christian faith and practice can be reared." In +the third place he was greatly affected, not merely by the paramount +place of sanctity in the Roman theology and the professed Roman system, +but by the standard of saintliness which he found there, involving +complete and heroic self-sacrifice for great religious ends, complete +abandonment of the world, painful and continuous self-discipline, +purified and exalted religious affections, beside which English piety +and goodness at its best, in such examples as George Herbert and Ken and +Bishop Wilson, seemed unambitious and pale and tame, of a different +order from the Roman, and less closely resembling what we read of in the +first ages and in the New Testament. Whether such views were right or +wrong, exaggerated or unbalanced, accurate or superficial, they were +matters fit to interest grave men; but there is no reason to think that +they made the slightest impression on the authorities of the University. + +On the other hand, Mr. Ward, with the greatest good-humour, was +unreservedly defiant and aggressive. There was something intolerably +provoking in his mixture of jauntiness and seriousness, his avowal of +utter personal unworthiness and his undoubting certainty of being in the +right, his downright charges of heresy and his ungrudging readiness to +make allowance for the heretics and give them credit for special virtues +greater than those of the orthodox. He was not a person to hide his own +views or to let others hide theirs. He lived in an atmosphere of +discussion with all around him, friends or opponents, fellows and tutors +in common-rooms, undergraduates after lecture or out walking. The most +amusing, the most tolerant man in Oxford, he had round him perpetually +some of the cleverest and brightest scholars and thinkers of the place; +and where he was, there was debate, cross-questioning, pushing +inferences, starting alarming problems, beating out ideas, trying the +stuff and mettle of mental capacity. Not always with real knowledge, or +a real sense of fact, but always rapid and impetuous, taking in the +whole dialectical chess-board at a glance, he gave no quarter, and a man +found himself in a perilous corner before he perceived the drift of the +game; but it was to clear his own thought, not--for he was much too +good-natured--to embarrass another. If the old scholastic disputations +had been still in use at Oxford, his triumphs would have been signal and +memorable. His success, compared with that of other leaders of the +movement, in influencing life and judgment, was a pre-eminently +intellectual success; and it cut two ways. The stress which he laid on +the moral side of questions, his own generosity, his earnestness on +behalf of fair play and good faith, elevated and purified intercourse. +But he did not always win assent in proportion to his power of argument. +Abstract reasoning, in matters with which human action is concerned, may +be too absolute to be convincing. It may not leave sufficient margin for +the play and interference of actual experience. And Mr. Ward, having +perfect confidence in his conclusions, rather liked to leave them in a +startling form, which he innocently declared to be manifest and +inevitable. And so stories of Ward's audacity and paradoxes flew all +over Oxford, shocking and perplexing grave heads with fear of they knew +not what. Dr. Jenkyns, the Master of Balliol, one of those curious +mixtures of pompous absurdity with genuine shrewdness which used to pass +across the University stage, not clever himself but an unfailing judge +of a clever man, as a jockey might be of a horse, liking Ward and proud +of him for his cleverness, was aghast at his monstrous and +unintelligible language, and driven half wild with it. Mr. Tait, a +fellow-tutor, though living on terms of hearty friendship with Ward, +prevailed on the Master after No. 90 to dismiss Ward from the office of +teaching mathematics. It seemed a petty step thus to mix up theology +with mathematics, though it was not so absurd as it looked, for Ward +brought in theology everywhere, and discussed it when his mathematics +were done. But Ward accepted it frankly and defended it. It was natural, +he said, that Tait, thinking his principles mischievous, should wish to +silence him as a teacher; and their friendship remained unbroken. + +Mr. Ward's theological position was really a provisional one, though, at +starting at least, he would not have allowed it. He had no early or +traditional attachment to the English Church, such as that which acted +so strongly on the leaders of the movement: but he found himself a +member of it, and Mr. Newman had interpreted it to him. He so accepted +it, quite loyally and in earnest, as a point of departure. But he +proceeded at once to put "our Church" (as he called it) on its trial, in +comparison with its own professions, and with the ideal standard of a +Church which he had thought out for himself; and this rapidly led to +grave consequences. He accepted from authority which satisfied him both +intellectually and morally the main scheme of Catholic theology, as the +deepest and truest philosophy of religion, satisfying at once conscience +and intellect. The Catholic theology gave him, among other things, the +idea and the notes of the Church; with these, in part at least, the +English Church agreed; but in other respects, and these very serious +ones, it differed widely; it seemed inconsistent and anomalous. The +English Church was separate and isolated from Christendom. It was +supposed to differ widely from other Churches in doctrine. It admitted +variety of opinion and teaching, even to the point of tolerating alleged +heresy. With such data as these, he entered on an investigation which +ultimately came to the question whether the English Church could claim +to be a part of the Church Catholic. He postulated from the first, what +he afterwards developed in the book in which his Anglican position +culminated,--the famous _Ideal_,--the existence at some time or another +of a Catholic Church which not only aimed at, but fulfilled all the +conditions of a perfect Church in creed, communion, discipline, and +life. Of course the English and, as at starting he held, the Roman +Church, fell far short of this perfection. But at starting, the moral +which he drew was, not to leave the English Church, but to do his best +to raise it up to what it ought to be. Whether he took in all the +conditions of the problem, whether it was not far more complicated and +difficult than he supposed, whether his knowledge of the facts of the +case was accurate and adequate, whether he was always fair in his +comparisons and judgments, and whether he did not overlook elements of +the gravest importance in the inquiry; whether, in fact, save for +certain strong and broad lines common to the whole historic Church, the +reign of anomaly, inconsistency, difficulty did not extend much farther +over the whole field of debate than he chose to admit: all this is +fairly open to question. But within the limits which he laid down, and +within which he confined his reasonings, he used his materials with +skill and force; and even those who least agreed with him and were most +sensible of the strong and hardly disguised bias which so greatly +affected the value of his judgments, could not deny the frankness and +the desire to be fair and candid, with which, as far as intention went, +he conducted his argument. His first appearance as a writer was in the +controversy, as has been said before, on the subject of No. 90. That +tract had made the well-worn distinction between what was Catholic and +what was distinctively Roman, and had urged--what had been urged over +and over again by English divines--that the Articles, in their +condemnation of what was Roman, were drawn in such a way as to leave +untouched what was unquestionably Catholic. They were drawn indeed by +Protestants, but by men who also earnestly professed to hold with the +old Catholic doctors and disavowed any purpose to depart from their +teaching, and who further had to meet the views and gain the assent of +men who were much less Protestant than themselves--men who were willing +to break with the Pope and condemn the abuses associated with his name, +but by no means willing to break with the old theology. The Articles +were the natural result of a compromise between two strong parties--the +Catholics agreeing that the abuses should be condemned, so that the +Catholic doctrine was not touched; the Protestants insisting that, so +that the Catholic doctrine was not touched, the abuses of it should be +denounced with great severity: that there should be no question about +the condemnation of the abuses, and of the system which had maintained +them. The Articles were undoubtedly anti-Roman; that was obvious from +the historical position of the English Church, which in a very real +sense was anti-Roman; but were they so anti-Roman as to exclude +doctrines which English divines had over and over again maintained as +Catholic and distinguished from Romanism, but which the popular opinion, +at this time or that, identified therewith?[108] With flagrant +ignorance--ignorance of the history of thought and teaching in the +English Church, ignorance far more inexcusable of the state of parties +and their several notorious difficulties in relation to the various +formularies of the Church, it was maintained on the other side that the +"Articles construed by themselves" left no doubt that they were not only +anti-Roman but anti-Catholic, and that nothing but the grossest +dishonesty and immorality could allow any doubt on the subject. + +Neither estimate was logical enough to satisfy Mr. Ward. The charge of +insincerity, he retorted with great effect on those who made it: if +words meant anything, the Ordination Service, the Visitation Service, +and the Baptismal Service were far greater difficulties to Evangelicals, +and to Latitudinarians like Whately and Hampden, than the words of any +Article could be to Catholics; and there was besides the tone of the +whole Prayer Book, intelligible, congenial, on Catholic assumptions, and +on no other. But as to the Articles themselves, he was indisposed to +accept the defence made for them. He criticised indeed with acuteness +and severity the attempt to make the loose language of many of them +intolerant of primitive doctrine; but he frankly accepted the allegation +that apart from this or that explanation, their general look, as regards +later controversies, was visibly against, not only Roman doctrines or +Roman abuses, but that whole system of principles and mode of viewing +religion which he called Catholic. They were, he said, _patient_ of a +Catholic meaning, but _ambitious_ of a Protestant meaning; whatever +their logic was, their rhetoric was Protestant. It was just possible, +but not more, for a Catholic to subscribe to them. But they were the +creation and the legacy of a bad age, and though they had not +extinguished Catholic teaching and Catholic belief in the English +Church, they had been a serious hindrance to it, and a support to its +opponents. + +This was going beyond the position of No. 90. No. 90 had made light of +the difficulties of the Articles. + +That there are real difficulties to a Catholic Christian in the +ecclesiastical position of our Church at this day, no one can deny; but +the statements of the Articles are not in the number. Our present scope +is merely to show that, while our Prayer Book is acknowledged on all +hands to be of Catholic origin, our Articles also--the offspring of an +uncatholic age--are, through God's good providence, to say the least, +not uncatholic, and may be subscribed by those who aim at being Catholic +in heart and doctrine. + + +Mr. Ward not only went beyond this position, but in the teeth of these +statements; and he gave a new aspect and new issues to the whole +controversy. The Articles, to him, were a difficulty, which they were +not to the writer of No. 90, or to Dr. Pusey, or to Mr. Keble. To him +they were not only the "offspring of an uncatholic age," but in +themselves uncatholic; and his answer to the charge of dishonest +subscription was, not that the Articles "in their natural meaning are +Catholic,"[109] but that the system of the English Church is a +compromise between what is Catholic and what is Protestant, and that +the Protestant parties in it are involved in even greater difficulties, +in relation to subscription and use of its formularies, than the +Catholic. He admitted that he _did_ evade the spirit, but accepted the +"statements of the Articles," maintaining that this was the intention of +their original sanctioners. With characteristic boldness, inventing a +phrase which has become famous, he wrote: "Our twelfth Article is as +plain as words can make it on the Evangelical side; of course I think +its natural meaning may be explained away, for I subscribe it myself in +a non-natural sense":[110] but he showed that Evangelicals, high church +Anglicans, and Latitudinarians were equally obliged to have recourse to +explanations, which to all but themselves were unsatisfactory. + +But he went a step beyond this. Hitherto the distinction had been +uniformly insisted upon between what was Catholic and what was Roman; +between what was witnessed to by the primitive and the undivided Church, +and what had been developed beyond that in the Schools, and by the +definitions and decisions of Rome, and in the enormous mass of its +post-Reformation theology, at once so comprehensive, and so minute in +application. This distinction was the foundation of what was, +characteristically, Anglican theology, from Hooker downwards. This +distinction, at least for all important purposes, Mr. Ward gradually +gave up. It was to a certain degree recognised in his early controversy +about No. 90; but it gradually grew fainter till at last it avowedly +disappeared. The Anglican writers had drawn their ideas and their +inspiration from the Fathers; the Fathers lived long ago, and the +teaching drawn from them, however spiritual and lofty, wanted the modern +look, and seemed to recognise insufficiently modern needs. The Roman +applications of the same principles were definite and practical, and Mr. +Ward's mind, essentially one of his own century, and little alive to +what touched more imaginative and sensitive minds, turned at once to +Roman sources for the interpretation of what was Catholic. In the +_British Critic_, and still more in the remarkable volume in which his +Oxford controversies culminated, the substitution of _Roman_ for the old +conception of _Catholic_ appears, and the absolute identification of +Roman with Catholic. Roman authorities become more and more the measure +and rule of what is Catholic. They belong to the present in a way in +which the older fountains of teaching do not; in the recognised teaching +of the Latin Church, they have taken their place and superseded them. + +It was characteristic of Mr. Ward that his chief quarrel with the +Articles was not about the Sacraments, not about their language on +alleged Roman errors, but about the doctrine of grace, the relation of +the soul of man to the law, the forgiveness, the holiness of God,--the +doctrine, that is, in all its bearings, of justification. Mr. Newman had +examined this doctrine and the various language held about it with great +care, very firmly but very temperately, and had attempted to reconcile +with each other all but the extreme Lutheran statements. It was, he +said, among really religious men, a question of words. He had recognised +the faulty state of things in the pre-Reformation Church, the faulty +ideas about forgiveness, merit, grace, and works, from which the +Protestant language was a reaction, natural, if often excessive; and in +the English authoritative form of this language, he had found nothing +but what was perfectly capable of a sound and true meaning. From the +first, Mr. Ward's judgment was far more severe than this. To him, the +whole structure of the Articles on Justification and the doctrines +connected with it seemed based on the Lutheran theory, and for this +theory, as fundamentally and hopelessly immoral, he could not find words +sufficiently expressive of detestation and loathing. For the basis of +his own theory of religious knowledge was a moral basis; men came to the +knowledge of religious truth primarily not by the intellect, but by +absolute and unfailing loyalty to conscience and moral light; and a +doctrine which separated faith from morality and holiness, which made +man's highest good and his acceptance with God independent of what he +was as a moral agent, which relegated the realities of moral discipline +and goodness to a secondary and subordinate place,--as a mere sequel to +follow, almost mechanically and of course, on an act or feeling which +had nothing moral in it,--which substituted a fictitious and imputed +righteousness for an inherent and infused and real one, seemed to him +to confound the eternal foundations of right and wrong, and to be a +blasphemy against all that was true and sacred in religion. + +Of the Lutheran doctrine[111] of justification, and the principle of +private judgment, I have argued that, in their abstract nature and +necessary tendency, they sink below atheism itself.... A religious +person who shall be sufficiently clear-headed to understand the meaning +of words, is warranted in rejecting Lutheranism on the very same grounds +which would induce him to reject atheism, viz. as being the +contradiction of truths which he feels on most certain grounds to be +first principles.[112] + +There is nothing which he looks back on with so much satisfaction in his +writings as on this, that he has "ventured to characterise that hateful +and fearful type of Antichrist in terms not wholly inadequate to its +prodigious demerits."[113] + +Mr. Ward had started with a very definite idea of the Church and of its +notes and tests. It was obvious that the Anglican Church--and so, it was +thought, the Roman--failed to satisfy these notes in their completeness; +but it seemed, at least at first, to satisfy some of them, and to do +this so remarkably, and in such strong contrast to other religious +bodies, that in England at all events it seemed the true representative +and branch of the Church Catholic; and the duty of adhering to it and +serving it was fully recognised, even by those who most felt its +apparent departure from the more Catholic principles and temper +preserved in many points by the Roman Church. From this point of view +Mr. Ward avowedly began. But the position gradually gave way before his +relentless and dissolving logic. The whole course of his writing in the +_British Critic_ may be said to have consisted in a prolonged and +disparaging comparison of the English Church, in theory, in doctrine, in +moral and devotional temper, in discipline of character, in education, +in its public and authoritative tone in regard to social, political, and +moral questions, and in the type and standard of its clergy, with those +of the Catholic Church, which to him was represented by the mediaeval +and later Roman Church. And in the general result, and in all important +matters, the comparison became more and more fatally disadvantageous to +the English Church. In the perplexing condition of Christendom, it had +just enough good and promise to justify those who had been brought up in +it remaining where they were, as long as they saw any prospect of +improving it, and till they were driven out. That was a +duty--uncomfortable and thankless as it was, and open to any amount of +misconstruction and misrepresentation--which they owed to their +brethren, and to the Lord of the Church. But it involved plain speaking +and its consequences; and Mr. Ward never shrank from either. + +Most people, looking back, would probably agree, whatever their general +judgment on these matters, and whatever they may think of Mr. Ward's +case, that he was, at the time at least, the most unpersuasive of +writers. Considering his great acuteness, and the frequent originality +of his remarks--considering, further, his moral earnestness, and the +place which the moral aspects of things occupy in his thoughts, this is +remarkable; but so it is. In the first place, in dealing with these +eventful questions, which came home with such awful force to thousands +of awakened minds and consciences, full of hope and full of fear, there +was an entire and ostentatious want of sympathy with all that was +characteristically English in matters of religion. This arose partly +from his deep dislike to habits, very marked in Englishmen, but not +peculiar to them, of self-satisfaction and national self-glorification; +but it drove him into a welcoming of opposite foreign ways, of which he +really knew little, except superficially. Next, his boundless confidence +in the accuracy of his logical processes led him to habits of extreme +and absolute statement, which to those who did not agree with him, and +also to some who did, bore on their face the character of +over-statement, exaggeration, extravagance, not redeemed by an +occasional and somewhat ostentatious candour, often at the expense of +his own side and in favour of opponents to whom he could afford to be +frank. And further, while to the English Church he was merciless in the +searching severity of his judgment, he seemed to be blind to the whole +condition of things to which she, as well as her rival, had for the last +three centuries been subjected, and in which she had played a part at +least as important for Christian faith as that sustained by any portion +of Christendom; blind to all her special and characteristic excellences, +where these did not fit the pattern of the continental types (obviously, +in countless instances, matters of national and local character and +habits); blind to the enormous difficulties in which the political game +of her Roman opponents had placed her; blind to the fact that, judged +with the same adverse bias and prepossessions, the same unsparing +rigour, the same refusal to give real weight to what was good, on the +ground that it was mixed with something lower, the Roman Church would +show just as much deflection from the ideal as the English. Indeed, he +would have done a great service--people would have been far more +disposed to attend to his really interesting, and, to English readers, +novel, proofs of the moral and devotional character of the Roman popular +discipline, if he had not been so unfair on the English: if he had not +ignored the plain fact that just such a picture as he gave of the +English Church, as failing in required notes, might be found of the +Roman before the Reformation, say in the writings of Gerson, and in our +own days in those of Rosmini. Mr. Ward, if any one, appealed to fair +judgment; and to this fair judgment he presented allegations on the face +of them violent and monstrous. The English Church, according to him, was +in the anomalous position of being "gifted with the power of dispensing +sacramental grace,"[114] and yet, at the same time, "_wholly destitute_ +of external notes, and _wholly indefensible_ as to her position, by +external, historical, ecclesiastical arguments": and he for his part +declares, correcting Mr. Newman, who speaks of "outward notes as partly +gone and partly going," that he is "_wholly unable_ to discern the +outward notes of which Mr. Newman speaks, during any part of the last +three hundred years." He might as well have said at once that she did +not exist, if the outward aspects of a Church--orders, creeds, +sacraments, and, in some degree at any rate, preaching and witnessing +for righteousness--are not some of the "outward notes" of a Church. +"Should the pure light of the Gospel be ever restored to _this benighted +land_,"[115] he writes, at the beginning, as the last extract was +written at the end, of his controversial career at Oxford. Is not such +writing as if he wished to emulate in a reverse sense the folly and +falsehood of those who spoke of English Protestants having a monopoly +of the Gospel? He was unpersuasive, he irritated and repelled, in spite +of his wish to be fair and candid, in spite of having so much to teach, +in spite of such vigour of statement and argument, because on the face +of all his writings he was so extravagantly one-sided, so incapable of +an equitable view, so much a slave to the unreality of extremes. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[107] Cf. T. Mozley, _Reminiscences_, vol. ii. p. 5. + +[108] In dealing with the Articles either as a test or as a text-book, +this question was manifestly both an honest and a reasonable one. As a +test, and therefore penal, they must be construed strictly; like +judicial decisions, they only ruled as much as was necessary, and in the +wide field of theology confined themselves to the points at issue at the +moment. And as a text-book for instruction, it was obvious that while on +some points they were precise and clear, on others they were vague and +imperfect. The first five Articles left no room for doubt. When the +compilers came to the controversies of their day, for all their strong +language, they left all kinds of questions unanswered. For instance, +they actually left unnoticed the primacy, and much more the +infallibility of the Pope. They condemned the "sacrifices of +Masses"--did they condemn the ancient and universal doctrine of a +Eucharistic sacrifice? They condemned the Romish doctrine of Purgatory, +with its popular tenet of material fire--did that exclude every doctrine +of purgation after death? They condemned Transubstantiation--did they +condemn the Real Presence? They condemned a great popular system--did +they condemn that of which it was a corruption and travesty? These +questions could not be foreclosed, unless on the assumption that there +was no doctrine on such points which could be called Catholic _except +the Roman_. The inquiry was not new; and divines so stoutly anti-Roman +as Dr. Hook and Mr. W. Palmer of Worcester had answered it substantially +in the same sense as Mr. Newman in No. 90. + +[109] W.G. Ward, _The Ideal of a Christian Church_, p. 478. + +[110] _The Ideal, etc._, p. 479. + +[111] It is curious, and characteristic of the unhistorical quality of +Mr. Ward's mind, that his whole hostility should have been concentrated +on Luther and Lutheranism--on Luther, the enthusiastic, declamatory, +unsystematic denouncer of practical abuses, with his strong attachments +to portions of orthodoxy, rather than on Calvin, with his cold love of +power, and the iron consistency and strength of his logical +anti-Catholic system, which has really lived and moulded Protestantism, +while Lutheranism as a religion has passed into countless different +forms. Luther was to Calvin as Carlyle to J.S. Mill or Herbert Spencer; +he defied system. But Luther had burst into outrageous paradoxes, which +fastened on Mr. Ward's imagination.--Yet outrageous language is not +always the most dangerous. Nobody would really find a provocation to +sin, or an excuse for it, in Luther's _Pecca fortiter_ any more than in +Escobar's ridiculous casuistry. There may be much more mischief in the +delicate unrealities of a fashionable preacher, or in many a smooth +sentimental treatise on the religious affections. + +[112] _The Ideal, etc._, pp. 587, 305. + +[113] Ibid. p. 305. + +[114] _Ideal,_ p 286. + +[115] _British Critic_ October 1841, p. 340. