cWvWvCw V\V*WA 4 >A THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES Gift of Clarence P. Baker BLACKWELL'l THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE THE LIFE FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE CHIEFLY TOLD IN HIS OWN LETTERS EDITED BY HIS SON FREDERICK MAURICE IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. FOURTH EDITION $. o n K o n MACMILLAN AND CO. 1885 LONDON': PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SON'S, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION, THE present is not an abridged edition of my father's life. With some trifling exceptions, such as the suppression of the Preface to the last edition, which referred to matters of only passing interest, it is textually the same as the last. The accuracy of a statement I have made in Chapter X., Vol. II., was publicly challenged during my absence from England by His Grace the Archbishop of York. I have been unable to modify that statement, because the authority on which it rests consists : First, in my having myself heard the conversation, as I have given it, and having a most exact and vivid remembrance of its terms ; second, in the clear remem- brance of a lady, still living, of its general character ; third, in the remembrance of others, also still living, of my father's having immediately after the event repeated to them the terms of the conversation as I have given it ; fourth, on my father's frequent subsequent reference to it as the starting-point of his acquaintance with Mr. Hansel's Bampton Lectures. On the other hand, the Archbishop only alleges in reply that he does not remember the conversation, and that his subsequent relations with Dean Mansel were of a most friendly character. As I had fully anticipated that the Archbishop would have forgotten the conversation, and as I was well aware of his subsequent relationship with Dean Mansel, at the time I pub- lished the first edition, neither of these points have affected my absolute certainty of the exact accuracy of the statement as I have made it. In one point the Archbishop supplies a detail of some interest. The Sunday on which the con- versation took place was no doubt, as he says, April 18, 1858. a vi Preface to the Fourth Edition. At that time only two of the Bampton Lectures had been delivered. I have written more fully to His Grace on the subject in a private letter, but I think that these statements will be sufficient to explain why I retain the passage as it was at first written. Two suggestions have been kindly offered me by friends, too late for incorporation in the text. I had said (p. 648, VoL II.) that my father's name was in 1872 not known to the " Council " responsible for the National Portrait Gallery. This has been understood to mean the Council of the Royal Academy. But the Council of the Royal Academy have nothing to do with the National Portrait Gallery. I believe that the official designation of those who are responsible for the gallery is " Trustees," not " Council," and my expression has been so corrected. A friend points out that the rather confused penultimate paragraph of M. Maurice's letter on p. 23, Vol. L, should read " what to expect," not " what I expect" No doubt this is right. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. " No man's Life ought to be published till twenty years after his death." These, my father's, words startled me one day in his drawing-room at Brunswick Place. They were not expressly said to me, but as I had been, for some years before that time, urging him to put together his reminiscences of life, the speech came as a severe shock to me. "Not till twenty years?" I asked in a tone which left no doubt of my meaning, even if I had doubted beforehand that he was expressly thinking of his own life when he thus spoke. " No, not till twenty years," he answered, turning to me and speaking so emphatically, that at the moment he almost seemed to me severe. This conversation took place, I believe, about the year 1863 or 1864. It was impossible to ignore it when in 1872, after my father's death, I undertook the editing of this book. Every year that has passed since then has tended to convince me of the soundness of my father's judgment so far as it concerned his own life. Those who think otherwise say, and say truly, that the Present soon overbears the Past ; but when the characteristic feature of the life to be recorded is this that the man is one who has habitually, throughout his life, appealed, from what appeared to him to be the passing accidents of the hour, to that which appeared to him to be in its nature perennial this conquest of the Past by the Present is not unmixed loss. No doubt, if his judgment was right, as to what was fleeting, what permanent, it may yet happen that the new time, twenty years after, will have accidents peculiar to itself as little ready to harmonise with that to which he appealed as were the passing accidents of the period in which he lived: a 2 viii Preface to the First Edition. But, in the interval, changes will have at least become unmis- takable. Neither that which has gone, nor that which has taken its place, can by the very condition of things seem so authoritative against him as did the self-decreed infallibility of the time in which he lived. If his appeal was a false one, that, too, will have become tolerably clear. I should not trouble any one with these reflections of my own, but that I have found, in some instances, that, when I have mentioned my father's wishes, the reply has been that they were due to mere modesty on his part, and that I ought to have disregarded them. In that case I can only reply that, having had to con- sider the whole question carefully, I believe my father in his own case to have been absolutely right. Watching with some care, I am unable to see that any of the matter I have here to give is likely to be less interesting now than it would have been ten years ago. I publish now, only because, from circum- stances with which I need trouble no one, the question is beyond my control. I ought to add that, despite the very dogmatic and general form of the sentence with which this Preface begins, I am quite sure that my father did not wish to dogmatise for others ; and that the last thing he would have wished would be to say any- thing to give pain to, or to reproach, those who have judged differently as to what was best for their friends. He was very apt to put into the form of a statement of general principle, a thought which, in his own mind, he applied to certain cases in which he had been specially interested. I have to thank all my father's old friends, and numbers who hardly knew him, for the most kind help of all kinds. I think that they would on the whole prefer that I should not occupy this Preface in detailed thanks for kindness, which has been rendered in so personal a sense to him that I hardly venture to intrude myself between him and them, great as is my own sense of gratitude. To Mr. Llewellyn Davies, how- ever, my own personal and special thanks are owing as for many other kindnesses, so for the particular one of the care Preface to the First Edition. ix with which he has gone through the proofs cf this book, and for the many valuable suggestions which I have received from him. Perhaps I ought to point out one matter of method in the form of the Life. I have habitually used the letters as the substantive part of the biography. It is not a " Life and Letters." No single letter is here given, except for the purpose of adding something to the story of the Life, either as to facts, or as to the development of thought and character. Wherever any information was necessary to complete the biography, it has been given. Nothing whatever has been kept back or concealed as to my father. My sole object has been to present him as he was. But, as I believe that this is best done by allowing his conduct, as it shows itself in the action he took, and the decisions at which he arrived, to speak for itself, I have tried, without rejecting other sources of information, to give as nearly as possible an autobiography. F. MAURICE. LONDON, November 17, 1883. XI BIBLIOGRAPHY BY G. J. GRAY. 1825-6. 'The Metropolitan Quarterly Magazine.' [Edited by F. D. Maurice and Charles Shapland Whitmore, of Trinity College, Cambridge.] 3 numbers published. I. Nov. 1825, pp. 256 II. Jan. 1826, pp. 257-488. III. April 1826, pp. 248. [i John Milton's ' Christian Doctrine.' No. I. pp. 9-24. A Supplementary Sheet to Bentham's ' Book of Fallacies.' II. pp. 353-377- 'The Age of Folly.' I. pp. 1-8. II. pp. 257-279. III. pp. i-io. ' The New School of Cockneyism.' I. pp. 34-62. III. pp. 219-30. ' On Pastoral Poetry.' III. pp. 31-45. 'The Diary of Mr. Papster.' III. pp. 85-100. 1827. Montgomery's 'Pelican Island.' 'Westminster Review.' October. [2 1828. ' Theobald Wolfe Tone's Memoirs.' ' Westminster Review,' January. [3 1828. 'Sketches of Contemporary Authors.' [Contributed to ' The Athenaeum.'] [4 I. Jan. 1 6. II. Mr. Jeffrey and the 'Edinburgh Review,' Jan. 23. III. Mr. Southey, Jan. 29. IV. Mr. Cobbett, Feb. 12. V. Mr. Wordsworth, Feb. 19. VI. Mr. Moore, Feb. 22. VII. Mr. Brougham, Feb. 29. VIII. Percy Bysshe Shelley, March 7. IX. Sir Walter Scott, March n. X. Sir. James Mackintosh, March 18. XI. Maria Edge- worth, March 28. XII. Lord Byron, April 8. XIII. James Mill, June 18. XIV. Mr. Crabbe, July 30. 1828. May-July. Editor of 'The London Literary Chronicle,' which was joined with ' The Athenaeum,' July 30, with F. D. Maurice as editor. [5 xii Bibliography. ** ev of S. L. Blanche's Lyric Offerings/ July 30. Review of T. Davies' ' Estimation of the Human Mmd. A Teviet of Hares' < Guesses at Truth' August 13. Intellectual Arithmetic. [Reviews of Hutton s Theory and Practice of Arithmetic,' and Reynolds' 'Practical Arithmetic.] August 27. The Hamiltonian System. August 27. Review of M. Ancey on Infant Education. September 3. Lord Byron's Monument September 24, and October i. The London University and King's College. October 15. Spanish and Italian Refugees. November 5. The Spanish Exiles. November 26. The Universities of Europe and America. bridge. Decembers and 17. Mr. De Quincey and the London University, cember 24. Review of Hare's ' Children of Light' December 31. 1829. A Contributor to Lardner's Biographies. [7 1834 ' Eustace Conway ; or, the Brother and Sister.' A Novel. 3 vols., pp. 300 + 311 + 288. Richard Bentley. Crown 8vo. Anon. I 1835. ' Subscription no Bondage,' pp. viil + 125. J. H. Parker. 1837-8. Letters to a Member of the Society of Friends. [The Rev. Samuel Clark.] By a Clergyman of the Church of England. W. Darton & Son. Crown 8vo. Published in 12 parts, commencing January 1837. [See 1838.] [10 1838. 'The Kingdom of Christ; or, Hints on the Principles, Ordinances, and Constitution of the Catholic Church.' In [12] Letters to a Member of the Society of Friends. [Rev. Samuel Clark.] 3 vols. Vol. I. pp. xxxvi. + 332. Vol. II. pp. xviii. + 354. Vol. III. pp. xxviil + 45- Darton & Clark. Crown 8vo. Preface to Vol. II. dated January, 1838. VoL III. October, 1838. [il- Bibliography. xiii [This appeared in parts during 1837-8.] 2nd Ed. 1842. 2 vols. 3rd Ed. 1883. ' The Responsibilities of Medical Students.' A Sermon preached in the Chapel of Guy's Hospital on March 4, 1838, pp. 42. Barton & Clark. 8vo. [12 1839. 'Has the Church, or the State, the Power to Educate the Nation?' A Course of [6] Lectures [delivered during June and July, 1839], pp. 364. J. G. & F. Rivington. Crown 8vo. Preface dated at London, July 24, 1839. [13 Joint-Editor of ' The Educational Magazine and Journal of Scholastic Literature' from September to December, when it was published under the title of ' The Educational Magazine.' New Series. [14 1839-40. Contributions to the 'Encyclopaedia Metropolitana.' [15 1 840. ' The Educational Magazine.' New Series. Edited by Maurice. 2 vols. 8vo. [16 1841. ' Reasons for not joining a Party in the Church.' A Letter to the Ven. Samuel Wilberforce, Archdeacon of Surrey; suggested by the Rev. Dr. Hook's letter to the Bishop of Ripon on the State of Parties in the Church of England, pp. 23. J. G. F. & J. Rivington. 8vo. [17 Dated from Guy's Hospital, April 22, 1841. 1842. Three Letters to the Rev. W. Palmer, on the name "Pro- testant"; on the seemingly ambiguous character of the English Church; and on the Bishopric at Jerusalem. With an Appendix, containing some remarks on a pamph- let of J. R. Hope, Esq., entitled 'The Bishopric of the United Church of England and Ireland, at Jerusalem, considered in a Letter to a Friend,' pp. 91. G. Rivington & Co. 8vo. [18 Dated from Guy's Hospital, January 22, 1842. The znd Ed., to which are added some further remarks on German Protestantism, and a notice of the Postscript to the 2nd Ed. of Mr. Hope's letter, pp. x. + 121 + 3- [A "note" from Berlin, July n, 1842, with a letter of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the King of Prussia, dated June 18, 1842.] John W. Parker. 8vo. 1842. ['9 XIV Bibliography. The Kingdom of Christ ; or, Hints to a Quaker re- specting the Principles, Constitution, and Ordinances of the Catholic Church.' The 2nd Ed., revised and altered 2 vols., pp. i + 464 + 552- F. G. F. & J. Rivington. Crown 8vo. [ist Ed., 1838.] Dedicated to Rev. Derwent Coleridge. [20 1843. 'Christmas Day,' and other Sermons. J.W. Parker. 8vo. [21 ' On Right and Wrong Methods of Supporting Protes- tantism.' A Letter to Lord Ashley, respecting a certain proposed measure for stifling the expression of opinion in the University of Oxford, pp. 24. J. W. Parker. 8vo. [22 1844. Introduction to Wm. Law's ' Remarks on Mandeville's Fable of the Bees,' pp. viL + bcxix. D. & A. Macmillan. Fcp. 8vo. [23 1845. 'The New Statute and Mr. Ward.' A Letter to a Non- Resident Member of Convocation [Archdeacon S. Wilber- force], pp. 31. Oxford. J. H. Parker. 8vo. [24 ' Thoughts on the Rule of Conscientious Subscription, on the Purpose of the Thirty-nine Articles, and on Our Present Perils from the Roman System :' in a second Letter to a non-resident Member of Convocation [Arch- deacon Wilberforce], pp. xii. + 52. Oxford. J. H. Parker. 8vo. [25 'Who are with Christ, and who against Him?' A Sermon preached in the Temple Church on the third Sunday in Lent, 1844. ['Practical Sermons,' Part IV.] [26 * A Few Words on the New Irish Churches, by Nemo,' pp. 19. Houlston & Stoneman. 8vo. [27 1846. 'The Epistle to the Hebrews;' being the substance of Three Lectures delivered in the Chapel of the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, on the Foundation of Bishop Warburton [pp. 1-96]. With a Preface containing a Review of Mr. Newman's ' Theory of Development ' [pp. L-cxxviii.]. John W. Parker. 8vo. [28 To the most Rev. William, by Divine Providence, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England and Metropolitan. Bibliography. xv 'The Education Question in 1847.' A Letter addressed to the Editor of the ' English Journal of Education ' [Dec. 1846], pp. 15. George Bell. [29 'The Prophet Elijah.' A Sermon. ['Practical Ser- mons.' Part XVIII.] [30 1847. 'The Religions of the World; and their relations to Christianity ' [8 Lectures] ; being the Boyle Lectures for 1846 [on Mohammedanism The Hindoo Faith Buddhism The Old Persian Faith Egyptian Greek Gothic and their relations to Christianity]. 8vo. J. W. Parker. [31 Dedicated to Charles James [Blomfield], Lord Bishop of London. December, 1846. 2nd Ed., 1849. 3rd, 1852. 4th, 1861. 5th, 1877. * Thoughts on the Duty of a Protestant in the Present Oxford Election.' A Letter to a London Clergyman [Rev. Cowley Posvles], pp. 25. J. W. Parker. 8vo. Preface dated July 24, 1847. [32 ' A Letter [to Rev. Arthur P. Stanley] on the Attempt to defeat the Nomination of Dr. Hampden,' pp. 8. W. Pickering. Preface dated December 6, 1847. [33 ' Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy,' pp. 545-674 of the ' Encyclopaedia of Mental Philosophy.' J. J. Griffin & Co. 410. [34 Originally published in the 'Encyclopaedia Metropo- litana.' It was revised and reprinted in 4 parts ; Part I. 1850, II. 1854, III. 1857, IV. 1862. Collected in 2 vols., with new Preface, 1873. 1848. 'The Lord's Prayer.' Nine Sermons preached in the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn, during February, March and April, 1848. J. W. Parker. [35 Preface dated at London, May 25, 1848. 2nd Ed., 1849. 3 r d> 1851. 4th, 1861. 5th, with "The Prayer Book," 1880. ' Politics for the People ' [Edited by Maurice and J. M. Ludlow] : a weekly paper in 17 numbers and 2 supple- ments, from May 6, 1848, to July 29, 1848, pp. iv. +284. J. W. Parker. 8vo. [36 [A.] Prospectus, pp. i, 2. [B.] Fraternity, pp. 2-5. XVI Bibliography. fC 1 " Dialogues in the Penny Boats." No. I. between a Templar, Silk Mercer, a Coal-whipper, and Myself, pp. m 1 Ditto II " The Universities and Working Men ; I !_/ I J_/ltLV XA. i TI jr ir between a Student from Oxford, a Carpenter, and Myself, pp. 81-3. [E.1 Ditto III. "Education," pp. 154-7- [F.] " Liberty." A Dialogue between a French Propa- gandist, an English Labourer, and the Editor, pp. 49~53- [G.I " Equality." A Dialogue between a Young French- man, a Statesman from America, and an English Mechanic, pp. 97-100. [H.l "Rough Notes of some Lectures on Modem History," I., pp. 113-" 5; [I.] " A Word on Emigration Lord Ashley's Motion, pp. 137-8. [J.] ' Recollections and Confessions of William Mil- ward.' I., pp. 161-176. II., 257-272. [K.] "To the Reader," pp. 177-8. [L.] " Is there any Hope for Education in England ? " By a Clergyman. L, pp. 193-6. II., pp., 209-11. III., pp. 234-9. IV., pp. 241-6. [M.] " More Last Words," pp. 283-4. " Quern's College, London, its Objects and Methods." A Lecture, pp. 29. Rivington. 8vo. [37 [Republished in 'Introductory Lectures at Queen's College, 1849.'] Preface to Charles Kingsley's 'Saints' Tragedy,' pp. iii. -f xxiii. J. W. Parker. [38 [Not in the collected Ed. of C. Kingsley's Poems.] 1849. Letter to Archdeacon J. C. Hare, inserted in Hare's ' Letter to the Editor of the ' English Review ' [pp. 60-70] [Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbour]. J. W. Parker. 1849. 8vo. [39 Hare's letter is dated February 17, 1849. [Republished in ' Miscellaneous Pamphlets ' by J. C. Hare. Macmillan. 1855-] [16] 'Introductory Lectures delivered at Queen's Col- lege, London,' by Maurice, C. Kingsley, and others, pp. viii. + 352. J. W. Parker. Fcp. 8vo. [40 Bibliography. xvii I " Queen's College ; its Objects and Method," pp. 1-27. [Originally published, 1848.] XII. " On Theology," pp. 245-263. "Address at the End of the First Term," pp. 346-352. ' The Religions of the World.' 2nd Ed. J. W. Parker. [ist Ed. 1847.] [41 ' The Prayer Book considered especially in reference to the Romish System.' Nineteen Sermons preached in the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn [Nov. 26, 1848, to April 8, 1849]. J. W. Parker. Fcp. 8vo. [42 2nd Ed. 1851, 3rd, with the Lord's Prayer, 1880. * On the Lord's Prayer.' 2nd Ed., i2mo. J. W. Parker, [ist, 1848]. [43 ' Is a Decision of the Privy Council a reason for seces- sion, or for retiring into Lay Communion ? ' A Letter to a Clergyman of the Evangelical School. By another Clergyman, pp. 24. George Bell. 8vo. [44 ' Introductory Lecture delivered at the Opening of the Metropolitan Evening Classes for Young Men ' [January 16, 1849], pp. 22. J. W. Parker, izmo. [45 ' Queen's College, London.' A Letter to the Right Hon. and Rev. the Lord Bishop of London [A. C. Tait], in reply to the Article CLXXII. of the ' Quarterly Review,' entitled " Queen's College, London," pp. 50. J. W. Parker. 8vo. [46 ' Tracts on Christian Socialism.' George Bell. [Anon.] [47 I. Dialogue between Somebody (a person of respect- ability) and nobody (the writer). II. History of the Working Tailors' Association, 34, Castle Street, Oxford Street. III. What Christian Socialism has to do with the Ques- tion at present agitating the Church. VII. A Dialogue between A. & B., two Clergymen, on the Doctrine of Circumstances as it affects Priests and People. ' Tracts by Christian Socialists.' On English History, by a Clergyman. No. i. [The other Tracts by Charles Kingsley and J. M. Ludlow.] [47 A ' Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy.' Part I. Ancient Philosophy, anterior to the time of Christ and Ed. xviii Bibliography. revised, pp. xi + 237- J- Griffin & Co. Crown 8vo [ist Ed. 1847.] Preface dated July, 1850. 'The Church of a Family.' 12 Sermons on ti sional Services of the Prayer Book, preached in Lincoln's Inn Chapel, pp. xxiii + 211. J. W. Parker. The Christian Socialist' A [weekly] Journal of Asso- ciation. [Edited by John Malcolm Ludlow.] Vol. I. Nov. 2, 1850, to June, 1851. 4 to. Vol. II. July 5 to E 1851. 8vo. Afterwards 'The Journal of Association, edited by Thomas Hughes. Vol. I. [A.] " Correspondence on Education between a Member of Parliament and a Clergyman," pp. 21, 33, 5 75, 86, 106, 138, 146. [R] "To our Friends of ' La Re'publique,' " p. 41- [C.] "The Guardian and Christian Socialism," pp. 161, 178. [D.] "The Experiences of Thomas Bradfoot, School- master," pp. 207, 223, 239, 247, 263, 279. [E.] " The Times and Socialism," p. 217. [F.] "The Author of 'Yeast' (C. Kingsley) and the Guardian" p. 257. Vol. II. " Mr. Maurice's Reply to the Congratulation of the Central Board," p. 65. 1851. 'Reasons for Co-operation:' a Lecture, delivered at the Office for Promoting Working Men's Associations, Dec. n, 1850. To which is added ' God and Mammon:' a Sermon, to Young Men, preached in St. John's District Church, St. Pancras. Jan. 19, 1851, pp. 48. J. W. Parker. i2mo. L5 1 ' On the Reformation of Society, and How all classes may contribute to it.' A Lecture delivered in the Town Hall of Southampton, on the Opening of the Working Tailors' Association, 18, Bernard Street, on Monday March 31, 1851, pp. 44. Southampton. Forbes and Knibb. i2mo. [5 2 'The Old Testament* 19 Sermons on the First Lessons for the Sundays from Septuagesima Sunday to the 3rd Sunday after Trinity [on the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Bibliography. xix and beginning of ist Book of Samuel], preached in the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn. J. W. Parker. 8vo. [53 Preface dated October 1851. 2nd Ed. [' Patriarchs and Lawgivers of O. TV], 1855. 3rd, 1867. 4th, 1877. 5th, 1878. 'The Lord's Prayer.' 3rd Ed. J.W.Parker. i2mo. ist, 1848. [54 1852. 'The Prayer Book,' 2nd Ed. revised, pp. xvi + 309. Macmillan & Co. Fcp. 8vo. Preface dated [1852]. ist Ed. 1849. [55 ' The President's Lectures on Co-operation at the Green- wich Literary and Scientific Institution,' pp. 101, 106, 114, of ' The Journal of Association,' March 22, 29 and April 5. [56 ' The Religions of the World,' 3rd Ed. revised, pp. xxiv. + 252. Macmillan. i8mo. New Preface [no date], ist Ed. 1847. [57 1853. ' The Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament' A series of [27] Sermons preached in the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn. Macmillan & Co. [58 Dedicated to Thomas Erskine, Esq., of Linlathen, Nov. u, 1852. 2nd Ed. 1855. 3rd, 1871. 4th, 1879. [3] 'Sermons on the Sabbath Day' [delivered Oct. 31, Nov. 7 and 14, 1852]. ' On the Character of the Warrior ' [delivered Nov. 21, 1852]. 'On the Interpretation of History' [delivered May 1851], pp. vi. + 127. Macmil- lan & Co. 1 2 mo. [59 Preface dated at London, Dec. 1852. 'Lying and Truth; the Old Man and the New.' A Sermon preached in the church of St. Bartholomew, Moor Lane, in Advent -Tide, 1852, pp. 16. J. Whitaker. 8vo. [60 ' National Education.' A Sermon, preached at St. Mark's College, Chelsea, on Sunday, March 6, 1853, in aid of the Funds of the National Society, pp. 21. J. W. Parker & Son. i2mo. [6 1 [i 7] ' Theological Essays,' pp. xii + 449. Macmillan & Co. Crown 8vo. Essay I. On Charity. II. On Sin. III. The Evil Spirit IV. The Sense of Righteousness in Men, and xx Bibliography. their discovery of a Redeemer. V. On the Son of God VI. On the Incarnation. VII. On the Atonement. VIII. On the Resurrection of the Son of God from Death, the Grave, and Hell. IX. On Justification by Faith. X. Regeneration. XI. On the Ascension of Christ. XII. On the Judgment Day. XIII. On Inspiration. XIV. On the Personality and Teaching of the Holy Spirit. XV. On the Unity of the Church. XVI. On the Trinity in Unity. Concluding Essay, On Eternal Life and Eternal Death. Note on Athanasian Creed. [62 Dedicated to A. Tennyson. Adv. dated May 24, 1853. 2nd Ed., 1853. 3rd, 1871. 4th, 1881. [Grounds for Laying before the Council of King's College, London, Certain Statements contained in a recent publication, entitled ' Theological Essays, by the Rev. F. D. Maurice.' By R. W. Jelf, D.D., Principal of the College, and Canon of Christchurch. J. H. Parker, pp. v + 64. 1853. 8vo. Preface dated Nov. 3, 1853.] [63 ' The Word " Eternal " and the punishment of the Wicked.' A letter to the Rev. Dr. Jelf, Canon of Christ- church [Oxford], and Principal of King's College [London], pp. vii + 39- 8vo. Macmillan. [64 Preface dated at 21 Queen Sq., Bloomsbury. Nov. 3, 1853. xix + 39. 2nd Ed., pp. xii + 39. Preface dated Nov. 7, 1853. 3rd, Dec. i, 1853. [' King's College and Mr. Maurice.' No. i. The Facts, by a Barrister of Lincoln's Inn. [J. Malcolm Ludlow], pp. vi. + 52. D. Nutt. 8vo. Preface dated March 1854.] [65 'Theological Essays.' 2nd Ed., revised, with New Preface, pp. xxxii + 487. Macmillan & Co. Cr. 8vo. [66 New Preface dated at London, December 9, 1853. 1 An Essay on Eternal Life and Eternal Death ' [the last essay in the ' Theological Essays '], and the Preface to the 2nd Ed. of ' Theological Essays,' pp. xi -f xxx. Mac- millan & Co. Crown 8vo. [67 [Reprinted separately for purchasers of ist Ed., the last essay being revised.] [Examination of Mr. Maurice's Theological Essays,' by Robert S. Candlish, D.D., pp. xii + 483. J. Nisbet & Co. 8vo.] [6a Bibliography. xxi 1854. 'Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy.' Part II. Philo- sophy of the first Six Centuries. 2nd Ed., revised, pp. viii 4-157. R. Griffin & Co. ist, 1847. [69 Scheme of a College for Working Men [February 1854], pp. 12. 8vo. [6gA ' Lectures on the Ecclesiastical History of the First and Second Centuries,' pp. xii + 401. Macmillan & Co. 8vo. [70. Dedicated to Rev. J. S. Brewer. Preface dated May 18, 1854. ["The Rev. F. D. Maurice," pp. 42-53 of the ' London Pulpit,' by James Ewing Ritchie. Simpkin, Marshall & Co. Crown 8vo. Preface to book dated March 7, 1854-] [7i ' The Unity of the New Testament.' A Synopsis of the first three Gospels, and on the Epistles of SS. James, Jude, Peter, and Paul, pp. vii + 688. J. W. Parker & Son. 8vo. [7 2 Preface dated at London, ' Conversion of St. Paul,' 1854. 2nd Ed., printed from a copy revised by Mr. Maurice. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 1884. ' The Doctrine of Sacrifice deduced from the Scriptures.' A series of Sermons, with a dedicatory letter to the Members of The Young Men's Christian Association ['Charges of Heresy against Mr. Maurice,' published separately, 1860], pp. Hi -f 322. Macmillan. Crown 8vo. 2nd Ed. 1879. [73 ['Strictures on Maurice's Doctrine of Sacrifice,' by Thomas Barker, M.A., of Queen's College, Oxford.] Testimonial from a few English Dissenters, and reply to J. N. Langley, April 29. 1854, pp. 6. 8vo. [74 [' How to Gain the Confidence of the Working Classes ; or, an inquiry into the reason why the Artizans should express regard and admiration for the Rev. F. D. Maurice.' By a Member of the Senate of the University of Cambridge. 8vo., pp. 127. Privately Printed. N. D.] [75 1855. 'The Communion Service from the Book of Common Prayer, with select readings from the writings of the Rev. F. D. Maurice, M.A.' Edited by the Right Rev. John William Colenso, D.D., Lord Bishop of Natal, pp. x + 149. Macmiilan & Co. ^ [76 xxii Bibliography. Preface dated at London, Feb. i, 1855. and Ed. 1874. ' Death and Life.' A Sermon preached in the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn, on March 25, 1855. In memoriam C. B. M[ansfield], pp. 24. Macmillan & Co. 8vo. [77 ' Plan of a Female College for the help of the Rich and of the Poor.' The substance of a Lecture delivered at the Working Men's College, 31 Red Lion Square, to a Class of Ladies, on Monday, May 21, pp. 23. Mac- millan & Co. 8vo. [Republished in Lectures to Ladies this year.] [78 ' Administrative Reform, and its Connexion with Work- ing Men's Colleges.' An Address [delivered at the Working Men's College, London, May 31, 1855], pp. 16. Macmillan & Co. i2mo. [79 ' The Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament.' A Series of Sermons preached in Lincoln's Inn ChapeL 2nd Ed., revised with New Preface, pp. xxxii +347. Macmillan & Co. Crown 8vo. [80 Preface dated July, 1855. [ist Ed. The Old Testament, 1851.] ['Lectures to Ladies on Practical Subjects,' pp. vii + 295. Macmillan & Co. Crown 8vo.] [81 [A.] " Plan of a Female College for the help of the Rich and the Poor," pp. 1-25. [B.] "The College and the Hospital," pp. 26-52. Preface, dated August, 1855. 2nd Ed 1856. 3rd, 1857- 'Learning and Working:' Six Lectures delivered in Willis's Rooms, London, during June and July, 1854. ' The Religion of Rome, and its Influence on Modern Civilisation.' Four lectures delivered in the Philosophical Institute of Edinburgh, Dec. 1854, pp. xxiv + 350. Mac- millan & Co. Crown 8vo. [82 Dedicated to John Malcolm Ludlow, Esq., Barrister, Lincoln's Inn. ' The Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament,' 2nd Ed., pp. xxii -f- 480. Macmillan & Co. Crown 8vo ist, 1853. [83 1856. 'The Gospel of St. John.' A series of discourses. Mac- Bibliography. xxiii millan & Co. Crown 8vo. 2nd, 1857. 3rd, 1867. 4th, 1878. [84 Essay on ' Archdeacon Hare's position in the Church, with reference to the Parties that divide it.' [An Intro- duction to ' Charges,' by Julius Charles Hare. 3 vols. 1856. Macmillan. Afterwards republished in ' The Victory of Faith,' by J. C. Hare, 1874, pp. xvii + Ixxxix.] [85 ' The Sabbath Day.' An Address to the Members of the Working Men's College, 31, Red Lion Square, on Sunday Excursions, pp. 29. R. Clay. [86 ' Sermons in the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn.' Issued to Subscribers only. [Arranged by J. M. Ludlow.] Vol .1. J. E. Taylor. Crown 8vo. [87 Speech at the distribution of prizes in St. Mary's Medical School, Thursday, May i, 1856. [In the ' Report of the Proceedings ' at the distribution of prizes in St. Mary's Medical Hospital, May i, 1856. Published by direction of the School Committee, May 13, 1856. i2mo. [88 1857. 'The Eucharist.' Five Sermons [preached Nov. 30, Dec. 7, 14, 21 and 28, 1856], pp. iv -f- 100. J. E. Taylor. Crown 8vo. [88A [These appeared in the ist Vol. of ' Sermons,' 1856.] ' Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy.' Part III. Mediaeval Philosophy from the 5th to the i4th Century, pp. xi + 253. R. Griffin & Co. [Re-issued 1870.] [89 Dedicated to A. J. Scott, Esq., Kircullen, Gal way. Sept. 15, 1856. Originally published 1847. * Milton considered as a Schoolmaster.' A Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution, January 30, 1857, pp. 6. [90 [Republished in ' Friendship of Books,' 1873.] ' The Worship of the Church. A Witness for the Re- demption of the World.' A Sermon, to which is prefixed a letter to F. S. Williams, Esq., in answer to a pamphlet entitled 'Thoughts on the Doctrine of Eternal Punish- ments with reference to the views of the Rev. F. D. Maurice and the Neo-Platonists,' pp. 46. Macmillan & Co. 8vo. The letter dated May, 1857. [91 ' The Epistles of St. John.' A series of lectures delivered b 2 xxiv Bibliography. at the Working Men's College on Christian Ethics, pp. xx + 347. Macmillan&Co. Crown 8vo. 2nd, 1867. [92 Dedicated to the Students of the Working Men's Col- lege, 45 Gt. Ormond Street. Preface dated at Tunbridge Wells, September 14, 1857. ' The Indian Crisis.' Five Sermons, pp. iv + 90. Macmillan & Co. Fcp. [Sermons xxxvi. to xl. of ' Ser- mons,' ist series, 1856.] [93 ' The Gospel of St. John.' 2nd Ed., pp. xvi + 501. Macmillan & Co. ist, 1856. [94 'Sermons preached in the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn. Vol. ii. Issued to subscribers only. J. E. Taylor. [95 'The Gospel of Hope.' A Sermon [not preached], Dec. 6, 1857, pp. 23. J. E. Taylor. [Sermon II. in ' Sermons,' Vol. III. 1858.] [96 ' Christmas Charities.' A Sermon preached at Christ Church, St. Marylebone, on St. John's Day, Dec. 27, 1857, in behalf of the Christ Church Provident and Relief Funds, pp. 1 6. J. E. Taylor. [Sermon vi. in 'Sermons ' Vol. III. 1857-8. [97 1858. [20] ' Sermons preached in Lincoln's Inn Chapel, 1857-8,' Vol. III. Advent to Ascension Day. [Nov. 29, 1857- April n, 1858.] Issued to Subscribers only, pp. viii-f- 320. J. E. Taylor. Crown 8vo. [98 [17] ' Sermons preached in Lincoln's Inn Chapel, 1858,' Vol. IV. Easter to Advent. [May 16, iSsS-Nov. 21, 1858.] Issued to Subscribers only, pp. viii. + 317. John E. Taylor. [99 Speech at the Working Men's College, Cambridge, March 26, 1858, pp. 8. In 'Proceedings at a Meeting of the Working Men's College,' Cambridge, March 26, 1858.] [100 ' Sermon at St. Margaret's, Westminster, on Trinity Sunday.' Rivingtons [one of the three sermons by Cureton, Scott, Maurice]. [101 [' The Worship of God and Fellowship among Men.' A Series of Sermons on Public Worship at Christ Church, Marylebone.] [102 [A.] Preaching, a call to Worship. [B.] The Bible, a Revelation of the beginning and end of Worship. Bibliography. xxv 1859. c Sermons,' Vols. V. and VI. Issued to Subscribers only. J. E. Taylor. Cr. 8vo. [103 ' The Working Men's College Magazine,' Vol. I. [Tan.- Dec. 1859, 12 Nos.] [104 [A.] " Introductory Lecture on the Studies of the [London] Working Men's College" [delivered Dec. 27, 1858], pp. 1-8. [B.] " Address at a Meeting of Working Men's Colleges at Manchester, Jan. 5, 1859," pp. 28-35. [C.] " Lectures on ' The Studies of a College' " [Sum- mary], pp. 69-70. The Summaries are those of lectures delivered at the [London] Working Men's College, during the present term, in continuation of one printed, pp. 1-8. [D.] " Recruiting for a College," pp. 109-110. ' What is Revelation ? ' A Series of Sermons on the Epiphany, to which are added [9] Letters to a Student of Theology on the Bampton Lectures of Mr. Mansel, pp. xii -f 480. Macmillan & Co. Crown 8vo. [105 Preface dated at 5 Russell Square, June 4. [An Examination of the Rev. F. D. Maurice's ' Stric- tures on the Bampton Lectures of 1858,' by the Lecturer. 8vo. John Murray. 1859.] [106 [' What is Revelation ? ' by R. H. Button. A Review of 'What is Revelation?' by Maurice, 1859, and the Preface to the 3rd Ed. of Mansel's Bampton Lectures on 'The Limits of Religious Thought.' 1859, pp. 76-115. Essays,' Vol. I.] [107 ' War ; How to prepare ourselves for it." A Sermon preached in the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn. Nov. 20, 1859, pp. 12. Macmillan & Co. i2mo. [108 " Mr. [Charles] Kingsley and the Saturday Review" pp. 116-119. [' Macmillan's Mag.' No. II., Dec. 1859.] [109 1860. Sequel to the Inquiry, 'What is Revelation?' in a Series of [15] Letters to a Friend; containing a reply to Mr. Mansel's ' Examination of the Rev. F. D. Maurice's Stric- tures on the Bampton Lectures of 1858,' pp. viii + 296. Macmillan & Co. Crown 8vo. [no Preface dated London, Jan. 1860. 'A Lecture at the Opening of the Lower Norwood xxvi Bibliography. Working Men's Institute, Jan. 2, 1860,' pp. 24. W. Kent & Co. [in A Sermon preached to the ipth Middlesex Volunteer Rifle Corps at Christ Church, Marylebone, on the Second Sunday in Advent, pp. 15. Macmillan & Co. i8mo. [112 " Lord Macaulay," pp. 241-7 [' Macmillan's Mag.,' No. IV., Feb. 1860.] [113 " On the Revision of the Prayer Book, and the Act of Uniformity," pp. 417-428. [Macmillan's Mag.,' No. VI. April, 1860.] [114 ' Working Men's College Magazine,' Vol. II. [Nos. XXIII.-X1V., Jan.-Dec. 1860.] [115 [A.] " A Letter to the Teacher of a Boxing Class on Prize Fighting," pp. 75-8. " The Suffrage considered in reference to the Working Class and to the Professional Class." [' Macmillan's Mag.,' No. VIII., June 1860.] [116 [' Mr. Maurice on the Suffrages,' Saturday Review, June 23, 1860, p. 8vo.] [117 " Female School of Art : Mrs. Jameson," pp. 227-235. ['Macmillan's Mag.,' No. IX., July 1860.] [118 Charges of Heresy against Mr. Maurice, considered in a letter to the Members of the Young Men's Christian Association [the dedicatory letter to ' The Doctrine of Sacrifice,' originally published 1854], pp. 44. Macmillan & Co. Cr. 8vo. Preface dated July 17, 1860. [119 Review of J. A. Froude's ' History of England,' Vols. V. and VI., pp. 276-84. [' Macmillan's Mag.,' No. X., Aug. 1860.] [120 ' The Faith of the Liturgy,' and the ' Doctrine of the Thirty-nine Articles.' Two Sermons, the Substance of which was preached at St. Peter's, Vere Street, on Sept. 9, 1860, pp. vi. + 8 1. Macmillan & Co. Crown 8vo. Adv. dated Sept. 27, 1860. [121 Address of Congratulation to the Rev. F. D. Maurice, on his nomination to St. Peter's, Vere Street ; with his reply thereto [dated Nov. 27, 1860], pp. 16. 8vo. [122 "History and Casuistry," pp. 305-12. ['Macmillan's Mag.,' No. XII., Oct. 1860.] [123 " More Political Ethics : The Neapolitan Revolution Bibliography. xxvii and the Fugitive Slave Law," pp. 65-68. [' Macmillan's Mag.,' No. XIIL, Nov. 1860.] [124 ' Sermons,' 3 Series. 2 vols. each series. Smith Elder. [A Re-issue of the 6 vols. of Sermons 1857-9.] [125 1861. 'Working Men's Magazine,' Vol. III. [Nos. XXV.- XXXVII., Jan.-Dec. 1861.] [126 (A.) ' The Bible and the College : " A Letter to R. B. Litchfield, pp. 29-32. (B.) "Letter to the Promoters of a Working Men's College" [addressed to J. S. Henderson, Esq., Secretary of the Ayr Working Men's College, dated from 5 Russell Square, W.C., June 3], pp. 98-100. " Baron Bunsen,' 'pp. 372-82. [' Macmillan's Mag.,' No. XVII., March 1861.] [127 ' The Religions of the World.' 4th Ed. Macmillan & Co. Cr. 8vo. [ist 1847.] [128 " Dr. Lushington, Mr. Heath, and the 39 Articles : " A Letter to the Editor, pp. 153-6. ['Macmillan's Mag.,' No. XXVI., Dec. 1861.] [129 ' Tracts for Priests and People.' [Edited by the Rev. Samuel Clark.] ist Series. Macmillan & Co. Cr. 8vo. [130 No. 2. ' The Mote and the Beam. A Clergyman's Lessons from the Present Panic,' pp. 73. No. 3. Comments on ' The Atonement,' by Rev. F. Garden. No. 6. II. ' Morality and Divinity,' pp. 1 1-42. No. 10. II. 'Do Kings Reign by the Grace of God?' pp. 35-66. 'On Critics.' A Lecture delivered at the Brighton Athenaeum 1856 [pp. 282-308 of Victoria Regia. Edited by Adelaide A. Proctor, 4to. Emily Faithfull & Co. 1861]. Republished in 'Friendship of Books.' 1873. [131 [23.] 'Lectures on the Apocalypse; or, Book of the Revelations of St. John the Divine.' Crown 8vo., pp. xi. + 462. Macmillan & Co. [132 Preface dated at London, December, 1860. ' On the Lord's Prayer.' 4th Ed., pp. 138. Macmillan & Co. ist, 1848. [133 1862. 'A Treatise of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy from the 1 4th Century to the French Revolution, with a glimpse xxviii Bibliography. of the i Qth Century,' pp. xvii. -(-676. Griffin, Bohn, & Co. Crown 8vo. [Part IV. of ' Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy.'] [134 Dated at London, January 2, 1862. Originally pub- lished 1847. ' Tracts for Priests and People.' [Edited by the Rev. Samuel Clark.] 2nd Series. Macmillan & Co. Cr. 8vo. 1861. [135 XIV. 'The Incarnation and Principles of Evidence,' by R. H. Hutton, with a letter to the writer by Rev. F. D. Maurice, Jan. 23, 1862, pp. 58-88. "The New Morality : Worship of Majorities." A Letter to the Editor, pp. 504-6. [' Macmillan' s Mag.,' No. XXX., April, 1862.] [136 [12] 'Dialogues between a Clergyman and a Layman on Family Worship,' pp. x. -f 217. Macmillan & Co. Crown 8vo. Preface dated at London, Nov. 1862. [137 ' The Sacrifices which we owe to God and His Church. A Sermon preached at St. Peter's, Vere Street, on Nov. 2, 1862, pp. 1 6. Macmillan & Co. [138 1863. 'Acquisition and Illumination.' Part of a New Year's Address to the Pupils of some Evening Classes, pp. 198-225. [A Welcome in Poetry and Verse. March, 1863. Emily FaithfulL] Republished in 'Friendship of Books.' 1873. [*39 Letter to the Times in answer to Dr. Pusey, February 20. Letter to the Times in answer to Dr. Pusey and Father Newman, February 27. [ J 39 B ' The Claims of the Bible and of Science.' A Correspon- dence with a Layman [Sir Thos. Acland] on the Questions arising out of the Controversy respecting the Pentateuch. Crown 8vo. Macmillan & Co. [140 . " Christmas Thoughts on Renan's ' Vie de Jdsus,' " pp. 190-7. [' Macmillan's Mag.' Vol. IX., Jan. 1864.] [141 Letters to the Times on the new Declaration of Faith, March 9 and 15. I4IA " Corruption at Elections : Mr. Christie's Suggestions." pp, 192-8. ['Macmillan's Mag.,' Vol. X., July, 1864.] [142 ' Corruption at Elections,' by Rev. F. D. Maurice [re- Bibliography. xxix printed from ' Macmillan's Mag.'], with Speeches of John Stuart Mill and Edwin Chadwick, C.B. [delivered April 4, 1864], and Report of Standing Committee of Jurisprudence and Amendment of the Laws of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science on Mr. Christie's Paper, ' Suggestions for an Organization for Restraint of Corrup- tion at Elections,' pp. 22. Emily Faithful!. 8vo. [ J 43 ' The Clergyman's Self-Examination concerning the Apostles' Creed.' [Anon.] Macmillan & Co. Fcp. 8vo. [i44 ' The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven.' A Series of [28] Lectures on the Gospel of St. Luke. pp. xlvii + 368. Macmillan & Co. Crown 8vo. 2nd Ed., 1879. [ X 45 An Introduction to the Rev. G. D. Snow's 'Post Tenebras Lux,' pp. v-xxi. Smith, Elder & Co. [146 The Bishop of Cape Town and Spiritual Jurisdiction. Letter to the Times, October 4. [146 A "A Letter to a Colonial Clergyman on some Recent Ecclesiastical Movements in the Diocese of Cape Town and in England," pp. 97-112. [' Macmillan's Mag.,' Vol. XL, Dec. 1864.] [147 ' What Message have the Clergy for the People of England ? ' A Letter to the Right Hon. and Right Rev. the Bishop of London [A. C. Tait] in reference to the Macmillan & Co. Controversy on ' The Future State of Sinners,' pp. 53. 8vo. [148 1865. ' The Conflict of Good and Evil in our Day.' 12 Letters to a Missionary, pp. viii + 212. Smith, Elder & Co. Crown 8vo. [149 " A Few Words on the Pope's Encyclical Letter," pp. 276-8. [' Macmillan's Mag.,' Vol. XL, Feb. 1865.] [150 " A Word more on the History of Caesar and on Certain other Histories, written and acted," pp. 23-31. [' Mac- millan's Mag.,' Vol. XII., May, 1865.] [151 1866. ' The Commandments considered as Instruments of National Reformation,' pp. xxiv +152. Macmillan & Co. Crown 8vo. [152 Dedicated to the Rev. Norman Macleod, D.D. Advertisement dated October, 1866. ' Casuistry, Moral Philosophy, and Moral Theology : ' An Inaugural Lecture delivered in the Senate House, xxx Bibliography. Cambridge, on Tuesday, Dec. 4, 1866, pp. 58, Mac- millan & Co. izmo. [153 ' The Workman and the Franchise,' [7] Chapters from English History on The Representation and Education of the People. 8vo., and i8mo., pp. xiii + 252. Alex. Strahan. ' To J. R.,' formerly a pupil in the Working Men's Col- lege, now a Tradesman in New York. [ r 54 1867. 'The Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament.' 3rd Ed., pp. xxxii -f 33~347- Macmillan & Co. ist Ed. 1851. [155 ' The Gospel of St. John.' 3rd Ed. Macmillan & Co. ist, 1856. [156 The Epistles of St. John.' New Ed. [2nd], pp. xx + 347. Macmillan & Co. ist, 1857. [157 ' Present-Day Papers, On Prominent Questions in Theo- logy.' Edited by the Right Rev. Alexander Ewing, D.C.L., Bishop of Argyll and the Isles. 3 Series. Crown 8vo. Daldy, Isbister & Co. [158 ist Series. Letter from F. D. Maurice to the Bishop of Argyll and the Isles [A. Ewing], from Hamilton Villa, Weston-super-Mare. Oct. 6, 1867. pp. 45 to 47 of ' Reconciliation,' by Rev. A. Ewing. ist Series. ' Meditations and Prayers concerning the Church of Mankind.' 2nd Series. ' Use of the Word Revelation in Scripture.' 1868. 'The Light of Men.' A Sermon preached in Great St. Andrew's Church, Cambridge on Advent Sunday, 1868, in behalf of the Cambridge Industrial School, pp. 15. Mac- millan & Co. 8vo. [159 Irish Disestablishment, pp. 54. ' Contemporary Review,' February, 1868. [ J 59A " The Dean of Cork [W. C. Magee] and the Irish Establishment." To the Editor of the ' Contemporary Review,' pp. 586-590. [' Contemporary Review,' Vol. VII., April, 1868.] [160 [A reply to the Dean of Cork's article in the March number, "The Irish Church Establishment: a Reply to Professor Maurice," pp. 428-444.] [161 " Baron Bunsen. Reviews of Memoirs of Baron Bunsen, by his Widow," 2 vols. j and " God in History," Bibliography. xxxi by Baron Bunsen, pp. 144-150. [' Macmillan's Mag.,' Vol. XVIIL, June, 1868.] [162 ' The Ground and object of Hope for Mankind.' 4 Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge in November, 1867. Crown 8vo. pp. vi + 99- Mac- miUan & Co. [163 ' The Conscience,' [9] Lectures on Casuistry delivered in the University of Cambridge, pp. viii + 203. Mac- millan & Co. 2nd Ed. 1872. [164 Dedicated to Edmund Lushington, Esq. " Walter Savage Landor and Henry Crabb Robinson." Reviews of ' W. S. Landor,' a Biography by J. Forster, 2 Vols. ; and H. C. Robinson's ' Diary,' Ed. Sadler, 3 vols., pp. 355-65. [' Macmillan's Mag.,' Vol. XIX., Aug. 1869.] [165 On Church and State. Eight Letters to the Daily News, September 1868. [ J 65A Review of W. G. Clark's ' Few Words on the Irish Church Question.' ' Cambridge University Gazette,' pp. 23 and 24. November n, 1868. [ J 65B 1869. 'Social Morality,' 21 Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge, pp. xvi + 483. Macmillan & Co. 8vo. Preface signed at Cambridge, Nov. 22, 1869. Mac- millan. 8vo. [166 The Moral Sciences. A Reply to the Rev. F. J. A. Hort. ' Cambridge University Gazette,' p. 141. April 28, 1869. [i66A ' The Warrior's Prayer.' A Farewell Sermon preached to the Congregation of St. Peter's, Vere Street, on Sunday, Nov. 7, 1869. 8vo., pp. 19. Macmillan & Co. [167 Preface dated Cambridge, Nov. 15. Speech on the Abolition of the University Tests. * Cambridge University Gazette,' p. 254, December i, 1869. [i67A 1870. " Dr. Newman's ' Grammar of Assent.' " A Review, pp. 151-172. ['Contemporary Review,' May 1870. Vol. XIV.] [168 Female Suffrage. A Letter to the Spectator. [i68A " Broad Churchmen," by 'An English Clergyman.' Spectator^ March 12. [i68a xxxii Bibliography. "Broad Churchmen." A Reply to Leslie Stephen. Spectator, April 2. [i68c " A Few more Words on the Athanasian Creed," pp. 479- 494. [' Contemporary Review,' Oct. 1870, Vol. XV.] [169 ' Christian Education.' 2 Sermons preached on behalf of the Old Schools of Cambridge, Nov. 20, 1870, pp. 24. Macmillan & Co. Crown 8vo. t 1 ? ' A Few Words on Secular and Denominational Educa- tion, in a Letter to the Members of the Working Men's College, 45 Great Ormond Street,' pp. 19. Macmillan & Co. 8vo. [171 ' The Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Command- ments.' A Manual for Parents and Schoolmasters. To which is added, ' The Order of the Scriptures, pp. xii + 114. Macmillan & Co. i8mo. [172 ' Mediaeval Philosophy ; or, a Treatise of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy, from the 5th to the i4th Century.' New Ed. [a re-issue of ' Moral and Metaphy- sical Philosophy,' III. (1857)], pp. xi + 253. Macmillan & Co. Crown 8vo. [173 Preface to 'Meditations and Prayers concerning the Church and Mankind.' [' Present-Day Papers.' Edited by the Bishop of Argyll, ist Series.] [174 187 1. " On the Mode of Dealing with the Words which occur most frequently in Treatises on Mental Philosophy," pp. 260-280. ['Contemporary Review,' Jan. 1871, Vol. XIX.] [175 " Lord Lyttelton and Mr. Maurice." A letter in reply to " Lord Lyttelton and Broad Churchmen " [which ap- peared the week before], pp. 414-415, Spectator, April 8, 1871. [176 ' The Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament.' 3rd Ed., pp. xxiv + 494. Macmillan & Co. [177 Preface signed at Cambridge, June 1871. ist Ed. 1853. [17] 'Theological Essays.' 3rd Ed., pp. xxiv + 487. Macmillan & Co. Crown 8vo. [178 Preface dated Sept. 1871. ist, 1853. 1872. 'The Conscience.' 2nd Ed., pp. xii + 175- Macmillan & Co. Crown 8vo. [*79 Preface dated Cambridge, Jan. 1872. ist Ed. 1868. Social Morality.' 2nd Ed., pp. xix -f- 414. Macmillan & Co. Crown 8vo. [180 Bibliography. xxxiii 1. "The Rev. F. D. Maurice." (Obituary Notice.) Athencziim, April 6, 1872, pp. 432-3. [181 2. ' The Late Rev. F. D. Maurice :' a Sermon preached by the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, M.A., Hon. Chaplain to the Queen, at York Street Chapel, St. James's, on Sunday, April 7, 1872, pp. 31. Henry S. King. 8vo. [182 3. " Fred. Denison Maurice." (Obituary Notice.) Spec- tator, April 6, pp. 43 I ~3- [183 4. "Professor Maurice," by G. A. Simcox. Academy, April 15, pp. 146. [184 5. " Mr. Maurice as ' Heresiarch.' " Spectator, pp. 462- 3, April 13. 185 6. " F. D. Maurice at Vere Street," by A. J. C. a) Letter). Spectator, p. 466, April 13. [186 7. "Rev. F. D. Maurice," by F. W. M. (Reply to A. J. C.) Spectator, p. 499, April 20. [187 8. " Maurice the Confessor," by an East-end Vicar (a Letter). Spectator, pp. 466-7, April 13. [188 9. " Mr. Maurice's Doctrine on Eternal Punishment," by a Presbyter (a Letter). Spectator, p. 560, May 4. [189 10. 'Frederick Denison Maurice:' a Sermon preached in aid of the Girl's Home, 22 Charlotte Street, Portland Place, by Charles Kingsley. 8vo., pp. 15. Macmillan & & Co. 1873. [190 Obituary Notice signed *N.' in the Tatlet in Cant' bridge. No. 61. Monday, April 22, 1872. [191 'Sermons preached in Country Churches,' pp. viii + 362. Macmillan. Crown 8vo. Preface by [Mrs.] Georgina F. Maurice. 2nd Ed., 1880. [192 ' Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy.' 2 vols. Vol. I. Ancient Philosophy and the ist to the i3th Centuries, pp. xlvi -{- 675, wich a portrait of Maurice. Vol. II. 1 4th Century to the French Revolution with a glimpse into the igth Century, pp. xvii-f~72o. New Ed. with Preface. Macmillan & Co. 8vo. 1873. [193 A New Edition of the 4 parts published 1850, 1854, 1857 and 1862, with a new preface, and portrait of Maurice, engraved by C. H. Jeens from a drawing by S. Lawrence. 'The Friendship of Books' and (n) other Lectures. Edited with Preface by T. Hughes. Macmillan & Co. 1873. 2nd Ed. 1874; 3rd, 1880. [194 xxxiv Bibliography. Contents: (i) On the Friendship of Books, (2) On Words, (3) On Books, (4) On the Use and Abuse of News- papers, (5) On Christian Civilization, (6) Ancient History, (7) English History, (8) Spenser's ' Faerie Queene,' (9) Milton, (10) Milton considered as a Schoolmaster [1857], (TI) Edmund Burke, (12) Acquisition and Illu- mination [1863], (13) On Critics [1861]. ' The Prayer Book, considered especially in reference to the Romish System.' 19 Sermons preached in the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn [3rd Ed.]; and 'The Lord's Prayer': 9 Sermons preached in the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn, during Feb., March, April, 1848 [5th Ed.], pp. xvi + 399. Macmillan & Co. Crown 8vo. 1880. [195 ' Life of Frederick Denison Maurice, chiefly told in his own Letters.' Edited by his son, Frederick Maurice. With 2 portraits of Maurice ; (i) engraved by C. H. Jeens, from a drawing by S. Lawrence ; (2) engraved by F. Holl, from a portrait by Lowes Dickinson. 2 vols., pp. xvi + 552, xii + 712. 8vo. 1884. 2nd Ed. [Third Thousand.] 2 vols., pp. Ixvi. -j- 552, xxix. -f- 702. 8vo., 1884, [October.] [196 ' Campbell, John McLeod, D.D., Memorials of.' Edited by Rev. Donald Campbell. 2 vols., 1877. ' Clark, Samuel, M.A., Memorials from Journals and Letters of.' Edited by his Wife. 1878. ' Erskine, Thomas, of Linlathen, Letters of.' Edited by William Hanna, D.D. 2 vols. 1877. 4 Ewing, Alexander, Bishop of Argyll and the Isles, Memoir of.' By Alexander J. Ross, B.D. 1877. ' Fox, Caroline, Memories of Old Friends : being Extracts from the Journals and Letters of.' Edited by Horace N. Pym. 2 vols. 1882. ' Kingsley, Charles. His Letters and Memorials of his Life.' Edited by his Wife. 2 vols. 1877. Abridged Edition 1882. ' Macmillan, Daniel, Memoir of.' By Thomas Hughes. 1882, ' Sterling, John. Life, by Julius Charles Hare, 1848.' By Thomas Carlyle. 1851. ' Williams-Wynn, Charlotte, Memorials of.' Edited by her Sister. 1878. CONTENTS. CHAPTER L PACK BIRTH PARENTAGE THE STORY OF THE PASSAGE OF THE OLD PURITANS INTO THE MODERN UNITARIANS POSITION IN THE UNITARIAN BODY OF MR. MICHAEL MAURICE HIS MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE TWO AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL LETTERS BY F. D. M. .... 1-21 CHAPTER II. FURTHER FACTS ABOUT EARLY HOME FATHER, THREE ELDER SISTERS, AND MOTHER YOUNGER SISTERS .... 22-11 Letters : Maurice, Michael, to his daughter Anne, on the change in her religious views (1815) ....... 25 Maurice, Mrs. M., to her husband, on the subject of the change in the religious views of their children (1816) . . 23-25 Extract from a letter of his to her on the same subject (1821) . 26 CHAPTER III. THE BOY HIMSELF UP TO SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE . . . 32-4! Letters : Extract from the letter of a cousin in Australia, giving her recollections of the childhood of Maurice 33 Maurice to his sister Mary, giving an account of a meeting of British and Foreign School Society (1815) . . . 35-37 Goodeve, Dr., of Clifton, giving his recollections of the boyhood of Maurice (1872) ...... .38-41 CHAPTER IV. SEPT. l82I TO OCT. 1823 FINAL YEARS BEFORE COLLEGE . 42-44 xxxvi Contents. CHAPTER V. PAGB OCT. 1823 TO NOV. 1825 CAMBRIDGE FIRST YEAR, TRINITY EARLY IMPRESSIONS HARE'S CLASS-ROOM COLLEGE FRIENDS SECOND YEAR THE APOSTLES' CLUB MIGRATES AT END OF YEAR TO TRINITY HALL ..... 45~6o Letters : Maurice to his father, on his studies and prospects (1823) . 46 Maurice to his mother, on the Cambridge teachers and system (1823) 47-49, 50, 51 Maurice to his sister Priscilla, on her first going to school (1825) 57-59 CHAPTER VI. NOV. 1825 TO OCT. 1827 CAMBRIDGE THIRD YEAR THE ' METRO- POLITAN QUARTERLY MAGAZINE' END OF COLLEGE LIFE AND COMMENCEMENT OF WORK IN LONDON . . . 6l~73 Letters : Mill, John Stuart, extract from a letter of, on Maurice's con- nection with the Metropolitan Quarterly Magazine . . 6 1 Maurice to his mother, on his college life (1826) ... 70 Maurice, M., extract from a letter (1827) of, to a friend, re- garding Maurice's leaving Cambridge . . . 7 2 Ebden, Mr., to C. Kingsley, giving his recollections of Maurice at Trinity Hall (1871) 72 CHAPTER VIL OCT. 1827 TO AUTUMN 1828 LONDON 'WESTMINSTER REVIEW* ACQUAINTANCE WITH J. S. MILL DEBATING SOCIETY BE- GINS WRITING FOR ' ATHEN.SUM ' THE ' LONDON LITERARY CHRONICLE' EDITORSHIP OF 'ATHENAEUM' . . . 74-88 Letters : Mill, John Stuart, to C. E. Maurice, on Maurice's connection with the Westminster Review, the London Debating Society, and the Athenaum (1827) 74 Maurice, M., on his son's shyness. . . . . 76 CHAPTER VIII. AUTUMN 1828 TO NOV. 1829 CHANGES AT HOME DEPRESSION CHANGES OF VIEW INFLUENCE OF HIS SISTER EMMA GIVES UP EDITORSHIP ....... Sg-IOI Letters : Maurice to his mother, on his literary pursuits and mental state (1828) 91 Contents. xxxvii 1829. PACK Maurice to his father, on his own reticence ; on his views of God's character ; on "judge not " . . . 92-96 Maurice to Julius Hare, on the subject of the Athenaum . , 96 Maurice to Julius Hare, announcing his intention of going to Oxford ..99 CHAPTER IX. END OF 1829 OXFORD 'EUSTACE CON WAY ' 1830 MR. BRUCE, MR. GLADSTONE, NOTE BY ARTHUR HALLAM DR. JACOBSON, MR. RICHARDS WINTER OF 1830 AND BEGINNING OF 183! GENERAL RIOT AND DISTRESS THE IRVINGITE MIRACLES I02-I2I Letters 1829 continued: Maurice to Hare, replying to letter advising his return to Cam- bridge 102-104 1830. Maurice, Emma, to Maurice, congratulating him on the com- pletion of his novel ....... 104 Maurice to his sister Priscilla, on the power of Christ's death . 106 Maurice to his sister Priscilla, on the preaching of Edward Irving and others ........ 107 Hallam, A, H., to W. E. Gladstone, giving his impressions of Maurice when at Cambridge ...... 109 Jacobson, W., to Maurice, tendering advice and assistance . I IO Richards, J. L., to Maurice, offering encouragement and assistance . . . . . . . . .Ill Jacobson, \V., to Maurice, urging him to return to Oxford at once, and announcing Sterling's marriage, &c. . . .112 Maurice, Mrs. M., to Maurice, on the condition of the labouring classes . . . . . . . . .114 Maurice, Emma, to Maurice, giving her views of the Irvingite "miracles" ......... 117 Maurice to his sister Priscilla, on the " miracles," and on " light " 1 18 1831. Maurice to his sister Priscilla, on Mr. Erskine 121 CHAPTER X. SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN OF 183! BAPTISM FINAL ILLNESS A.ND DEATH OF HIS SISTER EMMA CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS FATHER AND MOTHER, AND SEQUEL TO THE STORY OF HIS ELDER SISTERS B.A. DEGREE FEBRUARY 1832 CORRE- SPONDENCE WITH HIS FATHER 1832 CONTINUED THE IN- WARD LIGHT A PROTESTANT OF THE PROTESTANTS . 122-144 C xxxviii Contents. PACK Lettfrs 1831 continued: Maurice to his sister Elizabeth, on his sister Emma's death . 124 Maurice to his father, on the discipline peculiar to the coming age 125 Maurice to his mother, on relationships as an ascending and descending ladder between the human and divine . 128-131 1832. Maurice to his father, on communion with God, setting forth the point of his divergence from his father's views . . .132 Maurice to his father, on communion with God, on God's manifes- tation in Christ, and on the Divine unity in the Holy Spirit 134-138 Maurice to his sister Priscilla, on the voice of the Spirit and of Providence ......... 138 Maurice to T. Acland, on Protestantism and the Papacy . 140-142 Maurice to T. Acland, on Hope, Humility, Despondency, View of Sin as an enemy, necessary to Hope and Humility . 143 CHAPTER XI. 1833 AND BEGINNING OF 1834 LYMPSHAM MR. STEPHENSON LETTER TO MRS. MAURICE ORDINATION ANSWERS IN EX- AMINATION 1834 CONTINUED BUBBENHALL CURACY PUB- LICATION OF ' EUSTACE CONWAY ' VIEWS OF OXFORD MOVE- MENT THE WORDS " KINGDOM OF CHRIST" 'SUBSCRIPTION NO BONDAGE' ALEXANDER KNOX .... 145-172 letters : r g 33 Maurice, Mrs. M., to a Unitarian, as to Maurice's taking orders 145 Maurice to his father, on the Ordination Service . . .152 Maurice to his mother, a letter showing the effect on the develop- ment of his thoughts of the contrast between Mrs. Maurice and daughters (as to which, see 28, 29) . . . 154-157 1834. Maurice to his father, on the eve of his ordination . . .158 Maurice to T. Acland, on his occupations at Bubbenhall, and on the Oxford movement ...... 161-163 Bentley, R., to Maurice, on Captain Marryatt's wrath at the use of the name Marryatt in ' Eustace Con way ' . . .163 Maurice, M., to Maurice, on the subject of his novel . . 164 Sterling, John, to Maurice, conveying Coleridge's thoughts on ' Eustace Conway '...... 164, 165 Maurice to T. Acland, on the Universal Church . . . 166 Maurice, to Rev. J. A. Stephenson, on the benefit derived from his instructions, the Church as a Kingdom, and on Bunsen 167 Maurice to T. Acland, on ' Subscription no Bondage,' and on Alexander Knox 169-172 Contents. xxxix CHAPTER XIL PAGE RETROSPECTIVE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL LETTER WRITTEN IN 1870, TO EXPLAIN THE ORIGIN OF 'SUBSCRIPTION NO BONDAGE' 173-184 CHAPTER XIII. END OF 1835, 1836 AND EARLY PART OF 1837 BEGINS 'MORAL AND METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY' LEAVES BUBBENHALL FOR GUY'S LIFE AT GUY'S IS PROPOSED AS POLITICAL ECONOMY PROFESSOR AT OXFORD PUBLISHES 1ST AND 2ND ' LETTERS TO A QUAKER ' l85~22O Letters : 1835. Maurice to Rev. R. C. Trench, on the chaplaincy at Guy's, and on Popery, Catholicism, and High Churchmen . 186-188 1836. Maurice to a friend, on the death of a relation, and on the fall and redemption ....... 188-190 Hare to Maurice, giving Hare's estimate of him and of ' Sub- scription no Bondage ' ...... 190 Maurice to Hare, on his appointment at Guy's, and on the Hampden controversy and Dr. Newman . . .191 Maurice to Trench, on being a godfather, and on Sterling's preaching ......... 192 Maurice to his mother, on his satisfaction with his position at Guy's 193 Maurice to E. Strachey, on his own qualifications as a tutor . 194 Maurice to Strachey, on Sterling's illness .... 195 Maurice to Strachey, on his (Strachey's) illness, with a proposal to write him a course of letters ..... 196 Maurice to Strachey, with a proposal for his reading and study. 197 Strachey, E., extracts from letters from, to his aunt Lady Louis, on the teaching, the doings, and opinions of Maurice 202 et seq. Maurice to T. Acland, on the qualities desirable in a wife, &c. . 204 Maurice to Trench, on A. J. Scott, and on Baptism . . 208 Maurice to Hare, on his own candidature for the Chair of Political Economy ....... 209 Maurice to Trench, explaining the object of his ' Letters to a Quaker* ......... 212 1837- Maurice to Hare, thanking him for his brother's sermons, and sending him ' Letters to a Quaker ' . . . .213 Maurice to Strachey, on a course of study . . . 214-218 Maurice to his mother, " God seeks us, not we Him," enclosing a tract on Baptism ....... 218 uui ^finally 6 Jlickael Maurices Position. CHAP. i. schools, identified by the same name, were men who scarcely differed in opinion from the great body of English Evangelicals, whether within the Established Church or among " Orthodox Dissenters," and others from whom these latter would at all events nowadays recoil as from the worst of heretic. Thus it happened that a man whose opinions were in all main points orthodox might in the same chapel succeed, or be succeeded by, one under the direct influence of dogmatic Unitarianism ; and between these extremes there was a con- siderable number who, whatever their individual opinions might be on one side or the other, yet adhered to the old Presbyterian tradition, and therefore abstained in the pulpit at least from all doctrinal discussion. During the period of transition, before the new masters had established their ascendency, a certain reluctance to permit the change from tolerance to dogmatism to take place needed only an opportunity for its expression. Such an occasion arose when, in 1792, Belsham was proposed as the afternoon preacher in the same chapel in which Priestley was already morning preacher. Belsham was, to his infinite annoyance, then rejected, and a young man twenty-six years ot age was elected in opposition to him. That young man was Michael Maurice. The position which was thus by an accident forced upon him defines accurately the standpoint of the man. Descended, according to his own statement, from one* of those who had suffered at the time of the passing of the Act of Uniformity, the history of his family, of which he left a manuscript record of no general interest, was one exactly characteristic of the ordinary course of life of the English Puritans. In the days of Michael Maurice's father the family appears to have been strictly and even zealously orthodox, and almost * As the names of all these men are recorded in Calamy's ' History of the Ejected Ministers,' and as one and one only bears the name of Maurice, I infer that the man referred to is a certain Henry Maurice, of whom a rather interesting account is there given, and who lived in the part of Wales in which my grandfather's family then were. CHAP. i. His Liberalism. 7 unconscious of the spirit that was abroad in the Presbyterian body. Born on February 3, 1766, Michael Maurice was in 1782 sent by his father, himself an "orthodox" Dissenting minister and farmer, to Hoxton Academy, which was then one of the chief places of education for the children of Presby- terians. During a time when changes in men's beliefs were taking place, which were largely connected with the progress of science and with devotion to reason, those men of science and of thought who, excluded by tests which they could not face from most other pursuits, betook themselves to education, naturally sought congenial occupation at an important Puritan Academy at which no questions were asked as to their opinions. Hence it happened that most of the Professors at Hoxton were either avowedly or secretly under the influence of Unitarianism. But, before and beyond all things, the most powerful minds among them were political Liberals. The aspirations of the time were far more poEtir^] tWan religions aricTMichael Maurice issued from Hoxton Academy, or rather from Hackney College, which was in connection with it, and to which he removed in 1786, a Unitarian in opinion, but heart, soul, and spirit an enthusiastic political Liberal. He had been brought up with the intention of his becoming an orthodox Dissenting minister. By the time that he left Hackney, in 1787, he was sufficiently zealous in his Unitarian opinions to abandon a considerable property which would have been left to him had he been content to adhere to the faith of his forefathers. But the whole tone of his mind in relation to religious questions was that of the old Salters' Hall Presby- terians of 1719,* and not that of the later Unitarian dogmatists. His favourite saying was throughout life that all should believe that to which " their conscientious convictions led them." It is only a convenient inaccuracy to call him " tolerant." His son used often to recall an expression of his, used many years later at a public meeting in Bristol, " Toleration ! I hate toleration ! " meaning that toleration is in some sort itself an * See ante p. 3. 8 Life at Normanstone. CHAP. i. intolerant condition of mind, since it implies a certain sense of superiority and almost of contempt towards those whom we tolerate. Respect for the faith of others, and a conviction that if he could only get an opportunity of stating his case he could reason the whole world over into agreement with himself, are characteristics of his mind, of the influence of which one is continually having proof in reading his letters. His reputation as an earnest preacher survived for many years his departure from some of the places where he worked. He could in writing be at times even eloquent in behalf of the purely Unitarian Creed, but he strictly followed the old Presbyterian tradition in the nature of his sermons, which were absolutely devoid of the doctrinal element, and purely moral in their teaching. In April 1794 he assisted Priestley to pack up his books and scientific instruments when it became necessary for him to fly to America, and soon afterwards he left Hackney and went to Yarmouth. On September 3, 1794, he married Priscilla Hurry, the daughter of a Yarmouth merchant, and after living for some years at Kirby Cane, near Beccles, he removed in 1801 to the manor house of Normanstone, near Lowestoft, a handsome house close to the seashore, with considerable extent of ground attached to it, given to them by Mrs. Maurice's eldest brother. Three daughters had been born before the removal to Norman- stone, Elizabeth in 1795, Mary in 1797, Anne in 1799; then a son William was born, and died in croup. My father's birth in 1805 left thus six years between him and the youngest of the above-named sisters. Two daughters were born at Nor- manstone, Emma in 1807, and Priscilla in 1810. At Norman- stone my grandfather remained till 1812, taking some fifteen or twenty pupils. From about 1806 onwards a son and daughter, two of the three children of Edmund Cobb Hurry, Mrs. Maurice's elder brother both their parents having died made their home with the Maurices. All the party pupils, nephews, nieces, and children lived together in one large household. CHAP. i. Friends and Personal Influence. 9 Partly because of the known moderation of the man, partly because of the tolerant and indifferent temper of the times, partly because of the difficulty which then existed of obtaining good places for general education, it happened that orthodox Dissenters, members of the Church of England, and even not a few clergy, willingly sent their sons to be educated by a man who enjoyed a high reputation for both classical scholarship and mathematical knowledge. Amongst others, Southey sent to him his younger brother, and kept up a friendlylntercourse with him for many years. William Taylor of Norwich, Southey's intimate friend, was a connection of the Maurices, and formed another link to the general literary society of the time, in which, despite the quiet tenour of his life, Michael Maurice had many friends. The horrors of the French Revolution, though they of course in some sense modified his opinions, did not prevent him from writing to an old pupil as late as the year 1823 : " The taking of t]ie Bastille is still one of the Dies Fasti in my calendar." fThe same old pupil, the late Mr. Saunders of Bristol, reported to me when himself an old man an incident which he declared to be exceedingly characteristic of Michael Maurice and of his personal influence. A " bolstering match " had been raging fiercely among some of his pupils after they had gone to their bedroom. In the middle of the combat, whilst the boys were all about the room and were levelling the bolsters at one another, Michael Maurice appeared at the door. He said nothing, but stood quietly looking on whilst the boys scampered off to their beds, and for some little time afterwards. " I could not describe his look and I do not know what effect it had upon others, but I know that I myself," said Mr. Saunders, " have never forgotten it to this day, and that during all the time I was with him I could not possibly have engaged in such a business again." William Taylor in a letter to Southey speaks of " the variety and popularity of pursuits encouraged under that roof." The two elder daughters were during these years growing up into Unitarians of a very different type from that of their IO Frenchay. CHAP. i. father in every respect, except his intense political liberalism. All the circumstances of their life tended to cut them off from the old tolerant Presbyterian tradition, and to make them dogmatic, aggressive, intolerant Unitarians. Their father had sacrificed property for the sake of the Unitarian Creed. The " Church and King " riots at Birmingham had burst with all their fury upon the head and house of Priestley, their father's personal friend, one of the most scientific men of the day, the lawgiver of the Unitarians. The girls seem from their earliest years to have had an interest in the discussion of abstract theological dogma which it is hard to realise. They by no means entertained their father's scruples as to pressing their creed upon his pupils; and when, in 1806, a young orthodox governess was sent to take care of them young as the eldest of them then was they succeeded in a very short time in bringing her over to their own belief. The scale of expenditure at Normanstone seems to have been out of proportion to the profits from his pupils ; and partly on this account, partly from other causes, Mr. Maurice removed in 1812, to Clifton, and in rather more than a year afterwards to the little village of Frenchay, about four miles from Bristol. If the household at Normanstone was as full of life and even of noise as everything appears to indicate that it was, the change to Frenchay must have been very great. The house was much smaller. The village small as it well could be. It lies in a beautiful country of rocky streams, and park- land hill and dale, wilh perhaps some of the finest timber in England within a short distance of it a little hamlet at that time chiefly of Quaker houses, nestled together along one side of a tiny village green, across which the houses look towards a deep ravine, faced on the opposite hillsides by graceful woods. In the very middle of the village lies, as it were, as the epitome of its characteristics, a little Quaker graveyard, shut out from all the world on every side but that on which a narrow entrance running under the tiny meeting-room gives a bare approach to it, and seems to admit you to the very stillness of a Quaker-meeting of the dead. There was at that time no church. CHAP. i. Easter Sunday, 1814. II This little Quaker meeting-house, Mr. Maurice's tiny chapel, and the graveyards belonging to them, were the only spots devoted to sacred purposes within it. Mrs. Maurice's family, the Hurrys, had been definitely Unitarian at the time Michael Maurice was introduced to them, and her nephew adhered to the family type. One cannot tell what influences may have been at work among the members of a household so varied as that of Normanstone. But there is no indication of any change having taken place in Edmund Hurry's faith until, on Easter Sunday 1814, he suddenly broke a blood-vessel. It is perhaps not very diffi- cult to understand that the argumentative, disputative form of opinions which delighted his cousins would, during the months that intervened before his death, be by no means satisfactory to a man whose life was ebbing out. His sister, who nursed him through his illness, was at this time very intimate with the well-known Moravian authoress, Mrs. Schimmelpennick. His illness and his subsequent death became the starting-point of a very remarkable change of opinions among his cousins. My father made repeated attempts during the last six years of his life to record the history of this change, but he always broke oft" abruptly. The effort was too great. The sense of the painful wrenches to which his father had been exposed, as the family gradually left him alone in his communion, was perhaps the chief, but was not quite the only cause that made those parts of the story which most influenced my father's career impossible for an affectionate son and brother to write. A sense that there had for a long time been a mere change in the objects of the intolerant expressions which passed his two eldest sisters' mouths, the intolerance of feeling remaining till a distinct and singular experience had softened it in each of them ; the great love and even admiration which he enter- tained for his sisters ; the difficulty for a brother to give in any kind of measure which should not appear exaggerated an account of the many high qualities in them to which strangers have done such ample justice that almost each one of a large family has been spoken of by some whose judgments carry 12 F. D. Jlf. Autobiographical. CHAF. i. weight in terms of exceptional eulogy these account at all events to some extent for my father's finding the task im- possible. That, under the strain of trouble and perplexity, his father became captious and irritable, no doubt did not make it more easy. And yet when my father came to reconsider the history of these years of his life I am certain that he felt that his family drama must be set forth if the nature ot that " education which God had given him," * for the part he was to play in the world, was not to be concealed. Hence each attempt to write it ended at the point where he had to explain how the conduct of the several actors affected his thoughts and life. Happily, however, all the main facts and dates have been preserved, and so far as. these may serve to complete the fragment I shall give them after my father's letters. TWO AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL LETTERS WRITTEN TO ONE OF HIS SONS IN 1866, BY F. D. M. Letter /. 4 MY DEAREST K, ' You have often begged me to write down some recollec- tions of the sixty years through which I have passed. A fear of not reporting them faithfully and of being egotistical has kept me from complying with your request. But I hope to be tolerably honest. There will be enough in what I say to mortify my vanity if I am. And what I say will possibly be of use in warning you of tendencies which you may have inherited, and in leading you to seek a more effectual way of counter- acting them than mine has commonly been. Above all it must show you, if I can but state the facts as they rise before my mind, what an education God is giving every one of us. ' I say every one ; for you will see nothing strange or excep- tional in my biography. It is thoroughly commonplace, with- out startling incidents or peculiar conflicts, or any results * See followir.rr letter. . His Father. 13 which set me above the level of any of my countrymen. I have longed (how often !) in my silly vanity that I could give myself credit for something rare or great. But there has been a continual disappointment of this ambition, till at last I have learnt in some small measure to praise God for teaching me that I am one of a race, that He has been guiding me wonderfully, striving mercifully with my stupidity and obsti- nacy, setting an object before me when I was most turning away from it, because this is His method with all of us ; because each may be brought to know that it is His method far more perfectly than I have been brought to know it, through my experience. ' My letter to you last week on the " Ecce Homo " will have prepared you for the prominence which I give to the fact that I am the son of a Unitarian minister. I have been ashamed of that origin, sometimes from mere, vulgar, brutal flunkeyism, sometimes from religious or ecclesiastical feelings. These I perceive now to have been only one degree less discreditable than the others ; they almost cause me more shame as a greater rebellion against a divine mercy. For I now deliberately regard it as one of the greatest mercies of my life that I had this birth and the education which belonged to it. ' As I told you the other day, it has determined the course of my thoughts and purposes to a degree that I never dreamed of till lately. My ends have been shaped for me, rough hew them how I would, and shape has been given to them by my father's function and this name " Unitarian " more than by any other influences, though I have been exposed to many of the most different kind which have strangely affected and may appear to some to have entirely disturbed that primary one. ' My father's Unitarianism was not of a fiercely dogmatic kind. But it made him intolerant of what he considered intolerance in Churchmen or Dissenters ; pleased when either would work with him, sensitive to slights from them. I have inherited from him some haste of temper, and impatience of opposition to what he thought reasonable. I wish I had anything like his benevolence, generosity, and freedom from 14 Autobiographical. His Mother. CHAP. i. self-indulgence. As I grew up I became far too sensible of what seemed to me his narrowness, and of a certain inco- herency in his mind ; far too little sensible of his very noble qualities of heart. I have since come to the deep practical conviction that this insensibility was a sin against God, a refusal to recognise the operations of His Spirit. I held that thought while I was with my father, but it was not a firm belief in my mind which could withstand a certain pharisaical conceit that I knew more than he did, and that I was there- fore in some sense better. Now I am very sure that if I had this knowledge it made my moral inferiority to him an addi- tional reason for shame and repentance. My mother had a far clearer intellect than my father, a much more lively imagination, a capacity for interests in a number of subjects, and an intense individual sympathy. In spite of her fancy, which made her very miserable by filling her with the most unnecessary fears about all who were dear to her, she was in all her own trials, even in sudden emergencies, brave and collected, and she had an inward truthfulness and love of accuracy which I have seldom seen stronger in any one ; it gave a sort of curious definiteness to her apprehensions when they were the least reasonable. ' For many years after my birth she was entirely agreed with my lather in his religious opinions. Great differences arose between them afterwards which had a serious effect upon my life; as you will find if I should be able to continue my narrative. I had three sisters older than myself. Two years before I was born my parents lost a little boy in croup. My mother could never utter his name ; in all our intercourse I do not think she ever alluded to him ; though I always perceived a shudder when any of us or any child for whom she cared was said to have the complaint which carried him off. In her papers there are many references to the boy. I think I must owe part of the peculiar tenderness which she always showed me to my having come in a certain degree to supply his place, though she was such a mother to us all that the '.vord peculiar is somewhat out of place. i. Childhood. Caspar. F. M. under 7. 15 ' I have spoken of my parents before I have said anything about the place or time of my birth ; but these t\vo are influ- ences, though subordinate influences in our education. I had the honour of being born on the same day (August 29) with a great Englishman whom perhaps I have not appreciated as much as I ought, though I trust I have always reverenced his sincerity and manliness, John Locke. The sea-coast of Suffolk (my father's house was within a mile of Lowestoft) in 1805 was exposed to reports of French invasions. These were less numerous after the battle of Trafalgar, and I have only a vague impression of once having listened to some talk about them as I lay in my crib one night We heard more frequently of poor men in whom my father was interested as being pressed for the naval service ; shipwrecks, and experi- ments for the establishment of life-boats also interested him greatly, and were topics which were discussed before us. These and some recollections of bathing are the only con- scious impressions which I received from the neighbourhood of the sea. I cannot suppose that any boy does not derive unawares many influences from it which mingle with all the other currents of his life. About the war which was occupying all Europe during the seven years that I passed in Suffolk I cannot remember having heard anything. ' My father was a strong Whig, a? well as Dissenter. He had associated with those who were persecuted by Mr. Pitt's Government and were suspected of French sympathies. I never found afterwards that he distinguished accurately be- tween the first French war and the one which was connected with the freedom of Spain, Germany, Europe. He became ultimately a member of the Peace Society, and I should fancy had a dislike to all fighting at this time. He was not likely therefore to tell me much of Lord Wellesley's victories. I remember being taught Southey's lines on the Battle oi Blenheim. I took it more literally than my parents could have wished, and supposed that Caspar, being an old and wise man, had disposed of his grandchild's objections to the very wicked thing. Some debate between my father and a music- 1 6 Autobiographical. " Burdett and Liberty*' CHAP. i. master about Napoleon's expedition to Russia is all that comes back to me about the foreign events of that memorable time. On the other hand I have vivid impressions respecting some domestic events which now are almost forgotten. Sir Francis Burdett was a great hero of my elder sisters. His going to the Tower and the watchword of his supporters took hold of my fancy, and remain in a memory from which many worthier things have departed. I recollect too the evening on which we heard the news of Mr. Perceval's assassination, and how the question whether Bellingham was sane or mad was debated in our house. My father farmed some land and also had a number of pupils. He was very much interested about agri- culture, and probably knew something about it as it was then pursued. 'I ought to have derived many more country tastes- than I did from his example and conversation ; he might too have cultivated in me a faculty of observation which he certainly possessed, at least, in some directions. But I was singularly the " No Eyes " of the story which was read to me out of " Evenings at Home," and anything social or political took a hold of me such as no objects in nature, beautiful or useful, had. My sister Emma said t to. me,: when we were both grown up, that the scent of some violets which we gathered together as children at Normanstone had never passed out of her soul. How I envied her the freshness and freedom of heart which that experience implied ! ' Among my father's pupils there was one who became one of my kindest friends in after years. There are few men to whom I owe more than Alfred Hardcastle. He was attached to a cousin of mine, Anne Hurry. She was the daughter of my mother's eldest brother, and after her mother's death, when she was eleven years old she came to live in our house. My mother regarded her as a daughter; she must have been very attractive and very clever. To me she was exceedingly kind, and took much pains both to amuse and instruct me. She had a younger brother Edmund, who also spent most of his time with us j and an elder, William, who was a man of CHAP. i. Truth. 1 7 unusual accomplishments ; you must have seen him in his latter days after his return from India. His conversation in his best days was full of variety and interest. It gave me my first sense of what would be called in our days European culture. ' His sister, who had many of his gifts, rather influenced me in another way. Besides her liveliness and wit there was a mystery about her attachment, which was broken off and then renewed, that linked itself with my feelings and impressions as a boy, and has never lost its connections with my manhood. ' Thackeray says that every house has its " skeleton." If I may judge of others from ours, which had nothing the least to distinguish it, I should think every English house might have its heroines of flesh and blood, and might contain records of nobleness and constancy mixed with abundance of errors and contradictions, such as only those novelists can appreciate who believe (as I am satisfied Mr. Thackeray did) that God's creations are better than theirs, that facts are more precious than fictions. ' From fictions of all kinds, modern or romantic, I was care- fully guarded. Miss Edgeworth's " Parents' Assistant" was the only story-book, I think, which ever came into my hands as a child ; afterwards I was allowed her " Moral and Popular Tales." I have never approved or imitated this discipline. I have sometimes murmured against its effects upon myself, but I do not now regret it I had the same temptations to speak falsely and act falsely as other children. I daresay I yielded to them as often. But I do think there was in me a love of truth for its own sake which has kept alive in me ever since. I do not know that the abstinence from fairy tales contributed to it. I am sure my mother's own sincerity cultivated it much more ; and if my father had any hope of making me business- like and scientific, he certainly failed. But I cannot be sure that, along with some dry ness and poverty of fancy, I did not gain in this way a certain craving for realities which has been exceedingly necessary to me since I have begun to deal with abstractions of the intellect. VOL. i C 1 8 Birds and Trades. Age 7-10. CHAP. i. ' In 1812 we left Suffolk. My mother suffered from asthma. My sister Emma seemed to be in an atrophy. An aunt of mine, to whom my mother was much attached, was suffering from a spinal complaint at Clifton. She urged our coming there for the sake of the climate, and that Emma might be under the care of a medical man in whom she had great confidence. Emma's illness increased. She was attacked with water on the brain. But, to the wonder of all, she recovered and lasted till twenty-three, to be a blessing to every member of her family and to many beyond it ' In the year 1814 we removed to Frenchay, about four miles from Bristol, where I spent the next nine years of my life till I went to Cambridge. ' Ever your affectionate father.' Letter II. 'When we left Suffolk a very excellent person, Miss Parker, was residing with us as governess to me and to my sisters Emma and Priscilla ; the latter was three years old. Being very much attached to my mother she consented to go with us into Glou- cestershire. She was, so far as I can judge from my early recollections, a very good teacher. That she was a wise and admirable woman I can have no doubt. My mother had taught me to read. Esther Parker, at her request and my father's, gave me very useful books to read, which I ought to have profited by much more than I did. I remember them now with a mixture of shame and amusement. " Gallon's Birds " and the " Book of Trades " were conspicuous among them. The first I believe is as good a book as any on the subject till Bishop Stanley's appeared. But I never knew the note of a single bird, nor watched the habits of any one. My book information, therefore, if such it was, speedily faded away. With so little care for natural history, I ought to have sympa- thised with the Trades. But the records of their wonders also fell quite dead upon my mind. It was not the fault of the books or of my teachers, nor even of the selection of subjects. CHAP. i. Drama and History. Age 7-10. 19 There are many to whom either or both of these would have been interesting, in whom they would have awakened thoughts and activities which the common teaching of schools do not awaken. I am sure it was no superiority in my case, but a defect both of attention and sympathy, which has caused me much sorrow since, that made me irresponsive to such instruc- tion. I do not recollect that I rebelled particularly against it. My passions, which were violent enough at times, were not excited by a dislike of particular studies or a preference for others. I had no great taste for reading of any kind ; that which I delighted in most was anything dramatic. I was not in- dulged in this preference, but one or two stories of Miss Edge- worth, her " Eton Montem " especially, had a very great charm for me. At a somewhat later time I began to care about his- tory, but it was always such history as I could connect with the events which I heard of as passing in our time, or with some party feeling that had been awakened in me. My father being a Dissenter, I took great interest in a heavy and undoubtedly a somewhat narrow book, " Neal's History of the Puritans." I owe much to the direction which this book gave to my thoughts; much even of the forms which my belief took when I became an Episcopalian. ' My mind had thus received an early theological complexion, and my father greatly desired that I should be a minister among the Unitarians like himself. I took it for granted that I was to be so ; he was not, of course, unwise enough to put a child upon the study of controversies. I was only recommended to read the Bible regularly, and many discussions about it went on in my presence. My Bible reading was a task which I performed every morning ; I did not consider it on the whole an unpleasant task, but was rather proud when I had completed the proper number of chapters. There was something of for- mality about the old Unitarian conceptions of the Bible. My father believed in it more strongly and passionately than most of his sect, and was an enthusiastic champion of the Bible Society. But he encouraged a kind of criticism on it, which, though far short of that which has prevailed since, would shock C 2 2O The Family Change. Age 7-10. CHAP. i. many religious people now more than it did then. For the timidity about the contents and authority of the Bible has in- creased as it has become more exalted into an object of worship. To this exaltation the Bible Society on the one hand, and the Unitarian desire to separate it from the creeds on the other, have perhaps equally contributed. ' But there came a great change over the spirit of our house- hold. My cousin Anne Hurry had been particularly strong in Unitarian opinions ; she had pursued them, I should suppose, more logically and consistently than my father, and had arrived at bolder conclusions. She became intimate with a very supe- rior woman, who had been born a Quaker, and who now was a Moravian. By this lady she was aroused to feel the need of a personal deliverer, such as her old system did not tell her of. The long illness and death of her brother Edmund, which took place in our house, deepened all her impressions. She had broken off the engagement with Mr. Hard castle because they differed in their religious opinions. It was renewed, and they were married. My eldest sister went to visit her, and after- wards a clergyman in Sussex, wh>se wife was a relation of ours. She returned utterly dissatisfied with my father's opinions. My third sister, Anne, a very earnest, solitary thinker, who had long been studying such books as Law's " Serious Call/' sympathised with her, though their habits of mind were very unlike. My second sister, who was staying with her cousin when she died in her first confinement, arrived more slowly at the same impatience of Unitarianism. At first they were strongly influenced by Wesley's teaching. Gradually they all, for awhile, became strong Calvinists ; the form of belief which was most offensive to Unitarians and to my father. It was still more grievous to him that they seemed to cut them- selves off entirely from their childhood by undergoing a second baptism, and being connected with a Society of Baptist Dis- senters. Very gradually my mother entered into their views. When her youngest child was born, many years after the others, she would not consent that there should be any baptism till it should be of age to determine for itself. CHAP. i. Influence on Him. Age 7-10. 21 ' These events in my family influenced me powerfully ; but not in the way which either of my parents or my sisters would have desired, nor in a way to which I can look back, so far as my then temper of mind was concerned, with the least com- placency. ' These years were to me years of moral confusion and con- tradiction. I had none of the freedom. . . .' So the manuscript ends. 22 Ttie Rising of the Storm. F. M. 9. CHAP. u. CHAPTER II. " Layman. My mother's Calvinism came to me sweetened by her personal gracefulness, by her deep charity and great humility. That of her teachers repelled me by its ruggedness, its cruelty, and its arrogance. Clergyman. You would not apply those epithets to the Calvinism of Coligny, of William the Silent, even of John Bunyan ? Layman. Perhaps not. I speak of that with which I have come per- sonally into contact ; amongst preachers especially." Dialogue III., ' On Family Worship? FURTHER FACTS ABOUT EARLY HOME FATHER, THREE ELDER SISTERS, AND MOTHER YOUNGER SISTERS. THE death of Edmund Cobb Hurry is to be seen recorded on a stone let into the surrounding wall of the little graveyard at Frenchay. It took place on the i8th of October, 1814. The stone marks the period at which the first breath of change was clearly perceptible within the household. From this date, that is when Frederick Maurice was nine years old, the " discussions " which, as he says, " went on in " his " presence about the Bible," must have largely turned upon the question of the Divinity of Christ, and upon various kindred subjects. On these questions it may be averred with tolerable certainty that, till she left them to be married, Anne Hurry, supported by her cousin Anne Maurice, continually more and more warmly espoused, broadly speaking, the orthodox side. On the 3rd of January, 1815, Anne Hurry was married. By July the 25th, 1815, Elizabeth Maurice, the eldest girl, had returned from a long series of visits to which my father has alluded ; had been duly reported to her father by some of his Unitarian friends as sadly orthodox in her views ; and on that day Anne, in her sisters' name as well as her own, writes to CHAP. ii. Anne s Letter. F. M. 10. 23 her father, being then in his house,* " We do not think it con- sistent with the duty we owe to God to attend a Unitarian place of worship," and further states that she cannot any longer consent to take the Communion with him. Michael Maurice does not seem to have expected this blow. His answering letter is so short that I give it ; but of course the confusion of the latter sentences is that of the moment and not characteristic. 'Mv DEAR ANNE, ' The sensation your letter has excited in my mind is beyond my powers to describe. I am totally unable to answer it. May God enable me to perform my duty ! I certainly was unprepared for such a stroke. I should have been thankful if any previous intimation had been given. I have not acted as a father to whom no confidence ought to be shown. Nor have I refused to argue or state my reasons of belief in such a way as might have apprised me somewhat of what I expect from those who are dearer to me than they can imagine. But if ever they are parents, they may then con- ceive the distress of 'M. MAURICE.' Two months later Mary Maurice, together with her mother, paid the visit to what proved to be the death-bed of hei cousin, Mrs. Anne Hardcastle, allusion to which is made in my father's statement of the facts. The following letter, written by Mrs. Maurice to her husband to console him in his distress written evidently because she fancied she could say what she wished more quietly and wisely on paper is dated May 1816, that is ten months after Anne Maurice's announcement to her father of her own and Eliza- beth's intentions. ' I am truly unhappy, my dearest friend, to see how much you suffer. I wish it were in my power to comfort you. All * A plan the whole family often adopted as easier than speaking on these trying subjects ; hence a most singular abundance of materials. 24 Mrs. M. Maurice's Letter. CHAP. ir. I do is to remind you of what I have before said ; and your conscience will be a source of purest consolation when the first bitterness of disappointment is over. You well know that you have done much more for your children than those who have the indelicacy to reproach you and congratulate themselves, because their children have passively followed their steps to a Unitarian place of worship. I can think of only one cause by which we can in any way have been led to the present circumstances a desire that our children should be serious. This has been the cause that books were put into their hands that, in the most pleasing and amiable form, have introduced doctrines which are usually represented to young persons of our opinions as being substituted for exertion and holiness. It can be no shame to us that we were obliged to resort to authors of different opinions from ourselves, to give our children serious impressions, to teach them the end for which existence was bestowed upon them. It is, however, a shame to Unitarians in general that they have so few books of this kind. From my own experience, I can say that I am driven to read books which continually introduce doctrines that I cannot discover in the Scriptures, because I find so few Unitarian publications that make an impression on the heart, influencing it by forcible motives to right conduct You feel an anxiety that the younger children should not be biassed to doctrines which have separated the elder ones in religious worship from us, though I must say we were never so united in duty. At your desire the young ones have not lately had any books of the nature you wish to have kept from them. Emma has many hours for reading, and such a love of serious reading that I know not what I shall do for her. Here, then, my fears begin. Accomplishments and literature will neither enable them to discharge their duties, nor support their minds in the numerous trials they must have to endure. How anxious I am that now, whilst their minds are tender and easily impressed, they could have books that would give them right views of life, plain directions for duty, and the greatest supports in affliction 1 I should not like to be responsible CHAP, ii To her Husband. F. M. II. 25 for withholding principles from them, for fear of their im- bibing doctrines different from my own. But in this I cannot judge for you, for though I lament our children's opinions on account of the sorrow you feel, I cannot bring my mind to regret them, whilst I see that they are influential in producing good fruits. My only anxiety is, as it respects myself, that they may never disgrace the religious profession they make. But even if this greatest of trials should await us, we must remember that, after having discharged what appeared to us to be our duty, everything is in the hands of Him who over- rules each event for general good ; and let us not be of those "who disobey God in the capital instance ordered for their trial." With respect to your ability as a minister being diminished by what has taken place, I cannot believe it will be so. If a minister has no motive but the good of his hearers, no persons or circumstances prevent his being useful. If, with an indifference to fame, he studies to be understood, and, regardless of offending, he speaks openly and undis- guisedly against vice, his preaching must be blessed. I am sure it will not be long that you will suffer any trial " to impress you so deeply, as not to have spirit or application for what you consider a solemn trust." You will, I know, apply for strength and assistance where it is never refused to them who ask it in sincerity, and then you will receive the support which will lead you to rejoice even in affliction. That this may shortly be your case is the very earnest desire of your affectionate friend, TRISCILLA MAURICE.' 'May, 1816.' In the following year, 1817 (F. M., twelve years old), being led, as she says, " by the prospect of death," Mrs. Maurice became " sufficiently convinced that she had before made to herself a most false god, and that she had never worshipped the God revealed in the Scriptures." By the year 1819 she was sufficiently eager in her new faith to write, at a time when she was expecting death, a paper which was designed to bring 26 His MotJiers Gradual Change. P.M. 12-16. CHAP. n. her husband over to her views. As she recovered, he never saw it. In September 1821 she gave to her husband a paper which, in consequence of her great distress at causing him trouble, seems to have taken her nearly a year in composing, to ask him how she could, with least pain to him, attend some other public worship than his. Mr. Maurice seems to have foreseen at once that, whatever rules he might now lay down, his whole family would sooner or later follow the example which had been set. In the course of a long letter in answer to her, after expressing his regret that she should have thought it necessary to write to him and should have asked for a letter in reply while they were living together, he says : ' I may be blamed, as I have been, for not interfering with the elder branches, and when they were seeking advice from others not inquiring why I was deemed unworthy of their confidence. With regard to the younger, I will pursue a different path; I will require their attendance on my minis- trations and their assembling at my domestic altar till they can assign a satisfactory reason for their own separation. I have the painful, the afflicting prospect, from all they see and hear, that they will follow the steps of those who may one day feel the anguish I now feel.' The only step which Mr. Maurice during these years had taken in any way to interfere with his daughters was to exact from them a promise that they would in no way influence the younger children. Nevertheless, it was in the nature of things impossible that such a change could take place in the family of a somewhat active and prominent Unitarian minister without exciting indignation among the great body of his co-religionists, who had long since, for all practical purposes, abandoned the Presbyterian tradition both as to tolerance and as to the Bible, and, by a curious inversion of principles, now bitterly reproached Mr. Maurice for having allowed to his children the unfettered study of the Bible. I cannot ascertain that there is the slightest ground for ii. TJtree Sisters. 27 supposing that the young ladies were subjected, within the household, at all events, to anything that, fairly considered, could be called persecution. But they certainly believed themselves to be persecuted. The eldest, Elizabeth, whose imagination, perhaps whose general ability, was the most re- markable of the three, composed various allegories and tales, in which this feature of the case is very prominently brought out; and it may well be believed that the sense of opposition would be very strong since they felt their cause to be an intensely sacred one, since they were prevented from speaking freely in its behalf, and since they knew that not a few of the most intimate of the relations and acquaintances of their parents were disposed to look upon them almost as criminals. They appear, however, to have acted as their father's almoners among the poor. Anne was allowed to relieve her mother of the charge of two of the younger children twin sisters, Esther and Lucilla, born at Frenchay who were brought up alto- gether in her sick-room, and towards whom she at all events desired conscientiously to observe the pledge to her father in no way to influence their religious convictions, while at the same time, as her diary shows, she was more intensely anxious on this subject than on any other. Elizabeth undertook the care of one, and Mary of the remaining sister. The trust that was reposed in them was therefore absolute. Meantime, Frederick Maurice himself, as soon as he was old enough to enter his father's pupil-room, passed for the purposes of secular education almost entirely into his father's hands. But scarcely any or no discussion on questions of religious belief ever, till many years later, took place between the father and son. In the long country walks which both father and son enjoyed, and in which others of the pupils often joined, Michael Maurice was always inclined to throw himself with zest into the discussion of public questions political and philanthropic and to avoid touching on distinctions of creed ; a course to which the bent of his own mind, loyalty to his pupils' parents, and the divided state of his family all disposed him. 28 Strong Individuality. CHAP. n. Whatever direct effort to influence the son's religious opinions was made must have come from his mother. Each of the elder sisters soon took up a position peculiar to herself. Elizabeth, the eldest, passed under the influence of a clergyman of the Church of England, Mr. Stephenson, the rector of Lympsham. Anne at first joined the chapel of Mr. Vernon, a Baptist, and on his death Mr. Foster the Essayist, who succeeded to Mr. Vernon's chapel, became the guide of Anne and Mary. Battles of the fiercest kind soon raged on the subject of the Establishment and of Dissent between Elizabeth and her sister Anne. Mary was, to some extent, permanently separated from them both by her opposi- tion to them during the early days of their revolt from Unitarianism, and seems never to have been exactly in sympathy with either of them. Her bent was entirely practical and business-like a complete contrast to theirs; Elizabeth was too unhandy, Anne too much of an invalid to join in her pursuits. The intense individuality of each of their characters, the dramatic distinctness of the personality of each of these three sisters, is to be noted also of every separate member of the whole family. It is the one sure mark of the race that seems to have been noticed by all who knew them. It gave to their peculiarities of religious conviction an earnestness and a certain aggressiveness which, despite their general agreement on the main point of Calvinism, showed itself in the discussions with one another, not always in an attractive form. Mrs. Maurice's position in relation to them was a very strange one. Whilst amidst all their differences and changes of opinion the daughters were eager to pour forth into any ears that were open to them their most inward feelings, or if ears failed them, to find relief upon paper their mother was always painfully conscious of being unable to express what lay nearest to her heart, and was silent from that very sense of the sacredness and importance of the matter which forced them to speak. From the time that she in the main came over to their views she began to feel also a bitterness of self- CHAP, ii The Mother. 29 reproach as to her own past influence and actions, which comes out in noteworthy contrast to the great reverence and affection which every one of them had for her, and to the motherly instinct with which she kept together their family affection, soothed their differences, and noted with a keen eye their various peculiarities, whether of strength or weakness. Her adhesion to the Calvinism which they all, despite their individual differences, adopted was of a very peculiar kind. In one of her letters to her husband she announces her con- viction that "Calvinism is true." The contrast to the form in which her daughters announced their adhesion to the sect which they joined is very remarkable. For the very essence of " Calvinism " in the sense of her letter is this. That it assumes the existence in the world of a select body who are known as the "elect;" and assumes further that every one in the world can determine in his own mind whether or no he possesses a certain testamur which is called " faith," by which he can decide whether or no he belongs to that select body. Now, on the one hand, each of the sisters quite willingly gave the accredited proofs of their possessing the testamur in question, and on the other, Mrs. Maurice never satisfied her- self that she could do so, though looking at the matter from the outside she quite believed that this view of the Universe was the correct one. It is scarcely too much to say that such a position is a contradiction in terms. Calvinism requires that it shall be believed in from within, not from without. How far the fact that his mother at the same time longed that he should be one of the " elect " and was convinced that she herself was not one was present to Frederick Maurice's mind during the years that he was growing up from boyhood to youth there is nothing very distinctly to show. But it pressed upon him afterwards and the fact itself is an important feature of this part of his life. One other note of her relation to him during his earlier years requires to be recorded. In one of her private papers written when Frederick Maurice was a few years old, she expresses a hope that he will become a minister "of the ever- 30 " The Everlasting Gospel." CHAP. 11. lasting Gospel." Many years later at Frenchay, long after the change in her religious convictions, she expresses her belief and her satisfaction that he has determined to become a minister "of the everlasting Gospel" The repetition of the identical word when it would appear that her wishes must have undergone so great a change is certainly to be taken into account. Whether it implied that she at the latter date, when her son was about sixteen, believed that he was completely one with her in faith or merely in her affection for him that he would preach what was true, whether she did or did not agree with him, it would be impossible now to guess. It would be difficult to exaggerate the influence which his sister Emma, the nearest to my father in age, exercised upon him throughout her short life. From her childhood she was an invalid and the pet of the family, but her relationship to her brother was so close and intimate as to make them the special friends from the earliest years. It is said that before she could speak plain her view of the chief business of life was expressed on some wet day in the words : " It wains, and we must amoose Master Fwedik at home." The governess, Esther Parker, who, till my father was ten years old, had the charge of him, Emma, and Priscilla, was Unitarian in belief for a not much longer time than she was entrusted with this charge. For having been carried away by the enthusiasm of the elder sisters during the days of their proselytizing Unitarianism, and having then abandoned the Orthodoxy in which she had been educated, she adopted also with them under very similar in- fluences, and about the same time, their Calvinistic faith. At the time of Anne Hurry's marriage in 1815, a year before Anne Maurice's letter to her father, Esther Parker ceased to be governess to Frederick, Emma, and Priscilla. It was from this date that the elder sisters began to take charge of the younger, and that Frederick came under his father for education. Emma, my fathers almost twin, was specially attached to Anne, the " solitary thinker," the youngest of the elder group of sisters. Both were invalids, both disposed to quiet and serious reading, both inclined to influences other than Unitarian CHAP. IT. Emma. 3 1 from a very early age. Moreover Emma was, from her weak health and her sympathetic character, in the very centre of the group of sisters which gathered more and more closely round Mrs. Maurice, as she became more and more separated from her husband in religious belief. Now let it be remembered that the elder sisters were for- bidden to speak to their brother on the subject of their own beliefs ; that Mrs. Maurice was for years in a condition of anxious suspense, and always tending to find in silence the only possible solution ; that, however much the mother and sisters might have endeavoured to prevent it, it was impossible that Emma should not be perfectly aware of all that was passing, and all the more keenly interested in it that it was not pressed upon her ; finally, that the moment his school-hours were over, Emma and her brother were sure to be found together ; and it will be seen through what channel the family events which have been recorded exercised at the moment their most direct influence on him. Emma's own character was very unlike that of her sisters; much gentler, much less prone to self- dissection, much more finding its satisfaction in constant thought for others, and in anxiety to be of practical service to others. With the elder sisters such actions seem to have almost entirely proceeded from a sense of duty. With her they sprang from actual tendency, temperament, and inclination. She was not long in embracing her sisters' side in the issue which now lay between them and her father. Indeed, there seems scarcely to have been any period of her life during which she can properly be said to have been a Unitarian. 32 The Boy Himself. CHAP. in. CHAPTER III. " In looking back to the castles of earliest boyhood, we m.y see that they were not wholly built of air, that part of the materials of which they were composed were derived from a deep quarry in ourselves, that in the form of their architecture were shadowed out the tendencies, the pro- fessions, the schemes, of after years. Many may smile sadly when they think how little the achievements of the man have corresponded to the expectations of the child or of the youth. But they cannot help feeling that those expectations had a certain appropriateness to their characters and their powers ; that they might have been fulfilled not according to their original design, but in some other way. I do not think that such retrospects can be without interest, or need be without profit to any one." ' Patriarchs and Lawgivers,' p. 120, March 23rd, 1851. THE BOY HIMSELF UP TO SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE. THE circumstances of my father's childhood have now been given, both as they may be gathered from contemporary papers and as they survived in his memory towards the end of his life. A few trifling stories may be here told which will perhaps supply some hints about the boy himself who lived under the conditions hitherto recorded. Mr. Compton, who occupied Michael Maurice's chapel at Frenchay many years afterwards, there made the acquaintance of my father's old nurse, one Betsy Norgrove. She was fond of telling how, whenever Frederick was missing, she was sure to find him at full length under some big gooseberry bushes or tall-grown asparagus- beds that gave a chance of privacy, always with some book, often with the Bible. She also recorded, with great gusto, how on some occasion when she had offered him, then quite a child, a plum off a tree as she had done the others, he drew himself up to his full height and giving her surname and CHAP. in. " Choose! " 33 Christian name in full instead of the usual " Betsy " " Eliza- beth , I did think you would have known better than to do that, and would have remembered mamma wishes us never to have fruit except she gives it us herself." The reproof, according to the nurse, was quite undeserved, as she knew Mrs. Maurice would have trusted her as much as herself in so simple a matter. However, she added, " I never forgot his look, nor have I ever felt a reproof deeper. I can see him now as if it was yesterday, and I only wish I could see him to tell him of it again." His father placed the most unbounded confidence in him as a child. If any complaint was made of him to Michael Maurice, the invariable answer was, " His intentions are excellent/' and an explanation exculpatory of him. His mother was fond of telling of the discomfiture of a stranger, who as Frederick Maurice, then five years old. entered the room with a biscuit in one hand and a flower in the other, whispered to her, " Children always give up what they least care for : now we shall see which he likes best ! " Then aloud, " Frederick ! Which will you give me, the flower or the biscuit?" Whereupon the child held out both hands, saying, " Choose which you like." Every story, otherwise pointless, about him as he grew a little older suggests a boy puzzled into silence by the conflicting influences round him ; not, that is to say, into abstinence from words, but into that more profound kind of silence which covers the thoughts which are most active within by ready talk on other matters. The following extract is taken from a letter written by one of my father's cousins from Australia to her sister at Hamburg, soon after the news of his death had reached her : 'You ask me about Frederick Maurice. I always remember his bright merry laugh when quite a little fellow, when he used to sit on old Mrs. Crow's lap, and she would sing to him. Then I remember my dear cousin Frederick when he was nearly six years old, when I lived at Normanstone; such a VOL I. D 34 Books. CHAP. in. bright clever little fellow, full of fun, with the sweetest temper ; quite a boy, but never mischievous like most boys. ' I do not think it ever was in his nature to play a mis- chievous trick ; he was kind and gentle, as I ever remember him. ' The last time I saw him as a boy was at Frenchay, near Bristol, where Esther and Lucilla were born, where I spent some time after cousin Anne Hurry's marriage to Alfred Hard- castle. Then dear Frederick was still a bright intelligent boy ; at times grave, and often sitting on a shelf in the book closet, taking down first one book and then another . . . .' From this, as from many other statements made to me, I am convinced that what my father has said in his own letter as to the very restricted nature of the books he was allowed to read, must be taken to apply only to his very early childhood. I have now before me a letter written by one of the elder sisters, Mary Maurice, who, in sending a present of tales from Shakespeare to a little boy just seven years old, says of Shake- speare, " I began to love him when I was about your age." This seems to have been the case with all the children at a very early period, and I think that the fair inference is that the restriction on his reading to which my father alludes was one which was imposed by Michael Maurice under the influence of his first distress at what had happened in the case of his elder daughters, and that under Mrs. Maurice's influence the restriction was very soon withdrawn. Long before my father went to Cambridge, he had gone over an unusually wide range of English literature. The following letter was written when he was ten years old, at the time when his sister Mary was with her mother at what proved to be the death-bed of her cousin Anne Hardcastle, and two months after Anne and Elizabeth had announced to their father their determination to separate from him. CHAP. in. Letter when Ten Years Old. 35 To Mary Maurice. Trenchay, Sept. 12, 1815. ' MY DEAR SISTER, ' As you requested me to answer your kind letter, though I am not certain that I shall have an opportunity of sending it yet, as I see all my companions around me engaged in some kind of writing I thought I might employ myself in a similar manner. In the first place you inquire for an account of the meeting of the British and Foreign School Society in this city but, though I am very inadequate to describe it, I will try my best, hoping for a perfect account you will neither trust to this nor to Mills's " Gazetteer." At first Mr. Protheroe took the Chair, and opened the meeting with a very appropriate speech, stating the reasons why the meeting was called, his own opinion in considering both institutions as connected with the same important end, the temporal and eternal welfare of all. He then stated the causes of the non-attendance of Sir James Mackintosh, who was expected, and also the reason for the absence of Mr. Wilberforce, who would have attended had not a prior arrangement interfered. After this, Mr. John Rowe rose and read the report, which good judges said was most admirably drawn up ; it was Dr. Stock who drew it up, I believe. Mr. Smith then answered all objections to the institution, and proved that the number of regular attendants upon Divine service in the Lancastrian School was not less than those of the Bells, and concluded with expatiating on the blessings of education in general. Then Dr. Role, in a short speech, spoke on the benefits of education in consideration of the shortness of life and a future existence. Then Mr. Fox rose and traced the origin of the Lancastrian School, its rise, and his own personal knowledge of Joseph Lancaster, and concluded by reading a letter from a friend to the institution, and, what was still more pleasing, a donation from the same person of io/. Mr. William Allen then rose, and, following up what had been said by his brother Secretary, showed how J. L. D 2 36 Letter when Ten Years Old. CHAP. m. obtained the royal protection ; the benevolence of the gentle- man who had just sat down in affording assistance to J. L. when he was in such difficulty that the institution seemed on the point of ruin, that he had supported it while in this sinking state, and had raised it to that pre-eminence which it now enjoyed. He then lamented that while Bristol held such a distinguished rank in its benevolence and extensive usefulness, it should be disgraced by such bigotry, that a Churchman would not unite with a Dissenter because he was a Dissenter, though the end of both might be the good of all. He then related an instance he had under his own eye of a clergy- man who would not so much as sit in a room with a Dissenter, but by associating with them in Bible Societies, &c., he was led to resign his narrow prejudices, finding them more harm- less creatures than he had before supposed. The speeches of the Rev. R. Hall and William Thorpe, though there were many more and excellent ones, are the only ones necessary for me to mention. That of the former, though good judges say it was one of the best they ever heard, we could not hear; I therefore will not pretend to delineate it The latter, whose voice, you know, is not in general very deficient in strength, made a short speech on liberty, of which this is a part : " By liberty, I mean not the san- guinary horrors of the French Revolution ; by liberty, I mean that cause for which a Hampden and a Russell bled, that which inspires the breast of a true-born Englishman, and without which man is placed on a level with the beasts of the field." ' I told you at the beginning that I should write this letter at my leisure, which, from my date, you will believe when I tell you I have heard the news of both your letters. I heartily congratulate you on the reception of your cousin into the world. I hope Mrs. Hardcastle will not suffer from it. I am glad to hear that Jones has written to Hannah, and though I could not quite make it out, I thought he had some reference to it in a letter he sent me. I doubt not he will continue the correspondence if his letter is answered. CHAP. in. Sunday School. 37 ' I have bought two volumes of Calamy, first and third ; but I want to obtain the second, and if you see it in London, as you are a good bargainer, I shall be glad if you will purchase it for me. I am reading it. As to my studies, I construe " Horace's Odes " and " Cicero de Oratore," and learn my Greek grammar. As to history, I read " Modern Europe " as before, and shall, when I have been through " England Delineated," read Priestley's " Lectures." I have now answered, I believe, the chief of the questions you asked; but I fear you will think it stupid, and a great deal too long for a letter of such a nature, but as you requested it I have written it ; and as I shall not entertain the same opinion of yours as you will of my weak performance, I hope you will write soon, and a long letter too, to me. Love to Mrs. Hardcastle. Robert desires his remembrance to you.' Frederick Maurice was already taken by his father with him into all his practical schemes of social improvement, whether connected with general problems of national education, with the Sunday school, which he very soon set up in the village ; with the Bible Society, with the anti-Slave-trade, and subse- quently with the anti-Slavery agitation, in which mother and daughters joined as eagerly as the father ; or with the Clothing Club, Soup Kitchen, and other kindred organisations, in which Mrs. Maurice and her daughters were the chief workers. In the Sunday school, under Mr. Maurice's auspices, secular instruction almost exclusively appears to have been given to children who could not obtain it on any other day. As far as I can make out, there was no doctrinal teaching of any kind. It was not in any sectarian sense a Unitarian Sunday school, but was open to all children, without fear that any attempt would be made to bring them over to the opinions of the chief conductor of it. Frederick Maurice seems, from a pretty early age, to have been employed in this school in teaching reading, writing, and kindred matters to the poor children of the neighbourhood. A boy living among a family, all the members of which 38 A Contemporary 's Reminiscences. CHAP. in. were so intensely interested in the questions of the day, could hardly fail to be strongly affected by the excited condition of the public mind in England during the years of his childhood. A letter of his own of the 2ist of December, 1819, shows that the widespread distress, the violent political and social movements, the all but threatening of civil war, the confused surging onward of which formed the staple of English social history during the years which succeeded 1815 had not failed to cause alarm within the little Quaker-Unitarian village, despite the seclusion of the latter. A sketch of him as he was at this time from the pen of his cousin, Dr. Goodeve of Clifton, the one companion of those days who survived him, will now complete the story of his boyhood. ' Cook's Folly, near Bristol ; May 6, 1872. MY DEAR F., 'As you are aware, we were brought up very much together. Sons of two dear sisters, almost in the same nursery, in the same school as boys, and continually associated as young men till I went to India in 1830, I had great oppor- tunities of watching his early character and progress, and I rejoice to have an occasion of repeating now, what I often said then, that during that time I never knew him to commit even an ordinary fault or apparently to entertain an immoral idea. He was the gentlest, most docile, and affectionate 01 creatures ; but he was equally earnest in what he believed to be right, and energetic in the pursuit of his views. It may be thought an extravagant assertion, a mere formal tribute to a deceased friend and companion, but, after a long and intimate experience of the world, I can say with all sincerity that he was the most saint-like individual I ever met Christ- like, if I dare to use the word. ' As a child he was never fractious or wayward, showing, however, early promise of firmness of character and intellectual ability, ever honest and truth-telling at all risk, at the same time eager to learn, and quick to apprehend his lessons in an unusual degree. CHAP. in. Heroes Brougham, Burdett, Hume. 39 ' These qualities he carried with him into boyhood : he never said an unkind word, or did an unfeeling or ungenerous action to his companions ; and he was untiring in work in and out of study hours, thus readily surpassing his school- fellows, yet without any assumption of superiority over them. Truly he was not an example of what, perhaps, would be re- garded as the model schoolboy of the present day for though naturally strong and robust in body, as he was active in mind, he took little part in games or athletic exercises, and he had a great dislike to what is called sport, more especially looking upon anything which involved the torture or death of dumb creatures as cruel and inhuman. He regarded the slaughtering of animals for food as the province of the butcher only. His recreations consisted of light reading, of which he was very fond, and of long country walks in the beautiful neighbourhood in which we then resided. In these I was his frequent companion, sharing, as I did, many of his own tastes at that period of my life. Our conversation may, perhaps, have been a little too much of the " Sandford and Merton " the good boy style occasionally ; but I have a lively remembrance of the great pleasure it used to afford me to hear his opinions upon the important topics of the day, and my admiration of the noble sentiments he expressed upon political and religious questions, and upon the high calling of public men, if they rightly fulfilled the duties imposed upon them. ' He was full of great aspirations as regarded his own future career. His chief ambition at that time was to become a leading barrister, and a member of Parliament for some dis- tinguished constituency. He had two or three idols in the latter class Brougham, Sir Francis Burdett, and Joseph Hume were amongst them. The latter may appear to have been rather strange and uncongenial to such a mind as his, entertaining, as he did, a great dislike to what was then called utilitarianism ; but the honesty of purpose and the unflinching resolution to succeed in what he believed to be right, which characterised the proceedings of the old financial 40 Reminiscences continued. CHAP. in. reformer, won bis esteem rather than the cause for which he fought so bravely in those days. ' Returning home full of enthusiasm after one of these con- versations, he drew up the following resolution, which we both signed, and which many years after I rejoiced to show him, and to prove how nobly he had fulfilled his share of our agreement It ran thus : ' " We pledge each other to endeavour to distinguish our- selves in after life, and to promote as far as lies in our power the good of mankind." ' Neither of us was fifteen years old at that time. ' We were rambling with another friend one summer evening at a distance from home, when we found ourselves in the presence of an angry bull, who drove us to take refuge upon an embankment in the middle of a large field. There we were safe enough, but completely besieged ; the savage beast con- tinuing to pace round us, apparently ready to rush upon any one who came within his reach. ' Time wore on, and the night approaching, we began to feel that his mother would grow uneasy at our absence a matter about which he was always exceedingly sensitive. It was resolved, therefore, that one of us should make an at- tempt to procure assistance, whilst the others endeavoured to divert the bull's attention. Drawing lots was talked of, but Frederick insisted on his right as the eldest to lead the forlorn hope. The scheme was successful ; but the quiet undaunted way in which he retired, facing the bull (who followed him all the while), and slowly bowing to it with his hat at intervals according to a theory he had on the subject till he could make a final rush for the gate, was worthy of all admiration. ' We were not at the same University, but we met frequently in the long vacations, and made walking tours together occasionally. On one of these tours (in the Isle of Wight) an amusing incident occurred, which caused us many a hearty laugh even in after years, and which we enjoyed greatly at Unity. 41 the time. At the end of a long day's walk we unexpectedly met a party of rather fashionable friends, who insisted upon our coming to pass the evening at their house. We ac- cordingly retired to the inn to furbish up our travel-stained garments as best we might. Upon looking for clean stockings (then a more conspicuous article of male dress than at present) we found only one pair remaining in our joint wardrobe, and these, silk ones too, were Frederick's. With his usual generosity and self-denial even in small matters he urged me to wear them. I could not of course hear of this, and the matter ended in a compromise. Each put one upon his right leg, and thus marched into the room shuffled, I should rather say for our great object was of course to conceal the dis- reputable leg. and always to put our best foot foremost. I believe we succeeded tolerably ; but the shifts to which we were reduced to obtain our object, by continually dodging the inferior limb behind and under us, were ludicrous enough.' The quotation which I have placed at the head of this chapter will show that there was at this time an undercurrent of thought in the boy's mind which was too definite to be ever forgotten by the man. What the nature of that thought was the following passage from one of the incomplete autobio- graphical attempts will suggest. " The desire for Unity has haunted me all my life through ; I have never been able to substitute any desire for that, or to accept any of the different schemes for satisfying it which men have devised." In other words, the great wish in the boy's heart was to reconcile those various earnest faiths which the household presented. Another sentence in the same letter runs thus : " I not only believe in the Trinity in Unity, but I find in it the centre of all my beliefs; the rest of my spirit, when I contemplate myself or mankind. But, strange as it may seem, I owe the depth of this belief in a great measure to my training in my home. The very name that was used to describe the denial of this doctrine is the one which most expresses to me the end that I have been compelled, even in spite of myself, to seek." 42 Gloomy Views of Life. F. M. 16. CHAP, iv CHAPTER IV. '* Whose castle's Doubting and whose name's Despair." Pilgrim's Progress- FINAL YEARS BEFORE COLLEGE. WHEN in September 1821 Mrs. Maurice at length informed her husband that she must attend some other place of worship than his, it was inevitable that the difficulties which had hitherto beset her son should come to a crisis. It was certainly about this time, and I incline from a comparison of dates to believe that it was as a direct consequence of his mother's open separa- tion from his father's sect, that Frederick Maurice announced a preference for the Bar as a profession, an escape from many difficulties of his position. In three months from this time he went to live with his cousins, the Hardcastles, in order to take advantage of an offer that had been made to him by a Mr. Clarkson, son of the abolitionist. The latter had proposed, as a personal friend of his father's, to read with him without fee, in order to suggest to him the course he should adopt to train himself ultimately for the Bar. His mother writes to him, evidently very unhappy at his resolution, very anxious that he should take advantage not only of Mr. Clarkson's instructions, but of what she speaks of as " your present opportunities of gaining knowledge on the all- important subject," that is of his stay with his evangelical cousins. More especially she refers to Alfred Hardcastle, and to his being in the near neighbourhood of a lady, " dear Lucy," as Mrs. Maurice calls her, to whom he was glad enough to CHAP. iv. A Lady Friend, 43 pour out troubles which he had evidently found it impossible to explain either to mother or sisters. He could not now more than later in life persuade himself that he had any right to expect to be dealt with differently from the meanest of human beings, since he did not feel able to claim superiority to any one of them, whether by virtue of superior faith or otherwise. He appears to have accepted, or to have been as against himself quite ready to accept, the rigid Calvinistic dogmatism which his mother and sisters were all agreed, among their infinite varieties of view, in urging Accordingly he writes to this lady speaking of himself as " a being destined to a few short years of misery here, as an earnest of and preparation for that more enduring state of wretched- ness and woe," &c. The lady was a personal friend of Mr. Erskine of Linlathen, and at the moment very much under his influence. The earlier of his books were at this time just beginning to appear, and she had corresponded with him. In her answers to Frederick Maurice she adopts precisely the tone that Mr. Erskine would have adopted. " Where is your authority for regarding any individual of the human race as destined to misery either here or hereafter ? Such a view is not supported by the letter or the spirit of that revelation which alone can be admitted as evidence in the case." She declares to him that to represent God as capable of such a mode of dealing with His creatures as this is to make Him into a horrible tyrant, whatever adulatory epithets the subjects of His tyranny may feel themselves obliged to apply to Him. It is evidently the first time that this idea has ever been presented to his mind. In his letter in reply, he appears to have expressed utter horror at the notion of his being guilty of words that could be so construed. She at once seizes upon this point, and tells him that as he admits that God is Love, and that this is a description of His character, his present state of feelings must be due to God's love, and a step forward not downward ; that his experience is common to many, not exceptional. To convince him of this, she refers him to a quotation of his own which, used as it evidently has 44 Room to Breathe ! CHAP. iv. been to express the sense of isolation which was upon him, is very characteristic of what seems to have been his prevailing feeling at the time : " The heart knoweth its own bitterness." These letters and this visit to London exercised a very im- portant effect upon his mind. I shall venture to insert here what, though it was written of the history of a very different mind from his own, will I think be seen by any one who has considered the two auto- biographical letters already given to be in fact a genuine piece of autobiographical study, and especially applicable to this period of his life. ' Chronology in the history of mental conflicts is most uncer- tain ; to-day there may be sensations of vehement disgust for that which was once very dear, to-morrow a return of first love. If the decision is ultimately an honest one, we have no right to assume a cognisance of the previous struggles and revulsions of feeling which are really known only to the Judge of all.' (Preface to the Epistle to the Hebrews, containing a review of Mr. Newman's "Theory of Development." J. W. Parker, 1846, p. 128.) There is no indication that prior to this visit he had begun to feel any craving for an atmosphere freer and wider than he had hitherto been breathing. But very soon after his return, a feeling of this kind made him express a strong desire to go to one of the Universities. No serious opposition seems to have been made to his wishes, and, in the October term of 1823, to Trinity College, Cambridge, he went. CHAP. v. A Home-bred Youth. P.M. 18. 45 CHAPTER V. CAMBRIDGE FIRST YEAR, TRINITY EARLY IMPRESSIONS HARE'S CLASS-ROOM COLLEGE FRIENDS SECOND YEAR THE APOSTLES' CLUB MIGRATES AT END OF YEAR TO TRINITY HALL. ' ' The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction : not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest : Delight and liberty * * * * * Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise ; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings ; Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realised, High instincts before which our mortal nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised." [Quoted of his Undergraduate days by himself in 1866. Inaugural Lecture.} ON October 3rd, 1823, Frederick Maurice reached London, to stay once more with his cousins the Hardcastles for a few days, on his way to Cambridge. A few extracts from letters of this time will give some idea of the shy youth who, with not a little of the formality and stiffness which such a home-breeding as he had received would naturally have engendered, was peering out almost for the first time into the larger world, wondering whether perchance lie might find in it something which would help to clear the " confusion " which, as he has told us, the multiplicity of earnest creeds among those whom he loved had 46 Shyness. F. M. 1 8. CHAP. v. produced in his mind. At this period, and for long afterwards, the painful and intense shyness, the dread of self-assertion, the fear lest all his friends should be ashamed to recognise him, are external features that come out in every report made of him by those who then knew him, and in numerous allusions in his letters not otherwise worth repeating ; such as that he has seen Mr. So-and-So (an intimate friend of his father's, and whom he has himself knov/n all his life), but has not ventured to speak to him. In a letter to his father from London he says : ' I am convinced on the whole that I am going upon that plan which is most likely subsequently to be useful to me, and as great advantages often arise out of apparently the most dis- agreeable circumstances, I do not think that the least benefit will be my being compelled, in some measure, to act for myself. At present I am less qualified to do this than many others, but inexperience up to a certain age is perhaps rather desirable than otherwise, though I feel that it ought not to go beyond that point. If I had left home earlier, as was proposed in case I had gone to Dublin, I should have felt much more confident than I now do in some things, and much more timid in others, and if I were to stay longer, my habits would be very likely too much formed to admit of any great alteration. I trust I shall always, however, keep in view the ultimate end of all my studies, and remember that whatever benefits I may derive from them, or from my residence at College in general, are of no value if they induce a selfish idea that my rise in the world is the thing of all others the most important. I hope I do go to Cambridge with the intention of studying as a duty which I owe not only to myself, but to you and mamma and my sisters. ' I find I cannot say to you what I wished about all your past incessant kindness, especially as exemplified in your allowing me to exercise so large a discretion in the choice of my plans for future life ; but when I reach Cambridge you shall hear more at large about my feelings and intentions. I know that my promises will be less valuable to you than deeds, CHAP. v. Mathematical Lecturer (1823). 