Remains
of the Late Reverend
Richard Hurrell Froude, M.A.
Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford,
Vol. I.
J. G. & F. Rivington, 1838
[Edited by Newman and John
Keble in two volumes, the preface jointly written by them—NR.]
Preface
{iii} THE
Author of the Volumes now presented to the Christian reader, was the
eldest son of the Venerable Robert H. Froude, Archdeacon of Totness,
and was born and died in the Parsonage House of Dartington, in the
county of Devon. He was born in 1803, on the Feast of the
Annunciation; and he died of consumption, on the 28th of February,
1836, when he was nearly thirty-three, after an illness of four years
and a half. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, having previously had
the great advantage, while at Ottery Free School, of living in the
family of the Rev. George Coleridge. He went to Eton in 1816, and came
into residence as a commoner of Oriel College, in the spring of 1821.
In 1824 he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts, after having obtained
on his examination, high, though not the {iv} highest honours, both in
the Literæ Humaniores and the Disciplinæ Mathematicæ et Physicæ.
At Easter, 1826, he was elected Fellow of his College, and, in
1827, was admitted to his M.A. degree. The same year he accepted the
office of Tutor, which he held till 1830. In December, 1828, he
received Deacon's orders, and the year after Priest's, from the last
and present Bishops of Oxford. The disorder which terminated his life
first showed itself in the summer of 1831; the winter of 1832, and the
following spring, he passed in the south of Europe; and the two next
winters, and the year between them (1834), in the West Indies. The
illness which immediately preceded his death lasted but a few weeks.
He left behind him a
considerable collection of writings, none prepared for publication; of
which the following two volumes form a part. The Journal, with which
the first commences, and which is continued in the Appendix, reaches
from the beginning of 1826, when he was nearly twenty-three, to the
spring of 1828. The Occasional Thoughts are carried on to 1829. The
Essay on Fiction was written when he was twenty-three; the Sermons
from 1829 to 1833, when he was between twenty-five and thirty. His
Letters begin in 1823, when he was {v} twenty, and are carried down to
within a mouth of his death.
Those on whom the task has
fallen of preparing these various writings for publication, have found
it matter of great anxiety to acquit themselves so as satisfy the
claims of duty, which they felt pressing on them in distinct, and,
sometimes, apparently opposite directions.
Some apology may seem
requisite, in the first place, for the very magnitude of the
collection; as though authority were being claimed, in a preposterous
way, for the opinions of one undistinguished either by station or by
known literary eminence. That apology, it is believed, will be found
in the truth and extreme importance of the views to the developement
of which the whole is meant to be subservient; and also in the
instruction derivable from a full exhibition of the Author's character
as a witness to those views. This is the plea, which it is desired to
bring prominently forward; nothing short of this, it is felt, would
justify such ample and unreserved disclosures: neither originality of
thought, nor engaging imagery, nor captivating touches of character
and turns of expression. {vi}
Still more is this apology
needed on the more grounds of friendship and duty. The publication of
a Private Journal and Private Letters is a serious thing. Too often it
has been ventured on in a kind of reckless way, with an eye singly to
the good expected to be accomplished, no regard being had to the
Author himself and his wishes. It is in itself painful, nay revolting,
to expose to the common gaze papers only intended for a single
correspondent; and it seems little less than sacrilege to bring out
the solitary memoranda of one endeavouring to feel, and to be, as much
as possible alone with his God;—secretly training himself, as in His
presence, in that discipline which shuns the light of this world. To
such a publication it were objection enough that it would seem to
harmonize but too well with the restless, unsparing curiosity, which
now prevails. No common motive, then, it may be well believed, was
required to overcome the strong reluctance which even strangers of
ordinary delicacy, much more kinsmen and intimate friends, must feel
on the first suggestion of such a proceeding. It may be frankly
allowed, that gentle and good minds will naturally be prejudiced in
the outset against any collection of the sort. But the present is a
peculiar case, a case {vii} in which, if the survivors do not greatly
deceive themselves, they are best consulting the wishes of the
departed by publication, hazardous as that step commonly is. Let the
reader, before he condemns, imagine to himself a case like the
