one, that it must not be assumed for certain that a treatment of a difficult case like this, however wise and just, would issue in bringing the doubter over to the true faith; the other, that our judgments on Dr. Pusey's method will be affected by the views entertained by the kind and amount of argument requisite in ordinary cases for warranting a rational conviction of the truth of the Deity of Christ, and also by our accord or want of accord with his idea of Church authority in matters of doctrine. Neither Scripture nor reason throw the sole responsibility of failure to win souls to faith on the individual who seeks to win them. Not even Christ when among men persuaded some unbelievers to believe on Himself. There is a guilt of unwillingness to see amidst profession of desire for truth. Those who object to Dr. Pusey's High Church claim for authority, apart from all argument, may imagine that he would have succeeded had he employed the reasoning usually recognized as adequate by theologians. But this is a non sequitur. We must not do him that injustice. He may have adduced all the best arguments which the learning and skill of ages have furnished, and yet all may have been lost on Mrs. Besant. In religion, and even in historical matters, the personal element counts for much. Reasoning overwhelmingly powerful to one is insufficient for another; not because there is essential invalidity in it, but because there is something unconsciously operative in the individual to whom it is presented, that hinders it from exercising its proper constraint over the intellect. There is much more in a human being than mere intellect. The intellect moves only in relation to the rest of our nature. Religious truths, unlike mathematical, are intimately connected with the deepest experience of the spirit, and receive a colouring and draw a setting from the unexpressed and inexpressible Self. Formal conclusions arrived at may not embody all that is latent unconsciously in the inner man.

But to return to Dr. Pusey's method, I am disposed to think that his attitude towards Mrs. Besant at the very beginning of the interview was inconsistent with his previous action, and therefore at once produced a damaging effect on her mind. In the preliminary correspondence, when she expressed her doubts and sought help, he advised her to read Liddon's argument as worked out in the well-known Bampton Lectures: at the very beginning of the personal interview he treated her as though she were a penitent, and required of her instant and unquestioned submission to the decisions of an infallible Church. Those of us who read the narrative see at a glance the logical inconsistency of the two courses; and Mrs. Besant was too keen a logician not to be astonished and intellectually injured by this change of attitude. The letter had practically said, "See how completely the reasoning of Liddon proves the point; find in his arguments rest for your intellect." The living voice practically said, "The point is once for all settled for you by an infallible authority; and all you have to do is to bow submissively to that authority believe and don't think.". Mrs. Besant had been led to expect guidance into truth: she met with a blunt demand for blind submission. I

NO. L-VOL. I.-THE THINKER.

am not referring now to the correctness nor incorrectness of Dr. Pusey's personal faith in the Church as the infallible authority in matters to be believed. I am speaking solely of the natural effect of the inconsistency of his entire procedure on the mind of his interviewer, as giving us one clue to his failure in winning her over to the faith. No doubt Dr. Pusey was his true self in the demand made at the interview. For, strictly speaking, it is a superfluity for those who hold to the high doctrine of Church infallibility and priestly authority to trouble themselves with reasonings to prove this or that Christian dogma. That has been all settled for them, and once for all, by an authority from which there is no appeal, and to criticize or attempt to qualify or amend the decisions once arrived at by that authority is an act of impiety. To set forth even the reasons that led to the dogmas and so justify the claim on submission, is virtually to appeal to the reason of men, and to dispense with the doctrine of supreme and unalterable authority. Dr. Liddon's work, in so far as it proves to the ordinary judgment of men the truth of the divinity of Christ, is a disclaimer of the demand to submit to dogma on the ground that the Church has once for all without error settled the matter. The only consistent course is to prove, if possible, the right or power of the Church to decide what is the doctrine and the form in which it is to be expressed, and then to demand of every one entire and instant submission. To prove the doctrine after that is quite useless. Romanism is logical: High Anglicanism when dealing with doctrine is too often illogical.