47 and if they should disappoint you, the previous promises would only increase your mortification. But my greater or less sensibility to all that has been done for me by you and mamma will be the measure by which I shall judge of my willingness to act up to your wishes, and of the strength of my own resolutions.' The second letter, which is from Cambridge, to his mother, is dated October 23rd, and begins with an allusion to the most eloquent preacher of the South of England of his day, Robert Hall the Baptist, whom he seems to have often heard before, and to have on this day gone with great pleasure to hear. He goes on, ' In the article of postage I mean to be most fearfully ex- travagant, and I hope you will not allow the Cambridge postmen to complain that Mr. Delph [the Frenchay postman] has the whole benefit of it. Indeed, letters here are tenfold valuable, both from the want of other society, and the much greater number of particulars that I want to hear than I can by any possibility have to communicate.' Lectures had already begun two days earlier, but the under- graduates had only received general addresses on the future subjects of the courses, both in mathematics and classics. These addresses he elaborately describes. He rather laughs at the mathematical lecturer as having made out that to mathe- matical studies " we are of course all indebted for our existence and consequent power of attending to lectures at Trinity Col- lege," so that but for them "in all probability the last war would have been the destruction of England, and therefore Bonaparte would never have been sent to St. Helena, nor Mr. O'Meara published his book." However, he is in great delight over one sentence in the speech, in which the lecturer had said " that he had generally observed that those who felt the greatest distaste for mathematics generally stood most in need of the mental discipline which they afforded." 48 Julius Hare (1823). CHAP. v. Another paragraph gives an account of his first view of a man, his intercourse with whom was to become more and more cordial as life advanced. Julius Hare had in the previous year, 1822, left study at the Bar in London to take up a classical lectureship at Trinity College, and was now therefore in his own first enthusiasm for the work which was perhaps always the most interesting to him. ' Our other lecturer, Hare, is a very different man from his coadjutor. He is a lively lecturer and an admirable classic, and you have no reason to complain in his rooms that you are employed an hour in hearing difficulties demolished in a most triumphant style which you really did not fancy had ever occurred to any one. I am particularly pleased with his manner, especially that of recommending books bearing upon the subject in question, but out of the regular College routine. For instance, Schlegel's celebrated work on Dramatic Literature he advised us to study attentively as illustrative of the play we are reading, though it is evidently for the purpose of imparting philosophical views of literature in general that it can possibly be useful, and as such will bear upon the general examination in May. Nothing at Cambridge is so earnestly recommended as the perusal of general literature, except it be, which is absolutely necessary, the study of the evidences of Christianity Paley, Butler, &c. So false is the general opinion that the English Universities have a regular coach-road system, out of which their members are not for an instant allowed to deviate under penalty of life and limb. ****** ' I found also yesterday that undergraduates may obtain books (of course chiefly of reference) from the Trinity library, merely by application to the tutor for a note, which he is always pleased to be asked for. I shall very soon give him this pleasure, as many books, such as Clarendon, are too expensive to buy, and not easily hired. I can procure these for nothing. This is a grand point in which Trinity surpasses, CHAP. v. A Party Vote. F. M. 1 8. 49 as of course she does in everything else, all her rivals the libraries at St. John's, &c., being open only to Masters of Arts." Every member of the family is separately remembered in the letter, and he once more towards its end entreats constant supplies of " the news from Frenchay, which can never be so exhausted as not to leave a residue which I shall be glad to be favoured with." " But I am afraid your side will first cry quarter ; this, you may depend upon it, I shall never do, if I had letters every day." I am not quite sure whether it was in this or in the following term that his zeal for Trinity led him, as he considered after- wards, to follow a multitude to do evil, by voting at an election of Union Officers for the Trinity candidate against a more distinguished rival from another College. The Trinity candi- date for whom he voted became subsequently famous as the Mr. Beales, M.A., of the Reform League and of the Hyde Park-railing riots. The candidate against whom he voted was Benjamin Hall Kennedy, the future Master of Shrewsbury, and Cambridge Greek Professor, who soon afterwards became a College friend, and for whom he had in after-life the greatest respect. Though his father had readily consented to his going to the University, not a few of the acquaintances of the family were somewhat suspicious of a course which was so unusual among them. After he had been at the University about a month, Frederick Maurice replied to their criticism. To his Mother. ' In one of your letters you mention that Mr. Foster * made some objections to the Cambridge system, on the score of its narrowing the mind, and confining all the ideas to classical and mathematical subjects. I believe he must have taken up his opinion more from experience of a few hard-headed * See ante, p. 28. VOL. I. 5O Zeal for University. CHAP. v. curates, who, by dint of immense application at a University, fortunately not interfered with by any hankering after objects of taste or genius, managed to acquire a good mathematical degree, than from acquaintance with those men who are the real boasts of the University. The regular northern plodder who, without any feeling or taste, comes up to the University perhaps from a school where he has been all his life cooking for a senior wrangler, very naturally turns out in after life a man of most odious habits, and as Mr. Foster says, not able to make an ordinarily good sermon. I presume he means by this, merely the composition, arrangement, &c., for the matter neither this nor any other system, I should think, of mere secular instruction would affect in the slightest degree. But such a man as I have described, instead of being venerated and looked up to here, as a prodigy, is a subject of constant and almost illiberal sarcasm, and the men who are held in greatest reputation, those, who like the greater number of the Trinity fellows, especially the tutors and younger part, unite a very large share of what is strictly University knowledge to an extensive acquaintance with modern languages, great facility in English composition, and a general acquaintance with books and men, including an utter absence of all pedantry and a correct and elegant taste. There are a very great number of such persons, especially at Trinity, and by them alone the Cambridge system is to be judged, for it seems to me that it is to the previous preparation of mind that the other class of men are indebted for their disagreeable peculiarities, and not to their after discipline at Cambridge.' * * * * * ' My interest in newspaper reading is wonderfully evaporated, and I seldom do more than just turn over the papers in the Union, soon after Hall, when no better mode of spending time offers itself. Since the fall of Spain I have been almost utterly uninterested about anything in the public line, and the debates in the Union being confined to all time previous to the year 1800, make a member attend rather more to history than passing events.' AGE 1 8. Loneliness. 1824. 51 In an earlier letter he alludes to certain investments of his father's in Spanish Bonds, and adds, ' I ain afraid our ideas of Spanish good faith have had a little touch of romance in them, and that they furnish no exception to the general fact of the unmoral effects of revo- lution on a country. Have you seen the last number of the " Quarterly Review," which contains a most affecting account of the martyrdom of some early Protestant reformers in Spain ? The article is written, I believe, by Lord Holland's chaplain, White, the author of " Doblado's letter," and it is certainly the most interesting and harrowing paper I have seen for a long time. I do see the " Quarterly Review " whenever I like, either from Nicholson, or reading them at Deighton's, which is the common lounging-place of idle and of studious men in their loose minutes while the bell is ringing for chapel, and which are perhaps as profitably spent in reading the papers as in lounging about the streets.' In his second term he became anxious about his father's health. He writes, on Feb. 27th, 1824, to press his being allowed to give up Cambridge, return home, and relieve his father as much as possible of his work of tuition, unless the latter becomes better, and adds, " for it would be much better as well as pleasanter for me to desert Cambridge altogether than that he should suffer from attention to business which I ought to relieve him of." Happily his father recovered, and in any case his parents were by no means disposed to allow him to sacrifice a career on which he had set his heart. His chief companion at this period was Mr. Stock, son of Dr. Stock of Bristol, an old friend. Dr. Stock had left Unita- rianism under the influence partly of the Miss Maurices and partly of Mr. Vernon, their friend. In this second terra, Frederick Maurice changed his lodgings in order to be in the same house with Stock. And he now (Feb. 27th) writes : 'Living in same house with Stock, and our being so much 2 52 John Sterling. 1824. in one another's rooms takes off every feeling of loneliness, as I certainly could not have found a person I should have liked so well as a constant associate.' He was at this time reading with a private tutor, Mr. Field.* There is nothing to show how soon the friendship which was to become the most important in all ways to both of them, that with John Sterling, sprang up. Everything shows that Sterling had the whole active part in forming the acquaintance and friendship, and must for a long time have had hard work in drawing out his sensitively shy and reserved companion. But if the shyness and the sense of frozen isolation had not thawed, it was impossible that he should not be, to some extent, aware of the kind of recognition which his powers were receiving. It was not long before he and Sterling became the favourite pupils of Julius Hare. Hare wrote, soon after Maurice's arrival in Cambridge, that there was in his class- room " a pupil whose metaphysical powers were among the greatest he had ever come in contact with, but that the man was so shy that it was almost impossible to know him." Of his own experiences in Hare's class-room Frederick Maurice has himself given in later life a sketch which is so strictly autobiographical that a few extracts may be given here. ' I do recollect Hare's class-room exceedingly well. I am often surprised how clearly all the particulars of what passed in it come back to me, when so much else that I should like to preserve has faded away. ' You will suppose, perhaps, that this was owing to some novelty in his method of teaching. You will inquire whether he assumed more of a professional air than is common in a College, and gave disquisitions instead of calling on his pupils to construe a book? Not the least. We construed just as they did elsewhere. I do not remember his indulging in a single excursus. The subject in our first term was the Antigone * Afterwards Fellow of Trinity, Rector of Reepham, and editor of various works in patristic and theological literature. CHAP. V. julius Hare. 53 of Sophocles. We had Hermann's edition of the play, which had not long come out ; his entire edition of Sophocles was not then published. We hammered at the words and at the sense. The lecturer seemed most anxious to impress us with the feeling that there was no road to the sense which did not go through the words. He took infinite pains to make us understand the force of nouns, verbs, particles, and the grammar of the sentences. We often spent an hour on the strophe or antistrophe of a chorus. If he did not see his way into it himself, he was never afraid to show us that he did not ; he would try one after another of the different solutions that were suggested, till we at least felt which were not available. 4 You will think that so much philological carefulness could not have been obtained without the sacrifice of higher objects. How could we discover the divine intuitions of the poet, while we were tormenting ourselves about his tenses? I cannot tell ; but it seems to me that I never learnt so much about this particular poem, about Greek dramatic poetry generally, about all poetry, as in that term. If there had been disquisi- tions about the Greek love of beauty, about the classical and romantic schools, and so forth, I should have been greatly delighted. I should have rushed forth to retail to my friends what I had heard, or have discussed it, and refuted it as long as they would listen to my nonsense. What we did and heard in the lecture-room could not be turned to this account. One could not get the handy phrase one wished about Greek ideals and poetical unity ; but, by some means or other, one rose to the apprehension that the poem had a unity in it, and that the poet was pursuing an ideal, and that the unity was not created by him, but perceived by him, and that the ideal was not a phantom, but something which must have had a most real effect upon himself, his age, and his country. I cannot the least tell you how Hare imparted this conviction to me ; I only know that I acquired it, and could trace it very directly to his method of teaching. I do not suppose that he had deliberately invented a method ; in 54 Plato under Hare's Teaching. CHAP, v, form, as I have said, he was adapting himself exactly to the practice of English Colleges ; in spirit, he was following the course which a cultivated man, thoroughly in earnest to give his pupils the advantage of his cultivation, and not ambitious of displaying himself, would fall into. Yet I have often thought since, that if the genius of Bacon is, as I trust it is and always will be, the tutelary one of Trinity, its influence was scarcely more felt in the scientific lecture-rooms than in this classical one; we were, just as much as the students of natural philosophy, feeling our way from particulars to universals, from facts to principles. ' One felt this method, without exactly understanding it, in reading our Greek play. The next term it came much more distinctly before us. Then we were reading the Gorgias of Plato. But here, again, the lecturer was not tempted for an instant to spoil us of the good which Plato could do us, "by talking to us about him, instead of reading him with us. There was no resume of his philosophy, no elaborate com- parison of him with Aristotle, or with any of the moderns. Our business was with a single dialogue ; we were to follow that through its windings, and to find out by degrees, if we could, what the writer was driving at, instead of being told beforehand. I cannot recollect that he ever spoke to us of Schleiermacher, whose translations were, I suppose, pub- lished at that time; if they were, he had certainly read them ; but his anxiety seemed to be that Plato should explain him- self to us, and should help to explain us to ourselves. What- ever he could do to further this end, by bringing his reading and scholarship to bear upon the illustration of the text, by throwing out hints as to the course the dialogue was taking, by exhibiting his own fervent interest in Plato and his belief of the high purpose he was aiming at, he did. But to give us second-hand reports, though they were ever so excellent to save us the trouble of thinking to supply us with a moral, instead of showing us how we might find it, not only in the book but in our hearts, this was clearly not his intention. CHAP. v. Effect of Hare on him. 55 ' Our third term was spent on one of the early books of Livy. My recollections of these lectures are far fainter than those which turned on Greek subjects. I have often been surprised that they are so ; for the translator of Niebuhr must have devoted, even at that time, great attention to all questions concerning Roman history. Some of the remarks he made have since come to life in my mind ; there was the same abstinence here as elsewhere from disquisition, and from whatever was likely to hinder us from learning by making us vain of what we learnt. But he had not, or at least he did not communicate to us, that vivid sense of locality which seems to have formed the great charm of Dr. Arnold's historical teachings, and which is united with much higher qualities in Carlyle's magnificent epic of the French Revolu- tion. I should fancy, therefore, that his readings on poetry and philosophy would always have been the most interesting and valuable. ' I believe that Hare gave some lectures on the Greek Testament to the students of the second year, but I never heard any of them, nor had I ever any conversation with him on theological subjects. In fact, I had very few opportunities of conversing with him on any subject. I had no introduction to him. I had never heard his name when I entered the College, and I availed myself of the kindness which he was disposed to show me, in common with others, less than I should have done if I had been older and wiser. When we met again many years after, my theological convictions had already been formed by a discipline very different, I should imagine, from any to which he was subjected ; they were not altered in substance, nor, so far as I know, even in colour, by any intercourse I had with him. But to his lectures on Sophocles and Plato I can trace the most permanent effect on my character, and on all my modes of contemplating subjects, natural, human, and divine.' Then follows the most eloquent portion of the preface, but it is less strictly autobiographical. In it he attributes 56 Tlie Apostles' Club. CHAP. v. to Hare, first, the setting before his pupils of an ideal not for a few " religious " people, but for all mankind, which can lift men out of the sin which " assumes selfishness as the basis of all actions and life," and secondly, the teaching them that " there is a way out of party opinions which is not a com- promise between them, but which is implied in both, and ot which each is bearing witness." " Hare did not tell us this .... Plato himself does not say it ; he makes us feel it." Among his friends, the two most intimate of whom at this time were Whitmore and Sterling, and in a literary society, the " Apostles' Club," of which he had become a kind of second father, he was more and more being drawn out to express, both in conversation and on paper, the thoughts which were now working in his mind all the more actively because, from his affection and keen sympathy with so many who differed widely from one another in his own family, he had for many years been almost forced to be silent upon the subjects which interested them and him most. It is perhaps not surprising that so peculiar an experience as my father had had in his childhood should have aided in the development of an originality of thought which impressed all who were thrown into his society. It is not possible to exaggerate the tone of respect for his intellectual and moral power employed in speaking of him by all those of his con- temporaries who were thrown into contact with him at Cam- bridge. Before he left the University he found himself the acknowledged leader of the most remarkable body of men within it But as always afterwards throughout life it was a leadership which others were much more anxious to concede to him than he to assume, unless at a moment when there was some unpopularity or difficulty to be faced. That in pushing him into prominence Sterling played the most important part, there can be no doubt. Sterling used to speak now or a little later of spending his time " in picking up pebbles beside the ocean of Maurice's genius." It would be impossible to give in exact chronology the manner in which his thoughts developed at each period of his F. M. 19. Ad-vice to a Sister 1825. 57 University career. But some indications remain of their general course. The statement that he did not hear Hare's lectures on the Greek Testament does not imply that he had then left Trinity. He kept there six terms. The following letter will give a fair idea of him at the beginning of 1825, his second year at Cambridge. The sister to whom it was written was going to school for the first time, and by no means liking the prospect. His father and mother had in the meantime quitted Frenchay, and were now living for a short time at Sidmouth. To a Sister. ' Cambridge, March 182$. 4 MY DEAR PRISCILLA. ' You have not often favoured me with letters, so that as I am obliged in conscience to answer my regular corre- spondents, I have not addressed so many letters to you as I should have otherwise done. But now that you are leaving home so shortly, I cannot miss this opportunity of telling you how much interested I am that you should be happy in your new situation, and, moreover, of my hope that I shall not suffer from the arrangement (you see selfishness always comes in), or see less of you than I should have done had you remained at Sidmouth. Perhaps I shall hardly be gratified as much as I should wish in this last particular, seeing that we boys are indulged with so much longer a vacation than is advisable or proper for us, or would be for you ; I suppose because we are more incapable of such continued exertion as your stronger faculties of mind and body enable you to support. ' Now, as touching the new world into which you are going, you will learn from those far more qualified than I am all that it is worth your while to know, for a great deal will remain, after all, which experience must teach you. On one particular, perhaps, I may give you some advice which will not be altogether unworthy of a place in your memory, that is, not to be disgusted or disagreeably impressed with the 58 Letter to a Sister. CHAP, v place and persons among whom you will find yourself, if they should not quite answer the expectations you had formed of them previous to your going ; you may depend upon it you will always see defects in everything when you have walked close up to it, which did not strike you in the distance. But it does not follow that the picture, or school, or University, is a bad one on this account, and you would probably find the same in every other picture, school, or University you might look at or visit. You know some of our good friends have tried the experiment of going to about thirty different places of education, in hopes of finding the second better than the first, the third than the second, and so on ; but it appears that they were dissatisfied with at least twenty-nine of the thirty, and probably got nothing by these repeated changes but desultoriness of habit and a scrap-book intellect (that is not a word of my coining, it means a sort of intellect which has only little bits of here and there information, and can never fix steadily to anything). You may remember how I raved about Cambridge before I set my foot within its walls, talked about the perfection of all its places, the excellence of all its tutors, and the fine gentlemanly spirit of its resident men. You may easily suppose that I have changed my opinion on several of those points, and modified it on all ; but I do not, therefore, at all regret having become a member of this same University, because I think I have discovered advantages as well as defects that I did not expect. ' I daresay, my dear Priscilla, you will think this sad prosing, and only what you have often heard before, expressed worse ; but you must take the will for the deed, and believe that I would save you some pain which I have occasionally experienced in finding my anticipations not realised, if I could. ' Every new thing must and will please, from a new school to a new pair of shoes ; but both sometimes pinch, and you must not throw them away because they chance to do so more than you like. This is perhaps the only good advice which I can give you that would be of much use to you, for you will have so much that is very good, good as it can be, on 1825 Migrates to Trinity Hall. 59 great principles ; and as for the minor regulations, you know I cannot be very conversant with the characters and manners of young ladies, especially at schools, except from general report, which ascribes to them an almost equal dexterity in running up gowns and friendships, neither of which articles last very long, at least the latter concerning the durability of the former, you know best those which are called eternal friendships terminate, I believe, usually in a fortnight or three weeks. Nevertheless, I daresay you will find very many pleasant associates, and I believe the old and vulgar recipe of good temper is more effectual in preserving them than any- thing else, at least, so my small experience tells me. That is a quality which I believe desirable and undesirable acquaint- ances equally respect ; but none, of course, will love you for it who are not themselves gifted with the same amiable quality : it is too severe a reproach upon them who want it to see you possessed of it. I think, my dear Pris., if you make a proper use of the opportunity, you will find a school one of the best triers, and at the same time improvers, of temper possible; in fact, you must expect a great deal of teasing, which it would be a most laborious and useless exertion to combat with, and therefore, if you had no better motive, policy, or rather necessity, would induce a prudent person to cultivate it 'But I must positively leave off this lecture, and as I am afraid I should relapse into it if I continue my letter, that shall close too ; indeed, it was rather unconscientious to make it so long, considering how you must be occupied. ' Therefore, with best wishes for your happiness, and every confidence that the present scheme will promote it, ' Believe me, my dear Priscilla, ' Your very affectionate brother, ' FREDERICK MAURICE.' At the beginning of his seventh term he migrated to Trinity Hall, ostensibly in order to join what in Cambridge is more especially the Law College as a natural preparation for the Bar. 60 Migrates. CHAP. v. In fact everything indicates that he still looked upon the law as a profession attractive to him mainly because it enabled him to avoid decisions which he was not as yet ready to pronounce with distinct voice. Sterling followed him to Trinity Hall, but no trace is left of their intercourse beyond the record of its existence. F. M. 20. T/ie ' Metropolitan Quarterly, ,' 6 1 CHAPTER VI. CAMBRIDGE THIRD YEAR THE 'METROPOLITAN QUARTERLY MAGAZINE ' END OF COLLEGE LIFE AND COMMENCEMENT OF WORK IN LONDON. " Is it that now my inexperienced fingers But strike the prelude of a loftier strain ?" Dedication of the ' Revolt of Islam? THE ' Metropolitan Quarterly Magazine ' was published for the first time in November 1825. Frederick Maurice and his friend Whitmore acted as joint editors. Some sixteen under- graduate friends contributed articles. It lived through three quarterly numbers. It was to have been published by Long- man, but he gave it up at a very early stage of the proceedings on the ground that it was altogether too abusive and hostile to established authority. Its best epitaph will perhaps be found in the following extract from a letter of John Stuart Mill's to my brother. The letter is dated Avignon, May iQth, 1872. Mr. Mill mistakes, by three years, the date of publication. ' You are probably aware of your father's connection with a short-lived periodical of considerable literary merit, founded, I think, about 1828, and called the "Metropolitan Quarterly Magazine." It was there that he published the article on account of which a passage in the second of his Cambridge lectures shows him to have retained an abiding feeling of self- reproach. That he should have done so is proof of a tender, ness of conscience which may even be called excessive, for the article, which was an extremely clever quiz of the style of Bentham's " Book of Fallacies," was in substance an attack- 62 Against " Cockney ism." Age 20. CHAP. vr. quite legitimate from his point of view, upon what he con- sidered as fallacious in Bentham's own modes of reasoning. I remember another article in the same periodical, which I am almost ' sure I understood at the time to be his ; a powerful denunciation of " Blackwood's Magazine," the most striking article, as I remember, which the publication contained during the short period of its existence.' The "New School for Cockneyism," the article to which Mr. Mill refers, is an attack upon ' Blackwood's Magazine ' as the representative at the time of the mere love of criticism which he in after-life declared to have its being in obedience to the maxim, " Judge that ye be not judged." After explaining that " nine-tenths of the writers and talkers against Cockneyism understand by it," " A Cottage at Hamp- stead," " lecturing at the Surrey Institution, drinking weak tea, professing Jacobinical principles and writing in the 'Examiner,'" he asserts that " a disorder identical with Cockneyism is to be met with in a quarter where it has never yet been observed," then (after defining the Cockneyism which he attacks as a certain narrow temperament of mind), 'This is the Cockneyism which we have always loathed; the Cockneyism which no talents, no excellence can redeem ; the Cockneyism which makes Hunt disgusting and Hazlitt intolerable ; the Cockneyism which, we maintain, may exist equally, and which we detest equally, in a Tory or a Jacobin, a starveling in Grub Street, or a pensioner in Grosvenor Square ; in the writer who ridicules religion and morality for the " Examiner," or in him who, with cowardly and impious policy, employs those sacred names to screen a bad cause or libel a good one in the " Quarterly." ' Those who know of the attempts which were made some years later to confuse all the issues for which he contended, and to evoke popular prejudice against him, by the trick of naming in conjunction with him men from whom he differed as widely as the poles, will be amused to find him at twenty CHAP. vi. For Artist or for Critic ? 63 defending others from the same process, in the following words. It is necessary to the understanding of his whole future life to make it clear how fully he realised what he was facing when he chose the part he was to play hereafter, and that he had already chosen his part. ' Every one remembers when it was impossible to praise a French philosopher or quote from a French book without being denounced as carrying about the infection of Jacobinism ; when no one dared to translate a German play lest he should have a foul bill of health assigned him as coming from a region in which Kotzebue was supposed to be scattering the seeds of death j lastly, when the slightest expression of admiration for the sublimities of nature involved the more honourable but unpopular and dreadful imputation of a Lake Fever. ' In vain was it argued by the sufferers under the first charge that the accusation was vague and indefinite, that French philosophers differed as much from each other as those of any other nation, that Pascal and Montesquieu could not be answerable for the faults of Diderot or Volney ; in vain did the German reader contend that Schiller and Goethe had no other guilt than that of great genius to be reproached for, and that German critics had denounced Kotzebue in severer terms than even English ones ; in vain did the worshipper of Nature attempt to prove that the whole groundwork of the charge against him was untenable, that the notion of a Lake School was a mere fiction of Jeffrey's brain, and that no three writers ever differed more from each other than Coleridge, Words- worth, and Southey : the decree of the Reviewer and the Satirist went forth, and the public believed the statement and fled from the infection.' The same number contains another article by him on a subject of somewhat curious interest. There had just been discovered a long-lost treatise of Milton's on ' Christian Doctrine.' It had produced a great sensation by showing the Unitarian bent of the poet's mind. 64 Independence of Thought. CHAP. vi. Certainly at this time my father had no leaning towards the Unitarian creed. His sympathies a few months later were rather with the Church of England than with any one of the Dissenting sects of the country, and his mind was working in that direction already. The sketch of his life has failed to represent the truth, if it has not made clear the fact, that the most potent influences that were acting on his mind during his early years rather tended in the direction of the Calvinistic than of the Unitarian creed, in so far as they tended to induce him to accept either as a complete expression of truth. Most certainly he was never a Calvinist As certainly after any age at which a child's creed can be supposed to be more than a mere repetition of words put into its mouth, he was never a Unitarian. Nevertheless the chief interest in the paper lies in its showing how strongly was already formed in him the desire to battle against mere popular clamour, shouting down the thoughts of a great man because he did not conform to the accepted mode of belief. In these youthful articles thoughts continually appear which worked in him throughout his life, mingled with many others that were either completely changed or greatly modified. The thing that strikes one as most in contrast to his later writings is frequently rather the form than the thought itself. There is a greater willingness to judge self-appointed judges than he could quite bring himself to in later life, and therefore perhaps in some respects a more definite expression of what he himself believed to be right. The next article that he contributed contains the following passage : 1 We have hitherto forborne any declaration of our political creed ; but our literary creed, we trust, will now be sufficiently intelligible. In literature we are aristocrats to the core. Every scheme which tends to diminish the distance between the nobility of genius and the upstarts of folly every scheme which tends to give the tiers 'etat a parity of influence with 1826. " In Literature an Aristocrat" Age 20. 65 that ancient and venerable aristocracy every scheme which can render the canaille of Grub Street as eligible to the honours and rewards of fame as the optimates of our literature against every such scheme we are resolved to wage an unceasing ami! exterminating warfare.' Most of his contributions are, like the above, defences c those whom he considered the great men of the age against the critics, the precis-writers, the condensers, the suppliers of formulae. Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley, De Quincey, Scott, Keatsv South ey, and, above all, Coleridge, are always the objects of his admiration, and he will tolerate no invasion of theiv kingdom. Coleridge alone receives unbounded praise. The following 1 is on the egotism of the poet whom he was disposed next to him to admire among his contemporaries. ' There is nothing surely in the principles of his poetry which could have prompted Wordsworth to treat with such ludicrous solemnity the novelty of finding a party of gipsies in precisely the same spot in the evening which they had occupied in the morning. It is simply that these gipsies were tabernacling in the poet's parish that they fell under the poet's eye they interrupted the poet's meditation and therefore, as Mr. Coleridge has well remarked, he has shown considerably more indignation at their remaining stationary half a day than it would have been necessary to express if he had been commenting on the unprogressiveness of the Chinese empire during the last four thousand years.' It will interest those who know Mr. Maurice's latest books, especially his lectures at Cambridge on " The ' Conscience ' and the word ' I,' " to be told that the article from which the above is taken is especially devoted to proving that the great characteristic of the age, both in its virtues and in its defects, is " egotism." This assertion is defended by a study of most of the great writers of the period, and of the little ones also. VOL. I. F 66 " Mr. Papster' s Diary." Age 20. CHAI>. vi. The next article is the one on Bentham's ' Book of Fallacies,' to which Mr. Mill alludes. It represents, in a garb more sarcastic and less respectful to those who differed from him than would have been characteristic of him in later life, his inveterate opposition to the principle of Utilitarianism. It must have been at this time a very great relief 7o""trim to be able to speak out strongly on a subject on which his mother and his father were fully agreed, namely, that it is well to do right because conscience commands it, and not because it answers, or because it tends to the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Another article, which is called the " Diary of Mr. Papster," is very characteristic of the loathing he had throughout life for that kind of history or other form of literature which consists in publishing the most insignificant details, and omitting all that can give life, interest or character. The article is in the form of an imitation of ' Pepys' Diary.' It is supposed to relate to the years from 1790 to 1827, and to be published in London in the year 2056, by Mr. Henry Burntcoal, as a most invaluable contribution to the history of the times. The following few lines will serve as a specimen : 1 A person anxious to learn particulars respecting the con- duct of Pitt at the commencement of the French war, has only to turn to the Diary for May 10, 1792, and he will find that on that day " he came into office with a new pair of buckles in his shoes." Another, desirous of learning the thoughts that occupied the mind of Burke at the time of his rupture with the Opposition, will refer to the date of that event in the Diary, and will find that Mr. Burke informed Mr. Papster confidentially " that he had lost no less than two Newfound- land dogs and one puppy in the distemper." ' Another article is devoted to a ferocious attack upon the system of young ladies' education. He begins by declaring that the great advantage which women have over men in the matter of education is the fact that all of them are educated to be women, and not, as men 1826. What are 'Facts'? Age 21. 67 unfortunately are, for the most part, to belong to this or that trade or profession. Then he goes on to explain how this great advantage has been marred by the tendency of the teachers of young ladies to train the memory at the expense of the understanding, and to use ' Those little books called catechisms, which, though of a very moderate size, concentrate, as the advertisements inform us, the matter of many folios. In those volumes are contained " all that is really important " in history, viz. the dates of the events which it records in biography, viz. the time when the gentlemen and ladies whom it signalises came into the world and left it in chemistry, viz. its nomenclature in astronomy, viz. a list of the fixed stars. All such slight and unimportant particulars as relate to the nature of those events, whereof the period is so accurately ascertained, in what causes they originated, what was their influence at the time, and what their ultimate consequences all trivial fend records of the lives of the persons who had the excellent fortune to be born at such a time and place and to die at such another all knowledge of the chemical principles and processes which are indexed by those barbarous names all study relating to the connection of those fixed stars with the other parts of the system to which they belong, and the laws by which that connection is regulated, and the wonderful discoveries by which the fact of their existence was esta- blished all these are subjects for the intellect, and therefore in the works we have referred to they are carefully and prudently omitted. ' Perhaps the only particular in which women are necessarily in a worse situation than we are is this : that from our addiction to the studies connected with our respective avoca- tions we are obliged to abstract ourselves, in a great degree, from the consideration of what is outward and palpable. They, on the contrary, are almost every moment of their lives com- pelled to keep up a communion with forms or idols (to borrow Bacon's expressive phrase). F 2 68 The Imagination. CHAP. vr.. ' The fascinations by which they are surrounded, the fascina- tions which they exert, the nature of their pursuits, their pleasures, even their charities, have all this tendency: the most useful end of female education would be to counteract this tendency, accordingly the conductors have done their utmost to encourage it. Hence the material, sensual, and uncontemplative character of the religion of most pious women. ' Still, however, there is one faculty, which, if suffered to retain any power, would oppose a desperate resistance to this scheme of sacrificing everything to what is visible and cor- poreal ; a faculty whose peculiar province it is to carry the mind out of the sphere of everyday contemplation, to pene- trate the veil which separates what is actual frcm what is possible, and to bring before us unseen truth, invested with the substance, and bright with the colours of reality. While such a faculty exists in the pupil of any system of education, where is the security that she will continue to bow down to the clay images which her rulers have set up ; that she will not display a consciousness of higher powers, loftier destinies than the instructresses please that she should aspire to ; and that she will not cultivate an acquaintance with those truths to which her imagination has directed her, but in which she can only become thoroughly initiated through the medium of her intellect ? ' The imagination, therefore, is a terrible object of the- dread, the hatred, and hostility of the mistresses of establish- ments and the governesses of young ladies.' He complains bitterly of the habit of tearing from their context passages of Shakespeare that are then given out to- be learnt by heart as a punishment, or as even worse, the selection of mawkish poetry for the same purpose. He protests against the use of such a book as Blair's. ' Lectures on Criticism.' 'Its character may be easily described. Whatever rules relating to the externals of composition have been amassed" .AGE 21. Blair's Lectures. 69 by the wisdom and experience of abler writers than the Scotch divine, are transferred into his pages, and laid down with oracular precision; with this difference, that, instead of their application being limited, as originally, to the accidental and outward peculiarities of style, they are delivered as if a know- ledge of them constituted the whole art and mystery of writing. These are the rules, he tells us, by means of which poets are able to write and orators to declaim ; or, if there be anything beside, it is a vague inexplicable something, called native talent or inspiration. ' All study of ourselves and our fellow men, all communings with nature, all examination of the analogies between the material and intellectual world, all that criticism which con- siders poetry, not as dissected into fragments, but as a united whole, not as a mass of dead, torpid matter, but as glowing with life, energy, and gladness anything, in short, that con- nects the intellect with the imagination, is exiled from his system as idle, superfluous, or incomprehensible. Admirably, therefore, does it accomplish the ends of female education. ' For it teaches that the track which the imagination points out is not the way to ascend even to its own heights, and therefore that the wisest course is to cast off this bad guide and unprofitable servant, &c. . . .' One of his last articles is " On the Prose of Poets." It is curious to note that the purpose of it is to maintain the supe- riority of the prose which is written by great poets over that of mere prose writers. Twenty-five years later he defended Mr. Kingsley against a Quarterly Reviewer who had denounced him for making an almost precisely similar assertion. At the beginning of the year 1826, during the course of which most of the above articles were written, the first gap had been made in his home. He had been summoned soon after Christmas 1825, in consequence of the dangerous illness of two of his sisters. On February i6th, 1826, Anne, the sister whom he has spoken of himself as " the solitary thinker," and who had been 70 Parting TJioughts. CHAP, vt in fact the first of them to work her way out of the influence of Unitarianism, died. Emma, the one nearest his own age and his own especial favourite, became from this time a con- firmed invalid, and his letters are full of the anxiety which her condition occasioned him. He was now preparing for leaving the University as soon as he could pass out in Civil Law. To have taken any other course would have obliged him publicly to refuse to declare himself a member of the Church of England, and he would have been almost as little willing to do this as to declare himself a bojiafide member. It enabled him to avoid for a short time longer giving words to his thoughts among his own family words which could not be spoken without giving pain that he still dreaded to inflict. He at this time held a foundation scholarship. He had completely lost his enthusiasm for the University system of the day. His love for Cambridge he never lost, from the hour when he reached it in October 1823 to that of his death. On April 28th, 1826, he writes: To his Mother. * I do not regret having been at College, and but for the expense I should have scarcely any regret at all concerning it. I have learned, if not much of the world which I am aware is immensely different from a College at least to feel more confident and courageous in encountering its terrors than, from my anticipations, I believe I should ever have been otherwise. ' At the same time I do hope, though this effect of a College life is not, I confess, a usual one, that, from the style of persons among whom I have been thrown, that I have be- come somewhat less selfish, and a good deal less conceited and dogmatical ' If you should see and do see much of this still about me, you must remember how very, very much I had before I left home for the first time, and you perhaps will give my friends SI-RING 1826. On Leaving Cambridge. 71 certainly not myself credit for having in some degree diminished it. At the same time every day renders rne more averse to the system as a system, not from any experience of its personal inconveniences, but from conceiving it to be very ill calculated for the objects which it professes to answer. My father will be delighted with an article in the last number of the " Edinburgh Review," written by Bab- ington Macaulay, himself a fellow of Trinity, against the University. It is headed " London University," and gives a more complete view of the evils of the system than anything I ever read.' The following report of a conversation with the Civil Law Professor, taken from a letter to his father of this date, is too dramatic to be lost : ' The only point in which Mr. Kearsey seemed to disagree with me in the views I had formed of my subsequent life, was in thinking that I was not sufficiently willing to give up everything to my profession. When I said that I feared the effect of legal habits might be to unfit me for enlarged thinking upon any other subject, he seemed to admit the reasonableness of the alarm and yet to laugh at it. You, I think, entertain more tolerance for this apprehension, for I certainly do dread most excessively becoming a mere lawyer, unfit for any higher thought and incapable of any better feelings than the study suggests.' He seems to have gone up to London to commence working either for the Bar or as a conveyancer it is not very clear which was finally decided on during the long vacation of 1826. He returned to Cambridge and passed out in Civil Law, taking a first class in that subject in the following term. He went home for Christmas, and prepared some private pupils for Oxford. His father and mother were now settled at South- ampton. His father was evidently up to this time fully content with any indications he had had of his views. Michael Maurice writes to a friend in the spring of 1827 : ^ 2 Present Tendencies. CHAP. vr. ' Fred has left Cambridge, and has preserved his principles at the sacrifice of his interests. With this I am more satisfied than if he had taken a degree, and had been immediately presented with a fellowship. He was willing to state that he was a full believer in Christianity, and would conform to all the rules of the Gospel ; but subscribe he must, if he would retain his scholarships, for they had presented him Avith two. ' This he could not do, and therefore was not permitted fo take his degree, though he had passed all his examinations with credit.' I do not think the above statement is accurate, as the foundation scholarships were only tenable during residence. Jt represents rather Michael Maurice's view of his son's position than any definite action at the University. Meantime his own thoughts were tending, not without hesi- tation, more and more towards finding in the Church of England the satisfaction he was looking for. The following letter will show one determination to which the consciousness of this tendency now led him. It is dated April igth, 1871, and was written by the late Mr. Ebden to Mr. Kingsley : ' I was the senior and managing tutor of Trinity Hall when Maurice and John Sterling migrated to that College from Trinity. They both stood very highly in my estimate of them, intellectually and morally. Sterling was the more publicly noticeable man, from his oratorical displays. Maurice, reserved and retired, cultivating a few select and attached friends. Of him I saw much more than the other. When he had kept the terms and exercises for the LL.B. degree, he withdrew to go on with legal studies in London, and, after being there a few months, wrote to me to ascertain what degree of consent and adherence to the doctrines and formularies of the Church of England he would have to profess, in order to admission to .i-he degree. I stated to him the required subscription to the 36th Canon. He then requested that his name might be taken SPRING 1827. Consequent Action. 73 from the books, for he was convinced that he could never con- scientiously fulfil this requirement. I then suggested to him that, as he was still eighteen months under the five years' standing necessary to the degree, it might be well for him to pause in his determination ; that further search and thought might lead him to different conclusions; and that, without any mean or sordid motive, he might well hesitate before re- nouncing the advantages of a complete University course. His answer was prompt, and in that high, pure, and noble spirit which ruled his whole life, whatever might be the intellectual phases of his mind. He directed that the step of cancelling his name on the College books should be taken instantly, for whatever his opinions might eventually be, he would not hazard their being influenced by any considerations of worldly interest. ' This correspondence between Maurice and myself was, as I have reason for supposing, known only to him and me, or to some few persons to whom I had mentioned it. The subject and result of it have, on what authority I cannot tell, been brought out in the way mentioned above, and for the most part correctly. The inaccuracy is in the statement that a fellowship at Trinity Hall was offered to Maurice. What was suggested to him on that head, and it could have been only by myself, was that his character, conduct, and success in his College studies would give him fair reason for expecting even- tually the substantial reward of a fellowship, should he make it his object.' Mr. Ebden, in conversation, quoted the words of my father's letter, as that he "would not hang a bribe round his neck to lead his conscience." Whenever my father was questioned on the subject, he simply answered that no fellowship had ever been offered him. He never alluded to his correspondence with Mr. Ebden. 74 Westminster Review. CHAPTER VII. " II regardait toute secte comme nuisible." TURGOT'S Life.* LONDON ' WESTMINSTER HEVIEW ' ACQUAINTANCE WITH J. S.. MILL DEBATING SOCIETY BEGINS WRITING FOR ' ATHE IWEUM' THE 'LONDON LITERARY CHRONICLE' EDITOR SHIP OF 'ATHENAEUM.' IN October of 1827 Frederick Maurice contributed to the 'Westminster Review' an article on Montgomery's "Pelican Island," and in the following January one on Wolfe Tone. The " Pelican Island " is a purely literary article, giving very fully his thoughts on many of the great writers of the day. The article on Wolfe Tone was more strongly on the Liberal party side than any of his other contributions. John Stuart Mill to C. E. Maurice. ' You are probably aware of the striking articles which he wrote in some of the early numbers of the "Westminster Review." ' I particularly remember one on Montgomery's " Pelican Island," and one on Theobald Wolfe Tone's " Memoirs," and I mention them because, young as he then was, the powers of mind and range of thought and feeling shown in them on subjects not specially connected with theology would make them well worthy of being included in a republication of his minor writings, should such be contemplated. ' I was a member of the London Debating Society ; during about two years that your father was a member of it, he was * ' Autobiography of John Stuart Mill,' p. 114. 1827-29. John Stuart Mill. 75 not a very frequent speaker, but your uncle Sterling was, and together they formed a third intellectual party or nuance, opposed both to the Benthamite and to the Tory sections which used to fight their battles there. It was to that time that I owed the commencement of the strong and permanent friendship between Sterling and me, and the greatest part of the personal acquaintance I ever had with your father. He and I were never intimate, but we used to have long discus- sions together on philosophy, religion, and politics; from which, though I do not think either of us often convinced the other, I always carried away, along with a most lively impres- sion of his mental powers and resources, ideas both new and invaluable to me. Indeed, his conversation and that of Sterling were almost my first introduction to a line of thought different from any I had previously known, and which, by itself and by its effects, contributed much to whatever mental progress I subsequently made. ' It was during the same period that your father and Sterling wrote frequently in the " Athenasum," which, under their in- fluence and that of their friends, sent forth many valuable thoughts, and maintained an elevation of character very uncommon, both then and now, in literary or any other periodicals. I had no knowledge of the authorship of the particular articles, on which you are probably much better informed. ' After those years, your father's path and my own, both in life and in speculation, were widely apart, and our direct in- tercourse was small and at considerable intervals; but I re- mained an assiduous reader of his writings, and was always a sympathising as well as admiring observer of his career.' The history of the Debating Society has been so completely given by Mr. Mill in his ' Autobiography ' (pp. 123 to 131), that, as it was a very secondary incident of my father's life, it will be sufficient here to refer to those pages. One fact, however, is too closely connected with my father's later life to be passed over in silence. It was just the time when the Socialist move- 76 Early Co-operative Societies. CHAP. vn. ment under Mr. Owen's auspices was beginning to assume practical form. A number of Working Men's Co-operative Associations were set up, most of which failed. Now it was from debates in a society founded by the Owenites that the Debating Society to which Mr. Mill alludes originally sprang. The co-operators do not appear to have been represented in -the Debating Society ; but it will be seen from Mr. Mill's statements that many of those who had gone to the earlier society to oppose the co-operators were debaters whom my father was continually meeting in the second society, so that he must have been thus early brought into acquaintance with the nature of the discussion between the co-operators and those who specially called themselves political economists. It is evident that others besides those who connected Socialism with the theological revolution which Mr. Owen desired to introduce defended it against Mr. Mill and the political economists, for Mr. Mill records that the speech which was most effective against him was delivered by Tliirlwall, the future historian and Bishop of St. David's. In London Maurice went little into society, shyness and dread of making himself conspicuous in any way being still recorded of him. Thus his father writes of him : ' He has too discouraging an opinion of himself and his per- formances. He will not suppose that any one forms a good opinion of him, and really desires his company. Hence he has never availed himself of the opportunities I possessed of intro- ducing him to certain classes; what notice he has attained arises solely from the services he has rendered others, and not from any advantage which might have been conferred upon him.' Comparing the statements of those who then knew them, I incline to think that though Sterling sometimes succeeded in inducing my father to accompany him elsewhere, it was chiefly at Mrs. Barton's, the house from which each of them afterwards received their wives, at old Mr. Sterling's, in one another's rooms, in those of Whitmore, or somewhat later at 1827-28. John Sterling. 77 the office of the 'Athenaeum' that they saw most of one another. Of " Fanny Kemble " he certainly saw something, as- did most of those who had been her brother's companions at Cambridge. She is reported to have said to him, " Oh, you are so- proud that you would not be seen with me in public ! " To which he retorted, "If you go down Regent Street on an elephant, I will ride beside you on a donkey." It is somewhat curious that a man of his strongly dramatic tastes only occasionally visited a London theatre or opera, even when, subsequently as editor of a newspaper, tickets for all of them were at his service. I believe, but only from indirect inference, that this was due to two reasons one, that he never could be content with the amount of work he had done, and was therefore always unwilling to take a holiday ; the other, that, as newspaper editor, he always thought some one else would do the criticism better than himself, and would wish for the job, and that he disposed of it accordingly. A certain unwillingness to traverse the feelings of his mother and sisters, even in matters in which he did not think them reasonable, may have had something to do with it. He retained a lively impression of the few occasions on which he did see a play, and used to be rather fond of talking in later life of various points in the acting. During these years the differences in point of opinion between Sterling and himself were already sufficiently notable, though they no doubt fought under the same banner when in presence of those from whom both differed. I am told that Mr. Roe- buck had one day been speaking of his regret at finding it impossible to get at Maurice, and draw him into expressing his thoughts ; " but," he added, " I care less than I otherwise should do about it, for I can always make Sterling talk, and knowing what he thinks, I of course know also what Maurice thinks." The speech was considered sufficiently wide of the mark to be repeated with gusto, and received with much laughter by both Maurice and Sterling. However, the blame must not be thrown on Mr. Roebuck, for Mr. Mill records the same im- pression. " Sterling was," he says, " the orator, and impassioned' 78 Mr. Silk BuckingJiam. 1828. CHAP. vn. expositor of thoughts which at this period were almost entirely formed for him by Maurice." (' Autobiography,' p. 152.) It happened that just at the time that my father went up to London Mr. Silk Buckingham was a somewhat conspicuous figure in England. He had started various literary ventures, v/as lecturing in all parts of the country about himself and his doings, and had attracted considerable notoriety by vigorously opposing the East India Company's monopoly in India. He became a general ventilator of grievances, and as such was some years later returned as Radical member for Sheffield. In January 1828 he started the ' Athenasum,' and, looking round for young literary men to fill his columns, lighted upon Maurice, perhaps at first through Michael Maurice, both Buckingham and the latter being members of the Peace Society, and Buckingham frequently engaged at Southampton in giving lectures. From January to July Maurice appears to have contributed only a series of Sketches of Contemporary Authors : " Mr. Jeffrey and the Edinboro' Review," " Mr. Southey," " Mr. Cob- bett," " Mr. Wordsworth," " Mr. Moore." Then there appears a note of Mr. Buckingham's : ' " The Sketches of Contemporary Authors " which have appeared in these pages having attracted much attention, we have received for publication from a correspondent the follow- ing character of the Ettrick Shepherd. Not being from the same pen as the sketches alluded to, it will not of course be included in that "series," but be regarded as a distinct and separate article. No. 7 of the regular series will contain a sketch of the character and labours of Mr. Brougham, and will be given in the " Athenaeum " of Friday next.' "Mr. Brougham" is followed by " Percy Bysshe Shelley," "Sir Walter Scott," "Sir James Mackintosh," "Maria Edge- worth," " Lord Byron." The latter article appeared on April 8th. After that his connection with the 'Athenasum' seems for a time to have terminated. He and some friends of his became the pro- F. M. 25. Mr. Curly It and the Atlienceum. 79 prietors of the ' London Literary Chronicle,' and he editor of it from the ist of May. On July 1 6th his father writes : ' Fred meets with great encouragement in his new under- taking. The work improves. I knew it would. Do not wonder if you see it united to another approved journal.' On July 30th, accordingly, the 'Literary Chronicle' and * Athenreum ' were united, and he became editor of the united journals, some half-dozen. friends purchasing the proprietorship from Mr. Silk Buckingham. Mr. Carlyle in his ' Life of John Sterling ' has written as if the whole idea of the circle of friends at this time was simply " Radicalism," or, as he puts it, " In all things he and they were Liberals, and, as was natural at this stage, democrats contemplating root-and-branch innovation by the aid of the hustings and ballot-box." It will be seen that both Mr. Mill's evidence, already given, and my father's, to be given hereafter, is distinctly to the contrary effect. Certainly they had no love for " old hide-bound Toryism," and looked forward to the pass- ing of the Reform Bill of 1832. But a large proportion of what Mr. Carlyle here alludes to was, in fact, not at all the work of Maurice, Sterling, or any of their immediate friends, but of Mr. Silk Buckingham. I asked Mr. Carlyle what had given him the impression which he had conveyed on this subject, and he told me that he had had no means of distinguishing between the two lines of influence on. the paper. He seems to have merely given the impression which a general reading of the earlier numbers of the ' Athenaeum ' would convey to a reader who did not know who had written the several papers. The assumption that the articles of Mr. Buckingham and his friends were written by Maurice and Sterling would naturally lead to the mistaken belief that Maurice and Sterling at this time belonged to the ultra-Radical camp. Air. Mill's letter would, perhaps, alone be sufficient to show that this was very far from being the case. But, in fact, the whole tone of the articles of both of them completely belies it. Here, as in the days of 8o " We needs must love the highest . . . ' CHAP. vu. the ' Metropolitan,' the distinctive characteristic of whatever Maurice writes is a. reverence for all great men, a fierce readi- ness to rush in in their defence whenever some one who has caught the popular ear is leading a mob to pillory them, a sympathy with men, and a hatred of parties and sects ; and, what perhaps is the quaintest thing in a newspaper editor, a profound distrust of reviews and periodical literature. It would or course be impossible to prove the justice of this report without much longer extracts than it is possible here to furnish. But as the character and progress of his thoughts at this time can hardly otherwise be traced, a few extracts will give some idea of the views he was taking of men and things. It would be impossible to give any fair impression of the biographical studies by extracts, but it is not a little curious to note that, during the period prior to his assuming the editorship, the editing of the paper appears, if one may judge from the following amongst other notes, to have been strongly utilitarian. " As the power of producing the greatest good for the greatest num- ber is the standard by which we judge of the value of opinions or measures in politics, so, &c.," whilst at the same time he in the sketches never misses an opportunity of asserting, as he does in the article on Sir J. Mackintosh ' It would be futile to say that a different notion from that of the Utilitarians would be more useful than theirs, supposing that, as they pretend, their creed can be proved to be the true one. But on this ground we are content to place the matter, and we are just as certain as of the existence of our senses that there is in the human mind a simple and primary idea of the distinction between right and wrong, not produced by experi- ence, but developing itself in proportion to the growth of the mind.' The conflict between the two lines of thought is sufficiently marked. When he assumes the editorship, his views come out more freely. He is however a good deal hampered by the necessity of giving space to some of those who had contributed during 1828. " Not Lancelot nor Another" 81 the former period of the paper, and bursts out into editorial notes of dissent. His inveterate aversion to systems and parties crops out perpetually. 'At a time when some of the most enlightened men in Germany, France, and England, are acknowledging the deep obligations which they have owed to Plato for having enfran- chised them from systems, and sent them to seek for wisdom, not in the strife of parties, but in the quiet of their own hearts.' The following on education represents a thought that is almost in the same form pressed again in ' Eustace Con way.' A somewhat similar way of looking at the sacredness of arith- metic was very characteristic of his friend Mr. Erskine. Their views must in this case have been altogether independently formed. ' Guesses at the meaning of words which spring from known roots, original exercises, oral instruction in grammar, afford a pupil the best means of feeling his way into a language. ' If arithmetic were taught properly to children, it would be one of the most valuable instruments for cultivating their facul- ties, for elucidating the perplexities which surround them in a strange world, and for rescuing them from the delusions of the senses. But in this shop-keeping country even to hint at such an object as this is dangerous. To force a child to learn by Tieart a multiplication table, of the meaning of which it is utterly ignorant, to make it in its very cradle a selfish calculator, to fit it for the sordid pursuits of the world, and to make it unintelligent even in these pursuits this is the end and effect of modern education.' He speaks of " that first of practical philosophers, Pesta- iozzi." The following will suggest the points which meet his censure in a book. ' It seems to us, then, that it is not necessary, in order to constitute a book mischievous, that it should err on the side of VOL. i. G 82 Is Thinking Immoral ? 1828. CHAP. vn. excessive originality. We conceive it quite possible that a work may be the worse for wanting originality ; worse, we mean, .... in a moral and religious sense. All correct moral writers, and the inspired writers more than any of them, denounce above all things, mental deadness that is to say, that condition of the mind in which it is quickened by no thoughts, impulses, or feelings ; and this upon the plain prin- ciple, that morality and religion being individual concerns, the less individual existence, in other words, the fewer thoughts and feelings a man has, the less is he of a moral and religious being.' Again, as to contempt expressed for a great man because of weaknesses. 'According to Mr. Coleridge's beautiful and self-evidencing explanation of the celebrated apparition which disturbed Luther in his " Patmos," the great Reformer would never have seen that ghost, except he had been in a state of great mental and physical exhaustion. Restore him to health and liberty and he would not have felt less strongly ; but his feelings would not have taken any outward and sensual form. But the majority of men escape such visions, not because they are in a strong state of health, but because they are in a weak state of feeling. It is the same with Swedenborg. He would have been a greater man if his feelings had not turned into visions ; but, as he was, he was infinitely greater than those who have no feel- ings which can turn into visions. * * * * * ' Berkeley, the strongest, the honestest thinker among our English metaphysicians Berkeley, who loved truth with his whole heart and soul, and who, in pursuing it, was as humble as he was courageous Berkeley, who, though he reasoned from narrow premises, and therefore never discovered the whole breadth and universality of the principles which he sought after, yet was able, such was the spirituality of his intellect, even out of that narrow system, which conducted everyone else who 1828. Is not Thoughtlessness Vicious? Age 23. 83 reasoned from it to materialism, to bring the other and far more important side of truth Berkeley, whose understanding, indeed, missed the " circumference," but who found the "centre " in his heart. ' Would to God there were a few. such men in the English Church at the present day ! We should not then have flimsy books written to persuade men to the vice which they are most prone to commit the vice of limiting their imagination, their intellect, and their affections ! We should not have people warned against feeling too strongly, thinking too deeply, lest they should find out too much of the Almighty wisdom, lest they should be too conscious of the Almighty goodness ! But we should be exhorted to cultivate to the utmost every power of the mind, every faculty of the soul ; we should be taught that religion does not consist in words, but in a deep inward power ; that knowledge the knowledge of truth is power, is virtue ; and, above all, we should be stirred up to that study the least pursued, and the most valuable the study of our own natures.' The following is surely unique in a weekly review : ' It is very gratifying to think that the influence of reviewers upon society is every day becoming more and more limited. In nine cases out of ten it is a question of no material con- sequence to the public, or to any individual member of it, whether the verdicts which they give are carelessly uttered, or are the result of mature and conscientious deliberation.- The most perseveringly impartial and earnest critic will find that he has some power of strengthening the foundations of his readers' opinions, but very little of forming those opinions, or changing them, while the most indefatigable of the scribes of darkness can scarcely flatter himself that he has done any single act of successful mischief, and must console himself with the re- flection that, in the silent work of lowering the tone of public feeling and morality, his labours have not been wholly in vain,' G 2 84 On " Getting on" CHAF. vn. In reviewing Hares' ' Guesses at Truth ' : ' Those who . ; . make it their great object to set free their own minds and those of their fellow-men to feel as deeply and think as earnestly as they can, and to teach others to do so who would bring us to truth, not by tumbling us into a stage-coach (none of which travel that road and) which would certainly take us wrong, but by lending us a staff and a lantern, and setting us forward on our way for ourselves, such persons as these, whether in Rome, London, or Cambridge, are very certain to meet at first with but scanty audiences, jealous reception and niggard entertainment.' He has still the same horror of a " professional " education as in the days of the ' Metropolitan.' In an article on the respective functions of King's College and the London Univer- sity he writes : 'And will they, with notions so rigid on the subject, warp and pervert knowledge, not for the honest purpose of diffusing it more generally, but that it may be more convenient for the sordid, selfish purposes of life, that it may enable men to "get on" in the world? Oh, no not here, not in London; not here, where everything else is dragging our souls earth- wards, teaching us that to buy and sell, and get gain, are the only purposes which we are destined to fulfil in our present state of existence ; not here, where it is the effort of a high spirituality to raise ourselves above the sublime contemplations that relate to falls in the Three per Cents., or the rise in hops; not here let Knowledge utter the secret, that she too has the image of the Beast on her forehead : that she too only lives to tell the gold upon the tables of the money-changers.' The readers of Mr. Carlyle's ' Life of Sterling ' are aware of the facts of the ill-starred Anglo-Spanish expedition, in which, two years later than the period I am now dealing with, not a few of Sterling's friends were directly or indirectly concerned. My father had not any share in the transaction. Any letters 1828. Love of Spain. 85 to or from Sterling about it have been destroyed, but he appears to have used all the influence he could to deter Sterling from it It is, however, remarkable that during 1828 articles appeared in the ' Athenaeum,' pleading earnestly the cause of the Spanish patriots, and that all these were written by my father. It was a subject that had been greatly in- teresting him before he went up to Cambridge in 1822. His father had had Spanish pupils at Frenchay, to some of whom all the Maurices were warmly attached. The pleas of the ' Athenaeum ' articles are solely for aid to support the men who had been thrown upon our shores and to educate their children. ' There never was an error in which the grossness of the ignorance it displayed was more suitable to the malignity of the motive which produced it than the pretence that the Spanish exiles were bloodthirsty and anarchical innovators. They are the heirs, representatives, and champions of the old liberty of Spain. Their antagonist is an anarchy compounded of despotism and democracy. Their only object was the esta- blishment of legal and constituted order. The Spanish exiles were driven from their homes because they opposed what all Englishmen, Tory and Whig alike, must consider as a tremen- dous evil, the license, namely, of arbitrary power ; but he who has never turned a single thought to any political question may stand forward to assist these sufferers, in obedience to a loftier principle than mere sympathy with their public principles;' and in his breast humanity may must cry aloud : " Rescue not the defender of freedom, not the Spaniard ; but, above all, and before all, the Man" Stretch forth your hand, not for the support of this cause or that, not for the bearer of one banner or another, not for the man of northern or the man of southern tongue, but for the being in whom our nature suffers, in whom the human soul is degraded by the desperation of hopeless misery.' The following extract shows in what sense he was disposed 86 Women's Theology. Age 23. CHAP. vn. to be influenced by the ladies of his family. When a little later he appears to fall a good deal under their influence, it will be convenient to remember the distinction which he here draws, and to notice that when later in life he speaks, as he often does, of owing more to women than to men, he always excepts the " form " which his thoughts assumed. What he at all times intended to include under " form " may, I have reason to believe from many conversations with him, be fairly gathered from this passage, though it is here expressed with a certain youthful freedom which later in life he would have avoided. In one point of phraseology the passage is also remarkable. In latter years he always looked upon " religion " as an essentially heathenish word ; theology, as the study of the being and character of God, being always set by him in contrast with it. It will be noticed that here, on the contrary, he employs the word "religion" as the synonym for the highest form of character : ' There probably does not exist a female in England who, in any proper sense of the word, can be said to possess a know- ledge of theology. The greater number of the best-thinking and best educated part of the fair population of England never trouble themselves to devise a system of doctrine at all ; and those who do make the experiment, we may say without offence, generally fail most egregiously. Pretty pieces of mosaic, indeed, are the systems of lady-theologians ! In them you may see every colour of the rainbow, from the deep blue of Augustine to the softer violet of Pelagius, mingling, as Miss Landon says, but not mixing, and either supported by no shadows at all, or, if the fair artist has a taste for strong reliefs, flung out from a terrible background of Calvinism. To see how quietly opinions, between which the existence of any logical reconciliation is impossible, walk hand in hand de& monstrante viam and are permitted to share her house and hospitality, is to us merely an edifying proof that women, unless it shall be thought expedient to give them a scientih'c education, never can become theologians. 1828. A nd Women's Faith. 87 ' But this would be a melancholy reflection indeed if we thought that, therefore, they could never become religious. ' And how contrary would such a gloomy suspicion be to all fact and experience ? Where is the choicest part of the reli- gion of this country housed but in the hearts of the choicest portion of its inhabitants ? Where, if not among them, are we to seek for humble faith, energetic love, unshrinking self- denial? Where else for any devotion of which the first-fruits are not given to Mammon and the miserable remainder to God? Where else for any pure and spiritual affections untainted by sensual pollutions ? And is this, as some half-witted scoffers might pretend, because their minds are so little cultivated that they are naturally prone to superstition ? Oh, no ! do not let us lay such a flattering unction to our souls. Their minds (\ve speak of the best part of the sex) are as much cultivated as ours ; but it is another, aye, and nobler faculty of the mind that they have cultivated. They have nourished the feelings which embrace and comprehend truth ; we the understandings which were destined to supply us with the outward and visible expressions of it. Our faculty is worth nothing without theirs; but they, having that principle which forms the character and directs the practice, may in some measure dispense with ours. ' For their religion, too, has a mode of expressing itself, though it seldom resorts to the ordinary phrases of divinity. Those "nameless unremembered acts of kindness and of love" by which their influence is felt through every part of society, humanising and consoling wherever it travels, are their theology. It is thus that they express the genuine religion of their minds ; and, we trust, that if they should ever study the ordinary dialect of systematised religion, they will never, while pronouncing its harsh gutturals and stammering over its difficult shibboleths, forget this elder and simpler and richer and sweeter language.' In December 1828 he has an enthusiastic review of some recent numbers of ' Blackwood,' evidently all the warmer because of former hostility ; but the subjects of his praise are 88 Blackwood again. CHAP. vrr k not his old foes the critics, but Charles Lamb and De Quincey. The articles he praises are, moreover, dramatic and apprecia- tive respectively. Hare's sermon on the " Children of Light " is received with eager welcome. The review of it appears in the last number of the yea? 1828. Michael Maurices Loss of Income. 89? CHAPTER VIII. " Heads of families find that sacrifice is the only bond which can keep fathers and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, at one. God calls nations out of a chaos of turbulent warring elements. They find, that sacrifice must keep them from relapsing into endless war. Individuals discover that all right-doing has its ground in sacrifice, and they find wheu they have offended, it is because they have chosen to break loose from the. law of sacrifice." The Doctrine of Sacrifice, p. 112. CHANGES AT HOME DEPRESSION CHANGES OF VIEW IN- FLUENCE OF HIS SISTER EMMA GIVES UP EDITORSHIP. TOWARDS the autumn of 1828 a serious change had taken place in his father's circumstances. It has been hinted already that Michael Maurice had in- vested to a considerable extent in the bonds of the Consti- tutional party in Spain, led thereto partly by his enthusiasm for their principles and partly by personal acquaintance with, the Spanish patriots through some Spanish pupils of his own. This was by no means the only questionable security in which/ he had been persuaded to place money. The great commercial panic of 1825-1826 shook down not a few weak commercial enterprises during the following years. The absolute destruc- tion of the Constitutionalists and their expulsion from Spain made the Spanish bonds valueless. Till these failures occurred, Michael Maurice must have been in the receipt of a considerable income. Including the. value from the sale of Normanstone, not less than 4o,ooo/. of capital appears at one time or another to have passed into his hands. Till lately he had continued to take pupils; but it was scarcely possible for him as a Unitarian minister, with ali- 9O Birth of 'Eustace Conway! A Novel. CHAP. vm. his family at issue with him, still to do so ; and he was not in strong enough health for the work. Almost his whole income for the time being had disappeared. He thus describes, in a letter to a friend, the manner in which the news was received by his son and daughters : ' I have had such a lively sense of gratitude excited by the conduct of my children, that I am not sorry that they have been put to the test. Elizabeth, Mary, Priscilla, and Fred have seemed to vie with each without consulting each other how they might best assist in relieving any inconvenience we might feel from the diminution of income.' The eldest sister made up her mind to go out as a lady's companion. The second arranged for setting up a school for young ladies. Meantime the large house in a good situation in Southampton they had hitherto occupied was given up, and they arranged to go into a small house in a more out-of-the- way part of the town. If the extracts that have been given from his writings and letters, both in Cambridge and in London, have conveyed at all adequately the extent to which Frederick Maurice had re- pudiated the idea of making professional advancement, or even the obtaining a living, an object of life, it will be obvious that the duty thus suddenly thrown upon him of giving such help as he could to the family necessity must have forced him into very serious reflections. It had certainly no effect whatever in modifying the strength of his belief in another object of life ; but it did both now and for a considerable time to come produce, with other causes, an intense mental depression. About this time three friends Sterling, Maurice, and Whit- more were one evening together in the rooms of the latter, and each pledged themselves to write a novel, which should express the thoughts of each upon various subjects on which they were anxious to deliver themselves, and provide means that were much needed by at least two of the party. To the progress of this novel Frederick Maurice refers in the following letter to his mother. 1828. Depression. 91 F. D. M. to his Mother. 1 The history of my tale, and of the " Athenaeum," may now almost be said to be the history of my life. In addition, however, to these labours, I was obliged on Friday night, in consequence of a long-standing promise, to make a speech which is to me the greatest of all imaginable suffering. The subject was one upon which I have thought a great deal, the disadvantages of competition between the two new Univer- sities; but I did not succeed in making myself intelligible, and was accused of being very metaphysical, which was far from being the case. I never more than half succeed in anything, and there are very few in which I do half succeed. My vanity is thus receiving constant checks, which hitherto have had the effect of making me indolent. But I trust that I shall now have strength to work on without caring for results, merely from a sense of duty. If your recent trials should produce this effect upon me as I am in hopes they may it will be a painful thought that the sacrifices which were to improve my character did not fall upon my head instead of on yours. But I am afraid of hoping even so much as this. I feel strong impulses to idleness, even now, and often sit with my paper before me, doing nothing, from sheer inactivity of mind. But if harder and heavier difficulties should be neces- sary for the cure of a character in which indolence is but one and perhaps the least enormity, I hope it is not sinful to wish that I may be the only person who suffers by them. Could I feel that this was the case now, it would, I think, be a great happiness and yet I am so selfish that I scarcely know -whether it would or no. With best love to all.' Soon after this letter had been sent, he went home for Christmas, and stayed for several weeks. It was an important visit. He for the first time spoke out at least part of his thoughts to his mother and his sister Emma. Ke was be- ginning to consider the question of returning to Cambridge. His father had now for the first time begun to realise how 92 Conscious and Painful Reticence. CHAI>. vnr. widely his son's thoughts differed from his own, and wrote in great distress, as soon as Frederick Maurice had returned to town, to complain that he himself had not earlier been spoken to and given an opportunity for discussion. This is the answer : To Rev. M. Maurice. 'About Feb. 10, 1829, *Mv DEAR FATHER, ' I am very much obliged to you for your kind letter. The last I wrote two or three days before your birthday, the present two or three after, but I hope that will make no difference in your receiving my best wishes that you may have many more days, and every possible blessing in them. I am sure we may have all kinds of blessings if we only seek them r little as I have seemed to believe so from the weary and complaining life which I have hitherto led. ' One reason why I have not enjoyed as much happiness as I might is that I have felt a painful inability to converse even with those who loved me best upon the workings of my mind. I am conscious of the vice, but those only who are unfortu- nately sharers in it can tell how deeply ingrained it is, and how hard to eradicate. Each person I have been acquainted with who has thought me worth knowing has complained of this defect, and imputed it [to] some particular want of con- fidence in them, and I have only been obliged to assure them,, without much hope of being believed, that if they asked others, who had also a right to expect frankness from me [they would hear from these], that my lips had been hermetically sealed to them also. I am conscious of having estranged some from me who, from having made me a depositary of their secrets, had a claim upon mine by this unfortunate disposition. All I have ever been able to say in palliation is that the crime involves its own punishment, that I am much more a sufferer by it than they can be. I am speaking now rather of my feelings than of my circumstances; for, to say the truth, though it is a truth very ignominious to me, I have exercised so little 1829. Possible Return to Cambridge. 93 forethought or deliberation about them, I have been so much determined in them by events, that it was impossible to talk of plans which I had not formed ; and as the asking of advice .generally implies that one has turned over the subject in one's own mind a good deal first, the consciousness of not having done that has often withheld me from taking it till the circum- stance which would decide me is at hand. In the case you mention of my returning to Cambridge, the thought was suggested to me by my mother and Emma, in their kind anxiety that I should not return to the miseries of a London life, about a fortnight before I mentioned it to you as we walked together to the philosophical rooms on Saturday evening. When they first alluded [to] it the notion absolutely startled me, it was so perfectly new. I used the interval in making inquiries whether the scheme was feasible, and as soon as I ascertained that it was, I conversed with you upon it. I am sure you will remember, my dear father, if you think, that it was from me, and not from others, that you heard of it. I would have spoken to you about it even before I knew that it could be accomplished ; but my plans had been so irregular, so disorderly, so changeable, that I was positively ashamed of hinting at another while there was any danger of its being necessarily abortive. ' On ultimate plans I am just as much undecided, though I hope I shall be regulated in them much more by conscience and much less by accident than I have been in those that are past. And there seems to me this difference that there are several ways of getting a livelihood open to me which will not hinder me from adopting a regular profession at last, or put me out of the way of it, and yet will furnish me abundant occupation for thought and diligence if I should continue in them. The notion you allude to of my becoming a clergyman has often occurred to me as a subject of consideration within the last three months, before that very seldom indeed, and never with any seriousness. As far as I can tell at present, I should have no conscientious objection to the undertaking except my own inability for it, which at present I feel would 94 Considers Question of Taking Orders. CHAP. VIIL be as strong a motive to restrain me from the Church as the most decided dislike of its doctrine or its discipline. All, therefore, that I have ever given those who asked me to understand though it is very possible (as people are not very attentive to nice distinctions in matters which do not concern themselves personally) that they may have put a different construction upon my words is that I might possibly adopt that course at last, if I discovered no new reason in an interval of six or seven years (during which time I might be holding a fellowship, taking pupils, &c.) to disapprove of the profession, and did discover many new reasons to think that I might be a worthy member of it. If I look at it in my private moments as a point which I may reach ultimately, it is merely because then [I] think it may be a motive to increased seriousness and more earnest study of the best things. But I have no wish that my friends generally should mistake so loose a speculation for a confirmed intention. 'With respect to my views on this and on all other subjects, my dear father, the strongest wish I have is that my self- deceptions may be laid bare, and that I may not fancy that I am acting from one motive when I am really acting from another. I think purity of intention so necessary quite as necessary as purity of action that I should be most grateful to any one who, with the sincerity of a friend, will detect me in any dishonesty which, from want of sufficient self-examina- tion, I have not detected in myself. That there is such evil lurking at the root even of the conduct which seems most outwardly fair I have learnt even from the little self-knowledge I possess. And this conviction, I believe, occasions the principal difference between my opinions and yours. I be- lieve with you that if we are sincerely devoted to God, He will not be strict to mark occasional deviations, or rather that He will give us repentance for them ; but then it is exactly here that I found I was deceiving myself. My heart was not sincerely devoted to God. I fancied so till I had searched it, but then I saw very clearly that self and the world had far the greatest part of it, If I could have conceived of God as 1829. " Judge not" 95 anything less than perfect love, I might have found less difficulty in satisfying myself that I was conformed to the standard which He requires me to attain. But believing Him to be Love in the most absolute, unqualified sense, I felt the difficulty of approaching Him, or even of comprehending His nature, almost infinite, because love divided my heart with a thousand evil passions, and was itself tainted with evil and corruption like them. The perfect spirituality of God's cha- racter I found I had no idea of, though from habit I might bend my knees to Him and use all the phrases which ex- pressed it. Hence the necessity of that perfect spirituality being embodied to me in a human form ; hence the necessity of being able to contemplate Him, in whom and through whom only I could contemplate God, as the pardoner and remover of that evil in my heart which prevented any spiritual idea of God from being entertained by it; and hence the necessity, when that obstacle, that disease, was removed, of the Spirit of God dwelling in my heart to enable it to think rightly of and pray rightly to Him. When I speak of making these discoveries with reference to myself, I speak literally. I cannot tell you how little, how, I fear, sinfully little I have thought of them with reference to other men. I mention this that you may not suspect me of violating the Scripture rule of " Judge not," which I think I hold in greater reverence than any other in the whole Bible. I do not believe that we can any of us know the least of the inward thoughts of another man with reference to God, and therefore all I would ever wish to do to any one is to say, These assistances I have found necessary in order to accomplish that purpose of be- lieving and worshipping God which we both wish to keep in view as the end of our existence, and these assistances the Bible promises, as I think, to every man. I do not think it would have promised them if our nature had not wanted them. But to say whether anyone individual is availing himself of' these assistances or no, this is beyond the province of all other men; we cannot determine whether he is or is not using them, by any words which he uses, for they may bear a g6 Obeying the Commands of the Oracle. CHAP. vnr. different meaning to him and to us. All therefore I think we should do is to exhort each other (and it is on this point -that I said I was most anxious for exhortations and warnings) .to examine ourselves whether we are seeking them and what- ever subsidiary helps God vouchsafes to afford us or no. I hope there is no uncharitableness in this statement. I am .sure there is much less than in the one we hear so much of nowadays, that each person ought to let his neighbour take care of himself, which if pushed to its legitimate length would jmt an end to all preaching, since if a man is not to care for the interests of his friends, it seems great presumption to trouble himself about those of whom he knows nothing. To stir up self-examination in myself and others, to which I know that I have a disinclination, and to which I believe that all are naturally disinclined, is the only wish I have on this subject, and if they would only adopt the same opinion and endeavour to stir up self-examination in me I should be deeply grateful.' The following letter was addressed to Julius Hare about March 2Oth, 1829, about a month later than the foregoing: To Rev. Julius Hare. ' 19 Lincoln's Inn Fields. * MY DEAR SIR, ' I avail myself of the departure of a friend for Cambridge to return you my most grateful thanks for the valuable com- munications which you have sent to the " Athemeum," and for the most kind language with which you accompanied those communications, and your promise of further favours. ' None of the readers of the " Athenaeum " can feel more sensibly than do the writers in it how much the work would have been improved by the contributions of more thoughtful .and mature pens. They are aware that even when their prin- ciples, having been learnt from wise men, chanced to be right, their weak mode of defending them, or their bad mode of 1829. The Editors] lip not Succeeding. 97 stating them, must often have given pain to those for whose good opinion they were most anxious. It would be impos- sible, therefore, to express the pleasure which they have ex- perienced at finding that there are some kind friends who are willing to overlook the crudeness of their speculations and the presumption with which they have been too often defended, in consideration of their having shown that their conceit does not prevent them from wooing and revering the writing which must make them most ashamed of their own. How much this pleasure is heightened to my friend Sterling and myself by the kindness proceeding from yourself could only be understood if we cculd explain how many of all our better tastes or feelings we trace to the effect of your instruc- tions at Cambridge.' During the following months depression was growing on him. The purchasers of the ' Athenaeum ' found on taking it over that its circulation was by no means such as they had supposed it to be. The weeks preceding their purchase had been occupied by a bitter personal squabble between Mr. Buckingham and the editor of another .Review precisely of the kind most likely to tell against the paper itself for a long time. And although all over the country men of weighty judgment were eager in its favour, the tone adopted was, as may be judged from the specimens given, by no means such as was likely to rapidly conciliate popular favour. Julius Hare, then at Cambridge, Mr. Carlyle, then in Edinburgh, John Stuart Mill, then in London, have each recorded their estimate of the papers that appeared in it. But a conversation is reported from the breakfast-table of another of the four Hare brothers, which perhaps states the case more completely. During the months from July 3oth, 1828, onwards, Francis Hare is said to have frequently remarked, " How very interest- ing the articles in the ' Athenaeum ' have become ! " Mrs. Francis Hare : " How very stupid the ' Athenaeum ' is ! " For the first year of its circulation the judgment of Mrs. Francis VOL. L H 98 Illness of Emma Maurice. CHAP. vnr. Hare was likely to afford a much better test of the probable numerical sale of the paper than that of her husband. The paper was not paying its way. It was for Frederick Maurice a repetition of former experience. His abilities had been recognised in the most ample manner at Cambridge, but he had no tangible marks of success. He had taken up the law as a profession, but was not pursuing it with any definite prospect. He had commenced the ' Literary Chronicle ' with great apparent promise, but it had been cut short by the union with the ' Athenaeum.' Now the ' Athenaeum ' was itself in a pecuniary sense a failure, and the failure came at a moment which made it especially depressing. Another cause was telling heavily on his spirits. His sister Emma was most dangerously and painfully ill. She had now become the centre of all the thoughts of each member of the household. All the father's letters to his correspondents at a distance, each of Mrs. Maurice's and those of the other sisters, are alike in the tone of anxiety, of enthusiastic affection, and of admiration for her unselfishness, her uncomplaining suffering, her thoughtlessness about herself and her constant thought for others. A life so entirely dependent for its features on little homely incidents of daily occurrence can only be guessed at from the impression it made on those around. The little stories that are given by way of illustration seem, when read, not as specimens of the whole daily life but as all that can be told, out of proportion to the enthusiasm they evoked. At the time when the change to the more economical house became necessary in Christmas 1828, she was so ill that the slightest movement was pain. Her father had refused to allow the change of house to take place in consequence of her condition. She found this out, and herself consulted the doctor as to the possibility of her being moved alive, arranged to select the time when with precautions it was possible, and insisted upon being moved. One little story after another is told in her father's letters of her attention to every household matter on which kindly thought could be occupied, at a time when the extremity of illness made it seem impossible to 1829. Decides to go to Oxford. 99 those round her that she should divert her thoughts from herself. Her mother, always sitting at every spare moment at her bedside, was during the early months of 1829 engaged in copying the novel, ' Eustace Conway.' It was at present to bear the title of ' Ellen,' and was sent from London in sheets that the printer would have found too illegible. But both of them were keenly conscious of the depression of the writer's mind and his general unhappiness, and towards the end of May or beginning of June his mother persuaded him to give up the ' Athenaeum ' editorship and return home. They urged especially that they required him to become the tutor of his youngest sisters. His second sister, Mary, was about to study the Pestalozzian system prior to setting up her school, and the proposed arrangement was that he should take her place in the household during her absence. During his visit home he wrote for the ' Athenaeum,' acted as tutor to his sisters, wrote for ' Lardner's Biographies,' and worked at his novel. By the time he returned to London it had been decided that he should go to Oxford, Dr. Jacobson, the present Bishop of Chester, then a resident fellow of Exeter, having arranged for him to count his terms at Cambridge on the conditions explained in the following letter, which was written towards the autumn of 1829. To Rev. Julius Hare. ' MY DEAR SIR, ' Remembering the kindness which I received from you while I was enjoying the advantages of your instruction at Trinity College, I take the liberty of applying to you upon a subject respecting which I am very anxious. ' Being desirous to fit myself for orders by a more diligent and systematic course of reading than I pursued during my residence at Cambridge, I have determined upon again enter- ing at one of the Universities. As I merely passed the H 3 1OO Letter to Hare, and CHAP. vm. preparatory Law Examination at Cambridge, there is no ob- jection, I believe, to my again becoming an undergraduate at either of them, and a wish to avail myself of the advantages which I then too much neglected, as well as to be subject to a discipline which I feel necessary to the steadiness of my study, induces me to prefer that course. Various circum- stances make it expedient for me to enter at Oxford instead of returning to Cambridge, and the kindness of a gentleman, a fellow of Exeter College, gives me hopes that I may be admitted there immediately. My age, however, is one reason against my admission, which he informs me can be only over- come by my obtaining a testimonial to my character from persons of eminence at Cambridge, and whose names are well known at the other University. ' Under these circumstances I venture to ask that you would do me the kindness to give as favourable a statement to the authorities at Exeter of my conduct at Cambridge, during the year in which you were acquainted with it, as it may seem to deserve. I trust I am not asking a favour which it will be impossible or disagreeable for you to grant.' Hare replied at once (on Nov. i5th, 1829), urging his going up to Cambridge rather than Oxford, and speaking of the much greater advantages which he would find in a Bachelor's than in an Undergraduate's life. ' For myself, he says, the great and almost only benefit I derived from the University was from the friends I formed there : and in order to be a recipient for that, one must be of the same age with them, with the same freshness of thought, the same ardour to enter upon the fields of speculation then for the first time opening to our view. Of course you will keep aloof from the turbulent excitement of the intellectual contests, and for the purpose of independent meditative study the life of a bachelor appears to me far the most appropriate. "Why should you not keep your act and get a fellowship at Trinity Hall ? I should conceive you might do so easily.' 1829. Reply. 101 In another part of the letter he expresses his hope that Sterling will make up his mind to "follow your example" and " enter the Church ; " " it were too bad that his fine talents and noble feelings should be checked in their appropriate development for the want of a determined aim." IO2 First Steps at Oxford. CHAP. ix. CHAPTER IX. " I held it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things." In Memoriam. END OF 1829 OXFORD 'EUSTACE CONWAY' 1830 MR. BRUCE, MR. GLADSTONE, NOTE BY ARTHUR HALLAM DR. JACOBSON, MR. RICHARDS WINTER OF 1830 AND BEGINNING OF 1831 GENERAL RIOT AND DISTRESS THE IRVINGITE MIRACLES. To Rev. Julius Hare. ' Oxford, December 3, 1829. ' MY DEAR SIR, ' I should not have so long suffered you to imagine that I was insensible of your great kindness, but that I hoped Sterling would have been the bearer of this letter, and would at the same time have told you how grateful I felt for your valuable advice, your unexpectedly flattering testimonial, and the interest you express in my future proceedings. ' I find, however, that he has given up his intention of going, at present, to Cambridge, and I cannot longer defer saying what I wished to say a fortnight ago. ' I was almost ashamed to present the letter in which you speak so favourably of my scholarship, lest I should disgrace your good opinion, and, in some degree, the University, by an ignorance which three years of vague and ill-directed thought have done much to increase. I accompanied the delivery of it with the observation that it is nearly five years since I had the advantage of your instructions, and that during all that 1829. A Penance. Age 24. 103 time I have been in circumstances not at all favourable to the growth of the powers which you fancied you had observed in me ; but I added that I still hoped by steady application to prove that those instructions had not been lost, and might still bear fruit. ' The truth of your remarks upon the superiority of a bachelor's life struck me very forcibly, and if I had not cut myself off from the chance of a fellowship by removing my name from the books (a measure which I adopted in conse- quence of some scruples, since entirely removed, respecting the profession of faith required of graduates), I should cer- tainly have acted upon them. I am not certain, however, whether, in my particular case, the subjection of an under- graduate's life and the humiliation of returning to it after three years of fancied independence may not be a useful discipline. I can trace a great deal of mawkishness and unhappiness to a premature wish to shape out my own course, and I hope it is not a superstitious feeling which leads me to think that some penance for this self-sufficiency is needful before I can eradicate it with all its evil fruits out of my character the same feeling makes me dread less than I should otherwise do the mere barren orthodoxy which, from all I can hear, is characteristic of Oxford. As all my tendency has been hitherto to be too loose and incoherent in my speculations, I think this habit of the place may operate rather as a useful check than a dan- gerous temptation to me. If I could hope to combine in myself something of that freedom and courage for which the young men whom I knew at Cambridge were remarkable, with something more of solidity and reverence for what is established, I should begin to fancy that I had some useful qualities for a member of the English Church. At present the difficulties which surround a clergyman seem to me so overwhelming, that, even with a strong impression of the grandeur of the office, and of the possibility of entering it with right views, I almost shrink from the thought of encountering them. ' I took the liberty of sending your letter to Sterling, well knowing that your advice would have more weight with him IO4 TJie Penance Aggravated. 1830. CHAP. ix. than that of any one else. I trust it will induce him to adopt a course which will be as much for his own happiness as for the good of society, to which I am sure his talents might be very useful.' He went home for Christmas, and worked at his novel, which his sister Emma had insisted that he should complete. The beginning of February 1830 set in with a fierce cold that my father never forgot throughout his life. In its bitterest severity the term began. He returned on the outside of a coach to Oxford, and always believed that his life was saved by a glass of brandy which was then given him by a fellow- traveller. The barges bringing coals were stopped by the partial freezing of the river. He was for every reason anxious to avoid expense, had taken very inferior lodgings, and this term was therefore one of no inconsiderable physical distress. The severe weather was telling on his sister and increasing his anxiety. " Freezing by the fireside," writes Mrs. Maurice on Feb. 5, " I begin my letter to you, and I am afraid you will scarcely be able to hold it when you have received it. The precious one who is lying by my side whilst I am writing looks as blue and pinched as possible." Meantime the novel was sent each week from Oxford, and transcribed as it was written, Mrs. Maurice being copier in Emma's sick-room, and Michael Maurice undertaking the office of pen-maker. On February 1 7 the following burst of enthusiasm receives the last chapter of the completed novel. From Emma Maurice to F. D. M. ' February i^th. I can hardly tell you what surprise I felt when your box was opened, and I saw the end chapter of the book ; but every other feeling was lost in a moment in the thrill of joy and delight at the knowledge that it was really ended. I could hardly believe that a climax so much longed for was arrived at, a point to which I had so often looked with eager expectation, and hoped for almost against hope. 1830. A Sisters Enthusiasm. 105 It was one of those occasions of which one has but very few in one's life, and mercifully few, when past, present, and future seem to be struggling with each other to present some definite feeling to the mind ; but the chaos was ended soon, and then came hours of blissful thought, which makes one's existence on earth assume a blessed character belonging to heaven. It was not a little cause, for years ago I felt convinced that one completed work, half the size of this, would do more for you than we can conceive, and all the months it has been carrying on the conviction has increased, so that the feeling has seemed to be wound up quite to the intenseness with which I regarded it. The hope which gave place to certainty last night that you could finish something, could become all that you ought, all that you must become, took up its lodging in another part of my mind, and caused trains of happy anticipations, which if they were in any degree purified from earthly dross, and made as holy as they were blissful, and if heaven does hear when sinners ask for the sake of the sinless One will be realised, I firmly believe, in your future life, to the blessing of many. There is a sacredness in everything which has given rise to, or been the means of conveying, or even caught a ray of LIFE and that this book does in a great degree fall under this head, we both, I trust, can thankfully testify. ' I have not had time (as I am writing on Wednesday) to read the chapters, but I have looked over all, and congratulate you upon the way in which you have wound up. I like your plans respecting Honoria exceedingly, and thank you for departing from your original intention ; I am sure it is truer, and better, as it is. The last chapter about her too I admire much it is just enough and not too much, which would have spoiled it; and the manner in which you end, I particularly like. Captain Marryatt's confessions I have not yet read, but his death-scene is most striking. It is a good thing for the book that you wrote on at the last so quickly, or you would have dwelt longer than taste and point warranted on some parts which now come upon the reader with great effect. I could have pleaded for Francisca, but it is better as it is. IO6 Our Dead Selves. 1830. CHAP. ix. * I hope that in a short time you will find some friends with whom you can pass an evening, as I am sure you will want this relaxation and strengthening. But with respect to this, as well as all your other concerns, little or great, we have the assurance that "our heavenly Father knoweth what things we have need of," and nothing which will conduce to the welfare of our minds or spirits is forgotten or unprovided by Him who " careth for us "; surely not, then, the influence of society or friends ! I trust you will have those given you who will make true the proverb that " two are better than one, for if one fall," &c. &c.' The venture was, however, not yet launched in smooth water. Colburn decided that it was much too long, must be cut down to half its length. To his sister Priscilla. [From Oxford, about Feb. 1830. 'Believe, my dear Pris., what I am just beginning to learn, and you knew long ago, that the death of Christ is far, very far, more than a mere peace-making, though that view of it is the root of every other. But it is actually and literally the death of you and me, and the whole human race ; the absolute death and extinction of all our selfishness and individuality. So St. Paul describes it in the sixth of the Romans, and in every one of his Epistles. To believe that we have any self is the devil's lie ; and when he has tempted us to believe it, and to act as if we had a life out of Christ, hn then mocks us and shows us that this life was a very death. Have we not all felt it so ? the death, the absolute death of self. Let us believe, then, what is the truth and no lie that we are dead, actually, absolutely dead ; and let us believe further that we are risen, and that we have each a life, our only life a life not of you nor me, but a universal life in Him. He will live in us, and quicken us with all life and all love ; wili make us understand the possibility, and, as I am well con- 1830. Irving. 107 vinced, experience the reality, of loving God and loving our brethren.' During May 1830, after a visit to London, to arrange for the disposal of ' 'Eustace Conway.' To the same Sister. ' MY DEAR PRISCILLA, ' I spent a pleasant time in London, though, after all, it is a hot and dangerous place ; one does not know exactly whether one is getting good or evil by anything that happens to one there, and not to know, I am afraid, is a sign that it is not good. However, in that I may be wrong, and I certainly obtained some benefits which are not to be procured in Oxford, especially female society, and several striking sermons. How the preachers there come to be so good in spite of their innumerable temptations is a problem which nothing but a belief in a special protection afforded to them would help us to understand ; but unquestionably a sermon I heard from Mr. Baptist Noel, and one from Mr. Irving, and another, though very singular and painfully personal against the Mil- lenarians, from Mr. Howell, were such as indicated, so far as I could judge, a very high degree of spiritual life in their minds. After all you have heard of Mr. Irving, you would have been surprised at the extreme sincerity and, as it seemed to me, simplicity of his sermon, which expounded one part of Scripture by another in a way that I never remember to have heard before. An assertion of his that the Old Testament is the dictionary of the New threw a light upon some things which had been puzzling me very much, and I think is quite a guiding light in all Biblical studies. The principle itselt may be an old one, but the force and reality which he gave it made it have the effect of novelty to me.' He had been making acquaintance with various under- graduates, among whom the most important in their relations loS 31 r. Gladstone's CHAP. ix. with him at this part of his career were Mr. W. E. Gladstone and Mr. Bruce (afterwards Lord Elgin, the Governor-General of India). The latter soon became his most intimate College friend, and through him he became acquainted with Mr. Erskine's books, notably at this moment with the ' Brazen Serpent,' which produced a very important effect upon his mind. Through him, also, he became acquainted with such personal circum- stances of Mr. Erskine's life as he mentions. At the time when each of Mr. Maurice's children was en- deavouring to take a share in relieving the burden at home, Elizabeth Maurice, the eldest, had for a short time become a companion to Miss Gladstone ; and my impression had been that through her Mr. Gladstone had first become aware that my father was at Oxford. Mr. Gladstone having kindly pro- mised to supply me with any reminiscences he had of this period, I mentioned this to him. His answer was : 'Yes, I remember Miss E. Maurice very well a very re- markable person [this with rather marked emphasis], I should think. But as far as I can recall the facts, it was not through her, or at least not through her only, that I became acquainted with your father. In fact, the threads that drew us together were so numerous that it would be hard to say which of us introduced himself to the other. My remembrance is that I received from Cambridge letters from many friends, perhaps chiefly from Arthur Hallam, full of the most unbounded admiration for your father. I cannot, at a distance of fifty years, recall the exact purport, but it was to the effect that a very remarkable man was coming amongst us. That naturally led me to be anxious to see much of him. I can hardly fully convey the impression the letters made on me. Of course the shortness of the time he spent at Oxford, com- pared with that during which he was at Cambridge, prevented his making so great an impression there as he had done on Hallam and others. The impression he seemed to have produced at Cambridge was of a very unusual kind. We belonged to the same Essay Society. Yes, I may have founded 1830-1832. Reminiscences. 109 it, and founded it somewhat on the model of the Apostles at Cambridge, but I believe the Apostles was a more general society. At all events, I remember we arrived on one occasion at his rooms : it was his turn, in due course, to read an essay, and we found him in very much of a pucker. He had been so discontented with what he had produced, that shortly before our arrival he had if I mistake not actually thrown into the fire all that he had previously produced, and had commenced shortly before our arrival to re- write the whole of it. So that you may imagine it was not in a very finished state for reading before the society. It was not from want of attention to the subject, for he had devoted a great deal. His dissatisfaction with what he had written arose from his extreme fastidiousness. I do not mean a mere intellectual fastidiousness as to the perfect literary form of the thing, but rather a fastidiousness of conscience I think this represented a special phase of his mind a profound sense of responsibility regarding anything that he might put forth in writing ; a preference for destroying any amount of work, rather than allowing any to go forth which might be mischievous. I remember also our walking out to hear a sermon at March-Baldon, six miles from Oxford, by a certain Mr. Porter a strong Calvinist, most reverent in his manner, not at all a party man in the Church, and a very remarkable preacher a reverent and somewhat slow Evan- gelical. He preached on the text " Perfect love casteth out fear," and I remember the fact of our discussing the sermon during the long walk home again.' The letter from Arthur Hallam, referred to by Mr. Gladstone, contained the following sentences. A. H. Hallam (aged 19) to W. E. G. 1 June 23, 1830. ' I have to day seen Rogers,* who tells me, amongst other things, that you know Maurice. I know nothing better suited * Lord Blachford no F. D. M. at Cambridge, by A. H. H. CHAP. ix, to a letter of somewhat a serious kind than an exhortation to cultivate an acquaintance which, from all I have heard, must be invaluable. I do not myself know Maurice, but I know well many whom he has known, and whom he has moulded like a second nature, and those, too, men eminent for intellectual powers, to whom the presence of a commanding spirit would, in all other cases, be a signal rather for rivalry than reverential acknowledgment The effect which he has produced on the minds of many at Cambridge by the single creation of that Society of the Apostles (for the spirit, though not the form, was created by him) is far greater than I can dare to calculate, and will be felt, both directly and indirectly, in the age that is upon us.' He passed the long vacation at home, recasting his novel, spending most of his time in his sister's sick-room. But he had calculated upon being able to pay necessary expenses at Oxford out of the money received for the novel, and the delay had seriously hampered him. At the end of the vacation, the only solution he saw open to him was to give up his next term ; a decision to which the increasing illness of his sister also dis- posed him. The three letters which followed one another in the succession marked by their dates made him abandon the resolution. They represent the feeling towards him of those about him at the time, and are a memorial of kindness that ought not to be forgotten. The generosity which permits their publication at my discre- tion will I think be misunderstood by no one. 'Ex. Coll.. Oxon., Sept. 15, 1830. ' MY DEAR MAURICE, ' Your letter without date did not find me here wonders, you know, says the Wisdom of Ages, never cease I have been absent for a parson's three weeks, i.e. very near a layman's month, on a visit to my mother, during which I bathed in the sea and enjoyed myself mightily. I came back with a very bad grace and a heavy heart on Saturday evening, having CHAP. ix. Kindly Advice. \ \ i spent some hours of that morning with Sterling. He has righted wonderfully, and is shaking off his messes one after another almost as strangely as he got into them. As to your talk about not keeping next term pshaw ! Were you not just beginning, before the long vacation, to do something like an ordinary mortal ? Is there a chance of your doing half as much at home ? Would anybody but a feelosofer the likes of you have set to work to write a new three-volume novel instead of gutting the old five-volume concern ? Have you no more knowledge of things as they are than that amounts to? Has it not been said of that hugely popular book, " The Natural History of Enthusiasm," that you will admire it just as much if you read the alternate sentences ? Do apply this to your own case shake off your novel at once, and see the colour of Colburn's money. If that may not be, I still think you had better sport face here on the morning of the i6th. As to money, I have no doubt that I shall be able to help you if you are not proud or foolish, or summut of that sort. Indeed, I know that I shall without any inconvenience ; so don't go and borrow dishonestly, neither stay away rusticating and psychologizing, but come here and mind your books like a good boy, and believe me ' Ever your very sincere and attached friend, ' W. JACOBSON.' 'I am not able to feel the mind of the College about your staying coz why ? Martin has run away for a few days. In fact, / am just now the mind of the College, and I see every reason for your coming, and so did Sterling.' Exeter Coll., Oct. 28. * DEAR MAURICE, ' It was with much regret that I learnt the resolution you had adopted of not keeping the present term, and still more the cause which had led you to the determination. Though our acquaintance has not been of sufficient standing to entitle me to claim your friendship, I can say with great 112 From tlie Sub- Rector of Exeter. 1830. CHAP. ix. truth that my respect for you would lead me to value any mark of confidence you might exhibit towards me. At the same time I can fully appreciate the feelings which might have made you reluctant to communicate directly to me the cause of your absence : and therefore I will say no more on this subject, except that I hope you will allow me to do for you what I have done before now for other pupils, which is, advance any money you may require for your immediate use, and that you will come up and keep the term. I think it im- portant to you not to lose a term, and I am quite sure that any business you may have in hand you can pursue with as little interruption here as anywhere else. If I were to advise you on the subject of your examination, I should be inclined to recommend you to get it over as soon as possible. I think, all circumstances considered, it might be more for your interest to be content to aim a little lower than your merits might justly entitle you to aspire to, than to encounter the anxiety and expense which a lengthened time of preparation must entail. A degree would at once render you independent, and I think a second class, which you would probably be able to obtain at the Easter examination without difficulty, added to an essay or two which I look on as already yours, might be academical fame enough to satisfy yourself, and would be quite as much as would be necessary to promote any further views you might have in this place. Think on what I have said, and come and answer my letter in person. Jacobson wishes to fill the remainder of the sheet. ' Yours very sincerely, ' J. L. RICHARDS.' ' MY DEAR MAURICE, ' The Sub-Rector would have said to you sooner what he has said on the other side, but for the pressure of his business at the beginning of term. Of course you will come up at once. You have plenty of time to keep the term, but I think you will agree with me that you ought not to lose a day in showing your sense of the kindness of the College. I say 1830. From Mr. Jacobson. 113 " of the College," because / have heard all the other tutors express themselves with the same kind interest about you. So pray don't be perverse. 'Twas a scurvy trick of you to keep your last letter till the very day the College met, when there was no time for remonstrance. I have no argument to add to Richards's, save that one John Sterling is to be married on Tuesday next, and will bring his glorious bride (did you ever see her ?) to Oxford for a few days. So lose no time ; " haste to the wedding." You have already lost the fun of seeing here taking his M.A., with a gold chain big enough for the Lord Mayor . . . and in all the flutter of having just been author of a pamphlet in defence of Government ! ! ! I am unwell suffering from my own folly in leaving town directly after having three teeth plugged. I have sustained bitter days and worse nights ; but I am righting, I trust. Did I tell you I am now curate to the Archdeacon at S. Mary Magdalene ? " church-by-Balliol," as you dirty undergraduates call it. John Sterling is out of all temper with you for your folly and waywardness and so shall I be, if you don't soon sport face here in my rooms.' ' Ever, my dear Maurice, * Your most sincere and attached friend, 'W. JACOBSON.' What solution was arrived at at the moment about the money I cannot quite ascertain. Very soon afterwards a small legacy came in somewhat unexpectedly to his father, and he was able to escape the immediate embarrassment. In any case, to Sterling's wedding on Nov 2nd, and thence to Oxford, he went In little more than a fortnight the novel was again off his hands, and soon afterwards it was entrusted to Sterling that he might negotiate with Colburn. The time when he now returned to Oxford was a strange one. The following extract will show how some parts of it were being brought home to him : VOL. I. 114 Riots in the Country. 1830. CHAP. ix. Mrs. Maurice to F. D. M. 'December 2, 1830. ' Since I last wrote to you our town has been in great confusion and trouble, expecting every day the arrival of the mob which has been so threatening all around us. Dr. Jones, in resisting them, was very roughly handled, and lost several teeth. General Gubbins also was visited, and there was a very sharp engagement near Hythe. I suppose the energy of the Southampton people has prevented them from visiting us, for the Mayor instantly called a meeting, and plans were adopted for the defence of the town and neighbourhood : all the gentlemen and tradesmen were enrolled as special constables, and a night patrol of them organised. The same at Thill. Your father was up all Monday night, and our patrol was to meet various others from the town, Millbrook, &c. Twenty-five men are up every night at the ironworks near us, as they are threatened to be pulled down on account of their being concerned in machinery. We have not felt the least alarmed, but I understand some have been in the extremest terror, and have packed up all their property, to run away at the shortest notice. Our late neighbour, Mrs. , and other persons, could not even sleep, but kept up all night in perturbation. I think for several nights there were not less than seventy-five gentlemen walking the streets all night, and others on horseback scouring the country for a few miles round, stopping every person they met to know his business; but as your father, I have just heard, is writing, I need not say any more on this subject, as I dare say he will tell you all about the meeting to which he is just gone. I cannot but think that this rising of the people, these midnight fires, have been very necessary to awaken us to a sense of the dreadful sin of poor labourers having been for many years obliged to work hard for scarcely wages enough to buy them potatoes. It was proved at one meeting that a noble lord's workmen were employed in hedging and ditching for two CHAP. ix. Mrs. Maurice s View of Them. \ 1 5 shillings a week, and the parish paid them three more ! Five shillings a week to support himself, wife, and children. Every demand that the poor creatures have made has been most reasonable. I have not heard of one that has demanded for the labourers more than 2s. or 2s. $d. a day, and how they can do with that is wonderful. Our men at Normanstone always had that, and their wheat at 5*. a bushel, and they often earned more by piece-work. ' High time for something dreadful to rouse persons from such wickedness. We have had sermons here for the times. Mr. Betheridge advertised one here on Sunday morning, in which he endeavoured to prove that Sabbath-breaking was the sin that occasioned these awful visitations. Surely there was little wisdom in speaking only of this sin. Though we have many crying and dreadful national sins, yet the obvious one pointed out at this moment is that the hire of the labourer is withheld ; but the farmers say they cannot pay more unless rent and tithes are reduced. I trust this will be the case, and that it will soon be a fixed and established rule that the poor shall be well paid.' A young lady who had been staying with them arrived in London "just as the mob were pelting Lord Wellington." Mrs. Maurice is clear that the business of the new Ministry is first to pass the Anti-Slavery Bill, though she is greatly afraid lest they should fancy they have too much to do at home, " and so leave undone the very measure that would make us prosper. If our people see that justice is done to others, they will calmly wait." Though Mr. Newman was at Oxford during all the time my father remained there, and my father must often have heard him preach, it is only during this term that in the letters of correspondents some traces can be found of my father's having referred to sayings of Mr. Newman's. How they im- pressed him at this moment there is nothing to indicate. The Oxford " movement " was amid the throes which preceded its birth. I 2 1 1 6 The Irvingite Miracles. CHAP. ix. Another great religious excitement was in these days attract- ing men's attention much more prominently. It was the year of the Irvingite " miracles " " miracles " the actual pheno- mena of which, as attested by strong evidence, have never yet been accounted for. It was inevitable therefore that during these days the letters from home should be full of the subject. Each member of the family, taking a different view of the question, poured their thoughts forth in letters to him. Michael Maurice went himself to London, and was simply shocked by what he saw and heard at Mr. Irving's church the wild voices and the artificial excitement. Mrs. Maurice accepted as fact whatever appeared to her proven. A letter from Miss Fanshaw herself, one of the subjects of the miracles, had been lent them, ' Giving an account [as Mrs. Maurice reports] of her restora- tion, in answer to Mr. Grove's prayers. She says she could not stand the morning of the day she was restored. Mr. Eddis has also seen Miss F. since, and conversed with her. and there cannot be a single doubt of the fact. Mary Hort wrote an account of another circumstance of the same kind. A young lady she knows was dying of consumption her cough as bad as possible ; she was quite given up when Mr. Irving arrived at her house and spent a week there. He was very earnest in prayer for her, and she directly began to amend, and is now able to go about, and Mary Hort sees her every week, bloom- ing and recovered in health and appetite ; not all' at once, but in a short time.' My father sends to Emma Mr. Erskine's earlier impressions on the matter, which he has heard of, no doubt, through Mr. Bruce ; and she replies in words which are, I think, necessary to convey the strength of the influence which on this side acted on him as against Mr. Erskine, not in the matter of the miracles, but on his general views. 1-830. Emma's Views of Them. 117 Emma M. to F. D. M. ' There seems no room for doubting respecting the reality of some of the wonders now performed. One cannot, if one would, disprove such facts ; but the question is, how are they performed ? The extract which you gave me from a letter of Mr. Erskine in which he speaks of such gifts taking the recipients from the theory of religion, and bringing them into contact with the living God, has suggested a train of thought to my mind since which has been painful, yet, I trust I hope salutary. By whom do the Scriptures declare that we have access to God ? Who is always by them made the agent of communion with the Father, and on what ground alone do they say we can approach Him ? A fresh application of what do they affirm can bring us nigh to Him ? These and many similar questions will, without doubt, admit of but one answer Christ. Then must not any other means employed for this end come under the appellation of a false Christ ? and do we not know that such a form would be far more able to deceive us than if one were to arise, saying, " I am He " ? Let us, dearest Frederick, not go either into the secret chamber or the desert after such an one ; let us not be tempted by any asser- tions that our silent, secret life will be increased by giving heed to such an one. The idea is more than plausible ; it is. proved I had almost said to be true; but not 'so. The recipient seems now to enjoy more life, more light and feeling, than others ; but is not there the truth underneath all ? " Seek the Lord, and ye shall live : but seek not Bethel nor Gilgal (no, not even the place where the ladder was set to make the way easy from earth to heaven), for these shall go into captivity," &c. ' The more I believe in the authenticity of these miracles, the more I tremble and desire to be held up to have my faith much increased, but to have that faith only a scriptural one, resting on nothing but God himself, believing nothing but His word, and hoping nothing but as His promises afford me reason to hope. Let us keep close to the Bible, praying to love 1 1 8 His own TJionglits. CHAP. ix. it and understand it more, to dig deeper into its meaning, and not to let it go for anything else, even though it may seem to us that some exercises have more life in them than the perusal of its pages often appears to awaken in our souls.' Mr. Keble paid at this time a flying visit to the University and preached. My father sends his sister an account of the sermon, which she criticises severely. It would be impossible to give a fair idea of the nature of her letters without too long extracts, but the fact and extent of her influence on him at this time must be remembered by any one who would in the least understand his life. His sister Priscilla simply scolded him for not at once denouncing every one who had anything to do with such imposture as the miracles. The following two letters, in reply to her, will show his actual position in regard to them. The first is addressed to her during a visit to Bristol, the second immediately after her retuin : To his sister Prisalla, 'January 4, 1831. * Perhaps you give me credit for a more lively belief in these miracles than I have ever entertained. I have never ap- proached conviction, but I have been held in a balance by two feelings a great internal unwillingness to believe, from old habits of scepticism, and that which you attribute to me of not liking to let those habits ever recover their ascendency. Unless I saw more clearly than I do here a boundary-line where the gifts of the Spirit must be taken to have ceased, I do not like to deny, much less to laugh. At the same time, I know from what I experienced to-day, in reading a letter of Mr. Travers respecting Miss Fanshaw's case, that I do not in my heart wish to find them true. I am not certain whether this is right or wrong, but I fear there is a mixture of wrong in it. Of this, however, I am sure, that I have not at present a sufficiently strong hold of the principle which must determine 1831. On the "Miracles" and on Light. 119 an assent or rejection to take either course ; and till 1 have, I trust that I shall not be carried about, as I feel that I have been too much, by winds and waves of doctrine. At present I am very glad not to have any call to give a decision, yet I do not on that account feel quite comfortable, for I do not know certainly that on that point I am seeking for light. You will ask, " Why not ? " I can only answer, because I do not think that I can investigate it without having first asked for light on many much more elementary points which require no casuistry but a great deal of faith. I do not wish you to understand that I have been assaulted with doubts respecting any of the great doctrines, but only that I feel it most necessary to gain a more thorough and vigorous grasp of them as the only protec- tion against the lusts of my own heart and the thousand, ten thousand enfeebling, perverting influences that are continually trying with too much success to twist it aside. I think I am beginning to feel something of the intense pride and atheism of. my own heart, of its hatred to truth, of its utter loveless- ness ; and something I do hope that I have seen very dimly of the way in which Christ, by being the Light and Truth manifested, shines into the heart and puts light there, even while we feel that the Light and Truth is still all in Him, and that in ourselves there is nothing but thick darkness. I do not know whether you have been led to think as much as I have lately about all those texts which represent Him as Light, as shining into the heart, and, in connection therewith, as wrest- ling with the powers of darkness. " There was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour." " God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all." He that "caused the Light to shine out of darkness shine into your heart." They afforded me very great delight some time ago when nothing else would ; an intense thick darkness, darkness that might be felt, brooding over my mind, till the thought that had been brought to me as if from Heaven " the light of the Sun is not in you but out of you, and yet you can see everything by it if you will open your eyes " gave me more satisfaction than any other could. Since then another train of feeling led me to expe- I2O Where is t/ie Light? Age 25. CHAP. ix. rience the intense misery of pride and self, as if that were the seal of the darkness, and that I could find no relief but in joining the two thoughts together: it was pride, it was self, it was sin, which separated between me and God, which produced the darkness. Christ had taken that away, and therefore the true Light shineth. But yet I want the power to feel, the power to seek earnestly enough, and the power to wait if I do not find at once, through my very impotence, all I seek. One text has been very pleasant to me lately, though it laid bare a long series of deception I have practised upon myself. It is that in the Romans about ascending to heaven to bring Christ down, or descending into the depth to bring Christ from the dead ; whereas it is merely the word, simply the word, which we have to believe, to feed upon, and the results will follow. Am I wrong in this interpretation ? It seems to me so very comfortable after a long period of striving and straining with a violent, rebellious flesh to make it do what it never can do simply to drift along in the assurance that what a text says it means, and that we may draw the com- fort from it which it contains. I trust this will never lead me not to dwell upon those texts which probe the evil of one's heart, only it seems to impart a kind of meaning and reality to the word which I never experienced in it before. Oh, my dear Pris., in my inmost heart I have no wish for religious excitements, whether they come in the shape of miracles, prophecies, or anything else. I wish to get a million times nearer to the written word, and to abide by it. But the fear of being cold and sluggish rather say, the certainty that I was so has sometimes led me to swallow down doses of these stimulants, not as dainties but medicines. Perhaps they were not what my constitution wanted, and at present I will not take any more of them. ' I think of all old friends with much more pleasure than I used to do, and should like nothing better than to join you for a few days, especially that I might hear Mr. Hall, and see Mr. Foster if he were visible. But that is a dream.' 1831. Mr. Erskine. 121 Also to his sister Priscilla. [End of January or beginning of Febiuary 1831.] ' I cannot, however, give up Mr. Erskine, one of whose books has been unspeakably comfortable to me.