It can hardly be doubted that if the publication of the Roman Catholic books of devotion had been the only question in dispute Bishop Wilberforce would have adopted the course taken by Bishop Blomfield, viz. that on the publication of Dr. Pusey's answer to Mr. Dodsworth all would have been at an end. But the second charge had still to be dealt with: A mode of teaching which leads to Rome,' and the encouragement of persons seeking to establish the relation of director, &c., &c.' The first of these points Mr. Keble himself does not controvert; he allows that Dr. Pusey was 'like a hen with a brood of ducklings, no fault of his that they took to the water at last.' It will be remembered that the late Pius the Ninth is reported to have said of Dr. Pusey that he was like 'a chapel bell that calls people into the church but always remains itself outside,' and Bishop Wilberforce expressed the same idea when he said 'It is precisely the case of the decoy bird who leads others into the net he is not himself the least thinking of entering.'

In Bishop Wilberforce's first letter to Dr. Pusey, dated the 12th of November, 12 he asks Dr. Pusey to give him an 'assurance that there shall be such material changes in the practices you encourage and in the tone of your teaching, &c., &c.' As stated above, Dr. Pusey's biographers have introduced a new element into the correspondence by inserting a letter written by Dr. Pusey to the Bishop on the 21st of November, 1850, but recalled by Dr. Pusey on the 22nd of November. Further, not content with printing the recalled letter, they invent a reply to it: The Bishop appears to have replied in terms which repeated his previous condemnation and to have inhibited Dr. Pusey from preaching in his diocese except at Pusey, where his ministry would be innocent;'13 and a little further on they comment on the results of this high-handed and ill-judged action.' But what are the real facts? On the 23rd of November, Bishop Wilberforce received Dr. Pusey's letter recalling the communication of the 21st of November. He then wrote to Dr. Pusey enclosing the recalled document, and agreed to the proposition that emanated from Dr. Pusey, that ' matters should remain on the footing you propose,' 14 and in the same letter suggested that what had already passed should be of the nature of a private understanding between them. On the 23rd of November, the day the Bishop received Dr. Pusey's recalling letter, the Rev. C. Marriott went to Cuddesdon to have an interview with the Bishop as to the charge that the result of Dr. Pusey's teaching was to lead people to Rome. In that interview the Bishop commissioned Mr. Marriott to inform Dr. Pusey that he 'removed all inhibition upon him, relying on his not preaching, as he knew his wish on the sub13 Life of Dr. Pusey, iii. 307.

12 Life of Bishop Wilberforce, ii. 79. "Life of Bishop Wilberforce, ii. 81. Dr. Pusey writes on the 22nd of November: I should wish therefore to recall that letter and to remain suspended from preaching by your lordship in your diocese, until I shall have time to write and publish more carefully.'

ject.' 15 Again the same day, the 23rd of November, before the interview with Mr. Marriott, the Bishop writes to Mr. Marriott saying, The publicity of the prohibition will be the consequence of his act and not of mine.' 16

The true state of the position at the end of 1850, therefore, was, that Dr. Pusey, who had no cure of souls in the diocese of Oxford and in consequence was under no obligation to preach anywhere, except in Christ Church in his turn as Canon, where the Bishop had no jurisdiction and could not prevent his preaching, was, by a private understanding with the Bishop, not preaching or performing any public ministration outside of his canonical duties.

The charge of encouraging persons to seek to establish the relation of director and directed as a regular and normal condition had so come into prominence as the result of Mr. Marriott's intervention that the adapted books ceased for a time to occupy the first place in the correspondence; and although in May these books are referred to again in a letter from Dr. Pusey, dated May 23, 1851,1 in which he says on the authority of his bookseller that the two adapted works of Avrillon are out of print' and' out of the market,' yet, notwithstanding that authority, Bishop Wilberforce purchased a copy of one of the books, 'in which the strongest language was contained.'

