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it should be described as an influence for good or ill, will depend upon the view-point of the narrator and upon the circumstances of the future. We owe to the Oxford Movement the revival of the Catholic idea. By this term, we do not mean Mr. W. Ward's idea, nor yet that nondescript and incoherent assemblage of notions which the priestling of a few months' standing dignifies by the name of Catholic. The craze for Catholicism has been much with us. It has forced into notice all sorts of customs, many of them only the recrudescent germs of paganism, and asked us to accept them as Catholic usages. It is not of this base sort of so-called Catholicism we speak. Stripped of their theological garments, Protestantism represents Individualism, Catholicism represents Socialism. It is significant that the main support given by the clerical world to what is called Christian Socialism is given by men of what are called extreme or Catholic views. If these extreme views prevail, and society is organized after the patterns set ostentatiously before us, the welfare of society is likely to be purchased by the servitude of every individual composing society. The problem which is upon us demands that individual freedom should be preserved while collective welfare is secured. If the Catholic idea is used to emphasize the duties of social kindness and individual self-sacrifice, the revival of such an idea will be for good; but if the revival means the reversion to tyrannous methods in legislation and opinion, then the revival is retrograde; and the benefits which are promised can only be secured by the sacrifice of everything which makes them valuable. But we must not linger upon the questions which these considerations suggest. We must turn to the personal character of Dr. Pusey.

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To many good men in the opposite camp the very name of Pusey was a word of ill omen. It was associated in their minds with a lack of straightforwardness and with undoubted predilections for the Church of Rome. We have shown that in our judgment Pusey was drawn nearer to the edge of the abyss than he himself fully realized. To Bishop Thirlwall, Pusey was 'a painful enigma.' He judged that such resolute and passionate one-sidedness in a man of such extensive learning must be a reaction against inward misgivings kept under as suggestions of the Evil One, by a violent effort of the will.'* We do not think that we need resort to these explanations of Pusey's life and character. He was, we think, a man in whom timidity ripened into the courage of passive endurance against all that he believed to be wrong, and deepened into such an intense dread of wrong that he saw the ghosts of wrong where * Thirlwall, Letters, 1st series, pp. 245, 261. I

Vol. 179.-No. 357.

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no wrong was. His mistakes, his narrow-mindedness, and his despondency arose out of this dread. The same feeling gave birth to his chivalry, his bounty, and even his tenderness. It entered into his daily life. He could not endure levity; lightness was unseemly. He shrank from it with especial shrinking when serious or religious topics were under discussion. Ward's jauntiness must have jarred upon him. It was in utter seriousness that he said of Ward, after remarking upon the deterioration of the bulk of those who had seceded, Ward had got so bad already that with him further deterioration was impossible.' Ward's wickedness lay in his want of seriousness. Pusey was too much in earnest, too deeply impressed by the solemnity of life, too fully possessed by the spirit of reverence, to understand the exuberance of Elephant' Ward. There is something pathetic and even dignified in a life guided so entirely by a strict and self-repressing fear. It is not the highest life we can imagine; but the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,' and it is ill for profane and careless men to cast stones at any one who walked so consistently and at such cost of self-sacrifice in the wisdom of that noble fear. It is true that at times this fear sank to a lower level, and took upon it the complexion of an almost senile dread, but his pious spirit soon found its equilibrium in a calmer reverence. His fear of wrong sometimes made him harsh. Witness his very unworthy letter respecting Whately. It blinded him to the significance of his own utterances. Witness his extraordinary idea that Hampden's anti-patristic teaching must end in Socinianism. It led him often into the wilderness where the land seemed barren and the clouds were threatening over his head. It deprived him often of the serene confidence which a larger sense of the Love which guides men and encompasses their lives would have afforded him. But these were his misfortunes. His system was limited and defective in our judgment. A little more aggressive courage, and a firmer faith in the providence which watches over the advancing movements of the world's history, would have brought him out into a wealthier place. But in the spot where he dwelt and within the limits which he had assigned to himself, he lived a life of stainless virtue, great liberality, exhausting labours, and sincere faith. The touches of personal piety which meet us in these volumes are among the brightest things in the biography. We turn to these with pleasure, glad to forget the strife of tongues and the alarms of controversy. We like to hear him saying that with every fresh responsibility fresh strength is given.' He said who knew it. Or again, 'It is by * Quarterly Review,' vol. 169, p. 383.

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practically realizing that God is a Father to us, and that we, though at one time disobedient and very unthankful, are sons, that every event of life is set in its real light.'* But we must not multiply quotations.

