A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Memoirs of James Robert Hope Scott, Volume 2

R >> Robert Ornsby >> Memoirs of James Robert Hope Scott, Volume 2




Ever y'rs affectionately, John H. Newman.

I find, towards the end of 1850, a very interesting exchange of letters
between Dr. Newman and Mr. Hope, which may conveniently be given here,
though chronologically they ought to come later. I first give a letter
needed to explain them:--

_J. R. Hope, Esq., Q.C. to the Rev. Stuart Bathurst._

Abbotsford: Nov. 4, '50.

Dear Bathurst,--Your kind letter needed no apologies; and for your prayers
and good thoughts for me I thank you much. May they of God be blessed to me
in clearer light as well as in a purer conscience! As yet I do not see my
way as you have done yours, but I pray that I may not long remain in such
doubt as I now have.

From our address I conclude that you are with Newman. Tell him with my kind
regards that I hope he has not forgotten me. I have very often thought of
him, and have sometimes been near writing to him, but have had nothing
definite to say. I have read his last lectures, and wish they were extended
to a review of doctrine, and the difficulties which beset it to an
Anglican.

Let me hear from you when you have time, and believe me, my dear Bathurst,

Yours ever aff'tly,

James R. Hope.

The Rev. S. Bathurst.

_The Very Rev. Dr. Newman to J. R. Hope, Esq., Q.C._

Oratory, Birmingham: Nov. 20, 1850.

My dear Hope,--It is with the greatest pleasure I have just read the letter
which you wrote to Bathurst, and which he has forwarded to me.... I now
fully see ... that your silence has arisen merely from the difficulty of
writing to one in another communion, and the irksomeness and indolence (if
you will let me so speak) we all feel in doing what is difficult, what may
be misconceived, and what can scarcely have object or use.

I know perfectly well, my dear Hope, your great moral and intellectual
qualities, and will not cease to pray that the grace of God may give you
the obedience of faith, and use them as His instruments. For myself, I say
it from my heart, I have not had a single doubt, or temptation to doubt,
ever since I became a Catholic. I believe this to be the case with most
men--it certainly is so with those with whom I am in habits of intimacy. My
great temptation is to be at _peace_, and let things go on as they
will, and not trouble myself about others. This being the case, your
recommendation that I should 'take a review of doctrine, and of the
difficulties which beset it to an Anglican,' is anything but welcome, and
makes me smile. Surely, enough has been written--all the writing in the
world would not destroy the necessity of faith. If all were now made clear
to reason, where would be the exercise of faith? The single question is,
whether _enough_ has not been done to _reduce_ the difficulties
so far as to hinder them absolutely blocking up the way, or excluding those
direct and large arguments on which the reasonableness of faith is built.

Ever yours affectionately,

John H. Newman.

_J. R. Hope, Esq., Q.C. to the Very Rev. Dr. Newman._

Abbotsford: Nov. 27, '50.

Dear Newman,--The receipt of your letter gave me sincere pleasure. It
renews a correspondence which I value very highly, and which my own
stupidity had interrupted. Offence I had never taken, but causes such as
you describe much better than I could have done were the occasion of my
silence.

You may now find that you have brought more trouble on yourself, for there
are many things on which I should like to ask you questions, and I know
that your time is already much engaged. However, at present my chief object
is to assure you how very glad I am again to write to you, as the friend
whom I almost fear I had thrown away. Whatever occurs, do not let us be
again estranged. It is not easy, as one gets older, to form new friendships
of any kind, and least of all such as I have always considered yours....

Ever, dear Newman,

Yours affectionately

JAMES R. HOPE.

_The Very Rev. Dr. Newman to J. R. Hope, Esq., Q.C._

Oratory, Birmingham: November 29, 1850.

My dear Hope,--I write a line to thank you for your letter, and to say how
glad I shall be to hear from you, as you half propose, whether or not I am
able to say anything to your satisfaction, which would be a greater and
different pleasure.

It makes me smile to hear you talk of getting older. What must I feel,
whose life is gone ere it is well begun?

Ever yours affectionately,

JOHN H. NEWMAN,

Congr. Orat.




CHAPTER XXI.

1845-1851.

