Pusey was aware, but of which he has said nothing in his "Eirenicon." These testify amply not only to the doctrine but to the devotion of the fourth and fifth centuries as to our Blessed Lady. He is, of course, sparing of quotations in a work like the present; but he crowns his argument from authority by a number of passages not from popular books of devotion among the Greeks, but from their liturgies and authoritative formularies -on which Dr. Pusey would have founded a strong argument to the effect that our Lady is elevated to the place of our Lord, if he had been able to find them in circulation among Catholics. In fact, a number of formal Greek devotions end with the words, "through the Theotocos," instead of "per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum." The contrast between the cogency and appositeness of every word of Dr. Newman's few quotations (almost universally given at length), and the utter illusiveness and bewildering misapplication of the clouds upon clouds of citations paraded in Dr. Pusey's volume, is wonderfully striking. Nor, again, is the difference less great between the two when a personal remark has to be made. Dr. Newman has no hard words for any one. He does not shrink from pointing out faults, as we have already said. He tells Dr. Pusey plainly enough that be does not think that he even understands what the immaculate conception means; and when he speaks of Anglicans being ignorant of the Catholic doctrine of original sin, he seems carefully to omit exempting Dr. Pusey from the general statement. He says again pointedly, "He who charges us with making Mary a divinity is thereby denying the divinity of Jesus. Such a man does not know what divinity is." He complains of the unfairness-of which, we are sorry to say, Dr. Pusey seems habitually guilty of taking a strong and apparently objectionable passage from an author who, either in the immediate context or elsewhere, has qualified it by other

statements, which any one but a partizan writer would feel bound to take into consideration and to place by its side, without giving the reader any intimation that such qualifications exist. "When, then, my dear Pusey, you read anything extravagant in praise of our Lady, is it not charitable to ask, even while you condemn it in itself, Did the author write nothing else?" (p. 101). He refuses to receive Dr. Pusey's collection of strong passages as a fair representation of the minds of the authors from whom they are quoted. He speaks of their "literal and absolute sense, as any Protestant would naturally take them, and as the writers doubtless did not use them" (p. 118). And again: "I know nothing of the originals, and cannot believe that they have meant what you say" (p. 120). But with all this strong and decisive language, which we may be sure is the very gentlest that he can use, and implies an estimate of the "Eirenicon" by no means in accordance with that of its admirers, he is so uniformly calm and affectionate in manner that we cannot but hope that Dr. Pusey and others who think with him will be won over to think more seriously of the extreme gravity of their step in casting forth upon the world of English readers so extremely intemperate an accusation against the Catholic Church as that which they have put in circulation. Nor can we abandon the hope that they will listen to Dr. Newman's clear and unanswerable statement of the doctrine of the fathers as to our Blessed Lady, and see how truly he has pointed to the flaws and defects in their own thoughts with regard to her. They will certainly be hardly able to deny that they have misunderstood not only the immaculate conception, against which they have talked so loudly, but even, it may be, original sin itself; nor do we think that it can be questioned that he has put his finger upon the fundamental error-not to say heresy-to which all their low conceptions as to the Blessed Mother of God

cy, looking on his own times as a philosophical historian of the church may look at them by-and-bye, and point out what may be accidental, transient, local, in the features of the religion of the present day. No one can be less inclined to exaggerate, for instance, the differences between English and Italian devotion; and we have seldom felt ourselves in a more Italian atmosphere, out of Italy, than in the oratory at Edgbaston. But he is not afraid of giving full weight to national differences of character, nor of avowing himself a hearty Englishman. In the same way, with out going into the question of fact as to alleged extravagances-which, after all, is of no real cogency in the argument he is ready to admit that there may be such, and puts forward a simple common-sense argument to show that such may be expected in the living working of energetic ideas generally, and especially of such ideas in matters of religion, which acts on the affections. This is the true philosophical answer; and it by no means excludes other answers that might be given to particular charges, which might be proved to be false in fact, or to apply to matters so grave as that the church would never be allowed to permit the alleged corruption.