From November 1850 18 to March 1851, the correspondence virtually ceased. On November 24, Dr. Pusey had replied to the Bishop at length on his practice with regard to receiving confessions, &c. In the month of March, Bishop Wilberforce received a letter which so traversed Dr. Pusey's statements in the letter of November 24 that Bishop Wilberforce felt that although Dr. Pusey had answered, by his published letter to the Bishop of London, the main charges brought against him by Mr. Dodsworth as to the adapted books,' yet that Mr. Dodsworth's other allegations as to Confession &c. were, if anything, understated. It is important to note these dates, as, after Dr. Pusey had published what Bishop Wilberforce had asked for, the Bishop still continued that which Dr. Pusey calls' quasi-suspension.'" And here it is well to repeat what has already been stated, that this 'quasi-suspension' was first suggested by Dr. Pusey; that the Bishop desired that no reason should be given for the ' pausing of Dr. Pusey's ministry in the diocese; '20 and that as far on as April 26, 1851, Bishop Denison, one of the few whom Bishop Wilberforce consulted,

13

Life of Bishop Wilberforce, ii. 82.

16 Ibid. ii. 86.

19

"On the 2nd of June Mr. Keble writes to Dr. Pusey: You do not mean to reprint either of the three Avrillons, do you?' and on the 3rd of June, writing to the Bishop, Mr. Keble takes Pusey's assent to his query for granted, for he says, ' Avrillon he does not mean to reprint.'

18

19 There were two unimportant letters from Dr. Pusey in December, but there is no record of any reply to either of them.

19 Pusey to Keble, Life of Dr. Pusey, iii. 310.

Life of Bishop Wilberforce, ii. 86.

says: If I understand aright, &c., &c., Pusey is by your private request not preaching.' 21 It is, however, abundantly apparent that Dr. Pusey's biographers try to establish the position that, in November 1850, the Bishop, by 'high-handed and ill-judged action,' formally inhibited Dr. Pusey, and that the Bishop was compelled to retire from the position he had taken up step by step. It is further to be gathered, not only from the Life of Dr. Pusey, but from Dr. Pusey's own letters, that he had widely divulged, and, I regret to say, inaccurately divulged, the state of affairs which Bishop Wilberforce, for Pusey's own sake,22 desired should remain on the footing of an understanding between them.

In March 1850, the Bishop received a letter containing such charges against Dr. Pusey that he decided on publishing a pamphlet in the form of a letter to Dr. Pusey, which would prove the accusation made by the Bishop, namely, that 'I accuse you of a mode of teaching which leads to Rome, though you admit all the propositions of the Church of England.' 23 In the month of April, before this had been written, the Bishop received another letter from the same person, which, whilst it enlarged the information as to Dr. Pusey's practices, forbade the Bishop to make use of the writer's name, and so enabled Dr. Pusey's biographers to say: 'The Bishop saw that in one respect at least he had made a mistake. He dismissed from his mind &c. &c. all reports about Pusey that had come to him privately.' 24 This second letter suggested that the Bishop should test Dr. Pusey by asking whether he thought young persons, male or female, irrespective of parents, secretly, against their known wishes, were free to judge and act for themselves. Now, if Dr. Pusey could disclaim the several points of such a question, it would show that he had modified his views and altered his practice. The course which Bishop Wilberforce took was in accord with the suggestions of the writer. For the convenience of the reader I place Dr. Pusey's statements on one side and the specific evidence Bishop Wilberforce had in his possession on the other:

Compare these with Pusey's letter to the Bishop,26 where in reply to the charge, 'You have in many cases, where no desire for it was expressed or felt by the persons themselves, urged Confession and its repetition and continuance on those who have sought your guidance,' Pusey replied, 'I know of no one such case.'

Dr. Pusey.

I do not know of any case in which I have counselled young women of not above eighteen to go and confess against the known wish of their parents. May 25, 1851.

Bishop Wilberforce's Correspondent.

I know he encourages confession from young women living at home, unknown to their mothers and purposely in secret, and even counselling girls of not above eighteen to go to confess against the known wish of the parent.

Intercourse with young women, unknown to and against parents, is, I take it, unscrupulously done, or has been so. A niece of my own, living with her father (her mother dead), he a clergyman, she quite young, under twenty, wished to confess to Dr. Pusey, her father against her doing so at all, specially not to him, she bent on it.

