YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

From the library of
CHARLES H. HAMILL
YALE 1890
The Gift of
MRS. HAMILL

APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA

APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA

iistorj) of |is Religious ®jjini<ms

BY
JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN

' Commit thy way to the Lord and trust in Him, and He will do it.
And He will hring forth thy justice as the light, and thy
judgment as the noon day"

NEW EDITION

LON.GMANS, GEEEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1902

PREFACE.

The following History of my Religious Opinions,
now that it is detached from the context in which
it originally stood, requires some preliminary ex
planation ; and that, not only in order to introduce
it generally to the reader, but specially to make
him understand, how I came to write a whole book
about myself, and about my most private thoughts
and feelings. Did I consult indeed my own im
pulses, I should do my best simply to wipe out of
my Volume, and consign to oblivion, every trace of
the circumstances to which it is to be ascribed ;
but its original title of Apologia is too exactly
borne out by its matter aud structure, and these
again are too suggestive of correlative circum
stances, and those circumstances are of too grave a
character, to allow of my indulging so natural a
wish. And therefore, though in this new Edition
I have managed to omit nearly a hundred pages of
my original Volume, which I could safely consider

VI PREFACE.
to be of merely ephemeral importance, I am even
for that very reason obliged, by way of making up
for their absence, to prefix to my Narrative some
account of the provocation out of which it arose.
It is now more than twenty years that a vague
impression to my disadvantage has rested on the
popular mind, as if my conduct towards the Angli
can Church, while I was a member of it, was incon
sistent with Christian simplicity and uprightness.
An impression of this kind was almost unavoidable
under the circumstances of the case, when a man,
who had written strongly against a cause, and had
collected a party round him by virtue of such
writings, gradually faltered in his opposition to it,
unsaid his words, threw his own friends into per
plexity and their proceedings into confusion, and
ended by passing over to the side of those whom
he had so vigorously denounced. Sensitive then
as I have ever been of the imputations which have
been so freely cast upon me, I have never felt much
impatience under them, as considering them to be
a portion of the penalty which I naturally and
justly incurred by my change of religion, even
though they were to continue as long as I lived.
I left their removal to a future day, when personal
feelings would have died out, and documents would
see the light, which were as yet buried in closets
or scattered through the country.
This was my state of mind, as it had been for

PREFACE. Vll
many years, when, in the beginning of 1864, I
unexpectedly found myself publicly put upon my
defence, and furnished with an opportunity of plead
ing my cause before the world, and, as it so hap
pened, with a fair prospect of an impartial hearing.
Taken indeed by surprise, as I was, I had much
reason to be anxious how I should be able to acquit
myself in so serious a matter ; however, I had long
had a tacit understanding with myself, that, in the
improbable event of a challenge being formally
made to me, by a person of name, it would be my
duty to meet it. That opportunity had now oc
curred ; it never might occur again ; not to avail
myself of it at once would be virtually to give up
my cause ; accordingly, I took advantage of it, and,
as it has turned out, the circumstance that no time
was allowed me for' any studied statements has com
pensated, in the equitable judgment of the public,
for such imperfections in composition as my want
of leisure involved.
It was in the number for January 1864, of a
magazine of wide circulation, and in an Article
upon Queen Elizabeth, that a popular writer took
occasion formally to accuse me by name of thinking
so lightly of the virtue of Veracity, as in set terms
to have countenanced and defended that neglect of
it which he at the same time imputed to the Ca
tholic Priesthood. His words were these : —

Vlll PREFACE.
" Truth, for its own sake, had never been a vir
tue with the Roman clergy. Father Newman in
forms us that it need not, and on the whole ought
not to be ; that cunning is the weapon which
heaven has given to the Saints wherewith to with
stand the brute male force of the wicked world
which marries and is given in marriage. Whether
his notion be doctrinally correct or not, it is at least
historically so."
These assertions, going far beyond the popular
prejudice entertained against me, had no founda
tion whatever in fact. I never had said, I never
had dreamed of saying, that truth for its own sake,
need not, and on the whole ought not to be, a
virtue with the Roman Clergy ; or that cunning is
the weapon which heaven has given to the Saints
wherewith to withstand the wicked world. To
what work of mine then could the writer be refer
ring ? In a correspondence which ensued upon the
subject between him and myself, he rested his
charge against me on a Sermon of mine, preached,
before I was a Catholic, in the pulpit of my Church
at Oxford ; and he gave me to understand, that, after
having done as much as this, he was not bound, over
and above such a general reference to my Sermon,
to specify the passages of it, in which the doctrine,
which he imputed to me, was contained. On my
part I considered this not enough ; and I demanded
of him to bring out his proof of his accusation in

PREFACE. IX
form and in detail, or to confess he was unable to
do so. But he persevered in his refusal to cite any
distinct passages from any writing of mine ; and,
though he consented to withdraw his charge, he
would not do so on the issue of its truth or false
hood, but simply on the ground that I assured him
that I had had no intention of incurring it. This
did not satisfy my sense of justice. Formally to
charge me with committing a fault is one thing ;
to allow that I did not intend to commit it, is
another ; it is no satisfaction to me, if a man
accuses me of this offence, for him to profess that
he does not accuse me of that ; but he thought
differently. Not being able then to gain redress
in the quarter, where I had a right to ask it, I
appealed to the public. I published the corre
spondence in the shape of a Pamphlet, with some
remarks of my own at the end, on the course which
that correspondence had taken.
This Pamphlet, which appeared in the first weeks
of February, received a reply from my accuser to
wards the end of March, in another Pamphlet of
48 pages, entitled, What then does Dr. Newman
mean ? in which he professed to do that which I had
called upon him to do ; that is, he brought together
a number of extracts from various works of mine,
Catholic and Anglican, with the object of showing
that, if I was to be acquitted of the crime of teach
ing and practising deceit and dishonesty, according to

X PREFACE.
his first supposition, it was at the price of my being
considered no longer responsible for my actions ;
for, as he expressed it, "I had a human reason
once, no doubt, but I had gambled it away," and I
had " worked my mind into that morbid state, in
which nonsense was the only food for which it
hungered;" and that it could not be called "a
hasty or far-fetched or unfounded mistake, when he
concluded that I did not care for truth for its own
sake, or teach my disciples to regard it as a virtue ; "
and, though " too many prefer the charge of insin
cerity to that of insipience, Dr. Newman seemed
not to be of that number."
He ended his Pamphlet by returning to his origi
nal imputation against me, which he had professed
to abandon. Alluding by anticipation to my pro
bable answer to what he was then publishing, he
professed his heartfelt embarrassment how he was
to believe any thing I might say in my exculpation,
in the plain and literal sense of the words. " I am
henceforth," he said, " in doubt and fear, as much
as an honest man can be, concerning every word Dr.
Newman may write. How can I tell, that I shall
not be the dupe of some cunning equivocation, ofone
of the three kinds laid down as permissible by the
blessed St. Alfonso da Liguori and , his pupils, even
when confirmed with an oath, because ' then we do
not deceive our neighbour, but allow him to deceive
himself ? ' . . . How can I tell, that I may not in

PREFACE. XI

this Pamphlet have made an accusation, of the truth
of which Dr. Newman is perfectly conscious ; but
that, as I, a heretic Protestant, have no business to
make it, he has a full right to deny it ? "
Even if I could have found it consistent with my
duty to my own reputation to leave such an elabo
rate impeachment of my moral nature unanswered,
my duty to my Brethren in the Catholic Priesthood,
would have forbidden such a course. They were
involved in the charges which this writer, all along,
from the original passage in the Magazine, to the
very last paragraph of the Pamphlet, had so con
fidently, so pertinaciously made. In exculpating
myself, it was plain I should be pursuing no mere
personal quarrel ; — I was offering my humble ser
vice to a sacred cause. I was making my protest in
behalf of a large body of men of high character, of
honest and religious minds, and of sensitive honour,
— who had their place and their rights in this world,
though they were ministers of the world unseen,
and who were insulted by my Accuser, as the above
extracts from him sufficiently show, not only in my
person, but directly and pointedly in their own.
Accordingly, I at once set about writing the
Apologia pro vitd sud, of which the present Volume
is a New Edition ; and it was a great reward
to me to find, as the controversy proceeded, such
large numbers of my clerical brethren supporting
me by their sympathy in the course which I was

Xll PREFACE.
pursuing, and, as occasion offered, bestowing on me
the formal and public expression of their appro
bation. These testimonials in my behalf, so im
portant and so grateful to me, are, together with
the Letter, sent to me with the same purpose, from
my Bishop, contained in the last pages of this
Volume. This Edition differs from the first form of the
Apologia as follows : — The original work consisted
of seven Parts, which were published in series on
consecutive Thursdays, between April 21 and
June 2. An Appendix, in answer to specific alle
gations urged against me in the Pamphlet of
Accusation, appeared on June 16. Of these Parts
1 and 2, as being for the most part directly contro
versial, are omitted in this Edition, excepting cer
tain passages in them, which are subjoined to this
Preface, as being necessary for the due explanation
of the subsequent five Parts. These, (being 3, 4,
5, 6, 7, of the Apologia,) are here numbered as
Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 respectively. Of the
.Appendix, about half has been omitted, for the
same reason as has led to the omission of Parts
1 and 2. The rest of it is thrown into the shape
of Notes of a discursive character, with two new
ones on Liberalism and the Lives of the English
Saints of 1843-4, and another, new in part, on
Ecclesiastical Miracles. In the body of the work,

PREFACE. Xlll

the only addition of consequence is the letter which
is found at p. 228, a copy of which has recently
come into my possession.
I should add that, since writing the Apologia last
year, I have seen for the first time Mr. Oakeley's
Notes on the Tractarian Movement. This work
remarkably corroborates the substance of my Nar
rative, while the kind terms in which he speaks of
me personally, call for my sincere gratitude.
May 2, 1865.

XIV PREFACE.

I make these extracts from the first edition of my
Apologia, Part 1, pp. 3, 20 — -25, and Part 2, pp.
29 — 31 and pp. 41 — 51, in order to set before
the reader the drift I had in writing my Volume : —
I cannot be sorry to have forced my Accuser to bring out
in fulness his charges against me. It is far better that he
should discharge his thoughts upon me in my lifetime,
than after I am dead. Under the circumstances I am
happy in having the opportunity of reading the worst that:
can be said of me by a writer who has taken pains with
his work and is well satisfied with it. I account it a gain
to be surveyed from without by one who hates the prin
ciples which are nearest to my heart, has no personal
knowledge of me to set right his misconceptions of my
doctrine, and who has some motive or other to be as
severe with me as he can possibly be. . . .
But I reaUy feel sad for what I am obliged now to say.
I am in warfare with him, but I wish him no ill ; — it is
very difficult to get up resentment towards persons whom
one has never seen. It is easy enough to be irritated|
with friends or foes vis-a-vis ; but, though I am writing
with all my heart against what he has said of me, I am
not conscious of personal unkindness towards himself. I
think it necessary to write as I am writing, for my own
sake, and for the sake of the Catholic Priesthood ; but I
wish to impute nothing worse to him than that he has

PREFACE. XV
been furiously carried away by his feelings. Yet what
shall I say of the upshot of all his talk of my economies
and equivocations and the like ? What is the precise
work which it is directed to effect ? I am at war with
him ; but there is such a thing as legitimate warfare : war
has its laws ; there are things which may fairly be done,
and things which may not be done. I say it with shame
and with stern sorrow ;— he has attempted a great trans
gression ; he has attempted (as I may call it) to poison the
wells. I will quote him and explain what I mean. . . .
He says, —
" I am henceforth in doubt and fear, as much as any
honest man can be, concerning every word Dr. Newman
may write. How can I tell that 1 shall not be the dupe of
some cunning equivocation, of one of the three kinds
laid down as permissible by the blessed Alfonso da
Liguori and his pupils, even when confirmed by an oath,
because ' then we do not deceive our neighbour, but allow
him to deceive himself ?'.... It is admissible, therefore,
to use words and sentences which have a double signi
fication, and leave the hapless hearer to take which of
them he may choose. What proof have I, then, that by
' mean it ? I never said it ! ' Dr. Newman does not
signify, I did not say it, but I did mean it ? " — Pp. 44, 45.
Now these insinuations and questions shall be answered
in their proper places ; here I will but say that I scorn
and detest lying, and quibbling, and double-tongued
practice, and slyness, and cunning, and smoothness, and
cant, and pretence, quite as much as any Protestants hate
them; and I pray to be kept from the snare of them.
But all this is just now by the bye ; my present subject
is my Accuser ; what I insist upon here is this unmanly
attempt of his, in his concluding pages, to cut the ground
from under my feet ; — to poison by anticipation the public
mind against me, John Henry Newman, and to infuse
b

XVI PREFACE.
into the imaginations of my readers, suspicion and mis
trust of everything that I may say in reply to him.
This I call poisoning the wells.
" I am henceforth in doubt and fear," he says, " as
much as any honest man can be, concerning every word
Dr. Newman may write. How can I tell that I shall
not be the dupe of some cunning equivocation ?"....
Well, I can only say, that, if his taunt is to take effect,
I am but wasting my time in saying a word in answer to
his calumnies ; and this is precisely what he knows and
intends to be its fruit. I can hardly get myself to protest
against a method of controversy so base and cruel, lest in
doing so, I should be violating my self-respect and self-
possession ; but most base and most cruel it is. We all
know how our imagination runs away with us, how
suddenly and at what a pace ; — the saying, " Caesar's wife
should not be suspected," is an instance of what I mean.
The habitual prejudice, the humour of the moment, is the
turning-point which leads us to read a defence in a good j
sense or a bad. We interpret it by our antecedent im
pressions. The very same sentiments, according as our
jealousy is or is not awake, or our aversion stimulated, are
tokens of truth or of dissimulation and pretence. There
is a story of a sane person being by mistake shut up in
the wards of a Lunatic Asylum, and that, when he pleaded
his cause to some strangers visiting the establishment, the
only remark he elicited in answer was, " How naturally
he talks ! you would think he was in his senses." Con
troversies should be decided by the reason ; is it legitimate
warfare to appeal to the misgivings of the public mind
and to its dislikings ? Any how, if my accuser is able
thus to practise upon my readers, the more I succeed, the
less will be my success. If I am natural, he will tell
them " Ars est celare artem ; " if I am convincing, he will
suggest that I am an able logician ; if I show warmth, I

PREFACE. XVII
am acting the indignant innocent; if I am calm, I am
thereby detected as a smooth hypocrite; if I clear up
difficulties, I am too plausible and perfect to be true. The
more triumphant are my statements, the more certain will
be my defeat.
So will it be if my Accuser succeeds in his manoeuvre ;
but I do not for an instant believe that he will. What
ever judgment my readers may eventually form of me
from these pages, I am confident that they will believe me
in what I shall say in the course of them. I have no
misgiving at all, that they will be ungenerous or harsh
towards a man who has been so long before the eyes of the
world ; who has so many to speak of him from personal
knowledge ; whose natural impulse it has ever been to
speak out ; who has ever spoken too much rather than too
little ; who would have saved himself many a scrape, if he
had been wise enough to hold his tongue ; who has ever
been fair to the doctrines and arguments of his opponents ;
who has never slurred over facts and reasonings which
told against himself ; who has never given his name or
authority to proofs which he thought unsound, or to testi
mony which he did not think at least plausible ; who has
never shrunk from confessing a fault when he felt that he
had committed one ; who has ever consulted for others
more than for himself ; who has given up much that he
loved and prized and could have retained, but that he
loved honesty better than name, and Truth better than
dear friends. . . .
What then shall be the special imputation, against which
I shall throw myself in these pages, out of the thousand
and one which my Accuser directs upon me ? I mean to
confine myself to one, for there is only one about which
I much care, — the charge of Untruthfulness. He may
cast upon me as many other imputations as he pleases, and

XV111 PREFACE.
they may stick on me, as long as they can, in the course
of nature. They will fall to the ground in their season.
And indeed I think the same of the charge of Untruth
fulness, and select it from the rest, not because it is more
formidable but because it is more serious. Like the rest, it
may disfigure me for a time, but it will not stain : Arch
bishop Whately used to say, " Throw dirt enough, and
some will stick ; " well, will stick, but not, will stain. I
think he used to mean " stain," and I do not agree with
him. Some dirt sticks longer than other dirt ; but no dirt
is immortal. According to the old saying, Praevalebit
Veritas. There are virtues indeed, which the world is not
fitted to judge of or to uphold, such as faith, hope, and
charity : but it can judge about Truthfulness ; it can judge
about the natural virtues, and Truthfulness is one of them.
Natural virtues may also become supernatural ; Truthful
ness is such ; but that does not withdraw it from the juris
diction of mankind at large. It may be more difficult in
this or that particular case for men to take cognizance of
it, as it may be difficult for the Court of Queen's Bench at
Westminster to try a case fairly which took place in Hin-
dostan : but that is a question of capacity, not of right.
Mankind has the right to judge of Truthfulness in a
Catholic, as in the case of a Protestant, of an Italian, or of
a Chinese. I have never doubted, that in my hour, in
God's hour, my avenger will appear, and the world will!
acquit me of untruthfulness, even though it be not while'
I live. Still more confident am I of such eventual acquittal, see
ing that my judges are my own countrymen. I consider,
indeed, Englishmen the most suspicious and touchy of
mankind; I think them unreasonable, and unjust in their
seasons of excitement ; but I had rather be an Englishman,
(as in fact I am,) than belong to any other race under
heaven. They are as generous, as they are hasty and

PREFACE. XIX
burly ; and their repentance for their injustice is greater
than their sin.
For twenty years and more I have borne an imputation,
of which I am at least as sensitive, who am the object of
it, as they can be, who are only the judges. I have not
set myself to remove it, first, because I never have had an
opening to speak, and, next, because I never saw in them
the disposition to hear. I have wished to appeal from
Philip drunk to Philip sober. When shall I pronounce
him to be himself again ? If I may judge from the tone
of the public press, which represents the public voice, I
have great reason to take heart at this time. I have been
treated by contemporary critics in this controversy with
great fairness and gentleness, and I am grateful to them
for it. However, the decision of the time and mode of my
defence has been taken out of my hands ; and I am thank
ful that it has been so. I am bound now as a duty to
myself, to the Catholic cause, to the Catholic Priesthood,
to give account of myself without any delay, when I am so
rudely and circumstantially charged with Untruthfulness.
I accept the challenge ; I shall do my best to meet it, and
I shall be content when I have done so.
It is not my present accuser alone who entertains, and
has entertained, so dishonourable an opinion of me and of
my writings. It is the impression of large classes of men ;
the impression twenty years ago and the impression now.
There has been a general feeling that I was for years where
I had no right to be ; that I was a " Eomanist " in Pro
testant livery and service ; that I was doing the work of a
hostile Church in the bosom of the English Establishment,
and knew it, or ought to have known it. There was no
need of arguing about particular passages in my writings,
when the fact was so patent, as men thought it to be.
First it was certain and I could not myself deny it, that

XX PREFACE.
I scouted the name " Protestant." It was certain again,
that many of the doctrines which I professed were popu
larly and generally known as badges of the Roman Church,
as distinguished from the faith of the Reformation. Next,
how could I have come by them ? Evidently, I had cer
tain friends and advisers who did not appear ; there was
some underground communication between Stonyhurst or
Oscott and my rooms at Oriel. Beyond a doubt, I was
advocating certain doctrines, not by accident, but on an
understanding with ecclesiastics of the old religion. Then
men went further, and said that I had actually been re
ceived into that religion, and withal had leave given me
to profess myself a Protestant still. Others went even
further, and gave it out to the world, as a matter of fact,
of which they themselves had the proof in their hands,
that I was actually a Jesuit. And when the opinions
which I advocated spread, and younger men went further
than I, the feeling against me waxed stronger and took a
wider range.
And now indignation arose at the knavery of a conspi
racy such as this : — and it became of course all the greater
in consequence of its being the received belief of the public
at large, that craft and intrigue, such as they fancied they
beheld with their eyes, were the very instruments to which
the Catholic Church has in these last centuries been in
debted for her maintenance and extension.
There was another circumstance still, which increased
the irritation and aversion felt by the large classes, of whom
I have been speaking, against the preachers of doctrines,
so new to them and so unpalatable ; and that was, that
they developed them in so measured a way. If they were
inspired by Roman theologians, (and this was taken for
granted,) why did they not speak out at once ? Why did
they keep the world in such suspense and anxiety as to
what was coming next, and what was to be the upshot of

PREFACE. XXI
the whole ? Why this reticence, and half -speaking, and
apparent indecision ? Tt was plain that the plan of opera
tions had been carefully mapped out from the first, and
that these men were cautiously advancing towards its
accomplishment, as far as was safe at the moment ; that
their aim and their hope wras to carry oft' a large body with
them of the young and the ignorant ; that they meant gra
dually to leaven the minds of the rising generation, and to
open the gates of that city, of which they were the sworn
defenders, to the enemy who lay in ambush outside of it.
And when in spite of the many protestations of the party
to the contrary, there was at length an actual movement
among their disciples, and one went over to Rome, and
then another, the worst anticipations and the worst judg
ments which had been formed of them received their justi
fication. And, lastly, when men first had said of me,
" You will see, he will go, he is only biding his time, he is
waiting the word of command from Rome," and, when
after all, after my arguments and denunciations of former
years, at length I did leave the Anglican Church for the
Roman, then they said to each other, " It is just as we
said : we knew it would be so."
This was the state of mind of masses of men twenty
years ago, who took no more than an external and common
sense view of what was going on. And partly the tradi
tion, partly the effect of that feeling, remains to the present
time. Certainly I consider that, in my own case, it is the
great obstacle in the way of my being favourably heard, as
at present, when I have to make my defence. Not only
am I now a member of a most un-English communion,
whose great aim is considered to be the extinction of Pro
testantism and the Protestant Church, and whose means of
attack are popularly supposed to be unscrupulous cunning
and deceit, but how came I originally to have any relations
with the Church of Rome at all ? did I, or my opinions,

XXII PREFACE.

drop from the sky ? how came I, in Oxford, in gremio Um-
versitatis, to present myself to the eyes of men in that full
blown investiture of Popery ? How could I dare, how
could I have the conscience, with warnings, with prophe
cies, with accusations against me, to persevere in a path
which steadily advanced towards, which ended in, the reli
gion of Rome ? And how am I now to be trusted, when
long ago I was trusted, and was found wanting ?
It is this which is the strength of the case of my Accuser )
against me ; — not the articles of impeachment which he
has framed from my writings, and which I shall easily
crumble into dust, but the bias of the court. It is the
state of the atmosphere; it is the vibration all around,
which will echo his bold assertion of my dishonesty ; it is
that prepossession against me, which takes it for granted
that, when my reasoning is convincing it is only inge
nious, and that when my statements are unanswerable,
there is always something put out of sight or hidden in
my sleeve; it is that plausible, but cruel conclusion to
which men are apt to jump, that when much is imputed,
much must be true, and that it is more likely that one
should be to blame, than that many should be mistaken in
blaming him ; — these are the real foes which I have to
fight, and the auxiliaries to whom my Accuser makes his
advances. WeU, I must break through this barrier of prejudice
against me if I can ; and I think I shall be able to do so.
When first I read the Pamphlet of Accusation, I almost
despaired of meeting effectively such a heap of misrepre
sentations and such a vehemence of animosity. What was
the good of answering first one point, and then another,
and going through the whole circle of its abuse ; when my
answer to the first point would be forgotten, as soon as I
got to the second ? What was the use of bringing out half
a hundred separate principles or views for the refutation of

PREFACE. XX111
the separate counts in the Indictment, when rejoinders of
this sort would but confuse and torment the reader by
their number and their diversity ? What hope was there
of condensing into a pamphlet of a readable length, matter
which ought freely to expand itself into half a dozen
volumes ? What means was there, except the expenditure
of interminable pages, to set right even one of that series
of " single passing hints," to use my Assailant's own lan
guage, which, " as with his finger tip he had delivered "
against me ?
All those separate charges had their force in being illus
trations of one and the same great imputation. He had
already a positive idea to illuminate his whole matter, and
to stamp it with a force, and to quicken it with an inter
pretation. He called me a liar, — a simple, a broad, an in
telligible, to the English public a plausible arraignment ;
but for me, to answer in detail charge one by reason one,
and charge two by reason two, and charge three by reason
three, and so on through the whole string both of accusa
tions and replies, each of which was to be independent of
the rest, this would be certainly labour lost as regards any
effective result. What I needed was a corresponding an
tagonist unity in my defence, and where was that to be
found ? We see, in the case of commentators on the pro
phecies of Scripture, an exemplification of the principle on
which I am insisting ; viz. how much more powerful even
a false intrepretation of the sacred text is than none at
all ; — how a certain key to the visions of the Apocalypse,
for instance, may cling to the mind (I have found it so in
the case of my own), because the view, which it opens on
us, is positive and objective, in spite of the fullest demon
stration that it really has no claim upon our reception.
The reader says, "What else can the prophecy mean ? " just
as my Accuser asks, What, then, does Dr. Newman mean ?
 I reflected, and I saw a way out of my perplexity.

XXIV PREFACE.
Yes, I said to myself, his very question is about my
meaning ; " What does Dr. Newman mean ? " It pointed
in the very same direction as that into which my musings
had turned me already. He asks what I mean ; not about
my words, not about my arguments, not about my actions, j
as his ultimate point, but about that living intelligence, by
which I write, and argue, and act. He asks about my
Mind and its Beliefs and its sentiments ; and he shall be
answered ; — not for his own sake, but for mine, for the
sake of the Religion which I profess, and of the Priest
hood in which I am unworthily included, and of my
friends and of my foes, and of that general public which
consists of neither one nor the other, but of well-wishers, .
lovers of fair play, sceptical cross-questioners, interested ?
inquirers, curious lookers-on, and simple strangers, uncon
cerned yet not careless about the issue, — for the sake of all
these he shall be answered.
My perplexity had not lasted half an hour. I recognized
what I had to do, though I shrank from both the task and
the exposure which it would entail. I must, I said, give
the true key to my whole life ; I must show what I am,
that it may be seen what I am not, and that the phantom
may be extinguished which gibbers instead of me. I wish
to be known as a living man, and not as a scarecrow which
is dressed up in my clothes. False ideas may be refuted
indeed by argument, but by true ideas alone are they ex
pelled. I will vanquish, not my Accuser, but my judges.
I will indeed answer his charges and criticisms on me one
by one,1 lest any one should say that they are unanswer
able, but such a work shall not be the scope nor the sub
stance of my reply. I will draw out, as far as may be,
the history of my mind ; I will state the point at which

1 This was done in the Appendix, of which the more important parts are
preserved in tbe Notes.

PREFACE. XXV
I began, in what external suggestion or accident each
opinion had its rise, how far and how they developed from
within, how they grew, were modified, were combined,
were in collision with each other, and were changed ;
again how I conducted myself towards them, and how,
and how far, and for how long a time, I thought I could
hold them consistently with the ecclesiastical engagements
which I had made and with the position which I held. I
must show, — what is the very truth, — that the doctrines
which I held, and have held for so many years, have
been taught me (speaking humanly) partly by the sug
gestions of Protestant friends, partly by the teaching of
books, and partly by the action of my own mind : and
thus I shall account for that phenomenon which to so
many seems so wonderful, that I should have left " my
kindred and my father's house " for a Church from which
once I turned away with dread ; — so wonderful to them !
as if forsooth a Religion which has flourished through so
many ages, among so many nations, amid such varieties
of social life, in such contrary classes and conditions of
men, and after so many revolutions, political and civil,
could not subdue the reason and overcome the heart,
without the aid of fraud in the process and the sophistries
of the schools.
What I had proposed to myself in the course of half-an-
hour, I determined on at the end of ten days. However,
I have many difficulties in fulfilling my design. How am
I to say all that has to be said in a reasonable compass ?
And then as to the materials of my narrative ; I have no
autobiographical notes to consult, no written explanations
of particular treatises or of tracts which at the time gave
offence, hardly any minutes of definite transactions or
conversations, and few contemporary memoranda, I fear,
of the feelings or motives under which from time to time

XXVI PREFACE.
I acted. I have an abundance of letters from friends with
some copies or drafts of my answers to them, but they are
for the most part unsorted ; and, till this process has taken
place, they are even too numerous and various to be avail
able at a moment for my purpose. Then, as to the volumes1
which I have published, they would in many ways serve
me, were I well up in them : but though I took great pains
in their composition, I have thought little about them,
when they were once out of my hands, and for the most
part the last time I read them has been when I revised
their last proof sheets.
Under these circumstances my sketch will of course be
incomplete. I now for the first time contemplate my
course as a whole ; it is a first essay, but it will contain, ;
I trust, no serious or substantial mistake, and so far will
answer the purpose for which I write it. I purpose to
set nothing down in it as certain, of which I have not a
clear memory, or some written memorial, or the corrobo
ration of some friend. There are witnesses enough up
and down the country to verify, or correct, or complete
it ; and letters moreover of my own in abundance, unless
they have been destroyed.
Moreover, I mean to be simply personal and historical :
I am not expounding Catholic doctrine, I am doing no
more than explaining myself, and my opinions and actions.
I wish, as far as I am able, simply to state facts, whether
they are ultimately determined to be for me or against
me. Of course there will be room enough for contrariety
of judgment among my readers, as to the necessity, or
appositeness, or value, or good taste, or religious prudence,
of the details which I shall introduce. I may be accused!
of laying stress on little things, of being beside the mark,
of going into impertinent or ridiculous details, of sounding
my own praise, of giving scandal ; but this is a case above
aU others, in which I am bound to follow my own lightsj

PREFACE. XXVII
and to speak out my own heart. It is not at all pleasant
for me to be egotistical ; nor to be criticized for being so.
It is not pleasant to reveal to high and low, young and
old, what has gone on within me from my early years.
It is not pleasant to be giving to every shallow or flippant
disputant the advantage over me of knowing my most
private thoughts, I might even say the intercourse between
myself and my Maker. But I do not like to be called to
my face a liar and a knave ; nor should I be doing my
duty to my faith or to my name, if I were to suffer it. I
know I have done nothing to deserve such an insult, and
if I prove this, as I hope to do, I must not care for such
incidental annoyances as are involved in the process.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. PAGE
History of my Religious Opinions up to 1833 .... 1
CHAPTER II.
History of my Religious Opinions from 1833 to 1839 . . 36
CHAPTER III.
History of my Religious Opmions from 1839 to 1841 . . 92
CHAPTER IV.
History of my Religious Opinions from 1841 to 1845 . . 147
CHAPTER V.
Position of my Mind since 1845 ... . . 238

XXX CONTENTS.

NOTES.

Note A.

On page 14.

Liberalism 

285

B.

On page 23.

Ecclesiastical Miracles

298

C.

On page 153.

Sermon on Wisdom and Innocence

310

D.

On page 213.

Series of Saints' Lives of 1843-4

323

E.

On page 227.

Anglican Church

339

F.

On page 269.

The Economy ....

343

G.

On page 279.

Lying and Equivocation .

348

SUPPLEMENTAL MATTER.
1. Chronological List of Letters and Papers quoted in this
Narrative ,  364
2. List of the Author's Works  366
3. Letter to him from his Diocesan  368
4. Addresses from bodies of Clergy and Laity . . .371

ADDITIONAL NOTES.
Note 1, on page 12. Correspondence with Archbishop Whately
in 1834  380
2, on page 90. Extract of a Letter from the Rev. E.
Smedley in 1828  388
3, on page 185. Extract of a Letter of the Rev. Francis
Faber about 1849  388
4, on pages 194—196. The late Very Rev. Dr. Russell . 389
5, on page 232. Extract of a Letter from the Rev. John
Keble in 1844  390
6, on page 237. Extract from the Times concerning the
Author's visit to Oxford in 1878 .... 390
7, on page 302. The oil of St. Walburga . . .391
8, on page 323. Boniface of Canterbury. . . . 395

MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

CHAPTER I.
HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS TO THE YEAR 1833.
It may easily be conceived how great a trial it is to me to
write the following history of myself; but I must not
shrink from the task. The words, "Secretum meum
mihi," keep ringing in my ears ; but as men draw towards
their end, they care less for disclosures. Nor is it the
least part of my trial, to anticipate that, upon first reading
what I have written, my friends may consider much in
it irrelevant to my purpose; yet I cannot help thinking
that, viewed as a whole, it will effect what I propose to
myself in giving it to the public.
I was brought up from a child to take great delight inl
reading the Bible ; but I had no formed religious convic-/
tions till I was fifteen. Of course I had a perfect know
ledge of my Catechism.
After I was grown up, I put on paper my recollections
of the thoughts and feelings on religious subjects, which I
had at the time that I was a child and a boy, — such as had
remained on my mind with sufficient prominence to make
me then consider them worth recording. Out of these,
written in the Long Vacation of 1820, and transcribed with

2 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
additions in 1823, 1 select two, which are at once the most
definite among them, and also have a bearing on my later
convictions. 1. "I used to wish the Arabian Tales were true: my
imagination ran on unknown influences, on magical powers, \
and talismans  I thought life might be a
dream, or I an Angel, and all this world a deception, my
fellow-angels by a playful device concealing themselves
from me, and deceiving me with the semblance of a
material world."
Again: "Reading in the Spring of 1816 a sentence
from [Dr. Watts's] Remnants of Time, entitled 'the
Saints unknown to the world,' to the effect, that ' there is
nothing in their figure or countenance to distinguish them,'
&c, &c, I supposed he spoke of Angels who lived in the
world, as it were disguised."
2. The other remark is this : " I was very superstitious, !
and for some time previous to my conversion" [when I
was fifteen] " used constantly to cross myself on going into
the dark."
Of course I must have got this practice from some
external source or other ; but I can make no sort of con
jecture whence ; and certainly no one had ever spoken to
me on the subject of the Catholic religion, which I only
knew by name. The French master was an Emigre' Priest,
but he was simply made a butt, as French masters too
commonly were in that day, and spoke English very im
perfectly. There was a Catholic family in the village, old
maiden ladies we used to think ; but I knew nothing about
them. I have of late years heard that there were one or
two Catholic boys in the school ; but either we were care
fully kept from knowing this, or the knowledge of it made
simply no impression on our minds. My brother will bear
witness how free the school was from Catholic ideas.
I had once been into Warwick Street Chapel, with my

TO THE YEAR 1833. 3
father, who, I believe, wanted to hear some piece of
music ; all that I bore away from it was the recollection of
a pulpit and a preacher, and a boy swinging a censer.
When I was at Littlemore, I was looking over old copy
books of my school days, and I found among them my first
Latin verse-book ; and in the first page of it there was a
device which almost took my breath away with surprise.
I have the book before me now, and have just been show
ing it to others. I have written in the first page, in my
school-boy hand, "John H. Newman, February 11th,
1811, Verse Book ; " then follow my first Verses. Between
" Verse " and " Book " I have drawn the figure of a solid
cross upright, and next to it is, what may indeed be meant
for a necklace, but what I cannot make out to be anything
else than a set of beads suspended, with a little cross
attached. At this time I was not quite ten years old. I
suppose I got these ideas from some romance, Mrs. Rad-
cliffe's or Miss Porter's; or from some religious picture;
but the strange thing is, how, among the thousand objects
which meet a boy's eyes, these in particular should so have
fixed themselves in my mind, that I made them thus prac
tically my own. I am certain there was nothing in the
churches I attended, or the prayer books I read, to suggest
them. It must be recollected that Anglican churches
and prayer books were not decorated in those days as I
believe they are now.
When I was fourteen, I read Paine's Tracts against the
Old Testament, and found pleasure in thinking of the
objections which were contained in them. Also, I read
some of Hume's Essays ; and perhaps that on Miracles.
So at least I gave my Father to understand ; but perhaps
it was a brag. Also, I recollect copying out some French
verses, perhaps Voltaire's, in denial of the immortality of
the soul, and saying to myself something like " How
dreadful, but how plausible ! "

4 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
When I was fifteen, (in the autumn of 1816,) a great
change of thought took place in me. I fell under the
influences of a definite Creed, and received into my intel
lect impressions of dogma, which, through God's mercy,
have never been effaced or obscured. Above and beyond
the conversations and sermons of the excellent man, long
dead, the Rev. Walter Mayers, of Pembroke College, Ox
ford, who was the human means of this beginning of
divine faith in me, was the effect of the books which he
put into my hands, all of the school of Calvin. One of the
first books I read was a work of Romaine's ; I neither re
collect the title nor the contents, except one doctrine,
which of course I do not include among those which I
believe to have come from a divine source, viz. the doc
trine of final perseverance. I received it at once, and
believed that the inward conversion of which I was con
scious, (and of which I still am more certain than that I
have hands and feet,) would last into the next life, and
that I was elected to eternal glory. I have no conscious
ness that this belief had any tendency whatever to lead
me to be careless about pleasing God. I retained it till
the age of twenty-one, when it gradually faded away ; but
I believe that it had some influence on my opinions, in the
direction of those childish imaginations which I have
already mentioned, viz. in isolating me from the objects
which surrounded me, in confirming me in my mistrust of
the reality of material phenomena, and making me rest in
the thought of two and two only absolute and luminously
self-evident beings, myself and my Creator ; — for while I
considered myself predestined to salvation, my mind did
not dwell upon others, as fancying them simply passed
over, not predestined to eternal death. I only thought of
the mercy to myself.
The detestable doctrine last mentioned is simply denied
and abjured, unless my memory strangely deceives me, by

TO THE YEAR 1833. 5
the writer who made a deeper impression on my mind than
any other, and to whom (humanly speaking) I almost owe
my soul, — Thomas Scott of Aston Sandford. I so admired
and delighted in his writings, that, when I was an Under
graduate, I thought of making a visit to his Parsonage, in
order to see a man whom I so deeply revered. I hardly
think I could have given up the idea of this expedition,
even after I had taken my degree; for the news of his
death in 1821 came upon me as a disappointment as well
as a sorrow. I hung upon the lips of Daniel Wilson,
afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, as in two sermons at St.
John's Chapel he gave the history of Scott's life and death.
I had been possessed of his Force of Truth and Essays
from a boy; his Commentary I bought when I was an
Under-graduate. What, I suppose, will strike any reader of Scott's his
tory and writings, is his bold unworldliness and vigorous
independence of mind. He followed truth wherever it led
him, beginning with Unitarianism, and ending in a zealous
faith in the Holy Trinity. It was he who first planted
deep in my mind that fundamental truth of religion. With
the assistance of Scott's Essays, and the admirable work of
Jones of Nayland, I made a collection of Scripture texts
in proof of the doctrine, with remarks (I think) of my own
upon them, before I was sixteen ; and a few months later
I drew up a series of texts in support of each verse of the
Athanasian Creed. These papers I have still.
Besides his unworldliness, what I also admired in Scott
was his resolute opposition to Antinomianism, and the
minutely practical character of his writings. They show*
him to be a true Englishman, and I deeply felt his influ
ence ; and for years I used almost as proverbs what I con
sidered to be the scope and issue of his doctrine, Holiness
rather than peace, and Growth the only evidence of
life.

6 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
Calvinists make a sharp separation between the elect
and the world; there is much in this that is cognate or
parallel to the Catholic doctrine ; but they go on to say,
as I understand them, very differently from Catholicism, —
that the converted and the unconverted can be discrimin
ated by man, that the justified are conscious of their state i
of justification, and that the regenerate cannot fall away.
Catholics on the other hand shade and soften the awful
antagonism between good and evil, which is one of their
dogmas, by holding that there are different degrees of
justification, that there is a great difference in point of
gravity between sin and sin, that there is the possibility
and the danger of falling away, and that there is no cer
tain knowledge given to any one that he is simply in a
state of grace, and much less that he is to persevere to the
end : — of the Calvinistic tenets the only one which took
root in my mind was the fact of heaven and hell, divine
favour and divine wrath, of the justified and the unjusti
fied. The notion that the regenerate and the justified
were one and the same, and that the regenerate, as such,
had the gift of perseverance, remained with me not many
years, as I have said already.
This main Catholic doctrine of the warfare between the
city of God and the powers of darkness was also deeply
impressed upon my mind by a work of a character very
opposite to Calvinism, Law's Serious Call.
From this time I have held with a full inward assent
and belief the doctrine of eternal punishment, as delivered
by our Lord Himself, in as true a sense as I hold that of
eternal happiness ; though I have tried in various ways to
make that truth less terrible to the imagination.
Now I come to two other works, which produced a deep
impression on me in the same Autumn of 1816, when I
was fifteen years old, each contrary to each, and planting
in me the seeds of an intellectual inconsistency which

TO THE YEAR 1833. 7
disabled me for a long course of years. I read Joseph
Milner's Church History, and was nothing short of
enamoured of the long extracts from St. Augustine, St.
Ambrose, and the other Fathers which I found there. I
read them as being the religion of the primitive Christians :
but simultaneously with Milner I read Newton On the
Prophecies, and in consequence became most firmly con
vinced that the Pope was the Antichrist predicted by
Daniel, St. Paul, and St. John. My imagination was
stained by the effects of this doctrine up to the year 1843 ;
it had been obliterated from my reason and judgment at
an earlier date ; but the thought remained upon me as a
sort of false conscience. Hence came that conflict of mind,
which so many have felt besides myself; — leading some
men to make a compromise between two ideas, so incon
sistent with each other, — driving others to beat out the
one idea or the other from their minds, — and ending in
my own case, after many years of intellectual unrest,, in
the gradual decay and extinction of one of them, — I do
not say in its violent death, for why should I not have
murdered it sooner, if I murdered it at all ?
I am obliged to mention, though I do it with great
reluctance, another deep imagination, which at this time,
the autumn of 1816, took possession of me, — there can be
no mistake about the fact ; viz. that it would be the will
of God that I should lead a single life. This anticipation,
which has held its ground almost continuously ever since,
— with the break of a month now and a month then, up to
1829, and, after that date, without any break at all,' — was
more or less connected in my mind with the notion, that
my calling in life would require such a sacrifice as celibacy
involved; as, for instance, missionary work among the
heathen, to which I had a great drawing for some years.
It also strengthened my feeling of separation from the
visible world, of which I have spoken above.

8 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
In 1822 I came under very different influences from
those to which I had hitherto been subjected. At that
time, Mr. Whately, as he was then, afterwards Arch
bishop of Dublin, for the few months he remained in
Oxford, which he was leaving for good, showed great
kindness to me. He renewed it in 1825, when he became
Principal of Alban Hall, making me his Vice-Principal
and Tutor. Of Dr. Whately I will speak presently : for
from 1822 to 1825 I saw most of the present Provost of
Oriel, Dr. Hawkins, at that time Vicar of St. Mary's ; and,
when I took orders in 1824 and had a curacy in Oxford,
then, during the Long Vacations, I was especially thrown
into his company. I can say with a full heart that I love
him, and have never ceased to love him ; and I thus pre
face what otherwise might sound rude, that 'in the course
of the many years in which we were together afterwards,
he provoked me very much from time to time, though I
am perfectly certain that I have provoked him a great
deal more. Moreover, in me such provocation was unbe
coming, both because he was the Head of my College, and
because, in the first years that 1 knew him, he had been
in many ways of great service to my mind.
He was the first who taught me to weigh my words,
and to be cautious in my statements. He led me to that
mode of limiting and clearing my sense in discussion and
in controversy, and of distinguishing between cognate
ideas, and of obviating mistakes by anticipation, which to
my surprise has been since considered, even .in quarters
friendly to me, to savour of the polemics of Rome. He is
a man of most exact mind himself, and he used to snub
me severely, on reading, as he was kind enough to do, the
first Sermons that I wrote, and other compositions which
I was engaged upon.
Then as to doctrine, he was the means of great additions
to my belief. As I have noticed elsewhere, he gave me

TO THE YEAR 1833. 9
the Treatise on Apostolical Preaching, by Sumner,
afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, from which I was
led to give up my remaining Calvinism, and to receive the
doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration. In many other ways
too he was of use to me, on subjects semi-religious and
semi-scholastic. It was Dr. Hawkins too who taught me to anticipate
that, before many years were over, there would be an
attack made upon the books and the canon of Scripture. I
was brought to the same belief by the conversation of
Mr. Blanco White, who also led me to have freer views
on the subject of inspiration than were usual in the Church
of England at the time.
There is one other principle, which I gained from Dr.
Hawkins, more directly bearing upon Catholicism, than
any that I have mentioned; and that is the doctrine of
Tradition. When I was an Under-graduate, I heard him
preach in the University Pulpit his celebrated sermon on
the subject, and recollect how long it appeared to me,
though he was at that time a very striking preacher ; but,
when I read it and studied it as his gift, it made a most
serious impression upon me. He does not go one step, I
think, beyond the high Anglican doctrine, nay he does not
reach it ; but he does his work thoroughly, and his view was
in him original, and his subject was a novel one at the
time. He lays down a proposition, self-evident as soon as
stated, to those who have at all examined the structure of
Scripture, viz. that the sacred text was never intended to
teach doctrine, but only to prove it, and that, if we would
learn doctrine, we must have recourse to the formularies
of the Church ; for instance to the Catechism, and to the
Creeds. He considers, that, after learning from them the
doctrines of Christianity, the inquirer must verify them by
Scripture. This view, most true in its outline, most fruit
ful in its consequences, opened upon me a large field of

10 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
thought. Dr. Whately held it too. One of its effects was
to strike at the root of the principle on which the Bible
Society was set up. I belonged to its Oxford Association ;|
it became a matter of time when I should withdraw my
name from its subscription-list, though I did not do so at
once. It is with pleasure that I pay here a tribute to the
memory of the Rev. William James, then Fellow of Oriel ;
who, about the year 1823, taught me the doctrine of
Apostolical Succession, in the course of a walk, I think,
round Christ Church meadow ; I recollect being somewhat
impatient of the subject at the time.
It was at about this date, I suppose, that I read
Bishop Butler's Analogy ; the study of which has been to
so many, as it was to me, an era in their religious opinions.^
Its inculcation of a visible Church, the oracle of truth and
a pattern of sanctity, of the duties of external religion, and
of the historical character of Revelation, are characteristics
of this great work which strike the reader at once; for
myself, if I may attempt to determine what I most gained
from it, it lay in two points, which I shall have an opporj j
tunity of dwelling on in the sequel ; they are the under- *;.
lying principles of a great portion of my teaching. First,
the very idea of an analogy between the separate works of
God leads to the conclusion that the system which is of
less importance is economically or sacramentally connecte$|
with the more momentous system 1, and of this conclusion
the theory, to which I was inclined as a boy, viz. the un
reality of material phenomena, is an ultimate resolution.
At this time I did not make the distinction between;
matter itself and its phenomena, which is so necessary and
so obvious in discussing' the subject. Secondly, Butler's
doctrine that Probability is the guide of life, led me, at
1 It is significant that Butler begins his work with a quotation from Origen.

TO THE YEAR 1833. 11
least under the teaching to which a few years later I was
introduced, to the question of the logical cogency of Faith,
on which I have written so much. Thus to Butler I trace
those two principles of my teaching, which have led to a
charge against me both of fancifulness and of scepticism.
And now as to Dr. Whately. I owe him a great deal.
He was a man of generous and warm heart. He was
particularly loyal to his friends, and to use the common
phrase, "all his geese were swans." While I was still
awkward and timid in 1822, he took me by the hand, and
acted towards me the part of a gentle and encouraging
instructor. He, emphatically, opened my mind, and
taught me to think and to use my reason. After being
first noticed by him in 1822, 1 became very intimate with
him in 1825, when I was his Vice-Principal at Alban
Hall. I gave up that office in 1826, when I became Tutor
of my College, and his hold upon me gradually relaxed.
He had done his work towards me or nearly so, when he
had taught me to see with my own eyes and to walk with
my own feet. Not that I had not a good deal to learn
from others still, but I influenced them as well as they me,
and co-operated rather than merely concurred with them.
As to Dr. Whately, his mind was too different from mine
for us to remain long on one line. I recollect how dis
satisfied he was with an Article of mine in the London
Review, which Blanco White, good-humoured ly, only
called Platonic. When I was diverging from him in
opinion (which he did not like), I thought of dedicating
my first book to him, in words to the effect that he had
not only taught me to think, but to think for myself. He
left Oxford in 1831 ; after that, as far as I can recollect,
I never saw him but twice, — when he visited the Univer
sity; once in the street in 1834, once in a room in 1838.
From the time that he left, I have always felt a real affec
tion for what I must call his memory ; for, at least from

12 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
the year 1834, he made himself dead to me. He had
practically indeed given me up from the time that he be
came Archbishop in 1831 ; but in 1834 a correspondence
took place between us, which, though conducted especially
on his side in a friendly spirit, was the expression of dif
ferences of opinion which acted as a final close to our inter
course. My reason told me that it was impossible we could
have got on together longer, had he stayed in Oxford ; yet
I loved him too much to bid him farewell without pain, J
After a few years had passed, I began to believe that his
influence on me in a higher respect than intellectual
advance, (I will not say through his fault,) had not been.
satisfactory. I believe that he has inserted sharp things
in his later works about me. They have never come in
my way, and I have not thought it necessary to seek out
what would pain me so much in the reading.
What he did for me in point of religious opinion, was,
first, to teach me the existence of the Church, as a substan
tive body or corporation; next to fix in me those anti-
Erastian views of Church polity, which were one of the
most prominent features of the Tractarian movement. On
this point, and, as far as I know, on this point alone,
he and Hurrell Froude intimately sympathized, though
Froude's development of opinion here was of a later date.
In the year 1826, in the course of a walk, he said much to
me about a work then just published, called Letters on
the Church by an Episcopalian. He said that it would
make my blood boil. It was certainly a most powerful;
composition. One of our common friends told me, that,
after reading it, he could not keep still, but went on walk
ing up and down his room. It was ascribed at once to
Whately ; I gave eager expression to the contrary opinionf
but I found the belief of Oxford in the affirmative to be
too strong for me ; rightly or wrongly I yielded to the
general voice; and I have never heard, then or since,

TO THE YEAR 1833. 13
of any disclaimer of authorship on the part of Dr.
Whately. The main positions of this able essay are these ; first that
Church and State should be independent of each other : —
he speaks of the duty of protesting " against the profana
tion of Christ's kingdom, by that double usurpation, the
interference of the Church in temporals, of the State in
spirituals," p. 191 ; and, secondly, that the Church may
justly and by right retain its property, though separated
from the State. " The clergy," he says, p. 133, " though
they ought not to be the hired servants of the Civil
Magistrate, may justly retain their revenues ; and the
State, though it has no right of interference in spiritual
concerns, not only is justly entitled to support from the
ministers of religion, and from all other Christians, but
would, under the system I am recommending, obtain it
much more effectually." The author of this work, who
ever he may be, argues out both these points with great
force and ingenuity, and with a thoroughgoing vehemence,
which perhaps we may refer to the circumstance, that he
wrote, not in propria persona, and as thereby answerable
for every sentiment that he advanced, but in the pro
fessed character of a Scotch Episcopalian. His work had
a gradual, but a deep effect on my mind.
I am not aware of any other religious opinion which I
owe to Dr. Whately. In his special theological tenets I
had no sympathy. In the next year, 1827, he told me he
considered that I was Arianizing. The case was this :
though at that time I had not read Bishop Bull's Defensio
nor the Fathers. I was just then very strong for that ante-
Nicene view of the Trinitarian doctrine, which some
writers, both Catholic and non-Catholic, have accused of
wearing a sort of Arian exterior. This is the meaning of
a passage in Froude's Remains, in which he seems to accuse
me of speaking against the Athanasian Creed. I had

14 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
contrasted the two aspects of the Trinitarian doctrine,
which are respectively presented by the Athanasian Creed
and the Nicene. My criticisms were to the effect that
some of the verses of the former Creed were unnecessarily
scientific. This is a specimen of a certain disdain for Anti
quity which had been growing on me now for several years.
It showed itself in some flippant language against the
Fathers in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, about whom
I knew little at the time, except what I had learnt as a
boy from Joseph Milner. In writing on the Scripture
Miracles in 1825-6, 1 had read Middleton On the Miracle^
of the early Church, and had imbibed a portion of his
spirit. ^ <n
The truth is, I was beginning to prefer intellectuals
excellence to moral ; I was drifting in the direction of the
Liberalism of the day \ I was rudely awakened from my
dream at the end of 1827 by two great blows — illness and
bereavement. ¦&
In the beginning of 1829, came the formal break between^
Dr. Whately and me; the affair of Mr. Peel's re-electio^
was the occasion of it. I think in 1828 or 1827 I had
voted in the minority, when the Petition to Parliament
against the Catholic Claims was brought into Convocation;
I did so mainly on the views suggested to me in the
Letters of an Episcopalian. Also I shrank from the bigoted
"two-bottle-orthodox," as they were invidiously called.
When then I took part against Mr. Peel, it was on an
academical, not at all an ecclesiastical or a political
ground; and this I professed at the time. I considered
that Mr. Peel had taken the University by surprise ; that
his friends had no right to call upon us to turn round on a
sudden, and to expose ourselves to the imputation of time
serving; and that a great University ought not to be bullied
1 Vide Note A, Liberalism, at the end of the volume.

TO THE YEAR 1833. 15
even by a great Duke of Wellington. Also by this time
I was under the influence of Keble and Froude; who, in
addition to the reasons I have given, disliked the Duke's
change of policy as dictated by Liberalism.
Whately was considerably annoyed at me, and he took
a humorous revenge, of which he had given me due
notice beforehand. As head of a house he had duties of
hospitality to men of all parties ; he asked a set of the
least intellectual men in Oxford to dinner, and men most
fond of port; he made me one of this party; placed me
between Provost This and Principal That, and then asked
me if I was proud of my friends. However, he had a
serious meaning in his act; he saw, more clearly than I
could do, that I was separating from his own friends for
good and all.
Dr. Whately attributed my leaving his clientela to a wish
on my part to be the head of a party myself. I do not think
that this charge was deserved. My habitual feeling then
and since has been, that it was not I who sought friends,
but friends who sought me. Never man had kinder or
more indulgent friends than I have had ; but I expressed
my own feeling as to the mode in which I gained them, in
this very year 1829, in the course of a copy of verses.
Speaking of my blessings, I said, "Blessings of friends,
which to my door unasked, unhoped, have come." They
have come, they have gone ; they came to my great joy,
they went to my great grief. He who gave took away.
Dr. Whately's impression about me, however, admits of
this explanation : —
During the first years of my residence at Oriel, though
proud of my College, I was not quite at home there. I was
' very much alone, and I used often to take my daily walk
by myself. I recollect once meeting Dr. Copleston, then
Provost, with one of the Fellows. He turned round, and
with the kind courteousness which sat so well on him,

16 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
made me a bow and said, " Nunquam minus solus, quam
cum solus." At that time indeed (from 1823) I had the
intimacy of my dear and true friend Dr. Pusey, and could
not fail to admire and revere a soul so devoted to the cause
of religion, so full of good works, so faithful in his affec
tions ; but he left residence when I was getting to know
him well. As to Dr. Whately himself, he was too much
my superior to allow of my being at my ease with him ;
and to no one in Oxford at this time did I open my heart
fully and familiarly. But things changed in 1826. At
that time I became one of the Tutors of my College, and
this gave me position ; besides, I had written one or two
Essays -#iich had' been well received. I began to he
known. I preached my first University Sermon. Next
year I was one of the Public Examiners for the B. A. degree.
In 1 828 1 became Vicar of St. Mary's. It was to me like the
feeling of spring weather after winter ; and, if I may so
speak, I came out of my shell ; I remained out of it till 1841.
The two persons who knew m,e best at that time are still
alive, beneficed clergymen, no longer my friends. They
could tell better than any one else what I was in those
years. From this time my tongue was, as it were,
loosened, and I spoke spontaneously and without effort.
One of the two, Mr. Rickards, said of me, I have been told,
" Here is a fellow who, when he is silent, will never begin
to speak; and when he once begins to speak, will never
stop." It was at this time that I began to have influence,
which steadily increased for a course of years. I gained
upon my pupils, and was in particular intimate and affec
tionate with two of our probationer Fellows, Robert Isaac
Wilberforce (afterwards Archdeacon) and Richard Hurrell
Froude. Whately then, an acute man, perhaps saw around
me the signs of an incipient party, of which I was not
conscious myself. And thus we discern the first elements
of that movement afterwards called Tractarian,

TO THE YEAR 1833. 17
- The true and primary author of it, however, as is usual
with great motive-powers, was out of sight. Having
carried off as a mere boy the highest honours of the Uni
versity, he had turned from the admiration which haunted
his steps, and sought for a better and holier satisfaction in
pastoral work in the country. Need I say that I am
speaking of John Keble ? The first time that I was in a
room with him was on occasion of my election to a f ellow*
ship at Oriel, when I was sent for into the Tower, to shake
hands with the Provost and Fellows. How is that hour
fixed in my memory after the changes of forty -two years,
forty-two this very day on which I write ! I have lately
had a letter in my hands, which I sent at the time to my
great friend, John William Bowden, with whom I passed
almost exclusively my Under-graduate years. " I had to
hasten to the Tower," I say to him, " to receive the con
gratulations of all the Fellows. I bore it till Keble took
my hand, and then felt so abashed and unworthy of the
honour done me, that I seemed desirous of quite sinking
into the ground." His had been the first name which I
had heard spoken of, with reverence rather than admira
tion, when I came up to Oxford. When one day I was
walking in High Street with my dear earliest friend just
mentioned, with what eagerness did he cry out, " There's
Keble!" and with what awe did I look at him! Then
at another time I heard a Master of Arts of my College
give an account how he had just then had occasion to in
troduce himself on some business to Keble, and how
gentle, courteous, and unaffected Keble had been, so as
almost to put him out of countenance. Then too it was
reported, truly or falsely, how a rising man of brilliant
reputation, the present Dean of St. Paul's, Dr. Milman,
admired and loved him, adding, that somehow he was
strangely unlike any one else. However, at the time
when I was elected Fellow of Oriel he was not in resi-
c

18 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
dence, and he was shy of me for years in consequence of
the marks which I bore upon me of the evangelical and
liberal schools. At least so I have ever thought. Hurrell
Froude brought us together about 1828 : it is one of the
sayings preserved in his Remains, — " Do you know the
story of the murderer who had done one good thing in his
life ? Well ; if I was ever asked what good deed I had
ever done, I should say that I had brought Keble and
Newman to understand each other."
The Christian Year made its appearance in 1827. It
is not necessary, and scarcely becoming, to praise a book
which has already become one of the classics of the lan
guage. When the general tone of religious literature was
so nerveless and impotent, as it was at that time, Keble
struck an original note and woke up in the hearts of
thousands a new music, the music of a school, long un
known in England. Nor can I pretend to analyze, in my
own instance, the effect of religious teaching so deep, so
pure, so beautiful. I have never till now tried to do so ;
yet I think I am not wrong in saying, that the two main
intellectual truths which it brought home to me, were the
same two, which I had learned from Butler, though recast
in the creative mind of my new master. The first of these
was what may be called, in a large sense of the word, the
Sacramental system; that is, the doctrine that material
phenomena are both the types and the instruments of real
things unseen, — a doctrine, which embraces in its fulness,
not only what Anglicans, as well as Catholics, believe about
Sacraments properly so called ; but also the article of " the
Communion of Saints;" and likewise the Mysteries of
the faith The -connexion of this philosophy of religion
with what is sometimes called " Berkeleyism " has been
mentioned above ; I knew little of Berkeley at this time
except by name ; nor have I ever studied him.
On the second intellectual principle which I gained from:

TO THE YEAR 1833. 19
Mr. Keble, I could say a great deal ; if this were the place
for it. It runs through very much that I have written,
and has gained for me many hard names. Butler teaches
us that probability is the guide of life. The danger of this
doctrine, in the case of many minds, is, its tendency to
destroy in them absolute certainty, leading them to con
sider every conclusion as doubtful, and resolving truth into
an opinion, which it is safe indeed to obey or to profess,
but not possible to embrace with full internal assent. If
this were to be allowed, then the celebrated saying, " 0
God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul ! "
would be the highest measure of devotion : — but who can
really pray to a Being, about whose existence he is
seriously in doubt ?
I considered that Mr. Keble met this difficulty by
ascribing the firmness of assent which we give to religious
doctrine, not to the probabilities which introduced it, but
to the living power of faith and love which accepted it.
In matters of religion, he seemed to say, it is not merely
probability which makes us intellectually certain, but pro
bability as it is put to account by faith and love. It is
faith and love which give to probability a force which it
has not in itself. Faith and love are directed towards an
Object; in the vision of that Object they live; it is that
Object, received in faith and love, which renders it
reasonable to take probability as sufficient for internal
conviction. Thus the argument from Probability, in
the matter of religion, became an argument from Per
sonality, which in fact is one form of the argument from
Authority. In illustration, Mr. Keble used to quote the words of the
Psalm : " I will guide thee with mine eye. Be ye not like
to horse and mule, which have no understanding ; whose
mouths must be held with bit and bridle, lest they
fall upon thee." This is the very difference, he used to

20 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
say, between slaves, and friends or children. Friends do
not ask for literal commands ; but, from their knowledge
of the speaker, they understand his half-words, and from
love of him they anticipate his wishes. Hence it is, that
in his Poem for St. Bartholomew's Day, he speaks of the
" Eye of God's word ; " and in the note quotes Mr. Miller,
of Worcester College, who remarks in his Bampton Lec
tures, on the special power of Scripture, as having "this
Eye, like that of a portrait, uniformly fixed upon us, turn
where we will." The view thus suggested by Mr. Keble,
is brought forward in one of the earliest of the Tracts
for the Times. In No. 8 I say, " The Gospel is a Law of
Liberty. We are treated as sons, not as servants ; not
subjected to a code of formal commandments, but addressed
as those who love God, and wish to please Him."
I did not at all dispute this view of the matter, for I
made use of it myself ; but I was dissatisfied, because it did
not go to the root of the difficulty. It was beautiful and
religious, but it did not even profess to be logical; and
accordingly I tried to complete it by considerations of my
own, which are to be found in my University Sermons,
Essay on Ecclesiastical Miracles, and Essay on Develop
ment of Doctrine. My argument is in outline as follows :
that that absolute certitude which we were able to possess,
whether as to the truths of natural theology, or as to the
fact of a revelation, was the result of an assemblage of con
curring and converging probabilities, and that, both ac
cording to the constitution of the human mind and the
will of its Maker ; that certitude was a habit of mind, that
certainty was a quality of propositions ; that probabilities!;
which did not reach to logical certainty, might suffice for a
mental certitude ; that the certitude thus brought about
might equal in measure and strength the certitude which
was created by the strictest scientific demonstration ; and
that to possess such certitude might in given cases and to

TO THE YEAR 1833. 21
given individuals be a plain duty, though not to others in
other circumstances : —
Moreover, that as there were probabilities which sufficed
for certitude, so there were other probabilities which were
legitimately adapted to create opinion ; that it might be
quite as much a matter of duty in given cases and to given
persons to have about a fact an opinion of a definite
strength and consistency, as in the case of greater or of
more numerous probabilities it was a duty to have a certi
tude ; that accordingly we were bound to be more or less
sure, on a sort of (as it were) graduated scale of assent, viz.
according as the probabilities attaching to a professed fact
were brought home to us, and as the case might be, to en
tertain about it a pious belief, or a pious opinion, or a re
ligious conjecture, or at least, a tolerance of such belief, or
opinion or conjecture in others; that on the other hand, as it
was a duty to have a belief, of more or less strong texture,
in given cases, so in other cases it was a duty not to be
lieve, not to opine, not to conjecture, not even to tolerate
the notion that a professed fact was true, inasmuch as it
would be credulity or superstition, or some other moral
fault, to do so. This was the region of Private Judgment
in religion; that is, of a Private Judgment, not formed
arbitrarily and according to one's fancy or liking, but con
scientiously, and under a sense of duty.
Considerations such as these throw a new light on the
subject of Miracles, and they seem to have led me to re
consider the view which I had taken of them in my Essay in
1825-6. I do not know what was the date of this change
in me, nor of the train of ideas on which it was founded.
That there had been already great miracles, as those of
Scripture, as the Resurrection, was a fact establishing the
principle that the laws of nature had sometimes been sus
pended by their Divine Author, and since what had hap
pened once might happen again, a certain probability, at

22 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
least no kind of improbability, was attached to the idea
taken in itself, of miraculous intervention in later times,
and miraculous accounts were to be regarded in connexion
with the verisimilitude, scope, instrument, character, testi
mony, and circumstances, with which they presented them
selves to us ; and, according to the final result of those
various considerations, it was our duty to be sure, or to be
lieve, or to opine, or to surmise, or to tolerate, or to reject,
or to denounce. The main difference between my Essay
on Miracles in 1826 and my Essay in 1842 is this : that in
1826 I considered that miracles were sharply divided into
two classes, those which were to be received, and those
which were to be rejected ; whereas in 1842 1 saw that they
were to be regarded according to their greater or less
probability, which was in some cases sufficient to create
certitude about them, in other cases only belief or opinion.
Moreover, the argument from Analogy,. on which this
view of the question was founded, suggested to me some
thing besides, in recommendation of the Ecclesiastical
Miracles. It fastened itself upon the theory of Church
History which I had learned as a boy from Joseph Milner.
It is Milner's doctrine, that upon the visible Church come
down from above, at certain intervals, large and temporary
Effusions of divine grace. This is the leading idea of his
work. He begins by speaking of the Day of Pentecost, as
marking " the first of those Effusions of the Spirit of God,
which from age to age have visited the earth since the
coming of Christ." Vol. i. p. 3. In a note he adds that
" in the term ' Effusion ' there is not here included the idea
of the miraculous or extraordinary operations of the Spirit
of God ; " but still it was natural for me, admitting Milner's
general theory, and applying to it the principle of analogy,
not to stop short at his abrupt ipse dixit, but boldly to pass
forward to the conclusion, oil other grounds plausible, that
as miracles accompanied the first effusion of grace, so they;

TO THE YEAR 1833. 23
might accompany the later. It is surely a natural and on
the whole, a true anticipation (though of course there are
exceptions in particular cases), that gifts and graces go
together ; now, according to the ancient Catholic doctrine,
the gift of miracles was viewed as the attendant and shadow
of transcendent sanctity : and moreover, since such sanctity
was not of every day's occurrence, nay further, since one
period of Church history differed widely from another, and,
as Joseph Milner would say, there have been generations
or centuries of degeneracy or disorder, and times of revival,
and since one region might be in the mid-day of religious
fervour, and another in twilight or gloom, there was no
force in the popular argument, that, because we did not
see miracles with our own eyes, miracles had not happened
in former times, or were not now at this very time taking
place in distant places : — but I must not dwell longer on a
subject, to which in a few words it is impossible to do
justice l.
Hurrell Froude was a pupil of Keble's, formed by him,
and in turn reacting upon him. I knew him first in 1826,
and was in the closest and most affectionate friendship with
him from about 1829 till his death in 1836. He was a
man of the highest gifts, — so truly many-sided, that it
would be presumptuous in me to attempt to describe him,
except under those aspects in which he came before me.
Nor have I here to speak of the gentleness and tenderness
of nature, the playfulness, the free elastic force and graceful
versatility of mind, and the patient winning considerate-
ness in discussion, which endeared him to those to whom
he opened his heart ; for I am all along engaged upon
matters of belief and opinion, and am introducing others
into my narrative, not for their own sake, or because I love
i Vide Note B, Ecclesiastical Miracles, at the end of the volume.

24 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
and have loved them, so much as because, and so far as,
they have influenced my theological views. In this respect
then, I speak of Hurrell Froude, — in his intellectual
aspect, — as a man of high genius, brimful and overflowing
with ideas and views, in him original, which were too
many and strong even for his bodily strength, and which
crowded and jostled against each other in their effort after
distinct shape and expression. And he had an intellect as
critical and logical as it was speculative and bold. Dying
prematurely, as he did, and in the conflict and transition-
state of opinion, his religious views never reached their
ultimate conclusion, by the very reason of their multi
tude and their depth. His opinions arrested and in
fluenced me, even when they did not gain my assent.
He professed openly his admiration of the Church of
Rome, and his hatred of the Reformers. He delighted
in the notion of an hierarchical system, of sacerdotal
power, and of full ecclesiastical liberty. He felt scorn of
the maxim, " The Bible and the Bible only is the religion
of Protestants ; " and he gloried in accepting Tradition as
a main instrument of religious teaching. He had a high
severe idea of the intrinsic excellence of Virginity ; and he
considered the Blessed Virgin its great Pattern. He de
lighted in thinking of the Saints ; he had a vivid apprecia
tion of the idea of sanctity, its possibility and its heights ;
and he was more than inclined to believe a large amount
of miraculous interference as occurring in the early and
middle ages. He embraced the principle of penance and
mortification. He had a deep devotion to the Real Pre
sence, in which he had a firm faith. He was powerfully
drawn to the Medieval Church, but not to the Primitive.
He had a keen insight into abstract truth ; but he was
an Englishman to the backbone in his severe adherence to
the real and the concrete. He had a most classical taste,
and a genius for philosophy and art ; and he was fond of

TO THE YEAR 1833. 25
historical inquiry, and the politics of religion. He had no
turn for theology as such. He set no sufficient value
on the writings of the Fathers, on the detail or develop
ment of doctrine, on the definite traditions of the Church
viewed in their matter, on the teaching of the Ecumenical
Councils, or on the controversies out of which they arose.
He took an eager courageous view of things on the whole.
I should say that his power of entering into the minds of
others did not equal his other gifts ; he could not believe,
for instance, that I really held the Roman Church to be
Antichristian. On many points he would not believe
but that I agreed with him, when I did not. He seemed
not to understand my difficulties. His were of a different
kind, the contrariety between theory and fact. He was a
high Tory of the Cavalier stamp, and was disgusted with
the Toryism of the opponents of the Reform Bill. He was
smitten with the love of the Theocratic Church ; he went
abroad and was shocked by the degeneracy which he
thought he saw in the Catholics of Italy.
It is difficult to enumerate the precise additions to my
theological creed which I derived from a friend to whom
I owe so much. He taught me to look with admiration
towards the Church of Rome, and in the same degree to
dislike the Reformation. He fixed deep in me the idea
of devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and he led me gradually
to believe in the Real Presence.
There is one remaining source of my opinions to be
mentioned, and that far from the least important. In
proportion as I moved out of the shadow of that Liberalism
which had hung over my course, my early devotion towards
the Fathers returned ; and in the Long Vacation of 1828
I set about to read them chronologically, beginning with
St. Ignatius and St. Justin. About 1830 a proposal wTas
made to me by Mr. Hugh Rose, who with Mr. Lyall

26 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
(afterwards Dean of Canterbury) was providing writers for
a Theological Library, to furnish them with a History of
the Principal Councils. I accepted it, and at once set to
work on the Council of Niesea. It was to launch myself
on an ocean with currents innumerable ; and I was drifted
back first to the ante-Nicene history, and then to the
Church of Alexandria. The work at last appeared under
the title of The Arians of the Fourth Century ; and
of its 422 pages, the first 117 consisted of introductory
matter, and the Council of Nicaea did not appear till the
254th, and then occupied at most twenty pages.
I do not know when I first learnt to consider that An
tiquity was the true exponent of the doctrines of Chris
tianity and the basis of the Church of England ; but I
take it for granted that the works of Bishop Bull, which
at this time I read, where my chief introduction to this
principle. The course of reading, which I pursued in the
composition of my volume, was directly adapted to develop
it in my mind. What principally attracted me in the
ante-Nicene period was the great Church of Alexandria,
the historical centre of teaching in those times. Of Rome
for some centuries comparatively little is known. The
battle of Arianism was first fought in Alexandria ; Atha
nasius, the champion of the truth, was Bishop of Alex
andria ; and in his writings he refers to the great religious '!-.
names of an earlier date, to Origen, Dionysius, and others, '
who were the glory of its see, or of its school. The broad
philosophy of Clement and Origen carried me away ; the
philosophy, not the theological doctrine ; and I have drawn
out some features of it in my volume, with the zeal and
freshness, but with the partiality, of a neophyte. Some
portions of their teaching, magnificent in themselves, came
like music to my inward ear, as if the response to ideas,
which, with little external to encourage them, I had
cherished so long. These were based on the mystical or

TO THE YEAR 1833. 27
sacramental principle, and spoke of the various Economies
or Dispensations of the Eternal. I understood these
passages to mean that the exterior world, physical and his
torical, was but the manifestion to our senses of realities
greater than itself. Nature was a parable : Scripture was
an allegory : pagan literature, philosophy, and mythology,
properly understood, were but a preparation for the Gos
pel. The Greek poets and sages were in a certain sense
prophets ; for " thoughts beyond their thought to those
high bards were given." There had been a directly
divine dispensation granted to the Jews; but there had
been in some sense a dispensation carried on in favour of
the Gentiles. He who had taken the seed of Jacob for
His elect people had not therefore cast the rest of man-
kin d out of His sight. In the fulness of time both Judaism
and Paganism had come to nought; the outward frame
work, which concealed yet suggested the Living Truth,
had never been intended to last, and it was dissolving
under the beams of the Sun of Justice which shone behind
it and through it. The process of change had been slow ;
it had been done not rashly, but by rule and measure,
" at sundry times and in divers manners," first one dis
closure and then another, till the whole evangelical doc
trine was brought into full manifestation. And thus room
was made for the anticipation of further and deeper dis
closures, of truths still under the veil of the letter, and in
their season to be revealed. The visible world still remains
without its divine interpretation; Holy Church in her
sacraments and her hierarchical appointments, will re
main, even to the end of the world, after ah but a symbol
of those heavenly facts which fill eternity. Her mysteries
are but the expressions in human language of truths to
which the human mind is unequal. It is evident how
much there was in all this in correspondence with the
thoughts which bad attracted me when I was young, and

28 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
with the doctrine which I have already associated with
the Analogy and the Christian Year.
It was, I suppose, to the Alexandrian school and to the
early Church, that I owe in particular what I definitely
held about the Angels. I viewed them, not only as the
ministers employed by the Creator in the Jewish and
Christian dispensations, as we find on the face of Scripture,,^
but as carrying on, as Scripture also implies, the Economy
of the Visible World. I considered them as the real
causes of motion, light, and life, and of those elementary
principles of the physical universe, which, when offered in
their developments to our senses, suggest to us the notion
of cause and effect, and of what are called the laws of
nature. This doctrine I have drawn out in my Sermon
for Michaelmas day, written in 1831. I say of the Angels,
" Every breath of air and ray of light and heat, every
beautiful prospect, is, as it were, the skirts of their gar
ments, the waving of the robes of those whose faces see
God." Again, I ask what would be the thoughts of a
man who, "when examining a flower, or a herb, or a
pebble, or a ray of light, which he treats as something so
beneath him in the scale of existence, suddenly discovered
that he was in the presence of some powerful being who
was hidden behind the visible things he was inspecting, —
who, though concealing his wise hand, was giving them
their beauty, grace, and perfection, as being God's instru
ment for the purpose, — -nay, whose robe and ornaments
those objects were, which he was so eager to analyze?"
and I therefore remark that " we may say with grateful
and simple hearts with the Three Holy Children, ' 0 all ye
works of the Lord, &c, &c, bless ye the Lord, praise Him,
and magnify Him for ever.' "
Also, besides the hosts of evil spirits, I considered!
there was a middle race, Saifiovia, neither in heaven, nor
in hell; partially fallen, capricious, wayward; noble or

TO THE YEAR 1833. 29
crafty, benevolent or malicious, as the case might be.
These beings gave a sort of inspiration or intelligence to
races, nations, and classes of men. Hence the action of
bodies politic and associations, which is often so different
from that of the individuals who compose them. Hence
the character and the instinct of states and governments,
of religious communities and communions. I thought
these assemblages had their life in certain unseen Powers.
My preference of the Personal to the Abstract would
naturally lead me to this view. I thought it countenanced
by the mention of " the Prince of Persia " in the Prophet
Daniel ; and I think I considered that it was of such inter
mediate beings that the Apocalypse spoke, in its notice of
" the Angels of the Seven Churches."
In 1837 I made a further development of this doctrine.
I said to an intimate and dear friend, Samuel Francis
Wood, in a letter which came into my hands on his death,
" I have an idea. The mass of the Fathers (Justin,
Athenagoras, Irenaeus, Clement, Tertullian, Origen, Lac-
tantius, Sulpicius, Ambrose, Nazianzen,) hold that, though
Satan fell from the beginning, the Angels fell before the
deluge, falling in love with the daughters of men. This
has lately come across me as a remarkable solution of a
notion which I cannot help holding. Daniel speaks as if
each nation had its guardian Angel. I cannot but think
that there are beings with a great deal of good in them,
yet with great defects, who are the animating principles
of certain institutions, &c, &c  Take England with
many high virtues, and yet a low Catholicism. It seems
to me that John Bull is a spirit neither of heaven nor hell.
.... Has not the Christian Church, in its parts, sur
rendered itself to one or other of these simulations of the
truth ? . . . . How are we to avoid Scylla and Charybdis
and go straight on to the very image of Christ ? "
&c, &c.

30 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
I am aware that what I have been saying will, with
many men, be doing credit to my imagination at the
expense of my judgment — "Hippoclides doesn't care;" I
am not setting myself up as a pattern of good sense or of
any thing else : I am but giving a history of my opinions,
and that, with the view of showing that I have come by
them through intelligible processes of thought and honest
external means. The doctrine indeed of the Economy has
in some quarters been itself condemned as intrinsically
pernicious, — as if leading to lying and equivocation, when
applied, as I have applied it in my remarks upon it in my
History of the Arians, to matters of conduct. My answer
to this imputation I postpone to the concluding pages of
my Volume.
While I was engaged in writing my work upon the
Arians, great events were happening at home and abroad,
which brought out into form and passionate expression
the various beliefs which had so gradually been winning
their way into my mind. Shortly before, there had been
a Revolution in France; the Bourbons had been dis
missed : and I held that it was unchristian for nations to
cast off their governors,, and, much more, sovereigns who
had the divine right of inheritance. Again, the great
Reform Agitation was going on around me as I wrote.
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 liberalized? there was such 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. Blomfield, 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

TO THE YEAR 1833. 31
Church by the introduction of members of the Evangelical
body into places of influence and trust. He had deeply
offended men who agreed in opinion 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.
And the Evangelical party itself, with their late successes,
seemed to have lost that simplicity and unworldliness
which I admired so much in Milner and Scott. It was
not that I did not venerate such men as Ryder, the then
Bishop of Lichfield, and others of similar sentiments, who
were not yet promoted out of the ranks of the Clergy, but
I thought little of the Evangelicals as a class. I thought
they played into the hands of the Liberals. With the
Establishment thus divided and threatened, thus ignorant
of its true strength, I compared that fresh vigorous Power
of which I was reading in the first centuries. In her
triumphant zeal on behalf of that Primeval Mystery, to
which I had had so great a devotion from my youth, I
recognized the movement of my Spiritual Mother. " In-
cessu patuit Dea." The self-conquest of her Ascetics, the
patience of her Martyrs, the irresistible determination of
her Bishops, the joyous swing of her advance, both exalted
and abashed me. I said to myself, " Look on this picture
and on that ; " 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
the victory in the event. I saw that Reformation princi
ples 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 Catho
lic and Apostolic, set up from the beginning, of which

32 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
she was but the local presence and the 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.
At this time I was disengaged from College duties, and
my health had suffered from the labour involved in the
composition of my Volume. It was ready for the Press
in July, 1832, though not published till the end of 1833.
I was easily persuaded to join Hurrell Froude and his
Father, who were going to the south of Europe for the
health of the former.
We set out in December, 1832. It was during this
expedition that my Verses which are in the Lyra Apos
tolica were written ; — a few indeed before it, but not more
than one or two of them after it. Exchanging, as I was,
definite Tutorial work, and the literary quiet and pleasant
friendships of the last six years, for foreign countries and
an unknown future, I naturally was led to think that some
inward changes, as well as some larger course of action,
were coming upon me. At Whitchurch, while waiting
for the down mail to Falmouth, I wrote the verses about
my Guardian Angel, which begin with these words : " Are
these the tracks of some unearthly Friend ? " and which
go on to speak of " the vision " which haunted me : — that
vision is more or less brought out in the whole series of
these compositions.
I went to various coasts of the Mediterranean ; parted
with my friends at Rome ; went down for the second time
to Sicily without companion, at the end of April ; and got
back to England by Palermo in the early part of July,
The strangeness of foreign life threw me back into myself;?
I found pleasure in historical sites and beautiful scenes,
not in men and manners. We kept clear of Catholics
throughout our tour. I had a conversation with the Dean
of Malta, a most pleasant man, lately dead ; but it was

TO THE YEAR 1833. 33
about the Fathers, and the Library of the great church.
I knew the Abbate Santini, at Rome, who did no more
than copy for me the Gregorian tones. Froude and I
made two calls upon Monsignore (now Cardinal) Wiseman
at the CoUegio Inglese, shortly before we left Rome. Once
we heard him preach at a church in the Corso. I do not
recollect being in a room with any other ecclesiastics,
except a Priest at Castro-Giovanni in Sicily, who called
on me when I was ill, and with whom I wished to hold a
controversy. As to Church Services, we attended the
Tenebrse, at the Sestine, for the sake of the Miserere ; and
that was all. My general feeling was, " All, save the
spirit of man, is divine." I saw nothing but what was
external ; of the hidden life of Catholics I knew nothing.
I was still more driven back into myself, and felt my
isolation. England was in my thoughts solely, and the
news from England came rarely and imperfectly. The
Bill for the Suppression of the Irish Sees was in progress,
and filled my mind. I had fierce thoughts against the
Liberals. It was the success of the Liberal cause which fretted me
inwardly. I became fierce against its instruments and its
manifestations. A French vessel was at Algiers ; I would
not even look at the tricolour. On my return, though
forced to stop twenty -four hours at Paris, I kept indoors
the whole time, and all that I saw of that beautiful city was
what I saw from the Diligence. The Bishop of London
had already sounded me as to my filling one of the White
hall preacherships, which he had just then put on a new
footing; but I was indignant at the line which he was
taking, and from my Steamer I had sent home a letter
declining the appointment by anticipation, should it be
offered to me. At this time I was specially annoyed with
Dr. Arnold, though it did not last into later years. Some
one, I think, asked, in conversation at Rome, whether a
D

34 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
certain interpretation of Scripture was Christian ? it was
answered that Dr. Arnold took it ; I interposed, " But is
he a Christian?" The subject went out of my head at
once; when afterwards I was taxed with it, I could say
no more in explanation, than (what I believe was the
fact) that I must have had in mind some free views of
Dr. Arnold about the Old Testament : — I thought I must
have meant, " Arnold answers for the interpretation, but
who is to answer for Arnold ? " It was at Rome, too,
that we began the Lyra Apostolica which appeared
monthly in the British. Magazine. The motto shows the
feeling of both Froude and myself at the time: we
borrowed from M. Bunsen a Homer, and Froude chose
the words in which Achilles, on returning to the battle;
says, " You shall know the difference, now that I am back
again." Especially when I was left by myself, the thought came
upon me that deliverance is wrought, not by the many but
by the few, not by bodies but by persons; Now it was, I
think, that I repeated to myself the words, which had
ever been dear to me from my school days, "Exoriare
aliquis ! " — now too, that Southey's beautiful poem of
Thalaba, for which I had an immense liking, came
forcibly to my mind. I began to think that I had a
mission. There are sentences of my letters to my friends,
to this effect, if they are not destroyed. When we took
leave of Monsignore Wiseman, he had courteously expressed
a wish that we might make a second visit to Rome;.!
said with great gravity, " We have a work to do in Eng
land." I went down at once to Sicily, and the presents
ment grew stronger. I struck into the middle of the
island, and fell ill of a fever at Leonforte. My servant
thought that I was dying, and begged for my last directions!
I gave them, as he wished; but I said, "I shall not die.";i
I repeated, " I shall not die, for I have not sinned against-.

