And thus, too, when the king refused to let Archbishop Theobald attend the summons of Pope Eugenius to the Council of Rheims, the author of St. William's life says, with sufficient profaneness,

Inasmuch however as he feared God more than the king, he started, and with very great difficulty arrived in France. -p. 35.

The popedom, the biographer of St. Augustine tells us, is

the one only Dynasty which is without limit and without end; the Empire of empires, the substance whereof all other dominions are but the shadows:-pp. 49, 50.

This is tolerably plain speaking; and no less intelligible is the manner in which the author of the Life of St. Paulinus, having stated that "Pope Boniface was not unmindful of his office of universal bishop," but wrote "letters to Edwin and Ethelburga, both of them noble compositions, and well. deserving a place in that magnificent collection of Christian documents, the pontifical epistles," bursts out into the following strain, which he professes to adopt from Alford:

It was not therefore Gaul, it was not Spain, it was not Germany, it was not the nearer inhabitants of Italy, who were anxious for the salvation of the Northumbrians, [an odd idea of the charity of a Catholic age,] for they had not the bowels of a parent; [yet one would have thought they might have felt some love for human souls notwithstanding;] but it was Rome, to whom Christ had given the prefecture of His sheep in Peter the chief. She, though more remote in place, yet by the privilege of her dignity, by the necessity of her office, and finally by the excellency

of her love, was nearer to us in this kind of affection. Hence the reader may clearly understand who is the· genuine mother of this island, and to whom it owes the birth of faith, to eastern Asia, or to western Rome. Truly, if she only, in Solomon's judgment, was the mother, whose bowels were moved, then this pious care lest Britain should perish shews that, not of Asia or of Greece, but of Rome only ought we to say, "She is the mother thereof.”—p. 9.

Now, if Mr. Newman and his party believe, that Rome only ought to be deemed our mother, that she interferes in the affairs of this church "by the privilege of her dignity," and by "the necessity of her office," that to her Christ has "given the prefecture of His sheep in Peter the chief;" that the pope is "the universal bishop;" that there is " none above him here on earth;" that "throughout the Christian world his wish" is, or should be "motive, and his word, authority;" in a word, that the popedom is "the one only dynasty which is without limit and without end; the empire of empires, the substance whereof all other dominions are but the shadow;”— if this be their belief, it is evident, that they must regard it as their highest and paramount duty, -not perhaps to secede to Rome, or to persuade others to secede,-but to labour, by every means in their power, to prepare the public mind for a full and complete return to that connexion which England had with Rome before the Reformation: as Mr. Newman has expressed it in his Sermons on Subjects of the Day, men must undo their sins in

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the order in which they committed them." Nothing short of this could satisfy any honest man, holding such views of Rome and the papacy as these writers avow. And, in truth, they do not pretend that they will ever be contented with anything less. Return to Rome" reconciliation to the present Catholic church”—this is the object of the movement: this the end to which all their teaching is but preparative and subsidiary. They have avowed it as clearly as the friends of our church could have desired.

* The passage occurs in the twenty-fourth sermon, "Elijah the Prophet of the Latter Days," which, with some others in the volume, Mr. Newman states, was intended "to satisfy persons inclined to leave the church" "on the safety of continuance in our communion." His words are as follows:

"The kingdom of Israel had been set up in idolatry; the ten tribes had become idolatrous by leaving the temple, and they would have ceased to be idolatrous by returning again to it. The real removal of error is the exhibition of the truth. Truth supplants error; make sure of truth; and error is at an end: yet Elijah acted otherwise; he suffered the people to remain where they were; he tried to reform them in that

state.

"Now why this was so ordered we do not know; whether it be that, when once a people goes wrong, it cannot retrace its steps; or whether there was so much evil at that time in Judah also, that to have attempted a reunion would have been putting a piece of new cloth into an old garment, and had it been effected, would have been a hollow unreal triumph; or whether SUCH GOOD WORKS HAVE A SORT OF NATURAL MARCH, AND THE NEARER WORK MUST FIRST BE DONE, AND THEN THAT WHICH IS FURTHER REMOVED, AND MEN MUST UNDO THEIR SINS IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY COMMITTED THEM, and thus, as neglect of the Temple was the sin of Jeroboam, and Baal-worship the sin of Ahab, so they must ascend back again from Ahab to Jeroboam; but, whatever was the reason, so it was, that Elijah and Elisha kept the people shut up under that system, if it might so be called, in which they found them, and sought rather to teach them their duty, than to restore to them their privileges."—pp. 422, 423.

VOL. I.

E

CHAPTER VIII.

LOOKING ROMEWARD-ST. WILFRID.

THE passages which I have now laid before the reader are all taken out of the first seven volumes of the Lives of the English Saints. After the preceding pages had appeared in the British Magazine, an eighth volume was published-the life of St. Wilfrid—and certainly Mr. Newman neither retracted nor qualified in it anything which had been objected to in the former seven. This eighth volume does not, indeed, contain any doctrine which had not been taught in the earlier volumes. It furnishes no new development: but, on this particular point of Romanizing it speaks as distinctly as any of themand rather more frequently. Of the mode in which it treats this subject the reader shall judge for himself:

TO LOOK ROMEWARD IS A CATHOLIC INSTINCT, seemingly implanted in us for the safety of the faith.—p. 4. Again:

THE PROCESS MAY BE LONGER OR SHORTER, BUT CATHOLICS GET TO ROME AT LAST, IN SPITE OF WIND AND TIDE. -p. 5.

This, no doubt, is what observing people have been expecting as the destination of those whom Mr. Newman calls "catholics," and the fruits of what he calls " a catholic instinct." And, truly, when people have been so long and so anxiously

looking "Romeward," it would be somewhat surprising if any moderate contrariety of "wind and tide" should deter them from loosing from their ancient moorings. Their object is plain enough:

"Italiam, sociis et rege recepto,

Tendere ;"

and there appears every probability of their arriving there in due time; (at least nothing which one can. understand by the terms "wind and tide" seems threatening to retard their course;) though it may not be quite so certain, that even Rome shall prove the end of their peregrinations. For the same spirit of puritanical self-will and Mar-Prelacy, which made them discontented, restless revolutionizers in England, will, ten to one, accompany them on their voyage. Rome itself admits of development. The pope is, after all, a bishop. Possibly he may prove but a high and dry one: high and holy as he now appears, when viewed through the mists and fogs of our remoter regions, or coloured with the roseate hues of catholic instincts, and Romeward imaginations.

But to proceed with the life of St. Wilfrid. The ancient Irish and British church, the author admits, "in its temper was vehemently opposed to that of Rome," (p. 25,) and of course it finds but little favour at his hands: though it serves conveniently enough as a text for introducing his opinions regarding Rome itself.