tihvavy of Che t:heological ^tmimvy 
 
 PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY 
 
 -XV\. iW" 
 
 /// V\Vr 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 Library of 
 Professor Benjamin B. Warfield 
 
 EX 5037 .P8 1898 
 Pusey, E. B. 1800-1882. 
 Spiritual letters of Edward 
 Bouverie Pusey 
 
Digitized by tlie Internet Archive 
 in 2014 
 
 littps://arcliive.org/details/spirituallettersOOpuse 
 
SPIRITUAL LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY 
 
Four Volumes. Svo. With Portraits and Illustrations. 
 Vols. land II, Vol. Ill 18 J- Vol. IV, i%s. 
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD BODVERIE PDSEY, D.D. 
 
 BV 
 
 HENRY PARRY LID DON 
 
 D.D. ; D.C L. ; LL.D. 
 
 Edited and prepared for publication by the Rev. J O. 
 Johnston, M.A., Principal of the Theological College, 
 Cuddesdon ; the Rev. R. T- WlL^ON. D.D., late Warden 
 of Keble CoUe-e ; and the Rev. \V. C. E. Newbolt, M.A., 
 Canon and Chancellor of St. Paul's. 
 
 LOXGM.\NS, GREEN, AND CO.. 
 LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY 
 
Spinhial Letters 
 
 of 
 
 I 
 
 Edward Bouverie PuSi 
 
 DOCTOR OF DIVINITY 
 CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH ; REGIUS PROFESSOR OF 
 HEBREW IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 EUITED AND PREPARED FOR PUBLICATION BY THE 
 
 REV. J. O. JOHNSTON, M.A. 
 
 PRINCIPAL OF CUDDESDON THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE 
 AND THE 
 
 REV. W. C. E. NEWBOLT, M.A. 
 
 CANON AND CHANCELLOR OF ST. PAULS 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 
 
 1898 
 All rights reserved. 
 
HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In the Preface to the fourth volume of Dr. 
 Pusey's ' Life,' the Editors expressed their intention 
 of publishing a volume of his Spiritual Letters. 
 They pointed out that their task would not be com- 
 plete without some such addition. Dr. Pusey spent 
 a considerable portion of his life in dealing, whether 
 by word of mouth or by letter, with the difficulties 
 of individual souls ; but in the record of his busy 
 years, no room could be found for any suitable 
 recognition of this side of his work, without unduly 
 interrupting the course of the narrative. It was felt 
 therefore that a small collection of his Spiritual 
 Letters could alone supply this gap in the account 
 of his life. Hence it will be understood by all 
 who have sympathetically followed the long course 
 of the biography, that the present volume is pro- 
 perly a necessary supplement to the work on which 
 Dr. Liddon spent so many years ; yet it is issued in 
 a separate form, partly because it is in itself inde- 
 pendent, and partly because its contents will appeal 
 to many people who have not had the time, nor 
 
vi 
 
 Preface. 
 
 perhaps the inclination, to read the other volumes, 
 which deal so largely in matters of modern ecclesi- 
 astical history and the tangle of theological con- 
 troversy. 
 
 From the nature of the case only a comparatively 
 small number of the letters which Dr. Pusey wrote 
 on the difficulties of those who consulted him, were 
 entrusted to Dr. Liddon for publication. And even 
 of these some were not of sufficient general interest; 
 some were practically repetitions of what Dr. Pusey 
 had often said : while others again seemed to require 
 so much annotation, that there was a danger lest 
 the necessary notes should distract the attention of 
 the reader to a wearisome extent. Out of the whole 
 number thus reduced, only a very small selection is 
 here published. And they have been chosen partly 
 for their own interest, partly as specimens of the 
 manner in which Dr. Pusey dealt with various 
 anxieties of the same correspondent, or guided 
 different minds in dealing with the same questions. 
 As regards the style of these letters, it must be 
 remembered that no applicant who seemed to need 
 his help was left unnoticed ; in fact some of his 
 longest letters were written to people utterly unknown 
 to him. To make time for this vast correspondence 
 under the heavy strain of a multiplicity of public 
 business and literary work, he had often to work 
 far into the night, and sometimes through the 
 whole night. The strain of such prolonged work 
 must have been very severe ; and traces of it will 
 be found again and again in a literary style which 
 
Preface, 
 
 Vll 
 
 is condensed and obscure to an extent unusual even 
 in his writings (which on other occasions are not 
 always models of clearness). More especially it will 
 be noticed that his quotations of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures are written down with a freedom bred of an 
 intimate appreciation and a familiar use, which does 
 not always stop for mere verbal accuracy. It has been 
 thought best to leave, as a rule, all such obscurities 
 and free quotations, as he left them ; and not to 
 disparage the intelligence of the reader by the 
 frequent insertion of irritating glosses. 
 
 It will be noticed that at different periods of 
 his life, the tone of his letters varies greatly. When 
 writing between 1840 and 1850, he frequently dis- 
 plays a rugged severity, which is to be accounted 
 for only in part by the needs of the person to whom 
 the letters were addressed. They reflect in fact 
 the darkness of that day of trial through which the 
 Church of England was then passing ; and in them 
 he lays bare the stern and solemn truths which at that 
 crisis filled his own mind, and by which he strove 
 to direct those whom he was trying to pilot through 
 the storm. In later life writing to the same people, 
 under conditions which had changed so happily, 
 his language reflects more the peace and confidence 
 of the brighter days of the Church. 
 
 The title which has been given to this volume, 
 in its more narrow meaning, is really descriptive of 
 the greater part of its contents. It consists chiefly 
 of letters of advice with regard to the trials of the 
 spiritual life. Such trials bear no special marks of 
 
 « 
 
viii 
 
 Preface. 
 
 time, or place. They reappear everywhere in similar 
 forms from generation to generation ; and letters 
 which deal with them have therefore a universal 
 and an undying interest. 
 
 But with intellectual questions, the case is dif- 
 ferent ; the special form of the difficulties which the 
 intellect has to face in dealing with religious questions 
 varies with almost every decade. Young men of 
 to-day can hardly understand how the great per- 
 plexities which confronted their fathers' early man- 
 hood can ever have been true occasions of distress. 
 The solution seems to them too obvious and easy. 
 They have inherited the land without passing 
 through that part of the wilderness. Yet the 
 wilderness was great and terrible for many years ; 
 and the value of the letters of consolation and 
 guidance which were then written can only be under- 
 stood by those who fully know the precise juncture 
 at which they were penned. Hence comparatively 
 few of Dr. Pusey's letters on the intellectual 
 difficulties of twenty years ago, and of yet earlier 
 dates, are printed in this volume. Those who are 
 interested in his methods of dealing with such ques- 
 tions as they presented themselves, will find them 
 fully set forth in the three volumes of his University 
 Sermons. In these he is conspicuously the Christian 
 Apologist, the guide of souls in the intellectual unrest 
 of the day, trying to rescue them from misunder- 
 standings of the Truth and from the plausible 
 misleadings of error, and to restate the fundamental 
 verities of the Faith with the clearness of mature 
 
Preface. 
 
 IX 
 
 study, and the fire of deep conviction and of heartfelt 
 devotion. 
 
 On the other hand, the controversy with the 
 Church of Rome is represented here with com- 
 parative fuHness. It is true that Dr. Pusey has 
 dealt with the whole question in the three volumes 
 of his ' Eirenicon ' : yet each of those volumes is 
 influenced by its having been written with a special 
 purpose, in consequence of some controversial pub- 
 lication or historical event. But the questions at 
 issue between the Church of England and the 
 Church of Rome remain always essentially the same. 
 In his letters Dr. Pusey deals with those questions 
 more concisely, and quite as powerfully as in his 
 longer work. The arguments with which he re- 
 assured anxious inquirers, and retained them in their 
 allegiance, are as valuable now as when they were 
 written. Had they been written in the present day, 
 the polemic element would probably, in the light 
 of recent history, have been more prominent, and 
 the apologetic portion of the argument would have 
 fallen into the background. 
 
 Readers of this volume may very naturally wish 
 to know some details of the daily life of the writer 
 of these letters. Externally it must have appeared 
 a very simple existence that he spent at Christ 
 Church ; shared only during the last thirty years of 
 his laborious career, by his son Philip, whose death 
 so shortly preceded his own. Each morning at 
 8.30, when Philip returned from the daily College 
 service in the Cathedral, the household assembled 
 
X 
 
 Preface. 
 
 for family prayers in Dr. Pusey's study. He used 
 to kneel at his table with Philip, who was very deaf, 
 close by his side and looking over his book. The 
 prayers were chiefly from the Prajer Book, with 
 the addition of a special thanksgiving which he 
 used every day, and of some prayers taken from 
 ' The Paradise of the Christian Soul ' during Advent 
 and Lent. When in health he always attended 
 Mattins and Evensong at the Cathedral, unless pre- 
 vented by some unavoidable engagement. As age 
 came on, he was forbidden by his friend and medical 
 adviser, Sir Henry Acland, to attend the Cathedral 
 in cold weather, and at last he was not allowed to 
 go there at all. The last service which he attended 
 was on the morning of November 26, 1877. The 
 whole day was spent in literary work, lecturing and 
 preparing for lectures, attending University meet- 
 ings, writing letters, and in seeing all who came to 
 him. In his later years, he rarely even went for 
 a walk, except when at Ascot in the summer vaca- 
 tions. His meals were of the simplest character. 
 After many years of struggle with his doctor, he 
 was at last forbidden to fast ; but every meal was 
 rigidly plain. At his 6 o'clock dinner, there were 
 never more than two courses ; there was neither 
 soup nor fish. He particularly desired that there 
 should be no waste at his table, not even of a small 
 piece of bread. This was not only as an example, 
 but because he would not allow the waste of that 
 which so many of the poor needed so sorely. The 
 day was closed by family prayers in the study at 9.30. 
 
Preface. 
 
 XI 
 
 But of the inner side of his Hfe, in its relation 
 to God, even those nearest him saw but a few 
 glimpses. The rules with which he desired to 
 govern all his life have already appeared in his 
 biography ^ ; and readers of these letters would 
 do well to refer to them as explanatory of many 
 points on which he gave advice to others. This 
 habit of life he kept up so far as he was able 
 into advanced age. The stress of work and 
 increasing years compelled him to modify it to 
 a certain extent. Sometimes the demands which 
 were made on his time by those who sought his 
 help kept him at work beyond all the rules of 
 prudence. His mother would sorrowfully complain 
 in her letters to those who knew him well, that 
 when staying with her in Grosvenor Square, he 
 was out of the house by 6 or 7 o'clock, and did 
 not return to dinner until 9 or 10 at night. On 
 one day she reports that he was out before 7 o'clock, 
 and came back to breakfast at 2.30, having preached 
 at 1 1 : and that he preached again in the evening 
 and sat up most of the night writing letters. Even 
 at seventy years of age he would make appoint- 
 ments for 7 a.m., and continue working until 1 1 and 
 12 o'clock at night. Of course in the vacations, 
 when he was at Malvern or in the Isle of Wight, 
 or at Ascot, he was able to take more rest ; but so 
 long as work had to be done and his weary body 
 could be made do it, no consideration was allowed 
 to interfere with his doing it with all his might. 
 
 ' Vol. iii. pp. 104-107. 
 
XII 
 
 Preface. 
 
 At the age of sixty, it was his habit, when at 
 Christ Church, to celebrate the Holy Eucharist in 
 his own house every day, generally at 4 o'clock in the 
 morning. He had received special permission from 
 Bishop Wilberforce to do so. He used for this 
 purpose a marble slab, which was placed on a small 
 table in his study, on which table stood the picture 
 of the Head of our Lord, supposed to be by Murillo, 
 which his brother Philip brought for him from 
 Spain. This picture now hangs over the altar in 
 the Chapel of the Pusey House in Oxford, and 
 the marble slab which he used has been let into 
 the surface of the wooden altar beneath it. In later 
 years he celebrated in this manner only on Sundays 
 and Saints' Days, as a rule. His son Philip and 
 any friends who happened to be staying with him 
 would sometimes join in this service, if they desired. 
 When celebrating in his own house, he wore only 
 a surplice and scarf ; but if he was in a Church 
 or Chapel where the Eucharistic vestments were 
 used, he always wore them. 
 
 As regards his books of private devotion, his 
 favourite book for many years was ' The Paradise of 
 the Christian Soul,' which he had with great care 
 adapted for the use of members of the English 
 Church. In later years, however, he reverted to 
 the use of Bishop Andrewes' ' Devotions,' which he 
 continued to use to the end of his life. But any 
 devotional book could contain but a small part 
 of his habitual devotions. He spent a great deal 
 of time in mental prayer, not only ' filling up all 
 
Preface. 
 
 xiii 
 
 the chinks of time ' in that manner, as he used to 
 advise others to do ; but also he would expand and 
 supplement his ordinary prayers by meditations 
 interspersed with them. In the last year of his 
 life, he gave a friend a copy of Bishop Andrewes' 
 ' Devotions,' saying that it was the book he used 
 himself, and he placed marks here and there through 
 many pages of it to indicate the places ' where 
 pauses ought to be made.' He said that though 
 it was all printed in unbroken paragraphs, many 
 pauses ought to be made by those who used the 
 book, because ' the prayers contained such wondrous 
 thoughts.' Similar pauses he would make when 
 ministering to others. He felt that words awoke 
 ideas which would only be disturbed by passing too 
 rapidly to other phrases. When ministering to one 
 who was dying in his own house, it was noticed by 
 those in attendance that he would repeat the one 
 word 'Jesus' a great many times at intervals, 
 slowly, distinctly, and with great earnestness. He 
 explained afterwards that this was the more valu- 
 able help to a dying person '• recalled to him 
 the thought of all the grace anc. >ving help which 
 he had received throughout his life, and pointed 
 him to his only Comfort and Support. It may be 
 gathered from one of his letters that he once spent 
 twenty-two hours in prayer with a person passing 
 through a prolonged death agony, most probably 
 in the use of devotions such as these. With con- 
 tinual prayer he tried to help others, for it was 
 the breath of his own life. Dr. Licldon used to 
 
XIV 
 
 Preface. 
 
 speak of him as ' constantly communicating in prayer 
 throughout the day with his Gracious and Awful 
 Friend ' : and Dr. Pusey doubtless describes himself, 
 without intending to do so, when he speaks, in one of 
 his Lenten Sermons in 1862, of those 'whose home 
 is prayer, whose labour is prayer, whose rest is 
 prayer^.' He frequently said that to turn to his 
 prayers was like going home. 
 
 Since these letters derive their importance from 
 their subject and their writer, all marks that would 
 suggest the person to whom they were written have, 
 so far as possible, been uniformly omitted. It is 
 obvious that many of them were written in con- 
 nexion with his great work of founding and guiding 
 the early years of the restored work of Sisterhoods 
 in the English Church ; and it is hoped that they 
 will still be of value to such institutions. But 
 Dr. Pusey's advice was sought very widely — 
 probably as widely as that of any man ever has 
 been. With reference to only one side of this 
 work, in a letter to the Editor of the Times in 
 1866, wishing to -hoAv the widespread demand for 
 opportunities of Private Confession, he wrote : 
 ' I have been applied to to receive Confession 
 from persons in every rank, of every age, old as 
 wf^ll as young, in every profession, even those 
 which would think least accessible to it — army, 
 li. '.^Q., law.' And if those who sought 
 
 !i - purpose were so numerous, there were 
 
 vC'^.iv. whose respect and love made them 
 
 ^ ' Lenten Sermons/ p. 337. 
 
Preface. 
 
 XV 
 
 ask his counsel or desire his blessing on the work 
 in which they were engaged. In illustration of this, 
 one scene may now be described to which allusion 
 could not be made when the last volume of his 
 'Life' was written. In 1881, when Mr. Glad- 
 stone was Prime Minister, he was spending a few 
 days in Oxford ; and he called to see Dr. Pusey. 
 The visit was for many reasons an act of the most 
 kindly consideration, and it gave Dr. Pusey the 
 most genuine pleasure. ' Only think,' he said play- 
 fully to one of his friends later in the day, ' of the 
 Prime Minister being kept waiting in my hall, 
 while the servant came to ask whether I would 
 see him.' Then he went on to say how very kind 
 he thought it of Mr. Gladstone, with all he had 
 to think about as Prime Minister, to come and call 
 on him ; and he added in a tender tone, ' He was 
 so affectionate : when he went away he kissed my 
 hand, and knelt down, and asked for my blessing.' 
 It was their last meeting in this world. The next 
 time that Mr. Gladstone stood at that well-known 
 door in the corner of the Great Quadrangle of Christ 
 Church, it was as a pall-bearer at Dr. Pusey's 
 funeral ; and the crowd of men who on that day 
 joined with him in the solemn procession towards 
 the Cathedral witnessed to the thousands of souls 
 who bless God for the help which He gave them 
 through the words and works of Dr. Pusey. 
 
 The Editors desire again to express their thanks 
 to all those who sent to Dr. Liddon the letters 
 that are here printed. In nearly all cases, a second 
 
xvi 
 
 Preface. 
 
 permission has been given for their insertion in 
 this volume. If, in any instance, this permission 
 has not been asked, the Editors offer their apologies 
 for the omission. They desire also to express their 
 thanks to the Governors of the Pusey House for 
 permission to photograph the bust which appears 
 as the frontispiece to this volume. This bust is 
 the work of Mr. George Richmond, R.A. A special 
 interest is attached to it as reproducing with exact 
 fidelity the casts which were taken of Dr. Pusey's 
 head after death. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Letters of CoUxNsel and Sympathy . . . 1-128 
 
 11 
 
 Letters on Intellectual Difficulties . . 129-171 
 
 111 
 
 Letters on Theological and Ecclesiastical 
 
 Subjects 173-291 
 
 IV 
 
 Fragments of Conversations and Letters . 293-344 
 
 b 
 
I 
 
 LETTERS OF COUNSEL AND SYMPATHY 
 
LETTER I. 
 To A Mother. 
 
 Fifth Monday in Easter, 1847. 
 {May 3.] 
 
 You have indeed an anxious, yet blessed charge to 
 rear so many young plants for Heaven. Yours seems 
 Martha's office, tending Christ in those He has made 
 His. Yet it need not distract one, so one endeavour to 
 keep Him always before one. The mode of service, not 
 the service, changes. There is often less time to be alone 
 with God, but so you may learn to be with God in all 
 you do, and do all to Him. Such is the way in which 
 most must be perfected. Few have leisure. It is through 
 and in toil that most must win God. Mary's lot is for 
 most hereafter. Yet Mary's spirit may be amid Martha's 
 toil. You will find, in whatever degree you can practise it, 
 that the habit of committing single actions, again and 
 again, through the day, to God, in their beginning, middle, 
 end, does still the soul very much, and make life a con- 
 tinual living in the Presence of God. Not that I mean 
 that you are not learning this (as all must be learning it), 
 but that where there is much occupation, these two habits, 
 
 (1) committing single actions or courses of action to God, 
 
 (2) using short intervals of leisure for short prayers darted 
 up to Him, do replace longer prayers. All life is business 
 or brief leisure, and this provides for both. . . . 
 
 With regard to external acts of reverence, I think with 
 you, that any such acts as would excite general attention, 
 
 B a 
 
4 Spiritual Letters of Edward Boiiverie Ptisey. 
 
 as the 'kneeling in going out of Church, out of reverence 
 to the Altar ' or our Lord's gift of Himself to us there, 
 are better avoided. At Christ Church, Oxford, it is a 
 transmitted custom for the Canons to turn on leaving the 
 choir and bow to the Altar. Elsewhere, I should not 
 do so. 
 
 But the Elements having been consecrated, I do myself 
 think it a part of reverence not to let them fall, or a part 
 of them ; although one should wish to do this, so as, as 
 little as might be, to disturb others or myself. 
 
 I have had no conversation with your daughter on any 
 subject of controversy ; she knows that I think it best for 
 her to avoid all such subjects. And on what you say as to 
 ' the practical shortcomings of our Church,' the only way 
 for any is to make all the use they can of what God gives 
 them in her, own themselves unworthy of more, pray for it, 
 if God sees it good for them, and that He would bless to 
 their souls what they have. God has been so wonderfully 
 good to us, that we may have every hope for the time to 
 come. But, indeed, what I think your daughter would feel, 
 are real privations. To you who have been educated in 
 other times, much would not seem a privation, which must 
 to a younger mind. We never had formerly any idea of 
 anything but rare Communions. Our clergy had become 
 used to the least which our Church allows, and indeed less ; 
 for if the Holy Communion is celebrated only four times 
 a year it is impossible for all poor communicants (where 
 there are families) to receive it so often. When the Holy 
 Communion was thought of chiefly as a commemoration, it 
 was natural that this should not be much felt. Indeed, 
 good people came to think it more reverent to partake less 
 frequently, and they were afraid lest more frequent Com- 
 munion should diminish their reverence. One must respect 
 all such feelings. But it is very different, when people 
 believe it to be ' the Bread of Life,' ' the strengthening and 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 5 
 
 refreshing of the soul by the Body and Blood of Christ,' 
 that in It, ' our sinful bodies are made clean by His Body, 
 and our souls washed through His most precious Blood,' 
 that ' Christ dvvelleth in us and we in Him,' as our Prayer 
 Book teaches from Holy Scripture. 
 
 When the soul hopes to obtain great grace and blessing 
 through Holy Communion and the increased Presence of 
 its Lord in It, and has known or heard of more frequent 
 Communions, then the way in which It is, in our country 
 parishes often intermitted for two or three months, is very 
 dreary. Everything else a person can replace for himself. 
 If he has been accustomed to Daily Prayers in Church, he 
 can say them by himself, in union with those who say them. 
 But the Holy Communion he cannot, if a layman, obtain 
 for himself. And this is one of the great practical diffi- 
 culties for many persons now. Persons, e.g., spend part of 
 the year in London. If they have the opportunity and 
 God gives them the desire, they would not do right not 
 to receive the Holy Communion when It is administered 
 (as It may be) weekly. But the contrast, to be for whole 
 months without It, is very dreary. I know not how it is 
 
 with . But in his college weekly Communion has 
 
 been restored. I know not how often the young men 
 communicate. But whatever a person has been accustomed 
 to, whether once a fortnight, or monthly, or weekly, it is a 
 dreary change to lose it. God is restoring frequent Com- 
 munions everywhere, or rather putting into people's hearts 
 to desire more frequent Communions, and the Clergy to 
 restore them ; but the interval is a time of frequent trouble 
 to individuals. This is the one subject which I should fear 
 might be oppressive at times to your daughter. She does 
 believe the Holy Communion to be an especial channel of 
 the grace of God to her soul ; she has found strength and 
 blessedness in It ; more frequent Communions gladden her 
 and carry her on ; they diminish the risk of depression at 
 
6 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 other times. Hers is a bright, sunny mind. I do not fear 
 for her. But I do very much wish that there could be 
 opportunities of more frequent Communion for her at 
 home. . . . 
 
 If she had this, she would not feel any ' short-comings ' 
 in the Church. And since, in the early centuries as in the 
 Apostles' times, Holy Communion was daily, it cannot be 
 thought an undue wish that it should be monthly, or, if God 
 permit, weekly. 
 
 There is one other subject on which I ought to write 
 plainly. You say you think it safest to turn the mind 
 altogether from the Church of Rome, its convents, &c. 
 Now, with regard to the Church of Rome I wrote in the 
 last letter. Your daughter's delicacy of health, and her 
 home duties for some time to come, would make it 
 wrong to be anticipating anything for the future. Also, 
 I should not suggest any such thoughts. But, having 
 professed to write to [you] plainly, I ought to say what 
 I do think, (i) That although marriage is honourable, 
 our Lord implies that celibacy may be embraced " for 
 the kingdom of God's sake" ; and St. Paul (i Cor. vii. 34) 
 speaks of it, as more favourable for " caring for the things 
 of the Lord only." (2) This was held to be so throughout 
 all the ages to which our Church refers, as the purest. 
 (3) United life, among those who purposed and chose 
 freely to live unmarried (in other words, convents, in 
 their purity), was promoted by all those of whom our 
 Church (in the Homilies) speaks with most affectionate 
 reverence, as the great lights of the Church. The absence 
 of such institutions has been mourned by pious minds 
 in our later Church, as Archbishop Leighton. (4) There 
 are very crying evils among us in our great towns, which 
 can only be remedied in this way. If female purity is 
 to be preserved or restored, and great numbers of our 
 children are to be educated for their Redeemer, instead 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 7 
 
 of (as now they are) for Satan, it can only be (in our 
 great towns) by united efforts of persons devoted to this. 
 I do, then, look with deep interest to the longing which 
 has, for many years, more or less (yet more of late), been 
 springing up in the minds of many young women to devote 
 themselves to God in the service of His poor and of His 
 sick or neglected members, ' His lambs.' This feeling 
 has not originated in anything my friends have written. 
 On the contrary, we were afraid of the whole subject, 
 because, until God should provide us such Institutions, 
 to foster such wishes was only to create a longing, by 
 which people might be tempted out of our Church. What 
 really did give rise to it, outwardly, has been the renewed 
 intercourse with the Continent, and the knowledge and 
 sight (more or less) of the different Institutions there, 
 through which so much good is done so simply and 
 devotedly. But, besides this, I am sure that I have seen 
 in many minds and heard of a deep drawing of God 
 to serve Him more devotedly, which has issued in the 
 longing for that mode of life. 
 
 As I said, this is, for some time at least, an abstract 
 question as to your daughter, and so, one on which it 
 would be wrong for her to dwell and upon which her 
 mind will not and does not dwell. Before it could be 
 fit for her to entertain the subject, God may have provided 
 for her in another way, and perfected her for Himself. 
 But I thought I ought thus fully to explain my own 
 feelings on the general subject to you. Your daughter's 
 wish to lead a single life was long before my acquaintance 
 with her : she also knew, not from me, that there is such 
 an Institution in our Church, sanctioned by Bishops ; but 
 her duties are plain for some time to come, and she does 
 not wish to look beyond them. 
 
 And now I have told you my whole mind, in any way 
 in which it could anyhow affect your daughter. This 
 
B Spiritual Letters of Edward Botiverie Pusey. 
 
 is not a practical subject for her now. I hope it will 
 not pain you that your daughter has mentioned the subject 
 to me as one which has been for some time floating before 
 her mind. It seemed to her to be giving you needless 
 pain to name it to you, while it was something indefinite 
 and distant. Yet she was sorry that there should be 
 any seeming reserve on any subject upon which you did 
 not know her whole feelings. And now she is glad that 
 your letter (of part of which I told her) has removed 
 all reserve, although, before, she kept back this ulterior 
 wish not to pain you. 
 
 You will forgive my saying that in the case of my own 
 child, I should commit the matter to God, praying Him 
 to direct her. While a wish is thus at a distance, frequent 
 discussion gives pain and changes nothing. These wishes 
 are not changed by anything outward. Especially, dis- 
 cussion among relatives is very distressing and does no 
 good. Forgive me for saying then, that if the case were 
 my own, I should not mention the subject to any one 
 besides. All you wish nozu for your daughter, she wishes 
 also : she wishes to love and serve and please God better, 
 and you for His sake and for your own. The future then 
 you may fearlessly trust to Him Whose it is. Does not 
 this come under the rule of ' not taking anxious thought 
 for the morrow ' which may never be ? 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 9 
 
 LETTER II. 
 To THE Same. 
 
 August 5 [1847 or 1848]. 
 
 I have been long wishing to write to you, but delaying 
 it until a freer time, and now there is a subject of natural 
 heaviness for the time, and I trust abiding peace and con- 
 solation. It is indeed a solemn, sacred existence which 
 your dear child now has, to have God's messenger within 
 her as it were, to call her whenever He sees best for her. 
 Even I cannot but wish that such as she should abide 
 somewhat longer here, to spread abroad to others that 
 love wherewith God has kindled her heart. And yet 
 when I saw her so growing in deep love for God, as she 
 has, I could not but think that He might be ripening her 
 for something. Whom in His eternal Wisdom He means 
 to take early, in His eternal Love He ripens early. Perhaps 
 He would not so have ripened them had He not meant 
 to take them. I clung round my own dear Lucy ; she too 
 was so full of promise ; so with the whole power of her 
 soul devoted to God. I hoped it might have pleased Him 
 that she should have flourished in His courts here, to win 
 others to love Him. He willed otherwise, — that she should 
 glorify Him by death, not by life ; and she passed away. 
 Yet I could not grieve for her. He Who loved her and 
 had taught her to love Him, chose for her the portion 
 which He saw best for her, and which He had from all 
 eternity fore-ordained for her; and He Whom she had 
 chosen for her Portion has become her Portion, not in faith 
 
lo spiritual Letters of Edzvard Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 only, nor in hope, but in truth ; not here in the shadow 
 of death, but there in the land of the living. " Thou art 
 my Portion, O Lord, in the land of the living." 
 
 And much more, with your dear , whose life has 
 
 been here more matured, and has seen more of its trials, 
 although she could not have a firmer choice or a more 
 faithful love of the One Object of faith and love. And 
 there is a special comfort in this solemn disease which 
 she has (which was also my child's), that it is placed there 
 directly by God's hand. If people catch fevers, or in 
 many cases of consumption or coughs, one would naturally 
 think, ' If it had not been for this or that, she might have 
 been with us still, to the glory of God.' These are the 
 seeds of certain death, whenever they are called out, and, 
 although it is possible, it is scarcely possible that it should 
 be God's Will that they should not. It is, I suppose, so 
 very rare a case, especially with one of so slight and frail 
 a constitution as your dear child, and where the disease is, 
 I believe, hereditary. This is no reason why she should 
 not be careful. On the contrary, one should wish that 
 whenever the messenger should come, it should be evident 
 that He sent it. One should wish too that she should not 
 miss any of the time in which it may please God to 
 perfect her, or make her an instrument of His love to her 
 sisters or to others. But still, I suppose, we must expect 
 that if God continue our own lives a little, we shall witness 
 that summons. And when it comes, it will, I am told, like 
 my dear Lucy's, be a very rapid one. But fear not. It too 
 will be a blessed close. The lamp of faith and love will 
 be trimmed more brightly yet, ere she be called to meet 
 the Bridegroom : and you cannot sorrow when you think 
 that the death of the body is but the opening gate of 
 Paradise, and that she will be in His presence Whom now 
 ' not seeing, she loves.' 
 
 It is a solemn existence for those around her too, that. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 11 
 
 however long God may continue her here, there is at any- 
 time but a little space between her and death. Perhaps, 
 whenever the time comes, a fortnight or three weeks of 
 actual severe illness may close her life. And so her sisters 
 will learn, I hope, to prize her, and act towards her as one 
 who might, at any time, within so short a time, be out 
 of sight. It seems an additional blessing to herself also, 
 to know beforehand that there are within her these seeds 
 of death ; for as they say that, at all times, we should aim 
 to do actions as though it were the last time, yet it makes 
 this more sensible when the last time may be at any 
 time so near. 
 
 Fear not. He Who has so loved her ' will provide ' what 
 is best for her. May He ever bless you all. 
 
12 Spiritual Letters of Edivard Botiverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 On the Death of a Cihld. 
 
 No one but a mother, who has had her last-born child 
 taken from her, can know what the loss is. What any one 
 can say is so on the surface. And they grate or seem 
 unfeeling out of simple ignorance. Everything must seem 
 very hopeless to you. It was so to me, humanly speak- 
 ing, when God took [my wife]. I dared neither look 
 backward nor forward. I dared not look back to those 
 eleven years of scarce earthly happiness. Onwards life 
 looked so dreary, I could not bear to think of it. So 
 I bound myself, as our Lord bids us, to the day, and 
 I resumed my work for God on the Monday after that 
 Saturday, when her body was committed to its resting- 
 place. I used for some time (I know not how long) to see, 
 on my way to Cathedral-prayers, the white of the pall 
 wave, as it had waved with the wind on that Saturday at 
 that particular spot ; and I used (as I have done since) 
 to say a Collect for her, as I passed to and fro by her dear 
 resting-place ; and I kept the hour when she gave her spirit 
 to God. And so God kept me on day by day. It seemed 
 as if I was in deep water up to the chin, and a Hand was 
 under my chin supporting it. I thought I could never 
 smile again. . . . Many felt very lovingly for me ; but it 
 was too deep for sympathy. It was all on the surface, 
 and the wound was deep down below. I remember when 
 dear J[ohn] K[eble] came first to see [me], I turned the 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 13 
 
 subject and spoke of other things. He wrote and said 
 he must have been very wanting. I said, ' it was my own 
 doing, I could not bear it' So I lived on, my real self 
 sealed up, except when I had to sympathize with deep 
 sorrow, and then I found that my letters were of use, just 
 because I owned the human hopelessness. 
 
 But then, it must be only ' human ' hopelessness. Since 
 God chasteneth whom He loveth, the deeper the chastening 
 the deeper the Love. And so God has some great work 
 for you, in you, since His hand has been so heavy. But 
 He will, I trust, give you joy in your other children ; but 
 you cannot anticipate now what He will do. " What I do 
 thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." 
 "No chastisement for the present seemeth to be joyous, 
 but grievous ; nevertheless, it afterwards yieldeth the 
 peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised 
 thereby." 
 
 Act day by day for the day. Thank God each day 
 for all the blessings of the day, all the promise which 
 you see in any of your children. I was frightened, when 
 I saw your troubles so apparently taking possession of 
 your mind, that God's great mercies in the recent con- 
 version of and the impulse for good which He 
 
 gave seemed to be so hidden behind them. God 
 
 teaches us by St. Paul to be (1 ) " careful for nothing " ; (2) to 
 " make our request known to God in everything " ; but 
 he adds (3) "with thanksgiving"; and then he promises 
 (4) "and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, 
 shall keep your hearts and minds." St. Paul does not say 
 it as a wish for them. It is an absolute promise. Do 
 the one and God will do the other. All who have tried 
 it have found it so. So many forget the "with thanks- 
 giving." Take God at His Word, and you will find it 
 so. In eternity, by His mercy, you will find that even 
 your daily trials . . . are mercies. God would, by 
 
14 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 them, make you what He would have you. They are 
 so many corrections of pride. Without them you might 
 be sweet, loving, tender ; but you would not have meek- 
 ness brought out. The religious proverb says, ' There 
 is no humility without humiliation.' Moses, from the fire 
 of his middle age, was made the ' meekest man on the 
 earth,' by the continued ingratitude and bickerings of 
 those 600,000 whom God sent him to deliver. Almighty 
 God . . . observes you, is ready with His grace to help 
 you if you will, says of you, if you are meek (so to 
 
 speak), ' took that meekly for love of Me.' This is 
 
 what He expresses by the things being ' written in His 
 book.' You are under the Captain of your salvation. 
 His Eye is upon you. One great battle which you have, 
 is to learn meekness. . . . Each [trial] is a chip to mould 
 you to that likeness of Him, Who says to each of us, 
 '■' Learn of I\Ie, for I am meek and lowly of heart." 
 Take them so, and God will infuse sweetness into the 
 bitterness. 
 
 . . . What a great mystery life is ! God sends us into 
 the world, to form us amid life's daily nothings and trials 
 for that character which we are to have throughout 
 eternity ; and every trial is like the blow of the statuarj' 
 which makes the unshapen block take the form of beauty 
 which He wills for it. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 15 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 To A Mother on the Death of her Son. 
 
 Whit Monday, 1865. 
 
 Fear not. He Who in His everlasting Love made your 
 boy for that home, has disposed all things well for him. 
 Our shortcomings do not injure the purpose of His Love. 
 One^s comfort is in the absolute knowledge of God. It is 
 to us mysterious why He should have taken those who 
 seem so full of promise. God only knows. We only know 
 His purpose of Love, and that He Who made them in His 
 eternal Love knew, when He made them, how and when 
 He should perfect them. You have then nothing to fear 
 of loss to him, and, while your diligence will be quickened 
 to those who remain and who may have to pass through 
 this life's storms, you will think of him as having attained 
 that place around the Eternal Throne, for which God in 
 His Love created him. 
 
 It is indeed a sorrowful gap, one which makes a 
 mother's heart ache for many a year, and which is 
 never perhaps quite filled up, except in the habitual 
 thought that God has given you the privilege of bearing 
 one who is, in ceaseless adoration, loving and praising God, 
 and who, in that same love, is longing for the coming of 
 you all to the bliss which he himself knows. The thought 
 of having one whom they love in Paradise, often, by 
 God's grace, draws to Him the brothers and sisters 
 who remain. May God the Holy Ghost shed abundantly 
 His comfort and love in all your hearts. 
 
i6 Spiritual Letters of Edward Boiiverie Pusey. 
 
 Do not think yourself unresigned, because of the bursts 
 of grief which there must be. These wounds of His 
 Love would not be so healing, if they were not so deep. 
 Only look to Him. The meek look of sorrow to your 
 Father is resignation. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 Sympathy on the Death of a Daughter, 
 
 All Saints' Day, 1868. 
 
 I did not write to you in your former sorrows, because 
 I only heard of them so long afterwards. I have just 
 heard of your last. Alas, alas, what a v/orld of sorrow 
 it is ; and God has visited you very sorely. It is sad 
 to think of you, as relates to this world, like a tree with all 
 the branches hewn ofL Yet your store, though lessened 
 in this world, is increased in Paradise ; and there, by God's 
 mercy, we hope soon to be, and to find those, with whom 
 we had to part for a while. To me too it is happy to 
 think of your good daughter, perfected, as she is now. 
 How much more to you ! 
 
 God comfort you, my dear friend, in this your last deep 
 sorrow, as He will. " Heaviness may endure for the night, 
 but joy Cometh in the Morning." And night is coming for 
 us too, so that the Morning is not far off. And meanwhile, 
 the deeper the sorrow, the deeper His Love. 
 
 Meantime, I am glad to hear that you have one, as Ruth 
 to Naomi, to soothe your bereaved age, as far as human 
 tenderness can. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 17 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 To A Husband on the Death of his Wife. 
 
 It is then, the close of a life here, of great singleness 
 of purpose and devoted service of our Lord. 
 
 It is a sad break to you, after all these years : but so 
 God has appointed that, in this world of sin, every departure 
 from it should involve suffering, and that the greater, 
 the more beautiful the soul was which He removes. One 
 
 thought which you have, my dearest , is, that it 
 
 is but for a short time. You are but seven years short 
 of the threescore years and ten ; and although a mother 
 is perhaps the most invaluable of the temporal gifts of 
 God, He has continued the gift to your children, far 
 beyond the usual time. 
 
 But you too, as well as I formerly, have at last to close 
 your eyes, and say, ' Thy Will alone is good, O my God : 
 Thy Will be done.' 
 
 God bless and comfort you and yours. 
 
 C 
 
i8 Spiritual Letters of Edward Boiiverie Piisey. 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 Sympathy. 
 
 November ii, 1873. 
 
 There was only time to write to yesterday, 
 
 before the afternoon post, and I thought you had rather 
 I should write to her. There is, alas ! so little to be said. 
 The Comforter alone can comfort. One only thing 
 I know ; I dared not to look forward, not a day, nor 
 an hour. I neither dared look backwards nor forwards, 
 but bound myself to the present instead. This differs 
 with many, but I am sure there ought to be no looking 
 forward, unless God makes a change to be a duty. 
 
 I remember lying on her sofa, unable to move, 
 
 recently a widow, with her nine young children, so changed 
 I knew her only by her widow's cap ; and she said, ' In 
 the morning I know that God Who brought me to the 
 morning will bring me to the evening, and in the evening 
 that He Who has brought me to the evening will bring 
 me to the morning.' It struck me as so simple and so 
 true. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 19 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 To A Husband on the Death of his Wife. 
 
 April 22, 1879. 
 
 You have, I trust, had every consolation which you could 
 have had. At our age, partings cannot be for long : we 
 have only to prepare for the Great Meeting. Bodily 
 suffering has, since our blessed Lord's meritorious Sufferings 
 for us, been so sanctified to the soul, that one cannot but 
 reverentially sympathi-ze with those, whose friends have 
 died with more than usual bodily suffering. Much more 
 when she, who is now out of sight, was so near as she was 
 whom you have just lost. I have seen in several experiences, 
 and heard in others, how God has blessed the soul through 
 them in ways which others know not of. 
 
 I am glad that you have . . . living close to you. . . . 
 I could only wish that they could be to you, what my son 
 has been to me these many years. Solitary, in one sense, 
 a widower's life must be ; but I trust that it is in God's 
 good Providence that your son has seemingly no occupa- 
 tion which should interfere with the ministering to your 
 remaining years. . . . 
 
 C 2 
 
20 Spiritual Letters of Edivard Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 Trust in God. 
 
 1865. 
 
 Do not lose courage. You have been doing things for 
 God, and God has loved you and loves you, and would not 
 let you rest without loving Him more. You know that 
 the only remedy is prayer. Do not think about the dull- 
 ness — that your heart is not stirred by what used to stir 
 it. Give yourself, whatever you are, to God ; ' Good or 
 bad, I am Thine ' ; ' I am Thine, O save me.' Hold fast 
 to God with your will. You know that He has said, 
 " Whoso Cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out." We 
 come to Him by our will. Without Him, we could not 
 will to be His. 
 
 Do not analyze whether you do a thing to 'satisfy 
 conscience or out of love for God.' Say to God often, 
 ' For Thee alone.' Pray Him to be the End of all your 
 ends, and do each thing, by His help, the very best 
 you can. 
 
 Resist all ideas that you are unable to pray. The power 
 to pray comes with praying. You know, Of ourselves we 
 know not what to ask, but the Spirit helpeth our infir- 
 mities. But He helpeth us when trying to pray, not when 
 we are not trying. You think that you will be unable ; 
 but this is imagination only ; while you are weighing 
 whether or no you can do His Will, you are by yourself ; 
 and } GU know very truly that you cannot. Kneel down 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 21 
 
 to pray, asking His help, and He will pray in you. God 
 tells us in Holy Scripture that He will help you ; He does 
 not give us a private assurance (as it were) what He will 
 do. But when we are in act trying to do His Will, He 
 helps us. 
 
 Do not dwell on past failures in themselves ; but tell 
 God, 'Would, O my God, I had not, in this or this or this, 
 offended Thee.' And He will make it as if it had not 
 been. Fear not. Jesus intercedes for you ever, and He 
 is Almighty. 
 
 May He bring you safe through your troubles and 
 bless you. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 Delayed Answer to Prayer. 
 
 December ii, 1S79. 
 
 God be thanked and praised for His goodness to , 
 
 and in him to you. Now you know that He was hearing 
 you while you were sick at heart, that He seemed not 
 to hear you. He was doubtless waiting the time, when 
 the last motion of grace which would fix him would be 
 effectual ; but was giving him, all the time, the graces 
 to which he would most respond, or saving him from 
 what he might otherwise have fallen into, or re-recalling 
 him, if he stumbled. 
 
 So now you will thank and bless Him not only for this 
 last goodness, but for all the rest, which you feared that 
 He did not give him. 
 
22 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 Sorrow and Controversy. 
 
 Ascot, October 20, 1880. 
 
 My pleasant time is to be over on Saturday. My 
 infirmities have been a great hindrance to our seeing 
 one another. I have given up hearing long sentences, 
 though your voice is so clear ; for fear of misunderstanding 
 what is said. 
 
 I have written what I could to poor , for it is 
 
 soothing to have one's hopes echoed. "Out of the deep" 
 issued in " O Israel, trust in the Lord ; for with the Lord 
 there is mercy ; and with Him there is plenteous 
 Redemption." 
 
 I have written a useless letter of remonstrance to 
 
 , saying that in all this agitating there are 
 
 two parties whom we leave out of consideration, of very 
 different importance : but One of very great weight ; with 
 the other we have a very intimate relation ; — Almighty 
 God and ourselves. 
 
 In our early Tractarian days, we used a prayer out 
 of Daniel ix, with other prayers of humiliation and for 
 internal unity. J. H. Newman drew them up at my wish. 
 Now we seem to do nothing but bark at and devour 
 one another. 
 
 But there is no use in complaining, except to God. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 23 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 Vocation. 
 
 November, 1877. 
 
 The one question is, whether God calls us : it is not 
 whether we feel fit or no. If God gives us the call, God 
 will give us the grace. We may under-estimate ourselves, 
 as well as over-estimate ourselves. St. Paul said, " Who 
 is sufficient for these things ? " If St. Paul, how much 
 more we ? The question is not as to anything in the past 
 or present ; but as to the call of God. If God calls us, 
 He will fit us. When God put our soul into the bodies 
 which we received of our parents. He had His own special 
 purpose for each of us. He willed each of us to be saved 
 in doing our own appointed work. He had us and our 
 whole selves to be formed in our own special way. We 
 sometimes hear of a person mistaking his profession ; of 
 his being, e. g.. a good lawyer spoiled, a good man 
 of business spoiled, i. e. he had missed the employment 
 of life for which God adapted [him]. 
 
 I cannot tell what your calling is ; I know only certain 
 outward dispositions : hold up your soul as a sheet of white 
 paper to God, for Him to write on it what He wills. He 
 has promised to hear prayer: say with St. Augustine, 
 " Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou 
 wiliest." Do not hurry, but pray Him to teach you. 
 
24 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 Self-consciousness. 
 
 1844. 
 
 I may have given you too many rules at once, and so 
 it might be better to concentrate yourself on some few 
 points, to get rid of this all-destroying self-reflection. You 
 never can make any solid progress, until you have uprooted 
 this. It may be unfit that you should, else you might 
 make even good minister to evil, and become worse 
 through what would in itself have been good. It is the 
 worst form of idolatry, setting up yourself as the idol in 
 God's stead, and using any good thoughts from Him to 
 deck out your idol ; referring God to self instead of your- 
 self to God. 
 
 I wish I knew how to help you, but it seems too deep 
 for me. One only can help you. You seem to want 
 a re-creation of your inner self, a revolution which shall 
 turn you round, so, as I said, to make God, instead of self, 
 your centre. It is a great work. This thought of self 
 seems so to have rooted in you, and twined round all 
 thoughts and words and actions. However, all is gained 
 if you are conscious that you have a great work before 
 you, and that you cannot of yourself do it, and wish it 
 done or begun in you. 
 
 I do not say this to discourage you. If you desire and 
 pray earnestly that this rooted thought of self be plucked 
 out of you, all is well. Accidental falls there will be. and 
 this should goad you on to more exertion. . . . 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 25 
 
 Society is not the place for looking devout. You had 
 better make it a place of recreation altogether, only in 
 the fear of God, than try to obtain a higher tone of mind, 
 and then see what people think of it. Better to do common 
 duties in a common way than attempt things higher and 
 then abuse them to idolatry. You should think yourself 
 unfit for it, until you have more self-mastery. Avoid 
 any outward action in society which may betray any 
 inward good feeling. 
 
 You ask for penance. I suppose the severest would 
 be to bind you to tell some of the party the foolish thoughts 
 you had in relation to themselves. I am not going to 
 lay this upon you, but if you would shrink from this, you 
 may realize the more how great the foolishness, I would 
 only say then at present, use daily Ps. cxxxi, and picture 
 to yourself your Lord saying to you, '• Verily, I say unto 
 you, they have their reward ; " and think on for a while 
 what it is to have the reward so as to have none in store. 
 Pray daily for humility, and try daily to do certain acts 
 of humility. Check every rising feeling at once. . . . 
 
 I suspect one source of wrong with you is having been 
 able to enter into the thoughts of others, and make them 
 intellectually your own, without making them part of 
 your life and acting upon them ; you would thus be thought 
 unduly of, as though you acted as you spoke, and your 
 speaking (as Mr. N[ewman] says in the ' Lyra ') makes 
 acting otherwise ' a sin against the light ^' 
 
 ' ' Lyia Aposlolica,' Ixvii, line 12. 
 
26 spiritual Letters of Edward Boiiverie Piisey. 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 Feelings. 
 
 [1844.] 
 
 You must not allow yourself in morbid or misgiving 
 feelings. Seek to do what by God's grace you can ; 
 continue acts of repentance for past failures ; sorrow for 
 present shortcomings ; and then commit yourself and your 
 all to a loving Saviour, Who has borne so long with us 
 and had compassion on us. 
 
 The immediate occasion of this is that, I fear, there is 
 something unhealthy about your sorrow and self-reproaches ; 
 there may be a secret impatience or irritation that you 
 cannot at once be what you would, which is not true 
 penitence or humility. We are what we have made 
 ourselves ; and we must pray God to unmake and remake 
 us, and must not be vexed if, while we are pulling down 
 the old decayed wall we daubed over, the dust fly in 
 our eyes, or bats and unclean creatures flit about us. 
 Only let us strive that they do not nestle again, and the 
 loathsome sight of them may do us good. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 27 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 Self-esteem, 
 
 Perhaps you have too many rules, and it might be 
 better to set in good earnest about some. And yet 
 I hardly know what to part with. But do be very earnest 
 about speech. You know not what snares you may be 
 preparing for yourself, e.g. by your conversation with 
 Roman Catholics ; it seems all parade of self on holy 
 subjects, and unconsciously cherishing discontent as to your 
 own Church. Try to set before yourself, that to seek man's 
 praise is to lose God s. The following happened a few 
 years ago. A clergyman ^ sitting, I think in his garden 
 (I forget whether in a sort of dream), saw a neighbouring 
 clergyman, a popular preacher. He asked him the hour. 
 A[nswer]. ' Half-past one. I have been in Hell half an hour, 
 because I loved the praise of man more than the praise 
 of God.' The next day another asked him, ' Do you 
 
 know that that devoted Mr. is gone to his reward ? ' 
 
 'When did he die?' 'At one, yesterday.' Such is the 
 outline of the history. It was told me with the name 
 of the clergyman who saw it. This love of praise eats 
 out the good of everything ; you are casting out with 
 your own hands any treasure you may acquire, and taking 
 in sand to sink your vessel. Do then be resolute as to 
 this. When you have made an offering to God, do not 
 
 ' This incident was wrongly sup- number of the Nineteenth Century^ 
 posed to have occurred to Dr. Pusey 1884, in an article on ' Apparitions.' 
 iiimself. It was mentioned in the July 
 
28 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 ask for it back again to sacrifice it to self. Such things 
 as ' hinting at self's abstinent living and unworldliness in 
 town,' what are they but a more refined worldliness? 
 How much better when people in simplicity enjoy self 
 and are thankful, than seemingly to give up self in order 
 to make self-praise one's end ! 
 
 I trust that if you are in real earnest about this, other 
 things will prosper better. While this lasts, everything 
 may turn to poison, because into self-esteem. It may 
 be that God withdraws His sensible Presence in devotion, 
 because, until then, there may be an unfitness in your 
 having It, and you might be doing yourself harm. This 
 self-love is the right eye which must be plucked out. 
 While this lasts, you may be like a person who is tied, 
 though by one chain, and allowed, as it seems, to walk 
 on, yet it is, after all, a mere weary walking round and 
 round the one place to which he is fixed. That place 
 to which you may be fixed, is self. Break this and, instead 
 of this weary round, you may walk on freely to God. 
 
 I know not whether you are in anything attempting 
 too much, e.g. as to dress. I have seen persons in station 
 much above yours in very simple dress. It may be again 
 that you are making a snare for yourself, by thinking 
 that you are doing great things ; whereas, after all, how 
 little a sacrifice would it be, did not self-love magnify 
 it. If one thinks of the Day of Judgement, or the short- 
 ness of life, how utterly contemptible are all these poor 
 things, how utterly [contemptible] even in this world's 
 estimation. We are now reading Ecclesiastes ; try to 
 realize its lesson, that everything is vanity and vexation 
 out of God. 
 
 I can hardly answer your question about expenses. 
 I should rather say, Try to obtain the habit of thinking 
 what is spent upon self, as the necessary compliance with 
 infirmity. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 29 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 Parental Claims. 
 
 November 18, 1874. 
 
 You must not expect 'the course of true' heavenly 
 'love to run smooth' any more than earthly love, which 
 the proverb says never does. God always allows trials 
 to come, to test sincerity, and to make us the more prize 
 His gift. 
 
 To bear this hindrance will be a channel of grace to 
 you. If you have not written to your mother, you will 
 write to her a loving letter, acceding to her wish to stay 
 until spring. Spring will soon be here, and a cheerful 
 acquiescence in her wish will leave a pleasant remembrance 
 in her mind. 
 
 Over and above God's usual way it is natural and 
 loving in your parents not to wish to part with you, 
 unless for something which they would nnderstand to be 
 for your happiness : and it is natural that your father 
 should not understand what is new and foreign to his 
 habits of thought. 
 
 So do not think . . . that any strange thing has happened 
 to you. Your father naturally wishes to be satisfied that 
 this is a mature wish on your part since it is contrary 
 to your early tastes. 
 
 It may make you the more sorry for having lived once 
 for this world to think, ' Had I always lived to God they 
 would not have doubted about me now.' 
 
 Pray God much for real humility, and that you may 
 know your own nothingness. 
 
30 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 The Religious Life. 
 
 November"], 1874. 
 
 I am thankful that God has fixed your choice on the 
 religious life. Letters say so little, that perhaps I am 
 unduly alarmed about you. Perhaps what frightens me 
 is that you seem so certain about yourself. There seems 
 to me a sort of hardness, which I should wish to see 
 melted. ' How,' you will think, ' can there be hardness 
 where there is so much love ? ' Well, perhaps the fire 
 and the iron are side by side, and the fire has not yet 
 changed the iron into steel by penetrating it. And I sup- 
 pose that it is pride which keeps them apart. I wonder 
 whether you have thought not only of the habitual but 
 of the actual grace necessary. It always seems to me 
 that if God gives you the grace to choose a good thing, 
 then you think that your strong will would do the rest. 
 I have to-day seen a mind of that sort, strong love and 
 a strong will : but somehow the faults come from that 
 strong unsoftened will, in details. 
 
 The ' passionate love for Jesus ' cannot be too strong. 
 What a strong, fiery, passionate love St. Paul's was! He 
 was on fire with love. Yet how pliant he was, whenever 
 he could be ! He retained his individuality, but it was 
 like iron at white heat, transparent with light, glowing with 
 the inward fire : pliant, yet iron still. 
 
 I would have you anxious for nothing, . . . except for 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 31 
 
 the grace of God. Whatever of natural good qualities 
 you have will remain all the safer, when penetrated by 
 that grace. St. Paul retained all his individuality. So 
 did St. Peter and St. John. One sees the individuality, 
 even when they wrote, inspired and, as it is said of them, 
 " full of the Holy Ghost." No right course of action will 
 destroy those natural graces of which you wrote, indi- 
 viduality and ideality. You will be yourself still, but 
 ensouled, I hope, with the grace of God. 
 
 I write this the rather now, because some think that 
 ' obedience ' interferes with individuality of character. 
 ' Obedience,' the wise man says, ' speaketh victories.' It 
 interferes not with individuality, but with self-will. There 
 is always scope for whatever ability God may have given 
 any one. Self-will only misdirects energy ; and obedience 
 is so helpful, because we are so full of self-will. 
 
 I think that you had better go at first to St. Saviour's, 
 where, I think, I gathered from you that God gave you 
 
 a call through . . . You will have to be accustomed 
 
 to look away from things outward, and to discern Him 
 Who is invisibly present. And one may even be helped 
 to concentrate one's soul on His Unseen Presence, when 
 one is away from things otherwise beseeming It-'. 
 
 Do write to , if you have not written in the interval. 
 
 I think that your health would probably be better amid 
 practical life, doing something for our dear Lord. There 
 is always work fitted for the strength or weakness of each. 
 
 I do not think that there is any good in waiting. The 
 work of grace goes on in and through acting. 
 
 God bless you. 
 
 ' i.e. things reverent. 
 
32 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 Religious Occupations. 
 
 [1874.] 
 
 In thinking over the account of your occupations, I 
 rather seem to miss occupations involving the showing 
 of love. The only one apparently is the teaching of your 
 little sister. Your mother is (you say) very independent ; 
 you are, if I understood you right, rather apart from the 
 rest. Your chief occupation (sacred embroidery), though 
 it is for the glory of God, and for the honour of His 
 Sacrament, is still solitary, involves no sacrifice of your 
 own will, or giving way to others. It is so far a mode 
 of life, which would rather foster a habit of following your 
 own way, dislike of being put out, in fine, self-will and 
 selfishness, because except your occupation with your 
 little sister, it does not draw out love. But acts of love 
 increase love ; love, without acts, dies out. 
 
 I should doubt not that the visiting the poor (as your 
 physical strength may permit) would be a good to you, 
 because it would increase your love. Only you would 
 not visit them in your secular relation, but as those whose 
 outward lot our Lord chose for Himself, and who are the 
 special bequests of our Lord to His Church, the repre- 
 sentatives of Himself; above others, of such is the kingdom 
 of heaven. You would go to learn of the good among 
 them ; anyhow, they are all better, I doubt not, than the 
 corresponding characters in the wealthier classes. 
 
 I feel more doubt in saying anything about your seden- 
 tary employment, because of the illness which you had. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 33 
 
 But doing Church embroidery cannot he the business 
 of hfc, unless it be the means of gaining a livelihood, the 
 state of life to which it should please God to call any. 
 I should have suggested an office of love (as intercession 
 for others) but that it might be a strain if simultaneous 
 with other employments. Yet ejaculatory prayers, i. e. 
 little thoughts or prayers darted up to God in the midst 
 of one's every day's occupations, increase very much our 
 treasures of prayer, and, if they were for others, would 
 return into one's own bosom, in the way also that they 
 would increase in us that ' most excellent gift of charity.' 
 Do you know the ' Society of the Love of Jesus ' ? It was 
 begun some (I forget how many, twenty-three perhaps) years 
 ago, so that there should be no moment, night or day, in 
 which some of its members were not praying to God for 
 the conversion of sinners. So whenever you should pray for 
 their conversion, you would be praying with others. And 
 God has heard their prayers in a way which seemed to me 
 beforehand miraculous. Only all Grace is miraculous. 
 
 Will you also set yourself to think, for what end God 
 sent you into this world ? God has His design for every 
 one. Each soul has to be formed for its own special 
 beauty in the Heavenly courts. No soul is like another 
 soul. Most souls of women are formed through the duties 
 of wives and mothers ; others through ' the religious life.' 
 I know not, of course, what God may will for you. But 
 give yourself wholly to Him, and pray Him to teach you 
 how you may best please Him. 
 
 The ejaculatory prayers would, I think, prevent that 
 aching, under which you suffer. A soul which is not 
 often with God in its occupations is, as it were, in an 
 exhausted receiver, and aches because it is exhausted, 
 having been away from its Life, God, Who made it for 
 Himself. 
 
 God bless you. 
 
 D 
 
34 Spiritual Letters of Edivard Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 Examination of the Whole Life. 
 
 Wednesday after 2nd Sunday in Lent, 1 844. 
 
 I hardly know how far I spoke of self-examination. Did 
 you ever endeavour to examine your whole life, as if you 
 were then to give an account of it to God ? [Did you ev^er] 
 try to recollect every sin you could, tracing along each 
 course of sin, of omission or commission ; or examining, 
 year by year, what you can recall which was amiss in each ; 
 e. g. if vanity was one, in how many acts it branched out ; 
 or negligence in prayer, or sloth ; or resistance to the motions 
 of God's Holy Spirit leading you onward ; or doing out of 
 respect to man what should have been done to God ; or early 
 neglect of duty to parents ; if you were ever the occasion 
 of any other's doing wrong ; if you have ever been unsub- 
 missive to the Will of God, or loved creatures too much ; or 
 neglected or been careless about prayer ; or as a child been 
 ever guilty of untruth ; or had dislike to any one, or repeated 
 ill of others, though true ; or judged hastily, or put bad 
 meanings on actions which might have a good one ; or 
 wherein you have been vain, whether of things worthless, 
 or even of things in themselves good ; or envied God's gifts 
 to others ; or wished yourself other than you are, or shrunk 
 from doing right out of fear of man, or preferred yourself 
 unduly to others, or been vexed when others were praised 
 or noticed and you not ; or wished to be thought better 
 than you arc ; or excused yourself unduly ; or wasted the 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 35 
 
 money committed to you ; or taken undue delight in things 
 pleasant to any of the senses ; or neglected opportunities of 
 good to others ? 
 
 Briefly, self-examination is generally divided under the 
 Ten Commandments, and (as great sins not coming plainly 
 under them) pride and sloth. Envy would naturally come 
 under the tenth, as anger under the sixth. Then also 
 there are sins of omission. 
 
