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 THE LIFE OF 
 
 JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 BASED ON HIS PRIVATE JOURNALS 
 AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 BY 
 
 WILFRID WARD 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOLUME II 
 
 WITH PORTRAITS 
 
 SECOND IMPRESSION 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 NEW YORK, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA 
 
 1912
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE SECOND VOLUME 
 
 CHAPTER. 
 
 XX. The Writing of the 'Apologia' (1864) 
 XXI. Catholics at Oxford (1864-1865) . 
 XXII. A New Archbishop (1865-1866) 
 
 XXIII. The 'Eirenicon' (1865-1866) . 
 
 XXIV. Oxford Again (1866-1867) 
 XXV. The Appeal to Rome (1867) . 
 
 XXVI. The Deadlock in Higher Education (1867) 
 
 XXVII. Papal Infallibility (1867-1868) 
 
 XXVIII. 'The Grammar of Assent' (1870) . 
 
 XXIX. The Vatican Council (1869-1870) . 
 
 XXX. Life at the Oratory .... 
 
 XXXI. After the Council (1871-1874) 
 
 XXXII. The Gladstone Controversy (1874-1878) 
 
 XXXIII. The Cardinalate (1879) .... 
 
 XXXIV. Final Tasks (1880-1886) .... 
 
 XXXV. Last Years (i 881-1890) .... 
 
 Appendices 
 
 Index 
 
 I 
 
 47 
 
 79 
 
 99 
 121 
 
 151 
 186 
 200 
 242 
 279 
 
 3^3 
 371 
 397 
 
 433 
 472 
 512 
 
 539 
 593
 
 ?K 
 
 \t ^ ) 
 
 v.x 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 TO 
 
 THE SECOND VOLUME 
 
 PORTRAIT {1884) (Photogravure) Frontispiece 
 
 From a Crayon Drawing by Emmeline Deane, by permission 0/ the 
 Autotype Fine Art Company, Ltd. 
 
 DR. NEWMAN AND FATHER AMBROSE ST. JOHN , 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE ST. JOHN j To face p. 80 
 
 From Photographs 
 
 PORTRAIT (1873) 37^ 
 
 From an Engraving by Joseph Brown 
 
 CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 433 
 
 From a Painting by W. IV. Ouless, R.A., at the Oratory, Birtningham 
 
 {^Reproduced by kind permission oj Messrs. Burns df Oates, Ltd., 
 the owners of the copyright.) 
 
 GROUP PHOTOGRAPHED IN ROME, in May 1879 . . ,, 438 
 
 CARDINAL NEWMAN (about 1882) 472 
 
 From a P.kotograph 
 
 FACSIMILE OF FIRST AND LAST PAGES OF A LETTER 
 
 TO MR. WILFRID WARD. March 16, 1885 497 
 
 CARDINAL NEWMAN {1889) ,512 
 
 From a Photograph by Father Anthony Pollen 
 
 J/1508IJ.
 
 LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 
 
 At Christmas 1863 there appeared in Maanillan's Maga- 
 zine a review by Charles Kingsley of J. A. Fronde's ' History 
 of England.' In it occurred the following passage : 
 
 ' Truth for its own sake had never been a virtue with the 
 Roman clergy. Father Newman informs us that it need not 
 be, and on the whole ought not to be ; — that cunning is the 
 weapon which Heaven has given to the Saints wherewith to 
 withstand the brute male force of the wicked world which 
 marries and is given in marriage. Whether his notion be 
 doctrinally correct or not, it is, at least, historically so.' 
 
 Newman wrote to the publishers, not, he said, to ask for 
 reparation, but 'to draw their attention as gentlemen to a 
 grave and gratuitous slander.' Kingsley at once wrote to 
 him as follows, acknowledging the authorship of the review : 
 
 ' Reverend Sir, — I. have seen a letter of yours to Mr. 
 Macmillan in which you complain of some expressions of 
 mine in an article in the January number of Maanillan's 
 Magazine. 
 
 'That my words were just, I believed from many pas- 
 sages of your writings ; but the document to which I ex- 
 pressly referred was one of your sermons on " Subjects of the 
 Day," No. XX in the volume published in 1844, and entitled 
 " Wisdom and Innocence." 
 
 VOL. II. B
 
 2 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 * It was in consequence of that sermon that I finally 
 shook ofif the strong influence which your writings exerted 
 on me, and for much of which I still owe you a deep debt of 
 gratitude. 
 
 * I am most happy to hear from you that I mistook (as I 
 understand from your letter) your meaning ; and I shall be 
 most happy, on your showing me that I have wronged you, 
 to retract my accusation as publicly as I have made it. 
 
 ' I am. Reverend Sir, 
 
 Your faithful servant, 
 
 Charles Kingsley.' 
 
 The retort was obvious — Newman was not yet a 
 Catholic priest in 1844 when he wrote his sermon. More- 
 over, he wrote to Kingsley pointing out that there were 
 no words in the sermon expressing any such opinion as 
 Kingsley had ascribed to him. To this simple statement 
 of fact Kingsley never replied. In the course of their 
 correspondence, however, he said : ' the tone of your letters 
 makes me feel to my very deep pleasure that my opinion of 
 the meaning of your words is a mistaken one.' But 
 Kingsley's afiiinus was naively shown in the amefide 
 which he offered to publish. 
 
 The proposed apology ran as follows : * Dr. Newman 
 has, by letter, expressed in the strongest terms, his denial 
 of the meaning which I have put upon his words. No man 
 knows the use of words better than Dr. Newman ; no man, 
 therefore, has a better right to define what he does, or does 
 not, mean by them. It only remains, therefore, for me to 
 express my hearty regret at having so seriously mistaken 
 him, and my hearty pleasure at finding him on the side of 
 truth, in this, or any other matter.' 
 
 Newman naturally objected to the passages stating that 
 ' no man knows the meaning of words better than Dr. 
 Newman,' and that Mr. Kingsley was glad to find him ' on 
 the side of truth, in this, or any other matter.' Kingsley 
 withdrew them. But he would not change the gist of the 
 letter, which implied that Newman had explained away 
 his own words ; whereas (as Newman pointed out again) 
 Kingsley had not confronted him with any words at all. 
 
 Newman quoted the opinion of a friend, to whom he 
 showed Kingsley's amended apology, that it was insufficient,
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 3 
 
 but it appeared without further change in Macmillan's 
 Magazine for February, and ran as follows : ' Dr. Newman 
 has expressed, in the strongest terms, his denial of the 
 meaning I have put on his words. It only remains, there- 
 fore, for me to express my hearty regret at having so 
 seriously mistaken him.' 
 
 To the more or less apathetic onlooker this amende might 
 have appeared sufficient. An apology had been made, and 
 had been called by the man who made it, a ' hearty ' one. 
 But Newman judged otherwise. The apology was merely 
 conventional. It accepted politely Newman's disclaimer 
 of having meant what he seemed to mean. But the real 
 accusation Kingsley had to meet was that he had ascribed to 
 Newman views which he had never expressed at all, or could 
 be fairly charged with seeming to mean. Newman saw his 
 opportunity and pressed his argument. Kingsley declined 
 to do more by way of apology, and said he had done as 
 much as one English gentleman could expect from another. 
 Newman published the correspondence between them, with 
 the following witty caricature of Kingsley's argument : 
 
 ' Mr. Kingsley begins then by exclaiming : " Oh, the 
 
 chicanery, the wholesale fraud, the vile hypocrisy, the 
 
 conscience-killing tyranny of Rome ! We have not far to 
 
 seek for an evidence of it ! There's Father Newman to 
 
 ^it J — one living specimen is worth a hundred dead ones, 
 
 He a priest, writing of priests, tells us that lying is never any 
 
 harm." I interpose: "You are taking a most extraordinary 
 
 liberty with my name. If I have said this, tell me when and 
 
 where." Mr. Kingsley replies : " You said it, reverend Sir, 
 
 in a sermon which you preached when a Protestant, as vicar 
 
 of St. Mary's, and published in 1844, and I could read you a 
 
 very salutary lecture on the effects which that sermon had 
 
 at the time on my own opinion of you." I make answer : 
 
 " Oh . . . not, it seems, as a priest speaking of priests ; but 
 
 let us have the passage." Mr. Kingsley relaxes : " Do you 
 
 know, I like your tone. From your tone I rejoice, — greatly 
 
 rejoice, — to be able to believe that you did not mean what 
 
 you said." I rejoin : " Mean it ! I maintain I never said it, 
 
 whether as a Protestant or as a Catholic ! " Mr. Kingsley 
 
 replies: "I waive that point." I object: "Is it possible? 
 
 What? Waive the main question? I either said it or I 
 
 didn't. You have made a monstrous charge against me — 
 
 B 2
 
 4 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 direct, distinct, public ; you are bound to prove it as directly, 
 
 as distinctly, as publicly, or to own you can't ! " " Well," 
 
 says Mr. Kingsley, " if you are quite sure you did not say 
 
 it, I'll take your word for it, — I really will." "My tvordl" 
 
 I am dumb. Somehow I thought that it was my word that 
 
 happened to be on trial. The woi^d of a professor of lying 
 
 that he does not lie ! But Mr. Kingsley reassures me. " We 
 
 are both gentlemen," he says, " I have done as much as one 
 
 English gentleman can expect from another." I begin to 
 
 see : he thought me a gentleman at the very time that he 
 
 said I taught lying on system. After all it is not I, but it 
 
 is Mr. Kingsley who did not mean what he said. Habetmis 
 
 confitentcm reum. So we have confessedly come round to 
 
 this, preaching without practising; the common theme of 
 
 satirists from Juvenal to Walter Scott. " I left Baby Charles 
 
 and Steenie laying his duty before him," says King James of 
 
 the reprobate Dalgarno ; " Oh Geordie, jingling Geordie, it 
 
 was grand to hear Baby Charles laying down the guilt 
 
 of dissimulation and Steenie lecturing on the turpitude of 
 
 incontinence." ' 
 
 In spite of the extreme brilliancy of this sally it is likely 
 enough that the British public, with its anti-Catholic preju- 
 dices, would have charged Newman with hyper-sensitiveness 
 and ill-temper, and considered that the popular writer against 
 whom the sally was directed had really made ample amends 
 by his apology. But at this juncture there intervened a man 
 who was already becoming a power, by force of intellect and 
 character, in the world of letters. Richard Holt Hutton, 
 editor of the Spectator, was a Liberal in politics, until lately 
 a Unitarian in religion, a known admirer of Kingsley, a 
 sympathiser with the Liberal theology of Frederick Denison 
 Maurice. It was to his intervention that an able critic — the 
 late Mr. G. L. Craik, who well remembered the controversy 
 and whose theological sympathies were with Kingsley — used 
 confidently to ascribe the direction which public opinion, in 
 many instances trembling in the balance, took at this moment, 
 and ultimately took with overwhelming force. All Hutton's 
 antecedents seemed to be against any unfair partiality on 
 Newman's behalf. But he had been for years keenly alive to 
 spiritual genius wherever it showed itself— in Martineau, in 
 Maurice, as well as in Newman. He had followed Newman's 
 writings and career with deep interest and had been present
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 5 
 
 (as we have seen) at the King William Street lectures in 
 1849. Endowed with a justice of mind which only a few men 
 in each generation can boast, and which makes them judges 
 in Israel, he had an ingrained suspiciousness of the unfairness 
 of the English public where ' Popery ' was concerned, and 
 felt the need to guide it aright. He saw fully the injus- 
 tice of Kingsley's method. On February 20 he published in 
 the Spectator an estimate of the controversy, raised on that 
 judicial platform of thought from which the most unfailingly 
 effective argument proceeds. He allowed for the popular feeling 
 that Newman's retort was too severe, and even admitted it. 
 But in his fine psychological study of the two men he pointed 
 out a looseness of thought, a prejudice, a want of candour in 
 Kingsley, which were at the root both of his original offence 
 and of his insufficient apology, and summed up very strongly 
 in Newman's favour. He wrote as follows : 
 
 ' Mr. Kingsley has just afforded, at his own expense, a 
 genuine literary pleasure to all who can find intellectual 
 pleasure in the play of great powers of sarcasm, by bringing 
 Father Newman from his retirement and showing, not only 
 one of the greatest of English writers, but perhaps the very 
 greatest master of delicate and polished sarcasm in the 
 English language, still in full possession of all the powers 
 which contributed to his wonderful mastery of that subtle and 
 dangerous weapon. Mr. Kingsley is a choice though perhaps 
 too helpless victim for the full exercise of Father Newman's 
 powers. But he has high feeling and generous courage 
 enough to make us feel that the sacrifice is no ordinary one ; 
 yet the title of one of his books, — " Loose Thoughts for Loose 
 Thinkers " — represents too closely the character of his rough 
 but manly intellect, so that a more opportune Protestant ram 
 for Father Newman's sacrificial knife could scarcely have 
 been found ; and, finally, the thicket in which he caught him- 
 self was, as it were, of his own choosing, he having rushed 
 headlong into it quite without malice, but also quite without 
 proper consideration of the force and significance of his own 
 words. Mr. Kingsley is really without any case at all in the 
 little personal controversy we are about to notice ; and we 
 think he drew down upon himself fairly the last keen blow 
 of the sacrificial knife by what we must consider a very 
 inadequate apology for his rash statement. 
 
 ' Mr. Kingsley, in the ordinary steeplechase fashion in 
 which he chooses not so much to think as to splash up thought
 
 6 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 — dregs and all — (often very healthy and sometimes very 
 noble, but always very loose thought), in one's face, had made 
 a random charge against Father Newman in Macmillan's 
 Magazine. . . . The sermon in question, which we have care- 
 fully read, certainly contains no proposition of the kind to 
 which Mr. Kingsley alludes, and no language even so like it 
 as the text taken from Our Lord's own words, " Be ye wise 
 as serpents and harmless as doves," 
 
 '. . . We must say that the whole justice of the matter 
 seems to us on Dr. Newman's side, that Mr. Kingsley ought 
 to have said, what is obviously true, that, on examining the 
 sermon no passage will bear any colourable meaning at all 
 like that he had put upon it. And yet it is impossible not 
 to feel that Dr. Newman has inflicted almost more than 
 an adequate literary retribution on his opponent ; more than 
 adequate, not only for the original fault, but for the yet more 
 faulty want of due candour in the apology. You feel some- 
 how that Mr. Kingsley's little weaknesses, his inaccuracy of 
 thought, his reluctance to admit that he had been guilty of 
 making rather an important accusation on the strength of a 
 very loose general impression, are all gauged, probed, and 
 condemned by a mind perfectly imperturbable in its basis 
 of intellect though vividly sensitive to the little superficial 
 ripples of motive and emotion it scorns.' 
 
 Newman had burnt his ships, and had probably been 
 prepared for a strong verdict against him and in favour of so 
 popular a writer as Kingsley, on the part of that very anti- 
 Popish person, the John Bull of 1864. Button's was a most 
 seasonable and valuable intervention. By admitting and 
 allowing for the most obvious ground of public criticism on 
 Newman — the excessiveness of the castigation he had ad- 
 ministered — the Spectator was all the more effective in its 
 strong justification of Newman's main position in the con- 
 troversy. The article gave him keen pleasure and he v/rote 
 his thanks to the Spectator, which brought a generous 
 private letter from Hutton himself. Newman replied to it as 
 follows : 
 
 ' The Oratory, Birmingham : February 26th, 1864. 
 
 * My dear Sir,— Your letter gave me extreme pleasure. 
 Though I contrive to endure my chronic unpopularity, and 
 though I believe it to be salutary, yet it is not in itself 
 welcome ; and therefore it is a great relief to me to have from
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 7 
 
 time to time such letters as yours which serve to show that, 
 under the surface of things, there is a kinder feeling towards 
 me than the surface presents. 
 
 ' I ought to tell you that when I wrote my letter to the 
 editor of the Spectator the other day, I had only seen the 
 first part of your article as it was extracted in the Birming- 
 ham paper. . . . 
 
 ' I thanked you for your article when I saw only part of 
 it, on the ground of its being so much more generous than 
 the ordinary feeling of the day allows reviewers commonly to 
 behave towards me. I thank you still more for it as I now 
 read it with its complement, — first because it is evidently 
 written, not at random, but critically, and secondly because it is 
 evidently the expression of real, earnest, and personal feeling. 
 How far what you say about me is correct can perhaps be 
 determined neither by you nor by me, but by the Searcher of 
 hearts alone ; but, even where I cannot follow you in your 
 criticism, I am sure I get a lesson from it for my serious 
 consideration. 
 
 * But I have said enough, and subscribe myself with 
 sincere goodwill to you, my dear Sir, 
 
 ' Very faithfully yours, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Kingsley, who was doubtless persuaded that his apology 
 to Newman was a very handsome one, and unconscious how 
 his own judgment was warped by his antipathy to everything 
 that Newman represented in his eyes, now changed his tone, 
 and, in a pamphlet called ' What then does Dr. Newman 
 mean ? ' fully justified the estimate Newman had formed of 
 his true attitude of mind — an attitude which had prevented 
 Newman, at the outset, from accepting an apology which he 
 felt to be grudging and not in the fullest sense sincere. How 
 deep and habitual Kingsley's feeling of animosity was, we 
 see from some words written while his pamphlet was in pre- 
 paration, to a correspondent who had called his attention to 
 a passage in W. G. Ward's ' Ideal of a Christian Church ' which 
 appeared to justify Kingsley's charge against Newman and 
 his friends. ' Candour,' Mr. Ward had written, ' is an in- 
 tellectual rather than a moral virtue, and by no means either 
 universally or distinctively characteristic of the saintly mind.' 
 If 'candour' meant 'truthfulness,' such an admission was 
 surely significant.
 
 8 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Kingsley replied that he was using the passage from 
 Ward's book in his forthcoming pamphlet, and added : ' I 
 am answering Newman now, and though of course I give 
 up the charge of conscious dishonesty, I trust to make 
 him and his admirers sorry that they did not leave me alone. 
 I have a score of more than twenty years to pay, and this is 
 an instalment of it' ' 
 
 It is necessary for the reader to have before him 
 specimens of the tone and temper of Kingsley's pamphlet 
 that he may appreciate the effect it produced, and the pro- 
 vocation under which Newman considered himself justified 
 in writing as he subsequently did. 
 
 The general line of argument in the pamphlet may perhaps 
 be put thus : ' Newman's words looked like the view which I 
 imputed to him. I have accepted his statement that he did 
 not so mean them. But if he did not, what does he mean ? ' 
 The reader looks in vain, however, for a passage in which 
 Kingsley quotes any words of Newman's which justify his ori- 
 ginal statement. The nearest approach to any such attempt at 
 justification is in his analysis of the sermon on ' Wisdom and 
 Innocence,' where he points out how Newman admits that 
 Christians have been charged with cunning, though he main- 
 tains that such appearances are due only to the arts of the 
 defenceless. ' If,' he writes, ' Dr. Newman told the world, as 
 he virtually does in this sermon, " I know that my conduct 
 looks like cunning, but it is only the arts of the defence- 
 less," what wonder if the world answer " No, it is what it 
 seems " ? ' 
 
 But Mr. Kingsley was thoroughly roused. If the sermon 
 did not supply what he wanted, he could go further afield for 
 evidence. And he could make fresh charges. He continued 
 in a style which bears curious witness to the profound and 
 undiscriminating aversion to Newman's whole attitude which 
 lay at the root of his original attack. Passing by the ' tortu- 
 ous ' Tract 90, and claiming the recognition of his generosity 
 in so doing, he speaks of the Puseyite ' Lives of the Saints,' 
 edited by Newman in 1843, ^^ witnessing to his flagrant 
 untruthfulness. Entirely failing to understand Newman's 
 
 ' These words are quoted by Father Ryder in his Recollections ; vide infra, 
 P- 351-
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 9 
 
 philosophy of miracle, he speaks of those ' Lives ' as simply 
 deliberate perversions of historical truth. Newman's view, 
 it need hardly be said, was that there are certain antecedent 
 probabilities recognised by one who is already a Catholic, 
 which make the marvels handed down by tradition credible 
 to him as 'pious beliefs,' although they may not be histori- 
 cally proved. He admitted as much as Kingsley that they 
 could not be established by canons of evidence accepted 
 by those who did not grant the antecedent probabilities. 
 Such a view as this, whether right or wrong, is never 
 even glanced at by Mr. Kingsley, who treats the ' Lives ' 
 as simply a tissue of infantile folly and untruthfulness 
 combined. 
 
 Kingsley recalls Newman's statement in the ' Present Posi- 
 tion of Catholics,' that he thinks the ' holy coat of Treves ' 
 may be what it professes to be, and that he firmly believes that 
 portions of the True Cross are in Rome and elsewhere ; that 
 he believes in the presence of the Crib of Bethlehem in Rome ; 
 that he cannot withstand the evidence for the liquefaction of 
 Januarius' blood at Naples and the motion of the eyes of 
 the images of the Madonna in Italy. No one knew better 
 than Newman himself that, to the ordinary common-sense 
 Protestant Englishman, such beliefs must seem ludicrous 
 and childish superstitions. But Newman had very cogently 
 pointed out that, judged by the canons of reason apart from 
 the antecedent presumptions of religious minds, miracles in 
 Holy Writ which the Protestant Englishman never questions, 
 and accepts from custom and education, are also incredible. 
 That Jonah spent three days in the interior of a whale 
 is a belief not easier to justify by reason than the wonders 
 referred to above, and Mr. Kingsley, it was to be presumed, 
 accepted this miraculous narrative himself But the whole 
 philosophical ground for Newman's readiness to believe is 
 passed by without notice by Kingsley. He throws before his 
 readers as beyond the reach or necessity of argument the 
 above avowals of folly and superstition. And he changes 
 his earlier charge of untruthfulness and insincerity for one of 
 arrant and avowed fatuity. 
 
 ' How art thou fallen from Heaven,' he writes, ' O Lucifer, 
 son of the Morning !
 
 lo LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 'But when I read these outrages upon common sense, 
 what wonder if I said to myself: " This man cannot believe 
 what he is saying " ? 
 
 ' I believe I was wrong. I have tried, as far as I can, to 
 imagine to myself Dr. Newman's state of mind ; and I see 
 now the possibility of a man's working himself into that 
 pitch of confusion that he can persuade himself, by what 
 seems to him logic, of anything whatsoever which he wishes 
 to believe ; and of his carrying self-deception to such per- 
 fection that it becomes a sort of frantic honesty in which he 
 is utterly unconscious, not only that he is deceiving others, 
 but that he is deceiving himself. 
 
 ' But I must say : If this be " historic truth," what is 
 historic falsehood? If this be honesty, what is dishonesty? 
 If this be wisdom, what is folly ? 
 
 ' I may be told : But this is Roman Catholic doctrine. 
 You have no right to be angry with Dr. Newman for be- 
 lieving it. I answer : This is not Roman Catholic doctrine, 
 any more than belief in miraculous appearances of the 
 Blessed Virgin, or the miracle of the Stigmata (on which 
 two matters I shall say something hereafter). No Roman 
 Catholic, as far as I am aware, is bound to believe these 
 things. Dr. Newman has believed them of his own free will. 
 He is anxious, it would seem, to show his own credulity. 
 He has worked his mind, it would seem, into that morbid 
 state in which nonsense is the only food for which it hungers. 
 Like the sophists of old, he has used reason to destroy 
 reason. I had thought that, like them, he had preserved 
 his own reason in order to be able to destroy that of others. 
 But I was unjust to him, as he says. While he tried to 
 destroy others' reason, he was, at least, fair enough to destroy 
 his own. That is all that I can say. Too many prefer the 
 charge of insincerity to that of insipience, — Dr. Newman 
 seems not to be of that number. ... If I, like hundreds more, 
 have mistaken his meaning and intent, he must blame not 
 me, but himself If he will indulge in subtle paradoxes, in 
 rhetorical exaggerations ; if, whenever he touches on the ques- 
 tion of truth and honesty, he will take a perverse pleasure in 
 saying something shocking to plain English notions, he must 
 take the consequences of his own eccentricities. 
 
 ' What does Dr. Newman mean ? He assures us so 
 earnestly and indignantly that he is an honest man, 
 believing what he says, that we in return are bound, in 
 honour and humanity, to believe him ; but still, — what does 
 he mean ? '
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 11 
 
 It would be tedious to follow Mr. Kingsley through his 
 many instances. They all show that Newman's views are a 
 sealed book to him. These views doubtless admit of expert 
 criticism when once they are understood. But Mr. Kingsley 
 does not attempt to master them. His impatience prevents 
 all discrimination. Thus Newman's very candid admissions 
 in his Lecture on the ' Religious State of Catholic Coun- 
 tries ' are taken as showing that Newman almost admires the 
 crimes of the Neapolitan thief Newman argued that a 
 Catholic might steal as another may steal ; this does not 
 make stealing in him less evil ; still, he may have faith 
 which the other had not. Faith is one thing, good works 
 another. They are separable qualities. Mr. Kingsley holds up 
 his hands. Further argument is indeed, he holds, useless 
 and unnecessary with a man who says such things as this. 
 
 * And so I leave Dr. Newman,' he concludes, ' only ex- 
 pressing my fear that, if he continues to " economize " and 
 " divide " the words of his adversaries as he has done mine, 
 he will run great danger of forfeiting once more his reputation 
 for honesty.' 
 
 Every line of this pamphlet speaks of an indignant man 
 who is convinced that he has much the best case in the dispute, 
 and who cannot bring himself to conceal his contemptuous 
 dislike for his opponent. Mr. Hutton, who vigilantly took 
 note of each move in the game, formed a very different esti- 
 mate from Kingsley 's of the pamphlet, and of the situation. 
 On its appearance he again took the field, and in the course 
 of an article of five columns gave the following estimate of 
 its drift and quality : 
 
 ' Mr. Kingsley replies in an angry pamphlet, which we 
 do not hesitate to say aggravates the original injustice a 
 hundredfold. Instead of quoting language of Dr. Newman's 
 fairly justifying his statement, he quotes everything of almost 
 any sort, whether having reference to casuistry, or to the 
 monastic system, or the theory of Christian evidences, that 
 will irritate,— often rightly irritate, — English taste against the 
 Romish system of faith, and every apology or plea of any 
 kind put in by Dr. Newman in favour of that faith. He 
 raises, in fact, as large a cloud of dust as he can round his 
 opponent, appeals to every Protestant prepossession against
 
 12 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 him, reiterates that " truth is not honoured among these men 
 for its own sake," giving a very shrewd hint that he includes 
 Dr. Newman as chief amongst the number, and retires 
 without vindicating his assertion in the least, except so far 
 as to prove that there was quite enough that he disliked 
 or even abhorred in Dr. Newman's teaching to suggest such 
 an assertion to his mind, — his latent assumption evidently 
 being that whatever Mr. Kingsley could say in good faith 
 it could not have been unjustifiable for him to say, Mr. 
 Kingsley evidently holds it quite innocent and even praise- 
 worthy to blurt out raw general impressions, however 
 inadequately supported, which are injurious and painful to 
 other men, on condition only that they are his own sincere 
 impressions. He has no mercy for the man who will define 
 his thought and choose his language so subtly that the mass 
 of his hearers may fail to perceive his distinctions, and be 
 misled into a dangerous error, — because he cannot endure 
 making a fine art of speech. Yet he permits himself a 
 perfect licence of insinuation so long as these insinuations 
 are suggested by the vague sort of animal scent by which 
 he chooses to judge of other men's drift and meaning. . . . 
 Mr. Kingsley has done himself pure harm by this rejoinder.' 
 
 The phrase ' animal scent ' was an expressive one, and 
 told with great effect. It characterised mercilessly the 
 sheer prejudice which led to Mr. Kingsley's insinuations. 
 
 Newman felt the value of Hutton's renewed support at 
 this critical moment, and wrote to him again : 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham: Easter Day, 1S64. March 27th. 
 
 ' My dear Sir, — I have read an article on Mr. Kingsley 
 and myself in the Spectator which I cannot help attributing 
 to you. Excuse me if I take a liberty in doing so. Whoever 
 wrote it I thank him with all my heart. I hope I shall be 
 never slow to confess my faults, and, if I have, while becoming 
 a Catholic, palliated things really wrong among Catholics in 
 order to make my theory of religion and my consequent duty 
 clearer, I am very sorry for it, — and I know I am not the 
 best judge of myself, — but Mr. Kingsley's charges are simply 
 monstrous. I can't tell till I read the article again carefully 
 how far I follow you in everything you say of me, — though 
 it is very probable I shall do so except in believing (which I 
 do) that I am both logically and morally right in being a 
 Catholic, but it is impossible not to feel that you have uttered 
 on the whole what I should say of myself, and to see that
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 13 
 
 you have done me a great service in doing so, as bearing an 
 external testimony. 
 
 ' Let me on this day, after the manner of Catholics, wish 
 you the truest Paschale gaudiuvi, and assure you that I am 
 
 ' Most sincerely yours, 
 
 John H. Newman. 
 
 ' P.S. — On reading this over I have some fear lest I 
 should incur some criticism from you in your mind on what 
 you seemed to think in a former instance, mock humility, — 
 but, if you knew me personally, I don't think you would 
 say so.' 
 
 But it soon proved that the goodwill towards Newman 
 was general in the English press. Though no other journal 
 showed the close knowledge of his work which Mr. Hutton 
 possessed, and though others fell short of the Spectator in 
 understanding and sympathy, respect and consideration were 
 general. The issue may have been doubtful so long as 
 Kingsley's attack had been but a brief paragraph for which 
 he apologised, but by his virulent pamphlet he overreached 
 himself 
 
 Newman saw at once that he would now have a hearing 
 such as had never yet been open to him for a vindication of 
 his whole life-work. For a moment he thought of answering 
 Kingsley in a course of lectures. But a little more thought 
 led to the plan of publishing in weekly parts an account and 
 explanation of his life-story. The reason for his determi- 
 nation to publish rather than to lecture lay in the nature of 
 such an account, and is expressed in the following letter to 
 Mr. Hope-Scott : 
 
 ' Confidential. The Oratory, Birmingham: April I2th, 1864. 
 
 ' My dear Hope-Scott, — It is curious that the plan of 
 lectures is one about which Ambrose (St. John) was hot, and 
 I had all but determined on it, but I was forced to abandon 
 it from the nature of my intended publication ; I have taken 
 a resolution, about which I shall be criticized,- yet I do it, 
 though with anxiety, yet with deliberation. 
 
 ' Men who know me, the tip-top education of London 
 and far gone Liberals, will not accuse me of lying or 
 dishonesty — but e.g. the Brummagems, and the Evangelical 
 party, &c., &c., do really believe mc to be a clever knave.
 
 14 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Moreover I have never defended myself about various acts of 
 mine, e.g. No. 90, so I am actually publishing a history of my 
 opinions. Now it would have been impossible to read this out. 
 ' I am so busy with composing that I have no time for 
 more. My answer will come out in numbers on successive 
 Thursdays, beginning with the 21st. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman 
 
 of the Oratory.' 
 
 Every day made clearer to Newman the existence of 
 such a state of public feeling in his regard as promised not 
 only attention, but even sympathy. He knew too well, 
 however, that a defender of the Catholic priesthood from the 
 charge of unstraightforwardness before such a jury as the 
 British public was at a very heavy disadvantage, and not the 
 least remarkable feature in his defence was the skill with 
 which, in his opening pages (now long out of print), he set 
 himself to counteract this adverse influence. His unfailing 
 insight into human motive told him that success depended 
 on the initial attitude of mind in his judges, and it was ex- 
 clusively to securing a favourable attitude that he devoted 
 the first fifty pages of the original ' Apologia.' ' It is the 
 skill he shows in persuading a mixed public and ensuring its 
 favour which is most memorable in these pages. He had to 
 present to the reader a convincing picture of himself as 
 o-ratuitously slandered and assailed, as pleading in the face of 
 the bitterest prejudice, as throwing himself on the generosity 
 of the British public, and relying on their justice for fair play 
 in a contest dishonourably provoked. 
 
 He had with equally convincing pen to depict the crude, 
 rou"-h, blundering, impulsive, deeply prejudiced mind of 
 Kino-sley, to bring into view his inferiority of intellectual fibre, 
 and thus to win credence for his own retort. 
 
 Kingsley had chosen as the motto for his pamphlet 
 Newman's assertion in one of the University Sermons that in 
 some cases a lie is the nearest approach to truth. Newman 
 notes in these introductory pages the appositeness of the 
 
 ' These pages were Parts I. and II. of the successive numbers. They were 
 republished only in the first edition of the Apologia, which is now very rare. 
 From them and from the Appendix (also out of print) I give long extracts 
 because they are singularly characteristic of the writer, and are, I believe, 
 generally unknown.
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 15 
 
 motto, for ' Mr. Kingsley's pamphlet is emphatically one of 
 such cases. ... I really believe that his view of me is about 
 as near an approach to the truth about my writings and 
 doings as he is capable of taking. He has done his worst 
 towards me, but he has also done his best' Newman de- 
 picts him as in this attack simply narrow-minded. His failure 
 to comprehend a mind unlike his own is an illustration of 
 a wide law : ' children do not apprehend the thoughts of 
 grown-up people, nor savages the instincts of civilisation.' 
 
 Against the blind contempt of Kingsley, who hesitated 
 between ' knavery ' and ' silliness ' as the true charge against 
 his antagonist, Newman levels the piercing scorn of the 
 wider and more penetrating mind. It is the scorn of the 
 civilised man, who sees and analyses the defects of barbarism, 
 pitted against the scorn of barbarism, that hates, fears, 
 and despises the civilisation which it cannot understand. 
 Kingsley had taken up the position of the manly English- 
 man, of the advocate of chivalrous generosity, against the 
 shifty Papist, the ' serpentine ' dealer in ' cunning and sleight- 
 of-hand logic' Newman not only drives his opponent from 
 the vantage ground, but occupies it himself, transferring to 
 Kingsley the reproach of a disingenuousness which sought 
 to poison the minds of the public and divert their gaze from 
 the actual issue. 
 
 Mr. Kingsley had rather grandly announced that he was 
 precluded ' " en hault courage " and in strict honour ' from 
 proving his original charge from others of Newman's writings 
 except the sermon on ' Wisdom and Innocence.' ' If I 
 thereby give him a fresh advantage in this argument,' he 
 added, ' he is most welcome to it. He needs, it seems to 
 me, as many advantages as possible.' Newman quotes these 
 words with the comment : ' What a princely mind ! How 
 loyal to his rash promise ; how delicate towards the subject 
 of it ; how conscientious in his interpretation of it ! ' 
 
 But what was the actual exhibition of noble straight- 
 forwardness which the advocate of ' hault courage ' provided ? 
 A whole mass of insinuation without any substantiation of 
 the original charge of untruthfulness ; and a re-hash of such 
 conventional imputations against the Papist as might stir up 
 popular bigotry to his detriment.
 
 i6 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 * When challenged,' Newman continues, ' he cannot bring 
 a fragment of evidence in proof of his assertion, and he is 
 convicted of false witness by the voice of the world. Well, 
 I should have thought that he had now nothing whatever 
 more to do. Vain man ! he seems to make answer, what 
 simplicity in you to think so ! If you have not broken one 
 commandment, let us see whether we cannot convict you of 
 the breach of another. If you are not a swindler or forger, 
 you are guilty of arson or burglary. By hook or by crook 
 you shall not escape. Are you to suffer ox 1} What does 
 it matter to you who are going off the stage to receive a 
 slight additional daub upon a character so deeply .stained 
 already ? But think of me, — the immaculate lover of truth, 
 so observant (as I have told you, p. 8) of " hault courage " 
 and " strict honour," and (aside) — and not as this publican — 
 do you think I can let you go scot free instead of myself? 
 No ; " noblesse oblige." Go to the shades, old man, and boast 
 that Achilles sent you thither.' 
 
 This method of wholesale insinuation and imputation was 
 not, Newman contended, fair play as Englishmen understand 
 it. And, worse still, was the attempt to discount before- 
 hand every detailed reply by repeating in aggravated form 
 the charge of shiftiness and untruthfulness, and coupling 
 Newman's method with that of Roman casuists whom John 
 Bull abominated. 
 
 ' He is down upon me,' the ' Apologia ' continues, ' with the 
 odious names of " St. Alfonso da Liguori," and " Scavini " 
 and " Neyraguet" and "the Romish moralists," and their 
 "compeers and pupils," and I am at once merged and 
 whirled away in the gulf of notorious quibblers and hypo- 
 crites and rogues.' 
 
 And the writer proceeds to cite from Mr. Kingsley's 
 pamphlet such sentences as the following : 
 
 ' I am henceforth in doubt and fear^ Mr. Kingsley writes, 
 ' as much as any honest man can be, concerning every word 
 Dr. Newman may write. How can I tell that I shall not 
 be dupe of some cunning equivocation, of one of the three kinds 
 laid down as permissible by the Blessed Alfonso da Liguori 
 and his pupils, even when confirmed by an oath, because 
 " then we do not deceive our neighbour, but allow him
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 17 
 
 to deceive himself? ... It is admissible, therefore, to use 
 words and sentences which have a double signification and 
 leave the hapless hearer to take which of them he may 
 choose." What proof have /, then, that by " Mean it ? I 
 never said it ! " Dr. Newman does not signify, " I did not say 
 it, but I did mean it " ? ' ^ 
 
 It is this throwing doubt beforehand on every word which 
 the accused might say in self-defence which Newman called 
 ' poisoning the wells.' 
 
 'If I am natural he will tell them: " Ars est celare 
 artem " ; if I am convincing he will suggest that I am an 
 able logician ; if I show warmth, I am acting the indignant 
 innocent ; if I am calm, I am thereby detected as a smooth 
 hypocrite ; if I clear up difficulties I am too plausible and 
 perfect to be true. The more triumphant are my statements, 
 the more certain will be my defeat.' 
 
 ' It is this,' he writes later on, ' which is the strength of the 
 case of my accuser against me ; not his arguments in them- 
 selves which I shall easily crumble into dust, but the bias of 
 the court. It is the state of the atmosphere ; it is the vibra- 
 tion all around which will more or less echo his assertion of 
 my dishonesty ; it is that prepossession against me which 
 takes it for granted that, when my reasoning is convincing, 
 it is only ingenious, and that when my statements are 
 unanswerable there is always something put out of sight 
 or hidden in my sleeve ; it is that plausible, but cruel, 
 conclusion to which men are so apt to jump, that when much 
 is imputed something must be true, and that it is more likely 
 that one should be to blame than that many should be 
 mistaken in blaming him ; — these are the real foes which I 
 have to fight, and the auxiliaries to whom my accuser makes 
 his court. 
 
 ' Well, I must break through this barrier of prejudice 
 against me, if I can ; and I think I shall be able to do so. 
 When first I read the pamphlet of Accusation, I almost 
 despaired of meeting effectively such a heap of misrepre- 
 sentation and such a vehemence of animosity. . . .'^ 
 
 Yet the defence, Newman maintains, must be made. The 
 charge of untruthfulness is pre-eminently one in which a man 
 must and can put himself right with his fellow-men. 
 
 'Mankind has the right,' he continues, 'to judge of 
 truthfulness in the case of a Catholic, as in the case of 
 
 ' Apoloqia (original edition), pp. 22-23. ** ^^>^^- P- 44- 
 
 VOL. II. C
 
 1 8 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 a Protestant, or an Italian, or of a Chinese. I have never 
 doubted that in my hour, in God's hour, my avenger will 
 appear and the world will acquit me of untruthfulness, even 
 though it be not while I live. 
 
 ' Still more confident am I of such eventual acquittal, 
 seeing that my judges are my own countrymen. I think, 
 indeed. Englishmen the most suspicious and touchy of 
 mankind ; I think them unreasonable and unjust in their 
 seasons of excitement ; but I had rather be an Englishman 
 (as in fact I am) than belong to any other race under 
 Heaven. They are as generous as they are hasty and 
 burly ; and their repentance for their injustice is greater 
 than their sin.' ' 
 
 As to the form of the reply, Newman explains that a 
 very brief reflection told him that a mere detailed meeting of 
 Kingsley's random charges would be inadequate. The man 
 Newman was suspected ; a false picture of a sly and untruth- 
 ful casuist had been presented to the public. For this man to 
 reply was waste of breath and ink. A true picture must be 
 substituted, — a true account of life, motive, career. Another 
 Newman must be placed before the English nation — a 
 Newman whom it would trust. 
 
 'My perplexity did not last half an hour. I recognised 
 what I had to do though I shrank from both the task and the 
 exposure which it would entail. I must, I said, give the true 
 key to my whole life ; I must show what I am that it may 
 be seen what I am not, and that the phantom may be 
 extinguished which gibbers instead of me. I wish to be 
 known as a living man, and not as a scarecrow which is 
 dressed up in my clothes. False ideas may be refuted 
 indeed by argument, but by true ideas alone are they 
 expelled. I will vanquish, not my accuser, but my judges.' ^ 
 
 The first and second parts of the ' Apologia,' from which 
 the above extracts are made, appeared on April 21 and 28. 
 Sir Frederick Rogers — the friend whose advice generally 
 represented sound worldly judgment in Newman's eyes 
 — wrote on reading the first part with some misgiving as 
 to its effect on the public, and the probable effect of what was 
 to follow, if it were in the same strain, as indicative of over- 
 great personal sensitiveness. In particular he deprecated the 
 
 ' Apologia, p. 30. * Ibid. p. 48.
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 19 
 
 element of sarcasm and the personal strictures on Kingsley 
 which characterised the first part. 
 Newman's reply is as follows : 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham : April 22nd, 1864. 
 
 ' My dear Rogers, — Your letter has given me a good deal 
 of anxiety as being the sort of judgment of a person at a 
 distance. I understood it to say that I ought to have let 
 well alone, and that, (knowing I had got the victory), I have 
 shown a savageness which will provoke a reaction. I had 
 considered all this before I began. 
 
 ' However, I am now in for it ; and, if I am wrong, have 
 set myself to the most trying work which I ever had to do 
 for nothing. During the writing and reading of my Part 3, 
 I could not get on from beginning to end for crying. . . . 
 
 ' However, I am in for it and I am writing against time. 
 I have no intention of saying another hard word against 
 Mr. Kingsley. That is all I can do now if I have been too 
 severe. I am in for it, — and must go through it. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Old Oxford friends had to be consulted in order to ensure 
 accuracy in the narration of the events of the Movement. 
 Copeland— who edited the later editions of the Parochial 
 Sermons — had, as we have seen, been one of the first to 
 resume friendly relations with Newman after the breach of 
 1845. And now by his advice Newman wrote to an 
 older and dearer friend — R. W. Church, afterwards Dean of 
 St. Paul's — for help which was willingly accorded. 
 
 ' Private. The Oratory, Birmingham : April 23rd, 1864. 
 
 ' My dear Church, — Copeland encourages me to write to 
 you. I am in one of the most painful trials in which I have 
 ever been in my life and I think you can help me. 
 
 ' It has always been on my mind that perhaps some day 
 I should be called on to defend my honesty while in the 
 Church of England. Of course there have been endless hits 
 against me in newspapers, reviews and pamphlets, — but, 
 even though the names of the writers have come out and 
 have belonged to great men, they have been anonymous 
 publications, — ^or else a sentence or two on some particular 
 point has been the whole. But I have considered that, if 
 anyone with his name made an elaborate charge on me, I 
 
 c 2
 
 20 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 was bound to speak. When Maurice in the Times a year 
 ago attacked me, I answered him at once. 
 
 ' But I have thought it very unlikely that anyone would 
 do so, — and then, I am so indolent that, unless there is an 
 actual necessity, I do nothing. In consequence now, when 
 the call comes on me, I am quite unprepared to meet it. I 
 know well that Kingsley is a furious foolish fellow, — but he 
 has a name, — nor is it anything at all to me that men think 
 I got the victory in the Correspondence several months ago, — 
 that was a contest of ability, — but now he comes out with a 
 pamphlet bringing together a hodge podge of charges against 
 me all about dishonesty. Now friends who know me say : 
 " Let him alone, — no one credits him," but it is not so. This 
 very town of Birmingham, of course, knows nothing of me, 
 and his pamphlet on its appearance produced an effect. The 
 evangelical party has always spoken ill of me, and the pam- 
 phlet seems to justify them. The Roman Catholic party 
 does not know me ; — the fathers of our school boys, the 
 priests, &c., &c., whom I cannot afford to let think badly of 
 me. Therefore, thus publicly challenged, I must speak, and, 
 unless I speak strongly, men won't believe me in earnest. 
 
 * But now I have little more to trust to than my memory. 
 There are matters in which no one can help me, viz. those 
 which have gone on in my own mind, but there is also a 
 great abundance of public facts, or again, facts witnessed by 
 persons close to me, which I may have forgotten. I fear of 
 making mistakes in dates, though I have a good memory for 
 them, and still more of making bold generalizations without 
 suspicion that they are not to the letter tenable. 
 
 'Now you were so much with me from 1840 to 1843 or 
 even 1845, that it has struck me that you could, (if you saw 
 in proof what I shall write about those years), correct any 
 fault of fact which you found in my statement. Also, you 
 might have letters of mine to throw light on my state of 
 mind, and this by means of contemporaneous authority. 
 And these are the two matters I request of you as regards 
 the years in question. 
 
 ' The worst is, I am so hampered for time. Longman 
 thought I ought not to delay, so I began, and, therefore, of 
 necessity in numbers. What I have to send you is not yet 
 written. It won't be much in point of length. 
 
 ' I need hardly say that I shall keep secret anything you 
 do for me and the fact of my having applied to you. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.'
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 21 
 
 Church welcomed warmly the letter of his old friend, and 
 Newman wrote again : 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham : April 26th, 1864. 
 
 ' My dear Church, — Your letter is most kind, but I am not 
 going to take all the assistance you offer. 
 
 ' As you say, it is almost an advantage in me not to take 
 more time. But I am not writing a History of the Movement, 
 nor arguing out statements. 
 
 ' Longman agreed with me that, if I did anything, I must 
 do it at once. Also that a large book would not be read. 
 For these two reasons I have done it as it is. I heartily 
 wish I had begun a week later. But Longman particularly 
 insisted that, when once I had begun, I should not intermit 
 a week. 
 
 ' When you see it as a whole you will not wonder at my 
 saying that, had I delayed a month, I should not have done 
 it at all. It has been a great misery to me. 
 
 * I only want to state things as they happened, and I 
 doubt not that your general impressions will be enough. 
 
 ' The chief part I wanted you for is the dullest part of the 
 whole, — the sort of views with which I wrote No. 90. I am 
 not directly defending it ; I am explaining my view of it. 
 
 ' Then again, I fear you do not know my secret feelings 
 when my unsettlement first began. But I shall state 
 external generalized acts of mine, as I believe them to be, 
 and you can criticize them. 
 
 ' I have no idea whatever of giving ^x\y point to what I am 
 writing, but that I did not act dishonestly. And I want to 
 state the stages in my change and the impediments which 
 kept me from going faster. Argument, I think, as such, will 
 not come in, — though I must state the general grounds of my 
 change. 
 
 ' Your notion of coming to me is particularly kind. But I 
 could not wish it now, even if you could. I am at my work 
 from morning to night. I thank God my health has not 
 suffered. What I shall produce will be little, but parts I write 
 so many times over. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Proofs were despatched on April 29 with a brief note 
 concluding thus : 
 
 'Excuse my penmanship. My fingers have been walking 
 nearly twenty miles a day.'
 
 22 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 John Keble was also consulted — though not at the 
 outset ' : 
 
 ' The Oratory, Birmingham : April 27/64. 
 
 ' My very dear Keble, — Thank you for your affectionate 
 letter. When you see part of my publication, you will wonder 
 how I ever could get myself to write it. Well, I could not, 
 except under some very great stimulus. I do not think I 
 could write it, if I delayed it a month. And yet I have for 
 years wished to write it as a duty. I don't know what people 
 will think of me, or what will be the effect of it — but I wished 
 to tell the truth, and to leave the matter in God's hands. 
 
 ' Don't be disappointed that there is so little in what 
 I send you by this post about Hurrell. I have attempted 
 (presumptuously) to draw him in an earlier Part ; it has 
 been seen by William Froude and Rogers. You will not 
 see it till it is published. It is too late. 
 
 ' I am writing from morning to night, hardly having time 
 for my meals. I write this during dinner time. This will go 
 on for at least 3 weeks more. 
 
 ' I am glad you and Mrs. Keble have found the winter so 
 mild, for it has been very trying with us. 
 
 ' I dare say, when it comes to the point, you will find 
 nothing you have to say as to what I send you — but I am 
 unwilling not to have eyes upon it of those who recollect 
 the history. You will be startled at my mode of writing. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Each part of the ' Apologia ' was received with acclaim 
 as it appeared in weekly numbers. Father Ryder, already a 
 priest and inmate of the Oratory in 1864, told me that he 
 remembered on several occasions seeing Newman while in 
 course of writing. The plan of the book was first sketched. 
 The principal heads of narrative and argument and the 
 general plan of the work were written up in their order in 
 large letters on the wall opposite to the desk at which he 
 was doing his work. 
 
 > 'What I shall ask Keble (as well as you) to look at,' he writes to Copeland 
 on April 19, 'is my sketch from (say) 1833 to 1840— but, mind, you will be 
 disappointed— it is noi a history of the Movement, but of me. It is an egotistical 
 matter from beginning to end. It is to prove that I did not act dishonestly. 
 I have doubts whether any one could supply instead what I have to say — but, 
 when you see it, you will see what a trial it is. In writing I kept bursting into 
 tears— and, as I read it to St. Jolin, I could not get on from beginning to end. 
 I am talking of part 3.'
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 23 
 
 'The "Apologia," writes Father Ryder, 'was a great 
 crisis in Father Newman's Hfe. It won him the heart of the 
 country which he has never lost since, and bespoke for him 
 an enthusiastic reception for all he might write afterwards. 
 Compare the niggard praise of the Times in its reviews 
 of the volumes on University subjects with the accord given 
 to post-' Apologia " writings ! The effort of writing the 
 weekly parts was overpowering. On such occasions he 
 wrote through the night, and he has been found with his 
 head in his hands crying like a child over the, to him, well- 
 nigh impossibly painful task of public confession : 
 
 ' Tal su quell' alma il cumulo 
 
 Delle memorie scese. 
 Oh ! quante volte ai posteri 
 
 Narrar se stesso imprese, 
 E sulle eterne pagine 
 
 Cadde la stanca man ! ' 
 
 'People could not resist one who, after having utterly 
 discomfited his accuser, took them so simply and quietly into 
 his confidence.' 
 
 Newman's letters while he was writing the several parts 
 show at once his scrupulous accuracy and refusal to scamp 
 his work and the overwhelming pressure which the appear- 
 ance of weekly parts involved. For facts he relied mainly on 
 the testimony of Church and Rogers — both Anglicans, who 
 would be the last to give them a Romeward colour. His 
 loyalty and his chivalrous scruples in thus using their testi- 
 mony appear in the course of the following letters, which 
 help us to form the picture of these weeks of constant 
 strain : 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham : May 1st, 1864. 
 
 ' My dear Rogers, — Thank you for the trouble you have 
 been at. It has been very satisfactory to have your correc- 
 tions and I have almost entirely adopted them. I suppose I 
 shall send you by this post down to about 1839-40, and then 
 I shall stop. Church will look at the part about No. 90 
 which ends that portion of the history. But I am dreadfully 
 hurried. That portion is simply to be out of my hands next 
 Friday. Longman would not let me delay, but I can't be 
 sorry, for I really do not think I could possibly have 
 got myself to write a line except under strict com})ulsion. 
 I have now been for five weeks at it, from morning to 
 
 ' See Manzoni's poem. In Movie di Napolcow.
 
 24 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 night, and I shall have three weeks more. It is not much in 
 bulk, but I have to write over and over again from the neces- 
 sity of digesting and compressing. 
 
 ' I sincerely wish only to state facts, and may truly say 
 that it, and nothing else, has been my object. So far as my 
 character is connected with the fact of my conversion I have 
 wished to do a service to Catholicism, — but in no other way. 
 I say this because my friends here think that the upshot of 
 the whole tells against Anglicanism ; but I am clear that I 
 have no such intention, and cannot at all divine what people 
 generally will say about me. I say all this in fairness, — it is 
 what has made me delicate in applying to Anglican friends. 
 
 ' Thanks for your offer of my letters, but I have not time 
 for them. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham : May 2nd, 1864. 
 
 ' My dear Church, — Many thanks for the trouble you have 
 taken, the result of which is most satisfactory to me. 
 
 ' Your letters will be of great use to me judging by the 
 first I opened. I wished to write my sketch drawn up from 
 my own memory first, and then I shall compare it with your 
 letters. I have not begun Part 5 yet, which is from 1839 
 to 1845 (except the No. 90 matter). If possible I shall wish to 
 trouble you with the slips on what happened upon No. 90, — 
 I mean, in order that you may say whether you have anything 
 to say against it. 
 
 * I am in some anxiety lest I should be too tired to go on ; 
 but I trust to be carried through. I think I .shall send you a 
 slip of Part 4 to-night, but it is no great matter. It is in 
 like manner, — I want your general impressions. 
 
 ' I shall not dream of keeping for good the letters which 
 you have sent me. I want you to have them that you may 
 not forget me. 
 
 ' Don't suppose I shall say one word unkind to the Church 
 of England, at least in my intentions. My friends tell me 
 that, as a whole, what I have written is unfavourable to 
 Anglicanism, — that may be, according to their notions, — for 
 I simply wrote to state facts, and I can truly say, and never 
 will conceal, that I have no wish at all to do anything against 
 the Establishment while it is a body preaching dogmatic 
 truth, as I think it does at present. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.'
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 25 
 
 A letter of sympathetic interest from Hope-Scott after the 
 appearance of the Second Part was as balm to a wounded 
 spirit, and a sedative to racked nerves. It brought grateful 
 thanks : 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham : May 2nd, 1864. 
 
 ' My dear Hope-Scott, — What good angel has led you to 
 write to me ? It is a great charity. 
 
 ' I never have been in such stress of brain and such pain 
 of heart, — and I have both trials together. Say some good 
 prayers for me. I have been writing without interruption 
 of Sundays since Easter Monday — five weeks — and I have at 
 least three weeks more of the same work to come. I have 
 been constantly in tears, and constantly crying out with 
 distress. I am sure I never could say what I am saying in 
 cold blood, or if I waited a month ; and then the third great 
 trial and anxiety, lest I should not say well what it is so 
 important to say. Longman said I must go on without break 
 if it was to succeed, — but, as I have said, I could not h.3Me, done 
 it if I had delayed. 
 
 * I am writing this during dinner-time, — I feel your kind- 
 ness exceedingly. 
 
 ' Ever yours most affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Newman's diary tells us that while working at Part 3 he 
 wrote one day for sixteen hours at a stretch. The record 
 is reached in Part 5, and given in this entry : ' At my 
 "Apologia" for 22 hours running.' June 2 saw the end of 
 the narrative and the publication of the Seventh Part. The 
 Appendix remained, for which he was allowed a fortnight by 
 the publishers. lie was not at first confident of financial 
 success. ' As to my gaining from my book,' he wrote to 
 Miss Holmes, ' that's to be seen. The printing expenses will 
 be enormous. I should not wonder if they were ;^200. I 
 dreamed last night that they were £700 and ;{r2oo besides. But 
 you must not suppose the matter is on my mind, for it isn't' 
 
 The book was, as I have said, very carefully planned to 
 do its work of persuasion. The first part was a pamphlet of 
 only 27 pages. It was entitled, ' Mr. Kingsley's Method 
 of Disputation.' As the reader will have seen from the ex- 
 tracts given above, it sustained the note of brilliant banter 
 and repartee which had been so effective in the previous 
 pamphlet. It was an immensely amusing squib which all
 
 26 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 the world could and did enjoy and could read in half an 
 hour or less. The second part also, on the ' True Method of 
 Meeting Mr. Kingsley,' was of similar length and almost 
 as light in manner and quality. Then the reader, whom 
 these two parts had won by their candour and brilliancy, 
 and who might be assumed to be in the best of humours, was 
 treated to fifty pages of autobiography written with all the 
 simplicity and beauty of style which the writer had at his 
 command. The quantity then grew as the writer felt sure 
 of his public. Part 4 ran to seventy pages, parts 5 and 6 
 each to eighty pages. 
 
 All that was written — except the first two parts, from 
 which I have already given several extracts, and the Appen- 
 dix — is contained in the current edition of the ' Apologia,' 
 which is probably known to all readers of the present book. 
 But a word must be added respecting the Appendix, in 
 which he replies in detail to Kingsley's pamphlet and 
 enumerates the famous ' blots ' in his arguments, which he 
 humorously brings up to the exact number of the Thirty-nine 
 Articles. Its place in the dramiatic scheme of the work must 
 be understood. Parts i and 2 were, as we have seen, devoted 
 to winning the confidence of the reader and his sympathetic 
 attention for the narrative as a whole. Parts 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 
 gave the narrative of Newman's life. At the end of this it 
 could safely be assumed that the reader to whom Newman 
 had given his whole confidence, and presented the picture of 
 a life which so keen a critic of his conclusions as J. A. Froude 
 declared to be absolutely devoted to finding and following 
 the truth, would have little patience with Kingsley's crudely 
 offensive charges and misrepresentations. These are accord- 
 ingly enumerated and answered in the Appendix one by 
 one, — often curtly, with peremptoriness, indignantly, almost 
 tartly. Newman could do this with confidence of success at 
 the end of his work. To have confined himself to such a 
 method or to have taken this tone earlier would have been 
 to run a risk. ' Here are two reverend gentlemen in a 
 passion — there is little to choose between them,' might have 
 been the retort from the public. It is noteworthy that, 
 although this Appendix contains some brilliant writing, 
 Newman considered that the justification for its sarcastic
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 27 
 
 tone ceased after the occasion was past : and he omitted it in 
 later editions of the ' Apologia.' 
 
 The following is the text of the first seven ' blots ' : 
 
 ' My Sermon on " The Apostolical Christian," being the 
 19th of "Sermons on Subjects of the Day." 
 
 ' This writer says : " What Dr. Newman means by 
 Christians ... he has not left in doubt " ; and then, quoting 
 a passage from this Sermon which speaks of the " humble 
 monk and holy nun " being " Christians after the very 
 pattern given us in Scripture," he observes, " This is his 
 definition of Christians " — p. 9. 
 
 ' This is not the case. I have neither given a definition 
 nor implied one nor intended one ; nor could I, either now 
 or in 1843-4, or at any time, allow of the particular definition 
 he ascribes to me. As if all Christians must be monks or 
 nuns ! 
 
 ' What I have said is that monks and nuns are patterns 
 of Christian perfection; and that Scripture itself supplies 
 us with this pattern. Who can deny this ? Who is bold 
 enough to say that St. John Baptist, who, I suppose, is a 
 Scripture character, is not a pattern-monk ? and that Mary, 
 who " sat at Our Lord's Feet," was not a pattern-nun ? And 
 Anna, too, "who served God with fastings and prayers 
 night and day " ? Again, what is meant but this by St. Paul's 
 saying : " It is good for a man not to touch a woman " ? 
 and, when speaking of the father or guardian of a young girl : 
 " He that giveth her in marriage doth well, but he that 
 giveth her not in marriage doth better " ? And what does 
 St. John mean but to praise virginity when he says of 
 the hundred and forty-four thousand on Mount Sion : " These 
 are they which were not defiled with women for they are 
 virgins " ? And what else did Our Ltnd mean when He said : 
 " There be eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for 
 the Kingdom of Heaven's sake. He that is able to receive 
 it, let him receive it " ? 
 
 ' He ought to know his logic better. I have said that 
 " monks and nuns find their pattern in Scripture " ; he 
 adds : therefore I hold all Christians are monks and nuns. 
 
 ' This is Blot one. 
 
 ' Now then for Blot two. 
 
 ' " Monks and nuns are the only perfect Christians. . . . 
 what more ? " — p. 9. 
 
 ' A second fault in logic. I said no more than that 
 monks and nuns were perfect Christians ; he adds, therefore
 
 28 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 " monks and nuns are the only perfect Christians." Monks 
 and nuns are not the only perfect Christians ; I never 
 thought so or said so now or at any other time. 
 
 ' \\ 42. " In the Sermon . . . monks and nuns are spoken 
 of as the 07ily true Bible Christians." This again is not the 
 case. What I said is that " monks and nuns are Bible 
 Christians ": it does not follow, nor did I mean, that " all Bible 
 Christians are monks and nuns." Bad logic again. W^ot three. 
 
 ' My Sermon on " Wisdom & Innocence," being the 
 20th of " Sermons on Subjects of the Day." 
 
 ' This writer says (p. 8) about my Sermon 20 : " By the 
 world appears to be signified especially the Protestant public 
 of these realms." 
 
 ' He also asks (p. 14), " Why was it preached ? ... to 
 insinuate that the admiring young gentlemen who listened 
 to him stood to their fellow-countrymen in the relation of 
 the early Christians to the heathen Romans? or that Queen 
 Victoria's Government was to the Church of England what 
 Nero's or Diocletian's was to the Church of Rome ? It may 
 have been so." 
 
 ' May, or may not ; it wasn't. He insinuates what, not 
 even with his little finger does he attempt to prove. Wiot four. 
 
 ' He asserts (p. 9) that I said in the Sermon in question 
 that " Sacramental Confession and the Celibacy of the Clergy 
 are notes of the Church." And, just before, he puts the 
 word " notes " in inverted commas as if it was mine. That 
 is, he garbles. It is not mine. Blot Jive. 
 
 'He says that I '•'define what I mean by the Church in 
 two ' notes ' of her character," I do not define or dream of 
 defining. 
 
 ' He says that I teach that the Celibacy of the Clergy 
 enters into the definition of the Church. I do no such thing ; 
 that is the blunt truth. Define the Church by the celibacy 
 of the clergy ! why, let him read i Tim. iii. : there he will 
 find that bishops and deacons are spoken of as married. 
 How, then, could I be the dolt to say or imply that the 
 celibacy of the clergy was a part of the definition of the 
 Church ? Blot six. 
 
 ' And again (p. 42), " In the Sermon a celibate clergy 
 is made a note of the Church." Thus the untruth is repeated. 
 Blot seven^ 
 
 The Appendix was published on June 25, and at last the 
 long labour was completed. ' I never had such a time,' he
 
 THE WRITING OF THE ' APOLOGIA ' (1864) 29 
 
 wrote to Keble from Rednal, ' both for hard work and for 
 distress of mind. But it is thank God now over, and I 
 am come here (where we have our burying ground) for a Httle 
 quiet' 
 
 Then came real calm, rest, peace — the sense of triumph 
 so long denied ; the acclaim for the defender of the priesthood, 
 and sympathy from his fellow-Catholics so long withheld ; 
 praise, too, most welcome of all, from ecclesiastical authority, 
 prayers and thanksgivings from the Sisters of the Dominican 
 Order at Stone — the ' Sisters of Fenance ' as they were called 
 — and along with it all the artist's keen satisfaction, almost 
 physical pleasure, in good work done and the response to it 
 in support and recognition. 
 
 The following letters to the Dominican Sisters and to 
 Henry Wilberforce were written after the Appendix was 
 published and the work completed : 
 
 To Mother Imelda Poole, Prioress of 
 St. Dominic's Convent, Stone. 
 
 ' Rednal ; June 25th, 1864. 
 
 ' My dear Sister Imelda, — I am always puzzled about 
 your proper title ; therefore you must not suppose that it is 
 any wilful neglect of propriety if I am in fault, — I know I am, 
 but cannot quite set myself right. 
 
 ' We all said Mass for the Sisters of Penance on St. 
 Catherine's day, but I was far too busy to write and tell you 
 so. I never had such a time, and once or twice thought I 
 was breaking down. I kept saying : " I am in for it." So I 
 was, — I could not get out of it except by getting through it, 
 — and again, I simply stood fast and could not get on and 
 was almost in despair. I knew what I had written would not 
 do, and, though every hour was valuable to me, I sat thinking 
 and could not get on. At other times the feeling was, as I 
 expressed it to those around me, as if I were ploughing in 
 very stiff clay. It was moving on at the rate of a mile an 
 hour, when I had to write and print and correct a hundred 
 miles by the next day's post. It has been nothing but the 
 good prayers of my friends which has brought me through, 
 and now I am quite tired out ; but, that I should have written 
 the longest book I ever wrote in ten weeks, without any 
 sort of preparation or anticipation, and not only written, but 
 printed and corrected it, is so great a marvel that I do not 
 know how, to be thankful enough.
 
 30 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' And now thanking you for your letter and all your good 
 prayers for me and mine, 
 ' I am, 
 
 Ever yours affectionately in Christ, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 To Mother Margaret Hallahan, Provincial of 
 
 THE Dominicans. 
 
 ' Rednal : June 25th, 1864. 
 
 * My dear Mother Margaret, — I am tired down to my 
 hand, so that I cannot write without pain, but I cannot delay 
 longer with any comfort to myself to answer your letter on 
 St. Philip's day — a sad day and season it has been to me, — 
 Easter-tide, Month of Mary, and the great Feasts included in 
 the three months. I have been collecting materials, writing, 
 correcting proof and revise, from morning till night, and 
 once through the night ; but, when once I was in for it, there 
 was no help. My publisher would not hear of breach of 
 promise, and my matter would grow under my hands, and 
 Thursday would come round once a week, — so I was like a 
 man who had fallen overboard and had to swim to land, 
 and found the distance he had to go greater and greater. 
 At last I am ashore and have crawled upon the beach 
 and there I lie ; but I should not have got safe, I know, 
 but for the many good prayers which have been offered 
 for me. 
 
 ' I so much wished to write to you on St. Catherine's day ; 
 — we all said Mass for you and yours according to our 
 engagement. 
 
 * I cannot be thankful enough for the great mercies which 
 have been shown me, and I trust they are a pledge that God 
 will be good to me still. 
 
 ' Of course you have seen the great recompense I have 
 had for so many anxieties, in the Bishop's letter to me. 
 ' Begging your good prayers, 
 
 I am, my dear Mother Margaret, 
 
 Yours affectionately in Christ, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 ' I never had such a time of it,' he adds to another of the 
 Dominican sisters. ' When I was at Oxford I have twice 
 written a pamphlet in a night, and once in a day, but now I 
 had writing and printing upon me at once, and I have done 
 a book of 562 pages all at a heat ; but with so much 
 suffering, such profuse crying, such long spells of work —
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 31 
 
 sometimes sixteen hours, once twent)'-two hours at once, — 
 that it is a prodigious, awful marvel that I have got through 
 it and that I am not simply knocked up by it.' 
 
 It is difficult to recover at this distance of time evidence 
 which will give the reader a thoroughly adequate idea of the 
 change in Newman's position before the English world 
 effected by the ' Apologia.' There is the recollection of 
 many of us, fortified by incontestable tradition. There are 
 Newman's own letters and diaries, which bear witness to 
 the effect of this change on his own spirits and hopes for 
 the future. So much of the evidence, however, as consisted 
 in the Newman-Kingsley controversy being the topic of the 
 hour in clubs and drawing-rooms, and in the revival at this 
 time of the almost lost tradition of Newman's greatness, can 
 only live adequately in the recollection of the dwindling 
 number who remember those days. 
 
 But litera scripta matiet ; and enough proof of the general 
 fact, if not adequate evidence of its extent, remains in the 
 organs of public opinion. Newman had for years abstained 
 from any writing that could be called ' popular.' His extra- 
 ordinary power of rousing public interest by literary brilliancy 
 was habitually held in check by the stern repressive con- 
 science which forbade display and urged him to do simply 
 the work of the day which came in his way. Once, 
 thirteen years earlier, conscience had bidden him let loose 
 his powers of wit and sarcasm — in the lectures on the 
 ' Present Position of Catholics.' In these lectures he served 
 the good cause by giving full play to his more popular and 
 telling literary gifts. And now again, when Kingsley had 
 attacked the Catholic priesthood as untruthful and as slaves 
 of a repressive authority, his conscience allowed — nay, bade 
 — him to do his best, not only in argument, but in that 
 enterprise of arresting public attention which so immensely 
 enhanced the effect of his reply. And when once his 
 scrupulous conscience permitted it, few people could sway 
 the English mind with more success. The brilliant dialogue 
 with Kingsley which he invented, and which has already been 
 quoted, was the first step — admirably judged and planned. 
 Its wit and its brevity secured its reproduction throughout the
 
 32 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Press of the kingdom. It fixed all eyes on the combatants. 
 What mattered it that at first it was welcomed only as a 
 brilliant sally with no serious outcome? It gained attention, 
 and, in the circumstances, that was everything. That 
 attention made the ' Apologia ' which followed not a work 
 to be read only by the serious few with admiration and 
 profit — like the ' Lectures on Anglican Difficulties,' the ' Idea 
 of a University,' the ' Historical Sketches ' — but a public event 
 for all England. 
 
 Directly Newman published, in February, his witty sum- 
 mary of the correspondence, all the newspapers which were 
 most read in those days took it up. The Spectator of course 
 applauded it ; the Saturday Review (February 27) declared 
 that ' Since the days of Bentley and Boyle there has not 
 appeared so lively a controversy.' 
 
 Other papers followed suit. 
 
 ' Famous sport,' wrote a critic in the Athencsum. 'Of all 
 the diversions of our dining and dancing season, that of a 
 personal conflict is ever the most eagerly enjoyed. How we 
 flock to hear a "painful discussion"! How we send to the 
 library for a volume that is too personal to have been 
 published ! And how briskly we gather round a brace of 
 reverend gentlemen when the prize for which they contend 
 is which of the two shall be considered as the father of 
 lies!' 
 
 A ring, ever increasing in number, was formed round 
 the reverend combatants, and, having come to stare and 
 cheer, the spectators had perforce to listen to the words of 
 deep moment and intense pathos which Newman ultimately 
 addressed to them. 
 
 While everyone, then, was enjoying the sport, and on the 
 qui vive looking out for Newman's next thrust in the duel, 
 the ' Apologia ' made its appearance in weekly parts — this 
 mode of publication immensely helping its popularity and 
 influence. For the weekly pamphlet was devoured by many 
 who would have regarded the book as too serious an under- 
 taking if it had been presented to them all at once. It 
 awoke from the dead the great memory of John Henry 
 Newman whom the English world at large appeared to have 
 forgotten. Those from whom the spell of his presence and
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 33 
 
 words, felt in their youth at Oxford, had never passed away, 
 now spoke out to a generation which knew him not. 
 
 At that time cultivated public opinion was perhaps better 
 represented by the Saturday Review than by any other 
 journal. And the note struck by the Saturday on this sub- 
 ject when it reviewed the book as a whole, was echoed 
 almost universally. 
 
 'A loose and off-hand, and, we may venture to add, an 
 unjustifiable imputation, cast on Dr. Newman by a popular 
 writer, more remarkable for vigorous writing than vigorous 
 thought,' wrote the Saturday reviewer, ' has produced one 
 of the most interesting works of the present literary age. 
 Dr. Newman is one of the finest masters of language, his 
 logical powers are almost unequalled, and, in one way or 
 other, he has influenced the course of English thought more 
 perhaps than any of his contemporaries. If we add to 
 this the peculiar circumstances of his reappearance in print, 
 the sort of mystery in which, if he has not enveloped him- 
 self, he has been shrouded of late years, the natural curiosity 
 which has been felt as to the results on such a mind of 
 the recent progress of controversy and speculation and the 
 lower interest which always attaches to autobiographies and 
 confessions and personal reminiscences, we find an aggregate 
 of unusual sources of interest in such a publication.' 
 
 The Times — then under Delane's management and an 
 immense power — which had for many years paid little heed 
 to Newman's writings, if it did not rise quite to the enthu- 
 siasm of the Saturday or the Spectator, did not fall far behind 
 them. 
 
 The Times, the Saturday, and the Spectator were the 
 leaders, and the bulk of the Press followed the tone they 
 had set. There was immense quantity of notice as well as 
 high quality. A writer in the Church Review spoke of ' the 
 almost unparalleled interest that has been excited by the 
 " Apologia." ' It was, of course, hotly attacked, but one very 
 significant fact was that some of the most vehement attacks 
 — such as those of Dr. Irons and Mr. Meyrick — recognised to 
 the full both the injustice of Kingsley's personal assault and 
 the greatness of the man whom he assailed. The loss of 
 influence which had so deeply depressed Newman, the sense 
 that he was speaking to deaf or inattentive ears, passed for 
 VOL. II. D
 
 34 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ever. In his brochure addressed to Newman himself, and en- 
 titled, * Isn't Kingsley right after all ? ' Mr. Meyrick's opening 
 words bore testimony to the wave of popular applause which 
 the appearance of the ' Apologia ' had brought with it. 
 * All England has been laughing with you,' he wrote, ' and 
 those who knew you of old have rejoiced to see you once 
 more come forth like a lion from his lair, with undiminished 
 strength of muscle, and they have smiled as they watched 
 you carry off the remains of Mr. Charles Kingsley (no 
 mean prey), lashing your sides with your tail, and growling 
 and muttering as you retreat into your den.' 
 
 ' As a specimen of mental analysis, extended over a 
 whole lifetime,' wrote Dr. Irons, 'the" Apologia" is probably 
 without a rival. St, Augustine's Confessions are a purely 
 religious retrospect ; Rousseau's are philosophical ; Dr. 
 Newman's psychological. One might almost attribute to 
 him a double personality. The mental power, the strange 
 self-anatorny, the almost cold, patient review of past affec- 
 tions, anxieties, and hopes, are alike astonishing. The ex- 
 amination is not a post-mortem, for there appear colour, 
 light, and consciousness in the subject ; it is not a vivisec- 
 tion, for there is no quivering, even of a nerve.' 
 
 Not only the literary and theological world devoured the 
 weekly parts of the ' Apologia,' but the men of science read 
 it with great and wondering interest. The passages dealing 
 with probable evidence as the basis of certitude — a subject 
 on which his views were set forth more precisely in the 
 'Grammar of Assent' — especially exercised them. 
 
 ' I travelled with Sir C. Lyell the other day to London, on 
 his return from the British Association meeting at Bath,' 
 writes William Froude to Newman, ' and without my lead- 
 ing the conversation in that direction, the subject came 
 naturally to the surface, and he expressed the feeling which 
 I have mentioned, — not indeed as having a misgiving that 
 you would be able to turn the stream back, but as knowing 
 that what you would have to say would deserve very serious 
 consideration.' 
 
 But there was another side of its success which probably 
 gave Newman far greater pleasure, confidence, and courage. 
 He had come forth as the champion of the Catholic priesthood.
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 35 
 
 He had won a great triumph. And his fellow-priests and 
 his own Bishop, whom he loved, were deeply grateful. After 
 all, his lot was thrown in with the Catholic body in England. 
 Suspicion on their part was his greatest trial. And now their 
 acclaim of gratitude and confidence warmed him and drove 
 away the sad and even morbid thoughts which had haunted 
 him and gone far towards poisoning the more superficial joy 
 of his life, though they had not touched the deepest springs 
 of his happiness. It was the welcome marks of approval from 
 these brethren in the Faith which he himself preserved for 
 posterity, placing them in the Appendix of his republished 
 ' Apologia.' The first of these addresses of congratulation was 
 that of the Birmingham clergy. The Provincial Synod took 
 place at Oscott on June 2, and the occasion was used for 
 presenting a formal address to Dr. Newman, The scene is 
 thus described in a contemporary letter from one of the 
 Oscott priests : 
 
 ' After the Synod we all gathered round the throne and 
 the Provost read the address. 
 
 ' Dr. Newman, who stood at the Bishop's right, stood out 
 and we gathered closer in round him and the steps of the 
 throne to catch every syllable. He must have been tired for 
 he has worked hard at his " Apology " — they say once for 20 
 hours without a break. He had come down from London 
 not long before, and sat out the whole of the Synod. 
 
 ' As he stepped forward a (ew paces and began to speak 
 he looked more vigorous and healthy than I have thought 
 him any of the three times I have seen him within 10 years. 
 But he soon got overpowered when he began to say what he 
 felt to be the real feelings suggesting the address, and tried 
 to do them justice. He was gasping for words, and yet 
 he never used an awkward or useless one, altho' he was 
 speaking perfectly extempore as he said, and was recognis- 
 ing such deep feelings in us and doing justice to them, and 
 expressing deeper and warmer and heartier feelings in a way 
 quite adequate to the affection and sympathy of a Priest to 
 his brother and neighbour Priests, ranged (as he said) round 
 the feet of their common Father and Bishop. I can't draw 
 the man, or the tone of voice, or give you its thrilling words 
 and expression. 
 
 ' I never before heard a man's whole heart so plainly 
 coming out in his words, and stamping every look and tone 
 with reality and complete sincere sympathy with all around 
 
 D 2
 
 36 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 him. His tears were visible, and most of us confessed to 
 crying when we came out. 
 
 ' Last of all he gave us a complete answer to the request 
 that he would write some work to meet the errors of the 
 present day. He had got off the personal matter and 
 struck out with a force and convincing power that carried 
 every one to his side. ... It was full and complete, bristling 
 with thought and deep principle. You shall have shreds of 
 it when we meet next.' 
 
 Bishop Ullathorne seized the occasion to give expres- 
 sion in a letter to a wide appreciation among Catholics of 
 Newman's work in recent years, which, as we have seen, 
 had remained almost unrecognised by Newman himself amid 
 the difficulties created by the circumstances of the time. 
 He reviewed the great Oratorian's career since 1845, and 
 spoke of it in terms excessively grateful to him. 
 
 Newman has preserved in the ' Apologia ' the text alike 
 of the Bishop's letter and of the various congratulatory 
 addresses — one of them from 1 10 of the Westminster clergy, 
 including all the canons and vicars-general and many 
 secular and regular priests ; another from the Academia of 
 the Catholic religion ; as well as those from the clergy of 
 his own and other dioceses, and from the German Catholics 
 assembled in September 1864 at the Congress of Wiirzburg. 
 
 The 'Apologia' as the story of Newman's life down to 
 1845 is familiar to every one. Not so universally known is 
 the chapter entitled ' General Answer to Mr. Kingsley ' — a 
 chapter of high significance in the history I am narrating, 
 and of permanent value. It was republished in the revised 
 ' Apologia,' but its title was changed. It is called in the 
 current edition, 'Position of my Mind since 1845.' We 
 have seen that Newman's efforts at stating the position 
 of an educated Catholic in relation to the intellectual atti- 
 tude of the age, and repudiating untenable exaggerations, 
 were misunderstood by many of his co-religionists. His 
 object was not grasped. He defended an analysis of the 
 Church's claims falling short of what W. G. Ward or 
 Manning or the school of the Univers upheld, because he 
 felt that these more extreme writers overlooked historical 
 facts and theological distinctions. But he was credited —
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 37 
 
 by those who did not appreciate his true motive — with a 
 want of hearty loyalty, with a deficiency in the believing 
 spirit. He was opposing zealous champions of the Pope, 
 and (so such hostile critics urged) was thereby showing 
 his own want of zeal. He was supposed to be making 
 common cause with writers like Sir John Acton, who might 
 fairly be urged to be wanting in devotion to the Holy See, 
 and deficient in respect for the great theologians of the 
 Church. For him in these circumstances to criticise directly 
 the imprudent champions of the Papacy was a delicate and 
 invidious task. But when, on the other hand, an assailant 
 of the Church and of the Catholic priesthood travestied 
 the claims of authority and spoke of Catholic priests as 
 dupes, and as intellectual slaves, a fresh and generally in- 
 telligible motive was supplied which enabled him to say the 
 very things which in the absence of such provocation would 
 be offensive. Distinctions and reservations so necessary to a 
 really satisfactory treatment might safely be urged as sup- 
 plying the true answer to Kingsley's travesty, though 
 when used against Veuillot's exaggerations they had been 
 regarded as showing a lack of sympathy with the loyal 
 devotion which inspired the French writer. The interests of 
 critical and inquiring minds were not perhaps adequately 
 realised among English Catholics ; and admissions most 
 necessary for those interests were viewed as concessions to 
 worldliness or signs of a too cautious faith. Newman there- 
 fore seized the occasion which Kingsley had supplied to him 
 for giving a sketch of the rationale, nature, and limitations of 
 the Church's infallibility and an analysis of the normal action 
 of her authority. And what he wrote has great and lasting 
 importance. Its autobiographical interest is equal to its 
 argumentative value. It is the only account he has left of 
 the state of his mind — acutely critical and absolutely frank 
 in its recognition of historical facts and probabilities — as a 
 member of the Catholic Church, at a time when intellec- 
 tual interests were to a great extent crowded out by ex- 
 ternal trials and troubles. From his letters it is evident 
 that the chapter of which I speak had expert theological 
 revision, with the advantage that he could give to his censors 
 his own justification and explanation of any passages which
 
 38 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 might be attacked by hostile critics. The result fully veri- 
 fied the view he ever maintained — that, where the interests 
 of theology were dealt with by really able theologians, un- 
 hampered by the pressure of other than theological interests, 
 the principles recognised in the schools were adequate to the 
 intellectual necessities of the time. 
 
 He indicates in this chapter the functions of authority in 
 the formation of Catholic theology, and also the part played 
 by individual thinkers, which he held that Veuillot, and even 
 W. G. Ward, had most mischievously overlooked. 
 
 W. G. Ward and Veuillot appeared to their critics to 
 appeal to the Infallible Authority for guidance almost as 
 though it superseded the exercise of the theological intel- 
 lect. W. G. Ward had uniformly written of late years 
 as though the normal method of advance in inquiry and 
 thought within the Church was that Papal instructions and 
 Encyclicals should take the lead, and the sole business of 
 the individual Catholic thinker was simply to follow that 
 lead. In opposition to so inadequate an account of the 
 normal formation of the Catholic intellect — in which great 
 thinkers like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas had 
 had so large a share — Newman sets himself carefully to 
 trace the actual facts of the case. First, however, to pre- 
 clude all possibility of misunderstanding, he gives an analysis 
 of the Infallibility granted to the Church in faith and morals, 
 and defines its scope in such terms as would amply satisfy 
 all the requirements of theology. 
 
 In general he regards the Church's infallibility ' as a 
 provision, adapted by the mercy of the Creator to preserve 
 religion in the world, and to restrain that freedom of thought, 
 which of course in itself is one of the greatest of our natural 
 gifts, and to rescue it from its own suicidal excesses.' ^ 
 
 But having stated his full acceptance of the Infallibility 
 of the Church, he formulates the objection which Kingsley 
 had made by implication, that such acceptance is incom- 
 patible with real and manly reasoning in a Catholic — a 
 charge which the writings of English and French Catholic 
 extremists made only too plausible. Having stated it, he 
 proceeds to reply to it by an appeal to the palpable facts 
 
 ' Apologia, p. 245.
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 39 
 
 of history. History shows that reason and private judgment 
 have been most active among CathoHc thinkers — that great 
 doctors of the Church have played a most important role 
 in the gradual formation of Catholic thought and theology. 
 Infallibility is not meant (he points out) to supersede or 
 destroy reason, but to curb its excesses. To regard the 
 Infallible Authority as the power which normally takes 
 the initiative or gives the lead to the Catholic mind is 
 entirely to misconceive its function and to state what is 
 contrary to historical fact. The intellect of Christian Europe 
 was, in point of fact, fashioned, not by Popes, but by the 
 reason of individual Christian thinkers exercised on revela- 
 tion — first of all by the great Fathers of the Church. But, 
 moreover, even heterodox thinkers— as Origen and Tertul- 
 lian — have also had their indirect share in the formation of 
 Catholic theology. The primary function of Rome is not 
 to initiate, not to form the Catholic intellect, but to act as 
 guardian of the original deposit and as a check on excesses 
 and on over-rapid and incautious development — a negative 
 rather than a positive contribution to thought. 
 
 ' It is individuals, and not the Holy See,' he writes, ' that 
 have taken the initiative and given the lead to the Catholic 
 mind in theological inquiry. Indeed, it is one of the re- 
 proaches urged against the Roman Church that it has origin- 
 ated nothing, and has only served as a sort of remora or break 
 in the development of doctrine. And it is an objection which 
 I embrace as a truth ; for such I conceive to be the main 
 purpose of its extraordinary gift. . . . The great luminary of 
 the Western World is, as we know, St. Augustine ; he, 
 no infallible teacher, has formed the intellect of Christian 
 Europe ; indeed to the African Church generally we must 
 look for the best early exposition of Latin ideas. Moreover, 
 of the African divines, the first in order of time, and not the 
 least influential, is the strong-minded and heterodox Tertul- 
 lian. Nor is the Eastern intellect, as such, without its share 
 in the formation of the Latin teaching. The free thought 
 of Origen is visible in the writings of the Western Doctors, 
 Hilary and Ambrose ; and the independent mind of Jerome 
 has enriched his own vigorous commentaries on Scripture, 
 from the stores of the scarcely orthodox Eusebius. Heretical 
 questionings have been transmuted by the living power of 
 the Church into salutary truths. The case is the same
 
 40 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 as regards the Ecumenical Councils. Authority in its most 
 imposing exhibition, grave bishops, laden with the traditions 
 and rivalries of particular nations or places, have been guided 
 in their decisions by the commanding genius of individuals, 
 sometimes young and of inferior rank. Not that uninspired 
 intellect overruled the superhuman gift which was com- 
 mitted to the Council, which would be a self-contradictory 
 assertion, but that in that process of inquiry and deliberation, 
 which ended in an infallible enunciation, individual reason 
 was paramount.' ^ 
 
 Again, while a certain narrowness of outlook in the 
 average theological mind (from which, as we have seen, he 
 himself had suffered) had to be admitted, it was, never- 
 theless, in the palmy days of the theological schools — the 
 Middle Ages — that the strongest instances were to be found 
 of the functions of free discussion and active exercise of 
 the individual intellect in the formation of Catholic theology. 
 Once again — as he had already done in Dublin — he appeals 
 to this precedent as indicating the normal state of things, 
 and as giving a scope to original thinkers which excessive 
 centralisation and over-rigid censorship might deny. In 
 this passage he repeats the metaphor of fighting ' under 
 the lash' which we have read in the letter to Miss Bowles 
 cited above. He holds any such interference on the part 
 of authority as would stifle the ventilation of real thought 
 to be, not, as Kingsley supposes, general, but, on the con- 
 trary, abnormal, and due only to temporary circumstances or 
 needs. The more ordinary course has been slowness on 
 the part of Rome to interfere, and in the end interference 
 so limited that the matter can be threshed out by discussion 
 from various points of view, and authority often only enforces 
 the decision which reason has already reached.^ 
 
 He points out in this connection the value of the inter- 
 national character of Catholicism in averting narrowness of 
 thought. And he deplores the loss of the influence, once 
 so great, of the English and German elements owing to the 
 apostasy of the sixteenth century.' 
 
 But perhaps more important than any of the other 
 passages is the one in which he gives what may be called 
 the philosophy of the interference of Ecclesiastical Authority 
 
 ' Apologia, pp. 265-6. 
 
 * Ibid. p. 267. 
 
 » Ibid. p. 268.
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 41 
 
 with the secular sciences by decisions which do not claim to 
 be infallible. He states frankly the prima facie difficulty 
 such interference presents to a thinking mind, and in his 
 reply maintains that, on the whole, although the Supreme 
 Authority may be supported by a ' violent ultra party which 
 exalts opinions into dogmas,' ^ history shows in the long run 
 that official interferences themselves have been mainly wise, 
 and the opponents of authority mainly wrong. The lesson 
 of this impressive passage is one of great patience in a time 
 of transition and of trial. 
 
 But these passages of controversy in the 'Apologia,' though 
 so supremely necessary, were painful. The writer seems to 
 break off with a sense of relief, and ends his book with the 
 loving tribute to his friends at the Oratory which stands 
 among those passages in which he speaks to all and makes 
 all love him — with ' Lead, kindly light,' with the Epilogue 
 to the * Development,' with the close of the sermon on the 
 ' Parting of Friends ' : 
 
 ' I have closed this history of myself with St. Philip's 
 name upon St. Philip's feast-day ; and, having done so, to 
 whom can I more suitably offer it, as a memorial of affection 
 and gratitude, than to St. Philip's sons, my dearest brothers 
 of this House, the Priests of the Birmingham Oratory, 
 Ambrose St. John, Henry Austin Mills, Henry 
 BiTTLESTON, Edward Caswall, William Paine Neville, 
 and Henry Ignatius Dudley Ryder ? who have been so 
 faithful to me ; who have been so sensitive of my needs ; who 
 have been so indulgent to my failings ; who have carried me 
 through so many trials ; who have grudged no sacrifice, if I 
 asked for it ; who have been so cheerful under discouragements 
 of my causing ; who have done so many good works, and let 
 me have the credit of them ; — with whom I have lived so 
 long, with whom I hope to die. 
 
 ' And to you especially, dear Ambrose St. John ; whom 
 God gave me, when He took every one else away ; who are 
 the link between my old life and my new ; who have now 
 for twenty-one years been so devoted to me, so patient, so 
 zealous, so tender ; who have let me lean so hard upon you : 
 who have watched me so narrowly ; who have never thought 
 of yourself, if I was in question. 
 
 ' And in you I gather up and bear in memory those familiar 
 affectionate companions and counsellors, who in Oxford were 
 
 ' Apologia, p. 260.
 
 42 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 given to me, one after another, to be my daily solace and 
 relief; and all those others, of great name and high example, 
 who were my thorough friends, and showed me true attachment 
 in times long past ; and also those many young men, whether 
 I knew them or not, who have never been disloyal to me by 
 word or by deed ; and of all these, thus various in their 
 relations to me, those more especially who have since joined 
 the Catholic Church. 
 
 ' And I earnestly pray for this whole company, with a 
 hope against hope, that all of us, who once were so united, 
 and so happy in our union, may even now be brought at 
 length, by the Power of the Divine Will, into One Fold and 
 under One Shepherd. 
 
 ' May 26th, 1864. 
 In Festo Corp. Christ.' 
 
 The acclaim of the Press, as we have seen, testified to a 
 public opinion completely conquered. Addresses of congra- 
 tulation from representative Catholic critics long continued 
 to come. It was a victory. Yet the book did not pass 
 wholly unchallenged. The lucid exposition, in the last part 
 of the ' Apologia,' of the Church as viewed historically, pro- 
 voked censure from some unhistorical minds among the 
 theological critics. Such criticisms led Newman, as he in- 
 timated in a letter to Dr. Russell, to go into the passages 
 criticised with expert theologians, with whom he was 
 successful in justifying his meaning. 
 
 'April 19, 1865. 
 
 ' I have altered some things,' he writes to Dr. Russell, 
 ' and perhaps, as you say, have thereby anticipated your 
 criticisms. But I have altered only with the purpose of 
 expressing my own meaning more exactly. This is all I 
 have to aim at ; because I have reason to know, that, after a 
 severe, not to say hostile scrutiny, I have been found to be 
 without matter of legitimate offence. For a day like this, in 
 which such serious efforts are made to narrow that liberty 
 of thought and speech which is open to a Catholic, I am 
 indisposed to suppress my own judgment in order to satisfy 
 objectors. Among such persons of course I do not include 
 you : but, using the same frankness which you so kindly 
 claim in writing to me, I will express my belief, that you 
 are tender towards others, in the remarks which you 
 ask to make, rather than actually displeased with me 
 yourself
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 43 
 
 One criticism Newman did think it important to answer 
 — namely, the objection taken by scholastic critics to his 
 language on ' probable ' evidence as the basis of certainty, 
 the very point on which W. Froude's scientific friends had 
 also fastened. Newman wrote to Canon Walker the following 
 thoroughly popular explanation of the consistency of his 
 views with the recognised teaching : 
 
 'July 6, 1864. . . . The best illustration of what I hold 
 is that of a cable, which is made up of a number of separate 
 threads, each feeble, yet together as sufficient as an iron rod. 
 
 ' An iron rod represents mathematical or strict demon- 
 stration ; a cable represents moral demonstration, which is 
 an assemblage of probabilities, separately insufficient for cer- 
 tainty, but, when put together, irrefragable. A man who said 
 " I cannot trust a cable, I must have an iron bar," would 
 in certain given cases, be irrational and unreasonable : — so too 
 is a man who says I must have a rigid demonstration, not 
 moral demonstration, of religious truth.' 
 
 The criticisms of captious theologians were a real trial 
 to Newman, for they made him feel the difficulty of writing 
 further, as his friends wished, and taking advantage of having 
 won the ear of the English public. 
 
 ' As to my writing more,' he complains to Mr. Hope-Scott 
 in a letter of July 6th, ' speaking in confidence, I do not know 
 how to do it. One cannot speak ten words without ten objec- 
 tions being made to each. I am not certain that I shall not 
 have some remarks made on what I have just finished. The 
 theology of the Dublin is, to my mind, monstrous — but I am 
 safe there, from the kindness which Ward feels for me. Now 
 I cannot lose my time and strength, and tease my mind, with 
 controversy. It would matter little, if I might be quiet 
 under criticisms — but I never can be sure that great lies may 
 not be told about me at Rome, and so I may be put on my 
 defence. A writer in a Review of this month says (he knows 
 personally) that persons in Rome within this three years 
 spoke pubhcly of the probability of my leaving the Church. 
 And Mgr. Talbot put about that I had subscribed to 
 Garibaldi, and took credit for having concealed my delin- 
 quencies from the Pope. I take all this, and can only take 
 it, as the will of God. I mean, I have done nothing whatever 
 to call for it.' 
 
 Still the net result of the book was a triumph, and the 
 criticisms were soon forgotten. But in this very fact of the
 
 44 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 balance ultimately turning in favour of success, Newman 
 
 found a reason against running the risk involved in setting 
 
 up a fresh target for criticism without real necessity. And 
 
 when Canon Walker called eagerly for another book he thus 
 
 replied : 
 
 'August 5, 1864. 
 
 ' As to my writing more, I am tempted to say " Let well 
 alone." If I attempt to do more, I may do less. Almost to 
 my surprise I have succeeded. I have sincerely tried to keep 
 from controversy, and to occupy myself in simply defending 
 myself, and in myself my brethren ; and, without my in- 
 tending it, I have written what I hear from various quarters 
 is found to be useful controversially. If I attempted to be 
 controversial, I may spoil all. Some people have said "Your 
 history is more to your purpose than all your arguments." 
 
 ' Then again I never can write well without a definite call. 
 You were rating me for several years, because I did not 
 write ; but if I had attempted, it would be a failure, like a 
 boy's theme. But when the real occasion came, I succeeded. 
 I almost think it is part of the English character, though in 
 this day there seems a change certainly. Grote, Thirhvall, 
 Milman, Cornewall Lewis, Mill, have written great works for 
 their own sake. So did Gibbon last century, but he was 
 half a Frenchman. Our great writers have generally written 
 on occasion — controversially as Burke, or Milton; officially, 
 as Blackstone — for money as Dryden, Johnson, Scott &c., or 
 in Sibyl's leaves as Addison and the Essayists.' 
 
 One passage in his book which provoked criticism was 
 its testimony to the value of the Church of England — an 
 institution which some Catholics, more zealous in feeling 
 than educated in mind, considered should be spoken of 
 with contempt and derision by any thoroughly orthodox 
 son of the Church. The tone of Newman's letter to Henry 
 Wilberforce in reference to this criticism represents, I think, 
 the feeling he came eventually to have as to all the criticisms 
 — that they were inevitable in the circumstances of the time, 
 and would not ultimately much signify : 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham: St. Bartholomew's Day, Aug. 24th, 1864. 
 
 ' Thanks for your considerateness, but I never conjectured 
 for an instant that the publication of the Articles you speak 
 of depended on you. I have not more than seen them, but 
 it is hard if my book may not be criticised as any other book. 
 Of course, I stared at a critic's thinking that it is impossible
 
 THE WRITING OF THE 'APOLOGIA' (1864) 45 
 
 for an institution to be great in a human way because it is 
 simply an idol and a nehushtan in an Apostolic point of view, 
 though I recognised in the sentiment what is one of the evil 
 delusions of many who are not converts but old Catholics, 
 (perhaps of some converts too) that Catholics are on an intel- 
 lectual and social equality with Protestants. This idea I 
 have ever combated, and been impatient at; and, till we allow 
 that there are greater natural gifts and human works in the 
 Protestant world of England than in the little Catholic flock, 
 we only make ourselves ridiculous and hurt that just in- 
 fluence by which alone we can hope to convert men. If 
 there were no such thing as absolute truth in religious 
 matters, there is great wisdom in a compromise and com- 
 prehension of opinions, — and this the Church of England 
 exhibits.' 
 
 One, and only one, adverse criticism did remain perma- 
 nently in the public mind,— that Newman had been unduly 
 sensitive and personally bitter towards Kingsley. With this 
 impression he dealt in a highly interesting letter to Sir 
 William Cope written at the time of Kingsley's death, — a letter 
 which completes the story of the writing of the ' Apologia.' 
 
 'The Oratory : Feb. 13th, 1875. 
 
 ' My dear Sir William,— I thank you very much for the 
 gift of your sermon. The death of Mr. Kingsley, — so pre- 
 mature — shocked me. I never from the first have felt any 
 anger towards him. As I said in the first pages of my 
 " Apologia," it is very difficult to be angry with a man one 
 has never seen. A casual reader would think my language 
 denoted anger, — but it did not. I have ever found from ex- 
 perience that no one would believe me in earnest if I spoke 
 calmly. When again and again I denied the repeated 
 report that I was on the point of coming back to the Church 
 of England, I have uniformly found that, if I simply denied 
 it, this only made newspapers repeat the report more con- 
 fidently, — but, if I said something sharp, they abused me for 
 scurrility against the Church I had left, but they believed 
 me. Rightly or wrongly, this was the reason why I felt it 
 would not do to be tame and not to show indignation at 
 Mr. Kingsley's charges. Within the last few years I have 
 been obliged to adopt a similar course towards those who 
 said I could not receive the Vatican Decrees. I sent a sharp 
 letter to the Guardian and, of course, the Guardian called me 
 names, but it believed me and did not allow the offence of 
 its correspondent to be repeated.
 
 46 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' As to Mr. Kingsley, much less could I feel any resent- 
 ment against him when he was accidentally the instrument, in 
 the good Providence of God, by whom I had an opportunity 
 given me, which otherwise I should not have had, of 
 vindicating my character and conduct in my " Apologia." I 
 heard, too, a few years back from a friend that she chanced 
 to go into Chester Cathedral and found Mr. K, preaching 
 about me, kindly though, of course, with criticisms on me. 
 And it has rejoiced me to observe lately that he was 
 defending the Athanasian Creed, and, as it seemed to me, 
 in his views generally nearing the Catholic view of things. I 
 have always hoped that by good luck I might meet him, 
 feeling sure that there would be no embarrassment on my 
 part, and I said Mass for his soul as soon as I heard of his 
 death. 
 
 * Most truly yours, 
 
 John H. Newman.'
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 CATHOLICS AT OXFORD ( 1 864- 1 865) 
 
 The success of the ' Apologia ' at once attracted attention 
 in Rome. Monsignor Talbot, at Manning's suggestion, called 
 at the Oratory in July, and subsequently wrote to invite 
 Newman to visit Rome and deliver a course of sermons at his 
 own church. ' When,' he wrote, ' I told the Holy Father that 
 I intended to invite you, he highly approved of my intention ; 
 and I think myself that you will derive great benefit from 
 revisiting Rome and again showing yourself to the ecclesias- 
 tical authorities there who are anxious to see you.' Newman 
 curtly declined the proposal.' He would not respond to such 
 advances brought about by his new popularity. He had not 
 forgotten that Monsignor Talbot had been among the foremost 
 of those who had thrown suspicion on his orthodoxy in the sad 
 days which succeeded his connection with the Rambler. Nor 
 would he allow his friends to rate too highly the significance 
 of Talbot's visit and letter as signs of favour in high quarters. 
 ' As to my invitation to Rome,' he wrote to Miss Bowles, 'it 
 was this. Monsignor Talbot, who had been spreading the re- 
 port that I subscribed to Garibaldi, and said other bad things 
 against me, had the assurance to send me a pompous letter 
 asking me to preach a set of sermons in his church, saying 
 that then I should have an opportunity to show myself to 
 the authorities (that, I think, was his phrase) and to rub up 
 my Catholicism. It was an insolent letter. I declined.' The 
 invitation 'was suggested by Manning— the Pope had nothing 
 to do with it. When Talbot left for England he said, among 
 other things, " I think of asking Dr. Newman to give a set 
 of lectures in my church," and the Pope, of course, said, "a 
 very good thought," as he would have said if Mgr. Talbot 
 
 ' For the text of this correspondence, see p. 539.
 
 48 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 had said, " I wish to bring Your Holiness some English 
 razors." ' 
 
 Nevertheless, Newman's letters show that he was sensible 
 of having now quite a new position in the Catholic world. 
 He was recognised as the great and successful apologist for 
 the Catholic religion, a defender of the Catholic priesthood, 
 in a battle which had commanded the attention of all the 
 English-speaking world. He states in his journal that his 
 success ' put him in spirits ' to look out for fresh work. 
 
 The English Universities had been thrown open to Catho- 
 lics by the abolition of the tests which had long excluded 
 them. Cardinal Wiseman, in earlier days, had inveighed 
 against the injustice of their exclusion, and had looked 
 forward to the time when in Oxford as in the Westminster 
 Parliament his co-religionists should compete on equal 
 terms with their fellow-countrymen. He had avowed these 
 sentiments openly in the Dublin Review. Newman had for 
 some time considered the possibility of a renewed connection 
 with Oxford, with the immediate object of affording spiritual 
 and intellectual guidance to Catholic undergraduates, and the 
 indirect issue of coming to close quarters with the thought 
 of the place, and undertaking as occasion demanded such 
 an intellectual exposition of Catholicism in its relation to 
 modern movements as would make it a power in English 
 religious thought. This in turn would help to secure and 
 fortify the faith of the young. Such an endeavour would 
 enable him to continue in a new form the work he had 
 endeavoured to do both at Dublin and in the Rambler. 
 The Catholic University had failed. University training 
 must be sought by Catholics at Oxford or Cambridge, or 
 not at all. He knew Oxford and loved it. It had been 
 the scene of his wonderful work in stemming the early 
 stages of rationalistic thought among the youth of England. 
 Now rationalism had grown there and the philosophy of 
 J. S. Mill was supreme. Could he resume his task with 
 the power of the Catholic Church behind him } 
 
 The Munich Brief had in 1863, as we have seen, directly 
 discouraged the attempt to meet the intellectual needs of the 
 hour in the particular form it had been taking among the 
 German savatits. Could it be made under different conditions ?
 
 CATHOLICS AT OXFORD (1864-1865) 49 
 
 Could something in the desired direction be undertaken as an 
 almost pastoral work for the sake of the rising generation ? 
 
 Newman's sense of the urgency of the danger and of the 
 necessity of meeting it by argument rather than mere censure 
 of error appears in a letter written to Mr. Ornsby shortly 
 after the publication of the Munich Brief (in the year pre- 
 ceding the 'Apologia'), in reply to his correspondent's in- 
 formation as to the tendency towards infidelity among the 
 abler and more thoughtful young Catholics at Dublin : 
 
 ' What you say about this tendency towards infidelity is 
 melancholy in the extreme — but to be expected. What has 
 been done for the young men ? 
 
 ' . . . Denunciation effects neither subjection in thought 
 nor in conduct ; I think it was in my last letter that I con- 
 cluded with some words which I wrote half asleep about the 
 Home and Foreign. I wonder what I said,— I had a great 
 deal to say, though it is wearisome to bring it out. The 
 Home and Foreigii has to amend its ways most consider- 
 ably before it can be spoken well of by Catholics — so I 
 think ; but it realises the fact that there are difficulties which 
 have to be met, and it tries to meet them. Not successfully 
 or always prudently, but still it has done something (I 
 include the Rambler), and to speak against it as some 
 persons do seems to me the act of men who are blind to the 
 intellectual difficulties of the day. You cannot make men 
 believe by force and repression. Were the Holy See as 
 powerful in temporals as it was three centuries back, then 
 you would have a secret infidelity instead of an avowed one 
 — (which seems the worse evil) unless you train the reason 
 to defend the truth. Galileo subscribed what was asked of 
 him, but is said to have murmured : "E pur si muove." 
 
 ' And your cut and dried answers out of a dogmatic 
 treatise are no weapons with which the Catholic Reason can 
 hope to vanquish the infidels of the day. Why was it that 
 the Medieval Schools were so vigorous ? Because they were 
 allowed free and fair play — because the disputants were not 
 made to feel the bit in their mouths at every other word they 
 spoke, but could move their limbs freely and expatiate at 
 will. Then, when they went wrong, a stronger and truer 
 intellect set them down — and, as time went on, if the dispute 
 got perilous, and a controversialist obstinate, then at length 
 Rome interfered — at length, not at first. Truth is wrought 
 out by many minds working together freely. As far as I can 
 make out, this has ever been the rule of the Church till 
 VOL. II. E
 
 so LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 now, when the first French Revolution having destroyed the 
 Schools of Europe, a sort of centralization has been estab- 
 lished at head quarters — and the individual thinker in France, 
 England, or Germany is brought into immediate collision with 
 the most sacred authorities of the Divine Polity. . . . 
 
 ' I suppose we must be worse before we are better — 
 because we do not recognise that we are bad.' ^ 
 
 It must be remembered that the Oxford scheme was 
 never Newman's ideal. It was a concession to necessities 
 of the hour. His ideal scheme, alike for the education of 
 the young and for the necessary intellectual defence of 
 Christianity, had consistently been the erection of a large 
 Catholic University, like Louvain. This he had tried to set 
 up in Catholic Ireland. In such an institution research and 
 discussion of the questions of the day would be combined, 
 as in the Middle Ages, with a Catholic atmosphere, the 
 personal ascendency of able Christian professors, and 
 directly religious influences for the young men. The cause 
 of the failure of his attempt lay, not in him, but in 
 the conditions of the country. His thoughts had there- 
 fore turned of necessity towards Oxford. But the exact 
 nature of the scheme to be aimed at was for some time 
 in his mind uncertain, and it was not until after the appear- 
 ance of the 'Apologia' that he was hopeful enough to think 
 of himself as likely to do a useful work in this connection. 
 
 A few months after the above letter to Mr. Ornsby was 
 written, the question of Catholics frequenting Oxford and 
 of the necessary safeguards which their admission must call 
 for was en evidence. Cardinal Wiseman had years earlier 
 spoken of the possibility of Oscott being some day used as 
 a University for Catholics. And Newman — not yet closely 
 concerned in the Oxford scheme — in 1863 threw out a hint 
 based on this idea to Bishop Ullathorne, who consulted him 
 on the whole subject. 
 
 ' It is a marvel,' Newman wrote to Ambrose St. John 
 in this connexion, 'that the Bishop suffers me, that he suffers 
 
 ' 'My view has ever been,' he writes to Mr. Copeland on April 20, 1873, 
 ' to answer, not to suppress, what is erroneous — merely as a matter of expedience 
 for the cause of truth, at least at this day. It seems to me a bad policy to 
 suppress. Truth has a power of its own which makes its way — it is stronger than 
 error according to the proverb " Magna est Veritas" etc'
 
 CATHOLICS AT OXFORD (1864-1865) 51 
 
 us, considering his exceeding suspiciousness about people 
 near me, whom he seems to think heretics, and his taking any 
 lukewarmness about the Temporal Power, and any tolerance 
 of Napoleon, as synonymous with laxity of faith. We ought 
 to put it to the account of St. Philip.' 
 
 At the meeting of the Bishops at Eastertide in 1864 a 
 resolution was drafted discouraging Catholics from going to 
 Oxford ; but nothing final or decisive was done. The most 
 influential lay opinion was in favour of Oxford — a Catholic 
 College or Hall being the most popular scheme. So matters 
 stood when the ' Apologia ' was written. 
 
 Two months after the completion of the ' Apologia,' in 
 August 1864, Mr. Ambrose Smith, a Catholic resident in 
 Oxford, had the refusal of five acres of excellent land in 
 the town. He conveyed the offer to Newman. Newman felt 
 that it should not be allowed to fall through. He consulted 
 his friends. The land might be bought for some religious 
 purpose even if its precise object was not at once determined. 
 It would be for some work for the Church in connection with 
 Oxford — an Oratory, a Hall, or a College, Newman, now on 
 the crest of the wave of hope which the ' Apologia ' had rolled 
 forward, rose to the notion. He communicated with Hope- 
 Scott and other friends as to the necessary purchase money. 
 
 He communicated too with Bishop Ullathorne, who offered 
 the Mission of Oxford to the Oratory — thus at once giving 
 an assured and certainly lawful destination to the purchase. 
 
 A letter from Newman to Hope-Scott gives the situation 
 in this first stage in the negotiations : 
 
 'August 29th, 1864. 
 
 'The Bishop has offered us the Mission — and is collecting 
 money for Church and priest's house. They would become 
 pro te7}ipore the Church and House of the Oratory. No 
 college would be set up, but the priest — i.e. the Fathers of the 
 Oratory — would take lodgers. 
 
 ' So far, as far as a plan goes, is fair sailing, but now can 
 the Or dXory, prop rio uiotu (when once established in Oxford, 
 for this I can do with nothing more than the Bishop's 
 consent), can the Oratory, that is I, when once set up, without 
 saying a word to any one, make the Oratory a Hall ? I 
 cannot tell. I don't sec why I should not. The Oratory 
 is confessedly out of the Bishop's jurisdiction. Propaganda
 
 52 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 might at once interfere — perhaps would. Our Bishop left to 
 himself would be for an Oxford Catholic College or Hall ; 
 but Propaganda would be against him, and my only defence 
 would be the support of the Catholic gentry. 
 
 ' Further the old workhouse stands on the ground (fronting 
 Walton Street). It was built of stone about 90 years ago by 
 (Gwynne) the architect of Magdalen Bridge — it has a regular 
 front of perhaps 237 feet. I am writing for some information 
 about it. Father Caswall went to see it, but could not get 
 admittance. It holds 150 paupers. (They say it will sell, 
 i.e. the materials, for about 400/.) Perhaps it would admit 
 of fitting up as a Hall or College. I daresay I could collect 
 money for that specific purpose — perhaps Monteith, Scott 
 Murray, Mr. Waldron and others would give me 100/. a 
 piece — perhaps I might collect 1,000/. in that way, which 
 might be enough. This plan would be independent of any 
 Mission plan, but it is a great point to come in under the 
 Bishop's sanction and to be carrying out an idea of his. 
 Also, it gives us an ostensible position quite independent of 
 the College plan. We have our work in Oxford, though the 
 College plan failed. And we can feel our way much better. 
 It wouid not be worth while coming to Oxford to keep a 
 mere lodging house, — but, being there already as Missioners, 
 it is natural to take youths into our building, and many 
 parents would like it. 
 
 * But now, per contra. 
 
 ' I. At my age — when I am sick of all plans — have little 
 energy, and declining strength. 
 
 ' 2. When we are so few and have so many irons in the fire. 
 
 ' 3. How could I mix again with Oxford men ? How 
 could I " siccis oculis " see " monstra natantia " when I walked 
 the streets, who had made snaps at me, or looked " torve " 
 upon me in times long past? How could I throw myself 
 into what might be such painful re-awakening animosities? 
 How could I adjust my position with dear Pusey, and others 
 who are at present my well-wishers ? 
 
 ' 4. Then all the work I might be involved in, do what I 
 would ! 
 
 ' 5. And the hot water I might get into with Propaganda. 
 Perhaps I should have to kick my heels at its door for a 
 whole year, like poor Dr. Baines. It would kill me. The 
 Catholic gentry alone could save me here. 
 
 '6. Then again I ought to have a view on all those 
 questions about Scripture, the antiquity of man, metaphysics, 
 evidence, &c., &c., which I have not, — and which, as soon as
 
 CATHOLICS AT OXFORD (1S64-1865) 53 
 
 I got, I might get a rap on the knuckles from Propaganda 
 for divulging. 
 
 ' 7. Then I have had so much disappointment and 
 anxiety, — the Irish University is such a failure — the Achilli 
 matter was such a scrape — the School is such a fidget — that 
 I once again quote against myself the words of Euripides in 
 censure of ol irspLcra-ol or Lord Melbourne's : " Why can't you 
 let it alone ? " 
 
 ' If we did it we should have a resident curate, and a 
 resident dean or the like ; and send one of our Fathers to 
 and fro as " Rector," which is the Oratorian name for Vice- 
 Superior or Vice-Provost. 
 
 ' Now I have put out all before you ; and give me your 
 opinion on the whole. I have told Mr. Ambrose Smith I 
 will give him his answer by the 8th September.' 
 
 While Newman, after his wont, was threshing out every 
 item of the prospect in his correspondence, weighing ' pros ' 
 and ' cons,' asking for delay, Mr. Ambrose Smith died quite 
 unexpectedly. Then a decision had to be come to at once. 
 He sent Father Ambrose and Father Edward to Oxford with 
 a free hand. They bought the land for 8,400/. Newman 
 writes to Miss Giberne on October 25 : 
 
 'The two Fathers returned last night at 7, and I am 
 writing to you first of all just after mass, knowing what 
 interest you will take in it, how you love both the Oratory 
 and Oxford, and what benefit your prayers will do me. The 
 sum is awful — I have to meet it by the first of January. Mr. 
 Hope-Scott gives 1000/. — the Oratory 1000/. — the rest I 
 must make up out of the private money of Ambrose, Edward 
 and William, as I can. And then how are they (and our 
 Oratory) to live without money ! our school does not pay — ■ 
 our offertory does not support the Sacristy. Therefore we 
 have need of prayers. 
 
 'The land is, as fou would think, out of Oxford, — but the 
 place is growing in that direction — and is growing in the 
 shape of gentlefolk as well as poor — so that, independent of 
 the bearing of the Oratory on the University, we think there 
 is room for a good mission. The ground beyond the Park 
 and the Observatory is getting covered with houses. The 
 'Protestant) parochial clergy are becoming married men — 
 the Tutors, nay the Fellows, are marrying — and the Pro- 
 fessors have by late changes increased in number and in 
 wealth. Thus there is a society growing up in Oxford, which
 
 54 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAxV 
 
 never was before, beyond the exclusive pale of Provosts and 
 Presidents. Well, the land lies between Worcester College, 
 the Printing Office, the Observatory, St. Giles's and Beau- 
 mont Street. It is a plot of 5 acres, on which stood hitherto 
 the Work-house, which has been removed now to another 
 locality. Hence the sale of the ground. Five acres is a 
 square of which each side is nearly 480 feet long — so you 
 may think how large it is. Christ Church Tom quad is a 
 square of about 260 feet a side. Trinity College with its 
 gardens is not 5 acres I suppose. Oriel, I suspect, is little 
 more than i acre or an acre and a half. It is far, far too 
 much for an Oratory — and the price far too much, and yet 
 we shall have extreme difficulty in selling a portion again 
 without loss. There is a talk of an Oxford Catholic College 
 — if so, we should sell to it. 
 
 * We propose at once to start a subscription for a 
 Church, commemorative of the Oxford Movement, and we 
 are sanguine that we shall get a great deal of money.' 
 
 The idea of a college was, however, soon definitely aban- 
 doned and an Oratory at Oxford was again contemplated. 
 Newman writes thus to Mr. Gaisford : 
 
 'October 30th, 1864. 
 
 ' In nothing can one have one's own will, pure and simple, 
 and the difficulty is increased where one is not sure what 
 one's will is. The College or Hall scheme is enveloped in 
 difficulty. . . , I look to see, supposing these preliminary 
 difficulties overcome, whether it will be acceptable to Catholics. 
 Now here I find a strong, I may say a growing, feeling on 
 the part of the Bishops against it. Our own Bishop who was 
 favourable to it some time ago has got stronger and stronger 
 against it, and the person to whom he confided the drawing 
 up of the memorandum to be sent to Propaganda on the 
 subject, an Oxford man, gave his judgment against it. I saj- 
 nothing of the opposition of Dr. Manning and the Dublin 
 Review^ which is only too well known. Nor is this all — 
 Catholic gentlemen are beginning to prefer sending their boys 
 to the existing Colleges — some have been for doing so from 
 the first. , . , The Catholic public, it is plain, take no interest 
 in the scheme. Whatever may happen years hence, it is 
 impracticable now. And I have accordingly ceased to think 
 of it. 
 
 ' Hence I am led to contemplate, if possible, a strong 
 ecclesiastical body in Oxford in order to be a centre of the 
 Catholic youth there, and as a defence against Protestant
 
 CATHOLICS AT OXFORD ^1864-1865) 55 
 
 influences. Now do not think I am contemplating anythinG^ 
 controversial. Just the contrary. I would conciliate the 
 University if I could — but young Catholics must be seen to, 
 
 ' I repeat, we must do what we can in all things. Our 
 Bishop takes up this Oratory view. He has long been 
 wishing to make Oxford a strong Mission. A back yard in 
 St. Clements and a barn to say Mass in, are not the proper 
 representatives of the visible Church. But, if you do come 
 forward, if you move on to St. Giles', any how you will 
 frighten at first and annoy the academical body. This is 
 unavoidable. Next, how are you to raise the money for a 
 Church ? Catholics will not subscribe to it without a stimulus. 
 Four years ago the notion of a Memorial Church was 
 suggested by the Bishop. I did not enter into it then. Now 
 I do. I think it will gain the money, and I don't see any 
 other way. The watchword (so to call it, for I am taking it 
 in its most objectionable point of view) will die away when 
 the money is collected. Only the fabric will remain. It will 
 not be written upon it "the Movement Church" — if it is still 
 an eyesore, it will be so, because it is a Catholic Church, not 
 because it was raised with a certain idea.' 
 
 Newman's immediate object, to help the Catholic under- 
 graduates, and his ultimate aim — of influencing religious 
 thought in Oxford with a view to the future — are stated 
 incidentally in a letter to Mr, Wetherell : 
 
 ' Tlie Oratory, Birmingham : Nov. ist, 1864. 
 
 ' My dear Wetherell, — I wish I could talk to you instead 
 of writing. I am passing through London and would make 
 an appointment except that, from the hour which I must fix, 
 it would be impossible for you to keep, while it would bind 
 me. At present it looks as if I should come up to the 
 Paddington Terminus on Thursday by the train which 
 arrives at about ;[ to 11. If so, I should go to the coffee 
 room. I have been quite well till now, — but this Oxford 
 matter has for the moment knocked me up, so that I am 
 running away to hide myself 
 
 ' We arc proceeding to build a Church directly — and my 
 great difficulty is this — to raise the money by contributions I 
 must take an ostentatious line and make a noise, — to set 
 myself right with the O.xford residents, who are at this 
 moment alarmed, I ought to be unostentatious and quiet. I 
 truly wish the latter -I have no intention of making a row — 
 no wish to angle for heedless undergraduates. I go primarily 
 and directly to take care of the Catholic youth who are
 
 56 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 beginning to go there, and are in Protestant Colleges. And 
 what I aim at is not immediate conversions, but to influence, 
 as far as an old man can, the tone of thought in the place, 
 with a view to a distant time when I shall be no longer here. 
 I do not want controversy. So much for the University — as 
 to the town people, of course I shall have no objection, if I 
 can, to convert them — -not that their souls are more precious, 
 but that they can be got (if so) without greater counter- 
 balancing evils. 
 
 ' Then on the other hand, I do come out with a watch- 
 word — viz. the Church is to be a sort of thank-offering on 
 the part of the converts of the last 30 years. How can I 
 raise the money unless this be understood ? 
 
 ' I don't expect to leave Birmingham. 
 
 ' Very sincerely yours, 
 
 John H. Newman. 
 
 ' P.S. — You may use what I have said at your discretion, 
 but not on my authority! 
 
 The work Newman contemplated was to be done not in 
 opposition to, but rather in unison with, the Church of 
 England and the other religious forces in Oxford. The 
 danger from which he wished to protect the undergraduates 
 was free thought. In a remarkable letter four years earlier 
 he had declined the proposal that he should take part in 
 building a new church at Oxford, on the very ground that he 
 thought controversy with Anglicans in Oxford undesirable. 
 This letter — addressed to Canon Estcourt and dated June 2, 
 1 860 — ran as follows : 
 
 ' You seemed to think with me that the Catholics of 
 Oxford do not require a new Church : if then a subscription 
 is commenced for a new one, it will be with a view to making 
 converts from the University. Indeed, I think you will 
 allow this to be the view : for it was on this very ground 
 that you wished me, and the only ground on which you 
 could wish me, to take part in it. You said that my name 
 would draw aid from converts — and you were kind enough 
 to wish that the Church thus built should be in a certain 
 sense a memorial of my former position in Oxford. Now 
 a controversial character thus given to new ecclesiastical 
 establishments there, whatever be its expedience in itself, 
 would be the very circumstance which would determine me 
 personally against taking that part in promoting them, which 
 you assign to me. It would do more harm than good.
 
 CATHOLICS AT OXFORD (1864-1865) 57 
 
 * To take part in this would be surely inconsistent with 
 the sentiments which I have ever acted upon, since I have 
 been a Catholic. My first act was to leave the neighbour- 
 hood of Oxford, where I found myself, at considerable incon- 
 venience. When I heard the question of a new Oxford 
 Church mooted at Stonyhurst soon after, I spoke against it. 
 In all that I have written, I have spoken of Oxford and the 
 Oxford system with affection and admiration. I have put 
 its system forward, as an instance of that union of dogmatic 
 teaching and liberal education which command my assent. 
 I have never acted in direct hostility to the Church of 
 England. I have, in my lectures on Anglicanism, professed 
 no more than to carry on "children of the Movement of 
 1833" to their legitimate conclusions. In my lectures on 
 Catholicism in England, I oppose, not the Anglican Church, 
 but National Protestantism, and Anglicans only so far as 
 they belong to it. In taking part in building a new Church 
 at Oxford, I should be commencing a line of conduct which 
 would require explanation. . . . 
 
 ' While I do not see my way to take steps to weaken the 
 Church of England, being what it is, least of all should I be 
 disposed to do so in Oxford, which has hitherto been the 
 seat of those traditions which constitute whatever there is 
 of Catholic doctrine and principle in the Anglican Church. 
 That there are also false traditions there, I know well : I 
 know too that there is a recent importation of scepticism and 
 infidelity ; but, till things are very much changed there, in 
 weakening Oxford, we are weakening our friends, weakening 
 our own de facto Traiha^ywyhs into the Church. Catholics 
 did not make us Catholics ; Oxford made us Catholics. At 
 present Oxford surely does more good than harm. There 
 has been a rage for shooting sparrows of late years, under the 
 notion that they are the farmers' enemies. Now, it is dis- 
 covered that they do more good by destroying insects than 
 harm by picking up the seed. In Australia, I believe, they 
 are actually importing them. Is there not something of a 
 parallel here ? 
 
 * I go further than a mere tolerance of Oxford ; as I have 
 said, I wish to suffer the Church of England. The Establish- 
 ment has ever been a breakwater against Unitarianism, 
 fanaticism, and infidelity. It has ever loved us better than 
 Puritans or Independents have loved us. And it receives all 
 that abuse and odium of dogmatism, or at least a good deal 
 of it, which otherwise would be directed against us. I should 
 have the greatest repugnance to introducing controversy
 
 S8 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 into those quiet circles and sober schools of thought which 
 are the strength of the Church of England. It is another 
 thing altogether to introduce controversy to individual 
 minds which are already unsettled, or have a drawing 
 towards Catholicism. Altogether another thing in a place 
 like Birmingham, where nearly everyone is a nothingarian, 
 an infidel, a sceptic, or an inquirer. Here Catholic efforts 
 are not only good in themselves, and do good, but cannot 
 possibly do any even incidental harm — here, whatever is 
 done is so much gain. In Oxford you would unsettle 
 many, and gain a few, if you did your most. 
 
 * If a Catholic Church were in a position there suitable 
 for acting upon Undergraduates, first it would involve on 
 their part a conscious breach of University and College 
 regulations ; then it would attract just those who were likely 
 to be unstable, and who perhaps in a year or two would lapse 
 back to Protestantism ; and then, it would create great bitter- 
 ness of feeling and indignation against Catholics, prejudice 
 fair minds against the truth, and diminish the chances of our 
 being treated with equity at Oxford or elsewhere.' 
 
 But while he had thus declined in 1 860 to place antagonism 
 between the forces of Anglicanism and Catholicism in Oxford, 
 or to countenance proselytism, another idea now gradually 
 grew upon him, that he might help to do what Pusey and his 
 friends had been attempting in Oxford — that he might serve 
 the cause of Christian philosophy against the incoming tide 
 of freethought.' 
 
 The next step was to appeal for funds, and Newman drew 
 up a careful circular with this object, and submitted it to 
 Hope-Scott. The proposal was not only to pay for the land, 
 but to erect a church commemorative of the Oxford con- 
 versions of 1845. This proposal, which Newman had de- 
 clined when it appeared to be a controversial demonstration, 
 he now accepted in new circumstances ; but he carefully 
 eliminated all controversial matter from his circular. The 
 circular had to be framed with great care. For the opposi- 
 tion of the hierarchy to Catholics entering the existing 
 Oxford colleges had to be taken into account. This 
 difficulty appears in a letter to Hope-Scott : 
 
 ' His appreciation of Pusey's work in this respect, and his sense that it 
 was one with which Catholics should deeply sympathise, is indicated in a letter 
 to Lord Braye. See p. 486.
 
 CATHOLICS AT OXFORD (1864-1865) 59 
 
 ' October 31st, 1864. 
 
 * I am not sure that I understood your letter. I believe 
 it means this : — " don't give up the idea of a College or 
 Hall — don't cut off the chance of it. To say you are sent to 
 the Catholic youth in the existing Colleges is a sort of 
 recognition of those Colleges as a fit place for them, and 
 an acquiescence in the abandonment of the College or Hall 
 scheme. Therefore speak of the existing admission to the 
 University, not Colleges." I have altered it to meet this 
 idea. 
 
 ' Also, I have cut off the part to which you object. Still, 
 I have spoken of the spirit of the Oratory, because it ever has 
 been peaceable, unpolitical, conceding, and quiet. You may 
 think it, however, as sounding like a fling at the Jesuits, &c. 
 For this, or atty other reason, draw your pen across it if you 
 think best' 
 
 The circular sent to his friends, together with the 
 Bishop's letter entrusting the Mission to him entirely, ran as 
 follows : 
 
 * Father Newman having been entrusted by his Diocesan 
 with the Mission of Oxford, is proceeding, with the sanction 
 of Propaganda, to the establishment there of a House of the 
 Oratory. 
 
 ' Some such establishment in one of the great seats of 
 learning seems to be demanded of English Catholics at a 
 time when the relaxation both of controversial animosity and 
 of legal restriction has allowed them to appear before their 
 countrymen in the full profession and the genuine attributes 
 of their Holy Religion, 
 
 ' And, while there is no place in England more likely 
 than Oxford to receive a Catholic community with fairness, 
 interest, and intelligent curiosity, so on the other hand the 
 English Oratory has this singular encouragement in placing 
 itself there, that it has been expressly created and blessed 
 by the reigning Pontiff for the very purpose of bringing 
 Catholicity before the educated classes of society, and 
 especially those classes which represent the traditions and 
 the teaching of Oxford. 
 
 ' Moreover, since many of its priests have been educated 
 at the Universities, it brings to its work an acquaintance and 
 a sympathy with Academical habits and sentiments, which 
 are a guarantee of its inoffensive bearing towards the 
 members of another communion, and which will specially 
 enable it to discharge its sacred duties in the peaceable and
 
 6o LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 conciliatory spirit which is the historical characteristic of the 
 sons of St. Philip Neri. 
 
 ' Father Newman has already secured a site for an 
 Oratory Church and buildings in an eligible part of Oxford ; 
 and he now addresses himself to the work of collecting the 
 sums necessary for carrying his important undertaking into 
 effect. This he is able to do under the sanction of the 
 following letter from the Bishop of the Diocese, which it gives 
 him great satisfaction to publish.' 
 
 For two months all seemed to go well. Newman was 
 living among his own friends and did not realise the potent 
 forces which were working against him, of which I shall 
 speak directly. Mr. VVetherell was especially active on his 
 behalf He engaged the services of the able architect 
 Mr. Henry Clutton for the buildings in connection with the 
 Oxford Oratory. Newman's old Oxford friend James Laird 
 Patterson took him to see Cardinal Wiseman to talk things 
 over. Wiseman's uncordial reception of him was ascribed 
 by them both to ill-health. Of the determined opposition 
 to the scheme which, at the instigation of Manning and 
 W. G. Ward, the Cardinal was preparing to offer, they had 
 no suspicion ; so all letters up to the middle of November 
 speak of sanguine hope. A few specimens shall suffice : 
 
 'Brighton: November 5th, 1864. 
 
 ' My dear Ambrose, — We came here last night as a first 
 stage towards Hastings, whither we find Pollen has gone. 
 It is cold and raw here. 
 
 ' Our day in London was successful. Patterson has no 
 idea at all of leaving London, and, when he said he put 
 himself at my disposal, he meant to make the offer, con- 
 sistently with his being at the disposal of the Westminster 
 Diocese. However, he is very warm. . . . He thought that 
 Oxford offered a large field for conversions. I daresay he 
 would be more desirous of manifestations than I should be. 
 
 ' Wetherell and Clutton both were in high spirits and 
 hopes about the Oxford scheme, and prophesied all that was 
 good and glorious. Yard' I could not see, as it was St. Charles's 
 day — I must see him in returning. There will be an article 
 on the Oxford matter in the Daily News of this day. . . . 
 Clutton is coming to us on Monday 14th — going first to 
 Oxford. 
 
 ' Father Yard was one of the Oblates of St. Charles at Bayswater.
 
 CATHOLICS AT OXFORD (1864-1S65) 61 
 
 ' Patterson said he was going to the Cardinal, who had 
 not been well. ... I went with him, and saw the poor 
 Cardinal for ten minutes. I saw him, I suppose, in his usual 
 state — relaxed, feeble, and dejected.' On ringing at the 
 door, I had said to Patterson, " You must bring me off in 
 five minutes for the Cardinal is so entertaining a talker that 
 it is always difficult to get away from him." Alas, what 
 I never could have fancied beforehand, I was the only 
 speaker. I literally talked. He is anxious about his eyes. 
 Patterson calls it " congestion." The C. says that the 
 London fog tries them. He was just down — two o'clock or 
 half past two. He listened to the Oxford plan, half queru- 
 lously, and said that he thought the collection for St. Thomas 
 at Rome would interfere with getting money from the 
 Continent. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Newman to Mother Imelda Poole. 
 
 ' The Oratory : November 1 6th, 1864. 
 
 * We shall have plenty of trials in time, but at present the 
 sky is very clear and bright, and the landscape is rose-colour. 
 Alas, that bright mornings are the soonest overcast ! So 
 great a work cannot be done without great crosses, — yet I 
 don't like to say so, for it is like prophesying against myself, 
 and I do not like trial at all. What is to happen if we are 
 not preserved in health and strength ! We have few enough 
 to work if we have our all — we have not a quarter of a Father 
 to spare — but we must leave all this to Him Who we trust is 
 employing us.' 
 
 Newman to Henry Wilberforce. 
 
 ' The Oratory : November i6th, 1864. 
 
 ' As to Oxford, we are astonished at our own doings — 
 and our only hope is that we arc doing God's Will in thus 
 portentously involving ourselves both in money matters 
 and in worl:. I should like a long talk with you, though just 
 now I am confined to my room with a bad cold. My friends 
 here sent me away suddenly to the South Coast because I 
 was not quite well,— and, coming back from that delightful 
 climate to this keen one, I have been knocked up by it. I 
 
 ' ' N.B. I afterwards had reason for thinking that a deep opposition to my 
 going to Oxford was the cause of the Cardinal's manner. Of this I was quite 
 unsuspicious. 
 
 'J. II. N. Nov. 4th, 1875.'
 
 62 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 think I should live ten years longer if I was at Hastings or 
 Brighton, but here, when I am older, a cold caught may 
 carry me off. Since I came back, I have been hard at the 
 letters which came in my absence, — so you must excuse my 
 delay in answering you. 
 