* It is one you have not read, and I will not ask you to read it unless you like. The peculiarities of his system may be true or not, but I am certain a light has fallen through him on the Scriptures, which I hope I shall never lose, and the chief tendency I feel he has awaked in my mind is to search them more and more. I hear from those who know him that he reads nothing else himself, though he has various other occupations ; since if he hears of a friend or a distant acquaintance or a stranger and an enemy within a reasonable distance of 500 or 600 miles,, who is in distress and would be the better for his council, he starts off and spends as much time as they will let him, with them. Certainly it goes rather hard against all one's feelings to suppose that such a person would, as the s say, be given over to a strong delusion to believe a lie which is spoken, I think, of those who as concerning the truth have become reprobates, or to think that those who describe him, Dr. Thomson for instance, as a broken-down barrister living amidst a crew of half-pay lieutenants, foolish women, and so forth, can have much more than he has of the grace which is first pure, then peaceable. However, as I am sure you have QO sympathy with such notions, I will leave you to think as you please on the other subject, concerning which, as I said, I have no opinion, and at present have no data to form one. ' Pray for me that I may lose all fear of man and wish for approbation.' * " The Brazen Serpent." 122 Baptism. CHAP. x. CHAPTER X. " So, then, it is not more reasonable to believe that the egg becomes the caterpillar, and the caterpillar the chrysalis, the chrysalis the butterfly ; it is not more reasonable to confess any one of the most ordinary and recognised transformations of Nature, than it is to believe that every human creature formed in God's image, every one of those who have fallen asleep in Jesus, shall come forth with every beauty of soul and of form that was latent here renewed and regenerated in the likeness of Him from whom the beauty came ; whose own face was marred more than any man's ; who returned Himself to show the very hands and side which had been pierced ; who ascended to the glory of His Father."/ 1 . D. M.* SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN OF 1831 BAPTISM FINAL ILLNESS AND DEATH OF HIS SISTER EMMA CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS FATHER AND MOTHER, AND SEQUEL TO THE STORY OF HIS ELDER SISTERS B.A. DEGREE FEBRUARY 1832 COR- RESPONDENCE WITH HIS FATHER 1832 CONTINUED THE INWARD LIGHT A PROTESTANT OF THE PROTESTANTS. AT this time Frederick Maurice formed a resolution which was certain to be a very painful one to his father. He resolved to be baptised as a member of the Church of England. His father had always baptised " in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." The fact will perhaps not especially surprise those who have followed the story of the Puritan descent at the commencement of this volume. Before all things Michael Maurice desired to obey the prescriptions of the Bible, and a specific text was sufficient authority to him for doing what apparently conflicted most completely with his avowed tenets. It was natural enough, however, that Robert * In memoriam, C. B. M. March 25, 1855. 1-831. Emmets Sick-Bed. Age 26. 123 Hall, who knew him well, should retort upon him, " Why, Sir, as I understand you, you must consider that you baptise in the name of an abstraction, a man and a metaphor." My father himself always said that he was quite sure that the words conveyed to his father a very sacred meaning, His determination, apparently, was not discussed till it was announced as an intention to his sister Emma. In a letter of about March 2 2nd, to Priscilla, he says: ' I have not much time for writing. Emma will tell you what I have said in a letter on a subject which is occupying my mind very much at present. I shall be glad of your par- ticular opinion on what I shall have done by the time you write, so you see I make no affectation of asking it as counsel. In fact, I have asked none of any human being j but I think I was directed to do it by the Holy Spirit. I am almost afraid you will not approve.' He was baptised on March z^th, his friends Acland and Jacobson standing as sponsors. His next three months, with only one short break, were spent at his sister's death-bed. He made up his mind to sacrifice his term at Oxford rather than leave her. The following extract from a letter of Michael Maurice's to an old pupil gains, I think, an interest from the character and opinions of the writer, and shows how these months were occupied : ' On Friday Frederick was reading a chapter to her from the Bible. She stopped him and first asked him to read that verse again ; then gave her sense of it. I was so struck with her interpretation, I begged her to repeat it again, and Fred took down her words. They gave us a new idea of the passage, one strikingly beautiful, from the words " I have a baptism to " be baptised withal." ' The 24th of April brought a joint letter from Sterling and Jacobson, sending him at last an offer from Colburn of a pro- missory note for ;ioo, at six months' sight, for an edition of 124 Death of Ermna. CHAP. x. 750 copies. The offer appears to have been at once accepted. He paid towards the end of May a flying visit to Oxford, to attend a confirmation. On July gth his sister died. To his sister Elizabeth. 1 Saturday Morning, July 17, 1831. ****** 'Like you, I have realised nothing yet, nor. I believe, have my mother and Priscilla. Every hour, I trust, I shall feel more, for there is something exquisitely painful in the insensibility and apathy I have experienced hitherto : but it is wicked to make a complaint. Blessings have been showered down upon rne which I thought never to possess. Prayers that I had forgotten have been answered, strength, that I had despaired of, being given in a way which it is impossible for any but myself to understand. I cannot tell you how many doubts have seemed to clear away, and how many truths which I had known only by the hearing of the ear have been realised at this time. And this, though I seem to realise nothing ! Oh, the mysteries of God's providence and love ! I wish only to understand and believe, that I may adore. ' Mr. Adams had the kindness and the honour to perform the last glorious duty glorious I call it, for the more I think of the way in which the children of Israel asserted their right to the possession of the Canaan, in which they had not one foot of other ground, merely by burying their dead in it, and consider the exactness of the type in all particulars, the more do I feel that everybody put into this earth is a new invasion of Satan's present dominion, a new declaration that Christ is coming to claim the earth for His Church. I missed the beautiful burial service, and felt even Mr. Adams rather cold.' He remained at home till the end of the Long Vacation, and soon after his return made up his mind to be examined at once for his degree. Virtually it was a question between distinction 1831. Within and Withoiit. Age 26. 125 and an escape from difficulties that were pressing upon others as well as himself, and the decision he would take could scarcely be doubtful. To Rev. M. Mauricz. '[Oxford, Oct. 15, 1831.] ' The discipline, I believe, of those who are to live in the coming age is different from that of any previous one. I can only look at the strange providences in my own life with wonder as to what they were intended to fit me for ; some state of circumstance, as I cannot help thinking, very new and sur- prising, which will need us to have a thorough assurance of our own absolute littleness, and yet of the high calling. I sometimes feel a very strong and living conviction that every- thing which is going on in the age has been passing in the little world within, and that I have had lessons taught me of the way in which people are nowadays trying to get out of the govern- ment of God, and establish themselves into gods, losing in the process everything which makes them better than worms, which I might have heard but should never have believed without the internal experiences to concur with my observations. If I could but make my brethern feel what I know -where we must stand if we would have any one feeling of our soul really right towards any one friend or relation it would be joyful indeed. But unless something wakens them up, and tempts them to look inward and ask themselves what am I feeling, what am I thinking, and how should I act if the circumstances were favourable? there is no hope and this we are all resolute not to do if we can help it. You will think I cannot have been passing my time very liligently in preparation for a degree to have had all these thoughts passing through my head. But what I have found the great hindrance to ail my reading has not been activity in feeling and thinking, but coldness and death. The pleasure which I have had this week in thinking of the love of my friends to me, though accompanied with much contrition for 1 26 Effect on Him of Two CHAP. x. my own want of love, has more kept up my spirits than almost anything.' There are indications of much suppressed thought both in this extract and in the letter which I am about to give. What the nature of that suppressed thought was may perhaps be guessed, if I recall the relationship in which he now stood towards the several members of his family. Year by year his reflections had been taking a more definite form and his con- victions had recently been confirmed by a very singular sequel to the story of his elder sisters. It will be remembered that of the three sisters who first abandoned Unitarianism, the two eldest had formerly been very vehement Unitarians, while the third had, even in those days, been always in opposition to their dogmatic assertions ; that when the two eldest abandoned their Unitarian faith, Elizabeth soon joined the English Church, while Mary remained a strong Dissenter ; further that Eliza- beth's change of creed by no means involved a change in vehemence of opposition or in bitterness of diction towards those who differed from her. For many years she continued to find it easiest to express in denunciations of all Dissenters the enthusiasm natural to a new convert. But a new phase followed. When she felt it right at the time of her father's loss of money to go out as companion or as governess, she, after a short time spent with Miss Gladstone, to whom she became very much attached, passed into a position in which some very purse-proud, vulgar Church-people made her feel all that a refined and cultivated woman can be made to feel under such circumstances. During this time she was thrown into contact with a number of Dissenting cousins, who were excessively kind, attentive, and considerate towards her. Her mother, in suc- cessive letters, reports the progressive change these incidents produced in her mind : " They have quite cured her of her horror of Dissenters. Her feelings seem quite changed to that unfortunate race, and she finds now that it is possible to have a refined and delicate mind combined with such errors." 1831. Passages of Biography. 127 Meantime her sister Mary had been going through an exactly inverse experience. She was of all the sisters the one with most accomplishments and capacity for the ordinary intercourse of life, the ready, active, business-like member of the family. She was of all the one with the strongest personal pride and sensitiveness to slight of any kind. To her fell the lot of in some sort representing them among their friends. On her, therefore, especially the blow fell when, at the time of Michael Maurice's loss of income, she found that their many Dissenting friends in Southampton accurately fulfilled the old proverb, and numerous as they were whilst the Maurices were living in a large comfortable house in the better part of the town, left them pretty nearly alone when trouble came. At the same time she was received with most marked kind- ness by a well-known clergyman, Dr. Mayo, to whom she went to study the Pestalozzian system preparatory to opening her school. She finally, under these and somewhat kindred influ- ences, had joined the Church of England, and, having originally intended to form her school independent, at least, of the Church, opened it as a Church school. Now it is not difficult, looking back through the whole history,. to see how my father's sympathies would naturally be, and in fact were, distributed throughout the various phases of the changing family life. How, amid all the differences the family itself, and especially Mrs. Maurice's relation to it, binding it all together, should appear to him the one thoroughly healthful and rightful element. How, with his keen affection and sym- pathy for each member of the family, and his reverence for their earnestness, he should be more and more attracted to all that each held sacred herself, and more and more repelled by every denunciation of what was sacred to others. How, there- fore, more and more, he came to look upon the order of God as founded on relationships, and more and more to hold that there was something to be learnt from everything " positive," as he came to call it, in each one's faith, and that the mischief lay in the " negative," that is, in the denunciations of imper- fectly understood truths held by others. Growing, with all 1 28 Effect of Hare and Plato. 1 83 1. CHAP. x. this, on him was a sense that this was the discipline that was to prepare him for his work, and, that when the time came, he must speak out to all men what he had learnt. How important an effect Hare, or perhaps rather Plato under Hare's guidance, must have had in helping him to the courage of his own con- victions scarcely needs to be pointed out to any one who has read his own account of Hare's teaching ; but it seems right to refer back to that account now, because here the past experi- ences of his life begin to show their influence by the appearance in his letters of the thoughts whose rise I have been tracing. To that result Hare's influence had so far contributed, that it had been specially adapted to help a man in his special circum- stances to see his own way. All that has been here suggested will, I think, be found to be working under the current of the letter which I now give. It will be noticed, and is characteristic, that in the former letter to his father he had spoken of " friends " when he was thinking of home relations, and that in this he remembers the thought and not the words. To Mrs. Maurice. ' [Probably Monday, October 29.] 1 MY DEAREST MOTHER, ' I was rather longing for the box [in which the letters went to and fro] both on- Thursday and Friday, but I can scarcely say that I expected it. The letters from home, though, as you say too truly, they do not cause me the anxiety they once did, are still the greatest pleasure I have, and I cannot help anticipating them with something of my old feelings. The box is a very dear old friend, associated with all the past history, or dream I should rather call it, of my life. If any- thing fixes its periods which I, too, find it impossible to remember (for there is no memory where there is not peace of mind) with distinctness, it is that. Certainly all the strangest, some of the most painful, and some of the pleasantest feelings I ever had have been connected with its appearance, and I think if I really endeavoured to write 1831. " Judge not'' Age 26. 129 out my past experiences in order, as I have often thought of doing, that I might be competent to recall them, I should find the box help me better than any scheme of mnemonics. .' I am driven, in spite of myself, to muse in this way ; for I cannot but feel myself at another crisis of life, whatever it may be that is coming. I have passed a strangely carpet existence hitherto, for a person of twenty-six, and yet I feel as if it had been nothing but constant toiling and fever. I never dreamed till this last fortnight of half the reason I had for shame and remorse at looking back, though I had never believed it to be much otherwise. But to see the whole truth as it has been now presented to me would have been impossible before ; I could not have borne it, unless something of the loving kindness that has been shown, and is still shining, though it so bitterly aggravates the sin, had come to light along with it. I seem to have traversed the same ground over and over again at different parts of life, allowed, as it were, by a mercy vouchsafed scarcely any, to try whether I should do any better if the time were given me back, and I see the self-same disorders recurring, the same vanity, the same selfishness and hardness of heart, on each repetition. Oh, how thankful I am that any course of discipline has at last driven me, though ever so feebly, to reflect ! I seem to have been driving all my life head foremost ; getting glimpses, indeed, of new lights, new truths which sometimes I could almost believe were my own, I saw them so brightly, but yet never practically governed by them. The very strong possession which that notion about the St. Simonians got of my fancy when I was with you, I believe has been made useful to me, for I have been driven to ask myself what I am myself, and I find that all the mischiefs I discovered in others and in the age were really rioting in myself. Of all spirits, I believe the spirit of judging is the worst, and it has had the rule of me I cannot tell you how dreadfully and how long. Looking for the faults, which I had a secret consciousness were in myself, in other people, and accusing them instead of looking for their faults in myself, where I should have been VOL I. K 130 Relationships. CHAP. x. sure to find them all, this, I find, has more hindered my progress in love and gentleness and sympathy than all things else. I never [knew] what the words " Judge not, that ye be not judged," meant before ; now they seem to me some of the most awful, necessary, and beautiful in the whole Word of God. ' I have been writing away to you, my dearest mother, just what has been passing in my mind, because that seems to me the pleasantest and honestest way to those who care for us ; and because, except in letters, I cannot tell my mind much when I am here. I do not remember that I said anything in my letter to my father about friends ; they have been all very kind to me, but I have not seen many ; and what I alluded to was the love of relations, upon which I have been led to think much more and with more soothing feelings than ever before. Heretofore the consciousness of returning their love so ill was always preying upon my mind, and prevented me from enjoying the blessing of their affection even when it was most tenderly manifested to me. But I see that this is a miserable way of getting love, and leads to miserable conse- quences. We must learn to dwell and delight in the thought that others are infinitely better and kinder than we are, and then this delightful feeling of affection comes and breeds in the heart Does not this apply, too, my dearest mother, to our heavenly relation ? I have been myself, I think, learning one truth in the other ; and 1 never should have understood so much even as I do of the necessity of taking our heavenly- Father's love to us for granted, in order to be the ground and parent of love to Him in us, if I had not by a series of painful, almost agonising, discoveries been led to feel that I must acquiesce in the delightful feeling of others loving me, in order to enjoy and realise the belief that I love them. I have seemed to see myself in a double mirror, one human, one divine. I could not have seen my image in one except I had seen it also in the other. The self in both was equally disgusting, but then when I could feel a reflection back, faint comparatively in the one, strong and permanent in the other, all became true and real again and I have felt a 1831. Takes a Second Class. 131 happiness at times which is almost new to me. I do not know whether you will understand me, but my own experience, which has been, perhaps, strange on this point, has led me to see more of the meaning of the Apostle, of all things being summed up in Christ, than I had any notion of previously. It seems to me that all relations acquire a significance and become felt as actually living and real when contemplated in Him, which out of Him, even to the most intensely affectionate, they cannot have. At first each relation seems to be a step in a beautiful ladder set upon earth and reaching to Him, pre- figuring that heavenly relation ; and afterwards, if that top step be apprehended, a descending ladder set in heaven and reaching to earth. But I am afraid I am growing incompre- hensible, though, I thank God, I have a meaning.' On November 22nd the walk took place of which the following extract from a letter of Dr. Jacobson's speaks : ' I remember as well if it were last week going for a walk with him in Michaelmas Term, 1831, on the day when the class list was coming out, and a tutor of a college (who did not know my companion), saying, " There will be no holding you Exeter people. You are going to have four first-classes." As one of the examiners was of the same college as our interlocutor, I was quite disposed to rely on this, and con- gratulated your father accordingly. When the class list appeared, there were two firsts and two seconds. But there was not the slightest symptom of disappointment shown. Nothing could exceed at that time, and indeed at all times, as you in some measure know, his unaffectedly lowly estimate of himself.' His Christmas was spent in looking over his sister Emma's papers, which, with those of her sister Anne, were soon after- wards published under the title of ' Memorials of Two Sisters.' Soon after his return to Oxford the following correspondence took place with his father. It represents so much of the now firmly fixing basis of all his afterthought that there are few of K 2 132 Seeing Him CHAP. x. his after controversies the germ of which may not be detected in it; notably, the ground on which he opposed Mansel will be found to be precisely that on which he parted from Unita- rian ism : To Rev. M, Maurice. [About February 6, 1832.] ' MY DEAREST FATHER, ' I am obliged to you for touching upon the subject at the commencement of your letter, as it shows me you are not unwilling I should allude to it. Your love for every member of your family is felt and acknowledged, I am sure, by every one of them. I can answer for myself that, if I have thought of it with less pleasure than I ought, that is chiefly because it has awakened painful self-reflections on my own poor requitals of it The more I think of it, the more your happiness is near to my heart, and the more I would labour to promote it With respect to what you call doctrinal or speculative views, my feeling is just this : I see that every good and wise man who is held up to my admiration and imitation in the Bible, desired nothing less, and could be satisfied by nothing less, than communion with God. Every word in the Book of Psalms, in the Gospels, in the Epistles, and in the Prophecies tells me this. They wished to know God, not in a vague, loose sense, but actually to know Him as a friend. Starting with no preparatory notions of God, but ready to receive everything He told them, they welcomed each new dispensa tion only because it told them something more of God ; because it enabled them more intelligently, more practically, more literally to converse with Him. I obsei ^e that all their sorrow arose from the loss of God's presence, all their joy from the possession of it, all their pleasure in expecting heaven from anticipation of it. I observe that they shrunk from the contemplation of no side or phase of God's cha- racter, that His holiness and His mercy were equally dear to them, and that, so far from viewing them as separate, they could not admire one without the other. They could not i8i2. Who is Invisible. Age 26. 133 delight in His love unless they believed that he would admit no sin into His presence, for sin and love are essentially hostile ; they could not adore His holiness unless they be- lieved that He had some way of removing their sinfulness and imparting His own character to them. The plain, obvious study of the Bible tells me this. Now, just as any system of divinity helps me to realise these feelings, just so far do I believe it true. If I can honestly say of any doctrines, these teach me how I may converse with the holy and in- visible God as a real living person, for as such the Bible holds Him forth to me in every line ; how I may overcome the difficulties to this intercourse which arise from His being unseen, from the evident impossibility of my forming a notion of Him by my own understanding, and from the unlikeness and dissimilarity of our characters ; if they show me how my character may be conformed to His, not how His may be brought down to mine ; if they inspire me with a desire for this intercourse, a delight in it, and a con- viction of its reality, just so far as I can, after strict exami- nation, say this of any doctrines, just so far have I a test that they are the doctrines of the Bible, the true doctrines, the doctrines according to godliness. Call them orthodox, heterodox, or what you will ; if they answer this description, I wish to hold them fast in life and death. But if they be anything less than this, I will reject them, and, by God's grace, will tear them out of my heart, though they should have the finest and the best name in the world's books, as some- thing essentially different from that faith which enabled the prophets and patriarchs, the martyrs and apostles, the saints of every age, to endure as "seeing Him who is invisible." I wish and pray> my dearest father, that we may each have grace given to us to try our faiths by this real test mere speculations you cannot hold cheaper than I do. ' I have had an interesting letter from Sterling since I returned hither. He says that he thinks upon the whole the cases of cruelty towards the slaves are less numerous than we suppose, but that their barbarity when they do occur is not 134 How Truth and Honesty come. CHAP. x. exaggerated ; and he says that if the physical condition of the negroes is something better than he had pictured to him- self, their moral wretchedness equals or exceeds his worst anticipations. He very much dreads the separation of the colonies from England, considering that English feelings have been the only restraint upon the minds of the masters. ' I have now three pupils, and hope of another, for which I desire to be very thankful. The tutor recommended me to these two, and very kindly arranged with one that he should pay me at the end of every term.' To Rev. M. Maurice. [About February 12, 1832.] ' MY DEAREST FATHER, ****** ' I wish to be alive to all the little low and dark motives which are continually coming into the soul, and which, I believe, if they are not marked and continually carried up to a higher Power to be purged away, are ever liable to settle there, and thence to come out in some questionable and deceitful action. Truth, real inward truth, is the rarest, I think, of all things. Some little petty subterfuge, some verbal or acted dishonesty, we are continually surprised into ; and against this neither a high code of honour nor an exact profession of religion is much preservation. Continued in- tercourse with the Father of Light, revealing our own dark- ness to us, is, I am quite sure, the one safeguard, and a Christian who should lose that is in more danger of stumbling than an infidel. ' It was to this subject I alluded in my last letter. Every day makes me more sensible of the necessity of clear views upon it. The whole of history shows me that just as far as the True God has made Himself manifest, just so far has there been light, truth and honesty in the world ; and that in those nations to which He is not revealed, there is darkness, falsehood and fraud. I know that it is out of the heart these proceed from each separate human heart. I believe, there- 1832. The Spirit and trie Man. Age 26. 135 fore, that all the honesty and truth in the world has come from God being manifested in the hearts of some men, and from thence affecting the general course of society. Hence I feel sure that just so far as I can hold intercourse with Him, I can be true and honest to myself. Outwardly so, I may, in a Christian country, and with the kind, gentle feelings which are produced by the idea of the relations of life prevailing in Christian countries ; but thoroughly true and honest to myself I have no hopes of being, without this real personal knowledge of Him who is Truth. To attain to this truth, this heart truth, not to fancy that I have it, but to have it, is my greatest wish. I know I was formed in the image of God. I believe if I could behold God I should reflect His image. But I cannot behold Him. God, I am told, is a Spirit, and I am of the earth, earthy. I cannot, and would not if I could, abandon my belief that He is a lofty Spiritual Being ; I cannot throw aside my own earthliness. Now, this seems to me the most important practical question in the world. I cannot put up with a dream in place of God. He is a Spirit, but He is reality; He is Truth; a True Being in the highest sense. As such I must behold Him or not at all. To behold Him, therefore, in that way in which they could alone under- stand, in which they could converse with Him, namely, as a man, was, I see more and more clearly, the longing desire of every patriarch, prophet, and priest from Adam downward. It was the desire of Abraham, of Moses, of Job, of David, of Solomon, of Isaiah ; they were practical men, and they wanted a practical revelation ; a revelation which they could understand .and grapple. God, they knew, must be for ever the Unsearchable, the Mysterious. They would not for world? He should be anything else ; for it was the glory of Judaism that their God was not a visible, intelligible idol, but an incomprehensible Spirit. Yet they longed to behold Him, and to behold Him so as they could understand Him. I would beseech you to observe attentively whether nearly every verse in the old Testament does not exhibit these two apparently opposite and most contradictory feelings ; an acknowledgment 1 36 The Cry of Human Nature, CHAP. x. of God as incomprehensible and infinite ; a desire to see. to understand, to comprehend that same God. Yes, and just so far as the heathen attained any light did they begin to make the same acknowledgment and feel this same want. Is there a difficulty, a mystery here? Most unquestionably: but where ? In the heart of man. There is a craving that will not be satisfied with anything less than the reconciliation of these two amazing contrarieties explain the fact as you may : but is it a fact ? Was there this want ? was there this difficulty? If you never observed it, may I ask you affec- tionately to look again with this particular view. And if it be a fact, and if this be the one great cry of human nature in all ages, just in proportion as it was enlightened, then cannot any explanation be found for it except only that which will satisfy it. If the Infinite Incomprehensible Jehovah is manifested in the person of a Man, a Man conversing with us, living among us, entering into all our infirmities and temp- tations, and passing into all our conditions, it is satisfied ; if not, it remains unsatisfied. Man is still dealing with an in- comprehensible Being, without any mode of comprehending Him. He may be revealed to him as his lawgiver, his sovereign, but he has no means of knowing Him as a friend. It was on the promise of this revelation that every one of the Old Testament good men lived ; and through these promises only did they contemplate their lawgiver, their sovereign, with satisfaction and delight. And it is surely the renun- ciation of any feeling of this kind, the being content to regard God as their lawgiver and sovereign, without believing in the fulfilment of His promises or being able thoroughly and heartily to think that they will yet be fulfilled, which has converted modern Jews into such an unspiritual, pro- fane, worldly race. I do not say that this is all. I feel that it is not. If the appearance of that Being upon earth awakened all the evil passions of man's breast, and showed him showed even the twelve apostles that they had no real sympathy with their God, the mere revelation of [God] in an intelligible [being] was not sufficient. To pass through that 1832. How Answered, Age 26. 137 state which had been proclaimed by God and always regarded by man as emphatically the punishment of that hatred and opposition to God; to pass through it and reappear again in the world with God's own glad tidings of pardon in his hand attested by that act ; was absolutely necessary [on His part] before there could be any peaceful, comfortable feeling in man towards the Maker with whom he had felt himself at such issue. [It was needful for Him] to leave the world as a real, ' efficient, known, intelligible human Mediator between [men and] that invisible God whom He had manifested forth ; (and to suppose any being less than God perfectly manifesting forth God is a contradiction ; and to suppose any being an efficient Mediator who did not perfectly manifest Him forth, seems to me no less a one I mean to my reason :) and lastly, (since, with all the sense of forgiveness in man's mind, with all the knowledge that he had a mediator, though all outward impediments to intercourse were removed, there was still an inward impediment, the same kind of impediment which exists between two men who, though^ they see one another and may be outward friends, are not one in heart,) to promise the Spirit, who could be no other than the Spirit of Christ, (otherwise there could be no intercourse between Christ and His disciples on earth through Him;) and, if the Spirit of Christ, (supposing what was before said to be true,) must be the Spirit of God ; and, if the Spirit of God, could not be an inferior part of God's nature, but must be His very Being, because He is a Spirit ' This, my dearest father, is my faith ; it is one [about] which I should be most able to write to you or talk with you. There may be a hundred thousand simpler faiths. It is simpler to believe in a Great Spirit with the North American Indians ; it is simpler to worship wood and stone; but what is the worth of simplicity if it does not account for facts which we know ; if it does not satisfy wants which we feel ; if it does not lead us up to the truth which we desire ? ' I hope you will excuse the length of this letter, as well as any- thing in it that may have pained you, which you will believe 138 The Voice of the Spirit. CHAP. x. it was far from my thoughts to have written. Praying that the Spirit of Truth may guide us into all truth, ' I remain, my dearest father, ' Your very affectionate son.' He spent some months from May to August with his mother at Ryde, taking pupils there. He was during this time more definitely than before considering the question of taking orders. The following letter, written probably about June ist, belongs to this time. The sister to whom it is written had been long purposing to go out as a missionary, but had been prevented from doing so by various circumstances. To his sister Priscilla. [About June i, 1832.] ' My own mind having been exercised in considerations some- thing akin to yours of late, I have seemed to feel more the nature of such difficulties, respecting which, without some personal experience, one is much in the dark. My firm conclusion, in which every day of fresh thought, reading, and prayer strengthens me, is that the voice of the Spirit must always lord it over the voice of Providence where they seem to be in contradiction ; and that in fact without the first we have no means of understanding the other, so that if our ears are too deaf for that, we are bound to wait, and not to fancy we can obey the other. This conclusion leads me to a firmer confidence in your call than in any I have ever heard. I do not say this to make you too strong in the certainty of it. We may and do mistake (and this I have learnt as much by experience as the other truth) natural desires for spiritual desires; all I mean to say is, that no discouragments of the outward kind which have led you sometimes to fancy that God discouraged your purpose, should make you despond. I think strong faith in the redemption of our evil natures by the death and resurrection of Christ, the constant keeping alive in our minds the assurance that He has purified us and means us to be His 1832. The Voice of Providence. Age 27. 139 temples, and to live as for His glory, and constant repent- ance the repentance of love and not fear that we have not allowed Him to fill us with his love and strength as He is willing to do, I should humbly conceive (at least I have been much impressed lately with the importance of keeping this in mind with the prized hope of seeing him manifested) must be a far better way of preparing for any work that may be intended for us, by keeping our ears and souls awake to know what the will of God is, than any anxious watching of accidents and circumstances with the notion that they will afford us any light. A certain reflected light they have doubtless, but it is fluctuating and insecure, if we do not ex- amine them by that light from which this is borrowed. However, my notions may be crude : I feel them so in some particulars, yet I wish that crude as they are I were acting up to them. That we must do, however, and shall be able to do, if we look less at our thoughts and more at the Author of every loving and profitable thought How strongly have I been convinced lately that we spend half our time in think- ing of faith, hope and love, instead of in believing, hoping, and loving ! How utterly we forget that the very meaning of the words implies that we should forget ourselves and themselves (the acts I mean) in the objects to which they refer. For are there not some persons who preach Faith instead of preaching Christ ? ' ***** He returned for the October term to Oxford, and had settled down with the intention of taking pupils and remaining for some time in the University, when he received from Mr. Stephenson of Lympsham an invitation to come and live with him, preparatory to acting as curate, in order to obtain a title to orders from him. Mr. Stephenson was not in want of a curate, but was anxious to induce him to make up his mind to take orders, knowing well that the intense self-abasement, of which some idea had been conveyed in the letters that have been given, was preventing him from taking a step towards which, in every other way, he felt he was being led, and that 140 A Protestant of the Protestants. CHAP. x. without some sympathy and encouragement there was likely to be yet very long delay, even if at all he made up his mind to become a clergyman. When this proposal arrived, his mother and sisters, knowing the condition of his mind on the subject, were anxious to make him feel it as an indication of the course marked out for him. It is difficult, without long extracts, to convey an impression of the habit of mother, sisters, and son to watch with the most perfect simplicity for indications of what it was their duty to do. A certain inward voice, a certain inward light was how- ever acquiring an authority with him superior to the indications of circumstance. I believe it must have been just after he had left Oxford to remain at home for a short time before going to Lympsham that the following letter was written. It shows his intense Protestant faith, as well as his firm belief in a Catholicity to which the Papacy is directly inimical, and as these belong to the permanent elements of his mind, the letter appears to be important, though it refers to events the details of which can hardly be understood without dealing with them at greater length than is advisable. The time was that of the siege of Antwerp, when we, in alliance with the French, were on the ground of popular rights refusing to allow the Protestant King of Holland to suppress by force of arms the rebellion of Catholic Belgium. [Towards end of 183-, with a much longer letter on the same subject.] MY DEAR ACLAND, ' As I scarcely expect that you will have leisure, inclina- tion, or ability to read the long MS. I send you, I will just set down the heads of it in this note, that my purpose in writing it may not be altogether defeated. The subject is the Dutch war. My intention is to show that an address to the King concerning it ought to be sent up from the University of Oxford without delay. The principles upon which that address should proceed are stated and defended at length. ' First. I assert the position denied by Wilberforce in your rooms on Monday last that Protestantism means something. 1832. Protestantism National. Age 27. 141 ' Second. I inquire what it means. ' (a.) I endeavour to prove that Protestantism is not predi- cable of a Church. This is shown, first, from reason, by con- sidering what a Church is ; secondly, from the opinions of our English reformers manifested in their combining a Popish liturgy with the formularies of doctrine received by the Lutheran and Calvinistic Churches. Their conduct in this respect is defended ; Christian is shown to be the only epithet ap- plicable to a Church, and our own to be no direct antago- nist of the Papal Church. '(&) I endeavour to prove that Protestantism is predicable of a nation. A nation exists in the acknowledging of the Righteous God. A nation becomes such when it recognises a law. A law implies the recognition of a being who ought to be obeyed because he is righteous, and not merely who must be obeyed because he is powerful. The conflict between this idea in the conscience and the self-will expressed in the worship of beings of mere power, creations, as far as the cha- racters imputed to them, of the human fancy, is the growth of the struggles in the pagan natures of law and freedom with absolute power. ' In Rome the former kept the ascendency longer than else- where, and the ascendency was more complete while it lasted. The recognition of the sole supremacy of the God of Law, of Righteousness, the peculiarity of the Jewish nation. ' To protest against every disobedience to Him by the worship of other gods, created by man and not His creation, was the function necessarily appertaining to this recognition. Pro- testanism, therefore, is no negation, but the only assertion. ' Every nation when converted to Christianity became a Pro- testant nation, i.e. recognised the God of Righteousness as Him to whom its highest officer was responsible, and the only bond by which the parts are united to Him in obedience to each other in society ; and protested against any other principle of national union than this. The Papacy was a more direct deposing of the God of Righteousness from His throne over each nation than paganism was, because all 142 The Papacy Atheistic. Age 27. CHAP. x. responsibility to an invisible power on the part of each par- ticular sovereign was set at nought by the doctrine of his responsibility to a visible Head of the Church. Horrible consequence in the disorganisation and misery of the nations. ' Then it is shown how excellent men may exist under this system, because they can believe gifts to flow from an in- visible source ultimately through his vicegerent Thus, on the contrary, every Papal nation must be a God-denying nation, because the Pope to the nation is God. Hence Papacy became the object of national Protestantism from its com- mencement, or from as far back as there was a nation to protest down to the French Revolution. ' This shown to be the opinion of all the great statesmen England has ever produced. The assertion that they were "wicked men, fomenters of disturbances," &c., proved by a bare enumeration of them to be paradoxical and con- temptible. Reason of this assertion because Charles I. chose to marry a Popish princess, and disturb all the old English doctrines on this head. The language of the Church respecting him shown to be no excuse for the absurd attempts to deify him. The Toryism of Hume and his disciples shown to be the mother of Liberalism. All who bring back that form of Toryism denounced as secret abettors of Radicalism and infidelity. ' The French Revolution should have recalled men to the true idea of English policy. Since that time Protestantism has had a new object, yet its nature is unchanged. ' It asserts the acknowledgment of a Righteous God to be the only national bond. That being set at naught by the nations whose kings reign by the grace of the people, they, as well as the Papists, became its object.' Some weeks subsequent to the last letter he writes again during a flying visit to Oxford, just before starting for Lymp- sham. 1832. A Man of the Age. 143 1 MY DEAR ACLAND, ****** Hope hope that I, the meanest of God's creatures, for such to myself I must appear, am destined for the noblest purposes and the highest glory is that which alone can make me humble or keep me so. I know that this paradox is true, and if I might answer your kind admonitions with the like, I would venture to say believe this truth for yourself also. Very bitter, however short, experience has assured me that humility and despondency are not loving friends, but sworn enemies. You must aspire high if you would know yourself to be nothing. If you would feel yourself to be the worm that you are you must claim your privilege of being like God. These thoughts have been in the main suggested by a recollection mixed with great shame of the exceedingly little disappointment which I felt that my high endeavours to rouse Oxford from its lethargy so signally failed. In part, however, they take their colouring from a retrospect of my whole Uni- versity course, in which I can trace at every step the sinful- ness of nursing that hopeless disposition which, aiming at nothing, is continually puffed out if by any chance and at random it now and then makes a hit ' From what I have seen of my contemporaries I greatly fear that they are infected with the same distemper; indeed I have never discovered in myself anything so peculiar and strange that I should not be rather inclined to set down my faults as the effect of the prevailing spirit of the age. Looking at them in this way, I can feel very thankful for a providential education which has wonderfully managed my foolishness, while it has permitted it a full swing, and has enabled me to understand in some slight measure that every stone that I can ever fling at any brother must reverberate against myself. I hope I have hated the sins in myself, I hope I do hate them, I hope I shall hate them ten times more, and therefore I may without presumption denounce them in every one else. And oh ! surely this, and not the 144 Loving Man, Hating Sin. Age 27. CHAP. x. accursed thing which bears the name in our day, is the charity which we are to seek after ; charity which loathes and abominates evil in every form, and most when attached to persons whom we respect and love. And in what does this holy charity begin ? In what can it begin but in the cheering, delightful apprehension of this part of God's character that He does not impute iniquity, that He views it as far as the East is from the West off the creatures of His love ? ' It is our wretched, abominable love of evil which leads us to identify ourselves with it It is the darkness, the thick darkness created by that love of evil, which causes us to see our brethren as nothing but a part and parcel of their sins : and it is the sign that a new love has been put into the soul, that the eye is opened to discern that God's thoughts are not as our thoughts; that intense love for us is not incon- sistent with, but actually the cause of, intense hatred of our evil ; which discovery compels us to judge of ourselves by this same righteous rule, to regard ourselves as free from sin because loved by God ; to regard sin, not as part of us, but as our enemy ; and sin in our brethren, not as part of them, but as their bitterest enemy, ours, and God's. ' I know what a rebellion there is in the mind against these spiritual subtleties, how readily the thought creeps in, This is not practical ; we want coarser rules for action. But verily it is practical, and practice requires a most delicate discrimina- tion, most exquisite refinement. It is your theories which are all coarse, -your systems which are all straight and stiff and angular. And it is they which are so utterly beggarly and useless when you try to convert them into action. Love by virtue of keen discretion, and spiritual distinctions, is most apt to govern and shape all the innumerable varieties, all the sudden occasions, all the winding, entangled, labyrinthine harmonies of our daily life.' 1833. Mrs. M. Maurices Letter about her Son. 145 CHAPTER XI. " Wenn wir das Leben eines weltgeschichtlich bedeutenden Mannes darstellen wollen . . . wir werden uns gedrungen fiihlen, dem allmahligen Warden eines solchen Lebens nachzuforschen, den in der Knospe verbor- genen Keim aufzusuchen, die Umstande welche zur Entfaltung desselben zusammenwiirkten." Neander. " When we desire to set forth the life of a man who has played a part in the world's history, we find ourselves obliged to investigate the progressive growth of the life in question, to seek out carefully the germ coucealed in the bud, the circumstances which have conspired to unfold it." 1833 AND BEGINNING OF 1834 LYMPSHAM MR. STEPHENSON LETTER TO MRS. MAURICE ORDINATION ANSWERS IN EXAMINATION 1834 CONTINUED BUBBENHALL CURACY PUBLICATION OF ' EUSTACE CONWAY ' VIEWS OF OXFOP,J MOVEMENT THE WORDS " KINGDOM OF CHRIS!."' 'SUBSCRIPTION NO BONDAGE' ALEXANDER KNOX. IT was natural, now that Frederick Maurice was about to preach as a clergyman of the Church of England, whilst his father continued from time to time to preach as a Unitarian minister, that Unitarian friends should be scandalised. In January 1833, the month in which Frederick Maurice went down to Lympsham, the Unitarian friend who had always been in most close and active relationship with the Maurices wrote to Mrs. Maurice a letter of indignant protest. Mrs. Maurice replied in a letter, part of which is here given : 'That he has, for some years, been decided in his preference for the Church of England must be a complete refutation of the charge of " vacillation " ; but it was not till he had received the most solemn impression on his mind that he could best VOL. i. L. 146 Mrs. M. Maurice about lier Son. CHAP. xi. serve the Lord by becoming a Christian minister, that he ever ventured to entertain the thought of entering that Church. I need not, my dear sir, tell him to pause. He has long been, and with much prayer, deeply considering the awful subject, and believes himself truly called to preach the words of life to perishing sinners. There never was a human being more free from inconsideration, either as it respects acting hastily, or from inattention to the feelings of others ; for in this respect, those who know him best know him to be only too sensitive. If ever anybody acted from pure motives, I am sure it is he ; for a more disinterested and noble disposition does not exist There are many out of his own family who would bear the same testimony in his favour. I lament with you, my dear sir, the errors of the Church of England, and, till I knew more of other sects and parties, I felt very harshly towards them : but I have discovered so much corruption in those who professed far less temptation as much to soften my feelings in that respect. All we know is, that human corruption has not, and cannot, prevent the good seed from springing up to eternal life; because Christ must eventually triumph over all His enemies. ' With these views, my dear sir, I cannot say anything to my dearest Fred to keep him from labouring in his Master's vineyard, and I am quite sure our dearest friend would not wish me to use a mother's influence for such a purpose. I have so much reason to know that my dear Mr. Maurice rejoices in any good being done, whatever be the quarter from whence it proceeds, that I am persuaded he would be thankful if our precious child should be made the instrument of awakening sinners, even if it were not within the pale in which our own weak judgments would have wished him to act' According to Mr. Stephenson's son, who was living at Lymp- sham at the time when Frederick Maurice went there, he produced an effect upon Mr. Stephenson which is character- istic of what is reported throughout his whole life, of his 1833. Two Processes of Life-Development. 147 influence on every one he came across. That is to say, Mr. Stephenson, during all my father's visit, was absolutely at his best, coming out in a way that surprised even those nearest to him and most intimately acquainted with him. My father has left a memoir of the man with whom he then came in contact, which will perhaps give an idea of the special in- fluence on his thought which was thus exercised. But it is necessary to point out here that what can be told of my father's life is in nowise, as has been done in one of the most striking autobiographies of our time,* to say " at that hour, in that field," he was taught this or taught that. His thoughts and character were not in this way built up like rows of neatly ordered bricks. Rather, as each new thread of thought was caught by the shuttle of his ever-working mind, it was dashed in and out through all the warp and woof of what had been laid on before, and one sees it disappearing and reappearing continually affecting all else, having its colour modified by successive juxtapositions, and taking its own place in the ever growing pattern. Memoir of Mr. Stephenson of Lympsham by F. D. M., written about 1838. ' When I became acquainted with Mr. Stephenson, or, at least, had the opportunity of observing him accurately, his powers had reached their full maturity, and his opinions had under- gone their last modification. ' Tf I may judge from what I saw of him, the former must have been gradually ripening for many years, and the latter could never have been subject to any great or violent changes. He seemed to have grown into the stature of a Christian man, * Cardinal Newman's ' Apologia pro vita sua.' I may note that to my amazement a friend who read this supposed it was " a fling " at the Apo- logia. I do not feel bound to suppress the comparison between certain characteristics of the two minds. The sentence is I think ' necessary' for my purpose, but certainly the last thing I intend is to speak disrespectfully of such a man as Dr. Newman. L 2 148 Mr. StepJienson and Himself . A Contrast. CHAP. xr. not, of course, without many severe conflicts, but yet without those great and terrible agonies of spirit which some are called to experience. His temper struck me as more constitutionally serene and hilarious than any with which I was ever brought into contact. Left to itself, it might have sunk into a mere habit of easy good-nature ; under the influence of the spirit of meekness and love it was exalted into that noble and delicate form of tenderness and charity which it is at once the pleasantest and most useful exercise of a Christian heart to contemplate. His devotion partook of the same character ; it was altogether cheerful, thankful, hopeful. A person of a low and desponding character might, perhaps, find something un- congenial in his clear and elevated tone of spirituality; but there was a gentleness and repose in his manner which won upon persons of this disposition, and made them feel that he was better able to sympathise with them than he could have been if he had shared in their depression. I never saw him giving way to any sudden ebullition of feeling, or betrayed into any passionate or excited language, even upon the sub- jects which were nearest his heart. He seemed to have an even glow, at all times and in all places. He seemed not so much to be carried occasionally into another and higher region as to dwell constantly in it, to be always breathing its free air and enjoying its bright scenery. This tone of character diffused itself through his conversation, his preach- ing, and even affected very materially his studies and his sentiments. There was never any wide chasm between his discourse upon earthly and heavenly topics. He liked to clothe what he said of the beauties and glories of the in- visible world in images taken from the things around us ; and, on the other hand, all his allusions to the daily business and cheats of the world were tinged with streaks of light from a higher sphere. He never appeared to look upon the earth, as some excellent men, whose minds are continually occupied with the contemplation of moral evil, look upon it. At times he would almost forget the deformities with which six thousand years of sin had loaded it, and regard it only as the soil 1833 Suggestive of Links. 149 on which the Son of God had walked, and which He had redeemed from the curse. This habit of mind was, no doubt, fostered by a quiet, contemplative life, and constant residence in an English country village. But it must not be supposed to have so influenced him as to make him unfaithful in declaring to his people the depravity of their natures and the feebleness of their wills. These subjects he brought for- ward as much as any of his brethren, and as strongly as any of them declared divine grace, bestowed without money and without price, to be the only remedy for the evils and miseries of man. He appeared to me not to differ in his positive assertions from the Calvinistic school of Churchmen, nay (when the subject was introduced by others) to assert some of their opinions more broadly than many of them ; but it struck me that the tone and spirit of his ministrations were very different from those of some with whom he acknow- ledged a general agreement in doctrine ; that he delighted more than almost any to expatiate on the absolute and essen- tial love of God, to speak of all whom he addressed as inter- ested in the redemption of Christ and the covenant that God had made in Him, and to declare that the sin which must condemn them would be that of refusing to submit to the Spirit, who was seeking to renew their hearts, and make them the holy and happy servants of God. Above all, he dwelt more earnestly upon the fact that, when Christ had overcome the sharpness of death, He opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers ; upon the free communion that is established between heaven and earth by the incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord of both; and upon the awful privileges that consequently belong to those who are brought under the powers of the world to come, and are living in the midst of the heavenly Jerusalem. It was on this subject that his mind appears to have undergone the most change in his later years, though still a very regular and progressive change, and one, the steps of which may be easily traced and explained. 'In the year 1821 he preached a sermon upon a public 1 50 Forming of the Thought of CHAP. xi. occasion, in which he maintained that the hills and valleys of this earth, redeemed, purified, and regenerated, were to be the scene of the felicity of the ransomed children of God. This opinion, which he illustrated from the stores of a very rich and fertile fancy, showed in what direction his mind was moving ; that he believed our human feelings and pursuits were far too much separated from the thoughts and prospects of our heavenly inheritance, and that there is some close and intimate link between them, which it is most important for our spiritual life that we should discover and recognise. This opinion he never changed, but deeper study and medi- tation led him to alter his views respecting the character of this connection, and the manner in which the belief of it is intended to act upon us. For many years he devoted him- self intensely to the study of the prophetical books of Scrip- ture, seeking all aids of ancient and modern learning to assist him in the work. This study led him to conclusions very different from those which are adopted by modern readers of prophecy generally, and from those which he had thought reasonable in earlier life. He became convinced that the greater part of those Scriptures which are usually referred to a far distant period, were actually accomplished when the Jewish polity passed away and the universal Church rose out of its ruins. ' So far he agreed with many of the ablest commentators of former days, but he differed from them in this, that he attached a much deeper significance to those events than is generally given to them. He did not seek to explain away the prophecies by saying that they only meant the destruc- tion of Jerusalem, or the establishment of Christianity; but he said that these events were nothing less than the actual manifestation of Christ's kingdom, the actual establishment ot a communion between the two worlds, the creation of a new heaven and a new earth. These views are fully deve- loped in a work which he had been preparing for twelve years, and which he finished very shortly before his death. I only allude to them because they explain some of his views 1833. " The Kingdom of Christ''' \ 5 1 and are closely connected with what I have said of the cha- racter of his mind. ' The ordinances of the Christian Church were always re- garded by him with the deepest reverence and love ; but from the time that he adopted this view respecting the establishment of the Christian Church, and its connection with the whole scheme of God for the redemption of mankind, he began to esteem them still more highly as the symbols of Christ's kingdom, the witnesses for the finished work of Christ, and the bonds of fellowship between Christ and all the redeemed in heaven and earth. For the same reason he attached increasing importance to the apostolic derivation of bishops, and the ordination of ministers, and whatever else concerns the constitution of the church, as one body, existing from age to age. ' These doctrines did not make him bigoted, or exclusive ; they were in his mind the assertion of the universality of the Church of its being a real and not an imaginary body of its being a kingdom which is destined to rule over all. Through his life he was a striver after peace and unity. At one time he sought it by the most free and large intercourse with the members of all sects, at religious meetings, and especially in the Bible Society. Nor does he ever appear to have relinquished his endeavours to produce charity and goodwill by these means. Certainly he never ceased to ex- ercise the offices of courtesy, kindness, and Christian love towards persons of every shade of opinion ; but as he became convinced that God had Himself established a great and universal fellowship, from which no one, except by his own act, is excluded, he was necessarily more indifferent to human means for securing this great end, more impatient of those who wish to divert the stream of God's mercy into canals and tanks of their own manufacture, more anxious to persuade all not to choose these in preference to the full and all-embracing ocean of the Catholic Church. That these opinions, far from leading him to proclaim the Gospel less freely and earnestly to his flock, gave a more mellow cha- 152 Words of Ordination Service. CHAP. xi. racter to his preaching, led him to search deeper into the sacred volume; and, as a good householder, to bring forth out of it things new and old, those who heard his sermons in the latter part of his life can confidently testify. That his churchmanship did not make him a less personal or prac- tical Christian, his conduct during the last year of his life, which was one of severe domestic trial, proved to all who were acquainted with him. Those who had not that privilege will surely arrive at the same conclusion when they hear with what peace and joy he saw the veil withdrawn, which concealed from him that goodly company of saints and angels, with whom his spirit had so long held communion.' To his father he wrote on March i4th, 1833, from Lymp- sham. (The " friend " " Mr. Young " is the person to whom Mrs. Maurice's letter, recently given, was addressed : ) ' I have not yet settled anything respecting the time of my taking orders. . . . ' My scruples, as you know, though not of the sort which our kind friend would have me entertain, have not been few. I fully agree with him that the words of the Ordination Ser- vice are very strong and awful words ; not too strong or awful, I think, for the occasion, but such as, I trust, I shall never lightly take into my lips. He seems to think them enthusiastical. I see no refuge from enthusiasm, but in the very truth which these words speak of. It is the awful sense of the continual presence of God in the soul, which I believe can alone effectually preserve from the vagaries of our own fancies. I am sure, for myself, that in proportion as I believed the word of St. Paul strictly and substantially, that " we are the temples of the Holy Ghost," should I be afraid to yield to chance and wayward impulses, exciteu feelings, and winds of doctrine should I be in a calm, peaceful, rational state, caring for nothing but truth, and ready to sacrifice every conceit and opinion that I might find it The want of this settled persuasion I find at the bottom T 833- Begins Residence in Bnbbenhall. 153 of all my follies and errors, and I am persuaded that it is the secret of much of the fanaticism which is attributed to just the opposite cause. I am anxious, at any rate, that Mr. Young should believe 1 am not going into a Church in which I look for a bed of down. That as an establishment it will be overturned, I know not how soon, I am nearly convinced ; yet I would rather be a member of it now than in the days of its greatest prosperity, even if clergymen should become as much targets to shoot at in England as they are in Ireland.' He was now in the neighbourhood of Frenchay. There, in July of this year, he went with his mother and two sisters. He gave cottage lectures from house to house, being welcomed with a kindness such as is offered to those who have come back to a home from which they have been long away. After his return to Lympsham, Mr. Harding, who was at the time Tutor of Wadham, chanced to come there on a visit. He was the incumbent of a small parish in Warwickshire, Bubbenhall by name. It is five miles from Leamington. As it was impossible for Mr. Harding to reside there, he was anxious for a curate to whom he could entrust sole charge of the parish. He offered the curacy to Frederick Maurice. In November 1833 Frederick Maurice and one of his sisters took up their quarters in Leamington, in order that he might become acquainted with the parish, prior to his taking orders. He found the people of Bubbenhall so little ready to receive him that there was no house in the village that they would get ready for him. They had never had a resident clergyman, and did not intend to have one. He announced, however, that unless a house could be obtained he would pitch a tent in the churchyard, there being no glebe. Partly because they saw he intended to come, and partly because he had already won upon the people, a house which had not been used previously, be- longing to one of the farmers, was put in order for him. Meantime he remained in Leamington for a few weeks. Very soon after his arrival at Leamington he sent the following letter to his mother. 1 54 " Christ in you"' 1 CHAP. xi. It must be remembered that Mrs. Maurice, whilst looking upon it as the rare privilege of others to be able to convince themselves that they had some special sign which they could recognise of the divine favour, had always felt herself to be outside of this charmed circle ; that every circumstance of life tended more and more to increase her son's reverence for her ; to make him feel that her daughters were at their best, and not their worst, when they approached most nearly to her inca- pacity for claiming any selfish privilege for herself. Her self- depression was continually before him. He was always striving to relieve it. In each of her birthday letters she records her sense that a birthday ought to be a season of gloom, not of rejoicing. " Though I have little hope of a ray of comfort reaching my heart," she writes in 1832, after their visit to- gether to Ryde, "yet I am always looking for it." 'Leamington, December 9, 1833. ' MY DEAREST MOTHER, ' Though I have felt grieved each day at reflecting on my delay in writing to you, I do not regret that I did not send my first thoughts, which I put down about a month ago ; for as often, too often, is the case with mine, they are expressed in rather a complex manner, and might not have given you comfort. I now long and pray to be able to speak as simply as I ought to speak when I know that what I say is true. ' My text is this, " Know ye not that Jesus Christ is in you ? " This question is often put in such a way as to distress poor humble persons very much. But nothing was further from the Apostle's thoughts. To give a proud professor a notion that he had attained anything in having the Lord of Life near to him, to give the desponding spirit a gloomy sense of his distance from such a privilege, that was no part of Paul's commission or his practice. To prove it, see what he says, not to a faithful Christian or an unfaithful one, not to a church at all, " For in Him we live and move and have our being." This is spoken to the ignorant, idolatrous 1 833. " Whether you believe it or no" 155 inhabitants of Athens. What, then, do I assert? Is there no difference between the believer and the unbeliever? Yes, the greatest difference. But the difference is not about the fact, but precisely in the belief of the fact. God tells us, " In Him," that is in Christ, " 1 have created all things, whether they be in heaven or on earth. Christ is the Head of every man." Some men believe this ; some men disbelieve it. Those men who disbelieve it walk " after the flesh." They do not believe they are joined to an Almighty Lord of life, One who is mightier than the world, the flesh, the devil, One who is nearer to them than their own flesh. They do not believe this, and therefore they do not act upon this belief. They do not think they are joined to Christ; and therefore they do not fray, that is, ask Christ to fill, animate, and inspire and sanctify them. They believe, for this is all they see, that they are surrounded by a flesh which shuts them in, that they are surrounded by innumerable objects of sense. Their hearts are wedded in the strictest sense of the word to sense, and they do not wish to be divorced. But though tens of hundreds of thousands of men live after the flesh, yea, though every man in the world were so living, we are forbidden by Christian truth and the Ca- tholic Church to call this the real state of any man. On the contrary, the phrases which Christ and His Apostles use to describe such a condition are such as these : " They believe a lie. They make a lie. They will not believe the truth." The truth is that every man is in Christ ; the condemnation of every man is, that he will not own the truth; he will not act as if this were true, he will not believe that which is the truth, that, except he were joined to Christ, he could not think, breathe, live a single hour. This is the monstrous lie which the devil palms upon poor sinners. " You are some- thing apart from Christ. You have a separate, independent existence." See how this works. Separate from Christ, I can bear no fruit to God. Separate from Christ, I am separate from every one of my brethren. Then at once follows disobedience to God's two commands, " Thou shalt 156 An Accursed Creed and AnotJier. CHAP. xi. love the Lord thy God; Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself." God commands every man to do this; but to com- mand me, in myself, to love Him and love my neighbour is to command me an impossibility, to mock with a precept which experience and reason and Scripture tell me cannot be performed. ' Now, my dearest mother, you wish and long to believe your- self in Christ; but you are afraid to do so, because you think there is some experience that you are in Him necessary to warrant that belief. Now if any man, or an angel from heaven, preach this doctrine to you, I say, let his doctrine be accursed. You have this warrant for believing yourself in Christ, that you cannot do one living act, you cannot obey one of God's commandments, you cannot pray, you cannot hope, you cannot love, if you are not in Him. But God says, Pray, pray, hope, love ; God bids me do that He has constituted me to do, not something else, but just that. This condition I have made for myself; this state of independence, this fleshly Adam life is no state at all; it is a lie. In that I cannot please God. It is as impossible as that lying should please the God of Truth, as that enmity should please the God of Love. Wherefore we say to every man, " In your flesh you cannot please God." Wherefore we say to every man, " Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved." Not, believe in a distant Christ, not, believe in a dead Christ ; but, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe in Him as the Lord of your own spirit. Believe that your spirit is as much His servant as you have believed it the servant of the flesh. Believe Him to be mightier than the world around you, than your own flesh, than the evil spirit. Believe and live. ' Now, who is the Lord of your spirit ? He who agonised in Gethsemane, He who bled on Calvary, the Lord of all love, the Lord who sacrificed Himself for love ; this is the Lord of your spirit, ever near to you, ever present with you, with every one. ' Does it grieve you because I say with every one, as if I put AGE 28. To Tivo Ears Two Sounds. 157 you on a level, as to hope, with the most vile and unbelieving ? Oh, do not so pervert the words of comfort. The fact is, you desire earnestly that you could find one near you who loved you intensely, to whom you could tell your sorrows, your griefs, your sins; to whom you could tell everything in the assurance that He would sympathise with you, and that they, at present, do not feel this want. Then the same words spoken to you have as different a sound as joy from grief to them and to you. Yet I cannot disguise it, the words are the same. Ye are children of God ; ye are members of Christ. Profligates, hard-hearted sinners, yea, hypocrites, this is your condemnation, that you are. It will be your misery to find that you were so, unless you will believe. ' Now here is the warrant for prayer ; here is the possibility, here is the might of prayer. Christ is in you, submit your- self to Him. Say, "Lord, I submit." Not now, but at every moment of your life ; tell Him of whatever sins or sorrows are disturbing you ; of sins no less than sorrows, of sorrows no less than sins. Of other people's sins no less than your own, of other people's sorrows no less than your own. Believe that He loves you and them. Ask that He will do His will in you, which is your blessedness. Ask that He will separate your spirit from the flesh and from surrounding objects by His spirit, in order that you may behold His love. Do not think you will ever have any righteousness or glory except His righteousness, for in perceiving this is your life, your happiness, your virtue, your glory. Ask him to sanctify the whole body of which you are one member, that the whole body may see and delight in Him as its Head, and may not delight in themselves. For to delight in Him is righteous- ness, to delight in ourselves is sin. Lastly, ask Him more and more to shine through you, that others may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. This He says He wishes, therefore, of course, He will do it for you. Tell me what you think of what I have said. May He bless it.' The Day before Ordination. CHAP. xr. To Ra\ M. Maurice. 1 Eccleshall, Saturday, January 25, 1834. ' The day before Ordination. 'Mv DEAREST FATHER, ' I am thankful to say that my examination is over, and, on the whole, has been very satisfactory. I have much reason to be grateful for the kindness of the Bishop and Archdeacon, especially as I did not reach Eccleshall till four hours after the examination began. I was recommended at Oxford to go by way of Northampton, instead of Birmingham, as the London and Chester coaches, and I was told also the Liverpool and Manchester, which go through that town, go also through Eccleshall. I was deceived into believing that I should meet with a coach immediately on my arrival, instead of which there was not one till three o'clock the following morning. I was, however, kindly received, and had time to do all the papers set to the other candidates. To-day we had a charge from the Bishop, and were formally desired to appear at church in the morning. ' If you ask me, my dear father, what feelings chiefly occupy me at this most important crisis of my life, I answer that they may be summed up in a desire for greater self-abasement and a more perfect and universal charity. I feel that the minister of the Gospel of Peace, the minister of a Church which is called Catholic and universal, is bound to have a much lower opinion of himself than I have practically and habitually of myself, and also to feel a much more perfect and unlimited love towards all and each than has yet ever been shown forth in me. When I speak of universal love, I do not mean any thing which is not perfectly consistent with national and family affection. I believe if we give up ourselves to God and renounce ourselves, He is sure to work these feelings in O us, else why did He 1 'command us to have them ? I long to have them far more strongly, in far more practical opera- tion than I ever had. But I feel the duty of cultivating that AGE 28. Charity based on Certainty of Trtith. 1 59 universal love more incumbent upon me as a minister than upon others, because I think I am more directly shown the true foundation of it than others are. It is the natural feel- ing of all of us that charity is founded upon the uncertainty of the Truth. I believe it is founded upon the certainty of Truth. That God is Truth and Love also ; that all men may know Him, that is, know Truth, and that He willeth all men to know Him ; on this rock I build my charity. All error, all sin, in myself and in others is their misery; therefore I wish to hate it in myself and in them, and that they should hate it in me and in themselves, and trust with perfect confidence in God to deliver them and me out of it. Now this I feel is my imperfection that I do not love men's persons enough, and hate that which makes them unhappy enough ; that I do not more labour to guide them into truth, and use the only means of doing so, kindness and love. This is my desire, this I am bound by my ordination vows to seek after ; and, seeking, I trust that I shall find.' By the kindness of Mr. William Allen, the Vicar of Walsall, I have now before me the answers that were given by my father at the Examination at Eccleshall, recovered under circum- stances which I trust that Mr. Allen will forgive me for quoting from his letter : ' Some seven or eight years ago I became possessed of a few sets of examination papers, purchased as waste paper at an auction at Eccleshall Castle by a grocer, who gave them me, and who resided in or near Eccleshall and afterwards at Oaken- gates, in Shropshire. Amongst the papers I found those which I beg to forward you.' From these papers I select the following answer, as, on the whole, the most representative : 'Specify some of those erroneous and strange doctrines which, on your admission to the priesthood, you promise to "banish and put away." 160 Answers at Ordination. Age 28. CHAP. XT. ' i. The doctrine that there is any merit in the creature which can entitle it to God's love ; or any goodness in the creature at all disunited from God. ' 2. The doctrine that there is now any bar to the admission of a sinner into God's presence, except that which his own unbelief creates. ' 3. The doctrine that there is in God " any darkness at all," that there is in Him the least particle of selfishness, that He is merely a superior will, and not absolute righteousness and absolute love. ' 4. The doctrine that men are more anxious to attain the knowledge of God than he is anxious to bring them to that knowledge. ' 5. The doctrine that it is possible for the perfect God to behold any one except in the perfect Man, Christ Jesus, or that it is possible for man to behold God, except as revealed and manifested in Him. ' 6. The doctrine of Antinomianism in all its shapes ; that the end of God in bringing men to the faith of Christ is not to make them holy as He is holy ; that it is a privilege to be allowed to commit iniquity, instead of a privilege to be de- livered from iniquity; that there is any reward so great or glorious which God can offer to His creatures as that of making them partakers of His divine character. ' 7. The doctrine that man can worship God except in the spirit; and ' 8. The doctrine that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not " in glory equal, in majesty co-eternal." ' The moment at which Mr. Maurice was entering upon his duties was a striking one in the history alike of the nation and of the Church of England. The Reform Bill had just passed, and quite new political issues lay before the nation for solution. At the Summer Assize of 1833, Keble had preached the Sermon on " National Apostasy," which, as has been told us by him who has the best authority to determine it, was the actual overt commencement of the " Oxford movement." 1834- Occupations at Bubbenhall. 161 'February 13, 1834. ' MY DEAR ACLAND, ****** ' Since we parte * I have taken orders, but through unavoid- able delays only within the last month. I am now settled in a very small parish (of about 250 souls) in Warwickshire. I am the sole manager of it (bating the very great help which I receive from a sister who lives with me), as my rector is one of the tutors at Wadham. I have also the charge of a young pupil, respecting whom I feel much anxiety, as he has con- siderable talents and is come of a stock which he ought not to disgrace. I do not know whether it will strike you as the greatest oddity and anomaly that I should be minister to a set of farmers and labourers, most of whom have not a notion beyond their teams, or that I should be appointed to form the mind of one who, if he lives, will be Lord Somers. 4 Whether my theorising propensities would make me most unsuitable for the first vocation, or my ignorance of the world, and my gawkiness, for the second, may be an amusing question for you ; but so God hath ordered it. I have not gone out of my way to get into either position, but have been led by unlooked-for providences into both. I feel my utter incompetency ; thanks be to Him who has sent me all other mercies for this especially, and I trust that I shall have strength according to my need. If it [is] His will to transmit blessings to His creatures they will reach their destination, however awkward the hands which have the honour of bear- ing them. I wish I had more opportunities of communicating with Harrison ; whom I regard with increasing reverence and esteem, as I feel more of the distance between my state of mind and his. Blessed may he be and all who labour with him in the task of stripping the Church of her Babylonian attire, and clothing her once more in her white and bridal robes. ' If they err and stumble in their sincere endeavours after the recovery of old and forgotten truths, if they even are tempted to forget that the Church is Catholic while they are in the act VOL. I. M 1 62 Thouglits on " Oxford Movement" CHAP. xi. of pleading for its Catholicty, if they do anything unwillingly to hurt that unity which they so earnestly contend for, may their oversights be all forgiven, all corrected, and may they daily advance more themselves and lead others further in the knowledge of all truth. ' I sometimes feel a longing desire to set them right when I think they are misapprehending or frightening away sin- cere Dissenters ; to say " you need not weaken one of your assertions, you may make them stronger, and yet by just this or that little alteration give them a Catholic instead of an exclusive form," but I do not know how to make myself understood ; nobody sees what I mean, and I return humbled if not dejected into myself, half convinced that I have no business with any but my own little flock, who may, I hope, by God's grace, be taught to feel what a Catholic Church is, though they may never understand the name. ' I don't mean by this that I have ever attempted formal inter- course with the dons of the Oxford band Keble, Newman, Harrison, &c., but that all my chav.ce connections with any of their party had this termination. Of our Liberals I suppose we must not venture to hope good any longer, though I think there are still among them a better seed, a nobler generation, who only want to have that charity, of which Liberality is at once the counterpart and the greatest contradiction, truly presented to them in order to embrace it, and cast away the miserable idol that they have been worshipping. ' The most glaring exhibition of the evils of their own party will not, I think, avail to detach them from it, without this, or if it do, it will but bring them into that last state which is worse than the first, wherein the house being empty, swept, and garnished, stripped of its brilliant hopes and fond ex- pectations, becomes a fit residence for seven brother spirits more wicked than the original occupier. Of Bulwer and such as he, I know not what to say. I remember him at Cambridge taking the tone of a high aristocratical Whig and scoffing at the Benthamites, at the same time that Read, now the editor of the " Morning Post," was talking Radicalism. I have heard AGE 28. ' Eustace Comvay ' and Captain Marry att. 1 63 of a poor creature in St. Luke's in a lucid moment snatching a lady by the arm who was visiting the asylum with the excla- mation, "Have you thanked God for your reason to-day?" and then relapsing into fury. Surely one of these men in a lucid interval might say to either of us, " Have you thanked God to-day for having passed through a debating society with any portion of your souls undestroyed ? " and at least to one of us, " Have you meddled with periodicals, and have you thanked God that you still think, love, go to church and find any one to love you ? " : Soon after he had settled at Bubbenhall, Bentley, who- had succeeded to Colburn's business, at last published 'Eustace Conway.' The story mentioned in the following letter has been so often alluded to that it is perhaps as well to give it as it was first reported to my father. " Captain Marryatt " was the well- known novelist ; but when ' Eustace Conway ' was composed, three years before, my father had never heard his name. To Rev. Maurice. 'New Burlington Street, April 21, 1834, ' DEAR SIR, ' At last you will observe by the newspapers I have pub- lished " Eustace Conway," and if I knew where to send you a few copies, I should have much pleasure in doing so. My motive, however, for writing to you just now is this : a pro- minent character in your work, and one who is represented in no amiable colours, bears the name of Captain Marryatt. In our naval service we have an officer of that name, and this morning I have been favoured with a visit from this gentle- man, who feels excessively annoyed by his name being used, a name he assures me to be uncommon, I was not authorised to give up the name of the author, but the said gallant captain, full of ire, made me pledge my word that I would write to you to ask whether it was to him you referred, o^ whether it was pure accident. I have thus M 2 164 A Londoner and Coleridge on the Novel. CHAP. xr. complied with his wish, and you will greatly oblige me by replying to this question to me without delay, always relying upon me that your name shall be withheld as long as possible. I assured him that I was convinced it was purely accidental. ' I am, dear sir, yours faithfully, ' RICHARD BENTLEY.' Michael Maurice to F. D. M. 'May, 1834. ' In the coach on Saturday, a London gentleman asked me if I had seen the new novel. I inquired, " What novel ? " He said, " ' Eustace Conway.' " I replied, " I cannot say I have not seen it, but I am not a novel-reader, and wish to know what opinion is formed of it, for I have seen in a news- paper an account of it, but newspapers are no good authorities." " You are right, sir ; but this is a production that will make a great noise. Some say that it is a violent attack on the Radicals, some think it is against the Whigs ; the writer has spared neither of them." " But, pray sir, to what party does the writer belong?" " I do not know ; I have only read the second part of the third volume, for it was taken away from me by a married daughter who thought I had finished it, and she told me she could not leave off, and I shall see it when I return to town." " What is the style of the book ? " " Very good. But my brother, who has read it, says some of the sentences want clearness, and, what is not usual in a novel, he read them twice over," ' From John Sterling to F. D. M. S. T, Coleridge's Thoughts on 'Eustace Conway, ' * Hurstmonceaux, near Battle, May, 27, 1834. ' MY DEAR MAURICE, ' I beg your pardon for not writing sooner to tell you about Coleridge. I saw him on Wednesday last, and found him far from well, but recovering. He had read about half " Eustace Conway," and liked it exceedingly. He spoke of it with 1834. The "Apostles" Three Toasts. 165 very high and almost unmingled admiration ; but said that there were two or three trifling matters which he could hardly make out, but which he attributed to his ill-health. The only one he mentioned was that he could not conceive why Conway should feel himself bound by his promise to such a scoundrel as Rumbold. In which remark I think S. T. C. did not allow for the involuntary respect and sympathy of Conway with Rumbold's ^intellectual power and strength of character. Coleridge promised to speak of the book when he had an opportunity, and went so far as to say that if I would write a review of it he would do all in his power to have it inserted in the " Quarterly." I fear, however, the task is beyond my strength. He spoke with special admiration of Fanny Rumbold. I had talked of her to some one as your Mignon, and was interested by hearing him draw the same comparison. He told me some curious and beautiful anecdotes as illustrating the natural birth of superstition in the mind ; and said as to fairy tales, ghost stories, and so forth, that undoubtedly the images of the fancy tend to relieve instead of aggravating the terrors of the imagination. He also said that the book put him a little in mind of a very inferior one, in which, how- ever, there is (said he) a good deal of talent " The Infidel Father," by Miss Laetitia Hawkins. On the whole, he talked of the book and of you with evident and earnest interest. Excuse my scribble, I am in great haste, and believe me, ' Yours affectionately, ' JOHN STERLING.' ' P.S. Coleridge has given me leave to publish some of his MSS.' There is also a letter from one of his sisters, mentioning that at the annual dinner of the " Apostles' Club " they this year toasted him in his absence three times ; first, as the author of the Club itself; second, as having taken orders since the last meeting ; third, as the author of ' Eustace Conway.' Of the novel and its reception, it may be further men- 1 66 The Universal Church. CHAP. xr. tioned that one of his friends, whose habit it was to speak in superlatives, declared that "if it had not had the most villainous plot that had ever been constructed, it would have been the best novel that ever had been written." Another, "Why, Maurice, how on earth did you ever come to write such a thing as this ? why there is not a man in the whole book that I shouldn't like to have the hanging of." ' Bubbenhall, near Coventry, July 12, 1834. ' MY DEAfc A GLAND, ****** ' I would wish to live and die for the assertion of this truth ; that the Universal Church is just as much a reality as any particular nation is ; that the latter can only be believed real as one believes in the former ; that the Church is the witness for the true constitution of man as man, a child of God, an heir of heaven, and taking up his freedom by baptism : that the world is a miserable, accursed, rebellious, order, which denies this foundation, which will create a founda- tion of self-will, choice, taste, opinion ; that in the world there can be no communion; that in the Church there can be universal communion ; communion in one body by one Spirit. For this, our Church of England is now, as I think, the only firm, consistent witness. If God will raise up another in Germany or elsewhere, thanks be to Him for it, but for the sake of Germans, Dutchmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Italians for the sake of Baptists, Independents, Quakers, Unitarians, for the sake of Jews, Turks, Infidels, for the sake of Men, I will hold fast by that Church which alone stands forth and upholds universal brotherhood, on the only basis on which brotherhood is possible. ' We stand on the voluntary principle, we voluntarily come into God's order. We refuse to stand on the slavish founda- tion of self-will.' AGE 29. The Church a Kingdom. 1 67 To Rev. J. A. Stephenson, Lympsham. ' Leamington, July 24, 1834. ' MY DEAR SIR, ' I have been withheld by the fear of occupying any of your valuable time from writing to you hitherto, but I have often desired to express to you how much more lively my impressions of your kindness and of the truths which I heard from you are now than when I was in the neighbourhood of Lympsham. A great depression of spirits hindered nie at that time from expressing, or even from feeling, as I ought, all the pleasure of that intercourse. But since I have been engaged in preaching myself, I have found the advantage of your in- structions in a degree that I could scarcely have believed possible ; especially as they have led me, almost unawares, into a method of considering many subjects, and of setting them forth, which I should not have naturally fallen into. I have not hitherto, nor do I intend hereafter, for many years at least, to travel much beyond the Lord's Prayer and the Creed, and the Gospel and Epistle of the day, in addressing the people j but I have found myself in all my private medita- tions, as well as in preaching, drawn to speak of Christ as a King, and His Church as a Kingdom ; and whenever I depart from this method, I feel much less clearness and satisfaction, much less harmony between my own feeliigs and the Word of God. I am sure you know how much lively gratitude may be excited in a person's mind by feeling that he has been directed into a clearer course wherein it is possible to make continual progress, and you will not refuse to accept my thanks on this behalf. ' I had a letter from a friend in Germany* a few days ago, in which a passage occurs that I think will interest you. He says, " The person of whom I saw most at Rome was the Prus- sian Ministerj there. He is almost as learned as Niebuhr, whose private secretary he was for some time ; and withal a * Mr. T. Acland, the letter to which the last is an answer, t Bunsen. 1 68 Subscription a Defence for Liberty. CHAP. xi. most lively Christian. He is deeply concerned about the state of the Church in Germany ; indeed it occupies his whole thoughts. He is very intimate with the King, and still more with the Crown Prince himself an excellent man and is labouring, by their means, as the best means for the revival of the faith, to introduce a Liturgy, embodying the truths which are recognised in the forms of the Catholic Church, but utterly lost sight of by the Protestants of Germany. He has succeeded in bringing it into use in the King's own chapel, and he is now compiling a profoundly learned Corpus Liturgies, containing the Liturgies of all the ancient Churches." My friend adds, " I am now in Berlin. Neander is lecturing a few minutes' walk from me, but I could not yet under- stand him sufficiently to profit by him. He is an excel- lent man himself, but too tolerant of Neologism in others, and perhaps too much inclined to it himself. They all seem to think Wissenschaft" (is not this a fearfully literal translation of the word which I have heard you expound the meaning of so frequently Gnosticism ?) " more important than soundness of creed." ' His friend Mr. Acland paid him a visit on his return from the Continent, and found him full of the subject of the " University Bill," a bill brought in for the purpose of abolishing the sub- scription to the Thirty-nine Articles required at the Univer- sities. His experience of the practice of Unitarian teachers of the Priestley and Belsham schools had forced upon him the conviction that a teacher who was not bound by any prede- termined conditions always tied down his pupils much more rigidly than cne whose conditions of teaching were fixed before- hand. He believed that all evidence went to show that, both historically and logically, an undergraduate's signature to the Thirty-nine Articles on matriculation at Oxford implied only that the pupil accepted the Articles as presenting the conditions under which he was to be taught. Hence he startled Mr. Acland by telling him that he looked upon subscription as a defence of liberty. 1834- His Position Approved by Oxford Leaders. 169 In order to understand how little of a mere paradox this was in his mind, it is needful to take into account the extent to which he had meditated on the strange history of the Puritan- Unitarians, and the circumstances which had tended to fix that history in his memory. His friend returned to Oxford in December, and reported the general upshot of this conversation. The leaders of the now-gathering "Oxford" party were at the moment intent on resisting the proposed modification of the terms of sub- scription, and not unwilling to welcome an ally who could attack their opponents in flank, almost in rear, even though his base of operations was very different from theirs. They there- fore urged him through Mr. Acland to throw his thoughts into the form of a pamphlet. ' Babbenhall, December 13, 1834. ' MY DEAR ACLAND, ' I was somewhat surprised and very much gratified by your remembrance of me so soon after your arrival at Oxford, but I have experienced your kindness so often before that I wondered the less at this instance of it. But there is nothing to abate my astonishment at the favourable way in which your friends expressed themselves respecting my thoughts. So little did I expect it, that at the time I received your letter I was preparing one to you containing many solid reasons, as they seemed to me, why they never could be regarded with any other feelings than those of distrust by the High Church party. ' My want of that early educational sympathy with the services and constitution of the Church upon which their love for it seems in some measure based, and apart from which I had fancied that they could scarcely conceive the existence of a genuine attachment, was the main ground of this far from pleasant apprehension. But God orders the feelings of men, especially of those who fear and love Him, in a way very different from our cold and desponding expectations. ' I have enough of them left to remove all surprise from my I/O Writes l Subscription no Bondage' CHAP. xr. mind if your friends should think much less favourably of my views when they are stated on paper, than when communicated through a kind and charitable interpreter, who would soften down the awkwardness and asperities of the original by many ingenious turns of phrase ; but I am sufficiently freed from any fears, and embrace your proposal with very great pleasure and thankfulness. ' I cannot be indifferent about an opportunity of making known thoughts which I am confident have been intrusted to me for the good of others, and I have learnt by experience that vanity is often more gratified than humbled when you feel yourself the depositary of a truth which others may not see in the same light, than when you have exposed it to the world.' ' Bubbenhall, February 14, 1835. 'MY DEAR ACLAND, ' After considering the matter attentively I am convinced that the question respecting the analogous case of subscrip- tion at ordination is very important, and that I had disposed of it most unsatisfactorily. I shall be very glad to know whether you and your friends think that I have set that point in the right light. If they do, I shall not for myself dread the appearance of a digression, for I think it is better to look at the subject on all sides when one is about it. I could not resist putting in the note about cathecisms, for I do think it so shameful that clergymen should cant about our beautiful formularies, pretending to set them above all human compositions, and then in practice substitute for really the best of them any rigmarole that the Committee of the Christian Knowledge Society or Archdeacon Bather may choose to call orthodox divinity. Doubtless if they had the liberty, they would be using some Committee Litany or Committee Communion Service in the Churches. I think, if you please, that the extracts you and Harrison were so kind as to make for me should be in a note at the end of the pamphlet, the reference to which you will see under the last section that I send you. 1835. Study of Alexander Knox. 171 ' I will not make any fresh apologies about the trouble I am giving you. I hope you will accept my best thanks once for all and believe that they are really thanks. If I might ask one more favour of you it is that you would fulfil a kind promise you made me when you were over here, of introducing my friend Trench, who is now at Havre, to Mr. Bunsen. I think he would be pleased with him. I know few like- minded and fewer like-hearted. I do not know his direction, unfortunately. His Christian name is Richard and he is in orders.' ' Bubbenhall, March 12, 1835. MY DEAR ACLAND, ***** ' I have read some of Knox [i.e. Alexander Knox], and I need not say with great delight and admiration. To criticise a person so immeasurably above my level becomes an absurdity, and is as far from my inclination as it is above my power. The only way in which I can venture to speak of him, except in the way of humble respect, is as to the effect which he pro- duces on myself ; and which, so far as I am like others of this age, he is likely to produce on them. Contemplating him in this light merely, I should be inclined to complain of a dangerous tendency to esoterism and exclusiveness, not indeed to secta- rian exclusiveness, from which he is quite free, but to a kind far more attractive, plausible, and snaring. I cannot meditate upon the Our Father of the Lord's Prayer, or upon the three next petitions, or upon the words, "to the poor the gospel is preached," or upon the words, " I am a debtor to Jew and Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond and free," or upon the connection of a feeling of universal brotherhood in St. Paul's mind and St. John with the most exalted, translucent, spirituality, or upon the idea of the Catholic Church, or upon the realisation of that idea in our own, without perceiving that there is something in his all-individualising spirituality (graceful and exquisite as I confess it to have been) which is not strictly after the mind of Christ. Not by reading but 1"J2 Luther and Alexander Knox. CHAP. xr. by some bitterly painful experience, I seem to have been taught that to aim at any good to myself while I contemplate myself apart from the whole body of Christ, is a kind of contradiction ; to which belief 1 think we shall all by degrees be brought. You told me your German friend had arrived at a much deeper realisation of the same truth. I had a letter from Trench yesterday, who has become acquainted with him, and admires him greatly. 'You would fancy from Knox that Luther was almost a carnal man ! Can he have read his commentary on the first twenty psalms ? ' It will I think be of interest to any one who cares to make a more general study of the thought of this time to compare the above letter with one of Keble's on Alexander Knox.* * ' Memoir of Rev. J. Keble,' &c., by Sir J. T. Coleridge. Parker, 1869 (p. 241, Oct. 23, 1838). Autobiographical Retrospect up to 1855. 173 CHAPTER XII. "Debates were going on in the minds of the youths of Athens, which he (Socrates) was able to understand from those which were going on in his own." Inaugural Lecture, Cambridge, 1866. RETROSPECTIVE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL LETTER WRITTEN IN 1870, TO EXPLAIN THE ORIGIN OF 'SUBSCRIPTION NO BONDAGE.' I AM now able to give a retrospect by my father himself of his life up to this date. As he had found it impossible to write the history of the quite early years, it seemed worth while to try whether he could write with greater ease that part of his life in which he came in contact with the various movements and events of his time. Mr. Kingsley had collected a series of the pamphlets which my father had at various times written. My father undertook to take the volume thus bound up as a text-book for a series of letters, giving account of the different circumstances which had occa- sioned their being composed. Two " Explanatory Letters " were the result. The series was only interrupted by the in- creasing illness which made work of the kind difficult to him during the last two years of his life. EXPLANATORY LETTERS. (HEADING BY HIMSELF.) " SUBSCRIPTION NO BONDAGE." ' MY DEAREST F., ' You have asked me to tell you to what crises in our country's history or my own certain tracts and pamphlets 1/4 Motives for Writing the Retrospect. CHAP. xn. refer which I have written during the last thirty-five years. I will try, as well as I can, to recall them. They will be interesting to you if they only enable you to know me a little better, and to connect together different passages in my experience. If they should also, even by means of my mistakes and imperfect apprehensions, make any of the ques- tions which concern us all as " English citizens " more in- telligible to you, I shall think the effort to speak of them, which must be often a humiliating and painful one, well repaid. I was the curate of a small parish in Warwickshire when I wrote the tract called " Subscription no Bondage." It was published in the year 1835. I may tell you at once that no pamphlet ever made less impression upon the English public generally, or upon the smaller University public, for which it was chiefly intended. Those who accepted it at first with a certain qualified sympathy as an argument on their side, were those who confuted it most successfully by their sub- sequent acts.* The few who took any real interest in it entirely dissented from its conclusions.! It has been out of print for twenty-five years. I have myself confessed that Subscription is bondage. Nevertheless, no book which I have written expresses more strongly what then were, and what still are, my deepest convictions. 'None is a more curious commentary on my own life during the years which preceded the publication of it. None is a better prophecy of the kind of position which I was to hold in reference to all the parties within and without the English Church. And little as it has affected, or as I have affected, the thoughts and the conduct of those parties, it may explain in some slight degree to you of another generation certain of their views and movements at that time. ' You may often have wondered that I should have been a member of both our Universities. You cannot wonder more than I do. Considering the circumstances of my birth and early education, it is very strange that I went to either of them. * The High Churchmen. t Hare. CHAP. xii. Early Years at Cambridge. 175 'My father was a Unitarian minister. He wished me to be one also. He had a strong feeling against the English Church, and against Cambridge as well as Oxford. My elder sisters, and ultimately my mother, abandoned Unkarianism. But they continued to be Dissenters; they were not less, but some of them at least more, averse from the English Church than he was. I was much confused between the opposite opinions in our household. What would surprise many, I felt a drawing towards the anti-Unitarian side, not from any religious bias, but because Unitarianism seeraed to my boyish logic incoherent and feeble. I had an early interest in the Puritans, but that, except so far as it was embodied in a respect for Milton, had disappeared. I had a great dislike to the thought of being a dissenting minister ; from conscien- tious reasons partly, but also from something of disgust from what I saw of the class, mixed, I doubt not, with a great leaven in my own mind of vanity and flunkeyisra. I wished to go to the Bar, and my father, with his usua) generosity and liberality, but with a degree of pain, which I ought to have appreciated, consented. Then it was sug- gested that I had better study at one of the Universities, and Dublin was thought of as being free from tests. But as they were not required at Cambridge before taking a degree, some of my friends urged that there was no sufficient reason why I should cross the Channel. ' I look back with shame, and yet with much thankfulness, on my undergraduate life here.* I became nothing of a mathe- matician, little of a classic. My waste of time, considering the reasons which I had for exertion in the kindness and the poverty of my parents, now seems to me incredible. I knew none of the Seniors ; I did nothing which could give them an interest in me. Your uncle Tulius,f indeed, who was Classical Lecturer in Trinity, took a kind notice of me ; but I saw him very rarely. On the other hand, I cannot find any words to explain how much my whole life has been * Written at Cambridge. t Archdeacon Hare subsequently married one of my father's sisters. 176 Retrospective Cambridge. CHAP. xn. influenced by intercourse with men of my own age there. They were often men whose tastes were most unlike my own. One with whom I was especially intimate was devoted to music, and abhorred both politics and metaphysics. The majority of niy acquaintances, however, were mainly occupied with these subjects. I had no pretensions to be a speaker, but I mixed with those who were busy in the debates of the University. ' Among the younger and cleverer undergraduates of the day, especially in Trinity, Benthamism was the prevalent faith. I had read Coleridge before I came up, and had received a considerable influence both from him and from Madame de Steel's " L'Allemagne." ' I, in a small society of which I was a member, defended Coleridge's metaphysics and Wordsworth's poetry against the Utilitarian teaching. I was a noisy and often angry disputant, though mixing much shyness with my presumption. In most parties I was reckoned a bore. But Sterling, who was a remarkable speaker, and was in those days brilliant in conversation, fancied all fine things of me because I had exactly the qualities which he wanted, and was deficient in those which he had. He talked of me as having the rudi- ments of a metaphysician ; that opinion he retained through most years of his life. When it was shaken, when he sus- pected that I had passed into a fanatical theologian, and when I was hard and cold to him, he still showed me the rarest friendship. At College I lived much with him and with others, who, with far less gifts, were far more likely to succeed in the world. Even at that time my obligations to him were more than I knew, or than I can calculate now when I am better able to judge of them. With his frankness and noble- ness, which always exaggerated his debts to others, he im- mensely overrated what he owed to me, and suffered the inevitable disappointment which follows when a supposed hero turns out to be what he is. ' I seem to be going a long way round to give you the in- terpretation of a very insignificant book, but I must travel CHAP. xii. Retrospect of London Life in 1828. 177 further still if I am to tell you what it means. I ended my career in Cambridge by entering Trinity Hall (the law Col- lege), passing through the examinations and the Act required for a student in civil law. That seemed to be a reasonable preparation for a member of the Temple, and it entitled me to leave the University without making any fuss about not professing myself a member of the Church of England. I did not want to make that profession as I had been brought up a Dissenter, though I should have been much more reluc- tant to profess myself a member of any of the Dissenting bodies. I had no inclination to infidelity. Coleridge had done much to preserve me from that. I had a real, not a conventional, though far enough from a practical or spiritual, reverence for the Scriptures, and a great dislike, which Ster- ling felt even more strongly than I did, to the tone of the Liberals with whom we consorted on religious subjects gene- rally. In London I became a law student, but desultory habits had still possession of me ; I thought I should never make way in the study. I had a certain knack of writing ; I joined with a number of my friends in the Athenceum. I was constituted editor, and so far fulfilled the office that I always contrived to fill the paper when there was want of matter, and that my friends most generously gathered round me ; otherwise I had no particular fitness for the task, though I persuaded myself at the time that it was better for me than any other. ; You may remember how hardly I have sometimes spoken to you and E against the sacrifice of life to journal writing. The bitterness of my own experience may account for such remarks. Not that it was not in some degree useful experience. It kept my mind alive, though the life was of a restless kind. I had strong convictions which I desired to enforce ; but the sauciness of my language, and my im- pertinence in judging those who had a right to judge me, produced much self-contempt in me afterwards. I wrote partly because I mixed little in general society, and had little power of expressing myself when I did. VOL. I. N 178 Retrospective 'Eustace Conway. CHAP. xn. ' It was a curious time in the latter part of George IV.'s reign, when the Duke of Wellington was in office, first as the repre- sentative of Conservatism, then as the passer of the Roman Catholic Bill. The young men with whom I associated were chiefly Liberals. In a debating society of which I became a member, Mr. Mill and Mr. Roebuck were principal speakers. With the former I had the advantage of being acquainted. I believe for Sterling's sake, whom he knew well, if not for my own, he retains a feeling of kindness to me still. Every one in that day must have seen that he was de- stined to exercise great influence on his generation. I did not, however, at Cambridge or London, wear the proper Liberal livery, though on practical questions I shouted with them. I was still under the influence of Coleridge's writings himself I never saw. His book on the ' Ideas of the State,' which appeared at this time, impressed me very much. I accepted to a great degree the principle of it, though not all the conclusions. With the Benthamites, therefore, I was still at war. The few whom I chanced to know regarded me as a very harmless and visionary anta- gonist. ' At last I became weary of my sham creed and pretentious toleration. I began to think that I was wasting time, and that if I could ultimately excel, it should be somewhere else than in a newspaper, even if it could have succeeded in my hands. I left London, and spent many months at South- ampton in my own family. It was an important time to me. The conversations of my sister Emma, who was dying, deepened any belief which I had, and made me know how shallow my belief was. She was singularly wise as well as devout. It astonishes me now to think how she bore with my incoherencies ; still more, what a method she took to cure me of them. I had begun a novel. It embodied queer conceptions of what I thought was passing around me ; with some few of my own vicissitudes of feeling. She encou- raged me to complete it. I read it to her chapter by chap- ter. Scarcely any one but one so good as she was could CHAP. xii. Retrospective Oxford in 1831. 179 have discovered any good in it, but she did. She believed that I was trying to say something that it was better for me to say, and that I should see my path more clearly if I did. It was long before I did see it at all clearly. 1 Sterling suggested that if I gave up the Bar I should not return to Cambridge, but go to Oxford. The present Bishop of Chester, who was then tutor of Exeter, was a great friend of Sterling's. He entered me. at his college almost before I was aware of it. My sister and my friends approved the step, and T went there. 1 Looking back on that step, I cannot fully justify it to myself. Just at the time it seemed to me a profitable humiliation to begin an undergraduate life again, after I had given myself such airs in a literary course. There was much, assuredly, in the position which might have humbled me; also with the discovery that I was still as irregular a student much as I wished to be otherwise as I had ever been. I had good friends here also. Dr. Jacobson was more than kind. I hope I shall never forget his generous help and friendship. I knew not much [more] of my seniors than I had done at Cambridge, though the Exeter tutors treated me most tole- rantly and considerately. The circumstance of belonging to a small society at Cambridge brought me into a similar one at Oxford founded by Mr. Gladstone, to which otherwise I should never have been admitted, as it consisted mainly of Christchurch men, destined to hold an eminent position in the world. I had only a very distant acquaintance with the greater number of them ; but I had just a glimpse of some of those who were to be associated with the political life of the last thirty-five years. With two Oriel men Mr. Hurdis Lushington and Mr. Marriott I had most affectionate inter- course, which did not cease when I left Oxford. ' The time I spent at Oxford was, for the most part, before the passing of the Reform Bill. The agitation about the Roman Catholic Emancipation had just subsided. Sir Robert Peel had been ejected from his seat for the University. The old Tories had evidently lost their moorings ; many of them N 2 1 80 Retrospective Rise of Tractarianism. CHAP. xn. were inclined to join, and were actually joining, the Whigs to punish the Duke of Wellington and Peel for their apos- tasy. The young men were evidently puzzled, like the elders, whom they were to follow or avoid ; moderate Church- manship generally prevailed. There was a party which was favourable to a relaxation of subscription. In the Cambridge pulpit Mr. Hugh Rose, afterwards a kind friend of mine, de- nounced German Rationalism, and seemed to 'treat all German theology as rationalistic. 4 Dr. Pusey, who had just been studying at Bonn, wrote an apology for some of those whom Rose had condemned or neglected to notice. There was no decided movement, or at least none which a superficial observer could take notice of, in any direction. Yet there was a feeling, I think, in all that some movement was approaching. The three days of June 1830 were followed by the coming in of Lord Grey's Minis- try, and the agitation respecting the Reform Bill. When that Bill had been carried through, and the old party had been beaten, there began to be a great effort among Liberals to accomplish other reforms, especially such as affected the Church. Lord Stanley carried through a bill for abolishing ten Irish bishoprics; and a measure for abolishing subscrip- tion to the Articles in the Universities was much discussed in them and in the country. The first of these measures gave rise to the Tractarian movement, of which we have all heard so much. The other produced far less seeming effect at the time, but it gave occasion to a number of academical pamphlets on both sides. ' This last was a question which came home to me. In Cambridge it was demanded of every person taking a de- gree that he should declare himself a bond, fide member of the Church of England. That, when I left Cambridge, I had declined to do. At Oxford every student at matriculation was required to sign the Thirty-nine Articles. This, when I entered the University, I had deliberately done. Whilst some reformers proposed to admit Dissenters to the Uni- versity without restriction, or upon some general confession CHAP. xn. Use and Abuse of Articles. 181 of belief, others argued that the Cambridge plan was a great advance on the Oxford, and might be reasonably substituted for it I thought, country curate though I was, I had some call to speak on this text, as I had been obliged to give it some study. Reviewing my own experience with the two Universities, and, to some extent, with my own past life in connection with the question which was occupying the public attention, I came to this conclusion : That the Cambridge demand was much more distinctly and formally exclusive than the Oxford, inasmuch as it involved a direct renuncia- tion of Nonconformity ; that the subscription to Articles on entering Oxford was not intended as a test, but as a declara- tion of the terms on which the University proposed to teach its pupils, upon which terms they must agree to learn ; that it is fairer to express those terms than to conceal them; that they are not terms which are to bind down the student to certain conclusions beyond which he cannot advance, but are helps to him in pursuing his studies, and warnings to him against hindrances and obstructions which past experi- ence shows that he will encounter in pursuing them ; that they are not unfit introductions to a general education in humanity and in physics because they are theological, but on that very account are valuable, because the superstitions which interfere with this education are associated with theology, and can only be cleared away by theology ; that the Articles if used for the purposes of study and not as terms of com- munion for Churchmen generally, which they are not and never can be, may contribute to the reconciliation of what was positive in all Christian sects. ' I spoke of Methodists, Baptists, and even Unitarians ; only that which is negative in each and incapable of reconciliation being cast out. ' Such was the substance of my pamphlet, and you will see, I think, that what I have written since has been intended in various ways to illustrate these maxims. I had a moderately clear instinct when I wrote it that I never could be accept- able to any schools in the Church ; that if I maintained what 1 82 Dr. Pusey's Tract on Baptism. CHAP. xir. seemed to me the true position of a Churchman, I must be in hostility more or less marked with each of them. The newest form of parties was only then beginning to develop itself. I did not personally know either Mr. Newman or Dr. Pusey. The first I regarded as an eminent Aristotelian divine and popular tutor, who had been in great sympathy with Dr. Whately, and who was then following Mr. Keble in his reverence for Charles L, and in devotion to Anglican Episcopacy. The latter I only knew of as a Hebrew and German scholar, who had answered a book of Mr. Hugh Rose on the subject of German Rationalism. Both were at this time strongly opposed to any relaxation of subscription ; both appeared to take the Thirty-nine Articles, even more than I did, as representing the belief of the English Church. To both my pamphlet was shown not at my request in proof; both I was told accepted it as one contribution to the cause which they were advocating; both, I have no doubt, disliked the tone of it. In a short time Mr. Newman was the declared antagonist of Luther, the defender of the English Church only as it presented itself in writers like Bishop Bull, who had resisted the reformers' doctrine that simple belief in Christ is the deliverance from evil and the root of good. That doctrine was still more undermined, as I thought, by Dr. Pusey's tract on Baptism, published a short time after ; a tract which drove me more vehemently back on what I took to be the teaching of our Catechism that by Baptism we claim the position which Christ has claimed for all mankind. At the same time this conviction put me in direct opposition to the Evangelicals. They were at this time passing into a new phase. They had been the great antagonists of the High and Dry school which had made the Establishment everything, the witness of the Spirit with the individual conscience nothing; they had become the most vigorous supporters of an Establishment as such whether Presbyterian or Episcopalian signified little. They had adopted the maxim of Dr. Chalmers that as men are fallen creatures, religion must be distasteful to them ; that CHAP. xii. Position of Evangelicals. 183 there will be no natural demand for it, therefore that it must be recommended by all external aids and influences. No doctrine could be so much in harmony with a theology which was built upon the acknowledgment of sin; no doctrine could be so at variance with the notion that it is a Gospel which men have need of, and in their inmost hearts are cravinsr for. Men who had the reverence which I felt for the o old Evangelical movement were obliged to choose between these two conflicting ideas, which were now practically pre- senting themselves to every young divine. More and more I was led to ask myself what a Gospel to mankind must be ; whether it must not have some other ground than the fall of Adam and the sinful nature of man. I had [been] helped much in finding an answer to this question by your dear old friend Mr. Erskine's books I did not then know him per- sonally and by the sermons of Mr. Campbell. The English Church I thought was the witness for that universal redemp- tion which the Scotch Presbyterians had declared to be incompatible with their Confessions. But this position was .strictly a theological one. Every hope I had for human culture, for the reconciliation of opposing schools, for bless- ings to mankind, was based on theology. What sympathy, then, could I have with the Liberal party which was em- phatically anti-theological, which was ready to tolerate all opinions in theology, only because people could know nothing about it, and because other studies were much better pur- sued without reference to it? The Liberals were clearly right in saying that the Articles did not mean to those who signed them at the Universities or on taking orders what I supposed them to mean, and I was wrong. They were right in saying that subscription did mean to most the renunciation of a right to think, and, since none could renounce that right, it involved dishonesty. All this I have been compelled by the evidence of facts sorrowfully to con- fess. I accept the humiliation. I give the Liberals the triumph which they deserve. But they feel and I feel that we are not a step nearer to each other in 1870 than we 184 The Broad-Churchmen. CHAP. xn. were in 1835. They have acquired a new name. They are called Broad Churchmen now, and delight to be called so. But their breadth seems to me to be narrowness. They include all kind of opinions. But what message have they for the people who do not live upon opinions or care for opinions ? * Are they children of God, or must they now and for ever be children of the devil? The Broad Churchman gives no answer. To me life is a burden unless I can find one. All these parties, I knew when I wrote " Subscription no Bondage," and I know much more fully now, contain men at whose feet I am not worthy to sit. I have longed for sympathy with them all But God has ordered it otherwise. ' Ever your affectionate father. 1 1835. Begins 'Moral Philosophy* 185 CHAPTER XIII. "Not only many a particular passage in an author's works may be powerfully illustrated by certain circumstances in his life ; but the very spirit of his style, the moods of thought and feeling to which he is found most constantly resigning himself, may be more distinctly traced and understood by the commentary given in the memorials of his fortunes." Athenceum, June 4, 1828. END OF 1835, 1836 AND EARLY PART OF 1837 BEGINS ' MORAL AND METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY ' LEAVES BUBBEN- HALL FOR GUY'S LIFE AT GUY'S IS PROPOSED AS POLITICAL ECONOMY PROFESSOR AT OXFORD PUBLISHES 1ST AND 2ND ' LETTERS TO A QUAKER.' WHILST he was at Bubbenhall, towards the end of 1835, he undertook, at the suggestion of Mr. Rose, the editor of the ' Encyclopaedia Metropolitana,' the article on " Moral and Meta- physical Philosophy." The article was to have been written by Mr. Sewell, but the latter agreed to hand over the task to my father. From this time onwards, this article, as it gradu- ally developed in future editions into his complete treatise on the subject, occupied him with short intervals throughout almost his entire life, either in preparation, study, writing, or revision. On September 22nd, he writes to Hare to express thanks for the efforts which Hare, Sterling and Mr. Rose had made to obtain for him the chaplaincy of Guy's Hospital, at the moment occupied by an elderly man who was expected to resign. The following letter, written to a friend at the end of the year, will show how soon the reaction had come against the High Church movement. He had just paid a flying visit to look at Guy's, and I feel pretty sure that it was during this 1 86 A Walk to Clapham. 1835. CHAP. xnt. visit to London that he took a somewhat noteworthy walk to Clapham, to attend one of the meetings of the " Clapham sect," as the Wilberforces, Thorntons, &c., of that day were called. He often spoke of his having taken Dr. Pusey's tract with him on a walk of the kind, and how as he went along it became more and more clear to him that it represented every- thing that he did not think and did not believe, till at last he sat down on a gate, in what were then the open fields of Clapham, and made up his mind that it represented the parting point between him and the Oxford school. He always spoke of it with a kind of shudder, as it were, of an escape from a charmed dungeon. " They never have allowed any one who has once come within their meshes to escape," was often his last sentence on the subject. I am pretty sure, however, that in thus speaking he was more especially thinking of some men who, having been under the "Oxford" influence, have appa- rently altogether escaped from it, and that he meant that the effect upon their minds had never been effaced, no matter what opinions they subsequently adopted. To Rev. R. C, Trench. 'October 6, 1835. ' I was delighted with the establishment,* and I think I should prefer it to a parish, because I am not skilful in suggesting improvements in the temporal condition of the poor, a serious deficiency in the country, but one that will not affect me there. If I could get any influence over the medical students, I should indeed think myself honoured ; and though some who have experience think such a hope quite a dream, I still venture to entertain it. * The Hospital. It stood then upon the same ground as it does now on the Surrey side, just beyond London Bridge, a large square faced on three sides by ugly buildings. The Hospital proper constituted the farther end of the open square, the two sides being occupied by the chapel and the various offices and officers' houses. The chapel stood in the centre of the right side on entering from London Bridge, the chaplain's house being on the left side in the extreme corner nearest the wards. * 8 35- Popery anti- National and anti-Catholic. 187 ' I have felt very bitterly, I might at times say overpoweringly, your observation respecting the cause of our unconcern about the sin of others. I am not crushed by it, only because I am assured more and more each day that we are, by fixed and ever- lasting institution, members of a body. We try to set up our own independent individuality but it is a lie. I therefore say to myself, I am united to Christ and my brethren ; it may be hard to believe, but it is so. To live as if it were so is not a high attainment, an anomalous privilege, but conformity to the law of my being, as a Churchman and a man. God, there- fore, I have right to hope, will bring me into that, obedience to which is His own order, and give us to enjoy that gift which He has made mine by every title of conquest, pardon, in- heritance of communion with Him and with my race, granted upon the death of the independent self. I had some proud scruples about obeying the newspapers when preaching against Popery last Sunday ; but as a convent has just started up within two miles of me, and as I do not see why we should not serve God because the devil bids us, I gulped them down. I have felt much what you express upon the subject, though not, as I imagine, so strongly from want of acquaintance with the holier Romanists, and from having a dry, Protestant, Hollandish temperament. I hate Popery in two ways : as anti-Protestant, that is to say, anti-national, adverse to national distinctions and life ; and, secondly, as anti-Catholic, adverse to ecclesiastical unity and universality. When Protestantism is set up as the law of the Church, when that which is and ought to be exclusively a witness against evil is set up as the very truth which it is to protect, when the useful watch-dog of the courtyard sleeps all night, but spends the day in rushing about the house and biting the legs of inmates and incomers, then I hate it for the same reason as I hate Popery. I fully think that we must assert Catholicism nowadays much more than Protestantism if we will destroy Popery, and yet supply a substitute for democracy ; but yet we must, I think, endeavour thoroughly to understand Pro- testantism, and in its own place cherish it with a fervent 1 88 Begins Work at Guy's. 1836. CHAP. xm. love. Oh that our High Churchmen would but be Catholics ! at present they seem to me three parts Papist and one part Protestant ; but the tertium quid, the glorious product of each element so different from both, I cannot discern even in the best of them. Pusey has just written a tract on Baptism, ot which I fear this is true.' In January 1836 he took up his residence at Guy's, and began work, though he was not formally appointed till March, the former chaplain being at first in occupation of the chap- lain's house. The following letter to a friend who had just lost in India a near relation, was written soon after he had settled down in London : To a Friend. ' Guy's, January 20, 1836. ' I have had a letter to you for some days lying on my table, but I did not feel the heart to send it, lest it should only seem to be darkening counsel by words without knowledge. That fear withheld me from expressing the sympathy which I trust I felt for Mrs. X. and yourself in your late trial, which I know must have been very grievous. It is indeed hard to believe the baptismal promise, and those which are made to faithful prayers offered on the strength of it and of the promised love of God to all mankind, when there are no direct indications, or none that we are aware of, to show that these promises have been fulfilled. But surely there are many reasons, some not too deep even for us to penetrate, why such proofs may be kept from us. If it were only to teach us to depend on something better, or only to keep us waiting for that day which will assuredly discover so many to have been true sheep whose bleatings were only heard by the ears of Him who came so far into the wilderness to look for them, this would seem enough. But there are, undoubtedly, other and still more gracious reasons, which we know not yet, but shall know hereafter. I hope a life in India is not AGE 30. The Fall and Redemption. 189 quite so unfavourable to the spiritual being as you seem to think. A competent judge, Dr. Corrie, the new bishop of Madras, whose whole time for thirty years has been spent among the servants of the Company, is, I know, of opinion that such a change has taken place in both departments as makes the probability of meeting with men of earnest religion among them considerably greater than in any profession here. ' I do not wonder at your being tormented with the great question respecting the comparative extent of the Fall and the Redemption. It is just the question by which we of this age are, I suppose, to be most tempted. But the language of the catechism is to me, in general, satisfactory. The human state which the baptised man claims, is a state of salvation, and the world, the flesh, and the devil are striving to hinder each man from knowing and believing that it is so. I know they harass others, and have harassed me with the suggestion, " It is all a vain subtlety to distinguish between the fact of redemption and the knowledge of it when " (as the redemption has reference to a knowing subject) " the fact without the knowledge is as though it were not." But the answer to the sophism is, " Yes, but the distinction is a most vital and practical one ; for it makes all the difference to the possibility of my knowing and believing whether there is something to be known and believed, or nothing." Why there should be an age in which the whole order of things is settled, but in which men are not yet brought to under- stand it and acquiesce in it, intervening between that age of the yet uncompleted kingdom which we read of and that one of perfect peace and submission which we hope for, I think the very restlessness of our own minds and our willingness to put our own apprehensions in place of the things appre- hended may teach us. Without such a witness for truth as truth, though unbelieved, I think we should not believe that all love and all wisdom are of God, and without this belief there could be no happiness or peace. Still there is another answer to the temptation which I have found very useful : 190 Julius Hards Estimate of CHAP, xm " I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." This has been proved to me by many experiments ; and it has been proved to the world, too, at such crises as the siege of Jerusalem, when men, God-deserted, have shown that all the so-called natural affections dwelt in them no longer. Then where they do dwell, this is grace not nature, Christ not Adam. All family life, maternal instincts, the whole order must perish unless He were bearing up the pillars of it.' As my father has given his own view of the way in which 'Subscription no Bondage' was received, it seems right to supply the following letter of Hare's to him, which will explain exactly how far that view was accurate as regards one of those to whom he has alluded. The letter was written that he might use it if he pleased as a testimonial for his being appointed permanent chaplain in place of acting chaplain, as he had been hitherto. Rev. Julius Hare to F. D. M. ' Hurstmonceux, February 17, 1836. ' Unfortunately my own personal acquaintance with you has never been very intimate, though I soon learnt to entertain a very high opinion of you when you were my pupil at Trinity while I was a lecturer there ; and your natural timidity pre- vented my knowing so much of you as I otherwise might have done. That is now fourteen or fifteen years ago, and since then we have rarely met ; so that it is by what I have heard and read rather than by what I have myself seen of you, that I have been taught to feel the highest admiration, esteem and regard for the great gifts with which it has pleased God to endow you for the enlightening and strengthen- ing of His Church. Of your intellectual qualifications the electors can hardly require any further witness than what is afforded by your pamphlet " Subscription no Bondage." At least I know no work comparable to it in reach and depth and power of philosophic thought produced by any minister 1836. ' Subscription no Bondage? 191 of our church within the last hundred years ; and though my opinion on the immediate topic was and still is different from the one therein maintained, I never read a book which so com- pelled me to love and revere its author. As to a point of still greater importance, I cannot say anything from my own knowledge, but my sister-in-law's * accounts of her visits to your parish assure me that you will be a faithful and diligent servant of Christ in your pastoral duties, for no one can be better fitted than she is for judging whether a minister is so or no.' On February 27 (1836), he writes to announce to Hare his being appointed, and ends characteristically : ' I feel much rejoiced that I shall be able (except through my own fault) to keep more aloof from factions here than I could, I think, anywhere else ; for the country is, except in a few happy districts, split into them. London in all its more noisy and popular regions is still worse, and the Universities, I fear, will be worst of all. I should be exceedingly puzzled how to act if I were now in Oxford and had a sufficiently prominent position to make action necessary. Dr. Hampden, I think, was utterly unfit for the Divinity Chair, but whether newspaper controversies and denunciations of heresy may not do more harm to divinity than Lord Melbourne could ever do were he to select ten such men, must be surely a serious question. That Newman will prove him a heretic I do not doubt ; the fear I should have is that he may convict himself by the same process, for this seems generally the hard fate of men who attack a one-sided notion, that they give currency to the other half of it, which in the end proves equally mischievous.' * Mrs. Augustus Hare, the central figure of ' The Memorials of a Quiet Life.' 192 Promising to be Godfather. CHAP. xni. On being asked to be a Godfather. To Rev. R. C. Trench. ' Guy's, February 25, 1836. ' I was hindered from telling you yesterday how much I had been rejoiced by the news in your letter. It is indeed a comfort to hear of a child born into the world under such conditions, and God preserve us from any sinful and shameful doubts about the fulfilment of his free promises to it. Every new child given to those who know what the gift means is surely a token that our race is not deserted, and I know not whether we may not meditate with contrition and fear upon those words (referring them, of course, to the happy prospects for the world and not to our salvation, concerning which we have no right to use such doleful language) "your children whom you said should be a prey shall see the good land, though you die in the wilderness." Perhaps the sorrow and conflict may be for us, and the good things for the " genera- tion to come " ; and this is a pleasant thought for a father at any rate and for us, too, so far as it is given us to sympathize in fatherly feelings. ' Your very kind proposal respecting your child is most gratifying to me, and I cannot refuse the honour though very conscious how unworthy I am of it, though I could wish you had found some one better able to bear the burden with you. But it so very pleasant to have a new link to connect myself with you that I am afraid I do not give this consideration its proper weight. ' I think Sterling will be preaching in the Temple when you come to London, so that you will be able to judge for yourself. I have only heard him once, and that in short extempore (literally so) sermons to my own people in Warwickshire from which I could not infer anything as to the general effect of his preaching. I have heard, however, with much regret, that the impression of him among the Templars generally is not favourable : rhetoric is, I suppose, his snare, and I sometimes 1836. Tlie Quiet Life of a Hospital. 