 I believe that some such self-examination, as in the Eye 
 of God. and praying for His light to search all the corners 
 of our heart (" Look well if there be any way of wickedness 
 in me, and lead me in the way everlasting "), solemnly 
 desiring to know one's self and see one's sins as far as one 
 can bear, will to any who had not made it, disclose much 
 of themselves, show perhaps how sins have not been single 
 actions, but connected, e. g. how self-indulgence has been 
 connected with irritation, vanity, or, it may be, with envy ; 
 .showing at once the aggravated character of any sin, or 
 the mode of remedying it ; or, looking far back, one 
 shall see sins, which one had so forgotten that one could 
 hope they had never been, and yet, if one look steadily at 
 them, they have been ; or one may see the same evil ten- 
 dency shaping itself according to our years, and taking 
 some more subtle or refined form, as we grow older, so 
 that we scarcely see that it is sprung from the same root 
 of sin. 
 
 Lent is a solemn time for some such self-examination, if 
 it has not yet been made, and especially with the view to 
 see your sins more as God sees them. It may much deepen 
 humility, and earnest desire to gird yourself more to do 
 God's Will, and set you in the way to know yourself more 
 thoroughly. 
 
 D % 
 
36 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 Daily Self-examination. 
 
 The best way of self-examination is by dividing the day 
 into two parts, examining yourself first about twelve, then 
 in the evening, when not too tired. This prevents so large 
 an accumulation, which it is difficult to disentangle. Some 
 good questions for self-examination were published a year 
 ago at Toovey's. But one who is thoughtful about himself 
 knows what to inquire about. It is very useful at these 
 solemn seasons to go over one's whole past life, and try to 
 recall to one's self what sins one can, and class them, and 
 confess them from time to time (as on Friday) before God, 
 with some penitential confession as Psalm li. A list 
 may be made intelligible only to one's self by the use of 
 abbreviations. Thus the two first letters of the place 
 where a sin was committed will mark it. These lists are 
 very sorrowful; but very useful in keeping up continual 
 penitence. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 37 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 
 Rules for the Spiritual Life. 
 
 For One living in Society who was Hoping 
 to become a Sister. 
 
 1. To keep the eyes to the ground in God's House, with 
 the feehng of the Publican, and as having sinned by 
 letting them rove, and thinking of man instead of God 
 there. 
 
 2. To speak against no one, remembering one's own sins. 
 
 3. Not to speak of self. 
 
 4. To meet any rising feeling of self-consciousness as 
 often as you can with prayer, as, ' Lord, teach me what 
 I am in Thy sight.' 
 
 5. If ever praised, make an inward act of self-abasement. 
 
 6. If tempted to think better of yourself than another, 
 ' Set this Thy servant higher in the kingdom of heaven 
 than me unworthy.' 
 
 7. Never interrupt another in conversation, and allow 
 yourself always to be interrupted. 
 
 8. Study to see all good in others, especially : 
 
 9. And how pride has corrupted any good [in yourself]. 
 
 10. Seek occasions to obey — — and to show respect 
 to her. 
 
 11. Never dispute if you can help it. 
 
 11. Habitually think how every one may be higher in 
 Heaven, may be less a sinner than you. 
 13. Do acts of humility — wait on yourself. 
 
38 spiritual Letters of Edivard Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 14. Learn to use prayer in dressing, that you be not 
 found ' unclothed.' Think of the unclothing of the grave. 
 
 1 5. Avoid things which lead to self-display ; there can 
 be no need to act charades nor to go to balls, surely ; much 
 less to waltz. 
 
 16. Pray before entering into conversation,' Set a watch, 
 O Lord, &c.' (Bishop Andrewes), and that it be 'to the 
 glory of God.' 
 
 17. Never use the word 'Dio' in songs except in devo- 
 tion, nor sing what you do not believe, what is not real. 
 
 18. Make some rule as to money which shall involve 
 self-denial, and give what you give in penitence, as having 
 wasted it. 
 
 19. Check laughter, as having an earnest work in hand, 
 your own salvation. 
 
 20. Be very watchful against exaggeration, and anything 
 which leads to it. 
 
 21. Fix (for a month) some hour (e.g. 6) after which 
 always to rise as soon as you awake ; (if tired, lie down 
 to sleep in the middle of the day, or go to bed earlier), 
 but keep to hour of rising : (sleep about seven hours, not 
 less). 
 
 22. Put off the hour of prayer for nothing of your own ; 
 so as not to make a stroke more with pen. 
 
 23. Move the moment you are required, so as not to give 
 way to sloth. 
 
 24. Speak more slowly. 
 
 25. Put nothing in a ludicrous point of view. 
 
 26. Say nothing which you think would tell except to 
 God's glory : 
 
 27. Nor try to condense things so as to speak vividly. 
 
 28. Say plain things in a plain way. 
 
 29. Try to speak as in God's Presence — seek not yours, 
 but His. 
 
 30. Do not speak against anything. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 39 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 Spiritual Advice. 
 
 August 20, 1838. 
 
 I am very glad that you have summoned resolution to 
 write to me, and, though I did not anticipate it (as I did 
 not know on what you were going to write), readily feel 
 that you must have had difficulty : for it is a solemn 
 and earnest thing to write about one's self, and there is 
 a feeling of reluctance annexed to laying open one's self 
 in any degree, as a caution that it is to be done rarely, 
 and only when required by some adequate object. 
 
 On the subject upon which you write to me, my general 
 strong impression is that all comfort ought to be of ' God's 
 giving, not of man's taking,' i.e. that it is not our end, 
 but a rewai'd or an encouragement given by God, from 
 time to time, in greater or less degrees, in glimpses, more 
 or less vividly, as He sees good for us ; and that the 
 attempt to secure it for ourselves, not being the temper 
 of mind which He sees good for us, ends generally in a 
 false excitement and a fictitious state. I recollect being 
 struck with a saying of Bishop Taylor's, that, ' to look 
 for comfort in prayer and to be anxious for it, was like 
 following our Lord for the loaves and fishes,' or something 
 like this. And Scripture speaks of ' peace ' as the direct 
 gift of God. St. Paul begins all the Epistles which he 
 begins in his own name (i.e. all except the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews) by praying for it as God's gift, as much as 
 grace. " Grace be unto you and peace from God our 
 Father and the Lord Jesus Christ," and this is so fixed 
 
40 Spiritual Letters of Edivard Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 a form that he varies it only so far, as to the Galatians, 
 to say " from the Father," and to Timothy and Titus he 
 adds " Grace, mercy, and peace." St. Peter uses nearly 
 the same form in the Second Epistle, " Grace and peace 
 be multiplied unto you through," &c., still in the passive 
 form, as a gift conveyed to them ; and so far in the First 
 Epistle also. St. John in his Second Epistle, as addressed 
 to an individual, uses the same form as St. Paul to 
 Timothy and Titus. And this doubtless was an Apostolic 
 blessing, and they were conveying on, by virtue of their 
 office, the blessing which they had received from their 
 Lord, " Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto 
 you ; not as the world giveth give I unto you : " which 
 seems to be implied by the uniformity of the words used 
 by different Apostles ; and indeed the Seventy had the 
 direction to convey it. " Into whatsoever house ye enter, 
 first say, Peace be to this house," as I think also the words 
 " Peace be with you " are a blessing pronounced by the 
 priest in all liturgies ; and our other benediction, " The 
 peace of God, &c." (from Phil. iv. 7) conveys the same. 
 Again, when '-peace" and "joy" are said to be fruits of 
 the Spirit, i.e. worked in us by the Holy Spirit, or the 
 words "joy of the Holy Ghost " (i Thess. i. 6), '• were filled 
 with joy and the Holy Ghost" (Acts xiii. 52), the same 
 truth is conveyed that Christian joy and peace are worked 
 in the Christian directly by God. They may be lawfully 
 the objects of prayer; but we can no more work them 
 in ourselves, or arrive at them by any process of the 
 understanding, than we can at any other of His gifts. 
 
 A good deal of mischief as well as of discomfort has 
 been caused by overlooking this : people have gone about 
 to establish their own peace as the Jews did their own 
 righteousness, and so have missed the 'peace of God.' 
 This is eminently the case with the Wesleyans, whose 
 whole theory is built upon the necessity of having and 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 41 
 
 obtaining peace, and who seem to think that there can 
 be no false peace, and so frequently produce or continue 
 it. The same is, in its degree, the case with the so-called 
 Evangelicals (we may call them x to avoid names) : and 
 Dr. Arnold's theology, in which you were educated, has 
 a good many x ingredients; and one of these is to look 
 to joy and peace, or the feelings, as something in them- 
 selves, something to be analyzed, used as a criterion of 
 the spiritual state, acted upon directly, instead of being a 
 result, a reward, or an instrument to lead people on to more 
 faithful exertion. I should not then make it a question, 
 ' whether the words of encouragement or of reproof are 
 meant to apply to my case,' i. e. not I think what you 
 mean by this : for most both are needed, the reproofs 
 to quicken and to keep them vigilant, or to make them 
 fill up that which is lacking, and correct what is yet 
 amiss, or deepen their repentance for what has been so. 
 And so I should think that the fear of being a castaway 
 was sent into many minds from time to time, or doubts 
 whether they might not be falling back, to make them 
 gird themselves up more strongly and press on more 
 vigorously, and so eventually escape being castaways, 
 and obtain a brighter crown. So that I should think 
 the practical way, when any of these feelings come over 
 one, was to see whether one had relaxed in any plan of 
 action which one had formed, or given way to anything 
 amiss ; or to sift things, which one was in the habit of 
 doing, to see whether there was anything amiss in them ; 
 and to set about correcting these, leaving 
 
 ' Present rapture, comfort, ease. 
 As Heaven shall bid them, come and go : — 
 The secret this of rest below 
 
 One thing I think I can point out in your present mode 
 of life, as unfavourable to spiritual comfort, and that is 
 
 ^ ' Christian Year,' Morning Hymn. 
 
42 spiritual Letters of Edzvard Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 the exclusive pursuit of a professional object ; you say, 
 ■ I make it a rule hardly to look at these books, except 
 on Sundays, and am as much as possible engaged with 
 medicine in some shape or other from morning to night.' 
 This you seem to have proposed to yourself, as a duty, 
 as I did once in a somewhat similar case, when I was 
 at work at Arabic abroad, and wished to shorten the 
 time in which I was engaged in a study bearing so in- 
 directly on Theology. But I should say from my own 
 experience, that the engrossing pursuit of any study is 
 unhealthy to the spirit, because engrossing ; that one 
 becomes unawares engrossed with the means in a degree 
 instead of the end, that the mind (as the very words 
 imply) cannot be in that disengaged, free state, sitting 
 loose to the things of this world, that it ought : that, 
 in fine, it is an unnatural state, and so disarranges the 
 mind, making it restless and unquiet, throwing it off its 
 balance, and making it feverish and distracted. There 
 seems to be a degree of self-will in proposing to do in 
 a given time more than we can naturally do, which is 
 chastened by consequent disarrangement of mind. If it 
 is necessary for a given end, and that end is also necessary, 
 and to be accomplished by our means, then, of course, 
 the self-will disappears ; but one ought to be very sure 
 of this, and then seek to cure it by other means— self- 
 discipline. One very obvious one is continued mental 
 prayer not to be engrossed by that wherewith one was 
 occupied ; but this will not do, if one is all the while 
 occupying one's self more than one ought to be, because 
 one is then praying against the consequences, which have 
 been annexed as a warning against what one is doing. 
 I should rather, in your case, recommend the diminishing 
 the degree of occupation, and employing it, at intervals 
 if possible, in religious exercises. An hour a day gained 
 in this way would be an act of faith, and, if given up 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 43 
 
 readily (supposing that under the circumstances, which 
 I do not know, it seemed right) would, I doubt not, have 
 an accompanying blessing. The observation of the ancient 
 ' Hours,' or the chief Hours of the day, 9, 12, 3, if it were 
 but for short prayers (such as are in Bishop Cosin), learnt 
 by heart in relation to the wants of those hours, is very 
 healthful. 
 
 And now, since you have made me in a sort a spiritual 
 adviser, I will mention two things to you, and you will not 
 be mortified at my naming them, or at my having seen or 
 heard of them. Not to keep you in suspense. I would say 
 at once (with all affection for your general character), that 
 there is one prominent fault, which people least like to be 
 charged with, though so many have it, over-self-esteem, or 
 to speak very plainly, vanity. Knowing very little of your 
 early life, I have no grounds, as I have no reason to judge, 
 how much of a fault this is ; nor could I say precisely, on 
 what it turned, what was its principal subject. I might 
 suspect, perhaps, even ' personal appearance,' or something 
 about the person or connected with it, was a subject (as it 
 is a most capricious quality, and they said of an eminent 
 German linguist, Schlegel, that he was vain of everything 
 which was his, down to his elbow-chair). This you can 
 tell far better than myself: whether it be this, or con- 
 versation, or general ability, or acquirements, or whether 
 it floats about different things, it will in some shape or 
 other, constitute your trial for some time. And it is of 
 course a very important one, because it has a tendency to 
 corrupt everything we do, by infusing self-satisfaction into 
 it. It is easier to write than to say this, though you will 
 believe I have some reluctance even in writing it ; but 
 having seen good sort of people in whom it has grown 
 up even to advanced life, and knowing what a bane it is 
 to spiritual progress, and a hindrance altogether, I could 
 not but think it right to name it. It is often useful that 
 
44 Spiritual Letters of Edward Boiiverie Pitsey. 
 
 a person should know that any given quality is perceptible 
 to others ; it makes them realize more the degree in which 
 it is in them ; and I doubt not that, in earnest as you are 
 about yourselfj you will set yourself vigorously to correct it. 
 
 The other point I have heard of only, and cannot tell 
 wherein it exactly consists ; it amounts to this — I know 
 not whether in disputing, or speaking, or objecting — you 
 have said 'strong' latitudinarian things, which have given 
 pain to serious people. I could be sure that you had done 
 this ; I do not know how long ago it was, but I imagined 
 it recent. Perhaps you saw that what you said about the 
 inscriptions on the Cross in the Four Evangelists pained 
 me ; it was a sort of pain which I do not shrink from, just 
 as you would not from the sight of anything physically 
 painful in a patient : I should be sorry if you were less 
 open with me in consequence : but there was a sort of 
 off-hand, matter-of-course way, which pained me. You 
 will recollect that I answered strongly, not as to yourself, 
 but as to the scheme, which used such arguments. (I have 
 offended in this way formerly myself, I know ; so one 
 ought to be the more patient as to the same in others.) 
 Now, you have changed not only your habits of mind, 
 I imagine, but your views in some sort on Theology : you 
 do not adopt those which we aver to be Catholic, but you 
 have probably parted with some which you held, or hold 
 them less peremptorily, or have modified them, and hold 
 others which you did not hold. In a word, your mind has 
 been undergoing a change. But this ought to make you 
 less decided as to those points which you still hold, but 
 which belong to the same peculiar school, some of whose 
 opinions you have modified or abandoned ; you ought, at 
 least, to hold your mind in suspense, and not maintain, or 
 give vent to them, except for the purpose of gaining 
 clearer insight, not in mixed societies as matters of dis- 
 cussion, but privately and quietly. For if they be untrue 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 45 
 
 (as you must suppose possible), then as far as this goes, 
 you would be (though ignorantly) yet upholding or cir- 
 culating untruth, perhaps bringing it to the knowledge of 
 those unacquainted with it, or impressing it on those who 
 know it, or retarding those who are getting rid of it. This 
 necessity of uncertainty upon some points need not make 
 you fear forming a sceptical habit of mind, so that you but 
 distinguish between what is Catholic and private ; having 
 found one modern teacher in error, in whom you placed 
 confidence, does not at all involve doubting what has been 
 held not by one but by all. But, besides the possible 
 injury to others, you must do certain injury to yourself, if 
 what you thus speak of is erroneous. For it is not the 
 way to obtain fresh accessions of truth from God, to utter 
 things which (though you know it not) are against His 
 Truth ; and the more, if they be such, as, if untrue, are 
 irreverent also, and strike sober-minded people as being 
 such. Thus, I have seen cases, in which the habit of 
 talking against those who held what they called the 
 'literal inspiration' of Scripture, did the whole mind a great 
 deal of harm, and put it in an irreverent state ; as, on the 
 other hand, if it be true that there are great depths in 
 the sayings of the Bible, and manifold truths may be 
 evolved out of them, this way of speaking would indispose 
 a person to receive it [them], and so keep hidden from 
 him much truth. Secretly also, but necessarily, this theory 
 involves regarding much in the composition of the Bible 
 as human, as the theory of the Fathers looks on every jot 
 and tittle as Divine, and the whole as in a higher degree 
 Divine; whereas that other system unravels the Divinity 
 of Holy Scripture, some making the history, some the 
 arguments, others the moral sayings (as the Proverbs), 
 others what does not seem to them good (as the Canticles), 
 human, and having in the end no criterion of Divine and 
 human, but their own private judgement. 
 
46 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouveric Pusey. 
 
 My advice then on this head would be, (i) not to speak 
 of any of these subjects for mere theory or argument's 
 sake, but for edification : (2) to put restraint upon yourself 
 in mixed societies : (3) which is involved in these, to be 
 very watchful for what end you speak of them : (4) to 
 endeavour to keep your mind in suspense as to the 
 theories of moderns, which you have reason to think may 
 be at variance with the teaching of the ancient Church. 
 
 I have now written, as you asked me, ' very plainly,' 
 and I trust, and indeed doubt not, that this plainness 
 which one would use the rather in correspondence, will 
 open the way for unreserved intercourse, when it pleases 
 God that we should meet. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 47 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 The Same. 
 
 Feast of St. Luke, 1844. 
 
 I have regretted much not being able to write sooner. 
 You must not be weary, nor mind the ' buzzing of the flies.' 
 People never dread a gnat more than when they hear its 
 shrill note by them ; and these thoughts, it may be, are 
 permitted, as I have often said, in order that you may hate 
 them more, and your self-satisfaction which occasioned 
 them, than you would if not tormented by them. It may 
 often be difficult to decide whether there has not been 
 a momentary acquiescence ; but if you doubt, reject them 
 by an act of the will, as soon as you can, and joray for 
 humility. And generally I should think a strong contrary 
 act of more avail than mere ' driving them away ' ; e. g. 
 when some self-congratulating thought comes, if it is 
 simply repelled, as you say, it ' keeps coming back 
 again,' but if one can fill one's mind with some contrary 
 thought, either out of one's self (as God's Immensity and 
 Majesty and Glory, so as to become nothing in His 
 Presence, and make some act of it, or of the Day of 
 Judgement, and how tinsel what has won man's praise 
 will then seem, picturing to one's self our Lord's awful 
 Majesty viewing one through and through) ; or within 
 one's self, as past sins ; again picturing one's self to one's 
 self (with good Bishop A[ndrewes]) as something 'leprous 
 and defiled, a stinking carcase full of sores from head to foot,' 
 
48 spiritual Letters of Edward Bonverie Pusey. 
 
 this self-gratulation would not find where to settle upon, 
 or would make us sore if it did. 
 
 I think your perplexity about 'entertaining' thoughts 
 arose fi-om your confounding consciously and unconsciously. 
 There may be too so many shades. The thoughts, e. g., 
 may be entangled before a person is aware, or the pleasure 
 may have been felt and dwelt upon, before the mind was 
 awakened to its being an act of self-gratulation, or it may 
 have been admitted momentarily, or when it returned, it 
 may have been received because it was troublesome to get 
 rid of, or some excuse may have been made — all this 
 short of persisting in a thing knowing it to be wrong. . . . 
 Going on with what you were doing, when knowing it to 
 be against rules, because of the awkwardness of breaking 
 off, is not so heavy, as doing it wilfully from the first. 
 
 Do not be discouraged at failures ; you had a large field 
 of weeds to clear ; it is much if some are resolutely 
 plucked up and seem to have disappeared, even if the 
 rest seem as tangled as ever. Only take fresh courage 
 for the rest, and take care that they do not occupy the 
 ground you have cleared from the others. 
 
 I am very glad of the ' feeling happier to be left quiet 
 and unnoticed.' You must indeed be on your guard that 
 this be not (as has been said) like one of the monstrous fish 
 at the bottom of a pond, which lies still, and so the lake 
 seems pure and clear until the bait is thrown in ; then it 
 springs forth, defiles the lake, subsides again, and after 
 awhile all seems clear. However, I hope this is not so 
 with you, but that you have laid the Cross upon the 
 monster's head, and will not take it off again, so that it 
 should have power to revive. But one must not trust 
 feelings : e. g. one might, from weariness, or temporary 
 distaste, or because the persons one is with are not 
 calculated to call one out, or from some feeling of humility 
 for the time, like ' to be left quiet,' and yet forget all, so 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 49 
 
 soon as one more to one's taste, e. g. and an occasion 
 
 of displaying sympathy, should present itself. Yet such 
 feelings are rewards ; treasure the memory of the ' happiness 
 of being left quiet,' and love to be more with Him Who 
 gave it you. 
 
 It is very dangerous to do anything indirectly for effect, 
 even if it be to convey the truth. It is unreal and so bad. 
 If desirable, it would have been far better to have ex- 
 plained yourself simply to those you ' love and respect.' 
 The probability is that what you did, you did unnaturally, 
 because you were doing it for an end, and so the less 
 succeeded. After all, one must be glad to take such 
 crosses, except so far as it is contrary to edification. In 
 the end, people will see whether we love our Lord ; and 
 after all, what they say is but too true, that we have too 
 little love or trust of or in anything but self; and so what 
 they say may teach us humility. 
 
 I think for the present, if you do tell of self as an 
 example, speak of it in the third person, as some one you 
 know. But although self comes the readiest to mind, 
 what a sorry example it is, at best, so that when the 
 thought comes to speak of self for edification, at least 
 make the effort to think of something more edifying. This 
 would tend to take you off self. 
 
 When away from home, do, in matters of duty, fasting, 
 &c., whatever you would have done at home ; only not as 
 a great thing, but as a simple duty, thinking as little of it 
 as you can, and how everybody would do it better than 
 you, had they been taught. If you do not think much of 
 it yourself, the unpleasant remarks will pass off without 
 much impression. 
 
 Try against this ' going on in a routine.' Rouse yourself 
 in the midst of doing things, in order to do them better 
 and to God. Do not talk long together, without collecting 
 yourself in God's Presence. This is very drying. If it be 
 
 E 
 
50 Spiritual Letters of Edzvard Boiivcric Pusey. 
 
 ever so brief a direction of the thoughts to God, or a prayer 
 to speak aright, it gathers up the mind again from being 
 dissipated in outward things, which is so great a hindrance 
 to love and devotion and all good. 
 
 God bless you, and God be blessed Who is giving you 
 His grace : be diligent to use it faithfully. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 51 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 The Same. 
 
 Ember Wed?!esday, September, 1844. 
 
 It would be good to try to make your rules of marking 
 self-conscious thoughts stringent, if so you might make 
 vanity a subject of humiliation. Thus, if you were to fix 
 in your mind what a hideous thing vanity is, like the frog 
 or toad, unsubstantial, unsolid, bulky, inflated, loathsome 
 to touch or sight, and then as soon as a self-conscious 
 thought came into your mind, think ' This is what I am 
 making myself.' Or picture to yourself the court of Heaven, 
 all lowly and humble in the sight of the glorious Presence, 
 and yourself, how unlike them ; or that if you have by 
 God's grace done anything good, you are casting it away 
 with your own hands ; or that you are stripping yourself 
 of the robe of righteousness and making yourself an object 
 of shame ; or think of our Lord and Saviour as a little 
 Child for our sakes, and bidding us to be like Him, that we 
 may receive Him ; or that the gate of Heaven is low, and 
 that the lowly only who stoop can enter it ; or that you 
 are actually abasing yourself and losing, if you obtain 
 Heaven, the place which God purposed for you ; or if, by 
 God's grace, you are doing anything really good, that it 
 is God's gift and would have been much better but for 
 former and present failures, whereby one has lost God's 
 grace in part and the insight into Divine things, in a word, 
 one is but the wreck of what one might have been by His 
 
 E 2 
 
52 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 grace ; or say the Gloria Patri and add, ' and shame to me' ; 
 if vain of outward appearance or anything external think 
 of the grave, and internal deformity through sin ; make 
 some picture of yourself to yourself, as of a body in which 
 each sin was a foul, loathsome ulcer. A vain person must 
 be much more foul in the sight of the Holy Angels. 
 
 Above all, contemplate early in the morning our Lord 
 in His humility, and pray for the grace of humility through 
 the day, and to be less unlike Him. 
 
 Then meet all thoughts (^/n'c/c in some of the ways 
 I have named or any other, or those in the former rules, 
 so that the very temptations to vanity may become means 
 of humility ; or reject and detest them before God, and 
 disown them as soon as you can, praying for lowliness. 
 
 Try to make a certain number of definite acts of 
 humility through the day ; — as, on the sight of nature, 
 ' All things serve Thee but I ' ; ' Servants obey us, we 
 disobey God ; they condemn us ' ; ' The poor arc rich often, 
 we the poorer and yet taught and fenced so much more 
 than they.' Make at least seven such acts in each day, 
 seven times taking occasion to humble yourself, internally 
 or externally. 
 
 Be very careful of contrary acts, speaking of your own 
 good or others' ill (there has been a good deal of talking 
 of self). 
 
 Be very careful about acting against conscience, or when 
 you suspect yourself to be wrong. 
 
 The idea of dress seems almost to be a monomania 
 with you. Which dress does our Lord commend, that 
 of John the Baptist or the gay clothing of kings' houses ? 
 How was Dives clothed ? What is all dress but the fig- 
 leaves, and so a token of penitence and God's pardon 
 of sinners ? 
 
 If tempted by others' praise, or to court it, think how 
 absolutely ignorant people are of your real self, and how 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 53 
 
 you are losing the praise of God. You cannot sock God's 
 praise and man's. 
 
 Often in the day compare yourself with others to your 
 own disparagement. See the good only in others ; the 
 evil in yourself. 
 
 Confess yourself interiorly unworthy of everything, as 
 having wasted God's gifts and by reason of sin, of the light 
 you see, the food you eat, of all God's creatures. 
 
 Confess any fault, if you can without scandal or undue 
 pain. 
 
 Beg pardon. 
 
 Recollect that we are ' corrupt ' by nature ; we confess 
 ourselves so ; but what of foulness does not that word 
 corrupt contain ! 
 
 Recollect that the praise of men is the greatest snare, 
 shame and contempt our Lord's portion. . . . 
 
 Let this be the object of your struggles, your daily 
 prayer, your meditation. There are some very valuable 
 instructions in Rodriguez on ' Christian Perfection,' vol. ii, 
 also the ' Meditations ' in St. Peter de Alcantara which 
 I spoke of, and St. Ignatius' ' Spiritual Exercises,' only I do 
 not know what these last are in, besides Latin. 
 
 God bless you. 
 
54 Spiritual Letters of Eda)ard Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 The Same. 
 
 November I"] , [1S44]. 
 
 I do trust that you are on the whole making progress. 
 You do not always distinguish between thoughts suggested 
 and consented to, or between the relation of thoughts of 
 self-esteem and that undercurrent of consciousness of what 
 is amiss, which when you write to me comes to the 
 surface. You must not depress yourself unduly or de- 
 spond : there may be a degree of pride or temper even 
 in dissatisfaction with self. But again, you may be 
 tormenting yourself unduly with what is the remains of 
 former sin. Thus, it is quite a nature with you to fill 
 up half-sentences with your own praise, or expect that 
 they should end in it, or interpret things or looks to your 
 advantage, or see the one favourable point which will 
 enable you to answer self-examination to your advantage, 
 &c. As well might one recovering from a long illness 
 expect to walk strongly, or one awakened out of a sleep 
 to shake off the impression of a long dream at once, or 
 one who by habit had contracted a limb to put it down 
 straight, as one recovering from mental self-indulgence 
 not to be haunted with the phantoms of it. As I have 
 often said, this powerlessness is part of the chastisement, 
 perhaps according to some immutable fitness in God's 
 wisdom, certainly one of the most efiicacious ways of 
 teaching us to loathe former sin. It is like the sight 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 55 
 
 of midnight vanities, masks, tinsel, &c., in the coming 
 day. And so now that the day, I trust, has been let 
 in upon your mind, these spectres are allowed to haunt 
 you, that by the light you may see how hideous and 
 miserable things were which, when darkness was upon 
 your eyes, you could neither see, nor yet know that you 
 were blinded so as not to see them. 
 
 Let them be then a part of your humiliation. Meet 
 them, as you are trying to do, with some opposite 
 thoughts ; lament yourself before God that you are such, 
 that you so set up self as an idol in His temple, your 
 heart, that you cannot chase it away, that in the time 
 of darkness the bats nestled there and, now you feel 
 them to be unclean and defiling, you cannot drive them 
 away, but they flit before your eyes, and obscure His 
 light ; in a word, regard this as a loss, do contrary acts 
 as much as you can, pray God to remove it, lament it 
 before Him, and so go on, more anxious not to give 
 way to such thoughts than to be free from them. Accept 
 them as humbling, just as it is better for a person from 
 whom any personal advantage is passing away, to look 
 steadily at what is replacing it, in a glass, than to turn 
 away. 
 
 But be very careful as to overt acts: these perpetuate 
 the evil and are the more displeasing, now you are aware 
 of their sinfulness. Try to make very strict rules, at 
 least, as to some one point, and fence it by penance, until 
 you have in some degree gained it. Thus, not to speak 
 of self The ' speaking of self in an ordinary way at 
 home ' is very mischievous. It keeps up a continual 
 atmosphere of self. The rule ought to be peremptory, 
 except in answer to questions. Complaining as to self, 
 as of cold, headache, stupidity, &c., repeating what self 
 does, or what happens to self, is continually fanning that 
 self-consciousness, so that it more readily occurs to tell 
 
56 spiritual Letters of Edivard Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 something of self, to use self as an illustration, &c., than 
 of anything else. 
 
 To speak of self's acts of poverty, &c., you know, is 
 to 'have your reward.' 'The change of dress' was bad 
 as an overt act. Alas for dress! I have just heard of 
 a whole family of a clergyman which has scarcely or has 
 not shoes, stockings, blankets ; they sleep on straw, and 
 for seven weeks had no meat ; and then we are thinking 
 of petty self-denials ! 
 
 It shows that you have not made much progress in 
 humility only to see it in the poor. They, as a matter 
 of course, are our superiors. We cannot reach their self- 
 denial when they give one penny. Again, that you can 
 more easily prefer strangers than those you know well, 
 shows that you are but on the threshold. However, it is 
 much to be even there. But it is in despite of appearances 
 that we must think others better than ourselves, think 
 of this one's affectionateness, that one's straightforward- 
 ness, a third's gentleness and so on, whatever quality they 
 have more eminently, and contrast it with self. And then 
 think of God's mercies to one's own soul, and one must 
 be covered with confusion at the sight of any one. 
 
 I do hope you are making progress, but set yourself 
 specially to gain humility, without which God can bestow 
 no grace upon you. 
 
 Take care about abridging sleep; it injures devotion. 
 About the occupation, notwithstanding your deterring 
 account of yourself, I should not have been afraid to 
 send you more, but I suspect it is finished. Will you 
 kindly send me what you have, and I can tell better. 
 
 God bless you and this holy season to you, that Christ 
 may so dwell in your heart by His Spirit as never to 
 leave you. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 57 
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 The Same. 
 
 Second Wednesday in Advent, 1844. 
 
 I almost hope that you are improving, notwithstanding 
 all you complain of and some bad overt faults. You are 
 plainly stirring, and so, I trust, will gain the victory. Your 
 former self-love must have been most excessive, and you 
 must expect much toil to get rid of such a slough ; but, 
 courage ! These tormenting thoughts of self may be the 
 very process whereby you are to be freed. Only reject 
 them ; mind not whether with the ' upper' or ' inner' self: 
 whether you can feel that you do it or no. Do it with 
 your will, if every other power be tied. I am glad to see 
 that you 'have made the discovery about S[urin] ^ ; I abso- 
 lutely felt perplexed in putting it out ; the doctrine is so 
 high that I thought people would not see how it could 
 any way be consistent with the ordinary duties of life. 
 I wished people to feel their way towards it, and then to 
 find that you could fancy that you had attained ! Very 
 earnest persons have spoken of it, as setting before them 
 an ideal of what they had not known before, something to 
 look and aim at afar off. I can only think that you have 
 not yet got even the ideal of it, or else mistake some 
 passing thought, or glimpses, for the possession of the 
 reality. 
 
 ' Surin, ' The Foundations of the Spiritual Life,' translated and adapted by 
 Dr. Pusey. 
 
58 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 What I should still press upon you are — 
 
 (1) Extreme vigilance as to overt acts, speaking of self, 
 saying anything which can draw praise of self. Make 
 a special examination of this, and appoint a penance (not 
 too severe) for the breach of it. 
 
 (2) Meditate on the privations of our Lord (as Avrillon 
 will suggest), or again of His holy Mother, of the prophets 
 (Heb. xi), and pray for shame at being so unlike them. 
 
 Be very careful not to take praise unduly, and if not at 
 the time, disown it, if you can, afterwards. To allow one 
 to think you ' pale at the thought of the Passion,' untruly, 
 is hypocrisy. 
 
 Do not worry yourself about self-conscious thoughts : 
 as, when, it comes to you afterwards, that you have done 
 a thing well ; only give God the praise, say, ' Glory be to 
 the Father,' &c., quick. It seems to be a sort of temp- 
 tation to you, to disgust you with trying to do well, as 
 if it were of no use, this sad self-consciousness marring. 
 Do as well as you can, by God s grace, and then give 
 Him the glory. Pleasure at doing well is meant as 
 encouragement. 
 
 I should think the laughing was partly the result of 
 former levity, indulgence in the ludicrous, &c. It remains 
 often as a disease. Cultivate serious thoughts, and what 
 an earnest w^orld this is, in which your own salvation, and 
 that of all around you, is at stake. Think what Hell is. 
 Now especially meditate, if but for a short time daily, 
 on the Second Advent, and 
 
 ' The black and yawning lake 
 Of restless endless pain,' 
 
 and pray for yourself and others that you may escape it. 
 
 Do you dedicate the whole day and all its actions in the 
 morning to God, and then pray that courses of action be 
 to His glory, and at the beginning of each ? 
 
 The best rule as to quantity of food is, ' always to leave 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 59 
 
 off (if ever so little) hungry.' I have seen the rule too, 
 ' if towards the end of a meal fresh hunger seems to come 
 on, be aware that it is a device of Satan, and break off at 
 once.' Never complain of food ; but if it be nasty, take 
 it 'as fittest for me.' 
 
 About dress I have given rules before ; ' try to recall 
 in what Dives was drest.' 
 
 How much better all ' self's mean things ' are than you 
 deserve : how we ought to dread lest we have ' our good 
 things in this life ' ! How one is ashamed to be as one is, 
 in this weather, with all the cold and privation around us ! 
 And yet, if one's bones do not ache at night, or one has 
 no rheumatism, one cannot be like the poor. 
 
 If the ' tear' come again, thank Him heartily for it. Who 
 hath stricken the rock that the water should flow. Own 
 yourself a dry and barren land. Use words of love to 
 God with your will, if you cannot with your heart to our 
 Saviour on the Cross. 
 
 With regard to balls, if you earnestly think that they 
 are bad for you, tell your Mother so ; tell her they fill you 
 with vanity, levity, and whatever other evil they do you ; 
 tell her this and any other grounds you have against them 
 privately, with all earnestness, and pray God beforehand, 
 and at the time, that your mother may consent to what 
 is for your good. 
 
 I really have very little to say about indulging in warmth 
 this weather ; only do nothing against conscience, and for 
 every comfort thank God. 
 
 I think self-denial ought to be a matter of your own 
 conscience : there might be subtle self-deceit in accepting 
 'niceties,' even offered by your M[other]. 
 
 Just now, I must employ myself in arranging materials 
 I have, not looking out for more ; and you too might well 
 be employed in digesting for self. However, for reading, 
 you could not do better than take some course of study 
 
6o Spiritual Letters of Edimrd Boiiverie Piisey. 
 
 of Holy Scripture, with St. Chrysostom in the Library of 
 the Fathers, and if in reading over, e. g., his Homilies on 
 St. Matthew, you were to mark passages which you found 
 useful to the poor (looking to yourself first), it might turn 
 to account by-and-by. 
 
 And now may God ever bless you, and teach }-ou 
 'heartily to despise yourself,' and love Him, that you may 
 gain Him in endless bliss. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 6i 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 The Same. 
 
 Second Sunday after Christmas, {Jan. 3], 1847. 
 
 I do not recollect what rule I gave you as to speech 
 except the two old ones, to make it your aim, — 
 
 (1) Never to repeat anything in any way to the dis- 
 paragement of another, unless ditty require it. Ask yourself 
 before you say anything of this sort, ' Is it a duty to say 
 this ? ' 
 
 I think I said, if this end in your not speaking of any 
 one, so much the better, but I did not mean to give this as 
 a rule. I think if you aim at keeping the other, God will 
 give you grace to speak aright of others, when you do speak. 
 
 (2) The other rule may be to aim, ' Never to speak 
 of yourself unless charity or the good of your own body 
 or soul require it ; and when you speak from your own 
 experience for the good of any one, use, as much as you 
 can, the third person.' 
 
 The hindrances to your becoming a Sister of Mercy 
 seem, by your account, to be likely to be the same at any 
 future time. It seems a question whether it shall ever be. 
 I hope it might be right to say or write to your Mother, 
 that you are weary of the temptations of the world, that 
 you fall into the same faults over and over again, that 
 you do not see any progress in yourself, that you long 
 to be out of the way of what are to you your besetting 
 temptations, and then, in calmness, without excitement, 
 to live to your Saviour ; that you are sure that it would 
 be best for your soul, and that she, out of love for you, 
 
62 spiritual Letters of Edimrd Boiiverie Pusey. 
 
 would not put a hindrance to what you feel to be for 
 the good of your soul and would save you, by God's grace, 
 more than anything else, from your continued falls ; that 
 you might still come to your Gr[andmother] or her, should 
 it please God that they were very ill ; that you know that 
 your Mother would part with you for anything which 
 should be for your happiness, even if it were to go to India 
 and she might never see you more ; that this, you are 
 sure, would be, by God's mercy, for your present peace 
 of mind, and the good of your soul, and your eternal 
 happiness. Lastly you might tell her that the wish has 
 increased upon you hitherto, and ask her to name some 
 time when, if you should be of the same mind, she would 
 give her consent. 
 
 Pray God [as] earnestly as you can, and perseveringly. 
 to bring you to the S[isterhood] and to direct your 
 Mother's will. 
 
 Your note reminds me, that another rule was to try to 
 collect yourself in the presence of God, before every con- 
 versation, and five times during any evening spent in the 
 society of others, with thought of the five Blessed Wounds. 
 
 Also, to aim more and more to 'offer single actions, 
 or at least courses of actions to God ' ; in a word, ' not to 
 begin anything without some momentary lifting up the 
 heart to God.' 
 
 Aim to ' think, before everything you say, Is this according 
 to the Will of God ? ' 
 
 Wish to know or not to know anything, as it is the Will 
 of God for you. 
 
 Refrain your eyes, as much as you can, from curiosity. 
 (Recollect, 'death entered in through the eyes' and curiosity). 
 
 Do not despond, though these are 'long lessons to learn.' 
 If you have learnt them in some degree ten years hence, 
 if you live so long, it will be much to have lived for. They 
 are learnt amid repeated forgetfulnesses. 
 
Coxinscl and Sympathy. 
 
 63 
 
 LETTER XXVIII. 
 The Same. 
 
 [1849.] 
 
 As to the two wills. We cannot help having them. 
 It is the combat of the flesh and the spirit. In fast- 
 days the flesh is glad to escape pain ; in Easter probably 
 you put too much upon it, and it would have been better 
 to have allowed the half-hour to pass, which is all which 
 St. Charles Borromeo thought needful for reverence sake, 
 after Holy Communion, and so to have taken food. It 
 is not good to turn Easter Day into a fast, when you 
 feel it such. Reverence does not require it. Better to 
 take food and thank God. And so on other days. 
 
 What I meant to advise you generally was to think 
 less about yourself, to analyze your own feelings less, 
 to look to words and actions, and for the rest to commit 
 yourself to your Lord, owning that you are full of imper- 
 fections, but praying Him more and more to fill you with 
 His love. The less you reflect on your inner self the 
 better for you now. Look to the outward expressions, 
 go to God in all your needs ; whatever you feel you want, 
 ask Him, and then do not dwell upon your own imper- 
 fections. You are God's child. Do not let those thoughts 
 keep you from Him. You should think less of yourself, 
 and more of your Lord. This gloominess hides His Face 
 from you, because you do not look to It. 
 
 What I meant by 'simplicity' is, doing things as a little 
 child, as far as you can, without self-reflection ; do simpl)' 
 
64 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 and straightforwardly what you think right to be done 
 in God's sight ; do it for Him, and then leave it with 
 Him. 
 
 ■ 's rule is too rigid. We should not, of course, be 
 
 keeping a debtor and creditor account with God, as if 
 certain acts were acceptable to Him, others not, though 
 not sinful. All are imperfect. The best are what are 
 done with most trust in Him; yet one cannot say that 
 He does not accept what is done out of an habitual state 
 of grace, though not with prayer at the moment. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 65 
 
 LETTER XXIX. 
 The Same. 
 
 I do not know Fenelon well, nor how far any of the 
 mysticism which was pronounced faulty may be in the 
 books you have. But tell me before you adopt any new 
 practices out of it ; and so long as you use it only to enforce 
 more deeply what you tell me of, you may use it safely. 
 
 Try to throw yourself into 's mind, to see what is 
 
 good and beautiful in it, and to sympathize with it. 
 
 You will recollect the practice of throwing yourself into 
 other minds and what is said, and not to illustrate it out of 
 self, nor think of it with regard to yourself, except silently 
 to learn from it ; but think of it in itself, or in reference to 
 Holy Scripture, and see how it may be developed, not 
 what there is in yourself relatively to it. 
 
 On hearing Holy Scripture in church, try to listen to 
 or to read it, as God speaking to you, especially in the 
 Gospels. It would be well every day, in your devotions, 
 to read meditatively some short passage for at least five 
 minutes, which you might gradually increase, listening to 
 God in it, and speaking to Him on occasion of it. 
 
 I do trust that you are making progress by His grace. 
 You should not read any controversial part in F[enelon]. 
 It is not directed against us. 
 
 God bless you ever. 
 
 You may ask any Sister to help you, or ask any who 
 leads you to talk of self, not to do so. 
 
 F 
 
66 Spiritual Letters of Edtvard Botiverie Pusey. 
 
 Pray daily for increase of love to your S[istcrs], and 
 observe what all the occasions of seeming indifference are, 
 and so pray for more love at the time and do something 
 loving. 
 
 Love and every grace and every good feeling grow 
 through prayer and then doing the acts of it. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 67 
 
 LETTER XXX. 
 
 The Same. 
 
 [? IS 50.] 
 
 I do not think that increased fasting would benefit you. 
 Its objects are (i) to bring down exuberant strength of 
 body (which you have not) ; (2) to obey God's appoint- 
 ments through His Church (this you do) ; (3) as self-denial. 
 But in this last way, other things would be far more of 
 self-denial. Anything which checks over-activity of mind 
 is far more of self-denial, than anything done to the body. 
 I doubt whether this would promote what I wish, the mind 
 of a little child in you. 
 
 I could not suggest to you to use any prayer, as to 
 leading me to think that what has been passing in you has 
 been the work of God's Holy Spirit, (i) All the details 
 which you gave me, bore to me the character of its having 
 been the working of your own mind. I never saw this 
 more clearly in any case. All things which you told me 
 with a different aspect, told to me in this way. (2) There 
 cannot be one way for one, one for another. It is not, as 
 in the drawing towards a life, that all are not called. It is 
 not a question between what is higher or lower, but between 
 right or wrong. It is right for us, whom God has placed 
 in the English Church, to work out our salvation in 
 obedience to her, and availing ourselves of the blessings 
 which He has in store for us in her ; else it would be 
 wrong in all to abide in her. Since she has the full Truth, 
 and the grace of the Sacraments, and the Power of the 
 
 F 3 
 
68 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 Keys, and everything necessary to salvation (and to us 
 especially the Cup), it is right to stay. We have only to 
 be diligent in working out our salvation. We have every- 
 thing to further, [not] anything to hinder it. 
 
 Believing then that it is fully the duty of us all, to 
 abide in the Church where He has placed us, I could not 
 be convinced as to any other, by anything which would 
 not convince myself. In St. Augustine's time, as I said, 
 miracles were wrought to convince the British Church to 
 give up the then ground of separation, the keeping of 
 Easter. They are not now. 
 
 I should think that it would be better (if you were not 
 otherwise wanted) that you should give half an hour of 
 your recreation-time daily for special devotion to our 
 Lord, that you might so love Him as to have nothing else 
 but a desire to do everything in simple childlike love. 
 
 In haste for to-day. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 69 
 
 LETTER XXXI. 
 Over-introspection. 
 
 [1851.] 
 
 My strong impression about what harasses you, is that 
 it has chiefly arisen in discontent with yourself. You 
 earnestly desired to be freed from your infirmities, and you 
 hoped that under this or that outward circumstance, you 
 would succeed better. Hence your speculations about 
 a Benedictine Convent ; and then you indulged your 
 imagination, as is your wont. All this was wrong, and 
 could not, so far, but lead to perplexity. One ought to 
 lay one's faults entirely to one's self. God's grace is not 
 lacking to us. if we are not lacking to it. I think that this 
 dissatisfaction has in different forms been at the root of 
 your disquiet. You have been vexed with yourself and so 
 disappointed. 
 
 I was going to write to you about those things which 
 trouble you. I doubt whether you do not distract yourself, by 
 attention to feelings and emotions, which, if not allowed, 
 are not yours. It is well that you should know what is in 
 your mind, and that I should know it : yet you are not 
 displeasing to God, because there is that in you which is 
 displeasing to you, because it is in itself contrary to God's 
 Will and would be wrong in you, if you consented to it. 
 There may be tuo much contemplation of what is faulty 
 in one. 
 
 Then too a good deal of what you complain of is nature. 
 I mean neither good nor bad except as it is coloured by 
 
70 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 other ingredients. Eagerness, impetuosity, are qualities 
 which ma}- be sanctified. St. Peter, St. John, and St. James 
 had them ; yet these were they whom our Lord took 
 nearest to Himself. 
 
 I think almost you might do better, if you did not think 
 so much about your manner. Throw yourself into another's 
 mind, and you would not be rude and rough. You think 
 of showing kindness to them. What probabh' you need 
 to see, is what would be kind to them ; i. e. I think you 
 have not studied other minds enough, being always busy 
 about your own. Whereas, I think that if you were to 
 observe yourself less, you would learn that self-forgetfulness 
 which you really want. Yet you have been learning it. 
 
 I wish you could forget your feelings altogether and 
 look to acts. You would learn to ' behave properly after 
 Holy Communion,' not by schooling yourself, but by 
 frequent inward aspirations. Be not mortified, if these be 
 not so frequent as you wish, but pray that they may be 
 more. You should be natural, simple, as a child. Again, 
 you would become more • loving ' not by trying to be so, 
 but to do acts of love, to study what is most loving to do 
 or to say, by having others in your mind at the right times, 
 not by dwelling alone in your own separate inward cell, but 
 by interchange of natural acts and words of love. 
 
 But do not brood upon yourself, but, as I have often said, 
 let every feeling that you are ' unlike what your Lord 
 would have you ' issue in a breathing of the soul to Him 
 that He would make you what He would have you. He 
 has done much for you : He will finish His own work 
 in you. 
 
 Write to me more fully what is in your mind. 
 God bless you. 
 
 I wish in that conversation with }-ou had confined 
 
 yourself to sympathy with her, not advised her, nor inter- 
 preted God's Providence to her. It may be as much His 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 71 
 
 Providence that she should be sheltered in your peaceful 
 home, surrounded by the gifts of God's grace, having all 
 which she needs so bountifully around her, to detain her 
 where she is, and where she is a source of blessing. 
 
 To give up your own will is better than abstinence from 
 meat. You only purposed to do it, if you could. One 
 dare not tamper with your health. 
 
72 spiritual Letters of Edivard Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XXXII. 
 
 Spiritual Advice. 
 
 November i8, iSSi. 
 
 I do trust that you are making progress in ' religious 
 indifference,' not in the usual sense of the words, but 
 indifference to all which affects self except in thanks- 
 giving. I think that the 
 
 ' Le Rien ne se trouble de rien ' 
 
 of St. John of the Cross would be a good study for you. 
 Only one must not have only the thought that one ' is 
 a nothing ' but also, 
 
 ' Rien partout — Rien en tout — 
 Excepte Dieu toujours et en toutes choses.' 
 
 But still one must have fixed in one's mind that one is 
 ' a nothing.' Why should ' a nothing ' fuss about ' any- 
 thing ' ? It is always self which is vexed, and there is 
 nothing too little, in which self may not put itself out. . . . 
 It is one's own will, which God allows to be crossed 
 by the will of others. And so about ' a Sister putting 
 herself forward.' If she does, she does herself harm, not 
 you or any one else. She is, as I have often said, your 
 benefactress. 
 
 Take great care about sharp speeches. It is a good 
 rule, ' If anything comes to your mind which seems 
 a good answer to anything you don't like, suppress it.' 
 There is sure to be something of self in it. It is pride 
 putting down pride. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 73 
 
 I am glad that you are attending to little things. For 
 they occur oftenest. And the rule is as to very little 
 things, " Do all to the glory of God." 
 
 God bless you and make every little thing a step nearer 
 to Him. 
 
 LETTER XXXIII. 
 The Same. 
 
 February i6, 1S82. 
 
 I have written to as you wished. I am very glad 
 
 that your last Confession in January was ' quiet and 
 simple.' Simplicity is a good sign in you. But I must 
 press on you, that very frequent Confession implies very 
 great earnestness to exterminate some fault. Thoughts 
 one cannot help. They may be mere temptations of 
 Satan, or things which recur to the mind from old associa- 
 tions. The remedy against them is very often to take 
 no notice of them. For to fight against them brings 
 them. But words are our own. (i) Why should one 
 ever speak evil of any one ? God says, " Speak not evil 
 one of another." (2) Why should we ever pronounce any 
 judgement against any one? Our God and Judge says, 
 '■Judge not, that ye be not judged." (3) Why should we 
 ever complain of anything which comes in the way of 
 God's Providence ? To complain of anything is to be 
 wiser than God, Who loves us better and more wisely 
 than we can love ourselves, and Who makes all things 
 work together for good to those who love Him. He says 
 to us, in all His dispensations, What I do thou knowcst 
 not [now] ; thou shalt know hereafter." 
 
 Set yourself absolutely to extirpate these three faults, 
 and may God pour His grace into your soul. 
 
74 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XXXIV 
 Gratitude. 
 
 Feast of St. Stephen., 1877. 
 
 I only received your letter and 's this morning ; 
 
 but I had the intimation of the news which you kindly 
 wished me to have on Christmas Day, on the day. . . • 
 
 It took away my breath to see such a list of names, and 
 to know that they gave to this particular charity out of 
 love for me. I prayed for each individual, as far as 
 I could at once, and will as to the rest ; and will spread 
 out the list before God at each Celebration for some time 
 to come, and pray Him to bless them. 
 
 says that Mr. has great plans, if it should 
 
 please God that he should come back. I never look 
 beyond the day : everything beyond is dreamland, with 
 which I may have nothing to do, except as any may 
 be permitted, from the other side, to pray for any details 
 here. I fear that it may not be so — I forget how I was 
 going to finish this. 
 
 The young ladies who look to go into religious houses 
 have so many more wants than they had thirty years ago, 
 that I fear they will not be satisfied, except when a resident 
 Chaplain supplies their requirements. In the first zeal all 
 which they wanted was to give themselves to Christ as 
 their Spouse ; Confessions to cleanse them for His frequent 
 
 ' This letter and the following one sonal friends. See Life of E. B. Pusey, 
 refer to the gift of £2000 for the Ascot D.D., vol. iv. p. 342. 
 Convalescent Home, from some per- 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 75 
 
 Communions, in which He would give Himself; counsel 
 how to exterminate their leading fault or faults, how to 
 become more pleasing to Him. Now the brave go as 
 missionaries, the rest seem to like the luxuries of devotion. 
 But perhaps God will give us a stray lamb now and then. 
 
 Will you tell your husband that I want to get up the cry 
 ' Liberty of Conscience ' against those who would oppress 
 and stifle it. The misery is with the pedantic copiers 
 of Rome, 
 
 God bless this coming year to you and yours. 
 
 LETTER XXXV. 
 The Same. 
 
 January 4, 1878. 
 
 It nearly took away my breath, to hear of all the love 
 of those loving hearts, who gave to that particular work 
 at Ascot for love of poor me. I could do nothing but 
 pray God for each of them, as long as I could, meaning 
 to continue this and spread the list before God (though 
 in a different way), as Hezekiah did that sent to him. 
 
 What a wonderful thing love is ! And yet it would be 
 more wonderful, if it were not wonderful, since " God 
 is Love." 
 
 I will, please God, continue to spread out that list 
 before Him at Holy Communion, and remember individuals 
 as I can and the son you so love. 
 
76 spiritual Letters of Edzvard Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XXXVr. 
 A Call of God. 
 
 Do not be dejected because I told you truth. You 
 cannot set about mending unless you know what there is 
 to mend. If you know it and set about it, asking for God's 
 grace, He will give you the victory. 
 
 Since your F[ather] does not bid you stay, and would 
 on no account influence you, your course is clear ; there are 
 others to cheer his old age. ' God' (you and I too believe) 
 has called you. To ask others is to throw a doubt on that 
 call. Listen to no one but to what you believed to be 
 God's voice. It cannot be selfish to follow God's voice ; 
 only when you have followed it. take heed not to be selfish 
 in the life to which it leads. Beware of selfishness to 
 those who are to be your Sisters. You should have the 
 supernatural love of grace. God will give it you, if }'ou 
 ask Him perseveringly. 
 
 God will help you though you will not see your 
 progress. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 11 
 
 LETTER XXXVII. 
 A Rebuke. 
 
 It is old proverbial advice to ' Let bygones be bygones.' 
 If there had not been great practical wisdom in it, it would 
 not have become a proverb. You work yourself up into 
 anger by thinking of things in the past. 
 
 The centre of your faults is your self-conceit. There is 
 some absurd conceit about being a lady. People's estimate 
 varies. I was walking in rather a broad alley in London, 
 and asked some question about my way. The person 
 whom I asked directed my attention to one standing 
 behind a greengrocer's stall, ' If you ask that lady, she will 
 tell you.' No one who has any real rank thinks anything 
 of it. They are just those on the lower verge, who think 
 of it. A popular writer gave to one of his characters the 
 name of 'Mrs. Proudie.' She was supposed to be a Bishop's 
 wife. I hope that there are not many ' Mrs. Proudies ' 
 among our Bishops' wives. I never met with one. But 
 it would be good for you to remember the name of 
 ' Mrs. Proudie,' and not be a ' Miss Proudie.' If you give 
 yourself airs, you become a ' Miss Proudie ' ; for Religious, 
 even if they had rank, forget it. Ladies are only known 
 by their more delicate-shaped hands and refinedness of 
 manners. I know not how it is that your manners are so 
 unrefined. I suppose that it is because you think much of 
 yourself. Have you ever heard from your brothers, when 
 schoolboys, the word ' bumptious ' ? It is a schoolboy 
 term. It expresses the character of one who thinks much 
 
78 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 of some quality or circumstance about himself or herself 
 (it might be some natural or accidental advantage as they 
 think it), and who was always showing it in his or her 
 manner, generally ludicrous, always overbearing. This 
 exactly expresses what you are. You used to be so to 
 me. Do you remember contradicting everything which I 
 said, until, at last, I required you to listen and contradict 
 no more ? 
 
 Our Lord bids us " Judge not." You do. 
 
 LETTER XXXVIII. 
 Self-abasement. 
 
 Maundy Thursday. 
 I cannot write much to-day, having tired myself 
 yesterday. 
 
 I will only say to-day, ' Think of our Lord this evening 
 and to-morrow amid all the horrible blasphemies which 
 He endured for love of yoii ' : (for St. Paul says, " Who 
 loved and gave Himself for me " ; what He suffered and 
 did for all, He suffered and did for each of us). Think of 
 this, and think of Him saying to you from the Cross, 
 " Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart," and pray 
 Him to make you what He died to make you. 
 
 You would not wish to be abased on the Great Day : 
 then do not exalt yourself here. 
 
 Long that He would make you His disciple. Who said 
 to those who had left all to follow Him, " Except ye be 
 converted and become as little children, ye cannot enter 
 into the kingdom of Heaven." 
 
 Be not startled then or offended if I bid you now pray 
 Him to convert you and take away all 'self from you, that 
 you may be wholly His. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 79 
 
 LETTER XXXIX. 
 Repentance. 
 
 I did not mean that you were to try to recall past sins 
 in detail, but, without looking to them individually (unless 
 God should bring any one or more before you), that you 
 should pray for deeper repentance for everything in 
 which you had ever displeased God. 
 
 This you do, whenever you say the Litany, ' That it 
 may please Thee to give us true repentance.' I thought 
 that in Lent it would be well to make this a special subject 
 of prayer, that God would make us hate past sin as He 
 hated it, even while forgiving us, His poor sinners. 
 
 It is saying, again and again, " God be merciful to me, 
 a sinner." Every time we say this sincerely makes us 
 more of the same mind with God, in hating and grieving 
 for whatever He hated in us, even while He loved us ; 
 and He remembers each against the Great Day of 
 Judgement. 
 
 God bless you. 
 
8o Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XL. 
 Vocation. 
 
 June 4, 1878. 
 
 One line to correct a central mistake, which I trust it 
 will help you much to remove. Your business now is not 
 to ascertain whether you are fit for the life, but by God's 
 grace to fit yourself for it. God called you, being in many 
 ways unfit, to fit you for it by His moulding grace. Picture 
 yourself to yourself as an unformed block of stone which 
 the Heavenly Artificer is shaping day by day for that 
 form, which He in His Almighty love purposes for you, 
 and let everything which you do not like be one touch of 
 His Loving Hand to take off some edge which interferes 
 with your becoming what He would make you. 
 
 God bless you. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 8i 
 
 LETTER XLI. 
 Humility. 
 
 Septejnber 20, 188 1. 
 
 The first stone in every building is humility — honestly 
 to own your own nothingness. You are wishing for 
 something large. You answered, and honestly, ' Yes,' when 
 I said, ' You want more elbow-room ? ' Unless any one 
 have dug deep by humility, and so reached the living 
 Rock, their humility is but like the house of cards, at 
 which children play : each storey is carefully fitted together, 
 and placed on that below it, but the higher the little 
 builder raises it, the more certain it is to fall. 
 
 You have large ideas. The greater the temptation to 
 think something of yourself. I hope, for your sake, the 
 work will be very small at first. The Devonport Mother 
 began alone, and worked some twelve hours a day ; then 
 
 with a single Sister. However, the Bishop of has, of 
 
 course, his own plans, and you may be 'a nothing' in 
 simply following them out. A very thoughtful person 
 said, ' I hate a .splash.' Oaks grow from acorns ; but grow 
 slowly ; not like bulrushes. 
 
 I dare not think about bodily penances. They fall so 
 unequally on different frames. Better, I think, pray for 
 true repentance for whatever there was of self in whatever 
 you were unintentionally concerned. Self is so likely to 
 thrust itself into everything which you do. 
 
 Pray God that you may really feel yourself nothing. 
 
 G 
 
82 spiritual Letters of Edward Boiivcrie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XLII. 
 The Contemplative Life. 
 
 April 7, [1881]. 
 
 I do not think that God has called you to the con- 
 templative Hfe. What is your conception of it? How 
 many hours do you think that you could spend in the 
 day in prayer? And in what prayer, vocal or mental? 
 What would be the object of that prayer ? Your own 
 closer union with God, in what is specially called ' contem- 
 plation,' or in intercession ? And if both, in what pro- 
 portion ? Would your idea be of the life direct to God, 
 without doing anything for your fellow-creatures, except 
 by intercession through the Great Intercessor ? For what 
 length of time are you at present enabled to pray to God, 
 unbrokenly ? You are a member of the ' Company of the 
 Love of Jesus,' of which Ascot is the centre. Have you 
 great interest in these prayers for our fellow-sinners, and 
 do you pray them with fervour ? 
 