 ' We are going to build a Church at once, and, though the 
 mission is very small at present, we are sanguine that we 
 shall increase it enough to make it pay the interest of our 
 great expenses. The Bishop has given us a strong letter, 
 and I trust we shall collect a large sum for the Church. 
 Everything looks favourable at the moment, but of course we 
 shall have plenty of crosses as time goes on.' 
 
 To Canon Walker. 
 
 •November 17, 1864. . . . 
 
 ' There is just now a very remarkable feeling in my 
 favour at Oxford — a friend of mine, who has lately been 
 there, writes word " Unless I had seen it with my own 
 eyes, I could not have believed how strong is the attach- 
 ment, for that is the word, with which you are regarded 
 by all parties up there." A head of a House says " every 
 one would welcome you in Oxford." An undergraduate 
 writes to me : " There is a report that you were at Oriel last 
 Friday incognito ; it caused great excitement, I am sure, 
 if it were known you were coming here on any particular 
 day, the greater part of the University would escort you in 
 procession into the Town." Do not viention all this — of 
 course I cannot reckon on the feeling lasting, but it is 
 hopeful, as a beginning. The whole course of things has 
 been wonderful — and there seems to me a call on me to 
 follow it, without looking forward to the future. If we 
 come to a cul-de-sac, we must back out' 
 
 The grounds of fear put forward in the letter to Mother 
 Imelda Poole read as the suggestings of a morbid fancy. 
 But the instinct which prompted his anxiety proved a true 
 one. W. G. Ward during the two years in which he had 
 edited the Dublin Review had developed and defined his 
 views on Catholic culture in opposition to what he regarded 
 as the secularist spirit of the Rambler and Home and 
 Foreign. He regarded the prospect of Catholics going to 
 Oxford as a surrender of the whole situation. The rising 
 generation, the future representatives of the Church in 
 England, would be at Oxford during the most plastic years
 
 CATHOLICS AT OXFORD (i 864-1 865) 63 
 
 in which their views were being formed and their characters 
 moulded, surrounded by the indifferentist atmosphere of a 
 University in which some of the ablest thought was now 
 agnostic in its tendency. With all the zeal of a Crusader 
 he opposed the project. He did not in his writings on the 
 subject enter into the considerations which the Moderate 
 party urged. He did not deal with the individual cases 
 where the absence of Oxford life might conceivably do 
 much more harm than its presence could do. For many, 
 the alternative was Woolwich or Sandhurst — places fraught 
 with far greater dangers than Oxford to those whose trials 
 were moral rather than intellectual. Again, he did not 
 treat of the practical prospects of those rich young men to 
 whom the prospect of a career — so difficult to realise if the 
 Universities were tabooed — is the best safeguard against 
 very obvious temptations to a life of pleasure. He was 
 exclusively occupied with the necessity of making loyalty 
 to Church authority and other religious first principles 
 supremely influential in the rising generation, by jealously 
 guarding these principles in youth and early manhood. 
 More than all, he dreaded the insidious intellectual and 
 worldly maxims of a secular University — the principles of 
 ' religious Liberalism ' as he called them. Such maxims 
 were calculated so to dilute the Catholic 'ethos' at the most 
 critical moment in the formation of character as to bring up 
 a generation of merely nominal Catholics. 
 
 ' Since the season of childhood and youth is immeasurably 
 the most impressible of all,' he wrote in the Dublin Review, 
 ' it is impossible to exaggerate the importance of preserving 
 the purity of a Catholic atmosphere throughout the whole 
 of Catholic education. , . . Even intellectually speaking, no 
 result can well be more deplorable than that which tends to 
 ensue from mixed education. There is no surer mark of an 
 uncultivated mind, than that a man's practical judgment on 
 facts as they occur, shall be at variance with the theoretical 
 principles which he speculatively accepts. . . . Now this 
 is the natural result of mixed education. The unhappy 
 Catholic who is so disadvantageously circumstanced tends to 
 become the very embodiment of inconsistency. Catholic in 
 his speculative convictions, non-Catholic in his practical 
 judgments ; holding one doctrine as a universal truth, and
 
 64 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 a doctrine precisely contradictory in almost every particular 
 which that universal truth embraces.' 
 
 Ward had many sympathisers in his attitude — among 
 them Dr. Grant, Bishop of Southvvark, and his own intimate 
 friends the two future Cardinals, Manning and Vaughan. At 
 the news of Newman's plan, these men made urgent repre- 
 sentations to Propaganda and to Cardinal Wiseman as to the 
 necessity of immediate action being taken to prevent its 
 going further. Newman's presence at Oxford would mean 
 past recovery the triumph of mixed education. Ward wrote 
 to Talbot at the Vatican to secure Propaganda on the anti- 
 Oxford side. Vaughan went to Rome itself. 
 
 In Rome there was every disposition to take a strong line 
 against mixed education, for the national Universities in the 
 countries with which the authorities were most familiar were 
 positively anti-Christian, and young men rarely emerged from 
 them with definite Christian belief. Even in a country where 
 Catholicism was as strong as it was in Belgium the Catholic 
 University of Louvain was founded expressly to counteract 
 this danger. The whole tendency of the Ultramontane 
 movement was towards endeavouring to secure a body of 
 zealous and even militant young Catholics to fight the battles 
 of the Holy See and the Church. Governments and popula- 
 tions were no longer Catholic. The national life was hardly 
 anywhere Catholic. In such circumstances, to keep faith and 
 zeal intact it was necessary to withdraw from the world. 
 Education both primary and secondary must be suited to the 
 policy of falling back behind the Catholic entrenchments to 
 do battle with the modern spirit. Gregory XVI. and his 
 successor had both opposed the Queen's Colleges in Ireland. 
 When Ward, Manning, and Vaughan represented that Oxford 
 would turn out young men who were Catholics in name 
 only, Pius IX. was ready enough to believe that Oxford was 
 no better than Brussels ; that the best policy for Belgium 
 would prove the best policy for England. That the conditions 
 in the two countries were fundamentally different, that Oxford 
 was not a school of infidelity, that it might be even still open 
 to religious influences, was a thought which was probably not 
 suggested to him. Therefore, when Vaughan went to Rome
 
 CATHOLICS AT OXFORD (1864-1865) 65 
 
 as the ambassador of the party, he found ears ready enough 
 to Hsten to him at Propaganda. 
 
 The news of the proceedings of Ward and Manning, with 
 its ominous significance as to the inevitable sequel, burst upon 
 Newman a week after the hopeful letters we have just read. 
 Newman saw the gravity of the situation. His one hope was 
 in strong representations to Propaganda on the part of the 
 laity. He at once conveyed the intelligence of what had 
 occurred to Hope-Scott. 
 
 ' The Bishops are to meet quaui primiim,' he wrote to 
 Hope-Scott on November 23rd, ' not to settle the University 
 question, but to submit their opinions to Propaganda, that 
 Propaganda may decide. Propaganda seems to be at the 
 mercy of Manning, Ward, and Dr. Grant. For this meeting 
 does not proceed from the Bishops. It is not off the cards, 
 though, of course, very improbable, that going to Oxford will 
 be made a reserved case. 
 
 ' Now I repeat what I have said before, that, unless the 
 Catholic gentry make themselves heard at Rome, a small 
 active clique will carry the day.' 
 
 Mr. Wetherell at once got up a lay petition to Propa- 
 ganda in favour of Catholics going to Oxford, and took it 
 himself to Rome early in the following year. But he accom- 
 plished nothing. Meanwhile Newman had an interview with 
 Bishop Ullathorne before the end of November and learnt 
 from him fully the condition of affairs. He writes of the 
 prospect despairingly to Hope-Scott on November 28 : 
 
 ' At present I am simply off the rails. I do not know 
 how to doubt that the sudden meeting of the Bishops has 
 been ordered apropos of my going to Oxford. If I 
 can understand our Bishop, the notion is to forbid young 
 Catholics to go to Oxford, and to set up a University else- 
 where. If so, what have I to do with Oxford ? what call 
 have I, at the end of twenty years, apropos of nothing, to 
 open theological trenches against the Doctors and Professors 
 of the University ? ' 
 
 In a few weeks the whole Oxford scheme was definitely 
 
 dropped. The Bishops met on December 13 and passed 
 
 resolutions in favour of an absolute prohibition of Oxford. 
 
 The confirmation of their act by Propaganda was not 
 
 VOL. II. F
 
 66 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 doubtful. Propaganda had indeed informally intimated its 
 own judgment in the same direction. 
 
 But, moreover, a set of questions was drawn up and sent 
 to many leading Oxford converts, inviting their opinion 
 as to the advisability of Catholics going to Oxford. The 
 answers were to be sent to Propaganda for its enlightenment. 
 The questions were not sent to Newman or any of his 
 sympathisers. They implied in their form that an adverse 
 answer on each point was the only one open to a sound 
 Catholic. Their authorship I have been unable to discover. 
 But they were clearly drawn up by some one whose opposition 
 to the Oxford scheme was uncompromising. They were sent 
 by Dr. Grant, Bishop of Southwark, to Mr. Gaisford among 
 others, and Mr. Gaisford returned answers strongly favourable 
 to Catholics frequenting the Universities.^ These answers he 
 forwarded to Newman with the text of the questions themselves. 
 
 Newman in a letter to Mr. Gaisford thus commented on 
 his answers and on the questions themselves : 
 
 ' December i6th, 1864. 
 
 ' I heard of the questions for the first time three days ago. 
 I had not seen them or any one of them till you sent them. 
 As for my own opinion, it has never been asked in any 
 shape. 
 
 ' Such a paper of questions is deplorable — deplorable 
 because they are not questions but arguments, worse than 
 " leading questions." They might as well have been summed 
 up in one — viz., "Are you or are you not, one of those 
 wicked men who advocate Oxford education ? " for they 
 imply a condemnation of the respondent if he does not reply 
 in one way. 
 
 ' I do not believe that the meeting, or the questions, came 
 from the Bishops. They come from unknown persons, who 
 mislead Propaganda, put the screw on the Bishops, and 
 would shut up our school if they could, — and perhaps will. 
 
 ' As to our Bishop, I formally told him a month before 
 I bought the ground that, if I accepted the Mission, and 
 proposed to introduce the Oratory to Oxford, it was solely 
 for the sake of the Catholics in the Colleges. Yet he let 
 me go on. In truth he knew of no real difficulty or hitch in 
 
 ' The text of the questions and of Mr. Gaisford's reply is given in the 
 Appendix at p. 540.
 
 CATHOLICS AT OXFORD (1864-1865) 67 
 
 prospect. I believe the news of the intended Bishops' 
 meeting was a surprise to him. 
 
 ' I think your letter and answers very good, very much 
 to the point. There is a straightforwardness in them which 
 must tell, if they are read. 
 
 ' It is the laity's concern, not ours. There are those who 
 contrast the English laity with the Irish, and think that the 
 English will stand anything. Such persons will bully, if 
 they are allowed to do so ; but will not show fight if they 
 are resisted.' 
 
 By the end of the month it was quite clear to Newman 
 that the whole Oxford scheme was at an end, as he says in 
 a sad letter to .Sister Imelda Poole of Stone : 
 
 ' December 28lh, 1864. 
 
 ' ' As to the Oxford scheme it is still the Blessed Will of 
 God to send me baulks. On the whole, I suppose, looking 
 through my life as a course, He is using me, but really 
 viewed in its separate parts it is but a life of failures. My 
 Bishop gave mc the Mission without my asking for it. I told 
 him that I should not think of going, except for the sake of 
 Catholic youths there, and with his perfect acquiescence I 
 bought the ground. It cost 8,400/. When all this had 
 been done there was an interposition of Propaganda, for 
 which I believe he was absolutely unprepared, and the more 
 so, because, as I heard at the time, the collected Bishops had 
 last year recommended Propaganda to do nothing in the 
 Oxford question. However, on the news coming to certain 
 people in London that I was going to Oxford, they influenced 
 Propaganda to interfere, and the whole scheme is, I conceive, 
 at an end. Of course, if Propaganda brings out any letter of 
 disapproval of young Catholics going to Oxford, (and people 
 think it is certain to do so) my going there is either super- 
 fluous, or undutiful — superfluous if there are no Catholics 
 there — undutiful if my going is an inducement to them, or an 
 excuse and shelter for their going there ? ' 
 
 To the same effect he wrote to Miss Gibcrne, adding as a 
 postscript, 'does it not seem queer that the two persons who 
 arc now most opposed to me are Manning and Ward ? ' 
 
 And so four short months saw the dawn, the promise, the 
 defeat of the hopeful dreams which the success of the 
 * Apologia ' had kindled. 
 
 The expected rescript from Propaganda came early in 
 1865, and Nqwman wrote of it thus to Mr. John Pollen : 
 
 F 2
 
 68 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' Have you seen the sweeping sentence of the Bishops 
 on the Oxford matter? I consider that Propaganda has 
 ordered the Bishops to be of one mind, and they have 
 not been able to help it, and that Manning has persuaded 
 Propaganda, 
 
 ' It is to be observed that they do not order their clergy 
 to dissuade parents, but give their judgment for the guidance 
 of the Clergy. This I interpret to mean (i) that each case 
 of going to Oxford is to be taken by itself, (2) that leave is 
 to be asked by parents in the Confessional. 
 
 ' But so far is clear, that, unless Wetherell brings some 
 modification from Rome (which I don't think he will) no 
 School, as ourselves, can educate with a professed view to 
 Oxford. The decision includes the London University and 
 Trinity College, Dublin. 
 
 ' It seems as if they wanted to put down the whole matter 
 at once. And I suppose they will follow it up by some 
 attempted organisation of English Education generally. I 
 never should be surprised if our School was directly or 
 indirectly attacked.' 
 
 Mr. Wetherell and his deputation had, as I have inti- 
 mated, no success : got indeed barely a hearing. Newman's 
 friends urged him to go in person to Rome, but he knew that 
 he could effect nothing against the active campaign of 
 Manning and Ward aided by Mgr. Talbot at the Vatican 
 itself His feelings on the situation are expressed in the 
 following letters to Miss Bowles : 
 
 'March 31st, 1865. 
 
 * I was going to write a long answer to your letter, but it 
 is far too large and too delicate a subject to write about. If 
 I ever had an hour with you, I could tell you a great deal. 
 No, — you do not know facts, and know partially or incor- 
 rectly those which you know. You say what you would do 
 in my case, if you were a man ; and I should rather say what 
 I would do in my case, if I were a woman, — for it was 
 St. Catherine who advised a Pope, and succeeded, but 
 St. Thomas of Canterbury and St. Edmund tried and failed. 
 I am too much of a philosopher too to have the keen energy 
 necessary for the work on which you put me. Yet observe, 
 Lacordaire, with whom I so much sympathize, was a fiery 
 orator and a restless originator, — yet he failed, as I have 
 failed. 
 
 ' Look at the whole course of this Oxford matter. The 
 Bishops have just brought out their sweeping decision, unani-
 
 CATHOLICS AT OXFORD (1864-1865) 69 
 
 mously. Unanimously, because Propaganda orders it. Who 
 directs Propaganda ? What pains did they (the Cardinal) 
 take in England to get opinions? As for myself, no one in 
 authority has ever asked me. I never saw the questions (till 
 afterwards) — few did — and what questions — leading ques- 
 tions and worse — arguments, not questions. The laity told 
 nothing about it. The laity go to Propaganda. Cardinal 
 Barnabo talks by the half hour, not letting anyone else 
 speak, and saying he knows all about it already, and wants 
 no information, for Mgr. Talbot has told him all about it. 
 What chance should / have with broken Italian (they don't, 
 can't, talk Latin)? I k)wiv what chance. I had to go to 
 him nine years ago, — he treated me in the same way- 
 scolded me before he knew what I had come about ; and I 
 went on a most grave matter, sorely against my will. No — 
 we are in a transition time and must wait patiently, though 
 of course the tempest will last through our day.' 
 
 'May 1st, 1865. 
 
 ' I inclose a post office order for 5/. . . . As to the rest, 
 I wish it to go in a special kind of charity, viz. in the 
 instruvienta, as I may call them, and operative methods of 
 your own good works, — that is, not in meat, and drink, and 
 physic, or clothing of the needy, but (if you will not be 
 angry with me) in your charitable cabs, charitable umbrellas, 
 charitable boots, and all the wear and tear of a charitable 
 person who, without such wear and tear, cannot do her 
 charity. 
 
 * As to Catholic matters, there is nothing like the logic 
 of facts. This is what I look to — it is a sad consolation — 
 but Catholics won't stand such standing still for ever. And 
 then, when much mischief is done, and more is feared, some- 
 thing will be attempted in high quarters. . . . 
 
 ' A great prelate (Dr. Ullathorne) said to me years ago, 
 when I said that the laity needed instruction, guidance, 
 tenderness, consideration, &c., &c. : "You do not know them, 
 Dr. N., our laity arc a peaceable body — they are peaceable." 
 I understood him to mean : " They are grossly ignorant and 
 unintellectual, and we need not consult, or consult for them 
 at all." . . . And at Rome they treat them according to the 
 tradition of the Middle Ages, as, in " Harold the Dauntless" 
 the Abbot of Durham treated Count Witikind. Well, facts 
 alone will slowly make them recognise the fact of what a 
 laity must be in the 19th century if it is to cope with 
 Protestantism.'
 
 70 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Further reflections of interest on the Oxford question as 
 a whole and on the prospect for the future are contained 
 in the followinsf letters : 
 
 '& 
 
 To Miss Holmes. 
 
 « The Oratory, Bm. : Feb. 7th, '6$. 
 
 ' As to Oxford and Cambridge, it is quite plain that 
 the Church ought to have Schools (Universities) of her own. 
 She can in Ireland — she can't in England, a Protestant 
 country. How are you to prepare young Catholics for 
 taking part in life, in filling stations in a Protestant country 
 as England, without going to the English Universities ? 
 Impossible. Either then refuse to let Catholics avail them- 
 selves of these privileges, of going into Parliament, of taking 
 their seat in the House of Lords, of becoming Lawyers, 
 Commissioners etc. etc. or let them go thej-e, luherc alone they 
 will be able to put themselves on a par with Protestants. 
 Argument the ist. 
 
 ' 2. They will get more harm in London life than at 
 Oxford or Cambridge. A boy of 19 goes to some London 
 office, with no restraint — he goes at that age to Oxford or 
 Cambridge, and is at least under some restraint. 
 
 ' 3. Why are you not consistent, and forbid him to go 
 into the Army? wh}- don't you forbid him to go to such an 
 " Academy " at Woolwich ? He may get at Woolwich as 
 much harm in his faith and morals as at the Universities. 
 
 * 4. There are two sets at Oxford. What Fr. B. says of 
 the good set being small, is bosh. At least I have a right 
 to know better than he. What can he know about my means 
 of knowledge ? I was Tutor (in a very rowing College, and 
 was one of those who changed its character). I was Dean 
 of discipline — I was Pro-proctor. The good set was not a 
 small set — tho' it varied in number in different colleges.' 
 
 To Mr. Hope-Scott. 
 
 'April 28th, 1865. 
 
 ' It boots not to go through the Oxford matter, now 
 (at least for the time) over. I believe the majority of the 
 Bishops were against the decision, to which they have 
 publicly committed themselves ; and what is to take the 
 place of Oxford, I know not. Our boys go on well till they 
 get near the top of the school — but, when they are once put 
 into the fifth or sixth form, they languish and get slovenly — 
 i.e. for want of a sthnulus. They have no object before them.
 
 CATHOLICS AT OXFORD (1864-1865) 71 
 
 And then again, parents come to me and say : " What are 
 we to do with Charlie and Richard ? Is he to keep company 
 with the gamekeeper on his leaving school ? Is he to be 
 toadied by all the idle fellows about the place ? Is he to get 
 a taste for low society ? How can Oxford be worse than this ? 
 Is he to have a taste for anything beyond that for shooting 
 pheasants ? Is he to stagnate with no internal resources, and 
 no power of making himself useful in life ? " As to such 
 fellows being likely to have their faith shaken at Oxford, that 
 (at least) their parents think an absurdity, and so do I. Of 
 course it is otherwise with more intellectual youths, — though 
 at present I am credibly informed there is a singular reaction 
 in Oxford in favour of High Church principles ; and, though 
 I can understand a Catholic turning Liberal, my imagination 
 fails as to the attempt to turn him into a Puseyite.' 
 
 With this letter should be read a sentence in another 
 written a week earlier to St. John, which shows that, with 
 this as with so much else, his last word was ' patience.' 
 Oxford might be open to another generation of Catholics, 
 though he would no longer be there to guide them : 
 
 ' Rednal : April 2ist, 1865. 
 
 'This morning I have made up my mind, as the only 
 way of explaining the way in which all the Bishops but two 
 turned round, that the extinguisher on Oxford was the Pope's 
 own act. If so, we may at once reconcile ourselves to it. 
 Another Pontiff in another generation may reverse it.' 
 
 The year 1893 — three years after Newman had himself 
 passed away — saw the realisation, under the Pontificate of 
 Leo XIII., of the hope expressed in this letter. 
 
 The failure of the Oxford scheme was regarded by 
 Newman as final so far as his own lifetime went. And he 
 sold the ground he had bought. The disappointment did 
 not, however, crush Newman as earlier ones had done. His 
 habit of patience had grown on him, and seems to have 
 given him more of strength and calmness. ' The obedient 
 man shall speak of victory.' Moreover he had seen signs, 
 in the strong support he now had among Catholics, that his 
 own views might one day prevail. And the success of the 
 ' Apologia ' was an accomplished fact.
 
 72 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 In the first half of 1865 came a lull in the acute dis- 
 cussions of the hour. In February 1865 Cardinal Wiseman 
 passed away, and it was uncertain what ecclesiastical powers 
 would come to the front in England. An entry in the 
 journal records Newman's feelings at this time : 
 
 ' February 22nd, 1865. 
 
 ' I have just now looked over what I wrote on January 2 ist 
 1863. My position of mind now is so different from what it 
 was then, that it would require many words to bring it out. 
 First, I have got hardened against the opposition made to 
 me, and have not the soreness at my ill-treatment on the part 
 of certain influential Catholics which I had then, — and this 
 simply from the natural effect of time — just as I do not feel 
 that anxiety which I once had that we have no novices. I 
 don't know that this recklessness is a better state of mind 
 than that anxiety. Every year I feel less and less anxiety 
 to please Propaganda, from a feeling that they cannot under- 
 stand England. Next, the two chief persons whom I felt to 
 be unjust to me are gone, — the Cardinal and Faber. Their 
 place has been taken by Manning and Ward ; but somehow, 
 from my never having been brought as closely into contact 
 with either of them as with the Cardinal and Faber, I have 
 not that sense of their cruelty which I felt so much as regards 
 the two last mentioned. Thirdly, in the last year a most 
 wonderful deliverance has been wrought in my favour, by the 
 controversy of which the upshot was my " Apologia." It has 
 been marvellously blest, for, while I have regained, or rather 
 gained, the favour of Protestants, I have received the ap- 
 probation, in formal Addresses, of good part of the [Catholic] 
 clerical body. They have been highly pleased with me, as 
 doing them a service, and I stand with them as I never did 
 before. Then again, it has pleased Protestants, and of all 
 parties, as much or more. When I wrote those sharp letters, 
 as I did very deliberately, in June 1862, in consequence of the 
 reports circulated to the effect that I was turning Protestant, 
 I at once brought myself down to my lowest point as regards 
 popularity, yet, by the very force of my descent, I prepared 
 the way for a rebound. It was my lowest point, yet the 
 turning point. When A.B. wrote to remonstrate with me 
 on the part of my Protestant friends, I answered him by 
 showing how unkindly they had treated me for 17 years, — so 
 much so that they had no right to remonstrate. This 
 touched Keble. Moreover, it happened just then that, 
 independent of this, Copeland, having met me accidentally in
 
 CATHOLICS AT OXFORD (1864-1865) 73 
 
 London, came to see us here, and he spread such a kind 
 report of me that Keble wrote to me, Rogers visited me 
 (August 30th, 1863) and Church proposed to do so. 
 Williams too wished to come and see me, — but Jie had never 
 lost sight of me. The kind feeling was growing, when 
 (Copeland accidentally being here) I began the Kingsley 
 controversy, the effect of which I need not enlarge on. I 
 have pleasant proofs of it every day. And thus I am in a 
 totally different position now to what I was in January 1863. 
 And my temptation at this moment is, to value the praise of 
 men too highly, especially of Protestants — and to lose some 
 portion of that sensitiveness towards God's praise which is so 
 elementary a duty. 
 
 ' On all these accounts, though I still feel keenly the way 
 
 in which I am kept doing nothing, I am not so much pained 
 
 at it, — both because by means of my " Apologia " I am (as I 
 
 feel) indirectly doing a work, and because its success has put 
 
 me in spirits to look out for other means of doing good, 
 
 whether Propaganda cares about it or no. Yet still it is very 
 
 singular that the same effective opposition to me does go on, 
 
 thwarting my attempts to act, and what is very singular, also 
 
 " avulso uno non deficit alter." Faber being taken away, 
 
 Ward and Manning take his place. Through them, especially 
 
 Manning, acting on the poor Cardinal (who is to be buried 
 
 to-morrow), the Oxford scheme has been for the present 
 
 thwarted — for me probably for good — and this morning 
 
 I have been signing the agreement by which I shall sell my 
 
 land to the University. Bellasis told me that, from what he 
 
 saw at Rome, he felt that Manning was more set against my 
 
 going to Oxford, than merely against Catholic youths going 
 
 there. And now I am thrown back again on my do-nothing life 
 
 here — how marvellous ! yet, as I have drawn out above, from 
 
 habit, from recklessness, and from my late success, my feeling 
 
 of despondency and irritation seems to have gone.' 
 
 The ' do-nothing life,' as he termed it, meant occupation 
 with slight literary tasks — among them the editing of an 
 expurgated edition of Terence's 'Phormio' for the Edgbaston 
 boys to act. His leisure also led to more frequent correspon- 
 dence with old friends. He often wrote to R. W. Church 
 and Rogers. Rogers pressed him to come on a visit and 
 meet Church, but Newman could not at once bring him- 
 self to make the effort. In writing to Rogers he based his 
 refusal on the trials and troubles of advancing life, but in a 
 subsequent letter to Church we see a stronger reason at work.
 
 74 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 To Sir Frederick Rogers. 
 
 • The Oratory, Birm. : Dec. 20, 1864. 
 
 * Your offer is very tempting. I should like to be with you 
 and Lady Rogers, I should like to meet Church — and, not 
 the least pleasure would be to see your Mother and Sisters. 
 But I am an old man, oppressed with reasonable and un- 
 reasonable difficulties, in confronting such a proposition. 
 How do I know but I shall have a cold, which will prostrate 
 me ? Five years ago I had a slight attack in the bronchia — 
 and, when it has once occurred, it never quite goes ; and if I 
 had ever so little return of it, I should have great difficulty in 
 shaking it off. I go on expecting it all through the winter, 
 and never get through without a touch, sooner or later. I 
 begin to understand old Routh's excessive care of himself ; 
 for if I neglected myself an hour or two I might be in for it. 
 Then again in other ways, though my health is ordinarily 
 good, nay tough, I am prostrated for half a day ; after a quiet 
 evening and good night I am right again. Then I am a sort 
 of savage who has lost manners. Except once at Hope- 
 Scott's, and once at Henry Bowden's, and a day or two at 
 W. Wilberforce's last year, I have not been in a friend's house 
 these 20 years — and I should not know how to behave. If 
 I made an engagement with you, I should go on fidgetting 
 myself till the time comes, lest I should be unable to keep it 
 — and if I don't make one, then I am sure not to go to you. 
 And thus you have the measure of me.' 
 
 To R. W. Church. 
 
 •The Oratory, Bm. : Dec. 21/64. 
 
 ' I wrote to Rogers yesterday, in more than doubt whether 
 I could accept his offer. Of course I should like extremely 
 to meet whether you or him, and much more both of you 
 together — but I am an old man — and subject to colds and 
 slight ailments which make me slow in committing myself to 
 engagements. And then a profound melancholy might come 
 on me to find myself in the presence of friends so dear to me, 
 and so divided from me. And therefore, like a coward, I 
 have declined. I could bear one, better than two. 
 
 ' I want very much to see you, and think it most kind in 
 you to think of going the long way whether to London or to 
 Birmingham for my sake — but here again I should prefer the 
 summer to the winter for your visit, for Brummagem is a 
 dirty, unattractive place — and we have no indoor amuse- 
 ments. In the summer I should ask you to go over to our 
 cottage at Rednal — but in winter, unless I went out with you
 
 CATHOLICS AT OXFORD (1864-1865) 75 
 
 shooting, or mounted you for the hunt, or went sliding or 
 skating with you, what could I do ? so that I have the same 
 reluctance to ask you in winter, as you seem to have in asking 
 me in the same season to Whatley.' 
 
 Newman did pay a visit on April 26, 1865, to another old 
 friend, Isaac Williams. ' I had not seen him for twenty-two 
 years,' he wrote to R. W. Church. ' Of course I did not know 
 him at all, as I daresay you would not know me. Pattison 
 did not know me a year or two ago, though I knew him. If 
 all is well I shall come and see you some time or other, 
 and take Williams again on my way.' A week later Isaac 
 Williams was dead. 
 
 In the summer Church and Rogers combined to give 
 Newman a violin. The prospect of its arrival greatly excited 
 Newman and made him almost scrupulous. 
 
 ' I only fear,' he writes to Rogers on June 25, 'that I may 
 give time to it more than I ought to spare. I could find 
 solace in music from week to week's end. It will be curious, 
 if I get a qualm of conscience for indulging in it, and, as a set 
 off, write a book. I declare I think it is more likely to [make 
 me] do so than anything else — I am so lazy. It is likely 
 that a note I have written upon Liberalism in my 2nd 
 Edition of the "Apologia" will bring criticisms on me, which I 
 ought to answer. Now I am so desperately lazy that I shall 
 not be able to get myself to do so ; and then it strikes me 
 that, in penance for the violin, I suddenly may rush into 
 work in a fit of contrition.' 
 
 The instrument arrived early in July, and Newman was 
 fairly overcome by the music he loved so intensely, and which 
 for many years he had set aside lest it should interfere with 
 the graver duties of life.^ He writes to Dean Church his 
 grateful thanks on July 1 1 
 
 ' My dear Church, — I have delayed thanking you for your 
 great kindness in uniting with Rogers in giving me a fiddle, 
 till I could report upon the fiddle itself The Warehouse 
 sent me three to choose out of — and I chose with trepidation, 
 as fearing I was hardly up to choosing well. And then my 
 fingers have been in such a state, as being cut by the strings, 
 
 ' He told my father that he did not believe he had really gained any benefit 
 from this self-denial. Music was so great a joy that it intensified his powers of 
 work.
 
 76 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 that up to Saturday last I had sticking plaster upon their 
 ends — and therefore was in no condition to bring out a 
 good tune from the strings and so to return good for evil. 
 But on Saturday I had a good bout at Beethoven's Ouartetts 
 — which I used to play with poor Blanco White — and thought 
 them more exquisite than ever — so that I was obliged to lay 
 down the instrument and literally cry out with delight. How- 
 ever, what is more to the point, I was able to ascertain that I 
 had got a very beautiful fiddle — such as I never had before. 
 Think of my not having a good one till I was between sixty 
 and seventy — and beginning to learn it when I was ten ! 
 However, I really think it will add to my power of working, 
 and the length of my life. I never wrote more than when I 
 played the fiddle. I always sleep better after music. There 
 must be some electric current passing from the strings 
 through the fingers into the brain and down the spinal 
 marrow. Perhaps thought is music. 
 
 ' I hope to send you the " Phormio " almost at once. 
 
 ' Ever yrs. affly., 
 
 * John H. Newman.' 
 
 A more serious occupation of this time was the writing 
 of the ' Dream of Gerontius.' Newman had, in the middle of 
 the Kingsley controversy, been seized with a very vivid 
 apprehension of immediately impending death, apparently 
 derived from a medical opinion — so vivid as to lead him to 
 write the following memorandum headed, 'written in pro- 
 spect of death,' and dated Passion Sunday, 1864, 7 o'clock 
 A.M. : 
 
 ' I write in the direct view of death as in prospect. No one 
 in the house, I suppose, suspects anything of the kind. Nor 
 anyone anywhere, unless it be the medical men. 
 
 ' I write at once- -because, on my own feelings of mind 
 and body, it is as if nothing at all were the matter with me, 
 just now ; but because I do not know how long this perfect 
 possession of my sensible and available health and strength 
 may last. 
 
 ' I die in the faith of the One Holy Catholic Apostolic 
 Church. I trust I shall die prepared and protected by her 
 Sacraments, which our Lord Jesus Christ has committed to 
 her, and in that communion of Saints which He inaugurated 
 when He ascended on high, and which will have no end. I 
 hope to die in that Church which Our Lord founded on Peter, 
 and which will continue till His second coming.
 
 CATHOLICS AT OXFORD (1864-1865) 77 
 
 ' I commit my soul and body to the Most Holy Trinity, 
 and to the merits and grace of our Lord Jesus, God Incar- 
 nate, to the intercession and compassion of our dear Mother 
 Mary ; to St. Joseph ; and St. Philip Neri, my father, the 
 father of an unworthy son ; to St. John the Evangelist ; St. 
 John the Baptist ; St. Henry ; St. Athanasius, and St. Gregory 
 Nazianzen ; to St. Chrysostom, and St. Ambrose. 
 
 ' Also to St. Peter, St. Gregory I. and St. Leo. Also to 
 the great Apostle, St. Paul. 
 
 ' Also to my tender Guardian Angel, and to all Angels, 
 and to all Saints. 
 
 ' And I pray to God to bring us all together again in 
 heaven, under the feet of the Saints. And, after the pattern 
 of Him, who seeks so diligently for those who are astray, I 
 would ask Him especially to have mercy on those who are 
 external to the True Fold, and to bring them into it before 
 they die. 
 
 ' J. H. N.' 
 
 A letter to Father Coleridge written later in the same 
 year ^ shows him still dwelling on the thought of his own 
 death, and suggests that the fear of paralysis which he 
 had expressed in a letter to W. G. Ward seven years earlier,, 
 had come upon him once again on receiving the intelligence 
 that Keble had had a stroke. 
 
 ' Paralysis,' he writes, ' has this of awfulness, that it is- 
 so sudden. I wonder, when those anticipations came on 
 Keble in past time, whether they were founded on symptoms^ 
 or antecedent probability ; for I have long feared paralysis 
 myself. I have asked medical men, and they have been 
 unable to assign any necessary premonitory symptoms ; na)-, 
 the very vigorousness and self-possession (as they seem) of 
 mind and body, which ought to argue health, are often the 
 proper precursors of an attack. This makes one suspicious 
 of one's own freedom from ailments. Whately died of 
 paralysis — so did Walter Scott — so (I think) Southey — and, 
 though I cannot recollect, I observe the like in other cases 
 of literary men. Was not Swift's end of that nature .-* I 
 wonder, in old times, what people died of. We read, " After 
 this, it was told Joseph that his father was sick." " And the 
 days of David drew nigh that he should die." What were 
 they sick — what did they die of? And so of the great 
 Fathers. St. Athanasius died past 70 — was his a paralytic 
 seizure ? We cannot imitate the martyrs in their deaths, but 
 
 ' On December 30, 1864,
 
 78 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 I sometimes feel it would be a comfort if we could associate 
 ourselves with the great Confessor Saints in their illness and 
 decline. Pope St. Gregory had the gout. St. Basil had a 
 liver complaint, but St. Gregory Nazianzen ? St. Ambrose ? 
 St. Augustine and St. Martin died of fevers proper to old 
 age. But my paper is out.' 
 
 Now, after the abandonment of the Oxford scheme gave 
 him leisure for it, he set down in dramatic form the vision of 
 a Christian's death on which his imagination had been dwell- 
 ing. The writing of it was a sudden inspiration, and his 
 work was begun in January and completed in February 
 1865. ' On the 17th of January last,' he writes to Mr. Allies 
 in October, ' it came into my head to write it, I really can't 
 tell how. And I wrote on till it was finished on small bits of 
 paper, and I could no more write anything else by willing it 
 than I could fly.' To another correspondent ' also, who was 
 fascinated by the Dream, and longed to have the picture it 
 gave still further filled in, he wrote : 
 
 'You do me too much honour if you think I am to see in 
 a dream everything that is to be seen in the subject dreamed 
 about. I have said what I saw. Various spiritual writers 
 see various aspects of it ; and under their protection and 
 pattern I have set down the dream as it came before the 
 sleeper. It is not my fault if the sleeper did not dream more. 
 Perhaps something woke him. Dreams are generally frag- 
 mentary. I have nothing more to tell.' 
 
 The poem appeared in the Jesuit periodical, the Month, 
 then edited by his friend. Father Coleridge, in the numbers 
 for April and May. When it was republished in November 
 it was dedicated to the memory of Father Joseph Gordon in 
 the following words, dated on All Souls' Day : 
 
 ' Fratri desideratissimo 
 Joanni Joseph Gordon, 
 Oratorii S.P.N. Presbytero 
 Cujus animam in refrigerio. 
 
 T. H. N.' 
 
 ' The Rev. John Telford, priest at Ryde.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 A NEW ARCHBISHOP ( 1 865- 1 866) 
 
 The unbending opposition of Manning and Ward to the 
 Oxford scheme was marked, no doubt, by the special charac- 
 teristics of these two men. But the general policy they 
 enforced was that of Rome. The opposition to mixed edu- 
 cation was, as we have already seen, a part of the general 
 opposition of Rome to anything that might infect Catholics 
 with the principles and maxims of a civilisation which 
 threatened to become more and more hostile to the 
 Church's claims. Pius IX. had for years been emphasising 
 and reprobating the divorce of modern civilisation from 
 the Catholic Church, in a series of public utterances. He 
 was the first Pope who reigned after GalHcanism was prac- 
 tically defunct, and the spirit represented in De Maistre's 
 great work ' Du Pape ' had triumphed. In former 
 Pontificates an Encyclical letter had been a rare event 
 called for by some exceptional crisis. But under Pius IX. 
 came a new departure, which has since been pursued by his 
 successors, of issuing frequent Allocutions and Encyclical 
 letters on questions of the day. Louis Veuillot and his friends 
 had long pressed for a yet more emphatic condemnation 
 of the offences of the modern world, and in December 1864 
 Pius IX. issued the famous ' Syllabus ' and the Encyclical 
 Quanta Cura. The Quanta Cura renewed the Papal protests 
 of fifteen years. The Syllabus Erroruvi was a list of the 
 propositions condemned as erroneous in earlier Encyclicals 
 and Allocutions. The fresh emphasis given to the Papal pro- 
 tests by their collection and republication and the vehement 
 tone of the Encyclical created a great sensation. There was 
 an outcry in England, and the Holy Father was said to 
 have declared war against modern civilisation. The more
 
 8o LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 moderate Catholics, like Bishop Dupanloup, regretted the 
 appearance of the Syllabus Errorum} They held that its 
 general purport was sure to be interpreted by the public as 
 being in accord with the views of the extreme party which 
 had pressed for its issue. Dupanloup published a com- 
 ment on its text, in which he contended that interpretation 
 according to the rules of technical theology would reduce 
 the scope of its condemnations to little or nothing more 
 than a statement of Christian principles in the face of a 
 non-Christian civilisation. Nevertheless it was the party of 
 Louis Veuillot whose interpretation was, in fact — as Dupan- 
 loup had feared beforehand— regarded by the world at large 
 as the authoritative one ; and people quoted the ' Syllabus ' 
 as ruling to be unorthodox the aims and views of ' Liberal ' 
 Catholics — a term which had been applied to such devoted 
 sons of the Church as Montalcmbert and Lacordaire as well 
 as to free lances like Lord Acton and Professor Friedrich. 
 For the Univers and the Monde all Liberal Catholics had 
 one head, and the Encyclical cut it off. ' Every Liberal,' we 
 read in the Monde of January lo, 1865, 'falls necessarily 
 under the reprobation of the Encyclical. In vain is equivo- 
 cation attempted by distinguishing the true Liberal and the 
 false Liberal.' Newman had from the first, as we have seen, 
 largely sympathised with the policy of moderate Liberal 
 Catholics (so called) like Lacordaire and Montalembert. 
 And he shared their anxiety as to the effect of the 'Syllabus' 
 on the public mind, especially in England. He of course 
 received the Encyclical with the submission due to all that 
 came from the Holy See ; but his general feeling as to its 
 effect on the position of English Catholics is sufficiently ap- 
 parent in the following letter to Father Ambrose St. John, 
 who was staying at Oxford soon after its publication. 
 
 ' I am glad you are seeing the Puseyites. I suppose they 
 will be asking you questions about the Encyclical. There 
 are some very curious peculiarities about it, which make it 
 difficult to speak about it, till one hears what theologians say. 
 Condemned propositions are (so far as I know, or as Henry 
 or Stanislas know), propositions taken out of some book, the 
 statements " libri cujusdam auctoris." These are not such, 
 
 * See infra, p. loi.
 
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 A NEW ARCHBISHOP (1865-1866) 81 
 
 nor do they pretend to be, — they are abstract propositions. 
 Again, the Pope in condemning propositions condemns the 
 books or statements of Catholics, — not of heathen or un- 
 baptized, for what has he to do in judging "those that are 
 without"? Now these propositions are mostly the pro- 
 positions of " AcathoHci." Moreover, it is rather a Syllabus 
 of passages from his former allocutions, &c., than a Syllabus 
 of erroneous utterances. And accordingly he does not affix 
 the epithets, " haeresi proximae, scandalosae, &c." but merely 
 heads the list as a " Syllabus of errors." Therefore it is 
 difficult to know what lie means by his condemnation. The 
 words " myth," " non-interference," " progress," " toleration," 
 "new civilisation," are undefined. If taken from a book, the 
 book interprets them, but what interpretation is there of 
 popular slang terms ? " Progress," e.g., is a slang term. Now 
 you must not say all this to your good friends, but I think 
 you will like to know what seems to be the state of the case. 
 First, so much they ought to know, that we are bound to 
 receive what the Pope says, and not to speak about it. 
 Secondly, there is little that he says but would have been 
 said by all high churchmen thirty years ago. or by ih^ Record 
 or by Keble now. These two points your friends ought to 
 take and digest. For the rest, all I can say {entre nous) 
 is that the advisers of the Holy Father seem determined to 
 make our position in England as difficult as ever they can. 
 I see tJiis issue of the Encyclical, — others I am not in a 
 position to see. If, in addition to this, the matter and form 
 of it are unprecedented, I do not know how we can rejoice in 
 its publication.' 
 
 The extreme party took action at this time in another 
 matter besides the * Syllabus ' and the Oxford question. 
 The Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christen- 
 dom had been vigorously denounced in Rome by Faber 
 and by Manning and Ward, and was condemned by the 
 Holy Office in a letter ' to the English Bishops ' in the 
 autumn of 1864. Catholics were forbidden to belong to the 
 Association. Manning held that the efforts of the society 
 discouraged conversions to the Catholic Church. 
 
 Newman had declined to join the A.P.U.C. (as it was 
 called), but other Catholics, while making clear their rejection 
 of the Anglican theory of ' three branches,' had given their 
 names to it. And Newman himself deplored the spirit that 
 pressed for extreme measures against it. 
 
 VOL. II. G
 
 82 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' I cannot help,' he wrote to Father Coleridge, ' feeling 
 sorrow at the blow struck by the Holy Office at the members 
 of the A.P.U.C. . . . and now if they are led to suppose that 
 all Catholics hold with Ward and Faber, we shall be in a 
 melancholy way to seconding that blow.' 
 
 To Mr. Ambrose Phillipps de Lisle he wrote in the same 
 strain : 
 
 'February I3tb, 1865. 
 
 ' I feel quite as you do on the Oxford question and the 
 other questions you introduce, but it is one's duty to submit. 
 For myself, I did not see my way to belong to the Union 
 Association — but I think its members have been treated 
 cruelly. As to the Encyclical, without looking at it 
 doctrinally, it is but stating a fact to say that it is a heavy 
 blow and a great discouragement to us in England. There 
 must be a re-action sooner or later — and we must pray God 
 to bring it about in His good time, and meanwhile to give us 
 patience.' 
 
 Newman's calm estimate of the Encyclical and ' Syllabus ' 
 was given ten years later in his letter to the Duke of 
 Norfolk in which he defended these documents against 
 Mr. Gladstone's attacks. At that time they could be read in 
 the light of their own text and of the comments of the theo- 
 logical school in the intervening period. But at the moment 
 when the above letters were penned the two documents came 
 upon the world together with the exaggerated interpretations 
 of militant Catholic journalists. They came to the world, 
 he complained, through newspapers which claimed them as 
 party utterances. His devotion to Pius IX. never wavered 
 nor his sympathy with him in the outrages of which he was 
 the object. But, like Dupanloup and many others, Newman 
 seems to have regretted an event which gave the opportunity 
 to Monsieur Vcuillot and his friends of urging extreme views 
 in the Pope's name. It was hard to contradict these men 
 publicly without seeming, to unthinking Catholics, to take up 
 a lower level of loyalty than theirs, to show a less intense 
 aversion to the enemies of the Church. 
 
 The uncompromising spirit which Newman deplored was 
 nowhere more visible than in W. G. Ward's comments in 
 the Diiblin Review, on the utterances of Pius IX., his 
 Allocutions, Briefs, and Encyclical letters. Ward remarked
 
 A NEW ARCHBISHOP (1865-1866) 83 
 
 on their unprecedented frequency, and treated them as in 
 consequence giving to Catholics of the nineteenth century 
 an unprecedented degree of infalHble guidance. He in- 
 terpreted the documents in exactly the opposite spirit to 
 Dupanloup, insisting that they condemned the views of 
 Montalembert and his friends. His articles had consider- 
 able influence. The fashion spread of regarding as 'disloyal ' 
 those Catholics who were alive to the practical or intel- 
 lectual difficulties attaching to extreme views. The Dublin 
 Reviezu, coining a word, nicknamed them ' minimisers.' 
 
 The character and frequency of the utterances of Pius IX. 
 being to some extent a new phenomenon, theologians were 
 not at once prepared to estimate their exact authority. Even 
 W. G. Ward, who at first took the most extreme view, 
 eventually admitted in the course of controversy that the 
 Pontiff spoke at times, in his official utterances on doctrine, 
 not as Doctor Universalis or infallibly, but as Gubernator doc- 
 trinalis with no claim to infallibility. But in 1864 he was 
 making unqualified statements which distressed Newman. 
 Ward boldly maintained ' that Pius IX. spoke infallibly 
 far oftener than previous Pontiffs, and he rejoiced at the fact. 
 He pressed every doctrinal instruction, contained in a fresh 
 Encyclical, as binding on the conscience of every Catholic 
 under pain of mortal sin. Newman considered Ward's posi- 
 tion to be paradoxical, and was anxious to secure careful 
 and theological treatment of the situation. 
 
 Half a year after the publication of the 'Syllabus,' 
 
 W. G. Ward wrote to the Weekly Register declaring that 
 
 the Encyclical and ' Syllabus ' were beyond question the 
 
 Church's infallible utterances. Newman held that such a 
 
 statement if it passed unchallenged would drive many of those 
 
 who were living in the world and realised the difficulties 
 
 of the situation, towards Liberalism and freethought. He 
 
 knew that Ward's opinion was not that of the distinguished 
 
 theologian Father O'Reilly, with whom he had formerly 
 
 discussed the question, and he wrote to P'ather Bittleston, 
 
 who was in Ireland, proposing to publish a letter, with the 
 
 approval of Father O'Reilly, expressing the opposite opinion 
 
 to Ward's : 
 
 ' Doctrinal Authority ^ p. 507. 
 
 G 2
 
 84 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 * Private. The Oratory, Bir*""" : July 29th, 65. 
 
 ' My dear Henry, — I wish you would look at Ward's letter 
 in the Register o{ 'dens day. I am much tempted, almost as a 
 matter of duty, to write to the editor as follows : 
 
 ' " Sir, — A sentence in a letter inserted in your paper 
 of last Saturday (Saturday 29th) runs thus : ' The recent 
 Encyclical and Syllabus are, beyond question, the Church's 
 infallible utterance.' I beg to say that I do not subscribe to 
 this proposition. ' " JOHN H. NEWMAN." 
 
 * My reason is, charity to a number of persons, chiefly 
 laymen, whom such doctrine will hurry in the direction of 
 Arnold.' There must be a stop put to such extravagances, 
 
 ' My difficulty is, lest to do so, should bring some blow on 
 the Oratory. 
 
 ' I write to you, however, principally for this : viz. I must 
 have a good theological opinion on my side, and whom am I 
 to consult? It strikes Ambrose that Stanislas" is the best 
 person — but then, if he knows it is / who ask, he will not give 
 me an unbiassed judgment. 
 
 'So I want you to write to him calling his attention to the 
 letter — and asking him whether it would be theologically safe 
 for you or some other priest to put the above letter into the 
 paper. If he could be got to get Fr. O'Reilly's opinion in 
 confidence (not on the doctrine, but on the Catholic's liberty 
 of denying Ward's proposition as it stands) so much the 
 better, e.g. if Fr. O'Reilly could see my letter, and were asked 
 simply " is that letter admissible Catholically, or is it not .?" 
 
 ' A more dignified way would be, if some layman wrote to 
 me, calling my attention to the proposition, and asking what 
 I thought of it, and my writing my letter in answer, and Jiis 
 putting it in the Paper. But this is a matter for future 
 consideration. . . . 
 
 ' Ever yours affly, 
 
 J. H. N.' 
 
 The project fell through, as Father O'Reilly was not 
 disposed to move in the matter or to repeat in writing at 
 a critical juncture the opinion he had given earlier. 
 
 ' The Oratory, Birmintjham : Aug. 4/65. 
 
 'My dear H., — Thank yow for your and S.'s letters. Of 
 course it puts an end to the whole scheme. 
 
 ' Mr. Thomas Arnold left the Catholic Church for a time. 
 - Father Stanislas Flanagan, at one time an Oratorian, was staying in Ireland at 
 this time. Father Flanagan was afterwards parish priest at Adare.
 
 A NEW ARCHBISHOP (1865-1866) 85 
 
 'I. As to my bringing out my views, it is absurd. 
 
 ' 2. I fully think with S.,and have ever said, that we must 
 wait patiently for a re-action. 
 
 ' 3. But if there are no protests, there will be no re-action. 
 
 ' 4. I want simply a protest ; and that, as one out of a 
 number of accumulating pebbles which at length would fill 
 the 2ima divhia. 
 
 ' 5. I feel extremely (thn' I nm only conjecturing) for a 
 number of laymen, especially converts — and for those who 
 are approaching the Church — who find all this a grievous 
 scandal. 
 
 ' 6. But further, which is a practical point, if I am asked, 
 did this convert, that inquirer, or some controversialist appeal 
 to me and ask me, WJiat am I to say ? 
 
 '7. What then am I to say ? This might come upon me 
 any day suddcnl>-. 
 
 ' It is best then to wait patiently and not to forestall 
 a crisis, but it is quite certain that any day I may be obliged 
 to give an answer. I really do wish I had a distinct opinion 
 given me as my safeguard, — in confidence of course. 
 
 ' But after all, priests all thro' the country will follow 
 Ward, if he is let alone — and how much more difficult will 
 a collision be ten years hence than now ! 
 
 ' I may not see that time — and I should care nothing for 
 any personal obloquy which might come on me now, so that 
 I am sure of my ground. How very hard a man like Father 
 O'Reilly will not at least in confidence speak out ! Unless 
 he has changed, I kfioiv he could not, simply, subscribe that 
 sentence. 
 
 ' Ever yours afifly, 
 
 J. H. N.' 
 
 Newman felt himself powerless to act. But he did not 
 rest until he had pressed his question home in Rome itself; 
 and eighteen months later he had the satisfaction of learning 
 from Ambrose St. John that the Roman theologians whom 
 he conversed with agreed with himself in withholding from 
 the Encyclical the character of an infallible utterance. This 
 fact is recorded in a letter to Mr. F. R. Ward.' 
 
 ' ' Do I understand you to assume,' he writes to Mr. Ward on May 24, 1867, 
 'that the Encyclical of 1864 i-^ Infallible? They don't say so in Rome— as 
 Father St. |ohn, who has returned, says distinctly.' His own final judgment is 
 recorded in his letter to the Duke of Norfolk — that the estimate of the authority 
 of such documents and of what, if anything, they do teach infallibly, is a matter of 
 time and is the business of the Schola Theologorum, not a matter for the private
 
 86 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Cardinal Wiseman died in February 1865, but, as we have 
 seen, not before he had, under Manning's influence, both put 
 an end to the Oxford scheme and inflicted the blow already- 
 spoken of on the Association for the Promotion of the Unity 
 of Christendom. Newman's mind went back to memories of 
 the Cardinal's early kindness to him, and he preached a sermon 
 on the work he had done, which made a marked impression 
 on the Oratorian Fathers. The great funeral followed, which 
 brought so astonishing a demonstration of interest and respect 
 that the Times declared that there had been nothing like it 
 since the funeral of the Duke of Wellington. Newman was 
 not present at the funeral. 
 
 He wrote of Wiseman to their common friend Dr. Russell 
 on March 2 : 
 
 ' The Cardinal has done a great work — and I think has 
 finished it. It is not often that this can be said of a man. 
 Personally I have not much to thank him for, since I was a 
 Catholic. He always meant kindly, but his impulses, kind as 
 they were, were evanescent, and he was naturally influenced 
 by those who got around him — and occupied his ear. In 
 passing through London last St. Charles's day, quite provi- 
 dentially (for I call it so) I called on him. He was then 
 very ill — but he saw me for ten minutes. I have not seen 
 him alone 6 or 7 times in the last 1 3 years. It was considerate 
 in the parties, whoever they were, concerned in his funeral 
 arrangements, that I was not asked to attend. I really 
 should not have been able without risk, yet it would have 
 been painful to refuse. What a wonderful fact is the recep- 
 tion given to his funeral by the population of London ! And 
 the newspapers remark that the son of that Lord Campbell, 
 who talked of trampling upon his Cardinal's Hat 14 years 
 ago, was present at the Requiem Mas.s.' 
 
 For a moment Newman hoped that the great pre- 
 dominance of Manning's influence in Rome, which meant 
 the still more intrmisigemit influence of his close ally W. G. 
 Ward, might come to an end with the Cardinal's death. 
 
 judgment of individual Catholics. So little can this be in some cases securely 
 detremined with certainty at first, that doctrines may long be generally held to be 
 condemned which are afterwards considered allowable. At the same time, while 
 denying the dogmatic force of the Syllabus, Newman does not in the Letter deny 
 that Pius IX. issued the Encyclical Qua7iia Cura as Universal Doctor. Of this I 
 shall speak later on.
 
 A NEW ARCHBISHOP (1865-1866) 87 
 
 Dr. Ullathorne was spoken of as a possible successor to 
 Wiseman, and had he been Archbishop, Newman's own in- 
 fluence in the Church would have been quite on a new footing. 
 But it was not to be. Manning himself was appointed by 
 the Holy See. With him as Archbishop, and Ward as his 
 counsellor and editor of the Dublin Review, the prospect was 
 black indeed. 
 
 Newman's language on Manning's appointment was, 
 however, generous, though guarded. 
 
 * As to the new Archbishop,' he writes to a friend on 
 May 15, 'the appointment at least has the effect of making 
 Protestants see, to their surprise, that Rome is not distrustful 
 of converts, as such. On the other hand it must be a great 
 trial to the old Priesthood ; to have a neophyte set over them 
 all. Some will bear it very well, — -I think our Bishop will — 
 but I cannot prophesy what turn things will take on the 
 whole. He has a great power of winning men where he 
 chooses. Witness the fact of his appointment, — but whether 
 he will care to win inferiors, or whether his talent extends to 
 the case of inferiors as well as superiors, I do not know. 
 
 ' One man has one talent, another another. You speak 
 of me. I have generally got on well with juniors, but not 
 with superiors. My going to Rome, as you wish me, would 
 only be, as indeed it has been already, an additional instance 
 of this.' 
 
 To Mr. Ornsby, who lamented that Manning and not 
 Newman himself was to be placed at the head of English 
 Catholics, he writes on May 20 : 
 
 'Thank you for your notice of myself in re Archi- 
 episcopatus, but such preferment is not in my line. Were 
 it offered me I should unhesitatingly decline it, and my 
 unsuitableness is felt by those who determine these things 
 as fully as it is by myself. However, Manning's rise is 
 marvellous. In fourteen years a Protestant Archdeacon is 
 made Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, with the whole 
 body of old Catholics, — Bishops and all — under him. At 
 the moment he is very unpopular, but, I suppose, there will 
 be a reaction. Protestants cannot but be pleased to see an 
 Oxford man, a Fellow of Merton, a parson, make his way to 
 the top of the tree in such a communion as the Roman, — 
 and success is the goddess of an Englishman — " Te nos 
 facimus, Fortuna, deam. " Then, as to Catholics, a man in 
 
 ^
 
 88 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 authority has such great opportunities of recovering his 
 ground, if he chooses to employ them. He will gradually 
 fill the Chapter with his own men. He will make Missionary 
 Rectors, and do private services. Then his great qualifi- 
 cations will overcome the laity. And he has such power of 
 persuasion that, if he chooses it, he will be able to bring 
 over the Bishops.' 
 
 The new Archbishop-elect began with conciliation. In- 
 deed, the general unpopularity of his appointment made 
 conciliation an urgent necessity. He offered to obtain for 
 Newman a titular Bishopric, but Newman declined. ' He 
 wants to put me in the House of Lords and muzzle me,' 
 Newman said. Indeed, the following letters show that he 
 made it a condition of attending the Archbishop's consecra- 
 tion that he should desist from any such attempt. 
 
 Dr. Manning to Dr. Newman. 
 
 'St. Joseph's Retreat: May 30, 1865. 
 
 ' My dear Newman, — In calling to mind the old and dear 
 Friends who would pray for me at this moment your name 
 arose among the first ; and I cannot refrain from writing to 
 ask you to give me the happiness and consolation of your 
 being with me on the 8th of June next at Moorfields. No 
 one will better know than you how much I need your prayers. 
 
 ' I will give directions that places shall be reserved for you, 
 and for Father St. John and that some one should be ready 
 to receive you if }'OU will call at the house, 22 Finsbury Circus, 
 if you can kindly come. 
 
 ' I was in Birmingham two months ago, and was starting 
 to see you when I found my time too short to reach you. 
 
 'I was glad to hear the other day that you are well and 
 strong. 
 
 ' Believe me, always 
 
 Yours very affectionately, 
 
 H. E. Manning.' 
 
 Dr. Newman to Dr. Manning. 
 
 ' May 31, 1865. 
 
 ' My dear Archbishop, — On hearing of your appointment 
 I said Mass for you without delay. I will readily attend 
 your consecration — on one condition which I will state 
 presently. As I come as your friend, not as a Father of the 
 Birmingham Oratory, I do not propose to bring any other 
 Father with me. I am sure you will allow me to escape any
 
 A NEW ARCHBISHOP (1865-1866) 89 
 
 dinner or other meeting, as such public manifestations are so 
 much out of my way. Nor do they come into the object of 
 your asking me ; which is, as you have said, to have my 
 prayers at the function itself. 
 
 ' The condition I make is this : — A year or two back I 
 heard you were doing your best to get me made a bishop 
 in partibus. I heard this from two or three quarters, and 
 I don't see how I can be mistaken. If so, your feeling towards 
 me is not unlikely to make you attempt the same thing now. 
 I risk the chance of your telling me that you have no such 
 intention, to entreat you not to entertain it. If such an 
 honour were offered to me, I should persistently decline it, 
 very positively, and I do not wish to pain the Holy Father, 
 who has always been so kind to me, if such pain can be 
 avoided. Your allowing me then to come to your con- 
 secration, I shall take as a pledge that you will have nothing 
 to do with any such attempts. 
 
 'J. H. N.' 
 
 Dr. Manning to Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' June 4, 1865. 
 
 ' My dear Newman, — It will be a happiness to me to 
 know that you are with me on Thursday. And I therefore 
 will not contest what you write. But if you have not 
 destroyed a letter I wrote you when what you refer to was 
 first intended many years ago, you will know my mind. I 
 think that such an intention ought not to have been 
 suspended. And I have for more than two years done my 
 part to accomplish it. I do not look upon it as a mere 
 decoration, but as having its fitness in many relations. You 
 have known me well enough to know that decorations have 
 no worth with cither of us. But your wish must be final with 
 me. You will be able to come and go freely by the house 
 22 Finsbury Circus. But I hope you will let me see you. I 
 shall be there by a little after nine. I thank you much for 
 your kindness in saying Mass for me. I will not fail to do 
 so for you. And I thank you for the kind words with which 
 I believe you have commended me to the prayers of )Our 
 Flock. 
 
 ' Believe me, always, my dear Newman, 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 H. E. Manning.' 
 
 Newman came to London for the Archbishop's con- 
 secration on June 7, staying for the occasion with his old
 
 90 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 friend, Sir Frederick Rogers. He planned at the same time 
 
 a farewell visit to Keble at Hursley — they had not met for 
 
 twenty years. This was, however, postponed ; but another 
 
 old friend, R. W. Church, was invited to meet him at Rogers' 
 
 house. 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham : June 4th, 1865. 
 
 ' My dear Rogers, — I shall rejoice to see Church. As we 
 have put off the Hursley expedition, I shall have Copeland 
 alone in his nest at Farnham. I come up to town 
 Wednesday morning, get through various jobs and see 
 various people, and I propose to get to you by seven p.m., 
 which, I consider, will be not later than your dinner hour. 
 It is Ember Day, but, as I shall have had a working day, I 
 mean to take the liberty of working men, and eat as much 
 roast beef as you will give me. 
 
 'The consecration is fixed as early as 10 a.m. Therefore 
 I shall have to beg a little breakfast before nine, and must 
 allow an hour for getting to Moorfields. I meant to have 
 asked you the name of a coach-keeper (what is the business 
 called .'') near you, from whom I could hire a brougham for 
 half a day. The service I expect will be very long, — 
 Dr. Ullathorne's consecration in 1846, the only one I was 
 ever at in England, was four hours. I don't wait for the 
 dejeuner, if there be one ; but, as there will be lots of people 
 there, I shall find it difficult to get away. I want you to 
 keep me till Friday if you can. If so, I hope to dine with 
 you on Thursday as well as Wednesday. 
 
 • It is very pleasant the thought of .seeing you in 
 Devonshire, — but I don't see the way to it. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 The meeting with Rogers was probably a pleasure more 
 free from sad associations than the ceremony at Moorfields. 
 Newman writes of it thus to Mrs. Froude : 
 
 ' Nothing could be more ca.sy and familiar than his 
 manners with me now. My surmise is, that he thinks 
 me a profoundly sceptical thinker, who, determined on 
 not building on an abyss, have, by mere strength of will, 
 bridged it over, and built upon my bridge — but that my 
 bridge, like Mahomet's coffin, is self suspended, by the 
 action of the will — but I may be putting it too strong. He 
 himself is not nearly so sceptical as I had feared. I like 
 Lady Rogers very much.'
 
 A NEW ARCHBISHOP (1865-1866) 91 
 
 One of the first things which claimed the attention of 
 the new Archbishop was the publication of Dr. Pusey's 
 ' Eirenicon.' The action of Manning and of Rome in con- 
 nection with the A.P.U.C. naturally angered Pusey, and in 
 1865 he was engaged in writing an attack on extrava- 
 gances current among Catholics in belief and devotion. 
 These extravagances were represented by him as barriers 
 to reunion, but nevertheless he gave his book the name 
 of ' Eirenicon.' He made considerable use, in illustration of 
 his theme, of Faber's strong language on the Devotion to 
 the Blessed Virgin, and of Ward's articles in the Dublin 
 Review on Papal Infallibility. To this course, which he com- 
 municated to Newman in a letter before the book appeared, 
 Newman demurred. He did not consider that either Faber's 
 or Ward's views were representative. ' I believe,' he wrote 
 to Pusey in reference to Faber's writings, ' that judicious 
 people think them crude and young, perhaps extravagant. 
 He was a poet.' 
 
 Of Ward he spoke in a letter dated September 5. Pusey 
 had written to his friend offering the gift of his book, and 
 wondering whether its appearance would call forth any com- 
 ment from the pen of Newman himself. Newman replied 
 as follows : 
 
 ' The Oratory, Birmingham : Sept. 5th, 1865. 
 
 ' For myself, I don't think I have v/ritten anything 
 controversial for the last 14 years. Nor have I ever, as I 
 think, replied to any controversial notice of what I have 
 written. Certainly, I let pass without a word the various 
 volumes that were written in answer to my Essay on 
 Doctrinal Development, and that on the principle that Truth 
 defends itself, and falsehood refutes itself, — and that, having 
 said my say, time would decide for me, without my trouble, 
 how far it was true, and how far not true. And I have 
 quoted Crabbe's lines as to my purpose, (though I can't 
 quote correctly) : 
 
 ' Leaving the case to Time, who solves all doubt 
 I'y bringing Truth, his glorious daughter, out. 
 
 ' This being so, I can't conceive I could feel it in any 
 sense an imperative duty to remark on anything you said in 
 your book. I daresay there is a great deal in which I should 
 agree. Certainly 1 so dislike Ward's \\ay of going on, that 
 I can't get myself to read the Dublin. But on those points
 
 92 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 I have said my say in my " Apologia" ; and, though I can't 
 see the future, am likely to leave them alone. A great attempt 
 has been made in some quarters to find (censurable) mistakes 
 in my book — but it has altogether failed, and I consider 
 Ward's articles to be impotent attempts to put down by 
 argument what is left safe in the domain of theological 
 opinion. 
 
 ' But, while I would maintain my own theological 
 opinions, I don't dispute Ward the right of holding his, so 
 that he does not attempt to impose them on me, — nor do 
 I dispute the right of whoso will to use devotions to the 
 Blessed Virgin which seem to me unnatural and forced. 
 Did authorit)' attempt to put them down while they do not 
 infringe on the great Catholic verities, I think it would act 
 as the Bishop of London is doing in putting down the devo- 
 tional observances of the Tractarian party at St. Michael's 
 and elsewhere. He is tender towards freethinkers, and 
 stern towards Romanisers. " Dat veniam corvis, vexat 
 censura columbas." Now the Church of Rome is severe 
 on freethinkers, and indulgent towards devotees.' 
 
 Some more letters were exchanged between Newman 
 and Pusey. But the two men were to meet soon — even 
 before the new book had reached Newman. And the meet- 
 ing was unexpected, dramatic, and somewhat painful. 
 
 Newman's deferred visit to Keble at Hursley was at 
 last arranged for September 13. Since August 4 they had 
 been corresponding as to its date. It was a great event in 
 prospect, and Newman's letters show how much it dwelt in 
 his mind. And he particularly wished to avoid — what in 
 the event happened — meeting Pusey at the same time. To 
 see both the old friends at once after such long separation 
 seemed to be more than he could bear. 
 
 ' The Oratory, Birmingham : August 4, 1865. 
 
 ' My dear Keble, — You must not fancy I am forgetting to 
 avail myself of your welcome wish, because I have not yet 
 made my way to you. I find it very difficult to leave 
 home — just now, impossible. As it is vacation time, most of 
 our party are away — working hard, this is their only chance 
 of a holyday in the year. I am one of the few, who are here 
 to keep on the duties of the Church etc. Moreover, the 
 house, as empty of its natural inmates, is filled with plas- 
 terers, bricklayers, painters, carpenters, who are having their
 
 A NEW ARCHBISHOP (1865-1866) 93 
 
 innings — and it does not do to let the place be simply in the 
 hands of Brummagem workmen. 
 
 ' I don't like to promise anything — but it is my full 
 intention, when relieved of all this superintendence, to move 
 down to Hursley. 
 
 ' So Gladstone has left you.' He came when I had ceased 
 to be an Oxford man — so I never had him. A very painful 
 separation, certainly, both for him and for all of you. Yet, 
 really, he does go great lengths — and I cannot help feeling 
 that the anxiety to keep him, on the part of such persons as 
 yourself, was quite as much on his own account as on account 
 of the University. He has lost his tether, now that the Con- 
 servatives have got rid of him — and won't he go lengths ? I 
 was pained at his "keep moving" speech. In saying all 
 this, I am putting myself in your place, (for I suppose he will 
 do good to us) but I declare, I should have been in great 
 perplexity, had I been an Oxford man, how to vote. I 
 suppose I should certainly in the event have voted for him — 
 but most grudgingly. None of his friends seem to trust his 
 politics — indeed he seems not to know himself what are his 
 landmarks and his necessary limits. 
 
 ' Don't fancy I am saying this without the greatest 
 respect and liking for him (though I scarcely know him 
 personally) — all one can say is that the great deluge is 
 pouring in — and his boat is as good as another's. Who is 
 there to trust ? . . . 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 I append three more letters — two of them mere notes — 
 which bring before us Newman's sense of effort in making 
 his arrangements for the eventful meeting with his friend 
 after so many years of separation : 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham : September i, 1865. 
 
 * My dear Keblc, — I have a great shrinking from pledging 
 myself, for sometimes I cannot fulfil, and therefore disappoint 
 the jjarties to whom I have pledged myself — but, please God, 
 if all is well, and (f it suits you, I propose to be with you on 
 Thursday morning next, and spend the day witli you. I 
 leave you for the H. ]-5owdens at R\-dc. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 ' Mr. Gladstone was defeated as candidate for Oxford University in July 1865, 
 being third on the poll. — Morley's Life, ii. 147.
 
 94 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' The Oratory, Birmingham : September 4, (6$. 
 
 ' My dear Keble, -I grieve to hear your anxiety about 
 Mrs. Keble. I will t/e/ay — for what I see, I need not be Jixed 
 here till about the 20th. Before that time your anxiety may 
 be over and you may be back home — and then I will come 
 to you. If not, I will wait a better time. We must take it 
 easy. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 ' Rednal : September 7, 1865. 
 
 ' My dear Keble, — I am glad Mrs. Keble is so much better. 
 As I have no Bradshaw here (Rednal) I can't fix on a train 
 — but, if all is well, I shall go straight to Southampton, on 
 Monday afternoon — sleep there— and leave my baggage — and 
 come over to you on Tuesday morning. But, it is so difficult 
 to go into Birmingham without falling in [with] and being 
 detained by people, especially as our school is just reassem- 
 bling and a British Association is going on, (this has taken 
 me out here) that I don't like to promise. 
 
 ' There is another difficulty. / wish you would put me off, 
 if Pusey is coming to you. I say so merely, as you must feel, 
 because to meet two friends is not to meet one. Copeland 
 is another matter, for I have seen him so often. Pusey has 
 told me he is going to you next week. To put me off would 
 only postpone me — for, please God, / ivill come. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 J. H. N. 
 
 ' P.S. — I consider this will get to you to-morrow noon — 
 so you will have time to put me off. (Direct to the Oratory.) 
 Or you might write to me " Railroad Hotel, Southampton." 
 If I found Pusey was with you, I should go on to H. Bowden's 
 for a day or two.' 
 
 In the event Puse\' did send word to Keble that he was 
 also going to Hursley on that day, and Keble wrote to put 
 Newman off. Newman, however, thought his own hesitation 
 cowardly and persevered in his plan of going to see Keble, 
 postponing his visit only one day. The meeting between 
 the three was related some years after the event in a well- 
 known letter from Newman to Keble's biographer. More 
 interesting and graphic is the account given at the time to 
 Ambrose St. John :
 
 A NEW ARCHBISHOP (1865-1866) 95 
 
 ' Buckland Grange, Rycic : September I3lh, 1865. 
 
 ' Here I am, very comfortable, and if I had my dear fiddle 
 with me, I might sing and play, " recubans sub tegminc fagi," 
 in full content. Scarcely had I left Birmingham when it 
 struck me that, since Pusey was to be at Keble's that evening, 
 he would, no manner of doubt, get into my train at Oxford 
 and travel down with me. But he did not. I determined to 
 go to Keble's next morning to see him. 
 
 * So I did. I slept at the Railway Hotel at Southampton 
 Dock, a very reasonable house, and good too, (they are build- 
 ing an Imperial Hotel), and yesterday morning (Tuesday) 
 retraced my steps to Bishopstoke, left my portmanteau 
 there, and went over to Hursley. I had forgotten the 
 country, and was not prepared for its woodland beauty. 
 Keble was at the door ; he did not know me, nor 1 him. 
 How mysterious that first sight of friends is ! for, when I 
 came to contemplate him, it was the old face and manner, 
 but the first effect or impression was different. 
 
 ' His wife had been taken ill in the night, and at the first 
 moment Jic, T think, and certainly /, wished myself away. 
 Then he said : " Have you missed my letter ? " meaning, 
 " Pusey is here, and I wrote to stop your coming." He then 
 said : " I must go and prepare Pusey." He did so, and then 
 took me into the room where Pusey was. 
 
 * I went in rapidly, and it is strange how action overcomes 
 pain. Pusey, being passive, was evidently shrinking back 
 into the corner of the room, as I should have done, had he 
 rushed in upon me. He could not help contemplating the 
 look of me narrowly and long. " Ah," I thought, "you are 
 thinking how old I am grown, and I see myself in you, — 
 though you, I do think, are more altered than I." Indeed, 
 the alteration in him startled, I will add pained and grieved, 
 me. I should have known him anywhere ; his face is not 
 changed, but it is as if you looked at him through a pro- 
 digious magnifier. I recollect him short and small, with a 
 round head and smallish features, flaxen curly hair; huddled 
 up together from his shoulders downward, and walking fast. 
 This as a young man ; but comparing him even as he was 
 when I had last seen him in 1846, when he was slow in his 
 motions and staid in his figure, there was a wonderful change 
 in him. His head and features are half as large again ; his 
 chest is very broad, and he is altogether large, and (don't say 
 all this to anyone) he has a strange condescending way when 
 he speaks. His voice is the same ; were my e)'es shut, I 
 should not be sensible of any alteration.
 
 g6 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 * As we three sat together at one table, I had a painful 
 thought, not acute pain, but heavy. There were three old 
 men, who had worked together vigorously in their prime. 
 This is what they have come to, — poor human nature ! After 
 twenty years they meet together round a table, but without 
 a common cause or free outspoken thought ; kind indeed, but 
 subdued and antagonistic in their language to each other, and 
 all of them with broken prospects, yet each viewing in his 
 own way the world in which those prospects lay. 
 
 ' Pusey is full of his book (the " Eirenicon "), which is all 
 but published, against Manning, and full of his speech on the 
 relations of physical science with the Bible, which he is to 
 deliver at the Church Congress at Norwich ; full of polemics 
 and hope. Keble is quite different ; he is as delightful as 
 ever, and it seemed to me as if he felt a sympathy and 
 intimacy with me which he did not show towards Pusey. I 
 judge by the way and tone he spoke to me of him. I took 
 an early dinner with them ; and, when the bell chimed at 
 4 o'clock for service, I got into my gig, and so from Bishop- 
 stoke to Ryde, getting here between 7 and 8.' 
 
 A letter to Mrs. Froude adds some characteristic touches : 
 
 ' When I got to Keble's door, he happened to be at it, but 
 we did not know each other, and I was obliged to show him 
 my card. Is not this strange ? it is imagination mastering 
 reason. He indeed thought, since Pusey was coming, I 
 should not come that day — but I knew beyond doubt that 
 I was at his house — yet I dared not presume it was he — but, 
 after he began to talk, the old Keble, that is, the young, came 
 out from his eyes and his features, and I daresay, if I saw him 
 once or twice, I should be unable to see much difference 
 between his present face and his face of past days.' As Mrs. 
 Keble was ill, we then dined together tcte-d-tcte — a thing we 
 never perhaps had done before — there was something awful 
 in three men meeting in old age who had worked together in 
 their best days. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, was the 
 sad burden of the whole -once so united, now so broken up, 
 so counter to each other — though neither of them of course 
 would quite allow it. Keble has since written to mc, " when 
 
 ' ' As hours went on,' he writes to Dean Church, ' the 72ota fades came out 
 upon his countenance, as if it were the soul itself showing itnelf in spite of the 
 course and change of time. He always had an expression like no one else, and 
 that sweet pleading earnestness never showed itself to me so piercingly as then, in 
 his eyes and in his carriage.'
 
 A NEW ARCHBISHOP (1865-1866) 97 
 
 shall we three meet again? soon — when the hurly burly 's 
 done." 
 
 ' Keble is deaf— but, what is worse, his speech is much 
 impaired — and I think he thinks more slowly. Pusey was full 
 of plans, full of meetings. He has since made an important 
 speech at Norwich on the interpretation of Scripture, which 
 will do good, and of this he was full. Then, he was just on 
 publishing his book which he calls an Eirenicon, and he was 
 full of it, though he was cautious of letting out all that was in 
 it. Have you seen it? It is anything but an Eirenicon — it is 
 likely to make Catholics very angry — and justly angry.' 
 
 Keble passed away in the following year. The loss of 
 their common friend brought a kindly exchange of letters 
 between Newman and Archbishop Manning. Manning sent 
 affectionate Easter greetings and expressed deep sympathy 
 with Newman in his loss. 
 
 Newman replied as follows : 
 
 ' The Oratory, Birmingham : Easter Day, April 1st, i866. 
 
 ' My dear Archbishop, — I thank you for your Easter 
 greetings and return them with all my heart. 
 
 ' I don't know how far you know the particulars of Keble's 
 death. His wife had apparently only a few hours to live — so 
 said the doctors about a fortnight ago. He had nursed her 
 till then ; but then he was seized with fainting fits, which 
 turned to erysipelas in the head, and he died in the early 
 morning of Holy Thursday. His wife is still alive, but her 
 death is constantly expected. He is to be buried at Hursley 
 next Thursday. His brother and brother's wife are with 
 them at Bournemouth. I heard some months ago, that his 
 brother too was in bad health. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately in Xt., 
 
 John H. Newman 
 
 of the Orator)'.' 
 
 Keble's death was followed within a few weeks by that of 
 Mrs. Keble. Newman tells the story of the end in a few words 
 to a friend in a letter of April 16, 1866 : 
 
 ' Keble was told that his wife could not live man)' hours. 
 
 He had borne up in spite of his great infirmities, longer than 
 
 I had supposed possible. He was seized with fainting fits. 
 
 His friends took him from her room. When he got into his 
 
 VOL. It H
 
 98 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 own, he fancied it a Church. He knelt down and said the 
 Lord's Prayer. Then he began a Latin hymn, — they could not 
 make out what. Those were his last words. Then he ended 
 with the prayer which he first said on his knees as a little 
 child.' 
 
 It pained Newman to find at such a moment that his 
 dear friend's sincerity was called in question by some of his 
 co-rcligionists — and this even by converts who had been for 
 years themselves sincere in their rejection of Rome. ' It is 
 grievous that people are so hard,' he wrote to Father Coleridge. 
 ' In converts it is inexcusable. It is a miserable spirit in 
 them.' 
 
 ' How strange it is,' he writes to the same correspondent, 
 ' Keble seems to have received all doctrine except the 
 necessity of being in communion with the Holy See. His 
 wife, as far as I can make out, is still alive. She kept back 
 the funeral a day, hoping to be buried with him. Her grave 
 is made. To continue what I said the other day, it seems 
 to me no difficulty to suppose a person in good faith on 
 such a point as the necessity of communion with Rome. 
 Till he saw that, (or that he was not in the Church), he 
 was bound to remain as he was, and it was in this way that 
 he always put it.' 
 
 Very soon Newman had an opportunity of speaking 
 publicly on what he considered the attitude at which 
 Catholics should aim in their relations to those outside their 
 own Communion. The appearance of Pusey's ' Eirenicon ' 
 brought the whole question to the front, and though New- 
 man did not at once reply to it, he did so in the end. His 
 pamphlet, though less considerable in scope or importance 
 than the ' Apologia,' attracted very wide attention, and 
 greatly strengthened his influence among Catholics in Eng- 
 land and in Rome itself But this episode claims a separate 
 chapter for its treatment.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE 'EIRENICON' (1865-1866) 
 
 PUSEY's ' Eirenicon ' appeared very shortly after the meeting 
 above recorded between its author and Newman at Keble's 
 house. Newman was disappointed at its hostile tone — at 
 its treatment of views maintained by the more extreme 
 Catholic writers as though they were the acknowledged 
 teaching of the Church. He himself had never had hopes 
 of corporate reunion. But he did regard it as of the utmost 
 importance that difficulties in the way of an understanding 
 should not be exaggerated. He wished any argument on 
 the subject to be based on a calm and candid analysis of 
 Catholic theological doctrine. He deprecated Pusey's treat- 
 ing as part of the Catholic faith the views of a party, or the 
 devotional language of such a writer as Father Faber, which 
 was often based only on ' pious opinions.' Yet Catholic 
 apologists, who were angry at Pusey's tone, did not make the 
 disclaimer on this point which Newman thought essential in 
 order to place the Catholic position on a really unassailable 
 basis. Those, on the other hand, like Father Lockhart, who 
 wrote with sympathy for Pusey, cherished Utopian hopes as 
 to future reunion which were not shared by any appreciable 
 section of the Catholic body. They were indeed denounced 
 as unorthodox by extremists. Newman deeply resented the 
 inquisitorial spirit which was abroad, and, while not agreeing 
 with Father Lockhart, wished him to have full liberty to urge 
 his views. But what he accounted the true Via Media he 
 gradually saw would not be set forth publich' unless he wrote 
 himself Even the Month, under the editorship of Father 
 Coleridge, did not evince the degree of understanding sym- 
 pathy with Pusey's book which Newman felt to be required in 
 any reply which was to be at all convincing to the Puseyites 
 
 H 2
 
 TOO LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 « 
 
 themselves. It was an opportunity in one respect similar to 
 that afforded by Mr. Kingsley's attack. He could answer and 
 disclaim Ward's exaggerations when Kingsley urged them as 
 a reductio ad absiirdtan of the belief of Catholics ; and so now 
 he could disclaim Faber's ultra statements on devotion to Our 
 Lady when Pusey urged them as an argument against the 
 Church, and could perhaps repeat his protest against Ward. 
 ' Many persons,' he wrote to Hope-Scott, ' wish me to write on 
 the subject of Pusey's book, and it has struck me that it will 
 be the most inoffensive way of alluding to Faber and Ward, if 
 I can write without hurting Pusey.' To criticise Ward and 
 Faber without such an excuse might have seemed the attack 
 of a half-hearted Catholic, who was stingy of belief, on those 
 who were whole-hearted and generous. He knew, moreover, 
 that there still remained writers of the old Catholic school 
 in England who had ever been averse to extremes both in 
 devotion and in theology. This gave him strong support, 
 and was a fact which ought to be brought home to Pusey. 
 He wrote several private letters to Pusey himself before 
 finally determining to publish anything. 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham : Oct. 31st, 1865. 
 
 ' It is true, too true, that your book disappointed me. It 
 does seem to me that " Eirenicon" is a misnomer; and that it 
 is calculated to make most Catholics very angry. And that 
 because they will consider it rhetorical and unfair. 
 
 * How is it fair to throw together Suarez, St. Bernardine, 
 Eadmer, and Faber ? As to Faber, I never read his books. 
 I never heard of the names of dc Montfort and Oswald. 
 Thus a person like myself may be in authority and place, 
 and know nothing at all of such extravagances as these 
 writers put out. I venture to say the majority of Catholics 
 in England know nothing of them. They do not colour our 
 body. They are the opinions of a set of people, and not of 
 even them permanently. A young man or woman takes 
 them up, and abandons them in a few years. The single 
 question is, how far ought they to be censured. Such 
 extravagances are often censured by authority. I recollect 
 hearing, more than twenty years ago, instances of books 
 about the B.V.M. which Pope Gregory XVI. had censured. 
 I think I am right in saying that very superstition about Our 
 Lady's presence in the Holy Eucharist has been censured, — 
 I think Rogers told me this in 1841, writing from Rome. . . .'
 
 THE 'EIRENICON' (1865-1866) loi 
 
 * The Oratory, Birmingham: Nov. 17th, 1865. 
 
 'As to the Infallibility of the Pope, I see nothing 
 against it, or to dread in it, — for I am confident that it 
 must be so limited practically that it will leave things 
 as they are. As to Ward's notions, they are preposterous, 
 — nor do I see anything in the Pope's Encyclical to confirm 
 them. , . . 
 
 'Then again, as to the Syllabus, it has no connexion with 
 the Encyclical, except that of date. It does not come from 
 the Pope. There was a great attempt to make it a formal 
 ecclesiastical act, and in the Recueil you have it with the 
 censures annexed to each proposition, as it was originally 
 intended, — but the Bishops over the world interfered, and the 
 censures were struck out — and it is not a direct act of the 
 Pope's, but comes to the Bishops from Cardinal Antonelli, 
 with the mere coincidence of time, and as a fact, each 
 condemnation having only the weight which it had in the 
 original Papal document (Allocution, Encyclical, &c., &c.) 
 in which each is to be found. If an Allocution is of no 
 special weight, neither is the condemnation of a proposition 
 which it contains. Of course, nothing comes from the Pope 
 without having weight, but there is a great difference between 
 weight and infallibility. . . . 
 
 ' Mgr. Dupanloup {cntre nous) was gravely opposed to 
 the issuing of the Syllabus, &c., and much disconcerted at its 
 appearance. Don't repeat it, but he said : " If we can tide 
 over the next ten years we are safe." Perhaps you know 
 him already. You should have seen Pere Gratry in Paris, — 
 I mean, he was a man to see. I thought Mr. Pope could 
 have given you the names of persons who took the same 
 moderate view of ecclesiastical politics.' 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham : Nov. 19th, 1865. 
 
 ' I am much surprised and much rejoiced to see yesterday's 
 article on your book in the Weekly Register. I hope you 
 will like it. I have not a dream who wrote it. 
 
 ' If they rat next week, it will be very provoking. I am 
 not easy about it, for not long ago they would not insert a 
 review of a book because it was not according to Ward, who 
 is according to Manning, who is according to the Pope. But 
 this review, though not against the mind of the Pope, is 
 certainly against Ward and Manning. 
 
 ' It has surprised me so much that I said to myself: " Is 
 it possible that Manning himself has changed } He is so 
 close, that no one can know." '
 
 I02 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 • The Oratory, Birmingham : Nov. 23rd, 1865. 
 
 * I fear that Lockhart mistakes what I have said. ... I 
 grieve to say I could not have written exactly as he has 
 written. . , . But I truly rejoice to find another can write in 
 a less distant way about your book than I could myself, — 
 and I abominate the fierce tyranny which would hinder an 
 expression of opinion such as his, and calls to account every- 
 one who ventures to keep clear of ultra-isms. 
 
 ' You may be sure that Manning is under the lash as well 
 as others. There are men who would remonstrate with him, 
 and complain of him at Rome if he did not go all lengths, — 
 and in his position he can't afford to get into hot water, even 
 tho' he were sure to get out of it.' 
 
 Newman's final resolution to publish a reply to Pusey 
 was conveyed to his friend in the following letter, written on 
 the Feast of the Immaculate Conception — the day after the 
 answer was completed : 
 
 * The Oratory, Birmingham : In fest. Concept. Immac. 1865. 
 
 ' You must not be made anxious that I am going to 
 publish a letter on your " Eirenicon." I wish to accept it as 
 such, and shall write in that spirit. And I write, if not to 
 hinder, for that is not in my power, but to balance and 
 neutralize other things which may be written upon it. It 
 will not be any great length. If I shall say anything which 
 is in the way of remonstrance, it will be because, unless I 
 were perfectly honest, I should not only do no good, but 
 carry no one with me, — but I am taking the greatest possible 
 pains not to say a word which I shall be sorry for afterwards.' 
 
 At starting Newman stamps his published letter to Pusey 
 as a work of apologetic which should have its effect in leading 
 to conversions to the Church. Pusey's influence at that 
 moment was at its height. His words, as Newman pointed 
 out, affected large multitudes. Any reply which made him 
 reconsider his position would affect his followers also.^ 
 
 ' ' Vou cannot speak merely for yourself,' he wrote : 'your antecedents, your 
 existing influence, are a pledge to us that what you may determine will be the 
 determination of a multitude. Numbers, loo, for whom you cannot properly be 
 said to speak, will be moved by your authority or your arguments ; and numbers, 
 again, who are of a school more recent than your own, and who are only not 
 your followers because they have outstripped you in their free speeches and 
 demonstrative acts in our behalf, will, for the occasion, accept you as their 
 spokesman. There is no one anywhere, — among ourselves, in your own body,
 
 THE 'EIRENICON' (1865-1866) 103 
 
 And if the hope of a large accession of Puseyites to 
 the Catholic Church appeared quite extravagant to some 
 Catholics, Newman was able to point to the time when Dr. 
 Wiseman had expressed a similar hope in 1843 in respect 
 of the old Tractarian party and Newman himself, and had 
 been mercilessly laughed at by his fellow-Catholics. Yet 
 the events of 1845 proved that Wiseman was right and the 
 pessimists wrong. 
 
 Wiseman had treated the difficulties of the Tractarians 
 with sympathy and consideration. This course had proved 
 helpful and successful. Hence Newman appealed to 
 Wiseman's success in justification of his own similar line on 
 the present occasion. And he pointed out, moreover, that in 
 disclaiming excesses in devotional language concerning the 
 Blessed Virgin, he was making no new attempt to minimise 
 recognised Catholic devotions, but rather following in the 
 ancient track of Catholic practice in England, which, at the 
 time of his own conversion, was pointed out to him by Dr. 
 Griffiths, the Vicar- x^postolic of the London District. For 
 Dr. Griffiths strongly objected to certain foreign ' Saints' 
 Lives ' and devotional works, as being unsuitable to England. 
 
 On the other hand, the English writers to whom Pusey 
 appealed as representing the extravagances characteristic 
 of the Church of Rome were not the hereditary repre- 
 sentatives of the Catholic tradition, but Oxford converts — 
 Faber and W. G. Ward. The former had written on 
 devotion to Our Lady, the latter on Papal Infallibility, in 
 language which Pusey cited as at once characteristic of the 
 existing Catholic and Roman Church, and irrational ; — as on 
 these two points finally barring the way to the acceptance 
 of Roman claims among English Churchmen. Of the fact 
 that they were converts, comparatively young, and innovators 
 on the traditions of English Catholicism, while the typical 
 
 or, I suppose, in the Greek Church, who can affect so large a circle (if men, so 
 virtuous, so able, so learned, so zealous, as come, more or less, under your 
 influence ; and I cannot pay them a greater compliment than to tell them they 
 ought all to be Catholics, nor do them a more affectionate service than to pray 
 that they may one day become such. Nor can I address myself to any task more 
 pleasing, as I trust, to the Divhic Lord of the Cluirch, or more loyal or dutiful 
 to His Vicar on eartii, than to attempt, however feebly, to promote so great a 
 consummation.'
 
 104 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 English hereditary Catholics had ever used measured language 
 on both points, Newman made great capital. He signalised 
 Faber's gifts as a poet, and Ward's ' energy, acuteness and 
 theological reading,' displayed on the vantage ground of the 
 historic Dublin Rcvieiv, but added— 
 
 ' They are in no sense spokesmen for English Catholics, 
 and they must not stand in the place of those who have a 
 real title to such an office. The chief authors of the passing 
 generation, some of them still alive, others gone to their 
 reward, are Cardinal Wiseman, Dr. Ullathorne, Dr. Lingard, 
 Mr. Tierney, Dr. Oliver, Dr. Rock, Dr. Waterworth, Dr. 
 Husenbeth, and Mr. Flanagan ; which of these ecclesiastics 
 has said anything extreme about the prerogatives of the 
 Blessed Virgin, or the Infallibility of the Pope? ' ' 
 
 Newman urged two points in his letter with special 
 insistence : (i) that the recognised Catholic doctrine and 
 devotion is a natural and lawful development from beliefs 
 already visible in patristic days ; (2) that the undeniable 
 extravagances which Pusey cites from the works of some 
 foreign divines may well be disavowed by any Catholic — as 
 Newman himself disowns them — although he characteris- 
 tically adds that he knows nothing of such extravagances as 
 they are found in the writings of the authors he refers to, but 
 only as they stand in Pusey's own pages. 
 
 That Pusey's idea of reunion with Rome on equal terms is 
 Utopian Newman clearly intimated — as he had already done 
 in his private letters. Yet he believed that a better under- 
 standing might be promoted and some approximation won 
 by the attempt on either side to do justice to the other ; and 
 he reproached Pusey with speaking of an ' Eirenicon ' and 
 yet fixing attention on the most contentious utterances of 
 Catholics. ' There was one of old times,' he w rote, * who 
 
 ' Some thought that their names were given partly in irony. Newman 
 emphatically disclaimed this. 
 
 'I am in earnest about the names I quoted,' he writes to II. Wilberforce. 
 ' They are wiliiesses, and it does not require to be great authors in order to witness 
 well. Ward and Faber, as well as myself, never had a course of theology. I at 
 least have been a year at Rome. Other writers, such as Allies, also are not theo- 
 logians. The ecclesiastics I named have been in seminaries. Their literary merit 
 may not be high, but Lingard, Rock, Wiseman, Tierney, Oliver, are ihc/irsl in 
 their lines. I might say more.'
 
 THE 'EIRENICON' (1865-1866) 105 
 
 wreathed his sword in myrtle ; excuse me — you discharge 
 your olive branch as if from a catapult.' The common 
 ground of approximation is to be found in the teaching 
 Fathers whom both sides profess to accept. To realise the 
 patristic teaching and sentiments concerning the Blessed 
 Virgin is to go far on the road towards a true ' Eirenicon.' 
 
 After speaking of the doctrine defined at Ephesus by the 
 term Theotocos, or ' mother of God,' he wrote as follows of 
 the prevalence of the thought it expresses, which goes back 
 to yet earlier days : 
 
 ' It would be tedious to produce the passages of authors 
 who, using or not using the term, convey the idea. " Our 
 God was carried in the womb of Mary," says Ignatius, 
 who was martyred A.D. 106. " The Word of God," says 
 Hippolytus, " was carried in that Virgin frame." " The 
 Maker of all," says Amphilochius, "is born of a Virgin." 
 " She did compass without circumscribing the Sun of Justice, 
 — the Everlasting is born," says Chrysostom. "God dwelt 
 in the womb," says Proclus. " When thou hearest that God 
 speaks from the bush," asks Theodotus, " in the bush seest 
 thou not the Virgin ? " Cassian says : '■ Mary bore her 
 Author." " The One God only begotten," says Hilary, " is 
 introduced into the womb of a Virgin." " The Everlasting," 
 says Ambrose, " came into the Virgin." " The closed gate," 
 says Jerome, " by which alone the Lord God of Israel enters, 
 is the Virgin Mary." "That man from Heaven," says 
 Capriolus, " is God conceived in the womb." " He is made 
 in thee," says St. Augustine, " who made thee." 
 
 ' This being the faith of the Fathers about the Blessed 
 Virgin, we need not wonder that it should in no long time be 
 transmuted into devotion. No wonder if their language should 
 become unmeasured, when so great a term as " Mother of 
 God " had been formally set down as the .safe limit of 
 it. ; . . Little jealousy was shown of her in those times ; 
 but, when any such niggardness of affection occurred, then 
 one Father or other fell upon the offender with /xal, not 
 to say with fierceness. Thus St. Jerome inveighs against 
 Helvidius ; thus St. E[)iphanius denounces Apollinaris, 
 St. Cyril Nestorius, and St. Ambrose Bonosus ; on the other 
 hand, each successive insult offered to her by individual 
 adversaries did but bring out more fully the intimate 
 sacred affection with which Christendom regarded her.' ' 
 
 -ts" 
 
 ' LcUcr to Puscy, Difficulties 0/ Anglicans, "n. 65, 66.
 
 io6 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 With regard to the excesses of expression among Catholic 
 writers which had formed the most effective part of Pusey's 
 indictment, Newman brought to bear a large weight of theo- 
 logical authority on the lines of St. Anselm's affirmation 
 ' that the Church thinks it indecent that anything that 
 admits of doubt should be said in Our Lady's praise when 
 things that are certainly true of her supply such large 
 materials for laudation.' And he then proceeded : 
 
 ' After such explanation, and with such authorities, to 
 clear my path, I put away from me, as you would wish, 
 without any hesitation, as matters in which my heart and 
 reason have no part, (when taken in their literal and absolute 
 sense, as any Protestant would naturally take them and as 
 the writers doubtless did not use them), such sentences and 
 phrases as [you quote].' 
 
 After enumerating, one after another, the extreme state- 
 ments quoted by Pusey,^ he thus concluded : 
 
 ' Sentiments such as these I freely surrender to your 
 animadversion ; I never knew of them till I read your book, 
 nor, as I think, do the vast majority of English Catholics 
 
 ' The statements run as follows : ' That the mercy of Mary is infinite ; that 
 God has resigned into her hands His Omnipotence ; that it is safer to seek her 
 than to seek her Son ; that the Blessed Virgin is superior to God ; that Our 
 Lord is subject to her command ; that His present disposition towards sinners, 
 as well as His Father's, is to reject them, while the Blessed Mary takes His 
 place as an Advocate with Father and Son ; that the Saints are more ready to 
 intercede with Jesus than Jesus with the Father ; that Mary is the only refuge 
 of those with whom God is angry ; that Mary alonu can obtain a Protestant's 
 conversion ; that it would have sufficed for the salvation of men if Our Lord 
 had died, not in order to obey His Father, but to defer to the decree of His 
 Mother ; that she rivals Our Lord in being God's daughter, not by adoption, 
 but by a kind of nature ; that Christ fulfilled the office of Saviour by imitating 
 her virtues ; that, as the Incarnate God bore the image of His Father, so He 
 bore the image of His Mother ; that redemption derived from Christ indeed its 
 sufficiency, but from Mary its beauty and loveliness ; that, as we are clothed 
 with the merits of Christ, so we are clothed with the merits of Mary ; that, as 
 He is Priest, in a like sense is she Priestess ; that His Body and Blood in the 
 Eucharist are truly hers and appertain to her ; that as He is present and received 
 therein, so is she present and received therein ; that Priests are ministers as of 
 Christ, so of Mary ; that elect souls are born of God and Mary ; that the Holy 
 Ghost brings into fruitfulness His action by her, producing in her and by her 
 Jesus Christ in His members ; that the Kingdom of God in our souls, as Our 
 Lord speaks, is really the kingdom of Mary in the soul ; that she and the Holy 
 Ghost produce in the soul extraordinary things ; and that when the Holy Ghost 
 finds Mary in a soul He flies there' (pp. 1 13-14).
 
 THE 'EIRENICON' (1865-1866) 107 
 
 know them. They seem to me like a bad dream. I could 
 not have conceived them to be said. I know not to what 
 authority to go for them ; to Scripture, or to the Fathers, or 
 to the decrees of Councils, or to the consent of schools, or to 
 the tradition of the faithful, or to the Holy See, or to Reason. 
 They defy all the loci theologici. There is nothing of them in 
 the Missal, in the Roman Catechism, in the Roman Raccolta, 
 in the " Imitation of Christ," in Gother, Challoner, Milner, or 
 Wiseman, as far as I am aware. They do but scare and con- 
 fuse me. ... I do not, however, speak of these statements, 
 as they are found in their authors, for I know nothing of the 
 originals, and cannot believe that they have meant what you 
 say ; but I take them as they lie in your pages. Were any 
 of them the sayings of Saints in ecstasy, I should know they 
 had a good meaning ; still I should not repeat them myself; 
 but I am looking at them, not as spoken by the tongues of 
 Angels, but according to that literal sense which they bear 
 in the mouths of English men and English women. And, 
 as spoken by man to man, in England, in the nineteenth 
 century, I consider them calculated to prejudice inquirers, to 
 frighten the unlearned, to unsettle consciences, to provoke 
 blasphemy, and to work the loss of souls.' ^ 
 
 On reaching the point in his letter at which W. G. Ward's 
 views concerning Papal Infallibility would naturally have 
 been dealt with, Newman breaks off and postpones the subject 
 to another occasion. In later editions he speaks of Father 
 Ryder's pamphlets in reply to Ward, published in 1867, as 
 precluding the necessity of his saying more himself He did 
 return to the question ten years later in his letter to the Duke 
 of Norfolk. But Father Neville told me that, when writing 
 the letter to Pusey, he decided after much thought and prayer 
 that it was not wise to deal at that moment with so delicate 
 and burning a topic as the Papal claims. In his criticism 
 on Fabcr he felt fairly certain of carrying a large proportion 
 of English Catholic opinion with him. The other case was 
 more difficult at a moment when the troubles of the Holy 
 See might make many resent a dry theological analysis of the 
 Papal claims, and deprecate a protest against views which, it 
 not theologically accurate, were nevertheless inspired by that 
 loyal devotion which the Holy Father so greatly needed. He 
 therefore terminated his letter as follows : 
 
 ' Letters to Dr. Yu'i^iy, Dijjicidiies of Augiicaiis,\\. 115.
 
 io8 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' So far concerning the Blessed Virgin ; the chief, but 
 not the only subject of your Volume, And now, when I 
 could wish to proceed, she seems to stop all controversy, for 
 the Feast of her Immaculate Conception is upon us ; and 
 close upon its Octave, which is kept with special solemnities 
 in the Churches of this town, come the great Antiphons, 
 the heralds of Christmas. That joyful season,— joyful for 
 all of us, — while it centres in Him Who then came on earth, 
 also brings before us in peculiar prominence that Virgin 
 Mother who bore and nursed Him. Here she is not in the 
 background, as at Eastertide, but she brings Him to us in 
 her arms, Two great Festivals, dedicated to her honour, — 
 to-morrow's and the Purification, — mark out and keep the 
 ground, and, like the towers of David, open the way to and 
 fro, for the high holiday season of the Prince of Peace. And 
 all along it her image is upon it, such as we see it in the 
 typical representation of the Catacombs. May the sacred 
 influences of this tide bring us all together in unity. May it 
 destroy all bitterness on your side and ours ! May it quench 
 all jealous, sour, proud, fierce, antagonism on our side ; and 
 dissipate all captious, carping, fastidious, refinements of 
 reasoning on yours ! May that bright and gentle Lady, 
 the Blessed Virgin Mary, overcome you with her sweetness, 
 and revenge herself on her foes by interceding effectually for 
 their conversion.' 
 
 The letter to Pusey was published before Christmas. 
 Newman was fully prepared for a mixed reception of it 
 among Catholics. ' Don't expect much from my pamphlet,' 
 he wrote to Miss Bowles, ' which is at last through the press. 
 Pusey's work is on too many subjects, not to allow of a dozen 
 answers, and, since I am only giving one, every reader will 
 be expecting one or other of the eleven which I don't give.' 
 
 It was not to be expected, again, that Pusey's emphatic 
 challenge to the school of Faber and Ward, and again of 
 Louis Veuillot, should remain unanswered. Still, W. G. 
 Ward, Manning, and others, had necessarily to recognise in 
 their own answers the force and value of Newman's main 
 argument against Pusey. The very fact of a common 
 cause, which enabled Newman indirectly to attack the 
 extremists, made it difficult for them to reply to him. On 
 the other hand, the effect of the ' Apologia ' was again 
 visible among the English public. The Press signalised the
 
 THE 'EIRENICON' (1865-1866) T09 
 
 importance of an utterance from Newman's pen — according it 
 the fullest attention, in marked contrast to the almost entire 
 neglect of him shown for twenty years since the publication 
 of the ' Essay on Development,' in 1846. The climax was 
 reached in the long article of seven columns which appeared 
 in the Times of March 31, 1866. 
 
 An article of such length in the Times in those days 
 proclaimed, as a rule, a public event of first-rate national 
 importance. That Newman's brief letter to Ur. Pusey 
 should call forth a review nearly as long as itself, was an 
 eloquent comment on the position Newman now held in the 
 public mind ; and to the initiated who knew that it came 
 from the pen of R. W. Church, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, 
 this fact added to its interest. 
 
 The writer in the Times, at starting, recognises that ' there 
 is only one person on the Roman Catholic side whose 
 reflections ' on Pusey 's pamphlet ' English readers in general 
 would much care to know,' and that person is Dr. Newman. 
 He notes that in substance Newman, like Manning and 
 other Roman Catholic writers, regards Pusej^'s ideas as im- 
 practicable. But he notes, too, the understanding sympathy 
 with Pusey's attitude which Newman shows. He marks the 
 note of candour which renders Newman so singularly 
 persuasive, ' the English habit of not letting off the blunders 
 and follies of his own side, and of daring to think that a 
 cause is better served by outspoken independence of 
 judgment than by fulsome, unmitigated puffing.' He recog- 
 nises in particular that there is a tendency among Roman 
 Catholics in England, showing itself largely in the importa- 
 tion of ' foreign ideas and foreign usages,' with which Newman 
 strongly disclaims all sympathy. The writer cites the impres- 
 sive passage in which Newman emphasises what he calls 
 * fashions ' in Catholic opinions, and in which he intimates that 
 to disagree with the views prevalent within the Church at a 
 particular time or place may be not to lack Catholic instinct, 
 but rather to show a fuller acquaintance with the length and 
 breadth of authorised Catholic theological opinion, and with 
 the story of different Pontificates. If, Newman had added, 
 authority is seen in history largely to consider, in its deter- 
 minations at a particular time, the various phases of Catholic
 
 no LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 opinion exhibited at that time, then the expression of opinion 
 may become a duty on the part of individuals. And seeing 
 the traditionary views of EngHsh Cathoh'cism falling into 
 the background in favour of foreign ideas with which he has 
 small sympathy, he had felt called upon to express his own 
 judgment, lest the newer habits of thought might appear to 
 outsiders to be exclusively those which the Church sanctions. 
 He had claimed the right ' to speak as well as to hear ' for 
 one who, like himself, had now for twenty years been a 
 Catholic and given close attention to the different phases of 
 Catholic opinion. 
 
 ' I prefer English habits of belief and devotion to foreign,' 
 Newman had written, ' from the same causes and by the same 
 right, which justifies foreigners in preferring their own. In 
 following those of my people, I show less singularity \ind 
 create less disturbance than if I made a flourish with what 
 is novel and exotic. And in this line of conduct I am but 
 availing myself of the teaching which I fell in with on 
 becoming a Catholic ; and it is a pleasure to me to think 
 that what I hold now, and would transmit after me if I could, 
 is only what I received then.' 
 
 The Times writer questions the accuracy of Newman's 
 account of the situation. Over against his contention that 
 the views dominant within the Church of a particular time 
 may be but a passing and accidental fashion, due to the 
 character of the particular Pope or other circumstances, the 
 Times sets Archbishop Manning's apparently opposite state- 
 ment in his reply to Pusey, that the Church is in some sense 
 committed to them by the very fact of their being dominant 
 and unreproved. The careful reader will see that there is in 
 reality no marked contradiction between the two. Manning 
 had not claimed more than immunity from the censure of 
 private Catholics for extreme views that were tolerated by 
 authorit)', and Newman had only claimed toleration for 
 those less extreme. Manning had claimed, as more than the 
 tenets of a school, only what Pontiffs successively witnessed. 
 Newman had claimed liberty rather where they diverged. 
 But the tone of Manning's words told for dogmatism, of 
 Newman's for liberty. And the writer in the Times went on 
 to urge, that all the official encouragement of the Church 
 was given to the views of Manning ; that Papal censures
 
 THE 'EIRENICON' (1865-1866) m 
 
 were reserved for 'Liberalism,' while extreme statements as to 
 the Papal prerogatives and ' Mariolatry ' were unreproved. 
 
 * Dr. Newman has often told us,' the Times continued, ' that 
 we must take the consequences of our principles and theories, 
 and here are some of the consequences which meet him ; 
 and, as he says, they " scare and confuse him." He boldly 
 disavows them with no doubtful indignation. But what 
 other voice but his, of equal authority and weight, has been 
 lifted up, to speak the plain truth about them ? Why, if 
 they are wrong, extravagant, dangerous, is his protest 
 solitary? His communion has never been wanting in 
 jealousy of dangerous doctrines, and it is vain to urge that 
 these things, and things like them, have been said in a 
 corner. The Holy Office is apt to detect mischief in small 
 writers as well as great, even if these teachers were as in- 
 significant as Dr. Newman would gladly make them. Taken 
 as a whole, and in connection with notorious facts, these 
 statements are fair examples of manifest tendencies, which 
 certainly are not on the decline. . . . 
 
 ' Allocutions and Encyclicals are not for errors of this 
 kind. Dr. Newman says that " it is wiser for the most part 
 to leave these excesses to the gradual operation of public 
 opinion,— that is, to the opinion of educated and sober 
 Catholics ; and this seems to me the healthiest way of 
 putting them down." We quite agree with him ; but his 
 own Church does not think so ; and we want to see some 
 evidence of a public opinion in it capable of putting them 
 down. . . . 
 
 ' It is very little use, then, for Dr. Newman to tell Dr. 
 Pusey or anyone else, " You may safely trust us English 
 Catholics as to this devotion." " English Catholics," as such, 
 — it is the strength and the weakness of their system, — have 
 really the least to say in the matter. The question is 
 not about the trusting " us English Catholics," but the Pope, 
 and the Roman congregations, and those to whom the 
 Roman Authorities delegate their sanction and give their 
 countenance.' 
 
 In brief, the writer claims that it is Ward and Manning 
 who represent the effective mind of the ruling power, and that 
 it is with them that Dr. Pusey and his friends have to reckon. 
 Newman had pointed out that prevalent excesses were no 
 argument against the 'grand faith and worship' which the 
 Church had preserved. But the writer argues that the
 
 TI2 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 admission that such prevalent excesses were deplorable was 
 not effectively made among Catholics ; that the tendency of 
 Manning to justify what is unjustifiable, on the sole ground 
 that it was prevalent and not condemned, was practically the 
 tendency of the Catholic Church in the nineteenth century. 
 
 The case had been put in this article from the standpoint 
 of an y\nglican. Yet the article was welcome to Newman 
 not only as an advertisement of his book, but on other 
 grounds. An answer to the writer from the Catholic stand- 
 point was, he held, easy if the distinctions recognised by the 
 best theologians were remembered. An answer from the 
 standpoint of Ward or Veuillot, or even Manning, was very 
 difficult. The definitions of Faith, and their Ipgical conse- 
 quences, could be maintained with controversial success as 
 unalterable, with no detriment to the fact, historically incon- 
 testable, that opinions not really true might be — nay, have 
 been — universally accepted in the Church at a given time. 
 To hold with Ward that such prevalence makes them part of 
 the teaching of the Church was to go in the face of history — 
 it was to justify belief in the ' Parousia ' or the ' Millennium,' 
 on the early universal prevalence of which among Catholics 
 Newman had so often insisted. The article in the Times, 
 then, had brought out a very important issue, and had at 
 least laid stress on the fact that opinions which Ward and 
 his friends constantly represented as the only orthodox 
 Catholic opinions were challenged by Newman ; and his 
 challenge remained not only without reproof, but received 
 the assent of others well equipped to speak with authority 
 for what was theologically sound. 
 
 At the same time messages came to Newman from the 
 Bishop of Birmingham and the Bishop of Clifton, identify- 
 ing themselves with his view ; and a similar attitude was, 
 as he heard, prevalent in the majority of the Episcopate. 
 Ward's party and Manning's followers in London were, of 
 course, dissatisfied with the letter and attacked it ; but the 
 balance of opinion was in its favour. 
 
 Newman's faithful friends the Dominican sisters at Stone 
 were among those who keenly appreciated the letter, and he 
 rejoiced in their approval. He wrote to Sister Imelda on 
 April 2 :
 
 THE 'EIRENICON' {1865-1866) 113 
 
 ' My dear Sister Imelda, — Thank you for your welcome 
 letter, and for your Reverend Mother's message. And I am 
 much rejoiced to hear so good an account of her. 
 
 ' One can't do better than one's best. I have done my 
 very best in my Pamphlet— but bad is the best I daresay. 
 Certainly, we may say of our Lady, as we say of the mystery 
 of the Holy Eucharist, " quia major omni laude, nee laudare 
 sufficit." It is still more difficult at once to praise her, and 
 to dispraise some of her imprudent votaries. On the other 
 hand it is very easy to criticize what we should not do a bit 
 better if we ourselves tried our hand at it. Therefore I am 
 not surprised that I am open to criticism, and have been 
 criticized, and in spite of that, not at all dissatisfied on the 
 whole with what I have done, for I have had a number of 
 letters from important quarters, all in my favour. One, which 
 is the most gratifying is from our own Bishop. 
 
 'With my best Easter greetings to your Reverend Mother 
 and all your Community, I am 
 
 ' My dear Sister Imelda most sincerely yours in Xt. 
 
 John H. Newman 
 
 of the Oratory.' 
 
 To Piisey he writes on the general situation two days 
 after the appearance of the Times article : 
 
 ' Thank you for your sympathy about the attacks on me, 
 but you have enough upon yourself to be able to understand 
 that they have no tendency to annoy me, — and on the other 
 hand are a proof that one is doing a work. I hail the Article 
 in the Times with great satisfaction as being the widest 
 possible advertisement of me. I never should be surprised 
 at its comments being sent by some people to Rome, as 
 authoritative explanations of my meaning, wherever they are 
 favourable to mc. The truth is, that certain views have been 
 suffered without a word, till their maintainers have begun to 
 fancy that they are de fide, — 2iX\d they are astonished and 
 angry beyond measure when they find that silence on the 
 part of others was not acquiescence, indifference, or timidity, 
 but patience. My own Bishop and Dr. Clifford, and, I 
 believe, most of the other Bishops, are with me. And I have 
 had letters from the most important centres of theology and 
 of education through the country, taking part with me. 
 London, however, has for years been oppressed with various 
 inacbi ; though I cannot forget, with great gratitude, that 
 two years ago as many as a hundred and ten priests of the 
 Westminster Diocese, including all the Canons, the Vicars 
 VOL. II. I
 
 114 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 General, the Jesuits, and other Orders, went out of their way 
 (and were the first to do so), to take my part before the 
 " Apologia " appeared. 
 
 ' I am very sorry the Jesuits are so fierce against you. 
 They have a notion that you are not exact in your facts, and 
 it has put their backs up ; but we arc not so exact ourselves 
 as to be able safely to throw stones.' 
 
 While Newman loyally defended the Jesuits in writing to 
 Pusey, to Father Coleridge himself he very frankly indicated 
 in an interesting letter what he regarded as unfair, or, at 
 least, ungenerous, in the treatment of the controversy in the 
 pages of the Month : 
 
 ' As to Pusey, I fully think that whatever is misrepresented 
 in facts should be brought out, as well as what is wrong in 
 theology. But ... I say ..." show that Pusey's facts 
 are wrong, but don't abuse him." Abuse is as great a mistake 
 in controversy as panegyric in biography. Of course a man 
 must state strongly his opinion, but that is not personal 
 vituperation. Now I am not taking the liberty of accusing 
 you of vituperation, but I think an Anglican would say : 
 " This writer is fierce — " and would put you aside in con- 
 sequence as a partisan. He would shrink into his prejudices 
 instead of imbibing confidence. 
 
 ' Now mind, I am not accusing you of all this inaladresse, 
 but bringing out what I mean. But I will tell you, if you 
 will bear with me, what does seem to me to approach to it in 
 what you have written, e.g.' 
 
 'I. "The great name of Bossuet has been foolishly 
 invoked by Dr. Pusey," p. 384. 
 
 ' 2. " There can be no more mistake about the fact than 
 about the impression which Dr. Pusey has meant to produce 
 on his readers," p. 387, note. 
 
 ' 3. " How does this . . . differ from the artifice of an 
 unscrupulous advocate'^ " p. 388. 
 
 '4. "Great confusion of thought," p. 388. 
 
 '5. "In happy unconsciousness of the absurdity of his 
 language," p. 389. 
 
 ' 6. " This language shows as much confusion or ignorance, 
 &c." p. 389. 
 
 ' 7. " He does not understand that . . .," p. 389. 
 
 ' 8. " He talks of a continual flow, &c." p. 389. 
 
 '9. " This is very childish" p. 389. 
 
 ' The references are to the article ' Archbishop Manning on the Reunion of 
 Christendom,' in the Month for April 1866.
 
 THE 'EIRENICON' (1865-1866) 115 
 
 ' 10. " Dr. Pusey then must have deliberately ignored the 
 distinction," p. 389. 
 
 ' It must be recollected that your object is to convince 
 those who respect and love Dr. Pusey that he has written 
 hastily and rashly and gone beyond his measure. Now if 
 even I feel pained to read such things said of him, what do 
 you suppose is the feeling of those who look up to him as 
 their guide? They are as indignant at finding him thus 
 treated as you are for his treatment of Catholic doctrine. 
 They close their ears and hearts. Yet these are the very 
 people you write for. You don't write to convince the good 
 Fathers at No. 9,' but to say a word in season to his followers 
 and to Jiis friends — to dispose them to look kindly on 
 Catholics and Catholic doctrine, — to entertain the possibility 
 that they have misjudged us, and that they are needlessly, as 
 well as dangerously, keeping away from us, — but to mix up 
 your irrefutable matter with a personal attack on Pusey, is as 
 if you were to load your gun carefully, and then as deliberately 
 to administer some drops of water at the touch-hole. 
 
 ' Now excuse me for all this, but you have put me on my 
 defence by making the point at issue whether or not the 
 "Papers should be suffered all to assume that his statements 
 are founded on real theological knowledge — " which is not the 
 issue. 
 
 ' Very sincerely yours, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Loyalty to his friends called for another letter in connec- 
 tion with the ' Eirenicon.' Newman had expressed to Mr. 
 Ambrose de Lisle so much sympathy with his attitude towards 
 the Anglican movement that he felt that he ought to make 
 it quite clear that he considered his scheme of ' corporate 
 reunion ' to be Utopian, and why he thought so. 
 
 ' I find it very difficult,' he writes to de Lisle on March 3, 
 1866, 'to realise such an idea as a fact. As a Protestant, I 
 never could get myself to entertain it as such, nor have I been 
 able as a Catholic. Nothing is impossible to God, and the 
 more we ask of Him, the more we gain — but still. His indica- 
 tions in Providence are often our guide, what to ask and what 
 not to ask. We ask what is probable ; we do not ask 
 definitely that England should be converted in a day ; — unless 
 under the authority of a particular inspiration, such a prayer 
 
 ' No. 9 Hill Street (now No. 1 6) then served as the residence of the Farm 
 Street community. 
 
 13
 
 ii6 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 would be presumptuous, as being a prayer for a miracle. 
 Now to me, the question is whether the conversion of that 
 corporate body, which we call the Anglican Church, would 
 not be in the same general sense a miracle, — in the same 
 sense in which it would be a miracle for the Thames to change 
 its course, and run into the sea at the Wash instead of the 
 Nore. Of course in the course of ages such a change of 
 direction might take place without miracle — by the stopping 
 up of a gorge or the alteration of a level. But I should not 
 pray for it ; and, if I wished to divert the stream from London, 
 I should cut a canal at Eton or Twickenham. I should carry 
 the innumerable drops of water my own way by forming a new 
 bed by my own labour — and for the success of this project 
 I might reasonably pray. Now the Anglican Church is sui 
 generis — it is not a collection of individuals — but it is a bed, 
 a river bed, formed in the course of ages, depending on 
 external facts, such as political, civil, and social arrangements. 
 Viewed in its structure, it has never been more than partially 
 Catholic. If its ritual has been mainly such, yet its articles 
 are the historical offspring of Luther and Calvin. And its 
 ecclesiastical organisation has ever been, in its fundamental 
 principles, Erastian. To make that actual and visible, tangi- 
 ble body Catholic, would be simply to make a new creature 
 — it would be to turn a panther into a hind. There are 
 very great similarities between a panther and a hind. Still 
 they are possessed of separate natures, and a change from one 
 to the other would be a destruction and reproduction, not 
 a process. It could be done without a miracle in a succession 
 of ages, but in any assignable period, no. 
 
 ' See what would be needed to bring the Anglican Church 
 into a condition capable of union with the Catholic body. 
 There have ever been three great parties in it. The rod of 
 Aaron (so to call it) must swallow up the serpents of the 
 magicians. Thar tod has grown of late years — doubtless — 
 but the history of opinion, and of Anglican opinion, has 
 ever been a course of reactions. Look at ourselves, 
 truths de fide are unchangeable and indefectible, but 
 you yourself were lately predicting, and with reason, a re- 
 action among us from Ultramontanism. The chance is, 
 humanly speaking, that the Catholic movement in the 
 Anglican Church, being itself a reaction, will meet with a 
 re-reaction — but suppose it does not. Then it has to absorb 
 into itself the Evangelical and the Liberal parties. When it 
 has done this, the Erastian party, which embraces all three, 
 and against which there is no reaction at present, which ever
 
 THE 'EIRENICON' (1865-1866) 117 
 
 has been, which is 'Cao^ foundation of Anglicanism, must begin 
 to change itself. I say all parties ever have been Erastian. 
 Archbishop Whitgift, a Calvinist, was as Erastian, as much 
 opposed to the Puritans, as Laud was. And Hoadly, the 
 representative of the Liberals, was of course emphatically an 
 Erastian. But let us keep to the Catholic party. They were 
 Erastian in Laud, they are Erastian in their most advanced 
 phase now. What is the rejection of Gladstone at Oxford, 
 what is the glorification of that angel Disraeli, but an Erastian 
 policy .'' and who are specially the promoters of it but the 
 Union Review and the party it represents .'' 
 
 ' When then I come to consider the possibility of the 
 Established Church becoming capable of Catholicism, I must 
 suppose its Evangelical party adding to its tenets th 
 Puritanism of Cartwright as well as disowning at the same 
 time its own and Cartwright's Protestantism ; — I must 
 suppose the Catholic party recalling the poor Non-jurors 
 and accepting their anti-Erastianism, while preserving and 
 perfecting its own orthodoxy — and the Liberal party denying 
 that Royal supremacy which is the boast of members of it, 
 as different from each other in opinion as Tillotson, Arnold 
 and Colenso. I must anticipate the Catholic party, first 
 beating two foes, each as strong as itself, and then taking the 
 new step, never yet dreamed of except by the Non -jurors, 
 who in consequence left it, and by the first authors of the 
 Tracts [for the] Times, the new step of throwing off the 
 Supremacy of the State. 
 
 'Then comes a question, involved indeed, but not brought 
 out clearly, in what I have been saying. Who are meant by 
 the members of each party, the clergy only or the laity also ? 
 It is a miracle, if the " Catholic " clergy in the Establishment 
 manage to swallow up the Evangelical and Liberal — but how 
 much more difficult an idea is it to contemplate, that they 
 should absorb the whole laity of their communion, of whom, 
 but a fraction is with them, a great portion Evangelical, a 
 greater Liberal, and a still greater, alas, without any faith at all. 
 I do not sec, moreover, how it is possible to forget that the 
 Established Church is the Church o{ England — that Dissenters 
 are, both in their own estimation and in that of its own 
 members, in some sense a portion of it — and that, even were 
 its whole proper laity Catholic in opinions, the whole popu- 
 lation of England, of which Dissenters are nearly half, would, 
 as represented by Parliament, claim it as their own. 
 
 ' And of course, when it came to the point, they would 
 have fact and power on their side. It is indeed hard to
 
 ii8 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 conceive that the constitution of the Church of England, as 
 settled by Act of Parliament, can be made fit for re-union 
 with the Catholic Church, till political parties, as such, till the 
 great interests of the nation, the country party, the manu- 
 facturing, the trade, become Catholic, as parties. Before that 
 takes place, and sooner than it will, as it seems to me, the 
 Establishment will cease to be, in consequence of the Free 
 Church and voluntary principle and movement. So that from 
 my point of view, I cannot conceive, to end as I began, the 
 Establishment running into Catholicism, more than I can 
 conceive the Thames running into the Wash. 
 
 ' And now excuse me, if I have been at all free ; but, since 
 you seemed to wish to know what I think on so momentous 
 a subject, and it seems to be a time when we shall all arrive 
 best at what is true and expedient, and at unanimity and 
 unity, by speaking out, I have thought I might throw myself 
 on your indulgence, even in such respects as I fear will not 
 commend themselves to your judgment' 
 
 Theology was not the only matter which engaged 
 Newman's attention at this time. He wrote frequently to 
 Frederick Rogers and R. W, Church on questions of cur- 
 rent interest. Rogers sent him in April 1866 Seeley's work 
 entitled ' Ecce Homo,' which made a great stir on its ap- 
 pearance. Newman did not at first see much in the book. 
 He found ' little new in it but what was questionable or 
 fanciful,' but in view of Rogers' estimate of its great impor- 
 tance as a sign of the times, he wrote an appreciative review 
 of it in the Month. 
 
 From his letters on the politics of the time, two may be 
 quoted — one on the Franco-Prussian War and one, in the 
 following year, on the murder of Emperor Maximilian. In 
 both these letters, addressed to R. W. Church, we have his 
 thoughts on the future of his own country. Ever since the 
 Reform Bill of 1832 he had viewed with great misgiving the 
 extension of the suffrage and the growth of the democracy. 
 * The only defence of or consolation under Reform,' he writes 
 to Rogers, ' is that power itself will have a sober and educa- 
 tional effect on the new voters. The other consolation is 
 that it will only increase bribery immoderately.' England's 
 international position also appeared to him at this time very 
 unsatisfactory. Still he had a great belief in the genius of 
 his country and her power to recover.
 
 THE 'EIRENICON' (1865-1866) 119 
 
 To R. VV. Church. 
 
 'The Oratory, B" : Sept^ 21, 1866. 
 
 ' What wonderful events have taken place lately ! quite a 
 new world is coming in ; and if Louis Napoleon were to fall 
 ill, the catastrophe would be still more wonderful. I don't 
 quite like our being thrown so much into the background. 
 Twenty-five years ago Rogers said one ought to go abroad 
 to know how great England was — it is not so now — some 
 foreign papers simply leave out the heading " Angleterre" in 
 their foreign news. And the fate of Austria, a state in some 
 striking points like us, though in others different, is a sort of 
 omen of what might happen to us in the future. Then, I am 
 quite ashamed at the past ignorance of the Times and 
 other papers and at myself for having been so taken in by 
 them. Think of the Times during the American civil 
 war ! And again on the breaking out, and in the course of 
 the Danish War. Really we are simply in the dark as to 
 what is going on beyond our four seas — even if we know 
 what is going on within them. How dark, as even I could 
 see, we are as to Ireland, from having been there. Some 
 four years ago I met a man, he seemed some sort of country 
 gentleman, at the inn of a country town — we got into con- 
 versation. I told him the hatred felt for England in all 
 ranks in Ireland — how great friends of mine did not scruple 
 to speak to me of the "bloody English "— the common 
 phrase — how cautious and quiet government people simply 
 confessed they would gladly show their teeth if they 
 were sure of biting ; but he would not believe me — and 
 that has been the state of the mass of our people. Even 
 now they are slow to believe that Fenian ism is as deeply 
 rooted as it is. Every Irishman is but watching his op- 
 portunity—and if he is friendly to this country, it is because 
 he despairs. 
 
 ' Don't think I am tempted to despair about England. 
 I am in as little despair about England as about the Pope, 
 I think they have both enormous latent forces ; and if, as they 
 now talk, he goes to Malta, I shall think it is caused by some 
 hidden sympathy of position. Misery does indeed make us 
 acquainted with strange bedfellows. And, whatever the 
 Pope will have to do, at least England must make some 
 great changes, and give up many cherished ways of going 
 on, if she is to keep her place in the world. 
 
 ' However, much all this is to an old man like me.'
 
 I20 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 'The Oratory, B™ : July 7, 1867. 
 
 'Your violin improves continually; I cannot desire a 
 better one. I have got it at Rednal, where I make a noise, 
 without remonstrance from trees, grass, roses or cabbages. . . 
 
 ' Maximilian's death is the deepest tragedy in our day, 
 the deeper because it has so little romantic about it — it is 
 the case of a lion poisoned by a ratcatcher — or "a falcon, 
 towering in her pride of place, and by a mousing owl 
 hawked at and killed." There is a kind of death which seems, 
 not a martyrdom, but a failure. Max's course in Mexico 
 is not a career. He has left Europe and vanished into 
 space ; and is of those " which have no memorial, who have 
 perished as tho' they had never been " ; and his " empire " 
 after him. And this is most tragic. 
 
 ' As to Parliamentary proceedings, it is a crucial experi- 
 ment whether England is stronger in its social or its political 
 system. If the social framework can withstand and master 
 such political changes it is strong indeed.'
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 OXFORD AGAIN ( I 866- 1 867) 
 
 The renewed signs of Newman's great influence on the 
 public mind in England, brought forth by the letter to 
 Pusey, were not lost on the Ecclesiastical Authorities. Such 
 signs gave his friends courage ; they made his critics feel the 
 impolicy of weakening the authority of so powerful a cham- 
 pion of the Catholic cause. Manning was endeavouring to 
 strengthen his position as Archbishop by conciliatory action, 
 and was not likely to oppose him openly. Catholic boys 
 were still going to Oxford, and Newman bought fresh land 
 there, with an eye to future possibilities. Then he was again 
 offered the Oxford Mission by his Bishop in April 1866, He 
 saw in the renewed offer a sign of God's Will for him. Yet 
 the following letter of April 29 to Dr. Pusey shows that he 
 viewed the prospect with mixed feelings : 
 
 ' I am grieved to think it vexes you so much to hear of 
 the chance of our going to Oxford. You may be sure 
 we should not go to put ourselves in opposition to you, or 
 to come in collision with the theological views which you 
 represent. Of course we never could conceal our con- 
 victions, nor is it possible to control the action of great 
 principles when they are thrown upon the face of society — 
 but it would be a real advantage to the cause of truth, if our 
 opinions were known more accurately than they are generally 
 known by Anglicans. For instance, what surprise has been 
 expressed at what I have said in my letter to you about 
 our doctrine of original sin and the Immaculate Conception ! 
 even now most men think that I have not stated them 
 fairly. And so with many other doctrines. I should 
 come to Oxford for the sake of the Catholic youth there, 
 who are likely to be, in the future, more numerous than 
 they are now, — and my first object after that would be to 
 soften prejudice against Catholicism by showing how much
 
 122 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 exaggeration is used by Anglicans in speaking of it. 1 do 
 trust you will take a more hopeful view of my coming, if I do 
 come, which is not certain. Personally, it would be as pain- 
 ful a step as I could be called upon to make. Oxford never 
 can be to me what it was. It and I are sev^ered. It would 
 be like the dead visiting the dead. I should be a stranger in 
 my dearest home. I look forward to it with great distress — 
 and certainly would not contemplate it except under an 
 imperative call of duty. But I trust that God will strengthen 
 me, when the time comes, if it is to come— and I trust 
 He will strengthen you.' 
 
 Newman hoped that the success of the ' Apologia,' now 
 reinforced by that of the ' Letter to Pusey,' would this time 
 give him enough influence to carry out the Oxford plan. 
 The sanction of Propaganda was sought for the formation of 
 a branch house of the Oratory at Oxford. All seemed for a 
 time to go without a hitch. There were, however, incidents 
 in the negotiations with Rome which depressed him. Cardinal 
 Reisach, whom Newman had known in Rome, came to Eng- 
 land with a view to ascertaining the general feeling on the 
 Oxford question, and Newman was never approached by him 
 and never even acquainted with his mission. The Cardinal 
 actually visited Oscott without letting Newman know that he 
 was near Birmingham, or calling on him. Cardinal Reisach's 
 informants among the clergy were carefully selected by 
 Manning himself, and the Cardinal was sent to pay a visit 
 to W. G. Ward, as the best representative of lay opinion. 
 The Cardinal even inspected the new ground Newman had 
 bought at Oxford, but without making any sign to its owner. 
 Newman deplored the incident deeply, and felt that no oppor- 
 tunity was afforded him for making Rome acquainted at first 
 hand with his views on the whole subject. His dejection was 
 less keen at this time, however, as he expressly states in his 
 journal, than in the years preceding the ' Apologia,' and 
 the Oxford proposal brought with it a ray of hope. It was 
 a hope for work within his capacity, and in the right direction. 
 It would mean fresh anxieties. Still, it would be something 
 practicable and useful. 
 
