The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 7

TO BE CONTINUED.

{46}

A LETTER TO THE REV. E. B. PUSEY, D.D., ON HIS RECENT EIRENICON.

BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D., OF THE ORATORY.

Veni, Domine, et noli tardare, relaxa facinora plebi tuae; et rovoca dispersos in terram suam.

No one who desires the union of Christendom, after its many and long-standing divisions, can have any other feeling than joy, my dear Pusey, at finding from your recent volume that you see your way to make definite proposals to us for effecting that great object, and are able to lay down the basis and conditions on which you could co-operate in advancing it. It is not necessary that we should concur in the details of your scheme, or in the principles which it involves, in order to welcome the important fact that, with your personal knowledge of the Anglican body, and your experience of its composition and tendencies, you consider the time to be come when you and your friends may, without imprudence, turn your minds to the contemplation of such an enterprise. Even were you an individual member of that church, a watchman upon a high tower in a metropolis of religious opinion, we should naturally listen with interest to what you had to report of the state of the sky and the progress of the night, what stars were mounting up or what clouds gathering; what were the prospects of the three great parties which Anglicanism contains within it, and what was just now the action upon them respectively of the politics and science of the time. You do not go into these matters; but the step you have taken is evidently the measure and the issue of the view which you have formed of them all.

However, you are not a mere individual; from early youth you have devoted yourself to the Established Church, and after between forty and fifty years of unremitting labor in its service, your roots and your branches stretch out through every portion of its large territory. You, more than any one else alive, have been the present and untiring agent by whom a great work has been effected in it; and, far more than is usual, you have received in your lifetime, as well as merited, the confidence of your brethren. You cannot speak merely for yourself; your antecedents, your existing influence, are a pledge to us that what you may determine will be the determination of a mult.i.tude. Numbers, too, for whom you cannot properly be said to speak, will be moved by your authority or your arguments; and numbers, again, who are of a school more recent than your own, and who are only not your followers because they have outstripped you in their free speeches and demonstrative acts in our behalf, will, for the occasion, accept you as their spokesman. There is no one anywhere--among ourselves, in your own body, or, I suppose, in the Greek Church--who can affect so vast a circle of men, so virtuous, so able, so learned, so zealous, as come, more or less, under your influence; and I cannot pay them all a greater compliment, than to tell them they ought all to be Catholics, nor do them a more affectionate service than to pray that they may one day become such. Nor can I address myself to an act more pleasing, as I trust, to the Divine Lord of the church, and more loyal and dutiful to his Vicar on earth, than to attempt, however, feebly, to promote so great a consummation.

{47}

I know the joy it would give those conscientious men of whom I am speaking to be one with ourselves. I know how their hearts spring up with a spontaneous transport at the very thought of union; and what yearning is theirs after that great privilege, which they have not, communion with the See of Peter and its present, past, and future. I conjecture it by what I used to feel myself, while yet in the Anglican Church. I recollect well what an outcast I seemed to myself when I took down from the shelves of my library the volumes of St. Athanasius or St. Basil, and set myself to study them; and how, on the contrary, when at length I was brought into Catholicism, I kissed them with delight, with a feeling that in them I had more than all that I had lost, and, as though I were directly addressing the glorious saints who bequeathed them to the Church, I said to the inanimate pages, "You are now mine, and I am now yours, beyond any mistake." Such, I conceive, would be the joy of the persons I speak of, if they could wake up one morning and find themselves possessed by right of Catholic traditions and hopes, without violence to their own sense of duty; and, certainly, I am the last man to say that such violence is in any case lawful, that the claims of conscience are not paramount, or that any one may overleap what he deliberately holds to be G.o.d's command, in order to make his path easier for him or his heart lighter.