TO THE YEAR 1833. 35
light, I have not sinned against light." I never have
been able quite to make out what I meant.
I got to Castro-GioVanni, and was laid up there for
nearly three weeks. Towards the end of May I left for
Palermo, taking three days for the journey. Before start
ing from my inn in the morning of May 26th or 27th, I
sat down on my bed, and began to sob violently. My
servant, who had acted as my nurse, asked what ailed
me. I could only answer him, " I have a work to do in
England." I was aching to get home ; yet for want of a vessel I
was kept at Palermo for three weeks. I began to visit
the Churches, and they calmed my impatience, though I
did not attend any services. I knew nothing of the Pre
sence of the Blessed Sacrament there. At last I got off
in an orange boat, bound for Marseilles. Then it was
that I wrote the lines, " Lead, kindly light," which have
since become well known. We were becalmed a whole
week in the Straits of Bonifacio. I was writing verses the
whole time of my passage. At length I got to Marseilles,
and set dfl' for England. The fatigue of travelling was
too much for me, and I was laid up for several days at
Lyons. At last I got off again, and did not stop night or
day, (except a compulsory delay at Paris,) till I reached
England, and my mother's house. My brother had arrived
from Persia only a few hours before. This was on the
Tuesday. The following Sunday, July 14th, 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,

36 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS

CJHAPTEK II.
HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS FROM 1833 TO 1839.
In spite of the foregoing pages, I have no romantic story
to tell : but I have written them, because it is my duty to
tell things as they took place. I have not exaggerated
the feelings with which I returned to England, and I have
no desire to dress up the events which followed, so as to
make them in keeping with the narrative which has gone
before. I soon relapsed into the every-day life which I
had hitherto led ; in all things the same, except that a
new object was given me. I had employed myself in my
own rooms in reading and writing, and in tlie care of a
Church, before I left England, and I returned to the same
occupations when I was back again. And yet perhaps
those first vehement feelings which carried me on, were
necessary for the beginning of the Movement ; and after
wards, when it was once begun, the special need of me
was over.
When I got home from abroad, I found that already a
movement had commenced, in opposition to the speciic
danger which at that time was threatening the religion of
the nation and its Church. Several zealous and able men
had united their counsels, and were in correspondence
with each other. The principal of these were Mr. Keble,
Hurrell Froude, who had reached home long before me,

from 1833 to 1839. 37
Mr. William Palmer of Dublin and Worcester College
(not Mr. William Palmer of Magdalen, who is now a
Catholic), Mr. Arthur Perceval, and Mr. Hugh Rose.
To mention Mr. Hugh Rose's name is to kindle in the
minds of those who knew him a host of pleasant and affec
tionate remembrances. He was the man above all others
fitted by his cast of mind and literary powers to make a
stand, if a stand could be made, against the calamity of
the times. He was gifted with a high and large mind,
and a true sensibility of what was great and beautiful ; he
wrote with warmth and energy ; and he had a cool head
and cautious judgment. He spent his strength and short
ened his life, Pro Ecclesia Dei, as he understood that
sovereign idea. Some years earlier he had been the first
to give warning, I think from the University Pulpit at
Cambridge, of the perils to England which lay in the
biblical and theological speculations of Germany. The
Reform agitation followed, and the Whig Government
came into power ; and he anticipated in their distribution
of Church patronage the authoritative introduction of
liberal opinions into the country. He feared that by the
Whig party a door would be opened in England to the
most grievous of heresies, which never could be closed
again. In order under such grave circumstances to unite
Churchmen together, and to make a front against the
coming danger, he had in 1832 commenced the British
Magazine, and in the same year he came to Oxford in the
summer term, in order to beat up for writers for his publi
cation ; on that occasion I became known to him through
Mr. Palmer. His reputation and position came in aid of
his obvious fitness, in point of character and intellect, to
become the centre of an ecclesiastical movement, if such a
movement were to depend on the action of a party. His
delicate health, his premature death, would have frustrated
the expectation, even though the new school of opinion

38 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
had been more exactly thrown into the shape of a party,
than in fact was the case. But he zealously backed up
the first efforts of those who were principals in it; and,
when he went abroad to die, in 1838, he allowed me the
solace of expressing my feelings of attachment and grati
tude to him by addressing him, in the dedication of a
volume of my Sermons, as the man " who, when hearts
were failing, bade us stir up the gift that was in us, and
betake ourselves to our true Mother."
But there were other reasons, besides Mr. Rose's state
of health, which hindered those who so much admired him
from availing themselves of his close co-operation in the
coming fight. United as both he and they were in the
general scope of the Movement, they were in discordance
with each other from the first in their estimate of the
means to be adopted for attaining it. Mr. Rose had a
position in the Church, a name, and serious responsibilities ;
he had direct ecclesiastical superiors ; he had intimate re
lations with his own University, and a large clerical con
nexion through the country. Froude and I were nobodies ;
with no characters to lose, and no antecedents to fetter us.
Rose could not go a-head across country, as Froude had
no scruples in doing. Froude was a bold rider, as on
horseback, so also in his speculations. After a long con
versation with him on the logical bearing of his principles,
Mr. Rose said of him with quiet humour, that "he did
not seem to be afraid of inferences." It was simply the
truth ; Froude had that strong hold of first principles, and
that keen perception of their value, that he was compara
tively indifferent to the revolutionary action which would
attend on their application to a given state of things; ;
whereas in the thoughts of Rose, as a practical man, exist
ing facts had the precedence of every other idea, and the
chief test of the soundness of a line of policy lay in the
consideration whether it would work. This was one of

from 1833 to 1839. 39
the first questions, which, as it seemed to me, on every
occasion occurred to his mind. With Froude, Erastianism,
— that is, the union (so he viewed it) of Church and State,
— was the parent, or if not the parent, the serviceable and
sufficient tool, of liberalism. Till that union was snapped,
Christian doctrine never could be safe ; and, while he well
knew how high and unselfish was the temper of Mr. Rose,
yet he used to apply to him an epithet, reproachful in his
own mouth ; — Rose was a " conservative." By bad luck,
I brought out this word to Mr. Rose in a letter of my
own, which I wrote to him in criticism of something he
had inserted in his Magazine: I got a vehement rebuke
for my pains, for though Rose pursued a conservative line,
he had as high a disdain, as Froude could have, of a
worldly ambition, and an extreme sensitiveness of such an
imputation. But there was another reason still, and a more elemen
tary one, which severed Mr. Rose from the Oxford Move
ment. Living movements do not come of committees, nor
are great ideas worked out through the post, even though
it had been the penny post. This principle deeply pene
trated both Froude and myself from the first, and re
commended to us the course which things soon took
spontaneously, and without set purpose of our own. Uni
versities are the natural centres of intellectual movements.
How could men act together, whatever was their zeal,
unless they were united in a sort of individuality ? Now,
first, we had no unity of place. Mr. Rose was in Suffolk,
Mr. Perceval in Surrey, Mr. Keble in Gloucestershire;
Hurrell Froude had to go for his health to Barbadoes.
Mr. Palmer was indeed in Oxford ; this was an important
advantage, and told well in the first months of the Move
ment ; — but another condition, besides that of place, was
required. A far more essential unity was that of antecedents, — a

40 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
common history, common memories, an intercourse of
mind with mind in the past, and a progress and increase
in that intercourse in the present. Mr. Perceval, to be
sure, was a pupil of Mr. Keble's; but Keble, Rose, and
Palmer, represented distinct parties, or at least tempers,
in the Establishment. Mr. Palmer had many conditions
of authority and influence. He was the only really learned
man among us. He understood theology as a science ; he
was practised in the scholastic mode of controversial
writing ; and, I believe, was as well acquainted, as he was
dissatisfied, with the Catholic schools. He was as decided
in his religious views, as he was cautious and even subtle
in their expression, and gentle in their enforcement. But
he was deficient in depth; and besides, coming from a
distance, he never had really grown into an Oxford man,
nor was he generally received as such; nor had he any
insight into the force of personal influence and congeniality
of thought in carrying out a religious theory, — a condition
which Froude and I considered essential to any true success
in the stand which had to be made against Liberalism.
Mr. Palmer had a certain connexion, as it may be called,
in the Establishment, consisting of high Church digni
taries, Archdeacons, London Rectors, and the like, who
belonged to what was commonly called the high-and-dry
school. They were far more opposed than even he was to
the irresponsible action of individuals. Of course their
beau ideal in ecclesiastical action was a board of safe.sound,
sensible men. Mr. Palmer was their organ and represen
tative ; and he wished for a Committee, an Association,
with rules and meetings, to protect the interests of the
Church in its existing peril. He was in some measure
supported by Mr. Perceval.
I, on the other hand, had out of my own head begun
the Tracts; and these, as representing the antagonist
principle of personality, were looked upon by Mr. Palmer's

from 1833 to 1839, 41
friends with considerable alarm. The great point at the
time with these good men in London, — some of them men
of the highest principle, and far from influenced by what
we used to call Erastianism, — was to put down the Tracts.
I, as their editor, and mainly their author, was of course
willing to give way. Keble and Froude advocated their
continuance strongly, and were angry with me for consent
ing to stop them. Mr. Palmer shared the anxiety of his
own friends ; and, kind as were his thoughts of us, he still
not unnaturally felt, for reasons of his own, some fidget
and nervousness at the course which his Oriel friends were
taking. Froude, for whom he had a real liking, took a
high tone in his project of measures for dealing with
bishops and clergy, which must have shocked and scan
dalized him considerably. As for me, there was matter
enough in the early Tracts to give him equal disgust : and
doubtless I much tasked his generosity, when he had to
defend me, whether against the London dignitaries or the
country clergy. Oriel, from the time of Dr. Copleston to
Dr. Hampden, had had a name far and wide for liberality
of thought ; it had received a formal recognition from the
Edinburgh Review, if my memory serves me truly, as the
school of speculative philosophy in England ; and on one
occasion, in 1833, when I presented myself, with some of
the first papers of the Movement, to a country clergyman
in Northamptonshire, he paused awhile, and then, eyeing
me with significance, asked, "Whether Whately was at
the bottom of them ? "
Mr. Perceval wrote to me in support of the judgment of
Mr. Palmer and the dignitaries. I replied in a letter,
which he afterwards published. " As to the Tracts," I
said to him (I quote my own words from his Pamphlet),
" every one has his own taste. You object to some things,
another to others. If we altered to please every one, the
effect would be spoiled. The}- were not intended as

42 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
symbols e cathedra, but as the expression of individual
minds; and individuals, feeling strongly, while on the
one hand, they are incidentally faulty in mode or language,
are still peculiarly effective. No great work was done by
a system ; whereas systems rise out of individual exertions.
Luther was an individual. The very faults of an indivi
dual excite attention ; he loses, but his cause (if good and
he powerful-minded) gains. This is the way of things;
we promote truth by a self-sacrifice."
The visit which I made to the Northamptonshire Rec
tor was only one of a series of similar expedients, which I
adopted during the year 1833. I called upon clergy 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 do not think that much came of such attempts, nor were
they quite in my way. Also I wrote various letters to
clergymen, which fared not much better, except that they
advertised the fact, that a rally in favour of the Chureh
was commencing. 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. Giving
my name to the Editor, I commenced a series of letters in
the Record Newspaper : they ran to a considerable length ;
and were borne by him with great courtesy and patience,
The heading given to them was, " Church Reform." The
first was on the revival of Church Discipline ; the second,
on its Scripture proof ; the third, on the application of the
doctrine; the fourth was an answer to objections; the
fifth was on the benefits of discipline. And then the
series was abruptly brought to a termination. I had said
what I really felt, and what was also in keeping with the
strong teaching of the Tracts, but I suppose the Editor
discovered in me some divergence from his own line of

from 1833 to 1839. 43
thought; for at length he sent a very civil letter, apolo
gising for the non-appearance of my sixth communication,
on the ground that it contained an attack upon " Temper
ance Societies," about which he did not wish a controversy
in his columns. He added, however, his serious regret at
the theological views of the Tracts. I had subscribed a
small sum in 1828 towards the first start of the Record!
Acts of the officious character, which I have been "de
scribing, were uncongenial to my natural temper, to the
genius of the Movement, and to the historical mode of its
success : — they were the fruit of that exuberant and joyous
energy with which I had returned from abroad, and which
I never had before or since. I had the exultation of health
restored, and home regained. While I was at Palermo
and thought of the breadth of the Mediterranean, and
the wearisome journey across France, I could not imagine
how I was ever to get to England ; but now I was amid
familiar scenes and faces once more. And my health and
strength came back to me with such a rebound, that some
friends at Oxford, on seeing me, did not well know that it
was I, and hesitated before they spoke to me. And I had
the consciousness that I was employed in that work which
I had been dreaming about, and which I felt to be so mo
mentous 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 away 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 Reforma
tion : — a better reformation, for it would be a 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. Bishopricks

44 HISTORY of my RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
were already in course of suppression ; Church property
was in course of confiscation ; Sees would soon be receiving
unsuitable occupants. We knew enough to begin preach
ing upon, and there was no one else to preach. I felt as
on board a vessel, which first gets under weigh, and then
the deck is cleared out, and luggage and live stock stowed
away into their proper receptacles.
Nor was it only that I had confidence in our cause, both
in itself, and in its polemical force, but also, on the other
hand, I despised every rival system of doctrine and its argu
ments too. As to the high Church and the low Church,
I thought that the one had not much more of a logical j
basis than the other; while I had a thorough contempt!
for the controversial position of the latter. I had a real!
respect for the character of many of the advocates of each
party, but that did not give cogency to their arguments ;
and I thought, on the contrary, that the Apostolical form
of doctrine was essential and imperative, and its grounds
of evidence impregnable. Owing to this supreme confi-,
dence, it came to pass at that time, that there was a
double aspect in my bearing towards others, which it is
necessary for me to enlarge upon. My behaviour had a
mixture in it both of fierceness and of sport; and on
this account, I dare say, it gave offence to many; nor
am I here defending it.
I wished men to agree with me, and I walked with them
step by step, as far as they would go ; this I did sincerely ;
but if they would stop, I did not much care about it, but
walked on, with some satisfaction that I had brought them
so far. I liked to make them preach the truth without
knowing it, and encouraged them to do so. It was a satis
faction to me that the Record had allowed me to say so
much in its columns, without remonstrance. I was amused
to hear of one of the Bishops, who, on reading an early
Tract on the Apostolical Succession, could not make up

from 1833 to 1839. 45
his mind whether he held the doctrine or not. I was
not distressed at the wonder or anger of dull and self-
conceited men, at propositions which they did not under- .
stand. When a correspondent, in good faith, wrote to a
newspaper, to say that the "Sacrifice of the Holy Eu
charist," spoken of in the Tract, was a false print for
" Sacrament," I thought the mistake too pleasant to be
corrected before I was asked about it. I was not un
willing to draw an opponent on step by step, by virtue
of his own opinions, to the brink of some intellectual
absurdity, and to leave him to get back as he could. I
was not unwilling to play with a man, who asked me
impertinent questions. 1 think I had in my mouth the
words of the Wise man, "Answer a fool according to
his folly," especially if he was prying or spiteful. I was
reckless of the gossip which was circulated about me ; and,
when I might easily have set it right, did not deign to
do so. Also I used irony in conversation, when matter-
of-fact men would not see what I meant.
This kind of behaviour was a sort of habit with me. If
I have ever trifled with my subject, it was a more serious
fault. I never used arguments which I saw clearly to be
unsound. The nearest approach which I remember to such
conduct, but which I consider was clear of it nevertheless,
was in the case of Tract 15. The matter of this Tract was
furnished to me by a friend, to whom I had applied for
assistance, but who did not wish to be mixed up with the
publication. He gave it me, that I might throw it
into shape, and I took his arguments as they stood In
the chief portion of the Tract I fully agreed; for in
stance, as to what it says about the Council of Trent;
but there were arguments, or some argument, in it which
I did not follow ; I do not recollect what it was. Froude,
I think, was disgusted with the whole Tract, and accused,
me of economy in publishing it, It is principally through

46 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
Mr. Froude's Remains that this word has got into our lan
guage. I think, I defended myself with arguments such
as these : — that, as every one knew, the Tracts were written
by various persons who agreed together in their doctrine,
but not always in the arguments by which it was to be
proved ; that we must be tolerant of difference of opinion
among ourselves ; that the author of the Tract had a right
to his own opinion, and that the argument in question was
ordinarily received ; that I did not give my own name or
authority, nor was asked for my personal belief, but only
acted instrumentally, as one might translate a friend's book
into a foreign language. I account these to be good argu
ments ; nevertheless I feel also that such practices admit
of easy abuse and are consequently dangerous ; but then,
again, I feel also this, — that if all such mistakes were to be
severely visited, not many men in public life would be left
with a character for honour and honesty.
This absolute confidence in my cause, which led me to
the negligence or wantonness which I have been instanc
ing, also laid me open, not unfairly, to the opposite charge
of fierceness in certain steps which I took, or words which
I published. In the Lyra Apostolica, I have said that be
fore learning to love, we must " learn to hate ; " though I
had explained my words by adding " hatred of sin." In
one of my first Sermons I said, "I do not shrink from
uttering my firm conviction that it would be a gain to the
country were it vastly more superstitious, more bigoted,
more gloomy, more fierce in its religion than at present
it shows itself to be." I added, of course, that it would be
an absurdity to suppose such tempers of mind desirable in
themselves. The corrector of the press bore these strong
epithets till he got to "more fierce," and then he put
in the margin a query. In the very first page of the
first Tract, I said of the Bishops, that, " black event though I r,
it .would be for the country, yet we could not wish them a '

from 1833 to 1839. 47
more blessed termination of their course, than the spoiling
of their goods and martyrdom." In consequence of a pas
sage in my work upon the Arian History, a Northern dig
nitary wrote to accuse me of wishing to re-establish the
blood and torture of the Inquisition. Contrasting heretics
and heresiarchs, I had said, " The latter should meet with
no mercy : he assumes the office of the Tempter ; and, so
far forth as his error goes, must be dealt with by the com
petent authority, as if he were embodied evil. To spare
him is a false and dangerous pity. It is to endanger the
souls of thousands, and it is uncharitable towards himself."
I cannot deny that this is a very fierce passage ; but Arius
was banished, not burned ; and it is only fair to myself
to say that neither at this, nor any other time of my life,
not even when I was fiercest, could I have even cut off a
Puritan's ears, and I think the sight of a Spanish auto-da-fe,
would have been the death of me. Again, when one of my
friends, of liberal and evangelical opinions, wrote to expos
tulate with me on the course I was taking, I said that we
would ride over him and his, as Othniel prevailed over
Chushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia. Again, I
would have no dealings with my brother, and I put my
conduct upon a syllogism. I said, " St. Paul bids us
avoid those who cause divisions ; you cause divisions :
therefore I must avoid you." I dissuaded a lady from at
tending the marriage of a sister who had seceded from the
Anglican Church. No wonder that Blanco White, who
had known me under such different circumstances, now
hearing the general course that I was taking, was amazed
at the change which he recognized in me. He speaks bit
terly and unfairly of me in his letters contemporaneously
with the first years of the Movement; but in 1839, on
looking back, he uses terms of me, which it would be hardly
modest in me to quote, were it not that what he says of me
in .praise occurs in the midst of blame, . He says : "In this

48 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
party [the anti-Peel, in 1829] I found, to my great sur
prise, my dear friend, Mr. Newman of Oriel. As he had
beenone of theannual Petitioners to Parliament for Catholic
Emancipation, his sudden union with the most violent bigots
was inexplicable to me. That change was the first mani
festation of the mental revolution, which has suddenly
made him one of the leading persecutors of Dr. Hampden,
and the most active and influential member of that associa
tion called the Puseyite party, from which we have those
very strange productions, entitled, Tracts for the Times.
While stating these public facts, my heart feels a pang at
the recollection of the affectionate and mutual friendship
between that excellent man and myself; a friendship,
which his principles of orthodoxy could not allow him to
continue in regard to one, whom he now regards as inevit
ably doomed to eternal perdition. Such is the venomous
character of orthodoxy. What mischief must it create in
a bad heart and narrow mind, when it can work so effectually
for evil, in one of the most benevolent of bosoms, and one
of the ablest of minds, in the amiable, the intellectual, the
refined John Henry Newman ! " (Vol. iii. p. 131.) He
adds that I would have nothing to do with him, a circum
stance which T do not recollect, and very much doubt.
I have spoken of my firm confidence in my position;
and now let me state more definitely what the position was
which I took up, and the propositions about which I was
so confident. These were three : —
1. First was the principle of dogma : my battle was. with
liberalism ; byliberalism I mean theanti-dogmaticprinciple
and its developments. This was the first point on which
I was certain. Here I make a remark: persistence ina
given belief is no sufficient test of its truth : but departure
from it is at least a slur upon the man who has felt so
certain about it, In proportion, then, as I had in 1832 a

from 1833 to 1839. 49
strong persuasion of the truth of opinions which I have
since given up, so far a sort of guilt attaches to me, not
only for that vain confidence, but for all the various pro
ceedings which were the consequence of it. But under
this first head I have the satisfaction of feeling that I have
nothing to retract, and nothing to repent of. The main
principle of the movement is as dear to me now, as it ever
was. I have changed in many things : in this I have not.
From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental
principle of my religion : I know no other religion ; I
cannot enter into the idea of any other sort of religion ;
religion, as a mere sentiment, is to me a dream and a
mockery. As well can there be filial love without the fact
of a father, as devotion without the fact of a Supreme
Being. What I held in 1816, 1 held in 1833, and I hold
in 1864. Please God, I shall hold it to the end. Even
when I was under Dr. Whately's influence, I had no
temptation to be less zealous for the great dogmas of the
faith, and at various times I used to resist such trains of
thought on his part as seemed to me (rightly or wrongly)
to obscure them. Such was the fundamental principle of
the Movement of 1833.
2. Secondly, I was confident in the truth of a certain
definite religious teaching, based upon this foundation of
dogma ; viz. that there was a visible Church, with sacra
ments and rites which are the channels of invisible grace.
I thought that this was the doctrine of Scripture, of the
early Church, and of the Anglican Church. Here again,
I have not changed in opinion; I am as certain now on
this point as I was in 1833, and have never ceased to be
certain. In 1834 and the following years I put this eccle
siastical doctrine on a broader basis, after reading Laud,
Bramhall, and Stillingfleet and other Anglican divines on
the one hand, and after prosecuting the study of the
Fathers on the other; but the doctrine of 1833 was
E

50 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
strengthened in me, not changed. When I began the
Tracts for the Times I rested the main doctrine, of which
I am speaking, upon Scripture, on the Anglican Prayer
Book, and on St. Ignatius's Epistles. (1) As to the
existence of a visible Church, I especially argued out the
point from Scripture, in Tract 11, viz. from the Acts of
the Apostles and the Epistles. (2) As to the Sacraments
and Sacramental rites, I stood on the Prayer Book. I
appealed to the Ordination Service, in which the Bishop
says, '' Receive the Holy Ghost ; " to the Visitation Ser
vice, which teaches confession and absolution ; to the Bap
tismal Service, in which the Priest speaks of the child
after baptism as regenerate ; to the Catechism, in which
Sacramental Communion is receiving " verily and indeed
the Body and Blood of Christ ; " to the Commination Ser
vice, in which we are told to do " works of penance ; " to
the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, to the calendar and
rubricks, portions of the Prayer Book, wherein we find
the festivals of the Apostles, notice of certain other Saints,
and days of fasting and abstinence.
(3) And further, as to the Episcopal system, I founded
it upon the Epistles of St. Ignatius, which inculcated it
in various ways. One passage especially impressed itself
upon me : speaking of cases of disobedience to ecclesiastical
authority, he says, " A man does not deceive that Bishop
whom he sees, but he practises rather with the Bishop
Invisible, and so the question is not with flesh, but with
God, who knows the secret heart." I wished to act on
this principle to the letter, and I may say with confidence
that I never consciously transgressed it. I loved to act as
feeling myself in my Bishop's sight, as if it were the sight
of God. It was one of my special supports and safeguards
against myself ; I could not go very wrong while I had
reason to believe that I was in no respect displeasing him.
It was not a mere formal obedience to rule that I put

from 1833 to 1839. 51
before me, but I desired to please him personally, as I
considered him set over me by the Divine Hand. I was
strict in observing my clerical engagements, not only
because they were engagements, but because I considered
myself simply as the servant and instrument of my Bishop.
I did not care much for the Bench of Bishops, except as
they might be the voice of my Church : nor should I have
cared much for a Provincial Gouncil ; nor for a Diocesan
Synod presided over by my Bishop; all these matters seemed
to me to be jure ecclesiastico, but what to me was jure
divino was the voice of my Bishop in his own person. My
own Bishop was my Pope ; I knew no other ; the successor
of the Apostles, the Vicar of Christ. This was but a prac
tical exhibition of the Anglican theory of Church Govern
ment, as I had already drawn it out myself, after various
Anglican Divines. This continued all through my course :
when at length, in 1845, I wrote to Bishop Wiseman, in
whose Vicariate I found myself, to announce my conver
sion, I could find nothing better to say to him than that I
would obey the Pope as I had obeyed my own Bishop in
the Anglican Church. My duty to him was my point of
honour; his disapprobation was the one thing which I
could not bear. I believe it to have been a generous and
honest feeling; and in consequence I was rewarded by
having all my time for ecclesiastical superior a man, whom,
had I had a choice, I should have preferred, out and out,
to any other Bishop on the Bench, and for whose memory
I have a special affection, Dr. Bagot — a man of noble
mind, and as kind-hearted and as considerate as he was
noble. He ever sympathized with me in my trials which
followed; it was my own fault, that I was not brought
into more familiar personal relations with him, than it was
my happiness to be. May his name be ever blessed !
And now in concluding my remarks on the second point
on which my confidence rested, I repeat that here again

52 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
I have no retractation to announce as to its main outline.
While I am now as clear in my acceptance of the principle
of dogma, as I was in 1833 and 1816, so again I am now
as firm in my belief of a visible Church, of the authority
of Bishops, of the grace of the sacraments, of the religious
worth of works of penance, as I was in 1833. I have added
Articles to my Creed ; but the old ones, which I then held
with a divine faith, remain.
3. But now, as to the third point on which I stood in
1833, and which I have utterly renounced and trampled
upon since,— my then view of the Church of Rome; — I
will speak about it as exactly as I can. When I was
young, as I have said already, and after I was grown up, I
thought the Pope to be Antichrist. At Christmas 1824-5
I preached a sermon to that effect. But in 1827 I
accepted eagerly the stanza in the Christian Year, which
many people thought too charitable, " Speak gently of thy
sister's fall." From the time that I knew Froude I got
less and less bitter on the subject. I spoke (successively,
but I cannot tell in what order or at what dates) of the
Roman Church as being bound up with " the cause of
Antichrist," as being one of the " m.any antichrists " fore
told by St. John, as being influenced by " the spirit of
Antichrist," and as having something " very Antichristian "
or " unchristian " about her. From my boyhood and in
1824 I considered, after Protestant authorities, that St,
Gregory I. about a.d. 600 was the first Pope that was
Antichrist, though, in spite of this, he was also a great and
holy man ; but in 1832-3 I thought the Church of Rome
was bound up with the cause of Antichrist by the Council
of Trent. When it was that in my deliberate judgment
I gave up the notion altogether in any shape, that some
special reproach was attached to her name, I cannot tell;
but I had a shrinking from renouncing it, even when my
reason so ordered me, from a sort of conscience or preju-

from 1833 to 1839. 53
dice, I think up to 1843. Moreover, at least during the
Tract Movement, I thought the essence of her offence to
consist in the honours which she paid to the Blessed
Virgin and the Saints ; and the more I grew in devotion,
both to the Saints and to our Lady, the more impatient
was I at the Roman practices, as if those glorified creations
of God must be gravely shocked, if pain could be theirs, at
the undue veneration of which they were the objects.
On the other hand, Hurrell Froude in his familiar con
versations was always tending to rub the idea out of my
mind. In a passage of one of his letters from abroad,
alluding, I suppose, to what I used to say in opposition to
him, he observes: "I think people are injudicious who
talk against the Roman Catholics for worshipping Saints,
and honouring the Virgin and images, &c. These things
may perhaps be idolatrous ; I cannot make up my mind
about it; but to my mind it is the Carnival that is real
practical idolatry, as it is written, ' the people sat down to
eat and drink, and rose up to play '." The Carnival, I
observe in passing, is, in fact, one of those very excesses,
to which, for at least three centuries, religious Catholics
have ever opposed themselves, as we see in the life of St.
Philip, to say nothing of the present day ; but this we did
not then know. Moreover, from Froude I learned to admire
the great medieval Pontiffs ; and, of course, when I had
come to consider the Council of Trent to be the. turning-
point of the history of Christian Rome, I found myself as
free, as I was rejoiced, to speak in their praise. Then,
when I was abroad, the sight of so many great places,
venerable shrines, and noble churches, much impressed
my imagination. And my heart was touched also.
Making an expedition on foot across some wild country in
Sicily, at six in the morning, I came upon a small church ;
I heard voices, and I looked in. It was crowded, and the
congregation was singing. Of course it was the mass,

54 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
though I did not know it at the time. And, in my weary
days at Palermo, I was not ungrateful for the comfort
which I had received in frequenting the churches ; nor
did I ever forget it. Then, again, her zealous mainte
nance of the doctrine and the rule of celibacy, which I
recognized as Apostolic, and her faithful agreement with
Antiquity in so many other points which were dear to
me, was an argument as well as a plea in favour of the
great Church of Rome. Thus I learned to have tender
feelings towards her ; but still my reason was not affected
at all. My judgment was against her, when viewed as an
institution, as truly as it ever had been.
This conflict between reason and affection I expressed in
one of the early Tracts, published July, 1834. " Consider
ing the high gifts and the strong claims of the Church of
Rome and its dependencies on our admiration, reverence,
love, and gratitude ; how could we withstand it, as we do,
how could we refrain from being melted into tenderness,
and rushing into communion with it, but for the words of
Truth itself, which bid us prefer It to the whole world ?
' He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not
worthy of Me.' How could ' we learn to be severe, and exe
cute judgment,' but for the warning of Moses against even
a divinely-gifted teacher, who should preach new gods ;
and the anathema of St. Paul even against Angels and
Apostles, who should bring in a new doctrine '? " — Records,
No. &4- My feeling was something like that of a man, who
is obliged in a court of justice to bear witness against a
friend ; or like my own now, when I have said, and shall
say, so many things on which I had rather be silent.
As a matter, then, of simple conscience, though it went
against my feelings, I felt it to be a duty to protest against
the Church of Rome. But besides this, it was a duty, be
cause the prescription of such a protest was a living prin
ciple of my own Church, as expressed not simply in a

from 1833 to 1839. 55
catena, but by a consensus of her divines, and by the voice
of her people. Moreover, such a protest was necessary as
an integral portion of her controversial basis ; for I adopted
the argument of Bernard Gilpin, that Protestants "were
not able to give any firm and solid reason of the separation
besides this, to wit, that the Pope is Antichrist." But
while I thus thought such a protest to be based upon truth,
and to be a religious duty, and a rule of Anglicanism, and
a necessity of the case, I did not at all like the work.
Hurrell Froude attacked me for doing it ; and, besides, I
felt that my language had a vulgar and rhetorical look
about it. I believed, and really measured, my words, when
I used them ; but I knew that I had a temptation, on the
other hand, to say against Rome as much as ever I could,
in order to protect myself against the charge of Popery.
And now I come to the very point, for which I have in
troduced the subject of my feelings about Rome. I felt
such confidence in the substantial justice of the charges
which I advanced against her, that I considered them to
be a safeguard and an assurance that no harm could ever
arise from the freest exposition of what I used to call
Anglican principles. All the world was astounded at what
Froude and I were saying: men said that it was sheer
Popery. I answered, " True, we seem to be making straight
for it ; but go on awhile, and you will come to a deep chasm
across the path, which makes real approximation impos
sible." And I urged in addition, that many Anglican
divines had been accused of Popery, yet had died in their
Anglicanism ; — now, the ecclesiastical principles which I
professed, they had professed also; and the judgment
against Rome which they had formed, I had formed also.
Whatever deficiencies then had to be supplied in the ex
isting Anglican system, and however boldly I might point
them out, any how that system would not in the process be
brought nearer to the special creed of Rome, and might be

56 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
mended in spite of her. In that very agreement of the
two forms of faith, close as it might seem, would really be
found, on examination, the elements and principles of an
essential discordance.
It was with this absolute persuasion on my mind that
I fancied that there could be no rashness in giving to the-
world in fullest measure the teaching and the writings of
the Fathers. I thought that the Church of England was
substantially founded upon them. I did not know all
that the Fathers had said, but I felt that, even when
their tenets happened to differ from the Anglican, no
harm could come of reporting them. I said out what I
was clear they had said ; I spoke vaguely and imperfectly,
of what I thought they said, or what some of them had
said. Any how, no harm could come of bending the
crooked stick the other way, in the process of straightening
it ; it was impossible to break it. If there was any thing
in the Fathers of a startling character, this would be only
for a time ; it would admit of explanation, or it might
suggest something profitable to Anglicans; it could not1
lead to Rome. I express this view of the matter in a
passage of the Preface to the first volume, which I edited;
of the Library of the Fathers. Speaking of the strange
ness at first sight, in the judgment of the present day, of ;
some of their principles and opinions, I bid the reader
go forward hopefully, and not indulge his criticism till he
knows more about them, than he will learn at the outset.
" Since the evil," I say, " is in the nature of the case
itself, we can do no more than have patience, and recom
mend patience to others, and with the racer in the Tragedy,;
look forward steadily and hopefully to the event, to5 reXen.
irianv (jiepatv, when, as we trust, all that is inharinonioui
and anomalous in the details, will at length be practical!
smoothed." Such was the position, such the defences, such the tactic^

from 1833 to 1839. 57
by which I thought that it was both incumbent on us, and pos
sible for us, to meet that onset of Liberal principles, of which
we were all in immediate anticipation, whether in the
Church or in the University. And during the first year of
the Tracts, the attack upon the University began. In No
vember, 1834, was sent to me by Dr. Hampden the second
edition of his Pamphlet, entitled, Observations on Religious
Dissent, with particular reference to the use of religious
tests in the University. In this Pamphlet it was main
tained, that "Religion is distinct from Theological
Opinion," pp. 1, 28, 30, &c. ; that it is but a common
prejudice to identify theological propositions methodicaUy
deduced and stated, with the simple religion of Christ,
p. 1 ; that under Theological Opinion were to be placed
the Trinitarian doctrine, p. 27, and the Unitarian, p. 19;
that a dogma was a theological opinion formally insisted
on, pp. 20, 21 ; that speculation always left an opening for
improvement, p. 22 ; that the Church of England was not
dogmatic in its spirit, though the wording of its formu
laries might often carry the sound of dogmatism, p. 23.
I acknowledged the receipt of this work in the following
letter : —
"The kindness which has led to your presenting me
with your late Pamphlet, encourages me to hope that you
will forgive me, if I take the opportunity it affords of
expressing to you my very sincere and deep regret that it
has been published. Such an opportunity I could not let
slip without being unfaithful to my own serious thoughts
on the subject.
" While I respect the tone of piety which the Pamphlet
displays, I dare not trust myself to put on paper my feel
ings about the principles contained in it ; tending as they
do, in my opinion, altogether to make shipwreck of Chris
tian faith. I also lament, that, by its appearance, the first
step has been taken towards interrupting that peace and

58 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
mutual good understanding which has prevailed so long
in this place, and which, if once seriously disturbed, will
be succeeded by dissensions the more intractable, because
justified in the minds of those who resist innovation by a
feeling of imperative duty."
Since that time Phaeton has got into the chariot of the
sun ; we, alas ! can only look on, and watch him down the
steep of heaven. Meanwhile, the lands, which he is passing
over, suffer from his driving.
Such was the commencement of the assault of Liberalism
upon the old orthodoxy of Oxford and England ; and it
could not have been broken, as it was, for so long a time,
had not a great change taken place in the circumstances of
that counter-movement which had already started with the
view of resisting it. For myself, I was not the person to
take the lead of a party ; I never was, from first to last,
more than a leading author of a school; nor did I ever
wish to be anything else. This is my own account of the
matter ; and I say it, neither as intending to disown the
responsibility of what was done, or as if ungrateful to those
who at that time made more of me than I deserved, and did
more for my sake and at my bidding than I realized my
self. I am giving my history from my own point of sight,
and it is as follows :— I had lived for ten years among my
personal friends ; the greater part of the time, I had been
influenced, not influencing ; and at no time have I acted on
others, without their acting upon me. As is the custom of
a University, I had lived with my private, nay, with some
of my public, pupils, and with the junior fellows of my
College, without form or distance, on a footing of equality.
Thus it was through friends, younger, for the most part,
than myself, that my principles were spreading. They
heard what I said in conversation, and told it to others.
Under-graduates in due time took their degree, and became

from 1833 to 1839. 59
private tutors themselves. In their new status, they in turn
preached the opinions, with which they had already become
acquainted. Others went down to the country, and became
curates of parishes. Then they had down from London
parcels of the Tracts, and other publications. They placed
them in the shops of local booksellers, got them into news
papers, introduced them to clerical meetings, and converted
more or less their Rectors and their brother curates. Thus
the Movement, viewed with relation to myself, was but a
floating opinion ; it was not a power. It never would have
been a power, if it had remained in my hands. Years
after, a friend, writing to me in remonstrance at the ex
cesses, as he thought them, of my disciples, applied to me
my own verse about St. Gregory Nazianzen, " Thou couldst
a people raise, but couldst not rule." At the time that he
wrote to me, I had special impediments in the way of such
an exercise of power ; but at no time could 1 exercise over
others that authority, which under the circumstances was
imperatively required. My great principle ever was, Live
and let live. I never had the staidness or dignity necessary
for a leader. To the last I never recognized the hold I had
over young men. Of late years I have read and heard that
they even imitated me in various ways. I was quite un
conscious of it, and I think my immediate friends knew too
well how disgusted I should be at such proceedings, to
have the heart to tell me. I felt great impatience at our
being called a party, and would not allow that we were
such. I had a lounging, free-and-easy way of carrying
things on. 1 exercised no sufficient censorship upon the
Tracts. I did not confine them to the writings of such
persons as agreed in all things with myself ; and, as to my
own Tracts, I printed on them a notice to the effect, that
any one who pleased, might make what use he would of
them, and reprint them with alterations if he chose, under
the conviction that their main scope could not be damaged

60 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
by such a process. It was the same with me afterwards,
as regards other publications. For two years I furnished
a certain number of sheets for the British Critic from my
self and my friends, while a gentleman was editor, a man
of splendid talent, who, however, was scarcely an acquain
tance of mine, and had no sympathy with the Tracts.
When I was Editor myself, from 1838 to 1841, in my very
first number I suffered to appear a critique unfavourable
to my work on Justification, which had been published
a few months before, from a feeling of propriety, because
I had put the book into the hands of the writer who so
handled it. Afterwards I suffered an article against the
Jesuits to appear in it, of which I did not like the tone
When I had to provide a curate for my new church at
Littlemore, I engaged a friend, by no fault of his, who, be
fore he had entered into his charge, preached a sermon,
either in depreciation of baptismal regeneration, or of Dr.
Pusey's view of it. I showed a similar easiness as to the
Editors who helped me in the separate volumes of Fleury 's
Church History ; they were able, learned, and excellent
men, but their after-history has shown how little my choice
of them was influenced by any notion I could have had of
any intimate agreement of opinion between them and my
self. I shall have to make the same remark in its place
concerning the Lives of the English Saints, which subse
quently appeared. All this may seem inconsistent with
what I have said of my fierceness. I am not bound to ac
count for it ; but there have been men before ine, fierce in
act, yet tolerant and moderate in their reasonings ; at least,
so I read history. However, such was the case, and such
its effect upon the Tracts. These at first starting were
short, hasty, and some of them ineffective ; and at the end
of the year, when collected into a volume, they had a
slovenly appearance.
It was under these circumstances, that Dr. Pusey joined

from 1833 to 1839. 61
us. I had known him well since 1827-8, and had felt for
him an enthusiastic admiration. I used to call him 6 fieya?.
His great learning, his immense diligence, his scholarlike
mind, his simple devotion to the cause of religion, over
came me ; and great of course was my joy, when in the
last days of 1833 he showed a disposition to make common
cause with us. His Tract On Fasting appeared as one of
the series with the date of December 21. He was not,
however, I think, fully associated in the Movement till
1835 and 1836, when he published his Tract On Baptism,
and started the Library of the Fathers. He at once gave
to us a position and a name. Without him we should have
had little 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 chari
ties, his Professorship, his family connexions, and his
easy relations with 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 affectionate-
ness. 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. In
1829, Mr. Froude, or Mr. Robert Wilberforce, or Mr.
Newman were but individuals ; and, when they ranged
themselves in the contest of that year on the side 'of
Sir Robert Inglis, men on either side only asked with

62 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
surprise how they got there, and attached no significancy
to the fact ; but Dr. Pusey was, to use the common ex
pression, a host in himself; he was able to give a name,
a form, and a personality, to what was without him a sort
of mob ; and when various parties had to meet together in
order to resist the liberal acts of the Government, we of
the Movement took our place by right among them.
Such was the benefit which he conferred on the# Move
ment externally ; nor were the internal advantages at all
inferior to it. He was a man of large designs ; he had a
hopeful, sanguine mind ; he had no fear of others ; he was
haunted by no intellectual perplexities. People are apt to
say that he was once nearer to the Catholic Church than
he is now ; I pray God that he may be one day far nearer
to the Catholic Church than he was then ; for I believe that,
in his reason and judgment, all the time that I knew him,
he never was near to it at all. When I became a Catholic,
I was often asked, " What of Dr. Pusey ? " when I said
that I did not see symptoms of his doing as I had done, I
was sometimes thought uncharitable. If confidence in his
position is (as it is,) a first essential in the leader of a party,
this Dr. Pusey possessed pre-eminently. The most re
markable instance of this, was his statement, in one of his
subsequent defences of the Movement, when moreover it had
advanced a considerable way in the direction of Rome, that
among its more hopeful peculiarities was its " station-
ariness." He made it in good faith ; it was his subjective
view of it.
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. It was through him that the character of the
Tracts was changed. When he gave to us his Tract On
Fasting, he put his initials to it. In 1835 he published
his elaborate Treatise on Baptism, which was followed by

from 1833 to 1839. 63
other Tracts from different authors, if not of equal learning,
yet of equal power and appositeness. The Catenas of An
glican divines, projected by me, which occur in the Series,
were executed with a like aim at greater accuracy and
method. In 1836 he advertised his great project for a
Translation of the Fathers : — but I must return to myself.
I am not writing the history either of Dr. Pusey or of
the Movement; but it is a pleasure to me to have been
able to introduce here reminiscences of the place which
he held in it, which have so direct a bearing on myself,
that they are no digression from my narrative.
I suspect it was Dr. Pusey's influence and example
which set me, and made me set others, on the larger and
more careful works in defence of the principles of the
Movement which followed in a course of years, — some of
them demanding and receiving from their authors, such
elaborate treatment that they did not make their appear
ance till both its temper and its fortunes had changed. I
set about a work at once ; one in which was brought out
with precision the relation in which we stood to the
Church of Rome. We could not move a step in comfort,
till this was done. It was of absolute necessity and a plain
duty from the first, to provide as soon as possible a large
statement, which would encourage and reassure our friends,
and repel the attacks of our opponents. A cry was heard
on all sides of us, that the Tracts and the writings of the
Fathers would lead us to become Catholics, before we were
aware of it. This was loudly expressed by members of
the Evangelical party, who in 1836 had joined us in
making a protest in Convocation against a memorable
appointment of the Prime Minister. These clergymen
even then avowed their desire, that the next time they
were brought up to Oxford to give a vote, it might be in
order to put down the Popery of the Movement. There

64 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
was another reason still, and quite as important. Mon-
signore Wiseman, with the acuteness and zeal which
might be expected from that great Prelate, had antici
pated what was coming, had returned to England by
1836, had delivered Lectures in London on the doctrines
of Catholicism, and created an impression through the
country, shared in by ourselves, that we had for our
opponents in controversy, not only our brethren, but our
hereditary foes. These were the circumstances, which led
to my publication of " The Prophetical Office of the
Church viewed relatively to Romanism and Popula/r
Protestantism." This work employed me for three years, from the begin
ning of 1834 to the end of 1836, and was published in
1837. It was composed, after a careful consideration and
comparison of the principal Anglican divines of the 17th
century. It was first written in the shape of controversial
correspondence with a learned French Priest ; then it was
re-cast, and delivered in Lectures at St. Mary's; lastly,
with considerable retrenchments and additions, it was re
written for publication.
It attempts to trace out the rudimental lines on which
Christian faith and teaching proceed, and to use them as
means of determining the relation of the Roman and
Anglican systems to each other. In this way it shows
that to confuse the two together is impossible, and that
the Anglican can be as little said to tend to the Roman, as
the RomaD to the Anglican. The spirit of the Volume is
not so gentle to the Church of Rome, as Tract 71 published
the year before ; on the contrary, it is very fierce ; and
this I attribute to the circumstance that the Volume is
theological and didactic, whereas the Tract, being con
troversial, assumes as little and grants as much as possi
ble on the points in dispute, and insists on points of
agreement as well as of difference. A further and

from 1833 to 1839. 65
more direct reason is, that in my Volume I deal with
" Romanism " (as I call it), not so much in its formal
decrees and in the substance of its creed, as in its tradi
tional action and its authorized teaching as represented
by its prominent writers ; — whereas the Tract is written
as if discussing the differences of the Churches with a
view to a reconciliation between them. There is a further
reason too, which I will state presently.
But this Volume had a larger scope than that of
opposing the Roman system. It was an attempt at com
mencing a system of theology on the Anglican idea, and
based upon Anglican authorities. Mr.. Palmer, about the
same time, was projecting a work of a similar nature in
his own way. It was published, I think, under the title,
A Treatise on the Christian Church. As was to be
expected from the author, it was a most learned, most
careful composition ; and in its form, I should say, po
lemical. So happily at least did he follow the logical
method of the Roman Schools, that Father Perrone in his
Treatise on dogmatic theology, recognized in him a com
batant of the true cast, and saluted him as a foe worthy
of being vanquished. Other soldiers in that field he seems
to have thought little better than the Lanzknechts of the
middle ages, and, I dare say, with very good reason.
When I knew that excellent and kind-hearted man at
Rome at a later time, he allowed me to put him to ample
penance for those light thoughts of me, which he had once
had, by encroaching on his valuable time with my theo
logical questions. As to Mr. Palmer's book, it was one
which no Anglican could write but himself, — in no sense,
if I recollect aright, a tentative work. The ground of
controversy was cut into squares, and then every objection
had its answer. This is the proper method to adopt in
teaching authoritatively young men ; and the work in fact
was intended for students in theology. My own book, on
F

66 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
the other hand, was of a directly tentative and empirical
character. I wished to build up an Anglican theology
out of the stores which already lay cut and hewn upon
the ground, the past toil of great divines. To do this
could not be the work of one man ; much less, could it be
at once received into Anglican theology, however well it
was done. This I fully recognized : and, while I trusted
that my statements of doctrine would turn out to be true
and important, still I wrote, to use the common phrase,
" under correction."
There was another motive for my publishing, of a per
sonal nature, which I think I should mention. I felt
then, and all along felt, that there was an intellectual
cowardice in not finding a basis in reason for my belief,
and a moral cowardice in not avowing that basis. I
should have felt myself less than a man, if I did not bring
it out, whatever it was. This is one principal reason why
I wrote and published the Prophetical Office. It was
from the same feeling, that in the spring of 1836, at a meet
ing of residents on the subject of the struggle then pro
ceeding against a Whig appointment, when some one wanted
us all merely to act on college and conservative grounds (as
I understood him), with as few published statements as
possible, I answered, that the person whom we were
resisting had committed himself in writing, and that we
ought to commit ourselves too. This again was a main
reason for the publication of Tract 90. Alas ! it was my
portion for whole years to remain without any satisfactory
basis for my religious profession, in a state of moral sick
ness, neither able to acquiesce in Anglicanism, nor able to
go to Rome. But I bore it, till in course of time my way
was made clear to me. If here it be objected to me, that
as time went on, I often in my writings hinted at things
which I did not fully bring out, I submit for consideration
whether this occurred except when I was in great difficul-

from 1833 to 1839. 67
ties, how to speak, or how to be silent, with due regard
for the position of mind or the feelings of others. How
ever, I may have an opportunity to say more on this sub
ject. But to return to the Prophetical Office.
I thus speak in the Introduction to my Volume : —
"It is proposed," I say, "to offer helps towards the
formation of a recognized Anglican theology in one of its
departments. The present state of our divinity is as
follows : the most vigorous, the clearest, the most fertile
minds, have through God's mercy been employed in the
service of our Church : minds too as reverential and holy,
and as fully imbued with Ancient Truth, and as well
versed in the writings of the Fathers, as they were in
tellectually gifted. This is God's great mercy indeed, for
which we must ever be thankful. Primitive doctrine has
been explored for us in every direction, and the original
principles of the Gospel and the Church patiently brought
to light. But one thing is still wanting : our champions
and teachers have lived in stormy times: political and
other influences have acted upon them variously in their
day, and have since obstructed a careful consolidation of
their judgments. We have a vast inheritance, but no
inventory of our treasures. All is given us in profusion ;
it remains for us to catalogue, sort, distribute, select, har
monize, and complete. We have more than we know how
to use; stores of learning, but little that is precise and
serviceable ; Catholic truth and individual opinion, first
principles and the guesses of genius, all mingled in the
same works, and requiring to be discriminated. We meet
with truths overstated or misdirected, matters of detail
variously taken, facts incompletely proved or applied, and
rules inconsistently urged or discordantly interpreted.
Such indeed is the state of every deep philosophy in its
first stages, and therefore of theological knowledge. What
we need at present for our Church's well-being, is not

68 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
invention, nor originality, nor sagacity, nor even learning
in our divines, at least in the first place, though all gifts
of God are in a measure needed, and never can be unsea
sonable when used religiously, but we need peculiarly a
sound judgment, patient thought, discrimination, a com
prehensive mind, an abstinence from all private fancies
and caprices and personal tastes, — in a word, Divine
Wisdom." The subject of the Volume is the doctrine of the Via
Media, a name which had already been applied to the
Anglican system by writers of repute. It is an expressive
title, but not altogether satisfactory, because it is at first
sight negative. This had been the reason of my dislike to
the word " Protestant ; " viz. it did not denote the profession
of any particular religion at all, and was compatible with
infidelity. A Via Media was but a receding from ex
tremes, — therefore it needed to be drawn out into a definite
shape and character : before it could have claims on our
respect, it must first be shown to be one, intelligible, and
consistent: This was the first condition of any reasonable
treatise on the Via Media. The second condition, and
necessary too, was not in my power. I could only hope
that it would one day be fulfilled. Even if the Via Media
were ever so positive a religious system, it was not as yet
objective and real ; it had no original anywhere of which
it was the representative. It was at present a paper
religion. This I confess in my Introduction ; I say,
"Protestantism and Popery are real religions . . . but
the Via Media, viewed as an integral system, has scarcely
had existence except on paper." I grant the objection,
though I endeavour to lessen it : — " It still remains to be
tried, whether what is called Anglo-Catholicism, the
religion of Andrewes, Laud, Hammond, Butler, and Wil
son, is capable of being professed, acted on, and main
tained on a large sphere of action, or whether it be a mere

from 1833 to 1839. 69
modification or transition-state of either Romanism or
popular Protestantism." I trusted that some day it would
prove to be a substantive religion.
Lest I should be misunderstood, let me observe that
this hesitation about the validity of the theory of the Via
Media implied no doubt of the three fundamental points
on which it was based, as I have described them above,
dogma, the sacramental system, and anti-Romanism.
Other investigations which had to be followed up were
of a still more tentative character. The basis of the Via
Media, consisting of the three elementary points, which I
have just mentioned, was clear enough ; but, not only had
the house itself to be built upon them, but it had also to
be furnished, and it is not wonderful if, after building it,
both I and others erred in detail in determining what its
furniture should be, what was consistent with the style of
building, and what was in itself desirable. I will explain
what I mean.
I had brought out in the Prophetical Office in what
the Roman and the Anglican systems differed from each
other, but less distinctly in what they agreed. I had
indeed enumerated the Fundamentals, common to both,
in the following passage: — "In both systems the same
Creeds are acknowledged. Besides other points in common,
we both hold, that certain doctrines are necessary to be
believed for salvation ; we both believe in the doctrines of
the Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement ; in original sin ;
in the necessity of regeneration ; in the supernatural grace
of the Sacraments; in the Apostolical succession; in the
obligation of faith and obedience, and in the eternity of
future punishment," — pp. 55, 56. So much I had said,
but I had not said enough. This enumeration implied a
great many more points of agreement than were found in
those very Articles which were fundamental. If the two
Churches were thus the same in fundamentals, they were

70 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
also one and the same in such plain consequences as were
contained in those fundamentals and in such natural obser
vances as outwardly represented them. It was an Anglican
principle that " the abuse of a thing doth not take away
the lawful use of it ; " and an Anglican Canon in 1603 had
declared that the English Church had no purpose to forsake
all that was held in the Churches of Italy, France, and
Spain, and reverenced those ceremonies and particular
points which were Apostolic. Excepting then such excep
tional matters, as are implied in this avowal, whether they
were many or few, all these Churches were evidently to be
considered as one with the Anglican. The Catholic Church
in all lands had been one from the first for many centuries ;
then, various portions had followed their own way to the
injury, but not to the destruction, whether of truth or of
charity. These portions or branches were mainly three : —
the Greek, Latin, and Anglican. Each of these inherited
the early undivided Church in solido as its own possession.
Each branch was identical with that early undivided
Church, and in the unity of that Church it had unity with
the other branches. The three branches agreed together
in all but their later accidental errors. Some branches
had retained in detail portions of Apostolical truth and
usage, which the others had not ; and these portions might
be and should be appropriated again by the others which
had let them slip. Thus, the middle age belonged to the
Anglican Church, and much more did the middle age of
England. The Church of the 1 2th century was the Church
of the 19th. Dr. Howley sat in the seat of St. Thomas
the Martyr ; Oxford was a medieval University. Saving
our engagements to Prayer Book and Articles, we might
breathe and live and act and speak, as in the atmosphere
and climate of Henry Ill's day, or the Confessor's, or of
Alfred's. And we ought to be indulgent to all that Rome
taught now, as to what Rome taught then, saving our

from 1833 to 1839. 71
protest. We might boldly welcome, even what we did not
ourselves think right to adopt. And, when we were obliged
on the contrary boldly to denounce, we should do so with
pain, not with exultation. By very reason of our protest,
which we had made, and made ex animo, we could agree
to differ. What the members of the Bible Society did on
the basis of Scripture, we could do on the basis of the
Church; Trinitarian and Unitarian were further apart
than Roman and Anglican. Thus we had a real wish to
co-operate with Rome in all lawful things, if she would
let us, and if the rules of our own Church let us ; and we
thought there was no better way towards the restoration
of doctrinal purity and unity. And we thought that Rome
was not committed by her formal decrees to all that she
actually taught: and again, if her disputants had been
unfair to us, or her rulers tyrannical, we bore in mind
that on our side too there had been rancour and slander
in our controversial attacks upon her, and violence in our
political measures. As to ourselves being direct instru
ments in improving her belief or practice, I used to say,
" Look at home ; let us first (or at least let us the while,)
supply our own shortcomings, before we attempt to be
physicians to any one else." This is very much the spirit
of Tract 71, to which I referred just now. I am well
aware that there is a paragraph inconsistent with it in
the Prospectus to the Library of the Fathers ; but I do
not consider myself responsible for it. Indeed, I have no
intention whatever of implying that Dr. Pusey concurred
in the ecclesiastical theory, which I have been now drawing
out ; nor that I took it up myself except by degrees in the
course of ten years. It was necessarily the growth of time.
In fact, hardly any two persons, who took part in the
Movement, agreed in their view of the limit to which
our general principles might religiously be carried.
And now I have said enough on what I consider to have

72 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
been the general objects of the various works, which I
wrote, edited, or prompted in the years which I am
reviewing. I wanted to bring out in a substantive form a
living Church of England, in a position proper to herself, J
and founded on distinct principles ; as far as paper could /
do it, as far as earnestly preaching it and influencing others
towards it, could tend to make it a fact ; — a living Church;
made of flesh and blood, with voice, complexion, and
motion and action, and a will of its own. I believe I had
no private motive, and no personal aim. Nor did I ask
for more than " a fair stage and no favour," nor expect
the work would be accomplished in my days; but I
thought that enough would be secured to continue it in
the future, under, perhaps, more hopeful circumstances and
prospects than the present.
I will mention in illustration some of the principal
works, doctrinal and historical, which originated in the
object which I have stated.
I wrote my Essay on Justification in 1837 ; it was aimed
at the Lutheran dictum that justification by faith only was
the cardinal doctrine of Christianity. I considered that
this doctrine was either a paradox or a truism, — a paradox
in Luther's mouth, a truism in Melanchthon's. I thought
that the Anglican Church followed Melanchthon, and that
in consequence between Rome and Anglicanism, between
high Church and low Church, there was no real intellec
tual difference on the point. I wished to fill up a ditch,
the work of man. In this Volume again, I express my
desire to build up a system of theology out of the Anglican
divines, and imply that my dissertation was a tentative
Inquiry. I speak in the Preface of " offering suggestions
towards a work, which must be uppermost in the mind of
every true son of the English Church at this day, — the
consolidation of a theological system, which, built upon
those formularies, to which all clergymen are bound, may

from 1833 to 1839. 73
tend to inform, persuade, and absorb into itself religious
minds, which hitherto have fancied, that, on the peculiar
Protestant questions, they were seriously opposed to each
other." — P. vii.
In my University Sermons there is a series of discus
sions upon the subject of Faith and Reason; these again
were the tentative commencement of a grave and necessary
work, viz. an inquiry into the ultimate basis of religious
faith, prior to the distinction into Creeds.
In like manner in a Pamphlet, which I published in the
summer of 1838, is an attempt at placing the doctrine of
the Real Presence on an intellectual basis. The funda
mental idea is consonant to that to which I had been so
long attached: it is the denial of the existence of space
except as a subjective idea of our minds.
The Church of the Fathers is one of the earliest pro
ductions of the Movement, and appeared in numbers in
the British Magazine, being written with the aim of in
troducing the religious sentiments, views, and customs of
the first ages into the modern Church of England.
The Translation of Fleury 's Church History was com
menced under these circumstances : — I was fond of Fleury
for a reason which I express in the Advertisement ;
because it presented a sort of photograph of ecclesiastical
history without any comment upon it. In the event, that
simple representation of the early centuries had a good
deal to do with unsettling me in my Anglicanism; but
how little I could anticipate this, will be seen in the fact
that the publication of Fleury was a favourite scheme
with Mr. Rose. He proposed it to me twice, between the
years 1834 and 1837 ; and I mention it as one out of
many particulars curiously illustrating how truly my
change of opinion arose, not from foreign influences, but
from the working of my own mind, and the accidents
around me. The date, from which the portion actually

74 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
translated began, was determined by the Publisher on
reasons with which we were not concerned.
Another historical work, but drawn from original
sources, was given to the world by my old friend Mr.
Bowden, being a Life of Pope Gregory VII. I need
scarcely recall to those who have read it, the power and
the liveliness of the narrative. This composition was the
author's relaxation, on evenings and in his summer vaca
tions, from his ordinary engagements in London. It had
been suggested to him originally by me, at the instance of
Hurrell Froude.
The Series of the Lives of the English Saints was pro
jected at a later period, under circumstances which I shall
have in the sequel to describe. Those beautiful composi
tions have nothing in them, as far as I recollect, simply
inconsistent with the general objects which I have been
assigning to my labours in these years, though the im
mediate occasion which led to them, and the tone in
which they were written, had little that was congenial
with Anglicanism.
At a comparatively early date I drew up the Tract On
the Roman Breviary. It frightened my own friends on
its first appearance ; and several years afterwards, when
younger men began to translate for publication the four
volumes in extenso, they were dissuaded from doing so by
advice to which from a sense of duty they listened. It was
an apparent accident, which introduced me to the know
ledge of that most wonderful and most attractive monu
ment of the devotion of saints. On Hurrell Froude's
death, in 1836, I was asked to select one of his books as a
keepsake. I selected Butler's Analogy ; finding that it
had been already chosen, I looked with some perplexity
along the shelves as they stood before me, when an inti
mate friend at my elbow said, " Take that." It was the
Breviary which Hurrell had had with him at Barbadoes.

from 1833 to 1839. 75
Accordingly I took it, studied it, wrote my Tract from
it, and have it on my table in constant use till this
day. That dear and familiar companion, who thus put the
Breviary into my hands, is still in the Anglican Church.
So, too, is that early venerated long-loved friend, together
with whom I edited a work which, more perhaps than any
other, caused disturbance and annoyance in the Anglican
world, — Froude's Remains ; yet, however judgments
might run as to the prudence of publishing it, I never
heard any one impute to Mr. Keble the very shadow of
dishonesty or treachery towards his Church in so acting.
The annotated Translation of the Treatises of St. Atha
nasius was of course in no sense of a tentative character ;
it belongs to another order of thought. This historico-
dogmatic work employed me for years. I had made pre
parations for following it up with a doctrinal history of
the heresies which succeeded to the Arian.
I should make mention also of the Bi'itish Critic. I was
Editor of it for three years, from July 1838 to July 1841.
My writers belonged to various schools, some to none at all.
The subjects are various, — classical, academical, political,
critical, and artistic, as well as theological, and upon the
Movement none are to be found which do not keep quite
clear of advocating the cause of Rome.
So I went on for years up to 1841. It was, in a human
point of view, the happiest time of my life. I was truly at
home. I had in one of my volumes appropriated to myself
the words of Bramhall, " Bees, by the instinct of nature,
do love their hives, and birds their nests." I did not sup
pose that such sunshine would last, though I knew not
what would be its termination. It was the time of plenty,
and, during its seven years, I tried to lay up as much as I
could for the dearth which was to follow it. We prospered

76 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
and spread. I have spoken of the doings of these years,
since I was a Catholic, in a passage, part of which I will
here quote :
" 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 Na
tional 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 back-woodmen 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."
The greater its success, the nearer was that collision at
hand. The first threatenings of what was coming were
heard in 1838. At that time, my Bishop in a Charge
made some light animadversions, but they were animad
versions, on the Tracts for the Times. At once I offered
to stop them. What took place on the occasion I prefer

from 1833 to 1839. 77
to state in the words in which I related it in a Pamphlet
addressed to him in a later year, when the blow actually
came down upon me.
"In your Lordship's Charge for 1838," I said, "an al
lusion was made to the Tracts for the Times. Some oppo
nents of the Tracts said that you treated them with undue
indulgence. . . I wrote to the Archdeacon on the sub
ject, submitting the Tracts entirely to your Lordship's dis
posal. What I thought about your Charge will appear from
the words I then used to him. I said, ' A Bishop's lightest
word ex cathedra is heavy. His j udgment on a book cannot
be light. It is a rare occurrence.' And I offered to with
draw any of the Tracts over which I had control, if I were
informed which were those to which your Lordship had
objections. I afterwards wrote to your Lordship to this
effect, that ' I trusted I might say sincerely, that I should
feel a more lively pleasure in knowing that I was submit
ting myself to your Lordship's expressed judgment in a
matter of that kind, than I could have even in the widest
circulation of the volumes in question.' Your Lordship
did not think it necessary to proceed to such a measure, but
I felt, and always have felt, that, if ever you determined
on it, I was bound to obey."
That day at length came, and I conclude this portion of
my narrative, with relating the circumstances of it.
From the time that I had entered upon the duties of Pubhc
Tutor at my College, when my doctrinal views were very
different from what they were in 1841, I had meditated a
comment upon the Articles. Then, when the Movement
was in its swing, friends had said to me, " What will you
make of the Articles ?" but I did not share the apprehen
sion which their question implied. Whether, as time went
on, I should have been forced, by the necessities of the ori
ginal theory of the Movement, to put on paper the specu-

78 HISTORY' OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
lations which I had about them, I am not able to conjec
ture. The actual cause of my doing so, in the beginning
of 1841, was the restlessness, actual and prospective, of
those who neither liked the Via Media, nor my strong
judgment against Rome. I had been enjoined, I think
by my Bishop, to keep these men straight, and I wished
so to do: but their tangible difficulty was subscription
to the Articles; and thus the question of the Articles
came before me. It was thrown in our teeth ; " How
can you manage to sign the Articles ? they are directly
against Rome." " Against Rome ? " I made answer,
" What do you mean by ' Rome ' ? " and then I pro
ceeded to make distinctions, of which I shall now give
an account.
By " Roman doctrine " might be meant one of three
things: 1, the Catholic teaching of the early centuries;
or 2, the formal dogmas of Rome as contained in the later
Councils, especially the Council of Trent, and as condensed
in the Creed of Pope Pius IV. ; 3, the actual popular beliefs
and usages sanctioned by Rome in the countries in commu
nion with it, over and above the dogmas ; and these I
called " dominant errors." Now Protestants commonly
thought that in all three senses, " Roman doctrine "
was condemned in the Articles : I thought that the
Catholic teaching was not condemned ; that the dominant
errors were ; and as to the formal dogmas, that some
were, some were not, and that the line had to be drawn
between them. Thus, 1. The use of Prayers for the dead
was a Catholic doctrine. — not condemned in the Articles ;
2. The prison of Purgatory was a Roman dogma, — which
was condemned in them; but the infallibility of Ecu
menical Councils was a Roman dogma, — not condemned ;
and 3. The fire of Purgatory was an authorized ar/d popular
error, not a dogma, — which was condemned.
Further, I considered that the difficulties, felt by the

from 1833 to 1839. 79
persons whom I have mentioned, mainly lay in their mis
taking, 1, Catholic teaching, which was not condemned in
the Articles, for Roman dogma which was condemned;
and 2, Roman dogma, which was not condemned in the
Articles, for dominant error which was. If they went
further than this, I had nothing more to say to them.
A further motive which I had for my attempt, was the
desire to ascertain the ultimate points of contrariety be
tween the Roman and Anglican creeds, and to make them
as few as possible. I thought that each creed was obscured
and misrepresented by a dominant circumambient "Popery"
and ' Protestantism."
The main thesis then of my Essay was this : — the Articles
do not oppose Catholic teaching ; they but partially oppose
Roman dogma ; they for the most part oppose the domi
nant errors of Rome. And the problem was, as I have said,
to draw the line as to what they allowed and what they
condemned. Such being the object which I had in view, what were
my prospects of widening and of defining their meaning ?
The prospect was encouraging ; there was no doubt at all
of the elasticity of the Articles : to take a palmary instance,
the seventeenth was assumed by one party to be Lutheran,
by another Calvinistic, though the two interpretations were
contradictory of each other; why then should not other
Articles be drawn up with a vagueness of an equally intense
character ? I wanted to ascertain what was the limit of
that elasticity in the direction of Roman dogma. But next,
I had a way of inquiry of my own, which I state without
defending. I instanced it afterwards in my Essay on
Doctrinal Development. That work, I believe, I have not
read since I published it, and I do not doubt at all I have
made many mistakes in it ; — partly, from my ignorance of
the details of doctrine, as the Church of Rome holds them,
but partly from my impatience to clear as large a range for

80 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
the principle of doctrinal Development (waiving the ques
tion of historical fact) as was consistent with the strict
Apostolicity and identity of the Catholic Creed. In like
manner, as regards the 39 Articles, my method of inquiry
was to leap in medias res. I wished to institute an
inquiry how far, in critical fairness, the text could be
opened; I was aiming far more at ascertaining what a
man who subscribed it might hold than what he must, so
that my conclusions were negative rather than positive.
It was but a first essay. And I made it with the full
recognition and consciousness, which I had already ex
pressed in my Prophetical Office, as regards the Via
Media, that I was making only " a first approximation to
the required solution ; " — " a series of illustrations supply
ing hints for the removal " of a difficulty, and with full
acknowledgment " that in minor points, whether in question
of fact or of judgment, there was room for difference or
error of opinion," and that I " should not be ashamed
to own a mistake, if it were proved against me, nor
reluctant to bear the just blame of it." — Proph. Off. p. 31.
I will add, I was embarrassed in consequence of my wish
to go as far as was possible in interpreting the Articles in
the direction of Roman dogma, without disclosing what I
was doing to the parties whose doubts I was meeting ; who,
if they understood at once the full extent of the licence
which the Articles admitted, might be thereby encouraged
to proceed still further than at present they found in them
selves any call to go.
1. But in the way of such an attempt comes the prompt
objection that the Articles were actually drawn up against
" Popery," and therefore it was transcendently absurd and
dishonest to suppose that Popery, in any shape, — patristic
belief, Tridentine dogma, or popular corruption authorita- '
tively sanctioned, — would be able to take refuge under their ,
text. This premiss I denied. Not any religious doctrinj|

from 1833 to 1839. 81
at all, but a political principle, was the primary English
idea of " Popery " at the date of the Reformation. And
what was that political principle, and how could it best be
suppressed in England ? What was thegreat questionin the
days of Henry and Elizabeth ? The Supremacy ; — now,
was I saying one single word in favour of the Supremacy
of the Holy See, in favour of the foreign jurisdiction ? No,
I did not believe in it myself. Did Henry VIII. religiously
hold Justification by faith only ? did he disbelieve Purga
tory? Was Elizabeth zealous for the marriage of the
Clergy ? or had she a conscience against the Mass ? The
Supremacy of the Pope was the essence of the " Popery "
to which, at the time of the composition of the Articles, the
Supreme Head or Governor of the English Church was so
violently hostile.
2. But again I said this : — let " Popery " mean what it
would in the mouths of the compilers of the Articles, let
it even, for argument's sake, include the doctrines of that
Tridentine Council, which was not yet over when the
Articles were drawn up, and against which they could not
be simply directed, yet, consider, what was the object of
the Government in their imposition ? merely to get rid of
" Popery " ? No ; it had the further object of gaining
the " Papists." What then was the best way to induce
reluctant or wavering minds, and these, I supposed, were
the majority, to give in their adhesion to the new symbol ?
how had the Arians drawn up their Creeds ? was it not on
the principle of using vague ambiguous language, which
to the subscribers would seem to bear a Catholic sense,
but which, when worked out on the long run, would prove
to be heterodox ? Accordingly, there was great ante
cedent probability, that, fierce as the Articles might look
at first sight, their bark would prove worse than their
bite. I say antecedent probability, for to what extent
G

82 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
that surmise might be true, could only be ascertained by
investigation. 3. But a consideration came up at once, which threw
hght on this surmise : — what if it should turn out that the
very men who drew up the Articles, in the very act of
doing so, had avowed, or rather in one of those very Arti
cles themselves had imposed on subscribers, a number of
those very " Papistical " doctrines, which they were now
thought to deny, as part and parcel of that very Protes
tantism, which they were now thought to consider divine ?
and this was the fact, and I showed it in my Essay.
Let the reader observe : — the 35th Article says : " The
second Book of Homilies doth contain a godly and whole
some doctrine, and necessary for these times, as doth the
former Book of Homilies." Here the doctrine of the
Homilies is recognised as godly and wholesome, and con
currence in that recognition is imposed on all subscribers
of the Articles. Let us then turn to the Homilies, and see
what this godly doctrine is : I quoted from them to the
following effect :
i. They declare that the so-called "apocryphal" book
of Tobit is the teaching of the Holy Ghost, and is Scrip
ture. ii. That the so-called " apocryphal " book of Wisdom is
Scripture, and the infallible and undeceivable word of God.
iii. That the Primitive Church, next to the Apostles'
time, and, as they imply, for almost 700 years, is no doubt
most pure.
iv. That the Primitive Church is specially to be fol
lowed. v. That the Four first General Councils belong to the
Primitive Church.
vi. That there are Six Councils which are allowed and
received by all men.

from 1833 to 1839. 83
vii. Again, they speak of a certain truth, and say that
it is declared by God's word, the sentences of the ancient
doctors, and judgment of the Primitive Church.
viii. Of the learned and holy Bishops and doctors of
the Church of the first eight centuries being of great
authority and credit with the people.
ix. Of the declaration of Christ and His Apostles and
all the rest of the Holy Fathers.
x. Of the authority both of Scripture and also of
Augustine. xi. Of Augustine, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, and
about thirty other Fathers, to some of whom they give the
title of " Saint," to others of " ancient Catholic Fathers
and doctors, &c."
xii. They declare that, not only the holy Apostles and
disciples of Christ, but the godly Fathers also, before and
since Christ, were endued without doubt with the Holy
Ghost. xiii. That the ancient Catholic Fathers say that the
" Lord's Supper " is the salve of immortality, the sovereign
preservative against death, the food of immortality, the
healthful grace. ^
xiv. That the Lord's Blessed Body and Blood are re
ceived under the form of bread and wine.
xv. That the meat in the Sacrament is an invisible meat
and a ghostly substance.
xvi. That the holy Body and Blood of thy God ought
to be touched with the mind.
xvii. That Ordination is a Sacrament.
xviii. That Matrimony is a Sacrament.
xix. That there are other Sacraments besides " Baptism
and the Lord's Supper," though not " such as " they. „
xx. That the souls of the Saints are reigning in joy and
in heaven with God.
xxi. That alms-deeds purge the soul from the infection

84 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
and filthy spots of sin, and are a precious medicine, an
inestimable jewel.
xxii. That mercifulness wipes out and washes away sins,
as salves and remedies to heal sores and grievous diseases.
xxiii. That the duty of fasting is a truth more manifest
than it should need to be proved.
xxiv. That fasting, used with prayer, is of great efficacy
and weigheth much with God ; so the Angel Raphael told
Tobias. xxv. That the puissant and mighty Emperor Theodosius.
was, in the Primitive Church, which was most holy and
godly, excommunieated by St. Ambrose.
xxvi. That Constantine, Bishop of Rome, did condemn
Philippicus, then Emperor, not without a cause indeed,
but very justly.
Putting altogether aside the question how far these
separate theses came under the matter to which subscrip
tion was to be made, it was quite plain, that in the minds
of the men who wrote the Homilies, and who thus incor
porated them into the Anglican system of doctrine, there
was no such nice discrimination between the Catholic
and the Protestant faith, no such clear recognition of
formal Protestant principles and tenets, no such accurate
definition of " Roman doctrine," as is received at the present
day : — hence great probability accrued to my presentiment
that the Articles were tolerant, not only of what I called
" Catholic teaching," but of much that was " Roman."
4. And here was another reason against the notion that
the Articles directly attacked the Roman dogmas as de
clared at Trent and as promulgated by Pius the Fourth :—
the Council of Trent was not over, nor its Canons promul
gated at the date when the Articles were drawn up,1 so
1 The Pope's Confirmation of the Council, by which its Canons became de
fide, and his Bull super confirmatione by which they were promulgated to the
world, are dated January 26, 1564. The Articles are dated 1562.

from 1833 To 1839. 85
that those Articles must be aiming at something else ?
What was that something else ? The Homilies tell us : the
Homilies are the best comment upon the Articles. Let us
turn to the Homilies, and we shall find from first to last
that, not only is not the Catholic teaching of the first
centuries, but neither again are the dogmas of Rome, the
objects of the protest of the compilers of the Articles, but
the dominant errors, the popular corruptions, authorized
or suffered by the high name of Rome. The eloquent de
clamation of the Homilies finds its matter almost exclu
sively in the dominant errors. As to Catholic teaching,
nay as to Roman dogma, of such theology those Homilies,
as I have shown, contained no small portion themselves.
5. So much for the writers of the Articles and Homi
lies ; — they were witnesses, not authorities, and I used them
as such ; but in the next place, who were the actual autho
rities imposing them ? I reasonably considered the autho
rity imponens to be the Convocation of 1571 ; but here
again, it would be found that the very Convocation, which
received and confirmed the 39 Articles, also enjoined by
Canon that " preachers should be careful, that they should
never teach aught in a sermon, to be religiously held and
believed by the people, except that which is agreeable to
the doctrine of the Old and New Testament, and which the
Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops havecollected from
that very doctrine." Here, let it be observed, an appeal
is made by the Convocation imponens to the very same
ancient authorities, as had been mentioned with such
profound veneration by the writers of the Homilies and
the Articles, and thus, if the Homilies contained views of
doctrine which now would be called Roman, there seemed
to me to be an extreme probability that the Convocation
of 1571 also countenanced and received, or at least did not
reject, those doctrines.
6. And further, when at length I came actually to look

86 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
into the text of the Articles, I saw in many cases a patent
justification of all that I had surmised as to their vagueness
and indecisiveness, and that, not only on questions which
lay between Lutherans, Calvinists, and Zuinglians, but on
Catholic questions also ; and I have noticed them in my
Tract. In the conclusion of my Tract I observe: The
Articles are " evidently framed on the principle of leaving
open large questions on which the controversy hinges.
They state broadly extreme truths, and are silent about
their adjustment. For instance, they say that all neces
sary faith must be proved from Scripture ; but do not say
who is to prove it. They say, that the Church has autho
rity in controversies; they do not say what authority.
They say that it may enforce nothing beyond Scripture,
but do not say where the remedy lies when it does. They
say that works before grace and justification are worthless
and worse, and that works after grace and justification are
acceptable, but they do not speak at all of works with
God's aid before justification. They say that men are law
fully called and sent to minister and preach, who are
chosen and called by men who have public authority given
them in the Congregation ; but they do not add by whom
the authority is to be given. They say that Councils
called hy princes may err ; they do not determine whether
Councils called in the name of Christ may err."
Such were the considerations which weighed with me in
my inquiry how far the Articles were tolerant of a Catho
lic, or even a Roman interpretation ; and such was the
defence which I made in my Tract for having attempted
it. From what I have already said, it will appear that I
have no need or intention at this day to maintain every
particular interpretation which I suggested in the course
of my Tract, nor indeed had I then. Whether it was
prudent or not, whether it was sensible or not, any how I
attempted only a first essay of a necessary work, an essay

from 1833 to 1839. 87
which, as I was quite prepared to find, would require
revision and modification by means of the lights which I
should gain from the criticism of others. I should have
gladly withdrawn any statement, which could be proved
to me to be erroneous ; I considered my work to be faulty
and open to objection in the same sense in which I now con
sider my Anglican interpretations of Scripture to be erro
neous; but in no other sense. I am surprised that men
do not apply to the interpreters of Scripture generally the
hard names which they apply to the author of Tract 90.
He held a large system of theology, and applied it to the
Articles : Episcopalians, or Lutherans, or Presbyterians,
or Unitarians, hold a large system of. theology and apply
it to Scripture. Every theology has its difficulties ; Pro
testants hold justification by faith only, though there is
no text in St. Paul which enunciates it, and though St.
James expressly denies it ; do we therefore call Protestants
dishonest? they deny that the Church has a divine mission,
though St. Paul says that it is " the Pillar and ground of
Truth ; " they keep the Sabbath, though St. Paul says,
" Let no man judge you in meat or drink or in respect of
. . . the sabbath days." Every creed has texts in its
favour, and again texts which run counter to it : and this
is generally confessed. And this is what I felt keenly : —
how had I done worse in Tract 90 than Anglicans, Wes-
leyans, and Calvinists did daily in their Sermons and their
publications ? how had I done worse, than the Evangelical
party in their ex animo reception of the Services for Bap
tism and Visitation of the Sick ? 1 Why was I to be dis-

1 For instance, let candid men consider the form of Absolution contained
in that Prayer Book, of which all clergymen, Evangelical and Liberal as well
as high Church, and (I think) all persons in University ofiice declare that
"it containeth nothing contrary to the Word of God."
I challenge, in the sight of all England, Evangelical clergymen generally,
to put on paper an interpretation of this form of words, consistent with their

88 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
honest and they immaculate ? There was an occasion on
which our Lord gave an answer, which seemed to be
appropriate to my own case, when the tumult broke out
against my Tract : — " He that is without sin among you,
let him first cast a stone at him." I could have fancied
that a sense of their own difficulties of interpretation would
have persuaded the great party I have mentioned to some
prudence, or at least moderation, in opposing a teacher
of an opposite school. But I suppose their alarm and '
their anger overcame their sense of justice.
In the sudden storm of indignation with which the
Tract was received throughout the country on its appear
ance, I recognize much of real religious feeling, much of
honest and true principle, much of straightforward igno
rant common sense. In Oxford 'there was genuine feeling
too ; but there had been a smouldering, stern, energetic
animosity, not at all unnatural, partly rational, against its
author. A false step had been made ; now was the time
for action. I am told that, even before the publication of
the Tract, rumours of its contents had got into the hostile
camp in an exaggerated form ; and not a moment was lost
in proceeding to action, when I was actually fallen into the
hands of the Philistines. I was quite unprepared for the

sentiments, which shall be less forced than the most objectionable of the
interpretations which Tract 90 puts upon any passage in the Articles.
" Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to His Church to absolve all
sinners who truly repent and believe in Him , of His great mercy forgive thee
thine offences ; and by His authority committed to me, I absolve thee from
all thy sins, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost. Amen."
I subjoin the Roman form, as used in England and elsewhere : " Dominus
noster Jesus Christus te absolvat ; et ego auctoritate ipsius te absolvo, ab
omni vinculo excommunioationis et interdicti, in quantum possum et tu
indiges. Deiude ego te absolvo h peocatis tuis, in nomine Patris et Filii et
Spiritus Sancti. Amen."

from 1833 to 1839. 89
outbreak, and was startled at its violence. I do not think
I had any fear. Nay, I will add, I am not sure that it
was not in one point of view a relief to me.
I saw indeed clearly that my place in the Movement
was lost ; public confidence was at an end ; my occupation
was gone. It was simply an impossibility that I could
say anything henceforth to good effect, when I had been
posted up by the marshal on the buttery-hatch of every
College of my University, after the manner of discom
moned pastry-cooks, and when in every part of the country
and every class of society, through every organ and oppor
tunity of opinion, in newspapers, in periodicals, at meet
ings, in pulpits, at dinner-tables, in coffee-rooms, in railway
carriages, I was denounced as a traitor who had laid his
train and was detected in the very act of firing it against
the time-honoured Establishment. There were indeed
men, besides my own immediate friends, men of name and
position, who gallantly took my part, as Dr. Hook, Mr.
Palmer, and Mr. Perceval ; it must have been a grievous
trial for themselves ; yet what after all could they do for
me ? Confidence in me was lost ; — but I had already lost
full confidence in myself. Thoughts had passed over me
a year and a half before in respect to the Anglican claims,
which for the time had profoundly troubled me They had
gone: I had not less confidence in the power and the
prospects of the Apostolical movement than before; not
less confidence than before in the grievousness of what I
called the " dominant errors " of Rome : but how was I
any more to have absolute confidence in myself ? how was
I to have confidence in my present confidence ? how was I
to be sure that I should always think as I thought now ?
I felt that by this event a kind Providence had saved me
from an impossible position in the future.
First, if I remember right, they wished me to withdraw

90 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
the Tract. This I refused to do : I would not do so for
the sake of those who were unsettled or in danger of un
settlement. I would not do so for my own sake ; for how
could I acquiesce in a mere Protestant interpretation of
the Articles ? how could I range myself among the pro
fessors of a theology, of which it put my teeth on edge
even to hear the sound ?
Next they said, " Keep silence ; do not defend the
Tract; " I answered, " Yes, if you will not condemn it, — if
you will allow it to continue on sale." They pressed on
me whenever I gave way ; they fell back when they saw
me obstinate. Their line of action was to get out of me
as much as they could; but upon the point of their
tolerating the Tract I was obstinate. So they let me con
tinue it on sale ; and they said they would not condemn
it. But they said that this was on condition that I did
not defend it, that I stopped the series, and that I myself
published my own condemnation in a letter to the Bishop
of Oxford. I impute nothing whatever to him, he was
ever most kind to jne. Also, they said they could not
answer for what some individual Bishops might perhaps
say about the Tract in their own charges. I agreed to
their conditions. My one point was to save the Tract.
Not a line in writing was given me, as a pledge of the
observance of the main article on their side of the engage
ment. Parts of letters from them were read to me, with
out being put into my hands. It was an " understanding ."
A clever man had warned me against " understandings "
some thirteen years before : I have hated them ever since.
In the last words of my letter to the Bishop of Oxford I
thus resigned my place in the Movement : —
" I have nothing to be sorrjr for," I say to him, " except
having made your Lordship anxious, and others whom I
am bound to revere. I have nothing to be sorry for, but
everything to rejoice in and be thankful for. I have never

from 1833 to 1839. 91
taken pleasure in seeming to be able to move a party, and
whatever influence I have had, has been found, not sought
after. I have acted because others did not act, and have
sacrificed a quiet which I prized. May God be with me
in time to come, as He has been hitherto ! and He will be
if I can but keep my hand clean and my heart pure. I
think I can bear, or at least will try to bear, any personal
humiliation, so that I am preserved from betraying sacred
interests, which the Lord of grace and power has given
into my charge." 1
1 To the Pamphlets published in my behalf at this time I should add
" One Tract more," an able and generous defence of Tractarianism and No.
90, by the present Lord Houghton.

