A FRENCH WRITER ON CARDINAL MANNING.*
IF the estimate of the late Cardinal Manning contained in this work by M. Francis de Pressense, the son of the well- known Protestant minister of that name, is too unqualified in its eulogy, we have to thank Mr. Purcell, the author of Manning's Life, for the circumstance. The French writer's picture of the Cardinal is an instance of the rule that exaggeration provokes reaction. M. de Pressens6 has been fairly disgusted by the performance of a biographer who in his judgment " discredits and shames " Manning " by his narratives, by his judgments, by his accusations, even by his praises" (p. 21); who "betrays at every instant an instinctive malevolence" (p. 24); who writes not only with "vulgarity" but with " treachery." That a biographer to whom all the most confidential papers of a great man have been confided should not only delight in emphasising out of all proportion the failings of one who is thus at his mercy, but should multiply insinuations which a close examination of the evidence shows to be baseless, is a mode of action for- tunately so rare that the right way of dealing with it is marked out by no precedent. We ventured to suggest six months ago that, when Mr. Purcell's enormous volumes had been duly weighed, it would be found, in spite of the intense interest of his material, that he had been led to draw a picture which even the documents contained in his book prove to be an unjust one. Englishmen move slowly in forming critical judgments, and M. de Pressense's work is an instance of the greater rapidity of the French mind in such matters. But it is only one of several indications, some of which have appeared in our own country, that the sifting process is gradually being performed ; and perhaps ulti- mately our own critics will not consider M. de Pressense's statement too strong, that "such an author" as Mr. Purcell " puts himself out of court." M. de Pressense gives several instances which certainly substantiate the charge of a hostile bias in the biographer which has made him culpably care- less in weighing the evidence before him. But we think that the instances adduced show as much Mr. Purcell's want of perception as the hostility of his attitude. If he is to be placed "out of court," it is as much because he writes with little knowledge and understanding of the matters treated in the deeply interesting letters and documents which he has been the means of placing before the world, as because he takes pleasure—often it seems to us without realising the gravity or bearing of his insinuations—in suggesting, where he can, small and unworthy traits in the character he depicts.
But M. de Pressense's estimate of Manning, interesting though it is, is the least interesting part of his work. The introduction of upwards of a hundred pages in which he sketches the religious problem of the hour, as it presents itself to him, raises questions of the highest importance, and should be carefully read by all who give their atten- tion to such subjects. The interest arises greatly from the antecedents and position of the writer—as a French- man, who ought naturally to have inherited the best traditions of French Protestantism. His absoluteness, his clear and mathematical perception of the inevitable results of tendencies, his dislike of compromise, are typi- cally French. And the conclusion arrived at is that the Protestant principle as understood at the Reformation has received its death-knell owing to the advances of Biblical criticism. The position which Canon Gore has emphasised in Lux Ulundi, that the Bible without the Church is an im- possible basis of faith, is here stated, but with a result which is unmistakably in favour not of the compromise of Anglicanism, but of Roman Catholicism pure and simple.
M. de Pressense's argument against the Protestant prin- ciple of private judgment in its crude form, will appeal, we believe, to the great bulk of thinking men in this country.
• Le Cardinal Manning. Par Francis de Preseense. Paris : Perrin at C.o. 1S96. • schools. The philosophical importance of the traditions of the race is as integrals part of the theory of Herbert Spencer as it is of the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. Mr. Balfour's valuable chapter on " Authority " in the Foundations of Belief only placed in clear relief a line of thought which, if not often formulated so ably or expressed so happily, was already in the minds of many who echoed his words. With an eloquence which clearly represents the pressure of personal experience, M. de Pressense describes the straits to which those are reduced who endeavour to cling to the central principles of the Reformers. Absolute trust in the Bible, and the immediate contact of the individual soul with our Lord as the source of salvation, were the two mainstays of Protestantism.
But how can these now form the basis of the spiritual life P he asks. When a man turned the leaves of his Bible and saw a Divine Light on every word, the re- ligions trust and religious passion of a Luther may have been possible. The figure of Christ, so vivid in the pages of the Evangelists, stood before the devout reader of the sixteenth century, who drank in the words of the Saviour as though he too had been among the listeners in the plain, or on the Mount, or at the Last Supper. But bow if the question arises at every passage or every word,—Is this authentic ? Is this really Christ speaking, or is it an imagination of St. John? Is this an interpolation of the medimval monks P When even so devout a writer as Dr. Martineau (we may add) finds the Christ of the Gospels more and more shadowy in proportion as criticism is accepted as deciding the means we have for learning the authentic lineaments of his personality, what becomes of the old vivid communion of the human spirit with that of Christ, the old dependence on his every word, gesture, and accent P It will be answered that the " spirit " of the individual discerns the voice of the Master. But this is either to pass into an utterly subjective mysticism, or else it issues practically in a vague and ever vaguer attitude towards dogma which culminates in Matthew Arnold's position that religion is "morality touched with emotion." We see its furthest outcome in such men as Ritschl, "who is the prophet of this new dispensation as Schleiermacher was of its earlier phase." But even allowing that certain choice spirits may be preserved from so shadowy a creed, that there is a "pre-established harmony between the Master and some disciples which permits them to hear and recognise his voice with certainty," what is to become of the mass of men, in the un- certainty begotten of criticism, if they have no objective guide to what is true and what is false in matters of religion P Some guide, some authority to lean upon, is for them at least indispensable.