I am the last man to quarrel with this jealous deference to the voice of our conscience, whatever judgment others may form of us in consequence, for this reason--because their case, as it at present stands, has, as you know, been my own. You recollect well what hard things were said against us twenty-five years ago, which we knew in our hearts we did not deserve. Hence, I am now in the position of the fugitive queen in the well-known pa.s.sage, who, "haud ignara mali"

herself, had learned to sympathize with those who were inheritors of her past wanderings. There were priests, good men, whose zeal outstripped their knowledge, and who in consequence spoke confidently, when they would have been wiser had they suspended their adverse judgment of those whom they had soon to welcome as brethren in communion. We at that time were in worse plight than your friends are now, for our opponents put their very hardest thoughts of us into print. One of them wrote thus in a letter addressed to one of the Catholic bishops:

"That this Oxford crisis is a real progress to Catholicism, I have all along considered a perfect delusion. ... I look upon Mr. Newman, Dr. Pusey, and their a.s.sociates as wily and crafty, though unskilful, guides... . The embrace of Mr. Newman is the kiss that would betray us... . But--what is the most striking feature in the rancorous malignity of these men--their calumnies are often lavished upon us, when we should be led to think that the subject-matter of their treatises closed every avenue against their vituperation. The three last volumes [of the Tracts] have opened my eyes to the craftiness and the cunning, as well as the malice, of the members of the Oxford convention... . If the Puseyites are to be the new apostles of Great Britain, my hopes for my country are lowering and gloomy... . I would never have consented to enter the lists against this strange confraternity ... if I did not feel that my own prelate was opposed to the guile and treachery of these men... . .

I impeach Dr. Pusey and his friends of a deadly hatred of our religion... . . What, my lord, would the Holy See think of the works of these Puseyites? ..."

Another priest, himself a convert, wrote:

"As we approach toward Catholicity our love and respect increases, and our violence dies away; but the bulk of these men become more rabid as they become like Rome, a plain proof of their designs. ...

I do not believe that they are any nearer the portals of the Catholic Church than the most prejudiced Methodist and Evangelical preacher... . Such, rev. sir, is an outline of my views on the Oxford movement."

{48}

I do not say that such a view of us was unnatural; and, for myself, I readily confess that I had used about the church such language that I had no claim on Catholics for any mercy. But, after all, and in fact, they were wrong in their antic.i.p.ations--nor did their brethren agree with them at the time. Especially Dr. Wiseman (as he was then) took a larger and more generous view of us; nor did the Holy See interfere, though the writer of one of these pa.s.sages invoked its judgment. The event showed that the more cautious line of conduct was the more prudent; and one of the bishops, who had taken part against us, with a supererogation of charity, sent me on his death-bed an expression of his sorrow for having in past years mistrusted me. A faulty conscience, faithfully obeyed, through G.o.d's mercy, had in the long run brought me right.

Fully, then, do I recognize the rights of conscience in this matter. I find no fault in your stating, as clearly and completely as you can, the difficulties which stand in the way of your joining us. I cannot wonder that you begin with stipulating conditions of union, though I do not concur in them myself, and think that in the event you yourself would be content to let them drop. Such representations as yours are necessary to open the subject in debate; they ascertain how the land lies, and serve to clear the ground. Thus I begin; but, after allowing as much as this, I am obliged in honesty to say what I fear, my dear Pusey, will pain you. Yet I am confident, my very dear friend, that at least you will not be angry with me if I say, what I must say, or say nothing at all, that there is much both in the matter and in the manner of your volume calculated to wound those who love you well, but love truth more. So it is; with the best motives and kindest intentions, "Caedimur, et totidem plagis consumimus hostem." We give you a sharp cut, and you return it. You complain of our being "dry, hard, and unsympathizing;" and we answer that you are unfair and irritating. But we at least have not professed to be composing an Irenicon, when we treated you as foes. There was one of old time who wreathed his sword in myrtle; excuse me--you discharge your olive-branch as if from a catapult.

Do not think I am not serious; if I spoke seriously, I should seem to speak harshly. Who will venture to a.s.sert that the hundred pages which you have devoted to the Blessed Virgin give other than a one-sided view of our teaching about her, little suited to win us? It may be a salutary castigation, if any of us have fairly provoked it, but it is not making the best of matters; it is not smoothing the way for an understanding or a compromise. It leads a writer in the most moderate and liberal Anglican newspaper of the day, the "Guardian," to turn away from your representation of us with horror. "It is language,"