92 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS

CHAPTER III.
HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS FROM 1839 TO 1841.
t
And now that I am about to trace, as far as I can, the
course of that great revolution of mind, which led me to
leave my own home, to which I was bound by so many
strong and tender ties, I feel overcome with the difficulty
of satisfying myself in my account of it, and have recoiled
from the attempt, till the near approach of the day, on
which these lines must be given to the world, forces me to
set about the task. For who can know himself, and the
multitude of subtle influences which act upon him ? And
who can recollect, at the distance of twenty-five years, all
that he once knew about his thoughts and his deeds, and
that, during a portion of his life, when, even at the time,
his observation, whether of himself or of the external
world, was less than before or after, by very reason of the
perplexity and dismay which weighed upon him, — when,
in spite of the light given to him according to his need
amid his darkness, yet a darkness it emphatically was?
And who can suddenly gird himself to a new and anxious
undertaking, which he might be able indeed to perform
well, were full and calm leisure allowed him to look
through every thing that he had written, whether in
published works or private letters ? yet again, granting
that calm contemplation of the past, in itself so desirable,
who could afford to be leisurely and deliberate, while he

from 1839 to 1841. 93
practises on himself a cruel operation, the ripping up of
old griefs, and the venturing again upon the " infandum
dolorem " of years, in which the stars of this lower heaven
were one by one going out ? I could not in cool blood,
nor except upon the imperious call of duty, attempt what
I have set myself to do. It is both to head and heart an
extreme trial, thus to analyze what has so long gone by,
and to bring out the results of that examination. I have
done various bold things in my life : this is the boldest :
and, were I not sure I should after all succeed in my
object, it would be madness to set about it.
In the spring of 1839 my position in the Anglican
Church was at its height. I had supreme confidence in
my controversial status, and I had a great and still grow
ing success, in recommending it to others. I had in the
foregoing autumn been somewhat sore at the Bishop's
Charge, but I have a letter which shows that all annoy
ance had passed from my mind. In January, if I recollect
aright, in order to meet the popular clamour against my
self and others, and to satisfy the Bishop, I had collected
into one all the strong things which they, and especially
I, had said against the Church of Rome, in order to their
insertion among the advertisements appended to our pub
lications. Conscious as I was that my opinions in religion
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 con
centration and adjustment of the statements of great An
glican authorities, and I had as much right to hold it, as the
Evangelical, and more right than the Liberal party could
show, for asserting their own respective doctrines. As I

94 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
declared on occasion of Tract 90, 1 claimed, in behalf of
who would in the Anglican Church, the right of holding
with Bramhall a comprecation with the Saints, 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 had in para
dise, and lost on the fall, a supernatural habit of grace, or
with Thorndike that penance is a propitiation for post-
baptismal sin, or with Pearson that the all-powerf ul name
of Jesus is no otherwise given than in the Catholic
Church. "Two can play at that," was often in my
mouth, when men of Protestant sentiments appealed to
the Articles, Homilies, or Reformers ; in the sense that, if
they had a right to speak loud, I had the liberty to speak
out as well as they, and had the means, by the same or
parallel appeals, of giving them tit for tat. I thought that
the Anglican Church was tyrannized over by a mere 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. What will best describe my state of mind at the early
part of 1839, is an Article in the British Critic for that
April. I have looked over it now, 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. It reviews the actual state of
things, and it ends by looking towards the future. It is
not altogether mine ; for my memory goes to this, — that
I had asked a friend to do the work; that then, the
thought came on me, that I would do it myself : and that

from 1839 to 1841. 95
he was good enough to put into my hands what he had
with great appositeness written, and that I embodied it
in my Article. Every one, I think, will recognize the
greater part of it as mine. It was published two years
before the affair of Tract 90, and was entitled The State
of Religious Parties.
In this Article, I begin by bringing together testimonies
from our enemies to the remarkable success of our ex
ertions. One writer said : " Opinions and views of a
theology of a very marked and peculiar kind have been
extensively adopted and strenuously upheld, and are daily
gaining ground among a considerable and influential por
tion of the members, as well as ministers of the Estab
lished Church." Another : The Movement has manifested
itself " with the most rapid growth of the hot-bed of these
evil days." Another : " The Via Media is crowded with
young enthusiasts, who never presume to argue, except
against the propriety of arguing at all." Another : " Were
I to give you a full list of the works, which they have
produced within the short space of five years, I should
surprise you. You would see what a task it would be to
make yourself complete master of their system, even in
its present probably immature state. The writers have
adopted the motto, ' In quietness and confidence shall be
your strength.' With regard to confidence, they have
justified their adopting it; but as to quietness, it is not
very quiet to pour forth such a succession of controversial
publications." Another : " The spread of these doctrines
is in fact now havfhg the effect of rendering all other dis
tinctions obsolete, and of severing the religious community
into two portions, fundamentally and vehemently opposed
one to the other. Soon there will be no middle ground
left ; and every man, and especially every clergyman, will
be compelled to make his choice between the two." An
other: "The time has gone by, when those unfortunate

96 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
and deeply regretted publications can be passed over with
out notice, and the hope that their influence would fail is
now dead." Another : " These doctrines had already
made fearful progress. One of the largest churches in
Brighton is crowded to hear them; so is the church at
Leeds. There are few towns of note, to which they have
not extended. They are preached in small towns in Scot
land. They obtain in Elginshire, 600 miles north of
London. I found them myself in the heart of the high
lands of Scotland. They are advocated in the newspaper
and periodical press. They have even insinuated them
selves into the House of Commons." And, lastly, a bishop
in a charge : — It " is daily assuming a more serious and
alarming aspect. Under the specious pretence of defer
ence to Antiquity and respect for primitive models, the
foundations of the Protestant Church are undermined
by men who dwell within her walls, and those who sit
in the Reformers' seat are traducing the Reformation."
After thus stating the phenomenon of the time, as it
presented itself to those who did not sympathize in it, the
Article proceeds to account for it ; and this it does by con
sidering it as a re-action from the dry and superficial
character of the religious teaching and the literature of
the last generation, or century, and as a result of the need
which was felt both by the hearts and the inteUects of the
nation for a deeper philosophy, and as the evidence and as
the partial fulfilment of that need, to which even the chief
authors of the then generation had borne witness. First,
I mentioned the literary influence of* Walter Scott, who
turned men's minds in the direction of the middle ages.
" The general need," I said, " of something deeper and
more attractive, than what had offered itself elsewhere,
may be considered to have led to his popularity ; and by
means of his popularity he re-acted on his readers, stimu
lating their mental thirst, feeding their hopes, setting

from 1839 to 1841. 97
before them visions, which, when once seen, are not easily
forgotten, and silently indoctrinating them with nobler
ideas, which might afterwards be appealed to as first
principles." Then I spoke of Coleridge, thus: "While history in
prose and verse was thus made the instrument of Church
feelings and Opinions, a philosophical basis for the same
wfts laid in England by a very original thinker, who,
while he indulged a liberty of speculation, which no
Christian can tolerate, and advocated conclusions which
were often heathen rather than Christian, yet after all
installed a higher philosophy into inquiring minds, than
they had hitherto been accustomed to accept. In this way
he made trial of his age, and succeeded in interesting its
genius in the cause of Catholic truth."
Then come Southey and Wordsworth, " two living poets,
one of whom in the department of fantastic fiction, the
other in that of philosophical meditation, have addressed
themselves to the same high principles and feelings, and
carried forward their readers in the same direction."
Then comes the prediction of this re-action hazarded by
" a sagacious observer withdrawn from the world, and sur
veying its movements from a distance," Mr. Alexander
Knox. He had said twenty years before the date of my
Article : " No Church on earth has more intrinsic ex
cellence than the English Church, yet no Church probably
has less practical influence. . . The rich provision, made
by the grace and providence of God, for habits of a noble
kind, is evidence that men shall arise, fitted both by
nature and ability, to discover for themselves, and to
display to others, whatever yet remains undiscovered,
whether in the words or works of God." Also I referred
to " a much venerated clergyman of the last generation,"
who said shortly before his death, " Depend on it, the day
will come, when those great doctrines, now buried, will be
H

98 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
brought out to the light of day, and then the effect will be
fearful." I remarked upon this, that they who " now
blame the impetuosity of the current, should rather turn
their animadversions upon those who have dammed up a
majestic river, till it has become a flood."
These being the circumstances under which the Move
ment began and progressed, it was absurd to refer it to the
act of two or three individuals. It was not so much a
movement as a " spirit afloat ; " it was within us, " rising
up in hearts where it was least suspected, and working
itself, 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," I continued,
" 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."
To make this clear, I proceed to refer to the chief
preachers of the revived doctrines at that moment, and to
draw attention to the variety of their respective ante
cedents. Dr. Hook and Mr. Churton represented the
high Church dignitaries of the last century ; Mr. Perceval,
the Tory aristocracy ; Mr. Keble came from a country par
sonage; Mr. Palmer from Ireland; Dr. Pusey from the
Universities of Germany, and the study of Arabic MSS. ;
Mr. Dodsworth from the study of Prophecy ; Mr. Oakeley
had gained his views, as he himself expressed it, "partly
by study, partly by reflection, partly by conversation with
one or two friends, inquirers like himself :" while I speak
of myself as being " much indebted to the friendship of
Archbishop Whately." And thus I am led on to ask,
" What head of a sect is there ? What march of opinions
can be traced from mind to mind among preachers such as
these ? They are one and all in their degree the organs

from 1839 to 1841. 99
of one Sentiment, which has risen up simultaneously in
many places very mysteriously."
My train of thought next led me to speak of the dis
ciples of the Movement, and I freely acknowledged and
lamented that they needed to be kept in order. It is very
much to the purpose to draw attention to this point now,
when such extravagances as then occurred, whatever they
were, are simply laid to my door, or to the charge of the
doctrines which I advocated. A man cannot do more
than freely confess what is wrong, say that it need not
be, that it ought not to be, and that he is very sorry that
it should be. Now I said in the Article, which I am re
viewing, that the great truths themselves, which we were
preaching, must not be condemned on account of such
abuse of them. " Aberrations there must ever be, what
ever the doctrine is, while the human heart is sensitive,
capricious, and wayward. A mixed multitude went out of
Egypt with the Israelites." " There will ever be a num
ber of persons," I continued, "professing the opinions of
a movement party, who talk loudly and strangely, do odd
or fierce things, display themselves unnecessarily, and dis
gust other people; persons, too young to be wise, too
generous to be cautious, too warm to be sober, or too intel
lectual to be humble. Such persons will be very apt to
attach themselves to particular persons, to use particular
names, to say things merely because others do, and to act
in a party-spirited way."
While I thus republish what I then said about such
extravagances as occurred in these years, at the same time
I have a very strong conviction that those extravagances
furnished quite as much the welcome excuse for those who
were jealous or shy of us, as the stumbling-blocks of those
who were well inclined to our doctrines. This too we felt
at the time ; but it was our duty to see that our good
should not be evil-spoken of; and accordingly, two or

100 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
three of the writers of the Tracts for the Times had com
menced a Series of what they called Plain Sermons
with the avowed purpose of discouraging and correcting
whatever was uppish or extreme in our followers : to this
Series I contributed a volume myself.
Its conductors say in their Preface : " If therefore as
time goes on, there shall be found persons, who admiring
the innate beauty and majesty of the fuller system of Pri
mitive Christianity, and seeing the transcendent strength
of its principles, shall become loud and voluble advocates
in their behalf, speaking the more freely, because they do
not feel them deeply as founded in divine and eternal
truth, of such persons it is our duty to declare plainly,
that, as we should contemplate their condition with serious
misgiving, so would they be the last persons from whom
we should seek support.
" But if, on the other hand, there shall be any, who, in
the silent humility of their lives, and in their unaffected
reverence for holy things, show that they in truth accept
these principles as real and substantial, and by habitual
purity of heart and serenity of temper, give proof of their
deep veneration for sacramentsand sacramental ordinances,
those persons, whether our prof essed adherents or not, best
exemplify the kind of character which the writers of the
Tracts for the Times have wished to form."
These clergymen had the best of claims to use these
beautiful words, for they were themselves, all of them,
important writers in the Tracts, the two Mr. Kebles, and
Mr. Isaac Williams. And this passage, with which they
ushered their Series into the world, I quoted in the Article,
of which I am giving an account, and I added, "What
more can be required of the preachers of neglected truth,
than that they should admit that some, who do not assent
to their preaching, are holier and better men than some
who do ? " They were not answerable for the intemper-

from 1839 To 1841. 101
ance of those who dishonoured a true doctrine, provided
they protested, as they did, against such intemperance.
" They were not answerable for the dust and din which
attends any great moral movement. The truer doctrines
are, the more liable they are to be perverted."
The notice of these incidental faults of opinion or temper
in adherents of the Movement, led on to a discussion of
the secondary causes, by means of which a system of doc
trine may be embraced, modified, or developed, of the
variety of schools which may all be in the One Church,
and of the succession of one phase of doctrine to another,
while that doctrine is ever one and the same. Thus I was
brought on to the subject of Antiquity, which was the
basis of the doctrine of the Via Media, and by which was
not to be understood a servile imitation of the past, but
such a reproduction of it as is really new, while it is
old. " We haVe good hope," I say, " that a system will
be rising up, superior to the age, yet harmonizing with,
and carrying out its higher points, which will attract to
itself those who are willing to make a venture and to face
difficulties, for the sake of something higher in prospect.
On this, as on other subjects, the proverb will apply,
' Fortes fortuna adjuvat.' "
Lastly, I proceeded to the question of that future of the
Anglican Church, which was to be a new birth of the
Ancient Religion. And I did not venture to pronounce
upon it. " About the future, we have no prospect before
our minds whatever, good or bad. Ever since that great
luminary, Augustine, proved to be the last bishop of
Hippo, Christians have had a lesson against attempting to
foretell, how Providence will prosper and" [or?] "bring
to an end, what it begins." Perhaps the lately-revived
principles would prevail in the Anglican Church ; perhaps
they would be lost in " some miserable schism, or some
more miserable compromise ; but there was nothing

102 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
rash in venturing to predict that "neither Puritanism
nor Liberalism had any permanent inheritance within
her." Then I went on: "As to Liberalism, we think the
formularies of the Church will ever, with the aid of a good
Providence, keep it from making any serious inroads upon
the clergy. Besides, it is too cold a principle to prevail
with the multitude." But as regarded what was called
Evangelical Religion or Puritanism, there was more to
cause alarm. I observed upon its organization; but on
the other hand it had no intellectual basis; no internal
idea, no principle of unity, no theology. " Its adherents,"
I said, " are already separating from each other ; they will
melt away like a snow-drift. It has no straightforward
view on any one point, on which it professes to teach, and
to hide its poverty, it has dressed itself out in a maze of
words. We have no dread of it at all ; we only fear what
it may lead to. It does not stand on intrenched ground,
or make any pretence to a position; it does but occupy
the space between contending powers, Catholic Truth and
Rationalism. 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, or half-views, but for elementary notions and
distinctive moral characters."
Whether the ideas of the coming age upon religion
were true or false, at least they would be real. " In the
present day," I said, " mistiness is the mother of wisdom.
A man who can set down a half-a-dozen general proposi
tions, which escape from destroying one another only by
being diluted into truisms, who can hold the balance be
tween opposites so skilfully as to do without fulcrum or
beam, who never enunciates a truth without guarding
himself against being supposed to exclude the contradic-

from 1839 to 1841. 103
tory, — who holds that Scripture is the only authority, yet
that the Church is to be deferred to, that faith only
justifies, yet that it does not justify witnout works, that
grace does not depend on the sacraments, yet is not given
without them, that bishops are a divine ordinance, yet
those who have them not are in the same religious con
dition as those who have, — this is your safe man and the
hope of the Church ; this is what the Church is said to
want, not party men, but sensible, temperate, sober, well-
judging persons, to guide it through the channel of no-
meaning, between the Scylla and Charybdis of Aye and
No." This state of things, however, I said, could not last, if
men were to read and think. They " will not keep in that
very attitude which you call sound Church-of-Englandism
or orthodox Protestantism. They cannot go -on for ever
standing on one leg, or sitting without a chair, or walking
with their feet tied, or like Tityrus's stags grazing in the
air. They will take one view or another, but it will be a
consistent view. It may be Liberalism, or Erastianism,
or Popery, or Catholicity ; but it will be real."
I concluded the Article by saying, that all who did not
wish to be "democratic, or pantheistic, or popish," must
" look out for some Via Media which will preserve us from
what threatens, though it cannot restore the dead. The
spirit of Luther is dead ; but Hildebrand and Loyola are
alive. Is it sensible, sober, judicious, to be so very angry
with those 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 ? Is it wise to quarrel with this ground, because
it is not exactly what we should choose, had we the power
of choice < Is it true moderation, instead of trying to
fortify a middle doctrine, to fling stones at those who do ?
. Would you rather have your sons and daughters

104 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
members of thei Church of England or of the Church of
Rome?" \
And thus I ljft the matter. But, while I was thus
speaking of the future of the Movement, I was in truth
winding up my accounts with it, little dreaming that it
was so to be; — while I was still, in some way or other,
feeling about for an available Via Media, I was soon to
receive a shock which was to cast out of my imagination
all middle courses and compromises for ever. As I have
said, this Article appeared in the April number of the
British Critic ; in the July number, I cannot tell why,
there is no Article of mine; before the number for
October, the event had happened to which I have
alluded. But before I proceed to describe what happened to me
in the summer of 1839, I must detain the reader for a
while, in order to describe the issue of the controversy
between Rome and the Anglican Church, as I viewed it.
This will involve some dry discussion ; but it is as neces
sary for my narrative, as plans of buildings and home
steads are at times needed in the proceedings of our law
courts. I have said already that, though the object of the Move
ment was to withstand the Liberalism of the day, I found
and felt this could not be done by mere negatives. It was
necessary for us 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
upon me. It was in this state of mind that 1 began to

from 1839 to 1841. 105
read up Bellarmine on the one hand, and numberless
Anglican writers on the other. But I soon found, as
others had found before me, that it was a tangled and
manifold controversy, difficult to master, more difficult to
put out of hand with neatness and precision. It was easy
to make points, not easy to sum up and settle. It was
not easy to find a clear issue for the dispute, and still less
by a logical process to decide it in favour of Anglicanism.
This difficulty, however, had no tendency whatever to
harass or perplex me : it was a matter which bore not on
convictions, but on proofs.
First I saw, as all see who study the subject, that a
broad distinction had to be drawn between the actual state
of belief and of usage in the countries which were in com
munion with the Roman Church, and her formal dogmas ;
the latter did not cover the former. Sensible pain, for
instance, is not implied in the Tridentine decree upon
Purgatory ; but it was the tradition of the Latin Church,
and I had seen the pictures of souls in flames in the streets
of Naples. Bishop Lloyd had brought this distinction out
strongly in an Article in the British Critic in 1825; indeed,
it was one of the most common objections made to the
Church of Rome, that she dared not commit herself by
formal decree, to what nevertheless she sanctioned and
allowed. Accordingly, in my Prophetical Office, I view
as simply separate ideas, Rome quiescent, and Rome in
action. I contrasted her creed on the one hand, with her
ordinary teaching, her controversial tone, her political and
social bearing, and her popular beliefs and practices, on
the other.
While I made this distinction between the decrees and
the traditions of Rome, I drew a parallel distinction
between Anglicanism quiescent, and Anglicanism in action.
In its formal creed Anglicanism was not at a great distance
from Rome : far otherwise, when viewed in its insular space,

106 HISTORY of MY RELIGIOUS opinions
the traditions of its establishment, its historical . charac
teristics,^ controversial rancour, and its private judgment.
I disavowed and condemned those excesses, and called them
" Protestantism " or " Ultra-Protestantism : " I wished to
find a parallel disclaimer, on the part of Roman controver
sialists, of that popular system of beliefs and usages in
their own Church, which I called " Popery." When that
hope was a dream, I saw that the controversy lay between
the book-theology of Anglicanism on the one side, and the
living system of what I called Roman corruption on the
other. I could not get further than this ; with this result
I was forced to content myself.
These then were the parties in the controversy :¦ — the
Anglican Via Media and the popular religion of Rome.
And next, as to the issue, to which the controversy between
them was to be brought, it was this : — the Anglican dis
putant took his stand upon Antiquity or Apostolicity, the
Roman upon Catholicity. The Anglican said to the
Roman : " There is but One Faith, the Ancient, and you
have not kept to it ; " the Roman retorted : " There is but
One Church, the Catholic, and you are out of it." The
Anglican urged " Your special beliefs, practices, modes of
action, are nowhere in Antiquity;" the Roman objected:
" You do not communicate with any one Church besides
your own and its offshoots, and you have discarded prin
ciples, doctrines, sacraments, and usages, which are and
ever have been received in the East and the West." The
true Church, as defined in the Creeds, was both Catholic
and Apostolic ; now, as I viewed the controversy in which
I was engaged, England and Rome had divided these
notes or prerogatives between them : the cause lay thus,
Apostolicity versus Catholicity.
However, in thus stating the matter, of course I do not
wish it supposed that I allowed the note of Catholicity
really to belong to Rome, to the disparagement of the

FROM 1839 to 1841. 107
Anglican Church ; but I considered that the special point
or plea of Rome in the controversy was Catholicity, as the
Anglican plea was Antiquity. Of course I contended that
the Roman idea of Catholicity was not ancient and apos
tolic. It was in my judgment at the utmost only natural,
becoming, expedient, that the whole of Christendom should
be united in one visible body ; while such a unity might,
on the other hand, be nothing more than a mere heartless
and political combination. For myself, I held with the
Anglican divines, that, in the Primitive Church, there was
a very real mutual independence between its separate
parts, though, from a dictate of charity, there was in fact
a close union between them. I considered that each See
and Diocese might be compared to a crystal, and that each
was similar to the rest, and that the sum total of them all
was only a collection of crystals. The unity of the Church
lay, not in its being a polity, but in its being a family, a
race, coming down by apostolical descent from its first
founders and bishops. And I considered this truth brought
out, beyond the possibility of dispute, in the Epistles of St.
Ignatius, in which the Bishop is represented as the one
supreme authority in the Church, that is, in his own
place, with no one above him, except as, for the sake of
ecclesiastical order and expedience, arrangements had been
made by which one was put over or under another. So
much for our own claim to Catholicity, which was so per
versely appropriated by our opponents to themselves : — on
the other hand, as to our special strong point, Antiquity,
while, of course, by means of it, we were able to condemn
most emphatically the novel claim of Rome to domineer
over other Churches, which were in truth her equals, fur
ther than that, we thereby especially convicted.her of the
intolerable offence of having added to the Faith. This
was the critical head of accusation urged against her by
the Anglican disputant ; and as he referred to St. Ignatius

108 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS I
in proof that he himself was a true Catholic, in spite of
being separated from Rome, so he triumphantly referred
to the Treatise of Vincentius of Lerins upon the " Quod
semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus," in proof that the
controversialists of Rome, in spite of their possession of
the Catholic name, were separated in their creed from the
Apostelical and primitive faith.
Of course those controversialists had their own mode of
answering him, with which I am not concerned in this place;
here I am only concerned with the issue itself, between the
one party and the other — Antiquity versus Catholicity
Now I will proceed to illustrate what I have been saying
of the status of the controversy, as it presented itself to my
mind, by extracts from my writings of the dates of 1836,
1840, and 1841. And I introduce them with a remark,
which especially applies to the paper, from which I shall
quote first, of the date of 1836. That paper appeared in
the March and April numbers of the British Magazine of
that year, and was entitled Home Thoughts Abroad.
Now it will be found, that, in the discussion which it con
tains, as in various other writings of mine, when I was in
the Anglican Church, the argument in behalf of Rome is
stated with considerable perspicuity and force. And at
the time my friends and supporters cried out, " How im
prudent ! " and, both at the time, and especially at a later
date, my enemies have cried out, " How insidious ! "
Friends and foes virtually agreed in their criticism ; I had
set out the cause which I was combating to the best
advantage : this was an offence ; it might be from impru
dence, it might be with a traitorous design. It was from
neither the one nor the other; but for the following
reasons. First, I had a great impatience, whatever was
the subject, of not bringing out the whole of it, as clearly
as I could ; next I wished to be as fair to my adversaries
as possible ; and thirdly I thought that there was a great

from 1839 to 1841. 109
deal of shallowness among our own friends, and that they
undervalued the strength of the argument in behalf of
Rome, and that they ought to be roused to a more
exact apprehension of the position of the controversy. At
a later date, (1841,) when I really felt the force of the
Roman side of the question myself, as a difficulty which
had to be met, I had a fourth reason for such frankness in
argument, and that was, because a number of persons were
unsettled far more than I was, as to the Catholicity of the
Anglican Church. It was quite plain that, unless I was
perfectly candid in stating what could be said against it,
there was no chance that any representations, which I felt
to be in its favour, or at least to be adverse to Rome,
would have had any success with the persons in question.
At all times I had a deep conviction, to put the matter on
the lowest ground, that "honesty was the best policy."
Accordingly, in July 1841, 1 expressed myself thus on the
Anglican difficulty : " This is an objection which we must
honestly say is deeply felt by many people, and not incon
siderable ones ; and the more it is openly avowed to be a
difficulty, the better ; for there is then the chance of its
being acknowledged, and in the course of time obviated, as
far as may be, by those who have the power. Flagrant evils
cure themselves by being flagrant; and we are sanguine
that the time is come when so great an evil as this is,
cannot stand its ground against the good feeling and
common sense of religious persons. It is the very strength
of Romanism against us; and, unless the proper persons
take it into their serious consideration, they may look for
certain to undergo the loss, as time goes on, of some whom
; they would least like to be lost to our Church." The
', measure which I had especially in view in this passage,
I was the project of a Jerusalem Bishopric, which the then
/Archbishop of Canterbury was at that time concocting
twith M. Bunsen, and of which I shall speak more in the

110 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
sequel. And now to return to the Home Thoughts Abroad
of the spring of 1836 : —
The discussion contained in this composition runs in
the form of a dialogue. One of the disputants says:
" You say to me that the Church of Rome is corrupt.
What then ? to cut off a limb is a strange way of saving
it from the influence of some constitutional ailment. Indi
gestion may cause cramp in the extremities ; yet we spare
our poor feet notwithstanding. Surely there is such a
religious fact as the existence of a great Catholic body,
union with which is a Christian privilege and duty. Now,
we English are separate from it."
The other answers : " The present is an unsatisfactory,
miserable state of things, yet I can grant no more. The
Church is founded on a doctrine, — on the gospel of Truth ;
it is a means to an end. Perish the Church, (though,
blessed be the promise ! this cannot be,) yet let it perish
rather than the Truth should fail. Purity of faith is more
precious to the Christian than unity itself. If Rome has
erred grievously in doctrine, then it is a duty to separate
even from Rome."
His friend, who takes the Roman side of the argument,
refers to the image of the Vine and its branches, which is
found, I think, in St. Cyprian, as if a branch cut from the
Catholic Vine must necessarily die. Also he quotes a
passage from St. Augustine in controversy with the Dona-
tists to the same effect ; viz. that, as being separated from
the body of the Church, they were ipso facto cut off from
the heritage of Christ. And he quotes St. Cyril's argu
ment drawn from the very title Catholic, which no body
or communion of men has ever dared or been able to
appropriate, besides one. He adds, " Now I am only con
tending for the fact, that the communion of Rome consti
tutes the. main body of the Church Catholic, and that we
are split off from it, and in the condition of the Donatists."(

FROM 1839 TO 1841. Ill
The other replies by denying the fact that the present
Roman communion is like St. Augustine's Catholic Church,
inasmuch as there must be taken into account the large
Anglican and Greek communions. Presently he takes the
offensive, naming distinctly the points in which Rome has
departed from Primitive Christianity, viz. "the practical
idolatry, the virtual worship of the Virgin and Saints,
which are the offence of the Latin Church, and the degra
dation of moral truth and duty, which follows from these."
And again : " We cannot join a Church, did we wish it
ever so much, which does not acknowledge our orders,
refuses us the Cup, demands our acquiescence in image-
worship, and excommunicates us, if we do not receive it
and all other decisions of the Tridentine Council."
His opponent answers these objections by referring to
the doctrine of " developments of gospel truth." Besides
"The Anglican system itself is not found complete in
those early centuries; so that the [Anglican] principle
[of Antiquity] is self -destructive." " When a man takes
up this Via Media, he is a mere doctrinaire ; " he is like
those, " who, in some matter of business, start up to suggest
their own little crotchet, and are ever measuring mountains
with a pocket ruler, or improving the planetary courses."
" The Via Media has slept in libraries ; it is a substitute of
infancy for manhood."
It is plain, then, that at the end of 1835 or 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 is observable that the question of the posi
tion of the Pope, whether as the centre of unity, or as the
source of jurisdiction, did not come into my thoughts at
all; nor did it, I think I may say, to the end. I doubt
whether I ever distinctly held any of his powers to be de
jure divino, while I was in the Anglican Church; — not that
I saw any difficulty in the doctrine ; not that in connexion

112 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
with the history of St. Leo, of which I shall speak by and
by, the idea of his infallibility did not cross my mind, for
it did, — but after all, in my view the controversy did not
turn upon it ; it turned upon the Faith and the Church.
This was my issue of the controversy from the beginning
to the end. There was a contrariety of claims between
the Roman and Anglican religions, and the history of my
conversion is simply the process of working it out to a
solution. In 1838 I illustrated it by the contrast presented
to us between the Madonna and Child, and a Calvary.
The peculiarity of the Anglican theology was this, — that
it " supposed the Truth to be entirely objective and de
tached, not" (as in the theology of Rome) "lying hid
in the bosom of the Church as if one with her, clinging
to and (as it were) lost in her embrace, but as being
sole and unapproachable, as on the Cross or at the
Resurrection, with the Church close by, but in the back
ground." As I viewed the controversy in 1836 and 1838, so I
viewed it in 1840 and 1841. In the British Critic of
January 1840, after gradually investigating how the
matter lies between the Churches by means of a dialogue,
I end thus : It would seem, that, in the above discussion,
each disputant has a strong point : our strong point is the
argument from Primitiveness, that of Rqrnanists from.
Universality. It is a fact, however it is to be accounted
for, that Rome has added to the Creed ; and it is a fact,
however we justify ourselves, that we are estranged from
the great body of Christians over the world. And each of
these two facts is at first sight a grave difficulty in the
respective systems to which they belong." Again, " While
Rome, though not deferring to the Fathers, recognizes
them, and England, not deferring to the large body of the
Church, recognizes it, both Rome and England have a
point to clear up."

from 1839 to 1841. 113
And still more strongly, in July, 1841 :
" If the Note of schism, on the one hand, lies against
England, an antagonist disgrace lies upon Rome, the Note
of idolatry. Let us not be mistaken here ; we are neither
accusing Rome of idolatry nor ourselves of schism ; we
think neither charge tenable ; but still the Roman Church
practises what is so like idolatry, and the English Church
makes much of what is so very like schism, that without
deciding what is the duty of a Roman Catholic towards
the Church of England in her present state, we do seriously
think that members of the English Church have a provi
dential direction given them, how to comport themselves
towards the Church of Rome, while she is what she is."
One remark more about Antiquity and the Via Media.
As time went on, without doubting the strength of the
Anglican argument from Antiquity, I felt also that it was
not merely our special plea, but our only one. Also I felt
that the Via Media, which was to represent it, was to be a
sort of remodelled and adapted Antiquity. This I advanced
both in Home Thoughts Abroad and in the Article of the
British Critic which I have analyzed above. But this cir
cumstance, that after all we must use private judgment
upon Antiquity, created a sort of distrust of my theory
altogether, which in the conclusion of my Volume on the
Prophetical Office (1836-7) I express thus : " Now that
our discussions draw to a close, the thought, with which
we entered on the subject, is apt to recur, when the
excitement of the inquiry has subsided, and weariness has
succeeded, that what has been said is but a dream, the
wanton exercise, rather than the practical conclusions of
the intellect." And I conclude the paragraph by antici
pating a line of thought into which I was, in the event,
almost obliged to take refuge : " After all," I say, " the
Church is ever invisible in its day, and faith only appre
hends it." What was this, but to give up the Notes of
I

114' HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
a visible Church altogether, whether the Catholic Note or
the Apostolic ?
« The Long Vacation of 1839 began early. There had
been a great many visitors to Oxford from Easter to
Commemoration; and Dr. Pusey's party had attracted
attention, more, I think, than in any former year. I had
put away from me the controversy with Rome for more
than two years. In my Parochial Sermons the subject
had at no time been introduced : there had been nothing
for two years, either in my Tracts or in the British Critic,
of a polemical character. I was returning, for the Vaca
tion, to the course of reading which I had many years
before chosen as especially my own. I have no reason to
suppose that the thoughts of Rome came across my mind
at all. About the middle of June I began to study and
master the history of the Monophysites. I was absorbed
in the doctrinal question. This was from about June 13th
to August 30th. It was during this course of reading that
for the first time a doubt came upon me of the tenableness
of Anglicanism. I recollect on the 30th of July men
tioning to a friend, whom I had accidentally met, how
remarkable the history was ; but by the end of August I
was seriously alarmed.
I have described in a former work, how the history
affected me. My stronghold was Antiquity; now here,
in the middle of the fifth century, I found, as it seemed to
me, Christendom of the sixteenth and the nineteenth cen
turies reflected I saw my face in that mirror, and I was
a Monophysite. The Church of the Via Media was in the
position of the Oriental communion, Rome was where she
now is ; and the Protestants were the Eutychians. Of all
passages of history, since history has been, who would
have thought of going to the sayings and doings of old
Eutyches, that delirus senex, as (I think) Petavius calls

from 1839 to 1841. 115
him, and to the enormities of the unprincipled Dioscorus,
in order to be converted to Rome !
Now let it be simply understood that I am not writing
controversially, but with the one object of relating things
as they happened to me in the course of my conversion.
With this view I will quote a passage from the account,
which I gave in 1850, of my reasonings and feelings in
1839: "It was difficult to make out how the Eutychians or
Monophysites were heretics, unless Protestants and An
glicans were heretics also; difficult to find arguments
against the Tridentine Fathers, which did not tell against
the Fathers of Chalcedon ; difficult to condemn the Popes of
the sixteenth century, without condemning the Popes of
the fifth. The drama of religion, and the combat of truth
and error, were ever one and the same. The principles
and proceedings of the Church now, were those of the
Church then; the principles and proceedings of heretics
then, were those of Protestants now. I found it so, —
almost fearfully; there was an awful similitude, more
awful, because so silent and unimpassioned, between the
dead records of the past and the feverish chronicle of the
present. The shadow of the fifth century was on the six
teenth. It was like a spirit rising from the troubled waters
of the old world, with the shape and lineaments of the new.
The Church then, as now, might be called peremptory and
stern, resolute, overbearing, and relentless; and heretics
were shifting, changeable, reserved, and deceitful, ever
courting civil power, and never agreeing together, except
by its aid ; and the civil power was ever aiming at com
prehensions, trying to put the invisible out of view, and
substituting expediency for faith. What was the use of
continuing the controversy, or defending my position, if,
after all, I was forging arguments for Arius or Eutyches,
and turning devil's advocate against the much-enduring

116 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
Athanasius and the majestic Leo ? Be my soul with the
Saints ! and shall I lift up my hand against them ?
Sooner may my right hand forget her cunning, and wither
outright, as his who once stretched it out against a prophet
of God ! anathema to a whole tribe of Cranmers, Ridleys,
Latimers, and Jewels ' perish the names of Bramhall,
Ussher, Taylor, Stillingfleet, and Barrow from the face of
the earth, ere I should do ought but fall at their feet in
love and in worship, whose image was continually before
my eyes, and whose musical words were ever in my ears
and on my tongue ! "
Hardly had I brought my course of reading to a close,
when the Dublin Review of that same August was put into
my hands, by friends who were more favourable to the cause
of Rome than I was myself. There was an article in it on
the " Anglican Claim " by Dr. Wiseman. This was about
the middle of September. It was on the Donatists, with an
application to Anglicanism. I read it, and did not see
much in it. The Donatist controversy was known to me
for some years, as has appeared already. The case was not
parallel to that of the Anglican Church. St. Augustine in
Africa wrote against the Donatists in Africa. They were
a furious party who made a schism within the African
Church, and not beyond its limits. It was a case of Altar
against Altar, of two occupants of the same See, as that
between the Non-jurors in England and the Established
Church ; not the case of one Church against another, as of
Rome against the Oriental Monophysites. But my friend,
an anxiously religious man, now, as then, very dear to me,
a Protestant still, pointed out the palmary words of St.
Augustine, which were contained in one of the extracts
made in the Review, and which had escaped my obser
vation. " Securus judicat orbis terrarum." He repeated
these words again and again, and, when he was gone,
they kept ringing in my ears. " Securus judicat orbis

from 1839 to 1841. 117
terrarum ; " they were words which went beyond the
occasion of the Donatists: they applied to that of the
Monophysites. They gave a cogency to the Article, which
had escaped me at first. They decided ecclesiastical questions
on a simpler rule than that of Antiquity ; nay, St. Augus
tine was one of the prime oracles of Antiquity ; here then
Antiquity was deciding against itself. What a light was
hereby thrown upon every controversy in the Church ! not
that, for the moment, the multitude may not falter in their
judgment, — not that, in the Arian hurricane, Sees more
than can be numbered did not bend before its fury, and fall
off from St. Athanasius, — not that the crowd of Oriental
Bishops did not need to be sustained during the contest by
the voice and the eye of St. Leo ; but that the deliberate
judgment, in which the whole Church at length rests and
acquiesces, is an infallible prescription and a final sentence
against such portions of it as protest and secede. Who can
account for the impressions which are made on him ? For
a mere sentence, the words of St. Augustine, struck me
with a power which I never had felt from any words
before. To take a familiar instance, they were like the
"Turn again Whittington" of the chime; or, to take a
more serious one, they were like the " Tolle, lege, — Tolle,
lege," of the child, which converted St. Augustine himself.
" Securus judicat orbis terrarum ! " By those great words
of the ancient Father, interpreting and summing up the
long and varied course of ecclesiastical history, the theory
of the Via Media was absolutely pulverized.
I became excited at the view thus opened upon me. I
was just starting on a round of visits ; and I mentioned my
state of mind to two most intimate friends : I think to no
others. After a while, I got calm, and at length the vivid
impression upon my imagination faded away. What I
thought about it on reflection, I will attempt to describe
presently. I had to determine its logical value, and its

118 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
bearing upon my duty. Meanwhile, so far as this was
certain, — I had seen the shadow of a hand upon the wall.
It was clear that I had a good deal to learn on the question
of the Churches, and that perhaps some new light was
coming upon me. He who has seen a ghost, cannot be as
if he had never seen it. The heavens had opened and closed
again. 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.
At this time, I wrote my Sermon on Divine Calls,
which I published in my volume of Plain Sermons. It
ends thus : —
" 0 that we could take that simple view of things, as to
feel that the one thing which lies before us is to please
God ! What gain is it to please the world, to please the
great, nay even to please those whom we love, compared with
this ? What gain is it to be applauded, admired, courted,
followed, — compared with this one aim, of not being dis
obedient to a heavenly vision ? What can this world offer
comparable with that insight into spiritual things, that
keen faith, that heavenly peace, that high sanctity, that
everlasting righteousness, that hope of glory, which they
have, who in sincerity love and follow our Lord Jesus
Christ ? Let us beg and pray Him day by day to reveal
Himself to our souls more fully, to quicken our senses,
to give us sight and hearing, taste and touch of the
world to come ; so to work within us, that we may sin
cerely say, 'Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and
after that receive me with glory. Whom have I in
heaven but Thee ? and there is none upon earth that I
desire in comparison of Thee. My flesh and my heart
faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my
portion for ever.' "
Now to trace the succession of thoughts, and the con-

from 1839 to 1841. 119
elusions, and the consequent innovations on my previous
belief, and the general conduct, to which I was led upon
this sudden visitation. And first, I will say, whatever
comes of saying it, for I leave inferences to others, that for
years I must have had something of an habitual notion,
though it was latent, and had never led me to distrust my
own convictions, that my mind had not found its ultimate
rest, and that in some sense or other I was on journey.
During the same passage across the Mediterranean in which
I wrote Lead, kindly light, I also wrote the verses, which
are found in the Lyra under the head of Providences,
beginning, " When I look back." This was in 1833 ; and,
since I have begun this narrative, I have found a memo
randum under the date of September 7, 1829, in which I
speak of myself, as "now in my rooms in Oriel College,
slowly advancing, &c. and led on by God's hand blindly,
not knowing whither He is taking me." But, whatever
this presentiment be worth, it was no protection against
the dismay and disgust which I felt, in consequence of
the dreadful misgiving, of which I have been relating the
history. The one question was, what was I to do ? I had
to make up my mind for myself, and others could not help
me. I determined to be guided, not by my imagination,
but by my reason. And this I said over and over again in
the years which followed, both in conversation and in
private letters. Had it not been for this severe resolve, I
should have been a Catholic sooner than I was. Moreover,
I felt on consideration a positive doubt, on the other hand,
whether the suggestion did not come from below. Then I
said to myself, Time alone can solve that question. It was
my business to go on as usual, to obey those convictions to
which I had so long surrendered myself, which still had
possession of me, and on which my new thoughts had no
direct bearing. That new conception of things should only
so far influence me, as it had a logical claim to do so. If

120 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
it came from above, it would come again ; — so I trusted,
— and with more definite outlines and greater cogency and
consistency of proof. I thought of Samuel, before "he
knew the word of the Lord ; " and therefore I went, and lay
down to sleep again. This was my broad view of the
matter, and my prima facie conclusion.
However, my new historical fact had already to a certain
point a logical force. Down had come the Via Media as a
definite theory or scheme, under the blows of St. Leo. My
Prophetical Office had come to pieces ; not indeed as
an argument against " Roman errors," nor as against
Protestantism, but as in behalf of England. I had no
longer a distinctive plea for Anglicanism, unless I would
be a Monophysite. I had, most painfully, to fall back upon
my three original points of belief, which I have spoken so
much of in a former passage, — the principle of dogma, the
sacramental system, and anti-Romanism. Of these three,
the first two were better secured in Rome than in the
Anglican Church. The Apostolical Succession, the two
prominent sacraments, and the primitive Creeds, belonged,
indeed, to the latter ; but there had been and was far less
strictness on matters of dogma and ritual in the Anglican
system than in the Roman: in consequence, my main
argument for the Anglican claims lay in the positive and
special charges, which I could bring against Rome. I had
no positive Anglican theory. I was very nearly a pure
Protestant. Lutherans had a sort of theology, so had
Calvinists ; I had none.
However, this pure Protestantism, to which I was
gradually left, was really a practical principle. It was a
strong, though it was only a negative ground, and it still
had great hold on me. As a boy of fifteen, I had so fully
imbibed it, that I had actually erased in my Gradus ad
Parnassum, such titles, under the word " Papa," as "Christi
Vicarius," "sacer interpres," and "sceptra gerens,'' and

from 1839 to 1841. 121
substituted epithets so vile that I cannot bring myself to
write them down here. The effect of this early persuasion
remained as, what I have already called it, a " stain upon
my imagination." As regards my reason, I began in 1833
to form theories on the subject, which tended to obliterate
it; yet by 1838 I had got no further than to consider
Antichrist, as not the Church of Rome, but the spirit of the
old pagan city, the fourth monster of Daniel, which was
still alive, and which had corrupted the Church which was
planted there. Soon after this indeed, and before my
attention was directed to the Monophysite controversy, I
underwent a great change of opinion. I saw that, from the
nature of the case, the true Vicar of Christ must ever to
the world seem like Antichrist, and be stigmatized as such,
because a resemblance must ever exist between an original
and a forgery ; and thus the fact of such a calumny was
almost one of the notes of the Church. But we cannot
unmake ourselves or change our habits in a moment.
Though my reason was convinced, I did not throw off, for
some time after, — I could not have thrown off, — the un
reasoning prejudice and suspicion, which I cherished
about her at least by fits and starts, in spite of this con
viction of my reason. I cannot prove this, but I believe
it to have been the»case from what I recollect of myself.
Nor was there any thing in the history of St. Leo and
the Monophysites to undo the firm belief I had in the
existence of what I called the practical abuses and excesses
of Rome.
To her inconsistencies then, to her ambition and in
trigue, to her sophistries (as I considered them to be) I
now had recourse in my opposition to her, both public and
personal. I did so by way of a relief. I had a great and
growing dislike, after the summer of 1839, to speak against
the Roman Church herself or her formal doctrines. I was
very averse to speaking against doctrines, which might possi-

122 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
bly turn out to be true, though at the time I had no reason
for thinking they were ; or against the Church, which had
preserved them. I began to have misgivings, that, strong
as my own feelings had been against her, yet in some
things which I had said, I had taken the statements of
Anglican divines for granted without weighing them for
myself. I said to a friend in 1840, in a letter, which I
shall use presently, " I am troubled by doubts whether as
it is, I have not, in what I have published, spoken too
strongly against Rome, though I think I did it in a kind
of faith, being determined to put myself into the English
system, and say all that our divines said, whether I had
fully weighed it or not." I was sore about the great
Anglican divines, as if they had taken me in, and made
me say strong things, which facts did not justify. Yet I
did still hold in substance all that I had said against the
Church of Rome in my Prophetical Office. I felt the force
of the usual Protestant objections against her; I believed
that we had the Apostolical succession in the Anglican
Church, and the grace of the sacraments ; I was not sure
that the difficulty of its isolation might not be overcome,
though I was far from sure that it could. I did not see
any clear proof that it had committed itself to any heresy,
or had taken part against the truth ; and I was not sure
that it would not revive into full Apostolic purity and
strength, and grow into union with Rome herself (Rome
explaining her doctrines and guarding against their abuse),
that is, if we were but patient and hopeful. I began to
wish for union between the Anglican Church and Rome,
if, and when, it was possible ; and I did what I could to
gain weekly prayers for that object. The ground which I
felt to be good against her was the moral ground : I felt I
could not be wrong in striking at her political and social line
of action. The alliance of a dogmatic religion with liberals,
high or low, seemed to me a providential direction against

from 1839 to 1841. 123
moving towards Rome, and a better " Preservative against
Popery, " than the three volumes in folio, in which, I
think, that prophylactic is to be found. However, on
occasions which demanded it, I felt it a duty to give out
plainly all that I thought, though I did not like to do so.
One such instance occurred, when I had to publish a
Letter about Tract 90. In that Letter, I said, " Instead
of setting before the soul the Holy Trinity, and heaven
and hell, the Church of Rome does seem to me, as a popu
lar system, to preach the Blessed Virgin and the Saints,
and purgatory." On this occasion I recollect expressing
to a friend the distress it gave me thus to speak ; but, I
said, " How can I help saying it, if I think it ? and I do
think it ; my Bishop calls on me to say out what I think ;
and that is the long and the short of it." But I recollected
Hurrell Froude's words to me, almost his dying words, " I
must enter another protest against your cursing and
swearing. What good can it do ? and I call it uncharit
able to an excess. How mistaken we may ourselves be on
many points that are only gradually opening on us ! "
Instead then of speaking of errors in doctrine, I was
driven, by my state of mind, to insist upon the political
conduct, the controversial bearing, and the social methods
and manifestations of Rome. And here I found a matter
ready to my hand, which affected me the more sensibly for
the reason that it lay at our very doors. I can hardly
describe too strongly my feeling upon it. I had an un
speakable aversion to the policy and acts of Mr. O'Connell,
because, as I thought, he associated himself with men of
all religions and no religion against the Anglican Church,
and advanced Catholicism by violence and intrigue. When
then I found him taken up by the English Catholics, and,
as I supposed, at Rome, I considered I had a fulfilment
before my eyes how the Court of Rome played fast and
loose, and justified the serious charges which I had seen

124 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
put down in books against it. Here we saw what Rome
was in action, whatever she might be when quiescent.
Her conduct was simply secular and political.
This feeling led me into the excess of being very rude
to that zealous and most charitable man, Mr. Spencer,
when he came to Oxford in January, 1840, to get Angli
cans to set about praying for Unity. I myself, at that
time, or soon after, drew up such prayers ; their desirable
ness was one of the first thoughts which came upon me
after my shock; but I was too much annoyed with the
political action of the Catholic body in these islands to
wish to have any thing to do with them personally. So
glad in my heart was I to see him, when he came to my
rooms with Mr. Palmer of Magdalen, that I could have
laughed for joy; I think I did laugh; but I was very
rude to him, I would not meet him at dinner, and that.
(though I did not say so,) because I considered him "in
loco apostatse" from the Anglican Church, and I hereby
beg his pardon for it. I wrote afterwards with a view to
apologize, but I dare say he must have thought that I
made the matter worse, for these were my words to
him : —
" The news that you are praying for us is most touch
ing, and raises a variety of indescribable emotions. . . .
May their prayers return abundantly into their own
bosoms. . . Why then do I not meet you in a manner
conformable with these first feelings ? For this single
reason, if I may say it, that your acts are contrary to
your words. You invite us to a union of hearts, at the
same time that you are doing all you can, not to restore,
not to reform, not to re-unite, but to destroy our Church.
You go further than your principles require. You are
leagued with our enemies. 'The voice is Jacob's voice,
but the hands are the hands of Esau.' This is what
especially distresses us ; this is what we cannot under-

from 1839 to 1841. 125
stand ; how Christians, like yourselves, with the clear view
you have that a warfare is ever waging in the world be
tween good and evil, should, in the present state of Eng
land, ally yourselves with the side of evil against the side
of good. . . Of parties now in the country, you cannot
but allow, that next to yourselves we are nearest to re
vealed truth. We maintain great and holy principles;
we profess Catholic doctrines. . . So near are we as a
body to yourselves in modes of thinking, as even to have
been taunted with the nicknames which belong to you;
and, on the other hand, if there are professed infidels,
scoffers, sceptics, unprincipled men, rebels, they are found
among our opponents. And yet you take part with them
against us. . . You consent to act hand in hand [with
these and others] for our overthrow. Alas ! aU this it is
that impresses us irresistibly with the notion that you are
a political, not a religious party ; that in order to gain an
end on which you set your hearts, — an open stage for
yourselves in England, — you ally yourselves with those
who hold nothing against those who hold something.
This is what distresses my own mind so greatly, to speak
of myself, that, with limitations which need not now be
mentioned, I cannot meet familiarly any leading persons
of the Roman Communion, and least of all when they
come on a religious errand. Break off, I would say, with
Mr. O'Connell in Ireland and the liberal party in Eng
land, or come not to us with overtures for mutual prayer
and religious sympathy."
And here came in another feeling, of a personal nature,
which had little to do with the argument against Rome,
except that, in my prejudice, I viewed what happened to
myself in the light of my own ideas of the traditionary
conduct of her advocates and instruments. I was very
stern in the case of any interference in our Oxford matters
on the part of charitable Catholics, and of any attempt

126 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
to do me good personally. There was nothing, indeed, at
the time more likely to throw me back. " Why do you
meddle ? why cannot you let me alone ? You can do me
no good ; you know nothing on earth about me ; you may
actually do me harm ; I am in better hands than yours.
I know my own sincerity of purpose ; and I am deter
mined upon taking my time." Since I have been a
Catholic, people have sometimes accused me of backward
ness in making converts ; and Protestants have argued
from it that I have no great eagerness to do so. It would
be against my nature to act otherwise than I do ; but
besides, it would be to forget the lessons which I gained
in the experience of my own history in the past.
This is the account which I have to give of some savage
and ungrateful words in the British Critic of 1840 against
the controversialists of Rome : " By their fruits ye shall
know them. . . . We see it attempting to gain converts
among us by unreal representations of its doctrines, plausi
ble statements, bold assertions, appeals to the weaknesses
of human nature, to our fancies, our eccentricities, our fears,
our frivolities, our false philosophies. We see its agents,
smiling and nodding and ducking to attract attention, as
gipsies make up to truant boys, holding out tales for the
nursery, and pretty pictures, and gilt gingerbread, and
physic concealed in jam, and sugar-plums for good chil
dren. Who can but feel shame when the religion of
Ximenes, Borromeo, and Pascal, is so overlaid ? Who
can but feel sorrow, when its devout and earnest defenders
so mistake its genius and its capabilities ? We English
men like manliness, openness, consistency, truth. Rome
will never gain on us, till she learns these virtues, and
uses them ; and then she may gain us, but it wiU be by
ceasing to be what we now mean by Rome, by having a
right, not to ' have dominion over our faith,' but to gain
and possess our affections in the bonds of the gospel. Till

from 1839 to 1841. 127
she ceases to be, what she practically is, a union is impossi
ble between her and England; but, if she does reform,
(and who can presume to say that so large a part of Chris
tendom never can ?) then it will be our Church's duty at
once to join in communion with the continental Churches,
whatever politicians at home may say to it, and whatever
steps the civil power may take in consequence. And
though we may not live to see that day, at least we are
bound to pray for it; we are bound to pray for our
brethren that they and we may be led together into the
pure light of the gospel, and be one as we once were one.
It was most touching news to be told, as we were lately,
that Christians on the Continent were praying together
for the spiritual well-being of England. May they gain
light, while they aim at unity, and grow in faith while
they manifest their love ! We too have our duties to
them; not of reviling, not of slandering, not of hating,
though political interests require it; but the duty of
loving brethren still more abundantly in spirit, whose
faces, for our sins and their sins, we are not allowed to see
in the flesh."
No one ought to indulge in insinuations; it certainly
diminishes my right to complain of slanders uttered against
myself, when, as in this passage, I had already spoken in
disparagement of the controversialists of that religious
body, to which I myself now belong.
I have thus put together, as well as I can, what has to
be said about my general state of mind from the autumn
of 1839 to the summer of 1841 ; and, having done so, I go
on to narrate how my new misgivings affected my conduct,
and my relations towards the Anglican Church.
When I got back to Oxford in October, 1839, after the
visits which I had been paying, it so happened, there had
been, in my absence, occurrences of an awkward character,

128 HISTORY of MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
compromising me both with my Bishop and also with the
authorities of the University; and this drew my atten
tion at once to the state of the Movement party there, and
made me very anxious for the future. In the spring of
the year, as has been seen in the Article analyzed above,
I had spoken of the excesses which were to be found
among persons commonly included in it : — at that time I
thought little of such an evil, but the new views, which
had come on me during the Long Vacation, on the one
hand made me comprehend it, and on the other took away
my power of effectually meeting it. A firm and powerful
control was necessary to keep men straight ; I never had
a strong wrist, but at the very time, when it was most
needed, the reins had broken in my hands. With an
anxious presentiment on my mind of the upshot of the
whole inquiry, which it was almost impossible for me to
conceal from men who saw me day by day, who heard my
familiar conversation, who came perhaps for the express
purpose of pumping me, and having a categorical yes or no
to their questions, — how could I expect to say any thing
about my actual, positive, present belief, which would be
sustaining or consoling to such persons as were haunted
already by doubts of their own ? Nay, how could I, with
satisfaction to myself, analyze my own mind, and say what
I held and what I did not hold ? or how could I say with
what limitations, shades of difference, or degrees of belief,
I still held that body of Anglican opinions which I had
openly professed and taught ? how could I deny or assert
this point or that, without injustice to the new light, in
which the whole evidence for those old opinions presented
itself to my mind ?
However, I had to do what I could, and what was best,
under the circumstances; I found a general talk on the
subject of the Article in the Dublin Review ; and, if it
had affected me, it was not wonderful, that it affected

from 1839 to 1841. 129
others also. As to myself, I felt no kind of certainty that
the argument in it was conclusive. Taking it at the
worst, granting that the Anglican Church had not the
Note of Catholicity ; yet there were many Notes of the
Church. Some belonged to one age or place, some to
another. Bellarmine had reckoned Temporal Prosperity
among the Notes of the Church ; but the Roman Church
had not any great popularity, wealth, glory, power, or
prospects, in the nineteenth century. It was not at all
certain as yet, even that we had not the Note of Catho
licity ; but. if not this, we had others. My first business
then, was to examine this question carefully, and see,
whether a great deal could not be said after all for the
Anglican Church, in spite of its acknowledged short-com
ings. This I did in an Article " on the Catholicity of the
English Church," which appeared in the British Critic of
January, 1840. As to my personal distress on the point,
I think it had gone by February 21st in that year, for I
wrote then to Mr. Bowden about the important Article in
the Dublin, thus: "It made a great impression here
[Oxford] ; and, I say what of course I would only say to
such as yourself, it made me for a while very uncomfort
able in my own mind. The great speciousness of his
argument is one of the things which have made me despond
so much," that is, as anticipating its effect upon others.
But, secondly, the great stumbling-block lay in the 39
Articles. It was urged that here was a positive Note
against Anglicanism :— Anglicanism claimed to hold, that
the Church of England was nothing else than a continua
tion in this country, (as the Church of Rome might be in
France or Spain,) of that one Church of which in old times
Athanasius and Augustine were members. But, if so, the
doctrine must be the same ; the doctrine of the Old Church
must live and speak in Anglican formularies, in the 39
Articles. Did it ? Yes, it did ; that is what I maintained ;
K

130 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
it did in substance, in a true sense. Man had done his
worst to disfigure, to mutilate, the old Catholic Truth:
but there it was, in spite of them, in the Articles still.
It was there, — but this must be shown. It was a matter
of life and death to us to show it. And I believed that
it could be shown ; I considered that those grounds of jus
tification, which I gave above, when I was speaking of
Tract 90, were sufficient for the purpose ; and therefore
I set about showing it at once. This was in March, 1840,
when I went up to Littlemore. And, as it was a matter
of life and death with us, all risks must be run to show it.
When the attempt was actually made, I had got reconciled
to the prospect of it, and had no apprehensions as to the
experiment; but in 1840, while my purpose was honest,
and my grounds of reason satisfactory, I did nevertheless
recognize that I was engaged in an experimentum crucis.
I have no doubt that then I acknowledged to myself that
it would be a trial of the Anglican Church, which it had
never undergone before,— not that the Catholic sense of
the Articles had not been held or at least suffered by their
framers and promulgators, not that it was not implied in
the teaching of Andrewes or Beveridge, but that it had
never been publicly recognized, while the interpretation of
the day was Protestant and exclusive. I observe also,
that, though my Tract was an experiment, it was, as I
said at the time; " no feeler " ; the event showed this ; for,
when my principle was not granted, I did not draw back,
but gave up. I would not hold office in a Church which
would not allow my sense of the Articles. My tone was,
" This is necessary for us, and have it we must and will,
and, if it tends to bring men to look less bitterly on the
Church of Rome, so much the better."
This then was the second work to which I set myself ;
though when I got to Littlemore, other things interfered to
prevent my accomplishing it at the moment. I had in

from 1839 to 1841. 131
mind to remove all such obstacles as lay in the way of
holding the Apostolic and Catholic character of the Angli
can teaching ; to assert the right of all who chose, to say
in the face of day, " Our Church teaches the Primitive
Ancient faith." I did not conceal this : in Tract 90, it is
put forward as the first principle of all, "It is a duty
which we owe both to the Catholic Church, and to our
own, to take our reformed confessions in the most Catholic
sense they will admit : we have no duties towards their
framers." And still more pointedly in my Letter, explan
atory of the Tract, addressed to Dr. Jelf, I say : " The
only peculiarity of the view I advocate, if I must so call
it, is this — that whereas it is usual at this day to make the
particular belief of their writers their true interpretation,
I would make the belief of the Catholic Church such.
That is, as it is often said that infants are regenerated in
Baptism, not on the faith of their parents, but of the
Church, so in like manner I would say that the Articles
are received, not in the sense of their framers, but (as far
as the wording will admit or any ambiguity requires it)
in the one Catholic sense."
A third measure which I distinctly contemplated, was
the resignation of St. Mary's, whatever became of the
question of the 39 Articles ; and as a first step I meditated
a retirement to Littlemore. Littlemore was an integral
part of St. Mary's Parish, and between two and three miles
distant from Oxford. I had built a Church there several
years before ; and I went there to pass the Lent of ] 840,
and gave myself up to teaching in the Parish School, and
practising the choir. At the same time, I had in view a
monastic house there. 1 bought ten acres of ground and
began planting; but this great design was never carried
out. I mention it, because it shows how little I had really
the idea at that time of ever leaving the Anglican Church.
That I contemplated as early as 1839 the further step of

132 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
giving up St. Mary's, appears from a letter which I wrote
in October, 1840, to Mr. Keble, the friend whom it was
most natural for me to consult on such a point. It ran
as follows : —
" For a year past a feeling has been growing on me that
I ought to give up St. Mary's, but I am no fit judge in the
matter. I cannot ascertain accurately my own impressions
and convictions, which are the basis of the difficulty, and
though you cannot of course do this for me, yet you may
help me generally, and perhaps supersede the necessity of
my going by them at all.
" First, it is certain that I do not know my Oxford
parishioners ; I am not conscious of influencing them, and
certainly I have no insight into their spiritual state. I
have no personal, no pastoral acquaintance with them.
To very few have I any opportunity of saying a religious
word. Whatever influence I exert on them is precisely
that which I may be exerting on persons out of my parish.
In my excuse I am accustomed to say to myself that I am
not adapted to get on with them, while others are. On
the other hand, I am conscious that by means of my posi
tion, at St. Mary's, I do exert a considerable influence on
¦ the University, whether on Undergraduates or Graduates.
It seems, then, on the whole that I am using St. Mary's, to
the neglect of its direct duties, for objects not belonging
to it-; I am converting a parochial charge into a sort of
University office.
'' I think I may say truly that 1 have begun scarcely
any plan but for the sake of my parish, but every one has
turned, independently of me, into the direction of the Uni
versity. I began Saints'-days Services, daily Services, and
Lectures in Adam de Brome's Chapel, for my parishioners :
but they have not come to them. In consequence I dropped
the last mentioned, having, while it lasted, been naturally
led to direct it to the instruction of those who did come,

from 1839 to 18-11. 133
instead of those who did not. Tlie Weekly' Communion,
I believe, I did begin for the sake of the University.
" Added to this the authorities of the University, the
appointed guardians of those who form great part of the
attendants on my Sermons, have shown a dislike of my
preaching. One dissuades men from coming; — the late
Vice-Chancellor threatens to take his own children away
from the Church : and the present, having an opportunity
last spring of preaching in my parish pulpit, gets up and
preaches against doctrine with which I am in good measure
identified. No plainer proof can be given of the feeling in
these quarters, than the absurd myth, now a second time
put forward, ' that Vice-Chancellors cannot be got to take
the office on account of Puseyisni.'
" But further than this, I cannot disguise from myself
that my preaching Lx not calculated to defend that system
of religion which has been received for 300 years, and of
which the Heads of Houses arc the legitimate maintainers
in this place. They exclude me, as far as may be, from
the University Pulpit : and, though I never have preached
strong doctrine in it, they do so rightly, so far as this,
that they understand that my sermons are calculated to
undermine things established. I cannot disguise from
myself that they are. No one will deny that most of my
sermons are on moral subjects, not doctrinal ; still 1 am
leading my hearers to the Primitive Church, if you will,
but not to the Church of England. Now, ought one to be
disgusting the minds of young men with the received reli
gion, in the exercise of a sacred office, yet without a commis
sion, and against the wish of their guides and governors l.
" But this is not alf. I fear I must allow that, whether
1 will or no, I am disposing them towards Rome. First,
because Rome is the only representative of the Primitive
Church besides ourselves ; in proportion then as they are
loosened from the one, the}- will go to the other. Next,
because many doctrines which I have held have far greater,

134 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
or their only scope, in the Roman system. And, moreover,
if, as is not unlikely, we have in process of time heretical
Bishops or teachers among us, an evil which ipso facto
infects the whole community to which they belong, and if,
again (what there are at this moment symptoms of), there
be a movement in the English Roman Catholics to break
the alliance of O'Connell and of Exeter Hall, strong temp
tations will be placed in the way of individuals, already
imbued with a tone of thought congenial to Rome, to join
her Communion.
" People tell me, on the other hand, that I am, whether
by sermons or otherwise, exerting at St. Mary's a beneficial
influence on our prospective clergy ; but what if I take to
myself the credit of seeing further than they, and of
having in the course of the last year discovered that what
they approve so much is very likely to end in Romanism {
"The arguments which I have published against Roman
ism seem to myself as cogent as ever, but men go by their
sympathies, not by argument; and if I feel the force of
this influence myseff , who bow to the arguments, why may
not others still more, who never have in the same degree
admitted the arguments ?
" Nor can I counteract the danger by preaching or
writing against Rome. I seem to myself almost to have
shot my last arrow in the Article on English Catholicity.
It must be added, that the very circumstance that I have
committed myself against Rome has the effect of setting
to sleep people suspicious about me, which is painful now
that I begin to have suspicions about myself. I mentioned
my general difficulty to Rogers a year since, than whom I
know no one of a more fine and accurate conscience, and
it was his spontaneous idea that I should give up St.
Mary's, if my feelings continued. I mentioned it again
to him lately, and he did not reverse his opinion, only
expressed great reluctance to believe it must be so."
Mr. Keble's judgment was in favour of my retaining my

from 1839 to 1841. 135
living ; at least for the present ; what weighed with me
most was his saying, " You must consider, whether your
retiring either from the Pastoral Care only, or from writing
and printing and editing in the cause, would not be a sort
of scandalous thing, unless it were done very warily. It
would be said, ' You see he can go on no longer with the
Church of England, except in mere Lay Communion ; ' or
people might say you repented of the cause altogether.
Till you see [your way to mitigate, if not remove this
evil] I certainly should advise you to stay." I answered
as follows : —
" Since you think I may go on, it seems to follow that,
under the circumstances, I ought to do so. There are
plenty of reasons for it, directly it is allowed to be lawful.
The following considerations have much reconciled my
feelings to your conclusion.
" 1. I do not think that we have yet made fair trial how
much the English Church will bear. I know it is a
hazardous experiment, — like proving cannon. Yet we
must not take it for granted that the metal will burst in
the operation. It has borne at various times, not to say
at this time, a great infusion of Catholic truth without
damage. As to the result, viz. whether this process will
not approximate the whole English Church, as a body, to
Rome, that is nothing to us. For what we know, it may
be the providential means of uniting the whole Church in
one, without fresh schismatizing or use of private judg
ment." Here I observe, that, what was contemplated was the
bursting of the Catholicity of the Anglican Church, that is,
my subjective idea of that Church. Its bursting would not
hurt her with the world, but would be a discovery that
she was purely and essentially Protestant, and would be
really the " hoisting of the engineer with his own petard"
And this was the result. I continue : —

136 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
" 2. Say, that I move sympathies for Rome : in the
same sense does Hooker, Taylor, Bull, &c. Their argu
ments may be against Rome, but the sympathies they raise
must be towards Rome, so far as Rome maintains truths
which our Church does not teach or enforce. Thus it is a
question of degree between our divines and me. I may, if
so be, go further ; I may raise sympathies more ; but I am
but urging minds in the same direction as they do. I am
doing just the very thing which all our doctors have ever
been doing. In short, would not Hooker, if Vicar of St.
Mary's, be in my difficulty ? " — Here it may be objected,
that Hooker could preach against Rome and I could not ;
but I doubt whether he could have preached effectively
against Transubstantiation better than I, though neither
he nor I held that doctrine.
" 3. Rationalism is the great evil of the day. May not
I consider my post at St. Mary's as a place of protest
against it ? I am more certain that the Protestant [spirit],
which I oppose, leads to infidelity, than that which I re
commend, leads to Rome. Who knows what the state of
the University may be, as regards Divinity Professors in
a few years hence ? Any how, a great battle may be
coming on, of which Milman's book is a sort of earnest.
The whole of our day may be a battle with this spirit.
May we not leave to another age its own evil, — to settle
the question of Romanism ? "
I may add that from this time I had a curate at St.-
Mary's, who gradually took more and more of my work.
Also, this same year, 1840, I made arrangements for
giving up the British Critic, in the following July, which
were carried into effect at that date.
Such was about my state of mind, on the publication of
Tract 90 in February 1841. I was indeed in prudence tak
ing steps towards eventually withdrawing from St. Mary's,

from 1839 to 1841. 137
and I was not confident about my permanent adhesion to
the Anglican creed ; but I was in no actual perplexity or
trouble of mind. Nor did the immense commotion conse
quent upon the publication of the Tract unsettle me again :
for I fancied I had weathered the storm, as far as the
Bishops were concerned : the Tract had not been con
demned : that was the great point, and I made much of it.
To illustrate my feelings during this trial, I will make
extracts from my letters addressed severally to Mr. Bowden
and another friend, which have come into my possession.
1. March 15.- — " The Heads, I believe, have just done a
violent act : they have said that my interpretation of the
Articles is an evasion. Do not think that this will pain
me. You see, no doctrine is censured, and my shoulders
shall manage to bear the charge. If you knew all, or were
here, you would see that I have asserted a great principle,
and I ought to suffer for it : — that the Articles are to be
interpreted, not according to the meaning of the writers,
but (as far as the wording will admit) according to the
sense of the Catholic Church."
2. March 25. — " I do trust I shall make no false step,
and hope my friends will pray for me to this effect. If,
as you say, a destiny hangs over us, a singie false step
may ruin all. I am very well and comfortable ; but we
are not yet out of the wood."
3. April 1.— " The Bishop sent me word on Sunday to
write a Letter to him 'instanter.' So I wrote it on Mon
day: on Tuesday it passed through the press : on Wednes
day it was out : and to-day [Thursday] it is in London.
" I trust that things are smoothing now ; and that we
have made a great step is certain. It is not right to boast,
till I am clear out of the wood, i.e. till I know how the
Letter is received in London. You know, I suppose, that
I am to stop the Tracts ; but you will see in the Letter,
though I speak quite what I feel, yet I have managed to

138 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
take out on my side m}' snubbing's worth. And this
makes me anxious how it will be received in London.
" I have not had a misgiving for five minutes from the
first : but I do not like to boast, lest some harm come."
4. April 4. — " Your letter of this morning was an ex
ceedingly great gratification to me : and it is confirmed, I
am thankful to say, by the opinion of others. The Bishop
sent me a message that my Letter had his unqualified
approbation ; and since that, he has sent me a note to the
same effect, only going more into detail. It is most
pleasant too to my feelings, to have such a testimony to
the substantial truth and importance of No. 90, as I have
had from so many of my friends, from those who, from
their cautious turn of mind, I was least sanguine about.
I have not had one misgiving myself about it throughout ;
and I do trust that what has happened will be overruled
to subserve the great cause we all have at heart."
5. May 9. — " The Bishops are very desirous of hushing
the matter up : and I certainly have done my utmost to
co-operate with them, on the understanding that the Tract
is not to be withdrawn or condemned."
Upon this occasion several Catholics wrote to me; I
answered one of my correspondents in the same tone :—
" April 8. — You have no cause to be surprised at the
discontinuance of the Tracts. We feel no misgivings
about it whatever, as if the cause of what we hold to be
Catholic truth would suffer thereby. My letter to my
Bishop has, 1 trust, had the effect of bringing the pre
ponderating authority of the Church on our side. No
stopping of the Tracts can, humanly speaking, stop the
spread of the opinions which they have inculcated.
" The Tracts are not suppressed. No doctrine or prin
ciple has been conceded by us. or condemned by authority.
The Bishop has but said that a certain Tract is ' objection
able,' no reason being stated. I have no intention what-

from 1839 to 1841. 139
ever of yielding- any one point which I hold on conviction ;
and that the authorities of the Church know full well."
In the summer of 1841, I found myself at Littlemore
without any harass or anxiety on my mind. I had deter
mined to put aside all controversy, and I set. myself down
to my translation of St. Athanasius; but, between July
and November, I received three blows which broke me.
1. I had got but a little way in my work, when my
trouble returned on me. The ghost had come a second time.
In the Arian History I found the very same phenomenon,
in a far bolder shape, which I had found in the Monophy
site. I had not observed it in 1832. Wonderful that
this should come upon me ! I had not sought it out ; I
was reading and writing in my own line of study, far
from the controversies of the day, on what is called a
" metaphysical " subject ; but I saw clearly, that in the
history of Arianism, the pure Arians were the Protestants,
the semi- Arians were the Anglicans, and that Rome now
was what it was then. The truth lay, not with the Via
Media, but with what was called " the extreme party." As
I am not writing a work of controversy, I need not enlarge
upon the argument ; I have said something on the subject
in a Volume, from which I have already quoted.
2. I was in the misery of this new unsettlement, when
a second blow came upon me. The Bishops one after
another began to charge against me. It was a formal,
determinate movement. This was the real " understand
ing ; " that, on which I had acted on the first appearance
of Tract 90, had come to nought. I think the words,
which had then been used to me, were, that " perhaps two
or three of them might think it necessary to say something
in their charges ; " but by this time they had tided over the
difficulty of the Tract, and there was no one to enforce the
"understanding." They went on in this way, directing

140 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
charges at me, for three whole years. I recognized it
as a condemnation ; it was the only one that was in their
power. At first I intended to protest ; but I gave up the
thought in despair.
On October 17th, I wrote thus to a friend: "I suppose
it will be necessary in some shape or other to re-assert
Tract 90 ; else, it will seem, after these Bishops' Charges,
as if it were silenced, which it has not been, nor do I
intend it should be. I wish to keep quiet ; but if Bishops
speak, I will speak too. If the view were silenced, I could
not remain in the Church, nor could many others; and
therefore, since it is not silenced, I shall take care to show
that it isn't."
A day or two after, Oct. 22, a stranger wrote to me to
say, that the Tracts for the Times had made a young
friend of his a Catholic, and to ask, " would I be so good
as to convert him back ; " I made answer : —
" If conversions to Rome take place in consequence of
the Tracts for the Times, I do not impute blame to them,
but to those who, instead of acknowledging such Anglican
principles of theology and ecclesiastical polity as they con
tain, set themselves to oppose them. Whatever be the
influence of the Tracts, great or small, they may become
just as powerful for Rome, if our Church refuses them, as
they would be for our Church if she accepted them. If
our niters speak either against the Tracts, or not at all, if
any number of them, not only do not favour, but even do
not suffer the principles contained in them, it is plain that
our members may easily be persuaded either to give up
those principles, or to give up the Church. If this state
of things goes on, I mournfully prophesy, not one or two,
but many secessions to the Church of Rome."
Two years afterwards, looking back on what had passed,
I said, " There were no converts to Rome, till after the
condemnation of No. 90."

from 1839 to 1841. 141
3. As if all this were not enough, there came the affair
of the Jerusalem Bishopric ; and, with a brief mention of
it, I shall conclude.
I think I am right in saying that it had been long a
desire with the Prussian Court to introduce Episcopacy
into the new Evangelical Religion, which was intended in
that country to embrace both the Lutheran and Calvinistic
bodies. I almost think I heard of the project, when I was
at Rome in 1833, at the Hotel of the Prussian Minister,
M. Bunsen, who was most hospitable and kind, as to other
English visitors, so also to my friends and myself. The
idea of Episcopacy, as the Prussian king understood it,
was, I suppose, very different from that taught in the
Tractarian Schooi : but still, I suppose also, that the chief
authors of that school would have gladly seen such a
measure carried out in Prussia, had it been done without
compromising those principles which were necessary to the
being of a Church. About the time of the publication of
Tract 90, M. Bunsen and the then Archbishop of Canter
bury were taking steps for its execution, by appointing
and consecrating a Bishop for Jerusalem. Jerusalem, it
would seem, was considered a safe place for the experi
ment ; it was too far from Prussia to awaken the suscepti
bilities of any party at home ; if the project failed, it failed
without harm to any one; and, if it succeeded, it gave
Protestantism a statics in the East, which, in association
with the Monophysite or Jacobite and the Nestorian bodies,
formed a political instrument for England, parallel to that
which Russia had in the Greek Church, and France in the
Latin. Accordingly, in July 1841, full of the Angfican difficulty
on the question of Catholicity, I thus spoke of the Jeru
salem .scheme in an Article in the British Critic : " When
our thoughts turn to the East, instead of recollecting that
there are Christian Churches there, we leave it to the

142 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
Russians to take care of the Greeks, and the French to
take care of the Romans, and we content ourselves with
erecting a Protestant Church at Jerusalem, or with help
ing the Jews to rebuild their Temple there, or with
becoming the august protectors of Nestorians, Monophy-
sites, and all the heretics we can hear of, or with forming
a league with the Mussulman against Greeks and Romans
together." I do not, pretend, so long after the time, to give a full
or exact account of this measure in detail. I will but say
that in the Act of Parliament, under date of October 5,
1841, (if the copy, from which I quote, contains the
measure as it passed the Houses,) provision is made for
the consecration of " British subjects, or the subjects or
citizens of any foreign state, to be Bishops in any foreign
country, whether such foreign subjects or citizens be or be
not subjects or citizens of the country in which they are to
act, and . . . without requiring such of them as may be
subjects or citizens of any foreign kingdom or state to take
the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and the oath of due
obedience to the Archbishop for the time being " . also
" that such Bishop or Bishops, so consecrated, may exercise,
within such limits, as may from time to time be assigned
for that purpose in such foreign countries by her Majesty,
spiritual jurisdiction over the ministers of British congre
gations of the United Church of England and Ireland, and
over such other Protestant Congregations, as may be desir
ous of placing themselves under his or their authority."
NTow here, at the very time that the Anglican Bishops
were directing their censure upon me for avowing an
approach to the Catholic Church not closer than I believed
the Anglican formularies would allow, they were on the
other hand, fraternizing, by their act or by their sufferance,
with Protestant bodies.and allowing them to put themselves
under an Anglican Bishop, without any renunciation of

from 1839 to 1841. 143
their errors or regard to their due reception of baptism and
confirmation ; while there was great reason to suppose that
the said Bishop was intended to make converts from the
orthodox Greeks, and the schismatical Oriental bodies, by
means of the influence of England. This was the third
blow, which finally shattered my faith in the Anglican
Church. That Church was not only forbidding any sym
pathy or concurrence with the Church of Rome, but it
actually was courting an intercommunion with Protestant
Prussia and the heresy of the Orientals. The Anglican
Church might have the Apostolical succession, as had the
Monophysites ; but such acts as were in progress led me
to the gravest suspicion, not that it would soon cease
to be a Church, but that, since the 16th century, it had
never been a Church all along.
On October 12th, I thus wrote to Mr. Bowden:— "We
have not a single Anglican in Jerusalem ; so we are sending
a Bishop to make a communion, not to govern our own
people. Next, the excuse is, that there are converted
Anglican Jews there who require a Bishop; I am told
there are not half-a-dozen. But for them, the Bishop is
sent out, and for them he is a Bishop of the circumcision "
(I think he was a converted Jew, who boasted of his
Jewish descent), "against the Epistle to the Galatians
pretty nearly. Thirdly, for the sake of Prussia, he is to
take under him all the foreign Protestants who will come ;
and the political advantages will be so great, from the
influence of England, that there is no doubt they will come.
They are to sign the Confession of Augsburg, and there is
nothing to show that they hold the doctrine of Baptismal
Regeneration "As to myself, I shall do nothing whatever publicly,
unless indeed it were to give my signature to a Protest ;
but I think it would be out of place in me to agitate, having
been in a way silenced; but the Archbishop is really

