which poured in upon them from the simple spiritual apprehension of Holy Writ;-of that Love to God and to man, which was shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost; and of that lively Hope and Faith, which enabled them to glorify God in the very fires, and which has so abundantly, since their days, not only emancipated the human mind, especially in this happy land, from the darkness and folly which ages of ignorance had laid upon it; but has enlightened, inflamed, and led it onward, even to these our times, to results the most excellent, whether as it regards the things of this world, or of that which is to come; and which still seems to hold out further prospects of wealth both temporal and spiritual, to be realized here and elsewhere, which it hath not yet entered into the heart of man fully to conceive:-Instead of this, I say, and of those still higher stages of spiritual and intellectual illumination and prosperity, which it is but reasonable to expect the unfettered energies of man will arrive at; you and your School are proposing and urging, with all the earnestness of a zeal the most blind and perverse, that we should again return to the mummeries which had so long chained down to earth our best and noblest endowments; and, that our Church should again become the willing slave of ignorance the most palpable, and of superstition the most degrading;-again succumb to the rule of an hierarchy, at once the most usurping, tyrannical, oppressive, and cruel;-again to incrust itself, as it were, in the unintelligible and useless jargon of the schools, the traditionary trash of useless religious fraternities; --the dusk and darkness of the Monastery, the Nunnery, the Cell, or the Hermitage!-again to endeavour to set the troubled conscience at rest by money-bought pardons, indulgences granted for value received, pilgrimages undertaken, works of supererogation to be engaged and persevered in; the flesh mortified under the vain hope of thereby purifying the spirit; the rotten and rotting bones of Saints, Pictures, and Images of the Virgin, and the like, honoured and almost adored, as presenting the surest means of securing their intercessions with the Most High for their deluded votaries, and thence admission to the glories of heaven!Are we, I say, again to return to all this senseless mummery, superstition, and vanity; and thus, having begun in the Spirit,-now labour to become perfect through the flesh? Let us, then, throw away the principles which have so far, and so happily, led us; and then, to these vanities we shall certainly come! If we serve Baal at all, we shall serve him much. To this the Traditions of men have ever led: to this the prostration of the human intellect, and with it ignorance, folly, and vice, of every description, must necessarily succeed. It was by this, that men once professing themselves to be wise, became fools: by this, that they changed the glory of God to the image of a calf that eateth hay! by this, that both Gentile and Jew became earthly, sensual, devilish: by this, that the infatuated Church of Rome became the cage of every unclean bird; enslaved and impoverished the nations of Europe; inbrued its hands in the blood of the saints! and, by this, it is now endeavouring again to reinstate itself in that dominion of ignorance and tyranny, which it so long and so mercilessly exercised!"

We apprehend that the fancies of Dr. Pusey have already almost ceased to be a subject of public interest; or we should anticipate much good from this learned review.

A NARRATIVE OF EVENTS CONNECTED WITH THE PUBLICATION OF THE TRACTS FOR THE TIMES. By the REV. WILLIAM PALMER, M.A. of Worcester College, Oxford: Parker. 1843.

"It is the design of the following pages to clear those who uphold "Church principles from the imputation of approving certain "recent tendencies to Romanism. It is hoped that a plain state"ment of facts, avoiding controversy altogether, may conduce to "the removal of mistakes on a point of so much importance."

Such is the opening of Mr. Palmer's preface. It promises well, but where is the performance? We have here a long story, most of which Mr. Perceval had already told us,-about how five or six individuals,-Mr. Froude, Mr. Newman, Mr. Keble, Mr. Perceval, Mr. Palmer, and Mr. Rose, united themselves together, in the summer of 1833, with a view to an effort to save the Church, then apparently threatened in various quarters. The resolution so taken was a laudable one, but the character of the effort therefrom arising is not to be shown by any description of the purity of the motives then actuating them. "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" is an exclamation which would often have issued even from Christian lips, had men been able always to foresee whither they were going.

We pass over, therefore, all the detail, now well known, of how the Church was threatened in 1833, and how Messrs. Froude, Newman, and Palmer hoped to save her; and we direct our search after those "facts," which are to prove the innocence of these gentlemen of all supposed "tendencies to Romanism."

