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(Postscript, p. 13.) No definite system seemed to stand in the way of what he conceived to be the best method of saving the English Church and nation; and if, in any instances deeper principles than those of the old High Church party were at work, his sense of disagreement seemed almost lost in the affectionate reverence, with which he regarded the friends of his youth who held them. His foremost thought in speaking of them was of "men at once pious, high-minded, intelligent, and full of all kindly feelings, whose intense love for the forms of the Church, fostered as it has been by all the blest associations of their pure and holy lives, has absolutely engrossed their whole nature, so that they have neither eyes to see of themselves any defect in the Liturgy and Articles, nor ears to hear of such, when alleged by others." His statement of his own opinions was blended with the bitter regret, that "they will not be willing to believe how deeply painful it is to my mind to know that I am regarded by them as an adversary, still more to feel that I am associated in their judgment with principles and with a party which I abhor as deeply as they do." (Church Reform, p. 83.)

But in 1834, 35, 36, he found his path crossed suddenly, and for the first time, by a compact body, round which all the floating elements of High Church opinions seemed to crystallize as round a natural centre: and to him, seeing, as he did from the very first, the unexpected revival of what he conceived to be the worst evils of Roman Catholicism, the mere shock of astonishment was such as can hardly be imagined by those who did not share with him

the sense either of the suddenness of its first appearance, or of the consequences contained in it. And further, this first impression was of a kind peculiarly offensive to all the tendencies of his nature, positive as well as negative. Almost the only subject insisted upon in the two first volumes of "the Tracts for the Times," 1833-36, (so far as they consisted of original papers,) was the importance of "the Apostolical Succession" of the clergy, and the consequent exclusive claims of the Church of England to be regarded as the only true Church in England, if not in the world. In other words, the one doctrine which was then put forward as the cure for the moral and social evils of the country, which he felt so keenly, was the one point in their system, which he always regarded as morally powerless, and intellectually indefensible; as incompatible with all sound notions of law and government; and as tending above all things to substitute a ceremonial for a spiritual Christianity: whilst of the many later developments of the system3, which had been objects of his admiration and aspirations, long before or altogether independently of the Tracts in question, little was said at all, and hardly any thing urged prominently.

On this new portent, as he deemed it, thus brought before his notice, the dislike, which he naturally entertained towards the principles embodied in its appearance, became at once concentrated. For individual members of the party he often testified his respect; and towards those whom he had known personally he never lost his affection, or relinquished his endeavours

a As one out of many instances may be mentioned the views already quoted in vol. i. p. 206.

to maintain a friendly intercourse with them. Still for the future he looked upon the body itself, not as formerly, through the medium of its constituent members, but of its principles; the almost imploring appeal to their sympathy, which has been quoted from the close of the Pamphlet of 1833, was never repeated. He no longer dwelt on the reflection that "in the Church of England even bigotry often wears a softer and a nobler aspect," and that "it could be no ordinary Church to have inspired such devoted adoration in such men, nor they ordinary men, over whom a sense of high moral beauty should have obtained so complete a mastery." (Ib. p. 83.) He rather felt himself called to insist on what he regarded as the dark side of the picture; "on the fanaticism which has been the peculiar disgrace of the Church of England," "a dress, a ritual, a name, a ceremony, a technical phraseology, the superstition of a priesthood without its power, the form of Episcopal government without its substance-a system imperfect and paralyzed, not independent, not sovereign,-afraid to cast off the subjection against which it was perpetually murmuring,-objects so pitiful, that, if gained ever so completely, they would make no man the wiser, or the better; they would lead to no good, intellectual, moral, or spiritual." (Ed. Rev. vol. lxiii. p. 235.)

And all his feelings of local and historical associations combined to aggravate the unfavourable aspect, under which this school presented itself to him. Those only who knew his love for Oxford, as he thought it ought to be, can understand his indignation against it, as he thought it was; nor were the passionate sympathies and antipathies of the

exiled Italian poet more sharpened by conflicting feelings towards the ideal and actual Florence, than were those of the English theologian and citizen towards Oxford, the "ancient and magnificent University" on the banks of the Thames, alike beloved as the scene of his early friendships, and longed for as the scene of his dreams of future usefulness; and Oxford, the home of the Tory and High Church clergy, the stronghold of those tendencies in England which seemed to make him their peculiar victim. And again, those only who knew how long and deeply he had dreaded the principles, which he now seemed to himself to see represented in bodily shape before him, will understand the severity with which, when strongly moved, he attacked this class of opinions. I doubt," he said, in a letter of 1838, in vindication of the absolute repulsion which he felt at that time to any one professing admiration for them, "I doubt whether I should be a good person to deal with anybody who is inclined to Newmanism. Not living in Oxford, and seeing only the books of the Newmanites, and considering only their system,

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a Lest the occurrence of this phrase here and elsewhere in the correspondence, in speaking colloquially of the opinions in question, should bear a more personal allusion to living individuals than was in his mind, it is right to give from the preface to his fourth volume of Sermons, his own deliberate notice of a similar use of the name. "In naming Mr. Newman as the chief author of the system which I have been considering, I have in no degree wished to make the question personal, but Mr. Perceval's letter authorizes us to consider him as one of the authors of it; and, as I have never had any personal acquaintance with him, I could mention his name with no shock to any private feelings either in him or in myself. But I have spoken of him simply as the

any mind that can turn towards them, i. e. their books and their system, with any thing less than unmixed aversion, appears to be already diseased; and, do what I will, I cannot make allowance enough for the peculiar circumstances of Oxford, because I cannot present them to my mind distinctly. You must remember that their doctrines are not to me like a new thing, which, never having crossed my mind before, requires now a full and impartial examination; all their notions and their arguments in defence of them, (bating some surpassing extravagances which the intoxication of success has given birth to,) have been familiar to my mind for years. They are the very errors which, in studying moral and religious truth, I have continually had to observe and to eschew; the very essence of one of the two great divisions of human falsehood, against which the wisdom of God and man has most earnestly combated,—in which man's folly and wickedness has ever found its favourite nourishment."

To these general feelings, which, though expressed at times more strongly than usual, he never altogether lost, were added occasional bursts of indignation at particular developments of what he conceived to be the natural tendency of the school to grave moral faults. These occasions will appear in his letters as they occur; of which the first and most memorable was the controversy relating to the appointment of Dr. Hampden to the Regius Professorship of Divinity, at Oxford, in the spring of 1836.

maintainer of certain doctrines, not as maintaining them in any particular manner, far less as actuated by any particular motives."

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