INTRODUCTION.

SEVERAL of these Charges were published by their Author; one appeared immediately after his death; three have never been printed. More than one has been extensively read in Scotland and in America, as well as in England. But they were less read than they would have been, if the writer's desire to correct them, and illustrate them with notes, had not delayed the publication of them till the topics of which they treated had lost their immediate interest. Those topics have now acquired another kind of interest; they may be said to constitute the ecclesiastical history of England, during fifteen very eventful years. They belong, however, to the present as well as to the past; none of them are obsolete; they must be understood by clergymen and laymen too, who would not be unfaithful to their callings. Mr. Hare applied his maturest thoughts, and the knowledge he had acquired through many years, to the study and elucidation of them. If his friends complained whilst he was on earth that he was wasting time and health upon discourses that had been spoken and were forgotten, they are now sure that he was working for those who are to come after him, and that the good which the clergy of his Archdeaconry say they

b

gained by listening to his words may be far less than that which students will derive from reading them.

Some may, perhaps, be deprived of this benefit by prejudices against the writer. There is greater fear lest many should think they are doing him honour by adopting an opinion respecting the purpose of his writings and of his life which has received the sanction of a sincere and cordial admirer. An able and friendly critic,' in attempting to give an account of the religious parties which exist in England, connected Archdeacon Hare's name with one on which he bestowed the title of the Broad Church. So intelligent an observer must have had some clear apprehension of his own meaning, when he ventured upon the perilous experiment of coining a new nickname which was sure to be eagerly welcomed by hundreds, to whom it would serve the same purpose as the words Puritan, Methodist, Jacobin, Mystic, served their forefathers. The conceptions which have been formed of his meaning by those who have adopted his phrase have certainly been anything but clear and definite. It has been said, for instance, by one critic, that the writer of these Charges belonged to the school of Archbishop Whately; by another, that he followed in the wake of Dr. Arnold; by a third, that he himself aspired to form a school, consisting of restless spirits who were impatient of everything English, and cared only for German literature, German philosophy, German divinity. A still greater number of persons suppose that he was, by nature and inclination, merely a man of taste and letters; that he took up theology in his later years as a professional pursuit; that he wished to introduce into the treatment of it the indifferentism and eclecticism which he had cultivated in another region; that he was im1 Mr. Conybeare, in the "Edinburgh Review."

patient of the accurate distinctions as well as of the fervent zeal which he found in each of our Church parties; that he hoped out of them to construct one of a mild poco-curante character, which should be agreeable to refined and scholarlike men, and in which all the roughnesses that have made the Church displeasing to the world should be smoothed and

pared away.

The following remarks are written to show how far any of these statements correspond with the facts, especially how far they accord with the spirit of these Charges.

Of all his eminent contemporaries, probably the one with whom he was most rarely brought into personal contact, and whose writings had the least influence in forming his opinions or his character, was the Archbishop of Dublin. That distinguished man and Mr. Hare were educated at different Universities; their pursuits, habits of mind, objects of admiration, were most dissimilar. The one has devoted his great abilities, when they have not been turned in a strictly professional direction, to logic and political economy. Mr. Hare's mind was formed and nourished by philology and poetry. He always professed the most fervent gratitude to Coleridge, whom Dr. Whately probably regards with feelings not far removed from contempt. The chasm between the ✓ Platonical and the Aristotelian intellects, (which has been pro nounced-perhaps too rashly, but not without considerable warrant from experience—to be impassable,) separated theirs. That the English Church is "broad" enough to comprehend persons so unlike as these two; that she can claim their different talents and qualities of mind for her service; that those who very little understand each other may, nevertheless, help different persons to understand their relation to her better, by helping them to understand themselves better:

1

this may be joyfully admitted. But the admission seems to go some way towards proving, first, that a Broad Church party, such as has been dreamed of, is impossible; and secondly, that if it were possible, it would be unnecessary, seeing that a body has existed here for about a thousand years, which is considerably more inclusive than the new creation could ever become.

It is a far more reasonable supposition that Mr. Hare learned much from Dr. Arnold. He could hardly help doing so, for they were personal friends, and some of their

pursuits and interests were similar. They both devoted ✓ much attention to Niebuhr's Roman History; they had a common affection for Niebuhr's distinguished pupil, Chevalier Bunsen. Moreover, Dr. Arnold, beyond all question, was the head of an illustrious school, in which he both acquired and communicated all that was strongest and most vital in his ethics and divinity, and through which he acted powerfully on his country. But as Mr. Hare had completed his College course, and had become a teacher himself, before Dr. Arnold was called to be the Master of Rugby, he cer✓ tainly did not study under him there. Their acquaintance was made when the minds of both were full grown; and in a characteristically frank letter of Dr. Arnold's, published by Mr. Stanley, he tells Augustus Hare that it was a long time before he liked his brother at all. When they came to appreciate each other, their intercourse was maintained on the only footing upon which the intercourse of two men of independent characters and different duties can be maintained, that of exchanging each other's treasures, and respecting each other's peculiarities. Mr. Hare probably reverenced Dr. Arnold as nearly the most useful man in England, and as having gifts in high exercise, in which he felt himself to be

deficient; but there is not the slightest indication in his writings, that his theology or his philosophy had been materially affected—of course neither had been originally shaped —by this influence. On one question of religious politics, that of the admission of the Jews to Parliament, Mr. Hare certainly accorded with Dr. Arnold's opinions, perhaps adopted them; but as they were at one on that question with five-sixths of the religious world, and at variance with some of their own most intimate friends, it was scarcely a basis for a school, certainly not for a Broad Church school, to rest upon.

It is a far greater temptation, however, to call a party into existence, than to join one of which the colours and watchwords are known. There was a time in Mr. Hare's life, as the writer of the kind and cordial article upon him in the "Quarterly Review" has observed, when he had the opportunity of influencing a certain number of young men. He was for ten years one of the Classical Lecturers in Trinity College. Only one "side" of the College attended his class-he worked under the tutor of that side—and he had few of the opportunities which the master of a public school possessed of knowing the characters and tendencies of his pupils. field, therefore, was a comparatively narrow one, but it was here, if anywhere, that he must have scattered the seeds out of which his party afterwards developed itself. What seeds he did scatter at that time, and how they germinated, may, perhaps, be gathered from a paper of reminiscences which has been communicated by a clergyman who attended his class rather more than thirty years ago. For a biography, his eminent contemporaries who adorned the College then, and many of whom adorn it still, could supply much more valuable materials; but in reference to the point under con

The