In this latter case the reader will not fail to observe the accuracy of Dr. Pusey's denial. This girl was above eighteen, 'under twenty.' Dr. Pusey's letter of the 25th of May emphasises that the 'limit' of 'age to eighteen' means 'grown-up but unmarried ladies living in their parents' house.' 27 Dr. Pusey's opinion on this special case was that a girl whose 'conscience was stirred was free to judge and act, she being the only judge.'

The Bishop's informant stated that I have understood from others I could depend on that it is, or has been, his principle for any (I suppose after confirmation) thus to act for themselves.'

Dr. Pusey.

All habitual confession is of people's own seeking, and I see them very much less frequently than they wish.

November 24, 1850.

Bishop Wilberforce's Correspondent.

I understand that he does urge it in a way quite beyond what he admits in his letter, and urges the repetition and continuance. He would so press as a duty and means of grace the repetition &c. that tender consciences were constrained and felt forced.

These then were the specific charges on which the Bishop drafted the letter he proposed to publish, and the proofs of which he sent to Dr. Pusey, who with the Bishop's consent showed them to Mr. Keble. Dr. Pusey's reply to the Bishop's proposed publication is the long letter of the 25th of May, 1851, printed in the appendix to the chapter dealing with this episode, extracts from which are given. above. The Bishop wrote to Dr. Pusey on the 8th of June, saying: "Life of Dr. Pusey, iii. 328, 329. 27 Ibid. p. 329. 29 Ibid. pp. 328, 334.

28

'I have waited to consult the friend on whose authority I stated to you what I heard as to your practice with regard to Confession and Absolution, before I replied to you. This I have now done. He confirms all my statements, but declines, from the sacredness of the confidences involved, allowing me either to quote his name or refer to the cases.' To this letter Dr. Pusey replied on the 11th of June: 'If your Lordship means that the person who made the statement to your Lordship confirms all the particulars stated in your Lordship's letter, I believe that he has conveyed to your Lordship, unknowingly, both exaggeration and untruths, and I submit to your Lordship, and I would wish your Lordship to convey to him, my sense of the cruelty and injustice of making to your Lordship charges against me which he cannot undertake to meet. I deliberately hold it to be unchristian.' Dr. Pusey then goes on to stigmatise the charges as lies."

In the account of this correspondence which appeared in the Life of Bishop Wilberforce, vol. ii. pp. 70-116, it is stated that 'the Bishop brought definite charges against Dr. Pusey founded on the evidence of other clergymen, who stated facts of their own knowledge. Dr. Pusey's answer was denial, and a request that he might be furnished with the names, in order that he might deny again.' 29 Here, then, is one and the principal reason why Bishop Wilberforce did not publish his intended letter, and not, as stated in Dr. Pusey's Life,30 a further concession as the result of a chance interview in a railway carriage with Mr. Keble.

If these specific charges were true, they proved up to the hilt the dangerous results of the tones and tendencies' of which the Bishop complained in Dr. Pusey's teaching. It is necessary, therefore, to clearly establish that these charges were made by a person whose integrity stood above suspicion. In the Life of Bishop Wilberforce it is stated 31 that the author was a 'well-known and most respected clergyman belonging to the High Church School,' and the disclosure of his name has been forced upon me by Dr. Pusey's biographers. It is the Rev. T. T. Carter, of Clewer, the Warden of the House of Mercy at Clewer, an advanced High Churchman, a man who valued Confession as highly as did Dr. Pusey, but a man who did not believe it to be his duty to urge young women and girls to a spiritual intercourse unknown to and against the wishes of parents.'

In order to justify the account of Bishop Wilberforce's dealings with Dr. Pusey and to prejudice the High Church reader against a bishop who persistently declined to side with either the High or the Low Church party, but who declared that he was for the party of the Church of England and nothing narrower,' it is stated: 'He,' the Bishop, 'was not likely heartily to sympathise with the Catholic truths 30 Life of Dr. Pusey, iii. 318. "Life of Bishop Wilberforce, ii. 102.

29 Life of Bishop Wilberforce, ii. 74.