Read Ebook: Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott Volume 2 by Ornsby Robert

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Yours affectionately, E. B. PUSEY.

Christ Church: September 27.

The Romanist part, of course, has not ye Abp's sanction, and it must be so expressed.

In the date of the above letter 'September' is struck out; 'January' substituted, and '42' added in Mr. Hope-Scott's hand, I think. How this is to be explained I do not know, but Dr. Pusey can hardly have made such a clerical error. Mr. Hope-Scott has endorsed the letter: 'I recommended publication, with some alterations and additions.--J. R. H.'

Whatever influence Dr. Pusey may at an earlier period have exercised on the religious views of Mr. Hope must have been a good deal shaken by his inclination in the first instance to favour the Jerusalem Bishopric, followed, indeed, by a disapproval, but one far short of the energy with which Mr. Hope himself combated the measure.

My dear Hope,--I thank you much for your 'letter,' which I had been looking for anxiously, but which by some mistake was not forwarded to me, so that I only saw it two days ago. It is very satisfactory to me; it seems quite to settle the point as to the duty of Bp A. I was also very much cheered to see yr own more hopeful view of things in our Church.

I am a good deal discomforted by this visit of ye Kg. of Pr. It seems so natural for persons to wish that Episcopacy shd be bestowed upon those who desire to receive; and people for ye most part have very little or no notion as to ye unsoundness even of the sounder part of ye G. Divines. As far as I have heard of ye progress of truth there, the restoration of Xty in some shape has been far more rapid than I anticipated or dared hope, the soundness of the restoration far less.

Yours affectionately,

E. B. PUSEY.

In another letter, dated Sexagesima Sunday , 1842, Dr. Pusey says:--

I do not know your about ye Augsburg Conf. I have very little, next to nothing, about it. Do not leave anything for me. Each can do best what he feels most. I should be very sorry to take anything out of your hands; and altogether I can say ye less about this because, wretched as it would be that we should appear in ye E. connected with Lutherans, I do not feel that it would introduce any organic change in us, and so cannot anticipate that it would.

I subjoin a few more letters from Mr. Hope's correspondence relating to his pamphlet on the Jerusalem Bishopric question, interesting as it is in itself, and forming so great a crisis in his religious history.

December 30, 1841.

My dear Hope,--I have this moment ended your pamphlet, and will not wait for a cooler moment to thank you. I do so heartily. God grant we may be true and manly in affirming the broad rule of Catholic order. I add my thanks to you in another shape. In your last three or four pages you and I were nearing each other's thoughts. It is refreshing to find an answer at a distance. Forgive my long neglect of the enclosed paper, which after all bears only my name, and probably too late for use.

Ever yours, dear Hope, most sincerely,

H. E. MANNING.

Mixbury, near Brackley: December 29, 1841.

Ever yours sincerely,

W. Palmer

P.S.--I am glad you think my pamphlet may be useful. We have taken entirely different sides of the same subject; I the theoretical , and you the practical view of the question.

Very truly yours,

J. T. Coleridge.

December 30,1841.

Montague Place.

Rolls House: January 4, 1842.

My dear Sir,--I ought before this to have thanked you for your kindness in sending me your most able letter, but I did not like to do so until I had read it with that attention which it deserves.

Yours ever truly,

Francis Palgrave.

Bishopstowe, Torquay: November 10, 1842.

I have never thanked you for your kindness in sending me a copy of the second edition of 'The Bishopric of the U. C., &c., at Jerusalem,' for I am ashamed to own I have never, till this day, read the new matter which it gives to us. Accept now my hearty thanks for your kindness to me in sending to me a copy, and my still heartier acknowledgments of your invaluable service to the Church in furnishing it with such a lesson.

You have, of course, seen the 'Alterius orbis Papa's' letter of June 18 to the King of Prussia, and have, with me, wondered at the mixture of temerity and cowardice indicated in such a mode of escaping from the difficulties by which he was pressed.

I grieve for this marvellous indiscretion. But I am amused by the bolder defiance of all consistency which is exhibited by his prime Adviser, who, while he prompts his Chief to trample Rubrics, Canons, Statutes, under his feet, commands His own Clergy to observe them 'with Chinese exactness.'

I went to your second edition, in order that I might find your promised remarks on the need in which the Church stands of a Church Legislature. I have read them with great gratification, and implore your close attention to the subject. My Clergy are, I believe, about to meet and to address me to urge on the Archbishop their earnest desire of leave from the Crown for Convocation to consider the best means of altering its own constitution, or otherwise devising a new Body empowered and fitted to act synodically.

