Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott Part 9

Dear Gladstone,--I had some hopes of being able to call on you this morning, but was disappointed.

With regard to the Canadian Archbishopric, if you have seen what I wrote about a bishopric in the same colony you will have got the historical view which I was then induced to take. I am convinced that the parties to the Treaty of Paris and the framers of the first Act contemplated a Roman Church with an Anglican supremacy of the Crown. Their successors did not understand this, and proceeded upon the theory of toleration--thereby at once yielding the power of direct interference and refusing direct establishment. But in fact the R. C. Church is established, and consequently Rome has the advantage both of establishment and complete independence. I am not the man to say that the latter ought to be infringed, but I think it right to draw your attention to the departure from the original idea of the position of the R. C. Church in Canada. As matters now stand I think Lord Stanley had no option, and could only be neutral; but the original theory of royal supremacy having failed (as was natural), a concordat alone can decide the relations of Church and State in that quarter. The question of precedence is certainly not in itself sufficient to decide the conduct of Government, but it presents a difficulty; and the more difficulties there are, the more needs of a complete solution.

It seems to me, therefore, that you must either follow Lord Stanley in his neutrality, and leave the consequences to chance, or at once originate a communication with the Holy See; and for the latter purposes I think Canada affords as fair an occasion as it is possible to find.

Yours ever truly,

JAMES R. HOPE.

Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P.

In the same year, 1846, the appointment of Dr. Hampden to the see of Hereford was 'a heavy blow and great discouragement' to the Tractarian party; but the correspondence does not throw much light on the subject as far as regards Mr. Hope. He must have felt his profession sucking him in like a vortex, from which it is wonderful how he could grasp the Catholic faith in the end. Many of his friends were now doing so, but he still held back. The following sentences from a letter he wrote to Father Newman, then (April 23, 1846) contemplating his departure for Rome, will show something of Mr. Hope's then position--Anglican ideas not so vanished that they might not possibly have been, at least in imagination, renewed--Catholic ideas not yet distinctly written in their place.

I can construe the obscure wish with which your letter concludes. I join heartily in desiring _some_ termination to my present doubts; but whether in the direction you would think right, or by a return to Anglicanism, is the question. I am astonished to find how resolute Keble is in maintaining his present position. Others, also, of more earnestness and better knowledge than myself, are recoiling--and this troubles me, for I cannot but look around for authority.

To his own family he became more and more reserved on the subject, and showed unwillingness that difficulties should be touched; for, great as was his wish that the Church of England should a.s.sert herself Catholic, he dreaded, on good grounds, that if awakened from her slumbers, the only effect would be that she would use her giant strength against her friends as well as enemies, hit them knocks, and then relapse into repose. Unable even yet to make up his mind whether those of his friends who had joined the Church of Rome had done right or wrong, materially, at all events, he remained an Anglican. Such a state of mind necessarily varied, if not from day to day, at least at longer intervals. At the close of 1846 came the troubles at St. Saviour's, Leeds, a stronghold of the section peculiarly under Dr. Pusey's influence, which encountered the opposition of the old Tractarianism, or rather Church-of-Englandism of Dr. Hook. They ended in some important conversions, but, as affecting Mr. Hope, seem scarcely to require to be dwelt on. In May 1847 I find him exerting himself in favour of Mr. Gladstone's candidature for the University of Oxford. On December 9 he writes (from Rankeillour) to Mr. Gladstone on the question of Jewish emanc.i.p.ation as follows:--

On the Jewish question my bigotry makes me liberal. To symbolise the Christianity of the House of Commons in its present form is to subst.i.tute a new Church and creed for the old Catholic one; and as this is delusive, I would do nothing to countenance it. Better have the Legislature declared what it really is--not professedly Christian, and then let the Church claim those rights and that independence which nothing but the pretence of Christianity can ent.i.tle the Legislature to withhold from it. In this view the emanc.i.p.ation of the Jews must tend to that of the Church, and at any rate a 'sham' will be discarded. However, I am not disposed to press my views on this or similar points. I have withdrawn from Church politics, and never had to do with any others. How long this peaceful disposition may last I know not, but my station in life does not seem to me to require that I should meddle. For this reason, if for no other, you may be sure I do not regret having lost the honour of being armour-bearer to the Bishop of Exeter in the Hampden strife. That appointment, however, is certainly bad enough.

Mr. Hope was now, in the ordinary sense of the word, 'settled in life' (he married in August of that year, 1847); but the great happiness he found in this change of condition was no talisman that could ward off the question which still imperiously demanded a solution; and perhaps scarce a month pa.s.sed in these times without some new event arising to bring it more forcibly upon minds that had once been fairly within its influence. Mr.

Hope's style in writing to Mr. Badeley on the Hampden affair, under date January 16, 1848, shows in some degree a renewed interest, but with symptoms, like the pa.s.sage last quoted, of pa.s.sing off into Liberalism.