144 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
doing most grave work, of which we cannot see the
end." I did make a solemn Protest, and sent it to the Arch
bishop of Canterbury, and also sent it to my own Bishop
with the following letter : —
" It seems as if I were never to write to your Lordship,
without giving you pain, and I know that my present
subject does not specially concern your Lordship; yet, after
a great deal of anxious thought, I lay before you the en
closed Protest.
"Your Lordship will observe that I am not asking
for any notice of it, unless you think that I ought to
receive one. I do this very serious act in obedience to
my sense of duty.
"If the English Church is to enter on a new course,
and assume a new aspect, it will be more pleasant to
me hereafter to think, that I did not suffer so grievous
an event to happen, without bearing witness against it.
'' May I be allowed to say, that I augur nothing but
evil, if we in any respect prejudice our title to be a
branch of the Apostolic Church ? That Article of the
Creed, I need hardly observe to your Lordship, is of
such constraining power, that, if we will not claim it,
and use it for ourselves, others will use it in their own
behalf against us. Men who learn whether by means of
documents or measures, whether from the statements or
the acts of persons in authority, that our communion is
not a branch of the One Church, I foresee with much
grief, will be tempted to look out for that Church else
where. "It is to me a subject of great dismay, that, as far
as the Church has lately spoken out, on the subject of
the opinions which I and others hold, those opinions are,
not merely not sanctioned- (for that I do not ask), but not
even suffered.

from 1839 to 1841. 145
" I earnestly hope that your Lordship will excuse my
freedom in thus speaking to you of some members of your
Most Rev. and Right Rev. Body. With every feeling
of reverent attachment to your Lordship, " I am, &c."

protest:
" Whereas the Church of England has a claim on the
allegiance of Catholic believers only on the ground of her
own claim to be considered a branch of the Catholic
Church :
"And whereas the recognition of heresy, indirect as
well as direct, goes far to destroy such claim in the case of
any religious body :
" And whereas to admit maintainors of heresy to com
munion, without formal renunciation of their errors, goes
far towards recognizing the same :
" And whereas Lutheranism and Calvinism are heresies,
repugnant to Scripture, springing up three centuries since,
and anathematized by East as well as West :
"And whereas it is reported that the Most Reverend
Primate and other Right Reverend Rulers of our Church
have consecrated a Bishop with a view to exercising spiri
tual jurisdiction over Protestant, that is, Lutheran and
Calvinist congregations in the East (under the provisions
of an Act made in the last session of Parliament to amend
an Act made in the 26th year of the reign of his Majesty
King George the Third, intituled, ' An Act to empower
the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Archbishop of York
for the time being, to consecrate to the office of Bishop
persons being subjects or citizens of countries out of his
Majesty's dominions'), dispensing at the same time, not
in particular cases and accidentally, but as if on principle
and universally, with any abjuration of error on the part

146 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
of such congregations, and with any reconciliation to the
Church on the part of the presiding Bishop ; thereby giving
some sort of formal recognition to the doctrines which such
congregations maintain :
" And whereas the dioceses in England are connected
together by so close an intercommunion, that what is
done by authority in one, immediately affects the rest :
" On these grounds, I in my place, being a priest of the
English Church and Vicar of St. Mary the Virgin's,
Oxford, by way of relieving my conscience, do hereby
solemnly protest, against the measure aforesaid, and disown
it, as removing our Church from her present ground and
tending to her disorganization.
"John Henry Newman.
" November 11, 1841."
Looking back two years afterwards on the above-men
tioned and other acts, on the part of Anglican Ecclesiasti
cal authorities, I observed : " Many a man might have held
an abstract theory about the Catholic Church, to which it
was difficult to adjust the Anglican, — might have admitted
a suspicion, or even painful doubts about the latter, — yet
never have been impelled onwards, had our Rulers pre
served the quiescence of former years; but it is the
corroboration of a present, living, and energetic hetero
doxy, that realizes and makes such doubts practical; it
has been the recent speeches and acts of authorities, who
had so long been tolerant of Protestant error, which has
given to inquiry and to theory its force and its edge."
As to the project of a Jerusalem Bishopric, I never
heard of any good or harm it has ever done, except what
it has done for me ; which many think a great misfortune,
and I one of the greatest of mercies. It brought me on to i
the beginning of the end.

from 1841 to 1845. 147

CHAPTER IV.
HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS FROM 1841 TO 1845.
§ 1-
From the end of 1841, 1 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. I introduce
what I have to say with this remark, by way of accounting
for the character of this remaining portion of my narrative.
A death-bed has scarcely a history ; it is a tedious decline,
with seasons of rallying aud seasons of faUing back ; and
since the end is foreseen, or what is called a matter of
time, it has little interest for the reader, especially if he
has a kind heart. Moreover, it is a season when doors are
closed and curtains drawn, and when the sick man neither
cares nor is able to record the stages of his malady. I
was in these circumstances, except so far as I was not
allowed to die in peace, — except so far as friends, who had
still a full right to come in upon me, and the public world
which had not, have given a sort of history to those last four
years. But in consequence, my narrative must be in great
measure documentary, as I cannot rely on my memory, ex
cept for definite particulars, positive or negative. Letters
of mine to friends since dead have come into my hands ;
others have been kindly lent me for the occasion; and I
have some drafts of others, and some notes which I made,
though I have no strictly personal or continuous memo-

148 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
randa to consult, and have unluckily mislaid some valuable
papers. And first as to my position in the view of duty ; it was
this: — 1. I had given up my place in the Movement in
my letter to the Bishop of Oxford in the spring of 1841 ;
but 2. I could not give up my duties towards the many
and various minds who had more or less been brought into
it by me ; 3. I expected or intended gradually to fall back
into Lay Communion; 4. I never contemplated leaving
the Church of England ; 5. I could not hold office in its
service, if I were not allowed to hold the Catholic sense of
the Articles ; 6. I could not go to Rome, while she suffered
honours to be paid to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints
which I thought in my conscience to be incompatible with
the Supreme, Incommunicable Glory of the One Infinite
and Eternal ; 7. I desired a union with Rome under con
ditions, Church with Church; 8. I called Littlemore my
Torres Vedras, and thought that some day we might
advance again within the Anglican Church, as we had been
forced to retire ; 9. I kept back all persons who were dis
posed to go to Rome with all my might.
And I kept them back for three or four reasons; 1.
because what I could not in conscience do myself, I could
not suffer them to do ; 2. because I thought that in various
cases they were acting under excitement ; 3. because I had
duties to my Bishop and to the Anglican Church ; and 4.
in some cases, because I had received from their Anglican
parents or superiors direct charge of them.
This was my view of my duty from the end of 1841 to
my resignation of St. Mary's in the autumn of 1843. And
now I shall relate my view, during that time, of the state
of the controversy between the Churches.
As soon as I saw the hitch in the Anglican argument,
during my course of reading in the summer of 1839, I

from 1841 to 1845. 149
began to look about, as I have said, for some ground which
might supply a controversial basis for my need. The diffi
culty in question had affected my view both of Antiquity
and Catholicity ; for, while the history of St. Leo showed
me that the deliberate and eventual consent of the great
body of the Church ratified a doctrinal decision as a part
of revealed truth, it also showed that the rule of Antiquity
was not infringed, though a doctrine had not been publicly
recognized as so revealed, till centuries after the time of
the Apostles. Thus, whereas the Creeds tell us that the
Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, I could not
prove that the Anglican communion was an integral part
of the One Church, on the ground of its teaching being
Apostolic or Catholic, without reasoning in favour of what
are commonly called the Roman corruptions ; and I could
not defend our separation from Rome and her faith without,
using arguments prejudicial to those great doctrines con
cerning our Lord, which are the very foundation of the
Christian religion. The Via Media was an impossible
idea ; it was what I had called " standing on one leg " ; and
it was necessary, if my old issue of the controversy was to
be retained, to go further either one way or the other.
Accordingly, I abandoned that old ground and took
another. I deliberately quitted the old Anglican ground
as untenable ; though I did not do so all at once, but as I
became more and more convinced of the state of the case.
The Jerusalem Bishopric was the ultimate condemnation
of the old theory of the Via Media : — if its establishment
did nothing else, at least it demolished the sacredness of
diocesan rights. If England could be in Palestine, Rome
might be in England. But its bearing upon the contro
versy, as I have shown in the foregoing chapter, was much
more serious than this technical ground. From that time
the Anglican Church was, in my mmd, either not a
normal portion of that One Church to which the promises

150 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
were made, or at least in an abnormal state ; and from
that time I said boldly (as I did in my Protest, and as
indeed I had even intimated in my Letter to the Bishop of
Oxford), that the Church in which I found myself had no
claim on me, except on condition of its being a portion of
the One Catholic Communion, and that that condition
must ever be borne in mind as a practical matter, and had
to be distinctly proved. All this is not inconsistent with
my saying above that, at this time, I had no thought of
leaving the Church of England ; because I felt some of
my old objections against Rome as strongly as ever. I
had no right, I had no leave, to act against my conscience.
That was a higher rule than any argument about the
Notes of the Church.
Under these circumstances I turned for protection to the
Note of Sanctity, with a view of showing that we had at
least one of the necessary Notes, as fully as the Church of
Rome ; or, at least, without entering into comparisons,
that we had it in such a sufficient sense as to reconcile us
to our position, and to supply full evidence, and a clear
direction, on the point of practical duty. We had the
Note of Life, — not any sort of life, not such only as can
come of nature, but a supernatural Christian life, which
could only come directly from above. Thus, in my Article
in the British Critic, to which I have so often referred, in
January, 1840 (before the time of Tract 90), I said of the
Anglican Church that " 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." Presently I go on to speak of sanctity : " Much
as Roman Catholics may denounce us at present as schis
matical, they could not resist us if the Anglican com
munion had but that one note of the Church upon it-
sanctity. The Church of the day [4th century] could not

from 1841 to 1845. 151
resist Meletius ; his enemies were fairly overcome by him,
by his meekness and holiness, which melted the most
jealous of them." And I continue, " We are almost con
tent to say to Romanists, account us not yet as a branch of
the Catholic Church, though we be a branch, till we are
like a branch, provided that when we do become like a
branch, then you consent to acknowledge us," &c. And
so I was led on in the Article to that sharp attack on
English Catholics, for their shortcomings as regards this
Note, a good portion of which I have already quoted in
another place. It is there that I speak of the great
scandal which I took at their political, social, and contro
versial bearing ; and this was a second reason why I fell
back upon the Note of Sanctity, because it took me away
from the necessity of making any attack upon the doc
trines of the Roman Church, nay, from the consideration
of her popular beliefs, and brought me upon a ground on
which I felt I could not make a mistake; for what is a
higher guide for us in speculation and in practice, than
that conscience of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood,
those sentiments of what is decorous, consistent, and noble,
which our Creator has made a part of our original nature ?
Therefore I felt I could not be wrong in attacking what I
fancied was a fact, — the unscrupulousness, the deceit, and
the intriguing spirit of the agents and representatives of
Rome. This reference to Holiness as the true test of a Church
was steadily kept in view in what I wrote in connexion
with Tract 90. I say in its Introduction, "The writer
can never be party to forcing the opinions or projects of
one school upon another ; religious changes should be the
act of the whole body. No good can come of a change
which is not a development of feelings springing up freely
and calmly within the bosom of the whole body itself;
every change in religion " must be " attended by deep re-

152 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
pentance; changes" must be "nurtured in mutual love;
we cannot agree without a supernatural influence ; " we
must come "together to God to do for us what we cannot
do for ourselves." In my Letter to the Bishop I said, "I
have set myself against suggestions for consideidng the
differences between ourselves and the foreign Churches
with a view to their adjustment." (I meant in the way of
negotiation, conference, agitation, or the like.) " Our
business is with ourselves, — to make ourselves more holy,
more self-denying, more primitive, more worthy of our
high calling. To be anxious for a composition of differ
ences is to begin at the end. Political reconciliations are
but ou'tward and hollow, and fallacious. And till Roman
Catholics renounce political efforts, and manifest in their
public measures the light of holiness and truth, perpetual
war is our only prospect."
According to this theory, a religious body is part of the
One Catholic and Apostolic Church, if it has the succession
and the creed of the Apostles, with the note of holiness of
life ; and there is much in such a view to approve itself to
the direct common sense and practical habits of an English
man. However, with the events consequent upon Tract 90,
I sunk my theory to a lower level. For what could be said
in apology, when the Bishops and the people of my Church,
not only did not suffer, but actually rejected primitive
Catholic doctrine, and tried to eject from their communion
all who held it? after the Bishops' charges? after the
Jerusalem " abomination 1 " ? Well, this could be said ;
still we were not nothing : we could not be as if we never
had been a Church ; we were " Samaria." This then was
that lower level on which I placed myself, and all who
felt with me, at the end of 1841.
To bring out this view was the purpose of Four Sermons
' Matt, xxiv, 15,

from 1841 to 1845. 153
preached at St. Mary's in December of that year. Hither
to I had not introduced the exciting topics of the day into
the Pulpit1; on this occasion I did. I did so, for the
moment was urgent; there was great unsettlement of
mind among us, in consequence of those same events which
had unsettled me. One special anxiety, very obvious,
which was coming on me now, was, that what was "one
man's meat was another man's poison." I had said even
of Tract 90, " It was addressed to one set of persons, and
has been used and commented on by another ; " still more
was it true now, that whatever I wrote-for the service of
those whom I knew to be in trouble of mind, would become
on the one hand matter of suspicion and slander in the
mouths of my opponents, and of distress and surprise to
those on the other hand who had no difficulties of faith at
all. Accordingly, when I published these Four Sermons
at the end of 1843, 1 introduced them with a recommenda
tion that none should read them who did not need them.
But in truth the virtual condemnation of Tract 90, after
that the whole difficulty seemed to have been weathered,
was an enormous disappointment and trial. My Protest
also against the Jerusalem Bishopric was an unavoidable
cause of excitement in the case of many; but it calmed
them too, for the very fact of a Protest was a relief to their
impatience. And so, in like manner, as regards the Four
Sermons, of which I speak, though they acknowledged
freely the great scandal which was involved in the recent
episcopal doings, yet at the same time they might be said
to bestow upon the multiplied disorders and shortcomings
of the Anglican Church a sort of place in the Revealed
Dispensation, and an intellectual position in the contro
versy, and the dignity of a great principle, for unsettled
minds to take and use, — a principle which might teach
1 Vide Noto C. .H,:r:nuii, on Wisdom and Innocence.

154 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
them to recognize their own consistency, and to be recon
ciled to themselves, and which might absorb and dry up a
multitude of their grudgings, discontents, misgivings, and
questionings, and lead the way to humble, thankful, and
tranquil thoughts ; — and this was the effect which certainly
it produced on myself.
The point of these Sermons is, that, in spite of the rigid
character of the Jewish law, the formal and literal force of
its precepts, and the manifest schism, and worse than
schism, of the Ten Tribes, yet in fact they were still recog
nized as a people by the Divine Mercy ; that the great
prophets Elias and Eliseus were sent to them ; and not
only so, but were sent to preach to them and reclaim them,
without any intimation that they must be reconciled to the
line of David and the Aaronic priesthood, or go up to
Jerusalem to worship. They were not in the Church, yet
they had the means of grace and the hope of acceptance
with their Maker. The application of all this to the
Anglican Church was immediate; — whether, under the
circumstances, a man could assume or exercise ministerial
functions, or not, might not clearly appear (though it must
be remembered that England had the Apostolic Priest
hood, whereas Israel had no priesthood at all), but so far
was clear, that there was no call at all for an Anglican to
leave his Church for Rome, though he did not believe his
own to be part of the One Church : — and for this reason,
because it was a fact that the kingdom of Israel was cut off
from the Temple; and yet its subjects, neither in a mass,
nor as individuals, neither the multitudes on Mount
Carmel, nor the Shunammite and her household, had any
command given them, though miracles were displayed
before them, to break off' from their own people, and to
submit themselves to Judah \
1 As I am not writing controversially, 1 will only here remark upon this

from J 841 to 1845. 155
It is plain, that a theory such as this, — whether the
marks of a divine presence and life in the Anglican
Church were sufficient to prove that she was actually
within the covenant, or only sufficient to prove that she
was at least enjoying extraordinary and un covenanted
mercies, — not only lowered her level in a religious point
of view, but weakened her controversial basis. Its very
novelty made it suspicious ; and there was no guarantee
that the process of" subsidence might not continue, and
that it might not end in a submersion. Indeed, to many
minds, to say that England was wrong was even to say
that Rome was right ; and no ethical or casuistic reasoning
whatever could overcome in their case the argument from
prescription and authority. To this objection, as made
to my new teaching, I could only answer that I did not
make my circumstances. I fully acknowledged the force
and effectiveness of the genuine Anglican theory, and that
it was all but proof against the disputants of Rome ; but
still like Achilles, it had a vulnerable point, and that St.
Leo had found it out for me, and that I could not help it ;
— that, were it not for matter of fact, the theory would be
great indeed ; it would be irresistible, if it were only true.
When I became a Catholic, the Editor of the Christian
Observer, Mr. Wilkes, who had in former days accused
ine, to my indignation, of tending towards Rome, wrote to
me to ask, which of the two was now right, he or I ? I
answered him in a letter, part of which I here insert, as it
will serve as a sort of leave-taking of the great theory,
which is so specious to look upon, so difficult to prove, and
so hopeless to work.
" Nov. 8, 1845. I do not think, at all more than I did,
argument, that there is a great difference between a command, which presup
poses physical, material, and political conditions, and one which is moral.
To go to Jerusalem was a matter of the body, not of the soul.

156 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
that the Anglican principles which I advocated at the date
you mention, lead men to the Church of Rome. If I must
specify what I mean by ' Anglican principles,' I should
say, e.g. taking Antiquity, not the existing Church, as the
oracle of truth; and holding that the Apostolical Succession
is a sufficient guarantee of Sacramental Grace, without
anion, ivith the Christian Church throughout the world.
I think these still the firmest, strongest ground against
Rome — that is, if they can be held. " [as truths or facts].
" They have been held by many, and are far more difficult
to refute in the Roman controversy, than those of any
other religious body.
"For myself, I found / could not hold them. I left
them. From the time I began to suspect their unsound
ness, I ceased to put them forward. When I was fairly
sure of their unsoundness, I gave up my Living. When
I was fully confident that the Church of Rome was the
only true Church, I joined her.
" I have felt all along that Bp. Bull's theology was the
only theology on which the English. Church could stand.
I have felt, that opposition to the Church of Rome was
part of that theology ; and that he who could not protest
against the Church of Rome was no true divine in the
English Church. I have never said, nor attempted to say,
that any one in office in the English Church, whether
Bishop or incumbent, could be otherwise than in hostility
to the Church of Rome."
The Via Media then disappeared for ever, and a Theory,
made expressly for the occasion, took its place. I was
pleased with my new view. I wrote to an intimate friend,
Samuel F. Wood, Dec. 13, 1841 : " I think you will give
me the credit, Carissime, of not undervaluing the strength
of the feelings which draw one [to Rome], and yet I am
(I trust) quite clear about my duty to remain where I am ;

from 1841 to 1845. 157
indeed, much clearer than I was some time since. If it is
uot presumptuous to say, I have ... a much more definite
view of the promised inward Presence of Christ with us
in the Sacraments now that the outward notes of it are
being removed. And I am content to be with Moses in
the desert, or with Elijah excommunicated from the
Temple. I say this, putting things at the strongest."
However, my friends of the moderate Apostolical party,
who were my friends for the very reason of my having
been so moderate and Anglican myself in general tone in
times past, who had stood up for Tract 90 partly from
faith in me, and certainly from generous and kind feeling,
and had thereby shared an obloquy which was none of
theirs, were naturally surprised and offended at a line of
argument, novel, and, as it appeared to them, wanton, which
threw the whole controversy into confusion, stultified my
former principles, and substituted, as they would consider,
a sort of methodistic self -contemplation, especially abhor
rent both to my nature and to my past professions, for the
plain and honest tokens, as they were commonly received,
of a divine mission in the Anglican Church. They could
not tell whither I was going ; and were still further an
noyed when I persisted in viewing the condemnation of
Tract 90 by the public and the Bishops as so grave a
matter, and when I threw about what they considered
mysterious hints of " eventualities," and would not simply
say, "An Anglican I was born, and an Anglican I will
die." One of myl'amiliar friends, Mr. Church, who was
in the country at Christmas, 1841-2, reported to me the
feeling that prevailed about me ; and how I felt towards it
will appear in the following letter of mine, written in
answer : —
" Oriel, Dec. 24, 1841. Carissime, you cannot tell how
sad your account of Moberly has made me. His view of
the sinfulness of the decrees of Trent is as much against

158 HISTORY of my RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
union of Churches as against individual conversions. To
tell the truth, I never have examined those decrees with
this object, and have no view; but that is very different
from having a deliberate view against them. Could not
he say which they are ? I suppose Transubstantiation is
one. Charles Marriott, though of course he would not
like to have it repeated,1 does not scruple at that. I have
not my mind clear. Moberly must recollect that Palmer
[of Worcester] thinks they all bear a Catholic interpre
tation. For myself, this only I see, that there is in
definitely more in the Fathers against our own state of
alienation from Christendom than against the Tridentine
Decrees. " The only thing I can think of," [that I can have said
of a startling character,] " is this, that there were persons
who, if our Church committed herself to heresy, sooner
than think that there was no Church any where, would
believe the Roman to be the Church ; and therefore would
on faith accept what they could not otherwise acquiesce in.
I suppose, it would be no relief to him to insist upon the
circumstance that there is no immediate danger. Indivi
duals can never be answered for of course ; but I should
think lightly of that man, who, for some act of the Bishops,
should all at once leave the Church. Now, considering
how the Clergy really are improving, considering that this
row is even making them read the Tracts, is it not possible
we may all be in a better state of mind seven years hence
to consider these matters ? and may we not leave them
meanwhile to the will of Providence ? I cannot believe
this work has been of man ; God has a right to His own
work, to do what He will with it. May we not try to
¦ leave it in His hands, and be content ?
1 As things stand now, I do not think he would have objected to his
opinion being generally known.

from 1841 to 1845. 159
" If you learn any thing about Barter, which leads you
to think that I can relieve hiin by a letter, let me know.
The truth is this, — our good friends do not read the
Fathers ; they assent to us from the common sense of the
case : then, when the Fathers, and we, say more than their
common sense, they are dreadfully shocked.
"The Bishop of London has rejected a man, 1. For
holding any Sacrifice in the Eucharist. 2. The Real Pre
sence. 3. That there is a grace in Ordination \
" Are we quite sure that the Bishops will not be draw
ing up some stringent declarations of faith ? Is this what
Moberly fears ? Would the Bishop of Oxford accept
them ? If so, I should be driven into the Refuge for the
Destitute [Littlemore]. But I promise Moberly, I would
do my utmost to catch all dangerous persons and clap them
into confinement there."
Christmas Day, 1841. " I have been dreaming of
Moberly aU night. Should not he and the like see, that
it is unwise, unfair, and impatient to ask others, What
will you do under circumstances, which have not, which
may never come ? Why bring fear, suspicion, and dis
union into the camp about things which are merely in
posse ? Natural, and exceedingly kind as Barter's and
another friend's letters were, I think they have done great
harm. I speak most sincerely when I say, that there are
things which I neither contemplate, nor wish to contem
plate; but, when I am asked about them ten times, at
length I begin to contemplate them.
"He surely does not mean to say, that nothing could
separate a man from the English Church, e.g. its avowing
Socinianism ; its holding the Holy Eucharist in a Socinian
1 1 cannot prove this at this distance of time ; but I do not think it wrong
to introduce here the passage containing it, as I am imputing to the Bishop
nothing which the world would think disgraceful, but, on the contrary, what
a large religious body would approve.

160 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
sense. Yet, he would say, it was not right to contemplate
such things.
" Again, our case is [diverging] from that of Ken's.
To say nothing of the last miserable century, which has
given us to start from a much lower level and with much
less to spare than a Churchman in the 17th century, ques
tions of doctrine are now coming in ; with him, it was a
question of discipline.
" If such dreadful events were realized, I cannot help
thinking we should all be vastly more agreed than we
think now. Indeed, is it possible (humanly speaking) that
those, who have so much the same heart, should widely
differ ? But let this be considered, as to alternatives.
What communion could we join ? Could the Scotch or
American sanction the presence of its Bishops and congre
gations in England, without incurring the imputation of
schism, unless indeed (and is that likely ?) they denounced
the English as heretical ?
" Is not this a time of strange providences ? is it not
our safest course, without looking to consequences, to do
simply what we think right day by day ? shall we not be
sure to go wrong, if we attempt to trace by anticipation
the course of divine Providence ?
" Has not all our misery, as a Church, arisen from
people being afraid to look difficulties in the face ? They
have palliated acts, when they should have denounced
them. There is that good fellow, Worcester Palmer, can
whitewash the Ecclesiastical Commission and the Jerusalem
Bishopric. And what is the consequence ? that our Church
has, through centuries, ever been sinking lower and lower,
till good part of its pretensions and professions is a mere
sham, though it be a duty to make the best of what we
have received. Yet, though bound to make the best of
other men's shams, let us not incur any of our own. The
truest friends of our Church are they, who say boldly when

from 1841 to 1845. 161
her rulers are going wrong, and the consequences; and
(to speak catachrestically) they are most likely to die in
the Church, who are, under these black circumstances,
most prepared to leave it.
" And I will add, that, considering the traces of God's
grace which surround us, I am very sanguine, or rather
confident (if it is right so to speak,) that our prayers and
our alms will come up as a memorial before God, and that
all this miserable confusion tends to good.
" Let us not then be anxious, and anticipate differences
in prospect, when we agree in the present.
" P. S. I think when friends " [i.e. the extreme party]
" get over their first unsettlement of mind and consequent
vague apprehensions, which the new attitude of the
Bishops, and our feelings upon it, have brought about,
they will get contented and satisfied. They will see that
they exaggerated things. ... Of course it would have
been wrong to anticipate what one's feelings would be
under such a painful contingency as the Bishops' charging
as they have done,— so it seems to me nobody's fault.
Nor is it wonderful that others" [moderate men] "are
startled" [i.e. at my Protest, &e, &c.]; "yet they should
recollect that the more implicit the reverence one pays to
a Bishop, the more keen will be one's perception of heresy
in him. The cord is binding and compelling, till it snaps.
"Men of reflection would have seen this, if they had
looked that way. Last spring, a very high churchman
talked to me of resisting my Bishop, of asking him for
the Canons under which he acted, and so forth ; but those,
who have cultivated a loyal feeling towards their superiors,
are the most loving servants, or the most zealous pro
testors. If others became so too, if the clergy of Chester
denounced the heresy of their diocesan, they would be doing
their duty, and relieving themselves of the share which they
otherwise have in any possible defection of their brethren."
M

162 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
"St. Stephen's [Day, December 26]. How I fidget!
I now fear that the note I wrote yesterday only makes
matters worse by disclosing too much. This is always my
great difficulty.
" In the present state of excitement on both sides, I
think of leaving out altogether my reassertion of No. 90
in my Preface to Volume 6 [of Parochial Sermons], and
merely saying, 'As many false reports are at this time in
circulation about him, he hopes his well-wishers will take
this Volume as an indication of his real thoughts and feel
ings : those who are not, he leaves in God's hand to bring
them to a better mind in His own time.' What do you
say to the logic, sentiment, and propriety of this ? "
An old friend, at a distance from Oxford, Archdeacon
Robert I. Wilberforce, must have said something to me
at this time, I do not know what, which challenged a frank
reply ; for I disclosed to him, I do not know in what words,
my frightful suspicion, hitherto only known to two persons,
viz. his brother Henry and Mr. Frederic Rogers,1 that,
as regards my Anglicanism, perhaps I might break
down in the event, — that perhaps we were both out of the
Church. I think I recollect expressing my difficulty, as
derived from the Arian and Monophysite history, in a
form in which it would be most intelligible to him, as
being in fact an admission of Bishop Bull's ; viz. that in
the controversies of the early centuries the Roman Church
was ever on the right side, which was of course a primd facie
argument in favour of Rome and against Anglicanism
now. He answered me thus, under date of Jan. 29, 1842 :
"I don't think that I ever was so shocked by any com
munication, which was ever made to me, as by your letter
of this morning. It has quite unnerved me. ... I cannot
but write to you, though I am at a loss where to begin
... I know of no act by which we have dissevered our
selves from the communion of the Church Universal. . . .
1 Now Lord Blachford.

from 1841 to 1845. 163
The more I study Scripture, the more am I impressed
with the resemblance between the Romish principle in the
Church and the Babylon of St. John. ... I am ready
to grieve that I ever directed my thoughts to theology,
if it is indeed so uncertain, as your doubts seem to
indicate." While my old and true friends were thus in trouble
about me, I suppose they felt not only anxiety but pain, to
see that I was gradually surrendering myself to the influ
ence of others, who had not their own claims upon me,
younger men, and of a cast of mind in no small degree un
congenial to my own. A new school of thought was rising,
as is usual in doctrinal inquiries, and was sweeping the
original party of the Movement aside, and was taking its
place. The most prominent person in it, was a man of
elegant genius, of classical mind, of rare talent in literary
composition : — Mr. Oakeley. He was not far from my
own age ; I had long known him, though of late years he
had not been in residence at Oxford ; and quite lately, he
has been taking several signal occasions of renewing that
kindness, which he ever showed towards me when we were
both in the Anglican Church. His tone of mind was not
unlike that which gave a character to the early Movement ;
he was almost a typical Oxford man, and, as far as I recol
lect, both in political and ecclesiastical views, would have
been of one spirit with the Oriel party of 1826 — 1833.
But he had entered late into the Movement; he did not
know its first years ; and, beginning with a new start, he
was naturally thrown together with that body of eager,
acute, resolute minds who had begun their Catholic life
about the same time as he, who knew nothing about the
Via Media, but had heard much about Rome. This new
party rapidly formed and increased, in and out of Oxford,
and, as it so happened, contemporaneously with that very

164 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
summer, when I received so serious a blow to my ecclesi
astical views from the study of the Monophysite contro
versy. These men cut into the original Movement at an
angle, fell across its line of thought, and then set about
turning that line in its own direction. They were most of
them keenly religious men, with a true concern for their
souls as the first matter of all, with a great zeal for me,
but giving little certainty at the time as to which way they
would ultimately turn. Some in the event have remained
firm to Anglicanism, some have become Catholics, and
some have found a refuge in Liberalism. Nothing was
clearer concerning them, than that they needed to be kept
in order ; and on me who had had so much to do with the
making of them, that duty was as clearly incumbent ; and
it is equally clear, from what I have already said, that I
was just the person, above all others, who could not un
dertake it. There are no friends like old friends ; but of
those old friends, few could help me, few could understand
me, many were annoyed with me, some were angry,
because I was breaking up a compact party, and some, as
a matter of conscience, could not listen to me. When I
looked round for those whom I might consult in my diffi
culties, I found the very hypothesis of those difficulties
acting as a bar to their giving me their advice. Then I
said, bitterly, " You are throwing me on others, whether I
will or no." Yet still I had good and true friends around
me of the old sort, in and out Of Oxford too, who were a
great help to me. But on the other hand, though I neither
was so fond (with a few exceptions) of the persons, nor of
the methods of thought, which belonged to this new school,
as of the old set, though I could not trust in their firmness
of purpose, for, like a swarm of flies, they might come and
go, and at length be divided and dissipated, yet I had
an intense sympathy in their object and in the direction
in which their path lay, in spite of my old friends, in spite

FROM 1841 to 1845. 165
of my old life-long prejudices. In spite of my ingrained
fears of Rome, and the decision of my reason and con
science against her usages, in spite of my affection for
Oxford and Oriel, yet I had a secret longing love of Rome
the Mother of English Christianity, and I had a true devo-
tion to the Blessed Virgin, in whose College I lived, whose
Altar I served, and whose Immaculate Purity I had in one
of my earliest printed Sermons made much of. And it
was the consciousness of this bias in myself, if it is so to
be called, which made me preach so earnestly against the
danger of being swayed in religious inquiry by our sym
pathy rather than by our reason. And moreover, the
members of this new school looked up to me, as I have
said, and did me true kindnesses, and really loved me, and
stood by me in trouble, when others went away, and for
all this I was grateful ; nay, many of them were in
trouble themselves, and in the same boat with me, and
that was a further cause of sympathy between us; and
hence it was, when the new school came on in force, and
into collision with the old, I had not the heart, any more
than the power, to repel them ; I was in great perplexity,
and hardly knew where I stood ; I took their part ; and,
when I wanted to be in peace and silence, I had to speak
out, and I incurred the charge of weakness from some
men, and of mysteriousness, shuffling, and underhand
dealing from the majority.
Now I will say here frankly, that this sort of charge is a
matter which I cannot properly meet, because I cannot
duly realize it. I have never had any suspicion of my
own honesty ; and, when men say that I was dishonest, I
cannot grasp the accusation as a distinct conception, such
as it is possible to encounter. If a man said to me, " On
such a day and before such persons you said a thing was
white, when it was black," I understand what is meant

166 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
well enough, and I can set myself to prove an alibi or to
explain the mistake ; or if a man said to me, " You tried
to gain me over to your party, intending to take me with
you to Rome, but you did not succeed," I can give him
the lie, and lay down an assertion of my own as firm and
as exact as his, that not from the time that I was first un
settled, did I ever attempt to gain any one over to myself
or to my Romanizing opinions, and that it is only his own
coxcombical fancy which has bred such a thought in him :
but my imagination is at a loss in presence of those vague
charges, which have commonly been brought against me,
charges, which are made up of impressions, and under
standings, and inferences, and hearsay, and surmises.
Accordingly, I shall not make the attempt, for, in doing
so, I should be dealing blows in the air; what I shall
attempt is to state what I know of myself and what I
recollect, and leave to others its application.
While I had confidence in the Via Media, and thought
that nothing could overset it, I did not mind laying down
large principles, which I saw would go further than was
commonly perceived. I considered that to make the Via
Media concrete and substantive, it must be much more
than it was in outline; that the Anglican Church must
have a ceremonial, a ritual, and a fulness of doctrine and
devotion, which it had not at present, if it were to compete
with the Roman Church with any prospect of success.
Such additions would not remove it from its proper basis,
but would merely strengthen and beautify it : such, for
instance, would be confraternities, particular devotions,
reverence for the Blessed Virgin, prayers for the dead,
beautiful churches, munificent offerings to them and in
them, monastic houses, and many other observances and
institutions, which I used to say belonged to us as much
as to Rome, though Rome had appropriated them and
boasted of them, by reason of our having let them slip

from 1841 to 1845. 167
from us. The principle, on which all this turned, is
brought out in one of the Letters I published on occasion
of Tract 90. " The age is moving," I said, " towards
something; and most unhappily the one religious com
munion among us, which has of late years been practically
in possession of this something, is the Church of Rome.
She alone, amid all the errors and evils of her practical
system, has given free scope to the feelings of awe, mystery,
tenderness, reverence, devotedness, and other feelings
which may be especially called Catholic. The question
then is, whether we shall give them up to the Roman
Church or claim them for ourselves. . . . But if we do
give them up, we must give up the men who cherish them.
We must consent either to give up the men, or to admit
their principles." With these feelings I frankly admit,
that, while I was working simply for the sake of the
Anghcan Church, I did not at all mind, though I found
myself laying down principles in its defence, which went
beyond that particular kind of defence which high-and-dry
men thought perfection, and even though I ended in fram
ing a kind of defence, which they might call a revolution,
while I thought it a restoration. Thus, for illustration, I
might discourse upon the " Communion of Saints " in such
a manner (though I do not recollect doing so,) as might
lead the way towards devotion to the Blessed Virgin and
the Saints on the one hand, and towards prayers for the
dead on the other. In a memorandum of the year 1844 or
1845, 1 thus speak on this subject : " If the Church be not
defended on establishment grounds, it must be upon
principles, which go far beyond their immediate object.
Sometimes I saw these further results, sometimes not.
Though I saw them, I sometimes did not say that I saw
them : — so long as I thought they were inconsistent, not
with our Church, but only with the existing opinions, I

168 HISTORY, OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
was not unwilling to insinuate truths into our Church,
which I thought had a right to be there."
To so much I confess; but I do not confess, I simply
deny that I ever said any thing which secretly bore against
the Church of England, knowing it myself, in order that
others might unwarily accept it. It was indeed one of my
great difficulties and causes of reserve, as time went on,
that I at length recognized in principles which I had
honestly preached as if Anglican, conclusions favourable
to the cause of Rome. Of course I did not like to confess
this ; and, when interrogated, was in consequence in per
plexity. The prime instance of this was the appeal to
Antiquity ; St. Leo had overset, in my own judgment, its
force as the special argument for Anglicanism ; yet I was
committed to Antiquity, together with the whole Anglican
school ; what then was I to say, when acute minds urged
this or that application of it against the Via Media ? it was
impossible that, in such circumstances, any answer could
be given which was not unsatisfactory, or any behaviour
adopted which was not mysterious. Again, sometimes in
what I wrote I went just as far as I saw, and could as little
say more, as I could see what is below the horizon ; and
therefore, when asked as to the consequences of what I had
said, I had no answer to give. Again, sometimes when I
was asked, whether certain conclusions did not follow from
a certain principle, I might not be able to tell at the
moment, especially if the matter were complicated; and
for this reason, if for no other, because there is great differ
ence between a conclusion in the abstract and a conclusion
in the concrete, and because a conclusion may be modified
in fact by a conclusion from some opposite principle. Or
it might so happen that my head got simply confused, by
the very strength of the logic which was administered to
me, and thus I gave my sanction to conclusions which really

from 1841 to 1845. 169
were not mine ; and when the report of those conclusions
came round to me through others, I had to unsay them.
And then again, perhaps I did not like to see men scared
or scandalized by unf eeling logical inferences, which would
not have troubled them to the day of their death, had they
not been forced to recognize them. And then I felt alto
gether the force of the maxim of St. Ambrose, " Non in
dialectica complacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum ;" —
I had a great dislike of paper logic. For myself, it was
not logic that carried me on ; as well might one say that
the quicksilver in the barometer changes the weather. It
is the concrete being that reasons ; pass a number of years,
and I find my mind in a new place ; how ? the whole man
moves ; paper logic is but the record of it. All the logic
in the world would not have made me move faster towards
Rome than I did ; as well might you say that I have
arrived at the end of my journey, because I see the village
church before me, as venture to assert that the miles, over
which my soul had to pass before it got to Rome, could be •
annihilated, even though I had been in possession of some
far clearer view than I then had, that Rome was my ulti
mate destination. Great acts take time. At least this is
what I felt in my own case ; and therefore to come to me
with methods of logic had in it the nature of a provoca
tion, and, though I do not think I ever showed it, made
me somewhat indifferent how I met them, and perhaps led
me, as a means of relieving my impatience, to be mysteri
ous or irrelevant, or to give in because I could not meet
them to my satisfaction. And a greater trouble stiff than
these logical mazes, was the introduction of logic into
every subject whatever, so far, that is, as this was done.
Before I was at Oriel, I recollect an acquaintance saying
to me that " the Oriel Common Room stank of Logic."
One is not at all pleased when poetry, or eloquence, or

170 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
devotion, is considered as if chiefly intended to feed syllo
gisms. Now, in saying all this, I am saying nothing
against the deep piety and earnestness which were charac
teristics of this second phase of the Movement, in which I
had taken so prominent a part. What I have been
observing is, that this phase had a tendency to bewilder
and to upset me; and, that, instead of saying so, as I
ought to have done, perhaps from a sort of laziness I gave
answers at random, which have led to my appearing close
or inconsistent.
I have turned up two letters of this period, which in a
measure illustrate what I have been saying. The first was
written to the Bishop of Oxford on occasion of Tract 90 : —
" March 20, 1841. No one can enter into my situation
but myself. I see a great many minds working in various
directions and a variety of principles with multiplied bear
ings; I act for the best. I sincerely think that matters
would not have gone better for the Church, had I never
written. And if I write I have a choice of difficulties.
It is easy for those who do not enter into those difficulties
to say, ' He ought to say this and not say that,' but things
are wonderfully linked together, and I cannot, or rather I
would not be dishonest. When persons too interrogate
me, I am obliged in many cases to give an opinion, or I
seem to be underhand Keeping silence looks like artifice.
And I do not like people to consult or respect me, from
thinking differently of my opinions from what I know
them to be. And again (to use the proverb) what is one
man's food is another man's poison. All these things
make my situation very difficult. But that collision must
at some time ensue between members of the Church of
opposite sentiments, I have long been aware. The time
and mode have been in, the hand of Providence ; I do not
mean to exclude my own great imperfections in bringing

from 1841 to 1845. 171
it about; yet I still feel obliged to think the Tract
necessary." The second is taken from the notes of a letter which I
sent to Dr. Pusey in the next year : —
"October 16, 1842. As to my being entirely with
Ward, I do not know the limits of my own opinions. If
Ward says that this or that is a development from what
I have said, I cannot say Yes or No. It is plausible, it
may be true. Of course the fact that the Roman Church
has so developed and maintained, adds great weight to the
antecedent plausibility. I cannot assert that it is not
true ; but I cannot, with that keen perception which some
people have, appropriate it. It is a nuisance to me to be
forced beyond what I can fairly accept."
There was another source of the perplexity with which
at this time I was encompassed, and of the reserve and
mysteriousness, of which that perplexity gained for me the
credit. After Tract 90 the Protestant world would not let
me alone; they pursued me in the public journals to
Littlemore. Reports of all kinds were circulated about
me. "Imprimis, why did I go up to Littlemore at all?
For no good purpose certainly ; I dared not tell why."
Why, to be sure, it was hard that I should be obliged to
say to the Editors of newspapers that I went up there to
say my prayers ; it was hard to have to tell the world in
confidence, that I had a certain doubt about the Anglican
system, and could not at that moment resolve it, or say
what would come of it; it was hard to have to confess
that I had thought of giving up my Living a year or two
before, and that this was a first step to it. It was hard to
have to plead, that, for what I knew, my doubts would
vanish, if the newspapers would be so good as to give me
time and let me alone. Who would ever dream of making
the world his confidant ? yet I was considered insidious,

172 HISTORY. OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
sly, dishonest, if I would not open my heart to the tender
mercies of the world. But they persisted : " What was I
doing at Littlemore ? " Doing there ! have I not retreated
from you ? have I not given up my position and my place ?
am I alone, of Englishmen, not to have the privilege
to go where I will, no questions asked ? am I alone to
be followed about by jealous prying eyes, which take note
whether I go in at a back door or at the front, and who
the men are who happen to call on me in the afternoon ?
Cowards ! if I advanced one step, you would run away ; it
is not you that I fear : " Di me terrent, et Jupiter hostis."
It is because the Bishops still go on charging against
me, though I have quite given up: it is that secret mis
giving of heart which tells me that they do well, for I
have neither lot nor part with them: this it is which
weighs me down. I cannot walk into or out of my house,
but curious eyes are upon me. Why will you not let me
die in peace ? Wounded brutes creep into some hole to
die in, and no one grudges it them. Let me alone, I shall
not trouble you long. This was the keen feeling which
pierced me, and, I think, these are the very words in
which I expressed it to myself. I asked, in the words of
a great motto, " Ubi lapsus ? quid feci ? " One day when
I entered my house, I found a flight of Under-graduates
inside. Heads of Houses, as mounted patrols, walked
their horses round those poor cottages. Doctors of Di
vinity dived into the hidden recesses of that private tene
ment uninvited, and drew domestic conclusions from what
they saw there. I had thought that an Englishman's house
was his castle ; but the newspapers thought otherwise, and
at last the matter came before my good Bishop. I insert
his letter, and a portion of my reply to him : —
" April 12, 1842. So many of the charges against your
self and your friends which I have seen in the public
journals have been, within my own knowledge, false and

from 1841 to 1845. 173
calumnious, that I am not apt to pay much attention to
what is asserted with respect to you in the newspapers.
"In" [a newspaper] "however, of April 9, there
appears a paragraph in which it is asserted, as a matter
of notoriety, that a ' so-called Anglo-Catholic Monastery
is in process of erection at Littlemore, and that the cells
of dormitories, the chapel, the refectory, the cloisters all
may be seen advancing to perfection, under the eye of a
Parish Priest of the Diocese of Oxford.'
" Now, as I have understood that you really are possessed
of some tenements at Littlemore, — as it is generally be
lieved that they are destined for the purposes of study and
devotion, — and as much suspicion and jealousy are felt
about the matter, I am anxious to afford you an oppor
tunity of making me an explanation on the subject.
" I know you too well not to be aware that you are the
last man living to attempt in my Diocese a revival of the
Monastic orders (in any thing approaching to the Romanist
sense of the term) without previous communication with
me, — or indeed that you should take upon yourself to
originate any measure of importance without authority
from the heads of the Church, — and therefore I at once
exonerate you from the accusation brought against you by
the newspaper I have quoted, but I feel it nevertheless a
duty to my Diocese and myself, as well as to you, to ask
you to put it in my power to contradict what, if uncon
tradicted, would appear to imply a glaring invasion of all
ecclesiastical discipline on your part, or of inexcusable
neglect and indifference to my duties on mine."
I wrote in answer as follows : —
" April 14, 1842. I am very much obliged by your
Lordship's kindness in allowing me to write to you on the
subject of my house at Littlemore ; at the same time I feel
it hard both on your Lordship and myself that the rest-

174 history of my religious opinions
lessness of the public mind should oblige you to require an
explanation of me.
" It is now a whole year that I have been the subject of
incessant misrepresentation. A year since I submitted
entirely to your Lordship's authority; and, with the in
tention of following out the particular act enjoined upon
me, I not only stopped the series of Tracts, on which I
was engaged, but withdrew from all public discussion of
Church matters of the day, or what may be called ecclesi
astical politics. I turned myself at once to the prepara
tion for the Press of the translations of St. Athanasius to
which I had long wished to devote myself, and I intended
and intend to employ myself in the like theological studies,
and in the concerns of my own parish and in practical
works. "With the same view of personal improvement I was
led more seriously to a design which had been long on my
mind. For many years, at least thirteen, I have wished
to give myself to a life of greater religious regularity than
I have hitherto led ; but it is very unpleasant to confess
such a wish even to my Bishop, because it seems arrogant,
and because it is committing me to a profession which
may come to nothing. For what have I done that I am
to be called to account by the world for my private actions,
in a way in which no one else is called ? Why may I not
have that liberty which all others are allowed ? I am often
accused of being underhand and uncandid in respect to the
intentions to which I have been alluding : but no one likes
his own good resolutions noised about, both from mere
common delicacy and from fear lest he should not be able
to fulfil them. I feel it very cruel, though the parties in
fault do not know what they are doing, that very sacred
matters between me and my conscience are made a matter
of public talk. May I take a case parallel though dif-

from 1841 to 1845. 175
ferent ? suppose a person in prospect of marriage ; would
he like the subject discussed in newspapers, and parties,
circumstances, &c, &c, publicly demanded of him, at
the penalty of being accused of craft and duplicity ?
"The resolution I speak of has been taken with refer
ence to myself alone, and has been contemplated quite
independent of the co-operation of any other human being,
and without reference to success or failure other than per
sonal, and without regard to the blame or approbation of
man. And being a resolution of years, and one to which
I feel God has called me, and in which I am violating no
rule of the Church any more than if I married, I should
have to answer for it, if I did not pursue it, as a good
Providence made openings for it. In pursuing it then I
am thinking of myself alone, not aiming at any ecclesiasti
cal or external effects. At the same time of course it would
be a great comfort to me to know that God had put it into
the hearts of others to pursue their personal edification in
the same way, and unnatural not to wish to have the
benefit of their presence and encouragement, or not to
think it a great infringement on the rights of conscience
if such personal and private resolutions were interfered
with. Your Lordship will allow me to add my firm con
viction that such religious resolutions are most necessary
for keeping a certain class of minds firm in their allegiance
to our Church ; but still I can as truly say that my own
reason for any thing I have done has been a personal one,
without which I should not have entered upon it, and
which I hope to pursue whether with or without the sym
pathies of others pursuing a similar course 
" As to my intentions, I purpose to live there*myself a
good deal, as I have a resident curate in Oxford. In doing
this, I beheve I am consulting for the good of my parish,
as my population at Littlemore is at least equal to that of
St. Mary's in Oxford, and the whole of Littlemore is double

176 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
of it. It has been very much neglected ; and in providing
a parsonage-house at Littlemore, as this wiU be, and will
be called, I conceive I am doing a very great benefit to
my people. At the same time it has appeared to me that
a partial or temporary retirement from St. Mary's Church
might be expedient under the prevailing excitement.
"As to the quotation from the [newspaper], which I
have not seen, your Lordship wiU perceive from what I
have said, that no 'monastery is in process of erection;'
there is no ' chapel ; ' no ' refectory,' hardly a dining-room
or parlour. The 'cloisters' are my shed connecting the
cottages. I do not understand what ' cells of dormitories '
means. Of course I can repeat your Lordship's words
that 'I am not attempting a revival of the Monastic
Orders, in any thing approaching to the Romanist sense
of the term,' or ' taking on myself to originate any measure
of importance without authority from the Heads of the
Church.' I am attempting nothing ecclesiastical, but
something personal and private, and which can only be
made public, not private, by newspapers and letter- writers,
in which sense the most sacred and conscientious resolves
and acts may certainly be made the objects of an unman
nerly and unfeeling curiosity."
One calumny there was which the Bishop did not be
lieve, and of which of course he had no idea of speaking.
It was that I was actually in the service of the enemy. I
had forsooth been already received into the Catholic
Church, and was rearing at Littlemore a nest of Papists,
who, like me, were to take the Anglican oaths which they
disbelieved, by virtue of a dispensation from Rome, and
thus in due time were to bring over to that unprincipled
Church great numbers of the Anglican Clergy and Laity.
Bishops gave their countenance to this imputation against
me. The case was simply this : — as I made Littlemore a

from 1841 to 1845. 177
place of retirement for myself, so did I offer it to others.
There were young men in Oxford, whose testimonials for
Orders had been refused by their Colleges; there were
young clergymen, who had found themselves unable from
conscience to go on with their duties, and had thrown up
their parochial engagements. Such men were already
going straight to Rome, and I interposed; I interposed
for the reasons I have given in the beginning of this por
tion of my narrative. I interposed from fidelity to my
clerical engagements, and from duty to my Bishop ; and
from the interest which I was bound to take in them, and
from belief that they were premature or excited. Their
friends besought me to quiet them, if I could. Some of
them came to live with me at Littlemore. They were lay
men, or in the place of laymen. I kept some of them
back for several years from being received into the Catho
lic Church. Even when I had given up my living, I was
still bound by my duty to their parents or friends, and I
did not forget still to do what I could for them. The
immediate occasion of my resigning St. Mary's, was the
unexpected conversion of one of them. After that, I felt
it was impossible to keep my post there, for I had been
unable to keep my word with my Bishop.
The following letters refer, more or less, to these men,
whether they were actually with me at Littlemore or
not: —
1. "March 6, 1842. Church doctrines are a powerful
weapon; they were not sent into the world for nothing.
God's word does not return unto Him void: If I have
said, as I have, that the doctrines of the Tracts for the
Times would build up our Church and destroy parties, I
meant, if they were used, not if they were denounced
Else, they will be as powerful against us, as they might
be powerful for us.
"If people who have a liking for another, hear him
N

178 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
called a Roman Catholic, they will say, ' Then after all
Romanism is no such bad thing.' All these persons, who
are making the cry, are fulfilling their own prophecy.
If all the world agree in telling a man, he has no business
in our Church, he will at length begin to think he has
none. How easy is it to persuade a man of any thing,
when numbers affirm it ! so great is the force of imagina
tion. Did every one who met you in the streets look hard
at you, you would think you were somehow in fault. I do
not know any thing so irritating, so unsettling, especially
in the case of young persons, as, when they are going on
calmly and unconsciously, obeying their Church and fol
lowing its divines (I am speaking from facts,) as sud
denly to their surprise to be conjured not to make a leap,
of which they have not a dream and from which they are
far removed."
2. 1843 or 1844. " I did not explain to you sufficiently
the state of mind of those who were in danger. I only
spoke of those who were convinced that our Church was
external to the Church Catholic, though they felt it unsafe
to trust their own private convictions ; but there are two
other states of mind; 1. that of those who are uncon
sciously near Rome, and whose despair about our Church
would at once develope into a state of conscious approxi
mation, or a guas-i-resolution to go over ; 2. those who feel
they can with a safe conscience remain with us while they
are allowed to testify in behalf of Catholicism, i.e. as if by
such acts they were putting our Church, or at least that
portion of it in which they were included, in the position
of catechumens."
3. "June 20, 1843. I return the very pleasing letter
you have permitted me to read. What a sad thing it is,
that it should be a plain duty to restrain one's sympathies,
and to keep them from boiling over ; but I suppose it is a
matter of common prudence.

from 1841 to 1845. 179
"Things are very serious here; but I should not like
you to say so, as it might do no good. The Authorities
find, that, by the Statutes, they have more than military
power ; and the general impression seems to be, that they
intend to exert it, and put down Catholicism at any risk.
I believe that by the Statutes, they can pretty nearly
suspend a Preacher, as seditiosus or causing dissension,
without assigning their grounds in the particular case,
nay, banish him, or imprison him. If so, all holders of
preferment in the University should make as quiet an
exit as they can. There is more exasperation on both
sides at this moment, as I am told, than ever there was."
4. "July 16, 1843. I assure you that I feel, with only
too much sympathy, what you say. You need not be told
that the whole subject of our position is a subject of
anxiety to others beside yourself. It is no good attempt
ing to offer advice, when perhaps I might raise difficulties
instead of removing them. It seems to me quite a case,
in which you should, as far as may be, make up your mind
for yourself. Come to Littlemore by all means. We shall
all rejoice in your company ; and, if quiet and retirement
are able, as they very likely will be, to reconcile you to
things as they are, you shall have your fill of them. How
distressed poor Henry Wilberforce must be ! Knowing
how he values you, I feel for him ; but, alas ! he has his
own position, and every one else has his own, and the
misery is that no two of us have exactly the same.
" It is very kind of you to be so frank and open with
me, as you are ; but this is a time which throws together
persons who feel alike. May I without taking a liberty
sign myself, yours affectionately, &c."
5. "August 30, 1843. A. B. has suddenly conformed
to the Church of Rome. He was away for three weeks.
I suppose I must say in my defence, that he promised me

180 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
distinctly to remain in our Church three years, before I
received him here."
6. " June 17, 1845. I am concerned to find you speak
of me in a tone of distrust. If you knew me ever so little,
instead of hearing of me from persons who do not know me
at all, you would think differently of me, whatever you
thought of my opinions. Two years since, I got your son
to tell you my intention of resigning St. Mary's, before I
made it public, thinking you ought to know it. When
you expressed some painful feeling upon it, I told him I
could not consent to his remaining here, painful as it
would be to me to part with him, without your written
sanction. And this you did me the favour to give.
" I believe you will find that it has been merely a deli
cacy on your son's part, which has delayed his speaking to
you about me for two months past; a delicacy, lest he
should say either too much or too little about me. I have
urged him several times to speak to you.
" Nothing can be done after your letter, but to recom
mend him to go to A. B. (his home) at once. I am very
sorry to part with him."
7. The following letter is addressed to Cardinal Wise
man, then Vicar Apostolic, who accused me of coldness in
my conduct towards him : —
"April 16, 1845. I was at that time in charge of a
ministerial office in the English Church, with persons
entrusted to me, and a Bishop to obey ; how could I pos
sibly write otherwise than I did without violating sacred
obligations and betraying momentous interests which were
upon me? I felt that my immediate, undeniable duty,
clear if any thing was clear, wras to fulfil that trust. It
might be right indeed to give it up, that was another
thing; but it never could be right to hold it, and to act
as if I did not hold it  .If you knew me, you

from 1841 to 1845. 181
would acquit me, I think, of having ever felt towards your
Lordship in an unfriendly spirit, or ever having had a
shadow on my mind (as far as I dare witness about myself)
of what might be called controversial rivalry or desire of
getting the better, or fear lest the world should think I
had got the worse, or irritation of any kind. You are too
kind indeed to imply this, and yet your words lead me to
say it. And now in like manner, pray believe, though I
cannot explain it to you, that I am encompassed with
responsibilities, so great and so various, as utterly to over
come me, unless I have mercy from Him, who all through
my life has sustained and guided me, and to whom I can
now submit myself, though men of all parties are thinking
evil of me."
Such fidelity, however, was taken in malam partem by
the high Anglican authorities ; they thought it insidious.
I happen still to have a correspondence which took place
in 1843, in which the chief place is filled by one of
the most eminent Bishops of the day, a theologian and
reader of the Fathers, a moderate man, who at one time was
talked of as likely on a vacancy to succeed to the Primacy.
A young clergyman in his diocese became a Catholic ; the
papers at once reported on authority from " a very high
quarter," that, after his reception, "the Oxford men had
been recommending him to retain his living." I had
reasons for thinking that the allusion was made to me, and
I authorized the Editor of a Paper, who had inquired of me
on the point, to "give it, as far as I was concerned, an
unqualified contradiction ; " — when from a motive of deli
cacy he hesitated, I added " my direct and indignant con
tradiction." " Whoever is the author of it," I continued
to the Editor, "no correspondence or intercourse of any
kind, direct or indirect, has passed between Mr. S. and
myself, since his conforming to the Church of Rome,

182 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
except my formally and merely acknowledging the receipt
of his letter, in which he informed me of the fact, without,
as far as I recollect, my expressing any opinion upon it.
You may state this as broadly as I have set it down." My
denial was told to the Bishop ; what took place upon it is
given in a letter from which I copy. " My father showed
the letter to the Bishop, who, as he laid it down, said,
' Ah, those Oxford men are not ingenuous.' ' How do you
mean ? ' asked my father. ' Why,' said the Bishop, ' they
advised Mr. B. S. to retain his living after he turned
Catholic. I know that to be a fact, because A. B. told me
so.'" "The Bishop," continues the letter, "who is per
haps the most influential man in reality on the bench,
evidently believes it to be the truth." Upon this Dr.
Pusey wrote in my behalf to the Bishop ; and the Bishop
instantly beat a retreat. " I have the honour," he says in
the autograph which I transcribe, "to acknowledge the
receipt of your note, and to say in reply that it has not
been stated by me, (though such a statement has, I believe,
appeared in some of the Public Prints,) that Mr. Newman
had advised Mr. B. S. to retain his living, after he had
forsaken our Church. But it has been stated to me, that
Mr. Newman was in close correspondence with Mr. B. S.,
and, being fully aware of his state of opinions and feelings,
yet advised him to continue in our communion. Allow
me to add," he says to Dr. Pusey, " that neither your
name, nor that of Mr. Keble, was mentioned to me in con
nexion with that of Mr. B. S."
I was not going to let the Bishop off on this evasion, so
I wrote to him myself. After quoting his Letter to Dr.
Pusey, I continued, '' I beg to trouble your Lordship with
my own account of the two allegations " [close correspond
ence and fully aware, &c] " which are contained in your
statement, and which have led to your speaking of me in
terms which I hope never to deserve, 1. Since Mr, B, S,

from 1841 to 1845. 183
has been in your Lordship's diocese, I have seen him in
Common rooms or private parties in Oxford two or three
times, when I never (as far as I can recollect) had any
conversation with him. During the same time I have, to
the best of my memory, written to him three letters. One
was lately, in acknowledgment of his informing me of his
change of religion. Another was last summer, when I
asked him (to no purpose) to come and stay with me in
this place. The earliest of the three letters was written
just a year since, as far as I recollect, and it certainly was
on the subject of his joining the Church of Rome. I wrote
this letter at the earnest wish of a friend of his. I cannot
be sure that, on his replying, I did not send him a brief
note in explanation of points in my letter which he had
misapprehended. I cannot recollect any other correspond
ence between us.
"2. As to my knowledge of his opinions and feelings,
as far as I remember, the only point of perplexity which I
knew, the only point which to this hour I know, as press
ing upon him, was that of the Pope's supremacy. He pro
fessed to be searching Antiquity whether the see of Rome
had formerly that relation to the whole Church which
Roman Catholics now assign to it. My letter was directed
to the point, that it was his duty not to perplex himself
with arguments on [such] a question, . . . and to put it
altogether aside. ... It is hard that I am put upon my
memory, without knowing the details of the statement
made against me, considering the various correspondence
in which I am from time to time unavoidably engaged. . . .
Be assured, my Lord, that there are very definite limits,
beyond which persons like me would never urge another
to retain preferment in the English Church, nor would
retain it themselves ; and that the censure which has been
directed against them by so many of its Rulers has a very
grave bearing upon those limits." The Bishop replied in

184 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
a civil letter, and sent my own letter to his original in
formant, who wrote to me the letter of a gentleman. It
seems that an anxious lady had said something or other
which had been misinterpreted, against her real meaning,
into the calumny which was circulated, and so the report
vanished into thin air. I closed the correspondence with
the following Letter to the Bishop : —
" I hope your Lordship will believe me when I say, that
statements about me, equally incorrect with that which
has come to your Lordship's ears, are from time to time
reported to me as credited and repeated by the highest
authorities in our Church, though it is very seldom that I
have the opportunity of denying them. I am obliged by
your Lordship's letter to Dr. Pusey as giving me such an
opportunity." Then I added, with a purpose, "Your
Lordship will observe that in my Letter I had no occasion
to proceed to the question, whether a person holding
Roman Catholic opinions can in honesty remain in our
Church. Lest then any misconception should arise from
my silence, I here take the liberty of adding, that I see
nothing wrong in such a person's continuing in commu
nion with us, provided he holds no preferment or office,
abstains from the management of ecclesiastical matters,
and is bound by no subscription or oath to our doctrines."
This was written on March 8, 1843, and was in antici
pation of my own retirement into lay communion. This
again leads me to a remark : — for two years I was in lay
communion, not indeed being a Catholic in my convictions,
but in a state of serious doubt, and with the probable pro
spect of becoming some day, what as yet I was not. Under
these circumstances I thought the best thing I could do
was to give up duty and to throw myself into lay commu
nion, remaining an Anglican. I Could not go to Rome,
while I thought what I did of the devotions she sanctioned
to the BJessed Virgin and the Saints, I did not give up

from 1841 to 1845. 185
my fellowship, for I could not be sure that my doubts
would not be reduced or overcome, however unlikely I
might consider such an event. But I gave up my living ;
and, for two years before my conversion, I took no clerical
duty. My last Sermon was in September, 1843 ; then I
remained at Littlemore in quiet for two years. But it was
made a subject of reproach to me at the time, and is at
this day, that I did not leave the Anglican Church sooner.
To me this seems a wonderful charge ; why, even had I
been quite sure that Rome was the true Church, the
Anglican Bishops would have had no just subject of com
plaint against me, provided I took no Anglican oath, no
clerical duty, no ecclesiastical administration. Do they
force all men who go to their Churches to believe in the
39 Articles, or to join in the Athanasian Creed ? How
ever, I was to have other measure dealt to me; great
authorities ruled it so; and a great controversialist, Mr.
Stanley Faber, thought it a shame that I did not leave the
Church of England as much as ten years sooner than I
did. He said this in print between the years 1847 and
1849. His nephew, an Anglican clergyman, kindly
wished to undeceive him on this point. So, in the latter
year, after some correspondence, I wrote the following
letter, which will be of service to this narrative, from its
chronological notes : —
" Dec. 6, 1849. Your uncle says, ' If he (Mr. N.) will
declare, sans phrase, as the French say, that I have
laboured under an entire mistake, and that he was not a
concealed Romanist during the ten years in question,' (I
suppose, the last ten years of my membership with the
Anglican Church,) 'or during any part of the time, my
controversial antipathy will be at an end, and I will
readily express to him that I am truly sorry that I have
made such a mistake.'
" So candid an avowal is what I should have expected

186 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
from a mind like your uncle's. I am extremely glad he
has brought it to this issue.
" By a ' concealed Romanist' I understand him to mean
one, who, professing to belong to the Church of England,
in his heart and will intends to benefit the Church of
Rome, at the expense of the Church of England. He
cannot mean by the expression merely a person who
in fact is benefiting the Church of Rome, while he is in
tending to benefit the Church of England, for that is no
discredit to him morally, and he (your uncle) evidently
means to impute blame.
" In the sense in which I have explained the words, I
can simply and honestly say that I was not a concealed
Romanist during the whole, or any part of, the years in
question. " For the first four years of the ten, (up to Michaelmas,
1839,) I honestly wished to benefit the Church of England,
at the expense of the Church of Rome :
" For the second four years I wished to benefit the
Church of England without prejudice to the Church of
Rome: "At the beginning of the ninth year (Michaelmas,
1843) I began to despair of the Church of England, and
gave up all clerical duty ; and then, what I wrote and did
was influenced by a mere wish not to injure it, and not by
the wish to benefit it :
" At the beginning of the tenth year I distinctly con
templated leaving it, but I also distinctly told my friends
that it was in my contemplation.
" Lastly, during the last half of that tenth year I was
engaged in writing a book (Essay on Development) in
favour of the Roman Church, and indirectly against the
English; but even then, till it was finished, I had not
absolutely intended to publish it, wishing to reserve to
myself the chance of changing my mind when the argu-

from 1841 .to 1845. 187
mentative views which were actuating me had been dis
tinctly brought out before me in writing.
"I wish this statement, which I make from memory,
and without consulting any document, severely tested by
my writings and doings, as I am confident it will, on the
whole, be borne out, whatever real or apparent exceptions
(I suspect none) have to be allowed by me in detail.
" Your uncle is at liberty to make what use he pleases
of this explanation."
I have now reached an important date in my narrative,
the year 1843 ; but before proceeding to the matters which
it contains, I will insert portions of my letters from 1841
to 1843, addressed to Catholic acquaintances.
1. "April 8, 1841. ... The unity of the Church
Catholic is very near my heart, only I do not see any
prospect of it in our time; and I despair of its being
effected without great sacrifices on all hands. As to
resisting the Bishop's will, I observe that no point of
doctrine or principle was in dispute, but a course of action,
the publication of certain works. I do not think you
sufficiently understood our position. I suppose you would
obey the Holy See in such a case ; now, when we were
separated from the Pope, his authority reverted to our
Diocesans. Our Bishop is our Pope. It is our theory,
that each diocese is an integral Church, intercommunion
being a duty, (and the breach of it a sin,) but not essential
to Catholicity. To have resisted my Bishop, would have
been to place myself in an utterly false position, which I
never could have recovered. Depend upon it, the strength
of any party lies in its being true to its theory. Con
sistency is the life of a movement.
"I have no misgivings whatever that the line I have
taken can be other than a prosperous one : that is, in itself,

188 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
for of course Providence may refuse to us its legitimate
issues for our sins.
" I am afraid, that in one respect you may be disap
pointed. It is my trust, though I must not be too san
guine, that we shall not have individual members of our
communion going over to yours. What one's duty would
be under other circumstances, what our duty ten or twenty
years ago, I cannot say ; but I do think that there is less
of private judgment in going with one's Church, than in
leaving it. I can earnestly desire a union between my
Church and yours. I cannot listen to the thought of your
being joined by individuals among us."
2. "April 26, 1841. My only anxiety is lest your
branch of the Church should not meet us by those reforms
which surely are necessary. It never could be, that so
large a portion of Christendom should have split off from
the communion of Rome, and kept up a protest for 300
years for nothing. I think I never shall believe that so
much piety and earnestness would be found among Pro
testants, if there were not some very grave errors on the
side of Rome. To suppose the contrary is most unreal,
and violates all one's notions of moral probabilities. All
aberrations are founded on, and have their life in, some
truth or other — and Protestantism, so widely spread and
so long enduring, must have in it, and must be witness
for, a great truth or much truth. That I am an advocate
for Protestantism, you cannot suppose ; — but I am forced
into a Via Media, short of Rome, as it is at present."
3. "May 5, 1841. While I most sincerely hold that
there is in the Roman Church a traditionary system which
is not necessarily connected with her essential formularies,
yet, were I ever so much to change my mind on this point,
this would not tend to bring me from my present position,
providentially appointed in the English Church. That
your communion was unassailable, would not prove that

from 1841 to 1845. 189
mine was indefensible. Nor would it at all affect the
sense in which I receive our Articles ; they would still
speak against certain definite errors, though you had
reformed them.
" I say this lest any lurking suspicion should be left in
the mind of your friends that persons who think with me
are likely, by the growth of their present views, to find it
imperative on them to pass over to your communion.
Allow me to state strongly, that if you have any such
thoughts, and proceed to act upon them, your friends will
be committing a fatal mistake. We have (I trust) the
principle and temper of obedience too intimately wrought
into us to allow of our separating ourselves from our eccle
siastical superiors because in many points we may sympa
thize with others. We have too great a horror of the
principle of private judgment to trust it in so immense
a matter as that of changing from one communion to
another. We may be cast out of our communion, or it
may decree heresy to be truth, — you shall say whether
such contingencies are likely ; but I do not see other con
ceivable causes of our leaving the Church in which we
were baptized.
"For myself, persons must be well acquainted with
what I have written before they venture to say whether
I have much changed my main opinions and cardinal
views in the course of the last eight years. That my
sympathies have grown towards the religion of Rome I do
not deny ; that my reasons for shunning her communion
have lessened or altered it would be difficult perhaps to
prove. And I wish to go by reason, not by feeling."
4. "June 18, 1841. You urge persons whose views
agree with mine to commence a movement in behalf of a
union between the Churches. Now in the letters I have
written, I have uniformly said that I did not expect that
union in our time, and have discouraged the notion of all

190 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
sudden proceedings with a view to it I must ask your
leave to repeat on this occasion most distinctly, that I
cannot be party to any agitation, but mean to remain
quiet in my own place, and to do all I can to make others
take the same course. This I conceive to be my simple
duty ; but, over and above this, I will not set my teeth on
edge with sour grapes. I know it is quite within the
range of possibilities that one or another of our people
should go over to your communion ; however, it would he
a greater misfortune to you than grief to us. If your
friends wish to put a gulf between themselves and us, let
them make converts, but not else. Some months ago, I
ventured to say that I felt it a painful duty to keep aloof
from all Roman Catholics who came with the intention of
opening negotiations for the union of the Churches : when
you now urge us to petition our Bishops for a union, this,
I conceive, is very like an act of negotiation."
5. I have the first sketch or draft of a letter, which
I wrote to a zealous Catholic layman : it runs as follows,
as far as I have preserved it, but I think there were
various changes and additions: — "September 12, 1841.
It would rejoice all Catholic minds among us, more
than words can say, if you could persuade members of the
Church of Rome to take the line in politics which you so
earnestly advocate. Suspicion and distrust are the main
causes at present of the separation between us, and the
nearest approaches in doctrine will but increase the hos
tility, which, alas, our people feel towards yours, while
these causes continue. Depend upon it, you must not
rely upon our Catholic tendencies till they are removed.
I am not speaking of myself, or of any friends of mine ;
but of our Church generally. Whatever our personal
feelings may be, we shall but tend to raise and spread a
rival Church to yours in the four quarters of the world,
unless you do what none but you can do. Sympathies,
which would flow over to the Church of Rome, as a matter

from 1841 to 1845. 191
of course, did she admit them, will but be developed in the
consolidation of our own system, if she continues to be the
object of our suspicions and fears. I wish, of course I do,
that our own Church may be built up and extended, but
still, not at the cost of the Church of Rome, not in oppo
sition to it. I am sure, that, while you suffer, we suffer
too from the separation; but we cannot remove the ob
stacles ; it is with you to do so. You do not fear us ; we
fear you. Till we cease to fear you, we cannot love you.
" While you are in your present position, the friends of
Catholic unity in our Church are but fulfilling the pre
diction of those of your body who are averse to them, viz.
that they will be merely strengthening a rival communion
to yours. Many of you say that we, are your greatest
enemies ; we have said so ourselves : so we are, so we shall
be, as things stand at present. We are keeping people
from you, by supplying their wants in our own Church.
We are keeping persons from you : do you wish us to keep
them from you for a time or for ever ? It rests with you
to determine. I do not fear that you will succeed among
us ; you will not supplant our Church in the affections of
the English nation ; only through the English Church can
you act upon the English nation. I wish of course our
Church should be consolidated, with and through and in
your communion, for its sake, and your sake, and for the
sake of unity.
" Are you aware that the more serious thinkers among
us are used, as far as they dare form an opinion, to regard
the spirit of Liberalism as the characteristic of the destined
Antichrist? In vain does any one clear the Church of
Rome from the badges of Antichrist, in which Protestants
would invest her, if she deliberately takes up her position
in the very quarter, whither we have cast them, when we
took them off from her. Antichrist is described as the
avofnos, as exalting himself above the yoke of religion and

192 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
law. The spirit of lawlessness came in with the Refor
mation, and Liberalism is its offspring.
"And now I fear I am going to pain you by telling
you, that you consider the approaches in doctrine on our
part towards you, closer than they really are. I cannot
help repeating what I have many times said in print, that
your services and devotions to St. Mary in matter of fact
do most deeply pain me. I am only stating it as a fact.
" Again, I have nowhere said that I can accept the de
crees of Trent throughout, nor implied it. The doctrine of
Transubstantiation is a great difficulty with me, as being,
as I think, not primitive. Nor have I said that our Arti
cles in all respects admit of a Roman interpretation ; the
very word ' Transubstantiation ' is disowned in them.
" Thus, you see, it is not merely on grounds of expedi
ence that we do not join you. There are positive difficul
ties in the way of it. And, even if there were not, we
shall have no divine warrant for doing so, while we think
that the Church of England is a branch of the true
Church, and that intercommunion with the rest of Chris
tendom is necessary, not for the life of a particular
Church, but for its health only. I have never disguised
that there are actual circumstances in the Church of
Rome, which pain me much; of the removal of these I
see no chance, while we join you one by one ; but if our
Church were prepared for a union, she might make her
terms ; she might gain the cup ; she might protest against
the extreme honours paid to St. Mary ; she might make
some explanation of the doctrine of Transubstantiation.
I am not prepared to say that a reform in other branches
of the Roman Church would be necessary for our uniting
with them, however desirable in itself, so that we were
allowed to make a reform in our own country. We do
not look towards Rome as believing that its communion is
infallible, but that union is a duty."

from 1841 to 1845. 193
6. The following letter was occasioned by the present
made to me of a book by the friend to whom it is written ;
more will be said on the subject of it presently : —
" Nov. 22, 1842. I only wish that your Church were
more known among us by such writings. You will not
interest us in her, till we see her, not in politics, but in
her true functions of exhorting, teaching, and guiding.
I wish there were a chance of making the leading men
among you understand, what I believe is no novel thought
to yourself. It is not by learned discussions, or acute
arguments, or reports of miracles, that the heart of Eng
land can be gained. It is by men ' approving themselves,'
like the Apostle, ' ministers of Christ.'
"As to your question, whether the Volume you have
sent is not calculated to remove my apprehensions that
another gospel is substituted for the true one in your
practical instructions, before I can answer it in any way,
I ought to know how far the Sermons which it comprises
are selected from a number, or whether they are the whole,
or such as the whole, which have been published of the
author's. I assure you, or at least I trust, that, if it is
ever clearly brought home to me that I have been wrong
in what I have said on this subject, my public avowal of
tljiat conviction will only be a question of time with me.
" If, however, you saw our Church as we see it, you
would easily understand that such a change of feeling, did
it take place, would have no necessary tendency, which
you seem to expect, to draw a person from the Church of
England to that of Rome. There is a divine life among
us, clearly manifested, in spite of all our disorders, which
is as great a note of the Church, as any can be. Why
should we seek our Lord's presence elsewhere, when He
vouchsafes it to us where we are ? What call have we to
change our communion ?
" Roman Catholics will find this to be the state of things
o

194 HISTORY of my religious opinions
in time to come, whatever promise they may fancy there
is of a large secession to their Church. This man or that
may leave us, but there will be no general movement.
There is, indeed, an incipient movement of our Church
towards yours, and this your leading men are doing all
they can to frustrate by their unwearied efforts at all
risks to carry off individuals. When will they know their
position, and embrace a larger and wiser policy ? "

§ 2.
The letter which I have last inserted, is addressed to
my dear friend, Dr. Russell, the present President of May-
nooth. He had, perhaps, more to do with my conversion
than any one else. He called upon me, in passing through
Oxford in the summer of 1841, and I think I took him
over some of the buildings of the University. He called
again another summer, on his way from Dublin to London.
I do not recollect that he said a word on the subject of
religion on either occasion. He sent me at different times
several letters ; he was always gentle, mild, unobtrusive,
uncontroversial. He let me alone. He also gave me
one or two books. Veron's Rule of Faith and some
Treatises of the Wallenburghs was one; a volume of
St. Alfonso Liguori's Sermons was another; and it is
to those Sermons that my letter to Dr. Russell relates.
Now it must be observed that the writings of St. Alfonso,
as I knew them by the extracts commonly made from
them, prejudiced me as much against the Roman Church
as any thing else, on account of what was called their
" Mariolatry ; " but there was nothing of the kind in this
book. I wrote to ask Dr. Russell whether any thing had

from 1841 to 1845. 195
been left out in the translation; he answered that there
certainly were omissions in one Sermon about the Blessed
Virgin. This omission, in the case of a book intended for
Catholics, at least showed that such passages as are found
in the works of Italian Authors were not acceptable to
every part of the Catholic world. Such devotional mani
festations in honour of our Lady had been my great crux
as regards Catholicism ; I say frankly, I do not fully enter
into them now ; I trust I do not love her the less, because
I cannot enter into them. They may be fully explained
and defended; but sentiment and taste do not run with
logic : they are suitable for Italy, but they are not suitable
for England. But, over and above England, my own ease
was special ; from a boy I had been led to consider that
my Maker and I, His creature, were the two beings,
luminously such, in rerum natura. I will not here specu
late, however, about my own feelings. Only this I know
full well now, and did not know then, that the Catholic
Church allows no image of any sort, material or imma
terial, no dogmatic symbol, no rite, no sacrament, no
Saint, not even the Blessed Virgin herself, to come be
tween the soul and its Creator. It is face to face, " solus
cum solo," in all matters between man and his God. He
alone creates; He alone has redeemed; before His awful
eyes we go in death ; in the vision of Him is our eternal
beatitude. 1. Solus cum solo : — I recollect but indistinctly what I
gained from the Volume of which I have been speaking ;
but it must have been something considerable. At least I
had got a key to a difficulty ; in these Sermons, (or rather
heads of sermons, as they seem to be, taken down by a
hearer,) there is much of what would be called legendary
illustration ; but the substance of them is plain, practical,
awful preaching upon the great truths of salvation. What
I can speak of with greater confidence is the effect produced

196 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
on me a little later by studying the Exercises of St. Igna
tius. For here again, in a matter consisting in the purest
and most direct acts of religion, — in the intercourse be
tween God and the soul, during a season of recollection, of
repentance, of good resolution, of inquiry into vocation, —
the soul was " sola cum solo ; " there was no. cloud inter
posed between the creature and the Object of his faith and
love. The command practically enforced was, " My son,
give Me thy heart." The devotions then to Angels and
Saints as little interfered with the incommunicable glory of
the Eternal, as the love which we bear our friends and re
lations, our tender human sympathies, are inconsistent with
that supreme homage of the heart to the Unseen, which
really does but sanctify and exalt, not jealously destroy,
what is of earth. At a later date Dr. Russell, sent me a
large bundle of penny or half -penny books of devotion, of
all sorts, as they are found in the booksellers' shops at
Rome ; and, on looking them over, I was quite astonished
to find how different they were from what I had fancied,
how little there was in them to which I could really object.
I have given an account of them in my Essay on the De
velopment of Doctrine. Dr. Russell sent me St. Alfonso's
book at the end of 1842 ; however, it was still a long time
before I got over my difficulty, on the score of the devo
tions paid to the Saints ; perhaps, as I judge from a letter
I have turned up, it was some way into 1844 before I
could be said fully to have got over it.
2. I am not sure that I did not also at this time feel the
force of another consideration. The idea of the Blessed
Virgin was as it were magnified in the Church of Rome,
as time went on, — but so were all the Christian ideas;
as that of the Blessed Eucharist. The whole scene of pale,
faint, distant Apostolic Christianity is seen in Rome, as
through a telescope or magnifier. The harmony of the
whole, however, is of course what it was. It is unfair

from 1841 to 1845. 197
then to take one Roman idea, that of the Blessed Virgin,
out of what may be called its context.
3. Thus I am brought to the principle of development
of doctrine in the Christian Church, to which I gave my
mind at the end of 1842. I had made mention of it in
the passage, which I quoted many pages back (vide p. Ill),
in Home Thoughts Abroad, published in 1836 ; and even
at an earlier date I had introduced it into my History
of the Arians in 1832 ; nor had I ever lost sight of it in
my speculations. And it is certainly recognized in the
Treatise of Vincent of Lerins, which has so often been
taken as the basis of Anglicanism. In 1843 I began to
consider it attentively ; I made it the subject of my last
University Sermon on February 2 ; and the general view
to which I came is stated thus in a letter to a friend of the
date of July 14, 1844 ; — it will be observed that, now as
before, my issue is still Creed versus Church : —
" The kind of considerations which weighs with me are
such as the following : — 1. I am far more certain (accord
ing to the Fathers) that we are in a state of culpable
separation, than that developments do not exist under
the Gospel, and that the Roman developments are not the
true ones. 2. I am far more certain, that our (modern)
doctrines are wrong, than that the Roman (modern) doc
trines are wrong. 3. Granting that the Roman (special)
doctrines are not found drawn out in the early Church,
yet I think there is sufficient trace of them in it, to recom
mend and prove them, on the hypothesis of the Church
having a divine guidance, though not sufficient to prove
them by itself. So that the question simply turns on the
nature of the promise of the Spirit, made to the Church.
4. The proof of the Roman (modern) doctrine is as strong
(or stronger) in Antiquity, as that of certain doctrines
which both we and Romans hold: e.g. there is more of
evidence in Antiquity for the necessity of Unity, than for