following. Let him suppose a person in the prime of manhood, (with
what talents and acquirements is not now the question) devoting
himself, ardently yet soberly, to the promotion of one great cause;
writing, speaking, thinking on it for years, as exclusively as the
needs and infirmities of human life would allow; but dying before he
could bring to perfection any of the plans which had suggested
themselves to him for its advancement. Let it be certainly known to
his friends that he was firmly resolved never to shrink from any thing
not morally wrong, which he had good grounds to believe would really
forward that cause: and that it was real pain and disquiet to him if
he saw his friends in any way postponing it to his supposed feelings
or interests. Suppose further, that having been for weeks and months
in the full consciousness of what was soon likely to befal him, he
departs, leaving such papers as make up the present collection in the
hands of those next to him in blood, without any express direction as
to the disposal of {viii} them; and that they, taking counsel with the
friends on whom he was known chiefly to rely, unanimously and
decidedly judged publication most desirable for that end, which was
the guide of his life, and which they too esteemed paramount to all
others: imagine the papers appearing to them so valuable, that they
feel as if they had no right to withhold such aid from the cause to
which he was pledged: would it, or would it not, be their duty, as
faithful trustees, in such case to overcome their own scruples? would
they, or would they not, be justified in believing that they had,
virtually, his own sanction for publishing such parts even of his
personal and devotional memoranda, much more of his letters to his
friends, as they deliberately judged likely to aid in the general good
effect? This case, of a person sacrificing himself altogether to one
great object, is not of every day occurrence; it is not like the too
frequent instances of papers being ransacked and brought to light,
because the writer was a little more distinguished, or accounted a
little wiser or better than his neighbours: it cannot be fairly drawn
into a precedent, except in circumstances equally uncommon.
On the whole, supposing what
in this Preface must be supposed, the nobleness, and rectitude, and
{ix} pressing nature of the end which the Author had in view, the principle
of posthumous publication surely must, in this instance, be conceded.
The only question remaining will be whether the selection has been
judicious. On this also it may be well to anticipate certain
objections not unlikely to occur to sundry classes of readers. If
there be any who are startled at the strong expressions of
self-condemnation, occurring so frequently both in the journal, and in
the more serious parts of the Correspondence, he will please to
consider that the better any one knows, the more severely will he
judge himself; and since this writer sometimes thought it his duty to
be very plain-spoken in his censure of others, in fairness to him it
seemed right to show that he did not fail to look at home; that he
tried to be more rigid to himself than to any one else.
Again, it will be said, that
many expressions and sentiments would have been more wisely omitted,
as indicating and encouraging a dangerous tendency towards Romanism.
Now this charge of Romanism sounds very distinct and definite, yet, in
the mouths of most persons who advance it, it is perhaps the vaguest
of all charges. However, it cannot be {x} an unfair way of meeting it,
if we consider it as meaning one or other of two things: either a
predilection for the actual system of the Church of Rome, as
distinguished from other parts of Christendom, and particularly from
the English Church: or an overweening value for outward religion, for
Sacraments, Church polity, public worship,—such a respect for these,
as renders a man comparatively inattentive (so it is surmised) to the
inward and spiritual part of religion. If the charge of popery does
not mean one or other of these wrong tendencies, or the two combined,
in whatever proportion; it will be hard to say what it does mean.
Now, as regards the first;
these Remains, it will be found, bear a peculiarly strong testimony
against the actual system of Rome; strong, as coming from one who was
disposed to make every fair allowance in that Church's favour; who was
looking and longing for some fuller developement of Catholic
principles than he could easily find, but who was soon obliged to
confess, with undissembled mortification and disappointment, that such
developement was not to be looked for in Rome. Let the following
passages be well considered: they tell but the more decisively against
the Papal, or Tridentine system, from the {xi} veneration shown in
other places towards those fragments of true Catholicism, which Rome,
by God's Providence, still retains.