says your reviewer, "which, after having often heard it, we still can only hear with horror. We had rather not quote any of it, or of the comments upon it." What could an Exeter Hall orator, what could a Scotch commentator on the Apocalypse, do more for his own side of the controversy by the picture he drew of us? You may be sure that what creates horror on one side will be answered by indignation on the other, and these are not the most favorable dispositions for a peace conference. I had been accustomed to think that you, who in times past were ever less declamatory in controversy than myself, now that years had gone on, and circ.u.mstances changed, had come to look on our old warfare against Rome as cruel and inexpedient. Indeed, I know that it was a chief objection urged against me only last year by persons who agreed with you in deprecating an oratory at Oxford, which at that time was in prospect, that such an undertaking would be the signal for the rekindling of that fierce style of polemics which is now out of date. I had fancied you shared in that opinion; but now, as if {49} to show how imperative you deem its renewal, you actually bring to life one of my own strong sayings in 1841, which had long been in the grave--that "the Roman Church comes as near to idolatry as can be supposed in a church, of which it said, 'The idols he shall utterly abolish,'" p. 111.

I know, indeed, and feel deeply, that your frequent references in your volume to what I have lately or formerly written are caused by your strong desire to be still one with me as far as you can, and by that true affection which takes pleasure in dwelling on such sayings of mine as you can still accept with the full approbation of your judgment. I trust I am not ungrateful or irresponsive to you in this respect; but other considerations have an imperative claim to be taken into account. Pleasant as it is to agree with you, I am bound to explain myself in cases in which I have changed my mind, or have given a wrong impression of my meaning, or have been wrongly reported; and, while I trust that I have better than such personal motives for addressing you in print, yet it will serve to introduce my main subject, and give me an opportunity for remarks which bear upon it indirectly, if I dwell for a page or two on such matters contained in your volume as concern myself.

1. The mistake which I have princ.i.p.ally in view is the belief, which is widely spread, that I have publicly spoken of the Anglican Church as "the great bulwark against infidelity in this land." In a pamphlet of yours, a year old, you spoke of "a very earnest body of Roman Catholics" who "rejoice in all the workings of G.o.d the Holy Ghost in the Church of England (whatever they think of her), and are saddened by what weakens her who is, in G.o.d's hands, the great bulwark against infidelity in this land." The concluding words you were thought to quote from my "Apologia." In consequence, Dr. Manning, now our archbishop, replied to you, a.s.serting, as you say, "the contradictory of that statement." In that counter-a.s.sertion he was at the time generally considered (rightly or wrongly, as it may be), though writing to you, to be really correcting statements in my "Apologia,"

without introducing my name. Further, in the volume which you have now published, you recur to the saying, and you speak of its author in terms which, did I not know your partial kindness for me, would hinder me from identifying him with myself. You say, "The saying was not mine, but that of one of the deepest thinkers and observers in the Roman communion," p. 7. A friend has suggested to me that, perhaps, you mean De Maistre; and, from an anonymous letter which I have received from Dublin, I find it is certain that the very words in question were once used by Archbishop Murray; but you speak of the author of them as if now alive. At length a reviewer of your volume, in the "Weekly Register," distinctly attributes them to me by name, and gives me the first opportunity I have had of disowning them; and this I now do. What, at some time or other, I may have said in conversation or private letter, of course, I cannot tell; but I have never, I am sure, used the word "bulwark" of the Anglican Church deliberately. What I said in my "Apologia" was this: That that church was "a serviceable breakwater against errors more fundamental than its own." A bulwark is an integral part of the thing it defends; whereas the words "serviceable" and "breakwater" imply a kind of protection which is accidental and _de facto_. Again, in saying that the Anglican Church is a defence against "errors more fundamental than its own," I imply that it has errors, and those fundamental.

2. There is another pa.s.sage in your volume, at p. 337, which it may be right to observe upon. You have made a collection of pa.s.sages from the fathers, as witnesses in behalf of your doctrine that the whole Christian faith is contained in Scripture, as if, in your sense of the words. Catholics contradicted you here. {50} And you refer to my notes on St. Athanasius as contributing pa.s.sages to your list; but, after all, neither do you, nor do I in my notes, affirm any doctrine which Rome denies. Those notes also make frequent reference to a traditional teaching, which (be the faith ever so certainly contained in Scripture) still is necessary as a Regula Fidei, for showing us that it is contained there--_vid_. pp. 283, 344--and this tradition, I know, you uphold as fully as I do in the notes in question. In consequence, you allow that there is a twofold rule. Scripture and tradition; and this is all that Catholics say. How, then, do Anglicans differ from Rome here? I believe the difference is merely one of words; and I shall be doing, so far, the work of an Irenicon, if I make clear what this verbal difference is. Catholics and Anglicans (I do not say Protestants) attach different meanings to the word "proof,"

