by all the best 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 the first appearance of this new Oxford school, 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 first two 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 system, which had been objects of his admiration and aspirations, long before or altogether independent of the Tracts in question, little was said at all, and hardly anything 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 endeavors to maintain a friendly intercourse with them. Still, he looked henceforward 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

*As one out of many instances, may be mentioned the views already quoted in p. 192, vol. i.

good, intellectual, moral, or spiritual." vol. lxiii. p. 235.)

(Ed. Rev.

And all his feelings of local and historical associations combined to aggravate the unfavorable 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 HighChurch clergy, the strong-hold 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, any mind

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

that can turn towards them, i. e. their books and their system, with anything less than unmixed aversion, appears to be already diseased; and do what I will, Í 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 favorite 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.

His feelings at this juncture were shared in some respects by many others. Many on the one hand who, in general opinion, widely differed from him, were yet equally with himself persuaded that there was great unfairness in the extracts then made from Dr. Hampden's writings; and on the other hand it is no less certain that the most eminent of those who made and circulated the extracts had almost as little sympathy as himself with the general conduct and feeling of those who supported them in the columns of newspapers,

and in the tumultuous assemblies called together to the Oxford Convocation. But there were several points which combined to make it peculiarly exasperating to one with his views and in his position. The very fact of an opposition to an appointment, which on public grounds he had so much desired, was in itself irritat ing, the accusations, which, whether just or unjust, were based on subtle distinctions, alien alike to his taste and his character, and especially calculated to offend and astonish him, the general gathering of the Clergy, both of those whom he regarded as fanatics, and those whom he emphatically denounced as the party of Hophni and Phinehas, to condemn, in his judgment, on false grounds, by an irregular tribunal, an innocent individual, provoked in equal measure his anger and his scorn; his sense of truth and justice, and his natural impetuosity in behalf of what he deemed to be right.

Whatever feelings had been long smouldering in his mind against the spirit of the Conservative and HighChurch party, which for the last three years had been engaged with him in such extreme hostility, took fire at last at the sight of that spirit, displaying itself in that place, on such an occasion, and under such a form, with such tremendous strength and vehemence. And, as usual, the whole scene was invested in his eyes with a tenfold interest by the general principles which it seemed to involve. In the place of the Oxford Convocation there rose before him the image, which he declared that he could not put away from him, of the Nonjurors reviling Burnet,- of the Council of Constance condemning Huss, of the Judaizers banded together against St. Paul.

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That the object of attack was not himself, but another, and that other barely known to him, only made it the more impossible for him to keep silence; and accordingly, under the influence of these combined feelings, and with his usual rapidity of composition, he gave vent to his indignation in an article in