Mr. Hope's Doubts of Anglicanism--Correspondence with Mr. Gladstone--
Correspondence of J. R. Hope and Mr. Gladstone continued--Mr. Gladstone
advises Active Works of Charity--Bishop Philpotts advises Mr. Hope to go
into Parliament--Mr. Hope and Mr. Gladstone in Society--Mr. Hope on the
Church Affairs of Canada--Dr. Hampden, Bishop of Hereford--The Troubles at
Leeds--Mr. Hope on the Jewish Question, &c.--The Gorham Case--The Curzon
Street Resolutions--The 'Papal Aggression' Commotion--Correspondence of Mr.
Hope and Mr. Manning--Their Conversion--Opinions of Friends on Mr. Hope's
Conversion--Mr. Gladstone--Father Roothaan, F.G. Soc. Jes., to Count
Senfft--Dr. Döllinger--Mr. Hope to Mr. Badeley--Conversion of Mr. W.
Palmer.


To return to the Gladstone correspondence which we quitted some pages back.
In a letter dated Baden-Baden, October 30, 1845, Mr. Gladstone, after
mentioning his having been at Munich, where, through an introduction from
Mr. Hope, he had made the acquaintance of Dr. Döllinger, criticises at some
length Möhler's 'Symbolik,' which he had been reading on Mr. Hope's
recommendation. I must quote the conclusion of the letter in his own
words:--

No religion and no politics until we meet, and that more than ever
uncertain. Hard terms, my dear Hope; do not complain if I devote to them
the scraps or ends of my fourth page. But now let me rebuke myself, and
say, no levity about great and solemn things. There are degrees of pressure
from within that it is impossible to resist. The Church in which our lot
has been cast has come to the birth, and the question is, will she have
strength to bring forth? I am persuaded it is written in God's decrees that
she shall; and that after deep repentance and deep suffering a high and
peculiar part remains for her in healing the wounds of Christendom. [Nor]
is there any man, I cannot be silent, whose portion in her work is more
clearly marked out for him than yours. But you have, if not your revenge,
your security. I must keep my word. God bless and guide you.

Yours affectionately,

W. E. G.

The following letter is deeply interesting:--

_J. R. Hope, Esq. to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P._

35 Charles Street, Mayfair:

December 5, 1845.

Dear Gladstone,--I return Döllinger's letter, which I had intended to give
you last night.

The debate has cost me a headache, besides the regrets I almost always feel
after having engaged in theological discussions. A sense of my own
ignorance and prejudices should teach me to be more moderate in expressing,
as well as more cautious in forming opinions; but it is my nature to
require some broad view for my guidance, and since Anglicanism has lost
this aspect to me, I am restless and ill at ease.

I know well, however, that I have not deserved by my life that I should be
without great struggle in my belief, and this ought to teach me to do more
and say less.

I must therefore try more and more to be fit for the truth, wherever it may
lie, and in this I hope for your prayers.

Yours affectionately,

JAMES R. HOPE.

_The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. to J. R. Hope, Esq._

13 C. H. Terrace:

Dec. 7, 2nd Sunday in Advent, 1845.

My dear Hope,--I need hardly tell you I am deeply moved by your note, and
your asking my prayers. I trust you give what you ask. As for them you have
long had them; in private and in public, and in the hour of Holy Communion.
But you must not look for anything from them; only they cannot do any harm.
Under the merciful dispensation of the Gospel, while the prayer of the
righteous availeth much, the petition of the unworthy does not return in
evils on the head of those for whom it is offered.

Your speaking of yourself in low terms is the greatest kindness to me. It
is with such things before my eyes that I learn in some measure by
comparison my own true position.... [Mr. Gladstone goes on to controvert
his friend's desire for 'broad views,' on the principles of Butler, and
proceeds] Now let me use a friend's liberty on a point of practice. Do you
not so far place yourself in rather a false position by withdrawing in so
considerable a degree from those active external duties in which you were
so conspicuous? Is rest in that department really favourable to religious
inquiry? You said to me you preferred at this time selecting temporal
works: are we not in this difficulty, that temporal works, so far as mere
money is concerned, are nowadays relatively overdone? But if you mean
temporal works otherwise than in money, I would to God we could join hands
upon a subject of the kind which interested you much two years ago. And now
I am going to speak of what concerns myself more than you, as needing it
more.