in the controversy whether the whole faith is, or is not, contained in Scripture. We mean that not every article of faith is so contained there, that it may thence be logically proved, _independently_ of the teaching and authority of the tradition; but Anglicans mean that every article of faith is so contained there, that it may thence be proved, _provided_ there be added the ill.u.s.trations and compensations of the tradition. And it is in this latter sense, I conceive, the fathers also speak in the pa.s.sages which you quote from them. I am sure at least that St. Athanasius frequently adduces pa.s.sages as proofs of points in controversy which no one would see to be proofs unless apostolical tradition were taken into account, first as suggesting, then as authoritatively ruling, their meaning. Thus, _you_ do not deny that the whole is not in Scripture in such sense that pure unaided logic can draw it from the sacred text; nor do _we_ deny that the faith is in Scripture, in an improper sense, in the sense that _tradition_ is able to recognize and determine it there. You do not profess to dispense with tradition; nor do we forbid the idea of probable, secondary, symbolical, connotative senses of Scripture, over and above those which properly belong to the wording and context. I hope you will agree with me in this.

3. Nor is it only in isolated pa.s.sages that you give me a place in your volume. A considerable portion of it is written with reference to two publications of mine, one of which you name and defend, the other you tacitly protest against: "Tract 90," and the "Essay on Doctrinal Development," As to "Tract 90," you have from the first, as all the world knows, boldly stood up for it, in spite of the obloquy which it brought upon you, and have done me a great service. You are now republis.h.i.+ng it with my cordial concurrence; but I take this opportunity of noticing, lest there should be any mistake on the part of the public, that you do so with a different object from that which I had when I wrote it. Its original purpose was simply that of justifying myself and others in subscribing to the Thirty-nine Articles while professing many tenets which had popularly been considered distinctive of the Roman faith. I considered that my interpretation of the Articles, as I gave it in that Tract, would stand, provided the parties imposing them allowed it, otherwise I thought it could not stand; and, when in the event the bishops and public opinion did not allow it, I gave up my living, as having no right to retain it. My feeling about the interpretation is expressed in a pa.s.sage in "Loss and Gain," which runs thus:

"'Is it,' asked Reding, 'a received view?' 'No view is received,'

said the other; 'the Articles themselves are received, but there is no authoritative interpretation of them at all.' 'Well,' said Reding, 'is it a tolerated view?' 'It certainly has been strongly opposed,' answered Bateman; 'but it has never been condemned.' 'That is no answer,' said Charles. 'Does any one bishop hold it? Did any one bishop ever hold it? Has it ever been formally admitted as tenable by any one bishop? Is it a view got up to meet existing difficulties, or has it an historical existence?' Bateman could give only one answer to {51} these questions, as they were successively put to him. 'I thought so,' said Charles; 'the view is specious certainly. I don't we why it might not have done, had it been tolerably sanctioned; but you have no sanction to show me. As it stands, it is a mere theory struck out by individuals. Our church _might_ have adopted this mode of interpreting the Articles; but, from what you tell me, it certainly has not done so.'"--Ch. 15.

However, the Tract did not carry its object and conditions on its face, and necessarily lay open to interpretations very far from the true one. Dr. Wiseman (as he then was), in particular, with the keen apprehension which was his characteristic, at once saw in it a basis of accommodation between Anglicanism and Rome. He suggested broadly that the decrees of the Council of Trent should be made the rule of interpretation for the Thirty-nine Articles, a proceeding of which Sancta Clara, I think, had set the example; and, as you have observed, published a letter to Lord Shrewsbury on the subject, of which the following are extracts:

"We Catholics must necessarily deplore [England's] separation as a deep moral evil--as state of schism of which nothing can justify the continuance. Many members of the Anglican Church view it in the same light as to the first point--its sad evil; though they excuse their individual position in it as an unavoidable misfortune... . We may depend upon a willing, an able, and a most zealous co-operation with any effort which we may make toward bringing her into her rightful position, in Catholic unity with the Holy See and the churches of its obedience--in other words, with the church Catholic. Is this a visionary idea? Is it merely the expression of strong desire? I know that many will so judge it; and, perhaps, were I to consult my own quiet, I would not venture to express it. But I will, in simplicity of heart, cling to hopefulness, cheered, as I feel it, by so many promising appearances... .

