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CHAPTER I.

Mr. Palmer contemplates a visit to Russia.

N Whit-Tuesday, May 21, A.D. 1839, when the

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Grand Duke Alexander of Russia came with the Duke of Wellington, our Chancellor, to Oxford, I, being then one of the Public Examiners, was invited to meet him; and I presented to him in Brasenose College library a petition written in French, of which the following is a slightly abridged translation, as I showed it for criticism to Dr. Routh, our President, some words being omitted at his suggestion, as noted in their respective places :

"Though it may seem presumptuous, I venture to present a petition to your Imperial Highness.

"It is this: to obtain that there be sent hither some Russian ecclesiastic, capable of examining the theology of our churches. He could live in Magdalen College (I am authorized to say this), and I would myself teach him English, that so through him the contents of some of our best books may be made known to His Imperial

Majesty and to the Bishops of the Eastern Communion. And, if, after a time, I should go to Russia, to study there the theology and the ritual of the Russian Church, I hope that I may obtain your Imperial Highness's protection. Assuredly, if the whole Catholic Church ought to aspire after unity, nothing can be more worthy of the piety of a great prince, than to seek to facilitate the reunion of two Communions, separated only by misunderstandings and want of intercourse.

"While the Catholic Church of England'

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Here the President, when I showed it to him, interposed: "Leave out the word 'Catholic,' sir; it will not be understood."

"While the Church of England constantly defends the rights of Christian Sovereigns, invaded equally by the ambition of the Roman Pontiff and by democratical licentiousness, she is herself at present in great danger, isolated in a corner of the West, unsupported by the Civil Government and".

"I would leave that out, sir."

"In a corner of the West, and threatened by the hatred of all the Protestant sects

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"Leave out the word 'Protestant "".

"Of all the sects, which have leagued with schismatical Papists to overthrow her.

"If your Imperial Highness will be pleased to

favour our studies,' and to take an interest in the distress of our Churches, it will be doing a benefit to the cause of social order, of submission and humility in the West; and at the same time, by facilitating the union of the Churches, your Imperial Highness will gladden all those who pray for the peace of Christendom.

"May God bless the throne of the Emperor of Russia, and may all the peoples committed to him obey him as a father. May he never see the anarchical principles of heretical Protestantism coming to disturb his Empire and its churches; and may it be given to him, on the occurrence of some just opportunity, to deliver the East from the yoke of the Infidels."

"I would leave out this last sentence, sir," said Dr. Routh; "the first clause will not be understood, and the second will seem un-English."

"In conclusion I again beg your Imperial Highness to pardon," &c., &c.

Being at this time one of the college tutors at Magdalen, and having to lecture on the Thirty-nine Articles, I began a Treatise on them for the use of my pupils,

1 [It was, I think, a few years after the date of this petition, that the report was circulated in Oxford that the Czar had proposed to found in the University a Professorship of Russ, but that nothing came of it in consequence of his stipulating that the appointment of professor should rest with him.]

intending to make it very different from the comments of Tomlin, Burnet, and Beveridge. What I wrote might be called an "Introduction" to them, and I wrote it at the end of 1839 and the beginning of 1840.2 It was in Latin, and read and approved by Dr. Routh, who at the same time suggested a number of slight alterations.

The President passed over without remark what he found written about the Filioque, and he especially commended what I said about Transubstantiation; at the same time he had marked a passage, in which I said of the Anglican Liturgy, that in it, notwithstanding those changes by which it now differs from the Roman, "the mystical Lamb is still truly immolated, and a sacrifice is offered propitiatory for the quick and for the dead." Turning to his mark at this page, and pointing with his finger to the passage, he asked, "What do you say to the Article, sir?" I replied, "Since this is certainly the doctrine of the Fathers, with which the English Canon of A.D. 1571 required

[Of this Latin work very few copies remain. The one I possess I owe to the kindness of Archdeacon Palmer. It is remarkable that, though the spirit and drift of Mr. Palmer's work is the same as that of No. 90 of the "Tracts for the Times," he wrote his essay a year before that tract, and I never even heard of the existence of his essay till his papers came into my hands in 1879, after his death. I knew him only as a distant acquaintance till the end of 1841.]

all preachers to agree,3 and with which it asserts the Thirty-nine Articles themselves to agree, exacting subscription to them on no other ground, they must, I suppose, be explained, and I think they may fairly be explained, so as to agree with the known sense of the Fathers and of the Church, even if in any places they are suspiciously or ambiguously worded." He repeated, "I say nothing about the doctrine, sir, but what do you say to the Article?"

On another occasion, not in connexion with my Essay on the Articles, he asked me, "Do the Greeks and Russians hold the tradition of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in the Body?" and he added, "I doubt much, sir, whether that was an Apostolical Tradition. The Orientals have another tradition which looks much more like one, viz., that of the Perpetual Virginity; and again another, forbidding clerks in holy orders to marry after Ordination. Controversy apart, sir, it must be admitted that the Protestants have gone much too far on that subject. There is no autho

3 [It seems as if down to the year 1663 this canon was in force. Vide Mr. Hope Scott's Life. He writes in 1838 to a friend, that he had found some of the testimonials given by Merton College to a candidate for orders, which attest that the individual in question “nihil unquam, quod sciamus, aut credidit, aut tenuit nisi quod ex doctrina V. ac N. Testamenti Catholici Patres ac veteres Episcopi collegerunt, nisi quod etiam ecclesia Anglicana probat et tuetur."]

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