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH + + +No. 90, with the explanations of it given by Mr. Newman and the other +leaders of the movement, might have raised an important and not very +easy question, but one in no way different from the general character of +the matters in debate in the theological controversy of the time. But +No. 90, with the comments on it of Mr. Ward, was quite another matter, +and finally broke up the party of the movement. It was one thing to show +how much there is in common between England and Rome, and quite another +to argue that there is no difference. Mr. Ward's refusal to allow a +reasonable and a Catholic interpretation to the doctrine of the Articles +on Justification, though such an understanding of it had not only been +maintained by Bishop Bull and the later orthodox divines, but was +impressed on all the popular books of devotion, such as the _Whole Duty +of Man_ and Bishop Wilson's _Sacra Privata_; and along with this, the +extreme claim to hold compatible with the Articles the "whole cycle of +Roman doctrine," introduced entirely new conditions into the whole +question. _Non hoec in foedera_ was the natural reflection of numbers of +those who most sympathised with the Tractarian school. The English +Church might have many shortcomings and want many improvements; but +after all she had something to say for herself in her quarrel with Rome; +and the witness of experience for fifteen hundred years must be not +merely qualified and corrected, but absolutely wiped out, if the +allegation were to be accepted that Rome was blameless in all that +quarrel, and had no part in bringing about the confusions of +Christendom. And this contention was more and more enforced in Mr. +Ward's articles in the _British Critic_--enforced, more effectively than +by direct statement, by continual and passing assumption and +implication. They were papers of considerable power and acuteness, and +of great earnestness in their constant appeal to the moral criteria of +truth; though Mr. Ward was not then at his best as a writer, and they +were in composition heavy, diffuse, monotonous, and wearisome. But the +attitude of deep depreciation, steady, systematic, unrelieved, in regard +to that which ought, if acknowledged at all, to deserve the highest +reverence among all things on earth, in regard to an institution which, +with whatever faults, he himself in words still recognised as the Church +of God, was an indefensible and an unwholesome paradox. The analogy is a +commonly accepted one between the Church and the family. How could any +household go on in which there was at work an _animus_ of unceasing and +relentless, though possibly too just criticism, on its characteristic +and perhaps serious faults; and of comparisons, also possibly most just, +with the better ways of other families? It might be the honest desire of +reform and improvement; but charity, patience, equitableness, are +virtues of men in society, as well as strict justice and the desire of +improvement. In the case of the family, such action could only lead to +daily misery and the wasting and dying out of home affections. In the +case of a Church, it must come to the sundering of ties which ought no +longer to bind. Mr. Ward all along insisted that there was no necessity +for looking forward to such an event. He wished to raise, purify, reform +the Church in which Providence had placed him; utterly dissatisfied as +he was with it, intellectually and morally, convinced more and more that +it was wrong, dismally, fearfully wrong, it was his duty, he thought, to +abide in it without looking to consequences; but it was also his duty to +shake the faith of any one he could in its present claims and working, +and to hold up an incomparably purer model of truth and holiness. That +his purpose was what he considered real reform, there is no reason to +doubt, though he chose to shut his eyes to what must come of it. The +position was an unnatural one, but he had great faith in his own +well-fenced logical creations, and defied the objections of a homelier +common sense. He was not content to wait in silence the slow and sad +changes of old convictions, the painful decay and disappearance of +long-cherished ties. His mind was too active, restless, unreserved. To +the last he persisted in forcing on the world, professedly to influence +it, really to defy it, the most violent assertions which he could +formulate of the most paradoxical claims on friends and opponents which +had ever been made. + +Mr. Ward's influence was felt also in another way; though here it is not +easy to measure the degree of its force. He was in the habit of +appealing to Mr. Newman to pronounce on the soundness of his principles +and inferences, with the view of getting Mr. Newman's sanction for them +against more timid or more dissatisfied friends; and he would come down +with great glee on objectors to some new and startling position, with +the reply, "Newman says so," Every one knows from the _Apologia_ what +was Mr. Newman's state of mind after 1841--a state of perplexity, +distress, anxiety; he was moving undoubtedly in one direction, but +moving slowly, painfully, reluctantly, intermittently, with views +sometimes clear, sometimes clouded, of that terribly complicated +problem, the answer to which was full of such consequences to himself +and to others. No one ever felt more keenly that it was no mere affair +of dexterous or brilliant logic; if logic could have settled it, the +question would never have arisen. But in this fevered state, with mind, +soul, heart all torn and distracted by the tremendous responsibilities +pressing on him, wishing above everything to be quiet, to be silent, at +least not to speak except at his own times and when he saw the +occasion, he had, besides bearing his own difficulties, to return +off-hand and at the moment some response to questions which he had not +framed, which he did not care for, on which he felt no call to +pronounce, which he was not perhaps yet ready to face, and to answer +which he must commit himself irrevocably and publicly to more than he +was prepared for. Every one is familiar with the proverbial distribution +of parts in the asking and the answering of questions; but when the +asker is no fool, but one of the sharpest-witted of mankind, asking with +little consideration for the condition or the wishes of the answerer, +with great power to force the answer he wants, and with no great +tenderness in the use he makes of it, the situation becomes a trying +one. Mr. Ward was continually forcing on Mr. Newman so-called +irresistible inferences; "If you say so and so, surely you must also say +something more?" Avowedly ignorant of facts and depending for them on +others, he was only concerned with logical consistency. And accordingly +Mr. Newman, with whom producible logical consistency was indeed a great +thing, but with whom it was very far from being everything, had +continually to accept conclusions which he would rather have kept in +abeyance, to make admissions which were used without their +qualifications, to push on and sanction extreme ideas which he himself +shrank from because they were extreme. But it was all over with his +command of time, his liberty to make up his mind slowly on the great +decision. He had to go at Mr. Ward's pace, and not his own. He had to +take Mr. Ward's questions, not when he wanted to have them and at his +own time, but at Mr. Ward's. No one can tell how much this state of +things affected the working of Mr. Newman's mind in that pause of +hesitation before the final step; how far it accelerated the view which +he ultimately took of his position. No one can tell, for many other +influences were mixed up with this one. But there is no doubt that Mr. +Newman felt the annoyance and the unfairness of this perpetual +questioning for the benefit of Mr. Ward's theories, and there can be +little doubt that, in effect, it drove him onwards and cut short his +time of waiting. Engineers tell us that, in the case of a ship rolling +in a sea-way, when the periodic times of the ship's roll coincide with +those of the undulations of the waves, a condition of things arises +highly dangerous to the ship's stability. So the agitations of Mr. +Newman's mind were reinforced by the impulses of Mr. Ward's.[116] + +But the great question between England and Rome was not the only matter +which engaged Mr. Ward's active mind. In the course of his articles in +the _British Critic_ he endeavoured to develop in large outlines a +philosophy of religious belief. Restless on all matters without a +theory, he felt the need of a theory of the true method of reaching, +verifying, and judging of religious truth; it seemed to him necessary +especially to a popular religion, such as Christianity claimed to be; +and it was not the least of the points on which he congratulated himself +that he had worked out a view which extended greatly the province and +office of conscience, and of fidelity to it, and greatly narrowed the +province and office of the mere intellect in the case of the great mass +of mankind. The Oxford writers had all along laid stress on the +paramount necessity of the single eye and disciplined heart in accepting +or judging religion; moral subjects could be only appreciated by moral +experience; purity, reverence, humility were as essential in such +questions as zeal, industry, truthfulness, honesty; religious truth is a +gift as well as a conquest; and they dwelt on the great maxims of the +New Testament: "To him that hath shall be given"; "If any man will do +the will of the Father, he shall know of the doctrine." But though Mr. +Newman especially had thrown out deep and illuminating thoughts on this +difficult question, it had not been treated systematically; and this +treatment Mr. Ward attempted to give to it. It was a striking and +powerful effort, full of keen insight into human experience and acute +observations on its real laws and conditions; but on the face of it, it +was laboured and strained; it chose its own ground, and passed unnoticed +neighbouring regions under different conditions; it left undealt with +the infinite variety of circumstances, history, capacities, natural +temperament, and those unexplored depths of will and character, +affecting choice and judgment, the realities of which have been brought +home to us by our later ethical literature. Up to a certain point his +task was easy. It is easy to say that a bad life, a rebellious temper, a +selfish spirit are hopeless disqualifications for judging spiritual +things; that we must take something for granted in learning any truths +whatever; that men must act as moral creatures to attain insight into +moral truths, to realise and grasp them as things, and not abstractions +and words. But then came the questions--What is that moral training, +which, in the case of the good heart, will be practically infallible in +leading into truth? And what is that type of character, of saintliness, +which gives authority which we cannot do wrong in following; where, if +question and controversy arise, is the common measure binding on both +sides; and can even the saints, with their immense variations and +apparent mixtures and failings, furnish that type? And next, where, in +the investigations which may be endlessly diversified, does intellect +properly come in and give its help? For come in somewhere, of course it +must; and the conspicuous dominance of the intellectual element in Mr. +Ward's treatment of the subject is palpable on the face of it. His +attempt is to make out a theory of the reasonableness of unproducible; +because unanalysed, reasons; reasons which, though the individual cannot +state them, may be as real and as legitimately active as the obscure +rays of the spectrum. But though the discussion in Mr. Ward's hands was +suggestive of much, though he might expose the superciliousness of +Whately or the shallowness of Mr. Goode, and show himself no unequal +antagonist to Mr. J.S. Mill, it left great difficulties unanswered, and +it had too much the appearance of being directed to a particular end, +that of guarding the Catholic view of a popular religion from formidable +objections. + +The moral side of religion had been from the first a prominent subject +in the teaching of the movement Its protests had been earnest and +constant against intellectual self-sufficiency, and the notion that mere +shrewdness and cleverness were competent judges of Christian truth, or +that soundness of judgment in religious matters was compatible with +arrogance or an imperfect moral standard; and it revolted against the +conventional and inconsistent severity of Puritanism, which was shocked +at dancing but indulged freely in good dinners, and was ostentatious in +using the phrases of spiritual life and in marking a separation from the +world, while it surrounded itself with all the luxuries of modern +inventiveness. But this moral teaching was confined to the statement of +principles, and it was carried out in actual life with the utmost +dislike of display and with a shrinking from strong professions. The +motto of Froude's _Remains_, which embodied his characteristic temper, +was an expression of the feeling of the school: + + Se sub serenis vultibus + Austera virtus occulit: + Timet videri, ne suum, + Dum prodit, amittat decus,[117] + +The heroic strictness and self-denial of the early Church were the +objects of admiration, as what ought to be the standard of Christians; +but people did not yet like to talk much about attempts to copy them. +Such a book as the _Church of the Fathers_ brought out with great force +and great sympathy the ascetic temper and the value put on celibacy in +the early days, and it made a deep impression; but nothing was yet +formulated as characteristic and accepted doctrine. + +It was not unnatural that this should change. The principles exemplified +in the high Christian lives of antiquity became concrete in definite +rules and doctrines, and these rules and doctrines were most readily +found in the forms in which the Roman schools and teachers had embodied +them. The distinction between the secular life and the life of +"religion," with all its consequences, became an accepted one. Celibacy +came to be regarded as an obvious part of the self-sacrifice of a +clergyman's life, and the belief and the profession of it formed a test, +understood if not avowed, by