But we must cite M. de Pressense's own words :—
" Or, il faut se souvenir qu'historiquement Is protestantisme a vecu d'un double principe : l'un, que l'on appelleformel, rautorite des Salutes Ecritures; l'autre, materiel, Ia justification par is foi. Ces deux principes sont dans une etroite dependance mutuelle. Ls affirment : is premier, qua Jesus-Christ est la seule source de is connaissance du saint, que touts rime d'homme regoit directe- went et personnellement la lumiere necessaire pour percevoir le message de Dien dana les documents de l'histoire de la Redemp- tion; is second, que Jesus-Christ seal est la source du salut, qu'il snffit it touts lime d'homme du contact direct et immediat avec le Sauvenr: en dehors mime de tout moyen de grice externe, pour recevoir la plenitude de la Redemption. N'est-il pas trop evident que le premier de ces axiomes fondamentaux de la Reforme,— jesus-Christ, seule et suffisante source de le connaissance du saint par l'Eeriture Sainte, sans tradition et sans interprete,—est, sinon proprement mis en peril, du moins jets dana d'etranges difficultes, par les progres de la critique P Jadis il semblait bien simple an plus ignorant, au plus modeste des fidlles, de preter l'oreille a cette voix de Dieu a laquelle seule, sous sa forme eclat% il devait °heir comme i. sa conscience. 11 prenait sa Bible, il la feuilletait at cbaque mot resplendissait a sea yeux comme une parole divine Aujourd'hui, quand il ouvre le livre sacra, il dolt commencer par se demander : cette partie est-elle bien authentique ? Ce mot Pest-il P Eat-ce un discoing de Jesus on une glose de Jean que je Ls ? Eat-ce le recit de premiere main d'un temoin oculaire, ou West ce pas plutit le deptit tendancieux des transactions et des compromis historiques de in diplomatie judeo-chretienne que je eonsulte? Oh ! je sais ce que ron repond : is sena intime, rex- penence du chretien lui suffit pour discerner le son de in voix du maitre. Mills, enfin, ce principe mime a ses limites, sous peine de tomber clan le subjectivisme absolu, dans l'unique sourerainete du testinsonium spiritus. 11 faut qu'il y sit quelque chose d'objectif ; il faut que in foi alt quelque chose oil se prendre ; il faut qua
la conscience, pour trouver de quoi se eats/Aire, rencnntre quelque chose qui in depasse dans tous les sons et dont elle ne puisse s'eriger en jugs infaillible. Les Refer. mateurs, je crois, auraient peu goitte, dans leur robuste bons sons et leur besoin du positif, ces theories subtiles oh,--sous pretexte de pousser a son dernier terme la seconde de leurs formules Jesus seule source du salut, et, par consequent, de !Quire an minimum rimportance des elements accesaoires et, si lion ose dire, de l'enveloppe externe de ce grand fait redempteur.—lion fait bon marche de cette autorite des Ecritures r1 laquelle, pour leur part, Us n'attachaient pas mois de prix et oh ils voyaient le moyen par lequel le Christ avait voulu assurer la connaissance objective de eon cenvre. On n'arrtte pas, d'ailleura, oh Von vent un pareil travail de decomposition : quand rautorite des Ecritures eat battue en breche, on ne tarde pas voir souffrir egalment la personae mime du Sauveur. Ceux qui pretendent, de in meillenre foi du monde, j'en suis convaineu, easser le noyau pour mieux goater le fruit qu'il reale, briser he vase pour mieux respirer le parfum qu'il renferme, devront tot on tard s'avouer qu'ils out poursuivi une chimer° dangereuse."
