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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
This paper seeks to identify the developing pre-conversion outlooks of two clerical converts to Roman Catholicism using their own self-explanations as sources. William Maclaurin, an Episcopalian priest and dean of the diocese of Moray, explained himself in a series of letters to John Henry Newman during the 1840s. William Humphrey, a young Aberdonian serving in the diocese of Brechin, related his conversion of 1868 in a little devotional work published in 1896. Using these sources, I will investigate the pre-conversion understanding of Catholicism of these two converts and identify factors which prompted their conversion. What was it about the Catholic Church that was attractive to these potential converts, compared with their existing Anglican allegiance?
1 Specifically, I have been limited by constraints of time and distance to utilising Maclaurin’s letters that have already been published in Tracey, Gerald (ed.), Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, vol 7 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995)Google Scholar.
2 Humphrey did not date his conversion in his account but he resigned his Episcopalian congregation on 12 March 1868; the letter announcing his intention to resign he states he wrote on the day of his decision to convert, after his arrival in London. Brechin Diocesan Synod Minutes, 16 Sept 1868, Brechin Diocesan Archives, Dundee University Library, BrMS 4.1.3, fo. 142.
3 Humphrey, William, Recollections of Scottish Episcopalianism (London, Thomas Baker, 1896)Google Scholar.
4 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 42.
5 Maclaurin to Newman, Elgin, 20 June 1840, Letters and Diaries, 7, p. 356 Google ScholarPubMed.
6 The British Critic, Quarterly Review and Ecclesiastical Record was founded in 1793 as a High Church journal and from 1814 was funded largely by the lay patron of a number of such High Church causes, Joshua Watson. Newman began to make regular contributions to it after having become disillusioned with another High Church periodical, the British Magazine. He was looking for a magazine which would serve as the vehicle for the Oxford Movement. A struggle for control over the Critic between its editor, James Shergold Boone, and Newman resulted in Newman becoming de facto editor in April 1838, and its formal editor from July 1838 until 1841, when Tom Mozley took over. Under Mozley, the journal continued to be a largely Tractarian mouthpiece, though at times intemperately so, until its demise in 1843. O’Connell, Marvin, The Oxford Conspirators: A History of the Oxford Movement 1833–1845 (Lanham Maryland, University Press of America, 1991), pp. 269–72Google Scholar.
7 Newman to Maclaurin, Oriel College, 13 July 1840, Letters and Diaries, 7, p. 357 Google ScholarPubMed.
8 Maclaurin to Newman, Elgin, 18 July 1840, Letters and Diaries, 7, p. 357 Google ScholarPubMed.
9 Maclaurin to Newman, Elgin Parsonage, 5 Sept 1840, Letters and Diaries, 7, p. 402 Google ScholarPubMed.
10 See Drummond, Andrew L. & Bulloch, James, The Scottish Church 1688–1843 (Edinburgh, Saint Andrew Press, 1973), pp. 45–6, 152–3, 180–1Google Scholar.
11 Letters and Diaries, 7, p. 528.
12 Letters and Diaries, 7, p. 345 n.2. According to Gerard Tracey this was ‘probably Thomas Jones (1752–1845), the well-known Evangelical preacher and writer ... His own Scripture Directory went through seven editions between 1811 and 1829. His many other works included The True Christian, London 1833, and The Interpreter; a Summary View of the revelation of St John, London 1836’.
13 ‘Clergy of the Church of Scotland’, Scottish Magazine and Churchman’s Review, 2 (1850), pp. 103–6, 105Google Scholar.
14 Maclaurin to Newman, Elgin, Whit Monday [8 June] 1840, Letters and Diaries, 7, p. 345.
15 Gilley, Sheridan, Newman and his Age (London, Darton Longman and Todd, 1990), pp. 61–2Google Scholar.
16 Maclaurin to Newman, Elgin, Whit Monday [8 June] 1840, Letters and Diaries, 7, p. 345.
17 Newman to Maclaurin, Oriel College, 13 June 1840, Letters and Diaries, 7, p. 346 Google ScholarPubMed.
18 Melitius was bishop of Antioch in the late fourth-century, though opposed by Rome and Alexandria. In his article in the British Critic ‘The Catholicity of the Anglican Church’ Newman referred to Melitius as ‘the most remarkable historical evidence’ for sanctity which ‘outweighed his separation from Rome’. This proved to Newman that Catholic life, manifested as holiness, could flourish in a schismatic church. Ker, Ian, John Henry Newman: A Biography (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1988), p. 243 Google Scholar.