198 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
the Apostolical Succession ; for the Supremacy of the See
of Rome, than for the Presence in the Eucharist ; for the
practice of Invocation, than for certain books in the pre
sent Canon of Scripture, &c, &c. 5. The analogy of the
Old Testament, and also of the New, leads to the acknow
ledgment of doctrinal developments."
4. And thus I was led on to a further consideration.
I saw that the principle of development not only accounted
for certain facts, but was in itself a remarkable philoso
phical phenomenon, giving a character to the whole course
of Christian thought. It was discernible from the first
years of the Catholic teaching up to the present day, and
gave to that teaching a unity and individuality. It served
as a sort of test, which the Anglican could not exhibit,
that modern Rome was in truth ancient Antioch, Alex
andria, and Constantinople, just as a mathematical curve
has its own law and expression.
5. And thus again I was led on to examine more atten
tively what I doubt not was in my thoughts long before,
viz. the concatenation of argument by which the mind
ascends from its first to its finai religious idea; and I
came to the conclusion that there was no medium, in true
philosophy, between Atheism and Catholicity, and that a
perfectly consistent mind, under those circumstances in
which it finds itself here below, must embrace either the
one or the other. And I hold this still : I am a Catholic
by virtue of my believing in a God; and if I am asked
why I believe in a God, I answer that it is because I
believe in myself, for I feel it impossible to believe in my
own existence (and of that fact I am quite sure) without
believing also in the existence of Him, who lives as a
Personal, All-seeing, All-judging Being in my conscience.
Now, I dare say, I have not expressed myself with philo
sophical correctness, because I have not given myself to
the study of what metaphysicians have said on the sub-

from 1841 to 1845. 199
ject; but I think I have a strong true meaning in what I
say which will stand examination.
6. Moreover, I found a corroboration of the fact of the
logical connexion of Theism with Catholicism in a consider
ation parallel to that which I had adopted on the subject of
development of doctrine. The fact of the operation from
first to last of that principle of development in the truths
of Revelation, is an argument in favour of the identity of
Roman and Primitive Christianity ; but as there is a law
which acts upon the subject-matter of dogmatic theology,
so is there a law in the matter of religious faith. In the
first chapter of this Narrative I spoke of certitude as the
consequence, divinely intended and enjoined upon us, of
the accumulative force of certain given reasons which,
taken one by one, were only probabilities. Let it be re
collected that I am historically relating my state of mind,
at the period of my life which I am surveying. I am not
speaking theologically, nor have I any intention of going
into controversy, or of defending myself ; but speaking his
torically of what I held in 1843-4, 1 say, that I believed
in a God on a ground of probability, that I believed in
Christianity on a probability, and that I believed in
Catholicism on a probability, and that these three grounds
of probability, distinct from each other of course in sub
ject matter, were still all of them one and the same in
nature of proof, as being probabilities — probabilities of a
special kind, a cumulative, a transcendent probability but
still probability; inasmuch as He who made us has so
willed, that in mathematics indeed we should arrive at
certitude by rigid demonstration, but in religious inquiry
we should arrive at certitude by accumulated probabilities ;
— He has willed, I say, that we should so act, and, as
willing it, He co-operates with us in our acting, and
thereby enables us to do that which He wills us to do,
and carries us on, if our will does but co-operate with His,

200 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
to a certitude which rises higher than the logical force of
our conclusions. And thus I came to see clearly, and to
have a satisfaction in seeing, that, in being led on into the
Church of Rome, I was not proceeding on any secondary
or isolated grounds of reason, or by controversial points
in detail, but was protected and justified, even in the use
of those secondary or particular arguments, by a great and
broad principle. But, let it be observed, that I am stating
a matter of fact, not defending it ; and if any Catholic says
in consequence that I have been converted in a wrong way,
I cannot help that now.
I have nothing more to say on the subject of the change
in my religious opinions. On the one hand I came gradu
ally to see that the Anglican Church was formally in the
wrong, on the other that the Church of Rome was formally
in the right ; then, that no valid reasons could be assigned
for continuing in the Anglican, and again that no valid
objections could be taken to joining the Roman. Then,
I had nothing more to learn ; what still remained for my
conversion, was, not further change of opinion, but to
change opinion itself into the clearness and firmness of
intellectual conviction.
Now I proceed to detail the acts, to which I committed
myself during this last stage of my inquiry.
In 1843, 1 took two very significant steps : — 1. In Feb
ruary, I made a formal Retractation of all the hard things
which I had said against the Church of Rome. 2. In Sep
tember, I resigned the Living of St. Mary's, Littlemore
included : — I will speak of these two acts separately.
1. The words, in which I made my Retractation, have
given rise to much criticism. After quoting a number of
passages from my writings against the Church of Rome,
which I withdrew, I ended thus : — " If you ask me how
an individual could venture, not simply to hold, but to

from 1841 to 1845. 201
publish such views of a communion so ancient, so wide-
spreading, so fruitful in Saints, I answer that I said to
myself, ' I am not speaking my own words, I am but fol
lowing almost a consensus of the divines of my own Church
They have ever used the strongest language against Rome,
even the most able and learned of them. I wish to throw
myself into their system. While I say what they say, I
am safe. Such views, too, are necessary for our position.'
Yet I have reason to fear still, that such language is to be
ascribed, in no small measure, to an impetuous temper, a
hope of approving myself to persons I respect, and a wish
to repel the charge of Romanism."
These words have been, and are, again and again cited
against me, as if a confession that, when in the Anglican
Church, I said things against Rome which I did not really
believe. For myself, I cannot understand how any impartial man
can so take them ; and I have explained them in print
several times. I trust that by this time their plain mean
ing has been satisfactorily brought out by what I have said
in former portions of this Narrative ; still I have a word or
two to say in addition to my former remarks upon them.
In the passage in question I apologize for saying out
in controversy charges against the Church of Rome, which
withal I affirm that I fully believed at the time when I
.made them. What is wonderful in such an apology >
There are surely many things a man may hold, which at
the same time he may feel that he has no right to say
publicly, and which it may annoy him that he has said
publicly. The law recognizes this principle. In our own
time, men have been imprisoned and fined for saying true
things of a bad king. The maxim has been held, that,
"The greater the truth, the greater is the libel." And
so as to the judgment of society, a just indignation would
be felt against a writer who brought forward wantonly

202 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
the weaknesses of a great man, though the whole world
knew that they existed. No one is at liberty to speak ill
of another without a justifiable reason, even though he
knows he is speaking truth, and the public knows it too.
Therefore, though I believed what I said against the
Roman Church, nevertheless I could not religiously speak
it out, unless I was really justified, not only in believing
ill, but in speaking ill. I did believe what I said on what I
thought to be good reasons ; but had I also a just cause for
saying out what I believed ? I thought I had, and it was
.this, viz. that to say out what I believed was simply neces
sary in the controversy for self-defence. It was impossible
to let it alone : the Anglican position could not be satis
factorily maintained, without assailing the Roman. In
this, as in most cases of conflict, one party was right or
the other, not both ; and the best defence was to attack. Is
not this almost a truism in the Roman controversy ? Is it
not what every one says, who speaks on the subject at all ?
does any serious man abuse the Church of Rome, for the
sake of abusing her, or because that abuse justifies his own
religious position ? What is the meaning of the very
word "Protestantism," but that there is a call to speak
out ? This then is what I said ; " I know I spoke strongly
against the Church of Rome ; but it was no mere abuse,
for I had a serious reason for doing so."
But, not only did I think such language necessary for,
my Church's religious position, but I recollected that all
the great Anglican divines had thought so before me.
They had thought so, and they had acted accordingly.
And therefore I observe in the passage in question, with
much propriety, that I had not used strong language
simply out of my own head, but that in doing so I was
following the track, or rather reproducing the teaching, of
those who had preceded me.
I was pleading guilty to using violent language, but I

from 1841 to 1845. 203
was pleading also that there were extenuating circum
stances in the case. We all know the story of the convict
who on the scaffold bit off his mother's ear. By doing so
he did not deny the fact of his own crime, for which he
was to hang; but he said that his mother's indulgence
when he was a boy, had a good deal to do with it. In like
manner I had made a charge, and I had made it ex animo ;
but I accused others of having, by their own example, led
me into believing it and publishing it.
I was in a humour, certainly, to bite off their ears. I
will freely confess, indeed I said it some pages back, that I
was angry with the Anglican divines. I thought they had
taken me in ; I had read the Fathers with their eyes ; I
had sometimes trusted their quotations or their reasonings ;
and from reliance on them, I had used words or made
statements, which by right I ought rigidly to have ex
amined myself. I had thought myself safe, while I had
their warrant for what I said. I had exercised more faith
than criticism in the matter. This did not imply any
broad misstatements on my part, arising from reliance on
their authority, but it implied carelessness in matters of
detail. And this of course was a fault.
But there was a far deeper reason for my saying what I
said in this matter, on which I have not hitherto touched ;
and it was this : — The most oppressive thought, in the
whole process of my change of opinion, was the clear anti
cipation, verified by the event, that it would issue in the
triumph of Liberalism. Against the Anti-dogmatic prin
ciple I had thrown my whole mind ; yet now I was doing
more than any one else could do, to promote it. I was
one of those who had kept it at bay in Oxford for so many
years ; and thus my very retirement was its triumph. The
men who had driven me from Oxford were distinctly the
Liberals; it was they who had opened the attack upon
Tract 90, and it was they who would gain a second benefit,

204 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
if I went on to abandon the Anglican Church. But
this was not all. As I have already said, there are but
two alternatives, the way to Rome, and the way to
Atheism : Anglicanism is the halfway house on the one
side, and Liberalism is the halfway house on the other.
How many men were there, as I knew full well, who would
not follow me now in my advance from Anglicanism to
Rome, but would at once leave Anglicanism and me for the
Liberal camp. It is not at all easy (humanly speaking) to
wind up an Englishman to a dogmatic level. I had done
so in good measure, in the case both of young men and
of laymen, the Anglican Via Media being the representa
tive of dogma. The dogmatic and the Anglican principle
were one, as I had taught them ; but I was breaking the
Via Media to pieces, and would not dogmatic faith alto
gether be broken up, in the minds of a great number, by
the demolition of the Via Media ? Oh ! how unhappy
this made me ! I heard once from an eye-witness the
account of a poor sailor whose legs were shattered by a
ball, in the action off Algiers in 1816, and who was taken
below for an operation. The surgeon and the chaplain
persuaded him to have a leg off; it was done and the
tourniquet applied to the wound. Then, they broke it to
him that he must have the other off too. The poor fellow
said, " You should have told me that, gentlemen," and de
liberately unscrewed the instrument and bled to death.
Would not that be the case with many friends of my own ?
How could I ever hope to make them believe in a second
theology, when I had cheated them in the first ? with what
face could I publish a new edition of a dogmatic creed,
and ask them to receive it as gospel ? Would it not be
plain to them that no certainty was to be found any where ?
Well, in my defence I could but make a lame apology;
however, it was the true one, viz. that I had not read the
Fathers cautiously enough ; that in such nice points, as

from 1841 to 1845. 205
those which determine the angle of divergence between
the two Churches, I had made considerable miscalculations.
But how came this about ? why, the fact was, unpleasant
as it was to avow, that I had leaned too much upon the
assertions of Ussher, Jeremy Taylor, or Barrow, and had
been deceived by them. Valeat quantum, — it was all that
could be said. This then was a chief reason of that word
ing' of the Retractation, which has given so much offence,
because the bitterness, with which it was written, was not
understood ; — and the following letter will illustrate it : —
" April 3, 1844. I wish to remark on William's chief
distress, that my changing my opinion seemed to unsettle
one's confidence in truth and falsehood as external things,
and led one to be suspicious of the new opinion as one
became distrustful of the old. Now in what I shall say, I
am not going to speak in favour of my second thoughts in
comparison of my first, but against such scepticism and
unsettlement about truth and falsehood generally, the idea
of which is very painful.
" The case with me, then, was this, and not surely an
unnatural one : — as a matter of feeling and of duty I threw
myself into the system which I found myself in. I saw
that the English Church had a theological idea or theory,
as such, and I took it up. I read Laud on Tradition, and
thought it (as I still think it) very masterly. The
Anglican Theory was very distinctive. I admired it and
took it on faith. It did not (I think) occur to me to doubt
it ; I saw that it was able, and supported by learning, and
I felt it was a duty to maintain it. Further, on looking
into Antiquity and reading the Fathers, I saw such
portions of it as I examined, fully confirmed (e.g. the
supremacy of Scripture). There was only one question
about which I had a doubt, viz. whether it would work, for
it has never been more than a paper system. . . .
" So far from my change of opinion having any fair

206 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
tendency to unsettle persons as to truth and falsehood
viewed as objective realities, it should be considered whether
such change is not necessary, if truth be a real objective
thing, and be made to confront a person who has been
brought up in a system short of truth. Surely the con
tinuance of a person, who wishes to go right, in a wrong
system, and not his giving it up, would be that which
militated against the objectiveness of Truth, leading, as it
would, to the suspicion, that one thing and another were
equally pleasing to our Maker, where men were sincere.
" Nor surely is it a thing I need be sorry for, that I de
fended the system in which I found myself, and thus have
had to unsay my words. For is it not one's duty, instead
of beginning with criticism, to throw oneself generously
into that form of religion which is providentially put
before one ? Is it right, or is it wrong, to begin with
private judgment ? May we not, on the other hand, look
for a blessing through obedience even to an erroneous sys
tem, and a guidance even by means of it out of it ? Were
those who were strict and conscientious in their Judaism,
or those who were lukewarm and sceptical, more likely to
be led into Christianity, when Christ came ? Yet in pro-
, portion to their previous zeal, would be their appearance
of inconsistency. Certainly, I have always contended that
obedience even to an erring conscience was the way to
gain light, and that it mattered not where a man began,
so that he began on what came to hand, and in faith ; and
that any thing might become a divine method of Truth :
that to the pure all things are pure, and have a self-
correcting virtue and a power of germinating. And
though I have no right at all to assume that this mercy is
granted to me, yet the fact, that a person in my situation
may have it granted to him, seems to me to remove the
perplexity which my change of opinion may occasion.
" It may be said, — I have said it to myself, — ' Why, how-

from 1841 to 1845. 207
ever, did you publish ? had you waited quietly, you would
have changed your opinion without any of the misery,
which now is involved in the change, of disappointing and
distressing people.' I answer, that things are so bound up
together, as to form a whole, and one cannot tell what is
or is not a condition of what. I do not see how possibly
I could have published the Tracts, or other works profess
ing to defend our Church, without accompanying them
with a strong protest or argument against Rome. The
one obvious objection against the whole Anglican line is,
that it is Roman ; so that I really think there was no
alternative between silence altogether, and forming a
theory and attacking the Roman system."
2. And now, in the next place, as to my Resignation of
St. Mary's, which was the second of the steps which I took
in 1843. The ostensible, direct, and sufficient reason for
my doing so was the persevering attack of the Bishops on
Tract 90. I alluded to it in the letter which I have in
serted above, addressed to one of the most influential
among them. A series of their ex cathedrti judgments,
lasting through three years, and including a notice of no
little severity in a Charge of my own Bishop, came as near
to a condemnation of my Tract, and, so far, to a repudiation
of the ancient Catholic doctrine, which was the scope of
the Tract, as was possible in the Church of England. It
was in order to shield the Tract from such a condemnation,
that I had at the time of its publication in 1841 so simply
put myself at the disposal of the higher powers in London.
At that time, all that was distinctly contemplated in the
way of censure, was contained in the message which my
Bishop sent me, that the Tract was " objectionable." That
I thought was the end of the matter. I had refused to sup
press it, and they had yielded that point. Since I published
the former portions of this Narrative, I have found what I

208 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
wrote to Dr. Pusey on March 24, while the matter was in
progress. " The more I think of it," I said, " the more
reluctant I am to suppress Tract 90, though of course I will
do it if the Bishop wishes it ; I cannot, however, deny that
I shall feel it a severe act." According to the notes which
I took of the letters or messages which I sent to him on
that and the following days, I wrote successively, " My
first feeling was to obey without a word ; I will obey still ;
but my judgment has steadily risen against it ever since."
Then in the Postscript, " If I have done any good to the
Church, I do ask the Bishop this favour, as my reward for
it, that he would not insist on a measure, from which I
think good will not come. However, I will submit to
him." Afterwards, I got stronger still and wrote: "I
have almost come to the resolution, if the Bishop publicly
intimates that I must suppress the Tract, or speaks strongly
in his charge against it, to suppress it indeed, but to
resign my living also. I could not in conscience act other
wise. You may show this in any quarter you please."
All my then hopes, all my satisfaction at the apparent ful
filment of those hopes was at an end in 1 843. It is not won
derful then, that in May of that year, when two out of the
three years were gone, I wrote on the subject of my re
tiring from St. Mary's to the same friend, whom I had con
sulted upon it in 1840. But I did more now ; I told him
my great unsettlement of mind on the question of the
Churches. I will insert portions of two of my letters : —
" May 4, 1843  At present I fear, as far as I can
analyze my own convictions, I consider the Roman
Catholic Communion to be the Church of the Apostles,
and that what grace is among us (which, through God's
mercy, is not little) is extraordinary, and from the over
flowings of His dispensation. I am very far more sure
that England is in schism, than that the Roman additions

from 1841 to 1845. 209
to the Primitive Creed may not be developments, arising
out of a keen and vivid realizing of the Divine Depositum
of Faith.
" You will now understand what gives edge to the
Bishops' Charges, without any undue sensitiveness on my
part. They distress me in two ways : — first, as being in
some sense protests and witnesses to my conscience against
my own unfaithfulness to the English Church, and next,
as being samples of her teaching, and tokens how very far
she is from even aspiring to Catholicity.
" Of course my being unfaithful to a trust is my great
subject of dread, — as it has long been, as you know."
When he wrote to make natural objections to my pur
pose, such as the apprehension that the removal of clerical
obligations might have the indirect effect of propelling me
towards Rome, I answered : —
"May 18, 1843. ... My office or charge at St. Mary's
is not a mere state, but a continual energy. People assume
and assert certain things of me in consequence. With
what sort of sincerity can I obey the Bishop ? how am I to
act in the frequent cases, in which one way or another the
Church of Rome comes into consideration ? I have to the
utmost of my power tried to keep persons from Rome, and
with some success ; but even a year and a half since, my
arguments, though more efficacious with the persons I
aimed at than any others could be, were of a nature to in
fuse great suspicion of me into the minds of lookers-on.
" By retaining St. Mary's, I am an offence and a stum
bling-block. Persons are keen-sighted enough to make
out what I think on certain points, and then they infer
that such opinions are compatible with holding situations
of trust in our Church. A number of younger men take
the validity of their interpretation of the Articles, &c.
from me on faith. Is not my present position a cruelty, as
well as a treachery towards the Church ? P

210 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
" I do not see how I can either preach or publish again,
while I hold St. Mary's ; — but consider again the following
difficulty in such a resolution, which I must state at some
length. " Last Long Vacation the idea suggested itself to me of
publishing the Lives of the English Saints ; and I had a
conversation with [a publisher] upon it. I thought it
would be useful, as employing the minds of men who were
in danger of running wild, bringing them from doctrine
to history, and from speculation to fact ; — again, as giving
them an interest in the English soil, and the English
Church, and keeping them from seeking sympathy in
Rome, as she is ; and further, as tending to promote the
spread of right views.
" But, within the last month, it has come upon me, that,
if the scheme goes on, it will be a practical carrying out of
No. 90, from the character of the usages and opinions of
ante-reformation times.
" It is easy to say, ' Why will you do any thing ? why
won't you keep quiet ? what business had you to think of
any such plan at all ? ' But I cannot leave a number of
poor fellows in the lurch. I am bound to do my best for
a great number of people both in Oxford and elsewhere.
If / did not act, others would find means to do so.
" Well, the plan has been taken up with great eagerness
and interest. Many men are setting to work. I set down
the names of men, most of them engaged, the rest half
engaged and probable, some actually writing." About
thirty names follow, some of them at that time of the
school of Dr. Arnold, others of Dr. Pusey's, some my
personal friends and of my own standing, others whom I
hardly knew, while of course the majority were of the party
of the new Movement. I continue : —
" The plan has gone so far, that it would create surprise
and talk, were it now suddenly given over, Yet how is it

from 1841 to 1845. 211
compatible with my holding St. Mary's, being what
I am ? "
Such was the object and the origin of the projected
Series of the English Saints ; and, since the publication
was connected, as has been seen, with my resignation of
St. Mary's, I may be allowed to conclude what I have to
say on the subject here, though it may read like a digres
sion. As soon then as the first of the Series got into print,
the whole project broke down. I had already anticipated
that some portions of the Series would be written in a style
inconsistent with the professions of a beneficed clergyman,
and therefore I had given up my Living; but men of
great weight went further in their misgivings than I, when
they saw the Life of St. Stephen Harding, and decided
that it was of a character inconsistent even with its pro
ceeding from an Anglican publisher: and so the scheme
was given up at once. After the two first numbers, I re
tired from the Editorship, and those Lives only were pub
lished in addition, which were then already finished, or in
advanced preparation. The following passages from what
I or others wrote at the time will illustrate what I have
been saying : —
In November, 1844, I wrote thus to the author of one
of them : " I am not Editor, I have no direct control over
the Series. It is T.'s work; he may admit what he
pleases ; and exclude what he pleases. I was to have
been Editor. I did edit the two first numbers. I was
responsible for them, in the way in which an Editor is
responsible. Had I continued Editor, I should have exer
cised a control over all. I laid down in the Preface that
doctrinal subjects were, if possible, to be excluded. But,
even then, I also set down that no writer was to be held
answerable for any of the Lives but his own. When I

212 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
gave up the Editorship, I had various engagements with
friends for separate Lives remaining on my hands. I
should have liked to have broken from them all, but there
were some from which I could not break, and I let them
take their course. Some have come to nothing; others
like yours have gone on. I have seen such, either in MS.
or Proof. As time goes .on, I shall have less and less to
do with the Series. I think the engagement between you
and me should come to an end. I have any how abundant
responsibility on me, and too much. I shall write to T.
that if he wants the advantage of your assistance, he must
write to you direct."
In accordance with this letter, I had already advertised
in January 1844, ten months before it, that " other Lives,"
after St. Stephen Harding, would " be published by their
respective authors on their own responsibility." This no
tice was repeated in February, in the advertisement to
the second number entitled The Family of St. Richard,
though to this number, for some reason which I cannot
now recollect, I also put my initials. In the Life of
St. Augustine, the author, a man of nearly my own age,
says in like manner, " No one but himself is responsible
for the way in which these materials have been used." I
have in MS. another advertisement to the same effect, but
I cannot tell whether it ever appeared in print.
I will add, since the authors have been considered " hot
headed fanatic young men," whom I was in charge of,
and whom I suffered to do intemperate things, that, while
the writer of St. Augustine was in 1844 past forty, the
author of the proposed Life of St. Boniface, Mr. Bowden,
was forty-six ; Mr. Johnson, who was to write St. Ald
helm, forty-three ; and most of the others were on one side
or other of thirty. Three, I think, were under twenty-
five. Moreover, of these writers some became Catholics,

from 1841 to 1845. 213
some remained Anglicans, and others have professed what
are called free or liberal opinions x.
The immediate cause of the resignation of my Living
is stated in the following letter, which I wrote to my
Bishop : —
" August 29, 1843. It is with much concern that I
inform your Lordship, that Mr. A. B., who has been for
the last year an inmate of my house here, has just con
formed to the Church of Rome. As I have ever been
desirous, not only of faithfully discharging the trust,
which is involved in holding a living in your Lordship's
diocese, but of approving myself to your Lordship, I will
for your information state one or two circumstances con
nected with this unfortunate event  I received him
on condition of his promising me, which he distinctly did,
that he would remain quietly in our Church for three
years. A year has passed Isince that time, and, though
I saw nothing in him which promised that he would even
tually be contented with his present position, yet for the
time his mind became as settled as one could wish, and he
frequently expressed his satisfaction at being under the
promise which I had exacted of him."
I felt it impossible to remain any longer in the service
of the Anglican Church, when such a breach of trust, how
ever little I had to do with it, would be laid at my door.
I wrote in a few days to a friend : —
" September 7, 1843. I this day ask the Bishop leave to
resign St. Mary's. Men whom you little think, or at least
whom I little thought, are in almost a hopeless way. Really
we may expect any thing. I am going to publish a Volume
of Sermons, including those Four against moving."
I resigned my living on September the 18th. I had not
1 Vide Note D, Lives of the EngHsli Saints.

214 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
the means of doing it legally at Oxford. The late Mr.
Goldsmid was kind enough to aid me in resigning it in
London. I found no fault with the Liberals; they had
beaten me in a fair field. As to the act of the Bishops,
I thought, to borrow a Scriptural image from Walter Scott,
that they had " seethed the kid in his mother's milk."
I said to a friend : —
" Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catoni."
And now I may be almost said to have brought to an
end, as far as is necessary for a sketch such as this is, the
history both of my changes of religious opinion and of the
public acts which they involved.
I had one final advance of mind to accomplish, and one
final step to take. That further advance of mind was to
be able honestly to say that I was certain of the conclu
sions at which I had already arrived. That further step,
imperative when such certitude was attained, was my
submission to the Catholic Church.
This submission did not take place till two full years
after the resignation of my living in September 1843 ; nor
could I have made it at an earlier day, without doubt and
apprehension, that is, with any true conviction of mind or
certitude. In the interval, of which it remains to speak, viz. between
the autumns of 1843 and 1845, 1 was in lay communion
with the Church of England, attending its services as usual,
and abstaining altogether from intercourse with Catholics,
from their places of worship, and from those religious rites
and usages, such as the Invocation of Saints, which are
characteristics of their creed. I did all this on principle ;
for I never could understand how a man could be of two
religions at once.
What I have to say about myself between these two
autumns I shall almost confine to this one point, — the

from 1841 to 1845. 215
difficulty I was in, as to the best mode of reveafing the
state of my mind to my friends and others, and how I
managed to reveal it.
Up to January, 1842, I had not disclosed my state of
unsettlement to more than three persons, as has been men
tioned above, and as is repeated in the course of the letters
which I am now about to give to the reader. To two of
them, intimate and familiar companions, in the Autumn
of 1839 : to the third, an old friend too, whom I have also
named above, I suppose, when I was in great distress of
mind upon the affair of the Jerusalem Bishopric. In May,
1843, 1 made it known, as has been seen, to the friend, by
whose advice I wished, as far as possible, to be guided.
To mention it on set purpose to any one, unless indeed I
was asking advice, I should have felt to be a crime. If
there is any thing that was abhorrent to me, it was the
scattering doubts, and unsettling consciences without ne
cessity. A strong presentiment that my existing opinions
would ultimately give way, and that the grounds of them
were unsound, was not a sufficient warrant for disclosing
the state of my mind. I had no guarantee yet, that that
presentiment would be realized. Supposing I were cross
ing ice, which came right in my way, which I had good
reasons for considering sound, and which I saw numbers
before me crossing in safety, and supposing a stranger
from the bank, in a voice of authority, and in an earnest
tone, warned me that it was dangerous, and then was
silent, I think I should be startled, and should look about
me anxiously, but I think too that I should go on, till I had
better grounds for doubt; and such was my state, I be
lieve, till the end of 1842. Then again, when my dissatis
faction became greater, it was hard at first to determine
the point of time, when it was too strong to suppress with
propriety. Certitude of course is a point, but doubt is a pro
gress ; I was not near certitude yet. Certitude is a reflex

216 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
action ; it is to know that one knows. Of that I believe I
was not possessed, till close upon my reception into the Ca
tholic Church. Again, a practical, effective doubt is a point
. too, but who can easily ascertain it for himself ? Who
can determine when it is, that the scales in the balance of
opinion begin to turn, and what was a greater probability
in behalf of a belief becomes a positive doubt against it ?
In considering this question in its bearing upon my con
duct in 1843, my own simple answer to my great difficulty
had been, Do what your present state of opinion requires
in the light of duty, and let that doing tell : speak by acts.
This I had done; my first act of the year had been in
February. After three months' deliberation I had pub
lished my retractation of the violent charges which I had
made against Rome : I could not be wrong in doing so
much as this ; but I did no more at the time : I did not
retract my Anglican teaching. My second act had been
in September in the same year; after much sorrowful
lingering and hesitation, I had resigned my Living. I
tried indeed, before I did so, to keep Littlemore for myself,
even though it was still to remain an integral part of' St.
Mary's. I had given to' it a Church and a sort of Parsonage ;
I had made it a Parish, and I loved it ; I thought in 1843
that perhaps I need not forfeit my existing relations to
wards it. I could indeed submit to become the curate at
will of another, but I hoped an arrangement was possible,
by which, while I had the curacy, I might have been my
own master in serving it. I had hoped an exception might
have been made in my favour, under the circumstances; but
I did not gain my request. Perhaps I was asking what
was impracticable, and it is well for me that it was so.
These had been my two acts of the year, and I said, " I
cannot be wrong in making them ; let that follow which
must follow in the thoughts of the world about me, when
they see what I do." And, as time went 6n, they fully
answered my purpose. What I felt it a simple duty to do,

from 1841 to 1845. 217
did create a general suspicion about me, without such
responsibility as would be involved in my initiating any
direct act for the sake of creating it. Then, when friends
wrote me on the subject, I either did not deny or I con
fessed my state of mind, according to the character and
need of their letters. Sometimes in the case of intimate
friends, whom I should otherwise have been leaving in
ignorance of what others knew on every side of them, I
invited the question.
And here comes in another point for explanation.
While I was fighting in Oxford for the Anglican Church,
then indeed I was very glad to make converts, and, though
I never broke away from that rule of my mind, (as I may
call it,) of which I have already spoken, of finding disciples
rather than seeking them, yet, that I made advances to
others in a special way, I have no doubt ; this came to an
end, however, as soon as I fell into misgivings as to the true
ground to be taken in the controversy. For then, when
I gave up my place in the Movement, I ceased from any
such proceedings : and my utmost endeavour was to tran
quillize such persons, especially those who belonged to the
new school, as were unsettled in their religious views, and,
as I judged, hasty in their conclusions. This went on till
1843 ; but, at that date, as soon as I turned my face Rome-
ward, I gave up, as far as ever was possible, the thought of
in any respect and in any shape acting upon others. Then I
myself was simply my own concern. How could I in any
sense direct others, who had to be guided in so momentous
a matter myself ? How could I be considered in a position,
even to say a word to them one way or the other ? How
could I presume to unsettle them, as I was unsettled, when
I had no means of bringing them out of such unsettle
ment ? And, if they were unsettled already, how could I
point to them a place of refuge, when I was not sure that
I should choose it for myself ? My only line, my only

218 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
duty, was to keep simply to my own case. I recollected
Pascal's words, " Je mourrai seul." I deliberately put out
of my thoughts all other works and claims, and said
nothing to any one, unless I was obliged.
But this brought upon me a great trouble. In the
newspapers there were continual reports about my inten
tions ; I did not answer them ; presently strangers or
friends wrote, begging to be allowed to answer them ; and,
if I still kept to my resolution and said nothing, then I
was thought to be mysterious, and a prejudice was excited
against me. But, what was far worse, there were a num
ber of tender, eager hearts, of whom I knew nothing at
all, who were watching me, wishing to think as I thought,
and to do as I did, if they could but find it out ; who in
consequence were distressed, that, in so solemn a matter,
they could not see what was coming, and who heard re
ports about me this way or that, on a first day and on a
second ; and felt the weariness of waiting, and the sickness
of delayed hope, and did not understand that I was as
perplexed as they were, and, being of more sensitive com
plexion of mind than myself, were made ill by the sus
pense. And they too of course for the time thought me
mysterious and inexplicable. I ask their pardon as far as
I was really unkind to them. There was a gifted and
deeply earnest lady, who in a parabolical account of that
time, has described both my conduct as she felt it, and
her own feelings upon it. In a singularly graphic, amusing
vision of pilgrims, who were making their way across a
bleak common in great discomfort, and who were ever
warned against, yet continually nearing, " the king's high
way," on the right, she says, " All my fears and disquiets
were speedily renewed by seeing the most daring of our
leaders, (the same who had first forced his way through
the palisade, and in whose courage and sagacity we all put
implicit trust,) suddenly stop short, and declare that he

from 1841 to 1845. 219
would go on no further. He did not, however, take the
leap at once, but quietly sat down on the top of the fence
with his feet hanging towards the road, as if he meant to
take his time about it, and let himself down easily." I do
not wonder at all that I thus seemed so unkind to a lady,
who at that time had never seen me. We were both in
trial in our different ways. I am far from denying that I
was acting selfishly both in her case and in that of others ;
but it was a religious selfishness. Certainly to myself my
own duty seemed clear. They that are whole can heal
others ; but in my case it was, " Physician, heal thyself."
My own soul was my first concern, and it seemed an ab
surdity to my reason to be converted in partnership. I
wished to go to my Lord by myself, and in my own way,
or rather His way. I had neither wish, nor, I may say,
thought of taking a number with me. Moreover, it is
but the truth to say, that it had ever been an annoyance
to me to seem to be the head of a party ; and that even
from fastidiousness of mind, I could not bear to find a thing
done elsewhere, simply or mainly because I did it myself,
and that, from distrust of myself, I shrank from the thought,
whenever it was brought home tome, that I was influencing
others. But nothing of this could be known to the world.
The following three letters are written to a friend, who
had every claim upon me to be frank with him, Archdeacon
Manning : — it will be seen that I disclose the real state of
my mind in proportion as he presses me.
1. " October 14, 1843. I would tell you in a few words
why I have resigned St. Mary's, as you seem to wish,
were it possible to do so. But it is most difficult to bring-
out in brief, or even in extenso, any just view of my feelings
and reasons.
" The nearest approach I can give to a general account
of them is to say, that it has been caused by the general
repudiation of the view, contained in No. 90, on the part

220 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
of the Church. I could not stand against such an unani
mous expression of opinion from the Bishops, supported,
as it has been, by the concurrence, or at least silence, of
all classes in the Church, lay and clerical. If there ever
was a case, in which an individual teacher has been put
aside and virtually put away by a community, mine is one.
No decency has been observed in the attacks upon me
from authority; no protests have been offered against
them. It is felt, — I am far from denying, justly felt, —
that I am a foreign material, and cannot assimilate with
the Church of England.
" Even my own Bishop has said that my mode of inter
preting the Articles makes them mean any thing or no
thing. When I heard this delivered, I did not believe my
ears. I denied to others that it was said. . . . Out came
the charge, and the words could not be mistaken. This
astonished me the more, because I published that Letter
to him, (how unwillingly you know,) on the understanding
that / was to deliver his judgment on No. 90 instead of
him. A year elapses, and a second and heavier judgment
came forth. I did not bargain for this, — nor did he, but
the tide was too strong for him.
" I fear that I must confess, that, in proportion as I
think the English Church is showing herself intrinsically
and radically alien from Catholic principles, so do I feel
the difficulties of defending her claims to be a branch of
the Catholic Church. It seems a dream to call a com
munion Catholic, when one can neither appeal to any clear
statement of Catholic doctrine in its formularies, nor inter
pret ambiguous formularies by the received and living
Catholic sense, whether past or present. Men of Catholic
views are too truly but a party in our Church. I cannot
deny that many other independent circumstances, which
it is not worth while entering into, have led me to the
same conclusion.

from 1841 to 1845. 221
" I do not say all this to every body, as you may sup
pose ; but I do not like to make a secret of it to you."
2. " Oct. 25, 1843. You have engaged in a dangerous
correspondence ; I am deeply sorry for the pain I shall
give you.
" I must tell you then frankly, (but I combat arguments
which to me, alas, are shadows,) that it is not from disap
pointment, irritation, or impatience, that I have, whether
rightly or wrongly, resigned St. Mary's ; but because I
think the Church of Rome the Catholic Church, and ours
not part of the Catholic Church, because not in communion
with Rome ; and because I feel that I could not honestly
be a teacher in it any longer.
" This thought came to me last summer four years.
. . I mentioned it to two friends in the autumn. . . It
arose in the first instance from the Monophysite and
Donatist controversies, the former of which I was engaged
with in the course of theological study to which I had
given myself. This was at a time when no Bishop, I
believe, had declared against us,1 and when all was
progress and hope. I do not think I have ever felt
disappointment or impatience, certainly not then ; for
I never looked forward to the future, nor do I realize
it now.
" My first effort was to write that article on the Catho
licity of the English Church ; for two years it quieted me.
Since the summer of 1839 I have written little or nothing
on modern controversy. . . You know how unwillingly I
wrote my letter to the Bishop in which I committed
myself again, as the safest course under circumstances.
The article I speak of quieted me till the end of 1841,
over the affair of No. 90, when that wretched Jerusalem
Bishopric (no personal matter) revived all my alarms.
1 1 think Sumner, Bishop of Chester, must have done so already,

222 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.
They have increased up to this moment. At that time I
told my secret to another person in addition.
" You see then that the various ecclesiastical and quasi-
ecclesiastical acts, which have taken place in the course of
the last two years and a half, are not the cause of my state
of opinion, but are keen stimulants and weighty confirma
tions of a conviction forced upon me, while engaged in the
course of duty, viz. that theological reading to which I had
given myself. And this last-mentioned circumstance is a
fact, which has never, I think, come before me till now
that I write to you.
'' It is three years since, on account of my state of
opinion, I urged the Provost in vain to let St. Mary's be
separated from Littlemore ; thinking I might with a safe
conscience serve the latter, though I could not comfortably
continue in so public a place as a University. This was
before No. 90.
" Finally, I have acted under advice, and that, not of
my own choosing, but what came to me in the way of
duty, nor the advice of those only who agree with me, but
of near friends who differ from me.
" I have nothing to reproach myself with, as far as I
see, in the matter of impatience ; i.e. practically or in
conduct. And I trust that He, who has kept me in the
slow course of change hitherto, will keep me still from
hasty acts, or resolves with a doubtful conscience.
" This I am sure of, that jsuch interposition as yours,
kind as it is, only does what you would consider harm.
It makes me realize my own views to myself; it makes
me see their consistency ; it assures me of my own deli-
berateness ; it suggests to me the traces of a Providential
Hand ; it takes away the pain of disclosures ; it relieves
me of a heavy secret.
"You may make what use of my letters you think
right,"

from 1841 to 1845. 223
3. My correspondent wrote to me once more, and I replied
thus : " October 31, 1843. Your letter has made my heart
ache more, and caused me more and deeper sighs than any
I have had a long while, though I assure you there is
much on all sides of me to cause sighing and heartache.
On all sides : — I am quite haunted by the one dreadful
whisper repeated from so many quarters, and causing the
keenest distress to friends. You know but a part of my
present trial, in knowing that I am unsettled myself.
" Since the beginning of this year I have been obliged
to tell the state of my mind to some others ; but never, I
think, without being in a way obliged, as from friends
writing to me as you did, or guessing how matters stood.
No one in Oxford knows it or here" [Littlemore], "but
one near friend whom I felt I could not help telling the
other day. But, I suppose, many more suspect it."
On receiving these letters, my correspondent, if I recol
lect rightly, at once communicated the matter of them to
Dr. Pusey, and this will enable me to describe, as nearly
as I can, the way in which he first became aware of my
changed state of opinion.
I had from the first a great difficulty in making Dr.
Pusey understand such differences of opinion as existed
between himself and me. When there was a proposal
about the end of 1838 for a subscription for a Cranmer
Memorial, he wished us both to subscribe together to it.
I could not, of course, and wished him to subscribe by
himself. That he would not do; he could not bear the
thought of our appearing to the world in separate posi
tions, in a matter of importance. And, as time went on,
he would not take any hints, which I gave him, on the
subject of my growing inclination to Rome. When I
found him so determined, I often had not the heart to go
on. And then I knew, that, from affection to me, he so
often took up and threw himself into what I said, that I

224 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
felt the great responsibility I should incur, if I put things
before him just as I might view them myself. And, not
knowing him so well as I did afterwards, I feared lest I
should unsettle him. And moreover, I recollected well,
how prostrated he had been with illness in 1832, and I used
always to think that the start of the Movement had given
him a fresh life. I fancied that his physical energies even
depended on the presence of a vigorous hope and bright
prospects for his imagination to feed upon ; so much so,
that when he was so unworthily treated by the authorities
of the place in 1843, I recollect writing to the late Mr.
Dodsworth to state my anxiety, lest, if his mind became
dejected in consequence, his health should suffer seriously
also. These were difficulties in my way ; and then again,
another difficulty was, that, as we were not together under
the same roof, we only saw each other at set times ; others
indeed, who were coming in or out of my rooms freely,
and according to the need of the moment, knew all my
thoughts easily ; but for him to know them well, formal
efforts were necessary. A common friend of ours broke it
all to him in 1841, as far as matters had gone at that
time, and showed him clearly the logical conclusions
which must lie in propositions to which I had committed
myself ; but somehow or other in a little while, his mind
fell back into its former happy state, and he could not
bring himself to believe that he and I should not go on
pleasantly together to the end. But that affectionate
dream needs must have been broken at last; and two
years afterwards, that friend to whom I wrote the letters
which I have just now inserted, set himself, as I have
said, to break it. Upon that, I too begged Dr. Pusey to
tell in private to any one he would, that I thought in the
event I should leave the Church of England. However,
he would not do so; and at the end of 1844 had almost
relapsed into his former thoughts about me, if I may

from 1841 to 1845. 225
judge from a letter of his which I have found. Nay, at
the Commemoration of 1845, a few months before I left
the Anglican Church, I think he said about me to a friend,
" I trust after all we shall keep him."
In that autumn of 1843, at the time that I spoke to
Dr. Pusey, I asked another friend also to communicate in
confidence, to whom he would, the prospect which lay be
fore me.
To another friend, Mr. James Hope, now Mr. Hope
Scott, I gave the opportunity of knowing it, if he would,
in the following Postscript to a letter : —
" While I write, I wiU add a word about myself. You
may come near a person or two who, owing to circum
stances, know more exactly my state of feeling than you
do, though they would not tell you. Now I do not like
that you should not be aware of this, though I see no
reason why you should know what they happen to know.
Your wishing it would be a reason."
I had a dear and old friend, near his death; I never
told him my state of mind. Why should I unsettle that
sweet calm tranquillity, when I had nothing to offer him
instead ? I could not say, " Go to Rome ; " else I should
have shown him the way. Yet I offered myself for his
examination. One day he led the way to my speaking
out; but, rightly or wrongly, I could not respond. My
reason was, " I have no certainty on the matter myself.
To say ' I think ' is to tease and to distress, not to per
suade." I wrote to him on Michaelmas Day, 1843: "As you
may suppose, I have nothing to write to you about,
pleasant I could tell you some very painful things ; but
it is best not to anticipate trouble, which after all can but
happen, and, for what one knows, may be averted. You
are always so kind, that sometimes, when I part with you,
I am nearly moved to tears, and it would be a relief to be
Q

226 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
so, at your kindness and at my hardness. I think no one
ever had such kind friends as I have."
The next year, January 22, I wrote to him : '' Pusey
has quite enough on him, and generously takes on him
self more than enough, for me to add burdens when I am
not obliged ; particularly too, when I am very conscious,
that there are burdens, which I am or shall be obliged to
lay upon him some time or other, whether I will or no."
And on February 21 : " Half -past ten. I am just up,
having a bad cold; the like has not happened to me
(except twice in January) in my memory. You may
think you have been in my thoughts, long before my
rising. Of course you are so continually, as you well
know. I could not come to see you ; I am not worthy of
friends. With my opinions, to the fuU of which I dare
not confess, I feel like a guilty person with others, though
I trust I am not so. People kindly think that I have
much to bear externally, disappointment, slander, &c.
No, I have nothing to bear, but the anxiety which I feel
for my friends' anxiety for me, and their perplexity. This
is a better Ash-Wednesday than birthday present ; " [his
birthday was the same day as mine ; it was Ash- Wednes
day that year ;] " but I cannot help writing about what
is uppermost. And now, my dear B., all kindest and best
wishes to you, my oldest friend, whom I must not speak
more about, and with reference to myself, lest you should
be angry." It was not in his nature to have doubts : he
used to look at me with anxiety, and wonder what had
come over me.
On Easter Monday: "All that is good and gracious
descend upon you and yours from the influences of this
Blessed Season ; and it will be so, (so be it !) for what is
the life of you all, as day passes after day, but a simple
endeavour to serve Him, from whom all blessing comes ?
Though we are separated in place, yet this we have in

from 1841 to 1845. 227
common, that you are living a calm and cheerful time, and
I am enjoying the thought of you. It is your blessing to
have a clear heaven, and peace around, according to the
blessing pronounced on Benjamin.1 So it is, my dear B.,
and so may it ever be."
He was in simple good faith. He died in September of
the same year. I had expected that his last illness would
have brought light to my mind, as to what I ought to do.
It brought none. I made a note, which runs thus : " I
sobbed bitterly over his coffin, to think that he left me still
dark as to what the way of truth was, and what I ought
to do in order to please God and fulfil His will." I think
I wrote to Charles Marriott to say, that at that moment,
with the thought of my friend before me, my strong view
in favour of Rome remained just what it was. On the
other hand, my firm belief that grace was to be found
within the Anglican Church remained too.2 I wrote to
another friend thus : —
" Sept. 16, 1844. I am full of wrong and miserable
feelings, which it is useless to detail, so grudging and
sullen, when I should be thankful. Of course, when one
sees so blessed an end, and that, the termination of so
blameless a life, of one who really fed on our ordinances
and got strength from them, and sees the same continued
in a whole family, the little children finding quite a solace
of their pain in the Daily Prayer, it is impossible not to
feel more at ease in our Church, as at least a sort of Zoar,
a place of refuge and temporary rest, because of the steep
ness of the way. Only, may we be kept from unlawful
security, lest we have Moab and Ammon for our progeny,
the enemies of Israel."

1 Deut. xxxiii. 12.
2 On this subjeot, vide my Third Lecture on "Anglican Difficulties," also
Note E, Anglican Church.

228 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
I could not continue in this state, either in the light of
duty or of reason. My difficulty was this : I had been
deceived greatly once ; how could I be sure that I was not
deceived a second time ? I thought myself right then ;
how was I to be certain that I was right now ? How
many years had I thought myself sure of what I now re
jected ? how could I ever again have confidence in myself ?
As in 1840 I listened to the rising doubt in favour of
Rome, now I listened to the waning doubt in favour of
the Anglican Church. To be certain is to know that one
knows ; what inward test had I, that I should not change
again, after that I had become a Catholic? I had still
apprehension of this, though I thought a time would come,
when it would depart. However, some limit ought to be
put to these vague misgivings ; I must do my best and then
leave it to a higher Power to prosper it. So, at the end of
1844, 1 came to the resolution of writing an Essay on Doc
trinal Development ; and then, if, at the end of it, my con
victions in favour of the Roman Church were not weaker,
of taking the necessary steps for admission into her fold.
By this time the state of my mind was generally known,
and I made no great secret of it. I will illustrate it by
letters of mine which have been put into my hands.
" November 16, 1844. I am going through what must
be gone through ; and my trust only is that every day of
pain is so much taken from the necessary draught which
must be exhausted. There is no fear (humanly speaking)
of my moving for a long time yet. This has got out
without my intending it ; but it is all well. As far as I
know myself, my one great distress is the perplexity, un
settlement, alarm, scepticism, which I am causing to so
many ; and the loss of kind feeling and good opinion on
the part of so many, known and unknown, who have
wished well to me. And of these two sources of pain it is
the former that is the constant, urgent, unmitigated one.

from 1841 to 1845. 229
I had for days aliteral ache all about my heart ; and from
1 time to time all the complaints of the Psalmist seemed to
* * belong to me.
" And as far as I know myself, my one paramount reason
for contemplating a change is my deep, unvarying convic
tion that our Church is in schism, and that my salvation
depends on my joining the Church of Rome. I may use
argumenta ad hominem to this person or that;1 but I am
not conscious of resentment, or disgust, at any thing that
has happened to me. I have no visions whatever of hope
no schemes of action, in any other sphere more suited to
me. I have no existing sympathies with Roman Catholics ;
I hardly ever, even abroad, was at one of their services ;
I know none of them, I do not like what I hear of them.
'' And then, how much I am giving up in so many ways !
and to me sacrifices irreparable, not only from my age,
when people hate changing, but from my especial love of
old associations and the pleasures of memory. Nor am I
conscious of any feeling, enthusiastic or heroic, of pleasure
in the sacrifice ; I have nothing to support me here.
" What keeps me yet is what has kept me long ; a fear
that I am under a delusion ; but the conviction remains
firm under all circumstances, in all frames of mind. And
this most serious feeling is growing on me ; viz. that the
reasons for which I believe as much as our system teaches,
must lead me to believe more, and that not to believe more
is to fall back into scepticism.
" A thousand thanks for your most kind and consoling-
letter ; though I have not yet spoken of it. it was a great
gift." Shortly after I wrote to the same friend thus : " My
intention is, if nothing comes upon me, which I cannot
1 Vide supr. p. 219, &c. Letter of Oct. 14, 1843, compared with that of
Oct. 25.

230 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
foresee, to remain quietly iv statu quo for a considerable
time, trusting that my friends will kindly remember me
and my trial in their prayers. And I should give up my /
fellowship some time before any thing further took place."/
There was a lady, now a nun of the Visitation, to whom\
at this time I wrote the. following letters : —
1. " November 7, 1844. I am still where I was ; I am
not moving. Two things, however, seem plain, that every
one is prepared for such an event, next, that every one
expects it of me. Few, indeed, who do not think it suit
able, fewer still, who do not think it likely. However, I
do not think it either suitable or likely. I have very little
reason to doubt about the issue of things, but the when and
the how are known to Him, from whom, I trust, both the
course of things and the issue come. The expression of
opinion, and the latent and habitual feeling about me,
which is on every side and among all parties, has great
force. I insist upon it, because I have a great dread of
going by my own feelings, lest they should mislead me.
By one's sense of duty one must go ; but external facts
support one in doing so."
2. " January 8, 1845. What am I to say in answer to
your letter ? I know perfectly well, I ought to let you
know more of my feelings and state of mind than you do
know. But how is that possible in a few words ? Any
thing I say must be abrupt ; nothing can I say which will
not leave a bewildering feeling, as needing so much to ex
plain it, and being isolated, and (as it were) unlocated,
and not having any thing with it to show its bearings upon
other parts of the subject.
" At present, my full belief is, in accordance with your
letter, that, if there is a move in our Church, very few
persons indeed will be partners to it. I doubt whether
one or two at the most among residents at Oxford. And
I don't know whether I can wish it. The state of the

from 1841 to 1845. 231
Roman Catholics is at present so unsatisfactory. This I
am sure of, that nothing but a simple, direct call of duty
is a warrant for any one leaving our Church ; no prefer
ence of another Church, no delight in its services, no hope
of greater religious advancement in it, no indignation, no
disgust, at the persons and things, among which we may
find ourselves in the Church of England. The simple
question is, Can i" (it is personal, not whether another, but
can I) be saved in the English Church ? am / in safety,
were I to die to-night ? Is it a mortal sin in me, not join
ing another communion ?
" P.S. I hardly see my way to concur in attendance,
though occasional, in the Roman Catholic chapel, unless a
man has made up his mind pretty well to join it eventually.
Invocations are not required in the Church of Rome; some
how, I do not like using them except under the sanction of
the Church, and this makes me unwilling to admit them
in members of our Church."
3. " March 30. Now I will tell you more than any one
knows except two friends. My own convictions are as
strong as I suppose they can become : only it is so difficult
to know whether it is a call of reason or of conscience. I
cannot make out, if I am impelled by what seems clear, or
by a sense of duty. You can understand how painful this
doubt is ; so I have waited, hoping for light, and using the
words of the Psalmist, ' Show some token upon me.' But
I suppose I have no right to wait for ever for this. Then
I am waiting, because friends are most considerately bear
ing me in mind, and asking guidance for me ; and, I trust,
I should attend to any new feelings which came upon me,
should that be the effect of their kindness. And then this
waiting subserves the purpose of preparing men's minds.
I dread shocking, unsettling people. Any how, I can't
avoid giving incalculable pain. So, if I had my will, I
should like to wait till the summer of 1846, which would

232 HISTORY of my RELIGIOUS opinions
be a full seven years from the time that my convictions
first began to fall on me. But I don't think I shall last
so long.
" My present intention is to give up my Fellowship in
October, and to publish some work or treatise between that
and Christmas. I wish people to know why I am acting,
as well as what I am doing ; it takes off that vague and
distressing surprise, ' What can have made him ? ' "
4. " June 1. What you tell me of yourself makes it
plain that it is your duty to remain quietly and patiently,
till you see more clearly where you are ; else you are leap
ing in the dark."
In the early part of this year, if not before, there was
an idea afloat that my retirement from the Anglican
Church was owing to my distress that I had been so thrust
aside, without any one's taking my part. Various measures
were, I believe, talked of in consequence of this surmise.
Coincidently with it appeared an exceedingly kind article
about me in a Quarterly, in its April number. The writer
praised me in kind and beautiful language far above my
deserts. In the course of his remarks, he said, speaking
of me as Vicar of St. Mary's : " He had the future race of
clergy hearing him. Did he value and feel tender about,
and cling to his position ? . . . . Not at all. ... No
sacrifice to him perhaps, he did not care about such
things." There was a censure implied, however covertly, in these
words ; and it is alluded to in the following letter, addressed
to a very intimate friend : —
" April 3, 1845. . . . Accept this apology, my dear
Church, and forgive me. As I say so, tears come into my
eyes ; — that arises from the accident of this time, when I
am giving up so much I love. Just now I have been over
set by James Mozley's article in the Remembrancer ; yet
really, my dear Church, I have never for an instant had

from 1841 to 1845. 233
even the temptation of repenting my leaving Oxford. The
feeling of repentance has not even come into my mind.
How could it ? How could I remain at St. Mary's a hypo
crite ? how could I be answerable for souls, (and life so
uncertain,) with the convictions, or at least persuasions,
which I had upon me ? It is indeed a responsibility to
act as I am doing; and I feel His hand heavy on me
without intermission, who is all Wisdom and Love, so that
my heart and mind are tired out, just as the limbs might
be from a load on one's back. That sort of dull aching-
pain is mine; but my responsibility really is nothing to
what it would be, to be answerable for souls, for confiding
loving souls, in the English Church, with my convictions.
My love to Marriott, and save me the pain of sending him
a line." I am now close upon the date of my reception into the
Catholic Church ; at the beginning of the year a letter had
been addressed to me by a very dear friend, now no more,
Charles Marriott. I quote somesentences from it, for the love
which I bear him and the value that I set on his good word.
"January 15, 1845. You know me well enough to be
aware, that I never see through any thing at first. Your
letter to Badeley casts a gloom over the future, which you
can understand, if you have understood me, as I believe
you have. But I may speak out at once, of what I see and
feel at once, and doubt not that I shall ever feel : that your
whole conduct towards the Church of England and towards
us, who have striven and are still striving to seek after
God for ourselves, and to revive true religion among
others, under her authority and guidance, has been gene
rous and considerate, and, were that word appropriate,
dutiful, to a degree that I could scarcely have conceived
possible, more unsparing of self than I should have thought
nature could sustain. I have felt with pain every link

234 history of my religious opinions
that you have severed, and I have asked no questions,
because I felt that you ought to measure the disclosure of
your thoughts according to the occasion, and the capacity
of those to whom you spoke. I write in haste, in the
midst of engagements engrossing in themselves, but partly
made tasteless, partly embittered by what I have heard ;
but I am willing to trust even you, whom I love best on
earth, in God's Hand, in the earnest prayer that you may
be so employed as is best for the Holy Catholic Church."
In July, a Bishop thought it worth while to give out to
the world that " the adherents of Mr. Newman are few in
number. A short time will now probably suffice to prove
this fact. It is well known that he is preparing for seces
sion ; and, when that event takes place, it will be seen
how few will go with him."
I had begun my Essay on the Development of Doctrine
in the beginning of 1845, and I was hard at it all through
the year till October. As I advanced, my difficulties so
cleared away that I ceased to speak of "the Roman
Catholics," and boldly called them Catholics. Before I
got to the end, I resolved to be received, and the book
remains in the state in which it was then, unfinished.
One of my friends at Littlemore had been received into
the Church on Michaelmas Day, at the Passionist House
at Aston, near Stone, by Father Dominic, the Superior.
At the beginning of October the latter was passing through
London to Belgium ; and, as I was in some perplexity
what steps to take for being received myself, I assented
to the proposition made to me that the good priest should
take Littlemore in his way, with a view to his doing for me
the same charitable service as he had done to my friend.
On October the 8th I wrote to a number of friends the
following letter : —
"Littlemore, October 8th, 1845. I am this night ex
pecting Father Dominie, the Passionist, who, from his

from 1841 to 1845. 235
youth, has been led to have distinct and direct thoughts,
first of the countries of the North, then of England. After
thirty years' (almost) waiting, he was without his own act
sent here. But he has had little to do with conversions.
I saw him here for a few minutes on St. John Baptist's
day last year.
" He is a simple, holy man ; and withal gifted with
remarkable powers. He does not know of my intention ;
but I mean to ask of him admission into the One Fold of
Christ. . . .
'' I have so many letters to write, that this must do for
all who choose to ask about me. With my best love to
dear Charles Marriott, who is over your head, &c, &c.
" P.S. This will not go till all is over. Of course it
requires no answer."
For a while after my reception, I proposed to betake
myself to some secular calling. I wrote thus in answer
to a very gracious letter of congratulation sent me by
Cardinal Acton : —
" Nov. 25, 1845. I hope you will have anticipated, be
fore I express it, the great gratification which I received
from your Eminence's letter. That gratification, however,
was tempered by the apprehension, that kind and anxious
well-wishers at a distance attach more importance to my
step than really belongs to it. To me indeed personally it
is of course an inestimable gain ; but persons and things
look great at a distance, which are not so when seen close ;
and, did your Eminence know me, you would see that I was
one, about whom there has been far more talk for good
and bad than he deserves, and about whose movements far
more expectation has been raised than the event will
justify. " As I never, I do trust, aimed at any thing else than
obedience to my own sense of right, and have been magni-

236 HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
tied into the leader of a party without my wishing it or
acting as such, so now, much as I may wish to the con
trary, and earnestly as I may labour (as is my duty) to
minister in a humble way to the Catholic Church, yet my
powers will,. I fear, disappoint the expectations of both my
own friends, and of those who pray for the peace of Jeru
salem, " If I might ask of your Eminence a favour, it is that
you would kindly moderate those anticipations. Would it
were in my power to do, what I do not aspire to do ! At
present certainly I cannot look forward to the future, and,
though it would be a good work if I could persuade others
to do as I have done, yet it seems as if I had quite enough
to do in thinking of myself."
Soon, Dr. Wiseman, in whose Vicariate Oxford lay,
called me to Oscott ; and I went there with others ; after
wards he sent me to Rome, and finally placed me in Bir
mingham. I wrote to a friend : —
" January 20, 1846. You may think how lonely I am.
' Obliviscere populum tuum et domum patris tui,' has been
in my ears for the last twelve hours. I realize more that
we are leaving Littlemore, and it is like going on the open
sea." I left Oxford for good on Monday, February 23, 1846.
On the Saturday and Sunday before, I was in my house at
Littlemore simply by myself, as I had been for the first
day or two when I had originally taken possession of it.
I slept on Sunday night at my dear friend's, Mr. John
son's, at the Observatory. Various friends came to see the
last of me ; Mr. Copeland, Mr. Church, Mr. Buckle, Mr.
Pattison, and Mr. Lewis. Dr. Pusey too came up to take
leave of me ; and I called on Dr. Ogle, one of my very
oldest friends, for he was my private Tutor, when I was
an Undergraduate. In him I took leave of my first

from 1841 to 1845. 237
College, Trinity, which was so dear to me, and which held
on its foundation so many who had been kind to me both
when I was a boy, and all through my Oxford life. Trinity
1 had never been unkind to me. There used to be much
snap-dragon growing on the walls opposite my freshman's
rooms there, and I had for years taken it as the emblem
of my own perpetual residence even unto death in my
University. On the morning of the 23rd I left the Observatory. I
have never seen Oxford since, excepting its spires, as they
are seen from the railway.1
' At length 1 revisited Oxford ou February 2bth, 1878, after an absence
of just 32 years. Vide Additional Note at the end of the volume.

238 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.

CHAPTER V.
POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
From the time that I became a Catholic, of course I have
no further history of my religious opinions to narrate. In
saying this, I do not mean to say that my mind has been
idle, or that I have given up thinking on theological sub
jects ; but that I have had no variations to record, and
have had no anxiety of heart whatever. I have been in
perfect peace and contentment ; I never have had one doubt.
I was not conscious toc myself, on my conversion, of any
change, intellectual or moral, wrought in my mind. I was
not conscious of firmer faith in the fundamental truths of
Revelation, or of more self-command ; I had not more
fervour ; but it was like coming into port after a rough
sea ; and my happiness on that score remains to this day
without interruption.
Nor had I any trouble about receiving those additional
articles, which are not found in the Anglican Creed.
Some of them I believed already, but not any one of them
was a trial to me. I made a profession of them upon my
reception with the greatest ease, and I have the same ease
in believing them now. I am far of course from denying
that every article of the Christian Creed, whether as held
by Catholics or by Protestants, is beset with intellectual
difficulties ; and it is simple fact, that, for myself, I cannot
answer those difficulties. Many persons are very sensitive

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 239
of the difficulties of Religion ; I am as sensitive of them
as any one ; but I have never been able to see a connexion
between apprehending those difficulties, however keenly,
and multiplying them to any extent, and on the other hand
doubting the doctrines to which they are attached. Ten
thousand difficulties do not make one doubt, as I under
stand the subject; difficulty and doubt are incommensurate.
There of course may be difficulties in the evidence ; but I
am speaking of difficulties intrinsic to the doctrines them
selves, or to their relations with each other. A man may be
annoyed that he cannot work out a mathematical problem,
of which the answer is or is not given to him, without doubt
ing that it admits of an answer, or that a certain particular
answer is the true one. Of all points of faith, the being of
a God is, to my own apprehension, encompassed with most
difficulty, and yet bornein uponour minds withmost power.
People say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is
difficult to believe; I did not believe the doctrine till I
was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it, as soon
as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the
oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be
part of the original. revelation. It is difficult, impossible,
to imagine, I grant ; — but how is it difficult to believe ?
Yet Maeaulay thought it so difficult to believe, that he had
need of a believer in it of talents as eminent as Sir Thomas
More, before he could bring himself to conceive that the
Catholics of an enlightened age could resist " the over
whelming force of the argument against it." " Sir Thomas
More," he says, " is one of the choice specimens of wisdom
and virtue ; and the doctrine of transubstantiation is a
kind of proof charge. A faith which stands that test, will
stand any test." But for myself, I cannot indeed prove
it, I cannot tell how it is ; but I say, " Why should it not
be ? What's to hinder it ? What do I know of substance
or matter ? just as much as the greatest philosophers, and

240 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
that is nothing at all ; " — so much is this the case, that
there is a rising school of philosophy now, which considers
phenomena to constitute the whole of our knowledge in
physics. The Catholic doctrine leaves phenomena alone.
It does not say that the phenomena go ; on the contrary,
it says that they remain ; nor does it say that the same
phenomena are in several places at once. It deals with
what no one on earth knows any thing about, the material
substances themselves. And, in like manner, of that ma
jestic Article of the Anglican as well as of the Catholic
Creed, — the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. What do
I know of the Essence of the Divine Being ? I know that
my abstract idea of three is simply incompatible with my
idea of one ; but when I come to the question of concrete
fact, I have no means of proving that there is not a sense
in which one and three can equally be predicated of the
Incommunicable God.
But I am going to take upon myself the responsibility
of more than the mere Creed of the Church ; as the parties
accusing me are determined I shall do. They say, that
now, in that I am a Catholic, though I may not have
offences of my own against honesty to answer for, yet, at
least, I am answerable for the offences of others, of my
co-religionists, of my brother priests, of the Church her
self. I am quite willing to accept the responsibility ; and,
as I have been able, as I trust, by means of a few words,
to dissipate, in the minds of all those who do not begin
with disbelieving me, the suspicion with which so many
Protestants start, in forming their judgment of Catholics,
viz. that our Creed is actually set up in inevitable super
stition and hypocrisy, as the original sin of Catholicism ;
so now I will proceed, as before, identifying myself with
the Church and vindicating it, — not of course denying the
enormous mass of sin and error which exists of necessity
in that world-wide multiform Communion, — but going to

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 241
the proof of this one point, that its system is in no sense
dishonest, and that therefore the upholders and teachers of
that system, as such, have a claim to be acquitted in their
own persons of that odious imputation.
Starting then with the being of a God, (which, as I
have said, is as certain to me as the certainty of my own
existence, though when I try to put the grounds of that
certainty into logical shape I find a difficulty in doing so
in mood and figure to my satisfaction,) I look out of
myself into the world of men, and there I see a sight
which fills me with unspeakable distress. The world
seems simply to give the lie to that great truth, of which
my whole being is so full ; and the effect upon me is, in
consequence, as a matter of necessity, as confusing as if it
denied that I am in existence myself. If I looked into a
mirror, and did not see my face, I should have the sort of
feeling which actually comes upon me, when I look into
this living busy world, and see no reflexion of its Creator.
This is, to me, one of those great difficulties of this absolute
primary truth, to which I referred just now. Were it not
for this voice, speaking so clearly in my conscience and
my heart, I should be an atheist, or a pantheist, or a poly
theist when I looked into the world. I am speaking for
myself only ; and I am far from denying the real force of
the arguments in proof of a God, drawn from the general
facts of human society and the course of history, but these
do not warm me or enlighten me ; they do not take away
the winter of my desolation, or make the buds unfold and
the leaves grow within me, and my moral being rejoice.
The sight of the world is nothing else than the prophet's
scroll, full of " lamentations, and mourning, and woe."
To consider the world in its length and breadth, its
various history, the many races of man, their starts, their
fortunes, their mutual alienation, their conflicts ; and then
R

242 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
their ways, habits, governments, forms of worship ; their
enterprises, their aimless courses, their random achieve
ments and .acquirements, the impotent conclusion of
long-standing facts, the tokens so faint and broken of a
superintending design, the blind evolution of what turn
out to be great powers or truths, the progress of things,
as if from unreasoning elements, not towards final causes,
the greatness and littleness of man, his far-reaching aims,
his short duration, the curtain hung over his futurity, the
disappointments of life, the defeat of good, the success of
evil, physical pain, mental anguish, the prevalence and
intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the corruptions,
the dreary hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole
race, so fearfully yet exactly described in the Apostle's
words, " having no hope and without God in the world,"
— all this is a vision to dizzy and appal ; and inflicts upon
the mind the sense of a profound mystery, which is abso
lutely beyond human solution.
What shall be said to this heart-piercing, reason-bewil
dering fact ? I can only answer, that either there is no
Creator, or this living society of men is in a true sense
discarded from His presence. Did I see a boy of good
make and mind, with the tokens on him of a refined
nature, cast upon the world without provision, unable to
say whence he came, his birth-place or his family con
nexions, I should conclude that there was some mystery
connected with his history, and that he was one, of whom,
from one cause or other, his parents were ashamed. Thus
only should I be able to account for the contrast between
the promise and the condition of his being. And so I
argue about the world ; — if there be a God, since there is a
God, the human race is implicated in some terrible abori
ginal calamity. It is out of joint with the purposes of its
Creator. This is a fact, a fact as true as the fact of its
existence ; and thus the doctrine of what is theologically

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 243
called original sin becomes to me almost as certain as that
the world exists, and as the existence of God.
And now, supposing it were the blessed and loving will
of the Creator to interfere in this anarchical condition of
things, what are we to suppose would be the methods
which might be necessarily or naturally involved in His
purpose of mercy ? Since the world is in so abnormal a
state, surely it would be no surprise to me, if the inter
position were of necessity equally extraordinary — or what
is called miraculous. But that subject does not directly
come into the scope of my present remarks. Miracles as
evidence, involve a process of reason, or an argument ; and
of course I am thinking of some mode of interference
which does not immediately run into argument. I am
rather asking what must be the face-to-face antagonist, by
which to withstand and baffle the fierce energy of passion
and the all-corroding, aU-dissolving scepticism of the in
tellect in religious inquiries ? I have no intention at all
of denying, that truth is the real object of our reason, and
that, if it does not attain to truth, either the premiss or
the process is in fault ; but I am not speaking here of
right reason, but of reason as it acts in fact and concretely
in fallen man. I know that even the unaided reason, when
correctly exercised, leads to a belief in God, in the immor
tality of the soul, and in a future retribution; but I am
considering the faculty of reason actually and historically ;
and in this point of view, I do not think I am wrong in
saying that its tendency is towards a simple unbelief in
matters of religion. No truth, however sacred, can stand
against it, in the long run ; and hence it is that in the
pagan world, when our Lord came, the last traces of the
religious knowledge of former times were all but disap
pearing from those portions of the world in which the
intellect had been active and had had a career.
And in these latter days, in like manner, outside the

244 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
Gatholic Church things are tending, — with far greater rapi
dity than in that old time from the circumstance of the
age, — to atheism in one shape or other. What a scene,
what a prospect, does the whole of Europe present at this
day ! and not only Europe, but every government and
every civilization through the world, which is under the
influence of the European mind ! Especially, for it most
concerns us, how sorrowful, in the view of religion, even
taken in its most elementary, most attenuated form, is
the spectacle presented to us by the educated intellect of
England, France, and Germany ! Lovers of their country
and of their race, religious men, external to the Catholic
Church, have attempted various expedients to arrest fierce
wilful human nature in its onward course, and to bring it
into subjection. The necessity of some form of religion
for the interests of humanity, has been generally acknow
ledged: but where was the concrete representative of
things invisible, which would have the force and the
toughness necessary to be a breakwater against the
deluge ? Three centuries ago the establishment of reli
gion, material, legal, and social, was generally adopted as
the best expedient for the purpose, in those countries
which separated from the Catholic Church ; and for a long
time it was successful; but now the crevices of those
establishments are admitting the enemy. Thirty years
ago, education was relied upon : ten years ago there was a
hope that wars would cease for ever, under the influence of
commercial enterprise and the reign of the useful and fine
arts ; but will any one venture to say that there is any
thing any where on this earth, which will afford a fulcrum
for us, whereby to keep the earth from moving onwards ?
The judgment, which experience passes whether on
establishments or on education, as a means of maintaining
religious truth in this anarchical world, must be extended
even to Scripture, though Scripture be divine. Experience

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 245
proves surely that the Bible does not answer a purpose for
which it was never intended. It may be accidentally the
means of the conversion of individuals ; but a book, after
all, cannot make a stand against the wild living intellect
of man, and in this day it begins to testify, as regards its
own structure and contents, to the power of that universal
solvent, which is so successfully acting upon religious
establishments. Supposing then it to be the Will of the Creator to inter
fere in human affairs, and to make provisions for retaining
in the world a knowledge of Himself, so definite and dis
tinct as to be proof against the energy of human scepti
cism, in such a case, — I am far from saying that there was
no other way, — but there is nothing to surprise the mind,
if He should think fit to introduce a power into the world,
invested with the prerogative of infallibility in religious
matters. Such a provision would be a direct, immediate,
active, and prompt means of withstanding the difficulty ;
it would be an instrument suited to the need ; and, when
I find that this is the very claim of the Catholic Church,
not only do I feel no difficulty in admitting the idea, but
there is a fitness in it, which recommends it to my mind.
And thus I am brought to speak of the Church's infalli
bility, as a provision, adapted by the mercy of the Creator,
to preserve religion in the world, and to restrain that free
dom of thought, which of course in itself is one of the
greatest of our natural gifts, and to rescue it from its own
suicidal excesses. And let it be observed that, neither
here nor in what follows, shall I have occasion to speak
directly of Revelation in its subject-matter, but in reference
to the sanction which it gives to truths which may be
known independently of it, — as it bears upon the defence
of natural religion. I say, that a power, possessed of in
fallibility in religious teaching, is happily adapted to be a
working instrument, in the course of human affairs, for

246 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
smiting hard and throwing back the immense energy of
the aggressive, capricious, untrustworthy intellect : — and
in saying this, as in the other things that I have to say,
it must still be recollected that I am all along bearing in
mind my main purpose, which is a defence of myself.
I am defending myself here from a plausible charge
brought against Catholics, as will be seen better as I pro
ceed. The charge is this : — that I, as a Catholic, not only
make profession to hold doctrines which I cannot possibly
believe in my heart, but that I also believe in the existence
of a power on earth, which at its own will imposes upon
men any new set of credenda, when it pleases, by a claim
to infallibility ; in consequence, that my own thoughts are
not my own property ; that I cannot tell that to-morrow I
may not have to give up what I hold to-day, and that the
necessary effect of such a condition of mind must be a
degrading bondage, or a bitter inward rebellion relieving
itself in secret infidelity, or the necessity of ignoring the
whole subject of religion in a sort of disgust, and of me
chanically saying every thing that the Church says, and
leaving to others the defence of it. As then I have above
spoken of the relation of my mind towards the Catholic
Creed, so now I shall speak of the attitude which it takes
up in the view of the Church's infallibility.
And first, the initial doctrine of the infallible teacher
must be an emphatic protest against the existing state of
mankind. Man had rebelled against his Maker. It was
this that caused the divine interposition : and to proclaim
it must be the first act of the divinely-accredited messen
ger. The Church must denounce rebellion as of all possible
evils the greatest. She must have no terms with it ; if
she would be true to her Master, she must ban and ana
thematize it. This is the meaning of a statement of mine,
which has furnished matter for one of those special accu
sations to which I am at present replying : I have, how-

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 247
ever, no fault at all to confess in regard to it; I have
nothing to withdraw, and in consequence I here deliber
ately repeat it. I said, "The Catholic Church holds it
better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the
earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of
starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction
goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but
should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful
untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse."
I think the principle here enunciated to be the mere pre
amble in the formal credentials of the Catholic Church, as
an Act of Parliament might begin with a " Whereas."
It is because of the intensity of the evil which has pos
session of mankind, that a suitable antagonist has been
provided against it ; and the initial act of that divinely-
commissioned power is of course to deliver her challenge
and to defy the enemy. Such a preamble then gives a
meaning to her position in the world, and an interpreta
tion to her whole course of teaching and action.
In like manner she has ever put forth, with most ener
getic distinctness, those other great elementary truths,
which either are an explanation of her mission or give a
character to her work. She does not teach that human
nature is irreclaimable, else wherefore should she be sent ?
not, that it is to be shattered and reversed, but to be ex
tricated, purified, and restored ; not, that it is a mere mass
of hopeless evil, but that it has the promise upon it of great
things, and even now, in its present state of disorder and
excess, has a virtue and a praise proper to itself. But
in the next place she knows and she preaches that such a
restoration, as she aims at effecting in it, must be brought
about, not simply through certain outward provisions of
preaching and teaching, even though they be her own, but
from an inward spiritual power or grace imparted directly
frdm above, and of which she is the channel. She has.

248 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
it in charge to rescue human nature from its misery,
but not simply by restoring it on its own level, but by
lifting it up to a higher level than its own. She recog
nizes in it real moral excellence though degraded, but she
cannot set it free from earth except by exalting it towards
heaven. It was for this end that a renovating grace was
put into her hands ; and therefore from the nature of the
gift, as well as from the reasonableness of the case, she
goes on, as a further point, to insist, that all true conver
sion must begin with the first springs of thought, and to
teach that each individual man must be in his own person
one whole and perfect temple of God, while he is also one
of the living stones which build up a visible religious com
munity. And thus the distinctions between nature and
grace, and between outward and inward religion, become
two further articles in what I have called the preamble of
her divine commission.
Such truths as these she vigorously reiterates, and per
tinaciously inflicts upon mankind ; as to such she observes
no half-measures, no economical reserve, no delicacy or
prudence. " Ye must be born again," is the simple, direct
form of words which she uses after her Divine Master:
" your whole nature must be re-born ; your passions, and
your affections, and your aims, and your conscience, and
your will, must all be bathed in a new element, and recon
secrated to your Maker, — and, the last not the least, your
intellect." It was for repeating these points of her teach
ing in my own way, that certain passages of one of my
Volumes have been brought into the general accusation
which has been made against my religious opinions. The
writer has said that I was elemented if I believed, and un
principled if I did not believe, in my own statement, that a
lazy, ragged, filthy, story-telling beggar-woman, if chaste,
sober, cheerful, and religious, had a prospect of heaven,
such as was absolutely closed to an accomplished statesman,

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 249
or lawyer, or noble, be he ever so just, upright, generous,
honourable, and conscientious, unless he had also some
portion of the divine Christian graces ; — yet I should have
thought myself defended from criticism by the words which
our Lord used to the chief priests, " The publicans and
harlots go into the kingdom of God before you." And I
was subjected again to the same alternative of imputations,
for having ventured to say that consent to an unchaste
wish was indefinitely more heinous than any lie viewed
apart from its causes, its motives, and its consequences :
though a lie, viewed under the limitation of these condi
tions, is a random utterance, an almost outward act, not
directly from the heart, however disgraceful and despicable
it may be, however prejudicial to the social contract, how
ever deserving of public reprobation ; whereas we have the
express words of our Lord to the doctrine that " whoso
looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed
adultery with her already in his heart." On the strength
of these texts, I have surely as much right to believe in
these doctrines which have caused so much surprise, as to
believe in original sin, or that there is a supernatural reve
lation, or that a Divine Person suffered, or that punishment
is eternal.Passing now from what I have called the preamble of
that grant of power, which is made to the Church, to that
power itself, Infallibility, I premise two brief remarks : —
1. on the one hand, I am not here determining any thing
about the essential seat of that power, because that is a
question doctrinal, not historical and practical ; 2. nor, on
the other hand, am I extending the direct subject-matter,
over which that power of Infallibility has jurisdiction,
beyond religious opinion : — and now as to the power itself.
This power, viewed in its fulness, is as tremendous as
the giant evil which has called for it. It claims, when
brought into exercise but in the legitimate manner, for

250 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
otherwise of course it is but quiescent, to know for cer
tain the very meaning of every portion of that Divine
Message in detail, which was committed by our Lord to
His Apostles. It claims to know its own limits, and to
decide what it can determine absolutely and what it cannot.
It claims, moreover, to have a hold upon statements not
directly religious, so far as this, — to determine whether
they indirectly relate to religion, and, according to its own
definitive judgment, to pronounce whether or not, in a par
ticular case, they are simply consistent with revealed truth.
It claims to decide magisterially, whether as within its own
province or not, that such andsuch statements are or are not
prej udicial to the Depositum of f aith.in their spirit or in their
consequences, and to allow them, or condemn and forbid
them, accordingly. It claims to impose silence at will on
any matters, or controversies, of doctrine, which on its own
ipse dixit, it pronounces to be dangerous, or inexpedient, or
inopportune. It claims that, whatever may be the judg
ment of Catholics upon such acts, these acts should be re
ceived by them with those outward marks of reverence,
submission, and loyalty, which Englishmen, for instance,
pay to the presence of their sovereign, without expressing
any criticism on them on the ground that in their matter
they are inexpedient, or in tlieir manner violent or harsh.
And lastly, it claims to have the right of inflicting spiritual
punishment, of cutting off from the ordinary channels of
the divine life, and of simply excommunicating, those who
refuse to submit themselves to its formal declarations.
Such is the infallibility lodged in the Catholic Church,
viewed in the concrete, as clothed and surrounded by the
appendages of its high sovereignty : it is, to repeat what I
said above, a supereminent prodigious power sent upon
earth to encounter and master a giant evil.
And now, having thus described it, I profess my own
absolute submission to its claim." I believe the whole re-

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 251
vealed dogma as taught by the Apostles, as committed by
the Apostles to the Church, and as declared by the Church
to me. I receive it, as it is infallibly interpreted by the
authority to whom it is thus committed, and (implicitly)
as it shall be, in like manner, further interpreted by that
same authority till the end of time. I submit, moreover,
to the universally received traditions of the Church, in
which lies the matter of those new dogmatic definitions
which are from time to time made, and which in all times
are the clothing and the illustration of the Catholic dogma
as already defined. And I submit myself to those other
decisions of the Holy See, theological or not, through the
organs which it has itself appointed, which, waiving the
question of their infallibility, on the lowest ground come
to me with a claim to be accepted and obeyed. Also, I
consider that, gradually and in the course of ages, Catholic
inquiry has taken certain definite shapes, and has thrown
itself into the form of a science, with a method and a
phraseology of its own, under the intellectual handling of
great minds, such as St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, and
St. Thomas ; and I feel no temptation at all to break in
pieces the great legacy of thought thus committed to us
for these latter days.
All this being considered as the profession which I make
ex animo, as for myself, so also on the part of the Catholic
body, as far as I know it, it will at first sight be said that
the restless intellect of our common humanity is utterly
weighed down, to the repression of all independent effort
and action whatever, so that, if this is to be the mode of
bringing it into order, it is brought into order only to be
destroyed. But this is far from the result, far from what
I conceive to be the intention of that high Providence who
has provided a great remedy for a great evil, — far from
borne out by the history of the conflict between Infalli
bility and Reason in the past, and the prospect of it in the

252 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
future. The energy of the human intellect " does from
opposition grow ; " it thrives and is joyous, with a tough
elastic strength, under the terrible blows of the divinely-
fashioned weapon, and is never so much itself as when it
has lately been overthrown. It is the custom with Pro
testant writers to consider that, whereas there are two
great principles in action in the history of religion,
Authority and Private Judgment, they have all the Private
Judgment to themselves, and we have the full inheritance
and the superincumbent oppression of Authority. But
this is not so ; it is the vast Catholic body itself, and it
only, which affords an arena for both combatants in that
awful, never-dying duel. It is necessary for the very life
of religion, viewed in its large operations and its history,
that the warfare should be incessantly carried on. Every
exercise of Infallibility is brought out into act by an intense
and varied operation of the Reason, both as its ally and as
its opponent, and provokes again, when it has done its work,
a re-action of Reason against it; and, as in a civil polity
the State exists and endures by means of the rivalry and
collision, the encroachments and defeats of its constituent
parts, so in like manner Catholic Christendom is no simple
exhibition of religious absolutism, but presents a continuous
picture of Authority and Private Judgment alternately
advancing and retreating as the ebb and flow of the tide :-^-
it is a vast assemblage of human beings with wilful intel
lects and wild passions, brought together into one by the
beauty and the Majesty of a Superhuman Power, — into
what may be called a large reformatory or training-school,
not as if into a hospital or into a prison, not in order to be
sent to bed, not to be buried alive, but (if I may change
my metaphor) brought together as if into some moral fac
tory, for the melting, refining, and moulding, by an inces
sant, noisy process, of the raw material of human nature,
so excellent, so dangerous, so capable of divine purposes.