 As to writing he was still very cautious. Some of 
 his friends urged him to write more, and more explicitly, 
 on the whole ecclesiastical situation, and others pressed
 
 OXFORD AGAIN (1866-1867) 123 
 
 him to go in person to Rome, and lay before the Holy 
 Father his views on the Oxford question and other matters 
 relating to the progress of the Church in England. But 
 Newman, while loving and revering Pius IX., felt hope- 
 less of making any great impression at headquarters while 
 Manning was against him and while the Curia was without 
 any first-hand knowledge of the situation. And as to writing, 
 he was inclined to let well alone, and be content with the good 
 results of the ' Apologia ' and ' Letter to Dr. Pusey.' 
 
 He preferred not to force matters to an issue, but rather 
 to maintain his hold on Catholic opinion and act on the 
 public mind gradually. The logic of facts must be given 
 time to work in the desired direction. He had the sympathy 
 of such men as Dupanloup in France, and in England a 
 considerable measure of agreement and support from Bishop 
 Ullathorne, Bishop Clifford, and others. The English Jesuits, 
 largely owing to the influence of Father Coleridge, were ever 
 his good friends. And the ' Letter to Dr. Pusey ' had brought 
 fresh and more general manifestations of sympathy. Even as 
 to the stringent line in matters of doctrine and philosophy, 
 to which Rome had inclined since the Temporal Power con- 
 troversy began, there were reassuring signs. The Episcopate 
 (he learnt) had considerably modified the Syllabus before 
 its appearance. Some of the Bishops, moreover, were, he 
 found, quite alive to the dangers attendant on checking 
 genuine philosophical thought by stringent condemnations. 
 His consistent reply to those who urged him to do more in 
 the way of active expression of opinion or representations 
 to the Holy See was ' Patience ; we are in a transition 
 time.' He trusted to the logic of facts — a slow remedy, 
 but the only one consistent with the absolute submission 
 which he preached and practised. 
 
 The following letters illustrate his state of mind in the 
 years 1865 and 1866: 
 
 To Father Ambrose St. John. 
 
 'August 27th, 1865. 
 
 ' The Bishop was here yesterday. He asked me if I still 
 thought of Oxford. I said absolutely, no. I added that I 
 had bought some land, but for the chances of the future, not
 
 124 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 as connected with myself. He said he had heard so. Well, 
 for the chance of things, he said, he should keep the matter 
 open for a year. 
 
 ' He said the Cardinal Barnabo had told the Archbishop 
 that there would be a great meeting next year ; time and 
 subject uncertain. The Bishop said there was a great deal 
 to do in the way of discipline, e.g. about nuns, parishes, 
 &c. He hoped they would be cautious about touching 
 philosophy, — the Pope, he said, had some wish for one or two 
 doctrinal decrees, but he spoke as if others did not share in 
 it — said he was sure the Bishops' voice would be heard — ■ 
 implied that the actual Syllabus was a great improvement on 
 what it was to have been before the Bishops took it in hand 
 a year or two previous to its publication. 
 
 ' I wonder what the Pope's doctrinal points are. The 
 Bishop spoke of a meeting like that for the Immaculate 
 Conception, which would be a serious thing, as being so 
 unusual.' 
 
 To Miss Bowles. 
 
 'January 3rd, 1866. 
 
 ' . . . When I published my letter to Pusey [Manning] 
 sent two letters praising — but a little while after he sent two 
 Bishops an article (in print) which was to appear in the 
 Dubliyi against portions of it, asking their sanction to it. 
 The one replied that, so far from agreeing with the article, he 
 heartily agreed with me, — the other that, since he was my 
 natural judge he would not commit himself by any previous 
 extra-judicial opinion, and on the contrary, if the article was 
 published, he should recommend me to commence ecclesias- 
 tical proceedings against the editor, in that he, a layman, had 
 ventured seriously to censure a priest. TJiis was the cause of 
 two episcopal letters in the Tablet . . . 
 
 ' Dr. F.'s letter is inost kind, and pray return him my hearty 
 thanks, saying that I have seen his letter. Such words as his 
 are words to rest upon, and thank God for. It has been my 
 lot, since I was a Catholic, to find few hearts among my own 
 friends to shew any kindness to me. . . . Our Bishop said 
 to me that he considered I was under a " dispensation of 
 mortifications " — and, in truth, since the Holy Father first in 
 his kindness called me to Rome, I don't think I have had 
 one single encouragement. During my stay there in 1846-7 
 he used some words of blame on a sermon which I preached 
 there (much against my will) and which was reported to him 
 as severe on Protestant visitors. In 1859 he sent me a 
 message of serious rebuke — (you are the first person anywhere
 
 OXFORD AGAIN (1866-1867) 125 
 
 to whom I have told this) Mgr. Barnabo told it our Bishop, 
 our Bishop, Father St. John, and he to me, I have not told it 
 to our own Fathers — apropos of some words I used in the 
 Rambler which certainly might have been better chosen, but 
 which had really a right meaning which I could have explained. 
 What encouragement then have I to go to Rome or preach 
 at Rome, being so little able to express myself in Italian, 
 and so certain to be ill reported by those who ought to be 
 my friends ? Mgr. Talbot took part with Faber and treated 
 me most inconsiderately, and on that occasion the Pope 
 alone stood my friend, and I think he would alv/ays do so if 
 he were suffered. 
 
 ' Well, quite synchronously with Faber's death, this other 
 opposition arose. I think this of him (Manning) : he wishes 
 me no ill, but he is determined to bend or break all opposi- 
 tion. He has an iron will and resolves to have his own way. 
 On his promotion he wished to make me a Bishop in partibtis. 
 I declined. I wish to have my own true liberty ; it would 
 have been a very false step on my part to have accepted it. 
 He wanted to gain me over. He has never offered me any 
 place or office. The only one I am fit for, the only one I 
 would accept, a place at Oxford, he is doing all he can to 
 keep me from. I have no heart or strength to do anything 
 at Rome as you propose. I am not better than St. Basil, 
 and St. Thomas of Canterbury, St. Joseph Calasanctius, or 
 St. Alfonso Liguori. The truth will come out when I am 
 gone hence.' 
 
 To THE Same, 
 
 'April i6th, 1866, 
 
 • •••••« 
 
 ' As to myself, you don't consider that I am an old man 
 and must husband my strength. When I passed my letter 
 (to Pusey) through the Press and wrote my notes, I was con- 
 fined to my bed, or barely sitting up. I had a most serious 
 attack— it might have been far worse. I did not know how 
 much worse till (through God's mercy) it was all over. It 
 would have been very imprudent to have done more. Nor 
 would I write now, hastily. I should have much to read for 
 it. Recollect, to write theology is like dancing on the tight 
 rope some hundred feet above the ground. It is hard to keep 
 from falling, and the fall is great. Ladies can't be in the 
 position to try. The questions are so subtle, the distinctions 
 so fine, and critical, jealous eyes so many. Such critics would 
 be worth nothing, if they had not the power of writing to 
 Rome now that communication is made so easy, — and you
 
 126 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 may get into hot water before you know where you are. The 
 necessity of defending myself at Rome would almost kill me 
 with the fidget. You don't know me when you suppose I 
 " take heed of the motley flock of fools." No, — it is authority 
 that I fear. " Di me terrent, et Jupiter hostis." I have had great 
 work to write even what I have written, and I ought to be 
 most deeply thankful that I have so wonderfully succeeded. 
 Two Bishops, one my own, have spontaneously and gener- 
 ously come forward. Why cannot you believe that letter 
 of mine, in which I said I did not write more because I was 
 " tired " ? This was the real reason. Then others came in. 
 The subject I had to write upon ^ opened, and I found I had 
 a great deal to read before I could write. Next, I felt I had 
 irritated many good people, and I wished the waves to sub- 
 side before I began to play the Aeolus a second time. More- 
 over, I was intending to make a great change. I thought at 
 length my time had come. I had introduced the narrow end 
 of the wedge, and made a split. I feared it would split 
 fiercely and irregularly, and I thought by withdrawing the 
 wedge the split might be left at present more naturally to 
 increase itself. Everything I see confirms me in my view. I 
 have various letters from all parts of the country approving 
 of what I have already done. The less I do myself, the more 
 others will do. It is not well to put oneself too forward. 
 Englishmen don't like to be driven. I am sure it is good 
 policy to be quiet just now. 
 
 ' I have long said : " the night cometh," &c., but that does 
 not make it right to act in a hurry. Better not do a thing 
 than do it badly. I must be patient and wait on God. If it 
 is His Will I should do more He will give me time. I am 
 not serving Him by blundering. 
 
 ' You will be glad to know, (what, at present, is a great 
 secret) that we are likely to have a house at Oxford after all. 
 Be patient and all will be well.' 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 ' May 23rd, 1866. 
 
 ' I should have written to you before this to say so, but I 
 have hoped day by day to tell you something of this Oxford 
 scheme, but I have nothing to tell. It is just a month to-day 
 since we sent in our remarks on the Bishop's offer, and he 
 has not yet replied. He called and asked the meaning of 
 some parts of the letter, and no answer has come. I do not 
 think his hesitation arises so much from anything we have 
 
 ' Papal Infallibility.
 
 OXFORD AGAIN (1866-1867) 127 
 
 said, as from a vague misgiving when it comes to the point, 
 and perhaps from what people say to him. Two years ago 
 there was a bold assertion that I was just the last man 
 whom Oxford men would bear to be in Oxford, and from 
 something the Bishop said it would appear that this idea is 
 not altogether without effect upon him. I wish it were de- 
 cided one way or the other, for it keeps us in various ways 
 in suspense. It must now be decided for good and all, for 
 my age neither promises a future, nor is consistent with this 
 work-impeding uncertainty. 
 
 ' We are going to have a Latin Play next week in honour 
 of St. Philip. I wish you were with us.' 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 •Nov. nth, 1866. 
 
 ' I got your July letter before I set out, though I had not 
 time to answer it. You were the first to give me information 
 of Cardinal Reisach being in England. Had I had the 
 slightest encouragement, I should have called on him, for 
 I knew him at Rome. But, though he was at Oscott, I did 
 not know of it till he was gone. Mr. Pope from this house 
 went up to London and saw the Archbishop and the 
 Cardinal. Neither of them even mentioned my name. The 
 Cardinal was sent, I am told, for three days to W. G. Ward's, 
 where of course he would hear one side fairly and fully 
 enough, but it is a one-sided way of getting at the true state 
 of things to be content with the information of a violent 
 partizan. It is on account of things of this kind that I view 
 with equanimity the prospect of a thorough routing out of 
 things at Rome,— not till some great convulsions take place 
 (which may go on for years and years, and when I can do 
 neither good nor harm) and religion is felt to be in the midst 
 of trials, red-tapism will go out of Rome, and a better spirit 
 come in, and Cardinals and Archbishops will have some of 
 the reality they had, amid many abuses, in the Middle Ages. 
 At present things arc in appearance as effete, though in a 
 different way, thank God, as they were in the tenth century. 
 We are sinking into a sort of Novatianism — the heresy which 
 the early Popes so strenuously resisted. Instead of aiming 
 at being a world-wide power, we are shrinking into ourselves, 
 narrowing the lines of communion, trembling at freedom of 
 thought, and using the language of dismay and despair at 
 the prospect before us, instead of, with the high spirit of the 
 warrior, going out conquering and to conquer. ... I believe 
 the Pope's spirit is simply that of martyrdom, and is utterly 
 different from that implied in these gratuitous shriekings
 
 128 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 which surround his throne. But the power of God is abroad 
 upon the earth, and He will settle things in spite of what 
 cliques and parties may decide. 
 
 ' I am glad you like my sermon, — the one thing I wished 
 to oppose is the coward despairing spirit of the day.' 
 
 •January 8th, 1867. 
 
 ' When I heard those words of the Holy Father [criticis- 
 ing the Rambler article already referred to], I was far from 
 silent under them. It has always seemed to me, as the 
 Saints say, that self-defence, though not advisable ordinarily, 
 is a duty when it is a question of faith. The Bishop too 
 wished me to write to Rome ; but the question was, to 
 whom. He proposed Mgr. Barnabo, but I explained that 
 I could not account him my friend. The question then 
 was, to whom else? Cardinal Wiseman was at Rome, and 
 I wrote to him a long letter minutely going into the matter, 
 and saying that, if I were only told what the special points 
 were in which I was wrong, I would explain myself and 
 I had no doubt I could do so most satisfactorily. The 
 Cardinal got my letter, but he never answered it, never 
 alluded to it. But six (I think) months after he sent me a 
 message by Dr. Manning, to say that I should not hear 
 more of it. 
 
 ' I wished to explain, because it is impossible I should 
 not hear more of it, — indeed I know it created a lasting 
 suspicion on the minds of Roman authorities. The Bishop 
 had advised me to give up the Rambler, else I should have 
 taken an opportunity of attempting to explain myself in a 
 subsequent number. I say " attempt," for it is poor work 
 answering when you do not know the point of the charge. 
 The Bishop indeed had told me the paragraph, and in- 
 dependently of him a theologian in England had charged 
 me with heresy on two or three counts, but I could not 
 answer a man who had condemned before he heard me. 
 What I have ever intended to do was to take the first 
 opportunity of explaining myself Last year I thought my 
 letter to Pusey would have given me an opportunity ; so it 
 would if I had gone on to the subject of the Pope and the 
 Church, — and if I still go on to it, I probably shall do as 
 I intended. . , . 
 
 * I have already asked the Bishop about our collecting 
 money [for the Oxford scheme]. You speak as if I were 
 dawdling and losing time. So I should be if the work were 
 one which / had chosen as God's work. But on the contrary, 
 it has been forced on me against my will, and certainly, if
 
 OXFORD AGAIN (1866-1867) 129 
 
 not against my judgment, yet not with it, or my will would 
 not be against it. It would be a great inconsistency in me 
 to let six months pass and do nothing were I convinced it 
 was the will of Providence, — -but I do not feel this. I only 
 go because I fear to be deaf to a Divine call, but, if anything 
 happened in the six months to prevent it, that would be to 
 me a sign that there never had been a Divine call. It is 
 cowardice not to fight when you feel it to be your duty to 
 fight, but, when you do not feel it is your duty, to fight 
 is not bravery, but self will. 
 
 ' As to defending myself, you may make yourself quite 
 sure I never will, unless it is a simple duty. Such is a 
 charge against my religious faith — such against my veracity 
 — such any charge in which the cause of religion is involved. 
 But, did I go out and battle commonly, I should lose my 
 time, my peace, my strength, and only shew a detestable 
 sensitiveness. I consider that Time is the great remedy 
 and Avenger of all wrongs, as far as this world goes. If 
 only we are patient, God works for us. He works for those 
 who do not work for themselves. Of course an inward 
 brooding over injuries is not patience, but a recollecting with 
 a view to the future is prudence.' 
 
 The renewed opposition of Ward and Herbert Vaughan 
 to the Oxford scheme, and their conviction that Newman's 
 presence there would prove a magnet, now as in 1864 encom- 
 passed his scheme with immense difficulties. ' As Cardinal 
 Barnabo has already on three distinct occasions acted un- 
 comfortably towards me,' Newman wrote to Canon Walker, 
 ' I will begin nothing and will spend nothing until I have his 
 leave so distinctly that he cannot undo it. Nothing can be 
 kinder or more considerate than the Bishop has been. And 
 besides, since I know that there were powerful influences 
 from home which were especially directed against the Oratory 
 going to Oxford in 1864, the event will alone decide whether 
 or not those influences will remain in a quiescent state now.' 
 
 Still, to give to Newman and his Oratory the Oxford 
 Mission was so simple a proposal, and one so obviously 
 within the discretion of his diocesan, that it was hardly con- 
 ceivable that Propaganda would refuse to allow it. It was 
 understood from the first that no allusion to the bearing of 
 the scheme on the interests of Catholic undergraduates at 
 Oxford was to be made in any public announcement. A 
 VOL. II. K
 
 i^o 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 church to be built by Newman in Oxford, as a memorial of 
 the Oxford conversions, was an unassailable project. A fresh 
 plot of ground in St. Aldate's Street had been bought by 
 Newman before the end of 1865, and Father William Neville 
 bought two adjoining plots in 1866. Negotiations were 
 pending as to another piece of land belonging to the St. 
 Aldate's traders ; but still, the suspicions in some quarters 
 that any fresh connection between Newman and Oxford 
 would mean an encouragement of ' mixed education,' made 
 him hesitate to clinch the bargain, lest his purchases might 
 again prove useless and the land have simply to be 
 re-sold. He was for months in most painful uncertainty as 
 to the future. On May 17, 1866, he writes to James 
 Hope-Scott deeply depressed and full of doubt as to the 
 issue of events. On June 10, on the other hand, he tells 
 Lord Blachford that his going to Oxford is all but certain. 
 He had at this time that vivid sense of the difficulties of 
 his task which rendered all initiation so irksome to him. 
 It had been the same with each work he had attempted 
 as a Catholic — the foundation of the Oratory and of the 
 Catholic University, the Scripture translation, the editorship 
 of the Rambler. He wrote thus to W. J. Copeland at the 
 end of May : 
 
 ' You can't tell how very much down I am at the thought 
 of going to Oxford, which is now very probable. I should 
 not go there with any intention of catching at converts — 
 though of course I wish to bring out clearly and fully what 
 I feel to be the Truth — but the notion of getting into hot 
 water, is most distasteful to me, now when I wish to be a 
 little quiet. I cannot be in a happier position than I am. 
 But, were I ever so sure of incurring no collisions with 
 persons I love, still the mere publicity is a great trial to 
 me. And even putting that aside, the very seeing Oxford 
 again, since I am not one with it, would be a cruel thing — it 
 is like the dead coming to the dead. O dear, dear, how I 
 dread it — but it seems to be the will of God, and I do not 
 know how to draw back.' 
 
 To St. John he wrote from London on June 23 : 
 
 ' Westminster Palace Hotel : Saturday. 
 
 ' Hope-Scott has sent William [Neville] to Oxford this 
 morning to see about buying more land. He is to return by
 
 OXFORD AGAIN (1866-1867) 131 
 
 dinner time, and we dine with Hope-Scott at half past 
 seven. 
 
 ' We dined with Acton yesterday, and after dinner came 
 Monteith, the O'Conor Don, Mr. Maxwell, Blennerhassett, 
 &c. On Thursday we met at Hope-Scott's all the Kerrs. 
 At Gladstone's breakfast I met young Lady Lothian, Lord 
 Lyttelton, General Beauregard &c. Tomorrow we lunch with 
 the [Frank] Wards and dine with Bellasis. On Thursday I am 
 to dine with the Simeons to meet Mr. Chichester Fortescue, 
 Stanley and perhaps Gladstone. On Monday we shall break- 
 fast with Badeley. So you see in my old age I am learning 
 to be a man of fashion.' 
 
 On July 25 Newman sends Hope-Scott a letter from 
 Bishop Ullathorne 'which seems to show that we shall not 
 be sent to Oxford at all.' 
 
 By the end of the year, however, the permission of 
 Propaganda was obtained, and Newman was at last enabled 
 to issue a formal circular, which ran as follows : 
 
 ' Father Newman, having been entrusted with the Mission 
 of Oxford, is proceeding, with the sanction of Propaganda, to 
 the establishment there of a House of the Oratory. 
 
 ' Some such establishment in one of the great seats of 
 learning seems to be demanded of English Catholics, at a 
 time when the relaxation both of controversial animosity and 
 of legal restriction has allowed them to appear before their 
 countrymen in the full profession and the genuine attributes 
 of their Holy Religion. 
 
 * And, while there is no place in England more likely 
 than Oxford to receive a Catholic community with fairness, 
 interest, and intelligent curiosity, so on the other hand the 
 English Oratory has this singular encouragement in placing 
 itself there, that it has been expressly created and blessed 
 by the reigning Pontiff for the very purpose of bringing 
 Catholicity before the educated classes of society, and 
 especially those classes which represent the traditions and 
 the teaching of Oxford. 
 
 ' Moreover, since many of its priests have been educated 
 at the Universities, it brings to its work an acquaintance and 
 a sympathy with academical habits and sentiments, which 
 are a guarantee of its inoffensive bearing towards the members 
 of another communion, and which will specially enable it to 
 discharge its sacred duties in the peaceable and conciliatory 
 spirit which is the historical characteristic of the sons of 
 St. Philip Neri. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' Father Newman has already secured a site for an 
 Oratory Church and buildings in an eligible part of Oxford ; 
 and he now addresses himself to the work of collecting the 
 sums necessary for carrying his important undertaking into 
 effect. This he is able to do under the sanction of the 
 following letter from the Bishop of the diocese, which it 
 gives him great satisfaction to publish : 
 
 ' " My dear Dr. Newman, — Oxford is the only city in 
 England of importance, which has a Catholic congregation 
 without a Catholic Church. A small room, devoid of archi- 
 tectural pretension, built three quarters of a century ago, 
 at the back of the priest's dwelling, and in the suburb of 
 St. Clement's, represents the hidden and almost ignominious 
 position of Catholic worship at Oxford. The only school- 
 room for Catholic children is a sort of scullery attached to 
 the same priest's residence, which most of the children can 
 only reach after an hour's walk from their homes. Even the 
 Protestants of Oxford cry shame upon this state of things ; 
 whilst the Catholics have long and earnestly desired to see it 
 amended. 
 
 ' " It is then with great satisfaction that I find you disposed 
 to answer the call, so often made upon you, to build a Church 
 in Oxford, with the view of ultimately establishing an Oratory 
 there of St. Philip Neri. 
 
 ' " Whatever exertions, and whatever sacrifices, this under- 
 taking may call for at your hands, I believe that j^ou;- taking 
 up the work of building a Church and Oratory in Oxford 
 will secure its accomplishment. You will awaken an interest 
 in the work, and will draw forth a disposition in many 
 persons to help and to co-operate in its success, which 
 another might fail to do. 
 
 • " If we consider it as a monument of gratitude to God for 
 the conversions of the last thirty years ; who could be so 
 properly placed in front of this undertaking? If we look 
 upon that Mission as the witness of Catholic Truth in the 
 chief centre of Anglican enquiry, whose name can be so fitly 
 associated with that Mission ? If we take the generous work 
 to our hearts in its prime intention, that of saving souls for 
 whom Christ died, who of all good Catholics will refuse to 
 join their generosity with yours, in building up this blessed 
 work for the glory of God, and for peace and good will to 
 men ? 
 
 ' " I pray God, then, to bless you and to prosper the 
 work He has given you to accomplish ; and I pray also 
 that He will deign to bless and to reward all those
 
 OXFORD AGAIN (1866-1S67) 133 
 
 Christian souls who shall co-operate with you in this work 
 of benediction. 
 
 *" And I remain, my dear Dr. Newman, 
 
 Your faithful and affectionate servant in Christ, 
 
 ^ W. B. Ullathorne. 
 • " To the Very Rev. Dr. Newman." 
 
 ' It is under these circumstances, with these reasonable 
 claims, and with this authoritative sanction, that Father 
 Newman brings his object before the public ; and he ventures 
 to solicit all who take an interest in it for contributions 
 upon a scale adequate to the occasion, contributions large 
 enough and numerous enough for carrying out an important 
 work in a manner worthy of the Catholic name, worthy of 
 the most beautiful city and one of the great and ancient 
 Universities of England. 
 
 ' It is considered that, on the lowest computation, the 
 outlay for ground, house and church will not be less than 
 from 8,000/. to 10,000/. 
 
 'Birmingham, The Octave of the Epiphany, 1867.' 
 
 The circular gave joy to the compact phalanx of the 
 laity who had for four years been Newman's supporters in 
 the scheme. It struck a chord of sympathy, too, in old 
 Oxford friends like Father Coleridge and Monsignor 
 Patterson, who, though endorsing the anti-Oxford policy of 
 the Bishops, cherished still the old reverence for Newman 
 and the old love for Oxford. Patterson wrote to express 
 his happiness at the prospect and sent 100/. The very fact 
 that so intimate a friend of Cardinal Wiseman — intimate too, 
 though in a lesser degree, with his successor — hailed the pro- 
 posed plan, showed that it was regarded at this moment in 
 high places without avowed disapproval. Patterson's letter 
 expressed the feeling which was in many hearts : 
 
 ' January 29th, 1S67. 
 
 'My dear Father Newman,— I can hardly tell you with 
 what feelings I read your note and the circular. Under God 
 I owe the opening of my mind to His Truth to Oxford — 
 Oxford with its spirit of reverence for the past, its very walls 
 and stones crying out of Catholic times and preaching of 
 the City of the living God. And that they were thus vocal 
 we chiefly owe to you. It was you who heard and interpreted 
 them aright and showed to us, then youths, the beauty of 
 Catholic conduct — I allude particularly to that act of yours,
 
 134 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 when in the noontide of your leadership of the good cause, 
 at the word of him whom you esteemed your Bishop you 
 arrested the prime source and current of all your influence 
 without a word of remonstrance or explanation. I cannot 
 but believe that this heroic act was congruously rewarded in 
 your submission to the faith, and now I seethe Hand of God 
 in your being brought back to preach once more in Oxford 
 with the certainty of faith much that you taught us of old as 
 your most earnest conviction, at the wish of your Bishop and 
 with the sanction of Rome. The genius loci is so potent that 
 I sincerely believe there is danger to the faith of young 
 Catholics who go to Oxford, and as some I fear at any rate 
 will study there, it is of the utmost moment that the mission 
 should be a first-rate one in every point of view. 
 
 ' Sunday was the feast of St. John Chrysostom, and I 
 offered the Most Holy Sacrifice in his honour that, as you 
 emulate his eloquence and his learning, you may also, by 
 his intercession, rival him in the success of your ministry. 
 
 ' I heartily wish I could make some offering less inadequate 
 to your charitable labour, and the benefits I owe to Oxford. 
 As it is, I must content myself with the sum of which I 
 enclose half, and if you think my name can possibly be of 
 any use it is entirely at your service. 
 
 ' Believe me, 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 J. L. Patterson.' 
 
 Newman thus replied : 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham : January 30th, 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Patterson, — Your warm and affectionate letter 
 has quite overpowered me. Such feelings are the earnest of 
 efficacious prayers. I shall do well if those prayers go with 
 me. My age is such that I ought to work fast before the 
 night comes, — yet I never can work fast ; I don't expect 
 then much to come of my being at Oxford in what remains 
 to me of life, but, if I have such good prayers as yours, what 
 I may do will bear fruit afterwards. I cannot help having 
 as great a devotion to St. Chrysostom as to any Saint in the 
 Calendar. On his day I came to Birmingham to begin the 
 Mission 1 8 years ago. It was very kind of you to say Mass 
 for me under his intercession. I have said above : " I cannot 
 help," because in most cases from circumstances one chooses 
 one's Saints as patrons, — but St. Chrysostom comes upon one, 
 whether one will or no, and by his sweetness and naturalness 
 compels one's devotion.
 
 OXFORD AGAIN (1866-1867) 135 
 
 ' Thank you for the cheque for 50/., the moiety of your 
 liberal contribution. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately in Christ, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 While the circular respecting the Oxford Mission was 
 widely welcome, it raised a difficulty in the minds of those 
 who did not know the forces at work. Many welcomed 
 Newman's project just because their sons would when going 
 to Oxford have his influence and personal help to support 
 them. Why, then, was no allusion made at all in the circular 
 to the Catholic undergraduates ? But in truth the campaign 
 against sending Catholic boys to Oxford was so energetic 
 that, at the very time when fathers of families were asking 
 this question, Newman received a message from Propaganda 
 peremptorily rebuking him for preparing boys for Oxford at 
 the Oratory school. In his despondency he feared that the 
 school might share the cloud which seemed to be cast over 
 himself and all his work. Father Ambrose was deputed to 
 go to Rome and explain matters ; and to the parents of the 
 boys he frankly told the state of the case, as in the following 
 letter to Sir Justin Shell : 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham : March 22nd, 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Sir Justin, — -A diplomatist and a man of high 
 commands as you have been will allow me, without being 
 thought to take a liberty with you, to ask your confidence 
 while I freely tell you my position as regards our Oratory 
 undertaking. 
 
 ' Two or three years ago, when it was settled by our 
 Bishop that I was to go there, it was on the strict condition 
 that the Oratory took no part in the education of the place. 
 I drew up a circular in which I said merely : " that I went 
 for the sake of the religious instruction of the Catholic youth 
 there " ; and to my surprise the late Cardinal was so angry 
 even with my recognising the fact of their being at Oxford in 
 any way, that he sent the news of it to Rome, though I had 
 not actually issued the paper, and it has created a prejudice 
 against me ever since. Accordingly in the circular I sent you 
 the other day, I could not put in a word about Catholic youth 
 being at Oxford ; and the intention of the present Archbishop 
 is, if he can, to stamp them out from the place. However, 
 this has not been enough, — a further step has been taken, for 
 last Monday I got a letter from Propaganda saying that they
 
 136 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 had heard that I had in my School here some youths 
 preparing for Oxford, and solemnly ordering me neither 
 directly nor indirectly to do anything to promote young men 
 going there. 
 
 ' You are too well acquainted with a soldier's duties, not 
 to know that it is impossible for me to disobey the orders of 
 my commanders in the Church Militant. So, what I must do 
 as regards the School is, to my great sorrow, to relinquish 
 those who go to Oxford for a short time before they go 
 there, if I should find they need, in addition to the general 
 instruction we give them here, any special preparation for the 
 University. 
 
 ' Now before proceeding, I will tell you my own opinion 
 on the matter. I differ from you decidedly in this, viz., that, 
 if I had my will, I would have a large Catholic University, as 
 I hoped might have been setup in Dublin when I went there. 
 But I hold this to be a speculative perfection which cannot 
 be carried out in practice, — and then comes the question what 
 is to be done under the circumstmices. Secondly then, I say 
 that Oxford is a very dangerous place to faith and morals. 
 This I grant, but then I say that all places are dangerous^ — 
 the world is dangerous. I do not believe -that Oxford is 
 more dangerous than Woolwich, than the army, than 
 London, — and I think you cannot keep young men under 
 glass cases. Therefore I am on the whole not against young 
 men going to Oxford ; though at the same time there are 
 those whom, from their special circumstances, of idleness, 
 extravagance, &c. &c., I certainly should not advise to go 
 there. 
 
 * Such is my opinion, and it will surprise you to hear that, 
 be it good or be it bad, no one in authority has ever asked 
 for it all through the discussion of the last two or three 
 years. 
 
 * And now let me go on to the practical question of the 
 moment. From that and other articles in the Westminster 
 Gazette, and from the letters which have come to me from 
 Propaganda, I am sure that more stringent measures are 
 intended, to hinder young Catholics going to Oxford, and 
 I think they can only be prevented by the laity. What 
 I should like you to do then is not to withdraw your name 
 from our subscription list, but to join with other contributors, 
 as you have a right to do, in letting me know formally your 
 own opinion on the subject. And for myself I can only say 
 that, if I find the sense of the contributors is against my 
 going to Oxford without their being let alone in sending
 
 OXFORD AGAIN (1866-1867) 137 
 
 their sons there, I will not take their money, as I should be 
 doing so under false pretences. 
 
 ' My dear Sir Justin, 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Such scruples as those expressed in the concluding words 
 of this letter were not regarded by Newman's friends. Con- 
 tributions came in freely, and the establishment of an Oxford 
 Oratory was spoken of as an assured prospect. 
 
 At last, then, after the three years of suspense, after all 
 the ups and downs of the struggle, the pain caused by the 
 opposition of old friends, the greater pain given by the 
 charges against his loyalty as a Catholic, all seemed to 
 promise well. The one position in which he felt he could, in 
 the years that remained to him, do a real work for the Church 
 seemed assured to him. He thought he saw God's Will 
 clearly. If any fresh enterprise was at his age anxious and 
 hard, to support him in this he had the conviction that it was 
 to him a most suitable task and was assigned him by lawful 
 authority. The clinging affection he ever preserved for 
 Oxford, moreover, must make it a labour of love. 
 
 He was now actively engaged in discussing the site of 
 the new church. Was it to be built on the ground he had ? 
 Or should a new site of which he had heard be preferred to 
 the old ? 
 
 ' Our present piece,' he writes to Hope-Scott, ' is so situated 
 as to be almost shaking a iist at Christ Church. It is osten- 
 tatious — no one can go in or out of our projected Church 
 without being seen. Again it is not central — but New Inn 
 Hall Street at one end of it leads into St. Ebbe's and to St 
 Thomas' — at the other end it opens upon St. Mary Magdalen's 
 Church and Broad Street and Jesus Lane — and by George 
 Lane upon Worcester College &c. and St. Giles' and Park 
 Villas — and being approached in such various ways it is 
 approachable silently. Again the Union Debating Room is 
 on the opposite side of the street— and opens into the street 
 at its back through its garden. There is a good (but ugly) 
 stone house upon the ground flush with the street, which 
 would save building as far as it goes — whereas our houses 
 opposite Christ Church are lath and plaster. Of course the 
 question occurs whether we can get our present ground off
 
 138 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 our hands. Again, though I have not asked many people 
 yet, still as yet I hear no one in favour of the new ground. 
 Gaisford, Pollen, and Glutton the architect, are for keeping 
 what we have got.' 
 
 Although the formal permission — so he was told — had 
 come from Rome, the old Oxford priest, Mr. Gomberbach, 
 who.se place the Oratorians were to take, seemed to be un- 
 accountably slow in moving, and put the new-comers off with 
 excuse after excuse. But this was regarded at the Oratory 
 as only a rather tiresome eccentricity. Newman, impatient to 
 make his plans, sent Father William Neville on March 21 to 
 ascertain definitely the date of Mr. Gomberbach's departure, 
 and he at last announced that he should be gone soon after 
 Easter. Neville was to go to Oxford again on Saturday, 
 April 6 — the eve of Passion Sunday. In the morning he 
 packed his portmanteau, and then, in company with Newman, 
 went for a long-remembered walk on the Highfield Road, past 
 St. George's Ghurch. The memory of it was handed on by 
 Father Neville to the present writer, in more than one conver- 
 sation. Newman, sunshine on his face, talked of the prospect. 
 ' Earlier failures do not matter now,' he said ; ' I see that I 
 have been reserved by God for this. There are signs of a 
 religious reaction in Oxford against the Liberalism and in- 
 differentism of ten years ago. It is evidently a moment 
 when a strong and persuasive assertion of Christian and 
 Catholic principles will be invaluable. Such men as Mark 
 Pattison may conceivably be won over. Although I am not 
 young, I feel as full of life and thought as ever I did. It may 
 prove to be the inauguration of a second Oxford Movement.' 
 Then he turned to the practical object of Neville's visit. 
 ' Have a good look at the Catholic undergraduates in Church. 
 Tell me how many they are. Try and find out who they are 
 and what they are like. Let me know where they sit in the 
 Church, that I may picture beforehand how I shall have to 
 stand when I preach, in order to see them naturally, and 
 address them. Tell me, too, what the Ghurch services are 
 at present, and we will discuss what changes may be made 
 with advantage.' Thus happily talking they returned to 
 the Oratory. The servant, who opened the door to admit 
 them, at once gave Newman a long blue envelope, and said :
 
 OXFORD AGAIN (1866-1867) 139 
 
 ' Canon Estcourt has called from the Bishop's house and 
 asked me to be sure to give you this immediately on your 
 return.' Newman opened and read the letter, and turned 
 to William Neville : ' All is over. I am not allowed to go.' 
 No word more was spoken. The Father covered his face 
 with his hands, and left his friend, who went to his room and 
 unpacked his portmanteau. 
 
 What the Bishop's letter told Newman was this : that, 
 coupled with the formal permission for an Oratory at Oxford, 
 Propaganda had sent a ' secret instruction ' to Dr. Ullathorne, 
 to the effect that, if Newman himself showed signs of intend- 
 ing to reside there, the Bishop was to do his best ' blandly 
 and suavely ' (' blande suaviterque ') to recall him.^ Mr. 
 Comberbach's delay was explained. The Bishop had pur- 
 posed going to Rome and getting this instruction cancelled. 
 He trusted, therefore, that Newman would never hear of it, 
 for he knew that he might easily interpret it as showing a 
 want of confidence in him on the part of Rome. 
 
 The ' instruction ' was evidently the result of a compromise 
 between the parties who were for and against the Oxford 
 Oratory. The friends of Ward and Vaughan had urged that 
 Newman's residence in Oxford would attract all Catholic 
 young men to the University. Yet a strong party favoured 
 his scheme. To grant an Oratory, provided it did not mean 
 Newman's permanent residence at Oxford, seemed a mezzo 
 termine. The Bishop had mentioned when consulting Propa- 
 ganda that Newman had disclaimed, in speaking to him, any 
 intention of residing at Oxford. This had been urged by 
 Newman's friends as a strong argument against inhibiting the 
 scheme. If Newman did not mean to live at Oxford there 
 was really no case for forbidding the new Oratory. This 
 argument proved decisive. Newman's friends prevailed. 
 Permission was accorded. But at the last moment the Holy 
 Father had pointed out that the decisive argument rested on 
 the rather precarious basis of a remark of Newman to his 
 Bishop. The Bishop should be instructed to make sure that 
 this part of the arrangement was carried out.'^ But he was to 
 
 ' ' Patrem Newman si forte de sua residentia in urbcm Oxfordiensem trans- 
 ferenda cogitantem videris . . . blande suaviterque revocare studeas.' 
 * The Holy Father himself insisted on this point, see p. 161.
 
 I40 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 use the utmost courtesy and only to speak in case of necessity. 
 Hence the secret instruction. 
 
 But while the Bishop had kept the affair secret, now it had 
 leaked out in the papers. A Catholic layman, Mr. Martin, 
 the Roman correspondent of the Weekly Register, had come 
 to know of it privately, and had stated in a letter to that 
 journal, published anonymously, that the Holy Father had 
 ' inhibited' Newman's proposed Mission. He had, moreover, 
 hinted at just that interpretation of this step which would 
 be most painful to Newman — that it was due to suspicions 
 at Rome in regard of his orthodoxy.^ The only possible 
 plan therefore was to tell the whole story to Newman with- 
 out delay, before unauthorised rumours could reach him. 
 ' The letter in question,' Newman wrote to Canon Walker 
 on April 14, ' is by Mr. Martin, the person whom Dr. Clifford 
 and my own Bishop answered last year. He is of course 
 nothing in himself — but he represents unseen and unknown 
 persons. His interference has been most happy — for he has 
 let the cat out of the bag — and a black cat it is. It may 
 do a great deal of mischief — that is, the cat, not his reveal- 
 ing it — for, depend upon it, its owners are men of influence.' 
 To the Oratorian community at large scarcely a word more 
 was said. On the spur of the moment Newman wrote to 
 the Bishop resigning the Oxford Mission. But those Fathers 
 whom he consulted recommended delay, and the letter was 
 kept back. A full explanation of the 'secret instruction' 
 (these Fathers held) must be sought in Rome. Newman's own 
 action must also be vindicated if necessary. And, for this, the 
 coming visit of Ambrose St. John and Bittleston (in con- 
 nection with the affairs of the school) offered an exception- 
 ally good opportunity which Newman determined to utilise. 
 
 Meanwhile Newman's own sad and indignant feelings are 
 given in the following letters to Henry Wilberforce and to 
 Father Coleridge : 
 
 ^Private. The Oratory, Birmingham : April i6th, 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Henry, — Thank you for your kind letter. 
 
 ' The Weekly Register letter has been my good friend 
 ... as necessitating the disclosure of some things which 
 Cardinal Barnabo hid from me, and which would have 
 
 ' For the text of the letter in the Weekly Register see Appendix, p. 543.
 
 OXFORD AGAIN (1866-1867) 141 
 
 prevented me from accepting the Mission of Oxford, had I 
 known of them. No sort of blame attaches to our Bishop, 
 who is my good friend — He hoped to have made these 
 crooked ways straight, which he could not prevent existing, 
 for they were not his ways ; but Mr. Martin was too much 
 for him, and, before he could gain his point, has let the 
 cat out of the bag. ... Do you recollect in " Harold the 
 Dauntless " how the Abbot of Durham gets over the fierce 
 pagan Dane ? Since that time there has been a tradition 
 among the Italians that the lay mind is barbaric — fierce and 
 stupid — and is destined to be outwitted, and that fine craft 
 is the true weapon of Churchmen. When I say the lay mind, 
 I speak too narrowly — it is the Saxon, Teuton, Scandinavian, 
 French mind. Cardinal Barnabo has been trying his hand 
 on my barbarism — and has given directions that if I took his 
 leave to go to Oxford to the letter, and did go there, I was 
 to be recalled " blande et suaviter." Hope-Scott is so pained 
 that he has withdrawn his 1000/. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Dr. Newman to Father Coleridge. 
 
 ' The Oratory, Birmingham : April 26th, 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Father Coleridge, — . . . When last Christmas I 
 found the words " conditionate et provisorie" in the letter (of 
 Cardinal Barnabo) to our Bishop, (though I had no suspicion 
 at all of a secret instruction such as there really was con- 
 tained in it) I told the Bishop formally my suspicions. . . . 
 You may fancy how he felt what I said, being conscious, as 
 he was, of the secret instruction — and so he said that I had 
 better wait till he went to Rome in May, and I have waited, 
 except that I have begun to collect the money. Also I was 
 going to commence my personal work at Oxford on the 
 second Sunday after Easter, intending to preach every 
 Sunday through the term, which, had I carried it out, would 
 have led to a certainty to the Bishop's " blanda et suavis 
 revocatio" ; and thus, as it turns out, even though Mr. Martin 
 had not written a word, things would have come to a crisis. 
 The reason determining me to go to Oxford at once, in spite 
 of the Bishop's advice at Christmas (though he fully came 
 into the plan of the Oratory going to Oxford at Easter), when 
 I after a while proposed it, was the delay that was likely to 
 take place in beginning the Church, and all my friends kept 
 saying : " You must do something directly to clench on your 
 part Propaganda's permission to go, or the Archbishop will
 
 142 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 be getting the permission reversed." When then I found it 
 impossible to make a demonstration in bricks and mortar 
 (which for myself I had, in consequence of the suspicions felt, 
 deprecated) nothing remained but to make a demonstration 
 by actually preaching at Oxford, — and this was to my view 
 of the matter far more acceptable because a counter order 
 from Propaganda would have been serious, had we begun to 
 build, but would have been of no consequence at all, had we 
 done nothing more than preach in the Chapel at St. Clement's. 
 
 ' However, as it has turned out, I am stopped both before 
 building and preaching. 
 
 ' It is perfectly true, as you say, that both sides have not 
 been heard at Rome. The questions you speak of circulated 
 in December 1864, were too painful to speak about. For 
 myself, up to this date no one has asked my opinion, 
 and then those who might, by asking, have known it, have 
 encouraged or suffered all sorts of reports as to what my 
 opinion is, instead of coming to me for it. 
 
 ' It is my cross to have false stories circulated about me, 
 and to be suspected in consequence. I could not have a 
 lighter one. I would not change it for any other. Ten years 
 ago I was accused to the Pope of many things (nothing to do 
 with doctrine). I went off to Rome at an enormous in- 
 convenience, and had two interviews with the Holy Father, 
 tete-a-tcte. He was most kind, and acquitted me. But 
 hardly was my back turned but my enemies (for so I must 
 call \.\i^m) practically ^o\. the upper hand. Our Bishop seems 
 to think no great good comes of seeing the Pope, if it is only 
 once seeing him. What chance have I against persons who 
 are day by day at his elbow ? . . . 
 
 * For twenty years I have honestly and sensitively done 
 my best to fulfil the letter and spirit of the directions of the 
 Holy See and Propaganda, and I never have obtained the 
 confidence of anyone at Rome. Only last 3 ear Cardinal 
 Reisach came to England. I had known him in Rome. 
 
 o 
 
 He never let me know he was in England. He came to 
 Oscott, and I did not know it. He went to see my ground 
 at Oxford, but he was committed, not to me, but to the 
 charge of P^ather Coffin. . . . 
 
 ' I have lost my desire to gain the good will of those who 
 thus look on me. I have abundant consolation in the 
 unanimous .sympathy of those around me. I trust I shall 
 ever give a hearty obedience to Rome, but I never expect 
 in my lifetime any recognition of it. 
 
 ' Yours most sincerely, 
 
 John H. Newman.'
 
 OXFORD AGAIN (1866-1S67) 143 
 
 The utmost indignation was felt and expressed by 
 Newman's friends at the anonymous attack in the Weekly 
 Register, and by many of them at the ' secret instruction ' on 
 the part of Propaganda against his residing at Oxford. This 
 * instruction ' could not be ostensibly attacked. But it was 
 open to those who desired to convey to Newman the feelings 
 it aroused, to express their indignation at the anonymous letter 
 in the newspapers, and their loyal devotion to him. And at 
 the suggestion of Mr. Monsell this course was adopted. An 
 address was presented to him signed by upwards of two 
 hundred names, including nearly all the most prominent 
 members of the English laity, and headed by Lord Edward 
 Howard, the deputy Earl Marshal and guardian to the young 
 Duke of Norfolk. 
 
 The signatures were obtained with great rapidity, at a 
 meeting convened at the Stafford Club directly Mr. Monsell 
 had learnt the state of the case, and before it was known to 
 Newman himself, who had not seen the letter in the Weekly 
 Register} It was dated, indeed, as will be seen, on the very 
 day of Newman's memorable walk with Father Neville before 
 he received the Bishop's note. Its text ran as follows : 
 
 'To THE Very Rev. John Henry Newman, 
 
 * We, the undersigned, have been deeply pained at some 
 anonymous attacks which have been made upon you. They 
 may be of little importance in themselves, but we feel that 
 every blow that touches you inflicts a wound upon the 
 Catholic Church in this country. We hope, therefore, that 
 you will not think it presumptuous in us to express our 
 gratitude for all we owe you, and to assure you how heartily 
 we appreciate the services which, under God, you have been 
 the means of rendering to our holy religion. 
 
 ' Signed The LORD Edward Fitzalan Howard, 
 
 Deputy Earl Marshal ; 
 The Earl of Denbigh, etc. 
 
 •Stafford Club, 6th April 1867.' 
 
 ' The names of Acton, Simpson, and Wetherell do not appear in the address. 
 It was significant of the general feeling against them that Mr. Monsell had to tell 
 Wetherell that he had abstained from asking for their names at first as their 
 presence in the list would prevent others from signing. Mr. Wetherell rcjilicd 
 that this was equally a reason for his declining to sign at the last moment. Acton 
 and Simpson were away from England.
 
 144 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Newman's answer ran as follows : 
 
 ' The Oratory, Birmingham : I2th April 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Monsell, — I acknowledge without delay the 
 high honour done me in the Memorial addressed to me by 
 so many Catholic noblemen and gentlemen, which you 
 have been the medium of conveying to me. The attacks of 
 opponents are never hard to bear when the person who is 
 the subject of them is conscious to himself that they are 
 undeserved, but in the present instance I have small cause 
 indeed for pain or regret at their occurrence, since they have 
 at once elicited in my behalf the warm feelings of so many 
 dear friends who know me well, and of so many others 
 whose good opinion is the more impartial for the very reason 
 that I am not personally known to them. Of such men, 
 whether friends or strangers to me, I would a hundred 
 times rather receive the generous sympathy than have 
 escaped the misrepresentations which are the occasion of 
 their showing it. 
 
 ' I rely on you, my dear Monsell, who from long inti- 
 macy understand me so well, to make clear to them my deep 
 and lasting gratitude in fuller terms than it is possible, 
 within the limit of a formal acknowledgement, to express 
 it, — I am ever your affectionate friend, 
 
 'John H. Newman.' 
 
 That this address was disliked by the extreme party both 
 in England and in Rome, we know from an interesting ex- 
 change of letters between Archbishop Manning and Monsignor 
 Talbot. Manning had his friends among the laity who agreed 
 with him on the Oxford question. And it appears that Mr. 
 Monsell, who at first intended to refer directly to it in the 
 address, had to refrain from doing so in order to gain im- 
 portant signatures. W. G. Ward objected to the sentence, 
 'any blow which touches you inflicts a wound upon the 
 Catholic Church in this country,' as clearly referring to the 
 blow Propaganda had struck at Newman in preventing his 
 going to Oxford — for the Register letter could hardly be 
 treated as important enough to warrant any such expression. 
 Monsell, however, declined to change this expression, and 
 Ward did not sign the address. 
 
 It is clear that the Archbishop was in some alarm lest so 
 influential an address might make Propaganda waver in its 
 policy on the Oxford question, and he wrote to Monsignor 
 Talbot with the object of stiffening its back :
 
 OXFORD AGAIN (1866-1867) 145 
 
 « 8 York Place, W. : 13th Ap. 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Monsignor Talbot, — You will see in the Tablet 
 an address to Dr. Newman signed by most of our chief 
 laymen. 
 
 ' The excessive and personal letter in the W. Register has 
 caused it. 
 
 ' I. The address carefully omits all reference to Oxford. 
 
 ' 2. It is signed also by men most opposed to our youth 
 going there, e.g. Lord Petre. 
 
 '3. But it will be used, and by some it is intended, as a 
 means of pushing onward Dr. Newman's going to Oxford, 
 and ultimately the University scheme. I only wish you to 
 be guarded against supposing the Address to prove that the 
 signers are in favour of the Oxford scheme. Do not let 
 Propaganda alarm itself. If it will only ho. firm and clear we 
 shall get through all this and more. 
 
 ' But if it yield I cannot answer for the future. 
 
 * It will be necessary to take care that no such letters from 
 Rome be sent to our papers. Can you do anything ? — 
 Always affectionately yours, 
 
 ' H. E. M.' 
 
 A second letter written a week later gives some further 
 particulars as to the drafting of the address : 
 
 '8 York Place, W. : Easter Monday, 22nd April 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Monsignor Talbot, — . . . This Address of the 
 laity is as you say a revelation of the absence of Catholic 
 instinct, and the presence of a spirit dangerous in many. 
 
 ' I. It was got up by Mr. Monsell, always in favour of a 
 College in Oxford, and Mr. Frank Ward, whose son is there 
 after preparing with Walford ! 
 
 ' 2. In the first draft the Oxford University question was 
 expressed. Many refused to sign. 
 
 '3. It was then amended to " Oxford Mission." They 
 refused still. 
 
 * 4. It was then reduced to its present terms, and so got 
 them, not without objection. 
 
 ' 5. As it stands it implies that in Dr. Newman's writings 
 there is nothing open to censure, and that to touch him is to 
 wound the Catholic Church. 
 
 ' But if Rome should touch him ? 
 
 * The whole movement is sustained by those who wish young 
 Catholics to go to Oxford. 
 
 'The Bishop of l^irmingham, I must suppose uncon- 
 sciously, has been used by them. It is a great crisis of 
 VOL. II. L
 
 146 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 danger to him. Only do not let him alarm Propaganda by 
 the names and number of these lay signatures. 
 
 ' Many have declared to me that they are as strong against 
 Oxford as I am. 
 
 ' The moment this point is raised the Address will go to 
 pieces, 
 
 ' I have taken care to clear you of all relation to 
 Mr. Martin, and you may rely upon my not wavering. 
 The affair is full of pain, but even this will work for good, 
 
 * Pray place me at the feet of His Holiness, and offer my 
 thanks for providing a home so near to his own side, and by 
 the Apostles. 
 
 ' Once more thanking you, believe me, always affectionately 
 yours, 
 
 ' H. E. M.' 
 
 W, G. Ward was in correspondence with Mgr. Talbot, and 
 both in writing to him and in a letter published in the Weekly 
 Register expressed the criticism on the address to which I 
 have already referred. Mgr. Talbot wrote something of a 
 scolding to Manning, of whose firmness he on his side appeared 
 to have some doubts : 
 
 'Vatican: 25th April, 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Archbishop, — I cannot help writing to you 
 again about the address of the English laity. Although I 
 am the first to condemn the correspondent of the Weekly 
 Register for touching on such a delicate matter, I look upon the 
 address of the English laity as the most offensive production 
 that has appeared in England since the times of Dr. Milner, 
 and if a check be not placed on the laity of England they 
 will be the rulers of the Catholic Church in England instead 
 of the Holy See and the Episcopate. 
 
 'It is perfectly true that a cloud has been hanging over 
 Dr. Newman in Rome ever since the Bishop of Newport 
 delated him to Rome for heresy in his article in the 
 Rambler on consulting the laity on matters of faith. None 
 of his writings since have removed that cloud. Every one of 
 them has created a controversy, and the spirit of them has 
 never been approved in Rome. Now that a set of laymen 
 with Mr. Monsell at their head should have the audacity to 
 say that a blow that touches Dr. Newman is a wound inflicted 
 on the Catholic Church in England, is an insult offered to 
 the Holy See, to Your Grace and all who have opposed his 
 Oxford scheme, in consequence of his having quietly en- 
 couraged young men going to the University, by means of
 
 OXFORD AGAIN (1S66-1S67) 147 
 
 his school, and by preparing two men, a fact which he does 
 not deny. 
 
 ' But I think that even his going to Oxford, which will 
 induce many of the young Catholic nobility and aristocracy 
 to follow, is of minor importance to the attitude assumed by 
 the Stafford Club and the laity of England. 
 
 ' They are beginning to show the cloven foot, which I 
 have seen the existence of for a long time. They are only 
 putting into practice the doctrine taught by Dr. Newman 
 in his article in the Rambler. They wish to govern the 
 Church in England by public opinion, and Mr, Monsell is the 
 most dangerous man amongst them. 
 
 * What is the province of the laity .-* To hunt, to shoot, 
 to entertain. These matters they understand, but to meddle 
 with ecclesiastical matters they have no right at all, and 
 this affair of Newman is a matter purely ecclesiastical. 
 
 * There is, however, one layman an exception to all rule, 
 because he is really a theologian. I mean Dr. Ward. His 
 letter is admirable, and he has attacked the address of the 
 laity in its most vulnerable point. 
 
 ' I was much pained to see the name of Lord Petre 
 amongst those who subscribed their names. No doubt he did 
 not fully see the bearings of the address, because I am told 
 that he has the highest regard for ecclesiastical authority. 
 
 ' Dr. Newman is the most dangerous man in England, 
 and you will see that he will make use of the laity 
 against your Grace. You must not be afraid of him. It will 
 require much prudence, but you must be firm, as the Hoi)' 
 Father still places his confidence in you ; but if you yield 
 and do not fight the battle of the Holy See against the 
 detestable spirit growing up in England, he will begin to 
 regret Cardinal Wiseman, who knew how to keep the laity 
 in order. I tell you all this in confidence, because I already 
 begin to hear some whisperings which might become serious. 
 I am your friend and defend you every day, but you know 
 [Cardinal Barnabo] as well as I do, and how ready he is to 
 throw the blame of everything on others. . . , 
 
 ' Dr. Ullathorne has been the cause of the whole mischief 
 If he had only obeyed the letter of Propaganda and com- 
 municated to Dr. Newman the inhibition placed to his going 
 to Oxford, he could not have sent forth a circular saying that 
 the whole Oxford project had the approbation of the Holy 
 See. 
 
 ' Of course your suffragans are frightened by the address 
 of the laity. You will find yourself much in the position 
 
 L 2
 
 148 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 of Dr. Milner. I hope the clergy will not adopt the Rev. 
 Mr. Waterworth's suggestion of getting up an address to 
 Dr. Newman. That would make matters worse. Adieu. — 
 Believe me affectionately yours, 
 
 'Geo. Talbot.' 
 Archbishop Manning thus replied : 
 
 « 8 York Place : 3rd May 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Talbot, — I have not been influenced by fear or 
 by neutrality, but by the following motives. I believe — 
 
 ' I, That my first duty and work is to restore unity and 
 concord among the bishops ; and that this is vital, and above 
 all other things necessary. 
 
 ' 2. That to get the bishops to act unanimously, as above 
 stated, is a double gain. 
 
 ' 3. That the only way to counteract the unsound opinions 
 now rising among us is to keep the English bishops perfectly 
 united. 
 
 '4, That it would be fatal if the Stafford Club laymen 
 could divide us, and get an Episcopal leader. 
 
 ' 5. That towards Dr. Newman my strongest course is to 
 act in perfect union with the bishops, so that what I do, 
 they do. 
 
 ' 6. That to this end the greatest prudence and circum- 
 spection is necessary. A word or act of mine towards 
 Dr. Newman might divide the bishops and throw some on 
 his side. 
 
 ' 7. That the chief aim of the Anglicans has been to set 
 Dr. Newman and myself in conflict. For five years papers, 
 reviews, pamphlets without number, have endeavoured to 
 do so. 
 
 ' 8. That a conflict between him and me would be as great 
 a scandal to the Church in England, and as great a victory 
 to the Anglicans, as could be. 
 
 ' For all these reasons I am glad that Cardinal B" lays on 
 me the responsibility of the permission given to Dr. Newman 
 to go to Oxford, and says that I did it " to serve an old 
 friend." This has given me untold strength here at this 
 time. 
 
 ' I would ask you to make the substance of this letter 
 known where alone I feel anxious to be understood. I have 
 acted upon the above line with the clearest and most evident 
 reasons. And I believe you will see when we meet that I 
 should have acted unwisely in any other way. We shall 
 have a trying time, but if the bishops are united nothing can 
 hurt us.
 
 OXFORD AGAIN (1866-1867) 149 
 
 ' Dr. Ullathorne has printed a statement of the Oxford 
 affair, and sent a copy to Dr. Neve' for Propaganda. Mind 
 you see it. It is fatal to Dr. Ullathorne's prudence, and to 
 Dr. Newman's going to Oxford. 
 
 ' Fr. Ryder of the Edgbaston Oratory has pubHshed an 
 attack on Ward's book on Encyclicals. Dr. Newman sent it to 
 Ward with a letter adopting it, and saying that he was glad 
 to leave behind him young men to maintain these principles. 
 
 ' This is opportune, but very sad. — Always affectionately 
 
 yours, 
 
 ' H. E. M.' 
 
 These letters reveal a state of feeling among active and 
 influential counsellors of the Holy See in England, which 
 made Newman's determination to take active steps to defend 
 himself in Rome most necessary. 
 
 Newman forthwith drew up and sent to Ambrose St. John 
 the following vieniorandiini expressing his precise views on 
 the Oxford question, in order to make misrepresentation 
 impossible : 
 
 ' I say in the first place that no one in authority has ever 
 up to this time asked my opinion on the subject, and there- 
 fore I never have had formally to make up my mind on it. 
 
 ' Next, I have ever held, said, and written, that the normal 
 and legitimate proceeding is to send youths to a Catholic 
 University, that their religion, science, and literature may go 
 together. 
 
 ' I have thought there were positive dangers to faith and 
 morals in going to Oxford. 
 
 ' But I have thought there were less and fewer dangers, 
 in an Oxford residence, to faith and morals, than there arc 
 at Woolwich, where the standard of moral and social duty is 
 necessarily unchristian, as being simply secular, than there 
 are at Sandhurst, or in London — and especially for this 
 reason, that there is some really religious and moral super- 
 intendence at Oxford, and none at Woolwich or in London. 
 
 ' That the question then lies in a choice of difficulties, a 
 Catholic University being impossible. 
 
 ' And that necessity has no laws. 
 
 ' That, as to the question whether Catholic youths should 
 go to Protestant Colleges at Oxford, or that a Catholic 
 College should be established, abstractedly a Catholic College 
 
 ' The Rector of the English College in Rome.
 
 I50 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 would be the better plan, for in that case they would re- 
 ceive unmixed (Catholic) not mixed education, — but I have 
 thought greater difficulties would in practice attend the 
 establishment of a Catholic College. 
 
 ' That, under the circumstances, what I thought best was 
 to leave things as they had been heretofore ; that is, not to 
 forbid Catholic youths going to Oxford, but to protect them 
 by the presence of a strong Catholic Mission, such as a com- 
 munity of priests would secure. 
 
 ' That I had ever been strong against a prohibition, as 
 putting too great a temptation to disobey ecclesiastical 
 authority in the way of the laity. 
 
 ' But that this did not mean that I had ever positively 
 advocated, or now advocate, Catholic youths going to 
 Oxford, but that I wished the matter decided in each case, as 
 it came, on its own merits ; and I certainly thought that a 
 residence in Oxford would be a great advantage to certain 
 youths, if you could pick them. 
 
 ' I added that, as to myself, I have ever stated and 
 avowed to our Bishop: (i) that my going would draw 
 Catholics there, (2) if there were not Catholics there, I 
 should be at much disadvantage as seeming to go there 
 directly to convert Protestants. Accordingly (3) I had ever 
 been unwilling to go there.' 
 
 Armed with this document, Fathers .St. John and Bittle- 
 ston arrived in Rome at the end of April as Newman's am- 
 bassadors. Their mission and its results shall be described 
 in another chapter. 
 
 No'iE. — Readei's who desire to go further into the details of the ecclesiastical 
 situation at this time will find much correspondence to interest them at pp. 313 
 scq. of the second volume of Purcell's Life of Cardinal Mainiiitg.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE APPEAL TO ROME (1867) 
 
 The true sting of the ' secret instruction ' lay in the inter- 
 pretation which was being put on it by many, and not dis- 
 claimed in authoritative quarters — that Newman's residence 
 in Oxford was feared in Rome because of the influence it 
 would give him in disseminating his theological views. 
 And these views were represented as more or less akin to 
 the worldly Catholicism, the semi-Catholicism (as it was 
 regarded) of the now extinct Home and Foreign Review. 
 This impression as to his ' minirnistic ' theology — to use the 
 slang phrase of the day — was being confirmed by VV. G. 
 Ward's articles in the Dublin Review, in which he insisted on 
 his own analysis of the extent of Papal Infallibility as the 
 only orthodox one. These articles were republished in 1866 
 in a volume entitled ' The Authority of Doctrinal Decisions.' 
 With this volume Newman was known not to agree. 
 He thought it unhistorical and untheological. Yet in the 
 temper of those times there was a disposition to regard the 
 theory which ascribed most power to the Pope, as indicat- 
 ing the most whole-hearted Catholic orthodoxy. ' Manning 
 gave his support to the Dublin theory ; more especially to its 
 maintenance of the infallible certainty of the teaching of the 
 ' Syllabus,' and consequently of the necessity of the Temporal 
 Power of the Papacy, on which that document insisted. 
 Mr. Martin's letter in the Weekly Register intimated (as we 
 have seen) that suspicion of Newman's orthodoxy was at 
 the root of the objection entertained at Rome to his residence 
 in Oxford. Newman from the first saw that this would at 
 least be generally supposed, and realised the evil conse- 
 quences of such a supposition. If he were under a cloud, if his 
 
 ' See Newman's words cited in Vol. I., p. 572.
 
 152 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 views were supposed to be seriously suspect, how could he 
 
 work with any good effect as the champion of the Church in 
 
 Oxford ? Ever cautious in action, he did not finally decide to 
 
 postpone any further step in the Oxford question, without 
 
 first consulting Hope-Scott. His feelings are presented in 
 
 two letters to Hope-Scott. The first was written on the 
 
 very day on which he learnt the existence of the ' secret 
 
 instruction ' : 
 
 'April 6th, 1867. 
 
 ' The real difficulty is this — what is the worth of my voice 
 at Oxford if I am under a cloud ? Already the Protestant 
 periodicals have said that I am not a sound Catholic. I am 
 told so every day. If my opponents can succeed in getting 
 the Pope to grant an inquiry, and keep it hanging over my 
 head for two years, it will be enough. I am for two years 
 unauthoritative and worthless. At the end of two years I 
 may be past work, or anyhow I go to my work with a suspicion 
 on me which an acquittal will not wipe off. If then I take 
 the Oxford Mission in the second week after Easter, I am 
 simply putting my foot into it, and entangling myself with a 
 responsibility and a controversy without any corresponding 
 advantage. I have several weeks yet before I need determine 
 — and various things may happen before then — but I must 
 be prepared with my decision by May 5 th, and there is not 
 too much time to have a view on the matter.' 
 
 'April nth, 1867. 
 
 ' I assure you the letter in the Weekly Register was 
 no laughing matter — the whole Catholic public has been 
 moved. Some friends in London are moving to get up an 
 address to me. The Paper is to make a formal apology next 
 Saturday. It has been a most happy letting the cat out 
 of the bag. If you were in the controvei^sy^ you would see 
 that the one answer flung in my teeth is that Manning is 
 of one religion and I of another. If such a letter as that in 
 the Weekly Register was allowed to pass, I should be in a 
 very false position at Oxford. The Bishop at first thought 
 the secret opposition so serious that he wanted me last 
 Christmas to postpone any measures at Oxford for six 
 months, and it was mainly your advice to begin immediately 
 which made me move sooner. 
 
 ' Then again you don't understand the doctrinal difficulty. 
 There is a great attempt by W. G. Ward, Dr. Murray of 
 Maynooth, and Father Schrader, the Jesuit of Rome and 
 Vienna, to bring in a new theory of Papal Infallibility, which
 
 THE APPEAL TO ROME (1867) 153 
 
 would make it a mortal sin, to be visited by damnation, not 
 to hold the Temporal Power necessary to the Papacy. No 
 one answers them and multitudes are being carried away, — 
 the Pope, I should fear, gives ear to them, and the con- 
 sequence is there is a very extreme prejudice in the highest 
 quarters at Rome against such as me. I cannot take Oxford 
 unless I am allowed full liberty to be there or here, and unless 
 I have an assurance that there are no secret instructions 
 anywhere. Of course I write all this in order to get your 
 opinion, — but I don't think you have a view of the facts.' 
 
 Hope-Scott was now more alive to the situation, and 
 counselled at all events a suspension of operations as to the 
 Oxford Oratory. The evil must be dealt with at its source. 
 Newman informed him that Ambrose St. John and Bittleston 
 were on their way to Rome. Hope-Scott was sanguine that 
 Rome would be thoroughly satisfied with their explanations, 
 and could even be got to approve of Newman's being sent to 
 Oxford for the purpose of working there against the infidelity 
 of the day. To any attempt to secure such approval, Newman, 
 however, was opposed ; the idea would not appeal to Rome, 
 he thought, and anyhow he did not wish himself to ask to be 
 sent to Oxford on any ground. But that his loyalty and 
 orthodoxy should be fully vindicated in Rome he was most 
 anxious, and the Oxford plan itself would be a matter for 
 further consideration when the issue of St. John's mission 
 on this head was known. Newman was indignant that his 
 loyalty to the Holy See should be impeached by anyone. 
 He welcomed Father Ignatius Ryder's forthcoming pamphlet 
 in reply to W. G. Ward, now on the eve of publication, as 
 a protest, backed by most weighty theological authority, 
 against making loyalty synonymous with extreme theories 
 which the most careful students of history and theology 
 could not accept. Moreover, while the Pope and his 
 entourage — what Newman called the political party in 
 Rome — had given some encouragement to Ward, the best 
 Roman theologians were known to have rejected many 
 of his statements. Anyhow, Newman seems to have been 
 anxious that his double protest — in England through Ryder, 
 in Rome through Fr. Ambrose St. John— should come 
 without further delay. His two letters of instruction to
 
 T54 T.IFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Ambrose St. John (to which there is reference in theiv 
 correspondence) I have not found ; but their purport is 
 apparent from St. John's own letters. That feehng ran 
 high, and very high, is plain. To omit all the expressions 
 of strong feeling would be to take the life and reality out 
 of the correspondence. I therefore give it without material 
 abridgment. 
 
 The first of Newman's letters which is extant is the 
 following : 
 
 To Father A. St. John. 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham : April 28th, 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Ambrose, — We had the letter and telegram 
 from Marseilles. I wrote to you on Tuesday a letter to the 
 Collegio Inglese, which must have travelled in the same boat 
 as you. You will get it with the one I sent about a week 
 ago. 
 
 ' Also, I wish you to get me a Cameo, from los. to i/., if 
 possible, say a broocJi for a present to one of the K.'s who is 
 going to be married. I would rather have small and good 
 than large. 
 
 ' Also, I think it would be a considerable saving if you got 
 a number of really good medals blessed by the Pope, as prizes 
 for the boys instead of books. No one reads a prize book 
 lest he should spoil it. Also if you could get some really 
 good religious prints, to be blessed by the Pope, for the same 
 purpose. I should say the subjects of medals and pictures 
 should be St. Peter and St. Paul ; St. Philip ; Our Lady ; 
 Crucifixion ; Madonna & Child, &c., &c. Also, I think you 
 might get a number of Pagan things cheaper and more 
 lasting than books — such as wolf-articles in giallo or rosso 
 antiquo, &c. But in mentioning the idea I have said enough. 
 
 ' I suppose Ignatius's pamphlet will be out to-morrow. 
 Besides Bellasis saying it will make a row, Stanislas writes 
 saying he hopes it will be delayed till after your return, and 
 Pope wishes delay. But I think it had better come out — what 
 harm can it do ? I shall by it be making capital out of the 
 signatures to the address. Of course you may have it thrown 
 in your teeth, that an awful pamphlet has come out from 
 the Birmingham Oratory with a great flourish of lies — but 
 we don't want to get anything, and my monkey is up. If 
 there is anything [unsound] in it, which I do not think there 
 is, we must withdraw it. As to clamour and slander, who- 
 ever opposes the three Tailors of Tooley Street, [Manning,
 
 THE APPEAL TO ROME (1867) 155 
 
 Ward, and Vaughan] must incur a gTcal deal, must suffer, - 
 but it is worth the suffering if we effectually oppose them. . . 
 
 ' As to Hope-Scott's notion of your trying to get me to 
 Oxford to oppose infidelity, it won't hold ; (i) because if I 
 ask to go to Oxford for any purpose, I take up a new position 
 — I never have asked to go there, the Bishop has asked me ; 
 nor have I any dealings with Propaganda, but the Bishop 
 with it. (2) As if they cared a jot to keep Protestant 
 Oxford from becoming infidel ! As if they did not think 
 Protestantism and Infidelity synonymous ! ' 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 ' May 3rd, 1867. 
 
 ' Your welcome letter, notifying your arrival at Rome, got 
 here on Wednesday at noon. 
 
 ' I have just had a letter from Father Perrone, so very 
 kind that you must call on him and thank him. He says 
 he always defends me. Also Father Cardella said Mass for 
 me on St. Leo's day. Thank him too. 
 
 ' Ignatius's Pamphlet is just out, but we do not hear 
 anything about it yet. 
 
 ' If it ever comes to this, that you can venture to speak to 
 Barnabo on the secret instruction, you must say that people 
 gave money to the Church on the express condition, as the 
 main point, that I should reside a great deal in Oxford. 
 Hence his precious instruction made me unwittingly collect 
 money on false pretences. Far as it was from the intentions 
 of the Most Eminent Prince, he co-operated in a fraud. 
 Distil this " blande suaviterque " into his ears. 
 
 ' A. B. has been here. He says I should have had an 
 address from the clergy, but Manning and Patterson 
 stopped it on the [ilea that it would be thought at Rome 
 to be dictating. He speaks of the clique having had two 
 blows, — (i) my leave to found an Oxford Oratory; (2) Mr. 
 Martin's letter. Heavy blows both. C. D. reeling under 
 the first, went to Oakeley and blew up Propaganda. Ward 
 writes to Dr. Ives that what they have to oppose in England, 
 as their great mischief, is Father Newman. He has written 
 to Monsell that there are " vital " differences between us. Is 
 not this the Evangelical " vital religion " all over ? and is he 
 not dividing Catholics into nominal Christians and vital 
 Christians as much as an Evangelical could do in the 
 Church of England ? A. B. says that Vaughan is sent by 
 Ward to Rome, — he has now got back. . . . Ward says that 
 he loves me so, that he should like to pass an eternity with
 
 156 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 me, but that whenever he sees Manning he makes him creep 
 — (I have not his exact words) — yet that Manning has the 
 truth and I have not. A. B. thinks that Manning will throw 
 Ward over— that is, next time. 
 
 * Ward has answered my present of Ignatius' pamphlet. 
 He complains of its personalities — of its referring to the 
 " Ideal." [His letter] is very mild and kind, and has melted 
 Ignatius somewhat — but it says that, in spite of his personal 
 liking for me, we must regard each other in a public point 
 of view with " the greatest aversion " ; and we belong to 
 " different religions " ! Finally he invokes an ecclesiastical 
 decision. No decision can make us " of different religions." 
 Is it not vital Christianity all over ? ' ' 
 
 How Father St. John and Father Bittleston prospered 
 with their task in Rome is best shown in their own letters. 
 Their reception was cordial on all hands. The Holy Father 
 had been apprised of their mission and its object, and had 
 passed his all-powerful word that the greatest kindness must 
 be shown in all that regarded Newman. The letters make it 
 clear that the atmosphere in Rome was far more favourable 
 
 ' Newman adds the following postscriptum : 
 
 ' May 4. The Bishop has just sent me the opening words of the Letter of the 
 Episcopal Meeting to Propaganda. " The Bishops have strenuously laboured to 
 give effect to the principles which they themselves have inculcated as to the 
 perils of mixed education — and although some twelve youths from Ireland, the 
 Colonies, or England, have entered the University from our Colleges, yet of the 
 whole, one only of the number had been educated in the Oratory School of 
 Birmingham, — and it is to be trusted that all of them have remained firm and 
 strong in their faith. It is not, however, the less certain that the arguments 
 which the late eminent Archbishop and the Bishops laid before Propaganda, 
 Dec. I3lh, 1864, continue in all their strength, and have received new force 
 from subsequent experience." Observe (i) it almost seems, judging from this 
 extract, as if the Bishops were not prohibiting Oxford, ^ — but perhaps the 
 " Declarations " from Rome will be published forbidding. (2) they are too fair 
 to us in saying that only one Oxford man has been educated by us — for R. Ward 
 has been. {3) I shall answer the Bishop saying that I suppose now Propaganda 
 will not take an exceptional course with us — but will apply the "directe vel 
 indirecte " to all the Colleges or none. (4) Dean brings a report that the Jesuits 
 are to have a sort of "Collegium Romanum " in London. This may be 
 intended to justify a prohibition. 
 
 ' May 5th. I have answered the Bishop thus : "I trust Cardinal Barnabo 
 will no longer think it necessary to make my case an exceptional one, and to 
 impose on me personally an obligation which he has imposed on no other priest 
 in England, viz. to be careful lo have nothing to do directly or indirectly with 
 preparing youths for Oxford. To avoid indirectly preparing them for Oxford 
 I must either shut up the School or teach the boys Latin and Greek badly." '
 
 THE APPEAL TO ROME (1867) 157 
 
 to Newman than that in the extremist circles in England. 
 Indeed, the Roman officials were evidently disposed to 
 regard the Englishmen on both sides as quarrelsome 
 ' cranks ' who made much ado about nothing. All that was 
 insisted on was that the Roman decrees against mixed edu- 
 cation should be attended to, and no encouragement given 
 to Catholics to go to Oxford. These decrees formed part 
 of a large policy on which Rome had decided for English- 
 speaking Catholics at the time of the foundation of the 
 Queen's Colleges in Ireland. Indeed, this policy had been 
 the raison d'etre of the Catholic University at Dublin. 
 It was being pursued throughout Christendom (as we have 
 already seen) in primary and secondary education alike. Its 
 object was to make sure of a thoroughly Catholic education 
 for all the faithful in a day of indififerentism. The Church 
 was becoming once more, as in Apostolic times, only a ' little 
 flock,' and Catholics must make up in whole-hearted zeal and 
 esprit de corps for what they lacked in numbers. Cardinal 
 Barnabo appeared ready to take the most favourable view 
 of all Newman's actions past and present, provided that 
 the opposition of the Holy See to mixed education was 
 respected ; and he considerably mollified St. John by his 
 friendly language. Newman, however, declined to share in 
 any such gentler sentiments. Monsignor Talbot, after some 
 meetings in which he betrayed embarrassment, became in the 
 end wholly friendly. William Palmer, brother of Roundell 
 Palmer (afterwards Lord Selborne), a convert and a friend of 
 Newman, was in Rome, and helped the Oratory Fathers in 
 various ways. 
 
 The only substantial charge against Newman was that 
 he had declined to explain or retract his Ravibler article on 
 ' Consulting the Faithful on matters of Doctrine,' which had 
 ' given pain ' to the Pope. The article had been regarded as 
 maintaining that the ' teaching Church ' had in the fifth 
 century in some way failed in performing its functions : and 
 such a contention was unorthodox. Against the above charge 
 Newman's defence was quite conclusive : he had formally 
 written to Cardinal Wiseman, who was in Rome when the 
 charge was made, offering to explain the passages objected 
 to if the accusation was formulated, and not left as a vague
 
 158 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 charge of ' error ' without specification as to what orthodox 
 doctrines the article had impugned. But Manning had after- 
 wards given him a semi-official notification that no further 
 explanation was required. It looked, on the other hand, as 
 if the original objection to the article had been an instance 
 of what tried Newman so much, making the vague impression 
 produced by it on the casual reader — whose knowledge of 
 theology, or even of English, might be imperfect — the test 
 of its orthodoxy. These were the ways of diplomats, not of 
 theologians. ' It created a bad impression ' was the phrase cur- 
 rent at Rome. Newman was supposed to have preferred a 
 serious charge against the Ecclesia Docens ; and to do so argued 
 at least a want of loyalty to the Holy See. Serious historical 
 studies could not be carried on if the accuracy of their con- 
 clusions was measured by such a test. Any treatment of 
 history which made for the power of the Popes, however 
 unscientific or false to fact it might be, created in this sense 
 a ' good impression ' ; all, however undeniably true, which 
 showed that Popes or Bishops had made mistakes, made a 
 'bad impression.' In such an atmosphere the most imme- 
 diately effective retort to his accusers was the one chosen by 
 Ambrose St. John, that such a highly approved historian as 
 Baronius had recognised as historical facts certain deficien- 
 cies in the action of the members of the Teaching Church 
 in the past. If the busy practical officials were perhaps 
 no more familiar with Baronius than with Newman, such 
 long-acknowledged authority as that of the great Roman 
 Oratorian and Cardinal sufficed as a guarantee of orthodoxy. 
 
 The following letters narrate the proceedings of the 
 Fathers in- Rome from the first interview with Cardinal 
 Barnabo on April 30, to the audience with the Holy Father 
 on May 4 : 
 
 P\\THER Henry Bittleston to Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' Hotel Minerva, Rome : April 30th, 1867. 
 
 'My dear Father, — I don't know how much Ambrose has 
 told you of his talks with Neve, Bishop Brown, and Palmer, 
 but having learnt that Cardinal Barnabo would be at Pro- 
 paganda this morning at ten o'clock, thither he proceeded, 
 carrying a book for Monsignor Capalti from the Nunziatura 
 at Paris, and, before finding the Secretary, he stumbled (I am
 
 THE APPEAL TO ROME (1867) 159 
 
 copying from Ambrose's journal) on the Cardinal himself who 
 said, laughing : " Oh ! so you are come from Newman : e cost, 
 cost ideato" (I could not make out his meaning) "we will 
 talk about it this evening." '' Shall we come this morning ? " 
 " No ! " (The Cardinal was going to cojigresso.) " Come to- 
 night at the Ave Maria." He seemed in good temper 
 and laughed, and intended evidently to be very courteous. 
 Ambrose then found Monsignor Capalti, introduced the 
 subject of his journey to Rome by saying that he had come 
 to explain Father Newman's real sentiments in regard to the 
 Oxford question, and also to answer any questions that might 
 be put to him concerning his obedience to the Holy See, &c., 
 all of which he understood had been called in question, --that 
 he had come for no favour, but simply to explain. " Well," 
 he said, talking very fast the whole time and wishing to throw 
 the onus of the whole matter on somebody else's shoulders, 
 " have you seen the Cardinal ? " " No ! I am to see him to- 
 night, but I thought it would be well to see you, Monsignor, 
 and to explain matters to you." " Well then," he said, 
 civilly enough, but thinking me a great bore, " Father 
 Newman has not been attacked at all in his own person {iiella 
 sua propria persona)',' and this he repeated several times, for 
 he was very well up with the line of argument, and he knew 
 the whole state of things although he pretended it was not 
 his business. " No," he said, " it is only for the sake of 
 Catholic parents. The Holy See has had but one idea {tmica 
 idea) throughout, to discourage parents from sending their 
 sons to Oxford — this it will never depart from. It wishes for 
 a better Mission at Oxford for the sake of the Catholics there, 
 but it does not wish to have Father Newman residincf there : 
 for this would be to give too much importance to Oxford. 
 Let them have there a good priest to make their confessions 
 to, but not a man like Newman — that would be to encourage 
 them." Again and again he repeated this. He said : " the 
 Bishop of Birmingham 'paver' uovto ' had made some equivoco 
 about the terms of the concession of the Oratory foundation, 
 —but that the Holy See had one view, and he hoped Father 
 Newman would fall in with it, and act in the spirit of it, viz. 
 not to allow himself to be persuaded to go and fix his 
 residence there, — that would be giving so decided an en- 
 couragement that it could not be done." Then I tried to get 
 in a word. " Father Newman, I can assure you, has alwa}s 
 acted in the spirit of obedience to the Holy See in this matter. 
 He himself does not, and has not wished to go to Oxford. 
 I can show you exactly what his opinion is on the subject, 
 for he has written it down for me, and I will read it to you if
 
 i6o LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 you like." " Well, thank you, no — thank you- -shall I keep 
 it?" "No," I said, "I would prefer letting the Cardinal 
 Prefect to-night know Father Newman's real sentiments, but 
 I can assure you he has not himself wished to go to Oxford, 
 nor does he now wish it." " Then we are all agreed," said he, 
 " and the whole thing can be settled in two words — good-bye 
 — there is a Patriarch waiting for me — basta — you will see 
 the Cardinal to-night." 
 
 ' So far the journal. Ambrose said he tried, after saying 
 you had no wish to go to Oxford, to put in a word for the 
 other view, and what your friends wished, and the great work 
 for Protestants, &c., and the scandal of stopping it, &c., &c., 
 but he would not hear a word of it. . . . 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately in St. Philip, 
 
 Henry Bittleston.' 
 
 Further particulars of the conversation are given in a letter 
 written on the following day by Ambrose St. John himself: 
 
 ' One very good thing is that Cardinal Barnabo has made 
 a clean breast of all that can really be said here against you. 
 He was very patient, spoke at great length, and gave me 
 time to say all I could think of I suppose I was an hour 
 and a half with him. As soon as he read your letter he 
 said: "Ah! 'vanissimae calumniae,' just so"; I said I was 
 ready to explain, on your part, anything he had to say. 
 Then he began : " Father Newman has good reason to com- 
 plain of the treatment, but it is not my doing. He ought to 
 have been told at once that the Sacred Congregation did not 
 wish him to go himself to Oxford. The Bishop has made a 
 great mistake ; he ought to have told him our instructions 
 and not have allowed him to compromise himself with the 
 laity by collecting subscriptions when he was left in the dark 
 as to conditions. The Holy See has had but one view all 
 along. Since the question of the mixed colleges was raised 
 in Ireland, the Holy See would never sanction mixed educa- 
 tion ; nor can it do so now indirectly by permitting so im- 
 portant a man as Newman to go to Oxford." He did not 
 use the word " residence " throughout. . . . Father Newman 
 had very properly suppressed his circular and sold his 
 ground, and there the matter ought to have ended ; but then 
 he bought other ground and the Bishop gave him the Mission 
 and this brought up the matter again ; then the Holy See 
 though maintaining always its one view had granted a con- 
 ditional leave for the Oratory just that the way might be 
 tried whether it was possible to do some good to Oxford
 
 THE APPEAL TO ROME (1867) 161 
 
 without undoing all that had been consistently done against 
 mixed education. So, though he was against it, a majority- 
 carried the vote for leave on condition that Father Newman 
 did not go to live there — (so I understood him to say). In 
 all this there had been nothing against Father Newman. I 
 have always upheld him, he said. ... It was the Pope 
 himself who had insisted on the special condition being 
 put in against Newman going to live at Oxford, as his going 
 to Oxford would give too much weight to the position of 
 Catholics there, and inevitably encourage Catholic students 
 to go. This the Holy Father could not make himself a 
 party to. In all this there was nothing personal to you. 
 Then he went on confidentially to say in what he did think 
 you wrong. You stuck to your own way. He gave as his 
 authority for this the late Cardinal, and he brought up the 
 matter of the London Oratory. He said you had then stood 
 on your rights. You had said to him (Barnabo) : " lo sono 
 Fondatore." Here I interrupted, though he tried to go on. 
 Your Eminence must allow me to speak. / was the speaker 
 on that occasion, and I remember no such words, certainly 
 not in the sense of implying that you had any rights over 
 their house ; you had come to Rome solely to defend your 
 own house ; we were told what Rome did for them would 
 bind us. " Ah, well," he said, " that is over now. Faber is 
 dead ; then there was Manning's being made Archbishop, 
 that had hurt you." " You really don't know the Father at 
 all," I said, "if you think so." "Well," he said, "I hear 
 things said. At Manning's consecration Father Newman 
 just came there, but he wouldn't come to the breakfast and 
 went away. This was very much felt by all present. This 
 was a want of conformity to the Pope's mind." There was 
 however one more important matter on which you had 
 shown yourself very unyielding. It was on the matter of 
 the Rambler, of which you were editor. Some passages in 
 it had displeased the Pope greatly, and he had insisted on 
 their being explained. He had written to Dr. Ullathorne 
 and he had answered that he had called on you and found 
 you ill in bed ; that he could not get more out of you than 
 that you would give up the Ranibler, which you had imme- 
 diately done, giving it into the hands of " that Birbonaccio 
 Acton, who, by the bye, is here ! " but though }'ou were told 
 to write an explanation you had not done so. Then I said : 
 This I was sure was untrue, whoever said it. You had to 
 my certain knowledge, for I had been always at your side, 
 never been asked authoritatively to explain any special 
 
 VOL. II. M
 
 i62 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 passage, that you had expressed your readiness if required to 
 withdraw or explain anything that might be objected to ; 
 but I was sure you could give his Eminence proofs of what 
 you had done if you were asked ; and that I would write to 
 you about it. I said I was sure on my conscience these 
 things would never be said of you by anyone who knew you. 
 Then he spoke again very angrily of the Bishop, saying 
 that this was another instance of his misinstructing them ; 
 and that we would see him in Rome in June and talk to 
 him on the subject. He seemed pleased by what I said on 
 the subject. I spoke warmly, and said it was a pity the 
 Bishop had been afraid to speak out to you, that you were 
 not to be feared in such a matter, &c. He then said : 
 " Now, pray tell Father Newman that in all this matter 
 about Oxford he has not lost the smallest fraction of the 
 estimation in which he is held in Rome." I thanked him 
 warmly for this, for he spoke with much feeling. Then 
 I said : " Your Eminence's frankness and kindness in what 
 you have just said, makes me desire that you should know 
 his real sentiments on the Oxford matter. He has never 
 been urgent for it, but has always pointed out the difficulties 
 to parents. It is true he thinks, and others think more than 
 himself, that Oxford would be a very great field for meeting 
 the great difficulties of the day ; you cannot imagine, I said, 
 how much his opinion is valued in England In Oxford all 
 could come to hear him. It presents such a field." Then I 
 told him the state of parties in Oxford ; how much you were 
 valued and the conversions that might be expected. " Ah," 
 he said, " Father Newman must write and work in Birming- 
 ham. If he cannot gain a hundredfold, he must be content 
 to gain thirty fold,— he may do a great deal yet," Then 
 I spoke of our school, said it had been founded expressly to 
 feed the Catholic University in Ireland. " Ah," he said, "we 
 ought to have a Catholic University in England." Upon this 
 I read in Italian the passage you sent me from your letter 
 of your opinions concerning Oxford Education. That a 
 Catholic University was the true education, but necessity 
 had no laws. He said he quite agreed with that. I asked 
 " should I read him your whole sentiments." " Not now," 
 he said, " but if you wish prepare a memorial and it shall be 
 considered when we meet to speak together on the Bishops' 
 memorial." Then he spoke of scandal given by Catholics at 
 Oxford. Talbot had told him. Why didn't I go to Talbot ? 
 Didn't I know him ? Then I flared up : " How can I go to 
 him ; he has said most monstrous things about Father
 
 THE APPEAL TO ROME (1867) 163 
 
 Newman. He said he subscribed to Garibaldi." " Oh ! come, 
 not that," he said, " you had better go and see him and talk 
 with him. Well, you must see the Pope. Come to-morrow 
 and I will give you a letter to Pacca for an audience." So for 
 that we wait, and I do not know what more we have to do. 
 I have told Palmer and Neve, and they both think good has 
 been done. I wonder whether you will think so. I have 
 done my best, dear Father. I wish it was in better hands. 
 Good-bye. All well, I will write again soon. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 A. St. John.' 
 
 Father Ambrose St. John to Dr. Newman. 
 
 'Rome, Albergo della Minerva: May 2nd, 1867. 
 
 ' Dearest Father, — Buona Festa on this your day to you. 
 I said Mass for you in St. Philip's room at St. Girolamo this 
 morning. . . . 
 
 * I have been with Palmer all the morning, who, good 
 fellow, has been employed on the Bishop's notes which I 
 borrowed from Neve, making out a paper which I am to 
 send you and which he strongly advises me to leave with 
 Barnabo and bring home with me to show the Bishop. He 
 says it will never do in after times to let the Cardinal white- 
 wash you at the expense of the Bishop. Whatever faults the 
 Bishop may have committed, he has been your friend, and it 
 won't do to leave him in the lurch. . . . We have not yet 
 received our time for an audience with the Pope, but I 
 expect the audience this week. Talbot is entirely (so Neve 
 says) Manning's tool, and hears from him three times a week 
 everything great and small. He is not all powerful with the 
 Pope, and the Pope snubs him. The Pope declares he won't 
 have you dealt with, with anything but the greatest caritc), 
 and I believe really the Italian Prelates in authority, as 
 Cardinal Barnabo, Cardinal de Luca, and others, arc not at 
 all to be counted with the English Manning faction. Dr. 
 Reisach also is said to be moved towards you. Nardi is 
 a humbug, — praises you and blames you according to his 
 company. Father Smith is your most powerful enemy, — 
 says everything you write is satirical, &c. He or Talbot 
 sent your Sermon ' to the Index. The English " readers," as 
 they are called, examined it, and Father Modena, the chief, 
 declared there was nothing whatever in it that could be 
 objected to, upon which Talbot said : " I told you so," and 
 
 ' The Sermon on the ' Tope and the Revohition,' preached in response to a 
 Pastoral by Bishop Ullathornc on the trials nf I'ius I.\. 
 
 M 2
 
 i64 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Smith cried out : " Well, but it is a satire on his own Bishop 
 from beginning to end," on which Palmer told the said 
 Smith : " Either Dr. Newman then must be an ass to satirize 
 his Bishop who has nothing to do with the Temporal Power, 
 or the man that says so is an ass. Now nobody says 
 Newman is an ass ; ergo, he who says Newman satirizes his 
 Bishop is an ass." Smith became more cautious on this. 
 He is a great big, mouthing, good-natured (so they say) 
 Irishman who blusters about, a popular lecturer in Theology 
 at Propaganda, and who sees a great many English whom 
 he takes to the Catacombs. This is what I gather from 
 Neve and Palmer. 
 
 ' Palmer says that he has no doubt that, whilst the Pope 
 and Barnabo only want to carry out their unica questione 
 how to prevent a system of mixed education gradually 
 getting a footing in England, the English party, of which 
 Ward is the brains, are determined to prevent your going to 
 Oxford on Theological grounds. Ward told Palmer himself 
 that he should oppose it with all his might, for it would give 
 you influence and enable you to propagate your views. The 
 two parties are quite distinct. Neve said he thought Father 
 Ryder's pamphlet would be hailed by Roman Theologians, 
 who are by no means Wardites. He likes the pamphlet 
 very much. I told him to keep it very quiet. Only fancy, 
 Talbot came to him and said, spluttering out as he does : 
 " So Neve they tell me you are a Newmanite," upon 
 which Neve gave him a good jobation. ... I think the 
 Italians think us all — Manning, Talbot, you. Ward, &c., — 
 a lot of queer, quarrelsome Inglesi, and just now the Pope 
 thinks his Sejanus (this is Palmer's profanity) has had his 
 own way too much. Well, we shall see. I told you 
 Barnabo said to me : "I am sure Newman is really ' un sant' 
 uomo,' " — he listened with great interest to what I told him of 
 your influence in England. Well, I shall know more when I 
 have seen the Pope. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 Ambrose St. John.' 
 
 ' Father Perrone was most warm to me,' St. John writes 
 on May 3. 'I met him at the Sapienza where Monsignor 
 Nardi took me. He said he had written to you and he told 
 me he was your warm friend. " So tutto tutto, e ne parleremo." 
 He is a consultor of Propaganda and has a vote. I called 
 on Reisach and am to see him to-morrow. I am now going 
 to Talbot, who cut me this morning at the Colkgio Inglese.
 
 THE APPEAL TO ROME (1867) 165 
 
 However I shall go and call, for Barnabo told me to do so. 
 The principal matter now is the article in the Rambler 
 years ago.' 
 
 Father H. Bittleston to Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' May 3rd, 1867. 
 
 ' We had caught sight of Talbot at St. Peter's one day ; 
 he was sitting down talking with A. B. and we got out 
 of his way. On Friday morning we were just standing 
 at Neve's door, on the point of going in, when Talbot came 
 by. We bowed and he bowed and passed on into Neve's 
 room and kept us waiting no end of time. In the afternoon 
 we called. He came up to us, shook hands as if wishing to 
 be friendly, said how time altered people, and there was some 
 little pleasantry about growing fat, as if to excuse himself, I 
 thought, for not having taken notice of Father Ambrose in 
 the morning at Neve's. Ambrose broke in by saying he 
 came by desire of Cardinal Barnabo, to give to Monsignor 
 Talbot any information he wished touching Father Newman's 
 conduct in the Oxford matter, &c. Then Talbot said he 
 would give a history of the whole affair — condemned Manning, 
 yet said there were some things against Newman. The Holy 
 See was always against youths going to Oxford, The Pope 
 propria motu wished everything to be done to dissuade 
 parents. About three years ago, there were two youths here 
 who wished to have an audience of the Holy Father, which 
 Talbot procured for them. The Holy Father asked them 
 what they were going to do ; when they said they were going 
 to Oxford, he jumped up and said vehemently : " I entirely 
 disapprove of it. . . . The Bishops of England, in obedi- 
 ence to the Holy See, admonished the clergy to dissuade 
 parents, &c., — still P'ather Newman went on at Edgbaston 
 preparing boys for Oxford — he referred to Towneley and 
 another, and besides he had seen a letter to a lady here from 
 one of the Professors, which said that Newman made no 
 difficulty of boys going to Oxford and that it was his work 
 to prepare for it." . . . Ambrose said that our school was 
 commenced to feed the Catholic University of Dublin— that 
 there was no special preparation for Oxford — and that they 
 went from other schools as much as from ours. . . . 
 
 ' He spoke of the Ra7)ibler. The article " On consulting 
 the faithful " had been delated by the Bishop of Newport, for 
 heresy. The passage he complained of was (he was quoting 
 from memory) " that for sixty years, the Ecclesia docefis was in
 
 i66 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 suspension, and the faith was \)rt9,er\edhy cojtscnsus fidelirivi." 
 Talbot said, speaking for himself, that " the passage, as it 
 stood, was no doubt heretical." Still, out of consideration 
 for Newman the Holy See would not condemn it, or call on 
 him for an explanation. He did not know exactly what had 
 been done, but he saw a letter of Father Newman to the 
 Bishop of Birmingham in which he said that he hoped at any 
 rate they would not send for him to Rome. So out of mercy 
 (and I think Talbot said he had him.self pleaded for him) the 
 matter was dropped — only Newman knew from his Bishop 
 that they wanted an explanation or retractation of that 
 passage. Consequently he was under a cloud, and he felt it 
 himself; for for three years he had not opened his mouth until 
 he was called out by the " Apologia." Ambrose said warmly 
 and more than once, it was a very cruel kindness. The 
 Father felt keenly any impeachment of his faith — to touch 
 him in that point was to touch the apple of his eye — but it 
 would never hurt him in the least if he was told plainly if 
 any exception was taken to his expressions or statements, 
 and was always ready in obedience to competent authority 
 to retract or explain, &c., &c.' 
 
 Father Ambrose St. John to Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' Rome : May 4th, 1867. 
 
 ' Dearest Father, — Well, we have had our audience with 
 the Pope, and it has passed off very well and pleasantly 
 indeed. The Holy Father was not at all cold or angry, 
 quite the contrary'. He began by saying with a very kind 
 smile : " Well, so you are come from Father Newman as my 
 dear sons. I do not in the least doubt Father Newman's 
 obedience, but now in this matter of mixed education my 
 mind is made up not to give it any encouragement, so I have 
 always said as to improving the Mission at Oxford, . . . 
 that I greatly desire, but I cannot encourage anything 
 which would lead Catholics to go there. Years ago when 
 a certain Signor Corbally (I think) wished to get my 
 approbation for the Cork Colleges, I refused, and I have 
 not changed." Then I began : " Holy Father, no one 
 more than Father Newman has spoken of the dangers 
 surrounding a young man going to Oxford, and he has 
 always himself been loth to go there, as he knew his 
 name would attract Catholic students there, but Father 
 Newman is a man of great charity to whom many persons 
 apply, fathers of families and others, and he was greatly 
 desirous to assist those poor souls who might find themselves
 
 THE APPEAL TO ROME (1867) 167 
 
 (by their fathers' doing, not theirs) at Oxford, because cir- 
 cumstances are such in England that there being no Catholic 
 University parents are driven into a great difficulty for the 
 education of their sons — there are dangers everywhere, and it 
 was to meet those dangers Father Newman at last consented 
 to go to take the mission." " Yes," he said," the Bishops are 
 meeting about it, and then we shall decide." Then or before, 
 I forget which, he spoke of those who were not Catholics di 
 cuore^ and I am sorry to say he mentioned Acton {che sta 
 adesso iti Londra, — he meant Roma) as a type of those people. 
 He called him no names like Barnabo, but he coupled him 
 with those Signori di Torino, who were bringing in a 
 semi-Catholicism. I forget what name he used. He looked 
 upon mixed education as a part of that. Then he turned 
 the subject, asked how many we were. I answered, nine, 
 novices included. ..." How old are you ? you are Father 
 St. John are you not ? I know you well, but you are grown 
 a Vecchione, lost your freshness, how old are you ? How long an 
 Oratorian ? Ah ! you must increase your numbers." . . . Then 
 I reminded him of Santa Croce and of his coming into our 
 refectory, &c. He evidently warmed towards us. Then I 
 spoke of Father A. B. and of the Government having given 
 a salary. "How much, 100/..?" "No, 50/." "Ah, that is 
 half." Then he made some joke about the other half which 
 I did not catch. Then we took our leave. As I knelt I 
 said : " Holy Father, you must give your Benediction to 
 Father Newman." " Oh yes," he said, " I give it with all 
 my heart, and to all of you "... Then we went. 
 
 ' Something else I brought in. When I began to speak 
 about your having been so pained by the reports sent from 
 Rome, he answered you were not to mind, that it was enough 
 for you to know that he, the Pope, knew you were t7iUo 
 ubbediente. I am sure he avoided details purposely. He 
 never mentioned the Rambler ox Manning, or anyone except 
 Acton, and he evidently to my mind brought him in as 
 hoping you would not connect yourself with him. ... 
 
 ' I brought in here that we had a school founded expressly 
 to prepare young men for the Dublin University, but English- 
 men would not go to Dublin. "Ah," he said, "there is 
 always that racial antipatia, but we must think when the 
 Bishops have met what can be done." This is all I recollect 
 of the conversation. 
 
 'Talbot came up to us whilst waiting [before our audience] 
 with all appearance of a great desire to be friendly. He said : 
 " I could be of the greatest service to you if Father Newman
 
 i68 TJFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 would let me. Would I come to him ? or better, let him 
 come to me and have some long talks with him ? " I said I 
 was at his service for any information he might require as 
 consultor of Propaganda. I throughout spoke to him as in 
 his official capacity and I then in that capacity told him 
 how all the coldness he complained of your showing 
 authorities at Rome, and himself in particular, had arisen 
 from the unwarrantable things which had been said against 
 you ; that people would not understand that you had always 
 consistently held that there was to be in diibiis libcrtas. 
 Then he brought out, (this was after the audience when he 
 took us to his room) the Rambler with the Article and read 
 with some hesitation some passages. They seemed to him, 
 I think, not so strong as he expected. He has evidently 
 never thought of them himself I said, Father Newman was 
 writing history and showing, however strong the historical 
 difficulties were, the Faith was always in the Church. " I am 
 not however here," I said, " to defend Father Newman's 
 faith, that he must do himself; but I know he thought he 
 was only saying what Baronius had said." I said, " I am 
 confident Baronius has said as much." " Well, Baronius," he 
 admitted, (knowing nothing about it evidently) " has said some 
 very strong things doubtless." Altogether he looked puzzled, 
 and repeated his wish for a long talk. Then I said, rising to go : 
 " Monsignor, as long as you say Father Newman is a heretic, 
 there must be a line between us." Then he answered in a 
 deprecatory manner : " Oh, no, I never said that ; there is a 
 great difference between stating an heretical proposition and 
 being a heretic." " Well, but you said he was called upon to 
 retract and would not." " No, not that, I only • heard the 
 other day what I said yesterday, that Father Newman had 
 been written to." Here I ought to have come down upon 
 and clenched him with : " Why did you say it then ? 
 Charity thinketh no evil," but I was softened by his manner 
 and let him make an engagement to come to my room. 
 When he comes I won't let him off, you may trust me, but 
 I am such a bad hand at clenching anything. I gain my 
 point and don't know how to use it. I hope you will not 
 think me unduly courteous. I have said stronger things to 
 him than I ever said to anyone, and he bears it all, quite 
 amicably. He said : " I am sure a great deal of good will 
 come out of this. I wish to be a good friend ; no one was more 
 so when we were at Rome together, but Father Newman has 
 seemed of late to speak as if one religion was for the 
 English and another for Catholics on the Continent." " How
 
 THE APPEAL TO ROME (1867) 169 
 
 can you say so ? " said Henry ; " the Father says he accepts 
 everything in the Raccolta." Then I said : " Were you, 
 Monsignor, when you became a CathoHc, ready to say all 
 that is said in Grignon de Montfort's book ? And for Popery 
 proper, who has spread it as much as I have with the 
 Raccolta} They are reprinting the 5th thousand and as 
 many have been sold in America.' He seemed in all this 
 like a man whose eyes were beginning to open. Mind I am 
 not trusting him. I know he is under Manning's thumb. But, 
 if appearances go for anything, he is clumsily repenting. 
 Henry is sanguine we have done a great deal, not speaking 
 of Talbot but generally, with the Pope and Barnabo. I 
 don't know what I think. Everybody I have seen speaks of 
 you most kindly. 
 
 ' Nine o'clock. 
 
 * Your letter just come. Well, I suppose you will, with 
 your monkey up, be angry with us for talking to Talbot at 
 all. But what can we do ? We must go on when we are in 
 a groove. It has all followed inevitably from going to 
 Barnabo. Pray for us hard that we may make no mistakes. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 A. St. John.' 
 
 Newman, immediately on receipt of Ambrose St. John's 
 information that the Rambler article had been the main cause 
 of suspicion in Rome, forwarded to him the text of his letter 
 to Cardinal Wiseman written in i860, in which he had offered 
 to make all necessary explanations. He forwarded at the 
 same time the documents relating to the separation between 
 the two Oratories. 
 
 He was not dissatisfied with the course of events as 
 described by his friends, but remained, however, far from 
 sharing Father St. John's benevolent impressions as to 
 Cardinal Barnabo's supposed amiable dispositions in regard 
 to himself. 
 
 He wrote as follows to Father Ambrose : 
 
 ' May 7th, 1S67. 
 
 ' I think you have managed very well. I am quite pre- 
 pared for the Roman people thinking my going to Oxford 
 will encourage mixed education, and the Manning-Ward 
 party thinking it will give rne an open door for my theology. 
 
 ' It seems to me that our going to Oxford is quite at an 
 end.
 
 I70 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' I send a copy of the letter which I sent to Cardinal 
 Wiseman, (at the Bishop's suggestion,) about the Rambler — 
 and which the Cardmal never afisivered. At the end of six 
 months Manning said to me in conversation : " By the bye, 
 that matter of the Rambler is settled " — or he wrote me a 
 line to that effect. I have nothing more to say about it. 
 
 ' As to Father Faber, I cautiously abstained from 
 claiming any power over the London House when I went 
 to Rome with you. Barnabo introduced the subject of the 
 "Deputato" and puzzled us. If I find any notes of the 
 subject I will send them.' 
 
 ' Wednesday night, May 8th, 1867. 
 
 ' I am not a bit softened about Barnabo. He has not 
 at all explained the " blanda et suavis revocatio " which was 
 to be concealed from me till I attempted to go to Oxford — 
 not at all. And to plead the Bishop's cause before him is an 
 indignity both in you and to the Bishop. But I don't see 
 how it can be helped, — I have allowed your defence of the 
 Bishop and do allow it. There is nothing else that can be 
 done. Neve and Palmer wishing it, but the judge is the 
 culprit. 
 
 ' I doubt not Barnabo and Capalti call you and me 
 " pover' uomo " behind our backs, as they do the Bishop. 
 The idea of a Diocesan Bishop having toiled ... as he 
 has, to be so treated ! As for me, I am not a Bishop, and 
 I have not aimed at pleasing them except as a duty to God, 
 — at least for many years. 
 
 ' As I am writing I recapitulate the Rambler affair. 
 I won't write a defence of the passage in the Rambler till 
 I know more clearly what I am accused of, either in Catholic 
 doctrine injured, or sentences and phrases used by me. But 
 you can write to Barnabo '^^ facts — viz. that the Bishop told 
 me that Barnabo was hurt at the passage, and (I suppose 
 getting it translated !) showed it the Pope and said to the 
 Bishop that the Pope too was hurt, but that neither you nor I 
 at the tifne could make out with what. That at the Bishop's 
 wish I wrote to Cardinal Wiseman, the^i in Rome, the letter I 
 sent you yesterday, to say that I would make any statement 
 they wished and explain my passage according to it, if they 
 would but tell me what they wanted — that both the Bishop 
 and I expected an answer to that letter, that no answer ever 
 came ; that, at the end of six months or so. Manning said or 
 wrote to me to say : " By the bye that matter of the Rambler 
 is all at an end," — which I thought, and think now, came 
 from Cardinal Wiseman and was meant to convey to me that
 
 THE APPEAL TO ROME (1867) 17 t 
 
 I need do no more in the matter. I think I have said all 
 this yesterday, but as I wrote quickly to save the post, lest I 
 should have omitted anything, I repeat it here. Don't offer 
 for me that I now will make explanations, unless they wish 
 to revive an old matter.' ' 
 
 Dr. Ullathorne at Newman's request wrote an account of 
 the interview with Cardinal Barnabo at which the Cardinal 
 had communicated to him the original charges against the 
 article by Bishop Brown, and of the events which followed. 
 This document, which was also sent to St. John, ran as follows : 
 
 ' Birmingham : May 9, 1867. 
 
 ' Cardinal Barnabo asked me if I would do nothing to help 
 them through their difficulty. I asked what he wished me to 
 do ? He said, that he wished me to bring the matter home 
 to you. He produced the Bishop's [Dr. Brown's] letters, 
 addressed in English to the Secretary, Monsignor Badini. 
 I asked for the passages. He exhibited them marked in 
 pencil ; and pointing to them with his pen he said " Ce 
 n'est pas Sanscrit," whereby I understood him to mean that 
 
 ' The letter to Cardinal Wiseman which Newman enclosed ran as follows : 
 
 ' The Oiatorj', Birmingham : January 19th, i860. 
 
 ' My dear Lord Cardinal,— Our Bishop tells me that my name has been men- 
 tioned at Rome in connection with an article in the Rambler, which has by an 
 English Bishop been formally brought before Propaganda as containing unsound 
 doctrine. And our Bishop says that your Eminence has spoken so kindly about 
 me as to encourage me to write to you on the subject. 
 
 ' I have not yet been asked from Propaganda whether I am the author of 
 the article, or otherwise responsible for it ; and, though I am ready to answer 
 the question when it is put to me I do not consider it a duty to volunteer the 
 information till your Eminence advises it. 
 
 ' However, I am ready, with the question being asked of me, to explain the 
 article as if it were mine. 
 
 ' I will request then of your Eminence's kindness three things : — 
 
 ' I. The passages of the article on which the Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda 
 desires an explanation. 
 
 ' 2. A copy of the translations in which his Eminence has rtad them. 
 
 • 3. The dogmatic propositions which they have been represented as infringing 
 or otherwise impairing. 
 
 ' If your Eminence does this for me, I will engage, with the blessing of God, 
 in the course of a month from the receipt of the information : 
 
 ' I. To accept and profess ex animo in their fulness and integrity the dogmatic 
 propositions implicated. 
 
 ' 2. To explain the animus and argument of the writer of the article in strict 
 accordance with those propositions. 
 
 ' 3. To show that the English text and context of the article itself are 
 absolutely consistent with them. . . . 
 
 ' Kissing your sacred purple, I am, my dear Lord Cardinal, 
 ' Your faithful & affectionate servant in Christ, 
 
 'John H. Newman 
 
 of the Oratory.'
 
 172 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 he perfectly understood the passages he was talking about ; 
 he added—" Le Pape est beaucoup pcin^." I then at his 
 earnest request undertook to bring the matter before your 
 attention. 
 
 ' Cardinal Wiseman was then at the English College at 
 Rome. I told him all that had passed, and spoke to him 
 gravely about the annoyances to which from time to time 
 you had been subjected. . . . Also [I went] into the question 
 about your treatment in the question of the Bible translation, 
 &c. At last the Cardinal burst into tears, and said " Tell 
 Newman I will do anything I can for him." 
 
 ' So soon as I returned to Birmingham I wrote to you 
 and asked you if you could call on me, as I had a communi- 
 cation for you from Propaganda of some gravity. Father 
 St. John came in your stead, and told me you were ill in bed. 
 I communicated the case to him, and no sooner had you 
 heard it than you got out of bed and came up to me in 
 a cab. You proposed, as I had repeated to Father St. John 
 what Cardinal Wiseman had said of his readiness to serve 
 you, that you would write to him, and put your readiness to 
 comply with the requirements of Propaganda into his hands. 
 You asked if this course would satisfy me. I said, perfectly. 
 I then wrote to Cardinal Barnabo, and mentioned all that 
 had passed, describing how you had got out of your sick 
 bed and come up to me as soon as you heard the case and 
 commission with which I was charged. 
 
 ' It is not correct that Cardinal Barnabo wrote to me. 
 But it is correct that I wrote to him and mentioned every 
 detail of your conduct above stated. And I concluded with 
 the statement that the case had now passed into the hands 
 of Cardinal Wiseman, who would represent you, I presumed, 
 with Propaganda after he had received your letter.' 
 
 That the Wiseman and Ullathorne letters and the 
 documents relating to the process concerning Father I'aber 
 and the London Oratory at once produced the best effect, 
 both in reassuring Newman's friends as to the strength of his 
 position and in propitiating the Roman authorities themselves, 
 is clear from the following letters : 
 
 Father Henry Bittleston to Dr. Newman. 
 
 'Rome : May nth, 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Father, — Your telegram came last night at 
 bed time. This morning your letter enclosing important 
 documents.
 
 THE APPEAL TO ROME (1867) 173 
 
 * How very strange that neither Ambrose nor I should 
 have remembered your letter to the late Cardinal (Wiseman). 
 Palmer's document, for which Ambrose asked in the tele- 
 gram, he has ready in Italian, and he is now putting your letter 
 to Cardinal Wiseman, and also the "supplica" into Italian, 
 and intends taking them to Cardinal Barnabo this evening 
 at the Ave, the best time to see him. We must finish all our 
 business, and all our sight seeing very soon if we are to be 
 home for St. Philip's Day. ... On the other hand Neve 
 (and I think Sir John Acton) have said that we ought not to 
 go without getting a decision — and Palmer thinks certainly it 
 would be much better not to go without entirely disabusing 
 the mind (or minds) of Propaganda, as to your orthodoxy, 
 and obtaining a statejnent of authority, to be published, clear- 
 ing you after they have passed the Essay assailed, either with 
 or without an explanation from you. 
 
 ' Father Ambrose is also preparing a " supplica " embody- 
 ing your proposition about the school. . . . 
 
 ' Ambrose says there is only just time to catch the post. 
 
 ' Henry Bittleston. 
 
 ' P.S. — We both think your letter to the Cardinal (Wise- 
 man) a complete success — in fact, a stunner.' 
 
 The Same to Dr. Newman. 
 
 'Rome : May I2th, 1867. 
 
 ' Last night [Ambrose] took the three documents to 
 Cardinal Barnabo, who v/as very kind and friendly. x'\mbrose 
 is beginning to be almost won by him. He knows that 
 he has treated you badly in some things, but he thinks 
 he has been abused and that he is white in comparison of 
 some who oueht to know better. Your letter to the late 
 Cardinal Wiseman quite thunderstruck him. " Why," he said, 
 " Cardinal Wiseman was in Propaganda, and we never heard 
 of this." He said it quite cleared you (morally, I suppose), 
 but for Cardinal Wiseman he seemed not to know what to 
 say ; all he could say was : " Well, he is dead now, -requics- 
 cat in pace!' He said xAmbrose must take it to the Pope. 
 He must go and show it to Monsignor Talbot and get 
 another audience. He seemed equally flabbergasted by 
 your statement on the Faber matter, and his having called 
 you " Dcputato Apostolico," &c., but Ambrose must give you 
 a more full account of the interview. Ambrose left with his 
 Eminence the three papers (Palmer's statement, your letter to 
 Cardinal Wiseman, the document with the three propositions
 
 174 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 about our school). This morning he went to Cardinal 
 de Luca, from whom I think he got nothing new, — and to 
 Monsignor Talbot who confessed to having seen the letter to 
 the late Cardinal Wiseman, and who was against taking it 
 to the Pope. Of course, he said, he would show it to His 
 Holiness if he wished, but he would not advise it. He said 
 that the Pope had forgotten all about it. This must do till 
 to-morrow. Ambrose is gone to dine with Monsignor Nardi, 
 a bore which he could not escape.' 
 
 It transpired, however, soon afterwards that the accusa- 
 tions against the Rajubler article had been put in definite 
 theological form by no less eminent a person than Franzelin, 
 the great Jesuit theologian, afterwards a Cardinal, in a lecture 
 at the Roman College. Father Bittleston urged the im- 
 portance of a reply. 
 
 ' It seems to us,' he wrote, 'that the only thing to do and 
 that very important, is for you to be preparing an explanation 
 of those passages in the Rambler article, and I think it might 
 be very useful to give an historical account of your connection 
 with the Rambler. We both think that our coming here 
 has been of the greatest use in bringing out this rankling 
 sore. I don't think you would have any difficulty in 
 explaining quite satisfactorily, and we really think there is 
 no unwillingness on the part of authorities to be satisfied. 
 Perhaps we can hear what Father Perrone thinks.' 
 
 Perrone, whom Father Ambrose consulted, held that 
 Newman should take occasion, in writing of something else, 
 to explain fully the passages to which exception had been 
 taken. He added that he was prepared to say to objectors 
 that he guaranteed the soundness of Newman's doctrine on 
 the matter in question. Newman adopted his suggestion, 
 and answered Franzelin's points one by one in his next 
 edition of the ' Arians.' 
 
 Father Cardclla, so Father St. John now discovered, had 
 already replied to Franzelin, and strongly upheld the ortho- 
 doxy of the incriminated passages. Father Perrone spoke of 
 them with more reserve, as admitting a true sense and a false. 
 There was every disposition to be satisfied with any explana- 
 tion which Newman might give, and in fact no more was 
 heard of the matter, so far as I can learn, after this year.
 
 THE APPEAL TO ROME (1867) 175 
 
 Cardinal de Luca was especially warm in his language 
 concerning Newman. He urged that on the Oxford question 
 Newman must come to an understanding with Manning, 
 as the Holy See could not oppose the Archbishop and the 
 English episcopate. And now Monsignor Talbot came 
 forward and expressed an earnest wish to resume friendly 
 relations with Newman. 
 
 Father St. John to Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' Albergo della Minerva, Rome : May i6th, 1867. 
 
 ' . . . Here is a turn up. At half past seven o'clock last night 
 down comes Monsignor Talbot. He seemed very nervous. 
 Asked for a private interview, — would not have anybody with 
 me. He was hard upon two hours in my room, it is im- 
 possible to remember all that passed. But the upshot was 
 he was excessively sorry for the estrangement,— he desired 
 your friendship very much, — could be of the greatest service 
 to you in letting you know how things were felt at Rome. 
 He had shown his friendship in the Achilli matter. He had 
 kept the witnesses at his own expense, got the Pope to do 
 things he had never done before, &c. He had had nothing 
 to' do with the Faber row. Nor with the Cardinal's treatment 
 of you in the first Oxford circular matter, nor with Dr. 
 Brown's accusation of your doctrine in the first instance. 
 " What had he done ? " When he found you were under 
 a cloud he had come out of his way to find you — he had 
 asked you to come and preach in the best intentions. You 
 had written the coldest letter in reply. Could nothing be 
 done to set matters right, &c. "Monsignor," I said, "you 
 have been frank with me, and I will be frank with you. You 
 said he had preached a sermon in favour of Garibaldi ; nay, 
 had even subscribed to Garibaldi (this last he emphatically 
 denied), and there were various other hostile sayings of yours 
 reported in England. Father Newman thought that it was 
 taking a liberty with him to say : ' Come and whitewash your- 
 self by preaching.' How did he know but he would (with 
 this cloud which, as you say, was hanging over his head) do 
 himself more harm than good ? Besides (^I said), you ought 
 not to have asked him. See (I said) what I find when 
 i come here now ; everybody lays the information of Martin's 
 letter to you." " It is a great shame," he said ; '• I never saw 
 the man for a year,— I don't like him. I never saw him but 
 twice in my life." " Well, but," I said, " he got his informa- 
 tion from rroi)aganda, and knew what we in England did
 
 176 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 not know." '* Well, he (Talbot) knew nothing' of this, 'but 
 people laid everything to him." " Well, then," I said, " you told 
 a person of high consideration in Rome you were sorry he was 
 a Newmanite." This was taking a line giving effect to what 
 he had said to me about Father Newman's doctrine. " Well," 
 he said, " Dr. Brown had only just now again attacked your 
 doctrine in the old Rambler ; and do you know what Doctor 
 Brown says of Newman's treatment of him ? " " Well, no, but 
 of late he (Brown) has acted like a friend." Talbot then said 
 there were always parties ; he had only meant that he had not 
 agreed with you in your late way of going on ; I forget exactly 
 what he said. He spoke against Manning's sermons, said he 
 had said many queer things, it was not only you who had 
 stated one wrong proposition, &c. Then he asked in a very 
 friendly way if you would come to Rome next year and 
 preach, you would do so much good. Why, even Manning 
 had done a great deal. I said you had an illness which gave 
 me little hope of your being able to come. He said he had felt 
 so much your being treated so badly by Dr. Cullen about the 
 Bishopric. . . . Then he said, (now don't laugh. Father) : " Did 
 I think you would let yourself be made a Protonotary 
 Apostolic,— you would have nothing to do but wear purple 
 if you came to Rome ? " " Well," I said, " Father Newman 
 would accept whatever came from the Holy See with the 
 greatest respect, but I really cannot say what he would do 
 now." Then he asked me with hesitation to dine with him. 
 As you will see, I weakly accepted at first, and Henry 
 acquiesced. Then this morning we talked with Palmer, and 
 after he went I wrote the enclosed letter [declining to dine 
 with him]. Palmer wanted us to go under a protest. I 
 thought that a half measure. This is all. Oh ! I am so 
 tired of writinfT and jabbering. I hope I have made no 
 mistake. 
 
 On receiving this letter Dr. Newman wrote as follows to 
 Monsignor Talbot • 
 
 'St. Philip's Day, 1867 (May 26th). 
 
 'Dear Monsignor Talbot, — I have received with much 
 satisfaction the report which Father St. John has given me 
 of your conversations with him. 
 
 ' I know you have a good heart ; and I know you did me 
 good service in the Achilli matter, — and you got me a relic 
 of St. Athanasius from Venice, which 1 account a great 
 treasure ; and for these reasons I have been the more 
 bewildered at your having of late years taken so strong 
 a part against mo without (I may say) any real ground
 
 THE APPEAL TO ROME (1867) 177 
 
 whatever ; or rather, I should have been bewildered were 
 it not that, for now as many as thirty-four years, it has been 
 my lot to be misrepresented and opposed without any inter- 
 mission by one set of persons or another. Certainly, I have 
 desiderated in you, as in many others, that charity which 
 thinketh no evil, and have looked in vain for that consider- 
 ateness and sympathy which is due to a man who has passed 
 his life in attempting to subserve the cause and interests of 
 religion, and who, for the very reason that he has written so 
 much, must, from the frailty of our common nature, have 
 said things which had better not have been said, or left out 
 complements and explanations of what he has said, which 
 had better have been added. 
 
 ' I am now an old man, perhaps within a few years of 
 my death, and you can now neither do me good nor harm. 
 I have never been otherwise than well-disposed towards 
 you. When you first entered the Holy Father's immediate 
 service, I used to say Mass for you the first day of every 
 month, that you might be prospered at your important 
 post ; and now I shall say Mass for you seven times, 
 beginning with this week, when we are keeping the Feast 
 of St. Philip, begging him at the same time to gain for 
 you a more equitable judgment of us and a kinder feeling 
 towards us on the part of our friends, than we have of late 
 years experienced. 
 
 ' I am, dear Monsignor Talbot, 
 
 Yours very sincerely in Christ, 
 
 John H. Newman 
 
 of the Oratorv.' 
 
 Monsignor Talbot's reply ran as follows : 
 
 ' My dear Father Newman, — Many thanks for your kind 
 letter, dated on the Feast of St. Philip. Many thanks also 
 for your promise to say seven Masses for me, as in my 
 delicate position near the sacred person of the Holy Father, 
 I need as many prayers as I can get. 
 
 ' I hope that now we may resume a correspondence which 
 has been intermitted for so long a period of time. 
 
 * Nevertheless, I must say that you have been misin- 
 formed if you have been told that I have " of late years 
 taken so strong a part against you without any real ground 
 whatever." 
 
 ' I do not know who may have been your informants, 
 but there are certain mischief-makers in the world, whose 
 chief occupation seems to be to make feuds amongst 
 VOL. II. N
 
 178 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 friends, by reporting to one what the other may have said 
 of him. 
 
 * I do not deny that certain expressions in your later 
 writings have not pleased me, and that I could not approve 
 of certain acts of yours which had the appearance of being 
 opposed to the wishes of the Holy See. 
 
 ' Besides, a certain school in England have done you 
 much harm by making many believe that you sympathized 
 with their detestable views. You have also been more in- 
 jured by your friends than your enemies. When I was in 
 England three years ago, I heard some of them quoting your 
 name in opposition to the Authority of the Holy See. I 
 remarked that there was a party forming of what are called 
 " Liberal Catholics," who wished to place you at their head, 
 in preference of professing a filial devotion to the Vicar of 
 Christ, and a due veneration for the Chair of St. Peter. 
 
 ' There is a saying : " God defend me from my friends ; 
 I can defend myself from my enemies." 
 
 ' Such is your case. For twenty years I was your warm 
 admirer and defender, and should be delighted to be so still, 
 but when I found that there was a dangerous party rising in 
 England, who quoted your name, I was obliged to modify 
 my views, and stand up for Ecclesiastical Authority in 
 preference of worshipping great intellectual gifts. 
 
 * As for yourself personally, my love and affection has 
 never varied. I may have lately criticised some of your 
 public acts, as I have done those of many others of my 
 friends, but this is no reason why any coldness should exist 
 between priests who are all working for the same great end, 
 the greater glory of God, and salvation of souls. 
 
 ' Believe me, 
 
 Sincerely yours in Christ, 
 
 Geo. Talbot.' 
 
 Ambrose St. John, before leaving Rome, wrote a last 
 word about the Rambler article, and described his farewell 
 interviews with Cardinals Barnabo and Reisach. 
 
 Father Ambrose St. John to Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' May, 1S67. 
 
 ' Dearest Father, — Your letter of the 7th is just come, 
 and also your telegram No. 2. 
 
 ' I \i2iVQ. persisted ^o\y\. the Rambler, — because our friends 
 (Palmer especially) say it must be the result of our coming 
 to Rome, — that they have quite given up your disobedience
 
 THE APPEAL TO ROME (1867) 179 
 
 (the Pope saying " Newman has been ' tutto ubbediente ' ") 
 so now they must give up your heterodoxy. Here you have 
 Franzehn's article. What you eventually do about this 
 cannot be determined while we are here. Your most happy 
 letter to the Cardinal enables me to say positively that " so 
 far from appealing ad misericordiam (as Talbot said to me), 
 you courted examination." To my amazement yesterday 
 Talbot told me coolly, he had seen the letter ; yet he forgot 
 or ignored that, and has declared to me : " Poor Newman, 
 when he was asked for an explanation only begged off being 
 called to Rome"; it was quite consistent with this that he 
 should advise me not to show your letter to Cardinal 
 Wiseman to the Pope. Perrone and Cardella say : " show 
 it." Palmer says : " show it " ; so I am going to Barnabo, 
 (who as Henry told you also said " show it ") to ask for a 
 letter for an audience. De Luca, to whom I showed it. was 
 cautious as he is the Head of the Index, said I must get the 
 passages of the Rambler which were marked and their trans- 
 lation into Italian. He was very friendly but more cautious 
 than on the first meeting. Barnabo was very warm, down- 
 right hearty, said he loved you ; that you were a saint, saints 
 were persecuted, like Palotti, people made use of your name, 
 and pretended to have your protection — this was because 
 you had such a charitable heart. Poor old man, he is really 
 a very good-hearted man. He said to me : " I know both 
 men, — Manning and Newman. I know Manning best, but 
 I love Newman." He did not say, but the contrast led me 
 to think he liked your unassuming way in keeping to 
 yourself and doing your work. I know this is rather in 
 contradiction with what he said on our first meeting, but 
 you must recollect he has only heard one side before. I 
 asked as it has chanced apropos of your to-day's letter, 
 I suppose nothing said about Father Newman's too great 
 influence at Oxford affects the Oratory at Oxford. No, he 
 said, the leave ts granted for the Oratory. Only Father 
 Newman is not to change his residence ; if he went for a 
 month this or that time it would not be making his residence 
 there of course. He spoke this cautiously, but I can answer 
 for his words ; and I am sure with you we must on no 
 account give up what we have got. I presented the " sup- 
 plica " with the three propositions and left it with him, and 
 the memorial about the Bishop. I said I hoped he would 
 not treat our school exceptionally. How could I think so? 
 Of course not. I said we had felt as if it had been treated 
 as dangerous. He would not allow this. . . The truth 
 
 .N 2
 
 t8o LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 is those who have the gift of the gab (just as now) get their 
 way for a time. I have gabbed now so much with everybody 
 that I am getting confused. The general impression of 
 friends is that I have gabbed to some effect for the present. 
 I called on Cardinal Rcisach to-day — very bland and cour- 
 teous — apologized for not calling on you — talked of Oxford, 
 said it was different from German Universities where men 
 lived in Catholic families, e.g. Bonn. He wanted a high 
 school of studies as they have at Stonyhurst. He is no good 
 to us, and I left him gladly ; but we must be on good terms 
 with him — he spoke highly of you. I dined with Nardi 
 yesterday and talked a great deal very freely. He blames 
 the Civilta'^ for puffing Manning. I hope we shall get off by 
 Monday next, — this day week. . . . 
 
 *A. St. John.' 
 
 It now became clear that all was gained that could be 
 hoped for from the visit to Rome. The disposition to speak 
 well of Newman was universal. It was desirable that a full 
 statement in writing should be handed in to Propaganda on 
 the Oxford question. It would be well also if Newman took 
 some opportunity of explaining the Rambler article. It was 
 quite certain that the explanation would be received as 
 satisfactory. A full statement on the Oxford episode was 
 drawn up by Mr. Palmer and handed in on May \6} 
 The Rambler matter had of course to wait until Newman 
 found or made his own opportunity for an explanation ; and 
 St. John and his companion were therefore free to depart. 
 They reached the Oratory in time for St. Philip's feast on 
 May 26. 
 
 Newman, after talking things over with Ambrose St. John, 
 soon came to the conclusion that he must be satisfied with 
 completely clearing his reputation for orthodoxy in Rome. 
 His own reply to Franzelin's strictures on the Rambler ■axMzXo. 
 must be careful and thorough. As to the Oxford scheme, 
 his original impression, formed after the appearance of Mr. 
 Martin's letter, returned — that it must be dropped ; but this 
 step was not finally resolved upon until August, much corre- 
 spondence taking place with Hope-Scott in the interval. This 
 view was clearly the Bishop's. Bishop Ullathorne discussed 
 the matter fully with Propaganda in the course of a visit to 
 
 ' The text of Mr. Palmer's statement is given at p. 549.
 
 THE APPEAL TO ROME (1867) 181 
 
 Rome in June. Newman saw him for the first time after his 
 return on August i,and learned that in Rome they considered 
 the Oxford matter at an end. The Bishop, however, did not 
 actually say what he evidently meant, that the entire Oxford 
 Oratory plan had better be abandoned. Dr. Newman's 
 conversation with Bishop Ullathorne is recorded in the 
 following memorandum : 
 
 ' August 1st, 1867. 
 
 ' I have just come from calling on the Bishop. It is the 
 first conversation I have had with him since his return from 
 Rome. 
 
 ' I began by talking about his examination before the 
 Parliamentary Commission on the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, 
 — nothing else. 
 
 * But after a time he got loose from it, and said that both 
 at Rome and since his return Dr. Manning had wished to 
 make it up with me. I said that I was just now in corre- 
 spondence with Oakeley on the subject, and told the Bishop 
 what I had said : 
 
 ' He then talked of Cardinal Luca, [who had] said that 
 the Church (or the Archbishop, I forget which) must embrace 
 all opinions in the one faith, stretching out his arms. 
 
 ' And Cardinal Barnabo had recommended the Bishops 
 through him to put out some declaration against controversy, 
 especially by laymen and in periodicals. 
 
 ' He had freely spoken to Cardinal Reisach on his not 
 having taken any notice of me in England last year. 
 
 ' He said Monsignor Capalti, Secretary of Propaganda, 
 was very strong about my going to Rome — implored me — 
 the Bishop in speaking to me evidently acquiesced, perhaps 
 he had suggested it to Capalti. He said I ought to stay a 
 whole season there — i.e. what he said came to this. 
 
 ' Then he said abruptly, very grave, and looking straight 
 at me : " I find that at Rome they consider the Oxford matter 
 quite at an end." I answered: " I suppose they mean they 
 have said their last word." He answered, apparently not see- 
 ing the drift of my question : "Yes." What I meant was that 
 we had got leave to extend our Birmingham Oratory into 
 Oxford, provided I did not change my residence. 
 
 ' As to educating for Oxford, he said that the Bishops' 
 Declaration had not yet returned from Rome. He could not 
 quite tell what it would be. As sent to Rome, it said, apropos 
 of a priest having in the confessional said to a penitent that 
 there was no sin in a father sending his son to Oxford, that
 
 i82 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 such a father acted against the will of the Bishops and of the 
 Holy See. 
 
 ' J. H. N.' 
 