But here, where Mr. Palmer should have been most explicit, and should have afforded us some of that peculiar information which, to him, as one behind the scenes, must have been accessible, here we find a strange hiatus. After hearing of nothing but what is good and praiseworthy, during a period of six or seven years, we come, at last, we can hardly tell how, to the following state of things:

"Within the last two or three years, however, a new School has made its appearance. The Church has unhappily had reason to feel the existence of a spirit of dissatisfaction with her principles, of enmity to her Reformers, of recklessness for her interests. We have seen in the same quarter a spirit of almost servility and adulation to Rome, an enthusiastic and exaggerated praise of its merits, an appeal to all deep feelings and sympathies in its favour, a tendency to look to Rome as the model and the standard of all that is beautiful and correct in art, all that is sublime in poetry, all that is elevated in de

votion. So far has this system of adulation proceeded, that translations from Romish rituals, and Devotions,' have been published, in which the very form of printing, and every other external peculiarity, have evinced an earnest desire for uniformity with Rome. Romish catechisms have been introduced, and formed the models for similar compositions. In conversation, remarks have been sometimes heard, indicating a disposition to acknowledge the supremacy of the See of Rome, to give way to all its claims, however extreme, to represent it as the conservative principle of religion and society in various ages; and in the same spirit, those who are in any way opposed to the highest pitch of Roman usurpations are sometimes looked on as little better than heretics. The Gallican and the Greek churches are considered unsound in their opposition to the claims of Rome. The latter is held to be separated from Catholic unity. The 'See of St. Peter' is described as the centre of that unity; while our state of separation from it is regarded, not merely as an evil, but a sin-a cause of deep humiliation, a judgment for our sins! The blame of separation, of schism, is openly and unscrupulously laid on the English church! Her reformers are denounced in the most vehement terms. Every unjust insinuation, every hostile construction of their conduct is indulged in; no allowance is made for their difficulties, no attempt is made to estimate the amount of errors which they had to oppose. Displeasure is felt and expressed if any attempts are made to expose the errors, corruptions, and idolatries, approved in the Roman communion. Invocation of saints is sanctioned in some quarters; purgatory is by no means unacceptable in others; images and crucifixes are purchased, and employed to aid in private devotion; celibacy of the clergy-auricular confession, are acknowledged to be obligatory. Besides this, intimacies are formed with Romanists, and visits are paid to Romish monasteries, colleges, and houses of worship. Romish controversialists are applauded and complimented; their works are eagerly purchased and studied; and contrasts are drawn between them and the defenders of the truth, to the disadvantage of the latter. The theory of development advocated in the writings of De Maistre and Möhler (Roman Catholic controversialists), according to which the latest form of Christianity is the most perfect, and the superstitions of the sixteenth or eighteenth century are preferable to the purity of the early ages, is openly sanctioned, advocated, avowed. In fine, menaces are held out to the Church, that if the spirit which is thus evinced is not encouraged, if the Church of England is not 'unprotestantized,' if the Reformation is not forsaken and condemned, it may become the duty of those who are already doubtful in their allegiance to the Anglo-Catholic communion, to declare themselves openly on the side of its enemies. I have no disposition to exaggerate the facts of the case; all who have had occasion to observe the progress of events, will acknowledge the truth of what has been said. I would only add, that I hope and believe, that the spirit which has been described, is only to be found amongst a very small section of those who are popularly connected with the advocates of Church principles. I believe it is no secret, that the authors of the Tracts, (several of them at least,) however they may think themselves obliged to tolerate such excesses, are embarrassed by them, and deplore their occurrence. I believe that the great body of their immediate friends concur in this feeling; and, most assuredly, the advocates of Church principles in general, most strongly disapprove of the spirit which has now been described, and of the existence of which I am about to furnish detailed proofs." (p. 44-46).

Now this description of the evil, so far from being a candid and honest exposition of the mischief and the danger, is chargeable both with the suppressio veri, and the suggestio falsi. It is not true, that in some strange, unlooked-for, and unaccountable manner, predilections for Rome have sprung up "within the last two

or three years.' It is now nearly ten years since Mr. Froude sought, when at Rome, to find if there were any tolerable way of entrance, by which the Papal church "might take us in." It is more than seven years since Messrs. Newman and Keble gave publicity to this fact, without breathing one word of disapproba tion. It is some eight years since Mr. Froude thought that "the Prayer-book had no claim to the veneration of a churchman which the Mass-book did not possess to a greater degree:" And that we ought to conform ourselves to the ritual of that church which had kept its tradition unbroken: " And that the turbulent à Becket was a great saint: and that Bonner was to be preferred to Jewell or Ridley. All which things, too, were published by Messrs. Newman and Keble, without the slightest sign of dissent.

