movement is that of one who knows its strength and power as well as most men, and who has watched it with an unwavering belief in its ultimate triumph for many years. The "life which he rejoices to see, is not the life of individuals, but, he says,

"Now in this century God has been reviving the Church everywhere, simultaneously. Nothing has so impressed itself upon me during all the years in which I have observed the workings of God the Holy Ghost upon the Church of England as their organic character.

"Increased zeal for spreading the faith of Christ abroad returned into the bosom of the Church at home; increased zeal for the religious education of the poor won the blessing of Jesus, Whose bequest the poor are; increased efforts to build churches to the glory of His Name, and for the salvation of souls, were blessed by the increased Presence of Him in Whose honour they were raised. Not in one way, or one set of ways, but in all; not in one class of minds, but in some of every class; not in one theological section of the Church, but in all; not through one set of men, but through all; not through those only who had our full belief, but through all who loved Him; not through prosperous circumstances only, but yet more through adverse; not in England only, but throughout the whole body, has God been forming the English Church, for what purpose in His hands, He knoweth !

"Even those deepest losses of all, the loss of those who laboured most abundantly,' and the suspicion which two or three sought to cast on those who remained, and most of all the chaos into which some minds were thrown, suspecting Catholic truth, because their guides had become Roman, not English Catholics. These things have indeed checked, but they have not hindered the work of God among us."-(p. 279.)

It may be that Dr. Pusey lays too great a stress on the subjective consciousness of possessing the grace of the Sacraments, as a proof that it is really there. "I do not believe," he says, "that God maintains the faith where there is not the reality." Is not this sometimes a mistake, as for instance in the case of the Irvingite body? Yet on the other hand, every English Catholic must feel that if God is not really present on our Altars we are the victims of a most fearful delusion. When we meet Him there, speak to Him and are spoken to by Him there, all but see Him to be there, know Him to be there; to be told it is only fancy, would be to shake our belief in everything around. If He is not there, we may be deluded also in believing that our relations are in the room with us, or that our bodies are our own. It may be no proof to bring forward to others, but it is everything to ourselves.

Probably Dr. Pusey is a better judge of the degree of grace possessed by individuals than Dr. Manning can be, and of the "limits and blemishes" with which at best Dr. Manning asserts that our practice of Faith, Hope, and Charity is qualified. Dr. Manning would probably be rather puzzled if obliged to descend into details, and show how that which is a mark of saintliness in the Roman Communion is with us but a proof of the non-extinction of baptismal grace, or that the aforesaid "limits and blemishes" do not exist in an equal or greater degree among Roman as well as Anglo-Catholics. It is of course (for instance) very easy to call the martyrdom of a Roman Catholic the highest exercise of faith, hope, and charity, and the martyrdom of an Anglo-Catholic merely a display of fortitude and resolution, but it would be difficult to prove. So it would be to show how the virtues of faith, hope, and charity differ as daily exhibited in the spiritual lives of Dr. Pusey and Dr. Newman. It may be doubted if there is much relative difference between them now, and as they were twenty-five years ago. Some Anglicans may think the present work to show in itself the possession of more than an imperfect degree of all the three. A Puritan lady once expressed great admiration for the gentleness, patience, devotion to the poor, and constant good works of a friend, and then observed, how sad it was to think that all these were gifts of nature and not of grace, for the lady in question went to dinner-parties, and was therefore unregenerate! Dr. Manning's reasoning seems to resemble that of this Puritan lady. As Dr. Pusey says:

"To the Church of England he accords nothing which does not exist in any Protestant body, except something of the idea of a Church, (which, according to him, we have not,) and some probably inoperative truth, and some heathen virtues, since what piety we have, or have had, is and always has been, according to him, more dim and distant from the central light of souls,' Jesus. I say heathen virtues,' for the cardinal virtues, fortitude, justice, prudence, temperance, although of course they cannot be practised without the grace of God, are yet, while unanimated by the special Christian graces of Faith, Hope, and Charity, only heathen virtues, such as heathens have practised, with the grace of God.”—(p. 270.)

With the calm and dispassionate belief of one who knows the reality of that which he has seen, and with evidently a strong remembrance before him of souls whom he has himself watched in advancing holiness, he testifies to results of Anglicanism, unparalleled where Sacraments are not, and feels it on this point needless to say more. The Rationalism of the day he has watched also with the eye of one experienced in the