 Will you, in your answers, put down these questions, 
 one by one, and your own answers under each ? 
 
 I do not see any good in ' fancy work,' except that it 
 gains money for the poor. But all enclosed Orders, I 
 believe, do three hours a day of ' fancy work.' All the 
 old Brussels lace was, I believe, the work of the enclosed 
 Orders, after a pattern of which they were in exclusive 
 possession. Subjects of meditation or ejaculation were 
 provided for those hours of silent occupation. How have 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 83 
 
 you been employing the time in which you have been 
 doing yours ? You might have employed it, according to 
 the ideal of the 'Society of the Love of Jesus,' in praying 
 Him for the souls which were in sin. Did you? 
 
 You seem to say that you must either lead a life wholly 
 contemplative (whatever you mean by that word, whether 
 the life of the ' mystica ' [/ do not use the word in any 
 depreciating way]) or ' strain every nerve ' in the practical 
 life of active charity. For most persons a mixed life of 
 prayer and active work is best. 
 
 But according to your account, I do not see why yours 
 might not be the contemplative life now. Your ' paltry 
 125 hours a week' among them would leave you more 
 time than any enclosed Order, I believe, has. But I should 
 think that it must be in consequence of some supposed 
 want of physical strength of yours that you can have so 
 short a time. The visiting time of the Sisters of Charity 
 used to be six hours a week-day, i.e. about three times 
 what you speak of 
 
 What made me speak doubtfully about Ascot was 
 a prospect that if there should be a quicker succession of 
 patients, there would be some active work among them 
 so as not to leave you wholly to yourself. But I will 
 wait your answers to my detailed questions. 
 
 God bless you. 
 
 I have my misgivings, whether your mind is not so 
 
 criticizing, that Mr. may not be right, that no plan 
 
 would suit you, which you could not do in your own 
 way. i.e. that you must have the direction of any work. 
 But then the working under the direction of the clergy- 
 man would be inconsistent with thi.s, for your judgement 
 might clash with the clergyman's. 
 
 By doing work with all your might, I meant as far 
 as in you lay. I thought that you had not thrown your 
 heart into your work, and depreciated that mode of work, 
 
 G Z 
 
84 spiritual Letters of Edimrd Boiiverie Pusey. 
 
 because you had not the idea that it was for souls, not 
 for bodily wants only. God corrects our self-will con- 
 tinually, by giving us checks. He will not let us serve 
 Him in our own way. Most is done when we do or 
 think we do least. 
 
 God fits us for Himself and His love by [our] doing 
 work (whatever it is) which He gives us for Him. There 
 are ' snares and temptations ' everywhere, to be overcome 
 by His grace. I can do all things through Christ in- 
 strengthening me." Our chief enemy we carry about us 
 everywhere, 'self.' 
 
 The picture which you draw of your alternative future 
 is vehemence in the one way or the other. 
 
 One more question : How have you employed j-our time 
 in going to your cases ? It gave good leisure for prayer. 
 You might have been praying to God, all the while, 
 for any object, either those whom you passed, or yourself, 
 or those whom you were to visit, or for souls generally. 
 One with whom the contemplative life was a picture 
 would. This was the outset of the life of St. Catherine 
 of Sienna. Did you ? 
 
 God bless you. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 85 
 
 LETTER XLIII. 
 Saintliness. 
 
 Easter Day, 1847. 
 
 ' Why,' you ask, ' are we not saints ? ' Pray God 
 earnestly to empty self of self, and not to do anything 
 to foster self, and He will give you the love of Him. 
 The soul must be empty, in which He can dwell fully. 
 ' Empty me, O Lord, of self, and fill me with Thee.' 
 Self chokes the mouth of the bottle into which He would 
 pour His Love. He loves the soul which in silence waits 
 on and feeds on His Love, and gives back His Love to 
 Himself. Let this be your battle, out of love for Him 
 to exterminate self-love, to have more room for His. 
 
 You may go to Holy Communion at M[argaret] 
 C[hapel] after Tuesday; but pray then, as you now 
 desire, that His Love may fill you, and so fully as to 
 displace self-love. 
 
 Your only penance now must be in speech, to utter 
 nothing consciously fostering self-love, and to pause 
 before speaking to pray, when you are in danger or 
 perceive yourself so to be. God bless you and fill you 
 with His Love. 
 
86 Spiritual Letters of Edivard Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XLIV. 
 Spiritual Advice. 
 
 Thursday in Sexagesima, 1847. 
 
 I think you had better not put down in your account 
 these self-conscious thoughts. It is indeed a miserable 
 power of the former self, that it should ha\-e power to 
 cross the mind at such a moment ; still you could not 
 help it, more than a lame man that he cannot walk. 
 One only can give perfect soundness. Pray that He 
 displace this self-love with love of Himself alone. And 
 try to forget self and take no notice of it, except to 
 pray for Heavenly Love. 
 
 I am glad that your Mother persevered in asking the 
 question, because it would have been wrong to go to 
 the Sisterhood without her knowing it. However, I hope 
 you meant to tell her beforehand, though not then. You 
 may go there, as far as relates to leave from me, when 
 and as long as you will. 
 
 I hope the distractions you speak of were rather the 
 effect of sleepiness. Spiritual writers speak of it as 
 deranging mental prayer. 
 
 You should take care not to fall into a habit of refusing 
 to expect evils, even when apparent. Some people harden 
 themselves against all sorrow, by refusing to believe it 
 beforehand, and acquiescing in it selfishly when it comes ; 
 secretly wishing to escape pain both ways. 
 
Counsel mid Sympathy. 
 
 87 
 
 Is it not inconsistent to wish for anything (the watch) 
 and at the same time to wish to give up all ? 
 
 You will recollect that your great mortification is to 
 be in speech. I have often said how we fix our feelings 
 by it. One self-conscious speech does more harm than 
 very many unconscious self-conscious words. 
 
 You must try to obtain rest really now before Lent, 
 and if there was any wilfulness about those four nights, 
 take it as a penance. 
 
 I cannot give you a rule for Lent ; it is a physician's 
 office : you have experience of former Lents, and know 
 your present strength. 
 
88 Spiritual Letters of Edivard Boiiverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XLV. 
 The Same. 
 
 Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, 1847. 
 
 I do not think you should adopt constrained silence 
 in order to avoid faults. That would not mend it. Only- 
 try more and more to collect yourself before, and in, 
 speaking : pray God to keep your speech ; try to correct 
 the faults you are told of. It may be a long battle, but 
 by God's grace you will win at last. Outward slowness 
 will be a help to be on your guard. 
 
 Those thoughts may indeed be of use, as showing in 
 part what you are, i.e. that self is ready to put itself 
 forward, in every possible form ; in part what but for 
 God's grace you would be. They are not sin ; it is but 
 the foul matter issuing from that deep ulcer of self, which 
 God is healing. As He deepens your love for Himself 
 and others, it may by His mercy dry up. You may tell 
 me anything you observe in yourself. Yet you should be 
 careful not to attach too much value to it. (i) Because 
 your mind might be so likely to imitate what it has 
 read of, and to imagine what it wishes, that you might 
 readily deceive yourself. (2) The real test of growth in 
 God's favour is progress in grace, subduing of self, not 
 even God's gifts, if real. (3) If real, self-reflection is 
 likely to destroy it. Quiescence is absorption in God ; 
 to think of self is to awake. Bless God for all His love 
 to you in recalling you wherein He has recalled you : 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 89 
 
 and be not curious about His gifts. But humble yourself; 
 and think what grace you might have had, had you been 
 faithful. 
 
 ' A very few words ' will expand into an ocean of 
 prayer through the love of God. Be not anxious about 
 many prayers, but about praying much. 
 
 You may wish and ask to receive Holy Communion 
 with your own poor people. 
 
 Take great care not to let anything interfere with 
 appointed prayer, except charity, and then pray and do 
 the act of charity too. It is, as it were, looking that God 
 should wait for your leisure, instead of waiting on God. 
 
 You speak of ' several hard letters.' Are they letters 
 which it is best for you to receive ? 
 
 When hurried by the children, pray for them. 
 
90 Spiritual Letters of Edimrd Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XLVL 
 The Same. 
 
 Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity, 1847. 
 
 Rules, suggesting devotional thoughts, are binding in the 
 principle, not to the v&ry thoughts. 
 
 Daily mortification may ordinarily be slight, to keep up 
 the habit. . . . 
 
 What I meant about prayer on distraction was, not to 
 make a definite act of contrition and asking help, but 
 to endeavour, instead of thinking, ' I Diiist fix my mind,' 
 [to say] ' God help me ! ' I mean, to make the brief 
 mental act which must take place, when one feels a dis- 
 traction, ' prayer/ not ' resolve.' It had better be a simple 
 act of prayer for help ; a twofold act is distracting. 
 I mean, an instantaneous act, then throwing the mind 
 into the prayers. Do not notice what you are doing at 
 the time. If you do not recollect afterwards, let it pass. 
 The more you feel your dependence upon God at all 
 times, the more, I hope, will these ' scarcely conscious 
 acts ' be multiplied. Involuntary distraction is infirmity, 
 not sin. 
 
 It is best to read something for the morning meditation, 
 although you should not adhere rigidly to it, if you find 
 devotion in something else, or some one point of it. 
 
 If any one say anything implying God has helped 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 91 
 
 her through you, praise God for it, inwardly owning 
 yourself unworthy. 
 
 I think you had better not bind yourself artificially to 
 any plan about using the Ps[alms] ; you might be occupy- 
 ing yourself intellectually in finding out meanings, instead 
 of using them devotionally. That would be the object 
 of spiritual reading : in devotion, use them in any way 
 which God gives you, making your chief object to say 
 them to God, in whatever meaning. I suppose that too 
 much of the prayer of very many is intellectual, giving 
 the mind to the meaning of the words, instead of begging 
 of God. 
 
 You would be less liable to be distracted in the silent 
 use of the Lord's Prayer and Creed, if you were to repeat 
 the words to yourself, saying them as devotionally as 
 you can, undistracted even by the sound of your own 
 voice. 
 
 It is better to avoid being curious about outward things ; 
 the more you will learn to be inward. 
 
92 spiritual Letters of Edward Boiiverie Pitsey. 
 
 LETTER XLVn. 
 The Same. 
 
 Octave of ike Epiphany Night, [1848]. 
 
 At last, I can write a little, I think it would be better 
 for you, as to food, to have a certain rule (your whole 
 Rule is an abstemious one), and then not to heed these 
 occasional thoughts. Your head is always at work, and 
 so I should think that they probably were part of the 
 unceasing working of your own mind. 
 
 As I before said, what I wish to see uprooted is this 
 overt reference to self. The subtler you may not be able 
 to escape for years, the overt you can, at once, if you 
 will do as I say. (1) Pray against it. (2) Actively 
 endeavour to throw your mind into other things, so as 
 to find illustrations out of yourself. (3) Resolutely close 
 your lips when anything as to ' I ' or ' we ' comes to you. 
 
 Never mind feeling sore at being told of faults. The 
 proud flesh will feel the caustic ; only be glad that it is 
 applied, and pray for humility. 
 
 It cannot be right to think of right things at wrong 
 times : so if such thoughts come, you may bid them wait, 
 or give them to your Guardian Angel to take care of for 
 you, if right. 
 
 Recollect that what seems faulty may spring from some- 
 thing quite different from what you are thinking of. If 
 you see faults, which you are not charged or have no 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 93 
 
 calling to remind the Sister of, pray God to give her grace, 
 and so leave it. 
 
 You need not mind asking about things of self, really 
 for edification. The first ' alphabet of religiousness ' is to 
 unlearn self, empty yourself of yourself, and so God will 
 fill you : still yourself, and so you will know what [it is] 
 to be ' hushed ' and ' gathered up ' in Him. But all you 
 can do, is to take heed to overt acts. I must have often 
 said, * Choke these, keep your grasp upon them, and self 
 will die for want of breath.' 
 
 As to eagerness and excitement, this too, I hope, will die, 
 the more you learn to commend single acts to God, and 
 think what it is so to do. We cannot but be still, in 
 what we are doing to God. It is self which is so 
 restless. 
 
 As you are less distracted about many things, and 
 restrain your own over-activity at all times, or labour 
 more to do all things in God, and gather yourself up 
 in Him, you will, I trust, be less distracted in His 
 House also. 
 
 It is true, to do things for God is very different from 
 loving Him or having faith in Him. We may forget God 
 in the very things we do for Him. Much which we hope 
 is of grace is of mere natural activity. We can only gain 
 love by prayer, and inward doing and bearing things for 
 God, and concealing them when we may, that so God may 
 be our sole End. 
 
 Do not look back at former years with regret. I doubt 
 not that you have been making progress, though this deep 
 disease of self is as yet unhealed. Such acts as naming 
 yourself to the poor woman, seem essentially contrary to 
 the spirit of the rule ' not I ' but ' we,' and to imply that 
 she might be right in preferring you to others, which is 
 contrary to all humility. 
 
 Do not think so much of getting rid of self-conciousness 
 
94 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 as of fixing your thoughts on God. People become, in 
 afifections of this world, ' absent ' by having their minds 
 riveted on some object. They forget things around them 
 in it. To desire to forget a thing fixes the soul more 
 on it. As I have often said, they are those endless acts 
 which strengthen self-consciousness. Your mind in daily 
 acts revolves around yourself. Everything suggests some- 
 thing as to self. And the expression of this stamps the 
 feeling deeper. Go forth out of self. Even your ' craving 
 to seek His Presence in your heart ' may aggravate it. 
 Seek Him, not His sensible Presence, but to love Him 
 more devotedly, ardently, alone, nor for any present 
 comforts to yourself in being assured that you love Him, 
 but because He is the Infinite Object of all love. 
 
 The best way of preventing the feeling of wishing to 
 know what another has is (i) (what you did) to think it 
 best for you, because you know it not and cannot : (2) to 
 pray that that other may grow in grace in it, and live to 
 God's glory ; so will you forget self. If you were trans- 
 ferred to Heaven with these feelings, how would you not 
 wish yourself in the place of each, as they were nearest to 
 our Lord and His Love, instead of being thankful to be 
 lowest there. 
 
 Do not long for 'fervent Communions' (this is still 
 reflection on self): but rather that you may indeed be made 
 one with Christ. 
 
 All resolves itself into this one thing, 'absence of self.' 
 To have our thoughts and acts His, must be His gift : all 
 we can do is to pray, put down self, and act on His sugges- 
 tions when we know them. 
 
 Your consciousness or not of others' presence in devotion 
 will depend upon the way you act. As before, do not try 
 to act directly upon it, but say the Psalms, &c., to our Lord, 
 and of the presence of others you may be conscious as 
 of the Holy Angels. Think of ' mistakes ' in reference 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 95 
 
 to our Lord only, and yourself as an ill-taught, forgetful 
 child, yet a child. 
 
 Your friend said, ' An excited nun seems a contra- 
 diction.' 
 
 — ■— had better make no account of thoughts and 
 temptations : only use some prayer in them. They are 
 the devil's, and as good Archbishop Leighton says, ' will 
 be imputed to him,' not to her. 
 
 ' Loneliness ' is often the portion of those whom God 
 loves most. What like the loneliness of St. John, or the 
 Blessed Virgin after the Ascension ? 
 
 Self-praising thoughts, self-preference, &c., need not be 
 confessed unless yielded to or acted upon. Treat it as 
 folly (it is), and think yourself a fool for having them, and 
 so pass them by ; as you would any other folly, or any of 
 those incoherent thoughts which cross the mind when half 
 asleep. You only fix them and make them recur, by 
 dwelling upon them. 
 
 I think probably one reason why you feel this life harder 
 is, that you are under rule, instead of making rules for 
 yourself, which had excitement in it. But also the even 
 simplicity of the life may make it harder. 
 
 Those who love any human being intensely, are conscious 
 of his presence, even if they see him not, are with him 
 even though absent ; the thought mingles with their 
 thoughts whatever else they think of, they do all with 
 reference to him, the love of him makes them do all they 
 do better : they can play, sing, speak better, can do things 
 beyond themselves, feel no fatigue ; it diffuses gladness 
 over all : nothing is irksome : no pain felt, or gives a thrill 
 of pleasure : it is gladness to suffer for him. One surely 
 need only think of what we are, to know what it is to 
 have the ' thought of God ' ; but to know the ' sweetness 
 of God ' must be His gift to those whom He overstreams 
 with His love. 
 
96 spiritual Letters of Edward Boiiverie Pusey. 
 
 To do things ' purely to the glory of God ' is to have no 
 respect of self, no by-ends, no wish for praise, but to desire 
 to do it just as God would have it, because He wills it. 
 
 If a thing is of moment, the mind should be given to it, 
 as in teaching, visiting the poor, &c., with the raising the 
 soul to God at intervals on the continued thought of God ; 
 but you should not have a separate train of thought, as you 
 may in things mechanical or nearly so. 
 
 You should pray individually for the poor under your 
 care, if they continue the same and are not very numerous. 
 But this is not always possible, e. g. for clergy. 
 
 You will find a beautiful description of being ' hushed,' 
 in St. Augustine's conversation with his mother just before 
 her death ^. 
 
 I think I am now at the close of the questions of many 
 notes ; if there are more, ask me. 
 
 God bless you and empty you of yourself that He may 
 fill you with Himself. 
 
 ' See in St. Augustine's ' Confessions,' Lib. Fath., Oxf. Trans., pp. 174, 175. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 97 
 
 LETTER XLVIir. 
 The Same. 
 
 Rogation Monday, [1848]. 
 
 What you write of is part of that intense disease of 
 self : but be not disquieted. Nettles are beaten to death 
 by being continually lashed : a disease wears itself out 
 continually throwing off what is loathsome: whatever is 
 odious to you, does not hurt you. Pray for the Sister, 
 whom you are inclined to grudge self-d[enial] : suppose 
 there are reasons for what you do not see: quell the 
 rebellions : the best victories may be where there has been 
 ' hardest work ' : do not mind how many dints there are on 
 the shield, so j'ou do what in you lies by prayer and self- 
 subdual to repel the enemy. Be not surprised that you 
 have these conflicts ; but take them humbly as a matter 
 of course ; even while you say, " Who shall deliver me from 
 the body of this death ? " . . . 
 
 It is the beginning of humility to feel that we can do 
 nothing for ourselves, and so to leave off complaining that 
 we have ' no real, deep sorrow for sins past,' but pray for 
 it and for love, and avoid anything, any acts or words, 
 which may hinder it. 
 
98 spiritual Letters of Edward Boiiverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XLIX. 
 Unbelieving Thoughts. 
 
 Feast of the Purification, 1881. 
 
 I have been up to the lips in work, and so delaj'ed day 
 by day all other writing. 
 
 And now three weeks have elapsed since the date of 
 your letter. What is the form which it takes now ? Is it 
 still that continual jabbering against faith ? Satan cannot 
 understand faith and love ; only the knowledge of his own 
 doom. And so he subserves the ends of God. in giving 
 Him the occasion to conquer in His own. You remember 
 St. Catherine's ' Where wert thou, Lord, when I had those 
 thoughts ? ' So even to St. Catherine of Sienna it must 
 have been a perplexity. And it was her favourite grace 
 against which he jabbered. And yet she was puzzled, and 
 could not make out that they were not her own. If she 
 was so puzzled, much more may you be. So then take 
 our Lord's answer as said to you, ' W^here art Thou, Lord ? ' 
 ' In thy heart, else thou wouldest not hate them.' 
 
 But the less you think about them the better. Do what 
 you can for God in His poor. He says. " Blessed is he that 
 considereth the poor and needy. The Lord shall deliver 
 him in the time of trouble." 
 
 So He will deliver you. Satan can only be an occasion 
 of good to you. 
 
 God bless you and through trouble or through joy lead 
 you to Himself. 
 
Counsel mid Sympathy. 
 
 99 
 
 LETTER L. 
 DOUBTINGS. 
 
 August .|, iS8o. 
 
 I did not suppose that the devil would leave off whis- 
 pering his ' ifs ' at once : the more attention you pay to 
 them, the longer probably he will continue them. They 
 answer the purpose of his malice in plaguing you. To 
 suggest doubts about faith altogether or any portion of it, 
 is one of his known devices. Pascal was an instance. 
 Pascal's advice was, ' Take no notice of them, but do some 
 contrary act of faith.' If Satan found that he could disturb 
 neither your faith nor your peace, he would leave off. For 
 his pride makes him hate to be baffled. When Job had 
 stood his malice and blessed God when he hoped he would 
 curse Him, he left off. He departed from our Lord for 
 a season when he had failed, hoping to prevail another 
 time. 
 
 It is a very simple temptation, and not uncommon. 
 'What if it is all a dream ! ' has been suggested to many. 
 The object is to prevent its becoming chronic, which, if you 
 let it take hold of you, it might. The way, then, is to act 
 quietly. The cross on the forehead, as I told you, has 
 great power, the forehead being the seat of thought ; Satan 
 fears it. Or to make a short profession of faith, ' Lord, 
 I believe all which Thou hast revealed,' or ' I believe in 
 God the Father, &c.,' standing for the whole Creed. It 
 should be very short, so as not to relax the energy with 
 
 H a 
 
loo spiritual Letters of Edward Boiiverie Pitsey. 
 
 which you begin, or to give Satan time to say, ' No, you 
 don't.' They must be temptations of Satan. We hope 
 that these assaults on faith were permitted by God in 
 answer to your prayer. God would not Himself take away 
 His own gift of faith. He does all which His Almighty 
 power can to keep this faith in us. But He may allow us 
 to be assaulted as He did Job, intending that we should be 
 conquerors. I told you some known and approved ways 
 of fighting. You had said to me some such words as, 
 ' I must, as before, grasp my own nettle.' What is your 
 way of ridding yourself of this temptation ? It may be 
 overcome by prayer. But beware of pride. God may 
 be permitting it to cauterize pride, by showing you how 
 helpless you are. It is not to be overcome by folding 
 your hands, but by prayer and fighting. You may have 
 some ways of fighting, of which you have not told me. 
 \\'hat do you do against this temptation? But fight you 
 must, and humble yourself before God. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 lor 
 
 LETTER LI. 
 The Same. 
 
 August I o, [1880]. 
 
 Almighty God could allow you, in answer to your 
 prayer, to be buffeted, tempted with thoughts against 
 faith. He could not take away your faith. It is, we 
 trust, in answer to your prayer^ that He has allowed this 
 mist to come over you. The thoughts which Satan puts 
 into one, seem often so much ours, that we cannot dis- 
 tinguish them. St. Catherine of Sienna, having been 
 assailed by thoughts contrary to her favourite grace of 
 purity, complained to our Lord, ' Where wert Thou, 
 Lord, when I had such thoughts?' The answer came, 
 'In thy heart : else thou couldest not have hated them.' 
 Archdeacon Manning (as he then was) asked a poor 
 villager, who was troubled with thoughts against faith, 
 ' Do you ever say. Get thee behind me, Satan ? ' Villager : 
 ' No, Sir, I dares not say that : but I do say. The Lord 
 rebuke thee.' He fought against it, and so must you. 
 God has heard your prayer in allowing the mist to come 
 over you. He would not paralyze your will. 
 
 The ' price which you have to pay ' is to accept the 
 mist of having the doubts put into your mind. God has 
 put you into this battle. But He bids you fight. He 
 conquers in His own : He Himself is crowned in them, 
 whom He crowns. It is not your duty to analyze yourself, 
 as you describe yourself as doing. Any temptation might 
 
I02 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 find an echo in your heart but for the grace of God. 
 It is a saying, that we have the germs of all the deadly 
 sins in us. God has been very merciful to you in letting 
 Satan tempt you in this way, and not in others which 
 might have been more distressing. But He says, " Resist 
 the devil, and he will flee from you." It does not depend 
 upon you, how long the mist will last. This is in God's 
 Hands. But as long as He allows it to last, you must 
 believe that the sun is behind it, although you do not 
 see it, and all around is damp and clammy. You are 
 not ' resuming your offer ' by fighting. God accepted 
 your offer by putting you into the battle. The mist will 
 last as long as God wills, and, as long as it lasts, you have 
 the battle to fight. Not to ask help of God would be 
 unchristian. The devil tells you this, and you must not 
 believe him. 
 
 Never mind your feelings. The trial must be dreary. 
 Dreariness is part of your trial. If all were bright within, 
 then temptation would be but summer clouds. You do 
 believe in God. It would be Satan's lie, to say that you 
 did not. I fear that you hug your temptation, as if it 
 were part of your offering, or not your temptation only, 
 but your inaction under it. Jesus, your Redeemer, is no 
 dream. It were blasphemy and ingratitude to think it. 
 The 'if is giving way to the devil. Fight, as others 
 have fought. God met Job, Face to face, but after that, 
 by God's grace, he had conquered. While he had to fight, 
 God helped him without his knowing it and unseen. 
 
 Do everything just as you would have done if Satan 
 had not put the ' ifs ' into your mind. They are his, 
 and the malice of them will be ascribed to him, not to 
 you. But if you omit a prayer in consequence of his 
 temptation, you are i7i tJiat instance defeated. 
 
 I did not mean any one sort of pride, but all : all self- 
 opinion. Of course^ you who are in this mist about what 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 the heathen beh'eved, cannot judge about anything : but 
 chiefly I suppose that the suffering which you offered 
 yourself for, God sent in this particular way to heal your 
 pride, that you are assailed with doubts about which even 
 heathen consciences saw clearly. As for leaving you 
 alone, you are one of the most necessitous of all my 
 children, and to leave you alone would be to leave you 
 to sleep on the snow, which is death. 
 
I04 Spiritual Letters of Edivard Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER LII. 
 Vanity. 
 
 September i, 1880. 
 Your letter awakens in me the apprehension that you 
 may really be indifferent to the state in which you are : 
 which would be the way to become really indifferent to 
 the loss of God and to lose your soul. You must fight 
 and pray earnestly, and reject the thoughts as not your 
 own. You must tell God, 'I will to believe': 'I believe 
 with my will.' ' I disown all these blasphemous thoughts 
 which deny Thy Existence and Thy Goodness.' You are 
 so miserably vain, that it might minister to your vanity to 
 be in any way different from others. . . . Your great battle 
 must be with vanity. Self is your idol, and everything 
 may minister to self You could be vain at one moment, 
 that a person pays attention to yourself, however incon- 
 sistent it may be with your habit : and vain at the 
 next, at indignantly repelling him. You have no con- 
 ception of the extent of your vanity. God has given 
 you a certain degree of natural ability. I do not know 
 
 its extent. But you told me when I saw you at 
 
 that your head had given way amid hard reading. How 
 hard, I, of course, do not know: for I do not know 
 that you told me the books. But this implied, that 
 you had not a strong head. And as I said once before, 
 cleverness is something very petty. It is the quick 
 perception of single points : it does not imply any great 
 grasp ; rather it excludes it. You may speak of a clever 
 boy, because, having his faculties still undeveloped, he 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 sees single things quickly and clearly. To speak of a 
 clever man or woman would be a disparaging term. It 
 would imply want of grasp or compass. But this clever- 
 ness is a great temptation to vanity. The single remarks 
 strike persons, and they admire them. Some smile shows 
 it ; and the person goes his way and is self-satisfied and 
 his vanity is nourished. And these petty tributes may 
 be the more numerous, because they are petty. 
 
 Now just watch yourself for the little occasions in which 
 you think yourself cleverer than another. Perhaps you 
 won't call it clever, but something more solid ; a true 
 perception of things. Set yourself against any supposed 
 superiority to any one. One grain of love is better than 
 a hundredweight of intellect. And after all, that blasted 
 spirit, Satan, has more intellect than the whole human 
 race. And remember that to plume yourself about any- 
 thing is robbing God. 
 
 What distressed me in your letter was that you still 
 spoke of ' I cannot believe in God,' which is speaking 
 as if Satan's lie were true. You must not take his lie 
 into your own mouth. Again, you say, 'gives me more 
 time for blasphemous thoughts'; say, 'gives Satan more 
 time for putting blasphemous thoughts into my mind.' 
 I was afraid too that you liked talking of having these 
 blasphemous thoughts put into your mind. It is some- 
 thing unusual. 
 
 J. Keble's remedy for having a good opinion of one's 
 self is, ' Recall to yourself the thing which you would be 
 most ashamed that people should know ' : and his humility 
 is admired even by people of intellect. It is not the 
 ' Christian Year,' or anything else which he did, has raised 
 him to the place around the eternal Throne, which God 
 prepared for Him. 
 
 Now don't be vain of having this commonplace letter, 
 because I have taken pains with it. 
 
io6 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER LIII. 
 Evil Thoughts. 
 
 January 4, 1877. 
 
 Your confessor's advices are right. Satan, as he cannot 
 now lead you into sin, torments you, as you describe. And 
 God permits him to do this, in order to call out in you 
 a deeper repentance for what displeased Him in the past. 
 We should, none of us, know the gravity of past evil unless 
 we were tormented with memories of it, when broken off. 
 It is a great law of God, ' Whereby a man hath offended, 
 thereby is he punished.' Whether it is pride, self-esteem, 
 love of human praise, anger, or any other sin, we bring 
 temptations upon ourselves, which we should not otherwise 
 have had ; and (it has been beautifully said) ' God forgives 
 the past sins, and now pities us the more, because we have 
 brought trials upon ourselves, which we should not have 
 had unless we had brought them upon ourselves.' 
 
 Do then, as your confessor advised, take no notice of 
 those thoughts, except to humble yourself to God for what 
 brought them. Say some such prayer as, ' Would, O my 
 God, for love of Thee, I had not so offended Thee!' Do 
 not examine yourself about those thoughts, whether you 
 consented to them or no, but only whether you said the 
 prayers. Do not try not to have them ; but simply turn 
 3'our thoughts to something spiritual. Think of the souls 
 of those you live with or meet, more than of their bodies. 
 A soul in grace is said to be so beautiful that we should 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 die if we could sec it. Think of our Lord as in that inap- 
 proachable Hght of glory, so that you could not discern 
 His Features for that ineffable glory. Own also to God, 
 that you deserved all this torment which harasses you : 
 accept it as less than you deserve : pray Him that through 
 it you may hate the more all which occasioned it. Be not 
 impatient to get rid of it ; only desire that you should love 
 God more, Who has forgiven you, and hate that past self. 
 He may lead you through fire and water, but He will lead 
 you at last to that wealthy place, which He gave His Son 
 to purchase for you. 
 
 May He bless you in what way He knows. 
 
io8 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Piisey. 
 
 LETTER LIV. 
 The Effort to love God. 
 
 August 19, 1864. 
 
 I am thankful to hear that you had recourse long ago 
 to the remedy, which I thought would be a relief to you. 
 I think that you have not perhaps brought home to your- 
 self, how great and complete God's goodness was to you 
 in it. In it, He pronounced, by His Minister's voice, the 
 forgiveness of your sins, as much as if you could have heard 
 Himself saying to you, "Thy sins are forgiven thee." Hence- 
 forth the guilt of sin is removed : the memory of sin is 
 only healthful and for your growth in His Love. ' Much 
 forgiven, much love.' It is of His great Love that He has 
 brought to your mind what people so commonly think so 
 little of, sins of omission. He would have you love Him 
 more for having forgiven them. But this is the very thing 
 which you complain of, that you have not ' the glowing 
 love ' which you feel that you should have for all His 
 goodness. This too is part of His Love. If you had not 
 love, you could not feel the want of it ; for love only feels 
 that it does not love enough. But then you know what 
 you have to do. It is a safeguard of humility, to feel that 
 you do not love enough ; it is a goad to make you ask for 
 more love from Him Who alone can give it. Love, love, 
 love ! It is the thirst of the soul, the only thing which the 
 soul needs. "Ask, and ye shall receive." Jesus has pledged 
 His word to you. Do not ask much for setisible love. But 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 109 
 
 set out with this, that He has merited for you by those 
 bitter Sufferings on the Cross, the forgiveness of your sins ; 
 that He has forgiven them, blotted them out ; that He 
 died for you as much as if there had been none besides to 
 die for ; and then thank Him and bless Him and ask Him 
 for exceeding love for Himself Who so loved you. I said, 
 ' Do not ask much for sensible love ' ; let this come or go, 
 as He wills ; but ask Him for a great love. Forget yourself 
 and your own feelings ; go beyond them ; to think of your- 
 self chills love ; but dwell on God ; ask of Him for that 
 love which shall be the bliss of eternity. Think of Him, 
 of all He has done for you, thought for you, loved you with 
 all that individual Love. And then, do not think merely, 
 ' how I ought to love Him,' " how cold my love is ! ' but go 
 to Him Who came to send the fire of His Love upon the 
 earth, and ask Him for His Love. 
 
 The memory of forgiven sin, whether of commission or 
 omission, should be humbling, not depressing. In all 
 eternity, we can never love God enough for His forgiving 
 Love. I suppose that one of our feelings, as He unfolds to 
 us more and more of His Love, will be, ' This for me ! ' It 
 is quite true, that you do not love God enough ; it would 
 be a very bad sign, if any one thought that he did love 
 Him enough. In all eternity we could never love Him 
 enough. 
 
 I think that you are more likely to find comfort, when 
 you cease to look for it and dwell more on the thought of 
 God's great Love and pray for it. While we watch our 
 feelings, we lose sight of God. There is a great deal of 
 truth in those hymns, ' Just as we are ' ; only that we are 
 not to be satisfied with remaining ' just as we are ' ; but to 
 pray for grace and to use it, still feeling our own nothing- 
 ness and worthlessness and thanking Him Who has had 
 pity on our badness. 
 
 I do not know what you include among the ' outward 
 
I lo spiritual Letters of Edzvard Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 things which occupy the largest portion of your time.' 
 Life is necessarily filled with a number of little outward 
 things, but the love of God may be the soul of them all, 
 while we thank Him for His continual mercies in all the little 
 daily comforts of life, and ask His grace to please Him in 
 all its little duties. Thanksgiving is a great nourisher of 
 love, and of peace too, as God tells us ; " In everything by 
 prayer and supplication with tJianksgiving let your requests 
 be made known unto God : and the peace of God, which 
 passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and 
 minds through Christ Jesus." Observe that and\ pray, 
 thank, and the peace will come. 
 
 As for people thinking too well of one, it shows one, 
 I hope, two things, (i) the worthlessness of all human 
 opinion ; they know nothing about one ; (2) how great 
 a good is any grace of God which He has vouchsafed to us. 
 Those who see it, for love of His grace, lose sight of all the 
 dark parts, just as people admire the lustre of a jewel, 
 though all beside it has no brightness in it. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 Ill 
 
 LETTER LV. 
 Submission. 
 
 February g, 1853. 
 
 It is plainly right to give way, in 's state of health. 
 
 Besides, he has a right to refuse. It is in vain for me to 
 think of giving work. There are more hands than heads 
 to look over. Your daughters must look on the patterns 
 of Moses in the wilderness and St. Paul in Arabia, and 
 pray God to fiit them to be employed by Him, when He 
 wills. It is much to learn to be content to do nothing 
 when God wills, as a sort of living statue, remaining where 
 its Master placed it. 
 
 LETTER LVL 
 Casting Lots. 
 
 February 21, 1840. 
 
 I should dread the casting lots : it might be that I had 
 not faith enough, and do not see that ive have a right 
 to employ them in so solemn a matter. I should have 
 thought the better way would have been to have post- 
 poned the subject for a time (until after Easter), and using 
 Lent as a time of humiliation, pray God to enlighten one's 
 mind, and to put into it the thought which He knew to 
 be best. It might be a subject of prayer before receiving 
 the Holy Communion. I should have been afraid of the 
 casting lots, lest it should arise from a wearisomeness of 
 indecision, instead of waiting patiently for the time when 
 He would enable one to decide according to His Will. 
 
 I will try, when I can, to give you a better opinion : 
 as it is, I should be afraid of it. 
 
112 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Piisey. 
 
 LETTER LVII. 
 The Same. 
 
 February 25, [1S40]. 
 
 I cannot come to any other conclusion about lots. 
 Were you to try them, and they fell out one way, I should 
 be thankful — if the other, / should not be satisfied. It 
 seems to me to be risking the more excellent way. For 
 myself, it seems to me clear to what you are called, 
 though, at first, I did not feel myself entitled to lay upon 
 you what I had never been called upon to decide for 
 myself: my own way of life had looked one way since 
 I was eighteen, and the question which you have to decide 
 was never brought before me. 
 
 But I do strongly feel (as far as one can judge for 
 another) that you are being led to be an example, if it 
 may be, of the higher way of life, and yourself to the 
 higher holiness than I imagine you would attain to in 
 the ordinary way. God guide you. I have done, as you 
 asked, sincerely, and was glad that we were near each 
 other at St. Mary's. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 113 
 
 LETTER LVIII. 
 Apparent Failure in Mission Work. 
 
 1876. 
 
 Life is very chequered. They are very comfortable 
 words, " The h'ght shall not be clear nor dark ; it shall 
 be one day, which shall be known to the Lord, not day 
 nor night — but in the eventide it sJiall be light^." Zechariah 
 certainly is prophesying of the distant future, of which 
 there was no fulfilment at our Lord's First Coming, so it 
 belongs to His Second Coming, and who knows, whether 
 the beginning of it may not be now? Everything is on 
 such a gigantic scale : good and evil seem more active 
 than they have been of a long time. It seems again like 
 the close of the Revelation, where it says, "The time is 
 at hand. He that is unjust, let him be still more unjust 
 (i.e. God leaves him to be so) — and he that is righteous, 
 let him be still more righteous ; and he that is holy, let 
 him be still more holy-." I remember, when I was young, 
 thinking things so stagnant and being glad of the signs 
 of a moral thunderstorm — not such a thunderstorm as we 
 have had. We have a different thunderstorm now. How- 
 ever, God is preparing His own way. " Thy way is in the 
 sea, and Thy path in the great waters, and Thy footsteps 
 are not known," but it follows, "Thou leddest Thy people 
 like sheep by the hand of Moses and Aaron 
 
 It was a bright promise when that former king translated 
 our Prayer Book into Hawaiian, and sent to ask us to help 
 
 ' Zech. xiv. 6, 7. ^ Rev, xxii. 10, 11. ' Ps. Ixxvii. 19, 20. 
 
 I 
 
114 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 him. It was like the man of Macedonia who appeared to 
 St, Paul and said, " Come and help us." It was right, that 
 the people should follow their king in what was good. It 
 is the way in which many nations were converted to the 
 Gospel. Other days are come ; and will pass away, what- 
 ever may succeed them. But God's word does not pass 
 away, nor anything done for God. Not one ' Our Father' 
 was ever lost. It entered into the ears of God, and swelled 
 that cry, to which His Heart has listened, "Thy Kingdom 
 come ; " and it has brought down its ' showers of blessings.' 
 How, we know not, and shall not know till the Great Day. 
 Work on then in bright hope. Not one thing which you 
 have ever done for God, has been lost ; not one is lost, 
 or ever will be lost. While we each do the little we 
 can do, we may leave the rest to Him. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 115 
 
 LETTER LIX. 
 Self-Denial and Almsgiving. 
 
 Second Sunday in Lent, 1841. 
 
 With regard to the mode in which self-denial is to be 
 brought about, different people will arrive at it in different 
 ways ; if a person with ^3,000 per annum be brought to 
 give up ;i^i,GOO, he must exercise self-denial (unless he 
 have been saving), he must live more simply somehow ; 
 when the collection for the London Churches was made 
 here, one gave up a summer excursion, another (inter alia) 
 made an old coat serve the place of a new one. Whether 
 people begin by giving up luxuries, or that which feeds 
 them, comes to the same in the end ; one will begin with 
 laying down his carriage and horses, another will find 
 at the end of the year that he must have less expensive 
 servants or fewer; another will find it inconsistent to 
 have his drawing-room tricked out with all sorts of gew- 
 gaws, china, prints, &c., which our grandfathers had not, &c. 
 I should instance these things sometimes, in preaching, 
 myself, because I am sure it has a good effect on the 
 mind to get rid of them ; but I would not make it my 
 object; if we can get, or rather if God infuse the thought 
 of self-denial into people's minds, simplicity will follow 
 sooner or later ; people will see it to be inconsistent to 
 have their fingers covered with rings (which is something 
 ^avavrrov also) and to be wearing expensive necklaces, 
 while they are retrenching other expenditure in order 
 
 I 2 
 
ii6 Spiritual Letters of Edward Boiiverie Piisey. 
 
 to give. I do not want a person to ' give his wife's and 
 daughter's jewels,' but I wish these to learn that it is 
 better to be without them, and with their husband's and 
 parent's leave, to part with them. Some such offerings 
 there were in the Metropolis Churches-Fund ^ 
 
 We shall never get real charity without a return to sim- 
 plicity, first or last. Our want of simplicity is hurting us 
 more than can be imagined. People trick out their drawing- 
 rooms and leave God's house bare ; our ' elegancies ' are 
 offensive to good taste ; if the things are beautiful in them- 
 selves, they are too crowded together ; but the worst is, 
 they make self the idol. Our young women will not work 
 seats for drawing-rooms or slippers, and Altar cloths at the 
 same time ; we shall not have silver corner dishes and 
 handsome Chalices together. God or ourselves must be 
 our first object, and the one will drive out the other. 
 
 Why should we speak of 'depriving one's family' of 
 things ? Why should they not be equally ready to give 
 them up as ourselves ? I am sure that there are a number 
 of difficulties of this sort which Satan raises, to cloud our 
 eyes, but which are like so many phantom-figures which 
 disappear as soon as one touches them. The wife, by 
 God's appointment, leans on the husband, looks up to 
 him, imbibes his way of thinking, at least gradually ; let 
 her see that her husband in earnest wishes for greater 
 simplicity, and in nine cases out of ten or ninety-nine out 
 of a hundred, she will help him forward, not hinder him : 
 will take a pleasure in following out his plans ; be as glad 
 to 'deprive herself of perishable things for the sake of 
 eternal, and for her Saviour's sake, as he. Our women 
 are more self-denying, more ardent, more devoted as a 
 body, than we. There is a depth about the character 
 of our English females, which has not been brought out, 
 but which, when ' Sisters of Charity ' are formed, and self- 
 
 ' See Life of E. B. Pusey, D.D., vol. i. p. 330. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 117 
 
 denial acted upon, will bring glorious days to our 
 Church. 
 
 Again, as to servants, it is more difficult, but the simpler 
 a person makes his establishment, the simpler the indi- 
 viduals will be. A large establishment, living by itself, 
 with little or no intercourse with its head, is an unnatural 
 thing, and will generally, I fear, be bad ; but there are 
 good servants also, and they will readily fall into regulations, 
 if spoken to as Christians. 
 
 I think you must beware how you make amount the 
 test of charity. A person might out of ^3,000 per annum 
 give ^1,000 and yet go on in self-indulgent habits. It 
 is not likely perhaps, that one to whom God had given 
 this grace, would so fall short ; but to avoid self-deceit 
 we need both self-denial in detail, as well as largeness 
 in giving, which is something elating. Where the every- 
 day living is simple, the sum actually saved by fasting 
 will be little ; yet what a stress do the Fathers, and good 
 Churchmen among ourselves, lay on giving to the poor 
 what is saved by fasting. It is becoming partakers of 
 their want, and making them share our plenty. 
 
 I agree with you that we do lose vast sums (as we 
 deserve) by our odious system of flattery. If a person 
 gives ;^ioo, no matter out of what income, he is idolized, 
 panegyrized in papers, complimented by the clergy, taught 
 to be satisfied with having done a good deed, instead of 
 being stimulated to further good deeds. We lose for 
 the Church, and do harm to people's souls. We speak 
 like mendicants, who think they have no claim to what 
 they ask for, and so shower down praises for any pittance 
 we obtain. We teach people self-satisfaction and unteach 
 humility. We must learn to act more boldly in our 
 Master's Name and leave it to Him to give the praise, 
 as is due, at the Great Day. 
 
ii8 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER LX. 
 Self-denial in Families. 
 
 Le/it, ^th week, 1 841, Tuesday. 
 
 If I did not mistake you, you seemed to think it 
 hopeless to attempt to induce servants to be contented 
 with less than others had. I suspect practically this 
 is not so. I have heard of great families lately who 
 have been putting their household on an allowance of 
 I lb. of meat a head per day. And in the middle 
 classes, regulations, restricting food, are common. What 
 is done for economy may be done for Religion. Your 
 letter making me think on the subject, I proposed to my 
 own to exercise some degree of self-denial during Lent ; 
 that the savings should be given to the poor. Those who 
 were allowed butter, gave it up ; my mother's two men- 
 servants (London servants), who were accustomed to eat 
 meat three times a day (a sad habit), gave up one, and 
 all agreed only to be helped once at dinner. Our whole 
 savings in the week came to near £1, and a servant 
 expressed a hope that there would be less consumed the 
 next week, taking an interest in it. 
 
 I hope they will continue the plan for other fast-days : 
 it is but a small beginning ; still, the very notion of self- 
 denial, for the sake of the hungry poor, among servants, 
 is a blessing. I accounted as saved, what was under 
 I lb. of meat per head. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 119 
 
 LETTER LXI. 
 The Poverty of the Rich. 
 
 September 16, [1869]. 
 
 I fear that the poverty of the rich is of will, not of means. 
 
 And if people give, like , they give naturally to their 
 
 own objects. I thought that , according to his 
 
 principle, would have helped ; but he is an instance of 
 ' if riches increase they are increased who eat them.' He 
 used to be liberal till he had wealth. I believe that it is 
 true from the peasant upwards that people give in the 
 inverse ratio to what they have. 
 
 But do not ask any one to whom it would involve 
 a sacrifice. Better to keep sacrifices for direct gifts to 
 God. I have incurred the responsibility^, and I must 
 bear it. I could not ask people beforehand, thinking it 
 best to keep the publication secret, for fear one should 
 be prevented ; and people hate being asked to help as 
 to that, about which they had not been consulted before- 
 hand. I should not have asked, but that I have been 
 embarrassed by some wrong dealings ; but it will come 
 right. . . . 
 
 I am much more afraid for the rich in the Day of 
 Judgement than for our ' degraded ' or ' neglected popula- 
 tions ' of which people are so fond of speaking. ' Magnas 
 inter opes inops,' and that of the true riches. 
 
 But it is very reasonable that they should not give for 
 the De Turrecremata. It is only that what you said woke 
 up that ever present feeling. 
 
 ' This refers to the publication of the Immaculate Conception. See Life 
 Cardinal De Turrecremata's work on of Dr. Pubcy, vol. iv. p. 181. 
 
I20 Sptritiial Letters of Edimrd Bouverie Pitsey. 
 
 LETTER LXII. 
 Reparation. 
 
 December i, 187S. 
 
 I never liked on account of its introduction of the 
 
 French word 'reparation.' It seems to direct the thoughts 
 to others' faults or shortcomings rather than one's own. 
 ' Zeal for the honour of God, for His Glory, in the Blessed 
 Sacrament,' prayer for increased devotion to, thanksgiving 
 for, reverence to It, or the like, would have seemed to me 
 natural subjects for prayer. ' Reparation,' in our English 
 sense of the word, seems to me something foreign to one. 
 as a negligent sinful creature. If one thought what a single 
 Communion would have been to Elijah, who was so forti- 
 fied by the type of it, or that one Communion might 
 make a saint, and then thinks of the many many Com- 
 munions, which one has been vouchsafed, since one's first : 
 how tepid one's best compared with what they ought to 
 have been : what they might have made one compared 
 to what one has been and is — one can but bury one's 
 face and say, " God be merciful to me, a sinner : " I cannot 
 think of making reparation to God for the dishonour to 
 Him by others. I can only think, ' Most likely with their 
 lights, they are better than I.' 
 
 LETTER LXIII. 
 Intellectual Perils. 
 
 June 15, 1881. 
 
 I am indeed thankful of the account which you give 
 
 of . Work for the love of Jesus among His poor 
 
 seems to have drawn out the loving side of his character, 
 and to have thrown into the shade what our unhappy 
 intellectual Oxford system fosters. Thanks be to God. 
 May He lead him on. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 121 
 
 LETTER LXIV. 
 The Study of Theology. 
 
 October i8, 1881. 
 
 Sad as it is, I am not surprised at any result of the 
 study of Theology to an unsubmissive mind. ' Either God 
 is wiser than he,' and then he submits ; or he thinks him- 
 self 'wiser than God, as He has revealed Himself,' and 
 then he rebels. Formerly 'heresy' was the alternative; 
 now, it is 'absolute unbelief.' But Card[inal] Newman wrote 
 to me, ' I had rather have to do with the open unbelief 
 of the nineteenth century than with the hidden unbelief of 
 the Middle Ages.' 
 
 I have often said that ' love or reverence for our dear 
 Lord will carry a person safe, and nothing else.' Conceit, 
 as you must have seen, I hope tuas, not is, 's peril. . . . 
 
 I had added a little note, as to what I believe, to a third 
 edition of ' What is of Faith,' &c. It comes to this. 
 
 (1) I have myself no thought as to the proportion of 
 the saved and the lost. I leave it blindly in God's hands, 
 Who loves us, and would not part with any whom He 
 could keep without destroying that likeness to Himself, 
 our free will. 
 
 (2) I do believe myself the pains of sense, although no 
 one is bound as matter of faith to believe them. 
 
 God bless you. 
 
122 Sptrihial Letters of Edward Bouvcrie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER LXV. 
 Oxford Studies. 
 
 October 21, 1880. 
 
 You may, alas ! well ask why it is necessary at Oxford 
 to go through all that unbelieving reading in order to 
 gain what are called the highest distinctions and the way 
 to Fellowships. Why should they have to pass through 
 or over all those shallows, at that early period of life ? 
 I have done what I could to direct minds from it, since 
 I could not alter the scheme itself ; but there is a layer 
 of mind in the University which must peel off before 
 anything can be done. Meanwhile there is a rising tide of 
 believing tutors, who will, I hope, change things. The 
 Theological School is unpopular because the Oxford mind 
 is un-Theological. 
 
 LETTER LXVI. 
 Spiritual Advice. 
 
 [1880.] 
 
 Do be careful about 'jesting on a sacred subject.' I 
 suppose that you mean more than speaking playfully with 
 a serious meaning, i. e. you did not do it for the glory 
 of God. " God," Scripture says, " is greatly to be feared 
 in the council of His saints." 
 
 Take care about the day-dreaming. It is such special 
 vanity, and so unreal : picturing yourself as being what 
 you would never be, and robbing God in imagination. 
 
 If any one thinks well of you, praise God for it. I sup- 
 pose that Herod's was a very able speech. 
 
 If you thank God, you need not mind the pleasure 
 which praise gives you. Only remember that it is people s 
 love, not your deserts. 
 
 Now set to work again, and be careful not to resist any 
 check of conscience : for it is God's Holy Spirit. 
 
 God bless you. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 123 
 
 LETTER LXVII. 
 
 Professional Disappointment. 
 
 Ut'!y 15, 1882.] 
 
 It is strange that they should admit the young to 
 a laborious profession,' take their best years, and then, 
 in middle age, turn them adrift. It is unlike the time 
 when Nelson could introduce midshipmen as ' England's 
 future Admirals.' However, perhaps the succession was 
 the more certain to those who survived, because the 
 battles cut off so many. So perhaps God has preserved 
 to you your son, and in a more active time of war he 
 might have been taken. We cannot know why things 
 are : we only know (as you too have learned) that God 
 sends all good ; overrules all evil to good. 
 
 LETTER LXVIIL 
 The Same. 
 
 Ascot, July 2, 1882. 
 The country has lost a good officer, and the Admiralty 
 has been ungrateful. But it does not matter, being the 
 object of ingratitude, if one is not ungrateful one's self. 
 It seems a strange sort of profession, which is to be 
 terminable in the midst of one's years. However, Edward 
 is content. His only fear, when I saw him, seemed to 
 be lest you should be disappointed, after throwing yourself 
 so much into his interests. However, God works through 
 crooked and interested agents, and ' what He does, that 
 
124 spiritual Letters of Edivard Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 is well done.' But this you have learned long ago, and 
 this I hope will be dear Edward's lesson now. 
 
 ' E'en disappointment Thou canst bless, 
 So love at heart prevail.' 
 
 What a gift it is, 'exact conformity to the Will of God.' 
 It is the vestibule to the life of the Blessed Angels, as 
 our Lord has taught us — " Thy Will be done in earth as 
 it is in heaven." 
 
 I am again in this wonderful air. God make me 
 thankful for it. 
 
 LETTER LXIX. 
 The Trials of Convalescence. 
 
 September 8, 1 870. 
 
 . . . As far as your health permits, do begin resuming 
 your former devotions. There was, of course, nothing 
 wrong in interrupting them when ill. Illness has its own 
 ways of devotion, not long or set prayers mostly. Then 
 comes procrastination ; or convalescence finds it difificult 
 to say what it can do, what not. But do resume some- 
 thing. By trying some increase of prayer you will be able 
 to tell whether you are yet well enough to prolong set 
 prayers. Do not resume all at once, since you are still 
 ill : but try what more you can do than you now do. This 
 will take off the sense of unfulfilled duties, or that you 
 kept away from God of your own accord. If you are not 
 well enough to add set prayers, then increase ejaculations ; 
 or in lying down, look at a picture of your dear Lord ; or 
 hold a Crucifix in your hand and long for His Love. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 125 
 
 LETTER LXX. 
 Suffering. 
 
 [1877.] 
 
 I could not find your letter when I wrote yesterday. 
 The near acquaintance with terrible suffering disposes 
 me rather to congratulate those who have any, only 
 desiring grace for them to bear it, as He wills. 
 
 Your infirmities will not hinder the grace of the 
 Sacraments ; only in this Easter time as well as in Passion- 
 tide, recall to yourself daily that our Lord's Human Nature 
 was glorified in consequence of the depth of His humiliation. 
 In Easter-tide, too, we should seek to sink more and more 
 into our own worse than nothingness. The ' defiled worm,' 
 which Bishop Andrewes calls himself, never rebelled against 
 God's Will. 
 
 LETTER LXXL 
 Suffering. 
 
 [October 27, 1870.] 
 Try habitually to unite your sufferings with those of 
 our dear Lord. The bones of His Sacred Back must 
 so have been torn, dislocated, severed (the word is), the 
 one from the other : and everything must have been so 
 aggravated by the superhuman sensibility of His Frame. 
 Pray Him to sanctify yours by this. Do this often by 
 brief prayers to Him. This sort of disease seems to be 
 increasing. One who became a Religious, and who, seven 
 or eight years ago, when she chose that life, had all the 
 simple brightness of twenty-one, seems [likely] never again 
 to get up. Another is up for three hours in the day. 
 So you are not alone even in this extremity of suffering. 
 Anyhow, God knows each particular pang. Receive as 
 many as you can from Him, and you will thank Him 
 for all eternity. 
 
126 spiritual Letters of Edimrd Bouvcrie Piisey. 
 
 LETTER LXXir. 
 The Trials of Sickness. 
 
 January 13, 1882. 
 
 I am SO sorr}' to hear of your illness. It must in many 
 ways be a great privation to you. But not one consequence 
 will come which will not be overruled to you by the Loving 
 Will of Him, Who knows all the hairs of our heads and all 
 the beatings of our hearts. He says. Underneath thee 
 are the Everlasting Arms." So lie still in Them, as a child 
 in its mother's bosom. . . . 
 
 You cannot help being harassed : but commit yourself 
 again and again to Him Who loves you, He says, "more 
 than a mother doth." Our Good Lord bless and keep you 
 and bring you by this too nearer to Himself . . . 
 
 Only give yourself again and again to God's Sweet 
 Loving Will. 
 
 ' All is right which seems most wrong, 
 So it be Thy Sweet Will.' 
 
 God heals us body and soul through oneness with His 
 Blessed Will. I have for my subject^ this evening the 
 words of Psalm xxii, " He trusted in God.'" It is literally, 
 " He rolled all on God," like one who has a burden too 
 heavy for him, and he rolls it all off himself and upon 
 God : as another Psalmist says, " Cast " (literally, roll) 
 "thy care upon God." God loves you better and more 
 
 ' i.e. the snbject of the Hebrew Lecture he was then preparing. 
 
Counsel and Sympathy. 
 
 127 
 
 wisely than you can love yourself ; so cast every thing 
 upon Him. 
 
 Yes, I do know that you ' wish to be very sorry for 
 every thing wrong, known or unknown, in your whole life.' 
 Tell God so repeatedly, mentally. It would tire you to 
 say so long a sentence ; but if having once said, ' O my 
 God, I would grieve, for love of Thee, that I ever offended 
 Thee,' you were to say at intervals, ' for love of Thee,' ' for 
 love of Thee,' this would stand for the whole. And every 
 time that you said it, or thought it, God would, as it were, 
 undo it. You do undo it, by willing that it had not been. 
 
 I have just sent you the Benediction, which I hope your 
 
 Guardian Angel will convey to you : and once more 
 
 'The Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 Seal thee as His own for ever.' 
 
 ' For ever ! ' What a word ! Unintermitting, unending, 
 ever-enlarging ! 
 
128 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pitscy. 
 
 LETTER LXXIII. 
 Methods. 
 
 Monday in Holy Week, 1882. 
 
 I am sorry that you, and especially dear Mrs. , 
 
 should have nothing but disappointment in me as to his 
 writings. But they have brought out to me the different 
 moulds into which our minds were cast. His was (so to 
 speak) a scholastic mind ; mine was, from circumstances, 
 a practical mind. His leading idea was to make things 
 exact : my prominent thought was, ' How will they affect 
 others ? ' I have been for so many years accustomed to 
 men's scruples, that my first thought is, ' Will this give 
 rise to a scruple ? ' Thus on Confirmation, as to matter, 
 my thought would be, ' Would people question whether 
 we ought to have been anointed, or had the sign of the cross 
 made anew ? ' and so on. Again, as to Baptism, whether 
 the word should be ' blessed,' &c. 
 
 Then as to authorities : when not employed in Hebrew, 
 I used to live in ' the Fathers ' : the Vincentian rule was 
 my rule — ' What was always, everywhere, by all.' I must 
 limit myself. All additional work extrudes some other : 
 and every question wakes up so many more. I am sure 
 that the looking over these papers would bring me a good 
 many thumps on my head ; and after all, it looks very 
 much as if its basis were seven Sacraments, using the 
 
 word Sacrament in a laxer sense (as one, whom was 
 
 catechizing, after explaining that there were two great 
 Sacraments and five lesser Sacraments, being asked, ' How 
 many Sacraments are there?' the boy answered, ' Seven,' 
 which is not the answer which the Catechism would have 
 suggested.) 
 
II 
 
 LETTERS ON 
 INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 K 
 
LETTER 1. 
 On the Laws of Nature. 
 
 1866. 
 
 I THANK you very much for giving so much time to 
 the answer on the great subject, upon which I wrote to 
 you. One thing is, I think, clear, that it [the question 
 of fixed laws] is not properly a theological question at 
 all ; I mean, that no Divine truth is in any way affected 
 by it. For if the laws be ever so fixed it only needs that 
 they should have been fixed, in relation to the foreseen 
 condition of His creatures ; and the subject of prayer 
 is no otherwise touched upon than the whole subject of 
 God's Providence. 
 
 But one point I still do not seem to get at in j^our 
 paper, the proof of any fixed laws as to minute details ; 
 e.g., wind or rain, upon which the well-being of mankind 
 mainly depends. 
 
 Taking the analogy of your steam engine, all the ' mutual 
 adjustments of certain invariable forces, inherent among 
 the particles of matter,' remain just the same, which ever 
 way the will of the guiding mind directs it, in this line 
 or that, with greater or less speed, or even over the rails 
 so as to destroy it. It is not interference with its powers, 
 but direction of them through free-will. 
 
 Analogous to this, would be the accumulation of 
 electricity, reduction of temperature, change of wind, 
 &c.. which proximately produce lightning or rain. You 
 
 K % 
 
132 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 tell me that the rain which falls in a year in a given 
 place does not much vary ; and that the winds from the 
 different quarters blow in much the same proportions. 
 But, assuming these as fixed laws of God, and that they 
 proceed from known causes, still it is not these but the 
 minuter conditions (the coincidence of the rain with certain 
 seasons or of the wind with the existence of something 
 which becomes the instrument of chastisement, as locusts, 
 or that, whatever it be, whereon the travelling of the 
 cholera depended) which directly affect the human race. 
 There might be the same average of South Wind in 
 Palestine, but if it blew when the locusts were in the 
 deserts of Arabia ready to be brought, it would be 
 a terrific scourge ; otherwise it would be a gain. If rain 
 be concentrated at seed time, the ground may be unfit 
 to sow ; if at harvest it may be spoiled. A hailstorm 
 which should be harmless at one time, might destroy 
 a whole vintage at another. They say that spring-wheat 
 requires a very nice adjustment of dry weather and 
 showers. One year (many years ago) there had been next 
 to no autumn-wheat sown ; all seemed to depend on the 
 spring- wheat ; just at the very last we had exactly that 
 succession of dry weather and rain which was needed. 
 