"A natural question here presents itself--what facilities appear in the present state of things for bringing about so happy a consummation as the reunion of England to the Catholic Church, beyond what have before existed, and particularly under Archbishops Laud or Wake? It strikes me, many. First, etc... . A still more promising circ.u.mstance I think your lords.h.i.+p will with me consider the _plan_ which the eventful 'Tract No. 90' has pursued, and in which Mr. Ward, Mr. Oakeley, and even Dr. Pusey have agreed. I allude to the method of _bringing their doctrines into accordance with ours by explanation._ A foreign priest has pointed out to us a valuable doc.u.ment for our consideration--'Bossuet's Reply to the Pope,' when consulted on the best method of reconciling the followers of the Augsburg Confession with the Holy See. The learned bishop observes, that Providence had allowed so much Catholic truth to be preserved in that Confession that full advantage should be taken of the circ.u.mstance; that no retractations should be demanded, but an explanation of the Confession in accordance with Catholic doctrines. Now, for such a method as this, the way is in part prepared by the demonstration that such interpretation may be given of the most difficult Articles as will strip them of all contradiction to the decrees of the Tridentine Synod. The same method may be pursued on other points; and much pain may thus be spared to individuals, and much difficulty to the church."--Pp. 11, 35, 38.

This use of my Tract, so different from my own, but sanctioned by the great name of our cardinal, you are now reviving; and I gather from your doing so, that your bishops and the opinion of the public are likely now, or in prospect, to admit what twenty-five years ago they refused. On this point, much as it rejoices me to know your antic.i.p.ation, of course I cannot have an opinion.

4. So much for "Tract 90." On the other hand, as to my "Essay on Doctrinal Development," I am sorry to find you do not look upon it with friendly eyes; though how, without its aid, you can maintain the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and incarnation, and others which you hold, I cannot understand. You consider my principle may be the means, in time to come, of introducing into our Creed, as portions of the necessary Catholic faith, the infallibility of the Pope, and various opinions, pious or profane, as it may be, about our Blessed Lady. I hope to remove your anxiety as to these consequences, before I bring my {52} observations to an end; at present I notice it as my apology for interfering in a controversy which at first sight is no business of mine.

5. I have another reason for writing; and that is, unless it is rude in me to say so, because you seem to think writing does not become me.

I do not like silently to acquiesce in such a judgment You say at p.

98:

"Nothing can be more unpractical than for an individual to throw himself into the Roman Church because he could accept the _letter_ of the Council of Trent. Those who were born Roman Catholics have a liberty which, in the nature of things, a person could not have who left another system to embrace that of Rome. I cannot imagine how any faith could stand the shock of leaving one system, criticising _it_, and cast himself into another system, criticising _it_. For myself, I have always felt that had (which G.o.d of his mercy avert hereafter also) the English Church, by accepting heresy, driven me out of it, I could have gone in no other way than that of closing my eyes, and accepting whatever was put before me. But a liberty which individuals could not use, and explanations which, so long as they remain individual, must be unauthoritative, might be formally made by the Church of Rome to the Church of England as the basis of reunion."

And again, p. 210:

"It seems to me to be a psychological impossibility for one who has already exchanged one system for another to make those distinctions.

One who, by his own act, places himself under authority, cannot make conditions about his submission. But definite explanations of our Articles have, before now, been at least tentatively offered to us, on the Roman and Greek side, as sufficient to restore communion; and the Roman explanations too were, in most cases, mere supplements to our Articles, on points upon which our Church had not spoken."

Now pa.s.sages such as these seem almost a challenge to me to speak, and to keep silence would be to a.s.sent to the justice of them. At the cost, then, of speaking about myself, of which I feel there has been too much of late, I observe upon them as follows: Of course, as you say, a convert comes to learn, and not to pick and choose. He comes in simplicity and confidence, and it does not occur to him to weigh and measure every proceeding, every practice which he meets with among those whom he has joined. He comes to Catholicism as to a living system, with a living teaching, and not to a mere collection of decrees and canons, which by themselves are of course but the framework, not the body and substance, of the church. And this is a truth which concerns, which binds, those also who never knew any other religion, not only the convert. By the Catholic system I mean that rule of life and those practices of devotion for which we shall look in vain in the Creed of Pope Pius. The convert comes, not only to believe the church, but also to trust and obey her priests, and to conform himself in charity to her people. It would never do for him to resolve that he never would say a Hail Mary, never avail himself of an indulgence, never kiss a crucifix, never accept the Lent dispensations, never mention a venial sin in confession. All this would not only be unreal, but dangerous, too, as arguing a wrong state of mind, which could not look to receive the divine blessing.

