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This was written on March 8, 1843, and was in anticipation 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 prospect 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 communion, remaining
an Anglican. I could not go to Rome, while I thought what I did of the devotions
she sanctioned to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints. I did not give up 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 complaint 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? However, 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 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 intending 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 contemplated 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 argumentative views which were actuating me had been distinctly 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. Consistency 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, for of course Providence may refuse to us its
legitimate issues for our sins.
"I am afraid, that in one respect you may be disappointed. It is my trust,
though I must not be too sanguine, 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 would have been 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
Protestants, 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 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 ecclesiastical superiors because in
many points we may sympathize 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 conceivable 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 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 be 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 hostility, 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 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 opposition to it. I am sure, that, while you suffer, we
suffer too from the separation; but we cannot remove the obstacles; 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 prediction 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 ανομος,
{lawless} as exalting himself above the yoke of religion and law. The spirit of lawlessness
came in with the Reformation, 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 decrees 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 Articles 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 expedience that we do not join
you. There are positive difficulties 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 Christendom 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."
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 England 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 that 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 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 Maynooth. 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 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 manifestations 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 case 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 naturâ. I will not here speculate, 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 immaterial, no
dogmatic symbol, no rite, no sacrament, no Saint, not even the Blessed Virgin
herself, to come between 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 on me a little later by studying
the Exercises of St. Ignatius. For here again, in a matter consisting in the
purest and most direct acts of religion,—in the intercourse between 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
interposed 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 relations, 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 Development 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 devotions 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 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. 111 {in Chapter 3}), 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 (according 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) doctrines 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 recommend 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 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 present Canon of
Scripture, &c. &c. 5. The analogy of the Old Testament, and also of the
New, leads to the acknowledgment 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 philosophical 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, Alexandria, and
Constantinople, just as a mathematical curve has its own law and expression.
5. And thus again I was led on to examine more attentively 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 final 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 philosophical correctness, because I have not
given myself to the study of what metaphysicians have said on the subject; 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 consideration 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 recollected 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 historically of what I
held in 1843-4, I 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 subject 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, 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 gradually 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, I took two very significant steps:—1. In February, I made a formal
Retractation of all the hard things which I had said against the Church of Rome.
2. In September, 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 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 following 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 meaning 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 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 necessary in the controversy for self-defence. It was impossible to let
it alone: the Anglican position could not be satisfactorily 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 was pleading also that there were
extenuating circumstances 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 examined 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
anticipation, verified by the event, that it would issue in the triumph of
Liberalism. Against the Anti-dogmatic principle 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, 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
representative 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 altogether 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 deliberately 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 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 wording 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 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 continuance 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 defended 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 system, 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 proportion 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 is to me to remove the perplexity which my change of opinion
may occasion.
"It may be said,—I have said it to myself,—'Why, however, 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
professing 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 inserted above, addressed
to one of the most influential among them. A series of their ex cathedrâ
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
suppress it, and they had yielded that point. Since I published the former
portions of this Narrative, I have found what I 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 otherwise. You may show
this in any quarter you please."
All my then hopes, all my satisfaction at the apparent fulfilment of those
hopes was at an end in 1843. It is not wonderful then, that in May of that year,
when two out of the three years were gone, I wrote on the subject of my retiring
from St. Mary's to the same friend, whom I had consulted 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 overflowings of His dispensation. I am
very far more sure that England is in schism, than that the Roman additions 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 purpose, 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 infuse great suspicion of me into the minds of
lookers-on.
"By retaining St. Mary's, I am an offence and a stumbling-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?
"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 I 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 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 digression. 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 proceeding from an Anglican publisher:
and so the scheme was given up at once. After the two first numbers, I retired
from the Editorship, and those Lives only were published 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 exercised 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 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 notice
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. Aldhelm, 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, some remained Anglicans, and others have
professed what are called free or liberal opinions /14/.
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
conformed 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 connected 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 since that time, and, though I saw nothing in him which promised that he
would eventually 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, however 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 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."