 Now these minute variations seem to me analogous to 
 the directing of the forces of the steam engine. The 
 general laws which you mention, are doubtless indis- 
 pensable to the general good condition of the atmosphere. 
 And so far we may assume that there are fixed laws 
 for what we observe to be fixed, whatever the law be 
 (I suppose that there is some law), by which God regulates, 
 that there should be the same proportion of rain or wind. 
 And the fact that there are these laws, naturally suggests 
 the hope of discovering other laws for what you can find 
 no law for at present ; in which as you say, ' the deviations 
 baffle all expectation.' 
 
Intellectual Difficulties. 
 
 133 
 
 But on the other hand, is; it not equally open to 
 Professor Mansel to say, ' All your discovery has not 
 brought j'ou means of discovering any law as to the 
 time when these natural phenomena should occur. They 
 are not then, as yet, any real matters of science at all, 
 since science relates to known laws ' ? Nay, the very fact 
 that you do discover so many other laws, but have made 
 no approximation to any discovery of any law as to this, 
 is, as far as it goes, a probability the other way, that it 
 does not depend upon any fixed law, but upon the Will 
 of God, just as the inherent force of the steam-engine 
 depends upon the combination of certain fixed laws, but 
 the direction in which it shall go depends upon the will 
 of man. 
 
 I am thankful to find, that, though Professor Tyndall 
 put it as a Theological question, it is no Theological 
 question; nay, the existence of a physical system, pro- 
 ceeding, in all its details, upon laws immutably fixed, 
 and yet adapted beforehand in all its minutest details 
 to the moral condition of moral agents, would only be 
 the grander adaptation of this physical world to ourselves, 
 its moral and responsible inhabitants. It would be a grand 
 contemplation if true ! So if you or your successors should 
 discover such a system of fixed laws. Theology would only 
 teach us in a dififerent way to marvel at the wondrous 
 condescension of our God and His loving forethought 
 for us. 
 
134 Spiritual Letters of Edimrd Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 To AN Unbeliever. 
 
 Jidy 25, 1881. 
 
 I have read your article in TJie Radical to which you 
 draw my attention. I wish that I could render you any 
 service. But God alone can ; and I fear that I am not 
 likely to persuade you to ask Him. Writers of the class, 
 to whom I fear you belong, decry dogmatism, yet none 
 are more dogmatic. I think in that column and a half 
 there are a good many dogmatic statements, a good 
 deal of contempt for those who adhere to the old truths, 
 and yet I have not observed one attempt at proof. You 
 have your authorities. Only instead of Jesus, or John 
 and Paul^ they are Theodore Parker, or Lord Lytton, or 
 Carlile ^ or Volney, or Feuerbach. Yet anyhow Jesus, 
 although withdrawn from sight, has drawn men unto Him, 
 and has for above eighteen centuries been the Object of 
 the love of all those hundreds of millions upon hundreds 
 of millions. And more, you yourselves are a witness to 
 Him, in that He prophesied of you. 
 
 However in one thing I agree with you, that " Love is 
 God," for God has revealed it. God is Love, and Feuerbach 
 is so far indebted to St. John. Yet before the Gospel 
 no one thought of it. They could think of an Infinite 
 Mind. They could not think of Infinite Love. 
 
 ' Apparently referring to Richard Carlile. See Life of Dr. Pusey, vol. i. 
 P- 44- 
 
Intellectual Difficulties. 
 
 135 
 
 It is a deep saying of Pascal, ' To love man, we must 
 know him ; to know God, we must love Him.' God will 
 give you that love if you ask Him. Nay, if you could 
 only saj' the sceptic's prayer, ' O God, if there be a God, 
 and Thou takest any heed to Thy creatures, teach me 
 to love Thee,' He would hear you. I knew in early youth 
 one whom all recognized as of keenest powerful intellect, 
 who was a disciple of the then German philosophy (I think 
 that the latest then was Schelling), who so prayed and 
 became a Christian. 
 
 God guide you and bless you. 
 
136 spiritual Letters of Edivard Bouveric Pusey. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 To AN Unbeliever. 
 
 October 14, 1881. 
 
 I hardly know what was your object in writing to me, 
 whether to abuse the Church of England for her short- 
 comings, or to protest against my quotation and profession 
 of our love ^. The Church of England has a good deal 
 of ground to recover, a good many stray sheep to win 
 back, whom she lost in the stiffness and chill of the last 
 century. But God has infused new zeal and greater love 
 into the hearts of men. And the Church loves and prays 
 for you, although in a way in which you probably would 
 not thank her for praying, but in which I too will pray 
 for you and love you, that He would ' bring into the way 
 of truth all such who have erred and are deceived.' 
 
 No one would have excepted against ]\Ir. Bradlaugh 
 unless he had made a parade of taking an oath in the 
 Name of God, Whom he declared at the same time not 
 to exist. It was the mockery which outraged people's 
 minds. 
 
 And now let me in love for you tell you the history 
 of one whom in my youth I knew very intimately. He 
 was a student of German philosophy, one well known, 
 whom those who knew him respected, and admired the 
 
 ' This refers to a 'Letter' to the hymn: 
 
 members of the English Church ' Faith of our Fathers ! we will love 
 
 Union, in which Dr. Pusey expresses Both friend and foe in all our strife,' 
 
 his approval of their use of the &c., &c. 
 
Intellectual Difficulties. 
 
 137 
 
 clearness of his intellect. ?Ie thought that he never could 
 again believe a miracle. He went to church and heard 
 the Gospels. He believed in nothing, yet the history- 
 struck him. 'That would look like true history if it were 
 not for the miracles.' After a time he prayed, ' O God, 
 if Thou takest notice of Thy creatures, hear me.' He 
 became a Christian. 
 
 It is little to speak of our poor love. Jesus, your and 
 our Redeemer, Himself loves you (for He died for you), 
 and wishes to bring you back to Himself. But He so 
 loves the free love of His creatures that He will not drag 
 you back as if you were a stock or a stone. He would 
 draw by His love. Say to Him any, the best prayer 
 which you can, if you are a sceptic, or say to God what- 
 ever doubting prayer you can and He will hear you. 
 I doubt not that He hears the well-known prayer, ' O God, 
 if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul,' if it 
 was all which His creature could offer. So He would 
 hear you if you pray to Him: 'O God, if the faith which 
 I once had was the truth, give it me back again.' 
 
 God bless and teach you. 
 
 PS. I have no parish, and so none of the ' hinds ' whom 
 you speak of contemptuously ; but have for now fifty-eight 
 years been in contact with intellectual unbelief, in all its 
 forms, mainly as it has existed in Germany. 
 
138 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 Speculations of 'Exact Science.' 
 
 December 1881. 
 
 It startles me to see what a small basis of fact modern 
 science builds its enormous theories upon. The only fact 
 which I see is, that ' in a thousand years the change in 
 the length of a day is only a fraction of a second ; but 
 that the change is always in one direction.' So then 
 it is ' inferred ' that a million years ago the day probably 
 contained some minutes less than our present day of 
 twenty-four hours. ' Exact science ' has surely nothing 
 to do with ' probably 's.' 
 
 And it is said to be proved that the length of the day 
 must involve a corresponding change in the motion of 
 the moon. Granted. And so, that ' more than 50,000,000 
 of years ago ' the moon was born of this earth. 
 
 How do we know that the earth existed 50,000,000 of 
 years ago ? So that the theory begins with an ' If.' If 
 the earth existed 50,000,000 of years [ago], then we can 
 conceive that ' the orbit of the moon which is now getting 
 larger and larger,' may have been less and less, until we 
 come to a time 50,000,000 years back, when it was 
 projected from the earth. 
 
 It is a simple objection to the theory, that if the moon 
 was originally detached from the earth, it should have 
 been like it. But the writer, too, grants that no two 
 bodies seem to be more unlike ; the moon, with those 
 tremendous cavities, which (they used to say) the sun 
 never penetrated, and (as he too says) which has no sea. 
 Still he speaks of ' tides in the sealess moon.' 
 
Intellectual Difficulties. 
 
 139 
 
 I suppose that to amuse his audience he was obliged 
 to use poetic language. But what has science to do with 
 such language as p. 105? 'I do not know what decided 
 the moon ; but what the decision was is perfectly plain.' 
 In simple language, he does not know why the moon 
 revolves round the earth at all. And I suppose it is 
 insoluble why a body projected (if it was so) from another 
 should revolve round it, and not fall back again, unless a 
 higher Will controlled it. One Agent he omits, — Almighty 
 God. I hope that he presupposes that it was at His 
 Will that all those things which he imagines took place. 
 But for the future, he ignores one event which may disturb 
 his calculation of the millions of years in store for this 
 earth, the destruction of this earth by fire, of which Holy 
 Scripture speaks. True, that however God shall bring 
 this about, it does not speak of the absolute destruction 
 of the earth. It may still be " the new earth " which 
 Scripture also speaks of And he modestly says ' if it 
 shall last so long'; but what depends upon an 'if,' 
 belongs to imagination, not to science. 
 
 However, there is one thought which these speculations 
 about this all-but-boundless time bring home to us: When 
 shall we see God? In old days, when we thought of the 
 duration of this world as 6,000 years, it seemed, at all 
 events, as if it must end a century hence, and that then, 
 anyhow, one should be admitted to see Him. But now 
 that one has accustomed one's .self to think of ages upon 
 ages in the past, time in the future also may be — one 
 knows not what. And one knows not what the waiting- 
 time may be. However, '• the souls of the righteous are 
 in the Hands of God " wherever they are. These theories 
 may do us the good of doing away with commonplace 
 notions, and make us commit ourselves blindly to Him 
 that He will do with us what He wills. 
 
140 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouvcrie Pnscy. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 Compromising Revealed Truths 
 
 [1879-] 
 
 I am afraid my opinion of R. Schmid's opinion (as far 
 as it goes) will be disappointing. Whatever good it may- 
 do in Germany, I should fear it would do rather harm here. 
 His defence of faith comes to this. Darwinism (however 
 true) does not exclude Providence, hearing of prayer, our 
 Lord's Resurrection, or our own. Plainly not ; for it leaves 
 them on one side, except as far as it makes ' Natural 
 Selection ' a sort of goddess, development personified ; but 
 it is a mere metaphor, for you will remember what he 
 says, that a single instance of clear design in a complicated 
 structure would destroy his system, or the like. 
 
 Schmid's defence seems to be directed against the current 
 disbelief in Germany, and it amounts to this, that there are 
 no a priori objections to the Providence of God, or His 
 hearing prayer, or to miracles, or our Lord's Resurrection, 
 or our own. But these are fundamentals of the Faith, and 
 stand (as he seems to feel sometimes) so entirely on their 
 own ground that they are altogether apart from any 
 questions about Evolution. It is only the peg upon which 
 he hangs what he has to say. 
 
 Then he is living in an entirely different atmosphere, and 
 as the hands get hard by hard work, so his ears have got 
 
 ' For Dr. Pusey's deliberate judge- sermon on ' Un-science, not Science, 
 ment on ' Darwinism,' see Life of Dr. adverse to Faitli.' 
 Pusey, vol. iv. pp. 330-336, and his 
 
Intellectual Difficulties. 
 
 141 
 
 accustomed to horrid blasphemies by hVing among them. 
 It would, I think, do people simple harm to read of all the 
 disbelief in pp. 172-200. 
 
 Living in Germany, where I fear Atheism has so welcomed 
 Darwinism as doing its work, he has thrown himself into 
 the Darwinian theories, owns that they are still only 
 hypotheses, and takes it, seemingly, for granted that, one 
 day or other, some one of them will be established to be 
 true, and writes of the costs of a wrong relation between 
 Theology and Science, identifying Evolutionism as a whole 
 with Science. He has evidently taken a keen interest in it, 
 and pours out all he knows and pleads its cause. I should 
 think that the result of recommending his book would be 
 to recommend people to learn Darwinism. . . . 
 
 I think that in what he says about God working 
 through means, he mistakes the real objection to Evolu- 
 tion as stated by Darwinists. Their system is practically 
 Atheistic. For a First Cause who sets things going and 
 then leaves them to themselves is practically in no relation 
 to His creatures. It is an Epicurean god. A mere First 
 Cause is no object of adoration or love or hope or trust. 
 
 With our belief in God, if millions of years passed by 
 during which God created, before He created man, we 
 have no doubt that He created in view of other intelligent 
 creatures besides ourselves. The Darwinians write as if 
 we knew all about it. They multiply aeons upon aeons, 
 during which they suppose the development to have lasted. 
 Of course to the mere Atheists among them, or to those 
 who deny any re'Ao? of Creation, it is simply a matter of 
 decypherment. Such and such was the order in which 
 things developed. But for those such as Schmid, who 
 believe that there is a God, and that God created for an 
 end, it seems to me strange that they should think that in 
 all those aeons God was doing all this, with no other end 
 than that we should imperfectly decyj^her that there is an 
 
142 spiritual Letters of Edward Boiiverie Piisey. 
 
 order from lower to higher, and not this only, but that the 
 lower all along gave birth to the higher, and this, too, 
 without any known instance of it. It must often strike 
 one that this our present creation must be for others also. 
 How little we see of it ; for how little do we give thanks ! 
 To take beauty alone, the intensest beauty is what is seen 
 by fewest. The beauty of those masses of flowers em- 
 bosomed in mountain dells ; the almost every-day summer 
 beauty of sunset ; the intense varied beauty of cataracts ; 
 the unceasing variety of the beauty of light ; the depth of 
 beauty in the recesses of glaciers — it was not made for 
 nothing. 
 
 Then, too, there is to us something so very anthro- 
 pomorphic in their ideas of creation. They seem to think 
 that it is some great effort to God to create ; that successive 
 creations (or rather one continuous creation) implies 
 successive efforts in God ; whereas we, of course, believe 
 what our Lord says, " My Father worketh hitherto, and 
 I work." 
 
 In the chapters about the creation of man, his theory 
 translated out of abstraction comes to this, that when God 
 willed that our last ape-ancestress should bear a man, God 
 endowed its offspring with intellectual gifts, wholly distinct 
 and superior to any before, specially as regards its per- 
 sonality, its I, its freedom, its full likeness to God (p. 300). 
 I should think that any Darwinist would treat this as 
 absurd. . . . 
 
 We all believe that the book of God's Works rightly 
 interpreted will not contradict the book of His Revelation. 
 Schmid uses this to put minds in a state of readiness to 
 surrender this or that truth, if what is now owned to be 
 hypothesis should turn out to be truth. He seems ready 
 to surrender anything, except the Resurrection of our 
 Lord. Thanks be to God for any degree of belief which 
 He retains in any one. But a state of mind which would 
 
Intellectual Difficulties. 
 
 143 
 
 be ready to give up the belief in the Fall, and to think 
 St. Paul wrong in his argument about our Fall in Adam and 
 our Restoration in Christ, or to take up with the idea that 
 we are not of one blood, but only descended from different 
 ape-mothers in different parts of the world, is not one 
 which you would wish to cherish. One who was so ready 
 to part with Articles of Faith would part with much more. 
 It would be inverting the relation of Divine and human 
 truth, that what man thinks that he discovers is certainly 
 true, and that God's Revelation must be conformed to it. 
 
 I have only read of Reusch's book what I wanted for the 
 subject of my sermon. Development is the fashion of the 
 day. I should think that such a book as Reusch's would 
 be more useful in stopping people from throwing them- 
 selves headlong into new hypotheses. 
 
 Some of my friends have asked me, ' Should you think 
 Darwinism, if it should become a science, contrary to 
 Faith ? ' I always think I ought to answer them as well as 
 I can ; my answer was meant to be : ' Darwinism cannot 
 become science, because there are no facts.* As for the 
 correspondences in the whole animal creation (and in part 
 vegetable too), you too are old enough to remember that 
 we were familiar with them in our youth and only looked 
 upon them as so many indications of our Father's Hand 
 in all. 
 
144 Spiritual Letters of Edward Buiiverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 Friendly Criticism. 
 
 [? December, 1878.] 
 
 You need not expect ' severe censures ' from me. We 
 have, I fear, been educated in very different faiths. But 
 in these days I am but too thankful for anything which 
 is in the direction of faith. And as such I am glad that 
 you at least demoh'sh that assumption of Fetishism as 
 man's primaeval faith. To me it is strange that people 
 should assume, as a postulate, that we were born in the 
 most degraded condition in which we could exist, and yet 
 be men. The account of Genesis, with which the New 
 Testament agrees, is the more reasonable. Degradation 
 is easier than self-elevation. But that we were mutum et 
 turpe pecns is assumed as a self-evident fact. 
 
 I hope, as far as you do teach on [Non-Christian] 
 religion, you will keep to this, which is your vocation, and 
 which you so wonderfully understand, and not go off to 
 the Old Testament which (forgive me) you do not under- 
 stand. I do not think that what you write on this, you 
 write on your own knowledge or thought: e.g. you say 
 that " Thou delightest not in burnt offerings " is a contra- 
 diction of the Levitical sacrifices. I think myself that 
 those sacrifices were a wonderful picture of the deserts 
 of sin ; but David's words were no contradiction of them, 
 for there was no sacrifice for murder or adultery. 
 
Intellectual Difficulties. 
 
 '45 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 Doubts. 
 
 March 29, 1S82. 
 
 It must be a piteous sight to you who have always lived 
 in a home of faith to see so many of our young men 
 drifting about with no definite faith. I fear that they 
 have not brought the realities of their existence before 
 them, or what even Felix trembled at, '"judgement to 
 come." They will not look at things in the face. Jesus 
 came with a message to each of those whom He redeemed : 
 ' Believe in Me, for I came from heaven to save you.' 
 
 Physical philosophy has nothing to say to this. It tells 
 us increasing marvels about the physical creation. It 
 can tell us nothing more. It is even marvellous how 
 much it can disclose within its own province, while it 
 has absolutely nothing to say beyond or above it. How 
 Creation came into being, how long it shall be, it is 
 absolutely silent. It cannot contradict Revelation, for it 
 moves in a different sphere. It can guess at certain things. 
 People may assume that our little world has existed for 
 millions of millions of years. It cannot say that it had no 
 beginning. Holy Scripture speaks only of 'the begiiuiing.'' 
 People are only throwing dust in their own eyes when 
 they speak of physical science contradicting Revelation. 
 But if they will throw dust in their own eyes, God alone 
 can open the eyes of the blind. 
 
 L 
 
146 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 In like way as to Holy Scripture, these things are 
 absolutely certain : — 
 
 (1) That the Old Testament tells of things as to Jesus 
 which man could not foresee, and which man could not bring 
 to pass. (I mentioned some heads of these in my Sermon, 
 ' The prophecy of Jesus, the certain prediction of the 
 [to man] impossible." I was obliged to put in the [' to 
 man '] not to make it too great a paradox.) God won by it 
 one of the most solid minds I ever knew. Entangled by 
 the philosophy of Fichte and Schelling, he thought that he 
 could never again believe a miracle. His was a far stronger, 
 clearer mind than any with whom you are likely to meet. 
 But God won him through the miracle of prophecy. 
 Prophecy was to him the credential of the Revelation of 
 Jesus: — Omnipotence fulfilled what Omniscience could 
 alone foresee. 
 
 (2) That the Gospels were written while the events 
 and discourses recorded in them were recent, is again 
 matter of certainty. It has been ascertained as it is not 
 as to other books. A person has no right to say ' It is 
 too much trouble to go through all that reading.' Too much 
 trouble to ascertain whether we have the very words 
 of Him Who converted the world ; Who says that He 
 came to die for us, to save us from God's displeasure, to 
 make us His children that we may be blessed in Him 
 for ever ! 
 
 It is no large labour ; not one-fiftieth part of what they 
 are ready to spend, in order to gain some passing honour, 
 in which they may very likely be disappointed. What 
 if they succeed ? A person of talent was converted once 
 by an able man, who asked him gravely what he proposed 
 to himself as to his future. The young man began with 
 his immediate prospects. It was all taken seriously and 
 with the question " Et puis?' The young man went on 
 picturing his career and was led on by the ' Et puis?' 
 
Intellectual Difficulties. 
 
 147 
 
 until at last when he had reached the summit of his 
 ambition, a tender ' Et puis?' brought to his mind the 
 hollowness of his hopes, and he turned to God. 
 
 But it is not a large range of reading after all which 
 is required to convince a person that the Gospels were 
 of the date at which every one, till our Enghsh Deists, 
 believed them to be written. Nine papers by Dr. Lightfoot 
 in a periodical ! Dr. Liddon tells me that Kirchhofer's 
 Qiiellensammlimg ztir Geschichte des N. T. Canons contains 
 all the important evidence as to the Gospels. But 
 granted the early date, Renan's failure has shown how 
 impossible it is to make a consistent history of Jesus which 
 should not be Divine. 
 
 I fear that the hindrance is in truth some indisposition 
 to believe. Some, I think you told me, called themselves 
 ' Agnostics.' The translation of the word into Latin would 
 be what they would not like to take to themselves, ' Igno- 
 ramuses.' But what a thing it is for a reasonable creature 
 to profess that he knows nothing about his being ; what 
 after a few years will become of him ; whether he can 
 do anything to affect his condition then ; whether he is 
 the object of the Infinite Love of God Who is Love ! It is 
 so unspeakably stupid, more stupid than the most stupid 
 of our four-footed fellow-creatures. I have never come 
 across them. In term-time Liddon would be glad to help 
 them, if they wished to be helped. I wonder whether 
 it would startle any of them to be told, ' God loves yoti ' 
 (for He does love every soul which He has made), ' and 
 tJiat with an infinite individual Love ' ; or ' You will never 
 be happy till you love God in return, for God made 
 the soul for Himself, and so it must needs be restless till 
 it rests in Him.' (This you will recognize as St. Augustine's 
 confession after years of wandering to find out the origin 
 of evil.) You who have seen them must know how they 
 can best be roused. They have a suspicion probably, 
 
 L 2 
 
148 spiritual Letters of Edimrd Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 that they are in the wrong ; for God doubtless speaks 
 to them at times. Your own firm faith probably startles 
 them more than they are willing to own to themselves. 
 They could not say that a conditional prayer would do 
 them no good. For their own profession is that they 
 know nothing about God. Gain them if you can, to make 
 the trial, and to pray any the best prayer they can. . . . 
 
Intellectual Difficulties. 
 
 149 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 Difficulties about Revelation. 
 
 1853- 
 
 The answer about the heathen is, that we know nothing. 
 God tells us what concerns us, not what concerns us not. 
 He tells us what will befall us if we refuse the Light ; He 
 tells us nothing as to those on whom the Light has not 
 shined. Our simple duty is to do what He says. He has 
 said, ' Preach the Gospel to every creature.' The Church 
 then is bound to teach ; and we individually are bound, 
 in what way we can, by alms or prayers, to aid. How 
 God will deal with those who refuse to hear is with Him. 
 Their refusal opens the state of their hearts to us : He 
 to Whom all hearts are open knows who will hear and 
 who will refuse. 
 
 The meaning of ' generally necessary ' is universally 
 necessary ; but with the understood condition, ' where they 
 can be had.' 
 
 We know nothing about the heathen philosophers. 
 Those who loved God, or dimly searched after Him, have 
 doubtless been accepted by Him for His sake Whom 
 they knew not, their Redeemer. 
 
 The answer to the question about the Revelation and 
 the Apocrypha is, that the Revelation was only doubted 
 about by part of the Church, for want of information. 
 The doubts disappeared after the Council of Nicaea, when 
 Bishops from all parts of the Church had the opportunity 
 of comparing their traditions. The Canon of the Old 
 
150 spiritual Letters of Edward Bonverie Pusey. 
 
 Testament received the seal of our Lord Himself, when 
 He explained the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, 
 the well-known Hebrew division of the Hebrew Scriptures. 
 We receive, then, as inspired what He set His seal upon, 
 although others are used, as St. Jerome says, for moral 
 teaching. 
 
 We receive the Hebrew Scriptures only, because they 
 alone are the Scripture which our Lord guaranteed to us, 
 and of which St. Paul spoke, " All scripture is given by 
 inspiration of God." We receive the Revelatio'n because 
 the Church (though some once doubted) has attested from 
 the first that it is the writing of an inspired Apostle. 
 
 God bless and keep you always. 
 
 t 
 
Intellectual Difficulties. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 The Same. 
 
 September g, 1853. 
 
 It was indeed presumption to read that book in that 
 spirit. Almighty God left you to yourself that you might 
 feel the fruits of that presumption, and so not presume 
 in yourself again, but trust in Him. 
 
 The case of Pharaoh is easily answered. He hardened 
 his own heart ; where God is said to have hardened, it 
 was only that He left him to himself, when he would 
 harden himself. 
 
 The other specific question is also easily answered. 
 Almighty God has said that He will judge every man 
 according to his work. How He will judge, whom He 
 will condemn, we know not. He does not judge as man 
 judges. He says it shall be more tolerable for Sodom 
 and Gomorrha than for some who were outwardly exempt 
 from their sin. Every one will be judged according to 
 his own light. 
 
 The question, ' Whence is evil ? ' cannot be answered. 
 We see that there is evil. Whence it came into the world 
 of the Good God, we cannot tell. We who cannot under- 
 stand the very least things, how should we understand the 
 greatest? We understand not our own souls, what life 
 is, what sleep, what is called ' instinct ' in brutes, what 
 our own free-will is, how we can be free and yet not wholly 
 free, without the grace of God ; how we can have any 
 
152 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Puscy. 
 
 free-will at all, in the very least things, since Almighty God 
 knows perfectly all things to us future. Everything around 
 is full of mystery ; we ourselves are a mystery to ourselves. 
 How should we in our little corner of the universe under- 
 stand the Ways and the Mind of the Infinite God ? 
 
 But turn which way we will we have no better solution. 
 Men do not remove their difficulties by becoming infidels : 
 they only change them and aggravate them. Infidels 
 are obliged to believe absurd things ; we only believe 
 what we do not understand, and which God will explain 
 to us by-and-by. Socinianism, Rationalism, Atheism, 
 Pantheism, all have their difficulties. The soul which 
 loses its faith must, if it is consistent, sink down to 
 Pantheism, and then the difficulties of Pantheism drive 
 it upward again. 
 
 God leaves some things unexplained to us, which He 
 will explain to us in Heaven if we come thither; and we 
 shall attain if we use His grace. Meanwhile we have 
 our Lord to believe in. He must have been, He is, true. 
 We cannot but believe in Him. His Divine Truth is trans- 
 parent in Him, in His words, His works. '• Lord, to whom 
 shall we go?" "Shall not the Judge of the whole earth 
 do right ? " 
 
 This is but a short answer, but your note was urgent. 
 Butler's Analogy, or ' St. Augustine on the benefit of 
 believing,' are useful books. But the great Source of 
 faith is our loving Lord. He will increase your faith, 
 if you seek Him. He has promised. He will do it. 
 Tell Him that you have sinned in this reading and pre- 
 sumption. Ask Him to give you back your faith as a little 
 child. He will show His Divine power by giving it back, 
 if you ask earnestly. 
 
Intellectual Difficulties. 
 
 153 
 
 LETTER X. 
 The Same. 
 
 September 26, 1853. 
 
 The book is sadly ignorant or dishonest. You ask two 
 questions: (1) How it was just to place Pharaoh in tempta- 
 tion and not to aid him, and then to condemn him ? 
 (2) How it was just to plague a whole nation for the sins 
 of its ruler ? 
 
 I would ask first, How do you know either? Why 
 was Pharaoh different from the other Pharaoh who acted 
 religiously towards Joseph ? Through his own free will. 
 Else he would not be blamed. In whatever way that 
 other king of Egypt who acted well became such as so 
 to act, this Pharaoh might also. Doubtless God does 
 help the heathen through their consciences, " Not having 
 the law, they are a law unto themselves." There is 
 a difference between good and bad heathen, people acting 
 up to their light and those who do not. And God, no 
 doubt, for Christ's sake, Who died for the whole world, 
 accepts those who act up to the light which He gives 
 them. 
 
 Pharaoh is but a picture of many Christians. God's 
 dealings harden some, soften others, according as they 
 receive them. We see every day how one person frets 
 and rebels and accuses God for the very same thing 
 which bows down others before Him. But the special 
 character of Pharaoh's trial is that which goes on with 
 
154 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 every one who yields to some special deadly sin. God 
 visits them by some chastisement : they profess repent- 
 ance. He withdraws it. They return to their sin. He 
 punishes again. They stop. He closes that punishment. 
 They go back to their sin. And so it continues, until 
 life ends. They harden their hearts continually, and God 
 lets them be hai'dened. 
 
 2. There is a dreadful chapter, which I do not recom- 
 mend you to read, but which begins, " After the doings 
 of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do." 
 And then follows a list of abominations. It is very 
 ignorant then, when the book speaks of the Egyptians 
 being plagued for their ruler. A bad king is often the 
 punishment of the nation's sin, and it is most likely that 
 Holy Scripture, when it says "A king arose," meant that 
 he was raised by some revolution to the throne^ probably 
 through sin. 
 
 For the whole question, ' Whence is evil ? ' there is, as 
 I said, no solution. But this is a question of great 
 difficulty to every one. An Atheist has the same difficulty : 
 he cannot account for it ; he cannot reconcile the evident 
 marks of design with things coming together by chance. 
 Chance is a mere name by which to veil his ignorance. 
 The pantheist is worse still ; his god sins, since, accord- 
 ing to him, all are part of his god. 
 
 There is no more difficulty as to the Old Testament 
 than as to the New, if people believe it. Eternity of 
 punishment will be understood only in heaven. We must 
 believe here, and shall understand there. 
 
 I do not know ' the story of Hypatia.' God will not 
 punish ' involuntary ignorance.' 
 
 You ask me about myself. I never questioned any 
 histories in the Old Testament. Our Lord has set His 
 seal upon the Old Testament. He tells us it is from God. 
 I believed Him. 
 
Intellectual Difficulties. 
 
 155 
 
 I do not know — — . He would have more love 
 than our Lord Who died for us. Our good Lord tells 
 us that punishment shall be eternal that we may be the 
 more diligent to escape it. Our Lord promises us Ever- 
 lasting Life, if we believe and obey Him. He warns of 
 everlasting punishment, if we disbelieve and disobey. It 
 is to set at nought our Lord's own words, if we will 
 not believe that He means by "everlasting" in the one 
 place, the same which He means in the othei*. 
 
 The way to recover faith, ... is to pray for it. Do not 
 despair about it, but pray. Then meditate on our 
 Lord's Goodness. Perfectness, Truth, Love, and say to 
 Him, ' Good Lord, I am poor and weak, ignorant and 
 miserable; Thou art All-wise, All-good, All-loving. I trust 
 all to Thee. Enlighten my blindness, perfect my faith, 
 kindle my love, that I may love Thee and believe in Thee, 
 and hope in Thee, with my whole heart.' 
 
 God bless and keep you. 
 
156 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 About an Unbeliever. 
 
 My daughter has shown me the letter about poor . 
 
 It is a case to make one's heart bleed. Such a soul can 
 never be lost. I do not remember what I wrote before, 
 and so I might be writing the same thing again. 
 
 These things strike me in your report of her conver- 
 sation. They are fundamental. 
 
 (1) She does not seem to have any idea of God. She 
 and her husband are not, I suppose, consciously Atheists, 
 but she does not seem to have the slightest idea of the 
 relation of a creature to its Creator. Her whole idea 
 seems to be, ' If I were God I should do so and so.' 
 ' I should not bid my creatures love me, whom they had 
 never seen, and I should not make myself the great object 
 of love to my creatures, so that they could not find 
 happiness out of me ; nor would I so prize their free love 
 as not to force them to love me whether they would or no. 
 In fact I would make only stocks or stones, not beings 
 who could freely love me. There should be no Angels 
 or Archangels, nor any of the heavenly hosts, Cherubim or 
 Seraphim, Indeed, on second thoughts, I do not think 
 that I would create at all. For to what end to create 
 inanimate things? They would only be as a child makes 
 things to play with.' One may venture sometimes to 
 
Intellectual Difficulties. 
 
 T57 
 
 unveil the blasphemy of the thought which comes over 
 people's minds, to scare them from it. 
 
 (2) Her only idea seems to be how to avoid some 
 pains inseparable from one doctrine, the pain to those who 
 will not love God, and to pass through this life as com- 
 fortably as she can ; and to have what is to her the most 
 comfortable theory, that we all should be annihilated like 
 the beasts which perish. 
 
 But what if it be not so ? The convictions of mankind 
 are against her, all through the heathen as well as the 
 Christian and Mohammedan world. To what end to make 
 to herself a false peace for this world, by imagining a 
 world for herself; when she must think it possible, at all 
 events, that mankind may be right, and that she may wake 
 up, when she closes her eyes, to find that God is a very 
 different God from what she imagined Him, and that she 
 has lost the opportunities of growing in His Love, and so 
 having more of His Love ? All Christians believe that this 
 life is the time of growth in the love of God. God has 
 told us that we shall be judged for all "the things done 
 in the body, whether they be good or bad." To speak of 
 the terrors of judgement might perhaps, in her present 
 state of mind, scare her back. I only speak of loss, that 
 she is losing day by day the degree of love which she 
 might have had. 
 
 (3) To some of her difficulties the answer would be, 
 ' How do you know ? ' 'If heaven is true, it would be no 
 happiness to most of those I know.' But what do we 
 know of almost any soul except our own ? Our Lord says, 
 " Judge not. ' St. Paul says, " Judge nothing before the 
 time when God shall bring to light the hidden things of 
 darkness and make known the counsels of the heart, and 
 then shall every man have praise of God." We are very 
 ignorant and so cannot judge ; and if we attempt to judge, 
 shall judge wrong. 
 
15S spiritual Letters of Edivard Boiivcrie Puscy. 
 These things are certainly true. 
 
 (1) God the Holy Ghost visits every soul born into this 
 world, and speaks to them in their conscience. It is a 
 wondrous saying of a heathen, ' To all mankind conscience 
 is God.' The judgement of each will be how he listened 
 to that voice. 
 
 (2) God will part with none to whom He has not dis- 
 closed His full Love, and the soul deliberately will not 
 have Him. He will part with none whom He can help. 
 
 (3) There are almost infinite variety of capacities of 
 love of Him. All will be full who attain. But as you 
 could conceive a vessel which should contain the ocean, 
 and every variety down to the tiniest acorn-cup, so there 
 could be almost infinite varieties of love and jo)'. 
 
 (4) I would add as probable, but almost certain, that 
 God does a great deal for the soul in the hour of death. 
 The poor guess rightly from the beauty of the body which 
 the soul has left. Even Lord Byron knew of it : 
 
 ' He who hath bene him o'er the dead . . . 
 And mark'd the mild angelic air, 
 The rapture of repose that 's there 
 
 In some cases it is plainly supernatural beauty, which 
 can come from nothing but the presence of God the Holy 
 Ghost, ere the soul parted from it. 
 
 As for the lesser difificulties, e.g. (i) that she cannot 
 lo\-e one out of sight ; I wonder whether she has not yet 
 lost one whom she loved, father or mother, or whether she 
 thinks that she should not lov^c a child if God took him. 
 Her heart would yearn after her child, and despite of what 
 she thinks probable, she cannot, I think, so have hardened 
 her heart as not to hope her child was happy, somehow 
 or somewhere, in the great Bosom of Love. 
 
 She thinks (2) that she 'cannot love one who had lived 
 so long ago.' You can tell her our creed is, that He went 
 
 ' Lord liyron. The Giaour. 
 
Intellectual Difficulties. 
 
 159 
 
 away for our good ; that He ever livcth at the Right Hand 
 of God to make intercession for us ; that He loves every- 
 one of us, her husband, herself, her four children, with an 
 infinite individual love; that He has sent His Holy Spirit 
 to replace Himself ; that every check of conscience, if she 
 were inclined to do anything amiss, every drawing to 
 anything good, is from Him. We can love an unseen 
 Benefactor, and should long to see Him, if we knew Him 
 to be such. She does not love Jesus because she does 
 not know Him. Why will she not read about Him? 
 I think that if she were to read the Gospel of St. John, 
 with prayer, some sparks of her old love would be 
 rekindled. 
 
 In one thing she is right, not to try to get up excited 
 feelings she was ' taught in her youth to have, or to try 
 to have towards Jesus.' Faith is the gift of God ; love 
 also is a great grace of God poured into the heart by God. 
 The less we meddle with our feelings the better. But 
 let her ask of God, and He has pledged Himself to hear. 
 "Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." 
 Poor thing! she cannot be happy now, for instead of 
 bringing her husband to the full faith in God, she has 
 herself fallen away from that which God gave her. 
 
 (3) She 'can't believe in the Incarnation.' I fear that she 
 must be very proud towards God. I am frightened at 
 some of her expressions. They look as if she were afraid 
 of recovering her former faith, and were steeling herself 
 against it. One expression as to Him, Who is at this 
 moment loving her and pleading for her, and trying to 
 win her, sounds even contemptuous; — 'this absent Person.' 
 
 Her saying, translated into plain words, would be, 'O God 
 (I wish she could say O my God), Thou lovest me so, 
 that I cannot believe it ; Thou didst so humble Thyself for 
 love of me too, that I cannot believe in One Who so humbled 
 Himself for love of me.' 
 
i6o Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 Alas ! it looks like a hard fight against the pleading 
 of God within her. God grant that she may yield to Him 
 Who loves her and gave Himself for her. 
 
 I will ask the ' Society of the Love of Jesus,' which prays 
 God in one unbroken succession of prayer night and day 
 for the conversion of sinners, to pray for her and him. 
 It is a very sad case. She has loved her husband more 
 than God, and so has for the time, I fear, parted with God. 
 
 I wonder whether she prays still anyhow. Even a dry 
 heathen philosopher believed that the gods loved those 
 who love them. He inverted the order that we love God 
 because He first loved us" ; still he believed in a mutual 
 love of God and the creature. 
 
 It is a terrible prospect for . She thinks herself 
 
 repelled from the Truth by the lives of persons who in 
 a measure have not parted with faith. If they fail incon- 
 sistently with their belief, how must it be with those 
 who have none? 
 
 I have remembered her; but if you could induce her 
 to say even such a sceptic prayer as, ' O God, if the faith 
 I once had was from Thee, give it me again,' she would 
 be in the way to gain from the prayers of others. 
 
 God so loves us that He hears even sceptic prayers if 
 they are the best any one can offer. 
 
 God bless you and all your efforts for Him. 
 
Intellectual Difficulties. i6i 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 To AN Unbeliever. 
 
 August 5, 1882'. 
 
 I did not refer to Paley. When I read him as a young 
 man I felt if that is all what he has to say, I was better 
 off before. His result would only be a degree of proba- 
 bility ; what the soul needs is to have certainty. The 
 value of Butler is, I thought, that he showed that there 
 is no middle standing ground between entire faith and 
 Atheism. I do not understand what your 'Deity' is. 
 Is it One Who created us, and Who can reveal Himself 
 and His Will ? I think that you will find that you prescribe 
 to Almighty God that He should not reveal, what you, 
 
 , do not like to believe or think that He ought to 
 
 reveal. This was much the condition of the heathen 
 in the first centuries of the Gospel. They called the 
 Gospel obstinacy, folly, old wives' fables, &c. Indeed even 
 St. Paul says that ' Christ crucified was to the heathen 
 foolishness.' Do you really think yourself wiser than 
 St. Paul, or more loving than St. John? Do you not 
 believe that St. Paul was converted as he says that he 
 was ? I ask these questions not as a mere appeal to 
 humility, but that you may bring home to yourself what 
 your real position is. 
 
 I do not think that you have made clear to yourself what 
 free-will is. You do not believe that a free agent can 
 
 ^ From the date of this letter, it is letter of the kind that Dr. Pusey 
 very probable tliat it was the last wrote. 
 
 M 
 
i62 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 choose amiss. But then, are not all those around you 
 who choose what you too think amiss, free ? They do 
 indeed become, by sinning, less and less free. For "he 
 who committeth sin is the servant of sin." But when 
 he or she committed against his or her conscience the 
 first grievous deadly sin, was not he or she free ? Drunk- 
 enness is, I suppose, one of the most prevailing sins. 
 Yet even those rough efforts of the ' Salvation Army ' show 
 that persons may be freed from it. It is by the grace of 
 God alone that they are freed. Still they, using that 
 grace, are freed. They are still free to remain in their 
 evil habits. Many do resist the checks of conscience 
 which the heathen too knew to be the voice of God 
 within them, as a heathen said, 'To all mankind con- 
 science is God.' They can persevere in evil to the end 
 of life. You too must feel hatred to be a sin. Yet people 
 have died in malignant hatred. No one has told us that 
 death changes persons. I have often thought that to 
 Satan heaven would be the worse hell of the two. For 
 to see all the blessed loving one another and God, and 
 happy in that love, while he himself could not share it, 
 being what he is, would be intolerable to him. But how 
 do we know that there is one being in hell who would 
 leave it on God's terms ? Who has told us, that one 
 who died with all the energy of hatred, saying ' I hate 
 you,' would love simply because he died? 
 
 I would just say that neither the Gospel nor the Church 
 has laid down that the greatest part of mankind are lost. 
 
 Of course no evidence can force free-will. God Himself 
 so reverences that likeness of Himself in which He made us 
 — our free-will — that He will not force it. He will draw 
 us mightily ; He tells us, ' I love you,' and says, ' Will you 
 not love Me?' He tells us of the bliss of the blessed; 
 He speaks to us in our souls, or by the peace which they 
 have who love Him, and Whom we too love. At times 
 
Intellectual Difficulties. 
 
 163 
 
 He all but wins the souls which rebel against Him. The 
 soul has still the terrible power to say ' I will not.' O that 
 terrible ' I will not ' ! Our Redeemer said so tenderly to 
 the Jerusalem which He " would have gathered as a hen 
 gathereth her chickens under her wings," and " ye would 
 not." They would not ! Those of them who believed 
 in Him escaped the temporal judgement of which He 
 warned them ; I do not know whether you ever read the 
 horrible wickedness of the rest and how they perished. 
 It is a Jew, not a Christian, who tells us. 
 
 As long as you say, ' I ivill not believe that Christ died 
 for us ; ' 'I will not believe that God showed such great 
 love for us,' God will not force your will. He has not 
 created you like a stock or a stone. He knows what 
 a bliss it is freely to love Him. If I fail to induce you 
 to wish to believe Him and to love Him, I hope that He 
 may employ some one else, who may gain an access to 
 your heart, which I have failed to do. I can but pray 
 for you, if you will not pray for yourself. 
 
 Yet human nature prompts us to pray. It is one of 
 the truths which the heathen still held. God wrote it 
 and writes it on the heart, which does not deaden itself 
 to His voice. There is scarce a heathen nation, however 
 degraded, which does not pray at times. Does it not 
 strike you at times, ' Is it not a little presumptuous (I will 
 not say conceited) in me to think that I am right and 
 the whole world besides wrong ? I, an unit among 
 all the millions of millions and billions of billions who 
 prayed and believed that they were heard ! ' You ask, 
 ' What is the good that the Deity should bid us ask, since 
 He knows already what we want ? ' God teaches us 
 through our children. Is it not a happiness to a child 
 to look up into a father's or mother's face, and ask them 
 for what it wants and have it given them ? Is it not 
 nature to hold up its little arms and ask for what it wants 
 
 M 2 
 
164 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 Painters have loved to draw it. I do not think that you 
 would count it a loving child which sat in the dumps and 
 would not ask. But more, Do you think yourself wiser 
 than Jesus, Who said, "Ask and ye shall receive " ? Millions 
 of millions have asked, and know that they have received. 
 If you have not asked, you cannot know that those who 
 did ask did not receive. But after all, does it not startle 
 you, that with no ground except your own idea of what 
 is fitting for Almighty God, you give the lie to Jesus, and 
 say that He said what was not true ? 
 
 I hope that you have been showing your worser self. 
 Somehow your pugnaciousness seems to have been 
 awakened. You seem to have been thinking how to answer 
 me, rather than to inquire whether there must not be 
 something which you do not yet know. To ' inquire,' 
 I say, not to believe. God only can give you faith. 
 
 You will be halfway to faith whenever you come to 
 know what God is. 
 
 But you see that there is evil in the world. It is the 
 old crux of philosophers, ' Unde malum ' ? I have told you 
 what is the explanation of Christians, that it is the result 
 of our evil choice ; of our being endowed by God with the 
 power of choosing either way, and with grace to choose 
 aright. Free choice, by the force of the term, involves 
 the power of choosing either way. If you do not accept 
 this, you must say, ' I do not know.' If you do not know 
 the explanation of this terrible mystery, which encircles 
 us on all sides, which thwarts us in what we would do for 
 the good of our fellow-beings, how are you entitled to 
 assume that such and such are not fit ways to remedy it, 
 since you own at the outset that you know nothing about 
 it, except that it is7 
 
 You too, I suppose, believe in a Creator. If you did 
 not, you would be thrown back into a fresh set of difii- 
 culties. How came we into being at all? How is it that 
 
Intellectual Difficulties, 
 
 all creation exists in such wonderful order and beauty and 
 harmony, and that those who study Nature with all the 
 new appliances which we have, discover the most wondrous 
 magnificence of beauty ? How came it into being, and 
 nothing is out of order, except what depends upon evil ? 
 
 If you believe in a Creator, it is a contradiction that 
 a Creator should have no power to make Himself known 
 to the intelligent creatures which He has made ; that He 
 should turn them adrift, see them fall into all sort of evil, 
 and have no remedy for them. He would then be a Being 
 of very limited inteUigence and benevolence, and we should 
 be ashamed to be like Him, ourselves. 
 
 But you worship this 'deity' whom you have made for 
 yourself. I wonder 'what for,' or 'how.' Do you praise 
 him ? I should be glad to know that you did, now too, 
 morning and evening prais'e him. It would be something 
 left in common, between your relations to your 'deity' and 
 ours, Christians, to Almighty God. Can you praise him for 
 your weak health and troubles? We Christians can with 
 our whole heart, knowing that our Father sends them us, 
 in love for our good. You will not mind my putting all 
 these questions. You seem to me self-satisfied with the 
 ' deity ' whom you have made. I think that you are very 
 easily satisfied ; and if you really believed in Almighty God 
 you would be halfway to be a Christian again. I cannot 
 think that you have any idea what Baal was supposed to 
 be, that you can write to me, 'To accuse me of disrespect 
 to God is to my mind similar to accusing Elijah of dis- 
 respect when ridiculing the priests of Baal and their god.' 
 I am so sorry for you. 
 
 I have been reading over your letter again, to see 
 whether there was anything which I had missed. I see 
 that you put the question about free-will thus : ' My 
 question is, What is the justice of giving to a created 
 being this great power [of free-will] and not endowing him 
 
i66 Spiritual Letters of Edivard Bouverie Piisey. 
 
 with a sufficient safeguard so that he should not wrest 
 it to his eternal destruction?' It is the Christian belief 
 that 'God did endow His creatures with a sufficient safe- 
 guard.' God knew that it would be such a bliss to His 
 creatures freely to love Him that He created them with 
 the power to choose Him and love Him, and endowed 
 them with grace to choose Him and love Him, even 
 though it should involve an eternal loss, eternally to 
 refuse to love Him. Satan, it is believed, could not endure 
 that One in our human nature should be above himself, 
 who was one of the highest orders of created intelligences, 
 and so he rebelled. It is the belief of Christians that the 
 ' pain of loss,' the pain of the obstinate will of continually 
 rejecting God, having been formed for God, is the great 
 suffering of the lost. Their wilful, ever-present, ever-con- 
 tinued rejection of God, Who formed them for Himself, to 
 have their bliss in Him, is their greatest suffering. 
 
 What I meant to say with regard to evidence was 
 (i) that it is now absolutely certain that the Gospels were 
 written while the events recorded in them, the Life and 
 the Words of Jesus, His Death and Resurrection, were still 
 recent. Since it is so, they must be true. Do you read 
 the words of Jesus still? The Samaritan woman heard 
 but a few of them. When He had abode with her country- 
 men two days, many more believed, because of His own 
 words, and said, " We have heard Him ourselves, and know 
 of a truth that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the 
 world." I hope that if you read them you would come to 
 love Him. The proof that they are His words is incom- 
 parably greater than it was in Paley's time ; indeed, his 
 proofs I thought half a century ago very poor. Renan, 
 with all his power of description, tried to make a plausible* 
 story, apart from our Lord's being true, and the French 
 unbelievers were angry with him for exposing the weakness 
 of their case. 
 
Intellectual Difficulties. 
 
 167 
 
 But is it indeed so, that you do not believe that Jesus 
 came from God ? The belief that Jesus came from God 
 is one thing ; the question whether we in the Church of 
 England believe aright what He taught, is another. 
 
 To me you seem to have been very hasty. In the 
 immaturity of some eighteen or nineteen years you took 
 upon yourself to decide that Jesus did not come from God, 
 and was not, as He said, 'the Truth,' on the ground of 
 a single doctrine which you imperfectly understood. You 
 copy some sentences which you wrote, you say, when 
 first surrounded by new influences : there is not a sentence 
 which is accurate. 'Faith is not an honest unhesitating 
 willingness to believe.' This, when it exists, is a good 
 preparation for belief; but a willingness to believe is of 
 course not belief You said, 'We ought to believe what is 
 told unless the fact narrated is one wholly improbable,' &c. 
 The improbability of a thing has nothing to do with its 
 credibility. A clever person wrote ' historic doubts ' of the 
 history of Napoleon. He wrote it in the style of the Old 
 Testament. Certainly it did look ' utterly improbable.^ 
 Nothing, it has been said, is so improbable as history. 
 Walter Scott said that the only thing in his novels which 
 had been laid down to be ' utterly improbable ' was fact. 
 So as to science, what has been proposed to us is stupen- 
 dously improbable. So in mathematics, it is ' utterly 
 improbable ' that two lines should continually approximate 
 and never meet. It is, as you know, demonstrated, but is 
 beyond all imagination. 
 
 Your application of the principle to Christianity would 
 make every man's mind the judge whether to embrace a 
 Revelation from God or no. ' Quot homines, tot sententiae.' 
 He who became St. Augustine was, for nine years, held 
 back from the Gospel by the question ' Unde malum ? ' 
 Was he right before he was converted or afterwards ? 
 Most of the philosophers of Mars' Hill mocked at the 
 
1 68 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 doctrine of the Resurrection. You would not doubt that 
 those who did not scoff were right. Yet it is a difficulty 
 in itself. Eternal punishment was no difficulty to many of 
 the heathen : ' Sedet aeternumque sedebit Infelix Theseus.' 
 On the contrary, the atheist Lucretius found the belief in it 
 the great obstacle to the overthrow of religion : ' aeternas 
 quoniam poenas in morte timendum est' Dr. Farrar, whom 
 you thought of perhaps as among those who disbelieve the 
 doctrine, only excepts against the supposed number : he 
 thinks that he agrees with me. But those who disbelieve 
 it have not necessarily thrown off all faith in Jesus. So, 
 on your principle, there would be all sorts of objections, 
 which would be, in the opinion of each, a ground for his 
 rejecting the Gospel, which none besides himself would 
 think so. 
 
 You say that you woke up to the fact that a reason 
 was required for one's faith. Certainly. To millions upon 
 millions our Lord's promise that He would be always 
 with the Church would be that ground. And such a 
 sufficient ground 'securus judicat orbis terrarum.' But 
 I suppose, still more, the personal love and trust in Jesus. 
 When St. Polycarp was bidden to deny our Lord, he said, 
 ' For fourscore and six years I served Him and He has 
 never done me any harm : why should I deny Him now ? ' 
 I have become acquainted with every form of unbelief 
 for fifty-nine years, and none of them touched me. because 
 they all ran up against my Lord and so fell back. Had 
 you trusted Jesus more, and your own understanding less, 
 it would have been so with you. 
 
 You say that ' men wishing to believe such and such 
 things true have not the courage to face difficulties, are 
 therefore angry with those who pull them up thus sharply.' 
 What could you know at nineteen or twenty of the mind 
 of Christians that you should have written thus broadly 
 and positively of their motives ? Nor are we angry, but 
 
Intellectual Difficulties. 
 
 169 
 
 grieved for those who have lost faith. How should we 
 not be, since they have lost what is priceless ? . . . 
 
 Pray do not use such terrible language as, ' I do rail 
 at God.' We would not rail on our fellow-creatures, " not 
 rendering railing for railing " ; and pray do not challenge 
 God to His Face. We sinners must cast ourselves on His 
 mercy. You say, ' I have inquired and I reject Christi- 
 anity.' Your inquiring has been, according to your own 
 account, to read one superficial book, to open another 
 in the midst of examination, since ' the whole subject 
 has been shelved, save when in conversation with one or 
 two friends I have made during the three last years ' ; 
 and on this you say, ' If for such rejection I must sviffer, 
 so be it.' But apart from that suffering (whatever it be) 
 there is the loss of all the Love of God, which we might 
 have gained as a Christian. There are, I suppose, countless 
 degrees of the Love of God and of nearness to God. Each 
 has his own place ; each can, by God's grace, acquire 
 according to their diligence a greater or less capacity of 
 love. . . . But now is the time of growth. We Christians 
 have a source of love, which you, according to your 
 account, have not. " God is Love." His beloved disciple 
 tells us: " In this was manifested the love of God toward 
 us, that God sent His Only-Begotten into the world, that 
 we might live through Him " (i St. John iv. 8, 9). " We 
 love Him because He first loved us." "In this is love, 
 not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His 
 Son as a propitiation for our sins." All this is strange 
 language to you. 
 
 " God is Love ; and he that loveth dwelleth in God, 
 and God in him." Your 'deity' does not seem to be an 
 object of love. Even the heathen philosopher, although 
 he strangely inverted the truth, knew that the gods 
 love those who love them. But ask yourself, ' Do I love 
 my deity?' Does he make you happy? Are your 
 
lyo Spiritual Letters of Edivnrd Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 outward circumstances what you would wish? If not, 
 does he make you happy notwithstanding? Our God 
 does make us happy under every conceivable outward 
 or inward lot, because ask what we will, as children, and 
 we know that whatever we ask He will give us, if it is good 
 for us; only He is wiser than we, and would not give 
 us straw for bread. We can speak to Him, heart to 
 Heart, and tell Him that we love Him ; and He speaks 
 to our hearts and tells us, ' I love yo7i.' 
 
 I do not make out what your ' deity ' is, or what your 
 relations to him are. I have asked you, here and there, 
 what you believe as to him. Do you believe that he 
 created us ? that he takes care of us ? Whence then 
 this existence of evil ? If Reason is enough, why does 
 not Reason give the same answer everywhere, even 
 in the simplest matter of morality? Why are we to 
 assume that our individual reason is right? for even we 
 Englishmen are not agreed among ourselves. I thought 
 when I first wrote to you, that there had been some 
 definite points in which I could be of use to you. 
 Now the God Whom I worship and Whose I am, does 
 not seem to be the same as your 'deity.' If you would 
 use even a doubting prayer, ' O God, if Thou listenest 
 to Thy creatures and carest for them, hear me,' we should 
 have some common ground. It could do you no harm, 
 if, as you think, we have no authority to think that 
 He wishes us to pray to Him. You would be but where 
 you were. It could not displease Him. But God is 
 so unwilling to part with any of His creatures, whom 
 He made to love Him, that I am sure that He would 
 listen. He is so good that He will listen to any one who 
 does not shut out His Love. He made you His own 
 once, and listened to your prayers those eighteen or 
 nineteen years. Do try Him. 
 
 Your original mistake was that you took a ' reasonable 
 
Intellectual Difficulties. 
 
 belief to be a belief in things of which our reason is a 
 judge, instead of a belief resting on adequate ground. 
 Nicodemus had a reasonable belief, when he said to 
 Jesus, "Rabbi, we know that Thou art a teacher come 
 from God ; for no man can do these miracles which Thou 
 doest, except God be with him " (St. John iii. 2). Philip 
 had a reasonable belief when he said to Nathanael, 
 ' We have found Him of Whom Moses in the law, and the 
 prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth." 
 
 The most salient points in Prophecy for us are (i) that 
 when Judaea was a country no larger than Yorkshire, the 
 prophets foretold that the God, Who was at that time 
 worshipped in Judaea, should be worshipped throughout 
 the world, by a Revelation which should go forth from 
 Jerusalem. To man this was incredible. The Jews were 
 carried captive ; a few of them returned. The prophets 
 ceased ; the Jews waited. At last, Jesus came and it 
 was fulfilled. All those millions of millions who became 
 Christians are the fruits of a teaching which went forth 
 from Jerusalem. (2) It was foretold that He Who should 
 come should die for our sins and yet reign for ever. The 
 very doctrine to which you take exception is contained 
 in Isaiah liii. The Acts of the Apostles and St. Paul say 
 that it was taught. 
 
 I have dwelt upon this in University Sermons, and 
 tried to condense the evidence in a single sermon : ' The 
 prophecy of Jesus the certain prediction of the [to man] 
 impossible.' 
 
 But I cannot pretend to demonstrate the P'aith to an 
 unwilling mind. If you will pray, God will hear you. 
 God grant that you may. 
 
Ill 
 
 LETTERS ON THEOLOGICAL AND 
 ECCLESIASTICAL SUBJECTS 
 
LETTER I. 
 
 Difficulties of the Psalter. 
 
 My memory may fail me, but I do not remember 
 an ancient writer, except the writer of the title in the 
 Peshito, who interpreted Ps. cix otherwise than St. Chry- 
 sostom, whom you quote, does, ' a prophecy in the form of 
 a curse.' It is of an entirely different mind from that 
 which he showed as to Doeg or Cush, Shimei or Ahitophel. 
 Nor had any of them any office, which another could take, 
 as he who was oh-qyos to them who took Jesus. On the 
 other hand so much was fulfilled in those who repeated 
 his imprecation on themselves, " His blood be upon us and 
 upon our children," an imprecation which was fulfilled ' in 
 the next generation,' in that awful destruction of Jerusalem, 
 when "their name was clean put out." However, I cannot 
 expect you to agree with this mode of interpretation any 
 more than I with yours. But I could not but say to my 
 pupils, ' When any of us can say truly with the Psalmist, 
 " I am [all] prayer," and we are so wrapt in prayer, that 
 our whole being should be prayer — not till then should we 
 criticize the Psalmist, and then we shall have no mind to 
 do it.' I wonder what idea of inspiration those have who 
 so criticize him ? For protection from what is wrong is 
 the lowest idea of inspiration. " Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour and hate thine enemy," which you quote as 
 illustrating to some extent the Jewish Creed of even the 
 
176 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 Davidian period, is as contrary to the Old Testament as to 
 the New. See Exod. xxiii, Job xxxi. 29, 30, Prov. xvii. 5. 
 
 The passage of TertuUian's De Spectaadis has done 
 duty ever since Gibbon's declamation. I do not myself 
 think that it represents even TertuUian's mind. Tertullian 
 is apt to write to make an impression, and I think that in 
 this place he wished to make an impression upon those for 
 whom he wrote. Of course he was wrong ; but a writer, 
 whom his own hardness drove into heresy and who 
 separated himself from the Church, as too lax, should not. 
 in an exceptional passage, which is not paralleled by any 
 other in his writings, be quoted as a specimen of the 
 Church. St. Hilary says of his Treatise upon the Lord's 
 Prayer : ' quamquam et Tertullianus hinc volumen aptis- 
 simum scripserit, sed consequens error hominis detraxit 
 scriptis probabilibus auctoritatem.' 
 
 We are, I fear, of more different schools than I thought. 
 For I see that you do not shrink from the language, ' the 
 pseudo citations,' in the New Testament. We, in my day, 
 approached the New Testament as learners, what God 
 meant to teach us, as in other things, so in the quotations 
 of the Old Testament. A younger generation seem to 
 approach to teach the writers, how they should have 
 written, if God had taught them. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 The Lectures on Daniel. 
 
 March 27, 1879. 
 