"[On a friend's saying that
the Romanists were schismatics in England, but Catholics abroad.]—'No,
H. they are wretched Tridentines every where.'" vol. i. p. 434.
"I never could be a Romanist;
I never could think all those things in Pope Pius' Creed necessary to
salvation." ibid.
"How Whiggery has by degrees
taken up all the filth that has been secreted in the fermentation of
human thought! Puritanism, Latitudinarianism, Popery,
Infidelity; they have it all now, and good luck to them!"—vol. i. p.
340.
"We found, to our horror, that
the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church made the acts of each
successive Council obligatory for ever; that what had been once
decided could not be meddled with again: in fact, that they were
committed finally and irrevocably, and could not advance one step to
meet us, even though the Church of England should again become what it
was in Laud's time, or indeed what it may have been up to the
atrocious Council; for M.—— admitted that many things, e.g.
the doctrine {xii} of mass, which were fixed then, had been
indeterminate before. So much for the Council of Trent, for which
Christendom has to thank Luther and the Reformers … I own it has
altogether changed my notions of the Roman Catholics, and made me wish
for the total overthrow of their system: I think that the only [topos]
now is 'the ancient Church of England;' and, as an explanation of what
one means, 'Charles I., and the Nonjurors.'" vol. i. p. 307, 308.
"I remember you told me that I
should come back a better Englishman than I went away; better
satisfied not only that our Church is nearest in theory right, but
also that practically, in spite of its abuses, it works better; and,
to own the truth, your prophecy is already nearly realized. Certainly
I have as yet only seen the surface of things; but what I have seen
does not come up to my notions of propriety. These Catholic countries
seem in an especial manner [katechein ten aletheian
en adikiai]. And the Priesthood are themselves so sensible of the
hollow basis upon which their power rests, that they dare not resist
the most atrocious encroachments of the State upon their privileges
... I have seen priests laughing when at the Confessional; and indeed
it {xiii} is plain that unless they habitually made light of gross
immorality, three-fourths of the population [of Naples] would be
excommunicated … The Church of England has fallen low, and will
probably be worse before it is better: but let the Whigs do their
worst, they cannot sink us so deep as these people have allowed
themselves to fall while retaining all the superficials of a religious
country."—vol. i. p. 293, 294.
To these extracts may be added
the following, from a letter (also from Naples) which did not come to
hand until after the first volume had been printed.
"Since I have been out here, I
have got a worse notion of the Roman Catholics than I had. I really do
think them idolaters, though I cannot be quite confident of my
information as it affects the character of the priests ... What I mean
by calling these people idolaters is, that I believe they look upon
the Saints and Virgin as good-natured people that will try to get them
let off easier than the Bible declares, and that, as they don't intend
to comply with the conditions on which God promises to answer prayers,
they pray to them as a come-off. {xiv} But this is a generalization
for which I have not sufficient data."
It is clear then, that whether
his opinions were right or wrong, he felt himself to be no Romanist in
this sense; nor perhaps will this be asserted by any candid reader.
