DR. PUSEY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVII, Issue 274, 2 December 1882, Page 5

DR . PUS E Y .

The following is a portion of an able and interesting article on the late Dr Pusey which appeared in a recent issue of the Christchurch Fress : — The success of any movement can best be judged by the measure of its extreme limits at different periods. The Ritualists of to-day would not hare been tolerated forty years ago. If such services as are conducted before crowded crowded congregations in half the churches ia London had been held in 1842, they would probably have been brought to a summary termination by the mob. On the other hand, the typical Low Church parson of 1842 is a character quite unknown now. The state of things that existed in numberless parishes then, would now be the signal for a popular dieturbance. A Church of England clergyman in those days was usually the idlest and most self-indulgent man in his parish, and his church was the ugliest, the dirtiest, and the most neglected place. Nowadays, he is usually the most over worked and self-denying naan, and his church is the most beautiful and best cared for place. Then he was only expected to be most obsequious to the county gentry, and to stand by his cloth, and if he had luck he might become a bishop. Now, if he is to make any mark at all, he must be a Christian, a scholar, a gentleman, and a man of the world, capable of taking his place with the highest and ablest in the land ; and he must also be able to go among the poorest and lowest, and hold his own in that field also against the ministers of ignorance and vice. It is safe to say that no section of the English people have impr©ved more during the last fifty years than the clergy of the Church of England ; and it is only necessary to bear in mind how vast an influence the clergy exercise on other sections, to realise what an effect that improvement must have had on society at large. That improvement, both those who agree and those who disagree with Dr Pusey's teaching, must admit is mainly due to the learning, the industry, the indomitable courage, the devotion, the untiring patience, the lofty imagination, and the undoubted genius of that great aad good man who gave his name to the Pdseyite movement in Oxford just half a century ago, and died without a paug in. tho garden of Ascot Priory the other day. In our day the question may well be asked, without shame, What was the High Church movement, if it was not a movement towards Romanism? The High Church movement, as instituted by Pusey, had nothing to do with Romanism. It sought to raise the Church of England to the highest ideal, from the point of view of its authors, ia scholarship, activity, faith, reverence, and self-denial ; and in order to gain that object, it called on the members of that Church to go back to what its teachers regarded as first principles, and to make a new departure from the standpoint of the "fathers" of the Christian Church. There is no doubt the widest diversity of opinion regarding this movement towards the revival of belief in historic Christianity, supplementary to the Christianity deduced from the Bible alone, and into the discussion of such a question we have not the slightest intention of entering. But that there was crying need for a new departure of some kind cannot be denied. In point of scholarship alone, the Church of England had fallen so low, that it was rare to find among her clergy one who would now be called a scholar. When Pusey was made Regius Professor of Hebrew in Oxford in 1828, his office was almost a sinecure, for the Teason that few of the candidates for holy orders read Ilebrew. It was not an uncommon notion, indeed, in those days, that the study of Hebrew was calculated to impair the soundness of a clergyman's views, by drawing him from Christianity towards Judiasm ! It was against the lamentable ignorance of the clergy that Pusey directed his first efiorts. He was a marvellous teacher, and he soon made his professorship any thing but a sinecure ; Pie aroused and cultivated a taste for^ learning in Oxford, which would have' alone sufficed to work a vast change on the influence and destiny of the Church of England. But he did not stop at

teaching Hebrew. He next began to apply the study of Hebrew to the s study of theology. He compelled his * disciples to enquire, firstly, what > should be regarded as the original doctrines of the Church ; secondly, how i far the prevailing practice of the , Church of England, agreed with or differed from those doctrines; and thirdly, how such practice and doctrine might be brought into harmony. Beginning with weekly meetings of thirty or forty youths in his own room, he awakened before long so large an interest that he found it necessary to resort to his pen, instead of his voice, in order to touch at all points the circumference of the circle he had forraed. His writings at once attracted great attention, but it was only by cautious steps that he advanced to the position of a declared polemic. The " Tracts for the Times" that remarkable series of writings by which the High Church movement was published to the world, had already made gome progress in the hands of Newman and Keble before Pusey had anything to do with them. In December, 1833, he contributed his first Tract, ; namely, on Fasting, and henceforward he was first a leader, and then the leader, of the High Church movement. As usual, his power was immensely mii creased by persecution. The antiPuseyite party in Oxford were very strong and very violent, and if Pusey had known what fear was, or been in any respect less devoted to his work than he was, the movement which bears his name would assuredly have been checked at the outset. But with such a man as Pusey, obstructions are opportunities. Prior to 1843 the stream of feeling in the University ran so strongly i against Pusey that he could no longer i attend tho University sermons, compatibly with self-respect, on account of the abuse which was sure to be thundered at him from the pulpit. In ; that year, however, the office of preacher devolved on himself, and he took the occasion to deliver a sermon in , which he put forward the views of the High Church party iv the plainest and most vigorous language that ho could command. The Vice-Chan-cellcr at once took proceedings against Pusey for " teaching contrary to the received doctrines of the University." He went further. Not daring to meet the 1 redoubtable scholar and disputant on even ground, he revived an obeolete Statute for constituting a secret tribunal to try and condemn him unheard, with the result i that ho was forbidden to preach in the i University for two years. It soon got , abroad, though, that the reason why no : severer sentence had been passed was . because the secret tribunal — The Board of Six Doctors — had come to the conclusion that Pusoy's teaching was perfectly orthodox, and that it was his persecutors who, by their gross ignorance of theology and bibliogy, were corrupting the teaching of the Uni- ? versity. The attack of the Vice- ; Chancellor recoiled on himself and his party, and helped Pusey and the High i Church movement enormously. From ! that time forward his success was as- ; sured, for the struggle between High ■ Church and Low Church had gone forth from the University into every parish in England, and High Church views were spreading and triumphing i in all directions. The greatest danger i to the movement, indeed, lay in the excessive and injudicious zeal of converts. , The rank and file of Puseyites, confuss ing externals with essentials, took to ritualism and Church millinery, and all i sorts of absurd and childish antics, and ■ brought much ridicule and not a little , scandal on their cause thereby. As i has been very justly said, " Surface Puseyism seemed to the body of Englishmen, and in many respects was, a rather contemptible imitation of Rome . . . ; but the inner Puseyism proved itself a vitalising force in a country where the temptation of every creed is to lose its vitality under a crushing load of smug respectabilities." The vital good that was in the movement was bound to prevail, and long before the doctrines of the High Church party had ceased to be a subject of angry controversy, the principles i that lay at the root of those doctrines . had taken fast hold upon the country. S The Church of England arose from the sloth and stagnation of years, and became once more a living organism, moving and growing into power and

strength and influence in ererj rank of society, and in every part of the Empire.