Here is a problem which we are all in some degree considering, and it is well that it should be stated, as it here is, with naked frankness. M. de Pressense finds in the difficulty it raises the source of the Catholic movement within the Church of England ; but he cannot find in Anglicanism an effective answer. The authority of the Church of England is, he con- siders, "factitious and illusory." The English Church feels the impossibility of Protestantism, and is therefore en- deavouring to pass from " pseudo-Protestantism" to " pseudo- Catholicism " (p. 69), and to adopt the doctrines and practices which give strength to Catholicism without making any act of submission (p. 92). The question at issue is—is there one Church which by its especial prerogative is com- missioned to preserve the essence of Christianity amid the destruction of the old land-marks on which Protestantism relied. If there is, M. de Pressense believes himself to see in the Roman Church the prinui facie characteristics which should mark it out as the object of his search :— " A tort on a raison, c'est ressenee mime du christianisme que lion eroit en question, at l'on se domande de bien des cotes. si Is surnaturel chretien n'est pas autrement en sitrete dans wig Eglise qui professe itre en possession de la plenitude des moyens de grice,—dans une societe religieuse our laquelle lee siecles out passe et qui revendique on qui off re dans in succession apostolique, dans in primaute de siege de Pierre, dans toute son organisation hierarchique, dans toutes les realites objectives de son cults, is triple garantie de runit6, de l'autorite et de la perpetuite. Apres tout, rhistoire a ses enseignements. Quand on voit le mouve- meat anglo-catholique aboutir, non seulement it rabjuration de ses principaux initiateurs, mais a is transformation de l'angli- canisme; quand on assiste aux efforts de cette grande Eglise separe depuis trois siecles du centre de runite romaine pour se reusettre en possession, sans tontefois en payer le prix, des avantages du systems catholique; quand on In voit revendiquer in succession apostolique pour sea evoques, la validite des ordi- nations de ses ministres, retablir is service eucharistique et mime le sacrifice de Ia messe, pratiquer Is confession et le sacrement de penitence, ehercher a reconstituer des ordres, bref, emprunter I l'Eglise du Pape tout es qui pent faire sa force, mais Hen de ee qui con,tituerait un ado de soumission, on ne peat se defendre d'une certain inquietude. Voila done lea revanches da catholicisme les revauches, sans doute, contre nn etablissement ecelesiastique qui a toujours ports; dans as constitution he germe de toutes les antinomies et qui se ressent des interets, des doctrines, des volontes contradictoires des politiciens ses fondateurs,—mais aussi en plain pays classique du protestantisme individualists ; an lendemain du beau roved evangelique ; en presence de l'essor de ces eglises non conformistea qui sont toutes penetr See de l'esprit de in Riforme. Et ce n'est pas tout : notre generation volt se poser devant elle, avec une urgence de jour en jour plus imperiense, tout un ordre de questions oh le principe mime de rindividualisme semble mis d'avance hors de combat."
We have cited this passage, as it has its bearing on matters which have agitated the religious world in this country during the past year. We need hardly say that to us it seems only to regard a small portion of a very large and difficult question. But it is a portion which some among us are apt to forget. To our mind it substantially con- firms the view of the true issues of the case which has been put forth by Dean Church, and was formulated by Cardinal Newman in the days when he advocated the Anglican via media. For those to whom nothing is more certain than that Rome is guilty of usurpation, and has corrupted the primitive teaching ; that whatever sanctity there may be among members of the Church of Rome, an acceptance of her whole teaching is impossible ; but that nevertheless we are not in consequence to dispense with the lessons of Christian tradition, or the authority of the early Christian Church, Anglicanism remains a position—not indeed fulfilling all the ideal requirements laid down by M. de Pressense, but resting on something very different from the principles of the Reformation whose insufficiency M. de Pressense criticises with so much force. But in the case of those who approxi- mate so much to Reme as to wish for reunion with her, and for the acceptance by the English Church of the Roman definitions of doctrine, we confess that M. de Pressenscs's objection to such a position appears to us unanswerable. Either Rome has gone frightfully wrong, or it is the duty of those who believe in one teaching Church as the normal guide in Christian Faith, to join her. Mr. Gladstone has recently and powerfully urged upon all English Christians the importance of co-operating against infidelity, and with this sentiment we most cordially concur. Let Catholics and Protestants unite heartily in defence of belief in God and in Christ. But reunion with a Church the essence of whose constitution is adherence to its own defined doctrine, when the rejection of that doctrine is the only valid raison (retie of Anglicanism, appears to us an utterly untenable programme. To say that explanations of misunderstanding on either side can go so far as to get rid of differences without an admission by Rome that she has defined wrongly—and this she never can admit—is to us not only Utopian but even unreal. And if all Roman doctrine may be accepted, the locus standi of High Churchmen is gone. The fact that this is not more generally recognised—it is most clearly recognised by Mr. Gladstone himself—appears to us a sign of the absence among some English theologians of any full sense of the issues before them. And such thinkers may perhaps learn a good deal from French lucidity and French logic.
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