the sound of dogmatism. . . Since that time Phaeton has got into the chariot of the sun; we, alas! can only look on, and watch him down the steep of heaven. Meanwhile, the lands which he is passing over, suffer from his driving.

Such was the commencement of the assault of Liberalism upon the old orthodoxy of Oxford and England, and it could not have been broken, as it was, for so long a time, had not a great change taken place in the circumstances of that counter-movement which had already started with the view of resisting it. For myself, I was not the person to take the lead of a party; I never was, from first to last, more than a leading author of a school; nor did I ever wish to be anything else. .. I felt great impatience at our being called a party, and would not allow that we were such. I had a lounging, free-and-easy way of carrying things on. I exercised no sufficient censorship upon the

Tracts..

It was under these circumstances that Dr. Pusey joined us. I had known him well since 1827-8, and had felt for him an enthusiastic admiration. I used to call him ó péyaç. His great learning, his immense diligence, his μέγας. scholar-like mind, his simple devotion to the cause of religion, overcame me, and great of course was my joy, when, in the last days of 1833, he showed a disposition to make common cause with us. . . He at once gave to us a position and a name. Without him we should have had little chance, especially at the early date of 1834, of making any serious resistance to the Liberal aggression. But Dr. Pusey was a Professor and Canon of Christ Church; he had a vast influence in consequence of his deep religious seriousness, the munificence of his charities, his Professorship, his family connexions, and his easy relations with the University authorities. . . He was, to use the common

expression, a host in himself. He was able to give a name, a form, and a personality, to what was without him. a sort of mob; and when various parties had to meet together in order to resist the liberal acts of the Government, we of the Movement took our place by right among them.

Such was the benefit which he conferred on the Movement externally, nor were the internal advantages at all inferior to it. He was a man of large designs. He had a hopeful, sanguine mind; he had no fear of others; he was haunted by no intellectual perplexities. People are apt to say that he was once nearer to the Catholic Church than he is now. I pray God he may one day be far nearer to the Catholic Church than he was then, for I believe that, in his reason and judgment, all the time that I knew him, he never was near to it at all. When I became a Catholic I was often asked, "What of Dr. Pusey?" When I said that I did not see symptoms of his doing as I had done, I was sometimes thought uncharitable. If confidence in his position is (as it is) a first essential in the leader of a party, this Dr. Pusey possessed pre-eminently. The most remarkable instance of this, was his statement, in one of his subsequent defences of the Movement, when moreover it had advanced a considerable way in the direction of Rome, that among its more hopeful peculiarities was its "stationariness." He made it in good faith; it was his subjective view of it. (“Apologia,” PP. 57-62.)

IX.

THE VIA MEDIA.

We

I SUSPECT it was Dr. Pusey's influence and example which set me, and made me set others, on the larger and more careful works in defence of the principles of the Movement which followed in a course of years,-some of them demanding and receiving from their authors such elaborate treatment that they did not make their appearance till both its temper and its fortunes had changed. I set about a work at once; one in which was brought out with precision the relation in which we stood to the Church of Rome. could not move a step in comfort till this was done. It was of absolute necessity and a plain duty from the first, to provide as soon as possible a large statement, which would encourage and reassure our friends, and repel the attacks of our opponents. A cry was heard on all sides of us that the Tracts and the writings of the Fathers would lead us to become Catholics, before we were aware of it. . . There was another reason still, and quite as important. Monsignore Wiseman, with the acuteness and zeal which might be expected from that great Prelate, had anticipated what was coming, had returned to England by 1836, had delivered Lectures in London on the doctrines of Catholicism, and created an impression through the country, shared in by ourselves, that we had for our opponents in controversy, not only our brethren, but our hereditary foes. These were the circumstances which led to my publication of "The Prophetical Office of the Church viewed relatively to Romanism and Popular Protestantism." This work employed me for three years, from the beginning of 1834

to the end of 1836. It was composed after a careful consideration and comparison of the principal Anglican Divines of the 17th century. . . Its subject is the doctrine of the Via Media, a name which had already been applied to the Anglican system by writers of name. It is an expressive title, but not altogether satisfactory, because it is at first sight negative. This had been the reason of my dislike to the word "Protestant"; viz. it did not denote the profession of any particular religion at all, and was compatible with infidelity. A Via Media was but a receding from extremes,—therefore it needed to be drawn out into a definite shape and character; before it could have any definite claims on our respect, it must first be shown to be one, intelligible, and consistent. This was the first condition of any reasonable treatise on the Via Media. The second condition, and necessary too, was not in my power... Even if the Via Media were ever so positive a religious system, it was not as yet objective and real; it had no original anywhere of which it was the representative. It was at present a paper religion. This I confess in my Introduction: I say, "Protestantism and Popery are real religions. . but the Via Media, viewed as an integral system, has scarcely had existence except on paper." I grant the objection, though I endeavour to lessen it "It still remains to be tried, whether what is called Anglo-Catholicism, the religion of Andrewes, Laud, Hammond, Butler, and Wilson, is capable of being professed, acted on, and maintained on a large sphere of action, or whether it be a mere modification or transition-state of either Romanism or popular Protestantism." I trusted that some day it would prove to be a substantive religion. Lest I should be misunderstood, let me observe that this hesitation about the validity of the theory of the Via Media implied no doubt of the three fundamental points on which

it was based, as I have described them above: dogma, the sacramental system, and anti-Romanism. ("Apologia," pp. 63-69.)

X.

GROWTH OF THE "ANGLO-CATHOLIC" PARTY.

So I went on for years up to 1841. It was, in a human point of view, the happiest of my life. I was truly at home. I had in one of my volumes appropriated to myself the words of Bramhall, "Bees, by the instinct of nature, do love their hives, and birds their nests." I did not suppose that such sunshine would last, though I knew not what would be its termination. It was the time of plenty, and, during its seven years, I tried to lay up as much as I could for the dearth which was to follow it. We prospered and spread. I have spoken of the doings of these years, since I was a Catholic, in a passage, part of which I will here quote:

"From beginnings so small," I said, "from elements of thought so fortuitous, with prospects so unpromising, the Anglo-Catholic party suddenly became a power in the National Church, and an object of alarm to her rulers and friends. Its originators would have found it difficult to say what they aimed at of a practical kind; rather, they put forth views and principles for their own sake, because they were true, as if they were obliged to say them; and, as they might be themselves surprised at their earnestness in uttering them, they had as great cause to be surprised at the success which attended their propagation. And, in fact, they could only say, that those doctrines were in the air; that to assert was to prove, and that to explain was to