DR. PUSEY.*
A SHORT life of Dr. Pusey in the "English Churchman's Library" has just come out by Mr. George Russell. It is, of course, a sketch of the Tractarian movement. In that move- ment Pusey was by no means the most attractive figure. He was a man who made a great impression upon his own day, but we think that no biography of him could make much impression upon ours. There was something inhuman about him, and he does not stand among the immortals. James Anthony Froude declares that "In my own boyhood the Roman Catholic religion hung about some few ancient English families like a ghost of the past. They preserved their creed as an heirloom which tradition, rather than con- viction, made sacred to them." Pusey was the product of a revival movement, and is remembered as a figure moving about among controversies. "It seems to be thought that those who have faith may always be sacrificed with impunity to those who have none," he wrote when Archbishop Tait showed a sympathy with the men who desired to be rid of the Athanasian Creed. Pusey was "tender and pitiful to the sinner who was repentant, humble, and submissive, but iron to the doubter or the heretic." He defended his Church, or his section of the Church, very ably against foes which now seem imaginary, and at the real enemy of essential doubt he refused to look. His life is the history of many skirmishes, none of which matter in view of greater dangers. We ought to be gratified, however, to Mr. Russell for a succinct and sym- pathetic account of theological contentions which were once living, and in which Pusey once took a prominent part.
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