Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, vol 2 | Page 5

time, and possibly retarded for about three years that rush of conversion which made 1845 such an epoch in the history even of the Church. This may be inferred from the next letter, written shortly after Mr. Newman and his disciples were regularly settled at Littlemore. I am not aware what the report was which he so emphatically denies.
_The Rev. J. H. Newman to J. R. Hope, Esq._
April 22, 1842. _Dabam è Domo S. M. V. apud Littlemore._
My dear Hope,--Does not this portentous date promise to outweigh any negative I can give to your question in the mind of the inquirer? for any one who could ask such a question would think such a dating equivalent to the answer. However, if I must answer in form, I believe it to be one great absurdity and untruth from beginning to end, though it is hard I must answer for every hundred men in the whole kingdom. Negatives are dangerous: all I can say, however, is that I don't believe, or suspect, or fear any such occurrence, and look upon it as neither probable nor improbable, but simply untrue.
We are all much quieter and more resigned than we were, and are remarkably desirous of building up a position, and proving that the English theory is tenable, or rather, the English state of things. If the Bishops let us alone, the fever will subside.
[After a few words on business] I wish you would say how you are.
Ever yours,
JOHN H. NEWMAN.
Early in 1842 came out Dr. Pusey's 'Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury on some Circumstances connected with the Present Crisis in the Church.' In the preparation of this important pamphlet Dr. Pusey sought the advice of Mr. Hope, and the letter in which he asked it must be placed before the reader as an evidence of the value attached to Mr. Hope's opinion in the counsels of the party.
_The Rev. Dr. Pusey to J. E. Hope, Esq._
My dear Hope,--You will be surprised that I should consult you as a layman and a younger man as to a work on the religious state of things, but I do it on N.'s suggestion, as seeing and being able to judge of men's minds; and ye question is not as to what is said, but whether it is expedient to say it, and for me; what will be its probable effect.
The origin of it was my visit to Addington last autumn: after my return Harrison wrote me some long letters, recommending that one shd take occasion of ye Bishops' charges, under wh people writhed so much, to make one's defence, show that one was not so unsound as one seemed, and plead for sympathy. [Footnote: This fondness for the use of the indefinite pronoun very much characterised the Puseyite dialect, as I have somewhere read that it did the Jansenist. The phase which it marked may he seen fully developed in the tract 'On Reserve,' by Isaac Williams.] I was unwilling to leave what I was doing and put myself forward; but as H. told me that he had spoken on ye subject with ye Abp, it seemed to come with his authority, so I set myself to it. It has been delayed until now, waiting in part for unpublished charges, and for ye documents about ye Jerus. Bpric. It is now about finished, and wd occupy about ten sheets; what I send is, then, not half. The object of ye analysis of the Bishops' charges is to show that some do not object to our main principles, but to matters of detail; that others (as the Bps of Chester, Winchester, Calcutta) do not object to our principles at all, but to certain principles which they conceive to be ours. The effect of both, I hoped, wd be that our friends, who were fretted by these charges, wd see that neither we nor (wh alone signifies) Catholic truth is condemned, that others mt be better disposed towards us, and that the hint mt be taken in some charges this year. Anyhow, that there wd seem less of a consent of Bishops agst us, I was rather sanguine about this part. Then there follows something about the Jerusalem Bishopric and the East and Lutheranism, my object being to say that things are safe so long as the Bishops do not make any organic changes in our Church, or she be committed to any wrong principle. I conclude with some pages meant incidentally to reassure persons about ourselves, and of our good hopes and confidence and love for our Church. This I have been urged to do in some way or other by several, _e.g._ E. Churton, confidence having been terribly shaken by Golightly's wild sayings, and by the version put upon my own visits to ye convents.