Moreover, he comes to the ceremonial, and the moral theology, and the ecclesiastical regulations which he finds on the spot where his lot is cast. And again, as regards matters of politics, of education, of general expedience, of taste, he does not criticise or controvert. And thus surrendering himself to the influences of his new religion, and not losing what is revealed truth by attempting by his own private rule to discriminate every moment its substance from its accidents, he is gradually so indoctrinated in Catholicism as at length to have a right to speak as well as to hear. Also, in course of time, a new generation rises round him; and there is no reason why he should not know as much, and decide questions with as true an instinct, as those who perhaps number fewer years than he does Easter communions. {53} He has mastered the fact and the nature of the differences of theologian from theologian, school from school, nation from nation, era from era.

He knows that there is much of what may be called fas.h.i.+on in opinions and practices, according to the circ.u.mstances of time and place, according to current politics, the character of the Pope of the day, or the chief prelates of a particular country, and that fas.h.i.+ons change. His experience tells him, that sometimes what is denounced in one place as a great offence, or preached up as a first principle, has in another nation been immemorially regarded in just a contrary sense, or has made no sensation at all, one way or the other, when brought before public opinion; and that loud talkers, in the church as elsewhere, are apt to carry all before them, while quiet and conscientious persons commonly have to give way. He perceives that, in matters which happen to be in debate, ecclesiastical authority watches the state of opinion and the direction and course of controversy, and decides accordingly; so that in certain cases to keep back his own judgment on a point is to be disloyal to his superiors.

So far generally; now in particular as to myself. After twenty years of Catholic life, I feel no delicacy in giving my opinion on any point when there is a call for me, and the only reason why I have not done so sooner, or more often than I have, is that there has been no call.

I have now reluctantly come to the conclusion that your volume _is_ a call. Certainly, in many instances in which theologian differs from theologian, and country from country, I have a definite judgment of my own; I can say so without offence to any one, for the very reason that from the nature of the case it is impossible to agree with all of them. I prefer English habits of belief and devotion to foreign, from the same causes, and by the same right, which justify foreigners in preferring their own. In following those of my people, I show less singularity and create less disturbance than if I made a flourish with what is novel and exotic. And in this line of conduct I am but availing myself of the teaching which I fell in with on becoming a Catholic; and it is a pleasure to me to think that what I hold now, and would transmit after me if I could, is only what I received then.

The utmost delicacy was observed on all hands in giving me advice; only one warning remains on my mind, and it came from Dr. Griffiths, the late vicar-apostolic of the London district. He warned me against books of devotion of the Italian school, which were just at that time coming into England; and when I asked him what books he recommended as safe guides, he bade me get the works of Bishop Hay. By this I did not understand that he was jealous of all Italian books, or made himself responsible for all that Dr. Hay happens to have said; but I took him to caution me against a character and tone of religion, excellent in its place, not suited for England. When I went to Rome, though it may seem strange to you to say it, even there I learned nothing inconsistent with this judgment. Local influences do not supply an atmosphere for its inst.i.tutions and colleges, which are Catholic in teaching as well as in name. I recollect one saying among others of my confessor, a Jesuit father, one of the holiest, most prudent men I ever knew. He said that we could not love the Blessed Virgin too much, if we loved our Lord a great deal more. When I returned to England, the first expression of theological opinion which came in my way was _apropos_ of the series of translated saints' lives which the late Dr.

Faber originated. That expression proceeded from a wise prelate, who was properly anxious as to the line which might be taken by the Oxford converts, then for the first time coming into work. According as I recollect his opinion, he was apprehensive of the effect of Italian {54} compositions, as unsuited to this country, and suggested that the lives should be original works, drawn up by ourselves and our friends from Italian sources. If at that time I was betrayed into any acts which were of a more extreme character than I should approve now, the responsibility of course is mine; but the impulse came not from old Catholics or superiors, but from men whom I loved and trusted who were younger than myself. But to whatever extent I might be carried away, and I cannot recollect any tangible instances, my mind in no long time fell back to what seems to me a safer and more practical course.