The form which the objection will assume will rather be this: that
though a minister he was not a sound and attached member of the
English Establishment; that he evaded its tests by a dry and literal
interpretation of their wording, and availed himself of its influence
and sustenance against itself. But the answer to this objection is
also simple. The view which the Author would take of his own position
was probably this; that he was a minister not of any human establishment,
but of the one Holy Church Catholic, which, among other places, is
allowed by her Divine Master to manifest herself locally in England,
and has in former times been endowed by the piety of her members: that
the State has but secured by law those endowments which it could not
seize without sacrilege, and, in return for this supposed boon, has
encumbered the rightful possession of them by various conditions
calculated to bring the {xv} Church into bondage: that her ministers,
in consequence, are in no way bound to throw themselves into the
spirit of such enactments, rather are bound themselves from the snare
and guilt of them, and to observe only such a literal acquiescence as
is all that the law requires in any case, all that an external
oppressor has a right to ask. Their loyalty is already engaged
to the Church Catholic, and they cannot enter into the drift and
intentions of her oppressors without betraying her. For example: they
cannot do more than submit to the Statute of Præmunire; they
cannot defend or concur in the present suspension in every form of the
Chuch's synodal powers, and of her power of Excommunication; nor can
they sympathize in the provision which hinders their celebrating five
out of the seven daily Services which are their patrimony equally with
Romanists. Again; doubtless, the spirit in which the present
Establishment was framed, would require an affectionate admiring
remembrance of Luther and others, for whom there is no evidence that
the Author of these volumes ever entertained any reverence.
Next as to the other meaning
which one may conceive the vague charge of Romanism to bear, {xvi} i.e.
an undue preference of outward religion; it is conceived that the
Journal and Sermons sufficiently demonstrate the utter injustice of
such a suspicion in this case. For the Sermons, the later ones as well
as the earlier, are, in fact, as far as they go, a record of the same
process with which the Journal is entirely taken up; a constant effort
of the mind, attended by a full conviction of its weakness and its
need of Divine aid and forgiveness, to keep itself in order, to become
meet for the Kingdom of Heaven, to reduce (if one may borrow the
sacred words) every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
Could the person so occupied be justly accused of neglecting inward
and spiritual religion? Is it not plain that fasting and other outward
exercises, strictly as he thought it his duty to observe them, were
with him but as means to an end? His papers are a kind of documentary
evidence, in favour of those views which it is believed he rightly
called Catholic, in this very respect; that they show such views to be
perfectly consistent, nay, inseparably bound up, with the most
elevated notions of inward sanctification, of a renewed heart and
life. In this sense, then, as in the former, the surmise of a virtual
kind of Popery is quite untenable; more so, in {xvii} fact, than if
those places had been omitted, which to persons whose scruples lie all
one way may seem at first sight to warrant the suspicion. For by his
assigning due weight to what is truly Catholic in Romanism, and to
what is sacred and necessary in the visible part of religion, we are
assured that neither in his censures of the papal system in other
respects, nor in his expressions of anxiety about inward and spiritual
self-government, was he deceiving himself and others by the use of
mere words of course. The omission of what, to some, sounds
questionable, would have made the picture of him as a Christian
warrior altogether less complete and instructive.
Another ground on which
censure may be expected, is what will be called the intolerance of
certain passages; the keen sense which the author expresses of the
guilt men incur by setting themselves against the Church. In fact,
both this and the alleged tendency to Romanism are objections not to
the present publication but to the view which it is designed to
support, and do not therefore quite properly come within the scope of
this Preface. To defend the severe expressions alluded to, would be in
a great measure to defend the old Catholic writers {xviii} for the
tone in which they have spoken of unbelievers and corrupters of the
Faith. The same portions of Holy Scripture would be appealed to in
both cases; those namely which teach or exemplify the duty of austere
reserve towards wilful heretics, and earnest zeal against heresiarchs.
Perhaps it may be found that the Author's demeanour and language on
such subjects is a tolerably striking and consistent illustration of
that sentiment of the Psalmist, "Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate
Thee?" He hated them in their collective character, as God's enemies,
as the anti-Christian party; but to all who came in his way
individually, he was, as many of his acquaintance can testify, full of
unaffected, open-hearted kindness; entering into their feelings, and
making allowance for their difficulties, not the less scrupulously
because he sometimes found himself compelled to separate from them or
declare himself against them.