 I am very sorry that anything in my lectures on Daniel 
 seemed to you unsympathizing. They were written at 
 a time of much boastful German criticism, when people 
 were singing in triumph over the Book of Daniel, and 
 Bunsen appealed to the proof of its spuriousness as the 
 greatest triumph of modern criticism. I did not then 
 know of one who was in ' perplexity ' about Daniel. In 
 Germany disbelief in it was only the result of what in 
 Rationalism was already an axiom, that there was neither 
 prophecy nor miracle. Disbelief in the supernatural pre- 
 ceded long any attack upon the Book of Daniel. I had 
 only to do with books, and my problem was to show our 
 young men how baseless such boastful criticism was. 
 I was writing about a past. In my Preface to the second 
 edition, I did, in answer to Perowne, say that I had not 
 lost my sympathy with any in perplexity. My life has 
 been spent in helping them, as far as God has given me 
 ability. When I delivered my lectures on Daniel there 
 was (as far as I knew) no one to sympathize with. At 
 least I had not heard of any one perplexed about it, though 
 I knew of those who triumphed over the old prophet. 
 
 There is of course a responsibility about attacking 
 a book of Holy Scripture, above what there is in defending 
 one. Belief unravels so terribly. All German unbelief 
 began in an attack on the reality of the ' possessions ' in 
 
 N 
 
178 spiritual Letters of Edivard Bouvcrie Piisey. 
 
 the Gospel. I have seen all faith melt away little by 
 little. It is such a terrible thing to unsettle one's faith; 
 and faith so hangs together, that one does not know what 
 one is doing, if one touches even the skirts of the robe. . . . 
 
 And now I have shown sympathy (though in a waj- 
 which you will not value) at the cost of this letter. You 
 would onl\- value the sympathy of those who would agree 
 with you. At least your words imply no sorrow at having 
 to go forth through the broken walls. Your only interest 
 is. apparently, to persuade others that they are hopelessly 
 broken. I'ac victisl Victors do not court sympathy, but 
 submission. 
 
 I sorrow for you. not with you, seeing that you are 
 embarking on a stormy sea without a rudder, not knowing 
 whither winds and waves will carry you. You go forth as 
 a conqueror, when every conquest (as you deem it) is 
 irretrievable loss. But I can be of no use to you, so I bid 
 you in the best sense of the word. ' Farewell,' which in my 
 own meaning is, ' May God bring you back to the haven 
 which you are seemingly leaving.' 
 
 I say nothing more about our Lord's authority, because, 
 flushed by your supposed victorj^ over the defenders of the 
 Book of Daniel, you might rather be occasioned to go on. 
 Man cannot persuade you. I pray that God the Holy 
 Ghost may. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 179 
 
 LETTER III. 
 The Date of the Gospels. 
 
 February 16, 1680. 
 
 I hope that I shall not seem presuming in writing to 
 you on a subject upon which you may very likely have 
 read more than myself, but I have taken my chance that 
 you have been otherwise engaged. The subject is the 
 date of our Gospels. I believe myself that their date has 
 been solidly ascertained. What follows from this is a 
 subject of theology. I write only on a subject of history. 
 
 You read doubtless the Contemporary Review ? But the 
 Articles on this subject may have seemed to you dry^ and 
 the evidence given in them is of its own nature cumulative, 
 and may have been unattractive, and you may have passed 
 them by. So I will put them down on p. 3 of this note. 
 You used, I think, to attach weight to any matter of 
 historical evidence. The Gospels have changed the history 
 and faith of the world. You will not think anything 
 solidly written unworthy of attention. The theological 
 question, 'What does the early date of the Gospels involve?' 
 is, of course, that which interests me; but this comes later. 
 As a Theist you must believe that God acts upon the soul, 
 and will pray Him to set you free from all prejudices. 
 All then which I wish, is that you would ask God (anyhow 
 if He does interfere with our minds) to keep your mind 
 like a sheet of white paper, on which the results of the 
 inquiry might be fairly written. 
 
 The papers of Prof. Lightfoot in the Co7tteinporary 
 Reviciv are on Supernatural Religion. . . . 
 
 The following books are said to be solid : — Sanday's 
 Gospel ill the Second Century, and On the Authorship and 
 Historical Character of the Fourth Gospel. 
 
 N 3 
 
i8o Spiritual Letters of Edward Boiiverie Pusey. 
 
 Tischendorf, What were the Gospels writteti} would 
 interest you, from the great scholarship of its author. 
 
 Luthardt, Der Johanneische Urspriuig dcs vierten Evan- 
 geliiims (Leipzig, 1874), is said to be solid. I do not 
 myself know it. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 On the Word 'Everlasting.' 
 
 March 12, 1881. 
 
 You will excuse me for not entering at length into the 
 subject which j-ou open. To me it all lies in a few words, 
 ' Our Redeemer has said it.' I\Iy whole faith is bound 
 up in what He has said. If He coidd have been deceived, 
 or have misled in one thing, if He could have used the 
 same word in ambiguous senses, suggesting one belief and 
 meaning another, I should have had nothing whatever on 
 which to rest my soul. Forgive me, but I think that you 
 have adopted a current phraseology without remembering at 
 the moment on Whose words they bore. These times are 
 days of large material knowledge ; they are not days of 
 any deep thought of God, or even of our human nature. 
 It is the knowledge of physical nature, not of man's moral 
 nature, much less of God, which engrosses people's thoughts. 
 
 But the doctrine of a fixed state hereafter of weal or 
 woe is the direct revelation of Jesus. He has revealed it 
 in every wa}' in which it could be expressed. 
 
 ' Christ on Himself, considerate Master, took 
 The utterance of that doctrine's fearful sound. 
 The Fount of Love His servants sent to tell 
 Love's deeds; Himself reveals the sinner's HelP.' 
 
 May God in His Love guide you into all truth. 
 
 ' ' Lj-ra Apostolica,' Ixxxiii. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. i8i 
 
 LETTER V. 
 After Death. 
 
 Thursday iti Passion Week. 
 
 The Faith, as believed by the English Church and the 
 Roman aUke, is, that there is no change from bad to 
 good or from good to bad after this life. '• As the tree 
 falls, so it lies." " There is a great gulf fixed," &c. Also 
 there is no growth in grace after this life ^. We are to 
 receive the things done in the body." But it is nowhere 
 said, that the Day of Judgement shall not produce very 
 great effects on the soul in removing the dross which 
 clung to it in this life. Every one must believe alike that 
 we must be changed. We carry our infirmities to the 
 end of life ; and those, infirmities not of the body chiefly, 
 but of the soul. We cannot have those infirmities in 
 Heaven. It would be miserable. When then so likely 
 as in that Day, when we shall see our sins and our sinful 
 selves as a whole, and all our Lord's Love, and all our 
 ingratitude? I suppose that you are afraid of contradicting 
 Article XXII, about the Romish doctrine of Purgatory. 
 I believe what is there said to relate to the popular 
 doctrine, but anyhow it can have nothing to do with the 
 Day of Judgement, which all alike must believe. 
 
 ' On this subject, see ' What is of Faith as to Everlasting Punishment,' pp. 112 
 and 113 (first edition). 
 
i82 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 Evangelicalism. 
 
 March 30, 188 1. 
 
 Thank you for your loving lines. I wish your friends 
 would treat us with the same love. Do you remember 
 in your boyhood, a story of two knights, who fought 
 because one said a shield was silver, the other that it was 
 gold ? Each was right, for it was gold on one side, silver 
 on the other. I used in my young days to study ' Evan- 
 gelicalism,' because I wanted to win the Evangelicals. I used 
 as my formula, ' I believe all which you believe ; we only 
 part where you deny.' I said to my friend, H. V. Elliott, 
 of Brighton, ' I don't think that you can put your belief 
 in any way which I could not accept.' I am sorry to say 
 that he did at last ; but it was not by any statement about 
 the great central doctrines. As for language, there is no 
 end of its confusions; but if,- with ordinary understanding, 
 one is certain that one holds what another holds, the like- 
 lihood is that one is right. Now this is what I want you 
 to think, that having sought intimacy with Evangelicals 
 for many years, and heard formerly a good many Evan- 
 gelical sermons, and having for a long time read carefully 
 everything which was written against me and my friends, 
 I know what the so-called ' Evangelicals ' believe, and 
 that when I say that I believe the same, I know what 
 I am speaking of 
 
 Your friends, some forty years ago, used, on platforms 
 with the Dissenters, to say (in effect), ' We will drop the 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 183 
 
 things about which we do not agree and dwell upon those 
 on which we do agree.' Your position may make it 
 impossible to exercise this charity of silence towards us. 
 But at all events, if you are persuaded that I do agree with 
 you in all which you hold of Faith, it will be much gained. 
 It may interest you to know that when I had to write 
 a controversial Tract on Baptism, about 1833 (it was 
 written to save a Hebrew pupil from becoming a Dissenter 
 because he did not believe Baptismal Regeneration), I was 
 careful to avoid illustrations from English writers, and so 
 undertook a large study of the old Continental Calvinistic 
 school for fear of alienating any among us. 
 
 I know that I hold much which you do not hold. I only 
 mean that I hold all which you do, though it would be 
 matter of faith to you to believe it. 
 
184 spiritual Letters of Ed<vard Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 The Athanasian Creed.— Unbaptized Infants. 
 
 April 16, 1S79. 
 
 It did not occur to me to think that the objections which 
 you mentioned against the Athanasian Creed were your 
 own. What I meant to except against was (forgive me) 
 the one-sided way in which you put them. They are, too, 
 not people's real objections, and they are untrue. But you, 
 for the time, threw yourself into the mind of the objectors, 
 and gave them a strength which they have not, with 
 nothing on the other side. It was as if some one had 
 given you a brief against the Creed. I think that it is 
 a very cruel thing to revive the attack. It is scarcely 
 seven years since some of us had to stake not our homes 
 only, but what is much dearer, our offices and officiating 
 in the Church of England, upon the retention of that 
 Creed. A great enthusiasm was excited then, and the 
 attack was dropped. I hoped that (as with Israel of old) 
 "the land" might have "rest." But now the attack is 
 opened in another way. The present plan seems to be 
 to throw a slur upon the Creed, to minimize the use of it, 
 and thus to prepare the way for those who would urge 
 ' Why not lay aside altogether what is used only once 
 in the j'ear ? ' As to the * may,' it is (as you know) un- 
 exampled in the history of the Church, to leave the use 
 or non-use of a Creed to the caprice of an individual 
 Minister. We, the quiet people, have been always those 
 to suffer. Newman suffered quietly until he thought his 
 position made untenable. Now he is regretted and praised. 
 So is Wesley. 0\'er us Juggernaut's car may drive. And 
 you, in putting out this one-sided attack on the Athanasian 
 Creed, are driving it against your will. This is always 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 185 
 
 the character of compromises. The unresisting are always 
 crushed. 
 
 I do not say anything yet. But you may as well walk 
 over a shaking bog as put your foot on the Athanasian 
 Creed, or guide other people's. It is ever, ' they will bear 
 this,' ' they will bear that,' until the camel's back is broken. 
 
 Having said this, I will add that I have written to the 
 Bishop of Lincoln saying that if that Declaration about 
 the Athanasian Creed satisfied anybody, and if no apology 
 is made for the Athanasian Creed, I have no objection to 
 it, though it seems to me surplusage and wordy. We shall 
 next have to apologize for our Lord (St. Mark xvi. 16, 
 St. John viii. 24, &c., and St. Paul, &c., &c.). 
 
 I did not send my letter of Easter Eve, because I 
 thought that I had seemed ready to concede too much 
 about the Service for unbaptized children. I did not mean 
 that this Service in itself would revive the controversy about 
 Baptismal Regeneration. This I said of your alleging 
 I Cor. vii. 14, in behalf of it. This (if I remember right) 
 is a text which Zwinglians used against Baptism, as if 
 grace were inherited as well as nature. If the children of 
 Christian parents are actually holy, they would not need 
 Baptism to make them so. 
 
 I do not doubt, myself, that the children who die 
 unbaptized are happy in their degree, for Christ's sake, as 
 well as all heathen children, although not members of 
 Christ, and not admitted to the Beatific Vision, which yet 
 they do not miss because God did not create them for it. 
 But before Convocation is urged to legislate in this ' hot 
 haste ' about this question, do try to ascertain what is the 
 effect of this little remnant of discipline, in not saying 
 a [Burial] Service over the unbaptized, before you propose 
 to Convocation to abolish it. My own conviction is that 
 any change would, under the plea of charity, be a very 
 grave want of charity to tens or hundreds of thousands of 
 
i86 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bonverie Pusey. 
 
 children, who would in consequence not be made members 
 of Christ, and so, although happy in their way, would lose 
 the Vision of God. 
 
 What I gather from others is, that a very great mass 
 of our poor are so ignorant of the gifts in Baptism, or what 
 it is to be ' made a member of Christ and a child of God,' 
 that their great or one inducement to have their children 
 baptized is, that they may have Christian Burial. This 
 they feel, though they submit quietly to their unbaptized 
 children being excluded from it, because it is their own 
 doing. 
 
 You must know how small a fraction of children in the 
 East of London are baptized. I saw some statistics of 
 several parishes. This may be the result of the state 
 of heathenism in which it is left. The fewness of the bap- 
 tized is startling. It would be a matter which you could 
 ascertain : ' To what is the excessive neglect of Baptism 
 among the poor of the Metropolis owing ? ' and ' Who 
 buries them ? ' If they are buried by the Chaplain of the 
 cemetery, he would hold it no business of his to ascertain 
 whether they have been baptized or no, and they would 
 be buried, as a matter of course, with the Service, and the 
 little remnant of discipline would be gone. Of course it 
 may be otherwise. The parish clergy may bury their 
 dead. But if they do not, this burial of the unbaptized 
 with the Service may account for the frightful fewness 
 of baptisms in East London. You would have also to 
 provide a Service, not for the unbaptized children of 
 Christian parents, but for the children of heathen parents, 
 living in that great heathen city whom (to judge from 
 secular newspapers) the contumacious Ritualists are most 
 diligent in converting. Everything may be allowed to 
 flourish so that what is the bugbear of the day does not. 
 While there has been this declamation against Confession, 
 what has been done for the conversion of that populous 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 187 
 
 East of London, swarming like a beehive with neglected 
 souls, for whom Christ died? People arc afraid of 
 Missions, lest some sin-laden souls should confess ; and 
 meanwhile the reign of sin is undisturbed. 
 
 But I must not run on thus. I did not suppose that 
 you would open the Churchyards to Dissenters. But I feel 
 morally certain that they will be opened in the next 
 Parliament, as nothing is done to meet the difficulty, and 
 then your proposal for a supplementary Service in church 
 would open the churches too. 
 
 I do not remember how long you would continue the 
 Service for the unbaptized. The rubric lays stress on 
 ' dying before they commit actual sin.' You would open 
 the question, ' When does such responsibility begin ? ' The 
 young person would remain unbaptized, not through any 
 fault of his own, at all events till sixteen, perhaps till 
 twenty-one, as long as he has not arrived at years when he 
 can judge for himself, or is under authority of parents. 
 Can then a young Arab, who has been educated to lie, steal, 
 swear, commit not these sins only, but every abomination 
 with impunity ? If you fix an age up to which the Burial 
 Service may be used, then, consistently with the Rubric, 
 you would lay down that, vp to that age they cannot 
 commit such persevering sin for which they might be cast 
 into hell, and that at that age they could : both of which 
 seem to me alike intruding into the judgements of God. 
 
 I should myself think the wisest way would be, (i) if 
 Convocation did anything about the Athanasian Creed, to 
 enact simply that somewhat wordy Resolution. It is in 
 itself innocent, though there would be danger that some- 
 thing bad might be engrafted. 
 
 (2) As to details, I should think that it would allay the 
 panic of some, if that very moderate Resolution on Ritual 
 to which the hundred Bishops gave their adhesion were 
 enacted. The panic, I suppose, is, lest Ritual should be 
 
i88 Spiritual Letters of Edivard Boitvcrie Pttsey. 
 
 introduced anywhere without any restriction, against the 
 wishes of the congregation. This would not touch the 
 question as to the cases already existing, where clergy and 
 people are already unanimous about Ritual which the 
 believe the Church of England to sanction, else it should 
 have run, 'Such Ornaments, &c., shall 7^c/ be retained and 
 be in use,' as Lord Selborne interpreted it. 
 
 I trust that people are getting weary of this strife and 
 that it will die out by God's mercy. They framed a good 
 sharp guillotine, to make short work of Ritualists and 
 Ritualism, and find that they cannot direct it, and that it 
 excites sympathy without exterminating. 
 
 To judge by the Rock, Bishops and Ritualists are 
 coming to a good understanding, as they might long ago 
 if the Bishops would have stood to their clergy in the 
 relation of fathers, instead of repeating the dry ' Obey the 
 law,' which (like most of the Privy Council judgements) 
 we knew to be misinterpretation of law, made under 
 a bias. You will not appease the wolves by a regulation 
 about a cope. God alone can " make men to be of one 
 mind in a house." 
 
 I trust that you would not, if you tried, carry a Resolution 
 about having a Service over the unbaptized. I feel sure 
 that if you did you would terribly augment our heathen 
 population. If children are not baptized in infancy, they 
 are seldom baptized afterwards. In Scotland, where the 
 Presbyterians do not baptize any (I think) except the 
 children of parents whom they suppose to be converted, the 
 number of adults who live unbaptized was (Bishop Forbes 
 used to tell me) very sadly large. He knew this, as on 
 general knowledge, so especially from the state of Dundee 
 in which he lived and worked. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 189 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 The Catholicity of the English Church. 
 
 Epiphany, 1848. 
 
 It is difficult to answer in brief space your question. 
 All will probably turn in any case upon whether one asks, 
 'Why should I doubt?' or 'Why should I not doubt?' 
 ' Why should I be certain ? ' In the one case a person 
 feels himself in the position of one prepared to stay, unless 
 he see grounds to the contrary ; in the other to go, unless 
 he see the fiill grounds to the contrary. I think this is 
 of very great moment, and is the cause of much which 
 has gone wrong. People have put requisitions to the 
 English Church to prove her claims, which if they had put 
 to the Gospel they would have been infidels. Belief in 
 what we have received is an implanted principle. In order 
 to part with it there must be a something which, when full 
 Divine Light is poured upon it. stands out as immoral, as in 
 Heathenism, Mahometanism, &c., &c., or some plain want 
 of foundation for it, or absence of authority (whereas the 
 opposed system does contain that authority), as is the case 
 in Dissenters over against the Church (see Article on 
 ' Private Judgement' in the British Critic). And so as to 
 Judaism ; the authority it once had is clearly withdrawn 
 from it. And so Nestorianism and the Eastern heretical 
 bodies have the voice of the whole Church against them. 
 But ordinarily it is a duty to hold fast that we have. 
 The office of reasons and proof is not so much to establish 
 
igo Spiritual Letters of Edward Bonvcric Pnscy. 
 
 it as to disprove objections to it. This has been objected 
 to ' Evidences ' generally, and I think with reason if em- 
 ployed to build up. They imply that one is in a state 
 of doubt. People have, as it were, to put themselves in 
 the state of inind of one unconvinced. I trace the feeling- 
 of being unhinged in reading Evidences to being in an 
 unnatural state. 
 
 And I feel sure that very many in reading Evidences 
 would have lost their faith altogether, had there not been 
 some deeper bond within which held it together while they 
 were looking about for those outward proofs. 
 
 This then, I think, has been the cause of a good deal 
 of the mischief of late. People have not been satisfied 
 with answering objections ; but, being unqualified, have 
 been analyzing the ground on which they stand; and then, 
 if this or that, or the other ground, do not seem sufficient, 
 they think they have none to stand on — i. e. that they have 
 not sufficient reason for remaining where they are placed 
 unless it is demonstrated to them : whereas the deepest 
 foundation of all faith is that which people cannot bring 
 out into words in its full force. I think people have begun 
 in a sceptical spirit requiring full satisfaction, whereas it is 
 of the very nature of religion to have to face difficulties. . . . 
 It is of the utmost importance that every one should feel, 
 not ' I must go unless it is proved to me that I ought 
 to stay,' but ' I must stay unless it is forced upon me 
 that I ought to go.' The onus probandi lies upon leaving 
 the pastures where God has folded one. The grounds 
 which to me are so strong individually, are (i) the Provi- 
 dence of Almighty God, of which I gave some few instances 
 in that Letter reprinted at Leeds. (2) The life which He 
 has continued among us, as it is never so continued in 
 any body really rent from the Body of Christ. (3) God's 
 marvellous workings with the whole Church of England 
 now, awing one to be still and see the salvation of God. 
 
Theological mid Ecclesiastical Subjects, 191 
 
 One cannot think of an instrument so formed, sharpened, 
 guarded, drawn forth, that all this pains has been bciltowed 
 upon it to no end but that it should be broken in pied<es. 
 
 Of course this presupposes that we have (i) the Apostolic 
 Succession, and therewith the Sacraments and the Pow>er 
 of the Keys ; (2) the Faith delivered from the first ; and 
 are in nothing heretical ; (3) that the Papal authority 
 was not in primitive times what it now is ; and so ir. 
 rejecting it we have rejected nothing de jure divino, and 
 are not in schism. 
 
 Inward grounds presuppose outward, yet the real strength 
 of conviction lies in the inward. One believes because one 
 lives. Outward grounds are to fence off attacks, bulwarks 
 against battering-rams, but they are not the foundation 
 upon which the city is built. 
 
 The question, I suppose, after all, is, ' Why do not the 
 statements of Roman Catholics about us affect me?' 
 (i) Because they speak of us not really knowing what 
 we hold. " Doth our law condemn any man before it 
 hear him ? " They are accustomed to foreign Protestants, 
 and do not understand us, have not been at the pains to 
 do so, are prejudiced against us. 
 
 (2) They know not what we /lat'e. Controversialists 
 speak of our not having the Power of the Keys or the 
 Sacraments. "A stranger (and they estrange themselves 
 from us) doth not intermeddle with his joy." We know 
 what we receive. Our Lord makes known His power 
 and grace to those who wait for Him — not to those who 
 stand aloof and say, " or even as this publican." 
 
 (3) They know not what we are. One cannot think 
 that fruits which one has seen are not the fruits of the 
 Church. 
 
 (4) They are judges in their own cause, and the quarrel 
 began in ill conduct and ambition on their side and claims 
 unknown to antiquity. They inquire not as to soundness 
 
ig:, S 'piriiual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 of hca 1th, but require a submission which was not shown 
 to th'£ Popes for many centuries. Surely this is not the 
 way 'to reconcile Christendom, to put prominently forward 
 an 'outward authority unknown to primitive times. 
 
 (5) Of that which is peculiar to them — the Papal authority, 
 e. g-, and the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin were 
 originally rested on great names which are now acknow- 
 ledged to be spurious. I cannot see how a Church can 
 be required to acknowledge the practical system as to the 
 Blessed Virgin (being wholly unknown to Catholic anti- 
 quity) as a condition of Catholic unity; nor how we dare 
 admit what sounds so very dissonant from the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, and has not one word of Holy Scripture 
 to be alleged in its favour. 
 
 But people say, ' Where then is unity in the Church ? ' 
 We answer, 'impaired but not lost — impaired by loss of 
 intercommunion, maintained by one Faith in our Lord, our 
 common Sacraments, Succession from Him.' We hold the 
 whole Faith received in the first centuries : they hold it 
 too (though they require of us Articles not then received). 
 We have then the one Faith of Nicaea. But we may ask, 
 ' Where then on your view is catholicity ? ' Surely we who 
 hold with good Bishop Andrevves, and pray for ' the Holy 
 Catholic Church throughout the world, Eastern, Western, 
 our own,' repeat the Te Deum more in the sense of 
 St. Ambrose and St. Augustine than they who hold that 
 this Church is not where the 6o,coo,ooo of the Russian 
 Church are. I think the article, ' On the Catholicity of the 
 English Church,' in the British Critic one of the most 
 satisfactory in a brief space. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 193 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 Roman Controversy. 
 
 I am thankful that you did not mean those fearful w 
 'grace-hindering schism ' in the sense in which they wo .,,] 
 obviously be taken, but only that there had not bi . 
 among us evidently the higher degrees of sanctity such 
 as in St. Francis Borgia. God only knows. But this iiuis*" 
 be borne in mind. Those cases of holiness of which tl;.: 
 world knows most were the fruits of the monastic iiic 
 and the monastic life was destroyed not by the Reforr 
 tion, but by a secular Prince. Civil rapacity has be- 
 as busy of late in France, Spain, Portugal, as it was und 
 Henry VIII. A Roman Catholic says of Fisher, who was 
 beheaded for opposing the Supremacy: ' His accusers ai\ 
 Catholics, his judges are Catholics, his jury are Catholics, 
 his executioner is a Catholic, and the bells are ringing for 
 High Mass in the steeple of St. Paul, as the aged Bishop 
 ascends the scaffold.' 
 
 Undoubtedly the monastic system is a loss : but a loss 
 antecedent to the Reformation, and with which the 
 Reformation had nothing to do. But it is as widely 
 wanted in Spain and France. France had nominally its 
 religious houses and its undiminished hierarchy, when the 
 Revolution burst out through those who had been its 
 [i. e. the Church's] children once. There must have been 
 some sore inward decay in both (whether of luxury or 
 wealth, or whatever else it was) that Almighty God 
 allowed them to fall at once. 
 
 Again, you contrast the produce of all parts of the 
 Church in communion with Rome, and of all ages — 
 St. Francis of Assisi at the beginning of the thirteenth 
 century, and St. Francis Borgia in Spain of the sixteenth — 
 and contrast them with our little island. And yet, even 
 so contrasting them, I know not where are either the saints 
 
 O 
 
194 piritual Letters of Edward Boiiverie Pusey. 
 
 or ' books of South Germany (far larger than England), 
 is still in the Roman Communion. Those of Spain 
 f; are of one period. Portugal has but one celebrated 
 /tional book. But people heap all these together, 
 getting the difference of countries and of centuries, that 
 ' Spiritual Combat ' is from Italy, and Rodriguez and 
 others from the one brilliant period of Spain, and 
 F. Thomas from Portugal : and yet I know not that 
 F. Thomas has more fervent devotion than some of our 
 own writers. 
 
 The grace of which I thought that you spoke was the 
 grace of the Sacraments. This is the ' grace ' which real 
 schism prevents. And I thought that you spoke of this 
 grace, because schism interferes with this and this only. 
 The monastic system is favourable to higher devotion : 
 but it [is] through the virtues exercised in it. Sacramental 
 grace is common to all : more is given, as there is greater 
 longing, greater denial of self, greater use of what is given. 
 But this is all personal. It does not belong to the system. 
 The same individual would receive the same grace, whether 
 he w^ere in the English or the French Church. Our Lord 
 is present in both in His Sacraments. He imparts 
 Himself m His Sacraments to all according to their 
 capacities. What peculiarly belongs to the Church, what 
 other bodies have not, is ' the Power of the Keys ' and our 
 Lord's Real Presence in the Sacrament. Of both of these, 
 we have abundant proof by His mercy. But, having 
 these, everything beyond depends upon ourselves and our 
 diligence in asking for and using His grace. " Ask^ and 
 ye shall receive." 
 
 You say that many know not of this. Far more, 
 I believe, know and have known than you think. The 
 belief of pious minds ■ is far deeper than their words. 
 But allowing that we are in a state of confusion, (i) it 
 is quite certain that God by His Holy Spirit is infusing 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 195 
 
 fresh light, fresh knowledge, fresh degrees of love. So 
 that we have every comfort in His Presence. (2) No one 
 can judge that this confusion is more displeasing to 
 Almighty God, than, amid outward order, the inward 
 unbelief in France before the Revolution, or Spain and 
 Italy now, or the decay which produced the Revolution. 
 Zealous, earnest Roman Catholics speak of the Church 
 in France as ' the small minority of the nation.' They 
 speak of the ' enormous unbelieving mass,' that the ' great 
 mass of the nation is unbelieving,' that the priests are 
 ' missionaries among unbelievers.' Yet these were once 
 the children of the Church, and the Church through 
 negligence and sin lost them. There is nothing worse 
 to be said of us, than of them : no tokens that they are 
 part of the Church, we not. You ask where [are] our 
 saints, such as St. Francis Borgia. I ask, where are they 
 in France? Where have they been in Roman Catholic 
 Ireland these 300 years? 
 
 With regard to the other illustration, all depends upon 
 the one question, which you assume, that our Lord 
 left one Visible Head. This contradicts all early history 
 of the Church. But unless the Papacy had been Divine, 
 there is no question of 'sedition.' Rome acquired that 
 power by human means : it lost it by human means. 
 God in His Providence allowed of both. Illustrations can 
 easily be turned back. V/hat if a detachment of a great 
 army under its own generals, and co-operating with 
 another but not under its commanders, were given 
 to maintain a certain position against its portion of the 
 common enemy, and the soldiers in this detachment were 
 of their own accord, and contrary to the commands of their 
 officers, to leave their posts, and go off to some other, 
 thereby embarrassing and disheartening their companions 
 in their conflict with the enemy? 
 
 I must close in haste to-night. God bless you. 
 
 O % 
 
196 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 The Same. 
 
 [1851.] 
 
 Intellectual answers cannot in themselves affect the 
 heart. You sent the intellectual difficulties, and I said 
 something, though but a very little, on them. 
 
 The way to which you are inclined, of balancing 
 which way has most suffering, is a mistake. All suffering 
 is not the Cross. We shall have crosses wherever we are. 
 Reverse the case. Suppose a person to be in the Roman 
 Church, and strongly perplexed about doctrines or practices 
 in it, it would not be right for her to be balancing in which 
 way she would have most of the Cross. 
 
 We cannot be mistaken about that which concerns 
 our souls, that we have forgiveness of our sins through 
 the Power of the Keys, and that we have His Presence 
 in the Holy Eucharist. This is too well attested. This 
 is quite certain to all who would receive it anywhere. 
 We have all which we need for our salvation. Everything 
 which is the fruit of God's grace, every degree of it, 
 is open to us, if we will. You may not, indeed cannot, 
 be able to solve points which depend upon learning. 
 This is the way in which our Lord speaks to His simple 
 ones. 
 
 As you say, none but the one Holy Catholic Apostolic 
 Church can arbitrate between the Church of England and 
 the Church of Rome. To it we appeal. But the Roman 
 Church does not make herself the Church, by calling 
 herself so. She is a part, an important part, but not 
 the whole. I fear that if all be subtracted, which do not 
 really belong to her, she would be much contracted. I 
 suppose in these numerical statements, France is counted 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 197 
 
 e. g. as belonging to her, and Spain and Portugal and 
 Italy. Alas ! what devastations there are everywhere ! 
 
 It is true that she is part of the Body of Christ. The 
 Church of England allows it and prays for her Bishops 
 as well as for the Eastern Bishops. But the question 
 is not about those whom God has by His Providence 
 placed in her, but about those who cannot belong to her 
 without rejecting what Christ has not rejected. The 
 right is not always with majorities. Israel was larger 
 than Judah. Our Lord seems to imply that there will 
 be very few faithful when He comes. " When the Son 
 of Man Cometh, shall He find faith on the earth ? " . . . 
 
 Our present duty is to pray to God, as our Church does, 
 that ' He would inspire the Universal Cfiurch with the 
 spirit of unity, peace, and concord.' He will heal the 
 breaches when He has been prayed to earnestly. (I was 
 told the other day of a remarkable Roman Catholic com- 
 mentary on the Revelation, which spoke of a General 
 Council as the means of reuniting Rome, Greece, and 
 England.) We have begun to seek each other more. 
 Meanwhile, neither party has formally judged the other, 
 as neither is competent so to judge. The whole Church 
 alone can judge. They say that in the East people's 
 minds are being turned, not to submission to Rome, which 
 they do not own, but to reunion. This we too should 
 pray for. But, meanwhile, the English Church too has her 
 sacred deposit : she has her ofifice in the designs of God's 
 Providence. And they whose hearts God has stirred, have 
 their duty ; remaining in obedience to her, to work out their 
 own salvation, and win others to Him, thanking Him 
 for His blessings to them in her. 
 
 To say that the Roman Church has remained the same 
 from the first, is to assume the very point at issue. It is 
 palpable that there have been additions to the primitive 
 Faith. 
 
198 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 The Same. 
 
 [1851.] 
 
 Those words of are words which some Roman 
 
 CathoHcs often use, in order to hurry persons, and carry 
 them by storm, as it were ; but in using them so broadly, 
 they must often use them, even according to their own 
 showing, untruly. I have known them very miserably 
 abused. If a person who is really out of the Church, or 
 a heretic, were convinced of his heresy and remained in it. 
 out of secular motives, for some worldly end— or. again, 
 out of pride, or any sinful feeling — this would be resisting 
 the grace of God. You need have no fear of this. You 
 gave up all to follow Him. You, if you followed feel- 
 ing only, would go to join the largest body in Christen- 
 dom. But feeling is not conviction. It is not 'want of 
 religious 'courage' which holds you back. It is doubt 
 whether you would be right. Whether this which holds 
 you be an instinctive feeling underneath, against those 
 which make themselves felt vividly, or whether it be the 
 dread of the responsibility of such an act on your own 
 judgement, or whether it be that you would not go against 
 the judgement of myself whom God has these many years 
 given you as a guide — whatever the ground be, it is 
 clearly no motive which God would disown or disapprove. 
 
 On the contrary, you seem to have forgotten what you 
 have told me, of having acted upon your own mind, in 
 sympathizing with others, so that your present feelings are, 
 in part, owing to your own working upon your own mind. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 199 
 
 I forget the words which you used, but you conveyed this 
 to me, and therefore I thought the less of the feeHngs, 
 because you owned that they had been in part so produced. 
 
 Those words ' which He may never repeat, if now 
 neglected,' are cruel words, and contrary to the dealings 
 of God. They are not true even of sinners. They do 
 go on long against the grace of God, and their own 
 convictions, in deadly sin ; and God converts them at 
 last. Of course, they often do gradually harden their 
 hearts. Yet even to such an one, one should be very 
 unwilling to say, 'God may never give you His grace 
 again,' for fear the person should be plunged into despair. 
 God is so long-suffering and does endure with persons so 
 patiently, that it would be in the last degree improbable 
 that the person should have arrived at his last trial. We 
 do not know that He has withdrawn His grace finally from 
 any human being. 
 
 I say this generally. But in your case it is preposterous 
 to speak of this. You are not withheld by any earthly 
 or worldly motive : and you are not withheld from any- 
 thing right, but from what would be presumption and sin. 
 
 It would indeed be very presumptuous to say, as you 
 seem to say, that you have ' convictions of the heart that 
 the Church you have been baptized in is in a state of 
 grace-hindering schism.' This is not a matter for the 
 heart to judge in. You may not mean what you seem to 
 say. You cannot mean that grace does not flow through 
 the Sacraments. It would be, ignorantly, to deny the 
 Truth of God, and the work of God the Holy Ghost. You 
 cannot mean this, or it must have been a hasty strong 
 expression which you would retract. His grace through 
 the Pov/er of the Keys is too evident, too attested, too 
 manifold, for any one to doubt it. One might as well 
 question the blind man's having been healed, as that 
 Absolution among us is a means of grace, loosing the 
 
200 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 bonds of sin, cleansing the soul, and a channel of grace. 
 I could as soon doubt my existence. So also as to the 
 Holy Eucharist. Our Lord s Presence there is as certain 
 as anything can be. It has been attested in awe to those 
 who sinned against it, not discerning the Lord's Body, 
 in signal punishment ; and it has been attested in love, 
 often by sensible grace, but also more largely by the 
 increase of grace in the soul. 
 
 But God does not work through a lie. When the 
 Dissenters gain good from prayer, from reading Holy Scrip- 
 ture, from acts of faith and love, and trust in our Lord, 
 this is all according to God s promise. He has promised 
 His blessing to those who do seek Him. And if they 
 seek Him in sincerity, not knowing more, He is with 
 them, by virtue of the Baptism by which they were made 
 members of Him. But in like way, in the Church of 
 England, He blesses through what is real and true, through 
 true Absolutions, true Sacraments. 
 
 This is the appeal to the little ones of Christ. You 
 cannot judge as to the question whether there is Schism 
 or no, or how the evil which exists is to be repaired. As 
 far as human sight goes the secessions have done much 
 harm to Truth among us, and rather delayed than aided 
 in the restoration of more perfect unity. It is not in this 
 way that unity is to be restored, as far as one can see, 
 but by a General Council which shall unite East, West, 
 and ourselves. To this people among us are looking 
 more and more. This would be, in God's hands, a solid 
 healing of the evils of Christendom. 
 
 Meanwhile, God shows that He has not forsaken the 
 Church of England, and where He is, there it is safe for 
 us to be ; and it is not safe or right to leave, where He is 
 working. It does seem that, in the order of His Provi- 
 dence, He has a great work in store for the Church of 
 England. He has guided and guarded it by His Provi- 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 201 
 
 dence, watched over it, recalled it, awakened it when 
 sleeping, infused fresh life into it, as He has into other 
 branches of the true Vine, and as He does not do to any 
 which are not true branches. When they decay, they 
 decay altogether. It is His own likeness ^ Branches cut 
 off from Him are fresh for a while with the freshness of 
 the Vine, but after a time ' wither.' The Church of England 
 yields more good fruit than ever. 
 
 The Church of Rome, although a large body of churches, 
 has no authority to call herself the Church. Why should 
 she be the Church, to the exclusion of all the millions 
 of Russia and the Greek Church ? What have these 
 done that they should be counted no portion of the 
 Church of Christ? But since there is no reason to say 
 that they are no part of the Church of Christ, then inter- 
 communion with Rome is not essential to being a portion 
 of the one Body of Christ. We should pray, as we do, for 
 increased unity, but not as if unity were altogether gone, 
 when we have the same Sacraments, the same Apostolic 
 Succession, the same Faith in the Creeds (although Rome 
 has added articles of Faith which were not of Faith in the 
 early Church). Thus we are knit to our one Lord, by our 
 one Faith in Him, by the same Sacraments, the grace 
 whereof flows from Him, being administered by those who 
 hold their office in succession from Him. 
 
 Rome would not accept from us the acknowledgement 
 of her Patriarchate. You might as well speak of the Queen 
 as Prince of Wales. But they are these very claims of 
 the Pope, unknown to primitive antiquity, which keep up 
 the misunderstanding between the East and West. 
 
 I have no time for more now. Give yourself more and 
 more, as you have been doing, to our Lord to be what 
 He wills, and rest tranquilly in His grace. 
 
 May He bless and keep you. 
 
 ' i.e. illustration. 
 
202 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER Xir. 
 The Same. 
 
 [1851.] 
 
 I will take briefly the points which you mention in your 
 letter, although I have dwelt upon some of them more 
 fully in my Letter to the Bishop of London. I would have 
 it sent you, if you cannot easily procure it ; I have published 
 it at IS. on purpose. You must have read our Prayer 
 Book somehow with a bias, for it cannot be contrary to 
 St. John vi. 53, which it quotes for our comfort in the 
 Exhortation, ' Then we spiritually eat the Flesh of the 
 Son of Man.' 
 
 The doctrine of the Real Presence could not be more 
 fully expressed than it is there in the Exhortation, in the 
 Prayer ' We do not presume,' and in the Catechism. Our 
 Divines have said, ' We believe the words " This is My 
 Body " ; we inquire not into the mode,' i. e. how it is 
 His Body. 
 
 But I see that you say ' it is literally admitted by our 
 Catechism.' Then it cannot be rejected. The fault must 
 be in any mode of interpreting, which would set any other 
 language at variance with the Catechism. 
 
 Neither is there anything in our Formularies against the 
 true doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. What the Article 
 objects to is only a popular error, then increasing. A body 
 of our Divines have always handed down the true doctrine, 
 as was shown in the Tracts for the Times. But on both 
 these subjects I have written so much more fully in my 
 ' Letter ' that I should only be writing to you less fully 
 what you could read there. 
 
 The division of the Church. — We must own that the 
 Church is not what it was, nor what it ought to be. So 
 must the Roman Catholics. They too acknowledge that 
 it has not the same fervour of love, cannot bear the same 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 203 
 
 discipline as at first. Love is the bond of unity. With 
 impaired love it is likely that unity should be impaired. 
 The Church is ' One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic' Alas ! 
 all admit that holiness is impaired. They gain no stricter 
 doctrine of unity by impairing catholicity. According to 
 them, not we only, but all the ancient Greek Church, 
 including the 60,000,000 of Russia, are no part of the 
 Church. Why? On what ground are they to abridge our 
 Lord's inheritance ? It is allowed by most thoughtful men 
 of the Roman Catholics too, that their belief on the 
 Procession of God the Holy Ghost differs only in words 
 from ours. Nor does Rome require for union that they 
 should alter the ancient Creed. Why then are they to 
 be shut out ? Because they do not acknowledge an 
 authority of the Roman see which the ancient Church 
 never acknowledged. They remain under their ancient 
 Patriarchates. But since there is no reason to exclude 
 these 60,000,000 from the one Church of Christ, then it 
 follows that intercommunion may be interrupted for a 
 long time and yet the body remain one. We have common 
 descent through the Bishops to the Apostles, from our 
 Lord ; we have the two great Sacraments which flowed 
 from His Side (the two which the ancient Church spoke of 
 as specially the great Sacraments), the Sacraments, in the 
 one of which we are made members of the Body of Christ, 
 in the other we are fed by Him and united by Him 
 to Himself; we have one Faith, the Faith once delivered 
 to the Saints, as embodied in the Creeds. Holding this 
 one Faith, united by the same Sacraments, administered 
 by the successors of the Apostles, to the One Head of the 
 Church, the Eastern, Western, our own Church, is one, 
 although it has not that intercommunion which it ought 
 to have. A family is one, although it have misunder- 
 standings or grievances. A limb is a part of the body, 
 although it be mangled. The Roman Catholics, on their 
 
204 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 theory of unity, cannot recite the words of the Tc Deum, 
 ' The Holy Church throughout all the world doth acknow- 
 ledge Thee,' in the same full sense as we. 
 
 Thus then we do acknowledge one kingdom, although 
 the unity is not so perfect as it was, under the One Head, 
 Christ, Who never said that He should leave one repre- 
 sentative on earth, nor did the ancient Church so think. 
 
 Union of Church and State, as it is called. — The question 
 is not what power the State has (for the State, where 
 it is nominally Christian, has generally an oppressive 
 power), but whether the Church of England gave it any 
 power which it ought not. English Roman Catholics have 
 said that England is the only country where Catholics are 
 free ; they protest against any precedent from Roman 
 Catholic States. But they admit thereby that the State 
 has a power which it ought not to have. The State has 
 before this nominated the Pope ; and now three Great 
 Powers have each a veto upon his election. Disorders 
 there always have been, always will be. The only question 
 is, Has the Church of England given to the State powers 
 which were essential to her as part of the Church of Christ? 
 For she might have made mistakes, been overtrustful, 
 yet not have given up anything essential to her being. 
 And this is quite clear, that she never meant to give up 
 the decision of matters of Faith to the civil power. Nor is 
 the doctrine of the Church at all altered by the Gorham 
 decision. We are Catholic^ in the same way as the Church 
 of France is Catholic, by being a portion of the one 
 Catholic Church, notwithstanding the interruption of com- 
 munion. We could not claim to be the Catholic Church, 
 because a part is not a whole. But neither does the 
 Roman Church claiming this make them so. The Donatists 
 were schismatics, because being a small body they claimed 
 to be the whole. We do not so. We pray, in all the 
 most solemn times, for the Bishops of the whole Church. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 205 
 
 The surest sign of being a part of the Church, having as 
 we have, a true succession from the Apostles, and the 
 true Faith, is life ; the continuance of God's Holy Spirit 
 among us. This we hav^ had and have remarkably. We 
 have had God's good Providence watching over us and 
 guarding us. He has brought us through every variety 
 of trial. We have been tried in every way, by persecution 
 or outward prosperity, by violent interference or attempt 
 to corrupt us, and the Church has remained unchanged. 
 He has brought us out of even the lukewarmness which 
 prevailed among us, as well as the Roman Catholics of 
 France, &c., during the last century. And to individuals 
 He gives this life through Sacraments. He gives large 
 grace through the Absolution pronounced in His Name. 
 He gives it through the Holy Eucharist, wherein the 
 Church of England teaches us that we receive ' the Body 
 and Blood of Christ.' God does not bless through a lie, 
 but a truth. But He does bless us through the Power 
 of the Keys and through the Holy Eucharist. They must 
 be then what we believe them to be, what persons have 
 known them to be. Absolution must be, ' by His authority 
 committed' to us, by 'our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath 
 left power with His Church to forgive sins.' For He owns 
 it, and forgives the sins, and gives grace. And this power 
 belongs to the Church. And if what our Church (in the 
 Office of the Visitation of the Sick) bids us say were not 
 true, it would be blasphemy ; nor could God bless it, as 
 He has done in thousands of cases. 
 
 The history of the Anointing the Sick is very obscure. 
 In the Greek Church it is still used for the recovery 
 of health. In the West it had come to be delayed until 
 recovery was, humanly speaking, impossible. This is what 
 the Article means by ' the corrupt following of the 
 Apostles,' that it was not used as they intended. The 
 simple Anointing of the Sick was retained at first in 
 
2o6 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 Edward Vlth's time, and was never blamed by the 
 Church of England. The later Roman Church ascribes 
 a spiritual benefit to it, ' the remission of the remains 
 of sins.' But it does not appear what these can be, 
 i.e. what the 'remains of sins' which are not removed 
 by Absolution. The words, ' and if he have committed 
 sins, they shall be forgiven him,' were understood, of old, 
 of the Absolution, in which the guilt of all sins is remitted. 
 We cannot undergo the loss of anything essential, since 
 we may have the special forgiveness of sins, through the 
 Power of the Keys, and we have the Body and Blood 
 of our Lord. Nor is it at all clear that it has been used 
 ever since the Apostles. 
 
 On the other hand, the disuse of the Cup on the Roman 
 side is very serious ; for there is a special grace through 
 the Cup, as some Roman Catholic Divines themselves 
 acknowledge (see further in my Letter to the Bishop of 
 London). 
 
 Miracles have not been vouchsafed on any settled law. 
 They were, from early times, given in one part of the 
 Church and withheld in another, given on great occasions 
 as God saw needful. But God has given to us, and 
 that through the Holy Eucharist, bodily cures which 
 were above nature. There are miracles in the Russian 
 Church too. In France there is open avowed unbelief, 
 and so there may be a reason why God may vouchsafe 
 evident miracles, as He says ' signs are for unbelievers.' 
 The sort of miracle which is vouchsafed as a direct 
 evidence is where a miracle is worked directly in proof 
 of what is questioned. Thus it was in St. Augustine's 
 time ; it is not now. 
 
 It would be childish to say that ' the Anglican Church 
 was only founded 300 years ago by Luther.' Luther 
 did teach several doctrines peculiar to himself, and we 
 did not receive any of them ; on the contrary, carefully 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 207 
 
 avoided them, as the belief that to Justification it is 
 necessary that one should believe that he is justified. 
 But, indeed, our Church at the Reformation did not lay 
 down anything new, and declared against nothing which 
 had been matter of Faith from the first. 
 
 There is no question that there had been changes going 
 on in the centuries immediately preceding the Reformation 
 as to the doctrines of Purgatory, Indulgences (neither 
 of which the Greek Church receives), and the cultus of 
 Saints and especially the Blessed Virgin. But although 
 they were changes which the Church of England had 
 a right to reform, they were not such as should constitute 
 a ' prevailing of the gates of hell against the Church.' 
 Our Lord did not promise an exemption from all things 
 amiss, whether as to faith or practice. Only we believe 
 that the Church will not become heretical, i.e. that she 
 will never deny any part of the Faith. There has been 
 confessedly much amiss in the Church oftentimes ; but 
 we believe that the whole Church will never be permitted 
 to decree and to receive anything which is contrary to 
 the Faith, or to part with any part of it. 
 
 I have written as little as I could, on a great many 
 subjects. This may enable you to see more clearly what 
 you wish to know more fully. 
 
 Meanwhile, study especially to keep near our Lord, 
 in repentance for anything amiss in the past life, in 
 humility, in prayer, in studying to please Him, and to grow 
 in His love, and He will not leave you. You may write 
 to me as to a father. 
 
 God bless you. 
 
 You might find some help also in a sermon which 
 I have just published, the Rule of Faith \ I suppose that 
 you are not within reach of expensive books. 
 
 ' Preached fifth Sunday after Epiphany (Feb. q'), 1851. Univ. Sermons, 
 vol. i. serm. vi. 
 
2o8 spiritual Letters of Edward Boiiverie Pnsey. 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 RoMAX Claims. 
 
 Shrove Tuesday, March 5, 1878. 
 
 I understood (I hope rightlj^) that the mind, about 
 which you wrote to me, is ' perfectly satisfied ' at present, 
 but that you wish for books to recommend to it to read. 
 I know very little of controversial books, but the first 
 question is, on what points it is disturbed. To myself, 
 that vast svstem as to the Blessed \^irCTin has been, from 
 the beginning, the great crux, so unlike anything in 
 Christian antiquity that if you see a Father quoted, you 
 may be sure that the passage is not his, if it relates to [the] 
 cultus. The passages in Dr. Newman's Letter to myself 
 relate to her as the being whom God chose to be the 
 mother of our Lord Who redeemed us. The unhappiness 
 of later writers has been that they applied to the present 
 influence of the Blessed Virgin personally, what the older 
 genuine writers apply to the Incarnation. But with this 
 exception, almost every passage which writers on the 
 Glories of Mary quote from the Fathers, has been pro- 
 nounced by the Benedictines not to be genuine. The 
 Redemptorists published an edition of the Glories of Mary, 
 in which (after verifj'ing the quotations) they marked with 
 a t passages which ' could not be found ' ; as the editor 
 says, i.e. which were spurious. They include all quoted 
 from the Fathers except one or two of a Germanus, who 
 is probably a writer of a later date. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 209 
 
 Now this is a great sadness, in the present popular 
 Roman system, how much is founded upon what must 
 ultimately have been fraud, attaching great names to 
 writings of a later date, to make them more valuable. 
 
 The most terrible forgery was that of the false Decretals. 
 No one now, I believe, maintains their genuineness. They 
 were forged, as a protection against oppression : but both 
 Hincmar of Rheims who first quoted them, and Nicolas I 
 who accepted them and used them against Hincmar, must 
 have known them to be forgeries ; for the originals, if at 
 all, must have been in the Vatican. It was a terrible 
 instance of doing evil, that good might come. They used 
 a sinful weapon, to avert evil, instead of going to God. 
 But this forgery has had an influence on the whole system 
 of the Western Church ever since. Their immediate 
 effects were pointed out by Fleury (though a Roman 
 Catholic) in his Quatrihne discoiirs siir thistoire eccle- 
 siastiqtie prefixed to the sixteenth volume of the i8mo 
 edition. They culminated in the decree of the Vatican 
 Council, which was carried by the Pope's will. ' To obey,' 
 said Monseigneur Darboy to one who repeated it to me, 
 'is not to believe.' 'Aliud est obedire, aliud credere.' 
 The Vatican Council was more like a debate in a House 
 of Commons, than a Council of the Church met to bear 
 witness as to the Faith. The Council of Nicaea (as 
 St. Athanasius impresses upon us) bore witness to the 
 Truth which each and all had received from the first. 
 In the Vatican Council, a considerable minority said, 
 * There is no evidence that this was part of the deposit of 
 Faith committed by the Apostles to the Church ' — ' This 
 never can be matter of faith.' 
 
 This is in two ways a defence of us. 
 
 I. Since it is acknowledged by all, everywhere, that the 
 Faith cannot be added to, that which is of Faith must have 
 always been of Faith. Then there is no room for their 
 
 P 
 
2IO Spiritual Letters of Edward Boiiverie Pusey. 
 
 taunts of us about the divisions among us. The divisions, 
 for centuries, of those who affirmed or denied the Immacu- 
 late Conception, were fiercer than any divisions among us. 
 The InfalhbiHty of the Pope was denied on very solid 
 grounds, among them e. g. by Monseigneur Maret, who was 
 a very able writer of the Sorbonne. 
 
 2. The new doctrines directly contradict the belief of 
 old. Fathers, Bishops, Doctors, Saints denied, one after 
 the other, the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed 
 Virgin. General Councils and Popes acted as if the 
 Infallibility of the Pope were untrue. One of the greatest 
 Popes (Gregory I) said, ' I venerate the four General 
 Councils as I do the four Gospels,' whereas according to 
 this theory, he might have written them himself. The 
 Article of the Creed would have to be changed. Instead 
 of, ' I believe one Holy Catholic Apostolic Church,' it 
 must run ' I believe the Lord Pope,' since he is the one 
 authentic channel of Revelation ; what he declares to be 
 true is true. 
 
 Our Church, being left by herself, reformed by herself. 
 The need of reformation was loudly repeated on all sides 
 by Councils and individuals. Our Church took as her 
 standard those ' ages which are most uncorrupt and pure,' 
 the 'quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus': 
 Holy Scripture, as interpreted by Councils and by those 
 who were approved by all men. No heresy has been 
 proved against her. The Council of Trent when convened 
 at length, did not condemn anything which she affirmed 
 to be true. It was directed against the foreign reformers: 
 nor were her Articles directed against the Council of 
 Trent. . . . 
 
 We have then a place in the Church, as witnesses to the 
 ancient Truth. And God has prospered us. We have 
 been tried in every way, but have survived all. We 
 have been rather like a tree, violently shaken, but which, 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 211 
 
 after three centuries, has struck deeper roots than before, 
 and is spreading in all lands. Abiding life is a great test 
 of the Presence of God, since it is the Presence of God's 
 Spirit. 
 
 Perhaps my own Eirenicon, Part I, although the 
 immediate occasion of it is passed, might be of use, as 
 touching upon a variety of subjects. Or I might write 
 more definitely if you told me what touched the mind 
 most. We have everything which we could have anywhere, 
 and our laity have the Blood of Christ, as a special Gift. 
 Our restoration has been eminently through Sacraments, 
 which are God's gifts in His Church, and God has set His 
 seal upon them. 
 
 P 2 
 
212 Spirittial Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 Roman Catholicism. 
 
 fitly 25, 1880. 
 
 It is very sad ; but the young man will probably not 
 write to me, or if he did, would only show it to the 
 Roman Catholic priest, whose advice he has sought. It 
 is part of the disease of the present day. that the young 
 are their own advisers, read things out of their depth, and 
 because they do not see the answer, suppose that there 
 is none. Possibly, in another case, this brief answer might 
 save from precipitancy. 
 
 The Church of England is no way more independent 
 of Rome than the whole Church was in St. Augustine's 
 time. 
 
 1. Every part of the Church made laws for itself. 
 (Thus you have the Apostolic Canons, the African, 
 Spanish, Galilean Canons.) These were authoritative 
 within each province : only the Canons of the Council 
 of Nicaea, as being Canons of a General Council, were 
 paramount. 
 
 2. Every province made its own Bishops, who, according 
 to the Council of Nicaea, were confirmed by the Metro- 
 politan without any reference to the Bishop of Rome. 
 
 3. In single cases Bishops of Rome sought to receive 
 appeals not on their own inherent authority, but on that 
 of a supposed Canon of Nicaea. In the remarkable case 
 of Apiarius, the African Bishops, of whom St. Augustine 
 was one, sent to the East for a copy of the Nicene 
 Canons ; and since they gave no such authority, the 
 African Council sent a letter to the then Bishop of Rome 
 in strong terms censuring him and asking him to desist. 
 This case was ended by the voluntary confession of his 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 213 
 
 crimes by Apiarius, whom the Bishop of Rome had wished 
 to restore. The other remarkable case of interference was 
 in St. Cyprian's time. BasiHdes and MartiaHs, Spanish 
 Bishops, had for their crimes been deposed by the Spanish 
 Bishops. One of them went to Rome to get restored, 
 and was acknowledged by Pope Stephen. The Spanish 
 Bishops wrote to St. Cyprian to ask what they should 
 do. St. Cyprian (as his wont was in any question of 
 moment) assembled an African council, and wrote back 
 in their name — that Basilides and Martialis had been 
 rightly deposed for their crimes ; that their successors 
 had been canonically elected by the Bishops of the 
 province in the presence of the people, and that therefore 
 they were the rightful Bishops ; and that Basilides (I think 
 it was) had only made his case worse by imposing upon 
 ' our brother Stephen ' (the then Bishop of Rome). The 
 Bishops so elected by the Spanish Bishops remained 
 the Bishops. One of their names appears in a subsequent 
 Synod. 
 
 But there is no other way in which a Bishop could 
 interfere in another province than by (i) confirming its 
 Bishops ; (2) confirming its canons (legislation) ; (3) hear- 
 ing appeals. 
 
 If we were back in the times of St. Augustine, i.e. in 
 the close of the fourth century, there could absolutely 
 be no ground of schism between us and Rome. 
 
 The modern system is owing in great measure to the 
 forged Decretals, which Fleury too asserts to have in many 
 things changed the discipline of the Church. 
 
 When I consulted Archbishop Darboy about my first 
 Eirenicon, I said, in answer to a question, ' We acknow- 
 ledge the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, not the 
 supremacy He was quite satisfied, and said, ' Supremacy 
 is no ecclesiastical term.' 
 
 ' See Life of E. B. Pusey, D.D. vol. iv. p. 129. 
 
214 spiritual Letters of Edward Boiiveric Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 The Unity of the Church. 
 
 [1880.] 
 
 I believe the Unity of the Church, which we confess 
 when we say ' I believe in One Holy Catholic Church,' 
 to be real and numerical. I believe that unity to be 
 organic, inwrought by God's Holy Spirit, and by the com- 
 munication of the Body of Christ. We are all baptized 
 into one Body. Partaking of One, we become one in Him. 
 But then, whether individuals or bodies, those who part 
 with the one Faith, do no longer believe in the One Lord. 
 Rejection of the true Faith or of God's commandments 
 separates from Christ. Hence wicked individuals, and 
 heretics, whether individuals or bodies, cease to be members 
 of Christ. Heretics do not believe in the same Lord. 
 
 This unity involves the duty of love and of unity of 
 will, of which the highest expression is inter-communion. 
 But inter-communion does not make union ; it is an act 
 of love. It is that in the Church which mutual com- 
 munication is in a family. A family, in which there is 
 dissension, is one, although not ' at one.' This is, of course, 
 an imperfect analogy of things natural and spiritual. But 
 it remarkably illustrates the unity of the Church, in that 
 the real unity of the Church and of the family is one of 
 nature ; the harmony is a duty flowing from it ; its loss 
 injures the well-being of either, but does not destroy that 
 unity which comes, in the one case by natural, in the other 
 by spiritual descent. 
 
 The statement that the unity, of which our Lord 
 speaks, is one of nature, not of will, is not mine, but that 
 of St. Hilary and St. Cyril. 
 
 You say ' the Jewish Church, the type of the Christian 
 Church, was undivided.' In what way, more than the 
 Church now? Holy Scripture does not give us authority 
 to say the ten tribes were no part of the Jewish Church. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 215 
 
 God Himself says, "Yet have I left Mc 7.000 in Israel, all 
 the knees which have not bowed to Baal." More prophets 
 were raised up in Israel than in Judah. Jeremiah speaks 
 more severely of Judah than of Israel. Again, after 
 the Captivity, the Jews in Eg\-pt set up a temple, 
 which was wrong. It broke the type of unity, although 
 not so grievously as the Calves. They had been for- 
 bidden to go to Egypt by Jeremiah ; they were to be 
 punished for it ; they left the Promised Land, through 
 worldly considerations. Yet even after building the 
 temple, they did not cease to be part of the Jewish 
 Church. Again, there seems no doubt that the ten tribes 
 did not go up to the temple at Jerusalem, nor did the 
 prophets exhort them to do so. The very object of the 
 sin of Jeroboam and his policy was to deter them. 
 It appears from 2 Chron. xxx that they had not gone 
 up to eat the Passover, which was sin. I do not mean 
 to parallel the ten tribes. To assume that there is a visible 
 centre of unity under the Gospel, is to assume the whole 
 question, and is contrary to early antiquity. I mean it 
 in answer to your question. The case was the stronger, 
 because the full service of God could not be performed 
 except at Jerusalem, which our Lord says is done away. 
 
 You say the prophecy of the mountain of the Lord's 
 House, the figures of the True Vine and the Body, are all 
 of numerical unity. 
 