Though I am a convert, then, I think I have a right to speak out; and that the more because other converts have spoken for a long time, while I have not spoken; and with still more reason may I speak without offence in the case of your present criticisms of us, considering that, in the charges you bring, the only two English writers you quote in evidence are both of them converts, younger in age than myself. I put aside the archbishop, of course, because of his office. These two authors are worthy of all consideration, at once from their character and from their ability. In their respective lines they are perhaps without equals at this particular time; and they deserve the influence they possess. One is still in the vigor of his powers; the other has departed amid the tears of hundreds. It is pleasant to praise them for their real qualifications; but why do you rest on them as authorities? Because the one was "a popular writer;"

but is there not sufficient reason for this in the fact of his remarkable gifts, of his poetical fancy, his engaging frankness, his playful wit, his affectionateness, his sensitive piety, without supposing that the wide diffusion of his works arises out of his particular sentiments about the Blessed Virgin? And as to our other friend, do not his energy, acuteness, and theological reading, displayed on the vantage ground of the historic "Dublin Review," fully account for the sensation he has produced, without supposing that any great number of our body go his lengths in their view of the Pope's infallibility? Our silence as regards their writings is very intelligible: it is not agreeable to protest, in the sight of the world, against the writings of men in our own communion whom we love and respect. But the plain fact is this--they came to the Church, and have thereby saved their souls; but they are in no sense spokesmen for English Catholics, and they must not stand in the place of those who have a real t.i.tle to such an office. The chief authors of the pa.s.sing generation, some of them still alive, others gone to their reward, are Cardinal Wiseman, Dr. Ullathorne, Dr. Lingard, Mr. Tierney, Dr.

Oliver, Dr. Rock, Dr. Waterworth, Dr. Husenbeth, and Mr. Flanagan; which of these ecclesiastics has said anything extreme about the prerogatives of the Blessed Virgin or the infallibility of the Pope?

I cannot, then, without remonstrance, allow you to identify the doctrine of our Oxford friends in question, on the two subjects I have mentioned, with the present spirit or the prospective creed of Catholics; or to a.s.sume, as you do, that, because they are thorough-going and relentless in their statements, therefore they are the harbingers of a new age, when to show a deference for antiquity will be thought little else than a mistake. For myself, hopeless as you consider it, I am not ashamed still to take my stand upon the fathers, and do not mean to budge. The history of their times is not yet an old almanac to me. Of course I maintain the value and authority of the "Schola," as one of the _loci theologici;_ still I sympathize with Petavius in preferring to its "contentious and subtle theology"

that {55} "more elegant and fruitful teaching which is moulded after the image of erudite antiquity." The fathers made me a Catholic, and I am not going to kick down the ladder by which I ascended into the church. It is a ladder quite as serviceable for that purpose now as it was twenty years ago. Though I hold, as you remark, a process of development in apostolic truth as time goes on, such development does not supersede the fathers, but explains and completes them. And, in particular, as regards our teaching concerning the Blessed Virgin, with the fathers I am content; and to the subject of that teaching I mean to address myself at once. I do so because you say, as I myself have said in former years, that "that vast system as to the Blessed Virgin ... . to all of us has been the special _crux_ of the Roman system," p. 101. Here, I say, as on other points, the fathers are enough for me. I do not wish to say more than they, and will not say less. You, I know, will profess the same; and thus we can join issue on a clear and broad principle, and may hope to come to some intelligible result. We are to have a treatise on the subject of our Lady soon from the pen of the most reverend prelate; but that cannot interfere with such a mere argument from the fathers as that to which I shall confine myself here. Nor indeed, as regards that argument itself, do I profess to be offering you any new matter, any facts which have not been used by others--by great divines, as Petavius, by living writers, nay, by myself on other occasions; I write afresh nevertheless, and that for three reasons: first, because I wish to contribute to the accurate statement and the full exposition of the argument in question; next, because I may gain a more patient hearing than has sometimes been granted to better men than myself; lastly, because there just now seems a call on me, under my circ.u.mstances, to avow plainly what I do and what I do not hold about the Blessed Virgin, that others may know, did they come to stand where I stand, what they would and what they would not be bound to hold concerning her.