The moral we would draw is the very simple one, that men of very different schools of thought may be nourished in piety and educated in goodness. The intellectual forms of faith must vary. Holiness is not the monopoly of anyone. It was the vain idea that holiness might be found as a prerogative of some one Christian Communion which misled so many in Pusey's day. The longer the world lasts, the more clearly is it made manifest that there are many who follow Christ, and grow in resemblance to Him, who are parted far from one another in the matter of opinion. We believe that the lesson which the Christian churches need more and more to learn is the lesson that God fulfils Himself in many ways, and that much variety is not only needful-as long as races, habits, intellects, and tendencies vary-but wholesome. Unity of opinion will never be found. This is the ignis fatuus of theology, but oneness of spirit may be reached, and is better worth seeking. It is not in any vain hunt for an ideal Church or some unquestionable and visible centre of authority that the reunion of Christendom will be accomplished. It is by the cultivation and diffusion of the Spirit of Christ. As this grows in the various communions of Christendom, there will be an insensible and necessary drawing together of hearts. The spirit which will animate Churches will not be the spirit of criticism. The bull, the anathema, the excommunication will become things of the past. It is by loving Christ, not by analysis of our several creeds, that we shall be brought together, just as it is by loving one another, not by criticising one another's views, that we best come to understand one another's position.

'The Hour is coming-hear ye not her feet,

Falling in sweet sphere-thunder down the stairs
Of Love's pure sky?-when this our holy Church
Shall melt away in ever-widening walls,

And be for all mankind, and in its place

A mightier Church shall come, whose covenant word
Shall be the deeds of Love. Not credo then,
Amo shall be the password through her gates.
Man shall not ask his brother any more,
"Believest thou?" but "Lovest thou?" and all
Shall answer at God's altar-" Lord! I love."
For Hope may anchor, Faith may steer, but Love,
Great Love alone, is Captain of the soul.'

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Some few years before the world of English thought had begun to trouble itself about the matters which the Tracts for the Times' brought into controversial prominence, a Scotch Presbyterian, then forty years of age, wrote to his cousin as follows: 'I have Keble lying open before me. The hymns for the Holy Week are beautiful: Monday is exquisite. I think I like it best of them all. The use made of Andromache's farewell is quite filling to the heart, and the theology of the fourth stanza, "Thou art as much His care," &c., is worth, in my mind, the whole Shorter and Longer Catechisms together.' The writer was Thomas Erskine, himself one who exercised a profound religious influence over the men of his own day. agree with Thomas Erskine's estimate, and with the principle which underlies it. Many of the Confessions of Faith and Catechisms of Churches have served little good but the multiplication of controversies and the increase of divisions. With the elaboration of creeds, the sects have increased. And later generations discover that the matters in dispute have not been worth fighting about; but the controversy leaves the spirit of alienation behind it as a sad inheritance. The controversialist is too often little more than the abettor of schisms. But the spiritual man who helps our devotion, interprets our experience, and exalts our love to God, deals with principles which never die, and sends his message on to generations who will know nothing and care nothing for our disputes. For ourselves, though we reverence the personal piety, the exemplary devotion, and the unfeigned saintliness of Dr. Pusey, we believe that much that he wrote will pass away as the works of thousands of controversialists before him have done; and we would rather have written

'Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear,
It is not night if Thou be near,'

than have composed all the ninety tracts and every pamphlet which defended or answered them. For though these last may have instructed and safeguarded a few, they awakened wrath, dismay, and misunderstanding among many; while Keble's Evening Hymn has been sung by multitudes, and has never evoked a bitter thought, but has consoled with better hopes and inspired with fresh courage the hearts of thousands journeying towards the sundown.

ᎪᏂᎢ.

ART. V.-1. The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age. By W. Y. Sellar, M.A. Oxford, 1892.

2. Études sur la Poésie Latine. Par M. Patin. Paris, 1875. 3. Études sur les Poëtes Latins de la Décadence. Par D. Nisard. Paris, 1888.

4. History of Roman Literature. By C. T. Cruttwell, M.A. London, 1877.

5. History of Roman Literature. By W. S. Teuffel. Revised by L. Schwabe, and translated by G. Warr, M.A. London, 1892.

6. The Student's Roman Empire to the Death of Marcus Aurelius. By J. B. Bury, M.A. London, 1893.

7. M. Annæi Lucani Pharsalia. By C. E. Haskins, M.A., with Introduction by W. E. Heitland, M.A. London, 1887.

8. Petronii Satire. Edidit F. Bücheler. Berlin, 1882.

9. Petronii Cena Trimalchionis. Von L. Friedländer. Leipzig, 1891.

10. M. Valerii Martialis Epigrammaton Liber. Von L. Friedländer. Leipzig, 1886.

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POET OETRY, like other subjects of study, may be regarded and Estimated from two estimated from two points of view, the a priori and the a posteriori. The former rests on principles which are very likely to be arbitrary and incomplete. It will generally be found to be more satisfactory to ask ourselves what a thing is, or has been provided of course an answer is possible than to decide what it ought to be according to certain principles laid down by ourselves. The a priori method has manifest disadvantages in a review which extends over centuries. For, as regards Poetry at least, abstract principles must of necessity be vague and shifting. As a great traveller makes our old maps worse than useless, when a lake takes the place of a Sahara and a mountain-ridge that of a prairie, so too in literature,

'When a new planet swims into our ken,'

we find ourselves compelled to reconsider and perhaps revolutionize the main principles of artistic construction. And even though no Shakspeare or Virgil or Menander may happen to arise, the very lapse of time may throw the critical machine out of gear. What would Pope make of Browning or Walt Whitman? Would Edgar Allen Poe have thought of describing that subtle piece of analysis, 'The Lady of the Aroostook,'

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