The desire we then both felt passed off, as far as I am concerned, into a
plan of asking only a donation and subscription. Now it is very difficult
to satisfy the demands of duty to the poor by money alone. On the other
hand, it is extremely hard for me (and I suppose possibly for you) to give
them much in the shape of time and thought, for both with me are already
tasked up to and beyond their powers, and by matters which I cannot
displace. I much wish we could execute some plan which, without demanding
much time, would entail the discharge of some humble and humbling
offices.... If you thought with me--and I do not see why you should not,
except that to assume the reverse is paying myself a compliment--let us go
to work, as in the young days of the college plan, but with a more direct
and less ambitious purpose.... In answer give me advice and help if you
can; and when we meet to talk of these things, it will be more refreshing
than metaphysical or semi-metaphysical argument. All that part of my note
which refers to questions internal to yourself is not meant to be answered
except in your own breast.

And now may the Lord grant that, as heretofore, so ever we may walk in His
holy house as friends, and know how good a thing it is to dwell together in
unity! But at all events may He, as He surely will, compass you about with
His presence and by His holy angels, and cause you to awake up after His
likeness, and to be satisfied with it! ...

Ever your affectionate friend,

W. E. GLADSTONE.

J. R. Hope, Esq.

The above letter appears to throw a light upon Mr. Hope's views of action
at that time (it was a year of approaching the acme of his professional
energies) which I have not met with elsewhere. Those views he did not see
his way to give up, notwithstanding the representations so kindly urged by
his friend. It will have been remarked that Mr. Gladstone did not expect
any answer, in the ordinary sense of the word, to the most serious part of
his letter, and in his reply (December 8), which is merely a note, Mr. Hope
simply says:--

Many, many thanks for your letter, which I received this morning. I will
think it over, and particularly as regards the engagement in some temporal
almsdeed. I see, however, many obstacles in my own way, both from health
and occupation.

After this, though the two friends continued still to correspond, yet the
letters are of comparatively little moment, the subject nearest to the
hearts of both being of necessity suppressed, or almost so; topics once of
common interest, such as Trinity College (now near its opening) [Footnote:
See vol. i. (ch. xiv. p. 278).] and Church legislation, having of course
lost their attractions for Mr. Hope. In the autumn of 1846 there was an
interchange of visits between Rankeillour [Footnote: Rankeillour, a family
seat near Cupar, in Fifeshire, which Mr. Hope with his sister-in-law, Lady
Frances Hope, had rented the previous year, 1845, from his brother, Mr. G.
W. Hope, of Luffness, and which was theirs and Lady Hope's joint home when
in Scotland, until Mr. Hope's marriage in 1847.] and Fasque, and kind and
friendly offices and family sympathies went on as of old. Yet, if the
_idem sentire de republicâ_ was long ago recognised as a condition of
intimate friendship, how much more is the observation true of the _idem
sentire de ecclesiâ_! The following letter, addressed to Mr, Hope early
in 1846 by Dr. Philpotts, will show what powerful influences were still at
work to gain or recover Mr. Hope's services to Anglicanism in political
life:--

_The Right Rev. Dr. Philpotts, Bishop of Exeter, to J. R. Hope, Esq._

Bishopstowe: 16 Feb., 1846.

My dear Sir,--... The miserable state of political matters makes me
earnestly wish (which I fear you do not) that you may soon be in
Parliament. It is manifest that we are approaching a most important crisis.
To give any rational ground of hope (humanly speaking) of a favourable
issue, it is most necessary that there should be an accession of high-
principled talent and power of speaking to the honest party. You would
carry this, and, forgive my adding, _ought_ to carry it if a fit
opportunity be presented to you.

I say not this with any imagination that the objects of political ambition
have any attraction to you, but because I think you would (with God's
blessing) be a tower of strength to all the best institutions and interests
of the country.

_Hactenùs hæc._

Yours most faithfully,

H. EXETER.

'Henry of Exeter,' in a conversation with Lady Henry Kerr in those days,
once said that he considered three men as those to whom the country had
chiefly to look in the coming time: Manning in the Church, Gladstone in the
State, and Mr. Hope in the Law. The Bishop was, I believe, thought rather
apt to indulge in what were called 'Philpottic flourishes,' but the above
letter shows his deliberate opinion of Mr. Hope, which is quite borne out
by the rest of his correspondence. He constantly asks his counsel on Church
affairs and Church legislation, till his conversion was approaching; and
even long after it, I find him in 1862, when about to appeal to the House
of Lords from a decision in the courts below, asking Mr. Hope's assistance
in these terms: 'I venture to have recourse to you--as one whose skill and
ability, knowledge--as well as your kindness often experienced--makes me
estimate more highly than any other.... I am _very anxious_ to obtain
your powerful advocacy before the Lords. Is this contrary to your usage?
[Footnote: Right Rev. Dr. Philpotts to J. R. Hope-Scott, February 22,
1862.] In a letter, now before me, from a member of the legal profession
and a Protestant, the writer, referring to some occasion in early days on
which he had met Mr. Hope and Mr. Gladstone together in society, remarks:
'They were constantly discussing important questions. I am sure that, if a
stranger had come in, and heard that one of them would be Premier, he would
have selected [Mr. Hope] as the superior of the two. And I always thought
that his abilities and character fitted him for the highest positions in
the country. But his aims were for eminence in a still higher sphere, and
he readily abandoned the road to worldly distinctions when he thought that
his duty towards God required the sacrifice.' Of course I only quote this
as evidence of the impression which Mr. Hope had made on an individual
observer, [Footnote: It is perfectly just.--_W. E. G._] not as
instituting any comparison, which would be wholly out of place.