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 253
St. Paul says in one place that his Apostolical power is
given him to edification, and not to destruction. There
can be no better account of the Infallibility of the Church.
It is a supply for a need, and it does not go beyond that
need. Its object is, and its effect also, not to enfeeble the
freedom or vigour of human thought in religious specula
tion, but to resist and control its extravagance. What
have been its great works ? All of them in the distinct
province of theology: — to put down Arianism, Eutychi-
anism, Pelagianism, Manichseism, Lutheranism, Jansenism.
Such is the broad result of its action in the past ; — and now
as to the securities which are given us that so it ever will
act in time to come.
First, Infallibility cannot act outside of a definite circle
of thought, and it must in all its decisions, or definitions,
as they are called, profess to be keeping within it. The
great truths of the moral law, of natural religion, and of
Apostolical faith, are both its boundary and its foundation.
It must not go beyond them, and it must ever appeal to
them. Both its subject-matter, and its articles in that
subject-matter, are fixed. And it must ever profess to be
guided by Scripture and by tradition. It must refer to
the particular Apostolic truth which it is enforcing, or
(what is called) defining. Nothing, then, can be presented
to me, in time to come, as part of the faith, but what I
ought already to have received, and hitherto have been
kept from receiving, (if so,) merely because it has not been
brought home to me. Nothing can be imposed upon me
different in kind from what I hold already, — much less
contrary to it. The new truth which is promulgated, if it
is to be called new, must be at least homogeneous, cognate,
implicit, viewed relatively to the old truth. It must be
what I may even have guessed, or wished, to be included
in the Apostolic revelation ; and at least it will be of such

254 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
a character, that my thoughts readily concur in it or
coalesce with it, as soon as I hear it. Perhaps I and others
actually have always believed it, and the only question
which is now decided in my behalf, is, that I have hence
forth the satisfaction of having to believe, that I have only
been holding all along what the Apostles held before me.
Let me take the doctrine which Protestants consider our
greatest difficulty, that of the Immaculate Conception.
Here I entreat the reader to recollect my main drift, which
is this. I have no difficulty in receiving the doctrine ; and
that, because it so intimately harmonizes with that circle of
recognized dogmatic truths, into which it has been recently
received ; — but if /have no difficulty, why may not another
have no difficulty also ? why may not a hundred ? a
thousand ? Now I am sure that Catholics in general have
not any intellectual difficulty at all on the subject of the
Immaculate Conception ; and that there is no reason why
they should. Priests have no difficulty. You tell me
that they ought to have a difficulty ; — but they have not.
Be large-minded enough to believe, that men may reason
and feel very differently from yourselves ; how is it that
men, when left to themselves, fall into such various forms
of religion, except that there are various types of mind
among them, very distinct from each other ? From my
testimony then about myself, if you believe it, judge of
others also who are Catholics : we do not find the difficul
ties which you do in the doctrines which we hold ; we have
no intellectual difficulty in that doctrine in particular,
which you call a novelty of this day. We priests need not
be hypocrites, though we be called upon to believe in the
Immaculate Conception. To that large class of minds,
who believe in Christianity after our manner, — in the par
ticular temper, spirit, and light, (whatever word is used,)
in which Catholics believe it, — there is no burden at all in

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 255
holding that the Blessed Virgin was conceived without
original sin; indeed, it is a simple fact to say, that
Catholics have not come to believe it because it is defined,
but that it was denned because they believed it.
So far from the definition in 1854 being a tyrannical in
fliction on the Catholic world, it was received every where
on its promulgation with the greatest enthusiasm. It was
in consequence of the unanimous petition, presented from
all parts of the Church to the Holy See, in behalf of an ex
cathedrd declaration that the doctrine was Apostolic, that
it was declared so to be. I never heard of one Catholic
having difficulties in receiving the doctrine, whose faith on
other grounds was not already suspicious. Of course there
were grave and good men, who were made anxious by the
doubt whether it could be formally proved to be Apostolical
either by Scripture or tradition, and who accordingly,
though believing it themselves, did not see how it could
be defined by authority and imposed upon all Catholics as
a matter of faith ; but this is another matter. The point
in question is, whether the doctrine is a burden. I believe
it to be none. So far from it being so, I sincerely think
that St. Bernard and St. Thomas, who scrupled at it in
their day, had they lived into this, would have rejoiced to
accept it for its own sake. Their difficulty, as I view it,
consisted in matters of words, ideas, and arguments. They
thought the doctrine inconsistent with other doctrines ;
and those who defended it in that age had not that preci
sion in their view of it, which has been attained by means
of the long disputes of the centuries which followed. And
in this want of precision lay the difference of opinion, and
the controversy.
Now the instance which I have been taking suggests
another remark ; the number of those (so called) new doc
trines will not oppress us, if it takes eight centuries to pro
mulgate even one of them. Such is about the length of

256 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
time through which the preparation has been carried on
for the definition of the Immaculate Conception. This of
course is an extraordinary case ; but it is difficult to say
what is ordinary, considering how few are the formal
occasions on which the voice of Infallibility has been
solemnly lifted up. It is to the Pope in Ecumenical
Council that we look, as to the normal seat of Infallibility :
now there have been only eighteen such Councils since
Christianity was, — an average of one to a century, —
and of these Councils some passed no doctrinal decree at
all, others were employed on only one, and many of them
were concerned with only elementary points of the Creed.
The Council of Trent embraced a large field of doctrine
certainly ; but I should apply to its Canons a remark con
tained in that University Sermon of mine, which has been
so ignorantly criticized in the Pamphlet which has been
the occasion of this Volume ; — I there have said that the
various verses of the Athanasian Creed are only repetitions
in various shapes of one and the same idea ; and in like
manner, the Tridentine Decrees are not isolated from each
other, but are occupied in bringing out in detail, by a
number of separate declarations, as if into bodily form, a
few necessary truths. I should make the same remark on
the various theological censures, promulgated by Popes,
which the Church has received, and on their dogmatic deci
sions generally. I own that at first sight those decisions
seem from their number to be a greater burden on the faith
of individuals than are the Canons of Councils; still I do not
believe that in matter of fact they are so at all, and I give
this reason for it: — it is not that a Catholic, layman or
priest, is indifferent to the subject, or, from a sort of reck
lessness, will accept any thing that is placed before him,
or is willing, like a lawyer, to speak according to his brief,
but that in such condemnations the Holy See is engaged,
for the most part, in repudiating one or two great lines of

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 257
error, such as Lutheranism or Jansenism, principally ethi
cal not doctrinal, which are divergent from the Catholic
mind, and that it is but expressing what any good Catholic,
of fair abilities, though unlearned, would say himself, from
common and sound sense, if the matter could be put before
him. Now I will go on in fairness to say what I think is the
great trial to the Reason, when confronted with that august
prerogative of the Catholic Church, of which I have been
speaking. I enlarged just now upon the concrete shape
and circumstances, under which pure infallible authority
presents itself to the Catholic. That authority has the
prerogative of an indirect jurisdiction on subject-matters
which lie beyond its own proper limits, and it most reason
ably has such a jurisdiction. It could not act in its own
province, unless it had a right to act out of it. It could
not properly defend religious truth, without claiming for
that truth what may be called its pomceria ; or, to take
another illustration, without acting as we act, as a nation,
in claiming as our own, not only the land on which we
live, but what are called British waters. The Catholic
Church claims, not only to judge infallibly on religious
questions, but to animadvert on opinions in secular mat
ters which bear upon religion, on matters of philosophy,
of science, of literature, of history, and it demands our
submission to her claim. It claims to censure books, to
silence authors, and to forbid discussions. In this pro
vince, taken as a whole, it does not so much speak doc
trinally, as enforce measures of discipline. It must of
course be obeyed without a word, and perhaps in process
of time it will tacitly recede from its own injunctions. In
such cases the question of faith does not come in at all ;
for what is matter of faith is true for all times, and never
can be unsaid Nor does it at all follow, because there is
a gift of infallibility in the Catholic Church, that therefore

258 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
the parties who are in possession of it are in all their pro
ceedings infallible. "0, it is excellent," says the poet,
" to have a giant's strength, but tyrannous, to use it like a
giant." I think history supplies us with instances in the
Church, where legitimate power has been harshly used
To make such admission is no more than saying that the
divine treasure, in the words of the Apostle, is " in earthen
vessels ; " nor does it follow that the substance of the acts
of the ruling power is not right and expedient, because its
manner may have been faulty. Such high authorities act
by means of instruments ; we know how such instruments
claim for themselves the name of their principals, who
thus get the credit of faults which really are not theirs.
But granting all this to an extent greater than can with
any show of reason be imputed to the ruling power in the
Church, what difficulty is there in the fact of this want of
prudence or moderation more than can be urged, with far
greater justice, against Protestant communities and in
stitutions ? What is there in it to make us hypocrites, if
it has not that effect upon Protestants ? We are called
upon, not to profess any thing, but to submit and be silent,
as Protestant Churchmen have before now obeyed the royal
command to abstain from certain theological questions.
Such injunctions as I have been contemplating are laid
merely upon our actions, not upon our thoughts. How, for
instance, does it tend to make a man a hypocrite, to be for
bidden to publish a libel ? his thoughts are as free as before :
authoritative prohibitions may tease and irritate, but they
have no bearing whatever upon the exercise of reason.
So much at first sight ; but I will go on to say further,
that, in spite of all that the most hostile critic may urge
about the encroachments or severities of high ecclesiastics,
in times past, in the use of their power, I think that the
event has shown after all, that they were mainly in the right,
and that those whom they were hard upon were mainly

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 259
in the wrong. I love, for instance, the name of Origen :
I will not listen to the notion that so great a soul was lost ;
but I am quite sure that, in the contest between his doc
trine and followers and the ecclesiastical power, his oppo
nents were right, and he was wrong. Yet who can speak
with patience of his enemy and the enemy of St. John
Chrysostom, that Theophihis, bishop of Alexandria ? who
can admire or revere Pope Vigilius ? And here another
consideration presents itself to my thoughts. In reading
ecclesiastical history, when I was an Anglican, it used to
be forcibly brought home to me, how the initial error of
what afterwards became heresy was the urging forward
some truth against the prohibition of authority at an un
seasonable time. There is a time for every thing, and
many a man desires a reformation of an abuse, or the
fuller development of a doctrine, or the adoption of a
particular policy, but forgets to ask himself whether the
right time for it is come : and, knowing that there is no
one who will be doing any thing towards its accomplish
ment in his own lifetime unless he does it himself, he will
not listen to the voice of authority, and he spoils a good
work in his own century, in order that another man, as
yet unborn, may not have the opportunity of bringing it
happily to perfection in the next. He may seem to the
world to be nothing else than a bold champion for the
truth and a martyr to free opinion, when he is just one
of those persons whom the competent authority ought to
silence ; and, though the case may not fall within that
subject-matter in which that authority is infallible, or the
formal conditions of the exercise of that gift may be want
ing, it is clearly the duty of authority to act vigorously in
the case. Yet its act will go down to posterity as an
instance of a tyrannical interference with private judg
ment, and of the silencing of a reformer, and of a base
love of corruption or error ; and it will show still less to

260 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
advantage, if the ruling power happens in its proceedings
to evince any defect of prudence or consideration. And
all those who take the part of that ruling authority will
be considered as time-servers, or indifferent to the cause of
uprightness and truth ; while, on the other hand, the said
authority may be accidentally supported by a violent ultra
party, which exalts opinions into dogmas, and has it prin
cipally at heart to destroy every school of thought but its
own. Such a state of things may be provoking and discourag
ing at the time, in the case of two classes of persons ; of
moderate men who wish to make differences in religious
opinion as little as they fairly can be made ; and of such
as keenly perceive, and are honestly eager to remedy,
existing evils, — evils, of which divines in this or that
foreign country know nothing at all, and which even at
home, where they exist, it is not every one who has the
means of estimating. This is a state of things both of
past time and of the present. We live in a wonderful
age ; the enlargement of the circle of secular knowledge
just now is simply a bewilderment, and the more so, be
cause it has the promise of continuing, and that with
greater rapidity, and more signal results. Now these dis
coveries, certain or probable, have in matter of fact an
indirect bearing upon religious opinions, and the question
arises how are the respective claims of revelation and of
natural science to be adjusted. Few minds in earnest can
remain at ease without some sort of rational grounds for
their religious belief; to reconcile theory and fact is
almost an instinct of the mind. When then a flood of
facts, ascertained or suspected, comes pouring in upon us,
with a multitude of others in prospect, all believers in
Revelation, be they Catholic or not, are roused to consider
their bearing upon themselves, both for the honour of God,
and from tenderness for those many souls who, in conse-

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 261
quence of the confident tone of the schools of secular
knowledge, are in danger of being led away into a bottom
less liberalism of thought.
I am not going to criticize here that vast body of men,
in the mass, who at this time would profess to be liberals
in religion ; and who look towards the discoveries of the
age, certain or in progress, as their informants, direct or
indirect, as to what they shall think about the unseen and
the future. The Liberalism which gives a colour to society
now, is very different from that character of thought which
bore the name thirty or forty years ago. Now it is scarcely
a party ; it is the educated lay world. When I was young,
I knew the word first as giving name to a periodical, set
up by Lord Byron and others. Now, as then, I have no
sympathy with the philosophy of Byron. Afterwards,
Liberalism was the badge of a theological school, of a dry
and repulsive character, not very dangerous in itself,
though dangerous as opening the door to evils which it
did not itself either anticipate or comprehend. At present
it is nothing else than that deep, plausible scepticism, of
which I spoke above, as being the development of human
reason, as practically exercised by the natural man.
The Liberal religionists of this day are a very mixed
body, and therefore I am not intending to speak against
them. There may be, and doubtless is, in the hearts of
some or many of them a real antipathy or anger against
revealed truth, which it is distressing to think of. Again ;
in many men of science or literature there may be an
animosity arising from almost a personal feeling ; it being
a matter of party, a point of honour, the. excitement of a
game, or a satisfaction to the soreness or annoyance occa
sioned by the acrimony or narrowness of apologists for
religion, to prove that Christianity or that Scripture is un
trustworthy. Many scientific and literary men, on the other
hand, go on, I am confident, in a straightforward impartial!

262 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
way, in their own province and on their own line of
thought, without any disturbance from religious difficulties
in themselves, or any wish at all to give pain to others by
the result of their investigations. It would ill become me,
as if I were afraid of truth of any kind, to blame those
who pursue secular facts, by means of the reason which
God has given them, to their logical conclusions : or to be
angry with science, because religion is bound in duty to
take cognizance of its teaching. But putting these parti
cular classes of men aside, as having no special call on the
sympathy of the Catholic, of course he does most deeply
enter into the feelings of a fourth and large class of men
in the educated portions of society, of religious and sincere
minds, who are simply perplexed, — frightened or rendered
desperate, as the case may be, — by the utter confusion into
which late discoveries or speculations have thrown their
most elementary ideas of religion. Who does not feel for
such men ? who can have one unkind thought of them ?
I take up in their behalf St. Augustine's beautiful words,
"Illi in vos saeviant," &c. Let them be fierce with you
who have no experience of the difficulty with which error
is discriminated from truth, and the way of life is found
amid the illusions of the world. How many a Catholic
has in his thoughts followed such men, many of them so
good, so true, so noble ! how often has the wish risen in
his heart that some one from among his own people should
come forward as the champion of revealed truth against its
opponents ! Various persons, Catholic and Protestant,
have asked me to do so myself ; but I had several strong
difficulties in the way. One of the greatest is this, that at
the moment it is so difficult to say precisely what it is that
is to be encountered and overthrown. I am far from
denying that scientific knowledge is really growing, but it
is by fits and starts ; hypotheses rise and fall ; it is diffi
cult to anticipate which of them will keep their ground,

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 263
and what the state of knowledge in relation to them will
be from year to year. In this condition of things, it has
seemed to me to be very undignified for a Catholic to com
mit himself to the work of chasing what might turn out
to be phantoms, and, in behalf of some special objections,
to be ingenious in devising a theory, which, before it was
completed, might have to give place to some theory newer
still, from the fact that those former objections had already
come to nought under the uprising of others. It seemed
to be especially a time, in which Christians had a call to be
patient, in which they had no other way of helping those
who were alarmed, than that of exhorting them to have a
little faith and fortitude, and to " beware," as the poet
says, " of dangerous steps." This seemed so clear to me,
the more I thought of the matter, as to make me surmise,
that, if I attempted what had so little promise in it, I
should find that the highest Catholic Authority was
against the attempt, and that I should have spent my
time and my thought, in doing what either it would be
imprudent to bring before the public at all, or what, did I
do so, would only complicate matters further which were
already complicated, without my interference, more than
enough. And I interpret recent acts of that authority as
fulfilling my expectation ; I interpret them as tying the
hands of a controversialist, such as I should be, and teach
ing us that true wisdom, which Moses inculcated on his
people, when the Egyptians were pursuing them, " Fear
ye not, stand still ; the Lord shall fight for you, and ye
shall hold your peace." And so far from finding a diffi
culty in obeying in this case, I have cause to be thankful
and to rejoice to have so clear a direction in a matter of
difficulty. But if we would ascertain with correctness the real
course of a principle, we must look at it at a certain dis
tance, and as history represents it to us. Nothing carried

264 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
on by human instruments, but has its irregularities, and
affords ground for criticism, when minutely scrutinized in
matters of detail. I have been speaking of that aspect of
the action of an infallible authority, which is most open to
invidious criticism from those who view it from without ;
I have tried to be fair, in estimating what can be said to
its disadvantage, as witnessed at a particular time in the
Catholic Church, and now I wish its adversaries to be
equally fair in their judgment upon its historical character.
Can, then, the infallible authority, with any show of reason,
be said in fact to have destroyed the energy of the Catholic
intellect ? Let it be observed, I have not here to speak
of any conflict which ecclesiastical authority has had with
science, for this simple reason, that conflict there has been
none ; and that, because the secular sciences, as they now
exist, are a novelty in the world, and there has been no
time yet for a history of relations between theology and
these new methods of knowledge, and indeed the Church
may be said to have kept clear of them, as is proved by
the constantly cited case of Galileo. Here " exceptio pro-
bat regulam : " for it is the one stock argument. Again,
I have not to speak of any relations of the Church to the
new sciences, because my simple question all along has
been whether the assumption of infallibility by the proper
authority is adapted 'to make me a hypocrite, and till that
authority passes decrees on pure physical subjects and calls
on me to subscribe them, (which it will never do, because
it has not the power,) it has no tendency to interfere by any
of its acts with my private judgment on those points. The
simple question is, whether authority has so acted upon
the reason of individuals, that they can have no opinion
of their own, and have but an alternative of slavish super
stition or secret rebellion of heart ; and I think the whole
history of theology puts an absolute negative upon such a
supposition.

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 265
It is hardly necessary to argue out so plain a point. It
is individuals, and not the Holy See, that have taken the
initiative, and given the lead to the Catholic mind, in theo
logical inquiry. Indeed, it is one of the reproaches urged
against the Roman Church, that it has originated nothing,
and has only served as a sort of remora or break in the
development of doctrine. And it is an objection which I
really embrace as a truth ; for such I conceive to be the
main purpose of its extraordinary gift. It is said, and
truly, that the Church of Rome possessed no great mind
in the whole period of persecution. Afterwards for a long
while, it has not a single doctor to show ; St. Leo, its first,
is the teacher of one point of doctrine ; St. Gregory, who
stands at the very extremity of the first age of the Church,
has no place in dogma or philosophy. The great luminary
of the western world is, as we know, St. Augustine ; he,
no infallible teacher, has formed the intellect of Christian
Europe ; indeed to the African Church generally we must
look for the best early exposition of Latin ideas. More
over, of the African divines, the first in order of time, and
not the least influential, is the strong-minded and heterodox
Tertullian. Nor is the Eastern intellect, as such, without
its share in the formation of the Latin teaching. The
free thought of Origen is visible in the writings of the
Western Doctors, Hilary and Ambrose ; and the indepen
dent mind of Jerome has enriched his own vigorous com
mentaries on Scripture, from the stores of the scarcely
orthodox Eusebius. Heretical questionings have been
transmuted by the living power of the Church into salu
tary truths. The case is the same as regards the Ecumen
ical Councils. Authority in its most imposing exhibition,
grave Bishops, laden with the traditions and rivalries of
particular nations or places, have been guided in their
decisions by the commanding genius of individuals, some
times young and of inferior rank. Not that uninspired

266 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
intellect overruled the super-human gift which was com
mitted to the Council, which would be a self-contradictory
assertion, but that in that process of inquiry and delibera
tion, which ended in an infallible enunciation, individual
reason was paramount. Thus Malchion, a mere presbyter,
was the instrument of the great Council of Antioch in the
third century in meeting and refuting, for the assembled
Fathers, the heretical Patriarch of that see. Parallel to
this instance is the influence, so well known, of a young
deacon, St. Athanasius, with the 318 Fathers at Nicasa.
In mediaeval times we read of St.' Anselm at Bari, as the
champion of the Council there held, against the Greeks.
At Trent, the writings of St. Bonaventura, and, what is
more to the point, the address of a Priest and theologian,
Salmeron, had a critical effect on some of the definitions
of dogma. In some of these cases the influence might be
partly moral, but in others it was that of a discursive
knowledge of ecclesiastical writers, a scientific acquaint
ance with theology, and a force of thought in the treat
ment of doctrine.
There are of course intellectual habits which theology
does not tend to form, as for instance the experimental,
and again the philosophical ; but that is because it is
theology, not because of the gift of infallibility. But, as
far as this goes, I think it could be shown that physical
science on the other hand, or again mathematical, affbrds
but an imperfect training for the intellect. I do not see
then how any objection about the narrowness of theology
comes into our question, which simply is, whether the
belief in an infallible authority destroys the independence
of the mind; and I consider that the whole history of
the Church, and especially the history of the theological
schools, gives a negative to the accusation. There never
was a time when the intellect of the educated class was
more active, or rather more restless, than in the middle

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 267
ages. And then again all through Church history from
the first, how slow is authority in interfering ! Perhaps
a local teacher, or a doctor in some local school, hazards a
proposition, and a controversy ensues. It smoulders or
burns in one place, no one interposing ; Rome simply lets
it alone. Then it comes before a Bishop ; or some priest,
or some professor in some other seat of learning takes it
up ; and then there is a second stage of it. Then it comes
before a University, and it may be condemned by the
theological faculty. So the controversy proceeds year
after year, and Rome is still silent. An appeal perhaps is
next made to a seat of authority inferior to Rome ; and
then at last after a long while it comes before the supreme
power. Meanwhile, the question has been ventilated and
turned over and over again, and viewed on every side of
it, and authority is called upon to pronounce a decision,
which has already been arrived at by reason. But even
then, perhaps the supreme authority hesitates to do so,
and nothing is determined on the point for years : or so
generally and vaguely, that the whole controversy has to
be gone through again, before it is ultimately determined.
It is manifest how a mode of proceeding, such as this,
tends not only to the liberty, but to the courage, of the
individual theologian or controversialist. Many a man
has ideas, which he hopes are true, and useful for his day,
but he is not confident about them, and wishes to have
them discussed. He is willing, or rather would be thankful,
to give them up, if they can be proved to be erroneous or
dangerous, and by means of controversy he obtains his
end. He is answered, and he yields ; or on the contrary
he finds that he is considered safe. He would not dare to
do this, if he knew an authority, which was supreme and
final, was watching every word he said, and made signs of
assent or dissent to each sentence, as he uttered it. Then
indeed he would be fighting, as the Persian soldiers, under

268 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
the lash, and the freedom of his intellect might truly be
said to be beaten out of him. But this has not been so : —
I do not mean to say that, when controversies run high,
in schools or even in small portions of the Church, an
interposition may not advisably take place ; and again,
questions may be of that urgent nature, that an appeal
must, as a matter of duty, be made at once to the highest
authority in the Church ; but if we look into the history
of controversy, we shall find, I think, the general run of
things to be such as I have represented it. Zosimus
treated Pelagius and Coelestius with extreme forbearance ;
St. Gregory VII. was equally indulgent with Berengarius :
— by reason of the very power of the Popes they have
commonly been slow and moderate in their use of it.
And here again is a further shelter for the legitimate
exercise of the reason: — the multitude of nations which
are within the fold of the Church will be found to have
acted for its protection, against any narrowness, on the
supposition of narrowness, in the various authorities at
Rome, with whom lies the practical decision of contro
verted questions. How have the Greek traditions been
respected and provided for in the later Ecumenical Coun
cils, in spite of the countries that held them being in a
state of schism ! There are important points of aoctrine
which have been (humanly speaking) exempted from the
infallible sentence, by the tenderness with which its instru
ments, in framing it, have treated the opinions of particular
places. Then, again, such national influences have a pro
vidential effect in moderating the bias which the local
influences of Italy may exert upon the See of St. Peter.
It stands to reason that, as the Gallican Church has in it
a French element, so Rome must have in it an element of
Italy ; and it is no prejudice to the zeal and devotion with
which we submit ourselves to the Holy See to admit this
plainly. It seems to me, as I have been saying, that

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 269
Catholicity is not only one of the notes of the Church, but,
according to the divine purposes, one of its securities. I
think it would be a very serious evil, which Divine Mercy
avert ! that the Church should be contracted in Europe
within the range of particular nationalities. It is a great
idea to introduce Latin civilization into America, and to
improve the Catholics there by the energy of French
devotedness ; but I trust that all European races will ever
have a place in the Church, and assuredly I think that
the loss of the English, not to say the German element, in
its composition has been a most serious misfortune. And
certainly, if there is one consideration more than another
which should make us English grateful to Pius the Ninth,
it is that, by giving us a Church of our own, he has pre
pared the way for our own habits of mind, our own
manner of reasoning, our own tastes, and our own virtues,
rinding a place and thereby a sanctification, in the Catholic
Church. There is only one other subject, which I think it neces
sary to introduce here, as bearing upon the vague suspi
cions which are attached in this country to the Catholic
Priesthood. It is one of which my accusers have before
now said much, — the charge of reserve and economy.
They found it in no slight degree on what I have said on
the subject in my History of the Arians, and in a note
upon one of my Sermons in which I refer to it. The
principle of Reserve is also advocated by an admirable
writer in two numbers of the Tracts for the Times, and
of these I was the Editor.
Now, as to the Economy itself,1 it is founded upon the
words of our Lord, " Cast not your pearls before swine ; "
and it was observed by the early Christians, more or less,
1 Vide Note F, Ihe Economy,

270 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
in their intercourse with the heathen populations among
whom they lived. In the midst of the abominable idola
tries and impurities of that fearful time, the Rule of the
Economy was an imperative duty. But that rule, at least
as I have explained and recommended it, in anything that
I have written, did not go beyond (1) the concealing the
truth when we could do so without deceit, (2) stating it
only partially, and (3) representing it under the nearest
form possible to a learner or inquirer, when he could not
possibly understand it exactly. I conceive that to draw
Angels with wings is an instance of the third of these
economical modes ; and to avoid the question, " Do Chris
tians believe in a Trinity ? " by answering, " They believe
in only one God," would be an instance of the second.
As to the first, it is hardly an Economy, but comes under
what is called the Disciplina Arcani. The second and
third economical modes Clement calls lying ; meaning that
a partial truth is in some sense a lie, as is also a represen
tative truth. And this, I think, is about the long and the
short of the ground of the accusation which has been
so violently urged against me, as being a patron of the
Economy. Of late years I have come to think, as I believe most
writers do, that Clement meant more than I have said. I
used to think he used the word " lie " as an hyperbole,
but I now believe that he, as other early Fa thers;- thought
that, under certain circumstances, it was lawful to tell a
lie. This doctrine I never maintained, though I used to
think, as I do now, that the theory of the subject is sur
rounded with considerable difficulty ; and it is not strange
that I should say so, considering that great English
writers declare without hesitation that in certain extreme
cases, as to save life, honour, or even property, a lie is
allowable. And thus I am brought to the direct question
of truth, and of the truthfulness of Catholic priests gene-

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 271
rally in their dealings with the world, as bearing on the
general question of their honesty, and of their internal belief
in their religious professions.
It would answer no purpose, and it would be departing
from the line of writing which I have been observing all
along, if I entered into any formal discussion on this
question; what I shall do here, as I have done in the
foregoing pages, is to give my own testimony on the
matter in question, and there to leave it. Now first I will
say, that, when I became a Catholic, nothing struck me
more at once than the English out-spoken manner of the
Priests. It was the same at Oscott, at Old Hall Green, at
Ushaw ; there was nothing of that smoothness, or man
nerism, which is commonly imputed to them, and they
were more natural and unaffected than many an Anglican
clergyman. The many years, which have passed since,
have only confirmed my first impression. I have ever
found it in the priests of this Diocese ; did I wish to point
out a straightforward Englishman, I should instance the
Bishop, who has, to our great benefit, for so many years
presided over it.
And next, I was struck, when I had more opportunity
of judging of the Priests, by the simple faith in the Catho
lic Creed and system, of which they always gave evidence,
and which they never seemed to feel, in any sense at all,
to be a burden. And now that I have been in the Church
nineteen years, I cannot recollect hearing of a single in
stance in England of an infidel priest. Of course there
are men from time to time, who leave the Catholic Church
for another religion, but I am speaking of cases, when a
man keeps a fair outside to the world and is a hollow
hypocrite in his heart.
I wonder that the self-devotion of our priests does not
strike a Protestant in this point of view. What do they

272 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
gain by professing a Creed, in which, if their enemies are
to be credited, they really do not believe ? What is their
reward for committing themselves to a life of self-restraint
and toil, and perhaps to a premature and miserable death ?
The Irish fever cut off between Liverpool and Leeds thirty
priests and more, young men in the flower of their days,
old men who seemed entitled to some quiet time after their
long toil. There was a bishop cut off in the North ; but
what had a man of his ecclesiastical rank to do with the
drudgery and danger of sick calls, except that Christian
faith and charity constrained him ? Priests volunteered
for the dangerous service. It was the same with them on
the first coming of the cholera, that mysterious awe-in
spiring infliction. If they did not heartily believe in the
Creed of the Church, then I will say that the remark of
the Apostle -had its fullest illustration: — "If in this life
only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most
miserable." What could support a set of hypocrites in
the presence of a deadly disorder, one of them following
another in long order up the forlorn hope, and one after
another perishing ? And such, I may say, in its substance,
is every Mission-Priest's life. He is ever ready to sacri
fice himself for his people. Night and day, sick or well
himself, in all weathers, off he is, on the news of a sick
call. The fact of a parishioner dying without the Sacra
ments through his fault is terrible to him ; why terrible,
if he has not a deep absolute faith, which he acts upon
with a free service ? Protestants admire this, when they
see it ; but they do not seem to see as clearly, that it
excludes the very notion of hypocrisy.
Sometimes, when they reflect upon it, it leads them to
remark on the wonderful discipline of the Catholic priest
hood; they say that no Church has so well ordered a
clergy, and that in that respect it surpasses their own ;
they wish they could have such exact discipline among

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 273
themselves. But is it an excellence which can be pur
chased? is it a phenomenon which depends on nothing
else than itself, or is it an effect which has a cause ? You
cannot buy devotion at a price. "It hath never been
heard of in the land of Chanaan, neither hath it been seen
in Theman. The children of Agar, the merchants of
Meran, none of these have known its way." What then
is that wonderful charm, which makes a thousand men
act all in one way, and infuses a prompt obedience to rule,
as if they were under some stern military compulsion ?
How difficult to find an answer, unless you will allow the
obvious one, that they believe intensely what they profess !
I cannot think what it can be, in a day like this, which
keeps up the prejudice of this Protestant country against
us, unless it be the vague charges which are drawn from
our books of Moral Theology ; and with a short notice of
the work in particular which by our accusers is especially
thrown into our teeth, I shall bring these observations to
a close. St. Alfonso Liguori, then, it cannot be denied, lays down
that an equivocation, (that is, a play upon words, in which
one sense is taken bythespeaker,andanothersenseintended
by him for the hearer,) is allowable, if there is a just cause,
that is, in an extraordinary case, and may- even be con
firmed by an oath. I shaU give my opinion on this point
as plainly as any Protestant can wish ; and therefore I
avow at once that in this department of morality, much as
I admire the high points of the Italian character, I like
the English rule of conduct better ; but, in saying so, I
am not, as will shortly be seen, saying any thing disre
spectful to St. Alfonso, who was a lover of truth, and
whose intercession I trust I shall not lose, though, on the
matter under consideration, I follow other guidance in
preference to his. T

274 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
Now I make this remark first : — great English authors,
Jeremy Taylor, Milton, Paley, Johnson, men of very dif
ferent schools of thought, distinctly say, that under certain
extraordinary circumstances it is allowable to tell a lie.
Taylor says : " To tell a lie for charity, to save a man's
life, the life of a friend, of a husband, of a prince, of a
useful and a public person, hath not only been done at all
times, but commended by great and wise and good men.
Who would not save his father's life, at the charge of a
harmless lie, from persecutors or tyrants ? " Again, Mil
ton says : " What man in his senses would deny, that
there are those whom we have the best grounds, for con
sidering that we ought to deceive, — as boys, madmen, the
sick, the intoxicated, enemies, men in error, thieves ? I
would ask, by which of the commandments is a lie for
bidden ? You will say, by the ninth. If then my lie
does not injure my neighbour, certainly it is not forbidden
by this commandment." Paley says : " There are false
hoods, which are not lies, that is, which are not criminal."
Johnson : " The general rule is, that truth should never be
violated; there must, however, be some exceptions. If,
for instance, a murderer should ask you which way a man
is gone."Now, I am not using these instances as an argumentum
ad hominem ; but the purpose to which I put them is
this : —
1. First, I have set down the distinct statements of
Taylor, Milton, Paley, and Johnson: — now, would any
one give ever so httle weight to these statements, in form
ing a real estimate of the veracity of the writers, if they
now were alive ? Were a man, who is so fierce with St.
Alfonso, to meet Paley or Johnson to-morrow iff society,
would he look upon him as a liar, a knave, as dishonest
and untrustworthy ? I am sure he would not. Why then
does he not deal out the same measure to Catholic priests ?

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 275
If a copy of Scavini, which speaks of equivocation as being
in a just cause allowable, be found in a student's room at
Oscott, not Scavini himself, but even the unhappy student,
who has what a Protestant calls a bad book in his possession,
is judged to be for life unworthy of credit. Are all Pro
testant text-books, which are used at the University, im
maculate ? Is it necessary to take for gospel every word
of Aristotle's Ethics, or every assertion of Hey or Burnett
on the Articles ? Are text-books the ultimate authorityi
or rather are they not manuals in the hands of a lecturer,
and the groundwork of his remarks ? But, again, let us
suppose, not the case of a student, or of a professor, but of
Scavini himself, or of St. Alfonso ; now here again I ask,
since you would not scruple in holding Paley for an honest
man, in spite of his defence of lying, why do you scruple
at holding St. Alfonso honest ? I am perfectly sure that
you would not scruple at Paley personally ; you might not
agree with him, but you would not go further than to call
him a bold thinker: then why should St. Alfonso's per
son be odious to you, as well as his doctrine ?
Now I wish to tell you why you are not afraid of Paley ;
because, you would say, when he advocated lying, he was
taking extreme or special cases. You would have no fear of
a man who you knew had shot a burglar dead in his own
house, because you know you are not a burglar : so you
would not think that Paley had a habit of telling lies in
society, because in the case of a cruel alternative he
thought it the lesser evil to tell a lie. Then why do you
show such suspicion of a Catholic theologian, who speaks
of certain extraordinary cases in which an equivocation in
a penitent cannot be visited by his cenfessor as if it were a
sin ? for this is the exact point of the question.
But again, why does Paley, why does Jeremy Taylor,
when no practical matter is actually before him, lay down
a maxim about the lawfulness of lying, which will startle

276 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
most readers ? The reason is plain. He is forming a theory
of morals, and he must treat every question in turn as it
comes. And this is just what St. Alfonso or Scavini is
doing. You only try your hand yourself at a treatise on
the rules of morality, and you will see how difficult the
work is. What is the definition of a lie ? Can you give a
better than that it is a sin against justice, as Taylor and
Paley consider it ? but, if so, how can it be a sin at all, if
your neighbour is not injured? If you do not like this
definition, take another; and then, by means of that,
perhaps you will be defending St. Alfonso's equivocation.
However, this is what I insist upon ; that St. Alfonso, as
Paley, is considering the different portions of a large sub
ject, and he must, on the subject of lying, give his judgment,
though on that subject it is difficult to form any judgment
which is satisfactory.
But further still : you must not suppose that a philoso
pher or moralist uses in his own case the licence which his
theory itself would allow him. A man in his own person
is guided by his own conscience ; but in drawing out a
system of rules he is obliged to go by logic, and follow the
exact deduction of conclusion from conclusion, and must
be sure that the whole system is coherent and one. You
hear of even immoral or irreligious books being written by
men of decent character ; there is a late writer who says
that David Hume's sceptical works are not at all the
picture of the man. A priest might write a treatise which
was really lax on the subject of lying, which might come
under the condemnation of the Holy See, as some treatises
on that score have already been condemned, and yet in
his own person be a rigorist And, in fact, it is notorious
from St. Alfonso's Life, that he, who has the repute of
being so lax a morahst, had one of the most scrupulous
and anxious of consciences himself. Nay, further than
this, he was originally in the Law, and on one occasion he

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 277
was betrayed into the commission of what seemed like a
deceit, though it was an accident ; and that was the very
occasion of his leaving the profession and embracing the
religious life.
The account of this remarkable occurrence is told us in
his Life : —
" Notwithstanding he had carefully examined over and
over the details of the process, he was completely mis
taken regarding the sense of one document, which con
stituted the right of the adverse party. The advocate of
the Grand Duke perceived the mistake, but he allowed
Alfonso to continue his eloquent address to the end with
out interruption ; as soon, however, as he had finished, he
rose, and said with cutting coolness, 'Sir, the case is not
exactly what you suppose it to be ; if you will review the
process, and examine this paper attentively, you will find
there precisely the contrary of all you have advanced.'
' Willingly,' replied Alfonso, without hesitating ; ' the
decision depends on this question — whether the fief were
granted under the law of Lombardy, or under the French
Law.' The paper being examined, it was found that the
Grand Duke's advocate was in the right. ' Yes,' said
Alfonso, holding the paper in his hand, 'I am wrong, I
have been mistaken' A discovery so unexpected, and the
fear of being accused of unfair dealing filled him with
consternation, and covered him with confusion, so much
so, that every one saw his emotion. It was in vain that
the President Caravita, who loved him, and knew his
integrity, tried to console him, by telling him that such
mistakes were not uncommon, even among the first men
at the bar. Alfonso would listen to nothing, but, over
whelmed with confusion, his head sunk on his breast, he
said to himself, ' World, I know you now ; courts of law,
never shall you see me again ! ' And turning his back on
the assembly, he withdrew to his own house, incessantly

278 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
repeating to himself, 'World, I know you now.' What
annoyed him most was, that having studied and re-studied
the process during a whole month, without having dis
covered this important flaw, he could not understand how
it had escaped his observation."
And this is the man, so easily scared at the very shadow
of trickery, who is so flippantly pronounced to be a patron
of lying.
But, in truth, a Catholic theologian has objects in view
which men in general little compass ; he is not thinking
of himself, but of a multitude of souls, sick souls, sinful
souls, carried away by sin, fuU of evil, and he is trying
with all his might to rescue them from their miserable
state ; and, in order to save them from more heinous sins,
he tries, to the full extent that his conscience will allow
him to go, to shut his eyes to such sins, as are, though
sins, yet lighter in character or degree. He knows per
fectly well that, if he is as. strict as he would wish to be,
he shall be able to do nothing at all with the run of men ;
so he is as indulgent with them as ever he can be. Let it
not be for an instant supposed, that I allow of the maxim
, of doing evil that good may come ; but, keeping clear of
this, there is a way of winning men from greater sins by
winking for the time at the less, or at mere improprieties
or faults; and this is the key to the difficulty which
Catholic books of moral theology so often cause to the
Protestant. They are intended for the Confessor, and
Protestants view them as intended for the Preacher.
2. And I observe upon Taylor, Milton, and Paley thus :
What would a Protestant clergyman say to me, if I accused
him of teaching that a lie was allowable ; and if, when he
asked for my proof, I said in reply that such was the
doctrine of Taylor and Milton ? Why, he would sharply
retort, " I am not bound by Taylor or Milton ; " and if I
went on urging that " Taylor was one of his authorities,"

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 279
he would answer that Taylor was a great writer, but great
writers were not therefore infallible. This is pretty much
the answer which I make, when I am considered in this
matter a disciple of St. Alfonso.
I plainly and positively state, and without any reserve,
that I do not at all follow this holy and charitable man in
this portion of his teaching. There are various schools of
opinion allowed in the Church : and on this point I follow
others. I follow Cardinal Gerdil, and Natalis Alexander,
nay, St. Augustine. I will quote one passage from Natalis
Alexander : — " They certainly lie, who utter the words of
an oath, without the will to swear or bind themselves : or
who make use of mental reservations and equivocations in
swearing, since they signify by words what they have not
in mind, contrary to the end for which language was
instituted, viz. as signs of ideas. Or they mean something
else than the words signify in themselves and the common
custom of speech." And, to take an instance : I do not
believe any priest in England would dream of saying,
" My friend is not here ; " meaning, " He is not in my
pocket or under my shoe." Nor should any consideration
make me say so myself. I do not think St. Alfonso would
in his own case have said so; and he would have been
as much shocked at Taylor and Paley, as Protestants are
at him x
And now, if Protestants wish to know what our real
teaching is, as on other subjects, so on that of lying, let
them look, not at our books of casuistry, but at our cate
chisms. Works on pathology do not give the best insight
into the form and the harmony of the human frame ; and,
as it is with the body, so is it with the mind. The Cate
chism of the Council of Trent was drawn up for the express
1 Vide Note G, Lying and Equivocation,

280 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
purpose of providing preachers with subjects for their
Sermons ; and, as my whole work has been a defence of
myself, I may here say that I rarely preach a Sermon, but
I go to this beautiful and complete Catechism to get both
my matter and my doctrine. There we find the following
notices about the duty of Veracity.: —
" ' Thou shalt not bear false witness,' &c. : let attention
be drawn to two laws contained in this commandment : —
the one, forbidding false witness ; the other bidding, that
removing all pretence and deceits, we should measure our
words and deeds by simple truth, as the Apostle admon
ished the Ephesians of that duty in these words : 'Doing
truth in charity, let us grow in Him through all things.'
" To deceive by a lie in joke or for the sake of compli
ment, though to no one there accrues loss or gain in con
sequence, nevertheless is altogether unworthy: for thus
the Apostle admonishes, 'Putting aside lying, speak ye
truth.' For therein is great danger of lapsing into fre
quent and more serious lying, and from lies in joke men
gain the habit of lying, whence they gain the character of
not being truthful. And thence again, in order to gain
credence to their words, they find it necessary to make a
practice of swearing.
" Nothing is more necessary [for us] than truth of testi
mony, in those things, which we neither know ourselves,
nor can allowably be ignorant of, on which point there is
extant that maxim of St. Augustine's; Whoso conceals
the truth, and whoso puts forth a lie, each is guilty ; the
one because he is not willing to do a service, the other
because he has a wish to do a mischief.
" It is lawful at times to be silent about the truth, but
out of a court of law ; for in court, when a witness is inter
rogated by the judge according to law, the truth is' wholly
to be brought out.
"Witnesses, however, must beware, lest, from over-

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 281
confidence in their memory, they affirm for certain, what
they have not verified.
" In order that the faithful may with more good jwill
avoid the sin of lying, the Parish Priest shall set before
them the extreme misery and turpitude of this wickedness.
For, in holy writ, the devil is called the father of a lie ;
for, in that he did not remain in Truth, he is a liar, and
the father of a lie. He will add, with the view of ridding
men of so great a crime, the evils which follow upon lying ;
and, whereas they are innumerable, he will point out [at
least] the sources and the general heads of these mischiefs
and calamities, viz. 1. How great is God's displeasure and
how great His hatred of a man who is insincere and a liar.
2. What little security there is that a man who is specially
hated by God may not be visited by the heaviest punish
ments. 3. What more unclean and foul, as St. James
says, than . . . that a fountain by the same jet should
send out sweet water and bitter? 4. For that tongue,
which just now praised God, next, as far as in it lies, dis
honours Him by lying. 5. In consequence, liars are shut
out from the possession of heavenly beatitude. 6. That
too is the worst evil of lying, that that disease of the mind
is generally incurable.
" Moreover, there is this harm too, and one of vast ex
tent, and touching men generally, that by insincerity and
lying faith and truth are lost, which are the firmest bonds
of human society, and, when they are lost, supreme confu
sion follows in life, so that men seem in nothing to differ
from devils.
" Lastly, the Parish Priest will set those right who ex
cuse their insincerity and allege the example of wise men,
who, they say, are used to lie for an occasion. He will
tell them, what is most true, that the wisdom of the flesh
is death, He will exhort his hearers to trust in God, when

282 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
they are in difficulties and straits, nor to have recourse to
the expedient of a lie.
" They who throw the blame of their own lie on those
who have already by a lie deceived them, are to be taught
that men must not revenge themselves, nor make up for
one evil by another." ....
There is much more in the Catechism to the same effect,
and it is of universal obligation ; whereas the decision of
a particular author in morals need not be accepted by
any one.
To one other authority I appeal on this subject, which
commands from me attention of a special kind, for it
is the teaching of a Father. It will serve to bring my
work to a conclusion.
" St. Philip," says the Roman Oratorian who wrote his
Life, " had a particular dislike of affectation both in him
self and others, in speaking, in dressing, or in any thing
else. " He avoided all ceremony which savoured of worldly
compliment, and always showed himself a great stickler
for Christian simplicity in every thing ; so that, when he
had to deal with men of worldly prudence, he did not very
readily accommodate himself to them.
" And he avoided, as much as possible, having any thing
to do with two-faced persons, who did not go simply and
straightforwardly to work in their transactions.
" As for liars, he could not endure them, and he was
continually reminding his spiritual children, to avoid
them as they would a pestilence."
These are the principles on which I have acted before I
was a Catholic; these are the principles which, I trust,
will be my stay and guidance to the end,

POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845. 283

I have closed this history of myself with St. Philip's
name upon St. Philip's feast-day ; and, having done so, to
whom can I more suitably offer it, as a memorial of affec
tion and gratitude, than to St. Philip's sons, my dearest
brothers of this House, the Priests of the Birmingham
Oratory, Ambrose St. John, Henry Austin Mills,
Henry Bittleston, Edward Caswall, William Paine
Neville, and Henry Ignatius Dudley Ryder? who
have been so faithful to me ; who have been so sensitive
of my needs ; who have been so indulgent to my failings ;
who have carried me through so many trials ; who have
grudged no sacrifice, if I asked for it ; who have been
so cheerful under discouragements of my causing; who
have done so many good works, and let -me have the
credit of them ; — with whom I have lived so long, with
whom I- hope to die.
Anl to you especially, dear Ambrose St. John; whom
God gave me, when He took every one else away ; who
are the link between my old life and my new ; who have
now for twenty-one years been so devoted to me, so patient,
so zealous, so tender ; who have let me lean so hard upon
you ; who have watched me so narrowly ; who have never
thought of yourself, if I was in question.
And in you I gather up and bear in memory those
familiar affectionate companions and counsellors, who in
Oxford were given to me, one after another, to be my
daily solace and relief ; and all those others, of great name
and high example, who were my thorough friends, and
showed me true attachment in times long past ; and also
those many younger men, whether I knew them or not,
who have never been disloyal to me by word or deed ; and

284 POSITION OF MY MIND SINCE 1845.
of all these, thus various in their relations to me, those
more especially who have since joined the Catholic
Church. And I earnestly pray for this whole company, with a
hope against hope, that all of us, who once were so united,
and so happy in our union, may even now be brought at
length, by the Power of the Divine Will, into One Fold
and under One Shepherd
May 26, 1864.
In Festo Corp. Christ.

NOTES.

NOTE A. ON PAGE 14.
LIBERALISM.
I have been asked to explain more fully what it is I mean
by " Liberalism," because merely to call it the Anti-dogmatic
Principle is to tell very little about it. An explanation is
the more necessary, because such good Catholics and dis
tinguished writers as Count Montalembert and Father
Lacordaire use the word in a favourable sense, and claim
to be Liberals themselves. " The only singularity," says
the former of the two in describing his friend, " was his
Liberalism. By a phenomenon, at that time unheard of,
this convert, this seminarist, this confessor of nuns, was
just as stubborn a liberal, as in the days when he was a
student and a barrister." — Life (transl.), p. 19.
I do not believe that it is possible for me to differ in
any important matter from two men whom I so highly
admire. In their general line of thought and conduct I
enthusiastically concur, and consider them to be before
their age. And it would be strange indeed if I did not
read with a special interest, in M. de Montalembert's
beautiful volume, of the unselfish aims, the thwarted pro
jects, the unrequited toils, the grand and tender resigna
tion of Lacordaire. If I hesitate to adopt their language

286 NOTE A.
about Liberalism, I impute the necessity of such hesitation
to some differences between us In the use of words or
in the circumstances of country; and thus I reconcile
myself to remaining faithful to my own conception of it,
though I cannot have their voices to give force to mine.
Speaking then in my own way, I proceed to explain what
I meant as a Protestant by Liberalism, and to do so in
connexion with the circumstances under which that sys
tem of opinion came before me at Oxford.
If I might presume to contrast Lacordaire and myself,
I should say, that we had been both of us inconsistent ; —
he, a Catholic, in calling himself a Liberal ; I, a Protestant,
in being an Anti-liberal ; and moreover, that the cause of
this inconsistency had been in both cases one and the
same. That is, we were both of us such good conserva
tives, as to take up with what we happened to find estab
lished in our respective countries, at the time when we
came into active life. Toryism was the creed of Oxford ;
he inherited, and made the best of, the French Revolution.
When, in the beginning of the present century, not
very long before my own time, after many years of moral
and intellectual declension, the University of Oxford woke
up to a sense of its duties, and began to reform itself, the
first instruments of this change, to whose zeal and courage
we all owe so much, were naturally thrown together for
mutual support, against the numerous obstacles which lay
in their path, and soon stood out in relief from the body
of residents, who, though many of them men of talent
themselves, cared little for the object which the others
had at heart. These Reformers, as they may be called,
were for some years members of scarcely more than three
or four Colleges ; and their own Colleges, as being under
their direct influence, of course had the benefit of those
stricter views of discipline and teaching, which they them
selves were urging on the University. They had, in no

liberalism. 287
long time, enough of real progress in their several spheres
of exertion, and enough of reputation out of doors, to war
rant them in considering themselves the elite of the place ;
and it is not wonderful if they were in consequence led to
look down upon the majority of Colleges, which had not
kept pace with the reform, or which had been hostile to it.
And, when those rivalries of one man with another arose,
whether personal or collegiate, which befall literary and
scientific societies, such disturbances did but tend to
raise in their eyes the value which they had already set
upon academical distinction, and increase their zeal in
pursuing it. Thus was formed an intellectual circle or
class in the University, — men, who felt they had a career
before them, as soon as the pupils, whom they were form
ing, came into public life; men, whom non-residents,
whether country parsons or preachers of the Low Church,
on coming up from time to time to the old place, would
look at, partly with admiration, partly with suspicion, as
being an honour indeed to Oxford, but withal exposed to
the temptation of ambitious views, and to the spiritual evils
signified in what is called the " pride of reason."
Nor was this imputation altogether unjust ; for, as they
were following out the proper idea of a University, of
course they suffered more or less from the moral malady
incident to such a pursuit. The very object of such great
institutions lies in the cultivation of the mind and the
spread of knowledge: if this object, as all human objects,
has its dangers at all times, much more would these exist
in the case of men, who were engaged in a work of re
formation, and had the opportunity of measuring them
selves, not only with those who were their equals in
intellect, but with the many, who were below them. In
this select circle or class of men, in various Colleges, the
direct instruments and the choice fruit of real University
Reform, we see the rudiments of the Liberal party.

288 NOTE A.
Whenever men are able to act at all, there is the chance
of extreme and intemperate action; and therefore, when
there is exercise of mind, there is the chance of wayward
or mistaken exercise. Liberty of thought is in itself a
good ; but it gives an opening to false liberty. Now by
Liberalism I mean false liberty of thought, or the exercise
of thought upon matters, in which, from the constitution
of the human mind, thought cannot be brought to any
successful issue, and therefore is out of place. Among
such matters are first principles of whatever kind ; and of
these the most sacred and momentous are especially to be
reckoned the truths of Revelation. Liberalism then is the
mistake of subjecting to human judgment those revealed
doctrines which are in their nature beyond and inde
pendent of it, and of claiming to determine on intrinsic
grounds the truth and value of propositions which rest for
their reception simply on the external authority of the
Divine Word.
Now certainly the party of whom I have been speaking,
taken as a whole, were of a character of mind out of which
Liberalism might easily grow up, as in fact it did; cer
tainly they breathed around an influence which made men
of religious seriousness shrink into themselves. But, while
I say as much as this, I have no intention whatever of
implying that the talent of the University, in the years
before and after 1820, was liberal in its theology, in the
sense in which the bulk of the educated classes through
the country are liberal now. I would not for the world
be supposed to detract from the Christian earnestness, and
the activity in religious works, above the average of men,
of many of the persons in question. They would have
protested against their being supposed to place reason
before faith, or knowledge before devotion ; yet I do con
sider that they unconsciously encouraged and successfully
introduced into Oxford a licence of opinion which went far

LIBERALISM. 289
beyond them. In their day they did little more than take
credit to themselves for enlightened views, largeness of
mind, liberality of sentiment, without drawing the line
between what was just and what was inadmissible in
speculation, and without seeing the tendency of their own
principles ; and engrossing, as they did, the mental energy
of the University, they met for a time with no effectual
hindrance to the spread of their influence, except (what
indeed at the moment was most effectual, but not of an
intellectual character) the thorough -going Toryism and
traditionary Church-of-England-ism of the great body of
the Colleges and Convocation.
Now and then a man of note appeared in the Pulpit
or Lecture Rooms of the University, who was a worthy
representative of the more religious and devout Anglicans
These belonged chiefly to the High-Church party ; for the
party called Evangelical never has been able to breathe
freely in the atmosphere of Oxford, and at no time has
been conspicuous, as a party, for talent or learning. But
of the odd High Churchmen several exerted some sort of
Anti-liberal influence in the place, at least from time to
time, and that influence of an intellectual nature. Among
these especially may be mentioned Mr. John Miller, of
Worcester College, who preached the Bampton Lecture
in the year 1817. But, as far as I know, he who turned
the tide, and brought the talent of the University round
to the side of the old theology, and against what was
familiarly called " march-of-mind," was Mr. Keble. In
and from Keble the mental activity of Oxford took that
contrary direction which issued in what was called Trac
tarianism. Keble was young in years, when he became a University
celebrity, and younger in mind. He had the purity and
simplicity of a child. He had few sympathies with the in
tellectual party, who sincerely welcomed him as a briUiant
u

290 NOTE A.
specimen of young Oxford. He instinctively shut up be
fore literary display, and pomp and donnishness of man
ner, faults which always will beset academical notabilities.
He did not respond to their advances. His collision with
them (if it may be so called) was thus described by Hurrell
Froude in his own way. " Poor Keble ! " he used gravely
to say, " he was asked to join the aristocracy of talent, but
he soon found his level." He went into the country, but
his instance serves to prove that men need not, in the
event, lose that influence which is rightly theirs, because
they happen to be thwarted in the use of the channels
natural and proper to its exercise. He did not lose his
place in the minds of men because he was out of their
sight. Keble was a man who guided himself and formed his
judgments, not by processes of reason, by inquiry or by
argument, but, to use the word in a broad sense, by
authority. Conscience is an authority; the Bible is an
authority ; such is the Church ; such is Antiquity ; such
are the words of the wise ; such are hereditary lessons ;
such are ethical truths ; such are historical memories, such
are legal saws and state maxims ; such are proverbs ; such
are sentiments, presages, and prepossessions. It seemed to
me as if he ever felt happier, when he could speak or act
under some such primary or external sanction ; and could
use argument mainly as a means of recommending or ex
plaining what had claims on his reception prior to proof.
He even felt a tenderness, I think, in spite of Bacon, for
the Idols of the Tribe and the Den, of the Market and
the Theatre. What he hated instinctively was heresy,
insubordination, resistance to things established, claims of
independence, disloyalty, innovation, a critical, censorious
spirit. And such was the main principle of the school
which in the course of years was formed around him ; nor
is it easy to set limits to its influence in its day ; for multi-

LIBERALISM. 291
tudes of men, who did not profess its teaching, or accept
its peculiar doctrines, were willing nevertheless, or found
it to their purpose, to act in company with it.
Indeed for a time it was practically the champion and
advocate of the political doctrines of the great clerical in
terest through the country, who found in Mr. Keble and his
friends an intellectual, as well as moral support to their
cause, which they looked for in vain elsewhere. His weak
point, in their eyes, was his consistency ; for he carried
his love of authority and old times so far, as to be more
than gentle towards the Catholic Religion, with which
the Toryism of Oxford and of the Church of England had
no sympathy. - Accordingly, if my memory be correct, he
never could get himself to throw his heart into the oppo
sition made to Catholic Emancipation, strongly as he re
volted from the politics and the instruments by means of
which that Emancipation was won. I fancy he would
have had no difficulty in accepting Dr. Johnson's saying
about " the first Whig ; " and it grieved and offended him
that the " Via prima salutis " should be opened to the
Catholic body from the Whig quarter. In spite of his
reverence for the Old Religion,, I conceive that on the
whole he would rather have kept its professors beyond the
pale of the Constitution with the Tories, than admit them
on the principles of the Whigs. Moreover, if the Revolu
tion of 1688 was too lax in principle for him and his
friends, much less, as is very plain, could they endure to
subscribe to the revolutionary doctrines of 1776 and 1789,
which they felt to be absolutely and entirely out of keep
ing with theological truth.
The old Tory or Conservative party in Oxford had in it
no principle or power of development, and that from its
very nature and constitution : it was otherwise with the
Liberals. They represented a new idea, which was but
gradually learning to recognize itself, to ascertain its

292 NOTE A.
characteristics and external relations, and to exert an
influence upon the University. The party grew, all the
time that I was in Oxford, even in numbers, certainly in
breadth and definiteness of doctrine, and in power. And,
what was a far higher consideration, by the accession of
Dr. Arnold's pupils, it was invested with an elevation of
character which claimed the respect even of its opponents.
On the other hand, in proportion as it became more earn
est and less self -applauding, it became more free-spoken ;
and members of it might be found who, from the mere
circumstance of remaining firm to their original profes
sions, would in the judgment of the world, as to their
public acts, seem to have left it for the Conservative camp.
Thus, neither in its component parts nor in its policy, was
it the same in 1832, 1836, and 1841, as it was in 1845.
These last remarks will serve to throw light upon a
matter personal to myself, which I have introduced into
my Narrative, and to which my attention has been point
edly called, now that my Volume is coming to a second
edition. It has been strongly urged upon me to re-consider the
following passages which occur in it : " The men who had
driven me from Oxford were distinctly the Liberals, it was
they who had opened the attack upon Tract 90," p. 203,
and " I found no fault with the Liberals ; they had beaten
me in a fair field," p. 214.
I am very unwilling to seem ungracious, or to cause pain
in any quarter; still I am sorry to say I cannot modify these
statements. It is surely a matter of historical fact that I
left Oxford upon the University proceedings of 1841 ; and
in those proceedings, whether we look to the Heads of
Houses or the resident Masters, the leaders, if intellect
and influence make men such, were members of the Liberal
party. Those who did not lead, concurred or acquiesced
in them, — I may say, felt a satisfaction. I do not recollect

LIBERALISM. 293
any Liberal who was on my side on that occasion. Ex
cepting the Liberal, no other party, as a party, acted
against me. I am not complaining of them ; I deserved
nothing else at their hands. They could not undo in 1845,
even had they wished it, (and there is no proof they did,)
what they had done in 1841. In 1845, when I had already
given up the contest for four years, and my part in it had
passed into the hands of others, then some of those who
were prominent against me in 1841, feeling (what they
had not felt in 1841) the danger of driving a number of
my followers to Rome, and joined by younger friends who
had come into University importance since 1841 and felt
kindly towards me, adopted a course more consistent with
their principles, and proceeded to shield from the zeal of
the Hebdomadal Board, not me, but, professedly, all parties
through the country, — Tractarians, Evangelicals, Liberals
in general, — who had to subscribe to the Anglican formu
laries, on the ground that those formularies, rigidly taken,
were, on some point or other, a difficulty to all parties
alike. However, besides the historical fact, I can bear witness
to my own feeling at the time, and my feeling was this : —
that those who in 1841 had considered it to be a duty to
act against me, had then done their worst. What was it
to me what they were now doing in opposition to the New
Test proposed by the Hebdomadal Board ? I owed them
no thanks for their trouble. I took no interest at all, in
February, 1845, in the proceedings of the Heads of Houses
and of the Convocation. I felt myself dead as regarded
my relations to the Anglican Church. My leaving it was
all but a matter of time. I believe I did not even thank
my real friends, the two Proctors, who in Convocation
stopped by their Veto the condemnation of Tract 90 ; nor
did I make any acknowledgment to Mr. Rogers, nor to Mr.
James Mozley, nor, as I think, to Mr. Hussey, for their

294 NOTE A.
pamphlets on my behalf. My frame of mind is best de
scribed by the sentiment of the passage in Horace, which
at the time I was fond of quoting, as expressing my view
of the relation that existed between the Vice-Chancellor
and myself. " Pentheu,
Rector Thebarum, quid me perferre patique
Indignum cogas ? " " Adimam bona. " "Nempe pecus, rem,
Lectos, argentum ; tollas licet." "In manicis et
Compedibus, ssevo te sub custode tenebo." (viz. the 39 Articles.)
" Ipse Deus, simul atque volant, me solvet." Opinor,
Hoc sentit : Moriar. Mors ultima linea rerum est.
I conclude this notice of Liberalism in Oxford, and the
party which was antagonistic to it, with some propositions
in detail, which, as a member of the latter, and together
with the High Church, I earnestly denounced and abjured.
1. No religious tenet is important, unless reason shows it
to be so. Therefore, e.g. the doctrine of the Athanasian Creed is not to be
insisted on, unless it tends to convert the soul ; and the doctrine of
the Atonement is to be insisted on, if it does convert the soul,
2. No one can believe what he does not understand.
Therefore, e.g. there are no mysteries in true religion.
3. No theological doctrine is any thing more than an
opinion which happens to be held by bodies of men.
Therefore, e.g. no creed, as such, is necessary for salvation.
4. It is dishonest in a man to make an act of faith in
what he has not had brought home to him by actual proof.
Therefore, e.g. the mass of men ought not absolutely to believe in
the divine authority of the Bible.
5. It is immoral in a man to believe more than he can
spontaneously receive as being congenial to his moral and
mental nature..
Therefore, e.g. a given individual is not bound to believe in eternal
punishment.

LIBERALISM. 295
6. No revealed doctrines or. precepts may reasonably
stand in the way of scientific conclusions.
Therefore, e.g. Political Economy may reverse our Lord's declara
tions about poverty and riches, or a system of Ethics may teach that
the highest condition of body is ordinarily essential to the highest
state of mind.
7. Christianity is necessarily modified by the growth of
civilization, and the exigencies of times.
Therefore, e.g. the Catholic priesthood, though necessary in the
Middle Ages, may be superseded now.
8. There is a system of religion more simply trUe than
Christianity as it has ever been received.
Therefore, e.g. we may advance that Christianity is the " corn of
wheat" which has been dead for 1800 years, but at length will bear
fruit ; and that Mahometanism is the manly religion, and existing
Christianity the womanish.
9. There is a right of Private Judgment : that is, there
is no existing authority on earth competent to interfere
with the liberty of individuals in reasoning and judging
for themselves about the Bible and its contents, as they
severally please.
Therefore, e. g. religious establishments requiring subscription are
Anti-christian.
10. There are rights of conscience such, that every one
may lawfully advance a claim to profess and teach what is
false and wrong in matters, religious, social, and moral,
provided that to his private conscience it seems absolutely
true and right.
Therefore, e.g. individuals have a right to preach and practise forni
cation and polygamy.
11. There is no such thing as a national or state con
science. Therefore, e.g. no judgments can fall upon a sinful or infidel nation.

296 NOTE A.
12. The civil power has no positive duty, in a normal
state of things, to maintain religious truth.
Therefore, e.g. blasphemy and sabbath-breaking are not rightly
punishable by law.
13. Utility and expedience are the measure of political
duty. Therefore, e.g. no punishment may be enacted, on the ground that
God commands it : e.g. on the text, " Whoso sheddeth man's blood,
by man shall his blood be shed."
14. The Civil Power may dispose of Church property
without sacrilege.
Therefore, e.g. Henry VIII. committed no sin in his spoliations.
15. The Civil Power has the right of ecclesiastical juris
diction and administration.
Therefore, e.g. Parliament may impose articles of faith on the
Church or suppress Dioceses.
16. It is lawful to rise in arms against legitimate
princes. Therefore, e.g. the Puritans in the 17th century, and the French in
the 18th, were justifiable in their Rebellion and Revolution respec
tively.
17. The people are the legitimate source of power.
Therefore, e.g. Universal Suffrage is among the natural rights of
man.
18. Virtue is the child of knowledge, and vice of ignor
ance. Therefore, e.g. education, periodical literature, railroad travelling,
ventilation, drainage, and the arts of life, when fully carried out,
serve to make a population moral and happy.
All of these propositions, and many others too, were
familiar to me thirty years ago, as in the number of the
tenets of Liberalism, and, while I gave into none of them
except No. 12, and perhaps No. 11, and partly No. 1,
before I began to publish, so afterwards I wrote against
most of them in some part or other of my Anglican works.
If it is necessary to refer to a work, not simply my own,

LIBERALISM. 297
but of the Tractarian school, which contains a similar pro
test, I should name the Lyra Apostolica. This volume,
which by accident has been left unnoticed, except inciden
tally, in my Narrative, was collected together from the
pages of the British Magazine, in which its contents
originally appeared, and published in a separate form, imr
mediately after Hurrell Froude's death in 1836. Its
signatures, a, j3, 7, 8, e, f, denote respectively as authors,
Mr. Bowden, Mr. Hurrell Froude, Mr. Keble, Mr. Newman,
Mr. Robert Wilberforce, and Mr. Isaac Williams.
There is one poem on " Liberalism," beginning " Ye can
not halve the Gospel of God's grace ; " which bears out the
account of Liberalism as above given ; and another upon
" the Age to come," defining from its own point of view
the position and prospects of Liberalism.
I need hardly say that the above Note is mainly his
torical. How far the Liberal party of 1830-40 really
held the above eighteen Theses, which I attributed to them,
and how far and in what sense I should oppose those
Theses now, could scarcely be explained without a separate
Dissertation.

298 NOTE B.
NOTE B. ON PAGE 23.
ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES.
The writer, who gave occasion for the foregoing Narra
tive, was very severe with me for what I had said about
Miracles in the Preface to the Life of St. Walburga. I
observe therefore as follows : —
Catholics believe that miracles happen in any age of
the Church, though not for the same purposes, in the same
number, or with the same evidence, as in Apostolic times.
The Apostles wrought them in evidence of their divine
mission; and with this object they have been sometimes
wrought by Evangelists of countries since, as even Pro
testants allow. Hence we hear of them in the history of
St. Gregory in Pontus, and St. Martin in Gaul ; and in
their case, as in that of the Apostles, they were both
numerous and clear. As they are granted to Evangelists,
so are they granted, though in less measure and evidence,
to other holy men ; and as holy men are not found equally
at all times and in all places, therefore miracles are in
some places and times more than in others. And since,
generally, they are granted to faith and prayer, therefore
in a country in which faith and prayer abound, they will
be more likely to occur, than where and when faith and
prayer are not ; so that their occurrence is irregular. And
further, as faith and prayer obtain miracles, so still more
commonly do they gain from above the ordinary interven
tions of Providence ; and, as it is often very difficult to
distinguish between a providence and a miracle, and there
will be more providences than miracles, hence it will
happen that many occurrences will be called miraculous,

ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 299
which, strictly speaking, are not such, that is, not more
than providential mercies, or what are sometimes called
" grazie " or " favours."
Persons, who believe all this, in accordance with Catho
lic teaching, as I did and do, they, on the report of a
miracle, will of necessity, the necessity of good logic, be
led to say, first, " It may be," and secondly, " But I must
have good evidence in order to believe it."
1. It may be, because miracles take place in all ages ;
it must be clearly proved, because perhaps after all it maybe
only a providential mercy, or an exaggeration, or a mistake,
or an imposture. Well, this is precisely what I had said,
which the writer, who has given occasion to this Volume,
considered so irrational. I had said, as he quotes me, " In
this day, and under our present circumstances, we can only
reply, that there is no reason why they should not be."
Surely this is good logic, provided that miracles do occur
in all ages ; and so again I am logical in saying, " There is
nothing, prima facie, in the miraculous accounts in ques
tion, to repel a properly taught or religiously disposed
mind." What is the matter with this statement ? My
assailant does not pretend to say what the matter is, and
he cannot ; but he expresses a rude, unmeaning astonish
ment. Accordingly, in the passage which he quotes, I
observe, " Miracles are the kind of facts proper to eccle
siastical history, just as instances of sagacity or daring,
personal prowess, or crime, are the facts proper to secular
history." What is the harm of this ?
2. But, though a miracle be conceivable, it has to be
proved. What has to be proved ? (1) That the event
occurred as stated, and is not a false report or an ex
aggeration. (2) That it is clearly miraculous, and not a
mere providence or answer to prayer within the order of
nature. What is the fault of saying this ? The inquiry
is parallel to that which is made about some extraordinary

300 NOTE B.
fact in secular history. Supposing I hear that King
Charles II. died a Catholic, I am led to say : It may be,
but what is your proof '
In my Essay on Miracles of the year 1826, 1 proposed
three questions about a professed miraculous occurrence :
1. is it antecedently probable? 2. is it in its nature
certainly miraculous ? 3. has it sufficient evidence ? To
these three heads I had regard in my Essay of 1842 ; and
under them I still wish to conduct the inquiry into the
miracles of Ecclesiastical History.
So much for general principles ; as to St. Walburga,
though I have no intention at all of denying that nu
merous miracles have been wrought by her intercession,
still, neither the Author of her Life, nor I, the Editor,
felt that we had grounds for binding ourselves to the
belief of certain alleged miracles in particular. I made,
however, one exception ; it was the medicinal oil which
flows from her relics. Now as to the verisimilitude, the
miraculousness, and the fact, of this medicinal oil.
1. The verisimilitude. It is plain there is nothing ex
travagant in this report of her relics having a supernatural
virtue; and for this reason, because there are such in
stances in Scripture, and Scripture cannot be extravagant.
For instance, a man was restored to life by touching the
relics of the Prophet Eliseus. The sacred text runs thus :
— " And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands
of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the
year. And it came to pass, as they were burying a man,
that, behold, they spied a band of men ; and they cast the
man into the sepulchre of Elisha. And, when the man was
let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and
stood upon his feet." Again, in the case of an inanimate
substance, which had touched a living Saint : " And God
wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul ; so that

ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 301
from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or
aprons, and thediseases departed fromthem.'' And again
in the case of a pool : " An Angel went down at a certain
season into the pool, and troubled the water ; whosoever
then first, after the troubling of the water, stepped in,
was made whole of whatsoever disease he had." 2 Kings
[4 Kings] xiii. 20, 21. Acts xix. 11, 12. John v. 4.
Therefore there is nothing extravagant in the character of
the miracle.
2. Next, the matter of fact :— is there an oil flowing
from St. Walburga's tomb, which is medicinal ? To this
question I confined myself in my Preface. Of the ac
counts of medieval miracles, I said that there was no extra
vagance in their general character, but I could not affirm
that there was always evidence for them. I could not
simply accept them as facts, but I could not reject them in
their nature ; — they might be true, for they were not im
possible ; but they were not proved to be true, because
there was not trustworthy testimony. However, as to St.
Walburga, I repeat, I made one exception, the fact of the
medicinal oil, since for that miracle there was distinct and
successive testimony. And then I went on to give a chain
of witnesses. It was my duty' to state what those wit
nesses said in their very words ; so I gave the testimonies
in full, tracing them from the Saint's death. I said, " She
is one of the principal Saints of her age and country."
Then I quoted Basnage, a Protestant, who says, " Six
writers are extant, who have employed themselves in
relating the deeds or miracles of Walburga." Then I
said that her " renown was not the mere natural growth of
ages, but begins with the very century of the Saint's
death." Then I observed that only two miracles seem to
have been " distinctly reported of her as occurring in her
lifetime ; and they were handed down apparently by tra
dition." Also, that such miracles arc said to have com-

302 NOTE B.
menced about A.D. 777. Then I spoke of the medicinal oil
as having testimony to it in 893, in 1306, after 1450, in
1615, and in 1620. Also, I said that Mabillon seems not
to have believed some of her miracles ; and that the earliest
witness had got into trouble with his Bishop. And so I
left the matter, as a question to be decided by evidence,
not deciding any thing myself.
What was the harm of all this ? but my Critic mud
dled it together in a most extraordinary manner, and
I am far from sure that he knew himself the definite cate
gorical charge which he intended it to convey against me.
One of his remarks is, " What has become of the holy oil
for the last 240 years, Dr. Newman does not say," p. 25.
Of course I did not, because I did not know ; I gave the
evidence as I found it ; he assumes that I had a point to
prove, and then asks why I did not make the evidence
larger than it was.
I can tell him more about it now : the oil still flows ; I
have had some of it in my possession ; it is medicinal stiff.
This leads to the third head.
3. Its miraculousness. On this point, since I have been
in the Catholic Church, I have found there is a difference
of opinion. Some persons consider that the oil is the
natural produce of the rock, and has ever flowed from it ;
others, that by a divine gift it flows from the relics ; and
others, allowing that it now comes naturally from the
rock, are disposed to hold that it was in its origin mira
culous, as was the virtue of the pool of Bethsaida.
This point must be settled of course before the virtue of
the oil can be ascribed to the sanctity of St. Walburga ; for
myself, I neither have, nor ever have had, the means of
going into the question ; but I will take the opportunity
of its having come before me, to make one or two remarks,
supplemental of what I have said on other occasions.

ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 303
1. I frankly confess that the present advance of science
tends to make it probable that various facts take place,
and have taken place, in the order of nature, which
hitherto have been considered by Catholics as simply super
natural. 2. Though I readily make this admission, it must not
be supposed in consequence that I am disposed to grant at
once, that every event was natural in point of fact, which
'might have taken place by the laws of nature ; for it is
obvious, no Catholic can bind the Almighty to act only in
one and the same way, or to the observance always of His
own laws. An event which is possible in the way of na
ture, is certainly possible too to Divine Power without
the sequence of natural cause and effect at all. A con
flagration, to take a parallel, may be the work of an
incendiary, or the result of a flash of lightning ; nor
would a jury think it safe to find a man guilty of arson, if
a dangerous thunderstorm was raging at the very time
when the fire broke out. In like manner, upon the hypo
thesis that a miraculous dispensation is in operation, a
recovery from diseases to which medical science is equal,
may nevertheless in matter of fact have taken place, not
by natural means, but by a supernatural interposition.
That the Lawgiver always acts through His own laws, is
an assumption, of which I never saw proof. In a given
case, then, the possibility of assigning a human cause
for an event does not ipso facto prove that it is not
miraculous. 3. So far, however, is plain, that, till some experimentum
crucis can be found, such as to be decisive against the
natural cause or the supernatural, an occurrence of this
kind will as little convince an unbeliever that there has
been a divine interference in the case, as it will drive the
Catholic to admit that there has been no interference at
all.

304 NOTE B.
4. Still there is this gain accruing to the Catholic cause
from the larger views we now possess of the operation of
natural causes, viz. that our opponents will not in future
be so ready as hitherto, to impute fraud and falsehood to
our priests and their witnesses, on the ground of tlieir
pretending or reporting things that are incredible. Our
opponents have again and again accused us of false wit
ness, on account of statements which they now allow are
either true, or may have been true. They account indeed
for the strange facts very differently from us ; but still
they allow that facts they were. It is a great thing to
have our characters cleared ; and we may reasonably hope
that, the next time our word is vouched for occurrences
which appear to be miraculous, our facts will be investi
gated, not our testimony impugned.
5. Even granting that certain occurrences, which we
have hitherto accounted miraculous, have not absolutely a
claim to be so considered, nevertheless they constitute an
argument still in behalf of Revelation and the Church.
Providences, or what are called grazie, though they do not
rise to the order of miracles, yet, if they occur again and
again in connexion with the same persons, institutions, or
doctrines, may supply a cumulative evidence of the fact
of a supernatural presence in the quarter in which they
are found. I have already alluded to this point in my
Essay on Ecclesiastical Miracles, and I have a particular
reason, as will presently be seen, for referring here to
what I said in the course of it.
In that Essay, after bringing its main argument to an
end, I append to it a review of " the evidence for particular
alleged miracles." " It does not strictly fall within the
scope of the Essay," I observe, " to pronounce upon the
truth or falsehood of this or that miraculous narrative, as
it occurs in ecclesiastical history ; but only to furnish such

ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 305
general considerations, as may be useful in forming a
decision in particular cases," p. cv. However, I thought
it right to go farther and " to set down the evidence for
and against certain miracles as we meet with them," ibid.
In discussing these miracles separately, I make the fol
lowing remarks, to which I have just been referring.
After discussing the alleged miracle of the Thundering
Legion, I observe : — " Nor does it concern us much to
answer the objection, that there is nothing strictly mira
culous in such an occurrence, because sudden thunder
clouds after drought are not unfrequent; for, I would
answer, Grant me such miracles ordinarily in the early
Church, and I will ask no other ; grant that, upon prayer
benefits are vouchsafed, deliverances are effected, unhoped
for results obtained, sicknesses cured, tempests laid, pesti
lences put to flight, famines remedied, judgments inflicted,
and there will be no need of analyzing the causes, whether
supernatural or natural, to which they are to be referred.
They may, or they may not, in this or that case, follow or
surpass the laws of nature, and they may do so plainly or
doubtfully, but the common sense of mankind will call
them miraculous ; for by a miracle is popularly meant
whatever be its formal definition, an event which im
presses upon the mind the immediate presence of the
Moral Governor of the world. He may sometimes act
through nature, sometimes beyond or against it ; but
those who admit the fact of such interferences, will have
little difficulty in admitting also their strictly miraculous
character, if the circumstances of the case require it, and
those who deny miracles to the early Church will be
equally strenuous against allowing her the grace of such
intimate influence (if we may so speak) upon the course of
divine Providence, as is here in question, even though it
be not miraculous." — p. cxxi.
And again, speaking of the death of Arius : " But after

306 NOTE B.
all, was it a miracle ? for, if not we are labouring at a
proof of which nothing comes. The more immediate
answer to this question has already been suggested several
times. When » Bishop with his flock prays night and
day against a heretic, and at length begs of God to take
him away, and when he is suddenly taken away, almost at
the moment of his triumph, and that by a death awfully
significant, from its likeness to one recorded in Scripture,
is it not trifling to ask whether such an occurrence comes
up to the definition of a miracle ? The question is not
whether it is formally a miracle, but whether it is an
event, the like of which persons, who deny that miracles
continue, will consent that the Church should be consid
ered still able to perform. If they are willing to allow
to the Church such extraordinary protection, it is for them
to draw the line to the satisfaction of people in general,
between these and strictly miraculous events ; if, on the
other hand, they deny their occurrence in the times of the
Church, then there is sufficient reason for our appealing
here to the history of Arius in proof of the affirmative."
— p. clxxii.
These remarks, thus made upon the Thundering Legion
and the death of Arius, must be applied, in consequence of
investigations made since the date of my Essay, to the ap
parent miracle wrought in favour of the African confessors
in the Vandal persecution. Their tongues were cut out
by the Arian tyrant, and yet they spoke as before. In
my Essay I insisted on this fact as being strictly miracu
lous. Among other remarks (referring to the instances
adduced by Middleton and others in disparagement of the
miracle, viz. of " a girl born without a tongue, who yet
talked as distinctly and easily, as if she had enjoyed the
full benefit of that organ," and of a boy who lost his
tongue at the age of eight or nine, yet retained his speech,
whether perfectly or not,) I said, " Does Middleton mean

ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 307
to say, that, if certain of men lost their tongues ai the
command of a tyrant for the sake of their religion, and
then spoke as plainly as before, nay if only one person
was so mutilated and so gifted, it would not be a miracle ? "
— p. ccx. And I enlarged upon the minute details of the
fact as reported to us by eye-witnesses and contemporaries.
" Out of the seven writers adduced, six are contemporaries ;
three, if not four, are eye-witnesses of the miracle. One
reports from an eye-witness, and one testifies to a fervent
record at the burial-place of the subjects of it. All seven
were living, or had been staying, at one or other of the
two places which are mentioned as their abode. One is a
Pope, a second a Catholic Bishop, a third a Bishop of a
schismatical party, a fourth an emperor, a fifth a soldier,
a politician, and a suspected infidel, a sixth a statesman
and courtier, a seventh a rhetorician and philosopher.
' He cut out the tongues by the roots,' says Victor, Bishop
of Vito ; ' I perceived the tongues entirely gone by the
roots,' says ^Eneas; 'as low down as the throat,' says
Procopius ; ' at the roots,' says Justinian and St. Gregory ;
' he spoke like an educated man, without impediment,'
says Victor of Vito ; ' with articulateness,' says iEneas ;
! better than before ; ' ' they talked without any impedi
ment,' says Procopius ; ' speaking with perfect voice,'
says Marcellinus ; ' they spoke perfectly, even to the end,'
says the second Victor ; ' the words were formed, full, and
perfect,' says St. Gregory." — p. ccviii.
However, a few years ago an Article appeared in Notes
and Queries (No. for May 22, 1858), in which various
evidence was adduced to show that the tongue is not ne
cessary for articulate speech.
1. Col. Churchill, in his Lebanon, speaking of the
cruelties of Djezzar Pacha, in extracting to the root the
tongues of some Emirs, adds, " It is a curious fact, how-

308 NOTE B.
ever, that the tongues grow again sufficiently for the
purposes of speech."
2. Sir John Malcolm, in his Sketches of Persia, speaks
of Zab, Khan of Khisht, who was condemned to lose
his tongue. " This mandate," he says, " was imperfectly
executed, and the loss of half this member deprived him
of speech. Being afterwards persuaded that its being cut
close to the root would enable him to speak so as to be
understood, he submitted to the operation ; and the effect
has been, that his voice, though indistinct and thick, is yet
intelligible to persons accustomed to converse with him.
... I am not an anatomist, and I cannot therefore give a
reason, why a man, who could not articulate with half a
tongue, should speak when he had none at all ; but the
facts are as stated."
3. And Sir John McNeill says, " In answer to your
inquiries about the powers of speech retained by persons
who have had their tongues cut out, I can state from per
sonal observation, that several persons whom I knew in
Persia, who had been subjected to that punishment, spoke
so intelligibly as to be able to transact important business.
. . . The conviction in Persia is universal, that the power
of speech is destroyed by merely cutting off the tip of the
tongue ; and is to a useful extent restored by cutting off
another portion as far back as a perpendicuiar section can
be made of the portion that is free from attachment at the
lower surface. ... I never had to meet with a person
who had suffered this punishment, who could not speak so
as to be quite intelligible to his familiar associates."
I should not be honest, if I professed to be simply con
verted, by these testimonies, to the belief that there was
nothing miraculous in the case of the African confessors.
It is quite as fair to be sceptical on one side of the question

ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 309
as on the other ; and if Gibbon is considered worthy of praise
for his stubborn incredulity in receiving the evidence
for this miracle, I do not see why I am to be blamed, if I
wish to be quite sure of the full appositeness of the recent
evidence which is brought to its disadvantage. Questions
of fact cannot be disproved by analogies or presumptions ;
the inquiry must be made into the particular case in all
its parts, as it comes before us. Meanwhile, I fully allow
that the points of evidence brought in disparagement of
the miracle are prima facie of such cogency, that, till they
are proved to be irrelevant, Catholics are prevented from
appealing' to it for controversial purposes.