It is also about five or six years since Mr. Newman alleged, in a publication of his own, that our Reformers had "mutilated the tradition of eight hundred years, and that their conduct filled him with grief and impatient sorrow."

Now all this was transacted before Mr. Palmer's eyes, and no word of caution or remonstrance could he utter. He did not separate himself from them. He did not even suggest doubts as to the course they were taking. But now, an opportunity seeming to occur, for throwing the whole blame upon the expiring British Critic, he comes forward, alleges that the evil, the exist ence of which he admits, has only appeared "within the last two or three years," and strives hard to cast the whole blame upon that unhappy periodical.

But there is a further disingenuousness in this course. Mr. Palmer can warmly censure the British Critic, but he censures nothing and no person besides. Now the British Critic was neither an independent self-existent power, nor was it written or edited by unknown or inconsiderable men.

The British Critic was, in fact, the legitimate successor of the Tracts for the Times, when that series was suppressed by the bishop's injunction. It was carried on by the same parties. Dr. Pusey wrote in it, Mr. Newman wrote in it, Mr. Oakley wrote in it, Mr. Ward wrote in it. Let Mr. Palmer, then, plainly avow, that in censuring the British Critic, he is, in fact, censuring all the leading Tractarians. Or let him, if he can, assure us that the British Critic was not their organ, and that the common report which assigned it entirely to their government and authorship, was altogether an error.

The censure which Mr. Palmer finds it necessary to employ, is not of an ordinary character. For instance, he says,

"The only difficulty with which those who uphold Church principles have

had to contend, is the imputation of a tendency to popery. The continual assertion of our opponents of all kinds has been, that Romanism is the legitimate conclusion of our principles. Romanists, Dissenters, Latitudinarians, and many others have reiterated the assertion, till the world is nearly persuaded of its truth. But what can we say-what defence can be made, when it is undeniable that Romanism, in its very fullest extent, has advocates amongst ourselves; that they have influence in the British Critic; that they are on terms of intimacy and confidence with leading men, that no public protest is entered against their proceedings by the advocates of Church principles? It is a conviction of the necessity of making some attempt, however feeble, to arrest an intolerable evil, which has induced me to publish this narrative of our proceedings, and these records of our principles and views. They are written under the apprehension that the dangers which now threaten us, are not inferior to those which surrounded the Church in 1833; that the tendency to latitudinarianism has been replaced by a different, but not less dangerous tendency; while the spirit of disaffection to the Church has only taken a new form. It seems, therefore, a plain duty to hold out some warning to those who might be in danger of being deceived." (p. 69-70).

Again,

"If there be any who are secretly convinced of the duty of uniting themselves to Rome, and who are waiting the moment to declare themselves, while in the mean time they are labouring to insinuate their own persuasion amongst the duped and blinded members of the English Church-No-1 will not believe that such disgraceful and detestable treachery and hypocrisy can exist in any one who has ever partaken of sacramental privileges in the Church of England. However appearances may seem to justify such a belief, I cannot for a moment entertain the notion of such revolting iniquity—and yet it is impossible to offer any reasonable answer to those who suspect that there are individuals who remain in the Church, only with a view to instil doctrines which would otherwise be without influence-to gather adherents who would otherwise be safe from temptation." (p. 67—8).

This is strong censure, but not more strong than just. The fault, however, is, and it is a serious one,-that while Mr. Palmer's praises and vindications are all personal, and therefore tell,—his censures are levelled merely against certain nameless shadows,— the British Critic, or 66 some brethren;" and therefore fall comparatively harmless to the ground. Was it meant that they should do so? If not, since Mr. Palmer is intimately acquainted with the whole interior working of the system, why did he not specify and distinguish :--why did he not plainly avow who he believed to be sound, and who unsound, and thus effectually vindicate the innocent, by discriminating between them and the guilty?