 For a few days the future remained still uncertain, as is 
 evident from some words in a letter of August 13 from 
 Newman to Hope-Scott. In the course of this letter we find 
 the following reference to Manning : 
 
 ' Manning has written to me wishing that we should meet 
 and give him an opportunity of explanation. Of course I seem 
 to put myself in the wrong by declining — but I seriously 
 think it would do more harm than good. I do not trust him, 
 and his new words would be the cause of fresh distrust. This, 
 as far as I could do delicately, I have suggested to him. I 
 have said that the whole world thought him difficult to under- 
 stand, that I should be glad to think it was my own fault that 
 I had not been prepared by his general bearing and talk for 
 his acts ; that friendly acts would be the best preparation for 
 a friendly meeting — and that I should hail that day, when 
 the past had been so far reversed, that explanations would be 
 natural and effectual. At present I should not in my heart 
 accept his explanations.' ^ 
 
 In point of fact Manning had been urging Propaganda to 
 renew in a yet stronger form than hitherto the dissuasion to 
 English Catholic parents from sending their sons to Oxford. 
 And a fresh rescript arrived in this very month. Newman 
 had in the meantime written to Cardinal Barnabo protesting 
 against his action, which has been already alluded to in 
 reference to Edgbaston School. The text of this correspon- 
 dence I have been unable to find. But from a note by 
 Newman it is clear that it became angry, and that Newman 
 declared that he left his cause with God, using the words 
 ' viderit Deus.' In view of this state of things the Oratory at 
 Oxford was finally abandoned. It would mean a false posi- 
 tion, and one which was not likely to be made tenable by any 
 special sympathy in high quarters, 
 
 Newman communicated his views to Hope-Scott : 
 
 ' August 1 6th, 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Hope-Scott, — The Rescript has just come from 
 Propaganda to the Bishops, from which they will draw up 
 
 ' These words refer to the correspondence in the Life oj Cardinal 
 Martning, pp. 327-42.
 
 THE APPEAL TO ROME (1867) 183 
 
 their Pastoral Letters to Priests and People on the subject of 
 University Education. 
 
 ' I suppose this Rescript will not be brought forward ; 
 and the immediate authority will be the Pastoral. . . . 
 
 ' In the printed Documents {re Bishop's Pamphlet) which 
 I sent you the other day, I have said two things : 
 
 ' I. That I go to Oxford solely because there are Catholic 
 Undergraduates there. . . . 
 
 ' 2. That my going there must tend to bring Catholics 
 there. 
 
 ' And now those two avowals are confronted by the 
 declaration from Propaganda : " A youth can scarcely, or 
 not scarcely even, go to Oxford without throwing himself 
 into a proximate occasion of mortal sin." 
 
 * Does it not follow as an inevitable sequence in logic, 
 that if I go there I contemplate youths (or their parents) 
 throwing themselves into such proximate occasions and 
 moreover distinctly disobeying their Bishops who warn them 
 against it, and secondly that I co-operate in their act by 
 encouraging it ? 
 
 ' All along I have professed and felt indifference, reluc- 
 tance, to go to Oxford. If I do go still after the Bishop's 
 Pastoral, shall I not fairly be considered to have made a 
 profession which I did not feel or mean to carry out ? 
 
 ' It seems to me that I am simply in a false position if 
 I consent to go on with the Oxford undertaking after the 
 Rescript. 
 
 ' The question is ivJiat I must do, and lohcti, to bring the 
 matter to an end. 
 
 ' I do not see any difficulty in waiting till the Bisho[) 
 speaks to me, for the reasons which I shall give for my de- 
 cision, he has already heard, and they are quite independent 
 of those which arise out of the Rescript. The simple reason 
 of my not going on with the business is, that to my surprise 
 I found I was not allowed free liberty to go to Oxford, 
 This was the reason assigned in the letter which I wrote to 
 him on receipt of the news, and, though I was prevented by 
 our Fathers from sending that letter, I showed it him a week 
 or two after. 
 
 ' I would rather give this reason than make it seem that 
 I withdrew in consequence of the Rescript. In the one case 
 I shall be withdrawing because I have been unfairly treated ; 
 in the other, because I have been detected in an animus and 
 foiled by a distinct message from Rome. 
 
 'The two grounds are so distinct that if I bring out m)- 
 own ground strongly in my letter, it will not matter whether
 
 1 84 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 or not in matter of fact it is given to the public after the 
 expected Pastoral Letter. Is not this so ? . . , 
 
 ' Ever yours affly, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Acting on this opinion, in which Hope-Scott concurred, 
 Newman wrote as follows to the Bishop : 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham : August iSth, 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Lord, — I do not think you will feel any surprise 
 if I at length act on the resolve which I formed on the very 
 day that I heard of the restriction placed on my presence in 
 Oxford, which I have cherished ever since, and only not 
 carried out because of the dissuasion of friends here and 
 elsewhere. 
 
 ' That dissuasion has now ceased ; and, accordingly, 
 I now ask your permission to withdraw from my engage- 
 ment to undertake the Mission of Oxford, on the ground 
 that I am not allowed by Propaganda the freedom to 
 discharge its duties with effect. 
 
 ' Thanking you for all your kindnesi., and with much 
 regret for the trouble I have caused you, 
 
 ' I am, &c., &c. 
 
 J. H. N.' 
 
 Bishop Ullathorne's reply was as follows : 
 
 ' Birmingham : Aug. 19th, 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Dr. Newman, — Your letter reached me this 
 morning from Stone. I am not at all surprised that you 
 have renounced the project of the Oxford Mission. Were 
 I in the same position, I should do the same. And yet 
 I receive the announcement of your decision with a sense of 
 pain both acute and deep. 
 
 * I have no hesitation in saying it, as my complete 
 conviction, that you have been shamefully misrepresented at 
 Rome, and that by countrymen of our own. 
 
 ' When I went thither I had some hope of being able to 
 put this affair more straight. But when I got there I plainly 
 saw that the time had not come for an impartial hearing. 
 Preoccupations in the quarters where alone representation is 
 effectual were still too strong, and minds were too much 
 occupied with the vast multitude of affairs brought to Rome 
 by so many Bishops there assembled. 
 
 ' On the other hand, the closing sentence of your letter to 
 Cardinal Barnabo, which, the moment I read it, I felt would 
 be interpreted in a much stronger sense than you would have 
 intended, made so unpleasant an impression that I believe
 
 THE APPEAL TO ROME (1867) 185 
 
 that sentence stood as a considerable obstacle in the way of 
 those explanations which were proffered by your own re- 
 presentatives.^ Indeed, I have good evidence that it was so, 
 from those who took your part with cordiality. You will 
 quite understand that I am not making a reflection, but 
 pointing out a fact. 
 
 ' I still trust that the time will come when the facts of the 
 case will be better understood at Rome, and when justice will 
 be done to you. 
 
 * Wishing you every blessing, 
 
 I remain, my dear Dr. Newman, 
 Your faithful & affectionate servant in Christ, 
 
 W. B. Ullathorne.' 
 
 ' This is probably the letter referred to at page 182. Newman's own view of 
 the whole episode is naturally that which I have set forth in the text. But here, 
 as in the Irish University question, the attitude of the ecclesiastical authorities 
 will be very intelligible to the careful reader. The ' secret instruction ' which 
 made so painful an impression on Newman, coming to his knowledge as it did 
 coupled with Mr. Martin's unfriendly interpretation of its real import, was, as 
 has been explained at p. 139, not in intention unfriendly to him. Cardinal 
 Barnabo (see p. 160) considered that it ought to have been communicated to 
 Newman when the danger was apparent that he might collect money from those 
 who, when subscribing, considt-red that he was free to reside at Oxford. The 
 leave for an Oxford Oratory had, as we have seen, been granted by Propaganda 
 on the strength of Dr. Ullathorne's explanation that Newman did not mean 
 actually to reside there (p. 179). Propaganda held that such residence would 
 militate against Pius IX. 's policy of opposition to ' mixed ' education and therefore 
 could not sanction it. But Dr. Ullathorne had been afraid of communicating 
 to Newman this condition lest he should misunderstand its true significance, 
 and had not informed him that he (the Bishop) had received instructions to 
 make sure that the condition was observed. The true facts eventually came 
 to Newman's knowledge together with an extremely painful and untrue suggestion 
 as to the reason for the proviso in question. And Newman's correspondence 
 with Cardinal Barnabo had afterwards assumed a tone so unfavourable to the 
 successful negotiation of a difficult matter, that the whole scheme was necessarily 
 dropped. This appears to be the outcome of the whole story.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE DEADLOCK IN HIGHER EDUCATION (1867) 
 
 The final relinquishment of the Oxford scheme left the 
 extreme party triumphant ; but it left the practical prob- 
 lem of higher education for English Catholics unsolved. 
 The Catholic University in Ireland had originally been de- 
 signed to solve it, but it had failed. Catholics were now 
 authoritatively warned against Oxford and Cambridge ; but 
 where else were they to go for University training ? It was 
 part of what Newman afterwards called the policy of 
 ' Nihilism ' pursued by the authorities.^ Actual difficulties 
 were not faced ; practicable remedies were not found. It 
 had been the same with his work for Christian thought in 
 the Rambler. Defects had been censured ; the work was 
 crushed and not carried out on lines free from objection. 
 
 Newman could not but feel that to persevere now in an 
 endeavour of which the utility was so little appreciated was 
 but to waste his time. An opportunity would soon be found 
 for the coup de grace if he did not now of his own accord 
 retire. It only remained to resign himself to uselessness in a 
 matter in which his antecedents seemed to mark him out as 
 so supremely useful, and to do faithfully his duty to all 
 concerned — the Pope, the Bishops, and the Catholic parents. 
 
 His feeling at the time of finally abandoning the scheme, 
 is given in a letter — very grave, very measured, very sad — to 
 Father Coleridge : 
 
 ' The Oratory, Birmingham: August 30lh, 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Father Coleridge, — Thank you for your affec- 
 tionate letter. There are a hundred reasons why I was 
 bound to bring the Oxford matter to an end. 
 
 ' For three years complete it has involved me in endless 
 correspondence, conversation, controversy, and bother, taking 
 
 ' See p. 486.
 
 THE DEADLOCK IN HIGHER EDUCATION (1867) 187 
 
 up my time and thoughts. I felt it was wrong thus to fritter 
 away any longer such remaining time as God gives me. It 
 has been my Cross for years and years that I have gone on 
 "operose nihil agendo." 
 
 'There was the Rambler matter. The Cardinal and our 
 Bishop urged me to interfere with the conductors — and 
 thanked me when I consented. It involved me in endless 
 trouble and work. The correspondence is a huge heap. 
 I have been obliged to arrange and complete it with notes 
 and collateral papers, that I may ultimately be shown to have 
 acted a good part. This was the work of four or five years, 
 and what came of it ? 
 
 ' I seem to be similarly circumstanced as regards the 
 Dublin University matters from 1852 to 1858. Letters and 
 papers without end and about nothing — and those not yet 
 sorted and arranged. 
 
 ' I do believe my first thought has ever been " what 
 does God wish me to do ? " so I can't really be sorry 
 or repine — but I have very few persons on earth to thank — 
 and I have felt no call, after so many rebuffs, to go on with 
 this Oxford undertaking, and I am come to the conclusion 
 that, if Propaganda wants me for any purpose, it must be so 
 good as to ask me — and I shall wait to be asked — i.e. (as I 
 anticipate) "ad Graecas calendas." 
 
 'See what a time it has taken to tell you reason one. I 
 will mention only one other, which is abundantly clear, (if it 
 ever were doubtful) from the answers I have had to my late 
 circular. The money was given to me personally — the sub- 
 scribers wanted to see vie in Oxford (I am talking of the 
 majority of them) — they would not give their money for an 
 Oxford mission merely. When the Propaganda decided that 
 I was not personally to be there, it would have been a mis- 
 appropriation of their money to spend it merely on an Oxford 
 Church. . . . 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Newman's letters during the remainder of this year show 
 constantly his great anxiety both to clear completely his 
 reputation for orthodoxy and loyalty at Rome and to act in 
 strict conformity with his duty towards the Bishops. Hope- 
 Scott had put down his solicitude as to Roman opinion to 
 undue sensitiveness. Early in the year he had ascribed to 
 the same cause Newman's fears lest the suspicions of his 
 orthodoxy on the part of such men as Mr. Martin, and certain
 
 1 88 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 rumours on the same subject which had found currency in 
 the Chronicle, might do him further harm. When the existence 
 of the ' secret instruction ' became known Newman had 
 written to him claiming that his suspicions were justified. 
 
 Dr. Newman to Mr. Hope-Scott. 
 
 'April 13, 1867. 
 * I think it is now proved that what you called my " sen- 
 sitiveness " was not timidity, or particularity, or touchiness, 
 but a true instinct of the state of the ecclesiastical atmo- 
 sphere—nor is it wonderful that I should know more than 
 you of what threatened and what did not, as you (I suspect) 
 would know more than I could know about the temper of 
 Parliamentary committees, and Gladstone more than myself 
 about political parties. That neophyte, Mr. Martin, is an 
 index of the state of the weather at Rome, as the insects 
 swarming near the earth is a sign of rain ; — and rash sayings 
 in the Chro?iicle may be of as much danger indirectly to my 
 influence in England, as an open window may avail to give 
 me a cold. . . . No one but myself knows how intensely 
 anxious I have been, since I have been a Catholic, never to 
 say anything without good theological authority for saying 
 it, and, though of course with the greatest care the humana 
 incuria is at fault, yet I have no reason to suppose that my 
 mistakes are more than those which all writers incur ; — yet 
 there is no doubt that I am looked at with suspicion at Rome, 
 because I will not go the whole hog in all the extravagances 
 of the school of the day, and I cannot move my finger without 
 giving offence.' 
 
 The report brought by Ambrose St. John from Rome in 
 May had done something towards allaying Newman's fears 
 as to Roman suspicions of his orthodoxy. And the more 
 favourable impression was confirmed by a visit in August 
 from Monsignor Nardi, which is recorded with a good deal 
 of dry humour in a memorandum written by Newman at 
 the time. That Italian prelate's words went to show that 
 it was in England, rather than in Rome, that he had active 
 enemies who impugned the soundness of his theology. 
 
 'August 24, 1867. 
 
 * Monsignor Nardi came here for an hour or two yesterday. 
 I will set down some of the things he said in a long 
 conversation.
 
 THE DEADLOCK IN HIGHER EDUCATION (1867) 189 
 
 ' I was a great man — no denying it — a great writer — good 
 style — good strong logic — my style went very easily into 
 Italian — it was a classical style. Of course I had my enemies 
 — they are in England or Englishmen — but all Catholics, to 
 speak as a whole, were my friends. He did not speak from 
 flattery — no — he always spoke his mind, even to the Pope. 
 He was one of the consultors of the Index. There were 
 things in what I had written which he did not like — that 
 about original sin (here I set him right, and he seemed 
 to give in — he had forgotten " deprivation and the con- 
 sequences of deprivation " — he could hardly believe I had 
 made this addition) and that about a people's religion being 
 a corrupt religion.^ But perhaps the vehemence of writing 
 could not be helped. I had very good friends. Father St. 
 John was a good friend of mine, very — and a great gentleman. 
 Cardinal Cullen was a good friend, yes — a very good friend. 
 I understood him to mean by " good friends " persons who had 
 been a real service to me. I ought to send persons from 
 time to time to explain things and keep authorities at Rome 
 a!i courant. I ought to go to Rome myself. It would rejoice 
 the Holy Father — I ought to be a Bishop, Archbishop — yes 
 yes — I ought, I ought, — yes, a very good Bishop — it is your 
 line, it is, it is — it was no good my saying it was not. 
 
 ' I ought to take the part of the Pope. " We have very 
 few friends," he said — " very few " — he spoke in a very grave 
 earnest mournful tone — no one could tell what was to 
 take place in Rome, the next, not year but, month. All 
 through Italy the upper class was infidel — and the lower was 
 getting profane and blasphemous. This was for want of 
 education — the fault of Austria. Infidels were put over its 
 education — the churches turned into granaries and stables. 
 The next generation would be infidels, far worse than the 
 present. There was no chance of a reaction. All this was 
 no fault of the Priests — perhaps there were 1,000 Priests in 
 Italy who had turned out bad — but what were they out of 
 160,000 ? 
 
 * What we wanted in England for Catholics was education 
 — how could youths whose education ended at 17 or 18 
 compete with those whose education went on to 22 ? There 
 was no chance of a Catholic University. He seemed to 
 agree with me that London was as bad as Oxford — worse, 
 he had been in the neighbourhood of (I think) Charing Cross 
 
 ' In his Letter to Pusey he had written as follows : ' A people's rcli£^ion is 
 ever a corrupt religion in spite of the provisions of Holy Church.' — Difficulties of 
 Anglicans, ii. 8i.
 
 igo LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 lately in the evening, no priest could walk there — no — he 
 was obliged to call a cab. 
 
 ' He wanted to see Father Ryder's pamphlet — William 
 gave him a copy — he wanted my photograph. I gave him 
 two,' 
 
 Although, however, both Ambrose St. John's report and 
 the visit of the Roman Monsignor had somewhat encouraged 
 Newman as to the friendliness of Rome, his anxiety was by 
 no means at an end. The Oratory School was still gossiped 
 about as preparing boys for Oxford against the wishes of the 
 Holy See. His interchange of letters with Cardinal Barnabo 
 showed that that prelate looked at the school with suspicion. 
 With the memory still green of his two crushing rebuffs in 
 the Oxford matter, it is not surprising that he became anxious 
 lest some pretext might be found for bringing to an end the 
 Oratory School. These fears he communicated to Hope-Scott 
 on September 9 : 
 
 ' It seems to me certain, that, if we go on just as we are 
 going on now, our school will be stopped. We shall have 
 endless trouble, correspondence, inquiries, false reports, ex- 
 planations, letters to Propaganda, journeys to Rome, ending, 
 after some years and a languishing concern, in an order from 
 Rome, or a recommendation from our Bishop, to wind up. 
 
 ' The simplest way of all is to stop now, and on the 
 ground of [Cardinal Barnabo's] letter, stating how we prac- 
 tically interpret it, and the result which it foreshadows ; — but 
 then, I. I doubt whether we should carry our friends with us ; 
 friends and enemies would say it was " sensitiveness " in me, 
 and enemies would have the double pleasure of blaming me 
 and rejoicing in my act. 2. It would be a loss of perhaps 
 as much as 50/. a year, the interest of the money which 
 the Oratory or individual Fathers have lent to the school. 
 3. Better times may come ; if we once stop the school, we 
 cannot recommence it ; it is gone for ever. 4. We are doing 
 the Birmingham Oratory a great service in rooting it in the 
 minds and affections of the next generation by setting up 
 an educational system such as ours, and indirectly by our 
 action in other Catholic schools. 
 
 ' But then, on the other hand, look at this last reason. 
 In proportion as we are doing good, we are offending the 
 Catholic school interest throughout the country, and Ushaw 
 and Stonyhurst neither like a new establishment to take their 
 boys from them nor to put them on their mettle. That we
 
 THE DEADLOCK IN HIGHER EDUCATION (1867) 191 
 
 are something new tells with great force at Rome, where the 
 defects of English Catholic secular education are not under- 
 stood. I think there is a determination not to let me have 
 anything to do with education. W. G. Ward openly confesses 
 this ; Manning does not, but then four years ago, in an 
 enumeration in the Dublin Revieiv of the English Catholic 
 Schools, he pointedly left ours out ; and about the same time 
 his head Oblate at Bayswater, writing to me on another 
 matter, let drop in the course of his letter that our school 
 was only a temporary concern. 
 
 'What is the good of spending an additional penny on 
 our school ? is it not flinging away good money after bad ? 
 
 * Suppose we limited our boys to the age of fourteen or 
 sixteen, which is in principle what we originally intended ;— 
 and to this day no other school can boast, as we can, of 
 our care of young boys. We could in our Prospectus and 
 Advertisement enlarge on this. Or again, without committing 
 ourselves to a limit, suppose we in our own minds prepared 
 for it, made up our minds to it as a result of Cardinal 
 Barnabo's letter to me. Suppose we left everything alone, 
 but this, viz. to add to our Prospectus and Advertisement : 
 " In consequence of special instructions received from the 
 Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda, and to carry out the wishes 
 of our Bishops, as expressed in their united letter, Father 
 Newman wishes it to be known (to his friends) that no boy 
 is received at the Oratory School, who is intended by his 
 parents for the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and 
 that he hopes for their friendly aid to enable him to observe 
 bona fide this rule." 
 
 ' You will let me have your thoughts on the whole subject. 
 Ambrose is going to consult Bishop Clifford.' 
 
 While Newman was deliberating as to his best course with 
 a view to preserving the school, he felt that his only safe plan 
 when conversing with the parents of boys was to avoid the 
 question of Oxford altogether. He definitely declined to 
 speak of it in letters to parents who consulted him as to the 
 future of their boys. 
 
 The Bishop of Birmingham issued a Pastoral in October 
 discouraging Catholics from going to Oxford, Newman 
 hastened to intimate his obedience. He at once inserted the 
 following passage in the Oratory School prospectus : 
 
 ' In accordance with the instructions contained in the 
 Pastoral of the Bi.shop of Birmingham of October 13th, 1867,
 
 192 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 there is no preparation provided for the examinations at 
 Oxford and Cambridge.' 
 
 Newman's anxious conscientiousness did not go without 
 its reward. Dr. Ullathorne and other friends were instant 
 and indignant in their representations at Rome both as to 
 his whole-hearted loyalty and his orthodoxy. On the other 
 hand, the party which accused his writings of being unsound 
 were active in making their views known at headquarters. 
 In the end their busy gossip defeated its object. Pius IX., 
 who had ever shown for Newman both regard and considera- 
 tion, determined to bring matters to a head, and applied to 
 Dr. Cullen, as a responsible authority who knew Newman's 
 writings well, for an opinion as to their orthodoxy. The 
 result was so entirely favourable that Newman was, wath the 
 Pope's approval, invited later on both to help in preparing 
 matter for the Vatican Council and to assist at the Council 
 itself as one of the official theologians. 
 
 Dr. Cullen's report was made known to Newman in the 
 autumn of 1867 at the Pope's express desire. The news was 
 a ray of sunshine in gloomy weather. 
 
 ' I consider,' Newman writes in a note dated 1872, 'that 
 the Pope having sent to Dr. Cullen to ask about the character 
 and drift of my writings, and Dr. Cullen having reported to 
 nim most favourably, and he (the Pope) having wished this 
 distinctly to be told me, and then two years after having 
 invited me as a theologian to the Ecumenical Council, alto- 
 gether wipes off Mr. Martin, Zulueta, &c., &c.' 
 
 It was perhaps the fresh courage which the good news 
 from Rome gave which made him ready now to .speak his 
 mind more openly as to the Oxford question. A very full 
 letter to a friend reviews the situation with great care : 
 
 ' The Oratory, Novr. 10, 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Lady Simeon, — Your letter came yesterday, 
 I answer at once to the best of my ability, it being my matter 
 as well as it is yours, and perhaps a greater difficulty to me 
 than to you. 
 
 ' Let me begin by saying plainly that after the Propaganda 
 Rescript, only under very peculiar, extraordinary circum- 
 stances could I make myself responsible for a youth's going 
 to Oxford. If he turned out ill, it would not satisfy my
 
 THE DEADLOCK IN HIGHER EDUCATION (1867) 193 
 
 mind to say " There are greater dangers in periodical litera- 
 ture than in Oxford, he would have gone wrong wheresoever 
 he was." I should have before me a result which I had 
 directly caused, not an hypothesis. 
 
 ' Having said this at starting, let me now state the case as 
 it really lies. 
 
 ' I. I say with Cardinal l?ellarmine whether the Pope be 
 infallible or not in any pronouncement, anyhow he is to be 
 obeyed. No good can come from disobedience. His facts 
 and his warnings may be all wrong ; his deliberations may 
 have been biassed. He may have been misled. Imperiousness 
 and craft, tyranny and cruelty, may be patent in the conduct 
 of his advisers and instruments. But when he speaks formally 
 and authoritatively he speaks as our Lord would have him 
 speak, and all those imperfections and sins of individuals are 
 overruled for that result which our Lord intends (just as the 
 action of the wicked and of enemies to the Church are over- 
 ruled) and therefore the Pope's word stands, and a blessing 
 goes with obedience to it, and no blessing with disobedience. 
 
 ' 2. But next, I say, there is no command, no prohibition in 
 the Propaganda Rescript which is the subject of your letter: 
 And this, on purpose. The Pope might have prohibited youth 
 from going to Oxford had he been so minded, but he has not 
 done so. For three years past it has been declared by the 
 Bishops in England, that there should be no prohibition. 
 At the Episcopal meeting in December 1864 two, and two 
 only, of the Bishops were for a prohibition. In the spring 
 Cardinal Barnabo told Father St. John that there would be 
 no prohibition. He said " We shall do as we did in Ireland 
 twenty years ago. Archbishop McHale wished a prohibition 
 but we only dissuaded. This we shall do now." 
 
 * 3. What then is the message if not a prohibition ? It is 
 the greatest of dissuasions. It throws all the responsibility 
 of the act upon those who send a youth to Oxford. It is an 
 authoritative solemn warning. 
 
 * 4. Is not this equivalent to a prohibition ? No. A 
 prohibition must be obeyed implicitly — but when the Pope 
 condescends not to command, but to reason, he puts the case 
 as it were into our hands and makes us the ultimate judge, 
 he taking the place of a witness of preponderating authority. 
 
 '5. What follows from this ? That all the responsibility 
 falls on the parent who sends his son to Oxford, that he 
 must in his own conscience make out a case strong enough 
 to overcome in his particular case the general dissuasion of 
 the Vicar of Christ. pA'cry rule has its exceptions. He has 
 
 VOL. II. o
 
 T94 I-IFK OF (WRDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 to prove to the satisfaction of his conscience on his death- 
 bed, to the satisfaction of the priest who hears his confession, 
 that the case of his own boy is an exceptional one. 
 
 '6. And such exceptions there arc. Let me illustrate 
 what I mean. IVe must take care of the young one by one, 
 as a mother does, and as an Archbishop does not. JVe 
 know our own, one by one (if we are priests with the pastoral 
 charge) as our ecclesiastical rulers cannot know them. It 
 were well indeed if some high prelates recollected more 
 than they seem to do the words of the Apostle : " Fathers 
 provoke not your children to anger lest they become pusil- 
 lanimous," depressed, disgusted, disappointed, unsettled, 
 reckless. Youth is the time of generous and enthusiastic 
 impulses ; young men are imprudent, and get into scrapes. 
 Perhaps they fall in love imprudently. To carry out an 
 engagement on which they have set their hearts may seem to 
 their parents a madness ; most truly, yet it may be a greater 
 madness to prohibit it. All of us must recollect instances 
 when to suffer what is bad in itself is the lesser of great evils, 
 as the event has shown. When there has been a successful 
 prohibition it has resulted in a life-long ruin to the person 
 who is so dear to us, for whose welfare we have been mis- 
 takenly zealous. It does not do to beat the life out of a 
 youth — the life of aspirations, excitement and enthusiasm. 
 Older men live by reason, habit and self-control, but the 
 \oung live by visions. I can fancy cases in which Oxford 
 would be the salvation of a }'outh ; when he would be far 
 more likely to rise up against authority, murmur against his 
 superiors, and (more) to become an unbeliever, if he is kept 
 from Oxford than if he is sent there. 
 
 ' 7. Now as to I am far from making such dreadful 
 
 vaticinations about him. I will but say that he, being a boy, 
 must be treated with the greatest care. It is certain that 
 the prospect of going to Oxford roused him into an activity 
 w hich he had not before. Also I am told that he was con- 
 siderably excited on hearing in Church our Bishop's Pastoral 
 read. 
 
 ' 8. This then is what I recommend, viz. : He is only 
 seventeen. Youths do not go to Oxford till they are 
 nineteen. Do nothing at present. His name is already 
 
 down at . Wait for a year and a half; many things 
 
 may turn up in that time. For instance there is a talk of 
 Oxford Examinations and degrees being opened to those 
 who have not resided, and Father Weld said the other day to 
 me that he should prefer such an opening for his students to
 
 THE DEADLOCK IN HIGHER EDUCATION (1867) 195 
 
 their taking their degrees at the London University. This is 
 one outlet from the difficulty, others may show themselves. 
 Therefore I recommend waiting and temporizing. 
 
 '9. I don't see there is any call upon you to initiate any- 
 thing, though you are bound to speak when questions are 
 asked for. But this is a matter for your confessor. One 
 thing I am strong upon ; — boys are ticklish animals and I 
 think you had better not write to . 
 
 ' Excuse, my dear Lady Simeon, the freedom of this 
 letter and believ^e me, &c., &c. 
 
 J. H. N.' 
 
 Although there was no positive and universal prohibi- 
 tion from Rome on the O.xford question, it was clear that the 
 Catholic young men as a body would now keep away from 
 the Universities. There was naturally a strong feeling among 
 the laity that their sons were left with no provision for their 
 education. And many thought the objection to Oxford quite 
 ungrounded. ' The only foundation,' wrote Newman himself, 
 ' for the statement that Catholics at Oxford have made ship- 
 wreck of the faith that the Bishop and we could make out 
 was that Weld Blundell ducked a Puseyite in Mercury, and 
 Redington has been talking loosely about the Temporal 
 Power in Rome.' The Jesuits and Archbishop Manning now 
 discussed the formation of a Catholic University College, and 
 Father Weld, a Jesuit father, sought Newman's co-operation. 
 Newman felt, however, that such a scheme had little chance 
 of success. It was not likely to be in the hands of a really 
 representative committee, but rather in those of Manning's 
 friends. The laity would not be fairly represented. And 
 he had come, after his Irish experience, to think a Catholic 
 University not practicable. There is little heart or hope 
 in his letter to Hope-Scott on the subject : 
 
 To Mr. Hope-Scott. 
 
 • Rcdnal : Sept. 25, 1867. 
 ' My dear Hope-Scott, — The Archbishop is going to set 
 up a House of higher studies — report says it is to be near 
 Reading and that he has got large sums of money. I sup- 
 pose he has been urged on by the Pope, or by Propaganda 
 — for I don't think he will like this additional and most 
 anxious work on his hands. I know it from I'^ather Weld, 
 
 o 2
 
 196 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 who has sent me word that he is going to call on me 
 about it. 
 
 * This concerns both you and me, for your influence as a 
 layman cannot be overlooked ; and I wish to act with you, 
 though our lines are separate ; for they will come toyoti with 
 the desire of finding means ; and as to me I don't suppose 
 they want my advice or co-operation, but only my name. 
 
 ' Now suppose he comes to say that there is to be a 
 Committee, and the Archbishop wishes me to be on it ; what 
 shall I answer ? Are there laymen on it ? " Yes. As to 
 Hope-Scott he is so full of work, we could not hope to get 
 him ; as to Monsell he is Irish " — and so " our laymen are 
 W. G. Ward, Allies, H. Wilberforce, Lord Petre, Lewis, and 
 Sir G. Bowyer," &c. ... Is not the upshot, that I must 
 know who constitute the Committee, and what they are 
 going definitely to do, before I say anything to the proposal ? 
 
 ' As to the plan itself, I cannot of course object to it, 
 except on the ground of its impracticability, for I have written 
 several volumes in support of it, as Father Weld indirectly 
 reminded me. Nor arc you likely to object to it, for it is not 
 so long since you talked of our setting up a House of Higher 
 Studies — that is, about four years ago, before the Oxford 
 projects came up. If you thought it practicable //len, why 
 should you not think so now? If then you have difficulties, 
 it must be in the particular scheme put forward. 
 
 ' I have been trying to recollect our Dublin difficulties, in 
 order to profit by my experience. As far as I can recollect, 
 they were these: — i. division among the Bishops, which is 
 not likely to be the case in England. 2. the want of power 
 to give degrees. 3. the exclusion of laymen from influence 
 in the management, not only of the University, but even of 
 the accounts. For this reason, I think even to this day, 
 More O'Ferrall is not a subscriber to it. Of these the second 
 is the best in argument, and as good as any. It seems to 
 me almost fatal. If it be said, "We will affiliate ourselves 
 to London," should not I answer, "Why not to Oxford?" 
 which they will be able to do shortly, I believe — dui they 
 7von'L 
 
 ' As to the third reason, it concerns you. I should add to 
 it the prospective difficulty of securing the appointment oUay 
 Professors. . . . Father Weld being sent to me seems to 
 show that some at least of the Professors are to be Jesuits. 
 I won't say anything to offend them, but this at least I am 
 resolved on, I think, that I will have nothing to do with the 
 plan, unless the Professors are lay. But if so, and if they are
 
 THE DEADLOCK IN HIGHER EDUCATION (1867) 197 
 
 not to be lay, had not I better have nothing to do with the 
 scheme from the first ? 
 
 ' I have written as my thoughts came, that you may have 
 something to think about, and when you have anything to 
 say, let me hear from you. 
 
 'J. H. N.' 
 
 When the plan was made known to Newman in detail by 
 Father Weld, it did not prove to be in the direction of the 
 kind of University College in which he was disposed to feel 
 any confidence. 
 
 ' Rednal : Oct. lo, 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Hope-Scott, — Father Weld called on me on 
 Monday. He was making a round, apparently, of the 
 Catholic Schools. He went from us to Oscott. 
 
 ' His plan is simply a Jesuit one, as you said. He pro- 
 poses to transplant the philosophy and theology classes from 
 Stonyhurst and St. Beuno's to some place on the banks of the 
 Thames. This will give it sixty youths as a nucleus. Then 
 he will invite lay youths generally to join them, having 
 a good array of Professors from the two Colleges I have 
 named. 
 
 ' He had not a doubt, but he made a question, whether it 
 would do to put Jesuit Novices and lay youths together ; but 
 he said he thought it would succeed, fo)' their novices were 
 too well cared for to be hurt by the contact of lay youths, — 
 though students for the secular priesthood might in such a 
 case suffer. I ventured to say that I thought the difficulty 
 would lie on the other side, in the prospect of getting parents 
 to send their sons to a sort of Jesuit Noviceship ; and, if they 
 did, of getting the youths themselves to acquiesce in it. I am 
 not sure he entered into my meaning, for he passed the 
 difficulty over. 
 
 ' When I mentioned it to Father St. John, he reminded 
 me that good Father Bresciani S.J. at Propaganda, twenty 
 years ago, detailed to us with what great success they 
 had pursued this plan in Piedmont — and how pious the 
 young laymen were in consequence. I wonder whether 
 Cavour, Minghetti, &c., &c., were in the number of these lay 
 youths. 
 
 ' Then he said he thought it would be a great thing to 
 indoctrinate the lay youths in PJiilosophy^ as an antidote to 
 Mill and Bain. I tried myself to fancy some of our late 
 scholars, . . . sitting down steadily to Dmouski, Libcratorc, 
 &c. &c.
 
 198 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' I said, that, if I had the opportunity, I certainly would 
 do my part in sending him youths, though I did not expect 
 I should be able to do much. And I sincerely wish him all 
 success— for it is fair he should have his innings. 
 
 ' It will amuse you to hear that I contemplate publishing 
 in one volume my verses ; and still more that I think of 
 dedicating them to Badeley. 
 
 ' Yours affectly., 
 
 J. H. N.' 
 
 The proposed Catholic University found such small 
 support that it could not at this time even be brought into 
 existence. A few years later it was attempted in the 
 Catholic University College founded by Cardinal Manning 
 at Kensington : and it proved a ludicrous failure.^ Newman's 
 views received the sad justification of experience both in 
 Ireland and in England — that to act on ideal principles 
 with little or no attempt to forecast accurately what was 
 practicable, was to court failure. 
 
 In view of this state of things it would not have been 
 surprising if Newman had allowed all who applied to him 
 for his opinion to know how keenly he felt on the whole 
 subject. It is well therefore to place here on record the 
 chivalrous loyalty with which he did his best to defend to 
 outsiders the action of Propaganda and the Bishops which 
 he deplored. He wrote thus on the subject to Canon Jenkins 
 of Lyminge : 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham: Dec. 12, 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Mr. Jenkins, Thank you for your kind letter. 
 The Oxford Scheme has been at an end since April last when 
 I ceased to collect contributions for it. 
 
 ' The cause is very intelligible. It was most natural for 
 authorities at Rome to take the advice of Oxford converts 
 as to whether youths should be allowed to go to Oxford. 
 Accordingly the late Cardinal applied to various among 
 the Oxford men. Every one of name who was applied 
 to, dissuaded Propaganda from allowing Catholic youths 
 that liberty. Among these were Dr. Manning, Mr, Ward, 
 
 ' .So unwilHng, however, was Manning to own to faihire, that the name 
 ' Catholic University College ' was for years retained, when the only correspond- 
 ing reality was a group of three or four boys taught by that very able Professor 
 and man of science, the late Dr. R. F. Clarke, at St. Charles' College, Bayswater.
 
 THE DEADLOCK IN HIGHER EDUCATION (1867) 199 
 
 Dr. Northcote, Mr. Coffin, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Dalgairns ; and 
 Cambridge men, such as Mr. Knox, and Mr. Marshall, 
 supported them. It is not wonderful, then, that, deferring to 
 the opinion of such men. Propaganda has resolved on putting 
 strong obstacles in the way of youths going to the Univer- 
 sities. And if it did this, it could not help hindering 
 my going to Oxford— for many parents would consider 
 that the presence of any Priest who knew Oxford well, was 
 a pledge that their children would be protected against the 
 scepticism and infidelity which too notoriously prevail there 
 just now. 
 
 ' Yours very sincerely, 
 
 J. H. Newman.'
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY 
 
 (1 867-1 868) 
 
 The abandonment of the Oxford scheme was, in Newman's 
 eyes, the final relinquishment of all hope of further active 
 work before his death. He was sixty-six years old ; and 
 though his health was good, this was not an age for vigorous 
 initiation. He was deeply pained at the action of the 
 authorities in the Oxford matter. The powerful party 
 headed by Manning had prevailed, without any opportunity 
 being given to those who thought differently from them 
 for stating their views. Cardinal Reisach had reported to 
 Rome on the subject without even hearing Newman's case. 
 Cardinal Barnabo was responsible for the ' secret instruction ' 
 and for the slur cast on the Oratory School by exceptional 
 treatment. An entry in the journal on October 30, 1867, 
 recalls the famous letter of St. Thomas a Becket to Cardinal 
 Albert, in which he protests against the action of the Roman 
 courts. To this protest Newman expressly refers in one of 
 his letters. And, like St. Thomas, he appeals for the vindi- 
 cation of his own loyalty to the Church from the judgment 
 of ecclesiastical superiors to that of God.' 
 
 ' What I have written in the foregoing pages has been 
 written as a sort of relief to my mind ; if that were the only 
 reason for writing, I should not write now, for I have no 
 trouble within me to be relieved of. I will put myself under 
 the image of the Patriarch Job, without intending to liken 
 myself to him. He first strenuously resisted the charges of 
 his friends, then he made a long protest of his innocence, and 
 then we read : " The words of Job are ended." Mine are 
 
 ' Scripta Rer. Francic. tom. xvi. pp. 416, 417. Cardinal Cullen's favourable 
 report to the Pope concerning the orthodoxy of Newman's writings was probably not 
 made known to him until after this entry had been written.
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1S67-1868) 201 
 
 ended too — I have said to Cardinal Barnabo : " Viderit 
 Deus." I have lodged my cause with Him — and, while I 
 hope ever by His grace to be obedient, I have now as little 
 desire as I have hope to gain the praise of such as him in 
 anything I shall do henceforth. A, B. and others have been 
 too much for me. They have too deeply impressed the 
 minds of authorities at Rome against me to let the truth 
 about me have fair play while I live ; and when one ceases 
 to hope, one ceases to fear. They have done their worst — 
 and, as Almighty God in 1864 cleared up my conduct in the 
 sight of Protestants at the end of twenty years, so as regards 
 my Catholic course, at length, after I am gone hence, " Deus 
 viderit ! " 
 
 ' I did not use the words lightly, though they seem to 
 have rested most unfavourably on his mind — nor do I dream 
 of retracting them. For many years I tried to approve 
 myself to such as him, but it is now more than ten years 
 that, from failing to do so, I have been gradually weaned 
 from any such expectation or longing. I have recorded the 
 change in the words of my Dublin Sermon of November 23rd, 
 1856, though covertly and only to my own consciousness. 
 " There are those who . . . think we mean to spend our 
 devotion upon a human cause, and that we toil for an object 
 of human ambition. They think that we should acknowledge, 
 if cross-examined, that our ultimate purpose was the success 
 of persons and parties, to whom we are bound in honour, or 
 in interest, or in gratitude ; and that, &c. . . . They fancy, 
 as the largest concession of their liberality, that we are 
 working from the desire, generous but still human, of the 
 praise of earthly superiors, and that, after all, we are living on 
 the breath, and basking in the smile, of man," &c., &c. 
 
 ' And now, alas, I fear that in one sense the iron has 
 entered into my soul. I mean that confidence in any 
 superiors whatever never can blossom again within me. I 
 never shall feel easy with them. I shall, I feel, always think 
 they will be taking some advantage of me, — that at length 
 their way will lie across mine, and that my efforts will be 
 displeasing to them. I shall ever be suspicious that they or 
 theirs have secret unkind thoughts of me, and that they deal 
 with me with some arriere pcnsee. And, as it is my 
 happiness so to be placed as not to have much intercourse 
 with them, therefore, while I hope ever loyally to fulfil their 
 orders, it is my highest gain and most earnest request to 
 them, that they would let mc alone — and, since I do not 
 want to initiate any new plan of any kind, that, if they can,
 
 202 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWALVN 
 
 they would keep their hands off me. Whether or not they 
 will consent to this is more than I can say, for they seem to 
 wish to ostracise me. But, in saying this, I repeat what I 
 said when I began to write, I am now in a state of quiescence, 
 and fear as little as 1 hope. And I do not expect this 
 state of mind to be reversed. God forbid I should liken 
 them to the "Scribes and Tharisees" — but still I obey 
 them, as Scribes and Pharisees were to be obeyed, as God's 
 representatives, not from devotion to them. 
 
 ' Nor does anything that has happened to me interfere 
 with, rather these external matters have all wonderfully 
 promoted, my inward happiness. I never was in such simply 
 happy circumstances as now, and I do not know how I can 
 fancy I shall continue without some or other real cross. I am 
 my own master, — I have my time my own — I am surrounded 
 with comforts and conveniences — I am in easy circumstances, 
 1 have no cares, I have good health — I have no pain of mind 
 or bod}-. I enjoy life only too well. The weight of years 
 falls on me as snow, gently though surely, but I do not feel it 
 yet. I am surrounded with dear friends — my reputation has 
 been cleared by the " Apologia." What can I want but 
 greater gratitude and love towards the Giver of all these good 
 things? There is no state of life I prefer to my own — 
 I would not change my position for that of anyone I know — 
 I am simply content — there is nothing I desire — I should be 
 puzzled to know what to ask, if I were free to ask. I should 
 say perhaps that I wished the financial matters of the Oratory 
 and School to be in a better state — but for myself I am as 
 covered with blessings and as full of God's gifts, as is conceiv- 
 able. And I have nothing to ask for but pardon and grace, 
 and a happy death.' 
 
 Things were, as this last paragraph intimates, far better 
 with him than in the sad years before the ' Apologia.' His 
 hold on the minds of men was re-established. Yet the 
 next entry shows some misgiving lest he may not be 
 turning his renewed influence to good account. But as 
 to taking further part in the controversies of the day he 
 decided to let well alone. 
 
 To go too fast might irritate people. To pause awhile, 
 on the contrary, gave time for principles he had laid down in 
 his writings to take deeper hold on men's minds. To keep 
 his name and influence secure from the onslaughts incidental 
 to controversy might be the best means of enabling others,
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1867-1868) 203 
 
 when the suitable time should come, to use that name in the 
 task of applying and emphasising his views. 
 On January 29, 1868, he writes thus : 
 
 ' Our Lord has said : " Vae cum benedixerint vobis 
 homines " (Luc. vi. 26), koXcos v/ids SiTrcoai, and I seem to be 
 in this danger as regards the Protestant world. A reaction 
 has set in, nor does one know what will be its limits. Just 
 now, my Verses, which I have collected and published, have 
 both stimulated and manifested it. I feel as if a Nemesis 
 would come, if I am not careful and am reminded of the ring 
 of Polycrates. Friends and well-wishers out of kindness are 
 writing favourable reviews of my small book, and 1 am 
 obliged to read out of gratitude what they say of me so 
 generously. I have said : " the Protestant world " — but it ex- 
 tends to the great mass of (English speaking) Catholics also ; 
 till the "Apologia" I was thought " passe " and forgotten. 
 The controversy which occasioned it, and then the Oxford 
 matter and the " Dream of Gerontius " have brought me out, 
 and now I should be hard indeed to please, and very un- 
 grateful to them, and to God, if I did not duly appreciate 
 this thought of me. 
 
 ' Then comes the question : what use can I make of these 
 fresh mercies ? Not from any supernatural principle, but 
 from mere natural temper, I keep saying, what is the good of 
 all this ? what comes of it ? " Vanitas Vanitatum," if it is but 
 empty praise. What use can I make of it ? for what is it 
 given me ? And then, too, on the other hand, when I am well 
 thought of, and the world is in good humour with me, I am 
 led to say to myself: "Let well alone; do not hazard by 
 any fresh act the loss of that, which you have been so long 
 without, and found such difficulty in getting. Enjoy the 
 " otium cum dignitatc." 
 
 ' " Otium cum dignitate " reminds me of " Otium cum in- 
 dignitate " ; yes, as far as Propaganda goes, and that English 
 party of which Archbishop Manning and Ward are the 
 support, I have been dismissed not simply as" inglorious," but 
 to " dishonoured ease." And this would certainly serve as the 
 ring of Polycrates, did I feel it — but I don't feel it. And, as 
 1 had said on some former page, I should be so out of my 
 element if 1 were without that cold shade on the side of 
 ecclesiastical authority, in which I have dwelt nearly all my 
 life, m)' eyes would be .so dazed, and my limbs so relaxed, 
 were I brought out to bask in the full sun of ecclesiastical 
 favour, that I should not know how to act and should make 
 a fool of myself
 
 204 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 * As my Lord had some purpose in letting me be so long 
 forgotten and calumniated, as He has had some purpose in 
 leaving me, as regards ecclesiastical authorities, under that 
 cloud which He has lately removed from me as regards 
 Catholics and Protestants generally, so now He has some 
 purpose in that late removal — if I could know what it is. 
 Perhaps He wishes me to do nothing new, but He is creating 
 an opportunity for what I have already written to work. 
 Perhaps my duty is, what is only too pleasant, to sit still, do 
 nothing, and enjoy myself Perhaps my name is to be turned 
 to account as a sanction and outset by which others, who 
 agree with me in opinion, should write and publish instead 
 of me, and thus begin the transmission of views in religious 
 and intellectual matters congenial with my own, to the 
 generation after me.' 
 
 Newman gave himself for a time to slighter tasks, which 
 did not need great labour. He coached the Edgbaston boys 
 for Terence's ' Phormio,' which he had arranged for them in 
 1865, and which was to be performed again in May 1868. He 
 arranged (as we have seen) to publish a complete edition of his 
 verses, which he dedicated to Edward Badeley. The prepara- 
 tion of this volume was congenial labour. He once described 
 his feeling about verse-making in a letter to R. H. Hutton. 
 
 ' If I had my way,' he wrote, ' I should give myself up 
 to verse-making ; it is nearly the only kind of composition 
 which is not a trouble to me, but I have never had time. As 
 to my prose volumes, I have scarcely written any one without 
 an external stimulus ; their composition has been to me, in 
 point of pain, a mental childbearing, and I have been 
 accustomed to say to myself: "In sorrow shalt thou bring 
 forth children." 
 
 ' But to return to the verses, I am surprised at the high 
 terms in which you speak of them. I wrote those in the Lyra 
 just before the commencement of the Oxford Movement, while 
 travelling, and during convalescence after fever, and while 
 crossing the Mediterranean home[wards]. I have never had 
 practice enough to have words and metres at my command. 
 And besides, at the time I had a theory, one of the extreme 
 theories of the incipient Movement, that it was not right 
 " agere poetam " but merely " ecclesiasticum agere " ; that 
 the one thing called for was to bring out an idea ; that the 
 harsher the better, like weaving sackcloth, if only it would 
 serve as an evidence that I was not making an a-'ycovta^ia.'
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1867-1868) 205 
 
 The volume appeared in January, and in its pages the 
 ' Dream of Gerontius ' took its place for the first time 
 among his collected poems. The book was received with a 
 chorus of praise, Mr. Hutton leading the way in the 
 Spectator. Newman was touched and cheered at its 
 favourable reception. He writes on February 6 to Father 
 Coleridge, who had reviewed the volume in the Month : 
 
 ' . . . I have not written to you since the critique of my 
 Verses in the MontJi. I think I must find some ring of 
 Polycrates to make a sacrifice to fortune, else, some Nemesis 
 will come on me. I am bound to read the various critiques 
 on me, for they are written by kind persons, who wish to do 
 a thing pleasing to me, and whom I should be very ungrate- 
 ful not to respond to, and they do please me — but I have 
 been so little used to praise in my life, that I feel like the 
 good woman in the song, " O, cried the little woman, sure it 
 is not I." ' 
 
 A peaceful spring and summer followed : ' four months,' 
 he notes in his diary, ' of beautiful weather ' ; and in June he 
 resolved to execute a task of love and pain which he had 
 long had in mind — to pay a farewell visit to Littlemorc. 
 The visit is chronicled in a letter to Henry Wilberforce, who 
 had written in the same month to urge Newman to pay him 
 a visit at Farnham : 
 
 ' The Oratory, Birmingham : June 18/68. 
 
 ' Thank you for your affectionate letter and invitation — 
 but I can't accept it. It is not much more than a week since 
 I refused one from my sister. I have real duties here which 
 make it difficult to get away ; I am on a strict regime, w^hich 
 I don't like to omit for a day — and I have an old man's 
 reluctance to move. I have promised R. \V. Church a visit 
 for several years, and it must be my first. 
 
 ' I am gradually knocking off some purposes of the kind. 
 When your letter came, I was at Littlemore : I had always 
 hoped to see it once before I died. Ambrose and I went by 
 the 7 a.m. train to Abingdon, then across to Littlemore — 
 then direct from Littlemore by rail to Birmingham where we 
 arrived by 7 — ^just 12 hours. . . . Littlemore is now green. 
 
 ' Crawley's cottage and garden (upon my 10 acres which 
 I sold him) are beautiful. The Church too is now what 
 they call a gem. And the parsonage is very pretty. I 
 .saw various of my people, now getting on in life. It was 40
 
 2o6 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 years the beginning of this year since I became Vicar. Alas, 
 their memory of me was in some cases stronger than my 
 memory of them. 
 
 ' They have a great affection for my mother and sisters — 
 tho' it is 32 years since they went away. There is a large 
 Lunatic Asylum— separated, however from the Village by the 
 railroad — so it is no annoyance — rather it adds green to the 
 place — nor is the railroad an annoyance, for it is a cutting. 
 It is 22 years since I was there. I left February 22 — 1846. 
 I do not expect ever to see it again — nor do I wish it.' 
 
 Little is said in this letter of the feelings which overcame 
 him at the sight of his old home with its sacred memories. 
 Fortunately there are extant the written impressions of one 
 who accidentally met him there, which help to fill in the 
 picture. I owe them to the kindness of Canon Irvine. 
 
 * I was passing by the Church at Littlemore when I 
 observed a man very poorly dressed leaning over the lych 
 gate crying. He was to all appearance in great trouble. 
 He was dressed in an old gray coat with the collar turned up 
 and his hat pulled down over his face as if he wished to hide 
 his features. As he turned towards me I thought it was a face 
 I had seen before. The thought instantly flashed through 
 my mind it was Dr. Newman. I had never seen him, but 
 I remember Mr. Crawley had got a photo of Dr. Newman. 
 I went and told Mr. Crawley I thought Dr. Newman 
 was in the village, but he said I must be mistaken, it could 
 not be. I asked him to let me see the photo, which he 
 did. I then told him I felt sure it was [he]. Mr. Crawley 
 wished me to have another look at him. I went and met him 
 in the churchyard. He was walking with Mr. St. John. I 
 made bold to ask him if he was not an old friend of 
 Mr. Crawley's, because if he was I felt sure Mr, Crawley would 
 be very pleased to see him ; as he was a great invalid and 
 not able to get out himself, would he please to go and see 
 Mr. Crawley. He instantly burst out crying and said, " Oh 
 no, oh no ! " Mr. St. John begged him to go, but he said, " I 
 cannot." Mr. St. John asked him then to send his name, but 
 he said " Oh no I " At last Mr. St. John said, " You may tell 
 Mr. Crawley Dr. Newman is here." I did so, and Mr, Crawley 
 sent his compliments, begged him to come and see him, 
 which he did and had a long chat with him. After that he 
 went and saw several of the old people in the village.' 
 
 Newman returned to the Oratory that night, and resumed 
 the little tasks of daily life. Old friends were now passing
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1867-1868) 207 
 
 away, however, and he had it in his mind to pay some visits 
 which might, he felt, prove visits of farewell to those who 
 were left. In reply to a letter from Henry Wilberforce in 
 which he announced the death of an old Oxford friend, he 
 wrote thus on July 7 : 
 
 ' It rejoices me to think that you are at last in harbour in 
 a quiet home and with a pleasant garden. My time is fully 
 occupied here even with daily matters. Lately I have had 
 all the Sacristy matters on my hands — have had to analy.se 
 all the details of the work — apportion it among four or five 
 helps, and write out and post up the duties of each. The 
 School always takes ujd time — and now the Orphanage is 
 becoming in size a second school. And, during the vacation 
 now coming on us, I must be at home, for everyone else is 
 going away. When I go to R. VV. Church, (I say" R. W." for 
 did I say to " Church " it would be like Birnam Wood 
 going to Dunsinanc) I hope to take you in my way, if you 
 will receive me. 
 
 ' When I saw A. B.'s death in the paper I wrote to Rogers 
 for some intelligence about it. He wrote to some person 
 near A. B. From both their letters I could see that they 
 had no very near sympathy with his fortunes — and I really 
 think I lamented him more than any one in his imme- 
 diate neighbourhood. . . . Alas, alas—perhaps it is that my 
 sympathy is in u)y being old like him, and in going the way 
 he has gone. " Omnes eodem cogimur," and one's old friends 
 arc falling on every side.' 
 
 A little later in the same year another old friend, Sir 
 John Harding, passed away after a lingering illness. 
 
 ' I don't suppose I ought to grieve,' Newman wrote to 
 their common friend, William Froude, * but I do grieve. 
 Strange to say either last night or this morning I was 
 thinking of him in church — I think I said a " Hail Mary" 
 for him. 
 
 ' I know it must sadden you, even though it be a relief, 
 and I can't help sending you a line to say how I sympathise 
 with you. 
 
 ' I recollect thinking in chapel, " He was nearly the only 
 person who was kind to me on my conversion " — (you were 
 another). I met him in the street in London soon after it. 
 He stopped me, shook hands with mc, and said to me some 
 very friendly and comforting words. It is the last time I 
 saw him.'
 
 2o8 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Still, in spite of the sad thoughts which the death of his 
 contemporaries and his own advancing years brought, his 
 own powers were quite unimpaired, and his interest in the 
 subjects which had so long absorbed his mind was as keen 
 as ever. He was conscious that he still had it in him to 
 help to solve the great problem of the hour (as he viewed 
 it) — to promote the influence of Catholic Christianity on 
 modern civilisation. And he felt deeply that the jealous 
 criticisms of his theological opponents tied his hands. 
 
 * Are they not doing the Holy See a grave disservice,' he 
 wrote in a memorandum dated August 1867, ' who will not 
 let a zealous man defend it in his own way, but insist on his 
 doing it in their way or not at all — or rather only at the price 
 of being considered heterodox or disaffected if his opinions do 
 not run in a groove ? ' 
 
 The same thought often reappears in his letters at this 
 time ; but he submitted to these inevitable limitations, and 
 he confined himself to work which could, he believed, be 
 done without incurring the risk of censure. In the summer 
 of 1866, while in Switzerland, he had begun systematic notes 
 for the work on Faith and Reason which he had for years 
 been contemplating. Henceforward he made this his chief 
 occupation. 
 
 It did not directly touch any burning controversy. And 
 he was satisfied that if he was allowed time and space he 
 could develop his view without running counter to the best 
 scholastic thought on the subject ; although a brief treat- 
 ment must of necessity be open to misrepresentation. Of 
 the work which resulted, the ' Essay in Aid of a Grammar of 
 Assent,' which he accounted one of the most important of 
 his life, we must speak in a separate chapter. 
 
 His work, however, was destined not to go forward without 
 interruptions, and serious ones. The times were stirring. 
 The destruction of the civil princedom which the Papacy 
 had held in one form or another for a thousand years was 
 going forward with ominous thoroughness. And it was 
 a symbol of the final dethronement of Christian civilisation, 
 so long imminent, but now on the eve of accomplishment. 
 The French Revolution had nearly done the work. But there 
 had been since then the kind of rally in a hopeless case
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1867-1868) 209 
 
 which at times deceives the watchers by a bed of sickness. 
 The Romantic Movement, the Catholic Revival in France 
 and Germany, associated with so many great names, had 
 given Rome new hope. Then, again, the political world had 
 shown a sense of the value of the Papacy as a principle of 
 order — an antidote to constant revolutionary movements, 
 eruptions due to the volcanic element the French Revolu- 
 tion had left behind it. Not only did the Powers restore the 
 Pontifical dominions in 18 14, but they did so again in 1849. 
 Now, however, such reactions had ceased. The Papal sove- 
 reignty was clearly doomed. Napoleon III., from whose 
 support of the Church so much had once been hoped, was 
 no longer to be relied on. The Powers were, at the present 
 crisis, with the Sardinians, or, at best, too indifferent to inter- 
 fere again, as in 1849, on the Pope's behalf Pius IX., the 
 reforming Pope of 1846, became the bitter enemy of the 
 modern movement which meant his overthrow. He con- 
 tinued year after year to protest indignantly against the 
 apostasy of Christendom and to denounce the false prin- 
 ciples of modern * Liberalism.' The militant party repre- 
 sented in P^rance by M. Louis Veuillot, the editor of the 
 Univers, claimed that their view had been justified. They had 
 been right in proclaiming war on ' Liberalism.' Montalem- 
 bert and Lacordaire had proved utterly wrong in believing 
 that the Church could find a modus vivendi with it. 
 
 The policy of this determined group of neo-Ultramontancs 
 became more and more one of extreme centralisation. It had 
 been opposed from the first by leading French Bishops. In 
 its first phase, when the editor of the Univers had been 
 the henchman of Napoleon III,, Archbishop Sibour of Paris 
 had written to Montalembert a weighty letter on the grave 
 dangers attending the line that journal was advocating. It 
 was not Ultramontanism in its time-honoured sense, but an 
 ecclcsiastico-political movement practically abrogating the 
 normal constitution of Church and State alike. 
 
 ' When you formerly, like ourselves, M. le Comte,' wrote 
 the Archbishop, ' made loud professions of Ultramontanism 
 you did not understand things thus. We defended the in- 
 dependence of the spiritual power against the pretensions and 
 encroachments of the temporal power, but we respected the 
 VOL. II. P
 
 210 TJFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 constitution of the State and the constitution of the Church. 
 We did not do away with all intermediate power, all 
 hierarchy, all reasonable discussion, all legitimate resistance, 
 all individuality, all spontaneity. The Pope and the Emperor 
 were not the one the whole Church and the other the whole 
 State. Doubtless there are times when the Pope may set 
 himself above all the rules which are only for ordinary times, 
 and when his power is as extensive as the necessities of the 
 Church. 1 he old Ultramontanes kept this in mind, but they 
 did not make of the exception a rule. The new Ultramon- 
 tanes have pushed everything to extremes, and have abounded 
 in hostile arguments against all liberties — those of the State 
 as well as those of the Church. If such systems were not 
 calculated to compromise the most serious religious interests 
 at the present time, and especially at a future day, one might 
 be content with despising them ; but when one has a presenti- 
 ment of the evils they are preparing for us, it is difficult to 
 be silent and resigned. You have, therefore, done well, M. le 
 C'omte, to stigmatise them.' 
 
 These were the words of a wise prelate written in 1853. 
 And now the misfortunes of the I'apacy and the protests of 
 Pius IX. gave a fresh impetus to the neo-Ultramontane 
 campaign. M. Veuillot and his friends urged that the 
 Infallibility of the Pontiff should be made an article of faith. 
 They seemed to conceive of such a definition as a protest 
 against an apostate world, and a crown of honour for the 
 persecuted Pontiff. This way of looking at things w^as to 
 be found in Plngland also, and in Germany. Archbishop 
 Manning told the present writer that he and the Bishop 
 of Ratisbon, after assisting at the Pontifical Vespers in 
 St. Peter's Basilica on the P'east of SS. Peter and Paul in 1867, 
 as an act of devotion jointly made a vow that they would 
 not rest until they had secured the great definition which 
 was to give new glory to Christ's outraged Vicar. And very 
 many shared such sentiments. 
 
 In that very year the Vatican Council was finally deter- 
 mined on. Pius IX. had first spoken of it shortly after the 
 appearance of the Syllabus of 1864. It was designed to 
 discuss and meet the evils of an age of apostasy. Its ap- 
 proach was formally announced on June 26, 1867, to the 
 Bishops who were keeping in Rome the eighteenth centenary 
 of St. Peter's martyrdom. The announcement was a signal for
 
 TAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1867-186S) 211 
 
 renewed outbursts of militant loyalty. The years 1867, 1868, 
 and 1869 were years of great controversial stress. Such 
 men as Mgr. Darboy, who had succeeded Mgr. Sibour as 
 Archbishop of Paris, and Mgr. Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, 
 were indignant at M. Veuillot's unceasing attacks on his 
 fellow-Catholics, whom he accused of ' Liberalism,' and on 
 members of the Episcopate. They were conscious of being 
 as loyally devoted to the Holy See as M. Veuillot himself. 
 Veuillot claimed the sanction of Pius IX. for his attitude. 
 But the Bishops denied his contention. He had made the 
 same claim in 1863 for his denunciations of Montalem- 
 bert's Malines address, and Montalcmbert's great friend 
 Mr. Monsell had found it to be without foundation. 
 Mr. Monsell had asked Pius IX. himself if the address was 
 condemned, and the Pope with characteristic bo7ihoniie had 
 pointed to a copy of the address on his table, and said as 
 he took his pinch of snuff, ' I have not yet read it, so it 
 cannot be condemned. For I am the captain of the ship.' ^ 
 Dupanloup accused Louis Veuillot of representing his own 
 narrow and untheological views on the Papal claims and his 
 own hostility to modern science and all forms of the modern 
 liberties as necessary conditions of orthodoxy. He published 
 an Avertissement addressed to Veuillot himself, in which 
 pain and indignation speak audibly. ' The moment has 
 come,' he wrote, ' to defend ourselves against you. I raise 
 then, in my turn, my voice ... I charge you with usurpa- 
 tions on the lipiscopatc, with perpetual intrusion in the most 
 delicate matters, I charge you above all with your excesses 
 in doctrine, your deplorable taste for irritating questions, 
 and for violent and dangerous solutions. I charge you with 
 accusing, insulting, and calumniating your brethren in the 
 Faith. None have merited more than you that severe word 
 of the Sacred Book.s, — " Accusator fratrum." Above all I 
 reproach you with making the Church participate in your 
 violences, by giving as its doctrines, with rare audacity i^par 
 nne rare audace), your most personal ideas.' 
 
 M. Veuillot, who was in no sense a trained theologian, 
 had used language in the Univers which must be recalled, as 
 it is otherwise quite impossible to understand either the 
 
 ' This anecdote was related to the present writer by Mr. Monsell himself.
 
 212 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 strenuous opposition of men like Archbishop Sibour, Mont- 
 alembert, Newman, and Dupanloup, or the extraordinary 
 exaggerations still current among men of the world as to 
 the meaning of the dogma of Infallibility. In defiance of 
 the common-place of theology that the protection of the 
 Pope from error in formal definitions is not ' Inspiration,' 
 but only Providential ' assistance,' and that the ordinary 
 means used by the Pope in forming his judgments are, 
 correlatively, the regular scientific processes of theology 
 and consultation with the Episcopate, whether in Council or 
 otherwise, he boldly used the following words in a pam- 
 phlet called 'L'illusion Liberale': 'We all know certainly 
 only one thing, that is that no man knows anything ex- 
 cept the Man with whom God is for ever, the Man who 
 carries the thought of God. We must . . . unswervingly 
 follow his inspired directions ' {ses directions inspire'es). 
 Pursuing this same line the Univers laughed at the 
 Correspondant for dwelling on the careful and prolonged 
 discussions which were in point of fact so marked a feature 
 in the Vatican Council. 'The Correspondant -wdLUts them 
 to discuss,' wrote Veuillot, ' and wishes the Holy Ghost to 
 take time in forming an opinion. It has a hundred argu- 
 ments to prove how much time for reflection is indispensable 
 to the Holy Ghost.' 
 
 In October 1869 the Univers printed in a hymn addressed 
 to Pius IX. words almost identical with those addressed by 
 the Church to the Holy Ghost on Whitsunday : 
 
 ' Pater pauperum, 
 Dator munerum. 
 Lumen cordium, 
 Emitte coelitus 
 Lucis tuae radium.' 
 
 In the following month came a version of the hymn 
 
 beginning 
 
 ' Rerum Deus tenax vigor,' 
 
 with the word 'Pius' substituted for 'Deus' {Univers, 
 October 21 and 28 and November 8). 
 
 W. G. Ward was carrying on in the Dublin Review a 
 more carefully reasoned exposition of the new Ultramon- 
 tanism, maintaining the frequency and wide scope of infallible
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1867-1868) 213 
 
 utterances. While theoretically recognising the theological 
 distinctions which Veuillot neglected, his practical conclusion 
 as to the significance of the constant Briefs, Allocutions, 
 and Encyclicals of the existing Pontificate was (to use his 
 own words) that 'in a figurative sense Pius IX. may be said 
 never to have ceased from one continuous ex Cathedra 
 pronouncement.' ^ 
 
 W. G. Ward was, moreover, an active talker. ' I should 
 like a new Papal Bull every morning with my Times at 
 breakfast,' was one of his sayings which gained currency as 
 literally meant. His articles in the Dublin were, as I have 
 already said, republished in a volume in 1866. 
 
 Newman followed the utterances of the Univers and 
 the Dublin alike with profound and ever-deepening distress. 
 His distress was the greater because of the noble elements 
 in the Ultramontane movement, which were, he considered, 
 being disfigured by exaggeration and party spirit. He had 
 himself ever been an Ultramontane in the sense that 
 Mgr. Sibour and Montalembert were Ultramontanes. 
 He had held that the Pontiff's definitions of faith were 
 infallible. But he felt deeply, as did Mgr. Dupanloup, 
 the unchristian animosity displayed by M. Veuillot in the 
 name of Ultramontanism against such admirable Catholics 
 as Montalembert and his friends of the Correspojidant. From 
 W. G. Ward's writings personal animosity was absent. But 
 his extreme theories touched more closely Newman's own 
 field of action in England. And the blending of what 
 Newman felt to be valuable with what he felt to be impossible 
 to hold, in the face of obvious historical facts and recognised 
 theological principles, was even more marked in the case 
 of the English writer. To follow the lead of Pius IX. 
 with loyalty was one thing. To commit Catholic theo- 
 logians to an entirely new view (as Newman considered) 
 ascribing infallibility to a Pope's public utterances which 
 were not definitions of faith or morals was quite another 
 matter. The immense value, for the effectiveness of Catholi- 
 cism as a power in the world, of a hearty union of Catholics 
 under the Pope as their general in the war waged by the 
 new age against the Church, had been impressed upon the 
 ' Essays on the Chiin/vs Doctrinal Authoyiiy, p. 510.
 
 214 I^IFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Catholics of the nineteenth century by de Maistre in his great 
 work ' Du Pape.' The gradual extinction of Gallicanism 
 was the result of a movement which had in it very valuable 
 elements. It was a simple and inspiring programme to listen 
 to the voice of the reigning Pontiff as ever witnessing to the 
 unerring faith of Peter. No one felt all this in his heart 
 more deeply than did Newman. His whole sympathy was 
 ever with obedience and loyalty. But he could not shut 
 his eyes to the terrible revenges which time would bring on 
 an attempt to identify the Catholic faith with views which 
 ignored patent facts of history, including the human defects 
 of Popes themselves, visible at times even in their official 
 pronouncements. He could not forget such Popes as 
 Liberius and Honorius. The action of these Pontiffs could, 
 no doubt, in his opinion, be defended as consistent with 
 Papal Infallibility, but only by those careful distinctions as 
 to what official utterances were and were not infallible which 
 were now branded as ' Liberalism ' by Veuillot, as ' minimism ' 
 by W. G. Ward. Had the faithful at large felt bound, under 
 pain of mortal sin or disloyalty to the Church, to be guided 
 by the famous official letter of Pope Honorius to the 
 Patriarch Sergius which encouraged the Monothelite heresy, 
 they would have fallen under the censure of Popes Agatho 
 and Leo II., who anathematised Pope Honorius for that very 
 letter. Had the letter been accepted as the teaching of the 
 Church, had a critical examination of its exact authority 
 been treated as disloyal, the Catholic Communion might 
 have become largely Monothelite. Even as it was, the letter 
 proved, in the words of a distinguished theologian, 'a 
 tower of strength ' to heretics until it had, later on, been 
 authoritatively declared by Rome itself to be no embodi- 
 ment of her Apostolic tradition.' Meanwhile the orthodox 
 had resolutely to oppose the Pope's verdict. ' Though 
 a Pope do all that Honorius did,' Newman had to insist 
 in replying to a letter from Dr. Pusey, in which current 
 Ultramontane excesses were treated as Catholic doctrine, 
 ' he is not speaking infallibly.' All this was practically 
 ignored by M. Veuillot.'* 
 
 ' Dublin Review, No. 280, p. 70. 
 
 - Mr. Ward dealt with the Honorius question eventually, see p. 237.
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1867-1S68) 215 
 
 Able historians such as Lord Acton, whose attitude 
 towards the Papacy was hostile, noted in triumph the un- 
 historical impossibilities which were being advanced as in- 
 dispensable to whole-hearted orthodoxy. Yet the trend of 
 events, the war of modern civilisation on the Church, the 
 iniquitous spoliation of the Holy Sec, had in fact made 
 loyalty so hot and undiscriminating, as in some quarters 
 to put the interests of intellectual accuracy and^' candour in 
 these matters almost out of sight. This temper of mind 
 was prevalent within the memory of many of us. To qualify 
 and distinguish as to the claims of the Holy P'ather's 
 official utterances on our mental allegiance, seemed to many 
 Catholics at that moment to be unworthy and half-hearted. 
 
 Newman had, then, the most painful and thankless work 
 before him, of pointing out the dangers of a movement which 
 was inspired largely by devotion to Rome ; thus seeming, to 
 those who were blind to the real peril of the situation, to side 
 to some extent with the cold and persecuting world, and 
 with half-hearted Catholics who were really disaffected and 
 disloyal ; to be, in his jealous protection of the interests of 
 theological truth, guilty of intellectualism or intellectual 
 pride. 
 
 Scrupulously anxious to keep his action within such 
 limits as would secure its being, so far as it went, effectual, 
 Newman took two significant steps — one in 1867, the other in 
 1868. It was characteristic of him that he carefully confined 
 himself to English controversies — which came in the direct 
 path of his own duty. And in each case, what he ultimately 
 did was less than what he first planned. He had planned, as 
 we have seen, to write in 1866 on Papal Infallibility in answer 
 to VV. G. Ward. He ended by encouraging P^ather Ignatius 
 Ryder to write in 1 867, and doing his best to support him by 
 the weight of his name and by his acknowledged sympathy. 
 In 1868 he encouraged Mr. Peter le Page Renouf to write on 
 the Honorius case with a view to showing the difficulties it 
 raised in connection with the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. 
 He proposed to make Rcnouf's pamphlet an excuse for 
 writing himself on the .subject, but in the end only did his 
 best privately to urge the importance of the question being 
 fully ventilated.
 
 2x6 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 In connection with Father Ryder's pamphlet there were 
 two points which he was specially desirous of emphasising. 
 The first (referred to in a letter to Ryder himself) was the 
 degree of freedom which a Catholic might lawfully claim 
 for his internal belief except when that freedom was 
 barred by a definition of faith. He claimed freedom to 
 differ from the generally received view, not universally, 
 but in this or that case where the individual had access 
 to urgent reasons for so doing. The second point was 
 the necessity that the doctrinal effect of each fresh official 
 Papal utterance should be interpreted not by the private 
 judgment of the ordinary reader exercised on the text of the 
 particular utterance alone, but by the gradual sifting of theo- 
 logical experts whose business it is to determine the authority 
 of the fresh utterance and to collate it with other loci theo- 
 logici. He believed that such scientific thoroughness gave 
 far greater liberty of opinion to Catholics than Mr. Ward 
 allowed them. His anxiety seems to have been, in view of 
 possible future discoveries in science and criticism, to make 
 it clear that the road was not finally barred to such recon- 
 sideration of some received views as might eventually prove 
 necessary, but at the same time to leave the presumption 
 on the side of what was generally accepted. 
 
 This line of thought was expressed in the first instance 
 in the course of a correspondence with Pusey. Pusey 
 treated Newman's repudiation of the excesses of Ward 
 and Faber as an assertion of that principle of ' minimism ' 
 which W. G. Ward was constantly denouncing. Newman 
 repudiated the charge. How hearty and thorough was 
 Newman's own obedience to the Papacy, how ungrudging 
 his recognition of the wide sphere of its authority, is ap- 
 parent in two remarkable letters to Pusey written in response 
 to a request from Bishop Forbes of Brechin for further 
 information.^ 
 
 ' It may be pointed out that Newman analyses in these letters, in the field of 
 dogma, a principle which is more popularly recognised in the field of morals — 
 that ' extrinsic ' probability, that is the consensus of competent theologians as to a 
 particular conclusion, holds the field in the first instance, and claims our allegiance 
 prima facie ; yet, in the case of those competent to weigh the pros and cons in a 
 special case, the ' intrinsic ' probability, that is the value of the actual reasons 
 alleged, may lawfully be estimated and acted on by the individual, in opposition 
 
 ,
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1867-1868) 217 
 
 'The Oratory : March 22nd, 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Pusey, — I understand that you and Bishop 
 Forbes (who I hope will allow me to answer him through 
 you) ask simply the question of fact, what is held and must 
 be held by members of our communion about the powers of 
 the Pope. 
 
 * Any categorical answer would be unsatisfactory — but 
 if I must so speak, I should say that his jurisdiction, (for 
 that I conceive you to mean by " powers ") is unlimited and 
 despotic. And I think this is the general opinion among us. 
 I am not a deep theologian, — but, as far as I understand the 
 question, it is my own opinion. There is nothing which any 
 other authority in the Church can do, which he cannot do at 
 once — and he can do things which they cannot do, such as 
 destroy a whole hierarchy, as well as create one. As to the 
 question of property, whether he could simply confiscate the 
 funds of a whole diocese, I do not know — but I suspect he 
 can. Speaking generally, I think he can do anything, but 
 break the divine law. 
 
 ' If you will have a categorical answer, this is it — and 
 I do not see how I can modify it. But such a jurisdiction 
 is (i) not so much a practice as a doctrine — and (2) not so 
 much a doctrine as a principle of our system. Now I will 
 attempt, at the risk of making a very long matter of it, to 
 explain what I mean. 
 
 ' I. It must not be supposed that the Pope does or can 
 exercise at will or any moment those powers that he has. 
 You know the story of the King of Spain who was scorched 
 to death because the right officer was not at hand to wheel 
 his chair from the fire — and so practically the Pope's juris- 
 diction requires a great effort to put it into motion. Pius VII. 
 swept away a good part of the P>ench hierarchy, but this is 
 not an act of every day. Two things happened while wc 
 
 to a generally .accepted view. The peculiarity of speculative dogmatic theolog}-, 
 as distinguished from moral theology, is of course this— that new scientific dis- 
 coveries or probabilities on its borderland may create a new intrinsic probability, 
 and such scientific probabilities are at first only appreciated by a few. This fact 
 he illustrates by the far-reaching though well-worn facts of the Galileo case, in its 
 bearing on the conclusions of the theologians of the Inquisition who censured his 
 views as heretical. In moral theology the premisses of a received conclusion have 
 no such changing element, for they consist solely in the nature of the case hypo- 
 thetically stated. In the mixed problems of theology and historical criticism it is 
 otherwise. Their conclusions rest on premisses partly supplied by the ordinary 
 loci tkeologici and partly by the data of an advancing science. Moreover, such 
 new t/a/a not only affect 'intrinsic' probability for those who know them, but 
 destroy extrinsic probability for conclusions drawn Ijefore they were known.
 
 2i8 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 were at Rome to illustrate what I mean. The Pope gave us 
 the Oratory of Malta, and this, mind, not by any claim of 
 general jurisdiction over the Oratory and other religious 
 bodies, which are his own creation. We were talking of 
 taking possession, (not that we had ever really made up our 
 minds) when an experienced Jesuit at Propaganda said to 
 us : " It is your interest to go to the Bishop of Malta. It is 
 all very fine your having the Oratory there as a present from 
 the Pope, but you will find, when you get there, that, in spite 
 of the Pope's act, the Bishop is the greater man of the two." 
 And since then I have always been struck with the great 
 power of Bishops in their respective dioceses, even in England 
 where (as being under Propaganda) they have not the power 
 they possess in Catholic countries. Indeed, one of the great 
 causes of the bad state of things in Italy is (I do believe) 
 because the Pope cannot effect reforms in particular dioceses 
 from the traditional usages and the personal resistance of 
 Bishops and clergy. And again as to Rome, they say the 
 Pope has practically hardly any power at all in his own city. 
 The second instance which came before us when we were in 
 Rome was this : — the Pope told the Jesuit Feather that he 
 had appointed Dr. Wiseman Vicar Apostolic of London. 
 It got about Rome, and at length was told by a lady in all 
 simplicity to Cardinal Fransoni, Prefect of the Sacred Con- 
 gregation of Propaganda. lie at once drew up and abruptly 
 denied there was an appointment. He said the appoint- 
 ment belonged to Propaganda, to him, and the Pope could 
 not interfere — and the Pope was obliged to give way — and 
 Dr. Walsh was appointed instead. His abstract power 
 is not a practical fact, 
 
 ' 2. And now secondly I observe that it is not so much 
 even an abstract doctrine as it is a principle ; by which 
 I mean something far more subtle and intimately con- 
 nected with our system itself than a doctrine, so as not 
 to be contained in the written law, but to be, like the 
 common law of the land, or rather the principles of the 
 Constitution, contained in the very idea of our being what 
 we arc. 
 
 ' I hope you will let me go a good way back to show this, 
 though I fear you may think me dissertating ; but it will lead 
 me to remark on a previous question to the one you ask me, 
 and which I really ought to handle, lest in answering your 
 question at all, I lead you to think I am able to follow you 
 in a view of it which I cannot take. 
 
 ' I must then deliver a sort of Sermon against Minimism 
 and Minimists.
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1867-1868) 219 
 
 ' The words then of Councils, &c., on the subject of the 
 Pope's powers are (to a certain degree) vague, as you say, 
 and indefinite ; even for this reason, viz. — from the strong 
 rehictancc which has ever been felt, to restrict the liberty 
 of thinking and judging more than was absolutely necessary, 
 as a matter of sacred duty, in order to the maintenance 
 of the revealed depositiun. It has always been trusted that 
 the received belief of the faithful and the obligations of piety 
 would cover a larger circuit of doctrinal matter than was 
 formally claimed, and secure a more generous faith than was 
 imperative on the conscience. Hence there has never been 
 a wish on the part of the Church to cut clean between 
 doctrine revealed and doctrine not revealed ; first indeed, 
 because she actually cannot do so at any given moment, but 
 is illuminated from time to time as to what was revealed 
 in the beginning on this or that portion of the whole mass 
 of teaching which is now received ; but secondly, because 
 for that very reason she would be misrepresenting the real 
 character of the dispensation, as God has given it, and would 
 be abdicating her function, and misleading her children into 
 the notion that she was something obsolete and passe, 
 considered as a divine oracle, and would be transferring 
 their faith from resting on herself as the organ of revelation 
 (and in some sense impropric) as its formal object, simply 
 to a code of certain definite articles or a written creed (or 
 material object) if she authoritatively said that so much, and 
 no more, is " de fide Catholica" and binding on our inward 
 assent. Accordingly, the act of faith, as we consider, must 
 now be partly explicit, partly implicit ; viz. " I believe what- 
 ever has been and whatever shall be defined as revelation 
 by the Church who is the origin of revelation " ; or again, 
 " I believe in the Church's teaching, whether explicit or 
 implicit," i.e. " Ecclesiae docenti et explicite et implicite." 
 This rule applies both to learned and to ignorant ; for, as 
 the ignorant, who does not understand theological terms, 
 must say, " I believe the Athanasian Creed in that sense 
 in which the Church puts it forward," or, " I believe that the 
 Church is veracious," so the learned, though they do under- 
 stand the theological wording of that Creed, and can say 
 intelligently what the ignorant cannot say, viz. " I believe 
 that there are Three Aeterni, and one Aeterniis,'' still have 
 need to add, " I believe it because the Church has declared 
 it," and, " I believe all that the Church has defined or shall 
 define as revealed," and " I absolutely submit my mind with 
 an inward assent to the Church, as the teacher of the whole 
 faith."
 
 2 20 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' Accordingly the use of such books as Veron's and 
 Chrissman's (which contain that " Minimum " which Dr. Forbes 
 asks about) is mainly to ascertain the matter of fact, viz. what 
 at present is defined by the Church as "de fide " ; and with 
 whatever difference in the way of putting it, they would not 
 deny that it is in the power of the Church to define points 
 hitherto open, and that the faithful are bound to accept these 
 with an inward assent when they are defined. 
 
 ' But post time has come, — and perhaps I ought to let it 
 bring what I have to say to an end — yet, if you will let me, 
 I should like to run out what I have begun— though it will 
 give you trouble to read. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 ' The Oratory, Birmingham : March 23rd, 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Pusey, — I do hope you will not think I am 
 preaching — but to answer you, without showing you that the 
 answer is given from a different basis from that on which the 
 question is asked, would be to mislead you and the Bishop — 
 it would in fact be an equivocation — for " Minimism " in my 
 mouth does not mean the same thing as in yours. 
 
 ' I ended yesterday by saying that such writers as Veron 
 and Chrissman and Denzinger, in laying down what was " de 
 fide," never pretended to exclude the principle that it was "de 
 fide " because the Church taught it as such, and that she could 
 teach other things as " de fide " by the same right as she 
 taught what she now teaches as such. This is our broad 
 principle, held by all of whatever shade of theological 
 opinion. While it would be illogical not to give an inward 
 assent to what she has already declared to be revealed, so it 
 is pious and religious to believe, or at least not to doubt, 
 what, though in fact not defined, still it \s probable she might 
 define as revealed, or that she will define, or seems to consider 
 to be revealed. 
 
 ' To illustrate the difference between simply faith and 
 religiousness : — it is as great a sin against faith to deny that 
 there is a Purgatory as to deny that there is the Beatific 
 Vision ; but it is a sin against religiousness as well as 
 against faith to deny the latter. And so, as to the Church's 
 teaching about the Holy See, before the Council of Florence, 
 about which you ask (supposing the following point was not 
 already defined, which I do not know), it might be pious to 
 believe, and a defect in piety (in educated men) not to believe 
 that the Pope was " totius Ecclesiae Doctor," because it was 
 clear the Church held it, and probable that she might and
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1867-1868) 221 
 
 would define it ; and it is this spirit of piety which holds 
 together the whole Church. We embrace and believe what 
 we find universally received, till a question arises about any 
 particular point. Thus, as to our Lord's perfect knowledge 
 in His Human Nature, we might always have admitted it 
 without a question through piety to the general voice — then, 
 when the controversy arose, we might ask ourselves if it had 
 been defined, examine the question for ourselves and end 
 the examination by (wrongly but allowably) doubting of it ; 
 but then zvhen the definition was published in its favour, we 
 should submit our minds to the obedience of faith. So again 
 Galileo, supposing he began (I have no reason for implying 
 or thinking he did, but supposing he began) with doubting 
 the received doctrine about the centrality of the earth, I 
 think he would have been defective in religiousness ; but not 
 defective in faith, (unless indeed by chance he erroneously 
 thought that the centrality had been defined). On the other 
 hand, when he saw good reasons for doubting it, it was very 
 fair to ask, and implied no irreligiousness, — " After all, is it 
 defined ? " and then, on inquiry, he would have found his 
 liberty of thought " in possession," and would both by right 
 and with piety doubt of the earth's centrality. 
 
 ' Applying this principle to the Pope's Infallibility, (N.B. 
 this of course is mine own opinion only, meo periculo^ 
 a man will find it a religious duty to believe it or may safely 
 disbelieve it, in proportion as he thinks it probable or im- 
 probable that the Church might or will define it, or does hold 
 it, and that it is the doctrine of the Apostles. For myself, 
 (still to illustrate what I mean, not as arguing) I think that 
 the Church vtay define it (i.e. it possibly may turn out to 
 belong to the original dcpositum), but that she will not ever 
 define it ; and again I do not see that she can be said to hold 
 it. She never can simply act upon it, (being undefined, as it 
 is) and I believe never has ; — moreover, on the other hand, 
 I think there is a good deal of evidence, on the very surface 
 of history and the Fathers in its favour. On the whole then 
 I hold it ; but I should account it no sin if, on the grounds 
 of reason, I doubted it. 
 
 ' I have made this long talk by way of protest against the 
 principle of the " Minimum" which both you and Dr. Forbes 
 stand upon, and which we never can accept as a principle, or 
 as a basis of an Eirenicon. It seems to us false, and wc must 
 ever hold, on the contrary, that the object of faith is not 
 simply certain articles, A. B. C. D. contained in dumb docu- 
 ments, but the whole word of God, explicit, and implicit, as
 
 222 LIFE OF CARDINAL NFAVMAN 
 
 dispensed by His living Church. On this point I am sure 
 there can be no Eirenicon ; for it marks a fundamental, ele- 
 mentary difference between the Anglican view and ours, 
 and every attempt to bridge it over will but be met in the 
 keen and stern temper of Cardinal Patrizzi's letter.^ 
 
 • Nor is the point which is the direct subject of your 
 question much or at all less an elementary difference of 
 principle between us ; viz. the Pope's jurisdiction : — it is a 
 difference of principle even more than of doctrine. That 
 that jurisdiction is universal is involved in the very idea 
 of a Pope at all. I can easily understand that it was only 
 partially apprehended in the early ages of the Church, and 
 that, as Judah in the Old Covenant was not duly recog- 
 nised and obeyed as the ruling tribe except gradually, so 
 St. Cyprian or St. Augustine in Africa (if so) or St. Basil in 
 Asia Minor (if so) may have fretted under the imperiousness 
 of Rome, and not found a means of resignation in their 
 trouble ready at hand in a clear view (which they had not) 
 that Rome was one of the powers that be, which are ordained 
 of God. It required time for Christians to enter into the 
 full truth, so as always on all points to think and act aright ; 
 and in saying this, I do not mean to admit the force of 
 Mr. Bright's historical arguments against our view of the 
 matter;— but I admit them for argument's sake, and am ap- 
 pealing to the nature and necessity of the case, and to the 
 common-sense view of the case. P'or to this day a dormant 
 jurisdiction is far from uncommon among us. Bishops for 
 some reason or other allow priests sometimes to go on their 
 own way, and to act by usage in certain things, as if they (the 
 priests) had power of their own ; and then some new Bishop 
 comes perhaps, like a new broom, and pulls them up .sharply, 
 and shows that such usage was mere matter of allowance ; 
 and the priests for a time resist through ignorance. And 
 parallel interpretations may be given mutatis vmtandis 
 even to the acts of Councils, taking those acts on our 
 opponents' .showing. Putting aside then, as in our feeling it 
 may be put aside, the historical question, our feeling as a 
 f(xct (for so alone I am speaking of it) is this :— that there is 
 no use in a Pope at all, except to bind the whole of 
 Christendom into one polity ; and that to ask us to give 
 up his universal jurisdiction is to invite us to commit 
 suicide. To do .so is not the act of an Eirenicon. . . . 
 " Dissolutionem facis, pacem appellas ! " Whatever be the 
 extent of " State rights," .some jurisdiction the President 
 
 ' Onthe A.P.U.C.
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1867-1S6S) 2-^ 
 
 J 
 
 must have over the American Union, as a whole, if he is to 
 be of any use or meaning at all. He cannot be a mere 
 Patriarch of the Yankees, or Exarch of the West country 
 squatters, or " primus inter pares " with the Governors of 
 Kentucky and Vermont. An honorary head, call him 
 primate or premier duke, does not affect the real force or 
 enter into the essence of a political body, and it is not worth 
 contending about. We do not want a man of straw, but a 
 bond of unity. 
 
 ' This shows that, as a matter of principle, the Pope must 
 have universal jurisdiction ; and then comes the question to 
 what extent ? Now the Church is a Church Militant, and, 
 as the commander of an army is despotic, so must the 
 visible head of the Church be ; and therefore in its idea the 
 Pope's jurisdiction can hardly be limited. 
 
 ' I am not arguing with antecedent arguments ; I am 
 accounting for a fact. It is Whately's " a " not " A." I 
 have proposed to draw out the facts as a matter of principle, 
 not of doctrine. Doctrine is the voice of a religious body ; 
 its principles are of its substance. The principles may be 
 turned into doctrines by being defined ; but they live as 
 necessities before definition, and are the less likely to be 
 defined, because they are so essential to life. 
 
 ' I end by again apologising for so long a letter ; but 
 I could not answer you in any other way ; and perhaps you 
 will say I have not answered you at all. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Having thus unreservedly defended the fullest extent of 
 the Pope's jurisdiction as well as the pictas fidei against the 
 ' minimisers ' of whom Pusey would fain have extracted 
 from him some approval or countenance, Newman was in a 
 position with a safe conscience to send him a month later 
 Father Ryder's criticism on W. G. Ward's attempt to make 
 almost equally unrestricted the binding force of Papal utter- 
 ances on the thoughts of Catholics as well as on their actions. 
 He enclosed with the pamphlet the following letter : 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham : May ist, 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Pusey, — I send you a pamphlet by this post, 
 not that you will agree with it, but because you may like to 
 know what men of moderate opinion amongst us at this da)- 
 hold. In substance I agree with it. The extreme view (of 
 laxity) is Muratori's.
 
 224 IJFR OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' The subject is the province of ecclesiastical infallibility. 
 ' With best Easter wishes, 
 
 ' I am, 
 
 Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 To W. G. Ward himself he had written on the previous 
 day : 
 
 ' The Oratory, Birmingham : April 30t]i, 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Ward, — I send you by this post Fr. Ryder's 
 pamphlet in criticism of some theological views of yours. 
 Though I frankly own that in substance I agree with it 
 heartily, it was written simply and entirely on his own idea, 
 without any suggestion (as far as I know) from anyone here 
 or elsewhere, and on his own choice of topics, his own reading, 
 and his own mode of composition. 
 
 ' I think he is but a specimen of a number of young 
 Catholics who have a right to an opinion on the momentous 
 subject in question, and who feel keenly that you are desirous 
 to rule views of doctrine to be vital which the Church does 
 not call or consider vital. And certainly, without any un- 
 kindness towards you, or any thought whatever that you 
 have been at all wanting in kindness to me personally, I 
 rejoice in believing that, now that my own time is drawing to 
 an end, the new generation will not forget the spirit of the 
 old maxim in which I have ever wished to speak and act 
 myself: " In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus 
 charitas." 
 
 ' Yours affectly. in Xt., 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Father Ryder's pamphlet was entitled ' Idealism in Theo- 
 logy.' It was a very brilliant and witty piece of writing. Its 
 motto on the title-page was taken from ' Timon of Athens ' : 
 ' The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the ex- 
 tremity of both ends.' He traces W. G. Ward's extremes on 
 the side of authority to those very extremes on the side of 
 scepticism which were to him the alternative ;— to the cast of 
 mind which made him a sympathetic reader of the works of 
 J. S. Mill. The reaction from one extreme led to another. 
 A watertight compartment for faith, sealed by authority, in 
 which all religious beliefs should be safely locked up, was the 
 alternative to scepticism. Falling back upon Ward's ' Ideal 
 of a Christian Church' as the truest representation of his
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1867-1868) 325 
 
 mind and method, Ryder traces his theory of Infallibility to 
 his passion for ideal completeness. He regards it as a theory 
 based on d priori needs, and constructed without any 
 adequate regard to the caution of true theology or the facts 
 of history. Moreover, as Papal utterances were now becoming 
 so numerous, to intimate that the Pope could scarcely speak 
 publicly without speaking infallibly was, as Ryder maintains 
 in a witty passage, to ascribe to him a gift * like that of Midas's 
 touch of gold,' very wonderful, but very inconvenient. 
 
 W. G. Ward, so Ryder maintained, imposed as obligatory 
 upon all Catholics, under pain of mortal sin, deductions of his 
 own which were not shared by many theologians of weight. 
 
 Ryder further protested against the damaging assumption 
 that the theological moderation which comes of thought 
 and wide reading implies a lower level of loyalty to the 
 Church and Holy See than an unthinking acceptance of 
 extreme claims on their behalf To flatter the authorities by 
 exaggerating their powers, as Canute's courtiers flattered 
 him, was not to be specially loyal ; still less was such an 
 attitude desirable, if it involved assertions which prevented 
 effective reply to the charges of extravagance brought 
 against Catholic doctrine by its critics. Moderation due 
 to a perception of real difficulties was not lukewarmness. 
 Sir Thomas More was at once a hero and a moderate. 
 Moderate Catholics were often stigmatised as ' Gallicans ' ; 
 but Ryder, in a passage full of dignity, justifies their position 
 as often imi)lying deeper loyalty than that of extremists, 
 although their views may differ from those of the ' Roman 
 party.' And when extremists urged that to accept the 
 prevailing view of the time is the course marked out by 
 ' Catholic instincts,' they needed to be reminded of the 
 changes time had wrought in the views prevailing in different 
 epochs — for in.stance, de Lugo records the fact that nearly all 
 theologians at one time denied the Immaculate Conception. 
 
 Three points noted by Ryder, as instances of excessive 
 claims advanced on behalf of the Papacy by Mr. Ward, 
 were: (i) the claim that the Pope's doctrinal instructions in 
 Encyclicals were infallible ; (2) the claim that the Holy 
 See by its philosophical condemnations helps directly in 
 determining philosophical truth as such ; and (3) the claim for 
 
 VOL. II. Q
 
 2 2f) LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 interior assent on the part of men of science to the decrees of 
 the Roman Congregations admitted not to be infalHble. 
 
 On the first point, Ryder cites great theologians, as 
 Ballerini, Amort, Capellari (afterwards Gregory XVI.), as to 
 the careful tests which are necessary to determine what a 
 Pope does define ex cathedra. He notes also that the 
 doctrinal instructions of Encyclical Letters are never used by 
 classical theologians as decisive. He quotes Father Tanner, 
 the Jesuit, as invoking the general opinion of the faithful 
 and of theologians, in order to determine precisely what is 
 authoritatively determined in such documents. 
 
 On the second point, Ryder held that censures passed by 
 Rome on philosophical writings merely prove the censured 
 system to have on some point run counter to orthodox 
 theology.' 
 
 ' ' The Church, in her philosophical condemnations,' he writes, * cares nothing 
 for philosophical truth as such. She represents a higher interest, to which every 
 other must give way. Two rival systems of philosophy are struggling for pre- 
 eminence. The one that is the truest, the one that bears within it the true germ 
 of all philosophic growth and movement, and which is one day to prevail — from the 
 very fact that it is living, and not mechanical — is the more open to dangerous error, 
 in that portion of the intellectual field which philosophy and theology have in com- 
 mon. Although its chariot wheel does but graze the car upon which the Church sits 
 enthroned ; although its theological error is so slight viewed as men view it, and the 
 philosophic truth it carries so great and so important ; yet the erring wheel is broken 
 and the chariot overthrown; while the rival system, shallow and safe, glides 
 smoothly on upon the other side, triumphant. What matters it to the Church, that 
 the hopes of philosophy are for the time checked ! Her office is to preserve, at 
 any cost, each particle of religious truth entrusted to her. Between her truth and 
 other truth, so far as it is truth, God, in his own good time, will effect reconcilia- 
 tion, giving to each its complement. Even as regards her own theology it has been 
 remarked that the Church has frequently smitten the forerunners and heralds of a 
 new development of dogma or discipline, men of keen minds, with the genius of 
 anticipation, but whose zeal was not according to knowledge ; and who, in their 
 impatient worship of the new, forgot their reverence for the old. And some of 
 these have wholly fallen away and become heretics, leaving the work for which 
 they were not worthy to other hands. So cautious ever is the Church, so jealous of 
 the wild intellect of man, which she addresses with blows rather than with words. 
 She will not condescend to argue or to explain ; she will not clothe herself with the 
 philosopher's pallium ; or, if she does, it straightway becomes a cope broidered 
 with mystic characters, which has a new significance, of which the old was but a 
 type and shadow. 
 
 ' I am not saying that the philosopher can never gain anything from his con- 
 demnations ; and that, not merely as a man wiih a supernatural end identical with 
 that of the Church, but even gita philosopher. But he must have nerve enough 
 to set himself to analyse precisely the extent of the Church's condemnation, so as 
 to preserve his original system, to the full extent that the Church will allow him.
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1867-186S) 227 
 
 Such a warning, however emphatic, could not be said 
 to be tantamount to imparting important positive truth. 
 
 ' Let me take an example,' Fr. Ryder wrote. ' A boy- 
 has a long sum to do ; when finished, as he thinks, he takes 
 it up to his master ; it is wrong, he receives a tremendous cut 
 across the shoulders, and his slate is thrown at his head. 
 Now would it not be rather hyperbolical — nay, would it not 
 be simply untrue, even if the sum represented the whole of 
 arithmetic — to say that a vast mass of arithmetical truth had 
 been taught ? ' 
 
 Mr. Ward's exhortation to men of science to assent 
 interiorly to the decisions of the Roman Congregations, 
 though he admitted that the further advance of science 
 might eventually prove Rome to have been mistaken, is 
 rejected by Father Ryder in the following words : 
 
 ' What sort of an internal assent would that be which 
 could co-exist with the feeling, that, though the Church was 
 right, they must really see whether she was not wrong? If, 
 on the other hand, their interior assent was firm, and their 
 doubt purely methodical, imagine the shock to the poor 
 orthodox men of science, when they should find the Church 
 wrong after all ; either reason or faith must give way.' ^ 
 
 But indeed the fundamental assumption of Mr. Ward's 
 reasoning, that what is desirable for the effective preservation 
 
 If, however, he falls into the mistake of supposing that the Church is teaching 
 philosophy, the danger will be, that, if a good Catholic, he will throw himself 
 into the opposite s>stem, and so embrace a vast mass of tenets which, whilst 
 theologically safe, are, some of them, philosophically false. 
 
 * As to the condemnations of Hermes and Gunther by the Congregations of 
 the Inquisition and Index, I have no doubt that they were in all respects true 
 and just. I simply do not know whether they were infallible. I'ius IX. in the 
 " Eximi.am,"does indeed characterize the decree of the Index condemning Gunther 
 as " Decretiim nostra anctoritatc savcitiim, tiostroque jtissu vulgatiifn" ; but the 
 decree of the Index condemning Copernicanisni as contra7y to Scripture, is quali- 
 fied by Bellarmine, Fromond, and you, as '■'^ a Declaration of His HoIi7iess,'^ a. 
 decree '■'■ exavtincd, 7-atified, authorized by the Pope" and, by you at least, as 
 "doctrinal." I would submit, although with great deference, as knowing very 
 little of the subject, whether the i7innediate scope of the decrees of the Roman 
 Congregations is not always rather disciplina7y than doctri7ia/, and the doctrinal 
 statements are not, however solemn and important, still tech7iically preambles and 
 obtter dicta. If so, the Pope's identifying himself with the decree would not 
 alter its essential character.' 
 
 ' On the other hand it must not be forgotten that Dr. Ryder, like Newman 
 himself, maintained that the pietas fidei should prompt to internal submission 
 beyond the sphere covered by strictly inf:\llible decisions of Rome. 
 
 o 2
 
 228 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 of the Faith is, therefore, true, is attacked by Father Ryder. 
 It is, he holds, this utilitarian method which leads him to 
 conclusions which theologians whose methods are more 
 historical have rejected. In treating this point in his first 
 pamphlet Ryder falls back on the tone of banter to which 
 his unfailing sense of humour constantly tempted him. 
 
 ' After taunting his opponents with their unwillingness 
 to meet him Mr. Ward proceeds in a masterful and lion- 
 taming manner to pin the reluctant but yielding monsters, as 
 he thinks, in a corner, in this wise, — Has not the Church her 
 gift of infallibility in order to maintain the deposituvi ? Yes. 
 Can you deny that certain philosophical tenets logically, and 
 certain others practically, lead to heresy? No. Must not 
 the Church have power to expel such errors from the minds 
 of believers, if she is to maintain the deposituvi} Yes. Can 
 she expel such errors unless she can certainly decide which 
 these are ? No. Triumphant conclusion : Then the Church 
 is infallible in all condemnations of such tenets as erroneous 
 and unsound ! Howls of baffled rage from the minimizing 
 Catholics. . . . 
 
 * I will, with Dr. Ward's leave, substitute for the above, 
 the following : — If the Church cannot expel from the minds of 
 the faithful the tenet that the Pope and many of the Bishops 
 are actuated by ambition and other unworthy motives, which 
 tenet has certainly in many cases led, not logically, God 
 forbid ! but practically, to both schism and heresy, she can- 
 not securely guard the dcpositum ; but she could only expel 
 such a tenet, by infallibly declaring such a case to be 
 impossible : therefore, she may infallibly make such a pro- 
 nouncement. So much for the elasticity of the a priori 
 argument.' 
 
 The net result of Father Ryder's argument was to es- 
 tablish only this — that Ward's extreme view of the authority 
 of Papal pronouncements, which was becoming so prevalent, 
 was not the only orthodox one. 
 
 Newman's share in the production of Father Ryder's 
 first pamphlet is set forth in the following letter to Canon 
 Walker : 
 
 'May II, 1867. . . . 
 
 ' You are mistaken, — not indeed in thinking that I sub- 
 stantially approve of and agree with Fr. Ryder's Pamphlet, 
 but in treating it as mine. The idea of writing is solely his
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1867-1868) 229 
 
 — " Facit indignatio versus." So were the topics, the line of 
 thought, the illustrations, and the tone and temper. I agree 
 with your criticism on it — indeed, I had made the same 
 when I saw it in manuscript. He is ever in deep Devon- 
 shire lanes — you never know the lie of the country from him 
 — he never takes his reader up to an eminence, whence he 
 could make a map of it. This is partly my fault — partly 
 his, if it is a fault. A fault it certainly is in the composition 
 — but it is not strictly a fault in determining on committing 
 such a fault of composition. My own share in it is this — that 
 I thought it was good generalship for various reasons directly 
 to attack Ward, not in the first place his opinions. I wanted 
 him to show from Ward's character of mind how untrust- 
 worthy he was — also I thought he would enlist the feelings 
 of oppressed and groaning Catholics, if he presented himself 
 in the character of a young, chivalrous rebel. Then on his 
 side, since he was proposing, not primarily to teach his 
 betters theology, but to answer Ward, he felt himself obliged 
 to follow Ward's lead and to take the very points for 
 consideration which Ward's publication suggested. 
 
 ' As to his professing himself, not in any true sense, but 
 in the sense people sometimes injuriously use the word, a 
 Galilean, he zvisked to say what he has said — and I confess 
 / have a great impatience at being obliged to trim my lan- 
 guage by any conventional rule, to purse up my mouth, and 
 mince my words, because it's the fashion. And as to the 
 Home and Foreign I detest the persecuting spirit which has 
 pursued it.' 
 
 An acute controversy arose on the appearance of Father 
 Ryder's ' Idealism in Theology.' It raged in the columns of 
 the Tablet^ and Newman's views were attacked by some of 
 W. G. Ward's supporters. Mr. Wallis, the editor of the 
 Tablet, published an article in support of Father R)'der and 
 his great chief Newman's letter to Mr. Wallis on the 
 occasion shows how deeply he felt on the attempt to stifle 
 the lawful liberty of thought among Catholics : 
 
 To Mr. Wallis. 
 
 ' The Oratory, Birmingham : April 23/1867. 
 
 ' My dear Mr. Wallis, — . . . I believe the attack on me on 
 the part of a clique is, not simply against me as me, but, 
 on the part of those who are the springs of action in that 
 clique, it is made on the principle " Fiat experimentum in
 
 2 to LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ■s 
 
 corpore sano." I have a clear conscience that, in the works 
 of mine they profess to criticize, I have said nothing which a 
 CathoHc might not say, though I am not of their way of 
 thinking. If then they are strong enough to put down me, 
 simply on the ground of my not succumbing to the clique, 
 no one else has a chance of not being put down, and a reign 
 of terror has begun, a reign of denunciation, secret tribunals, 
 and moral assassination. The latter part of your article was 
 directed against this danger — and it rejoiced me to find you 
 were alive to it. As to the attack on me I shall outlive it, as 
 I have outlived other attacks — but it is not at all easy to 
 break that formidable conspiracy, which is in action against 
 the theological liberty of Catholics. 
 
 'J. H. N.' 
 
 W. G. Ward's reply to Father Ryder appeared in May. 
 Newman wrote his impressions of the state of the controversy 
 to Canon Walker : 
 
 'June s, 1867. 
 
 ' I agree in what you say about Ward's answer. He picks 
 out from Fr. Ryder's just what he chooses to answer— says 
 that, as to the rest, part is irrelevant, and part he will answer 
 at his leisure, and then goes to work on two theses, only one 
 of which represents any of the four headings into which 
 Fr. Ryder divided his pamphlet, and he meets him as re- 
 gards that one, not with theologians or theological arguments, 
 but by an argumentum ad verecundiam, drawn from the 
 Pope's words. Fr. Ryder has said " the Pope's words 
 always need interpretation "—and has given authorities in 
 proot of this. Ward answers merely by repeating the 
 Pope's words. 
 
 ' I thought the end of the Tablet review of both pamphlets 
 capital, as appealing to the commonsense of the world. 
 Here is Ward to his "extreme surprise" discovering the 
 very truth after having been for years a Lecturer in theology, 
 and now imposing it on all under pain of mortal sin. 
 
 ' Ward's superiority lies in his clearness, and his skill in 
 stating what he considers his case.' 
 
 The root of the controversy was reached in another letter 
 from Newman to Canon Walker. W. G. Ward was attempt- 
 ing to ascribe to the official letters of the actual reigning Pope 
 an import so clear even to the man in the street, and such 
 decisive authority, as instantly to oblige internal belief. His 
 method made light of or dispensed with technical theological
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1867-1S68) 231 
 
 interpretation by the light of pronouncements of other Popes 
 and Councils equally authoritative, which might limit the 
 apparent scope even of what was most weighty. Ward had 
 proposed to clinch the matters in dispute at once, by asking 
 the Pope both as to his meaning and his authority in recent 
 utterances. Newman thus comments on Ward's general 
 view and on this particular proposal : 
 
 'June 17, 1867. 
 
 ' As to your question, the definitions &c. of Popes and 
 Councils are matter of theology. Who could ever guess 
 what is condemned, what not, in a Thesis Damnata, without 
 such a work as Viva ? But 7iow, a proposition which the 
 Pope has animadverted on (he does not seem formally to 
 have censured any or many in his time) comes to us from 
 Rome, not through Bishops and Theologians, but through 
 the public prints, in the own correspondence of the Times 
 (that is where I first saw the Syllabus, and you too.) and 
 private judgment is to give the proposition and the Pope's 
 act, its true interpretation. Can anything be more pre- 
 posterous? and then, if we remonstrate, we are answered, 
 " O the words are too plain for interpretation ! " On the 
 same principle we might say when St. Paul says that 
 concupiscence is sin, that the words need no interpretation 
 from theologians. Look through the propositions condemned 
 in the Bull Unigenitus, and say, if a common man can 
 understand \.\\€\r point better than many in St. Paul. 
 
 * Then, as to " writing to know " whether the Pope speaks 
 ex cathedra, and wJiat he says, surely this is like asking a 
 Judge out of court to declare the meaning of his decision. 
 Great authorities cannot be had up again, like witnesses 
 in a Jury box, to be further questioned or cross examined. 
 They often do speak again, but in their own time and way.' 
 
 Newman's most urgent protest was throughout against 
 Ward's contention that his view was of obligation for a 
 Catholic. Such narrowing of the terms of communion 
 appeared to him fatal to all intellectual life within the 
 Church, and seemed to reduce the Church Catholic to the 
 position of a sect. Strongly as he held certain views on 
 intellectual grounds, it was for freedom among Catholics to 
 hold them rather than for their truth that he chiefly fought. 
 W. G. Ward, on the other hand, taking the view that the Pope 
 himseli desired a full and not a minimistic interpretation,
 
 232 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 and looking on a Catholic writer as bound in loyalty to 
 second the Pope's wishes, maintained that if a writer thought 
 it clear that a decree did in the Pope's intention impose a 
 certain obligation, he was right in saying so, even although 
 grave theologians thought otherwise. Thus the ultimate 
 point at which such different lines of policy began to diverge 
 was that Newman said : " Say if you like ' I think this is the 
 true interpretation,' but do not impose it on others as 
 obligatory, if grave theologians think differently"; while 
 Ward replied : "If I think it is infallibly true, and part of 
 the Church's teaching, I think it is obligatory ; and I say so as 
 the Pope wishes me to. I do not impose it on my own ipse 
 dixit, or assuming any authority, but I give the reasons 
 which convince me." 
 
 Two letters at this time — one to W. G. Ward himself, 
 and one to Henry Wilberforce — express with some fulness 
 Newman's state of mind : 
 
 'The Oratorj', Birmingham: gth May, 1867. 
 
 ' My dear Ward, — Father Ryder has shown me your 
 letter in which you speak of me, and though I know that to 
 remark on what you say will be as ineffectual now in making 
 you understand me as so many times in the last fifteen years, 
 yet, at least as a protest in memoriani, I will, on occasion of 
 this letter and of your letter to myself, make a fresh attempt 
 to explain myself Let me observe then that in former 
 years, and nozv, I have considered the theological differences 
 between us as unimportant in themselves ; that is, such as to 
 be simply compatible with a reception both by you and by 
 me of the whole theological teaching of the Church in the 
 widest sense of the word teaching ; and again now, and in 
 former years too, I have considered one phenomenon in you 
 to be " momentous," nay, portentous, that you will persist in 
 calling the said unimportant, allowable, inevitable differences, 
 which must occur between mind and mind, not unimportant, 
 but of great moment. In this utterly uncatholic, not so 
 much opinion as feeling and sentiment, you have grown in 
 the course of years, whereas I consider that I remain myself 
 in the same temper of forbearance and sobriety which I have 
 ever wished to cultivate. Years ago you wrote me a letter 
 in answer to one of mine, in which you made so much of 
 such natural difference of opinion as exists, that I endorsed 
 it with the words : " See how this man seeketh a quarrel 
 against me." ...
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1867-1868) 233 
 
 ' Pardon me if I say that you are making a Church within 
 a Church, as the Novatians of old did within the Catholic 
 pale, and as, outside the Catholic pale, the Evangelicals of 
 the Establishment. As they talk of "vital religion" and 
 " vital doctrines," and will not allow that their brethren 
 " know the Gospel," or are Gospel preachers, unless they 
 profess the small shibboleths of their own sect, so you are 
 doing your best to make a party in the Catholic Church, and 
 in St. Paul's words are dividing Christ by exalting your 
 opinions into dogmas. ... I protest then again, not against 
 your tenets, but against what I must call your schismatical 
 spirit. I disown your intended praise of me, viz. that I hold 
 your theological opinions in " the greatest aversion," and I 
 pray God that I may never denounce, as you do, what the 
 Church has not denounced. Bear with me. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately in Christ, 
 
 J. H. Newman.' 
 
 To Henry Wilberforce he wrote thus in July : 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham : July 2ist, 1867 
 
 * My dear H. W., — In all times the debates in the 
 Schools have been furious, and it is in this way, of the col- 
 lision of flint and steel, that the light of truth has been 
 struck and elicited. Controversialists have ever accused each 
 other of heresy — and at times Popes have interfered, and 
 put forth Bulls to the effect that, if anyone called another a 
 heretic out of his own head, he should lie under the censure 
 of the Church. 
 
 ' All this is ordinary — what is extraordinary is that the 
 battle should pass from the Schools (which, alas, are not) to 
 Newspapers and Reviews, and to lay combatants, with an 
 appeal to the private judgment of all readers. This is a de- 
 plorable evil — and from all I have heard Ward has hindered 
 various people from becoming Catholics by his extreme views, 
 and I believe is unsettling the minds of I can't tell how many 
 Catholics. He is free to have his own opinion, but, when he 
 makes it part of the faith, when he stigmatises those who do 
 not follow him as bad Catholics, when he saves them only on 
 the plea of invincible ignorance, when he declines to meet 
 those Catholics who differ from him and prefers the company 
 of infidels to theirs, when he withdraws promised subscrip- 
 tions from missions on the plea that the new missioncr to 
 whom the money has to be paid has not correct views of 
 doctrine, when the spontaneous instinct of his mind is rather 
 that Protestants should not be converted than converted by
 
 234 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 certain Catholics who differ from him, what is he (as I have 
 told him) but a Novatian, making a Church within a Church, 
 or an Evangelical preacher, deciding that the Gospel is 
 preached here, and is not there ? 
 
 ' Why, it destroys our very argument with Anglicans : 
 " There is nothing but confusion," we say, " in your Church, 
 you don't know what to believe, — but with us all is clear and 
 there is no difference of view about the Faith." Now he is 
 overturning this aboriginal, unanswerable note in favour of 
 Catholicism, — and its consequences, were others to follow him, 
 would be tremendous, I say : " Were others to follow him," 
 because he is almost alone in such miserable exclusiveness. 
 The Jesuits, who agree with him, do not insist on their view 
 as the only allowable view in the Catholic Church. They 
 say it is the right view — of course they do — everyone thinks 
 his own view right — but they do not dream of calling every- 
 one who differ from them material heretics. The only parallel 
 I can find, like it in its effects^ I do not say in its contro- 
 versial circumstances, is the rise of Arianism. How it must 
 have perplexed converts when they saw the fury of the 
 heretical party, and the persistent opposition of the Catholic 
 believers, the eloquent plausibility of the one, the silence and 
 perplexity of the other ! how must it have unsettled those 
 who sought the Church for peace and strength amid secular 
 commotions like Constantine, or for truth and eternal life as 
 the young Basil ! It is a comfort to us under our present 
 sad trial, to be able to believe that, though a novel pheno- 
 menon in its present shape, still it is not altogether strange 
 in the history of the Church. 
 
 ' For myself I have never taken any great interest in 
 the question of the limits and seat of infallibility. I was 
 converted simply because the Church was to last to the end, 
 and that no communion answered to the Church of the first 
 ages but the Roman Communion, both in substantial likeness 
 and in actual descent. And as to faith, my great principle 
 was : " Securus judicat orbis terraruin." So I say now — and 
 in all these questions of detail I say to myself, I believe 
 whatever the Church teaches as the voice of God — and this 
 or that particular inclusively, if she teaches this — it is this 
 Jides ijnplicita which is our comfort in these irritating times. 
 And I cannot go beyond this — I see arguments here, argu- 
 ments there — 1 incline one way to-day another to-morrow — 
 on the whole I more than incline in one direction — but I 
 do not dogmatise — and I detest any dogmatism where the 
 Church has not clearly spoken. And if I am told : " The
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1867-1868) 235 
 
 Church has spoken," then I ask when ? and if, instead of 
 having anything plain shown me, I am put off with a string 
 of arguments, or some strong words of the Pope himself, 
 I consider this a sophistical evasion, I have only an opinion 
 at best (not faith) that the Pope is infallible, and a string of 
 arguments can only end in an opinion — and I comfort myself 
 with the principle : " Lex dubia non obligat " — what is not 
 taught universally, what is not believed universally, has no 
 claim on me — and, if it be true after all and divine, my faith 
 in it is included in the implicita fides which I have in the 
 Church.' 
 
 In 1 869 Mr. Ward withdrew a portion of his previous theory 
 — which had claimed infallibilit}'- for all the pronounce- 
 ments from which the Syllabus drew its list of condemned 
 errors. ' I freely confess,' he wrote, ' that when I set forth 
 this thesis in some of my writings I extended it too far.' ^ 
 And he cites the opinion of grave theologians as his reason 
 for retracting. But this change only confirmed Newman in 
 his objection to Ward's course in branding at the outset as 
 guilty of ' minimism ' and of mortal sin, those who held a 
 view with which he himself ultimately concurred. 
 
 It was in October 1867 that Mr. Peter le Page Renouf 
 consulted Newman as to the advisability of writing on the 
 Honorius case. Newman's counsel was in the affirmative, 
 and he did not keep his opinion secret. He wrote of it to 
 Mr. Walker. He wrote of it also to Father Harper, the 
 Jesuit. His object was to gain that free discussion of its 
 bearing on the proposed definition which he felt to be so 
 necessary. 
 
 * A friend of mine tells me,' he wrote to Father Harper, 
 ' that he got up the case of Honorius years ago, and that he 
 believes it to be inconsistent with the Pope's infallibility — 
 and he is not unlikely to publish on the subject. I cannot 
 be sorry he should do so, for it is right that all the facts 
 should be brought together. I believe they will turn out not 
 inconsistent with his infallibility — but I don't profess to have 
 made a study of Honorius.' 
 
 A letter to Mr. Renouf himself, after the publication of 
 the pamphlet, indicates the line of thought on which Newman 
 afterwards laid so much stress in the ' Letter to the Duke of 
 
 ' Doctrinal Authority, p. 462.
 
 236 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Norfolk,' that an individual utterance of an individual Pope 
 must be interpreted in harmony with universally accepted 
 Catholic theology, and so interpreted as not to run counter to 
 its received principles. 
 
 'I read your pamphlet yesterday,' he writes on June 21, 
 1868, ' and found it to have the completeness and force which 
 I had expected in it. 
 
 ' It is very powerful as an argument and complete as a 
 composition. 1 certainly did not know how strong a case 
 could be made out against Pope Honorius. But with all its 
 power, I do not find that it seriously interferes with my own 
 view of Papal Infallibility : and its completeness is in part 
 due to your narrowing the compass of your thesis and is in 
 part compromised by your devious attacks on writers who 
 differ from you. . . . 
 
 ' I will tell you why you do not touch, or very slightly 
 touch, my own view of the subject ; and I suppose what I 
 hold is in fact what many others hold also. 
 
 ' I hold the Pope's Infallibility, not as a dogma, but as 
 theological opinion ; that is, not as a certainty, but as a 
 probability. You have brought out a grave difficulty in the 
 way of the doctrine ; that is, you have diminished its proba- 
 bility ; but you have only diminished it. To my mind the 
 balance of probabilities is still in favour of it. There are 
 vast difficulties, taking facts as they are, in the way of denying 
 it. In a question which is anyhow surrounded with difficulties, 
 it is the least of difficulties to maintain that, if we knew all 
 about Honorius's case, something would be found to turn 
 up to make it compatible with the doctrine. I recollect 
 Dr. Johnson's saying, " there are unanswerable objections to 
 a plenum, and unanswerable objections to a vacuum, yet one 
 or the other must be true." . . . 
 
 'Anyhow the doctrine of Papal InfallibiHty must be 
 fenced round and limited by conditions. . . . 
 
 ' Mgr. Sarra in his book on Indulgences, which Fr. St. 
 John has lately translated, asserts in like manner that, when 
 the Pope in certain forms of Indulgence distinctly declares 
 that he remits guilt, he really does not mean to do so, for 
 such doctrine would be against the Catholic P'aith. This 
 then is one large condition, which all Ultramontanes ac- 
 quiesce in and exercise, whether they will or no, viz. that, 
 when the Pope uses words which, taken in their obvious 
 meaning, are uncatholic, he either must not be intending to 
 speak ex cathedra or must not mean what he seems to 
 mean.'
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1867-1868) 237 
 
 W. G. Ward was far too frank and honest a contro- 
 versialist not to face the facts of the Honorius case when 
 they were brought before him by Mr. Renouf's pamphlet. 
 But it was significant that he had formulated his theory 
 without expressly allowing for them. He now wrote in the 
 Dtiblin Review dealing with the case fully, and maintaining 
 that though Honorius did teach, and teach officially in his 
 letter to Sergius, and though his teaching did undoubtedly 
 countenance heresy, he was speaking not ex cathedra as 
 Universal doctor, but only as the official Doctrinal ruler 
 {Gubernator Doctrinalis). This admission, however, raised 
 the question, How can it be at once determined in which of 
 these two capacities a Pope's official pronouncement on doc- 
 trinal matters is made ? Here was a matter which called for 
 very careful investigation on the part of theologians. 
 
 It was easy to decide after the event that an official letter 
 from a Pope purporting to give doctrinal guidance, which was 
 condemned by at least three subsequent Popes in Council as 
 countenancing heresy, could not have been a decision ex 
 cathedra. But how about its determination by those who 
 lived at the time? How would Mr. Ward's advocacy of an 
 uncritical following of the Pope's guidance have operated ? 
 As it was, one of the ablest defenders of Honorius has left it 
 on record that ' the continual resistance to the true doctrine 
 had been built on the authority of Honorius,' and that 'without 
 his important letters in all probability no Monothelite troubles 
 would have disturbed the pages of history.' ^ Pope Agatho 
 distinguished the indefectible faith of Peter from the erroneous 
 teaching which had been countenanced by the reigning Pope 
 Honorius. Unless theologians vigilantly kept guard on this 
 distinction, what absolute guarantee was there against a re- 
 petition of the prevalence of false doctrine under Pontifical 
 guidance? How was it consistent to brand as * minimising ' 
 Catholics those who held that the Papal letter of 1863 to the 
 Archbishop of Munich was sent by the Pope as doctrinal 
 ruler, and not as an infallible utterance, when in the case of 
 the letter to the Patriarch Sergius such a verdict had been 
 passed by the Roman See itself? 
 
 The events and controversies of the succeeding years — 
 ' Dom Chapman, O.S.B., in the Dublin Review, No. 280, p. 69.
 
 238 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 from 1867 to 1870 — showed more and more clearly that the 
 root question at issue between Father Ryder and Mr. Ward 
 was not the 'extent of infallibility' — the initial subject of 
 the discussion — but rather the functions of active theo- 
 logical thought in appraising precisely what was infallibly 
 determined. 
 
 The differences between the school of Newman, Ryder, 
 and Dupanloup, and the school represented by the Dublin 
 Review and the Univers, had been manifest at the time of the 
 appearance of the Syllabus two years earlier. They were 
 also apparent later on when the opportuneness of the 
 definition of Papal Infallibility was debated. 
 
 Newman had already in the ' Apologia' forestalled a good 
 many of the questions which W. G. Ward discussed in the 
 Dublin Review. There, as also in the letter to Mr. Ornsby 
 on the same subject, already cited, he had pointed out that, 
 in the palmy days of the Church's theology, the difficult 
 intellectual problems which arose, as the University pro- 
 fessors attempted to reconcile the truths of Revelation with 
 the claims of newly emerging speculations or conclusions of 
 the reason, had been thoroughly and exhaustively debated in 
 the schools ; and that when the Holy See in the end perhaps 
 intervened it was to ratify as orthodox the conclusion already 
 reached by reason. The Holy See was using the ' means 
 supplied by Providence,' of which the Vatican Decree Pastot 
 Aeternus did eventually speak, to assist it in making its deci- 
 sions accurate, and in so expressing them as to accord with 
 the many existing theological authorities and past decisions 
 of Councils and Popes. Some such means of ascertaining the 
 truth was, of course, necessary for the Holy See in the absence 
 of direct inspiration. The third alternative was that very 
 arbitrariness and absolutism in its decisions, with which Pro- 
 testants charge the Papacy, and which Catholics have ever 
 repudiated as inconsistent with the traditions of the Church. 
 What Newman evidently dreaded was, lest the destruction of 
 the theological schools, which he constantly deplored, coupled 
 with the spread of Ward's theory which made light of even 
 the theological auxilia which were still available, might lead 
 to decisions of authority not at all adequate to the complexity 
 and difficulty of the questions raised, nor taking full account
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1S67-186S) 239 
 
 of the already existing theological decisions and authoritative 
 dicta bearing on the same subjects. He remembered that 
 even in infallible decisions, while immunity from error was 
 guaranteed by Providence, their adequacy and luminousness 
 was held by theologians to vary according to the quality of the 
 minds engaged in their preparation.^ Then there were in ad- 
 dition weighty decisions of Popes or Roman Congregations in 
 which there was not held to be any guarantee of immunity 
 from error. If the ' political and ultra-devotional party ' of 
 Louis Veuillot and his friends were reinforced by theologians 
 like Ward and Father Schrader, and if Rome, even without 
 formally sanctioning their theory, so far gave ear to its 
 promoters as to issue decisions without adequate theo- 
 logical preparation, disastrous consequences would ensue. 
 Authority might be identified in the public mind with 
 the 'violent ultra party which exalts opinions into dogmas 
 and has at heart principally the destruction of every school 
 of thought but its own.' ^ The absence of sufficient regard 
 for intellectual interests — not unnatural in measures insti- 
 gated by men like M. Veuillot, for whom these interests had 
 practically no existence — might make faith and loyalty ex- 
 cessively difficult for thinking minds. Really effective apolo- 
 getic might become almost impossible. The ablest Catholics 
 indeed would make privately the necessary qualifications. 
 But to express them publicly might be to incur charges 
 of unorthodoxy from the Univcrs from which they might 
 naturally shrink. All this would, no doubt, be entirely out- 
 side the intention of the Holy See, but nevertheless the 
 forces at work might bring about these unfortunate conse- 
 quences. The destruction of the theological schools had 
 diminished the normal influence of intellectual interests in the 
 Church. The ' political and ultra-devotional party' was un- 
 duly powerful. This party had won its influence by loyalty 
 to the Holy See — devoted as well as militant — yet that in- 
 fluence might be most unfortunate in matters whose nature 
 and importance its members failed to understand. Newman's 
 great fear, in the years 1866-70, during which the proposed 
 definition was canvassed, seems to have been that by its terms 
 it might appear to the world at large to sanction such 
 ' See Letter to Duke of Norfolk, p. 307. - Apologia, p. 260.
 
 240 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 excesses as those of M. Louis Veuillot, novelties which were 
 at variance with traditional Catholic theology. 
 
 He wrote to Canon Walker urging him, as a hereditary 
 Catholic, to testify publicly to the theology he had learnt 
 in his boyhood, as contrasted with the innovations of 
 M. Veuillot and Father Schrader : 
 
 ♦November lo, 1867. 
 
 ' Thank you for your letters, which I was very glad to 
 receive. I will tell you what they brought home to my mind, 
 what indeed I have once or twice thought of before — that you 
 should really write a pamphlet bearing witness to the views 
 taught to Catholics when you were young. No one can do it 
 but one who can speak as an authoritative witness, and such 
 you would be. There are very few who could do it but you, 
 — and it is really most necessary. Here is the Archbishop in 
 a Pastoral or Pamphlet putting out extreme views — getting 
 it read to the Pope, and circulating that the Pope approved of 
 it — all with a view of anticipating and practising upon the 
 judgments of the Bishops, when they meet for a General 
 Council. Of course what the General Council speaks 
 is the word of God — but still we may well feel indignant 
 at the intrigue, trickery, and imperiousness which is the 
 human side of its history — and it seems a dereliction of 
 duty not to do one's part to meet them. You are one of 
 the few persons who can give an effective testimony, and I 
 hope you will. And now having " liberated my mind," and 
 feeling relieved by having done so, I have nothing to do 
 but to subscribe myself 
 
 ' Very sincerely yours, 
 
 J. H. N.' 
 
 However, while these anxieties weighed heavily and in- 
 creasingly on Newman until after the Vatican Council, he had 
 in 1868, as we have already seen, a great encouragement in 
 two things. First, the Pope, after having his works examined 
 and approved, had directed that he should be asked to help in 
 preparing the material for the Council. This was a vindica- 
 tion of his orthodoxy, and it gave him a clear locus standi in 
 writing his opinion freely as to the difficulties attaching to some 
 of the proposed canons and definitions. Secondly, he had at 
 this time constant and widespread testimony to his influence, 
 which he now felt to be such that it might greatly help in 
 the objects he had at heart. The entry in his journal in 
 November 1868 opens with a note almost of triumph :
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY (1867-1868) 241 
 
 ' Nov. 30th, 1868. 
 
 ' HcBc inutatio dextrce Excelsi. I am too old to feel much 
 pleasure or at least to realise that I do — but certainly I hav^e 
 abundant cause to bless and praise God for the wonderful 
 change that has taken place in men's estimation of me, that 
 is, if I can make that change subservient to any good purpose. 
 An Anglican correspondent writes to me" You occupy a very 
 unique position in England. There is no other man whose 
 mere word would be more readily taken without the necessity 
 of having it confirmed by any other testimony. I do not 
 know any revolution of public feeling so complete as this." 
 
 'As far as this is a correct statement, I think the fact 
 arises from the feeling in the public mind that for many, for 
 20 years, I have been unfairly dealt with. It is a generous 
 feeling desirous of making amends. Thus I account for 
 the great considerateness which the Spectator, the Saturday 
 Review, nay the Pall Mall, and the Anglican Guardian and 
 other Anglican newspapers show me. But it is showing 
 itself still more in facts — Copeland has lately heard from 
 Rivingtons that the first volume of the new Edition of my 
 Parochial Sermons, published in May, has already, in half a 
 year, sold to the number of 3500 copies — and that this num- 
 ber includes an " extensive sale " among Dissenters. — Another 
 remarkable fact is that Sir F. Doyle, Poetry Professor at 
 Oxford, is paying me the extraordinary compliment of giving 
 a Public Lecture on my " Dream of Gerontius." 
 
 ' Then on the other hand, whereas the Pope directed that 
 I should be asked to go to Rome to take part in preparing 
 matters for the Council, the Catholic papers, which have not 
 hitherto spoken well of me, say that it has been a special 
 invitation, the first and hitherto only one made to an}- Priest 
 in England, Scotland, or Ireland &c. &c. 
 
 * Per contra — I shall be selling out my newly acquired stock 
 of credit in these Catholic circles, if I publish this letter on 
 Renoufs pamphlet upon Honorius, as I am thinking of doing. 
 
 ' 1 have nothing particular to remark on the above — but 
 record it, as I would the risings and fallings of the weather 
 glass. I am too old not to feel keenly that unless I can do 
 something for God by means of the good words which men 
 give me, such praise is mere chaff, and will be whirled away 
 by the wind some fine morning, leaving nothing behind it. 
 
 ' Another very encouraging fact is, that, in spite of opposi- 
 tion and criticism, Ignatius's pamphlets certain!}' have done 
 a work, and have thrown back the v^pis opdicoi' Ki'(i)8u\iov,ihc 
 arrogant ipse dixits of various persons who would crush every 
 opinion in theology which is not theirs.' 
 
 VOL. IL R
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 'THE GRAMMAR OF ASSEMT ' (187O) 
 
 During the period we have been reviewing, from 1866 to 
 1868, in which the contest on the InfalHbility of the Papacy 
 was so keen, Newman was engaged in writing his ' Essay in 
 Aid of a Grammar of Assent.' For years, as we have seen, 
 he had been urged by W. G. Ward to write on Faith 
 and Reason — a work which should be in some sense a 
 sequel to the Oxford University Sermons ' On the Theory of 
 Religious Belief He had again and again taken notes for 
 it ; and the subject was to have been dealt with in the ' Pro- 
 legomena' to the ill-fated translation of the Scriptures. His 
 keen realisation of the sceptical standpoint, and of the 
 fallacy of Catholic faith in the eyes of the sceptic, is vividly 
 presented in the following memorandum of i860 on 'The 
 Fluctuations of Human Opinion ' : 
 
 ' (i) We cannot get beyond a judgment such that it denies 
 itself soon and melts away into another — nothing fixed and 
 stable. 
 