I am right glad that you have got your Rule, and have good hopes that you will make it absolute.... When the argument is resumed pray remember my favourite plan of establishing the old Ecclesiastical Law as the Common Law of England before the Reformation, and requiring evidence of a direct statutory repeal. Reid writes me that there is a fund for the expense of the opposition. If so I shall be happy to contribute, for I feel very strongly (not about Dr. Hampden, though I do feel as to him, but) about this violent piece of Erastianism, such as no Christian community ought to endure.

Following this, for about two years, the Church of England was convulsed with the Gorham case. This, too, has pa.s.sed into the history of Anglicanism. It will be sufficient to remind the reader that Dr. Philpotts, the Bishop of Exeter, had refused to inst.i.tute the Rev. G. C. Gorham to the vicarage of Brampford Speke, because he denied the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, Mr. Gorham sued the Bishop in the Court of Arches, but judgment was given by Sir H. J. Fust against the plaintiff, who then appealed to the Crown, and the result was that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, on March 8, 1850, reversed Sir H. J. Fust's judgment, and held that Mr. Gorham's doctrine was not repugnant to that of the Church of England. On March 12 a meeting was held at Mr. Hope's house in Curzon Street by several leading men of the Tractarian party--the number, I believe, was fourteen--including Mr. Hope himself, Archdeacon Manning, Archdeacon Kobert Wilberforce, and Mr. Badeley--to consider the effect of this sentence on the Church of England. Certain resolutions were pa.s.sed and signed, and afterwards circulated in a somewhat modified form. The doc.u.ment, as finally issued, is to be found in more publications than one, and may be referred to in Mr. Kirwan Browne's 'Annals of the Tractarian Movement,' 3rd edition, p. 191. Its main significance is contained in Resolutions 5 and 6, which are given as follows, in a printed copy now before me:--

5. That inasmuch as the Faith is one, and rests upon one principle of authority, the conscious, wilful, and deliberate abandonment of the essential meaning of an Article of the Creed destroys the Divine Foundation upon which alone the entire Faith is propounded by the Church.

6. That any portion of the Church which does so abandon the essential meaning of an Article of the Creed, forfeits not only the Catholic doctrine in that Article, but also the office and authority to witness and teach as a Member of the Universal Church.

It is easy to see that these apparently strong declarations afforded a loophole for the escape of moderates; but Mr. Manning and his friends, as the result proved, were prepared to act upon them in their original and unqualified form; for all the four I have named, with two others, eventually became Catholics. The rest of those present at the Curzon Street meeting remained Protestants. As for Mr. Hope, the year rolled round, and he was still externally where he was; but the following allusion, in a letter of his to Mr. Gladstone, dated Abbotsford, September 6, 1850, to some recent conversions, must have made it evident that his own was drawing very near:--

I have heard a good deal on the ----'s: it is attributed more immediately to her--but however brought about, I cannot think hardly of it. Rather, I feel as if those were to be congratulated who have already done that which _intellectually_, and to a great extent _morally_, I feel persuaded should be done.

Yrs. ever affectionately,

JAMES R. HOPE.

The memorable 'Papal Aggression' excitement, which arose in England in November 1850, is believed to have been what finally brought Mr. Hope to the conclusion, or rather, to action upon the conclusion, to which he had been so long tending. Some time after this, when, in conversation, Mr.

Lockhart asked him how it was possible he could have attributed such weight to so slight a reason, Mr. Hope replied to the effect that Mr. Lockhart would easily understand that the last link in a chain of argument on which action depends, needs not in appearance be the strongest. He spoke of his conversion as of a veil falling from his eyes. [Footnote: A correspondence of this period of Mr. Hope's with the present Cardinal Newman (very important as far as it goes) has been given in some previous pages (pp. 65- 68).] The same influence is visible in the letter in which Mr. Manning (since the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster) announced to Mr. Hope his resignation of the Archdeaconry of Chichester.

_The Rev. H. E. Manning to J. R. Hope, Esq., Q.C._

Lavington: Nov. 23, 1850.

My dear Hope,--Your last letter was a help to me, for I began to feel as if every man had gone to his own house and left the matter.... Since then events have driven me to a decision. This anti-Popery cry has seized my brethren, and they asked me to be convened. I must either resign at once, or convene them ministerially and express my dissent, the reasons of which would involve my resignation. I went to the Bishop and said this, and tendered my resignation. He was very kind, and wished me to take time, but I have written and made it final.... I should be glad if we might keep together; and whatever must be done, do it with a calm and deliberateness which shall give testimony that it is not done in lightness.

