DR. PUSEY.* THIS biography, written by the gifted lady who
prefers to be known as the biographer of Charles Lowder, is not an abridg- ment of the standard Life by Dr. Liddon, but an independent work, based to some extent upon fresh materials of a more intimate character than could be made use of by Dr. Liddon, whose task was as much a. history of the Oxford Movement as a Life of its prime mover. The present book, while it goes chronologically through the main facts in Pusey's life, and gives succinct accounts of all the controversies in which he played a part, is more concerned with the inner aspects of that life ; and we may say at once that the picture that is drawn here of the much-maligned Doctor strikes us as lifelike and truthful, because it explains both the enthusiasm and reverence with which his friends regarded him, and the suspicion he aroused among ordinary Englishmen of the day. That suspicion is well illustrated by the nickname of the " Church Bell " given him by Pio Nono, on the ground that he rang men into the Church (of Rome) while remaining out- side himself ; and such suspicion took, in the case of Bishop Wilberforce, the quite unstatesmanlike and indefensible form of an inhibition from preaching in the diocese, because the effect of his teaching, which the Bishop allowed to be in itself in no point heretical, was to incline those under his influence towards the Church of Rome. What were the grounds of this suspicion ?
• The Story of Dr. Pullers Life. By the Author o Charles Lowder." London : Longman. and Co. [7e. 64.1
In the first place, the revival of interest in the English Church as a branch of the Church Catholic which was accentu- ated as a reaction from the Erastianism of the Whig Ministry of 1833 necessarily led to a re-examination of the Roman controversy. It was felt to be absurd that one branch of a divinely founded institution should have nothing but abuse for another branch of the same institution. The words of the Nineteenth Article of Religion, " That the Church of Rome hath erred," could no longer be held a sufficient description of that Church. When the Evangelical Churchmen at Oxford proposed, as a party move against the Tractarians, to found the Martyrs' Memorial, we find Pusey in a difficulty as to the right course to take, because he recognised, on the one hand, that to the Reformation generally " we owe our peculiar posi- tion as adherents to primitive antiquity," but, on the other, he had no esteem for Cranmer as an exact theologian, and held that the theology of the Prayer-book was that of its latest revisers, the Caroline divines. Also he dreaded the appear- ance of insincerity in taking up the Reformation to gain popularity." This tenderness of conscience and this high sense of theological scholarship often interfered to prevent his saying something striking against Rome when such a course was recommended to him by friends like Mr.
Gladstone, and when it would undoubtedly have been politic to allay popular suspicion, as, for example, at the time of the "Papal Aggression in 1850. Then, again, the fact that his dearest and most respected friend had joined the Church of Rome, a secession which for a type of mind like Wilberforce's only made partisanship doubly bitter, to Pusey was an addi- tional reason for thinking as well of that Church as possible, though not for a moment did he himself hesitate in loyalty to his own Church. But the public, who cannot read a man's heart, did not know that Pusey would not follow Newman, and the long tale of those who did follow made the suspicion inevitable. Another cause of suspicion which lay against the whole party, inasmuch as they were reviving forgotten doc- trines, and seeking to re-establish forgotten discipline, was intensified against Dr. Pusey, because he had the courage to go against a prejudice of centuries, and re-establish religious communities ; moreover, not finding in England devotional literature of the type he desired for his sisterhood, he set about adapting Roman manuals. A less simple-minded man would have taken what he wanted without advertising its source.
For it is curious that while Pusey was credited by the Evangelicals with a Jesuitical cunning, he was in fact one of the simplest of men ; and while his courage rendered him the best possible leader of a forlorn hope, he was by no means au ideal leader of a party. The early history of St. Saviour's, at Leeds, the church which he himself built, out of humility sup- pressing his own name, is a long story of mismanagement. The author in the chapter dealing with these troubles is inclined to smile at the bitterness with which Dr. Hook, the vicar of Leeds, complained to Pusey of the doings at St. Saviour's ; but con- sidering that in the first five years after the church was opened nine of the clergy seceded to Rome, Dr. Hook must be held justified in his animosity. In this case, as in most others, the disciples had outgone their master. In regard to their teaching, for example, about confession, while Dr. Hook and Dr. Pusey would have been at one, it was elicited at an investigation held by the Bishop of the diocese that the doctrine taught at St. Saviour's was not short of the Roman doctrine that confession to a priest was of absolute obligation.