Further, deeper down than this inconsistency in the general treatment of the case lay a very serious defect: Dr. Pusey failed to establish sympathy. In most cases of personal intercourse, it is half the victory if sympathy be established between the seeker and the renderer of help. The opportunities of doing this were at Dr. Pusey's side. Prior to the interview, there was much on Mrs. Besant's part to render her very susceptible to any effort he might make to enter into her real feelings and win her confidence. She had earnestly desired to see him. She had a profound respect for his life's work and great reverence for his character. She was prepared to open her mind to him without reserve, having full faith in his ability and goodness. Not often does a guide of the perplexed find one so prepared for sympathetic treatment. It may be thought that Dr. Pusey was quite right in thinking, when face to face with her, that she had already read too much, and that, therefore, something other than new and additional arguments was required. There are persons whose'need is rather spiritual than intellectual. He had, probably, a shrewd suspicion of the existence of a restless temperament which interfered with the acquisition of truth; and it was only right that this circumstance should influence his judgment in the procedure adopted. But it was the discovery of this which rendered it more. than ever important to proceed with care in the establishment of full sympathy. She should somehow be made to feel that here was one who saw through all her mental perplexities, assessed their value on the intellectual side, and knew something of the yearning which accompanied them.

Whether it arose from sheer incapacity to enter into the real sorrows of one tossed on the sea of doubt, or from the habit of acting the priestly part of father confessor to those who came to him, or from both these causes, the result was that all the springs of sympathy were stopped by his rather abrupt and authoritative closure of all the avenues to truth along which she had hoped to be led. This was, as I have pointed out, not only inconsistent with his correspondence with her, but it at once created a revulsion in the mind of his auditor, shook her confidence in him as one who could help her, and raised a barrier between the two souls which nothing could pass. He saw her intellectual restlessness as a fact in her life, but said nothing and did nothing to cause her to feel that he had placed himself in her position and entered sympathetically into her troubles. With the quick instinct of an educated woman she saw that he did not realize her difficulties and bear them on his heart, and hence she felt that he could never offer the clue to their solution. The two beings lived in different intellectual hemispheres, and spoke an untranslatable language. It was Dr. Pusey's business to cross over in imagination to her hemisphere, and learn the langnage of her soul. This he did not do.

Again, Dr. Pusey added to the original difficulty by the introduction of another. His visitor wanted instruction and guidance in reference to a particular Christian doctrine: she wished to know the evidence for accepting the Deity of Christ as the revealed truth of God, and she supposed that in consequence of his great learning he would be able to point out what she had overlooked, or would marshal the facts in such a way as to bring her the light for which she was craving. Thus her distinct inquiry was met by a withholding of what was sought; and, on the other hand, by a demand that she should accept another and totally different doctrine, namely, that of the infallible authority of the Church on questions of religious truth, and that too as a substitute for the exercise of one's own judgment on the evidence available for proof. Thus Mrs. Besant was intent on knowing about one doctrine; Dr. Pusey insisted on the immediate acceptance of two doctrines. She wanted Scriptural reasons for believing on Christ as the true Son of God; he not only gave no such reasons, but required that she should believe something else at the expense of her own free judgment. It is obvious that Mrs. Besant's Churchism was not of Dr. Pusey's type; for she was utterly surprised at the unreasonableness of this procedure. Naturally, instead of easing the original difficulty, it aggravated it. It immediately aroused antagonism, and tended to bring the vanishing confidence in her adviser down to zero. It meant for her the surrender of all inquiry, all thought on the matter of the Person of Christ, all respect for one's own faculties, all sense of personal responsibility in matters of faith.

The doctrine of the Church as the infallible seat of authority in matters pertaining to religion opens up a great question on which I cannot enter here and now. I am concerned only with the use made of it in seeking to bring Mrs. Besant to accept the doctrine of the true Divinity of Christ. Dr. Pusey