progress of truth and error, and he discerns that the worst of the storm is over as regards the English Church. He freely accepts Dr. Manning's statement that Protestantism is an inclined plane on which succeeding generations must continually slide lower and lower, and shows that Dr. Manning has confused the English people with the English Church, (as he also confuses the English Church with the English Establishment,) in trying to apply his principle to Anglicanism. Of all other bodies, classed with ourselves as "Protestant," it is true, but so far from being true of the English Church, she is not only not sinking, but moving upward, in such defiance of all these laws of spiritual dynamics, that it demonstrates the absolute non-existence of that "Protestantism" which is fully admitted to be an invariable cause of decline elsewhere. As Dr. Pusey has elsewhere stated, he thinks that we may hope for greater unanimity among ourselves, in consequence of the assaults of Rationalism, as tending to unite believers in opposing a common foe. It is to be feared that here however he is too sanguine. That love of our Lord upon which he so earnestly and hopefully reckons is grievously mixed up with doctrinal error concerning His Person and Natures. The result has been that in reality, though not in words, it is a Man, and not the Mighty God, to Whom love is given. This is the real origin of the irreverent familiarity with which Protestants speak of Him, and of their inability to accept all that side of the doctrine of the Incarnation which springs from a true acknowledgment of His Divine Person. It is a theoretical orthodoxy and practical heresy on this point which is the real severance between Catholics and Protestants, in the English Church as elsewhere, a severance which Dr. Pusey's present work is not likely to diminish. The only terms on which any such persons can consistently desire union with the Roman Catholic Church, must be by her abandoning not only her "practical system," but that part of the faith which we are gradually restoring among ourselves. Protestantism will doubtless be eliminated eventually from the English Church by the conversion of its most sincere adherents, and the descent into more open unbelief of the remainder, but that, without changing its own faith, it should perceive and tolerate the truth of the Catholic, is hopeless indeed. If, as this book asserts, the Roman and English Churches are indeed not at issue on any point where either has spoken authoritatively, then the last standing-ground of Protestantism among us is cut away from beneath its feet. If this is really so, surely there is a large body of intelligent and loving-hearted Roman Catholics who will not turn away from us, and to whom "we," in Dr.

Pusey's words, "stretch forth our hands." Nevertheless, heresy has so long been rampant among us, that it has been to Dr. Pusey and his coadjutors a work of no small difficulty to investigate for themselves what is the true teaching of the Universal Church, and consequently of our own. Some Roman Catholics seem to fancy that we are bound to pay the same deference to the teaching of our division of the Church that they do to theirs, if we would be considered faithful children. Possibly more of the same work lies before themselves-in sifting the popular from the authoritative-than they would like to admit. May God raise them up a Dr. Pusey when the time comes !

The hopes of Re-union and suggestions of the explanations which may, he thinks, fittingly be made on both sides, are of course among the most important features in the work, and will be long thought of and appealed to when the ephemeral letter which called them forth has faded from men's memories; gathering up into one point the issue of three centuries of controversy, and proceeding, as it does, from one on whom the eyes of Catholic Europe have long been fixed, it cannot fail to rouse in many a thoughtful heart the question, Are these things indeed so? Is this the Church of England which we have so long reckoned as a Protestant body, with rather more surviving Church order, and a few more doubtfully-stated remnants of Catholic doctrine than the reformed separatists abroad? Then thought must revert to the great and in reality the only question: Is subjection to the Bishop of Rome essential to the existence of a Church? Has it been so always? If not, then why now? If those who so ponder will but investigate fairly; if they will but come to the subject as Dr. Pusey has done among ourselves, and as Dr. Doyle attempted in colder-hearted times than these, we have little fear for the result. But it is clear, that if without protest, the extravagant doctrine of the Pope's personal infallibility is enforced on all in his Communion, the difficulties of Re-union will be greatly increased. Not one-tenth of professed Roman Catholics will believe it-they will simply hold their present faith, and their tongues. A large body, disbelieving the doctrines plainly taught by their Church, will grow up among them as it has among ourselves; and we know what the result of it will be, when in any country the profession of the Roman Catholic faith ceases to be compatible with respect and prosperity. But there is happily a large and increasing body of men, (increasing because thought and study and theological knowledge increase everywhere,) who will not be contented to change the definite doctrines of their Church which they hold "ex

animis," for a state of things which will place their faith entirely in the keeping of one man, notoriously swayed in all his acts by others, and whom past history shows to be strongly influenced at all times by political considerations. Thenceforth they will never know what they are to believe, on pain of everlasting death, for a single year. Any Encyclic with something in it contrary to the whole tenor of their thoughts from childhood, and contrary to all they may have heard on the subject from their spiritual guides, may suddenly say to them, "Believe this or perish." Such a passive condition of faith, ready at any moment to believe or disbelieve just as it is told, in defiance of all the past, can only exist with the absence of thought at all. Dr. Manning and the Ultramontanes may declare that they do think, and they are ready to hail the new dogma, but it is because they feel safe with the decisions likely to be its result. Were the present Pope, or the alreadydetermined future Pope, likely, for instance, to acknowledge the Orders of the English Church, or infallibly decree the truth of Gallicanism, they would probably hesitate. But those who are most anxious to secure the dogma know that the Papacy cannot now exist without the support and control of the Jesuits, and that from them there is nothing to fear in this direction.

There are many in the Roman Communion, holy, learned, thoughtful men, who know all this as well as we do, and to these, while there is yet time, the Eirenicon appeals, and we believe it will not appeal in vain. They know that they would not dare to place their faith in the hands of any one man, to believe or disbelieve as he directs, in the teeth of the records which tell them that one such man would have commanded them to believe the Arian heresy. It may be asserted that God the Holy Ghost will protect the Pope from error, but here is a proof that He has not done so in times past. "If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not." Will the lives of the Popes bear any such test as this? And yet surely for such a claim, some such test must be required.

Strange and sad it is that such terms and hopes of peace should never have been proffered by any of us until now, when there exists a larger body of those who will reject them than ever could have been found before. Perhaps it is our just punishment for having ourselves rejected those who would once have helped us, but perhaps also it is needful that the extravagance of Ultramontanism should show the more Catholic body whereto forced submission may tend, and that with ourselves the differences may be far less, and far more easily accommodated. It is in vain to say that these are but Dr. Pusey's opinions,