The

Dr. Newman never shrinks from allowing the full force of any principle that he has laid down. Thus, he has distinguished between faith as to our Blessed Lady's position in the kingdom of her Son and the devotion to her founded upon that faith. faith may have been from the beginning, and actually was so, as he proves from the carly fathers; but the full devotion may not all at once have been developed; or again, it may have been checked in particular countries at a particular time, and so make no show in the writings of some fathers of that age, in consequence of the baneful influence of a prevalent heresy which cut at the faith itself. This, which is really almost self-evident, enables him not only to explain

the passages in St. Chrysostom and St. Basil which are sometimes objected to, but to grant that there are no certain traces of devotion, strictly so called, to our Blessed Lady in the writings of others beside these. There need not be, according to his principles. It must be remembered that all these statements admit of great development and explanation; they are germs of thought, and are only put forward most concisely in Dr. Newman's present letter. It is more to our present purpose to observe how ready he is to look through the cloud of charges, great and small, which Dr. Pusey has blown in the face of Catholics, and to discern in the book of his old friend a new and important turning-point in the Anglican controversy. He thinks that the indignation of Catholics has led them in consequence to misconceive Dr. Pusey, so as not, it would seem, to give him credit for really pacific intentions. We think that no one has denied-what, indeed, it does not become a critic to question-the reality of a purpose distinctly avowed; but at the same time we must repeat that it has never been denied by Dr. Pusey, nor do we think it ever can be denied, that the book was written with a clear and distinct intention so to represent Catholicism as to deter people from submitting to it except on certain terms pointed out by the author. Possibly Dr. Newman only means that Catholics have been more alienated by Dr. Pusey's most unhandsome attack than attracted by his professions of friendship; and certainly never was a friendly expostulation, never was an earnest request for explanation on certain points which appear to be difficulties in the way of a much-desired union, proposed in a way less calculated to conciliate. Dr. Newman, therefore, neither wonders nor complains at the strong feeling with which the "Eirenicon has been received; but he looks beyond the present moment, and, recalling the former phases of opinion as to

Catholicism which have prevailed among Anglicans, he sees in Dr. Pusey's proceeding nothing less than the putting "the whole argument between you and us on a new footing" -a footing which may really and profitably be used by those who desire peace. No English Catholic but will most heartily rejoice in this statement of Dr. Newman; and surely one of our first feelings must be that of thankfulness that he is among us at a time like this, and that circumstances will give him a more patient hearing and a more ready acceptance, on the part of those whose souls may be staked on the issue of this controversy, than he might otherwise meet with. From him, at least, Anglicans will hear no extreme or novel doctrine; him, at least, they will never accuse of not loving everything that is English. He, if any one, may convince them that no true child of the undivided church" would be found at the present day outside the "communion of the Holy See; that the church is the same now as she ever was, and as she ever will be; that she can never compromise with her enemies, though she yearns with unutterable love to take back every wanderer to her heart.

Experience has happily shown that the great Shepherd of souls leads men on in a way they neither discern nor desire, when they have once set them selves to wish and pray for greater light; and that prophecies of ill and suspicions of sinister purposes, which have not lacked ample foundation, have yet been often defeated in the indulgent dispensations of grace. Nor, indeed, at the present time, are all the signs of the sky evil. In its most disagreeable and inexcusable features the "Eirenicon" is not, we are convinced, a fair representation of the mind of a great number who might commonly be supposed to sympathize with its author. He has put himself for the moment at their head; and they are, of course, slow to repudiate his assistance; but we do not believe

that the earnest men who publish so many Catholic devotions, and who, however mistakenly, attempt to reproduce in their own churches the external honors paid by Catholics to him whom they also think that they have with them, would willingly make themselves responsible for the hundred pages with which Dr. Newman's present pamphlet is engaged. The advance toward Catholicism among the Anglicans has, in fact, left Dr. Pusey some way behind other and younger men. Even as to himself, he is hardly further away than others have been who are now within the church.