193 fear that he must be knocked about much, and run his head against many posts before he will be able to walk quite steady and to lead others after him. I have much to answer for in not speaking to him as frankly as I ought, and as I think he would be quite willing that I should. But the constant discovery of graces and virtues in him which I lack, apart from all sense of intellectual inferiority, makes me simply ashamed to open my lips even in the way of reproof, and when I am induced to make any strong assertions against him in argument (which happened only last night) I am so self-con- demned for my vehemence and for having taken the wrong method, and above all, for having yielded to that impulse of contradiction which I chiefly regret in him, that I only become more silent. ' I hope God will teach me better in this matter ; Sterling is always a most kind, often a faithful friend to me. I like Guy's increasingly.' To Mrs. M. Maurice, from Guy's. ' I am also quite sure that this kind of visiting suits me much better. I am not so well calculated to enter into the little concerns and businesses of the poor as a great many, and as every person in a parish ought to be ; at the same time, when I am not doing something in this way, I feel a grievous hardness and selfishness of heart coming over me. Now here everybody is withdrawn from the bustle of affairs, and is, in a measure, ready for sympathy and for spiritual discourse. I have great pleasure in collecting the patients in a ward round the bedside of one of the most ill, and reading and explaining the Scriptures to them ; and the sisters are always ready to make arrangements for this purpose. The hospital has been so long under good discipline that, as yet, I have met with no obstructions from any of them, or from any quarter.' My father wished for a pupil as soon as he was settled at Guy's. Mr. Strachey had been prevented by ill-health from VOL. i. o 194 Reports on own Qualifications CHAP. xur. going up to a University, for which at twenty-four years of age he was anxious to prepare, and having been much attracted by ' Subscription no Bondage,' wrote to Sterling to ask my father to read with him. The answer was as follows : To Mr. Edward Strachey. ' Guy's Hospital, March 10, 1836. 'My DEAR SIR, ' I was prevented from answering your very kind letter immediately, and I fear that I cannot now give as satisfactory a statement of my position as would enable you to judge whether I should be the proper person to undertake the tem- porary superintendence of your studies. The truth is that till next Wednesday I shall not be formally appointed to the chaplaincy of this institution ; and, though I believe there is no doubt of my being then chosen to it, I understand that it would not be becoming in me to enter into any definite arrangements on the presumption of my being fixed here. Still I have not the least reason to suppose that (as far as outward circumstances are concerned) I shall not be as able as I expressed myself to Sterling willing and eager to enter upon so very pleasant an occupation. I will, however, write to you immediately after the decision of the governors, and then I shall be able to state exactly how we shall be circum- stanced as to a house. ' It might look like affectation to hint that there are much graver reasons which should, perhaps, induce me to hesitate in availing myself of your far too favourable opinion respecting my qualifications. Were a steady and laborious self-discipline, persevered in from childhood, and producing its natural fruits of quiet, orderly mental habits, the great requisite in a tutor I should feel that no one was more entirely unfit for that office than myself. All the information I have which could serve in any degree for the guidance of another, has been derived from blunders oft repeated, from long periods of aimless search and melancholy listlessness, bringing after AGE 30. as a Tutor, 195 them shame and despondency, but resulting, I would humbly hope, through the mercy which makes all things work to- gether for good, in some self-acquaintance, some abhorrence of self-will, and some desire to show my brethren how they may avoid quicksands in which I sank, and how they may attain a harbour which, if I may not say I have reached, I am at least sure that I descry. ' If this experience not of the world, of which I have no acquaintance, but of some confusions to which young men in this age are liable is not worth so much as that simple, earnest and pure temper of mind which some, without any such miserable processes, have attained, at least it is a gift not to be despised by those who have no better, and on whom, for some wise reasons, it has been bestowed ; and I should be delighted if this, whatever be its value, might be made serviceable to you.' Also to Mr. E. SiracJiey. ' March 18, 1836. ****** ' I am sure you will be grieved to hear that my dear friend Sterling is awaking the very serious apprehensions of all who care for him. The affection in his chest which forced him to go to the West Indies four years ago has returned, and his medical attendant has positively prohibited him from doing any clerical duty. That, I fear, he will never be able to resume. I cannot quite bring myself to doubt of his ultimate restora- tion, but at present there seems more ground for fear than hope. The Church and the world seem to be losing some of the men of whom there was most reason to hope good ; but I am sure both are in better hands than ours.' Also to Mr. E. Strachey. ' Monday, March 28, 1836. ' I have not seen Sterling for above a week, as he yielded very wisely to the advice of his medical man that he would exclude all visitors except his father and mother. He o 2 196 John Sterling. CHAP. xm. is in rather low spirits, not, I think, on his own account, for he has for several years looked upon death as the true end of death,* but because he has not learned to exercise quite the same faith respecting his wife and children as for himself. His apprehension of an unfavourable result is thought a good sign, as being so unlike the usual feeling of consumptive patients ; and he is, besides, free from fever, and has generally a low pulse. I cannot quite bring myself to believe but that his illness is part of a gentle discipline to make him of more use to his fellow-men; but I know how falsely we reckon on such matters, and how strong my bias is to such an opinion. I shall be very much pleased to see you on the day you mention.' A delay, however, occurred, in consequence of Mr. Strachey's illness, and led to the following proposition : ' MY DEAR SIR, 'Guy's Hospital, April 18, 1836. ' I received the intelligence in your last letter with very sincere regret; though I am thoroughly convinced that no such trial can happen out of its right time and order, or can do otherwise than minister to the best good of those who will understand its meaning. Still, I am very much grieved that you should be called back into the work of suffering high and honourable work as it is when you were looking forward to action. In some sinful moments, we who are, or ought to be, in that province and experiencing the troubles and tempta- tions to which it is exposed, may almost sigh for the ex- emption from discharged duties and responsibilities which sickness brings with it; but if ever the wish has been, in a very slight degree, granted me, I have always perceived that the duty of submission was one which I was quite as little able to fulfil, and which needed quite as much grace as the others. That you will receive this and learn many more and deeper lessons than you could in any other school, I am well assured ; the time will not be therefore lost, and I can only hope it will be very short. * ' Of death, called life ; which us frona life doth sever.' Milton. 1836. Proposed Course of Letters, 197 ' If it should strike you that I could write you any thoughts on any subject connected with your future pursuits at the Uni- versity and elsewhere, and that it would not fatigue you to read my letters, I shall feel much satisfaction in securing in this way at least a part of the pleasure I had promised myself from your acquaintance. But you and your medical attendant are the only fit judges whether it would be safe for you to use such exertion of mind. If writing should be thought bad for you, pray do not trouble yourself even to reply to the proposal. ' I am still forbidden to see Sterling. In the last note I had from him he seemed in better spirits ; but I fear his medical attendant is not encouraged about him.' On 25th of May, 1836, he writes again :- ' During the summer, in which there are few courses of medical lectures delivered, I have undertaken to lecture twice a week on Moral Philosophy to the students. Possibly the method I follow in these lectures, of which I have delivered five, might give a hint as to our reading, though this is only in case that kind of study should have more attractions for you than some other. I think it is well to have some one subject to which we refer all others and which we use them to illustrate. In the case of the students here, I thought Moral Philosophy more suitable than Theology ; though I can scarcely advance a step in it without finding myself among theological questions. The subject I have divided into three parts. In the first I treat of the Affections, or attachments ; in the second of our sense of Personality, conscience, duty, law ; in the third of the Objects for which we are to act and live. Of course this is a wide and interesting field ; it may perhaps tend more di- rectly to the solution of your difficulties and to the discovery of a method for study than any other route we could take. If what you say respecting your feelings of intellectual and spiritual disability be not exaggerated by your present sense of bodily indisposition, you have given me a new point of sym- 198 Reminiscences of his then Pupil CHAP. xiu. pathy with you. Without your excuse, I know too well what these feelings are. Between the notions that our union to a Spiritual Being is not real and that it is natural, men's minds, if I may judge by my own, are continually liable to oscillate. The first begets feeble and desponding exertions to produce it; the second, a vain wonder that the happy feelings which it should suggest do not come of their own accord into us. When we can once assure ourselves, that it is so, for us and all men, whether we believe it or not, and yet that it is some- thing above our nature ; then I think faith and peace begin. Faith first and feeling afterwards is, I believe, the rule which we are always trying to reverse.' Notes by Sir E. Strachcy* ' Maurice had not long entered on the duties of the chap- laincy when I arrived ; his sister Priscilla kept house for him, as she had done at Bubbenhall, and as she continued to do till his marriage. His affection foi all his sisters and for his mother, who were frequently staying at Guy's, was a very noticeable feature of his character. I do not remember seeing his father at that time at Guy's; but to him he was greatly attached. He had the same gentle, shy, depressed manner which he had through life ; the shyness and depression being, as may be supposed, far greater then than afterwards. I remember one evening his saying, half to himself, " The world is out of joint," and on his sister Priscilla replying in a lively tone, " Then you must set it right/' he added, " Ah ! that is the misery, as the poet says '"Ah ! cruel spite, That ever I was born to set it right ! " in a tone which showed how deeply and painfully he felt what he said. He seemed to me always lamenting, always re- proaching himself with his deficiencies in the powers of prac- tical life : and certainly he was very unpractical in ordinary matters. He had daily prayers in the chapel for such patients as were well enough to attend ; then he visited the 1836. Ordinary Life at Guys. 199 sick wards, and afterwards he read Plato, the Greek Testa- ment, and Cousin's or Tennemann's " History of Philosophy " with me. He was much interested in the medical students, and on the approval of Mr. Harrison, the treasurer and manager of the hospital, he gave them lectures on Moral Philosophy. His endeavours to improve their position found sympathy both with Mr. Harrison and Mr. Rose, then the Rector of St. Thomas's, the parish in which the Hospital of Guy's as well as that of St. Thomas was ; and I believe that whatever was done for this class of young men at King's College after Mr. Rose became principal, must be traced to Maurice's efforts at Guy's. ' I suppose it was a good deal from shyness and humility, though partly perhaps from a sense of the divergence of their paths, that Maurice did not, on now returning to live in London, see much of old friends with whom he had associated while studying the law. He one day met Wilson, the editor of the " Globe," and asked him to dinner, but I do not remember meeting him there on any other occasion, though I think they had lived together in chambers. Carlyle, Scott, Rose, and Acland, I occasionally saw at Guy's. Sterling was of course often there till he left for Madeira, I think that autumn. There, too, I began my acquaintance with Clark,* who had, I think, only just become known to Maurice himself. I remem- ber Maurice one day coming home from the Exhibition, and saying that he had seen Wordsworth, and that in talking of Shelley, Wordsworth had said that Shelley's poem on the Lark was full of imagination, but that it did not show the same observation of nature as his (Wordsworth's) own poem on the same bird did. He (Wordsworth) also said that Chatterton was the most marvellous genius in his opinion; that he had produced greater fruits of poetic genius than any other man at his age had done. ' Distinct as my impressions are of those days, and of Maurice himself as he then was, there seems to be little or * " The Quaker" to whom 'The Letters to a Quaker' were written, after- wards Rev. S. Clark, always one of the most valued of my father's friends. 2OO Reminiscences of Guy's. CHAP. xm. nothing to tell of what he said or did. Yet this makes me feel, though I may not be able to convey this feeling to others, how good and great he was, that my impression of his goodness and greatness should be so distinct as it is. All that he was in after life, and to the end of his life, he was already in that period of comparative youth. There was the same clear, bright, active intellect; the same thirst for knowledge and power of rapidly acquiring it from books and men ; the same imagination, love of humour, and sympathy with other men's thoughts ; the same originality in thinking for himself, and expressing his own thoughts, so that he seemed from the first a teacher and master, not a learner and disciple. And then, as always afterwards, he was even greater morally and spiritually than he was in intellect. For his intellect was but the fit instrument of a will and character which were thoroughly humane, because they were kept by a saint- like personal piety in constant union with God. Then, as always afterwards, the habitual tone of his thoughts and words was that of a man singularly conscientious and just, tolerant and forbearing, humble, gentle, tender and loving. ' He used to protest that he had strong health, and to re- proach himself for not working harder : but though his brain was undoubtedly very strong, he always seemed to me frail and delicate, and he then, as always, habitually over-worked himself, till he fancied that physical exhaustion was want of conscientious energy. It was impossible to think that he had the physical strength such as supplied a Wellington or a Palmerston with fit instruments for carrying through the determination of their mind and will. Nor could I ever think, and I have asked myself the question often again during the thirty-six years of our intimate friendship, that Maurice had a strong will in the ordinary sense in which it must be possessed by every successful soldier and statesman, and which will compel even a weak body to do its work. He was in those early days, as always, the strongest man I have ever known, if it be strength to do steadily to the end the work that is set before a man, undeterred by any doubts or 1836. Reminiscences of Guy's. 201 difficulties, however great and many; yet I am sure he would have said and I believe that it was true that the strength was not his own, but that of a higher will than his own working through his weakness. It was the strength, not of self-assertion but of self-surrender ; the strength of Paul, and of Christ; it was the consciousness of the prophet and the apostle that he was called to a work which he accepted as the business of his life, but which he could only do by a strength greater than his own. It has been well said that no words can more exactly describe the mission of Maurice than those of St. John : " A man sent from God. . . .. the same came for a witness to bear witness of the Light" With all his humility, with all his consciousness of his weakness for the work, he never doubted his mission, but felt and knew that he was sent from God, to bear witness of the light. Here he was strong, and the source of strength to others. To how many of us has that saintly life and presence borne witness of the light even when we have been unable to see it for ourselves. If he, so wise and good beyond other men, could live and die in the assurance of the reality of this Light, he has borne a witness of its reality of which they who knew him best, know best the power. ' When I call to mind what English theology, philosophy, and politics were in 1836, and think of what they are now, and who has wrought this change, the image of that wisest and best of men, and truest and most loving of friends, rises before me as he was in those early days when I first knew him ; but I can say no more than that he was to me then what in each successive year since that time so many others have found him to be to them : ' " But there is more than I can see, And what I see I leave unsaid, Nor speak it, knowing Death has made, His darkness beautiful with thee." ' My first letters to Lady Louis, after my arrival at Guy's, have not been preserved ; but from all that she did keep, and which have been returned to me, I have made the following extracts. 2O2 Contemporary Letters. CHAP. xm. And I cannot at this distance of time add much to them to describe a life in which there was little external incident, though the deepest spiritual interest, during the six months I remained at Guy's. Extracts from Letters from Mr. Strachey to his Aunt, Lady Louis. *You will be amused when I tell you that if either Mill's " Analysis of the Human Mind " or Benthanv s " Principles of Morals and Legislation" had been at hand, we should have taken one of them as the text-book of our reading. As all that has been said on both sides is to be considered, it is immaterial (as Mr. Maurice says) whether the book is right or wrong ; for if wrong, it will give just as much opportunity for investigating the other side, as if right. As it is, we have taken a " History of Philosophy in all Ages " (by Tenne- mann). Mr. Maurice says that the only true way cf con- sidering philosophy is in its connection with the life of the world, and not as a set of merely intellectual speculations and systems.' ****** * August 1 8, 1836. ' Maurice is going to write a series of Letters on Baptism. I am to be his amanuensis. This is partly to accommodate him, as he hates writing for himself, and partly for my own advantage, as I am very desirous of understanding the sub- ject : and if I do not write the Letters myself, I must wait till they are published before I can read them ; to read them in the original hieroglyphics of his handwritting would be absolutely impossible. You, who have only seen his very good writing to me, can have no conception of what he can achieve in that department. It is very remarkable that his occupation in the Church should be that of preaching to the very poor; first in his country parish without a single gen- tleman, and now to the patients here, who are chiefly of the lowest classes. As he endeavours most faithfully to suit his preaching to their capacity, it is extremely simple and plain.' 1836. Contemporary Letters. 203 'September, 4, 1836. ' . . . Maurice does not appear to me to be a great reader, though he has a far greater respect for facts than Coleridge had. He appears to consider this to have been a great defect in Coleridge. Maurice said the other day, that if we ignore facts we change substances for suppositions, that which really does stand under an appearance for something \vhich we put under it by our imaginations. . . . Maurice has not made much progress yet in his Letters on Baptism, because he has begun them three times ; but I think he will continue the last plan. His object (and this is his method on all subjects ) is to show that in each of the party views there is a great truth asserted ; that he agrees with each party in the assertion, and maintains that it cannot defend them too strongly ; but he says each is wrong when it becomes the denier of the truth of the others, and when it assumes its portion of the truth to be the whole. The three parties as regards baptism, are the High Church, the Evangelical and the Educational, or party who think with Mr. Budd that the efficacy of baptism depends on the faith of the parent. ****** ' Maurice speaks with great respect of Madame Guyon and Sterry. I don't think he likes Law. . . . He remarked about Law that he lived at a period when the importance of the national and Church principles were little felt. The denial and attempted destruction of them in the French Revolution has since re- awakened some sense of them. . . . Coleridge used to say that he felt it his business to seek for light even at the expense of warmth ; and that, on the whole, he got more of the latter than he should otherwise have done. Maurice says he has great sympathy with him in this. Maurice says it is the most difficult thing in these days for a man to realise his connection with the nation ; that which appears to have come up naturally in the minds of men, some centuries back, can now scarcely be attained by any effort. He says he is con- vinced that the reason why we find the minor prophets so 204 Incompatible Qualities in a Wife. CHAP. xm. obscure is because we cannot enter into the strong national life which they speak of and to. National life is and always has been necessarily connected with personal distinctness, and all the public societies of the present day are utterly opposed to this principle ; the person is lost sight of in the multitude of individual atoms which make up the mass. Every crisis of the life of a nation has brought forth poets. Whenever they have appeared, you will find that national life was in an active state, and brought them forth as one of its effects.' A letter which bears date the day following that of the above will show that his own thoughts were taking on one subject a direction not yet known to his friend and pupil It may be read a little between the lines. From F. D. M. 'Guy's, Septembers, 1856. ' MY DEAR ACLAND, ' There is a sadness certainly in the feeling that you have no guide or doctor upon earth to swear by, and no warm coterie to take refuge in from the night air. But there are com- pensations. If we have not a party, we must have a Church ; if we have not visible teachers, we must look out for an unseen one. I do not say this is always enough for us poor creatures of flesh and blood, and I think with you that one cannot do better than seek for sympathy by that means through which God has graciously ordained that some at least may obtain it ; but a wife is not to be had every day. Mine must pos- sess some rather incompatible qualities ; such goodness and wisdom as would make me choose her for a companion, and such mental hallucination and perverseness as will lead her to think me a tolerable one for her. This being the case, I be- lieve I shall perforce Newmanise, protesting, however, against his doctrine all the time, and very earnestly exhorting you with all speed to show your practical contempt of it. ' I cannot say from my own experience whether you are right in 1836. Dr. Pussy's Tract on Baptism. 205 your opinion that the Oxford Tract doctrines are spreading. The most earnest men I know, especially those who to diligent theological study add parochial duty among the poor, have expressed to me the great distress which Dr. Pusey's Tracts on Baptism have caused them, though they were as little in- clined as myself to acquiesce in the Evangelical notions on that subject. ' Mr. Rose by no means agrees in Pusey's views of repen- tance, and told him that they troubled him very much when he first read them. With him Mr. Rose I have had very pleasant intercourse, and have found him most kind, courteous, humble and Christian-like, not to say personally more of him, the very man who should not edit a magazine. 'My pamphlet has got me a very delightful pupil about twenty-four years old, for whom, therefore, as for many other favours, I am indebted to you.' Mr. Strachey to Lady Louis. 1 September 21, 1836. You once expressed a wish to be sure that Maurice had as much personal religion as knowledge of spiritual truth. I think you have since learnt enough to satisfy you on this point ; but you will be interested in hearin- that Miss B., speaking of him, said, " He is a man of much prayer ; his sisters told me that when he was with them they frequently found that he had not been in bed all night, having spent the whole night in prayer." ' ' October 14, 1836. Maurice thinks this party (the Oxford High Church) one-sided, and says they are under the influence of the destructive spirit of the age, at times endeavouring to pull down other men's truth because it is not the same portion as their own. I heard him say that he had read Pusey's Tract with the greatest pain, and the conclusion he came to after it was that if it were true he might as well leaving off preach- ing, for he could have no message to declare to men from God. Still, he says that Dr. Pusey sets out a most important truth with regard to Baptism a truth utterly neglected and denied 206 Is ivhat is revealed true in itself, CHAP. xin. by the Evangelical party. . . . Maurice says all sects are fast breaking up, and preparing to vanish away, that we may again have one Church throughout Christendom a Church the parts of which will be nationally and universally united under their true Head, instead of being confounded under a pope or separated into sects. Thus the child will be father of the man. The world in its manly state will come out of the perplexities and errors into which its boyish efforts after self- consciousness and independence have brought it ; and it will then receive gladly and in their full development those original truths which it once accepted with implicit faith and a child- like simplicity.' Mr. Strachey to Lady Louis (continued). ' October 27, 1836. . , . . Maurice has had rather a temp- tation to leave this in a proposal to go as tutor to Downing College, Cambridge, but he decided that he was more likely to be useful here. . , . I have heard Maurice say more in dispraise of the Oxford Church party since I came back than before. He regrets very much that they fancy themselves witnesses against the Evangelical (experimental) religionists and the Rationalists, thus becoming deniers instead of as- sertors. Maurice says that these men have not the least understanding of the use of the Reformation ; they have no idea that it was a good thing, a stage in the scheme of the Divine education. And while they uphold the authority of the Church, and require men to receive its doctrines in childlike simplicity, they dislike it to be declared that these doctrines are the truth, and therefore were revealed by God before men could apprehend them by reason, preferring rather to take them as mere authoritative dogmas. Thus they would have the world ever continue in childhood, instead of ad- vancing through boyhood to manhood ; and they are unable to appreciate the two latter periods, or to see that in the last is the perfection of the first, which they exclusively value. Maurice seems to doubt whether Newman is a Platonist ; he says it is the great evil of everything at Oxford that there 1836. or only to be accepted because decreed? 207 is nothing but Aristotelianism. And I find it was the supe- riority of Cambridge in this respect that made him think it so much better for me to go to the latter University. Maurice says all little children are Platonists, and it is their education which makes men Aristotelians. [I think I remem- ber that this was said on my pointing out an observation of Coleridge's, that some men were born Platonists and some. Aristotelians.] ' ''November 3, 1836. . . , . Maurice has been at Cambridge for a day since I wrote last, about the tutorship of Down- ing College ; but since his return he has resolved to keep to his former determination of not accepting it A new master has just been appointed to Downing, who purposes establish- ing a new order of things, making theology and Christian philosophy the centre of all studies, and discouraging the reading for honours. Of course to be invited to assist in carrying into effect such a scheme, so exactly according to what he considers the right principle of University educa- tion, must have been very tempting. But, as far as I can judge, it is much better that he should remain here ; for a person of his desponding temperament would, I think, hardly be equal to the difficulties of reforming a college and esta- blishing a new order of things ; and there would be circum- stances of peculiar difficulty, since the appointment of the Master himself is questioned, and likely to be brought into the Court of Chancery. And from all I can hear, his influ- ence here among the medical students is increasing, and likely to be very beneficial ; and it seems a great pity that he should give up all this positive good for that which is only possible and contingent. I am sorry to say Miss Maurice continues very ill. . . . She has no idea she shall recover, not expecting to live many months. ... I asked her if she was sure it was right not to tell her brother what she thought of the probable approach of death, but she satisfied me that it would answer no good purpose, only paining him exces- sively, and quite unfitting him for the ordinary duties of 208 The Millennium. CHAP. xin. life. ... I think she told me that they always found it best to tell him as little as possible of the dangerous state of Emma before her death. . . . ' I think I can give you something more of Maurice's views about the Millennium and second coming of Christ than when you ask me before, as I have been lately talking to him about it. He says we are in the Millennium, and that Christ's reign upon earth began after the destruction of Jerusalem. At that period, or soon after, the Man-God, the Roman Emperor, who certainly was in the place of God throughout the world, was deprived of his real power, though his dominion was a long while breaking up. All the Book of Revelation Maurice understands to refer to the dispensation which then commenced, and which is still going on. He says the Church is taken into that holy, spiritual state there spoken of, though it is only after its members pass out of this world and join the Church triumphant that they realise and fully understand that state. . . . ' Maurice says he cannot see the doctrine of the restoration of all fallen beings, and thinks that if it be so, we need a revelation to declare it. He seems to think (if I understand him rightly) that it may be possible for a being to exercise his own free will in resisting God till it becomes impossible for him to be influenced by any good.' F. D. M. to Rev. R. C. Trench. 'October 17, 1836. ' I have seen something lately of Scott,* Irving's former assistant, who wrote two very striking tracts on the will of God and acquaintance with God. I am much interested in him and with what he tells me of Erskine. ' His difficulty about Baptism is to feel what it tells more than you have a right to tell any heathen. I can sympathise much in that feeling, but I think it is a wrong one. I am deeply persuaded that a covenant presupposes an actual relation ; and therefore object wholly to those phrases * Mr. A. J. Scott, afterwards Principal of " Owens College." Professorship of Political Economy, Oxford. 209 (common to High Churchmen and Evangelicals) which speak of the relation as if it were constituted by the covenant, but I see now much more clearly than I did that every man practically denies the relationship who does not enter into the covenant (in which word I include claiming it for his children), and that he puts himself and them in quite a different position by entering into it. 'Without a covenant we are not members of a Body; the Spirit dwells in the Body, and in each of its members, as such, and not as individuals. The Spirit in an individual is a fearful contradiction. The difference as to preaching seems to be You declare forgiveness of sins as belonging to men-kind, and invite them to become (which they have not been hitherto) portions of the kind the Church ; to the others you say You are forgiven, you have the Spirit.' Mr. Strachey to Lady Louis. ' November 23, 1836. .... His sister (Priscilla) has told me lately that the only way to get upon the ground of real sympathy and friendship with him is to advance more than half-way, and to let him see and feel that I take that interest in him and his concerns which any one else would consider an intrusion, unless he had made the first advances.' The following letter to Hare will explain the fact that having just declined to be appointed to a tutorship at Cambridge, towards which all his sympathies led him, he now allowed himself to be put forward as a candidate at Oxford : From F. D. M. to Rev. Julius Hare. ' Guy's Hospital, November 29, 1836. 'My DEAR SIR, ' I am afraid that you may hear from some other person than myself of a step which I have been very reluctantly induced to take, and which may seem to you strange after the decision to which I came, as reluctantly, in my negotiation VOL. I. p 2IO Why lie consents to stand. CHAP. xm. with your kind friend Mr. Worsley, the Master of Downing. The Professorship of Political Economy at Oxford falls vacant next February, and to my utter astonishment some of my friends at Oxford wrote to me to beg that I would allow them to put me in nomination. I instantly declined; told them that I was the most unfit person in the world for such an office, and on writing to Sterling the same day mentioned the proposition as a joke. But Mr. Sewell, who has been in London since I declined it, has urged so strongly upon me the duty of taking any opportunity to assert principles, especially on those subjects in which the world is interested, and on which so many pseudo-principles are current, that I hesitated ; and finding there was no one else ready to come forward on this ground, that political economy is not the foundation of morals and politics, but must have them for its foundation or be worth nothing, I have consented to be proposed. My opponent is Merivale, a man of much higher reputation in the University than I am, and much more likely to succeed ; but as he wrote the article on " Coleridge's Table Talk," in the " Edinburgh Review," I do not feel any compunction in opposing him. I am not the least anxious to succeed, but only that my friends should not suppose me willingly pre- sumptuous in standing. I shall of course endeavour to master the details of the subject with its principles, alas ! I am not acquainted, for I cannot call the notions which I find in the books about it by that august name. But I think by being careful to show what it is not, and how it is related to other sciences, one may put others on a method of discerning principles and a method, I suppose, is valuable to whatever subject it is applied. If the University can do anything to save us from being a nation of money-getters, it should surely try, and I should feel it no dishonourable office to be a hewer of wood to it while it was so engaged. The acceptance of this office will not interfere with my duties in London, which is the difference between it and the tutorship at Downing. With grateful remembrances to Mrs. Augustus Hare.' 1836. The Epistle to the Corinthians. 2 1 1 Mr. Strachey to Lady Louis. 'December 13, 1836. 'I am reading the first Epistle to the Corinthians with Maurice. He says the subject of this epistle is Church Unity. St. Paul first speaks of the various sects into which the church at Corinth was divided : those who said they were of Cephas, the High-churchmen who put their trust in the covenant, the law, &c., the followers of Paul, the Experimentalists and Doctrinalists, and the Rationalists, who set up Apollos the Alexandrian Jew (for it was the Jews of Alexandria who carried Greek philosophy to its perfection by uniting their own religion with it). Paul condemns all these sects, and while he does not deny that each has a side of truth, good in its proper place, he shows what is the right way of looking at their several ministers, and declares that Christ crucified is the only bond of union, just as he preaches Christ ascended the prin- ciple of righteousness in the Romans. The apostle proceeds in the fifth and sixth chapters to show that these divisions have rendered them so blind to the very idea of a Church, that they cannot perceive that the pollution of the member is the pollu- tion of the whole body, and that the whole must be injured by every sin of its members. In the seventh, eighth, and ninth chapters he treats of Christian expediency and prudential morality, and puts it on its right ground, having its proper relation to the highest principles. In the tenth and eleventh chapters he treats of the Sacraments; in the twelfth, of spiritual gifts, and explains the true idea of a Church ; in the thirteenth and fourteenth, he shows how the right side of spiritual gifts depends wholly on charity. Lastly, he enters into the question of the Resurrection, in order to correct the erroneous views which always spring up in churches where Ajitinomian heresies prevail' 'December 16, 1836. .... Maurice says, that just as Gibbon's great desire was to be considered a fine gentleman, while the supposition that he was a scholar, instead of being received as a compliment, was the greatest annoyance, so he p 2 212 First Letter l to Quakers for Churchmen! CHAP. xin. feels when his friends deny him all claim to being a practical man, and lavish their approbation on his philosophical specu- lations j that he would gladly renounce the latter for the sake of the former ; nay, that the way in which he is always looked on as an unpractical man is the heaviest mortification of his life. ' He has given up his Letters on Baptism, and is writing others on Quakerism at the urgent request of Mr. Clark, whom I have mentioned to you. They are to come out on the first of every month, beginning with the first of January . . .' To Rev. R. C. Trench. 'January, 1837. ' I have delayed answering your letter, partly that I might be able to convince you by proof that I have not neglected your wise admonition as to the duty of giving theology the precedence of all other subjects in my discourses to the world as well as in my secret meditations. The series of letters of which I send you the first, will, you perceive, if I am permitted to complete it, embrace most of the subjects upon which we have been used to converse, and which we have agreed that it is most necessary to this age to understand What seemed to me clear and undoubted indications led me to throw them into the form of Letters to a Quaker. And I feel as I advance in them that it is in every way the most convenient form. But the thought has never forsaken me, c? TTWS TrapafyXwau) TOVS truyyevtis /tov . . . o>v at Statical.* ' I do not wish the Quakers to understand the nature of a Church better than Churchmen, but I sometimes fancy that a few of them will, if we do not awake to the meaning of our ordinances and institutions. I shall be very anxious for any remarks you may be kind enough to make upon this first letter. It is not a mere compliment to ask for such, as you see they may make a great difference to those which follow. * The words are not an exact quotation, but partly taken from Romans xi. 14, partly adapted from Romans ix. 3, 4. Similarly adapting from the Revised Version, they would run, "If by any means I may provoke to jealousy my brethren, whose are the covenants." 1837. Augustus Hare's Sermons. 213 To Rev. Julius Hare. ' Guy's Hospital, January 20, 1837. ' I have written to Mrs. Augustus Hare to thank her for her most valuable present of your brother's sermons, but I cannot help expressing to you also how thankful I am that they have been published. They seem to me the most interesting and beautiful piece of cottage divinity that I ever met with, and I should think if they were not important for so many other reasons, the proof they give that the mysteries of the Gospel may be preached to the poor, and that accomplished scholars, if endowed with higher graces, are the very best fitted to preach it, is in these days worth anything to the Church. . . . I have wished for some weeks to send you the copy of a tract I have written for the Quakers. It is the first of a series. ' I write to Quakers, but in a great measure for Churchmen, whom I think that I can reach in this manner better than in any other, expressing more that I wish to say, with less presumption.' He had not realised at this time, as he did soon afterwards, that the proposal to get him elected to the Professorship of Political Economy was part of a scheme then set on foot by the leaders of the Oxford movement to obtain possession for their party of the chief chairs in the University ; but he did perfectly understand that he was to receive the support of most of those who had connected themselves with the move- ment. He had never at any time bsen ready to join them as a party man, but since he had given them aid at the time of the publication of ' Subscription no Bondage,' his feelings towards them, or at all events towards Dr. Pusey, had under- gone a very great change. Dr. Pusey's Tracts on Baptism were in his view throughout life the true representative notes of the party as a party. He said for instance in later life that their publication and their importance in relation to the move- ment justified the statement made by Dr. Newman in his 'Apologia' that Dr. Pusey's joining him and his friends had 214 Second Letter to Quaker "on Baptism" CHAP. xin. given to what had been beforehand ? mere gathering together of sympathisers weight and authority. What expressed to him the distinction between his view and Dr. Pusey's was the statement that Dr. Pusey regarded " Baptismal Regeneration " as a change of nature, whilst he regarded it as the coming out of the infant under the first influence of a light that had always been shining for it and all the world. He appealed to the analogy of birth of which " Regeneration " was only the para- phrase, and asked whether at the time of birth the infant did in fact undergo a change of nature or did come for the first time under influences which were not less existing for all mankind before it was born. It is right, however, to notice that privately to him Dr. Pusey denied having used the expression " change of nature," though he did not modify the phrases which my father thought could be interpreted in no other way. But his chief anxiety was that his views on this subject should be thoroughly understood by those who wished him to be their candidate. He was therefore, after many delays, re- writings, and postponements such as have been described in previous letters, now driven to publish his thoughts by the fact of the election, and as he very well foresaw to ensure his defeat at it, though he had yielded to those who wished him to stand. His second letter to a Quaker was on Baptism. Advice as to Study. ' Early in February, 1837. *Mv DEAR STRACHEY, ' That you should feel yourself at all the more qualified for your new studies in consequence of the half year you passed with me would surprise me beyond all expression, if I had not been taught by proofs which have overcome all my natural unbelief and despondency that the Spirit does speak in us and through us without our co-operation and almost without our cognizance. It is more marvellous to me than any gift of tongues, that I have in several instances been thus made a minister of God's gracious purposes, when I have i 8 37- Considerations as to Course of Study. 2 1 5 been worse than merely passive, when there was in me an intolerable vis inertia besides active doubts and struggles which mightily resisted the gracious power that wrought in me. It is another, and higher, grace to be a joyful fellow-worker with this Holy Spirit, to enter into His plans, to hasten to fulfil His commands, that is a mercy indeed, the willingness which as St Paul said in his own case had a mighty reward. But if I can keep myself at work and awake by saying to myself I have a dispensation entrusted to me, woe is me if I do not fulfil it, even this is better than being idle or quite asleep. And something better than this, even a spirit of hope and thankfulness seems vouchsafed to me when I hear that God is so graciously willing to do good to His children by my means. ' I believe, after much thinking, I am more than ever strengthened in my opinion, that in this age at least, we are not to lay down plans of study and life, which have been con- trived with a view simply or principally to the apparent wants of our own minds, the peculiarities of our character, tastes, &c. All the instances I know or have heard, of persons taking this course convince me that it is a wrong one. Very high, intellectual acquisitions, such as De Quincey's, may result from it, but then they will be accompanied by an ungenial, un- sympathising, unholy tone of mind. Very graceful and gentle moral feelings may be the result of it, such as Jebb's or Knox's, but then there will be a mawkishness and want of energy and I think of the highest and noblest kind of humanity. I can myself see no course so clear and safe as that which is determined by the answer to the question What are the most prominent evil tendencies in the age in which I live as I see them manifested in myself and those with whom I am brought into contact ? What direction do the cravings after good in myself and in them most habitually and decidedly take? What course of thought and reading will best assist me in understanding these tendencies, and the method by which God would counteract the one, foster the other? I doubt not that your own experience will accord 216 Course to be Political. CHAP. xin. with mine as to the reply. You will not have much hesitation in deciding that all our minds have more or less a political bias, that we cannot thwart it altogether, try as hard as we will ; and that every attempt to thwart it generally does us great mischief. I have come to these conclusions gradually and reluctantly, for I do not think I was born a politician, and there are times in my life in which I have resolved that it was better to be anything than this. But I never could succeed in overcoming the mighty impulse Avhich seemed unceasingly to urge me forward in this direction, and I never was happier than when I discovered that God did not design me to overcome it, and that on the contrary my personal and spiritual life was deeply interested in my yielding to it. I am quite convinced that if you propose to yourself the science of politics (in its highest sense) as your business that you will compass three great ends. i. Your social life, the ordinary conversational, after-dinner life, I mean, will acquire something of the lofty tone of the study and the oratory, without it being needful that you should deviate from common topics or that you should seem to force your companions out of their customary materialism. 2. You will acquire a feeling of the reality of the Bible, and will feel how its application to the universe and to every-day events consists with and is sus- tained by its transcendental meaning. In fact the one will reveal itself in the other. 3. You will be delivered from the fetters of party and the care about confederacies, and will find that we must sanctify the Lord God in our hearts and make Him our fear and these our dreads. I regret deeply that I have not more sedulously pursued this study and cultivated the habits which I am sure if rightly pursued it will engender. For you I have no question of the expediency of making it your prominent pursuit. If you should spend your life as a country gentleman, it will be the fitting course even in the judgment of the world, if you become a clergyman you will find that it is that which makes you the most faithful and useful servant of the Church. * The course of reading I should be inclined to recommend 1837. Representative Authors. 217 with a view to this object (which I am sure you will find it your interest to keep before you all the time at your College, and to a degree throughout life), is firstly and principally the Jewish law, history, and prophets. Any hints that I can supply respecting the mode of reading them will be con- tained in the Hebrew part of my ' History of Moral Philo- sophy,' which is short, and which you shall see as soon as it is fully made out. In Greek, Thucydides to be read and weighed as a history of the working of the two great prin- ciples which governed Greek society. Every part of it is important. 2nd. The Politics of Plato and Aristotle. 3rd. As much of Homer as you have time for. It may be read at intervals to explain the order of society in the heroic ages. 4 th. The "Birds" and "Frogs," "Knights," and "Acharnians" of Aristophanes, all bearing upon the Athenian democracy, and illustrating Thucydides. 5th. Some of Xenophon's smaller treatises ; but of these I know little. In Latin read Cicero's " Letters," his " Political Orations," and the parts of his philo- sophical writings which bear upon politics. Read Livy, and the " Annals " of Tacitus : in illustration of these, Machia- velli's " Discourses on Livy," and Niebuhr. In all your modern reading, I should recommend you to put ecclesi- astical history foremost There may be no good ones ; but if you read Mosheim, Milner, and Neander, and remember that not one of the three had more than a faint dream what a Church means, you may make out something. Read Augus- tine, " De Civitate," for yourself. Study the history of great crises, especially these : the Age of Constantine (with the Arian controversy) ; the Age of Justinian ; the Age of Char- lemagne ; the Age of Hildebrand ; the Age of the Reforma- tion; the English period from 1603 to 1688; the French Revolution. Read a little of Sir Thomas More and Erasmus ; what you can get of Luther ; read Hooker. ' Burke belongs to another era ; he is the index to all modern thoughts and speculations on political subjects. But never read him or any of the moderns without keeping your mind steady and hopeful by the study of St. Paul's and St. 2 1 8 Letter to Mrs. M. Maurice, CHAP. xnr. John's Epistles and the Apocalypse. There we learn the sure triumph of order, unity, and love over confusion, divisions, and hatred, learn to expect that we shall pass through all these in their most dreadful manifestations, learn to under- stand the grounds of our safety and of the Church's safety, when all is in wreck and ruin. I have thus hastily given you my notions, on which I will enlarge more in a future letter, if these are intelligible to you, and seem to promise you any assistance. In the meantime, as I am rather fagged, I will wish you good night, and all blessings spiritual and temporal. Among the former, that you may be able to work out the hints in this letter into practical life till you quite forget where you first heard them, and yet have reason to give thanks for them to Him who can by the most unworthy hands transmit most precious gifts to us. ... * Yours very affectionately. ' I enclose one of my tracts.' Happily for the sake of biographical completeness, here is a letter written at this moment (undated), which connects the public utterances with the private experiences of the present and the past. The letter has almost the same motif as that of three years before to his mother : To Mrs. Maurice. (.About February, 1837.] ' MY DEAREST MOTHER, 'I do so very much wish that I could pass at least a few- hours with you. I feel so grieved when I hear of your extreme weakness, and when you speak of the depression which this complaint has caused you ; and I think if I were with you it might cheer you a little, and perhaps I might be permitted to say something that would comfort you. I sometimes do find that words are put into my mouth which I hardly knew the meaning of before, and which seem to be spoken through me for the sake of those to whom God would do good. And though it humbles me to perceive how little I have to do 1837. Enclosing the Tract on Baptism. 219 with what I have thought and said, and even that I have done what in me lay to cross the intention of God, yet it rejoices me to have this new proof of His graciousness and goodwill I think that to assure every one, and especially those we most love, that He is love, and that they are simply to repose in that thought without troubling themselves about their belief, or realization of it, or anything else, is our great business. God is seeking us, and not we Him : and it is an infinite comfort to know this, when we are feverish and rest- less with the thought of our own impotent struggles and great laziness. In quietness and confidence is our strength : but not in thinking of quietness and confidence, or grieving that we have so little of either, but in simply assuring our- selves of the ground that we have to believe that God is our friend now and ever, and that He can be nothing else, and that the forgetfulness of this and nothing else has been our sin and our shame. I wish to confess all my sins and the sins of my brethren before God, but I find they all begin and terminate in this, and that when I have said, " We have forgotten the Name of our God, and His covenant of mercy with us," I have said all that I can say, for this includes all pride and malice and anger and unkindness to our brethren and every sin of our own flesh. This truth presents itself to me as one in which we may rest when we cannot in anything else, when all notions and opinions are mere wind and confusion. The character of God as seen in Christ and the assurance that He cares for us, are the simplest of all remembrances ; but they are also the deepest and holiest of all, and it seems to me that all notions about sin or faith or holiness, or works, or anything else, which do not start from these and end in these are worth nothing. ' I have sent you my Tract on Baptism, not wishing you to trouble yourself with it, but merely as a token of love and because I knew you would like to see it. I have written what I thought was most likely to bring people back to simple and trustful views, but in doing this, I have been forced to go into many wearisome arguments and oppose many people whom I 22O Labouring for Peace. CHAP. xm. would willingly agree with and support. It is a hard case to feel one's self at war with every one when you wish to re- concile every one, but I comfort myself with the thought that some humble persons may be eventually the better for what I have done, and may be delivered by it, if God so honour me, from some troublesome stumbling blocks, and that God's Name may be honoured ; and this is all I really and inwardly desire, though my flesh covets many things besides which God in mercy will deny me.' 1837. Breach with Dr. Pusey. 221 CHAPTER XIV. " A gentle human being does give us the hint of a higher gentleness ; a brave man makes us think of a courage far greater than he can exhibit. Friendships sadly and continually interrupted suggest the belief of an un- alterable friendship. Every brother awakens the hope of a love stronger than any affinity in nature, and disappoints it. Every father demands a love and reverence and obedience which we know is his due, and which something in him as well as in us hinders us from paying." ' Theological Essays,' p. 105. 1837 continued OPEN BREACH WITH DR. PUSEY MARRIAGE ' EXPLANATORY LETTER,' WRITTEN DECEMBER, 1870, MAINLY RELATING TO THE ' KINGDOM OF CHRIST/ OR ' LETTERS TO A QUAKER.' BEFORE the next letter was written, the Tract which he had published had produced its natural effect. Dr. Pusey was exceedingly angry. The whole party saw that they had mis- taken their man. And now also they, and Dr. Pusey espe- cially, were struck by what appeared to them two utterly contradictory elements in my father. No one who has followed this life thus far will be unaware how one had always existed, and how the other had been steadily growing and strengthening in him. The one was his intense to any one not in daily contact with him his apparently exaggerated personal humility, the other was the ever-growing conviction that words were to be said through him which he would at his peril omit to say, whether Dr. Pusey or all the doctors in the world opposed them or not. For Dr. Pusey the solution was easy. Mr. Maurice was " self deceived," his humility was a sham, his earnestness of speech an impertinence. I, of course, here am quoting the substance of what Dr. Pusey wrote at the time. 222 Withdraws from Contest F. M. 31. The determination to speak had expressed itself more espe- cially in the following passage : ' But although we be avOpairoi aypap.iia.roi KOL iSiorrai,* only picking up snatches of knowledge here and there, and thankful that a race of men has been provided, of larger capacities and greater leisure, who may impart to us what little we are fitted to receive ; yet we also have the forms of the Church, and the Word of God, and a holy communion, and the Holy Spirit ; and so long as these are continued to us we will not in this solemn matter give place to these doctors in subjection, no, not for an hour.' Of course the party at once determined to vote against him at the coming election. As far as I can ascertain, his name was withdrawn from a hopeless contest, the very men who had proposed him originally being now the most bitter in opposi- tion. It represented the first overt declaration of the breach which in his own mind had been long widening between him and the Oxford school But the whole subject had greatly distressed him. ' Middle of February, 1837. 'Mv DEAR STRACHEY, * At length I begin to write again, having fully purposed doing so every third day since I received your first letter, and every hour since I got the second Both, I assure you, were most acceptable, as assuring me of your continued kindness, and as encouraging me to hope that my poor tract might not have escaped being useless only by being mischievous, as my Oxford friends seem to opine. I was, however, particularly obliged to you for the second, as it was evidently written to calm feelings which, as a Christian, I ought never to have indulged without treating them with the severity which they deserved. I am conscious of having felt for a little a very * 'Unlearned and ignorant men,' said of St Peter and St. John in Acts iv. 13. CHAP. xiv. For Professorship. 223 ignominious and, what is far worse, a very unfaithful dis- quietude at an event on which I might have calculated with perfect confidence. Not, as you will believe, at the loss of the professorship, of which, even if I particularly longed for it, I know I had no prospect, but because the feeling of my friends respecting this particular book seemed to include the condemnation of all that I had ever hoped to do for the Church and world. Some of the principles which they discovered and attacked in it are precisely those to which I most object, some of them precisely those on which all my faith and hopes for mankind, if not for myself, are resting. So that I was staggered by the two opposite feelings, that I could not make them the least understand what I meant ; and again, that if I did, they would only dislike me the more for it This is the best apology I can offer for any discomfort my sister may have perceived in me, which was not, however, the less unworthy or ungrateful because it had these plausible excuses. But to leave this matter, to which I should not have alluded but for your kind mention of it, and which may, I would hope, be a useful and humbling lesson throughout life, I come to that point of your letter which respects yourself, and on which I can converse with much greater pleasure. ' With respect to your question about college, I do not see any absolute necessity for it in your case, any which may not be superseded by other considerations. I conceive that it is a very great advantage to an Englishman to have received at least a part of his education the last if not the first in a regular English way. The English mind and character, unless he thwarts the operation of the circumstances around him by sensuality and self-will is gradually formed in him ; nay, even in those who do take this pains to counteract the will of Providence, you may see habits taking root which it takes great violence afterwards to destroy. A comparison of the Radicals who have been to college with those who have been brought up at haphazard would illustrate this remark. But this discipline is certainly intended for a period of life earlier than that at which you are arrived. If it seemed good to our 224 Education after T'tventy-four. CHAP. xrv. Heavenly Father at that period to give you' another discipline, it may be supposed that He knew you wanted it then more than that which in most cases is desirable ; and much of what would have been accomplished at college may have been, not perhaps accomplished, but a sound and sure foundation laid for it in the sick-room. Afterwards you are surely at liberty to get what you can of the blessings which a college course offers to the man as well as to the boy. But there is not the same obligation to choose this course, because it is not equally in the ordinary and appointed course of things. Obligation is a strong word in reference to going to college at any age, but I do conceive that those who are destined by their pro- perty or birth to anything above the middle station in society, and intended to live in England, are bound to show cause why they do not put themselves in the best position for becoming what Coleridge calls the Clerisy of the land. Holding, there- fore, very decided views about the duty of going to the University when it is possible at the age of eighteen or nineteen, I consider it a matter far less certain whether we ought to take up our stitches (not intentionally dropped) at the age of twenty-four. More balancing of circumstances is needful to decide the propriety of this step ; for it must not be concealed (and on this point I can speak from experience) that we must not expect at this stage of our lives to become anything unconsciously or by a silent operation of outward influences. The will must then formally co-operate with, nay lead, outward events and influences, or they will not profit us. When this is the case we have more right, or rather we are more called, to determine in what position we shall act best for others, as well as that in which we can best be acted upon. ' As to the order of your reading, I should be inclined to recommend one central study for every day ; such as the prophets ; and a Greek and English book, or a book concerning modern and ancient politics, to be used alternately with each other. You might even take Thucydides two days in the week, Cicero two, and Hooker or Montesquieu two. On the 1 83 7. Learning a Language. 225 whole this plan seems to me best ; but you must ascertain by experience which is most suitable to you. ' I think to be learning a language is very profitable, and as you have the Oriental languages to assist you, that you could not do better than make Hebrew the one. In that case I should say by all means get some one to learn it with you, or else get a teacher. After twenty I believe it is very hard work to learn a language alone, except you are in the country and under twenty-two. On the contrary, to learn it with another is of occupations nearly the most instructive and delightful. But I would not defer my study of the Jewish prophets as politicians till I had got this knowledge. The more you have drunk in of their spirit beforehand, the more intelligible Hebrew will be to you, and the more good it will do you. ' I have thus, in my usual style of dogmatism and dictation, given you my opinion on these points ; you will use it as you think fit. ' Dathe will often, I think, be valuable as a book of reference, also the Septuagint. Occasionally I would read one of them instead of the common version, making that the book of reference. All commentators on matters of criticism, usages, geography, &c., in short, when you need information, are very valuable. In general you will find, I believe, that the spiritual commentators need a commentator, and that the text is the best you can get upon them ; however, if you can afford time for several of different schools, they may do you good; not one, I think, of any.' The following extract is from a letter a little later : To Mr. Strachey. 1 1 do not fancy that you will get much satisfaction from the Oxford Tracts, but I cannot tell. To me they are, for the most part, more unpleasant than I quite like to acknowledge to myself or others. Their error, I think, consists in opposing VOL. T. Q 226 The Church and the Pligh Churchmen. to TO irveJ5yu.a TOU alwvos TOVTOV * the spirit of a former age, instead of the ever-living and acting Spirit of God, of which the spirit of each age (as it presents itself to those living in it) is at once the adversary and the parody. The childlike spirit of the fathers, say they, must be brought in to counteract the intellectual spirit of these times the spirit of submission to Church authority against the spirit of voluntary association. Nay, I contend, but the spirit of earnest and deep reflection is that which God would cultivate in us to oppose the superficial intelligence of the day, the spirit of Christian or Church liberty (the service which is freedom) to counteract the lust for independence, the spirit of unity to overthrow the spirit of combination. Thus I am entirely opposed to them, while yet our lines of thought will often coincide, and while I can yet recognise them as doing part of that work (though I think doing it ill) which must be done for us. If you bring out the spirit of earnest meditation, that will be a childlike spirit, and is a spirit which loves the parent and loves the fathers ; yet it will be the spirit of the man, not of .the child. If you bring out the idea of Church freedom and unity, you will lead him to submit to the Church, but it will be a submission of the reason for the reason's sake, not because it is to be crushed. It is useless to talk these things to them, they must have their own way, and so I said three years ago to the friend who has been most active in persuading them to think me a very decent, genteel sort of person, and me to believe that they did think me so. Unfortunately, I took off the mask when he was not looking, and they were quite frightened at my ugliness.' Sterling had taken up his quarters in London a very short time before my father had moved to Guy's. He was living at that time in Orme Square, suffering from constant ill-health. In the spring of 1836 a daughter had been born. Both in consequence of his illness and his wife's confinement, her younger sister was, during these months, taking care of the * ' The spirit of the present age.' CHAP. xiv. Anna Barton. 227 household, and was at all times a frequent visitor there. She had recently returned with her mother from abroad, after spending some years in Germany. My father had seen some- thing of her before she went to Germany, but it was at Orme Square that their acquaintance ripened. Sterling seems lo have seen how things were tending before either of the two most interested did so. He became exceedingly anxious, for the sake of both of them, to bring them together, and took every opportunity of doing so. Her father, when she was quite a child, had died as a general officer after commanding the 2nd Life Guards for several years. She had five brothers, two of whom were in the army, one settled at Bonn, on the Rhine, one in Australia, one living with Mrs. Barton. The five sons were a somewhat difficult family for a mother to guide. Her sister's marriage in 1829 had brought Anna Barton, when she was herself just seventeen, under the influence of men of a different type, notably of Sterling, Trench, and Maurice. Fond of her as was each of her four brothers, she certainly had not been content or happy in her life at home, though she had a ready sympathy for every one of the members of the family. She was herself most attached to her sister, Mrs. Sterling, and thought that she owed more to her than to any one else. Mrs. Barton was by no means at first pleased at the prospect of her daughter's marrying a clergyman of no wealth. Not a few difficulties therefore lay in the way of the project on which Sterling had set his heart. He himself had been obliged to go for health with his family to Bordeaux, but returned in June 1837. Soon after Sterling's return, mainly by his arrangement, Frederick Maurice and Anna Barton met once more at Hurst- monceaux, she not having been aware of his coming till he arrived. It is to this visit and to its result in their being engaged to be married that the following letter refers : 228 " // seems that 1 am happy, that to me To Rev. Julius Hare. ' Guy's, July 26, 1837. ' MY DEAR MR. HARE, ' Sterling will tell you so much more in five minutes of his own proceedings, and perhaps of mine, than I could tell in many sheets of paper that I should hardly have troubled you with a letter if I were not too full of recollections of Hurst- monceaux and of your kindness to be able to restrain any longer the expression of them. I should have written several weeks ago, but for some time I had hopes of seeing you in London, and after that I had some anxieties which made me not very capable of showing as much freedom and joy of spirit as I should always wish to feel in writing to you. I have now the very exquisite pleasure of connecting most of my thoughts of present and future happiness with you and Mrs. Augustus, and of considering how greatly they would be diminished if I were not sure that I had your sympathy in them. ' It never was possible for me to contemplate Sterling with anything like impartiality, and I need not tell you that it is ten thousand times more difficult now ; but I . am not sure that eyes of affection are the worst for examining an object, and I feel very positive that I am not mistaken in thinking that few men ever improved so much by the discipline of one twelvemonth. I know I am not appealing to a judge who would be considered much more just than myself, still I shall be delighted to find that you and Mrs. Augustus are of the same opinion. My sister, who has conversed even more with him than I have, thinks that she never saw a character of which she thought very highly before so softened and chastened. ' I have often thought, during the last week, with fear as well as admiration of the letter which you read to me from your noble-hearted friend Mr. Digby, the author of the "Broad- stone of Honour." I am, happily, in not the slightest danger from one of the temptations which he felt so appalling ; * the other of an overmeasure of earthly kindness and affection I * Superabundant wealth. a livelier emerald twinkles in the grass." 2 29 may have more reason to dread. But I persuade myself that the word earthly is a misnomer that all love, being of divine birth, must have a tendency to draw us away from earth, not to fix us on it' Hitherto he had been overpressed by the intense and some- what narrow spirit of his early home. He was now met by a sympathy which was altogether bright, buoyant, and cheerful. To him it was the change from cloud to perpetual sunshine, his wife being by the witness of her friends no less relieved from the shade that had somewhat overclouded her natural brightness. Those who knew my father in these days and also through- out life have been eager to impress on me the importance of the influence which his marriage exercised upon him. Any one who has realised how much of isolation, of self-restraint, and of silence amid many words there was in all his relation- ships and in all his friendships up to this point will judge what thorough sympathy, eager approval of his own best thoughts, complete appreciation, must have been to him. More and more it calmed him, gave him the courage of his own faith, and made him not afraid to speak out boldly the thing he believed to be true, no matter how different it might be from the opinions of those whom he most respected and loved. Of herself the first thing that all insist on was her intense veracity and openness. " She was the most transparently truthful person I ever knew," is commonly said of her ; " the most fresh and informal." Of a particular kind of humour she was full, and it not unfrequently expressed itself somewhat epigrammatically, but the humour was almost always the serving up of facts, so to say, in their own broth. " Mr. Carlyle has been here talking for four hours in praise of silence," is one saying recorded of her and evidently repre- sentative. Others may have often enough said the same thing, but I give it as a type of the form, not for the matter. 230 Christ in us the Hope of Glory. CHAP. xiv. Extracts from Letters to Miss Barton. ' July 23, 1837. ' I am rejoiced that you at least have understood exactly, most exactly, what was the object of my Letters to the Quakers. That truth, of Christ being in us the hope of glory, is the one which I have found most necessary to sustain my own spirit when it has been sinking with the sense of its own utter unworthiness ; for it shows that we can have no goodness apart from Him, that all our goodness must be by union with Him who is perfectly good. Baptism seems to me to declare this truth to every one, and to be moreover that act in which the Holy Spirit takes the charge of us and promises to guide us into the knowledge and love of Christ, if we will submit to His guidings ; the Lord's Supper to be that in which, as you express it, we may have life and have it more abundantly by ever fresh communication from the source of it. I know in myself that if I had not had the faith that I was a member of Christ and child of God confirmed to me by the simple assurance of this ordinance, and if I had not felt that it was a sin not to believe God's words, I should have sunk into utter indifference or wretchedness. I know that you, my dearest, can never have the same miserable self-reproach that I have had ; but yet it is so comfortable a truth that we are bound to trust in God and to believe ourselves one with Christ, on His own assurance given in his own way, that I would wish you to receive it, though you may have a multitude of pleasant and holy feelings which seem to give a better warrant for the same confidence. If you have such oh ! let me share them with you, but take in exchange for them the trust which I am obliged continually to maintain, when my soul seems in utter drouth and dreariness.' ' August 2, 1837. ' I feel that I have never shown such frankness and affection to any others as I have received, and while I rei f er it all to the F. M. 32. TJie First Welcome Birthday. 231 source of all goodness and love, I wish to be ashamed because He has given graces even to some who perhaps have in some things less spiritual knowledge than I have, in which I am wanting. ' Oh, my dearest ! that I could tell you what delight your account of your own feelings, and of that spring of hope rising up to everlasting life which it has pleased God to put within you, has given me. That cup to me has been dealt in another measure; but I would rather ten thousand times that you had it than that I had it, and now God is giving it me all in you, for I count every one of your blessings as now belonging of right to me ; and only wish most inwardly that I could give you something better for them than a poor thankless heart' Also to Miss Barton. ' August 16, 1837. ' I had been considering this morning how graciously it is promised that the Spirit shall bring all things to our remem- brance. How impossible it would be for us to remember one sweet word that had been spoken, or anything that had done us good, or even the dearest friend on earth, if He did not perform this work ; and how profitable it must be, with his help, to remember the love of God and to dwell in it, and to connect all other thoughts with the thought of Him.' ' August 29, 1837. ' Thanks be to God for the first birthday in my life that I could really and heartily welcome. It is a strange confession to say so, and most dishonourable to one who believes himself a sinner forgiven and reconciled. But it is too true. Oh, do not think, dearest love ! that the change to-day is owing to an earthly cause, and is therefore necessarily to be sus- pected. No ; I do trust and believe that God has enabled me, by your means, to feel now as I always ought to have felt, not to joy in a human blessing when I could not joy in a divine one, but to feel the truth of the divine through the human. 232 Self-Losing. How Sought. CHAP. xtv. Always as my birthday came round, there was such a fearful rebound upon myself, such a grievous recalling of past days of sin and unfruitfulness, that, though I sought to escape, and did in a measure escape, into the hopes which I fully believed were laid up for me, I had a hard, heavy weight which my spirits seemed unable to throw off, though my conscience might. But whether it be an increased feeling of sin and shame in the indulgence of such thoughts in the midst of such merciful tokens of forgiveness, and the thought of my obligations to you, my dearest (which, how could I discharge with a troubled and restless heart ?) ; or rather that I have in you the seal to my own personal self of that loving-kindness which heretofore I could claim as one of Christ's body, so it is that with more reason for self-abhorrence than ever, and I trust more real repentance, I can yet confess my sins before God and rise with a gladder heart to think of Him and praise Him for all His other blessings, and for the last sweet pledge of all the rest, than ever before. My love, does not this en- courage you ? I feel great delight in thinking that it will, and that when you meditate on cares and responsibilities to come, and wonder how ever you can bear another's burden when you feel scarcely able always to bear your own, the recollection will be presented very pleasantly to your mind, " But I have already done such good that I trust I shall do more and more; for why should God strengthen me for a few days, and then desert me ? " And I fancy, dearest, that it is God's plan and ordinance that we should bear each other's burdens much more easily and cheerily than we ever carried our own ; that it is a far better and happier thing for you to feel my sorrows and I feel yours, than for either of us to feel what is given us separately. Is not this the very mystery of marriage, of that divine union of which it is such a glorious and living type? Oh ! what have we been wanting ; what are all poor, sighing, miserable persons in the world wanting, but to be able to forget ourselves? For this people drown themselves in company, and drunkenness, and all other evils. This self-losing is very pitiable, and when we P.M. 32. Where Found. 233 see a friend awakening to feel that they have .that in them which has been dead and buried, we rejoice with good reason ; and yet we know that there will be a terrible pain in this self- consciousness, and we should be mad to desire it for them or ourselves, if we did not believe that they might lose them- selves again, and sink into repose (active repose, but repose still, in the bosom of everlasting love). Now the true and appointed image of this repose, this self-forgetfulness, is surely the love of husband and wife ; and is it not most comfortable to think so, my Annie, and to believe that so God Himself has meant that it should be ? ' Also to Miss Barton. ' September i, 1837. ' I was very much pleased with you for trying to unsay your words about Mrs. X., though I fear they were true words. In fact, there is no contradiction in them at all. Love must see evil in order that she may not see it, in order that she may cover the multitude of sins. I wish for you and myself, dearest, lynx eyes for distinguishing between the precious and the evil in ourselves and in others, and then that these eyes may have a charm to draw up all that is precious, and to make the evil be as though it were not ; for in very truth it is a falsehood. It has no reality, and why should not we treat it as having none.' To Rev. R. C. Trench. ' Guy's, August 17, 1837. ' I have no fear that you will suspect me of not wishing to tell you whatever made me happy or sad, and still less that you would not sympathise heartily in either feeling. I have indeed been called of late to enjoy a degree of happiness which I can only receive without understanding. I wish to be thank- ful for it, and I feel at least that I am utterly unworthy of it Sterling will have told you that I have a good hope of some day calling him brother in a new right (though the old title 234 "A purer sappliire melts into the sea." was a very g9od one), and you will be pleased to hear that the day will, if God permit, be not a very distant one. It will be, I believe, in October. I should like particularly, if it be possible, to call on you and Mrs. Trench after our marriage, and to ask you both to take the same in- terest in Annie which you have taken in me. I know you will find her far worthier of it. The singleness of her heart, and the spiritual knowledge which she has acquired under no very propitious circumstances, mainly, I think, be- cause she sought to do the will of God, astonish and humble me. Her religion is quite unsoiled by contact with the religious world. It seems to me, indeed, a well of water springing up to everlasting life, and the reserve which I thought she could never have parted with was, I believe, only a reserve of very deep affection which she was not able to express. But I will not talk any more of her, except to say that the last few days of my life have been the very happiest of it, and that they have given a happiness to all that went before them. The woods and rocks at Clifton are connected with my earliest thoughts and associations. These seem given back to me by God Himself into a precious token of forgiveness for all the sins which had polluted them, and a gracious promise that my years should henceforth be fastened to each other by an invisible bond of love.' On October yth he was married at Clifton, John Sterling being the officiating clergyman. How much the old home was rejoicing in his new-found happiness, the following extract will show : From Mrs. Maurice. 'Wednesday, November 15, 1837. ' MY DEAR CHILDREN, * 'I live in your health and happiness, and it is most cheering to me to think that my dearest Frederick is so entirely happy ; and I trust the bright sun which shines upon him will disperse every cloud which has so long cast a shade Second Autobiographical 'Explanatory Letter' 235 over him. Now that the best of earthly blessings has been so graciously bestowed upon him, so much greater than he could ever have hoped for, I feel as if almost every anxiety I have had for him is gone, and I shall always now be able to think of him as happy, though I may not be allowed to see him so.' "Explanatory Letter'" relating mainly to the 1 Kingdom of Christ^ but headed by /tim, and referring directly to the " REASONS FOR NOT JOINING A PARTY IN THE CHURCH " of a little later date. ' MY DEAREST F., ' The next pamphlet, if I remember right, in the collec- tion which you saw bears this title. It is contained in a letter to the Archdeacon of Surrey, now the Bishop of Winchester. Since I wrote the one of which I last spoke I had become the Chaplain of Guy's Hospital. ' That change in my circumstances did not bring me much into contact with London life. I was in an obscure corner, and my duties were such as would not have brought me acquainted with any who lived away from it. But Mr. Hugh Rose was at that time the Incumbent of the parish in which the hospital was situated, and was an intimate friend of Mr. Harrison, its treasurer; your uncle Julius,* who was well acquainted with Mr. Rose, as they had both been Fellows of Trinity, though widely differing on the subject of which they both wrote, German literature and theology, commended me to him. Partly through his influence, partly through that of Mr. Harrison's son, who had known me at Oxford, I obtained the chaplaincy. * Julius Hare subsequently married a sister of my father's. 236 Autobiographical. The Catechism. CHAP. xiv. ' I had been much impressed in my Bubbcnhall curacy among labourers and farmers ; I was still more impressed in the midst of this London population of sick men and women, with the language of our Catechism that language which caused most offence to the Evangelical school. It seemed to me that except I could address all kinds of people as members of Christ and children of God, I could not address them at all. Their sin, it seemed to me, must mean a departure from that state ; it must be their true state, that which Christ had claimed for them. I thought I had no Gospel for the sufferers in Guy's Hospital, if it was not that. I was ignorant enough of their sufferings and sins, I knew that I was; my ignorance was unfathomable. If I might not say, God your Father knows it all. He is able and willing to raise you out of any depth into which you have fallen, I must despair. I could not think that they had ever resisted God's goodness as much as I had. I could not scold them, I could only speak to them of trust in One who could raise them. That became the principle of my preaching. I understood very little the way of making it intel- ligible to individuals, rich or poor, sick or well. But when preaching in the chapel or the ward, I found this language the only possible one. I felt therefore much sympathy with those who spoke of baptism as bearing witness of the state into which men are redeemed ; I felt the worth of that direct ap- peal to the hearts and consciences of men which had dis- tinguished the Evangelical preachers of the last century from the dry moralists, but I thought they had become weak, be- cause they assumed sin, and not redemption, as the starting- point The new form of churchmanship which was set forth in the Oxford Tracts had so far an attraction for me that it appeared to treat of a regeneration as dependent on the will of God and the death of Christ, not the individual faith of men. I did not care much for the other peculiarities of it, which were chiefly negative. It asserted that Presbyterians were not Churchmen, that Protestants and Romanists were equally departing from the standard of Anglican moderation. Such opinions had a certain influence, not a healthy one, on my CHAP. xiv. Dr. Fusey's Tract on Baptism. 237 mind, but they took no real hold of it. With that pai t which concerned baptism I dreamed for a while that I should have a real point of union. This dream was entirely scattered by Dr. Pusey's Tract on Baptism. Instead of affording me the least warrant for the kind of teaching which appeared to me alone Scriptural and practical, it made such teaching utterly impossible. The baptised child was holy for a moment after its baptism, in committing sin it Ic-st its purity. That could only be recovered by acts of repentance and a system of ascetical discipline. I remember to this day the misery which this tract caused me as I read it in a walk to one of the London suburbs ; I saw that I must be hopelessly and for ever estranged from this doctrine and from those who taught it, unless I abandoned all my hopes for myself and for the world. 'Just about this time my eldest sister drew my attention to a movement in the Quaker body. The old Quakers had spoken of the divine Word as the light which lightens every man that cometh into the world. A younger body of them, who were in strong sympathy with the Evangelicals, declared that this doctrine interfered with reverence for the written word and with the doctrine of human depravity. Evidently the new party had much life in it and was conscious of . dryness and formality in the elder school. Reflecting much on this contro- versy and connecting it with what was passing in the English Church, it seemed to me that the old Quakers were affirming a most grand and fundamental truth ; but that it had become narrow and contradictory, because they had no ordinance which embodied it and made it universal; that we, on the other hand, forgetting their Quaker principles, or rather the words of St. John, necessarily made baptism a mere ceremony or a charm. The two being united expressed to me the recon- ciliation of the High Church Baptismal regeneration with the Evangelical demands for personal faith. Starting from this text, I wrote a series of tracts addressed to Quakers, but really concerning ourselves more than them. They formed the book called the ' Kingdom of Christ,' of which a second 238 Tract 90 and the Four Tutors. CHAP. xiv. edition, much altered, appeared in 1841. In the second of these tracts I commented on Dr. Pusey's theory of baptism. Nothing I have written had so important an effect on my life. It set me in direct antagonism with his school, to which I had many attractions, and by some members of which my " Subscription no Bondage " had been partially approved. ' Soon the most advanced members of that school began to be exceedingly impatient of the articles for which they and I had pleaded.* The younger men perceived that Dr. Pusey's baptismal doctrine was in spirit even more than in terms opposed to the maxims of the Reformation which had im- pressed themselves so deeply on our formulas. In his goth Tract Dr. Newman undertook to show that there was a possible construction of the Articles which they might with a safe conscience recognise. His intention was, I am satisfied, honest, but to ordinary readers his interpretation appeared highly sophistical. Four Oxford tutors, one of them the pre- sent Archbishop of Canterbury, denounced it as fatal to all sincere subscription. This pamphlet called forth Dr. Hook, the present Dean of Chichester. He had sympathised much with the earlier tracts ; he disliked the goth; but he could not consent to abandon friends from whom he had learnt much. He said that the Oxford tutors compelled him to choose his party in the Church, and that he did choose that of their opponents. His book was the occasion of my ' Reasons for not Joining a Party in the Church.' ' Since my coming to Guy's Hospital I had become acquainted with Archdeacon Wilberforce, now the Bishop of Winchester. He was seeking, I believe, for a common ground between the two parties in the Church. He had a natural desire to see if any one else had found one. It was very unlikely that a man with his wide sympathies and knowledge of the world would do more than take a glimpse at the opinions of a solitary thinker and pass on. Every one who has been in temporary communication with him must be aware * From this point my father's letter deals with subjects of a later date than the contemporary matter as yet given. "Reasons, etc." addressed to S. Wilberforce. 239 how great a power he has of receiving and reflecting impres- sions even from the least important persons. ' Dr. Hook, who never sympathised with any of my opinions and knew little of me personally, yet wrote to me afterwards with characteristic generosity, that in this instance I had been right, and he had been wrong. The confession was far more honourable to him than to me, but no praise bestowed on me personally could have pleased me so much. ' Thus you see that the principle with which I started became, almost in spite of me, the growing one of my life, that which every new circumstance made me more aware that I must live and die for, more aware also that it would separate me from those with whom I should most wish to act, and would give me not only the appearance of isolation and self-conceit, but often the reality of both. I knew also that I was in danger of attach- ing myself to a party which should inscribe " No Party" on its flag. Many had fallen into that snare. I was as little likely as any one to escape it. The eminent man to whom I ad- dressed my letters* was one whom it was easy to follow as a leader in such an experiment as this. His especially genial qualities, the certainty that he would obtain and hold a reputa- tion in English society, his personal kindness, were all powerful magnets. One of his most intimate friends had at that time a real regard for me, and a sympathy with some of my convic- tions, t I spoke so much of them, and looked up so much to them, that Sterling and others looked upon me as one of their fraternity. Our common dread of the Liberals, the Evan- gelicals, and the High Church school might have bound me slavishly to their modes of thinking if God had not given me a nearer friend who understood me better than they understood me or than I understood myself. Your mother knew the secrets of true Churchmanship better than any of my male acquaintances, and oh, how much better than I did ! ' " If you only act on your conviction," she once said to me, " that Christ is in every one, what a much higher life you might live, how much better work you might do ! " There was in * S. "Wilberforce. f The present Archbishop of Dublin. 240 A Wifgs Help. CHAP. xiv. that sentence the clearest divination of what I feel and know to be God's purpose in all His teachings and discipline which I have received, and of my failures. ' I was sent into the world that I might persuade men to re- cognise Christ as the centre of their fellowship with each other, that so they might be united in their families, their countries, and as men, not in schools and factions ; and through forget- fulness of this truth myself I have been continually separating myself from relations, letting go friendships, and sinking into an unprofitable solitude. ' Your mother sought to save me from this vanity, making home more delightful than any other society could be, and yet giving me an interest in that, yet teaching me that the poorest man is Christ's brother and should be dear to us for His sake. She mourned over my want of sympathy with nature, and many deeper wants than that ; yet she entered into all my thoughts and pursuits. She and your second mother have shown me how much a married man may be, if he will, educated by mar- riage in the kingdom of God, how much the true union of hearts may make party ties unnecessary to him. God's love has been at the root of their wedded lives; if it had been equally of mine there would not be so much shame mixed with joy and thankfulness in the recollection of what I have written and what I have been. But joy and thankfulness should and shall triumph over the shame. God blots out sins and keeps alive all that is pure and good. I can bless Him that He has not suffered me to join a party in the Church in my youth, or manhood, or old age. I can believe on this tenth day of December, 1870, your mother's birth-day, that she is helping you, and your brother, and me, and teaching us more than if she were visible to us of our union with each other and with all in Christ' 1838. War with Religious Newspapers. 241 CHAPTER XV. " The fable of the choice of Hercules is no fable. Those two women are with us pleading their different causes. What form the casuistry shall take, with which party the victory shall rest, is all-important ; but what- ever form it takes, and whatever the result, the debate is a real, not a fictitious one, in men before it is in a book." Inaugural Lecture, Cam- bridge, F. D. M. 1838 IMMEDIATE EFFECT OF ' LETTERS TO A QUAKER* IN PRO- VOKING HOSTILITY OF RELIGIOUS NEWSPAPERS COMPLETION AND PUBLICATION OF ' KINGDOM OF CHRIST ' CORRESPOND- ENCE OF THE YEAR CARLYLE, STERLING SHORT ABSENCE FROM LONDON AT HANNINGTON ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN THE NEW TESTAMENT SPRING OF 1839 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF HIS SISTER ELIZABETH BIRTH OF STILL-BORN CHILD. THE ' Letters to a Quaker ' contained an open proclamation of war against all the religious newspapers of every party whatso- ever. It was an internecine war to be continued henceforth without intermission throughout his life. The course of the religious newspapers was simple. As long as he was popular they were courteous or silent. But from this time onward it will be found that the whole history of his life was continuously this, that as long as that which he be- lieved to be truth was accepted by all men or was generally acknowledged, he left it to its popularity, not thinking that it required any support from him ; but the moment a popular excitement had arisen, even in relation to some cause in which he sympathised with the popular excitement, then if something that he believed to be truth had been forgotten, or some injus- tice was being done to men from whom he widely differed in VOL. I. R The Temptations to Attack Him, CHAP, xv, opinion, he threw himself athwart the stream and breasted the current of popular antipathy. Never professing to agree with those parts of the creed of the men attacked from which he differed, or to defend any part of their conduct which he could not defend, anxious even himself to bring out the truth which he thought they had forgotten, he yet claimed that a generous construction should be put upon their acts, and that their words should be listened to with all the greater patience because they were unpopular. This was the moment for the religious news- paper writers. I do not think it would be at all fair to say that all their misrepresentations were wilful. His position was one so unique that it was much more often misunderstood than clearly understood by those who differed from him, even when they most wished to understand it ; nor was it even very clearly understood always by those who, in the main, agreed with him. But most certainly the religious newspapers did not wish to understand him in any sense that would interfere with their representing him in an unfavourable light to their readers. As nine men out of ten do not care to trouble themselves about the details of the opinions of another, it is much more con- venient to summarise them under short labels, so that it is convenient also to take it for granted that if a man speaks in defence of an Irvingite he is an Irvingite, or of a High-church- man that he is a High-churchman. That any man should from mere love of justice defend High-churchmen when unjustly attacked, and Low-churchmen also when unjustly attacked, does not, in practice, enter into the calculations of the mass of readers at all, though probably all of them would admit in the abstract that it was the right course for a man to pursue. To deal, therefore, with one who had taken up the special position in life which my father had marked out for himself, was a temptation that to most men, if opposed to him, would have been almost irresistible. Conceive then the temptation of having to deal with a man who looked upon your whole trade and calling as one utterly and only accursed, who spared you in no way whatever because of your power to harm him, of whom you knew that the vast body of people 1838. And the Vantage Ground of the Papers. 243 would think just what you chose to tell them about him ! ! For it is necessary to record here a condition of things which lent to this question an exceptional importance. Throughout the country districts and in the colonies the clergy are orga- nised in literary clubs. That is to say, it is the habit in most places out of London for the clergy, independent of party divisions, to join together to obtain the newspapers which cater for their needs, and, in order to be fair to all their members, it is agreed that all forms of opinion shall be represented. In 1 88 1 the ' Record,' the ' Church Times,' the ' Rock,' &c., are allowed to attack one another weekly on the tables of most of these societies. In 1838 the corresponding papers of that date did much the same, though the ' Record ' occupied among them a much more prominent place than it does now. A few clergy, more tightly bound by party, receive now as they did then only the organ of their own persuasion. Now, as it is through these newspapers, thus liberally representative of all shades of opinion, that the great mass of the clergy learn to judge of men and books, it is obvious enough that there is only one man or type of man who is likely to reach the clergy with very few cross- lights upon his fame. That man is one who should set himseli to oppose not this or that religious newspaper or party, but the whole scheme and system of religious newspapers as a whole. Moreover, as the great body of the laity do not much con- cern themselves in these matters, and naturally take their cue from those who do, it is tolerably certain that not the clergy only, but the vast mass of those who trouble themselves at all with the name of such a man will obtain a not quite unbiassed view of the nature of his belief, of his character, and of his life. Hence it happened that the most curiously diversified reports of my father's opinions began from this time, and continued subsequently to spread wherever his name was known. I do not think it would be possible to name a sect, or party, or form of dissent, or form of heresy to which he was not at some time or other asserted by some very grave and reverend person to belong. Much of this, however, is of the after-time. That which is of this moment is the fact that all these things were R 2 2/14 Why He Waged the War. CHAP. xv. as evident and as certain in the year 1836 as they are in 1881, and that it was with the deliberate conviction that they were so that my father made his attack upon the religious newspaper writers generally, and notably upon the ' Record,' first in his ' Letters to a Quaker,' and more specifically somewhat later when he published them in volumes, with a preface. He had had in his private experience, as his correspondence will occasionally indicate, reason to be aware of the extent to which the writers of the ' Record ' propagated among their readers bitterness and strife under the name of religion, and of the mischief which they did in families. He believed them to be the great evil of the time among so-called religious people, and therefore no consciousness of their power to leave a false impression of him interfered with his determination to fight them at every opportunity. The war on his part was distinctly one of aggression. None of them had attacked him at the moment when he denounced them. Their subsequent attacks on him were a necessary part of their existence. If they could not crush him it was certain that sooner or later the effect of his constant protest against them, enforced as it was by the examples which they weekly supplied, and gathering in strength, as it necessarily would, from the words of all who cared more for something else than for momentary popularity in the re- ligious world, must, in the long run, diminish their power and lessen their sale. They were bound, therefore, to oppose him by their natural weapons, and these they from this time onwards applied against him without stint or scruple. Throughout the first ten months of 1838, he was continuing the ' Kingdom of Christ ' in successive tracts, his wife acting usually as his amanuensis. The Pusey episode has perhaps tended to give too much importance to the Tract on Baptism which was the second only out of twelve. But there can be no doubt that the principle of all was involved in the issue raised in it ; whether the Church is exclusive or inclusive ; whether its great privilege is that it confers certain selfish advantages on its members, or that it is the representative of what is true for all mankind. The book as a whole is a vindication of the 1838. A Letter, Partly AutobiograpJdcal. 245 position of the Catholic Church as the " spiritual constitution " designed to maintain both human and divine relationships. Towards the end of the year the book was published in three volumes. As to taking Orders under a sense of inadequate intensity of Feeling. 'Guy's Hospital, February 14, 1838. ' MY DEAR MR. WOOLLCOMBE, ' I have been much longer than I intended in answering your very interesting letter, partly perhaps because I was loath to convince you how much you have been deceived by the flattering reports of kind friends as to my capacity for entering into the difficulties of other men and removing them. But I cannot any longer delay to thank you for a communication, which, if it produce no very valuable return to yourself, has been at least, and this I am sure [will] be some comfort to you, pleasant and profitable to me. I believe I was kept at least a year from taking orders by that state of feeling which you so faithfully describe. I would willingly have exchanged it, not only for the most agonising sense of responsibility that I desired but for the most violent temptations to outward evil or the most distressing scruples about doctrine. ' A bitter recollection of past sins, or dread of the future, I should have understood, and have believed that it was neces- sary to give me an apprehension of the like feelings in others. But this no-feeling, this utter heartlessness and lovelessness seemed to me a clear proof that I could not be called to the work, and that I should be merely yielding to outward induce- ments or carnal desires if I engaged in it. Would you believe it? In times of great despondency, since I have been in the church, I have found that this particular trial was a more sure witness to me of an inward call, a more precious, practical initiation into a truth, without which my life would have been a dream, than the most pleasant feeling, the most affecting 246 The Age and the Preceding Age. CHAP. xv. sense of Christ's love could have been. To know that God does not depend upon our feelings, but our feelings upon God, to know that we must claim a certain spiritual position as our right before we can realise it in our apprehensions, to be assured that we have the Spirit of God within us, and that He is distinct from all the emotions, energies, affections, sympathies in our minds, the only source and inspirer of them all, this is most necessary for us, the peculiar necessity, if I am not mistaken, of this age. To learn that what they could grasp by faith was theirs, was the task of our forefathers ; it is a precious truth which they have left to us, and we must not let it go. To learn that there is a substance for faith to lay hold of, and that faith does not create this substance; that there is a deep ground and source of faith deeper of course than all the acts which proceed from it, this is our task. The consciousness of positive, tangible evil drove them to their truth : the consciousness of an unutterable hollowness of heart, a consciousness that seems like strangest unconscious- ness, and yet at the furthest remove from it, because it is not simple and innocent, this seems the appointed path to ours. Through it, I suppose, not perhaps every Christian, but almost every Christian Minister in this day, must at some time or other pass, and, what is more, I do not fancy that till our life's end we shall find where it terminates. But of this I am well assured, that the truth which we learn by walking in it is strength to support us through it The confidence of a power always at work within us, manifesting itself in our powerless- ness, a love filling up our lovelessness, a wisdom surmounting our folly, the knowledge of our right to glory in this love, power, and wisdom, the certainty that we can do all righteous acts by submitting to this Righteous Being, and that we do them best when we walk in a line chosen for us, and not of our choosing, this is the strength surely, and nothing else, which carries us through earth and lifts us to heaven. 'And here is the answer to your second series of diffi- culties, those which arise out of your tendency to look at all questions as merely puzzles for the intellect This tendency 1838. The Spirit of Truth. 247 is, I suppose, in most of us. But we cannot gratify it, we may try as hard as we will, but that discipline of which I have spoken does, in spite of us, bring all, who desire not to resist it, into another state of mind altogether. ' There are some who would give us only the husks of truths in systems ; there are who would give us only the juice of truths in feelings and sympathies. ' The Spirit of Truth will not suffer us to be content with either gift, nor yet to be alternately choosing one and the other. He compels us to feel that the whole truth, in all its substance, in all its juiciness, lies at the roots of our own being, and sustains it. 'I have given you an instance in the demonstration by which the truth of the distinct Personality of the Holy Ghost is brought home to us ; and when this truth is once cheerfully received, every other is appreciated by degrees in the like manner. And assuredly this is, after all, but that of which our baptism has been all along testifying, and which God, by the other sacrament, will settle and ground us in, let our intellects struggle against it as much as they will. Meantime, it is the wisdom of a cultivated layman, it is the solemn duty of a Christian priest, to give that intellect its proper employment in examining the history of opinions and heresies; of all studies, I fancy the most profitable and the most helpful to a mind which starts with great moral and spiritual wants, and does not expect that any one but God can satisfy them. It signifies little what are your text books ; those in which the Bishop examines Pearson or Hooker will be quite as good for authors as any which we could invent for ourselves. ' As to episcopacy, I certainly should encourage every one to ask for the 8ton, as well as the on, but he must start with the on, he must believe that he has a position, and not begin with abandoning it. I should say the same to a Presbyterian. Start from your own ground, do not give up anything you hold now; get as much more to strengthen it with as you can. Having adopted this precaution, I have no fear of his not finding that episcopacy is necessary to the idea of a Church. 248 Episcopacy. CHAP. xv. I have no doubt of his perceiving that without the third order, the grand truth of Christ's own episcopacy is lost sight of and becomes a mere dream ; that comprehension and universality cease to be constituents of the Church ; and that, as a con- sequence, Christianity becomes a notion or doctrine, instead of a kingdom. With these internal reasons for episcopacy, the external facts and authority in support of it will assume quite a new weight and character, and this faith too will become that of his being as well as of his creed. I shall be truly happy if these few hints are of any use to you. 'I shall be very glad whenever you have the kindness to write, and will answer as well as I can.' To Rev. Julius Hare. ' Guy's Hospital, March 3, 1838. * I do not know whether it was a greater delight to us all to receive your kind presents than to see the books actually in print which we had been so long inquiring after, and had almost despaired of. My sisters beg me to express their most grateful thanks to you for your remembrance of them. Among them I must include Susan Sterling, who thanks you on behalf of herself and her husband. To all of us it is most pleasant to think of the book in connection with Hurstmonceaux, which is one of the places that we travel to most frequently, though not in coaches. I cannot tell you how much pleasure it gives us all to hear that there is a chance of your coming to us in that other way, which, though vulgarer, is sometimes more satisfactory. 'I shall take the liberty of making an extract from the passage about " Thou," in my next tract, which will want all helps to make it respectable. Your remarks bear so much upon the subject immediately under my consideration, as well as upon the Quaker controversy generally, that I could not resist the temptation. I believe I differ from you a little in thinking George Fox only wrong in resisting a usage. I seem 1838. " You " and " Thou." 249 to perceive a real worth in the "you," which the "thou," does not possess, though it undoubtedly expresses a truth of its own which is most important to remember. The " you " strikes me as the Catholic, the " thou " as the Ethnic symbol.' To which Hare replies on March 5th : ' Your finding the Catholic spirit in you amuses me much. One might have been sure that you would do so. Coke's thou-ing Raleigh, then, was equivalent to excommunicating him. I have to thank you for your second volume ; all but the last letter I knew before. With great part, with all that is essential in the last, you have my hearty concurrence. But I cannot at all agree in your view of Neander. The great charm of his books to me has always been his view of Christian life, as exemplified in every modification of human character, leavening, purifying and exalting them all. The saying that he " leaves out the facts," looks to me like a mere point to bring him in as a representative of your third view. I hardly know how he could have well given more of a history, as you observe, in the first three centuries ; and I think you will find that your remark does not apply at all to the subsequent volumes, of which four more have been published some time. ' The idea of a visible Church, I allow, Neander wants, nor could a German well have it.' To which he, on March the 8th : F. D. M. to Julius Hare. * I am sorry if I spoke flippantly about Neander. It seemed to me that he had every merit which the other historians of whom I spoke wanted, but that he shared with them the defect of not having settled in his mind what that was of which he was purposing to write. His want of the idea of a Church I would have overlooked anywhere but in a history of a Church.' Mr. Carlyle had just begun lecturing in London, and was an 250 Mr. Carlyle. CHAP. xv. important element in life to my father at this time, as well from his relation to Sterling as on public grounds. They met in society not infrequently; always more and more antago- nistically. Up to a certain point they agreed exceedingly well : Carlyle always anxious to avoid the points of difference, my father never able to leave them alone, for reasons which the letters to Mr. Trench will in no small measure reveal. To Rev. R. C. Trench. 'July 16, 1838. ' Partly, I believe, from a kind of torpor, physical as well as mental, and partly, it may be, from the feeling of another kind of want which intellectual discourse does not satisfy, I am painfully conscious of an inability to enjoy, as I once could, my opportunities of intercourse with some valued and dear friends to whom I am under the deepest and most sacred obligations.* I have nothing to be proud of in this experience, as if it betokened some superiority in spiritual progress or attainments to others, but everything to humble me. For I find that my heaviness and discontent often find vent in most unkind speeches and thoughts, such as cannot have a high, but a most mundane or sub-mundane origin. But I make these confessions that you may understand how very much comfort I should have felt in the quiet and soothing atmo- sphere of a Christian family and a country parish ; and at the same time how very much I need that kind of help, which you, who can, I think, in some measure participate in these thoughts of mine, and yet know so well the value of that which they seem to disparage, are better able than any one to administer.' Mr. Strachey to Lady Louis. 'July 23, 1838. ' We talked about Carlyle, Coleridge, and the prophet Isaiah. Maurice says he has been more edified by Carlyle's Lectures * These allusions are nearly always to Sterling. 1838. "Truth" and "Facts? 251 than by anything he has heard for a long while, and that he has the greatest reverence for Carlyle, but that it is not re- ciprocal, for he is sure Carlyle thinks him a " sham" 1 Maurice seems to like the third volume of the " Literary Remains" (Coleridge's) better than I do, though he would probably agree with me in detailed objections. . . . He says it shows you the man. . . . He admits that the man speak- ing ex offitio is the truest man, the man in his perfection ; but he says that we are for the most part so artificial when in office that it needs to see a man out of it to know what is the real man. . . . Maurice thinks Coleridge was not a thorough Platonist ; his disregard for facts and preference for diagrams was not Platonic but Aristotelian. Socrates was a very plain matter-of-fact person.' ' August 20, 1838. *Mv DEAR STRACHEY, * * * * ' I was very much pleased with your annotation on Cole- ridge, which seemed to me very just and reasonable. Coleridge belonged to another generation than ours one of which the business was to indicate the preciousness of truths as distinct from facts. This function he performed marvellously well. It is very wrong to disparage either him or the matter-of- fact men of the last century. So far as either did his work right, he caught occasional glimpses of the principle realised by the other, sufficient to hinder him from walking in dark- ness. But I believe also that we are come upon an age in which truth without facts will be as impossible as facts without truth ; and that the attempt to set up either exclu- sively must be conducted in quite a different spirit from that which animated either Coleridge or the good men of the pre- ceding age, however the results may at times correspond. \Vhat you say of my tract in your last letter, and of my phi- losophy in this, is greatly exaggerated, and that you will in due time discover. I believe, so far as I am a.ble to keep my end in sight of reconciling the facts of Christianity with its 252 His own Work. J. S. Mill. CHAP. xv. principles, and of showing how both are required to satisfy the wants of men now, and explain those which history makes known to us, and how they can only co-exist and co-operate in a church, I shall do some good to persons in a certain state of mind. The sphere of my influence will be limited, I know from experience ; for many whom I had expected at least to understand me, I find have not the slightest dream of my purpose, but I do not aspire lo do more than act upon a very few who may act upon others, and perhaps to settle the minds of some innocent persons who had been confused by the truth or heresies of our day. ' I have read Mill's article on Bentham with a certain ad- miration qualified by a very uncomfortable apprehension that the writer is the most plausible of all speculators, and has the fewest earnest convictions ; I may wrong him, but the opinion has grown upon me, and has not been adopted without great reluctance. ' The circumference of his thoughts is enlarging continually. I wish they had a centre.' He was for the next two months at Hannington, near New- bury, having exchanged duties with Mr. Robert Dunn, in order to enable the latter to be with his father, who was dying. To Rev. R. C. Trench. 'Octobe-3i, 1838. * We only returned to town on Saturday evening last, having staid at Hannington till after the funeral of our dear friend Mr. Dunn. He had a most calm and happy departure. A few hours before, he was expressing almost rapture at the feeling of God's presence ; but a general peacefulness was the character of his last days, as it was of his life before. It is remarkable that he was heard constantly at night by those who sat up with him exclaiming, "Christ is the true God, the only God," as if this was his greatest comfort I think at one time there may have been a secret vein of Arianism in liis mind, or at least a tendency that way, which makes these 1838. Mr. Dunn. 253 expressions the more interesting. He was, on the whole, I think, the most finely-formed Christian man that I have ever seen ; and though many may have been more robust, he had much even of strength and endurance which did not appear till circumstances called for it. I am particularly thankful for having been able to take this duty, but I should much like to have seen him.' 'Guy's, November 9, 1838. 'Mv DEAR STRACHEY, ***** ' Could you contrive to come and spend a little time with us ? We are expecting Carlyle and his wife to dinner some day soon, and we shall try and get Scott to meet them ; if you could come and stay a week with us, you would be sure of seeing them, and the fatigue of coming would have time to go off. I drew up a collection of heads for ecclesiastical history for Mrs. Maurice, and in the course of them introduced some remarks on the different books of the New Testament. I do not know whether they are what you want, but such as I have give I thee. 'Fourth Period. From the birth of Christ to the destruction of the Jewish polity, A.D. 70. This period connects the old with the new world. It contains the history of the growth of the Christian kingdom out of the Jewish. First, we have ic four Gospels exhibiting the person of Him to whom the iw and the prophecies had been pointing Jesus Christ, the of David, the son of Abraham. In this character He is especially presented to us in St. Matthew's . Gospel. Mark mounces that his is the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God. He exhibits to us the living, acting Man, the Image of God in human flesh, rather than the Jewish King. Luke's primary object is to present Him as the Light to lighten the Gentiles, the Head of the new dispensation. John's is empha- tically the Christian Gospel, exhibiting the relation of Christ as the Head of humanity to Christ as the Son of God. The Acts of the Apostles describe the establishment of the kingdom in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 254 Characteristics of N. T Books CHAP. xv. Ghost; its assumption of the character of an universal kingdom by the preaching to the Gentiles, the different forms of opposition it meets with, which are so classified that it serves for a prophecy of the future condition of the Church as well as a history of the past The next documents relating to this period are the thirteen Epistles of St Paul, developing different leading ideas of Christianity in reference to the condition of different Churches. In that to the Romans is developed the idea of God's personal righteousness exhibited in Christ as a ground of faith, in contrast to the righteousness of mere law, which is a ground of fear and condemnation. In the first Epistle to the Corinthians is developed the idea of Church unity as resting in the person of Christ, and not in any theories or philosophy concerning Him. In the Epistle to the Galatians is developed the idea of the Christian covenant as the covenant of sonship in opposition to the Jewish covenant, the covenant of servitude. In the Epistle to the Ephesians is developed the idea of the Church as a constitution in Christ before all worlds. In the Epistle to the Philippians is developed the idea of Christian perfection, and of the Christian life as a continual progress towards the apprehension of it as already existing in Christ. In the Epistle to the Colossians is developed the idea of the headship of Christ and of the direct connection of men with Him in His risen glory. In the Epistle to the Thessalonians is developed the idea of the second coming of Christ. In the Epistles to Timothy and Titus is developed the idea of the ministerial and episcopal character. In the Epistle to the Hebrews is developed the idea of the priesthood of Christ The next set of documents are the Catholic Epistles of St. James, St. Peter, St. John, and St. Jude. St. James's Epistle develops the idea of the law of liberty, of the Christian admitted into the privilege and power of keeping God's commandments. It presents us with the other side of the idea of law from that which St. Paul takes of what St Paul himself calls the law of the Spirit of Life, in opposition to the law of the flesh. St. Peter's Epistles develop the idea of the Christian life in the 1839. And History in Them. 255 opposite form to that which is taken in the Epistle to the Philippians, not as the pursuit of a righteousness above our- selves but as in the submission to a power working upon us and in us. Of course, both ideas are assumed in both Epistles ; but in one the first is made prominent, in the other the second. The Epistle of St. John is the reconciliation and completion of the ideas which St. Paul, St. James and St. Peter have been bringing to light in the revelation of God's character, and of men as enabled by Christ to enter into com- munion with Him. It is emphatically the Sacramental Epistle. Finally we have the book of Revelation developing the com- plete idea of the Church, and of its relation to the kingdoms of the earth, and exhibiting the history of its triumphs over them. So far my MSS., in copying which I have written my pen somewhat into weakness, and have become, strange to say, somewhat unintelligible God bless you ! ' In my last letter, corrige " Established Church." I never used the words in my life at least, in the last ten years in my senses ; it should be " English." ' His wife was for a month at Hastings, from the middle of January to the middle of February 1839, with her sister Mrs. Sterling. To his Wife. 'Guy's, January 15, 1839. ' I did not know what to make of our room, it looked so sadly gloomy. But I trust I did in one way, and that the best, meet you there, and that I shall see you there very often, love, and one that is not, and yet is, always with you. I pray to be taught to pray for it and for you : and then others too come into my mind, and I rejoice that I can find no other home to leave you in but in that Love which compasses the Church and the universe. It startles and humbles, but does not make me despair to think how very little I have been living in the feeling of being under this canopy of love, and of the multi- tudes who have never known that it is theirs too. To possess 256 A Canopy of Love. CHAP. xv. this thought inwardly and to be able to utter it as we are meant to utter it, is my best desire for us both and for every one whom I care for. You will be pleased, I am sure, with John's kind and genial letter, which comes to me at once as a comfort and reproach. His comparison of our relations to those of Luther and Erasmus, caused me a kind of sadness which was not entirely removed by the reflection how absurdly little resemblance there was between me and the Christian hero, and the belief that he is not and will never be suffered to become a counterpart of the selfish dilettante. But if these were our respective positions, he would be wrong that I should feel the most alienation. Nothing is so savage and cruel as indifference. But he is not indifferent. " And neither man nor boy, nor aught that is at enmity with joy," will, by God's grace, ever succeed in making him so.' Also to his Wife. 'January 29, 1839. ' God bless you and it [the unborn infant], darling, and guide all your thoughts into peace. Next to its loving truth and hating all deceit like its mother, what I most desire for it is that it may be free from its father's restlessness, that it may have a deep and quiet spirit. Of course it is experience and purification that deepen the heart most; yet something of a feeling of an unfathomable life and mystery, which is both awful and lively, I think will be, or at least may be, in a child which is not forced to turn all its musings into outward religious expressions or into an unnatural and premature attempt minutely to examine and distinguish them. I hope, my love, we shall be preserved from overdoing as well as from neglecting. I think I have seen the mischief of that more even than of the other. Oh, what should we do, above all what shall we do, if there were not another still more mys- terious life dwelling in both of us than that which is now going on in you, and which indeed, as I have often thought, is God's great type of it ? I feel that all my life has been little more than a 1839. The First Principle of Education. 257 discipline into the belief that I have a flesh and a spirit, and that there is another Spirit dwelling with my spirit and willing to guide it into all good. I think it has pleased God by various inward experiences of my own weakness and folly to deepen that truth in me of late ; and as it has always seemed to me the very first principle of education, perhaps that may be the reason.' To Rev. R. C. Trench. 1 February 12, 1839. 'I have been very much pleased with all John's recent letters. He has been much delighted with Gladstone and Abeken and seems to get on well with Manning. All I hear of Abeken impresses me most favourably. I think I should much prefer him to Bunsen, though at present I know him only by report. Gladstone's book has disappointed me more than I like to confess, but he seems to be an excellent and really wise man. 'Have you seen Lamennais' last book, "Affaires de Rome"? It is worth reading and studying. I do hope he is an honest man, in spite of his wildness. This book is written on the whole calmly and earnestly.' To Rev. A. /. Scott. ' Guy's, February 20, (probably) 1839. 'My DEAR MR. SCOTT, * I owe you many thanks for your kind note last night. It has been a great pleasure to me to find that you have thought my tracts worthy of any attention, and I am still more pleased that you should give me an opportunity of explaining any passages in them which have seemed strange to you. 'I may as well begin by saying that, in practice, I have always wished for the acquaintance of any Christian who <^id not dislike to be acquainted with me ; and though I certainly might have fallen into this course from indolence or desire of society, or, what I believe would influence me more than either, the feeling that I should be guilty of very offensive VOL. i. s 258 TJte Ground of Human Fellowship, CHAP. xv. presumption if I did not account it a kindness in any one to consort with me, yet I could not with any comfort have per- severed in a practice which I was unable to justify upon prin- ciple. So far from having any difficulty in doing this, it would be a gross departure from my notions of Churchmanship if I put any restriction upon myself in this particular. ' I have endeavoured in my tracts to prove that if Christ be really the head of every man, and if He really have taken human flesh, there is ground for a universal fellowship among men Ca fellowship that is itself the foundation of those par- ticular fellowships of the nation and the family, which I also consider sacred). I have maintained that it is the business of a Church to assert this ground of universal fellowship ; that it ought to make men understand and feel how possible it is for men as men to fraternise in Christ ; how impossible it is to fraternise, except in Him. Now the denial of a universal head is practically the denial of all communion in society. This universal fellowship in Christ, I believe that the Church of England asserts by its ordinances ; and believing this (rightly or wrongly), I feel that I am bound as a good member of that Church not to narrow my terms of intercourse or fellowship. I meet men as men because I feel that I have a ground on which I can meet them, and that this is the deepest, safest ground of all. If they do not acknowledge it distinctly, or even if by their works they deny it, I may still hope in some way or other, by God's blessing, to make them conscious of it If they do acknowledge it, and exhibit the practical results of the acknowledgment, I have as strong and full a sympathy with them as my own miserably imperfect and feeble apprehension of the truth on which we stand permits. If the person whom I thus meet fraternises elsewhere, on another principle, that is nothing to me. Still less does it signify to me that he may support in conversation certain theological theses to which I cannot assent, or may deny doctrines which I hold very earnestly. I should make no compromise, I should hope to be enabled to tell him honestly what I think, but my friendship with him would not be interrupted : or, if it were, I should 1839- Is it Union in a "Common Christianity" 259 attribute the breach to my infirmity of temper, and not boast of it as a sacrifice to duty. This would be my way of acting in society. ' But if the same person said to me, " Let us meet to- morrow at some meeting of the Bible Society ; I am an In- dependent, or a Baptist, or a Quaker; you, I know are an Episcopalian; but let us forget our differences and meet on the ground of our common Christianity," I should say, in- stantly, " I will do no such thing ; I consider that your whole scheme is a flat contradiction and lie. You come forward with the avowal that you fraternise on some other ground than that of our union in Christ, and then you ask me to fraternise with you on that ground. I consider your sects one and all of them as an outrage on the Christian principle, as a denial of it And what is the common Christianity which you speak of? The mere caput mortuum of all systems ! You do not really mean us to unite in Christ as being members of His body ; you mean us to unite in holding certain notions about Christ ; just as you hold certain peculiar notions about baptism, the independence of congregations, &c. But you say I am an Episcopalian. It is true ; I acknowledge the authority of bishops. But I do not fraternise in the belief of the authority of bishops. I would refuse the right hand of fellowship to any one who asked me to stand with him on that ground, as I now refuse it to you. If you do not understand this ; if you cannot see that just as I meet Englishmen, not on the ground that I agree with them in thinking a limited monarchy the best form of government (though I may think that), but on the ground of our being Englishmen, of our having the same Queen, the same laws, the same ancestors, recollections, associations, language, so I meet Churchmen on the ground of our being Churchmen, of our having one head, of our having the same relation to an innumerable company of spirits that are on the earth and that have left the earth. If you cannot perceive this, I see more clearly than ever what your sect system has done for you ; I see more need than ever of protesting against it by word and deed, in season and out of season." s 2 260 Or Union under the King of Men? CHAP. xv. ' I trust that this statement will enable you to see what I meant by meeting " sects as sects." and why I accused Mr. Noel of a contradiction in inviting us to acknowledge ourselves members of a sect that we might associate with the good men who belong to the sects. I think, also, you will see how I might allow " sects as sects," the very existence of separation, to have done good as " volcanoes and tornadoes have done good," while yet I could confess far more cheerfully that every good man in every sect has done good of quite another kind, especially by being a constant witness against sectarianism. ' I wished to have said more, but I have troubled you more than enough already, and will only add how much I rejoice at the prospect of your lectures being printed, and how much I thank you for your promise of a copy.' ' End of February, 1839. 'Mv DEAR STRACHEY, ' First, I must heartily condole with you on the un- comfortable change in your leg. Of course you expected, in theory, such variations ; but they are not the less dishearten- ing when they actually appear. And the very word dishearten- ing imports that they must affect more than the physical frame ; that they do touch the heart. It is the sheerest impertinence and falsehood to deny this fact, and the most foolish cowardice not to look at it steadfastly. This you have often done ; and no doubt it was the conviction of the utter uncertainty and deceitfulness of these states and frames of mind, which are thus affected by the states and frames of body, that drove you to look at the fixed framework of ordinances as affording a much surer witness of your true condition, and an almost infallible means of preserving you in it. Some oscillations between the purely subjective Christianity of your earlier life and that which is embodied in outward institutions, you may in theory have anticipated, as you anticipated these changes in your bodily health. But still you thought you had so much passed through one set of feelings and obtained the fruit of them, that a necessity for experiencing them again was not 1839. Battle between Flesh and Spirit. 261 likely to recur. Thus we map out our future history, and we would reduce it, if we could, into a mere history. We would, if we could, take the life out of it, and not make it our actual experience, the true fruit of patience, and the immediate an- cestor of hope. But this must not be. If ordinances witness to anything, it is to the battle between the flesh and spirit, to the fact that the flesh is not subject to the law of God, neither can be ; to the fact that we may walk and live in the Spirit, and that this is our true state, our only fixed state ; and how can the existence of ordinances dispense with that very thing of which they are the outward testimony? Do they then become useless ? Far from it Then when we feel that this conflict is not a dream but a reality ; that the tempests we wot of are not the " tempests of a painted ship upon a painted ocean " : but of an actual spirit- sometimes spectre-ship upon a real ocean ; then ordinances come in to declare that there is a rest for the people of God, not in them, but in Him who was, and is, and is to come, the unchangeable Being whom they in their poor way seek to set forth to man in the midst of all his changeable- ness and perplexity. That which ordinances serve for, is to take truths out of the world of abstractions and bring them in contact with human creatures ; to make men understand the exceeding truthfulness of truth by seeing it brought to bear upon all their untruthfulness and inconsistencies. But if, losing sight of this great purpose for which ordinances have been established, we either regard them merely as means to the end of our improvement, our sanctification ; or, as themselves ends (whereas they are the abiding testimony to the fact that God is, and that because He lives we live, and therefore are meant to take us off from ourselves and from themselves to Him), we must be reminded continually of our mistake by finding that they do not work the effect we look for, or serve as substitutes for life. Such, my dear friend, it seems to me, is the nature of the perplexity which you and hundreds are now suffering from, and which takes various forms accord- ing to the circumstances and temperament of the sufferers. In some the confusion is of a more intellectual character. 262 Facts and Doctrines about Facts. CHAP. xv. They do not see the grand fact of our justification in Christ as %.faet; they turn it into a doctrine, or view it in its effects. In others it is the result of substituting the delight of know- ledge and discovery for the things known and discovered. This is my temptation and perhaps yours. God deliver us from it for His Son's sake.' ' April 1839. ' MY DEAR STRACHEY, ' I was truly rejoiced that anything I was enabled to say had been a comfort to you, and still more that you were kept in that faith of being justified before God, which I feel more and more is the beginning not only of all peace but of all right thought and action. I am often disposed to feel an indigna- tion which is not holy, or but partially so, against those who in our days are turning this great staff of life into a reed. Nay, sometimes, when I read their perverse misinterpretations of the connection between baptism and justification, turning the permanent witness for it, to those who want it, into a momentary act by which , it is conferred upon those who want it not, I am ashamed of myself for even speaking favourably or courteously of them. But this is wrong. To rob us of the belief in justification, or to pretend that actual sin, from which it is the only deliverance, takes away the warrant for it, this is a great crime, and the death-bed of a humble Christian makes it seem to me a very terrible one. Still I have no hope of keeping this belief except by pressing forwards to the apprehension of truths which are not included in it; nor do I think it safe to deny that a confused eagerness after these truths has been one cause of the cruel injustice with which some are treating one that has been won for us by the labours of our forefathers, and that we ought most tenderly to preserve. The truths to which I allude are those which relate to our position as members of a body ; citizens of a kingdom ; our right to claim this membership or citizenship ; to tell the adversary that we are not under his yoke, not responsible to him for our sins; that it is against God our 1839- Justification. What is it 1 263 Father, and Him only, that we have sinned. This rests upon our being justified by Christ's resurrection, and is assured to us in our baptism. But our neglect of duty towards Him who has redeemed and justified and sanctified us, our selfish acts and selfish omissions towards our brethren, these belong to our confessions before God, and not to our conflicts with the enemy. The greatest departure from our standard of Christian fellowship is not a warrant for turning away from God and distrusting Him, but a reason for trusting Him more ; the least departure is a ground for humiliation and repentance, without this we are not satisfied. Our own spirits feel that they require it ; and this is a proof and token to us that we are brought into a perfect state a perfect position from which we cannot deviate in the least without suffering for it. Now we must learn to distinguish carefully, I conceive, between this and the other ; that is to say, we must learn never to humble ourselves before Satan, never to do any acts of re- pentance to him, which we do when we do not at all times and under all sins claim our justified position ; and to render all submission to our gracious forgiving Father, chiefly for our want of graciousness and forgiveness. The aim of our life is so to keep up the sense of His forgiveness and love in our minds that they shall be a continual terror and shame to us in all our want of forgiveness and love. But there is also another : to apply the idea of God's satisfaction with us as a body in Christ, so that it shall be, on the one hand, an encouragement to us always to approach Him in confidence, claiming the privilege of that body ; and, on the other, to keep us from all acts of our individual will which cut us off from the body, and therefore make it impossible for us to feel His satisfaction with us, or to be satisfied with Him. Now if you will think of these things, the meaning of those pages which have puzzled you will, I think, become evident without particular explanations.' Early in April 1839 occurred the death of Elizabeth, the eldest of the family, the one who had almost from the beginning joined the English Church. There were many 264 Death of Elizabeth. CHAP. xv circumstances in her life which had tended gradually to mellow and soften her character. Her story, could it be told, would be one of much nobleness and much sadness. During the years between the time of my father's ordination and his marriage she had exercised over him a very important in- fluence. She bridged for him to no inconsiderable extent the passage from the somewhat narrow pietism of his early family life towards wider thoughts that were continually pressing him onwards. One feature of those years which is recorded by all were the fits of intense mental depression into which from time to time he passed. One of those who then knew him best Mr. Samuel Clark has told me that he had no doubt whatever that the fits of depression were due to a struggle between the influence of that pietism and other feelings those, no doubt, which show themselves in iny father's letter to his mother given on pages 154-157. Another friend tells me that my father himself spoke to him of the influence which at this time and under these cir- cumstances (not, of course, fully referred to between them) his sister Elizabeth exercised over him. Her letters to him remain in my hands, and explain clearly the nature of the influence. It is rather eager sympathy, giving him courage to trust to lessons which as he believed he was learning from a higher tutor, than anything very original in her, that is the important element. Seeing that pietism for him embodied itself in his sister Emma, it will not be difficult to realise how much he needed among those who loved and revered her as he did some one who should press him forward. I have preferred to record these facts at the moment when Elizabeth's death is mentioned rather than earlier, because the whole matter is one of suggestion, not of history, and it is entirely connected with her. Thoughts about Child. 