should have remembered that this doctrine of an infallible authority, overriding all the thinking and judgments of individuals, sincere or earnest Christians though they may be, is not itself an Article of Faith in the sense that the Deity of Christ is. It is a preliminary question to that of what is revealed concerning Christ. It cannot be established by assuming that the Church has right and power ex cathedra to settle it without appeal; for that is to beg the very question. It is to say, the infallible Church establishes the doctrine of its infallibility-a piece of logical nonsense. Reasons appealing to the judgment of men alone can serve in such a case; and thus, even though it be shown that the Church is as infallible as is claimed in settling dogmas, they and its infallibility are ultimately made to rest on an appeal to the reason as instructed by Scripture. It was too much to suppose that Mrs. Besant, even as Dr. Pusey knew her, would at once bow down to this great assumption of infallible authority, and crush out her spirit of inquiry. One reason why she should do so Dr. Pusey did offer, namely, the fact that the promise of the Holy Spirit to lead into all truth was given by Christ; only with the characteristic tendency of the school to which he belonged, he assumed that these words, addressed to the Apostles in the course of their being equipped for their special work, applied in equal sense and measure to those who were not Apostles, and had reference to the verbal formulation of all subsequent revelations to them; thus, overlooking the real fulfilment when the Apostles were afterwards specially inspired to call to mind what Christ had taught them viva voce, as well as to interpret for the entire world the significance of Christ's life and death and resurrection; while, on the other hand, no instance is recorded of their combining with the entire body of Christians, i.e., with the Church, to formulate dogmas out of the current teaching, and to which they demanded unquestioning submission. The instance of Acts xv. 28, 29 is not to the point, since the matters referred to are not doctrinal but practical. The Apostle Paul was very careful to assign reasons for his positive teaching (1 Cor. xv. 1-8), and exhorted Christians to prove all things and hold fast that which was good; thus also explaining why the Bereans who "searched the Scriptures" to see whether "those things were so, were more noble."

Possibly, Dr. Pusey assumed that as a Churchwoman coming to a Churchman of very pronounced principles, Mrs. Besant ought to have been aware of his doctrine of Church Authority in matters of faith. Perhaps she was inconsequential in her action. Logically, an inquirer ought not to look for a reasoning process to establish the doctrine of the Person of Christ from one who believes that the Church has settled it, and that all duty is now comprised in submission. At all events, it argued a lack of practical sagacity on his part that, when he knew that she in practice was not recognizing such authority and was deliberately asking for proofs, he gave her only another stupendous doctrine to be accepted without full and free discussion.

Passing on to a more general consideration of the difficulties of Mrs. Besant, it seems to me that with such a character, with one circumstanced

as she had been, one of the first and most important things to be done would be to establish friendly relations without too great eagerness at first to enter into a hard and continuous discussion of the question at issue. It had been well to approach the subject gradually, not through the intellect or by requiring a formal submission of the will, but by the quiet and tender influences on a susceptible nature, of an unaffected Christian kindliness of spirit manifested in varied forms of interest in the past life, present circumstances, and future hopes of the visitor. Strong citadels may be taken by a slow and subtle process, though they are proof against a direct assault. Dr. Pusey was not destitute of tenderness, but it was indicated in passing words of regret, rather than in a line of conduct that would circumvent the life. He saw the need of spiritual influence to the ascertainment of truth; but all the use he made of this knowledge was to exhort her to pray. If, instead of telling her that she was intellectually proud and had need to pray, he had, avoiding every expression of reproach or fault-finding, taken her by the hand and knelt down there and then, and out of the fulness and pity of a deeply sympathetic heart poured out to God his desires on her behalf, in loving words born of the occasion, he would probably have done more to tone down her restlessness and prepare the way for a future interview for quiet and helpful conversation, than could be accomplished by the most elaborate reasoning, and certainly by any demand for submission.

It may be asked what sort of evidence of the Divinity of Christ is likely to avail with one like Mrs. Besant, provided one has gained her confidence and brought spiritual influence to bear? The evidence is very variedembodied in definite Scriptural terms and allusions, involved in the attitude assumed by Him when on earth, in the entire scope of His work and in His relation to both prophets and apostles; and drawn also from the facts of Christian experience and the triumphs of Christianity. But it does not follow that the line of proof that would suffice with one individual would serve for another. The effect of light depends much on the medium through which it has to penetrate. There are some whose faith rests on a deep personal experience, and to whom the explicit and implicit language of Scripture concerning Him is but supplementary, while in others the reverse order holds good. Supposing one had to furnish Mrs. Besant at that time with considerations that would probably weigh with her, the first step would have been to ascertain where she stood with respect to God, to Scripture, to Apostolic authority, and then to work from the basis so found. It appears that her Theism just then was clear and strong. But as Theism is of various shades, it would be necessary to ascertain what was involved in it. If it meant that God was not only Personal, but took a personal interest in His rational creatures on the earth, felt towards them as Father, and in some definite form revealed His will to His children, and was ever ready to hear and answer their prayer for spiritual help; if, further, it meant that He had given a supernatural revelation through prophets and Jesus of Nazareth, and that the latter had transmitted teaching authority to His Apostles, then there would be solid