 ' (2) Hence what does Catholicism do but arbitrarily fix 
 what is not fixed, and perpetuate by an unnatural and 
 strained force what else would be transitory. It assumes 
 and wills that this or that should be true which is not true to 
 the mind except for a time or more than something else. 
 
 ' (3) ^V^ cannot get beyond a certain degree of probability 
 about anything, but Catholicism enforces a certainty greater 
 than Mathematics, 
 
 ' (4) and making it a sin to doubt, artificially prolongs an 
 opinion. It is but an opinion that the Church is infallible, 
 but we commit a man to it and make it a sin to doubt it. If 
 he argued himself into it, why may he not argue himself out 
 of it? If it is a conclusion from premisses at first why not 
 always ? 
 
 ' (5) How can there be a revelation ; for the certainty of it 
 must depend on uncertain premisses ? Such seems the state of 
 human nature. In this state of things what does Catholicism
 
 'THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT' (1870) 243 
 
 do but unnaturally prolong a particular state of opinion and 
 pretend to a certainty which is impossible ? ' 
 
 This plausible view of the inherent uncertainty of religious 
 opinions had been considered by him both at Oxford (in the 
 University Sermons) and at Dublin in a lecture already cited 
 in these pages.' But he felt that he had more to say on the 
 subject, and had several times turned his mind to it. 
 
 After the abandonment of the ' Prolegomena ' he had again 
 contemplated a book on the same theme, but on somewhat 
 different lines — more distinctly as an account of the basis 
 on which minds unacquainted with scientific theology or 
 philosophy could and did rest their religious belief This 
 particular plan had been mentioned in i860 in a letter to 
 Dr. Meynell, Professor of Philosophy at Oscott. Dr. Meynell 
 had read Newman's University Sermons and referred in a 
 letter to his keen appreciation of their value. Newman thus 
 replied to him : 
 
 * The Oratory, Birmingham : Jan. 23r(l, '60. 
 
 ' My dear Dr. Meynell, — Your letter has given me mo.st 
 exceeding pleasure. First, because you really have taken 
 the trouble to read my book through, when I could not have 
 fancied you would have done more than read parts. Next, 
 because you corroborate my own impression, that what 
 Mr. Mansel has said I have said before him. And thirdly 
 because you think I have avoided many of his errors. 
 
 ' Since I sent it you I have had some correspondence with 
 a dear old Protestant friend, who wished me to write a book, 
 on what would really be the same subject expanded — so now 
 I am more inclined to do something or other on the subject, 
 but less certain whether or not to re-issuc the Sermons, If I 
 wrote a new work, it would be on " the popular, practical, and 
 personal evidence of Christianity " — i.e. as contrasted to the 
 scientific, and its object would be to show that a given 
 individual, high or low, has as much right (has as real rational 
 grounds) to be certain, as a learned theologian who knows 
 the scientific evidence. 
 
 * Your opinion of my sermons is the second favourable 
 judgment that I have had —some years ago some priests in 
 France translated nine of them into French. 
 
 ' Yours very sincerely 
 
 John H. New.man, 
 
 of the Oratory.' 
 ' See Vol. I. p. 393. 
 
 R 2
 
 244 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Let it be remembered that the ordinary reply in the 
 current school treatises to the question, ' How can the 
 uneducated man have sufficient reason for belief in Chris- 
 tianity ? ' was that such a one has reasons sufficient to satisfy 
 his own limited intellect. This clearly left a difficulty un- 
 solved. For a fallacious argument might satisfy an un- 
 critical and uneducated mind. In the University Sermon on 
 ' Wisdom as contrasted with Faith and Bigotry ' Newman 
 had met the difficulty by the suggestion that the Faith of the 
 simple involved a semi-conscious share in the Wisdom of the 
 Church as a whole. The single-hearted love of truth secured 
 some participation in a deeper intellectual and philosophical 
 system and process of proof than the individual mind could 
 explicitly formulate or appreciate. In the ' Essay on Assent ' 
 he developed a part only of this line of thought. He 
 analysed the large part played in the formation of convic- 
 tions by 'implicit' — or 'subconscious' reasoning, as it after- 
 wards came to be called. An uneducated man ' with a heart 
 and an eye for truth ' might reason well — though the process 
 could not be formally and consciously analysed by him. He 
 would come to a right conclusion, though his expressed argu- 
 ments might be inadequate or faulty. There were, moreover, 
 grounds of conviction too personal to be adequately expressed. 
 These played a large part in the religious convictions of 
 educated and uneducated alike. Yet from their nature they 
 could not be fully set forth in formal treatises. This line of 
 thought had been already sketched in the University Sermon, 
 'Explicit and Implicit Reason.' The ' Essay on Assent' in 
 the end did not, then, confine itself to an examination of 
 the grounds for faijh accessible to the uneducated. It dealt 
 rather with those! personal grounds of belief which the 
 educated and uneaucated may have in common — grounds 
 largely independent of technical studies and arguments 
 which could be appreciated only by the learned few. And it 
 dwelt on the depth and importance of these informal and 
 personal proofs. 
 
 Newman found a difficulty in some quarters in making the 
 necessity of his work — or its very object — understood. Even 
 among educated Catholics there were many who learnt more 
 or less mechanically the recognised credentials of the Church
 
 'THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT' (1870) 245 
 
 as well as its doctrines. They did not really weigh the 
 adequacy of the proofs, which they accepted on the word 
 of that Church whose authority the proofs themselves pro- 
 fessed to establish. To reflect on the vicious circle which 
 this involved was in their eyes to admit a doubt against 
 Faith. This was an attitude quite at variance with the 
 teaching of the best theologians, but in fact it was widely 
 prevalent. And W. G. Ward and Newman, who were on 
 this subject in close sympathy, had found even so able a 
 man as Cardinal Wiseman not wholly free from the con- 
 fusion of thought which it involved. This became apparent 
 in a conversation between the three men in 1859, and 
 Newman clinched the matter and somewhat staggered the 
 Cardinal with the question, ' Then pray, your Eminence, 
 what is the difference between Faith and Prejudice?' 
 
 As Catholics came to be more and more in contact with 
 the modern world and with able men who did not accept 
 Christianity, and learnt thus to realise the force of objections 
 to their belief, such a way of looking at the matter must 
 clearly afford a very insecure basis for its defence. 
 
 While the subject had, as we have seen, been in Newman's 
 mind for years, the decisive influence leading him to write on 
 the lines finally chosen came with dramatic suddenness, and 
 is described in a letter to Mr. Aubrey de Vere, written in 
 August 1870, immediately after the publication of his 'Essay' : 
 
 ' As to my Essay on Assent,' he wrote, 'it is on a subject 
 which has teazed me for these twenty or thirty years. I felt 
 I had something to say upon it, yet, whenever I attempted, the 
 sight I saw vanished, plunged into a thicket, curled itself up 
 like a hedgehog, or changed colours like a chameleon. I 
 have a succession of commencements, perhaps a dozen, each 
 different from the other, and in a different year, which came 
 to nothing. At last, four years ago, when I was up at Glion 
 over the Lake of Geneva, a thought came into my head as 
 the clue, the " Open Sesame," of the whole subject, and I at 
 once wrote it down, and I pursued it about the Lake of 
 Lucerne. Then when I came home I began in earnest, and 
 have slowly got through it.' 
 
 The thought that came to him at Glion was, as he says in 
 a ' Memorandum ' to be cited shortly, that Certitude is a form 
 of Assent, and that to treat of the psychology of Assent as
 
 246 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 distinguished from inference was the key to his book. The 
 exposition of this view of the case proved to be an important 
 part of his work, but perhaps not the most important. Assent 
 is treated in his book as being in its nature unconditional. 
 The act of assent to a new conclusion is a definite step taken 
 by the mind in response to many rational influences, latent 
 as well as conscious, and not as the mere mechanical or 
 passive recognition then and there of an inference from 
 premisses. This is perhaps his newest and subtlest contri- 
 bution to the problem. But it was not probably that which 
 was most helpful to the average reader. The doctrine of 
 the 'illative sense' has become by general consent the most 
 characteristic lesson taught by the ' Essay.' This doctrine 
 it was that met one special philosophical difficulty which 
 prompted him to write. 
 
 I have said above that one avowed object of the ' Essay 
 on Assent ' was to show that simple and uneducated minds 
 could have rational grounds for belief in Christianity without 
 knowledge of its scientific evidences. But the other lacuna 
 in Christian apologetic, to fill which the book was written^ 
 was that expressed in the letter to Mr. Capes already 
 cited.' He desired to view the unbeliever's attitude truly. 
 He treated it as being due to the assumption of false 
 first principles. This account did not get rid of the un- 
 believer's responsibility, but it left intact his sincerity. Both 
 his own cast of mind and his familiar intimacy with such 
 earnest doubters as William Froude, made him feel how little 
 cogent for the age to come, when believer and doubter must 
 be in daily intercourse, was a line of apologetic which im- 
 plied that there must be conscious insincerity in the doubter 
 or Agnostic. 
 
 The supposition that the case for Christianity could be 
 drawn up with the completeness of a barrister's brief, and 
 that as so stated it was in itself conclusive to any honest 
 mind, was false to obvious facts. Unbelievers were not as a 
 rule hie et nunc dishonest men whose bad dispositions held 
 them back from recognising a clearly convincing proof of 
 Christianity. And one reason why this fact was not ade- 
 quately recognised among Catholic theologians was that 
 
 ^ See Vol. I. pp. 244, 247.
 
 'THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT' (1S70) 247 
 
 believer and unbeliever lived very largely apart and the un- 
 believer's mind was not familiarly known by the believer. 
 The position maintained by Christian apologists stamped 
 them in the eyes of the mass of strenuous and able thinkers 
 on religion as sectarian and bigoted. While not disputing 
 the rccocrnised teachincr in the Catholic schools that the 
 reasons ascertainable on behalf of the Christian revelation 
 were such as should lead ' a prudent man ' to believe, and to 
 exclude a ' prudent ' doubt, Newman set himself to examine 
 the nature of the evidence and the conditions for its appre- 
 hension : and unbelief appears in his pages not as due to 
 conscious dishonesty, but as resulting from an attitude which 
 precludes full knowledge of the evidence. His work included 
 an analysis of the mind of believer and unbeliever and of the 
 differences between them. He drew attention to the subtle 
 personal appreciation on the part of the religious mind, which 
 made it find so much more evidence for Christianity in the 
 acknowledged facts of its history than the irreligious mind 
 could see. The general outcome of this portion of the book 
 was to show the important place held by antecedent con- 
 ditions among the reasons convincing the believer. And 
 among these conditions were the experiences and action of 
 the individual mind. The religious mind instinctively and by 
 degrees accumulated evidences of which the irreligious mind 
 — reasoning on different principles — remained wholly or 
 partially unaware. The action of the will and of moral dis- 
 positions was gradual. Moral defect must in the long run 
 lead the mind to miss the deepest grounds of belief But 
 this was something very different from insincerity. To quote 
 a sentence written by Newman on the subject to the present 
 writer, ' The religious mind sees much which is invisible to 
 the irreligious mind. They have not the same evidence before 
 them.' 
 
 Newman did not deny that one reasoned rightly, the 
 other wrongly. He did not deny that there might be 
 responsibility for the false principles which led to unbelief — 
 for the failure of the unbeliever to recognise the deeper 
 principles which a Christian thinker adopts (as he phrased it 
 a little later) ' under the happy guidance of the moral sense.' 
 But he did away with the old contrast, to which Protestants
 
 248 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 as well as Catholics had long been accustomed, between 
 believer and unbeliever as two men looking at and appre- 
 hending precisely the same evidence, which was so obviously 
 cogent that only a man whose will was here and now 
 perverse could disbelieve. He substituted a far subtler 
 analysis in which circumstances and education played their 
 part in the power of mental vision on the particular subject ; 
 in which the appreciation of reasons was personal, and 
 gradual ; religious earnestness and true principles being 
 necessary not only to the acceptance of the reasoning for 
 Christianity, but to its adequate apprehension. 
 
 The book was actually begun amid the hills of Switzer- 
 land, where he was travelling with Ambrose St. John in 
 August 1866. 
 
 The negotiations concerning Oxford interrupted his work. 
 But it was resumed in the summer of 1867. In the summer 
 of 1868 the first draft was nearly finished. Henry Wilbcr- 
 force at this time consulted him on a controversy between 
 two of his acquaintance, a Catholic and a Freethinker, on the 
 grounds of religious belief. This led Newman, who was full 
 of his subject, to write at length to his friend upon his 
 forthcoming work : 
 
 * As to what I have done, I cannot tell if it is a Truism, 
 a Paradox, or a Mare's nest. Since it certainly may be any 
 one of the three, the chance of its being anything better is 
 not encouraging. I consider there is no such thing as a 
 perfect logical demonstration ; there is always a margin of 
 objection even in Mathematics, except in the case of short 
 proofs, as the propositions of Euclid. Yet on the other hand 
 it is a paradox to say there is not such a state of mind as 
 certitude. It is as well ascertained a state of mind, as doubt — 
 to say that such a phenomenon in the human mind is a mere 
 extravagance or weakness is a monstrous assertion which I 
 cannot swallow. Of course there may be abuses and mistakes 
 in particular cases of certitude, but that is another matter. 
 It is a laiv of ournahire, then, that we are certain on premisses 
 which do not reach demonstration. This seems to me 
 undeniable. Then what is the faculty (since it is not the 
 logical Dictum de omni et nullo) which enables us to be 
 certain, to have the state of mind called certitude, though the 
 syllogism before us is not according to the strict rules of 
 Barbara ? I think it is <pp6v7]ais which tells when to
 
 'THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT' (1870) 249 
 
 discard the logical imperfection and to assent to the con- 
 clusion which ought to be drawn in order to demonstration 
 but is not quite. No syllogism can prove to me that 
 Nature is uniform— but the argument is so strong, though 
 not demonstrative, that I should not be (f)p6vi/xos but a fool, 
 to doubt. Now the (hpovrjcns may be easily biassed by our 
 wishes, by our will. This is even the case in Mathematics 
 and Physico-mathematics ; as the Dominican opposition 
 even to this day to the Copernican system may be taken 
 to illustrate. So again in history &c. a cumulative argument, 
 though not demonstrative, may claim of us, i.e. by the law of 
 our nature, by our duty to our nature, i.e. by our duty to 
 God, an act of certitude. Paper logic, syllogisms, and states 
 of mind are incommensurables. It is obvious what room 
 there is for the interference of the will here. None are so 
 deaf as those who won't hear. 
 
 ' Now I know that to say all this and no more, is to open 
 the door to endless disputes. The only thing to be done is 
 to rest the whole on certain first principles, and to say if you 
 can't take my first principles, I can't help it. But to find the 
 first principles is the difficulty. 
 
 ' St. John says "he that believeth in the Son hath life — 
 and he that believeth not the Son hath not life." / say 
 I see no difficulty here, another says the idea is absurd. What 
 are we to do when we thus differ in first principles ? " Qui 
 vult salvus esse, ita de Trinitate sentiat." No wuh, certainly, 
 has a right to say this — but why may not God say it .^ 
 And if my ^p6vT)ais assures me that there is such evidence 
 for God having said it (evidonce qualis et quanta) that I 
 am bound in duty to believe it, why must I not believe both 
 the doctrine and the fearful sanction of it? If a person tells 
 me that his (jipovrjais does not see the existence of such 
 evidence, as is sufficient, that is another matter ; but I am 
 arguing against the prijiciple that (fypovrjais is a higher sort 
 of logic — whereas even mathematical conclusions, i.e. the 
 issues o{ extended calculations, require to be believed in by the 
 action of ^povncris ; for how can I be sure, I tease myself 
 by saying again and again— how can I be sure, that here or 
 there my logical vigilance has not failed mc ? I have not got 
 every step in every course of mathematical reasoning neces- 
 sary for the conclusion, clearly before my eyes at once. And we 
 know what command nervous persons are obliged to exert 
 over themselves lest they should doubt whether even they 
 see or feel ; or whether they know anything at all. Should 
 not I be an ass if I did not believe in the existence of India ?
 
 250 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Yet are there not .scores of persons who have had evidence 
 of a quality and quantity indefinitely higher than mine? for 
 I have not been there and they have. 1 should think mj'self 
 a fool, if I said " I have some doubt about the existence of 
 India," or " I am not certain about it," or " I reserve the 
 point." I am certain ; YOU, my good Sir, are certain too— 
 you confuse two things quite distinct from each other — 
 want of completeness in Barbara &c., which is a scientific rule 
 of the game, and a habit of mind ; — a calculating machine 
 and a prerogative of human nature. An objection is not a 
 doubt — ten thousand objections as little make one doubt, as 
 ten thousand ponies make one horse ; though of course a 
 certain aniouiit of objection ought, as my ^povrja-is tells me,, 
 to weigh upon my decision, and to affect my existing belief 
 A great deal of confusion arises from the double sense of a 
 lot of cognate words — e.g. " conclusion " means both the 
 proposition drawn from two premisses, and the state of 
 mind in which I find myself after reviewing the argument, 
 the relation of my mind to a thing expressed in a certain 
 proposition ; and this helps the real intellectual mistake 
 made by sceptical thinkers. 
 
 * The key, however, of the position, in the controversy 
 which is before us, is this — and to gain that on either side is the 
 victory — whether you may or may not rationally keep your 
 mind open to change on a point on which your (ppovTjais has 
 already told you to decide one way. Here I say there is a 
 difference between science and religion, between religion of 
 nature and the Catholic religion — but it would take too long 
 a time to explain and indeed I have not yet fully worked 
 the whole matter out in my mind to my satisfaction. I 
 should ask, does not nature, duty and affection teach us that 
 a difference is to be made between things and persons ? 
 Ought I to be as open to listen to objections brought to me 
 against the honour, fidelity, love towards me of a friend, as 
 again.st the received belief that the earth is 95 million miles 
 from the Sun ? Again there is a truth which no natural 
 reason can gain, revealed. God may put His own conditions 
 on the development of that truth — and, (though at first 
 sight paradoxical) He may make one of those conditions 
 [thus foreseen] to be a slowness to receive more truth — (I 
 don't mean of course a slowness to be taught, but a slowness to 
 see that He is teaching). This condition may be necessary 
 on conservative reasons, from the extreme difficulty to 
 human nature of retaining what is supernatural, so that, if 
 we took in new truths too quickly, we might lose the old. 
 Thus it might have been injurious to the thorough reception,
 
 ♦THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT' {1870) 251 
 
 the accurate complete mapping out of the doctrine of the 
 Incarnation, if the Immaculate Conception B.V.M. and her 
 other prerogatives had been too readily received — or again 
 the doctrine of Man's free will and responsibility, one of the 
 characteristic doctrines of Christianity, might never have 
 made its way against the fatalism and recklessness of heathen 
 times, if St. Austin's doctrines of Grace and original sin had 
 been taught too early. And thus I resign myself to many 
 things said and done by good men, which, though they have 
 in them the leaven of prejudice and uncharitableness, are 
 based on a wish to keep simply to what they have received. 
 However this is one of those subjects which in the beginning 
 of this letter I said were too large for a letter. One thing 
 I must add, as having omitted. When I am asked why 
 I cautiously and promptly exclude doubts, I answer I do so 
 because they are doubts ; I don't see the need of excluding 
 objections. The mind is very likely to be carried away to 
 doubt unthout a basis of objections sufficient in the judgment 
 of the (f)p6v7]ais to justify it. The imagination, not the 
 reason, is appealed to. How could God exist without 
 beginning? In reason this is no objection, for reason tells 
 us that souiething must have been without beginning. But 
 to the imagination it is an overpowering difficulty. To a 
 half educated man. I should say, strangle the doubt — don't 
 read the book which so affects you. This is not bidding him 
 not to listen to reasons, but to insufficient reasons, to false 
 reasons, which are a temptation to him. The rule "strangle 
 doubts " is a rule of the Confessional, not a point of dogmatic 
 theology .... And as to prayer, usuiii non tollit abusus. God 
 has given His friends a privilege — that of gaining favours 
 from Him — A father says to his child going to school, " Now 
 mind you write to me once a week." And he rewards him 
 in various ways, if he is obedient in this respect — We are 
 God's children — we are not grown men — Saints would 
 worship God solely because He is God — We all love Him 
 for Himself, but, considering what we are, it is merciful that 
 He has made hope as well as faith and love, a theological 
 virtue. But this is but a poor and scanty exposure of a 
 wonderful paradox. 
 
 * As there are things in this letter, which I have not till now 
 put on paper, please keep it. I am sure I don't know what 
 others will think of it. I only know, it is only plain common 
 sense to me. If you have anything to say upon it, write.' 
 
 While thus full of his subject, Newman showed his first 
 draft to some friends familiar with the theology of the schools,
 
 2 52 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 and was, as often before, discouraged to find how little they 
 appreciated the urgency of the difficulty he was endeavouring 
 to meet, and how ready they were to find matter for censure 
 in those modes of expression which gave individuality and 
 originality to his work. Here was a sadly sufficient answer 
 to the remonstrance made by Wilberforce himself for the 
 comparatively small amount he had published of late years : 
 
 ' The Oratory : Avig. i2lh, 1868. 
 
 ' My dear H, W., — Thank you for the trouble you have 
 taken in copying my letter, and for the encouragement you 
 give me, which I sorely need. I know any how, that, 
 however honest are my thoughts, & earnest my endeavours 
 to keep rigidly within the lines of Catholic doctrine, every 
 word I publish will be malevolently scrutinized, and every 
 expression which can possibly be perverted sent straight to 
 Rome— that I shall be fighting wider the lash, which does 
 not tend to produce vigorous efforts in the battle, or to inspire 
 either courage or presence of mind. And if from those who 
 ought to be friends, I cannot look for sympathy — if, did I do 
 my work ever so well, they will take no interest in it, or see 
 the use of it, where can I look for that moral aid which 
 carries one through difficulties? where for any token that 
 Providence means me to go on with my work ? 
 
 ' I don't think my various occupations here are the cause 
 of my doing so little. I was full of household work when 
 I wrote my Anglican difficulties and Catholicism in England 
 —but I was not encompassed then by a host of ill wishers, 
 and I was younger. Now it tires me to be a long time at 
 one matter, and from fatigue I cannot write things off. Also 
 my present subject is one which can only gradually be 
 thought out. 
 
 'As to my engagements here, a Superior must have 
 them. We are very few Fathers, and each has his work — one 
 has the jail — another the orphanage — two have the school — 
 another has the parish — another the Poor Schools. The great 
 domestic works, the care of the Library, the Sacristy, the 
 Accounts, necessarily in great measure fall to me, at least at 
 intervals. Now I am at the Library. The Oxford matter, 
 correspondence & accounts, took up an untold mass of time, 
 — and tired me, so that they wasted more. And now that I 
 am getting so old, I wanted to go through all my correspond- 
 ence &c. &c. which will be close employment for some years. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.'
 
 'THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT' (1870) 253 
 
 He persevered with his work, but somewhat sadly. He 
 writes of it on September 3 to Ambrose St. John : 
 
 * I am getting on with my Opus (Essay of Assent) but 
 ungratefully. I have got downhearted about it, as if " cui 
 bono?" Wallis has been looking at it, and though he is 
 complimentary, what he really thinks I cannot tell. I have 
 not touched the violin since I saw you except last Sunday, 
 when I drew such doleful sounds from it, that I at once left 
 off.' 
 
 Newman's haunting fear — as we see in subsequent letters — 
 was of the men who knew much and understood little ; who 
 could bring to bear a large array of expressions stamped 
 ' orthodox ' against him, yet had not such perception of the 
 real problems in question as to enable them to distinguish 
 between contradictions mainly or merely verbal, and funda- 
 mental contrarieties. His unceasing protest, moreover, was 
 against the ' nihilism ' of condemning able works of apolo- 
 getic on technical grounds, without appreciating the urgent 
 difficulties which made them necessary, and without supply- 
 ing anything in their place to meet those difficulties. The 
 work of a writer who has true insight into the sources 
 of contemporary unbelief may be indispensable, even though 
 it may contain incidental error. Some words in a Dublin 
 lecture expressed a feeling on this subject which was habi- 
 tual with him. ' Perhaps the errors of an author are those 
 which are inseparable accidents of his system or of his mind, 
 and are spontaneously evolved, not pertinaciously defended. 
 Every human system, every human writer is open to just 
 criticism. Make him shut up his portfolio, good ! and then 
 perhaps you lose what, on the whole and in spite of inci- 
 dental mistakes, would have been one of the ablest defences 
 of Revealed Truth ever given to the world.' ^ 
 
 Newman was far too uncertain of his own work to place 
 it confidently in the category named in this passage. But it 
 represented the thoughts of a whole life. Such thoughts had 
 been invaluable to him, and they might help others. They 
 should be given their full chance. And he feared lest on 
 the contrary they might be censured by those who neither 
 understood them nor needed them, simply because his phrases 
 
 ' See Idea of a University, p. 477.
 
 254 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 did not run in the accustomed groove. His fears were to 
 some extent fulfilled when he showed his work in proof to a 
 theological friend, as we see from the following letter to 
 Henry Wilbcrforce : 
 
 ' August 20, 1 869. 
 • It is sad to hear anyone speak as if his work was done, 
 and he was but waiting to go not sad—as if it were not good 
 to go ; but [it is] not good to be in the world still, with one's 
 work done — for what does one live for except to work ? 
 And then my thoughts glanced off from you and came down 
 on myself with dismal effect — for what am I doing, what 
 have I been doing for years, but nothing at all? I have 
 wished earnestly to do some good work, and continually 
 asked myself whether I am one of those who are " fruges 
 consumere nati " — and have, to the best of my lights, taken 
 what I thought God would have me do — but again and 
 again, plan after plan has crumbled under my hands and 
 come to nought. As to the Oxford matter my heart sank 
 under the greatness of the task and I think it would have 
 shortened my life, still it was work and service— and, when it 
 was shut up, though I felt for the moment a great relief, yet 
 it came upon me sorrowfully as a fresh balk and failure. 
 Upon its settlement, I took up to write a book upon some 
 questions of the day, (you know the sort of questions, about 
 faith &c.) and now (in confidence) I think this will be stopped 
 after my infinite pains about it. Our theological philosophers 
 are like the old nurses who wrap the unhappy infant in swad- 
 dling bands or boards — put a lot of blankets over him — and 
 shut the windows that not a breath of fresh air may come to 
 his skin as if he were not healthy enough to bear wind and 
 water in due measure. They move in a groove, and will not 
 tolerate anyone who does not move in the same. So it 
 breaks upon me, that I shall be doing more harm than good 
 in publishing. What influence should I have with Pro- 
 testants and Infidels, if a pack of Catholic critics opened at 
 my back fiercely, saying that this remark was illogical, that 
 unheard of, a third realistic, a fourth idealistic, a fifth 
 sceptical, and a sixth temerarious, or shocking to pious ears ? 
 This is the prospect which I begin to fear lies before me — 
 and thus I am but fulfilling on trial what I said in my 
 "Apologia " had hitherto kept me from writing, viz. the risk 
 of " complicating matters further." There was a caricature in 
 PuncJi some years ago so good that I cut it out and kept it. 
 An artist is showing to a friend his great picture just going 
 to the Exhibition— the friend says "Very good, but could
 
 'THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT' (1870) 255 
 
 you not make the Duke sitting and the Duchess standing, 
 whereas the Duchess sits and the Duke stands?" I cannot 
 make a table stand on two or three legs — I cannot cut off 
 one of the wings of my butterfly or moth (whatever its value) 
 and keep it from buzzing round itself. One thing is not 
 another thing. My one thing may be worth nothing at the 
 best — but at least it is not made worth something by being 
 cut in half 
 
 ' You must not for an instant suppose that I am alluding 
 to the acts of anyone whose opinion I have wished to have 
 upon what I have written — but through a kind friend I come 
 more to see than I did, what an irritabile genus Catholic 
 philosophers are— they think they do the free Church of God 
 service, by subjecting it to an etiquette as grievous as that 
 which led to the King of Spain being burned to cinders.' 
 
 Dr. Meynell — the friend above alluded to in Newman's 
 letter to Mr, Wilberforce — had, as we have seen, expressed 
 great admiration of the Oxford University Sermons on Faith 
 and Reason, and he was at the same time a trained scholastic 
 philosopher and theologian. To him, then, Newman ap- 
 pealed to read the proof sheets of his work, sending the 
 first instalment on July 2, 1869. The text of Dr. Meynell's 
 criticisms I have not found, but Newman's own part of the 
 correspondence, though not wholly intelligible without the 
 criticisms to which his letters refer, is characteristic. We 
 see in his letters his general desire to avoid even forms of 
 expression which have been for good reasons discouraged by 
 high theological authority. One noteworthy point of debate 
 is Newman's use of the word ' instinct,' which is so generally 
 associated with impulses below the rational nature that Dr. 
 Meynell naturally demurred to it as applied to rational know- 
 ledge. But in Newman's own use of the term it includes 
 the spontaneous inferences of the ' illative sense ' — processes 
 of subconscious reasoning — as well as the lower instincts ; 
 and he suggested that to express the instinct of brutes which 
 has no rational character some other phrase ought to be 
 devised. Newman's work was primarily psychological, and 
 the distinction between the spontaneous act of the mind 
 and the mind's subsequent reflection on its own spontaneous 
 act, was so important a psychological fact that he desired 
 to make no change of expression which would obscure it.
 
 256 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Where, however, a change of words will not obscure his 
 meaning he readily consents to it. He shows in this cor- 
 respondence, as in many other cases, a strong consciousness 
 of his own want of familiarity with the literature of meta- 
 physics, and at the same time a keen confidence in his 
 own thoughts, as distinguished from the wisdom of his 
 expressions. The latter must, he recognises, be affected by 
 the use of phrases both in the history of philosophy and in 
 the Catholic Schools. He is quite prepared to correct 
 expressions, and to think out his view again with such an 
 object. But if it should prove that he could not bring out 
 his thought without showing ' an irreconcilable difference ' 
 between ' its conditions and what the Church teaches or has 
 sanctioned ' he feels that he must drop his work altogether. 
 There were some bad half-hours, when he feared that he 
 must give over his work— as the letters to Wilberforce have 
 already shown. But in the end the correspondence makes 
 it clear that Dr. Mcynell, though he regarded Newman's book 
 as treading often on new and unfamiliar ground, passed it 
 entirely on the score of orthodoxy. 
 
 ' Your experienced eye,' Newman writes in sending the 
 proofs, ' will see if I have run into any language which 
 offends against doctrinal propriety or common sense. I am 
 not certain that you will not suddenly light on a wasp-nest, 
 though I have no suspicion of it — but when a matter has 
 not been one's study it is difficult to have confidence in 
 oneself.' 
 
 Dr. Meynell's criticisms arrived before the end of the 
 
 month, and I make some extracts from Newman's share in 
 
 the correspondence which ensued. 
 
 'July 25111., 
 
 ' I thank you very much for your criticisms which will be 
 very useful to me. . . . 
 
 • However the next sheet will be my great difficulty — 
 and I shall not wonder if it was decisive one way or the other. 
 You will find I there consider that the dictate of conscience 
 is particular— not general— and that from the multiplication 
 of particulars I infer the general— so that the moral sense, as 
 a knowledge generally of the moral law, is a deduction from 
 particulars. 
 
 'Next, that this dictate of conscience, which is natural 
 and the voice of God, Is a moral instinct, and its owa
 
 'THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT' (1870) 257 
 
 evidence — as the belief in an external world is an instinct on 
 the apprehension of sensible phenomena. 
 
 ' That to deny these instincts is an absurdity, because they 
 are the voice of nature. 
 
 ' That it is a duty to trust or rather to use our nature — 
 and not to do so is an absurdity. 
 
 ' That to recognize our nature is really to recognize God. 
 
 ' Hence those instincts come from God — and as the moral 
 law is an inference or generalisation from those instincts, the 
 moral law is ultimately taught us from God, whose nature; 
 it is. 
 
 * Now if this is a wasp-nest tell me. If the Church has' 
 said otherwise, I give it all up — but somehow it is so mixed 
 up with my whole book, that, if it is not safe, I shall not go 
 on.' 
 
 'July 27. 
 
 ' I am extremely obliged to you for the trouble you are 
 taking with me — and I hope my shying, as I do, will not 
 keep you from speaking out. Pray bring out always what 
 you have to say. I am quite conscious that metaphysics is 
 a subject on which one cannot hope to agree with those with 
 whom in other matters one agrees most heartily, from the 
 extreme subtlety — but I am also deeply conscious of my own 
 ignorance on the whole matter, and it sometimes amazes me 
 that I have ventured to write on a subject which is even 
 accidentally connected with it. And this makes me so very 
 fearful lest I should be saying anything temerarious or 
 dangerous — the ultimate angles being so small from which 
 lines diverge to truth and error. 
 
 ' Be sure I should never hastily give over what I am doing, 
 because I should have trouble in correcting or thinking out 
 again what I have said — but if I found some irreconcilable 
 difference, running through my view, between its conditions 
 and what the Church teaches or has sanctioned, of course I 
 should have no hesitation of stopping at once. 
 
 ' So please to bear with me if I start or plunge.' 
 
 •Aug. 12. 
 ' I send you with much trepidation my Asses' Bridge. 
 Not that I have not many skeleton bridges to pass and 
 pontoons to construct in what is to come, but, if I get over 
 the present, I shall despair of nothing. Recollect, all your 
 kindness and consideratcness cannot alter facts ; if I am 
 wrong, I'm wrong — if I am rash, I'm rash, — yet certainly 
 I do wish to get at King Theodore over the tops of the 
 mountains if I can.' 
 
 VOL. II. S
 
 258 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 'Aug. 17, 
 
 ' I only do hope I am not spoiling your holiday. You 
 are doing me great service. 
 
 * To bring matters to a point, I propose to send you my 
 chapter on the apprehension and assent to the doctrine of a 
 Supreme Being. If you find principles in that chapter, which 
 cannot be allowed, res finita est. As to your remarks on the 
 printed slips, let me trouble you with the following questions. 
 
 ' I. You mean that it is dangerous to hold that we be- 
 lieve in matter as a conclusion from our sensations — for 
 our belief in matter is in consequence of our consciousness of 
 resistance, which is not a sensation. Will it mend matters 
 to observe that I don't use the word " sensations " — but 
 experiences ? and surely resistance is an experience — but if 
 we infer matter from resistance, therefore we infer it from 
 experience. 
 
 *2. By instinct I mean a realization of a particular; by 
 intuition, of a general fact — in both cases without assignable 
 or recognizable media of realization. Is there any word I 
 could use instead of instinct to denote the realization of 
 particulars? Still, I do not see how you solve my difificulty 
 of instinct leading brutes to the realization of something 
 external to themselves ? Perhaps it ought not to be called 
 instinct in brutes — but by some other name. 
 
 ' 3. Am I right in thinking that you wish me to infer 
 matter as a cause from phenomena as an effect, from viy own 
 view <?/" cause and effect. But in my own view cause is Will; 
 how can matter be Will ? 
 
 ' 4. " Hypothetical realism'' yes — if conclusions are neces- 
 sarily conditional. But I consider Ratiocination far higher, 
 more subtle, wider, more certain than logical Inference — 
 and its principle of action is the " Illative Sense," which 
 I treat of towards the end of the volume. If I say 
 that Ratiocination leads to absolute truth, am I still an 
 
 hypothetical realist ? ' 
 
 'Aug. 18, 1869. 
 
 ' I send you by this post the MSS. which I spoke of in 
 my last. 
 
 ' On second thoughts I don't see how I can change the 
 word "instinct" — 1 have not indeed any where used it for 
 the perception of God from our experiences, but in later 
 chapters I speak of Catholic instincts, — Mother Margaret's 
 instincts, the instinct of calculating boys, in all cases using 
 the word " instinct " to mean a spontaneous impulse, physical 
 or intelligent, in the individual, leading to a result without 
 assignable or recognisable intellectual media.
 
 «THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT' (1870) 259 
 
 ' Would it do, if I kept the passage and put a note to this 
 effect, — " I speak thus under correction, and withdraw it 
 prospectively, if it is contrary to the teaching of the theological 
 Schola"?' 
 
 'Aug. 20, 1869. 
 
 ' Pray forgive me if unknown to myself and unintentionally 
 I have led you to think, quite contrary to my thoughts, that 
 you wrote dogmatically. Just the contrary, and you are 
 doing me a great service in letting me see hoiv matters stand 
 in the philosophical school. 
 
 ' Forgive too the treacherousness of my memory, though 
 by " composition " I meant the composition of my matter, 
 the drawing out of my argument, etc, 
 
 ' Nothing can be clearer than your remarks. Now let me 
 say I had no intention at all of saying that I know, e.g. that 
 I have a sheet of paper before me, by an argmnent from the 
 impression on my senses — " that impression imist have a 
 cause — " but it is ^perception (that is, a kind of instinct). I 
 have used the word " perception " again and again ; that 
 perception comes to me through my senses — therefore I 
 cannot call it immediate. If it were not for my senses, nothing 
 would excite me to perceive — but as soon as I see the white 
 paper, I perceive by instinct (as I call it) without argumenta- 
 tive media, through my senses, but not logically byvdy senses, 
 that there is a thing, of which the white paper is the outward 
 token. Then, when I have this experience again and 
 again, I go on from the one, two, three etc. accompanying 
 perceptions of one, two, three etc. external objects, to make 
 an induction, " There is a vast external world." This in- 
 duction leads to a conclusion much larger than the particular 
 perceptions — because it includes in it that the earth has an 
 inside, and that the moon has a further side, though I don't 
 see it. 
 
 'Therefore I hold that we do not /r<3z;^ external individual 
 objects, \in\. perceive them — I cannot say that we immediately 
 perceive them, because it is through the experience as an 
 instrument that we are led to them — and though we do not 
 prove the particular, we do prove the general, i.e. by induction 
 from the particular. I am sanguine in thinking this is in 
 substance what you say yourself.' 
 
 The office of informal censor did not prove entirely easy. 
 Considering the intellectual eminence of the writer and the 
 rigid principles of scholastic philosophy, to sanction or to 
 check the new and subtle arguments submitted for censorship 
 
 s 2
 
 26o LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 was a difficult alternative ; and in August Dr. Meynell spoke 
 of giving up his task. This was a great blow to Newman : 
 
 ' The Oratory : Aug. 2ist, 1869. 
 
 ' My dear Dr. Meynell, — Your intention to give up has 
 shocked and dismayed me more than I can say — shocked me 
 because I fear I must have said something or other in writing 
 which has scared you, and dismayed me, for what am I 
 to do? 
 
 ' I quite understand that you must feel it a uiost un- 
 pleasant responsibility (though, of course, I shall not tell 
 anyone) and an endless work, for when will it be finished ? 
 It is enough to spoil your holiday, and to bother your 
 professional work, and I really have not a word to say 
 besides thanking you for what you have already done for me, 
 and begging you to forgive me if, like a camel when they are 
 loading it, I have uttered dismal cries. 
 
 ' Well, now I am in a most forlorn condition, and, like 
 Adam, I feel " the world is all before me." Whom am I to 
 ask to do the work which you have so kindly begun ? I shall 
 not get anyone so patient as you, and, alas, alas, what 
 is to come is, for what I know, more ticklish even than what 
 you have seen. 
 
 ' I have availed myself of all your remarks in some 
 way or other, though I have not always taken them pure and 
 simple. 
 
 'Thank you for saying you will say Mass for me. It is a 
 great kindness. 
 
 ' Ever yours most sincerely, 
 
 John H. Newman. 
 
 ' P.S. I have not said what I feel most sadly, your language 
 about your own littleness. If you are little, I must be less, 
 because you are really teaching me. I should be a fool if I 
 did not avail myself most thankfully of your remarks. 
 
 ' You know, anyhow, you have promised me some remarks 
 on the MS.' 
 
 Dr. Meynell, however, in the end resumed his work, and 
 all went peacefully thenceforward. One interesting point was 
 raised in connection with the ' illative sense.' Dr. Meynell 
 apparently desired to treat as really identical the spontaneous 
 judgments of the mind and their subsequent reasoned analysis, 
 Newman's candid psychology made him demur to this. 
 
 ' You are ten times more likely to be right on such a 
 point than I am,' he wrote ; ' however, at present I don't
 
 'THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT' (1870) 261 
 
 follow you, though I will think about it. My reason is this, 
 that consciousness or reflection on one's acts is an act 
 different in kind from those acts themselves. Its object is 
 distinct. If I walk, my e3^es may watch my walking. If I 
 sing, my ears listen to my voice and tell me if I am in tune. 
 These are acts of reflection on my walking and singing, are 
 they not? but the original act is bodily, and the reflex act is 
 mental. I assure you I most deeply feel that I may be out 
 of my depth. ... I am not sure, from what you said, 
 whether you read the enclosed bits of theology. Please to 
 cast your eye over them. I must have a theological eye 
 upon them, and one of your eyes is theological though the 
 other is philosophical.' 
 
 ' I am quite ashamed to think what I have cost you in 
 paper, pens, ink, stamps and time,' Newman writes to his 
 censor as the revision approaches completion. 
 
 When the book was published its author wrote his formal 
 thanks. 
 
 ' The Oratory : Feb. 20/70. 
 
 ' My dear Dr. Meynell, — I ought before now to have 
 written you a letter both of congratulation and thanks on 
 the termination of the long and teasing task which you 
 have so valiantly performed in my behalf All I can 
 say is that whatever be the amount of trouble you have 
 had from your charitable undertaking, my amount of gain 
 from it has been greater. What the positive value of my 
 volume is I do not know ; but this I do know, that, many 
 as are its imperfections and faults, they would have been 
 many more and much worse but for you. 
 
 * Now I want you to accept some keepsake in token of 
 my gratitude and as a memorial for after years. I don't care 
 what it is, so that it is something you would like. This is 
 why I don't send you something without asking, for it might 
 be as unwelcome to you, when it came, as the elephant in 
 Leech's picture. But give me two or three sets of books to 
 choose out of, or picture-books, or astronomical instruments, 
 or images or what you please. 
 
 ' Believe me, my dear Dr. Meynell, 
 
 Most sincerely yours in Xt., 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Newman wrote of the book shortly before its completion 
 to his friend Mr. Serjeant Bellasis, to whom it was to be 
 dedicated :
 
 262 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' Tell me your style and title " Edward Bellasis Esqr, 
 Serjeant-at-Law " ? You will still let me put your name, 
 won't you, to the beginning of my book ? I suppose it will be 
 my last. I have not finished it. I have written in all (good 
 and bad) 5 constructive books. My Prophetical Office (which 
 has come to pieces) — Essay on Justification — Development of 
 Doctrine— University Lectures (Dublin) and this. Each took 
 me a great deal of time and tried me very much. This, I 
 think, has tried me most of all. I have written and rewritten 
 it more times than I can count. I have now got up to my 
 highest point — I mean, I could not do better, did I spend a 
 century on it, but then, it may be " bad is the best." ' 
 
 Newman chose for the full title of his book, ' An Essay in 
 Aid of a Grammar of Assent,' as if to disclaim as emphatic- 
 ally as possible any pretension to a final treatment of his 
 subject. His aim was simply to rouse in men's minds certain 
 perceptions as to their mental processes, rooted in the experi- 
 ence of mankind, but dormant, or apt to be dormant, because 
 their practical importance is not directly obvious. And he 
 trusted that these perceptions, once properly roused, would 
 account for and justify important beliefs which could not 
 adequately be proved by explicit logical arguments. The 
 method of the book is predominantly empirical, not theoreti- 
 cal. Its author does not begin by laying down the law as to 
 ^ ^-^ I how people ought to think, but studies rather to show them 
 ^•^ ^ 'how they do think. The greater part of the work consists in 
 '^^'"'^ - an elaborate study of the mental operations which we find 
 ^ '^ , underlying the processes of Apprehension, Inference (whether 
 "^ **** Formal or Informal), Assent, and Certitude ; and here, besides 
 
 the contrast already noticed between Inference and Assent, 
 appears another, equally new and striking, between ' Real ' 
 and ' Notional ' Apprehension or Assent. All this is illustrated 
 by numberless examples, touched with a force and poetic 
 beauty, or sometimes a pungent humour, which is scarcely 
 paralleled in any of Newman's other works, and which make 
 the book well worth reading for its literary merit alone. To 
 give any adequate idea of the beauty of the Work by extracts, 
 in this place, would be quite impossible. 
 
 The philosophical value of the ' Essay on Assent ' does 
 not at all depend on its being regarded as completely meet- 
 ing the difficulty it contemplates. Nor does it depend on
 
 'THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT' (1870) 263 
 
 Newman's general theory being accepted in its entirety. Its 
 reasoning and illustrations have a value for students of 
 psychology far beyond its definite conclusions, which are to 
 some extent tentative. To the power of spontaneous action 
 in the human reason, whereby it draws its conclusions from 
 premisses of which it is only in part explicitly conscious, 
 and judges those conclusions to be warranted, he gives the 
 name of ' illative sense.' The mind is, he says, ' unequal to 
 a complete analysis of the motives which carry it on to a 
 particular conclusion, and is swayed and determined by a 
 body of proof which it recognises only as a body and not in 
 its constituent parts.' He instances the reasons possessed 
 by most of us for believing that England is an island. We 
 have learnt the belief among the other indubitable facts of 
 geography. But if anyone attempts to state his reasons 
 for regarding the fact as certain, whether he will in the end 
 justify it successfully or not, the very effort will at least show 
 that his existing belief has been as a fact determined by a 
 body of proof recognised in the mass as amply sufficient, but 
 not hitherto put into logical form. A few plausible reasons 
 for the belief at once occur to the mind, but falling far short 
 of demonstration. And similarly, religious belief actually rests 
 for most men, he holds, not on scientific demonstrations, but 
 on arguments which are in their more obvious statement and 
 when reduced to formal propositions only probable arguments, 
 the reasons being informal in character, and the verbal argu- 
 ments only symbols of those subtler grounds which make 
 belief as deep as it is, and justify its depth. 
 
 ' I am suspicious then of scientific demonstrations in 
 a question of concrete fact, in a discussion between fallible 
 men. However let those demonstrate who have the gift ; 
 " unus quisque in suo sensu abundet." For me, it is more 
 congenial to my own judgment to attempt to prove Christianity 
 in the same informal way in which I can prove for certain 
 that I have been born into this world, and that I shall die 
 out of it. It is pleasant to my own feelings to follow a 
 theological writer, such as Amort, who has dedicated to the 
 great Pope, Benedict XIV., what he calls "a new, modest, 
 and easy way of demonstrating the Catholic religion." In 
 this work he adopts the argument merely of the greater 
 probability ; I prefer to rely on that of an accuviulation of
 
 264 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 various probabilities ; but we both hold (that is, I hold with 
 him), that from probabilities we may construct legitimate 
 proof, sufficient for certitude. I follow him in holding, that, 
 since a good Providence watches over us, He blesses such 
 means of argument as it has pleased Him to give us, in the 
 nature of man and of the world, if we use them duly for 
 those ends for which He has given them ; and that, as in 
 mathematics we are justified by the dictate of nature in with- 
 holding our assent from a conclusion of which we have not 
 yet a strict logical demonstration, so by a like dictate we are 
 not justified, in the case of concrete reasoning and especially 
 of religious inquiry, in waiting till such logical demonstration 
 is ours, but on the contrary are bound in conscience to seek 
 truth and to look for certainty by modes of proof, which, when 
 reduced to the shape of formal propositions, fail to satisfy the 
 severe requisitions of science. 
 
 ' Here then at once is one momentous doctrine or 
 principle, which enters into my own reasoning, and which 
 another ignores, viz. the providence and intention of God ; 
 and of course there are other principles, explicit or implicit, 
 which are in like circumstances. It is not wonderful then, 
 that, while I can prove Christianity divine to my own satisfac- 
 tion, I shall not be able to force it upon anyone else. Multi- 
 tudes indeed I ought to succeed in persuading of its truth 
 without any force at all, because they and I start from the 
 same principles, and what is a proof to me is a proof to 
 them ; but if anyone starts from any other principles but 
 ours, I have not the power to change his principles, or the 
 conclusion which he draws from them, any more than I can 
 make a crooked man straight. Whether his mind will ever 
 grow straight, whether I can do anything towards its becoming 
 straight, whether he is not responsible, responsible to his Maker, 
 for being mentally crooked, is another matter ; still the fact 
 remains, that, in any inquiry about things in the concrete, 
 men differ from each other, not so much in the soundness of 
 their reasoning as in the principles which govern its exercise, 
 that those principles are of a personal character, that where 
 there is no common measure of minds, there is no common 
 measure of arguments, and that the validity of proof is de- 
 termined, not by any scientific test, but by the illative sense.' 
 
 Newman applies his theory to Natural Religion as well as 
 to Revealed. In the case of Natural Religion, while accepting 
 the argument from ' Order ' as having a valid place in the 
 constructive proof of Theism, he lays far more stress on the
 
 'THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT' (1870) 265 
 
 argument from Conscience. Few pages in the book are more 
 characteristic than the following, which describes the functions 
 of Conscience in impressing on the imagination our personal 
 relations with the living God : 
 
 ' Conscience too, considered as a moral sense, an intel- 
 lectual sentiment, is a sense of admiration and disgust, of 
 approbation and blame : but it is something more than a 
 moral sense ; it is always, what the sense of the beautiful is 
 in certain cases ; it is always emotional. No wonder then 
 that it always implies what that sense only sometimes 
 implies ; that it always involves the recognition of a living 
 object, towards which it is directed. Inanimate things 
 cannot stir our affections ; these are correlative with persons. 
 If, as is the case, we feel responsibility, are ashamed, are 
 frightened, at transgressing the voice of conscience, this 
 implies that there is One to whom we are responsible, before 
 whom we are ashamed, whose claims upon us we fear. If, 
 on doing wrong, we feel the same tearful, broken-hearted 
 sorrow which overwhelms us on hurting a mother ; if, on 
 doing right we enjoy the same sunny serenity of mind, the 
 same soothing, satisfactory delight which follows on our 
 receiving praise from a father, we certainly have within us 
 the image of some person, to whom our love and veneration 
 look, in whose smile we find our happiness, for whom we 
 yearn, towards whom we direct our pleadings, in whose 
 anger we are troubled and waste away. These feelings in us 
 are such as require for their exciting cause an intelligent 
 being : we are not affectionate towards a stone, nor do we 
 feel shame before a horse or a dog ; we have no remorse or 
 compunction in breaking mere human law : yet, so it is, 
 conscience excites all these painful emotions, confusion, 
 foreboding, self-condemnation ; and on the other hand it 
 sheds upon us a deep peace, a sense of security, a resignation, 
 and a hope, which there is no sensible, no earthly object to 
 elicit. " The wicked flees, when no one pursueth " ; then 
 why does he flee ? whence his terror ? Who is it that he 
 sees in solitude, in darkness, in the hidden chambers of his 
 heart ? If the cause of these emotions does not belong to 
 this visible world, the Object to which his perception is 
 directed must be Supernatural and Divine.' 
 
 Let it be noted that in several letters Newman distinctly 
 intimates his opinion that portions of his theory need revision. 
 He believed he had hit on an important line of thought. To
 
 266 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ventilate it some one must take the first step — and was not 
 likely to break fresh ground without saying what might need 
 some modification in its expression. Moreover its style was 
 popular rather than scientific. 
 
 ' As to my book/ he wrote to the Jesuit Father Walford, 
 *it is always most difficult to be exact in one's language, nor 
 is it necessary to be exactissimus in a work which is a con- 
 versational essay, not a didactic treatise. It is like a military 
 reconnaissance, or a party in undress, or a house in Com- 
 mittee ; it is in English, not in Latin ; it is a preliminary 
 opening of the ground, which must be done at one's ease, if 
 it is done at all' 
 
 Newman's feelings when he had finished his last chapter 
 are given in a letter to Sister Imelda Poole : 
 
 * In fest. SS. Nominis Jesu. 
 
 ' My dear Rev. Mother, — I said Mass this morning for all 
 your intentions. 
 
 ' I have just written the last sentence of my book. A 
 good day to finish it on, especially considering the subject of 
 the last few pages. 
 
 ' But I have not finished it really : I have but brought it 
 to an end. I have to correct, re-write, retranscribe, sixty or 
 seventy pages of (what will be) print. It will be a month or 
 six weeks before it is out. 
 
 ' Oh ! what a toil it has been to me — for three years — 
 how many times I have written it — but so I have most of 
 the books I have published, and since last April I have been 
 at work almost incessantly. I wonder what it will turn out 
 to be ; for I never was so ignorant before, of the practical 
 good and use of anything I have written. Its use will be a 
 matter of fact which can only be ascertained by experience. 
 
 * I have at times been quite frightened lest the labour of 
 thought might inflict on me some terrible retribution at my 
 age. It is my last work. I say work because " work " implies 
 effort — and there are many things I can do without an effort. 
 This is the fifth constructive work which I have done — two 
 as a Protestant, three as a Catholic. 
 
 ' Pray for me and believe me 
 
 Yours most sincerely in Xt., 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 It soon became known that the book was practically ready, 
 and friends became eager to learn the day of publication. But
 
 •THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT' (1870) 267 
 
 the work of final correction was anxious and laborious. He 
 writes to Hope-Scott on January 2, 1870 : 
 
 ' I am engaged, as Bellasis knows, in cutting across the 
 isthmus of Suez ; though I have got so far as to let the water 
 in to the canal, there is an awkward rock in mid channel 
 near the mouth which takes a deal of picking and blasting. 
 And no man of war will be able to pass through, till I get rid 
 of it. Thus I can't name a day for the opening.' 
 
 The book was ready in February ; it was dedicated to 
 Mr. Serjeant Bellasis ' in memory of a long, equable, and 
 sunny friendship.' ^ Newman received the specimen bound 
 copy on February 21st— his sixty-ninth birthday. On the 
 following day he wrote to Henry Wilberforce : 
 
 • The Oratory : Feb. 22nd, 1870. 
 
 ' My dear Henry, — Thank you for your affectionate letter. 
 I am now in my 70th year ; wonderful ! 
 
 ' I shall say Mass for you all on the 24th. It is singular 
 how many deaths of friends group round the 21st. On the 
 2 1st is Miss Roberts,' Johnson's and Bowden's aunt, whom I 
 knew from 1818. On the 22nd Henry Bowden's first wife, 
 and my great friend Mr. Mayers. On the 23rd Archdeacon 
 Froude, and on the 24th dear John. Besides on the 28th are 
 Hurrell Froude and Manuel Johnson, and on the 13th Father 
 Joseph Gordon. Then on the 3rd is Robert. 
 
 ' I sent up the last corrections of my book on the evening 
 of the 20th, and a specimen of it bound came down on the 
 2 1 St. So I date it the 21st. 
 
 ' Agnes shall have it, as soon as it is out. It has run 
 to 100 pages more than it ought. I hoped it would be 
 380 — it is 487 — and a fat book. People will say, much 
 cry and little wool — so, all this labour has issued in this 
 dry, humdrum, concern. Tell Agnes she is bound not to 
 begin at the end, not to skip, but to get it up from the first 
 .page on. And she will have a profitable Lent exercise of 
 mortification. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 • The story runs that Newman nearly passed the final proof of the dedication 
 without noticing that the printer had put 'funny' for 'sunny.' I believe this 
 to be true ; but further story was also circulated (which is bibulous) that the 
 words ran in the proof ' in memory of a long squabble and funny friendship.'
 
 268 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 To Miss Holmes he wrote on March 2 : 
 
 'You will be disappointed with my Grammar, and so will 
 every one be. It is what it is, and it is not what it isn't — and 
 what it isn't most people will expect that it is. It won't be 
 out for lo days or a fortnight yet. It is my last work — I say 
 " work," for though I may fiddle-faddle henceforth, a real piece 
 of labour will be beyond me. This is what old men cannot 
 do — and when they attempt it, they kill themselves. An old 
 horse, or an old piece of furniture, will last a long time, if you 
 take care of it, — so will the brain — but if you forget that it is 
 old, it soon reminds you of the fact by ceasing to be.' 
 
 To Father Coleridge he wrote after the publication of his 
 book : 
 
 ' The Oratory : March 13, 1870. 
 
 *. . . I have tried to be as exact as I possibly can 
 theologically in what I have written, and hope I have 
 observed all the landmarks which theologians have laid 
 down, but I know, even if I succeed in having the conscious- 
 ness of this so far, still the main question is, whether I 
 have added anything to the difficult subject of which I have 
 treated, or have left it more confused than I found it. 
 
 ' However, anyhow I have got a great burden off my mind 
 — for 20 or 30 years I have felt it a sort of duty to write 
 upon it, and I have begun again and again but never could 
 get on, and again and again I have in consequence stopped. 
 Now, whether I have done it well or ill, still I have done it. 
 I have no further call on me. I have done my best, and 
 given my all, and I leave it to Him to prosper or not, as He 
 thinks fit, for Whom I have done it. I say the incubus is off 
 my mind and it is hardly too much to say that I look forward 
 to death more happily, as if I had less to keep me here. I 
 suppose it will be my last work — meaning by "work" anxiety 
 and toil. Myself, I don't think it my worst — but then I 
 recollect it is often said that an author thinks his worst work 
 his best.' 
 
 The book did not pass without criticism, and the criticisms 
 led to interesting letters. Mr. Leslie Stephen and Mr. Fitz- 
 James Stephen both attacked it in Eraser's Magazine. 
 Others criticised it from the scholastic standpoint. It was 
 of course contrary to scholastic precedent to dwell almost 
 exclusively as he had done on Conscience as the argument 
 for the existence of God. Mr. Brownlow wrote to him as 
 though he had recognised no argument for Theism from the
 
 'THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT' (1870) 269 
 
 visible creation ; but Newman pointed out that this was an 
 exaggeration. It is interesting that he had been suspicious 
 of Paley's argument from ' Design,' even before the evolution 
 theory suggested a weak point in it. But the argument 
 from ' Order ' was recognised in the ' Grammar of Assent.' 
 He writes thus to Mr. Brownlow ^ on the subject : 
 
 'The Oratory : April 13th, 1870. 
 
 ' My dear Brownlow, — It is very pleasant to me to hear 
 what you say about my new book — which has given me great 
 anxiety. I have spoken of the argument for the being of 
 a God from the visible Creation at page 70 paragraph i. 
 " Order implies purpose " &c. I have not insisted on the 
 argument {rom design, because I am writing for the 19th Cen- 
 tury, by which, as represented by its philosophers, design is 
 not admitted as proved. And to tell the truth, though I 
 should not wish to preach on the subject, for 40 years I have 
 been unable to see the logical force of the argument myself 
 I believe in design because I believe in God ; not in a God 
 because I see design. You will say that the 19th Century 
 does not believe in conscience either — true — but then it does 
 not believe in a God at all. Something I must assume, and 
 in assuming conscience I assume what is least to assume, and 
 what most will admit. Half the world knows nothing of the 
 argument from design — and, when you have got it, you do 
 not prove by it the moral attributes of God — except very 
 faintly. Design teaches me power, skill, and goodness, not 
 sanctity, not mercy, not a future judgment, which three are 
 of the essence of religion.' 
 
 Before the end of the year Father Harper, the Jesuit, had 
 written an elaborate attack on the book from the standpoint 
 of a thoroughgoing scholastic. 
 
 Of this criticism, which appeared in successive articles in 
 the Month, Newman wrote thus to Father Coleridge : 
 
 'The Oratory: Febry, 5, 1871. 
 
 'My dear Fr. Coleridge, — I began to read Fr. Harper's 
 papers, but they were (to my ignorance of theology and 
 philosophy) so obscure, and (to my own knowledge of my 
 real meaning) so hopelessly misrepresentations of the book, 
 that I soon gave it over. As to my answering, I think I 
 never answered any critique on any writing of mine, in my 
 life. My " Essay on Development " was assailed by Dr. 
 Brownson on one side, and Mr. Archer Butler on the other, 
 
 ' Afterwards Bishop of Clifton,
 
 270 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 at great length. Brownson, I believe, thought me a Pantheist 
 — and sent me his work to Rome, by some American Bishop. 
 Mr. Butler has been lauded by his people as having smashed 
 me. Now at the end of twenty years, I am told from Rome 
 that I am guilty of the late Definition by my work on De- 
 velopment, so orthodox has it been found in principle, and 
 on the other side Bampton Lectures have been preached, I 
 believe, allowing that principle. The Guardian acknowledges 
 the principle as necessary, and the Scotch Editors of Dorner's 
 great work on our Lord's Person, cautioning of course the 
 world against me^ admit that development of doctrine is an 
 historical fact. I shall not live another 20 years, but, as I 
 waited patiently, as regards my former work, for " Time to be 
 the Father of Truth," so now I leave the judgment between 
 Fr. Harper and me to the sure future. 
 
 * Father Mazio said of my " Development," " I do not 
 know how it is, but so it is, that all these startling things, 
 Mr. Newman brings them round at the end to a good con- 
 clusion," and so now the Quarterly (if I recollect) talks in a 
 kind sense of my surprises, and the Edinburgh of my 
 audacity. I do not mean myself to surprise people or to be 
 audacious, but somehow, now at the end of life, I have from 
 experience a confidence in myself, and, (though with little of 
 St. Cyprian's sanctity, but with more of truth, as I trust, in 
 my cause) I am led to take to myself some portion of the 
 praise given him in Keble's line, and to " trust the lore of 
 my own loyal heart." I trust to having some portion of an 
 "inductive sense," founded in right instincts. 
 
 ' My book is to show that a right moral state of mind 
 germinates or even generates good intellectual principles. 
 This proposition rejoices the Quarterly, as if it was a true 
 principle — it shocks the Edinburgh, as if Pascal and others 
 were much more philosophical in saying that religion or 
 religiousness is not ultimately based on reason. And the 
 Guardian says that whether this view will or will not hold 
 is the problem now before the intellectual world, which 
 coming years is to decide. Let those, who think I ought to 
 be answered, those Catholics, first master the great difficulty, 
 the great problem, and then, if they don't like my way of 
 meeting it find another. Syllogizing won't meet it. 
 
 ' You see then I have not the very shadow of a reason 
 against Fr. Harper's future papers, as I think they will all 
 go ultimately, after I am gone, to the credit of my work. 
 
 ' While I say this, of course I am sensible it may be full 
 of defects, and certainly characterized by incompleteness and
 
 'THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT' (1870) 271 
 
 crudeness, but it is something to have started a problem, and 
 mapped in part a country, if I have done nothing more. 
 
 ' Yours most sincerely, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 It was a fact of great importance at the moment that 
 W. G. Ward, who had opposed Newman so strongly on the 
 question of Papal claims, welcomed the ' Grammar ' enthu- 
 siastically in an article in the Dublin Review. W. G. Ward's 
 reputation for staunch orthodoxy made this fact largely 
 outweigh in the general Catholic mind the opposition to it 
 on the part of Father Harper, the Jesuit, in the Month^on the 
 lines of scholastic philosophy. 
 
 W. G. Ward helped the immediate acceptance of the 
 book both by intimating his concurrence with its general line 
 of thought, and by pointing out that some of the views set 
 forth by Newman and criticised by such modern scholastics 
 as Father Harper had been already urged by the best 
 thinkers among the schoolmen. Moreover, Mr. Ward wrote 
 the following statement — vivid if slightly paradoxical — of 
 the general difficulty which Newman's book was designed to 
 answer, a difficulty which its hostile Catholic critics appeared 
 not to apprehend, and to which they certainly did not offer 
 any alternative solution. 
 
 ' Catholics are taught (so the non-Christian philosopher 
 objects) to regard it as a sacred duty that they shall hold, 
 most firmly and without a shadow of doubt, the truth of 
 certain marvels which are alleged to have taken place nine- 
 teen centuries ago. As to examining the evidence for those 
 truths, the great mass of Catholics are of course philo- 
 sophically uncultured and simply incompetent to such a task. 
 But even were they competent thereto, they are prevented 
 from attempting it. Except a select few of them, they are 
 all forbidden to read or knowingly to hear one syllable of 
 argument on the other side. Under such circumstances, 
 proof for their creed they can have none ; any more than a 
 judge can have proof who has only heard witnesses on one 
 side, and them not cross-examined. So far from propor- 
 tioning their assent to the evidence on which their doctrine 
 rests, the assent claimed from them is the very highest, while 
 the evidence afforded them is less than the least. 
 
 ' But take even any one of the select few who arc per- 
 mitted to study both sides of the question. He will tell you
 
 272 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 quite frankly that his belief was as firm before his exami- 
 nation as it is now ; nay, and that he regards it as a sin, 
 which unrepented would involve him in eternal misery, if he 
 allowed himself so much as one deliberate doubt on the 
 truth of Catholicity. I place before him some serious diffi- 
 culty, which tells against the most central facts of his 
 religion : he had never heard of the difficulty before, and 
 he is not now at all sure that he will be able to answer it. 
 I should have expected, were it not for my knowledge of 
 Catholics, that the confidence of his conviction would be 
 diminished by this circumstance ; for, plainly, an unanswered 
 difficulty is no slight abatement from the body of proof on 
 which his creed reposes. But he says unblushingly that if 
 he were to study for ten years without seeing how to meet 
 the point I have suggested, his belief in his Church, whose 
 claim of authority he recognizes as divinely authorized, 
 would be in no respect or degree affected by the circum- 
 stance. 
 
 ' Nor is it for themselves alone, but for all mankind, that 
 Catholics prescribe this rebellion against reason. They 
 maintain that every human being, to whom their Gospel is 
 preached, is under an obligation of accepting with firmest 
 faith the whole mass of Catholic facts — the miraculous Con- 
 ception, Resurrection, Ascension, etc. ; while it is simply 
 undeniable that 999 out of every 1000 are absolutely 
 incapable of appreciating ever so distantly the evidence on 
 which these facts are alleged to repose. 
 
 ' Nor, to do them justice, do they show the slightest 
 disposition to conceal or veil their maxims. The Vatican 
 Council itself has openly anathematized all those who shall 
 allege that Catholics may lawfully suspend their judgment 
 on the truth of Catholicity, until they have obtained for 
 themselves scientific proof of its truth.' 
 
 ' I have no general prejudice against Catholics ; on the 
 contrary, I think many of them possess some first-rate 
 qualities. But while their avowed intellectual maxims are 
 those above recited, I must regard them as external to the 
 pale of intellectual civilization. I have no more ground on 
 which I can argue with a Catholic than I have ground on 
 which I can argue with a savage.' 
 
 ' 'Si quis dixerit parem esse conditionem fidelium, etc., ita ut Catholici 
 justam causam habere possint fidem, quam sub Ecclesiae magisterio jam susceperunt, 
 assensu suspense in dubium vocandi donee demonstrationem scientificam credi- 
 bilitatis et veritatis lidei suae absolverint, anathema sit.' — Dei Films, c. 3, 
 canon 6.
 
 'THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT' (1870) 273 
 
 In private, as well as in public, W. G. Ward expressed 
 his admiration of the work, and spoke of it as forming the 
 basis of a new and important Catholic philosophy. He 
 wrote his congratulations to the author, and Newman replied 
 to him as follows : 
 
 ' My dear Ward, — It is a very great pleasure to me to 
 receive your letter, both as expressing a favourable opinion 
 of my book and as recording a point of agreement between 
 us on an important subject. It would be strange indeed if I 
 were not quite aware, as I am, that there are portions of my 
 theory which require finishing or revising. I expect it to be 
 my last work, meaning by work labour and toil, 
 
 ' Yours affectionately in Christ, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 To Aubrey de Vere he wrote to much the same effect : 
 
 ' You must not think that I am sure myself that I have 
 done any great thing — for I have felt very little confidence 
 in it — though words like yours, and you are not the only 
 person who has used such, are a very great encouragement to 
 me — but I could not help feeling that I had something to 
 give out whatever its worth, and I felt haunted with a sort of 
 responsibility, and almost a weight on my conscience, if I 
 did not speak it, and yet I could not. So that it is the 
 greatest possible relief at length to have got it off my 
 mind — as if I heard the words " he has done what he could." 
 And, while I say this, I really am not taking for granted 
 that your favourable criticism is the true one — and I 
 recollect that what a man thinks his best work is often his 
 worst. But then I think, too, that sometimes a man's 
 failures do more good to the world or to his cause than his 
 best successes — and then I feel as if I could die happier now 
 that I have no Essay on Assent to write, and I think I shall 
 never write another work, meaning by work a something 
 which is an anxiety and a labour. " Man goeth forth to his 
 work and to his labours until the evening," and my evening 
 is surely come — though not my night.' 
 
 W. G. Ward pursued the subject in the Dublin Review in 
 several articles. He owned to certain minor differences with 
 Newman's book. But, as I have said, he insisted not only 
 upon its value, but on the consistency of its most character- 
 istic positions with views held by the greater schoolmen of 
 earlier and more recent times. He chose Father Klcutgen 
 VOL. II. T
 
 274 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 to represent the latter and de Lugo the former. On the 
 knowledge of God through Conscience, and on the quasi- 
 instinctive apprehension by the religious mind ' with a heart 
 and an eye for truth ' of the reasons both for Theism and for 
 Christianity, his citations were equally effective.' 
 
 This article in the Dublin told strongly in favour of the 
 view that there was nothing in Newman's treatment different 
 in kind from that of the really great Catholic thinkers, 
 scholastic or other ; that the opposition to his book came 
 mainly from those who were not thinkers — who judged 
 only by traditional modes of expression which were current 
 in the text-books, without realising the ideas which were 
 involved. 
 
 The book had a wide circulation, and was read in the 
 families which specially loved its author, by those who did 
 not understand it as well as by those who did. 
 
 ' I am glad you like my Grammar of Assent,' Newman 
 writes to a friend, ' and am amused that you should turn it 
 to the purposes of educating Margaret. " Thirty days hath 
 
 1 Against those who objected to Newman's speaking of our knowledge of God 
 through Conscience as though it were a heterodox doctrine of Divine immanence 
 he could quote with effect the words of Kleutgen that God ' makes Himself felt 
 I within us by his moral law as an August Power to which we are subject.' 
 Against those who objected that Newman's ' illative sense ' placed reason on a 
 level with irrational instinct he quoted the words of the same writer : • how many 
 
 (truths there are concerning duty, concerning nature and art, which a man of good 
 judgment knows with perfect accuracy without being distinctly cognisant how he 
 passes in successive judgments from one truth to another.' Kleutgen goes so far 
 f as to use the very word ' instinct ' of the spontaneous knowledge of God of which 
 Newman had spoken as coming to us through our Conscience. He represents 
 the object of a philosophy of Theism as being to show that the instinct is 
 rational. ' Why,' he writes, ' should not science take as the object of its re- 
 searches that knowledge of God which we instinctively possess . . . philosophy 
 is able and is bound to show that that method of reasoning from the world's 
 existence to God's to which our intellect is spontaneously impelled, is conformable 
 to the clearly known laws of our thought. ' 
 
 De Lugo speaks expressly of the illative sense as ' virtus intellectus et 
 voluntatis, ut uno actu brevissimo et subtilissimo attingant compendiose totam 
 illam seriem motivorum,' etc. 
 
 W. G. Ward himself goes a step further in Newman's direction, maintaining 
 that even after philosophy has done its best, the still unanalysed motives for 
 belief — its ' implicit grounds ' as he calls them — remain the strongest in the 
 evidences for Christianity and Catholicity, as the Conscience presents the strongest 
 argument for Theism.
 
 'THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT' (1870) 275 
 
 September " and the Multiplication Table will do no harm. 
 Reading itself is only a trick of artificial memory.' 
 
 He had, as we have seen, been especially anxious to help 
 those who, from their own lack of technical knowledge, were 
 tried by the popular arguments of the day against religious 
 belief. He was gratified to find that the chapter on Certitude 
 had had just the effect he desired in the case of his friend 
 Miss Holmes : 
 
 ' It will please me much,' he writes to her on March 26, 
 'if you say of the last 100 pages what you say for the 
 chapter on certitude — for they were written especially for 
 those who can't go into questions of the inspiration of 
 Scripture, authenticity of books, passages in the Fathers, &c. 
 &c. — especially for such ladies as are bullied by infidels and 
 do not know how to answer them — a misfortune which I fear 
 is not rare in this day. I wanted to show that, keeping 
 to broad facts of history, which everyone knows and no one 
 can doubt, there is evidence and reason enough for an honest 
 inquirer to believe in revelation.' 
 
 He sent the book also to those who felt the deficiencies 
 of current apologetic — who desiderated a more candid obser- 
 vation of facts, in dealing with the mixed subjects covered by 
 apologetic and theology. Many Catholic writers seemed to 
 him to apply exclusively the deductive method, belonging 
 to theology proper, to fields in which historical evidence is 
 both weighty and relevant. The appositeness and value of 
 the Baconian method appeared to be ignored by them. The 
 ' Grammar of Assent,' with its minute psychological observa- 
 tions, was a step in the desired direction, and Newman sent 
 it to one who had expressed to him the above criticism. In 
 reply to his enthusiastic letter of thanks Newman wrote as 
 follows : 
 
 ' My dear Sir, — I thank you for the very kind way in 
 which you have received my book. 
 
 ' The only drawback to my satisfaction is that you expect 
 much more from it than you will find. You have truly said 
 that we need a Novidu Orgamtvi for theology, and I shall be 
 truly glad if I shall be found to have made any suggestion 
 which will aid the formation of such a calculus. But it must 
 be the strong conception and the one work of a great genius, 
 
 T 2
 
 276 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 not the obiter attempt of a person like myself who has 
 already attempted many things and is at the end of his days. 
 
 ' I am. my dear Sir, 
 
 Most truly yours, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 The author had opportunities of learning the effect of his 
 book on persons in doubt. One such reader expressed her 
 objections to its line of argument in a letter to Mr. Brownlovv, 
 forwarded by him to Newman, who thus replied : 
 
 'The Oratory : April 29, 1871. 
 
 * . . . As you will see, she confuses the conclusion from 
 evidence, with the act of assent which depends on the wi/l. 
 No one on earth can have evidence strictly sufficient for an 
 absolute conclusion, but I may have evidence so strong that 
 I may see it is my duty to give my absolute assent to it. 
 I have not absolute demonstration that my father was not 
 a murderer, or my intimate friend a sharper, but it would 
 not only be heartless, but irrational, not to disbelieve these 
 hypotheses or possibilities utterly — and, anyhow, in matter of 
 fact men generally do disbelieve them absolutely — and there- 
 fore the Church, as the Minister of God, asks us for nothing 
 more in things supernatural than common sense, than nature 
 asks of us in matters of this world. I believe absolutely that 
 there is a North America — and that the United States is a 
 Republic with a President — why then do I not absolutely 
 believe, though I see it not, that there is a Heaven and that 
 God is there ? If you say that there is more evidence for the 
 United States than for Heaven, that is intelligible— but it is 
 not a question of more or less ; since the utmost evidence 
 only leads to probability and yet you believe absolutely in 
 the United States, it is no reason against believing in heaven 
 absolutely, though you have not " experience " of it. But 
 you have said all this to her. 
 
 ' She says there are persons who are certain of the 
 Christian religion because they have strictly proved it — no one 
 is certain for this reason. Every one believes by an act of 
 will, more or less ruling his intellect (as a matter of duty) to 
 believe absolutely beyond the evidence, 
 
 'She says "acts of certitude are always made about 
 things of which our senses or our reasons do, or can take 
 cognizance "—our senses do not tell us that there is a 
 " United States " and our reason does not demonstrate it, 
 only makes it probable. Try to analyze the reasons zvhy
 
 'THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT' (1870) 277 
 
 one believes in the United States. We not only do not, 
 but we could not make a demonstration ; yet we assent 
 absolutely. 
 
 ' " How can any human testimony make me quite certain 
 that I am hearing a message from God ? " None can, but 
 human testimony may be such as to make me see it is my 
 duty to be certain. Action is distinct [from] a conclusion — 
 yet a conclusion may be such as to make me see that action 
 is a duty — and so belief is not a conclusion — yet [a conclusion] 
 may be such as to make me see that belief is a duty — And, 
 as I cannot act merely because I ought to act, so I cannot 
 believe merely because I ought to believe, 
 
 ' I may wish both to act and to believe — though I can 
 do neither — and, as I ask God for grace to enable me to act, 
 so I ask Him for grace to enable me to believe. 
 
 ' " It is the gift of God — why does He not give it me ? " 
 Because you do not perseveringly come to Him for the gift, 
 and do your part by putting aside all those untrue and 
 unreal and superfluous arguings. 
 
 :Vfo»^ <t^ l^ i^ 
 
 
 ' " To see and touch the supernatural with the eye of my 
 soul, with its oivn experience, this is what I want to do." 
 Yes, it is — You wish to " Walk, not by faith, but by sight", 
 If you had experience, how would it he faith ? '*^' -^-y^f'--^ 
 
 Of course everyone must begm with reason. It your u. i(^ j^ ^ 
 friend cannot bring herself to feel that what I have said ^ 
 
 above, which is what our theologians say, is so far rational 
 that she is bound to act on it, I do not see what can be said. 
 But I think it plain that she is no fit recipient of the 
 Sacraments, unless she feels that faith is ever viore than, ever 
 distinct from, an inference from premisses, and tries and prays 
 and desires with all her heart to exercise it. But, while she 
 persists in saying that it is irrational, or unreasonable, or 
 unphilosophical, or unjustifiable, because it is more than 
 reason, that is, more than an inference, while she thinks that 
 in order to be true to the law of her mind, to nature, to 
 herself, she must not aim at any belief stronger than the 
 premisses, whereas human nature, human sense, and the laws 
 of the mind, just say the reverse, I don't think she can be 
 absolved. 
 
 ' I have answered you to the best of my ability, and pray- 
 ing the Giver of all grace to guide you and to disenchant 
 her, for she is like a fly in a spider's web. 
 
 'John H. Newman.' 
 
 Six months after the ' Grammar ' was published, Newman 
 wrote as follows in his journal :
 
 278 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' Oct. 30, 1870. How unpleasant it is to read former 
 memoranda — I can't quite tell why. They read affected, 
 unreal, egotistical, petty, fussy. There is much in the above, 
 which I should tear out and burn, if I did as I wi.shed. One 
 writes in particular humours — Perhaps if I looked over it six 
 months hence, I should like what now I don't like. I wonder 
 whether I shall burn it all when I am going to die. Perhaps 
 I shall leave it for what is valuable in it. 
 
 ' Since I published my Essay on Assent last March, I 
 have meant to make a memorandum on the subject of it. It 
 is the upshot of a very long desire and effort — I don't know 
 the worth of it, but I am happier to have at length done it 
 and got it off my hands. Authors (or at least I) can as 
 little foretell what their books will be before they are written, 
 as fathers can foretell whether their children will be boys or 
 girls, dark or fair, gentle or fiery, clever or stupid. The book 
 itself I have aimed at writing these twenty years ; — and now 
 that it is written I do not quite recognise it for what it was 
 meant to be, though I suppose it is such. I have made more 
 attempts at writing it than I can enumerate. . . . 
 
 ' These attempts, though some of them close upon others, 
 were, I think, all distinct. They were like attempts to get 
 into a labyrinth, or to find the weak point in the defences 
 of a fortified place. I could not get on, and found myself 
 turned back, utterly baffled. Yet I felt I ought to bring out 
 what my mind saw, but could not grasp, whatever it was 
 worth. I don't say it is worth much, now that it has come 
 out, but I felt as if I did not like to die before I had said it. 
 It may suggest something better and truer than it to another, 
 though worth little in itself Thus I went on year after year. 
 At last, when I was up at Glion over the Lake of Geneva, it 
 struck me : " You are wrong in beginning with certitude — 
 certitude is only a kind of assent — you should begin with 
 contrasting assent and inference." On that hint I spoke, 
 finding it a key to my own ideas.'
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL (1869-1870) 
 
 It is sometimes suggested that Newman's line of action 
 in 1869 and 1870 in connection with the Vatican Council 
 was an episode in his life which showed a certain deficiency 
 in whole-hearted loyalty to the Holy See, and were best 
 forgotten by his admirers. His letters show that he him- 
 self took a very different view from this even after all the 
 excitement of controversy had subsided. If ever he acted 
 against his inclinations and from a stern sense of duty it was 
 at this crisis. He had a full consciousness that many good 
 but not far-seeing people, whom he respected, would condemn 
 his attitude. He was opposing what was put forward as 
 being the wish of a Pontiff whom he especially loved and 
 revered for his personal qualities even apart from his sacred 
 office. But throughout he believed himself to be defending 
 the interests of Catholic theology against extremists who were 
 — without realising the effects of their action — setting it aside. 
 Like Archbishop Sibour, he was pleading the cause of the 
 immemorial constitution of the Church against the innova- 
 tions of advocates of a new absolutism. An Ecumenical 
 Council, according to Catholic theology, involves genuine 
 deliberation. He had been invited by the Pontiff himself to 
 contribute material towards this deliberation. He was con- 
 stantly consulted by Bishop Ullathorne, Bishop Clifford, 
 Bishop Dupanloup, and other prelates. He had then the 
 call, in his own sphere, to make a real contribution to the 
 process of deliberation — that is to say, to declare what his 
 own judgment was, but with the full intention of submitting 
 to the Church when it had decided the matter. The Pope 
 was constantly approached with representations on behalf 
 of one view of the question : was it not only fair, reasonable,
 
 28o LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 and loyal to bring before him and the Council the full force 
 of another view held by many of the Bishops themselves ? 
 
 As we have seen, there were men of influence who were 
 speaking as though truth was to be directly revealed by the 
 Holy Spirit to the Council, and scientific theology, and 
 deliberation with a view to exactness of expression, were 
 unimportant. Against this growing tendency he entered his 
 earnest protest by word and by deed. No doubt his protest 
 was regarded by men whose education was not equal to 
 their piety as showing a want of confidence in the Holy 
 Spirit's guidance. So, too, Silas Marner deemed it a want of 
 faith to doubt that the Holy Spirit would interfere by preter- 
 natural agencies to guide the decision by lot. And when 
 that decision turned out to be false he lost his faith in God. 
 Such is the Nemesis which follows the identification of God's 
 guidance with the beliefs of the superstitious as to its 
 nature and degree. The very fact that Newman's protest 
 was objected to showed how necessary it was, and how the 
 commonplaces of theology were being practically dis- 
 regarded. He was but acting on the words he had himself 
 written five years earlier, in the ' Apologia,' on the determining 
 factors in the proceedings of Ecumenical Councils. The 
 Fathers, he wrote, 'have been guided in their decisions by 
 the commanding genius of individuals, sometimes young and 
 of inferior rank. Not,' he added, ' that uninspired intellect 
 overruled the superhuman gift which was committed to the 
 Council, which would be a self-contradictory assertion, but 
 that in that process of enquiry and deliberation which ended 
 in an infallible enunciation individual effort was paramount.' 
 He gave the instances of Malchion, a mere presbyter, at the 
 Council of Antioch ; of Athanasius, a deacon, at Nicea ; of 
 Salmeron, a priest, at Trent. That he himself, though a mere 
 priest, should, when invited to contribute to the theological 
 deliberations preliminary to the Vatican Council, do his best 
 to make them real — that he should do something very 
 different from merely uncritically acquiescing in the treat- 
 ment of a definition of doctrine which involved a state- 
 ment of historical fact, as though it were, in his own words, 
 ' a luxury of devotion '—was, then, to be true to Catholic 
 practice in the past in the face of dangerous innovation.
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL (1869-1870) 281 
 
 And, moreover, while the principle of full deliberation was 
 the tradition in possession, it was also more than ever neces- 
 sary now when historical criticism was so rapidly gaining in 
 accuracy, and so many acute and jealous eyes would test 
 and criticise the proceedings of the Council. 
 
 For a moment he had hesitated whether he should not 
 accept the invitation of the Holy Father and Monsignor 
 Dupanloup to attend at Rome in person for the theological 
 conferences in which the schemata of the Council were to be 
 prepared. But in the event he had declined. 
 
 ' Don't be annoyed,' he wrote to Sister Maria Pia on 
 February 10, 1869. ' I am more happy as I am, than in any 
 other way. I can't bear the kind of trouble which I should 
 have, if I were brought forward in any public way. Recollect, 
 I could not be in the Council, unless I were a Bishop — and 
 really and truly I am 7iot a theologian. A theologian is one 
 who has mastered theology — who can say how many 
 opinions there are on every point, what authors have taken 
 which, and which is the best — who can discriminate exactly 
 between proposition and proposition, argument and argu- 
 ment, who can pronounce which are safe, which allowable, 
 which dangerous — who can trace the history of doctrines in 
 successive centuries, and apply the principles of former 
 times to the conditions of the present. This it is to be a 
 theologian — this and a hundred things besides — which I am 
 not, and never shall be. Like St. Gregory Nazianzen, I like 
 going on my own way, and having my time my own, living 
 without pomp or state, or pressing engagements. Put me 
 into official garb, and I am worth nothing ; leave me to 
 myself, and every now and then I shall do something. Dress 
 me up, and you will soon have to make my shroud — leave 
 me alone, and I shall live the appointed time. 
 
 ' Now do take this in, as a sensible nun.' 
 
 However, while declining an official position, such aid as 
 he could give by correspondence with individual Bishops he 
 was ready and anxious to afford. 
 
 There were two doctrines of the utmost delicacy which 
 the Council proposed to treat — the Inspiration of Scripture 
 and Papal Infallibility. To treat them with a full knowledge 
 of the facts relevant to their accurate interpretation and 
 exposition, so that the world should see that the definitions
 
 282 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 were entirely consistent with the historical and physical science 
 of the day, needed full and careful deliberation. 
 
 His greatest anxiety, of course, related to the proposed 
 definition of Papal Infallibility. It appeared to him that the 
 untheological school were trying to force a strong definition 
 secretly, without due discussion, without facing the historical 
 facts with which it nnust be reconciled — seeking mainly 
 to express their devotional beliefs, and in doing so perhaps 
 rendering an effective defence of the doctrine most difficult 
 for Catholics in the future. His cry was in effect 'Stop 
 this post-haste movement and give us time.' He considered 
 that imperiousness and unfairness marked the proceedings 
 of some of the most energetic promoters of the definition. 
 To write at length on so wide a subject would need on his 
 part long and laborious scientific investigation. For this no 
 time was given. He could only cry out, and try and arouse 
 the Bishops to a sense of the danger. He communicated 
 with many of them privately. This was within the clear limit 
 of his locus standi, for they asked his opinion. He seems to 
 have hesitated as to the allowableness of writing publicly. 
 But anyhow there was no time to write with any effect. 
 
 Before taking in order the events of the months pre- 
 ceding the definition, it may be well to give a few extracts 
 from letters written in their course which illustrate the 
 above account of his habitual feeling. When portions of a 
 letter to Bishop Ullathorne in which he strongly criticised 
 some of the promoters of the definition afterwards found their 
 way into the newspapers, Father Coleridge urged him to write 
 a pamphlet designed for the public. Newman thus replied : 
 
 ' Of course a pamphlet would have been far better than 
 such a letter, but I was distinctly dissuaded from publishing ; 
 and then I asked myself this question — " Can anything I say 
 move a single Bishop? And if not, what is the good of 
 writing?" And this is the great charge which I bring 
 against the immediate authors of this movement, that they 
 have not given us time. Why must we be hurried all of a 
 sudden, to write or not to write ? Why is a coup de utain to 
 settle the matter before we know where we are ? What 
 could such as I do, but cry out, bawl, make violent gestures, 
 as you would do, if you saw a railway engine running over 
 some unhappy workman on the line } What time was there
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL (1869-1870) 283 
 
 for being scientific ? What could you do but collar a Bishop, 
 if you could get up to one? The beginning and end of my 
 thoughts about the Council is : " You are going too fast, 
 you are going too fast." ' 
 
 The extreme party were, Newman held, playing into the 
 hands of the Church's enemies, who desired a definition which 
 should be a rediictio ad absiirduvi of Papal claims. The 
 gradual spread of Catholic doctrines in England, of late years 
 so promising, would, he feared, inevitably be checked if it 
 should be passed. He wrote to Mr. Brownlow, contrasting 
 the circumstances of this impending definition with those of 
 the definition of 1854: 
 
 ' As to the Immaculate Conception, by contrast there was 
 nothing sudden, or secret, in the proposal of definition in 
 that case. It had been talked about years out of mind — and 
 was approached, every one knowing it, by step after step. 
 This has taken us all by surprise. 
 
 ' The Protestant and Infidel Press, so far from taking part 
 with Mgr. Dupanloup, have backed up all along the extreme 
 party — and now all through the country are taking an 
 argumentative position against me. 
 
 ' The e.xisting Ritualists may or may not be put back — 
 but the leavening of the country will be checked.' 
 
 ' It is very pleasant to me,' he wrote to Canon Walker, 
 'to find you have hopes of the Council abstaining in a matter 
 on which, I fear, the Pope has set his heart. What I dread 
 is haste — if full time is given for the Synodal Fathers to 
 learn and reflect on the state of the case, I have little doubt 
 they will keep clear of the dangerous points.' 
 
 To Mrs. F. Ward he wrote thus : 
 
 ' This is certainly a most anxious time of suspense. . . 
 Councils have ever been times of great trial — and this seems 
 likely to be no exception. It was always held that the 
 conduct of individuals who composed them was no measure 
 of the authority of their result. We are sure, as in the case 
 of the administration of the Sacraments, that the holiness of 
 actors in them is not a necessary condition of God's working 
 by means of them. Nothing can be worse than the conduct 
 of many in and out of the Council who are taking the side 
 which is likely to prevail.' 
 
 Two more extracts bring before us another side of 
 his view. He regarded Archbishop Manning's unceasing
 
 284 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 advocacy of the definition as a kind of fixed idea, character- 
 istic of his occasionally mystical and apocalyptic way of 
 writing and thinking. Such a manner of looking at things 
 did not inspire Newman with confidence. 
 
 ' I don't think Dr. Manning has put on any "spectacles,"' 
 he wrote to Canon Jenkins. ' He says what he thinks, and 
 knows what he is about. I cannot help thinking he holds 
 that the world is soon coming to an end — and that he is in 
 consequence careless about the souls of future generations 
 which will never be brought into being. I can fancy a 
 person thinking it a grand termination (I don't mean that 
 he so thinks) to destroy every ecclesiastical power but the 
 Pope and let Protestants shift for themselves.' 
 
 On the other hand, while the enforcement of strict views 
 was in such a one as Manning a congenial indulgence, 
 Newman foresaw results of the general policy which was 
 being pursued quite opposite to the intention of those who 
 pursued it. Their object was to bring free-lances into line. 
 Newman held that the general policy of narrowing the terras 
 of communion would have in many cases — and indeed had 
 actually had — just the opposite effect. Acute minds which 
 if allowed a reasonable freedom might be kept within due 
 limits, would run to really unallowable excesses in their 
 angry reaction against what they held to be tyranny. Mr. 
 Ffoulkes was writing indignantly against the Council. Acton 
 and Wetherell were using language in the North British Review 
 of which Newman could not approve. People were saying to 
 Newman — ' Here are your friends of the Home and Foreign 
 — see what they are writing ! Were we not indeed justified in 
 checking them and in censuring the Review ? ' Newman held 
 just the opposite — that excesses were not necessarily the 
 index of an attitude which existed from the first, but embodied 
 a reaction and protest, indefensible but natural, against 
 tyrannous repression. And, while disapproving of the actors 
 in this protest, their excesses had or might prove to have (he 
 seems to have thought) good consequences in bringing home 
 to those in authority the danger of drawing the reins too 
 tight. 
 
 ' There are those,' he wrote to Mrs. Froude, ' who have 
 been taking matters with a very high hand and with much of
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL (1869-1870) 285 
 
 silent intrigue for a considerable time, and such ways of going 
 on bring with them their retribution. This does not defend 
 the actors in that retribution. Ffoulkes is behaving very ill 
 — but he is the " Nemesis," as they call it, of a policy, which 
 I cannot admire. Nor do I like the new NortJi British — 
 but it too is the retributive consequence of tyranny. All will 
 work for good ; and, if we keep quiet. Providence will fight 
 for us, and set things right.' ^ 
 
 Early in the year 1869 Newman received some con- 
 firmation of his fears that an exaggerated and untheological 
 view of the nature of Papal Infallibility was current in 
 highest quarters. Sir John Simeon forwarded to Newman 
 some notes received from Mr. Odo Russell, at that time 
 British Minister in Rome, of a conversation with Cardinal 
 Antonelli on April 23, in which the Cardinal was repre- 
 sented as taking the exaggerated view in question. Would 
 the Council (Newman asked himself), if it passed the 
 definition, appear to the world to endorse such an 
 
 ' It is to be observed that in writing to Anglican friends he emphasised the good 
 which the Council v.'as Hkely to effect. He wrote thus to J. R. Bloxam : 
 
 ' The Oratory : Feb. 22, 1870. 
 
 ' My dear Bloxam, — My best thanks for your very affectionate letter. I shall 
 rejoice to find you in this neighbourhood, and I hope it will be when the leaves 
 are out that I may show you our Retreat at Rednal, as you have shown me yours 
 at Beeding. There is but one drawback. I wish you could obliterate it, that at 
 length, at length Birnam Wood would come to Dunsinanc. 
 
 ' As to this Council, about /a<rA', I know little more than you do, but as to my 
 expectations, I think untold good will come of it — first, as is obvious, in bringing 
 into personal acciuaintance men from the most distant parts. The moral power 
 of the Church (of Rome) will be almost squared by this fact alone — next each part 
 will know the state of things in other parts of Christendom ; and the minds of 
 all the Prelates will be enlarged as well as their hearts. They will learn sympathy 
 and reliance on each other. Further, the authorities at Rome will learn a great 
 deal which they did not know of, and since the Italian apprehension is most 
 imaginative and vivid, this will be a wonderful gain. It must have a great influence 
 on the election of the next Pope, when that takes place. Then further the 
 religious influence of so great an occasion, of so rare and wonderful a situation, 
 of such a realization of things unseen, must, through God's mercy, leave a 
 permanent deep impression on the minds of all assembled. Nor can I believe that 
 so awful a visitation, in the supernatural order, as a renewal of the day of Pente- 
 cost, when it is granted to them, will not make them all new men for the rest of 
 their lives. 
 
 ' They have come to Rome with antagonistic feelings, they will depart in 
 the peace of God. I don't think much will come of the movement for Papal 
 Infallibility, though something very mild may be passed. 
 
 Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 (Signed) John II. NiiWMAN. 
 
 ' P.S. You must not suppose from anything I have said that I do not 
 sympathize with the Bishop of Orleans ; for I do.'
 
 286 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 extravagant view ? Here was a matter for most grave 
 anxiety. 
 
 Bishop Dupanloup and very many French and German 
 prelates shared Newman's anxiety. Archbishop Manning, 
 on the other hand, issued pastoral after pastoral in favour of 
 the definition, and W. G. Ward in the course of the year 
 published his pamphlet ' De Infallibilitatis Extensione,' which, 
 being in Latin, was widely read by foreign theologians 
 as well as English. Dupanloup, in a letter to his clergy 
 issued in November, attacked both Manning and Ward. 
 Echoing the complaint of the Jesuit Pere Daniel in 
 France, and of Father Ryder in England, he deprecated 
 the fact that 'intemperate journalists' insisted on 'opening 
 debates on one of the most delicate subjects and answering 
 beforehand in what sense the Council would decide and 
 should decide.' The public mind thus became filled with 
 an extravagant idea of what Papal Infallibility meant ; 
 and the definition was inopportune because it would be 
 misunderstood. 
 
 In respect of Mr. Ward's special share in the controversy, 
 the Bishop strongly censured his contention that the Pontiff 
 may speak infallibly in letters addressed, not to the whole 
 Church, but to an individual Bishop. 
 
 Again, Ward had ascribed infallibility to a number of 
 documents on the ground that they contained condemnations 
 reproduced by the Syllabus, and he maintained that all 
 Catholics were bound to believe this. Afterwards, in deference 
 to the opinion of Roman theologians, as we have already seen, 
 he retracted this assertion. Dupanloup at once seized on the 
 retractation. If even a theological expert like Ward could 
 make such a mistake, how much more could others ! What 
 an argument for leaving so subtle a question to time, and to 
 the safer process of discussion among theologians, whose 
 ultimate decision would have the advantage of the fullest 
 consideration of pros and cons ! What a proof that a true 
 view of Papal Infallibility was inseparable from the constitu- 
 tional methods habitually employed ! The Pope was indeed 
 infallible ; but the exact knowledge of what he taught 
 infallibly, and when he taught infallibly, came to the faithful, 
 in the cases which his own words might well leave doubtful,
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL (1869-1870) 287 
 
 not through the rapid private judgment of an individual, 
 however able, or of a single public writer for his readers, but 
 through the gradual operation of the learning and knowledge 
 of the Church as a whole. 
 
 Here, then, Dupanloup ' noted, what Cardinal Newman 
 has so constantly pointed out, the functions of the Church, 
 as represented by the Bishops and the theological school, in 
 determining the force and interpreting the meaning of Papal 
 declarations, as well as in assisting the Pope in the delibera- 
 tions preparatory to definitions — functions so strangely ignored 
 or minimised by the extreme party. Many of the Infallibilists 
 appeared to be in the same position as some supporters of the 
 majority at the Council of Ephesus. These men, in their 
 zeal against the Nestorians, who denied that Jesus Christ was 
 a Divine Person, fell into the opposite error of denying that 
 He had a human soul and human nature. They became the 
 founders of the Monophysite heresy. 
 
 Newman's fears persisted up to the time of the definition 
 itself The accredited organs of Rome, the Civilta Cattolica 
 at their head, used language which foreshadowed some such 
 definition as could seem called for only to satisfy the ex- 
 travagant devotional feeling towards the Papacy, of which 
 some exhibitions have been cited above from the columns of 
 the Univers. Newman was in frequent correspondence with 
 Bishop Ullathorne, and wrote him a letter in January 1870, 
 in which he expressed fully his feelings of dismay and 
 indignation. The letter ran as follows : 
 
 '■Private. January 28th, 1870. 
 
 ' My dear Lord, — I thank your Lordship very heartily for 
 your most interesting and seasonable letter. Such letters 
 (if they could be circulated) would do much to re-assure the 
 many minds which are at present disturbed when they look 
 towards Rome. Rome ought to be a name to lighten the 
 heart at all times, and a Council's proper office is, when some 
 great heresy or other evil impends, to inspire the faithful with 
 hope and confidence. But now we have the greatest meeting 
 which has ever been, and that in Rome, infusing into us by 
 the accredited organs of Rome (such as the Civiltd, the 
 Armonia, the Univers, and the Tablet) little else than fear 
 
 ' The text of Dupanloup's remarks is given in W. G. Ward and the Catholic 
 Revival, pp. 256 !:eq.
 
 288 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 and dismay. Where we are all at rest and have no doubts, 
 and, at least practically, not to say doctrinally, hold the Holy 
 Father to be infallible, suddenly there is thunder in the clear 
 sky, and we are told to prepare for something, we know not 
 what, to try our faith, we know not how. No impending 
 danger is to be averted, but a great difficulty is to be created. 
 Is this the proper work for an Ecumenical Council? As to 
 myself personally, please God, I do not expect any trial at 
 all, but I cannot help suffering with the various souls that are 
 suffering. I look with anxiety at the prospect of having to 
 defend decisions which may not be difficult to my private 
 judgment, but may be most difficult to defend logically in the 
 face of historical facts. What have we done to be treated as 
 the Faithful never were treated before ? When has definition 
 of doctrine de fide been a luxury of devotion and not a stern 
 painful necessity ? Why should an aggressive and insolent 
 faction be allowed to make the hearts of the just to mourn 
 whom the Lord hath not made sorrowful ? Why can't we be 
 let alone when we have pursued peace and thought no evil ? 
 I assure you, my dear Lord, some of the truest minds are 
 driven one way and another, and do not know where to rest 
 their feet ; one day determining to give up all theology as a 
 bad job and recklessly to believe henceforth almost that the 
 Pope is impeccable ; at another tempted to believe all the 
 worst that a book like Janus says ; at another doubting about 
 the capacity possessed by Bishops drawn from all corners of 
 the earth to judge what is fitting for European society, and 
 then again angry with the Holy See for listening to the 
 flattery of a clique of Jesuits, Redemptori.sts and Converts. 
 Then again think of the score of Pontifical scandals in the 
 history of eighteen centuries which have partly been poured 
 out, and partly are still to come out. What Murphy inflicted 
 upon us in one way, M. Veuillot is indirectly bringing on us 
 in another. And then again the blight which is falling upon 
 the multitude of Anglican ritualists, who themselves perhaps, 
 or at least their leaders, may never become Catholics, but 
 who are leavening the various English parties and denomi- 
 nations (far beyond their own range) with principles and 
 sentiments tending towards their ultimate adoption into the 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 ' With these thoughts before me, I am continually asking 
 myself whether I ought not to make my feelings public ; but 
 all I do is to pray those great early Doctors of the Church, 
 whose intercession would decide the matter, — Augustine and 
 the rest, — to avert so great a calamity. If it is God's Will
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL (1869-1870) 289 
 
 that the Pope's InfalHbih'ty should be defined, then it is His 
 Blessed Will to throw back the times and the moments of 
 that triumph He has destined for His Kingdom ; and I shall 
 feel I have but to bow my head to His Adorable Inscrutable 
 Providence. You have not touched on the subject yourself, 
 but I think you will allow me to express to you feelings 
 which for the most part I keep to myself . . . 
 
 'John H. Newman.' 
 
 In the course of March, extracts from this letter found 
 their way into the Standard newspaper — how they became 
 public is not known. The passage in which the words 
 ' aggressive and insolent faction ' occur was printed. Newman 
 wrote to the Standard denying that he had used the 
 words, insisting that the letter was a private one, yet not 
 disclaiming its sentiments. 
 
 He wrote at the same time to Dr. Moriarty, Bishop of 
 Kerry, an active opponent of the definition, in much the 
 same sense as he had written to Dr. Ullathorne : 
 
 ' The Oratory : March 20th, 1870. 
 
 * My dear Lord, — I am continually thinking of you and 
 your cause. I look upon you as the special band of con- 
 fessors, who are doing God's work at this time in a grave 
 crisis ; who, I trust, will succeed in your effort, but who 
 cannot really fail — both because you are at the very least 
 diminishing the nature and weight of the blow which is 
 intended by those whom you oppose, and also because your 
 resistance must bear fruit afterwards, even though it fails at 
 the moment. If it be God's will that some definition in 
 favour of the Pope's infallibility is passed, I then should at 
 once submit — but up to that very moment I shall pray most 
 heartily and earnestly against it. Any how, I cannot bear 
 to think of the tyrannousness and cruelty of its advocates — 
 for tyrannousness and cruelty it will be, though it is 
 successful. . . . 
 
 ' The Standard has been saying that I have written to 
 Bp. of Birmingham at Rome, speaking of the advocates of 
 Papal Infallibility as an "insolent aggressive faction" — this 
 I certainly have not done — though I do in my heart think 
 some advocates, e.g. the Univers, insolent and aggressive. 
 Certainly I do. Think of the way in which the French 
 Bishops have been treated. I wrote to Dr. Ullathorne last 
 Monday, feeling, that, though I had not used those words, yet 
 the person who wrote the Standard word about me certainly 
 VOL. II. U
 
 290 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 had seen my letter to him. Here no one knew anything of 
 what I said to the Bishop but Fr. St. John — and both he and 
 I have kept a dead silence about it all along. 
 
 ' I don't give up hope, till the very end, the bitter end ; 
 and am always praying about it to the great doctors of the 
 Church. Anyhow, we shall owe you and others a great debt. 
 ' My dear Lord 
 
 Ever yours affecly in Xt, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Sir John Simeon had seen a copy of the letter to 
 Dr. Ullathorne in which the words ' aggressive and insolent 
 faction ' did occur, and wrote to Newman at once to say so. 
 
 On receiving his letter, Newman again looked at the 
 rough copy of his letter to Dr. Ullathorne, and found that the 
 words in question, which he had overlooked, were really there. 
 He at once wrote to Simeon : 
 
 'The Oratory : March 22nd, 1870. 
 
 ' My dear Sir John, — I kept a copy of my letter to the 
 Bishop. 
 
 ' Before writing to the Stmidard I referred to it, and 
 could not find the words in question then. 
 
 ' Since your letter has come, I have referred again to it, 
 and I have found them. 
 
 ' I can onl)/ account for my not having seen them the first 
 time, by the letter being written very badly and interlined. 
 
 ' Of course I must write to the Standard, but I must take 
 care how I pick my way or I shall tumble into the mud. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 The following letter from Dr. Newman appeared in the 
 Standard of the following day : 
 
 ' Sir, — In answer to the letter of " The Writer of * the Pro- 
 gress of the Council,' " I am obliged to say that he is right, 
 and I am wrong as to my using the words " insolent and 
 aggressive faction " in a letter which I wrote to Bishop 
 Ullathorne. I write to make my apologies to him for 
 contradicting him. 
 
 * I kept the rough copy of this private letter of mine to 
 the Bishop, and on reading the writer's original statement I 
 referred to it and did not find there the words in question. 
 
 ' This morning a friend has written to tell me that 
 there are copies of the letter in London, and that the words
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL {1869-1870) 291 
 
 certainly are in it. On this I have looked at my copy a 
 second time, and I must confess that I have found them. 
 
 * I can only account for my not seeing them the first time 
 by my very strong impression that I had not used them in 
 my letter, confidential as it was, and from the circumstance 
 that the rough copy is badly written and interlined. 
 
 ' I learn this morning from Rome that Dr. Ullathorne 
 was no party to its circulation. 
 
 ' I will only add that when I spoke of a faction I neither 
 meant that great body of Bishops who are said to be in 
 favour of the definition of the doctrine nor any ecclesiastical 
 order or society external to the Council. As to the Jesuits, 
 I wish distinctly to state that I have all along separated 
 them in my mind, as a body, from the movement which I so 
 much deplore. What I meant by a faction, as the letter 
 itself shows, was a collection of persons drawn together from 
 various ranks and conditions in the Church. 
 
 ' I am, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 John H. Newman. 
 
 ' March 22nd.' 
 
 The following letter to Sir John Simeon shows that 
 Newman was on the whole glad that his sentiments had 
 been made public without any responsibility on his own part 
 for the fact : 
 
 ' The Oratory : March 27th, 1870. 
 
 ' My dear Sir John, — As my confidential letter to the 
 Bishop shows, I have been anxious for some time that an 
 opportunity of speaking out, which I could not make myself, 
 should be made for me. 
 
 ' I could not make it myself, for, as I said to you before, 
 I am bound to act in my own place as a priest under 
 authority, and there was no call for my going out of it. 
 
 * One thing I could do without impropriety — liberare 
 animam meam — to my Bishop, and that I did. I did so 
 with great deliberation in one of the most private and 
 confidential letters I ever wrote in my life. 
 
 ' I am glad I have done it, and moreover, I am not sorry 
 that, without any responsibility of my own, which I could 
 not lawfully bring on me, the general drift of what I wrote 
 has been published. 
 
 ' Everything hitherto has happened well. It was very 
 lucky that I was so firmly persuaded I did not use in the 
 letter the words imputed to me. My persuasion being such, 
 I felt it to be a simple duty to disown them ; and I could 
 
 u 2
 
 292 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 not in fairness disown them, without avowing at the same 
 time, as I did in my letter to the Standard, that, though 
 I did not use the words, I thought them in my heart. If 
 I had recognised my own words from the first, I should have 
 had no opportunity of explaining their meaning, or against 
 whom they were directed. My two letters to the Standard 
 have given me two such opportunities. 
 
 ' Now, however, this is done ; and I feel quite easy, and 
 need do nothing more. 
 
 ' There were two reasons which might be urged upon me 
 for making my views known, viz. — in order that they might 
 act as a means of influencing some of the Bishops in the 
 Council, and as a protest against the action of a certain party. 
 What I have already done, is all that I can, all that I need 
 do. Would anything more on my part move a single 
 Bishop ? Would anything more make my mind on the 
 matter more intelligible to the world ? I think not. 
 
 ' I will add one thing. I do not at all anticipate any 
 ultimate dissension. Like a jury, they will sit till they agree. 
 I have full confidence in the French and German Bishops. 
 
 * Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman. 
 
 ' P.S. — Certainly I rejoice to hear from you that an 
 Address protesting against the definition of Infallibility 
 would, if started, be largely signed : but what have I to do 
 with such measures, beyond giving my opinion, which I have 
 done?' 
 
 Newman did, however, take one further step, and pub- 
 lished the whole of the letter of which the Standard had 
 printed extracts. He refers to its publication in a letter to 
 Mr. de Lisle : 
 
 ' My dear Mr. de Lisle, — . . . I am in somewhat of a 
 mess as you may see from the papers. I sent to our Bishop, 
 Dr. Ullathorne, at Rome, one of the most confidential letters 
 that I ever wrote in my life — and, without his fault, it got 
 out and was shown about Rome. Then, I still unconscious 
 of the mishap, it travelled to London, and, after circulating 
 pretty freely, bits of it got into the papers. Meanwhile, it got 
 to Germany, and there again other bits were published, and 
 not fairly given, though without bad intention, but from the 
 natural inaccuracy which attends on reports, when they have 
 passed through several minds in succession. And then at 
 length the whole of it, in its length and breadth, has got 
 published at last.
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL (1869-1870) 293 
 
 ' I trust it has thus wriggled into public knowledge, for 
 some good purpose — though I cannot tell how this will be. 
 If it leads to some counter demonstration, it will be very sad. 
 I wish there was a chance of a strong lay petition to our 
 Bishops to beg them to use their influence at Rome to let 
 matters alone. But this, I fear, you will pronounce to be 
 impossible. 
 
 'Anxious as I am, I will not believe that the Pope's 
 Infallibility can be defined at the Council till I see it actually 
 done. Seeing is believing. We are in God's Hands — not in 
 the hands of men, however high-exalted. Man proposes, 
 God disposes. When it is actually done, I will accept it as 
 His act ; but, till then, I will believe it impossible. One can 
 but act according to one's best light. Certainly, we at least 
 have no claim to call ourselves infallible ; still it is our duty 
 to act as if we were, to act as strongly and vigorously in the 
 matter, as if it were impossible we could be wrong, to be full 
 of hope and of peace, and to leave the event to God. This is 
 right, isn't it .-* 
 
 * Most sincerely yours, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 The end of May saw the Canons of the Council on the 
 first of the two subjects which caused Newman anxiety — the 
 inspiration of Scripture. From a letter to Father Coleridge it 
 would seem that these Canons realised Newman's anticipa- 
 tions. He had no difficulty in accepting them. But he felt that 
 they were drawn up with no adequate regard to the urgent 
 questions which were being raised by contemporary Biblical 
 criticism. This he evidently deeply regretted. The consequence 
 was that difficulties which the theologians had not anticipated 
 in framing the Canons would have to be taken into account in 
 their interp. vacation. Eventually no doubt theological explana- 
 tion would give them an interpretation in some respects 
 different from what appeared to him their prima facie sense. 
 But this must be a matter of time. And meanwhile he antici- 
 pated great difficulties. The Fathers of the Council had not — 
 so he was credibly informed — intended to make untenable the 
 views of ''ertain approved theologians which had not ap- 
 parently been taken into account in the wording of the Canons. 
 If this were the case the fact would have to be made clear to 
 hostile critics. It is worth while to remark that the chief point 
 which Newman in his first letter wishes to see expressly
 
 294 LIFK OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 allowed for — the use by Moses of pre-existing documents — 
 is in our own day fully admitted by most theologians. But 
 Newman evidently wished that at this critical moment such 
 considerations should have been dealt with by full theological 
 discussion. A freer and more open debate would have fore- 
 stalled objections which, as things were, the keener-sighted 
 Catholic thinkers might have to answer by qualifying the 
 apparent meaning of the words of the Canons. 
 
 The very important letter of which I speak ran as 
 follows : 
 
 ' The Oratory : June 7, 1870. 
 
 ' I have my doubts whether, humanly speaking, those 
 Canons &c. would ever have been pressed in their actual 
 wording, if things had not been kept so strangely snug from 
 first to last. The Pope and the Bishops seem to have left 
 everything to the Holy Ghost. 
 
 'Speaking under correction, there are two new dogmas in 
 what has been defined about Scripture — ist that Scripture 
 is inspired. In the decree of Trent the Apostles are declared 
 to be inspired, and they, thus inspired, are the fountain head 
 both of tradition and of Scripture. Bouvier, I think, says 
 that the inspiration in Scripture is not defined, though it is 
 certissimum. 2nd that by the Testamenta is meant, not the 
 Covenants, but the collection of books constituting the Bible : 
 of zvhich in consequence as well as of the Covenants, God 
 becomes the " Auctor." 
 
 ' St. Irenaeus, writing against the Gnostics, who denied 
 the fewish Dispensation to be the work of God, says that God 
 vv^as the Auctor Testamenti Veteris, of which testaments he 
 numbers in one place (I think) five. When the Priscillians 
 made a row in Spain, the Spanish Bishops against them read 
 the same formula. Then in the Middle Ages, against the 
 Manichean Gnostics, Albigenses &c. — the same formula was 
 used. Thence it came to Florence. Mind, I am writing 
 from memory, but thus my memory runs. 
 
 * When I heard the Canons had been passed — no, it was 
 when I saw from the Papers that they were threatened^ — I, 
 at once^ wrote to a Bishop at Berne, saying what I have said 
 above — but it was too late. One says God's will be done. 
 He is wiser than man — but I cannot think that full deliberation 
 has been had upon the subject — which is necessary, not for the 
 validity of the decree but for the relief of the responsibility 
 of those who so passed it. On such important questions why 
 should not all sides be considered and reviewed ?
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL (1869-1870) 295 
 
 ' My friend wrote me back word that he was sure that 
 the Fathers of the Council never meant to exchide the views of 
 Lessius, but their words are very Hke exclusion. Can I now 
 hold that Moses by inspiration selected and put together the 
 various pre-existing documents which constitute the book 
 of Genesis ? Are the genealogies all of them inspired ? for 
 are they not ''partes'' of Scripture? 
 
 ' It seems to me that a perfectly new platform of doctrine 
 is created, as regards our view of Scripture, by these new 
 Canons — so far as this, that, if their primary and surface 
 meaning is to be evaded, it must be by a set of explanations 
 heretofore not necessary. 
 
 ' Indeed the whole Church platform seems to me likely 
 to be off its ancient moorings, it is like a ship which has 
 swung round or taken up a new position. . . . 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 The question of Inspiration having been dealt with, there 
 remained the all-important one of Papal Infallibility. And 
 Newman continued to pray and hope that the definition might 
 be averted. The late Lord Emly, who often conversed with 
 him on the subject, told the present writer that Newman's main 
 objection throughout was not to a definition on the subject, 
 but to such a definition as was likely to be passed in the haste 
 in which matters were proceeding and to exaggerations of its 
 import which extremists were likely to propagate. It was 
 this anxiety which led him to pray earnestly that for the 
 present at least no definition should be passed. Newman 
 wrote in April to Dr. Whitty, who was in Rome : 
 
 ' Confidential. April 12th, 1870. 
 
 ' My dear Fr. Whitty, — Thank you for your letter, which 
 I was very glad to have. I will write to you as frankly as 
 you have written to me ; and tho' the letter is " confidential," 
 still you are the judge, should you wish to extend that 
 confidence beyond yourself 
 
 ' One can but go by one's best light. Whoever is infallible, 
 I am not ; but I am bound to argue out the matter and to 
 act as if I were, till the Council decides ; and then, if God's 
 Infallibility is against me, to submit at once, still not 
 repenting of having taken the part which I felt to be right, 
 any more than a lawyer in Court may repent of believing 
 in a cause and advocating a point of law, which the Bench
 
 296 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 of Judges ultimately give against him. We can but do our 
 best. 
 
 'Well, then, my thesis is this: — you are going too fast at 
 Rome ; — on this I shall insist. 
 
 ' It is enough for one Pope to have passed one doctrine 
 (on the Immac. Concept.) into the list of dogmata. We do 
 not move at railroad pace in theological matters, even in the 
 19th century. We must be patient, and that for two reasons : 
 — first, in order to get at the truth ourselves, and next in 
 order to carry others with us. 
 
 ' I. The Church moves as a whole ; it is not a mere 
 philosophy, it is a communion ; it not only discovers, but it 
 teaches ; it is bound to consult for charity as well as for faith. 
 You must prepare men's minds for the doctrine, and you 
 must not flout and insult the existing tradition of countries. 
 The tradition of Ireland, the tradition of England, is not on 
 the side of Papal Infallibility. You know how recent Ultra- 
 montane views are in both countries ; so too of France ; so 
 of Germany. The time may come when it will be seen how 
 those traditions are compatible with additions, that is, with 
 true developments, which those traditions indeed in them- 
 selves do not explicitly teach ; but you have no right rudely 
 to wipe out the history of centuries, and to substitute a 
 bran new view of the doctrine imported from Rome and the 
 South. Think how slowly and cautiously you proceeded 
 in the definition of the Immac, Concept., how many steps 
 were made, how many centuries passed, before the dogma 
 was ripe ; — we are not ripe yet for the Pope's Infallibility. 
 Hardly anyone even murmured at the act of 1854 ; half the 
 Catholic world is in a fright at the proposed act of 1870, 
 
 ' When indeed I think of the contrast presented to us by 
 what is done now and what was done then, and what, as I 
 have said, ought always to be done, I declare, unless I were 
 too old to be angry, I should be very angry. The Bull 
 convening the Council was issued with its definite objects 
 stated, dogma being only slightly mentioned as among those 
 objects, but not a word about the Pope's Infallibility. 
 Through the interval, up to the meeting of the Council, not a 
 word was said to enlighten the Bishops as to what they were 
 to meet about. The Irish Bishops, as I heard at the time, 
 felt surprised at this ; so did all, I doubt not. Many or most 
 had thought they were to meet to set right the Canon Law. 
 Then suddenly, just as they are meeting, it is let out that the 
 Pope's Infallibility is the great subject of definition, and the 
 Civiltd, and other well-informed prints, say that it is to be
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL (1869-1870) 297 
 
 carried by acclamation ! Then Archbishop Manning tells 
 (I believe) Mr. Odo Russell that, unless the opposition can 
 cut the throats of 500 Bishops, the definition certainly will be 
 carried ; and, moreover, that it has long been intended! Long 
 intended, and yet kept secret ! Is this the way the faithful 
 ever were treated before ? is this in any sort of sense going 
 by tradition ? On hearing this, my memory went back to 
 an old saying, imputed to Monsignor Talbot, that what made 
 the definition of the Immac. Concept, so desirable and 
 important was that it opened the way to the definition of 
 the Pope's Infallibility. Is it wonderful that we should all 
 be shocked ? For myself, after meditating on such crooked 
 ways, I cannot help turning to Our Lord's terrible warning : 
 " Vae mundo a scandalis ! Quisquis scandalizaverit unum 
 ex his pusillis credentibus in me, bonum est ei magis 
 si circumdaretur mola asinaria collo ejus, et in mare 
 mitteretur." 
 
 ' 2. I say then you must take your time about a definition 
 de fide, for the sake of charity ; — and now I say so again 
 for the sake of truth ; for the very same caution, which is 
 necessary for the sake of others, is surely the divinely 
 appointed human means of an infallible decision. Consider 
 how carefully the Immaculate Conception was worked out. 
 Those two words have been analysed, examined in their 
 parts, and then carefully explained ; — the declarations and 
 the intentions of Fathers, Popes, and ecclesiastical writers on 
 the point have been clearly made out. It was this process 
 that brought Catholic Schools into union about it, while it 
 secured the accuracy of each. Each had its own extreme 
 points eliminated, and they became one, because the truth 
 to which they converged was one. But now what is done as 
 regards the seriously practical doctrine at present in dis- 
 cussion ? What we require, first of all, and it is a work of 
 years, is a careful consideration of the acts of Councils, the 
 deeds of Popes, the Bullarium. We need to try the doctrine 
 by facts, to see what it may mean, what it cannot mean, 
 what it must mean. We must try its future working 
 by the past. And we need that this should be done in 
 the face of day, in course, in quiet, in various schools and 
 centres of thought, in controversy. This is a work of }'ears. 
 This is the true way in which those who differ sift out the 
 truth. On the other hand, what do we actually sec ? Sud- 
 denly one or two works made to order — (excuse me, I must 
 speak out). Fr. Botalla writes a book — and, when he finds 
 a layman like Renouf speak intemperately, then, instead of
 
 298 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 setting him an example of cool and careful investigation, he 
 speaks intemperately too, and answers him sharply, some say 
 angrily. ^'Non tali auxilio, nee defensoribiis istis ! " Is this the 
 way to gain a blessing on a most momentous undertaking ? 
 
 ' 3. One word more. To outsiders like me it would seem 
 as if a grave dogmatic question was being treated merely as 
 a move in ecclesiastical politics. Indeed, what you say 
 about its relation to the Syllabus justifies me in so thinking. 
 So grave a doctrine is but an accidental means to an object 
 of the particular year, 1 864 ! a dogma is, so to say, dated^ 
 as St. Athanasius says of the Arian creeds. I say " an 
 accidental means," for you surmise that, if the Syllabus had 
 not been negative in its form, the definition of the Pope's 
 Infallibility would not have been needed at present. I could 
 say much, not about the Syllabus, but on the unworthy way 
 in which it has been treated by its professed champions. 
 But let us allow that it is right to sink the solemn character 
 of a dogma in a question of ecclesiastical expedience, regnante 
 Pio 110710 : — next, if so, I naturally ask whether such a 
 degradation answers its purpose. Am I bound to take my 
 view of expedience from what is thought expedient at Rome? 
 May I not judge about expedience for Catholics in England 
 by what we see in England ? Now the effect upon the 
 English people of the very attempt at definition hitherto 
 does but confirm one's worst apprehensions about it, for 
 1st. the ministry is decidedly pro-Catholic, Gladstone 
 would help the Irish Catholic University if he could, but he 
 has been obliged to declare in the House that what is going 
 on in Rome ties his hands. And 2ndly Mr. Newdegate has 
 gained his Committee to inquire into conventual establish- 
 ments and their property. These are the first fruits in 
 England of even the very agitation of this great anticipated 
 expedient for strengthening the Church. That agitation 
 falls upon an existing anti-Catholic agitation spreading 
 through the English mind. Murphy is still lecturing against 
 priests and convents, and gaining over the classes who are now 
 the ultimate depository of political power, the constituency 
 for Parliamentary elections. And we, where we are bound, 
 if we can, to soothe the deep prejudices and feverish suspi- 
 cions of the nation, we on the contrary are to be forced, 
 by measures determined on at Rome, to blow upon this 
 troubled sea with all the winds of ^^lolus, when Neptune 
 ought to raise his " placidum caput " above the waves. This 
 is what we need at least in England. And for England, of 
 course, I speak.
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL (1869-1870) 299 
 
 ' Excuse my freedom. I do not forget your two passages. 
 Say everything kind for me to your Bishop, unless he has 
 returned home. I wrote to him a day or two ago. You may 
 open the letter if he is away. 
 
 ' Ever yours affly. 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Newman made no secret of his views, in writing, not 
 only to intimate friends, but to occasional correspondents. 
 Mr. O'Neill Daunt had asked his advice concerning a lady 
 friend whose faith was greatly tried by the prospect of the 
 definition, and he thus replied : 
 
 ' The Oratory : June 27th, 1870. 
 
 ' As to the subject of your letter, I certainly think this 
 agitation of the Pope's Infallibility most unfortunate and 
 ill-advised, and I shall think so even if the Council decrees 
 it, unless I am obliged to believe that the Holy Ghost 
 protects the Fathers from all inexpedient acts, (which I do 
 not see is anywhere promised) as well as guides them into all 
 the truth, as He certainly does. There are truths which are 
 inexpedient. 
 
 'As to your question, however, I think first that there is 
 such a thing as a " needless alarm." Do you recollect 
 Cowper's poem with that title .-' I often think of it and 
 quote it, and especially lately, since this agitation has 
 commenced. Your friend should not take it for granted that 
 the Infallibility of the Pope will be carried. I am not at all 
 sure it will. Eor myself, I refuse to believe that it can be 
 carried, till it actually is. I think the great Doctors of the 
 Church will save us from a dogma which they did not hold 
 themselves. 
 
 ' Next, if anything is passed, it will be in so mild a form, 
 as practically to mean little or nothing. There is a report, 
 which you probably can substantiate better than I, that 
 Cardinal Cullen said, when he was in Dublin, at Easter, 
 that " he thought the Pope would nevej^ be able to use the 
 dogma, in the shape it was to be passed. 
 
 ' Lastly, is your friend sure she understands the dogma, 
 even as Ultramontanes hold it? I very much doubt if she 
 does. She should look carefully to this. The Pope did not 
 force on us the Immaculate Conception. The whole of 
 Christendom wished it' ^ 
 
 ' In the Appendix, at pp. 552 seq., will be found some further letters illus- 
 trating Newman's state of mind during the months preceding the definition of 
 Papal Infallibility, and one letter on the fall of Louis Napoleon in August 1870.
 
 300 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Meanwhile the dehberations of the Council proceeded. 
 One party pleaded for whole-hearted loyalty to the Pontiff. 
 The other urged such caution as the true interests of the 
 Church and respect for its traditions demanded. The contest 
 was intensified, and the struggle of motives complicated, by 
 the simple and noble character of Pius IX. and the charm 
 of his presence. In the graphic journal of Mr. Thomas 
 Mozley, intensely prejudiced as he was against the in- 
 fallibilists, we see that the appearance of Pio Nono ever 
 touches his imagination and his heart. The very tones of 
 his voice were inspiring. ' Whenever the Pope himself, ' he 
 writes, after one of the Church functions at which he was 
 present, 'had either to intone or to give the first notes of the 
 grand sacramental hymns, his peculiarly cheery voice rang 
 through the whole church and woke a response from every- 
 body within reach of it. The reverence he aroused was so 
 universal and hearty that I could almost have fancied that 
 there was a touch of mirth in it' The gracious presence of 
 the Pontiff, his simple faith, conquered wherever he went. 
 His jokes were in everyone's mouth. Those who regarded 
 the promoters of the definition as fanatics of the deepest 
 dye could not but undergo a revulsion of feeling when they 
 met the man who was in their eyes the head of the party. 
 Even the zeal of his most loyal followers would touch his 
 sense of humour : and when, after the definition was passed, 
 many of the Bishops who had voted for it stayed on week after 
 week, living at the Pope's expense, to rejoice over their vic- 
 tory, the Pontiff was both amused and somewhat tried at this 
 drain on his exchequer. With the usual pinch of snuff and 
 a twinkle in his eye, he is said to have remarked, 'Ouesti 
 infallibilisti mi faranno fallire.' To behold the Pope pray 
 was, it used to be said, to watch one who himself saw that 
 world which others know only by faith. Such was the man 
 who in person made the appeal to his Bishops to be loyal to 
 God's Vicar and to despise the opinion of the world. And 
 he treated half-heartedness as to the definition as simply and 
 solely worldliness. It is hard to conceive a greater trial, of 
 its kind, than such men as Dr. Moriarty and Mgr. Dupanloup 
 had to undergo in resisting such appeals, and appearing to 
 the Pontiff they so deeply loved and reverenced to fail in 
 their loyalty to him in his time of trouble.
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL (1869-1870) 301 
 
 I may cite one out of many pictures Mr. Mozley has left 
 of the activity and zeal of the great Pontiff at this time : 
 
 ' The day reminds me once more of the enormous amount 
 of work expected from a Pope, and done diligently, faithfully, 
 and cheerfully by this old man in his seventy-eighth year. 
 Yesterday he paid a long visit to the Exposition, talking 
 with the exhibitors, and having his jokes with all about him. 
 He has to give interviews to all these seven hundred bishops, 
 and, as the enemy says, to put a strong pressure on all who 
 are recommended to him for the application of the supreme 
 torture. A great deal has been said about his visits to the 
 aged and invalid bishops lodged and nursed in the canonical 
 apartments attached to St. Peter's. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 ' Other bishops, who have been disposed, or compelled 
 by circumstances, to adopt a neutral or a moderate line in 
 the Council, have found themselves sorely tried in a personal 
 interview. They find it vain to declare their devotion or 
 their sincerity. His Holiness tells them plainly they are not 
 on his side ; they are among his enemies ; they are damaging 
 the good cause ; their loyalty is not sound. It is enough 
 that they have signed what they should not, or not signed 
 what they ought. On the Roman system there is nothing 
 wonderful in this personal interference of the Head of the 
 Church. What I most marvel at is that it is all done by this 
 old man, and that it is done with a success which provokes 
 the indignation of those who conceive their cause hurt by it.' 
 
 Newman, though at a distance from Rome, realised to 
 the full the charm of the Pontiff with whose policy he could 
 not concur. Pius IX. had ever touched his heart in their 
 intercourse. He was wont to ascribe to his character and 
 presence much of the abatement among his countr}'men of 
 anti-Catholic prejudice — and this in spite of the fact that 
 Pio Nono's recent line of action and his insistence on the 
 Papal prerogatives were calculated greatly to increase rather 
 than to diminish the bigotry of our countrymen. The man 
 himself had that in him which was quite irresistible. 
 
 ' No one could, both by his words and deeds, offend 
 [Englishmen] more,' Newman wrote of him after his death. 
 ' He claimed, he exercised, larger powers than any other 
 Pope ever did ; he committed himself to ecclesiastical acts 
 bolder than those of any other Pope ; his secular policy
 
 302 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 was especially distasteful to Englishmen ; he had some near 
 him who put into print just that kind of gossip concerning 
 him which would put an Englishman's teeth on edge ; lastly, 
 he it was who, in the very beginning of his reign, was the 
 author of the very measure which raised such a commotion 
 among us ; yet his personal presence was of a kind that no 
 one could withstand. I believe one special cause of the 
 abatement of the animosity felt towards us by our country- 
 men was the series of tableaux, as I may call them, brought 
 before them in the newspapers, of his receptions of visitors 
 in the Vatican. 
 
 ' His misfortunes indeed had something to do with his 
 popularity. The whole world felt that he was shamefully 
 used as regards his temporal possessions ; no foreign power 
 had any right to seize upon his palaces, churches, and other 
 possessions, and the injustice showed him created a wide 
 interest in him ; but the main cause of his popularity was 
 the magic of his presence, which was such as to dissipate 
 and utterly destroy the fog out of which the image of a Pope 
 looms to the ordinary Englishman. His uncompromising 
 faith, his courage, the graceful intermingling in him of the 
 human and the divine, the humour, the wit, the playfulness 
 with which he tempered his severity, his naturalness, and 
 then his true eloquence, and the resources he had at command 
 for meeting with appropriate words the circumstances of the 
 moment, overcame those who were least likely to be over- 
 come. A friend of mine, a Protestant, a man of practised 
 intellect and mature mind, told me to my surprise that, 
 at one of the Pope's receptions at the Vatican, he was so 
 touched by the discourse made by His Holiness to his 
 visitors, that he burst into tears. And this was the ex- 
 perience of hundreds ; how could they think ill of him or 
 of his children when his very look and voice were so ethical, 
 so eloquent, so persuasive?' ^ 
 
 It was doubtless largely the feeling which Pius IX. 
 inspired which made the inopportunist Bishops decline to 
 record their votes against the decree of Infallibility at the 
 final public session held in the Pope's presence. At the 
 General Congregation of July 13, at which the definition was 
 informally passed, eighty-eight Bishops voted non placet, and 
 sixty-two placet juxta inodiim (that is, were in favour of 
 modifications in the definition). They then left Rome after 
 addressing to the Pontiff the following letter : 
 
 ' Addresses by Cardinal Newman (Longmans), p. 242.
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL (1869-1870) 303 
 
 * Most Blessed Father, — In the General Congregation 
 held on the 13th inst. we gave our votes on the Schemata of 
 the first Dogmatic Constitution concerning the Church of 
 Christ. 
 
 ' Your Holiness is aware that 88 Fathers, urged by con- 
 science and love of Holy Church, gave their vote in the 
 words " non placet" ; 62 in the words " placet 7>/,r/« niodum" ; 
 finally about 70 were absent and gave no vote. 
 