which the more advanced or resolute members +of the party were distinguished from the rest. This came home to men on +the threshold of life with a keener and closer touch than questions +about doctrine. It was the subject of many a bitter, agonising struggle +which no one knew anything of; it was with many the act of a supreme +self-oblation. The idea of the single life may be a utilitarian one as +well as a religious one. It may be chosen with no thought of +renunciation or self-denial, for the greater convenience and freedom of +the student or the philosopher, the soldier or the man of affairs. It +may also be chosen without any special feeling of a sacrifice by the +clergyman, as most helpful for his work. But the idea of celibacy, in +those whom it affected at Oxford, was in the highest degree a religious +and romantic one. The hold which it had on the leader of the movement +made itself felt, though little was directly said. To shrink from it was +a mark of want of strength or intelligence, of an unmanly preference for +English home life, of insensibility to the generous devotion and purity +of the saints. It cannot be doubted that at this period of the movement +the power of this idea over imagination and conscience was one of the +strongest forces in the direction of Rome. + +Of all these ideas Mr. Ward's articles in the _British Critic_ were the +vigorous and unintermittent exposition. He spoke out, and without +hesitation. There was a perpetual contrast implied, when it was not +forcibly insisted on, between all that had usually been esteemed highest +in the moral temper of the English Church, always closely connected with +home life and much variety of character, and the loftier and bolder but +narrower standard of Roman piety. And Mr. Ward was seconded in the +_British Critic_ by other writers, all fervid in the same cause, some +able and eloquent. The most distinguished of his allies was Mr. Oakeley, +Fellow of Balliol and minister of Margaret Chapel in London. Mr. Oakeley +was, perhaps, the first to realise the capacities of the Anglican ritual +for impressive devotional use, and his services, in spite of the +disadvantages of the time, and also of his chapel, are still remembered +by some as having realised for them, in a way never since surpassed, the +secrets and the consolations of the worship of the Church. Mr. Oakeley, +without much learning, was master of a facile and elegant pen. He was a +man who followed a trusted leader with chivalrous boldness, and was not +afraid of strengthening his statements. Without Mr. Ward's force and +originality, his articles were more attractive reading. His article on +"Jewel" was more than anything else a landmark in the progress of Roman +ideas.[118] + +From the time of Mr. Ward's connexion with the _British Critic_, its +anti-Anglican articles had given rise to complaints which did not become +less loud as time went on. He was a troublesome contributor to his +editor, Mr. T. Mozley, and he made the hair of many of his readers stand +on end with his denunciations of things English and eulogies of things +Roman. + + My first troubles (writes Mr. Mozley) were with Oakeley and Ward. I + will not say that I hesitated much as to the truth of what they wrote, + for in that matter I was inclined to go very far, at least in the way + of toleration. Yet it appeared to me quite impossible either that any + great number of English Churchmen would ever go so far, or that the + persons possessing authority in the Church would fail to protest, not + to say more.... As to Ward I did but touch a filament or two in one of + his monstrous cobwebs, and off he ran instantly to Newman to complain + of my gratuitous impertinence. Many years after I was forcibly + reminded of him by a pretty group of a little Cupid flying to his + mother to show a wasp-sting he had just received. Newman was then in + this difficulty. He did not disagree with what Ward had written; but, + on the other hand, he had given neither me nor Ward to understand that + he was likely to step in between us. In fact, he wished to be entirely + clear of the editorship. This, however, was a thing that Ward could + not or would not understand.[119] + +The discontent of readers of the _British Critic_ was great. It was +expressed in various ways, and was represented by a pamphlet of Mr. W. +Palmer's of Worcester, in which he contrasted, with words of severe +condemnation, the later writers in the Review with the teaching of the +earlier _Tracts for the Times_, and denounced the "Romanising" tendency +shown in its articles. In the autumn of 1843 the Review came to an end. +A field of work was thus cut off from Mr. Ward. Full of the interest of +the ideas which possessed him, always equipped and cheerfully ready for +the argumentative encounter, and keenly relishing the _certaminis +gaudia_, he at once seized the occasion of Mr. Palmer's pamphlet to +state what he considered his position, and to set himself right in the +eyes of all fair and intelligent readers. He intended a long pamphlet. +It gradually grew under his hands--he was not yet gifted with the power +of compression and arrangement--into a volume of 600 pages: the famous +_Ideal of a Christian Church, considered in Comparison with Existing +Practice_, published in the summer of 1844. + +The _Ideal_ is a ponderous and unattractive volume, ill arranged and +rambling, which its style and other circumstances have caused to be +almost forgotten. But there are interesting discussions in it which may +still repay perusal for their own sakes. The object of the book was +twofold. Starting with an "ideal" of what the Christian Church may be +expected to be in its various relations to men, it assumes that the +Roman Church, and only the Roman Church, satisfies the conditions of +what a Church ought to be, and it argues in detail that the English +Church, in spite of its professions, utterly and absolutely fails to +fulfil them. It is _plaidoirie_ against everything English, on the +ground that it cannot be Catholic because it is not Roman. It was not +consistent, for while the writer alleged that "our Church totally +neglected her duties both as guardian of and witness to morality, and +as witness and teacher of orthodoxy," yet he saw no difficulty in +attributing the revival of Catholic truth to "the inherent vitality and +powers of our own Church."[120] But this was not the sting and +provocation of the book. That lay in the developed claim, put forward by +implication in Mr. Ward's previous writings, and now repeated in the +broadest and most unqualified form, to hold his position in the English +Church, avowing and teaching all Roman doctrine. + + We find (he exclaims), oh, most joyful, most wonderful, most + unexpected sight! we find the whole cycle of Roman doctrine gradually + possessing numbers of English Churchmen.... Three years have passed + since I said plainly that in subscribing the Articles I renounce no + Roman doctrine; yet I retain my fellowship which I hold on the tenure + of subscription, and have received no ecclesiastical censure in any + shape.[121] + +There was much to learn from the book; much that might bring home to the +most loyal Churchman a sense of shortcomings, a burning desire for +improvement; much that might give every one a great deal to think about, +on some of the deepest problems of the intellectual and religious life. +But it could not be expected that such a challenge, in such sentences as +these, should remain unnoticed. + +The book came out in the Long Vacation, and it was not till the +University met in October that signs of storm began to appear. But +before it broke an incident occurred which inflamed men's tempers. Dr. +Wynter's reign as Vice-Chancellor had come to a close, and the next +person, according to the usual custom of succession, was Dr. Symons, +Warden of Wadham. Dr. Symons had never concealed his strong hostility to +the movement, and he had been one of Dr. Pusey's judges. The prospect of +a partisan Vice-Chancellor, certainly very determined, and supposed not +to be over-scrupulous, was alarming. The consent of Convocation to the +Chancellor's nomination of his substitute had always been given in +words, though no instance of its having been refused was known, at least +in recent times. But a great jealousy about the rights of Convocation +had been growing up under the late autocratic policy of the Heads, and +there was a disposition to assert, and even to stretch these rights, a +disposition not confined to the party of the movement. It was proposed +to challenge Dr. Symons's nomination. Great doubts were felt and +expressed about the wisdom of the proposal; but at length opposition was +resolved upon. The step was a warning to the Heads, who had been +provoking enough; but there was not enough to warrant such a violent +departure from usage, and it was the act of exasperation rather than of +wisdom. The blame for it must be shared between the few who fiercely +urged it, and the many who disapproved and acquiesced. On the day of +nomination, the scrutiny was allowed, _salva auctoritate Cancellarii_; +but Dr. Symons's opponents were completely defeated by 883 to 183. It +counted, not unreasonably, as a "Puseyite defeat." + +The attempt and its result made it certain that in the attack that was +sure to come on Mr. Ward's book, he would meet with no mercy. As soon as +term began the Board of Heads of Houses took up the matter; they were +earnestly exhorted to it by a letter of Archbishop Whately's, which was +read at the Board. But they wanted no pressing, nor is it astonishing +that they could not understand the claim to hold the "whole cycle" of +Roman doctrine in the English Church. Mr. Ward's view was that he was +loyally doing the best he could for "our Church," not only in showing up +its heresies and faults, but in urging that the only remedy was +wholesale submission to Rome. To the University authorities this was +taking advantage of his position in the Church to assail and if possible +destroy it. And to numbers of much more sober and moderate Churchmen, +sympathisers with the general spirit of the movement, it was evident +that Mr. Ward had long passed the point when tolerance could be fairly +asked, consistently with any respect for the English Church, for such +sweeping and paradoxical contradictions, by her own servants, of her +claims and title. Mr. Ward's manner also, which, while it was serious +enough in his writings, was easy and even jocular in social intercourse, +left the impression, in reality a most unfair impression, that he was +playing and amusing himself with these momentous questions. + +A Committee of the Board examined the book; a number of startling +propositions were with ease picked out, some preliminary skirmishing as +to matters of form took place, and in December 1844 the Board announced +that they proposed to submit to Convocation without delay three +measures:--(1) to condemn Mr. Ward's book; (2) to degrade Mr. Ward by +depriving him of all his University degrees; and (3) whereas the +existing Statutes gave the Vice-Chancellor power of calling on any +member of the University at any time to prove his orthodoxy by +subscribing the Articles, to add to this a declaration, to be henceforth +made by the subscriber, that he took them in the sense in which "they +were both first published and were now imposed by the University," with +the penalty of expulsion against any one, lay or clerical, who thrice +refused subscription with this declaration. + +As usual, the Board entirely mistook the temper of the University, and +by their violence and want of judgment turned the best chance they ever +had, of carrying the University with them, into what their blunders +really made an ignominious defeat. If they had contented themselves with +the condemnation, in almost any terms, of Mr. Ward's book, and even of +its author, the condemnation would have been overwhelming. A certain +number of men would have still stood by Mr. Ward, either from friendship +or sympathy, or from independence of judgment, or from dislike of the +policy of the Board; but they would have been greatly outnumbered. The +degradation--the Board did not venture on the logical consequence, +expulsion--was a poor and even ridiculous measure of punishment; to +reduce Mr. Ward to an undergraduate _in statu pupillari_, and a +commoner's short gown, was a thing to amuse rather than terrify. The +personal punishment seemed unworthy when they dared not go farther, +while to many the condemnation of the book seemed penalty enough; and +the condemnation of the book by these voters was weakened by their +refusal to carry it into personal disgrace and disadvantage. Still, if +these two measures had stood by themselves, they could not have been +resisted, and the triumph of the Board would have been a signal one. But +they could not rest. They must needs attempt to put upon subscription, +just when its difficulties were beginning to be felt, not by one party, +but by all, an interpretation which set the University and Church in a +flame. The cry, almost the shriek, arose that it was a new test, and a +test which took for granted what certainly needed proof, that the sense +in which the Articles were first understood and published was exactly +the same as that in which the University now received and imposed them. +It was in vain that explanations, assurances, protests, were proffered; +no new test, it was said, was thought of--the Board would never think of +such a thing; it was only something to ensure good faith and honesty. +But it was utterly useless to contend against the storm. A test it was, +and a new test no one would have. It was clear that, if the third +proposal was pushed, it would endanger the votes about Mr. Ward. After +some fruitless attempts at justification the Board had, in the course +of a month, to recognise that it had made a great mistake. The +condemnation of Mr. Ward was to come on, on the 13th of February; and