THE IRONY OF DR. PUSEY.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."
Sir,—With all due respect for Mr. Maurice, Mr. Godfrey Lush- ington, and the other writers who write against Dr. Pusey in the Times, I cannot but think that they, in common, I must say, with many otherwise very acute persons, have entirely missed the true point of Dr. Pusey's conduct.
They, honest men ! think that he is in earnest when he summons Professor Jewett before the Majesty of the Court for the Recovery of Small Debts!
Strange they should not recognize the keen and concentrated irony of the scholar, the gentleman, and the priest !
Dr. Pusey, suspended from the University pulpit for heterodoxy, that is to say, personal conviction, condemned in person by Dr: Ogilvie, condemned indirectly by Dr. Heurtley, has taken an exquisite and delicate revenge.
He has engaged his persecutors in a prosecution, which in the bud has already covered them with ridicule, in the bloom must cover them with disgrace, and which, in their own persons, must furnish the ultimate reductio ad absurdum of the only essential feature, we are told, of their lives :—" Intolerance for its own sake."
Dr. Pusey is a priest, and has fulfilled the Scripture, which bids him answer those whom he, at least, must consider as fools, accord- ing to their own folly.
Mr. Maurice commends Dr. Pusey for what he calls his beauti- ful power of defying ridicule. The compliment is misplaced. He should have extolled his astonishing power of inflicting ridicule and maintaining a grave face.
He inflicts ridicule on himself, you will say. Permit me to remind you of the French maxim --" Se crever un ceuil, pour en crever deux an voisin."—I have the honour to be, Sir, your
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