Apologia pro vita sua being a history of his religious opinions
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."
[15] I think Sumner, Bishop of Chester, must have done so already.
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."
[16] Deut. xxxiii. 12.
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:--
[17] On this subject, vide my Third Lecture on "Anglican Difficulties,"
also Note E, _Anglican Church_.
"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