on +the 23d of January the Vice-Chancellor, in giving notice of it, +announced that the third proposal was withdrawn. + +It might have been thought that this was lesson enough to leave well +alone. The Heads were sure of votes against Mr. Ward, more or less +numerous; they were sure of a victory which would be a severe blow, not +only to Mr. Ward and his special followers, but to the Tractarian party +with which he had been so closely connected. But those bitter and +intemperate spirits which had so long led them wrong were not to be +taught prudence even by their last experience. The mischief makers were +at work, flitting about the official lodgings at Wadham and Oriel. Could +not something be done, even at this late hour, to make up for the loss +of the test? Could not something be done to disgrace a greater name than +Mr. Ward's? Could not the opportunity which was coming of rousing the +feeling of the University against the disciple be turned to account to +drag forth his supposed master from his retirement and impunity, and +brand the author of No. 90 with the public stigma--no longer this time +of a Hebdomadal censure, but of a University condemnation? The +temptation was irresistible to a number of disappointed +partisans--kindly, generous, good-natured men in private life, but +implacable in their fierce fanaticism. In their impetuous vehemence +they would not even stop to think what would be said of the conditions +and circumstances under which they pressed their point. On the 23d of +January the Vice-Chancellor had withdrawn the test. On the 25th of +January--those curious in coincidences may observe that it was the date +of No. 90 in 1841--a circular was issued inviting signatures for a +requisition to the Board, asking them to propose, in the approaching +Convocation of the 13th of February, a formal censure of the principles +of No. 90. The invitation to sign was issued in the names of Dr. +Faussett and Dr. Ellerton of Magdalen. It received between four and five +hundred signatures, as far as was known; but it was withheld by the +Vice-Chancellor from the inspection of those who officially had a right +to have it before them. On the 4th of February its prayer came before +the Hebdomadal Board. The objection of haste--that not ten days +intervened between this new and momentous proposal and the day of +voting--was brushed aside. The members of the Board were mad enough not +to see, not merely the odiousness of the course, but the aggravated +odiousness of hurry. The proposal was voted by the majority, _sans +phrase._ And they ventured, amid all the excitement and irritation of +the moment, to offer for the sanction of the University a decree framed +in the words of their own censure. + +The interval before the Convocation was short, but it was long enough +for decisive opinions on the proposal of the Board to be formed and +expressed. Leading men in London, Mr. Gladstone among them, were clear +that it was an occasion for the exercise of the joint veto with which +the Proctors were invested. The veto was intended, if for anything, to +save the University from inconsiderate and hasty measures; and seldom, +except in revolutionary times, had so momentous and so unexpected a +measure been urged on with such unseemly haste. The feeling of the +younger Liberals, Mr. Stanley, Mr. Donkin, Mr. Jowett, Dr. Greenhill, +was in the same direction. On the 10th of February the Proctors +announced to the Board their intention to veto the third proposal. But +of course the thing went forward. The Proctors were friends of Mr. +Newman, and the Heads believed that this would counterbalance any effect +from their act of authority. It is possible that the announcement may +have been regarded as a mere menace, too audacious to be fulfilled. On +the 13th of February, amid slush and snow, Convocation met in the +Theatre. Mr. Ward asked leave to defend himself in English, and occupied +one of the rostra, usually devoted to the recital of prize poems and +essays. He spoke with vigour and ability, dividing his speech, and +resting in the interval between the two portions in the rostrum.[122] +There was no other address, and the voting began. The first vote, the +condemnation of the book, was carried by 777 to 386. The second, by a +more evenly balanced division, 569 to 511. When the Vice-Chancellor put +the third, the Proctors rose, and the senior Proctor, Mr. Guillemard of +Trinity, stopped it in the words, _Nobis procuratoribus non placet_. +Such a step, of course, only suspended the vote, and the year of office +of these Proctors was nearly run. But they had expressed the feeling of +those whom they represented. It was shown not only in a largely-signed +address of thanks. All attempts to revive the decree at the expiration +of their year of office failed. The wiser heads in the Hebdomadal Board +recognised at last that they had better hold their hand. Mistakes men +may commit, and defeats they may undergo, and yet lose nothing that +concerns their character for acting as men of a high standard ought to +act. But in this case, mistakes and defeat were the least of what the +Board brought on themselves. This was the last act of a long and +deliberately pursued course of conduct; and if it was the last, it was +because it was the upshot and climax, and neither the University nor any +one else would endure that it should go on any longer. The proposed +attack on Mr. Newman betrayed how helpless they were, and to what paltry +acts of worrying it was, in their judgment, right and judicious to +condescend. It gave a measure of their statesmanship, wisdom, and good +feeling in defending the interests of the Church; and it made a very +deep and lasting impression on all who were interested in the honour and +welfare of Oxford. Men must have blinded themselves to the plainest +effects of their own actions who could have laid themselves open to such +a description of their conduct as is contained in the following extract +from a paper of the time--a passage of which the indignant and pathetic +undertone reflected the indignation and the sympathy of hundreds of men +of widely differing opinions. + + The vote is an answer to a cry--that cry is one of dishonesty, and + this dishonesty the proposed resolution, as plainly as it dares to say + anything, insinuates. On this part of the question, those who have + ever been honoured by Mr. Newman's friendship must feel it dangerous + to allow themselves thus to speak. And yet they must speak; for no one + else can appreciate it as truly as they do. When they see the person + whom they have been accustomed to revere as few men are revered, whose + labours, whose greatness, whose tenderness, whose singleness and + holiness of purpose, they have been permitted to know intimately--not + allowed even the poor privilege of satisfying, by silence and + retirement--by the relinquishment of preferment, position, and + influence--the persevering hostility of persons whom they cannot help + comparing with him--not permitted even to submit in peace to those + irregular censures, to which he seems to have been even morbidly + alive, but dragged forth to suffer an oblique and tardy condemnation; + called again to account for matters now long ago accounted for; on + which a judgment has been pronounced, which, whatever others may think + of it, he at least has accepted as conclusive--when they contrast his + merits, his submission, his treatment, which they see and know, with + the merits, the bearing, the fortunes of those who are doggedly + pursuing him, it does become very difficult to speak without sullying + what it is a kind of pleasure to feel is _his_ cause by using hard + words, or betraying it by not using them. It is too difficult to + speak, as ought to be spoken, of this ungenerous and gratuitous + afterthought--too difficult to keep clear of what, at least, will be + _thought_ exaggeration; too difficult to do justice to what they feel + to be undoubtedly true; and I will not attempt to say more than enough + to mark an opinion which ought to be plainly avowed, as to the nature + of this procedure.[123] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[116] A pencilled note indicates that this illustration was suggested by +experiments in naval engineering carried on at one time by Mr. W. +Froude. Cf. T. Mozley, _Reminiscences_, vol. ii. p. 17. + +[117] Hymn in Paris Breviary, _Commune Sanctarum Mulierum_. + +[118] _Reminiscences_, ii. 243, 244. Cf. _British Critic_, July 1841. + +[119] _Reminiscences,_ ii. 223. + +[120] _Ideal_, p. 566. + +[121] _Ibid._ pp. 565-567. + +[122] It is part of the history of the time, that during those anxious +days, Mr. Ward was engaged to be married. The engagement came to the +knowledge of his friends, to their great astonishment and amusement, +very soon after the events in the Theatre. + +[123] From a _Short Appeal to Members of Convocation on the proposed +Censure on No. 90_. By Frederic Rogers, Fellow of Oriel. (Dated +Saturday, 8th of February 1845.) + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE CATASTROPHE + + +The events of February were a great shock. The routine of Oxford had +been broken as it had never been broken by the fiercest strifes before. +Condemnations had been before passed on opinions, and even on persons. +But to see an eminent man, of blameless life, a fellow of one of the +first among the Colleges, solemnly deprived of his degree and all that +the degree carried with it, and that on a charge in which bad faith and +treachery were combined with alleged heresy, was a novel experience, +where the kindnesses of daily companionship and social intercourse still +asserted themselves as paramount to official ideas of position. And +when, besides this, people realised what more had been attempted, and by +how narrow a chance a still heavier blow had been averted from one +towards whom so many hearts warmed, how narrowly a yoke had been escaped +which would have seemed to subject all religious thought in the +University to the caprice or the blind zeal of a partisan official, the +sense of relief was mixed with the still present memory of a desperate +peril And then came the question as to what was to come next. That the +old policy of the Board would be revived and pursued when the end of the +Proctors' year delivered it from their inconvenient presence, was soon +understood to be out of the question. The very violence of the measures +attempted had its reaction, which stopped anything further. The +opponents of Tractarianism, Orthodox and Liberal, were for the moment +gorged with their success. What men waited to see was the effect on the +party of the movement; how it would influence the advanced portion of +it; how it would influence the little company who had looked on in +silence from their retirement at Littlemore. The more serious aspect of +recent events was succeeded for the moment by a certain comic contrast, +created by Mr. Ward's engagement to be married, which was announced +within a week of his degradation, and which gave the common-rooms +something to smile at after the strain and excitement of the scene in +the Theatre. But that passed, and the graver outlook of the situation +occupied men's thoughts. + +There was a widespread feeling of insecurity. Friends did not know of +friends, how their minds were working, how they might go. Anxious +letters passed, the writers not daring to say too much, or reveal too +much alarm. And yet there was still some hope that at least with the +great leader matters were not desperate. To his own friends he gave +warning; he had already done so in a way to leave little to expect but +at last to lose him; he spoke of resigning his fellowship in October, +though he wished to defer this till the following June; but nothing +final had been said publicly. Even at the last it was only anticipated +by some that he would retire into lay communion. But that silence was +awful and ominous. He showed no signs of being affected by what had +passed in Oxford. He privately thanked the Proctors for saving him from +what would have distressed him; but he made no comments on the measures +themselves. Still it could not but be a climax of everything as far as +Oxford was concerned. And he was a man who saw signs in such events. + +It was inevitable that the events of the end of 1844 and the beginning +of 1845 should bring with them a great crisis in the development of +religious opinion, in the relations of its different forms to one +another, and further, in the thoughts of many minds as to their personal +position, their duty, and their prospects. There had been such a crisis +in 1841 at the publication of No. 90. After the discussions which +followed that tract, Anglican theology could never be quite the same +that it had been before. It was made to feel the sense of some grave +wants, which, however they might be supplied in the future, could no +longer be unnoticed or uncared for. And individuals, amid the strife of +tongues, had felt, some strongly and practically, but a much larger +number dimly and reluctantly, the possibility, unwelcome to most, but +not without interest to others, of having to face the strange and at +one time inconceivable task of revising the very foundations of their +religion. And such a revision had since that time been going on more or +less actively in many minds; in some cases with very decisive results. +But after the explosion caused by Mr. Ward's book, a crisis of a much +more grave and wide-reaching sort had arrived. To ordinary lookers-on it +naturally seemed that a shattering and decisive blow had been struck at +the Tractarian party and their cause; struck, indeed, formally and +officially, only at its extravagances, but struck, none the less, +virtually, at the premisses which led to these extravagances, and at the +party, which, while disapproving them, shrank, with whatever +motives,--policy, generosity, or secret sympathy,--from joining in the +condemnation of them. It