 ' Others returned to their dioceses on account of illness or 
 more serious reasons. 
 
 * Thus our votes are known to your Holiness and manifest 
 to the whole world, and it is notorious how many bishops 
 agree with us, and with the manner in which we have dis- 
 charged the office and duty laid upon us. 
 
 ' Nothing has happened since to change our opinion, nay 
 rather there have been many and very serious events of a 
 nature to confirm us in it. 
 
 ' We therefore declare that we renew and confirm the 
 votes already given. 
 
 ' Confirming therefore our votes by this present document, 
 we have decided to ask leave of absence from the public 
 session on the 18th inst. 
 
 ' For the filial piety and reverence which very recently 
 brought our representatives to the feet of your Holiness do 
 not allow us in a cause so closely concerning your Holiness 
 to say " non placet " openly and to the face of the Father. 
 
 'Moreover, the votes to be given in Solemn Session would 
 only repeat those already delivered in General Congregation. 
 We return, therefore, without delay to our flocks, to whom, 
 after so long an absence, the apprehensions of war and their 
 most urgent spiritual wants render us necessary to the utmost 
 of our power, grieving as we do, that in the present gloomy 
 state of public affairs we shall find the faithful troubled in 
 conscience and no longer at peace with one another. 
 
 ' Meanwhile, with our whole heart, we commend the 
 Church of God and your Holiness, to whom we avow our 
 unaltered faith and obedience, to the grace and protection of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, and are your 
 
 ' Most devoted and obedient' 
 
 The appointed day arrived — July 18 — and the definition 
 was solemnly passed in presence of the Pontiff. Mr. Mozley, 
 who was a witness of the scene, has left a graphic account of 
 it:' 
 
 ' I omit Mr. Mozley's unsympathetic reflections, as my object is only to give 
 his picture of the scene. {Stt^loz\ey^s,' Letters from Rome. Longmans.)
 
 304 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' Let me begin with the vigil of the fete. It thundered 
 and lightened all night, and it rained in the morning. 
 When I went down to St. Peter's on December 8 last, the 
 very doors of Heaven seemed to have been opened, and we 
 were nearly washed out of our carriages. Yesterday, too, 
 instead of a bright Roman sky and brilliant, burning sun, we 
 had what may be called the storm of the season. Thus, the 
 opening and the closing of the Council — the closing, at least, 
 for the present — were marked by a violent revolution of 
 the elements. The doors were not opened before half past 
 7 o'clock, and as I drove down at that hour the streets were 
 comparatively empty. A solitary cab or two were rambling 
 in the same direction — a few priests and students were hurry- 
 ing on through the rain, and the gallant Guards, who let us 
 pass unheeded, sat indolently on their horses, having no 
 occasion to make a display. . . . 
 
 * A double line of troops was soon formed, and between 
 them, steadily or jauntily as the case might be, walked the 
 Fathers, each going to the Hall, and taking his seat as he 
 arrived. The laity, for whom all the blessings of the day 
 were specially designed, looked over the shoulders of the 
 soldiers to observe the bishops. . . . Many of the seats of the 
 Fathers were vacant, certainly nearly 250, 130 or 140 prelates 
 having absented themselves only for the day. . . . 
 
 * His Holiness, I am told by his friends, on entering, felt 
 agitated, and trembled when he knelt to say his prayers, but 
 this passed off, his voice was as firm and as clear as I have 
 ever heard it, and his appearance became bright and cheerful. 
 The Mass was short, giving promise of an early closing, and 
 then came those beautiful hymns of the Roman Catholic 
 Church, sung at intervals, and never sung more efi'ectively. 
 First the Litany of the Saints was chanted by the choir, 
 taken up by the Fathers, and carried as it were out of the 
 Hall until it was lifted on high by the swelling voices of 
 several thousands of persons who clustered round the tomb of 
 St. Peter. So it was with the Vent Creator. Apart from the 
 essentially sweet and plaintive character of the music, the 
 body of sound satisfied all one's desires, giving the assurance 
 of something like sincerity and depth of feeling. 
 
 ' Now there was a lull, broken at last by the shrill voice 
 of the Secretary reading the Dogma. The real business of 
 the day had commenced, and the crowd about the door and 
 around the baldacchino became more dense. . . . The reading 
 of the Dogma was followed by the roll-call of the Fathers, 
 and Placet after Placet followed, though not in very quick
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL (1869-1870) 305 
 
 succession. They were uttered in louder and bolder tones 
 than on former occasions, either that the echo was greater 
 from the comparative emptiness of the church or that the 
 Fathers were pleased at being shorn^ and amid their 
 utterances there was a loud peal of thunder. 
 
 ' The storm which had been threatening all the morning 
 burst now with the utmost violence, and to many a super- 
 stitious mind might have conveyed the idea that it was the 
 expression of Divine wrath, as " no doubt it will be interpreted 
 by numbers," said one officer of the Palatine Guard. And so 
 the Placets of the Fathers struggled through the storm, while 
 the thunder pealed above and the lightning flashed in at 
 every window and down through the dome and every smaller 
 cupola, dividing if not absorbing the attention of the crowd. 
 Placet, shouted his Eminence or his Grace, and a loud clap of 
 thunder followed in response, and then the lightning darted 
 about the baldacchino and every part of the church and 
 Conciliar Hall, as if announcing the response. So it con- 
 tinued for nearly one hour and a half, during which time the 
 roll was being called, and a more effective scene I never 
 witnessed. Had all the decorators and all the getters-up of 
 ceremonies in Rome been employed, nothing approaching to 
 the solemn splendour of that storm could have been prepared, 
 and never will those who saw it and felt it forget the promul- 
 gation of the first Dogma of the Church. 
 
 ' The faqade of the Hall had not been removed as on 
 former occasions, only the great door was opened, so that it 
 could be scarcely called an open Session, and people could 
 get a glimpse of what was going on only by struggling fiercely 
 and peering over one another's shoulders, or by standing at a 
 distance and looking through a glass. I chose this last and 
 better part. The storm was at its height when the result of 
 the voting was taken up to the Pope, and the darkness was 
 so thick that a huge taper was necessarily brought and 
 placed by his side as he read the words, " Nosque, sacro 
 approbante Concilio, ilia ita decernimus, statuimus atque 
 sancimus ut lecta sunt." And again the lightning flickered 
 around the Hall, and the thunder pealed. 
 
 ' I was standing at this moment in the south transept 
 trying to penetrate the darkness which surrounded the Pope, 
 when the sound as of a mighty rushing something, I could 
 not tell what, caused me to start violently, and look about 
 me and above me. It might be a storm of hail. Such for 
 an instant was my impression ; and it grew and swelled, and 
 then the whole mystery was revealed by a cloud of white 
 
 VOL. II. X
 
 3o6 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 handkerchiefs waving before me. The signal had been given 
 by the Fathers themselves with clapping of hands. This was 
 my imaginary hailstorm ; and it was taken up by the crowd 
 outside the Hall, and so the storm grew in violence until at 
 length it came to where I stood ; Viva il Papa Infallibile ! 
 Viva il trionfo dei Cattolici ! shouted the zealots. . . . But 
 again the storm rose with greater violence than before, and I 
 thought that, according to English custom, we were to have 
 three times three. 
 
 ' The Te Deum and the Benedictions, however, put a stop 
 to it ; the entire crowd fell on their knees as I have never 
 seen a crowd do before in St. Peter's, and the Pope blessed 
 them in those clear sweet tones distinguishable among a 
 thousand. A third and fainter attempt was made to get up 
 another cheer, but it died away, and then priests, priestlings, 
 monks and holy women, rushed down the nave to get, 
 perchance, another peep at the Pope as he passed through 
 the chapels, but the doors were closed. 
 
 ' Thus closed the Session of the Ecumenical Vatican 
 Council for the present, not prorogued nor suspended, to meet 
 again on November ii.' 
 
 The arguments of the Bishops of the minority had one all- 
 important result. In the proceedings of the Council published 
 in the seventh volume of the Jesuit ' Collectio Lacensis ' we 
 see that they pressed for words absolutely precluding the view 
 of extremists, that Papal Infallibility meant a direct revela- 
 tion to the Pope, or endowed him with such absolute power 
 as to warrant his dispensing with intercourse with the Church 
 in its exercise. A historical introduction to the definition 
 was accordingly written by the learned theologians, Fathers 
 Franzelin and Kleutgen. 
 
 It was to show ' in what manner the Roman Pontiffs 
 had ever been accustomed to exercise the magistei'iuui of 
 faith in the Church,' and to prevent the fear lest ' the Roman 
 Pontiff could proceed {trocedere possit) in judging of matters 
 of faith without counsel, deliberation, and the use of scientific 
 means.' This introduction formed the basis of what was 
 ultimately passed at the public session of the Fathers on 
 July 1 8, although the text of Franzelin and Kleutgen was 
 not entirely approved. 
 
 The same point was emphasised again in one of the 
 annotations to the first draft of the new formula, proposed on
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL (1869-1870) 307 
 
 June 8, which formed the basis of further modifications. ' It 
 seemed useful,' we read in this annotation, ' to insert in the 
 Chapter some things adapted to the right understanding of 
 the dogma, namely, that the Supreme Pontiff does not per- 
 form his duty as teacher without intercourse and union {sine 
 conimercio et unione) with the Church.' ^ 
 
 In the historical introduction, as finally published, the 
 safeguard urged as necessary in this connection was thus 
 expressed : ' The Roman Pontiffs, as the state of things and 
 times has made advisable, at one time calling Ecumenical 
 Councils or finding out the opinion of the Church dispersed 
 through the world, at another by means of particular Synods, 
 at another using other means of assistance which Divine 
 Providence supplied, have defined those things to be held 
 which by God's aid they had known to be in agreement with 
 sacred Scripture and the Apostolic traditions, for the Holy 
 Ghost was promised to the successors of Peter, not that by 
 His revelation they should disclose new doctrines, but that 
 by His assistentia they might preserve inviolate, and expound 
 faithfully, the revelation or deposit of faith handed down by 
 the Apostles.' 
 
 The exaggerations of M. Veuillot w^ere thus definitely 
 rejected by the Fathers. But Newman did not at first know 
 this, and, having latterly despaired of a moderate definition, 
 he had fixed his hopes on the dogma not being defined at 
 all. A definition corresponding to the views set forth in 
 M. Veuillot's writings, or Cardinal Antonelli's reported 
 explanations, was unthinkable as an obligatory dogmatic 
 formula. He would not, he said, believe that the definition 
 would be made until it was un fait accompli. When the news 
 first reached him that it had been passed, with no particulars 
 as to its scope, the blow was, as those who knew him best have 
 told the present writer, a stunning one. But when he saw its 
 actual text Newman's fears were allayed. ' I saw the new 
 definition yesterday,' he wrote to a friend, * and am pleased at 
 its moderation, — that is, if the doctrine in question is to be 
 defined at all.' 
 
 So far, indeed, as doctrine was concerned, as he said to 
 many correspondents, no more was defined than he himself 
 ' See W, G. Ward and the Catholic Revival, pp. 435-36. 
 
 .\ 2
 
 3o8 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 had always held. The old Ultramontanism of which Arch- 
 bishop Sibour and Montalembcrt had been staunch defenders 
 became a doctrine of faith. The Ultramontanism of the 
 Univers received no countenance in the text of the definition. 
 Nevertheless, as careful readers of the * Letter to the 
 Duke of Norfolk ' already know, Newman did not regard the 
 truth of the doctrine defined as being by any means the sole 
 question at issue. The tendency towards excessive centralisa- 
 tion which he deplored was not a matter of doctrine, but of 
 policy. And his letters show that he had great anxiety lest 
 the passing of the definition should actually increase this 
 tendency. Moreover, his indignation against some of the 
 leading promoters of the decree was in no way abated. In 
 the very month in which the definition was passed — on 
 July 27 — he wrote thus to Sister Maria Pia : 
 
 ' Our good God is trying all of us with disappointment 
 and sorrow just now ; I allude to what has taken place at 
 Rome — who of us would not have rejoiced if the Fathers of 
 the Council had one and all felt it their duty to assent to the 
 Infallibility of the Holy Father — } but a gloom falls upon 
 one, when it is decreed with so very large a number of 
 dissentient voices. It looks as if our Great Lord were in 
 some way displeased at us. Indeed the look of public 
 matters generally is very threatening, and we need the 
 prayers of all holy souls and all good nuns to avert the evils 
 which seem coming upon the earth.' 
 
 Though accepting the definition at once himself, he did 
 not at first feel justified in speaking of it publicly as de 
 fide until the Council should be terminated. He wrote to 
 Mrs. Froude as follows on August 8 ; 
 
 ' It is too soon to give an opinion about the definition. 
 I want to know what the Bishops of the minority say on the 
 subject, and what they mean to do. As I have ever believed 
 as much as the definition says, I have a difficulty in putting 
 myself into the position of mind of those who have not. As 
 far as I see, no one is bound to believe it at this moment, 
 certainly not till the end of the Council. This I hold in 
 spite of Dr. Manning. At the same time, since the Pope has 
 pronounced the definition, I think it safer to accept it at 
 once. I very much doubt if at this moment — before the end 
 of the Council, I could get myself publicly to say it was de
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL (1869-1870) 309 
 
 fide^ whatever came of it — though I believe the doctrine 
 itself. 
 
 ' I think it is not usual, to promulgate a dogma till the 
 end of a Council, as far as I know — and next, this has been 
 carried under such very special circumstances. I look for 
 the Council to right itself in some way before it ends. It 
 looks like a house divided against itself, which is a great 
 scandal. 
 
 ' And now you have my whole mind. I rule my own 
 conduct by what is safer, which in matters of faith is a true 
 principle of theology, — but (as at present advised, in my 
 present state of knowledge or ignorance, till there are further 
 acts of the Church) I cannot pronounce categorically that the 
 doctrine is de fide. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.^ 
 
 ' P.S. — You need not believe anything more personal or 
 inherent in the Pope than you say. 
 
 'P.S. — [on another sheet] My postscript to the first 
 sheet is hardly intelligible. 
 
 ' The Pope is infallible in actu, not in habitu — in his 
 particular pronouncements ex Cathedra, not in his state of 
 illumination, as an Apostle might be, which would be 
 inspiration. T am told some wicked men, not content with 
 their hitherto cruel conduct, are trying to bring in this 
 doctrine of inherent infallibility, of which there is not a hint 
 in the definition. Perhaps they would like to go on to call 
 him a Vice-God, as some one actually did, or sole God to us. 
 Unless my informant was mad, I heard lately of some one 
 (English or Irish) who said that now we ought not to pray to 
 God at all, but only to the Blessed Virgin — God preserve 
 us, if we have such madmen among us, with their lighted 
 brands.' 
 
 The evil consequences which he feared from the definition 
 were two. It is true that the dogma professed to declare 
 that theoretically the Papacy had received no addition of 
 power. The infallibility ascribed to Pius IX. in his ex cathedra 
 utterances had belonged also to St. Peter and St. Gregory 
 the Great. Yet the act of the Council would be likely, he 
 feared in the first place, to lead in practice to increased cen- 
 tralisation, — to the predominance of the new Ultramontanism 
 
 ' Substantially the same view is expressed in the letter cited in tlie Letter to 
 the- Duke of Norfolk (see Difficulties of Aitglicatts, vol. ii. p. 303).
 
 3IO LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 of M. Louis Veuillot and W. G. Ward. In the second place, 
 he felt that in this case, as with the decree on Inspiration, 
 the difficulties which had to be met had not been adequately 
 anticipated, owing partly to the rapidity and secrecy of 
 the proceedings of the Council, and that the argumentative 
 position of Catholic apologists would be in consequence for 
 the time greatly embarrassed. 
 
 That evil results should follow on valid and true defini- 
 tions, however, was no novelty in Church history. Confusion 
 had followed former Councils, and might well follow the 
 Vatican Council. 
 
 Newman's view as to the danger of increased centralisa- 
 tion is shown in the following letter to Mr. O'Neill Daunt, 
 who had written for further advice respecting the friend 
 already referred to whose faith in the Church had been 
 shaken : 
 
 ' The Oratory: August 7th, 1870. 
 
 ' My dear Mr. Daunt, — I agree with you that the wording 
 of the Dogma has nothing very difficult in it. It expresses 
 what, as an opinion, I have ever held myself with a host of 
 other Catholics. But that does not reconcile me to imposing 
 it upon others, and I do not see why a man who denied it 
 might not be as good a Catholic as the man who held it.^ 
 And it is a new and most serious precedent in the Church 
 that a dogma de fide should be passed zi'ithoiit dcfitiite and 
 urgent cause. This to my mind is the serious part of the 
 matter. You put an enormous power into the hands of one 
 man, without check, and at the very time, by your act, you 
 declare that he may use it without special occasion. 
 
 ' However, God will provide. We must recollect, there 
 has seldom been a Council without great confusion after it, — 
 so it was even with the first, — so it was with third, fourth, 
 and fifth, — and [the] sixth which condemned Pope Honorius. 
 The difference between those instances and this being, that 
 now we have brought it on ourselves without visible 
 necessity. 
 
 ' The great difficulty in the painful case you write about 
 is, that when the imagination gets excited on a point, it is 
 next to impossible by any show of arguments, however 
 sound, to meet the evil. I think it may safely be said to 
 your friend, that the greater part of the Church has long 
 
 ' This opinion he changed after it became clear that the minority would lake 
 no concerted action. — See Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, p. 305.
 
 THE VATICAN COUNCIL (1869-1870) 311 
 
 thought that the Pope has the power which he and the 
 Bishops of the majority have declared is his ; and that, if the 
 Church is the work and ordinance of God, we must have 
 a Httle faith in Him and be assured that He will provide 
 that there is no abuse of the Pope's power. Your friend 
 must not assume^ before the event, that his power will be 
 abused. Perhaps you ought not to urge her too strongly, — 
 if left to herself, your reasons may tell on her after a while 
 though they seem to fail at the moment. 
 
 ' Most sincerely yours, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 The second evil consequence which Newman feared from 
 the definition is referred to in a letter written two years later 
 to Dr. Northcote, Dr. Northcote had reopened the discussion 
 of the possibility of a Catholic College at Oxford. Newman 
 now questioned its practicability. The Vatican Council had 
 by its decrees on Scripture and on Papal Infallibility raised, 
 he held, a new platform of dogma which could not be 
 defended until theologians had worked out a coherent view 
 on their relations with contemporary controversy. Previously 
 to the Council, though he had wished rather for an Oratory 
 than for a College as the centre of Catholic influence on the 
 University, he had desired some centre of influence. Now 
 he considered its desirableness for the time very doubtful. 
 
 ' Though I could not advocate,' he wrote on April 7, 1872, 
 ' hitherto I should have been quite able to acquiesce in any 
 plan for a Catholic College at Oxford, and that, on the 
 reasons you so lucidly and powerfully draw out. I should 
 have been able till lately^ but I confess I am in great doubt 
 just now. 
 
 ' And for this reason : — the antagonism between the 
 Catholic Church and Oxford has become far more direct 
 and intense during the last two years. From all I read and 
 hear it seems to me that the Anglican Church and the 
 University are almost or quite in a whirlpool of unbelief, even 
 if they be as yet at some distance from the gulf and its abyss. 
 On the other hand there are the decrees of the Vatican 
 Council. 
 
 * The two main instruments of infidelity just now are 
 physical science and history ; phj'sical science is used against 
 Scripture, and history against dogma ; the Vatican Council 
 by its decrees about the inspiration of Scripture and the
 
 312 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Infallibility of the Pope has simply thrown down the gauntlet 
 to the science and the historical research of the day. 
 
 ' You will understand what I mean without my giving 
 instances. The instance which has last come before me is 
 Professor Owen's attack on the Bishop of Ely in the February 
 Number of Fraser. 
 
 * In former times it was by the collision of Catholic intellect 
 with Catholic intellect that the meaning and the limit of 
 dogmatic decrees were determined ; but there has been no 
 intellectual scrutiny, no controversies as yet over the Vatican 
 definitions, and their sense will have to be wrought out not in 
 friendly controversy, but in a mortal fight at Oxford, in the 
 presence of Catholics and Protestants, between Protestant 
 Professors and Tutors and a Catholic College. I do not see 
 how this conflict is to be avoided if we go to Oxford. Ought 
 we to go before we are armed ? Till two years ago, Trent 
 was the last Council — and our theologians during a long 300 
 years had prepared us for the fight— now we are new born 
 children, the birth of the Vatican Council, and we are going 
 to war without strength and without arms. We do not know 
 what exactly we hold — what we may grant, what we must 
 maintain. A man who historically defends the Pope's infalli- 
 bility must almost originate a polemic — can he do so, as being 
 an individual, without many mistakes ? but he makes them 
 on the stage of a great theatre.' ^ 
 
 ' Two more letters on this subject will be found in the Appendix at p. 554.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 
 
 The close sequence of the public events which absorbed 
 Newman up to the end of the Vatican Council has hitherto 
 left little opportunity to the biographer for depicting what 
 may be called the background of his life. If external 
 circumstances were ever changing and were full of trial for 
 him, the home life which, since he returned from Dublin, he 
 had led at the Oratory was ever the same and very peaceful. 
 He loved its monotony, and echoed the words of the ' Imita- 
 tion,' ' cella continuata dulcescit.' ' Nothing is more weari- 
 some than change,' he wrote to Miss Holmes. And to 
 another correspondent, who suggested some wider sphere of 
 action for him, he wrote in 1864: 
 
 ' I assure you it would be a strong arm, stronger than any 
 which I can fancy, that would be able to pull me out of my 
 " nest," to use the Oratorian word, — and I am too old for it 
 now — I could not be picked out of it without being broken 
 to pieces in the process.' 
 
 In the short lull amid his active work which intervened 
 between the abandonment of the Oxford scheme and the 
 Vatican Council controversy he wrote to a friend ' in a letter 
 dated June 12, 1869 : 
 
 ' I have nothing to write about in our happy state of calm, 
 luxurious vegetation. The only drawback is that we are 
 made for work, and, therefore, one has something of a bad 
 conscience in standing all the day idle. Excepting this 
 " amari aliquid," I am well content to be as I am.' 
 
 Yet with his sensitive temperament the peaceful habits of 
 his Oratorian home gave him in reality the only surroundings 
 which made his best work possible. 
 
 ' Mrs. Sconce.
 
 314 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 At the Oratory, then, surrounded by devoted followers 
 whose sympathy tempered for him the cold blasts of the 
 world's criticism, he lived almost unintermittently, hardly ever 
 paying visits even to intimate friends. Here, even amid the 
 troubles that have been narrated in this work, he carried on 
 that vast correspondence with friends and strangers who con- 
 sulted him which formed half of his life-work. A consider- 
 able selection from this correspondence is given in this 
 book.^ It is to be hoped that it will eventually be published 
 in its entirety. But something must here be said as to the 
 characteristics which his letters exercised and revealed. And 
 something must be told of his daily life and habits. 
 
 To letters as an element in biography he himself attached 
 great value. Writing to Father Coleridge in 1866 of the 
 proposed biography of Keble, he says : 
 
 ' My own notion of writing a life is the notion of Hurrell 
 Froude, — viz. to do it by letters, and to bring in as little 
 letterpress of one's own as possible. Froude has so done 
 his " Becket." It is far more real, and therefore interesting, 
 than any other way. Stanley has so done in his "Arnold." ' 
 
 With Newman the writing of letters was a very important 
 part of his daily life. It was the chief means of communication 
 with others for one whose affections were singularly keen and 
 clinging. It was a vehicle for expressing the thoughts of 
 his full mind, without the great anxiety attaching to words 
 that were printed, and, therefore, in some sense irrevocable. 
 And it was the means of exerting personal influence on the 
 large numbers who sought his advice and judgment in diffi- 
 culties or troubles. He devoted immense labour to his letters. 
 When the subject of writing was at all difficult he would 
 make a rough draft and keep it, sending to his correspon- 
 dent a letter based on this first draft, but generally including 
 some changes in order to bring out his meaning more clearly. 
 He kept the letters he received and endorsed them with any 
 specially important passage in his own reply. He devoted 
 many hours in the day to writing, and this habit continued as 
 long as he was physically able to write at all. About 1854 
 he began to complain that the old readiness in all writing, 
 
 ' A good many letters which are unconnected with this narrative of his active 
 life are given in the Appendices.
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 315 
 
 including letters, was going. He now found it harder to 
 begin. But once fairly at work he wrote as well as in earlier 
 days. ' I am like an old horse,' he said, ' who stumbles at first, 
 but once he gets into his trot he goes as well as ever.' Like 
 other people with a large correspondence, he was sometimes 
 late in replying, but would justify himself ingeniously. 
 
 ' You must be so kind,' he wrote in 1864 to the Rev. A, V. 
 Alleyne, ' as to excuse me for not having yet thanked you for 
 your very kind letter of last month. At the time I was too 
 busy to write any letter, and since then I have been gradually 
 making up my arrears of correspondence. But, as a man 
 who has for some time lived beyond his income is a long 
 while before he can by his retrenchments make up for past 
 extravagance, and, as we all feel how difficult it is in walking 
 to catch up another unless we run or he stops, so am I very 
 much put about in my attempts to make up for my delin- 
 quencies of letter writing in May and June, while I also 
 have still to answer the current letters of each fresh day and 
 week. And moreover, when once I feel that my character 
 for punctuality is gone in this or that quarter, I am naturally 
 led on to think that a more continued silence will not make 
 me worse in the eyes of my correspondent than one of half 
 the length.' 
 
 'fc.' 
 
 He was very particular as to his pens. A bad steel pen, 
 he found, not only made writing troublesome, and the results 
 untidy, but actually confused the mind of the writer and 
 damaged the letters as compositions. 
 
 'I have a pen,' he tells a friend, 'which writes so badly 
 that it re-acts upon my composition and my spelling. How 
 odd this is ! but it is true. I think best when I write. I 
 cannot in the same way think while I speak. Some men are 
 brilliant in conversation, others in public speaking, — others 
 find their minds act best when they have a pen in their 
 hands. But then, if it is a bad pen ? a steel pen ? that is my 
 case just now, and thus I find my brain won't work, — much 
 as I wish it.' 
 
 His past correspondence was of intense interest to him as 
 a solemn record of his life. So, too, were his journals and 
 diaries. When over seventy years of age he transcribed from 
 beginning to end the pencil notes in his diaries, adding the 
 record of earlier events which happened before he kept a
 
 3i6 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 diary, and beginning with his birth. He also devoted much 
 time to arranging his letters and papers — this he began in the 
 sad years preceding the * Apologia,' and resumed after the 
 Vatican Council. 
 
 'As io personal matters,' he wrote to Henry Wilberforce 
 in i860, 'my prospect is curious, as most others must feel 
 who are of my age. According as a man dies at 60, 70, or 
 80, his heirs are different, and his papers come into different 
 hands. It is a strange feeling attends on making abstract 
 arrangements. I have not a notion who it is to be who will 
 read any direction I give, or look over any miscellaneous 
 materials. This makes it very difficult to determine what 
 to keep and what to destroy. Things most interesting and 
 dear to myself may be worthless in the eyes of those to 
 whom my papers fall. Fancy my properties coming into 
 possession of Dr. Ullathorne, whom I mention with all 
 respect, — or of others whom, from want of respect for them, 
 I don't mention ! ' 
 
 The stern censure of all approach to literary display 
 which was universal in the Tractarian party ^ had its effect 
 on the quality of Newman's letters, as we have already seen 
 that it had on his verses. He is always reserved in them, 
 breaking out only occasionally and accidentally, almost in 
 spite of himself, into raciness. The humour, wit, and sarcasm, 
 the rhetorical effectiveness, which the King William Street 
 lectures or those on ' The Present Position of Catholics ' show 
 that he had so abundantly at his command, hardly ever appear 
 in his letters, which are, in this respect, not a vehicle of com- 
 plete self-expression as Carlyle's are. Or, to speak more 
 accurately, they express the character as a whole rather than 
 mirror completely the thoughts and feelings. For when we 
 realise the reserve and habitual deliberation of the writer, 
 which limited their range, we can recognise very much of the 
 man in his letters, and in their very limitations. One quality 
 
 ' It should be noted that he would sometimes, perhaps in consequence of this 
 tradition, depreciate his own writings. But such remarks must not be taken too 
 seriously. In a letter to Miss Bathurst he speaks of publishing ' the trash I 
 have written about the Turks.' He took the 'Second Spring' from W. G. 
 Ward's hands, with the words ' Don't read that rubbish.' Yet when Hope-Scott 
 took a similar disparagement of the University Sermons literally, Newman wrote 
 of the volume, somewhat nettled, ' it will be the best, though not the most perfect, 
 book I have done.' — Letters, ii. 407.
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 317 
 
 which never fails is the habit and power of adapting his 
 mind to that of his correspondent. There are very subtle 
 differences in style and in subject between his letters to 
 different persons. Even when the subject is the same, the 
 way of treating it will differ. It was a saying of his that 
 the same thought in different persons is probably as different 
 as their faces. And, in writing, a great difference in general 
 effect may be due to variations, each of them minute. He 
 himself would express the same thought differently to 
 different correspondents. In this respect his letters are the 
 antithesis to those of Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 His letters to young friends, the children of his Oxford 
 contemporaries, show this characteristic as much as any. 
 I select a few samples belonging to different dates. 
 Here is quite a simple one written in 1855 to Isy Froude, 
 daughter of William Froude, in thanks for the gift of a 
 penwiper : 
 
 '6 Harcourt Street, Dublin, July 9th, 1855. 
 
 ' My dearest Isy, — I am very glad to have your present. 
 A penwiper is always useful. It lies on the table, and one 
 can't help looking at it. I have one in use, made for me by 
 a dear aunt, now dead, whom I knew from a little child, as 
 I was once. When I take it up, I always think of her, 
 and I assure you I shall think of you, when I see yours. 
 I have another at Birmingham given me by Mrs. Phillipps 
 of Torquay, in the shape of a bell. 
 
 ' This day is the anniversary of one of the few times I 
 have seen a dear brother of mine for 22 years. He returned 
 from Persia, I from Sicily, where I nearly died, the same day. 
 I saw him once 1 5 years ago, and now I have not seen him 
 for 9 years. 
 
 ' My dear Isy, when I think of your brother, I will think 
 of you. I heard a report he was to go and fight the Russians. 
 I have another godson, called Edward Bouverie Pusey, who 
 is a sailor, already fighting the Russians either in the Baltic 
 or at Sebastopol. 
 
 ' Ever yours affection atel}-, 
 
 John H. Newman 
 
 of the Oratory. 
 
 ' P.S. You will have a hard matter to read this letter.' 
 
 Here is a more characteristic letter of thanks — written in 
 rhyme in 1863 — to J. W. Bowden's niece, Charlotte Bowden
 
 J 
 
 18 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 (he uses her child's nickname of ' Chat '), who had sent him 
 some cakes baked by herself: 
 
 * Who is it that moulds and makes 
 Round, and crisp, and fragrant cakes ? 
 Makes them with a kind intent, 
 As a welcome compliment, 
 And the best that she can send 
 To a venerable friend ? 
 One it is, for whom I pray. 
 On St. Philip's festal day, 
 With a loving heart, that she 
 Perfect as her cakes may be. 
 Full and faithful in the round 
 Of her duties ever found. 
 When a trial comes, between 
 Truth and falsehood cutting keen ; 
 Yet that keenness and completeness 
 Tempering with a winning sweetness. 
 
 Here's a rhyming letter, Chat, 
 Gift for gift, and tit for tat. 
 
 ' J. H. N. 
 
 * May 26th, 1863.' 
 
 Here is another to Helen Church, the Dean's daughter 
 (afterwards Mrs. Paget), who had given him Lewis Carroll's 
 * Hunting of the Snark': 
 
 ' My dear Helen, — Let me thank you and your sisters 
 without delay for the amusing specimen of imaginative 
 nonsense which came to me from you and them this morning. 
 Also, as your gift, it shows that you have not forgotten me, 
 though a considerable portion of your lives has passed since 
 you saw me. And, thanking you, I send you also my warmest 
 Easter greetings and good wishes. 
 
 * The little book is not all of it nonsense, though amusing 
 nonsense ; it has two pleasant prefixes of another sort. One 
 of them is the " Inscription to a Dear Child," the style of 
 which, in words and manner, is so entirely of the School of 
 Keble, that it could not have been written had the " Christian 
 Year " never made its appearance. 
 
 'The other, "The Easter Greeting to Every Child, etc.," 
 is likely to touch the hearts of old men more than those for 
 whom it is intended. I recollect well my own thoughts as I 
 lay in my crib in the early spring, with outdoor scents, 
 sounds and sights wakening me up, and especially the 
 cheerful ring of the mower's scythe on the lawn, which
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 319 
 
 Milton long before me had noted ; and how in coming down- 
 stairs slowly, for I brought down both feet on each step, I 
 said to myself " This is June ! " Though what my particular 
 experience of June was, and how it was broad enough to be 
 a matter of reflection, I really cannot tell. 
 
 ' Can't you, Mary, and Edith, recollect something of the 
 same kind, though you may not think so much of it as I 
 
 do now ? 
 
 ' May the day come for all of us, of which Easter is the 
 promise, when that first spring may return to us, and a 
 sweetness which cannot die may gladden our garden. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 I may add another quite simple letter to the twin sisters, 
 Helen and Mary Church, dated on his own birthday in 1878, 
 and wishing them joy on theirs : 
 
 ' The Oratory : Feb, 21st, 1878. 
 
 ' My dear Helen and Mary, — How shall I best show 
 kindness to you on your birthday ? 
 
 ' It is by wishing and praying that year by year you may 
 grow more and more in God's favour and in inward peace, — 
 in an equanimity and cheerfulness under all circumstances 
 which is the fruit of faith, and a devotion which finds no duties 
 difficult, for it is inspired by love. 
 
 ' This I do with all my heart, and am, 
 ' My dear children. 
 
 Very affectionately yours, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Much quiet humour is found in letters to intimate friends, 
 and his sense of fun is apparent in many which are not 
 humorous. When Mr. John Pollen lends him a novel which 
 takes his fancy, Newman describes in a letter how he is 
 ashamed to find that he wakes up at night laughing at the 
 remembrance of it. ' I condole with you,' he writes to the 
 same correspondent in i860, 'both on your fortieth birthday 
 and your accident to your face, for I have undergone both of 
 them — the latter when I was at school, running against a 
 wall in the dark, and I remember the shock to this day.' 
 When Ambrose St. John urges him to write some verses on 
 Purgatory, Newman sends him from Dublin the beautiful lines 
 beginning ' Help, Lord, the souls that Thou hast made,' with 
 the following explanation :
 
 320 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 '6 Harcourt Street: Jan. 9th, 1857. 
 ' My dear A., — I am hardly recovered from my seasickness 
 even now. I have generally found this a state favourable to 
 versifying. Philosophers, like yourself, must explain why. 
 Various of the Lyras were written in this state. Accord- 
 ingly, I have written the Purgatory verses which you asked 
 me for. Perhaps you will say they do not do justice to my 
 seasickness. You will see, I have observed your wish of having 
 a repetition verse. 
 
 ' Ever yours affly., 
 
 J. H. N.' 
 
 What Dean Church has called his ' naturalness ' is a 
 marked feature in some of the letters. He chaffs his intimate 
 friends familiarly. He writes to Henry Wilberforce, who in 
 1856 was acquiring the editor's professional manner in his 
 editorial notes to the Catholic Standard: 
 
 ' I candidly say I think your puffs of yourself infra dig., 
 and have felt it a very long while : e.g. " We were the first 
 to state that the Conference is to meet early in March 
 (1856)" — "As we said last week" — "Our important papers 
 from Kamtschatka " — " That great man, our correspondent at 
 Timbuctoo " — " the only Catholic English paper " — as the 
 Morning Chronicle says, the only " exclusive information." ' 
 
 Writing to Ambrose St. John in the same year on his 
 
 birthday, he thus begins his letter : 
 
 'July 3rd, 1856. 
 
 ' My poor old man, — Yes, I congratulate you on being 
 between, what is it, 50 or 60 ? No, only 40 or 50. My best 
 congratulations that life is now so mature. May your shadow 
 never be less, and your pocket never so empty ! But why are 
 you always born on days when my Mass is engaged .-• I 
 shall say Mass for you to-morrow and Monday.' 
 
 Again, in 1864, when Father Ambrose, having sprained 
 his wrist and undergone other troubles, talks of a holiday 
 in Switzerland : 
 
 'I rejoice,' Newman writes, 'to find that you write so 
 well — but don't presume. You won't be content without 
 some new accident. You forget you are an old man. In 
 one year (from your volatility, most unsuitable at your time 
 of life) you have broken your ribs and smashed your wrist. 
 This is the 07ily difficulty I have in your going to Lucerne. 
 You will be clambering a mountain, bursting your lungs.
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 321 
 
 cracking your chest, twisting your ankles, and squashing 
 your face — and your nieces will have to pick you up. If you 
 will not do this, I shall rejoice at your going to Lucerne.' 
 
 When Henry Wilberforce wanted Ambrose St. John to 
 join him in a voyage to Jamaica in 1 871, with a view to 
 benefiting his health, Newman thus conveyed to Wilberforce 
 his friend's reply to the proposal : 
 
 ' Ambrose won't. He is as obstinate as a pig. He says 
 he is quite well. And this is the beginning and the end of 
 it. He says if he goes somewhere, it shall be to Australia — 
 and he says Jamaica means Jericho. He stupefies and over- 
 powers me by his volubility.' 
 
 The Jesuit Fathers at Farm Street asked Newman to 
 preach at their Manchester church on the feast of the 
 Immaculate Conception in 1872, and he thus replied : 
 
 'The Oratory : Oct. 25th, 1872. 
 
 ' St. Philip of Birmingham presents his best respects and 
 homage to Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, and, 
 desirous as he is in all respects to meet the wishes of his 
 dear Mother, he cannot grant her request in this instance. 
 
 ' Because, he should be contravening one of the rules of 
 his own children, if he allowed them or one of them to 
 preach out of their own Church. They are a home people — 
 they do not preach — they only converse or discourse to their 
 own penitents and scholars. 
 
 ' Besides, as to his present Superior at Birmingham, he 
 feels that he could not let him go to Manchester, without 
 letting him go to most places in England and Scotland. He 
 knows that the Father in question has declined a pressing 
 invitation of this kind for this very month, and he would not 
 place him in so ungracious a position as to be refusing 
 friends and benefactors, yet in the same breath to be accept- 
 ing an invitation elsewhere, however kind and flattering it 
 may be to that Father. 
 
 ' St. Philip concludes with saying that he has set it all 
 right with St. Ignatius, whose vocation is altogether different 
 from that of his own sons ; and he is quite sure that the 
 good Jesuit Fathers will not think that any want of courtesy 
 is shown to Our Lady, St. Ignatius, or the said Fathers, by 
 the said Superior's declining the compliment paid him, for 
 St. Philip takes the responsibility of it on himself. 
 ' To the glorious and blessed Mary 
 
 from St. Philip Neri, Apostle of Rome.' 
 VOL. II. y
 
 322 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 A similar touch of humanity is often visible in Newman's 
 controversial correspondence. In the course of a protracted 
 argument with Canon Jenkins on the Roman claims, his 
 opponent sends a photograph which Newman thus gratefully 
 acknowledges : 
 
 'The Oratory: March 27, 1877. 
 
 ' My dear Canon Jenkins, — I ought before now to have 
 thanked you for your photograph — which as a work of art is 
 very good, though I did not observe, till your letter pointed 
 out, the fault in the eyes. But I agree with you that photo- 
 graphists visit their unhappy sitters with too fierce a light 
 which makes them frown, or shut their eyes or otherwise 
 distort their features. But your own face shows nothing but 
 patience, or serenity, under the infliction. It is young too 
 for the age you tell me. 
 
 ' I am quite ready to take your quartett or quintett. Do 
 you really think Celestine, Nestorius, Cyril, and John of 
 Antioch would have been a possible court of final appeal .■* 
 No more than the Kilkenny cats. 
 
 ' Yours most truly, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 And again to the same correspondent : 
 
 ' Your letter is an important one, and requires careful 
 reading. If I don't say at once I assent to all it says, it is 
 but because I am losing my memory and forget to-morrow 
 what I have read to-day. Thus facts become like billiard 
 balls, which run away from you when you wish to get hold of 
 them.' 
 
 Writing to the late Canon MacColl he declines a suggested 
 controversy thus : 
 
 ' Mr. A. B. is one of the most impertinent men that I ever 
 came across. Though very different, I think he is another 
 Golightly. ... To answer Mr. A. B. seriously is like fighting 
 with a blue bottle fly.' 
 
 Some of his notes already cited recall the fact that the 
 minds of the lower animals deeply interested him. He would 
 observe their doings with great curiosity. We have already 
 seen his interest in the emotions of Father Ambrose's 
 favourite cow. In 1852 Hope-Scott gave him a pony named 
 Charlie, which for many years Newman watched with grave 
 interest, and its well-being and performances are referred to
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 323 
 
 frequently in letters to those who were interested in the 
 animal. Charlie's death is thus chronicled in a letter to its 
 giver on December 6, 1866 : 
 
 'Charlie, the virtuous pony, which you gave us 14 years 
 ago, has at length departed this life. He continued his 
 active and useful habits up to last summer — benemeritus, 
 but not emeritus. 
 
 'Then he fell hopelessly stiff, lame, and miserable. His 
 mind was clear to the last — and, without losing his affection 
 for human kind, he commenced a lively, though, alas, not 
 lasting friendship with an impudent colt of a donkey — who 
 insulted him in his stiffness, and teased and tormented him 
 from one end of the field to the other. We cannot guess 
 his age, he was old when he came to us. He lies under two 
 sycamore trees, which will be, by their growth and beauty, 
 the living monument, or even transformation of a faithful 
 servant, while his spirit is in the limbo of quadrupeds. Rest 
 to his manes ! I suppose I may use the pagan word of a 
 horse.' 
 
 Newman was interested in the garden at Rednal. In 
 1 87 1 his cousin Mrs. Deane offered to send him a mulberry 
 and a filbert, which received his close attention. 
 
 ' I thank you for your care about my mulberry,' he wrote. 
 ' I am not at all impatient about it, so that I know it is 
 coming. Keep it another year, if you think better. I have 
 been trying to gain from books some hints about the treat- 
 ment of mulberry trees. Tell me anything you know about 
 it. Your travels, I fear, never lie in this direction — else, I 
 should like you to choose a place for it. Our cottage is at 
 Rednal, 7 or 8 miles from Birmingham — and our station is 
 Barnt Green, or Northfield, or Bromsgrove, on the Midland 
 line. 
 
 ' Alas, our aspect is east — we have a great deal of hot 
 summer sun in the morning and noon — and a great deal of 
 keen north-east wind in winter and spring. We have a sort 
 of wilderness, full of trees, which would protect the stranger, 
 and we could make a circle round it of grass — the soil is a 
 mass of decayed fir leaves with rock under. Does it require 
 depth ? 
 
 ' Thank you too for the filbert. But give them a real 
 good nursery time in your climate, before they are trans- 
 planted into this.' 
 
 Alas ! the mulberry, loved by the gods, died young. 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' How the years run,' he writes on his birthday in 1873. 
 ' I cannot believe a whole twelvemonth has passed since I 
 planted the poor little mulberry. We watched it with great 
 anxiety, but it would not rally.' 
 
 I have purposely placed first among my specimens of 
 Newman's characteristic letter-writing those which illustrate 
 the lighter and brighter side of his nature. Their comparative 
 rarity is as significant as the qualities they show. Life was 
 to him a most vivid reality in its every aspect, and he realised 
 its humorous side and the interest of small events. But what 
 was trivial, however keenly it was appreciated, never occupied 
 in his mind a place beyond its true proportion. Above all, 
 his attention was constantly fixed on the duties of the day, for 
 himself and for those who sought his advice. The great bulk 
 of his letters deal with serious problems or the events of life, 
 whether of public and general interest, or relating to indivi- 
 duals who consulted him. Quite simple letters in the great 
 crises of life and death seldom fail to have a beauty of their 
 own, and to show the delicacy of his sympathy. 
 
 Here is one to a domestic servant who had lost her 
 sister : 
 
 The Oratory : Jan. 9th, 1877. 
 
 ' My dear Child, — Though my intention was engaged on 
 the 26th and I could not say Mass as you wished, I have not 
 foro-otten, and I hope to say Mass for you to-morrow, the loth. 
 There is always a throng of intentions to be kept at this time. 
 To-day is the anniversary of Mrs. Wootten's death, and now 
 we are in great distress about Fr. Caswall. He cannot live, 
 tho' the time of his death is uncertain. Say a prayer for him. 
 
 ' I am sorry that you should still be so far from well, but 
 God will bless and keep you in His own good way. We never 
 can trust Him too much. All things turn to good to them 
 who trust Him. I too know what it is to lose a sister, t 
 lost her 49 years ago, and, though so many years have past, 
 I still feel the pain. 
 
 ' God bless and keep you this New Year. 
 
 ' Yours most truly in Christ, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 When the venerable Mother Margaret Mary Hallahan — 
 Provincial of the Dominican sisters — died in 1868, he wrote 
 thus to one of her spiritual children. Sister Mary Gabriel :
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 325 
 
 ' My dear Child, — What can I say to console you better 
 than what you must be saying to yourself, that your long 
 sorrow is over, and that now, after her intense sufferings, your 
 dear Mother is at rest, or rather in Heaven ? 
 
 ' If ever there were persons who had cause to rejoice and 
 whose joy is but intermeddled with, not increased by the 
 words of a third person, you are they. 
 
 ' What can you all desire more than that your Com- 
 munities should receive so special a consecration as is granted 
 to you in the agony and triumph of such a Mother ? 
 
 * It is a thought to raise and encourage you while you 
 live, and is the augury of many holy and happy deaths. 
 
 ' Pray for an old man and believe me 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately in Xt., 
 
 John H. Newman 
 
 of the Oratory.' 
 
 To another of the Dominican Sisters at Stone, of whose 
 life the doctors despaired, he wrote in 1876 : 
 
 * My dear Child, — I have not forgotten your needs, and 
 was saying Mass for you on the Anniversary of the day our 
 dear Lord took your Mother Margaret. 
 
 ' I do not know how to be sorry, for you are going to what 
 is far better than anything here below, better far even than 
 the peaceful company of a holy sisterhood. 
 
 'God's Angel will be with you every step you take — and 
 I will try to help you with my best remembrances and sacred 
 wishes as you descend into the valley — but you are to be 
 envied not lamented over, because you are going to your own 
 Lord and God, your Light, your Treasure, and your Life. 
 Only pray for me in your place of peace and rest, for I at 
 most can be but a little time behind you. 
 
 ' Yet a little and a very little while, and He that is to come 
 will come, and will not tarry. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately in Xt., 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 To this letter of sympathy at the close of life, let us add 
 one sentence of sympathy, in life's dawn, with all its bright 
 possibilities. When the daughter of an old Oxford friend ' 
 was born on the Festival of the Transfiguration in i860, he 
 wrote to her father : 
 
 ' I earnestly pray that the festival on which she was born 
 may overshadow her all through her life, and that she may 
 
 ' W. G. Ward.
 
 326 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 find it "good to be here" till that time of blessed transfigura- 
 tion when she will find from experience that it is better to be 
 in heaven.' 
 
 Here is another letter addressed to one who after some 
 trial and heart-searching had resolved to enter the religious 
 life: 
 
 To Miss Bathurst. 
 
 'Edgbaston: Nov. 8th, 1853. 
 
 • We must be very grateful for so good a beginning — it 
 comes of His Infinite Mercy who loves you as entirely and 
 wholly as if there were no other souls on earth to love or 
 take care of. You are choosing Him for your portion and 
 your All — and He is your All, and nothing will or can harm 
 you, though your enemy may try to frighten you. And then 
 the Angels will smile at each other and upon you at your 
 fears and troubles, and will say, " This poor little soul is in a 
 great taking, as if God were leaving her — but He is All- 
 faithful, and has loved her everlastingly, and will preserve 
 her to the end." ' 
 
 ' You always understand everything,' his sister had said 
 to him as a boy when he made her dry her tears ; and his in- 
 numerable letters of comfort to those who poured out their 
 troubles to him never strike a false note. Writing to nuns he 
 might urge considerations which only their constant medita- 
 tion on the unseen world enabled them so to realise as to find 
 comfort in them. An instance of this is the letter to Sister 
 Mary Gabriel quoted above. For those less strong in faith he 
 would choose other thoughts. But to all his friends he made 
 trouble more bearable by showing how truly he understood 
 it, and in some cases how he himself shared it. He never 
 suggested for comfort a thought which owing to the character 
 or circumstances of his friend might fail of effect. Let a few 
 of these letters be set down — taken almost at random. 
 
 To Miss Holmes. 
 
 'July 31, 'SO. 
 ' As time goes on, you will know yourself better and better. 
 Time does that for us, not only by the increase of experience, 
 but by the withdrawal of those natural assistances to devotion 
 and self-surrender which youth furnishes. When the spirits 
 are high and the mind fervent, though we may have wayward- 
 ness and perverseness which we have not afterwards, yet we
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 327 
 
 have something to battle against them. But when men get 
 old, as I do, then they see how little grace is in them, and how 
 much that seemed grace was but nature. Then the soul is left 
 to the lassitude, torpor, dejection, and coldness which is its real 
 state, with no natural impulses, affections or imaginations to 
 rouse it, and things which in youth seemed easy then become 
 difficult. Then it finds how little self-command it has, and 
 how little it can throw off the tempter, when he comes behind 
 and places it in a certain direction or position, or throws it 
 down, or places his foot upon it. Then it understands at 
 length its own nothingness ; not that it has less grace than it 
 had, but it has nothing but grace to aid it. It is the sign of 
 a Saint to groiu ; common minds, even though they are in the 
 grace of God, dwindle, (i.e. seem to do so) as time goes on. 
 The energy of grace alone can make a soul strong in age. 
 
 * Do not then be cast down, if you, though not yet very 
 aged, feel less fervent than you did ten years ago — only let it 
 be a call on you to seek grace to supply nature, as well as to 
 overcome it. Put yourself more fully and utterly into Mary's 
 hands, and she will nurse you, and bring you forward. She 
 will watch over you as a mother over a sick child.' 
 
 To Miss Munro. 
 
 'Aug. 24th, 1 87 1. 
 
 ' It quite grieved me not to have seen you again after 
 Friday. I wish you had been so charitable as to have sent 
 for me on Saturday or Sunday. 
 
 * I wish you would not be a self tormentor. But who can 
 make you forget yourself, your short-comings and your 
 anxieties, and fix your thoughts on Him Who is All-true, 
 All-beautiful, and All-merciful, but He Himself? I cannot 
 do more than pray for it, and, with God's grace, I will say 
 Mass for you once a week for some time. 
 
 ' You must look off from this world, from the world in the 
 Church, from what is so imperfect, and the earthen vessels in 
 which grace is stored, to the Fount of Grace Himself, and beg 
 Him to fill you with His own Presence. But I can do no 
 more than say Mass for you, and that I will.' 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 ' The Oratory : October 21, 1873. 
 
 ' It is very kind in you to write to me. I always hear 
 about you with the greatest interest and anxiety, I know with 
 what a true heart you desire to serve God — and that what you 
 call your restlessness is only the consequence of that religious 
 desire.
 
 328 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' Be sure that many others besides you feel that sadness, 
 that years pass away and no opening comes to them for 
 serving God. Be sure that I can sympathise with you, 
 for now for many years I have made attempts to break 
 through the obstacles which have been in my way, but 
 all in vain. 
 
 ' One must submit oneself to God's loving will — and be 
 quieted by faith that what He wills for us is best. He has no 
 need of us — He only asks for our good desires.' 
 
 Though constant in sympathy he could rebuke when it 
 was necessary. * It would be the best of penances for you,' he 
 writes to one friend, ' to bind yourself to one place and to one 
 object. But sick people always dislike that remedy which is 
 best suited to their case. So at least my doctor tells me.' 
 And he could administer a gentle snub — as in this comment 
 on two essays by intimate lady friends who with some com- 
 placency sought his opinion on their work — 'ladies always 
 write with ease and grace— and such are the characteristics 
 of your and A. B.'s papers.' 
 
 His advice was by no means always spiritual advice. 
 Here is a letter to Miss Holmes on a projected literary 
 enterprise : 
 
 * As to writing about what one knows and what one does 
 not, e.g. I have written in " Loss and Gain " of persons and 
 things that I knew — but, if I were to attempt a fashionable 
 novel, I should make a fool of myself, because I do not know 
 men of fashion, and should have to draw on imagination or 
 on books. As to yourself I would not trust you, if you 
 attempted to describe a Common Room, or a Seminary, or 
 the Chinese court at Pekin ; but I think you capital in the 
 sketch of persons and things which from time to time you 
 have written to me, according to the place you have been in. 
 It is not to the purpose whether they are correct or not, or 
 representations of fact, (about which I can know nothing) 
 but they are clear, consistent, and persuasive, as pictures. . , . 
 And in your experience of fact, I include, not only what you 
 have seen yourself, but what you have on good authority 
 (as that of your Father) or what you read in books, if you 
 take the books as facts, not as informants — thus the language 
 of a book of a certain date is a fact, and you rely, not 
 on its evidence or testimony, but on what is before your 
 eyes. I heartily wish you would set about a series ot 
 stories,'
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 329 
 
 To both Miss Munro and Miss Holmes he wrote constantly 
 — to Miss Holmes for thirty years. She was taken seriously 
 ill in 1877 and ordered sea air. 
 
 ' I am shocked at the account you give of yourself,' 
 Newman wrote on October 24. ' This morning, St. Raphael's 
 day, I said Mass for you, begging the Archangel to convey 
 you to Bournemouth, whither you should go at once. ... I 
 won't forget you.' 
 
 Miss Holmes rallied for a time, but passed away some 
 months later. 
 
 Newman was specially careful to suit his words to the 
 mind or mood of a correspondent, in his letters to those 
 whose belief in Christianity or even Theism was in danger 
 or actually dying. In pla' e of such blows of a controversial 
 sledge-hammer as are driven home by Mr. Gladstone in his 
 letters, we find considerations suggested most tentatively, as 
 though he feared lest staking too much on an argument which 
 might not prove convincing might make things worse instead 
 of better. The subtle psychological forces at work in the 
 human mind were never forgotten. Even the best logic, he 
 saw, would not do its work when the mental and moral 
 instrument for using it was out of order. In one instance he 
 strongly advised friends who were anxious to bring back the 
 faith of one who appeared to have lost it, to refrain from all 
 argument and leave the subject alone. He divined that a 
 dispute was just what would arouse the person in question 
 to bring together all plausible attacks on the evidence for 
 religious belief; whereas the silent experience of the world 
 and of life would tend in the other direction, and bring home 
 to the doubter the dreary void of any Weltanschauung which 
 did not take account of religion. 
 
 The following letter is a fair specimen of letters addressed 
 to persons in doubt. It may strike those who are more con- 
 fident controversialists and less true psychologists than he, as 
 appearing to show comparatively little confidence in the con- 
 vincing force of the recognised arguments for religious belief: 
 
 'The Oratory: June 25th, 1S69. 
 
 * I have delayed writing to you, both as feeling the risk 
 of disappointing and disturbing instead of aiding you by 
 what I might say — and also because I found you had been so
 
 330 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 good as to take up my suggestion as regards my Oxford 
 Sermons. I thought they might for a while speak to you 
 instead of a letter. I can never prophesy what will be 
 useful to a given individual and what not. As to my 
 Sermons, I was astonished and (as you may suppose) deeply 
 gratified by a stranger, an Anglican Clergyman, writing to 
 me a year or two ago to say that reading them had con- 
 verted him from freethinking opinions, which he had taken 
 up from German authors, or from living in Germany. I do 
 not see how they could do so — but he said they did — and it 
 was that, I think, which made me fancy it was worth while 
 to recommend them to you. 
 
 ' You must begin all thought about religion by mastering 
 what is the fact, that anyhow the question has an inherent, 
 ineradicable difficulty in it. As in tuning a piano, you may 
 throw the fault here or there, but no theory can anyone take 
 up without that difficulty remaining. It will come up in 
 one shape or other. If we say, " Well, I will not believe 
 any thing," there is a difficulty in believing nothing, an 
 intellectual difficulty. There is a difficulty in doubting ; a 
 difficulty in determining there is no truth ; in saying that 
 there is a truth, but that no one can find it out ; in saying 
 that all religious opinions are true, or one as good as another ; 
 a difficulty in saying there is no God ; that there is a God 
 but that He has not revealed Himself except in the way 
 of nature ; and there is doubtless a difficulty in Christianity. 
 The question is, whether on the whole our reason does not tell 
 us that it is a duty to accept the arguments commonly urged 
 for its truth as sufficient, and a duty in consequence to believe 
 heartily in Scripture and the Church. 
 
 ' Another thought which I wish to put before you is, 
 whether our nature does not tell us that there is something 
 which has more intimate relations with the question of religion 
 than intellectual exercises have, and that is our conscience. 
 We have the idea of duty — duty suggests something or some- 
 one to which it is to be referred, to which we are responsible. 
 That something that has dues upon us is to us God. I will 
 not assume it is a personal God, or that it is more than a law 
 (though of course I hold that it is the Living Seeing God), 
 but still the idea of duty, and the terrible anguish of con- 
 science, and the irrepressible distress and confusion of face 
 which the transgression of what we believe to be our duty, 
 causes us, all this is an intimation, a clear evidence, that there 
 is something nearer to religion than intellect ; and that, if 
 there is a way of finding religious truth, it lies, not in exercises
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 331 
 
 of the intellect, but close on the side of duty, of conscience, in 
 the observance of the moral law. Now all this may seem 
 a truism, and many an intellectualist will say that he grants 
 it freely. But 1 think, that, when dwelt upon, it leads to 
 conclusions which would both surprise and annoy him. 
 
 ' Now I think it best to stop here for the present. You 
 must not suppose that I am denying the intellect its real place 
 in the discovery of truth, — but it must ever be borne in mind 
 that its exercise mainly consists in reasoning, — that is, in 
 comparing things, classifying them, and inferring. It ever 
 needs points to start from, first principles, and these it does 
 not provide — but it can no more move one step without these 
 starting points, than a stick, which supports a man, can move 
 without the man's action. In physical matters, it is the senses 
 which give us the first start — and what the senses give is 
 physical fact — and physical facts do not lie on the surface 
 of things, but are gained with pains and by genius, through 
 experiment. Thus Newton, or Davy, or Franklin ascertained 
 those physical facts which have made their names famous. 
 After these primary facts are gained, intellect can act ; it acts 
 too of course in gaining them ; but they must be gained ; it is 
 the senses which enable the intellect to act, by giving it some- 
 thing to act upon. In like manner we have to ascertain the 
 starting points for arriving at religious truth. The intellect 
 will be useful in gaining them and after gaining them — but to 
 attempt to see them by means of the intellect is like attempt- 
 ing by the intellect to see the physical facts which are the 
 basis of physical exercises of the intellect, a method of pro- 
 ceeding which was the very mistake of the Aristotelians of the 
 middle age, who, instead of what Bacon calls " interrogating 
 nature " for facts, reasoned out everything by syllogisms. 
 To gain religious starting points, we must in a parallel way, 
 interrogate our hearts, and, (since it is a personal individual 
 matter,) our own hearts, — interrogate our own consciences, 
 interrogate, I will say, the God who dwells there. 
 
 ' 1 think you must ask the God of conscience to enable 
 you to do your duty in this matter. I think you should, with 
 prayer to Him for help, meditate upon the gospels, and on 
 St. Paul's second epistle to the Corinthians, unless the trans- 
 lation of it disturbs you ; and this with an earnest desire 
 to know the truth and a sincere intention of following it.' 
 
 Close insight into the needs of one class of mind is also 
 shown in the following words, written to the late Canon 
 McColl shortly after the Vatican definition :
 
 332 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' Every consideration and the fullest time should be given 
 to those who have to make up their minds to hold an article 
 of faith which is new to them. To take up at once such an 
 article, may be the act of a vigorous faith, but it may also be 
 the act of a man who will believe anything because he believes 
 nothing, and is ready to profess whatever his ecclesiastical, 
 that is his political, party requires of him. There are too 
 many high ecclesiastics in Italy and England, who think 
 that to believe is as easy as to obey — that is, they talk as if 
 they did not know what an act of faith is. 
 
 ' A German who hesitates may have more of the real 
 spirit of faith than an Italian who swallows. I have never 
 myself had a difficulty about the Pope's Infallibility, but that 
 is no reason why I should forget Luke xvii. i.' 
 
 That very careful psychological observation which made 
 Newman so successful in dealing with mental troubles made 
 him also avoid arguments on religious questions in which he 
 saw that he was not likely to succeed or do good. In 1869 
 R. H. Hutton conveyed to him an invitation from the 
 founders of the Metaphysical Society to join their ranks. 
 Its members were to meet once a month to discuss matters 
 lying at the foundation of religious belief, and all schools of 
 thought were represented, from Huxley and Tyndall to 
 Mr. Gladstone and Dean Church. Its Catholic members in- 
 cluded Cardinal Manning, W. G. Ward, and J. D. Dalgairns. 
 Newman at first declined on the plea of age, but the invi- 
 tation was renewed two years later. He then wrote as 
 follows to Mr. Hutton : 
 
 'The Oratory: March 22, 187 1. 
 
 ' My dear Mr. Hutton, — I assure you I feel, what your 
 letter (without meaning itj reminds me of, that I am doing 
 very little good now, and that it would be a great thing if I 
 did something more, to give me a right to live. 
 
 ' Did I think I could be of use as you suppose and 
 propose, I would keep it in mind — but you don't know me. 
 In some things I have a good memory — but for books, for 
 doctrines, for views and arguments, I have none. Some men 
 have their learning well about them — others have minds full 
 of resource. Cardinal Wiseman was such — he had always 
 something to suggest— he had always facts, apt and striking, 
 upon his memory, whatever the subject. I am not a ready 
 man, and should spoil a good cause. And then, I am so
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 333 
 
 dreadfully shy, that I never show to advantage, and feel it 
 myself acutely all the time. 
 
 ' Pray excuse all this egotism, but my conscience so 
 preaches to me continually that I am doing very little good, 
 that I need to bring before me what the state of the case 
 really is, and to try to gain over others to my own view of it, 
 to make myself easy, when hard pressed. Besides, I am now 
 past seventy — and I never move about, unless I am in some 
 way or other obliged. 
 
 ' On the whole, I feel deeply, that the only consequence 
 which would follow from my complying, would be, for you to 
 feel how much, in your kindness, you had overrated me. 
 
 ' Most truly yours, 
 
 John H. Newman.'^ 
 
 His dislike of anything approaching to intellectual dis- 
 play, his very deep religious feelings, and the fact that he had 
 all his life associated almost exclusively with religious people, 
 possibly made the prospect of encountering in debate free- 
 thinkers and agnostics, for the first time when he was seventy 
 years old, not inviting to him. In an interesting letter written 
 ten years later to an Evangelical correspondent — Mr. G. T. 
 Edwards — who had sent him the Journals of Caroline Fox, 
 he thus writes : 
 
 ' I am very glad to have the volumes you were so good 
 as to send me — still, interesting as I could not help finding 
 them, and instructive, I have a natural dislike of literary and 
 scientific society as stick, or what Hurrell Froude, (whom I 
 agreed with in this) used to call " the aristocracy of talent " ; 
 and for this reason perhaps I am not quite fair to the remark- 
 able and beautiful Life which you sent me. I suppose it is a 
 peculiarit)^ common to us two (H. F. and me) with Keble and 
 Pusey more than any other quality, and has, as much as any- 
 thing else, united us together ; and accordingly it is something 
 of a wonder to me, that a mind so religious as Miss Fox's, 
 should feel pleasure in meeting men who either disbelieved 
 the Divine mission or had no love for the person of One she 
 calls " her God and her Saviour." ' 
 
 ' Newman never quite approved of the Metaphysical Society. He writes thus 
 to Dean Church in 1876 : 
 
 ' I hear that you and the Archbp. of York (to say nothing of Cardinal 
 Manning, etc.) are going to let Professor Huxley read in your presence an argument 
 in refutation of our Lord's Resurrection. How can this possibly come under the 
 scope of a Metaphysical Society ? I thank my stars that, when asked to accept the 
 honour of belonging to it, I declined. Aren't you in a false position ? Perhaps it 
 is a ruse of the Cardinal to bring the Professor into the clutches of the Inquisition.'
 
 334 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 To debate at the Metaphysical Society with a mixed 
 crowd of beh'evers and unbelievers would be little to the 
 taste of the writer of these words. But it was quite otherwise 
 as to helping individual inquirers. 
 
 Father Neville tells us, in his Reminiscences, of Newman's 
 sympathy for all those, of whatever creed, concerning whom 
 he felt that they were deeply earnest in their wish for 
 truth, and desired to do their duty if only they could know 
 it. Towards such his heart went out. He had this feeling 
 very especially towards Mr. R. H. Hutton himself, although 
 their acquaintance was almost entirely confined to the 
 correspondence which began at the time of the Kingsley 
 controversy. Here is a Christmas letter to Mr. Hutton, 
 written at the end of 1872 : 
 
 • The Oratory : Dec. 29. 
 
 ' My dear Mr. Hutton, — I have nothing to write to you 
 about, but I am led at this season to send you the religious 
 greetings and good wishes which it suggests, to assure you 
 that, though I seem to be careless about those who desire 
 to have more light than they have in regard to religious 
 truths, yet I do really sympathise with them very much, and 
 ever have them in mind. 
 
 ' I know how honestly you try to approve yourself to God, 
 and this is a claim on the reverence of anyone who knows 
 or reads you. There are many things as to which I most 
 seriously differ from you, but I believe you to be one of those 
 to whom the angels on Christmas night sent greetings as 
 "hominibus bonae voluntatis," and it is a pleasure and a duty 
 for all who would be their companions hereafter to follow 
 their pattern of comprehensive charity here. I cannot feel 
 so hopefully and tenderly to many of those whom you 
 defend or patronize as I do to you — and what you write 
 perplexes me often — but when a man is really and truly 
 seeking the pearl of great price, how can one help joining 
 oneself in heart and spirit with him ? 
 
 ' Most truly yours, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 He corresponded with Mr. Hutton frequently and entered 
 at length into his objections to Catholic theology. He found 
 in some cases that his correspondent's active mind was alive 
 to difficulties which had not yet been adequately considered 
 in the Catholic schools. Thus, to reply to them satisfactorily
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 335 
 
 might mean to go beyond what was as yet the received 
 Catholic theology. There was in such cases a difficulty in 
 responding to Hutton with a frankness equal to his own. 
 Newman met the situation by telling him candidly the state 
 of the case. 
 
 ' What the genius of the Church cannot bear,' he wrote, 
 ' is changes in thought being hurried, abrupt, violent — out of 
 tenderness to souls, for unlearned and narrow-minded men 
 get unsettled and miserable. The great thing is to move all 
 together, and then the change, as geological changes, must be 
 very slow. Hence we come to be accused of duplicity — I 
 mean the cleverer men see what is coming, yet from charity 
 to others (and diffidence in themselves) don't speak out' 
 
 The love of reality which made R. H. Hutton so con- 
 genial to him, revolted against sermonising quite as much 
 as against a want of seriousness, 
 
 ' I agree with you,' he writes to a friend concerning the 
 book of a popular Catholic writer, ' it is a thousand pities 
 that a clever man like A. B. should sermonise in the way he 
 does. We are reading him in the refectory, and he always 
 seems in the same place, prancing like a cavalry soldier's 
 horse, without advancing, in the face of a mob. He has a 
 noble subject, but I have not gained two ideas from his 
 book.' 
 
 Newman's own feeling as to the most effective way of 
 imparting truth by writing is conveyed in the following 
 notes, dated 1868, on the writing of sermons : 
 
 ' I. A man should be in earnest, by which I mean he 
 should write not for the sake of writing, but to bring out his 
 thoughts. 
 
 ' 2. He should never aim at being eloquent. 
 
 ' 3. He should keep his idea in view, and should write 
 sentences over and over again till he has expressed his 
 meaning accurately, forcibly, and in few words. 
 
 ' 4. He should aim at being understood by his hearers 
 or readers. 
 
 ' 5. He should use words which are likely to be under- 
 stood. Ornament and amplification will come spontaneously 
 in due time, but he should never seek them. 
 
 '6. He must creep before he can fly, by which I mean 
 that humility which is a great Christian virtue has a place 
 in literary composition.
 
 336 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 '7. He who is ambitious will never write well, but he 
 who tries to say simply what he feels, what religion demands, 
 what faith teaches, what the Gospel promises, will be eloquent 
 without intending it, and will write better English than if 
 he made a study of English literature.' 
 
 In his own preaching, the simplicity and reality he in- 
 culcated was accompanied by an intense shyness of which he 
 was quite conscious. ' From a child,' he writes to a friend, 
 'a description of Ulysses' eloquence in the " Iliad" seized my 
 imagination and touched my heart. "When he began he 
 looked like a fool." This is the only way in which I have 
 done anything.' 
 
 I have spoken of Newman's love of reality and sense of 
 reality. The word ' real ' with all it conveys was a favourite 
 one with him. One of his most memorable Oxford Sermons 
 dealt with ' unreal words.' One of his most arresting dis- 
 tinctions in the 'Grammar of Assent' is between 'real assent' 
 and 'notional assent' A keen sense of the concrete and 
 of reality shows itself in other traits in his correspondence, 
 besides those already named. His piercingly keen senses 
 made the sensible world intensely real to him. We have seen 
 him lay down his fiddle and cry out with joy at the pleasure 
 Beethoven's quartets were giving him. Readers of ' Loss 
 and Gain ' will remember how scents and sounds are laden 
 for him with memories. This joy of sense, especially in 
 his early youth, had a full measure of the feeling given in 
 Wordsworth's ode to which he was so devoted : 
 
 ' There was a time when meadow, grove and stream. 
 The earth, and every common sight, 
 To me did seem 
 Apparelled in celestial light, 
 The glory and the freshness of a dream.' 
 
 All this made very vivid to him the ideal of a happy life, 
 made up of the pleasures of the world he knew by experience. 
 In his essay on 'Discipline and Influence'' we see how he 
 could let his thoughts run freely on this ideal. The passage 
 is a characteristic one, and worth quoting here. He describes 
 an imaginary friend who lives in absolute contentment. And 
 
 ' Historical Sketches, vol. iii.
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 337 
 
 the scene he imagines for this perfect life — so we know from 
 a private letter — is the house at Ham of which, as we have 
 seen in speaking of his boyhood, he used to dream as a 
 ' paradise of delight,' where the ' Angel faces smile, which I 
 have loved long since, and lost awhile.' 
 
 ' My friend lives in a spot as convenient as it is delightful. 
 The neighbouring hamlet is the first station out of London 
 of a railroad ; while not above a quarter of a mile from his 
 boundary wall, flows the magnificent river, which moves to- 
 wards the metropolis through a richness of grove and meadow 
 of its own creation. 
 
 ' He has been in possession of the very perfection of earthly 
 happiness. ... If there were no country beyond the grave, 
 it would be our wisdom to make of our present dwelling- 
 place as much as ever we could ; and this would be done by 
 the very life which my friend has chosen, not by any absurd 
 excesses, not by tumult, dissipation, excitement, but by the 
 " moderate and rational use of the gifts of Providence." ' 
 
 ' Easy circumstances, books, friends, literary connexions, 
 the fine arts, presents from abroad, foreign correspondents, 
 handsome appointments, elegant simplicity, gravel walks, 
 lawns, flower beds, trees and shrubberies, summer houses, 
 strawberry beds, a greenhouse, a wall for peaches, " hoc erat 
 in votis " ; — nothing out of the way, no hot-houses, graperies, 
 pineries, — " Persicos odi, puer, apparatus," — no mansions, no 
 parks, no deer, no preserves ; these things are not worth the 
 cost, they involve the bother of dependants, they interfere 
 with enjoyment. One or two faithful servants, who last on 
 as the trees do, and cannot change their place : — the ancients 
 had slaves, a sort of dumb waiter, and the real article ; alas ! 
 they are impossible now. We must have no one with claims 
 upon us, or with rights ; no incumbrances ; no wife and 
 children ; they would hurt our dignity. We must have 
 acquaintance within reach, yet not in the way ; ready, not 
 troublesome or intrusive. We must have something of name, 
 or of rank, or of ancestry, or of past official life, to raise us 
 from the dead level of mankind, to afford food for the 
 imagination of our neighbours, to bring us from time to 
 time strange visitors, and to invest our home with mystery. 
 In consequence we shall be loyal subjects, good conservatives, 
 fond of old times, avcr.^e to change, suspicious of novelt}', 
 because we know perfectly when we are well off, and that 
 in our case " progredi est regredi." To a life such as this, 
 a man is more attached, the longer he lives ; and he would 
 VOL. II. z
 
 338 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 be more and more happy in it too, were it not for the 
 memento within him, that books and gardens do not make a 
 man immortal ; that, though they do not leave him, he at 
 least must leave them, all but " the hateful cypresses," and 
 must go where the only book is the book of doom, and the 
 only garden the Paradise of the just.' (See Historical 
 Sketches, iii. 62.) 
 
 These last words effect the transition from one side of his 
 vision of human life to the other and deeper side. This earth, 
 keenly alive though he was to its beauty and attractiveness, 
 was but the veil of appearances which hid the deeper reality. 
 The ' hateful cypresses ' and the ' book of doom ' recalled the 
 sterner facts, the inevitable prospect. Human souls were real. 
 Human suffering was real. Duty was real. Sin was real. 
 Human life as a whole, with its goal which each must find, 
 the career which each will make or mar, was overwhelmingly 
 real to him. ' The greatness and the littleness of man ; the 
 curtain hung over his futurity ' — these were thoughts which 
 haunted him. Father Neville recollects his looking with- 
 out speaking, for many minutes, at the picture of a dead 
 friend, and then saying, as one overpowered by the thought, 
 ' And now he has gone beyond that curtain.' This sense of 
 the reality and solemnity of the march of time and of human 
 life, besides making him deeply religious, gave him a quite 
 peculiar feeling as to his own past, every detail of which was 
 deeply graven on his memory. The homes and haunts of 
 early days were sacred. 
 
 Every anniversary was also sacred. His last parting 
 from Littlemore, which has been told in these pages, was but 
 one special instance of his clinging love of his old homes. 
 He remembered every detail of the houses he had lived in as 
 a boy. When one of the Oratorian Fathers was staying in 
 Broad Street in 1854, Newman thus wrote to him : 
 
 ' Strange to say, though don't mention it, — you are in a 
 house I have known for near 20 years. To my surprise years 
 ago I found that Isaac Williams' father lived on the opposite 
 side of the street, but No. 17 was my own residence in London 
 more or less from 1808 to 1821. Two of my sisters were 
 born there, and one of my first memories, even before the 
 first of these events in 1808, is my admiring the borders of
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 339 
 
 the paper in the drawing rooms. I have not seen the house 
 since the month of October 1821 ; but of course every part 
 of it is as clearly before my mind, as if I had lived in it ever 
 since.' 
 
 But the home round which memories gathered thickest 
 was the house at Ham, above referred to, at which he lived 
 up to the age of six. Two letters to Henry Wilberforce, 
 who was staying near Richmond in 1853, are filled with 
 these early memories : 
 
 'I have seen our house at Ham once in 1813, in the 
 holidays, when my father, brother, and myself rode there 
 from Norwood— and the gardener gave us three apricots — 
 and my father telling me to choose, I took the largest, a 
 thing which still distresses me whenever I think of it. 
 
 'And once again in January 23, 1836, when I walked there 
 with Bowden and his wife. It was then, I believe, a school — 
 and the fine Trees, which were upon the lawn, were cut 
 down — a large plane, a dozen of tree acacias, with rough 
 barks, as high as the plane — a Spanish chesnut, a larch. A 
 large magnolia, flowering (in June I think) went up the house, 
 and the mower's scythe, cutting the lawn, used to sound so 
 sweetly as I lay in a crib — in a front room at top. 
 
 ' To find it, you must go down Ham walk with your back 
 to Lord Dysart's house towards Ham common. On your 
 right hand, some way down, is a lane called " Sandy lane " — 
 our house lay on one side (the further side) of that lane, 
 which formed a boundary, first of the lawn and shrubbery 
 (which tapered almost to a point, between the lane and the 
 paddock,) and then of the kitchen garden. Hence some 
 people got over the wall, and stole the grapes. There was no 
 hot house but a small green house in the kitchen garden, over 
 which was a poor billiard room. There I learnt to play 
 billiards, having never seen the game played since. 
 
 'I left the place in September 1807. I recollect the 
 morning we left ; — and taking leave of it. My mother, my 
 brother Charles, Harriet, and I in the carriage — sfoine to 
 
 ^ <^ c> <y 
 
 Brighton — with my father's horses as far as Ewell (Pis 
 there such a place ?) and then posting. 
 
 ' How odd one's memory is ! I could tell you, I suppose, 
 a hundred tinics as much about Ham . . . 
 
 'I will tell you an odd thing about memory. Lately (since 
 my aunt's death) the Bible I read at Fulham when a child 
 was sent me at my wish. I looked over the pictures, and 
 when I came to the Angel inflicting the pestilence on David
 
 340 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 and his people, I recollected I used to say " That's like 
 Mr. Owen." This must have been dormant 46 years in my 
 mind.' 
 
 A few days later, on July 17, he adds a few more lines 
 of reminiscence : 
 
 ' Our grounds went doivn to the long Ham walk of double 
 elms. And the house /«(:^^ a road which led down (I think) 
 to the water — with gentlemen's houses on each side. There 
 was Mr. Bradley's on one side, and Lady Parker (I think) — 
 (she had a macaw — ) on the other. Have they covered the 
 whole territory with villas ? 
 
 ' I lost my sister this day year.' 
 
 He visited the house again in 1861, and the visit has 
 been narrated in this work. By a curious lapse of memory 
 he said, in writing of this occasion, ' I have never seen the 
 house since September 1807.' ^ 
 
 Let us before leaving these memories quote from the 
 essay on ' Discipline and Influence ' Newman's description of 
 the house itself: 
 
 ' It is an old-fashioned place,' he writes ; ' the house may be 
 of the date of George the Second; a square hall in the middle, 
 and in the centre of it a pillar, and rooms all round. The 
 servants' rooms and offices run off on the right ; a rookery 
 covers the left flank, and the drawing-room opens upon the 
 
 lawn. 
 
 'There a large plane tree, with its massive branches, which 
 whilome sustained a swing, when there were children on that 
 lawn, blithely to undergo an exercise of the head, at the very 
 thought of which the grown man sickens. Three formal 
 terraces gradually conduct down to one of the majestic 
 avenues,' (belonging to the neighbouring park of a nobleman) 
 ' the second and third, intersected by grass walks, constitute 
 the kitchen garden. As a boy, I used to stare at the mag- 
 nificent cauliflowers and large apricots which it furnished for 
 the table ; and how difficult it was to leave off, when once 
 one got among the gooseberry bushes in the idle morning 1 ' 
 
 In later years especially Newman had a very tender 
 recollection of the years spent in the Anglican Communion, 
 and he took himself to task on this subject in an interest- 
 ing memorandum dated November 1877. 
 
 ' See Vol. I. p. 607. 
 
 I
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 341 
 
 ' Do you love, my dear Self, or don't you, your active 
 abidance time past in the Church of England ? E.g. you have 
 a photograph of Trinity Chapel before your eyes daily, and 
 you love to look at it. Yes — and it is in a great measure 
 an abstraction. It is not the Church of England that I love 
 — but it is that very assemblage, in its individuals concrete, 
 which I remember so well — the times and places — the scenes, 
 occurrences — my own thoughts, feelings and acts. I look at 
 that communion table, and recollect with what feelings I 
 went up to it in November 18 17 for my first communion — 
 how I was in mourning for the Princess Charlotte, and had 
 silk black gloves — and the glove would not come off when I 
 had to receive the Bread, and I had to tear it off and spoil it 
 in my flurry. But the Church of England, as such, does not 
 come into my tender memories.' 
 
 Of his unfailing recollection of the incidents in his past 
 life the letters again and again remind us. 
 
 ' What a wonderful thing time is,' he writes to Miss Giberne 
 on May 17, 1867, 'and life is every year more wonderful. 
 The past is ever present — and life is at once nothing at all, 
 and all in all.' 
 
 He remembered the anniversaries of the chief events in 
 his life, and of the deaths, not only of friends, but often of ac- 
 quaintances. This memory grew in its significance for him- 
 self as life advanced, as anniversaries of deaths multiplied, and 
 as he felt his own time drawing nearer. His own birthday 
 became to him a solemn reminder. ' Birthdays as they come,' 
 he wrote to the same correspondent in 1867, 'are awful 
 things now, as minute guns by night' On February 26, 
 1 87 1, we find the following passage in another letter to Henry 
 Wilberforce : 
 
 ' Thank you for your affectionate greetings. I said Mass 
 for you and yours, living and departed, on the 24th. Around 
 my birthday are grouped the deaths of many whom I have 
 known and loved. This year two on the same day — Lady 
 Rogers and Mrs. Stewart on the i6th. Besides I have the 
 1 2th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th, 2 1st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th, 
 28th, 29th, — and, four times, two on the same day. I have 
 no such galaxy in any other part of the year. 1 wonder what 
 day I shall die on — one passes year by year over one's death 
 day, as one might pass over one's grave. '
 
 342 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 His readiness to see the hand of God in the world and in 
 the events of his own Hfe is often attested in his letters and 
 private memoranda. We have already seen his belief in the 
 Holy House of Loreto. It must of course be remembered 
 that at the date when he believed in it the positive evidence 
 against its claim had not yet been formulated. Still his belief 
 attests at all events his readiness to accept such traditions in 
 the absence of positive disproof. He was eager to verify the 
 report, when Henry Wilberforce was ill, that an improvement 
 had set in after he received the Pope's blessing. The * Dream 
 of Gerontius' shows how real to him was the world beyond 
 the veil. And his deep realisation of that other world made 
 him ready to see its influence at work on earth. Thus he was 
 ready of belief as to marvellous occurrences. Merely inade- 
 quate evidence did not in such cases prevent belief with him, 
 for he regarded the presumption afforded by the facts of 
 Christianity as giving a certain antecedent probability to 
 alleged providential occurrences. 
 
 On the other hand, he was careful to avoid the confusion 
 of thought which would arise from claiming for such alleged 
 occurrences evidential value. He did not draw a hard-and- 
 fast line between interference with the laws of nature and 
 God's general providence. Such laws were for him God's 
 general rules of action, and might be susceptible of direction 
 much as the workings of the human organism are affected by 
 the mind and the will, without any process which could be 
 termed the violation of natural law. 
 
 That Providence versus blind necessity is the primary 
 issue, that, far from the idea of fixed laws being the modern 
 product of ' exact thought ' and a supersession of the anti- 
 quated idea of Providence, the two conceptions have always 
 been rivals, entertained by opposite schools, is a view which 
 runs through several of Cardinal Newman's unpublished 
 memoranda on religious philosophy. 
 
 In a memorandum dated September 13, 1861, for example, 
 he writes thus in reference to the writings of Mr. Darwin and 
 Mr. Buckle : 
 
 ' To my mind it is wonderful that able men should take 
 for granted that the notion of fixed laws is a new idea 
 of modern times which is superseding, and to supersede
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 343 
 
 the old idea of a Providence. . . . Why, it is the old idea 
 of Fate or Destiny which we find in Homer. It is no new 
 and untried idea, but it is the old antagonist of the idea of 
 Providence. Between the philosophies of Providence and 
 Fate there has been a contest from the beginning. Fate 
 may have new and better arguments now, but Providence 
 has been able to stand against it for 3000 years, and 
 there is no reason why it should not keep its ground 
 still, though the philosophy of Fate may still have 
 followers.' 
 
 And the relation of miracle itself to the ordinary course of 
 nature, its respect, so to say, for the laws it partly supersedes, 
 is referred to in a memorandum dated September 3, 1865 : 
 
 ' Some miracles, as the raising of the dead, certainly are 
 not a continuation or augmentation of natural processes, but 
 most are : e.g. there is said to be something like manna in 
 the desert ordinarily, and the sacred narrative mentions a 
 zvind as blowing up the waters of the Red Sea — and so in 
 numerous other miracles. It is a confirmation of this to look 
 at Gibbon's " Five Causes of Christianity." We do not deny 
 them, but only say they are not sufficient — i.e. the spread 
 of Christianity was something more than natural' 
 
 Such a philosophy led him to have no antecedent 
 difficulty in often seeing the hand of Providence in the history 
 of the world and of human life. And he never forgot that 
 readiness of belief was enjoined in the Gospels. 
 
 The instances in which beliefs were to him difficult which 
 to some others were easy, were such as involved actual contra- 
 diction to historical conclusions, certain or highly probable — a 
 contradiction to which less clear-sighted minds were not alive. 
 Instances of this difficulty multiplied as time went on, and he 
 found many theologians insufficiently alive to it . 
 
 Occasionally in his thoughts concerning the Providence 
 of God we find traces still surviving— ' shreds and tatters' he 
 called them — of his early Calvinism. We have already 
 recorded some instances of his curious sense of the place of 
 the number seven in the scheme of Providence. He limited 
 his Irish Rectorship to seven years : he believed seven years 
 to be the normal term of his intimate friendships. A letter of 
 1 87 1 to the Mother Prioress of the Dominicans shows him half 
 thinking that the mystic number enters into the computation
 
 344 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 of the elect in each generation. The year was one in which the ■ 
 CathoHc world was heavy at heart — the Holy Father robbed 
 of his territory, France at the mercy of the red republicans of 
 the Commune. His letter is dated December 28, 1871 : 
 
 'It is a great relief to think how many quiet religious 
 houses there are up and down Christendom, how many pious 
 families in a time like this. This is what I say and feel in 
 answer to your lament, true as it is. Recollect the " Seven 
 thousand in Israel." I am disposed to think there are always 
 just 7000, and never more. Is the number of the elect greater 
 in one age than in another? Of course the sight of triumphant 
 injustice, as at Rome now, is most painful — but to me the 
 most sad and painful sight of all just now is the sight of that 
 nation, the eldest born of the Church, and the special staff on 
 which the Holy Father relied, chastised for its sins, and giving 
 no signs whatever of repentance, nay, no signs of acknowledg- 
 ing an Almighty God and Judge. Yet after all, though bold 
 infidelity is so shocking, is it worse than the hypocritical 
 profession, the secret unbelief and sin, which gives tokens of 
 its prevalence, widely and deeply, in prosperous times in the 
 Church ? 
 
 ' Thus we don't know what is best — and can only say, 
 " Thy Kingdom come — Thy will be done." ' 
 
 Another mystic thought as to the destiny of Christendom, 
 which the events of the time brought to his mind, is contained 
 in the following letter written to the same correspondent in 
 the same year : 
 
 ' It is awful to be rejoicing when better Catholics than we 
 are, are in such misery. Such events as are taking place in 
 France have some deep spiritual meaning, if we knew how 
 to interpret them. When, since the world was, was a city 
 destroyed by its own people ? I have ofte7i thought of and 
 repeated a remark made years ago by poor Mr. Capes 
 which seems now to have a beginning of fulfilment. He 
 asked who are to be the Goths and Vandals who are to 
 destroy modern civilization, since we now know all the 
 corners of the earth, and know that the storehouse of the 
 Northern nations is expended ? He answered himself thus : 
 — " The lowest class, which is most numerous, and is infidel, 
 will rise up from the depths of the modern cities, and will be 
 the new scourges of God." This great prophecy, as it may 
 be called, is first fulfilled in Paris — our turn may come a 
 century hence.'
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 345 
 
 He loved to think of the Saints and Angels as near him. 
 He would write familiarly of being in favour or out of 
 favour with St. Philip. When his work for the Oratory, 
 which was constant and energetic, brought him at times 
 into collision with the world, he wrote to Ambrose St. John 
 in a fit of extreme depression, yet half-humorously disposed 
 to remonstrate with St. Philip, much as the Italian peasants 
 scold the saints who will not give them what they want. 
 
 'The Oratory: June 13, 1858. 
 
 ' I do not see your logic when you say, that, " though I 
 croak, I come up to the scratch after all." To me it seems 
 as inconsecutive to say so as if you said that, though I could 
 not sleep at night, I ate my breakfast heartily in the morning. 
 How are the two things inconsistent with each other ? To let 
 out one's sorrow is a great relief, and I don't think an 
 unlawful one. Nor do I speak to the whole world, but 
 to you, Stanislas, or Henry. Job too had three friends, and 
 to them he let out. Yet he was the most patient of men. 
 I think you don't discriminate between complaining and 
 realizing. What is so common in the Psalms and in 
 Jeremias, is the sentiment "Just art Thou, O Lord, yet will 
 I plead with Thee ? " Yet for myself, I know too well 
 how infinitely more I have than my deserts from the Giver 
 of all good, to have any even temptation to complain. 
 But the case is different when I think of St. Philip ; then I 
 argue thus : — 
 
 ' " There is just one virtue which he asks for, detachment, 
 which at the same time he prevents me having. There is 
 just one thing which hinders me being detached, and that 
 is, that 1 have made myself his servant. What wish 
 have I for life, or for success of any kind, except so 
 far as and because I have this his congregation on my 
 hands? He it is who has implicated me in the world, in a 
 way in which I never was before, or at least never since 
 my mother died and my sisters married. For St. Philip's 
 sake I have given up my liberty, and have, as far as the 
 temptation and trial of anxiety goes, become as secular 
 almost as if I had married. The one thing I ask of him 
 is to shield me from the extreme force of this trial ; and the 
 only explanation I can suggest to myself why he does not 
 do so is that I have in some way or other greatly offended 
 him. And, when I cry out to you, it is not in complaint, 
 but as signifying inarticulately feelings which are too deep
 
 346 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 for words. Please God, and I hope not from pride, I will be 
 faithful to St. Philip, and then God will reward me, though 
 St. Philip does not. And I will therefore bottle up my 
 thoughts and fancy St. Philip saying to me what a French 
 conduct eitr once did, when I was looking after the safety of 
 my luggage. " It is my business, not yours." Obmutui et 
 non aperui os meum, quoniam tu fecisti.' 
 ' The words of Job are ended.' 
 
 More cheerful than his complaints against St. Philip was 
 his gratitude, many years later, to his Guardian Angel when 
 Father Walford told him in 1872 that part of the 'Grammar 
 of Assent' had been of special help to the Jesuit novices to 
 whom he lectured, and assured him of the prayers that were 
 offered for its author : 
 
 ' I am astonished and highly pleased,' he writes, ' to find 
 you have been able to use in teaching what I have said in 
 the Grammar Chapter, of which I sent you part. It is a 
 great encouragement to me. I hope to ask your acceptance 
 of the Volume when republished, which will be, I suppose, 
 before Midsummer. If I forget, will you jog my memory? 
 
 ' Also I am highly grateful to you for your prayers, and 
 think myself very lucky to have gained them by anything 
 I have written. It is all my Guardian Angel's doing, who 
 I always think is the best Angel any man ever had.' 
 
 This last letter shows incidentally the grateful thankful- 
 ness for kind words which was the correlative to his intense 
 sensitiveness to being misunderstood. As years went on, 
 and critics became kinder and kinder, occasions for such 
 thanks multiplied. On February 9, 1869, he writes to the 
 Rev. E. T. Vaughan, in reply to a letter of thanks for the 
 benefit his correspondent had gained from the Oxford 
 Sermons : 
 
 ' Time was when, whether from my own fault or the fault 
 of circumstances, even friends were hard upon me — but now 
 even strangers to me personally are considerate and friendly ; 
 and, though I wish and trust to be influenced by the prospect 
 of a higher praise or blame than any which comes from an 
 earthly source, yet I may allowably take the approbation of 
 honest and good men as a mercy sent me from above, and 
 beg Him from whom it is sent to reward them abundantly 
 for their generosity.'
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 347 
 
 As late as 1877, in a letter to Father Coleridge, we find at 
 once the smart of past censure remaining, and gratitude for 
 present kindness fresh and keen : 
 
 ' 1 write to thank you for the favourable critique, which 
 you have admitted in the Month, of my Preface to the Via 
 Media. And I am pleased that you could admit it. I mean, 
 I have been so bullied all through my life for what I have 
 written, that I never publish without forebodings of evil. 
 
 'And, though I know that, besides the necessary differences 
 of opinion, which ever will be between man and man, there 
 always must be that in what I write which really deserves 
 criticism, yet I am more pleased when people are kind to 
 me than when they are just' 
 
 One further trait I will mention visible in many of the 
 letters — the note of wisdom, often worldly wisdom, which 
 might come from the mouth of a Polonius. This quality, like 
 some others, can only be duly appreciated by reading much 
 of his correspondence. 
 
 But I set down here one specimen. Writing to a friend 
 about a dispute in which he believed that he, as Superior of 
 the Oratory, had acted with the right firmness and severity, 
 though his action had been angrily challenged, he strongly 
 urged his own friends against talking of the subject or plead- 
 ing his cause. His opponents had spoken too freely and 
 generally of the matter, and Newman judged true wisdom to 
 lie in absolute silence on his side. He gives the following 
 reasons in writing to a friend : 
 
 * I have a very strong repugnance to talking on the subject 
 to any one. If you speak to A. B., he tells another — and 
 that other, another. It is useless to say he won't — he will. 
 He will tell by the same light by which he was told. Then 
 the whole affair is thrown upon the judgment of society. 
 Everyone thinks he has a right to judge, because you have 
 put the matter before him — and, though he can know but 
 part of the facts, he docs not give up his right. Then you 
 have two parties — or you have every one against you, as the 
 case may be. It is infra di^. for me to plead my cause. If 
 anyone believes me to have acted tyrannically, it is his look 
 out, not mine. What is it to me what people think of 
 me ? I have ever acted on this plan, I never got the worst 
 of it. I lay claim to no supernatural motive ; it is the most 
 evident wisdom. I have never defended myself through life.
 
 348 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 I have been called all manner of names, but those things 
 don't last. Such dirt does not stick. Nor am I allowing 
 scandal to remain, by not speaking; scandal must be 
 somewhere .... Again, any one who defends himself, puts 
 himself in the wrong. Sz on s'excuse^ on s'accuse. (Excuse 
 my bad French.) ' ^ 
 
 It is hard now to represent adequately the extraordinary 
 personal charm which so many of his contemporaries felt in 
 John Henry Newman. The letters convey much of it, but 
 not all. Yet the tradition of this charm is a fact which must 
 be set down in his biography. It was a charm felt by 
 intellectual minds and even sceptical minds, and by simple 
 and practical men. Blanco White, Mark Pattison, Henry 
 Wilberforce, Frederick Rogers, R. W. Church, and Ambrose 
 St. John were all among his most intimate friends. The 
 almost unique combination of tenderness, brilliancy, refine- 
 ment, wide sympathy, and holiness doubtless went for 
 much. He had none of the repellent qualities which some- 
 times make asceticism forbidding. He had an ample 
 allowance of those human sympathies which are popularly 
 contrasted with asceticism. Again, he seemed able to love 
 each friend with a peculiarly close sympathy for his mind and 
 character and thoughtfulness for the circumstances of his life. 
 The present writer's father— never one of the most intimate 
 of the circle which surrounded Newman at Oxford — used to 
 say that his heart would beat as he heard Newman's step on 
 the staircase. His keen humour, his winning sweetness, his 
 occasional wilfulness, his resentments and anger, all showed 
 him intensely alive, and his friends loved his very faults as 
 one may love those of a fascinating woman ; at the same time 
 many of them revered him almost as a prophet. Only a year 
 before his death, after nearly twenty years of misunder- 
 standings and estrangement, W. G. Ward told the present 
 
 ' I may add the following instance of balanced judgment from a letter of 
 March 1855 to flenry Wilberforce : 
 
 ' I hope you will think twice before you attack the French Government [in 
 the Weekly Register] for their Galilean mode of admitting the Pope's Brief. 
 Ultramontane as I am, I do not see how they could avoid doing so, unless they 
 wished the question to go by default. The Tope every year protests, I believe, 
 against the King of Naples not sending him a mule, or an ambassador to ride into 
 St. Peter's on a mule, or some silver pence, or something or other ; he could not 
 do otherwise till the matter is finally arranged, yet he may be good friends with 
 Naples for all that.'
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 349 
 
 biographer of a dream he had had — how he found himself at 
 a dinner party next to a veiled lady, who charmed him more 
 and more as they talked. At last he exclaimed, ' I have 
 never felt such charm in any conversation since I used to talk 
 with John Henry Newman, at Oxford.' ' I am John Henry 
 Newman,' the lady replied, and raising her veil showed the 
 well-known face. 
 
 A very human and attractive side was visible in his love 
 for music, of which I have already spoken, and a few words 
 may here be added on this subject. 
 
 From the days when he played the violin as a young boy, 
 his brother Frank playing the bass, down to the Littlemore 
 period when he played in company with Frederick Bowles 
 and Walker, string quartets and trios were his favourite 
 recreation. Mr. Mozley, in his 'Reminiscences of the Oxford 
 Movement,' thus describes his playing of Beethoven with 
 Blanco White in 1826: ' Most interesting was it to contrast 
 Blanco White's excited and indeed agitated countenance with 
 Newman's Sphinx-like immobility, as the latter drew long 
 rich notes with a steady hand.' When the gift of a violin 
 from Rogers and Church in 1864 made him renew acquaint- 
 ance with his old love after a long interval, the manner of his 
 playing was somewhat different. ' Sphinx-like immobility,' 
 writes Mr. Edward Bellasis,^ ' had made way for an ever vary- 
 ing expression upon his face as strains alternated between 
 grave and gay. Producing his violin from an old green baize 
 bag, bending forward, and holding it against his chest, instead 
 of under the chin in the modern fashion, most particular 
 about his instrument being in perfect tune, in execution 
 awkward yet vigorous, painstaking rather than brilliant, he 
 would often attend the Oratory School Sunday practices 
 between two and four of an afternoon. Father Ryder and 
 Father Norris sometimes coming to play also.' 
 
 When Canon McNeile, the Liverpool anti-Popery speaker, 
 challenged him to a public dispute, Newman replied that he 
 was no public speaker, but that he was quite ready for an 
 encounter it Mr. McNeile would open the meeting by making 
 a speech, and he himself might respond with a tune on the 
 
 ' Cardinal Newman as a Musician, by Edward Bellasis. London : Kegan 
 Paul, 1892.
 
 350 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 violin. The public would then be able to judge which was 
 the better man. 
 
 His favourite composer was Beethoven, to whom he was 
 passionately devoted. Once, when Mr. Bellasis said of the 
 Allegretto of the Eighth Symphony, that it was like a giant 
 at play, Newman replied, ' It is curious you should say that. 
 I used to call him the gigantic nightingale. He is like a 
 great bird singing. My sister remembers my using the ex- 
 pression long ago.' He had reached this preference gradually. 
 ' I recollect,' he writes to a friend in 1865, 'how slow I was 
 as a boy to like the School of Music, which afterwards so 
 possessed me that I have come to think Haydn almost 
 vulgar." He impressed the cult of Beethoven on all the young 
 Oratorians who played in his company. ' They might start 
 with Corelli, and go on to Romberg, Haydn, and Mozart,' 
 writes Mr. Bellasis. ' Their ultimate goal was Beethoven.' As 
 with literature, so with music, Newman was on the whole true 
 to his early loves — indeed, he was resolutely old-fashioned. 
 Beethoven already possessed him in the twenties, and later 
 masters never quite won his heart. This was especially true 
 with sacred music. Mr. Bellasis writes on this subject in 
 some detail : 
 
 ' He was very slow to take (if he ever really took) to new- 
 comers on the field of sacred music. And holding, as he did, 
 that no good work could be adequately judged without a 
 thorough knowledge of it, he was disinclined to be introduced 
 to fresh musical names at all, on the bare chance, that might 
 never occur, of what had been a casual acquaintanceship 
 ripening into an intimate friendship. He had in early days 
 found time and opportunity to comprehend certain masters, 
 Corelli, Handel, Haydn, Romberg, Mozart, and Beethoven, 
 but Schubert, Schumann, Wagner (" I cannot recollect all the 
 fellows' names "), who were these strangers, intruding some- 
 what late in the evening upon a dear old family party ? Thus 
 he writes in March, 1871, of Mendelssohn's chief sacred work 
 which he had been reluctantly induced to go and listen to, and 
 which he was never got to hear again : "I was very much dis- 
 appointed the one time that I heard the ' Elijah,' not to meet 
 with a beautiful melody from beginning to end. What can 
 be more beautiful than Handel's, Mozart's, and Beethoven's 
 melodies?" Now, of course, there is plenty of melody in 
 the " Elijah," though it may be conceded that Mendelssohn's
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 351 
 
 melodious gift is less copious than that of Mozart. But the 
 fact was, Cardinal Newman never got to know the " Elijah," 
 doubtless deemed it long, and felt content to feed upon the 
 \x\\x?>\Q.-3\ pabulum that he had so long found satisfying. . . . 
 
 ' He got to know fairly well Mendelssohn's canzonet 
 quartet and Schumann's pianoforte quintet Op. 44 ; but we 
 recall no musical works heard by him for the first time in 
 very late life making any particular impression on the Father, 
 with one notable exception ; Cherubini's First Requiem in 
 C Minor, done at the Festival, August 29, 1879. We were to 
 have gone with him, but a Father who accompanied him 
 wrote us instead next day : " The Father was quite overcome 
 by it. He kept on saying ' beautiful, wonderful,' and such- 
 like exclamations. At the ' Mors stupebit ' he was shaking 
 his head in his solemn way, and muttering ' beautiful, 
 beautiful' He admired the fugue 'Quam olim ' very much, 
 but the part which struck him most by far, and which he 
 spoke of afterwards as we drove home, is the ending of the 
 'Agnus Dei' — he could not get over it — the lovely note C 
 which keeps recurring as the ' requiem ' approaches eternity. 
 When the second Requiem in D was done in its true home, 
 the Church, later, on the 2nd and 13th November, 1886, he 
 said ' It is magnificent music' ' That is a beautiful Mass ' 
 (adding, with a touch of pathos) ' but when you get as old as 
 I am, it comes rather too closely home.' 
 
 Father Ignatius Dudley Ryder, of the Oratory, has left 
 some very valuable notes, mainly on Newman's literary tastes 
 and gifts, from which a selection must here be given. And 
 I find among Father Neville's papers some comments written 
 by himself on Newman's daily habits. There is also a pen- 
 and-ink sketch by another hand which I have no means of 
 identifying, to which is prefixed a paragraph quoting lines 
 addressed by Newman to his father and exemplar, St. Philip 
 Neri, showing a pathetic consciousness of his own intense 
 sensitiveness : 
 
 ' He trusted himself,' says this last-named writer, 'to the 
 guidance and example of the Saint who remained half in 
 the world, and whose Cloister has been called " the home of 
 Christian joy." To him he addressed the simple lines : 
 
 ' " I'm ashamed of myself, of my tears and my tongue, 
 So easily fretted, so often unstrung ; 
 Mad at trifles to which a chance moment gives birth, 
 Complaining of heaven and complaining of earth." '
 
 352 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Of the Father's daily life and habits the same writer 
 speaks as follows : 
 
 ' The early morning was devoted to meditation, prayers 
 and ecclesiastical duties ; the succeeding hours to study and 
 work. Newman, who was a good pedestrian, seldom omitted 
 his accustomed afternoon walk. At 6 o'clock they dined 
 all together in the Refectory, and when it fell to his turn 
 Newman would serve his guests and brethren as though he 
 had been the least among them. There was reading aloud 
 during the meal, then some theological question was shortly 
 discussed, after which they all went to the Community Room 
 where coffee was served, and an hour spent in social converse, 
 with sometimes the addition of music. Nothing was easier 
 than to arouse Newman's interest, for everything interested 
 him, — literature, politics, the trade and stipulations of the 
 merchant, the circumstances of persons and places known to 
 him ; rural life ; the studies of the young men ; the thoughts 
 of the simple and the lowly, no less than the most difficult 
 problems and controversies. 
 
 * " Have you seen the new quay at Chelsea ? " he asked a 
 lady friend who visited him during the last months of his 
 life. She knew nothing about it. " You come from London 
 and have not seen it ! " answered the Cardinal, quite 
 astonished. . . . 
 
 ' In his intercourse there was nothing of the scholar 
 about him, and he carefully avoided all pedantry in expres- 
 sion. He once said that if he had had to choose between 
 social intercourse without literary pursuits and literary 
 pursuits without social intercourse, he would, as a student, 
 without hesitation have chosen the former. This amiability 
 in society, this power of adapting himself to everyone, knew 
 yet one exception. When people endeavoured to force him to 
 express his opinion upon undecided controversial questions, 
 or again, when they began ill-timed and impossible discussions 
 on " the origin of evil " for example, or on the Vatican decrees, 
 at table — '' entre la poire et le frotnage',' or when, as so often 
 happens in England as elsewhere, they would try to save 
 themselves the trouble of thinking over difficult questions 
 by half an hour's conversation with a man of note, then he 
 treated them as they deserved. A Member of Parliament 
 took the train to Edgbaston at the time of the struggle in 
 which the temporal power was sacrificed. " Ah ! Father 
 Newman," he began, " what times we live in ; only see what 
 is going on in Italy." " Yes, indeed ; but only see too what 
 is going on in China and New Zealand ! " Sometimes his
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 353 
 
 answers to such importunities would be followed by a 
 dissertation on the cultivation of grapes in hothouses, for 
 instance, or on the advantage of the fast train at 11.45 over 
 that at 4,26.' 
 
 Father Ryder, himself a literary artist and a true poet 
 as well as an able theologian, writes as follows of Newman's 
 literary tastes and preferences : 
 
 ' He has told us that the joy of literary composition — 
 a joy which one would have imagined would have corre- 
 sponded in some degree to the beauty of the composition — 
 was unknown to him ; that he felt joy in the deliverance of 
 the task, in throwing off the burden of an accomplished work, 
 but nothing more. The truth was his sense of responsibility 
 in almost everything that he wrote, was overwhelming, and 
 the self-discipline of his nature made him shrink from a 
 curious choice of literary pasture. He read for a purpose, 
 for the most part to meet the urgent and prosaic needs of the 
 day. Although such works as " Callista '' and the " Church of 
 the Fathers " shew an historical imagination which could have 
 made a home for itself in any age, I think he had not the 
 antiquarian taste which would have made the omnigenous 
 literature of antiquity interesting to him. Had he ever lost 
 his sense of a vocation and found the " green retreat " of 
 which the poet sings, I cannot but suspect that he would have 
 frequented his garden rather than his library ; that he would 
 have gardened, built more or less, and conversed, but, beyond 
 a few verses, the world would have received little from him 
 in the way of literary composition. For one who read and 
 wrote so much he had singularly little of the typical cha- 
 racter of a man of letters. He enjoyed the conversation of 
 professional men — of soldiers, doctors, lawyers, — all who 
 could give an intelligent account of what interested them, 
 and this not merely from good nature, but from the genuine 
 interest he took in the "quidquid agunt homines." He always 
 gave one the impression that he might have been great in 
 any department of life ; that he might have been a great 
 general, a great lawyer, a great parliamentary debater — 
 whether he could ever have been a great party leader I can- 
 not say. He insists repeatedly in the " Apologia " that he 
 never could manage a party ; as he expressed it, that he " had 
 not a sufficiently strong wrist." I suspect he had too keen 
 a .sympathy for individuality to enforce the necessary drill. 
 His own verse " Thou couldst a people raise but couldst not 
 rule" was applied to himself, he tells us, by one of his friends, 
 
 VOL. II. A A
 
 354 I-IFE OF CARDTNAT. NEWMAN 
 
 and he fully accepts the imputation. At all periods of his 
 life he was I think a constant reader of the daily press, but 
 he was no amateur politician, and on the principle "cuique in 
 sua arte credendum " where he did not feel that he had made 
 a subject matter his own he was inclined to reverse the maxim 
 " measures not men." As regards books I think his favourite 
 authors amongst the Fathers were St. John Chrysostom and 
 Tertullian. I speak here with diffidence. I do not forget his 
 affection for St. Basil and the two Gregories and his life-long 
 devotion to St. Athanasius, but the two first-mentioned I 
 think he admired most. How he spoke of St. Chrysostom 
 and the character of his scripture commentary is well known. 
 I myself have heard him speak of Tertullian as the theo- 
 logical genius of the Early Church with tears in his voice if 
 not in his eyes, whilst he pointed out how frequently the 
 initial sin of heresy was impatience — impatience to do God's 
 work otherwise than He would have it done and so in- 
 effectually. In regard to poetry he had little sympathy with 
 the objective criticism of the day. He liked what he liked 
 intensely, but I think he was impatient of being called upon to 
 account for his liking of this or that. In the region of poetry 
 he certainly adhered to his principle that " egotism is true 
 modesty." I think he could have admired Byron heartily 
 if his moral disapprobation had allowed him. I have heard 
 him speak with enthusiasm of the third canto of " Childe 
 Harold" with an "O si sic omnia." I do not think he ever 
 took cordially to Wordsworth. That poet's didactic tone, 
 his almost sacerdotal pretensions, offended him, and he was 
 wearied by his excessive deliberateness. But never shall I 
 forget — I was a boy at the time, just recovering from an 
 illness — his coming and reading to me the famous Ode " On 
 the Intimations of Immortality." There was a passion and a 
 pathos in his voice that made me feel that it was altogether 
 the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. He was very 
 fond of Crabbe, the firm realistic touches of his descriptions 
 of scenery and character delighted him ; and his moralizing 
 recommended itself to him as the legitimate outcome of 
 common-sense humanity. He has told us in the "Apologia" 
 and elsewhere how he loved Southey. " Southey's beautiful 
 poem of ' Thalaba,' for which I had an immense liking, came 
 forcibly to my mind." Poor Southey ! there would seem 
 to be a consensus to-day amongst all classes of critics, that 
 you have lost for ever your seat amongst the immortals, 
 and yet three at least of the idols of to-day, Coleridge and 
 Landor and Newman, worshipped you! . . . "Thalaba" was
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 355 
 
 particularly attractive to Cardinal Newman as the picture of 
 a life-long vocation with its mysterious isolation ever at war 
 with the social instincts of the hero ; its irrepressible onward 
 movement despite its grave oriental quietude ; its asceticism ; 
 its succession of pictures, which so full of colour never 
 glitter, have nothing of the impressionist about them ; the 
 tremendous catastrophe in which the hero dying achieves his 
 victory, without earthl)' recompense. It was his picture of 
 what he trusted the Movement and his share in the Move- 
 ment would have been. He was himself a traveller : the 
 " Apologia " is the history of his journey from a form of 
 Calvinism through different phases of Anglicanism into the 
 Catholic Church. . . . 
 
 ' He had but very slight acquaintance with our poets 
 of the last forty years. One or two things of Tennyson he 
 knew that younger friends had introduced him to, ?iad in fact 
 read to him, and I have heard him express great admiration 
 for " Mariana in the Moated Grange." The only one of our 
 modern poets so far as I know whom he seemed inclined 
 to read, though bej'ond the opening pages he would not go, 
 was W. Morris, both his " Earthly Paradise " and his " [Life 
 and Death] of Jason." It was evident that he was genuinely 
 impressed by his poetic gift, but I think he had a special 
 scruple about what poetry he read, that which did not suit him 
 not suiting him at all. It was to him food or air rather than 
 scenery which he could look at and pass on, where he did not 
 need to stay. This was of course the case more or less with 
 other books which did not come in the way of duty, but 
 I think it was especially so with poetry. Of classical poetry 
 his special favourites were the " Odyssey," the " Georgics," the 
 " Prometheus " of ^schylus, Euripides rather than Sophocles 
 attracted him, especially the " Alcestis." He was devoted to 
 Sir Walter Scott's novels, frequently referring to them in 
 his writings as an influence for good as well as a source 
 of artistic delight. He was fond of Thackeray, reading 
 faithfully everything that he wrote down to the last un- 
 finished work, and the same may be said of Trollope ; I 
 believe there was not one of his which he had not read and 
 delighted in. 
 
 * Mrs. Gaskell was another favourite writer. For George 
 Eliot I think he felt little or no attraction. In the regions 
 of poetry and fiction I hardly think he admired anything 
 that he did not like, and he liked nothing the general 
 tendency of which he did not regard as making for 
 righteousness. At least this was more nearly the case with 
 
 A A 2
 
 356 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 him than with any one else I have ever known, and it is a 
 tremendous confession to make in an age which beheves that 
 art is its own justification. Another favourite book of his 
 was Fouquc's talcs of " Undine," " Sintram," and the rest. I 
 remember a lady telling me that when he was staying at her 
 house she lent him " Sintram," which he had not seen before, 
 and that it was extraordinary the way in which it absorbed 
 him. 
 
 'In the " Apologia" he speaks of the new generation, ot 
 the movement of the young men which carried him away to 
 a great extent from his earlier companions and contem- 
 poraries, and he accounts for this by a variety of incidental 
 circumstances. The truth is, as we who have lived with him 
 know full well, that young men have always exercised a 
 peculiar influence over him. There has been for the most part 
 mutual attraction. I do not think he ever cared much for 
 the child or the boy except in idea, but the young man he 
 loved and yielded him all the honours of manhood ungrudg- 
 ingly at a time when others would have been apt to with- 
 hold them. He never committed the mistake of putting 
 the boy upon the youth. But for the " tonsured Head 
 of Middle Age " I think he was not inclined to shew much 
 consideration. It was to him a youth not much wiser and 
 very much less ready. I think the young have ever been 
 his best allies, and the old in whom there has been a revival 
 of youth.' 
 
 Father Ryder's notes include some interesting com- 
 ments on Newman's gifts as a poet, and on his method in 
 controversy and in writing on philosophy : 
 
 ' The early Lyrics and the " Dream of Gerontius " have 
 been very generally accepted as of unique beauty in their kind. 
 The latter was made the subject of an inaugural address by 
 the Professor of Poetry at Oxford — Sir Francis Doyle. And 
 even a poet of Mr. Swinburne's alien temperament can 
 recognize " the force, the fervour, the terse energy of Cardinal 
 Newman's verse at its best " and " a genuine lyric note " 
 which makes him question whether there was not a deal of 
 true poetry thrown away upon what he is pleased to call 
 the " sands " and " thickets " of theology {XlXth Century, 
 May '84). The " Dream of Gerontius "... has had a strong 
 attraction for uneducated as well as educated persons. I 
 knew a poor stocking weaver who on his death bed made his
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 357 
 
 wife read it to him repeatedly. It was one of the favourite 
 works of General Gordon/ and after his death his copy, 
 copiously underlined, was shown to the Cardinal, who was 
 very much touched and transferred the pencil marks to his 
 own copy. 'Lead, kindly Light" is perhaps the most 
 popular modern hymn in the language. Some of his re- 
 ligious lyrics are amongst the most direct and passionate 
 expressions of strong feeling in the language. I remember 
 hearing an eccentric but acute critic, with something of 
 Mr. Swinburne's turn for grouping poets, thus deliver himself 
 in our common room, " Under the head ' poets of passion ' 
 I would put Lord Byron, Charles Wesley, and," bowing 
 to Fr. Newman, " if I may be allowed to say so, your 
 Reverence." We were all very much amused, but I have 
 thought since that the criticism was almost as true as it was 
 grotesque. 
 
 'The expression "Newman's Stcbjectivitdt" has become, 
 I believe, a current phrase in Germany [in reference 
 especially to his philosophical writing]. It is not that he 
 fails to recognise the existence of an intuition of meta- 
 physical and moral truth as a property of human reason, 
 and affording when recognised a sure basis for rigid 
 demonstration, but he feels that, taking men as they are, 
 formally to insist upon this would be premature and un- 
 practical ; and so he adopts a controversial method of his 
 own, and it is certainly the very reverse of that of the logical 
 metaphysician, and falls in well with the motto he selected 
 when he was made Cardinal — "Cor ad cor loquitur." Instead 
 of presenting his readers with a logical formula which says 
 equivalently " accept my position on pain of being convicted 
 of an absurdity" — a treatment for which most Englishmen in 
 the region of metaphysic have not sufficient logical nerve, — 
 he would seem to say, " take pains to understand my language, 
 stand where I stand and see if you do not feel as I am 
 feeling." Not that his treatment is not full of logic, but it 
 is logic in solution where the reader finds himself pursuing 
 an argument almost unconsciously. He does not care to 
 project himself along a single line or many single lines of 
 logical thought along which at best the mere logical siuin- 
 lacruui of his reader, not the whole concrete man, will follow 
 him ; but he would fain make a wide pathway wherein a 
 traveller may move rejoicing, carrying with him all that is 
 his. He sometimes seems to shrink from abstractions as 
 
 ' Vide infra, p. 514.
 
 358 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 from attenuated truths and endeavours to frame his argu- 
 ment from concrete to concrete. His exercise of formal 
 logic in practice is often wonderfully dexterous and subtle, 
 but it is rather used as a sword for defence or attack than 
 as his implement for building the walls of Jerusalem. He is 
 impatient of conventional forms of thought as of armour not 
 made for him without any derogation from its absolute value. 
 " Dixitque David ad Saul, Non possum sic incedere, quia non 
 usum habeo. Et deposuit ea." ' 
 
 Of Newman's position in his own country during the 
 last years of his life Father Ryder gives his own personal 
 recollections and impressions : 
 
 * Ever since the publication ot the " Apologia," Cardinal 
 Newman has been accepted by the general public of his 
 countrymen not merely as a religious writer of consummate 
 genius but as emphatically an honest thinker and writer, one 
 who might be trusted never consciously to overstate his case 
 or undervalue the position of an adversary ; who was an 
 Englishman with his heart in the right place — no " Inglese 
 Italianato " as the old phrase went, but one in whose affec- 
 tions his country and his countrymen had never ceased to 
 hold their own. Thus it often happened that persons who 
 could not find a civil word to say of the Pope or of aught to 
 him appertaining, always made an exception in favour of 
 Father Newman, adding, more frequently than not, that of 
 course he did not count, seeing that he was in his present 
 position a sort of lusus natum^ an exception proving the rule. 
 Still, he did count notwithstanding, and for a good deal ; 
 and Englishmen have got to think better of Catholics for the 
 sake of Cardinal Newman. His popularity found a safe- 
 guard and support in a condition of things which on other 
 grounds we might be inclined to deprecate, his seclusion 
 from public life. He has not been forced by his position to 
 take a decided line on each question as it has arisen ; to 
 assume the character of a partizan or the scarcely less odious 
 role of an officious neutral. It has been open to him almost 
 always to keep silence except when he has elected to break 
 it. He has been allowed to choose the subject and the 
 moment and the manner of his intervention, to calculate 
 nicely his point of incidence, until people learned to re- 
 cognise that the mere fact of his opening his mouth implied 
 that he had something to say which, whether they agreed 
 with it or not, was well worth listening to. It is wonderful 
 the extent to which of late years all sorts of persons with
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 359 
 
 religious difficulties have had recourse to him. Members, 
 often ministers, of various religious bodies, Methodists, 
 Presbyterians, &c. with no sort of leaning towards the 
 Church, have sought his guidance and advice and sympathy ; 
 and his correspondence of this sort, until writing became 
 an impossibility for him, was enormous. Indeed, now and 
 again one came across something which almost looked like a 
 cidtus of Cardinal Newman outside the Church. A member 
 of a Baptist Congregation in a large manufacturing town 
 told her daughter — a Catholic — that their minister had been 
 for three Sundays preaching upon Cardinal Newman as a 
 model of Christian virtue, and expounding " Lead, kindly 
 Light." ' 
 
 Father Neville's own Recollections (which I transcribe 
 with slight abridgment and transpositions) are various- 
 passing sometimes to details in themselves trivial, yet of 
 interest to those who regard as precious all that concerns 
 a great man. Many of them belong to the years following 
 Newman's elevation to the Sacred College, and shall be given 
 later on. But his minute notes concerning Newman's 
 devotional habits, written in response to questions from the 
 Father's friends, tell of an earlier period and may be here 
 set down : 
 
 ' It has been asked whether the Father showed at his 
 devotions any special habits, — for instance : Did he in any 
 way support himself on such occasions ; and did he always 
 kneel upright ? His ordinary way was what, under the 
 circumstances, would come naturally to him. In visits to 
 the Blessed Sacrament, and ordinarily, he would rest upon 
 what was before him, with his face in his hands, or with his 
 hands clasped against the back of his head. But when 
 engaged in a religious act, whether private or public, his 
 whole mien was that of a person most reverently and abso- 
 lutely absorbed in what he was about ; this, however, did not 
 hinder him in any act proper for the time and place, nor did 
 he need to have his attention drawn to it. If he knelt up- 
 right and without support, it would be at times when it was 
 proper or becoming ; and whatever his attitude might be, it 
 was always natural and free from appearance of strain. 
 Even on an occasion such as the procession of tl;e Blessed 
 Sacrament on Corpus Christi, there would not be anything 
 noteworthy in him to strike an ordinary observer, )'et some at 
 least of his assistants, when he carried the Blessed Sacrament,
 
 36o LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 have a still lasting impression of him that had been made 
 on them from his ready exactness in his recitation of 
 the Psalms, and the reverence that accompanied all he said 
 and did. It was the accumulation in the memory of these 
 passing views of him, each year adding its own — whether 
 differing or the same — that so impressed them with the 
 reality and the meaning of this act of devotion, and of his 
 own faith. 
 
 'AH this can, no doubt, be said of many another; but 
 here it answers questions about J. H. Newman in particular. 
 To the last, he himself gave much attention to the externals 
 of this devotion in honour of Our Lord ; the singing, the 
 orderliness, etc., of all the proceedings, each had his interest 
 in them beforehand, nor did they escape him at the time. 
 Moreover, at all times, when he genuflected to the Blessed 
 Sacrament, he was invariable in touching the ground, or all 
 but so, with his knee — occasionally on seeing those to whom 
 he could speak getting into a careless habit in this respect, 
 he would draw their attention to it. This was always done 
 quietly, gently, almost imperceptibly. 
 
 ' If it is at all worth while to add more to the above it 
 may be said that in appearance, gesture and bearing, he 
 differed much according to the devotions, and the portions of 
 them, in which he was engaged. His entrance to Mass, for 
 instance, would have given an able painter the opportunity 
 for a very different portrait of him from that of his return, 
 and in his recital of the Gloria of the Mass both his face 
 and manner have sometimes been spoken of by his servers 
 as very striking to them. At the Sepulchre, too, on Holy 
 Thursday and Good Friday, his demeanour differed from 
 other times. This devotion was held in great reverence by 
 him, and he was evidently distressed at any slackness of 
 attendance at it, or if the preparations for it fell short of his 
 expectations for his own church. For instance : If the 
 flowers were all white, or only white and yellow, however 
 well intended this may have been, he was far from satisfied ; 
 he looked for richness and beauty and harmony of colours, 
 and he regarded their absence as arising from neglect. 
 
 ' Each year, when Holy Week came round, he spent some 
 hours in watching at the Sepulchre, as constantly in his last 
 years as before ; and the early morning of his last Good 
 Friday on earth found him in the Chapel of Repose thus 
 employed. He was then in his ninetieth year. Thus, as at 
 other times of devotion, the simplicity and naturalness of his 
 manner, — so recollected withal, — could not but strike those
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY -,6i 
 
 who might see him — they took the place ol any distinctive 
 sign such as has been looked for. To many, the memory of 
 him at such times reproduces him clothed as it were with 
 these. 
 
 ' These notes are but the observations of one and another 
 in the course of years. There was no painter or sculptor 
 living with him. , 
 
 ' More interesting than his external appearance would be 
 the Cardinal's attitude of mind at these different times ot 
 prayer. Somewhat of this may be gathered from his poetry 
 and various writings. The volume of meditations and devo- 
 tions published after his death adds still more, by showing 
 him in lights where it had been supposed that he was not to 
 be seen. His own autograph books of daily private prayers 
 give impressions of him which are not to be got elsewhere, 
 and are sui generis. Some extracts from these books which 
 follow, and indeed the whole, were done, not at once and for 
 all, but, as though to keep them in mind, were rewritten and 
 added to from time to time. They bear dates which cover 
 nearly the whole period of his Catholic life, and end only 
 when, near to his death, the writing becomes almost illegible. 
 Objects of prayer are allotted to different days ; so also are 
 persons to be prayed for, their names being classified under 
 headings, such as these : Auld Lang Sync ; Dear to me ; Kind 
 to me ; No Jwiv to me ; St. Mary's and Littlemore ; Faithful 
 women ; Witli claim on mc ; Loyal to me ; Ecclesiastics ; 
 The Dead. There was a pleasure to him in arranging what 
 he had in mind in short lines, and he liked to make his 
 meditation with a pen in his hand.' 
 
 Father Neville adds the following extracts : 
 
 '1853. 
 
 ' General Objects. 
 
 ' Friday. 
 
 ' Increase of Priests. 
 
 Sanctification of Priests and People. 
 
 Spread of Religion. 
 
 Conversion of the Nations. 
 
 All who befriend or help us. 
 
 All who ask my prayers. 
 
 All who attend our Church. 
 
 All who are in our schools. 
 
 Catholic Education.
 
 362 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 All in our Mission. 
 
 All in Birmingham. 
 
 All in England— the Queen. 
 
 All I have forgotten. 
 
 All who helped me in the Achilli matter. 
 
 The Faithful departed.^ 
 
 Opponents and enemies. 
 
 ' Memento Defunctorum. 
 
 'Adam de Brome.- Edward IL^ 
 
 Sir Thomas Pope.^ 
 
 Count Mellerio.^ John Baptist Palma.*^ 
 
 Fr. Dominic. 
 
 Mgr. Allemani.^ 
 
 Fathers Perrone, Buonvicino, Ripetti.^ 
 
 All whom I have attended on their sick bed. 
 
 All whom I ought to have attended and did not. 
 
 Any who have died Protestants through me 
 
 Make up to them and forgive me 
 
 The defects of my ministrations. 
 
 ' General Memento. 
 
 ' The Holy Father, for wisdom and fortitude. 
 
 The Holy Roman Church. 
 
 The Cardinals, 
 
 our Bishop and Chapter, seculars, regulars, 
 
 the whole Hierarchy, in England, throughout the world 
 
 all religious orders, 
 
 all ecclesiastical establishments and institutions, 
 
 for children and the young, rich and poor, for the sick, 
 
 prisons, reformatories, penitentiaries, 
 
 all religious associations ; 
 
 for the extension and prosperity of Holy Church, 
 
 for the sanctification, intelligence, influence of her children, 
 
 for her success with heathen, infidels, misbelievers, 
 
 heretics, schismatics. 
 
 ' With names. 
 *' Joint Founders of Oriel. 
 Founder of Trinity College, Oxford. 
 
 * Count Mellerio w as very kind to J. H. N. at Milan, when the latter was on 
 his way to Rome in 1846. 
 
 * Author of a Life of Christ, used in Lent by J. H. N. 
 
 ' Bishopof all California, he died Archbishopof San Francisco. He interested 
 himself much for Newman in the Achilli trial. 
 
 * Jesuits in Rome. The last was at Propaganda while J. H. N. and St. John 
 were there, and was much esteemed by them. There is a further long list of names 
 which I do not transcribe.
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 36- 
 
 For her victory over kings, governments and people. 
 
 For her confessors, missionaries, apologists, 
 
 for her theologians, controversialists, literary men. 
 
 For our Colonies, 
 
 for Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, 
 
 Spain, Russia, Egypt, United States. 
 
 For our Oratory, 
 
 For each of its Fathers, for good novices, 
 
 Oratorium Parvum, 
 
 For its Mission, orphanage, poor schools, middle schools, 
 
 penitents and people, 
 
 for the Oratory School with its 
 
 matrons, masters, servants, old scholars. 
 
 Pro re pecuniaria nostra, 
 
 and as regards Rednal and Ravenhurst. 
 
 For the London Oratory. 
 
 For all Oratories, here and abroad. 
 
 For all who befriend me, who have a claim on my prayers. 
 
 Who attend our Church, all teachers and taught. 
 
 All my benefactors and well-wishers. 
 
 All who subscribed and prayed for me 
 
 in the Achilli matter, 
 
 in the Oxford matter, 
 
 and on my being appointed Cardinal, 
 
 for all my friends and acquaintance, 
 
 for all my work, by word, deed, or writing, 
 
 for all whom I have influenced, 
 
 for my future. 
 
 ' Memento Vivorum. 
 
 ' For all the Fathers and the Brothers 
 
 And our Novices and Scholars, 
 
 And the Little Oratory ; 
 
 And our Friends and Benefactors, 
 
 And our Schools for poor and gentle. 
 
 And our Parish, past and present, 
 Harborne, Edgbaston, and Smethwick 
 
 For our preaching and our singing, 
 
 For our reading and our writing. 
 
 For sufficient worldly goods. 
 
 And for all the sacred College, 
 
 And the Papal Curia, 
 
 And our Bishops and their Clergy, 
 
 And St. Philip's London Fathers, 
 
 And the University of Ireland,
 
 364 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 And for Trinity and Oriel, 
 And the state of Christendom. 
 
 For my private Benefactors, 
 
 And my penitents and pupils, 
 
 And my kindred and connections. 
 
 And my friends and my acquaintance, 
 
 And my slanderers and thwarters, 
 
 Catholic and Protestant.^ 
 
 A few extracts from the Meditations and Devotions which 
 Newman wrote from time to time may be set down as having 
 in them much of self- revelation' 
 
 The following is a prayer for wisdom in the use of the 
 faculty of Reason : — 
 
 ' O gracious and merciful God, Father of Lights, I humbly 
 pray and beseech Thee, that in all my exercises of Reason, 
 Thy gift, I may use it, as Thou wouldst have me use it, in the 
 obedience of Faith, with a view to Thy Glory, with an aim at 
 Thy Truth, in dutiful submission to Thy Will, for the comfort 
 of Thine elect, for the edification of Holy Jerusalem, Thy 
 Church, and in recollection of Thine own solemn warning : 
 " Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an 
 account thereof in the day of judgment ; for by thy words, 
 
 • The following is a tablet inscription beneath a picture of the Sacred Heart 
 in the Oratory Church : 
 
 ' MY LOVING JESUS, 
 
 I GIVE THEE MY HEART ; 
 
 AND I CONSECRATE MYSELF 
 
 WHOLLY TO THEE 
 
 OUT OF THE GRATEFUL LOVE I BEAR THER, 
 
 AND AS A REPARATION 
 
 FOR ALL MY UNFAITHFULNESS TO GRACE, 
 
 AND WITH THINE AID I PURPOSE 
 
 NEVER TO SIN AGAIN.' 
 
 ' The devotion of the Sacred Heart,' adds Father Neville, ' was a very special 
 devotion to him, and it is remembered that he spoke of it in years long gone by 
 as affecting him far more powerfully than other devotions which he named, 
 though to those also he was known to be drawn. In early years, after the 
 Oratory had settled down at Edgbaston, he built the Chapel of the Sacred Heart 
 with money of his own — a chapel thirty feet square every way— and he covered 
 its walls with tiling at a considerable cost. Having a preference for somewhat 
 retired places for prayer, he meant this Chapel to be cut off from the Church by a 
 screen, but, while it was in progress, other building enlargements caused it to 
 be thrown quite open as it now stands. The altar itself was given by a friend, 
 Miss Frances Farrant. 
 
 * A Chapel, or, at least an altar of St. Francis de Sales, was another desire of 
 his from this time, and when it became necessary for him as Cardinal to have a 
 little private chapel of his own, he dedicated the altar to St. Francis de Sales. 
 The picture of the Saint that he placed over it was the gift of a friend, a lady 
 always most true to him, Miss Bowles. It took the place of a chrome of the 
 Saint which he had got for himself in Rome.'
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 365 
 
 thou shalt be justified, and by thy words, thou shalt be 
 condemned." 
 