26$ To Rev. R. C. Trench. ( Written after the birth of a still-born child.) ' Guy's, April 10, 1839. ' Our little infant was a girl, and I believe no one who saw its marble face will think I am wrong in saying that it spoke of life and character. ' I do not know what the judgment of the Church is, but I could not look upon it without believing that a spirit had been within it, and that it was gone home to its Father's house, and would one day come again with Christ and His saints. ' I had certainly a strong temptation to such a faith, and I suppose no parent could easily think otherwise. But yet I cannot but think it is reasonable, and it would unsettle my understanding as much as my affections to connect the ex- pression I saw on its features for three days with mere animal life. ' If it be true that the mysterious food of the Eucharist nourishes the body as well as the soul of the faithful receiver unto life eternal, may it not be that this [word torn out] is sustained by the same means for the same glorious end ? that, as it partakes of its mother's fears, sorrows, and sicknesses, it also is blessed by her faith, and by all which is given for the satisfaction of that faith ? The thought is to me awful and encouraging, and, so far as it is so, I suppose it has a test of being true. I believe I could not entertain that, or any other thought, or feel it to be the least pleasant, merely as a fancy.' 'Guy's, April 17, 1839. ' MY DEAR STRACHEY, ' Our little still infant had a very delicate and beautful countenance, and its form was, I believe and hope, the shrine of a spirit which has its dwelling somewhere else, though not here. It is a mystery so all our life is ; but I do not know that it is harder to believe this than the wonders which we must believe respecting ourselves,' 266 The Aim of Life. CHAP, xv, ' Guy's, May 25, 1839. MY DEAR STRACHEY, ' Sterling, I take it, will be at Clifton the week after next I hope you may see something of each other. His residence abroad has done him good in many ways, and if you are not mutually determined to get on uneven ground which is not wise, as I know you will find enough to sym- pathise in. My own nature is very prickly and disputatious, but it has caused me so very much trouble, such bitter present pain, from the conflicts into which it has brought me with others, and such remorse in the retrospection, that I hope I am now become more watchful and determined, so far as in me lies, to live peaceably with all. One can find enough that is not good and pleasant in all; the art is to detect in them the good thing which God has put into each, and means each to show forth. You must practise this art with your Bristol clergy. The Church is in a sad state ; we all know that, little light, little life. So much the more careful should we be not to quench any that there is. Our great misery has been our resolute worship of our own notions, our hatred of every notion that clashed with them. If we have begun to see this, and to feel the real importance of fellowship in a person instead of a notion, it will not do to make that discovery into a notion too, and to break our neighbours' heads with it. I know I am preaching what I prac- tise very miserably, nay, scarcely at all. But in my inmost heart I wish to practise it, and to stir up all persons to do the like. I think a great responsibility is laid upon those who have any vital perceptions as to the nature and conditions of Church unity, to see that they keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, using their intellects to help forward spiritual fellowship, as intellects have been used to disturb it. We know that the Word of Wisdom does dwell in all ; in those who kick against that very doctrine as in those who receive it ; the reception of the doctrine being, indeed, in their account everything, not in ours. To make them aware of its presence, to bring them to 1839. The Aim of Life. 267 submit to it, and for this end to sympathise with whatever of light there is in them, however hidden under dark notions of life, however stifled by unkind and uncharitable surmises, must be our aim. I cannot tell you how hard I find this to be : nothing, I believe, but the daily, hourly discovery that there is a depth of darkness and death in myself, which at least I do not know of in any other, and that there are the sparks of light and the anouncements of life in others, to which there is little corresponding within, would save me from most intolerable conceit and dogmatism. These frightful disclosures God in His mercy appoints for me ; and so they be compensated as I am bound to hope against hope that they will be, by such dis- closures of His own excellence and beauty as shall fully raise me out of self and transfigure me into His likeness, I have abundant reason for thankfulness. But I must believe that all want this as well as myself; and if none deserve it less, I should have some of the same confidence in asking that all may re- ceive it. I have got into this train of talking I know not how, instead of answering your particular request about a book on the importance of a learned ministry, which I believe I am so far competent to write that, being a minister, I feel the want of learning most grievously. I fancy I must get love first, and then, possibly, in this or in some other sphere, I may have learning added. At present I lack both.' 268 State of the Country. CHAJP. xvi CHAPTER XVI. " They are not debates about propositions ; they are debates carried on in the mind and heart of the sufferer." F. D, M., Cambridge, 1 866. 839 SUMMER AND AUTUMN CHARTISM EDUCATIONAL MOVE- MENT LECTURES ON EDUCATION HAS THE CHURCH OR THE STATE THE POWER TO EDUCATE THE NATION? 1840 ' EDUCATIONAL MAGAZINE ' APPOINTED PROFESSOR OF ENG- LISH LITERATURE AT KING'S COLLEGE VISITS SWITZERLAND. THE year 1839 is memorable for many reasons, but the point at which my father's life then touched the general course of English history most closely was this. The state of the country had by no means improved. Chartism and Socialism were becoming yearly more powerful. As early as 1834 the move- ment that had followed on the passage of the Reform Bill had broken to pieces on the Irish Question. A reaction had set in which had arrayed the working classes more especially against that portion of the people which had obtained its enfranchise- ment by the Reform Bill. Robert Owen had become the mouthpiece and the organiser of this discontent. He was much more the advocate of large and general principles, much less of a mere agitator against present distresses than O'Connell. The principles which Owen advocated were avowedly subver- sive of all existing social order. They were obtaining yearly a greater and greater hold upon the mass of the poor. The question was, How were they to be met? All manner of attempts at repression carried on through a number of years had already hopelessly failed to uproot the evil. A general 1839. National Education. 269 feeling had been developed to which the Queen herself* in con- versation with Lord Melbourne seems to have been the first to give something like public expression that education in some form or other must be tried. Commencing as early as 1833, ^20,000 a year had been granted annually. In 1839, ;3> 00 were granted, but government inspection was insisted on.f The subject of national education was one on which my father's mind had been occupied for years. Every time he had published anything he had been drawn into allusions to this question from the days of the ' Metropolitan ' and ' Athenasum ' onwards. ' Eustace Conway ' was full of discus- sions about education. In ' Subscription no Bondage ' he had maintained that it was essential to education, that there should be a study which bound all other studies together and made them one ; and that theology, rightly undersood as the study of existing facts, was the one fitted for the purpose. In the ' Kingdom of Christ ' he maintained the existence of the Church under two aspects one as a great social organisa- tion, the other as a great educational organisation. He had summed up " the duty which the State owes to the Church " in the words, " It is simply this, to give the Church free scope to educate the people " (Vol. iii. p. 213, ist ed.). The very essence of his idea of baptism was, that it intro- duced the child into the first dawn of that light by which it was gradually to be trained to see truths as they were for it and all mankind. Here then in 1839 the matter seemed to be coming to an issue. What was the education required by the nation ? How was the education, the necessity of which all recog- nised, to be given to the nation ? The circumstances which actually produced the lectures subsequently published under the title ' Has the Church or the State the Power to Educate the Nation?' are mentioned in the next letters. * Torrens, 'Life of Lord Melbourne,' vol. ii. p. 309. t Mr. Torrens, p. 309, leaves a contrary impression that 1839 was the date of the first grant, but the above are the facts. 270 Lectures on Education. CHAP. xvi. Mrs. F. D. Maurice to Miss Georgiana Hare. 'June 24, 1839. 'I suppose it was from the papers that Julius heard of Frederick's lectures, for they wereadvertised the week before last They were undertaken somewhat in a hurry. Frederick had been thinking a good deal about the plan for the national schools, which you may remember having heard Mr. Acland speak about when you were with us, and about which several others of his friends are interested, and he was wishing that he had it in his power to help the work they were about in some way, when it occurred to him that it might perhaps be of use if he were to lecture on the subject of education, and that he could give whatever he made by his lectures to the benefit of the schools. On his mentioning it to Mr. Acland and some others they took it up very warmly and urged his beginning directly, as they feared people would be going out of town before they were begun, if he delayed about it. Accordingly he decided on giving his first lecture on Tuesday last; and they were actually advertised before a page of the lecture was written, for he had lost nearly a week in seeing after rooms to lecture and tickets being printed, and such like preparatory work, for which he is not particularly well suited. I really began to fear that the lecture would not have been written at all, and he was far too nervous to have trusted himself to give it extempore. However it was all written, and so was the second, which was given on Saturday; and though I say it, they were both very interesting.' From F. D. M. ' Guy's, August 5, 1839. 'My DEAR STRACHEY, ' My lectures will tell you on what subject my thoughts have been mainly occupied since I last heard from you. At that time I had not even thought of them ; so that they have been composed in far too great a hurry to deserve any permanent 1839- His own Work. 271 reputation. But for that, as I have often told you, I do not seek : not in the sense of despising it, for future esteem is better than present, even on moral grounds, because the chances are very great that the person who obtains that has proposed it to himself as an aim ; but because I believe my business is rather to take advantage of passing occasions, and to treat of them with something of the earnestness and principle which are generally reserved for what belongs to all times. I look to my books dying after a few years, perhaps a few months, not of violent popularity such as, of course, kills rapidly, but of more lingering, comparatively unnoticed exis- tence. Still I have no doubt at all that they are to do some- thing ; and that something will go forth from them into other men which will not die, but will be a portion of the life of their minds and will prepare them for receiving truths much more clearly and perfectly revealed. If, for instance, I have helped any one to feel that there is an eternal connection between history and mystery ; that the persons who are seeking to separate them are seeking to destroy both the mere historian turning history into an old almanack, the mere mystics and mythics turning the invisible things, which are of all the most substantial, into an empty, gilded vapour ; or if I have succeeded in fixing this thought in any one's heart, that Christianity as expressed in the sacraments, the written word, and an apostolic ministry, is not a costume belonging to one age or country, but is just that which enables men to feel and know that there is anything which is not costume, anything which is eternal and unchange- able, and that with the loss of this, that faith will perish altogether ; if I have done this for any one, it signifies not to me the least how soon all the words which conveyed this impression are forgotten ; how soon they are regarded as poor and idle words. The thing I wish to do I have done ; I have furnished a few with a test, by which they will try the worth of much which they will hear very eloquently and dogmatically put forward in the present day, with a way of determining to their own satisfaction whether we or those who pretend to see deeply into the meaning of things really have most meaning ; 272 Self-Discipline. CHAP. xvi. whether we or they who pretend to look through all shapes and colours, at that which is essential are really most dimmed by every passing image and shadow and phantom. I do not know how I got into this long prose about myself which is ouSev Trpos Aiovuorov unless you should think some Diony- sian inspiration has prompted it, which however is not the case. You asked me some questions, I remember, in your last letter, which I have unfortunately mislaid ; but I think they were of a kind which I should be very incompetent to answer. I know very little of practical discipline, except my own grievous want of it. I think some direct curbing of the lower nature must be very needful, and that it must be connected with the rules and methods furnished by the Church, if we would not become proud of our own inventions and self-restraints. But I do not know myself how to set about it, and I have a dislike to binding burdens upon other men's shoulders, which I do not touch with my own little finger, and the discipline of one man can never in matters of detail be fit for another. A good flogging every morning I believe would be excellent for me, but I should by no means recommend you to practice it. The Protestant complaints of austerities often arise from great ignorance of man and a barbarous refinement ; nevertheless the immense peril of exalting rules into principles has been ascertained by long experience ; we must not discard rules for all that, above all let us avoid dogmatism, and peremptori- ness about the thoughts and feelings of other men who are in earnest, even that (to me most offensive kind of dogmatism) which consists in paying compliments to men for their good intentions, and ridiculing their wisdom. A mighty cheap way of getting credit for tolerance and sagacity together, and escaping from the obligation of attending to any suggestions which we find disagreeable ! ' But I have talked to you long enough in all conscience. Sterling writes to me with great commendations of Clifton, and expresses much pleasure in your society. I am very glad of this ; I am under greater personal obligations to him than to any other man; his kindness to me has be?xi more laborious, 1839- Sterling. 'Educational Magazine? 273 disinterested, and self-sacrificing than I believe any one ever showed or had experience of. My opportunities of convincing him that I think so, are very few. ... I am therefore doubly rejoiced when any who think kindly of me are able and willing to manifest this kindness to him ; I should value it far more than if done to myself.' The following letter to Hare will explain the fact that he and some friends in the beginning of September 1839 under- took a joint editorship of ' The Educational Magazine.' The " National Society " was founded in the year 1811, and received a charter for " the promotion of the education of the poor in the principles of the Established Church." Many of the facts connected with the history of the long struggle betwe-en the advocates of different methods of national education, which commenced from about this time and will be frequently referred to in these letters, have been recently brought out by Archdeacon Denison in his " Reminiscences." Of course his point of view is very different from my father's, but the documents given by him throw much light on the subjects my father discusses. To Rev. Julius Hare. ' Guy's, September 4, 1839. ' MY DEAR FRIEND, ' The accompanying Magazine is one which a few per- sons more or less connected with the National Society, though not pledged to support all its measures, have undertaken to conduct. ' It is a periodical of some standing, and has been conducted hitherto with no talent upon no principle. This is the only excuse for its barbarous title, "The Educational Magazine, and Journal of Scholastic Literature," which is to be reformed at the beginning of the year. The conductors of it are anxious to get all possible help for it, and suggestions respecting it, their desire being to make it as useful as they can, especially to masters of schools, who are in such terrible need of instruc- VOL. r. x 2/4 A Student, not a Critic. CHAP. xvi. tion. The first article in this number is mine. The Magazine will, I hope, be much improved even in the next number. If you could send us anything, it would, I need not say, be most gratefully received.' To Rev. Julius Hare. 1 Guy's, September 24, 1839. 'Mr DEAR FRIEND, ' . . . . I thank you much for your criticisms on the "Lectures on Education." I was aware of the extensive import which the word philosophy bears in Germany ; still I think from the representations of the persons most partial to their system it is regarded as a faculty, and not as a groundwork for education in all the faculties. This seems to me the characteristic difference between their well worked, but in principle I must think most defective, system and ours, which though little understood and in many respects very ill administered is, in my judgment, ideally perfect ' I have no doubt that I shall appear to attribute far toe much consciousness to the human authors of institutions Nevertheless, any one who really understands me will see that my cause would be better served if the divine origin and super- intendence of them were admitted and the wisdom of the agent were lost sight of, and consequently that I have fallen into the language you complain of through inadvertence or from not being able to find any other which would express my meaning, except in very tedious circumlocutions. I own I do not like in a criticism upon Shakespeare, to read such phrases as these : " I do not suppose the author meant this, but still I see it there ; " for in this way the poor one-sided observer is exalted above the master, who probably had not that particulai fragment of a thought present to him only because it was involved in some much deeper whole. And looking upon institutions, as acted or realised poems, I have been loath to imitate this tone in criticising them. I have preferred (when it was impossible formally to announce a principle which I 1839. A Student of Man and of a Spirit. 275 wish should always be taken for granted, that all we do which is good or permanent is done in us or through us, consciously or unconsciously, by a divine Spirit, with whom if we work cheerfully and obediently, the work thrives, if proudly and resistingly, it is marred) to seem to give the glory of inten- tion to the agent, rather than to take the glory of discovery to myself. ' About my scribblings in the Encyclopaedia, no one can feel more than I do how utterly unworthy they are of the subject. What I have aimed at in them is to give pictures of men thinking rather than the mere results of their thinking. If I had done this as satisfactorily as I have inadequately and feebly, I believe I should still have incurred the same charge from persons who look upon Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, as bundles of opinions, and not as living beings tormented with the same questionings of themselves and outward things which we are tormented with, of giving their name to creatures of my own imagination. I still think that something of this tone must be taken by a person writing on morals and metaphysics, though it may of course need not be taken by one incom- petent to sustain it.' His first article in the Magazine had been one in the form of a dialogue, on " Rewards and Punishments." It had expressed a dislike he always felt to the system of prizes and had pro- duced criticism, to which he thus replies : ' October 2, 1839. ' MY DEAR STRACHEY, ' Goulburn brought me the enclosed book, with a kind letter from Lady Louis. I liked very much what I saw of him. He seems to be free from Cambridge slang and conceit, and to have much of Cambridge affectionateness and generosity. ' I have not time to answer your objections to my Prize article. Indeed I am no hand at answering objections. That which I say, I suppose will do the good it is meant to do; and whether by exciting opposition to it or leading people to T 2 276 Sterling on Carlyle. CHAP. xvr. agree with me, probably signifies not much. Not that I at all underrated your arguments, which seemed to me able and ingenious, but the principle of a distinction between the flesh and the spirit is not exactly caught in them. The body is to have blessings, truly, but through the spirit ; and these prizes I do not see do much good to either except they should be coats and trousers. My spirit, accordingly, desires these for my body what time I am out at the elbows, or otherwise bare : but I see not why, if it is so kind as to have these wishes on its neighbour's behalf, it is to be damaged and put out at elbows itself in order that they may be gratified. And this is what prizes seem to me to do.' To Rev. R. C. Trench. October II. 1839. ' You will perhaps have read Sterling's article on Carlyle. If you have, I need not tell you how much pain it has caused me. I believe, if I could look at anything concerning him indifferently, I should say that he has reached a crisis of feeling which, in human language, was inevitable, and might, even with trembling, be glad that it has arrived as the only prepara- tion for something more permanent hereafter. But I do not always feel strength for such reflections, and, in the fear and strangeness of seeing a friend go back to a stage which he fancied that he had passed through long ago (without even knowing that it is the same), I should lose comfort if the feeling of my own sinfulness, and of being somehow upheld in spite of it, did not encourage me. John 'may think it a strange kind of comfort, yet perhaps you will understand me. To some of his friends at Cambridge I hope the utter vagueness of his statements may be of use, by showing them that in such they can never rest Meantime, he requires great kindness and soothing, for I am sure he is very restless and irritable.' The December number of the ' Educational Magazine' 1839. Opposition to Whigs, contains an article by Sterling, signed J. S., kindly challenging the position on the subject of education which my father was maintaining in the magazine. The same number contains an elaborate reply. The thing that my father most dreaded was the " attempt to treat a human being as composed of two. entities, one called religious, the other secular." He therefore, at first, disliked the idea of money received from the State lest it should bribe the clergy into accepting terms that he believed would vitiate the very principle on which they ought to educate the essential oneness of the whole purpose of education. He defended in the magazine the justice of a government inspection of the secular portion of the instruction, provided the scheme of the education, as a whole, was left to the man who was responsible for educating, not instructing. He opposed any attempt to plead for the Church as for a sect to be favoured. But as the government scheme of education was the subject which he looked upon for the moment as of the most vital importance, all his energies were devoted to opposing Lord Melbourne's government. He in one place speaks of it as "an administration feeble in talent, feeble in influence, opposed by nearly all classes in the nation, and supported by a majority of two in one branch of the legislature." * So fierce, indeed, was his opposition to the government, who were, as he thought at the time, striving to carry out the very project which he believed to be most mischievous, the transfer from the Church to the State of the education of the people that Hare wrote to complain of the partisan tone of the magazine. It was a severe blow to him that his friend Mr. Allen allowed himself to be named as one of the government in- spectors. The great practical point for which he was con- tending was this, that the government ought not to attempt to upset throughout the country the existing educational machinery, but should " encourage and awaken" whatever was effective for the purpose of national education. * 'Educational Magazine,' 1839, p. 74. 278 Carlyle's Chartism. CHAP. xvi. At the beginning of the new year the editorship of the magazine passed entirely into my father's hands. The three months of the paper for the end of 1839 had been largely filled by his writing. The reception which he was disposed to give to other views of the question of the day will perhaps be fairly shown in the following extract, Chartism. ' January 8. ' It seems now to be admitted by the intelligent men of all parties that Chartism is not extinguished, and that no powers with which an Attorney-General is invested, useful and im- portant as for some purposes they may be, are adequate to extinguish it. Indeed at the very time that an official speaker was announcing that it had been crushed by the arm of the law, an official pamphlet was affirming that it could only be crushed by secular education. ' We have seldom felt more delight than when we read this passage. It was the issue to which we have always longed the question should be brought. ' What education can avail best to put down Chartism ? By confuting its unrighteous pretensions, by satisfying its righteous demands. This is the education which the people of England want. Whatever it is called, from whatever quarter it comes, this is what they must have. ' Happily we have now a chance of seeing the question treated by a person who will, at all events, not be contented with a few loose phrases or plausible generalities. ' A work on Chartism is announced by Mr. Carlyle, the author of "The French Revolution." Certainly Churchmen have no reason to expect any great favour at his hands. He appears to have an hereditary national antipathy to them, which he cherishes so much the more fondly because it is almost his only remaining point of sympathy with those from whom it has been derived. ' But this is a matter of very little consequence ; and if we may judge from Mr. Carlyle's former writings, however much Let our Names Perish, but tlie Cause Prevail. 279 he may abuse Churchmen, he will be better able than most men to make us feel our need of a Church. In his " History of the French Revolution" he has borne more unconscious testimonies to the worth of a constitution, not based upon human ordinances and conventions, but upon a divine order j has given more proofs that the human heart can never be satisfied till it has discovered such a constitution, that the world can never be happy till it is acting in conformity with it, than any writer we know of. Such evidence at this time is quite invaluable. The Churchman must be a poor creature indeed who would not let an author laugh at him, hoot at him, and call him a hypocrite or a sham all his life through, that he might procure it We should be able to use from our hearts the words which one of Mr. Carlyle's bloodthirsty heroes spoke with his lips, " Let our names perish, but the cause prevail ; " or if we cannot, the sooner we are driven to this, and are taught to feel that our names are worth nothing except as they help forward the cause, the better it will be for us. We believe, therefore, that this book on Chartism, if it say nothing about education, may at least help us to know what manner of thing that education must be which is meant for a Chartist age.' To Rev. Julius Hare. ' Guy's, March 14, 1840. ' MY DEAR FRIEND, 'I heard from John Sterling the day before yesterday. He is very well, and has been out, I believe, every day for several hours during the last month. He says he is beginning to wish for a sprain that he may read and speculate a little. I hope he will not be permitted to do either just at present. Whether the reading would do him any good, I do not know, having no experience ; the speculation I am sure will not cure a cough. . . ' The article referred to below was that for the ' Encyclopaedia Metropolitana,' which was the germ of his ' Moral and Meta- physical Philosophy.' It will be found worth while to compare 2 So Carlyle. CHAP. xvr. the references to Carlyle in his letters to Mr. Strachey with those on the same subject to his wife. His exceeding anxiety not to put himself in opposition to an influence for which any younger man was grateful is most characteristic. Declining a Paper of Mr. Strachey 's on Carlyle. 'April 5, 1840. MY DEAR STRACHEY, c I finished my article on Thursday evening, and have now the feeling of the prisoner in the Bastille after the i4th of July. Not that I have any notion of going back into bondage by re- writing the article or beginning another ; but that I do not at all realise at present the immense comfort of being delivered. No reasonable man, or one caring the least for his reputation, would have promised to make a fool of himself by finishing such a treatise by the ist of April. But anything was better to me than a continuance of a labour which fretted me continually and made reading and thought impracticable, and often inter- fered with my ordinary business. The whole has been executed by fits and starts, but the sense of it has been upon me for nearly three years. ' As to Carlyle, I do not know I will think it over again ; but I fear I must not go out of my way to pay him compliments. There is no need of it, for his fame is most rampant, and men are beginning to talk and cant after him in all directions. Sewell, I hear, denounces him in his lectures, and Whewell is very indignant, and believes he is doing the greatest mischief. Hare has much the same opinion. So that I shall grieve friends, and perhaps only encourage what has need to be repressed. I am far from thinking it can be repressed except by sympathy and by the fullest acknowledgment of Carlyle's great merits. Therefore I object to Sewell, Whewell, and Hare. But I believe there is no need to bring him into notice ; that he attracts as much as is good for him or the world ; and that the best for both is, when he comes naturally in one's way, to say kindly and honestly what one thinks of him.' 1840. Two Projects in Hand. 281 ' Guy's, May 4, 1840. ' MY DEAR STRACHEY, The subject of Carlyle oftentimes oppresses me with great sadness, and I would not wish to speak of it, though this resolution cannot be kept, at least in London, at this time, among the persons I chiefly see ; for all are much interested in Carlyle, the two Wilberforces who are coming to us to-day especially. ' We have two projects in hand. One, and to me by far the pleasanter, if I could dare, which I do not, to think of any- thing as pleasant in itself apart from some moral law (in this case I hope not wanting), is to go to Switzerland this summer for six weeks, my mother-in-law, who is not very well, being there. The chief difficulty is about my duty. I cannot go unless I can find some one who is willing to take it clearly off my hands for six weeks or two months. I offer my house, perquisites, &c., and at the rate of ^"120 per annum. If you know any one who would like to come to London about the middle of June on such terms, and to take two full services on Sundays, prayers every day but Saturday, and visits to the wards, and who you think might be trusted with the work, I shall be very glad if you will tell me of him. I have some doubts, too, about the magazine. For that I would give up my stipend as editor & a month; but I don't know where to catch the man, as I don't like burdening my friends. Clark had made a very kind offer, but he has enough to do* My second act of audacity is to stand for the Professorship of English Literature and Modern History, now vacant at King's College. If I get this I shall probably keep quite clear of all writing for a long time to come, except for the Magazine, and that will be a great comfort. I am doubtful whether I ought to continue the Magazine, though I will not throw it up unless I can find some one very suitable. I had meant to say to you that writing so much has done me good. Indeed, letters to friends seem to me in one respect like prayers, that the natural man is most averse to them, and the inner man always helped by them.' 282 Carlyle's Lectures. CHAP. xvi. Extracts from Letters to his Wife. ' May 9, 1840. 'I performed my Westminster expedition yesterday, after going to Carlyle's with Priscilla. The lecture was by far the most animated and vehement I ever heard from him. It was a passionate defence of Mahomet from all the charges that have been brought against him, and a general panegyric upon him and his doctrine. He did not bring out any new maxim, but it was a much clearer and more emphatic commentary than the former lecture upon his two or three standing maxims : that no great man can be insincere ; that a doctrine which spreads must have truth in it ; and that this particular one was a vesture fitted to the time and circumstances of the common truths which belong to all religions. I felt throughout how much more kind and tolerant towards the truth in all forms of faith and opinion he can be and should be who does in his heart believe Jesus Christ to be the son of God, and that all systems are feeling after Him as the common centre of the world, than Carlyle can ever be while he regards the world as without a centre, and the doctrine of Christ's Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection, as only one of the mythical vestures in which certain notions which, without such a vesture, he secretly knows and confesses to be good-for-nothing abstrac- tions, have wrapt themselves up. At the same time the miserable vagueness into which he sometimes fell, his silly rant about the great bosom of Nature, which was repeated in this lecture several times, which, as you observed, he would laugh to scorn in any other man, together with the most monstrous confusions both intellectual and moral, even while he evidently wished to assert the distinction between right and wrong, convinced me whither his tolerance would lead in any mind in which it was not corrected, as it is in his, by a real abhor- rence of what is base and false, and by a recklessness of logical consistency, if so be he can bring out his different half-concep- tions in some strong expressive language. ' His inconsistencies, which some deprecate so much, seem 1840. On Carlyle. 283 to me to be the greatest providential blessings, explaining wherein he is false, and enabling us to receive his truth. His hearers seemed most willing to do this. He evidently thought he was saying very shocking things to bishops and archdeacons, yet the Bishop of Salisbury and Wilberforce both spoke to me of the lecture with great interest Mrs. Denison said she wanted to know what I thought about it, but there was not time then, which was just as well.' Also to his Wife, 'May 13, 1840. ' I know not how to tell you what an oppression I sometimes feel at the thought of what is coming on this generation. I feel it at Carlyle's lectures, especially in such wild pantheistic rant as that into which he fell at the close of yesterday's. And then I wonder how I can ever indulge in little bickerings and childish pettinesses when such perils are threatening some of the noblest and best spirits in the land. Dearest, pray that we may be kept thinking of high and earnest things, and so may do our common duties better, and may live in love. Yet the humblest of these trifles is salutary, too, and perhaps cures one of the big inanity of Pantheism better than more creditable discipline. The Scotts were at both the last lectures. It did me good to see him.' From Mrs, F, D. Maurice to Miss Georgina Hare, June 13, 1840. ' I know you will be glad to hear that Frederick was yesterday unanimously elected to the Professorship by the Council of King's College. Mr. Lonsdale, the Principal, told him that, when proposed by the Committee, he had been unanimously elected by them, and the same when proposed by them to the Council ; to say nothing of the warm and flatter- ing speeches which Sir Robert Inglis and Gladstone and others made on the occasion.' 284 Elected Professor at King's College. CHAP. xvi. He had been completely knocked up by overwork. His wife was not strong, and it had been settled that he should spend two months abroad to recover health, Mr. Strachey, Mr. Clark and Mr. Acland undertaking the Magazine during his absence. 'Guy's, June 13, 1840. ' MY DEAR STRACHEY, ***** ' I have, great reason to be thankful, and I hope I am, for both arrangements. That to which you have mainly contributed is more than usually pleasant to me ; not that I have formed any great expectations of Switzerland or the Rhine, but that I have felt the scheme to be a right and lawful one, and therefore that I may look for a blessing upon it. The greatest I desire is an open and thankful heart, to see and enter into what is beautiful, to confess God as the Author of it, and to feel that He is nearer to us than to all these things. I am sure that Nature is a teacher, and a great teacher, if so be we have been in another school first. It contains, at least, a prophecy of what we want ; and though it does not contain God, as the Pantheists would have us believe, it witnesses to us that He is ; and not merely that He is in some relation to us. I have seen something more of Carlyle lately, and feel in- creased interest in him. His utter unrest is, on the whole, a cheering, though a sad, symptom.' 'Berne, July 28, 1840. ' MY DEAR STRACHEY, ***** ' I have not much to tell you of what I have seen, as the ground I have travelled is one so well known. I have enjoyed it more than I fancied I should, having great mis- givings about my own hard nature, which has a singular incapacity for receiving impressions fully and cheerfully. It has helped me greatly that I have had a companion who has a quicker and livelier perception of the beauty of things, I think of their essential beauty, not merely their outward 1840. Lord Melbourne gives way. 285 picturesquet.ess, than any one I know, and who takes pains to call forth whatever of sympathy and life there is in me. To be a silent wonderer (not wanderer} would be, perhaps, the voca- tion I should prefer for the next few years. But it is not, I suppose, meant for me ; and if given must come with sickness, which you will tell me most truly that it is right to pray against, not for. I want much to hear from you what you are thinking and feeling about; what you are doing I partly know.' During the time he was away the principles for which he had been contending completely triumphed. The Govern- ment made an agreement with the National Society, through the Archbishop of Canterbury, by which they abandoned all claim to inspection of the religious education or of the general management, and agreed to consult with the archbishop as to the selection of inspectors. Under the circumstances, the friends who were editing the magazine in his absence con- sidered it best, in order not to commit him too absolutely to their own views, to announce the fact of his absence, and to insert two letters one by Mr. Acland, one by Mr. Wood stating the satisfaction with which they received the compro- mise. The following was his answer. It will be seen that at the time he had neither seen their articles or the terms of the agreement between the Government and the Bishops : ' MY DEAR CLARK, 'Berne, July 28, 1840. ' Many thanks for your kind letter which reached me on Sunday, and gave me great comfort. I am unable to judge from the uncertain reports I hear about the arrangement be- tween the Government and the Bishops, how far it is to be rejoiced in, sorrowed for, or merely submitted to. Much, no doubt, should be borne ; everything of mere personal indignity and I think, of positive risk, if it be only risk, as to future consequences ; everything, in short, but principle, for the sake of enabling the Church to be and to appear the friend and promoter of popular education. What I always fear of the 286 His Own Immediate Change of Front. CHAP. xvi. bishops is, uiat they will give up what is important for the sake of proving what is spurious, will sacrifice some principle which seems to be of no immediate value for the sake of some recognition of their own dignity, which is really of none or next to none ; but I hope this has not been the case. At all events, I can trust Acland and Wood to state their views, which cannot be substantially different from mine, even if they should chance to look at things from a different point.' Being satisfied of the bona fides of the attempt at reconcilia- tion, he became now most anxious that the clergy should not meet it with sectarian animosity, or play into the hands of a party ; that the utmost energy should be thrown into the work of education, and that the Universities in particular, as " the true National Church councils in educational matters," should undertake to regulate it. It is somewhat curious to read, in 1881, the variety of objections, as to the utter impracticability of this suggestion, which had to be met in 1840. To Rev. R. C. Trench. 'Lucerne, August 3, 1840. ' I have one unfinished letter to you lying by me, but the Wengern Alp, &c., have rather interfered with my correspon- dence in all directions. We have had much cause to be thankful for all the events of our journey, which has been, on the whole, a particularly prosperous and happy one, full of proofs of human kindness and of higher blessing, as well as of outward beauties. We saw much of the Bunsens at Berne, and found them even more kind than we expected. I do not know exactly the measure of his intellect, and have no proper gauge for ascertaining it; but his hearty affection and sym- pathies enable him to appropriate a vast number of subjects and to make others take an interest in them, of which, perhaps, he has not, in a strict logical sense, the mastery. I fancy it is a better kind of conquest than that which the mere under- standing achieves. ... He is rather cut off from society in 1840. Bitnsen, Vinet. Switzerland. 287 Switzerland, having the compensation of nearly the pleasantest house, with the noblest prospect, in the neighbourhood of Berne ; and therefore is, perhaps, still more ready than in former days to entertain strangers. From his account the political condition of Switzerland is sufficiently sad. The new democracies, which have established themselves since 1830, seem in the main stupid and brutal ; still there are elements of a better kind in it and the Zurich insurrection against Strauss and the infidel government which supported him, appears to have been moved and conducted by an inspiration worthy of the best days of this country. As might be expected, its con- troversies are those in miniature by which the rest of Europe is disturbed ; education being pretty much the centre of them, and others always involved with the question of the relations between Church and State. In Lausanne, Vinet, and the most intelligent of the evangelical Swiss are taking up a kind of nonjuring doctrine, and are apparently maintaining it with ability, though their theory is, as usual, very much the product of their circumstances. This temper has a curious counterpart in the Jesuitism of the Popish Cantons, where there is a body of national Romanists who are pressed by the infidel party on the one side and the overwhelming numbers of the Society on the other, and seem as yet to have found no safe resting-place. Bunsen seems more than ever to scout the notion of any Catholicism appearing in the heart of Romanism to subvert it, and expects no good except from a decidedly evangelical influence. At the same time he is convinced, and apparently on good grounds, that the Protestants in Germany are feeling after Catholic principle, and will not be content till it is incor- porated with their personal Christianity.' 288 Mr. Daniel Macmillan. CHAP. xvn. CHAPTER XVII. " It has the merit of suggesting really great works, written by men who have felt, thought, worked for themselves, and of giving the smallest possible encouragement to the use of digests and summaries, in which feebler men undertake to tell what was believed and taught by those whom they admire or dislike."* Inaugural Lecture, F. D. M., 1866. 1840 continued LECTURES AT KING'S COLLEGE ' EDUCATIONAL MAGAZINE' CARLYLE CONTEST AT CAMBRIDGE BETWEEN LORD LYTTELTON AND LORD LYNDHURST BIRTH OF A SON WORKING AT SECOND EDITION OF ' KINGDOM OF CHRIST ' CANON FARRAR'S REMINISCENCES OF THE HISTORY AND LITERATURE LECTURES AT KING'S COLLEGE. IN September 1840 my father received from Archdeacon Haret a letter which had been written to the latter by Mr. Daniel Macmillan, then a clerk in the publishing house of Mr. Seeley. It expressed forcibly the difficulties felt by the class of men around him, their dissatisfaction with current theology in all its forms, and their craving for some outspoken utterance that should put before them what they could believe. Hare wrote to Mr. Macmillan, telling him that Mr. Maurice was the man in all London who had devoted himself most to studying the difficulties of the class in question. For the moment no " more came of the matter. The following extract is part of a letter acknowledging the receipt of that in which Hare for- warded Mr. Macmillan's. * Said of selection of books for Moral Science Tripos. f Julius Hare had recently been appointed Archdeacon of Lewes. r. D. M. 35. Schelling and Cousin. 289 To Archdeacon Hare. ' Guys', September 26, 1840. 'There is one task which I should very much urge you to undertake if you had even tolerable leisure from your more regular vocation. It is that of translating the twenty or thirty pages which compose Scheiling's preface to Bekker's translation of Cousin's " Nouveaux Fragments Philosophiques." A trans- lation of the book must accompany that of the preface, but this I could get done satisfactorily, and you need not trouble your- self about it. My reasons for wishing to see it in English are (i) That I think it lays the axe to the root of that Rationalism of which Straussianism and all the kindred notions of our time are the flower, more completely than any other book has done, or is likely to do ; (2) because it does this on grounds which the strongest Rationalist must allow to be deeply considered and philosophical ; (3) because it exhibits most admirably the relative positions of German and French philosophy, guards against the vagueness which has confounded the portions of each which seem to be most alike, and affords an opportunity for showing how there may be an English philosophy different from both, and yet necessarily in agreement with what is highest and best in each. 'I do not think such a work will be effectual for the deliver- ance of any person who has already abandoned his faith for any of the new systems; nothing, I think in deep sadness, but intense mental suffering driving out all notions of philosophy, and fixing his thoughts solely on his own wants, will avail for him now ; but I believe those who are hovering on the borders of scepticism might be very much benefited by Schelling. I have been much rejoiced to hear of all your labours, and have felt how deeply the pleasure of them must have been checked by your great loss* but no doubt his interest in them is not abated. Since I last wrote to you I have determined that if I can get copies of Chaucer sufficiently cheap to warrant my insisting on those who attend my lectures bringing each a copy, * The death of Bishop Otter of Chichester. VOL. I. U 290 Chaucer. CHAP xvii. I will make my first lectures on the Prologue to the " Canter- bury Tales." I should like to know your opinion of this plan.' To Archdeacon Hare. 'Guy's, September 30, 1840. ' MY DEAR FRIEND, ' It was sorely against my inclination to give up the plan of lecturing on " King John " ; I had been thinking much of it, and the publication of Knight's edition seemed to make it particularly eligible. But I was afraid that I should scandalise good people by choosing for my first subject a play, the first act of which would involve either awkward skipping, or what would seem to them very unfit reading for boys. I hope somehow or other to get over the difficulty hereafter, but I thought it no bad exercise of the better part of valour to evade it at the beginning of my course. If I had merely talked about the first act, illustrated the character of Falconbridge, &c., and not required the boys read it (which scheme suggested itself to me), I should not have made it clear what my plan was. It has been so much the practice merely to declaim about English books and not to treat them with the same accuracy as you would one in a foreign language, that I think it is very advisable at the outset to show that I wish to pursue a different course. Now Chaucer they will be obliged, in a measure, to construe ; there will be an excuse and almost a necessity for strict observation of the words ; at the same time the Prologue (which is all I mean to meddle with) will throw more light than any book I can think of upon the life of the time ; and I cannot find half a dozen lines in it which the most scrupulous person could object to. I have Tyrwhitt for my own use, but I doubted whether there was an edition sufficiently cheap to be in the hands of every person in the class. I find there is one merely of the " Can- terbury Tales" printed at Liverpool, costing about seven shillings. If they have this to read from, I can supply emend- ations and illustrations from Tyrwhitt. I propose at the same time to deliver a general course on the growth of the English F. D. M. 35. "Teaching in Composition." 291 nation and English literature till the reign of Henry VIII. This of course will be a rude outline enough, but it may serve as a hint to connect the outward facts of history with its internal life and progress. They wish me, I believe, to give some sort of teaching in composition. How to manage this I do not know, except by teaching them to think, by reading good books, and studying the force of words. I suspect if they can learn to express themselves, decomposition will be a more useful process to them than composition, but I do not see my way. ' I wish you would ask Sterling to translate the preface. He would remember I was a Greek, even if I came with the pre- sent of a book of German philosophy. If he could be induced to study it I think it might do him more good even than the more directly theological book of Dorner with which Bunsen is in raptures, and which I should think must be worthy of his admiration. I did not tell you how much our meeting with him had divided our affections with the Alps. We enjoyed both together, and his beautiful garden, which seems almost to re- compense him for the loss of Rome and of almost all society.' To his Wife. 'October 7, 1840. ' Dearest, I can hardly tell you how much I am at times oppressed by what I see wrong in others, and then by shame at having judged them, and by the sense of deeper evil in myself. These feelings ought not to contradict one another. It is because we feel our own misery and wants that we notice the impossibility of self-reliance and it is self-reliance, or the want of simple reliance on God, that we can alone lament over in any one. Still I am so constantly setting up myself where I see what is insincere or false in the language or conduct of others that the two thoughts do become painfully at war with each other ; and faith for both myself and them, which would set all to rights, is too often away. But we must, dearest, strengthen each other in this exercise.' U 2 292 Seeking more Humility. CHAP, xvn> ' October 10, 1840. ' Indeed, dearest, I do desire very much to be more of a receiver and yet not to be receiving for myself, but that I may be enabled to show forth something more of the new life which is ours. When I think of all that I believe and know to be true, I wonder more than I can express at the treasures that belong to us, and which we might, at any minute, be reducing into possession and enjoying. But we want more humility and in- ward nothingness, I suppose, before we shall really enjoy them, and more too of the desire that others should enjoy them equally. When we go out of ourselves and enter into the life of God, we must in a manner take our brethren with us ; for solitude in such possessions is a kind of selfishness, and there- fore contradiction. But I am a mere child in these things, though my glimpses of them are sometimes strong. Dearest, we must try and help one another in this more and more. Ten thousand blessings on you for all the help you have been to me.' Also to his Wife. 'October 14, 1840. ' I have been at work to-day preparing for my lecture to-morrow, which is to be on Chaucer. It is very pleasant to have a task which requires reading and not writing, for I shall only take notes for either course, and talk away as well as I can, reading of course long extracts. My wish would be that my lectures should take something the form of Heeren's, which I think you know. A series of general remarks and hints, with suggestions about books in which the subject may be followed up.' ' October 15,. 1840. 'I am just returned from my second lecture, the first on Chaucer. ... I merely gave them facts, with a little criticism upon the evidence for them. I really liked this this task better than declaiming about greater matters; facts are becoming dearer to me every day.' F. D. M. 35. TJie 'Quarterly ' on Cartyle. 293 'October 17, 1840. ' I was reading the article on Carlyle in the " Quarterly " to H. last night. We were interrupted, and therefore I did not come to what I suppose is the objectionable part. As far as 1 read I agreed with it entirely, and thought it beautiful. I cannot help thinking that Carlyle is a little nettled at the tolerance and kindness of it. Others, besides Churchmen, have been struck with it, the Scotts and Mrs. Rich, to wit ; they say they think the criticism on Carlyle admirable, and the feeling of the whole article delightful, though they cannot agree in his remedies for the evils which he and Carlyle lament. What these are I do not know, but if his writing is to be called roaring, and Carlyle's plain sense, I must think that words have changed their meaning since I was a child. I have no prejudice in favour of Sewell, and expected not to like the article, so my judgment is not an unfair one.' ' October 20, 1840. ' I am just returned from my lecture, the first of the course on " The Growth of the English Nation and its Literature." I had only prepared myself by reading, and trusted to the time for words. They came pretty well, as I spoke slowly, and made pauses for the convenience of the lads, but the effort was greater than that of reading. Still it is better for them, and on the whole for me. I have not yet ascertained the number in my class, but it fills a tolerably large room. They sit with desks before them, and write after me. The lecture was on the Druids, and turned chiefly on the exposition and illustration of a long passage in Cassar's Commentaries. The result I arrived at was that the feeling of religious awe and mystery was that which belonged to the Celts, as the moral feeling, reverence for relationship, marriage, &c., especially characterised the Gothic race. I have not been able to draw more definite inferences than this from the documents con- cerning them which I know; but this, I think, is most im- portant, and shows that we have something to be grateful 294 Lords Lyndhnrst and Lyttelton. CHAP. xvn. for to each race which it has pleased God should inherit our land ' ' p.S. I forgot to tell you that I am very anxious about the Cambridge election for the office of Lord High Steward. It is not one of any importance in itself, but the choice which the University makes will be an indication of its own feeling, and must affect the whole country in some degree. The can- didates are Lord Lyndhurst, the cleverest of turncoats, the very ideal of able unprincipled Conservatism ; the other, Lord Lyttel- ton, a young man of Whig connections ; in his character, earnest and sincere, and with an intellect of the highest promise.' The fact that all his force had been for the time thrown on to the Conservative side made him, as was his wont, all the more determined to refuse to give his support to a member of the party whom he believed to be the worse of two can- didates, when his aid was claimed under the plea of what is called party loyalty. The following two letters to Hare are only specimens of a vehement series which he dispersed among all his friends on the subject of the contest at Cambridge alluded to in the above letter. Lord Lyndhurst was at the time leading in the House of Lords an opposition as different in character from that of Sir Robert Peel in the Commons, as two forces allied in resistance to a Government could well be. In my father's view, Peel was defending what he himself at all events believed to be valuable institutions. Lyndhurst was defending what he knew to be abuses, simply because he could thereby get a majority. To Archdeacon Hare. ' Guy's, October 20, 1840. ' MY DEAR FRIEND, ' You have probably received letters from other and wiser men about the Cambridge election. I have heard of it from no one, but the notices I have seen in the papers have affected me more than I should wish to be affected by any such matter. F. D. M. 35. Election of Lord High Steward. 295 I do think it is a point of greater importance that Cambridge should not choose Lord Lyndhurst, than that London should not choose Harmer. Think of the effect it must have on all the young men, on the whole mind of the country, that the teachers of the land, the representatives of the Church should give any honours they have to bestow to a man simply because he is a clever scoundrel, and because they have a conge d'elire from the Carlton Club ! It is nothing to say that they have done the like thing twenty times before; there has been a dead, wretched tone of moral and political feeling everywhere, and Cambridge shared in it and fostered it. But elsewhere men are beginning to feel that principle is wanted, and ought to be the only thing cared for, and it is surely time that the University should show it is not the last place to recognise this truth and to apprehend the distinction between the Conserva- tism of honest men and that of lawyers* and clubs. At all events, the appearance of only twenty or a hundred men to assert that there is this difference, and that they are determined to maintain it, must have a good effect upon the country, and may teach men that they at least will do themselves no good by canting about religion and the Church. I have never seen Lord Lyttelton but once, but every one speaks of him as a man of the highest promise and the strongest principle. If his youth is a disadvantage, will it not be all the better to show that you can get over disadvantages for the sake of rejecting an evil man ? I have no right to interfere ; but old love to Cambridge, which cannot soon wear out, and a feeling which every day strengthens that more depends upon the Universities than upon all other bodies together, make me very earnest on the subject. If you had not thought it worthy of your con- * Seeing that he had been himself a lawyer, and that many of his most intimate friends were lawyers, I do not feel disposed to suppress this vehement and characteristic passage. The truth is, that M. Gambetta's words only require a little expansion to represent my father's feeling. What M. Gambetta applied to ' Clericalism,' iny father would have extended to Legalism, Militarism, Conservatism, Liberalism, Radicalism, &c., and every other ism. 296 All- Importance of Universities. CHAP. xvtr. sideration I hope you will, and that you will not suffer Whewell or any others to give up the good cause which they have under- taken, through fear of being accused of dividing their party, or any such nonsense. I have written a few lines for the magazine on the point, not speaking of either candidate, but saying what manner of man a University ought not to choose. It will, of course, be of no use, but every one must speak in what way he can.' Also to Archdeacon Hare on same subject ' Guy's, November 4, 1840. ' MY DEAR FRIEND, ' I wrote to thank you for your kind answer to my furious note, and again for your contribution to the magazine, but the letter was too long and I destroyed it. I was, however, very much obliged by both, and particularly glad to find that you felt as strongly about the contest as I did. What will be the result I do not know. They tell me at Lord Lyttelton's committee that they do not despair, and that the announce- ments in the " Times " are merely intended to prevent voters from going up. The impudent bullying of that paper, will, I hope, have a good effect. If the members of a University submit to be commanded in that style, I do not know what they are not worthy of. At all events, the struggle between the two kinds of Conservatism is begun, and it certainly will not end till the light and the darkness are in some way separated. The "Times" and its employers evidently feel this, and, therefore, shout, " Great is Diana of the Carlton Club ! " so much the more loudly. ' We have three Protestant Sisters of Charity under educa- tion at Guy's. Mrs. Fry sends them, but two out of the three received the communion with us on Sunday. I hope it is the beginning of something good for the land. ' P.S. The Bishop of London's* conduct in this contest has been most honourable and generous, and should be set off against many offences.' * Blomfieli F. D. M. 35. Correspondence during Election. 297 It must not be supposed, however, that he in any way countenanced the public bandying of personalities, much as he desired that in men's private judgment the characters of the two men should be weighed. When Lyndhurst had been elected and the Conservative undergraduates had hissed the bishops and others who had voted against him, he printed in the magazine a ' Letter to an Undergraduate,' which is perhaps the most eloquent statement of views of practical politics that he ever wrote. To return to the more ordinary course of his correspondence. To a Friend. 'Guy's, October 21, 1840. ***** ' The life of every man, besides being a struggle, which we all know it is, is a struggle between some two opposite princi- ples, convictions, experiences, discoveries of this kind. As far as I can interpret my own, it has always been so. What you feel has been the effort and pain [of this struggle]. [It seems to us impossible] to account for the bit pulling and chafing just when from recollections of a past state of mind, one supposed that it would have been better one should have had one's head. However, I have often discovered that it was not so ; that the first lesson, though received exclusively and with exaggeration by us, was a precious lesson, as well as the second, and that we have need, again and again, to get it by heart, and not to think it worthless because another has been grounded upon it or added to it I believe some of the earliest impressions I received in my life, which most people would think, and I myself often thought, were of a wrong kind, requiring to be especially counteracted by other thoughts, have yet on the whole exercised a most beneficial influence over me, and have determined more than any other, the tenor of my life, so far as it has been consistent or right. Doctrines about liberty of conscience, the unity of God, and such like, which I may feel to have been most crude and wrong, have yet had 298 Aiitobiographical Reflections. CHAP. xvn. such a strong determining influence over my mind and cha- racter that all feelings and truths which have come since may be said to have adapted themselves to them, and made them more efficient, even while they counteracted them. So I think it may be with your earlier religious feelings. You must not suppose you have done with them. That of course, as to the essence of them you never would suppose, but not even with the more objectionable, so far as they are exclusive, peculi- arities ; you have only learnt truths which will make them ultimately more reasonable and useful, which will enable you to sympathise with others' lives and doings, and to act yourself when you are called ; in the meantime, to give yourself into God's hands, to learn as He appoints, and to be wrought according to His will. I may not have expressed myself very intelligibly, but you will pe haps be able to divine my mean- ing.' To his Wife. ' October 23, 1840. ' You were quite right to remind me of the responsibility of being permitted to see anything more clearly than some others, but I think you attached too much importance by far to my position as far as the Church is concerned. The contem- poraries of Samuel Johnson would have said that he was the only person of any mind who believed in Christianity, or at least who attached any importance to it. They would have spoken falsely, but with a great deal more reason than X. when he says that I am the only person of any reflection who adheres to the doctrines of the Church. Yet how very little difference did Johnson's adherence or non-adherence make to any one but himself and his own circle ! God had ways of making His truth acknowledged and believed without wanting the assistance of the great moralist. The Cornish miners, who could not do without Christ, because they had no other sun to look up to, would keep Him in remembrance, and in the next age compel the wits and the doctors to speak much more respectfully of Him. The weak confounding the wise is, and F. D. M. 35. TJte Lock of Strength. 299 will be, the rule to the end. I have been led by a strange, unwonted experience to feel that Christianity is the highest philosophy, and that Christianity is a mere phrase or name without a Church. I know not how many or how few have arrived at the same conclusion, or by what processes, but my notion is that there are very many who have reached it, or are on the road to it, and who, being humbler and better men, will set it forth far better than I do. But whether it be so or not, Christianity and the Church will stand, and the poor of the people will find peace and comfort in them, and will learn the philosophy of the matter some time or other when they want it, in this world or the next. Even this does not express all my meaning, for I think that they are philosophers, however little they may fancy themselves so, or the world may call them so. Whatever I know, except as to its outward expression, has come to me much more from women than men ; I am certain they have taught me the deepest wisdom. And if I, being no Samson, have got any strength at all, I will tell you, being no Dalilah, where the lock is on which it depends. It is simply in the faith that the truth which is highest, as well as the highest faculty which apprehends it, is the most uni- versal. I certainly do find very few who see this as clearly as I wish them to see it : some form of intellectual worship, some exclusiveness or other mars the fulness of this conviction. Till men are brought to it somehow, the philosophy of Christi- anity and of the Church cannot be even approached by them ; both must seem to them foolishness.' ' Guy's, October 24, 1840. ' You ask about the Thursday's lecture. It seemed to me that I was not quite ready at my business, but Clark says he thought I had caught the right tone and was proceeding in the right way. I called on one of those near me to read the opening passage, and then discussed and asked questions about the different words in it, such as " holte," " corages," " couth," and the like, illustrating them by instances from other quarters, and referring them to different etymologies and dictionaries. 300 Lectures at King's College. CHAP. xvri. Jamieson's Scotch Dictionary I found particularly good on " couth." Afterwards I read them some remarks of Tyrwhitt upon the state of the language in Chaucer's time, the changes it had undergone, &c., then talked a little about Becket, " the blessed martyr." I only got as far as the beginning of the description of the Knight, which I am to illustrate as well as I can next time. My next lecture on Monday is to be on Bi'tain as a Roman province. I shall be able to tell you of that when I have delivered it There were more pupils than I had expected, near sixty I fancy, and I suppose I shall here- after have some difficulty in haranguing them ; at present they are sufficiently attentive and respectful' Also to his Wife. ' October 25, 1840. ' I have just been doing a piece of extravagance, but as it was needful for my lectures, I think I was right. I have been buying a Froissart A new edition has lately been published at thirty-four shillings, so I desired Clark to get it for me, and it is just arrived and looks very stately and chivalrous. I am to lecture on " The Knight " to-day, so that I wanted it at once. ' I should have been glad, also, of " The Broad Stone of Honour," but I don't know where to lay my hands upon it. ' Quarter past four. I have just returned from my lecture on " The Knight." Some of the lads were very attentive, but there was more noise than I liked. I fear I have not hit upon the right way with them, though to myself the lectures are interesting.' ' October 27, 1840. ' My subject was too long for the hour I am allowed, and I was obliged to break my lecture in the middle. But I seemed to myself to deliver it with more freedom than the previous one, and the pupils seemed interested, though, as the room is rather too small for them, and they could not get sitting places, there was a little confusion at one end of it. I am thankful F. D. M. 35. Lectures on Literature. 301 to have been brought so well on in my task thus far, and hope to be shown how to make it more useful. The preparation is very pleasant to me, and I think it will not hereafter inter- fere with other duties. At least I hope not. . . . Mr. Clark positively overwhelms me with books to assist me in my lectures. Through his kindness and John's, I have been able to go on without buying anything but Guizot's " France," of which I made great use to-day, and make only occasional visits to the London Institution. He (Mr. Clark) comes to my lec- tures, which is rather amusing, as I am chiefly restoring him his own either raw or concocted. I have made no con- science, hitherto, of referring to any authority, and frequently read long passages. I think this is better than continuous talk of my own.' ' October 29, 1840. ' I dare to say your criticism on Sewell's article is correct, but I thought, on the whole, that he took a very generous and yet accurate measurement of Carlyle ; and the passages about his compliments to our Lord and to Christianity I thought most reasonable and well put. Carlyle has so often denounced such compliments himself, that he must know and feel them to be very impertinent condescension.' To a Friend who complained of Despondency. ' November 6, 1840. 'States of heavy despondency do not last; perhaps in speaking of them they depart Despondency is hardly a state of mind ; it is the mind's forgetfulness of its own true state which is a glorious state, as I need not tell you. But I need to tell you too, as you need tell me the same, for this forgetfulness is a plague that is always nigh at hand, and merely to hear another saying, " It is not so as it seems, the firmament is not a congregation of vapours, but has a goodly sun in the midst of it, and overhangs a beautiful earth," is not merely comfortable, it is positively healing. . . .' 302 Gladstone's "Church Principles" CHAP. xvn. To Archdeacon Hare, on Mannings appointment as Archdeacon. ' Guy's, December 28, 1840. 'Mv DEAR FRIEND, ' I rejoice with you most heartily in the famous Christmas gift which has been bestowed upon you and your diocese, and am especially pleased that the new bishop should have been moved to be the instrument in conferring it Chichester will be really a pattern diocese, and the blessing to us all of having one to which we can look as exhibiting earnest efforts without party spirit is greater than we shall be at all able to appreciate. 'You might have expected that I should feel deeply interested and delighted with your charge. It will be a much greater satisfaction to you that Sterling writes of it with the most thorough admiration and even sympathy. It was most cheering to me to read what he said of it. 'I agree with you as to the ponderousness of Gladstone's style.* But is it not very much improved since his last volume ? It struck me that it had become really grave and laden with earnest thoughts ; not as before, oppressed with the phrases and notions of the House of Commons and the Debating Society. His Aristotelianism is, however, it strikes me, more deeply fixed in him than before, and, on that account, I do not see how he can ever enter enough into the feeling and truth of Rationalism to refute it His notion of attacking the evangelicals by saying, " Press your opinions to their results and they become rationalistic," is ingenious, and wrought out, I think, with great skill and an analytical power for which I had not given him credit ; but after all it seems to me an argument which is fitter for the courts than for a theological controversy. The two sets of principles have evidently a different origin, and appeal to different habits of mind; how much better, then, to take each upon its own ground and to show what each means than to prove, ever * The book just published was Mr. Gladstone's " Church Principles considered in their Results:" the "last volume" was "The Church considered in its relation with the State." F. D. M. 35. English Holidays and Festivals. 303 so clearly, that some day or other they will become identical. I do not think men can be jostled away from their stand- ing-point by any such logic as this, or, indeed, by any logic at all.' 'January I, 1841. MY DEAR STRACHEY, ' Though I was so inveterately frost-bound in indolence as not to wish you a happy Christmas on paper for I hope I did it in my heart I must come and offer you salutations on the new year, unless, like one of my sisters, you will acknowledge no beginning of the year but Advent .... About the Christmas week, I think your principle is right, and that we sadly mis- understand the meaning of all festivals. I agree with you that they should be holidays for the poor and for all classes, and that bodily recreation and fun should have their place in them, and should be allowed by the morning Eucharist All this seems to me very reasonable ; but about the wisdom of suddenly enforcing such doctrines upon Englishmen and the English clergy, I am somewhat doubtful. It is certain, as has been well observed to me, that we and the Romanists have each taken half the idea of Sunday and spoiled that half; they believing it to be a day of joy, and therefore working their bodies, and giving way to bodily licence upon it, we, sup- posing it to be spiritual, and therefore making it sad. The same error runs, no doubt, through our views on all kindred matters ; and, being deeply rooted, must, I suppose, be treated homoeopathically. We must not talk against the sadness, but for the spirituality. As to Christmas Day, it is not exactly the same, for there is a notion of family-meeting and merry making about that in all persons. But then there is beginning also a revival of respect for the festivals as such, and naturally this respect takes the form of our general habits and notions. Whether it is safe to show people yet that the feeling is a compound one, and not better to encourage it such as it is, I do not know positively. ' I do not think you are wrong, but you must beware of bending the staff too strongly.* 304 Two Suppressed Pamphlets. CHAP. xvn. In the spring of 1841 the ' Educational Magazine' was given up. It had not answered to the publishers, it had been a heavy drain upon his time, and the motive which had mainly induced its commencement no longer existed. It was now that he had published the letter to Archdeacon Wilberforce, entitled ' Reasons for not Joining a Party in the Church,' the circumstances of which have been mentioned in his explanatory letter on the subject already given on pp. 235-240. One fact, however, must be stated, which is perhaps almost unique in controversy of the kind. Not only did Dr. Hook write to say that in that controversy my father was right and he wrong, but he withdrew from circulation and suppressed all copies of the pamphlet in which he had maintained the contrary view. My father thereupon suppressed his own pamphlet To Rev. R. C. Trench. 'March 13, 1841. 'I heard of dear Wilberforce's overwhelming sorrow [his wife's death] to-night before I received your note from Mr. Stephen. I have tried to write him a few lines, but I can scarcely venture to send them. He was writing to me the other day about the subject of his lectures ;* how much he will learn of that Spirit and his work, more than all books can tell him.' My father was engaged on a new edition of the ' Kingdom of Christ,' which work he in fact completely re-wrote. He had proposed to write an Ecclesiastical History also, but he never completed it His eldest son was born in May. ' Guy's, July 6, 1841. MY DEAR STRACHEY, ' My belief is, that if the whole of the Epistle to the Romans be read together, the impression it leaves on the mind is that St Paul is defending a wide, universal spiritual principle * i.e. The Bampton Lectures, which were never delivered. They were to have been on the Holy Spirit F. D. M. 36. The Epistle to the Romans. 305 against a perverted national one perverted and, therefore, anti-spiritual and exclusive. Taking that idea along with you, and feeling at the same time how essential it was to keep up the idea of election which the Jewish commonwealth had been a witness for all along ; how necessary it was to show that the person who has a spiritual position, derives that position not less directly, but more directly, from God than he who has a merely outward position ; that it is a more essential contra- diction for him, to allege any independence of God, any " will- ing or turning," than it is for another man ; taking all these thoughts along with you, I do not think you will find the ninth chapter very difficult after you have forgotten long enough the words with which Calvin had addled your brain. It is often useful to consider how a writer could have expressed himself otherwise, so as to include different aspects of truth, which even we are able to perceive. We may invent several different ways, and each will prove unsatisfactory to us even if we make no allowances for his seeing still further. I don't mean that I have actually done this in the present case, but from time to time I have discovered how inadequate this and that way of putting the thing would be, and so I have been content to let it stand as it is ; not caring much if there be a crux in it, for crux means cross, and that ought to be there, whatever else is not. However, you shall have any further light I may get upon the point. ' I have not thought much about the History, though I positively must My second edition (of the " Kingdom of Christ ") coming in connection with my own child's baptism, interests me so much more I mean the subject of it and, besides, it ought to be soon done. God bless you. Thank God my wife and child are doing very nicely. I want to introduce him to you.' To Mr. T. Erskine, of Linlathen. 1 MY DEAR SIR, ' London, August 8, 1841. ' I have delayed far too long to return this letter, which I read with very great pleasure, and I trust with some shame. I VOL. i. x 306 Answer to Letter on CHAP. xvn. do not know anything which causes me such mixed feelings as hearing that men of true and earnest hearts have found what I have written in some degree helpful to them. I am sure they must, in the best and highest sense, see much farther into these things than I do, and must be walking much more steadily and thankfully in the light that has been vouchsafed to them ; and that thought is sometimes, though it should not be so, exceedingly painful. On the other hand, the new conviction which all such recognitions give me that I have spoken truth, however much it may have been confused and dimmed by the medium through which it has been transmitted, and that that truth must have been given me because it could not have been originated in me, is most strengthening, and makes me long that I could forget myself altogether, and be content merely to receive and, when it pleased God, to impart what He sends. ' There is one passage in Mr. 's letter which showed me clearly how much I must have injured the principle which I wished to set forth by my way of stating it. He speaks of the English Church as being in his judgment more faithful than most of the sects which despise her : but not as fulfilling his idea of the Catholic Church. Now, certainly this is as much my faith as it can be his. The English Church I look upon as merely one branch of the true Church; and every system, whether called Evangelical, Liberal, Catholic, or purely Anglican, which has been invented by the members of that Church in former times and in our own day to express their notion of the Church, I look upon as " of the earth earthy," and as much carrying in it the seeds of destruction as the systems of the different sects which have revolted from her. The Church it seems to me is a part, the highest part, of that spiritual constitution of which the nation and the family are lower and subordinate parts ; implied in the acts we do and the words we speak, established before all worlds, manifested as the true and everlasting kingdom when the Son of God died, rose, and ascended on high, testified as the common property and inheritance of men by certain forms and ordinances which convert it from an idea for the mind into an actual reality for F. D. M. 36. ' The Kingdom of Christ' 307 all who will enter into it and enjoy it, and which prove God to be true though all men be liars. The Catholic Church, I think, has established itself in the East and the West, and is ac- knowledged by God as His kingdom upon earth. It has been preyed upon by diseases of all kinds in the shape of human systems : by the Romish system, which is the most successful parody and counterfeit of its Catholic character, and practically contradicts and outrages that, as well as its spiritual character ; by Protestant systems which parody its distinct and personal character, and really outrage that as well as its principle universal human fellowship. Yet in spite of these, and other different systems which have attempted to make a middle way between them, and so, I think, to combine the mischiefs of both, the Church, I think, is coming forth, and will manifest it- self as something entirely distinct from them all distinct, too, from the faith which exists in the minds of those who spiritually dwell in it, though requiring it and supposing it. ' This last conviction that it is necessary most carefully to distinguish the objects of faith from its exercises, and that the permanence and eternity of the one is manifested to us as much by the weakness and poverty of the other as by the warrant which they give, if we will receive it, that they shall be stronger has been brought home to me by such painful experience, that it has become, I think, the deepest and strongest in my mind. How liable it is to be perverted into an excuse for shameful indolence and recklessness, I know too sadly ; but I know also, by proofs sufficient to myself though not I fear to any one who converses with me, that it is the best deliverance I have from such sins. I could indeed wish to ask you for your help in this fight. I cannot easily tell you how much comfort I received from your kindness when you were in London in November. ' It would delight me at any time to hear from you or see you.' Archdeacon Hare had for years been exerting himself earnestly to secure a revival of the powers of Convocation. At X 2 308 Retrospect of English " Orthodoxy'' CHAP. xvn. length in August 1841, Convocation was ordered to assemble, and Hare was one of the elected proctors. 'Blackheath, Tuesday, August 17^ 1841. ' MY DEAR HARE, ' I used to have some dreams about the possibility of reviving the Convocation, and to feel rather harshly towards the sovereign who acted Oliver Cromwell to it. But the more I have reflected upon the past and present condition of the Church, the more I have become convinced that that sovereign was one of its nursing fathers, and that we cannot do better than profit by his benevolent and divinely-ordered interposition. Think what it would have been to have had a Convocation sitting during the last hundred and twenty years. The formu- laries would have been gradually Socinianized till the beginning of the reign of George III.; after that there would have been a (so called) High Church movement to erase from them every- thing that savoured of Methodism; a few years ago there would have been a strong and successful effort of Liberals and Evangelicals combined to cure them of their Catholic pecu- liarities ; now there would be a tremendous struggle, either to accomplish that purpose or else to make them witnesses for a Catholic system, which I hold to* be one of the greatest enemies of the Catholic Church. All these disputes, one after another, the statesmen would have encouraged, to keep you from meddling with matter more concerning them, and to make the Church feeble and ridiculous. By the blessed decree that we should be left without a legislature all these evils have been averted, and the Church has been left to its own internal sacramental life, sustained by the forms of other days without becoming subjected hopelessly subjected, I mean to the notions of any one time. Evangelical and Catholic principles have been each discovered in her, and asserted, as the time required them ; Evangelical and Catholic systems have tried to enslave her, but have been broken in pieces against each other. F. D. M. 36. Passing Thoughts and Current Life. 309 ' Even if the Convocation should find out that it existed only to impose taxes on the clergy which I fancy is the true idea of it I cannot think that in a day when Blomfield* is virtually their ruler, this office could be performed with any safety to that which is abidingly meant for the good of future generations. Everything would be sacrificed to the tastes, fears, or apparent advantages of the moment. ' Your plan of a meeting of archdeacons is quite of a different kind, because it would assume no authority, and would only be for discussion and suggestion. I should think it ought to be very useful.' To his Wife. ' September 7, 1841. ' I cannot help feeling sometimes what you said about our great prosperity. It is indeed, and I feel it to be, very won- derful. But I do not think it is right to expect trials. When they are to come God will fit us for them. Dearest love, I do earnestly wish that I could be more help and comfort to you in all ways. I have been thinking how we might both be more useful to others, and more live to the glory of God, and I hope we shall be shown the right way. In the meantime let us ask to be made very thankful for what God has given us, and not to distrust Him in anything.' ' Guy's, September 10, 1841. ' MY DEAR STRACHEY, ' On the whole I like my own alterations in it [the " King- dom of Christ "], but I question if that portion of mankind which read the first edition will. As it expresses more of what I really think and believe, it is better quoad me, and if the uni- verse don't approve it, the universe must write a book for itself. ' We are going into Warwickshire to-morrow (D.V.). I have engaged to work for the Propagation Society for ten days or a fortnight, it being promised that I shall have chiefly preaching and very little speaking a business in which I am singularly unapt. I am to preach three times in Warwick the day after * Then Bishop of London. 310 Blessing of Sense of Weakness. CHAP, xv IT. to-morrow, that is to say, if the sermons will come, but at present I have found them very reluctant. ' I wish I could introduce my little man to you. He is growing very talkative, and though his language is not trans- latable, he contrives, by changes of tone and manner, to make it expressive. I hope he will always express himself as freely, and will not learn to compose. ' Could you not contrive to come and see us this autumn, now the railway is open all the way ? I have many things to talk to you about Among others, I feel very anxious to know what we should do to meet the craving for male and, still more, female orders, which, I think, must be met somehow if we would check Romanism, and which might be a mighty help in the present awful state of the population. I think some- times that my position here should lead me to do something in it But I want light. I trust God will give it, if not to me, at least to His Church through some instrument Plymouth Christianity is a sign that some sort of self-sacrificing society is demanded, and there are indications of it in all directions.' To his Wife. ' October 15, 1841. ' I have just returned from King's College, where I have given my first lecture. It was a recapitulation of all we did last year, and I seemed to myself to speak with more clearness and less embarrassment than on any former occasion. The boys weie attentive I suppose because the younger ones had not heard me before, and the best of the elder remain. I do not dread this course, though I did rather at first, and though I feel that in this, as in all my other duties, I have failed very much. I have had lately a sense of most utter weakness for my work ; and it has been, I think, a blessing to me which I shall be sorry to lose, as it keeps me in some degree dependent. But the multitude of vain thoughts and the difficulty of keeping at home and recollected are causes of bitter pain to me. I could be turning inwards constantly, I think I should know better how to be acting in my daily life, F. D. M. 36. Tlie Ordination of Suffering, 311 especially how to help you and the little one, which is what I believe I have most at heart, though I am so stupid about the way, and often seem so indifferent. I do not despair, love, of our being taught to live better than we have done, more evenly and dutifully. I am sure God wills it and I think we do, and that the best and deepest wish in us is the one which He will own as ours and count all that oppose it as our enemies.' ' Guy's, November 24, 1841. ' MY DEAR STRACHEY, ' I am grieved at your report of yourself both in this and the former letter, for though I think you bear up against pain and suffering more manfully than most men, I am not will- ing that you should have so much and such constant call for the exercise. However. I am quite sure that sufferers have a wonderful appointment and ordination. No men give me the notion of the privilege of being priests unto God so much as they ; and kings, too, they are in a sense, though a less obvious one. You do not know the pains and temptations of doing, the self-accusations of strong health, the sense of weakness of the spirit when the flesh is strong. These are struggles within me, and they seem to touch the* will more nearly than the others, though I feel assured at the same time that, were I called to your task I should perform it most miserably ; at least, I should need a degree of grace which has not yet been vouchsafed to me. As for your thought that the sufferer lives less for others than the doer, I think it is a mistake, though a very natural one. We shall know more about it hereafter, but I suspect the cross will be found to have been the great power of the world, both in the members and the head. You approved of my paradox about form being more spiritual than spirit ; you, therefore, embolden me to another, that suffering does more than doing ; though, to say the truth, I suspect Samson and some others of the ancients have stolen that fine thought from me. ' Now as to the ages of the antediluvians, being myself in great ignorance, I can offer very inadequate explanations. I 312 Canon Farrar s Reminiscences of CHAP. xvn. have always heard that they came to be rather old gentlemen, and not having any reason to disbelieve it, I supposed they were. If you like to write a tract on the juvenility of Methu- selah, I shall read it with great pleasure, and I dare to say shall be the wiser for it. I do not see my way on the subject, but, as it is not part of the creed, " I believe that so-and-so was nine hundred and sixty," I can tolerate dissent on the subject, provided it be supported by sound, unmistakable evi- dence. I must stop. No. 2 early next week. ' Mrs. Maurice's kind love ; our baby's love.' Of the lectures alluded to in the letters to my mother Canon Farrar* has most kindly supplied me with the following notes. It will be seen how curiously many of the points mentioned as characteristic of the lectures tally with the conceptions of the right nature of education which my father had formed at a very early age. The comparison with some of the articles in the ' Metropolitan' (especially page 67) is very quaint. It is quite evident that the apparent defects of the lectures were part of a predetermined method, whether it was a right or wrong one. ' When I went to King's College as a boy of sixteen there were many defects in the arrangements which I have little doubt have since been altered. The classes were far too large, the amount of personal attention given to the pupils was far too small ; the mixture of the university and the school system was only suited to boys of very mature development, or those who had previously enjoyed a rigid training in scholarship. But while I cannot help feeling that in many ways it might have been better for me personally if I had remained a little longer a schoolboy, and not something halfway between a schoolboy and an undergraduate, yet any of the disadvantages which I * Of Westminster. Canon Farrar was actually at King's College a few years later than 1841 ; but this description, with those that follow it, may be taken to represent certain aspects of the lectures throughout the whole period of my father's lectureship. CHAP. xvii. F. D. M.'s King's College Lectures. 313 may have suffered were more than counterbalanced by the privilege of hearing the lectures and gaining the kindly interest of men like your father, and one who was united to him by ties so close I mean Professor Plumptre. Your father used to lecture to us " students," as we were called, for an hour twice or three times a week, and the classes consisted of numbers which varied, as far as I can remember, from forty to sixty. The lectures were not in any sense of the word like those of college tutors, which are to a certain extent lessons. Not a single question was ever asked ; not a single student was ever "put on" to see whether he had read any of the subject for himself; not a single duty was required of us not even that of " taking notes." Once a term, or once in two terms, there was an examination in the subject of the lectures, and we were classed in order of merit by the results ; but in those days it was a part ( of the system of the place that little or no pressure should be put upon us ; and had any " student " betrayed the most absolute ignorance of the merest elements of the subject, I am not aware that any results would have followed. ' And yet, in this total absence of all extraneous stimulus, I can answer for it that out of love and respect for the professor, and out of the intellectual interest which his lectures inspired, many of us did work, and up to our lights work hard. This is the more remarkable because the lectures were very far removed from that popularity of style and treatment which might have been considered most suitable to youths whose ages varied from sixteen to eighteen. I never in my life attended any history lectures which dealt so little with facts* If we wanted to know the facts, the battles, dates, reigns, the skeleton, so to speak, of the historic period, we had to get them up, as best we could, from books ; and no text-book, no analysis, no school-history, nothing short of a standard history which might be in many volumes was ever recommended to us. * It will be observed that, according to my father's own conception, it was for " facts " and facts only that he cared, but the contrast in his mind was between Mr. Papster's facts and Milton's. 314 Canon Farrar's Reminiscences of CHAP. xvn. How this system worked with many who neither possessed much actual knowledge, nor cared to acquire it, I cannot tell, but with those of us who were sufficiently in earnest to desire to learn, it undoubtedly had many high advantages. We took elaborate notes; I myself acquired the power, without any knowledge of shorthand, of taking down almost every essential point and expression in an hour's lecture without the slightest difficulty. But when we had the notes, there was nothing to be made of them unless we were willing to read and search a little for ourselves. Some used to grumble at this, and greatly preferred the lectures of your father's assistant professor, who poured out facts, and systematisations, and reproducible theories to any extent I remember a clever student writing a parody of one of your father's lectures which made us all laugh. It began, " The fourteenth century was preceded by the thirteenth, and followed by the fifteenth. This is a deep fact. It is profoundly instructive, and gives food for inex- haustible reflection. It is not, indeed, one of those facts which find their way into popular compendiums, but," &c. But while we laughed good-hum ouredly, some of us felt that our debt to our teacher was far too deep to be shaken by such a caricature of his style and method. We felt, indeed, that the man was far greater than his lectures. Those lectures often soared high above our heads, but even when we were wholly unable to follow and understand, we felt that we were listening to one whose thoughts were great and good, and one who, even when he did nothing more, at least inspired us with a life-long sense that history was one of the grandest of human studies. And much of the difficulty of following him disappeared when we became a little more familiar with his favourite " standpoints/' his habitual methods of looking at and approaching a sub- ject, his boundless reverence and tenderness, his ever present faith in the facts of a Divine order and government of the world, his sense of the grandeur and the possibilities of a redeemed humanity. It was no small advantage that we were thus better prepared to understand his writings. To one who got to know something of his mind and mode of thought, CHAP. xvn. King's College Lectures. 315 that " mistiness " and " obscurity " which others were for ever complaining of in his writings had almost entirely ceased to exist. ' Some occasions I can distinctly recall in which he " lost himself" ; seemed to be utterly unconscious that a class of lads was before him, closed his eyes as he constantly did while lecturing, and poured forth a stream of majestic language into which he had been led by the working of his own thoughts, and in listening to which one felt one's self to be in contact with his inmost nature. On one occasion I remember he was suddenly recalled to consciousness I can use no other expres- sion from one of those inspired soliloquies by the sudden question of a conscientious but utterly bewildered student, who felt that if he was to take notes at all, it must be of something less immeasurably above his intellectual range. Now it was the rarest thing in the world for a question to be asked in the lecture-room, and the effect was instantaneous. The lecturer dropped, as it were, from the clouds at once, endeavoured, not quite successfully, to explain the last sentence about which the student had asked, and then resumed the subject about which he was speaking in his ordinary strain. It is perhaps hardly to be wondered at that lectures so little adapted to the ordinary schoolboy level were to some of the " students " very distasteful ; but even after this interval of time, I cannot recall without a sense of indignation the utterly disgraceful interruptions in which some of the boys for many of them were little more indulged. There was no ordinary system of discipline in our classes. I do not suppose that the profes- sors who delivered lectures knew even a third of the students by name or sight. Anything like common school punishment was, at any rate so far as your father's lectures were concerned, entirely unheard of. And in a promiscuous herd of auditors, many of them unknown even by name to each other, and not governed in those times by any general and wholesome tradi- tions, there was certain to be a sufficient number of rude and brainless fellows who were not kept under control by the only means of coercion which would appeal to their capacities. 316 Canon Farrar's Reminiscences of CHAP, xvu Again and again, especially during ray earlier days at King's College, have I seen your father's lectures interrupted by silly noises or gross ill-behaviour. At such times he would pause, his noble face working with strong emotion, but either without the means or without the will to prevent the recurrence of the annoyance. Sometimes he would say a few bitter words and then go on; most frequently he went on without a single rsmark about the misconduct. Many of us sympathised with him heart and soul, and I have often sat there overwhelmed with shame at the fact of such senseless discourtesy being possible among us, but utterly unable to prevent it. It was only later in my course, when, having been longer at the place, I had acquired some influence, that I combined with some others and took measures which prevented the recurrence ot these disreputable scenes. For on one occasion a " student " had got underneath a sort of temporary platform with a stick, and kept knocking from underneath throughout an entire lecture. Professor Maurice was more deeply moved than usual ; and some of us felt that though there was no shadow of monitorial authority existing among us, it was time to interfere. We got up an address to your father, and let it be known among the students that, as the system of the place and our purely formal relations to each other rendered no other means of interference possible, and as we were determined that the Professor should not be again treated with such detestable ingratitude, we would give up to the authorities the name of any offender. It was no longer tolerable that the well-being of the class and the dignity of the teacher should be sacrificed to apish tricks which would have disgraced the lowest forms of any good public school. 'Interesting and valuable to those who could appreciate them as were the lectures on History, those on English Literature were even more so. Here Professor Maurice showed a wonderful versatility in guiding and stimulating us. Sometimes he would make us read a scene from Shakespeare and comment on it. Sometimes he would set us, by way of exercise, a translation from some passage of a classical author, CHAP. xvii. King's College Lectures. 317 and bringing in our versions with him, he would, without mentioning names, comment on them with wonderful power, showing alike their merits and defects. Whenever he lectured on any author he used always to choose some short specimen of his style for elaborate comment. I shall never forget with what weight and originality he thus commented on Milton's translation of the Ode to Pyrrha, on Johnson's letter about the Falkland Isles, and on other literary works. Nor shall I ever forget how he came in one day and told us that in the natural course he would that day have lectured on Addison, but having just seen in the paper that Wordsworth was dead, he could not refrain from speaking of the life and works of that truly great poet; and then in an unpremeditated strain of the noblest language, without a note to guide him, he tried to explain the real secret of Wordsworth's power, and the place he was likely to hold in English literature. ' Sometimes too I had the honour and privilege of being asked by your father to his house. On those occasions he always welcomed us with the extremest kindness, and the great delight to which we looked forward was the pleasure of hearing him talk. There was something in the young which seemed to draw out his warmest sympathies, and I have often fancied that many of the best thinkers of the day might have envied us the opportunity of listening to his unreserved communica- tions. It was thus that I got to know him personally, and to look up to him as a friend for life. He sometimes was my guest when I was an assistant master at Harrow, he became the godfather to one of my boys, and I kept up a friendly inter- course with him during the remainder of his life. To have known, appreciated, and loved him, has been to me an inestim- able advantage. As a professor, as a theologian, as a friend, he rendered to me service for which I shall never cease to be grateful. I have since those days formed the acquaintance, and have been honoured by the intimacy of many who are justly regarded as among the eminent writers of this generation, but I have never met any who have left on my mind a deeper impression of admiration and reve rence than I first felt as a boy 318 Other Reminiscences of the Lectures. CHAP. xvn. and continued to feel in advancing life, for the goodness and greatness of Frederick Denison Maurice.' Another of my father's old pupils, Canon Barry, mentions an occasion on which some one was disturbing the lecture. My father looked up, and after watching the boy for a few moments said, " I do not know why that gentleman is doing what he is, but I am sure it is for some great and wise pur- pose, and if he will come here and explain to us all what it is, we shall be delighted to hear him." That scene certainly is thoroughly characteristic. Another of his pupils, speaking with great regret of the fact that the English literature lectures were never reproduced, says, " Many of us owed our education to them." 1841. The Jerusalem Bishopric. 319 CHAPTER XVIII. " The spirit of every man in passing through life among familiar things is among supernatural things always." John Inglesant. 1841, continued JERUSALEM BISHOPRIC 1842 MR. SCOTT'S LECTURES INTRODUCTION TO MR. DANIEL MACMILLAN LETTER TO REV. A. ATWOOD ON THE CHURCH AND BIBLE AS " LIVING LESSONS OF A LIVING TEACHER," AND ON SERMONS FOR THE POOR 1843 MRS. STERLING'S DEATH LETTER ON A CRITICISM ON THE SECOND EDITION OF 'THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST' RIGHT AND WRONG WAYS OF SUPPORTING PROTES- TANTISM SEVERANCE FROM STERLING CARLYLE MANNING W ! LBERFORCE MARRIOTT. THE next letters introduce a subject which, as Mr. Carlyle would have said, has " fallen dead " now, but which at the time excited in the country the most intense interest, into which my father flung himself with the greatest enthusiasm, and which is even now historically of some importance because it brought to a test the principles which determined the action of each of the several schools of thought in the country. The question whether the Protestant nations had any in- terest in the Holy Land, or whether in consequence of their divisions, the " protection " of it must be left to be fought out between Russia for the Greek Church and France for the Latin, had been forced into prominence by the steps taken by Europe to save the Turkish Empire from Mehemet Ali in 1840. France was for the moment completely isolated. Dr. Abeken, the late private secretary of the King of Prussia, was at the time in this country, engaged in negociating for the setting up in Jerusalem of an English bishopric, which should undertake the care of and receive under its protection the 320 Points Involved in Bishopric. 1841. German Protestants. Bun sen and Hare were at once enthu- siastic. Lord Ashley and the Evangelicals were eager for a proof so practical that the foreign Protestants were the natural allies of English Churchmen. The Oxford school were, on the other hand, fierce in their denunciations of the whole project. The point of view from which my father regarded the subject has been already brought out more especially in his letter on the Dutch War in 1832, to Mr. Acland. His contention was now as then, that the nation is Protestant, the Church Catholic, and that the two are not contradictory, but complementary truths ; the protest of the nation being that God, and not the Pope, is the King of its king ; the catholicity of the Church consisting in a divine constitution under the head which the nation claims also as its head its invisible King. To him, moreover, it was peculiarly satisfactory that in consequence, as he believed, of the catholicity of the order of bishops, it should be felt by the Prussian King to be inevitable that the union for which all Christians were seeking should be in that order. He theretore threw himself at once into eager co-operation with Hare, Bunsen, Abeken, indirectly with Lord Ashley, and urged forward the alliance with Prussia. To Archdeacon Hare. ' October 13, 1841. '. . . . I trust you may meet Sterling before you return. Abeken talks of going to him at Falmouth if he cannot see him in London. I breakfasted with Bunsen and him [Abeken] yesterday to meet Cornelius, but was disappointed of seeing him [Cornelius] as he had been taken ill from over-excitement at a party of Sir Robert Peel's. Peel seems to have treated him with remarkable kindness and attention, and has written a letter to Bunsen about Germany which you would hardly believe to be genuine without the voucher of his signature.' 'MY DEAR HARE, Guy's, October 22, 1841. ' I was very glad to see Whewell's appointment an- nounced ; more as it had been rumoured that Lord Lyndhurst r. P.M. 36. Catholicism v. Popery. 321 was struggling hard to get in one of his supporters, and even wished to go out of the college. I should hope this was a calumny ; at all events, it is proved that Peel will not be under such in- fluences. Whewell's marriage to the member of a Whig family, some of whom are making themselves rather busy against the ministry, increases the merit of the appointment I should think he might do more for the study of Divinity ha his own college than he even will be able to do in the University, though unquestionably Trinity has maintained rather an anti-divine character, which it will require great caution to break through. But a Divinity Tripos (which is the usual resort when any general improvement takes place) would be surely an abomi- nation.' To his Wife. 'October 29, 1841. * I should have liked to have had you and Georgiana with me when I was administering just now. The poor man was a chimney sweeper who has been a long time ill, and seems in a humble state and trusting, though ignorant. I have no doubt he is taught in that way infinitely more than he could ever learn by words ; and I cannot make up my mind to exact any accurate statements of feelings or desires as a preliminary to any one's coming to receive God's gifts. I feel oftentimes such profound ignorance and unfitness myself, yet I should not dare to make these excuses.' To Rev. R. C. Trench. ' December 20, 1841. ' My own greatest anxiety at this time is to bring out the highest form of Catholicism (not of Anglicanism) as the direct opposite of Popery, and to show that Popery is not the excess of everything good, but simply the denial of it. I am con* vinced that unless this can be done the defections will be very numerous ; they may be of course still but I mean among men of earnest minds. This horrid letter of Palmer of Magdalen, which seems to simply imply " I do not believe in Popery, I do not believe in Protestantism," is such a frightful paradox and VOL. i. y 322 Scoffs Lectures on 1842. such an exact contradiction of what I mean, that I have some thoughts of directly replying to it But I do not like meddling in these wretched controversies, which seem becoming every hour more vulgar, personal, and trifling, destructive of all calm and spiritual life, filling the soul with vanity and wind. It is shocking to think of the effects of them upon the under- graduates at Oxford. I do look now with something of hope and comfort to Cambridge. For such men as Selwyn and Whitehead are enough to cheer one's spirits in such a day as this, and I hope there may be many men equally earnest and humble.' To Rev. A. J. Scott. 'Guy's, April 15, 1842. ' .... I cannot tell you how much I feel the importance of the line of thought upon which you are entering, though from the little experience I have had of one in some respects similar, or at least, not altogether different, I should think that it is one in which every step is painful, as well from the inward conflict which it costs a man to grasp what is real and to get rid of phantoms, as from the discovery how very much he is liable to be mistaken for a speculator and theorist, when he knows that his whole aim is to relieve himself and others from speculations and theories, that they may feel the ground at their feet ' However, there is nothing to discourage in this, sore as the travail may be ; nor yet, I hope, in the still bitterer sense I often experience of being really estranged from many genial sym- pathies and happy natural thoughts which other people know. 1 It seems to me when I am in a right mind a very right and gracious discipline, though it is one which I am much disposed to quarrel with, hiding a secret murmuring against God under very reasonable and well-deserved accusations of myself. I believe the strong conviction that there is Light near us, from which all our light flows, must be attained by some very humiliating processes, though, of course, made greatly more * See the following letter. F. D. M. 36. Certain Aspects of Science. 323 severe by our unwillingness to submit to them. And the acknow- ledgment of the light and of our relation to it is, I suppose, the point where philosophy and religion meet. But I am troubling you with my random thoughts when you must be seeking to keep yours concentrated and harmonised. I will only, there- fore, add that I wish you God speed in the lectures.' To his Wife. * April 30, 1842. ' I have just returned from Mr. Scott's lecture, and have been pleasantly detained since I left it by a walk with Mr. Erskine. I was very sorry not to have you with me, even more in the walk than the lecture, though that was very interesting ; but I know you delight so much in Mr. Erskine, that I grudged the time he was here and you away. He will, I hope, stay till after we return. He joined me after the lecture, and took me to see a picture of his Swiss friend, Madame Vinet, to whom he was so much attached. She must have had a most sweet face. Scott's lecture was rather more difficult to-day. It was partly on the interesting prepara- tion to Newton's "Principia"; partly on the history of electri- city and chemistry, and of the gradual discovery of a common principle and power in both. The great object was to show that all science is a progress from the sensible and material to the principle of Powers, and of a unity in Powers. He had established this fact in reference to astronomy ; in this lecture he carried the proof into the other departments of physical study. The conclusion referred to the discovery of a still higher identification between the God of nature and the God of the spirits. It was, as you may suppose, very striking. The lecture was better attended than any of the former, and it was pleasant to see so many people one knew, who seemed to take an interest in the discourse.' 'July 18, 1842. ' I have had some anxious thoughts, dearest, about you and baby, and also about M., but I dismissed them as very unthankful Y 2 324 The A ngio- Prussian Alliance 1842. after all the mercies we have received this last week, and so often before. 1 believe these fears have been sent us just at this time in very great wisdom and love, and that they are signs to us that it is God's will that we should begin a more earnest and hopeful life. I have been thinking much about the will these last two days, and how much the power of God's Spirit is to be realised in it, how much a constant recollection of the words, " I believe in the Holy Ghost," is the energy we want to enable us to resolve and to act. I must tell you more of my thoughts in this matter when we are permitted to meet. I hope they are not unpractical ; at least they have led me to think more of the way in which we might act, and to hope, with more self-distrust, that we may be able to walk in it, than I have done for some time.' The King of Prussia had come over to England to be present at the opening of Parliament, and to stand as sponsor to the Prince of Wales. The circumstances, therefore, of the time tended to give an especial importance to the question of the ecclesiastical alliance with Prussia. As early as the November of 1841, a notification had been published in the ' Prussian State Gazette,' setting forth, in explanation of the steps that had been taken, the motives which had influenced the King ; viz. : The desire that the Protestant nations should, like the Greek and the Latin, present an un- divided front in their claims upon the Turkish monarchy for recognition ; the greater facilities which England had for in- sisting on their rights, &c. But if the letter to Mr. Acland of 1832 be duly considered, it will be understood with what delight in 1841 my father read in a Prussian State paper the statement, that, as soon as the king had entered into negotiations with the " Heads of the English Church," ' All parties agreed in the conviction that the diversities of Christian worship according to languages and nations, and according to the peculiarities and historical development of each nation that is to say, in the Protestant Church are F. D. M. 36. Acknowledges the Centre, 325 upheld by a superior unity, the Head of the Church Himself, and that in this unity, to which all the diversities refer, as to their centre, is the foundation of true Christian toleration. By a cordial co-operation directed in this spirit, a distinct bishop- ric has been founded in Jerusalem, in which all Protestant Christians may find a common support and point of union in respect of the Turkish government, and in aii cases when their representation as one Church may be necessary.' He disliked the term " Protestant Church." " A Church." he writes, " united merely in a profession of a certain doctrine, though it be the true evangelic doctrine, is one of which I cannot, without difficulty, form to myself the notion ; for the evangelic doctrine seems to me to speak of a kingdom which is one and universal ; " but it is plain how much there was to attract him in the proposal. The next letter will explain the circumstances which drew from him a full statement of his thoughts. The second edition of the " Kingdom of Christ " is not a little affected by the fact that it was written during this period. ' Summer 1842. ' MY DEAR MR. DE VERE, ' I was very glad to receive your kind letter, though I have delayed so long to tell you that I was. At the time it arrived I was rather busily engaged in the same kind of work in which I spent part of a morning with you when you were in town. I had for two or three weeks interrupted the progress of my second edition which has dragged its slow length along till this time for the purpose of writing a pamphlet on passing occurrences. The text of it is the New Bishopric at Jerusalem, and the occasion the very violent brochures by a Mr. Palmer of Magdalen College, Oxford (not Lord Adair's friend) one on that subject, and one containing a general anathema upon Prostestants and Protestantism. I have addressed three letters to him ; the first on the name Protestant, the second on the position of the English Church, the third expressly on the Bishopric. 326 Is Unity in tlie Centre or by 1842. ' The object of them is to show that the turning point of modern controversies is the question respecting the centre of unity, and whether there is one for the whole Church ; whether, if there be, it is a visible centre. As I maintain, of course, the necessity of a real centre, and affirm the doctrine of a visible centre to be a monstrous practical heresy, the evil effects of which upon the order and unity of the Church all ecclesiastical history is manifesting, I find Protestantism to contain a great positive witness needful for the support of Catholicism, and never more necessary than in our day. I then proceed to consider the position of the English Church as enabling us, if we will, to unite ourselves with any part of the Eastern or Western Church which will meet us on the ground of our Catholic institutions, provided it recognises the true Centre of Unity ; as enabling us, on the other hand, to unite with any Protestants on the ground of our recognition of that true centre, provided they do not refuse to adopt the Catholic institutions which connect us with that centre, and with each other. ' Then upon this ground I defend the course which the rulers of the Church have taken in reference to the Jerusalem Bishopric; maintaining that no principle has been sacrificed in it, and a great principle asserted.' This question of the right mode of dealing with those outside the pale of the English Church was one main issue, if not the principal one, between himself and Dr. Pusey, at the time of the ' Letters to a Quaker ' ; only that at that time those whom Dr. Pusey would have required to acknowledge that their fathers had merely gone astray, were the English Dissenters. In considering the matter, it is necessary to remember how closely allied the language of Mr. Palmer and Dr. Pusey must have seemed to my father to what he very well remembered in the mouths of his eldest sisters in the earlier stages of their life, whether as Unitarians, as evangelical Dissenters, or as Churchwomen, each in behalf of her own sect Of that lan- guage some of them at least had utterly repented, brought thereto F. D. M. 36. Narrowing Circumference ? 327 by very sharp discipline, which, as he believed, came for that purpose from the hand of God, whilst he himself had become entirely convinced that even in his criticism of their sectarianism he had need to repudiate the very same spirit, and looked within himself at this very tendency as the representative of all evil. In order to understand the full force and power of his rejection of it, this sense of struggling with an enemy within, the exact counterpart of the spirit represented in this language, must be at all times kept in mind. This is at least the chief meaning of the constant self-reproaches. The living present influence of all his early experiences upon him in these matters comes before me so much more frequently than it is possible to lay it before a reader, that I am obliged as a mere matter of historical truth from time to time to draw attention to it. To his Wife. 'July 20, 1842. ' The Archbishop Avrote last month to the King of Prussia, stating the terms of the relation between the Bishop of Jeru- salem and the German Protestants. He gives up the Thirty- nine Articles, and the Augsburg Confession, and merely requires the three Creeds. This was the plan I always maintained to be the right one. The King has adopted the proposal and published an Ordinance about it As these documents have not yet found their way into any English paper (the " Berlin Gazette" which contains them being that of the i2th of July), Bunsen is very anxious that I should insert them in my pamphlet, and though it is published, Parker (the most ac- commodating of publishers) has consented to add some fly- leaves. I am, therefore, translating, and should be very glad of your help, though I can manage pretty well." ' July 24, 1842. ' . . . . After dinner I must go to Bunsen and Abeken, to correct the proofs of the King's Ordinance and the Arch- bishop's letter ; so this is one of my most bustling days. Yet I never longed for quiet more, or felt more the want of it. 328 On the Death of a Friend. 1842. You see I am to prove that your presence and not your absence gives me rest. I hope, dearest, we may, if it be good for us, spend some Sabbath days. But I do not mean by that, I hope we may be less busy, for I wish to be far more so than I have ever been, only with even ordinary business and calm thoughts. The more we can live out of ourselves and labour for others, the more, I am sure, we shall have of them. Nothing really tires me but self and selfish thoughts. . . . ' 'July 22, 1842. ' I was very glad to receive your kind and loving note this morning, and I can hardly say that I was sorry to read that that was enclosed in it A sad spirit gone to rest, finding the home it had been always sighing for, and scarcely could believe had any reality for it, is a calm and cheering object of contem- plation to those who are still buffeting with the waves. I feel very much as you do, that evil times are coming, and that these righteous persons are taken away from them, being quickly, it would seem, and strangely fitted for their passage. I do believe that they are strengthening, and should be felt as strengthening us who remain \ that we do indeed belong to their company ; and that it is a shame in us, and not a modesty, to doubt it and forget it. We are new creatures ; when we do not dare to say so we must at least believe that there is a new creature in us flapping and fluttering and trying to break loose from its death-case, and we must assure our- selves that the new creature, and not its grave clothes, is what God looks upon as His child. If so, we must strive to think of ourselves habitually as He thinks of us, to see ourselves in Christ as He sees us, and so to get the better of our old man. We know that we will to do right things, and if we only believe that that will belongs to Christ, and is that inmost thing that He loves and is fighting for, we shall be able to do what is otherwise impossible. Read over the 7th of the Romans, dearest, and see if that is not what it means.' On the 25th of July, 1842, the letter which Mr. D. Mac- r. D. M. 36. A Cry for Help. 329 millan had written in 1840 to Archdeacon Hare,* was followed by another on the same subject, much longer and more com- plete, telling what he knew from intimate personal experi- ence, and from that of his brother and immediate friends, of the state of the population of London, " the shopmen, the clerks, the artisans, the porters." " One," he says, who like himself, "has attended some of their religious and political meetings, the Chartist meetings and Socialist meetings ; who has heard them speak ; has learnt what the hard-working men among them are really moving after ; who knows how they often laugh at the ineptitudes of the public spouters who pretend to lead them ; who knows how very sensibly they (these hard working men) sometimes talk ; how little faith they have in all existing churches and spiritual guides ; how very ignorant they are of the real opinions and designs of Churchmen ; one who really knows these things and does not trust to newspaper reporters, or to the facts and generalisations of ' Edinburgh ' and ' Quarterly Review ' writers, must see that there is no spiritual guidance in existence at all equal to the wants of our time. . . . What are called religious tracts don't answer the purpose; they may confirm those who already believe them, but they never reach the masses of the poor in and about London and other large towns." He described the papers that they were actually reading, and appealed to Hare and my father to endeavour to reach these men. He said that the books of each of them had shown that they could reach this class. He proposed letters to the men's papers. "But to do it well would require a society of men who were scholars and thinkers and theologians. Two or three letters a week from different hands; the style should be attractive, the subjects popular." Hare forwarded the letters to my father. This letter of Mr. Macmillan's is only representative of what, through him and through others, was continually coming under my father's observation, and the constant pressure of these facts upon his mind was urging him forward towards some action ; while the * See p. 288. 33O Tracts to Reasonable Creatures. 1842. dread of taking a step from mere impatience, which should only do mischief, as yet for a long time restrained him from adopting any of the suggestions that were urged upon him. The only proposal that seemed to him practical recurs again and again in his correspondence, but did not take form till some years later. To Archdeacon Hare. ' MY DEAR FRIEND, ' August 14, 1842. ' I ought to have returned this letter long ago. 1 need not tell you that I have been deeply interested by it I showed it to Scott, who was also much struck with it ] cannot think that it would be feasible or right either to avail ourselves of the newspapers already in circulation among the shopmen or to establish a new one. ' The first course, supposing it were morally justifiable, which is at least a doubtful point, would, I conceive, be rendered wholly ineffectual, sometimes by the refusal of the editors to insert letters, sometimes by their contemptuous comments on them, always by the more attractive nature of the other contents. A newspaper could not be established without a great capital, got into circulation without a number of favourable accidents, or be kept alive without the sacrifice of time on the part of persons who ought to be otherwise employed, and without, I fear, a frequent resort to discreditable tricks and quackeries. My own opinion and that of some whom I have consulted is, that nothing would be so simple and so likely to produce whatever effect we may reasonably and in faith hope to produce, as tracts written upon an exactly opposite principle from those of the Tract Society and of Burns. I mean upon the principle of acknowledging the people to whom they are addressed as reasonable creatures, really desirous to know what is true, and as already having thoughts and feelings upon the subjects in which we are interested. If they felt that we did not write to censure and contradict them, but to communicate to them truths with which we are concerned, as a part of their inheritance, some few here and there might at least listen, though we merely spoke our p. D. u. 37. Two Classes to be Readied. 331 word without helping it down by any of the arts to which they are accustomed. I should think to such a series the names of the writers should be affixed. That tracts are not inoperative or obsolete instruments the Oxford people have proved satis- factorily. . . .' To Mr. Daniel Macmillan. ' DEAR SIR, ' August 31, 1842. ' Archdeacon Hare told me that he thought you would allow me to make your acquaintance, and that I should be most likely to find you at home if I called in the evening. I have intended to do so for many days past, but for one reason or another have put off my visit. I find that you are going to Brighton to-morrow and that you will not be home till next week. May I hope that when you return you will give me the pleasure of seeing you at any time that may be most convenient to you ? We generally breakfast at nine, dine at half past two, and drink tea at any time ; if you can come at any of these hours we shall be most glad to see you.' To Archdeacon Hare. ' Guy's, November 12, 1842. 'I have been increasingly interested in Macmillan each time that I have seen him, but nothing was struck out between us as to tracts or a periodical. His two objects, the clerks, and the readers of the " Dispatch/' seem to require a different class of instruments. For the first, he is anxious to see some book written which shall point out an orderly course of read- ing, and he ingeniously pitched upon me as the person fit to undertake it, upon the same principle which, according to Sidney Smith, makes the opening of St Paul's so important to young architects, that it contains every imaginable con- tradiction and anomaly which they can be required to avoid. A series of tracts I think I could take part in with greater comfort to myself, though perhaps with as little profit to the readers ; but I think your objection, that readers of the humbler classes would not be interested in them, is of great weight I fear that having been once used to newspaper stimulants, every- 332 ' Christmas Day, and other Sermons' 1842. thing else will seem dull and unsatisfactory. At the same time I hope we may all keep our thoughts turned to the subject, and perhaps we shall be shown the right way of dealing with it. 'Of late I have been occupied with preparing a set of sermons for the press. As Parker seemed to wish that his publication of my letters should lead to some other, I proposed this to him, and he entered into it very heartily. He was very anxious for a title, and, as I found a sermon on Christmas Day, which seemed to me a tolerably good preface to the volume, expressing the central thought in it rather more definitely than the others, I have called the book " Christmas Day, and other Sermons." He will contrive, I suppose, to publish it in the course of next month.' To Rev. A. Atwood. 1 MY DEAR SlR, ' Guy's Hospital, November 15, 1842. ' I cannot easily express the delight which your letter gave me. Although I have met with far more sympathy than I had a right to expect and though I certainly wrote my book in the hopes that it might meet the wants of some minds, I still find it hard to realise the belief that I have really been permitted to clear away difficulties out of any one's path or to impart any comfort. If I felt more habitually what I most thoroughly believe that it is not we who speak I should be freer from this faithlessness ; but as it is, I am most thankful for the kindness of those who give me tokens and assurances that the thoughts which went out of my heart have entered into theirs. 'The best of all blessings, at least the one I should most rejoice to be the instrument in any degree of communicating, is that which you speak of when you say that you can take an interest in the services you never before felt. Though I am sure there is a deep undercurrent of faith in the minds of a great body of the clergy, and one which will work its way in spite of all obstructions, it is very painful to me to think how very very hard many of them must find it to utter the words which should be the most real of all with perfect simplicity and consent of heart. F.D. M.37. WJiat are tlie, Bible and the Church ? 333 ' I do not mean that it must not always be most difficult to all of us, at least I find it so, to bring my thoughts and affections to the level of these services ; in that sense they reproach me as much they can any one. But I do not think I could bear to feel that I am above them, looking down upon them and using them because they were appointed for me, when there was something in the spirit and the express words of them which set my mind continually ajar, instead of feeling, as I do now, that they are above me that they embody, with whatever defects of thought or expression, a truth which I wish daily more to enter into the sense and feeling of, and which they have helped and can help me to realise. It seems to me that, if we regard either the Bible or the Church as merely a collection of authorised dogmatic writings given generations ago, we, in fact, while we pretend to subject our reason to one or other or both, do really exalt our own judgments, modes of thinking, habits of feeling, above them and everything else. On the contrary, if we receive one as well as the other in its own place and for its own purposes as the perpetual living lesson of a living teacher, we must suppose that by them He is training our reason and all our faculties to higher exercises and fuller apprehension than they at present possess. There must be a perpetual growth, but a growth which does not falsify any previous stage, because it is a growth into the knowledge of Him who is the same yesterday, to-day and for ever; a growth which, instead of being the same thing with change, is out of change to fixedness and certainty ; a growth in lowliness as to ourselves, a growth which makes us more ready to receive all teaching, more sick of all independence because we find and know that independence is not freedom but slavery. ' One of the effects of this progress which I can think of and hope for more confidently for the Church than for myself for myself only so far as I connect myself with the whole body must I think be to make us understand more closely all the movements of the society around us and the different theories which have been invented to explain them. I think this is a study in which clergymen ought especially to be engaged, not 334 'Intelligible Sermons' 1842. doubting that they will be assisted and blessed in it. What you say of Fourier's System has interested me very much, and I should be very glad to get any of the documents relating to it. Each of these systems seems to me to touch some one side or point in our Church polity ; to be capable of purification and expansion so soon as the relation is recognised. I do not know enough of Fourier to be aware what this affinity between him and us is, but I can have no doubt that it exists, and that it is well worth investigating. ' No. 21. I can enter I think fully into your complaints respecting the difficulty of preaching what are commonly called intelligible sermons : i.e. sermons in which our hearers are treated as if they were without a reason and had no capacity for entering into anything but what they see, or into certain authorised, customary phrases and notions. I count it a great happiness in my position that I have been forced to grapple with the difficulty. The people I have had to deal with ever since I came into orders have been the very humblest : first, labourers in an out-of-the-way parish in War- wickshire ; afterwards the inmates of a hospital in London. If the ordinary notion be true, I should have given up my task in despair, for I am certain they could not understand the common theology or [the common] expositions of it, [which are in fact] anything but simple. I was desirous, therefore, to act upon the principle which I have always acknowledged : that the faculty which deals with the spiritual truths and mysteries is the universal faculty; that it is the intellect, which meddles with propositions, that is wanting or only exists very feebly in the poor (so however that the exercise of the higher power will be a means of cultivating the lower) ; that if we do not touch that [the intellect], but endeavour to make our appeal to the senses as the great helpers to the reason and as supplying it with its materials, we are able at once to provide a richer and a simpler lore for the poor man than is commonly the portion of the rich.* * This passage will I think be clearer if I mention his habitual mode of referring to our Lord's parables and expressions e.g. " The sower went F. D. M. 37- The Oxford School and Evangelicals. 335 * I have very imperfectly realised this conception, but still the result of the experiment convinces me that in better hands it would be entirely successful. ' The truth is, it seems to me, that we argue upon a wrong hypothesis. We say if a decent respectably educated London congregation must have the Bible almost infinitely diluted before it is thin enough for their taste, how much more the poorer congregation. I should say the poor if fairly treated could bear medicines and required them, from which the so- called better classes turn away. ' Let us simplify language as much as possible, or rather speak our own genuine English tongue, and then we shall find that the deepest truths, instead of being too hard, remove a thousand perplexities and contradictions which beset the daily path of the ordinary wayfarers. What the Oxford [men] say about reserve may have an important truth in it ; but I think they have contrived on their own principles to hide it under a great many unnecessary words. I think there will be most reverence and awe when we most habituate our people to feel themselves in the presence of the most awful realities. The Evangelical preaching has been deficient in reverence because it has been deficient in depth. It has been so much about us, so little about God. I am publishing a set of sermons which will show you how much easier it is to talk about being clear and plain than to act it out. They are deficient in many most important respects even in my own judgment ; still I hope they will convince the readers of my other books that I at least endeavour to be practical and should be very ill content to be supposed the propounder of a new theory.' forth to sow his seed," " fishers of men," etc. " Christ," he would say, as he sat near the sea-side himself, where he could see both fields and beach, "was always speaking of the common facts of nature and men's common work, and reading the meaning of them, of all that we see and hear and fefl." This mode of appealing to nature he would have called "making the senses the great helpers to the reason." Obviously, on the other hand, the articles, for instance, to which for their own purposes he attached so high a value, deal with "propositions," and he would therefore have said were matters of the intellect, and as such, unsuited to the purposes o f any other men than students. 336 Mrs. John Sterlings Death. 184.2. To Mr. Strachey. ' December 28, 1842. ' Pray get Thirlwall's " Charge " and read it it is well worth twice 2s. It is, I think, a specimen of clear, manly thought and expression, and of English equity, though perhaps with too little enthusiasm. There is, however, no want of practical faith, and there are indications of a more devout spirit than one has been wont to attribute to him. ' My paper mourns for the death of an old uncle of Mrs. Maurice's, a very solitary man, to whom wealth brought no hap- piness. It is pleasant to hope for such persons that they may have been comprehended by truths which they could not express or conceive, and may now be beginning to enter into them.' The spring of 1843 brought with it heavy trouble. On Easter Tuesday, April i8th, Mrs. Sterling, my mother's elder sister, died suddenly at Falmouth. Sterling's mother had died on the Easter Sunday, two days before. To my mother the blow seems from her own notes on it to have been utterly overwhelming. To her sister she had in her own family been more bound than to any other member of it. She felt intensely her brother in-law's desolation. She was ex- pecting her own confinement. Two months followed for my father of terrible anxiety, not easily measured by any one who did not know his anxious, sensitive nature. The next letter was written in answer to one from Dr. Samuel Brown, criticising ' The Kingdom of Christ' The parts of the book between which he makes a distinction are (i) the first, in which he is drawing out the " positive " truth asserted by each sect and party, and distinguishing it from the portions of the system which consists in denying truths asserted by others ; and (2) the second, in which he is dealing with the actual order and constitution of the Universal Church and defending the position of the English Church as having that order and constitution. It may perhaps be convenient here to recall the facts which gave at least to the first part of this book its special value. F. D. M. 37. Life Experience of Many Sects. 