The following letter is more of ecclesiastical and legal than personal
interest. It is in reply to a line from Mr. Gladstone, asking his advice:--

_J. R. Hope, Esq. to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P._

35 Charles Street:

Wednesday evening, March 18, '46.

Dear Gladstone,--I had some hopes of being able to call on you this
morning, but was disappointed.

With regard to the Canadian Archbishopric, if you have seen what I wrote
about a bishopric in the same colony you will have got the historical view
which I was then induced to take. I am convinced that the parties to the
Treaty of Paris and the framers of the first Act contemplated a Roman
Church with an Anglican supremacy of the Crown. Their successors did not
understand this, and proceeded upon the theory of toleration--thereby at
once yielding the power of direct interference and refusing direct
establishment. But in fact the R. C. Church is established, and
consequently Rome has the advantage both of establishment and complete
independence. I am not the man to say that the latter ought to be
infringed, but I think it right to draw your attention to the departure
from the original idea of the position of the R. C. Church in Canada. As
matters now stand I think Lord Stanley had no option, and could only be
neutral; but the original theory of royal supremacy having failed (as was
natural), a concordat alone can decide the relations of Church and State in
that quarter. The question of precedence is certainly not in itself
sufficient to decide the conduct of Government, but it presents a
difficulty; and the more difficulties there are, the more needs of a
complete solution.

It seems to me, therefore, that you must either follow Lord Stanley in his
neutrality, and leave the consequences to chance, or at once originate a
communication with the Holy See; and for the latter purposes I think Canada
affords as fair an occasion as it is possible to find.

Yours ever truly,

JAMES R. HOPE.

Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P.

In the same year, 1846, the appointment of Dr. Hampden to the see of
Hereford was 'a heavy blow and great discouragement' to the Tractarian
party; but the correspondence does not throw much light on the subject as
far as regards Mr. Hope. He must have felt his profession sucking him in
like a vortex, from which it is wonderful how he could grasp the Catholic
faith in the end. Many of his friends were now doing so, but he still held
back. The following sentences from a letter he wrote to Father Newman, then
(April 23, 1846) contemplating his departure for Rome, will show something
of Mr. Hope's then position--Anglican ideas not so vanished that they might
not possibly have been, at least in imagination, renewed--Catholic ideas
not yet distinctly written in their place.

I can construe the obscure wish with which your letter concludes. I join
heartily in desiring _some_ termination to my present doubts; but
whether in the direction you would think right, or by a return to
Anglicanism, is the question. I am astonished to find how resolute Keble is
in maintaining his present position. Others, also, of more earnestness and
better knowledge than myself, are recoiling--and this troubles me, for I
cannot but look around for authority.

To his own family he became more and more reserved on the subject, and
showed unwillingness that difficulties should be touched; for, great as was
his wish that the Church of England should assert herself Catholic, he
dreaded, on good grounds, that if awakened from her slumbers, the only
effect would be that she would use her giant strength against her friends
as well as enemies, hit them knocks, and then relapse into repose. Unable
even yet to make up his mind whether those of his friends who had joined
the Church of Rome had done right or wrong, materially, at all events, he
remained an Anglican. Such a state of mind necessarily varied, if not from
day to day, at least at longer intervals. At the close of 1846 came the
troubles at St. Saviour's, Leeds, a stronghold of the section peculiarly
under Dr. Pusey's influence, which encountered the opposition of the old
Tractarianism, or rather Church-of-Englandism of Dr. Hook. They ended in
some important conversions, but, as affecting Mr. Hope, seem scarcely to
require to be dwelt on. In May 1847 I find him exerting himself in favour
of Mr. Gladstone's candidature for the University of Oxford. On December 9
he writes (from Rankeillour) to Mr. Gladstone on the question of Jewish
emancipation as follows:--