was more than a defeat, it was a rout, in which +they were driven and chased headlong from the field; a wreck in which +their boasts and hopes of the last few years met the fate which wise men +had always anticipated. Oxford repudiated them. Their theories, their +controversial successes, their learned arguments, their appeals to the +imagination, all seemed to go down, and to be swept away like chaff, +before the breath of straightforward common sense and honesty. +Henceforth there was a badge affixed to them and all who belonged to +them, a badge of suspicion and discredit, and even shame, which bade men +beware of them, an overthrow under which it seemed wonderful that they +could raise their heads or expect a hearing. It is true, that to those +who looked below the surface, the overthrow might have seemed almost too +showy and theatrical to be quite all that it was generally thought to +be. There had been too much passion, and too little looking forward to +the next steps, in the proceedings of the victors. There was too much +blindness to weak points of their own position, too much forgetfulness +of the wise generosity of cautious warfare. The victory was easy to win; +the next moment it was quite obvious that they did not know what to do +with it, and were at their wits' end to understand what it meant. And +the defeated party, though defeated signally and conspicuously in the +sight of the Church and the country, had in it too large a proportion of +the serious and able men of the University, with too clear and high a +purpose, and too distinct a sense of the strength and reality of their +ground, to be in as disadvantageous a condition as from a distance might +be imagined. A closer view would have discovered how much sympathy there +was for their objects and for their main principles in many who greatly +disapproved of much in the recent course and tendency of the movement. +It might have been seen how the unwise measures of the Heads had +awakened convictions among many who were not naturally on their side, +that it was necessary both on the ground of justice and policy to arrest +all extreme measures, and to give a breathing time to the minority. +Confidence in their prospects as a party might have been impaired in the +Tractarians; but confidence in their principles; confidence that they +had rightly interpreted the spirit, the claims, and the duties of the +English Church, confidence that devotion to its cause was the call of +God, whatever might happen to their own fortunes, this confidence was +unshaken by the catastrophe of February. + +But that crisis had another important result, not much noticed then, but +one which made itself abundantly evident in the times that followed. The +decisive breach between the old parties in the Church, both Orthodox and +Evangelical, and the new party of the movement, with the violent and +apparently irretrievable discomfiture of the latter as the rising force +in Oxford, opened the way and cleared the ground for the formation and +the power of a third school of opinion, which was to be the most +formidable rival of the Tractarians, and whose leaders were eventually +to succeed where the Tractarians had failed, in becoming the masters and +the reformers of the University. Liberalism had hitherto been +represented in Oxford in forms which though respectable from +intellectual vigour were unattractive, sometimes even repulsive. They +were dry, cold, supercilious, critical; they wanted enthusiasm; they +were out of sympathy with religion and the religious temper and aims. +They played, without knowing it, on the edge of the most dangerous +questions. The older Oxford Liberals were either intellectually +aristocratic, dissecting the inaccuracies or showing up the paralogisms +of the current orthodoxy, or they were poor in character, Liberals from +the zest of sneering and mocking at what was received and established, +or from the convenience of getting rid of strict and troublesome rules +of life. They patronised Dissenters; they gave Whig votes; they made +free, in a mild way, with the pet conventions and prejudices of Tories +and High Churchmen. There was nothing inspiring in them, however much +men might respect their correct and sincere lives. But a younger set of +men brought, mainly from Rugby and Arnold's teaching, a new kind of +Liberalism. It was much bolder and more independent than the older +forms, less inclined to put up with the traditional, more searching and +inquisitive in its methods, more suspicious and daring in its criticism; +but it was much larger in its views and its sympathies, and, above all, +it was imaginative, it was enthusiastic, and, without much of the +devotional temper, it was penetrated by a sense of the reality and +seriousness of religion. It saw greater hopes in the present and the +future than the Tractarians. It disliked their reverence for the past +and the received as inconsistent with what seemed evidence of the +providential order of great and fruitful change. It could not enter into +their discipline of character, and shrank from it as antiquated, +unnatural, and narrow. But these younger Liberals were interested in the +Tractarian innovators, and, in a degree, sympathised with them as a +party of movement who had had the courage to risk and sacrifice much for +an unworldly end. And they felt that their own opportunity was come +when all the parties which claimed to represent the orthodoxy of the +English Church appeared to have broken for good with one another, and +when their differences had thrown so much doubt and disparagement on so +important and revered a symbol of orthodoxy as the Thirty-nine Articles. +They looked on partly with amusement, partly with serious anxiety, at +the dispute; they discriminated with impartiality between the strong and +the weak points in the arguments on both sides: and they enforced with +the same impartiality on both of them the reasons, arising out of the +difficulties in which each party was involved, for new and large +measures, for a policy of forbearance and toleration. They inflicted on +the beaten side, sometimes with more ingenuity than fairness, the lesson +that the "wheel had come round full circle" with them; that they were +but reaping as they themselves had sown:--but now that there seemed +little more to fear from the Tractarians, the victorious authorities +were the power which the Liberals had to keep in check. They used their +influence, such as it was (and it was not then what it was afterwards), +to protect the weaker party. It was a favourite boast of Dean Stanley's +in after-times, that the intervention of the Liberals had saved the +Tractarians from complete disaster. It is quite true that the younger +Liberals disapproved the continuance of harsh measures, and some of them +exerted themselves against such measures. They did so in many ways and +for various reasons; from consistency, from feelings of personal +kindness, from a sense of justice, from a sense of interest--some in a +frank and generous spirit, others with contemptuous indifference. But +the debt of the Tractarians to their Liberal friends in 1845 was not so +great as Dean Stanley, thinking of the Liberal party as what it had +ultimately grown to be, supposed to be the case. The Liberals of his +school were then still a little flock: a very distinguished and a very +earnest set of men, but too young and too few as yet to hold the balance +in such a contest. The Tractarians were saved by what they were and what +they had done, and could do, themselves. But it is also true, that out +of these feuds and discords, the Liberal party which was to be dominant +in Oxford took its rise, soon to astonish old-fashioned Heads of Houses +with new and deep forms of doubt more audacious than Tractarianism, and +ultimately to overthrow not only the victorious authorities, but the +ancient position of the Church, and to recast from top to bottom the +institutions of the University. The 13th of February was not only the +final defeat and conclusion of the first stage of the movement. It was +the birthday of the modern Liberalism of Oxford. + +But it was also a crisis in the history of many lives. From that moment, +the decision of a number of good and able men, who had once promised to +be among the most valuable servants of the English Church, became clear. +If it were doubtful before, in many cases, whether they would stay with +her, the doubt existed no longer. It was now only a question of time +when they would break the tie and renounce their old allegiance. In the +bitter, and in many cases agonising struggle which they had gone through +as to their duty to God and conscience, a sign seemed now to be given +them which they could not mistake. They were invited, on one side, to +come; they were told sternly and scornfully, on the other, to go. They +could no longer be accused of impatience if they brought their doubts to +an end, and made up their minds that their call was to submit to the +claims of Rome, that their place was in its communion. + +Yet there was a pause. It was no secret what was coming. But men +lingered. It was not till the summer that the first drops of the storm +began to fall. Then through the autumn and the next year, friends, whose +names and forms were familiar in Oxford, one by one disappeared and were +lost to it. Fellowships, livings, curacies, intended careers, were given +up. Mr. Ward went. Mr. Capes, who had long followed Mr. Ward's line, and +had spent his private means to build a church near Bridgewater, went +also. Mr. Oakeley resigned Margaret Chapel and went. Mr. Ambrose St. +John, Mr. Coffin, Mr. Dalgairns, Mr. Faber, Mr. T. Meyrick, Mr. Albany +Christie, Mr. R. Simpson of Oriel, were received in various places and +various ways, and in the next year, Mr. J.S. Northcote, Mr. J.B. Morris, +Mr. G. Ryder, Mr. David Lewis. On the 3d of October 1845 Mr. Newman +requested the Provost of Oriel to remove his name from the books of the +College and University, but without giving any reason. The 6th of +October is the date of the "Advertisement" to the work which had +occupied Mr. Newman through the year--the _Essay on the Development of +Christian Doctrine_. On the 8th he was, as he has told us in the +_Apologia_, received by Father Dominic, the Passionist. To the +"Advertisement" are subjoined the following words: + + _Postscript_.--Since the above was written the Author has joined the + Catholic Church. It was his intention and wish to have carried his + volume through the press before deciding finally on this step. But + when he got some way in the printing, he recognised in himself a + conviction of the truth of the conclusion, to which the discussion + leads, so clear as to preclude further deliberation. Shortly + afterwards circumstances gave him the opportunity of acting on it, and + he felt that he had no warrant for refusing to act on it. + +So the reality of what had been so long and often so lightly talked +about by those who dared it, provoked it, or hoped for it, had come +indeed; and a considerable portion of English society learned what it +was to be novices in a religious system, hitherto not only alien and +unknown, but dreaded, or else to have lost friends and relatives, who +were suddenly transformed into severe and uncompromising opponents, +speaking in unfamiliar terms, and sharply estranged in sympathies and +rules of life. Some of them, especially those who had caught the spirit +of their leader, began life anew, took their position as humble learners +in the Roman Schools, and made the most absolute sacrifice of a whole +lifetime that a man can make. To others the change came and was accepted +as an emancipation, not only from the bonds of Anglicanism, but from the +obligations of orders and priestly vows and devotion. In some cases, +where they were married, there was no help for it. But in almost all +cases there was a great surrender of what English life has to offer to +those brought up in it. Of the defeated party, those who remained had +much to think about, between grief at the breaking of old ties, and the +loss of dear friends, and perplexities about their own position. The +anxiety, the sorrow at differing and parting, seem now almost +extravagant and unintelligible. There are those who sneer at the +"distress" of that time. There had not been the same suffering, the same +estrangement, when Churchmen turned dissenters, like Bulteel and Baptist +Noel. But the movement had raised the whole scale of feeling about +religious matters so high, the questions were felt to be so momentous, +the stake and the issue so precious, the "Loss and Gain" so immense, +that to differ on such subjects was the differing on the greatest things +which men could differ about. But in a time of distress, of which few +analogous situations in our days can give the measure, the leaders stood +firm. Dr. Pusey, Mr. Keble, Mr. Marriott accepted, with unshaken faith +in the cause of the English Church, the terrible separation. They +submitted to the blow--submitted to the reproach of having been +associates of those who had betrayed hopes and done so much mischief; +submitted to the charge of inconsistency, insincerity, cowardice; but +they did not flinch. Their unshrinking attitude was a new point of +departure for those who believed in the Catholic foundation of the +English Church. + +Among those deeply affected by these changes, there were many who had +been absolutely uninfluenced by the strong Roman current. They had +recognised many good things in the Roman Church; they were fully alive +to many shortcomings in the English Church; but the possibility of +submission to the Roman claims had never been a question with them. A +typical example of such minds was Mr. Isaac Williams, a pupil of Mr. +Keble, an intimate friend of Mr. Newman, a man of simple and saintly +life, with heart and soul steeped in the ancient theology of undivided +Christendom, and for that very reason untempted by the newer principles +and fashions of Rome. There were numbers who thought like him; but there +were others also, who were forced in afresh upon themselves, and who had +to ask themselves why they stayed, when a teacher, to whom they had +looked up as they had to Mr. Newman, and into whose confidence they had +been admitted, thought it his duty to go. With some the ultimate, though +delayed, decision was to follow him. With others, the old and fair +_proejudicium_ against the claims of Rome, which had always asserted +itself even against the stringent logic of Mr. Ward and the deep and +subtle ideas of Mr. Newman, became, when closed with, and tested face to +face in the light of fact and history, the settled conviction of life. +Some extracts from contemporary papers, real records of the private +perplexities and troubles actually felt at the time, may illustrate what +was passing in the minds of some whom knowledge and love of Mr. Newman +failed to make his followers in his ultimate step. The first extract +belongs to some years before, but it is part of the same train of +thinking.