337 He had in his early days at Frenchay and afterwards at South- amption been brought up amongst Quakers and Unitarians ; he had, through their influence on his own family and himself, known the most remarkable of the Baptist and Independent preachers of the early part of the century Hall, Foster, Vernon, etc. ; he had come directly in contact with those who had assisted at the birth of the Irvingite Church. Among English parties he had been early associated through his cousins the Hardcastles and his sisters with the strictest of the Evan- gelicals and the Clapham Sect ; at Cambridge he had, as he expresses it, " shouted with the Liberals : " he had been asso- ciated in " Subscription no Bond-age " with the leaders of the Oxford movement. There was, therefore, no considerable body of English dissenters, or of English parties, which he had not known from within. Hence, on the one hand, it is not surprising that he should have received letters from members of each one of these sects thanking him for the fairness with which their own views were set forth, or that he should have become a special object of the aversion of those to whom the special formula of their own sect was everything, and all else seemed " vomited out of the jaws of Hell." Hence also a formed habit whether in writing of the " patriarchs and law- givers," " prophets and kings," or the leaders of human thought, whom he has sketched in the " Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy," of endeavouring first to realise them and then to describe them as seen from within. It has led, on the one hand, lively critics to decide that he never describes any one but himself; and on the other from almost every quarter of the globe men who have devoted themselves to special lines of study, either wrote to him, or have since his death, written to others to express their gratitude for the clearness with which he has worked out the characteristics and personality of their own parti- cular heroes. To Mr. Daniel Macmillan. ' Guy's, May 22, 1843. ' I thank you very much for sending me Dr. Brown's letter. The kind expressions in it, coming from a person of so much VOL. I. 2 338 Reply to Dr. Sam. Brown on 1843. thought and earnestness, were, of course, very gratifying ; it was still more so that he gave me credit for wishing rather to know the actual effect which my book had produced on minds educated in different schools than to receive any expressions, even of sincere sympathy with it, from those who might happen to find it confirming their previous opinions. ' For this reason I was not least pleased (perhaps I might say, more pleased) with the part of his letter which expressed dissent from my views than with that which seemed to be panegyrical. I can conceive that the reading of the first volume may have been gratifying to him ; because, though not in all its details perhaps, yet in substance, he had admitted the truth of it beforehand. In this day no one who has not forcibly, like the writers in the Oxford Tracts, determined his mind in the opposite direction, is unprepared fora recognition of truth under various sides and aspects in different sects. It is the common faith of our age. My wish has been to show how heartily I embrace it, not the least to put it forward as a novelty of my own ; and then to consider under what conditions it is reasonable. It seemed to me poor work to say, " There is something of good or true in all sects," unless one found some method of ascertaining whereabouts the truth lay, and how it became mixed with the other ingredients. In this attempt I have certainly arrived at a conclusion somewhat different from that which our Carlyles and Emersons are, at least in words, inclined to adopt. The Personal element in those sect opinions, that which requires the acknowledgment of a living being ; the Social element, that which requires that this Being should be the head of a body, of a fellowship ; these, in all cases, and under their various one-sided forms seem to me the essential indestructible portion of them, with which the negative elements are always at war, and which they are always attempting to swallow up in themselves. I have said that this is not what in words Carlyle and others are disposed to acknowledge, but rather to contradict; but, nevertheless, I do think, and have partly stated in my book why I think, that they too are in their F. D. M. 37. Second Edition of ' Kingdom of Christ' 339 hearts crying after a Commonwealth with a personal centre, and why all their apparent contentment with particular heroes or with a vague naturalism is not genuine, not really in accordance with their own deeper and more unconscious utterances. ' I can understand also, I think, why Dr. Brown should have felt the part of my book with which he was most inclined to sympathise " emasculating." Nothing is so emasculating I know it well as the vague feeling of potential right in all things when there seems to be actual right in nothing. To lie down and sleep till the fates accomplish their own purposes, which it seems impossible that we can promote and very likely that we may hinder, is the inference from such appearances which the devil has whispered to every one a thousand times, and which most of us have obeyed till a louder whisper has awakened us. Oh, there is nothing so emasculating as the atmosphere of Eclecticism ! Who that has dwelt in it has not longed for the keen mountain misty air of Calvinism, for any- thing, however biting, that would stir him to action ? And if we could get back into that air it might be worth trying ; others before me have said that it is impossible. I agree with Dr. Brown that we must move onwards, that we must find some- where a reconcilation between the comprehension or Universal which the reason of this day sighs after and the heartstirring faith of other days. The point is, where are we to seek for it? He says, in a progress beyond Protestantism, as Pro- testantism was a progress beyond Romanism. And this pro- gress must somehow lead us beyond " isms." Just so ; these are the conditions which must determine whether that which is offered to us is that which we seek after. But if we are to invent our own faith, and our own symbols, we must, it seems to me, by an everlasting law, be still shut up in" isms "; we cannot get beyond them. Carlyle partially admits this. He says that each age must have its own formulas, the next must discard them. The reality lies beneath them ; to see that is the privilege of a few gifted seers who then create a vesture through which realities Z 2 340 Reply continued to Dr. Sam. Brown on 1843. shall be apprehensible, in some measure, to the multitude of their day. And so there is to be an endless repetition of half truths and half falsehoods ; the time when there shall be no symbols, when there shall be a mere naked recognition of an undefinable something, being one which they themselves tremble to con- template. Let a man but steadily look these difficulties in the face, not as they are stated by me but by those who seem most contentedly to adopt this theory of the universe, and then I would ask him to consider what I have said about divine symbols, about media of communication with the Absolute and Eternal, not devised by men but appointed by God, not meant for sages but for all creation. But till the difficulties have been fairly grappled with by a mind fully convinced that there must be a solution of them somewhere, I dare not the least expect that what I have said on this point will be regarded as anything but an attempt to methodise shams, to idealise Shovel- hattery, to build up, not earth only, but heaven also upon a ground plan of the Thirty-nine Articles. " We want a Church," it will be said, " a Church of living men ; we will go any way to look for it, to England, Italy, Australia ! But you show us no such thing, only some mysterious pictures of water and bread and wine, an absolute creed, an office which enables men to put Cant, and Ebor. after their names, a book worn to shreds with commentaries." All this, and more contemptuous words than these, I am quite prepared to hear, and it shows the exceeding kindliness of Dr. Brown's nature that he has abstained from the utterance of them. ' Of this point I am well assured, that the difficulty in our day is to believe in a revelation as our fathers did. I find it so myself. I see it in others. 2nd. That this difficulty arises in great measure from the intense necessity of that belief to us. Our minds bear a stronger witness than the minds of our fore- fathers did to the idea of a revelation ; so strong a witness that we think it must have originated in them. We cannot think it possible that God has actually manifested himself to us because the sense of a manifestation is so near to us that we F. D. M. 37. Second Edition of ' Kingdom of Christ? 341 think it is only our sense and has no reality corresponding to it I wish this remark to be tested by the experience of any thoughtful man. I think it will explain many strange phenomena to him, which are passing around him. And it may be at least some help towards a reconcilation with those who are telling him, often I am sure in most perplexing and conscience-insulting language, that he ought to believe a revela- tion in spite of the natural disinclination of his heart to do so. On the other hand it may serve to remove a great many perplexities about the nature of faith. Some of these seem admirably met and encountered in Dr. Brown's sermon. Its chief fault I thought lay in this, that he gave to faith a constitutive power, instead of a mere power of recognition. He seemed to speak as if it almost made the things be, not as if it denoted a foregone reality. I do not think this was his intention at all, and my impressions very likely deceive me' Least of all do I mean to make out a charge of unbelief against a person who seems to have all the constituents of a strong believer. I only mean that this, it seems to me, is the neces- sary habit of our time, and that it accounts for his forming even a very over-high estimate of the first part of my book, and not seeing exactly what I meant by the second. It is quite possible that the execution of that part may be weaker ; I am not at all able to judge, but I do not think the execution of either part could have struck him in the least if he had not found something answering to his own previous conceptions or conscious wants. As to the book itself, it may in a very short time be used for transferring portions of snuff or butter to old women who have themselves spirits as well as noses and mouths, and may have a far truer estimate of their worth than the writer of the scraps which they tear in pieces. But what- ever there is in it of truth is certain to live, though some of it should for a time fall into the ground and die. That I believe will be the fate of the doctrine of Ordinances, perhaps of Ordinances themselves. But a .butterfly will come forth out of the chrysalis ; a perfect Church, united in Him who is one with 342 On Right and Wrong Ways of 1843. God and with Man, will be seen hereafter to have been con- tained in these which seem but husks and shells. Let us wait and long for its full manifestation.' His second son was born on St. Peter's Day, June 29th. The previous year he had stood forward in defence of Pro- testantism when attacked by the Oxford men. This year Dr. Pusey was ordered by the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford to abstain from preaching in the University pulpit for two years. It was the signal for an attempt to suppress the Tractarians by vio- lence. My father was instantly as eager to prevent the truths they had, as he thought, to tell, from being silenced, as he had been before to oppose them when endeavouring to prevent any but their voices from being listened to. To Archdeacon Hare. MY DEAR FRIEND, 'Guy's, July 26, 1843. 'I am grieved to hear that Lord Ashley has been pre- siding, at a meeting in Freemasons' Hall to memorialise the Duke of Wellington about the Tractarians. I am afraid that he can- not bear flattery any more than other good men, and that he has allowed and others, to make a catspaw of him. I think if I had known of the meeting, I must have worked myself up to speak at it, bitterly painful as the effort would have been. I have even thought of addressing a letter to him on the fearful danger of making Tractarians, and Romanists too, by these violent efforts at suppressing them. But I scarcely dare meddle with such subjects ; they are too exciting, and I sometimes think with trembling that that way madness lies. Nothing goes nearer to take away one's senses than the clatter of tongues, when you feel every one is wrong, and know that if you tried to set them right you would most likely be as wrong as any. It would not be so if one had learnt how to keep Sabbath Days in the midst of the world's din but that is the difficulty.' F. D. M. 37. Supporting Protestantism. 343 His letter to Lord Ashley on "right and wrong ways of supporting Protestantism " followed. It is a new working out of essentially the same principles as he has again and again defended ; the claim that the positive truth set forth by each school should be allowed free course ; an assertion of the un- speakable mischiefs which result to any set of men when they devote themselves to denouncing others instead of to asserting the truth they have to tell. Its form is an historical sketch of the various influences under which the High Church, as essen- tially the representative of the social faith of the upper classes, and the Low Church, as that of the individualising faith of the middle, and especially the trading classes, have been developed. He makes an eager appeal to Lord Ashley himself to follow out his own words recently spoken as to the tremendous responsibility involved in allowing the then state of the country to continue, and to make what he had then said the test of the way in which it is right to deal with those who differ from us ; that is to say, to consider the influence which the two schools of thought must have upon the masses of the people if they each work out their appointed task, and the mischief that must arise from their squabbles. He entreats Lord Ashley not to give up to a party what was meant for mankind his own noble, philanthropic efforts. He asks whether all through the country the evangelical and all other clergy do not find their own efforts practically successful or not, in proportion as they give themselves up to helping for. ward all schemes for the good of the people, from whatever source they come ; and whether they do not find them fail when they take to denouncing their neighbours. ' Our religious newspapers and magazines are not content with degrading Protestantism, they must adopt and bring into vogue all the worst practices of Romanism. The principle of doing evil that good may come, that it is lawful to lie to God, that no faith is to be kept with those whom they account heretics, are principles upon which these Protestant writers 344 Dr. Pnsey's Condemnation at Oxford. 1843. habitually and systematically act. The evil which they do to those whom they slander and attack is trifling ; the evil which they do to their readers and admirers is awful. A spirit of gossiping and slander is spread throughout society. A re- ligious school for scandal is opened in every town and village ; men employ themselves in the House of God in observing the tones and gestures of their pastors, that they may report some- thing evil of them in the next week's newspaper.' Neither Lord Ashley nor Dr. Pusey was in the slightest degree affected by his appeals, except that both were thrown into an attitude of common hostility to the man who had urged upon each fairness towards the other. The Oxford scholar maintained his position that it was the bounden duty of those who differ from him to come forward and declare that they and their fathers had gone astray, and that they repented of the evil deeds of their fathers, though he wished to say this to them " with all gentleness and affection." The Evangelical noble- man was as plainly convinced that whatever did not square with that which he believed to be true must be suppressed. Nevertheless, the following prophecy will perhaps now bear the test of history : ' Six or seven years hence, I think it quite possible that those who are now triumphing in the condemnation of Dr. Pusey by the Vice-Chancellor will wish earnestly that no such condem- nation had ever been pronounced; will lament that no great theologian of the University took the pains to separate the chaff from the wheat, and to show that language which was adequate to express a truth before false notions respecting it had arisen, is not adequate for the expression of that truth when they have arisen ; will find the effect of pronouncing sentence upon the sermon as a whole, was to beget an increased sympathy with the earnest feeling displayed in it, and an unwillingness to believe that with such feeling any great and perilous confusions can be mixed.' F. D, M. 37. JoJin Sterling and F. D. M. 345 Sterling had now settled at Bonchurch, in the Isle of Wight. The letters have traced, to some extent, the change which had been taking place in the relations between Sterling and my father. On this subject my father bitterly reproached himself throughout life. Sterling had more and more passed under Mr. Carlyle's influence, and as more and more his opinions and my father's diverged, my father's anxiety and distress at the change in his friend's views of life, drove him again and again into indignant protest, and, as he thought afterwards, into fierce- ness of expression for which he could find no excuse. Allusion after allusion to this relationship may be traced, by those who know of it, in his writings. Always his conscience seems to have smitten him for not having been sufficiently gentle, sufficiently sympathetic, with not having helped instead of having disputed with his friend. One visit, in particular, to Clifton, which was, in fact, almost the termination of their intellectual intercourse, clung to his memory, and seems to have left an ineradicable scar. These few years in this way coloured his whole after life, especially in his dealings with those whom some of his clerical friends felt themselves at liberty to call " heretics." The greatness of his obligations to Sterling, to whom in great measure he owed his wife, the loyalty and generosity of Sterling's character, his rare friendship, all these things set in contrast with the fact that it was amid discussions on the principles of a faith of which charity is the central image that the sword which separated had come in between them all these things seemed to him, as he looked back on them afterwards, as part of the divine discipline of his life. For what seemed to him his own mistakes in it he did not the less reproach himself, but from it he thought that he had learned something that was of more solemn authority than all the commands of his most reverend friends to cut himself off from association with " heretics." More and more from this time onwards he made up his mind to be utterly indifferent to the opportunities for misrepresentation which he would place in the hands of the religious newspapers if he did not distin- 346 Relations 'with Sterling. 1843. guish between his own creed and that of those from whom he differed, and who were being continually confounded with him. As long as they were unpopular or were attacked, he more and more resolutely avoided declaring his disagreement with them by any other means than that of setting forth his own faith. Only when any one amid popular plaudits was finding excuse for denouncing heretics on grounds which seemed to him to involve a heresy immeasurably more serious, did he spring into the arena to denounce in his turn, the accuser. In all these things the story of his relations with Sterling was never absent from his mind. Sir E. Strachey, who was one of those who saw most of Sterling and my father in those days, wishes me to add that my father, according to every one else's judgment and observation but his own, was the one man who at all times restrained those who were ready to be hasty with Sterling, and that he exercised himself, in speaking to his brother, the most wonderful tact and patience. Of one of the scenes of this episode of his life, the following extract from a letter to Mr. Kingsley, written many years after- wards, will give some idea. " The best growler of his day," is perhaps it is needless to say, Mr. Carlyle ; the one " in a horrible rage," himself; the first bystander, sympathising with Emerson, Sterling; the second bystander, his own wife. The hostess may remain anonymous. 'I have before me, all too vividly and painfully, at this moment, a scene from real life many years ago. A London dinner- party ; Hostess, a clever woman fond of seeing bears dance, but still more of setting them to growl and fight, caring nothing about the occasion or the issue. Two of her guests (known to you) : one the best growler of the day, on that particular occa- sion growling earnestly and effectively in defence of his friend Emerson, and of the creation of all things and all substances by man's thought ; the other in a horrible rage, foaming and gnashing and pouring out a number of strong convictions, F. D. M. 37. A London U inner- Party. 347 which seemed like (and perhaps partly were) crude, undigested lumps of orthodoxy ; one bystander, sympathising both in heart and intellect with Emerson and his defender, full of tact and badinage, but with a real honest sadness and affection behind ; the other, understanding in its deepest, most inward sense what the clumsy champion of objective truth was utter- ing in blundering words, regarding him with unspeakable love and pity, and transfiguring his thoughts in her woman's heart into realities. Then, if a vir pietatc grams had been there, as perhaps there may have been, one can conceive how he would go home and dream of what Socrates would have said to make the battle apparently more hopeless for each combatant, and then to establish a permanent peace. That is not the least a hint for you, but merely an experience of the way in which one sometimes gives a personality to the disputations and characters of the old world, and an indication, perhaps, of the possibility of making people feel that they want a questioner and a sifter to bring them to humiliation, and so to truth.' At this time, that is to say, in the year 1843, after Mrs. Sterling's death, the immediate effect of all that had happened was to make both my father and mother more than ever anxious to do whatever lay in their power to comfort Sterling in the desolation of his home, and to be of help to the little ones. Great part of the summer was spent with them at Bonchurch, and afterwards my mother, even when my father could not get away, was constantly nursing Sterling or help- ing to take care of his household. The following two letters belong to the time of the summer visit to Sterling. To Mr. Daniel Macmillan. ' Madeira Vale, Bonchurch, August 31, 1843. ' My DEAR FRIEND, 'Many thanks for your note and the letters which accompanied it. I could not easily explain to you how deeply 348 The Cry for a Personal Centre. 1843. they interested me, or how much value I attached to them as illustrating a state of mind which I know too well, and of which I have seen and am seeing indications everywhere ; though the particular modification of it which you have exhibited to me and the degree in which it characterises the young and earnest minds of Scotland, I could only conjecture. It is a sad and awful history of sins, for which we, the clergy of this land, above all other men, shall have to give account. My own share in the responsibility I feel the more, because from circumstances in my education and position I have been able, at least, better to understand, and had I sufficient heart, I might be able better than some of my brethren to sympathise with, these deep cries of the spirit within in its struggle whether it shall submit to the Spirit of Good or of Evil, and while it acts in alternate moments yea, in the same moment as the spokesman of both, saying to the Son of God " Deliver me," and " Art Thou come to torment me ? " Such words do indeed need an interpreter, and he must be one of a thousand. Would to God that he would raise up such an one, and would blister the tongues and stifle the voices of all of us who only confuse our fellow men by words without knowledge. If those which I have spoken at any time are of this character, if they are only likely to make men despair of help in their difficulties, I can only trust and pray that they may not be heard, but may be lost in the air. Of this, however, every new revelation of this kind more deeply convinces me that men are crying after a Personal Centre ; and that just so far as we can point them to one, or towards one, we are doing them good ; just so far as we are failing in this, we are doing them ill. I am far indeed from saying who ought to be classed under either head. God only knows. ' I cannot find that Carlyle leads us directly to a centre ; but I do find that he makes us despair for want of one, and that he expresses the indistinct waitings of men in search of it better than all the other writers of our day. I have been writing a defence of him for the " Christian Remembrancer," F. D. M. 38. Carlyle's Function. 349 (where he has been stupidly attacked) mainly on the ground that he is perfectly indispensable to clergymen as showing them their own ignorance, and sin, and the deep wants of the age with which they profess to deal. I tremble to think what a crushing of all systems, religious and political, there must be, before we do really feel our gathering together in Christ to be the hope of the Universe ; before we acknowledge that the manifestation of the actual centre of society, not the creation of some circle for ourselves or the indefinite enlarge- ment of the circumference of our thoughts and notions, is what we should be looking for. Such men as Strauss and Feuerbach do not seem to me exactly in the light in which they once did ; but rather as appointed or permitted destroyers of philosophical and religious systems, that in the utter Atheism of men's hearts they may be driven to tears and prayers for a Prince and Deliverer who will be the very same they had fancied they had rid the world of. That every wish and panting of the heart and reason is fulfilled or on the way to be fulfilled, when we acknowledge the crucified man to be indeed Lord of all, when our thoughts and desires are brought to revolve round Him, and not around our own selves, I feel more deeply and assuredly every day. But neither in our modern church notions which leave us so generally to the dream of a new scheme or system into which we are artificially put for the purpose of being fitted and ripened for what is called our salvation; nor in the Protestantism which sets up individual salvation as the end, only not admitting the Church as the necessary means to it ; nor in Rationalism which equally glorifies self, only deifying it under the name of Intellect or Insight instead of soul, do I find that which we and all men have need of. The inference would seem most reasonable. Have nothing to do with either of them ; stand aloof from them all ; take up an independent position. ' But the counsel defeats itself. If the disease of all those be their independency j their selfishness ; I am only becoming more deeply tainted with that disease when I try to draw a SfCts Seventy-three, they say tfte World Infest ; j g . - And everyone lies slumbering in thy breast." Trench. cordon sanitaire round myself and dwell in my own exclusive- ness. And how can I do so ? Do I not carry about High Churchism, Evangelicalism, Rationalism, Atheism in myself? Is not everything I see in them working within? Is it not to be acknowledged and tested there first ? Therefore I believe that the true position for escaping the evils of each is the position which God has given us and our countrymen, not one which we choose for ourselves. I feel that I ought to be High Churchman, Evangelical, and Rationalist ; that, being all, I might escape the curse of each ; that I only fail in realising this idea, because I fail in acting out the position which has been bestowed upon me. All the discomforts of this view I know and am experiencing every day of my life. Alienation from those whom I love, an impossibility of making them understand what I mean, a continual suspicion of cowardice and dishonesty from one side, of disaffection to the truths which I profess from another; what is far worse than all these, the inward self-accusations of dishonouring God and setting up a way of my own, even when I most disclaim one ; the feelings of pride, of self-exaltation, of division, which are so adverse to all that, after the inner man, I love and aim at ; finally, the often recurring hopelessness of ever being able to exert any beneficial influence on any class of my countrymen. In my case there are ten thousand blessings to compensate for these evils ; yet we ought all to count the cost before we enter upon any line of conduct, and I would most strongly warn any one against the self-deception of fancying that he who wishes to be an ambassador of peace can do otherwise than weep bitterly.' 'Madeira Vale, Bonchurch, September 15, 1843. ' MY DEAR STRACHEY, ' On Wednesday (yesterday week), I went over to Wilberforce at Alverstoke, to hear a charge from Dr. Dealtry to the clergy, and to spend a few days with him; and on F. D. M. 38. S. Wilberforce. Manning. Marriott. 351 Monday I went over with Trench to Lavington (Manning's Rectory) whence I returned yesterday. I have had much pleasant refreshment, both bodily and spiritual, and, so far as the sight of men in zealous action, and the conversation of men full of thought and love of truth can impart hopes, to one not over hopeful respecting the Church, I have had much to encourage me. Manning is one of the completest, perhaps the completest man I ever met with ; there are doubtless deficiences, which completeness itself implies, seeing that the incomplete is that which is ever seeking the infinite and eternal to fill up its hollows ; and in him there is a logical r otundity which I should not wish for. But it is united with so much appreciation of everything good, such great refinement, tolerance, and kindliness, that I know not whe"re one would look, rather, for a wise and true bishop in these times. Wilberforce is far less finished, but therefore more suitable to me, of the greatest geniality and cordiality, open to receive any truths, and with singular capacities for imparting all he has received. I have seen little of Manning, but all our intercourse has been friendly and unconstrained. Marriott, too, who, I think, is known to you, has been staying in the Island. Our acquaintance, I think, from my fault, has become somewhat stiff, and I was particularly delighted that we could meet again, and with freshness and openness ; and to see something more into one of the deepest and noblest characters to be found anywhere. His generosity and self-devotion, in the most un- obtrusive way, are quite marvellous. If there are ten such, I think England is not Sodom. ' These specimens of English clerical life, which are not all I have seen that deserve notice even in the small circle I have been moving in, may perhaps be a set-off against your de- nunciations and lamentations, just as, to a great extent, they are. To your charge of an exoteric and esoteric doctrine on this subject, against Acland, yourself and me, I plead " not guilty " for all three. Though I do not say there may not be a tendency to such falsehood in us, and that we may not at 352 The Parochial Clergy. Carlyle. 1843. times have indulged it. What Acland said about the self- sacrifice of the parochial clergy in the matter of schools is true ; they have, a great many of them, impoverished them- selves and their families for the sake of the poor children of their parishes ; and this in nowise contradicts the opinion that they are not qualified, and never are likely to be sufficiently qualified, to conduct the education of the country. I myself, and, I believe you too, have always exalted the powers of the Church by contrast to its actual doings ; calling for repentance on the express ground that we are capable of so much ; though I conceive it is a duty to welcome and encourage every effort at reformation in others, nay, even in ourselves. On the other hand, there are cases in which I think the fullest and broadest statement of the sins of the clergy is desirable and right. One has just occurred, of which I hope to avail myself. An article has appeared in Garden's Magazine, the " Christian Remem- brancer," on Carlyle's " hero-worship," denouncing it furiously, and blaming those clergymen who read Carlyle from some vain notion that he is swelling the battle-cry of the Church. My answer is, I read him, but for no such reason ; on the contrary, because he abuses the clergy, which is the very best thing, and the friendliest thing for us. So you see I am not so hard in this matter as you think. I hope to be in London the week after next, and to see you immediately.' The first droppings of the storm from the religious news- papers which he had been so deliberately drawing upon himself commenced as soon as his appeal to Lord Ashley had appeared. His effort to induce that nobleman not to give the countenance of a great name to their slanders was obviously a line of attack much more dangerous for them than any he had adopted yet, and they turned on him at once with an assertion the absurdity of which has perhaps become already sufficiently apparent and which will become yearly more so as the story of the life advances. It happened, however, at the time to be the accusation that was most likely to affect Lord Ashley, &nd F. D. M. 38. TIte First Newspaper Attack. 353 therefore its connection with fact was a matter of no importance. Certainly Dr. Pusey's house would have been very much divided against itself if my father had been a member of it. To Archdeacon Hare, ' Guy's, October 6, 1843. ' X.'s Review says that I am a Tractarian in my heart, a much more tolerable accusation than that of being a via media man, which they also heap against me.' VOL. i. 2 A 354 Archdeacon Hares Plans for F. D. M. 1843. CHAPTER XIX. "And dost thou nought desire? And wilt thou nothing at my hands require ? Who answered, standing where before he stood ' Great shame it were for me, if any good, While thus within the house of God I stand, I asked, or looked for, saving at His hand.' " Trench. 1843. continued HARE URGES HIM TO BECOME A CANDIDATE FOR PREACHERSHIP OF LINCOLN'S INN AND PRINCIPALSHIP OF KING'S COLLEGE HIS REFUSAL FIRST STATEMENT OF OBJEC- TIONS AVOIDING AN ANNOUNCEMENT OF HIS REAL MOTIVES SECOND STATEMENT EXPLAINS HIS VIEWS AS TO HIS OWN LIFE DR. JELF'S APPOINTMENT 1844 INTRODUCTION TO KINGSLEY DEATH OF STERLING MANDEVILLE'S BEES LETTER FOR YOUNG SCEPTIC HARE'S MARRIAGE. From Archdeacon Hare. ' MY DEAR MAURICE, ' Hurstmonceaux, November 3. ' I hear from Allen that Lonsdale is to go to Lichfield. Of course you must succeed him at King's* when he resigns his post there, as doubtless he will before long. Don't make any scruples about it ; as you cannot have a theological chair in our universities, there is hardly any post where you will be able to do more good in God's service with the gifts which He has endowed you with, and I should hold that, if you do not * Lonsdale was at the time Principal of King's College, and Preacher to the Society of Lincoln's Inn the Chancery Inn of Court. The Preachership only involved a sermon at the morning service during term time, and was therefore a very dignified and pleasant office, usually a stepping-stone as my father says to a bishopric. F. D. M. 38. F. D. M.'s Views Thereon. 355 delay declaring yourself a candidate, and if your friends do their duty, as many of them assuredly will, you are almost certain of succeeding. There are perhaps one or two men of older standing in the Church, who, if they were to become your competitors, might divide the feelings of the principal electors ; but I hope they may not feel disposed to come forward. You must. Pray let me know as soon as Lonsdale's resignation of King's is known, as there are some of the Council whom I could write to then, but whom I hardly know intimately enough to address on a problematical vacancy. ' Allen thinks that you might also succeed Lonsdale at Lincoln's Inn. I quite agree with him. Should you be of the same opinion, will you let me have a list of the benchers, that I may see to whom I can have access.' To Archdeacon Hare (from F. D. M). ' Guy's, November 4, 1843, MY DEAR FRIEND, ' I feel your kindness about King's College very deeply, but I am most anxious that neither you nor any of my friends should suggest my name to any of the Council. I know pretty well what the feelings of its members would be respecting the proposal and how my nomination would be looked upon in the College. All the professors would at once resign and the number of admissions to the College would be reduced two- thirds or three-fourths. I am less known than almost any clergyman in London, and yet I have contrived to disgust both the parties upon which a London College must depend for its support. If therefore I believed, which I do not, that I have the slightest talent for government, I should still be obliged to decline the offer, in the entirely improbable event of its being made to me, knowing that I should have almost no pupils to exercise my gifts upon. I have not succeeded in procuring the least respect from the body of the pupils, and very imperfectly the attention of my own class rather a bad omen for a future Principal. I assure you that so far from coveting rule, I am impatient of independence. I much regret 2 A 2 356 Views as to fits own Fiiture. 1843. that I am not under the orders of some Rector who would fix my duties for every hour of the day. It is not lawful to complain of one's circumstances, otherwise I should mourn greatly over the want of such guidance both in past times and now. ' If the position of Reader and afternoon preacher at the Temple, now held by Mr. Rowlatt, were vacant, I should be disposed to apply for it, as it would bring me nearer to my duties at King's College, and because I feel very unfit for the care of a Hospital, which, I believe, would be one of the most interesting of all occupations, if one understood it. As to the Mastership* of Lincoln's Inn, it is always given to some fashionable preacher who is likely to be a Bishop. Not one of the benchers is aware of my existence. ' If I am ever to do anything for the Church, it must be in some subordinate position. The moment I am tried in another I shall have the bitter mortification of hearing prin- ciples which I hold most sacred derided, from the feebleness of the person who should be the practical expounder and mani- fester of them. I have already had this hardest of all trials to bear, and that one which it seems impossible to welcome with entire thankfulness, because the humiliation which it brings with it is purchased at such a terrible cost to others. I assure you, therefore, that if I took the Principalship of King's College, I should feel as if I were publishing an answer to my own books or a recantation of them. ' If I might realise my own dream of preferment, it would be that of Tutor in Divinity and Moral Science in some Hall at Oxford, under a Head with whom I could honestly and pleasantly co-operate. Should Jacobson be made Principal of Magdalen Hall, it would be the greatest delight to me if he would assign me this office, provided I could also have a Curacy in the City or neighbourhood. But this is never likely to come * The term " Mastership " was the one with which my father had been familiar at the Temple where he had been as a law-student. There is no such office at Lincoln's Inn. The Preachership is the analogous office at Lincoln's Inn. p. a M. 38. Not Without "Ambition? 357 to pass, and I should not desire it for ease or self-indulgence, as I feel that it would be, in many respects, a fighting position. What a monstrous note that is of Ward's in his article on Mill respecting Lutheranism. The notion of Luther believing that the Gospel required a lower form of righteousness than the law ! What havoc we must have made with his teaching before an intelligent and pious man could have produced such a conception of it I am afraid we have to learn Protestantism again as well as Catholicism. Remember me affectionately to Mrs. Augustus and to the Bunsens.' To Archdeacon Hare (from F. D. M.). ' November, 1843. ' MY DEAR FRIEND, ' I find by a letter from Esther which I have just re- ceived that you thought the reasons which I gave you for not becoming a candidate unsatisfactory, and that you still wish to persist in your kind exertions on my behalf. How much I feel your affectionate zeal in my cause, and how much I value your good opinion of me, I need not and could not express. And as I am convinced that you would not desire anything for my honour which you did not believe would also tend to the increase of my usefulness and to the good of the Church, I have endeavoured since I wrote to you to put all other con- siderations aside, and to ask myself whether my calling be to an office of this kind, being quite satisfied that if it is, no feelings of cowardice or self-distrust ought to hinder me from accepting it or even seeking for it. ' Perhaps, if I were to tell you all the thoughts that are sometimes within me, nay, which at times have quite possession of me, I should remove from your mind all notion that I was yielding to a foolish habit of self-depreciation ; you would fancy you had more need to warn me against overweening ambi- tion. I will not expose myself to this charge ; but I will say that if I ever am to be of the least use, I am convinced by numberless indications without and within, that it must be by a course which respectability and Station in the Church 358 Through a Cave of Adullam to 1843. would rather interfere with than promote. To take one in- stance ; my early training and the line of thinking into which I have been led since I took orders alike seem to tell me that my business is very much with the outlying sheep more than with those in the fold. It is very true that I have been brought little into contact with dissenters for many years, that my books have produced exceedingly little effect upon them, and that I have not gone out of my way to find them, far less to conciliate them. Nevertheless, I think that some time or other my vocation will be among them, and generally among all that are in distress and are in debt and are discontented Quakers, Unitarians, Rationalists, Socialists, and whatever else a Churchman repudiates, and whatever repudiates him. This dream would seem to most a very wild one, for these people probably have less sympathy with me than with most of my brethren ; looking upon me (if they look at all) as a futile apologist for the English Church, who, finding other courses desperate, wishes to keep it alive by putting it to suck at the breasts of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, it is a dream which is worth something to me, and out of which, at any rate I cannot wake myself. But if I went to King's College as Principal I should dissolve it instantly; I should think it a point of duty, the fulfilment of a tacit pledge to those who appointed me, and to those who were under me, to avoid all such connections and intercourse. Nay, in the mere statement in books, of points wherein I sympathized with men rejecting our position and faith, I should find myself greatly embarrassed. Cautious I hope I should always be in such statements, not chiefly for the sake of avoiding bad reports, but actually of distinguishing my position from the border-land of Latitu- dinarianism and Eclecticism. But it would be altogether a different kind of caution a very dangerous kind, and one quite destructive of my object which would be required of a person holding an office as superintendent of a college of young men under bishops and archbishops. I hope and be- lieve that I am not open to the charge which Ward brings in the last " British Critic " against some persons probably he p. D. M. 38. Unite a Kingdom. 359 thinks me one of them of " sailing safely between the Scylla of Aye and the Charybdis of No." I have always striven to be at least as strong and assertive as a party man can be, but I by no means feel certain that if I grew easy and fat, and went often to Lambeth, I might not unconsciously acquire this fatal ingenuity, all the while fancying that I was carrying out a principle which, rightly understood, I trust is the great preservative from it. ' I am also strongly impressed with the feeling that I ought, if possible, to bring up my children in greater hardiness and self-denial than would be well compatible with such a position. For their sakes, indeed, on every account, I should especially like to be connected with some institution for giving a cheap education to clergymen for poor parishes and for the colonies. But I agree with Sir F. Palgrave, that the true mode of esta- blishing such an institution would be to open halls in Oxford or Cambridge, to restore the University as distinct from the Colleges, and so to reform the education we have, while we open and expand it to meet new wants. I should think it the highest honour, a far higher one than I dare aspire after, to be a subordinate instrument in this great work. It would realise and reconcile many thoughts which are at present striving confusedly in my mind. For I think nothing would attract the dissenters like the sight of men really giving themselves to the Church without seeking its emoluments ; the education itself would be of a kind which the better part of them would long for, and which would unite them to us without the in- fluence of secular motives. It would be a way of satisfying many Romanist cravings, and of adopting the best part of Romanism into our system, while it might be a most effectual witness for Protestant truths ; it might interest our countrymen in studies to which they are now indifferent (Eastern languages, religion, &c.), by connecting them with a practical object ; it might thus give a new life to all their other philological and historical pursuits ; it might raise the whole tone of our think- ing, immensely enlarge the number of the clergy, and provide a class which would be fit for our worst manufacturing districts. 360 Motives for Making First Statement. 1843. All this may never come to pass, or I may not have the least to do with it ; but keeping it as an end before me, I should avoid, from other motives than those of diffidence, any position which connected me hopelessly with the system and machinery of a London Joint Stock College, even though I believe fully that it is in the main a useful institution, and one in which I am very happy to work so long as I am responsible only for my own department. I ought to say, lest I should be mis- understood, that I have never had a word of difference with any of my colleagues, or with the Principal, and that I believe them all, in their different stations, to be exceedingly efficient, far more than I am in mine. ' If I did not express myself in this way before, it was because I felt sure, as I said, that the situation never would be offered to me, and that I was utterly unfit for it I therefore did not like to state any other reasons, especially none which would have looked like indifference to what would really be a very great honour. Of course I should, on the same ground and many others, not wish any one but yourself or some friend who would not misunderstand me, to know what I have now written. I never feel the least tempted to look with anything but respect upon those who fill honourable stations in the Church and fill them well. I only think I see clearly that my own calling is another way. ' P.S. I did take one step which you may not approve. I wrote to Gladstone, urging the merits of Mr. Edward Coleridge of Eton, who, I think, would be a very efficient Principal. He answered that Mr. Coleridge's income at Eton was so much larger than what he would have at King's College, that he could not suppose he would change his place.' From Archdeacon Hare. 1 Hurstmonceaux, November 14. ' MY DEAR MAURICE, ' Well, I can only now beg you to forgive me for having caused you so much annoyance and distress, as my pertinacity has evidently cost you. All I can say in my excuse is, that I F. D. M. 38. Hare's Defence and Reply. 36 r have long been grieved, like others of your friends, at seeing you wearing out your health in the constant labour and con- finement of Guy's, which has also seemed to me to be by no means the place where you could render the best service to the kingdom of Christ. I have wished to see you in a place where you might have more hearers of a character likelier to be benefited by your teaching. Had I the power of putting you where I choose, it would be in a divinity chair at Cambridge. It may be that a love for my own University misleads me : but I also think you would find more willing hearers there, and that at Oxford you would be fretted by an unceasing warfare with the new school, while you would be incapable of sympathising with their opponents of whatsoever class, old High Church or Evangelical. But this scheme being plainly impracticable, I have fancied that the Principalship of King's would afford you better opportunities of usefulness than most other positions. I knew but little about the nature of the office, except that Bishop Otter and Rose had held it and discharged its duties well, and neither of them was a man endowed with those practical talents of which you deplore the want. Thus for the last two years I have in a manner fixed it in my mind that when Lonsdale received his expected mitre, you would succeed him ; nay, I have been almost impatient for his promotion, in order that what I regarded as its sure consequence should follow it This notion has become so confirmed that I have spoken of it to several of your friends. Sterling, Bunsen, others, seemed to think it equally desirable ; and so, when I first received the notice of your opposition, I could not abandon a project so long cherished, and fancied your refusal arose from an exaggerated self-depreciation. Hav- ing stated this as some sort of apology for my over urgency, I have now done with the matter, and shall try to persuade myself that you have judged rightly, trusting that some other more appropriate field of action may in God's time be marked out for you. ' That your work is to labour in healing the breaches of the Church, is plain, and I know no book that will do, and, I 362 End of Discussion with Hare. 1843. believe, has already done more towards this end, than the " Kingdom of Christ," only I should deem that you were rather called upon to act upon the members of the Church, at least still more so. I should like to talk to you about your great plan. Something of the kind ought to be done, and must be done. We must have some mode of preparing the heaven- ordained spirits among the middle and lower orders for the ministry. The training schools, I trust, will help towards it in their way. But whether such an institution can safely be connected with our old universities seems to me questionable. The contact with the wealthier classes which has almost extinguished the class of servitors and sizars would, I fear, be equally injurious to the new Hall ; and how little is there in our present university studies that would be beneficial? Ward's notion of Lutheranism is taken, I feel pretty sure, from Mohler's very gross misrepresentation ; but how scandalous is it that a man should thus anathematise and rail at one of the best branches of the Church, without so much as looking at its symbolical books, or at any of its great teachers, on the mere credit of an avowed rancorous enemy ! ' To Archdeacon Hare (from F. D. M.). " MY DEAR FRIEND, ' Guy's, November 16, 1843. ' You cannot, I am sure, believe that your exertions on my behalf have given me pain on any other ground than that I felt them to be bestowed on an unworthy object and for an unsatisfactory and impossible result. For in themselves they have given me the greatest possible delight ; not that I wanted them to prove your kindness to me or your own appreciation of me, but that every manifestation, at least of the first, must awaken a new feeling of gratitude towards you, and give me new strength for any work I may be called to. I hope you are now convinced that I do not underrate my own vocation or the powers which may be given to fit me for it. I wish to feel every day a deeper sense of the one and a greater confidence in the promise of the other.' p. D. M. 38, Dr. Jelfs Appointment as Principal. 363 Soon afterwards Dr. Jelf was appointed Principal. He had been tutor to the late King of Hanover, and on his return to Oxford Mr. Newman had selected him in consequence of his having been absent from the University during the greater part of the time when the " movement " had been going on as a convenient recipient for a letter in which a statement of the circumstances of the time, from his point of view, should be made. This had naturally led to a reply on the opposite side being similarly addressed to Dr. Jelf. It would scarcely, therefore, have been possible for the governing body of King's College, anxious above all things to avoid " the falsehood of extremes," to hit upon a man more marked out by circum- stance as par excellence the representative via media man. His natural kindliness of disposition, and strict conformity to the current opinions of the day, were qualities that greatly enhanced his qualifications for the post. To his Wife (then at Ventnor with the Sterlings). ' March 9, 1844. * Remember me in the Temple to-morrow. It is far more to me to preach there than anywhere else except Cambridge ; my recollections of the place and my life there are so strange, and should cover me so much with humiliation and thank- fulness. ' I was more delighted than I can tell you to find that you had been reading over the chapters in Ephesians. I have been looking them over this morning, and I have been wonder- ing at the strange light which they seem to throw upon the subject we were talking of last night. The one thought in St. Paul's mind, with which all that he says about redemption, forgiveness of transgression, and every other subject is con- nected, is that the blessing of the creature is vo have the knowledge of God, and therefore that the great mercy for which we have to thank Him is that He has been revealing Himself and leading on the spirits of men to apprehend Him. If the teachers of Christianity would but keep this one thought 364 Heaven and Hell. 1844. before themselves, and set it before others, what a change it would make in all our notions and feelings and conduct. I cannot tell you how I am sometimes overpowered with the conviction that all has been going wrong, from men being taught to seek something else than the perfect light and love ; to fly from some other terror than the terror of being without Him, of being left to Atheism; nor how much that terror seems to me the real one from which by all means we are to seek deliverance ourselves and pray for deliverance for others. The belief of a power always at work to draw us into the light, and of which we may lay hold, and of another power always seeking to keep us down in darkness, is the one which I feel so infinitely practical, and of which all the Scripture is the full expression and development How I long to be telling myself and telling every one that the Hell we have to fly is ignorance of the perfect goodness and separation from it, and the Heaven we have to seek is the knowledge of it and participation in it. Then I have no fear of the message of the Gospel and the Church all manifesting itself to men in due time. But while that kind of notion of Christianity which X. seems to have taken up at one time haunts the air, I do not see what we can expect but constant alternations of gloomy faith and gloomier unbelief. Punish- ment and reward to ourselves, instead of spiritual death from ignorance of God and sinking into self, and eternal life from knowing Him and deliverance from self. I think this must be the subject of the tracts Macmillan speaks of, and this is what I trust our darling boys will be taught as soon as they are able to learn, and everything else in connection with this.' To Mr. Strachey, then in Italy. 'March 13, 1844. ' I feel convinced that many scenes which you are disposed to think of now with severe sick-room and English criticism will come back to you hereafter with refreshment and delight and thanksgiving. Miss Martineau .has put forth a book, F. D. M. 38. Free Trade for Truth from Abroad. 365 called " The Sick Room," which contains her own experience. In many things it is defective, in some perhaps painful, but on the whole it is full of clear observation, honest feeling, and I would even say, real faith. In one passage which Mrs. Maurice especially wishes to have the pleasure of showing you when you return, she speaks of opening her shutters after a night of severe pain, and of the effect which the sight of the early morning, and especially of one basket-woman coming out into it with her vegetables and fruit, produced on her, months after the recollection of the pain had gone. This was meant to illustrate the permanence of the blessings which wait upon suffering. These, I am sure, in a higher way you have often known ; but I trust you will know it in this way in the harvest of long and enduring thoughts and im- pressions which scenes scarcely observed at the time, and beheld perhaps while your bodily suffering was acute, may afterwards put you in possession of. Believe the prophecy, and then there is every reason to think it will be fulfilled. You may abuse the Pope and all the Cardinals if you like, but you must bring back something better than a mere dislike of their abominations to cheer us with, under our sense of English sorrows and corruptions. We have indeed a rich consolation here if we look for it but pray let us have the ports open, and no duties upon what can be brought us from abroad. To be sure, I could often be well content that you should pour out a little of your bile to mix with and dilute the maudlin sentimental ism of some of our young men about Romanism, but if you tell them about some stuffed Cardinal, they only say "Lepauvre hommel" and believe that somehow or other he is a model of self-sacrifice, so that this does not answer. When people are bent upon folly, they cannot be stopped by proving that folly is foolish. Give them something wise, which is as much like as may be on the outside to things they covet, and you may perhaps give a turn to the complaint ; otherwise they must be left to feel the bitterness of it, and to get round in that way. At present our English converts are very insignificant As your friend Gardiner said to me the 366 The Maurice E asters. 1844. other day, not one-tenth as numerous as those which the Plymouth Christians make, nor half as respectable. Those who stay in hopes of Romanising England may be more formidable, but in themselves I do not think they are. The true fear is in the sectarianism, feebleness, want of heart among the clergy generally, and in the whole country.' The next letter alludes to a subject, as to which it will be convenient to state or restate here a few facts. On Easter Sunday Edward Hurry broke the blood-vessel which produced the fatal illness of which he died (see p. n). On a later Easter, Anne Maurice, the first of the sisters who died, also broke a blood-vessel, which produced the illness that proved fatal to her. The Easter of 1831, though it had not actually proved fatal to his sister Emma, had been passed in hourly expectation of her death, which followed a few months after. At Easter, 1839, his sister Elizabeth had died. At Easter, 1842, Susan Sterling and Sterling's mother had both died. The letter expresses a somewhat weird feeling on the subject, which had already arisen, and for which the coming years were to furnish noticeable justification in the deaths of sisters, father, mother, his wife, and himself at that season of the year. ' Guy's, March 30, 1844, * MY DEAR MACMILLAN, ' .... I wish I could get down to Cambridge for a day or two; perhaps I may manage it in a month or two; but Easter has been usually in my family, a time of sorrow (not I hope unmixed with or unrestrained by its own proper joy), and I feel almost superstitious about leaving home then ; so frequently have death and resurrection been brought together in my experience then. They should be united in one's feelings always, and I hope will be so more and more.' A sudden and violent relapse of Sterling on Good Friday made my father for a moment suppose that all his fears had F. D. M. 38. Thoughts about Sterling. 367 been fulfilled. He and my mother hurried down hardly hoping to find their brother alive. On Easter Sunday he writes to Mr! Trench : ' His welcome was unasually kind and affectionate, and many words which he has uttered are pleasant to remember. You know how I must long for more and others; sometimes I feel it is more right to give up all such craving for signs to Him who knows when to give and when to withhold them. The complete sacrifice and the power of the Resurrection I try to rest upon, and to pray they may be manifest in due time. And the thought of the manifold sins of unfaithfulness of a friendship of nearly twenty years, on one side of unvarying generosity and self-sacrifice which is at times too overwhelming to bear, at others comes in as a witness of the infinite love, which is greater even than all this.' Sterling, however, for the moment rallied. To Archdeacon Hare. ' MY DEAR FRIEND, ' Guy's, Whitmonday, May 18, 1844. ' .... I was much pleased with Trench's book* and the preface, though, from what he told me, I hoped that the latter would have spoken still more strongly and definitely. There is no objection in the ultra Oxford school to the doctrine of a light not vouchsafed to the Fathers ; one desires to see their development doctrine fairly stated, its confusions cleared away, and the limitation to the time before the Refor- mation destroyed. At present it seems to mean only that the human heart has a very great faculty of generating idolatries, and that such were generated in the Middle Ages; a fact which we knew before. To discover what of firm, eternal truth was explicitly revealed to the Middle Ages which the Fathers held but implicitly, and then to show what was the counterfeit of that truth, then to find the post-Reformation developments and counterfeits, would be a work worthy of some great divine * ' Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount.' The preface of 1844 is reprinted in the edition of 1881. 368 Cambridge Tracts, or 1844 and historian who was willing to stand in the pillory for half an age and to be pelted with rotten eggs by all the religious parties. I have not read Thirlwall's speech ; I suppose it was delivered at the National School meeting. That the bishops are afraid of the Duke, Lord Brougham, their own shadows, of everything else in the world wherein no fear is, I potently believe. ' We have taken the Rectory at Chelsea for my mother-in- law, my wife, and children, for three months. I come up every day for my duty at Guy's. The house and garden are much too grand for a parson, but it suited my mother-in-law to have good rooms on the ground floor. We are close to Carlyle.' ' Guy's, June 28, 1844. ' MY DEAR MACMILLAN, ' Hare does not like the thought of Cambridge Tracts, on the ground on which you objected to them some time ago, as indicating opposition to Oxford. I do not feel that reason so strongly ; for I think, as I have often said, that Cambridge has a special work to perform, of which it is good that she should be reminded, and moreover, that this work is, in one sense, of an opposite kind to that which Oxford, supposing she did her duty best, would feel herself called to. However, I am afraid of refining about this ; I have fear that the title would sound presumptuous ; it might lead to the growth of a party, and at all events I do not think I should have much right to take part in such a series. I have been thinking earnestly, whether my position in a London hospital to which poor people from all parts of England resort, where may be found nearly every form of false opinion and evil practice, where there is more leisure for reading than the poor generally have, where everything is preaching of realities, where there is a testimony, and a practical one, for the duties which the rich owe to the poor, whether this position might not give me opportunity of addressing the poor of the land generally which it would be unwise to abandon for some one invented by myself. I cannot get at all these people Dissenters, Socialists, F. D. M. 38. Hospital Tracts. 369 discontented men of all sorts, yet I know that they are here. I have no books which I am satisfied to give them ; I see them reading the " Weekly Dispatch," and I have not seen my way to deprive them of it, even had I the power, because it is cruel to deprive a man even of bad food when the alternative is starving, and because the prohibition will only lead to con- tinual deception. It would, therefore, be a great relief to my own conscience if I could pour out my thoughts to these people, and I have a strong impression that it is the more hopeful way of proceeding, to do one's immediate work, and through it to aim at what is distant. Of course this would not answer your notion, as if these were the only tracts I should be assuming the office of writing them all But if other persons in other spheres would write for" their own flocks whom they know, you would in time get a sufficient variety, and I think something more real than what would proceed from the best formed committee deliberately addressing itself to the wants of the country at large. I should rejoice if you would be the centre of such a set of publications ; they might embrace every class in the country. The young men in towns about whom you feel so much interest, I think should be left especially to you, at least till you can educate the clergy to understand their difficulties and position. ' The one thought which possesses me most at this time and, I may say, has always possessed me, is that we have been dosing our people with religion when what they want is not this but the Living God, and that we are threatened now, not with the loss of religious feeling, so-called, or of religious notions, or of religious observances, but with Atheism. Every- where I seem to perceive this peril. The battle within, the battle without is against this ; the heart and the flesh of our countrymen is crying out for God. We give them a stone for bread, systems for realities ; they despair of ever attaining what they need. The upper classes become, as may happen, sleekly devout for the sake of good order, avowedly believing that one must make the best of the world without God; the middle classes try what may be done by keeping themselves warm in VOL, I. 2 R 37O Best to Do the Work at Hand. 1844. dissent and agitation to kill the sense of hollowness ; the poor, who must have realities of some kind, and understanding from their betters that all but houses and lands are abstractions, must make a grasp at them or else destroy them. And the specific for all this evil is some evangelical discourse upon the Bible being the rule of faith, some High Church cry for tradition, some liberal theory of education. Surely we want to preach it in the ears of all men : It is not any of these things or all these things together you want, or that those want who speak of them. All are pointing towards a Living Being, to know whom is life, and all, so far as they are set up for any purpose but leading us into that knowledge, and so to fellow- ship with each other, are dead things which cannot profit. There are some things which I sometimes feel, like Dr. Arnold, I must utter or burst. But then, again, the despondency and weariness and shame which come over me, the numberless discomfitures and wrong-doings, the dread of hurting the good which still remains, the fear of dishonouring what .is right or of proving at last an undoer these are terrible hindrances. My Church History, over which I toiled, idled, and lamented for a year, till the burden of it became too much, and I was obliged to tell Parker that, for the sake of all other duties and of the quiet of my conscience, I must be quit of it, has been a great lesson to me, not, indeed, to abstain from work, but to enter upon work which does not lead to hopeless laziness. This blunder has, perhaps, been at the bottom of my discovery that I ought to labour for the objects more directly set before me as in writing tracts for a hospital and helps to the students of King's College in reading history or some such book. But all this while I have not said a word about your health, an omission which I half grieved over in your note, and half consoled myself into the belief that it was a sign of good. Do take care of yourseJf, and let us hear that you are doing so, and are getting the benefit of it.' The " Rectory" at Chelsea where my father was now staying was that of Mr. Kingsley senior, the father of Charles Kingsley. F. D. M. 38. First Letter to Charles Kingshy. 371 Whilst there, in the following month he received from Charles Kingsley the letter of which Mrs. Kingsley has described the sending, and wrote the answer, given on page 127 of Mr. Kingsley's Life. It happens, however, that the part referring to their intro- duction to one another has been omitted from the beginning of the letter, and it may here be given as thoroughly charac- teristic. Mrs. Kingsley has suggested that, as in the smaller edition of Mr. Kingsley's Life, this letter will not be printed, it should be here given entire. As printed in Mr. Kingsley's Life, there is a misprint of an im- portance so great perhaps that it is not unfortunate it should have been made, in order that attention may be directed to it. It will have been seen in everything which my father had written about education up to the present time, that his great purpose had been " to assert for theology its place as the scien- tia scientiarum" that is as the science whose business it is to assign to all other sciences their proper place. His purpose was this and not to claim for theology any place however important " in the sdentia scientiarum" On this principle, ' Subscription no Bondage ' was founded, and this was the issue of the whole question for which he contended in his Lectures on Education and in the ' Educational Magazine.' To Rei\ Charles Kingsley. ' MY DEAR SIR, ' Chelsea Vicarage, July 19, 1844. ' I am sorry that I was prevented from writing to you by yesterday's post to express my gratitude for your kind ex- pressions towards me ; how much pleasure I should have m making your acquaintance, and how it grieves me to think of the disappointment you will experience when you find in what degree I deserve the opinion you have formed of rne. I have now taken a long sheet that I may say a little about the inter- esting subjects to which you refer ; not that I expect to throw much light upon them, or that I do not agree with you in believing that conversation is, on the whole, better than paper 2 B 2 3J2 The Bible, Living or Dead? CHAP. x:x. and ink, but that I should be sorry not to give you the benefit of any blunders I may have committed in past time, with such experience as has been the fruit of them, and that it is some- times easier to recover the different fragments of this experience and to piece them together in writing than in speaking. With respect to the study of the Scriptures, my own great error has been that I have formed and abandoned so many plans, any one of which honestly pursued, might have led to good results. I fancy this is a prevalent temptation, though I have yielded to it and suffered from it more than any of my acquaintance. As I would turn diseases to commodity, or, at least, as God is sometimes mercifully pleased to do this for us, I think I may say that all the deplorable waste of time which these changes have occasioned has brought with it this compensation, that I had been solemnly and inwardly impressed with the truth that the Bible, as a means of attaining to the knowledge of the living God, is precious beyond all expression or conception ; but, when made a substitute for that knowledge, may become a greater deadener to the human spirit than all other books. The method of the Bible itself and the reasons of its being over- looked, I think, become more and more clear to us as we keep this consideration before us. If it be a human history con- taining a gradual discovery of God, which discovery awakens the very faculties and apprehensions which are to receive it, the treatment of it as a collection of notions either about the invisible world or our own duty must entirely mislead us in all our studies ; and, whether we rate it high or low, whether we accept it as the one rule of faith, maintain its authority to be concurrent with that of Church traditions, or look upon it merely as a set of fragments containing the speculations of a certain nation about religious questions, the result will be much the same. In each case the end of the book will be lost, and therefore all the steps to that end will be confused and incom- prehensible. But if once the teachers in our theological schools would have courage to proclaim theology to be the knowledge of God and not the teaching of a religion, I am satisfied that the scientific character of the Bible would be brought out as F. D. M. 38. Theology the Knowledge of God. 373 conspicuously as its practical character, one being seen to be in- volved in the other. Then it would not be necessary to assert for theology its place as the saentiascientiantm, or to bid others fall into their places in connection with it and subordination to it ; far less would it be necessary to be perpetually proclaiming Church authority in favour of such and such doctrines. The truths concerning God would be felt so essential to the eluci- dation of those concerning men and nature, the relation of one to the other would be so evident, there would be such a life infused into the portions of human knowledge, and such a beautiful order and unity in the whole of it, that the opposition to them would be recognised as proceeding just as much from prejudice and ignorance, sure to disappear whenever these came with moral causes to sustain them,* as the opposition to gravitation or any of the most acknowledged physical or mathematical principles. I do not mean that this effect would follow suddenly, or that the actual impediments to the Gospel from human pride and wickedness would be less felt I suppose they would be more felt after it had followed. But we should then be obliged to acknowledge that much of the resistance to the most precious principles may actually proceed from a love to some others, or even to those same ; we should not have such a din of voices crying out for this theory and that, and many forgetting God in their love for abstractions ; we should not see so much violent straining and perverting of truth to serve a purpose ; we should have much less idolatry of the Bible, and much more reverence for it. And the hard- working clergy of our parishes, having been trained in such a * This rather peculiar clause refers I believe to his own habitual way of looking at the facts of history. ' These ' are ' The truths ' with which the main sentence is concerned. The ' coming of the tiuths ' with moral causes to sustain them, would be the events of history and of private life, which, as he believed, force now this, now that truth into prominence and determine the decision between what is true and what is false by making it clear which of the opposing views is ' sustained ' by moral strength. His practical application of this in life and history was clear and consistent. It is only the complete abstraction without illustration that makes it difficult to follow. 374 Value of Study of Leading Idea. CHAP. xix. school before they entered upon practical duty, would find a clearness in their minds, a readiness for occasions, a power of bringing their studies to bear upon life, instead of being obliged, as is now so much the case, either to shut their eyes against any new light or else to destroy and reconstruct their system each time that any is vouchsafed to them. But since our Universities afford us no teaching of this kind at present we must try to profit by the helps which we have. Our actual work is, I think, the best of these helps. It forces us, whether we will or no, out of the routine of sects and systems, and leads us to seek for something in Scripture which is altogether unlike them. And though I would strongly urge any one not to lose the idea of that method of which I have spoken, I would by no means recommend any one who was not working as a professed theologian in the schools to spend his time in contriving how he may adjust his own reading to it. The use of it to him will be far greater if he recollects that it exists when he is reading a single book or chapter or text, than if he determined doggedly to make out the traces of it from Genesis to Revelation. The subject of his studies, I should think, must be always best determined by the wants of his parish. In preaching I have always found it best to follow the order of the services, taking my subject from the epistle, gospel, collect, or first lesson ; and, I think, if we read on a plan we can hardly find a much better one. The study of words also, I think is of immense profit, especially of families of words, e.g. AIKCUOS, AIKCUOO), AiKcuWts, AtKcuocrwT/, through an epistle or through many. Schmidt's Concordance is worth much more, it seems to me, than Schleusner's or Bretschneider's Lexicon, though I do not mean to say they are of no value. I think, too, that it is desirable cautiously and deliberately to question ourselves about the leading idea of any epistle ; I say cautiously and deliberately, because the mere taking up with customary for- mulas on the subject, such as that the epistles to the Romans and Galatians are about justification, will, I am satisfied, lead us astray. These epistles are, I am convinced, strikingly different in their object and character. With respect to the Romans, F. D. M. 38. Mischief of Technical Formula. 375 the great mischief is that commentators generally start from the third chapter, looking upon the first and second as merely an introduction or prologue, whereas any simple reader must perceive that St. Paul enters at once on his subject, and that it is really the o-is TTJS SIKCUOCTW^S row $eov,* and not an abstract theory of justification. ' It is difficult to speak on the second point in your letter the Baptists in your parish, without knowing how far they are or not practically Antinomian. In many places they are, and a very vulgar brutal sort of Antinomians. Mr. Hall, who was a Baptist, describes such a class of men as existing in his body, and attacks them with a fury which proves that they must have acquired great influence and have been very numerous in his life-time. In that case I should not be inclined to ar- gue with them against their ultra-Calvinism, or to show how it strengthens them in their evil courses. I would rather admit what they say when they refer man's goodness and conversion to the will of God and prove the assertion of the apostle, " This is the will of God even your sanctification," that all the purpose of God's decrees must be to make men righteous as He is, and that if the'decrees to which they appeal do not produce this result they are not His but the devil's. And since their complaint of infant Baptism must be on the ground that the children can yet give no sign of faith in God, you may without any per^ sonality or any direct allusion to themselves ask how far the facts warrant us in expecting any better result from the ma- ture conscious Baptism. Supposing, however, they should be honest, earnest men, however outrageous may be their state- ments, I should be disposed rather to take advantage of their doctrine than to repudiate it. " You say that man's fall and all other events were parts of a great scheme of God. Well ! I grant you that the fall did not in the least frustrate the scheme of God. I grant you that it is very wrong to speak as if He had merely devised a scheme as a remedy for the con sequences of the fall. Christ was before all things, and by Him all things consist. In Him He created men, and His Incarnation, * " The manifestation of the righteousness of God." 376 The Incarnation Precedent to the Fall. CHAP. xix. though it came later than the fall, was really in God's purpose before it What we preach is that men, being endued with that flesh and blood which Christ took, are to be looked upon as objects of God's love and that they are to be accused of setting at nought that love. We do not set aside election ; our Baptism is the witness for it. By it we refer all things to God ; we testify that He chooses without reference to their previous wants or behaviour, and that all gifts and graces come from Him." Of course, such a statement as this could be varied according to the capacities of the auditor and the nature of his objections. But it is the kind of language I should use, and that not from any calculation as to the effects it might produce, but from believing it to be the truest and honestest. In Supralapsarian Calvinism there lies a deep recognition of God, as a Living Being, an Originating Will, which the feeble frittering phrases of Arminianism can provide no substitute for. The great misery of the Calvinist is his constant substitution of the idea of sovereignty for that of righteous- ness, which is the one always brought before us in Scripture. I would seek to deliver him from that evil, but as far as possible keeping entire and unhurt that which he has already. But I must not enlarge any further. Any day you can come to us next week, if I may hear from you the day before, we shall be happy to see you and will take care that you shall not be without a bed in your own house.' All through the summer Sterling was dying at Ventnor, my mother was nursing him and my father speeding backwards and forwards. To my father's intense delight, at a time when all their views and faith appeared to be as utterly parted as was possible, Sterling one day placed in his hands Law's Answer to Mandeville's Fable of the Bees, expressed the greatest interest in it, and wished that it should be republished as a vindication of morality. Mandeville's is an attempt by a cleverly written description of the incidents that happen to a hive of bees to show that private vices are necessary to the existence of public well-being, so that their being absolutely F. D. M. 39. Alandevilles Bees. 3/7 subdued would result in the destruction of the state. To this Law's book is an answer. My father \vas most anxious at first to be able to read over his Introduction to Sterling. But increasing illness came on rapidly, and my father's intense anxiety about the words he ought to use delayed the comple- tion of the short paper. He wrote and rewrote it under the impulse of the various feelings which the letters will disclose ; his eager and often repeated appeals to his publisher to hasten the printing gradually ceased, as it became evident that despite the best efforts of the printers his pages could never be read to his brother. The following letter on the subject is unfortunately incom- plete and fragmentary : To &v. A. J. Scott. 'Chelsea, August 21, 1844. ' For the last two months I have purposed every day to write to you, nor would mere indolence, I hope, have hindered me : but I was anxious to find some other excuse than the mere impulse and desire to do it, and I had thought that I might have found it in a little book of William Law, to which I was writing an introduction, and which led me into so many thoughts which I received through you, that I felt it was a kind of duty, and not a mere gratification, to send it to you. Many delays, however, have occurred in this publication (which, if it should ever appear, will have for me a peculiar sacredness, as the tract, an answer to Mandeville, was put into my hands by Sterling, who is- now rapidly passing out of this world), and I feel as if I could not wait for it, but would rather ask you beforehand to receive it as a token of very earnest gratitude for seeds which you have scattered, and which, though they might have borne earlier and better fruit in a better soil, have not, I trust, merely lain on the surface. ' I heard from Miss Farrer and Carlyle of your illness with more pain for others than for you, though I fear you must have suffered much in the course of it. But one is so sure that if a 3/8 Suggestive Fragments about Sterling. CHAP. xix. person who has been permitted to do work is taken from it, the end must be to lead him into a deeper rest, and so to fit him somewhere or other for a greater work, that, in any case where this purpose is understood and not thwarted, it seems hardness and like not doing as one would be done by, to grudge them the blessing. I believe I should bear pain very ill, having known little or nothing of it ; but speaking before- hand, and perhaps very ignorantly, I fancy that, for the sake of greater converse with realities, even if it did not come, as it probably would not, in any transporting, or what men call joyful, form, but only in the greater subduing of the will and dispersion of shadows, I would welcome it ; and you to whom I fear is no stranger, knowing more * . . . the wonderful blessings of earthly affection can never draw us so closely, become so transfigured into what is higher, never carry with them such a pledge of being eternal, as in sickness. Even where many shadows seem to rest upon the spirit of the sufferer, where what is to you all real appears to him indistinct and visionary, and what you think visionary he still clings to as real, this effect I have found following sickness ; and since the kindness and affection must be true, whatever else is not, one cannot but believe that words may be imposing upon you or him, and that there *. . . all of which he knows * ... than you who judge him ;* . . . all misunderstandings *. . . becoming more distinct and more reconciled, would now burst forth decidedly through their very confusion, is as cheering a one as I think it is possible to entertain. To make peace between shadows, is, I fear, impossible ; but what is substantial must have an attraction for everything else of the same kind. I am afraid I have tired you with a long discourse about things of which you know so much more than I do, but you will not think that my desire was to teach, but only to express what I do not believe that I have for a moment ceased to feel very deep thankfulness for having been allowed to have intercourse * In these places the manuscript is torn off. Mr. A. J. Scott was so fond of reading the letter that he carried it about in his waistcoat pocket till it had been worn to pieces. F. D. M. 39. 1844. On Sterlings Death. 379 with you and for what you have taught me, and every good wish which it is possible that any one can entertain for another or that God should fulfil.' On September i8th Sterling died, To Miss A. M. Fo.-c, W. Ball, Esq., Rydal, Ambleside. 1 Ventnor, Friday Evening, September 20, 1844. ; You will understand from what I have said that the struggle is over, and that we have parted with our brother. There are many things in this dispensation which seem strange and dark, but I believe it is better for us far that there should be such things that " Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight " may be our rest, and not any dreams or desires of our own. ' You do not need to be told what deep and tender affection there was in him, and this became more marked towards all his friends latterly, though he said he was losing his interest in what he had once cared for. His honesty and desire never to pass for other than he was also became even more remarkable than ever, and a disposition to charge himself with faults to- wards those whom he had treated with unbounded kindness and who had the deepest sins to reproach themselves with to- wards him, was very touching and humbling. I cannot easily tell you how many instances of this and of the most thoughtful untiring kindness, in the midst of great suffering and weakness, we were allowed to witness. And I am sure that for all these qualities he took no credit to himself whatever ; nor can I con- ceive that they had their source anywhere but in divine grace and love. You know it was his temptation to magnify the intellect, and on that, as it seems to me, the greatest cloud rested ; but I think those who know their exceeding sinfulness and yet can believe in the love of God in Christ will be the least inclined to doubt that this love may be imparting its warmth to the spirit through all these clouds. And what one feels for oneself, I believe we must feel for others, that the love which has manifested itself in redeeming mankind is a safer 380 On Sterling's Death. 1844. rock and resting-place for our hopes than all signs and tokens which we may crave for. Simple and awful submission, not to a dead fate but to a perfectly loving will, seems to me the best state for us always. ' Almost the last time I saw him he was speaking of your father with the strongest affection and reverence as one of the most striking examples of Christian benevolence he had ever known. He often alluded to the poor people he had known, and the patience he had witnessed in them under suffering, which he said had none of the outward alleviations he was blessed with. Quite lately he has been taking the liveliest in- terest in hearing that two of his friends for whom he had cared much, Julius Hare and my sister Esther, were likely to be united to each other. They hoped to have received his blessing, and they have come down with me to see at least the case in which his spirit once dwelt. But I must not go on, as it is very late. I could write much to those on whose sympathy we can reckon as we can on yours. Pray remember us most affectionately to your dear sister.' To Rev. R. C. Trench. 'Ventnor, Saturday, 1844. ' It will be a very great kindness if you will come to us. There has been no ceremony about invitations ; only few of his family will be with us, but a friend will be most comfortable. ' Your letter seems to have been one of the last things which gave him deep and hearty pleasure. He wrote four lines upon you after receiving it, which will show you with what thankful- ness he received the tokens of your love and responded to them. Mrs. Maurice wishes to show them you as they were given to her, otherwise I would have copied them. ' Had we all testified our love to him as you did, and been as true and faithful to him, I believe much would have come forth from his heart deeper and truer things than he himself almost knew were there. We did not deserve that he should utter them to us; and the lesson of submission and simple dependence on God's love in Christ is, I believe, deeper and more salutary, f. D. M. 39. On Sterlings Death. 381 because it is accompanied with self-reproach and humiliation, than it could be if he had spoken many things which we should have delighted to hear. ' But I do think, however little I might be able to make others feel with me, that there was something within him which God Himself put there, which no confusions ol intellect could extinguish, which did bear fruits in his life, and which will be owned in the day of the Lord. I do not feel that I could bear to tamper with truth for the sake of affection, they seem so knit together ; but this seems to me to be the truth, and I thank God for showing me so much of my own evil and ingra- titude as makes it hard for me not to hope that His love in Christ has been and will be more manifested to others than to me. One point I feel very strongly, and my wife, who saw more of him, still more strongly than I : that his arrangement of sending Edward to Newman had nothing whatever to do with any sympathy which he might feel with him in some of his opinions, but solely in the very great perplexities which he felt about the boy, in his sense of the friendship and kindness of Newman's offer to take the charge of him, and in his conviction of his honesty and earnestness, and especially of his being likely to cultivate in him self-denying and severe habits. I need not say that the determination was painful to us ; but the motives which led him to it were, I believe, most pure and right.' My father now became anxious lest he should in any way take a pseudo-pious advantage of Sterling's friends, notably that is, of Mr. Francis Newman, Mr. Carlyle, and John Stuart Mill, and should seem to have committed Sterling to agreeing more than he really did with the defence of the basis of morality which he was himself putting forward, in the Preface to the answer to the ' Fable of the Bees.' From this those friends were sure to differ, and to dislike the idea that Sterling was in any way associated with it. He put out an " advertisement " in the book to explain Sterling's exact relation to it, tore it up, rewrote it, and then after it was printed, sent yet again this letter. 382 Law's Answer to Mandeville, CHAP. xrx. 'MY DEAR MACMILLAN, November II, 1844. ' You will think me very absurd, but I cannot tell you how anxious I feel about that advertisement lest any words in it should leave an untrue or even an uncomfortable impression upon the minds of Sterling's friends. I suppose it has been worked off some time, yet if the cost would not be great, I would cheerfully incur it to get these words substituted for those which occur in the last paragraph between the sentence, " I cannot claim for the sentiment of this introduction even the qualified approbation which he bestowed upon those of Law's essay." " In it I strove to express my own deepest convictions without reference to those which he or any one else might entertain ; for thus I knew I should most fulfil his wishes. Believing, however, that the admiration he felt for Law was mainly caused by his delight at meeting with a thoroughly devout teacher who recognised moral principles as involved in the constitution of man and who boldly appealed to the conscience and reason of mankind as witnesses for them, I have made it my chief object to show that such a course, whether in con- formity with popular judgment or not, is honest, religious, and safe." " If, however, I could suppose that he would be held responsible," &c. ' This statement, it seems to me, would be simpler, freer, and even truer than the one I have made, and therefore, if possible, I wish it might be introduced.' Among many children not her own to whom Mrs. Michael Maurice had at one time or other proved a second mother there was a boy to whose mother she had been specially attached. The boy had gone out to India to his father, whose savage ' Calvinistic " creed and very un-Calvinlike life had horrified his son into infidelity. The father had tried to terrorise him back into belief by explaining to him the peril he ran if he did not believe everything that he could not believe. The result had been a despairing letter from the son to Mr?. F. D. M. 39. Letter for young Sceptic. 383 Maurice, which had caused her the greatest trouble. In her perplexity she wrote to my father. The following was his answer to her. To Mrs. M. Maurice. ' Towards end of 1844. ' Esther read us 's letter. On the whole I am inclined to think much more favourably of it than, from her account, you seemed to do. It seems to me to be written with clearness, confidence, and affection, with not more mixture of blundering and conceit than might be expected from a boy of his age and in his unhappy circumstances. It is a very good sign that he tells you his perplexities so fearlessly, and I think his statement of them bears marks of honesty. I do not mean that he knows exactly how far he is in earnest, how far he has merely adopted doubts from others, and how far he is indulging the natural conceit and contradiction of his own mind. But no young man, even much older than he is, does know this ; there is always a strange mixture of what is deep and what is superficial, what has really come from anxious reflection and what is suggested by a dislike and impatience of it, in all: their utter- ances. And when you connect with these ordinary confusions his position with reference to his father, the stupid attempts to awaken or frighten him into religion, and all the novelty and incoherency of Indian life, I think you have much more cause to be surprised that there is anything right in his tone of thinking than that there is so much wrong. I should beware of reproving him much for his self-conceit, I should give him full credit for meaning and wishing to be in earnest, and should even tell him that it may be better for him to be exercised with such doubts than to sink into mere quiet indifference. I should tell him that if he is sincere in his doubts he must of course look for satisfaction, and that to rest in mere disputing and contradicting is impossible for any one who is really honest with himself. In reference to his questions about good and evil and hell punishments, I should say that he was perfectly 384 Answer to young Sceptic's Letter. 1844. right in believing God to be the Good, the perfect Good, and in rejecting any doctrine which interferes with that belief. I would add that he was evidently not believing this, though he seemed to himself to believe it ; for he thinks that his own affairs had been arranged by some evil spirit. I should tell him that hell, according to the idea of Christians, is simply separ- ation from God, who is the perfect Good ; that this separation must exist in every one whose own heart is not in correspondence and tune with that of the true and perfect Being; that his conscience would tell him that in his late disputes with his father, he had indulged feelings and tempers which were not right and good, and that if he considered he would see that these tempers in him and in others, these tempers which are contrary to God's will, had been the cause of all their misery. Thus his own heart would testify to the truth that God is love and that all unlovingness is war with Him, and that the more this war increased the nearer any man's heart and the whole man would come to the condition of hell. In reference to his comparison of the Christian and Hindoo theology I should say that his young friend was quite right in supposing there was a connection between them. You cannot go north or south, east or west, without finding men full of restless desires after a knowledge of God and of union with Him. All the Hindoo mythology expresses this in the wildest, most incoherent way, but still does express it We do not wish to strip the natives of these longings but to satisfy them. We do not say they are wrong in thinking that God must have become incarnate if he was to reveal Himself to men and make them know Him ; we we only say that all their conceptions about incarnation are crude, strange, and confused ; that the incarnation of our Lord is that to which all these are pointing and by which they are explained ; that He exhibited God as the perfectly holy, pure, loving being ; that the extreme simplicity and greatness of the thought that the Most High should not come down among men in some great royal form but as a peasant to claim fel- lowship with the whole race, is that which scandalizes men, F. D. M. 39. Answer to young Sceptic. 385 though it is really the truth which binds all men together and establishes a fellowship between them and good. I would say with reference to the ' Age of Reason,' that I supposed those who had warned him against the book were afraid of its taking unfair hold of a mind not sufficiently educated to be aware of the weakness of the arguments ; that, in fact, no cultivated infidel in Europe of this day would ever think of quoting Paine, knowing how very shallow he is ; that a young man is, however, more likely to be taken in by a shallow book than by a deep one. You might tell him that all the greater and wiser thinkers in Europe, even if they be not Christians, believe that the reason in man, instead of rejecting all that is deep and mysterious, cannot be satisfied without mysteries ; that the reason requires truths which are above itself, just as the eye delights in looking upon an immense expanse of sea and sky. ' These are some of the thoughts which I should present to him, and which may do him good, even if he do not fully enter into them. I should, above all, exhort him to be true and honest with himself, and to take care that he be not bribed to disbelieve things which his conscience tells him are true by doing acts which his conscience tells him are wrong. Every sin, he should be told, makes a man less capable of seeing what is true and more disposed to hate it ; and you may ask him if experience does not assure him that it is so. ' My father's sister Esther, to whom Archdeacon Hare was now engaged, had more than any of the family taken among them since Emma's death the place that Emma had once held. There is always something special about the manner in which Mrs. M. Maurice alludes to her in the letters to my father. " I cannot tell you how often she reminds me of the precious one " (Emma) or, " on whom in double measure the mantle of the precious one has fallen," is the earlier form of them, but gradually they become more personal to herself. Thus, in making some general arrangements, she writes, in 1838 : ' I know dearest Esther would always be much required in other places, and would not have much time to come to us to VOL. i. ? c 386 Hare's Marriage. 1844. smooth our rugged paths or to pour oil on the ruffled waters. If she found herself, as she must always do, the most desir- able and useful inmate in many places, she will, I trust, be satisfied. ' i "Was not this like herself," is her best form of praise for her a year or two later. On November i2th Archdeacon Hare and Esther Maurice were married by my father. They sent him as a reminiscence a present of a very fine engraving of Raffael's Marriage of the Virgin. They went for their wedding tour to Ventnor, where Sterling had died two months before. These are the circum- stances to which allusion is made in the next letters. To Archdeacon Hare. ' Guy's, November 18, 1844. ' MY DEAR JULIUS AND ESTHER, * I had fully meant to have written at the same time with Annie, to tell you of the delight which your beautiful memorial of Tuesday, and far more all that it continually brings to our minds, was causing us. But she had sent off her letter, and I hardly liked to disturb you with another for a day or two, knowing how little I could tell you of what was in my mind, and that you would both give me credit for it all. The marriage of the Virgin is indeed the most blessed symbol one can connect with you, and it will be more than symbolically connected with all your thoughts and life together. ' I cannot forget, when I think of the place you are in now, that I was the means of giving a sadness to all your bridal thoughts two months ago. I know you will have forgiven me for that unkindness. I do not think I could bear to see Ventnor again, even with you, but I have great comfort in thinking of it as associated with your love. ' I thank you for your criticisms on my advertisement [that to Law's Answer to Mandeville already mentioned], which were very valuable. I did not like it at all ; had already altered the F. i). M. 39. Motives of Preface to Mandeville. 387 last sentence two or three times, and a week ago sent a much more destructive emendation of it than the one you proposed. I found that my meaning was likely to be mistaken altogether. I had been anxious not to impute my opinions to him. The public, I am told, would have fancied that I was afraid of their imputing his opinions to me. I have, therefore, introduced a sentence stating the reasons which I believe recommended Law's treatise to him, and the pains which I had taken to justify and recommend it, precisely for those reasons and no other, and at the same time acquitting him as before of the least responsibility for my opinions or my mode of expressing them. I have been very nervous about using language which was not strictly honest, but I have rather courted than shunned the reputation of being rationalistic. I mean that I could easily have turned many sentences so as to give them a better sound, and without making them less the expression of my own feelings, which I have purposely left open to unkind charges if people like to bring them. I wished especially, without alluding to Sewell's book, to undermine, as far as I could, all the maxims upon which it rests, and to show what kind of Rationalism I conceived to be not only compatible with Christianity, but essential to it. But I suppose few will see the whale, even if they look at the cloud. ' When you pass through London Carlyle wishes very much to see you, and to have some conversation with you about John's papers. Will you let me know in time beforehand how this may be arranged, either by his meeting you here or by your going to him at his house. ' May God bless you both with all marriage blessings now and ever.' Guy's, November 18, 1844. 'Mv DEAR STRACHEY, ' The truth is that sadness and joy, wedding and funerals have been so strangely mixed in all the last weeks and months of my life as to leave me scarcely in a state to know of which I was speaking or thinking. It is true that all life is of this complexion, and that a Christian should understand why it is 2 C 2 388 Hares Marriage. Sterlings DeatJi. 1844. so, and must be so. But at times both the sorrow and the pleasure pierce very deep, and are of an almost unspeakable quality ; at least it is very hard to utter what one means, and, therefore, we half through honesty, half through feebleness choose silence. I think you know Hare, and I hope you will know him better. He is a very good and an improving man ; in mere severity and accuracy of taste he can hardly be better, except by being somewhat less fastidious. ' He has wanted, to help out his very extensive cultivation, some object of near and concentrated interest, and that I hope my sister will give him.' F. D. M. 39. Peculiarity of F. D. M.'s Pamphlets. 389 CHAPTER XX. " For these things were not done in a corner." NOV. 1844 TO FEB. 1845 MR. WARD ATTACKS THE ARTICLES AND A NEW STATUTE IS PROPOSED TO MEET HIS CASE THE PAMPHLET, ' THE NEW STATUTE AND MR. WARD,' CONTAINING EXPLICIT STATEMENT AS TO THE WORDS " ETERNAL LIFE." MY father's works were, as he used often in later life to say, " a part of himself." Whether in his sermons, his controversial writings; or his letters, he is more than perhaps any man autobiographical. He never looks at questions from the critic's point of view, that is as if he stood altogether apart from them. His point of view is always that of an English citizen and English clergyman considering his own duty in relation to them. Every sentence is weighted with responsibility to such an extent that it becomes an action. He unconsciously shows forth his character in each pamphlet almost as dramatically as though each was a scene in some " Act " on the stage of life, and as though each sentence were some movement that illustrated his part in it In the same way, he at all events endeavours to do the utmost justice he can to the parts of all the other actors, and, as far as possible, not to state what they have done or said as it strikes him or as he likes it, but as they represent it themselves, not necessarily as they would wish to have it represented, but as it comes out from them. Hence, in this way, and for this reason, his pamphlets especially are by their very nature an essential part of his complete biography. They show, that is, not only what he was thinking, but what 39O ' The Ideal of a Christian Church' 1844. the part was that he was playing in life in his relations with the men of his time. All therefore that can be done here is to give so much of their general scope as is necessary to connect the different parts of the life together, and much must be omitted which, to any one who cares to know the man or the time better, supplies a much more complete picture of both than can possibly here be given. I say " of the time " also, because I think it may be assumed that though probably each one of the sections of thought of the time would have preferred that the story should be told in the words of some partisan of its own, yet they would all acknowledge that the next best account would be by one who should make it his fixed purpose to give full credit to each of them for the truth they have to tell, and who should only resist them when they endeavour to silence some other voice which may have some- thing to say also, though they will not hear it. At all events it may happen that in the future he who writes the history of the period may find this a more complete way of telling it than the assumption, either that he can extract from each its good part and omit its bad, or that one must be accepted as all wise, and the others as all foolish. Should this ever happen, these pamphlets can hardly fail to be of some use to such a future historian, for it is on that principle that they have been composed. In the course of 1844, Mr. Ward, then a Bachelor of Arts, resident at Balliol, had published a work, 'The Ideal of a Christian Church Considered,' in which he avowed that he construed the Articles in a non-natural sense, maintained that others did the like, and asserted his and their right so to do. He had further expressed the utmost contempt for the Articles themselves. In all respects this view was more repugnant t3 my father than to almost any man of his time. He believed " the Articles to be drawn up by honest men for an honest purpose." Mr. Ward's wish slowly to Romanise the English Church was utterly abhorrent to him. But when the Heads of Houses appointed a Committee of F. D. M. 39. Proposed New Statutes at Oxford, 391 Doctors to sit in judgment on the book, and proposed to refer the case to Convocation, he became very much afraid lest the remedy should be worse than the disease. The statute which it was proposed to submit to Convo- cation (a). Declared Mr. Ward not to have subscribed the Articles in good faith. (b). Deprived Mr. Ward of his degree. (, some on C. I know nothing that would more strike what is evil in modern High Churchism under the fifth rib than patronage of this kind upon general principles of Christian freedom in my judgment the proper ally of Catho- licity as well as of Protestantism or anything which would more expose the hypocrisy of those persons who (like the writer in the last ' Edinburgh ') attack Puseyites as enemies of enlightenment and toleration, while they themselves show by every word they speak that they have narrow minds and persecuting hearts.' To Archdeacon Hare. * Saturday, London Library (November, 1844). ' MY DEAR JULIUS, ' I had seen in the papers that the Vice Chancellor of Oxford had appointed another inquisition of Doctors to report 394 To Hare, on Ward's Case. 1844. onWar d's book, and to advise him what course he should pursue upon it I could hardly believe the story ; it seemed so strange an attempt to give a rather unsalable volume circu- lation, and at the same time so audacious an introduction of a censorship into our English schools. The case of a sermon preached in the University pulpit is surely altogether different ; I think they behaved very unjustly to Pusey ; but his sermon did directly concern them. Ward's book was published in London ; anything that you or that I write may just as well be discussed by a tribunal of Dons because we have happened to take a degree and ourname may be on the books. It struck me, therefore, that if such a measure was really contemplated, those who had least interest in Ward and most disliked his sentiments ought, above all others, to protest. You will see from Stanley's letter that it is not a mistake, and that he feels even more strongly than I do the importance of some decided testimony against so unusual an act of tyranny. The occa- sion, it seems to me, for showing that English Churchmen and Protestants really mean something when they speak of free speaking and fair dealing, and do not only claim these advan- tages for themselves, is one that ought not to be passed by. I do not know any persons less fit than the Oxford Dons to exercise such a jurisdiction as they have claimed for themselves. My proposal to Stanley was . . .* ' To Archdeacon Hare. 'November 26, 1844. ' MY DEAR JULIUS, ' I send you Stanley's protest that you may show it to Trench. I think it is too long, and that all the part about the Church is better away. I feel that we are hardly dealing fairly with him in making him bear the brunt of it. As he says himself, though without complaining, it is cutting him off from any chance of any position in the University for ever. As Dons can do me no harm, I would gladly write a parn- * As in previous letter. F. D. M. 39. Letter from S. Wilberforce to F, D. M. 39: phlet if it would serve the purpose. I have been studying the pamphlets on Frend's case ; if they follow it they will give Ward a public trial, and at least " banish " not " expel " him from the University. French retained his Fellowship till he married.' To Rev. Arthur Stanley. ' November 27, 1844. '. . . . I think the chief objection to your protest at least, I have heard this from one or two to whom I have shown it, is that it enters too much into general matters con- nected with the Church, and does not limit the complaint to the arbitrariness of the University. I am also inclined to think that it would be better to take the bull by the horns and not shrink from meeting all the charges against Ward. That of dishonesty, I find, makes the greatest impression. People think anything unjust may be done to a man who is charged with being dishonest. Macaulay, I am told, rejoices greatly in the prospect of his condemnation : if he is (and I suppose he is) rather an advantageous specimen of the general Whig feeling, I am afraid there is little hope in that quarter. I quite feel that you ought not to aifront the Heads unless you can do good ; it is only weakening your influence for other occasions, and leaving them an open field for their rogueries. As they can do me no harm I shall be very glad to write the pamphlet Hare speaks of, if you think it will serve any end ; meantime we can try whether signatures can be got for the protest. I send one copy of it to Hare by to-night's post.' A letter from S. Wilberforce (then Archdeacon of Surrey) of December 27th, 1844, finally determined the form of the pamphlet. Wilberforce, who held strongly that "it was need- ful" to proceed against Ward, wrote, "Do send me your judgment on the whole question. I think that the Church has rather a right to the service of your pen in the matter, re- membering 'Subscription no Bondage.'" My father replied in ' Two Letters to a non-resident member of Convocation.' 396 On Conscientious Subscription. 1845. The first being entitled, ' The new Statute and Mr. Ward,' the second ' Thoughts on the Rule of Conscientious Subscription.'* In the course of the first letter, whilst urging that to impose the new test, the " sixth clause " of the statute, will be to reject many who had the greatest respect for the Articles, he says for himself that he has not kept his name on the Oxford books, that he can therefore speak without prejudice, since the statute will in no way affect him, and continues : ' I may perhaps to be allowed to state why, just because I regard the Articles and their compilers with reverence and gratitude, and because I have wished to sign them simply and honestly, as in the presence of God, I would not bind myself by this declaration. ' It is made to ensure a strict and faithful subscription ; it ought then to be itself construed strictly ; to begin with seek- ing for convenient, interpretations, possibly evasions of it, would be a conscious transgression of its purpose. Unless then I think that my sense of every Article is the same with that which, so far as I can ascertain by all the best means of information within my reach, was the sense of the Reformers, unless I am equally well-convinced that my sense is that of the University in the present day, taking either the majority of its members, or the current opinion in Oxford, or the Heads of Houses, or the Vice-Chancellor for the time being, as repre- senting the University, I dare not give the pledge which the statute requires. ' Now I am not clear upon either of these points. ' First, as to the Reformers. I will give two instances (and they are only instances, for the principle which is involved in them must, it will be seen, extend further) of Articles which I have solemnly subscribed, which I most heartily believe, which I have found of the greatest profit to me in theological studies and in the practice of life, yet which I connect with convictions foreign, as I suspect, to the habits of thinking * Confer 'Life of Wilberforce,' vol. ii. Chapter VII., in which, how- ever, no allusion to this correspondence with my father occurs. F. D. M. 39. What is " Eternal Life " ? 397 which prevailed among the compilers. The first I will speak of is the seventh. " The Old Testament is not contrary to the New, for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life (aterna vita, Lat. Art.) is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and Man. Wherefore they are not to be heard which feign that the old Fathers did only look for transitory promises." (" Quare male sentiunt qui veteres tantum in promissiones temporarias sperasse confingunt") ' To this statement I subscribe in the very strictest sense. I use the superlative, because I take the vvords aterna vita, not as they are explained by any Doctor of the Church, by any council, provincial or oecumenical, but as they are explained by our Lord Himself in His last awful prayer, " This is life eternal, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ." Now that the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ was offered to men in the Old Testament, as well as in the New that the sacred books make known the steps by which men were led into this wonderful knowledge ; that the two parts of it are so intricately interwoven, that the knowledge of the absolute God without the knowledge of the Mediator would have been impossible ; that this was the knowledge which all holy Jews felt to be their exceeding great reward, and in com- parison of which all other rewards were as nothing; that all their expectations were, therefore, pointing continually towards a time when this knowledge should in some way be brought near to them, and they should be enabled to receive it; and that it is indeed " feigning " to say that those who had such a faith and hope as this in Him who is, and was, and is to come, and in Him whose goings forth are from everlasting, and who should be the King of everlasting ages, were looking for transi- tory promises ; all this I steadfastly believe. But I am by no means certain that the Reformers would have given that precise force to the words " eternal life," upon which my construction of the Article turns. I do not feel sure that they might not have been willing to take the words " future state," as a synonym of the words " eternal life." If the Articles had been drawn up in the 398 The Central Point of Later Discussion. 1845. eighteenth century, there would have been no doubt about the question ; one phrase would certainly have been looked upon as a perfect equivalent for the other. The men of the sixteenth were undoubtedly great Augustinians, and no one ever read a page of Augustine without perceiving that he (followed, in this respect at least, by the greater schoolmen) connected the words " eternal life " most carefully with the knowledge of God. Still I am not sufficiently certain upon the point to be the least justified in affirming that I take the words in that sense in which they were originally promulgated, and it would be an outrage upon my conscience to express assent or consent to any Article which did put " future state " in the Article for " eternal life." First because nothing seems to be so important for the in- terpretation of Scripture and for the establishment of a sound theology as that the revelation of God, and not the notion of rewards and punishments, should be felt to be the end of the Divine dispensation ; and secondly, because, with the case of Hezekiah before me, illustrated as it is by a multitude of other passages, I cannot persuade myself that a " future state " was presented to the hopes and apprehensions of those who lived under the old covenant as it is to those who live under the new.' The above passage is most important to the whole story of my father's life, and especially to that part of it which is best known. The date also is very important the early part of the year 1845. It will be nearly nine years aftenvards that the full importance of this quotation will appear; I am anxious, therefore, that its full purport should be considered whilst I am narrating the circumstances under which it was made public. 'Guy's, January 15, 1845. ' MY DEAR JULIUS, ' Stanley has just left me. We talked over your letter, but very naturally, as we had made up our minds beforehand, we were not convinced by it Upon your principle, if I under- stand it, any Calvinist who has signed the Articles at Oxford for the last hundred and eighty years must have signed them F. D. M. 39. Hare's View about \Vard. 399 dishonestly. He knew perfectly well that he did not sign them in the sense of the proposers, whether of the Vice-Chancellor for the time being, or of the University collectively. But he believed that he signed them in a much stricter, more exact sense, and I must think it would have been a strange thing for any one to have condemned him for not being so lax as himself. Of course I know that there is nothing in Ward's case the least analogous to this. What we complain of is that the Oxford Dons are legislating to meet an emergency upon prin- ciples which must wound the consciences of honest men or tempt them to be dishonest. Not that I think they do meet the emergency, for I have said in my pamphlet, and I mean it deliberately, that I think Ward can take both parts of the test with perfect comfort to himself, and that I do not believe any one other person in the University can. It is nothing to him to say that he accepts Articles in the sense of the Reformers, for he believes that to have been no sense that they meant to utter mere truisms. He can't object to saying that he takes them in the sense of the imposers, for he believes that there may be two hundred senses in Convocation, and that he may take the least objectionable. The absurdity of trying to make laws to prevent men being rogues seems to me past utterance. Why not say at once, " Of course you can cheat if you like, and we can't punish you which will suffer for the cheating, you 01 we ? " My own objection to this test is grounded on my ex- ceeding reverence for the Articles. I look upon them as an invaluable charter, protecting us against a system which once enslaved and might enslave us again ; protecting us also against the systems of the present day against ' Records ' and ' Times ' newspapers, and Bishops of Exeter, and Heads of Houses. Without the Articles we should be at the mercy of one or other of these, or be trampled upon by all in succession. With the Articles we can defy them ; but this test wants to cheat us of this advantage. It would tie us down first to the sense of the Reformers when they were writing books of controversey or pulpit declamations ; not when they were acting 40O Wide Publicity of Discussion. 1845. under the high responsibility and receiving the high gifts of legislating for ages to come. Next it would tie us down to the sentiments of modern proctors in Oxford and London, to whom I will not, with God's help, give place by subjection no, not for an hour. .It seems to me a matter of life and death to resist this usurpation. All Christian liberty, all manly divinity, and, I believe also, all honesty of purpose is in peril, if one step be taken in this course. If Heads of Houses may sit in judgment on Ward's book to day, they may try Buckland for his geology to-morrow, and Bunsen (who is a D.C.L.) for his book on Egypt the next day. And all this because a fellow of Balliol has turned Jesuit, and because it is thought desirable to make him a martyr and the idol of all the undergraduates. ' And meantime the real sin of Ward is lost sight of the sin I mean, which he seems to regard as nothing that he solemnly assents and consents to a document which he believes to be a base and dishonest one, and that in the most awful acts of his life. One would fancy from the statute that if the could empty the Articles of their meaning he might sign them lawfully, and that the only question is whether he can ; whereas if he could it would be greatly worse to sign them than under any other circumstances. ' Annie, I hope, is not worse, but certainly not better. Best love to Esther and Mary and Mrs. Augustus.' The subject, as will be seen, was exciting a very great amount of attention at the time. The opposition to the new statute among Churchmen was represented by my father's pam- phlet. That opposition, so far as the permanent legislation was concerned, proved entirely successful. The clause em- powering the Vice-Chancellor to exact the new declaration was withdrawn. In the pamphlet which thus acquired an exceptional importance and prominence at the moment, the particular passage which has been given acquired accidentally a most prominent position, for Mr. Ward, who in his defence before Convocation attacked my father none the less fiercely F. D. M. 39. Ward Empliasizes Central Point. 401 because my father had struck in to save him from deprivation, quoted this particular passage as justifying his assertion that others signed in a non-natural sense besides himself. Mr. Ward himself was deprived of his degree, but the vote was resisted by a minority of 512 members, weighty rather by names than numbers. To these facts my father's next letter refers. To Rev. Arthur Stanley. 'Guy's, February 14, 1845. MY DEAR STANLEY, 'I am very sorry for the decision to which the Con- vocation has come, though I seldom expected any other. The consequences cannot be good ; I trust they may not be so evil as I often fear. Is it true that Ward meditates a prosecution of Whately in the Ecclesiastical Courts ? What miseries are before us if these recriminations once begin ! ' I should have no influence whatever with Harrison. We were on a tolerably familiar footing before my first letter about Pusey's views of Baptism ; since then our intercourse has been of the most civil and formal kind. He would, I should think, be particularly sensitive on the point of his private influence with the Archbishop. How great or small it is I do not the least know. Acland or Gladstone might possibly speak to him on the subject, but I should think the latter, at least, might do as much with the Archbishop by a personal interview. ' I like Ward's speech on the whole. His allusion to my pamphlets, I think, was good as a piece of special pleading, for he could not have picked out any with which so few of his auditors would have sympathy, or have taken up a more popular ground of animadversion than that upon the future state of rewards and punishments. Of course he misrepre- sented me grossly, seeing that I had endeavoured to show that my sense of the Article was the most natural according to the wording of it, and that I did not say that the Old Testament Fathers had no notion of a future state, or anything like it But such mis-statements it would be absurd to complain of at such a time ; he owed me no favour but, he seems to think, VOL. i. 2 D 402 ' I labour for peace but when I speak' 1845. revenge for the part I took in the controversy, and probably in no circumstances would he take the pains to find out what I mean by anything I may happen to say. A far more serious charge was that of imputing to him sordid motives, which I never did in a single passage of either pamphlet, or in a single word I have ever spoken. I do not know whether the word " dishonest," by which I always mean " not straightforward," " unfair," suggested to him some notion of pecuniary self- interest; but it certainly has no connection with any such thought in my mind, and every one who is acquainted with me knows how vehemently I have repudiated the common asser- tion that he and those who agree with him remain in the English Church for the sake of its emoluments, how repeatedly I have expressed my conviction that they would gladly part with all to advance what they think truth. And he knows, moreover, that I very carefully guarded myself from attributing dishonesty in any sense to him, saying that his method of in- terpretation would be dishonest in me, and that I conjured young men not to adopt it, but that it might not be so in his mind. If he meant to answer my pamphlet, he would meet the charge of signing a document which he despises for that is the one which I think far heavier than any other. But I wish you could signify to him that I utterly deny having ever imputed to him sordid motives. I should have written at once to some newspaper on the subject, but I was afraid of seeming to take advantage of his position.' F. D. M. 39. Contemporaneous with last Chapter. 403 CHAPTER XXI. And, calm and patient, Nature keeps Her ancient promise well, ***** She sees with clearer eyes than ours The good of suffering born, The hearts that blossom like her flowers, And ripen like her corn. J. G. Whittier. DECEMBER 1844 TO MAY 1845 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF HIS WIFE REFUSES APPEAL FROM HARE AND MR. CAVENDISH TO ALLOW THEM TO TRY TO GET HIM APPOINTED MASTER OF THE TEMPLE WHITSUNDAY TRINITY SUNDAY. WHILST the controversy described in the last chapter was going on, a dark cloud had been gathering over the brightness of his life. In a letter towards the end of the previous year, he writes, after an allusion to a loss recently suffered by his friend ' Guy's, December 24, 1844. ' MY DEAR STRACHEY, ' I do not myself think that the previous expectation of a bereavement makes much abatement of it when it actually occurs. That is one of the topics of consolation which I have always found fail me most, and which I am the least disposed to use in the case of any one else. I scarcely think that in general there is any but simple reliance on the love of God in Christ; all others give way sadly; at least, that is my experience. 'Thank you for your kind inquiries about Mrs. Maurice. I have need of some sympathy from my friends, and they always most gladly give it me, for though I have some hope that the disease is not necessarily a fatal one, for one lung is certainly sound, and of the other there is good hope, yet the 2 D 2 404 A Rising Cloud. 1845. difficulty of reducing the complaint water in the side with- out reducing the patient too much, and she is already very thin, is so great that I have sometimes the darkest fears. Annie lives now in two upper rooms communicating with each other, which we try to keep at one even temperature night and day. ' In the midst of our troubles comes this blessed Christmas, and comes with as bright a face, as goodly pledges and promises as ever. May we be able to keep it with glad hearts, singing and making melody in our hearts to God. God bless it to you and all yours.' To Miss C. Fox, Falmouth* ' MY DEAR FRIEND, ' London, March 8, 1845. ' Thank you again and again for all your love to my dearest Annie. Since I wrote her strength has not increased, and she has lost flesh. The doctors have become much more gloomy in their words and looks, though the complaint which was at first feared most has been wonderfully subdued. She is now ordered to try Hastings. I scarcely dare say so to myself, but I feel that they look upon it as a last resource. God in His mercy may please to do more for us than we can ask or think. In the meantime she is wonderfully cheerful, and looks forward contentedly and even happily to a removal from home which, in itself, is most distressing to her. I count it a great mercy to have been permitted to be so much with her, and now to be able, beyond my hope, to be her companion in the removal. Indeed, our cup has been overflowing with kindness and love, and we have no right to do anything but thank and trust. She is a little stronger in the last few days.' To Miss A. M. and C. Fox, Falmouth. ' II Pelham Crescent, Hastings, March 14, 1845. 'Mv DEAR FRIENDS, ' Many many thanks for all your kind and consolatory words. It is an exceeding cause of thankfulness that our journey hither was managed most successfully, and has been, so far as one can judge, attended with no bad consequences. When I F. D. M. 39. His Wifes DeatJi. 405 look on her withered face and limbs, I can scarcely dream that this measure will be blessed to her recovery, and I know not how soon I may see her sink. But I would take each day as an undeserved gift, and leave the days to come to Him whose they are. She sends her very kindest love to you. The clear air and sea are a calm joy to her, and as we have our great treasures with us she can bear to be away from the home which they chiefly make. We have been overwhelmed with the love of friends. May God make us humbled by it, and teach us to see Him in it.' To Miss A. M. and C. Fox, Falmouth. ' Hastings, Wednesday, March 26, 1845. * MY DEAR FRIENDS, ' You reminded me of the time of year when you wrote to me that Susan was gone. You little thought that the same Easter Tuesday would take from me as precious a treasure as God ever entrusted to any one. Yet so He has ordained. He gave and He has taken away ; blessed be His name. I feel it to be blessed, and that love is beneath all ; yet you will believe how dark and barren everything looks before, and sometimes even behind, for it is most mournful to think what I might have been to her and what I have been. You will not wish me to write more, but I could not forbear asking myself for your pity for my children and for me.' To a Sister. ' MY DEAREST PRISCILLA, ' Hastings, March 27, 1845. ' Esther has told you all. I need only say to you, she is at peace, and He who has taken her will watch over our little ones and me. ' I feel much more oppressed with the sense of sin than of sorrow. I cry to be forgiven for the eight years in which one of the truest and noblest of God's children was trusted to one who could not help or guide her aright, rather than to be com- forted in the desolation which is appointed to me.* * Burke's words on the loss of his son curiously correspond with many of these. 406 "Footsteps which perhaps anotJier" 1845. We have determined to lay her dear remains in Hurstmon- ceaux churchyard. The children will thus be with Esther, and perhaps will spend a little time with her. ' I am very anxious about you. I know now nothing to keep me from coming to you ; and after Tuesday, if I do not receive a better account of you, I shall be ready to set off immediately. I am very thankful to the kind friends who have shown you so much affection. May God bless them, and all those who have shown forth Christ's love towards us.' To Mrs. Maurice. ' Hastings, March 27, 1845. ' MY DEAR DEAR MOTHER, ' I am much grieved to find from Harriet's note to Esther that you are so very poorly. Do not let me think that your deep sympathy with me is hurting yourself. I know you loved Annie very dearly for her own sake, and her love to you was exceedingly great, and was constantly expressed throughout her illness. But do not let thoughts of me or my little children add to the pain which it must give you to see a dear daughter taken away. It is good for me to bear the yoke, most neces- sary ; and so far from wishing to lose any of the sorrow which is appointed for me now, I have no greater or more earnest wish than that I may never seek to exchange it for anything that is called ease and comfort. I do not mean that I would nurse any unnatural and violent grief. The deepest anguish I suffer now is the sense of having neglected high duties and abused precious privileges, and I shall not, I trust, be per- mitted to indulge any one feeling which will keep me from entering heartily and cheerfully upon all tasks which God ordains for me. But I would seek to be sustained in these by the Spirit of Love, and not by any effort after enjoyment, which may come to me if it will, but which, I think, I can quite bear to leave in her grave. I am grievously ignorant of what a father ought to be, and I feel I must begin to learn that and many things anew. And so far as God enables me to remember her, her words and her whole life as it unfolded F. D. M. 39. ''Some forlorn and shipwrecked brother," 407 itself to me for eight years, I shall have a help in working, which nothing else but divine grace itself can give me. For she was certainly the most unselfish person I ever conversed with, and the one who most mourned over our failure in referring every thought and act to Christ as its source and end. If I did not feel that I had held her from the higher life and standard she would have aimed at, I should have no thoughts of her but the most calm and peaceful That reflection is often quite crushing, and no human sympathy even dearest Esther's, which is most soothing and delightful can reach it. You, dearest mother, know not that burden. May the Holy Spirit deliver you from every other, and comfort you with His own comfort.' To Rev. R. C. Trench. ' Hurstmonceaux, March 31, 1845. 'Mv DEAR FRIEND, ' Thank you heartily for your affectionate, sympathising words. It was especially comfortable to me to read what you say about your recollections of her for many years past. When you first met her she was craving with deep sadness and, I suppose, unknown to almost any one, for rest and a home. Often, I believe, she longed for death as a refuge from the irrepressible weariness which seemed to hang over this world. The belief in a Father was the one hold she had on eternity then, and I do think it has been brightening through Christ with power, and increasing every year since. I feel how much I might have done to strengthen and expand every holy desire in her, and when I think of this I am sometimes quite cast down ; but I know that what I failed to do God has accom- plished, and will accomplish in Himself, and I give Him thanks, and do not grudge that He should have taken her out of my wretched care into His own. I did not deserve eight years, or one, of such a friend, such a helper. It is of pure grace that she was lent to me, and I was not fit to keep her longer. Dear friend, it grieves me to hear you speaking as if you had not been tried sorely enough. I am sure every wound 408 "Seeing, may take heart again" 1845- has been felt through your whole being, and has done, and is doing, the good you need. Besides, you have learnt to sorrow with others, which is the truest and most gracious way in which the gift comes. I cannot say how much delight it gives me, now more than ever, to see a holy union. May God preserve yours here on this earth for many a Jong year. My friends here are kind beyond expression.' To Miss A. M. 6* C. Fox, Falmouth. 1 Hurstmonceaux, April 2, 1845. ' MY DEAR FRIENDS, ' I will not thank you for your kind and good words, but will only say how very soothing they were to me. It is a great comfort to be writing to those who knew her for themselves, because I am sure they will not want evidences of what she was, or of the love she bore them, from me or even from any words of her own. ' You may think it strange but if you have watched persons in her complaint you perhaps will not that she never thought herself dying, or doubted for long together that she might recover altogether. I need not tell you that I never inten- tionally deceived her, but rather expressed all my own fears more than the hopes which never quite left me to the last. She had not the slightest restlessness about her future, but seemed to live each day casting the care of it upon God, and ready to welcome another if it was given her, or to depart if she was called. She had a simple childlike delight in hearing the praises of God and joining in them, was often quite over- powered by the love of her friends, and seemed crushed by the sense of her unworthiness of it, and delighted with wonder and awe in the records of our Lord's death and resurrection, with which the last days of her stay on earth were more expressly occupied. She told me at the beginning of those days that she should be very unwilling to mix the personal sorrows of the last two years with thoughts which were to raise us above ali selfishness into communion with the Lord of all and of them ?. D. M. 39. "He bears the burden of the weeks" 409 for whom He died. And she abstained, I think, more than was good for her from all allusion to Susan's* illness and John'sf illness.' To a Sister. ' Hurstmonceaux, April 3, 1845. ' MY DEAREST PRISCILLA, ' I do not feel as if I were right in staying here when I ought to be with you ; but I do not wish to make my own plans, and you and those here seem to think I should wait till I hear more from you. Be assured that there is no reason against my going to you, and that it is much better for me to be giving some help to those I love than to be seeking quiet or ease for myself. Only it will be better for me to come soon, as next week I must resume my duties in London. ' Thank you very much for all your exceeding love and sympathy. My friends have indeed poured this out upon me, and I am ashamed, yet thankful, when I think how much I have received and how little I have shown. I am only afraid lest the purposes of this chastisement, which I needed so very much so much more than I at all knew till it came should be in any degree set at nought by my feeling myself the object of such tenderness. It seems as if I required to be probed to the very root of my being, and as if every one was giving me the most gentle soothing. But I do ask God to humble me by their love as well as by His own, and not let the evil which He wishes to cast out abide in me, because I may shrink from the knife. I do not feel as if I yet knew anything of what He has done to me, but I believe I shall know more every day.' Kensington, April 18, 1845. ' MY DEAR PRISCILLA, ' The burden of London is sometimes very oppressive, and Guy's looks blank and funereal indeed. But I have been enabled to begin my work. I have given two lectures, and have read twice in the chapel, and got through both much better than I had any right to expect. In fact, it is a change * Her sister, Mrs. Sterling. t John Sterling. 