Only it must not be forgotten that the largest and most charitable thoughts as to the meaning and intentions of individuals, and the most hopeful anticipations as to the ultimate result of their movements, do not exhaust the duties imposed upon Catholic writers at the present moment. Let us see ever so much of good in demonstrations such as this, and believe that there is a still greater amount of good which we do not see. We may forbear to press men harshly, to point out baldly the inconsistencies of their position; we may put up with the rudeness of the language in which they propose peace. They may be haughty and ungenerous now; but this is not much to bear for the sake of that unity which those who know it love better than those who are strangers to it. Let us be ready, as far as persons are concerned, to be tender in exposing faults even wanton, and misconceptions which, as we think, common industry and fairness might have obviated. For Dr. Pusey himself we can wish no severer punishment than that he should be able some day to look upon his own work with the eyes of a Catholic. He has himself shown us, by the use which he has made of old expressions of Dr. Newman and others, who have long since repudiated them, that the retractation of charges against the Catholic Church by their authors does not prevent

others from repeating them. We are sorry to say what we still believe will be acknowledged as true by all who have been at the pains-pains not taken by some who have written on this subject-of not merely considering the animus and motives of Dr. Pusey, but of examining his book in detail, and taking its measure as a work of erudition and controversy-that, unattractive in style, rambling, incoherent, vague, and intentionally "loose as it is, it has one great quality, however unintentional-that of being a perfect storehouse of misrepresentation. We speak simply as critics, and we disclaim all attempts to account for the phenomenon. It contains an almost unparalleled number of misstatements of every kind and degree. Its author's reputation will give weight and currency to these. Though never perhaps likely to be a popular book, it will still take its place in Protestant libraries, and will be much used in future controversies. No one can tell how often we shall have certain extraordinary statements about the sanctification of the Blessed Virgin, her active and passive conception, the protest of the Greek Church against the doctrine, Bellarmine's assertion about general councils, transubstantiation, extreme unction, and the like, brought up against us; and the erroneous conclusions founded upon them cannot be neglected by the defenders of Catholic truth. It is, therefore, essential not that Dr. Pusey should be attacked in an unkindly spirit, but that his book should be handled critically, and, as far as may be, whatever it contains of misstatement, misquotation, unfair insinution and conclusion catalogued and exposed. It must be remembered that there is a great demand for the materials of anti-Catholic controversy. Dr. Pusey does not subscribe to the societies which mostly hold their meetings in Exeter Hall in the month of May; but he might well be made a life-governor of all of them in consideration of this book. It will be

used by the zealots who try to win the poor peasants of Connaught to apostasy by means of food and clothing, and by the more decorous "Anglo-Continentals," who are just now rubbing their hands at the prospects of infidelity in Italy. Alas! it not only teems with snares for the learned and conscientious, but it is full of small insinuations for the ignobler herd of paid agents and lectur ers-"what the poorer people believe in Rome," what Catholic churches are called in south India, what Cardinal Wiseman is reported to have said of Archbishop Affré, "who died in recovering his people at the barricades." These things may be passed by as simply faults of taste; but the pretensions of the book to learning, and its historical and doctrinal statements, cannot be admitted without sifting. Dr. Pusey has imposed an unwelcome task on Catholic critics. At the very time that they would be conciliating his followers, they are forced to attack him. It has seemed to us indeed that ordinary care in examining authorities, an attention to the common-sense rule that strangers cannot understand a system from without, the use of the many means at his disposal of ascertaining the Catholic meaning of Catholic language, more self-restraint in assertion, in urging arguments that appeared telling and conclusions that were welcome to himself, and somewhat less of confidence in his Own attainments as a theologian, would have spared those who wish him well this painful undertaking at a time when they would gladly say no word that may sound harsh to his ears. But, after all, truth is more precious than peace, and peace can only be had through the truth; and we can cordially return to Dr. Pusey the

assurance which he himself has proffered to Catholics, that those engaged in the ungrateful task. of subjecting his volume to the analysis of criticism have no intention. whatever of wounding his feelings.