On the Jewish question my bigotry makes me liberal. To symbolise the
Christianity of the House of Commons in its present form is to substitute a
new Church and creed for the old Catholic one; and as this is delusive, I
would do nothing to countenance it. Better have the Legislature declared
what it really is--not professedly Christian, and then let the Church claim
those rights and that independence which nothing but the pretence of
Christianity can entitle the Legislature to withhold from it. In this view
the emancipation of the Jews must tend to that of the Church, and at any
rate a 'sham' will be discarded. However, I am not disposed to press my
views on this or similar points. I have withdrawn from Church politics, and
never had to do with any others. How long this peaceful disposition may
last I know not, but my station in life does not seem to me to require that
I should meddle. For this reason, if for no other, you may be sure I do not
regret having lost the honour of being armour-bearer to the Bishop of
Exeter in the Hampden strife. That appointment, however, is certainly bad
enough.

Mr. Hope was now, in the ordinary sense of the word, 'settled in life' (he
married in August of that year, 1847); but the great happiness he found in
this change of condition was no talisman that could ward off the question
which still imperiously demanded a solution; and perhaps scarce a month
passed in these times without some new event arising to bring it more
forcibly upon minds that had once been fairly within its influence. Mr.
Hope's style in writing to Mr. Badeley on the Hampden affair, under date
January 16, 1848, shows in some degree a renewed interest, but with
symptoms, like the passage last quoted, of passing off into Liberalism.

I am right glad that you have got your Rule, and have good hopes that you
will make it absolute.... When the argument is resumed pray remember my
favourite plan of establishing the old Ecclesiastical Law as the Common Law
of England before the Reformation, and requiring evidence of a direct
statutory repeal. Reid writes me that there is a fund for the expense of
the opposition. If so I shall be happy to contribute, for I feel very
strongly (not about Dr. Hampden, though I do feel as to him, but) about
this violent piece of Erastianism, such as no Christian community ought to
endure.

Following this, for about two years, the Church of England was convulsed
with the Gorham case. This, too, has passed into the history of
Anglicanism. It will be sufficient to remind the reader that Dr. Philpotts,
the Bishop of Exeter, had refused to institute the Rev. G. C. Gorham to the
vicarage of Brampford Speke, because he denied the doctrine of baptismal
regeneration, Mr. Gorham sued the Bishop in the Court of Arches, but
judgment was given by Sir H. J. Fust against the plaintiff, who then
appealed to the Crown, and the result was that the Judicial Committee of
the Privy Council, on March 8, 1850, reversed Sir H. J. Fust's judgment,
and held that Mr. Gorham's doctrine was not repugnant to that of the Church
of England. On March 12 a meeting was held at Mr. Hope's house in Curzon
Street by several leading men of the Tractarian party--the number, I
believe, was fourteen--including Mr. Hope himself, Archdeacon Manning,
Archdeacon Kobert Wilberforce, and Mr. Badeley--to consider the effect of
this sentence on the Church of England. Certain resolutions were passed and
signed, and afterwards circulated in a somewhat modified form. The
document, as finally issued, is to be found in more publications than one,
and may be referred to in Mr. Kirwan Browne's 'Annals of the Tractarian
Movement,' 3rd edition, p. 191. Its main significance is contained in
Resolutions 5 and 6, which are given as follows, in a printed copy now
before me:--

5. That inasmuch as the Faith is one, and rests upon one principle of
authority, the conscious, wilful, and deliberate abandonment of the
essential meaning of an Article of the Creed destroys the Divine Foundation
upon which alone the entire Faith is propounded by the Church.

6. That any portion of the Church which does so abandon the essential
meaning of an Article of the Creed, forfeits not only the Catholic doctrine
in that Article, but also the office and authority to witness and teach as
a Member of the Universal Church.

It is easy to see that these apparently strong declarations afforded a
loophole for the escape of moderates; but Mr. Manning and his friends, as
the result proved, were prepared to act upon them in their original and
unqualified form; for all the four I have named, with two others,
eventually became Catholics. The rest of those present at the Curzon Street
meeting remained Protestants. As for Mr. Hope, the year rolled round, and
he was still externally where he was; but the following allusion, in a
letter of his to Mr. Gladstone, dated Abbotsford, September 6, 1850, to
some recent conversions, must have made it evident that his own was drawing
very near:--

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.