4IO Affection for tJie Temple Inn. 1845. of one's whole life, not something to be realised in a particular day or hour. The consciousness may be a little keener at some particular times, one task may be a little heavier than another ; but the only thing is to have done with looking for ease or comfort, and to desire to be sustained wholly by the Spirit of Love.' He went from Hurstmonceaux to his sister's, Mrs. Powell's (Mrs. Hare's twin-sister), at Kensington. He had been there only a short time when Hare urged him to allow himself to be recommended as Master of the Temple. The following was the answer : To Archdeacon Hare. 'MY DEAR FRIEND, 'Kensington, April 21, 1845. ' I am sure God has put it into the hearts of you and Mr. Cavendish to show me this kindness. It comes to me at a time when tokens of kindness are most precious, not indeed because they are rare, for they have been poured out upon me, but because they seem so utterly undeserved ; the recollec- tions of sin, of slighted mercies and cold ingratitude, crowd so thickly upon me when the greatest of all human blessings is taken away. May you be recompensed with all spiritual and all family joys ; with those blessings of the altar and the hearth which you keep yourself and have taught others to keep always united. Would that I had learned the lesson better while it might still be learned. ' There are many things connected with the Temple which would make any ministerial office in it particularly sacred to me. I spent some sadly wasted years as a member of it, and my oldest friends were law students, and all the neigh- bourhood is full of historical and even personal associations, which I can never dwell upon without the most solemn feelings. ' I have always wished that I might some day be either the Reader or Assistant Preacher there ; and when Allen told me after I knew that I must, for my children's sake, think of a change, that he thought Theyre Smith would probably give F. D. M. 39. But Would as yet Refuse Mastership. 41 1 up his position there, I said at once that it would be one I should prefer to any. You will not think me perverse if I say that, on many accounts, either of these lower offices would seem to me more to be desired than the higher one. As to the emolument, it would satisfy me, for it would not be incompatible with other duty on Sunday, and with my work at King's College. But I would much rather at any time, and especially now, have a duty which is of a less conspicuous and ambitious kind, and yet as really capable of being made useful. ' The Mastership has, I believe, been always connected with some person of considerable standing and reputation in the Church; to bestow it upon one almost unknown, however kindly regarded by some friends, would seem strange to people in general, and would put me, I think, in a false position, obliging me to aim at keeping up the character which the office presumes, and tempting me to forget the higher work to which I am called in this effort. Moreover, Theyre Smith, the present Assistant Preacher, who is a friend of mine, is my senior in years and far beyond me in reputation. He is a man of acknowledged ability, was very much patronised when he first became known by the Bishop of London, and has done nothing, so far as I know, to forfeit his esteem. Whether it would be an advantage or otherwise to him to obtain the Mastership, or whether he would be likely to obtain it from Sir Robert Peel, I do not know ; but at all events it would be painful to him and to me that I should be placed over his head. If he were promoted, and he approved of me as an assistant, I would gladly serve under him. But I do not like even to offer such a suggestion little effect as it could pro- duce because it may be that his present income is the better of the two, and that I should be doing him an injury if I were the cause of his rise. He is certainly not a rich man (I fear very much the reverse), is one who would never take any discreditable course to obtain preferment; and he has, I should think, the kind of gifts which are likely to find favour with lawyers : he is a metaphysician of a much more reputable 412 Dread of Polein ics. \ 845. school than mine, that of Reid and Stewart. I state the case to you, my dear friend, just as it presents itself to me. ' But I would not on any account show indifference to your kind interest for me, and I will take care to leave my pamphlet on Subscription at your disposal I trust, however, it would be no fair guide to the character of my pulpit ministrations, in which I should desire to be, as rarely as possible, polemical. Though ten years may not materially have altered my views, they have done something, I do hope, to chasten my character. The last few weeks ought to have had that effect if God's discipline has not been utterly cast away, and in nothing should I pray more that it might be discerned than in greater severity towards myself and more gentleness to others. The principles of charity are, I think, asserted in that pamphlet, but there is often a tone of assumption and asperity in that and in all my books which is very inconsistent with them, and which I hope for grace to reform. I have lost, indeed, the friend who was most faithful in admonishing me of all de- partures from Christian love and Christian simplicity, and who had, it seemed to me, an almost unerring clearness in distinguishing the true from the false ; but I hope the sense of her presence, and of a far higher one will not forsake me. ' I must beg your pardon for this long intrusion upon your time, but I did not know how to show how much I thanked you and Mr. Cavendish, without setting forth fully my thoughts respecting your most unexpected exertions in my favour. ' Pray remember me most gratefully and affectionately to all your circle.' To a Sister. ' Guy's, Whitsunday, 1845. * MY DEAREST PRISCILLA, ' I thank you for your kind Whitsuntide letter, which would have been as cheering as it was kind if it had not brought so bad a report of you. The Spirit hdpeth our in- firmities is perhaps the most comforting text of all just now, though there may be other aspects of this season which are more wonderful and exalting. If I may say that any Church F. D. M. 39. Whitsuntide. 413 festival has been one of help and instruction to me and I have profited by them so little that I hardly dare venture to say so I should fix upon this, partly, I suppose, because a clergyman needs the sustaining, life-giving power and the faculty of utterance, more than others, and partly because I have always been conscious of an especial need of it, and have more realised the sense of utter incapacity of thought, feeling, and speech, than any other. I am sure that many times I should have sunk utterly under the feeling of utter hopeless vacuity of mind, of dreariness in the affections, feebleness in the will, if the words " I believe in the Holy Ghost " had not been given me as an expression of the best thing I could believe in, and that out of which all other belief might come. To recognise the Spirit of Life, the Spirit of Truth, as a power acting upon me and in me, has seemed to me possible when any act of power, any exercise of faith would have been like the efforts of a man under a nightmare. And I have some- times seen very strongly how much in a dead, divided Church this was the one thing needful to speak of; the prophecy of a breath which would come into it and make the dry bones unite and live. However, this is not all j the whole mystery of the Father, Son, and Spirit is necessary to restore animation to the dead limbs or a dead body, and we have no right to speak of the Spirit except as proceeding from the Father and the Son, as testifying of them, as uniting us to them, as uniting them in one bond of Eternal Love. But Whitsunday, as connected with Trinity Sunday, and leading to it, seems to me to contain the most marvellous and blessed witness of the whole year, and that without which all the rest would be in vain. 'I could hardly bear the sight of the buds and flowers coming out if I did not connect it with this deeper and diviner Spring.' ' Gay's, May 17, 1845. 'I have great comfort in connecting your birthday with Trinity Sunday. It is to me the most sacred day of the year, the one which seems to me most significant of universal 414 Trinity Sunday. 18/15. blessings, and also which blends most by strange and number- less links with my own individual experience and inward history. The idea of the unity of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit, as the basis of all unity amongst men, as the groundwork of all human society and of all thought, as belong- ing to little children, and as the highest fruition of the saints in glory, has been haunting me for a longer time than I can easily look back to. It seems to blend with every book I read and to interpret it, to connect itself with all the sick and dying people about me ; to direct all my thoughts about my children, and more than all others together, to bring my vanished saint to me or me to her; which indeed is not strange, as the ascription u Glory be to the Father," and the last verse of the ordination hymn, " Come, Holy Ghost," seemed always to kindle her whole spirit, soul, and body, far above the utterance of what is sometimes called personal religion, though anything more truly personal than hers I never saw. Our dear old friend, Mr. Sherer, called upon me the other day, and I could see evidently that in spite of his education this was his feeling likewise, and that the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was in its fullest and most Catholic sense that in which his heart was resting and re- joicing, and which really carried him above all party divisions and notions, and into the largest acknowledgment of God's universal love, though he might be striving to realise the blessings at Bible meetings, &c, ' Your birthday, therefore, I think, could not be more divinely hallowed or drawn up into the mystery of the second birth with which the Gospel for the day so beautifully asso- ciates the heavenly mysteries which are revealed by the Son of Man, who came down from heaven and is in heaven. I trust the blessings of the day will surround you in it, and go with you through this and every year which may be appointed for your pilgrimage on earth, and show you that earth and heaven are really one. ' I am sure you will be glad to hear that I have a letter from Wilberforce to-day, expressing entire concurrence in the views F. D. M. 39. Plow Best to Serve the Church. 415 I had expressed to him about the Borough, and holding out the hope that they will not begin with raising wretchedly cold- looking churches, into which no poor person will go, but will open schoolrooms in the worst courts and lanes, first for the children, then for worship. On this plan I do trust a blessing will come ; the twenty churches made me shudder, for it seems to me a pompous way of doing almost nothing. ' I had a very kind note last night from Bunsen. I am afraid he is very anxious to get me preferment. I was obliged to tell him very earnestly and strongly how little I desired it for myself, and what a distress it would be to me if it came. The freer one is from the Church system in this country, the better one is able to serve the Church ; at least so I think : and what do I or the children want in the way of social position or means of self-indulgence ?' 416 Principles of Church Apology. 1845. CHAPTER XXII. K For others too can see, or sleep ; But only human eyes can weep." Andrew MarvelL 1845, SECOND HALF APPOINTMENT AS BOYLE AND WARBURTON LECTURER. 1846 APPOINTMENT AS THEOLOGICAL PRO- FESSOR OF KING'S COLLEGE AND CHAPLAIN OF LINCOLN'S INN LEAVES GUY'S AND GOES TO QUEEN SQUARE INTRO- DUCTION TO MR. LUDLOW. IN July 1845 he was appointed Boyle Lecturer, the appoint- ment being in the hands of the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London. ' Dartmouth, Wednesday (August, 1845). ' MY DEAR CLARK, ' .... I have a good deal to do at Torquay, for which I am thankful. Here I am only for two days with Mrs. Hare Naylor. The children are running wild in a very beautiful garden, and are as happy as if they had no cause to be otherwise. ' Thank you very much for your information about the Boyle Lectures, and for your own valuable hints. Of the latter I wish heartily I could avail myself; but I am afraid my gross ignorance of physics, in every branch of it, must entirely in- capacitate me from meddling with the "Vestiges." I would take any pains to acquire information for the nonce ; but that is worth nothing. I feel more inclined to deal with some of the moral or political forms of Atheism or with the idea of revelation itself. At all events I hope to meet what is active and rampant, and to deal fairly with it ; not to attack some- thing bygone, and merely to abuse. F. D. M. 40. Hurstmonceaux CJnirchyard. 417 i To Mrs, Augustus Hare on Receipt of the News of the death of Mr. Marcus Hare at Hurstmonceaux. ' Torquay, Tuesday, August 5, 1845. 1 MY DEAR FRIEND, ' I did not know what your present meant when it came to me with such a sense of blessing the week before last. I did not know what it foretold, and how the place was to be fresh hallowed. It cannot well be dearer or more sacred to me than it was ; but I shall feel that it is a new and holy tie to you and to Julius, and to your dear sister, in whose sorrow I would wish to claim some part, for I can enter into it a little. Thanks be to God, there is One who enters into it altogether, and He will be with her in the lowest depths. I only write for my own sake, for I well know what support has been given to you and her, and that it will be given more abundantly when the need of it is and I fear it must be even greater than now. May God be with you all and bless you for Christ's sake.' To Archdeacon Hare on same subject. ' Torquay, Tuesday, August 1845. ' MY DEAR JULIUS, 'It seems as if this place, though so many miles from you, brought me nearer to you than almost any other; if, indeed, I could ever be far from Hurstmonceaux and its churchyard. I know that you have been enabled to give up your brother to God, and I rejoice that you have all you can have of him with you. There seems a great blank left here by his departure, and though I hardly ever saw him at his own house, its desolation was quite overpowering. His spirit will be here, and with you also, and I cannot think any one leaves the world without sending down some blessings upon those among whom he dwelt, and upon his own dear friends and relations especially. May this blessing come richly upon your parish and upon yourself. I think oftener of these words than of almost any others, " Where your treasure is there will your heart be also." ' VOL. I. 2 E 4i 8 Dignified Patronage. 1845. To Mrs. Maurice. 1 MY DEAREST MOTHER, ' Torre, August 22, 1845. ' .... I have heard nothing more from the Bishop of London or the Archbishop of York; but as it never rains without pouring, I have just received a very kind note from the Archbishop of Canterbury appointing me the Warburton Lecturer. These lectures are to be on the evidence of Chris- tianity from prophecy, and also bear reference to the Romish system. I have been obliged to send his letter to a gentleman of Lincoln's Inn to get further particulars, or I should have sent it to you. There are twelve of these lectures, three to be delivered in a year, the first on the 3oth of November next I find there are eight Boyle Lectures to be delivered in the year, but whether they last for more than one I do not know, nor when they are given. I like both appointments, and hope to be taught how to make them useful. They will at least determine my course of reading, for I shall not have leisure to do anything besides these and my K. C. Lectures. ..." To Rev. M. and Mrs. Maurice. For their Wedding day, September yd. 'Torre, September i, 1845. ' MY DEAREST FATHER AND MOTHER, ' This letter will reach you on the 3rd. It bears with it the loves of all who are here, myself and my two boys. At least I know the little one means all love to you both if he knew how to express it. The circle is a very different one from that which met you last year on your golden day. But the place in which you are will remind you of the blessings that have been given as well as some that have been taken away, and it is a cause for evident thanksgiving to think that you have still been preserved. I will not do more than wish you all possible blessings and still many returns of the day. ' Priscilla still means to make the great effort of joining me [i.e. of taking care of his house and children for him, as shortly after this time Priscilla Maurice did].' F. D. M. 40. The Epistle to the Hebrews. To Miss Priscilla Maurice. ' September 30, 1845. '. . . . I think I have determined to make the subject of my Warburton lectures the Epistle to the Hebrews. I have long taken more interest in it than I think in any book of the Bible, and my thoughts were especially drawn to it last spring. Practically it comes out to me in connection with all my thoughts about the sins of Christian priests ; it seems wonderfully to unfold the relations between the old and new dispensations, and to explain the method of dealing with prophecy ; it touches all the cardinal questions in the Romish controversy. I am therefore occupying myself in it with much interest and satisfaction, not unmixed with great pangs of remorse, and now and then with the recollection which is suitable enough to them, that it is the first book for many years I shall have to work at alone. But I trust I am not alone and that even the help of her deeper thoughts and counsel, which were more to me than any one can conceive, will not be quite withheld.' To Archdeacon Hare. ' Guy's, October 7, 1845. ' .... I have much to remind me of departed joy in this day,* but much of the permanence of all bonds formed in Christ which the Spirit of Love has hallowed. I believe that thought has been with me more than any other, and it breeds hearty thanksgivings in the midst of an ever deepening sorrow. May all such blessings without the cost of them be yours ' To Miss A. M. & C. Fox. ' Guy's, October 22, 1845. ' It is a great comfort to have Priscilla within reach of ner family, and that she should be occasionally able to see my children. I sent them away for a while, but they are returned to me to-day and give a strange kind of joy to a house which * The anniversary of his own wedding clay. 2 E 2 420 Memory of Misunderstandings. 1845. does not seem meant for it. I cannot thank you enough for your kind words, which would be good in themselves under any circumstances, and bring back to me many images of the past that are worth all the present can give. I had seen the death of Mrs. Fry in the papers, and had felt that the world was losing more of its wealth, though to be stored elsewhere, and, one must think, partly for its use. At least I cannot think any good person leaves the earth who is not employed in some ministries for it. So Newgate may still have its teacher, only endowed with deeper wisdom and love. I feel with you, dear friends, how much comfort there is in the thought of Light and life expanding together, so that there will be no more confusion about others, because no more darkness in oneself. I suppose the feeling of being misunderstood has been at times the most oppressive to all of us ; now the feel- ing of having misunderstood is to me more painful still. The one is acute suffering, the other is sin, and one seems glad almost to receive the first as the rightful punishment of the other. That thought about punishment I must have stolen from my dear friend T. Erskine, whom your cousins saw at Rome, and whom it would be worth going to Rome to see if it had nothing else inviting in it' ' Guy's, December 6, 1845. ' MY DEAR JULIUS, ' You will be amused with an opinion, which I heard from Buckland, whom I met in his future house at Westminster. He thinks that all Niebuhr's doctrines about Roman history were invented to justify the Austrian occupation of Italy. I tried to persuade him that Rome was a great ichthyosaurus, which Niebuhr, by help of different fossil remains, had in humble imitation of the geologists for the first time constructed, but he stuck to his original theory.' To Rev. R. C. Trench. 'December 31, 1845. ' .... I think the attempt to understand something more of Hindooism, which I have made with a view to my Boyle F. D. M. 40. Appointed Theological Professor. 421 lectures, has been profitable to me, making me feel more our possessions, perils, and sins, and the capacity which there is in all men for the truth we could impart to them. At the end of the saddest year of my pilgrimage, with the frequent sense of an utter incapacity, when I attempt it for my own sake merely, to look through the shadow of the past and the future, to the light which I am sure is behind, it has been a real help and relief to catch some vision of the love which is over the universe, and claim a share of it, and to desire, however faintly, that all may be satisfied with it May God bless you and all yours in the coming year, keeping your circle unbroken, and showing you the light of His countenance.' The following letters describe the circumstances of his ap- pointment to the professorship of theology at King's College. It will be seen that he was chosen as already one of the professors of the college whose antecedents were well known. He sent in no fresh testimonials of any kind. His selection, therefore, was due to the judgment formed by Dr. Jelf of his previous work. Now the latest utterance of his which had been published, was the pamphlet on the ' New Statute and Mr. Ward,' and out of that pamphlet the passage to which attention had been most prominently directed was that on pp. 397, 398. Not a year had passed since Mr. Ward had quoted it in his defence before the University of Oxford, at a moment when the eyes of all University men were fixed on Mr. Ward. It is true that since then my father had been appointed by the two Archbishops and by the Bishop of London Boyle and Warburton lecturer; but none of his lectures had, as yet, been published, so that this pamphlet and this particular passage stood out among all his writings with an exceptional prominence at the moment when he was asked by the Principal to become one of the theological pro- fessors, and appointed by the Council as such. This passage, if it struck Principal or Council as in any respect peculiar, must have represented the especial peculiarity they would expect in his future work. 422 Newman's "Theory of Development' 1846. To Miss G. Hare. ' Guy's, January 14, 1846. 'I think it is probable now that we shall leave Guy's. They are establishing a theological department at King's Col- lege, which is likely to exercise an important influence. Dr. Jelf has asked me to be one of the professors ; and I have agreed to give up this place. ' In many ways the trial of parting, when it comes (much as I have wished for a change on the children's account), will be a severe one ; my whole married life is bound up with Guy's, and there is nothing about it which is not in some way associated with her. Still I shall be glad, for I could not have well desired to see you, or any one who very greatly cared for her, and had seen her here, again at Guy's. And, also, I do trust I shall be in the place she would have wished me to be, and where I can best serve God and His Church. * Thank you for telling me of X.'s letter. The subject is one of which I have been thinking much, and must think still more ; and a very sad one it is. I am surprised at X.'s wishing you to read Newman's book ; * for it is not one that appeals to any of the devout sympathies whereby ladies are generally tempted towards Romanism. It is a very clever book, and one which is likely to produce an effect upon young men, for it addresses itself to the state of mind in which so many of them are, which Newman understands, and which very few English Churchmen do understand. But of all books I ever read it seems to me the most sceptical; much more calculated to make sceptics than Romanists, though probably it will make some of each class. I should not be afraid of your reading it, for I think you would feel its exceeding hollow- ness, and would tremble at the state of mind into which a person would get who yielded to its influence. You do not tell me what Z. had said that so much perplexed and dis- tressed you. If it was that none of our parties, Evangelical * ' The Theory of Development.' F. D. M. 40. Newman's 'TJieory of Development! 423 or Anglican, is able to satisfy the wants for which so many men and women are flying to Rome, he is perfectly right; every day convinces me of it more. And I do not speak from theory ; those who have left say how utterly false and hollow the English attempts to supply a kind of Romanism have long seemed to them ; how utterly untenable the position which they had taken up was. At the same time, it is equally certain that the violence of the Evangelicals, and their hard, artificial, yet feeble, theology is alienating numbers, and that the younger members of their families are specially feeling the Romish temptation. Deepest humiliation for the low tone of feeling and conduct which all of us, and especially the clergymen of all kinds, have kept up ourselves and encou- raged in others, should, I am sure, be earnestly sought after. But, though I see everything to deplore in our own condition nothing to boast of I feel more deeply convinced than ever that the remedy these people are trying must aggravate the evil a thousandfold, and introduce a number of new evils. Our misery is, that we have not been setting God before us ; that we have been seeking ourselves in our religion and in everything else. And this system, though it may be qualified in its operation by a multitude of blessed spiritual influences upon those who have been brought up in it ; though to them it may be identified with all that is most holy and godly will to us I see it clearly be a refuge from God, a more entire hopeless pursuit of selfish objects. They want the living God, and they fly to the fiction of ecclesiastical authority; they want to be delivered from the burden of self, and they run to the confessor, who will keep them in an eternal round of contrivances to extinguish self by feeding it and thinking of it It is nothing to me that they are in raptures at their first experience of the rest from doubt ; at the sense of being united with the whole of Christendom. That was to be expected ; it is no more than Blanco White felt and expressed when he first worshipped in a Unitarian meeting. No doubt they have been in a most uneasy, miserable position for a long ume ; no doubt it is delightful to have made a decision, exceed- 424 Newman's 'Theory of Development? 1846. ingly delightful to be welcomed heartily by their new friends when they had found much want of heart among their old ones. But all that is nothing, nothing to us even if their first-love feelings should abide, which I know they will not. To go any- where for the sake of getting comfortable feelings is a deep delu- sion ; to go anywhere for the sake of truth is the greatest of all duties ; but truth they do not really believe in : it means with them, "probable security as to the notions we have upon certain subjects." The words " I am the Truth," words which take us out of the world of notions, and opinions, and theories alto- gether; and those other blessed words : " You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free," have lost their signi- ficance in the Roman Catholic system, not, thank God, in the hearts of Roman Catholics, though they are in continual peril of this infinite loss ; and they, it seems to me, are in still greater hazard of incurring it who adopt the system only because they despair of finding truth, and are willing to put up with a plausible substitute for it. 'For my own sake I could wish you to adopt X.'s advice about Newman's book, as I am writing upon it not a formal answer but in a preface to some lectures on the Epistle to the Hebrews which I hope to publish in the course of next month (they are the first section of my Warburton Lectures), and I would rather, of course, you should read it, and know to what it alludes. But I could not, for so selfish a reason, advise you to a task which I think and hope would be a painful one. * And from the feeling of sadness and oppression, as if I were in the midst of a country under a visitation of locusts, with which I rose up from the volume, I will counsel you not to take it up, except when you are in tolerable spirits, and, at the same time, have a deep sense of dependence and of the necessity and possibility of prayer. I do not fear its convert- ing you ; but the weariness and discomfort which I think it would produce in you, are in general so little salutary, that I question if any one, not professionally obliged to the duty, should be encouraged to perform it.' D. M. 40. Theological Appointments at K. C. 425 71? Rev. R. C. Trench. 1 Guy's, Febraary 18, 1846. 'You, of course, have heard from Dr. Jelf that our ap- pointments are virtually made, and only wait for the formal confirmation of the Council and the Visitor. I hardly know how to write to you about them, for I feel the deepest thank- fulness that it has been ordered so, and yet I am afraid I must seem to you and to Mrs. Trench very selfish. I cannot suffi- ciently trust my own motives to affirm that I did not sacrifice some considerations about your comfort to an extreme lono-in^ * O > for your co-operation ; for a lonely man, deprived of help and counsel upon which he has relied more and more, and found more precious than any one can ever know, is very open to this temptation. But I know that I did and do feel that this movement is one of great and permanent importance, which must fail if it do not begin in the best spirit, and under the best direction, and this, more than all personal feeling, really led me to speak of you to Dr. Jelf, and to press your accept- ance of the office, troublesome as I know it must, for some time at least, prove to you. I cannot tell you how very solemn my own part in the work seems to me ; or how much I look back upon past discipline and sore inward humiliations which have accompanied it, as my chief encouragements to believe that I should not be left to my own folly and weakness. I am sometimes quite oppressed with the thought of the state of theology, scientific and practical, among us, and of all the evils of which this seems to be the origin. Yet when I think of myself, my own sin and ignorance, the oppression seems to become far greater, and the hope for a time less. But I would not so regard it ; one must know the mischief within, to be of any, even the least, help to its cure without. ' The Lincoln's Inn chaplaincy will be given to some one next week. I have no reason to think particularly well or ill of my prospects, though I believe those of one or two of the candidates, at least, are better. I am quite sure I shall have 426 Moves from Guy's to Queen Square. 1846. it if I really need it, and am fit for it. The salary is fixed at 3oo/. a year without chambers. If I get it I must look for a house near the Inn and near King's College, where there would, I hope, be always a room for you on your visits. But this is dreaming.' The following week he was appointed to the chaplaincy of Lincoln's Inn. To Mr. Strachey. '21 Queen Square, Bloomsbury, June 14, 1846. ' I wish I could get as far as you are in my summer vacation, and spend a little time with you, but such dreams I must not indulge; indeed, I scarcely know whether Italy could have any charm for me now ; the exertion of speaking another language, nay the exertion of pleasure-hunting and beauty-hunting seems to me rather more oppressive and fati- guing than any other. If my dear boys are permitted to grow up, and I can show sights to them, the case will be different, but what people call relaxation and bid me seek, I do not feel equal to; work one can generally get through without much struggle. ' You will see by my direction that I have left the place in which you knew me, where I have spent the ten best years of my life. For the reason of my leaving I have much to be thankful The Council of King's College have established a theological department, and the bishops have consented to ordain those who receive certificates of fitness from its pro- fessors after two years' instruction. I have been chosen, without my seeking, to one of the professorships ; Dr. McCaul and Trench have the two others. This position I felt would be incompatible with my Guy's duties, which, therefore, I at once determined to resign. But the treasurer, thinking rightly that I should suffer a good deal in income, kindly advised me to take a curate, which I had agreed to do, when the chaplaincy of Lincoln's Inn fell vacant by Mr. Dalton's appointment to Lambeth. This office was exactly the one I should have F. D. M. 40. Chaplaincy of Lincoln s Inn. 427 wished, and it harmonised perfectly with my duties at King's College. I therefore became a candidate for it, and after two or three months was elected by a majority of two among the benchers, the three ex-Chancellors Brougham, Cottenham, and Campbell deciding it in my favour. I have held the office about six weeks, and within three days have moved into a house in this very quiet and antiquated square. Guy's, as you may believe, was crowded with associations and recollec- tions, but I felt very glad to leave it ; not because I do not think the duty a most honourable and delightful one, but because I never did it justice. In respect of that and every part of my past life I would ask for a broken and contrite heart, for repentance unto life instead of remorse. I am surrounded with causes of gratitude, and I hope I feel a little more every day that God is indeed a home and a refuge. I should not find this house one even with my children, and my kind sister, whose health is as bad as ever if it were not so. I have written one book lately. It consists of my three first Warburton lectures, on the Epistle to the Hebrews, and a preface on Newman's book of Development. This, with seven lectures a week, professor's lectures, Lincoln's Inn, and moving, has been as much as I have been equal to, though not more if I had done it better.' Of the effect which he produced at this time in Lincoln's Inn, the following letter will give some account. Letter from Mr. Hughes to Mr. Ludlow, written in 1853.* ' In 1846 I lived in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and was a regular attendant at Lincoln's Inn Chapel. The services were the same as they now are, that is, daily morning prayer at eight through the whole year (except about six weeks in the Long Vacation), and two full services on Sundays. Before Mr. * See p. 487, vol. i., and p. 212, vol. ii., for an account of the circum- stances which led to this letter and others being written. 428 Mr. T. Hiighes' Reminiscences of 1846-53. Maurice's appointment to the chaplaincy the post was filled very efficiently, but the congregation was very small indeed, In the winter the regular attendants at daily morning prayer were certainly not more than eight or ten, two of whom were ladies. In summer the number rose to twelve or fourteen. The Sunday afternoon service, which is, as you know, per- formed entirely by the Chaplain, was also very thinly attended. I do not think that the barristers' and students' seats in those days were ever more than a third full. 'Very soon after Mr. Maurice was appointed the daily attendance at chapel began to increase. The new comers were almost all students, or at any rate quite young men, and when I left the neighbourhood in the spring of 1848 we seldom numbered less on the most unpromising mornings than twenty- five. The difference in the attendance on Sunday afternoons was even more remarkable : first the seats at the side set apart for students and strangers began to fill, and then the barristers' benches; and although it was some years before the chapel filled as it does now, yet in the year 1850, when the choir was brought down from the gallery into the body of the chapel, the seats which they necessarily occupied could not be well spared, and many persons, some of them regular attendants, though not members of the Inn, had to sit in the passages. Now, with the exception of the benchers' seats, which are reserved throughout the service (and are naturally not so well filled as the rest of the chapel, because their occupants almost all live at a distance), five minutes after the service is begun there is not a seat to be had, not even a stool in the passages, and even the dark places under the organ loft always seem crowded. ' It is one thing to see this change and another to account for it For myself, howevei, I believe that the daily congre- gation increased because when a man once got up and went to chapel in the morning and heard Mr. Maurice read the prayers, he felt there was somehow a reality about the service which was new to him, and he went again to satisfy a want ; and if he overslept himself he found that he had lort something F. D. M. 40-48. Lincoln's Inn Services, 1846-1853. 429 that his day was not started right At least this was my own case ; if I missed morning chapel I had an uncomfortable feeling till eleven or twelve o'clock, as if I had not had my breakfast or had put on a dirty shirt. And the way in which we all joined in the responses (irresistibly, I suppose, because we felt it was a privilege which we must exercise) gave me a strong feeling of fellowship which I have rarely felt in any other congregation. When I left the neighbourhood I did not know five of the daily congregation to speak to, and yet I felt as if I knew them quite well, and do so still when I meet them at the Inn or in the streets, though we are still strangers. The increase in the Sunday afternoon congregation is more easily accounted for, because then Mr. Maurice preaches, and the chapel is consequently crammed with young men of all shades of belief, many of them, to my knowledge, not members of the Church of England, and most of the rest differing from him widely on many points. And come they will by hundreds whenever he preaches, because they feel that he has got some- thing to tell them which they want to know, and about which they must be satisfied. Whatever turn his sermon takes, they are quite sure that it will bring them back somehow to the year of grace 1853, and to the needs and the struggles of their own inner life, and will cast light on those struggles and that life. ' Moreover, they will hear a man speaking to them as men, sympathising with and not silencing them; a far wiser and stronger man than themselves no doubt, but one who is above all things at their side, and fighting his own life-battle as one of them, which is what they want, and not a saint or a doctor ever so much above them, with his cut and dried methods and paths for them to war and walk in, which is just what they don't want and won't have.' Mr. Hughes will, I know, permit me to correct one expres- sion in the above letter. I may quote as my authority either Mr. Hughes himself or any one else who ever heard my father in church. He never "read prayers," \& prayed. He poured 43O Commencement of a Friendship 1846. forth the words of the church-service as the expression of his own deepest thoughts and aspirations. He embodied in his daily use of the service that view of it which he has explained in his letter to Mr. Atwood on pp. 332-335. He was mani- festly conscious the whole time that he was leading the prayers of a congregation, otherwise his whole manner and voice showed that he was completely absorbed in the actual com- munion of thought with the Unseen. The year 1846 was a very busy and important one to him. The Warburton lectures of the year developed into the work published as ' The Epistle to the Hebrews,' but of which fully half is occupied by a reply to Newman's ' Theory of Develop- ment.' Dealing as it does with the work of so powerful an opponent, it will, I believe, be found to be the most perfect specimen of his own special powers as a controversialist. The Boyle lectures developed into what has perhaps been the most popular of all his writings, 'The Religions of the World.' It was not published till the beginning of the following year. Towards the end of 1846, Mr. J. M. Ludlow called on him at the instance of Mr. Anderson, then the "Preacher" of Lincoln's Inn, to ask his aid in a scheme for bringing " to bear the leisure and good feeling of the Inns of Court upon the destitution and vice of the neighbourhood." Mr. Ludlow and a friend soon afterwards went to tea at Queen Square to talk over the subject. My father was, according not to their report only but according to that of all who speak of him in those days, utterly unhinged, prostrated, and without spring to answer to any appeal, though he at once endeavoured to comply with the request, and introduced Mr. Ludlow to the Rector of a neighbouring parish for that purpose. Mr. Ludlow knew nothing of any of his previous work or of his recent loss, and left the house with an impression of him which was summed up in the words, " a good man, but very unpractical." This special circumstance of their early acquaintance no doubt determined to some extent the sort of relationship which for a long time existed between them, and of which my father's p. D. M. 41. Very Influential on the Life. 431 letters will give much indication. It produced a certain sense on Mr. Ludlow's part, which the answers will largely disclose, of a necessity for stimulating him ; this will perhaps show itself occasionally in somewhat quaint contrast to the nature of mj father's previous life. 432 Pleasure in Edtication Scheme of iStf. 1847. CHAPTER XXIII. " He told them that he was their representative and not their delegate. They rejected him of course, but . . ." F. D. M., Lecture on Burke. ^47 NEW EDUCATION SCHEME DUTIES OF A PROTESTANT IN THE OXFORD ELECTION OF 1847 DR. HAMPDEN 'THE SAINTS' TRAGEDY ' ADMISSION OF JEWS INTO PARLIAMENT HARE'S LIFE OF STERLING SCHLEIERMACHER FIRST STEPS IN THE MOVEMENT FOR THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN QUEEN'S COLLEGE. Education Scheme. To Mr. Strachey. 'Mays, 1847. [AFTER explaining that Mr. Trench had been for some time ill at Queen Square with low fever, contracted whilst en- deavouring to save life during the Irish famine.] ' This may be my excuse for not entering more at large upon the question you propose. I feel exceeding gratitude for the Government scheme, and look upon it as the greatest blessing the land could have received, if only those who receive the grants know how to use them. There is no cause for the Dissenters to fear from the influence of the clergy. Money can give them no influence if they have not hearts and understandings, which it is to be hoped will be found in some. I do not object to exempting Dissenters from the Catechism, but think it wrong that they should be taught it, as they have not godfathers and godmothers, and will not be confirmed. It is not therefore a reality that they would part from.' 'May 14, 1847. ' .... I wish very much that you would adapt it [a pamphlet] to the exigencies of this coming election. There F. D. M. 41. "Contributing to Teaching Error?' 433 are many points to be discussed ; but the one which seems to me most pressing of all is the fearful project of McNeile and the Protestant Association. They propose cards containing a pledge, for A. B. to vote for any candidate who declares that he will not support future concessions to Romanists in prefer- ence to any other candidate whatever. The result as to the No Popery cry will probably be entire disappointment; but the immorality which is implied in this project, and to which it will lead, makes me shudder when I think of it What we want is a clear examination and exposure of the fallacy implied in the formula, " Not supporting error," and the kindred falla- cies which are doing more to destroy the distinctions of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, than almost any ever broached in our land. . . .' ' May 22, 1847. ' Supposing it to be clearly ascertained that a State ought in justice to its different subjects to assist each in obtaining the means of instruction in its own way, it is impossible that this duty can clash with any other. The contradiction must be only apparent ; we are bound to ask ourselves how the appear- ance is produced. Examine the phrase, " We must not con- tribute to the teaching of error." Do you not see that, taken in its plain sense, it prevents you from contributing to any teaching? You dare not support me in teaching, for you know that I teach error. Then the word "vital" or some other must be thrust in ; the force of the general proposition is gone ; you are in a sea of questions. This has a very de- moralising effect on the mind ; mark what I say, " demoralis- ing." I protest against this fast and loose language, not on grounds of expediency, but of morality. It is more perplexing to the conscience than to the judgment. But where is the escape from it ? Is not truth the most precious thing of all ? Certainly ; I am to live and die for it Error the most detest- able ? Certainly ; I am to live and die that it may be ex- terminated, I am to have no other end than this. But cannot I then know truth from falsehood ? Am I to speak as if I were uncertain whether Romanism is false? Not at all. I VOL, I. 2 F 434 Common Confusion of Ends and Means. CHAP. xxm. proclaim it to be false. I desire its extermination. But having settled these premisses, I must ask myself in every case what on the whole will conduce to this end of advancing truth, exterminating error, either generally or in the particular concrete form of Romanism. Here is room for infinite dis- cussion ; here you can appeal to no great maxims of reason at once to determine the issue ; you must go with me into the cases. You may be right or I. For me to assume that I am right or that you are wrong in the way of putting down idolatry or any form of error, because it is our business to be busy in putting down idolatry and error, is hateful and im- moral, confusing ends and means, leading to the most melan- choly consequences on the mind of the individual and of the country, consequences which are every day making themselves manifest in the conduct and spirit of the Evangelical party and of all whom they influence. No people are less in earnest for truth as truth, more reckless of their ways of preaching that which they substitute for it. I have not time to enlarge ; but follow out these considerations for yourself, see whither they lead, and how manifold are the applications of them, and then pour a good broadside into McNeile and his party ; not bearing them down one and all with maxims of expediency or Cole- ridgian distinctions about morals and politics when they try to board you, but fairly sinking them with good honest English guns. At the same time be gentle with them ; I always am with men when I am thoroughly bent on their destruction.' In the end, however, he himself published a pamphlet setting forth these views: 'The Education Question in 1847.' In the spring and early summer of 1847 he was greatly interested in the forthcoming general election, and more espe- cially in Mr. Gladstone's candidature at Oxford. The letter to be given next will both explain the circumstances which induced him to care so much about the subject, and state his views on the questions involved. It is only necessary to explain before- hand the nature of the Dissenters' Chapels Bill. That measure had been introduced in the year 1844 by Sir F. i). M. 41. The Dissenters' Chapels Bill. 435 Robert Peel's Government, of which Mr. Gladstone was a member, and the circumstances under which it passed form one of the most striking episodes in our constitutional history. 1 must refer once more to the first few pages of this volume which contain the story of the progressive change of Puritan Presbyterianism into Unitarianism. To any one who has followed that story there will be nothing surprising in the fact that in 1844 there were Unitarian congregations the direct lineal descendants of Presbyterians who had built and endowed the churches and schools, and had consecrated to sacred pur- poses other church-property of which these Unitarian descen- dants were in 1844 in possession; so that the congregations of 1844 differed from their ancestors in every recognisable ex- pression of belief. Each successive year had seen families buried in the same churchyard, had seen costly additions or improvements made to fabrics that were successively handed down from father to son. In almost all cases the endowments and the churches had by the trust deeds been simply devoted to " the worship of God," so that nothing had interfered to check the continuous change of opinion. But when the change had actually taken place, it was not at all wonderful that some very honest people who did not under- stand what had happened, and some very dishonest people who did understand it, should turn round upon the holders of this property and say, " Why you Unitarians are holding pro- perty that of right belongs to people who are orthodox Presby- terians." Lawsuits ensued which plainly showed that, as the law then stood, the intruders must carry the day, and become possessed of property to which they had no more claim than every Tom has to every Dick's possessions by right of his name. The law officers were equally unanimous as to the moral wrong that would be done if the Unitarian holders were robbed, and as to the fact that from defect of the law such robbery could only be prevented by legislation. Under these circumstances Sir Robert Peel brought in the Dissenters' Chapels Bill. It enacted that in any future litigation the usage of the 2 F 2 436 Complete Perversion of Popular View. CHAP. xxm. previous twenty-five years of the actual holders during that period should be the test of the form of religious belief which implied a title to hold chapels, schools, &c., in all cases in which trust deeds were not specific. It is manifest at once what facilities for misrepresentation such a story presented. It was asserted by the partisan religious newspapers that the Government were taking the property which the law now assigned to orthodox people and recklessly giving it over to Unitarians. The country was filled with excitement, and petitions upon petitions against the bill poured in from all parts of the country. Nevertheless the calm statement of the facts within the walls of the Houses prevailed. The speeches which were delivered by Follett, Macaulay, Mr. Milnes, and above all by Mr. Gladstone, by Sheil, and by Sir Robert Peel himself, amply justify the asser- tion of that statesman, " there was throughout the discussion a preponderance of argument on one side of the question un- exampled within my recollection in any former debate." A majority on the whole of 360 to 148 in the Commons and an even more decisive majority in the Lords determined the issue. But there can be no question that if at the moment the vote had lain with the constituencies themselves, they would, from the utter impossibility of getting the facts home to them amid the din of pseudo-religious clamour, have sanctioned the prin- ciple that it is right to steal provided only those from whom you steal differ from you in opinion. These are the facts with which the next letter deals. The circumstances of the grant to Maynooth are either sufficiently well known or sufficiently explained in the letter to permit the points to be understood. To Rev. Cowley Powles. 'Spring, 1847. ' If I had a vote for the University I should certainly give it to Mr. Gladstone. I do not express this opinion hastily; but after endeavouring to consider the subject on all sides and with some inclinations towards a different conclusion from the one at which I have arrived. 1847. Is Protestantism merely Negative ? 437 ' The popular fears respecting Romanism have never seemed to me chimerical. Such fears may lead to a thousand cruel suspicions, to a thousand villainous and mischievous inventions as they did in the reign of Charles II, but they will be always found to have some basis, as the history of that reign and the succeeding one shows that they had then. Mr. Gresley has not persuaded me that his bugbear, Puritanism, ought to be substituted for the one at which our countrymen ordinarily tremble, nor does the strongest conviction that a certain kind of infidelity is really much more tempting to the hearts of young men in our day than Popery, lead me to think that less terrible ; for each tendency, I believe, favours the other. I am con- vinced that whatever course is best for Protestantism is best for the University of Oxford. I agree with those who say that a University more than any other body of electors should vindicate the claims of principle against those of expediency. Lastly, I do not feel that the theories set forth in Mr. Glad- stone's book, though most honestly and elaborately contrived, as it seems to me, for the purpose of checking the evil tenden- cies of this time, are adequate to counteract them. These are my premisses. I will now tell you how they have led me to an inference which may strike some as inconsistent with them. There are two grounds upon which Mr. Round rests his claims to your support. He opposed the Dissenting Chapels Bill. He opposed the bill for enlarging and perpetuating the endow- ment of Maynooth. These are positively his only pretensions ; he never on any one occasion has stated why he voted against the measures, or why he voted for any others. I do not urge this incapacity as an objection to him intellectually ; a silent man may be a wiser as well as a better man than one who speaks often and eloquently. But observe the effects of Mr. Round's silent votes when they are put forward as the merits which entitle him to represent Oxford. "Are you not "(he says) "enemies to Unitarians? See ! I have opposed an act of favour to Unitarians ! Are you not opposed to Romanism ? See ! I have opposed an act of favour to Romanists ! " So, sir, Unitarianism then is in your mind identical with the 43$ Confusion between Great Truths, CHAP. xxnr. Dissenting Chapels Bill ; Romanism with a grant to Maynooth. Then I say Oxford is bound by her orthodoxy, bound by her Protestantism to reject you. You are not a safe man, sir ; you are not an orthodox man, sir ; you are not a true Protestant, sir. A University which believes the most solemn principles to be involved in the controversy with Unitarians principles the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever dares not confound these with a question about the treatment of the persons pro- fessing these principles. She must make this distinction ; she violates her duty to God, she is guilty of the blood of the young men who are entrusted to her, if she does not make it. To sanction such a confusion in their minds is to do the most perilous act imaginable. It is this very confusion to which they are liable, this very confusion which most threatens their orthodoxy at all times, at this time especially. In proportion to your feeling of the risks to which they are exposed, of the evils which beset them on the right hand and on the left, is your obligation to do nothing which shall increase this. As a non- voter, who can do nothing to assert my own deep conviction of the ^wickedness and mischief of leading young men to mix the eternal verities upon which their faith stands with points which must receive a different solution in each different age, I be- seech you, I adjure you who have votes and especially you who are teachers, that you will not by yielding to any clamour, by allowing yourself to be abused by false vocables, put our age in this jeopardy. If you care that the landmarks between truth and error shall not be hopelessly broken down, do not make any man a representative who thinks that voting against the Dissenting Chapels Bill is the same thing as believing in the Nicene Creed. The other plea must stand or fall with this. Does the University of Oxford identify Protestantism with the question how at any particular period Romanism shall be dealt with by the State? Does it believe Protestantism means the Penal Laws or Protestant Ascendency or the non- sanction of Romish education ? It may feel strongly in favour of all these, it may say they are each or all desirable. But is this the Protestantism of Oxford ? If it is, woe to us ! Be- F. D. M. 41. and Treatment of Men Opposing them. 430 cause it has been so much our Protestantism, we have suffered such serious defection ; the more it is so, the more shall we lose either to Popery, to Infidelity, to mere State godlessness, or to all three. Again I say, if you vote for Mr. Round, who can show no one ground for the Protestantism he pro- fesses, who holds it simply as a tradition, who identifies it with certain Parliamentary acts, you are lending your aid to this evil. The young men must say they do say " This is your Protestantism, this withered, sapless thing, this State policy. We suspected it before ; you have confessed it, you the great learned body of England, and now, the sooner we have done with such dry bones the better." This is no dream ; you know it is not ; I know it. The religious newspapers, the Protestant associations may or may not be in the pay of the Jesuit Society ; but the University of Oxford will be doing the work of that society more effectually than all other instruments if they return a person as the representative of her, and of Protestantism, who represents nothing but that confused, habitual faith which is called consistent, because it is not capable of a conscious change, but which catches unawares the colour of each period : was High Church according to the fashion of the reign of George III. ; Evangelical according to the fashion of Victoria's ; is essentially Popish, if Popish means that which is received without inquiry from the teaching of others, from tradition, from accident. But Mr. Gladstone supported the Dissenting Chapels Bill, supported the grant to Maynooth even against the doctrines of his own book. Both charges are true ; and hereby I think he showed, whether he was right or wrong, that he was an honest man, no disciple of expediency; and that he really could distinguish and had courage to own the distinction between the temporary and the eternal, between that which is of heaven and that which is of earth. A more monstrous charge than that of introducing the Chapels Bill for the sake of temporary interest was never brought against a Ministry. The Unitarians are an insignifi- cant body, incapable of helping any party considerably. The other Dissenters were powerful and in this case were united by 440 Mr. Gladstones Speech an act of Justice CHAP. xxm. common interest and feeling. Sir Robert Peel's Government consciously and deliberately offended them, the Wesleyans, a large portion of Evangelical Churchmen to do what ? That which they conceived to be an act of justice. They said the principle of this bill is the best, the safest, and most righteous in all cases where bodies are not agreed on a definite creed. It will work fairly for all, will prevent the profane agitation of theological questions before an incompetent tribunal ; will prevent religion being mixed up with miserable pecuniary debates. They said, " This is our general rule ; we will not allow the Unitarians to constitute a special exception." Those who opposed the Ministry might say, " Your general principle is not a true one;" or, " It is expedient that the Unitarians should be excepted from the general rule." In either case could they charge the Ministry with being more than them- selves, or so much as themselves, despisers of principle ? Mr. Gladstone showed by his speech that he entertained the greatest dislike of Unitarianism, and that on that very ground he could not do what seemed to him a wrong act in the hope of weakening it. Knowing something of the state of the Unita- rian body, I believe he judged wisely, just because he acted in that calculation in obedience to a sense of right. The body in England is dwindling ; something worse may succeed, but in its present form nothing could have restored its animation but the sense of unfair treatment, and the being able to prove that it was the object of persecution. ' By help of that argument the Unitarians might have drawn any of the discontented in the other Dissenting bodies to them. By dealing justly with them, Sir Robert Peel's Govern- ment hastened their decay. As a Churchman, who can say from his heart of Unitarianism, dveyvw, eyi/on/, Karcyvcov,* I honour Mr. Gladstone for his brave speech on that occa- * A friend points out that the order of the words should be that given above, not as in the first edition. He also points out that it is a quotation of the Emperor Julian's phrase about Christianity, "I read, I under- stood, I condemned," but the translation is not satisfactory because the play upon words is lost. F. D. M. 41. and Principle despite his Theories. 441 sion. He hoped, of course, some day to be a candidate for Oxford. He knew it would weaken his chance ; yet he made it. Such a man is a man of principle, not of expediency. I feel I can trust him, let me differ from him as I may, let him commit, in my judgment, ever so many blunders, I feel that he is fit to represent a University. Yes ! and not the less because some of his theories may have broken down under him. It is a great thing for a man to be shown that his theories the work of his own brain are not the same thing with the principles upon which he is to stand. We must be humbled, we, and all of us, before we can discern this. Mr. Round may boast that he has not had this expe- rience; I fully believe him. He has never discovered that he was wrong ; has he then the slightest security that he is right ? Mr. Gladstone gave up place that he might confess what he need not have confessed, what it would have done him good with his Oxford constituents not to have confessed. Whether he was right or wrong about Maynooth, this was the reverse of following expediency ; it was acting upon principle. It is a kind of principle which you have need of at Oxford : it is the very principle which saves a man from becoming the slave of circumstances, which is in effect the same thing, from making his steadfastness depend upon his determina- tion not to understand circumstances. For the steadfastness of Balaam in refusing to turn aside when the creature on which he rode refused to go forward, is precisely the stead- fastness of our country gentlemen, be they High or Low Churchmen, and false prophets. They do not believe that facts are angels of the Lord, saying, "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther;" they merely kick and beat and rave, determined to do what they cannot do, always mistaking ad- herence to their own maxims for obedience to the divine will. Such men never have a principle, nor know what a principle means, however they may talk about it. Whereas it is the confession of a principle which enables men also to confess error and ignorance; to change the course without losing sight of the pole-star or, at last, missing the port I 442 Principle involved in Maynooth. CHAP. xxnr. do not enter upon the Maynooth question itself I believe that the Government did not sacrifice principle when they bestowed that grant, but asserted an important one; that they did not precipitate the endowment of the Romish body, but lessened the probability of it by pointing out another and, it strikes me, a more reasonable and, both to Protestants and Romanists, less objectionable mode of solving the question the encouragement of education, not of worship or preach- ing. But if I am wrong it does not affect the main point at issue. Mr. Gladstone's mistake would still seem to me better than Mr. Round's correct judgment, for in any case the first recognises that vital distinction of which the other loses sight, and by choosing Gladstone or Round the Univer- sity will decide whether it has itself remembered the distinction or forgotten it. I have not spoken of the other candidates, though from no want of respect to either. It seems to me a shame to compare tire claims of Mr. Round, who stands on two votes, with those of Sir Robert Inglis, who embodies ably, admirably, and sufficiently the feelings of a large and important body in the University and the country, a body which deserves to have a representative so humane, sincere, accomplished, even tolerant, which ought not, however, to understand that it alone constitutes the University, and ought not to destroy its own reputation and that of one whom all honour, by pretending that a cipher expresses its convictions, or is worthy to be placed beside him. Mr. Cardwell, by his letter, has proved himself an honest and courageous man, who will not commit himself to immoral pledges for the sake of getting votes. He has proved himself in the House a man, I should say, of more handiness and manageable skill than Mr, Gladstone. For a mercantile constituency he might be a better member than that gentleman, but a University requires something higher than official aptitude ; this higher thing Mr. Gladstone, I believe, possesses, and will manifest more than he has yet done. I do not perceive any signs of it, though of course it may exist, in his clever opponent. The letter was circulated by Mr. Powles among those whom F - D - M - 42. Visit to Linlathen. 44 j it was likely to influence. But as my father still found that many were disposed on what was called the " Protestant '- ground to vote against Mr. Gladstone, and generally against the members of the Government which had introduced the Maynooth vote and the Dissenters' Chapels Bill, he put forth his views in a pamphlet, entitled, ' Thoughts on the Duty of a Protestant in the present Oxford Election,' Very soon after it had been published, which was in the course of July, he went on a trip through the north of England with Mr. A. J. Scott, and ended by paying a visit to Mr. Erskine at Linlathen. In the May of this year Mr. Kingsley had sent him the 'Saints' Tragedy' to look over. He had expressed great delight with it and a wish to see it published, but it was not till September 2nd, from Linlathen, that lie wrote character- istically in answer to the request for a preface ; ' I will make an effort at a preface, though I fear it will not serve you at all. My name would be rather a drag, and would frighten a publisher.' To Miss Priscilla Maurice* ' Linlathen, September 6, 1847. ' You are right that I have much enjoyed my stay here, Mr. Erskine received me with the most affectionate kindness, and Mrs. Stirling and the Pattisons have been also very cordial. The house is a very large comfortable mansion, much enlarged, I suppose, from the original house, but sufficiently uniform. The country about is not beautiful, but the trees in the grounds strike one coming from Westmoreland as fine, though they are like what we often see in the South, and there is a cheerful look of comfort and cultivation all around till one comes to Dundee, which is a large manufacturing and com- mercial town with its full allowance of wretchedness. Mr. Erskine is delightful here as everywhere, with the same fresh sympathy and deep intuitions, from which one has derived so much help and teaching. But he is in far better health of /j/14 Current Details of Life. CHAP. xxin. body and I think of mind also on his own soil, looking after his farm, giving homoeopathic medicine to his cows and exer- cising genuine Scotch hospitality. He has been exercising this the last two days to a large Irish party. Mr. Campbell was here on Thursday and Friday, and is just returned with his brother. I have had very pleasant intercourse with him on subjects of deepest interest' To Miss G. Hare. '21 Queen Square, Oct., 1847. ' I have been working on in my mill since I have been here, but not grinding much. We have a great increase of pupils in the theological department ; they now amount to fifty. I give two sets of lectures ecclesiastical to different portions of tl>em ; one on the early centuries and one on those after the twelfth. I have also a set of lectures on modern history in the strictest sense, beginning at our own time ; one on English literature for the senior class, and one on English history and literature for the junior. I wish I could send you them that you might know better what I am about ; but I write only short notes. If I filled them up I should have no time for reading, of which indeed I do but little. 'The dear boys I should have time for, if I managed my days better; but as it is they would come off but poorly if they depended on me. I have been reading ' Robinson Crusoe ' to them and ' Peter Bell,' and they cry out for Tieck's ' Puss in Boots,' of which I gave them a taste one day. But I cannot translate German readily enough to make it very profitable to them.' [All Saints' Day.} 'November I, 1847. 'This day reminds me that we have a host of invisible friends, and each one of the members has, I believe and feel assured, special ministries for those who have been loved on earth. It is a thought which I can more easily realise for others than myself, and perhaps that is right. The selfish gratification would be too strong, the sense of evil desert not strong enough, if I could feel intensely I was an object of care 1 847. A Beatrice to Bless Earth and Show Heaven. 445 and sympathy to any spirit. I am content, or nearly content, to be without the vivid impression of any such blessedness. Yet sometimes when I find how the deepest truths, which are presented to me as the satisfaction of all that the Church needs and that I need, connect themselves with words which she used to speak to me, how great reconciling principles, which, if I could declare them, might set the age free from some of its divisions, while they healed at the same time the schisms in families and the wounds in individual hearts, seem often still taught me by her, I cannot but feel as if perhaps it is not only a great poet who has his Beatrice, at once to bless earth and show him heaven, but as if such a guide and helper might be granted to the dullest of the world's pilgrims, if he has not quite lost the desire for God and his true home. At least I would hope that such a blessing might belong to my boys the sense of the presence of an unseen mother and the help of her love in dark hours.' On the Admission offetvs into Parliament. 'November 15, 1847. 4 MY DEAR KlNGSLEY, ' Pray assure Mr. Stapylton that nearly all my friends my brother-in-law [Archdeacon Hare] especially are at war with me on this Jewish question, so that I must needs make up my mind to martyrdom from the uncircumcised. ' At present I am stout in my heresy, feeling that it is really a mercy to us that the mockery of profession should no longer be confounded with belief, or that with the truths which are the objects of it But there are considerations which I may have overlooked, and of which I shall be very glad to be reminded. ' The feeling that the Jews are aliens used to be decisive with me, till I perceived that it ought only to be decisive as to my own conduct, and is no foundation for a law to deprive the aliens of their ordinary privilege.' Once more, in the beginning of December, he stood out against a new clerical stampede. The attempt to defeat the 446 Resists Attack on Hampden. CHAP. xxm. nomination of Dr. Hampden as bishop called forth a letter to the Rev. Arthur Stanley, -which was by him published, with a short preface, setting forth that even though the matter should be decided first ' It still may be of use to have left this record, that it was possible to feel a deep antipathy to Dr. Hampden's views, and yet to feel more strongly the claims of judgment, mercy, and truth, and that there are some sincere members of the Church and the Universities who feel that the only insult which can be offered to them on the present occasion would be not in the carrying out of the deliberate nomination of the Crown, but in the levity of withdrawing it in deference to a clamour, which can always be raised by a few active agitators against a clergyman whose opinions on difficult theological questions are not understood by the mass of his profession, and which is likely wholly to disregard the personal merits of the indi- vidual.' This time it was chiefly the High Church leaders that he had to oppose, just as three years before he had opposed the attempt to silence their champions. He was at the moment somewhat characteristically much annoyed by Mr. Stanley's sending copies of the letter to all the bishops. ' MY DEAR KlNGSLEY, ' December IO, 1847. ' I have been for some time wishing to write to you upon a subject which has been pressing a good deal on my mind. I saw in the notes to your play, or one of them, some- thing which seemed to me almost like a sneer at the idea of a Spiritual Bridegroom. Now I feel so deeply that the only corrective of the error of the Middle Ages lies in more closely connecting human relationships with divine, I have to mourn so continually in my own life over the forgetfulness of this connection, and a consequent desecration and degradation of the human bond, that I cannot bear to see anything which throws the least doubt or slur upon what seems to me a part, an integral, essential part of Christianity, touching its very F. D. M. 42. "My name is becoming offensive'' 447 essence. I fully defend your right to be humorous, but if by any words in your own mouth or any other you weakened people's faith in this mystery. I should think you were inflicting a deep wound on morality. ' Perhaps I am suspecting what does not exist, or the sus- picion of which you might clear up in a future note, but I could not forbear expressing what I feel so strongly perhaps I am too late. I wish I had done you more justice by reading carefully through the proofs as they were sent to me, but having a good deal on my hands and thinking you had already corrected them, I did not. I almost wish you could throw off the burden of my preface, my name is becoming so offensive from the frequency with which it is thrust in people's faces that I am afraid it will do you positive harm. Especially by taking part against this Hampden agitation, I have alienated all respectable Church people. Do consider whether it should not be done. Your preface is excellent, and quite sufficient for explanation. But let it be just as you and Parker think best.' ' King's College, December 13, 1847. 1 MY DEAR KlNGSLEY, ' I am in the midst of an examination, but I must write one line to say how entirely satisfactory your explanation is to me, and how much I have learned from it. I have often, I think, asserted a principle like that which you maintain, but not so clearly or decidedly. I could wish your letter were appended to the play, though perhaps it would not be seemly. ' I have no wish to shirk my sponsorship, but I am some- times afraid of getting everybody into disgrace who keeps company with me. It is a great evil to have one's name so often put forward; but I believe it is on the whole more modest as well as more honest to call myself after my father's name than to take that of WE, which does not belong to me. Yet I find persons who do not scruple to write down their opinions every week upon all imaginable topics, theological, political, literary, under that designation, think me prodigiously impudent for expressing myself on half-a-dozen questions in the ' The Saints' Tragedy.' CHAP. xxm. course of the year. To be sure it is impudent; but people are wanted who have no reputation or do not care for what they have, to say the things which their betters will not say lest they should forfeit theirs. This is my principle, and I feel obliged to act upon it, though I hope it is and always will be a disagreeable necessity.' ' December 23, 1847. ' MY DEAR KlNGSLEY, ' I thank you heartily for your kind compliance with my too rigid demands. I have looked over the proofs and restored one or two of the passages which you had sentenced. I will not ask you to forgive my severity, I believe it is for the good of the poem. ' For reputation and respectability I believe we should be less and less solicitous, but much more careful not to wound the conscience or, if we can help it, the better feelings of any one. The sufferings which blows, apparently ill-directed, and inflicted by unknown hands, sometimes cause oneself, make me bitterly penitent for the carelessness with which I have often dealt them out. I am sure every sin has its just recom- pense of reward, even after it is forgiven. I should not feel satisfied if it had not, and none seem more directly visited upon me than those of hasty criticism. They who have been guilty in this kind, contract, I think, a specially morbid sensitiveness ; because they will not feel for others, they are tormented themselves in secret ways, mere wasp-stings fester- ing and almost bringing on fever. Oh ! bring up your children to fly from periodicals more than from any plague. Why is there not a prayer in the Litany for deliverance from them ? These are not Christmas thoughts, I fear, but they may help us to rejoice in Christmas. Peace on earth and good will to men, must have come from above, for verily they do not grow in this soil; apart from Glory to God in the highest, they must wither. It is when the Church looks to us most leafless, most frosty, that we can most enter into the mystery of the divine spring, the second birth, the Lord from heaven appearing in F. D. M. 42. Admission of Jews to Parliament. 449 swaddling clothes, and growing as we die.* May all Christmas gifts and blessings be with you and yours.' To Miss G. Hare. ' December 29, 1847. ' I promised to tell you why I am so firm in support ot the Jews, for I seem to you inconsistent. I have always been struggling for the principle that our belief does not make a truth ; but that the truth is, and therefore that we are called to believe it. On this principle I assert the worth of baptism, and our duty to claim the highest spiritual privileges as our own. Any notion that our belief makes the Church or makes the nation is, therefore, utterly foreign from my conviction. We are in a Church constituted in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, therefore we are to believe ; we are in a nation constituted in Christ, the King of the world, therefore we are to confess it. But now it is said : We cannot admit Jews to Parliament, because on our confession of Christ the State rests ; when that is gone the nation is gone. This confession we admit to be just as often a lying one as a true one ; just as often men make it who do not believe Christ at all. Still we are told : This is the pillar of our social life this profession, this so continually hypocritical profession. It is my duty, in conformity with all I have ever spoken and written, to protest against so terrible a doctrine, one which places the beautiful house we live in on a foundation of sand. Here is an occasion for the protest. People cry out, " If Jews * I think this somewhat abrupt and startling end is as he wrote it ; though the word ' do ' has been suggested to me instead of ' die.' The thought of the progressive ' death ' of the isolated individual man, of the merely animal man, was continually present to his mind. The sentence is little more than a paraphrase from the baptismal service " that the old Adam in this child may be so buried that the new man may be raised up in him." It is a characteristic instance of the way in which the thought of both Bible and Prayer-Book had so penetrated his life that he con- stantly assumes the things of which they speak to be realities, familiar to his correspondents as well as himself. Compare Vol. i. p. 106, Letter to Priscilla Maurice, and the reference to Sterling, Vol. I. p. I9 6 and note - VOL. I. 2 G 450 Review by Sack of 'Kingdom of Christ' CHAP. xxm. are admitted to Parliament, it is all over with us." I answer, " It is not over with us at all, but it will be over with us if, instead of acknowledging Christ to be the root of our national stability, we make the declaration the weak declaration of our legislators that He is the root of it. Then you deny Christ, you who call yourselves by His name, which is more than all the Jewish denials in the world; you say that you do not think He is the Lord and bulwark of the nation. ' Every one sees that the Jews must be emancipated. But then they say it is the devil's work. I deny that anything must be which is the devil's work. If it must be, God com- mands it I believe there are clear indications that He has ordained a series of acts, of which this is the final one acts which seem to be breaking up the religious character of the State, but are really only destroying its irreligious character, its false support, that the true divine support may be clearly recognised. ' So you see you need not be afraid to receive from me all good Christmas wishes, which I send you with all my heart ' I have just been reading a long and elaborate review of my " Kingdom of Christ " in a German periodical. It is written by Sack, who is very courteous and complimentary, though he differs from me in nearly every point, and takes great pains to show how wrong I am. He has taught me to see more clearly than I ever did what the ground of my differ- ence with the Evangelicals, both of England and Germany, is. The latter, though so much wiser and more cultivated, still seem to make sin the ground of all theology, whereas it seems to me that the living and holy God is the ground of it, and sin the departure from the state of union with Him, into which He has brought us. I cannot believe the devil is in any sense king of this universe. I believe Christ is its king in all senses, and that the devil is tempting us every day and hour to deny Him, and think of himself as the king. It is with me a question of life and death which of these doctrines is true ; I would that I might live and die to maintain that which has been revealed to me. I think that one who understood what F. D. M. 42. Swis Illness Dr. Jelfs First Attack. 451 T meant better than all the doctors, and only lamented that I acted so little up to my conviction, is now sharing my faith with me. strengthening me in it, and in the darkest hours giving me increased tokens and assurances of its truth. I think that is no dream, nor yet that she is with you, teaching you and cheering you.' The year 1848 began with sickness in his family, and with a complaint from Dr. Jelf of his numerous efforts to resist the persecution of unpopular men. He was staying at Itchenstoke with Mr. Trench when he received Dr. Jelfs letter. Dr. Jelf had not remonstrated till several of the ' religious ' newspapers had given tongue. Already, in the autumn of the previous year, my father had written in reference to his advocacy of the claims of the Jews. ' My excellent principal, Jelf, looks white, and fears I have compromised the college.' The publication of his letter to Mr. Stanley, on the attack on Dr. Hampden, had been a fresh cause of offence. To Archdeacon Hare. * 21 Queen Square, Friday evening. ' January 7, 1848. 'Your kind note this morning found Trench and me in greater anxiety than all the principals and bishops could have caused us. His boy, Philip, has been suddenly attacked with malignant scarlet fever, and appears to be very ill. I will send you Dr. Jelfs letter to-morrow. It is not at all harsh, and threatens nothing. I wrote him a very long answer, telling him that I had written my different pamphlets partly because I was professor at King's College, thinking it the business of a college to lift up its voice against every such suppression of opinion, but that I had taken pains by putting my name and adopting very eccentric opinions that my writing should not be mistaken for his or tne bishop's. Best love to all. Ever your very affectionate brother.' 2 G 2 452 Hare's 'Life of Sterling? CHAP. XXIH. Of the numerous letters, full of the anxieties of this time, perhaps the following will be a sufficient specimen : To the Hon. Mrs. Trench. 'January 10, 1848. ' MY DEAR FRIEND, ' May God bless you and comfort you. I had some dark presentiments, but still I thought the blow would have been averted from you. It is a wonderful sacrifice which you have been called upon to offer, but you had made it already when you gave your child to God. You always knew and rejoiced that it was His. But to lose it out of sight is very terrible. I am very anxious about your husband. If you can let me have one line to say how he is, I shall be most thankful. It is a cause for gratitude to be in any way associated with you in your sorrows ; in this case I can only ask why one is taken and another so near his age is left. Not, I am sure, for anything that is good in him or me, but I could hope, if he is preserved, because God has work for him to do here instead of in some other world. My little boy has the fever in a decided, but at present, in a very mild form : it may, of course, become dangerous at any minute, still I could give thanks that the Hand has been laid so gently on him thus far.' Hare's 'Life of Sterling' had just been published. Mr. Erskine had written about it in a letter which does not seem to have been preserved. 'Queen Square, February I, 1848. ' MY DEAR MR. ERSKINE, 'I thank you very much for your kind words about dear Sterling. There are few persons whom I can bear to hear speak of him, and you may perhaps think it great cowardice that I have not looked into Hare's Life. I am sure he has written it affectionately and with a hearty desire to be honest. I should only have confused him if I had thrown in my thoughts. I, therefore, begged him not to consult me about it, and he most kindly abstained. All my F. D. M. 42. Hampden Campbell Schieiermacher. 453 thoughts of Sterling are mingled with shame and self-reproach, which it is better to lay before God, who does understand it, than before the public or even friends who could not I quite feel with you that until Christ be presented to men as related to themselves to every one and not merely as a character in a book, we shall see more and more noble spirits sinking into distrust and despair. The thought is sometimes very ovenvhelming, yet I wish it pressed upon me more habitually ; one would be obliged then to speak in season and out of season, and above all to live as if the truth were no lie. ' Schieiermacher, I am afraid, is not translated, at least, only one of his inferior, merely controversial books. He has had a prodigious, and, I believe, a most benignant influence on Germany ; but perhaps he is not meant for Englishmen. ' This Hampden controversy is greatly complicated. In him it is scarcely possible to feel any interest ; his patron, Lord John Russell, is pushing prerogative fearfully. ' But Hampden has, I think, been exposed to treatment which one is bound to denounce on general grounds of justice, and the all-important question whether it is heretical to believe principles because they are true and not because they are delivered to us, is involved in his condemnation or acquittal.* ' I cannot tell how much delight it was to receive a letter from you. I have shown my gratitude very ill by inflicting these sheets upon your eyes. It has been a great treat to catch a glimpse of Mr. Campbell.' To Miss C. Fox, Falmouth. 1 MY DEAR FRIEND, ' Ixudon, February 25, 1848. ' You are kind enough to wish that I would say what I think of your Schieiermacher translation. My knowledge * Mr. Erskine's own favourite way of putting this "all important- question" was, "Do you believe that twice two are four, because Mr. Cocker or some one else has told you so, and Mr. Cocker is such a very wise man that he must be right ? Or do you know that twice two are actually four, and feel much obliged to Mr. Cocker for having at first pointed it out to you ? " If the first, you believe " principles, because they are delivered to you ;" if the second, "because they are true." 454 Schleiermacher. 1848. of German is miserably defective; so that though I might, perhaps, stumble by accident upon a hint which you could turn to account, you would be far safer in trusting to yourself and your sister than to me. But I will, if you will allow me, forward this specimen, and any others you like to send, to Hare, who is the best critic I know, and would undertake such a task for your sake and Schleiermacher's, con amore. ' There is one consideration in reference to the wisdom of publishing these sermons at the present moment which I would submit to you, rather as a help to assist in forming your own opinion, than because I see my way clearly to express one myself. The Bishop of St. David's very injudiciously trans- lated, about twenty years ago, Schleiermacher's book on St. Luke the one of all, perhaps, which he ever wrote the most likely to offend religious people in England, and so mislead them as to his real character and objects. In consequence of the rumour that Thirlwall would be made archbishop, all the most revolting passages in this treatise (concerning the Transfiguration, and other events recorded in the Gospel) have been carefully hunted out and paraded in the newspapers as exhibiting the deep-seated rationalism and blasphemous temper of a man whom an English bishop had delighted to honour. Any one who brings Schleiermacher forward while these passages are freshly recollected must therefore expect not only some hard names which it is easy to bear but may also hinder the good words from producing their right effect. At the same time, this may be just the time to attempt the removal of a partial and (practically) untrue impression of a wise and righteous man, whose life was really spent in the effort to deliver his countrymen from the chains which he is supposed to have industriously forged for them. I do not know that this could be done more effectually than by the simple and affectionate discourses you propose to translate. Then they should, I think, be accompanied with some intro- duction, explaining from what very different points the Eng- lishman and the German start ; why our temptations are wholly different ; our profaneness of an opposite character ; our coin- F. D. M. 42. The Birth of Queers College. 455 cidences in spiritual truths the more remarkable. The fewer words there were in such a preface the better; it should suggest thoughts to those who need them, rather than work them out Perhaps you will have the kindness to accept these hints in place of wiser counsels, which I would give if I had them. ' Pray let me have the satisfaction of seeing your work as it proceeds.' Meantime, during the early months of 1848, a scheme was ripening in which he had been long interested. Through his sister Mary, the only survivor of the three elder sisters, the second in point of age of the family, the one who had set up a school at Southampton at the time of the loss of her father's money, he had been brought into close acquaintance with the class of governesses, many of whom she came to know through the pupils of her school. He and she had, for a long time, interested themselves in the Governesses' Benevolent Insti- tution. In the practical working of that Society, and in the knowledge of the circumstances of governesses, which they so acquired, the importance of some standard by which to test the qualification of ladies engaged in teaching had become apparent. In the year 1847, most of the professors at King's College had undertaken, at his suggestion, to form a committee of examination for this purpose. Out of the committee so formed, by a sequence which he has described in a lecture delivered at the Hanover Square Rooms on March the agth, 1848, " Queen's College " developed. Several of his friends, who were not King's College professors Mr. Kingsley and Mr. Clark especially joined the committee so formed at a later stage. This body, as a whole, found it in every way better to attempt education rather than mere examination, and to offer their education generally to all who came for it That when once the scheme of education was largely in his hands he would attempt to introduce a reform into the nature of the instruction which had been previously offered to young wo- 456 The First Step on an Important Road. CHAP. XMII. men, and that, speaking generally, the reform would be of the kind that he had desired for years, I need hardly tell those who have read the extracts on the. subject from the Metro- politan and Athenceum. Indeed it is difficult to find among his maturer writings passages which as trenchantly express the evils with which he knew that he had to deal. I fancy that this requires no explanation to those who have followed his life up to this time, and witnessed his growing disinclination to denounce anything but evil in very powerful positions. Who- ever has attempted to trace the history of the great movement of our time in behalf of what has come to be called " the higher education of women " has carried it back as far as this point. But as, if they have taken the trouble to refer to his lecture, which gives the causes which led to the foundation of the College, they have found nothing in it concerning his own share of the work, it has been impossible for them to trace the movement further back. The earlier stages of the thoughts which produced it and of the causes which developed them are to be found scattered throughout this volume. For as the present Archbishop of Dublin said in 1854, " though many have watered and tended the plant, the vital seed in which it was all wrapped up, and out of which every part of it was unfolded, was sown only by him." As Lady Stanley of Alderley has put it : " For such a pur- pose no endowment could be got, and Queen's College was a venture depending for its success on the unselfish devotion and energy of its founders ; good workers were not wanting."* * I may, perhaps, avoid details on the subject of the growth of Queen's College, as a very interesting sketch of it has been given by Lady Stanley of Alderley, in the ' Nineteenth Century ' for August 1879. The ' Quarterly Review,' No. 291 of July 1878, has also a sketch of the later development* of the larger movement. F. D. M. 42. The State of the Country? 457 CHAPTER XXIV. " Not they that are whole have need of a physician, but they that are sick." 1848 THE IOTH OF APRIL 'POLITICS FOR THE PEOPLE 1 COURSE OF READING FOR A STUDENT OF THE HISTORY OF THOUGHT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE AND QUEEN'S THE GATHER- INGS OF FRIENDS VIEWS ON EUROPEAN POLITICS PRUSSIA AND 'THE GRACE OF GOD' THE BIBLE-CLASSES AT QUEEN SQUARE. FORTY-EIGHT the year of revolutions had begun at home and abroad in great excitement, following upon terrible dis- tress throughout the country. The Irish famine, the ruin from the potato disease of the previous year, and the actual con- dition of the country, had been brought home to my father very closely by Mr. Trench's long illness, due to his devotion to the work of relieving those troubles. My father's mind had been long occupied with the problems presented by what in those years was almost technically known as " the state of the country," so chronic had disorder become. The new year presented a new phase. Chartism and Socialism the political and the social movement had coalesced; the Chartists had begun to discuss social questions, the Socialists had become political. It will be seen from what Mr. Hughes has said of the nature of my father's work at Lincoln's Inn that his sermons there would of necessity be now filled with the subject. During February, March and April, the sermons "On the Lord's Prayer," soon afterwards published, were preached. He had just preached that on March 5th, which is largely concerned with the fact of the reappearance in Paris of the old 458 Socialism Looms Big. CHAP. xxiv. watchwords and with an attempt to answer the inquiry, " Is then the belief a phantasy that men are intended for a brother- hood ? Must the effort to realise it terminate in ridicule or in crime ? " and that on March 1 2th, which more directly deals with Socialism and its relation to competition, when he re- ceived from Mr. Ludlow a report of a visit to Paris. Mr. Ludlow wrote to express his conviction that Socialism was a real and a very great power which had acquired an unmistak- able hold, not merely on the fancies but on the consciences of the Parisian workmen, and that it must be Christianised or it would shake Christianity to its foundation, precisely because it appealed to the higher and not to the lower instincts of the men. An allusion to this letter will be found in the dedication of the " Lectures on Learning and Working." The next letter was the answer. To Mr. Ludlow. ' MY DEAR SIR, March 16, 1848. ' I have not time to tell you now what earnest thoughts your letter has awakened in my mind, or how much they con- spired with some that had been working there for a long time. The aspects of this new revolution have seemed to me from the first moments more awful and more hopeful than those of any which we have yet witnessed. I see my way but dimly ; this, however, I do see, that there is something to be done, that God Himself is speaking to us and that if we ask Him what He would have us do, we shall be shown. I am anxious to see you and shall hope to call some time to-morrow on the chance of finding you. Could you spend any evening with me the sooner the better ? ' Note by Mr. Ludlow. ' My idea at the time was that of throwing up all thought of an English career and going to Paris to set up a paper to be called La Fraternit'e Chretienne. The next letter refers to in- formation which I had received in discouragement of it.' F. D. M. 42. A re 1101 we A theistic ? " 459 To M.: Ludlow. March 24, 1848. 'MY DEAR FRIEND, 'This letter is decisive, I think, as to the question of your going to France at present ; but it only stops one mode of action that you may be taught more deeply to understand the whole subject, and that you may work more effectually upon the country from which, as you believe, all good influences must reach the Republic. I have put your letter in circulation where I think it is doing, and is likely to do, good. It will set many thinking, will inspire some to hope and prayer. Mean- time, the necessity of an English theological reformation, as the means of averting an English political revolution and of bringing what is good in foreign revolutions to know itself, has been more and more pressing upon my mind. We have no right to talk of Atheistic France, Atheistic Germany, true as the charge may be even now, fearfully as it may be proved here- after. Are not we Atheistic ? Is not our Christianity semi- Atheistic ? We have theories of sin, of justification, of apos- tolical succession, schemes of divinity Protestant, Romish, semi-Romish, Anglican, Dissenting. But where is God in them all ? Not first at least, not a Father ; but merely the provider of a certain scheme for our deliverance, the setter-up of a Church system which is to go on without Him by help of popes, kings, doctors ; the great assertion is that every one is to think what he likes. None of these systems is broad enough that a man may stretch himself in it ; all are beginning to feel that. But it is more hopeless as systems to incorporate them ; thank God ! alliances having that ground, or any such ground, must come to nought. He must unite us ; if we all return to the root and ground of all things, we shall find the fruit ; of course, our attempts to make one and find one in our systems will more and more prove abortive. When we have confessed our own Atheism and repented of it, we can call upon all nations to abandon theirs. But do not let us preach a Protestantism, Catholicism, Christianity without God.' 460 Tenth of April Kingsley and Ludlow. CHAP. xxiv. His acquaintance with Mr. Kingsley had been fast ripening, and as it had been arranged that an additional lecturer should be appointed to assist him with the growing class of theological students, he asked that Mr. Kingsley might be selected. He was the more anxious for this because he had persuaded Mr. Kingsley to join him at Queen's College. The question was still pending when Mr. Kingsley came up to London on the eventful loth of April, the day of the great Chartist gathering on Kennington Common. My father was himself confined to the house by a severe cough and cold, and afraid to go out lest he should be unfit for his Sunday's work. It was natural, however, that he should be anxious to bring together the two men who had each been now for some time communicating with him " on the state of the nation." Accordingly on this day he sent Mr. Kingsley to Mr. Ludlow with a letter of introduction. Ever since the letter of March 24th, he and Mr. Ludlow had been consider- ing in what way they could reach the working men. For a moment Charles Knight had offered the pages of his magazine to Mr. Ludlow, but drew back when Mr. Ludlow ex- plained his ideas to him. Mr. Kingsley proposed the placards of which a specimen has been given on p. 156, vol. i., of his Life. They were put forth during the immediate emergency, but the friends who had been brought together by the crisis, continued to meet privately to discuss the part they ought to play as English citizens in resisting the evils of the time. A series of tracts was at first proposed, but finally they decided on issuing a weekly paper only. The next letter shows the course of the discussion on this point To Mr. Ludlow. 'April 13, 1848. 4 MY DEAR FRIEND, ' I am afraid from your not being used to Kingsley's infirmity, that you have got a wrong impression from his words, which I could have removed in a moment if I had been F. D. M. 42. Discussions on Actions to be Taken. 461 able to see you yesterday. I did not mention our tracts to my brother-in-law,* partly because I have not seen him alone since we met, partly because I thought it was better to keep that whole design for the present to ourselves. Unless we could enlarge our previous meetings we ought not to get more helpers in them. He proposed of himself to Kingsley, Scott and me, that there should be something of a paper set up, not like our present, but more like Cobbett's " Political Register," for short, pithy weekly comments on the great questions of the day in a religious spirit. He said he would speak to Parker on the subject I assented, thinking such an organ might be very useful, at least much better than Knight's, as we could be sure of having our articles inserted. Hare thought of you as editor if it was consistent with your plans. What I said to Kingsley the next day was, that I hoped this plan would not interfere with our own ; and that I thought it need not ; for that the paper could be an address to middle or working classes expressly and emphatically about suffrage, &c., and that we might direct our tracts rather more to the religious people and clergy, pointing out to them the necessity of their meeting the questions of the day and trying to put them in the way of thinking earnestly and devoutly upon them. I should not at all more wish to divide politics from religion than you ; but I think there are two ways of uniting them : one by speaking to those who have separated them from contempt or ignorance of politics ; the other by speaking to those who have separated them from indifference to religion, or believing that it was wholly occupied with a future state. ' I should like to hear a voice clearly addressing itself to each. The tracts seem to me especially available for the one ; a journal for the other. But I do not the least wish to dictate ; let us think over the question earnestly and see one another as soon as we can.' * Archdeacon Hare, who was in London for the week. 462 ' Saints' Tragedy ' The King of Prussia. CH\P. xxtv To Mr. Strachey. 'April 19, 1848. ' I must entirely dissent from you on the subject of Kings- ley's play. I know fe\v more manly utterances that have been heard in our day. It is quite a mistake that he is modern ; he is essentially and eternally human; nor has any one taken more pains to ascertain what were the actual feelings of the Middle Ages, or thrown himself into them more heartily. What Carlyle talks about the unconscious unmethodistic de- votion of those times is a mere dream of his own, which he will be forced to give up if he applies himself fairly to the his- tory. I only wrote my preface to the play because I thought people would abuse it ; if I had known how much sympathy it would meet with I should have held my tongue.' To Miss G. Hare. 'April 20, 1848. ' I have an agreeable recollection of the place where you are staying [Southernhay, Exeter], It seemed to me one of the best outlets of an old city I had ever seen. And in these days there is something in an old city, even though we may not have any for long. Germany is to me very dark, yet I cannot help trying to hope well for it. There seems no doubt that there is sad confusion, and nowhere more than in the Rhenish provinces, where Arndt writes that there is a curious blending of Jacobins and Ultramontanists, the king being an object of common hatred to both. I cannot make him out. I fear he speaks and writes too well to be a great man when it is time to act, but he may nerve himself and be king of Germany yet. I do not see who else can be, and there seems no great craving for a republic there. I believe more is to be done just now in England than anywhere, if there were only people who could do it. The prospectus I enclose comes from some who are deeply earnest, and I hope may do good ; they are friends of mine. I think it is a thing in which she would have taken a great interest, and I feel as if she will take an interest in it. F. D. M. 42. Brewing of 'Politics for the People! 463 ' I am rather more busy this week with writing, &c., than I like to be. Take my blessing and give me yours for it, and may your Easter be as bright as the recollection of Him who has risen, and of all who are with Him can make it.' To Rev C. Kingsley. 1 April 22, 1848. ' I do hope the first number will go forth with God's blessing. We want poetry very much, and something on pictures (what you like), and could not you write a working country parson's letter about the right and wrong use of the Bible I mean, pro- testing against the notion of turning it into a book for keeping the poor in order. * ' The King's College business, in which I feel that I am so much interested, and you so little, would I think go on better if you could come.' To Archdeacon Hare. ' MY DEAR JULIUS, ' (April 22, 1848.) ' I hope we are going on promisingly with the paper. The first article will be one on " Fraternity," explaining our principles and purposes, by me. There will be one on " the People," on " France under Louis Philippe," and on " the Suffrage" (the first of a series), all by Ludlow; a sanitary article by Dr. Guy ; I hope some verses from Kingsley. Could you bring us anything of any kind, short or long, original or translated ? The working people don't at all cry for easy literature, but scorn it. * * * ' I should much like Bunsen to know of our engagement He has been so very kind a friend to me always, and I count it a great honour to be joined, even though by mistake, with him in any reproach. I have, no doubt, the great calamity of agreeing in some points with Palmer and differing from him, but he is too generous not to pity me for that misfortune. ' MY DEAR BARRY, ' Early in 1848. ' I can assure you that I had not forgotten my promise of writing something to you about a course of metaphysical 464 Course of Metaphysical Reading. CHAP. xxiv. reading, when I received the present of your essay. The subject has often been in my mind, and I have reproached myself for not attempting to put it out of my mind by com- municating with you upon it. But the events which have been occurring during the last six or eight weeks have made me more anxious than even before that all the gifts and powers of those in whom I am interested, as well as my own, should be concentrated on some practical object, if possible one directly involving the questions which are now agitating Europe. I know I shall differ with a great many teachers whom I respect, and whose opinion is worth much more than mine, in suggest- ing this ; it has been a kind of canon with them that the abstract studies should be pursued by young men, and that the application to events should be reserved for their seniors. But I know how little I found this course available for myself. I believe assuredly that all young men of any vigour of mind will occupy themselves with that which is passing, either as a part of their studies or something quite extraneous to them, and I am convinced that they should take the former course instead of the latter. ' This persuasion has in your case been confirmed by your essay, which I have read with great satisfaction. It indicates, I think, a power of taking clear, sober, manly views of great historical crises and periods a capacity which I especially desire to see developed in young Englishmen, and which if my lectures have, as you say, at all awakened in you, I should feel very thankful. I confess I should be sorry if you were tempted to turn your thoughts out of this direction into one which seems to me far less intended for us, or even if you learned to look upon historical and political studies as one part of know- ledge, and metaphysical as another. That way of labelling our pursuits may do in an Encyclopedia, but it will not do for a man who must be content to be something less than an Encyclopedia if he would be something more. ' I do not, mean, however, by these remarks to excuse myself from the task which you kindly assigned me. I only wish to explain the course which I would recommend. I don't F. D. M. 42. Study of Politics Essential to it. 465 think metaphysics have been separated by any real and con- sistent thinker from politics, or that he has applied one method to the one and a different method to the other. In the men who, for good or evil, have exercised most influence upon England of a psychological or metaphysical kind Hobbes and Locke the connection between their (so called) abstract theories and their theories of government and political society, is most direct and obvious. The Leviathan is the explanation and embodiment of the treatises on Liberty and Necessity. The essay on Government is the proper key to the essay on the Human Understanding. Among Hegel's works you will find as many bearing upon history and politics as upon any question which, we should say, was within his province ; his doctrine of a State seems to be one of the most characteristic features of his philosophy. Cicero's philosophical treatises, proud as he was of the Greek wisdom displayed in them, derive their chief worth from his manly Roman sense and political experience ; though the charm of his language must make anything that he writes delightful. I think most are glad to escape from the " De Officiis " to the " Laws." Aristotle avowedly makes everything subordinate to his polity; his ethics and meta- physics are only the porch to that temple. It is not less evident that Plato regarded the Republic as that which was to explain and harmonise all the other dialogues. I should be strongly inclined then to recommend you- to study the works on " politics " which have been written by the most eminent metaphysicians in different periods, and to view their more abstract speculations chiefly as illustrating these. 'The two great treatises of Plato and Aristotle will be master-keys to the minds of these men; you will see them both in their greatest strength, and at the same time in the most remarkable contrast. Both, Aristotle especially, will cast light upon and receive light from all contemporary and pre- ceding Greek history. The republic of Plato is, in its highest aspect, the dream of an universal Church, in its lowest it touches closely upon French Communism. It is very wonderful in both respects, and will not at all disengage you from present VOL. i. 2 H 466 Course of Philosophical Reading. CHAP. xxiv. interests, but rather will help you to contemplate them from a higher point of view. Aristotle's, with no ecclesiastical or generally human characteristic, is as beautiful an account of the conditions and forms of national life and its relations to family life as I can conceive. Its true complement is in the Old, as that of Plato is in the New Testament I should be content with these great works for Greece. Cicero's is admirable for Rome, as much by his philosophical defects as his merits. His Laws, the fragment on the Republic, and the Offices, contain what he really understood. He can talk splendidly about everything. I think I should not meddle with Seneca, but should rather take the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, being an emperor and a man of business, for the link between Stoicism and the later Roman age. ' The TratSaywyos of Clemens or his Srpw/xaTa will give you the best view of the Christian philosophy in the Alexandrian school. If you want to see the violent protest against it in the Carthaginian, you must read the treatise of Tertullian on Praescription. The " De Civitate " of Augustine is very im- portant as illustrating his feeling of the connection between the Christian and all previous polities, as well as for its direct metaphysics. ' I should advise you to look over the " Monologicon " of Anselm, the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and part of the " Prima Secundae " in the " Summa Theologia " of Aquinas, that you may understand the scholastic method. Perhaps it might be well also to read a little of Abelard in Cousin's new edition as a help to the nominalist controversy of the twelfth century. ' That controversy had taken a new form in the fifteenth under William of Occam. His life and writings are closely connected with the history of the new relations between the papacy and the kings of Europe at that time, so that they are illustrative of the remark I made at the beginning of this letter. ' I have no doubt that a person better acquainted with the fifteenth century than I am might point out some book which r. D. M. 42. The i$f/t, \6tk, 17 m, and iSt/i Centuries. 467 distinctly embodies its philosophical as well as its political tendencies. I can hardly think that you can collect either except from the books of the Humanists at its commencement, then the reformers, and at the close of the period the Jesuits in the first of whom literature, and in the two last theology, is of course predominant. For England Hooker is the meta- physician as well as the politician of that age. Cousin will tell you that Descartes in the seventeenth century is the real beginner of western philosophy, and that he is the most important of all the writers of that period. According to the view I am taking, Hobbes (with whom of course I am more at variance than with the Frenchman) is a more significant name, because he more explains the relation between specula- tion and action, and shows what theory of government is the inevitable and logical consequence of what scheme of human nature. ' Locke represents the whole meaning and character of the Revolution of 1688 in his books on Toleration, Government, Education, the Scripture, as much as in his chief work. The parallel work to his on the first French Revolution is the " Contrat Social " of Rousseau, with this great difference, that Locke's was a cold ratification of that which had taken place ; Rousseau's, the torch which set the combustibles alight. I have adhered to my maxim of connecting, as far as possible, politics with metaphysics. I should not have deviated from it very much if I had suggested a comparison of the low notions of humanity in the " De L'Homme " of Helvetius with the three sermons of Butler, and I should, perhaps, have seemed ultra-political if I had spoken of Montesquieu and Burke as falling within a course of reading such as you propose. 'About the later Germans I will not venture to give you advice. I should suppose that some of the treatises of Fichte would interest you much; Hegel's "On the Philosophy of History" I have found valuable, and I think I could get glimpses into his philosophy generally from it. Schellmg's later lectures are not published except in a discreditable and mangled report by an enemy, Paulus. 2 H 2 468 The Englishman and the German. CHAP. xxiv. ' My feeling about the relation between English thought and German is generally this : that we must always be, to a con- siderable extent, unintelligible to each other, because we start from exactly opposite points ; we, naturally, from that which is above us and speaks to us ; they, naturally, from that which is within them and which seeks for some object above itself. Supposing these two vocations faithfully fulfilled, then there must at last be a meeting-point. But, in the meantime, neither nature quite understanding itself assumes to be more and to do more than it can. They are, I think, of right, philosophers, seekers after wisdom. But they will bring all things under philosophy ; they will explain politics and history, which demand to be looked at from both sides, as well as theology, which is emphatically the opposite of it not the- contrary upon its conditions. We, on the other hand, deny any scope to the search after wisdom, insisting that it is precluded by theological decrees, or else make theology and philosophy altogether separate as to their subject matter, so depriving both of their reality. I am most eager to assert the worth of our English position, to prove that the truth must look down upon us if we would look up to it, that Truth must be a person seeking us, if we are to seek him. But so far from feeling that this belief interferes with the free exercise of our powers or the most earnest search, I cannot find any other equally strong proof of its necessity or warrant of its success. ' I have thrown out this last hint partly to explain what I said before about our English tendencies and the preference I would give to historical - and political over merely abstract studies. You will feel, I hope, that I did not mean to say anything against philosophy properly so called. I only wished to find out the way in which we might best hope to profit by it, and to pursue it with real, earnest interest. Politics and history are a middle ground between theology and philosophy. In them each has a share ; by them, I believe, far better than by any eclectical theory, they are reconciled. 1 P.S. Whether you adopt these hints, or find some that are F. D. M. 42, Study Great Men, not Digests ! 469 much better, let me advise you to read only significant books, books of really remarkable men, and that have had a great moral influence. I do not limit you to one class of views, as you will see by what I have written. But mere books (digests and reductions, &c.) which have no human feeling and human interest, if they are ever so clever, and set forth a system ever so well, I should avoid.' To Rev. A. /. Scott. On a proposal for a union between the University College Pro- fessors and those of Queen's College in a Ladies' College. ' Belmont, Torre, Torquay, April 29, 1848. ' MY DEAR FRIEND, ' Ever since our meeting at University College I have been endeavouring to fulfil the promise I made then that I would consider in what way we could honestly and with mutual advantage work together. I have come to a very distinct conviction for myself (I have not communicated with Nicolay or any of my colleagues at Harley Street, though I mean to do so, and I would not wish to pledge them) that I ought not to be a member of a provisional committee or to do more than state in any terms you may think the fittest and strongest, my conviction that there is no feeling of rivalship or jealousy of us in your minds, and that there is none in ours towards you. So much, I think, is due from us for the sake of the cause which we both have at heart ; and which must suffer, as Mr. de Morgan said so well, if there is the least intrusion of party spirit into our proceedings. It would suffer almost equally, I believe, if for the sake of meeting this danger, you or we became embarrassed with responsibility for the proceed- ings of the other, and we did not work out our own scheme with perfect freedom. You warned me of the discredit we might possibly incur by mixing ourselves up with University College professors. That fear does not weigh with me. I believe the position I have taken up, and which I trust that I shall be able to maintain more manfully than I have done, 47 O Reason for Refusing Joint Teaching with will expose me to attacks from the religious world, which will be the fiercer in proportion to my apparent contact with it I should be safer if I could retreat farther from it, besides the help and protection I might get from batteries on the other side which would certainly fire upon me also if I were worth the waste of their ammunition. But I fear for myself (and in a measure so far as I may do so without offence for you) the loss of moral strength which must arise from the feeling in the minds of others, still more in one's own, that a single conviction is to be suppressed, pared down, softened in ex- pression, lest some person with whom we are connected should take offence at it. I fear this danger in all cases ; in education I fear it most. Those who have attended my lectures on the Scriptures our kind friend, Mrs. Reed, for instance know, though the last thing I have ever thought of has been to attack Miss Martineau or Mr. Newman, yet that I have formally, distinctly, consistently, vehemently arrived at working out an idea diametrically the opposite of that which is set forth in the books on Egypt and the Hebrew monarchy. I give them credit for a strong belief that their method of considering the subject is not only true, but on moral grounds very important I feel the same about mine. It may be inadequate and im- perfect. I hope that it will grow and unfold itself in my mind. But such as it is, I live to assert it to assert it, not in the pulpit as a parson, but still more in the lecture-room as a teacher. Will not my pupils say shall I not be found to say to myself " After all you are not in earnest in these subjects you have put forth ; you did not quite mean what you said for you think yourself at liberty to further the establish- ment, nay, to take part yourself in the establishment of a teaching which, so far as the names concerned in it signify anything (and certainly they are not the names of indifferent, inconsistent, cowardly men ignorant of their own standing ground and careless about the defence of it), would seem to point another way." ' It is not the question, you perceive, whether I would rather there should be the substantial, honest teaching for girls which, F. D. M. 42. R Newman, Miss Martineau, etc. 47 r I doubt not, your professors will give or the flowery mockery of teaching which they get in most boarding-schools, orthodox or liberal. Of course, on that large, general consideration I am glad you should form a college, and I have said so already. But it is the question whether we shall not make our respective teachings less substantial, more unreal, more like the boarding- school teaching, if we do not keep them distinct. It is my strong persuasion that we shall. ' I write to you with perfect assurance that you will under- stand me, and that if you think I am quite mistaken you will not suspect me of some double meaning or purpose. You may have seen by the way in which I met your proposal that I did desire very much to give effect to it. I trust I shall be giving effect to the spirit of it better by the course I have laid down for myself, than by one which would seem, without being, more liberal and conciliatory. ' I thought it right to say thus much before I meet you on Monday I hope still for that pleasure. I should be much gratified by seeing such men as Mr. Newman and Mr. de Morgan under any circumstances or on any pretext. And if they feel as I do, they will meet me only with greater ease and freedom the better we understand our respective positions. You are quite at liberty to communicate this letter to them or to any one else. I can scarcely hope that our lady friends will regard me as other than very unintelligible and intolerant, but I should wish them also to know the worst of me.' The first number of Politics for the People appeared on May 6th. It consisted of sixteen octavo pages, published weekly at id. The idea which the name was intended to con- vey was that the paper was addressed to no class or party in particular, that " whatever a great number of our countrymen wish for deserves earnest consideration." It opened its pages to a statement of views, in a letter from one of the Kennington Common Chartists. On the other hand, all the leading writers for it, Mr. Ludlow more especially, although he had not been 472 ' Politics for the People' CHAP. xxiv. a special constable, appealed to the law-abiding sense of the people, in no stinted terms denounced both the folly and the crime of the physical force Chartist movement, and gloried in the success of the " Special Constable " demonstration as one of the grandest events in our history. It is necessary to say this the more emphatically because, in the biographical preface to the edition of Alton Locke, Mr. Hughes, who on April 10, 1848, was personally acquainted with neither my father nor Mr. Kingsley, speaks as if they on that day were in some doubt as to the side to which their sympathies ought to lean. The fact is that my father had gone to the office where special constables were being enrolled, intending to offer himself, and ascertained that clergymen were not accepted. Then and always throughout life he looked upon it as essential to the cause of the poor, that they should learn the impotence of lawlessness and riot. One of the strongest articles in the paper is on the senselessness and criminality of " monster meetings," whether forbidden or not forbidden by lawful authority, and whether actually leading to overt violence or not. But he did not believe that the evil of which physical force Chartism was only the symptom could be exorcised by merely crushing resistance, or by assuming that there were no wrongs which needed redress. He believed it right patiently to hear all that was put forward, and to ignore much of the mere savagery of form in which real grievances were often laid bare. For himself he preferred to adopt the form of dialogue, in order to bring out the truth which he believed was latent in many different sides of a question ; his own longest contribu- tions were ' Dialogues in the Penny Boats ;' ' Liberty, a Dialogue between a French Propagandist, an English Labourer, and the Editor;' 'Equality, a Dialogue between a young Frenchman, a Statesman from America, and an English Mechanic;' 'Rough Notes of some Lectures on Modern History ;' four articles on education ; and a tale in two parts, each part occupying an entire number, ' The Recollections and Confessions of William Milward, a Chartist.' * D - M. 42. //.y Political Tone. 473 Of the political tone of the paper, so far as he influenced it, the following extracts from the article on Fraternity, alluded to in the last letter to Archdeacon Hare, will give some idea : ' At present members of the working class, like those of the other classes, are often unnaturally bound together, not in the pursuit of great ends, but of certain means which they suppose, on the authority of others, must lead to those ends. They are asked to swear to the five, or six, or twelve points of the charter, to declare themselves for this or that theory of govern- ment, for this or that arrangement of wages and profits. There is no fair discussion whether these schemes will lead to the great objects bodily or intellectual which the workmen ought to desire ; there is no steady inquiry what these objects are. The Chartist, just like the Conservative, or Whig, or Radical, in the House of Commons, is told that he must " follow the leader" over hedge and ditch, through ploughed fields and quagmires, into rivers fordable or unfordable. He runs till he is tired, then the party takes some strange jump and makes the leader follow them. ' The consequence is the same in every case. In the Conservative party there are men of the noblest hearts, who fear God with no slavish fear, who love the land they dwell in and its history, who wish to maintain only that which they think to be needful for the poorest man as much as them- selves, who would gladly give up anything that is dearest to them for his sake. And there are in the same party men who care for nothing but their ease and luxury, who mean by Conservatism the preservation of their pelf and their game, who one hour will cant with the holy name of God to secure an election, and will use it (not more profanely) to curse their servants with, the next. There are Radicals who have the most intense and righteous abhorrence of whatever is corrupt and false, and wish it to be cast out of the land as well as of their own hearts, because it is hateful to man and to God ; there are Radicals who wish only to get rid of what stands in the way of their own advancement, their own lusts, their own 474 Its Antagonism to all Party Politics. CHAP. xxiv. tyranny. There are Whigs who form a most admirable link to bind the Conservative and Radical together to make them understand each other; and there are Whigs who avoid what is good in both, not having the sense or courage of either, looking upon the whole question of government as one be- tween families or clubs. So it is, we are convinced, with the Chartists. 'There are among them generous, noble-hearted men who wish injustice to none, but desire that all should have a free play for their minds and hearts, as well as enough to feed their bodies men who would gladly die to get this good for the whole land that it should be righteously governed ; and there are those who think of nothing but getting power and money for themselves, and who for the sake of these ends, besides trampling down laws, would run the risk of inflicting more tremendous injuries upon the working men of England than upon all other classes together. ' Is it not time that the better men in all these parties should cast off alliances which are only delusions from beginning to end ? They do not mean the same things as those with whom they are acting, they mean the most opposite things. 'What signifies it that they are agreed about certain measures, if they seek by these measures to produce the most different results ? ' This is what we wish to aim at in our Politics for the People. We disclaim at once any fraternisation on the ground of coincidence in conclusions about certain measures. There may be those among us who think the Reform Bill went far enough or too far; those who think the middle class as yet inadequately represented; those who think even the poorest ought to have a share in the government. There may be those who believe a repeal of the Union would be fatal to Ireland, and those who f hink it is becoming necessary for both countries. There may be those who rejoice in the victories of free trade ; those who look back with a lingering love on pro- tection ; those who do not find in the formulas of either that which is adequate to our present necessitities. There may be F. D. M. 42. List of the Incendiaries. 475 those who think that our present relations of capital and labour are not incompatible with the well-being of the poor; and those who seek for a quite new adjustment of them. There may be those who look to Government for the direction both of labour and education; those who think that it may profitably interfere with either, not with the other ; those who believe that it can in no case meddle with the free action of individuals and voluntary societies, except to do hurt ' We do not exact uniformity on any points of this kind ; we promise and desire a conflict of opinions ; we are as liable as other men to set up our different opinions and make them objects of worship ; we are in danger of separating from our dearest friends in consequence of disagreements which we do not pretend to consider trifling or insignificant. But we believe we shall not make the danger greater by being aware of it, by calling to mind continually the grounds of sympathy which we have, one with another, in spite of these diversities, by seeking to hold converse with our readers of all classes as fellow-men and fellow-workmen; by labouring strenuously in God's strength that we may realise the true fraternity of which this age has dreamed, and without which we believe it cannot be satisfied.' The chief contributors were, in addition to the friends already named, Mr. James Spedding, Mr. Arthur Stanley, Mr. Arthur Helps, Mr. R. C. Trench, Mr. Strachey, Mr. S. G. Osborne, Mr. Charles Mansfield, Dr. Guy, Mr. Conington, and Archbishop Whately. Mr. Kingsley's contributions under the signature of Parson Lot soon provoked the protest of more than one of my father's older friends. The next letter was written in answer to one from Archdeacon Hare, protesting against some expressions in Mr. Kingsley's " Second Letter to the Chartists," which appeared on May zyth. ' May 28, 1848. 'Mv DEAR JULIUS, ' I could not have suppressed the article if I had wished to do so. for the number was published on Thursday before I 476 Defence of Kings ley CHAP. xxiv. knew of your objections. But I should not have suppressed it if I could ; for I do not look upon it as mischievous. I feel quite assured that there are quarters in which it will be especially useful. * Every paper which has any circulation among the Chartists regards the clergy as preachers of mere slavery out of the Bible. The question is whether we shall acknowledge that we have far too much read our own slavish notions into the Bible or whether we shall leave it to bear our disgrace. You say, " Confess you are wrong in asides to each other ;" I say that will do no good to us or to any one else. We have sinned openly and we ought to confess, especially to those against whom we have sinned. ' I know the kindling of heart which I feel towards a dissent- ing or Romish controversialist who frankly disavows, not to his own class, but to the public and to me, dishonest artifices to which his party and he have resorted ; I know what a prepos- session he causes me in favour of himself and his cause. I love a man who does this, still more if he is on my own side and disclaims the vile tricks to which that side has resorted. You have got this kind of sympathy from numbers, for yourself and for the Church. And it is not fair of you to say of one who takes the like course that he looks upon everybody as having been wrong till Parson Lot. Such a charge is, of course, brought against all persons who have courage to speak the truth; it has been brought against you a hundred times. I always accounted it the vulgarest of all formulas, and would have given a good deal that you had not sanctioned the use of it. ' Kingsley spoke from his heart, I am sure, without the least of that conceit which you impute to him. He felt he was confessing his own sin, not taking honour to himself for dis- covering it in others. And there are hundreds of young men at Oxford and Cambridge, and I believe a great many Chartists and working men, who will have a faith in him and in the clergy which they never had before, when they find he does care to take the beam out of his own eye before he begins F. D. M. 42. Against Hare's Strictures. 477 to take the mote out of theirs. Parker tells me that the ex- pressions about that letter have been especially warm. There has been one fine cordial letter about it from a young man preparing for orders, to whom it seems to have given quite a new hope. ' You say that Kingsley and Ludlovv are very conceited and that young men are so generally. I am sorry to hear you using that language ; for I am sure either of those two would be glad to sit at your feet and receive your instructions and admonitions. I never met with men of a more reverent spirit. ' And as to young men of this age generally, though I find them very unhappy, very discontented, almost hopeless, I do not find in them nearly as much of what I should call inso- lence and arrogance as in their seniors. For instance, I never met a young man who had anything like the amount of these qualities which I see in Whewell every time I fall in his way. I have no reason to complain of him, for I always avoid every expression of any feeling on any point that is more interesting to me than the weather in his presence; but I do mourn for the sake of the Universities, where the young men are daily feeling themselves more utterly estranged from those who might be their guides. For them thus utterly cast off I care far more than for the working classes. But I feel (as I have endeavoured to show in a dialogue for the next number) chat if they learn to act for the working classes and to sympathise with them, it may be their own salvation. Kingsley and Ludlow are, it seems to me, the very best mediators possible between the one and the other, between young England of the middle and upper classes, and the working people. To be so they must speak out their own thoughts, which I am sure are pure and free, and not trouble themselves with the question how they may please or offend the bishops. I believe we must offend them and a great many more ; but if we bring the poor people to have more respect for the rich people who hate us, it will be a good revenge, and one worth the death of the paper or our own. 478 Reverencing All Men's Consciences, CHAP. xxiv. ' The King's College authorities have deliberately rejected Kingsley, not preferring another to him, but simply saying they will not have him. This is of course a new bond between us. Their refusal of him is intended as an admonition to me to set my house in order, and as such I shall take it.' To Mr. Ludlow. 'About June 10, 1848. ' MY DEAR FRIEND, ' I agree with you that there should be different opinions in the paper and that they should be each clearly and strongly expressed. I agree with you that it should be written for all classes and not merely for one ' But if we write for the people, high as well as low, rich as well as poor, we are to reverence the conscience of high as well as low, rich as well as poor. This is altogether a different thing from sacrificing to their tastes and prejudices the very oppo- site thing. So far as we wound the conscience of any man, we do a positive injury to him and to ourselves : we do that which cannot be undone or neutralised by ever so many articles which will soothe and conciliate him. The phrase, "go ahead," as it is used by young men generally (and all the class of thoughts which are connected with it) implies a recklessness about the moral sense of their countrymen, a delight in making people start and look about them. This recklessness proceeds from an absence of self-government, and the sense of direct responsibility to God, and so far as it is encouraged we hurt Christ in ourselves as well as in our neighbour. I hold it therefore a great duty to deny oneself in a number of strong, piquant phrases that one likes, and to get the disgrace of being called milksop or spooney, or via media man a much more offensive epithet to rne than either rather than run counter to those earnest and deliberate convictions of other men, upon the preservation and enlightening of which all our hope ot doing them good depends. ' On this principle it is that I stopped Kingsley's tale,* on * The ' Nun's Pool,' which afterwards appeared in the Christian Socialist F. D. M. 42. Sacrificing to No Men's Prejudices. 479 this principle I urged him to reconsider his letter to the Chartists. On this I shall earnestly ask you to think again of your Mitchell paper. When so many things need to be said and done, why spend your time in trampling upon people's corns and gouty feet ; supposing them to be nothing more ? I think it is bad to hurt any one if we can help it, and as we must hurt so much that people cherish, we ought to be the tenderer of all that we can respect. 'These will sound to you very compromising and half- hearted sayings. But I have seen so many violent reactions in the go-ahead people that I have not much, if any, respect for their strength. I sometimes suspect it is all spasmodic. Now Kingsley and you have so much real God-given strength that you have no right to be spasmodic, and I will not let you be if I can help it ; as you should not let me be, for I have the same tendency though it may appear different. ' As to your dread of bishops and popularity, in the first place it seems to me wholly hypochondriacal, there are no indications of the kind to frighten us in the least degree about our paper ; secondly, if ever so much popularity did come, we ought thankfully though tremblingly to welcome it. In all time of our wealth, in all time of our tribulation, good Lord deliver us. But there is to be wealth as well as tribulation, and the devil does not send one more than the other. Laudo manentem * is what we should say to the goodwill of our con- temporaries ; of course it will go, and if there were much of it, you would have a most satisfactory omen that stoning or con- tempt were close behind. It is the Christian soldier's business to receive either as they come, and to seek strength for each. Our Lord never sought persecution, but welcomed crowds and hosannas. The Cross was in them as well as well as in mockery and spitting, and He could foresee one in the other. The determination not to be liked by nobs or bishops is a bastard philosophy, not Christian faith. David Hume condoles with Adam Smith on the success of the ' Wealth of Nations,' and hopes that as a Christian he will return good for evil, and * I praise it when it stays. 480 " The only faith in wliicil ive can ivork" CHAP. xxiv. comfort him with the tidings that all the godly in Scotland are sending him to Coventry for his account of John Knox and the Reformation. A very right and lively kind of sentiment for him, but one which we are not bound to adopt. ' Of course it is much pleasanter for me to offend all the bishops and 15,000 clergy and both Houses of Parliament, of whom I know nothing, than to take the responsibility to reject an article of Hare's or Kingsley's men whom I love heartily and am seeing continually. But the question is, what is right for our purpose? The Euston it was most distressing to me to vote against; I was somewhat comforted about Kingsley, because I thought I was doing him good, as well as the paper, though I would sooner have lost two or three teeth ; in fact the effort of interference and the consciousness of missing my aim continually and of never saying or doing what I intend, and the weariness of different lesser occupations and of neglecting home duties, often make me think I must have been a mere madman to have entered upon such an enterprise ; though again they encourage me to hope that I did not choose it, but was brought into it for some purpose greater than I know of. That is the only faith in which I think we can work, and that faith brings along with it the responsibility of keeping back nothing that can be profitable to any ; but also of speak- ing nothing under any notion of being bold and heroical which can lead a single person to mistake his way.' The paper had been started with the understanding that the contributors would not be paid, that Parker the publisher would incur the risk of its cost up to a certain point, but by July there was no promise of its paying its expenses, and after the issue of seventeen numbers in all it was given up. The publication had gathered round my father a group of young men " united," as one of them puts it, " in a strong desire to be of use to their fellow-countrymen and in affec- tionate reverence towards himself." Whilst the paper had been in existence Mr. Ludlow and he as joint editors used to meet weekly at his house to make up the numbers. They were F. D. M. 44. TJie Gathering of Friends. 