{the victorious cause pleased the gods, but the conquered cause pleased Cato, from the poem Pharsalia, by Lucan (A.D. 39-65)}
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 conclusions 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, I 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 difficulty I was in, as to the best mode of
revealing 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 mentioned 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, I
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 necessity. 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 crossing 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 believe, till the end of 1842. Then
again, when my dissatisfaction 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 progress; I was not near certitude yet.
Certitude is a reflex action; it is to know that one knows. Of that I believe I was
not possessed, till close upon my reception into the Catholic 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 conduct 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 published 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 towards 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 on, they fully answered my
purpose. What I felt it a simple duty to do, 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 confessed 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 tranquillize
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 unsettlement? 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 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 intentions; 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 number 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 reports 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 complexion of mind than myself, were
made ill by the suspense. 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 highway" 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 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
absurdity 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 to me, 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 of the Church. I could not stand against such an unanimous 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 interpreting the Articles makes
them mean any thing or nothing. 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 I 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 communion Catholic, when one
can neither appeal to any clear statement of Catholic doctrine in its
formularies, nor interpret 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.
"I do not say all this to every body, as you may suppose; 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 disappointment, 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 /15/,
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 Catholicity 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. 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
confirmations 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 such 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
deliberateness; 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."
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 recollect 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 positions, 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 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 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 before 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 will add a word about myself. You may come near a person or
two who, owing to circumstances, 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 persuade."
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 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 himself 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 full 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-Wednesday 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 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 /16/.
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 /17/. 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 steepness of the way. Only, may we be kept from unlawful
security, lest we have Moab and Ammon for our progeny, the enemies of Israel."
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 rejected? 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, I came to the resolution of writing an Essay
on Doctrinal Development; and then, if, at the end of it, my convictions 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, unsettlement,
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. I had for days a literal ache all about my heart; and from 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 conviction 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 /18/;
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 foresee, to remain quietly in 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 suitable, 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 explain 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 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 preference 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 I in safety, were I to die to-night? Is it a mortal sin in
me, not joining 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; somehow,
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 bearing 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 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 leaping 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 overset by James
Mozley's article in the Remembrancer; yet really, my dear Church, I have never
for an instant had 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 hypocrite? 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 some sentences 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 generous 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 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 secession;
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 expecting Father Dominic, the
Passionist, who, from his 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, before 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 magnified into the leader of a party without my wishing
it or acting as such, so now, much as I may wish to the contrary, 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 Jerusalem.
"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; afterwards he sent me to Rome, and finally placed me in
Birmingham.
I wrote to a friend:—
"January 20, 1846. You may think how lonely I am.
'Obliviscere populum tuum et domum patris tui,'
{Psalm 44:11 in the Vulgate; 45:10 "forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house" in the Authorized Version of 1611}
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. Johnson'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 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 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 /19/.
Newman's Notes:
/8/
Matt. xxiv. 15.
/9/
Vide Note C, Sermon on Wisdom and Innocence, at the end of the volume.
/10/
As I am not writing controversially, I will only here remark upon this argument, that there is a great difference between a
command, which presupposes physical, material, and political conditions, and one which is moral.
To go to Jerusalem was a matter of the body, not of the soul.
/11/
As things stand now, I do not think he would have objected to his opinion being generally known.
/12/
I 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.
/13/
Now Lord Blachford.
/14/
Vide Note D, Lives of the English Saints.
/15/
I think Sumner, Bishop of Chester, must have done so already.
/16/
Deut. xxxiii. 12.
/17/
On this subject, vide my Third Lecture on "Anglican Difficulties,"
also Note E, Anglican Church, at the end of the volume.
/18/
Vide supr. p. 219, &c. Letter of Oct. 14, 1843, compared with that of Oct. 25.
/19/
At length I revisited Oxford on February 26th, 1878, after an absence of just 32 years.
Vide Additional Note at the end of the volume.
Here ends Chapter 4 of Newman's Apologia, the text continues
in Chapter 5.
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