 Here is one which was evidently written in view of the 
 special trials which have been recorded in these volumes arising 
 from the action of the ecclesiastical authorities in his regard : 
 
 ' O my God, in Thy sight, I confess and bewail my 
 extreme weakness in distrusting, if not Thee, at least Thy 
 own servants and representatives, when things do not turn 
 out as I would have them, or expected ! Thou hast given 
 me St. Philip, that great creation of Thy grace, for my master 
 and patron — and I have committed myself to him — and he 
 has done very great things for me, and has in many ways 
 fulfilled towards me all that I can fairly reckon he had 
 promised. But, because in some things he has disappointed 
 me, and delayed, I have got impatient ; and have served 
 him, though without conscious disloyalty, yet with peevish- 
 ness and coldness. O my dear Lord, give me a generous 
 faith in Thee and in Thy servants ! ' 
 
 In another we see the sad thought that he was losing his 
 time and doing nothing, and his effort to picture a work done 
 in God's way even though his own cherished aims and the 
 tasks he felt best fitted to perform had again and again been 
 thwarted : 
 
 ' O my Lord Jesu, I will use the time. It will be too late 
 to pray, when life is over. There is no prayer in the grave — 
 there is no meriting in Purgatory. Low as 1 am in Thy all 
 holy sight, I am strong in Thee, strong through Thy Im- 
 maculate Mother, through Thy Saints: and thus I can do 
 much for the Church, for the world, for all I love. O let 
 not the blood of souls be on my head ! O let me not walk 
 my own way without thinking of Thee. Let me bring 
 everything before Thee, asking Thy leave for everything I 
 purpose. Thy blessing on everything I do. ... As the dial 
 speaks of the sun, so will I be ruled by Thee alone, if Thou 
 wilt take me and rule me. Be it so, my Lord Jesus, I give 
 myself wholly to Thee.' 
 
 In another prayer he reminds himself of the great and 
 solemn fact of the Catholic Church as an ever-present guide : 
 
 ' Let me never for an instant forget that Thou hast estab- 
 lished on earth a kingdom of Thy own, that the Church is 
 Thy work, Thy establishment. Thy instrument ; that we are 
 under Thy rule, Thy laws and Thy eye — that when the 
 Church speaks Thou dost speak. Let not familiarity with
 
 366 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 this wonderful truth lead me to be insensible to it — let not 
 the weakness of Thy human representatives lead me to forget 
 that it is Thou who dost speak and act through them.' 
 
 In yet another he prays for light in his teaching, and asks 
 to be saved from a false originality of thought : 
 
 'Come, O my dear Lord, and teach me in like manner. I 
 need it not, and do not ask it, as far as this, that the word of 
 truth which in the beginning was given to the Apostles by 
 Thee, has been handed down from age to age, and has already 
 been taught to me, and Thy Infallible Church is the warrant 
 of it. But I need Thee to teach me day by day, according to 
 each day's opportunities and needs. I need Thee to give me 
 that true Divine instinct about revealed matters that, knowing 
 one part, I may be able to anticipate or to approve of others 
 I need that understanding of the truths about Thyself which 
 may prepare me for all Thy other truths — or at least may save 
 me from conjecturing wrongly about them or commenting 
 falsely upon them. I need the mind of the Spirit, which is 
 the mind of the holy Fathers, and of the Church, by which I 
 may not only say what they say on definite points, but think 
 what they think ; in all I need to be saved from an originality 
 of thought, which is not true if it leads away from Thee. 
 Give me the gift of discriminating between true and false in 
 all discourse of mine.' 
 
 To the above should be added his Meditation on the 
 Feast of All Saints as giving his ruling thought through life 
 and his prayer for a happy death : 
 
 * I. Place yourself in the presence of God, kneeling with 
 hands clasped. 
 
 ' 2. Read slowly and devoutly. Apocalypse, vii. 9-17. 
 ' 3. Bring all this before you as in a picture. 
 
 * 4. Then say to Him whatever comes into your mind to 
 say ; for instance : — 
 
 ' " They are before the throne of God, and serve Him day 
 and night in His Temple." " They shall not hunger nor thirst 
 any more " ; " The Lamb shall lead them to the fountains of 
 living waters." 
 
 ' (i) My dear Lord and Saviour, shall I ever see Thee in 
 heaven ? This world is very beautiful, very attractive, and 
 there are many things and persons whom I love in it. But 
 Thou art the most beautiful and best of all. Make me ac- 
 knowledge this with all my heart, as well as by faith and in 
 my reason.
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 367 
 
 * (2) My Lord, I know nothing here below lasts ; nothing 
 here below satisfies. Pleasures come and go ; I quench my 
 thirst and am thirsty again. But the saints in heaven are 
 always gazing on Thee, and drinking in eternal blessedness 
 from Thy dear and gracious and most awful and most glorious 
 countenance, 
 
 ' 5. Conclusion. — May my lot be with the saints.' 
 
 Let a few more extracts be quoted, telling of thoughts 
 habitually in his mind : 
 
 ' Let me bear pain, reproach, disappointment, slander, 
 anxiety, suspense, as Thou wouldest have mc, O my Jesu, 
 and as Thou by Thy own suffering hast taught me, when it 
 comes. And I promise too, with Thy grace, that I will 
 never set myself up, never seek pre-eminence, never court 
 any great thing of the world, never prefer myself to others, 
 
 ' Give me that life, suitable to my own need, which is 
 stored up for us all in Him who is the life of men. 
 Teach me and enable me to live the life of Saints and 
 Angels. Take me out of the languor, the irritabilit)', the 
 sensitiveness, the incapability, the anarchy, in which my soul 
 lies, and fill it with Thy fulness. Breathe on me, that the 
 dead bones may live. Breathe on me with that Breath which 
 infuses energy and kindles fervour. In asking for fervour, 
 I ask for all that I can need, and all that Thou canst give ; 
 for it is the crown of all gifts and all virtues. It cannot 
 really and fully be, except where all are present. It is the 
 beauty and the glory, as it is also the continual safeguard and 
 purifier of them all. In asking for fervour, I am asking for 
 effectual strength, consistency, and perseverance ; I am 
 asking for dcadncss to every human motive and simplicity of 
 intention to please Thee ; I am asking for faith, hope, and 
 charity in their most heavenly exercise. In asking for 
 fervour I am asking to be rid of the fear of man, and the 
 desire of his praise ; I am asking for the gift of prayer, 
 because it will be so sweet ; I am asking for that loyal per- 
 ception of duty, which follows on yearning affection ; I am 
 asking for sanctity, peace, and joy all at once. In asking for 
 fervour, I am asking for the brightness of the Cherubim and 
 the fire of the Seraphim, and the whiteness of all Saints. In 
 asking for fervour, I am asking for that which, while it 
 implies all gifts, is that in which I signally fail. Nothing 
 would be a trouble to me, nothing a difficulty, had I but 
 fervour of soul.
 
 368 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 'Lord, in asking for fervour, I am asking for Thyself, 
 for nothing short of Thee, O my God, who hast given 
 Thyself wholly to us. Enter my heart substantially and 
 personally, and fill it with fervour by filling it with Thee. 
 Thou alone canst fill the soul of man, and Thou hast 
 promised to do so. Thou art the living Flame, and ever 
 burnest with love of man : enter into me and set me on fire 
 after Thy pattern and likeness. 
 
 * How can I keep from Thee ? For Thou, who art the 
 Light of Angels, art the only Light of my soul. Thou 
 enlightenest every man that comcth into this world. I am 
 utterly dark, as dark as hell, without Thee. I droop and 
 shrink when Thou art away. I revive only in proportion as 
 Thou dawnest upon me. Thou comest and goest at Thy 
 will. O my God, I cannot keep Thee! I can only beg 
 of Thee to stay. " Mane nobiscum, Domine, quoniam 
 advesperascit." Remain till morning, and then go not 
 without giving me a blessing. Remain with me till death in 
 this dark valley, when the darkness will end. Remain, O 
 Light of my soul, jam advesperascit ! The gloom, which is 
 not Thine, falls over me. I am nothing. I have little com- 
 mand of myself I cannot do what I would. I am discon- 
 solate and sad. I want something, I know not what It is 
 Thou that I want, though I so little understand this. I say 
 it and take it on faith ; I partially understand it, but very 
 poorly. Shine on me, O Ignis seuiper ardens et nunquam 
 deficietis I — "O fire ever burning and never failing" — and 
 I shall begin, through and in Thy Light, to see Light, and 
 to recognise Thee truly, as the Source of Light. Mane 
 nobiscnni ; stay, sweet Jesus, stay for ever. In this decay 
 of nature, give more grace. 
 
 Prayer for a Happy Death. 
 
 ' Oh, my Lord and Saviour, support me in that hour in 
 the strong arms of Thy Sacraments, and by the fresh fra- 
 grance of Thy consolations. Let the absolving words be said 
 over me and the holy oil sign and seal me, and Thy own 
 Body be my food, and Thy Blood my sprinkling ; and let 
 my sweet Mother, Mary, breathe on me, and my Angel 
 whisper peace to me, and my glorious Saints . . . smile upon 
 me ; that in them all, and through them all, I may receive 
 the gift of perseverance, and die, as I desire to live, in 
 Thy faith, in Thy Church, in Thy service, and in Thy 
 love. Amen.'
 
 LIFE AT THE ORATORY 369 
 
 I will conclude these notes on Newman's life at the 
 Oratory with a vivid impression, which I owe to the kindness 
 of Canon Scott Holland, of a visit he paid to Newman in 
 1877. Canon Holland described the visit at the time in a 
 letter to a friend (Mrs. Ady) and retouched and added to 
 his account for the present volume : 
 
 ' The sight of my old letter to Mrs. Ady has quickened 
 my memory of a day that I can never forget. I recall the 
 swift sudden way in which I found him beside me, as I was 
 being led through the upper rooms by my friend. I turned 
 at the sound of the soft quick speech, and there he was — 
 white, frail and wistful, for all the ruggedness of the actual 
 features. I remembered at once the words of Furse about 
 him, "delicate as an old lady washed in milk." One felt 
 afraid to talk too loud, lest it should hurt him. I expected 
 him to be taller, and it was a shock to find myself looking 
 downwards at him. He had the old man's stoop. He was, 
 in the mean time, shaking me by the hand, and offering 
 welcome in low rapid courtesies of manner and voice. He 
 would see me later in the Common-room : and so was gone 
 as swiftly as he had entered. 
 
 'And this was Newman! — I was saying to myself over 
 and over again. The generation of to-day cannot understand 
 all that this meant to us in the seventies. The evenine 
 came : and I went to the refectory. Each had a little table 
 to himself, and mine was next to the Father's. I watched, 
 with awe, through dinner the big curve of the lower jaw at 
 work, and the marked frontal bones over the eyes. 
 
 'A Reader was drawling out Newman's own history of 
 the Turks. He seemed dreadfully bored, and we all were 
 relieved when the Father signalled to him to give it up. At 
 the close of the meal the habitual casuistical riddle was sent 
 round the table. It was taken from St. Alfonso, and dealt 
 with the problem of a full-grown man working as a carpenter 
 in his father's shop, who was forced to hand over all his gains to 
 his father, only to receive back an inadequate wage. Might he 
 reserve, without his father's knowledge, the amount that was 
 really and justly due to him ? I sat quaking lest the riddle 
 should come round to me for an answer, and was greatly 
 relieved at n slashing final verdict given against the son by 
 Father Newman. Only unluckily St. Alfonso's judgment 
 which was then read out from the book went dead the other 
 way. I was rather disconcerted by this contretemps : I gazed 
 severely at my plate, but nobody seemed to mind it. After a 
 VOL. II. E B
 
 370 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 while we withdrew to the Common Room. And then I was 
 put next to the Father, who laid himself out to talk freely 
 and delightfully to me, until the time came for me to bolt for 
 my train. The talk was all about Oxford. He could not tire 
 of the smallest detail of news from there. Every little touch 
 was of interest to him. Had I seen Dr. Pusey lately ? I told 
 him of a University Sermon which the Doctor had just 
 delivered in a voice choked for minutes at a time by hurri- 
 canes of coughing. " Ah yes ! he never could manage* the 
 voice. The first time that he had asked him to read the 
 lessons in St. Mary's, he had spoken out of his boots, and 
 coming out I said to him, ' Pusey, Pusey ! this will never do.' " 
 I think he got him to coach with some expert. I mentioned 
 that Oriel was in difficulty over its roof, and had to patch up 
 its gables with plaster, having no money to do more. " Yes ! 
 the beams in the roof were always rotten." He had got a 
 little broken bit of one in his room now. A Keble man had 
 been drowned out of a Canoe in a curious corner of a back- 
 water in Magdalen Meadows. He had tracked the whole 
 thing out from the Papers, and had made out the precise spot 
 where it had happened. He was quite pleased to find from 
 me that he had got it right. So the urgent enquiries went 
 on, in silvery whispers, keen and quick. It was, of course, 
 wonderful and beautiful to me, that he should treat me with 
 such kindly deference, and should invest me, so delicately, 
 with something of the halo that belonged to any one who 
 brought a touch of Oxford with him. I had to fly for my 
 train, and sped home tingling with the magic of a presence 
 that seemed to me like the frail embodiment of a living 
 voice. His soul was in his voice, as a bird is in its song. 
 It was his spiritual expression. And listening to these soft 
 swift subtle tones, " the earth we pace appeared to be an 
 unsubstantial fairy place," meet home for the mystery of the 
 lyrical cry. 
 
 ' For the rest I came away with a great feeling of sadness. 
 For these were the days when he was still under a cloud : 
 and as I eagerly pressed my Oratorian friend to tell me how 
 they lived, and what they did, I got very little told me. At 
 every turn, the answer came, " Oh ! we must keep quiet. We 
 cannot do much. We cannot write books. We might get 
 Father Newman into trouble." They evidently had to tread 
 very warily : and I, who had gone there ail agog with the 
 Oratorian Ideal returned home with my ardour rather damped. 
 ' But I had had my opportunity, and the memory of it 
 passed into my life. 
 
 ' H. S. Holland.'
 
 i 
 
 .^IPP '^^f 
 
 »» 
 M 
 
 /W 
 
 
 
 
 **'" 
 
 J 
 
 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, 1873. 
 From an Eiigra-i'ui^ by J oicpk Brown.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 AFTER THE COUNCIL (187I-1874) 
 
 The Vatican Council was a crisis in the history of the 
 Church. It was the culmination of a drama. The battle 
 between Liberals and Ultramontanes had been raging — more 
 especially in France and Germany — for nearly twenty years. 
 Now Pius IX. had carried his intervention in the contest — an 
 intervention which had begun with the Syllabus of 1864 — to 
 its furthest possible limit. Pius stood before his generation 
 as an heroic figure amid his misfortunes, a singularly lovable 
 personality ; and loved doubly for the persecution which had 
 realised St. Malachi's prophecy that his reign would be signed 
 by the cross.^ Masterful in action, filled with a sense of his 
 Divine mission, he had now brought to bear his great personal 
 influence in rallying to his standard all the forces of Catholic 
 loyalty. The result had been that the Liberals were 
 routed. The grave fears of wise men as to the consequences 
 of the Pope's action had no driving power which could 
 compete, in influencing Catholic opinion, with the appeal of 
 the saintly successor of Peter, persecuted, speaking with the 
 single-heartedness of a martyr and the assurance of a prophet. 
 One of the most influential of the opponents of the definition 
 — Bishop liefele of Rottenburg, himself a saintly man — for 
 a time withheld his submission, avowing his hope that the 
 Bishops of the minority would take concerted action. Other 
 Bishops, too, preserved for some months an attitude of hesi- 
 tation and expectancy. Newman, though himself accepting 
 the definition, did not at once regard it as obligatory on 
 others. The Council was not yet terminated. Its resump- 
 
 ' 'Crux de cruce ' was St. Malachi's motto for Pius IX. Leo XIII. was 
 ' Lumen in Coelo ' ; Pius X. ' Ignis ardcns' ; his successor ' Religio depopulata.' 
 
 B R 2
 
 372 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 tion might give opportunities for explanations of importance 
 which should be waited for. Will the minority act together 
 as a constitutional body ? Will the Council, in deference to 
 their attitude, in any way qualify its decision ? Such were 
 the questions which at first occurred to him. 
 
 But the Council was not to reassemble in that generation. 
 The enemy at the gates of Rome entered by the Porta Pia 
 in September. Pius directed that not a blow should be 
 struck. Victor Emmanuel took up his residence at the 
 Quirinal. Rome became the capital of the new Italian 
 kingdom. Henceforth no longer a temporal sovereign, Pius 
 did not set foot outside the Vatican. A fresh and intense 
 wave of sympathy was evoked from Catholic Christendom. 
 It was not a moment when Catholic feeling was ready to 
 tolerate any action which was even in appearance opposed to 
 the cherished ideals of the martyred Pontiff. 
 
 And in point of fact the only firm stand taken up against 
 the definition was made, not by holy men like Hefele or 
 Dupanloup, not by powerful Bishops of the minority acting 
 in concert as rulers of the Church, but by extreme and 
 fanatical Liberals like Professor Friedrich and his friends. 
 When the opposition to the definition was organised 
 by the Congress at Munich in 1871 the 'old Catholic' 
 community (as it was called) was founded on a schismatical 
 basis, against the express wish of Dollinger, who held aloof 
 from the movement, though he rejected the dogma. The old 
 Catholics had henceforth their own separate churches. Their 
 Bishop, Dr. Reinkens, was consecrated by the Jansenist Bishop 
 of Deventer. The German Government gave him a salary 
 and patronised the schismatics. Protestant and Erastian in 
 its character from the first, the old Catholic sect bore rapidly 
 the fruits whereby its character was manifested. The laws of 
 the Church on fasting and confession were tampered with 
 or set aside. A married clergy was instituted. Professor 
 Friedrich himself eventually withdrew from the movement, 
 from which Dollinger had all along consistently held 
 aloof. 
 
 On the other hand, Hefele, confronted with the prospect 
 of a schism, submitted in 1871 and promulgated the Vatican 
 decrees in his diocese. It was not doubtful on which side of
 
 AFTER THE COUNCIL (1871-1874) 373 
 
 such opposing powers Newman would be found. The dogma 
 of Papal Infallibility he had always held. Submission to 
 authority had ever been the corner-stone of Catholic loyalty 
 in his eyes. He very soon treated the dogma as of obligation, 
 and urged on all his friends the duty of submission. Never- 
 theless, like Bishop Hefele and others who had opposed 
 the definition, Newman was very anxious as to its probable 
 consequences. This anxiety was greater, not less, because, 
 as the Bishops of the minority took no concerted action, 
 he so soon came to regard the acceptance of the definition 
 as obligatory. It was, therefore, a very great relief to him 
 when Monsignor Fessler, the Secretary-General of the Vatican 
 Council, published with Papal approval his book on 'True and 
 False Infallibility,' in which he took a view of its extent 
 even more moderate than that advocated in Father Ryder's 
 pamphlet against W. G. Ward. It was true that works con- 
 taining more stringent interpretations also received Papal 
 approval. But the liberty which Newman judged to be neces- 
 sary was secured by Fessler's view being admitted as allow- 
 able. The official countenance of Fessler's weighty theological 
 judgment was a reminder that the co-operation of theologians 
 of different views — the theological Schola— secured the con- 
 stitution of the Church against absolutism and the excesses 
 of individuals. The Holy Father was ruler, and to him it 
 appertained to declare what was in conformity with the 
 revelation of which he, as head of the Church, was guardian ; 
 but he did not set aside or oppose the theological school, 
 and the reconciliation of details of his declarations with other 
 authoritative dicta, their interpretation so as to leave such 
 dicta intact — in a word, the assimilation of a single Papal 
 utterance to the rest of the Church's teaching — appertained 
 again to the discussions of the Schola. So, too, lawyers 
 had to interpret nev/ Acts of Parliament and reconcile their 
 working with that of already existing Acts — all emanating 
 from the Legislature, which had supreme jurisdiction over 
 the lawyerc themselves as the Pope had over the theologians. 
 Thus even if a Pope or Council should issue a decree with 
 insufficient theological elaboration, the Schola would supply 
 in its interpretation what might have been wanting in its 
 preparation. The theological life and teaching of the Church
 
 374 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 based on so large a body of authoritative dicta was not dis- 
 turbed or materially changed by a single Papal utterance, 
 which rather presupposed that life and teaching, as governing 
 its interpretation. 
 
 ' The Catholic Church,' Newman wrote to Lord Blachford, 
 * has its constitution and its theological laws in spite of the 
 excesses of individuals. 
 
 ' It is this which, if I understand your letter, is a novel 
 idea to you, — and it is this, which Acton means (I consider), 
 though he is unlucky in his language, as not being a theo- 
 logian, when he says it is no matter what Councils or Popes 
 decree or do, for the Catholic body goes on pretty much 
 as it did, in spite of all — the truth being that the Schola 
 Theologorum is (in the Divine Purpose, / should say) the 
 regulating principle of the Church, and, as lawyers and 
 public offices (if 1 may thus speak coram te) preserve the 
 tradition of the British Constitution, in spite of the King, 
 Lords, and Commons, so there is a permanent and sui similis 
 ife in the Church, to which all its acts are necessarily 
 assimilated, nay, and under the implied condition of its 
 existence and action such acts are done and are accepted. 
 I think, when you were here last, I said to j'ou our great 
 want just now was theological schools, which the great 
 French Revolution has destroyed. This had been the 
 occasion of our late and present internal troubles. Where 
 would Ward have been, if there had been theological schools 
 in England ? Again, the Archbishop is not a theologian, and, 
 what is worse, the Pope is not a theologian, and so theology 
 has gone out of fashion. This is the only reason which 
 made me regret not going to Oxford, — and this is why 
 Ward did all he could at Rome, and successfully, to hinder 
 me going. I don't profess to be a theologian, but at all 
 events I should have been able to show a side of the Catholic 
 religion more theological, more exact, than his. W^here 
 there is such a lack of theological science, I must not take it 
 for granted as yet that I am out of the wood, for I may still 
 receive some cuff from the political ultra-devotional party, — 
 but I don't think it can be very bad.' ^ 
 
 ' The same view is presented in the Preface to the Via Media, pubhshed in 
 1877. Religion, Newman writes, is 'never in greater danger than when, in 
 consequence of national or international troubles, the Schools of theology have 
 been broken up and ceased to be. ... I say, then, Theology is the fundamental 
 and regulating principle of the whole Church system. It is commensurate with 
 Revelation, and Revelation is the initial and essential idea of Christianity It is 
 the subject-matter, the formal cause, the expression, of the Prophetical Office,
 
 AFTER THE COUNCIL (1871-1874) 375 
 
 Such was the view which the events of the Council led 
 him to express a few years after its suspension. At the time 
 itself he was intent on making the position tolerable to those 
 who were most tried by the doctrine or by the circumstances 
 which issued in its definition. ' Exert a little faith,' he writes 
 to Miss Bowles, ' God will provide, — there is a power in the 
 Church stronger than Popes, Councils, and theologians, and 
 that is the Divine Promise which controls against their will 
 and intention every human authority.' 
 
 With those who seceded — Dollinger and his friends, Pere 
 Hyacinthe and others — while he condemned their action, he 
 showed a measure of sympathy, and he spoke of them 
 tenderly. ' I will never say a word of my own against those 
 learned and distinguished men,' he wrote of the German 
 seceders in his ' Letter to the Duke of Norfolk.' ' Their 
 present whereabout, wherever it is, is to me a thought full of 
 melancholy. . . . They have left none to take their place.' 
 'You may understand,' he wrote to Lord Acton in 1871, 
 ' how keenly distressed I am about what is going on in 
 Germany as regards religion. The prospect of taking a 
 middle line there seems so forlorn and hopeless. No one 
 could feel more grieved than myself at the proceedings of the 
 Council,— but the question is in the present state of things 
 what is to be done ? ' 
 
 To P^re Hyacinthe, who wrote to him on the state of 
 affairs in the very year of the Council, he replied as follows : 
 
 ' The Oratory : November 24lh, 1S70. 
 
 ' My dear Father Hyacinthe,— I am always glad to hear 
 from you and of }-ou. 
 
 and, as being such, has created both tlie Regal Office and the Sacerdotal. And 
 it has in a certain sense a power of jurisdiction over those offices, as being its 
 own creations, theologians being ever in request and in employment in keeping 
 within bounds both the political and popular elements in the Church's constitu- 
 tion, — elements which are far more congenial than itself to the human mind, 
 are far more liable to excess and corruption, and are ever struggling to liberate 
 themselves from those restraints which are in truth necessary for their well-being. 
 On the one band, Popes, such as Liberius, Vigilius, Boniface VIII., and Sixtus V., 
 under secular inducements of tlie moment, seem from time to time to have been 
 wishing, though unsuccessfully, to venture beyond the lines of theology ; and on 
 the other hand, private men of an intemperate devotion are from time to time 
 forming associations, or predicting events, or imagining miracles, so unadvisedly 
 as to call for the interference of the Index or Holy Office.'
 
 376 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' It grieved me bitterly that you should have separated 
 yourself from the One True Fold of Christ ; and it grieves 
 me still more to find from your letter that you are still in a 
 position of isolation. 
 
 ' I know how generous your motives are, and how much 
 provocation you, as well as others, have received in the 
 ecclesiastical events which have been passing around us. 
 But nothing which has taken place justifies our separation 
 from the One Church. 
 
 * There is a fable in one of our English poets, of which 
 the moral is given thus : 
 
 ' " Beware of dangerous steps ; the darkest day, 
 Live till to-morrow, will have passed away." 
 
 ' Let us be patient ; the turn of things may not take place 
 in our time ; but there will be surely, sooner or later, an 
 energetic and a stern Nemesis for imperious acts, such as 
 now afflict us. 
 
 ' The Church is the Mother of high and low, of the rulers 
 as well as of the ruled. Securus judicat orbis terrarwn. If 
 she declares by her various voices that the Pope is infallible 
 in certain matters, in those matters infallible he is. What 
 Bishops and people say all over the earth, that is the truth, 
 whatever complaint we may have against certain ecclesiastical 
 proceedings. Let us not oppose ourselves to the universal 
 voice. 
 
 * God bless you and keep you. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 On the other hand, Newman for months busied himself in 
 so explaining the definition to those who consulted him, as 
 to show its reasonableness, and to distinguish it from the 
 extreme opinions of some of its most zealous promoters. He 
 wrote on the subject to Mrs. Froude in March 1871 : 
 
 * As to your friend's question, certainly the Pope is not 
 infallible beyond the Deposit of Faith originally given — 
 though there is a party of Catholics who, I suppose to 
 frighten away converts, wish to make out that he is giving 
 forth infallible utterances every day. That the Immaculate 
 Conception was in the depositum seems to me clear, as soon 
 as it is understood what the doctrine is. I have drawn out 
 the argument in my " Letter to Dr. Pusey." The Fathers from 
 the beginning call Mary the Second Eve. This has been 
 the dogma proclaimed by the earliest Fathers. There are
 
 AFTER THE COUNCIL (1871-1874) 377 
 
 three especially witnesses to [it] in three or four or five 
 countries widely separated. St. Justin Martyr speaks for 
 Syria, St. Irenaeus for Asia Minor and Gaul, and Tertullian 
 for Rome and Africa. Nothing is included in the doctrine 
 of the Immaculate Conception which is not included in the 
 Eve character of Mary — nay, not so much, for Eve in Paradise 
 did not need redemption, but Mary was actually redeemed 
 by the blood of her Son so much as any of us, and the grace 
 she had was not like Eve's grace in Paradise, but simply 
 a purchased grace. 
 
 ' Certainly we all hold the " Quod semper, quod ubique " 
 &c., as much as we ever did, as much as Anglicans do. It is 
 a great and general principle, involving of course a certain 
 range of variation in the fulness in which it has been, here 
 and there, now and then, received and exemplified. For 
 instance, the eternal pre-existence of the Divine Son was 
 taught far more consistently after the Council of Nicaea in 
 A.D. 325, than before it, and in some cases, as, for instance, 
 the validity of baptisms b)' heretics, and the like, there have 
 been remarkable differences of opinion ; but the Rule is a 
 great and useful one on the whole. There is no rule, against 
 which exceptions cannot be brought. As to the question 
 of development in the doctrines of the deposituni, that is 
 provided for in the Rule expressly. You know the Rule 
 comes from Vincentius Lerinensis, who wrote at the end 
 (I think) of the 4th century, and who illustrates and enforces 
 it with great eloquence. He says (I use Charles Marriott's, 
 as I think it is, translation), " Let the religion of our souls 
 imitate the nature of our bodies, which, although with 
 process of time they develop and unfold their proportions, 
 yet remain the same that they were. The limits of infants 
 be small, of young men great, yet not diverse, but the same. 
 No new thing doth come forth in old men, which before had 
 not lain hid in them, being children. The Christian doctrine 
 must follow these laws of increasing, to wit, that with years 
 it was more sound, with time it became more capable, 
 with continuance it became exalted, yet remains incorrupt 
 and entire. Lawful indeed it is, that those ancient articles 
 of heavenly philosophy be, in process of time, trimmed, 
 smoothed and polished ; unlawful that they be mangled 
 and maimed. And, albeit they receive perspicuity, light 
 and distinction, yet they necessarily must retain their fulness, 
 and soundness, and propriety. Keep the deposit, quoth he, 
 O Timothy, O Priest, O Teacher ; that which men before 
 believed obscurely, let them by this exposition understand
 
 378 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 more clearly. Let posterity rejoice for coming to the under- 
 standing of that by thy means, which antiquity without 
 that understanding had in veneration, yet for all this, in such 
 sort deliver the same thing which thou hast learned, that, 
 albeit thou teachest after a new manner, yet thou never teach 
 new things." I have written down not consecutive sentences, 
 but as they have caught my eye. 
 
 ' As to Eugenius 4th's Letter to the Armenians about 
 the form and matter of the Sacraments, I think it is a diffi- 
 culty certainly. It is one of those points, which made me 
 earnestly desire that the definition should not be made last 
 year ; for, though it does not weigh with me myself, yet it is 
 very trying to a great many people. It is common, I think, 
 to say that it was not a doctrinal decree — but a practical 
 instruction to the Orientals, and therefore not included in the 
 cases, in which infallibility is claimed for the Holy See. 
 
 'John the XXII. is nothing to the purpose. He put 
 nothing forward in any formal way, and, I think, repented of 
 his private sentiments before his death. Of course, if he had 
 been called upon to speak ex cathedra, he would (humanly 
 speaking) have defined an error, but he did not. And this 
 will just illustrate what is meant by the gift of infallibility. 
 As Balaam wished to curse, but opened his mouth with 
 lessings, so a Pope may all his life be in error, but if he 
 attempts to put it forth, he will be cut off, or be deterred, or 
 find himself saying what he did not mean to say. 
 
 ' I have no hesitation in saying that, to all appearance, 
 Pius IX. wished to say a great deal more (that is that the 
 Council should say a great deal more) than it did, but a 
 greater Power hindered it. A Pope is not inspired ; he has 
 not an inherent gift of divine knowledge. When he speaks 
 ex cathedra, he may say little or much, but he is simply 
 protected from saying what is untrue. I know you will find 
 flatterers and partizans, such as those whom St. Francis de 
 Sales calls " the Pope's lackies," who say much more than this, 
 but they may enjoy their own opinions, they cannot bind the 
 faith of Catholics. 
 
 ' As to St. Cyprian's quarrel with the Pope, strong letters 
 came from the Pope to him. He certainly did not think the 
 Pope infallible in those letters. I cannot tell without hunting 
 them up, whether they look like ex cathedra letters. I should 
 think not. I doubt very much whether the point of the 
 Infallibility of the Pope was clearly understood, as a dogma, 
 by the Popes themselves at that time ; but then I also doubt 
 whether the Infallibility of a General Council was at that time
 
 AFTER THE COUNCIL (1871-1874) 379 
 
 understood either, for no General Council as yet had been. 
 The subject was what Vincentius calls " obscurely held." The 
 Popes acted as if they were infallible in doctrine — with a 
 very high hand, peremptorily, magisterially, fiercely. But, 
 when we come to the question o( the ana/yst's of such conduct, 
 I think they had as vague ideas on the subject as many of the 
 early Fathers had upon portions of the doctrine of the Holy 
 Trinity. T/iey acted in a way whidi needed infallibility as its 
 explanation.^ 
 
 While he held that the newly defined dogma had its roots 
 in the past, he looked to the future for a formal disclaimer of 
 exaggerated interpretations of its scope. On this subject he 
 wrote to Miss Holmes on May 15, 1871 : 
 
 'As to the definition, I grieve you should have been 
 tried with it. The dogma has been acted on by the Holy 
 See for centuries — the only difference is that now it is 
 actually recognised. I know this is a difference — for at first 
 sight it would seem to invite the Pope to use his now 
 recognised power. But we must have a little faith. Abstract 
 propositions avail little — theology surrounds them with a 
 variety of limitations, explanations, etc. No truth stands 
 by itself — each is kept in order and harmonized by other 
 truths. The dogmas relative to the Holy Trinity and the 
 Incarnation were not struck off all at once — but piecemeal — 
 one Council did one thing, another a second — and so the 
 whole dogma was built up. And the first portion of it 
 looked extreme — and controversies rose upon it — and these 
 controversies led to the second, and third Councils, and they 
 did not reverse the first, but explai?ted and co)npleted what 
 was first done. So will it be now. P"uture Popes will 
 explain and in one sense limit their own power. This would 
 be unlikely, if they merely acted as men, but God will over- 
 rule them. Pius has been overruled— I believe he wished 
 a much more stringent dogma than he has got. Let us 
 have faith and patience.' ^ 
 
 Dollinger's action he condemned unequivocally, though 
 he felt for the German historian acutely. 
 
 ' I know nothing of the German party,' he wrote (October 
 1 871) to Mrs. Froude. ' Doubtless there are many good reli- 
 gious people who agree with DoUinger— but I much suspect 
 they are all private persons, of the Upper Middle or higher 
 ranks, and I suspect that he, as a public man, is by himself. 
 
 ' Some more letters on this subject will be found in the Appendix at p. 556.
 
 38o LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 * It is a most cruel position both for him and them. They 
 seem to me powerless. The bulk of the lower class people 
 (Catholics) follow the Pope. The Professors and literary men 
 go much further than DoUinger— they cither are for a schism 
 or for simple indifferentism. I don't sec how he can keep his 
 ground, or, if he does, will have more than a handful with 
 him.' 
 
 The fall of the Papal sovereignty in Rome afforded 
 matter for reflection, and Newman intimated his view of the 
 past and the future in another letter to Mrs. Froude. 
 
 ' As little as possible,' he writes, ' was passed at the Council 
 — nothing about the Pope which I have not myself always 
 held. But it is impossible to deny that it was done with an 
 imperiousness and overbearing wilfulness, which has been a 
 great scandal — and I cannot think thunder and lightning a 
 mark of approbation, as some persons wish to make out, 
 and the sudden destruction of the Pope's temporal power 
 does not seem a sign of approval either. It suggests too the 
 thought, that to be at once infallible in religion and a despot 
 in temporals, is perhaps too great for mortal man. Very 
 likely there will be some reaction for a time in his favour, 
 but not permanently— and then, unless the Council, when 
 re-assembled, qualifies the dogma by some considerable safe- 
 guards, which is not unlikely, perhaps the secularly defence- 
 less state of the Pope will oblige him to court the Catholic 
 body in its separate nations with a considerateness and 
 kindness, which of late years the Holy See has not shown, 
 and which may effectually prevent a tyrannous use of his 
 spiritual power. But all these things are in God's hands 
 and we are blind.' 
 
 Newman's work from 1871 to 1874 was mainly the 
 revision of his writings — including those published while he 
 was still an Anglican, to which he added notes and appendices 
 which supplied what he considered necessary to make them 
 orthodox, or to answer the criticisms on the Catholic Church 
 which they contained. Much of this work was done at 
 Rednal, and he rejoiced in the interludes of country life thus 
 afforded him. 
 
 His Journal shows that he had at this time some recur- 
 rence of the feeling that Catholics looked at him askance 
 owing to his opposition to the Vatican definition. On the 
 other hand he notes that he is far more read and better
 
 AFTER THE COUNCIL (1871-1874) 381 
 
 understood among Anglicans than of old. This led him per- 
 haps to cleave more closely to such old Anglican friends as 
 R. W. Church and Sir Frederick Rogers, with whom he kept 
 up a constant correspondence. 
 
 In February 1871 Rogers lost his mother, and Newman 
 wrote to sympathise. His letter is printed below, together 
 with his reply to an announcement by Rogers some months 
 later that he was going to visit Rome in the course of a 
 summer holiday. 
 
 To Sir Frederick Rogers. 
 
 'The Oratory: Feb. 18, 1871. 
 
 ' My dear Rogers, — I guessed the sad intelligence of your 
 letter from its outside. Some one told me, I think Wilson, 
 that your dear mother was sinking gradually. One can but 
 once lose a mother. I don't forget, I never have, how kind 
 you were to me when I lost mine. How many years have 
 passed, how many events, since then, but it seems to me like 
 yesterday. What a dream life is ! It does not make it a less 
 sorrow to you that you must have all expected it so long. 
 The freshness of her mind and the continuance of her strength, 
 for so long, which will be so pleasant to look back upon, 
 perhaps have made the gradual changes of the last year more 
 sad to your sisters. I hope to say Mass for her on Monday 
 morning. 
 
 ' You know that on Tuesday I am 70. By fits and starts 
 I realise it ; but usually it seems incredible to me. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 ' The Oratory : Aug. i, 1871. 
 
 * My dear Rogers, — I am glad you are going abroad, and 
 hope you will be as much delighted and refreshed by the 
 beauties of Italy, as you were the first time you saw it. Also, 
 it is pleasant to think that you and your wife will have a 
 quiet month with your sisters at Lucerne. I say " quiet," for 
 such, I think. Lucerne is especially, with its broad silent lake, 
 and its graceful mountains on cither side, neither of them 
 frightening one's eyes with snowy peaks. 
 
 ' There is one thing I want to ask you before you 
 go. I want to ask your brother's acceptance of my new 
 edition of " The Arians," the brother who was so kind as to 
 go to the British Museum for "One Tract more" — But 
 I have got into a puzzle whether it is Edward or John. 
 I thought it was the one I knew at Oxford, the Clergyman.
 
 382 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' I know no one, I have no acquaintance whatever, at 
 Rome. No wonder — Rome changes its (ecclesiastical) inmates 
 as much as Oxford does, where three years is an under- 
 graduate's life, and seven years a Fellow's. Besides I have 
 not been there for more than 23 years, except once (in 1855-6) 
 for a fortnight. Moreover, just now, I suppose, everything is 
 topsy turvy and nobody is anywhere. 
 
 * Thank you for your offer of fetching and carrying for 
 me thither or thence — but I can think of nothing, even if 
 I try. 
 
 ' I wonder what you will be able to prophesy about the 
 future of the city. That in this generation the Pope and the 
 Italian power cannot get on together, I should have thought 
 certain. Perhaps before the future comes, there will be fresh 
 revolutions one way or the other, which make present con- 
 jecture impossible, as destroying present data. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman. 
 
 * P.S. — I congratulate you on your new " Honours," ' 
 
 These last words refer to the peerage which Rogers had 
 just been offered and accepted. 
 
 Both Rogers and R. W. Church at this time received 
 promotion from Mr. Gladstone's Government — the one being 
 raised to the House of Lords with the title of Lord Blachford, 
 the other named Dean of St. Paul's. There is in Newman's 
 incidental references to these honours — in his letters to 
 Rogers — ^just a touch of that unsympathetic attitude towards 
 official rank which was so general in the old Tractarian 
 party ; and it must be remembered that this was also the 
 tradition of the Oratorians, who were restrained by rule 
 from accepting ecclesiastical dignities except by command of 
 the Pontiff 
 
 ' The Oratory : Dec. 3, 1 871. 
 
 ' My dear Rogers, — I cannot screw myself up yet to call 
 you anything else. Give me time. However I most heartily 
 congratulate you on your title, and it is a shame to say it 
 takes away my breath, for you have done more to deserve it 
 than all but a few who gain it, and it is particularly gratifying 
 that you should be the first to open what is a new path to 
 the highest honours that the State can give. 
 
 ' To my mind the only drawback is that your mother did 
 not live just long enough to witness it. She always seqmed
 
 AFTER THE COUNCIL (1871-1874) 383 
 
 to me to live in the desire that you should have full justice 
 done you in the world, and I think she would have allowed 
 that her desire was now granted her. . . . 
 
 ' Ever yours affly, 
 
 J. H. Newman.' 
 
 Of Church's promotion he wrote thus to Lord Blachford : 
 
 'June 14, 72. 
 ' I don't and didn't doubt at all that Church would do the 
 Dean well. I was marvelling at him two years ago at the 
 Frome Station, at his dealings with the railway porters about 
 my luggage— he showed such quiet calm decision — but I 
 want him to write more than he can at St. Paul's — (though 
 Milman did write there) — and therefore I am sorry he is not 
 at Winton or Salisbury or the like. And I grieve at dignities 
 which have a tendency to rub off the bloom of the peach, 
 which a country life preserves, and which London life, which 
 the dome of St. Paul's, which the mirata laquearia of the 
 House of Lords, destroy. I suppose it is in the nature of 
 things that blushing honours are the death of blushing. 
 I know that high ecclesiastics, too, may have donnishness as 
 others — also I know and understand that age has a gravity 
 and dignity of its own, and that even the stiffness of joints 
 and the dimness of the senses induce a dull and unlovely 
 soberness of manner in country people also, and I know too 
 that my own ingrained contemptible shyness makes me 
 irritable at the sight of self-possession — but still after all I 
 have an animosity and antipathy to the effect of London 
 on the character, which is almost a moral sense with me.' 
 
 ' I hope,' he writes to Church himself, 'you are not suffer- 
 ing from your banquetings. I sincerely feel for you. They 
 would, I think, kill me.' A year earlier Newman had dedi- 
 cated to Rogers his republished ' Essays on Miracles,' and now 
 he was sending each fresh volume as it was published to his 
 more intimate acquaintance. In 1872 he republished ' Present 
 Position of Catholics ' and sent a copy to R. W. Church. 
 They exchanged letters, and Church pressed Newman to come 
 and see him at the Deanery. Newman in return urged both 
 the Dean and Rogers to come for a day or night to Rednal. 
 
 To Dean Church. 
 
 ' The Oratory : June 7, 1872. 
 
 ' I never come to Town except under dire necessity, for 
 many reasons — because it is sure to knock me up from the
 
 384 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 mere " fumus strepitusque " of London — because there are so 
 many persons I am simply obliged, both by propriety and 
 by friendship, by duty and by true attachment, to call 
 upon — because I am sure to make a fool of myself, being so 
 shy, and go away gnawing my heart at the thought of the 
 many gaucheries and absurdities I have committed. 
 
 ' I had thought of coming to you for a day or two at the 
 beginning of June ; but now I have got to go to Rednal 
 with a host of papers, which occupy five baskets, tin cases 
 and bags, and which will take me weeks. . . . 
 
 ' I suppose you never could run down here for a night, if 
 the weather becomes summerly. I would take you over to 
 Rednal for an hour or two.' 
 
 A week later he writes from Rednal to Lord Blachford 
 urging him to accompany Church and spend a ' happy day ' 
 at the Oratory. 
 
 But Church was on the point of leaving England for a 
 holiday, and a visit to Rednal was anyhow at the moment 
 difficult. Still the idea was not abandoned. Newman's 
 letters on the subject have something of the minuteness 
 and anxiety which we have noted in those which prepared the 
 way for the visit to Keble at Hursley seven years earlier. 
 
 A visit from Newman to the Deanery at St. Paul's did 
 come off before Church left England ; and a visit to Lord 
 Blachford's house in London was arranged for July. 
 
 Newman, still feeling acutely the events of the Vatican 
 Council and the sadness of the estrangements to which it led, 
 welcomed Blachford's proposal that he should on the occasion 
 of his visit meet Lord Acton at dinner. 
 
 'The Oratory : July 6th, 1872. 
 
 ' My dear sive Blachford malueris vocari sive Rogers, 
 may I not thus accost you, as Horace would accost platte 
 presenteni Deum ? I shall be most happy to meet at dinner 
 anyone you please, especially Lord Acton — but I suppose 
 Monday morning when you get this will be late for an invite. 
 I have had the greatest liking for Acton ever since I knew 
 him near 20 years ago ; but, alas, we have never quite hit 
 it off in action. And now I don't know where he stands as 
 regards this sad Vatican question. There is only one /oc?/s 
 standi — and I think in time he will see that ; but mind I shall 
 rejoice to meet him — So should I to meet Liddon, whom I 
 don't know — I believe he is a champion for dogma, which is
 
 AFTER THE COUNCIL (1871-1874) 385 
 
 the backbone of religion, and, as such, I wish him God-speed 
 in this evil day. 
 
 ' My love to Church — I rejoice I shall not be too late for 
 
 him. 
 
 * Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Newman read in this year with great interest and admira- 
 tion Dean Church's ' Gifts of Civilisation,' especially the part 
 which dealt with his own favourite subject, the Christianising 
 of the Roman Empire.^ In return for the 'Gifts of Civilisa- 
 tion ' he sent Church the ' Grammar of Assent,' hoping that it 
 would not ' bore him ' — an expression to which naturally the 
 Dean in his letter of thanks demurred, forwarding to him at 
 the same time the following paragraph from a Somersetshire 
 paper with inquiries as to the truth of its contents : 
 
 ' ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. A few weeks since one of the 
 vergers of the Cathedral accosted a poorly clad, threadbare 
 looking individual who stood scanning the alterations of the 
 sacred edifice with " Now then move on, we don't want any 
 of your sort here ! " It was Dr. Newman ! ' 
 
 Newman confessed the substantial accuracy of the para- 
 graph : 
 
 ' St. Stephen's day, 1872. 
 * My dear Dean, — . . . Yes, I was morally turned out and 
 I told you at the time. I did nothing but what you might 
 have done at Chester or Carlisle, where you might not be 
 known. I stood just inside the doors listening to the 
 chanting of the Psalms, of which I am so fond. First came 
 Verger one, a respectable person, inquiring if I wanted a seat 
 
 ' He had already written an important letter on another line of thought, 
 touched on by its author in this volume and in a sermon : 
 
 ' You indirectly touch upon what is so wonderful,' he wrote, ' and which men 
 ought to consider more than they do, our Lord's clear announcement of what His 
 religion was to do, and what it was not. It was to be a light upon a hill — it was 
 to be a leaven — but it was to gather of every kind —it was to be the occasion of 
 great scandals — it was to be a cause of discord— but it was never to fail ; and so 
 on. Put the gospels as late as the Antonines (for argument's sake), you cannot 
 destroy the prophecy. Even if these were its realized initial characters before 
 the gospels were written, yet how is it they continue to be such to this day? 
 And so about the Old Testament, I want to see Davison's line of argument 
 applied on a large scale to its books. There is an orderly growth of revelation, 
 and a structure in the prophecies. Can any one believe that the books were all 
 written after Ezra, or great part of them, so as to exhibit the scheme of progress 
 intentionally ? How is it, for instance, we do not find the doctrine of a future 
 life in the Pentateuch, if it was garbled, interpolated, enlarged, at a late date? ' 
 
 VOL. n. c c
 
 386 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 in the choir, half a mile off me. No, I said, — I was content 
 where I was. Then came a second, not respectful, with a 
 voice of menace — I still said No. Then came a third, I don't 
 recollect much about him, except that he said he could 
 provide me with a seat. Then came No. 2 again in a 
 compulsory mood, on which I vanished. 
 
 ' I am sure if I was a dissenter, or again one of Mr. 
 Bradlaugh's people, nothing would attract me more to the 
 Church of England than to be allowed to stand at the door 
 of a Cathedral — did not St. Augustine, while yet a Manichee, 
 stand and watch St. Ambrose? no verger turned him out. 
 
 ' Of course, knowing the nature of those men, I was 
 amused, and told you and Blachford in the evening. You 
 were annoyed, and said it was just what you did tiot wish, 
 and that you would inquire about it. 
 
 ' I have not a dream how it got into the Papers— as mine 
 is a Somersetshire one, I thought the paragraph had trickled 
 out from Whatley. 
 
 ' Ever yrs affly, 
 
 J. H. N. 
 
 ' All Xmas blessings to you and yours.' 
 
 But the paragraph in the Somersetshire paper, while 
 relating a fact which was substantially true, had spoken of 
 Newman's costume as ' threadbare.' This serious inaccuracy 
 he corrected with some emphasis in a subsequent letter : 
 
 ' Dec. 28, 72. 
 
 ' My dear Dean, — On the contrary, it was simply a bran 
 new coat, which I never put on till I went on that visit to 
 you — and which I did not wear twice even at Abbotsford — 1 
 thought it due to London. Indeed, all my visiting clothes 
 are new, for I do not wear them here, and I am almost 
 tempted, like a footman of my Father's when I was a boy, 
 who had a legacy of clothes, to leave home, as he his place, 
 in order to have an opportunity of wearing them. They (the 
 clothes) must wish it, I am sure — for they wear out a weary 
 time themselves in a dark closet, except on such occasions, 
 few and far between. 
 
 * Don't fancy when I talked of a " bore," that I had any other 
 than that general feeling, which I ever have, that giving away 
 one of my books is an impertinence, like talking of the shop. 
 I used to say at Oxford that lawyers and doctors ever talked 
 of the shop — but parsons never — now I find priests do — I 
 suppose that, where there is science, there is the tendency to
 
 AFTER THE COUNCIL (1871-1874) 387 
 
 be wrapped up in the profession. An English clergx^man is 
 primarily a gentleman^a doctor, a lawyer, and so a priest is 
 primarily a professional man. In like manner the military 
 calling has been abroad a profession, accordingly they never 
 go in mufti, but always in full military fig, talking as it were, 
 always of the shop. Now I have a great dislike of this 
 shoppism personally. Richmond told some one that, when 
 he took my portrait, I was the only person he could not draw 
 out. 
 
 ' Now have I not really been talking of the shop enough 
 for a whole twelvemonth, having talked of my dear self? Rut 
 you see I have a motive — viz. lest you should dream you 
 have trod on my toes, and so elicited from me the complaint 
 that you have been bored by me. 
 
 ' Ever yrs afifly, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 From the middle of 1872 onwards began in earnest for 
 Newman the great trial of those who live to be old — the 
 death of friends, many of them dear and lifelong friends. 
 His letters are full of the sad thoughts which such partings 
 brought. Death visited the Dominican Sisterhood at Stone 
 in the spring. Amelia Mozley went in August, John Mozley 
 in October, and Hope-Scott's illness was soon after 
 pronounced to be mortal. Serjeant Bellasis died at the 
 beginning of 1873, Henry Wilberforce followed, and then 
 Hope-Scott died. Another great friend, the Duchess of 
 Argyll, passed away a little later. Newman was in constant 
 dread that others would follow, and the renewed illness of 
 Pusey and Church led to anxious inquiries. ' What a year this 
 has been of deaths,' he wrote to Sister Mary Gabriel on his 
 own patron's feast, St. John's Day, 1873 : 'The shafts have 
 been flying incessantly and unexpectedly on all sides of us 
 and strewing the ground with friends. It makes one under- 
 stand St. John's dreary penance in living to be 90. Well 
 might he say : " Amen, veni Domino Jesu."' 
 
 The loss of his Mozley relations recalled the dear asso- 
 ciations of early home life to which he clung so closely ; 
 while the death of his tried and faithful friends struck him 
 no less hard! 
 
 In the course of letters at this time we find the record of 
 
 these losses. 
 
 c c 2
 
 388 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 To Sister Mary Gabriel. 
 
 ' Easter Monday 1872. 
 
 ' I grieve indeed at your news. I said Mass for dear 
 Sister Mary Agnes this morning, and propose to do so every 
 week. I am sure I owe a great deal to her prayers, and am 
 very grateful to her. 
 
 * I cannot grieve for her. She is going to the reward 
 of her long service to our dear Lord and His Blessed 
 Mother. She is going to the company of those great 
 Saints, whose traditions and whose work she has done her 
 part, with such loyal fidelity, to uphold and continue in this 
 her day. 
 
 ' Of course it is for all of you that we must feel. And 
 we feel it the more from that sympathy which arises from 
 our own prospective anxieties. Not indeed, God be praised, 
 that we have any immediate cause of anxiety here ; but so 
 many of us are getting old, that one is tempted to ask 
 " O Lord, how long ? " How long are we to enjoy that calm 
 and happy time which Thou hast granted us so long? When 
 is it to be, that that tranquil unity is to be broken up which 
 we have so long enjoyed, and we are to be parted one from 
 another till that day, if we are vouchsafed it, when we meet 
 again never to be separated in the Kingdom of our Father } 
 As we suffer with you now, do not forget us when our time 
 comes.' 
 
 ' So dear Amelia Mozley is gone,' he writes to Dean 
 Church on August 22. ' I knew her from her birth.' 
 
 To Blachford, the intimate friend of Hope-Scott, he 
 communicated the sad tidings of his breaking health : 
 
 'The Oratory: Nov. 4th, 1872, 
 'My dear Blachford, — I sent to you a message by 
 Church, in case he wrote to you, about Hope-Scott. . . . 
 
 ' I suppose, humanly speaking, he is at what is called the 
 beginning of the end, though the time may be sooner or 
 later. . . . He has never held up his head since his wife died. 
 When I saw him here last spring, 16 months after his loss, 
 he could not command his feelings— and there is no doubt 
 that it was his distress that developed his complaint. His 
 little boy is not two years old. 
 
 ' You know my sister has lost her husband ; after 16 
 years of happy uneventful married life — after his five sons 
 have started in life — and with a painless gradual decay. 
 How different are our fortunes — what a contrast is this to
 
 AFTER THE COUNCIL (1871-1874) 389 
 
 Hope-Scott's career, so brilliant externally, yet with such 
 domestic affliction. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 The new edition of the University Sermons, with its dedi- 
 cation to Dean Church, appeared early in 1873. 
 
 ' The Oratory: Jany. 29, 1873. 
 
 ' My dear Dean, — Will you look at the Dedication in the 
 inclosed pages, and, if I have worded it rightly, send them on 
 as directed. 
 
 ' I felt your kindness in informing me about Pusey. The 
 latest and best news is very anxious. It is now more than 
 forty years since he lay in bed and could not speak, and I 
 advised Mrs. Pusey to send for Dr. Wootten, who brought 
 him round. . . . 
 
 ' Serjeant Bellasis has been taken from us. He was one 
 of the sweetest-tempered, gentlest, most affectionate persons 
 
 I ever knew. 
 
 ' Ever yours affly, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 To Lord Blachford. 
 
 'The Oratory: April 2ist, 1873. 
 
 * Before you receive this, I suppose dear H. Wilberforce 
 will have left us. I went over to see him 3 weeks ago. It is 
 well I did not wait till after Easter, as at one time I thought 
 of doing. I found him looking like a man of 80, and so 
 unlike himself, and so like his father, that I did not know how 
 to speak to him, when I first saw him. His mind was quite 
 his own, but he slept a good deal — he had very little pain. 
 I took leave of him, as if for good, as it will be.' 
 
 To Dean Church. 
 
 'The Oratory : May 2, 1873. 
 
 ' My dear Dean, — Thank you for your kind considerate- 
 ness. When I got back from H. W.'s funeral, I found a 
 telegram telling me that Hope- Scott was just gone. He 
 went, just as I was getting into the train at Woodchester to 
 return home, 7 P.M. 
 
 ' He had fallen off a day or two before — but at last he 
 took every one by surprise. He had blessed his daughter 
 and sent her away for the night — but at the end of the hour, 
 she returned to witness his death.
 
 390 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 'There were to be great doings at Arundel Castle. He 
 had lingered so long, that the Duke had fixed the Wednes- 
 day (April 30) for the opening of his new Church there, 
 which is said to be the finest in the kingdom. A large party 
 had assembled the evening before, and were just sitting 
 down to dinner, when a telegram came, which caused the 
 Duke, his mother, his sisters, and the children all to go to 
 town at once. They were too late. He died just as they 
 started. To the Duchess this was especially trying. The 
 doctors had not allowed her to see him, it so affected his 
 heart — so he died without taking leave of her. I don't know 
 ivhen they had met — perhaps not for months. Lord Howard 
 was left to receive and to despatch the guests at the Castle. 
 It was to have been a great event. [The Duke] has spent 
 great sums upon the Church— and it is to be dedicated to 
 St. Philip Neri. He had asked me to preach the Sermon — 
 but, though I had declined, some of our party were there. 
 
 ' [Hope-Scott's] daughter . . . tells me that, after death 
 till the time she wrote, he looked most beautiful, just (she is 
 told) as he used to look thirty years ago. 
 
 ' She adds " He loved you so." I know he did, and I 
 loved him. His death was most " peaceful and calm." So 
 was H. Wilberforce's — so was Bellasis', as sunny as his life. 
 May I be as prepared as they when my time comes. 
 
 ' Ever yrs affly, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 To Lord Blachford. 
 
 ' The Oratory : May 25, 1873. 
 
 ' It is very kind in you to write to me about Church. A 
 paragraph in the paper startled me, and I was on the point 
 of writing to Mrs. Church to ask about its meaning. The 
 worst penance of men in office or station, is that they cannot 
 nurse, but must be taking part in meetings and at dinners, 
 when they ought to keep at home. I dare say this has been 
 Church's case. 
 
 ' It is almost like an Epicurean in me to feel thankful for 
 my own freedom from such troubles. 
 
 ' Also I thank you for your kind sympathy. These 
 successive losses have been, and are, a great trial to me — but 
 they are the necessary penalty of living long. Scripture 
 says David died " at a good old age " and I used even to 
 think so. But now it comes upon me that after all he was 
 only 70, and that that is the " age of man " — and I am two 
 years beyond it.'
 
 AFTER THE COUNCIL (1871-1874) 391 
 
 To Dean Church. 
 
 ' The Oratory : March 6, 1874. 
 
 ' As for my personal friends I never have had such a time 
 for losses, ever since my brother-in-law died. Deer. i,Jany. i, 
 Feb. I each was marked with the death of an intimate friend, 
 close to us, and of 20 years intimacy, prematurely and un- 
 expectedly. And now the Duchess of Argyll is gone, not 
 prematurely nor unexpectedly, but she was an intimate friend, 
 and always spoke of her being of the same age as myself — 
 and now VVoodgate, an aequalis, is ill too, and will never get 
 well — (this ought not to be repeated) — I went to take leave 
 of him about a fortnight ago. 
 
 'I am quite well myself; — which is the sadder, to die 
 before, or to live after, one's friends '} The latter is the sadder, 
 but it is very sad too not to know the fortunes in time to 
 come of those you leave behind. For instance, Woodgate 
 has ten children — hardly one of them seems to me settled in 
 life ; but I don't know much about his sons. One of them is 
 in the Gold Coast War — I saw him here last September with 
 his family at the Triennial Music Meeting — what a contrast 
 — woods, savages, bivouacs & fevers in January, and a 
 country parsonage and a circle of sisters in the last August ! ' 
 
 It was at this time that Lady Coleridge executed her 
 well-known drawing of Newman. Lord Coleridge, the son of 
 the judge who had passed sentence on him at the Achilli 
 trial, had been for years a faithful admirer and friend. 
 
 ' I could not,' Newman writes to Church, ' in common 
 gratitude decline Coleridge's proposal, even if it had been an 
 onerous one, instead of being at once so light and so compli- 
 mentary. And Lady C. had actually advanced in what I felt 
 to be so kind, and only wanted my presence to be able to 
 complete it. But I use the word " gratitude " with a special 
 and more positive meaning, — for 21 or 22 years, from the 
 time of his Father's speech over me, when so many gave me 
 up, he took me up, and has not ceased from speaking of, and 
 to me kind things all that long time — and this is a thing one 
 can't forget.' 
 
 The loss of so many old friends bound Newman the more 
 closely to those who remained. 
 
 The invitation to Church and Blachford to spend a day at 
 the Oratory was renewed in the summer of 1874, with a note 
 of pathetic anxiety lest they should find it a bore :
 
 392 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 • Rednal : June 12, 1874. 
 
 * My dear Church, — I do so much fear we may be at cross 
 purposes — you and B. finding yourselves unwilling to refuse 
 me, and I on my part fearing I should seem to decline you. 
 
 ' There seems to me a great difficulty in your or h\s finding 
 time. I can't bear the thought of his hurrying down after 
 you — I can't bear the supposition, (which never entered into 
 my hedidi) o^ yoxir fijiding your way herefrom Birmingham, not 
 only without him, but without 7He. 
 
 ' Should weather be good, and both of you at liberty, and 
 you could come together, then I can fancy it pleasant to you 
 and to me — but for you to make an effort, would be cruel. 
 
 ' No — do as I wish you to do. You can't take me by 
 surprise between this and July 15, if you give me 24 hours 
 notice. If you see the way clear before you, for any time the 
 next 6 weeks, telegraph to me " we, or I, shall be at the 
 Birmingham station at such an hour to-morrow — " and I will 
 meet you there— but the idea of Blachford putting himself 
 into a train after the trouble of a Privy Council meeting ! 
 
 * However, if after my saying all this, you j/z7/ mainly keep 
 to your proposal, I modify it thus-. — Come both of you on 
 Wednesday afternoon or evening ; drive from the Station to 
 the Oratory. I will give you beds there. (I could not give 
 beds at Rednal.) Next morning, Thursday, we would drive 
 over to Rednal, lunch, and then return by a midday train 
 to London, in time for 7.30 dinner. 
 
 ' If you assjire me that such an absence from London will 
 be a refreshment to you, not a fatigue, you will remove the 
 only difficulty to it (and it is a great one) which I have — but 
 //// you say so yourselves, I don't know how to believe it. 
 
 * Ever yrs affly, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 The visit did come off in July, though I have no record of 
 its exact date. 
 
 ' I have not yet got over my refusal to play the fiddle to 
 you and Blachford,' Newman writes to Church on July 20 — 
 I think I should have played had I had time — but we felt 
 we had not a minute to spare, and I could not screw up my 
 courage as I could my pegs, that is, all at once.' 
 
 Newman had in these years an interesting correspondence 
 with Principal Brown, of Aberdeen, on the great subject of 
 the desirableness of union among Christians in view of the 
 spread of infidelity. Principal Brown in the first instance sent
 
 AFTER THE COUNCIL (1871-1874) 393 
 
 Newman his Life of Dr. Duncan, and Newman's expression 
 of his thanks led to a further interchange of letters. In the 
 first two, Newman urged that the study of the Gospels was 
 the best road both to union and to faith in an evil day. 
 
 To Principal Brown. 
 
 ' The Oratory: October 24th, 1872. 
 
 ' Pray do not suppose that my delay in answering your 
 very kind letter has arisen from indifference to it. I feel 
 extremely and thank you for the warmth of your language 
 about me, and I wish to return it to you. What a mystery it 
 is in this day that there should be so much which draws 
 religious minds together, and so much which separates them 
 from each other. Never did members of the various 
 Christian communions feel such tenderness for each other, 
 yet never were the obstacles greater or stronger which divide 
 them. What a melancholy thought is this, — and when will a 
 better day come ? . . . 
 
 ' It seems to me the first step to any chance of unity amid 
 our divisions, is for religious minds, one and all, to live upon 
 the Gospels.' 
 
 ' The Oratory : January nth, 1873. 
 
 ' I thank you for the copy of your Lecture, which I was 
 glad to have. It seems to me to take the true and the normal 
 way of meeting the infidelity of the age, by referring to Our 
 Lord's Person and Character as exhibited in the Gospels. 
 Philip said to Nathanael " Come and see" — that is just what 
 the present free thinkers will not allow men to do. They 
 perplex and bewilder them with previous questions, to hinder 
 them falling under the legitimate rhetoric of His Divine Life, 
 of His sacred words and acts. They say : " There is no truth 
 because there are so many opinions," or " How do you know 
 that the Gospels are authentic ? " " How do you account for 
 Papias not mentioning the fourth Gospel .-' " or " How can you 
 believe that punishment is eternal ? " or, " Why is there no 
 stronger proof of the Resurrection ? " With this multitude of 
 questions in detail, they block the way between the soul 
 and its Saviour, and will not let it " Come and see." ' 
 
 ' Writing to another correspondent in the following year Newman carefully 
 guards this view from possible exaggerations. ' Protestants maintain,' he writes, 
 •that Our Lord Himself is all in all— evidence and proof, as well as Object, of 
 our faith ; that we desire no better assurance that He is God Incarnate than is con- 
 veyed in His own voice, " It is I." This I put into their mouths, nor have I, as 
 I think, said anything in the pages which follow in disapproval or depreciation of 
 such an answer to my question. 
 
 'I may be wrong, but I think it is this that you mean in your letter by
 
 394 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' We act otherwise in matters of this world, — a judge 
 says : " I am not satisfied with affidavits — I want to see the 
 witnesses face to face." In the novel, the Duke of Argyll 
 thought nothing better than to introduce Jenny Deans to her 
 Majesty, and let her speak for herself. Such was the effect 
 of Our Lord's presence that His hearers said : " Never did 
 man speak like this man." But this is just what we should 
 not be allowed to do at all, if these new lights had their 
 way. All one can say is, that, miserable as it is, it is so 
 unnatural, that I should think it cannot have success for any 
 ong time, but common sense will assert its sway over men's 
 minds. 
 
 'I hope you will excuse me for thus running on. As to 
 the remarks in your letter, I wish I saw as hopefully as you 
 do the prospects of Christendom, relative to its mutual 
 divisions. I can understand that infidelity has no vitality. 
 But what will kill the vigorous life whereby those whom I 
 agree with hold the Catholic Church to be the work of God 
 and whereby other men consider it the work of the evil one ? ^ 
 
 " experience "—or an experimental knowledge of Christ— and so far from at once 
 putting it aside, I should myself consider that this personal hold upon Him is the 
 immediate evidence of divine truth to every true consistent Christian, who has no 
 need of having his answer in hand to every one of the multiform, many headed 
 objections which from day to day he may hear urged against his faith. 
 
 ' But I consider too that the Lover of Souls and Searcher of hearts has not 
 thought it enough for us, has not felt it safe for our poor nature, to have no other 
 safeguard for our faith than this. Religious experiences and convictions, when 
 right, come from God— but Satan can counterfeit them, and those may feel assur- 
 ances to which they have no claim, and, in matter of fact, men who have professed 
 the most beautiful things and with the utmost earnestness and sincerity believed 
 in their union with Our Lord, have often slipped away into one or other form of 
 error on the grounds of their new inward experiences and convictions ;— not only 
 into one or other form of misbelief, but into scepticism and infidelity. Looking 
 over the letters of acquaintances or strangers of past years, who are now unbelievers, 
 I have before now come upon the expression of their faith and hope in Christ so 
 simple and fervent, and of their experimental certitude so vivid, as to fill me at 
 once with awe and tearful pity at the vision of such a change. 
 
 ' Here it is that I see the wisdom and mercy of God in setting up a Catholic 
 Church for the protection of His elect children. But it is enough to have carried 
 my explanation thus far.' 
 
 ^ Newman opposed consistently an unreal ignoring of differences between the 
 various confessions. ' You need not be afraid of hurting me by what you may say in 
 contrariety to my own religious belief,' he writes a week later ; ' I may think, as of 
 course I do, that I am right and those who differ from me wrong -but it does not 
 mend matters for us to conceal our mutual differences — and nothing is more 
 unmeaning, as well as more untrue, than compromises and comprehensions. Of 
 course unreal, and but verba! differences do exist between religious men — but such 
 are not the differences which exist between Catholics and their opponents. It
 
 AFTER THE COUNCIL (1871-1874) 395 
 
 God's grace can do all things — but how is either party to 
 give up their own tenet on the point without losing their 
 Christianity? ' 
 
 But, though not hopeful as to the prospect of external 
 union, Newman did see something hopeful in the growing 
 desire for it. 
 
 * Sad as it is to witness the ineffectual yearnings after unity 
 on all hands, of which you speak,' he writes in the following 
 November, 'still it is hopeful also. We may hope that our 
 good God has not put it into the hearts of religious men to 
 wish and pray for unity, without intending in His own time 
 to fulfil the prayer. And since the bar against unity is a 
 conscientious feeling, and a reverence for what each party 
 holds itself to be the truth, and a desire to maintain the 
 Faith, we may humbly hope that in our day, and till He 
 discloses to the hearts of men what the true Faith is. He 
 will, where hearts are honest, take the will for the deed.' 
 
 There is a strain of similar hopefulness in the last letter 
 of the correspondence which I have found, written a little 
 more than a. year later: 
 
 'Jan. 14, '75. 
 
 ' It is indeed to me strange that, being as the world would 
 say at your antipodes, still in those all-important points, 
 about which you write, 1 should be one with you ; and I 
 rejoice in it as one compensation of the cruel overthrow of 
 faith which wc see on all sides of us, that, as the setting of the 
 sun brings out the stars, so great principles arc found to 
 shine out, which are hailed by men of various religions as 
 their own in common, when infidelity prevails. 
 
 ' It rejoices me to find you insisting that emotions cannot 
 stand of themselves and but presuppose an object, also that 
 no man can worship, love, or trust in a probable God. Also, 
 as you seem to argue in tlie case of Dr. Martineau that we 
 cannot cut off half of Scripture, and believe the other half, 
 when it is only the chance of our personal criticism taking 
 this or that direction that has left that other half standings 
 and your argument against him, as brought out in your letter, 
 seems to me very strong, nor does he attempt to answer it 
 in his.' > 
 
 would be best, if they did not exist — it is next best to confess them, plainly 
 though in charily.' 
 
 ' Some further letters indicating Newman's thoughts at this time on the prospect 
 of a spread of infidelity and of the desirability of co-operation on the part of all 
 Christians against it will be found at pp. 415 scq.
 
 396 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Thus Newman passed the time between 1871 and 1874, 
 in writing to old friends and correspondents who sought his 
 advice ; in receiving occasional and welcome visits from 
 them ; in mourning and praying for those who year by year 
 passed away, and preparing to join them when the inevitable 
 summons should come ; in reviewing and editing early 
 writings and inserting comments and corrections ^ so that 
 he could leave them with a safe conscience to be read by 
 the generations which would come after him. Of adding 
 anything new to his published works he had no thought. 
 
 ' The Plain and Parochial Sermons were Newman's first republication of his 
 Anglican works. They were, at his request, edited by W. J. Copeland. His 
 subsequent republications were edited by himself, but with notes when he con- 
 sidered that the text called for correction. ' You have been of the greatest use 
 to me,' he writes to Copeland in April 1873, • in the matter of the Sermons, and I 
 only regret you have had so much trouble : but you have not had it for nothing. 
 Unless you had broken the ice, I could have republished nothing which I wrote 
 before 1845-6. The English public would not have borne any alterations — and 
 my own people would have been much scandalized had I made none. They 
 murmured a good deal at the new edition of the Sermons, as it was — but, since you, 
 not I, published them, nothing could be said about it. After this beginning, I 
 took courage to publish my Essay on Miracles, and the British Critic Essays, 
 uncorrected, but with notes corrective of the text. This too made some disturb- 
 ance, but very little. And then I published at Rivington's my University Sermons ; 
 and then I went on to mix Anglican and Catholic Essays together ; and now I 
 hear no criticisms on these measures at all— and I have even dedicated a volume 
 of my Historical Sketches, half of it written as an Anglican, to an Irish Bishop.'
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY (1874-1878) 
 
 Newman had said of the 'Grammar of Assent' that he 
 expected it to be his ' last work.' And we have seen that 
 the thought of further intervention in public matters was far 
 from his mind in these years. 
 
 An attempt was made to draw him into public contro- 
 versy on Mr. Gladstone's Irish University Bill of 1873 but it 
 failed. ' It is 14 years,' he wrote to the gentleman who 
 approached him on the subject, ' since I was across St. 
 George's Channel, and any words of mine would not be worth 
 much more as regards the Irish question of 1873 than would 
 have been a political tract of one of the seven sleepers on his 
 waking from his long slumber at Ephesus.' He did however 
 express to the same correspondent — Mr. Fottrell — in a letter 
 dated December 10, 1873, a strong opinion as to the necessity 
 of giving the Catholic laity their full share of influence in any 
 scheme for University education, if it was to have a chance of 
 success. His words on the subject were strong and weighty 
 and deserve to be quoted : 
 
 ' One of the chief evils which I deplored in the manage- 
 ment of the affairs of the University 20 years ago when I 
 was in Ireland was the absolute refusal, with which my 
 urgent representations were met, that the Catholic laity 
 should be allowed to co-operate with the Archbishops in the 
 work. 
 
 ' So far as I can see, there are ecclesiastics all over Europe, 
 whose policy it is to keep the laity at arms-length, and hence 
 the laity have been disgusted and become infidel, and onl}' 
 two parties exist, both ultras in opposite directions. I came 
 away from Ireland with the distressing fear, that in that 
 Catholic country, in like manner, there was to be an 
 antagonism as time went on between the Hierarchy and the 
 educated classes.
 
 398 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' You will be doing the greatest possible benefit to the 
 Catholic cause all over the world, if you succeed in making 
 the University a middle station at which laity and clergy can 
 meet, so as to learn to understand and yield to each other, 
 and from which, as from a common ground, they may act in 
 union upon an age which is running headlong into infi- 
 delit)', and however evil in themselves may be the men 
 and the measures which of late years have had so great a 
 success against the Holy See, they will in the Providence 
 of God be made the instruments of good, if they teach us 
 priests that the " obsequium " which the laity owe religion 
 is " rationabile." ' 
 
 While responding thus with sympathy and interest to 
 private communications on matters of importance, his main 
 work continued to be the re-editing of his own writings and 
 the arrangement of his past correspondence. He was putting 
 his house in order before leaving it. 
 
 Yet two memoranda dated respectively August 30 and 
 October 14, 1874, show that he did not feel even now quite 
 happy at his comparative inactivity : 
 
 * I have so depressing a feeling that I have done 
 nothing through my long life, and especially that now I am 
 doing nothing at all. Anglicans indeed rather think more 
 of what I have written than they did, if I may judge from 
 letters I receive — but, as to Catholics, they would not deny 
 that I have done some good service towards bringing 
 Anglicans into the Church, nay am perhaps doing so still ; 
 but as to the great controversies of the day, about the 
 divinity of Christianity &c., they think I am passe. At 
 least this, (perhaps rather) that I have taken a wrong line in 
 respect to them. At least I think the Jesuits do. They 
 would think my line too free and sceptical, that I made too 
 many admissions &c. On the contrary I cannot at all go 
 along with them — and since they have such enormous 
 influence just now, and are so intolerant in their views, this is 
 pretty much the same as saying that I have not taken, and 
 do not take what would popularly be called the Catholic line. 
 
 ' 1 may seem inconsistent or ungrateful to them in this, — 
 that I must grant, that, in spite of their violence against 
 Rosmini, Ubaghs &c. they have never fallen upon me — the 
 contrary— yet I think they have not felt the same since the 
 Vatican Council and the " Grammar of Assent " — certainly not 
 if their sentiments towards me are to be measured and
 
 THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY (1874-187S) 399 
 
 interpreted by my feelings towards them. They certainly 
 seem to me to be too powerful for the health of that Divine 
 Body out of which they grow and which it is their business 
 and duty to subserve. 
 
 ' But then I think — what is this to me ? God will 
 provide — He knows what is best. Is He less careful for the 
 Church, less able to defend it than I am .'' Why need I 
 fash myself about it ? What am I ? my time is out. I am 
 passii I may have done something in my day — but I can 
 do nothing now. It is the turn of others. And if things 
 seem done clumsily, my business is, not to criticise, but to 
 have faith in God. The 130th is the psalm that suits me. 
 Alas ! we never read it in the office — " Non est exaltatum cor 
 meum, neque &c. Neque ambulavi in magnis, neque in 
 mirabilibus super me — Sicut ablactatus est super matre sua, 
 ita retributio in anima mea." It is enough for me to prepare 
 for death, for, as it would appear, nothing else awaits me — 
 there is nothing else to do. 
 
 ' And He Who has been with me so marvellously all 
 through my life will not fail me now, I know though I have 
 no claim upon Him. I certainly feel much weaker and less 
 capable than I was — and whether this adimaniia will rapidly 
 increase upon me or not, I must give up the thought of the 
 next generation & think of myself 
 
 ' October 14, 1874. 
 
 'I have been startled on considering that in the last 15 
 years I have only written two books, the " Apologia " and the 
 Essay on Assent — of which the former was almost extempore. 
 What have I been doing with my time ? though I have never 
 been idle. The last four or five years I have been busy with 
 my reprints— and my Essay on Assent took up four years 
 from 1866 to 1870. Then my smaller publications since 1859 
 (viz. "Occasional Sermons," pp. 75 ; "Letter to Pusey," pp. 
 140; on " Ecce Homo," pp. 36; on St. Ignatius, pp. i6\ on 
 Anglican Orders, &c., pp. 40 ; on causes of Arianism and on 
 Apollinarianism, pp. 190 ; and Theodoret, pp. 56), amount to 
 pp. 572 ; that is, to (at least) a volume and a half — but these 
 have been mostly done in the course of the last four years 
 which have been already taken into account. Seven years 
 (from 1859 to 1866) remain, with only the" Apologia," done in 
 nine weeks (between April 10 and June 12), and the letter to 
 Pusey and Sermon on Weedall ; what was I doing all that 
 time? — First, must be recollected, all through the fifteen years 
 the great number of letters I wrote, whatever be their worth, 
 most of them certainly ephemeral or of no permanent value
 
 400 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 — next the time I have given to the schoolboys, especially in 
 preparing and editing four Latin Plays for their use (but I 
 did not begin these till 1864) ; — thirdly the time I gave 
 through i860 to the alterations, &c., in the Church, which 
 were almost my occupation — fourthly my state of health for 
 good part of 1861. Still the fact remains that, whereas 
 before 1859 I wrote almost a book a year (viz. 30^ volumes 
 from 1826 to 1859 — '33 years), in the last 15 I have written 
 between three and four — though such powers of writing as I 
 may have are not less, to say the least, than they were. 
 
 ' This is an unpleasant thought — more than unpleasant — 
 what have I been doing ? I have not mentioned above one 
 occupation which has taken a great deal of time, though there 
 is not much to show for it — viz., the transcription I have made 
 of my own and my friends' letters. But cui bono ? 
 
 ' The cause of my not writing from 1859 to 1864 was my 
 failure with the Rambler. I thought I had got into a scrape, 
 and it became me to be silent. So they thought at Rome, if 
 Mgr. Talbot is to be their spokesman, for, referring to the 
 "Apologia" to Ambrose in 1867, he said of me: " He had 
 ceased writing, and a good riddance — why did he ever begin 
 again }" I certainly had myself in i860 anticipated his view 
 in 1 867 of my services to religion. Vide my remarks above. . . 
 
 * Another reason, closely connected with this, was my 
 habit, or even nature, of not writing and publishing without a 
 call. What I have written has been for the most part what 
 may be called official, works done in some office I held or 
 engagement I had made — all my Sermons are such, my 
 Lectures on the Prophetical Office, on Justification, my 
 Essays in the British Critic, and translation of St. Athanasius 
 — or has been from some especial call, or invitation, or 
 necessity, or emergency, as my Arians, Anglican Difficulties, 
 " Apologia " or Tales. The Essay on Assent is nearly the only 
 exception. And I cannot write without such a stimulus. I 
 feel to myself going out of the way, or impertinent, and I 
 write neither with spirit nor with point. As to the " Assent," 
 I had felt it on my conscience for years that it would not do 
 to quit the world without doing it. Rightly or wrongly I had 
 ever thought it a duty, as if it was committed to me to do it. 
 I had tried to do it again and again, and failed ; and though 
 at length I did it, I did it after all with great difficulty. But 
 it was a great relief to me in 1870 to have done it. But to 
 return, this is the real account of my silence from 1859 to 
 1864 — viz., I said to myself, "In 14 years (from 1845 to 1859) 
 I have written nine volumes, and have got no thanks for my
 
 THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY (1874-1878) 401 
 
 labour — rather have been thought inopportune — why should 
 I go on blundering ? " On occasion of my " Apologia " Hope- 
 Scott said, " Now you have got the ear of the public — take 
 care not to lose it again by your silence." ' ^ 
 
 A month after these words were written there did come a 
 * special call ' on him once more to enter the arena. He 
 had to defend his co-religionists against an attack almost 
 as virulent as that of Kingsley ten years earlier. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone had in 1874 retired from the leadership of 
 his party, and employed the leisure thus gained in writing 
 a strong attack on the Vatican decrees of 1870. The Irish 
 Bishops had defeated his Irish University Bill of 1873, and 
 in Catholic circles the publication of his pamphlet was 
 associated with his irritation at their action. He had taken, 
 largely owing to his friendship with Lord Acton, a close 
 interest in Bollinger's attitude of resistance to the definition. 
 ' It makes my blood run cold,' he wrote to Mrs. Gladstone, 
 'to think of his being excommunicated in his venerable but, 
 thank God, hale and strong old age.' He wrote to one of 
 the Irish Bishops (Dr. Moriarty) that he regarded the 
 definition as ' the most portentous (taking them singly) of 
 all events in the history of the Christian Church.' 
 
 Mr. Gladstone first published an article in one of the 
 magazines, in which occurred the often-quoted statement 
 that ' Rome has substituted for the proud boast of semper 
 eadein a policy of violence and change in faith,' and that 
 since the events of 1870 'no one can become her convert 
 without renouncing his mental and moral freedom, and 
 placing his civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of another.' 
 His charge was that Rome had ' equally repudiated modern 
 thought and ancient history.' 
 
 In November 1874 his attack was renewed and amplified 
 in his ' political expostulation ' entitled ' The Vatican Decrees 
 in their bearing on Civil Allegiance.' Mr. Gladstone made 
 capital out of Archbishop Manning's recently published 
 lecture on ' Caesarism and Ultramontanism,' in which the 
 
 ' 'Feb. 27, 1876. Curiously enough the foregoing page (about writing not 
 without a call) was written but a few weeks before the call made on me by 
 Gladstone's pamphlets, and my consequent Letter to the Diikc of Norfolk — 
 J. H. N.' 
 
 VOL. II. D D
 
 402 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 undying contest between the Pope and the civil power, 
 between ' Peter and Caesar,' was dwelt on in mystical language 
 and with extreme emphasis. This lecture — so Gladstone 
 argued — represented the outcome of the Vatican decrees as 
 ' understood by the most favoured ecclesiastics.' Lord Morley 
 tells us that the pamphlet was ' meant for an argument 
 that the doctrine of infallibility aimed a deadly blow at the 
 old historic scientific and moderate school ' of Catholics ; 
 that ' it was a degradation of the episcopal order ; it 
 carried to the furthest point the spirit of absolutist cen- 
 tralisation in its measure as fatal to the organic life in 
 the Church as in the State.' The reader will at once 
 see the special interest of this charge to Dr, Newman. 
 Mr. Gladstone, in effect, treated the definition as identifying 
 the Catholic Church for ever with the policy and spirit of such 
 men as Manning, and Ward, and Louis Veuillot. Newman 
 was in his own person the most complete refutation of 
 Mr. Gladstone's contention. He not only loyally accepted 
 the definition, but had held the doctrine which was defined by 
 the Vatican Council ever since he was a Catholic at all. And 
 yet he was in the strongest degree opposed to the centralising 
 and absolutist extremes which so many of its champions had 
 favoured. Many Catholics who sympathised in his view 
 urged him to take the opportunity which Providence had put 
 in his way for speaking out. Like Kingsley's attack, the 
 Gladstone pamphlets gave him an excuse for answering 
 Catholic extremists under cover of replying to the misrepre- 
 sentations of an assailant of the Church. And in spite of 
 his resolution not to write again, here was a chance which 
 must not, he felt, lightly be thrown aside. 
 
 To Lord Blachford he wrote thus in October : 
 
 ' Gladstone's excuse is, I suppose, the extravagance of 
 Archbishop Manning in his " Caesarism," and he will do us a 
 service if he gives us an opportunity of speaking. We can 
 speak against Gladstone, while it would not be decent 
 to speak against Manning. The difficulty is zvJio ought to 
 speak ? ' 
 
 By December he had resolved to speak himself He 
 confided the secret to Dean Church :
 
 THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY (1874-1878) 403 
 
 ' The Oratory : December lo, 1874. 
 
 ' I am writing against time, and my old fingers will not 
 move quick. I am most dismally busy. Don't tell, for I 
 wish nothing said from me as yet, but I am trying, as the 
 Papers report, to answer Gladstone, but I don't like to 
 commit myself till I have actually done. I have had so 
 many urgent requests, asking me to do so. And I feel I 
 must do so, if I can, for my own honour. I grieve indeed 
 that he should have so committed himself — I mean, by 
 charging people quite as free in mind as he is, of being 
 moral and mental slaves. I never thought I should be 
 writing against Gladstone ! but he is as unfair and untrue, 
 as he is cruel. It is a marvel. I think men like \V. G. 
 Ward have in part to answer for it — but he should have had 
 clearer notions of what we hold and what we don't, before he 
 sent 100,000 of his pamphlet through the country. 
 
 ' I thought I should be in peace for the remainder of my 
 life — and now I am in controversy again ! ' 
 
 The reason why Newman hesitated at once to reply to 
 Mr. Gladstone was the very fact that his doing so must 
 involve an explicit protest against what he regarded as the 
 exaggerations and aggressions of the editors of the Univers 
 and of the Dublin Review. He had made a compact with 
 himself to speak plainly if he wrote at all. To do this 
 without giving offence in powerful quarters was he knew 
 most difficult. But it was a case of ' now or never.' And 
 so he wrote with great anxiety, but under a sense of duty. 
 ' You may suppose how anxious I am what will be thought 
 of my pamphlet,' he writes to Miss Bowles, ' For if I am 
 to write, I am not going to utter commonplaces.' 
 
 The ' Letter to the Duke of Norfolk ' — such was the form 
 of his pamphlet — is well known. It is unnecessary to attempt 
 any full analysis of it. The spirit of generous loyalty which 
 breathes through its pages won the day with his fellow-Catho- 
 lics. A few critics did isolate and quote with disapproval the 
 passages which contained his protests against extreme views. 
 But their efforts fell flat. The general spirit of the whole was 
 .so loyal to Rome, his arguments against Gladstone so power- 
 ful, that he was able to bring in his protests incidentally with- 
 out the evil consequences he had feared. Thus in the course 
 of a forcible and eloquent argument on behalf of the essential 
 
 D p 2
 
 404 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 reasonableness of the Papal claims and of the Vatican 
 definition he denounced the ' tyrannous ipse dixits ' of the 
 Dublin Reviezv : he urged the dangers of the ' maximising ' 
 tendency which introduced into the theology taught to all 
 Catholics alike those pious beliefs which often indeed 
 expressed the generous zeal and loyal spirit of certain 
 minds, but yet might eventually prove not to be founded 
 on fact. He emphasised also points long recognised in the 
 theological schools, which the party of Louis Veuillot often 
 forgot or denied, and he expressed opinions of his own which 
 explained his action at the time of the Council.^ 
 
 ' Tn the following passages he repudiates extreme views : 
 
 He quotes from a declaration of the Swiss B'shopp, approved by Pius IX. 
 himself, to the effect that ' it in no way depends upon the caprice of the Pope, 
 or upon his good pleasure, to make such and such a doctrine the object of a 
 dogmatic definition.' — Diffictdties of Anglicans, ii. 339. 
 
 ' , . . If I am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts, (which 
 indeed does not seem quite the thing) I shall drink, — to the Pope, if you please, 
 — still, to Conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.' — p. 261. 
 
 The whole of section 5 is devoted to the elaboration of the supremacy of 
 conscience — ' not,' he is careful to note, ' as a fimcy or an opinion, but as a dutiful 
 obedience to what claims to be a Divine voice speaking within us.' — p. 255. 
 
 Newman lays down, however, at pp. 257-8 with great care the stringent 
 conditions on which alone it is lawful to oppose ' the supreme but not infallible 
 authority of the Pope.' 
 
 • Archbishop Kenrick says, " His power was given for edification, not for 
 destruction. If he uses it from the love of domination (quod absit) scarcely will 
 he meet with obedient populations.^'' ' — p. 243. 
 
 He quotes Bellarmine as saying ' As it is lawful to resist the Pope, if he 
 assaulted a man's person, so it is lawful to resist him if he assaulted souls, or 
 troubled the state (turbanti rempublicam), and much more if he strove to destroy 
 the Church. It is lawful, I say, to resist him, by not doing what he commands, 
 and hindering the execution of his will' {De Rovi. Pont. ii. 29). — p. 243. 
 
 ' Other, and they the highest Ultramontane theologians, hold that a Pope 
 w)io teaches heresy ipso facto ceases to be Pope.' — p. 359. 
 
 ' Now the Rock of St. Peter on its summit enjoys a pure and serene 
 atmosphere, but there is a great deal of Roman wa/ar/a at the foot of it.' — p. 297. 
 
 ' . . . There are partisans of Rome who have not the sanctity and wisdom 
 of Rome herself.' — p. 300. 
 
 * Of course Mr. Gladstone means Theologians— not mere courtiers or 
 sycophants, for the Pope cannot help having such till human nature is changed.' 
 
 -p-378. 
 
 'lam not referring to anything which took place within the walls of the 
 Council chambers ; of that of course we know nothing ; but even though things 
 occurred there which it is not pleasant to dwell upon, that would not at all affect, 
 not by a hair's breadth, the validity of the resulting definition.'— p. 300. 
 
 ' They [the minority at Ephesus] had opposed it [the definition] on the 
 conviction that that definition gave great encouragement to religious errors in the
 
 THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY (1874-1878) 405 
 
 Though anxious as to the effect of his pamphlet, Newman 
 seems to have felt the happier for having spoken out, and he 
 left the issue with God, 
 
 The ' Letter to the Duke of Norfolk ' appeared in January. 
 Its favourable reception among Catholics was immediate and 
 marked. He writes to Lord Blachford within a week of its 
 
 appearance : 
 
 'Feb. 5th, 1875. 
 
 ' Of course I was much interested with your remarks on 
 my letter, which you can fancy I was most reluctant to write. 
 But I was bound to write from my duty to those many men 
 who had been more or less influenced in their conversion by 
 my own conversion — and whom I fancied saying to me, " Is 
 this what you have let us in for?" And I certainly have 
 
 opposite extreme to those which it condemned ; and, in ftict, I think that, 
 humanly speaking, the peril was extreme. The event proved it to be so, when 
 twenty years afterwards another Council was held under the successors of the 
 majority at Ephesus and carried triumphantly those very errors whose eventual 
 success had been predicted by the minority.'— p. 306. 
 
 ' Though the Holy Ghost has always bten present in the Church to hinder 
 error in her definitions, and in consequence they are all most true and consistent, 
 yet it is not therefore to be denied that God, when any matters have to be 
 defined, requires of the Church a co-operation and investigation of those matters, 
 and that, in proportion to the quality of men who meet together in councils, to 
 the investigation and diligence which is applied, and the greater or less experience 
 and knowledge which is possessed more at one time than at other times, 
 definitions more or less perspicuous are drawn up and matters are defined more 
 exactly and completely ' (quoted from Molina). — t^. 307. 
 
 * " Faith justifies when it works," or " there is no religion where there is no 
 charity," may be_ taken in a good sense ; but each proposition is condemned in 
 Quesnel, because it is false as he uses it.' — p. 295. 
 
 ' None but the Schola Theologorum is competent to determine the force of 
 Papal and Synodal utterances, and the exact interpretation of them is a work of 
 time.' — p. 176. 
 
 ' . . . Instances frequently occur, when it is successfully maintained by 
 some new writer, that the Pope's act does not imply what it has seemed to imply, 
 and questions which seemed to be closed, are after a course of years re-opened. 
 
 — P- 333- 
 
 '. . . I think it a usurpation, too wicked to be comfortably dwelt upon, 
 
 when individuals use their own private judgment, in the discussion of religious 
 questions, not simply "abundare in suo sensu," but for the purpose of anathe- 
 matizing the private judgment of others.'— p. 346. 
 
 He speaks cf 'that principle of minimizing so necessary, as I think, for 
 a wise and cautious theology.' — p. 332. 
 
 These passages should all be read in their context. They are none of them 
 directed against even the most generous recognition of the Pope's powers as set 
 forth by the majority of theologians, but against exaggerations which he held to 
 be untheological and impossible to maintain in serious controversy.
 
 4o6 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 had my reward on the other hand from the old Catholics/ 
 from Bishops, Jesuits, Dominicans, and various clergy, who 
 have with one voice concurred in what I have written, as a 
 whole and in its separate parts. 
 
 ' I don't see that Gladstone's article in the Quarterly 
 (tho' I have not seen it yet) touches me, as certainly it does 
 not personally affect me. If in private " the Pope's lackies " 
 (as St. Francis de Sales calls them) butter the Pope, and he, 
 an old cruelly treated man allows it, and Gladstone comes 
 down upon the Don Pasquales (is not that the name?) who 
 publish all this to the world, I leave Don P. to answer 
 Gladstone, and consider it no business of mine.' 
 
 The success of the pamphlet in the end surpassed New- 
 man's most sanguine expectations. One circumstance helped 
 largely to disarm opposition in a quarter where it was to have 
 been expected. The subject was especially W. G. Ward's, and 
 strong theological opposition from the Dublin Reviezu would 
 have been most unfortunate. Newman had considered this. 
 With extraordinary skill, while maintaining the substance of 
 Father Ryder's position in his ' Idealism and Theology ' and 
 its practical outcome, he had so stated the case as apparently 
 to leave W. G. Ward's main abstract principles intact. 
 Newman did not insist primarily on denying to this or that 
 Pontifical document the character of an ex cathedra utterance, 
 but rather argued that the determination as to precisely 
 what was defined irreformably in such utterances appertained 
 solely to the Schola Theologorum and was a matter of time. 
 The issue he chiefly dwelt on was not the authority of this 
 or that Pontifical document, but the precise scope of what it 
 determined. His plea was for interpretation by experts after 
 full discussion. The result was that W. G. Ward — whose main 
 contest with Ryder had ostensibly turned only on the question 
 What Papal utterances are ex cathedra ? — finding his own prin- 
 ciple apparently conceded, was far from critical as to details. 
 He spoke in the Dtiblin Review with great cordiality of 
 Newman's pamphlet, and expressly denied that its positions 
 could be charged with the ' minimising ' tendency he had 
 denounced. This gave the note for others who belonged to 
 his school of thought, and the pamphlet was welcomed 
 almost without a dissentient voice. 
 
 ^ The hereditary Catholics as contrasted with the converts were spoken of as 
 ' old Catholics.'
 
 THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY (1874-1878) 407 
 
 Newman had sent his pamphlet to W, G. Ward at the 
 outset with a letter in explanation of the few passages in 
 which he had alluded expressly to Ward's attitude in terms 
 of strong disapproval. ' Bear with me where I allude to 
 you,' he wrote. He added that, if he wrote at all, he must in 
 conscience say out what he had felt so strongly, and that he 
 had ever recognised and admired Ward's own straight- 
 forwardness, while he deplored his extreme views. The letter 
 was signed ' with much affection, \ours most sincerely,' and 
 Ward, with his curious combination of sensitive love of 
 Newman with public opposition to his ecclesiastical policy, 
 complained to his friends that the ' yours affectionately ' of so 
 many years was dropped. He wrote a sad reply, declaring 
 that, since his breach with his old leader, he had felt himself 
 a kind of ' intellectual orphan.' ' After the publication in the 
 Dublin Review o{ Ward's friendly review of the ' Letter,' New- 
 man wrote him a letter of thanks both for the review itself 
 and for appreciative and affectionate references to his writings 
 in the Dublin, which in the heat of controversy he had over- 
 looked until Bishop Ullathorne had at this time called his 
 attention to them. The ' yours affectionately ' reappeared 
 in this letter, and although Ward later on published an 
 apologia for the policy of the Dublin Review which Newman 
 had deplored, active opposition between them was henceforth 
 at an end. 
 
 Newman was eager to claim allies among the trained 
 theologians, and welcomed an argument from Canon Neville 
 of Maynooth, which took up ground somewhat different from 
 his own, yet supported one of his conclusions. Some of his 
 friends, who found his own arguments more persuasive than 
 those of Dr. Neville, misunderstood his acquiescence in the 
 Maynooth professor's argument — as we see in the following 
 letter : 
 
 To Lord Blachford. 
 
 'The Oratory : Ap. 11, 1875. 
 
 * My dear Blachford, — . . . As to my pamphlet, what you say 
 
 of its success agrees, to my surprise as well as my pleasure, 
 
 with what I hear from others. What surprises me mo.st is its 
 
 success among my own people. I had for a long time been 
 
 ' The tcxl of this letter is given in the Appendix al p. 565.
 
 4o8 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 urged by my friends to write — but I persisted in saying that 
 I would not go out of my way to do so. When Gladstone 
 wrote, I saw it was now or never, and I had so vivid an 
 apprehension that I should get into a great trouble and rouse 
 a great controversy round me, that I was most unwilling to 
 take up my pen. I had made a compact with myself, that, if 
 I did write, I would bring out my whole mind, and specially 
 speak out on the subject of what I had in a private letter 
 called an " insolent and aggressive faction " — so that I wrote 
 and printed, I may say, in much distress of mind. Yet 
 nothing happened such as I had feared. For instance. Ward 
 is unsaying in print some of his extravagances, and a priest 
 who with others has looked at me with suspicion and is a 
 good specimen of his class, writes to me, " I hope everybody 
 will read it and re-read it. . . I may also congratulate you 
 that you have carried with you the Catholic mind of England, 
 and made us feel but one pulse of Ultramontane sympathy 
 beating in our body — May God give you length of days &c." 
 In Ireland Cardinal Cullen spoke of me in the warmest 
 terms in his Lent Pastoral, read in all the churches of his 
 diocese, and my friend Dr. Russell of Maynooth, who had 
 been frightened at the possible effect of some of my pages, 
 wrote to me, after being present at a great gathering of 
 bishops and priests from all parts of Ireland, on occasion 
 of Archbishop Leahy's funeral, that I had nothing to fear, 
 for there was but one unanimous voice there, and that was in 
 my favour. 
 
 ' Of course as time goes on " the clouds may return after 
 the rain" — but anyhow I have cause for great thankfulness — 
 and I trust that now I may be allowed to die in peace. Old 
 age is very cowardly — at least so I find it to be. 
 
 ' As to Canon Neville's passage, you must recollect 
 what a strong thing it is to tell the party spirit, and the 
 enthusiasm, and the sentiment unreasoning and untheo- 
 logical, of Catholics, that the Pope is ever to be disobeyed^ 
 not to speak of the political partisans of his cause and the 
 tyranny of newspaper editors. To quote a Maynooth pro- 
 fessor who could say that the Pope need not be obeyed 
 in the critical case of an English war against him, that 
 his command was to be resisted on any motive, for any 
 reason, that this was the ride in such a case, was to possess a 
 great ally, who would block any attack, any annoyance, 
 which my words might have caused. Recollect, the contract 
 under which soldiers are bound holds as soon as it is found 
 to be lawful. And Canon Neville's argument secures its
 
 THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY (1874-1878) 409 
 
 legality. Nor did I at all mean, as the Saturday thinks, 
 to withdraw my own ground. 
 
 ' The Jesuits, as usual, have stood my friends. One of 
 them only, F. Botalla, without the sympathy of the body, 
 has made, in a Liverpool paper, five charges against me — but 
 we have stood to our guns and all but silenced him. 
 
 ' I don't forget that }'ou have done all in your power 
 to get me to Devonshire, but an old man is a coward in 
 physical action as well as in moral ; I am afraid of accidents. 
 During that week last September when I was away from 
 home I had or nearly had two. In the dark, getting out 
 of the railway carriage, my foot dived into the space between 
 the carriage and the platform — and on getting out of a 
 chaise I fell and barely escaped its wheel. And besides, 
 why I don't know, I am always well at home, scarcely ever 
 when I leave it. 
 
 ' I am so grieved at what you say of your sister. She is 
 before me as she was near forty years ago, when last I saw 
 her. What a dream life is ! 
 
 ' Ever yours affly, 
 
 John H. Newman.' ^ 
 
 Mr. Gladstone published a second pamphlet in April, and 
 Newman rejoined in a postscript which further explained 
 and developed some of the positions he had maintained 
 in his letter. 
 
 The success of the ' Letter to the Duke of Norfolk ' led 
 Newman to feel that the work of Monsignor Fessler, Secre- 
 tary-General to the Vatican Council, on ' True and False In- 
 fallibility,' of which he had made effective use in his pamphlet, 
 ought to be available for English readers. Ambrose St. John 
 threw himself with energy into the work of translating it. 
 He knew — as perhaps none of the other Fathers did — how 
 deeply Newman had at heart the work of spreading a strictly 
 theological analysis of Catholic doctrine, such as would win 
 the wider and deeper minds of the coming generation. It 
 was a moment of great and unexpected success and bright 
 hope. And then suddenly came a blow, crushing and over- 
 whelming. St. John broke down from overwork. There 
 were fears lest he might permanently lose his reason. Then 
 for a moment there were hopes of recovery — followed by his 
 
 ' Further letters relative to the Letter to the Duke of Norfolk and Mr. 
 Gladstone's pamphlet will be found in the Appendix at p. 559.
 
 4IO LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 death, which was sudden at the last, at Rednal in May. Of 
 this loss of the dearest friend of his later life Newman writes 
 as follows to Lord Blachford : 
 
 ' The Oratory : May 31, 1875. 
 
 ' My dear Blachford, — I cannot use many words, but I 
 quite understand the kind affectionateness of your letter just 
 come. I answer it first of the large collection of letters 
 which keen sympathy with me and deep sorrow for their 
 loss in Ambrose St. John have caused so many friends to 
 write to me. I cannot wonder that, after he has been given 
 me for so long a time as 32 years, he should be taken from 
 me. Sometimes I have thought that, like my patron saint 
 St. John, I am destined to survive all my friends. 
 
 ' From the first he loved me with an intensity of love, which 
 was unaccountable. At Rome 28 years ago he was always 
 so working for and relieving me of all trouble, that being 
 young and Saxon-looking, the Romans called him my Angel 
 Guardian. As far as this world was concerned I was his 
 first and last. He has not intermitted this love for an hour 
 up to his last breath. At the beginning of his illness he 
 showed in various ways that he was thinking of and for me. 
 That illness which threatened permanent loss of reason, 
 which, thank God, he has escaped, arose from his overwork 
 in translating Fessler, which he did for me to back up my 
 letter to the Duke of Norfolk. I had no suspicion of this 
 overwork of course, but which reminds me that, at that time, 
 startled at the great and unexpected success of my pamphlet, 
 I said to him, " We shall have some great penance to balance 
 this good fortune." 
 
 ' There was on April 28 a special High Mass at the 
 Passionists two miles from this. He thought he ought to 
 be there, and walked in a scorching sun to be there in time. 
 He eot a sort of stroke. He never was himself afterwards. 
 A brain fever came on. After the crisis, the doctor said he 
 was recovering — he got better every day — we all saw this. 
 On his last morning he parted with great impressiveness from 
 an old friend, once one of our lay brothers, who had been 
 with him through the night. The latter tells us that he had 
 in former years watched, while with us, before the Blessed 
 Sacrament, but he had never felt Our Lord so near him, as 
 during that night. He says that his (A.'s) face was so 
 beautiful ; both William Neville and myself had noticed that 
 at different times ; and his eyes, when he looked straight at us, 
 were brilliant as jewels. It was the expression, which was so 
 sweet, tender, and beseeching. When his friend left him in the
 
 THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY (1874-1878) 411 
 
 morning, Ambrose smiled on him and kissed his forehead, as 
 if he was taking leave of him. Mind, we all of us thought 
 him getting better every day. When the doctor came, he 
 said the improvement was far beyond his expectation. He 
 said " From this time he knows all you say to him," though 
 alas he could not speak. I have not time to go through that 
 day, when we were so jubilant. In the course of it, when he 
 was sitting on the side of his bed, he got hold of me and 
 threw his arm over my shoulder and brought mc to him so 
 closely, that I said in joke " He will give me a stiff neck." 
 So he held me for some minutes, I at length releasing myself 
 from not understanding, as he did, why he so clung to me. 
 Then he got hold of my hand and clasped it so tightly as 
 really to frighten me, for he had done so once before when he 
 was not himself I had to get one of the others present to 
 unlock his fingers, ah ! little thinking what he meant. At 
 7 P.M. when I rose to go, and said " Good-bye, I shall find you 
 much better to-morrow,' he smiled on me with an expression 
 which I could not and cannot understand. It was sweet and 
 sad and perhaps perplexed, but I cannot interpret it. But 
 it was our parting. W. N. says he called me back as I was 
 leaving the room, but I do not recollect it. 
 
 ' About midnight I was awakened at the Oratory, with a 
 loud rapping at the door, and the tidings that a great change 
 had taken place in him. We hurried off at once, but he had 
 died almost as soon as the messenger started. He had been 
 placed or rather had placed himself with great deliberation 
 and self-respect in his bed — they had tucked him up, and 
 William Neville was just going to give him some arrowroot 
 when he rose upon his elbow, fell back and died. 
 
 ' I daresay Church and Copeland, and Lord Coleridge, 
 will like to see this —will you let them ? 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John II. Newman.' 
 
 His friends among the holy women dedicated to the 
 religious life gave him a sympathy which he gratefully 
 appreciated. 
 
 To Mother Imelda Poole, the Prioress of the Dominicans, 
 he writes : 
 
 ' I thank God for having given him to me for so long. 
 
 ' I thank Him for taking him away when there was a 
 chance for him of a living death. 
 
 ' 1 thank Him for having given mc this warning to make 
 haste myself and prepare for His coming.'
 
 412 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 He writes to Sister Maria Pia : 
 
 ' What a faithful friend he has been to me for 32 years • 
 yet there are others as faithful. What a wonderful mercy it 
 is to me that God has given me so many faithful friends ! 
 He has never left me without support at trying times. How 
 much you did for me in the Achilli trial, (and at other times) 
 and I have never thanked you, as I ought to have done. 
 This sometimes oppresses me — as if I was very ungrateful. 
 You truly say that you have seen my beginning, middle, and 
 end. Since his death, I have been reproaching myself for 
 not expressing to him how much I felt his love — and I write 
 this lest I should feel the same about you, should it be God's 
 will that I should outlive you.^ I have above mentioned the 
 Achilli matter, but that is only one specimen of the devotion, 
 which by word and deed and prayer, you have been con- 
 tinually showing towards me most unworthy. I hope I 
 don't write too small for your eyes.' 
 
 There are allusions to his loss — for the most part brief 
 and significant in their brevity — in many letters of this time. 
 
 He writes to Miss Holmes : ' This is the greatest affliction 
 I have had in my life, and so sudden. Pray for him and for 
 me.' ' I doubt not,' he writes to another friend, ' or rather 
 perceive, that this most severe blow was necessary to pre- 
 pare me for death, for nothing short of it could wean me 
 from life.' To another he says : ' I do not expect ever to get 
 over the loss I have had. It is like an open wound which in 
 old men cannot be healed.' 
 
 For a moment, in a letter of June 5 to Father Walford, he 
 allows himself to dwell a little more fully on the thought of 
 the past. 
 
 To THE Rev. John Walford, S.J. 
 
 ' The Oratory : June 2, 1S75. 
 
 ' I cannot be surprised that after so long a period as thirty- 
 two years Our Lord should recall what He had given me. 
 Was it not wonderful that, when I was stripped of friends, 
 God should have given me just one who was ever to be faith- 
 ful to me and to supply all needs to me? In 1847 at Rome 
 they used to call him, as being fair and Saxon-looking, my 
 Angel Guardian, and certainly he has been to me " Azarias 
 the son of Ananias." This, of course, made me love him ; 
 but what has so greatly moved me and made me fear that I 
 shall be so far below him if I ever get to Heaven that he will 
 not notice me, is his fulness in good works. He was ever 
 ' He did outlive her. Miss Gibern died in December 1885.
 
 THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY (1874-1878) 413 
 
 doing something good. I could not take a walk with him 
 except on Sundays, for he was always visiting the sick or the 
 like, when he went out. He seemed never to have recreation 
 when he was at home, — though his asthma, &c., forced him 
 from time to time abroad — so punctual [was he] in his devo- 
 tions; and again in his studies; and he was ever doing too 
 much in the school. In this illness, he took up with him to 
 Ravenhurst some work of St. John of the Cross to translate — 
 and what was the cause of his illness and death was his 
 translation of Fessler in the midst of other work.' 
 
 After Ambrose St. John's death others may have seemed 
 lesser events by comparison ; but they came, and they deep- 
 ened the sorrows of Newman's declining years. William 
 Wilberforce went in the summer ; so too did the faithful 
 matron of the Oratory School, Mrs. Wootten. Father 
 Caswall in the following year was pronounced by the doctors 
 to be hopelessly ill. Others, once his friends, though now 
 either long separated from him or estranged, passed away — 
 as Richard Simpson and J. D. Dalgairns. Newman's letters 
 dwell constantly on these losses. A new degree of sadness 
 and solemnity is apparent in them, little relieved by brighter 
 thoughts. 
 
 To Lord Blackford. 
 
 'August loth, 1875. 
 
 ' . . . I was in London on my way to Surbiton to bid 
 farewell to W. Wilberforce and his wife. They both have 
 had strokes of paralysis — but hers is a gradual decay, 
 while he (as it appears) will be carried off suddenly. He 
 feels very much being stripped of all his brothers, and nearly 
 all his friends. It is 48 years this month since I made his 
 acquaintance at Hampstead, when I was coaching Henry 
 Wilberforce and Golightly (aged both of them 20 I think) 
 before I knew you. Her I have known in a way for 70 years, 
 for my grandmother's house was next to her father's and the 
 children in that way got acquainted — nearly all I recollect 
 about it, however, is the boys sending off a rocket on the 
 5th of November. 
 
 ' W. W.'s little son, whom you recollect a fair-haired little 
 boy, has the look of an elderly man, seamed in face, and with 
 the effect of having lost his teeth. The grandson is a fine 
 tall fellow of (say) 24. Thus " one generation passeth away 
 and another cometh " and everyone is his own centre as if he 
 were not one of a throng — and it is all vanitas vamtatuni.'
 
 414 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 To Sister Mary Gabriel. 
 
 'December 27, 1875. 
 
 ' You refer to St. John's age. Yes, I often think, can it 
 be God's will that, as the beloved disciple outlived all his 
 brethren, I too am to have a portion of that special cross of 
 his ? Dear Mrs. Poncia, who went so unexpectedly two 
 years ago, used to say on this day to me " Many, many 
 returns of it " : I used to answer, " You don't wish me to 
 outlive you all" — and she answered, "Yes, till 90 or 100 
 years " — Then I said, " O how cruel ! " 
 
 ' Of late I have often thought whether it was God's will 
 that I should have the trial of seeing those I loved die 
 before me — but it was a very ungrateful thought to be 
 suggested to me by God's great mercy in keeping me so 
 well in health. Was it not enough to provoke Him to visit 
 me with sickness and suffering? Well, I am in His Hands — 
 and I can but repeat what I found among dear Father 
 Ambrose's morning prayers, " Do with me what Thou wilt ; 
 I shall ever be in peace if I live and die in Thy love." 
 
 ' May God be with you also as He has been with me ; 
 not only for 25 years, but, as He has been with you for so 
 long a time, so also to the end— and with me too, till we all 
 meet in the bosom of our God.' 
 
 To Sister Maria Pia. 
 
 ' I am now entering a series of anniversaries of friends. 
 Tomorrow, the 19th, died my oldest friend, Richard West- 
 macott — on the 21st my greatest school friend, Hans 
 Hamilton — on the 22nd Samuel Wood — on the 23rd Henry 
 Wilbcrforce — on the 24th Henry Woodgate — and on May ist 
 Isaac Williams. 
 
 ' Only may we be ready, when our time comes ! ' 
 
 To Mother Imelda Poole. 
 
 ' December 29, 1876. 
 
 ' We are losing one of our great props, to speak humanly, 
 Father Caswall. He is one of four who one after another 
 have generously thrown themselves and all they had into my 
 hands — and whose loyalty and love God only can repay — 
 my dear Father Ambrose St. John, Father Joseph Gordon, 
 Mrs. Wootten, and P'ather Caswall. Three have gone, the 
 fourth is going. I trust they may do something for me 
 according to God's Blessed Will in compensation for my 
 bereavement in losing them. And when am I to join
 
 THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY (1874-1878) 415 
 
 them ? What a thick darkness is over the future! Pray that 
 I may be ready whenever the time comes.' 
 
 To Sister Maria Pia. 
 
 •The Oratory: Jan. 22, 1878. 
 
 ' It is natural that you should look with anxiety towards 
 the future. The better you are, the more will the prospect 
 before you be solemn. Again, the older you are, the more 
 you realize what is to come. To younger people the unseen 
 state is a matter of words — but as to people of our age they 
 say to themselves, " For what I know I shall be in that 
 unknown state tomorrow—" and that is very awful. 
 
 ' So you must not allow yourself to be disturbed — but the 
 more you feel that you have to give an account, you must 
 look in faith, hope and love, towards our Lord Jesus, the 
 Supreme Lover of souls, and your abiding Strength, towards 
 the Blessed Virgin, and to St. Francis. They won't forsake 
 you in your extremity, and your Guardian Angel will be 
 faithful to the end. . . . ' 
 
 His general gloom in these years showed itself in 
 melancholy thoughts concerning the future of the world 
 and the immediate prospects of the Church. Kis keen eye 
 discerned the spread of principles, in the society of the day, 
 which must issue in the widespread decay of Christian belief 
 and in all the sadness of a world of sorrow without hope, 
 which those who hailed the prospect as an emancipation 
 realised so little. The following letters are samples of many 
 such belonging to this period : 
 
 To Mrs. Maskell. 
 
 'The Oratory: Jan. 4, 1876. 
 
 ' I thank you very much for your most kind letter, and 
 reciprocate your good wishes for the New Year with all my 
 heart, both as regards yourself and Mr. Maskell. The begin- 
 ning of the year has always something very impressive in it, 
 from the darkness which closes it in and only retreats day by 
 day. Such mystery, though exciting in the case of the young 
 and vigorous, has a very different effect upon us when we 
 have got old — but, just at this time, its most solemn thought 
 is when it i3 dwelt upon in connection with the fortunes of 
 the Church. What a future, what awful events lie under that 
 cloud. I don't mean as to happen in this very year, but as 
 awaiting their birth in the years which lie before us. I don't 
 know if you are well acquainted with the " Christian Year " — if
 
 4i6 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 so, you will know that present always to the Author's mind 
 was " the awful future as it nearer draws " — and though I 
 don't mean to say that the end is coming, at least we are soon 
 to enter upon a new cycle of sacred history. Also, we are 
 told that, when the end actually does come, there will be the 
 same hit]jh hopes, promise of good, jubilation, mutual con- 
 gratulations, prosperity, and self confidence, to the virtual or 
 actual denial of God, which is at present so rife and so 
 growing.' 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 ' The Oratory : Jan. 6th, 1877. 
 ' As to the prospects of the Church, as to which you ask 
 my opinion, you know old men are generally desponding — 
 but my apprehensions are not new, but above 50 years 
 standing. I have all that time thought that a time of wide- 
 spread infidelity was coming, and through all those years the 
 waters have in fact been rising as a deluge. I look for the 
 time, after my life, when only the tops of the mountains will 
 be seen like islands in the waste of waters. I speak 
 principally of the Protestant world — but great actions and 
 successes must be achieved by the Catholic leaders, great 
 wisdom as well as courage must be given them from on 
 high, if Holy Church is to (be) kept safe from this awful 
 calamity, and, though any trial which came upon her 
 would but be temporary, it may be fierce in the extreme 
 while it lasts.' 
 
 To Dr. Noble. 
 
 'June i6th, 1877. 
 ' Thank you for your thoughtful and valuable paper. The 
 spread of scepticism is portentous — and the great mischief 
 is that there is a general antecedent leaning to the side of 
 unbelief, as the more reasonable and probable. A notion 
 prevails that great changes are coming, so that men believe 
 atheism before they have discovered revelation. As you 
 say. Authority at least has a claim that the orius probatidi 
 should not be thrown upon its side. You are taking at Man- 
 chester a more useful and important line for your Academia, 
 than they have chosen in London, as it seems to me.' 
 
 To Mr. a. H. Cullen. 
 
 ' The Oratory, Birmingham ; July 12th, 1877. 
 
 ' Your letter is a very good one — very much to the point 
 and deserving a serious answer, but that answer cannot be 
 given in few words.
 
 THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY (1874-1878) 417 
 
 * It is quite true that Christianity should be far more 
 efFective to make men what it preaches than it is. This will 
 not always be so, if we interpret the prophecies rightly — but 
 that it was to be so at least at first, and for a season, is plain 
 from our Lord's and St. Paul's intimations. Our Lord 
 speaks of the Church as a net which gathered all kinds of 
 fishes, good and bad ; of the sower and his failures ; of the 
 wheat and cockle ; of the foolish virgins ; of the evil servant 
 who ate and drank with drunkards. St. Paul of dangerous 
 times, when men shall be covetous, without affection, incon- 
 tinent, &c., &c. And the Corinthians, his converts, were 
 guilty of sins which are marvellous in their strangeness under 
 the circumstances. 
 
 ' Then as to Catholics being worse than Protestants, 
 &c., I think you must recollect that the corruptio optimi est 
 pessima. And in our Lord's day, though " salvation was of the 
 Jews," they seem to have been as a people in a worse state 
 than the Samaritans. 
 
 ' It is a wonderful phenomenon — but I think history tells 
 us that the fierce Goths, &c., who came down upon the Roman 
 Empire had the moral virtues as the Roman Christians had 
 them not. 
 
 ' One is led to say that those Christian people, forming 
 the Roman State, were visited with the scourge of God, on 
 account of their sins. 
 
 ' And one is led to fear a similar judgment for similar 
 reasons is sweeping, or will sweep, over the Church now. 
 
 'But of course I speak under the correction of those who 
 have a right to speak with decision.' 
 
 To Baron von Hugel.^ 
 
 ' Rednal : July 30, 1877. 
 
 * I quite understand your great anxiety. And of course 
 you make me anxious what to say also — what to say, that 
 is, controversially. 
 
 ' I fear I must go very deep and say this to the friend 
 who made such an objection. Do you or do you not believe 
 in a Personal God and Moral Governor ? If you do not, then 
 it is useless arguing — for if there is no God, there is no 
 Revelation, no Church. 
 
 ' But if you do, then do not all such difficulties resolve 
 themselves in the great difficulty of the origin of evil ? 
 
 ' B.iron von Hiigel had consulted Dr. Newman as to the best reply to be given 
 to one who felt that the scandals in Church history were a decisive argument against 
 the claims of the Church. 
 
 VOL. II. E E
 
 4i8 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' If indeed you say, " The existence of evil proves there is 
 no Almighty Ruler," then, I repeat, I have not to defend 
 Revelation, for if there is no God, there is no Revelation, but 
 if there be a God in spite of the fact of evil, then why do you 
 make an objection to particulars, which are all included in 
 the fact of evil ? What wonder, if evil is so strong as it is, that 
 Revealed Truth should have a hard battle with it ? This is 
 indeed the Scripture account of it. It says " the world lieth 
 in evil" S. John V, 19. I can quite understand, shocking 
 as it is, a man's saying " The existence of evil by itself 
 proves there is no God," — there is the field of battle — but 
 to argue, " the existence of evil in the Church is a proof that 
 the Church is not from God," is not going to the root of the 
 matter, but trifling with a mere instance of a great and 
 fearful fact instead of going straight to that fact itself 
 
 ' The fact of evil cannot be denied — the whole of Revela- 
 tion not only allows, but requires it. All through Scripture 
 a warfare with evil is made the very raison d'etre of a 
 Revelation. There need have been no Revelation, except 
 for the existence of evil. The disasters and defeats of the 
 Church are presupposed in Scripture. A time indeed is 
 predicted when Truth will prevail, but that time is known 
 to God alone. 
 
 ' I am always doubtful whether what I feel myself will 
 strike another. Write to me again if you think I can say 
 anything to the purpose. All kind thoughts of the Baroness 
 and the little child. 
 
 ' Ever yours most sincerely, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Newman's principal solace lay in work — in continuing the 
 task of revising and editing his early writings.^ 
 
 ' Wonderful,' he writes to Dean Church, * if I am kept 
 to see a second generation here I want to get through 
 my papers, and to revise the volumes which remain as 
 I published them, the "Prophetical Office," " Athanasius," 
 and " Doctrinal Development," and fancy I shall then hail 
 my Nunc dimittis.' 
 
 Two of the reprints referred to in this letter had special 
 importance. The ' Essay on Development ' was his greatest 
 contribution to religious thought and also contained the main 
 argument which brought him to the Catholic Church. It had 
 
 ' From his correspondence at this time some further extracts are given in 
 the Appendix at p. 566.
 
 THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY (1874-1878) 419 
 
 (as we have seen) been attacked as in part at variance with 
 the traditional teaching of the Roman schools. He had 
 ever maintained that this view was based on a misconception. 
 And he had ever held the argument of the Essay to be essen- 
 tial to any satisfactory reply to modern agnosticism. To 
 make himself then once more responsible for its contents, 
 by reprinting it with notes and alterations as a contribution 
 to Catholic theology, was a step of great importance. But 
 almost equally important in the event proved his republica- 
 tion of the Tracts and lectures in which he had sketched the 
 Via Media he had marked out for the Church of England in 
 the heyday of the Oxford Movement. He had again been 
 speaking, as he did before writing the ' Letter to the Duke of 
 Norfolk,' as though his work were done, and he was waiting in 
 daily expectation of his passing bell ; but once more circum- 
 stances led him to break his resolution. To what he began 
 as a reprint, with notes, of his Anglican Tracts, he was led in 
 the end to add an introductory Essay of high importance. 
 
 When Newman came to revise his own attack on the 
 Roman Catholic system, written in the days of the Oxford 
 Movement, he found that a great deal of it was sound and 
 true. But, as he now recognised, it was in reality a criticism 
 not on the Church itself, or on the Catholic religion, but on the 
 action of Catholic peoples or rulers in special circumstances. 
 Since he had been a Catholic he had himself had experiences 
 which greatly tried him. He had therefore found consolation in 
 recognising this distinction. And in a letter to Lord Blachford, 
 written in 1867, he had further traced the source of his trial 
 to another fact. The Catholic Church was a body politic, as 
 well as the maintainer of a special creed and theology. 
 The ecclesiastical rulers had to consider the life of devotion 
 among the many, and the interests of order and of self-defence 
 for the community, as well as accuracy in the intellectual 
 statement of beliefs involved in the Catholic religion. Rule, 
 devotion, and theology were three separate aspects of Catholic 
 life, each necessary, and yet often having conflicting interests. 
 He regarded his very latest trial — namely, the events accom- 
 panying the Vatican Council — as a case illustrative of this 
 general fact. The doctrine of Papal Infallibility had been, he 
 complained, regarded by a certain party as a ' luxury of 
 
 E E 2
 
 420 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 devotion.' It supplied a great rallying cry, and made for loyal 
 devotion and esprit de corps. The definition was, moreover, 
 held to be an important practical step in the existing state 
 of ecclesiastical politics — a check on the dangerous ' Liberal 
 Catholic ' movement in Germany, which apart from its more 
 scientific aspect was sometimes marked by a censorious and 
 even disloyal attitude towards the Roman See ; and this was 
 a moment when Rome was in trouble and needed a united 
 phalanx of defenders. Thus the interests of rule and of 
 devotion were in favour of the definition. And Newman's 
 complaint had been that the interests of intellectual accu- 
 racy — the exhibition of the consistency of the dogma with 
 acknowledged theological principles and historical facts — had 
 been inadequately attended to. Conflicting interests had been 
 apparent in his earlier trials also. In the difficulties presented 
 in his early Catholic life by the Oratorian Saints' Lives also, 
 the interests of popular devotion had been on one side, those 
 of scientific treatment of evidence on the other. Athwart 
 both these interests had come a third — guarded especially by 
 the Bishops — namely, prudent rule and consideration for the 
 feelings of the hereditary English Catholics, to whom foreign 
 devotional literature appeared extravagant. Again, the rule 
 of Propaganda, which he had regarded as at times injurious 
 to intellectual interests, arose from England's holding techni- 
 cally the position of a missionary country. The same system 
 did not act badly in other missionary countries where the 
 condition of society was ruder. This was again an instance 
 of rules made for the Church as a polity proving injurious to 
 theological efficiency. 
 
 The whole modern Ultramontane movement, inaugurated 
 by Joseph de Maistre, was indeed largely one of sentimental 
 loyalty to the central authority, affecting devotion and 
 rule far more than theology. Critics external to the Church 
 identified these several interests. Ultramontanism was 
 spoken of as aggressive. Regarded as a theology the term 
 was quite inapplicable. The doctrine was that of the gentle 
 F^nelon, and Newman himself had ever held it. It was 
 not more aggressive than Gallicanism in its typical repre- 
 sentatives. Bossuet was certainly not less militant than his 
 great rival. It was the attempt to utilise Ultramontane
 
 THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY (1874-1878) 421 
 
 doctrine in the cause of undue centralisation, and practically 
 to suspend the functions of the theological schools, which 
 was aggressive and tyrannical in Newman's eyes. And 
 this was a defect not of the doctrine itself or of Catholic 
 theology as such, but of over-enthusiastic individual rulers 
 and followers. It did not relate to the Catholic creed or its 
 analysis, but to the Catholic polity and its action. If there 
 was much in the existing state of the Church that was trying 
 to one like Newman, to whom the interests of exact and 
 deep Christian thought as a breakwater against infidelity 
 were all-important, this did not, provided that the above 
 distinctions were kept clear, cast any slur on the truth and 
 sanctity of the Catholic religion. Yet friends and foes alike 
 were apt to lose sight of such distinctions, and to identify 
 interests which were in reality disparate. They were apt to 
 regard the militant action of a Church in time of persecu- 
 tion, as normal, and due rather to the nature of the Catholic 
 religion than to the circumstances of the time. 
 
 Owing to the fact that intellectual interests were not, 
 in his opinion, given full and fair play, Newman had hitherto 
 considered, as we have seen, that it was only in the shape 
 of polemical writing, rebutting the exaggerated charges of 
 outsiders, that he could successfully advocate a wider and 
 more comprehensive view than was generally current. It 
 was as the advocate of the Catholic cause against its critics 
 rather than of the interests of theological accuracy, that he 
 could best carry with him the sympathy of his co-religionists. 
 He had done so successfully in 1864 in answer to Kingsley. 
 He had done so again in 1866 in reply to Pusey, and yet 
 again in 1875 in answer to Gladstone. Now there was 
 indeed no eminent living assailant of the Catholic Church to 
 reply to. But in reading, with a view to their republication, 
 the old Tracts of 1837, he found in his dead Anglican self the 
 foe whom he sought. He prefixed to the republished Tracts 
 — which he entitled 'Via Media' — an introduction of high 
 interest and value, called by him only a ' preface,' and 
 inserted with no display and little suggestion of its special 
 importance. In it he mapped out the plan of the Church, 
 drawing the all-important distinction between the three fields 
 of Catholic action.
 
 422 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 * Christianity,' he wrote in this Prefatory Essay, ' is at 
 once a philosophy, a political power, and a religious rite ; as 
 a religion it is Holy ; as a philosophy, it is Apostolic ; as a 
 political power, it is imperial, that is One and Catholic. As 
 a religion, its special centre of action is pastor and flock ; as 
 a philosophy, the Schools ; as a rule, the Papacy and its 
 Curia. 
 
 ' Though it has exercised these three functions in sub- 
 stance from the first, they were developed in their full 
 proportions one after another, in a succession of centuries ; 
 first, in the primitive time it was recognised as a worship, 
 springing up and spreading in the lower ranks of society, and 
 among the ignorant and dependent, and making its power 
 felt by the heroism of its Martyrs and confessors. Then it 
 seized upon the intellectual and cultivated class, and created 
 a theology and schools of learning. Lastly it seated itself, 
 as an ecclesiastical polity, among princes, and chose Rome 
 for its centre. 
 
 ' Truth is the guiding principle of theology and theological 
 inquiries ; devotion and edification, of worship ; and of govern- 
 ment, expedience. The instrument of theology is reasoning ; 
 of worship, our emotional nature ; of rule, command and 
 coercion. Further, in man as he is, reasoning tends to 
 rationalism ; devotion to superstition and enthusiasm ; and 
 power to ambition and tyranny. 
 
 ' Arduous as are the duties involved in these three offices, 
 to discharge one by one, much more arduous are they to 
 administer, when taken in combination. Each of the three 
 has its separate scope and direction ; each has its own 
 interests to promote and further ; each has to find room for 
 the claims of the other two ; and each will find its own line 
 of action influenced and modified by the others, nay, some- 
 times in a particular case the necessity of the others converted 
 into a rule of duty for itself. 
 
 ' " Who," in St. Paul's words, " is sufficient for these 
 things ? " Who, even with divine aid, shall successfully 
 administer offices so independent of each other, so divergent, 
 and so conflicting? What line of conduct, except on the 
 long, the very long run, is at once edifying, expedient, and 
 true ? Is it not plain, that, if one determinate course is to be 
 taken by the Church, acting at once in all three capacities, 
 so opposed to each other in their idea, that course must, as 
 I have said, be deflected from the line which would be traced 
 out by any one of them, if viewed by itself, or else the 
 requirements of one or two sacrificed to the interests of the
 
 THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY (1874-1878) 423 
 
 third ? What for instance, is to be done in a case when to 
 enforce a theological point, as the Schools determine it, would 
 make a particular population less religious, not more so, or 
 cause riots or risings ? Or when to defend a champion of 
 ecclesiastical liberty in one country would encourage an Anti- 
 Fope, or hazard a general persecution, in another? or when 
 either a schism is to be encountered or an opportune truth 
 left undefined ? 
 
 * All this was foreseen certainly by the Divine Mind, when 
 He committed to His Church so complex a mission ; and, 
 by promising her infallibility in her formal teaching, He 
 indirectly protected her from serious error in worship and 
 political action also. This aid, however, great as it is, does 
 not secure her from all dangers as regards the problem which 
 she has to solve ; nothing but the gift of impeccability granted 
 to her authorities would secure them from all liability to 
 mistake in their conduct, polic}', words and decisions, in her 
 legislative and her executive, in ecclesiastical and disciplinarian 
 details ; and such a gift they have not received. In conse- 
 quence, however well she may perform her duties on the 
 whole, it will always be easy for her enemies to make a case 
 against her, well founded or not, from the action or interaction, 
 or the chronic collisions or contrasts, or the temporary 
 suspense or delay, of her administration, in her three several 
 departments of duty, — her government, her devotions, and 
 her schools, — from the conduct of her rulers, her divines, her 
 pastors, or her people.' 
 
 The interests of devotion, in so far as devotion depends on 
 preserving the most fundamental religious beliefs, are the most 
 essential. The securing of intellectual accuracy in matters 
 less fundamental is not so important. The first condition of 
 the influence of religion, is to preserve for the many their 
 hold on the reality of the world behind the veil and their 
 general trust in Christianity. Such fundamental beliefs are 
 protected for them by the existing theology. The customary 
 interpretation of Holy Writ, and the well-worn explanations 
 in the theological text-books, become for many minds, by force 
 of habit, inseparably bound up with their faith in the super- 
 natural. To throw doubt on this or that detail in the existing 
 structure by introducing novel opinions might be (Newman 
 argues) for such minds to shake or destroy the whole — 
 truth and incidental error alike. Great caution was thus a 
 duty when questioning long-accepted views as to the meaning
 
 424 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 of Holy Writ, lest the faith of the many should be imperilled. 
 Views which have long been in possession must not be lightly 
 set aside on the strength of ingenious scientific hypotheses. 
 
 ' To the devotional mind,' he writes, ' what is new and 
 strange is as repulsive, often as dangerous, as falsehood is to 
 the scientific. Novelty is often error to those who are un- 
 prepared for it, from the refraction with which it enters into 
 their conceptions.' 
 