I begin by making a distinction which will go far to remove good part of the difficulty of my undertaking, as it presents itself to ordinary inquirers--the distinction between faith and devotion. I fully grant that _devotion_ toward the Blessed Virgin has increased among Catholics with the progress of centuries; I do not allow that the _doctrine_ concerning her has undergone a growth, for I believe that it has been in substance one and the same from the beginning.

By "faith" I mean the Creed and the acceptance of the Creed; by "devotion" I mean such religious honors as belong to the objecis of our faith, and the payment of those honors. Faith and devotion are as distinct in fact as they are in idea. We cannot, indeed, be devout without faith, but we may believe without feeling devotion. Of this phenomenon every one has experience both in himself and in others; and we express it as often as we speak of realizing a truth or not realizing it. It may be ill.u.s.trated, with more or less exactness, by matters which come before us in the world. For instance, a great author, or public man, may be acknowledged as such for a course of years; yet there may be an increase, an ebb and flow, and a fas.h.i.+on, in his popularity. And if he takes a lasting place in the minds of his countrymen, he may gradually grow into it, or suddenly be raised to it. The idea of Shakespeare as a great poet has existed from a very early date in public opinion; and there were at least individuals then who understood him as well, and honored him as much, as the English people can honor him now; yet, I think, there is a national devotion to him in this day such as never has been before. This has happened because, as education spreads in the country, there are more men able to enter into his {56} poetical genius, and, among these, more capacity again for deeply and critically understanding him; and yet, from the first, he has exerted a great insensible influence over the nation, as is seen in the circ.u.mstance that his phrases and sentences, more than can be numbered, have become almost proverbs among us. And so again in philosophy, and in the arts and sciences, great truths and principles have sometimes been known and acknowledged for a course of years; but, whether from feebleness of intellectual power in the recipients, or external circ.u.mstances of an accidental kind, they have not been turned to account. Thus, the Chinese are said to have known of the properties of the magnet from time immemorial, and to have used it for land expeditions, yet not on the sea. Again, the ancients knew of the principle that water finds its own level, but seem to have made little application of their knowledge. And Aristotle was familiar with the principle of induction; yet it was left for Bacon to develop it into an experimental philosophy. Ill.u.s.trations such as these, though not altogether apposite, serve to convey that distinction between faith and devotion on which I am insisting. It is like the distinction between objective and subjective truth. The sun in the springtime will have to s.h.i.+ne many days before he is able to melt the frost, open the soil, and bring out the leaves; yet he s.h.i.+nes out from the first, notwithstanding, though he makes his power felt but gradually. It is one and the same sun, though his influence day by day becomes greater; and so in the Catholic Church, it is the one Virgin Mother, one and the same from first to last, and Catholics may acknowledge her; and yet, in spite of that acknowledgment, their devotion to her may be scanty in one time and place and overflowing in another.

This distinction is forcibly brought home to a convert, as a peculiarity of the Catholic religion, on his first introduction to its wors.h.i.+p. The faith is everywhere one and the same; but a large liberty is accorded to private judgment and inclination in matters of devotion. Any large church, with its collections and groups of people, will ill.u.s.trate this. The fabric itself is dedicated to Almighty G.o.d, and that under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin, or some particular saint; or again, of some mystery belonging to the Divine name, or to the incarnation, or of some mystery a.s.sociated with the Blessed Virgin. Perhaps there are seven altars or more in it, and these again have their several saints. Then there is the feast proper to the particular day; and, during the celebration of ma.s.s, of all the wors.h.i.+ppers who crowd around the priest each has his own particular devotions, with which he follows the rite. No one interferes with his neighbor; agreeing, as it were, to differ, they pursue independently a common end, and by paths, distinct but converging, present themselves before G.o.d. Then there are confraternities attached to the church: of the sacred heart, or the precious blood; a.s.sociations of prayer for a good death, or the repose of departed souls, or the conversion of the heathen: devotions connected with the brown, blue, or red scapular; not to speak of the great ordinary ritual through the four seasons, the constant presence of the blessed sacrament, its ever recurring rite of benediction, and its extraordinary forty hours' exposition.

Or, again, look through some such manual of prayers as the _Raccolta_, and you at once will see both the number and the variety of devotions which are open to individual Catholics to choose from, according to their religious taste and prospect of personal edification.