Apologia pro vita sua being a history of his religious opinions
as they can. There is more exasperation on both sides at this moment, as
I am told, than ever there was."
4. "July 16, 1843. I assure you that I feel, with only too much
sympathy, what you say. You need not be told that the whole subject of
our position is a subject of anxiety to others beside yourself. It is no
good attempting to offer advice, when perhaps I might raise difficulties
instead of removing them. It seems to me quite a case, in which you
should, as far as may be, make up your mind for yourself. Come to
Littlemore by all means. We shall all rejoice in your company; and, if
quiet and retirement are able, as they very likely will be, to reconcile
you to things as they are, you shall have your fill of them. How
distressed poor Henry Wilberforce must be! Knowing how he values you, I
feel for him; but, alas! he has his own position, and every one else has
his own, and the misery is that no two of us have exactly the same.
"It is very kind of you to be so frank and open with me, as you are; but
this is a time which throws together persons who feel alike. May I
without taking a liberty sign myself, yours affectionately, &c."
5. "August 30, 1843. A. B. has suddenly conformed to the Church of Rome.
He was away for three weeks. I suppose I must say in my defence, that he
promised me distinctly to remain in our Church three years, before I
received him here."
6. "June 17, 1845. I am concerned to find you speak of me in a tone of
distrust. If you knew me ever so little, instead of hearing of me from
persons who do not know me at all, you would think differently of me,
whatever you thought of my opinions. Two years since, I got your son to
tell you my intention of resigning St. Mary's, before I made it public,
thinking you ought to know it. When you expressed some painful feeling
upon it, I told him I could not consent to his remaining here, painful
as it would be to me to part with him, without your written sanction.
And this you did me the favour to give.
"I believe you will find that it has been merely a delicacy on your
son's part, which has delayed his speaking to you about me for two
months past; a delicacy, lest he should say either too much or too
little about me. I have urged him several times to speak to you.
"Nothing can be done after your letter, but to recommend him to go to A.
B. (his home) at once. I am very sorry to part with him."
7. The following letter is addressed to Cardinal Wiseman, then Vicar
Apostolic, who accused me of coldness in my conduct towards him:--
"April 16, 1845. I was at that time in charge of a ministerial office in
the English Church, with persons entrusted to me, and a Bishop to obey;
how could I possibly write otherwise than I did without violating sacred
obligations and betraying momentous interests which were upon me? I felt
that my immediate, undeniable duty, clear if any thing was clear, was to
fulfil that trust. It might be right indeed to give it up, that was
another thing; but it never could be right to hold it, and to act as if
I did not hold it.... If you knew me, you would acquit me, I think, of
having ever felt towards your Lordship in an unfriendly spirit, or ever
having had a shadow on my mind (as far as I dare witness about myself)
of what might be called controversial rivalry or desire of getting the
better, or fear lest the world should think I had got the worse, or
irritation of any kind. You are too kind indeed to imply this, and yet
your words lead me to say it. And now in like manner, pray believe,
though I cannot explain it to you, that I am encompassed with
responsibilities, so great and so various, as utterly to overcome me,
unless I have mercy from Him, who all through my life has sustained and
guided me, and to whom I can now submit myself, though men of all
parties are thinking evil of me."
* * * * *
Such fidelity, however, was taken _in malam partem_ by the high Anglican
authorities; they thought it insidious. I happen still to have a
correspondence which took place in 1843, in which the chief place is
filled by one of the most eminent Bishops of the day, a theologian and
reader of the Fathers, a moderate man, who at one time was talked of as
likely on a vacancy to succeed to the Primacy. A young clergyman in his
diocese became a Catholic; the papers at once reported on authority from
"a very high quarter," that, after his reception, "the Oxford men had
been recommending him to retain his living." I had reasons for thinking
that the allusion was made to me, and I authorized the Editor of a
Paper, who had inquired of me on the point, to "give it, as far as I was
concerned, an unqualified contradiction;"--when from a motive of
delicacy he hesitated, I added "my direct and indignant contradiction."
"Whoever is the author of it," I continued to the Editor, "no
correspondence or intercourse of any kind, direct or indirect, has
passed between Mr. S. and myself, since his conforming to the Church of
Rome, except my formally and merely acknowledging the receipt of his
letter, in which he informed me of the fact, without, as far as I
recollect, my expressing any opinion upon it. You may state this as
broadly as I have set it down." My denial was told to the Bishop; what
took place upon it is given in a letter from which I copy. "My father
showed the letter to the Bishop, who, as he laid it down, said, 'Ah,
those Oxford men are not ingenuous.' 'How do you mean?' asked my father.