[124] + + As to myself, I am getting into a very unsettled state as to aims and + prospects. I mean that as things are going on, a man does not know + where he is going to; one cannot imagine what state of things to look + forward to; in what way, and under what circumstances, one's coming + life--if it does come--is to be spent; what is to become of one. I + cannot at all imagine myself a convert; but how am I likely, in the + probable state of things, to be able to serve as an English clergyman? + Shall I ever get Priest's orders? Shall I be able to continue always + serving? What is one's line to be; what ought to be one's aims; or can + one have any? + + The storm is not yet come: how it may come, and how soon it may blow + over, and what it may leave behind, is doubtful; but some sort of + crisis, I think, must come before things settle. With the Bishops + against us, and Puritanism aggressive, we may see strange things + before the end. + +When the "storm" had at length come, though, before its final violence, +the same writer continues: + + The present hopeless check and weight to our party--what has for the + time absolutely crushed us--is the total loss of confidence arising + from the strong tendency, no longer to be dissembled or explained + away, among many of us to Rome. I see no chance of our recovery, or + getting our heads above water from this, at least in England, for + years to come. And it is a check which will one day be far greater + than it is now. Under the circumstances--having not the most distant + thought of leaving the English Church myself, and yet having no means + of escaping the very natural suspicion of Romanising without giving up + my best friends and the most saint-like men in England--how am I to + view my position? What am I witnessing to? What, if need be, is one to + suffer for? A man has no leaning towards Rome, does not feel, as + others do, the strength of her exclusive claims to allegiance, the + perfection of her system, its right so to overbalance all the good + found in ours as to make ours absolutely untrustworthy for a Christian + to rest in, notwithstanding all circumstances of habit, position, and + national character; has such doubts on the Roman theory of the Church, + the Ultramontane, and such instincts not only against many of their + popular religious customs and practical ways of going on, but against + their principles of belief (_e.g._ divine faith = relics), as to repel + him from any wish to sacrifice his own communion for theirs; yet + withal, and without any great right on his part to complain, is set + down as a man who may any day, and certainly will some day, go over; + and he has no lawful means of removing the suspicion:--why is it + _tanti_ to submit to this? + + However little sympathy we Englishmen have with Rome, the Western + Churches under Rome are really living and holy branches of the Church + Catholic; corruptions they may have, so may we; but putting these + aside, they are Catholic Christians, or Catholic Christianity has + failed out of the world: we are no more [Catholic] than they. But + this, _public opinion_ has not for centuries, and _does not now_, + realise or allow. So no one can express in reality and detail a + practical belief in their Catholicity, in their equality (setting one + thing against another) with us as Christians, without being suspected + of what such belief continually leads to--disloyalty to the English + Church. Yet such belief is nevertheless well-grounded and right, and + there is no great hope for the Church till it gains ground, soberly, + powerfully, and apart from all low views of proselytising, or fear of + danger. What therefore the disadvantage of those among us who do not + really deserve the imputation of Romanising may be meant for, is to + break this practical belief to the English Church. We may be silenced, + but, without any wish to leave the English Church, we cannot give up + the belief, that the Western Church under Rome is a true, living, + venerable branch of the Christian Church. There are dangers in such a + belief, but they must be provided against, they do not affect the + truth of the belief. + +Such searchings of heart were necessarily rendered more severe and acute +by Mr. Newman's act. There was no longer any respite; his dearest +friends must choose between him and the English Church. And the choice +was made, by those who did not follow him, on a principle little +honoured or believed in at the time on either side, Roman or +Protestant; but a principle which in the long-run restored hope and +energy to a cause which was supposed to be lost. It was not the revival +of the old _Via Media_; it was not the assertion of the superiority of +the English Church; it was not a return to the old-fashioned and +ungenerous methods of controversy with Rome--one-sided in all cases, +ignorant, coarse, unchristian in many. It was not the proposal of a new +theory of the Church--its functions, authority and teaching, a +counter-ideal to Mr. Ward's imposing _Ideal_ It was the resolute and +serious appeal from brilliant logic, and keen sarcasm, and pathetic and +impressive eloquence, to reality and experience, as well as to history, +as to the positive and substantial characteristics of the traditional +and actually existing English Church, shown not on paper but in work, +and in spite of contradictory appearances and inconsistent elements; and +along with this, an attempt to put in a fair and just light the +comparative excellences and defects of other parts of Christendom, +excellences to be ungrudgingly admitted, but not to be allowed to bar +the recognition of defects. The feeling which had often stirred, even +when things looked at the worst, that Mr. Newman had dealt unequally and +hardly with the English Church, returned with gathered strength. The +English Church was after all as well worth living in and fighting for as +any other; it was not only in England that light and dark, in teaching +and in life, were largely intermingled, and the mixture had to be +largely allowed for. We had our Sparta, a noble, if a rough and an +incomplete one; patiently to do our best for it was better than leaving +it to its fate, in obedience to signs and reasonings which the heat of +strife might well make delusive. It was one hopeful token, that boasting +had to be put away from us for a long time to come. In these days of +stress and sorrow were laid the beginnings of a school, whose main +purpose was to see things as they are; which had learned by experience +to distrust unqualified admiration and unqualified disparagement; +determined not to be blinded even by genius to plain certainties; not +afraid to honour all that is great and beneficent in Rome, not afraid +with English frankness to criticise freely at home; but not to be won +over, in one case, by the good things, to condone and accept the bad +things; and not deterred, in the other, from service, from love, from +self-sacrifice, by the presence of much to regret and to resist. + +All this new sense of independence, arising from the sense of having +been left almost desolate by the disappearance of a great stay and light +in men's daily life, led to various and different results. In some +minds, after a certain trial, it actually led men back to that Romeward +tendency from which they had at first recoiled. In others, the break-up +of the movement under such a chief led them on, more or less, and some +very far, into a career of speculative Liberalism like that of Mr. +Blanco White, the publication of whose biography coincided with Mr. +Newman's change. In many others, especially in London and the towns, it +led to new and increasing efforts to popularise in various ways--through +preaching, organisation, greater attention to the meaning, the +solemnities, and the fitnesses of worship--the ideas of the Church +movement. Dr. Pusey and Mr. Keble were still the recognised chiefs of +the continued yet remodelled movement. It had its quarterly organ, the +_Christian Remembrancer_, which had taken the place of the old _British +Critic_ in the autumn of 1844. A number of able Cambridge men had thrown +their knowledge and thoroughness of work into the _Ecclesiologist_. +There were newspapers--the _English Churchman_, and, starting in 1846 +from small and difficult beginnings, in the face of long discouragement +and at times despair, the _Guardian_. One mind of great and rare power, +though only recognised for what he was much later in his life, one +undaunted heart, undismayed, almost undepressed, so that those who knew +not its inner fires thought him cold and stoical, had lifted itself +above the wreck at Oxford. The shock which had cowed and almost crushed +some of Mr. Newman's friends roused and fired Mr. James Mozley. + + To take leave of Mr. Newman (he writes on the morrow of the event) is + a heavy task. His step was not unforeseen; but when it is come those + who knew him feel the fact as a real change within them--feel as if + they were entering upon a fresh stage of their own life. May that very + change turn to their profit, and discipline them by its hardness! It + may do so if they will use it so. Let nobody complain; a time must + come, sooner or later, in every one's life, when he has to part with + advantages, connexions, supports, consolations, that he has had + hitherto, and face a new state of things. Every one knows that he is + not always to have all that he has now: he says to himself, "What + shall I do when this or that stay, or connexion, is gone?" and the + answer is, "That he will do without it." ... The time comes when this + is taken away; and then the mind is left alone, and is thrown back + upon itself, as the expression is. But no religious mind tolerates the + notion of being really thrown upon itself; this is only to say in + other words, that it is thrown back upon God.... Secret mental + consolations, whether of innocent self-flattery or reposing + confidence, are over; a more real and graver life begins--a firmer, + harder disinterestedness, able to go on its course by itself. Let them + see in the change a call to greater earnestness, sincerer simplicity, + and more solid manliness. What were weaknesses before will be sins + now.[125] + +"A new stage has begun. Let no one complain":--this, the expression of +individual feeling, represents pretty accurately the temper into which +the Church party settled when the first shock was over. They knew that +henceforward they had difficult times before them. They knew that they +must work under suspicion, even under proscription. They knew that they +must expect to see men among themselves perplexed, unsettled, swept +away by the influences which had affected Mr. Newman, and still more by +the precedent of his example. They knew that they must be prepared to +lose friends and fellow-helpers, and to lose them sometimes unexpectedly +and suddenly, as the wont was so often at this time. Above all, they +knew that they had a new form of antagonism to reckon with, harder than +any they had yet encountered. It had the peculiar sad bitterness which +belongs to civil war, when men's foes are they of their own +households--the bitterness arising out of interrupted intimacy and +affection. Neither side could be held blameless; the charge from the one +of betrayal and desertion was answered by the charge from the other of +insincerity and faithlessness to conscience, and by natural but not +always very fair attempts to proselytise; and undoubtedly, the English +Church, and those who adhered to it, had, for some years after 1845, to +hear from the lips of old friends the most cruel and merciless +invectives which knowledge of her weak points, wit, argumentative power, +eloquence, and the triumphant exultation at once of deliverance and +superiority could frame. It was such writing and such preaching as had +certainly never been seen on the Roman side before, at least in England. +Whether it was adapted to its professed purpose may perhaps be doubted; +but the men who went certainly lost none of their vigour as +controversialists or their culture as scholars. Not to speak of Mr. +Newman, such men as Mr. Oakeley, Mr. Ward, Mr. Faber, and Mr. Dalgairns +more than fulfilled in the great world of London their reputation at +Oxford. This was all in prospect before the eyes of those who had +elected to cast in their lot with the English Church. It was not an +encouraging position. The old enthusiastic sanguineness had been +effectually quenched. Their Liberal critics and their Liberal friends +have hardly yet ceased to remind them how sorry a figure they cut in the +eyes of men of the world, and in the eyes of men of bold and effective +thinking.