 This I have answered. The English Church believes 
 a numerical unity. Holy Scripture speaks both of 
 ' Churches ' and ' the Church.' Roman Catholics ask some- 
 times, ' If the Churches are " branches," where is the 
 trunk ? ' Our Lord says, " I am the Vine, ye are the 
 branches." The Church was founded at Jerusalem ; be- 
 lievers were added to it. The Apostles preached the 
 Gospel among all nations, and founded Churches every- 
 where, and these were held in one by the common Sacra- 
 
2i6 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Piisey. 
 
 merits and by common descent from the Apostles. The 
 Heavenly City in the Revelation has twelve Foundations ; 
 all of which rest on the One Foundation, Christ. 
 
 You ask ' how can a parallel be drawn between the 
 prophecies of individual sanctity and unity and the 
 institutions of God which are Divinely preserved ? ' 
 
 The unity of the Church we believe to be preserved 
 on the part of God ; as you say, ' her unity is, on God's 
 part, perfect.' This is precisely the line which I drew 
 myself, that what was on God's part was perfect, what 
 on man's, imperfect. It would be well if you were to ask 
 yourself what you meant by unity, and on what this was 
 grounded. We (as I have said) believe that there is one 
 Body, with one Faith (that ' delivered at the first '), united 
 in our Lord by one Baptism, and His one Body given 
 to all; and all the functions which He has left in His 
 Church discharged by the successors of those whom He has 
 appointed. He has said nothing of living under any Head 
 except Himself. There are no traces of a monarchy in the 
 Acts, or the Epistles, or the primitive Church ; i.e. none in 
 actual life to bear out a certain exposition of our Lord's 
 words to St. Peter, which do not contain it in themselves. 
 Our Lord is so often called ' the Head of the Church,' 
 and no other is called the Head, that we are not justified 
 in assuming that there must be an earthly Head. The 
 a priori grounds w^hich Roman Catholics use are not safe. 
 
 The parallel which I meant to draw was not between 
 God's doings and man's, but strictly as to man's. I said 
 that man continually falls short of what God intended for 
 him. I do not mean that the promises fail altogether, but 
 that we are obliged to take up with inferior fulfilment of 
 them. Our Lord prophesies in the same way of the love 
 of Christians generally, and of the love of the whole 
 Church : " By this shall all men know that ye are My 
 disciples, if ye have love one [towards another]." 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 217 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 Roman Questions. 
 
 Passion Week, 1882. 
 
 ... I have also lost my hearing, so that if you were to 
 come I should have to ask you to write any important 
 questions which you have to ask me, or any important 
 answer which you would have to give to any question 
 which I should have to ask you. 
 
 I need not say how sorry I am for you. I shall have 
 to ask you, (i) How did your doubts arise? (2) Did you 
 read controversial books ? (I should think them out of 
 your depth.) If so, what? (3) What points made an im- 
 pression upon you ? or, (4) Has it only been a general 
 impression, arising from the extent of the Roman Com- 
 munion, and the relative smallness of ours? (5) Have you 
 used all the spiritual helps which the English Church 
 would give you (as Confession)? (6) Have you been 
 careful about your Communions, preparing diligently for 
 the coming of our Lord beforehand, thanking Him for 
 His great love to yon individually in them, in that (by 
 a miracle greater than the raising of Lazarus) He sends 
 His Holy Spirit to make that particle which you are to 
 receive, sacramentally and ineffably, His Body ? 
 
 I have often felt the gift of His Sacraments to be one 
 great proof of our being a part of His Church. He 
 blesses through Truth. Those of the Kirk and other 
 devout persons believe in a spiritual Communion, that 
 the soul, on occasion of the outward symbols, ascends 
 
2i8 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouveric Pusey. 
 
 up to Heaven to feed on our Lord. This is a truth as 
 far as it goes ; but we might do so with every breath. 
 Again, what the Wesleyans teach is a very naked Gospel : 
 'Jesus died for sinners ; He bids all sinners come to Him. 
 We are sinners ; come to Him.' It is true, as far as 
 it goes, and God blesses through it those who know no 
 more. But we believe more. We believe that God for- 
 gives sins upon confession through Absolution by His 
 priest. We believe, as I said, that God consecrates by 
 us His priests mere elements of the world to be sacra- 
 mentally, spiritually, supernaturally. His Body and Blood. 
 I have accepted the saying, ' The Church alone has the 
 Sacraments' (except that the Sacrament of Baptism is 
 valid by our Lord s ordinance, by whomsoever given). 
 But then I reverse the argument. God has attested His 
 Sacraments among us. Therefore we are in the Church. 
 This is not the judgement of individuals. He has judged 
 their profanation terribly. . . . The graces which have 
 followed upon good Communions have been marvellous. 
 So have the fruits of individual Confession and Absolu- 
 tion. . . . 
 
 I have dwelt upon these, rather than upon points 
 negatively against the Church of Rome, because it is 
 more healthful and happier. If there be a test which 
 has been verified again and again, it is that given by our 
 Lord : " If a man abide not in Me. he is cast forth like 
 a branch and withereth." 'Withering' has been the lot 
 of every body really cut off from the Church. So it was 
 in every heresy. After a time they withered. So it has 
 been with those who were cut off by the German schism. 
 Lutherans became rationalists. So did the Danes and 
 Hollanders. Geneva became Socinian. The French be- 
 came semi-Arians, a large body is rationalizing. 
 
 The English Church has been tried in every way. It 
 has seemed like a tree, rudely shaken, but striking ever 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 219 
 
 anew. In the United States it wins from every sect. It 
 quadrupled while the whole population doubled. About 
 one-eighth of its clergy only were born in the Church, 
 and so on of its people. It has no external support there. 
 There is nothing but the power of the Truth, which has 
 drawn them. The Irish Roman Catholics who migrated 
 there became lax. In the next generation they became 
 lost to the Church. I have heard only lately that in 
 Ireland a good many of the Roman Catholics have left 
 off going to Confession. It is well that they have, for 
 for them to confess murder would be horrible. A Roman 
 Catholic Bishop said that he could not but think that 
 they had thrown three of the Commandments out of 
 window. The sixth and eighth were, of course, two. Yet 
 another Roman Catholic Bishop seems to justify things. 
 It is a terrible scandal. 
 
 To me the crux has always been the excessive cultus 
 of the Blessed Virgin, and I accumulated together a great 
 deal of the evidence in my first Eirenicon. I thought, 
 as I quoted one startling expression after another, ' they 
 have but to disown it.' An eminent priest wrote to me, 
 ' I cannot think that the Blessed Virgin likes it.' The 
 Abbe Gratry, when I mentioned the devotional books, 
 said, ' Oh ! ces livres de piete ! ' And yet they go on. 
 Bishops prohibit them. Some others crop up. It seems 
 as if there were something amiss in the Roman system 
 that it throws out these things continually, and with all 
 the discipline they have they cannot restrain them. 
 
 These were my hopes when I wrote my first Eirenicon ; 
 that they would see what we wanted, and since they were 
 not formally committed to it by any decree of the Roman 
 Communion, we could be in communion with them, and 
 yet be guarded against them. Instead of remitting 
 anything, they have under Pius IX added two articles 
 to their Faith, both in opposition to Catholic antiquity, 
 
220 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary and 
 the Personal Infallibility of the Bishop of Rome, although 
 so many Popes have spoken in error. Roman Catholics 
 have owned some of these. But it is, besides confounding 
 everything which came from the first, contrary to the 
 old belief, — that the Faith was from the first, that there 
 could be no new Articles of Faith. Pope St. Gregory 
 said that he ' reverenced the first four General Councils 
 as he did the four Gospels.' According to the Vatican 
 Decree the Popes of the day might have settled the 
 matters of Faith themselves. The Councils were use- 
 less. . . . And yet what Popes there have been, as in that 
 miserable tenth century, when Popes were intruded by 
 their mistresses ; and Popes were, Baronius says, of no use 
 except to carry on the succession. Happily for the Church, 
 they thought of nothing less than theology. But one 
 of the most striking books, I thought, written beforehand 
 against the Papal Infallibility was by Monseigneur Maret 
 on the connexion of the perception of truth with holiness. 
 The instances which I collected in my third Eirenicon, 
 I collected at the instance of persons within the Roman 
 Communion, who thought that it might have some weight 
 with the Council, to know how the declaration of the 
 Personal Infallibility of the Pope would affect us. A 
 Jesuit told me that we had brought it about by disputing 
 it, for if it had not been made matter of Faith then, it 
 never could have been. And yet it was at one time 
 opposed by as many Bishops as formed the Second 
 General Council. . . . 
 
 The Vatican Council was the greatest sorrow I ever had 
 in a long life. 
 
 God bless you. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 221 
 
 LETTER XVIL 
 The Same, 
 
 Easter Moti day, 1882. 
 
 I will just mention to you two or three thinc^s which 
 do not seem to have occurred to you. (i) That there is 
 often real agreement where there is verbal disagreement. 
 (Bishop Daniel Wilson, on his way to Calcutta, said that 
 ' people in England were divided by the meaning which they 
 attached to a word ' [regeneration], i.e. Bishop Daniel Wilson 
 and his friends had attached to it the meaning of conversion, 
 which it has not in the Prayer Book and never had. A pious 
 Evangelical clergyman asked me, soon after I wrote my 
 Tracts on Baptism, 'If you call the grace of Baptism, 
 " regeneration," what do 3'ou call that grace from which a 
 man never falls?' He differed from us about the meaning 
 which he attached wrongly to a word.) . . . 
 
 This was your first mistake. Some people were disturbed 
 some time ago at Dr. Hampden being made a Bishop. He 
 had said rash things. What he really believed, I forget. 
 But when they spoke about leaving the Church on that 
 ground some eminent Roman Catholic said, ' I have no 
 patience with these men, there always have been such 
 things in the Church and always will.' He was afraid 
 that if this person were driven out of the Church of 
 England on this ground, he would be driven away again 
 by some scandal in the Roman Communion. 
 
 So as to contradictions of Truth. It became a sacred 
 duty to me lately, to finish a preface which my son had 
 written about Nestorianism in the fifth century. I could 
 not but congratulate myself that I did not live in that 
 century. Here was an eminent writer, now much valued, 
 Theodoret, trying with all his might to obtain the con- 
 demnation of another, now esteemed a Saint, St. Cyril, 
 and the General Council of which St. Cyril was the centre. 
 
222 Spiritual Letters of Edward Boiiverie Piisey. 
 
 And in so doing he used language which the fifth General 
 Council rightly condemned as heterodox. Yet he had 
 the whole large Patriarchate of Antioch (including a large 
 portion of the East) with him. And he had no term for 
 St. Cyril but ' heretic,' or for his writings but ' heretical.' 
 It required a good deal of time and patience to obtain the 
 recognition of the fifth General Council itself. Two of 
 the chief founders of Nestorianism were eminent teachers 
 in the Church ; one of them had the title ' the Interpreter.' 
 But Nestorians call them their 'fathers.' A Council, now 
 called the ' Robber Council,' maintained the opposite heresy 
 of Eutyches. It was assembled legitimately, but went 
 wrong. There is a long list of these distresses. 
 
 (2) What is of Eaith, must always have been of Faith. 
 The Faith may be expressed in different terms at different 
 times, but the Faith itself must have always been the 
 same. ' Development ' cannot be from a contradictory. 
 For centuries the Western Church was distracted by the 
 contradiction of two large schools, the Scotists and the 
 Thomists ; the Thomists (which was the most popular 
 school) denying the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed 
 Virgin, the Scotists affirming it. Pope Pius IX, against the 
 advice of a large proportion of the Bishops whom he 
 consulted, declared it to be matter of Faith. If he rightly 
 declared it matter of Faith, it was matter of Faith (although 
 not declared to be so) all along. The Faith (if it were so 
 now) would have been denied all along. If it had come 
 to a decision at the time of the Council of Basle, before 
 which the question was formally laid, it would have 
 probably been decided the other way ; the evidence 
 prepared for the Council by an Ultramontane theologian 
 (Card, de Turrecremata) was so solid. Those who inves- 
 tigated the question for the late Pope only had a very 
 slovenly book before them (De Bandelis), and gave him 
 bad advice, he himself being fanatically eager on the same 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 222 
 
 side, and expecting that the Blessed Virgin would do 
 great good to the Church in requital of the honour done 
 to her. ... It was said by eminent Bishops in that Council, 
 that it was not matter of Faith, nor ever could become 
 such. It is not thus that matters of Faith are framed. 
 
 (3) The Church teaches through her Creeds and her 
 prayers. . . . There is no way in which the Faith can be so 
 taught as by being put into our mouths in our prayers and 
 in our Creeds. It may be a harass to the mind to hear 
 the truths which we have confessed in them contradicted 
 in the sermon. It often happened to me in my young 
 days, or my children told me the preacher contradicted the 
 Prayer Book. I taught them (as I would teach you) to 
 understand his words in the best sense they could. But 
 they saw, as you have, that the preacher was wrong ; only 
 they bore it patiently. 
 
 And I rather suspect that your first fault was impatience, 
 not at the contradiction of what you rightly held and knew 
 to be the Truth, but that one who seemed for the time to 
 have the office of teacher contradicted it. We pray three 
 times a week, that God would 'bring into the way of truth 
 all such as have erred and are deceived.' I often cannot 
 but think that if we had all said that prayer more devoutly 
 and more earnestly we should be in a better state than we 
 are now. There may be something unbefitting that God 
 should hear prayer which was not said very earnestly to 
 Him. People say such prayers rather to satisfy themselves 
 that they have ' said their prayers ' (as they call it), than 
 that they really want Almighty God to give them what 
 they ask for. 
 
 But I am rambling on, rather having a misgiving of the 
 effect of reading any book. I will only then add, that should 
 you have difficulties after reading the Eirenicon, I think 
 that I could remove them if you were to come to see me. 
 
 God bless you. 
 
224 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Ptisey. 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 On Objections to English Orders. 
 
 August 5, 1882. 
 
 I began the enclosed in a letter to , but as it grew 
 
 I thought that there would be risk of further delay, so I have 
 had the answer copied for you myself I dwelt on the 
 successive cavils, because they help to show the animus 
 of this last. Negligence there will be everywhere. 
 Cardinal Newman mentioned to one who told me, the case 
 of an Archbishop of Paris who had never been baptized. 
 Everything was done from the beginning. But what 
 became of all his previous priestly or archiepiscopal 
 acts? I do not believe that God so ties down His 
 unfathomable depths of mercies, that an accident or 
 carelessness should vitiate His gift, or that He would 
 send empty away for no fault of theirs little ones brought 
 to Him, whom when on earth He received so lovingly, 
 took them up in His arms and blessed them. St. Dionysius 
 the Great refused to baptize one who had been inad- 
 vertently to Holy Communion without due Baptism ; on the 
 ground that he could not baptize one who had so often 
 been partaker of the Body and Blood of Christ. People 
 may think St, Dionysius mistaken, but they would 
 hardly believe that he whom he refused to baptize died 
 unregenerate. 
 God bless you. 
 
 {The Encloszirc.) 
 
 August 5, 1882. 
 
 W ith regard to 's question, the supposed careless- 
 ness of our Baptisms is but a myth which grew out of 
 a story of some clergyman's having a number of Baptisms 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 225 
 
 at once in some large town. The attack upon our 
 Orders has been most persevering. Knowing that our 
 Sacraments depended upon them, the Roman Catholics 
 have taken up first one stone, then another, to distress 
 our people. First, there was the Nag's Head fable ; 
 though invented forty years afterwards, it was taken 
 up too soon. For one was still living who had seen the 
 Consecration (it was some nobleman, I think). Lingard 
 got into bad odour with the Roman Catholics for giving 
 it up as a fable. 
 
 (2) Then it was said, that Barlow the chief Consecrator 
 was not a Bishop. His Consecration, upon investigation, 
 was proved to be true. But after all it came out that 
 nothing turned upon it. It was taken for granted on both 
 sides, that he alone had said the words, so that if he had 
 not been a Bishop, the whole would have been invalid. 
 It was ascertained from the Lambeth register, that all four 
 Bishops had imposed hands, and all four said the words. 
 
 (3) The Lambeth registers were denounced as a forgery. 
 Besides another record in Trinity College, Cambridge, it 
 was clear from the names which appeared, which were 
 attested by other sources, that it could not be questioned 
 except in a way which would throw doubt on all historical 
 evidence. I myself had occasion to examine the Lambeth 
 records, in order to ascertain whether the process of Con- 
 firmation was a mere form. I found that it was formed 
 most carefully upon one in Archbishop Chichele's time, 
 when the English Church, not recognizing either of the two 
 or (I forget) three Anti-popes, revived the old form of 
 Confirmation. Du Pin (a Roman Catholic) praised it as 
 formed carefully on ancient models. 
 
 (4) The form of Consecration was taken from an Exeter 
 Pontifical of Lacy. Our first form of Consecration only had 
 the words of Lacy's Pontifical, ' Receive the Holy Ghost ' ; 
 afterwards, ' for the Office of a Bishop or Priest ' was 
 
 Q 
 
226 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 added. Then it was objected that it was of no use to have 
 the office expressed there, unless it was named in some 
 other part of the Consecration Service. This was an obvious 
 cavil. However, the office was expressed in the Litany, 
 so the cavil fell through. 
 
 (5) Then Cardinal Wiseman put all this aside and 
 rested the objection on the one point, that we had no 
 jurisdiction. But jurisdiction from the earliest times 
 was in the chief See, the Metropolitan. But it was the 
 Metropolitan See which was vacant. And the jurisdiction 
 is inherent in the See itself. Parker's possession of the 
 See was not disputed. Hoping for the reconciliation of 
 England, it was never filled up. Down to the ' Papal 
 Aggression ' in your memory, they did not attempt to fill 
 up our Sees, and even then they avoided our names. 
 
 And now, after all these attempts, comes, limping, this 
 about our Baptisms, which has not been thought of these 
 more than 300 years. I may as well put in the first 
 instance that an eminent Gallican theologian said to this 
 effect, 'Take care what you are about, you may wound 
 yourselves. How do you know that amid uninstructed 
 priests in such a district the right forms were all used ? ' 
 (And this when midwives were allowed to baptize and even 
 Popes rose from the ranks ! You remember how Sixtus V's 
 mother was a washerwoman.) ' Trust God that He in 
 some way supplied any defect, so that none of His people 
 should be deprived of the Bread of Life.' I forget where 
 I have quoted this. I think that it must have been in my 
 first Eirenicon. I have sent for it. Amongst us the 
 objection is childish. Of the supposed miscellaneous 
 babies, boy-babies and girl-babies, who were alleged to 
 have been baptized carelessly in some great town, what 
 likelihood would there be that any (as they are supposed 
 to be of the poorest class) should be a priest ? God, we 
 may be sure, will protect His own ordinances ; He will not 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 'zi'i 
 
 give us ashes for bread. The objection only shows the 
 animus of the objectors. As for the special cases in which 
 A or B said that C or D were not baptized, I am very- 
 sceptical about them. Infant Baptism by affusion is pre- 
 scribed by the English ritual, but Baptism by sprinkling 
 would still be valid. 
 
 The use of water and the words is alone necessary. 
 
228 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bonvcrie Piiscy. 
 
 LETTER XIX'. 
 Roman Difficulties. 
 
 August 4, 1877. 
 
 The questions put in the letter to your friend require 
 a book, not a letter, to answer them satisfactorily. 
 
 (i) As to visible unity, the writer ignores the fact of the 
 Eastern Church, and puts the question as if it lay simply 
 between the Roman Church and ourselves. Yet whatever 
 he may say of us, Roman controversialists, until of late, 
 acknowledged that the Eastern Churches were simply 
 schismatic, not heretical. Yet they cover a large portion 
 of the face of the earth, and if they were denied to be 
 a portion of the Body of Christ, our Lord would be de- 
 prived of a large portion of His inheritance. But the 
 Eastern Churches are out of communion with Rome, 
 because they remain under the same form of government 
 which they had in the earliest ages, and do not accept the 
 modern accretions which have grown up since, and to 
 which the forged Decretals gave such an impulse. If 
 things could be restored, such as they were in the time 
 of the great Greek and Latin Fathers, whom all look up 
 to as Fathers, there could be no schism between East 
 and West. However the doctrine of the Procession of 
 the Holy Ghost may have been put forward, intelligent 
 and remarkable writers have seen and said that the real 
 ground of disunion is ' the Sees.' If East were to submit 
 to the West, the whole Patriarchal system would have to 
 
 ^ In this letter, several passages retained for the sake of the complete- 
 which have already appeared in sub- ness of the argument, 
 stance in other letters have been 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 229 
 
 be given up, and whatever titles they might be allowed 
 to retain, Patriarchs, Archbishops, and Bishops, could only 
 be curates of the Bishop of Rome. Yet the great Eastern 
 Church has been doing the work of the Church and carrying 
 on our Lord's commission, " Go and baptize all nations." 
 It has been converting and is converting its tens of 
 thousands where the Roman Church is not. No sooner 
 had Schamyl been driven out of the Caucasus than he was 
 replaced by monasteries for the conversion of the people. 
 Apostolic Bishops have been labouring beyond the bounds 
 of the great Russian Empire. They had lately Apostolic 
 Bishops who were converting the north of China and the 
 isles between Kamchatka and America. The two pro- 
 vinces, which were conquered a few years ago, were 
 converted in great measure, although unequally, from 
 Lamaism. And this altogether independently of the 
 State. 
 
 I have written about the Eastern Churches because it is 
 an advantage to write apart from self-defence. But then, 
 since they are acknowledged by the Romans not to be 
 heretics, to have all the gifts of the Church and to do 
 the work of the Church, it follows that there may be 
 suspensions of communion, which do not destroy organic 
 or supernatural unity. Consent of human wills cannot 
 produce a supernatural unity. Supernatural unity is that 
 which is wrought by God the Holy Ghost through the 
 Sacraments, whereby, by Baptism millions are continually 
 added to the Church, and by our Lord's Body and Blood 
 that unity is preserved. Inter-communion is ordinarily 
 a duty, yet it has been suspended many times without 
 either part being cut off from the Body of Christ, as about 
 the keeping of Easter with the Asiatic Churches (which 
 was healed by the Council of Nicaea), the wrongful con- 
 secration of a Patriarch of Antioch over against the great 
 St. Meletius, who yet became President of the Second 
 
230 spiritual Letters of Edzvard Boiiverie Pusey. 
 
 General Council : the rejection of St. Cyiarian in which 
 a subsequent Bishop of Rome gave way ; the East and 
 West ; the Anti-popes, &c. 
 
 There may, then, be suspensions of communion, which 
 do not cut off from the Body of Christ. Real schisms 
 always run into heresy. 
 
 (2) The writer says that in Roman countries ' there arc 
 not two opinions on the articles of the Eaith defined by tJie 
 Church.' This is an inadequate statement. A doctrine 
 may become certainly or more widely known to be an 
 article of the Faith through its being defined by the Church. 
 But what is the Faith must always have been the Faith. 
 The Fathers of Nicaea and of the other General Councils met 
 to reject those who denied the Faith. The Faith which the 
 Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople embodied in creeds 
 was equally the Faith and known to be the Faith before. 
 A heretic was mostly rejected by a local Council, as 
 Arius, Pelagius, Eutyches, before this was confirmed by 
 a General Council. The Fathers of Nicaea declared as to 
 the Faith (as St. Athanasius pointed out), ' thus have we 
 received fi'om our fathers,' whereas in a matter not of Faith 
 they said, ' it hath seemed good.' They decreed it ; the 
 Faith they only attested. If then the new dogmas of 
 ' the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary,' 
 or of ' the Infallibility of the Pope,' were articles of Faith 
 now, they must have been matters of Faith from the first, 
 part of that body of truth, that ' good deposit,' which our 
 Lord committed to the Apostles, and they to those whom 
 they left as their successors. But the Immaculate 
 Conception was matter of hot controversy for centuries 
 between the Scotists and Thomists : doctors, saints, 
 besides the common current of writers, spoke against it. 
 Just before it was defined by Pope Pius, eminent persons 
 said it could not be made an article of Faith, because there 
 was not evidence enough for it : there were not the tests 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 231 
 
 of the ' quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus.' 
 The eminent Ultramontane writer, de Turrecremata, was 
 commissioned by the Papal legates at the Council of 
 Basle to draw up the case against it. He drew up a very 
 strong case. There is no disputing about it now, because 
 such disputing is not tolerated. But it is the authority of 
 the Church, not the Faith (according to them), which must 
 not be disputed. They must hold now, that the Immacu- 
 late Conception was always matter of Faith ; but that the 
 Church, for fear of worse evil, may allow the Faith to be 
 denied. You too will remember how vehemently Papal 
 Infallibility was denied at the Vatican Council itself: how 
 bishops declared that it could not be made matter of Faith ; 
 how it was carried by what resembled a parliamentary 
 majority rather than a decree of a Council. It has been 
 accepted by men unconvinced. ' What use is there in 
 struggling against one who is stronger than one's self? ' 
 the murdered Archbishop of Paris ^ said to one who told 
 me. The ablest writing which I came across, against the 
 dogma, was that of Monseigneur Maret of the Sorbonne 
 (Bishop of Jura in partibus). Again, the Roman Church 
 allowed what the Vatican Council declared to be the Faith 
 to be contradicted. Time was when it was only taught by 
 a small school and by certain ' Doctorculi ' as they were 
 contemptuously called. St. Leo and St. Gregory knew 
 nothing of it. St. Leo allowed his famous ' Tome ' to be 
 discussed by the Council of Chalcedon. Their objections 
 to it were met by the argument that the same language 
 had been used by St. Cyril of Alexandria ; it was accepted, 
 because it agreed with the three previous General Councils 
 before Chalcedon, and notably with the Epistles of St. Cyril 
 of Alexandria, received by the Council of Ephesus. 
 St. Leo, who excepted against the alterations of the order 
 of the Patriarchates at the Council, did not except against 
 
 ' Archbishop Darboy. 
 
232 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 this. He spoke of his letter being ' confirmed by the 
 Council ' ; St. Gregory the Great said that he venerated 
 the four General Councils, like the Gospels ; when, according 
 to the Vatican decree, he could have written them himself : 
 and henceforth the Church of Rome is to depend not 
 on General Councils, but upon the pronouncements of 
 the Pope. 
 
 The Church of England then, in bearing with the 
 present confusion, does no more than the whole Church, 
 according to the Romans, has done before upon matters 
 which it now declares to be de fide. Who knows what 
 would have become of those who have since become 
 defenders of the Faith ? They were first won to the faith 
 of the Church, and then defended it. I do not know how 
 much Dr. Newman meant, when he said, that ' when he 
 was ordained he believed neither in his Baptism nor his 
 Ordination.' But apart from him, the most numerous 
 recruits of those who taught most energetically Sacramental 
 truth, were from the Evangelical, i. e. an unsacramental 
 school. 
 
 But amid all this disputing, there is no doubt what the 
 teaching of the Church of England is. It, above indi- 
 viduals, is the teacher of its people, by giving them 
 a Prayer Book in their own language. It is a remarkable 
 instance of Pope St. Celestine s great saying that ' lex 
 supplicandi, lex credendi.' You cannot have a more 
 impressive way of teaching the Faith, than by putting it 
 into the mouths of the people in their prayers to Almighty 
 God. It becomes part of them. If any one contradicts it, 
 he condemns himself. It would indeed have been 
 a miserable thing, if any one sought the Faith, and could 
 not find it. But this is not so. People knowingly reject 
 the Faith, as in Rome they reject it altogether, and become 
 infidels. ' We have lost the middle classes,' the late 
 Archbishop of Paris said to me. I never knew any one 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 233 
 
 who had any difficulty in finding out what the Faith of the 
 Church of England is. At this moment, in all this wild 
 rebellion against Confession, no one who wishes to know 
 the truth doubts about it. Nay, the rebellion teaches it, 
 and increases Confession. People who dislike the Truth 
 explain it away for themselves, if they do not set them- 
 selves directly against it ; no one who felt e.g. the burden 
 of his sins, ever had any doubt how to be absolved from 
 them. So as to the Sacrament of Baptism. Some twenty- 
 seven years ago, people who had taken for instructors the 
 Nonconformist divines disbelieved the plain teaching of 
 the Church. There was no doubt as to the plain meaning 
 of the thanksgiving to God in the Baptismal Service that 
 it had 'pleased Him to regenerate this child.' The shift 
 that this was ' the judgement of charity ' only shows how 
 plain the teaching is. So as to the Holy Eucharist. Its 
 Catechism and the Liturgy alike teach unmistakably the 
 doctrine of the Real Presence. 
 
 I should then simply deny, ' That the Anglican branch 
 is a Church of compromise 'twixt heresy and truth.' And 
 I should ask ' wherein ? ' 
 
 There is then no occasion to write to the Bishop of 
 
 as to what lies on the surface of the Prayer Book. I have 
 heard this objection made during many years : but I never 
 heard of any one, who made it, having any difficulty or 
 doubt as to his own belief. What they are really 
 impatient about is, that discipline is not used as to their 
 opponents. But if the Immaculate Conception and Papal 
 Infallibility had been matters of Faith, as the Roman 
 Catholics believe now, the Roman Church would have 
 done far more. It gave absolutely no teaching about 
 those two, which it now declares to be articles of Faith. 
 It allowed it to be declared currently that they were 
 matters of opinion. The Immaculate Conception was 
 called ' a pious opinion,' which is the very opposite of Faith. 
 
234 Spiritual Letters of Edward Boiivcrie Pusey. 
 
 The Church of England taught the Truth, ahhough it 
 allowed it to be contradicted for fear of worse evil. 
 
 But indeed there is not so much difference of belief 
 among us as one might infer from the language of some. 
 There is often more difference in language than in belief. 
 The diligent preparation which Evangelicals used to make 
 for Holy Communion, showed that they believed more 
 than they definitely expressed. People do not make a 
 week's preparation to say their prayers. 
 
 (3) I do not myself worship in Roman Catholic churches, 
 as being so painful : I should think it wrong to worship in 
 them in preference to our English churches. But I do not 
 hold their public worship corrupt. ... I think then that the 
 Church of England had a very definite object to restore 
 primitive antiquity, — the 'quod ubique, quod semper, 
 quod ab omnibus.' There is nothing in Holy Scripture to 
 support this cultus of the Blessed Virgin, nor in early 
 antiquity. I wrote once to one inclined to Rome, ' I am 
 very happy in the Fathers ; what they believe, I believe ; 
 what they disbelieve, I disbelieve. I reverence them as 
 fathers : I hope they would own me as a son.' And 
 I gave him as an instance, We have printed forty volumes 
 of sermons from the Fathers. The ground of our selection 
 was to bring their interpretations side by side with Holy 
 Scripture. It would occupy three years to preach their 
 sermons, preaching two sermons a Sunday. We could 
 preach them consecutively : the Roman Catholics could 
 not, for it would be asked, ' where are the special Roman 
 doctrines?' My question was forwarded to an eminent 
 Roman theologian. His only answer was, ' No : they 
 would only say that the preacher's religion was more of the 
 head than of the heart, and that he was not devout to the 
 Blessed Virgin.' Conceive the religion of St. Chrysostom, 
 St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great being ' more of the 
 head than of the heart ' ! Such an answer concedes the 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 235 
 
 force of the objection. The system of the Blessed Virgin 
 has been all along my great grief, apart from the love of 
 the mother, in whom and through whom I have received 
 whatever God has given me for my spiritual life. 
 
 (4) With regard to the Bishop of Rome being the centre 
 of Christendom, this is modern Roman doctrine. The 
 Church of England is not more independent of the 
 Bishop of Rome than were the African Churches in the 
 time of St. Augustine. All provinces elected their own 
 Bishops under their own metropolitan. The Bishops 
 of the province chose a Bishop in presence of the people. 
 St. Cyprian calls this an apostolic mode of election. The 
 Bishops were confirmed by their own metropolitan, not by 
 Rome. Each province framed their own canons for them- 
 selves. Hence we have collections of African, Spanish, 
 Gallican, Oriental canons, in which the Bishop of Rome 
 did not interfere. They settled judicial causes among 
 themselves. No one appealed to Rome except bad men. 
 These appealed where they were not known, as the 
 Western heretic Pelagius appealed to the Bishop of 
 Jerusalem, when he was condemned by the African 
 Bi.'shops. A bad priest, Apiarius, appealed to Rome, 
 which would have restored him. But the Bishop of Rome 
 rested his claim to do so, not on any authority as a 
 successor of St. Peter, but on a supposed canon of Nicaea. 
 The African Fathers professed themselves bound by a 
 General Council, but said that the alleged canon was not 
 in their list of canons of the Council of Nicaea. They sent to 
 the East for an authentic set of the canons ; and the alleged 
 canon not being there, they sent a monitory letter to the 
 Bishop of Rome, against mixing up the pride of the world 
 with the affairs of the Church. This is remarkable, that 
 successive Bishops of Rome do not rest their claim on their 
 own inherent power, but on a supposed canon of a Council. 
 The African Bishops were ready at once to submit to the 
 
236 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 General Council. Among those Bishops was St. Augustine, 
 whose vote is preserved. Equally remarkable was the 
 failure of an attempt to restore two bad Spanish Bishops. 
 The other Spanish Bishops consulted St. Cyprian. 
 St. Cyprian, with an African council, gave judgement that 
 the two Spanish Bishops had been rightly deposed for 
 their crimes ; that their successors had been rightly and 
 canonically elected ; and that Basilides and Martialis 
 (the two deposed Bishops) had only made their case worse 
 by imposing on ' our brother Stephen ' (the Bishop of 
 Rome). Conceive this now. 
 
 I wonder how they think that, whereas St. Peter 
 exercised no authority over the other Apostles, Bishops of 
 Rome should exercise authority, by virtue of words said to 
 him, which conveyed none to himself. He was the only 
 Apostle of whom we are told that he was resisted. . . . 
 
 One word more about unity. Inter-communion does not 
 make it, and so the absence of inter-communion does not 
 itself hrcsik it. It is broken to the individual or individuals, 
 when want of ' charity ' cuts them off from the Body of 
 Christ. 
 
 (5) It is not true that any one in the Church of England 
 has only just discovered its Catholicity. There were 
 always ' two manner of people ' in her as there are now. 
 The Puritans were always opposed to the Catholic teaching 
 of the Prayer Book. Archbishop Laud was a martyr for 
 his Faith Had the Church of England been Protestant 
 there would have been no Dissenters. The Dissenters 
 correspond with the foreign Protestants. . . . We learned 
 all we taught from the Church of England and its doctors. 
 
 (6) The Roman Church does not deny our Orders and 
 Sacraments on the ground of our want of communion with 
 itself. For it allows them in regard to the Eastern 
 Churches which are equally out of communion with it. 
 Its controversialists knew that because of our Catholic 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 237 
 
 Faith the vaHdity of our Orders was essential to us, else 
 we should have had no Sacraments ; and so they took up 
 first one stone, then another, not caring much what they 
 took, so that they had something to fling. . . . 
 
 I write this because it is not an abstract question or 
 matter of interpretation of Holy Scripture, but simple 
 matter of fact. I heard that a Roman Catholic Bishop 
 at the Vatican Council was much impressed with the last 
 book on our Orders. 
 
 In St. Luke xxii. 32, on which the letter-writer lays stress, 
 he forgets that St. Peter was the Apostle who thrice 
 denied his Lord, the only Apostle who needed conversion, 
 who was the first of the ' lapsed ' who in after-times were 
 restored to Communion with so much difficulty, whom 
 our Lord restored to his Apostolate, after a threefold 
 confession to undo his threefold denial, but who alone 
 needed restoration, and who, as a great example of 
 penitence, all his life through, wept his fall at every 
 cock-crowing. But further, 'strengthen' is not 'rule,' 
 ' govern.' 
 
 I have now answered your questions as well as I could 
 in a letter. 
 
 On the Infallibility I wrote, at the wish of Roman 
 Catholics who were afraid of its being made an article of 
 Faith, in my last Eirenicon ; on the want of evidence as to 
 the Immaculate Conception, in the other two. My hope 
 in writing was that Roman authorities might accept the 
 Faith as we hold it, as an adequate statement of Faith. 
 The English Church has, on controverted points with the 
 Roman Church, denied the maximum, but has not laid 
 down any minimum. The Roman Church has often (e. g. 
 as to the Invocation of Saints) laid down a minimum, but 
 has not limited any maximum ; and it has no maximum 
 whatever. But something very extreme is practically their 
 Faith. They allow converts, who are so minded, to be 
 
238 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 received into their Communion, professing a minimum 
 (they admitted one who told me she denied articles of Pope 
 Pius' Creed) ; but it would be unreal to enter the Roman 
 Church without mentally receiving its extreme teaching. 
 
 The writer speaks of the ' glaring absurdities of Angli- 
 canism.' I can hardly imagine anything in more glaring 
 contradiction to all Christian antiquity and history than 
 the Papal Infallibility. If this were true, General Councils 
 were an absurdity, since, according to the Vatican decree, 
 the Pope is infallible apart from the consent of the Church. 
 He could have written creeds and decrees with the same 
 authority, according to them. 
 
 I have written all this because you wished it. 
 
 For myself, your friend's grounds are very satisfactory, 
 (i) I am where I am, by the Providence of God. I could 
 not reject the Church of England without denying the 
 work of God the Holy Ghost in her. I used to say, when 
 people asked me, ' Where God the Holy Ghost is, and 
 works, there it is safe to be.' Life is the most remarkable 
 test of anybody. It is a wonderful analogy between 
 physical and spiritual nature, which our Lord points out, 
 " If any abide not in Me, he is cut off as a branch and 
 withered." The branch seems for a time to have the 
 freshness of the tree^ but being severed from the sap 
 which maintained the life of the tree, it withereth. So 
 also bodies really severed from the Church have a certain 
 freshness for the time, which they carry with them, but 
 they fade. This has been observed since St. Cyprian's time 
 downwards. . . . The English Church, on the contrary, is 
 like a vigorous tree which had been rudely shaken, but after 
 three centuries was putting out fresh roots and branches 
 and filling the earth. It is carrying on the Lord's work 
 beyond the bounds of the Empire. Africans, neglected 
 or unknown heretofore, are being won to it. The dis- 
 coveries of geography become pioneers to the kingdom of 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. '22^g 
 
 Christ. The last century was ' saeculum tcpidum ' every- 
 where. In France it prepared for the French Revolution 
 and the reign of the goddess of Reason ; after the churches 
 were reopened (I was told by a French authority) there 
 were only fifty communicants at Easter in Paris. The 
 unsatisfactory state of South Germany at that time is 
 admitted. I inquired for religious books of the last 
 century, like St. Francis de Sales, or the ' Spiritual Combat,' 
 or F. Thomas, or Rodriguez, and could hear of none. 
 (F. Thomas was the one Portuguese work.) Italy had all 
 its conventual orders, monks and nuns, its superfluity of 
 clergy, and it became what it became. All went to sleep 
 together, all have revived together, but the revival has 
 been in the Churches. The French Revolution was like 
 a thunderclap of God's anger, and woke tis. Roman 
 Catholics themselves, although they have only observed 
 the later stages, have been struck by the fact that our 
 revival was wholly from within ourselves and without any 
 aid from tlicm. They were as sound asleep as we were 
 under the Georges. I remember a popular book which 
 spoke simply of the Roman Catholic controversy as a thing 
 of the past. 
 
 When we were awakened the Revival (as I have said 
 publicly) was wholly from within. We did not open 
 a Roman book. We did not think of them. Rome was 
 quiet at that time in itself. It was only, for political 
 ends, assimilating itself as much as it could to us. 
 ' We must own,' Cardinal Wiseman said, ' that we have 
 been a little ashamed of our special doctrines.' However, 
 we had all which we wanted within our own Church. 
 We had the whole range of Christian doctrine, and did 
 not look beyond, except to the Fathers, to whom our 
 Church sent us. One, of whom I thought far more 
 than myself, said, ' We have range enough in those before 
 us, to whatever we pigmies may grow.' 
 
240 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouveric Pusey. 
 
 This is what is unexampled anywhere out of the 
 Church ;— that a Church, not ahve, for the time, to the 
 Truth contained in her, in a state of lukewarmness like 
 that of Laodicea, should be revived by our Lord to the 
 whole range of Christian truth, without any agency from 
 without. 
 
 I have, in a preface, reprinted in the Daily Express 
 (which you have probably seen), dwelt on the additional 
 fact that the Revival has been through what are the gifts 
 of the Church alone, that God has blessed them, and yet 
 that God blesses through Truth. 
 
 I shall be glad to answer you any other questions. 
 
 If anything of moment in this is illegible, I would 
 gladly correct it. 
 
 I have said next to nothing on that which has been 
 my great crux, the elaborate system as to the Blessed Virgin. 
 The Greeks, too, use a good deal of invocation, but 
 they have not the Latin dogmatizing. You might find 
 a good deal in my old controversial books and in my 
 first Eirenicon, barring what I have quoted from Oswald, 
 who has been repudiated. The practical teaching comes 
 to this, that it is safer to go to the Blessed Virgin than to 
 our Lord. This is taught explicitly in the vision of the 
 two ladders, at the head of the one of which was the 
 Blessed Virgin : at the head of the other, our Lord. I\Iany 
 of those who went up the ladder to our Lord fell back ; 
 of those who went up the Blessed Virgin's ladder, none fell 
 back. 
 
 This seems to have been your friend's frame of mind 
 when he asked St. Peter to teach him about the authority 
 of the Pope, not our Blessed Lord, or God the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 But this would need a fresh Revelation, and it would 
 practically come to this ; that either the Church of Rome 
 knows now more than was revealed to the Apostles, 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 241 
 
 to whom our Lord promised that the Holy Ghost should 
 lead them into the wJiole Truth (ets Traaav t)]v aki'iOeLav), 
 or that they did not declare it to the Church. I hoped 
 when I wrote my Eirenicon that we might, if re-united, 
 remain under our own Bishops, elected under any of the 
 old canonical modes of election, and might remain free 
 from that vast practical system which goes so immeasurably 
 beyond the Council of Trent. The Vatican Council dashed 
 to the ground all Bishop Forbes' and my hopes. 
 
 I did not change my ground when I wrote my Eirenicon. 
 The Times, in an elaborate article, told me that it was 
 a dream. I went and consulted eminent French Bishops, 
 and they said it was a reality: the Vatican Council has 
 shown that The Times was right. 
 
 R 
 
242 Spiritual Letters of Edimrd Boiivcrie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 The Healthy Conditions of returning 
 TO the Church of England. 
 
 July I, 1871. 
 
 I do not see how one can recommend one to express his 
 belief in what one cannot believe one's self. I trust that 
 
 might safely return, as having made a mistake. In 
 
 some cases, one dreads a person losing all Faith, leaving 
 one Church criticizing it, and then the other, criticizing it. 
 This is my anxiety about people returning, lest they lose 
 
 all faith. But does not return, criticizing the Roman 
 
 Church, but, as being required to believe as of Faith, what 
 he was not required to believe when he joined it ; and 
 that, contradictory to all history, and carried as nothing 
 was ever carried in Councils before against an orthodox 
 protesting minority. He is, in fact, expelled the Roman 
 Communion, and does not leave it. 
 
 I think then that you might safely receive his Confession 
 and admit him to Communion ; but he should confess 
 whatever there was amiss which led him to leave our 
 Communion. 
 
 God be with you. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 243 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 The Same. 
 
 February 24, 1879. 
 
 I have always had much anxiety about those who pro- 
 pose to return to our Communion, for fear that they should 
 return in a wrong way, as they left it. The only way in 
 which a person ordinarily can with safety return to our 
 Communion is by acknowledging a fault in leaving it. 
 I should fear lest all faith might be jeoparded, if a person 
 left our Communion, criticizing it, and then the Roman 
 criticizing it. The case, in which a person might be startled 
 back by the Vatican decree, is a case J>er se, for in that 
 case the Roman Communion has undergone a radical 
 change and proposes to him a condition of Communion 
 which she did not when he entered it. 
 
 Your friend's ostensible difficulties are easily met. The 
 question to me is whether he would not return with a 
 doubting conscience, which, of course, he ought not to do. 
 
 His difficulty about contradictory teaching is met partly 
 by the fact that it is only the effect of a weak disciphne, 
 partly that there has been the like contradiction in the 
 Roman Communion. It is acknowledged in it too that 
 there can be no new Article of Faith, that the Church cannot 
 make one. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception 
 of the Blessed Virgin and the personal Infallibility of the 
 Pope, apart from the Church, must, according to them, 
 have always been matters of Faith. But the Immaculate 
 Conception of the Blessed Virgin was denied for centuries 
 
 R 2 
 
244 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 by Fathers, Doctors, Saints, Popes. There is no evading 
 the fact that it was so denied. I have put together the 
 evidence in my first Letter to Dr. Newman out of De 
 Turrecremata, who was commissioned by the Legates at 
 the Council of Basle to collect the evidence on that side. 
 Had the Jesuits who advised Pius IX about it, studied De 
 Turrecremata, instead of the slovenly work of De Bandelis 
 (which a Jesuit, De Buck, told me was used), I do not think 
 that they could have pronounced in favour of the decree. 
 The Infallibility of the Pope was, as you know, disputed at 
 the Vatican Council itself, and the minority at one time 
 amounted to 200. The decree was carried by the personal 
 influence of Pius IX. 
 
 The difference then is one of discipline. The Roman 
 Communion is very strict about external obedience to the 
 Church. But the principle remains the same ; that the 
 Church of Rome also allows what it holds to be de fide to 
 be disputed, so that no disrespect is shown to its authority, 
 as it would if what it has formally decreed be denied. 
 
 But any one in the Church of England may know the 
 Faith in her if he will. According to the long received 
 rule fit occurs in a letter of Pope St. Celestine, A.D. 423), 
 ' The law of prayer is the law of Faith ' {lex sitpplicandi, lex 
 crcdcudi). You cannot put the Faith more energetically 
 into people's minds than by putting it into their mouths in 
 prayer. God the Holy Ghost Who gives them the grace 
 of prayer, works it into their minds through their prayers. 
 Prayers in our own language teach Faith and make it part 
 of ourselves, i. e. God does it through them. I suppose 
 that the first four petitions of the Litany make the belief 
 in the Holy Trinity part of ourselves, more than anything 
 else could. I remember the impression made upon myself 
 when, soon after the Supreme Court of Appeal had decided 
 that the Church of England did not teach distinctly that 
 children were regenerate in Baptism, I had the office of 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 245 
 
 baptizing a child. Not having any cure of souls, the office 
 very seldom came to me. Let people explain away the 
 Articles as they might, I felt that the Church of England 
 was teaching Baptismal Regeneration in the most touching 
 way that it could. So as to the Holy Eucharist. This is 
 the teaching of the Church, which all Bishops and every 
 individual Clergyman are bound to acknowledge. If any 
 contradict it, he condemns himself. And in matter of fact, 
 I never knew any one in perplexity what to believe. 
 Whenever I have asked any one, who complained of the 
 contradictory teaching, I have always found that he himself 
 had very clear knowledge of the truth ; and that what he 
 meant to complain of, was that others were allowed to 
 contradict it. Having the Prayer Book in our own 
 language, any one, who does not set himself against the 
 Truth, may know it. Everything amiss involves its own 
 trial. An eminent living Roman Catholic has said, ' I 
 would rather have the open infidelity of the nineteenth 
 century, than the hidden scepticism of the Middle Ages.' 
 What must have been the state of the Galilean Church, 
 when Massillon had {for fear, he must have supposed, of 
 worse evils) to consecrate as a Bishop a notoriously bad 
 priest, and when Talleyrand, Sieyes, and other Bishops were 
 unbelievers. When Talleyrand was French Ambassador 
 at our Court, the ex-Bishop was told that an honorary 
 degree would be disputed if asked for at Oxford, and it 
 was, on this intimation, not asked for. 
 
 With regard to a visible head, the Church of England 
 has no independence which the Churches of Africa, Egypt, 
 Spain, France, Asia Minor, had not in the early centuries. 
 The only way in which a Bishop could interfere in another 
 diocese would be in the executive (by appointing its 
 Bishops), or legislative (in confirming or revising its Canons), 
 or judicial (in hearing appeals). But none of these powers 
 were exercised. The African Church had received the 
 
246 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 Gospel from Italy ; but when a right of appeal was claimed 
 by the Bishop of Rome, on the ground of a supposed 
 Canon of Nicaea, it was ascertained that there was no such 
 Canon, and the claim was formally refused by a full 
 African council. St. Augustine (who died before the 
 answer came) was one who counselled that things should 
 abide as they were until they should ascertain whether the 
 Canon alleged was really a Canon of Nicaea, since the 
 African Church had no such Canon. The Bishop of Rome 
 alleged, not his own inherent authority, but the supposed 
 authority of a Canon. The Bishops of Africa were ready to 
 obey a General Council, there was no question of obeying 
 the Bishop of Rome, otherwise. It w^as not even mooted. 
 
 The acts of Henry VIII could not have any bearing 
 upon our Orders. The Bishops who submitted to his 
 supremacy, were in communion with the Church of Rome. 
 Every sort of question has been raised about our Orders by 
 Roman controversialists, who were eager to find stones to 
 throw and careless what stones they threw : but all have 
 been answered, so that Bossuet in his day had no doubt 
 about our Orders, and other Roman Catholics since, who 
 have examined the question, have been satisfied as to them. 
 There is no doubt about them. 
 
 The threefold commission " Feed My sheep," " Feed My 
 lambs," is regarded by Fathers as a cancelling of the 
 threefold denial, by which St. Peter had forfeited his office, 
 to which our Lord's threefold question " Lovest thou Me " 
 points. In the sense in which the other Apostles were 
 sheep, St. Peter was also a sheep. As St. Peter was a 
 shepherd, so were the other Apostles. St. Peter had no 
 authority over them. They were [as] infallible as he. 
 The Bishops received everywhere their authority from 
 the Apostles, not from St. Peter specially. 
 
 Much of this you will have answered your friend already. 
 He must not come back except on the ground that he was 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 247 
 
 wrong in going, and with a full conviction, that, by virtue 
 of the succession from the Apostles, we have, in the 
 Church of England, the Power of the Keys and of 
 consecrating the Body and Blood of Christ. 
 
 He is in a sad position, but temporal circumstances and 
 his treatment by individual Roman Catholics seem to 
 have had much to do with it. And, if he believes that 
 Communion to be alone the Church of Christ, he has only 
 to return to its full Communion. He must do nothing 
 which concerns his soul with a doubting conscience. 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 The Admission of Irvingites to Communion. 
 
 Septe7nber 2,, 1874. 
 
 I should think that you might say to the Irvingites 
 that they must make their choice to communicate in their 
 body or in this Church. It is a strange delusion of Satan, 
 rested by its founders upon supposed miracles, ' the gift 
 of tongues ' (which they mistook), and prophecies which 
 were falsified, supposing that [their] apostles (most of whom 
 are now dead) were called by the Holy Ghost to meet our 
 Lord Whom they expected presently. 
 
 I do not think their being bewildered with this fanaticism 
 a ground for refusing them Communion. 
 
 I should say that I could not communicate them, if 
 they communicated with the Irvingites; but it would 
 be for them to complain to the Bishop, not being a case 
 contemplated by the rubric. I should say nothing in 
 public, if they came, but simply pass them by. 
 
 I should hope that the Bishop could not sanction their 
 covimunicating in both. 
 
248 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouvcric Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 The Same. 
 
 December 14, 1874. 
 
 There is, as you say, a difference between you and 
 me (and I suppose between the new school and the old) 
 about the relation of Priests to their Bishops. I am very 
 sorry for it, and for the whole attitude of the new school 
 to their Bishops. If they had prayed earnestly, instead 
 of despising them, speaking against them, ridiculing them, 
 as the so-called High Church organs have done (and when 
 I have read the Church Times, the correspondence of the 
 clergy has pained me more than the editor's articles which 
 pained me), things would not have been as they are. 
 
 I certainly did not contemplate that the Bishop would 
 support the Irvingites in communicating in their own 
 body and in the Church. As he insists on this, if I had 
 been a Priest under him, and he had commanded me to 
 communicate them, I should have obeyed him, and have 
 thrown the responsibility on him. . . . 
 
 In the matter of ritual, such Bishops as have required 
 compliance with the Purchas Judgement (as far as I have 
 understood) have not required such compliance as obedience 
 to them, but as obedience to a law, which we believe 
 to be non-law. 
 
 I recommended to you to advise the Irvingites to make 
 their choice, not because I thought that communicating 
 them was a sinful act, but because it would be confusing 
 to them, to be, at one time, receiving bread and wine. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 249 
 
 at another the Body and Blood of Christ, as the same 
 act of Communion. 
 
 I have no doubt that as the Courts always favour laxity, 
 if the Bishop were to prosecute you, you would be cast, 
 and so the further evil would result that it would be 
 established that the law permitted that Communion should 
 be given to those who received schismatical Communion 
 elsewhere. It has however another side, that they acknow- 
 ledge our Communion, and so may be more readily won 
 altogether to us than if they were severed off altogether. 
 
 I should have obeyed, but my own impression is so 
 strong that the Courts would give it against you that, 
 if I felt that it was my duty not to obey my Bishop in 
 this, I should have resigned my cure. But I should have 
 obeyed, not in view of these consequences, but as con- 
 sidering that he superseded my authority, and that he, 
 not I, communicated them, though he communicated them 
 through my hands. 
 
 The question is a wide one. It is, of course, a great 
 evil that more or fewer of our aristocracy should attend 
 the Presbyterian Communion in Scotland. But a wide 
 evil is not to be corrected, I think, by individual priests 
 disobeying their Bishops. 
 
 God guide you. 
 
250 spiritual Letters of Edimrd Boiiverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 Good Works. 
 
 [About 1 850-1.] 
 
 I think that you must wait with patience. Have you 
 been able to show your father the places of my writings 
 which I named to you ? I am sure that I believe nothing 
 as to the value of ' Works ' which any Christian must not 
 believe who believes the words of Holy Scripture, " He 
 shall reward every man according to his works." They 
 are Christ's works in us, not ours, if they are good, or in 
 whatever degree they are good. There must be such 
 things as " good works," however little any of us may feel 
 our works to be good. For Holy Scripture speaks of 
 being " zealous to maintain good works." But any good- 
 ness which any of the best works of the Apostles had. 
 came solely from the grace of Christ ; as St. Paul says, 
 not I, but the grace of God which was with me." I think, 
 if people thought more of this, they would not be so much 
 afraid of good works. Those who speak so against good 
 works, must think that people think of them as their own. 
 It is by the grace of God that we have the wish to do 
 anything which pleases God. It is by the grace of God 
 enabling us, that we do it, if we do it. It is by the grace 
 of God that any persevere to the end. And in the end, 
 those who are placed at the Right Hand shall be accepted 
 only for the merits of Jesus, and (as St. Augustine says) 
 ' God will crown His own gifts in us,' ' Deus in nobis dona 
 coronat sua.' 
 
 Perhaps, if you were to read this to your father, and 
 it did not satisfy him, he might suggest any question 
 which would enable me to satisfy him. 
 
 God bless you. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 251 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 Novel Teaching. 
 
 August 30 [1879]. 
 
 I am truly sorry for the unwisdom which you tell me of. 
 The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin originally meant 
 the taking of her soul into heaven. I forget when it 
 began to be taught that the body too was taken. Some 
 of the clergy seem to me to be vying with one another, 
 who should puzzle their people most. Faith will have 
 a hard struggle to maintain its ground. It has already. 
 The heresy of Universalism is, I fear, making progress. 
 Our Blessed Lord says, '■ When the Son of Man cometh, 
 shall He find the Faith on the earth ? " i.e. not faith in 
 Him, as a virtue in individuals, but the Catholic Faith 
 which He left as a deposit with His Church. Our duty 
 surely is then to impress on our people the great truths 
 of the Faith, so that by God's grace they may sink deep 
 in their hearts. This we did some forty-five years ago. 
 And God prospered it. One of dear John Keble's 
 simple earnest sermons would do more good to the 
 soul than any sermon about the Assumption of the 
 Blessed Virgin. The great truth which His Apostles, as 
 commissioned by Him, set before people's eyes was our 
 Lord, God and Man, crucified for us, and at the Right 
 Hand of God, in that ineffable Glory, making Intercession 
 for us. Of course this spread out into all the glorious 
 truths of the Athanasian Creed. He Himself was the 
 Centre of their thoughts, their faith, their devotion, their 
 
252 spiritual Letters of Edivard Bouverie Puscy. 
 
 practice. Now people's minds are taken off from those 
 glorious truths, to be taught about these lesser things, or 
 worse still about birettas ; and the people are alienated 
 from us by things about which there is a good deal of 
 pedantry. Why should people say ' Mass ' instead of the 
 Holy Eucharist ? I do not say that your clergyman does, 
 but very many do. They might have gone far to Catho- 
 licize England, if they would have taught as dear John 
 Keble did, without whom they very probably would not 
 have taught at all. Now they only strengthen a party. 
 
 Practically there is nothing to be done but by prayer. 
 You would do best to tell your clergyman, how these 
 novelties puzzle you, and if you like, you could show him 
 this letter. 
 
 God bless you. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 253 
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 ' Anti-Dissenters.' 
 
 1848. 
 
 I think I collect that it is chiefly, if not only who 
 
 has a strong negative way of teaching about Dissenters. 
 My own way of teaching has, I believe, been mostly 
 positive ; it is very easy to unteach, very difficult to teach. 
 We had, two years ago, anti-Dissenters more than enough, 
 who had yet no idea what the Church is. A dislike of 
 schism has nothing necessarily good in it, such as sorrow 
 for schism has. I do not think that were I called upon 
 practically to teach or speak on these subjects, I could 
 speak negatively at all. 
 
 In the past Dissenters have been filling up our de- 
 ficiencies. Dissent, indeed, must in the end all return to 
 the Church or go to some form of Deism or Atheism, but 
 it is mixed yet. As it retains its religious element it is 
 winning some to the knowledge and the love of Christ, 
 many of whom would not otherwise have heard of it. 
 It is an imperfect form of Religion, but as far as it is such, 
 and possesses life and fervour, it is good. It is, alas ! more 
 and more decaying, certainly in most of its divisions. 
 And this is a sorrow to those who love souls. But the 
 Church cannot afford to part with it until it can replace 
 what is good in it. In time God may give us clergy 
 to go to all our mines, ports, manufactories, and reclaim 
 our heathen population, and He will the sooner the 
 more people pray that He will send forth labourers into 
 
254 Spiritual Letters of Edivard Boiiverie Ptisey. 
 
 His vineyard. But in the meantime what there is good 
 in Dissent seems a sort of dispensation by which God 
 supplies to souls something that does not reach them 
 through the Church. 
 
 Of course it has an evil side as well as a good one. 
 And as time goes on the evil will more and more pre- 
 dominate in bodies separated from the Church. And as 
 bodies around become more and more secularized, they 
 will more and more oppose what is good in the Church, 
 not what is amiss in her members. Still, our feelings 
 should be that of compassion for individuals who are 
 under these systems as under a loss ; and I should think 
 the way to win them is not by speaking against Dissent, 
 which involves them in abstract questions, apart from their 
 own consciences, but in teaching them something which 
 they have not. Such as are Dissenters, if conscientious, 
 are so because it is the form under which they have 
 learned the Truth or to care for their souls. 
 
 To speak to them broadly against Dissent would be to 
 speak against God's Truth. A person who is so speaking 
 means to speak against the evils of Dissent, whereas the 
 other (if so be) only knows that, through that which is 
 spoken against in the mass, he came to know that he had 
 a soul to be saved and a Redeemer Who died to save it. 
 
 As far then as I spoke about the Church at all I should 
 speak of what it possesses and Dissent has not, not against 
 Dissent at all. 
 
 But I fear lest among those you have to do with are 
 very many with whom (as you have to teach it all) there 
 are questions antecedent to those of Church and Dissent — 
 as to their being Christians at all — about Righteousness, 
 Temperance, and Judgement to come. 
 
 In like manner I could not speak sweepingly about 
 religious tracts. Dissenting or other Evangelical tracts, 
 when they teach positively. Most tracts teach nakedly 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 
 
 255 
 
 one or two truths, as the corruption of Human Nature — 
 the Redemption of our Lord. If any one make use of this 
 teaching- to go on to deny the use of the Sacraments, or 
 the Church, or of good works, the evil begins then, but 
 it does not mostly lie in the tracts themselves. We have 
 only to acknowledge and enforce the Truth, and supply 
 what remains. 
 
 This is of the more moment because Satan is certainly 
 employing, and very successfully, much of the controversy 
 and even of the religious activity of the present day in 
 throwing people off from their own souls, and Judgement 
 to come. And to the poor who have a strong sense of 
 reality, to speak about Church and Dissent, while they are 
 conscious they are neglecting their own souls, seems unreal. 
 