'Why,' said the Bishop, 'they advised Mr. B. S. to retain his living
after he turned Catholic. I know that to be a fact, because A. B. told
me so.'" "The Bishop," continues the letter, "who is perhaps the most
influential man in reality on the bench, evidently believes it to be the
truth." Upon this Dr. Pusey wrote in my behalf to the Bishop; and the
Bishop instantly beat a retreat. "I have the honour," he says in the
autograph which I transcribe, "to acknowledge the receipt of your note,
and to say in reply that it has not been stated by me, (though such a
statement has, I believe, appeared in some of the Public Prints,) that
Mr. Newman had advised Mr. B. S. to retain his living, after he had
forsaken our Church. But it has been stated to me, that Mr. Newman was
in close correspondence with Mr. B. S., and, being fully aware of his
state of opinions and feelings, yet advised him to continue in our
communion. Allow me to add," he says to Dr. Pusey, "that neither your
name, nor that of Mr. Keble, was mentioned to me in connexion with that
of Mr. B. S."
I was not going to let the Bishop off on this evasion, so I wrote to him
myself. After quoting his Letter to Dr. Pusey, I continued, "I beg to
trouble your Lordship with my own account of the two allegations"
[_close correspondence_ and _fully aware_, &c.] "which are contained in
your statement, and which have led to your speaking of me in terms which
I hope never to deserve. 1. Since Mr. B. S. has been in your Lordship's
diocese, I have seen him in Common rooms or private parties in Oxford
two or three times, when I never (as far as I can recollect) had any
conversation with him. During the same time I have, to the best of my
memory, written to him three letters. One was lately, in acknowledgment
of his informing me of his change of religion. Another was last summer,
when I asked him (to no purpose) to come and stay with me in this place.
The earliest of the three letters was written just a year since, as far
as I recollect, and it certainly was on the subject of his joining the
Church of Rome. I wrote this letter at the earnest wish of a friend of
his. I cannot be sure that, on his replying, I did not send him a brief
note in explanation of points in my letter which he had misapprehended.
I cannot recollect any other correspondence between us.
"2. As to my knowledge of his opinions and feelings, as far as I
remember, the only point of perplexity which I knew, the only point
which to this hour I know, as pressing upon him, was that of the Pope's
supremacy. He professed to be searching Antiquity whether the see of
Rome had formerly that relation to the whole Church which Roman
Catholics now assign to it. My letter was directed to the point, that it
was his duty not to perplex himself with arguments on [such] a question,
... and to put it altogether aside.... It is hard that I am put upon my
memory, without knowing the details of the statement made against me,
considering the various correspondence in which I am from time to time
unavoidably engaged.... Be assured, my Lord, that there are very
definite limits, beyond which persons like me would never urge another
to retain preferment in the English Church, nor would retain it
themselves; and that the censure which has been directed against them by
so many of its Rulers has a very grave bearing upon those limits." The
Bishop replied in a civil letter, and sent my own letter to his original
informant, who wrote to me the letter of a gentleman. It seems that an
anxious lady had said something or other which had been misinterpreted,
against her real meaning, into the calumny which was circulated, and so
the report vanished into thin air. I closed the correspondence with the
following Letter to the Bishop:--
"I hope your Lordship will believe me when I say, that statements about
me, equally incorrect with that which has come to your Lordship's ears,
are from time to time reported to me as credited and repeated by the
highest authorities in our Church, though it is very seldom that I have
the opportunity of denying them. I am obliged by your Lordship's letter
to Dr. Pusey as giving me such an opportunity." Then I added, with a
purpose, "Your Lordship will observe that in my Letter I had no occasion
to proceed to the question, whether a person holding Roman Catholic
opinions can in honesty remain in our Church. Lest then any
misconception should arise from my silence, I here take the liberty of
adding, that I see nothing wrong in such a person's continuing in
communion with us, provided he holds no preferment or office, abstains
from the management of ecclesiastical matters, and is bound by no
subscription or oath to our doctrines."
This was written on March 8, 1843, and was in 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