This is, at present, somewhat of a secret, but it will in a few days, I believe, transpire.

From other quarters, I hear, similar proceedings may be expected. The Bishop of Llandaff tells me that he makes the necessity of a Church Legislature one topic in his Charge.

Yours, my dear Sir,

Most faithfully,

H. EXETER.

To these letters from such distinguished co-religionists of Mr. Hope's, all belonging, with various shades of difference, to his own religious party, I add a portion of one, bearing on the same subject, from a Catholic and foreign friend of his who has been mentioned in a previous chapter, Count Senfft-Pilsach. The contrast will be interesting; and it is also interesting to record a specimen of an influence, no doubt beginning to be more and more felt, though years had to pass before the result was visible in action. Count Senfft, though an active diplomatist, a friend of Metternich's, and quite in the great European world, was an example of the union, so often found in the lives of the saints, of deep retirement and devotion in the very thick of affairs; and we may be sure that his prayers for Mr. Hope were faithfully applied to assist his arguments.

La Haye: 21 Janvier, 1842

J'ose compter partant sur votre int?r?t amical, et vous connoissez les sentimens sinc?res d'attachement et de respect avec lesquels je suis ? jamais

Tout ? vous, SENFFT.

Oxford Commotions of 1842-3--Mr. Newman's Retractation--Correspondence of Mr. Newman and J. R. Hope on the Subject--Mr. Hope pleads for Mr. Macmullen--Dr. Pusey suspended for his Sermon on the Holy Eucharist--Seeks Advice from Mr. Hope--Mr. Newman resigns St. Mary's--Correspondence of Mr. Newman and Mr. Hope on the 'Lives of the English Saints'--Mr. Ward's Condemnation--Mr. Hope sees the 'Shadow of the Cross' through the Press-- Engaged with 'Scripture Prints,' 'Pupilla Oculi,' &c.--Lady G. Fullerton's Recollections of J. R. Hope--He proposes to make a Retreat at Littlemore.

It results in general from the documents furnished in the preceding chapter, that Mr. Hope's confidence in the Anglican Church had sustained a severe shock by the Jerusalem Bishopric movement; and from about the year 1842 he seems to have thrown himself with increasing energy into his professional occupations, not certainly as becoming less religious , but as being deprived of that scope which his convictions had formerly presented to him in the pursuit of ecclesiastical objects. It seems probable, also, that the same cause was not unconnected with his entering, some years later, into the married life; the news of which step is known to have fallen like a knell on the minds of those who looked up to him and shared his religious feelings, as it appeared a sign that he no longer thought the ideal perfection presented by the celibate life--which he certainly contemplated in 1840-1--was congenial with the spirit of the Church of England. That communion was now losing her hold upon him, though he still could not make up his mind to leave her, and might conceivably never have done so but for events which forced the change upon him at last. His professional career and his habits in domestic life will require to be separately described; for, though of course they proceeded simultaneously with a large part of that phase of his existence which is now before us, it would only confuse the reader to pass continually from one to the other. I propose, therefore, without any interruption that can be avoided, to go on with the history of his religious development up to the period of his conversion.

The year 1842, commencing, as we have seen, with the storms of the Jerusalem Bishopric movement and the Poetry Professorship contest, agitated also, towards the end of May, by a movement for the repeal of the Statute of Censure against Dr. Hampden, passed off, for the rest, quietly enough-- at least, Mr. Hope's correspondence shows little to the contrary; but 1843 was marked by much disturbance, commencing early with Mr. Newman's 'Retractation,' which the great leader announced to Mr. Hope in the following letter a few days before that document appeared in the 'Conservative Journal:'--

Littlemore: In fest. Conv. S. Pauli, 1843.

My dear Hope,--In return for your announcement of some change of purpose, I must tell you of one of my own, in a matter where I told you I was going to be very quiet.

Ever yrs,

JOHN H. NEWMAN.

Perhaps you will like to know what effect your article has produced on me. Simply this: it has convinced me that you are clearing your position of some popular protections which still surrounded it. Beyond this I do not see. I mean it does not show me that, esoterically, you have made any great move, nor yet that, to the world at large, you are disposed to do more than say, 'Do not cry me up as a champion against Popery; for the rest, you may judge of me as you please.' People whom I have heard speak of it are rather puzzled than anything else.

I give you this merely as gossip, and not as asking whether my construction is right, though if you think it material or useful to tell me, of course I shall be glad.

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