Roman
Church. In ordinary controversy, says Dr. Newman, we know what we are
about and what to expect; "'_Caedimur, et totidem plagis consumimus
hostem_.' We give you a sharp cut and you return it.... But we at least
have not professed to be composing an _Eirenicon_, when we treated you
as foes." Like Archbishop Manning, Dr. Newman is reminded "of the sword
wreathed in myrtle;" but Dr. Pusey, he says, has improved on the
ancient device,--"Excuse me, you discharge your olive-branch as if from
a catapult."

This is, no doubt, exactly what Dr. Pusey has done. Going much further
than the great majority of his countrymen will go with him in
admissions in favour of the Roman Catholic Church, he has pointed out
with a distinctness and force, never, perhaps, exceeded, what is the
impassable barrier which, as long as it lasts, makes every hope of
union idle. The practical argument against Rome is stated by him in a
shape which comes home to the consciences of all, whatever their
theological training and leanings, who have been brought up in English
ways and ideas of religion. But why should he not? He is desirous of
union--the reunion of the whole of Christendom. He gives full credit to
the Roman communion--much more credit than most of his brethren think
him justified in giving--for what is either defensible or excellent in
it. Dr. Newman must be perfectly aware that Dr. Pusey has gone to the
very outside of what our public feeling in England will bear in favour
of efforts for reconciliation, and he nowhere shows any sign that he is
thinking of unconditional submission. How, then, can he be expected to
mince matters and speak smoothly when he comes to what he regards as
the real knot of the difficulty, the real and fatal bar to all
possibility of a mutual understanding? If his charges are untrue or
exaggerated in detail or colouring, that is another matter; but the
whole of his pleading for peace presupposes that there are great and
serious obstacles to it in what is practically taught and authorised in
the Roman Church; and it is rather hard to blame him for "not making
the best of things," and raising difficulties in the way of the very
object which he seeks, because he states the truth about these
obstacles. We are afraid that we must be of Dr. Newman's opinion that
the _Eirenicon_ is not calculated to lead, in our time at least, to
what it aims at--the reunion of Christendom; but this arises from the
real obstacles themselv