To judge adequately of this
point we must further take into account a certain strong jealousy
which he entertained of his own honesty of mind. He was naturally, or
on principle, a downright speaker; avoiding those words of course and
of compliment, which often, it may be feared, serve to {xix} keep up a
false peace at the expense of true Christian charity. His words,
therefore, (playfulness and occasional irony apart,) may in general be
taken more literally than those of most men. It is easy to see that
this would make his criticisms, whether literary or moral, sound more
pointed and unsparing, than those in which a writer of less frankness
would indulge himself.
And this introduces another
point, not unlikely to be animadverted on as blameable in the present
selection. Many, recoiling from his sentences, so direct, fearless,
and pungent concerning all sorts of men and things, will be fain to
account them speeches uttered at random, more for present point and
effect, than to declare the speaker's real opinion; and, so judging,
will of course disapprove of the collecting and publishing such
sayings, especially on high and solemn subjects, as at best
incautious, and perhaps irreverent. But they who judge thus must be
met by a denial of the fact. The expressions in question were not
uttered at random: he was not in the habit of speaking at random on
such matters. This is remarkably evinced by the fact, that to various
friends at various times, conversing or writing on the same subjects,
he was constantly employing {xx} the same illustrations and
arguments,—very often the same words: as they found by comparison
afterwards, and still go on to find. Now maxims and reasonings, of
which this may be truly affirmed, whatever else may be alleged against
them, cannot fairly be thrown by as mere chance sayings. Right or
wrong, they were deliberate opinions, and cannot be left out of
consideration in a complete estimate of a writer's character and
principles. The off-hand unpremeditated way in which they seemed to
dart out of him, like sparks from a luminous body, proved only a mind
entirely possessed with the subject; glowing as it were through and
through.
Still, some will say, more
selection might have been used, and many statements at least omitted,
which, however well considered by himself, coming now suddenly as they
do on the reader, appear unnecessarily startling and paradoxical. But
really there was little option of that kind, if justice were to be
done either to him or to the reader. His opinions had a wonderful
degree of consistency and mutual bearing; they depended on each other
as one whole: who was to take the responsibility of separating them?
Who durst attempt it, considering especially his hatred of concealment
and {xxi} artifice? Again: it was due to the reader to show him fairly
how far the opinions recommended would carry him. There is no wish to
disguise their tendencies, nor to withdraw them from such examination
as will prove them erroneous, if they are so. Any homage which it is
desired to render to his memory would indeed be sadly tarnished, were
he to be spoken or written of in any spirit but that of an unshrinking
openness like his own. Such also is the tone of the Catholic Fathers,
and (if it may be urged without irreverence) of the Sacred Writers
themselves. Nothing, as far as we can find, is kept back by them,
merely because it would prove startling: openness, not disguise, is
their manner. This should not be forgotten in a compilation professing
simply to recommend their principles. Nothing therefore is here kept
back, but what it was judged would be fairly and naturally
misunderstood: the insertion of which, therefore, would have been
virtually so much untruth.
Lastly, it may perhaps be
thought, of the correspondence in particular, that it is eked out with
unimportant details, according to the usual mistake of partial
friends. The compilers, however, can most truly affirm, that they have
had the risk of {xxii} such an error continually before their eyes,
and have not, to the best of their judgment, inserted any thing, which
did not tell, indirectly perhaps but really, towards filling up that
outline of his mind and character, which seemed requisite to complete
the idea of him as a witness to Catholic views. It can hardly be
necessary for them to add, what the name of editor implies, that while
they of course concur in his sentiments as a whole, they are not to be
understood as rendering themselves responsible for every shade of
opinion or expression.
It remains only to commend
these fragments, if it may be done without presumption, to the same
good Providence which seemed to bless the example and instructions of
the writer while yet with us, to the benefit of many who knew him:
that "being dead," he may "yet speak," as he constantly desired to do,
a word in season for the Church of God: may still have the privilege
of awakening some of her members to truer and more awful thoughts than
they now have of their own high endowments and deep responsibility.
The Feast of the
Purification, 1838.
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