[126] The "poor Puseyites" are spoken of in tones half of pity +and half of sneer. Their part seemed played out. There seemed nothing +more to make them of importance. They had not succeeded in Catholicising +the English Church, they had not even shaken it by a wide secession. +Henceforth they were only marked men. All that could be said for them +was, that at the worst, they did not lose heart. They had not forgotten +the lessons of their earlier time. + +It is not my purpose to pursue farther the course of the movement. All +the world knows that it was not, in fact, killed or even much arrested +by the shock of 1845. But after 1845, its field was at least as much out +of Oxford as in it. As long as Mr. Newman remained, Oxford was +necessarily its centre, necessarily, even after he had seemed to +withdraw from it. When he left his place vacant, the direction of it was +not removed from Oxford, but it was largely shared by men in London and +the country. It ceased to be strongly and prominently Academical. No +one in deed held such a position as Dr. Pusey's and Mr. Keble's; but +though Dr. Pusey continued to be a great power at Oxford, he now became +every day a much greater power outside of it; while Mr. Keble was now +less than ever an Academic, and became more and more closely connected +with men out of Oxford, his friends in London and his neighbours at +Hursley and Winchester. The cause which Mr. Newman had given up in +despair was found to be deeply interesting in ever new parts of the +country: and it passed gradually into the hands of new leaders more +widely acquainted with English society. It passed into the hands of the +Wilberforces, and Archdeacon Manning; of Mr. Bennett, Mr. Dodsworth, Mr. +W. Scott, Dr. Irons, Mr. E. Hawkins, and Mr. Upton Richards in London. +It had the sympathy and counsels of men of weight, or men who were +rising into eminence and importance--some of the Judges, Mr. Gladstone, +Mr. Roundell Palmer, Mr. Frederic Rogers, Mr. Mountague Bernard, Mr. +Hope Scott (as he afterwards was), Mr. Badeley, and a brilliant recruit +from Cambridge, Mr. Beresford Hope. It attracted the sympathy of another +boast of Cambridge, the great Bishop of New Zealand, and his friend Mr. +Whytehead. Those times were the link between what we are now, so changed +in many ways, and the original impulse given at Oxford; but to those +times I am as much of an outsider as most of the foremost in them were +outsiders to Oxford in the earlier days. Those times are almost more +important than the history of the movement; for, besides vindicating it, +they carried on its work to achievements and successes which, even in +the most sanguine days of "Tractarianism," had not presented themselves +to men's minds, much less to their hopes. But that story must be told by +others. + +"Show thy servants thy work, and their children thy glory." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[124] Compare Mozley's _Reminiscences_, ii. 1-3. + +[125] _Christian Remembrancer_, January 1846, pp. 167, 168. + +[126] _E.g._ the Warden of Merton's _History of the University of +Oxford,_ p. 212. "The first panic was succeeded by a reaction; some +devoted adherents followed him (Mr. Newman) to Rome; others relapsed +into lifeless conformity; and the University soon resumed its wonted +tranquillity." "_Lifeless_ conformity" sounds odd connected with Dr. +Pusey or Mr. J.B. Mozley, and the London men who were the founders of +the so-called Ritualist schools. + + + + +INDEX + + +Addresses to Archbishop of Canterbury, by clergy and laity +Anglicanism, its features in 1830 + Newman's views on + Newman's interpretation of +_Apologia_, quotations from +Apostolic Succession + Newman's insistence on + its foundation on Prayer Book +Apostolitity of English Church +Archbishop of Canterbury. _See_ Addresses, and Howley +_Arians_, the +Arnold, Dr., theories on the Church + his proposal to unite all sects by law + attack on Tractarians + Professorship at Oxford + his influence shown in rise of third school +Articles, the, and Dissenters + subscription of. _See_ Dr. Hampden, and Thirty-nine Articles + +Baptism, Tract on +_Baptistery_, the +Bennett, Mr. +Bentham. _see_ Utilitarianism +Bernard, Mr. Mountague +Bishoprics, suppression of ten Irish +Bishops' attitude to movement + the first Tract on +Blachford, Lord, reminiscences of Froude +Bliss, James +Blomfield, Bishop +British Association, a sign of the times +_British Critic_ on the movement +_British Magazine_ +Brougham, Lord +Bunsen, M., and the Bishopric of Jerusalem +Burton, Dr. + +Cambridge, critical school of theology +Capes, Mr. +Cardwell, Dr. +Catastrophe, the +Catholicity of English Church +_Catholicus's_ letters to the _Times_ +Celibacy, observations on +Celibate clergy scheme +Changes in movement +_Christian Remembrancer_ +_Christian Year_ +Christianity, Church of England, two schools of +Christie, Albany +Christie, J.F. +Church, the, in eighteenth century + Dr. Whately's theories on + Dr. Arnold's theories + Coleridge's theories + Apostolic origin of + various conceptions of + political attacks on + public mind indifferent to + Dr. Pusey's theories on + theological aspect of + practical aspect of + and the Roman question + Catholicity of + and the doctrine of Development +_Church of the Fathers_ +"Churchman's Manual" + Scotch Bishops on +Churton, Mr. (of Crayke) +Claughton, Mr. Piers +Clergy of eighteenth century, character of +Close, Dr. (of Cheltenham) +Coffin, Mr. +Coleridge, Mr. Justice +Coleridge, S.T., influence on Charles Marriott + Church theories +_Conservative Journal_, Newman's language towards Rome +Copeland, William John +Cornish, C.L. +Creeds, the, pamphlets on + authority of + +Dalgairns, Mr. +Defeats, the Three, 312-335. _See also_ Isaac Williams, + Macmullen, and Pusey +Dickinson, Dr., "Pastoral Epistle from his Holiness the Pope" +Diffusion of Useful Knowledge Society +Dissenters and the Articles. _See also_ Thirty-nine Articles +Dodsworth, Mr. +Dominic, Father, receives Newman into Church of Rome +Donkin, Mr. +Doyle, Sir F., on Newman's sermons + +_Ecclesiologist_ founded +Eden, C.P. +_Edinburgh Review_, article by Dr. Arnold on Tractarians +"Elucidations of Dr. Hampden's Theological Statements" +_English Churchman_ founded +Evangelicism in 1830, character of + +Faber, Francis +Faber, Frederic +Fasting, Tract on +Faussett, Dr. + attack on Dr. Pusey +Froude, Richard Hurrell + pupil of Keble + Fellow of Oriel + first meeting with Newman + early estimate of Newman + travels with Newman + influence on the movement + his severe self-discipline + character + Mozley's remarks on + correspondence + his _Remains_ published + effect of publication + a modern estimate of the _Remains_ + events of 1830 + theory of the Church + sermons and writings + Lord Blachford's reminiscences of +Froude, William + +Garbett, Mr., elected Professor of Poetry +Gilbert, Dr. +Gladstone, Mr. +Golightly, Mr. +Gorham, Mr. +_Grammar of Assent_ on Faith and Reason +Greenhill, Dr. +_Guardian_ founded +Guillemard, Mr. + +Haddan, A. +Hadleigh, Conference of leaders at + policy adopted +Hampden, Dr. + advocates abolition of subscription of Articles + his election as Professor of Divinity + outcry against election of + Bampton Lectures + so-called "persecution" of + modern estimate of the "persecution" + deprived of vote for Select Preachers + his action in the B.D. degree contest +Hare, Julius +Hawkins, Dr. +Hawkins, E. +Hill, Mr. +Hobhouse, Mr. +Holland House +"Home Thoughts Abroad" +Hook, Dr. +Hope, Mr. Beresford +Howley, Archbishop +Hussey, Mr. + +_Ideal of a Christian Church_, _See_ W.G. Ward +Infallibility, views on +Irons, Dr. + +Jebb, Bishop +Jelf, Dr. +Jenkyns, Dr. +Jerusalem, Bishopric of +Jerusalem, Bishopric of, Newman's protest against +Jolly, Bishop +Jowett, Mr. + +Kaye, Bishop +Keble, John + brilliant Oxford career + suspicions of Evangelicism + a strong Tory + his poetic nature + influence on Froude + his pupils + sermon on _National Apostasy_ + tract on "Mysticism of the Fathers" + resigns Poetry Professorship +Keble, Thomas +Knox, Alexander + +Law's _Serious Call_, Keble's remark on +Le Bas, Mr. +_Lectures on Justification_, Newman's, influence of +_Letter to the Bishop of Oxford_, Newman's +Letters of an Episcopalian +Lewis, D. +_Library of the Fathers_ +Lloyd's, Bishop, Lectures, influence of +Lowe, R. +Lyall, Mr. +_Lyra Apostolica_ + +Macmullen, Mr. + his contest on B.D. degree +Manning, Archdeacon +Marriott, Charles + influenced by Coleridge and Dr. Hampden + aversion to party action + Scholar of Balliol + Fellow of Oriel + Newman's influence on + Moberly's influence on + Principal of Chichester Theological College + scheme of poor students' hall + Tutor of Oriel + Vicar of St. Mary's + his sermons + rooms and parties + share in _Library of the Fathers_ + Mozley's estimate of + death +Marsh, Bishop +"Martyrs' Memorial," connexion with the movement +Maurice, F.D., views of +Melbourne, Lord +Meyrick, T. +Miller, John (of Worcester), Bampton Lectures, influence of +Moberly, Dr. (of Winchester) +Monophysite Controversy +Morris, John Brande +Mozley, James + on Newman's sermons + on "No. 90" +Mozley, Thomas + on Charles Marriott + on Froude +"Mysticism of the Fathers in the use and interpretation of Scripture," + Keble's Tract on + +National Apostasy, Keble's sermon on +Newman, John Henry-- + his early preaching + meeting with Froude + Froude's early estimate of + on Apostolic Succession, _q.v._ + on Infallibility + attitude at different times to Rome + early friends + first Tract, written by + his four o'clock sermons + chief coadjutors of + views on subscription of Articles + on Dr. Hampden's theology + character + Lectures + _Lectures on Justification_ + Anglicanism, views on + resigns St. Mary's + not a proselytiser + _Letter to Bishop of Oxford_ + interpretation of Church formularies + on the Articles, _See_ "No. 90" + _Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine_ + joins Church of Rome +Nicknames +"No. 90" + Newman's attitude on + object to defend Catholicity of the Articles + its reception + charge of dishonesty against + condemned by Board of Heads + pamphlet war on + the crisis of the movement + events after + +Oakeley, Mr. + article on "Jewel" +Ogilvie, Dr. +Ordination, validity of +_Origines Liturgicae_ +Oxford, Liberal School of Theology + Orthodoxy + as a Church School +Oxford Movement-- + political conditions of + beginnings of + Keble the primary author of + early writings towards + the leaders + forced on the originators + object of + accession of Dr. Pusey and his influence + gradual growth of + attitude to Romanism + changes in + tendency to Romanism + in origin anti-Roman + attitude of University authorities towards + attitude of Bishops towards + mistakes in conduct of +Oxford Movement-- + rise of third school + secessions to Rome + +Palmer, William, share in movement + _Origines Liturgicae_ + _Narrative_ + _Treatise on the Church of Christ_ +Palmer, Mr. Roundell +Park, Judge Allan +_Parochial Sermons_ +Pattison, Mark +Peel, Sir Robert +Perceval, A., share in movement +Phillpotts, Bishop +_Plain Sermons_ +Poetry Professorship, contest for, made a theological one +_Prophetical Office of the Church_ +"Prospects of the Anglican Church" + Newman's after-thoughts on +Pusey, Dr. + joins the movement + effect of his adhesion + his _Remonstrance_ + tract on Baptism + attack on him + sermon on the Holy Eucharist "delated" to Vice-Chancellor + unfairness of proceedings against + memorial to Vice-Chancellor, on his case + +"Records of the Church" +Reform days, state of Church +Reformers, early, views of +_Remonstrance_ +"Reserve in communicating Religious Knowledge," Isaac + Williams's tract on +Richards, Mr. Upton +Rogers, Frederic +_Romanism and Popular Protestantism_ +Romanism + misconceptions of + Newman's attitude towards + tendency in party of movement towards +Rose, Hugh James + an estimate of + lectures on German speculation + controversy with Dr. Pusey + early death +Routh, Dr. +_Rusticus_, pamphlets by +Ryder, G. + +St. John, Mr. Ambrose +Scott, Mr. Hope +Scott, W. +Seager, Charles +Selwyn, Bishop +Sewell, William +Shairp, Principal, on Newman's sermons +Sikes, Mr. (of Guilsborough) +Simpson, Mr. +Stanley, Mr. Arthur +Sterling, John +Subscription. _See_ Thirty-nine Articles +Sumner, J. Bird, Bishop +Symons, Dr. + opposition to, as Vice-Chancellor + +Tait, Mr. (of Balliol) +Theologians of 1830 +Third party in Church-- + rise of + influence +Thirlwall, Connop +Thirty-nine Articles, subscription of + Dr. Hampden and subscription + pamphlet war on subscription + Newman on subscription + their Catholicity + _And see_ W.G. Ward "No. 90" on +Thomas, Vaughan +_Times_, letters of _Catholicus_ to +Tottenham, E. +Tractarian doctrines, discussion of + Movement. _See_ Oxford +Tractarians, excitement against +Tract, text of the first +Tracts, the-- + topics of + mode of circulating + reception of + accused of Romanism + first volume of + later numbers, character of + public opinion against + "No. 90," _q.v._ + contributors to + on "Reserve," _q.v._ + on "Mysticism," _q.v._ +_Treatise on the Church of Christ_ + +Utilitarianism, influence on religious belief + +_Via Media_ + +Wall, Mr. +Ward, W.G. + dismissed from Balliol Lectureship + writings on Romanism + his criticisms of English Church + _Ideal of a Christian Church_ + on "No. 90" + on the Articles + hostility to Lutheranism + his philosophy of religion + his book condemned + himself "degraded" + joins Church of Rome +Watson, Joshua +Wellington, Duke of +Whately, Dr.-- + theories on Church + opposed to Tractarians + _Letters of an Episcopalian_ +White, Blanco +Whytehead, Mr. +Wilberforce, Henry +Wilberforce, Robert +Williams, Isaac +Williams, Isaac, Keble's influence on + Fellow of Trinity + connexion with Newman + divergences from Newman + contributions to _Plain Sermons_ + aversion to Rome + his poetry + defeated for Poetry Professorship + Tract on "Reserve" +Wilson, H.B. +Wilson, R.F. +Wiseman, Dr. + article on Donatists +Wood, S.F. +Woodgate, Mr. +Wordsworth, Dr. +Wynter, Dr. + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Oxford Movement, by R.W. 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