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 themselves, not from Dr. Pusey’s way of stating them.  There may be no way to peace, but surely if there is, though it implies giving full weight to your sympathies, and to the points on which you may give way, it also involves the possibility of speaking out plainly, and also of being listened to, on the points on which you really disagree.  Does Dr. Newman think that all Dr. Pusey felt he had to do was to conciliate Roman Catholics?  Does it follow, because objections are intemperately and unfairly urged on the Protestant side, that therefore they are not felt quite as much in earnest by sober and tolerant people, and that they may not be stated in their real force without giving occasion for the remark that this is reviving the old cruel war against Rome, and rekindling a fierce style of polemics which is now out of date?  And how is Dr. Pusey to state these objections if, when he goes into them, not in a vague declamatory way, but showing his respect and seriousness by his guarded and full and definite manner of proof, he is to be met by the charge that he does not show sufficient consideration?  All this may be a reason for thinking it vain to write an Eirenicon at all.  But if one is to be attempted, it certainly will not do to make it a book of compliments.  Its first condition is that if it makes light of lesser difficulties it should speak plainly about greater ones.