310 NOTE C.
NOTE C. ON PAGE 153.
SERMON ON WISDOM AND INNOCENCE.
The professed basis of the charge of lying and equivoca
tion made against me, and, in my person, against the
Catholic clergy, was, as I have already noticed in the
Preface, a certain Sermon of mine on Wisdom and Inno
cence, being the 20th in a series of " Sermons on Subjects
of the Day," written, preached, and published while I was
an Anglican. Of this Sermon my accuser spoke thus in
his Pamphlet : —
" It is occupied entirely with the attitude of ' the world ' to ' Christians ' and
' the Church. ' By the world appears to be signified, especially, the Protes
tant public of these realms ; what Dr. Newman means by Christians, and the
Church, he has not left in doubt ; for in the preceding Sermon he says : ' But
if the truth must be spoken, what are the humble monk and the holy nun,
and other regulars, as they are called, but Christians after the very pattern
given us in Scripture, &o.' .... This is his definition of Christians. Aud
in the Sermon itself, he sufficiently defines what he means by ' the Church,'
iu two notes of her character, which he shall give in his own words : ' What,
for instance, though we grant that sacramental confession and the celibacy
of the clergy do tend to consolidate the body politic in the relation of rulers
and subjects, or, in other words, to aggrandize the priesthood ? for how can
the Church be one body without such relation ? ' " — Pp. 8, 9.
He then proceeded to analyze and comment on it at
great length, and to criticize severely the method and tone
of my Sermons generally. Among other things, he
said : —
" What, then, did the Sermon mean ? Why was it preached ? To insinu
ate that a Church which had sacramental confession and a celibate clergy was
the only true Church ? Or to insinuate that the admiring young gentlemen
who listened to him stood to their fellow-countrymen in the relation, of the
early Christians to the heathen Romans ? Or that Queen Victoria' s Govern
ment was to the Church of England what Nero's or Dioolesian's was to the

SERMON ON WISDOM AND INNOCENCE. 311
Church of Rome ? It may have been so. I know that men used to suspect
Dr. Newman, — I have been inclined to do so myself, — of writing a whole
Sermon, not for the sake of the text or of the matter, but for the sake of one
single passing hint — one phrase, one epithet, one little barbed arrow, which,
as he swept magnificently past on the stream of his calm eloquence, seem
ingly unconscious of all presences, save those unseen, he delivered unheeded,
as with his finger-tip, to the very heart of an initiated hearer, never to be
withdrawn again. I do not blame him for that. It is one of the highest
triumphs of oratorio power, and may be employed honestly and fairly by any
person who has the skill to do it honestly and fairly ; but then, Why did he
entitle his Sermon ' Wisdom and Innocence ' ?
"What, then, could I think that Dr. Newman meant? I found a
preacher bidding Christians imitate, to some undefined point, the ' arts ' of
the basest of animals, and of men, and of the devil himself. I found him, by
a strange perversion of Scripture, insinuating that St. Paul's conduct and
manner were such as naturally to bring down on him the reputation of being
a crafty deceiver. I found him — horrible to say it — even hinting the same
of one greater than St. Paul. I found him denying or explaining away the
existence of that Priestcraft, which is a notorious fact to every honest student
of history, and justifying (as far as I can understand him) that double-
dealing by whioh prelates, in the middle age, too often played off alternately
the sovereign against the people, and the people against the sovereign, care
less which was in the right, so long as their own power gained by the move.
I found him actually using of such (and, as I thought, of himself and his
party likewise) the words ' They yield outwardly ; to assent inwardly were
to betray the faith. Yet they are called deceitful and double-dealing, be
cause they do as much as they can, and not more than they may.' I found
him telling Christians that they will always seem ' artificial,' and, ' wanting
in openness and manliness ; ' that they will always be ' a mystery ' to the
world, and that the world will always think them rogues ; and bidding them
glory in what the world (i.e. the rest of their countrymen), disown, and say
with Mawworm, ' I like to be despised.'
' ' Now, how was I to know that the preacher, who bad the reputation of
being the most acute man of his generation, and of having a specially
intimate acquaintance with the weaknesses of the human heart, was utterly
blind to the broad meaning and the plain practical result of a Sermon like
this, delivered before fanatic and hot-headed young men, who hung upon
his every word ? that he did not foresee that they would think that they
obeyed him by becoming affected, artificial, sly, shifty, ready for conceal
ments and equivocations ? " &c. &c. — Pp.14 — 16.
My accuser asked in this passage what did the Sermon
mean, and why was it preached. I will here answer
this question ; and with this view will speak, first of

312 NOTE C.
the matter of the Sermon, then of its subject, then of its
circumstances. 1. It was one of the last six Sermons which I wrote
when I was an Anglican. It was one of the five Sermons
I preached in St. Mary's between Christmas and Easter,
1843, the year when I gave up my Living. The MS. of
the Sermon is destroyed ; but I believe, and my memory
too bears me out, as far as it goes, that the sentence in
question aboutCelibacy and Confession, of which this writer
wouldmakeso much,was not preached at all. The Volume,
in which this Sermon is found, was published after that I
had given up St. Mary's, when I had no call on me to
restrain the expression of any thing which I might hold :
and I stated an important fact about it in the Advertise
ment, in these words : —
' ' In preparing [these Sermons] for publication , a few words and sentences
have in several places been added, which will be found to express more of
private or personal opinion, than it was expedient to introduce into the
instruction delivered in Church to a parochial Congregation. Such intro
duction, however, seems unobjectionable in the case of compositions,
which are detached from the sacred place and service to which they once
belonged, and submitted to the reason and judgment of the general reader."
This Volume of Sermons then cannot be criticized at all
a,spreachments ; they are essays; essays of a man who, at the
time of publishingthem.wasTCoiapreacher. Such passages,
as that in question, are just the very ones which I added
upon my publishing them; and, as I always was on my guard
in the pulpit against saying any thing which looked towards
Rome, I shall believe that I did not preach the obnoxious
sentence till some one is found to testify that he heard it.
At the same time I cannot conceive why the mention of
Sacramental Confession, or of Clerical Celibacy, had I made
it, was inconsistent with the position of an Anglican
Clergyman. For Sacramental Confession and Absolution
actually form a portion of the Anglican Visitation of the

SERMON ON WISDOM AND INNOCENCE. 313
Sick ; and though the 32nd Article says that " Bishops,
priests, and deacons, are not commanded by God's law
either to vow the state of single life or to abstain from
marriage," and " therefore it is lawful for them to marry,"
this proposition I did not dream of denying, nor is it in
consistent with St. Paul's doctrine, which I held, that it
is " good to abide even as he," i.e. in celibacy.
But I have more to say on this point. This writer says,
" I know that men used to suspect Dr. Newman, — I have
been inclined to do so myself, — of writing a whole Sermon,
not for the sake ofthe text or of the. matter, but for the sake
of one simple passing hint, — one phrase, one epithet."
Now observe ; can there be a plainer testimony borne to
the practical character of my Sermons at St. Mary's than
this gratuitous insinuation ? Many a preacher of Trac
tarian doctrine has been accused of not letting his
parishioners alone, and of teasing them with his private
theological notions. The same report was spread about me
twenty years ago as this writer spreads now, and the world
believed that my Sermons at St. Mary's were full of red-
hot Tractarianism. Then strangers came to hear me
preach, and were astonished at their own disappointment.
I recollect the wife of a great prelate from a distance
coming to hear me, and then expressing her surprise to
find that I preached nothing but a plain humdrum Ser
mon. I recollect how, when on the Sunday before Com
memoration one year, a number of strangers came to hear
me, and I preached in my usual way, residents in Oxford,
of high position, were loud in their satisfaction that on a
great occasion, I had made a simple failure, for after all
there was nothing in the Sermon to hear. Well, but they
were not going to let me off, for all my common-sense
view of duty. Accordingly they got up the charitable
theory which this Writer revives. They said that there
was a double purpose in those plain addresses of mine,

314 NOTE C.
and that my Sermons were never so artful as when they
seemed common-place; that there were sentences which
redeemed their apparent simplicity and quietness. So they
watched during the delivery of a Sermon, which to them
was too practical to be useful, for the concealed point of
it, which they could at least imagine, if they could not
discover. " Men used to suspect Dr. Newman," he says,
" of writing a whole Sermon, not for the sake of the text
or of the matter, but for the sake of one single passing
hint, . . . one phrase, one epithet, one little barbed arrow,
which, as he swept magnificently past on the stream of
his calm eloquence, seemingly unconscious of all presences,
save those unseen, he delivered unheeded," &c. To all
appearance, he says, I was " unconscious of all presences."
He is not able to deny that the " whole Sermon " had the
appearance of being "for the sake of the text and matter ; "
therefore he suggests that perhaps it wasn't.
2. And now as to the subject of the Sermon. The
Sermons of which the Volume consists are such as are,
more or less, exceptions to the rule which I ordinarily
observed, as to the subjects which I introduced into the
pulpit of St. Mary's. They are not purely ethical or
doctrinal. They were for the most part caused by circum
stances of the day or of the moment, and they belong to
various years. One was written in 1832, two in 1836,
two in 1838, five in 1840, five in 1841, four in 1842, seven
in 1843. Many of them are engaged on one subject, viz.
in viewing the Church in its relation to the world. By
the world was meant, not simply those multitudes which
were not in the Church, but the existing body of human
society, whether in the Church or not, whether Catholics,
Protestants, Greeks, or Mahometans, theists or idolaters,
as being ruled by principles, maxims, and instincts of their
own, that is, of an unregenerate nature, whatever their

s.

SERMON ON WISDOM AND INNOCENCE. 315
supernatural privileges might be, greater or less, according
to their form of religion. This view of the relation of the
Church to the world as taken apart from questions of
ecclesiastical politics, as they may be called, is often
brought out in my Sermons. Two occur to me at once ;
No. 3 of my Plain Sermons, which was written in 1829,
and No. 15 of my Third Volume of Parochial, written in
1835. On the other hand, by Church I meant, — in common
with all writers connected with the Tract Movement, what
ever their shades of opinion, and with the whole body
of English divines, except those of the Puritan or Evan
gelical School, — the whole of Christendom, from the
Apostles' time till now, whatever their later divisions into
Latin, Greek, and Anglican. I have explained this view
of the subject above at pp. 69 — 71 of this Volume.
When then I speak, in the particular Sermon before us,
of the members, or the rulers, or the action of "the
Church," I mean neither the Latin, nor the Greek, nor
the English, taken by itself, but of the whole Church as
one body : of Italy as one with England, of the Saxon or
Norman as one with the Caroline Church. This was
specially the one Church, and the points in which one
branch or one period differed from another were not and
could not be Notes of the Church, because Notes neces
sarily belong to the whole of the Church every where
and always.
This being my doctrine as to the relation of the Church
to the world, I laid clown in the Sermon three principles
concerning it, and there left the matter. The first is, that
Divine Wisdom had framed for its action laws, which man,
if left to himself, would have antecedently pronounced to
be the worst possible for its success, and which in all ages
have been called by the world, .as they were in the
Apostles' days, "foolishness;" that man ever relies on
physical and material force, and on carnal inducements,

316 NOTE C.
or as Mahomet with his sword and his houris, or indeed
almost as that theory of religion, called, since the Sermon
was written, " muscular Christianity ;" but that our Lord,
on the contrary, has substituted meekness for haughtiness,
passiveness for violence, and innocence for craft : and that
the event has shown the high wisdom of such an economy,
for it has brought to light a set of natural laws, unknown
before, by which the seeming paradox that weakness should
be stronger than might, and simplicity than worldly policy,
is readily explained.
Secondly, I said that men of the world, judging by the
event, and not recognizing the secret causes of the success,
viz. a higher order of natural laws, — natural, though their
source and action were supernatural, (for " the meek inherit
the earth," by means of a meekness which comes from
above,) — these men, I say, concluded, that the success
which they witnessed must arise from some evil secret
which the world had not mastered, — by means of magic,
as they said in the first ages, by cunning as they say now.
And accordingly they thought that the humility and in-
offensiveness of Christians, or of Churchmen, was a mere
pretence and blind to cover the real causes of that success,
which Christians could explain and would not ; and that
they were simply hypocrites.
Thirdly, I suggested that shrewd ecclesiastics, who knew
very well that there was neither magic nor craft in the
matter, and, from their intimate acquaintance with what
actually went on within the Church, discerned what were
the real causes of its success, were of course under the
temptation of substituting reason for conscience, and,
instead of simply obeying the command, were led to do
good that good might come, that is, to act in order to
secure success, and not from a motive of faith. Some, I
said, did yield to the temptation more or less, and their
motives became mixed ; and in this way the world in a

SERMON ON WISDOM AND INNOCENCE. 317
more subtle shape had got into the Church ; and hence it
had come to pass, that, looking at its history from first to
last, we could not possibly draw the line between good and
evil there, and say either that every thing was to be defended,
or certain things to be condemned. I expressed the diffi
culty, which I supposed to be inherent in the Church, in
the following words. I said, " Priestcraft has ever been
considered tlie badge, and its imputation is a kind of Note
of the Church : and in part indeed truly, because the pre
sence of powerful enemies, and the sense of their own
weakness, has sometimes tempted Christians to the abuse,
instead ofthe use of Christian wisdom, to be wise without
being harmless ; but partly, nay, for the most part, not
truly, but slanderously, and merely because the world
called their wisdom craft, when it was found to be a match
for its own numbers and power."
Such is the substance of the Sermon: and as to the
main drift of it, it was this; that I was, there and else
where, scrutinizing the course of the Church as a whole,
as if philosophically, as an historical phenomenon, and
observing the laws on which it was conducted. Hence
the Sermon, or Essay as it more truly is, is written in a
dry and unimpassioned way : it shows as little of human
warmth of feeling as a Sermon of Bishop Butler's. Yet,
under that calm exterior there was a deep and keen sensi
tiveness, as I shall now proceed to show.
3. If I mistake not, it was written with a secret thought
about myself. Every one preaches according to his frame
of mind, at the time of preaching. One heaviness espe
cially oppressed me at that season, which this Writer,
twenty years afterwards, has set himself with a good will to
renew : it arose from the sense of the base calumnies which
were heaped upon me on all sides. It is worth observing that
this Sermon is exactly contemporaneous with the report

318 NOTE C.
spread by a Bishop (vid. supr. p. 181), that I had advised
a clergyman converted to Catholicism to retain his Living.
This report was in circulation in February 1843, and my
Sermon was preached on the 19th. In the trouble of mind
into which I was thrown by such calumnies as this, I
gained, while I reviewed the history of the Church, at
once an argument and a consolation. My argument was
this : if I, who knew my own innocence, was so blackened
by party prejudice, perhaps those high rulers and those
servants of the Church, in the many ages which intervened
between the early Nicene times and the present, who were
laden with such grievous accusations, were innocent also ;
and this reflection served to make me tender towards those
great names of the past, to whom weaknesses or crimes
were imputed, and reconciled me to difficulties in eccle
siastical proceedings, which there were no means now of
properly explaining. And the sympathy thus excited for
them, re-acted on myself, and I found comfort in being
able to put myself under the shadow of those who had
suffered as I was suffering, and who seemed to promise me
their recompense, since I had a fellowship in their trial.
In a letter to my Bishop at the time of Tract 90, part of
which I have quoted, I said that I had ever tried to
" keep innocency ; " and now two years had passed since
then, and men were louder and louder in heaping on me
the very charges, which this Writer repeats out of my
Sermon, of " fraud and cunning," " craftiness and deceit-
fulness," " double-dealing," " priestcraft," of being " mys
terious, dark, subtle, designing," when I was all the time
conscious to myself, in my degree, and after my measure,
of " sobriety, self-restraint, and control of word and feel
ing." I had had experience how my past success had
been imputed to " secret management ; " and how, when I
had shown surprise at that success, that surprise again was
imputed to " deceit ; " and how my honest heartfelt sub-

SERMON ON WISDOM AND INNOCENCE. 319
mission to authority had been called, as it was called in a
Bishop's charge abroad, " mystic humility ; " and how my
silence was called an " hypocrisy ; " and my faithfulness to
my clerical engagements a secret correspondence with the
enemy. And I found a way of destroying my sensitiveness
about these things which jarred upon my sense of justice,
and otherwise would have been too much for me, by the
contemplation of a large law of the Divine Dispensation,
and felt myself more and more able to bear in my own
person a present trial, of which in my past writings I had
expressed an anticipation.
For thus feeling and thus speaking this Writer com
pares me to " Mawworm." " I found him telling Chris
tians," he says, "that they will always seem 'artificial,'
and ' wanting in openness and manliness ; ' that they will
always be ' a mystery ' to the world ; and that the world
will always think them rogues ; and bidding them glory
in what the world (that is, the rest of their fellow-country
men) disown, and say with Mawworm, ' I like to be
despised.' Now how was I to know that the preacher . . .
was utterly blind to the broad meaning and the plain
practical result of a Sermon like this delivered before
fanatic and hot-headed young men, who hung upon his
every word ? " — Fanatic and hot-headed young men, who
hung on my every word ! If he had undertaken to write
a history, and not a romance, he would have easily found
out, as I have said above, that from 1841 I had severed
myself from the younger generation of Oxford, that Dr.
Pusey and I had then closed our theological meetings at his
house, that I had brought my own weekly evening parties
to an end, that I preached only by fits and starts at St.
Mary's, so that the attendance of young men was broken
up, that in those very weeks from Christmas till over
Easter, during which this Sermon was preached, I was
but five times in the pulpit there. He would have found,

320 NOTE c.
that it was written at a time when I was shunned rather
than sought, when I had great sacrifices in anticipation,
when I was thinking much of myself; that I was ruth
lessly tearing myself away from my own followers, and
that, in the musings of that Sermon, I was at the very
utmost only delivering a testimony in my behalf for time
to come, not sowing my rhetoric broadcast for the chance
of present sympathy.
Again, he says : " I found him actually using of such
[prelates], (and, as I thought, of himself and his party like
wise,) the words ' They yield outwardly; to assent inwardly
were to betray the faith. Yet they are called deceitful and
double-dealing, because they do as much as they can, not
more than they may.' " This too is a proof of my dupli
city ! Let this writer, in his dealings with some one else,
go just a little further than he has gone with me ; and let
him get into a court of law for libel ; and let him be con
victed ; and let him still fancy that his libel, though a libel,
was true, and let us then see whether he will not in such a
case " yield outwardly," without assenting internally ; and
then again whether we should please him, if we called him
" deceitful and double-dealing," because " he did as much
as he could, not more than he ought to do." But Tract 90
will supply a real illustration of what I meant. I yielded
to the Bishops in outward act, viz. in not defending the
Tract, and in closing the Series; but, not only did I not
assent inwardly to any condemnation of it, but I opposed
myself to the proposition of a condemnation on the part of
authority. Yet I was then by the public called " deceitful
and double-dealing," as this Writer calls me now, "be
cause I did as much as I felt I could do, and not more than
I felt I could honestly do." Many were the publications
of the day and the private letters, which accused me of
shuffling, because I closed the Series of Tracts, yet kept
the Tracts on sale, as if I ought to comply not only with

SERMON ON WISDOM AND INNOCENCE. 321
what my Bishop asked, but with what he did not ask, and
perhaps did not wish. However, such teaching, according
to this Writer, was likely to make young men " suspect,
that truth was not a virtue for its own sake, but only for
the sake of the spread of ' Catholic opinions,' and the
'salvation of their own souls;' and that cunning was
the weapon which heaven had allowed to them to defend
themselves against the persecuting Protestant public." —
p. 16.
And now I draw attention to a further point. He says,
" How was I to know that the preacher . . did not fore
see, that [fanatic and hot-headed young men] would think
that they obeyed him, by becoming affected, artificial, sly,
shifty, ready for concealments and equivocat ions ?" " How
should he know ! " What ! I suppose that we are to think
every man a knave till he is proved not to be such. Know !
had he no friend to tell him whether I was " affected " or
" artificial " myself ? Could he not have done better than
impute equivocations to me, at a time when I was in no
sense answerable for the amphibologia of the Roman
casuists ? Had he a single fact which belongs to me per
sonally or by profession to couple my name with equivoca
tion in 1843 ? " How should he know " that I was not
sly, smooth, artificial, non-natural ! he should know by
that common manly frankness, by which we put confidence
in others, till they are proved to have forfeited it ; he
should know it by my own words in that very Sermon, in
which I say it is best to be natural, and that reserve is at
best but an unpleasant necessity. For I say there ex-
pressly : —
" I do not deny that there is something very engaging in a frank and un
pretending manner ; some persons have it more than others ; in some persons
it is a great grace. But it must be recollected that I am speaking of times
of persecution and oppression to Christians, such as the text foretells ; and
then surely frankness will become nothing else than indignation aij the

322 NOTE c.
oppressor, and vehement speech, if it is permitted. Accordingly, as persons
have deep feelings, so they will find the necessity of self-control, lest they
should say what they ought not."
He sums up thus : —
"If [Dr. Newman] would . . . persist (as in this Sermon) in dealing with
matters dark, offensive, doubtful, sometimes actually forbidden, at least
according to the notions of the great majority of English Churchmen ; if
he would always do so in a tentative, paltering way, seldom or never letting
the world know how much he believed, how far he intended to go ; if, in a
word, his method of teaching was a suspicious one, what wonder if the
minds of men were filled with suspicions of him ? " — p. 17.
Now, in the course of my Narrative, I have frankly
admitted that I was tentative in such of my works as fairly
allowed of the introduction into them of religious inquiry ;
but he is speaking of my Sermons ; where, then, is his
proof that in my Sermons I dealt in matters dark, offen
sive, doubtful, actually forbidden ? He must show that I
was tentative in my Sermons ; and he has the range of
eight volumes to gather evidence in. As to the ninth, my
University Sermons, of course I was tentative in them ;
but not because " I would seldom or never let the world
know how much I believed, or how far I intended to go ; "
but because University Sermons are commonly, and allow
ably, of the nature of disquisitions, as preached before a
learned body; and because in deep subjects, which had
not been fully investigated, I said as much as I believed,
and about as far as I saw I could go ; and a man cannot
do more ; and I account no man to be a philosopher who
attempts to do more.

SERIES OF SAINTS' LIVES OF 1843-4. 323

NOTE D. ON PAGE 213.
SERIES OF SAINTS' LIVES OF 1843-4.
I have here an opportunity of preserving, what other
wise would be lost, the Catalogue of English Saints which
I formed, as preparatory to the Series of their Lives which
was begun in the above years. It is but a first Essay, and
has many obvious imperfections ; but it may be useful to
others as a step towards a complete hagiography for Eng
land. For instance St. Osberga is omitted; I suppose
because it was not easy to learn any thing about her.
Boniface of Canterbury is inserted, though passed over by
the Bollandists on the ground of the absence of proof of a
cultus having been paid to him. The Saints of Cornwall
were too numerous to be attempted. Among the men of
note, not Saints, King Edward II. is included from piety
towards the founder of Oriel College. With these admis
sions I present my Paper to the reader.

'Preparing for Publication, in Periodical Numbers, in small Svo, The
Lives of the English Saints, Edited by the Rev. John Henry Newman,
B.D., Fellow of Oriel College.

It is the compensation of the disorders and perplexities of these latter times
of the Church that we have the history of the foregoing. We indeed of this
day have been reserved to witness a disorganization of the City of God, which
it never entered into the minds of the early believers to imagine : but we are
witnesses also of its triumphs and of its luminaries through those many ages
which have brought about the misfortunes which at present overshadow it.
If they were blessed who lived in primitive times, and saw the fresh traces
of their Lord, and heard the echoes of Apostolic voices, blessed too are we
whose special portion it is to see that same Lord revealed in His Saints.

324 NOTE D.
The wonders of His grace in the soul of man, its creative power, its inex
haustible resources, its manifold operation, all this we know, as they knew it
not. They never heard the names of St. Gregory, St. Bernard, St. Francis,
and St. Louis. In fixing our thoughts then, as in an undertaking like the
present, on the History of the Saints, we are but availing ourselves of that
solace and recompense of our peculiar trials which has been provided for our
need by our Gracious Master.
And there are special reasons at this time for recurring to the Saints of
our own dear and glorious, most favoured, yet most erring and most un
fortunate England. Such a recurrence may serve to make us love our
country better, and on truer grounds, than heretofore ; to teach us to invest
her territory, her cities and villages, her hills and springs, with sacred asso
ciations ; to give us an insight into her present historical position in the
course of the Divine Dispensation ; to instruct us in the capabilities of the
English character; and to open upon us the duties and the hopes to which
that Church is heir, which was in former times the Mother of St. Boniface
and St. Ethelreda.
Even a selection or specimens of the Hagiology of our country may suffice
for some of these high purposes ; and in so wide and rich a field of research
it is almost presumptuous in one undertaking to aim at more than such a
partial exhibition. The list that follows, though by no means so large as
might have been drawn up, exceeds the limits which the Editor proposes to
his hopes, if not to his wishes ; but, whether it is allowed him to accomplish
a larger or smaller portion of it, it will be his aim to complete such subjects
or periods as he begins before bringing it to a close. It is hardly necessary
to observe that any list that is producible in this stage of the undertaking
can but approximate to correctness and completeness in matters of detail,
and even in the names which are selected to compose it.
He has considered himself at liberty to include in the Series such saints as
have been born in England, though they have lived and laboured out of it ;
and such, again, as have been in any sufficient way connected with our
country, though born out of it ; for instance, Missionaries or Preachers in it,
or spiritual or temporal rulers, or founders of religious institutions or houses.
He has also included in the Series a few eminent or holy persons, who,
though not in the Sacred Catalogue, are recommended to our religious
memory by their fame, learning, or the benefits they have conferred on
posterity. These have been distinguished from the Saints by printing their
names in italics.
It is proposed to page all the longer Lives separately ; the shorter will be
thrown together in one. They will be published in monthly issues of not
more than 128 pages each ; and no regularity, whether of date or of subject,
will be observed in the order of publication. But they will be so numbered
as to admit ultimately of a general chronological arrangement.
The separate writers are distinguished by letters subjoined to eaoh Life,

SERIES OF SAINTS' LIVES OF 1843-4.

325

and it should be added, to prevent misapprehension, that, sinoe under the
present circumstances of our Church, they are necessarily of various, though
not divergent, doctrinal opinions, no one is answerable for any composition
but his own. At the same time, the work professing an historical and ethical
character, questions of theology will be, as far as possible, thrown into the
back ground. J. H. N.
Littlemore, Sept. 9, 1843.

CALENDAR OF ENGLISH SAINTS.

10n 12
131415 16
17 18 19
20212223
2425 26
272829
30 31

JANUARY.

FEBRUARY.

Elvan, B. and Medwyne, C.

1

Martyrs of Lichfield.

2 Laurence, Archb.

Melorus, M.

3 Wereburga, V.

4 Gilbert, A. Liephard, B.M.

Edward, K.C.

5

Peter, A.

6 Ina, K Mo.

Cedd, B.

7 Augulus, B.M. Richard, K.

Pega, V. Wulsin, B.

8 Elfleda, A. Cuthman, C.

Adrian, A. Bertwald, Archb.

9 Theliau, B.

Sethrida, V.

10 Trumwin, B.

Egwin, B.

11

Benedict Biscop, A. Aelred, A.

12 Ethelwold, B. of Lindisfarne

Kentigern, B.

Cedmon, Mo.

Beuno, A.

13 Ermenilda, Q.A.

Ceolulph, K. Mo.

14

Henry, Hermit. Fursey, A.

15 Sigefride, B.

Mildwida, V.

16 Finan, B.

Ulfrid or Wolfrid, M.

17

Wulstan, B. Henry, B.

18
19
20 Ulric, H.

Brithwold, B.

21

Boisil, A.

22

Cadoc, A.

23 Milburga, V.

24 Luidhard, B. Ethelbertof Kent

Theoritgida, V.

K.

Bathildis, Queen.

25 Walburga, V.A.
26
27 Alnoth, H.M.

Gildas, A.

28 Oswald, B.
Adamnan, Mo. Serapion, M.
29
326

NOTE D.

34
567
89
10
1112 13
14 1516171819
2021 22
232425 26272829 3031

MARCH.

David, Archb. Swibert, B.
Chad.B. Willeik, C. Joavan, B.
Winwaloe, A.
Owin, Mo.
Kineburga, &c, and Tibba, VV.
Balther, C. and Bilfrid, H.
Easterwin, A. William, Friar.
Felix, B.
Bosa, B.

Elphege.B. Paul de Leon, B.C.
Robert, H.
Eadgith, A.
Withburga, V.
Edward, K.M.
Alcmund, M.
Cuthbert, B. Herbert, B.

./Edelwald, H.
Hildelitha, A.
Alfwold of Sherborne,
William, M.

Gundleus, H.
Merwenna, A.

B. and

APRIL.

3 Richard, B.
456789 Frithstan, B.
10
11 Guthlake, H.
1213 Caradoo, H.
14 Richard of Bur%
15 Paternus, B.

16171819
2021222324252627

Stephen, A.
Elphege, Archb.
Adelhare, M. Cedwalla, K.
Anselm, Archb. Doctor.

George, M.
Mellitus, Archb.
Egbert, C.

Wilfrid, Archb.

29 Wilfrid II. Archb.
30 Eroonwald, B.
Maud, Q.

MAY.

Suibert, B.

1 Asaph, B. Ultan, A. Brioc,B.C.
2 Germanus, M.
3 4
5 Ethelred, K. Mo.
6 Eadbert, A.
7 John, Archb. of Beverley.

1011 Fremund, M.
12 13 141516 Simon Stock, H.
17 1819
20 2122

Elgiva, Q.
Dunstan, Arohb.
Ethelbert, K.M.
Godric, H.
Winewald, A.
Henry, K.

B. Alcwi/n, A.

Berethun, A.

24 Ethelburga, Q.
25 Aldhelm, B.
26 Augustine, Archb.
27 Bede, D. Mo.
28 Lanfrane, Archb.
2930 Waiston, C.
31 Jurmin, C.

SERIES OF SAINTS' LIVES OF 1843-4.

327

JUNE.

1 Wistan, K.M.
2 34 Petroc, A.
5 Boniface, Archb. M.
6 Gudwall, B.
7 Robert, A.
8 William, Archb.
9
10 Ivo, B. and Ithamar, B.
1112 Eskill, B.M.
13 14 Elerius, A.
15 Edburga, V.
1617 Botulph, A. John, Fr.
18 19
20 Idaberga, V.
21 Egelmund, A.
22 Alban, and Amphibolus, MM.
23 Ethelreda, V.A.
24 Bartholomew, H.
25 Adelbert, C.
2627 John, C. of Moutier.
2829 Margaret, Countess of Richmond.
30

JULY.

1 Julius, Aaron, MM. Rumold, B.
Leonoras, B.
2 Oudoceus,B. Swithun, B.
3 Gunthiern, A.
4 Odo, Archb.
5 Modwenna, V.A.
6 Sexburga, A.
7, Edelburga, V.A. Hedda, B. Wil-
libald, B. Ercongota, V.
8 Grimbald, and Edgar, K.
9 Stephen Langton, Archb.
1011
1213 Mildreda, V.A.
14 Marchelm, C. Boniface, Archb.
15 Deusdedit, Archb. Plechelm, B.
David, A. and Editha of Tam-
worth, Q.V.

Helier, H.M.
Kenelm, K.M.
Edburga and Edgitha of Ayles
bury, VV. Frederic, B.M.

Wulfud and Ruffin, MM. Lew
[inna, V.M.

27 Hugh, M.
28 Sampson, B.
29 Lupus, B. [V.
30 Tatwin, Archb. andErmenigitha,
31 Germanus, B. and Neot, H.

AUGUST.

1 Ethelwold, B. of Winton.
2 Etheldritha, V.
3 Walthen, A.
4
5 Oswald, K.M. Thomas, Mo. M.
6 [of Dover.
78 Colman, B.
9
1011 William of Waynfleet, B.
12 13 Wigbert, A. Walter, A.
14 Werenfrid, C.
15 1617 18 Helen, Empress.
19
20 Oswin, K.M.
21 Richard, B. of Andria.
22 Sigfrid, A.
23 Ebba, V.A.
2425 Ebba, V.A.M.
26 Bregwin, Archb. Bradwardine,
Archb.
27 Sturmius, A.
2829 Sebbus, K.
3031 Eanswida, V.A. Aidan, A.B.
Cuthburga, Q.V.

328

NOTE D.

SEPTEMBER.

William, B. of Roschid. William,
Fr.

Alcmund, A. Tilhbert, A.
Bertelin, H. Wulfhilda or Vul-
fridis, A.
Otger, C.
Robert Kilwardby, Archb.

10
1112
1314 Richard Fox, B.
15 16

17
1819
20
21 22
232425262728
29 30

Ninian, B. Edith, daughter of
Edgar, V.
Socrates and Stephen, MM.
Theodore, Archb.
HereBwide, Q. Edward II. K.

Ceolfrid, A.
William of Wykeham, B.
Lioba, V.A.
B. Richard of Hampole, H.
Honorius, Archb.

OCTOBER.

1 Roger, B.
2 Thomas of Hereford, B.
8 Ewalds (two) MM.
4
5 Walter Stapleton, B.
6 Ywy, C.
7 Osiiha, Q.V.M.
8 Ceneu, V.
9 Lina, V. and Robert Grostete, B.
10 Paulinus, Archb. John, C. of
Bridlington.
11 Edilbnrga, V.A.
12 Edwin, K.
13

14 Burchard, B.
15 Tecla, V.A.
16 Lullus, Archb.
17 Ethelred, Ethelbright, MM.
18 Walter de Merton, B.
19 Frideswide, V. and Ethbin, A.
2021 Ursula, V.M
22 Mello, B.C.
2324 Magloire, B.
25 John of Salisbury, B.
26 Eata, B.
27 Witta, B.
28 B. Alfred.
29 Sigebert, K. Elfreda, A.
3031 Foillan, B.M.

NOVEMBER.

Wenefred, V.M. Rumwald, C.
Brinstan, B. Clarus, M.
Cungar, H.
Iltut, A. and Winoc, A.
Willebrord, B.
Willehad, B. Tyssilio, B.
Justus, Archb.
Lebwin, C.
Eadburga of Menstrey, A.
Dubricius, B.C.
Malo, B.
Edmund, B.
Hilda, A. Hugh, B.
Ermenburga, Q.
Edmund, K. M. Humbert, B. M.
Acoa, B.
Paulinus, A.
Daniel, B.C.

27
28 Edwold, M.
29 80

SERIES OF SAINTS' LIVES OF 1843-4.

329

DECEMBER.

1

16

2 Weede, V.

17

3 Birinus, B. Lucius, K. and Sola,

18 Winebald, A.

H.

19
4 Osmund, B.
20
5 Christina, V.
21 Eadburga, V.A.
6
22
7
23
8 John Peckham, Arch b.
24
9
25
10
26 Tathai, C.
11 Elfleda, A.
27 Gerald, A.B.
12 Corentin, B.C.
28
13 Ethelburga, Q. wife of Edwin.
29 Thomas, Archb. M
14
30
15
31
N.B. St. William, Austin-Friar, Ingulphus, and Peter of Blois have not
been introduced into the above Calendar, their days of death or festival not
being as yet ascertained.
CHRONOLOGICAL ARRANGEMENT.
SECOND CENTURY.
182 Deo. 3. Lucius, K of the British.
Jan. 1. Elvan, B. and Medwyne, C.
Rome.
envoys from St. Lucius to
300
Oct. 22.
303
Ap. 23.
—
June 22.
—
July 1.
304
Jan. 2.
—
Feb. 7.
328
Aug. 18.
388
Sept. 17.
411
Jan. 3.
432
Sept. 16.
July 31.
429
July 29.
502
May 1.
FOURTH CENTURY.
Mello, B.C. of Rouen.
George, M. under Dioclesian. Patron of England.
Alban and Amphibalus, MM.
Julius and Aaron, MM. of Caerleon.
Martyrs of Lichfield.
Augulus, B.M. of London.
Helen, Empress, mother of Constantine^
Socrates and Stephen, MM. perhaps in wales.
Melorus, M. in Cornwall.
FIFTH CENTURY.
Ninian, B. Apostle of the Southern Picts.
Germanus, B.C. of Auxerre.
Lupus, B.C. of Troyes.
Brioc, B.C., disciple of St. Germanus.
330

NOTE D.

490 Oct. 8. Ceneu, or Keyna, V., sister-in-law of Gundleus.
492 Mar. 29. Gundleus, Hermit, in Wales.
July 3. Gunthiern, A. , in Brittany.
453 Oct. 21. Ursula, V.M. near Cologne.
bef. 500 Dec. 12. Corentin, B.C. of Quimper.

FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES.
Welsh SchooIs.
444-522 Nov. 14. Dubricius, B.C., first Bishop of Llandaff.
520 Nov. 22. Paulinus, A. of Whitland, tutor of St. David and St.
Theliau.
445-544 Mar. 1. David, Archb. of Menevia, afterwards called from him.
abt. 500 Dec. 26. Tathai, C, master of St. Cadoc.
480 Jan. 24. Cadoc, A. , son of St. Gundleus, and nephew of St. Keyna.
abt. 513 Nov. 6. Iltut, A. , converted by St. Cadoc.
545 Nov. 23. Daniel, B.C., first Bishop of Bangor.
aft. 559 Apr. 18. Paternus, B.A., pupil of St. Iltut.
573 Mar. 12. Paul, B.C., of Leon, pupil of St. Iltut.
Mar. 2. Ioavan, B. , pupil of St. Paul.
599 July 28. Sampson, B., pupil of St. Iltut, cousin of St. Paul de
Leon.
565 Nov. 15. Malo, B., cousin of St. Sampson.
575 Oct. 24. Magloire, B., cousin of St. Malo.
583 Jan. 29. Gildas, A., pupil of St. Iltut.
July 1. Leonorus, B., pupil of St. Iltut.
604 Feb. 9. Theliau, B. of Llandaff, pupil of St. Dubricius.
560 July 2. Oudoceus, B. , nephew to St. Theliau.
500-580 dot. 19. Ethbin, A., pupil of St. Sampson.
516-601 Jan. 13. Kentigern, B. of Glasgow, founder of Monastery of Elwy.

SIXTH CENTURY.

529

Mar. 3.

564

June 4.

July 16.

June 27.

590

May 1.

abt.

600 June 6.

Nov. 8.

Winwaloe, A., in Brittany.
Petroc. , A. , in Cornwall.
Helier, Hermit, M., in Jersey.
John, C. of Moutier, in Tours.
Asaph, B. of Elwy, afterwards called after him.
Gudwall, B. of Aleth in Brittany.
Tyssilio, B. of St. Asaph.

SEVENTH CENTURY.

600

June 10.

596

Feb. 24.

616

Feb. 24.

608

May 26.

624

Apr. 24.

619

Feb. 2.

608

Jan. 6.

627

Nov. 10.

653

Sept. 30.

662

July 15.

Pakt I.
Ivo, or Ivia, B. from Persia.
Luidhard, B. of Senlis, in France.
Ethelbert, K. of Kent.
Augustine, Archb. of Canterbury, Apostle of England.
Mellitus, Archb. of Canterbury, -\
Laurence, Archb, of Canterbury, „ . 0,
Peter, A. at Canterbury, I Companions of St-
Justus, Archb. of Canterbury, I Augustine.
Honorius, Archb. of Canterbury, J
Deus-dedit, Archb. of Canterbury.

642

Oct. 29.

646

Mar. 8.

650

Jan. 16.

080

May 1.

655

Oct. 31.

680

June 17.

671

June 10.

650

Dec. 3.

705

July 7.

717

Jan. 11.

SERIES OF saints' LIVES OF 1843-4. 331
SEVENTH CENTURY.
Pakt II.
Sigebert, K. of the East Angles.
Felix, B. of Dunwich, Apostle of the East Angles.
Fursey, A. , preacher among the East Angles.
Ultan, A., brother of St. Fursey.
FoiUan, B.M., brother of St. Fursey, preacher in the
Netherlands.
Botulph, A. , in Lincolnshire or Sussex.
Ithamar, B. of Rochester.
Birinus, B. of Dorchester.
Hedda, B. of Dorchester.
Egwin, B. of Worcester.
SEVENTH CENTURY.
Part III.
690 Sept. 19. Theodore, Archb. of Canterbury.
709 Jan. 9. Adrian, A. in Canterbury.
709 May 25. Aldhelm, B. of Sherborne, pupil of St. Adrian.
SEVENTH CENTURY.
Past IV.
Winefred, V.M. in Wales.
Liephard, M.B. , slain near Cambray.
Beuno, A., kinsman of St. Cadocus and St. Kentigern.
Osgitha, Q.V.M., in East Anglia during a Danish inroad.
Elerius, A. in Wales.
Bathildis, Q. , wife of Clovis II. , king of France.
Lewinna, V.M., put to death by the Saxons.
Edberga and Edgitha, VV. of Aylesbury.
SEVENTH CENTURY.
Part V.
Paulinus, Archb. of York, companion of St. Augustine.
Edwin, K. of Northumberland.
Ethelburga, Q. , wife to St. Edwin.
Oswald, K.M., St. Edwin's nephew.
Oswin, K.M., cousin to St. Oswald.
Ebba, V.A. of Coldingham, half-sister to St. Oswin.
Adamnan, Mo. of Coldingham.
SEVENTH CENTURY.
Pabt VI. — Whitby.
650 Sept. 6. Bega, V. A., foundress of St. Bee's, called after her.
681 Nov. 17. Hilda, A. of Whitby, daughter of St. Edwin's nephew.
716 Dec. 11. Elfleda, A. of Whitby, daughter of St. Oswin.
680 Feb. 12. Cedmon, Mo. of Whitby.

630

Nov. 3.

642

Feb. 4.

660

Jan. 14.

673

Oct. 7.

630

June 14.

680

Jan. 27.

687

July 24.

700

July 18.

644

Oct. 10.

633

Oct. 12.

Dec. 13.

642

Aug. 5.

651

Aug. 20.

683

Aug. 23.

689

Jan. 31.

332 NOTE D.

SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES.
Pakt I.
Sept. 21. Hereswida, Q., sister of Hilda, wife of Annas, who suc
ceeded Egric, Sigebert's cousin.
654 Jan. 10. Sethrida, V.A. of Faremoutier, St. Hereswida's daughter
by a former marriage.
693 Apr. 30. Erconwald, A.B., son of Annas and St. Hereswida, Bishop
of London, Abbot of Chertsey, founder of Barking.
677 Aug. 29. Sebbus, K. , converted by St. Erconwald.
May 31. Jurmin, C, son of Annas and St. Hereswida.
650 July 7. Edelburga, V.A. of Faremoutier, natural daughter of
Annas.
679 June 23. Ethelreda, Etheldreda, Etheltrudis, or Awdry, V.A.,
daughter of Annas and St. Hereswida.
Mar. 17. Withburga, V., daughter of Annas and St. Hereswida.
699 July 6. Sexburga, A. , daughter of Annas and St. Hereswida.
660 July 7. Ercongota, or Ertongata, V.A. of Faremoutier, daughter
of St. Sexburga.
699 Feb. 13. Ermenilda, Q.A., daughter of St. Sexburga, wife of
Wulfere.
aft. 675 Feb. 3. Wereburga, V. , daughter of St. Ermenilda and Wulfere,
patron of Chester.
abt. 680 Feb. 27. Alnoth, H.M., bailiff to St. Wereburga.
640 Aug. 31. Eanswida, V.A., sister-in-law of St. Sexburga, grand
daughter to St. Ethelbert.
668 Oct. 17. Ethelred and Ethelbright, MM., nephews of St. Ean
swida.
July 30. Ermenigitha, V., niece of St. Eanswida.
676 Ocit. 11. Edilberga, V:A. of Barking, daughter of Annas and St.
Hereswida.
678 Jan. 26. Theoritgida, V., nun of Barking.
aft. 713 Aug. 31. Cuthberga, Q.V., of Barking, sister of St. Ina.
700 Mar. 24. Hildelitha, A. of Barking.
728 Feb. 6. Ina, K. Mo. of the West Saxons.
740 May 24. Ethelburga, Q., wife of St. Ina, nun at Barking.

SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES.
Part II.
Idaburga, V. -\
Kineburga, Q.A. I
Kinneswitha, V. f Daughters of King Penda.
Chidestre, V.
Weeda, V.A. J
Tibba, V. , their kinswoman.
Rumwald, C. , grandson of Penda.
Ermenburga, Q., mother to the three following.
Milburga, V.A. of Wenlock, 1 „ , ,
Mildreda, V.A. of Menstrey, I Grand-daughters of
Milwida, or Milgitha, V. j Penda.
Eadburga, A. of Menstrey.

652

June 20.

696

Mar. 6.

701

692

Dec. 2.

696

Mar. 6.

Nov. 3.

680

Nov. 19.

Feb. 23.
July 13.
676
Jan. 17.
750
Nov. 13.
672

Mar. 2.

664

Jan. 7

688

Mar. 4.

689

Apr. 20.

690-725" Nov. 5

700

Feb. 10.

705

Mar. 9.

709

Apr. 24.

721

May 7.

743

Apr. 29.

733

May 22.

SERIES OF SAINTS' LIVES OF 1843-4. 333

SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES.

Part III.
670 July 24. Wulfad and Ruffin, MM., sons of Wulfere, Penda's sonj
and of St. Erminilda.
Chad, B. of Lichfield.
Cedd, B. of London.
Owin, Mo. of Lichfield.
Cedwalla, K. of West Saxons.
Cungar, H. in Somersetshire.
Trumwin, B. of the Picts.
Bosa, Archb. of York.
Wilfrid, Archb. of York.
John of Beverley, Archb. of York.
Wilfrid II., Archb. of York.
Berethun, A. of Deirwood, disciple of St. John of
Beverley.
751 May 22. Wiuewald, A. of Deirwood.
SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES.
Part IV. — Missions.
729 Apr. 24. Egbert, C, master to Willebrord.
693 Oct. 3. Ewalds (two), MM. in Westphalia.
690-736 Nov. 7. Willebrord, B. of Utrecht, Apostle of Friesland.
717 Mar. 1. Swibert, B. , Apostle of Westphalia.
727 Mar. 2. Willeik, C, successor to St. Swibert.
705 June 25. Adelbert, C, grandson of St. Oswald, preacher in
Holland.
705 Aug. 14. Werenf rid, C. , preacher in Friesland.
720 June 21. Engelmund, A., preaoher in Holland.
730 Sept. 10. - Otger, C. in Low Countries.
732 July 15. Plechelm, B. , preacher in Guelderland.
750 May 2. Germanus, B.M. in the Netherlands.
760 Nov. 12. Lebwin, C. in Overyssel, in Holland.
760 July 14. Marchelm, C, companion of St. Lebwin, in Holland.
697-755 June 5. Boniface, Archb., M. of Mentz, Apostle of Germany.
712 Feb. 7 Richard, K. of the West Saxons.
704-790 July 7. Willibald, B. of Aichstadt, "|
in Franconia,
730 760 Dec. 18. Winebald, A. of Heiden- I Children of
heim, in Suabia, j St. Richard
779 Feb. 25. Walburga, V.A. of Heiden-
heim, ,'
aft. 755 Sept. 28. Lioba, V.A. of Bischorsheim, Companions
750 Oct. 15. Tecla, V.A. of Kitzingen, in Franconia, V of St.
788 Oct. 16. Lullus, Archb. of Mentz, Boniface,
abt. 747 Aug. 13. Wigbert, A. of Fritzlar and Ortdorf, in
Germany,
756 Apr. 20. Adelhare, B.M. of Erford, in Franconia,
780 Aug. 27. Sturmius, A. of Fulda,
786 Oct. 27. Witta, or Albuinus, B, of Buraberg, in
Germany,

334 NOTE D.
791 Nov. 8. Willehad, B. of Bremen, and Apostle of ^
Saxony, I Companions
791 Oct. 14. Burchard, B. of Wurtzburg, in Fran- V of St.
conia, I Boniface.
790 Dec. 3. Sola, H., near Aichstadt, in Franconia, J
775 July 1. Rumold, B., Patron of Mechlin.
807 Apr. 30. Suibert, B. of Verden in Westphalia.

SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES.
Part V. — Lindisfarne and Hexham.
670 Jan. 23. Boisil, A. of Melros, in Scotland.
651 Aug. 81. Aidan, A.B. of Lindisfarne.
664 Feb. 16. Finan, B. of Lindisfarne.
676 Aug. 8. Colman, B. of Lindisfarne.
685 Oct. 26. Eata, B. of Hexham.
687 Mar. 20. Cuthbert, B. of Lindisfarne.
Oct. 6. Ywy, C. disciple of St. Cuthbert.
690 Mar. 20. Herbert, H. disciple of St. Cuthbert.
698 May 6. Eadbert, B. of Lindisfarne.
700 Mar. 23. iEdelwafd, H. successor of St. Cuthbert, in his hermitage.
740 Feb. 12. Ethelwold, B. of Lindisfarne.
740 Nov. 20. Acca, B. of Hexham.
764 Jan. 15 Ceolulph, K. Mo. of Lindisfarne.
756 Mar. 6. Balther, H. at Lindisfarne.
,, Bilfrid, H. Goldsmith at Lindisfarne.
781 Sept. 7. Alchmund, B. of Hexham.
789 Sept. 7. Tilhbert, B. of Hexham.

SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES.
Part VI. — Wearmouth and Yarrow.
703 Ja,n. 12. Benedict Biscop, A. of Wearmouth.
685 Mar. 7. Easterwin, A. of Wearmouth.
689 Aug. 22. Sigfrid, A. of Wearmouth.
716 Sept. 25. Ceofrid, A. of Yarrow.
734 May 27. Bede, Doctor, Mo. of Yarrow.
804 May 19. B. Alcuin, A. in France.
EIGHTH CENTURY.
Ethelred, K. Mo. King of Mercia, Monk of Bardney.
Pega, V., sister of St. Guthlake.
Guthlake, H. of Croyland.
Winoc, A. in Brittany.
Bertwald, Archb. of Canterbury.
Gerald, A.B. in Mayo.
Tatwin, Archb. of Canterbury.
Frideswide, V. patron of Oxford.
Bregwin, Archb. of Canterbury.
700-800 Feb. 8. Cuthman, C. of Stening in Sussex.
bet 800 Sept. 9. Bertelin, H. patron of Stafford.

710719

May 5.
Jan. 8.

714717

April 11.
Nov. 6.

730

Jan. 9.

732

Dec. 27.

734750

July 30.
Oct. 19.

762

Aug. 26.

SERIES OF SAINTS' LIVES OF 1843-4. 335

EIGHTH AND NINTH CENTURIES.
793 May 20. Ethelbert, K.M. of the East Angles.
834 Aug. 2. Etheldritha, or Alfreda, V., daughter of Offa, kingof Mer
cia, nun at Croyland.
819 July 17. Kenelm, K.M. of Mercia.
849 June 1. Wistan, K.M. of Mercia.
838 July 18. Frederic, Archb. M. of Utrecht.
894 Nov. 4. Clarus, M. in Normandy.
NINTH CENTURY.
Part I. — Danish Slaughters, &c.
819 Mar. 19. Alcmund, M. , son of Eldred, king of Northumbria, Patron
of Derby.
870 Nov. 20. Edmund, K.M. of the East Angles.
862 May 11. Fremund, H.M. nobleman of East Anglia.
870 Nov. 20. Humbert, B.M. of Elmon in East Anglia.
867 Aug. 25. Ebba, V.A.M. of Coldingham.
NINTH CENTURY.
Part II.
Swithun, B. of Winton.
Modwenna, V.A. of Pollesworth iu Warwickshire.
Lina, V. nun at Pollesworth.
Eadgith, V.A. of Pollesworth, sister of King Ethelwolf.
Eadburga, V.A. of Winton, daughter of King Ethelwolf.
Edwold, H., brother of St. Edmund.
NINTH AND TENTH CENTURIES.
883 July 31. Neot, H. in Cornwall.
903 July 8. Grimbald, A. at Winton.
900 Oct. 28. B. Alfred, K.
929 April 9. Frithstan, B. of Winton.
934 Nov. 4. Brinstan, B. of Winton.
TENTH CENTURY.
Part I.
Edburga, V., nun at Winton, granddaughter of Alfred.
Editha, Q.V., nun of Tamworth, sister to Edburga.
Algyfa, or Elgiva, Q., mother of Edgar.
Edgar, K.
Edward, K.M. at Corfe Castle.
Edith, V., daughter of St. Edgar and St. Wulfhilda.
Wulfhilda, or Vulfrida, A. of Wilton.
Merwenna, V.A. of Romsey.
Elfreda, A. of Romsey.
Christina of Romsey, V., sister of St. Margaret of
Scotland. .

862

July 2.

870

July 5.

Oct. 9.

871

Mar. 15.

900

Dec. 21.

880

Nov. 28.

960

June 15.

926921
975978

July 15.
May 18.
July 8.
Mar. 18.

984990
980

Sept. 16.
Sept. 9.
Mar. 30.

990

Oct. 29.

.016

Dec. 5.

336 NOTE D.
TENTH CENTURY.
Part II.
961 July 4. Odo, Archb. of Canterbury, Benedictine Monk.
960-992 Feb. 28. Oswald, Archb. of York, B. of Worcester, nephew to
St. Odo.
951-1012 Mar. 12. Elphege the Bald, B. of Winton.
988 May 19. Dunstan, Archb. of Canterbury.
973 Jan. 8. Wulsin, B. of Sherbourne.
984 Aug. 1. Ethelwold, B. of Winton.
1015 Jan. 22. Brithwold, B. of Winton.
TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES.
Missions.
950 Feb. 15. Sigfride, B. , apostle of Sweden.
1016 June 12. Eskill, B.M. in Sweden, kinsman of St. Sigfride.
1028 Jan. 18. Wolfred, M. in Sweden.
1050 July 15. David, A. , Cluniac in Sweden.
ELEVENTH CENTURY.
1012 April 19. Elphege, M. Archb. of Canterbury.
1016 May 30. Walston, C. near Norwich.
1053 Mar. 35. Alfwold, B. of Sherborne.
1067 Sept. 2. William, B. of Roschid in Denmark.
1066 Jan. 5. Edward, K.C.
1099 Deo. 4. Osmund, B. of Salisbury.
ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH CENTURIES.
1095 Jan. 19. Wulstan, B. of Worcester.
1089 May 28. Lanfranc, Archb. of Canterbury. .
1109 Apr. 21. Anselm, Doctor, Archb. of Canterbury.
1170 Dec. 29. Thomas, Archb. M. of Canterbury.
1200 Nov. 17. Hugh, B. of Lincoln, Carthusian Monk.
TWELFTH CENTURY.
Part I.
Ingulphus, A. of Croyland. .
B. Maud, Q. Wife of Henry J'.'
Caradoc, H. in South Wales^
Henry, H. in Northumberland.
William, M] of Norwich.
Henry, M.B. of Upsal.
Walter, A. of Fontenelle, in France.
William, Archb. of York.
Godric, H. in Durham.
John of Salisbury, B, of Chartres,

1109

1117

Apr. 30.

1124

Apr. 13.

1127

Jan. 16.

1144

Mar. 25.

1151

Jan. 19.

1160

Aug. 13.

1154

June 8.

1170

May 21.

1180

Oct. 25.

1228

July 9.

1242

Nov. 16.

1253

Apr. 3.

1282

Oct. 2.

1294

Dec. 3.

SERIES OF SAINTS' LIVES OF 1843-4. 337
1182 June 24. Bartholomew, C, monk at Durham.
1189 Feb. 4. Gilbert, A. of Sempringham.
1190 Aug. 21. Richard, B. of Andria.
1200 Peter de Blois, Archd. of Bath.
TWELFTH CENTURY.
Part II. — Cistertian Order.
1134 Apr. 17. Stephen, A. of Citeaux.
1139 June 7. Robert, A. of Newminster in Northumberland.
1154 Feb. 20. Ulric, H. in Dorsetshire.
1160 Aug. 3. Walthen, A. of Melrose.
1166 Jan. 12. Aelred, A. of Rieval.

THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
Part I.
Stephen Langton, Archb. of Canterbury.
Edmund, Archb. of Canterbury.
Richard, B. of Chichester.
Thomas, B. of Hereford.
John Peckham, Archb. of Canterbury.
THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
Part II.— Orders op Friars.
1217 June 17. John, Fr., Trinitarian.
1232 Mar. 7. William, Fr., Franciscan.
1240 Jan. 31. Serapion, Fr., M., Redemptionist.
1265 May 16. Simon Stock, H., General of the Carmelites.
1279 Sept. 11. Robert Kilwardby, Archb. of Canterbury Fr. Domi-

THIRTBENTH CENTURY.
Part III.
1239 Mar. 14. Robert H. -at Knaresboro'.
1241 Oct. 1. Roger, B. of London.
1255 July 27. Hugh, M. of Lincoln.
1295 Aug. 5. Thomas, Mo. , M. of Dover.
1254 Oct. 9. Robert Grossteste, B. of Lincoln.
1270 July 14. Boniface, Archb. of Canterbury.
1278 Oct. 18. Walter de Merton, B. of Rochester.
FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
Stapleton, B. of Exeter.
Edward E.
B. Richard, H. of Hampole.
Richard of Bury, B. of Lincoln.
Bradwardine, Archb. of Canterbwry, the Doctor Pro
fundus. Z

1326

Oct. 5.

1327

Sept. 21.

1349

Sept. 29.

1345

Apr. 14.

1349

Aug. 26.

338 NOTE D.

1358 Sept. 2. William, Fr., Servite.
1379 Oct. 10. John, C. of Bridlington.
1324-1404 Sept. 27. William of Wykeham, B. of Winton.
1400 William, Fr. Austin.

FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
1471 May 22. Henry, K. of England.
1486 Aug. 11. William of Wanefleet, B. of Winton.
1509| June 29. Margaret, Countess of Richmond.
1528 Sept. 14. Richard Fox, B. of Winton.

THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 339
NOTE E. ON PAGE 227.
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH.
I have been bringing out my mind in this Volume on
every subject which has come before me ; and therefore I
am bound to state plainly what I feel and have felt, since
I was a Catholic, about the Anglican Church. I said, in
a former page, that, on my conversion, I was not conscious
of any change in me of thought or feeling, as regards
matters of doctrine ; this, however, was not the case as
regards some matters of fact, and, unwilling as I am to
give offence to religious Anglicans, I am bound to confess
that I felt a great change in my view of the Church of
England. I cannot tell how soon there came on me, —
but very soon, — an extreme astonishment that I had ever
imagined it to be a portion of the Catholic Church. For
the first time, I looked at it from without, and (as I should
myself say) saw it as it was. Forthwith I could not get
myself to see in it any thing else, than what I had so long
fearfully suspected, from as far back as 1836, — a mere
national institution. As if my eyes were suddenly opened,
so I saw it — spontaneously, apart from any definite act of
reason or any argument ; and so I have seen it ever since.
I suppose, the main cause of this lay in the contrast which
was presented to me by the Catholic Church. Then I
recognized at once a reality which was quite a new thing
with me. Then I was sensible that I was not making for
myself a Church by an effort of thought ; I needed not to
make an act of faith in her ; I had not painfully to force
myself into a position, but my mind fell back upon itself
in relaxation and in peace, and I gazed at her almost

340 NOTE E,
passively as a great objective fact. I looked at her ; — -at
her rites, her ceremonial, and her precepts; and I said,
" This is a religion ; " and then, when I looked back upon
the poor Anglican Church, for which I had laboured so
hard, and upon all that appertained to it, and thought of
our various attempts to dress it up doctrinally and esthet-
ically, it seemed to me to be the veriest of nonentities.
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity ! How can I make a
record of what passed within me, without seeming to be
satirical ? But I speak plain, serious words. As people
call me credulous for acknowledging Catholic claims, so
they call me satirical for disowning Anglican pretensions ;
to them it is credulity, to them it is satire ; but it is not
so in me. What they think exaggeration, I think truth.
I am not speaking of the Anglican Church with any disdain,
though to them I seem contemptuous. To them of course
it is " Aut Csesar aut nullus," but not to me. It may be
a great creation, though it be not divine, and this is how
I judge of it. Men, who abjure the divine right of kings,
would be very indignant, if on that account they were
considered disloyal. And so I recognize in the Anglican
Church a time-honoured institution, of noble historical
memories, a monument of ancient wisdom, a momentous
arm of political strength, a great national organ, a source
of vast popular advantage, and, to a certain point, a wit
ness and teacher of religious truth. I do not think that,
if what I have written about it since I have been a
Catholic, be equitably considered as a whole, I shall be
found to have taken any other view than this ; but that it
is something sacred, that it is an oracle of revealed
doctrine, that it can claim a share in St. Ignatius
or St. Cyprian, that it can take the rank, contest
the teaching, and stop the path of the Church of St.
Peter, that it can call itself "the Bride of the Lamb,"
this is the view of it which simply disappeared from my

THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 341
mind on my conversion, and which it would be almost a
miracle to reproduce. " I went by, and lo ! it was gone ;
I sought it, but its place could no where be found ; " and
nothing can bring it back to me. And, as to its pos
session of an episcopal succession from the time of the
Apostles, well, it may have it, and, if the Holy See ever
so decide, I will believe it, as being the decision of a
higher judgment than my own ; but, for myself, I must
have St. Philip's gift, who saw the sacerdotal character on
the forehead of a gaily-attired youngster, before I can by
my own wit acquiesce in it, for antiquarian arguments are
altogether unequal to the urgency of visible facts. Why
is it that I must pain dear friends by saying so, and
kindle a sort of resentment against me in the kindest of
hearts ? but I must, though to do it be not only a grief to
me, but most impolitic at the moment. Any how, this is
my mind ; and, if to have it, if to have betrayed it, before
now, involuntarily by my words or my deeds, if on a
fitting occasion, as now, to have avowed it, if all this be a
proof of the justice of the charge brought against me by
my accuser of having " turned round upon my Mother-
Church with contumely and slander," in this sense but
in no other sense, do I plead guilty to it without a word
in extenuation.
In no other sense surely : the Church of England has
been the instrument of Providence in conferring great
benefits on me ; — had I been born in Dissent, perhaps I
should never have been baptized ; had I been born an
English Presbyterian, perhaps I should never have known
our Lord's divinity ; had I not come to Oxford, perhaps I
never should have heard of the visible Church, or of
Tradition, or other Catholic doctrines. And as I have
received so much good from the Anglican Establishment
itself, can I have the heart or rather the want of charity,
considering that it does for so many others, what it has

342 NOTE E.
done for me, to wish to see it overthrown ? I have no
such wish while it is what it is, and while we are so small
a body. Not for its own sake, but for the sake of the
many congregations to which it ministers, I will do no
thing against it. While Catholics are so weak in Eng
land, it is doing our work ; and, though it does us harm
in a measure, at present the balance is in our favour.
What our duty would be at another time and in other
circumstances, supposing, for instance, the Establishment
lost its dogmatic faith, or at least did not preach it, is
another matter altogether. In secular history we read of
hostile nations having long truces, and renewing them
from time to time, and that seems to be the position which
the Catholic Church may fairly take up at present in
relation to the Anglican Establishment.
Doubtless the National Church has hitherto been a
serviceable breakwater against doctrinal errors, more
fundamental than its own. How long this will last in the
years now before us, it is impossible to say, for the
Nation drags down its Church to its own level ; but still
the National Church has the same sort of influence over
the Nation that a periodical has upon the party which it
represents, and my own idea of a Catholic's fitting attitude
towards the National Church in this its supreme hour, is
that of assisting and sustaining it, if it be in our power,
in the interest of dogmatic truth. I should wish to avoid
every thing (except indeed under the direct call of duty,
and this is a material exception,) which went to weaken
its hold upon the public mind, or to unsettle its establish
ment, or to embarrass and lessen its maintenance of those
great Christian and Catholic principles and doctrines
which it has up to this time successfully preached.

THE ECONOMY. 343

NOTE F. ON PAGE 269.
THE ECONOMY.
For the Economy, considered as a rule of practice, I
shall refer to what I wrote upon it in 1830 — 32, in
my History of the Arians. I have shown above, pp. 26,
27, that the doctrine in question had in the early Church
a large signification, when applied to the divine ordi
nances : it also had a definite application to the duties of
Christians, whether clergy or laity, in preaching, in
instructing or catechizing, or in ordinary intercourse with
the world around them ; and in this aspect I have here
to consider it.
As Almighty God did not all at once introduce the
Gospel to the world, and thereby gradually prepared men
for its profitable reception, so, according to the doctrine
of the early Church, it was a duty, for the sake of the
heathen among whom they lived, to observe a great
reserve and caution in communicating to them the know
ledge of " the whole counsel of God." This cautious dis
pensation of the truth, after the manner of a discreet and
vigilant steward, is denoted by the word " economy." It
is a mode of acting which comes under the head of Pru
dence, one of the four Cardinal Virtues.
The principle of the Economy is this ; that out of
various courses, in religious conduct or statement, all and
each allowable antecedently and in themselves, that
ought to be taken which is most expedient and most
suitable at the time for the object in hand.
Instances of its application and exercise in Scripture
are such as the following: — 1. Divine Providence did but

344 NOTE F.
gradually impart to the world in general, and to the J ews
in particular, the knowledge of His will : — He is said to
have " winked at the times of ignorance among the hea
then ; " and He suffered in the Jews divorce " because of
the hardness of their hearts." 2. He has allowed Him
self to be represented as having eyes, ears, and hands, as
having wrath, jealousy, grief, and repentance. 3. In hke
manner, our Lord spoke harshly to the Syro-Phcenician
woman, whose daughter He was about to heal, and made
as if He would go further, when the two disciples had
come to their journey's end. 4. Thus too Joseph " made
himself strange to his brethren," and Elisha kept silence
on request of Naaman to bow in the house of Rimmon.
5. Thus St. Paul circumcised Timothy, while he cried out
" Circumcision availeth not.''
It may be said that this principle, true in itself, yet is
dangerous, because it admits of an easy abuse, and carries
men away into what becomes insincerity and cunning.
This is undeniable ; to do evil that good may come, to
consider that the means, whatever they are, justify the
end, to sacrifice truth to expedience, unscrupulousness,
recklessness, are grave offences. These are abuses of
the Economy. But to call them economical is to give a
fine name to what occurs every day, independent of any
knowledge of the doctrine of the Economy. It is the
abuse of a rule which nature suggests to every one.
Every one looks out for the " mollia tempora fandi," and
for " mollia verba " too.
Having thus explained what is meant by the Economy
as a rule of social intercourse between men of different
religious, or, again, political, or social views, next I will
go on to state what I said in the Arians.
I say in that Volume first, that our Lord has given us
the principle in His own words, — " Cast not your pearls
before swine ; " and that He exemplified it in His teach-

THE ECONOMY. 345
ing by parables ; that St. Paul expressly distinguishes
between the milk which is necessary to one set of men,
and the strong meat which is allowed to others, and that,
in two Epistles. I say, that the Apostles in the Acts
observe the same rule in their speeches, for it is a fact,
that they do not preach the high doctrines of Christianity,
but only "Jesus and the Resurrection" or "repentance
and faith." I also say, that this is the very reason that
the Fathers assign for the silence of various writers in the
first centuries on the subject of our Lord's divinity.
I also speak of the catechetical system practised in the
early Church, and the disciplina arcani as regards the
doctrine of the Holy Trinity, to which Bingham bears
witness; also of the defence of this rule by Basil, Cyril
of Jerusalem, Chrysostom, and Theodoret.
But next the question may be asked, whether I have
said any thing in my Volume to guard the doctrine, thus
laid down, from the abuse to which it is obviously exposed:
and my answer is easy. Of course, had I had any idea
that I should have been exposed to such hostile mis
representations, as it has been my lot to undergo on the
subject, I should have made more direct avowals than I
have done of my sense of the gravity and the danger of
that abuse. Since I could not foresee when I wrote, that
I should have been wantonly slandered, I only wonder
that I have anticipated the charge as fully as will be seen
in the following extracts.
For instance, speaking of the Disciplina Arcani, I say : —
(1) " The elementary information given to the heathen or
catechumenwas in no sense undone by the subsequent secret
teaching, which was in fact but the filling up of a bare but
correct outline," p. 58, and I contrast this with the conduct
of the Manichseans " who represented the initiatory disci
pline as founded on a fiction or hypothesis, which was to
be forgotten by the learner as he made progress in the real

346 NOTE F.
doctrine of the Gospel." (2) As to allegorizing, I say
that the Alexandrians erred, whenever and as far as they
proceeded " to obscure the primary meaning of Scripture,
and to weaken the force of historical facts and express de
clarations," p. 69. (3) And that they were " more open
to censure" when, on being "urged by objections to various
passages in the history of the Old Testament, as derogatory
to the divine perfections or to the Jewish Saints, they had
recourseto an allegorical explanation by way of answer"
p. 71. (4) Iadd," Itisimpossibletodefendsuchaprocedure,
which seems to imply a want of faith in those who had re
course to it ; " for "God has given us rules of right and wrong,"
ibid. (5) Again, I say, — " The abuse of the Economy in the
hands of unscrupulous reasoners, is obvious. Even the
honest controversialist or teacher will find it very diffi cult to
represent, without misrepresenting, what it is yet his duty
to present to his hearers with caution or reserve. Here the
obvious rule to guide our practice is, to be careful ever to
maintain substantial truth in our use of the economical
method," pp. 79, 80. (6) And so far from concurring at
all hazards with Justin, Gregory, or Athanasius, I say,
" It is plain [they] were justified or not in their Economy,
according as they did or did not practically mislead their
opponents," p. 80. (7) I proceed, " It is so difficult to hit
the mark in these perplexing cases, that it is not won
derful, should these or other Fathers have failed at times,
and said more or less than was proper," ibid.
The Principle of the Economy is familiarly acted on
among us every day. When we would persuade others,
we do not begin by treading on their toes. Men would be
thought rude who introduced their own religious notions
into mixed society, and were devotional in a drawing-room.
Have we never thought lawyers tiresome who did not
observe this polite rule, who came down for the assizes and
talked law all through dinner ? Does the same argument

THE ECONOMY. 347
tell in the House of Commons, on the hustings, and at
Exeter Hall ? Is an educated gentleman never worsted
at an election by the tone and arguments of some clever
fellow, who, whatever his shortcomings in other respects,
understands the common people ?
As to the Catholic Religion in England at the present
day, this only will I observe, — that the truest expedience
is to answer right out, when you are asked ; that the wisest
economy is to have no management; that the best pru
dence is not to be a coward ; that the most damaging folly
is to be found out shuffling ; and that the first of virtues is
to " tell truth, and shame the devil."