Ever affectionately yours,

H. E. M.

Mr. Manning was considerably Mr. Hope's senior, [Footnote: Four years exactly. He was born July 15, 1808. The same also was Mr. Hope's birthday.]

but they had been brother-Fellows of Merton College, and were now intimate friends, pa.s.sing through the same stages of conversion, each having great confidence in the logical powers and in the earnestness of the other in applying them. Either at that time, or very soon afterwards, Mr. Manning became the guest of Mr. Hope at his house in Curzon Street; and here he used to receive the many converts and half-converts who flocked to consult him in their difficulties during that period of transition, when such an unexampled rush seemed to be making into the net of the fisherman. Mr.

Hope's letters to Cardinal Manning were unfortunately destroyed about three years ago, but the other side of the correspondence is still represented by a small collection of letters of great interest. Mr. Hope, I think, had made up his mind at Abbotsford, and on his arrival in London announced it to his mother; but it is certain that immediately before taking the final step he and Mr. Manning went over the whole ground again together, to satisfy themselves that there was no flaw or mistake in the argument and conclusion.

_The Rev. Henry E. Manning to J. R. Hope, Esq., Q.C._

_Private_. 44 Cadogan Place: December 11, 1850.

My dear Hope,--I feel with you that the argument is complete. For a long time I nevertheless felt a fear lest I should be doing an act morally wrong.

This fear has pa.s.sed away, because the Church of England has revealed itself in a way to make me fear more on the other side. It remains, therefore, as an act of the will. But this I suppose it must be. And in making it I am helped by the fact that to remain under our changed or revealed circ.u.mstances would also be an act of the will, and that not in conformity with, but in opposition to intellectual real conviction; and the intellect is G.o.d's gift, and our instrument in attaining knowledge of His will.... It would be to me a very great happiness if we could act together, and our names go together in the first publication of the fact.... The subject which has brought me to my present convictions is the perpetual office of the Church, under Divine guidance, in expounding the truth and deciding controversies. And the book which forced this on me was Melchior Ca.n.u.s' 'Loci Theologici.' It is a long book, but so orderly that you may get the whole outline with ease. Mohler's _Symbolik_ you know.

But, after all, Holy Scripture comes to me in a new light, as Ephes. iv. 4- 17, which seems to preclude the notion of a divisible unity: which is, in fact, Arianism in the matter of the Church.

I entirely feel what you say of the alternative. It is either Rome or licence of thought and will....

Believe me always affectionately yours,

H. E. MANNING.

The following extract from a letter of Mr. Hope's to the Rev. Robert Campbell [since also a Catholic], dated 'Abbotsford, September 15, 1851,'

affords additional and important light on the motives of his own conversion:--

You seem to think that the present condition of the Church of England has been the cause of my conversion. That it has contributed thereto I am far from denying, but it has done so by way of evidence only; of evidence, the chain of which reaches up to the Reformation, and confirms by outward proofs those conclusions which H. Scripture and reason forced upon me as to the character of the original act of separation. This distinction I am anxious should be observed, for the neglect of it has led some to suppose that recent converts have, from disgust or other causes, deserted a true Church in her time of need, whereas, for one, I can safely say that I left her because I was convinced that she never, from the Reformation downwards, had been a true Church. Pray excuse this digression, which I do not mean by way of controversy, but merely of explanation.

J. R. H.

On _Pa.s.sion Sunday_, April 6, 1851, Mr. Hope, and at the same time with him Mr. Manning, were received into the Catholic Church at Farm Street by the Rev. Father J. Brownbill, S.J.

I must not withhold from the reader a note, written the next day, and one or two pa.s.sages from later letters of Mr. Manning's referring to the same subject.

_The Rev. Henry E. Manning to J. R. Hope, Esq., Q.C._

14 Queen Street: April 7, 1851.

My dear Hope,--Will you accept this copy of the book you saw in my room yesterday [the 'Paradisus Animae'], in memory of Pa.s.sion Sunday, and its gift of grace to us? It is the most perfect book of devotion I know. Let me ask one thing. I read it through, one page at least a day, between Jan. 26 and Aug. 22, 1846, marking where I left off with the dates. It seemed to give me a new science, with order and harmony and details as of devotion issuing from and returning into dogma. Could you burden yourself with the same resolution? If so, do it for my sake, and remember me when you do it.... I feel as if I had no desire unfulfilled, but to persevere in what G.o.d has given me for His Son's sake.

Believe me, my dear Hope,

Always affectionately yours,

H. E. M.

14 _Queen St.: Oct._ 21, 1851.--... I am once more in my old quarters.

They bring back strange remembrances. What revolutions have pa.s.sed since we started from this room that Sat.u.r.day morning! And how blessed an end! as the soul said to Dante. 'E da martirio venni a questa pace.'... You do not need that I should say how sensibly I remember all your sympathy, which was the only human help in the time when we two went together through the trial, which to be known must be endured.

_Rome: March_ 17, 1852...--How this time reminds me of last year! On Pa.s.sion Sunday I shall be in Retreat. 'Stantes erant pedes nostri,'