48 1 often joined by Mr. Kingsley and by the younger Mr. J. W. Parker. The giving up of the paper did not put an end to these weekly meetings. But, as there was no longer the special business to be transacted, others who were found to be in sympathy with them were from time to time invited to join these weekly meetings. He spent the autumn in various visits in the country, much of the time at Hurstmonceaux with Archdeacon Hare ; afterwards he visited Mr. John Allen, the Vicar of Frees and the Examining Chaplain of the Bishop of Lichfield. To Miss Hare. ' Frees, Shrewsbury, September 15, 1848. ' The Bishop of Lichfield is here to-day. Allen is going to Eccleshall to the examination for orders next week, and the Bishop has kindly asked me to spend the time with him. It will be or it should be a very solemn occasion to me. I was ordained both deacon and priest at Eccleshall, and there is something in the autumn Ember week which is particularly serious to my mind ; moreover, I have felt much more occu- pied than ever of late with thoughts of the fearfulness of the position of the younger clergy, so that when the Bishop asked me, as he did just now, to preach to the young men on the evening of their ordination at that place and that time, there seemed something wonderful in it. ' I wish I could tell you some of the thoughts that I have been attempting, but as yet failing to set down, about the gospels, while revising my Warburton lectures on the different books of the New Testament. If J could speak them out they would be more what I have been trying to say all my life than anything I have written yet, chiefly because they are an attempt at a more simple and childlike reading of these books than I think is common amongst us.* God bless you in the study of them and in all things else.' * The new series of the Warburton lectures were published as ' The Unity of the New Testament.' VOL. I. 2 * 482 The Friends Commence Work. CHAP. xxiv. On his return to London, the weekly meetings at his house of the friends who were now gathered round my father were resumed. During the publication of Politics for the People the working men had felt some suspicion of its being a capitalist's trick to deceive them by false promises. A few had written letters to the paper. Joseph Millbank, a ' Watch-case finisher in gold/ Thomas Shorter, a ' Watch-case finisher in silver,' were among these. Its failure and disappearance changed the impression of many of those who had read some of the articles. Mr. Ludlow in this way, a few months later, made the acquaint- ance of one of the Chartist leaders, Walter Cooper, a tailor. My father's friend, Mr. Short, the rector of St. George the Martyr's, Queen Square, had mentioned to him the existence in his parish of a place (Little Ormond Yard) so disorderly that no policeman liked to venture there alone at night. It was re- solved to set up there a night school, which was at first intended for men, but gradually boys and their mothers for them begged admittance, and the men dropped off. A girl's school under a paid teacher was also set up, and when other work no longer permitted the friends personally to carry on this, a paid teacher was also engaged for the boys. It was also arranged that the friends should take their turns two by two at the school, and the younger men were specially anxious, in consequence of the state of the place, that my father, who took his turn with the others, should never be left alone. One night, however, by some accident he was so left, and as it happened he encountered a particularly noisy class, and had to expel one unruly youngster by sheer force. In the long run, however, the effect of their work was that Mr. Short found himself civilly received in every part of the yard, into which previously he could not go without being insulted. The numbers at their meetings had increased, and as the circulation of the Politics had reached two thousand, the paper had brought them into acquaintance with many in different parts of the country, who both contributed information as to 1848. Others Join them ; Mr. Hughes Reception. 483 the state of feeling existing in different districts, and were glad to be put in communication with a body of men who were unbound by any party tie, open to suggestions from any quarter, and anxious only to find out in what way they could best play their part in the crisis. My father used often to tell with some humour and some pride how, one afternoon, a young lawyer who had been attending the services at Lincoln's Inn called upon him as chaplain to express sympathy with the efforts that had been made ; how, after some conversation, he had asked his visitor to join the meetings and take part in any work in which they were then engaged; how, when at the next meeting, he announced the name of Thomas Hughes, and said what he had done, he had been at once met by " Oh, you will get no good from that quarter ; he will be no good for teaching, a very good fellow for cricket and that sort of thing," from one or two of the party, the rest knowing nothing about him ; and how soon all were obliged to admit that they had in the newcomer one at least of the most active and useful of their friends. He used to repeat the story " with pride," not in his own judgment, but in the principle of trusting men, and of setting them to work. Mr. Hughes had written to him during the Irish famine in 1847 to suggest the breaking of the rule which prevailed in the chapel that no collection should be made. My father obtained the permission of the benchers to break the rule, but his first acquaintance with Mr. Hughes dated from the incident I have described above. The events that were taking place on the Continent were constantly occupying his thoughts. The 'Sermons on the Prayer-book,' of which the first was preached on November the 26th, are full of allusions to them. That on December the 3rd contains the sentences : ' My brethren, if on the Advent Sunday of 1847 any preacher here or elsewhere had tried to impress you with the belief that some signs and wonders were actually near at hand, if i 484 European Politics. CHAP xxrv. he had tasked his imagination or his skill in interpreting the hard sayings in Scripture, to tell you minutely what these signs and wonders would be, are you not sure that his anti- cipations would have been poor and cold when compared with things which you have heard of, and almost seen, in the inter- val between that day and this ? The flourishes and exaggera- tions of rhetoric, puerile always, become absolutely ridiculous when they are set side by side with the experiences through which Europe has been passing and is passing. Do you really think the invasion of Palestine by Sennacherib was a more wonderful event than the overthrowing of nearly all the greatest powers, civil and ecclesiastical, in Christendom ? ' This is " the sermon " alluded to in the next letter. The reference to difference of opinion about the King of Prussia is to a conversation at my father's house. To Mr. Ludlow. December^ 1848. ' MY DEAR FRIEND, ' Thank you for all your encouragements, warnings, and reproofs (what you say about the sermon is a severer and more useful reproof than you could guess), but especially for telling me when you cannot agree with me, and when you think I am wrong. It is the best security for the permanence of your friendship ; and pray let me reckon myself your friend and not your guide or teacher in any other sense than as each should be helping the other to follow the Guide and Teacher who is with us alL ' I think I can explain, at least I will try, what is the ground of our difference about the King of Prussia and other like subjects. You, I take it, and Carlyle both start from the Radical or popular ground. Both of you in your hearts rever- ence order and believe in God : you hope that the overthrow of constituted arbitrary power is leading to the assertion of law, though possibly through anarchy; he that it is leading F. D. M. 44. His own Political Starting-point. 485 to the appearance of some great man who can prove that he is meant to be a king of men. Neither of you can do justice to the other; he would set you down as a formalist; you look upon him as a mere worshipper of power and self-will. I do not see how your opposite views, in both of which I recognise something that one ought to sympathise with, can be reconciled upon the basis which is common to you both. I do not start from the Radical or popular ground. I begin, where I think you both end, hi the acknowledgment of the divine sovereignty ; thence I come to the Tory idea of kings reigning by the grace of God. This I hold to be the first of political truths historically, and the first fundamentally; that is to say, I do not look upon it only as belonging to the time in which it was asserted and developed, but as bequeathed by that time to all subsequent times. How then do I differ from the mere Tory? Because I look upon the Whig idea ot Constitutional Government which he opposes as latent in his truth and as necessarily developed out of it in its due season. How do I differ from both Whig and Tory ? Because I look upon the Radical idea of the distinct rights and privileges of each man as latent in their two truths and as necessarily developed out of them in its due season. Starting then from the primary theocratic doctrine, from the proclamation of Christ the everlasting Word as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, I am prepared for judgments which shall assert the truth and bring it into light I do look with trembling but with faith upon all manifestations of God's wrath upon kings who have failed to acknowledge Him in their acts ; have trusted in trick and diplomacy ; have set up themselves ; have been indifferent to law ; have been careless of the distinct person- ality of their subjects. I think that last sin is especially the sin against which popular outbreaks bear witness. But the sovereignty of the people, in any sense or form, I not only repudiate as at once the silliest and most blasphemous of all contradictions, but I look upon it as the same contradiction, the same blasphemy in its fullest expansion of which the kings have been guilty. They have reigned as if they were not in 486 The Dispute as to *the Grace of God'' CHAP. xxiv. covenant with God, as if they were not governing by His grace ; the mob of Berlin, the atheistical students, the National Assembly, which is awed by their clubs and possessed by their demon, say, " That is the fact. There is no such thing as grace of God. You are a romancer for saying there is. You are affirming an obsolete lie." This is the issue now to be tried in Prussia. You will have it that it is the issue whether Berlin or Brandenburgh is the capital of a country about 140 years old. That seems to me, with deference, a bit of legal formalism. The King takes up the question as the National Assembly puts it. They say, "You do not and shall not reign by the grace of God." He says, " I do and will reign by the grace of God, or not at all. You reign by the grace of the Berlin mob ! You are already, you will be more, the plague and curse of the people in whose name you are pre- tending to govern. You shall not ! In the name of God I swear that you shall not, or that I will die to prevent it ! " For the fact that this state of things was what I have repre- sented, I appeal to the report of Bassermann, one of the authors of the " German State," full of German legalism and I daresay pedantries. He says the National Assembly was no National Assembly ; the Government was a mockery. If the King had any sense of his responsibility to God and his people he was bound to interfere. The punctiliously legal and blood- less way in which he has carried out his interference (for the employment of soldiers, by a king to whom they have sworn allegiance, against a mob, and for the protection of a Par- liament, is not illegal in any sense of the word), you must yourself confess. ' What will be the issue ? I know not. The King may be good for nothing. No one has oftener been inclined to think him a mere dilettante fine talker than I have. He may have arbitrary intentions at bottom. He may mean to rule by soldiers. If so, I can only weep for him and for Europe. It is not for Frederick William, but for a man who seems prepared to assert a principle, which in my mind I believe to be true and vital and the only principle that a king who CHAP. xxiv. Sympathies wholly -with King. 487 cares for his subjects has to stand upon, that I would say a word. ' If he fails, mark what is at hand ! Did you read the letters of Nicholas to Windischgratz and Jellachich ? Were they not enough to make one shudder? These are the threatenings of a dire Slavonic combination to put down popular sove- reignty in the civilised nations by the arms of barbarians. Take your choice. A civilised Christian king maintaining the principle upon which the kingdoms of Europe have stood from their foundation, and willing that this principle should expand with the recognition of constitutional order and of popular liberty; or Nicholas and his Sarmatian hordes. I say not that the last evil can be averted. Only in my san- guine hours do I think it can. That Christ the true King will be manifested through the downfall of thrones and the barbarian anarchy and universal despotism or atheism as well as by the faith of those who own Him, I believe, except in moments of absolute indifference or despair. But as long as the struggle lasts I must sympathise with those who confess Christ, not with those who solemnly in words and acts say, "He shall not reign over us." ' Would you come on Saturday or Sunday evening ?' I only fear introducing the Bible on Friday evening lest it should hinder any from coming. Perhaps I am wrong. I am afraid at the school it is only mischievous.' It was soon afterwards decided to make the meetings at which the Bible should be introduced distinct from the usual Friday gatherings. Of the new meetings the next letter will give an account It was written, like that from Mr. Hughes on p. 427, at a time when (vide p. 212, Vol. II.) Mr. Ludlow was publishing a statement of " the facts " connected with the King's College incident of 1853, and was intending to publish a further volume to be called "The Man," which did not appear. These and other letters were written for the volume on " The Man." 488 Mr. Mansfield s Account of the CHAP. xxiv. To Mr. Ludlow, from Mr. Mansfield. 'Two or three friends, who had found in Mr. Maurice's oral and written teaching help that led them to desire more of his instruction, felt that a closer intercourse, under which he could assist them in a less formal manner, would be a very high privilege. They requested him to allow them to meet at his house occasionally for the purpose of reading the Bible with him. Mr. Maurice at once acceded to the proposal ; a few others, who had been engaged in working under Mr. Maurice's guidance in other matters, were invited by his permission to join the class. 'The party first met in Queen Square on December yth, 1848. It consisted of about a dozen persons besides Mr. Maurice. Their occupations were various : among them were two clergymen ; the other learned professions were represented by men pursuing architecture, engineering and chemistry; a physician and a surgeon were also of the number, which was completed by certain barristers, with a student of Lincoln's Inn, an attorney's clerk, and a French political refugee. These were men of varied shades of feeling and opinion. Some of them had long been earnest students of the sacred volume, having diligently sought its treasures with prayer and medita- tion. There were others whose general veneration for the book which they now met to study had not been permitted by their daily business to take the form of much special appli- cation to its text. One or two had perhaps accepted the traditions about the sacred stories, which their infancy had handed down to their boyhood and to their maturer years, without questioning and without any very earnest considera- tion. Another (or more) had ever clung to the creed of his country, though he may have oscillated round this centre through several shades of semi-sectarian feeling. And there was at least one there who had said in his heart in days gone by, " all men are liars," and having cast off every rag of faith and creed, had shivered in the winter of unbelief. Such a one CHAP. xxiv. Bible Classes at Queen Square. 489 the Divine word by Mr. Maurice's hands and lips had led up out of chaos, here to seek in God's book the things that con- cerned his peace. ' The little congregation was somewhat more uniform in age than in attitude of mind. Yet grey hairs were not wanting there, nor was every beard mature. But by far the majority were young men in the prime of life. There was a steady Tory alongside of an ardent Radical : no decided Whig was there, though the cautious reforming tendencies of one or two might seem to savour a little of Whiggery. There were one or two who would strenuously assert that the doctrines of Whig and Radical were combined in their political creed. Amongst the party there was certainly not one who was quite contented with the world as he found it. ' It was agreed then that Mr. Maurice should preside over the evening studies. It was settled that the meetings should take place once a week, on Mondays usually. No particular plan of study was arranged, nor any formal mode of procedure. Mr. Maurice proposed that the readings should commence with the New Testament, with the Gospels. One or two aspiring minds would have opened at the Book of Revelation. One proposed the books of prophecy. Finally the suggestion of an earnest seeker of first principles, determined that the readings should commence with the first chapter of the Book of Genesis. The only rule that was laid down for the conver- sations which were to ensue, was that every one was to be allowed, and was expected, to say exactly what he might think upon any subject that might arise, addressing always Mr Maurice, and avoiding individual colloquy. Few of the party were regularly silent Some few were more ready than the rest with their questions, explanations, and theories. Mr. Maurice patiently listened to all. His patience was often a valuable example to some who might suppose their neighbours' thoughts followed too slowly or rambled at too fast a rate. The suggestions of each were attended to, often with thanks accepted by him, to whom, each some less deferentially than ot h ers _looked for the elucidation of each passage. Discus- 490 Mr. Mansfield's Account cf the CHAP, xxiv sion was not limited to the text of the passage which had been read. The thoughts of some would diverge from the imme- diate words very far, sometimes perhaps rather vaguely, into the region of History, Science and Art. ' If any present did not care to follow his friend into some question of less interest to his own special habit of inquiry, this was never Mr. Maurice. There can have been no one present at these meetings who did not learn from their presi- dent, besides what he taught them by his words, lessons of courteousness and humility which he can never forget ' At first, and occasionally afterwards, an endeavour was made to establish a special order in the sequence of the speakers. Each was to speak in turn, saying what the verses which had been read suggested to him, of latent meaning, of doubt or of difficulty. But some were slow to speak, others perhaps too ready; and the formal rule whenever imposed soon became forgotten. But whatever was the facility of speech which each might possess, and whatever value each might attach to the suggestion of his neighbour, one feeling was common to all the circle, that whatever Mr. Maurice might say, was more worth listening to than anything else that could be said at that table. There was only one person who was evidently not impressed with this belief that was Mr. Maurice himself. Not a few of those who had the privi- lege to attend those meetings were surprised by the much less inclination shown by their leader to speak himself, than to draw out of each other speaker some truth that might seem to be lurking in some corner of his mind, or struggling at the surface for utterance. Nothing indeed could be more striking than the tact and readiness with which Mr. Maurice seemed to seize the truth for which each was seeking, to put it into words which the student himself could not find. If any one was unintelligible to his fellows, or seemed to be darkening counsel with words without knowledge, it was not the president who judged so ; he would show to each, even when he least suspected it himself, that there was a solid and valuable truth within the cloud that was floating before his eyes, a truth CHAP. xxiv. Bible Classes at Queen Square. 491 which might be grasped and made manifest Thus he would be teaching those around him to think, while with the simplest humility he daily said that he was learning from them, and that they were showing to him new sides of truth at which his own mind had not arrived. Thus he seemed to prefer to draw wisdom out of others ; and at his own table, as in his printed pages, his singular power of recognising the truth in other men's minds and of separating it from the entangling inaccuracies was most frequently exhibited. Yet it was not by this indirect mode only that he would throw light on the subjects discussed. ' When a difficult point had silenced the readiest talkers in the little group, or when an appeal was made directly to him for his opinion, he would speak from within himself. Then the spirit that is within the man would come forth. Perhaps at first as is often the case with the readers of his books men not much in the habit of thinking connectedly, or men, the links of whose thoughts were forged only of the things which they can see with their fleshly eyes, having their spiritual vision hoodwinked some would not fully understand his meaning. Generally, however, as each began to learn humility from his kind teacher (or, as he would have seemed, fellow- student), the difficulties of his words would vanish. By de- grees most of his hearers began to find that the barriers to comprehension lay in the dulness of their own understandings, or in the abstractedness of their own conceptions. It was always to the simple words of Scripture that Mr. Maurice resorted, and when the exquisite acuteness of his intellectual perceptions were employed, it was not in carving fine images but in cutting down the idols of the den and Forum, and in paring smooth the plain sense of God's Word on which fancy had built them up. When thus speaking out of himself, as it were, he seemed utterly unlike the master of a school dogma- tising ex cathedra. He must have seemed to all who heard and saw him like a humble student of God's Word, praying for instruction and meekly imparting to others the light which he hoped he received. Perhaps a few who observed his countenance 492 Mr. Mansfield's Account of the CHAP. xxiv. or the hands which half concealed it as it rested on them during some of the short discourses which they had the privi- lege of hearing from him on some of these occasions, then first realised to themselves how a man can speak with the spirit of God. ' On these occasions he always impressed upon those around him, in the most earnest manner, that the history which they were engaged in studying embodied the law of all history the law of God's dealings with man as manifested in time. He showed that the teachings of the Bible were the same as those of the natural world, to those who will accept them as little children. Man was the centre of God's universe ; to man the sun gave light by day and the moon by night. It was man whom his Father in Heaven was educating ; for whose sake the ground was cursed, and for whose sake the Son was to go down into death. The same struggle that works in every earnest man in this century, between the righteousness of God and the selfishness of the flesh, was tormenting Jacob and David. It was the love of God that was revealed as the law of His dealings in every page. It was hope that we learn from the man whose adulterous flesh led him to murder, who yet in his repentance verified the assertion that he was a man after God's own heart. It was hope that we learn from Him, who preached that the thought of sin was crime, and who yet lived with publicans and sinners. It was the Lord Himself who strove with Jacob as He strives with all men. It was God who hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he and all men might learn that hard as the heart of man may be the Lord must have the victory the victory which is the winning of rebellious man to obedience. ' So the weekly meetings proceeded, interrupted only by the occasional necessary vacation absences of the president. The same little congregation was not invariably present. The avo- cations of several prevented them from regular attendance. There were some, however, who felt that the conversations were to them the most precious hours in each week, to be omitted for no engagement that was not absolutely in exorable. CHAP. xxiv. Bible Classes at Queen Square. 493 ' One or two new guests, as time went on (permission having been duly asked), took the places at the table of some whose professional or other necessities had removed them from the little circle or from London. Tea always occupied the table during the first half-hour while the class was collecting. When that cheerful ceremony was over the Bibles were produced, and Mr. Maurice prepared his guests for the evening study by reading from the sacred volume as much as seemed appro- priate, commencing each evening where he had concluded on the last occasion. In the earlier part of the Book of Genesis, one or but a few verses afforded matter for discussion, which was often not exhausted at one sitting. As the more definite eventual history was entered on, a chapter usually was the subject of each evening's conversation. When, at an hour often too late for Mr. Maurice's health, discussion was ended, a short prayer led by him brought all hearts together before the party dispersed. * Meantime every one who had had the privilege of joining in these readings had felt that, however vague his memory might be of any special elucidation which he had heard, he had gained a knowledge of the meaning of Holy Writ, which was worth more to him than all he could have won by any number of hours of solitary study, or could have gleaned from a very considerable number of sermons.' His own account of these readings, given a few years later, was as follows : ' I was known to a few friends who frequented a Bible class at my house. Our intercourse was of the frankest kind, but this was the foundation of it They found that I was far less accomplished in general science and literature than numbers of my order, than most of themselves, but that I regarded the knowledge of God as the key to all other knowledge, as that which connected knowledge with life. They found that I accepted the Bible as the interpretation of the history of man- kind. They found, as they might have expected, that I did 494 His own Account of the Classes. CHAP. xxiv. not demand that they should bring that conviction with them. They might if they pleased bring just the opposite conviction. They might think that the Bible was no better than any other book, or that it was a worn-out book. The truth, it seemed to me, would establish itself. I at least was not afraid to subject that belief which had possession of me to any test. I thought that it would only be proved and spread if it was brought to the severest test. ' If the Bible shrank from difficulties, if it needed some pre- liminary evidence to show that such difficulties ought not to be fairly met, if it had not a stronger evidence in itself than all the ingenuity of apologists could supply, it was not the book which I took it to be, it had not the power for which I had given it credit. I desired, therefore, that all who read it with me should express their thoughts of what they read with entire freedom. I had no confidence that any wit or reasonings of mine would be able to change their thoughts ; I had the greatest confidence that a Wisdom higher than theirs or mine could impart itself to them.'* The importance of these classes as affecting the form of all my father's later writings was very great. If others were afraid to speak out difficulties and objections, Mr. Ludlow at all events was not. He always purposely played the part of Devil's Advocate, knowing well what other men were thinking, and often too shy to acknowledge. This drew out the thoughts of others, and in this way my father acquired a knowledge of the actual difficulties, doubts and objections of the more thoughtful laymen of his time such as few clergymen either have or attempt to have. Indirectly these classes had two other effects. When books appeared in which he met the objections whkh men of earnest thought were putting forward in all lay societies, those of the clergy and those dissenting ministers with whom it had become a habit to imagine that they could stifle inquiry by snubbing thought, were aghast at the frank statement of earnest objections, to which he did full * 'Working Men's College Magazine,' vol. iii., p. 14. CHAP. xxiv. Their Great Effect on his Writings. 495 justice before he answered them. These men believed that he was inventing arguments which they had never heard because they had carefully closed their ears. On the other hand from all parts of the country clergy and laity, who had become aware that one man at least believed that the faith in Christ was strong enough to face fairly its adversaries and need not bury its head in the sand in order to avoid them, poured in letters upon him. In this way, therefore, he acquired an acquaintance yet more extended with the thought of his age. 496 After a Visit to Kingsley. CHAP. xxr. CHAPTER XXV. " Many things seem to me miraculous, which men think nothing of, such as memory, by which we live again in place and time . . . and the love of one another, by which we are led out of ourselves, and made to act against our own nature by that of another, or, rather, by a higher nature than that of any of us ; and a thousand fancies and feelings which have no adequate cause among outward things." John Inglesant. 1849 HE IS ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED TO MISS HARE ACCOUNT OF DAILY LIFE AND WORK TO HER HARE*S LETTER 'THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS' RELIGION WITHOUT GOD MEETINGS WITH THE WORKING MEN, CHART- ISTS, ETC. NEWSPAPER ATTACKS FROUDE'S 'NEMESIS OF FAITH' APOLOGIA IN REPLY TO DR. JELF THE STERLING CLUB FURTHER MEETINGS WITH CHARTISTS MARRIAGE. To Rev. C, Kingsley. ' Bradley, Newton Abbot, January 2, 1849. ' God be with you and return upon you and your children all the love you showed me those few days I was with you. They are very bright days in my life ; sent perhaps to prepare me for some dark ones, though that is a faithless thought, and one which I could only write down because I am sure both dark and bright ones are all meant to prepare us for the day of which we spoke so much, and which we were sure would be full of brightness for those who looked for it and welcomed it. I will tell you one day in what my visit especially interested me. I felt that sympathy and love can bring music out of any instrument ; mine is often sadly jarred and out of tune and gives forth nothing but harsh notes. But when you played upon it I found that good could come out of it. In fact, I was F. D. M. 43. Eternity in Every Hour. 497 quite surprised how much I knew and what good things I uttered ; all which you must take the credit of; otherwise you will make me a coxcomb, which I am sure you would be sorry to do. ' God bless you again and again, and the rosebud,* and my dear godson.' To Miss G. Hare. (Then very ill and recently engaged to him.) 'January 13, 1849. ' I have learned that we must take the good of the day and give thanks for it, and that sufficient for each day is its own evil. There is a depth in those words which I have never sounded, and which we never shall even approach till we try to act upon them, an effort I have scarcely made yet, or made most weakly. I suppose all changes and revolutions are to show us the need of it ; that our heads may not become quite dizzy with the novelties that any hour brings with it, and that we may find eternity in every hour. The more we know of love the less will time have to do with us ; the better we shall understand that our life does not consist of successive instants, but that there is a wholeness and unity in it which it derives from its connection with the life of God. I am sure you have felt how many years there may be gathered up in a few minutes. Did we not learn something of it last week ? past, present and future seemed to be wonderfully blended, and so indeed they were ; and God has, I am sure, various ways of teaching us that they are ' I am giving a course of sermons on the Prayer Book, and am just come to the First Lesson. I shall have to speak much of the Old Testament as the witness of the sacredness of earth and of its everlasting truth on that ground, besides its being a preparation for the revelation of the unseen kingdom.' 'January 15, 1849. ' Your letter to-day was especially comforting and delightful to me. " Peace I leave with you " has always seemed to me * Miss Rose Kingsley. VOL. I. 2 K 49 8 Danger of a Husband's Committing CHAP. xxv. nearly the most lovely and blessed sentence in the New Testa- ment, our Lord's own word in the highest and fullest sense. That it should be peace itself not peace if our state of mind is fit to receive it, but the gift of the state of mind is very divine. It seems Christ giving Himself (indeed it must be this) ; is our Peace.' Also to Miss G. Hare. ' January 16, 1849. ' I am writing a lecture to-day which I am to deliver to- morrow evening in the city. It is addressed to the members of some evening classes which have been opened by some of the clergy for the young men who are busy all day in the shops. I shall not take any further part in them ; but I hope some may be established of the same kind at this end of London, or possibly I may have a class at King's College. ' January 20, 1849. ' Let me always hear as much as you can of the growth and formation of your character, and of all the persons who have beneficially or even hurtfully influenced it. All such records are of unspeakable value, and no one should prize them so much as a husband. He does not come in to set aside any of his wife's previous education, or to put himself in place of all other influences, past or future, but only, when he does best, to gather them up direct and harmonise them. I am sure exclusiveness in him is a special sin, and one which draws a number of others after it. I conceive much of the alienation and bitterness which one reads of in the stories of married life, and of which one sees far more than in books, and the roots of which lie in ourselves arise in a great measure from the incapacity of the husband to recognise the earlier habits and tendencies of her mind, and his determination that she shall be cast, whether she will or not, into his mould ; so she does not really reflect the image of his higher and inner life, but only of his tastes, prejudices, likings, antipathies. A man must either do as Day, the author of " Sandford and Merton " did, take a child and bring her up for himself which did not answer in F. D. M. 43. Pygmalion's Mistake. 499 his case or any other I ever heard of and could only produce a miserable dwarf product of his own narrow understanding ; or he must take a living creature whom God has formed, and believe that He has managed the matter more wisely than any of His wise servants could. God forbid that I should have anything to do with any one who was my handiwork. If he had been judicious, Pygmalion would sooner have fallen in love with the work of some other artist, even if it were only of stone, than with his own.' 'January 26, 1849. ' We begin the term here in the theological department with prayers, a sermon and Communion. Trench preached to-day quite in his own style ; that is to say, with more of the spirit than of the understanding, though no want of that I miss something in his preaching more than in his books ; I do not quite know what it is. But I believe the deficiency added to the effect of this sermon, and I have no doubt it improves his usefulness generally. To have been intimate so long as we have been, we are very unlike, and I sometimes fear that we do not thoroughly know each other ; from reserve on his side, or mine, or both. Nevertheless, I love and admire him very heartily; the fault is, I suppose, that we never quarrelled enough ' But I was going to tell you about the Communion, which I found very good and helpful, more so I think than it generally is. The sense of responsibility at the sight of between fifty and sixty men, all intended for orders and all in some degree under my own charge, mixed with some few whom we have already sent forth, seemed to make the support of the service necessary ' I do not look forward with any oppression or dismay to the work of this term, though I hope not without fear and self- distrust and a wish to feel the work more. It is a very great work we are engaged in ; there is no use in denying it ; and I often feel as if I ought to have a deeper sense than I have of being called to work in some way for the reformation of the 2 K 2 500 " When the fire is in" and Other Times. CHAP. xxv. Church. Sometimes I do feel it very strongly and begin to gird myself to the work ; and then comes a shame over me as if I had no business to think that I was born to set things right. But the fact is that one can only speak when the fire is in one's heart, and that when it is, one must speak, in spite of diffidence, despair, and all the devils outside and within one. Also to Miss G. Hare, 'January 27, 1849. ' What your brother said about the awfulness of ordinations and of weddings I am sure is true, though the truth is one which I have very imperfectly realised. I think I have been taught more to look upon the ordained state and the marriage state as the proper, appointed, reasonable condition of human beings, and having pressed this feeling too far or at least too exclusively, have somewhat dulled my sense of the grandeur and strangeness of the acts which bring us into them. . . .' [He then repeats what he said on the subject of his ordination to Mr. Woollcombe. See p. 245.] ' I do look forward some day to intenser and livelier impressions ; to seeing and feeling everything as it verily is, in its inmost power and meaning. But at present I must wait, remembering the words, " if a man send his servant to plough or feed cattle, doth he say : first do thou eat and drink ; doth he not say : gird thyself that thou mayst serve me and then after that . . . ." which I take to mean that we are first to trust God and glorify Him and do His work, and that He will give us blessed impressions and keen joys when He finds we can bear them. But all honour and blessing to those whom He thinks worthy of them, and to whom He sends them ! ' ' February i, 1849. ' I have a good deal of hard work to do in the next few months, so you must consider whether you can do anything to reward me at the end of them. I have, besides my regular lectures at King's and Queen's College, to revise my Moral F. D. M. 43. "// i s not you which speak!' 501 Philosophy article, some of which will have to be written, to write over again my Warburton lectures, and to bring out if I can some sermons on the Prayer Book which I have been delivering since the Sunday before Advent, and which I am anxious to publish, as they explain why I cleave to our services as the best deliverance from all the systems and schools which claim them for their own. I must also write a series of letters to Unitarians ; the first I have done, and my conscience smites me for not having gone on with the task, to which I believe I am both outwardly and inwardly called. I shall have much to say to you of it another day, as it concerns all my past life and thoughts.' ' February 6, 1849. ' You are mistaken that I am overworked. The sense of time lost and seemingly wasted certainly oppresses me more than any duties, which really fill up a very short portion of my day. I could do ten times as much as far as mere physical strength goes. But I am naturally most indolent, and neglect every work to which I am not obliged ; and therefore I am glad to be obliged. I dream sometimes of times when one might have more inward and less outward business ; but after forty years' experience I find that the inward is not better in my case but worse, for want of the outward, and that I really seek God most when I need His help to enable me to do what He has set me to do. I think I have learned by many proofs that the words " It is not you which speak but the spirit of your Father which is in you " are always true, and that we ought always to remember them and to depend upon them. And when I am forced to speak and have not leisure for all the preparation I should think desirable, my faith is more called out than at almost any other time.' ' February 7, 1849. ' I heard something just now which seems too good to be true, and which I don't qurte believe, as so many things of the kind are said to please writers. It is that my sermons on the Lord's Prayer were of some use to poor Hartley Coleridge, 5O2 Hartley Coleridge. CHAP. xxv. who died at the Lakes about a month ago. He was a beautiful fallen spirit, overcome by one accursed habit, with his father's weakness of will, but with a freshness and geniality and nobleness which are very rare and which made him the delight of all the people among whom he dwelt, especially the poor. He seems to have died most sincerely penitent for the prostration of his great powers and for all that was wrong in him, and I doubt not has more knowledge of God's forgiving love than most of us who have been outwardly more re- spectable. Ihave often mourned, though not as I ought, for him, and it would indeed be a cause of thanksgiving if God had permitted me in anywise to repay the debt which I feel I owe to his father, a man whom I can never cease to reverence for what he taught me, though I think I am as sensible ot his errors as any one can be.' Also to Miss G. Hare. 'February 10, 1849. ' I am going to give a lecture this evening to governesses, and generally on Saturday evenings. They are part of a gra- tuitous course which we are beginning at Queen's College for those who cannot come out in the day, being already engaged in situations. My subjects are the Scriptures one week and Moral Philosophy the next. I will tell you my business for the week that you may know where I am at different times. 8 A.M. every morning, except Sunday, at Lincoln's Inn, Prayers. 9.45 A.M., Monday, Queen's College, Moral Philo- sophy ; 1.45 P.M., Queen's College, Scriptures. Tuesday, at 9 A.M., Ecclesiastical History, first three centuries, King's College ; 2.30 P.M., General History. Wednesday, at 9 A.M., Ecclesiastical History, first three centuries ; 10.30 A.M., Ecclesiastical History, eighteenth century. Thursday, 11.30 A.M., Pearson on the Creed; 1.30 P.M., English Composition. Friday, 1.30 P.M., English History. Saturday, n.o A.M., Ecclesiastical History, thirteenth century. Saturday evening as aforesaid. Sunday, at n A.M. and 3 P.M., at Lincoln's Inn Chapel. There you have my week, which you see is F. D. M. 43. Current Work and Thoughts. 503 very poorly filled up, so you must not complain on that ground. . . .' 'February 12, 1849. ' I have been writing a long letter, since I finished my lecture at Queen's College, to a poor young pupil of mine at Cambridge, whose most intimate friend has just become a Romanist, and who is much shaken by it He wants to give up his mathematical reading and plunge at once into the controversy, which I have earnestly conjured him not to do. Poor young English men ! what a state they are in. Endless puzzles, and without any guide in whom they can trust May God show them the true guide ! ' ' February 13, 1849. 'I was at Mr. Short's last night, where we read the Scriptures with some of the district visitors and King's College pupils. These words, " they are not of the world even as I am not of the world," which caused some discussion, have seemed to me very wonderful and wise. The fact of being on the earth but not belonging to it, not being a child of it but of God, came upon me with a new and surprising force as I thought upon it this morning. I should like you to think my thought or a better one of the kind; will you try?' 'February 14, 1849. ' If I could see my way clearly I would, both for your sake and the boys, seek for some employment in the country, but at present I hardly feel as if I ought to change my calling for any other, but we can never tell what new duties may open upon us, and how soon we may be turned out of our old positions. Mine at King's College, I suspect, may not be very secure ; indeed, in this age of distrust and fear, no clergyman who thinks and speaks strongly, and not exactly in the prescribed mode of thinking and speaking, can reckon upon the tolerance of his superiors and equals for a long time. He must be ready for kicks and cuffs. And public bodies and episcopal person- ages cannot afford to stand by a man if there is any strong run against him. They must not, as they say, compromise them- 504 Hares 'Life of Sterling' CHAP. xxv. selves. I always, therefore, regard myself as a tenant at will who may be ejected at a very short notice. More than once I have asked myself whether I ought not to relieve my em- ployers of any uncomfortable suspicions that may rest upon them, on my account, by resigning ; but I believe the time for that is not come, and that they would at present be, on the whole, rather sorry than glad to part with me. It may be otherwise in a very short time.' Also to Miss G. Hare, ' February 16, 1849. 'You are quite right about the conduct of Mr. H. and others to Miss Sellon. But I cannot forgive Dr. Pusey for spoiling so noble an enterprise by his offensive pedantries and his deter- mination that they should follow his spiritual direction. The ladies are admirable ; it is we men who spoil them by our wicked party controversies in one sect and another.' Hare's 'Life of Sterling' had led to a series of attacks from different quarters. The " religious " newspapers which my father had been denouncing for so many years were delighted with the chance which the story of a brother-in-law who had adopted sceptical opinions offered them to suggest that no doubt his own views were not really very different. Notably also in an article in the English Review, to the causes of which I shall have occasion subsequently to refer, a Mr. William Palmer of Worcester College took the opportunity to class together as identical in opinion a body of men who represented almost every conceivable variety of thought, and were most of them as opposed to my father as to Mr. Palmer himself. Blanco White, Carlyle, Sterling, John Stuart Mill any names that could be referred to as representing opinions which a clergyman might be condemned for holding were catalogued with any clergymen with whom Mr. Palmer disagreed, no matter how much the men named also differed from one another. The main onus of the attack was directed against my father and Archdeacon Hare. F. D. M. 43. Hare's Letter, and F. D. M.'s to Hare. 505 This attack led in the spring of 1849 to Archdeacon Hare's Letter to the writer of the English Review article, " Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbour," with which was published also a letter from my father to him, to which allusion will be found in the letters which will follow. It would be tedious to reopen a buried war of words, the right and wrong of which must be judged from the whole tenor of my father's life ; but the following extract from his letter is strictly bio- graphical and will show what the real issue was. It was the old question of the mode of dealing with " sceptics," whom the Record and the English Review, the organs of the two opposite parties, would have agreed to anathematise and to pass by. ' The " Reviewer " will no doubt appeal to your Memoir in proof that his view of the way in which doubts should be treated is right and mine wrong, that the exclusive theory of the Church is ths safe one, the other perilous. You have tried your plan, he will say triumphantly; behold the result/ I answer, the more boldly, because with bitter shame : Experience in this particular instance, as much as reason, as much as Scripture, convinces me that your method is a fatal one ; that the one farthest removed from it is the right and godly one. It is easy to lay down rules, it is another thing to act upon them. I believed many years ago that I ought to sympathise with those who differed from me most widely. I did not follow out my own faith. I engaged in arguments when I should have sought for the truth which was in the heart of him who was disputing with me. I did not enter into his difficulties, often excused the scandals in our practice, which his conscience rightly condemned, often (showing a very slight acquaintance with German theological literature myself) showed impatience of his devotion to it, endeavoured to force upon him my own vehement nationality. I can testify and though I have no wish to make a confession, for the sake of others I must to the evil effects of this treatment. Just so far as I followed the maxims of the English Review, and I did follow them to a sad extent, just so far I am certain that I did him a moral 506 " A Man of War against all Parties" CHAP. xxv. injury, which it is bitter suffering to reflect upon. And I can testify as strongly to the entirely opposite and gentle and altogether Christianising influence which was produced on his mind by the frank, genial, cordial spirit in which he was met by two men whom even the Reviewer will scarcely suspect of any tolerance for his opinions, Archdeacon Manning, and a dear friend of my college days, Mr. Marriott of Oriel. They showed him more sympathy than I did, precisely because their moral and spiritual tone was much more elevated ; and so I believe the case will be always. To them, and to Trench, and to you, belong the honour and the blessed recollection of having cheered and soothed his spirit, and given him the hope that the Church might still become a reality ; to me belongs the deserved shame of finding that a reviewer has to prove by a collection of paragraphs that I was acquainted with a man whom I knew intimately for twenty years, and to whom I owe more than one human being almost ever owed to another. Upon the other and more general question I can speak as confidently. I am certain that he was more alienated from us by what seemed to him the meanness and dishonesty of our different religions and schools, than by all the Strausses and Baurs. If I had wanted evidence, his case would be suffi- cient to convince me that we have nothing to fear from them, provided only we resolve to reform ourselves. May we be enabled, my dear friend, to engage heartily in that work ! We must encounter the hostility of all religious parties and journals, but we may look humbly and trustfully for the help and blessing of God.' To Miss G. Hare. ' February 17, 1849. 'Julius's letter, with mine at the end, will reach you I suppose on Tuesday. It is a subject indeed for confession in Lent that such disputes should be going on. I feel that one suffers by any contact with them. Yet the word I believe was to be spoken, and I feel that I am to be a man of war against all parties, that I may be a peacemaker between all men. It is a roundabout way, and one that makes the feet sore. Oh 1 F. D. M. 43 . " A Peacemaker Between all Men" 507 that it may lead to the right end. I suppose the pamphlet will show experienced eyes like yours wherein I do not, as well as where I do, agree with Julius. But I have no wish to separate my cause from his.' ' February 19, 1849. ' I agree with you that the collect and epistle for yesterday* are the real introduction to Lent, telling us both what we have to confess and in what strength we must confess. The want of love we can only acknowledge in the power of love. And it seems to me that the refusal to believe ourselves in God's love and to tell others of it by our lips and our lives, is the great sin of all that which is weighing the Church down and is pressing upon each individual conscience, but especially upon the conscience of every priest. The words, " They would not enter the Kingdom of Heaven themselves, nor suffer those that were entering to go in," are very much present to my mind. ' I feel that it is so ; that there are multitudes of spirits yearning for light and life, striving to press in after them, perhaps by strange irregular paths, whom we drive to despair, and who are fully convinced that we ourselves care nothing for the blessing which we profess that we are sent to bestow freely, and which they would die to obtain. It is a very dreadful reckoning I am sure that we shall be called to speedily, and how little we are prepared for it ! To go on eating and drinking to the day before the flood is not so bad as to go on railing and disputing, and I am afraid we are guilty of both sins. We are not the less given to self-indul- gence, in the ordinary sense, because we find another cheaper luxury in calling names. I would not throw stones, for every one comes back to myself, and I feel truly that there is no bitterness in any one's heart in which I am not a sharer. Would that I could seek and find deliverance for others and myself too.' * Quinquagesima Sunday. 508 Miss Sellon ; the Commination Service. CHAP, xxv Also to Miss G. Hare. ' Ash Wednesday, February 21, 1849. ' The story of Miss Sellon I have been considering since I wrote to you last, and am inclined to feel very strongly in her favour and to look upon the whole transaction as a great cause for shame and humiliation. It seems as if there were to be no effort for the good of poor children which is not marred by some cruel interference. 'There must be something fearfully wrong in our whole moral condition which we have need to ask fervently should be redressed. I incline more and more to think that the evil lies where you said, in our refusal to acknowledge God as the author and giver of all good things, and to consider rather how we are to climb up to Him than how He has manifested Himself to us. It seems to me that we have built up our religion as much as our philosophy and politics without Him, and that He must be confessed as the ground of all these, or they will tumble down and leave the most fearful wreck all around us. No one, I believe, knows the extent of confusion and perplexity which there is in the minds of young men at the present day, nor the little hope they have of coming out of it, nor their readiness to turn anywhere for the help which they cannot find among divines. Would that I could speak what I feel sometimes is in me ; but it must come out in acts more than words, and God can find other and better instru- ments, and I am sure will. Yet sometimes it is a fire within me which I could wish should consume me and many things besides me.' ' February 22, 1849. ' I am sure you are right about the Commination Service. It is not a harsh or a hard one except against the enemies of man, those whom every man wishes to be destroyed in his inmost heart, even while his flesh clings to them. There is no real gospel which is not a sentence of death and damnation upon these. But we are to rejoice and to bid others rejoice F. D. M 43- Hare's Point of View, and His Own. 509 in the fires which are sent to burn up whatever defiles man and makes the earth unfit for his dwelling-place.' ' February 24, 1849. ' I have always felt the difference you speak of between my views of the position of the English Church, and Julius's ; but I think his knowledge and my ignorance evidently point us out for different spheres of thought and action. I am content to be strictly national, and so make the best of our national treasures ; he has been nourished on German food, and I do not suppose any other would have been as suitable to his con- stitution or would have sustained him so well. I often feel bitterly the want of his gifts, but I believe there are some to whom I could not speak as well if I had them, or at all events if my mind were not cast in a more English mould. And I think that though he has the culture which people most look for and prize in this day, and though he is quite inclined to use it for the noblest objects, there are points upon which I can sympathise with the minds of young men, even of restless Germanising young men, better than he can; from having been more cast among them, and having less of the habits and modes of thinking of an older generation. His letter is I think essentially good, though it has some of his peculiarities. By the way, is it not too bad that they should make me spell after his fashion when I adhere most religiously to the old orthodox practice ? That is uniformity against unity, I must maintain. . . . ' The boys have just run into the room and want me to do a great many things to entertain them this rainy day. Edmund expresses great surprise that Freddy does not like his cod-liver oil. " Freddy," he says, " calls it nasty, but I take it on my part not to believe him." ' 'March 2, 1849. ' The words of St. Paul, v/hich have always been very great ones in my mind, have seemed more than ever full of meaning at times this week : " When it pleased God to reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him among the Gentiles." It seems to me that until God reveals His Son in us, we cannot 5 io What is 'the Gospel' ? Coleridge as Critic. preach Him so that people shall really feel we are speaking to them of that which concerns them, and which they want to hear. The Gospel is, " Christ is with you, and in you, and He is in me." I cannot live except it were so, nor can you. I can live because it is so ; and you can do the same. But the preaching of Christ out of a book, as if He whom we read of in the Gospels was not actually our Lord, the Lord of our spirits, is very poor work. Let the phrases which describe Him be as Evangelical or as Catholic as they may, the hungry sheep look up and are not fed; there is no real approach made to the centre and citadel of men's hearts. I feel more and more the importance of the history, of the history in its simplest, most direct form. But I believe we cannot read the Gospels simply and directly, except we consider them the revelation of Him upon earth who is the light that lighteneth us and all men, whether they walk in His sight or dwell in darkness. Jesus is not the Christ, not the Son of God, if He is not this. And yet our preachers do not seem to perceive this. They hold our inward relation to Christ as a sort of high refined notion, but it is not one which they will take to beggars and reprobates, who want it as much as any, and perhaps will take it in as readily.' ' March 2, 1849. ' MY DEAR STRACHEY, ' I intended long ago to have thanked you for the " Hamlet," which I read with much attention and with persons whose judgment in questions of the kind I reckon much above my own Charles Kingsley and his wife. He differed with you, I think, in a good many points, and I confess you seem to me to overrate the worth of Coleridge's criticism and to make it too much your standard. Nevertheless we read it with great interest, and I hope learnt a great deal from you. What I object to in Coleridge generally as a critic is his tendency to abstraction ; his acquired incapacity for looking straight at a man, and his passion for conceiving him under some forms and conditions which, if they belong, as I readily admit they do, to a higher logic than the ordinary one, are for that very F. D. M. 43. What was the Bible Meant to Tell? 5 1 1 reason apt to deceive more and to put themselves forth as adequate substitutes for life and humanity. I think your style, and in some degree your critical faculty, has suffered from too close following of him as your guide. In revising my " Modern Moral Philosophy," which is to be published separately, I can now see how much I lost of simplicity in the study of great living books like the Scriptures, from being addicted to formulas, which my understanding, educated by a much higher one,* supplied. I think the men much more men than I perceived them to be, though I had a strong dim faith that they were. And I have the pain of turning the ground again to get rid of my own fine notions and big strutting periods, and to show that the search after wisdom was indeed a true search by true seekers after a true thing which had first sought for them. ' I object to the bookf of (whom personally I like) on this ground. He seems to me to think that the Bible was meant to save some people's souls and to make them good and gentlemanly in their ways of going on, and not that it was meant to tell us of God and His ways to us. ' He would turn the Bible into a religious book, and cut out whatever might not be found in Doddridge's " Rise and Pro- gress " as superfluous. Whereas, so far as I can see, it is a book of work and business and politics, a book emphatically declaring the way in which He who made man in His own image had revealed himself to them a book explaining and illustrating and justifying other common books, heathen and Christian, philosophical and economical, and not the least in the world like Doddndge or any other treatise about the soul, which by the bye the Bible always speaks very slightingly of; while and the like of him make it the object of worship. Depend upon it, if he had written a book that contained some deep truth that was to move men's spirits to their centre, or to set them at rest again, he would not put it under a bushel for all the prudent counsellors in the world. The fire would be in his heart while he was arranging his knick-knacks and watering * Le. by Coleridge. f A book printed for private distribution only, 512 The Fire Breaking Out ! CHAP. xxv. his flowers at D , and it would come out though it burnt up the pretty cottage and ground and church and all Borrow- dale and Derwentwater. He is a man who takes things com- fortably ; warming his hands by the fire, but it will never burn or scorch him in the least. A very pleasant, well-behaved, harmless speculator indeed, who will make people quite right if they will only submit to give up all that is worrying them, and will praise all great heroes living and dead, if they keep their distance and don't really turn the world in his day upside down. No ! No ! we have our good-natured Erasmuses, along with OUT Tetzels and Cajitans, along with our Ulrich Von Huttens, along with hosts of earnest unbelievers, and some real waiters for the Kingdom of Heaven- But the Luther that shall show that the foundations stand sure and that faith has something to rest upon, and that the Bible is more a whole, more true and precious than ever it was where is he to be found ? What a nest of hornets, Leos, Cajitans, Tetzels, Eras- muses, CEcolampadiuses, with all earnest and unearnest un- believers, and a great many really devout people, will he gather about him ! God help him ! He will get few friends on earth, and the devils in hell will give him work enough. * About the Prayer Book I must answer you another time. I do not want to force any one to like it ; nor do I care a six- pence for it as a piece of fine composition. I never called it " an excellent liturgy " in my life, and hope I never shall. But it has helped me to see more of the love of God and of the bonds by which men are knit to each other, and to feel more hope as to those whom I should naturally regard as foes, than any other book except the Bible. It is my protection and the protection of the Church against Anglicanism and Evan- gelicalism and Liberalism and Romanism and Rationalism, and till these different devils cease to torment us, I will, with God's help, use this shield against them, whether other people prefer their party prayers to it or not. You say I must let people be as narrow as they like. To be sure I must ; how can I help it? But if God has provided me with a witness that there is a ground of fellowship and comprehension, can I F. D. M. 43. " The only wcrk I desire? 5 \ 3 hold my tongue and not say so, because I may chance to offend some of my dear friends who are asserting their un- doubted, inalienable English right to hate and curse one another? For whether these men know it or not, there are hundreds and thousands of men and women in their own communions groaning under the burden of sectarianism, long- ing for deliverance from it, and ready to fly into Atheism or anywhere else from it. The question is simply, to which class we shall address ourselves. There need be no quarrelling between you and your herdsmen and me and mine. If you go to the east, I go to the west My vocation is with the dis- contented, wearied, hopeless, with all that are in debt and disgrace, with outcasts and ragamuffins in the different bodies. If you find that you succeed better with the easy, sleek, com- fortable Sectarian who wants compromises and indulgences, by all means do your best with him. I shall not interfere. To treat with him is the way to keep things going ; but I have no notion that things can be kept going upon our present ground of mutual hatred and suspicion. The end of that rotten system must be at hand, and the only work I desire is that of preparing people for it, by showing them that there is a Rock to stand upon when the rains descend and the winds blow.' The friends were at this time seeking some practical method of reaching the working classes, and were anxious, if possible, to arrange for meetings with them at which they should be induced to talk over their actual views, grievances, and wishes. The difficulty lay in getting at the really leading and thinking men among them, and the subject in all its bearings was now foremost in the weekly discussions. To Mis* G. Hard 'March 3, 1849. * .... Thank you very much for entering so heartily into my working-class meetings, about which I was anxious for your opinion as I am about the whole issue of them not much VOL. i. 2 L 5 14 The Evil and the Good in Man, CHAP, xxv as to the construction that may be put upon my conduct, be- cause if one is doing right, that signifies next to nothing, but as to the effect of them upon the people themselves. I need your best prayers that I may be taught to speak right things, and not words out of my own heart. ' I was at one of the horrid charity dinners yesterday, for the Governesses' Institution. One good thing happened at it. After numbers of noble donors of $ and ;io had been an- nounced and duly applauded, a gentleman said he had a small piece of paper to give us from a lady who was not present, but who had passed through some trials herself and felt for the sufferers of her sex. It was a cheque from Jenny Lind for ^200.' Also to Miss G. Hare. ' March 5, 1849. ' We are very evil, each part is so ; separate from God the whole is so, but in Him all is redeemed, and raised, and recon- stituted, and if we desire to abide in Him, and to remember His love and to love by the spirit He gives us, we shall find how it is that He looks upon us as very good, in spite of what we seem to ourselves, and in spite of the unbelief which makes us so unlike our own true form and image. It is a great mystery, but this is so about you and me and every one ; daily expe- rience assures us of the wrong, daily faith must assure us of the right. The faith that we are redeemed and justified, made new creatures and children of God, which faith expresses itself in thanks to God that we are, when our feelings all seem to speak the opposite language and to say it is impossible, this faith does indeed remove mountains from one's heart and enables us to live as Christ's free men in spite of world, and flesh, and devil I could not get rid of despondency in any other way ; not that I do not prize every gleam of sunshine and every good word which maketh the heart glad, but that I conceive all these to be God's messages to us telling us that He is, and is with us, and cares for us, and that we are to cast ourselves upon Him. Oh ! if one had to depend upon the state of one's feelings, changes F. D. M. 43- Misery of Dependence on Moods. 5 1 5 of one's temperament ! If God left us to these ! But He is and therefore may we trust at all times, and in all places, and in all moods of minds. It does not signify much whether the body is weak or the mind weak, God can take care of both. Christ poured forth His soul to death, as well as gave up His body, and trusted under the sense of being lost It is that trust which stands us in stead, trust when there is nothing in past, present, or future, in anything one can see, hear, re- member in others or oneself to lean upon. Then we know God. The bush is burning and not consumed. He is in it. . . . To-night I have a terrible prospect before me, actually a speech in Exeter Hall about closing shops early. Even to hear which would be bad enough, but to deliver it, a thing I never did before ! But as it is to be done, I must get through it somehow or break down, which I think one should have faith not to do. I don't like the job, so I suppose it is the particu- larly suitable one for me.' ' March 8, 1849. ' Do you know I am sympathising with you now in body as well as in spirit ? Yesterday my voice, how or why I know not, left me, and I speak much about your level. I tried read- ing the prayers in the morning at Lincoln's Inn, but I suppose very few heard me. My lectures I was obliged to give up altogether. I have no pain, simply the voice is not there, and I must do as well as I may without it till it comes again. ' I do not know whether any one has shown you the Record about me. They are making a very dead set at me, saying I have no business to be at King's College, and so on. They make out the charge by quoting all I said about systems in my letter, omitting what I said about the Prayer Book and Articles, and then insinuating that I wanted to include them in my condem- nation. This is the way things are done now in the religious world, and I am not at all worse treated than my neighbours.' a L 2 516 The Sterling Club. CHAP. xxv. Also to Miss G. Hare. 'Maich 9, 1849. * .... Storm is certainly rising and the newspapers are going to send hailstones upon us. What do you think is the last charge ? That the three Wilberforces, Manning, Allen, Julius, three writers in Punch, Trench and I belong to a club estab- lished in honour of Sterling the fact being that we are all members of a club which meets at the Freemasons' Tavern to dine once a month, and which no one is obliged to frequent, originally established by Sterling and called by his name on that account. He himself wished some other name to be adopted, and implied that it ought to be changed when his views had become what he thought would be offensive ; but as the meetings were so entirely private, and not one in ten attached any significance to his name, and his friends con- nected it with their private feelings towards him, they refused. Think of this being the subject of a long article which is copied to-day into the Morning Herald and will be into the Standard. Alas ! what are we come to, and what shall we come to ? Love and Truth seem to lose all connection with the name of religion, and God to be utterly forgotten by those who use His name every moment I wish to confess the sins of the time as my own. Ah ! how needful do I feel it, for the sins of others produce such sin in me and stir up my unsanctified nature so terribly. How one should feel that every idle word that one speaks may spread mischief and misery into hundreds of hearts and kindle up the wrong that is in them, and perhaps check many a true-hearted man in his duties. Let us pray to keep our tongues from evil and our lips that they speak no guile. How quickly the guile gets in, and pours itself out.' To Rev. C. Kingsley. ' March 9, 1849. 'Mv DEAR FRIEND, ' I have done your bidding and read Froude's book (the ' Nemesis of Faith '), with what depth of interest I need not tell you. It is a very awful and I think may be a very F. D. M. 43- Froudes 'Nemesis of Faith! 517 profitable book. Yes, God would not have permitted it to go forth if He did not mean good to come out of it. For myself I have felt more than ever since I read it how impossible it is to find any substitute for the old faith. If after all that expe- rience a man cannot ask the God of Truth to give him His Spirit of Truth to guide him into all truth, what is left ? but just what he describes doubt not merely of existence, but of doubt itself, doubt whether every superstition may not be real, every lie a fact. It is undoubted that such a state of mind is possible, yes, is near to all of us ; Froude is no false witness. But if it is possible there must be some one to bring us out of it, clearly the deliverance is not in ourselves. And what is the Bible after all but the history of a deliverer of God proclaim- ing Himself as man's deliverer from the state into which he is ever ready to sink, a state of slavery to systems, superstitions, the world, himself, Atheism ? The book is good for this, it brings us to the root of things, and there is nothing, or there is God. It is good for this, it shows that God must come forth and do the work for us, and that all the religions we make for ourselves, whatever names we give them, are miserable muti- lated attempts to fashion Him after our image, with yet such fragments of truth as show that we are formed in His. What is His admirable sketch of Newmanism and its effects but a declaration of this truth ? In fact the whole book read back- wards, aye or forwards either, is a book of evidences which to my mind at least is worth all Paley and Lardner. I know what you mean about the passages which tormented and upset you. Do not suppose that I do not expect them to have that effect and that I did not feel them myself. Do not suppose that I do not know what it must be to any young man to have these difficulties about the character of God in the Old Testa- ment set before him as they are in the first letters. But then consider this : where did he get that feeling about God being a Righteous Being one in whom he might absolutely trust which he says gave him his horror of these representations ? Surely from the very book in which he seemed to find them. That book bore witness to his heart that there is such a Being 518 Fronde's "Nemesis of Faith' CHAP. xxv. and that such a Being revealed Himself to Abraham, Moses, the Prophets. If there is such a one, if he is sure there is, could he not have cast himself upon Him and said Show me whether I am really seeing these things rightly or not, whether these dark views which I seem to receive from this book are really there, or are brought there by me. I am quite certain about the result of such trust as this. I am quite certain that we do not become reconciled to any confused or manichsean views of God, but that the Bible helps us out of them, and that, not by suggesting cunning explanations and apologies for the acts which it speaks of, but by leading us to look at them more simply, more according to the letter. I speak con- fidently. I wish to put all upon this issue. Froude's hero did not He gave himself no fair chance. He adopted the Newmanic theory. He gave God credit for being a tyrant Then he plunged into Carlyleism and believed that he could look all things in the face and make no theories. Then he took orders, undertook to preach of God, whom he believed that the Bible misrepresented, undertook to face Nature while he was shirking it Out of such a confusion the result must have been what he says it was. But if he had clung to his belief in God which his childhood gave him instead of falling into a religion about God which the Puseyites gave him, or into a religion of Man which he drew from Carlyle, would it not have been just otherwise ? Would not that belief in God have made him capable of meeting the new problem of boyhood and manhood instead of being merely linked as he supposes it was to the associations and memories of infancy ? Yes ! Religion against God. This is the heresy of our age, as Irving said long ago, how often have I blessed him for the words, and this is leading to the last most terrific form of infi- delity. If you think I ought to review the book in " Frazer," I will try ; but I am reviewing it in effect in everything I am writing : in the new edition of my " Moral Philosophy," in my sermons on the Prayer Book, and in all those disgusting con- troversies in which I am engaged with the English Review and the Retard. It is reviewing him to show whither the habits P. D. M. 43. Walter Cooper the Chartist Tailor. 519 of the religious world, its half beliefs and no beliefs, its Jesuit- isms and its open lies, are leading us. It is reviewing him to show that we are not given over to the infidelity which is the natural effect of these influences, that there is a mightier counteracting influence amongst us if we will use it. ' Ludlow and Mansfield are in great force. I like them better every time I see them. I do not mean that they hunt in couples : they are as unlike as two men can well be.' To Mr. Ludlow. Friday, March 1849. MY DEAR FRIEND, I do not wonder at your feeling about Froude ; but I think it is hardly a just one. Bitter experience about Sterling tells me that we may be very unjust to people using negative language and yet disclaiming mere negation honesty, though the honesty of a perplexed and distorted spirit, which compels them to hide the better thing in them and utt the worse. They dare not speak out the whole, fearing they should be taken for too good and like their neighbours, ware therefore of scolding for this.' To Miss G. Hare. 1 March 12, 1849. My dear friend Ludlow told me a thing just now done. The man 5 2O Easter Sorrows ; the Word Redemption. CHAP. xxv. me, and gives me hopes I may do some good that way here- after. Thank God for calling me to it ; but of course I would not speak of this, as it might spoil our hopes.' Also to Miss G. Hare. 'March 13, 1849. '. . . . You are right that March is not and cannot be a brilliant month with me ; but I have always striven against the tendency to sink under the oppressive thoughts which it brings with it, and certainly I ought less to yield this year than any former one. I do feel and believe that God has been graciously pleased not to quench that sorrow (which we should not wish), but to bind us together in the recollection of it, and to bring the joy which there is in every cup out of it. I think I have never coveted happiness, but freedom of spirit I have earnestly desired, freedom from that burden which crushes joy and sorrow both the mere dead weight of care and of remorse. And I believe God, who gave me this desire, has in some measure fulfilled it, and will fulfil it more in spite of my re- bellion. The spirit of freedom, of peace, of a sound mind, is, I am sure, given to us. We are only to remember its presence and to walk in it. ' The spirit does make intercessions within us, with groanings that cannot be uttered, and if the sense of personal sins presses them out, they do extend, I trust, to the whole universe ; they are groans for its redemption and not for ours only. The word redemption, all the past which it implies, all the future which it points to, has for me a wonderful charm. I cannot separate the idea of deliverance from the idea of God, or ever think of man as blessed except as he enters into God's redeeming purpose, and labours to make others free. ' The bondage of circumstances, of the world, but chiefly of self, has at times seemed to me quite intolerable; the more because it takes away all one's energy to throw it off, and then the difficulty of escaping to God ! of asking to have the weight taken away ! Oh there is infinite comfort in the thought that He hears all our cries for rescue, and is Himself the Author and Finisher of it.' F. D. M. 43. Dr. y elf's Perplexities. 521 To a man like Dr. Jelf, anxious before all things to keep a calm smooth way that should not provoke the hostility of current theological opinion, the situation was at this moment peculiarly trying. My father's appointment as Boyle and War- burton lecturer had followed so closely upon his defence of the Jerusalem Bishopric that that defence may fairly be sup- posed to have suggested his selection at the particular moment by the two Archbishops who had been so much interested on the same side of the question. The appointment as theological professor of one who had so recently received such high approval appeared in 1846 about as safe a course as a prudent man could adopt. But now already in 1849 a furious attack was being made upon this very pro- fessor from all sides. And what made the case the more trying was that in reality, though not ostensibly, the cause of the attack was the course the professor had pursued in that very matter of the Jerusalem Bishopric. For this it had been that had provoked the hostility of the Oxford party and so led to the attack in the English Review. The other religious organs had merely taken up the cry from that review. Dr. Jelf wished to pay some respect to public opinion as represented by the English Review, the Record, and the Herald, but under the circumstances it was hard to pay respect to it without assuming that the prudent deference which only three years before he had paid to the opinion of the Archbishops, had been an altogether mistaken one. He compromised the matter therefore by writing my father a letter in which he put a series of questions to him, taking for granted that my father intended to speak with all honour of the English Church, but practically playing into the hands of the Review by assuming the necessity for answers to his questions. The following was my father's answer to him. F. D. M. to Dr. Jelf. 1 March 14, 1849. MY DEAR MR. PRINCIPAL, 'Your first question to me is this: "Am I right in believing that the main object of your letter (to Archdeacon 522 " Our little systems have their day." CHAP. xxv. Hare) after disposing of the English Review is to protest against the dictation of religious periodicals, to whatever party they belong?" ' Certainly this was one of my objects ; but not my " main " object I had been accused of not believing in the doctrines of the Prayer Book. No evidence had been produced for the charge ; the writer had been compelled to confess that he could produce none. Still he continued to propagate the insinuation and to direct it against me especially as a Pro- fessor of Divinity. I wished as a Professor of Divinity to explain why I always should be liable to these attacks from him and from all other party writers. They, I said (in the page next to that in which the passage respecting systems occurs), " boast that they represent the genius of the Church as it is set forth in her formularies. I was one of those who turned with especial love, and reverence, and hope, to these formularies as guiding to the eternal foundations which lie beneath their [the party writers] fragmentary crumbling sys- tems." This was my main object. Your second question I will divide into portions. ' (i). " Do I rightly construe your meaning by supposing that when you speak of popular English religious systems as certain not to last, you speak of them as contradistinguished from the Church of England, (2) which you characterise as a foundation deeper than them, (3) and that when you speak of High Churchmen and Low Churchmen, Romanists, Anglican Liberals or Rationalists, you mean either parties within the Church or heresies without her pale as distinct from her vital Catholic essence, and (4) that you hold her to be the appointed instrument in this country for getting rid of parties and divisions and heresies in proportion as she is studied and loved, apart from their discordant cries and watchwords?" ' I need perhaps hardly reply to (i) after the answer I have made to the first question. I will simply quote one sentence from my letter, because it especially refers to my feelings as a teacher in the College. " It would be a blessing beyond all blessings and worth encountering all the indignation of F. D. M. 43 " They have their day and cease to be? 523 all the reviews in Europe, if we could send forth a few priests feeling that the word and sacraments are really committed to them, and that the trust is a most real and awful one, and that they have nothing to do with the catchwords of this party or that, and that they may be messengers of truth and peace to high and low, and that the Lord hath founded Zion and that the poor of His people may trust in it" (p. 67). (2) I should not say the Church was the foundation, but that it stood upon the foundation which would remain when all systems crumble, even the name into which we are baptised, the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, (3) When I speak of High Churchmen, Low Churchmen, Anglicans, &c., as distinct from the Church of England in which they are found, I merely say what I suppose every one says about the parties in our Lord's time. No one, I think, could say that the Jewish Church was identical with the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes who divided it with any one or all together. That Church was set up by God Himself, theirs were different human theories about its principles and constitution, which might contain fragments of the truth that was embodied in it, and might be professed by some excellent men, but which ultimately were found to have no reality or substance in them, and which were one and all set in opposition to the Son of God. ' (4). I could not wish for a more clear and beautiful state- ment than that which this paragraph embodies of the principles which I have tried to express in my letter to Archdeacon Hare, in every book I have written, in every sermon I have preached, in every lecture I have delivered. ' Your third question is : " Am I right in gathering from your words that you accept and embrace as living and (under Christ) life-giving truths and realities (i) the Divine constitu- tion of the Church of England as a branch of the Catholic Church, (2) her 39 Articles, (3) her three Creeds, (4) her Liturgy, believing that these are truths upon which you may rest when sects and systems have crumbled into atoms ? " ' (i). It is to the divine constitution of the Church that I have 524 " They are but broken lights of Tlice" CHAP. xxv. always turned, especially as a deliverance from systems. The Church, I have said, is represented in Scripture as a kingdom. When we treat it as a theory instead of a kingdom, we dis- honour it and destroy its life. ' On this ground I have always loved episcopacy as expressing the fatherly and Catholic character of the Church, and have maintained that when it is lost the Church of necessity becomes hard, narrow, formal. On this ground I have always con- demned these systems about episcopacy, which seem to me to rob it of its character and make it merely an anti-Presbyterian scheme, which when they are carried out imitate Presbyterianism in its dogmatism and exclusiveness. I do not think those who maintain these systems wish that we should resort to the methods and habits of the fathers of the Church, they would far rather appeal to public opinion. ' (2). I mentioned in my letter that, when the question of subscription was debated at Oxford, I wrote a book to prove the unspeakable value of the Articles to the student of humanity and divinity as guiding him into a pathway of truth, and pointing out to him the different forms of truth. I had one right to speak on that more than on any other subjects, for I may mention since one of the newspapers has been at the pains to rake up the fact in my biography that I left Cam- bridge without signing the Articles. I had been brought up among the Dissenters ; I said at the time : Those whose parents are Churchmen may sign them honestly if they have not been convinced that they are false : precisely on that ground I cannot sign them honestly if I have not been con- vinced that they are true. ' After two years, when I believe I may say that I had less outward motive to bar my judgment, I had been convinced that they are true, and I did sign them. I have seen many people of all shades who have been attacking them. I have valued them more each year that I have lived and each argu- ment that I have heard against them. I expressed in my pamphlet on Subscription my conviction that if students would throw the arguments of the newspapers about them into the F. D. M. 43- "And tJwu, O Lord, art more tJian tliey" 525 fire, and would study them, they would come out triumphant. I think so now as I did then. ' (3)- I have declared that I hold these creeds, and I do hold them : those who hear my lectures or sermons know with what earnest love. I always speak more of the Apostles' and Nicene : the Athanasian I have defended upon grounds which I believe to be perfectly tenable. Otherwise I should not use it I was called upon by a newspaper a few days ago to say whether I used it in the sense of that newspaper. I gave no answer, first, because I did not choose to recognise such an authority ; secondly, because I do not know what its sense is. I have declared solemnly I can assure those who say that it is at variance with our Lord's words, " Judge not that ye be not judged" that I never in my life felt I was judging any one when I pronounced it, but only myself. I cannot be sure that the newspaper writer does and could say the same, therefore I cannot assert I speak it in his sense. ' (4). I have spoken of the Liturgy already, and am about to publish a set of sermons upon it The object of these sermons is especially to show that it is the most satisfactory witness, guide and deliverer from the Romish system and all others which divide the Church and hinder one from drawing nigh to God. ' " Do I understand you to say that you desire the Creeds, the Liturgy, the Articles to be taken as the tests of orthodoxy, and that you consider it a part of that orthodoxy to make the Bible a key to all other studies ?" I used this language, simply, solemnly, deliberately. I further challenged the English Review or any one else to take any means for ascertaining whether my teaching in the College or my sermons in the pulpit are or are not in accordance with this profession. I beg now to renew that challenge.' To Miss G. Hare. March 17, 1849. * .... My foolish business is, so far as I know, at an end for the present I am afraid it has done my good friend Dr. 526 Words. CHAP. xxv. Jelf more harm than me. He is ill in bed, and I am afraid I have some of his nervous feelings to answer for. One is sorry to be the cause of keeping worthy people in a fever, but that comes of their inviting such dangerous explosive reformers to enter their quiet orthodox schools. He asked me to be a theological tutor when it seemed to my friends a very unwise step that I should become so, for it involved giving up Guy's. I had committed myself to all my " heresies " then, and there were my books to tell the tale if he had been pleased to look at them ; so that really I do not feel guilty of any great imposition. I think on the whole he likes me not perhaps quite as well as you do but with a fair, reasonable Anglican middle- way sort of liking ; and I have no notion that he will ever throw me off rudely or harshly. . . . The rest I must leave in better hands, especially asking not to be allowed to suppress or qualify a single conviction or to state one convic- tion with unnecessary harshness or point.' Also to Miss G. Hare. 'March 16, 1849. * . . . . Oh, that we all knew or remembered what words are 1 Surely they are the most terrible powers in this universe. No chemical combinations that I ever heard of are like them for effects good or mischievous, heavenly or diabolical. What a revelation will there be on that day when the idle words are laid bare to the conscience of every living soul ! Well may we take refuge in Him who bore the sins of the world, those idle words being surely the heaviest part of the burden, that which went deepest into His spirit. I have been thinking much of that lately. I do not think we know what that sin-bearing is, or what little comfort there would be in thinking of one who took our sins if He did not take the world's sins. For have we not the world's sin in us ? and do we not need to cast that upon Him, even for our own deliverance ? The Communion seems to me very wonderful in this way. I have but a glimpse, the faintest glimpse, into its meaning ; but I think partaking of the sacrifice, eating the flesh and drinking the blood, have a F. D. M. 43. The Communion Confession ; Love. 527 very profound significance, which I wish to apprehend, and in which I would gladly lose myself. My sermon next Sunday, if God permit, will be on the subject of the communion con- fession. It seems to me the very reverse of what some have called it a confession only of venial sins but rather a con- fession of sin in its inmost nature, in its very soul as we see it by the li,'ht of God's love thrown upon our own inward being and bringing out all its most secret evil principles. Such sin would be too terrible to contemplate but in the very power and splendour of the mercy which overpowers and destroys it Sin in the inward parts has always seemed to me so much more terrible than any of its outcomings, though I know what grace it is that the latter should be restrained.' ' March 19, 1849. * .... I have so much cause for wonder at the human as well as the divine love which has been poured out upon me. No one ever deserved it less. I am sure if I do not kno\v what free grace means, or use the expression as a mere cant one, I am more to blame than all It seems to me, from the highest to the lowest, from the manner of God's redemption to the kind look and obedience of a servant, all His grace ; all are parts of one living chain which is let down upon me and which is meant to draw me up. ' . . . . Mr. Hamilton * is a very good and a very wise man. I had no notion I should like him so much, or that we should find so many points of sympathy. But he is freer and more courageous and at the same time more thoroughly devout and Christian than I had the least expectation of finding him. All his religious impressions were received among Evangelicals, but he has wonderfully risen out of theii bondage, and seems ready to meet and recognise and love good wherever it is to be met with. He has hard work as an Irish landlord, and the Government has used him shamefully. Eut he fights on in a true manful spirit.' * Of St. Ernans. 528 What is the Clergyman's " Good Neivs " ? CHAP. xxv. Also to Miss G. Hare. 'March 20, 1849. ' . . . . Sometimes I think nay I feel quite sure that we, the clergy, are more answerable than all other people for the restlessness which so many thousands, young and old, suffer from. I think we have never told them fairly the blessed secret of their existence. The religion we have preached has been a thing so much external to themselves an effort to obtain something afar off in some distant region, in some distant age. How little have we said to them, or made our words intelligible if we have ! The kingdom of God is near you ; the kingdom of God is within you. It is what all are longing to hear. They wish to be governed and they want to find that they have really a gracious invisible governor over their spirits, who can give them their right direction and mould them according to His will. Without this conviction there must be the sense of perpetual strain and effort to be something which at the same time we know we cannot be, or we must give up the whole struggle in despair. I do not believe we have any of us a notion what good news we have to declare to human ' '(* ' beings if we could but bring it out It is one's own stupidity and darkness about truths which at times seem light itself, one's consciousness of throwing them outside of oneself when they were within, and the confusion, weariness, hopelessness which follow, which explain the needs and the obstinacy of others. At the same time they give one a wonderful confidence that the barrier will some day be broken down and that the will of God must be triumphant at last over all rebellion. I feel less and less able to doubt that proposition, even as the obstacles to the belief of it in myself and others multiply, for I do find the love of God is the only power in the universe to accomplish any result. All must be the Devil's, if it were not at work. Shall it not in some way or other vindicate all to itself? I wish to think awfully on the question, confessing with trembling that there is an unspeakable power of resistance in our will to God's love a resistance quite beyond my understanding or any F. D. M. 43. " A Depth Below all ot/ter Depttis" 529 understanding to explain and not denying that this resistance may be final, but still feeling myself obliged when I trust God thoroughly to think that there is a depth in His love below all other depths ; a bottomless pit of charity deeper than the bot- tomless pit of evil And I answer that to lead people to feel that this is a ground for them to stand upon is the great way of teaching them to stand. They are not made to hang poised in the air, which is the position I fear of a good many religious people, in a perpetual land of mist and cloud, never seeing the serene heaven, nor feeling the solid earth. " God is in the midst of us, therefore we cannot be moved." What might there is in these words ! ' As it would be impossible for a son to give any trustworthy representation of the kind of letter which induced the attack of the religious newspapers, or to show how merely Dr. Jelf was bending before what appeared to him to be the breath of public opinion at the moment when he asked for expla- nations, it may be well to insert here the following letter from the Bishop of Lichfield to a friend of his and of my father, who differed from my father on every conceivable point of theological thought. From Bishop Lonsdale to a Friend. 1 Eccleshall, March 20, 1849, ' MY DEAR A., ' The impression upon my mind, after reading Maurice's noble letter to Archdeacon Hare (published with the Arch- deacon's letter to the Editor of the English Review), was alto- gether contrary to that which appears from what I have heard from you this morning, to have been made in some quarters, with regard to Maurice's views as to the Creeds and formularies of our Church. In consequence, however, of your letter to me I have read Maurice's letter again, and with the same high admiration as before ! nor can I discover a syllable in it to justify the misrepresentation of which you have spoken and for which I could noways account, did I not know the strange VOL. i. 2 M 530 The Honour of Persecution. CHAP. xxv. perversions of truth to which prejudice and party will lead men. 'So far is our excellent friend from being open to this charge, that in the letter in question (p. 68) he appeals to " the Creeds, the Liturgy, the Articles as the tests of ortho- doxy " which he desires to have applied to his own writings ; and declares that he has found our Liturgy and Articles, and that others " both clergy and laymen " may find them, to be " blessed instruments of emancipation from moral and spiritual thraldom." ' F. D. M. to Miss G. Hare. ' March 23, 1849. '...." I will give thanks to the Lord, His praise shall be continually in my mouth," was not a resolution formed by David when all his enemies were subdued, but when he was an exile and outlaw in the cave of Adullam with a set of wild reprobate fellows about him. And I do think it must always be an act of will to praise God, an act, however, growing out of the assurance that His Spirit is working with us both to will and to do, and that He puts songs into our mouth and would always inspire us with confidence if we did not resist Him. Praise should certainly be our habitual language ; the confes- sion of God and the confession of our own sins, how beautifully they agree ! how necessary one is to the other ! ' To Mr. Ludlow. ' March 25, 1849. ' MY DEAR FRIEND, ' I cannot easily tell you how much I thanked you for the sympathy expressed in one of your notes last week. I cannot indeed feel or dream that I have as yet the honour of being in any even the humblest sense persecuted. But I do know assuredly that if I live godly in Christ Jesus I must some time or other obtain that honour. My trembling is lest I should be found unworthy of it. I am oppressed at times with the sense of an evil not lying on the surface of our popular theology, but at its very root, against which I ought F - D - M - 43- Biographies. 5 ^ r to be bearing stronger and clearer witness; and then with the feeling how deeply the evil has penetrated into my own being, I am well nigh crushed, not with the misunderstanding of others though they sometimes make me smart to a most unmanly degree but with the consciousness of my own impotence. ' The relief which kind and cheering words like yours afford me is therefore quite unspeakable. I know they must be true, for they give me energy to be true, therefore may God bless you for them ' To Miss G. Hare. ' March 27, 1849. ' .... I am so glad you like my sermons. I do not think you are the fairest and the most impartial critic in the world, and yet I gulp down all your commendations just as if you were and I might trust you implicitly. And I am afraid I like your judgment better than that of all sagacious reviewers, and agree with it in my heart, though not without some protest. Well, I can say honestly that I only carry out in my own case a principle which I have always professed. I always tell my pupils not to read cold, impartial biographies, but to study a man's life in the book of someone who loved him. Such a person, I tell them, will alone have found out what he really was. There is no fear of their not making allowances enough for his prepossessions, or not seeing them quickly enough. We are only too sharp-scented in such cases, but if he had any heart in him, any good that could be drawn out, the loving man will have found it and expressed it ; if he was nothing, we shall be more aware of that by his failure. Is that true ? Tell me if you see any fallacy in it. ' . . . . Love must be truth to the very heart and must feel the evil it comes near with proportionate acuteness, even as it feels the good. God does so. Christ's life on earth was the continual recognition of good in and imputation of good to those among whom He dweltand therefore a continual agony from the wrong and falsehood which grated against His love 2 M 2 532 "My Work in the World" CHAP. xxv. and would not acknowledge it. Oh ! if we could but know what that all-embracing discriminating love of His is, the meaning of the perfect sacrifice there was in it, and of the joy which lay beneath its sorrow ! Some day we may be permitted to understand something of it, and we may be spelling at it and helping each other to spell at it now. We shall do it best when we try to carry out the image in ourselves, and make our own love on earth the feeble manifestation of it.' Also to Miss G. Hare. ' March 28, 1849 * .... This Record, which talks of us as infidels, has been the cause of more bitter infidelity in the younger branches of religious families than all Voltaire's writings together. I cannot tell you what mischief I see and know that it is doing, and all are the same, spreading falsehood and bitterness wherever they go. I feel my work in the world is to raise up a standard against the fearful slavery to these journals into which people have fallen. I could not do it by attacking them, but by giving my countrymen the feeling that the Prayer Book and the Bible do contain that which is actually incompatible with all homage to them.' * MY DEAR KlNGSLEY. ' . . . . That a dead friend whom one hardly likes to speak of to those one knows and loves best, should be the sub- ject of ribald jests in the religious newspapers, and that one should be obliged as a point of duty, and for the sake of not suc- cumbing to a godless tyranny, to be supposed to connect him with a commonplace meeting of clever men, to talk over any- thing" or nothing, is very painful. The Sterling Club had really nothing to do with him, or next to nothing. He proposed it ; and by way of a joke and the equivocal meaning of his name, it was called from him. ' All manner of people joined it, just because it had no sig- nificance, no fines, and cost little. Now it has become a theo- logical question. Alas ! alas ! I wish I could ever make my knowledge of him and of other sufferers available to the help D. M. 43. "An A wkward Fix." 533 of those who are now being shaken to their centre. But they feel no confidence in me, and have no reason to feel any. I trust I care for them and would do something for them ; but they see and know that instead of meeting them half way I am in many respects more orthodox than the majority of Churchmen naturally enough therefore they fly from me. But I cannot give up what I inwardly believe and have been led to through some perplexity and darkness to please them, any more than I can use the popular phrases to please the mob and the journalists. That is an awkward fix. But God will bring me out of it when He wants me. Thank you and your dear wife for your kind and good and comfortable letters.' To Miss G. Hare. ' March 30, 1849. '. . . . I send you a choice note of my dear friend Mr. Erskine, which will do you good. ' . . . . He had such a hearty love for Annie. I never saw anyone more thoroughly recognise her, or anyone whom she more inwardly recognised as a kindred spirit He is so gentle and truthful and loving ; the best man I think I ever knew. . . . I knew Manning at Oxford, and suppose I ought to know him better than I do ; but something has ailed us and with a very fervent respect for him on my side I have always fancied there was a little contempt, or else suspicion, on his, and I have never got on with him half as well as with his brother-in- law the bishop, with whom indeed it is not very difficult to get on, and who has always been extremely kind to me. I must tell you the remark of another bishop (Short, of St Asaph) about my newspaper controversy. He said to his brother, William Short, my excellent friend and rector : " I am sorry Mr. Maurice wrote that first letter in the Herald. If any one said that the Bishop of St. Asaph had stolen twelve spoons, I should write to say he was mistaken ; but if he merely said I was in a general way a scoundrel, I should let him alone, seeing that the thing could not be disproved except by my life." That is a good principle, I think, though somewhat quaintly expressed. 5 34 T/ie Fear of God and the Fear of Man. CHAP. xxv. Also to Miss G. Hare. ' March 31, 1849. ' I have been busy in the examination of candidates for our final theological certificates those which they take to the bishop nearly all day. It is an anxious work. And the future work of these men and of all the hundreds and thou- sands they may influence, or ought to influence, is affected by it. I have also been greatly disturbed by a correspondence with A., which I am afraid must be published, about the Sterling Club. He thinks it his duty to withdraw, and Trench and I are so deeply and solemnly convinced that we should commit a positive sin if we obeyed the religious newspapers, that we must defend our position. I hope good comes out of an endeavour which connects slight acts with great principles ; but the effort for the purpose, especially in such a case as this, is most wearing and painful. But we must hope on, and think that the Church will be better some day, and that we shall be permitted somehow or other to contribute to its reformation. ' . . . . And now may you have a blessed Palm Sunday and carry your branch and leaves to the great King and Deliverer, and be prepared for feeling what victory there is in Passion Week, though it seems as if it were all submission and suffering. The next Monday's Epistle, "Who is this that cometh from Edom ?" is surely the song of a conqueror. Yet how fit it is for that week ! How completely the dyed garments are his own ; though they are stained with his enemies' blood too. I wish so to consider it. And it will not destroy the sense and coherence of the still week ; it will only take off the impression of something crushing in it' ' April 2, 1849. ' . . . . Thank you for what you say about A. I am sure you are right. We ought to avoid any chance of separation from old friends. My brother-in-law, Edward Plumptre, has written me an excellent letter to the same tune, and I feel it much in accordance with my own mind, especially at this time. F. D. M. 43. Efforts at "Realisation " not Real. 535 I hope nothing may be published but I am grieved at the course he has taken, for his own sake. I do look upon this as the great uniting, reconciling week. In no other way does it come out to me so fully and beautifully as in that, and I do long to be a reconciler and to have a reconciling spirit dwelling in me. I seem to be in an atmosphere of strife, as I suppose we all must be. But we should keep the peace the more diligently for this.' ' April 3, 1849. ' I do not think we differ at all about Passion Week. It is the violent effort at realisation, as it is called, which I think disappointing and mischievous; just the remedy for the tempta- tion to make it is the quiet simple recognition of Christ as entering into our sufferings and the sufferings of all we know. That is real. It is not trying to wind ourselves to some conception of what He may have passed through, but appre- hending by that which we have experienced what He must have passed through. This would not be sufficient alone : the Divinity of the suffering consists in its love. We must begin from that ; and confess that His love was the reflection of His Father's love ; so we understand the difference between His grief and any which is soiled with selfishness. It does not differ in intensity the more love the more suffering ; it is not taken out of the range of our sympathies by the difference the more love the more sympathy. And we can only sym- pathise with any one in that which is not selfish in him. But these two thoughts together the Divine Love perfected and manifested in submission and sacrifice, the human sympathy with all actual sorrows seem to me to constitute the mystery of Passion Week. If we strive to think of a certain infinite amount of suffering, it seems to me we lose ourselves and lose the blessing which comes from the more practical considera- tion of it in reference to ourselves and to humanity. De- clamative and extravagant phrases on the subject seem to me irreverent, irreconcilable with the spirit of the Gospel narratives, which are so calm because they are so deep and awful.' 536 Kindness of Medical Men. CHAP. xxv. Also to Miss G. Hare. 'Saturday, April 1849. *....! am writing to you with a beautiful gold pen (part of a pen and pencil case) which our dear friends the Tetieys sent me this morning. For them to send me presents seems strange, and yet they have been doing nothing else since I knew them. I have experienced most dear and hearty kindness from medical men, certainly more than from the members of all other professions together, but such love as Dr. Tetley has shown me I never met with from any man. It has done my heart good and has shown me what an amount of His sympathy Christ may impart to those who humbly depend upon Him. I do not know any one who humbles me so entirely.' To Mr. Ludlow. ' Wednesday, April 1849. ' MY DEAR FRIEND, ' I should like very much to have some talk with you before we meet our Chartist friends. It seems to me that the work on which one is entering is so serious, and yet I trust and believe so hopeful, that we should try to help one another as to the right way. I do not mean that we can lay down any rules for ourselves. The best is to believe that it is not we that speak but the Spirit of God which speaketh in us, and that there is that in each one whom we meet which can be spoken to; but still I feel as if I needed your counsel and encouragement. Could you come to me a little earlier on Thursday evening? I shall probably look in at Parker's this evening, if I am well enough. Will you be there ?....' To Miss G. Hare. ' April 23, 1849. ' . . . . This evening I am to meet a set of Chartists at a cofifee-house, in the hope of organising some regular meetings with them at some other place. I have not sought these interviews the proposal came from one of themselves ; but I felt it as a call which I ought not to decline. They seem to F. D. M. 43. Meetings with Chartists. 537 think very much of a clergyman being willing to hold con- ferences with them in a friendly spirit, though they are quite used to meet members of Parliament This seems to me very sad : that any class of people should feel the clergy to be strangers, and that it is a novelty to be fairly brought into contact with them. These men have many very interesting points : they have shown remarkable delicacy in wishing to save me from what they suppose I should feel discreditable. A worthy bookseller, one of my Lincoln's Inn congregation, would have allowed the use of his rooms if we agreed to hold no religious discussion. These terms I could not consent to. I think it is very desirable that the poor men should feel the connection of politics with Christianity and that they should be allowed to state all their infidel difficulties frankly. I have not much hope unless they are encouraged to do so. The whole experiment is perhaps a bold one at least for such a person as I am to enter upon. But I cannot help feeling that if God has taught me to make it He will give me wisdom for it I do not enter upon it, I hope, lightly.' 'April 24, 1849. ' . . . . The meeting with my working-class friends went off very well. I was abashed by the good opinion which they had formed of me on no evidence, and with the undeserved con- trast they were inclined to make, which I most utterly re- pudiate, between me and other members of my order, many of whom are making twice as many sacrifices for them. I am afraid they expect from me far more than I can do, but it was pleasant to see that they had confidence in my intentions. I assured them that I wanted mainly to know what they felt and thought, that I was very ignorant of them : I could not help them while I was. These men were throughout manly and kindly. We shall meet with many rubs hereafter, and perhaps the whole proceeding may be much censured ; but I feel that it is right, so that I cannot listen to any arguments of worldly expediency. But the more of this sort of work or indeed of any work the more feeble I feel, and the more absolutely obliged to depend upon God; to use me simply as His 538 Spring and Hope. CHAP. xxv. instrument, asking only for the high honour of being made a willing and intelligent instrument. How crushed one would be if one did not believe that God's love to all people is the only source of ours and that it only can enkindle ours. ' That is a truth I am sure of, and have in a manner felt sure of at all times, whatever doubts might be pressing upon me. Prayer is surely not asking God to love people and do them good because we love them better than He does ; but offering ourselves as sacrifices to Him that He may fill us with His love and send us on His errands.' 'April 28, 1849. ' MY DEAR KlNGSLEY, ' I am in debt to you and your wife for two most de- lightful letters, and to you (and her too) for a volume of noble, hearty English sermons, which I do hope are intended for good in villages and cities also. I thank you very heartily. Your letter, which lamented the slowness of spring, seemed to bring spring with it, at least such genial spring feelings as are better, to us Londoners, than the thing itself. You must not give me credit for such dull wintry spirits as you seem to think I am possessed by. Woe is me if I were sullen, I will not say when earth herself is adorning, for she is not doing much in that way at present, or at least only putting on some of her under garments, or on this sweet May morning, for it is not May yet, and the morning which was very sweet is now clouded over, but amidst the signs of hope which you disceni in the moral world and some of which I can half see too. For instance, Walter Cooper the Chartist has encouraged and invited Ludlow and me to hold meetings with working-class men. We had a preparatory meeting at a coffee-house on Monday last, and I cannot tell you how much of kindly feeling, genial greeting, and sound sense we met with. Of course we wish to say as little about our meetings as possible, more through fear of making them less efficient than from any dread of our own reputations, about which our Chartist brothers are only too tender. They seem to think it a very wonderful thing that a clergyman should be willing to come F. D. M. 43. The Chartists Froude A Romanist. 539 among them a sad proof how far we have gone from our proper position. God grant that we may be able to begin to resume it. The symptoms as to them are cheering ; it is for ourselves I fear. Ludlow, a brave spirit, I need not tell you, and Mansfield, and Hughes, and Brewer of King's College, all fraternise. I think you will hardly like Ludlow's article on Froude. It expresses all I should wish to say in a much better way than I could express it. My heart leaped up when I read it to think there are such true, earnest, godly, loving men in the midst of us. I wish I might be permitted to show Froude any sympathy. I do not think mere obloquy should be ever a reason for shrinking from a course which I at least deliberately believe to be the right and the safe one with persons in his state of mind, safest for one's self as well as him. I was breakfasting with Bunsen this morning. He was expressing much kindness to Froude, and a real interest in him. I will write to him at once if you think he will be pleased ; but I suspect that he and most Oxford men have a dislike of me, partly inherited from Newman and partly grounded on the notion that I am always meaning to be an apologist of the Church.' To Miss G. Hare. ' 21 Queen Square, April 30, 1849. *....! have been engaged in a long talk with a young clergyman who is on the point of becoming a Romanist. I was much humbled by the conversation, for I did not talk with him wisely nor with as much kindness as I ought, and I am afraid I made no good impression on him. The f-iend who brought him has an over faith in me and must have been sadly disappointed. How much preparation, spiritual not intel- lectual, one requires for these encounters ! I hope that I did commit my heart and lips to God, but one is so easily drawn aside with self-confident utterances of one's own conceits, poor man is, I think, in earnest, bewildered by High Church notions, which he feels are becoming untenable, and by some 54o Spring Reformation. CHAP, xxv experience of his own about the superior excellence of Roman- ists, which will be sadly shaken by further knowledge. I wish I could help him ; but I trust that God will speak to his heart and not suffer me to darken his mind by my words without knowledge.' Also to Miss G. Hare. ' May 2, 1849. ' All the blessings of the spring be with you ! surely they are great and manifold and even Divine. The symbolism of spring seems to me very wonderful. I wish I could see more into it. But it speaks to me of that which just now God seems to be forcing most upon my thoughts, Reformation, Revival, Restoration ! A very dull dark winter, and heavy frost the Church is surely groaning under. It seems to me sometimes as if all was dead. But I am certain there is a root lying beneath every withered stem which may one day send forth blossoms, and flowers, and fruits. I do find the Resurrection the most cheering and wonderful assurance that together with His dead body the Church shall arise a living body out of the grave into which it has sunk. I do think we are all called in some way or other to work for this great end I mean to be fellow-workers with God in it. And I earnestly desire to know what He will have me to do. There seem to be a number of persons now, as in our Lord's time, waiting for the kingdom of God : Doctors of the Law like Simeon counsellors like Joseph of Arimathsea the othodox Nathanaels and good Samaritans. I only wish one could help them a little, if it were only by some Freemasons' sign of sympathy ; but we must ask God to teach those whom we cannot. . . . Last night Julius and I met Mrs. Gaskell, the authoress of " Mary Barton," a very delightful woman with a very sweet face.' 'May 5, 1849. ' I have not one feeling which would interfere with your going to Clifton. On the contrary, I should like you to be there. It is a very sacred place in my mind, connected with F. D. M. 43. Clifton and Hurstmonceaux. 541 so many of my early associations as well as with so many after I became bound to Annie. ' No place is so pregnant with meaning to me and seems to link the different parts of my history so strangely together unless it be Hurstmonceaux ; but that is of recent significance to me, though now I shall feel through you as if I had always been related to it.* The Clifton rocks gave me the first impressions I ever had of inland beauty, and Ashton and Lea are charmed names in my infantine dreams. The first, no doubt, derived much from strawberries and cream, which were always the object there in the summer ; but one had to cross the ferry to get to them, and the course of that muddy beautiful Avon comes before me every time I think of that time. If you should go to either the Crescent, to Prince's Buildings, to the Mall, or indeed to almost any place there, you will be in the midst of places that are more familiar to me than any part of London. So I shall be glad very glad if you should go there. ' The churchf I need not speak of. You will see it, at least, whether you are able to go into it or not.' 'May 9, 1849. '. ... It is altogether very strange and mysterious; but what in the history of our spirits is not ? There are some persons who have need to have their own identity impressed upon them by a series of facts which positively assure them that the child and boy of yesterday is the man of to-day. I have known very thoughtful men John Sterling was one who never thoroughly realised this truth ; but seemed to them- selves like a number of different men. As they dropped their old shell or coat it was as if they dropped their own existence. I would not have it so, but would earnestly pray that my days might be linked " each to each in natural piety," in spite of a the schisms which sin has made in them. Ascension Day will * Miss Hare whom my father was now about to marry, was a daughter of Mr. Hare Naylor, of Hurstmonceaux Place, and half-sister to Arch Hare, the rector of Hurstmonceaux. f I.e. where he was first married. 54 2 Ascension Day Public Opinion. CHAP. xxv. be a good day to realise such a fellowship of the past, present and future ; and it is the witness that our captivity to time and place has been led captive. '. . . . Our meeting with the working people went off very well. They were very freely spoken but quite respectful. I learned much I think from what they said. They spoke with great earnestness and ability.' Also to Miss G. Hare. 'May II, 1849. ' I am going this evening with Julius and Esther to the Bunsens, I believe to a musical soiree. They are very low about Germany. Indeed it seems to be in a very sad state. Bun sen thinks the King was quite wrong to refuse the Empire, and that he will be obliged to abdicate. ' The King of Saxony is in a sad position. What will come of it I suppose no one can foresee ; but the march of Russian troops to help the Austrians is rather frightful. I believe this year will be " A Day of the Lord " as much as the last was ; to England perhaps really a more wonderful year. We have escaped outward revolution, but what work is going on in people's hearts ! ' ' May 21, 1849. '. . . . I had a difficult subject for my lecture to-day [at Queen's College], and I had been somewhat embarrassed by the suggestions of a lady of grave and venerable character who sometimes helps and sometimes hinders me by pointing out lines of thought that would be useful to my class. I was speaking on the influence of public opinion and the general notions of society upon the conduct and character. I felt it was a very serious topic and that I was not prepared to say what I wished and felt was needful upon it, but I threw out some hints which I hope may frighten those who have been trusting to the mere habits of their class to keep them right. It was strongly impressed upon me how fearful that confidence is, and what an utter overthrow of moral conduct and feeling might take place if a revolution should suddenly shake the out- ward props of respectability.' 1849. Past and Present " There is no Distance? 543 ' May 24, 1849. '. . . . I have just run away for two or three minutes from Freddy's party to write you a line. I have been showing them with Edward's help a magic lantern which was sent me thirty- five years ago by one of the friends of my childhood. It was strange to see them looking at the slides I used to delight in at Edmund's age, and to think of all that used to share this pleasure with me. I think I never had much capacity for enjoyment, and this generation has it would seem even less. But Freddy and Edmund do heartily exult in sights and sounds, at least for a time. ' They both went to the British Museum this morning, and my mother, who has been reading Layard and longing to see the Nineveh wonders, joined us there. I think she has as much sympathy with the old world as any of us, perhaps more. But she reminded me of the last time we were in the Museum together. We went with John and Susan and Annie, Carlyle and , so that the monuments of generations gone by bring one's own history up as surprisingly. ' The distance seems as great or as little in each case. Oh ! it is surely true that there is no distance. The spiritual world is not under these time laws. If we were free from sin we should be under no check from them or from seas or con- tinents either.' 'May 26, 1849. '. . . . I should like to be with you on Whit-Sunday ; but this year we must be content to wish each other the infinite blessings of it at a distance. They seem more wonderful the more I think of them. Sometimes it seems as if they were the very root of all our life. I cannot but think that the reform- ation in our day, which I expect is to be more deep and searching than that of the sixteenth century, will turn upon the Spirit's presence and life, as that did upon the justification by the Son. But I rather suppose the larger reconciliation of the two truths in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost may be that which one is to keep continually in sight, and which God will teach us if we wait for Him.' 544 The Chartist Meetings. CHAP. xxv. Also to Miss G. Hare. ' June 2, 1849. '. . . . The comfort of believing that God does prepare us in strange and secret ways is very great, yet I am too apt to forget it while I seem to depend upon it, and not to put my heart under the Spirit's government. If we really understood that it is the will which he makes obedient and free, we should not confound His operations with mere natural influences, and wait for the dew or showers to come down upon us, but should be going out to meet Him, opening the door at which He knocks. There is, I am sure, a secret in this which I have not penetrated, but which I hope I may know more some day. This Trinity Sunday should be a great and comfortable day to us all. There is such a depth and repose in it It seems as if we might sink and be lost and find nothing but love above, beneath and around us. So may our experience be, and yet there is something beneath all experience quite unfathomable.' 'June 5, 1849. '. . . . We had a good working-class meeting last night; one beautiful speech from a tailor. There were five clergymen present one a most worthy Anglican who writes on the di- vinity of tithes. He said afterwards that there were only a few things said at the meeting which he could not go along with. I am not quite so far gone in Radicalism and Chartism ; but I was deeply interested and affected by what I heard for the good that was in it and the errors mixed with the good, and the wants of the poor people whom one is doing so little to help. Charity they do not wish for.' 'June 6, 1849. 1 1 have been spending a most grievous five hours at the National Society public meeting, listening to speeches from clergymen that it almost broke one's heart to hear, and seeing demonstrations of a spirit which betokens schism and destruc- tion. Mr. , who opened the debate, is a vulgar Church agitator, using the most sacred phrases for claptraps, and F. D. M. 43 . The National Society. 54 $ throughout confounding the right of the clergy to have their own way with Church principles. No declaration of rights in France or Germany ever more confounded the two most opposite things in the world the powers with which God has entrusted us and for which we must give account to Him with our privileges to claim a position for ourselves and so lift our- selves above others. . . . Dear Allen spoke earnestly and affectionately and therefore impressively, though without suffi- cient coherency, but I think his right feeling and heart a little turned the tone of the meeting. The poor children are passed by while we are fighting. Tis very fearful. ' I did not mean to write you such a gloomy letter, but I must tell you what is in my mind.' 'June 7, 1849. ' I wrote you a very sad letter yesterday under the influence of the National Society meeting. I left it before the con- clusion, which I believe was in some respects more melancholy than what had gone before; but gives some hope that the schism which was threatened may be averted. I said to Mr. Anderson and to Priscilla, when I returned home, there was one man in that room who can save the Church from its con- fusion if he has it in his mind to do so. This was Manning. Mr. Anderson agreed with me, but had some doubts about his will. However, he did move an sraendment which, though much stronger against the State than I should have approved, did put an end to , and was at last passed unanimously. His power with the clergy is very great, greater certainly than that of any man living. I do hope he has a sense of the responsibility which belongs to the exercise of it. I am afraid he has plenty of flatterers, but God is able to make him stand. Yet I do not think he or any man can prevent an eccle- siastical revolution, or ought to prevent it, unless by being the instrument of a religious reformation. For that I am sure we should pray earnestly, and God, I believe, is leading us on by strange ways to it.' VOL. L 2 N 546 Story of Education Contest. CHAP. xxv. Also to Miss G. Hare. 'June 9, 1849. '. . . . You shall have the Guardian, which has the best report of the meeting. The strange account Miss H. has heard of the controversy shows more completely than I had ever conceived before in what a state of mystification the county clergy are on the whole question how much they are the , victims of agitators, how little they are competent to legislate. The Government, ten years ago, had a plan of taking all the education of the country into their hands. You will remember, perhaps, some lectures I delivered on State and Church Educa- tion at that time, especially asserting that the Church had the power which the State could not exert. The Government was defeated in their scheme. Then they agreed to help all schools which could help themselves. They have proposed, as a con- dition of their gifts to the Church schools, certain management clauses the object of which is to secure the co-operation of a certain number of the laity in each parish with the clergyman. The National Society Committee objected to some of these clauses, and a long correspondence ensued. The Committee of Council gave way on a great many points. Mr. Denison at the meeting proposed a resolution declaring that there should be no management clauses at all, in fact no agreement with the Committee of Council at all. In order to carry this very violent resolution he and Dr. Wordsworth made much more violent speeches, in which they brought up all the old story of the Government wishing to get the education into its own hands, and tried by all means to awaken the suspicions of the clergy that this was their aim. They have succeeded it seems in completely bewildering the minds of their hearers about the whole matter in dispute, and making them about as intelligent in their notion of it as an old woman who told me that the Papists set London on fire in 1780 (when Lord George Gordon set it on fire to prevent concessions to the Papists !). Mr. Denison- would have made, by the bye, a very capital Lord George Gordon if he. had lived in that day. The Bishop of F. D. M. 43- Chartist Meeting The Apostles' Club. 547 St. Asaph said yesterday to me in his way : " If I had told the clergy in that meeting, what I am sure is true, that they had better be teaching children in their schools than making a riot in London, I believe they would hare said, Turn him out ! ' and that the three- fourths of them would have wished to toss me in a blanket." And he is not far wrong. They evidently would have liked exceedingly to toss the Bishop of Oxford in a blanket, such reverend Episcopalians are they. 'However, may better and more peaceful thoughts than these be with you on Sunday. May it be a real Sabbath of love to you. The epistle should be a cure for a great many N. S. meetings. I hope we shall be able in real sorrow to confess our own sins and our brothers' against Charity at the Communion. Would to God that He would make our tears flow more freely ! ' 1 June 12, 1849. ' .... I had a meeting of the working men last night, and spoke for I suppose twenty minutes or half an hour not as I might have wished, but much better than I had a right to expect or than any preparation of mine would have enabled me to do. I never was more assured that it is not one's own voice when one is in earnest and desires to utter the truth. There was no great difficulty, for I had kind friends about me, but still I felt quite unequal to say the right things, and only hoped that God would not let me dishonour Him.' June 13, 1849. ' I go to-day to dine with my old Cambridge friends [i.e. at the " Apostles' Club "] ; the bonds which connect me with them are very sacred. I owe very much to them, more than anyone can tell. But I have never rightly used my opportunities, and any meeting with them is or should be a reason for fresh humiliation such good that one might do has been left undone, so many words unspoken and so many spoken too much. Oftentimes I have thought I would hold no more intercourse with them (though I always learn something from them) if I could not be more helpful to them ; but I believe it is right to 548 Carlyle' s Life of Sterling. CHAP. xxv. keep up every old tie and to strengthen it if possible : good does come out of it, if we are ever so weak.' To a Lady (who asked if Carlyle was about to write Sterlings life). ' MY DEAR FRIEND, June 23, 1849. ' I had heard a very vague rumour of Carlyle's intention ; it was confirmed by Mr. Erskine the day before yesterday. Who has urged him to the work, or why he is undertaking it, I do not wish even to guess. The only reason for supposing that he means it as an attack upon Hare is that it is hard to find any other excuse for dragging a man again before the public who never wished for such notoriety, and of whom the public cares little to hear. I should have thought that Carlyle would have shared in some degree the bitter pain which the allusions to Sterling for good and for evil have caused those who loved him. I never read a line of Hare's " Life ; " he was so very kind as never to speak of it to me while he was writing it ; but I knew that he suffered intensely from the duty which he imposed upon himself and that he endured more obloquy for it than for all his other books together. I therefore believe that he was right and that the book must have done good, though I would have walked many miles barefoot to prevent its appearing.' To Miss G. Hare. 'June 27, 1849. ' It is only seven o'clock and I have not yet received your letter ; but as my friends Ludlow and others have asked me to join them in going out with a set of their ragged boys on a picnic in the country at nine, I am afraid I might miss writing altogether if I did not leave a letter behind me. I am not much used to such expeditions, and am likely to be a wet blanket on this ; but the notion is so good of giving a breath of fresh air and one day of simple enjoyment to these smoke- dried boys, that I hope we shall all have a heart given us to join in it* More feeling I should think of God's kingdom * This was one of the very earliest if not the actual first of these expeditions which have now become so common. F. D. M. 43. A Country Day A Chartist Meeting. 549 and goodness may be given by such a day than by much teaching, and I repent of nothing more than the unthankful heart with which I have taken part in such things hitherto. I look upon this as a kind of preparation for our wedding, for it is thankfulness I especially want for the highest blessing as well as the least ; and the sight of so many whom God has made as good as oneself with such an apparent want of everything, at once makes one ashamed of one's own treasures, and desirous to claim them and rejoice in whatever one can enter into with them. ' You know what the joy of light and air is as I who have always had health do not Oh ! teach me to bless God for them. One does not praise Him for the kingdom of Heaven when one does not feel the goodness and the richness of the earth. I desire nothing so much as that our married life should begin with thanksgiving as well as with confession; indeed the two always go together. ' We had another meeting of the working men last night and I spoke to them for some time. I believe the thing is right, and will work good, for I find that though I can only stammer in a speech after dinner among bigwigs, words are put into my mouth when I am addressing these people, who have very little conventional respect for my profession or me, but a great suspicion of both, yet do seem ready to meet any who meet them frankly as men. I think the meetings have been more good for me than for them.' 'June 28, 1849. ' We had a charming day yesterday. It was delightful to see a set of boys enjoying themselves so thoroughly and to see gifts in them for which one had supposed them utterly wanting, such as climbing trees, though I did not fancy they had ever seen one. Hughes a pupil of Arnold and two of the others showed a wonderful faculty for inventing and keeping up games. I could only look on with the profoundest admiration ; but the mere country air was to every one infinitely satis- factory.' 55O A Wedding Present from CHAP. xxv. 'June 29, 1849. ' I was obliged to leave Edmund and his party at dinner to attend a much less agreeable assembly at King's College, pre- sided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury; and at which there is a sad effusion of annual humbug that should make one weep if one felt these things rightly and does effect me very painfully, though not I fear just in the way that it ought. Alas ! if Churchmen were but true men but the great want is to be true oneself, and that is hard enough.' ' 21 Queen's Square, July 2, 1849. ' MY DEAR FURNIVALL, ' . . . Late on Saturday evening I found that a magnificent collection of books had been left here for me which were said to come from your chambers. I did not discover till last night the page which explained to what kind and dear friends I was indebted for them. I should have written to Campbell, as his name stands first, but I had some fear that he might be out of town. May I therefore say through you to all, what I wish and hope to say to each : I am sure that I owe those who have met at my house immeasurably more than they can ever owe me. The good that it has done me to feel that there was one heart working in men so different in character, opinion, educa- tion, that they were willing to work and could work together without sacrificing anything which was properly theirs, as being God's gift only sacrificing the selfish tastes and interests which would keep them apart that they had no need of party bonds or watchwords to stir them up and that they were determined not to hide any sentiments or feign any to please each other or me the good, I say, that this has done me I could hardly make any one understand who did not know how very difficult I have found it to believe the truth of my own words, and to think that what I knew was right could actually come to pass. I trust none of you will ever know, as I have known, how easy it is to utter sentiments and to feel their truth deeply, how hard to connect them with real life, to bring them to bear on one's own conduct and on what is passing around us. Those who F. D. M. 43. " the Kindest and Truest " of Friends. 5 5 1 force a speaker or a writer to put his own convictions to the test are his greatest benefactors, if at the same time they do not teach him to value them because they are his convictions, but teach him how entirely feeble and paltry he is except as he is the steward of some truth which God has given him to distribute. ' 1 thank you especially for remembering my marriage, because I take it as a proof that you do not set me up as a teacher but own me as a friend : one who marries voluntarily comes down from any oracular tripod and declares that he has nothing to distinguish him from his fellows. I believe that it is a safer position than the other, provided one is taught, as I believe God will by one discipline or other teach me, that wife and children are not to be set above Him, and that all the mere comforts of life are to be given up at a moment's notice when He calls for them and has any work for us to do with which they are incompatible. ' I receive this present also most thankfully as a pledge that you do not look upon me as estranged from you by this new relation ; but that you will meet me just in the same way and in the same spirit as before, only, as I hope, feeling an interest in every one in whom I have any. I can answer for it that my wife would not feel herself really united to me if she did not feel hearty sympathy with a body of the kindest and truest friends that any man ever had to thank God for.' The books sent were: Holinshed, Hall, Fabyan, Hardyng, Rastell, Arnold, Froissart's 'Chronicles,' 13 vols. Fuller's 'Worthies,' 2 vols. Facciolati's ' Lexicon,' 4 vols. The signatures were ARCH. M. CAMPBELL. JOHN MALCOLM LUDLOW. JOHN DONALD CAMPBELL. DANIEL MACMILLAN. SOONJOECOEMAR GOODEVE CHUCKER- C. B. MANSFIELD. BUTTY. ALEXANDER MACMILLAN. SAMUEL 'CLARK. NEVILLE S. MASKELYNE. FREDERICK JAMES FURNIVALL. JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, JUN. THOMAS HUGHES. FRANCIS CRANMER PENROSK. M. A. BRICKDALE. EDWARD STRACHEY. CHARLES KINGSLEY. CHARLES R. WALSH. 5$2 Marriage. To Mrs. M. Maurice ' Rockend, July 4, 1849. * MY DEAREST MOTHER, ' I know you will like to have a line from us, though it be only a line, to say that we are here and that God has blessed us this day in making us one. Georgiana is better than I had dared to hope I should find her, and has gone through the day wonderfully well. We would fain say to my father and you, and all, something of what is in our hearts, but I know you will believe it is there, and will be glad to hear only that we have begun to bear each other's burdens and share each other's joys. Best love to all. The post leaves this place at four, and we did not arrive till three. May God be with you. RND OF VOT* T. LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. A 000183013 2