Pusey's son Philip

But the work was repeatedly delayed by weak health and heavy correspondence, or rather, as he described it,  'God sent him other things to do.'  And there was yet another message on its way. On January 5, 1880, he returned to Christ Church from Ascot, and nine days later his only son was suddenly taken from him. For the last twenty-five years, since the marriage of his youngest daughter, Mrs. Brine, Pusey' s son, Philip, had been the only member of his family to share with him  'the large house, once so full'  at Christ Church. His continued illnesses had brought the once healthy active child to a physical condition which was a perpetual trial of fortitude and patience: besides other infirmities, he was deaf and a cripple, and was thus excluded from a large portion of ordinary life. But he inherited from his father indomitable energy, deep religious earnestness and singleness of eye, and had learnt from him entire self-devotion to the cause of the Church. He took his degree in 1854, having obtained Second Class Mathematical Honours, both in Moderations and in the Class List of the Final School. To his great regret, his bodily infirmities compelled him to forego his life-long hope of being ordained; he therefore gave himself up to theological study, so that he might be of as much help as possible to his father. As was most truly said of him in a review of one of his books:--

 'Piety, in the most comprehensive sense, was indeed the motive power of Philip Pusey' s life, and the source of all his strength, active and passive. In him the Fifth Commandment was linked most closely to the First. The profound adoring earnestness with which he would mentally follow the Cathedral services of which he could not distinctly hear a word, was of a piece with the beautiful devotedness which made him accept absolutely his father' s directions as to the line in which he was to work for Him, Whom, in the notes to his volume, he repeatedly calls  " our Master' .

The special tasks that he undertook at his father' s suggestion,  'in his uniform filial love,'  were a critical edition of what Pusey called  'that much undervalued critical authority, the Peshito,'  and a carefully revised edition of the works of St. Cyril of Alexandria, with an English translation of them for the Oxford Library of the Fathers. In this work, with rare self-devotion and true scholarly thoroughness, he compelled his weak deformed body to labours which many an able-bodied student would have declined. In the hope of discovering and collating manu–scripts, he bad visited libraries in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, Mount Athos (of the nineteen monasteries on Mount Athos he visited all in which he had any reason to expect to find Greek manuscripts), Cairo, and Mount Sinai, and had thus formed the completest collection extant of the fragments of St. Cyril. These he had already published with expressions of heartfelt gratitude to God for His continued protection and preservation. At this time he considered that he had still fifteen years'  work before him, if his life should be spared so long. But, to use his father' s words at the end of the preface to his translation of St. Cyril' s treatises on the Incarnation,  'Almighty God was pleased to break off the work  " in the midst of the years.”'  On the morning of Jan. 15, 1880, Liddon received the following note:--

E. B. P. TO REV. H. P. LIDDON, D.D.

Jan. 15, 1880.

Your loving heart will grieve that it has pleased God to take my son. Yesterday he was doing things as usual for me: went to the Bodleian to get a book for me. After a cheerful evening and being at family prayers, he went upstairs. A fit of apoplexy was God' s messenger; and about 3 he was on his way to the Judgment-seat of Christ. You will pray for him. I was there, but he could not hear a sound.

Under the shock of the loss and the exhaustion caused by the strain of watching at the side of the death-bed in the long hours of that night, Pusey' s feeble health entirely gave way, and for three days Dr. Acland thought that he would have been buried in the same grave with his son. On the next Sunday, in a sermon at Christ Church, Dean Liddell touchingly alluded to this heavy sorrow in the following words:--

 'While I am writing this, tidings reach me of the sudden death of the only son of our oldest and most honoured Canon. Most of you must have seen that small emaciated form, swinging itself through the quadrangle, up the steps, or along the street, with such energy and activity as might surprise healthy men. But few of you could know what gentleness and what courage dwelt in that frail tenement.... In pursuing his studies, whenever it was necessary to consult manuscripts at a distance, he shrank from no journey, however toilsome. Every–where on those journeys he won hearts by his simple, engaging manner, combined with his helplessness and his bravery. He was known in Spain, and Turkey, and Russia: at Paris, or Madrid, or Moscow, the impression was the same. The first question put by the monks of Mount Athos to their next Oxford visitor, was significant,  " And how is Philippos?” One might speak of the pleasant smile with which he greeted his friends, his brave cheerfulness under lifelong suffering, and what seemed in him an absolute incapacity of complaining--his delight in children, the sure sign of an innocent and happy temper--his awe and reverence for Almighty God, and constant desire to serve and, please Him. When it was brought home to him that his infirmities disabled him from taking Holy Orders, as he had desired to do, he only said, that his wish then was to do what he might be able for God' s service at any time and in any way. To such a one, death could . have no terror: death could not find him un–prepared. …I need, not say how many prayers have been and are breathed that God Almighty and our Lord Jesus Christ would comfort the bereaved and honoured father, who, just forty years ago, saw her who was truly the half of his being interred beneath the pavement of this church, and will now have to see his only son carried to the grave before him.... God will comfort him, we trust; God has comforted him, we know.'

The Funeral was on the 20th of January. Through the great kindness of the Dean of Christ Church, the body was laid in the small graveyard on the south side of the Cathedral; the Burial Service was said by Dr. King. It was nearly the end of the month before Pusey had sufficiently recovered to ask where the grave was and for some par–ticulars of the funeral. During these days Liddon was almost the only visitor. Pusey' s talk was at first entirely about Philip' s life of conformity to the Will of God and devoted work for the Church in the only way that lay open to him when Ordination was found to be impossible. As for his own illness, he expressed a hope that it was not caused by any want of conformity to God' s will in taking his son, but that it was only natural in such a case.

His strength very slowly came back, and he resumed his answer to Dr. Farrar as soon as possible. But the loss of Philip was indeed very great, although his grandson, the Rev. J. E. B. Brine, came to be his companion in his large empty house at Christ Church.  'I am returning,'  he wrote to Mr. Wood,  'to my work again. Life is changed for the last time. I thank God that He has retained to me such a son for nearly fifty years.