The writer says, in deprecation of criticism, that " all and far more than all then done or taught is fully sanctioned by the Prayer-book, and is accepted as a matter of course by even moderate Churchmen." There must be some mistake here. It is undoubtedly true that the necessity of auricular confes- sion is much more commonly taught now than it was fifty years ago, but such teaching is not sanctioned by the Prayer- book, nor is it accepted as a matter of course by moderate Churchmen. On the contrary, they protest against it as a pestilent heresy. It may be interesting to quote some words of Dr. Pusey's about the conduct of the Ritualists in 1874, which apply equally well tohthat of his own young men in 1847, and that of the extreme Ritualists to-day
" Everybody seems to think himself exactly right. A great storm has been raised, and it does not seem to them, or any one of them, that they may have made a mistake, either in what they have done, or the mode or time of doine it. It is not their faith,
but their practices which rouse up the storm ; their arbitrari- ness; their principle that the priest is to regulate worship (according to his own judgment or misjudgment) without refer. ence to bishop or people ; their enforcing confession.; the uncer- tainty that, on any of them being appointed, the worship may not be changed without any one being consulted; the fussiness, pettiness, self-consciousness."
In one of T. E. Brown's letters written in 1893, when Liddon's Life of Pusey appeared, there occurs the following sentence :— " As to Pusey I stand amazed. Church had left me uncon- vinced, Newman, Burgon, the Mozleys had hardly shaken me ; but now before the man himself thus revealed (and the revelation is unquestionably genuine) I throw up my hands, and fall upon my knees. Yes, here was a good, good, real man. And from a patriotic point of view, what are we not to think of the patience, the firmness, the absolute confidence in his fellow-countrymen with which he waited, bestrode that fiery Pegasus, rode the great race, and won, while Newman lay sprawling on the Via Sacra? This is the unmistakable Englishman, this dogged Pusey ; dogged, but did you see the tenderness ? God forgive me, when I think of my blindness ! I feel sure that no man did anything like as much as Pusey to stave off Popery in England."
Mr. Brown was a clergyman, but he was not a " clerical," and that is why we have quoted his judgment, a judgment which, we believe, will be shared by every reader of this volume. It puts beyond doubt that Pusey was " a good, good, real man." It shows also that he was a gentleman in conduct as well as in breeding, a fine instance being his behaviour in the con- troversy about Jowett's salary as Professor of Greek, which he alone of his party thought it unjust to withhold because of theological differences. There are many things in the volume we should be glad to quote, but considerations of space forbid.
One of the best pictures of Pusey as a preacher is given from the Bristol Times (p. 314), describing a sermon in a village church near Clifton in 1847. Here is a picture of him as parish priest in East London during the cholera in 1866, drawn by the Rector of Bethnal Green at that time :— "I had been up for several nights running to two or three in the morning, attending to the sick. Wearied and at my wits' end, I had come down to a late breakfast at nine o'clock when my servant announced Dr. Pusey He had with him a letter of introduction from the Bishop. His pleasant smile, his genial manner, his hearty sympathy, expressed in a manner so winning and sincere, at once introduced him. He not only put me at my ease at once, but he made me feel at one with him directly. During breakfast he said he had heard of my working single- handed just then, and offered to act as my assistant curate, to visit the sick and dying whom I could not visit, and to minister to their spiritual wants. And he did so. Quietly and unob- trusively this true gentleman, this humble servant of. Christ, assisted me in this most trying duty of visiting the plague- stricken homes of the poor of Bethnal Green."
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