 Of course I do not wish any of you to say anything of 
 this. This seeming praise of Dissent would mislead as 
 much as any vague censure of it (although indeed it is no 
 praise of Dissent — for Dissent, as such, is simply bad — but 
 of the good which is brought with it from the Body whence 
 it came), but I think it may be useful to you to bear it in 
 mind : for the more you feel yourselves the privileges of 
 being in the Church the more anxious you may naturally 
 be to warn others who are not of it, and yet not do it in 
 the way which might do harm. 
 
256 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 Sudden Conversion and Assurance. 
 
 In Baptism we are not merely admitted into outward 
 covenant with God in Christ, but we are ' born attain of 
 water and of the Spirit,' we receive the Holy Ghost, and 
 the first germs of spiritual life as Hooker says. 
 
 The spiritual life thus received, may be cherished, 
 enlarged, or on the other hand may be neglected, stifled, 
 or destroyed by deadly sin. 
 
 Not any deadly sin (such as a lie) estranges the soul of 
 the child from God, or throws it out of the state of grace, 
 so that it should need conversion, but such perseverance in 
 sin as would, if it died, cause it to be cast into hell. 
 
 The essence of sin is to turn away from the Creator to 
 the creature, preferring the creature to the Creator. 
 
 Whosoever has thus turned away from God, must, by 
 the grace of God preventing, disposing, enabling him, 
 return to God. 
 
 This return to God requires repentance and faith : 
 repentance including the abandonment and hatred of 
 whatever in the former life displeased God, sorrow, for the 
 love of God, that the soul has displeased God, a purpose 
 and commencement to lead a new life ; and faith in our 
 Lord Jesus Christ Who died for us and has promised 
 forgiveness of sins to all who with hearty repentance and 
 true faith turn unto Him. 
 
 If a person, after having been thus turned to God, 
 relapses or becomes lukewarm or falls into deadly sin, this 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 257 
 
 does not show the former turning to God was not sincere, 
 else David would not be supposed to have been sincere 
 before his fall. 
 
 Although this turning to God often takes place through 
 some outward event, either a visitation of God, or some 
 outward or inward warning whereby the soul, through 
 God's grace, is arrested and converted at once, it may 
 take place by degrees and almost unperceived by the soul 
 itself. 
 
 Grace, if lost, may be restored and re-established in the 
 soul through a series of Godly motions from above, which 
 the soul obeys even amid other partial disobedience, and 
 this change may be so slow, that the soul may not be able 
 to distinguish sensibly the latter from the former. So 
 again, after a first restoration, there may be one or more 
 relapses, breaking the course of a true conversion. But 
 although the period of the change may not be known, the 
 soul slionld know, if it has been the servant of sin, that 
 now by the grace of God it no longer serves sin. 
 
 The tests of being in a state of grace are, power over 
 deadly sin and continued struggle through the grace of 
 God against sins of infirmity, or in the words of the 
 Article, ' the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the 
 works of the flesh and their earthly members, and drawing 
 up their minds to high and heavenly things.' 
 
 Peace being one of the fruits of the Spirit, it is to be 
 expected that those who are in a state of grace, will be in 
 a state of peace. 
 
 This peace is an inward habitual gift, rather than any 
 result of intellectual reflection upon the spiritual state, so 
 that it may be possessed equally by persons who would 
 express themselves differently about their spiritual state. 
 
 It is certain as matter of faith, that Christ died for all, 
 and that He will receive all true penitent sinners who truly 
 believe in Him ; but it is nowhere taught that one who has 
 
 S 
 
258 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 been plunged in deadly sin, or been far away from God, 
 shall know at once with the certainty of faith that he has 
 true repentance ; and the more vividly he feels his sin, the 
 more he will often doubt whether his repentance is what 
 it ought to be ; so he may often be in considerable doubt 
 about his conversion, whether God has forgiven his sins or 
 no : and this very doubt is often a means of deepening 
 humility and repentance and hatred of sin. Such a one 
 will have evidences by which he might if he understood 
 himself discern that he was in a state of grace, but 
 a " broken and a contrite spirit" does not reflect on itself : 
 and he may very often throw himself more entirely on the 
 mercy of Christ because he does not find any confidence 
 in his own faith or works or repentance. 
 
 Again, persons who have needed no marked change at 
 all, may be disquieted because they see in themselves no 
 great increase in their victory over their spiritual sins of 
 infirmity. Another, who knows them, may see that sins 
 of infirmity (e. g. temper) are lessened in their degree or 
 frequency. To themselves they seem to be making little 
 or no progress or they even think they are going back, 
 because they are more keenly alive to their own failings, 
 and so may doubt their faithfulness to grace and their 
 whole spiritual state. 
 
 A direct supernatural assurance is sometimes given, 
 whether in conversion or as the result of a continual 
 spiritual life, but such assurance has not been promised in 
 Holy Scripture. It is not therefore to be expected, nor is 
 the absence of it any reason for any anxiety whatever 
 about our spiritual state. 
 
 The feeling of assurance may exist and be strong, apart 
 from any real Divine gifts, and must be tested by evidence 
 and especially by that of power against wilful sin and 
 striving against sins of infirmity. If a person seriously 
 doubts his being in a state of grace he should be directed 
 
Theological mid Ecclesiastical Subjects. 259 
 
 to look into himself whence this doubt arises, whether from 
 some unsubdued sin, or from lukewarmncss, or from want of 
 full reliance on his Redeemer. Each may require different 
 remedies according as the case is different. If it arises 
 from want of full reliance on his Redeemer, he should be 
 led to prayers and acts of devotion and trust in Him, or 
 else, as the case may be, to a more diligent watchfulness 
 against sin, or more careful cultivation of those graces 
 whereby God will strengthen his hopes, as more earnest 
 prayer, watchfulness as to sins of infirmity, humility, &c. 
 
 A person may doubt as to his state of acceptance with 
 God, from habitual mistrust of self, or from natural 
 temperament, or because fear predominates in his character, 
 or from awe at God's judgements, without any defect either 
 in faith or love, and consequently without any need for 
 conversion. The fact that a person has no ' assurance ' is 
 no proof that a person is not in a state of grace. 
 
 That assurance which is the direct gift of God may 
 appear to the person who receives it, in the form of simple 
 peace of mind, he knows not how conveyed. 
 
 Justifying faith is a loving belief in Christ as the Author 
 and Finisher of the soul's salvation, " Who loved me, and 
 gave Himself for me." 
 
 It is not the belief that one's self has that faith and 
 repentance through which His Redemption avails. 
 
 Faith, which is without love, does not justify (i Cor. 
 xiii. 2), but love exists in justifying faith in very different 
 degrees, and sometimes is not perceived to be love by 
 those who have it. Love often exists in what to the 
 individual seems the proof of the absence of love — dis- 
 satisfaction at the poorness of its love, and longing to 
 love more. 
 
 s a 
 
26o spiritual Letters of Edtvnrd Bouverie Pvisey. 
 
 LETTER XXVIII. • 
 Queries on the Same Subject. 
 
 1. Whether it is not distinctly written that the Peace of 
 God passeth all understanding ? 
 
 2. Whether this does not mean, as Luther says, that 
 many who have it not, think they have it, some have it 
 who fear they have it not ? 
 
 3. Whether the Pharisee in our Lord's parable was not 
 an instance of the first, and the prodigal son on his journey 
 before he met his father, an instance of the second ? 
 
 4. Whether it is not a presumptuous thing, a token in 
 fact of a lurking tendency to Rationalism, so to set bounds 
 to God's grace as to say He may not sometimes keep His 
 servants in doubt for a while, as He did the woman of 
 Canaan ? 
 
 5. Whether it can be shown from the plain Word of 
 God as interpreted by the Church universal, according to 
 the analogy of faith, that this state of partial doubt always 
 of necessity terminates before death ? 
 
 6. Whether in default of such evidence it be not a very 
 dangerous thing to reason from one's own impressions and 
 say, it was so and so in my case, therefore I am sure it 
 must be so in others ? 
 
 7. Whether going on such reasonings to exclude those 
 who cannot receive or preach the doctrine, as though they 
 rejected the Gospel, be not alarmingly like the error of 
 those to whom St. Paul said Anathema, because they 
 preached another gospel, i. e. they added unauthorized 
 conditions to our Lord's covenant of grace and so in spirit 
 broke the second Commandment ? 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 
 
 LETTER XXIX. 
 Prayers to God the Father. 
 
 April 28, 1877. 
 
 We cannot, plainly, pray to Jesus too much. He is our 
 Lord and our God, the Author of our salvation. What 
 I was afraid of was not that you should piay to Him 
 too much, but that you should pray to the Father too 
 little, and so might be guilty of negligence, through 
 
 which you might injure your faith, as poor lost 
 
 his. Our Lord Himself taught us to say, ' Our Father.' 
 When we say it, we pray to the Father as the First 
 Person of the Blessed Trinity ; yet not so, as if we 
 could separate Him from the Son and the Holy Ghost, 
 with Whom He is One God. 
 
 When the Church prays, ' Almighty and Everlasting 
 God,' she speaks primarily to God the Father, as the 
 Source of Being of the whole Holy Trinity ; but since 
 the Three Divine Persons mutually indwell One Another, 
 you do address All, since They are not three Gods, but 
 One God. 
 
 But generally, the more you can go to God, as a little 
 child, asking no questions, the better. If you were to 
 ask a child, 'To Whom have you been praying?' he 
 would say, ' God.' If you were to ask him, ' Who is 
 God ? ' perhaps he would say, ' Father, Son, and Holy 
 Ghost', but make no more questions. If you were to ask 
 him to whom he prayed when he prayed to Jesus, perhaps 
 he would say, ' To my Saviour, God and Man.' 
 
 So do, and do not speculate. 
 
262 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XXX. 
 The Scotch Communion Office. 
 
 I have, now as heretofore, had Articles sent me written 
 for the ' English Churchman,' recommending proposed 
 alterations in the Scotch Communion Office. I believe that 
 I am writing to a clergyman. I am myself perfectly 
 satisfied with the English Office. In the place occupied 
 by the words of Consecration it intellectually recommends 
 itself to me more than the Scotch. But the change recom- 
 mended by Bishop Wordsworth relates to words which 
 have expressed the Faith of the Church from the first. It 
 is one thing not to have them ; another to abolish them, 
 having them. It does not follow that the words recom- 
 mended by Bishop Wordsworth because they are Scrip- 
 tural express the whole truth. I believe that the word 
 ' become ' expresses what our Blessed Lord means by 
 the words ' This is My Body,' and that by rejecting the 
 word 'become' the Church of Scotland would, in fact, 
 be rejecting our Lord's words. 
 
 Of course, you do not think so. I write only as one of 
 a class who ought to be considered, as we consider others. 
 You are on the aggressive, promoting change. If I were 
 a presbyter in the Scotch Church, and it made such a 
 change, I should renounce its Communion ; if I were 
 a Bishop, I should part communion with those Bishops 
 who altered it. I have thought these many years that 
 the maintenance of our actual state is the only safety of 
 the Church of England. You promote change in the 
 Church of Scotland ; others promote it in the Church of 
 England. If either party succeeds, I believe that that 
 Church will go to pieces. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 
 
 263 
 
 LETTER XXXI. 
 The Number of Communicants. 
 
 April I, 1874. 
 
 The third rubric after the Communion Service must 
 be so far dependent upon the first before the Communion, 
 that now that the notice of intention to communicate is 
 universally disused (so that it would be thought intrusion 
 to enforce it) the celebrant cannot be bound to know 
 who or how many are going to communicate. Yet in 
 order to keep to the spirit of the rubric, I think that it 
 would be best if your communicants would fix different 
 days for themselves on which they would communicate, 
 so that there should always be some communicants. This 
 clearly was the intention of the Church, that there should 
 always be communicants. The Council of Trent also 
 regretted the solitary Masses, saying that they were owing 
 to the indevotion of the people ; so that if any among 
 us encourage them, they go against the Council of Trent, 
 as well as against the Prayer Book, and are more Roman 
 than the Romans. 
 
 I should then tell my people, that if there should not 
 be more Communicants I should be obliged to diminish 
 the Communions, in order that there might be Communi- 
 cants at every Communion ; that they should get rid of 
 this lazy way of going to Holy Communion and not 
 being fit to receive. 
 
264 spiritual Letters of Edivard Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 Such a case as that of there being no Communicants 
 among thirty present might be excused exceptionally, 
 but it cannot be the rule. If they will not be more in 
 earnest they must lose the Celebration. 
 
 You are quite right not to increase Ritual. It would 
 be spreading and crowding every sail, when no small 
 storm is upon us. The Ultra-ritualists are risking the 
 whole work of the last forty years, are putting all England 
 in a fever from which no good can come, and are selfish 
 towards the quieter members of the congregation, whose 
 devotional habits a simpler service suits better. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 
 
 265 
 
 LETTER XXXII. 
 Confession. 
 
 January 20, 1S70. 
 
 I was unable to answer your question at the time, and 
 perhaps now too it were best answered by another : 
 ' If our Lord were to come to judge to-morrow, should 
 you be glad to have heard His Absolving Voice to-day?' 
 For all which is done in His Name is done by Him. 
 It is true that Confession at first was only that open 
 penance for great sins which our Church gravely regrets 
 cannot be restored. But its use in lesser cases too was 
 learned by experience. The best way probably for you 
 will be to review your past life as a whole. This is of 
 great moment to all, whether they use Confession or no. 
 People think of their single sins in the evening, but 
 unless they look over their past [life] carefully, they have 
 no idea of themselves as a whole. They think perhaps 
 that they had better not have repeated this ill of their 
 neighbour, or sought praise for that thing, or have 
 coloured a story to make it look better : but they do not 
 see that exaggeration was a form of vanity that ran through 
 their life ; or that love of human praise has forfeited for 
 them God's praise for much, humanly speaking, well done ; 
 or that they have habitually injured love and humility 
 by looking on the wrong side of their neighbours ; or 
 that they have lived in an habitual robbery of God by 
 taking His gifts, as if they were their own. 
 
 If you wish it I could send you a tract which might help 
 you in that review, at the end of this month. Perhaps 
 after this review you might look on Confession and Abso- 
 lution as it is, as a gift of God, for which to be thankful. 
 For if Confession is sincere, Absolution is God's forgiveness. 
 
266 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XXXIII. 
 The Same. 
 
 Jan. 12 [about 1874]. 
 
 Confession in the earliest Church was only for those 
 few deadly sins which slay the soul, such as sins against 
 the sixth or seventh commandment, or apostasy. The 
 first instance of [confession of] venial sins was [in the 
 case of] St. Basil's monks, who used it as a discipline. 
 
 The Church of England does leave it free, believing 
 that true sorrow, for the love of God, for having dis- 
 pleased God, does obtain forgiveness from Him for 
 Jesus" sake. 
 
 Practically, it is found that Confession is a means of 
 grace, and is not a snare to people's consciences. It is 
 not necessary to the validity of a Confession that a person 
 should enumerate all sins, but only that he should not 
 wilfully keep back any because he is ashamed to own 
 them. 
 
 I have known it to be a great means of grace. It is 
 our Lord s Absolving Voice saying, " Thy sins be forgiven 
 thee " by virtue of His own words, ■' Whose sins ye do 
 forgive, they are forgiven." Though not absolutely neces- 
 sary, it has been found a great help on our way to God. 
 
 I have delayed writing, having been working against 
 time. 
 
 God bless you. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 267 
 
 LETTER XXXIV. 
 Fasting Communion^. 
 
 December 4, 1873. 
 
 Fasting Communion has a twofold aspect ; (i) with 
 regard to the well and strong, (2) with regard to the 
 delicate and sickly. There is no doubt that, in itself, the 
 practice of Fasting Communion has been from the time 
 of those irreverences among the Corinthians a universal 
 custom and rule in the universal Church. It was the 
 practice in the second century, and St. Augustine thinks 
 that it was one of those things which St. Paul says, 
 " I will set in order when I come." ' Whence,' St. Augus- 
 tine says, ' it is given to be understood that what is varied 
 by no diversity of custom was ordained by him,' Ep. 54 
 (Ad inquisitiones Januarii, i. § 8). It is not a written law 
 of the Church. ' It is ' (I quote a living Roman Canonist) 
 ' not written in any law except the spurious collection of 
 fifty Canons, called the third of Carthage. This is quoted 
 in all the books as genuine 
 
 It is also said (Devotus, t. i, p. 433), 'There is no divine 
 precept in this matter.' 
 
 ' These three letters, although they 
 contain many repetitions and traverse 
 the same ground, are inserted as show- 
 ing Dr. Pusey's constant and deliberate 
 teaching on this important subject. 
 Throughout all these letters, he 
 recognizes Fasting Communion as 
 a custom of the Church from the 
 earliest ages, which ought, as a rule, 
 to be observed by all members of the 
 Church. From the nature of the 
 
 correspondence however, the stress of 
 the argument is against the ' rigorist ' 
 interpretation of this custom. 
 
 ^ The ' Roman Canonist,' whom 
 Dr. Pusey is quoting, is most probably 
 wrong in regarding these Canons as 
 spurious. They are now generally 
 accepted as the authentic decrees of 
 that Council. In the next letter, he 
 expresses his own view of the Con- 
 ciliar authority on this subject. 
 
268 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 ' It is,' the same Canonist says, ' not a divine law. 
 Divine lavi^s are such as the two primary laws, and the 
 precepts of Holy Writ about faith and morals. These 
 are binding at all times and in all places. Human laws 
 are positive arbitrary laws, because men may enact, change, 
 and abolish them.' 
 
 It is then, I think, very vi^rong when some among us 
 have spoken of Non-fasting Communion as a deadly sin, 
 or even as sacrilegious. 
 
 If there had been anything irreverent in receiving the 
 Body and Blood of our Lord after food, our Lord would 
 not so have instituted it. If people say that it was to 
 connect the old dispensation with the new, our Lord 
 was the Founder of both. Again, if there were any intrinsic 
 irreverence, the last Communion of the sick would not, 
 by express provision, be allowed to be after food. 
 
 Again, it is allowed everywhere that the Christmas 
 midnight Communion should be after the food taken a few 
 hours before, without any intervening sleep ; and, as lately, 
 when Christmas Day was on the Monday, the day before 
 was no fast. But the division of the day at midnight 
 is only arbitrary. When the day begins at sunset it is 
 the same day. There is no difference in principle or in 
 the nature of the act in itself. Again, in the Roman 
 Church also, the non-fasting Communion cannot be 
 accounted intrinsically wrong ; since it was customary, 
 I am told on good authority, for the kings of France 
 and Spain to be allowed to take some brodium (broth) 
 before Holy Communion, and King James II was allowed 
 to receive the Sacrament after slight refreshment (tenuem 
 cibum) ' on account of his health.' 
 
 When they say it is a ' deadly sin ' they must mean 
 that it is against an express and known law of the Church. 
 The sin is in ' the formal contempt of the law or the 
 legislator.' But it appears that although there is a pious 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 269 
 
 custom from the earliest times, there is no law the infringe- 
 ment of which would involve ' contempt.' I suppose that 
 people would hardly say that the neglect of Ash Wednes- 
 day was anyhow a mortal sin. We should be very slow 
 in multiplying mortal sins. 
 
 In reverence then for the Holy Communion, even apart 
 from the primitive and probably Apostolic custom, I myself 
 have for very many years communicated fasting. I wish 
 that all Communions were early, and I cannot think that any 
 who believed that in the Holy Communion we receive 
 the Body and Blood of Christ, would have anything to 
 do with those Evening Communions which have been creep- 
 ing in of late. 
 
 But on the other hand, there has been, I think, a good 
 deal of sewing new cloth upon old garments. There are 
 many cases where from delicate health a person would 
 be unable to go out (certainly in winter) at an early hour 
 without having taken something, or where for months 
 together they would be where there is only late Com- 
 munion. I was myself present at one late Communion 
 when one fainted at the altar ; another vomited in the 
 street when he left the church. In such cases I could 
 not but think that our good Lord, if He were here, would 
 dispense with the bindingness of the custom of the Church, 
 and after a person had tried all expedients, the natural 
 one of taking food late the night before and the super- 
 natural one of prayer, I should think that such an one 
 would show more reverence and love for our Lord's 
 Body and Blood by receiving it at a definite time (three 
 or four hours) after light food, or sooner after some liquid, 
 than by excommunicating himself from It, it may be, 
 for months together, or being, very probably, incapable 
 of thought at the time of communicating. I should think 
 that, being of the nature of a positive law, it comes under 
 our Lord's rule, " I will have mercy and not sacrifice." 
 
270 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XXXV. 
 The Same. 
 
 March 15 [1879]. 
 I have been in the habit of saying, i. that there can be 
 no intrinsic irreverence in non-fasting Communion : since 
 {a) our Lord instituted it after Supper ; [b) the Communion 
 is given to the very sick, although not necessarily in 
 extremis. 
 
 2. That there is no positive law of the Church on the 
 subject. At one time it was supposed that there was. and 
 Bishop Forbes (whose authorities were often out of the 
 common path, but accurate) told me that, in consequence, 
 dispensation used to be given to kings of France and 
 Spain to receive Holy Communion non-fasting, because 
 it was thought edifying to their subjects to see them 
 communicate. Provincial Councils and the Council of 
 Constance have forbidden non-fasting Communion, but no 
 Council to which we owe obedience. 
 
 On the other hand, there is a universal custom, reaching 
 back to the second century, of communicating before 
 receiving any other food. 
 
 3. That the division of the twenty-four hours, so that 
 day shall begin at midnight, is of course perfectly arbitrary. 
 The Roman Communion has, of course, perfect right to 
 lay down what rules it thinks right for its communicants ; 
 but the Eastern division of the day, whereby night should 
 begin at sunset and morning at sunrise, is much more 
 natural. We retain it still in our ' midday,' ' midnight,' 
 ' fortnight,' ' sennight.' It is then perfectly arbitrary to 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 271 
 
 date the beginning of the fast from 12 p.m. Wc are not 
 bound to it, not being under the Roman rule. This 
 might meet the case of taking food, e.g. milk, at night 
 before 6 a.m. 
 
 4. Though, on account of the abuses of evening Com- 
 munion and their irreverence, one should be very sorry to 
 infringe the rule, yet the case of the midnight Communion 
 on Christmas night shows that the mere fact of having 
 taken food is not in itself a hindrance to communicating. 
 For if Christmas Day fall on a Monday (as it did a few 
 years ago), then the Roman Communion also allows 
 a person to have full meals all through the Sunday. 
 (I have heard two different accounts ; (a) that persons have 
 to abstain from 6 p.m. on the Sunday, which if the dinner 
 has been (as it may be) a full meal is no abstinence at all ; 
 or [b) that they are under no limitation.) But anyhow 
 there is no difference in principle between a person's 
 communicating at the midnight Communion after all the 
 meals of Sunday (the midnight being a merely con- 
 ventional distinction) and taking what is necessary to 
 sustain strength to keep up attention and so to com- 
 municate devotionally, at a sufficient distance of time. 
 
 All Roman Catholics hold that the Bishop of Rome 
 could dispense with the rule of communicating fasting ; 
 they cannot then hold it to be of Divine law. 
 
 5. The command to communicate is Divine : the rule 
 of not communicating after food is human. If then they 
 notably clash, the Divine command supersedes the human. 
 
 This is decisive in the case of A., in which you say that 
 'the priest told her that if she could not go fasting, she 
 ought not to go at all, even if she did not communicate 
 for years.' 
 
 But in the Church in which God has placed her, it is 
 a command to communicate three times in the year : 
 everywhere the Easter Communion is a law of the Church. 
 
272 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Ptisey. 
 
 One who did not communicate then would be ipso facto 
 excommunicate. She then, according to her adviser, is to 
 break a law of God and of the Church and excommunicate 
 herself. 
 
 I wish tiiat these rigorists, who ' sew new cloth upon old 
 garments,' would think a little what is meant by ' mortal 
 sin.' Of course all own (though they may not bring it 
 home to themselves) that mortal sin expels the grace of 
 God, and slays the soul in that single act. But non-fasting 
 Communion, according to them also, is only ' mortal sin,' 
 as breaking a command of the Church. I wonder whether 
 they think they commit a mortal sin and are out of the 
 grace of God if they neglect, on any occasion, to say the 
 Morning or Evening Service. 
 
 And then if A. did not know that it was anything 
 wrong, her 'director' made it mortal sin to her by telling 
 her so, for to break commandments of the Church in 
 ignorance is not sin at all. 
 
 I see that the Conductor of the Retreat to which B. went 
 also, said that * God would not allow a soul to be harmed 
 if it ' broke His command to communicate ' for years and 
 years.' 
 
 Our ladies would do well to abstain from going to 
 Retreats, if the Clergy are so to entangle them. I wonder 
 whether they teach as energetically against people speaking 
 evil of authorities and of their neighbours. Church papers 
 used to be full of it, yet God said, " Speak not evil one of 
 another, brethren." 
 
 This would be a very one-sided zeal. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 273 
 
 LETTER XXXVI. 
 The Same. 
 
 1879- 
 
 I think that the subject of fasting Communion is pressed 
 very unduly upon people's consciences by some, so as to 
 set an ancient custom of the Church against our Lord's 
 command, in some cases. 
 
 No one could doubt that early and fasting Communion 
 is the most devotional ; the poor feel this. The question 
 arises, when any do not feel themselves sick enough to ask 
 habitually for sick Communion at an early hour, and yet 
 it is impossible for them to go out without manifest risk 
 of health or life ; or (as is often the case in the country) 
 Holy Communion could only be had at a very late hour, 
 with the same risk, though they be well. 
 
 I have had letters asking me whether the rule of fasting 
 Communion was so absolute, that a person must give up 
 Holy Communion for months together : or from Clergy, 
 whether if they have to celebrate late, they must give up 
 their cure. I have been asked this even by the Chaplain 
 of a Religious House (with which I am not connected). 
 It has become a great practical difficulty. 
 
 Those who preach or teach the absolute duty of fasting 
 Communion, generally preach or teach (as far as they are 
 aware) to those who can communicate early, or where 
 there is early Communion close by. They have no idea 
 of the practical difficulty. It is sewing new cloth on old 
 garments. Midday Communions used to be the rule 
 among us. The early Communions of late years almost 
 date from the revival of about except in towns on 
 
 great Festivals. And it is a difficulty affecting thousands 
 of Clergy throughout the country. I suppose it would, in 
 very many cases, be a question between non-fasting Com- 
 munion and death. 
 
 T 
 
274 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Ptisey. 
 
 When asked, I have been wont to begin at the beginning. 
 {a) There is no irreverence in non-fasting Communion, 
 else, 
 
 (1) Our Lord would not have instituted it after eating 
 the Passover, for He was Lord of both Covenants, and 
 it was of His own Will that He so connected them. 
 
 (2) The Viaticum is everywhere administered after 
 food, but no one would make the last Sacrament an act 
 of irreverence. 
 
 (b) There is no binding law. I cannot here look over 
 books, but I remember seeing it in the hand of a learned 
 Roman Catholic. 
 
 (<r) It is then a very early and religious custom, 
 originating in such abuses as those at Corinth, yet not 
 without exceptions. Bishop Forbes, who had such varied 
 learning, told me that it had been the custom to allow kings 
 of France and Spain to communicate non-fasting, because 
 it was thought edifying to their subjects to see their kings 
 communicate. The Christmas midnight Mass at some 
 chapel at Rome was or is celebrated (I forget for what 
 reason) an hour before midnight. 
 
 {d) There is no difference in principle between com- 
 municating at the midnight Mass on Christmas night when 
 e. g. Christmas Day is on a Monday, and on the Sunday 
 full meals have been allowed, and taking food at an early 
 hour on the same day. For the division of the twenty-four 
 hours is of course wholly artificial. 
 
 (r) In some cases at least there would be a direct con- 
 flict between our Lord's command and the observance of 
 the pious custom. Whether the " This do in remembrance 
 of Me " be or be not addressed primarily to the priest, 
 it must include the people. Frequent Communion is the 
 life of the soul : prolonged abstinence would be starvation. 
 The Easter Communion is accounted the very least which 
 would fulfil our Lord's command. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 
 
 275 
 
 The rigid rule which is laid down by some now, that 
 non-fasting Communion is to be avoided as mortal sin, 
 would in very many cases clash with our Lord's command 
 to communicate. 
 
 I wish the young Clergy were less free with the words 
 * mortal sin.' I cannot understand why it should be ' mortal 
 sin.' It would not, according to their own showing, be 
 mortal sin in their people unless they made it so. For a 
 person cannot fall unknowingly into mortal sin. I suppose 
 they place the mortal sin in contravening a positive law of 
 the Church. I do not believe myself that there is any such 
 positive law of the Church. I wonder whether they them- 
 selves think that they commit mortal sin, whenever they 
 omit saying the Daily Service. ' Mortal sin ' is, as you know, 
 what kills the soul at one blow. Do they mean that one 
 who communicates non-fasting kills his soul ? . . . 
 
 I believe non-fasting Communion comes under our Blessed 
 Lord's rule, " I will have mercy and not sacrifice," and 
 I feel sure that if He were here, He would dispense with 
 the custom Himself in many cases ; as of the weakly. 
 I am certain that He would rather they communicated 
 non-fasting than were starved. 
 
 Fasting Communion is, I believe, a pious custom to be 
 aimed at and commended, not one to be enjoined under 
 penalty of mortal sin. This is bewildering to me, and 
 would, I should think, confuse in people's minds the thought 
 of sin altogether. 
 
 I need not say that we old Tractarians communicated 
 and communicate fasting, but we cannot lay the burden on 
 the shoulders of the weak or sickly. 
 
 T 3 
 
276 spiritual Letters of Edward Boiiverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XXXVII. 
 
 XOX-COMMUNICATING ATTENDANCE. 
 
 Advent Eve, [1879]. 
 
 My reason for not putting in ^ anything about non- 
 communicating presence at Holy Communion was, that it 
 seemed to me a different kind of recommendation from 
 the others in my letter. They were, in fact, ' You have 
 forgotten your first love : you are not so earnest as at the 
 beginning : repent and return to it.' 
 
 This seemed to me the tenor of those two earnest 
 laymen's letters. But the rising early in order to be 
 present at Holy Communion was not one of these. With 
 7is '-, not priests only, the first thought was to communicate. 
 Our life centred in Holy Communion, past or to come. 
 If any came into a church where there were preparations 
 for Holy Communion, he made, on the spot, as earnest 
 preparation as he could, and communicated. We should 
 have thought the opportunity to be a call. To have gone 
 away would have seemed to us to be excommunicating 
 ourselves. If we rose early, it would have been to 
 communicate. It was our one thought. Of course this 
 implied a verj' different state of things. Our week was 
 divided between thanksgiving for the last Communion and 
 preparation for the next. 
 
 But again, I have been afraid of spiritual laziness in the 
 non-communicating attendance. I hear that the actual 
 
 ' He is referring to an Address which he had issued to the members of the 
 English Church Union. - i. e. the older Tractarians. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 277 
 
 Communions arc few. There is no preparation for ' hearing 
 Mass.' Some go, are satisfied with having performed 
 their duty, but return in a lazy state. This would not of 
 course be if the frequency of communicating is regulated 
 by a spiritual adviser. I used to advise earnest persons 
 in the world to communicate on Sundays and on any other 
 day, in which they would not be \cd, by the hurry of the 
 day, to forget Whom they had received in the morning. 
 Then the being present on any other day would be a gain. 
 What I am afraid of is, lest they should lazily substitute 
 presence at Holy Communion for communicating: not 
 even feel that, if their habits of mind were better, they 
 might communicate daily as in the Apostles' time : not 
 trouble themselves for not being fit to communicate 
 oftener, or even make a devout spiritual Communion as 
 being unworthy of actual Communion. I am afraid of 
 laziness in everything, and people being satisfied, while 
 resting on their lees, with very little. 
 
 I suppose that all non-communicating attendance at 
 Holy Communion should be accompanied with a real 
 confession of unworthiness of actual Communion (as in the 
 ' Paradise '). If this were done, I should suppose that people 
 would return much humbler than, from the popular way 
 of speaking, they seem to do. At least I hear it spoken of 
 as an act of Adoration, without any reference to a person's 
 own self. 
 
278 spiritual Letters of Edward Boitverie Piisey. 
 
 LETTER XXXVIII. 
 Difficulties about the Burial Service. 
 
 January 4, 1864. 
 
 All blessing this year and always to you and all yours. 
 
 It has always seemed to me that the difficulties raised 
 about the Burial Service really apply to reading any 
 Burial Service at all. Every one knows that the ' sure and 
 certain hope ' applies to the Resurrection generally, not to 
 the individual over whom it is read. There are only the 
 expressions, ' Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God 
 of His great mercy to take unto Himself and 'as our 
 hope is this our brother doth.' But we know so very little 
 of any other, of his light, his temptations, his resistance, 
 his repentance, the secret relations of the soul to God, 
 that one can have some degree of hope where one does 
 not knoiv any one to have died finally impenitent. How 
 very few are they, even of the bad characters in Holy 
 Scripture, of whom one should be absolutely certain that 
 they are lost! Only those very few, of whom Holy Scripture 
 says it. But if one is not absolutely certain that they are 
 lost, then one must have a hope that they are saved. One 
 knows not what God may do in that last hour, when they 
 have no power to express themselves. One is sure that 
 they are saved, who have not finally rejected God. 
 
 And if one has any hope at all, then one is sure that 
 God has taken each just at that time, which He in His 
 Eternal Wisdom and Love knew to be best for them. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 279 
 
 He, without Whom not a sparrow falleth to the ground, 
 how should He not order the outlet of Hfe as is best for 
 those whom He created and redeemed in His Infinite 
 Love ? 
 
 But neither would it do any good to alter any part of 
 the Service. To say any part of it, even the Lord's 
 Prayer, is to express hope. Else why say it over the 
 individual ? If it were only to express our o\Vn belief 
 generally, we might just as well, or better, say prayers in 
 the Church. To say any prayers over the remains of the 
 departed is to include him as part of the Body of Christ. 
 Tliis is the ground why we are not to use it over the 
 unbaptized, because they are not part of the Body of 
 Christ. We do not mean that they are lost, but that they 
 are not part of that Body of Christ which prays and to 
 whom the prayers relate. 
 
 In that dreadful case of the drunken sexton at 
 
 who, to clear himself, communicated in the morning, and 
 committed suicide in the precincts of the church at night, 
 
 dear consulted me, what could be done, if the 
 
 jury should call it temporary insanity. I could not think 
 that he could say any one prayer, because every prayer 
 implies a hope. We went over each prayer. He agreed 
 with me. The jury did bring a verdict ' Felo de se.' 
 
 You remember saying that he had never known a 
 
 case in which he had to read the Burial Service in which he 
 had not some, however varying, shade of hope. Except 
 in those cases in which God visibly interferes, those words, 
 "Judge nothing before the time," seem to apply especially 
 to that case where judgement is to take the office of our 
 Judge, unless He have taken it Himself unmistakably. 
 
 And in those terrible cases, men's feelings and consciences 
 would bear out the Clergy. I remember the case of one in 
 
 , a known infidel, who had been trying to seduce 
 
 others to infidelity, who awoke from his bed of adultery, 
 
28o spiritual Letters of Edzvard Boiiverie Pusey. 
 
 said 'I am ill,' and fell back dead into the arms of the poor 
 being, the sharer of his sin. Strange to say, his infidel 
 companions wished to have him buried with the Service of 
 the Church. The clergyman said he could not, and they 
 carried the body to [another town] where his history was 
 not known. 
 
 But, except in such extreme cases, it would be wrong for 
 the individual clergyman to pronounce sentence. And so, 
 any change which should leave any choice, would be utterly 
 wrong. Then, the only other change would be to sacrifice 
 the friends of the good for the bad, and make the Service 
 over the good less religious, in order to make it less 
 unsuitable to the irreligious. And yet, if you go over the 
 Service, the other parts which are now less prominent 
 would only come out into greater prominency if the 
 stronger expressions were pared off. What, for instance, 
 would that text mean, " Blessed are the dead which die in 
 the Lord," unless we hoped that he over whom it was read 
 had so died ? and so on. Until men should have frozen 
 out the last ray of expressed or implied hope, it would 
 still be unbefitting to those who are really lost. And 
 when it was done, it would be most ghastlily unmeaning 
 to have any Burial Service at all. 
 
 I believe that our refuge in this case, as in thinking 
 about those departed, about whom one may have ground 
 to be anxious, is in our own ignorance and in God's 
 mercy. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 281 
 
 LETTER XXXIX. 
 Reading in Preparation for Holy Orders. 
 
 I suppose one may take it for granted that any one who 
 comes to ask for a course of theological study is, at least, 
 well acquainted with the letter of Holy Scripture, such as 
 might be acquired through the Daily Lessons, and the 
 frequent reading of Holy Scripture in church. Otherwise, 
 the first step would be a knowledge of the Holy Text 
 itself, and especially a careful study of the Historical Books 
 of the Old Testament. This presumed, the object would 
 be to deepen the knowledge of Holy Scripture, of the 
 substance of the Faith, and of practical wisdom, with some 
 knowledge of the History of the Church. 
 
 In this we should begin with the Gospels as the centre ; 
 and in this, I suppose, what persons would chiefly need, 
 would be the deeper meaning of the whole, and of the 
 several words as drawn out by the Fathers, rather than 
 mere verbal criticism. It would then, probably, be best to 
 begin to study the Gospels, either with the ' Catena Aurea,' 
 or each Gospel with some one Father who had commented 
 on it : — St. Matthew with St. Chrysostom and St. Hilary ; 
 St. Luke with St. Ambrose ; St. John with St. Augustine 
 and St. Chrysostom. 
 
 This study would not only bring out the context, and 
 connexion, and meanings of Holy Scripture which people 
 are not in the habit of thinking of, but would, incidentally, 
 bring a person acquainted with a good deal of exposition 
 of other parts of Holy Scripture. It is like reading Holy 
 Scripture with a new sense. St. Ambrose, especially, brings 
 one acquainted with a great deal of Holy Scripture. 
 Besides, in this study of the Gospels, much might be learnt 
 by way of meditating on them. 
 
282 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 If the ' Catena Aurea ' were used, it would probably be 
 best to take two chief Fathers only at first, that a person 
 might not be lost in the manifoldness and fullness of 
 exposition. Other expositions might be reserved until 
 afterwards. 
 
 The reading of the Fathers themselves has the advantage 
 of their being a whole, and that their mode of practical 
 teaching, in connexion with the exposition of Holy 
 Scripture, is so learnt. 
 
 After, or with this, might be taken the Exposition of the 
 Psalms, by St. Augustine, both as teaching the spiritual 
 meaning of the Psalms (which it does even amid variance 
 of translation, but much more when the translation is the 
 same), the relation of their meaning as to our Lord and 
 His members, and for the great value of its moral 
 teaching. 
 
 For a first study of St. Paul, no work would perhaps give 
 such a general view of the scope and connexion of the 
 Epistles as St. Chrysostom. St. Augustine, again, beautifully 
 unfolds St. John's Epistles. 
 
 Together with this, it would be best to take some hard 
 book, which should be the subject of real study, in order to 
 make it your own. Butler's ' Analogy ' may be presupposed. 
 Then Hooker, Bk. V, ought to be turned ' /;/ sticcuin et 
 sanguinem' The deep view of the connexion of the 
 Sacraments with the Incarnation is probably hardly to be 
 found elsewhere, save in the Schoolmen. ' Pearson on the 
 Creed ' should follow, and later ' St. Athanasius against the 
 Adrians,' with the notes in the Library of the Fathers. 
 There is in these a very important doctrine, upon which 
 people, if not instructed how to think, are continually 
 thinking amiss, and even unconsciously falling into heresy. 
 On the doctrine of Justification should be read Bishop 
 Bull's ' Harmonia,' or Mr. Newman's work. 
 
 Bishop Bull's ' Defensio Fidei Nicenae ' should be taken 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 283 
 
 later, if there is opportunity ; and, as a great repertorium on 
 all the questions which have been raised on sacred doctrine, 
 Petavius ' de Trinitate' and ' de Incarnatione.' 
 
 For History it might suffice, in this stage, to read Euse- 
 bius and Collier's ' English History.' Parts of Bingham's 
 ' Christian Antiquities ' might also be read. Eusebius is 
 a very suggestive book as to further questions. 
 
 On Moral Subjects, and as to practical teaching, I suppose 
 he could hardly do better than take Bishop Andrewes' 
 Festival Sermons, on account of his reverent and loving 
 way of dwelling on Divine Mysteries. Bishop Taylor's 
 Sermons, ' Life of Christ,' ' Holy Living and Dying,' for 
 personal practical experience. Newman's Sermons for 
 deep moral and religious truth, and to read himself. 
 Manning's Sermons for vivid realizing of things unseen, 
 and the end of our being. St. Augustine's were named, and 
 those on Select Portions of Holy Scripture (Library of the 
 Fathers) might be added to them, as models of clear, 
 affectionate, fatherly teaching. Perhaps on Penitential 
 Subjects might be added the ' Sermons at St. Saviour's, 
 Leeds.' More direct spiritual guides are a Kempis, and 
 the ' Spiritual Combat, the Way of Eternal Life ' ; for 
 Devotions one might name Bishop Andrewes, and the 
 ' Paradise for the Christian Soul.' 
 
 In this whole course of study it is best to prevent 
 weariness by combining at least several portions of it. 
 Especially every day should be taken one of the harder 
 books, upon which, for the time, the whole mind should be 
 concentrated, if but for a short time, half an hour or an 
 hour ; and then the main extent of study be given to Holy 
 Scripture, keeping always some time for Practical Reading, 
 and that with a view, primarily, to the person's own soul. 
 
 Begin and end all study with at least a short prayer. 
 
284 spiritual Letters of Edimrd Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XL. 
 The Observance of Rubrics. 
 
 March i, 1844. 
 
 I have some difficulty in answering your questions, 
 because I have never had a parochial cure, and so cannot 
 judge of the temper of people. 
 
 I should think that there should be a difference between 
 those Rubrics which relate to yourself, and would affect 
 those only who wish to avail themselves of the provisions 
 so made, and those which would affect all who go to 
 church at all. We have, in restoration, not our own duty 
 only to perform, but to regard our people. It may be 
 ground enough for restoring anything, that it is required 
 of us ; but, unless people have been first taught to look 
 upon the Church as a parent, this, alojie, is rather a dry 
 ground for them. If we are pledged to obey every Rubric, 
 this is ground enough for us ; but for our people, it is 
 a cold way of resting the obligation, if it seem to rest 
 on the mere letter alone, apart from the value of the 
 appointments themselves. There is an obvious objection 
 in their minds, that the Church has not, for above a century, 
 had any power of revising her Rubrics, that we do not 
 know whether she would have retained them. It seems 
 to be speaking of an abstraction, rather than following 
 the directions of a living mother. And there is something 
 in this. We ought not to be in the state in which we are. 
 The very necessity of change implies defect and a previous 
 acknowledgement of it. Unless we were wrong before, we 
 should be wrong now ; and until people see that we have 
 been so, there is a rightful prejudice against changes. 
 
 Then, restoration ought to be the act of the body, so 
 that people should feel that they were obeying not only 
 disused laws, but a living authority. I do not, of course, 
 mean that there are not grounds of obedience for them 
 also, but that there is a good deal by way of set off, and 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 285 
 
 reasons why we should make people's way as plain as 
 we can, giving them grounds for what we do, and not 
 requiring them to rest on authority, without reasons, when 
 they can be alleged. But this in some respects takes 
 time. I think that harm has been done, by introducing 
 changes, without teaching people about them before, and 
 trying to raise their mind to them. It does not seem 
 to me right by our people, to bring all at once a practice 
 before them, which they have to receive or reject, so un- 
 prepared. It seems to me risking the putting them in 
 a worse condition, and a want of Christian consideration. 
 We should not set about restoring, as if things were in 
 our own power. We have not only acts and Services 
 to restore, but, which is far more, habits of mind to recover 
 in our own people. It seems to me an unpractical, incon- 
 siderate way (I do not mean of course culpably so, we 
 must do our best and make our way through mistakes) 
 to restore things as matters of course or mere obligations 
 on the minister, without preparing men's minds for them. 
 
 My own theory, then, for restoration would be, I think, 
 to commence at once those things which did not put 
 people decidedly in a worse position if neglected, and re- 
 quire them to choose at once for the better or worse. Thus, 
 unless there were local reason to the contrary, I should 
 at once commence Daily Service at an early hour, because 
 attendance on that office is at all times a balance of duty, 
 and being at an unusual hour (I believe an early hour is far 
 the best), it is not like a deliberate refusal. It is meant, as 
 things now are^ not for all, but for those who can attend. 
 
 The restoration of Communions is far more difficult 
 unless they also are placed at an early hour, which would 
 in itself be far best, and which in most places is almost 
 an absolute duty in the case of frequent, i. e. weekly Com- 
 munions. For, on the one hand, that feeling which has 
 been handed down to us of ' never turning the back ' upon 
 
286 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 It. is so valuable, that one might be risking serious injury 
 to persons, and much inward strife and distress, by bringing 
 them to the choice, unprepared, and might be breaking 
 down a valuable feeling ; or, on the other hand, we might 
 lead them to diminish preparation, and the awe with which 
 they now approach It. For there is among the uneducated 
 a much deeper reverence often, and unwillingness to ap- 
 proach without full preparation founded upon that reverence, 
 than among the rich. I should be disposed in this to lay 
 down no rule for myself beforehand ; but ascertain who 
 were communicants, learn something of them, and then 
 speak with them. 
 
 With regard to the Prayer for the Church Militant, 
 I think it would be best to prepare people's minds by 
 a sermon on intercessory prayer, which might make part 
 of a course of sermons on prayer (including the Daily 
 Service). For all which has been said about it of late 
 might make people think it a mere form or badge, and so 
 they might never come to feel the full beauty and value 
 of it, whereas, I think, if they learnt how Apostolic and 
 exactly prescribed by Holy Scripture it is, and how full, 
 none of the better sort of people could object to it. 
 
 For ordinary charitable collections, that way of collecting 
 at the door, leaving God's House, as if not to do it in 
 His sight, is really so heathen and irreverent, and the 
 other of offering the alms to Him with prayer for their 
 acceptance, at His Altar, is so beautiful and fitting, just 
 what any mind of simple piety would wish, that I can 
 hardly think there would be any difficulty, if the subject 
 were adequately explained, high ground taken, and withal 
 arrangements made as to length in collecting and privacy 
 in giving (by some sort of box or bag). 
 
 But the weekly Offertory is a high thing. It also is 
 so clearly Scriptural, and would seem such an obvious act 
 of grateful piety and such a manifold blessing on the week's 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 287 
 
 labours, that I should hope people might be brought, 
 without any great difficulty, to this also. Still, a habit 
 which involves a weekly sacrifice (more or less), which 
 acknowledges and implies a sense of our continual depen- 
 dence upon God, and so contrary to the ingrained habit 
 of mind, of thinking themselves lords of their money, 
 requires, alas ! some time to form, especially as the benefits 
 of giving, as contained in the sentences in the Offertory, 
 have been kept back from them. I should think people 
 ought to be prepared for this, by long teaching, individual 
 and otherwise, on the blessedness of Almsgiving. 
 
 Intending to carry out the Rubrics altogether, you would 
 restore Catechizing in the Evening Service, which, if pains 
 is taken, may be much more interesting and instructive 
 than a sermon. With regard to Baptisms, our Church 
 clearly never contemplated such large parishes as there 
 now are, and it would not be meant that the Service for 
 Baptisms should be a regular part of the Sunday Service. 
 The plan, then, which some Clergy have adopted, of having 
 them once a month in full Service, and others, if necessary, 
 at other times, seems to me, in a case of almost conflicting 
 rules, the best. 
 
 I hardly think it expedient to consult the Bishop, when 
 the case is clear, because it makes him responsible, which 
 they had often rather not be. I do not think that it is 
 any compromise not doing everything at once, provided 
 that it is your intention to do so, and you delay only 
 until you have prepared your people's minds for it. 
 
 I hope my delay has not kept you in suspense. I began 
 writing as soon as I received your letter, but have been 
 so pressed that I was obliged to break it off till now, and 
 you said you had some time. 
 
 (I have been obliged to express my opinion straight- 
 forward ; but you will suppose it all written with the 
 diffidence which one without experience ought to have.) 
 
288 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XLI. 
 Tractarian Reminiscences. 
 
 [February 5, 1879.] 
 
 I heard some time ago that you really had set to work 
 about the history of the early stage of the Oxford Move- 
 ment. Dr. , who came to see me yesterday, had 
 
 been moved by some early notices in some papers of 
 
 , to wish earnestly that there was such a history. 
 
 A generation, with whom he is brought into contact, is 
 so taken up with Darwinism, that it cannot understand 
 the interest in Theology which was the ruling passion 
 of Oxford forty years ago. This generation is awrapKTjs. 
 Darwinism is enough for its head and for its faith, upon 
 which faith it makes far more demands than the Gospel. 
 What it does with its heart I cannot imagine. It does not 
 even trouble itself to deny God; it forgets Him. 
 
 Of course there are better things, and a rising generation 
 which gives good promise for the future. 
 
 On the other hand, Dr. talks of the 'Ritualists' 
 
 of 1833! 
 
 It was a grand Movement, and if you could tell its tale, 
 before memories have faded, it would be a good work. 
 What a picture it gives one, to see dear Keble finding his 
 way with a lantern through the snow to his little church 
 at 5.30 on a winter morning to say the Litany for the 
 Church ' in its present distress ' ; or again, as an American 
 saw him, sweeping the snow off the path in the churchyard 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 289 
 
 for his parishioners, that they might come with dry feet 
 to the early Communion. 
 
 A very highly intellectual man, well known in Oxford, 
 told me that he was emerging from unbelief by aid of 
 Paley, when he heard dear Newman's ' thin voice ' in the 
 University pulpit. But before Newman had got through 
 three sentences his attention was arrested (he did not 
 know Newman by sight), and he thought — ' This is worth 
 h'stening to.' He said, ' Paley had moved my understand- 
 ing : this sent me home to pray.' 
 
 So now I have given you an anecdote for your book. 
 
 I sent one to dear John Keble to get settled as to some 
 Romeward unsettlement. He stayed a fortnight at Hursley. 
 John Keble did not say a word of controversy, but lived. 
 At the end of the time my friend told me that he was 
 quite settled and could work heartily in the English 
 Church. 
 
 U 
 
290 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 LETTER XLII. 
 Bazaars. 
 
 August 12, 1880. 
 I still detest Bazaars as you do. It goes against me 
 whenever I see a large sum collected through a Bazaar. 
 Still, it has its good side. Those whom one pities are 
 the buyers, for fear that they should think that they 
 were doing an act of charity, when they were buying 
 a knick-knack. But the workers do give their time. 
 One's instinct goes against it. But one should like to 
 know more about them. If buyers knowingly give five 
 shillings for what to them is only worth half a crown, then 
 I suppose that the other half-crown might do good for 
 their souls. But then there is the matter of fashion and 
 notoriety, which goes into the other scale. The Roman 
 Catholics think nothing of it. I have had Lottery tickets, 
 which I was asked by some nuns to dispose of, in which 
 I remember among the prizes were a pony and a gold 
 watch, &c. I returned the tickets, saying, ' I knew of no 
 one who would buy them ' ; but they are better than 
 Indulgences! You see I don't know enough of Bazaars 
 to have an opinion for others, as to what I should not 
 
 do myself. IMrs. would anyhow do a good deal by 
 
 all the trouble which she would take. If she fails, I will 
 put in among requests of Companions in the Paper of 
 the ■ Company of the Love of Jesus,' ' St. Hilda, a district 
 separated from the Parish of St. Saviour's, Leeds, that 
 
 God would give to finish the church, which is 
 
 built up to the roof-tree.' The Orphan House at Halle 
 was built through the prayers of the Pietists in their 
 early fervour. 
 
Theological and Ecclesiastical Subjects. 
 
 291 
 
 LETTER XLIII. 
 A National Church. 
 
 [1880.] 
 
 L.oving thanks for your loving letter. , in looking 
 
 on one side, our loss of discipline, forgets the advantage 
 of being ' a National Church,' that we claim as belong- 
 ing to us all who have not formally left us. We, the 
 Clergy, claim all who have been baptized, however un- 
 faithfully to their baptism they may be living. ' You are 
 ours, live as ours.' Faber, somewhere, says that he 
 ' should be in despair, but for the conversion of a drunken 
 Irishman now and then." He claimed the 'drunken 
 Irishman ' as already his. notwithstanding his drunken- 
 ness. The Sisters of Charity found many in Bethnal 
 Green who called themselves ' Church of England,' but 
 went nowhere. What a hold this gives to a mission[er] ! 
 ' You say you belong to us, live accordingly.' It appeals 
 to their affections. In my younger days, we claimed 
 as belonging to us every man and woman who had 
 not formally rejected us. I forget how I came first to 
 use the words ' my sons ' to the younger ones here. 
 Of course I did it as feeling it. But I was struck with 
 Tyrwhitt's ' account of its effects ; something of this 
 sort — that ' every rough lad who had just come up, found 
 himself claimed as standing in a personal relation to the 
 preacher.' The old ' my brethren ' meant the same, only 
 it lost its power, from being so common. What an appeal 
 our ' dearly beloved brethren ' is ! What a claim ! 
 
 ' See ' Hugh Heron,' by Rev. R. fulness of feeling that was authority. 
 
 St. John Tyrwhitt, p. 1S7, in which For it made every rough lad there 
 
 is a description of a sermon by Dr. present understand, that one of the 
 
 Pusey. The words are, ' He did what most historical persons he had ever 
 
 he alone could do, for he looked round seen claimed him, cared for him, and 
 
 on the crowd of undergraduates and bade him repent and be clean, and 
 
 spoke to them as his sons with a hold fast by the Faith.' 
 
 U 3 
 
IV 
 
 FRAGMENTS OF 
 CONVERSATIONS AND LETTERS 
 
FRAGMENTS OF 
 CONVERSATIONS AND LETTERS 
 
 I AM apt to say, ' If it is in the Bible, it innsi be true, 
 though I may not be able to explain it ; it has a meaning, 
 only we are not able to give it.' 
 
 A holy man wondered much why souls are so stunted, 
 why there is not a more vigorous growth. He thought 
 of all sorts of things. ' Is it the want of asceticism ? 
 Is it the want of love ? or prayer ? ' At last he discovered 
 that it arises from ' want of sorrow for forgiven sin.' 
 
 Satan was once a cherub, as we find in Ezekiel, and he 
 fell ! Probably from envy at us ; when he heard that his 
 high nature was to be passed by, and our poor nature 
 united with the Godhead, he could not bear it ; but though 
 he with his knowledge fell, the Seraphim continued stead- 
 fast, because they so burn with love. 
 
 And his own face would lighten up with love, while he 
 would pour out, ' Oh that boundless, shoreless ocean of 
 the Divine Love ! If we had not been told, we could never 
 have imagined it, that GOD .should unite Himself to us, 
 the least of all His rational creation, and dwell in o7ir hearts. 
 Oh the wondrous, marvellous intensity of that Love ! ' 
 
 He went on — ' God in His Immensity is without us : 
 God in His minute creation is still without us : God in 
 His Incarnation is still without us, but God within the 
 
296 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Piisey. 
 
 heart, dwelling in us, here we are united to Him. Hence 
 we may worship and adore Him.' 
 
 It is very remarkable how the telescope and micro- 
 scope were invented together : one showing the greatness, 
 the other the minuteness of God's works. 
 
 Modern Science is all on one lead — all of matter — it can 
 rise no further — it can touch nothing of spirit or of eter- 
 nity. Space is what God has made, and what He fills. 
 
 Time is nothing — if we wait it seems long : if occupied 
 it seems short. 
 
 I have often said, 'If you will explain to me the Eternity 
 of God I will explain to you the Trinity.' 
 
 God is everywhere, He is between you and me. God 
 is a ' Spirit,' and therefore we have no faculties by which 
 to understand His Being. Our only idea of a spirit is the 
 most fine air ; but that is matter, and not ' spirit.' 
 
 We cannot understand even our own souls, how much 
 less, then, God ! 
 
 I have often said, "God is wholly everywhere, and wholly 
 nowhere — for it is of faith that in God there are no parts.' 
 
 Wherever space is, there is God, for space is contained 
 in God, not God in space. 
 
 Some of my children have learnt to feel the Presence 
 of God, walking from here to there again and again. We 
 move about in God, He is around us and within us. 
 We are like tiny sponges immersed in the Ocean of God. 
 
 To gain the sense of this Presence is His gift, to be 
 prayed for, and sought by continually doing little acts to 
 please Him, so that almost unconscious prayer may grow 
 more and more. 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 297 
 
 When asked as to his own manner of celebrating, he 
 said that at the Consecration he always leaned over the 
 whole time, as he thought this the most reverential way- 
 he could use, as he could not bend quickly. At Cathedral, 
 he said, he could not do more, for ' some among us have not 
 been accustomed to any more,' and 'at such a moment one 
 could not grieve any.' 
 
 As to bowing to the Altar — ' We have always retained 
 that custom at Christ Church. If you think of the Altar 
 as the Throne where our Lord vouchsafes to come, of 
 course one must show all the respect we can. Even in 
 human things, every one bows to the Queen's throne, even 
 when vacant.' 
 
 Content with Church of England. 
 
 Your sister should resolutely dismiss all things 
 
 which are said against the Church of England as tempta- 
 tions. She is obviously not fitted to engage in controversy 
 as to the points at issue between us and Rome ; and it would 
 be unprofitable for her. She has, where she is, all things 
 necessary for her salvation : she has the Sacraments, the 
 Presence of her Lord, the forgiveness of sins, guidance 
 as to her duty. His grace for the subdual of all things 
 amiss. Her Saviour is always ready to hear her. She 
 has all which she could have anywhere. 
 
 To one distressed, he said — ■ 
 
 ' My dear child, you are not living in heresy and schism. 
 You believe all that the whole Church believed always and 
 everywhere till the division of East and West. You are no 
 more in schism than the whole Church unhappily is. It is 
 preposterous to imagine that St. John, who leaned on our 
 Lord's Breast, did not know all the Truth, or that he kept 
 it back. Is it possible to conceive that if he came to this 
 
298 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 earth again he would have to learn truths which he never 
 knew ? Your text argues all the other way. The Spirit was 
 promised to lead them into all Truth — therefore it did. 
 If it had not, it would not have fulfilled the promise. The 
 promise was to the Apostles.' 
 
 Less than a month before his death he was speaking 
 about the consecration of Archbishop Parker. 
 
 ' Of course we looked into these things (the due conse- 
 cration of the first Bishops after Mary's reign) in our early 
 days, when it was life and death to us. If I were not 
 absolutely certain of having received the power, every 
 Absolution I pronounce would be a horrible blasphemy.' 
 
 ' Parker was a very particular man, and would not have 
 allowed anything to be done imperfectly.' 
 
 ' Oh, I must read up my history.' 
 
 Memory. 
 
 Memory is an awful power, nothing is lost in it ; all 
 ready to wake up in an instant, as I have been told by 
 one who fell overboard : all his sins which he had ever 
 done came and stood out before him in an instant. 
 
 As they come up in this life, they give us the oppor- 
 tunity of saying to God, 'Would, O my God, for love of 
 Thee, I had not done it.' And so we come to be of the 
 same mind with God, even in those things which once 
 were other than His Mind and Will. 
 
 How strange the change of that one moment of death I 
 We think of people according to this or that outward 
 peculiarity, or this or that prominent defect, whereas the 
 real self is hidden within, rarely perhaps, or never wholly 
 seen, but, when it has been in the grace of God, bursting 
 out in all its b'eauty, when this outward mantle falls off 
 for a while. 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 299 
 
 Reckon everything which is not heard as so much gain. 
 God says, "Be careful (literally, anxious) for nothing: but 
 ill everytJiing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving 
 let your requests be made known unto God ; and the peace 
 of God sJiall keep your hearts and minds." He bids us pray 
 God for what we want ; thank Him for what He gives ; 
 and then promises that " the peace of God shall keep your 
 hearts and minds." He says, ' Do the one and God will 
 do the other.' We do not, of course, any of us, nearly 
 thank God enough. I fear that what will surprise us 
 most, when we see our Lord, will be the extent of our 
 own ingratitude. But He says, " Pray, thank, and the 
 peace of God shall, &c." 
 