348 NOTE G.

NOTE G. ON PAGE 279.
LYING AND EQUIVOCATION.
Almost all authors, Catholic and Protestant, admit, that
when a just cause is present, there is some kind or other of
verbal misleading, which is not sin. Even silence is in
certain cases virtually such a misleading, according to the
Proverb, " Silence gives consent." Again, silence is abso
lutely forbidden to a Catholic, as a mortal sin, under cer
tain circumstances, e.g. to keep silence, when it is a duty
to make a profession of faith.
Another mode of verbal misleading, and the most direct,
is actually saying the thing that is not ; and it is defended
on the principle that such words are not a lie, when there
is a " justa causa," as killing is not murder in the case of
an executioner.
Another ground of certain authors for saying that an
untruth is not a lie where there is a just cause, is, that
veracity is a kind of justice, and therefore, when we have
no duty of justice to tell truth to another, it is no sin not
to do so. Hence we may say the thing that is not, to
children, to madmen, to men who ask impertinent ques
tions, to those whom we hope to benefit by misleading.
Another ground, taken in defending certain untruths, ex
justa causa, as if not lies, is, that veracity is for the sake of
society, and that, if in no case whatever we might lawfully
mislead others, we should actually be doing society great
harm. Another mode of verbal misleading is equivocation or a
play upon words ; and it is defended on the theory that to

LYING AND EQUIVOCATION. 349
lie is to use words in a sense which they will not bear.
But an equivocator uses them in a received sense, though
there is another received sense, and therefore, according to
this definition, he does not lie.
Others say that all equivocations are, after all, a kind of
lying, — faint lies or awkward lies, but still lies ; and some
of these disputants infer, that therefore we must not equi
vocate, and others that equivocation is but a half -measure,
and that it is better to say at once that in certain cases
untruths are not lies.
Others will try to distinguish between evasions and
equivocations ; but though there are evasions which are
clearly not equivocations, yet it is very difficult scientific
ally to draw the line between the one and the other.
To these must be added the unscientific way of dealing
with lies :— viz. that on a great or cruel occasion a man
cannot help telling a lie, and he would not be a man, did
he not teU it, but still it is very wrong, and he ought not
to do it, and he must trust that the sin will be forgiven
him, though he goes about to commit it ever so deliberately,
and is sure to commit it again under similar circumstances.
It is a necessary frailty, and had better not be thought
about before it is incurred, and not thought of again, after
it is well over. This view cannot for a moment be de
fended, but, I suppose, it is very common.
I think the historical course of thought upon the matter
has been this : the Greek Fathers thought that, when there
was a justa causa, an untruth need not be a lie. St. Augus
tine took another view, though with great misgiving;
and, whether he is rightly interpreted or not, is the doctor
of the great and common view that all untruths are lies,
and that there can be no just cause of untruth. In these
later times, this doctrine has been found difficult to work,
and it has been largely taught that, though all untruths

350 , NOTE G.
are lies, yet that certain equivocations, when given in a
just cause, are not untruths.
Further, there have been and all along through these
later ages, other schools, running parallel with the above
mentioned, one of which says that equivocations, &c. after
all are lies, and another which says that there are untruths
which are not lies.
And now as to the "just cause," which is the condition,
sine quS, non. The Greek Fathers make it such as these,
self-defence, charity, zeal for God's honour, and the like.
St. Augustine seems to deal with the same "just causes "
as the Greek Fathers, even though he does not allow of
their availableness as depriving untruths, spoken on such
occasions, of their sinfulness. He mentions defence of life
and of honour, and the safe custody of a secret. Also the
great Anglican writers, who have followed the Greek
Fathers, in defending untruths when there is the "just
cause," consider that "just cause" to be such as the pre
servation of life and property, defence of law, the good of
others. Moreover, their moral rights, e.g. defence against
the inquisitive, &c.
St. Alfonso, I consider, would take the same view of
the "justa causa" as the Anglican divines; he speaks
of it as " quicunque finis honestus, ad servanda bona
spiritui vel corpori utilia ; " which is very much the view
which they take of i,t, judging by the instances which
they give.
In all cases, however, and as contemplated by all
authors, Clement of Alexandria, or Milton, or St. Alfonso,
such a causa is, in fact, extreme, rare, great, or at least
special. Thus the writer in the Melanges Thiologiques
(Liege, 1852-3, p. 453) quotes Lessius : " Si absque justa
causa fiat, est abusio orationis contra virtutem veritatis,
et civilem consuetudinem, etsi proprie non sit menda-

LYING AND EQUIVOCATION. 351
cium." That is, the virtue of truth, and the civil custom,
are the measure of the just cause. And so Voit, " If a
man has used a reservation (restrictione non pure mentali)
without a grave cause, he has sinned gravely." And so
the author himself, from whom I quote, and who defends
the Patristic and Anglican doctrine that there are un
truths which are not lies, says, "Under the name of
mental reservation theologians authorize many lies, when
there is for them a grave reason and proportionate," i.e.
to their character — p. 459. And so St. Alfonso, in another
Treatise, quotes St. Thomas to the effect, that if from one
cause two immediate effects follow, and, if the good effect
of that cause is equal in value to the bad effect (bonus
aequivalet malo), then nothing hinders the speaker's intend
ing the good and only permitting the evil. From which it
will follow that, since the evil to society from lying is very
great, the just cause which is to make it allowable, must
be very great also. And so Kenrick : " It is confessed
by all Catholics that, in the common intercourse of life,
all ambiguity of language is to be avoided; but it is
debated whether such ambiguity is ever lawful. Most
theologians answer in the affirmative, supposing a grave
cause urges, and the [true] mind of the speaker can be
collected from the adjuncts, though in fact it be not
collected." However, there are cases, I have already said, of
another kind, in which Anglican authors would think
a lie allowable ; such as when a question is impertinent.
Of such a case Walter Scott, if I mistake not, supplied a
very distinct example, in his denying so long the author
ship of his novels.
What I have been saying shows what different schools
of opinion there are in the Church in the treatment of
this difficult doctrine ; and, by consequence, that a given
individual, such as I am, cannot agree with all of them,

352 NOTE G.
and has a full right to follow which of them he will. The
freedom of the Schools, indeed, is one of those rights of
reason, which the Church is too wise really to interfere
with. And this applies not to moral questions only, but
to dogmatic also.
It is supposed by Protestants that, because St. Alfonso's
writings have had such high commendation bestowed upon
them by authority, therefore they have been invested with
a quasi-infallibility. This has arisen in good measure
from Protestants not knowing the force of theological
terms. The words to which they refer are the authorita
tive decision that " nothing in his works has been found
worthy of censure" " censura dignum ; " but this does not
lead to the conclusions which have been drawn from it.
Those words occur in a legal document, and cannot be
interpreted except in a legal sense. In the first place,
the sentence is negative; nothing in St. Alfonso's
writings is positively approved ; and, secondly, it is not
said that there are no faults in what he has written, but
nothing which comes under the ecclesiastical censura,
which is something very definite. To take and interpret
them, in the way commonly adopted in England, is the
same mistake, as if one were to take the word Apologia
in the English sense of apology, or Infant in law to
mean a little child.
1. Now first as to the meaning of the above form of words
viewed as a proposition. When a question on the subject
was asked of the fitting authorities at Rome by the Arch
bishop of Besancon, the answer returned to him contained
this condition, viz. that those words were to be inter
preted, " with due regard to the mind of the Holy See
concerning the approbation of writings of the servants
of God, ad effectum Canonizationis." This is intended to
prevent any Catholic taking the words about St. Alfonso's

LYING AND EQUIVOCATION. 353
works in too large a sense. Before a Saint is canonized,
his works are examined, and a judgment pronounced upon
them. Pope Benedict XIV. says, "The end or scope of
this judgment is, that it may appear, whether the doc
trine of the servant of God, which he has brought out in
his writings, is free from any soever theological censure."
And he remarks in addition, " It never can be said that
the doctrine of a servant of God is approved by the Holy
See, but at most it can [only] be said that it is not dis
approved (non reprobatam) in case that the Revisers had
reported that there is nothing found by them in his works,
which is adverse to the decrees of Urban VIIL, and that
the judgment of the Revisers has been approved by the
sacred Congregation, and confirmed by the Supreme
Pontiff." The Decree of Urban VIII. here referred to
is, " Let works be examined, whether they contain errors
against faith or good morals (bonos mores), or any new
doctrine, or a doctrine foreign and alien to the common
sense and custom of the Church." The author from whom
I quote this (M. Vandenbroeck, of the diocese of Malines)
observes, "It is therefore clear, that the approbation of
the works of the Holy Bishop touches not the truth of
every proposition, adds nothing to them, nor even gives
them by consequence a degree of intrinsic probability."
He adds that it gives St. Alfonso's theology an extrinsic
probability, from the fact that, in the judgment of the
Holy See, no proposition deserves to receive a censure;
but that "that probability will cease nevertheless in a
particular case, for any one who should be convinced,
whether by evident arguments, or by a decree of the
Holy See, or otherwise, that the doctrine of the Saint
deviates from the truth." He adds, " From the fact that
the approbation of the works of St. Alfonso does not decide
the truth of each proposition, it follows, as Benedict XIV.
has remarked, that we may combat the doctrine which
A a

354 NOTE G.
they contain ; only, since a canonized saint is in question,
who is honoured by a solemn culte in the Church, we
ought not to speak except with respect, nor to attack his
opinions except with temper and modesty."
2. Then, as to the meaning of the word censura:
Benedict XIV. enumerates a number of " Notes " which
come under that name ; he says, " Out of propositions
which are to be noted with theological censure, some are
heretical, some erroneous, some close upon error, some
savouring of heresy," and so on ; and each of these
terms has its own definite meaning. Thus by " erroneous "
is meant, according to Viva, a proposition which is not
immediately opposed to a revealed proposition, but only to
a theological conclusion drawn from premisses which are
de fide ; " savouring of heresy " is a proposition, which is
opposed to a theological conclusion not evidently drawn
from premisses which are de fide, but most probably and
according to the common mode of theologizing; — and so
with the rest. Therefore when it was said by the Revisers
of St. Alfonso's works that they were not " worthy of
censure" it was only meant that they did not fall under
these particular Notes.
But the answer from Rome to the Archbishop of Besan-
con went further than this; it actually took pains to
declare that any one who pleased might follow other theo
logians instead of St. Alfonso. After saying that no
Priest was to be interfered with who followed St. Alfonso
in the Confessional, it added, "This is said, however,
without on that account judging that they are reprehended
who follow opinions handed down by other approved
authors." And this too I will observe, — that St. Alfonso made
many changes of opinion himself in the course of his
writings ; and it could not for an instant be supposed that
we were bound to every one of his opinions, wben he did

LYING AND EQUIVOCATION. 355
not feel himself bound to them in his own person. And,
what is more to the purpose still, there are opinions, or
some opinion, of his which actually have been proscribed by
the Church since, and cannot now be put forward or used.
I do not pretend to be a well-read theologian myself, but
I say this on the authority of a theological professor of
Breda, quoted in the Melanges Thiol, for 1850-1. He
says : " It may happen, that, in the course of time, errors
may be found in the works of St. Alfonso and be pro
scribed by the Church, a thing which in fact has already
occurred." In not ranging myself then with those who consider
that it is justifiable to use words in a double sense, that
is, to equivocate, I put myself under the protection of
such authors as Cardinal Gerdil, Natalis Alexander,
Contenson, Concina, and others. Under the protection of
these authorities, I say as follows : —
Casuistry is a noble science, but it is one to which I am
led, neither by my abilities nor my turn of mind. Inde
pendently, then, of the difficulties of the subject, and the
necessity, before forming an opinion, of knowing more of
the arguments of theologians upon it than I do, I am very
unwilling to say a word here on the subject of Lying and
Equivocation. But I consider myself bound to speak ; and
therefore, in this strait, I can do nothing better, even for
my own relief, than submit myself, and what I shall say, to
the judgment of the Church, and to the consent, so far as in
this matter there be a consent, of the Schola Theologorum.
Now in the case of one of those special and rare exigen
cies or emergencies, which constitute the justa causa of
dissembling or misleading, whether it be extreme as the
defence of life, or a duty as the custody of a secret, or of a
personal nature as to repel an impertinent inquirer, or a

356 NOTE G.
matter too trivial to provoke question, as in dealing with
children or madmen, there seem to be four courses : —
1 . To say the thing that is not. Here I draw the reader's
attention to the words material and formal. " Thou shalt
not kill;" murder is the formal transgression of this com
mandment, but accidental homicide is the material trans
gression. The matter of the act is the same in both cases ;
but in the homicide, there is nothing more than the act,
whereas in murder there must be the intention, &c, which
constitutes the formal sin. So, again, an executioner com
mits the material act, but not that formal killing which is
a breach of the commandment. So a man, who, simply to
save himself from starving, takes a loaf which is not his
own, commits only the material, not the formal act of
stealing, that is, he does not commit a sin. And so a
baptized Christian, external to the Church, who is in
invincible ignorance, is a material heretic, and not a formal.
And in like manner, if to say the thing which is not be in
special cases lawful, it may be caUed a material lie.
The first mode then which has been suggested of meet
ing those special cases, in which to mislead by words has
a sufficient occasion, or has a just cause, is by a mate
rial lie.
The second mode is by an csquivocatio, which is not
equivalent to the English word " equivocation," but means
sometimes a play upon words, sometimes an evasion : we
must take these two modes of misleading separately.
2. A play upon words. St. Alfonso certainly says that
a play upon words is allowable ; and, speaking under cor
rection, I should say that he does so on the ground that
lying is not a sin against justice, that is, against our
neighbour, but a sin against God. God has made words the
signs of ideas, and therefore if a word denotes two ideas,
we are at liberty to use it in either of its senses : but

LYING AND EQUIVOCATION. 357
I think I must be incorrect in some respect in supposing
that the Saint does not recognize a lie as an injustice,
because the Catechism of the Council, as I have quoted it
at p. 281, says, " Vanitate et mendacio fides ac Veritas
tolluntur, arctissima vincula societatis humanae ; quibus
sublatis, sequitur summa vitee confusio, ut homines nihil
a dcemonibus differre videantur."
3. Evasion ; — when, for instance, the speaker diverts
the attention of the hearer to another subject ; suggests an
irrelevant fact or makes a remark, which confuses him
and gives him something to think about ; throws dust into
his eyes ; states some truth, from which he is quite sure
his hearer will draw an illogical and untrue conclusion,
and the like.
The greatest school of evasion, I speak seriously, is the
House of Commons ; and necessarily so, from the nature
of the case. And the hustings is another.
An instance is supplied in the history of St. Athana
sius : he was in a boat on the Nile, flying persecution ; and
he found himself pursued. On this he ordered his men to
turn his boat round, and ran right to meet the satellites of
Julian. They asked him, " Have you seen Athanasius ? "
and he told his followers to answer, " Yes, he is close to
you." They went on their course as if they were sure to
come up to him, while he ran back into Alexandria, and
there lay hid till the end of the persecution.
I gave another instance above, in reference to a doctrine
of religion. The early Christians did their best to conceal
their Creed on account of the misconceptions of the
heathen about it. Were the question asked of them,
" Do you worship a Trinity ? " and did they answer, " We
worship one God, and none else ; " the inquirer might, or
would, infer that they did not acknowledge the Trinity of
Divine Persons.
It is very difficult to draw the line between these

358 NOTE G.
evasions and what are commonly called in English equivo
cations ; and of this difficulty, again, I think, the scenes in
the House of Commons supply us with illustrations.
4. The fourth method is silence. For instance, not
giving the whole truth in a court of law. If St. Alban,
after dressing himself in the Priest's clothes, and being
taken before the persecutor, had been able to pass off for
his friend, and so gone to martyrdom without being dis
covered ; and had he in the course of examination answered
all questions truly, but not given the whole truth, the
most important truth, that he was the wrong person,
he would have come very near to telling a lie, for a half-
truth is often a falsehood. And his defence must have
been the justa causa, viz. either that he might in charity or
for religion's sake save a priest, or again that the judge
had no right to interrogate him on the subject.
Now, of these four modes of misleading others by the
tongue, when there is a justa causa (supposing there can
be such), — (1) a material lie, that is, an untruth which is
not a lie, (2) an equivocation, (3) an evasion, and (4)
silence, — First, I have no difficulty whatever in recog
nizing as allowable the method of silence.
Secondly, But, if I allow of silence, why not of the
method of material lying, since half of a truth is often a
lie ? And, again, if all killing be not murder, nor all taking
from another stealing, why must all untruths be lies ?
Now I will say freely that I think it difficult to answer
this question, whether it be urged by St. Clement or by
Milton ; at the same time, I never have acted, and I think,
when it came to the point, I never should act upon such a
theory myself, except in one case, stated below. This I
say for the benefit of those who speak hardly of Catholic
theologians, on the ground that they admit text-books
which allow of equivocation. They are asked, how can we
trust you, when such are your views ? but such views, as

LYING AND EQUIVOCATION. 359
I already have said, need not have any thing to do with
their own practice, merely from the circumstance that they
are contained in their text-books. A theologian draws
out a system ; he does it partly as a scientific speculation :
but much more for the sake of others. He is lax for the
sake of others, not of himself. His own standard of action
is much higher than that which he imposes upon men in
general. One special reason why religious men, after
drawing out a theory, are unwilling to act upon it them
selves, is this : that they practically acknowledge a broad
distinction between their reason and their conscience ; and
that they feel the latter to be the safer guide, though the
former may be the clearer, nay even though it be the
truer. They would rather be in error with the sanction of
their conscience, than be right with the mere judgment of
their reason. And again here is this more tangible diffi
culty in the case of exceptions to the rule of Veracity,
that so very little external help is given us in drawing the
fine, as to when untruths are allowable and when not ;
whereas that sort of killing which is not murder, is most
definitely marked off by legal enactments, so that it can
not possibly be mistaken for such killing as is murder.
On the other hand the cases of exemption from the rule
of Veracity are left to the private judgment of the indi
vidual, and he may easily be led on from acts which are
allowable to acts which are not. Now this remark does
not apply to such acts as are related in Scripture, as being
done by a particular inspiration, for in such cases there is
a command. If I had my own way, I would oblige
society, that is, its great men, its lawyers, its divines, its
hterature, publicly to acknowledge as such, those instances
of untruth which are not lies, as for instance untruths in
war ; and then there could be no perplexity to the indi
vidual Catholic, for he would not be taking the law into
his own hands.

360 NOTE G.
Thirdly, as to playing upon words, or equivocation, I
suppose it is from the English habit, but, without meaning
any disrespect to a great Saint, or wishing to set myself
up, or taking my conscience for more than it is worth, I
can only say as a fact, that I admit it as little as the rest
of my countrymen: and, without, any reference to the
right and the wrong of the matter, of this I am sure, that,
if there is one thing more than another which prejudices
Englishmen against the Catholic Church, it is the doctrine
of great authorities on the subject of equivocation. For
myself, I can fancy myself thinking it was allowable in
extreme cases for me to lie, but never to equivocate.
Luther said, " Pecca fortiter." I anathematize his formal
sentiment, but there is a truth in it, when spoken of mate
rial acts.
Fourthly, I think evasion, as I have described it, to be
perfectly allowable ; indeed, I do not know, who does not
use it, under circumstances ; but that a good deal of moral
danger is attached to its use ; and that, the cleverer a man
is, the more likely he is to pass the line of Christian duty.
But it may be said, that such decisions do not meet the
particular difficulties for which provision is required ; let
us then take some instances.
1. I do not think it right to tell lies to children, even
on this account, that they are sharper than we think them,
and will soon find out what we are doing ; and our ex
ample will be a very bad training for them. And so of
equivocation : it is easy of imitation, and we ourselves shall
be sure to get the worst of it in the end.
2. If an early Father defends the patriarch Jacob in
his mode of gaining his father's blessing, on the ground
that the blessing was divinely pledged to him already, that
it was his, and that his father and brother were acting at
once against his own rights and the divine will, it does not

LYING AND EQUIVOCATION. 361
follow from this that such conduct is a pattern to us, who
have no supernatural means of determining when an un
truth becomes a material, and not a formal lie. It seems to
me very dangerous, be it ever allowable or not, to lie or
equivocate in order to preserve some great temporal or
spiritual benefit ; nor does St. Alfonso here say any thing
to the contrary, for he is not discussing the question of
danger or expedience.
3. As to Johnson's case of a murderer asking you which
way a man had gone, I should have anticipated that, had
such a difficulty happened to him, his first act would have
been to knock the man down, and to call out for the police ;
and next, if he was worsted in the conflict, he would not
have given the ruffian the information he asked, at what
ever risk to himself. I think he would have let himself
be killed first. I do not think that he would have told
a lie. 4. A secret is a more difficult case. Supposing some
thing has been confided to me in the strictest secrecy,
which could not be revealed without great disadvantage .to
another, what am I to do ? If I am a lawyer, I am pro
tected by my profession. I have a right to treat with ex
treme indignation any question which trenches on the
inviolability of my position ; but, supposing I was driven
up into a corner, I think I should have a right to say an
untruth, or that, under such circumstances, a lie would be
material, but it is almost an impossible case, for the law
would defend me. In like manner, as a priest, I should
think it lawful to speak as if I knew nothing of what
passed in confession. And I think in these cases, I do in
fact possess that guarantee, that I am not going by private
judgment, which just now I demanded ; for society would
bear me out, whether as a lawyer or as a priest, in holding
that I had a duty to my client or penitent, such, that an

362 NOTE G.
untruth in the matter was not a lie. A common type of
this permissible denial, be it material lie or evasion, is at the
moment supplied to me : — an artist asked a Prime Minister,
who was sitting to him, " What news, my Lord, from
France ? " He answered, " I do not know ; I have not
read the Papers."
5. A more difficult question is, when to accept con
fidence has not been a duty. Supposing a man wishes to
keep the secret that he is the author of a book, and he is
plainly asked on the subject. Here I should ask the
previous question, whether any one has a right to publish
what he dare not avow. It requires to have traced the
bearings and results of such a principle, before being sure
of it ; but certainly, for myself, I am no friend of strictly
anonymous writing. Next, supposing another has con
fided to you the secret of his authorship : — there are per
sons who would have no scruple at all in giving a denial
to impertinent questions asked them on the subject. I
have heard a great man in his day at Oxford, warmly
contend, as if he could not enter into any other view of
the matter, that, if he had been trusted by a friend with
the secret of his being author of a certain book, and he
were asked by a third person, if his friend was not (as
he really was) the author of it, he ought, without any
scruple and distinctly, to answer that he did not know.
He had an existing duty towards the author; he had
none towards his inquirer. The author had a claim on
him ; an impertinent questioner had none at all. But
here again I desiderate some leave, recognized by society,
as in the case of the formulas " Not at home," and " Not
guilty," in order to give me the right of saying what is
a material untruth. And moreover, I should here also
ask the previous question, Have I any right to accept
such a confidence ? have I any right to make such a

LYING AND EQUIVOCATION. 363
promise ? and, if it be an unlawful promise, is it binding
when it cannot be kept without a lie ? I am not attempt
ing to solve these difficult questions, but they have to be
carefully examined. And now I have said more than
I had intended on a question of casuistry.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATTER.

I.

LETTERS AND PAPERS OF
COURSE OF

THE AUTHOR USED IN THE
THIS WORK.

February

H,

1811

PAGE
. 3

September 12,

1841

PAGE
. 190

October

26,

1823

2

October 12,

. 143

September

¦ 7,

1829

. 119

17,

'.'

. 140

July

20,

1834

. 41

22,

33

. 140

November 28,

•>•>

. 57

November 11,

. 145

August

18,

1837

. 29

14

33

. 144

February

H,

1840

. 124

December 13,

33

. 156

„

21,

j)

. 129

24,

77

. 157

October

29(?)„

. 132

25,

33

. 159

November

J3

. 135

26,

77

. 162

March

15,

1841

. 137

March 6,

1842

. 177

77

20,

33

. 170

April 14,

71

. 173

)J

24,

33

. 208

October 16,

33

. 171

33

25,

33

. 137

November 22,

33

. 193

April

1,

33 '

. 137

Feb. 25, & 28,

1843

. 181

33

4,

„

. 138

March 3,

. 182
'3
8,
¦>¦>
. 138
,, 8,
35
. 184
>3
8,
„
. 187
May 4,
>7
. 208
33
26,
3>
. 188
18,
3J
. 209
May
5,
3)
. 188
June 20,
. 178
33
9,
J3
. 138
July 16,
}J
. 179
June
18,
J'
. 189
August _t 29,
J3
, 213
LETTERS AND PAPERS OF THE AUTHOR, &C. 365

August 30,

1843

PAGE
. 179

November 16,

1844

PAGE
. 228

September 7,

„

. 213

,,

24,

33

. 229

29,

33

. 225

1844 (?)

. 225

October 14,

'3

. 219

1844 or 1845

. 167

25,

3)

. 221

January

8,

1845

. 230

31,

33

. 223

March

30,

. 231
November 13,
33
. 140
April
3,
. 232
1843 or 1844
. 178
16,
. 180
January 22,
1844
. 226
June
1,
. 232
February 21,
i(
. 226
33
17,
. 180
April 3,
33
. 205
October
8,
. 234
8,
33
. 226
November
8,
. 155
July 14,
77
. 197
„
25,
. 235
September 16,
77
. 227
January
20,
1846
. 236
November 7,
77 7)
. 230
• 211
December
6,
1849
. 185
CARDINAL NEWMAN'S WORKS.

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368 SUPPLEMENTARY MATTER.

III.

LETTER OF APPROBATION AND ENCOURAGEMENT FROM THE
BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OF BIRMINGHAM, DR. ULLA-
THORNE. "Bishop's House, June 2, 1864.
"My dear Dr. Newman, —
"It was with warm gratification that, after the close of the Synod
yesterday, I listened to the Address presented to you by the clergy of the
diocese, and to your impressive reply. But I should have been little
satisfied with the part of the silent listener, except on the understanding
with myself that I also might afterwards express to you my own sentiments
in my own way.
"We have now been personally acquainted, and much more than ac
quainted, for nineteen years, during more than sixteen of which we have
stood in special relation of duty towards each other. This has been one of
the singular blessings which God has given me amongst the cares of the
Episcopal office. What my feelings of respect, of confidence, and of affection
have been towards you, you know well, nor should I think of expressing them
in words. But there is one thing that has struck me in this day of explana
tions, which you could not, and would not, be disposed to do, and which no
one could do so properly or so authentically as I could, and which it seems
to me is not altogether uncalled for, if every kind of erroneous impression
that some persons have entertained with no better evidence than conjecture
is to be removed.
" It is difficult to comprehend how, in the face of facts, the notion should
ever have arisen that during your Catholic life, you have been more occupied
with your own thoughts than with the service of religion and the work of the
Church. If we take no other work into consideration beyond the written pro
ductions which your Catholic pen has given to the world, they are enough for
the life's labour of another. There are the Lectures on Anglican Difficulties,
the Lectures on Catholicism in England, the great work on the Scope and
End of University Education, that on the Office and Work of Universities
the Lectures and Essays on University Subjects, and the two Volumes of
Sermons ; not to speak of your contributions to the Atlantis, which you
founded, and to other periodicals ; then there are those beautiful offerings to
Catholic literature, the Lectures on the Turks, Loss and Gain, and Callista,
and though last, not least, the Apologia, which is destined to put many

LETTER OF DR. ULLATHORNE. 369
idle rumours to rest, and many unprofitable surmises ; and yet all these
productions represent but a portion of your labour, and that in the second
half of your period of public life.
"These works have been written in the midst of labour and cares of
another kind, and of which the world knows very little. I will specify four
of these undertakings, each of a distinct character, and any one of which
would have made a reputation for untiring energy in the practical order.
" The first of these undertakings was the establishment of the congrega
tion of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri — that great ornament and accession
to the force of English Catholicity. Both the London and the Birmingham
Oratory must look to you as their founder and as the originator of their
characteristic excellences; whilst that of Birmingham has never known
any other presidency.
" No sooner was this work fairly on foot than you were called by the
highest authority to commence another, and one of yet greater magnitude
and difficulty, the founding of a University in Ireland. After the Universities
had been lost to the Catholics of these kingdoms for three centuries, every
thing had to be begun from the beginning : the idea of such an institution
to be inculcated, the plan to be formed that would work, the resources to
be gathered, and the staff of superiors and professors to be brought together.
Your name was then the chief point of attraction which brought these ele
ments together. You alone know what difficulties you had to conciliate and
what to surmount, before the work reached that state of consistency and
promise, which enabled you to return to those responsibilities in England
which you had never laid aside or suspended. And here, excuse me if I
give expression to a fancy which passed through my mind.
"I was lately reading a poem, not long published, from the MSS. De
Berum Natura, by Neckham, the foster-brother of Richard the Lion-hearted.
He quotes an old prophecy, attributed to Merlin, and with a sort of wonder,
as if recollecting that England owed so much of its literary learning to that
country ; and the prophecy says that after long years Oxford will pass into
Ireland — ' Vada boum suo tempore transibunt in Hiberniam. ' When I read
this, I could not but indulge the pleasant fancy that in the days when the
Dublin University shall arise in material splendour, an allusion to this
prophecy might form a poetic element in the inscription on the pedestal of
the statue which commemorates its first Rector.
" The original plan of an Oratory did not contemplate any parochial work,
but you could not contemplate so many souls in want of pastors without being
prompt and ready at the beck of authority to strain all your efforts in coming
to their help. And this brings me to the third and the most continuous of
those labours to which I have alluded. The mission in Alcester Street, its
church and schools, were the first work of the Birmingham Oratory. After
several years of close and hard work, and a considerable call upon the private
resources of the Fathers who had established this congregation, it was de-

B.b

370
livered over to other hands, and the Fathers removed to the district of
Edgbaston, where up to that time nothing Catholio had appeared. Then
arose under your direction the large convent of the Oratory, the church
expanded by degrees into its present capaciousness, a numerous congregation
has gathered and grown in it ; poor schools and other pious institutions have
grown up in connexion with it, and, moreover, equally at your expense and
that of your brethren, and, as I have reason to know, at much inconvenience,
the Oratory has relieved the other clergy of Birmingham all this while by
constantly doing the duty in the poor-house and gaol of Birmingham.
" More recently still, the mission and the poor school at Smethwiek: owe
their existence to the Oratory. And all this while the founder and father of
these religious works has added to his other solicitudes the toil of frequent
preaching, of attendance in the oonfessional, and other parochial duties.
"I have read on this day of its publication the seventh part of the
Apologia, and the touching allusion in it to the devotedness of the Catholio
clergy to the poor in seasons of pestilence reminds me that when the cholera
raged so dreadfully at Bilston, and the two priests of the town were no longer
equal to the number of cases to which they were hurried day and night, I
asked you to lend me two fathers to supply the place of other priests whom I
wished to send as a further aid. But you and Father St. John preferred to
take the place of danger which I had destined for others, and remained at
Bilston till the worst was over.
" The fourth work which I would notice is one more widely known. I
refer to the school for the education of the higher classes, which at the
solicitation of many friends you have founded and attached to the Oratory.
Surely after reading this bare enumeration of work done, no man will
venture to say that Dr. Newman is leading a comparatively inactive life in
the service of the Church.
" To spare, my dear Dr. Newman, any further pressure on those feelings
with which I have already taken so large a liberty, I will only add one word
more for my own satisfaction. During our long intercourse there is only
one subject on which, after the first experience, I have measured my words
with some caution, and that has been where questions bearing on eccle
siastical duty have arisen. I found some little caution necessary, because
you were always so prompt and ready to go even beyond the slightest
intimation of my wish or desires.
"That God may bless you with health, life, and all the spiritual good
which you desire, you and your brethren of the Oratory, )g tfce 'earnest
prayer now and often of, ** J
"My dear Dr. Newman,
" Your affectionate friend and faithful servant
in Christ,
" + W. B. ULLATHORNE."

LETTERS OF APPROBATION, &C 371

IV.

LETTERS OF APPROBATION AND ENCOURAGEMENT FROM
CLERGY AND LAITY.
It requires some words of explanation why I allow myself
to sound my own praises so loudly, as I am doing by
adding to my Volume the following Letters, written to me
last year by large bodies of my Catholic brethren, Priests
and Laymen, in the course or on the conclusion of the
publication of my Apologia. I have two reasons for
doing so.
1. It seems hardly respectful to them, and hardly fair
to myself, to practise self-denial in a matter, which after
all belongs to others as well as to me. Bodies of men be
come authorities by the fact of being bodies, over and above
the personal claims of the individuals who constitute them.
To have received such unusual Testimonials in my favour,
as I have to produce, and then to have let both those
Testimonials and the generous feelings which dictated
them be wasted, and come to nought, would have been
a rudeness of which I could not bear to be guilty. Far
be it from me to show such ingratitude to those who
were especially " friends in need." I am too proud of
their approbation not to publish it to the world.
2. But I have a further reason. The belief obtains
extensively in the country at large, that Catholics, and
especially the Priesthood, disavow the mode and form, in
which I am accustomed to teach the Catholic faith, as if
they were not generally recognized, but something special
and peculiar to myself; as if, whether for the purposes

372 SUPPLEMENTAL MATTER.
of controversy, or from the traditions of an earlier period
of my life, I did not exhibit Catholicism pure and simple,
as the bulk of its professors manifest it. Such testimonials,
then, as now follow, from as many as 558 priests, that is,
not far from half of the clergy of England, secular and
religious, from the Bishop and clergy of a diocese at the
Antipodes, and from so great and authoritative a body as
the German Congress assembled last year at Wurzburg,
scatter to the winds a suspicion, which it is not less pain
ful, I am persuaded, to numbers of those Protestants
who entertain it, than it is injurious to me who have to
bear it.

I. — THE DIOCESE OF WESTMINSTER.
The following Address was signed by 110 of the
Westminster clergy, including all the Canons, the Vicars-
General, a great number of secular priests, and five
Doctors in theology; Fathers of the Society of Jesus,
Fathers of the Order of St. Dominic, of St. Francis, of the
Oratory, of the Passion, of Charity, Oblates of St. Charles,
and Marists.

1 ' London, March 15, 1864.
' ' Very Reverend and Dear Sir,
" We, the undersigned Priests of the Diocese of Westminster,
tender to you our respectful thanks for the service you have done to religion,
as well as to the interests of literary morality, by your Reply to the calumnies
of [a popular writer of the day.]
"We cannot but regard it as a matter of congratulation that your assailant
should have associated the cause of the Catholic Priesthood with the name of
one so well fitted to represent its dignity, and to defend its honour, as
yourself. ' ' We recognize in this latest effort of your literary power one further claim ,
besides the many you have already established, to the gratitude and venera
tion of Catholics, and trust that the reception which it has met with on all

LETTERS OF APPROBATION, &C 373
sides may be the omen of new successes which you are destined to achieve in
the vindication of the teaching and principles of the Church.
"We are, " Very Reverend and Dear Sir,
" Your faithful and affectionate Servants in Christ. ' '
(The Subscriptions follow.)
" To the Very Rev.
"John Henry Newman, D.D."

II. — THE ACADEMIA OF CATHOLIC RELIGION.
"London, April 19, 1864.
" Very Rev. and Dear Sir,
' ' The Academia of Catholic Religion, at their meeting held
to-day, under the Presidency of the Cardinal Archbishop, have instructed us
to write to you in their behalf.
" As they have learned, with great satisfaction, that it is your intention to
publish a defence of Catholic Veracity, which has been assailed in your person,
they are precluded from asking you that that defence might be made by
word of mouth, and in London, as they would otherwise have done.
" Composed, as the Academia is, mainly of Laymen, they feel that it is not
out of their province to express their indignation that your opponent should
have chosen, while praising the Catholic Laity, to do so at the expense of the
Clergy, between whom and themselves, in this as in all other matters, there
exists a perfect identity of principle and practice.
"It is because, in such a matter, your cause is the cause of all Catholics,
that we congratulate ourselves on the rashness of the opponent that has
thrown the defence of that cause into your hands.
"We remain,
" Very Reverend and Dear Sir,
" Your very faithful Servants,
"JAMES LAIRD PATTERSON,} „ ± .
„ _ _ „„ , „ f Secretaries.
"EDW. LUCAS, )
"To the Very Rev. John Henry Newman, D.D.,
"Provost of the Birmingham Oratory."
The above was moved at the meeting by Lord Petre
and seconded by the Hon. Charles Langdale.

374 SUPPLEMENTAL MATTER.

III. — THE DIOCESE OF BIRMINGHAM.
In this Diocese there were in 1864, according to the
Directory of the year, 136 Priests. "June 1, 1864.
"Very Reverend and Dear Sir,
" In availing ourselves of your presence at the Diocesan
Synod to offer you our hearty thanks for your recent vindication of the honour
of the Catholic Priesthood, We, the Provost and Chapter of the Cathedral,
and the Clergy, Secular and Regular, of the Diocese of Birmingham, cannot
forego the assertion of a special right, as your neighbours and colleagues, to
express our veneration and affection for one whose fidelity to the dictates of
conscience, in the use of the highest intellectual gifts, has won even from
opponents unbounded admiration and respect.
"To most of us you are personally known. Of some, indeed, you were, in
years long past, the trusted guide, to whom they owe more than can be ex
pressed in words ; and all are conscious that the ingenuous fulness of your
answer to a false and unprovoked accusation, has intensified their interest in
the labours and trials of your life. While, then, we resent the indignity to
which you have been exposed, and lament the pain and annoyance which the
manifestation of yourself must have cost you, we cannot but rejoice that, in
the fulfilment of a duty, you have allowed neither the unworthiness of your
assailant to shield him from rebuke, nor the sacredness of your inmost motives
to deprive that rebuke of the only form which could at once complete his
discomfiture, free your own name from the obloquy which prejudice had
cast upon it, and afford invaluable aid to honest seekers after Truth.
' ' Great as is the work which you have already done, Very Reverend Sir,
permit us to express a hope that a greater yet remains for you to accom
plish. In an age and in a country in which the very foundations of religious
faith are exposed to assault, we rejoice in numbering among our brethren
one so well qualified by learning and experience to defend that priceless
deposit of Truth, in obtaining which you have counted as gain the loss of all
things most dear and precious. And we esteem ourselves happy in being
able to offer you that support and encouragement which the assurance of
our unfeigned admiration and regard may be able to give you under your
present trials and future labours.
" That you may long have strength to labour for the Church of God and
the glory of His Holy Name is, Very Reverend and Dear Sir, our heartfelt
and united prayer." (The Subscriptions follow.)
" To the Very Rev. John Henry Newman, D.D."

LETTERS OF APPROBATION, &C. 375

IV. — THE DIOCESE OF BEVERLEY.
The following Address, as is stated in the first para
graph, comes from more than 70 Priests : —

" Hull, May 9, 1864.
"Very Rev. and Dear Dr. Newman,
" At a recent meeting of the clergy of the Diocese of
Beverley, held in York, at which upwards of seventy priests were present,
special attention was called to your correspondence with [a popular writer] ;
and such was the enthusiasm with which your name was received — such was
the admiration expressed of the dignity with which you had asserted the
claims of the Catholic Priesthood in England to be treated with becoming
courtesy and respeqt — and such was the strong and all-pervading sense of the
invaluable service which you had thus rendered, not only to faith and morals,
but to good manners so far as regarded religious controversy in this country,
that I was requested, as Chairman, to become the voice of the meeting, and
to express to you as strongly and as earnestly as I could, how heartily the
whole of the clergy of this diocese desire to thank you for services to religion
as well-timed as they are in themselves above and beyond all commenda
tion, services which the Catholics of England will never cease to hold in
most grateful remembrance. God, in His infinite wisdom and great mercy,
has raised you up to stand prominently forth in the glorious work of re-estab
lishing in this country the holy faith which in good old times shed such lustre
upon it. We all lament that, in the order of nature, ypu have so few years
before you in which to fight against false teaching that good fight in which
you have been so victoriously engaged of late. But our prayers are that you
may long be spared, and may possess to the last all your vigour, and all that
zeal for the advancement of our holy faith, which imparts such a charm to
the productions of your pen.
"I esteem it a great honour and a great privilege to have been deputed,
as the representative of the clergy of the Diocese of Beverley, to tender you
the fullest expression of our most grateful thanks, and the assurance of our
prayers for your health and eternal happiness.
"I am, " Very Rev. and Dear Sir,
" With sentiments of profound respect,
" Yours most faithfully in Christ,
"M. TRAPPES.
"The Very Rev. Dr. Newman."

376 SUPPLEMENTAL MATTER.

V. AND Vt.— THE DIOCESES OF LIVERPOOL AND SALFORD.
The Secular Clergy of Liverpool amounted in 1864 to
103, and of Salford to 76. "Preston, July 27, 1864.
" Very Rev. and Dear Sir,
" It may seem, perhaps, that the Clergy of Lancashire have been
slow to address you ; but it would be incorrect to suppose that they have
been indifferent spectators of the conflict in which you have been recently
engaged. This is the first opportunity that has presented itself, and they
gladly avail themselves of their annual meeting in Preston to tender to
you the united expression of their heartfelt sympathy and gratitude.
" The atrocious imputation, out of which the late controversy arose, was
felt as a personal affront by them, one and all, conscious as they were,
that it was mainly owing to your position as a distinguished Catholio ecclesi
astic, that the charge was connected with your name.
"While they regret the pain y oumust needs have suffered, they cannot help
rejoicing that it has afforded you an opportunity of rendering a new and most
important service to their holy religion. Writers, who are not overscrupu
lous about the truth themselves, have long used the charge of untruthfulness
as an ever ready weapon against the Catholic Clergy. Partly from the fre
quent repetition of this charge, partly from a consciousness that, instead of
undervaluing the truth, they have ever prized it above every earthly trea
sure, partly, too, from the difficulty of obtaining a hearing in their own de
fence, they have generally passed it by in silence. They thank you for coming
forward as their champion : your own character required no vindication.
It was their battle more than your own that you fought. They know and
feel how much pain it has caused you to bring so prominently forward your
own life and motives, but they now congratulate you on the completeness
of your triumph, as admitted alike by friend and enemy.
" In addition to answering the original accusation, you have placed them
under a new obligation, by giving to all, who read the English language, a
work which, for literary ability and the lucid exposition of many difficult
and abstruse points, forms an invaluable contribution to our literature.
' ' They fervently pray that God may give you health and length of days,
and, if it please Him, some other cause in which to use for His glory the
great powers bestowed upon you. " Signed on behalf of the Meeting,
"THOS. PROVOST COOKSON.
" The Very Rev. J. H. Newman."

LETTERS OF APPROBATION, &C. 377

VII. — THE DIOCESE OF HEXHAM.
The Secular Priests on Mission in 1864 in this Diocese
were 64. " Durham, Sept. 22, 1864.
" My Dear Dr. Newman,
"At the annual meeting of the Clergy of the Diocese of Hexham
and Newcastle, held a few days ago at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, I was commis
sioned by them to express to you their sincere sympathy, on account of the
slanderous accusations, to which you have been so unjustly exposed. We
are fully aware that these foul calumnies were intended to injure the char
acter of the whole body of the Catholic Clergy, and that your distinguished
name was singled out, in order that they might be more effectually propa
gated. It is' well that these poisonous shafts were thus aimed, as no one
could more triumphantly repel them. The 'Apologia pro Vita sua' will,
if possible, render still more illustrious the name of its gifted author, and be
a lasting monument of the victory of truth, and the signal overthrow of an
arrogant and reckless assailant. —
" It may appear late for us now to ask to join in your triumph, but as the
Annual Meeting of the Northern Clergy does not take place till this time, it
is the first occasion offered us to present our united congratulations, and to
declare to you, that by none of your brethren are you more esteemed and
venerated, than by the Clergy of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle.
" Wishing that Almighty God may prolong your life many more years for
the defence of our holy religion and the honour of your brethren,
" I am, dear Dr. Newman,
"Yours sincerely in Jesus Christ,
"RALPH PROVOST PLATT, V.G.
" The Very Rev. J. H. Newman."

VIII. — THE CONGRESS OF WURZBURG. " September 15, 1864.
" Sir, " The undersigned, President of the Catholic Congress of Ger
many assembledin Wiirzburg, has been commissioned to express to you, Very
Rev. and Dear Sir, its deep-felt gratitude for your late able defence of the
Catholic Clergy, not only of England, but of the whole world, against the
attacks of its enemies.

378 SUPPLEMENTAL MATTER.
' ' The Catholics of Germany unite with the Catholics of England in testify
ing to you their profound admiration and sympathy, and pray that the
Almighty may long preserve your valuable life.
" The above Resolution was voted by the Congress with acclamation.
' ' Accept, Very Rev. and Dear Sir, the expression of the high consideration
with which I am " Your most obedient servant,
"(Signed) ERNEST BARON MOIJ DE SONS.
"The Very Rev. J. H. Newman."

IX. — THE DIOCESE OF HOBART TOWN.
"Hobart Town, Tasmania, November 22, 1864.
" Very Rev. and Dear Sir,
"By the last month's post we at length received your
admirable book, entitled, Apologia pro Vit& sua,, and the pamphlet, What
then does Dr. Newman mean ?
" By this month's mail, we wish to express our heartfelt gratification and
delight for being possessed of a work so triumphant in maintaining truth , and
so overwhelming in confounding arrogance and error, as the ' Apologia.'
"No doubt, your adversary, resting on the deep-seated prejudice of our
fellow-countrymen in the United Kingdom, calculated upon establishing his
own fame as a keen-sighted polemic, as a shrewd and truth-loving man, upon
the fallen reputation of one, who, as he would demonstrate, — yes, that he
would, — set little or no value on truth, and who, therefore, would deservedly
sink into obscurity, henceforward rejected and despised !
"Aman of old erected a gibbet at the gate of the oity, on whioh an
unsuspecting and an unoffending man, one marked as a viotim, was to be
exposed to the gaze and derision of the people, in order that his own dignity
and fame might be exalted ; but a divine Providence ordained otherwise.
The history of the judgment that fell upon Aman, has been recorded in
Holy Writ, it is to be presumed, as a warning to vain and unscrupulous men,
even in our days. There can be no doubt, a moral gibbet, full ' fifty cubits
high,' had been prepared some time, on which you were to be exposed, for
the pity at least, if not for the scorn and derision of so many, who had loved
and venerated you through life !
"But the effort made in the forty-eight pages of the redoubtable pam
phlet, What then does Dr. Newman Mean ? — the production of a bold,
unscrupulous man, with a coarse mind, and regardless of inflicting pain on

LETTERS OF APPROBATION, &C 379
the feelings of another, has failed,— marvellously failed,— and he himself is
now exhibited not only in our fatherland, but even at the Antipodes, in fact
wherever the English language is spoken or read, as a shallow pretender, one
quite incompetent to treat of matters of such undying interest as those he
.presumed to interfere with.
" We fervently pray the Almighty, that you may be spared to His Church
for many years to come, — that to Him alone the glory of this noble work
may be given, — and to you the reward in eternal bliss !
"And from this distant land we beg to convey to you, Very Rev. and Dear
Sir, the sentiments of our affectionate respect, and deep veneration."
(The Subscriptions follow, ofthe Bishop, Vicar-General
and eighteen Clergy.)
" The Very Rev. Dr. Newman,
&c. &c. &c."

ADDITIONAL NOTES.

NOTE ON PAGE 12.
CORRESPONDENCE WITH ARCHBISHOP WHATELY IN 1834.
On application of the Editor of Dr. Whately's Corre
spondence, the following four letters were sent to her for
publication : they are here given entire. It will be
observed that they are of the same date as my letter to
Dr. Hampden at p. 57. 1. "Dublin, October 25, 1834.
" My dear Newman,
"A most shocking report concerning you has reached me,
which indeed carries such an improbability on the face of it that you may
perhaps wonder at my giving it a thought ; and at first I did cot, but finding
it repeated from different quarters, it seems to me worth contradicting for
the sake of your character. Some Oxford undergraduates, I find, openly
report that when I was at Oriel last spring you absented yourself from chapel
on purpose to avoid receiving the Communion along with me ; and that you
yourself declared this to be the case.
" I would not notice every idle rumour ; but this has been so confidently
and so long asserted that it would be a satisfaction to me to be able to declare
its falsity as a fact, from your authority. I did indeed at once declare my
utter unbelief ; but then this has only the weight of my opinion ; though an
opinion resting I think on no insufficient grounds. I did not profess to rest
my disbelief on our long, intimate, and confidential friendship, which would
make it your right and your duty- if I did any thing to offend you or any
thing you might think materially wrong — to remonstrate with me ; — but on
your general character ; which I was persuaded would have made you inca
pable, even had no such close connexion existed between us, of conduct so
unchristian and inhuman. But, as I said, I should like for your sake to be
able to contradict the report from your own authority.
" Ever yours very truly,
"R. "WHATELY."

ADDITIONAL NOTES. 381
2. " Oriel College, October 28, 1834.
"My dear Lord,
" My absence from the Sacrament in the College Chapel on the
Sunday you were in Oxford, was occasioned solely and altogether by my
having it on that day in St. Mary's ; and I am pretty sure, if I may trust my
memory, that I did not even know of your Grace's presence there, till after
the Service. Most certainly such knowledge would not have affected my
attendance. I need not say, this being the case, that the report of my
having made any statement on the subject is quite unfounded ; indeed,
your letter of this morning is the first information I have had in any shape
of the existence of the report.
"I am happy in being thus able to afford an explanation as satisfactory
to you, as the kind feelings which you have ever entertained towards me
could desire ; — yet, on honest reflection, I cannot conceal from myself, that
it was generally a relief to me, to see so little of your Grace, when you were
at Oxford : and it is a greater relief now to have an opportunity of saying so
to yourself. I have ever wished to observe the rule, never to make a public
charge against another behind his back, and, though in the course of conver
sation and the urgency of accidental occurrences it is sometimes difficult to
keep to it, yet I trust I have not broken it, especially in your own case : i.e.
though my most intimate friends know how deeply I deplore the line of
ecclesiastical policy adopted under your archiepiscopal sanction, and though
iu society I may have clearly shown that I have an opinion one way rather than
the other, yet I have never in my intention, never (as I believe) at all, spoken
of your Grace in a serious way before strangers ; — indeed mixing very little
in general society, and not overapt to open myself in it, I have had little
temptation to do so. Least of all should I so forget myself as to take
undergraduates into my confidence in such a matter.
" I wish I could convey to your Grace the mixed and very painful feelings,
which the late history of the Irish Church has raised in me : — the union of
her members with men of heterodox views, and the extinction (without
ecclesiastical sanction) of half her Candlesticks, the. witnesses and guarantees
of the Truth and trustees of the Covenant. I willingly own that both in my
secret judgment and my mode of speaking concerning you to my friends,
I have had great alternations and changes of feeling, — defending, then
blaming your policy, next praising your own self and protesting against your
measures, according as the affectionate remembrances which I had of you
rose against my utter aversion of the secular and unbelieving policy in which
I considered the Irish Church to be implicated. I trust I shall never be for
getful of the kindness you uniformly showed me during your residence in
Oxford : and anxiously hope that no duty to Christ and His Church may ever

382 ADDITIONAL NOTES.
interfere with the expression of my sense of it. However, on the present
opportunity, I am conscious to myself, that I am acting according to the
dictates both of duty and gratitude, if I beg your leave to state my per
suasion, that the perilous measures in which your Grace has acquiesced are
but the legitimate offspring of those principles, difficult to describe in few
words, with which your reputation is especially associated ; principles which
bear upon the very fundamentals of all argument and investigation, and affect
almost every doctrine and every maxim by which our faith or our conduct
is to be guided. I can feel no reluctance to confess, that, when I first
was noticed by your Grace, gratitude to you and admiration of your powers
wrought upon me ; and, had not something from within resisted, I should
certainly have adopted views on religious and social duty, which seem to
my present judgment to be based in the pride of reason and to tend towards
infidelity, and which in your own case nothing but your Grace's high
religious temper and the unclouded faith of early piety has been able to
withstand. " I am quite confident, that, however you may regard this judgment, you
will give me credit, not only for honesty, but for a deeper feeling in thus
laying it before you.
" May I be suffered to add, that your name is ever mentioned in my
prayers, and to subscribe myself
" Your Grace's very sincere friend and servant,
"J. H. NEWMAN,"

3.
"Dublin, November 3, 1834.
" My dear Newman,
1 ' I cannot forbear writing again to express the great satisfac
tion I feel in the course I adopted ; which has, eventually, enabled me to
contradict a report which was more prevalent and more confidently upheld
than I could have thought possible : and which, while it was perhaps likely
to hurt my character with some persons, was injurious to yours in the eyes of
the best men. For what idea must any one have had of religion— or at least
of your religion— who was led to think there was any truth in the imputation
to you of such uncharitable arrogance !
" But it is a rule with me, not to cherish, even on the strongest assertions,
any belief or even suspicion, to the prejudice of any one whom I have any
reason to think well of, till I have carefully inquired, and dispassionately,
heard both sides. And I think if others were to adopt the same rule, I
should not myself be quite so much abused as I have been.
"I am well aware indeed that one cannot expect all, even good men, to

ADDITIONAL NOTES. 383
think alike on every point, even after they shall have heard both sides ; and
that we may expect many to judge, after all, very harshly of those who do
differ from them : for, God help us ! what will become of men if they receive
no more mercy than they show to each other ! But at least, if the rule
were observed, men would not condemn a brother on mere vague popular
rumours about principles (as in my case) ' difficult to describe in few words,'
and with which his ' reputation is associated.' My own reputation I know
is associated, to a very great degree, with what are in faot calumnious impu
tations, originated in exaggerated, distorted, or absolutely false statements ,
for which even those who circulate them, do not, for the most part, pretend
to have any ground except popular rumour : like the Jews at Rome ; ' as
for this way, we know that it is every where spoken against.'
" For I have ascertained that a very large proportion of those who join in
the outcry against my works, confess, or even boast, that they have never
read them. And in respect of the measure you advert to — the Church
Temporalities Act — (which of course I shall not now discuss), it is curious
to see how many of those who load me with censure for acquiescing in it,
receive with open arms, and laud to the skies, the Primate ; who was con
sulted on the measure — as was natural, considering his knowledge of Irish
affairs, and his influence — long before me ; and gave his consent to it ;
differing from Ministers only on a point of detail, whether the revenues of
six Sees, or of ten, should be alienated.
" Of course, every one is bound ultimately to decide according to his own
judgment ; nor do I mean to shelter myself under his example : but only to
point out what strange notions of justice those have, who acquit with applause
the leader, and condemn the follower in the same individual transaction.
"Far be it from any servant of our Master, to feel surprise or anger at
being thus treated : it is only an admonition to me to avoid treating others in
a similar manner; and not to 'judge another's servant,' at least without a
fair hearing.
"You do me no more than justice, in feeling confident that I shall give
you credit both for ' honesty and for a deeper feeling ' in freely laying your
opinions before me : and besides this, you might have been no less confident,
from your own experience, that, long since — whenever it was that you
changed your judgment respecting me — if you had freely and calmly remon
strated with me on any point where you thought me going wrong, I should
have listened to you with that readiness and candour and deference, which
as you well know, I always showed, in the times when 'we took sweet
counsel together, and walked in the house of God as friends ; ' — when we
consulted together about so many practical measures, and about almost
all the principal points in my publications.
"I happen to have before me a letter from you just eight years ago,
in which, after saying that ' there are few things you wish more sincerely
than to be known as a friend of mine,' and attributing to me, in the

384 ADDITIONAL NOTES.
warmest and most flattering terms, a much greater share in the forming of
your mind than I could presume to claim, you bear a testimony, in which
I do most heartily concur, to the freedom at least of our intercourse, and the
readiness and respect with which you were listened to. Your words are :
' Much as I owe to Oriel in the way of mental improvement, to none, as I
think, do I owe so much as to yourself. I know who it was first gave me
heart to look about me after my election, and taught me to think correctly,
and — strange office for an instructor — to rely upon myself. Nor can I
forget that it has been at your kind suggestion, that I have since been led
to employ myself in the consideration of several subjects, which I cannot
doubt have been very beneficial to my mind.'
" If in all this I was erroneous, — if I have misled you, or any one else, into
' the pride of reason,' or any other kind of pride, — or if I have entertained,
or led others into, any wrong opinions, I can only say I sincerely regret it.
And again I rejoice if I have been the means of contributing to form in any
one that ' high religious temper and unclouded faith ' of which I not only
believe, with you, that they are able to withstand tendencies towards infi
delity, but also, that without them, uo correctness of abstract opinions is
worth much. But what I meant to point out, is, that there was plainly
nothing to preclude you from offering friendly admonition (when your view
of my principles changed), with a full confidence of being at least patiently
and kindly listened to.
" I for my part could not bring myself to find relief in escaping the society
of an old friend, — with whom I had been accustomed to frank discussion, — on
account of my differing from him as to certain principles, whether through
a change of his views, or (much more) of my own, — till at least I had made
full trial of private and affectionate remonstrance and free discussion.
Even a 'man that is a heretic' we are told, even a ruler of a Church is
not to reject, till after repeated admonitions.
" But though your regard for me does not show itself such as I think mine
would have been under similar circumstances, I will not therefore reject
what remains of it. Let us pray for each other that it may please God to
enlighten whichever of us is, on any point, in error, and recall him to the
truth ; and that at any rate we may hold fast that charity, without which
all knowledge, and all faith, that could remove mountains, will profit us
nothing. ' ' I fear you will read with a jaundiced eye, — if you venture to read it at all
— any publication of mine ; but ' for auld lang syne ' I take advantage of a
frank to enclose you my last two addresses to my clergy.
" Very sincerely yours,
"RD. WHATELY,"

ADDITIONAL NOTES. 385

" Oriel, November 11, 1834.
"My dear Lord, " The remarks contained in your last letter do not come
upon me by surprise, and I can only wish that I may be as able to explain
myself to you, as I do with a clear and honest conscience to myself. Tour
Grace will observe that the letter of mine from which you make an extract,
was written when I was in habits of intimacy with you, in which I have not
been of late years. It does not at all follow, because I could then speak
freely to you, that I might at another time. Opportunity is the chief thing
in such an office as delivering to a superior an opinion about himself. Though
I never concealed my opinion from you, I have never been forward. I have
spoken when place and time admitted, when my opinion was asked, when I
was called to your side and was made your counsellor. No such favour
able circumstances have befallen me of late years, — if I must now state
in explanation what in truth has never occurred to me in this fulness, till
now I am called to reflect upon my own conduct and to account for an
apparent omission. I have spoken the first opportunity you have given
me; and I am persuaded good very seldom comes of volunteering a
remonstrance. "Again, I cannot doubt for an instant that you have long been aware in
a measure that my opinions differed from your Grace's. You knew it when
at Oxford, for you often found me differing from you. You must have felt
it, at the time you left Oxford for Dublin. You must have known it from
hearsay in consequence of the book I have published. What indeed can
account for my want of opportunities to speak to you freely my mind, but
the feeling on your part, (which, if existing, is nothing but a fair reason,)
that my views are different from yours ?
' ' And that difference is certainly of no recent date. I tacitly allude to it in
the very letter you quote — in which, I recollect well that the words ' strange
ofiice for an instructor — to rely upon-myself,' were intended to convey to you
that, much as I valued (and still value) your great kindness and the advantage
of your countenance to me at that time, yet even then I did not fall in with
the line of opinions which you had adopted. In them I never acquiesoed.
Doubtless I may have used at times sentiments and expressions, which I
should not now use ; but I believe these had no root in my mind, and as
such they were mere idle words which I ought ever to be ashamed of, because
they were idle. But the opinions to which I especially alluded in my former
letter as associated by the world with your Grace's name under the title of
' Liberal,' (but not, as you suppose, received by me on the world's authority,)
are those which may be briefly described as the Anti-superstition notions;
and to these I do not recollect ever assenting. Connected with these I would
C C

386 ADDITIONAL NOTES.
instance the undervaluing of Antiquity, and resting on one's own reasonings ,
judgments, definitions, &c, rather than authority and precedent ; and I think
I gave very little in to this ; — for a very short time too (if at all), in to the
notion that the State, as such, had nothing to do with religion. On the other
hand, whatever I held then deliberately, I believe I hold now ; though per
haps I may not consider them as points of such prominent importance, or
with precisely the same bearing as I did then : — as the abolition of the Jew
ish Sabbath, the unscripturalness of the doctrine of imputed righteousness
(i.e. our Lord's active obedience) — the mistakes of the so-called Evangelical
system, the independence of the Church ; the genius of the Gospel as a
Law of Liberty, and the impropriety of forming geological theories from
Scripture. Of course every one changes in opinion bet ween twenty and
thirty ; doubtless, I have changed ; yet I am not conscious that I have so
much changed, as made up my mind on points on which I had no opinion.
E.g. I had no opinion about the Catholic Question till 1829. No one can
truly say I was ever for the Catholics ; but I was not against them. In
fact I did not enter into the state of the question at all.
" Then as to my change of judgment as to the character of your Grace's
opinions, it is natural that, when two persons pursue different lines from the
same point, they should not disoover their divergence for a long while ; espe
cially if there be any kind feeling in the one towards the other. It was not
for a very long time that I discovered that your opinions were (as I now think
them) but part of intellectual views, so different from your own inward mind
and character, so peculiar in themselves, and (if you will let me add) so dan-'
gerous. For a long time I thought them to be but different ; for a longer,
to be but in parts dangerous ; but their full character in this respect came
on me almost on a sudden. I heard at Naples the project of destroying the
Irish Sees, and at first indignantly rejected the notion, which some one sug
gested, that your Grace had acquiesced in it. I thought I recollected cor
rectly your Grace's opinion of the inherent rights of the Christian Church,
and I thought you never would allow men of this world so to insult it.
When I returned to England, all was over. I was silent on the same prin
ciple that you are silent about it in your letter ; that it was not the time
for speaking ; and I only felt, what I hinted at when I wrote last, a bitter
grief, whioh prompted me, when the act was irretrievable, to hide myself
from you. However, I have spoken, with whatever pain to myself, the
first opportunity you have given me.
" I might appeal to my conscience without fear in proof of the delight it
would give me at this time to associate my name with yours, and to stand
forward as your friend and defender, however humble. I should hope
you know me enough to be sure, that, however great my faults are, I have
no fear of man such as to restrain me, if I could feel I had a call that way.
But may God help me, as I will ever strive to fulfil my first duty, th& de-

ADDITIONAL NOTES. 387
fence of His Church, and of the doctrine of the old Fathers, in opposi
tion to all the innovations and profanities which are rising round us.
" My dear Lord,
" Ever yours most sincerely and gratefully,
"J. H. NEWMAN.
" P. S. I feel much obliged by your kindness in sending me your Addresses
to your clergy, which I value highly for your Grace's sake."

388 ADDITIONAL NOTES.

NOTE ON PAGE 90.
EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM THE REV. E. SMEDLEY,
EDITOR OF THE "ENCYCLOPEDIA METROPOLITANS "
When I urged on one occasion an "understanding" I
had had with the publishers of the " Encyclopaedia," he
answered, June 5, 1 828, " I greatly dislike the word
'understanding,' which is always misunderstood, and
which occasions more mischief than any other in our
language, unless it be its cousin-german 'delicacy.'"

NOTE ON PAGE 185.
EXTRACT OF A LETTER OF THE LATE REV. FRANCIS A.
FABER, OF SAUNDERTON.
A LETTER of Mr. F. Faber's to a friend has just now
(March, 1878) come into my hands, in which he says,
" I have had a long correspondence with Newman on the
subject of my uncle's saying he was ' a concealed Eoman
Catholic' long before he left us. It ends in my uncle
making an amende.

ADDITIONAL NOTES. 389
NOTE ON PAGES 194-196.
I have said above, " Dr. Russell had, perhaps, more to do
with my conversion than any one e]se. He called on me
in passing through Oxford in the summer of 1843 ; and
I think I took him over some of the buildings of the
University. He called again another summer, on his
way from Dublin to London. I do not recollect that he
said a word on the subject of religion on either occasion.
He sent me at different times several letters. . . . He
also gave me one or two books ; Veron's Rule of Faith
and some Treatises of the Wallenburghs was one; a
volume of St. Alfonso Liguori's sermons was another. . . .
At a later date Dr. Russell sent me a large bundle of
penny or halfpenny books of devotion," &c.
On this passage I observe first that he told me, on one
occasion of my seeing him since the publication of the
Apologia, that I was so far in error, that he had called on
me at Oxford once only, not twice. He was quite positive
on the point ; it was when he was, I believe, on his way
to Rome to escape a bishopric.
Secondly, my own mistake has led to some vagueness
or inaccuracy in the statements made by others. In a
friendly notice of Dr. Russell upon his death, it is said,
in the Times : —
" Personally he was unknown to the leaders of the
movement, but his reputation stood high in Oxford. He
was often applied to for information and suggestion on
the points arising in the Tractarian controversy. Through
a formal call made by him on Dr. Newman a correspon
dence arose, which resulted in the final determination of
the latter to join the Roman Catholic Church."
On this I remark — (1) that in 1841-5, Dr. Russell was
not well known in Oxford, and it cannot be said that then
"his reputation stood high" there; (2) that he never

390 ADDITIONAL NOTES.
was " applied to for information " by any one of us, as far
as my knowledge goes; and (3) that his call on me in
1841 (3 ?) was in no sense " formal " ; I had not expected it ;
I think he introduced himself, though he may have had
a letter from Dr. Wiseman ; and no " correspondence "
arose in consequence. He may perhaps have sent me three
letters, independent of each other, in five years ; and, as
far as I know, he was unaware of his part in my con
version, till he saw my notice of it in the " Apologia."

NOTE ON PAGE 232.
EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM THE REV. JOHN KEBLE
TO THE AUTHOR.
" Nov. 18, 1884. — I hope I shall not annoy you if I copy
out for you part of a letter which I had the other day
from Judge Coleridge : —
"'I was struck with part of a letter from A. B., ex
pressing a wish that Newman should know how warmly
he was loved, honoured, and sympathized with by large
numbers of Churchmen, so that he might not feel solitary,
or, as it were, cast out. What think you of a private
address, carefully guarded against the appearance of
making him the head of a party, but- only assuring him
of gratitude, veneration, and love ? ' &c, &c.
" I thought I would just let you understand how such
a person as Coleridge feels."

NOTE ON PAGE 237.
EXTRACT FROM THE " TIMES " NEWSPAPER ON THE AUTHOR'S
VISIT TO OXFORD IN FEBRUARY, 1878.
"The Very Rev. Dr. Newman has this week revisited
Oxford for the first time since 1845. He has been staying

ADDITIONAL NOTES. 391
with the Rev. S. Wayte, President of Trinity College,
of which society Dr. Newman was formerly a scholar,
and has recently been elected an Honorary Fellow. On
Tuesday evening Dr. Newman met a number of old
friends at dinner at the President's lodgings, and on the
following day he paid a long visit to Dr. Pusey at Christ
Church. He also spent a considerable time at Keble
College, in which he was greatly interested. In the
evening Dr. Newman dined in Trinity College Hall at
the high table, attired in his academical dress, and the
scholars were invited to meet him afterwards. He re
turned to Birmingham on Thursday morning."

NOTE ON PAGE 302.
THE MEDICINAL OIL OF ST. WALBURGA.
I have received the following on the subject of the oil
of St. Walburga from a German friend, the Rev. Cor-
binian Wandinger, which is a serviceable addition to
what is said upon it in Note B. He says : —
" In your 'Apologia' 2nd Edition, p. 302, you say you neither have, nor
ever have had, the means of going into the question of the miraculousness
of the oil of St. Walburga. By good chance, there has arisen a contest not
long ago between two papers, a catholic and a free-thinking one, about
this very question, from which I collected materials. Afterwards I asked
Professor Suttner, of Eichstiidt, if the defender of the miraculousness
might be fully and in every point trusted, and I was answered he might,
since he was nobody else but the parson of St. Walburga, Rev. Mr. Brud-
lacher. "You know all the older literature of the oil of St. Walburga, therefore I
restrict myself to statements of a later date than 1625.
" First of the attempts to explain the oil as a natural produce of the rock.
' ' Some thought of ordinary rock-oil. But the slightest experiment proves
that origin, properties, and effect of the oil of St. Walburga and petroleum
have nothing common with each other.
" Others thought of a salt-rock, and of solution of the salt particles. But

392 ADDITIONAL NOTES.
the marble slab from which the oil drops is of Jura-chalk, and in the whole
Jura is not a single partiole of salt to be found, and the liquor itself does
not in the least savour of salt ; besides that, if this were the case, the stone
must have crumbled into pieces long since, whilst it is quite massive still.
' ' Others thought of humour in the air, or the so-called sweating of the
stones. But why does the slab which bears the holy relics alone sweat ? and,
why do all others beside, above, beneath it, in and out of the altar-cave,
though being of. the same nature, remain perfectly dry? Why should it
sweat, the whole church being so dry that not a single humid spot of a
hand's breadth is visible ? Why does this slab not sweat except within a
certain period, that is from October 12, the anniversary of depositing, to
February 25, the day of the death of St. "Walburga ? And why does it remain
dry at every other time, even at the most humid temperature of the air
possible, and in the wettest years, for instance, 1866 ? Besides, what other
stone, and be it in the deepest cave, will sweat during four or five months a
quantity of liquor from six to ten Mass (a Mass = 1'07 French Litres) ? If
these naturalists are asked all this, then they, too, are at the end of their wits.
" To this point I add two facts which may be proved beyond any doubt ;
the one by unquestionable historical records, the other by still living eye
witnesses. When under Bishop Friedrich von Parsberg the interdict was in
flicted on the city of Eichstadt, during all the year 1239 not a single drop of
liquor became visible on the coffin-plate of St. Walburga. The contrary fact
was stated ou June 7, 1835. The cave was opened on this day by chance, pas
sengers longing to see it. To their astonishment they found the stone so
profusely dropping with oil, that the golden vase fixed underneath was full
to the brim, whereas at this season never had been observed there any fluid.
Some weeks later arrived the long-wished-for royal decree which sanctioned
the reopening of the convent of St. Walburga ; it was signed on that very 7th
of June, 1835, by his Majesty King Louis I.
" Moreover, let one try to gather water which is dropping from sweating
stone, or glass, or metal, and let him see if it will be pure and limpid, or
rather muddy, filthy, and cloudy. The oil of St. Walburga on the contrary,
is and remains so limpid and crystal, that a bottle, which had been filled and
officially sealed at the reopening of the cave after the Swedish invasion, 1645,
preserves to this day the oil so very clear and clean as if it had been filled
yesterday ; an occurrence never to be observed even on the purest spring-
water, according to the testimony of the royal circuit-physician (K.
Bezirksarz). " To this testimony of a naturalist may be added that of a much higher
authority. The renowned naturalist, Von Oken, surely an unquestionable
expert, came one day, while he was Professor in the University of Munich, to
Eichstadt on the special purpose to investigate this extraordinary phenome
non. The cave was opened to him, he received every information he wished
for, and having seen and examined everything, he pronounced publicly with
out any reluotance that he could not explain the matter in a natural way. He

ADDITIONAL NOTES. 393
took of the liquor to Munich in order to subject it to a chemical analysis, and
•declared then by writing the result of his researches to be that he could
take it neither for natural water, nor oil, and that, in general, he was not able
4o explain the phenomenon as being in accordance with the laws of nature.
" Let me add the testimony of a historical authority. Mr. Sax, counsellor
of the government (K. Regierungsrath), in his history of the diocese and city
of Eichstadt, after he has spoken of the origin, the properties, and the effect
of the oil of St. Walburga, concludes that ' they are of such a singular kind,
that they not only exceed far the province of extraordinary nature-pheno
mena, but that they, in spite of the constant discrediting and slandering by
bullying free-thinkers, preserved the great confidence of the catholic people
even in far distant countries. '
' ' Now of the miracles. There are related by the people many thousands,
but, of course, few of them are attested. In the Pastoral paper of Eichstadt,
1857, page 207, I read that Anton Ernest, Bishop of Briinn, in Moravia,
•announces, under Nov. 1, 1857, to the Bishop of Eichstadt, the recovery of a
girl in the establishment of the sisters of charity from blindness, and sends,
in order to attest the fact, the following document, which I am to translate
literally : —
" ' In the name of the indivisible Trinity. We, Anton Ernest, by God's
and the Holy See's grace, Bishop of Briinn. After we had received, first by
the curate of the establishment of the Daughters of Christian Charity in this
place, and then also from other quarters, the notice that a girl in the afore
said establishment had regained the use of her eyes miraculously in the very
moment when she had a vial, containing oil of St. Walburga, offered to her,
brought to her mouth and kissed, we thought it to be our duty to research
scrupulously into the fact, and to put it beyond all doubt in the way of a
special commission, by hearing of witnesses and a trial at the place of the
fact, if there be truth, and how much of it, in the supposed miraculous
healing. " ' About the report of this commission and the adjoined testimony of the
physician, we have then, as prescribes the Holy Council of Trent (Sess. 25),
collected the judgments of our theologians and other pious men ; and as
these all were quite in accordance, and the fact itself with all its circum
stances lay before us quite clear and open, we have, after invocation of as
sistance of the Holy Ghost, pronounced, judged, and decided as follows : —
" ' The instantaneous removal of the most pertinacious eyelid-cramp
{Augenlied-krampf), which Matilda Makara during many months had hin
dered in the use of her eyes and kept in blindness, and the simultaneous
recurrence of the full eye-sight, phlogistic appearances still remaining in the
eyes, which occurred when Matilda Makara on Nov. 7, 1856, had a vial with
the oil of St. Walburga brought, full of confidence, to her mouth and kissed,
must be acknowledged to be a fact which, besides the order of nature, has
been effected by God's grace, and is therefore a miracle.

394 ADDITIONAL NOTES.
" ' And that the memory of this Divine favour may be preserved, that to>
God eternal thanks may be given, the confidence of the faithful may be
incited and nourished, this devotion to the great wonder-worker St. Wal
burga may be promoted, we order that this aforegoing decision shall be
affixed in the chapel of the Daughters of Christian Charity in this place,
that it shall be preserved for all times to come, and that the 7th Nov. shall
be celebrated as a holiday every year in this aforesaid establishment.
" ' Given in our Episcopal Residence at Briinn,
" 'Nov. 1, 1857,
" ' (L. S.) Anton Ernest, Bishop.'
" A second record about St. Walburga I find in the Eichstadt Pastoral
paper, 1858, page 192, from which I take the following : ' The Superioress.
of the Convent of St. Walburga had received in summer 1858 the notice of a
miraculous cure written by the Superioress of the Convent of St. Leonard-
sur-Mer, Sussex. At request for an authenticated report, John Bamber,
chaplain of the Convent of the Holy Infant at St. Leonard-sur-Mer, wrote-
about the following : " Sister Walburga had been ill fifteen months, of which
five bedridden. The physician pronounced the malady to be incurable.
Large exterior tumour, frequent (thrice or four times a day) vomitings were
caused by the diseased pylorus. The matter was hopeless, when the
Superioress on April 27 thought of using the oil of St. Walburga. The
chaplain brought it on the tongue of the sick sister, and in the same moment
she had a burning feeling which seemed to her to descend, and to affect.
especially the sick part. In a few minutes the inner smart ceased, the tumour
fell off, she felt recovered. Next morning she rose, assisted at the holy mass,
communicated, ate with good appetite. She was quite recovered, but some
what feeble, as people always are after a great disease. The physician, a
Protestant, abode by his opinion the malady to be incurable, acknowledged,.
however, the healing. His words were : ' I believe the healing to be effected
by the oil of St. Walburga, but how, I don't know.' As a Protestant he
refused to give testimony that the operation of the oil had been miraculous.
" The report is authenticated by Thomas, Bishop of Southwark,
"Freising, Bayern,
" September 13, 1873."

ADDITIONAL NOTES. 395
NOTE ON PAGE 323.
BONIFACE OF CANTERBURY.
When I made the above reference in 1865 to Boniface of
Canterbury, I was sure I had seen among my books some
recent authoritative declaration on the subject of his cultus
in opposition to the Bollandists; but I did not know
where to look for it. I have now found in our Library
(Concess. Offic. t. 2) what was in my mind. It consists of
five documents proceeding from the Sacred Congregation
of Rites, with the following title : —
"Emo ac Revmo Domino Card Lambrusohini Relatore, Taurinen. Ap-
probationis cultus ab immemorabili tempore prsestiti B. Bonifacio a Sub-
audia Archiepiscopi Cantuarien. Instante serenissimo Rege Sardinian
Carolo Alberto Romse, 1838."
Also Dr. Grant, Bishop of Southwark, has kindly sup
plied me with the following extract from the Corre-
spondance de Rome, 24 November, 1851, adding " St.
Boniface of Canterbury or of Savoy was beatified cequi-
pollenter by Gregory XVI. : " —
"Le B. Boniface de Savoie, xi de ce nom, petit-fils d'Humbert iii, Arche-
vgque de Cantorbery. Confirmation de son culte, e'galement a la demande
duRoi Charles Albert, 7 Sept. 1838. D'abord moine parmi les Chartreux,
puis Archeveque de Cantorbery, consacre par Innocent IV. au Concile
General de Lyons ; il occupa le siege 25 ans. Mort en 1270 pendant un
voyage en Savoie. Son corps porte a Haucatacombe ; concours des popu
lations; miracles ; son corps retrouve intact troissieclesapressa mort. Son
nom dans les livres liturgiques. Sa fete eelebr^e sans aucune interruption.
Sur la relation de Card. Lambrusohini, la S. C. des Rites le 1 Sept. 1838,
decida qu'il constait de cas exceptionnel aux decrets d'Urbain VIII. p. 410."
THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED.

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PUBLISHED BY
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5. A Select List of Books Suitable
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6. Medical and Surgical Books.

7. Educational and School Books.
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CARDINAL NEWMAN'S WOEKS.
Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his
Life in the English Church. With a brief Autobiography. Edited, at
Cardinal Newman's request, by Anne Mozley. 2 vols. Cr. 8vo. 7s.
Parochial and Plain Sermons. Edited by Rev. w. j. Copeland, B.D.,
late Rector of Farnham, Essex. 8 vols. Sold separately. Crown
8vo. 3s. 6d. each.
Contents of Vol. I. : — Holiness necessary for Future Blessedness — The Immortality
. of the Soul — Knowledge of God's Will without Obedience — Secret Faults — Self-Denial the
Test of Religious Earnestness— The Spiritual Mind— Sins of Ignorance and Weakness-
God's Commandments not Grievous — The Religious Use of Excited Feelings — Profession
without Practice— Profession without Hypocrisy— Profession without Ostentation-
Promising witnout Doing — Religious Emotion — Religious Faith Rational— The Christian
Mysteries— The Self-Wise Inquirer— Obedience the Remedy for Religious Perplexity— Times
of Private Prayer— Forms of Private Prayer— The Resurrection of the Body— Witnesses of
the Resurrection— Christian Reverence— The Religion of the Day— Scripture a Record of
Human Sorrow — Christian Manhood.
Contents of Vol. II.:-The World's Benefactors-Faith without Sight— The Incar
nation-Martyrdom-Love of Relations and Fnends-The Mmd of Little Children-
Ceremonies of the Church-The Glory of the Christian Church-St. Paul s Conversion
viewed in Reference to his Office-Secrecy and Suddenness of Divine V.sitations-Divme
Decrees-The Reverence Due to the Blessed Virgin Mary-Christ, a Quickening Spir.t-
Saving Knowledge-Self-Contemplation-Religious Cowardice-The Gospel Witnesses-
Mysteries in Religion-The Indwelling Spirit-The Kingdom of the Saints-The Gospel,
a Trust Committed to us-Tolerance of Religious Error-Rebuking Sm-The Christian
MinfatVy-H^manResponsibility-GuilelessnMs-The Danger of Riches-The Powers ol
Natire-The Danger of Accomplisbroents-ChrBtwn Zeal-Use qf Saints' Days.

A SELECT LIST OF WORKS

CARDINAL NEWMAN'S WOEKS.
Parochial and Plain Sermons.— Continued.
Contents of Vol. III. :— Abraham and Lot— Wilfulness of Israel in Rejecting Samuel
— Saul — Early Years of David — Jeroboam — Faith and Obedience — Christian Repentance —
Contracted Views in Religion — A Particular Providence as revealed in the Gospel — Tears
of Christ at the Grave of Lazarus — Bodily Suffering — Tbe Humiliation of the Eternal Son
—Jewish Zeal a Pattern to Christians — Submission to Church Authority— Contest between
Truth and Falsehood in the Church — The Church Visible and Invisible— Tbe Visible
Church an Encouragement to Faith— The Gift of the Spirit — Regenerating Baptism— Infant
Baptism— The Daily Service — The Good Part of Mary— Religious Worship a Remedy for
Excitements— Intercession — The Intermediate State.
Contents of Vol IV. :— The Strictness of the Law of ChriBt— Obedience without Love,
as instanced in the Character of Balaam— Moral Consequences of Single Sins— Acceptance
of Religious Privileges Compulsory— Reliance on Religious Observances— The Individuality
of the Soul— Chastisement amid Mercy— Peace and Joy amid Chastisement — The State oi
Grace— The Visible Church for the Sake of the Elect— The Communion of Saints— The
Church a Home for the Lonely— The Invisible World— The Greatness and Littleness of
Human Life— Moral Effects of Communion with God— Christ Hidden from the World-
Christ Manifested in Remembrance— The Gainsaying of Korah— The Mysteriousness of
our Present Being— The Ventures of Faith— Faith and Love— Watching— Keeping Fast
and Festival.
Contents of Vol. V.:— Worship, a Preparation for Christ's Coming— Reverence, a
Belief in God's Presence— Unreal WordB— Shrinking from Christ's Coming— Equanimity-
Remembrance of Past Mercies— The Mystery of Godliness— The State of Innocence-
Christian Sympathy— Righteousness not of us, but in us— The Law of the Spirit— The New
Works of the Gospel— The State of Salvation— Transgressions and Infirmities— Sins of
Infirmity— Sincerity and Hypocrisy— The Testimony of Conscience— Many called, Few
chosen— Present Blessings— Endurance, the Christian's Portion— Affliction, a School of
Comfort— The Thought of God, the Stay of the Soul— Love, the One Thing Needful— The
Power of the Will.
Contents of Vol. VI. :— Fasting, a Source of Trial— Life, the Season of Repentance-
Apostolic Abstinence, a Pattern for Christians— Christ's Privations, a Meditation for Chris
tians—Christ the Son of God made Man— The Incarnate Son, a Sufferer and Sacrifice—
The Cross of Christ the Measure of the World— Difficulty of realising Sacred Privileges—
The Gospel Sign Addressed to Faith— The Spiritual Presence of Christ in the Church—
The Eucharistic Presence— Faith the Title for Justincation--Judaism of the Present Day
~V?e. Fell°wshg> of the Apostles— Rising with Christ— Warfare the Condition of Victory
—Waiting for Christ— Subjection of the Reason and Feelings to the Revealed Word—
The Gospel Palaces— The Visible Temple— Offerings for the Sanctuary— The Weapons
of Saints— Faith Without Demonstration— The Mystery of the Holy Trinity— Peace in
Believing. »„ CoNJ,_EN!?, 0F VoL- VI1' :— The Lapse of Time— Religion, a Weariness to the Natural
Man— The World our Enemy— The Praise of Men— Temporal Advantages— The Season of
Epiphany— The Duty of Self-Denial— The Yoke of Christ— Moses the Type of Christ— The
Crucifixion— Attendance on Holy Communion— The Gospel Feast — Love of Religion, a new
Nature— Religion Peasant to the Religious— Mental Prayer— Infant Baptism— The Unity
of the Church— Steadfastness in the Old Paths.
Contents op Vol. VIII. :— Reverence in Worship— Divine Calls— The Trial of Saul-
The Call of David— Curiosity, a Temptation to Sin— Miracles no Remedy for Unbelief—
Josiah, a Pattern for the Ignorant— Inward Witness to the Truth of the Gospel— Jeremiah,
a Lesson for the Disappointed— Endurance of the World's Censure— Doing Glory to God
,n Purf.ults "f the World— Vanity of Human Glory— Truth Hidden when not Sought after
—Obedience to God the Way to Faith in Christ— Sudden Conversions— The Shepherd of
our Souls— Religious Joy — Ignorance of Evil.
Sermons Preached on Various Occasions. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Contents :— Intellect the Instrument of Religious Training— The Religion of the
Pharisee and the Religion of Mankind— Waiting for Christ— The Secret Power of Divine
Grace— Dispositions for Faith— Omnipotence in Bonds— St. Paul's Characteristic Gift—
St. Paul s Gift of Sympathy— Christ upon the Waters— The Second Spring— Order the
Witness and Instrument of Unity— The Mission of St. Philip Neri— The Tree beside the
Waters-In the World but not of the World-The Pope and the Revolution

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CARDINAL NEWMAN'S WOEKS.
Selection, Adapted to the Seasons of the Ecclesiastical Year,
from the ' Parochial and Plain Sermons '. Edited by the Rev. W.'
J. Copeland, B.D. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Contents:— Advent: Self-Denial the Test of Religious Earnestness— Divine Calls—
The Ventures of Faith— Watching. Christmas Day : Religious Joy. New Year's Sunday ¦
The Lapse of Time. Epiphany: Remembrance of Past Mercies — Equanimity— The
Immortality of the Soul — Christian Manhood — Sincerity and Hypocrisy — Christian
Sympathy. Septuagesima : Present Blessings. Sexagesima: Endurance, the Christian's
Portion. Quinquagesima : Love, the One Thing Needful. Lent : The Individuality of the
Soul— Life, the Season of Repentance — Bodily Suffering— Tears of Christ at the Grave of
Lazarus— Christ's Privations, a Meditation for Christians — The Cross of Christ the Measure
of the World. Good Friday : The Crucifixion. Easter Day : Keeping Fast and Festival.
Easter Tide : Witnesses of the Resurrection— A Particular Providence as revealed in the
GoBpel— Christ Manifested in Remembrance— The Invisible World— Waiting for Christ.
Ascension: Warfare the Condition of Victory. Sunday after Ascension: Rising with
Christ. Whitsun Day : The Weapons of Saints. Trinity Sunday : The Mysteriousness
of our Present Being. Sundays after Trinity: Holiness Necessary for Future Blessedness
—The Religious Use of Excited Feelings— The Self-Wise Inquirer — Scripture a Record of
Human Sorrow — The' Danger of Riches — Obedience without Love, as instanced in the
Character of Balaam — Moral Consequences of Single Sins — The Greatness and Littleness
of Human Life — Moral Effects of Communion with God — The Thought of God the Stay of
the Soul — The Power of the Will — The Gospel Palaces — Religion a Weariness to the
Natural Man— The World our Enemy— The Praise of Men — Religion Pleasant to the
Religious— Mental Prayer — Curiosity a Temptation to Sin — Miracles no Remedy for Un
belief—Jeremiah, a Lesson for the Disappointed — The Shepherd of our Souls — Doing Glory
to God in Pursuits of the World.
Sermons Searing upon Subjects of the Day. Edited by the Rev.
W. J. Copeland, B.D., late Rector of Farnham, Essex. Crown
8vo. 3s. 6d.
Contents :— The Work of the Christian— Saintliness not Forfeited by the Penitent —
Our Lord's Last Supper and His First— Dangers to the Penitent — The Three Offices of
Christ— Faith and Experience— Faith unto the World— The Church and the World — In
dulgence in Religious Privileges — Connection between Personal and Public Improvement
—Christian Nobleness— Joshua a Type of Christ and His Followers— Elisha a Type of
Christ and His Followers— The Christian Church a Continuation of the Jewish— The
Principles of Continuity between the Jewish and Christian Churches — The Christian
Church an Imperial Power— Sanctity the Token of the Christian Empire— Condition of the
Members of the Christian Empire — The Apostolic Christian — Wisdom and Innocence —
Invisible Presence of Christ— Outward and Inward Notes of the Church— Grounds for
Steadfastness in our Religious Profession — Elijahjthe Prophet;of the Latter Days— Feast
ing in Captivity— The Partinglof Friends.
Fifteen Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford
between a.d. 1826 and 1843. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Contents :-The Philosophical Temper, first enjoined by the Gospel-The Influence of
Natural and Revealed Religion respectively-Evangelical Sanctity the Perfection of
Natural Virtue-The Usurpations of Reason-Personal Influence, the Means of Propagating
85 TwL n« fnWtire as a Principle of Divine Governance— Contest between Faith
«£ AM. ^"Sfmin R«SDonsfbiUty as independent of Circumstances-Wilfulness, the Sin
ofLnF feuh Tnd ^Reason Contrasted as Habits of Mind-The Nature of Faith in Relation
OfSauI-Faith and *«™2V2S5d of Faith a6ainst Superstition-Implicit and Explicit
tt-wlsdom: asUtrS with Faith aid with Bfgotry-The Aeory of DavSlop.
menu in Religious Doctrine.

A SELECT LIST OF WORKS

CARDINAL NEWMAN'S WOEKS.
Apologia pro Vita Sua. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Verses on Various Occasions. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
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Saintliness the Standard of Christian Principle— God's Will the End of Life— Perseverance
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and Doubt— Prospects of the Catholic Missioner — Mysteries of Nature and of Grace— The
Mystery of Divine Condescension— The Infinitude of Divine Attributes— Mental Sufferings
of our Lord in His Passion— The Glories of Mary for the Sake of Her Son— On the Fitness
of the Glories of Mary.
Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
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The Gift of Righteousness — The Characteristics of the Gift of Righteousness — Righteous
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1. Poetry. 2. Rationalism. 3. Apostolic Tradition. 4. De la Men-
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Historical Sketches. 3 vols. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each.
1. The Turks. 2. Cicero. 3. Apollonius. 4. Primitive Christianity.
5. Church of the Fathers. 6. St. Chrysostom. 7. Theodoret. 8. St.
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The Arians of the Fourth Century. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Select Treatises of St. Athanasius in Controversy with the
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Present Position of Catholics in England. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
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BreviariumBothanum sive Portiforium secundum Usum Ecclesiae
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Catholic Church (The) from Within. With a Preface by His Eminence
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DAVIES— A History of England for Catholic Schools. By E.
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DOBREE. — Stories on the Rosary. By Louisa Emily Dobrbe. Parts
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DRANE— A Memoir of Mother Francis Raphael O.S.D. (Augusta
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of Dominican Sisters of S. Catherine of Siena, Stone. With some of
her Spiritual Notes and Letters. Edited by Rev. Father Bertrand
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The History of St. Dominic Founder of the Friar Preachers.
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The History of St. Catherine of Siena and her Companions.
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FOUARD.-THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH. A Series of
Histories of the First Century. By the Abbe Constant Fouard,
Honorary Cathedral Canon, Professor of the Faculty of Theology
at Rouen, etc., etc. Translated by George F. X. Griffith.
The Christ, The Son of God. A Life of Our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ. With an Introduction by Cardinal Manning. With
3 Maps. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 14s.
Saint Peter and the First Years of Christianity. With 3 Maps.
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