19 Maclaurin to Newman, Elgin, 20 June 1840, Letters and Diaries, 1, p. 356.
20 Newman’s first book, The Arians of the Fourth Century, published in 1838, is full of this sort of teleological use of history, because he used the fourth-century Arian controversy to interpret the situation of the Church of England following the 1832 Reform Act. Objecting to the reform of the Church of Ireland by a Parliament in which Roman Catholics and Dissenters could take their seats following the Reform Act, Newman drew a lesson from the imperial involvement in the Arian heresy. He claimed Arianism, which had the fourth-century emperors scrambling to accommodate it lest the church and empire become divided, illustrated the danger of too close an alliance by the church with the state. Such an integral association could only result in liberalism, comprehension and the dilution of truth because of the demands of state policy. Conflict between church and state was inevitable not only because of the state’s ‘liberalism’, but also because the truth revealed to the church went beyond reason and would therefore provoke hostility and bafflement in the world. Newman, John Henry, The Arians of the Fourth Century (London, 3rd edn. 1871), pp. 265ffGoogle Scholar. Newman’s teleological purpose in the book is made explicit in its conclusion:
Then as now, there was the prospect, and partly the presence in the Church, of an Heretical Power enthralling it, exerting a varied influence and a usurped claim in the appointment of her functionaries, and interfering with the management of her internal affairs ... Meanwhile ... we may only rejoice in the piety, prudence, and varied graces of our Spiritual Rulers; and may rest in the confidence, that, should the hand of Satan press us sore, our Athanasius and Basil will be given us in their destined season to break the bonds of the Oppressor, and let the Scriptures go free.’ Arians, p. 406.
21 Newman, John Henry, Apologia Pro Vita Sua, (ed.), Svaglic, Martin J. (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1967), p. 91 Google Scholar.
22 Ker, Newman, p. 177.
23 Ker, Newman, pp. 178–9.
24 Ker, Newman, p. 185.
25 Ker, Newman, p. 199.
26 Newman to Maclaurin, Oriel College, 26 July 1840, Letters and Diaries, 7, p. 369 Google ScholarPubMed.
27 Maclaurin to Newman, Elgin Parsonage, 5 Sept 1840, Letters and Diaries, 7, p. 402 Google ScholarPubMed.
28 Maclaurin to Newman, Elgin Parsonage, 5 Sept 1840, Letters and Diaries, 7, p. 403 Google ScholarPubMed.
29 Maclaurin to Newman, Elgin Parsonage, 5 Sept 1840, Letters and Diaries, 7, p. 403 Google Scholar.
30 Pusey to Newman, n.d., Letters and Diaries, 7, pp. 403–4.
31 Newman to Maclaurin, Derby, 8 Oct 1840, Letters and Diaries, 7, p. 404 Google ScholarPubMed.
32 Newman to Maclaurin, 18 Oct 1840, Letters and Diaries, 7, pp. 406–7.
33 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 26.
34 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 12.
35 The Cheyne case concerned the trial in 1858 of the priest, Patrick Cheyne, who was deposed by Bishop George Suther of Aberdeen for propounding a doctrine of the real corporal presence of Christ in the eucharist in a series of sermons he later published. As Cheyne was ordained by a Scottish bishop he was legally prevented from exercising a ministry in the Church of England under the 1792 Act which gave legal toleration to the Episcopal Church. Evidently Scottish Anglo-Catholics were anxious that they could find themselves in the same situation as Cheyne for their eucharistic beliefs. G. N.
Pennie, , ‘The trial of the Rev. Patrick Cheyne for erroneous teaching of the Eucharist in Aberdeen in 1858’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 23 (1987), pp. 77–93 Google Scholar.
36 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 13.
37 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 13.
38 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 14. ‘Paley and Pearson’ refers to the works of William Paley (1743–1805) and John Pearson (1613–86), Bishop of Chester. Paley’s A View of the Evidences of Christianity (1794) epitomised the Enlightenment emphasis on reason and order in creation as an argument for the existence of God. Pearson’s classic Exposition of the Creed was a standard work of High Church theology.
39 Newman eventually converted to Rome in 1845; his fellow don at Oriel College, William George Ward, in the same year; and Archdeacon Robert Wilberforce, son of the great evangelical, William Wilberforce, in 1854.
40 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 15.
41 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 15.
42 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 16.
43 Humphrey, Recollections, pp. 15–17.
44 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 54.
45 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 56.
46 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 17–18.
47 Minutes, Brechin Diocesan Synod, Brechin Diocesan Archives, Dundee University library, BrMS 4.1.3, fos. 120, 125Google Scholar.
48 Minutes, Brechin Diocesan Synod, Brechin Diocesan Archives, Dundee University library, BrMS 4.1.3, fo. 137 Google Scholar; Humphrey, Recollections, p. 34.
49 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 38.
50 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 39.
51 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 41.
52 Humphrey, Recollections, pp. 35–6.
53 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 36.
54 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 37.
55 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 40.
56 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 41.
57 Newman to the Countess Glanville, Dublin, , 8 Dec 1854. Letters and Diaries, 16 (London, Thomas Nelson, 1965), p. 321 Google Scholar.
58 Maclaurin to Newman, 20 June 1840, Letters and Diaries, 7, p. 365 Google Scholar.
59 Maclaurin to Newman, 18 July 1840, Letters and Diaries, 7, p. 357 Google Scholar.
60 Maclaurin to Newman, 20 June 1840, Letters and Diaries, 7, p. 356 Google ScholarPubMed.
61 Maclaurin to Newman, 5 Sept 1850, Letters and Diaries, 7, p. 403 Google ScholarPubMed.
62 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 34.
63 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 42.
64 Nockles, Peter B., ‘Sources of English Conversions to Roman Catholicism in the era of the Oxford Movement’, in McClelland, V. Alan (ed.), By Whose Authority: Newman, Manning and the Magisterium (Bath, Downside Abbey, 1996), pp. 1–40, 15–16Google Scholar.
65 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 36.
66 Humphrey, Recollections, p. 2.