 We may sometimes learn from the heathen. Terence 
 makes one of his characters advise another : ' On your 
 return home, picture to yourself your house burned down, 
 your daughter run away, your slaves gone, &c., &c., 
 and whatever of these things has not happened, set down 
 
 as gain^ So thank God, , for all the evils which have 
 
 not happened. 
 
 It is awful what power Satan has to put it into 
 a person's thoughts to do a thing instantaneously, which 
 spoils all he has been doing. I mean the devout feelings 
 longing to be like the Saints are so far good ; then comes 
 the quick suggestion, What do others think ? acted upon 
 as soon as thought of, and what was good was made an 
 occasion of evil. 
 
300 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 Talking among Women. 
 
 Eve of St. Barnabas, 1847. 
 You must indeed set yourself more resolutely against 
 this talking of self. Talking is one of the greatest snares 
 of women, and has the most faults in one. You cannot 
 expect that God will give you what you wish, while you 
 do not set yourself resolutely to amend this. There is 
 self often even in condemning self. This seems to be 
 one form of excitement. An idea takes possession of 
 you, and you follow it out, absorbed in so doing, and 
 not regarding the way of doing, or the faults it brings. 
 
 What worldly vanity about Patricianism ! I always 
 especially admire the vocation of the lower classes. For 
 the higher (as they are called) are fastidious, and often 
 do not marry ; but the poor [when they become Sisters] 
 give up, what is the dearest human wish of woman's 
 heart, some one who should love her best. 
 
 They forget that the King of heaven and earth was 
 the Carpenter, and the princes of the heavenly court, 
 the fishermen, the tent-maker, the tax-gatherer. 
 
 Their theory used to be, that all was misunderstanding 
 and would come right in Paradise. I reminded them that 
 the Day of Judgement came before Paradise. 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 301 
 
 On the Mistakes of Sensitive People. 
 
 July 16, 1877. 
 
 You must take care not to be over-sensitive or to 
 
 watch manner. I remember thought that I disliked 
 
 her coming to me, and declared that my countenance 
 showed it. The fact was, as I told her, that she came 
 in with a worried look and my face reflected this. 
 A person went to the late Sir Robert Peel to ask 
 him to do something for him. On Sir Robert Peel's 
 silence for a few minutes, he took umbrage and began 
 apologizing for intruding, that he ought not to have 
 troubled Sir Robert Peel, &c. Sir Robert Peel : ' Oh, it 
 is my unfortunate manner ; I was thinking in what way 
 I could serve you.' There is more wrong than right in 
 the world ; and so those who are apprehensive of wrong 
 will be more commonly right. But even if there is wrong, 
 Holy Scripture says, " Be not overcome of evil ; but over- 
 come evil with good." 
 
302 spiritual Letters of Edward Boiiverie Pusey. 
 
 To One taking up a Difficult Work. 
 
 It must take some time for things to settle again. 
 Remember the counsel given by the old men who had 
 counselled Solomon, to Rehoboam, " If thou wilt be 
 a servant to this people this day, and wilt serve them, 
 and answer them, and speak good words unto them, then 
 they will be thy servants for ever." " The meek shall 
 inherit the earth." 
 
 It is one essential qualification for an office to feel one's 
 self unfit for it. 
 
 ' And now (if one may use the language of better and 
 simpler days), if any find profit to their souls from this 
 little book, their prayers are asked by the unknown 
 translator, that she may have part with them in the 
 blessedness of knowing and loving God : and would that 
 they, who think their brethren so need to be censured, 
 would turn their censures into prayers for them, of which 
 we all have so much need ; so might our disturbed Church 
 obtain peace, and the prayers turn into their bosom who 
 offer them.' 
 
 On Devotions during the Hours of the Night. 
 
 With regard to waking in the night [for the purpose 
 of prayer], I should think it best to lie down desiring that, 
 if it be best, one should wake ; and on earnest desire 
 people do wake very wonderfully just when they wish. 
 But sleep cannot be trifled with ; it seems almost better, 
 as humbler, not to attempt to abridge it much. One 
 cannot abridge it long ; one sleeps when one ought not. 
 Early hours seem to be what suit us. 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 303 
 
 I should think seven hours' sleep was the average for 
 most people. Less may do for a time, but it makes 
 reprisals. Some may need seven and a half or eight. 
 Others will do with six and a half or six. Less in summer 
 than winter. 
 
 The thing to be secured is your devotions. 
 
 Bustle hurts the mind and soul and benefits nothing. 
 
 Set yourself specially to cultivate the sense of the 
 Presence of God, i.e. that you are walking about, acting, 
 thinking, in God. For He is nearer to us than the air 
 which we breathe. The air enters into our bodies and 
 is cast forth again : God enters our souls to abide there. 
 
 Remember that since God has said, " Speak not evil 
 one of another, brethren," it is a sin to do it, unless it 
 is a sin not to do it. Pray God to keep in your mind, 
 when you are tempted to speak evil, to ask yourself, 
 ' Mtist I say this ? ' 
 
 A good watchmaker is one who makes watches and 
 prays : a good housemaid is one who sweeps and prays. 
 
 Make acts of God's Presence, as ' What doest thou 
 here?' 'What is thy business ? ' " Thou God seest me." 
 
 Take all that befalls you from God : this would be 
 a great help — to think, ' It is God's Will for me " ; and 
 then leave it. 
 
 In acts which might be somehow to God's glory, offer 
 them to Him. 
 
 Set apart a fixed time or fixed quantity [for] unexciting 
 employments. 
 
 Try to do things more carefully and better, when alone. 
 
304 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 Be watchful against excitement and occupation in 
 outward things, so that they may not return to mind in 
 church. 
 
 Try to do things simply, as well as you can, and do 
 not be cast down when you do them ill. If your arm 
 were half paralyzed, you could not lift it well : only, lift 
 it as well as you can. 
 
 Seek to rule speech, and think how at Christmas the 
 Eternal Word became dumb and denied Himself the 
 saying 'Father and Mother' for your sake. (Isa. vii, 16: 
 viii. 4.) 
 
 CoUectedness is to do all as in God's presence. In its 
 perfection, a collected person would never do anything 
 useless or needless. Again, it is to have power over one's 
 self: to be restrained, not to let self go. 
 
 Make a rule about little things once for all, for a while, 
 and then think no more of them, that the mind may be 
 fixed on something better. 
 
 The way of looking about cannot be cured by watching : 
 it must be by occupying yourself in something else. 
 
 Do acts as well as you can. praying for help, and then 
 rest on God's hearing your prayer and do not examine 
 yourself till afterwards. If a man climb on rocks, he 
 must not watch himself, but look steadily at his point, 
 else he would slip directly. So in writing, if one thinks 
 of it, it stops one directly. 
 
 Pray while the hand is on the handle of the door, and 
 then do as well as you can. 
 
 Try to stop the first beginning of foolish thoughts. 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 305 
 
 Specially be earnest that the first morning thoughts 
 be of God. 
 
 Mere workings of the imagination are not sin. 
 
 Not only commend acts to God at the beginning, but 
 in the midst. 
 
 The mind must be in the work : but we may rise up 
 from it to God. 
 
 Aim to respond more closely to God : to commend 
 every act to His special grace : to seek more to be nothing : 
 to know your own nothingness : to grow in humility and 
 intense love of God and ardent zeal for His glory. 
 
 Thank God most heartily for any humiliation : if the 
 under will rebel, yet thank Him, yet not in your own 
 strength ; as nothing must be done in our own strength, 
 but in His. 
 
 Do not depend upon ordinary grace, but ask special 
 grace in every temptation. 
 
 Seek to do every day something which may win the 
 praise of God at the last. Dread praise iiozu, which would 
 rob of that. 
 
 As a leaf or the wing of the more delicate insects is 
 so slight that it seems nothing but the power of reflecting 
 the outward light, so may your soul be : yourself nothing, 
 God all. 
 
 Better use no violence, but be as God wills. 
 
 Take every humiliation as a special gift and kindness 
 from God, to cure pride : thank Him gratefully. 
 
 Consider contradictions, unkind words, &c., as benefac- 
 tions ; those who vex us as benefactors. 
 
 X 
 
3o6 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 That another's presence should make one do things 
 better, is not wrong. Self-consciousness is the punishment 
 of self-love. 
 
 Ask help before each Psalm, and then throw your mind 
 into the meaning of each verse. Falls^ then, are the im- 
 perfections of prayer. If this ends in asking help at every 
 verse I shall be glad. 
 
 We should humble ourselves before God in prayer [in] 
 the lowest humiliation before our CREATOR. Yet if our 
 nothingness and helplessness and want were fully felt, 
 prayers would not be said so carelessly as they are. 
 
 Nothing makes prayer bad or good but perseverance 
 and longing : all the rest are accidents. Sweetness is 
 God's gift : a sort of answer He sometimes makes to 
 prayer. To pray in dryness and heartlessness may often 
 be the most acceptable sort of prayer. 
 
 If a person longs earnestly to pray and yet falls asleep, 
 we hope God accepts the intention, though they lose the 
 things they might have asked for in prayer. 
 
 Prayer may be equally with words or without : it may 
 be ' Jesu ' : ' My God and my All ' : ' Love,' as desiring 
 its outpouring : ' Thy Glory/ &c. 
 
 Like the Samians throwing their empty sack before the 
 Spartans and saying the word ' Flour ' ; which they said 
 was a word too much, since if they only saw the empty 
 sack it was enough ; so if we bring our emptiness only 
 before God, He will fill it. 
 
 There is no danger in addressing Jesus alone in prayer, 
 because in public prayer it is chiefly to God the Father, 
 and at Terce to the Holy Spirit : and in praying to Jesus 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 307 
 
 we pray to the Father through Him, and especially in the 
 Son's own words. 
 
 We cannot tell whether the soul prays to God in our 
 sleep. 
 
 The soul is a holy and Divine thing : sick through sin. 
 First begun to be healed at Baptism by the Holy Spirit, 
 Which dwells in it, and more and more largely as He is 
 desired. 
 
 In walking, try to say some Psalm or verse as, ' My God, 
 be Thou my AIL' ' Thou art my soul's portion, O my 
 God.' ' Knit my heart unto Thee.' Look on any other 
 thoughts but these as impertinence and loss. 
 
 Strive to rouse yourself to prayer. 
 
 Do not make reckoning of thoughts which flash across 
 the mind, but pray to God. 
 
 O good Jesu, I would grieve, for the love of Thee, 
 that ever I offended Thee! Oh that I may never ofi'end 
 Thee any more with this tongue which Thou hast cleansed 
 by Thy most Precious Blood ! 
 
 Dust is the serpent's food and the penalty of sinful 
 words. 
 
 Meet thoughts about food with, * Be my meat to do 
 Thy will, O my God.' ' Feed me with the Bread of Life.' 
 ' Oh when shall I loathe all earthly things for love of 
 Thee ? ' 
 
 When excited, pray, 'Jesus, calm me.' 
 
 It would be a very good prayer, to offer God your whole 
 being, with a full earnest wish to do all to His honour and 
 praise : that is, to seek to please Him in all : and to agree 
 that every time the clock strikes you renew this with great 
 
 X 2 
 
3o8 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 intensity, though at the time you may not remember it, 
 or be engaged, or unable. 
 
 To ' rest in Him,' is to rely on Him : cHng to Him : 
 resign your whole self to Him : leave the care of yourself 
 to Him. He died for us: He made us: He sanctifies us: 
 He gives us His Body and Blood : He absolves us : He 
 loves us with an unchanging love : He loves us as we shall 
 be, which He knows in the midst of all the imperfections 
 and miseries which grieve us and ought to grieve us : yet 
 He knows what He will make us become. 
 
 We must come to Christ, 'Just as I am ' ; sick and poor 
 and naked : not wait to be anything. Not as if He were 
 only a just Judge and we obliged to have something to 
 say for ourselves. We must be like little children resting 
 on His Bosom, or lambs which He gathers ; if we must 
 cry, it must be on our Father's Bosom and be hushed 
 there. 
 
 The words we use are figures from bodily actions, but 
 they all mean the same thing — reliance and trust in the 
 Love and Goodness of our God. 
 
 The sight of our sinfulness must be to keep us humble, 
 but we must not be ungrateful for or forget the grace of 
 God, which gives the victory many times. 
 
 We must try to go on with a glad, hopeful heart. God 
 will help you, and ' finish the work in you.' 
 
 Think of all the company of Heaven around and you as 
 a poor penitent before Him. Or make an act of faith as, 
 ' O Lord God, Thou art about me on all sides, and fillest 
 everything, and art most present here : be present in my 
 soul and fill me.' Or, ' Oh when will all self, curiosity, 
 and earthliness be absorbed in Thy Presence ! ' 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 309 
 
 Try to picture our Lord on the Cross, or Rising from the 
 tomb, or Ascending to the Right Hand of God. 
 
 When the soul has no special prayer to make it would 
 be better to have a book to refer to. Sometimes a word 
 is enough, or the mere taking it. Better to pass on to 
 this or some new petition for self or others, than to be 
 buffeted with distractions. It is best to give the soul to 
 God, to work on it what He wills. St. Francis' ' My God 
 and my All ' must have been often repeated, and have 
 been but a small part of his prayer. 
 
 Novelty has a certain power over the mind in prayer, 
 and helps it. Books do but suggest prayer. 
 
 Wherever you find devotion, there pause. 
 
 Though you cannot see God, and believe, love, and speak 
 to One you never saw, it is no ' phantom,' but faith to 
 realize the unseen. 
 
 After Holy Communion you may pray to Christ as 
 within you. At other devotions either to Him on the 
 Cross, or you as the lowest and least in the heavenly courts, 
 as described in the Revelation. 
 
 To speak of feelings is a great ill. 
 
 Say the Collect for the sixth Sunday after Trinity. 
 Try to meditate upon it a little while — as ' Pour, pour, 
 pour.' ' Thee, Thee, Thee.' 
 
 Let your one prayer almost, be — ' O God, fill me 
 wholly with Thyself : that all self may be absorbed in 
 Thee.' ' Knit my soul to Thee.' 
 
 The soul may take that word, " Who is this coming up 
 from the wilderness leaning on her Beloved ? " 
 
 Speak to God as a child to One it may freely speak to. 
 
310 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 If anything seem good, thank God. 
 
 If evil thoughts assault, pray God. If a hundred times, 
 still pray a hundred times, and it will be a hundred 
 victories. 
 
 Go on resisting, by praying. 
 
 Pray to Jesus for the love of Himself, that the soul may 
 be full of Him and have grace to love Him : and do not 
 try to rouse feelings, or look for comfort, or consolation. 
 
 The more the soul learns to be hushed to outward 
 things, so will it be more inward. 
 
 To have ' the consciousness of God's Presence ' is 
 His blessed vouchsafement to some. His gift : to be 
 prayed for. 
 
 To be quiet in God's Presence is mostly a gift to be 
 prayed for. In praying this Collect (sixth Sunday after 
 Trinity) it may be quietness to dwell on the words, as not 
 being discursive. 
 
 Have that picture in your mind which you have seen 
 of our Lord, as a little Babe lying with outstretched 
 arms in a manger, as on a cross. Pray to be like Him 
 and to be of His Spirit. 
 
 Pray to cling closer and closer to God, the more trouble 
 you have : that trouble may bind you to Him. 
 
 Pray to be more and more humble, and that He will 
 build you up on that sure foundation. 
 
 You must not disparage yourself, but be grateful for the 
 grace of God. 
 
 Try to turn every trouble and anxiety into prayer to 
 God. 
 
 Try to forget earthly things in Heavenly. 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 311 
 
 Try to be gathered up in God. 
 
 Try to judge of things as God judges of them. 
 
 Try to love all in God and for God. 
 
 Try to be more dead to the world. 
 
 Try to care less about things of earth. 
 
 The Cross of Christ bind you to Him everlastingly ! 
 
 Usually it is best not to speak of God's favours : let 
 them ripen in your heart before you speak of them. 
 
 Calmness, serenity, and peace are the best signs : as the 
 direct fruit of God's Spirit. 
 
 Great sweetness is God's gift, to lead to thankfulness. 
 
 Dwell on the greatness of His Love. 
 It is of His Love if we have the least love of Him. 
 He loves us as He sees us when He has made us what 
 He wills. 
 
 He loves us as He will love us unchangeably. 
 
 He loves us as members of His Son : a child of God, 
 because a member of His own coequal Son. 
 
 Jesus loves you so as to die for you, and every desire to 
 love Him and hate sin is of His Love. 
 
 The great evil of sin is, that it is against His Love. 
 
 Pray to Him for love ; enlarged, great love. 
 
 Think of the precious stripes of Jesus which do away 
 all sin. 
 
 Have an ejaculation constantly ready to say, ' My God 
 and my All ! ' 
 
 Be very strict about the hour of Watch \ It may be 
 Almighty God waits for one more prayer before the 
 conversion of some one : it may be unfit for Him to grant 
 
 ' i.e. the ' Watch of Intercession,' undertaken by members of the 'Society 
 of the Love of Jesus.' 
 
312 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 it unasked : the Angels may be wondering that He should 
 do it unasked. 
 
 We may be as the Holy Angels. They ever behold the 
 Face of God : yet also minister to us tiresome, wayward 
 things. 
 
 God does not want our words, but our hearts to be fixed 
 on Him. Often the best prayer is when the soul thinks it 
 cannot pray at all. ' No sinner so great as I.' 
 
 St. Catherine of Sienna made a cell in her heart. Her 
 parents were urging her to marriage and trying to distract 
 her. Afterwards, in a most busy life of advising in politics 
 and every one seeking her, she could keep quite close to 
 God and without the least distraction. 
 
 Pray especially and earnestly for humility. Without 
 this you are building without a foundation : God can give 
 you no grace. 
 
 Getting on (in the spiritual life) is not by strides but by 
 little acts. Every real act of self-denial and humility is 
 a step. 
 
 Have some ejaculation for the day, or some Psalm. 
 
 At night say some verse till asleep again. Put all 
 thoughts away but that of Christ's Love. 
 
 Think badly of distractions. 
 
 In praying for others' faults, recollect how long you 
 have been correcting your own. 
 
 Desire what you pray for and pray the best you can. 
 
 When seeking any special grace, make it the subject of 
 more frequent self-examination. 
 
 Natural failings are to be overcome. Holy men have 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 313 
 
 pleased God most by the grace opposite to their natural 
 temper. We must never despair of God's grace not being 
 strong enough to overcome our sin. 
 
 Let any reproof make you enter yourself to see if there 
 be not some little drop of reason in it : if you have not in 
 some little way deserved it 
 
 Prayer for Humility, 1849. 
 
 O Lord Jesu Christ, Who, though God, didst take upon 
 Thee our flesh, and didst hide Thyself, and became subject 
 to an earthly parent, and didst call a woman Thy Mother, 
 give me, I beseech Thee, true, deep humility. May I take 
 the praise given to others, as if mine, and grieve for their 
 faults as mine own : may I seek in all things to please 
 Thee alone : cast myself into others' minds for the love of 
 Thee: seek their salvation as mine own: long that each 
 soul should be what Thou wouldest they should be : desire 
 Thy glory and kingdom in the world of those hearts which 
 Thou hast redeemed : ever remember that for them Thou 
 didst die : ever strive to do things to serve them and so 
 please Thee : that hereafter, under the feet of Thine elect, 
 we may praise Thee for ever. 
 
 The Cross of Christ fill thee with His Love ! 
 
 Prayer of Blessing, 1851. 
 
 The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord lift up the 
 light of His countenance upon you and be with you in 
 the hour of distress and desolation, of dryness and deadness, 
 of temptation and weariness, of sorrow and trial, the hour 
 of death and the Day of Judgement. 
 
 To say the Psalms perfectly, is to say them to God ; 
 they need leave no impression. It is the spirit, not the 
 understanding, which is to do the work. 
 
314 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouvcrie Pusey. 
 
 The perfect way in everything is to do it heartily to 
 God, and pray ; not be absorbed too much in it. 
 
 Set yourself earnestly to receive any, the least word, 
 which can show you any fault, however small, even the 
 breadth of a nail in you, as caustic against self. 
 
 Do not be downcast at your continual trials and struggles. 
 Rather take them as matters of course. Regard them as 
 dints on a soldier's shield who has been fighting all day to 
 maintain his ground. 
 
 Do not be discouraged at all your faults. A child who 
 would pluck up a handful of grass by the roots, and takes 
 as much as his tiny hands will grasp, falls back, disappointed 
 and hurt. But if he patiently pluck one blade at a time, it 
 will take long, but be done. 
 
 Or like the boy who was sent to his father's garden to 
 clear it of weeds, but lay down in despair, till his father 
 told him to clear daily as much as he had lain upon ; so it 
 was, in time, done. 
 
 In faults, it is better to say, ' What could be expected 
 from me ? ' and humble yourself before God, and do not 
 dwell on it. 
 
 Do not be discouraged. Habits of years cannot be 
 plucked out in months, or even years. 
 
 To pray and to do single acts, is the way to gain any 
 grace ; and so collectedness. 
 
 One who was not full of self would look at things in the 
 abstract ; one who is so, looks at them personally. 
 
 There are four states which St. Augustine speaks of : 
 (1) that of nature, in which there is no struggle against 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 315 
 
 sin ; (2) of the law, where there is a struggle and defeat ; 
 
 (3) of the Gospel, where there is victory in the main ; 
 
 (4) the state of the blessed, where the victory is complete 
 and the struggle over. 
 
 The difficulty is to distinguish between the second and 
 the third, and not to despond because we are not in the 
 fourth. Where there is no strife, there is no crown. 
 
 Even St. Paul willed not at first to have the thorn in the 
 flesh : he cried out, " Who shall deliver me from this body 
 of death ? " 
 
 Where evil gives pain, there is not sin. Nothing is sin 
 which is not preferring the creature to the Creator. 
 
 Feeling a thing hard, or a trial, is not sin ; if we did not 
 feel it, it would be no trial. 
 
 The most blessed thing is instantly to consent to what 
 vexes as being God's Will ; like that good monk who was 
 no way put out by losing all his cattle, ' I suppose God 
 thought I had got too much.' 
 
 Try to make an instantaneous act of conformity to God's 
 Will, at everything which vexes you. Make a minute list 
 of these and classify them, and try to make the act 
 directly. 
 
 If it is about the poor, for example, if you are refused 
 anything, pray God to take care of them, to supply it to 
 them, to bless the trial to them. 
 
 Take everything as from the Hand of God. If it is 
 unreasonable, so much the greater the lesson of conformity 
 to His Will. 
 
 Let humility be your chief aim. Set Jesus before you, 
 Accused and Silent. 
 
3i6 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 It is a proverb, ' Humility comes through humiliations.' 
 To make an act of humiUty might cost nothing. Morti- 
 fications from others do cost. 
 
 Remember, if you have not the station you think you 
 might have, it might be the ruin of your soul. God sees 
 what is the best place for you. 
 
 The way to high things is through low things. 
 
 On Holy Communion. 
 
 In Holy Communion, seek no feeling or comfort, or 
 method or way of His Presence. Believe simply that in 
 It He bestows Himself, and pray Him to do so. Ask in 
 short words, unless the soul asks without words. 
 
 After Holy Communion, make acts of the mind to 
 recall It. ' Abide with me.' ' Leave me not.' ' Cleanse me.' 
 
 Spontaneous conviction of His Presence is His gift. 
 
 Ask for special graces at Holy Communion. Seek 
 deeper lowliness^ so that He may give you more grace. 
 
 After Holy Communion, speak to our Lord as assuming 
 He is present with you : some short word, as, ' O good 
 Jesu, how great Thy love in coming to me ! ' or ask for the 
 graces you need, and so on. 
 
 Always choose some special thing to ask for at Holy 
 Communion, and make it your earnest aim afterwards. 
 
 Christ is present with us by His Spirit, therefore use 
 spiritual Communion ; but in Holy Communion He gives 
 His very Body and Blood, His whole Self. Therefore 
 every day say a prayer to thank Him for this His great 
 condescension. 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 317 
 
 Before and after Holy Communion, thank Him, adore 
 Him ; this is better than to think of self about it, which 
 leads to self-reflection ; but to adore and thank Him is 
 going out of self to Him, in a direct way. 
 
 By all means, do not take food before Holy Communion, 
 if late, if you can help it. It is a custom of the Church, 
 not an order, probably from St. Paul's time. It may be 
 dispensed with in possible cases. 
 
 If having to go to Holy Communion late is only for 
 a few times, undoubtedly do it fasting. 
 
 ' Holy Communion ' is the highest name. 
 
 In spiritual Communion you may believe that there is 
 an increased Presence of Christ in the soul, although not 
 in the same solemn way as in Sacramental Communion. 
 
 Be very careful not to let the thought of Holy Com- 
 munion go away during the day. 
 
 After Holy Communion, take some text or word by 
 which to recall It often. 
 
 Make acts of reminding the soul of His Presence. Never 
 mind their being formal at first, till collectedness is gained 
 as a thing of course. 
 
 Pray God to bless disappointments when about Holy 
 Communion. Humble yourself, as our Blessed Lord 
 seeing you too unfit. Pray Him to come into your soul 
 and supply the place of what He denies. 
 
 Seek not at Holy Communion to feel anything; go, not 
 as hoping or expecting to find comfort or pleasure, but 
 pray Him only to come Himself to dwell in your heart 
 and unite Himself with it. 
 
3i8 Spiritual Letters of Edimrd Boiiverie Pusey. 
 
 On Calm. 
 
 When excitement is part of the natural constitution, all 
 that can be asked for, is to have it sanctified, as St. John's 
 naturally warm character was wholly turned into love and 
 zeal. Very remarkably, of the only three incidents we 
 know of his life, two speak of his ardent zeal. 
 
 It would be like trying to make a rapid stream into 
 a slow current ; all we have to do is to hinder its over- 
 flowing, and direct its course. 
 
 So that a person need not be dispirited about it. 
 
 Strive after, cultivate a more cheerful love of God. You 
 are His child ; think of yourself then, when full of faults, 
 as a poor, ignorant, foolish child, and try to do better, 
 but do not be discouraged. 
 
 Tell Him you cannot do anything as you would, or be 
 reverent, and pray Him to help you. 
 
 It would be far better, instead of many thoughts, with 
 filial love and confidence to do ever^'thing you think would 
 please God. 
 
 When ov'er-activity is the temper, meddling comes from 
 it ; if not done in a proud spirit, it is not sin, but im- 
 perfection. 
 
 Hurry and over-eagerness are the roots of uncollected- 
 ness, forgetfulness of God's Presence, and uncalmness. 
 
 For gaining coUectedness do acts slowly ; it may excite 
 impatience, but will at last, by God's grace, do good. 
 
 Eagerness about trifles gets beyond your own power. 
 You set the door ajar by beginning things eagerly, instead 
 of trying to set yourself to do them simply as to God, and 
 then you cannot stop the flood of distracting thoughts 
 which overwhelm you. 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 319 
 
 Pray to be calm and quiet and hushed, and that He 
 will vouchsafe you the sense of His Blessed Presence ; that 
 you may do all thuigs beneath His Eye: to sit with Mary 
 calmly at His Feet and hear His Voice, and then calmly 
 rise and minister to Him. 
 
 In Him do all, and do all to Him. Love Him alone, 
 and intensely and all in Him. 
 
 On Thoughts. 
 
 At Holy Communion it is best to make some very short 
 prayer, in order to avoid distraction. In such a word as 
 ' Lord, I am not worthy,' thoughts are so many it might 
 distract. 
 
 ' Come, Lord Jesus ' (is a help). So when the priest 
 comes it is not on a sudden, or any shock, but the answer 
 to the prayer ; you say ' Come,' and HE comes. 
 
 In distraction, it is quite well to pass on directly and 
 go on with your prayer. 
 
 So also in private prayer : only say something fervent 
 and intense. 
 
 Take no heed whatever of thoughts, not even to turn 
 them into prayer : only go to Jesus. Say some prayer. 
 
 Do not examine thoughts, but only if you have often 
 gone to Jesus : ' Knit me unto Thee ' ; ' Be my All ' ; and 
 let this be your confession. 
 
 In foolish, conceited thoughts, think 'How very silly!' 
 If of crosses, thank God for doing what is the very best 
 for us. 
 
320 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 Be sure not to recall bad thoughts, or thoughts of ill 
 towards another. 
 
 Think not so much of the past, as to do the best now. 
 The soul will thus learn thankfulness amid other things. 
 
 Correct having given a wrong impression to your own 
 advantage. 
 
 Be careful to correct exaggerations. 
 
 Confess faults, that so you may be more united to our 
 Lord, and attain greater grace. 
 
 What we do not will, is not sin : not to be confessed. 
 
 Frequent confession implies a strong desire to uproot 
 every fault. 
 
 We should feel ourselves nothing. That anything God 
 gives is beyond and against our deserts : that we have 
 nothing, are nothing, can do nothing, feel nothing. That 
 He only can do anything in us, and that anything He 
 helps us in is only through His boundless mercy. 
 
 Pray for humility, at Holy Communion, that you may 
 feel yourself nothing, and try earnestly to act as being 
 nothing: if things go wrong, it is better they should if 
 you can learn by that to be ' nothing.' 
 
 One sharp word is worse than all the faults you see 
 in others. 
 
 Remember the Pharisee. 
 
 Pray for a deep foundation of humility, built up with 
 love, to give up your own will and way. 
 
 If thoughts of vanity are not harboured, they are not 
 sin, not being a person's own. 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 321 
 
 Pray at every hour, or so, as an Advent prayer : ' O 
 sweet Jesus, Who didst humble Thyself to become a little 
 Child for me : make me humble as a little child, for love 
 of Thee.' 
 
 Pray for humility. To count nothing too little to do 
 for the love of Jesus ; nothing too high or holy to seek 
 after. That humility may deepen, and love rise in your 
 heart : that love may ennoble all done for God, however 
 low: rise up even to the contemplation of Himself. 
 
 A criticizing spirit is the direct opposite to humility 
 and one which dries up devotion. 
 
 Never make criticizing, overt observations : if mental, 
 turn from them. 
 
 Be very careful to follow any drawing which seems to 
 be the Voice of God. 
 
 It is plainly wrong to lean at prayer, when it would 
 bring sleep. 
 
 Complain to God of pestering thoughts, want of faith, &c. 
 
 Be careful not to look on in books at Service time. 
 
 To do anything in church which you know will bring 
 sleep must be wrong. 
 
 It is no matter omitting one devotion for another : only 
 that it be not through idle thoughts or laziness. 
 
 In dryness, have you made acts of resignation to God ? 
 In what proportion ? 
 
 Do not encourage imaginations of the future. 
 
 Y 
 
322 Spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 If you cannot speak to Jesus, yet cling to His Pierced 
 Feet. 
 
 To remember that God the Holy Ghost really dwells 
 in your heart, well considered, would make all things on 
 earth appear the ashes they are. 
 
 Have I ever told you of St. Augustine's story of the 
 man who complained to Almighty God about one of his 
 neighbours, saying, "O Lord, take away this wicked 
 person"? And God said, " Which}" 
 
 On Thankfulness. 
 
 Be thankful for everything : especially for what is 
 against your will. 
 
 Take everything from the love and mercy of God, Who 
 does all for the good of each soul. 
 
 If it is a time of thankfulness, let thankfulness be your 
 prayer; so in other times, other prayer; but thankfulness 
 and love are best, as going out of self. Eternity will be 
 full of love and thanks : so it is a beginning of eternity. 
 
 Thank God for every trial, everything which is hard, 
 every humiliation. 
 
 Of Meekness. 
 
 All we hear of Moses at first is that he was so 
 violent as to kill a man, but after he had endured all 
 the tiresomeness of those 6co,ooo people, from morning 
 till night, we hear that he was the meekest man in the 
 world. Still he fell into a sin of hastiness. 
 
 God does not want our words. We hear of Moses that 
 God said, "Why dost thou cry so loud to Me?" And yet 
 we are not told that he said a single word. 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 323 
 
 On Puhlic Prayer. 
 
 Collect yourself very earnestly, with your whole strength 
 praying for helj), at the places where you usually fail. 
 
 Pray for the Queen and Court, that it may be Christ's 
 kingdom and to His glory. Think of how great their 
 difficulties. If the Queen had as many minutes as you 
 have hours for retreat, how glad she would be, and how she 
 would improve them. 
 
 Pray for the teachers and the taught. 
 
 There is no excuse for acts of distraction in prayer. 
 
 In church try to read and fix your eyes on the book. 
 
 Pray earnestly to be able to say your prayers. 
 
 In church, if distracted, try at the first pause to gather 
 up, in one short thought, the sense of the prayer. Of 
 the Queen, her difficulties ; of the teachers and taught, 
 throughout the land. In the ' for all estates,' for the 
 unconverted, converted, and in distress. 
 
 In the Thanksgiving, thank for all mercies and make 
 a self-oblation. So, try to catch the sense of each Collect 
 in one thought, and pray it. It may be more intense 
 than the whole prayer. 
 
 To make confusion by one saying one thing and another 
 another, is very bad. 
 
 Pray and strain for intense devotion. 
 
 Every prayer may be said with many degrees of devotion 
 and meaning. 
 
 Pray for grace to pray them intensely. 
 
 Y a 
 
324 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 Do not be satisfied with habitual grace or with praying 
 at the beginning [of each Psalm], but go on praying 
 for grace. 
 
 To say ' I will love Thee, O God,' with the whole heart 
 is very different to saying it indifferently. 
 
 ' O God, Thou art my God.' ' V^e praise Thee, O God.' 
 
 Try to say ' God, help ' before each Psalm or change 
 of posture, and try to say the first words as earnestly 
 as possible. Make the heart ask. 
 
 Shame on saying anything ludicrous to the singing-class 
 in church ! It is God's House. 
 
 On Holy Scripture. 
 Read Holy Scripture with a commentary, to see its 
 deeper meaning. 
 
 Read in a Bible at church. 
 
 Read and pray : read and pray, if no thoughts come 
 without. 
 
 If dryness continues, and you find you cannot pray 
 in the first five minutes, take some book, which you have 
 chosen before ; not to be tied by it, but to be led by what 
 it suggests. 
 
 It would be plainly wrong to feel reading it ' a burden.' 
 
 You help to deaden your own mind by giving way to 
 dislike of reading. 
 
 Read Holy Scriptures on your knees: the Gospel of 
 St. John, 
 
 Pray God to speak to you through His Word ; and that 
 you may speak to Him on occasion of them. 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 325 
 
 Do not make it all your devotion, but listen to Him 
 in them. 
 
 When you hear Holy Scripture, may it be as His Voice ; 
 when you read, as hearing Him. 
 
 Be very careful about not using Holy Scripture in the 
 wrong place. 
 
 Read St. Matthew and the Revelation, and St. Chrysos- 
 tom ; the last to get deeper, fuller thoughts upon it. 
 
 In thoughts against Faith, fall back on faith : do 
 not argue or even try to put them down. There is an 
 answer, but you may not know it, or have it at hand. 
 ' I have a way of saying, " It is in the Bible, so it must 
 be true." If I do not see how, there is a way in which 
 it is true.' 
 
 Think of any sudden thought which strikes you, for 
 which you have no authority, that most likely it is not 
 just. 
 
 Let Him be your All. Have Him alone : seek nothing 
 but Him. 
 
 Dissatisfied thoughts of our Church should be a for- 
 bidden subject : if they come, pray to God. 
 
 It is wrong to speak of doubts : from their very nature 
 they may be untrue, and they may cast disquiet into the 
 hearer's mind. 
 
 It would be inconsideration and selfishness to disburden 
 one's own disquiet by adding to another's. 
 
 The moment of Holy Communion is no time for weighing 
 controversial points. To believe only 'that He gives Him- 
 
326 spiritual Letters of Edzcard Boitveric Pusey. 
 
 self as He wills: as He would without Sacrament,' when 
 what He promises is His very Body, is very awful I We 
 might say the same in any branch of the Church, the 
 Roman, or Eastern. 
 
 On this argument Dissenters were better off than we. 
 They look for nothing in the Sacraments which the\- 
 cannot receive at any other time by raising the heart in 
 prayer : so they are not disappointed. If we go, looking 
 for one thing and receiving another, we are disappointed. 
 They go subjective!}' and look not for anything objectively: 
 we look for a Great Gift. 
 
 Talking to others may increase disquiet. 
 Some may be more specially liable to receive impres- 
 sions and adopt them. 
 
 The meaning of ' Propitiator}- Sacrifice ' in the H0I5- 
 Eucharist is. representing to the Eternal Father the Death 
 of His dear Son, in praying for mercy herein believing 
 what all allow, and what, if rightly understood, perhaps 
 none believe an}' further. 
 
 Of this world, it is but an opinion that it will be again. 
 
 The redeemed will be engulfed, overstreamed, be-oned 
 in His glor}- and ever near to Him. 
 
 If we had eyes to see, we should see God, here present. 
 
 God, it is of faith, is indivisible and everywhere present. 
 
 God in ever}'thing shows us His Love. His Bod}' and 
 Blood are pledges of His Love. 
 
 Jesus loves us for no good thing in us, but out of His 
 boundless Love. 
 
 Ever}', the least thought of love, or desire to love, is 
 from Him. 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 327 
 
 God loves each for Jesus' sake. "Accepted in the 
 Beloved." 
 
 Every, the least good is from God : in short, all that is 
 not the devil's. 
 
 It is a most inverted thought to think love is on our 
 side : the very least desire to love God springs from His 
 boundless, unfathomable Love. 
 
 Do not think of every thought which overwhelms the 
 mind, that it is sceptical. Adore God only the more. 
 If He were not Infinite and utterly above our compre- 
 hension, He would not be GOD. It is our privilege to 
 worship and believe what we cannot understand. We 
 are surrounded with what we cannot understand. Scarcely 
 of anything can we know the 'how.' Rather think, 
 'Because I cannot understand, therefore I believe.' We 
 cannot understand each our own soul : how it can be 
 everywhere in us, wholly, and yet, where is it ? It can 
 reach in thought beyond all that is finite, and stretch out 
 to the infinite, yet what is it? If we imagine it, it is but 
 to think of it as thin air ; yet without it we do nothing : 
 if then we cannot understand our little selves, how much 
 less God ! 
 
 Matter appears to us infinite, as it is compared with 
 ourselves, yet we know it to be finite. Let this be 
 a shadow to us of God. All the words used of Him are 
 but shadows of the Truth : we cannot know anything really, 
 till we see the Beatific Vision. The joy of the creatures 
 for ever will be to see the Creator, and to know Him 
 [to be] Infinite. 
 
 Here we can only "see through a glass darkly," yet 
 every glimpse of God is His gift, to lead us to long more 
 for that most blessed, ever-longing, ever-satisfied know- 
 ledge of Him, which will be the bliss of Eternity. 
 
328 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 The Infinite love of God could not, perhaps, have been 
 shown but in His taking upon Him the nature of the 
 lowest (probably) of His rational creatures. 
 
 " Begotten before all worlds " means, not that it was an 
 act in time, but a state of Being from all Eternity. God 
 the Father was never without God the Son, and the Holy 
 Ghost Proceeding from Both. 
 
 The slightest glimpse of the Incomprehensible bears 
 down the soul : but from this adore Him all the more. 
 
 Think ever\- day, for a month, of the unspeakable 
 humility of God ; Who would take upon Him the nature 
 of His lowest rational creature, to teach that creature 
 meekness and humility. 
 
 The love of Heaven will be a dependent, adoring love : 
 so our love now must be adoring love. 
 
 Union with God — not hypostatic, as of our Lord with 
 the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit uniting Himself 
 with the soul of man — is its perfection. This may be 
 infinite. — from the first longing of love (which is from God) 
 to the intensest love of the Seraphim, all burning with 
 love. The soul is capable of infinite increase of this. 
 All perfection is in the intense love of God. Ever)- 
 religious act tends to this : to gain an increase of the 
 love of God : to die to outward things and so live more 
 to Him. 
 
 We cannot understand what a spirit is, therefore we 
 have no faculty by which to understand God, the Trinity, 
 or the body prepared for us hereafter. ' Spiritual body ' : 
 it will not be the sluggish thing which now weighs us 
 down. 
 
 Oh the unspeakable condescension of our God I that 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 329 
 
 He dwells in us. We could not believe it, if our Lord 
 had not said so. 
 
 Be very watchful against grudging devotion in others. 
 It is putting self as a standard and wishing God's glory- 
 diminished. 
 
 Covet earnestly the best gifts. 
 
 Pray for the grace seen in others. 
 
 Pray that they may have it more, and you also, to the 
 glory of God and the salvation of others' souls. 
 
 You might do more good if you were better. 
 
 Strive more and more for intense love. 
 
 Go on cheerfully, like a little child. 
 
 Try to see the graces in each, not the imperfections. 
 Do not compare one with another : as well might we 
 compare one flower with another. Each have their gifts 
 and graces from God : not to speak of inward gifts which 
 He knows. 
 
 If you see faults in others, remember you would be just 
 the same, but for the grace of God. In all remember that 
 they are much better than they seem. 
 
 Pray for every defect you see in another ; so shall each 
 turn for good into your own bosom. 
 
 If ever such a thought as envy at another's grace should 
 come again, humble yourself before your Lord, for the 
 miserable sin ; as if you did not wish for His glory, or 
 were indeed sorry for it. Detest it, abjure it. 
 
 Pray for the person that that very grace may be en- 
 larged in him, with the thought of His Five Wounds, and 
 that this grace which He purchased for him, be given him. 
 
33° Spiritual Letters of Edward Botiverie Pusey. 
 
 Above all strive against this sin, which is from Satan and 
 is his own sin — to hate God s grace in souls. 
 
 Long to be the last in the Heavenly Courts, which you 
 do not deserve to be at all, but for His Passion. 
 
 Rejoice in any grace in another which God has not 
 poured on you. 
 
 In these days, when devotion is so rare, we should 
 rejoice in it in any one. 
 
 If you have a bad thought about any one, pray for that 
 one. 
 
 If conscious of a fault in any, pray God to give the 
 opposite grace. 
 
 Take what befalls others, as from God. Pray for them. 
 Do not note feelings about them so much as the not 
 praying for them. 
 
 Force yourself to praise them. 
 
 Pray for inward reverence in those who seem to lack it. 
 
 If any thought of suspecting evil in another arise, pray 
 for the opposite grace for you both. 
 
 St. Philip Neri saw no ill in any but himself. 
 
 If we are sorry for others' faults, we shall not speak 
 sharply of them. 
 
 It seems quite easy to prefer any one to one's self — 
 by dwelling on the special grace in everybody, one's 
 straightforwardness, another's gentleness, and so on. 
 
 People are like flowers — one a lily, another a rose, 
 another a violet ; each have their separate grace more 
 developed than another. 
 
 When I was in London there was a great ugly wall 
 just in front of where I sat, but when the sun shone upon 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 331 
 
 it it became all-glorious. That is like us : we are ugly, 
 but when the grace of God shines on us we become very 
 different. There now, look— see that wall ! it is ugly 
 enough in itself: now see! how resplendent! 
 
 Compare self to others, but for self-abasement. 
 
 See evil in self: God's good in others. 
 
 Love God's grace in others. 
 
 In all thoughts of others, pray for them : so the dis- 
 traction will issue in prayer. 
 
 On Temptation. 
 It is better to dismiss thoughts, e.g. in curiosity, 'What 
 does it signify ? ' in pride, ' How stupid ! ' 
 
 That evil thoughts return is no token that they have 
 not been subdued. 
 
 On Self-Love. 
 Try to throw yourself out of yourself, by throwing 
 yourself into other's minds, and into books, and above 
 all by thoughts of God. 
 
 Self-love is like being in a mist, you cannot get rid of it 
 directly ; all you can do is to seek to rise above it. 
 
 God cannot give His gifts till this is subdued : it would 
 do harm, not good. 
 
 Self tries to persuade it is best to speak of self. 
 
 Be very strict not to speak of self except when asked 
 a question. 
 
 Be more resolute than ever against speaking of self. 
 Think, ' Is it necessary, or can it be avoided ? ' Take 
 examples from the lives of Saints, anything except self. 
 Choose silence. 
 
332 Spiritual Letters of Edivard Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 Seek not so much to forget self as to think of God. 
 Xot so much to forget your body as to think of your 
 soul, and of the account to be given to Ahnighty God. 
 
 Fix the heart on God, and so forget self. 
 
 To get rid of ' I,' the one object. 
 
 Regard speaking of self as you would touching hot 
 iron. As this is overcome, it is to be hoped other things 
 will mend. 
 
 To watch self-consciousness and think of self is like 
 stirring up mud to clear a river, or to hunt motes instead 
 of letting them settle. Best to think of something else. 
 
 ' To lose all consciousness of self,' St. Bernard says, 
 ' is one of the highest graces : happy they who gain it 
 even for short intervals.' Not to speak of self would 
 conduce to the gaining of this : it would be a great 
 .spiritual benefit. 
 
 Try to throw yourself into others' minds, to sympathize 
 more with them, and not to express anything which their 
 words suggest, of your former or present self. 
 
 Take the continual thought of self as a punishment 
 from God for your long sins. Remember you have no 
 more right to complain, than a man who has become lame 
 in a drunken fit. has to complain of his lameness. 
 
 Uproot every remains of desiring man's praise. 
 
 To speak from any exaltation of self, aggravates self. 
 
 Be very careful not to say anything to excite displeasure 
 against another. 
 
 Pray to keep from harsh judgement, or anything un- 
 loving. 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 333 
 
 About historical persons, if you know nothing good, 
 just say nothing. 
 
 There is no more stringent command in the Bible than 
 our Lord's words, " Judge not." 
 " Speak not evil one of another." 
 
 Never tell stories of others' follies or faults, thinking 
 how the Holy Angels regard such, and how it is against 
 humility and love. 
 
 If you fall into speaking evil of others, break off 
 suddenly with confusion. 
 
 One said to me, ' I used to ask myself, ^'May I say this 
 ill of my neighbour?" and I always found a reason for 
 it. Now I ask myself, " Must I say this ? " and I never find 
 a reason for it.' 
 
 Give no opinion against others if not a duty. 
 
 It is well to repeat anything good [of others]. 
 
 Take care not to speak of others in a way they would 
 not like. 
 
 In telling a Sister's fault, think if it is from love to her. 
 
 It is a bad sign only to be seeing faults. 
 
 To speak of character with a person in one's mind 
 is virtually 'judging.' 
 
 Never say anything which might foster an unkind 
 feeling : or of any one what does not tend to love. 
 
 Be careful not to avoid speaking to any one in particular, 
 from any slight dislike. 
 
 Excuses may be viewed in two ways. It is higher not 
 to excuse self at all : but in an imperfect state, perhaps 
 
334 Spiritual Letters of Edivard Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 it is better to say how a thing happens, as it is against 
 love to vex another by letting things seem to be done 
 carelessly. 
 
 Be careful not to say anything about a fault hurriedly 
 or eagerly. The rule (of the Sisters of Mercy) 'not to 
 reply ' is very valuable : it leaves no impression on receiving 
 no answer. 
 
 If fault is found by way of question, then to reply very 
 quietly is quite well. 
 
 Take all reproof as from our Lord. 
 
 Try to find out the thing, however small, which may 
 have led to it, even if the main point seems undeserved. 
 If not 'very angry,' yet, most likely, not so calm as your 
 Lord wills. 
 
 It is of more value to you to know of one ounce 
 of wrong in yourself than to have a hundredweight of 
 praise. 
 
 Gather up the least fraction of blame : it is of such 
 value to you. 
 
 Contradiction and blame are not pleasant, but they 
 are the caustic to our wounds. 
 
 The being sore at i-eproof may be, and is in great part, 
 from the love of God : that we are sorry to see ourselves 
 so imperfect, so far short of what God wills. But there 
 is pride in it too. 
 
 Be very careful against excusing yourself at the time : 
 make a strict resolve to say nothing : to receive it as 
 God's Voice : as His means of burning out proud flesh ; 
 and if blame is not deserved, take it as a means of 
 humiliation. 
 
Fragments of Conversations arid Letters. 335 
 
 Rejoice to have that discipline (of being reproved) 
 continued, which in the world ceases : there, no one tells 
 of real faults, yet all see them. 
 
 True, what is found fault with is not always very, very 
 bad : but every, the least fault is desired to be removed. 
 
 If not expressing love damps it, it would be better 
 to return to its expression. 
 
 Try to interest yourself in what others think and are 
 speaking of. Do not think of anything like it which you 
 know, but go on with their train of thought. This is far 
 more effort and far more loving. 
 
 In doubtful cases, when a thing seems suggested, do 
 what is most loving. 
 
 Be very tender about ; she may feel excluded, and 
 
 so the more liable to ' feel things.' 
 
 Little acts of love, foster love : such as asking of the 
 other's health. 
 
 Pray to love others so as to grieve for any fault in 
 them, and earnestly desire their perfection. 
 
 If you feel not to like any one, remember you wish 
 to be with that one in heaven. The little thing you see 
 amiss is, after all, but the slough which God will do 
 away before entering heaven. Think of the good and 
 beautiful in that one. 
 
 To feel irritation and not give way to it, is victory. 
 A person might tremble with anger, yet if he repressed 
 it, it would be victory. 
 
 In irritation, ' I ' comes in. It is what ' I ' bid which 
 vexes if not done. 
 
336 spiritual Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 I always say, ' Look on any one who vexes you as 
 a benefactor.' Such an one gives you an occasion to 
 exercise meekness. 
 
 Many seek humility, but we hear very little about 
 meekness. 
 
 Speak to others as you would like to be spoken to. 
 
 Give way to one younger when you can. 
 
 Give way to all, rather than dispute. 
 
 Be glad to find out one grain of being in fault, rather 
 than a hundredweight of being right. 
 
 Be careful of sharp words. 
 
 To look greedily or curiously at things is bad, but it 
 may be an involuntary action of the eyes. 
 
 The heap of sins within will not hurt whilst it does 
 not come out into acts. It is as a lion within bars. 
 To fret all day from curiosity to see a letter, or from 
 greedy wishes, would be no harm if you took no food 
 greedily and did not satisfy the curiosity. The act does 
 harm, for it is sin. Else to be without this conflict would 
 be to be without temptation : so should we never be 
 perfected. 
 
 We pray, ' Transform us,' that is, this mass of corruption 
 and sinfulness, into His Image. 
 
 When the sense of your corruption comes to you, pray 
 ' Make me what Thou wouldest have me to be,' and then 
 go on cheerfully. 
 
 Do not brood over falls, but pray to God to forgive 
 and change you. 
 
Fragments of Couvcrsntioiis and Letters. 337 
 
 When you gain collectedness and the mastery over 
 over-activity, things will go better. 
 
 Are you making curiosity a combat? 
 
 Quell curiosity, and everything which hinders the love 
 of God. 
 
 Curiosity seems sh"ght, but there must be a great deal 
 in it, as it was part of Eve's sin : it lets in distraction, 
 against which, if dead, the soul would have so much the 
 less battle. 
 
 If God in mercy takes away outward temptation and 
 so removes a battle, yet we must have some, and it must 
 be against negative things, as curiosity, being more thank- 
 ful and humble, &c. 
 
 Entirely extirpate curiosity. 
 
 Ask for nothing you can do without, or is for health. 
 
 Of course, never do the least thing against conscience. 
 
 To ask leave for little things is being like a little child. 
 
 To dislike asking from one particular person is to be 
 avoided : it might breed dislike of that one. 
 
 Complain of nothing. To complain is to assume that 
 you love yourself better than God does, and could do 
 better for yourself. 
 
 On Obedience. 
 
 Do things simply because you should obey your 
 Superior, and give up what you think would be right. 
 
 To subdue self-will is the great thing. To be put out 
 at contradiction is worse than to eat meat twice a day. 
 
 Z 
 
338 spiritual Letters of Edimrd Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 Affectation of manner cannot be removed at once. 
 Try to do each thing simply as you are told to do it : 
 without improving upon it : and leave the rest to God. 
 
 An affected tone is not perhaps in your power. Try 
 to fix your mind on the person you speak to, and your 
 subject, and not think of yourself. 
 
 Pray often, in thought of the Blessed Wounds, ' Lord, 
 all to Thee alone.' 
 
 If your bottle is full of self, God cannot pour Himself 
 into it : empty it of self, and God will fill it. 
 
 The Religious Life. 
 Having given up all for God, do not be fixed to little 
 trifles : for example, flowers. 
 
 In writing, you seem what you would wish to be : 
 in reality you appear what you are. 
 
 Do not do things on the idea of your 'holy vocation,' 
 but simply to please God. Think in each act what would 
 please Him. Pray to do better, when you try. 
 
 Strive after simplicity : to do all to please God. 
 
 All here are come to live to God alone, and should 
 be loved with superhuman love. 
 
 Do not talk of your ' life,' but live in good works. 
 
 Watch, lest self glide into joy at vocation. Speak not 
 to others that of it which they would mistake. Pray for 
 those who condemn you, as losing, in not perceiving God's 
 gift. A humble person would be pained at being made 
 something, whilst being nothing. 
 
Fragments of Conversations a) id Letters. 339 
 
 For you now it is best to look on the past as one 
 fullness of God's mercy and your own sinfulness — and 
 to live in God. 
 
 Union with God is sealed by the vow of celibacy. 
 Obedience and poverty are accidents : it is the vow of 
 chastity which makes a Sponsa CJiristi. 
 
 This may be carried out in the world, if it is impossible 
 to leave a dependent parent. 
 
 ' Crucify me, with Thee, to myself.' 
 
 On Recreation in a Sisterhood. 
 When reminded of God's Presence each half-hour at 
 Recreation, think how it has been [spent], and set off anew. 
 Begin Recreation with a firm purpose to be more collected. 
 To pray before speaking would tend to coUectedness. 
 In any pause, examine yourself and begin afresh, rather 
 than think of something to say. 
 
 On Sundays and holy days be more than ever careful 
 not to let self go : to be under restraint. On holy days, 
 having more liberty, strive to remember more and more 
 the Gift received. 
 
 On Fridays, laughter and loud talk are specially incon- 
 sistent. To come from fasting and those very solemn 
 prayers [on the Passion] to laughter ! 
 
 Watch against speaking of things of the world, especially 
 anything you might feel vain of 
 
 To go on with anything that vexes another is to turn 
 a holy Home into something worse than the world : for 
 even there a polite person blushes and turns the con- 
 versation when it annoys another. This is not the way 
 to mend a fault, but to aggravate it. 
 
 z 2 
 
34° SpiritiKxl Letters of Edward Bouvcrie Piisey. 
 
 The remedy for faults at Recreation is to lift up the 
 heart to God. 
 
 Recreation is given for amusement : do not let play 
 go too far. 
 
 Never tell of any good you ever did : it is losing God's 
 praise for man's. 
 
 In Recreation tell of what you have read. 
 
 Satan is very busy at Convent Recreation : he thinks 
 it is his best opportunity. 
 
 On Mortification. 
 Be very watchful not to eat the least thing out of meals : 
 it is Satan who would long to mar fasts, and it shows 
 that the least thing is of consequence. 
 
 Anything which crosses self is better than those self- 
 denials in which there may be self-importance. 
 
 Looking about and curiosity are great hindrances : also 
 wishing to know, and examining. 
 
 It is very bad to look at things while worshipping God. 
 
 To speak slower, and pause first, would cut off many 
 faults. It is a long lesson ; well, if it is learnt in ten 
 years. 
 
 To speak ever with prayer is a long lesson. Be not 
 discouraged at failures, but thankful it is no worse. Make 
 it a special aim. 
 
 Acts of self-mortification are not such proofs of love 
 as taking what occurs as His Cross : such as disappoint- 
 ment or contradiction. 
 
 Leave God for God. 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 341 
 
 St. Philip Neri never denied himself to any, whatever 
 he was doing : and so for you : if you have to leave Christ 
 for Christ, beg Him to be with you, and He will make 
 up your loss by Himself. 
 
 The want of any spiritual consolation is a very severe 
 punishment. 
 
 Outward mortifications may have an inward satisfaction 
 in them, so that the very pain would be a sort of pleasure, 
 as a proof of sincerity and a doing something. Mortifi- 
 cation of speech is the most severe, and would best suit 
 you : it would involve the most continual self-denial. 
 All spiritual writers agree in denying people out- 
 ward mortifications, by which they would kill them- 
 selves, and in saying that mortification of speech most 
 perfects. 
 
 To do all things more slowly and calmly and gently 
 would be a great good to try for. To try to pray before 
 passing from act to act : from child to child. Not to do 
 things against time : better do less, than hurriedly. 
 
 Food. 
 
 Take food as daily medicine against daily decay. 
 
 Seek to live as simply as possible : ofTer meals to God 
 before, during, and after, and take each thing as from 
 Him. 
 
 Do not talk of food. Complain of nothing. 
 
 Give yourself up, about food, to your Superior, and take 
 just what is given you. 
 
 In food, a little taken slowly does more good than much 
 eaten quickly. Quick eating may be from inattention, 
 or idleness, or greediness. 
 
342 Spiritual Letters of Edivard Bouvcric Piiscy. 
 
 Death. 
 
 The departed are to be prayed for as yet to be judged : 
 as in a state whose bliss may be increased by prayers ; 
 how, we know not, but leave to Almighty God. ^Martyrs 
 went straight to the Beatific Vision, and yet will be more 
 blessed after the Resurrection. Ordinary Christians are 
 not equal with them. 
 
 What the ineffable glory and delight of the first view 
 of the blessed world will be, no soul can think. 
 
 We cannot realize the circumstances of our death : but 
 think of that moment when all here, all man's praise, will 
 be nothing and God ALL. Think of things, ' What should 
 I think of this, how do this, at my last hour?' 
 
 We cannot foresee our trials nor God s grace. 
 
 In sickness, thoughts of death come, for every sickness 
 is an anticipation of the last. This life is the time of grace. 
 It is now we must gain the love of God. Our future 
 capacity for loving Him depends on what we gain now. 
 
 If any one is serving God we should wish them life, 
 that they may ser\-e Him more : — fill up the measure of 
 what God wills for them. Pray for this. 
 
 St. Paul, Apostle as he was, was in a strait, not knowing 
 whether to wish for life or death ; rather inclining to death, 
 but with no wish. 
 
 For yourself, value life, as having so much to do in 
 your own soul. 
 
 It is a very solemn thing to bear about one any illness 
 which seems God's messenger for death. 
 
 Death may be desired from love: 'Oh, if I may but 
 see and love Him, I would not care to be the lowest in 
 
Fragments of Conversations and Letters. 343 
 
 heaven.' Another, too, for love, may say, ' I would endure 
 any length of time on earth so that I might love Him 
 better for ever and be more near to Him.' 
 
 There are degrees in heaven : the soul here acquires 
 a capacity of love, though there to be infinitely enlarged. 
 Some will have their place amongst the highest, some 
 among the lowest Angels. Each will be rewarded accord- 
 ing to their works. 
 
 The duty of each, then, is to leave all wholly in God's 
 Hands : to pray Him with intense desire to do with us 
 what He sees will most further His Will for us. He will 
 then do what the desire prays, whether giving life, or 
 vouchsafing death. 
 
 Try to take every the least thing from the Hands of 
 God. Every pain, every cough, every degree of weakness, 
 every refreshment, sleep, waking, medicine, each, one by 
 one, from God. 
 
 When exhausted, say, ' O Jesu ! ' not ' Dear me ! ' 
 
 When tormented with vain imaginations, make the cross 
 and turn to some Psalm or good book. 
 
 When tormented with anticipations of food, say, ' Jesu, 
 Bread of life, be Thou my Food.' 
 
 Nothing can have been more blessed than the death 
 
 of dear . Her one desire and thought seemed to be 
 
 to live to God : to be with Him. She panted for some- 
 thing beyond her, which she now has : and you too may 
 rest in Him, even here, in your measure, as she does above: 
 whether in toil or in rest, it may be to Him. 
 
 Very blessed it was that through giving up her own 
 thought she received the Body and Blood of Christ on 
 her last day, and departed so in peace. 
 
344 Spiritital Letters of Edward Bouverie Pusey. 
 
 And now one of this Sisterhood is in Paradise, let the 
 others love one another more and more, and strive that 
 by no thought (as far as your own thoughts are in your 
 own power) or word or deed you may displease your 
 Lord ; or do that which at your last hour you would wish 
 undone. Love one another so that you may have no 
 thought or word to remember which you would desire had 
 been otherwise, when those words shall be said over you, 
 " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord ; for they 
 rest from their labours, and their works do follow them." 
 
 OXFORD: HORACE HART 
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