 As to the upsetting effect on faith, of new discoveries at 
 variance with traditionary beliefs, the Galileo case was the 
 stock instance which he naturally quoted. And it could 
 ever be used with effect for more than one reason. It 
 brought about in its time a change as drastic in the received 
 theological opinions, and in the interpretation of Scripture, as 
 any which the more recent scientific hypotheses demanded. 
 The theologians long resisted the change. They finally 
 yielded. Thus the incident was an excellent illustration, at 
 once of the conservative genius of Catholic theology as 
 against mere hypothesis, and yet of its capacity to so far 
 modify its seemingly uncompromising attitude as eventually to 
 assimilate those hypotheses should they become proved facts. 
 
 Newman loyally defended a certain reserve and tender- 
 ness for the weak, in conducting theological discussions. 
 Nevertheless he plainly indicated his own view that the 
 danger of the time in which he lived lay in carrying this 
 principle too far. ' I know well,' he writes, ' that " all things 
 have their season," and that there is not only "a time to 
 keep silence," but "a time to speak," and that, in some 
 states of society, such as our own, it is the worst charity, 
 and the most provoking, irritating rule of action, and the 
 most unhappy policy, not to speak out, not to suffer to be 
 spoken out, all that there is to say. Such speaking out is 
 under such circumstances the triumph of religion, whereas 
 concealment, accommodation, and evasion is to co-operate 
 with the spirit of error ; — but it is not always so.' 
 
 Now again, as when he replied to Gladstone, if he wrote 
 at all on these great questions he held it to be his duty to 
 express his dissatisfaction with the polemics of some of his 
 co-religionists. Hence we find in the Preface the following 
 significant sentence ;
 
 THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY (1874-1878) 425 
 
 ' It is so ordered on high that in our day Holy Church 
 should present just that aspect to my countrymen which is 
 most consonant with their ingrained prejudices against her, 
 most unpromising for their conversion ; and what can one 
 writer do against this misfortune ? ' 
 
 The Preface to the 'Via Media ' (as he called the repub- 
 lished lectures) naturally did not arouse any such wide atten- 
 tion as the ' Letter to the Duke of Norfolk ' had called forth. 
 But it was well received among Catholics, the Jesuits in the 
 Month and W. G. Ward in the Dublin Review speaking of 
 it with special admiration. 
 
 At the end of 1877, while Newman was still hard at work, 
 feeling that his time was short, and anxious before he died 
 to complete the revision of all his works, there came amid 
 the sorrows of loss the happier accompaniments of extreme 
 old age — namely, the tokens of public recognition of his life 
 of devotion and high example. 
 
 His old college (Trinity) made him an honorary Fellow ; ' 
 R. W. Church announced another mark of honour shortly to 
 come from Oriel. Mr. James Bryce was eager to present 
 to him his picture painted by a great artist — Mr. Ouless. 
 A similar request came from his own parishioners in 
 Birmingham. Gladstone referred to him in a public 
 speech in terms which were so laudatory as to seem to 
 him extravagant. ' Although,' he writes to Church, ' I am 
 truly grateful for Gladstone's kindness, I am frightened 
 at it. It was to most men's apprehensions out of place, and 
 I dread a reaction.' 
 
 But these manifestations of respect and sympathy did 
 something to soothe one of his temperament amid all 
 the heavy trials of advancing life. ' I do not know when 
 I have been so much pleased,' he writes of the offer from 
 Trinity. But before accepting it he notified the occurrence 
 to his Bishop, Dr. Ullathorne, giving him thereby an 
 opportunity of raising any objection to his acceptance of 
 what was offered if he saw one. 
 
 • Mr. Raper, now Senior Fellow of Trinity, first suggested this graceful com- 
 pliment. The thought came to him, he tells me, when looking at Newman's 
 picture in the Common room.
 
 426 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 « The Oratory : Dec. 1 8, 1877. 
 
 ' My dear Lord, — I have just received a great compli- 
 ment, perhaps the greatest I have ever received, and I don't 
 Hke not to tell you of it one of the first. 
 
 ' My old College, Trinity College, where I was an under- 
 graduate from the age of 16 to 21, till I gained a Fellowship 
 at Oriel, has made me an Honorary Fellow of their Society. 
 Of course it involves no duties, rights or conditions, not even 
 that of belonging to the University, certainly not that of 
 having a vote as Master of Arts, but it is a mark of extreme 
 kindness to me from men I have never seen, and it is the only 
 instance of their exercising their power since it was given 
 them. 
 
 ' Trinity College has been the one and only seat of my 
 affections at Oxford, and to see once more, before I am taken 
 away, what I never thought I should see again, the place 
 where I began the battle of life, with my good angel by my 
 side, is a prospect almost too much for me to bear. 
 
 ' I have been considering for these two days, since the 
 offer came to me, whether there would be any inconsistency 
 in my accepting it, but it is so pure a compliment in its very 
 title that I do not see that I need fear its being interpreted 
 by the world as anything else. 
 
 ' Begging your Lordship's blessing, I am your obedient 
 and affectionate servant in Christ, 
 
 John H. Newman. 
 
 ' P.S. — The Pope made me a D.D., but I don't call an act 
 of the Pope's a " compliment^ ' 
 
 The new edition of the ' Essay on Development ' was ready, 
 and Newman wished to dedicate it to the Fellows of Trinity 
 as a thankoffering for the honour they had conferred on him. 
 His letters on this subject to R. W. Church — whom he 
 commissioned to sound Mr. Waytc, the President, as to how 
 far the offering would be acceptable to the college — are very 
 characteristic in their minute thoughtfulness for others, and 
 as showing Newman's desire to do precisely what would be 
 most agreeable to all those concerned as well as what was 
 congenial to his own grateful feelings. 
 
 ' The Oratory : Deer. 20, 1877. 
 
 ' My dear Church, — A happy Xmas to you and yours. 
 The Trinity Fellows have made me an Honorary Fellow of 
 their Society. The first they ever made. 
 
 ' Yours affectly 
 
 John H. Newman.'
 
 THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY (1874-1878) 427 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 '■Private. Jan. 21, 1878. 
 
 ' I am on the point of publishing afresh a volume, which, 
 having no dedication, I thought I would ask leave to dedicate 
 to the President of Trinity. 
 
 * This seemed to me a bright thought — but soon came a 
 fatal obstacle, as I fear — not simply is it a work in favour of 
 the Church of Rome — for in the Dedication I might have 
 parried this difficulty, but it is my Essay on Development of 
 Doctrine, which though from beginning to end grave and 
 argumentative, just at the beginning and at the end is not so. 
 
 ' Now it would be a sad damper for me to offer it and 
 Wayte to be obliged to decline it. Yet on the other hand it 
 is just possible that, if 1 passed the idea over, he, at some 
 future time on hearing it, might say " Why did you not tell 
 me ? I should not have cared for it at all." But / in his 
 position think I should decline it, and that for two reasons. 
 
 ' I should say 
 
 ' I. " Dr. Newman will make people think he is beginning 
 a crusade." 
 
 '2. " It is unfair to Trinity College, and will do it harm 
 in the world. It interprets their generous act in the 
 Papistical sense." 
 
 ' If you take this view with me I shall quite acquiesce in it. 
 
 * I send a sketch of the proposed Dedication, and of the 
 beginning and the end of my book.' 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 'Jany. 23, 1878. 
 
 ' I return Mr. Ouless's letter. These honours, if you are 
 right about Oriel, have a great significancy in them. To use 
 sacred words, they are an anointing for the burial, — and 
 when I think that, when the curtain is drawn, the first will 
 be last and the last first, the prospect makes one dizzy. 
 
 ' Since I wrote to you the day before yesterday, it has 
 struck me that I might do this : — print a dedication in 
 presentation copies to the President and to Trinity Library, 
 but in no others ; the published copies having no dedication. 
 In that case it would be as much a private act as " from the 
 Author," then, in better times, if there was a new edition, the 
 Dedication might be printed and published. Think of this.' 
 
 A visit of Mr. Wayte to Birmingham gave Newman an 
 opportunity of consulting him directly as to the publication 
 of the dedication of the ' Essay on Development'
 
 428 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 To Dean Church. 
 
 ' March I, 1878. 
 
 ' I am very thankful to you, but very much ashamed, 
 that you should for me have so laborious a day as you had 
 the day before yesterday. 
 
 ' I also write to pay you thanks for the letter from you 
 which I found on my table on my return. Bryce rather 
 pressed me whether I had said to you Yes or No — and I 
 seemed to myself very ungracious to a kind questioner not 
 to answer him. But I think you understand me, and I could 
 not say to him what I said to you. I don't like to be made 
 an artistic subject ; and Mr. Ouless' saying he will come 
 down here for nothing is as if he paid me for sitting. I am 
 afraid of writing thus, lest I should say something rude — yet 
 I want to defend myself. 
 
 ' I have not told you the result of my calling on Wayte. 
 I opened by saying that if he decided the Dedication should 
 not be published, he would not disappoint me, for in so 
 delicate a matter not to publish was the safest course, — and, 
 were I in Wayte's place I should say no. Then he said 
 " I should like to think it over, and will give you my answer 
 by six o'clock, but at first sight I must say that I am against 
 your publishing the Dedication." 
 
 * I left the volume with him — he returned it as he 
 promised with a note which began thus : " My second and 
 I hope better thoughts are that 'you should publish.' I 
 have tried in the intervals of a meeting of business, since I 
 saw you, to weigh pros and cons, but I will not trouble you 
 with my reasons." 
 
 ' So you will receive a copy with the Dedication in.' 
 
 The Dedication — which was thereupon published — was 
 one of those happy efforts of this kind in which Newman had 
 few, if any, rivals. It ran as follows : 
 
 ' To THE 
 
 Rev. Samuel William Wayte, B.D., 
 
 President of Trinity College, Oxford. 
 
 ' My dear President, — Not from any special interest 
 which I anticipate you will take in this volume, or any 
 sympathy you will feel in its argument, or intrinsic fitness of 
 any kind in my associating you and your Fellows with it, — 
 ■i'- * But, because I have nothing besides it to offer you, in 
 token of my sense of the gracious compliment which you
 
 THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY (1874-1878) 429 
 
 and they have paid me in making me once more a member 
 of a college dear to me from undergraduate memories ; — 
 
 ' Also because of the happy coincidence, that whereas 
 its first publication was contemporaneous with my leaving 
 Oxford, its second becomes, by virtue of your act, con- 
 temporaneous with a recovery of my position there : — 
 
 * Therefore it is that, without your leave or your respon- 
 sibility, I take the bold step of placing your name in the 
 first pages of what, at my age, I must consider the last print 
 or reprint on which I shall ever be engaged. 
 
 ' I am, my dear President, most sincerely yours, 
 
 John H. Newman. 
 
 The Trinity Fellows invited Newman to pay a visit to the 
 college, and he did so in February. He visited his old rooms 
 and found the walls adorned by its existing occupant with 
 pictures of lights of the theatrical world. His former tutor, 
 Thomas Short, was still alive, in his 89th year, and the meeting 
 between them is remembered to have been very affecting. 
 
 Mr. James Bryce (now our Ambassador at Washington), 
 who proposed his health in an after-dinner speech which is 
 remembered as a masterpiece, thus recalls the event in a 
 letter to myself: 
 
 ' In response to the toast of his health he made a speech of 
 perhaps ten minutes in length or a little more in a delightfully 
 simple, natural and genial vein. My recollections of what he 
 said are now unfortunately comparatively faint, but I remem- 
 ber the exquisite finish of his expressions and the beautiful 
 clearness of his articulation and the sweetness of his voice. 
 The subject was so far as I recollect mainly reminiscences of 
 his college days at Trinity, and in particular he referred to 
 one occasion when he went to call upon one of the former 
 tutors who was still living, but who, if I remember right, had 
 become so feeble in body that he was not able to come to the 
 dinner. He was tlicn Senior Fellow. That was Mr. Thomas 
 Short, who was the Cardinal's senior by, I should think, 8 or 
 10 years. He mentioned to us that he found Mr. Short at 
 lunch, and I remember how he entertained us by conveying 
 indirectly and by a sort of reference that Mr. Short was 
 lunching off lamb chops. I do not think he mentioned 
 directly that the lunch consisted of lamb chops, but he 
 played round the subject in such a way as to convey that 
 lamb chops were on the table. He spoke with the greatest 
 respect and reverence of Air. Short, who by that time
 
 430 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 had outlived all his contemporaries. There were other 
 pleasing little recollections of Trinity as it was in those days, 
 but I cannot at this moment recollect the substance of them. 
 
 ' What struck us most was the mixture of sadness and 
 pleasure with which he came among us and recalled his early 
 days. The reference in one of his writings to his rooms in 
 the college and to a plant of snapdragon which grew upon 
 the wall opposite the window of the room in which he 
 lived, on what we used to call the " kitchen staircase," will 
 occur to your readers. I think the reference is in the 
 " Apologia." 
 
 ' There was something tenderly pathetic to us younger 
 people in seeing the old man come again, after so many 
 eventful j-ears, to the hall where he had been wont to sit as a 
 youth,. the voice so often heard in St. Mary's retaining, faint 
 though it had grown, the sweet modulations Oxford knew so 
 well, and the aged face worn deep with the lines of thought, 
 struggle and sorrow. The story of a momentous period in 
 the history of the University and of religion in England 
 seemed to be written there.' 
 
 Miss Giberne, eager to hear all about this memorable 
 visit to Oxford, wrote to him for particulars and impressions, 
 reminding him of a graphic account by St. John Chrysostom 
 of some of his own experiences, and hoping that Newman 
 would tell with similar fulness the story of the Oxford visit. 
 She received the following very characteristic reply : 
 
 ' The Oratory : In Fest. S. Joseph, 1878. 
 
 ' My dear Sister M. Pia, — Your letter just received made 
 me both sigh and smile. I can only say with the " needy 
 knife grinder," " Story ? heaven bless you, I have none to tell 
 you — " I assure you I made no record of my feelings when 
 I went to Oxford, and recollect nothing. I know it was a 
 trial to me and a pleasure — but I could not say more, if you 
 put me on the rack. And, when you talk of my writing, 
 you must recollect that it is trouble to me to write now, a 
 trouble both to head and hand — and, there are so many 
 letters which I am obliged to write, that, unless necessary, I 
 shirk it. 
 
 ' Now I might sit for an hour till I had bitten the top of 
 my pen holder off, without being able to put down on paper 
 my " impressions, pains and joys and reception." If, " like 
 St. John Chrysostom," I was called to suffer, perhaps I might 
 have something to say about my visit ; but an Oriental is not
 
 THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY (1874-1878) 431 
 
 a silent Englishman, nor a Saint any earnest or token of 
 what a humdrum mortal is in the reign of Queen Victoria. 
 * I can but tell you that the Trinity Fellows seem to be a 
 pleasing set of men and very kind to me, but I suppose they 
 are very far from the Church— that the Keble College people 
 were very friendly and showed me over the magnificent 
 buildings which they have erected, and that Pusey, whom 
 I have not seen since 1865, looks much older. I had no time 
 to go to Littlemore — or indeed to do anything beyond 
 calling on Pusey, at Oriel, and at Keble College. 
 
 ' Ever yrs affly 
 
 J. H. N. 
 
 ' I don't forget what I owe to your prayers.' 
 
 The Oratorian Fathers who remember that time speak 
 of the years between 1875 and 1879 as very sad ones for 
 Newman. His silence and depression were very noticeable 
 to those who lived with him. The death of Ambrose 
 St. John cast a shadow which could not be removed, and 
 it was deepened by the loss of other friends. What is 
 there to look forward to .? — was the thought that would 
 come as years advanced and strength diminished. The 
 solemn conviction that he must think no more of an earthly 
 future, but prepare to follow his friends who had gone, 
 was never absent from his mind. Yet what he had done 
 as a Catholic seemed as yet so fragmentary, so incom- 
 plete, accompanied with so much of failure ! During all 
 these years he had ever repeated ' Lead, kindly Light, 
 amid the encircling gloom.' He had hoped to see a path 
 of useful work open out from the surrounding obscurity. 
 ' Have patience and the meaning of trial will be made 
 clear' was the assurance which he constantly preached to 
 himself. Now, however, he was nearer eighty than seventy, 
 and the inexorable march of time seemed to bid him 
 finally to put away further hope so far as this world was con- 
 cerned. His life had had its successes, and, in later years 
 especially, its heavy trials. The cloud which seemed to hang 
 over him, the evil report in many Catholic circles of his falling 
 short of whole-hearted loyalty to the Church, because his 
 duty to truth had held him back from the extravagant lan- 
 guage which was demanded by so many as the watchword of
 
 432 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 orthodoxy, must be accepted as an irreversible fact. His 
 companions felt that these were years of depression — if of 
 resignation. 
 
 The Trinity Fellowship had come most opportunely, and 
 was a real ray of sunshine. April 1878 saw another event 
 which relieved the monotony of his life, namely, the election 
 to the Papal throne of Leo XI I L We may well suppose that 
 one who was so ready as Newman to see a providential meaning 
 in coincidences may have recalled words used by him in the 
 ' Letter to the Duke of Norfolk.' He had spoken in that letter 
 of the exaggerated interpretations of the great definition at 
 Ephesus which Leo the Great set right by his condemnation 
 at Chalcedon of the Monophysites. And he applied the par- 
 able to the exaggerated views on the prerogatives of the 
 Papacy which in the eyes of some were countenanced by the 
 Vatican definition. Should the need arise (he adds) to set 
 right so false an interpretation of its true meaning ' another 
 Leo will be given for the occasion ; " in monte dominus 
 videbit." ' 
 
 The beginning of a new Pontificate was also for other 
 reasons naturally an event which aroused him. And in the 
 first year of his reign the new Pope took an opportunity of 
 sending Newman a picture from his own breviary with his 
 blessing, — a gift which was gratefully recorded in a letter 
 to Miss Giberne. 
 
 But Newman soon relapsed into the sadness which had 
 been for a while somewhat dissipated by these two incidents, 
 though he settled down again into the groove of work. 
 William Paine Neville was constantly with him— taking in 
 some sort the place left vacant by Ambrose St. John's death. 
 * I have only my " Athanasius " to publish now,' he wrote to a 
 friend, ' in order to get all my books off my hands. Then, as 
 far as I can tell, I shall have no more to do with writing 
 books.' Working and praying, sad yet resigned, he awaited 
 the great summons which he felt might come any day.
 
 CARDINAL NEWMAN. 
 From a Painting by iV. IF. Ouless, K.A., at the Oratory, Uinnins^ham.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 THE CARDINALATE (1879) 
 
 Newman had now, in the revision of his works, reached the 
 final volume — ' Athanasius ' — and his health was still excellent 
 and his powers unimpaired. It was twenty years since he 
 had written to W. G. Ward that he felt the age had come at 
 which a sudden visitation might terminate his life. Such fears 
 were ever with him, and his prolonged well-being seemed 
 no less than a marvel. His Christmas greetings to Lord 
 Blachford, written on Christmas eve, 1878, show him still well 
 and still at work, but ready at any time for the impending 
 summons : 
 
 ' I wish you and Lady Blachford were as well as to all 
 appearance I am — but I never can quite get out of my mind 
 the chance of the "ignes" under the " cineri doloso" — tho' 
 the metaphor is unsuitable — I mean the chance of paralysis, 
 which is so insidious and so sudden, and has taken off so 
 many of my friends and acquaintances. 
 
 ' I am at my last volume, the " Athanasius " — and find it 
 very tough work.' 
 
 He had, a little earlier, written what purported to be his 
 last entry in the private journal from which we have so often 
 quoted. That entry recorded a feature in his career with 
 which his friends would have to deal after he was gone. 
 And his solemn words were written for posterity in comment 
 on a long and now completed life : 
 
 ' I notice the following lest the subject should turn up 
 when I am gone, and my friends be perplexed how to deal 
 with it. 
 
 ' I have before now said in writing to Cardinals Wiseman 
 and Barnabo when I considered myself treated with slight 
 and unfairness, " So this is the return made to me for working 
 for the Catholic cause for so many years," i.e. to that effect. 
 VOL. II. F F
 
 434 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 • I feel it still, and ever shall, — but it was not a disap- 
 pointed ambition which I was then expressing in words, but 
 a scorn and wonder at the injustice shown me, and at the 
 demand of toadyism on my part if I was to get their favour, 
 and the favour of Rome. 
 
 * I knew perfectly well, when I so wrote, that such lan- 
 guage would look like disappointment at having received no 
 promotion, and moreover was the worst way of getting it. 
 But I had no wish to get it, and it was my very consciousness 
 that I never had had such aspiration, nor felt any such 
 disappointment, and was simply careless whether they 
 thought I had or no, that made me thus speak. And at 
 other times of my life also I have used words which, when I 
 used them, I saw could be used against me, but did not care 
 whether they were so used or not, from a clear conscience 
 that it would be a mistaken use of them, if they were. 
 When I wrote to the two Cardinals, I had that strength of 
 conviction that I never had had any notion of secular or 
 ecclesiastical ambition for writing my volumes, which made 
 me not hesitate to denounce, if I may so speak, at the risk 
 of being misunderstood, the injustice, for so I felt it, which 
 had been shown towards me. This I did feel very keenly ; 
 I was indignant that after all my anxious and not un- 
 successful attempts to promote, in my own place and 
 according to my own measure, the Catholic cause, my very 
 first mistake in the Rambler, supposing it one, should have 
 been come down upon, my former services neither having 
 been noticed favourably when they were done, nor telling 
 now as a plea for mercy. 
 
 ' As to my freedom from ambitious views, I don't know 
 that I need defend myself from the imputation of them. 
 Qui s'excuse, s'accuse. But in fact I have from the first 
 presaged that I should get no thanks for what I was doing, 
 (a presage which has only come true in that sense in which 
 I did not care about its being true, and which God's un- 
 deserved mercy has falsified or rather reversed in a higher 
 sense, for He has heaped upon me the acknowledgments 
 and the sympathies, for what I have written, of friends and 
 strangers far beyond my deserts). But as to my presage 
 that I should gain no secular reward for my writings, I have 
 expressed it many times,' . . . 
 
 ' He proceeds to give instances : ' i. In 1836 (as I understand Copeland) in 
 a letter which I wrote to Pusey on occasion of the Hampden matter, and which 
 he has, though I have not seen it. 
 
 ' 2. In 1837 in my letter to the Christian Observer : " Never were such words 
 used on one side, but deeds were on the other. We know our place and
 
 THE CARDINALATE {1879) 435 
 
 ' I am dissatisfied with the whole of this book. It is 
 more or less a complaint from one end to the other. But it 
 represents what has been the real state of my mind, and 
 what my Cross has been. 
 
 * O how light a Cross — think what the Crosses of others 
 are ! And think of the compensation, compensation in even 
 this world^I have touched on it in a parenthesis in the 
 foregoing page. I have had, it is true, no recognition in high 
 quarters — but what warm kind letters in private have I had ! 
 and how many! and what public acknowledgments! How 
 ungrateful I am, or should I be, if such letters and such 
 notices failed to content me.' ^ 
 
 In the summer of 1878 events were occurring which were 
 to bring about a great change in Newman's position, and to 
 falsify some of these words written in the autumn of 1876. 
 Pius IX. had gone ; Leo XIII. had come. It was an acknow- 
 ledged fact that, in spite of his love for Pius IX., Newman 
 had not sympathised with that Pontiff's policy. And he 
 had been under a cloud in the official Roman world. The 
 natural reaction of opinion— the swing of the pendulum from 
 one Pontificate to another — seemed to some of Newman's 
 friends a golden opportunity for securing for his great 
 work for the Church the formal approval from Rome itself 
 which had so long been withheld. A Cardinal's Hat was 
 suggested in one quarter, and the idea spread rapidly. The 
 Duke of Norfolk was felt to be the natural person to express 
 the wide-spread desire of the English Catholic community. 
 The Duke entered into the idea with the utmost keenness 
 and, in conjunction with Lord Petre and Lord Ripon, secured 
 Cardinal Manning's approval. Manning undertook to broach 
 the subject in Rome. In the event, however, his representa- 
 tions were not communicated to Leo. XIII. until after the 
 Pontiff had learnt from the Duke himself how strongly the 
 honour was desired by Newman's friends. 
 
 our fortunes, to give a witness, and to be contemned ; to be ill-used and to 
 succeed." 
 
 ' 3. In 1845 to Cardinal Acton, Apol. pp. 235, 236. 
 
 ' 4. In 1S50 in a sermon at St. Chad's, " As to ourselves, the world has long 
 ago done its worst against us. . . . We know our place and our fortunes, &c.' 
 
 ' 5- In 1856 in a sermon at Dublin quoted bove.' 
 
 ' This entry came to an end at the bottom of the last page of the MS. book. 
 He never kept another journal, and only added some years later these words at 
 the foot of the page : • Since writing the above I have been made a Cardinal ! ' 
 
 K K 2
 
 436 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 The Duke writes as follows, in a letter to the present 
 biographer, of the feelings which moved him to take action 
 in the matter, and of the interview at which he spoke of it 
 to Leo XI I L himself: 
 
 ' I was moved very much by the feeling that it was due 
 to Newman himself that his long life of marvellous and 
 successful labour for religion should receive the highest mark 
 of recognition which the Holy See could give him. I felt 
 this all the more keenly because I knew how much had 
 happened to obscure the character of the work he had done 
 and the results of it. I knew that it must be an intense 
 sorrow to him to feel that he and his life's work were not 
 understood in that very quarter of which he had made him- 
 self the special champion. But my chief reason for moving 
 in the matter was based on more general grounds. I do not 
 chink that any Catholic has been listened to by those who 
 are not Catholics with so much attention, respect and, to a 
 great extent, sympathy as Newman. But while numbers 
 were brought by him to see and to accept the truth, I felt 
 very strongly that the full outcome of his labours was most 
 unhappily limited by the impression which was made to 
 prevail by a certain school of well intentioned people that he 
 did not really speak the mind of the Church or represent the 
 beliefs which the Church called upon her children to accept. 
 It appeared to me then that the same causes which kept 
 from him the full and public approbation of the Holy See 
 were impeding his usefulness to his fellow countrymen. 
 They in their turn persuaded themselves that the arguments 
 and example of Newman could be admired by them as 
 showing what a grand and beautiful and divinely authori- 
 tative institution the Catholic Church might be, but that 
 they were not called upon to obey that authority because the 
 opinion held of Newman by many Catholics showed that the 
 Catholic Church was not really what Newman said it was. 
 It appeared to me therefore that in the cause both of justice 
 and of truth it was of the utmost importance that the Church 
 should put her seal on Newman's work. 
 
 ' It happened, quite accidentally, that I was in Rome 
 when this question was first brought before the Holy See. 
 I believed that representations from myself and others had 
 been submitted to the Pope and I therefore spoke to 
 Leo XIII. on the subject. I found that this was the first 
 mention to him of the matter, and I had therefore to ex- 
 plain the situation as well as I was able. I was very careful
 
 THE CARDINALATE (1879) 437 
 
 to impress upon the Pope that there was a section of opinion 
 in England which would not be in sympathy with my sugges- 
 tion. I did this not only because it would have been wrong 
 to have led the Pope to believe that everyone was of the 
 same mind with myself or to appear to claim support in 
 quarters in which an opinion different from mine prevailed ; 
 but also because I was most anxious that if Newman should 
 be created a Cardinal it should be after the fullest considera- 
 tion and enquiry on the part of the Holy See, that it should 
 not be a request granted out of complaisance to those who 
 made it, but that what was to be done should be an emphatic 
 act of deliberate judgment. 
 
 ' I should be sorry to be supposed to be in any way cen- 
 suring those who looked with doubt or suspicion on much 
 of what Newman had written and who regarded his being 
 made a Cardinal as giving a dangerous sanction to unfortunate 
 teaching. Among those who held this opinion were able and 
 holy men, and on some points and on some occasions I have 
 felt much in sympathy with them. But it appeared to me 
 that they allowed small points to outweigh the great under- 
 lying fact of all that Newman was doing. They failed to 
 realize that no one was able to bring Catholic truth to the 
 intelligence of his countrymen as Newman could, because, 
 among other reasons, he had shown them that he understood, 
 in a way no other Catholic writer did, the difficulties which 
 perplexed them. I thought too they forgot that there 
 were hundreds who had been brought into the Church by 
 private correspondence with Newman, and that to them 
 it would be an untold consolation and strengthening to 
 see him receive the highest recognition which could be con- 
 ferred upon him. Many too who were anxious to see the 
 spread of what were called ultramontane views seemed to 
 forget that to no one more than to Newman could they turn 
 for lofty and unflinching testimony to the august majesty of 
 the Holy See and the high claims of the Pope upon our trust 
 and allegiance. Again it was sometimes urged that in Newman 
 intellectual qualities were allowed somewhat to overcloud the 
 simplicit)' of Catholic faith. But it would be difficult indeed 
 to gather from any other writer than Newman such sublime 
 conceptions of devotion to the Mother of God or of our 
 kindred with the saints ; and in all this the high intellectual 
 insight is blended with the most childlike tenderness. I feel 
 very strongly that the action of the Holy See in making 
 Newman a Cardinal brought out this great side of his 
 character, this great lasting teaching of his life, and that in
 
 438 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 this act our country received yet another pledge of " Rome's 
 unwearied love." ' 
 
 The Pontiff listened with attention to the Duke's repre- 
 sentations and acceded to his request. But nothing of what 
 had passed was known to the world at large or to Newman 
 himself. 
 
 A month had passed since the Christmas letter to Lord 
 Blachford before Newman himself received any intimation 
 of what was proposed. He was in bed nursing a bad cold, 
 when a letter reached the Oratory, urgently summoning him 
 to visit Bishop Ullathorne at Oscott. On receiving news 
 of Newman's indisposition, the Bishop asked to see some 
 specially trusted friend of his, and Father Pope was forthwith 
 despatched to Oscott. He was informed that Cardinal Nina 
 had written to Cardinal Manning intimating the Holy Father's 
 desire to confer on Newman the Cardinal's Hat. 
 
 The infirmities of age made it out of the question that 
 Newman should transfer his residence to Rome. Yet all 
 Cardinals who are not also diocesan Bishops or Archbishops 
 reside as a matter of course in the Eternal City. But this 
 mark of confidence from the Holy See, after the prolonged, 
 aching sense of distrust in high quarters, was so unexpected 
 and so signal, as to be the greatest event as well as the 
 crowning reward of Newman's life. ' The cloud is lifted 
 from me for ever,' were the words in which he spoke of it 
 to his Oratorian brethren. It was just this stamp of approval 
 from the Vicar of Christ which would make the whole 
 difference to his power for good. 
 
 He had for years been scrupulously loyal alike to truth 
 and conscience, and to ecclesiastical authority. He would not 
 write on the great questions of the day without in some way 
 intimating the things he saw and felt so strongly. And when 
 he considered that outspokenness must involve opposition to 
 the commands of those to whom he owed obedience he did 
 not write at all. In such cases he had realised the power 
 of silence, and in refraining from speech had imitated One 
 Whose spoken words were Divine : he had remembered 
 those passages of the Gospel in which it is written 'Jesus 
 autem tacebat.' When he did speak, while using infinite
 
 THE CARDINALATE (1879) 439 
 
 care to give no offence in the manner of his expression, never- 
 theless he had given clear indication of views most distasteful 
 to the extreme party of the Civiltd, of the Dublin Review, 
 of the Univers, which was so influential in Rome. Newman 
 was sure that posterity would see the necessity of such con- 
 scientious fidelity to historical and scientific fact with a view 
 to preserving the influence of Christianity among the edu- 
 cated classes in the age to come. He trusted to time to 
 justify him. 'To her arms I lovingly commit myself,' he 
 said again and again. But he had finally resigned himself 
 to the conviction that official recognition for his work in his 
 own lifetime was out of the question. Therefore, when his 
 long course of unswerving veracity, submission, and patient 
 waiting was rewarded by the most signal approval Rome 
 could give, he saw in the Pontiff's action the hand of God, 
 Who has promised earthly rewards to those who seek only 
 ' the kingdom of God and His justice.' He felt, as Father 
 Neville used to say, almost as though the heavens had 
 opened and the Divine voice had spoken its approval of 
 him before the whole world. This approval, implied in the 
 Pontiff's desire to raise him to the Sacred College, must 
 remain a fact, whether circumstances would allow him to 
 assume the external splendour of a Cardinal's estate or not. 
 Cardinal Nina's letter, it should be noted, was not an actual 
 offer of the Hat, but a preliminary letter expressing the Holy 
 Father's wish to make such an offer. 
 
 Newman wrote at once to the Bishop, expressing his 
 deep gratitude, but pointing out the impossibility at his age 
 of leaving the Oratory and residing in Rome. 
 
 ' The Oratory, Birmingham : 
 
 Feb. 2, Feast of the Purification, 1879. 
 
 'My Right Rev. Father, — I trust that his Holiness, and 
 the most eminent Cardinal Nina will not think me a thoroughly 
 discourteous and unfeeling man, who is not touched by the 
 commendation of superiors, or a sense of gratitude, or the 
 splendour of dignity, when I say to you, my Bishop, who 
 know me so well, that I regard as altogether above me the 
 great honour which the Holy Father proposes with wonderful 
 kindness to confer on one so insignificant, an honour quite 
 transcendent and unparalleled, than which his Holiness has 
 none greater to bestow.
 
 440 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' For I am, indeed, old and distrustful of myself; I have 
 lived now thirty years in nidulo nieo in my much loved 
 Oratory, sheltered and happy, and would therefore entreat 
 his Holiness not to take me from St. Philip, my Father and 
 Patron. 
 
 ' By the love and reverence with which a long succession 
 of Popes^ have regarded and trusted St. Philip, I pray and 
 entreat his Holiness in compassion of my diffidence of mind, 
 in consideration of my feeble health, my nearly eighty years^ 
 the retired course of my life from my youth, my ignorance of 
 foreign languages, and my lack of experience in business, to 
 let me die where I have so long lived. Since I know now 
 and henceforth that his Holiness thinks kindly of me, what 
 more can I desire ? 
 
 ' Right Rev. Father, 
 
 Your most devoted 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 This letter reads like a simple refusal of the proposed 
 dignity ; but, as those who lived with Newman knew, his 
 wish was to accept it provided that he was allowed to 
 remain at the Oratory. To express this in a letter was, in 
 his sensitive judgment, to seem to bargain with the Holy 
 Father. In writing he therefore confined himself to indi- 
 cating his inability to leave home at his great age. The 
 following day, however, he went to Oscott to see the Bishop, 
 and his true mind on the subject of the Cardinalate is placed 
 beyond question in the following letters— the first semi- 
 official, the second private — written by Dr. Ullathorne to 
 Cardinal Manning after the interview : 
 
 'St. Mary's College, Oscott, Birmingham: Feb. 3, 1879. 
 
 'My dear Lord Cardinal,— Your kind letter, enclosing 
 that of Cardinal Nina, gave me very great gratification. As 
 I could not with any prudence go to Birmingham, I wrote 
 and asked Dr. Newman if he could come to Oscott. But he 
 was in bed suflTering from a severe cold, and much pulled down. 
 I, therefore, took advantage of a clause in Cardinal Nina's 
 letter, and asked him to send a Father in his intimate con- 
 fidence whom he might consult in a grave matter of import- 
 ance, to whom I could communicate in secresy the Holy 
 Father's message. Father Pope was sent, and with him I 
 went into the subject, and sent the documents with a paper 
 in which I had written my own reflections.
 
 THE CARDINALATE (1879) 441 
 
 ' Dr. Newman contrived to come himself to-day, although 
 quite feeble. He is profoundly and tenderly impressed with 
 the goodness of the Holy Father towards him, and he spoke 
 to me with great humility of what he conceived to be his 
 disqualifications, especially at his age, for so great a position, 
 and of his necessity to the Birmingham Oratory, which still 
 requires his care. 
 
 ' I represented to him, as I had already done through 
 Father Pope, that I felt confident that the one intention of 
 the Holy Father was to confer upon him this signal proof 
 of his confidence, and to give him an exalted position in the 
 Church in token of the great services he had rendered to her 
 cause, and that I felt confident also that his Holiness would 
 not require his leaving the Oratory and taking a new position 
 at his great age. But that if he would leave it to me, I 
 would undertake to explain all to your Eminence, who would 
 make the due explanations to Cardinal Nina. 
 
 ' Dr. Newman has far too humble and delicate a mind to 
 dream of thinking or saying anything which would look like 
 hinting at any kind of terms with the Sovereign Pontiff. He 
 has expressed himself in a Latin letter addressed to me, 
 which I could send to your Eminence, and which you could 
 place in the hands of Cardinal Nina. 
 
 ' I think, however, that I ought to express my own sense 
 of what Dr. Newman's dispositions are, and that it will be 
 expected of me. As I have already said. Dr. Newman is 
 most profoundly touched and moved by this very great mark 
 of consideration on the part of the Sovereign Pontiff, and I 
 am thoroughly confident that nothing stands in the way of 
 his most grateful acceptance except what he tells me greatly 
 distresses him, namely, the having to leave the Oratory at a 
 critical period of its existence, and when it is just beginning 
 to develop in new members, and the impossibility of his 
 beginning a new life at his advanced age. 
 
 ' I cannot, however, but think myself that this is not 
 the Holy Father's intention, and that His Holiness would 
 consider his presence in England of importance, where he has 
 been so much in communication with those who are in search 
 of the Truth. 
 
 ' I have also said to Dr. Newman himself that I am con- 
 fident thai, the noble Catholics of England would not leave 
 him without the proper means for maintaining his dignity in 
 a suitable manner. 
 
 ' Although expecting me to make the official communi- 
 cation, Dr. Newman will write to you himself I remain,
 
 442 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 my dear Lord Cardinal, your faithful and affectionate 
 servant, 
 
 ' William Bernard, Bp. of Birmingham.' 
 
 Another letter written on the following day speaks yet 
 more plainly : 
 
 ' Private. St. Mary's College, Oscott, Birmingham : Feb. 4, 1879. 
 
 ' My dear Lord Cardinal, — I had no time to write you a 
 more private letter after seeing Dr. Newman yesterday. He 
 is very much aged, and softened with age and the trials he 
 has had, especially by the loss of his two brethren, St. John 
 and Caswall ; he can never refer to these losses without 
 weeping and becoming speechless for the time. He is very 
 much affected by the Pope's kindness, would, I know, like to 
 receive the great honour offered him, but feels the whole 
 difficulty at his age of changing his life, or having to leave 
 the Oratory, which I am sure he could not do. If the Holy 
 Father thinks well to confer on him the dignity, leaving him 
 where he is, I know how immensely he would be gratified, 
 and you will know how generally the conferring on him the 
 Cardinalate will be applauded. . . . 
 
 ' My dear Lord Cardinal, faithfully and affectionately 
 yours, 
 
 ' W. B. Ullathorne.' 
 
 It is hardly surprising, considering the extraordinary 
 vacillations of 1856 — when, after he had received formal 
 notice from Cardinal Wiseman, written from Rome itself, that 
 he was nominated a Bishop, the appointment was cancelled 
 without the assignment of any reason or even any formal 
 intimation of the fact — that Newman was a little slow to feel 
 absolute confidence that this great honour was to be bestowed. 
 And it almost seemed as though the evil fate which had 
 dogged him on the earlier occasion was again threatening 
 this new proposal. 
 
 On February 15 he learnt from Miss Bowles that Father 
 Coleridge had told her of the offer of a Cardinal's Hat and 
 had added that Newman had declined it. Newman promptly 
 replied: 'You may say to Father Coleridge (i) that I know 
 nothing about it. (2) that I believe such an offer binds a 
 man to secrecy, if it is made to him. (3) that I never should 
 reject hastily or bluntly.'
 
 THE CARDINALATE (1879) 443 
 
 Three days later, however, the same report appeared 
 in a more formidable shape. The Times of February 18 
 published the following paragraph : ' Pope Leo XIII. has 
 intimated his desire to raise Dr. Newman to the rank of 
 Cardinal, but with expressions of deep respect for the Holy 
 See Dr. Newman has excused himself from accepting the 
 purple.' 
 
 Although the letter sent to Dr. Ullathorne for Cardinal 
 Nina to see did bear this interpretation prima facie, it was 
 addressed to one to whom Newman himself explained its 
 true meaning, and had been shown by the Bishop only 
 to Cardinal Manning, to whom he had carefully conveyed 
 Newman's real wishes. Manning, however, appears to have 
 taken Newman's own written words as decisive, and to 
 have regarded the Bishop's impressions as unauthoritative. 
 Newman was greatly pained by the appearance of such a 
 statement in the papers, and at a loss to account for it. In 
 the ordinary course of things such a paragraph could not 
 have been inserted without Newman's express authority. 
 It consequently conveyed to the world not only an absolute 
 refusal which he had never intended, but a wish on his 
 part to emphasise publicly the fact that he had declined 
 the honour so graciously offered to him. People might 
 infer that he took somewhat lightly a proposal for which 
 he was in reality deeply thankful ; and his friends felt that 
 when the paragraph was read at Rome it might actually 
 lead to the offer of the Cardinalate being withheld. Letters 
 reached him daily from Catholic friends expressing deep 
 regret at his reported refusal. 
 
 Newman's feeling as to the report is apparent in the 
 following letter to the Duke of Norfolk : 
 
 * The Oratory : Feb. 20, 1879. 
 
 ' My dear Duke, — I have heard from various quarters ot 
 the affectionate interest you have taken in the application to 
 Rome about me, and I write to thank you and to express my 
 great pleasure at it. 
 
 ' As to the statement of my refusing a Cardinal's Hat, 
 which is in the papers, you must not believe it — for this 
 reason :
 
 444 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' Of course, it implies that an offer has been made me, and 
 I have sent an answer to it. Now I have ever understood 
 that it is a point of propriety and honour to consider such 
 communications sacred. The statement therefore cannot 
 come from me. Nor could it come from Rome, for it was 
 made public before my answer got to Rome. 
 
 ' It could only come, then, from some one who not only 
 read my letter, but, instead of leaving to the Pope to inter- 
 pret it, took upon himself to put an interpretation upon it, 
 and published that interpretation to the world. 
 
 ' A private letter, addressed to Roman Authorities, is 
 interpreted on its way and published in the English papers. 
 How is it possible that any one can have done this ? 
 
 ' And besides, I am quite sure that, if so high an honour 
 was offered me, I should not answer it by a blunt refusal. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' ' 
 
 The report spread that Newman had categorically refused 
 the Hat and it long persevered in many quarters. Father 
 Walford, S.J., writing in the name of Beaumont College 
 on February 27 to offer the congratulations of the masters 
 and boys, concluded with the following words : ' While we 
 should have been glad on our own account and on account of 
 our fellow Catholics in England to see you actually invested 
 with the Sacred Purple, yet, as religious of the Society of 
 Jesus, we cannot but admire and sympathise all the more 
 with the illustrious son of St. Philip, whose love of humility 
 and retirement leads him in the Spirit of his own Holy 
 Father, and in that of ours, to shrink from so exalted a 
 position as that of a prince of the Church.' 
 
 This letter gave Newman an opportunity of at once 
 making it known that no official offer had actually come, and 
 of throwing doubt upon the view taken by Father Walford 
 of his attitude towards such an offer : 
 
 'The Oratory: March i, 1879. 
 
 ' My dear Father Walford, — You must not measure my 
 gratification and my gratitude to your very Rev. Father 
 Rector and the other Fathers and Brothers of your community 
 
 ' * Would it not look odd,' he writes to Mr. Pollen, ' if the Postman here, not 
 only read this, my letter to you, before it got to the receiving office, but put his 
 own interpretation on it, and told first his particular friends about it, and then 
 the general public, leaving you to receive it next morning ? '
 
 THE CARDINALATE (1879) 445 
 
 at Beaumont by the poor words I am putting upon paper ; 
 for I am confused and troubled by the greatness of the 
 honour which, from what is so widely reported, I suppose 
 there is a prospect of being offered to me, though in truth I 
 cannot say it has. But nothing can undo the fact that the 
 report has been so kindly received and welcomed by my own 
 people, the Catholics of England, and next by such large 
 bodies of our Protestant fellow-countrymen. 
 
 ' It will be a great relief to me if the great offer is not 
 made to me — but, if made, my way is not clear. I have a 
 reasonable apprehension that my refusal would be taken by 
 Protestants, nay by some Catholics, as a proof that at heart 
 I am not an out and out son of the Church, and that it may 
 unsettle some Catholics, and throw back inquirers. I know 
 that Unitarians, Theists, and anti-Catholics generally are 
 earnest that I should decline, whereas I hear of a widespread 
 feeling among Catholics that, if I decline, I am " snubbing 
 the Pope." 
 
 ' I have suffered so much from the obstinacy of all sorts 
 of people to believe that I am a good Catholic that this 
 wonderful opportunity, if opened on me, of righting myself in 
 public opinion must not be lost except for very grave reasons. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 To much the same effect he wrote to Pusey next day in 
 reply to a letter congratulating him on his reported refusal of 
 the dignity that had been offered to him. 
 
 ' The Oratory : March 2, 1879. 
 
 ' We look at things from different points of view. Here 
 have I for thirty years been told by men of all colours in 
 belief that I am not a good Catholic. It has given me 
 immense trouble, much mortification, and great loss of time. 
 It has been used as an argument to keep men back from 
 joining the Church ; men have said : " Just you see — his own 
 people do not trust him — the Pope snubs him." When 
 then after this period of ]~)enance, and this long trial of 
 patience and resignation, [this offer comes] say, would not 
 you yourself in such a case feel it a call of God not to 
 refuse so great a mercy as a thorough wiping away for ever 
 of this stigma such as the offer of a Cardinal's Plat involves, 
 and feel it a heartless act of ins^ratitude to the ^enerous 
 offerer of it and to the warm-hearted friends who have 
 laboured for it, if I refused it ? . . . 
 
 ' If the common reports are true, the present Pope in his 
 high place as Cardinal, was in the same ill odour at Rome as
 
 446 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 I was. Here then a fellow-feeling and sympathy with him 
 colours to my mind his act towards me. He seems to 
 say : — 
 
 ' " Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco." 
 
 ' How can I not supplement his act by giving my assent 
 to it? 
 
 ' Thanks for your sermon, which is most valuable, I see.' 
 
 Manning had already started for Rome when Newman 
 wrote to the Duke of Norfolk, and the Duke forwarded to 
 him Newman's letter, adding his own strong representations 
 as to the harm which would be done if anything now 
 occurred to make the English public believe that Rome's 
 offer was not really intended. The Duke urged him to make 
 all explanations called for by the unfortunate report circulated 
 by the Times, for which beyond doubt Dr. Newman and his 
 friends were not responsible. The Duke's representations had 
 the desired effect. Cardinal Manning explained the situation 
 to the Holy Father, who at once acceded to Newman's 
 request that he might continue to live at the Oratory ; and 
 Manning communicated the intelligence both by telegram 
 and by letter to the Bishop of Birmingham. 
 
 His telegram arrived on March 2, 1 879 ; and at last 
 all seemed really certain. 
 
 ' Amid your troubles and anxieties,' Newman writes to 
 Miss Bowles on that day, ' you will be glad to hear that the 
 Pope grants me non-residence, which has not been done 
 since the 17th century. I suppose all is certain now, unless 
 one of the sudden changes take place which have sometimes 
 occurred to me in life.' 
 
 Both the Bishop and Newman himself wrote without 
 delay to Manning, making Newman's acceptance of the 
 dignity perfectly clear : 
 
 ' St. Mary's College, Oscott, Birmingham : March 4, 1879. 
 ' My dear Lord Cardinal, — Your letter, following your 
 telegram, was extremely welcome to Dr. Newman. He 
 wrote to me : " You may fancy how I am overcome by the 
 Pope's goodness." He also said to his own brethren : " The 
 cloud is lifted from me for ever." He accepts with the 
 greatest gratitude the honour and dignity which the Holy 
 Father designs for him, and I am sure that if he can take
 
 THE CARDINALATE (1879) 447 
 
 the journey he will come to Rome. He is still suffering 
 from severe cold, but is wonderfully consoled by the Pope's 
 kindness. 
 
 ' The whole press of England has been engaged on the 
 subject, and the general disposition is to look upon Dr. 
 Newman not merely as a Catholic but as a great English- 
 man, and to regard the intention of the Pope as an honour to 
 England. 
 
 'Your communications came happily in time to stop 
 the general conclusion that Dr. Newman had declined, upon 
 which the comic papers have founded their illustrations. 
 
 * I have considered it prudent, now that all is public, 
 to deny, and cause it to be denied, that Dr. Newman has 
 [declined] or did decline. ... I remain, my dear Lord 
 Cardinal, 
 
 ' Your faithful and affectionate servant, 
 
 W. B. Ullathorne.' 
 
 * The Oratory : March 4, 1879. 
 
 ' Dear Cardinal Manning, — I hardly should have thought 
 it became me, since no letter has been addressed to me, to 
 write to anyone at Rome myself, on the gracious message of 
 the Ploly Father about me. 
 
 * Since, however, the Bishop of Birmingham recommends 
 me to do so, I hereby beg to say that with much gratitude 
 and with true devotion to His Holiness, I am made acquainted 
 with and accept the permission he proposes to me in his con- 
 descending goodness to keep place within the walls of my 
 Oratory at Birmingham. 
 
 ' I am, sincerely yours, kissing the Sacred Purple, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 But even now a letter came from Manning's intimate 
 friend, Lady Herbert of Lea, implying that Newman was still 
 declining the Hat. He replied to her at once : 
 
 'The Oratory: March 5th, 1879. 
 
 ' My dear Lady Herbert, — Your letter is most kind, as 
 kind as it could be, and I thank you for it with all my heart. 
 
 ' You speak as if I ever had declined the great honour 
 offered me — No, I never did — and that I am persisting in my 
 refusal now. Not at all. 
 
 ' / have not been written to — naturally, but Cardinal 
 Manning says that a letter will soon come to me. I shall 
 answer it at once accepting it, if it comes. 
 
 ' Most truly yours, 
 
 John H. Newman.'
 
 448 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 On the same day he wrote a further letter to Manning -to 
 place the state of affairs quite beyond doubt : 
 
 ' The Oratory : March 5, 1879. 
 
 ' Dear Cardinal Manning, — Wishing to guard against all 
 possible mistake I trouble you with this second letter. 
 
 ' As soon as the Holy Father condescends to make it 
 known to me that he means to confer on me the high dignity 
 of Cardinal, I shall write to Rome to signify my obedience 
 and glad acceptance of the honour without any delay. 
 
 ' I write this thinking that the impression which existed 
 some fortnight since, that I had declined it, may still prevail. 
 
 ' Yours very sincerely, 
 
 John H. Newman. 
 
 ' P.S. — This second letter is occasioned by something that 
 came to my knowledge since my letter of yesterday.' 
 
 Newman also wrote to Cardinal Howard, who resided in 
 
 Rome : 
 
 ' The Oratory, Birmingham. 
 
 * My Lord Cardinal, — My only apology for writing to 
 you is the circumstance that Cardinal Manning mentioned 
 your Eminence's name in conjunction with his own in 
 matters which concern me. 
 
 ' I find the impression still exists in London that I am 
 resisting the most gracious and generous wish of the Holy 
 Father to raise me to the Sacred College. In case this 
 impression prevails anywhere in Rome, I take the liberty of 
 writing to you as well as to Cardinal Manning to say that it 
 is altogether unfounded. 
 
 ' Kissing the Sacred Purple, I am yours, etc., 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Cardinal Howard to Dr. Newman. 
 
 'Rome: Monday, March 10, 1879. 
 
 ' Dear Fr. Newman, — I lose no time in answering your 
 kind letter, and to say that the report which you mention as 
 having existed in London, that you were believed to be 
 resisting the wish of the Holy Father to raise you to the 
 Sacred College, does not in any form exist now in Rome. 
 At first a report gained some credence that in your humility 
 for various reasons you had been disposed to decline this 
 honour, but it immediately became known that the Holy 
 Father very decidedly wished to confer the Hat upon you, 
 and thus all doubt ceased to exist upon the subject.
 
 THE CARDINALATE (1879) 449 
 
 ' Let me take this opportunity to offer you my most sincere 
 congratulations and to say how great a pleasure it is to me 
 to have been able to have had some part however [small] in 
 what must cause so much pleasure in England, and confers 
 another honour on St. Philip's children. 
 
 ' Pray believe me, dear Fr. Newman, 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Edward Card. Howard.' 
 
 Manning's replies to Newman's two letters were quite 
 explicit : 
 
 ' English College : March 8, 1879. 
 
 * My dear Newman, — Your letter [of March 4] reached 
 me last night ; and I took and repeated it to the Holy 
 Father this morning. 
 
 ' He charged me to say that the official letter will be sent 
 to you : and that he gives full permission that you should 
 continue to reside in your home at Birmingham. 
 
 ' He told me to say to you that in elevating you to the 
 Sacred College he intends to bestow on you a testimony to 
 your virtues and your learning : and to do an act grateful to 
 the Catholics of England, and to England itself for which he 
 feels an affectionate interest. 
 
 ' It gives me much happiness to be the bearer of this 
 message to you. 
 
 ' Believe me always, yours affectionately, 
 
 H. E. Card. ARCHBr.' 
 
 ' English College : March 8, 1879. 
 
 ' My dear Newman, — Your second letter [of March 5] 
 has just reached me. Mine wiil have been received before 
 this, and you will know that I have not a second time 
 failed to understand your intention. The letter written 
 by you to the Bishop of Birmingham in answer to Cardinal 
 Nina's letter was sent by the Bishop to me with a letter 
 of his own. 
 
 ' I fully believed that, for the reasons given in your letter, 
 you declined what might be offered. 
 
 ' But the Bishop expressed his hope that you might under 
 a change of conditions accept it. 
 
 ' This confirmed my belief that as it stood you declined it. 
 
 ' And your letter to me of a day or two later still further 
 confirmed my belief^ 
 
 ' I started for Rome, taking with me the Bishop's letters, 
 not knowing what might be done here. 
 
 ' This letter I have not found. 
 VOL. II. G G
 
 45© LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' In passing through Paris I wrote to the Duke of Norfolk 
 in the sense I have written above. 
 
 ' I never doubted that impression, received from your 
 letters and the Bishop's, till I received from the Duke a copy 
 of a letter of yours to him, in which you said that you had 
 not intended to refuse what had been proposed. 
 
 * The moment I read this I went to the Vatican, and told 
 the Holy Father, and asked his permission to write to the 
 Duke, and to the Bishop of Birmingham. 
 
 ' But to shorten still further the suspense I telegraphed 
 
 to both. 
 
 ' I write this because if I misunderstood your intention it 
 was by an error which I repaired the instant I knew it. 
 ' Believe me always, yours affectionately, 
 
 H. E. Card. ARCHBr.' 
 
 Not until March 15 did Cardinal Nina send the official 
 notice ^ that the Hat was to be conferred. Manning at once 
 forwarded it to Newman : 
 
 'Rome: March 15, 1879. 
 
 ' My dear Newman,— The enclosed letter from Cardinal 
 Nina has this moment reached me, and I forward it to you 
 with great joy. I hope you may yet have many years to 
 serve the Church in this most intimate relation to the Holy 
 See From the expressions used by many of the Sacred 
 College to me I can assure you of the joy with which they 
 will receive you. 
 
 ' I remember in 1854, I think, writing from Rome to wish 
 you joy on another event. I quoted the words " hones- 
 tavit ilium in laboribus et complevit labores illius." I have 
 still greater happiness in conveying to you this greater 
 completion of your many labours. 
 
 ' Believe me, my dear Newman, 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 H. E. Card. Archbp.' 
 
 The correspondence had in the first two weeks in March 
 become so very definite that Newman no longer hesitated, 
 even before the reception of the official letter, to speak of 
 his future dignity to those who were in the secret as an 
 accomplished fact. Among those to whom he wrote on this 
 assumption was his old friend Father Whitty, who had been 
 
 ' The text of this notice and of Newman's reply to it will be found in the 
 Appendix to this chapter, at p. 583. In the same Appendix are printed other 
 letters of importance respecting the conferring of the Cardinal's Hat on 
 Dr. Newman, and his acceptance of it.
 
 THE CARDINALATE (1879) 451 
 
 among the first to urge in influential quarters the importance 
 in the interests of religion of gaining this recognition of 
 Newman's life-work from Rome itself: 
 
 ' The Oratory : March 9, 1879. 
 
 ' My dear Father Whitty, — I waited to write to you till I 
 had some official notice of the Pope's gracious purpose 
 regarding me — but since it delays, I don't like not to send 
 you a line to thank you for all the zeal which you have 
 shown in my behalf 
 
 ' You arc an old friend of 33 years standing since the time 
 when I cut my eyebrow at St. Edmund's in the dark, and 
 when I asked you any particulars you knew of the Vincentians 
 in the garden at Mary vale — and you have always been a 
 kind friend, amid all the changes of a very eventful time — 
 And I have no means of repaying you but that of owning 
 my debt and praying that all your kindness may turn to 
 your merit, which, as really done for Christ's sake, it will. 
 Faithfulness is a rare quality in this world, and in being an 
 instance of it, a man shows in a special way like Him, Whose 
 endearing attribute is to be faithful and true. 
 
 ' I will not say more — but, as I am writing, it strikes me 
 that, in answering the very pleasant letter I had from your 
 Provincial, I used a word which may require explanation. 
 I said I was " surprised " at the kindness of his letter. I 
 meant, surprised that any such persons should think so well 
 of me. 
 
 * Excuse a stupid letter — but I am knocked up with letter 
 writing. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately in Christ, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 March 1 1 brought a formal message from the Holy 
 Father confirming the permission for non-residence in Rome. 
 After this Newman felt that he could write quite freely to 
 those friends who had not been in the secret, and the first 
 to whom he wrote was Dean Church : 
 
 ^Private. The Oratory: March 11, 1879. 
 
 ' My dear Church, — I did not like to write to you till I 
 had something like official notice of my promotion. This 
 comes within this half hour. Yet not so much official as per- 
 sonal, being a most gracious message from the Pope to me. 
 
 ' He allows me to reside in this Oratory, the precedent 
 for the indulgence being Cardinal de Bcrulle, founder of the 
 French Oratory in the 17th Century. 
 
 G G 2
 
 452 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' Haec mutatio dexterae Excelsi ! all the stories which have 
 gone about of my being a half Catholic, a Liberal Catholic, 
 under a cloud, not to be trusted, are now at an end. . . . 
 
 ' It was on this account that I dared not refuse the offer. 
 A good Providence gave me an opportunity of clearing my- 
 self of former calumnies in my "Apologia" — and I dared not 
 refuse it. And now He gave me a means, without any labour 
 of mine, to set myself right as regards other calumnies which 
 were directed against me — how could I neglect so great a 
 loving kindness ? ^ 
 
 ' I have ever tried to leave my cause in the Hands of God 
 and to be patient— and He has not forgotten me. 
 
 ' Ever yours affly., 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 To Father Gerard, S.J., he wrote next day his thanks 
 for the congratulations of the Community and College at 
 Stonyhurst : 
 
 ' How very kind your letter is ! I thank you and the 
 other members of your Community and College with all my 
 heart for so welcome a message. Of course my first gratifica- 
 tion on receiving the great honour, which is the occasion of 
 your writing to me, is the approbation of me which it implies 
 on the part of the Holy Father. But the next, and a very 
 keen source of enjoyment, is to receive the congratulations 
 of friends — and I have been quite startled at receiving so 
 many and so warm — and not the least of these in affection- 
 ateness from the houses of your Society. 
 
 ' Of course I can't expect to live long — but it is a wonder- 
 ful termination, in God's good Providence, of my life. I 
 have lived long enough to see a great marvel. I shall not 
 forget that I have your prayers. Many thanks for them.' 
 
 It was a welcome task, too, to reply to the letter from 
 the new President of Trinity, Dr. Percival (who had recently 
 succeeded Dr. Wayte), written on behalf of himself and the 
 Fellows of the College, congratulating their distinguished 
 colleague on his new honours : 
 
 ' The Oratory, Birininghani : Mar. 30, 1879. 
 
 ' Dear Mr. President, — I had been looking out, ever since 
 I heard of your election, for the time when you would come 
 
 ' The same thought appears in his reply to George Ryder's congratulations. 
 ' Of course,' he writes, ' it is a great pleasure to me to have all those various sus- 
 picions about the soundness of my theology, which lingered in so many nooks 
 and corners, wiped away at a stroke for good and all, and to have lived to an 
 unusual age to be witness to it.'
 
 THE CARDINALATE (1879) 453 
 
 into residence, and when I might be allowed to pay my 
 respects to you — and now you anticipate me with so kind 
 an invitation, and with such warm congratulations on my 
 recent promotion, from yourself and your Fellows. 
 
 ' I hope you and they will understand how very pleasant 
 it is to me to find the events which happen to me a sub- 
 ject of such friendly interest to my friends at Trinity, and 
 with what pride I reflect that, if a historical title and high 
 ecclesiastical distinction goes for anything in college esti- 
 mation, I shall be thought, when the name of a Cardinal 
 appears on your list of members, not to have done discredit 
 to your generous act of last year, when you singled me out 
 for your honorary Fellowship. 
 
 ' I am, dear Mr. President, 
 With much respect, 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 The first of the many public congratulations which 
 Newman arranged to receive was the address of the Irish 
 members of Parliament. This was to take place on April 4 
 at the house of Mr. T. W. Allies in London. As the time 
 drew near Newman became very despondent, and said to 
 Father Neville, ' It has all come too late. I am unused to 
 public speeches. I am old and broken. It is too late to 
 begin. I fear I shall break down.' He ate little breakfast 
 when the day arrived. Father Neville went with him to the 
 station. As he got out of the carriage Father Neville noted 
 more than usual the stoop which in his old age contrasted 
 so much with the upright carriage that his Oxford friends 
 remembered in earlier years. Newman was limp and seemed 
 to find walking a difficulty — dragging his limbs painfully 
 along. As they walked on the platform he dropped his 
 hat and gloves. Father Neville almost feared he would 
 faint. He made him more than once drink some brandy, 
 and sent him off hoping for the best. 
 
 Father Neville met him in the evening at the station on 
 his return in some anxiety. Newman as he left the train 
 walked with firm step and erect figure. ' All is right,' he 
 said ; ' I did it splendidly ' 
 
 He felt henceforth — Father Neville told me — that after 
 all it was not too late, that he still had the strength and
 
 454 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 presence of mind which were needed. And these never 
 failed him on the many similar occasions which ensued. 
 
 The Irish address was not seen by him before its pre- 
 sentation, and his reply was therefore given without pre- 
 paration. If it was not in itself specially remarkable, 
 those present were agreed as to its tact and opportuneness, 
 and the happy ease with which it was delivered. The report 
 of it should here be set down as being the first spoken 
 acknowledgment of the good wishes of his friends : 
 
 ' April 4, 1879. 
 
 ' Gentlemen, — This is a great day for me, and it is a day 
 which gives me great pleasure too. It is a pleasure to meet old 
 friends, and it is a pleasure to meet new ones. But it is not 
 merely as friends that I meet you, for you are representatives 
 of an ancient and faithful Catholic people for whom I have a 
 deep affection, and therefore in receiving your congratula- 
 tions of course I feel very much touched by your address ; 
 but I hope you will not think it strange if I say that I have 
 been surprised too, because while it is a great thing to please 
 one's own people, it is still more wonderful to create an 
 interest in a people which is not one's own. I do not think 
 there is any other country which would have treated me so 
 graciously as yours did. It is now nearly thirty years since, 
 with a friend of mine, I first went over to Ireland with a view 
 to the engagement which I afterwards formed there, and 
 during the seven years through which that engagement 
 lasted, I had continuous experience of kindness, and nothing 
 but kindness, from all classes of people — from the hierarchy, 
 from the seculars and regulars, and from the laity, whether 
 in Dublin or in the country. Those who worked with me 
 gave the most loyal support and loving help. As their first 
 act they helped me in a great trouble in which I was involved. 
 I had put my foot into an unusual legal embarrassment, and 
 it required many thousand pounds to draw me out of it. 
 They took a great share in that work. Nor did they show 
 less kindness at the end of my time. I was obliged to 
 leave from the necessities of my own congregation at Bir- 
 mingham. Everybody can understand what a difficulty it is 
 for a body to be without its head, and I only engaged for 
 seven years, because I could not otherwise fulfil the charge 
 which the Holy Father had put upon me in the Oratory. 
 When I left with reluctance and regret that sphere in which 
 I found so many friends, not a word of disappointment or 
 unkindness was uttered, when there might have been a feeling
 
 THE CARDINALATE (1879) 455 
 
 that I was relinquishing a work which I had begun, and now 
 I repeat that, to my surprise, at the end of twenty years 
 I find a silent memory cherished of a person who can only 
 be said to have meant well though he did little ; — and now 
 what return can I make to show my gratitude ? None that 
 is sufficient. But this I can say, that your address shall not 
 die with me. I belong to a body which, with God's blessing, 
 will live after me— the Oratory of St, Philip. The paper 
 which is the record of your generosity shall be committed 
 to our archives, and shall testify to generations to come the 
 enduring kindness of Irish Catholics towards the founder and 
 first head of the English Oratory.' 
 
 Newman was ever mindful of St. Augustine's ' Securus 
 judicat orbis terrarum,' not only in its strict theological bear- 
 ing, but in its more general sense ; and the tokens now rapidly 
 multiplying that the Holy Father had in his act given ex- 
 pression to a very widespread gratitude among Catholics for 
 his great services to the Church were intensely acceptable to 
 him. To this feeling he gave expression in his reply to the 
 congratulatory address which came next in order after that 
 from Ireland — that, namely, which the Primate and Bishops 
 of Scotland forwarded to him on April 8. In the course of 
 this address the Bishops used the following words : 
 
 * We rejoice that it has pleased the Holy P'ather, by 
 nominating you to a .seat in the Sacred College, to show his 
 sense of the services which by your writings and the influence 
 of example you have rendered to the Church, and we sincerely 
 hope and earnestly pray, that the opportunity of continuing 
 these services may be long granted to you along with the 
 enjoyment of your new and well earned dignity.' 
 
 Newman thus replied : 
 
 ' Next to the approbation of the Holy Father as involved 
 in the high dignity to which he has raised me is the rare 
 token of good opinion and good will which your Grace con- 
 veys to me from yourself and your brother Bishops of 
 Scotland. 
 
 ' It is this echo of the Sovereign Pontiff's voice which 
 brings out to the world the force of His Holiness' con- 
 descension, and gives such intenseness to my gratification. 
 
 ' I expect soon to go to Rome ; it is a great support to 
 feel that your special blessing, as conveyed to me in the letter
 
 456 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 which I am acknowledging, will acconnpany me into the 
 Holy Father's presence.' 
 
 The last address, presented before the Cardinal-elect left 
 England for the Eternal Cit}'', came from his neighbours, the 
 seminarists at Olton, near Birmingham. The address was 
 presented by two of the principal student.'--. 
 
 ' Beyond all our hopes,' one of them wrote to a friend at 
 the time, 'we had an interview of near half an hour with 
 the saintly old man. He took us by surprise, entering the 
 room while we were expecting Father Pope. He sat down 
 with us, and I asked him somewhat abruptly if he would not 
 like to see the address at once. With some little trouble in 
 getting the string undone (Dr. Newman himself went and got 
 us a knife to cut it) we brought forth the address, and put it on 
 the mantelpiece, as it happened, in a position very favourable 
 to its effect. Leaning on the mantelpiece he looked at it for 
 a moment or two, and then commenced to read it. He read 
 it carefully through while we looked on in silence. As he 
 came to the end he said : " It is too much, of course, but I 
 know that it is meant." And then seeing the list of names 
 he expressed his satisfaction, saying that to possess the names 
 was something for the future. He again said that he felt that 
 it was more than he deserved. Upon this I could not keep 
 quiet any longer, and I protested that every word was meant. 
 He then sat down and said, " I am sure of that. Those things 
 are not measured by words, but by the heart." ' 
 
 On the eve of his departure for Rome Dr. Newman wrote 
 to his old friend Mr. John O'Hagan : 
 
 'The Oratory: Easter Tuesday, 1879. 
 
 * My dear John O'Hagan, — ... Of course I view the 
 wonderful change of things as you view it. It was the 
 reason which, when the Holy Father so considerately allowed 
 me to live here, made me put away every other thought 
 and constrained me to accept the honour. I felt that he 
 was generously and tenderly clearing me from the charges 
 which were made against me. I used to say to myself, 
 " Time will set me right. I must be patient, for Time is on 
 my side." But the Pope has superseded Time. How should 
 I not be mo.st grateful to him ? 
 
 ' I set off for Rome to-morrow, and ask you and Mrs. 
 O'Hagan to say a good prayer for me, for I am rather 
 dreading both the journey and the climate. 
 
 ' Yours affectly., 
 
 John H. Newman.'
 
 THE CARDINALATE (1879) 457 
 
 Dr. Newman left the Oratory for Rome on the Wednes- 
 day in Easter week, accompanied by Father William Neville. 
 Father Pope and Father Paul Eaglesim were to meet him on 
 his arrival. Rome was reached on Thursday, April 24, and 
 the details of the journey are described in a letter written by 
 Newman himself to one of the Fathers on the following day : 
 
 ' Rome, Hotel Bristol: April 25, 1879. 
 
 ' You arc so good a correspondent yourself, that like 
 other virtuous people you are not quite sensitive of the 
 difficulties which others feel in being so good. I do think 
 it a great virtue in you, and try to practise it — so does 
 William — and we both have proposed to let you know all 
 about us, but, in spite of a good courier, I have always been 
 tired, and William busy. 
 
 ' We went at one go from Boulogne to Turin — without 
 any discomfort, getting to the latter place by Saturday night. 
 We heard Mass next morning and went to Genoa, where 
 the weather was not good, and I found myself wet and cold. 
 Unable to take wine, the journey was too much for me, and 
 I had to remain two days at Pisa — else, we should have 
 been at Rome on Tuesday night, but we stayed an idle day 
 at Pisa, and another day went no further than Siena — and 
 so got here by half past four p.m. yesterday, Thursday. 
 Our first act was to send a telegram to Birmingham. 
 
 'This morning, as we expected, Thomas and Paul ' made 
 their appearance. 
 
 ' Every one has been surpassingly kind. William, perhaps 
 Thomas, is to see Cardinal Nina to-night. It is not very 
 warm, yet thunders. We have not settled where to pitch our 
 tent. I make a bad hand at Italian, the easiest of languages. 
 After all, we left behind my coat of arms. I have sent a 
 telegram to Louis to send me at once a copy. Do you 
 recollect in the Vulgate or in A Kempis, the words " Cor ad 
 cor (cordi ?) loquitur"? Look into the concordance of the 
 Vulgate, among the books of reference in the Library, and 
 find out if there is any such text in Scripture.' 
 
 The Holy Father received Newman in private audience 
 on Sunday, April 27. The interview is described in the 
 following letter to Father Henry Bittleston : 
 
 'Via Sistina No. 48 : May 2, 1879. 
 
 ' My dear Henry, — Your letter came safe and thank you 
 for it. I have been laid up with a bad cold ever since I have 
 
 ' Father Thomas Pope and Father Paul Eaglesim.
 
 458 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 been here. Yesterday and today I have been in bed. It has 
 seized my throat and continues hard. I have had advice, but 
 it does nothing for me. The weather is so bad — I think it 
 will not go till Spring weather comes. It pulls me down 
 sadly. Here great days are passing, and I a prisoner in 
 the house. It answers to my general experience of Roman 
 weather. 
 
 ' The Holy Father received me most affectionately — 
 keeping my hand in his. He asked me, " Do you intend to 
 continue head of the Birmingham House?" I answered, 
 " That depends on the Holy Father." He then said, " Well 
 then I wish you to continue head," and he went on to speak 
 of this at length, saying there was a precedent for it in one 
 of Gregory XVI. 's cardinals. 
 
 ' He asked me various questions — was our house a good 
 one ? was our Church ? how many were we ? of what age ? 
 When I said, we had lost some, he put his hand on my head 
 and said " Don't cry." He asked " had we any lay brothers ? " 
 How then did we do for a cook ? I said we had a widow 
 woman, and the kitchen was cut off from the house. He 
 said " bene." Where did I get my theology ? at Propaganda ? 
 etc. etc. When I was leaving he accepted a copy of my four 
 Latin Dissertations, in the Roman Edition. I certainly did 
 not think his mouth large till he smiled, and then the ends 
 turned up, but not unpleasantly — he has a clear white com- 
 plexion — his eyes somewhat bloodshot — but this might have 
 been the accident of the day. He speaks very slowly and 
 clearly and with an Italian manner. 
 
 ' William has had a letter to Austin on the stocks for 
 some days. I hope it went a day or two ago. 
 
 ' Love to all. 
 
 ' Ever yours afftly., 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Between Newman's audience and the Consistory of May 
 at which the Hat was conferred, by the doctor's advice he 
 hardly left his room, for the weather was bad and his cold 
 severe. 
 
 The great day arrived, and Father Neville writes of it 
 thus : 
 
 * On Monday morning, May 12, Dr. Newman went to the 
 Palazzo della Pigna, the residence of Cardinal Howard, who 
 had lent him his apartments to receive there the messenger 
 from the Vatican bearing the biglietto from the Cardinal-
 
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 THE CARDINALATE (1879) 459 
 
 Secretary of State, informing him that in a secret Consistory 
 held that morning his HoHness had deigned to raise him to 
 the rank of Cardinal. By eleven o'clock the room was 
 crowded with English and American Catholics, ecclesiastics 
 and laymen, as well as many members of the Roman nobility 
 and dignitaries of the Church, assembled to witness the cere- 
 mony. Soon after midday the consistorial messenger was 
 announced. He handed the biglietto to Cardinal Newman, 
 who, having broken the seal, gave it to Dr. Clifford, Bishop 
 of Clifton, who read the contents. The messenger having 
 then informed the newly created Cardinal that his Holiness 
 would receive him at the Vatican the next morning at ten 
 o'clock to confer the biretta upon him, and having paid the 
 customary compliments, his Eminence replied in what has 
 become known as his " Biglietto Speech " as follows : 
 
 ' " Vi ringrazio, Monsignorc, per la participazione che 
 m'avete fatto dell' alto onore che il Santo Padre si e degnato 
 conferire sulla mia umile persona — ■ 
 
 ' " And if I ask your permission to continue my address 
 to you, not in your musical language, but in my own dear 
 mother tongue, it is because in the latter I can better express 
 my feelings on this most gracious announcement which you 
 have brought to me than if I attempted what is above me. 
 
 ' " First of all then, I am led to speak of the wonder and 
 profound gratitude which came upon me, and which is upon 
 me still, at the condescension and love towards me of the 
 Holy Father, in singling me out for so immense an honour. 
 It was a great surprise. Such an elevation had never come 
 into my thoughts, and seemed to be out of keeping with all 
 my antecedents. I had passed through many trials, but they 
 were over ; and now the end of all things had almost come 
 to me, and I was at peace. And was it possible that after 
 all I had lived through so many years for this } 
 
 ' " Nor is It easy to see how I cotdd have borne so great 
 a shock, had not the Holy Father resolved on a second act of 
 condescension towards me, which tempered it, and was to all 
 who heard of it a touching evidence of his kindly and 
 {jenerous nature. He felt for me, and he told me the reasons 
 why he raised me to this high position. Besides other words 
 of encouragement, he said his act was a recognition of my 
 zeal and good service for so many years in the Catholic 
 cause ; moreover, he judged it would give pleasure to English 
 Catholics, and even to Protestant England, if I received some 
 mark of his favour. After such gracious words from his 
 Holiness, I should have been insensible and heartless if I had 
 had scruples any longer.
 
 46o LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' " This is what he had the kindness to say to me, and what 
 could I want more ? In a long course of years I have made 
 many mistakes. I have nothing of that high perfection 
 which belongs to the writings of saints, viz., that error cannot 
 be found in them ; but what I trust that I may claim all through 
 what I have written, is this, — an honest intention, an absence 
 of private ends, a temper of obedience, a willingness to be 
 corrected, a dread of error, a desire to serve Holy Church, 
 and, through Divine mercy, a fair measure of success. And, 
 I rejoice to say, to one great mischief I have from the first 
 opposed myself. For thirty, forty, fifty years I have resisted 
 to the best of my powers the spirit of Liberalism in religion. 
 Never did Holy Church need champions against it more 
 sorely than now, when, alas ! it is an error overspreading, as a 
 snare, the whole earth ; and on this great occasion, when it is 
 natural for one who is in my place to look out upon the world, 
 and upon Holy Church as in it, and upon her future, it will 
 not, I hope, be considered out of place, if I renew the protest 
 against it which I have made so often. 
 
 ' " Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no 
 positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as 
 another, and this is the teaching which is gaining substance 
 and force daily. It is inconsistent with any recognition of 
 any religion, as true. It teaches that all are to be tolerated, 
 for all are matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a 
 truth, but a sentiment and a taste ; not an objective fact, not 
 miraculous ; and it is the right of each individual to make it 
 say just what strikes his fancy. Devotion is not necessarily 
 founded on faith. Men may go to Protestant Churches and 
 to Catholic, may get good from both and belong to neither. 
 They may fraternise together in spiritual thoughts and feel- 
 ings, without having any views at all of doctrines in common, 
 or seeing the need of them. Since, then, religion is so per- 
 sonal a peculiarity and so private a possession, we must of 
 necessity ignore it in the intercourse of man with man. If a 
 man puts on a new religion every morning, what is that to 
 you ? It is as impertinent to think about a man's religion 
 as about his sources of income or his management of his 
 family. Religion is in no sense the bond of society. 
 
 ' " Hitherto the civil power has been Christian. Even in 
 countries separated from the Church, as in my own, the 
 dictum was in force, when I was young, that : ' Christianity 
 was the law of the land.' Now, everywhere that goodly 
 framework of society, which is the creation of Christianity, is 
 throwing off Christianity. The dzctmn to which I have
 
 THE CARDINALATE (1879) 461 
 
 referred, with a hundred others which followed upon it, is 
 gone, or is going everywhere ; and, by the end of the century, 
 unless the Almighty interferes, it will \ic forgotten. Hitherto, 
 it has been considered that religion alone, with its super- 
 natural sanctions, was strong enough to secure submission 
 of the masses of our population to law and order ; now the 
 Philosophers and Politicians are bent on satisfying this 
 problem without the aid of Christianity. Instead of the 
 Church's authority and teaching, they would substitute first 
 of all a universal and thoroughly secular education, calculated 
 to bring home to every individual that to be orderly, indus- 
 trious, and sober is his personal interest. Then, for great 
 working principles to take the place of religion, for the use of 
 the masses thus carefully educated, it provides — the broad 
 fundamental ethical truths, of justice, benevolence, veracity, 
 and the like ; proved experience ; and those natural laws 
 which exist and act spontaneously in society, and in social 
 matters, whether physical or psychological ; for instance, in 
 government, trade, finance, sanitary experiments, and the 
 intercourse of nations. As to Religion, it is a private luxury, 
 which a man may have if he will ; but which of course he 
 must pay for, and which he must not obtrude upon others, or 
 indulge in to their annoyance. 
 
 ' " The general [nature] of this great apostasia is one and 
 the same everywhere ; but in detail, and in character, it 
 varies in different countries. For myself, I would rather 
 speak of it in my own country, which I know. There, I 
 think it threatens to have a formidable success ; though it is 
 not easy to see what will be its ultimate issue. At first sight 
 it might be thought that Englishmen are too religious for a 
 movement which, on the continent, seems to be founded on 
 infidelity ; but the misfortune with us is, that, though it ends 
 in infidelity as in other places, it does not necessarily arise 
 out of infidelity. It must be recollected that the religious 
 sects, which sprang up in England three centuries ago, and 
 which are so powerful now, have ever been fiercely opposed 
 to the Union of Church and State, and would advocate the 
 unChristianising of the monarchy and all that belongs to it, 
 under the notion that such a catastrophe would make 
 Christianity much more pure and much more powerful. 
 Next the liberal principle is forced on us from the necessity 
 of the case. Consider what follows from the very fact of 
 these many sects. They constitute the religion, it is sup- 
 posed, of half the population ; and recollect, our mode of 
 government is popular. Every dozen men taken at random
 
 462 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 whom you meet in the streets have a share in political power, 
 — when you inquire into their forms of belief, perhaps they 
 represent one or other of as many as seven religions ; how 
 can they possibly act together in municipal or in national 
 matters, if each insists on the recognition of his own religious 
 denomination ? All action would be at a deadlock unless 
 the subject of religion was ignored. We cannot help our- 
 selves. And, thirdly, it must be borne in mind, that there is 
 much in the Liberalistic theory which is good and true ; for 
 example, not to say more, the precepts of justice, truthful- 
 ness, sobriety, self-command, benevolence, which, as I have 
 already noted, are among its avowed principles, and the 
 natural laws of society. It is not till we find that this array 
 of principles is intended to supersede, to block out, religion, 
 that we pronounce it to be evil. There never was a device of 
 the Enemy so cleverly framed and with such promise of suc- 
 cess. And already it has answered to the expectations which 
 have been formed of it. It is sweeping into its own ranks 
 great numbers of able, earnest, virtuous men, elderly men of 
 approved antecedents, young men with a career before them. 
 ' "Such is the state of things in England, and it is well that 
 it should be realised by all of us ; but it must not be sup- 
 posed for a moment that I am afraid of it. I lament it deeply, 
 because I foresee that it may be the ruin of many souls ; but 
 I have no fear at all that it really can do aught of serious 
 harm to the Word of God, to Holy Church, to our Almighty 
 King, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Faithful and True, or 
 to His Vicar on earth. Christianity has been too often in 
 what seemed deadly peril, that we should fear for it any 
 new trial now. So far is certain ; on the other hand, what 
 is uncertain, and in these great contests commonly is un- 
 certain, and what is commonly a great surprise, when it is 
 witnessed, is the particular mode by which, in the event. 
 Providence rescues and saves His elect inheritance. Sometimes 
 our enemy is turned into a friend ; sometimes he is despoiled 
 of that special virulence of evil which was so threatening ; 
 sometimes he falls to pieces of himself; sometimes he does 
 just so much as is beneficial, and then is removed. Com- 
 monly the Church has nothing more to do than to go on in 
 her own proper duties, in confidence and peace ; to stand still 
 and to see the salvation of God. 
 
 '" Mansueti hereditabunt tcrram 
 
 Et delectabuntur in multitudine pacis." ' 
 
 Father Pope described the scene in a brief note written to 
 Father Ignatius Ryder on the day itself :
 
 THE CARDINALATE (1879) 463 
 
 ' Monday. 
 
 ' All has passed off beautifully — an immense crowd — the 
 Father made a very fine speech, which you will see verbatim 
 in the Times, and which is very heartily enjoyed here. How 
 he managed it St. Philip knows best — but he did not 
 cough — and his delivery was very animated, and perfect, 
 as the vehicle of his words. Several Cardinals have come — 
 more will be coming this evening. They are very cordial, 
 and seem very earnestly and sincerely to look on the Father 
 as a glorious addition to their number. One said he read 
 English and knew the " Apologia " &c. well. I am now easy 
 about the Father — I have been at times uneasy. The cough 
 is obstinate and weakness great. He seems to-day quite 
 himself. Old Wagner from Brighton was present. 
 
 ' The Italian ladies behind me were unanimous that he 
 was : " che bel vecchio ! che figura ! " &c. &:c. " pallido si, 
 ma bellissimo," &c. &c. &c. In short the Father was quite 
 up to the occasion, which is saying a great deal.' 
 
 Mr. Wagner himself wrote his impressions of the scene 
 to a friend : 
 
 ' I write you a {&\\ lines just to say that I was present 
 yesterday at the ceremony of Dr. Newman's receiving the 
 Letter from the Pope conferring on him the Cardinalate. He 
 was in Cardinal Howard's rooms, where a considerable 
 number of English were collected to witness the ceremony. 
 After the letter was read, he made a beautiful little address 
 in English to those present, ending with the motto which is 
 in the Lives of the Saints he published at Littlcmore. " The 
 meek spirited shall possess the earth, and shall be refreshed 
 in the multitude of peace." I do not know whether the 
 ancient ceremony of giving the Hat to the Cardinal will take 
 place — the last Pope, I believe, dispensed with it in his latter 
 years ; if so, I shall hope to get access to the Vatican to sec 
 it. Dr. Newman looked ill and faint, but he read the address 
 in a beautifully clear voice, and it was a very touching one, 
 in some respects, to listen to. I have written a line to 
 Dr. Pusey to tell him of it, as I thought he would like to hear 
 something of one whom he loved so much. Dr. Newman's 
 face looked quite like that of a Saint.' 
 
 Addresses and presentations from the English-speaking 
 Catholics in Rome followed. 
 
 Father Pope describes in another letter the first of these, 
 which took place at the English College :
 
 464 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' Wednesday, May 14. 
 
 ' The presentation at the English College went off grandly. 
 Abp. McGettigan, Abp. of Benevento, Bp. Clifford, and a 
 host of monsignori — English swarming — the present tasteful 
 and costly — the address feeling and (better still) short — read 
 admirably by Lady Herbert- — and the Father's reply short, 
 and very touching. He looked very noble in Cardinal's attire 
 — and we sent to the Vatican for his " gentiluomo " in the 
 picturesque mediaeval dress — with sword — and the Father's 
 biretta on his knees. Two carriages and all in proper form. 
 But the Father is fearfully tired and weak. That grip on 
 the throat and bronchia was a sharp one — and I shall be 
 glad now to see him home again. The Pope wishes him 
 either to pontificate, or assist on the throne, at Chiesa Nuova, 
 on St. Philip's day. But I think he will not' ^ 
 
 ' The following is Father Neville's semi-official account of the presentation : 
 'At eleven o'clock on Wednesday, May 14, his Eminence Cardinal Newman 
 accompanied by Mgr. Cataldi Master of Ceremonies to his Holiness and the 
 Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory who are with him, went to the English 
 College to receive the address and the gifts of the English, Irish, Scotch, and 
 American residents in Rome. He was received at the College by Dr. 
 O'Callaghan, the rector. Dr. Giles, the vice-rectore, and Mgr. Stonor, and 
 conducted into a large upper chamber, already crowded by ladies and gentlemen. 
 At the further end were exposed the complete set of vestments, rich as becoming 
 the intention, but plain in accordance with the Cardinal's desire, a cloth-of-silver 
 cope and jewelled mitre, a Canon of the Mass book, a pectoral cross and chain, 
 and a silver-gilt altar candlesticl<, for which the English-speaking Catholics at 
 Rome have subscribed as a present to his Eminence, together with a richly 
 illuminated address. On each vestment was embroidered his Eminence's coat- 
 of-arms in proper heraldic colours, with the mo\.\.o ^^ Cor ad cor loquitur." The 
 Cardinal having taken his seat, with Mgr. Moran, Bishop of Ossory, Mgr. 
 Woodlock, Bishop elect of Ardagh, Mgr. Siciliano di Rende, Archbishop of 
 Benevento and Mgrs. Stonor, Cataldi, and de Stacpoole on either side. Lady 
 Herbert of Lea read the following address : 
 
 ' From the English, Irish, Scotch, and American Residents 
 
 IN Ro.ME. 
 
 ' My Lord Cardinal, — We, your devoted English, Scotch, Irish, and 
 American children at present residing in Rome, earnestly wishing to testify our 
 deep and affectionate veneration for your Eminence's person and character, 
 together with our hearty joy at your elevation to the Sacred Purple, venture to 
 lay this humble offering at your feet. We feel that in making you a Cardinal the 
 Holy Father has not only given public testimony of his appreciation of your great 
 merits and of the value of your admirable writings in defence of God and His 
 Church, but has also conferred the greatest possible honour on all English- 
 speaking Catholics who have long looked up to you as their spiritual father and 
 their guide in the paths of holiness. We hope your Eminence will excuse the 
 shortness and simplicity of this Address, which is but the expression of the feeling 
 contained in your Eminence's motto, " Heart speaking to Heart," for your 
 Eminence has long won the first place in the hearts of all. That God may 
 greatly prolong the years which have been so devoted to His service in the cause 
 of truth is the earnest prayer of your Eminence's faithful and loving children.'
 
 THE CARDINALATE (1879) 465 
 
 The effort of receiving such addresses and replying was 
 very great, and Newman soon had again to rest, being 
 thoroughly tired and ill. An affection of the lungs followed 
 which made his doctors really anxious. He had hoped to 
 visit the Holy Places in Rome, to make friends with other 
 members of the Sacred College, and above all to speak often 
 with Leo XHI. All this had to be abandoned. Only 
 twice was he well enough to say Mass, though there was a 
 chapel in the house in which he was staying ; only twice could 
 he see the Holy Father. His chief thought now was to get 
 back to his dear home at the Oratory. 
 
 He was, however, most eager, so far as was possible, to 
 use the new weight which his position as a Cardinal gave 
 him, and the opportunit}'' of his visit to Rome, to further the 
 great aims to which his life had been so long devoted. 
 Later on we shall speak of his plans for placing before the 
 Holy See as one of its official councillors his views on 
 the contemporary requirements of Catholic education. But 
 while in Rome there was one purpose which haunted him 
 — which indeed Father Neville told me he had planned 
 carefully before his departure from England. His life-long 
 friend William Froude was still a free-thinker. Newman 
 had earnestly hoped and prayed for a change. He had 
 reasoned with him in their intimate correspondence when 
 occasion offered. A Catholic wife and Catholic children were 
 constantly at Froude's side to second Newman's endeavours. 
 But the years had gone on and no change had come. In 
 1878 Mrs. Froude died. Her husband, broken by the blow, 
 was travelling in South Africa, whence, as it happened, he 
 wrote Newman a letter concerning his religious position, in 
 which he discussed the question of religious certainty which 
 was the great issue between them. This letter Newman 
 had received before starting for Rome, and he had it in his 
 mind that the prayers of a dead wife might now be aided 
 in their effect by himself with new hope of success, and 
 that Froude's heart would be especially open to religious 
 impressions. He would write from Rome itself, as a 
 Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church. Arguments which 
 had formerly had only the character of his own personal 
 reflections, might carry new weight when urged by one who 
 VOL. II. II H
 
 466 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 now officially represented the Christian tradition of the ages 
 at its main source. In spite of illness Newman persevered in 
 his intention. The letter was written — a marvel of lucidity 
 and careful thought at his advanced age.^ But while the 
 rough copy was being corrected the news came that William 
 Froude was dead. He had died at Admiralty House, 
 Simon's Town, of dysentery following on drinking some 
 tainted water in the neighbourhood. 
 
 Another object near the new Cardinal's heart was to use 
 the sanction which Rome had given to his views, as an 
 instrument for winning back the great Dollinger to the 
 Church. Here again he trusted that the Cardinal's Hat might 
 be of service. The fact that Rome had given as it were 
 her imprimatur to his own views on theology and history, 
 might have an effect which mere argument had not wrought 
 in the absence of this significant circumstance. And as 
 a Cardinal he could speak as a matter of duty and without 
 any suggestion of impertinence. 
 
 * It was his intention,' writes Fr. Neville, ' to have returned 
 home by way of Germany, for the opportunity he might thus 
 have of personal communication with Dr. Dollinger. . . . 
 In his own new position, it was due, the Cardinal said, from 
 himself to Dr. Dollinger, not to pass through the Continent 
 without going to him. He was very intent upon this, and 
 apparently he connected his object mentally with the solemn 
 Ceremonial of his Creation as giving him authority, and 
 power, and liberty to speak such as he had not had before. 
 It was, however, a subject too grave for many words : his 
 firm and emphatic utterance of the few that he used full)^ 
 afforded a reading of his mind in their stead. Again, before 
 leaving Rome, his almost silent acquiescence in the decision 
 of his physician, that the cold and laborious route home 
 which he was intending could not in conscience be allowed, 
 was very expressive of his solemn and calm resignation of 
 his purpose to the over-ruling of the will of God. Neverthe- 
 less, he would have been very glad indeed to have carried out 
 this intention as a first use of his Cardinalate in the service 
 of God.' 
 
 He had promised to pass some days at Autun, on his 
 homeward journey, and see once again, before the inevitable 
 
 ' The text of the letter is given at p. 587.
 
 THE CARDINALATE (1879) 467 
 
 separation of death, his dear and faithful friend, Sister Maria 
 Pia. This plan he was loth to relinquish, yet the effort 
 seemed more than he could safely make. 
 
 A few days before leaving Rome he wrote to one of the 
 Birmingham Fathers : 
 
 ' Whitsunday : 48 Via Sislina. 
 
 ' Thank you for the care you have taken of my rooms, 
 etc, I hope I have left them in a state which allows of their 
 being dusted, when the time draws near for my return. 
 
 ' The time ! when will that be ? I was sure that you did 
 not take in how ill I was, though my letters to Lewis and 
 Francis ought, I think, to have struck you. I wanted espe- 
 cially your prayers, and I hate concealment. Think of this 
 fact, that, as Cardinal elect and actual, I have an altar in this 
 house, yet in five weeks I have only said Mass once. How- 
 ever, today I said Mass, but the doctor won't let me say Mass 
 tomorrow. He says I am not safe from a relapse, and, if at 
 Leghorn I am at all unwell, I am to send for him. 
 
 * I see the Pope tomorrow, for the second and last time ! 
 Alas, how my time, humanly speaking, has been lost here. 
 We shall not get off till Wednesday at soonest. At Leghorn 
 we stay according as we are comfortable there, at the 
 "Anglo-American hotel." I am in a dilemma of the Mont 
 Cenis line, which is too cold, and the Riviera, which is too 
 hot. My visit to Autun, which I can't give up, is a great 
 trouble. I shall remain some days at Dover or the like place. 
 I dread the receptions and answers to Addresses. It was 
 these which knocked me up here. ... I think I shall return 
 to Birmingham, as you will find, an older man than I went.' 
 
 From Leghorn he wrote to Sister Maria Pia on June 9 
 announcing his impending arrival at Autun. 
 
 ' Think,' he added, ' of my being at Rome six weeks at 
 such a festive season and with such great saints' days and 
 having said Mass only three times and having been into not 
 more than half a dozen churches. What a disappointment.' 
 
 A letter from Father Thomas Pope to a friend at the 
 Oratory tells of the route homewards : 
 
 ' Ilutel Anglo-Americain, Livourne: June 18, 1879. 
 
 'The Lather has just received your pleasant letter, and 
 enjoyed it much. The medal looks too much like a Roman 
 Emperor — the Father says like Nero. He was particularly 
 pleased with the letter from the President of Trinity. He 
 walked out yesterday on the passeggiata with benefit — and is 
 now, to all appearance, well. He is very weak ; and the 
 
 H II 2
 
 468 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 worst thing is a susceptibility to every change so great, that 
 we can't calculate how he will bear anything. Actual disease 
 there is none — he has a grand constitution, and the capital of 
 it is not nearly exhausted yet. I marvel at the ease with 
 which he has thrown ofif his several illnesses. Tomorrow we 
 go to Genoa,— Hotel de I'ltalie. If he is well there, and has 
 borne the journey well. Father Paul and I start off, so that we 
 shall reach Birmingham as soon as possible. . . . The Father 
 cannot be at home for St. Peter and Paul, so far as we can 
 see now. He may be so much stronger as to get on quicker. 
 But the doctor wants him to leave Genoa on Saturday 
 morning for Nice — to stay Sunday at Nice — Monday to 
 Marseilles— then another stage to Lyons— then to Paris. . . . 
 The Father is very eager to be back— and I think he will 
 return straight to Birmingham — and go back later to London. 
 Even now, as I am writing, Father William is urging a halt 
 at Spezia, lest the whole journey to Genoa be too much.' 
 
 When Newman got to Macon came another disappoint- 
 ment. The doctor peremptorily forbade, in the inclement 
 weather, the proposed detour to Autun. 
 
 He broke the news to Sister Maria Pia in a sad letter 
 dated July 3 : 
 
 ' My dear Sister Pia, — We must submit ourselves to the 
 Will of God. What is our religion, if we can't ? 
 
 'When I got to Macon, it was almost determined we 
 should cut across to you next morning. I went to bed with 
 this expectation — but next morning we rose in heavy rain, 
 and my doctor had a great fear that the waiting at the 
 various stations, and change of carriages with the damp, 
 draughts, and worry which accompanied it would bring on fever 
 etc., for you would hardly believe how weak I am, and what 
 very slight imprudences have caused a relapse already. So 
 he felt, as having the charge of me, that he could not leave 
 the direct road to Paris in which there were no stoppages, no 
 change of carriages. 
 
 ' The season is so exceptional. 
 
 ' Ever yours most afifly., 
 
 John H. Card. Newman.' 
 
 The Cardinal arrived in Brighton on Saturday afternoon, 
 June 28, and was present at the High Mass on Sunday at 
 the Church of St. John the Baptist, in St. James's Street. In 
 the afternoon he drove round to the various churches in the 
 town and paid visits to their several priests.
 
 THE CARDINALATE (1879) 469 
 
 On Monday he went to London, breaking his journey at 
 Bramber to see his old friend Dr. Bloxam, of Magdalen, 
 now Rector of Upper Deeding. The Agricultural Show filled 
 the London hotels, and he therefore went to Rugby for the 
 nio-ht, reaching his home at the Oratory on the following 
 morning, Tuesday, July i, the Fathers having been warned 
 of his approaching arrival on Monday by telegram. 
 
 The home-coming is described in a letter from Henry 
 Bellasis to his mother, written on the day itself: 
 
 ' The Father could not obtain a bed in London last night, 
 so travelled on to Rugby and came on this morning by a 
 train arriving 3t New Street at 10.45. He was met by all 
 the principal gentlemen of our congregation, many priests 
 and a large crowd of people, a first rate carriage and pair 
 was in readiness belonging to one of the ladies and on the 
 way to the house he dressed with Fr. Henry's assistance in 
 his red trimmed cassock and pink ferrajuolo which is a sort 
 of cloak — red biretta and skull cap of course — so that when 
 the policeman gave us in a solemn whisper at the front door 
 the news, " They are here sir ! " up drove the carriage (pouring 
 with rain, by the bye) and the Father got out in —so to speak 
 — full costume. 
 
 ' He then went to the Porch of the Church and after the 
 usual ceremonies, kissing a crucifix, incensing, etc. ; the pro- 
 cession marched up the Church — the Father under a canopy — 
 and filed off to S. Philip's Chapel where the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment is kept. After a short prayer the procession returned 
 to the High Altar. Here the Father knelt on a prie-Dieu in 
 the centre of the sanctuary, and, after some short prayers, 
 went to the throne, where we all came and kissed his ring. 
 This over, his throne was taken to the centre of the Sanc- 
 tuary and he there sat down and delivered a most beautiful 
 and touching discourse. It was to the effect that he had 
 now come home ; what a deal there was in that word home — 
 he knew there were more heroic lives than that of a ho7>ie 
 life e.g. the Apostles', etc. but a home life was his as a son 
 of St. Philip. Our Lord Himself spent 30 years of His life 
 .shewing us what a home life ought to be. When away at a 
 distance he thought he never should return, but God had 
 willed it otherwise, and he had now reached what he niight 
 call his long home, which he hoped might end in heaven 
 for all eternity. He then thanked the Congregation for all 
 their prayers and congratulations, saying that his great 
 weakness prevented him from doing so in a manner at all
 
 470 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 expressing what he really felt. After this he went on to 
 speak of his great privilege of being able to go to the Holy- 
 City and see the Holy Father face to face. He spoke of the 
 Pope most beautifully and ended by saying that he was 
 here as his representative, and he prayed God that now, we 
 all, in whatever station or circumstances we might be, 
 might by His Grace show an Example of what Catholic 
 life ought to be etc. etc. He then said he would give us 
 his blessing, which he did solemnly as a Bishop. 
 
 ' After this the Te Deum was sung and the Ceremony 
 ended. 
 
 ' I should add that he looks thin and weak from his 
 illness, but this only adds to his magnificent appearance. I 
 wish you could have heard the sermon — it made us all cry 
 more or less.' 
 
 ' No one I am sure who was privileged to be present,' 
 writes the late Father Ignatius Ryder, ' will ever forget that 
 improvised service of thanksgiving for his safe return in which 
 he took part immediately on his arrival. He was wonderful 
 to look upon as he sat fronting the congregation, his face as 
 the face of an angel — the features that were so familiar to us 
 refined and spiritualised by illness and the delicate com- 
 plexion and silver hair touched by the rose tints of his bright 
 unaccustomed dress. Leaning his head upon his hand he 
 began to talk to us and must have spoken for some twenty 
 minutes or more. Every word seemed precious — I can only 
 hope they have been preserved — and yet simple to the last 
 degree ; about hom.e principally. 
 
 ' If I remem^ber right he began with the vvords " It is such 
 a happiness to get home." There was throughout what was 
 often a peculiar charm with him, the impression of aloofness 
 as though it were all a soliloquy or conversation you had 
 innocently surprised.' 
 
 No reporter was present, but the following is left by 
 Father Neville among the Cardinal's papers as giving ' as 
 nearly as possible ' his words on this occasion : 
 
 ' My dear Children, — I am desirous of thanking you for 
 the great sympathy you have shown towards me, for your 
 congratulations, for your welcome, and for your good prayers ; 
 but I feel so very weak — for I have not recovered yet from a 
 long illness — that I hardly know how I can be able to say 
 ever so few words, or to express in any degree the great 
 pleasure and gratitude to you which I feel.
 
 THE CARDINALATE (1879) 471 
 
 ' To come home again ! In that word " home" how much 
 is included. I know well that there is a more heroic life 
 than a home life. We know the blessed Apostles — how they 
 went about, and we listen to St. Paul's words — those touching 
 words — in which he speaks of himself and says he was an 
 outcast. Then we know, too, our Blessed Lord — that He 
 " had not where to lay His head," Therefore, of course, there 
 is a higher life, a more heroic life, than that of home. But 
 still, that is given to few. The home life — the idea of home — 
 is consecrated to us by our patron and founder St. Philip, for 
 he made the idea of home the very essence of his religion 
 and institute. We have even a great example in Our Lord 
 Himself; for though in His public ministry He had not where 
 to lay His head, yet we know that for the first thirty years of 
 His Hfe He had a home, and He therefore consecrated, in 
 a special way, the life of home. And as, indeed. Almighty 
 God has been pleased to continue the world, not, as angels, 
 by a separate creation of each, but by means of the Family, 
 so it was fitting that the congregation of St. Philip should be 
 the ideal, the realisation of the Family in its perfection, and 
 a pattern to every family in the parish, in the town, and 
 throughout the whole of Christendom. Therefore, I do 
 indeed feel pleasure to come home again. Although I am 
 not insensible of the great grace of being in the Holy City, 
 which is the centre of grace, nor of the immense honour 
 which has been conferred upon me, nor of the exceeding 
 kindness and affection to me personally of the Holy Father 
 — I may say more than affection, for he was to me as though 
 he had been all my life my father — to see the grace which 
 shone from his face and spoke in his voice ; yet I feel I may 
 rejoice in coming home again — as if it were to my long home 
 — to that home which extends to heaven, " the home of our 
 eternity." And although there has been much of sickness, 
 and much sadness in being prevented from enjoying the 
 privileges of being in the Holy City, yet Almighty God has 
 brought me home again in spite of all difficulties, fears, 
 obstacles, troubles, and trials. I almost feared I should 
 never come back, but God in His mercy has ordered it other- 
 w^ise. And now I will ask you, my dear friends, to pray for 
 me, that I may be as the presence of the Holy Father 
 amongst }'ou, and that the Holy Spirit of God may be 
 upon this Church, upon this great city, upon its Bishop, 
 upon all its priests, upon all its inhabitants, men, women 
 and children, and as a pledge and beginning of it, I give 
 yon my benediction.'
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 FINAL TASKS (1880-1886) 
 
 So far as the weight of nearly fourscore years permitted 
 it, the period which followed the conferring of the Cardinal- 
 ate was a very happy one. Tokens of universal reverence 
 multiplied on Newman's return from Rome. The formal re- 
 ceptions which were held to do him honour gave opportunity 
 also for expressions of gratitude from the many who had 
 owed to him their Christian faith or their religious peace, and 
 it was brought home to him that during the years which had 
 seemed to him simply years of failure he had in fact been 
 doing a work as real (if less conspicuous) as the work he 
 had done at Oxford. 
 
 A great reception was given at Norfolk House, for which 
 others besides the Catholic world accepted invitations in 
 order to meet the new Cardinal.' Lord Salisbury came from 
 Hatfield and reopened his London house for the occasion. 
 And many other men prominent in public life availed them- 
 selves of the opportunity to pay honour to the new Cardinal. 
 His brethren at the London Oratory also entertained him at 
 Brompton. In the diary of one of the Fathers we read as 
 follows : 
 
 ' The Cardinal assisted at Vespers and gave Benediction 
 at the London Oratory, and gave an address afterwards to 
 the Brothers of the Little Oratory. I believe it was touching. 
 Lord Emly quite broke down. Anthony Froude wrote a 
 
 ' Of this reception the Cardinal thus writes to a friend who had received no 
 intimation that it was to take place : 
 
 ' I did not choose who should come to Norfolk House — nor I believe, did 
 the Duke. I think those came mainly who asked to come. But it necessarily 
 involved great confusion. There was nothing to show who wished to come, or 
 who were in London — and how many days and hours were necessary for open 
 house. I only know that the Duke slaved, nay, the Duchess, and the Ladies 
 Howard, so as to m.\ke me quite ashamed and very grateful. Four hundred 
 people came one day.'
 
 CARDINAL NEWMAN. 
 trout a I'/ioio^yapJi (about 1882).
 
 FINAL TASKS (1880-1886) 473 
 
 mournfully affecting letter to the Duke, asking if he might 
 come to the Oratory to hear it. " Since last I heard that 
 musical voice my faith has all been shattered : perhaps if 
 I might hear it again it would at least awaken in me some 
 echoes of those old days." I do not know how far exactly 
 these words are his own ; I have them from the account 
 Fr. John gave me in conversation.' 
 
 Trinity College, Oxford, invited the new Cardinal to 
 dine at the College Gaudy on Trinity Monday 1880. The 
 Cardinal accepted, and preached on Trinity Sunday at the 
 Jesuit Church in Oxford to a crowded congregation. The 
 dinner on the Monday was a far more stately function than 
 that which he had attended in February 1878, after his 
 election as Honorary Fellow. There were numerous guests, 
 and ladies were invited to a reception in the evening. These 
 were presented in turn to the Cardinal, who received them 
 in semi-royal state. The late Sir Richard Jebb was at the 
 dinner, and told the present writer that Newman's informal 
 speech on the occasion was a model of perfect tact and grace 
 P^or half an hour or so, sitting in his chair, he talked to 
 the table of Oxford memories — of Whately, Pusey, Blanco 
 White, Hawkins, and many another, not forgetting his old 
 Trinity tutor Thomas Short, who had passed away since his 
 visit of 1878. 
 
 These functions were physically exhausting to the Cardinal, 
 but they were the outward symbols of work done for the 
 good cause and were intensely grateful to him. 
 
 Cardinal Newman had no thought of otium cu7n dignitate 
 for his declining years. The whole value of his new position 
 consisted in the influence it gave him. ' His strength,' writes 
 Father Neville, ' which had been so severely tried in Rome, was 
 rapidly regained, his health was good, and he had the happi- 
 ness of being conscious that the readiness and vigour of his 
 mind were undiminished. But fatigue during exertion came 
 upon him more quickly than heretofore. It was a warning 
 to him that he would have less and less opportunity to make 
 up for loss of time.' He determined forthwith to do his best 
 to make the Holy Father realise the difficulties which had 
 for so many years oppressed him, as to the position of 
 educated Christians, in view of the now rapidl>- rising tide
 
 474 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 of anti-Christian thought. The sad question which he had 
 asked in 1877 in respect of tendencies which he deplored, 
 'What can one writer do against this misfortune?' was no 
 longer in place. There was since then a new Pontiff, 
 whose policy might well depart from the ' non possumus ' 
 which Pius IX.'s later history had forced upon him in 
 politics, and which he had sometimes extended to the intel- 
 lectual movements of the day as well as to the political. And 
 Newman himself, as a Cardinal of Holy Church, might 
 have an influence in high quarters which as a mere writer 
 he could never attain. He meant to lose no time in urging 
 on Rome itself the policy which since the days of his 
 Dublin campaign he had so keenly felt to be necessary 
 for the education of Catholics — of admitting again within the 
 Church something of the free discussions which the thirteenth 
 century had witnessed, with a view to revising the defences 
 of Christianity to meet new dangers. This involved doing 
 full justice to all that was strongest in the anti-Christian 
 arguments, and replying to them, in place of either banishing 
 them as temptations or caricaturing what was cogent as 
 though it were inept. Not that for a moment he desired the 
 average weak mind to face arguments against Christian faith 
 which might easily perplex it. Indeed, some of his most 
 characteristic letters of this time are directed against such 
 intercourse, on the part of Catholics in general, with anti- 
 Christian thinkers as might weaken the hold of religion on 
 their imagination. But there must (he held) be a body of 
 really cogent theological and philosophical reasoning in the 
 Catholic schools, to fall back upon and to inspire confidence 
 in thoughtful men ; and this could only be elaborated by 
 frankly and freely testing in actual warfare the strength 
 of the existing apologetic and discarding what was in- 
 adequate. ' When I see a clever and thoughtful young 
 man,' he used to say at this time, ' I feel a kind of awe and 
 even terror in thinking of his future. How will he be able 
 to stand against the intellectual flood that is setting in 
 against Christianity ? ' 
 
 In his reminiscences of the thoughts and tasks which 
 occupied the Cardinal in his last years, Father Neville, his 
 constant companion, writes as follows :
 
 FINAL TASKS (18S0-1886) 475 
 
 ' He gave himself much to the aid of persons of high 
 culture and power of thought, whose difficulties were intel- 
 lectual with regard to the faith, even as to belief in God ; 
 yet were earnest to do right if only they could be sure of 
 the Truth. Trials such as these appealed to him especially, 
 and drew forth his most tender sympathy. Moreover, he 
 was conscious that he himself could do much for the relief 
 of these persons, which others ordinarily could not ; and he 
 had it greatly at heart to draw them nearer to the Church 
 and nearer to God. To make persons who were Catholics 
 happy in their religion was also, to him, another great aim. 
 
 ' Services such as these occupied him a great deal, and 
 influenced him very much in works which he undertook to do.' 
 
 In a memorandum belonging to his last years Cardinal 
 Newman thus expresses himself: 
 
 ' From the time that I began to occupy my mind with 
 theological subjects I have been troubled at the prospect, 
 which I considered to lie before us, of an intellectual move- 
 ment against religion, so special as to have a claim upon the 
 attention of all educated Christians. As early as 1826 I 
 wrote, " As the principles of science are in process of time 
 more fully developed, and become more independent of the 
 religious system, there is much danger lest the philosophical 
 school should be found to separate from the Christian 
 Church, and at length disown the parent to whom it has 
 been so greatly indebted. And this evil has in a measure 
 befallen us," &c. &c. ("Univ. Serm.," p. 14). This grave 
 apprehension led me to consider the evidences, as they arc 
 called, of Religion generally, and the intellectual theory on 
 which they are based. This I attempted with the purpose, 
 as far as lay in my power, not certainly of starting doubts 
 about religion, but of testing and perfecting the proofs in its 
 behalf. In literal warfare, weapons are tested before they 
 are brought into use, and the men are not called traitors who 
 test them.' 
 
 In another memorandum, a copy of which he sent during 
 his last years ^ to the present writer, the Cardinal urged the 
 necessity of drawing up a systematic statement of the main 
 points on which there was a divergence between the conclu- 
 sions generally received among men of science, including the 
 Biblical and historical critics, and the generally received 
 opinions in the theological schools. Such a statement ought, 
 ' It was sent in 1886, but had been written, I believe, a few years earlier.
 
 476 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 he said, to be forwarded to Rome with strong representations 
 as to the urgent necessity, with a view to protecting the faith 
 of the young, that these questions should be fully and candidly 
 discussed among Catholic theologians and men of science 
 with the sanction of Rome itself Such frank debate would 
 result in the erection of an authority on the subjects in 
 question, which would inspire general confidence. 
 
 Newman's first thought was to return to Rome him- 
 self and open his mind to his brother Cardinals and, above 
 all, to the Holy Father. In his " Reminiscences " Father 
 Neville states that, on the occasion of his visit to Rome in 
 1879, some of the Cardinals had greatly attracted Newman, 
 and he desired to resume conversation with his colleagues 
 on subjects which had largely inspired his own writings. 
 
 ' He determined, therefore,' writes Father Neville, ' to 
 return to Rome for a time, as soon as the re-establishment 
 of his health would allow it, looking forward to talking with 
 some who had not followed him in all his writings, and 
 to becoming conversant with many matters of interest and 
 importance. Moreover, and above all things, he desired to 
 open his mind fully to the Holy Father on those educational 
 subjects which had occupied him so much, and concerning 
 which his knowledge and experience were exceptional. 
 
 ' The earliest days of the approaching March (1880) had 
 been fixed by him for his departure, but disappointment again 
 overtook him ; an accident which fractured two of his ribs 
 confined him to his home, and the opportunity thus lost never 
 returned. Each successive year left its deeper mark of age 
 upon him. One thing and another made the prospect of his 
 going to Rome more and more distant, till it became con- 
 templated only in case of some emergency incidental to his 
 position as Cardinal calling him thither ; or, should the Holy 
 Father's position become perilous, as at one time seemed not 
 unlikely, then he, as would beseem a Cardinal, would be at 
 his side.' 
 
 One extremely interesting fact is recorded by Father 
 Neville in the same connection. A Cardinal was eligible 
 to the Papacy, and Father Neville drew from Newman a 
 statement as to what he should do in the highly improbable, 
 but still not impossible event that he should some day be 
 called on himself to decide the policy of the Church on the 
 questions of the day. 
 
 I
 
 FINAL TASKS (1880-1886) 477 
 
 ' Speaking in a matter-of-fact manner, but with grave 
 seriousness,' writes Father Neville, ' he went on to say that 
 his time would necessarily be too brief for him to do anything 
 himself, " but this I could do," he said, " appoint and organise 
 commissions on various subjects, and thus advance work for 
 another to take up if he willed. That would be the work 
 for me to do. It would have to begin at once, without any 
 delay." Having said that, then with the briskness and relief 
 as of one now seeing and knowing his way, he made mention 
 of a Pope elected at ninety-three and dying at ninety-six, 
 who had done a great work at that age and in that short 
 time.' 
 
 The subjects he specified to Father Neville, as specially 
 needing such commissions for their consideration, were Biblical 
 criticism and the history of the Early Church ; and the com- 
 missions would have to make a full and candid report to be 
 dealt with by his successor as he should think fit. 
 
 While thus anxious for a satisfactory intellectual treatment 
 of the bearing on Christian faith of those researches which were 
 leading so many to reject it, Newman showed in his letters — 
 as I have already intimated — a keen sense of the part played 
 by intercourse with unbelievers in predisposing the mind to 
 exaggerate the force of their arguments. 
 
 The following letters illustrate this view. They are 
 addressed to Miss Bowles, who had told him of a common 
 friend who lived much in the intellectual world of London 
 and had ceased to be a Catholic or Christian : 
 
 To Miss Bowles. 
 
 ' January 5, 1882. 
 ' I think those shocking imaginations against everything 
 supernatural and sacred, are as really diseases of the soul, 
 as complaints of the body arc, and become catching and 
 epidemic, by contact or neighbourhood or company, (of 
 course the will comes in, aS a condition of their being caught, 
 as, on the other hand, in the cures effected by St. Paul's 
 handkerchiefs and aprons, faith would be a condition). But 
 were I deliberately to frcciuent the society, the parties of 
 clever infidels, I should expect all sorts of imaginations 
 contrary to Revealed Truth, not based on reason, but 
 fascinating or distressing, unsettling visions, to take posses- 
 sion of me. . . . This does not apply to intercourse with 
 hereditary and religious Protestants, but to our Heresiarchs, 
 to the preachers of infidel science, and our infidel literati and
 
 478 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 philosophers. This leads me on to recur in thought to 
 the fierce protests and shuddering aversion with which 
 St. John, St. Polycarp, and Origen are recorded to have 
 met such as Marcion and his fellows— and, though it may- 
 be impossible to take their conduct as a pattern to copy 
 literally, yet I think we should avoid familiar intercourse 
 with infidel poets, essayists, historians, men of science, as 
 much as ever we can lawfully. I am speaking of course of 
 such instruments of evil as really propagate evil. 
 
 ' As to your very distressing intelligence, which has led 
 to the above, I should hope and pray, hoping with great hope, 
 and praying with great anxiety, that like a bodily complaint 
 it will at length run its course, though the course may be 
 long. 
 
 ' It yet pains my hand to write.' 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 'June 15, 1882. 
 
 ' I do really think it an epidemic, and wonderfully 
 catching. It does not spread by the reason, but by the 
 imagination. The imagination presents a possible, plausible 
 view of things which haunts and at length overcomes the 
 mind. We begin by asking " How can we be sure that it 
 is not so ? " and this thought hides from the mind the real 
 rational grounds on which our faith is founded. Then our 
 faith goes, and how in the world is it ever to be regained, 
 except by a wonderful grant of God's grace? May God keep 
 us all from this terrible deceit of the latter days. What is 
 coming upon us ? I look with keen compassion on the next 
 generation and with, I may say, awe.' 
 
 While, during the years from 1880 to 1884, Newman 
 cherished the hope of going in person to Rome, he resumed 
 the tasks which the Cardinalate had interrupted. He com- 
 pleted the two * Athanasius ' volumes, and from the papers of 
 Mr. William Palmer, brother of the late Lord Selborne, he 
 compiled a volume called ' Notes of a Visit to the Russian 
 Church in 1840-41.' He also projected a Latin version of 
 selections from his own writings with a view to bringing some 
 of his views more easily before his fellow-Catholics in other 
 countries and the authorities in Rome. ' He looked forward 
 with great brightness to the prosecution of this plan,' writes 
 Father Neville. ' Not only would it have been easy to him, 
 but also congenial, inasmuch as he was distrustful of foreign
 
 FINAL TASKS (1880-1886) 479 
 
 translations giving correct expression to his ideas. He had 
 gone as far in this intention as to make some beginnings 
 as specimens of his plan, when unforeseen causes hindered 
 him, and meanwhile it became too late.' 
 
 Death continued to come in these years to relations and 
 intimate friends. The Cardinal knew well that his own time 
 might arrive any day. His mind dwelt constantly (Father 
 Neville used to tell me) on the awful change in prospect, and 
 on all it meant in the light of Christian faith. And in some 
 sense merely human affections paled in that light which he 
 was ever striving to see more clearly. When his sister, 
 Mrs. John Mozley, died on Christmas Day, 1879, he wrote to 
 her children that he had said Mass for her soul. The letter 
 appeared to them to be marked by a certain absence of 
 expressions of affection, and her son sent him a letter in 
 which, while expressing his confidence in the love of the 
 brother for the sister, he recorded the impression made 
 upon the family. The Cardinal wrote thus in reply : 
 
 ' The Oratory : Feb. 26, 1880. 
 
 ' My very dear John, — Thank you for your affectionate 
 letter, which I am glad to have, though how to answer it 
 I scarcely know, more than if it were written in a language 
 I could not read. From so different a standpoint do we 
 view things. 
 
 ' Looking beyond this life, my first prayer, aim, and hope 
 is that I may see God. The thought of being blest with the 
 sight of earthly friends pales before that thought. I believe 
 that I shall never die ; this awful prospect would crush me, 
 were it not that I trusted and prayed that it would be an 
 eternity in God's Presence. How is eternity a boon, unless 
 He goes with it ? 
 
 ' And for others dear to me, my one prayer is that they 
 may sec God. 
 
 ' It is the thought of God, His Presence, His strength, 
 which makes up, which repairs all bereavements. 
 
 '" Give what Thou wilt, without Thee we are poor, 
 And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away." 
 
 ' I prayed it might be so, when I lost so many friends 
 thirty-five years ago : what else could I look to ? 
 
 ' If then, as you rightly remind me, I said Mass for your 
 dear Mother, it was to entreat the Lover of souls that, in His 
 own way and in His own time. He would remove all the
 
 48o LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 distance which lay between the Sovereign Good and her, His 
 creature. That is the first prayer, sine qua non, introductory 
 to all prayers, and the most absorbing. What can I say 
 more to you .'' 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Cardinal Newman.' 
 
 In the following year Newman lost his dear and faithful 
 friend. Mother Imelda Poole, Provincial of the Dominican 
 Sisters. Shortly after her death he paid a visit to the Convent 
 at Stone that he might say Mass for her in her own home. 
 One of the Sisters has thus described the occasion : 
 
 'In the November of 1881 Cardinal Newman had the 
 extraordinary kindness to pay us a visit to console us after 
 the death of our own beloved Mother Imelda, and say Mass 
 for her here. After his breakfast, he came to the Community 
 Room, and spoke to us in the most beautiful and touching 
 way, of the joj/^ we ought to have in the midst of our bereave- 
 ment. He said that in spite of great care to forget nothing 
 he would require, he had forgotten his ring, and when vesting 
 for Mass had asked Dr. Northcote whether there was such a 
 thing in the house. Then he heard that on the 2nd of June 
 1868 Dr. Ullathorne had given the ring with which he had 
 been consecrated Bishop to Mother Imelda as a memorial of 
 her appointment as Provincial. "And t/its ring," he said, 
 " I am wearing now on the occasion of my visit to her 
 children." The consecration of the Bishop of Birmingham 
 was the first occasion on which Mother Margaret and Dr. 
 Newman met : the ring will now have a fourfold association. 
 
 ' After dinner the Cardinal asked to be taken to the Choir 
 that he might pray by Mother Margaret's and Mother 
 Imelda's graves. He knelt by them for some time in silent 
 prayer, evidently deeply moved. There was a most wonderful 
 hush and silence all the time : no sound in doors or out, but 
 a profound stillness. It was a dull grey morning : but as we 
 .still knelt there one clear bright ray of .sunshine suddenly 
 darted through the casement and fell directly on the grave of 
 our dearest Mother Imelda. The effect of ^/lat silence and 
 that sudden ray of light was something impossible to describe. 
 
 ' When he came away he said to Mother Y. Raphael, " I 
 would not have missed this for the world." ' 
 
 Cardinal Newman's feeling as to the true way of looking 
 at death is apparent in the very touching intercourse, two 
 years later, with his old Oriel friend Mark Pattison. They had
 
 FINAL TASKS (1880-1886) 481 
 
 met but once since 1845, and now the Cardinal heard in 
 December 1883 that his friend was gravely ill, and not likely 
 to live long. The incident is recorded by Father Neville, and 
 I give it in his words ^ : 
 
 A mutual friend had told him that what would be 
 Mr. Pattison's last illness had evidently set in, and that as to 
 religious belief he was in a most desolate state ; and, more- 
 over, that no one would be likely to have good effect upon 
 him, unless it were the Cardinal himself The Cardinal was 
 rather seriously ill in bed with bronchitis when this sad news 
 came, but, at once, he determined to do what he felt would 
 be best — to go himself to the sick man. The doctors gave 
 their forebodings of what would be the result to himself if he 
 went, but he would not be deterred. * Is the little life left 
 me.' he said, ' to be weighed against the chance of good 
 in a case such as this ? Let the doctors say what they will, 
 I shall go ! ' He set to work in his own quiet way. He 
 wrote at once to Mr. Pattison : 
 
 * The Oratory, Birmingham : Dec. 27, 1883. 
 
 'My very dear Pattison, — I grieve to hear that you are 
 very unwell. How is it that I, who am so old, am carried on 
 in years beyond my juniors ? 
 
 ' This makes me look back in my thoughts forty years, 
 when you, with Dalgairns and so many others now gone, 
 were entering into life. 
 
 * For the sake of those dear old days, 1 cannot help 
 writing to you. Is there any way in which I can serve you ? 
 At least I can give you my prayers, such as they are. 
 
 * Yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Card. Newman.' 
 
 The reply came at once : 
 
 'Lincoln College, Oxford : Dec. 28, 1883. 
 
 ' When your letter, my dear master, was brought to 
 my bedside this morning and I saw your well-known hand- 
 writing, my eyes filled so with tears that I could not at first 
 see to read what you had said. 
 
 ' When I found in what affectionate terms you addressed 
 me, I felt guilty, for I thought, would he do so, if he knew 
 how far I have travelled on the path which leads quite away 
 from those ideas which I once — about 1845- 1846 — shared 
 with him ? 
 
 ' I have added a few of my own, but only as connecting-links to Father 
 Neville's notes. 
 
 VOL. n. I I
 
 482 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' Or is your toleration so large, that though you knew 
 me to be in grievous error, you could still embrace me as a 
 son ? 
 
 ' If I have not dared to approach you in any way of 
 recent years, it has been only from the fear that you might 
 be regarding me as coming to you under false colours. 
 
 ' The veneration and affection which I felt for you at the 
 time you left us, are in no way diminished, and however 
 remote my intellectual standpoint may now be from that 
 which I may presume to be your own, I can still truly say 
 that I have learnt more from you than from any one else 
 with whom I have ever been in contact. 
 
 * Let me subscribe myself for the last time 
 
 ' Your affectionate son and pupil, 
 
 Mark Pattison.' 
 
 Even at such a moment the Cardinal evidently felt it his 
 duty not to allow his large-hearted sympathy to be inter- 
 preted as an abstract doctrine of latitudinarianism. But he 
 made up his mind to see his friend as soon as he was 
 physically able to do so. 
 
 'January 2, 1884. 
 
 ' My dear Pattison, — On consideration I find it a duty to 
 answer your question to me about toleration. 
 
 * I am then obliged to say that what Catholics hold upon 
 it, I hold with them. 
 
 ' That God, who knows the heart, may bless you now 
 and ever is the fervent prayer of your most affectionate 
 friend 
 
 'John H. Card. Newman.' 
 
 'January 4, 1884. 
 
 ' My dear Pattison, — I am now well enough after a cold, 
 which has kept me to my room or my bed for a month, to 
 ask you whether you are strong enough to see me, did I call 
 on you. 
 
 * If you tell me yes, or at least do not say no, I am 
 strongly moved to come to you next Monday, between 11.58 
 and 2.48. 
 
 * I hope this abrupt letter will not try you. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 J. H. Newman.' 
 
 The sick man hesitated at the sudden proposal of a visit 
 which could not but cause deep emotion and perhaps great 
 pain. Nevertheless the Cardinal went and took his chance.
 
 FINAL TASKS (i88o-i886) 483 
 
 'January 8, 1884. 
 ' My dear Pattison, — As you only said " no " to my 
 coming to see you on Monday, but implied I might come 
 to you some other day, I will make a call to-morrow, 
 Wednesday. 
 
 ' You need not see me if it is too much for you — but 
 my coming will not be sudden now, as it would have been 
 then. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 J. H. Card. Newman.' 
 
 ' To Oxford then the Cardinal went,' continues Father 
 Neville. ' He had not had any extraordinary expectations 
 when on his way, for he knew that the distance unbelief had 
 travelled was immense, and that its cancerous wound was too 
 deep, and had been too long lasting, and too long trifled with, 
 to be cured quickly ; but when leave-taking outside the house 
 door in the college quadrangle, the appearance of both was 
 singularly striking and pleasing to see. Perhaps the like had 
 never occurred before — a parting such as that — two so far 
 from ordinary men, each at the brink of his grave. They 
 had passed some hours together alone ; each knew that 
 neither the other nor himself could live long ; neither could 
 say which was the likely one to be first called away. 
 
 ' The result of the visit will no doubt be asked for, but 
 it will be in vain ; for the Cardinal was not the sort of person 
 to say much on what was so grave, so anxious, so private as 
 this, the result of which must be in the hands of God. Never 
 the less, what he did say was expressive of satisfaction and 
 of hope. The journey, far from exhausting him, apparently 
 quite set him up. 
 
 ' Mr. Pattison died in the spring.' 
 
 During these years Newman's thoughts seem to have 
 often turned back to early days. He wrote about the old 
 home at Ham, and he corresponded with some of his rela- 
 tions from whom he had been long separated. On Easter 
 Eve in 1881 he dwells on his early recollections of his mother 
 in a letter to his cousin, Mrs. Deane. 
 
 On January 5, 1882, in a letter to his old family friend. 
 Sister Maria Pia, he recalls the loss of his dear sister 
 Mary : 
 
 ' This is the anniversary of my dear Mary's death in 
 1828, — an age ago ; but she is as fresh in my memory and 
 as dear to my heart as if it were yesterday ; and often I 
 
 I I 2
 
 484 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 cannot mention her name without tears coming into my 
 eyes.' 
 
 Very gentle and tender is a letter written in the same 
 year to his cousin and contemporary, Miss Eliza Fourdrinier : 
 
 ' My dear Eliza, — Your letter has made me very sad, 
 especially at the thought of your solitariness, as being the 
 only one left of your family. Thank you for writing to me. 
 It recalls so many past days and pleasant meetings of which 
 you and I are now almost the sole living witnesses. For 
 many years I have had it in my mind to attempt to find you 
 out, but I am so little from home, and with so many engage- 
 ments when I am in London, and felt so uncertain of your 
 abode, that I have never succeeded, and now I am too old 
 to think of it. 
 
 ' I recollect well the last time I saw you, I think [with] 
 Annie, and your dear Mother, who seemed to me to be look- 
 ing older than when I had last seen her. If I am right, this 
 was July 30th, 1844. She died in 1850. I believe I know 
 the days of death of all of you. 
 
 ' May God guard and protect you, and be with you now 
 and in the future. 
 
 ' If I can find a photograph of me, since you speak of 
 portraits, I will send you one. 
 
 * Yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Card. Newman.' 
 
 Before the idea of visiting Rome had been finally 
 abandoned, one or two English Catholics of influence had, 
 with the concurrence of some of the Bishops, re-opened the 
 discussion of the proposal that Catholics should be allowed to 
 finish their education at Oxford. This was one of the very 
 matters which Newman had intended himself to discuss with 
 the Holy Father. Unable to leave England himself, he 
 gladly authorised those who were proposing to make the 
 journey to place his own views on the subject before Pope 
 Leo. In the event he put his opinions in writing. But 
 before quoting his words on the subject it will be interesting 
 to cite a very touching letter in which he responded to an 
 invitation from Lord Braye, who was about to go to Rome 
 himself, to come and discuss the whole subject by word 
 of mouth. The invitation was given by one who when 
 writing it referred sadly to the difficulty he had found in
 
 FINAL TASKS (1880-1886) 485 
 
 getting such urgent needs attended to — the effort expended, 
 the unsatisfactory result. The Cardinal's health did not allow 
 of his accepting the invitation : but his heart went out in 
 sympathy for his correspondent's complaint. He wrote as 
 follows : 
 
 * Birmingham : Oct. 29, 1882. 
 
 * My dear Lord Braye, — I thank you for your most 
 touching letter, which I think I quite understand and in 
 which I deeply sympathise. First, however, let me say a 
 word about myself. ... I am thankful to say that I am 
 at present quite free from any complaint, as far as I know, 
 but I am over eighty, and it is with difficulty that I walk, 
 eat, read, write or talk. My breath is short and my brain 
 works slow, and, like other old men, I am so much the 
 creature of hours, rooms, and of routine generally, that to 
 go from home is almost like tearing off my skin, and I 
 suffer from it afterwards. On the other hand, except in 
 failure of memory, and continual little mistakes in the 
 use of words, and confusion in the use of names, I am not 
 conscious that my mind is weaker than it was. 
 
 ' Now this is sadly egotistical ; but I want you to under- 
 stand why it is that I do not accept your most kind 
 invitations, any more than I have Lord Denbigh's, I decline 
 both with real pain ; and thank you both. But I have real 
 reasons, which friends sometimes will not believe, for they 
 come and see me and say : " How well you are looking ! " 
 
 'Now what can I say in answer to your letter? First, 
 that your case is mine. It is for years beyond numbering — 
 in one view of the matter for these fifty years — that I have 
 been crying out : " I have laboured in vain ; I have spent 
 my strength without cause, and in vain ; wherefore my 
 judgment is with the Lord and my work with my God." 
 Now at the end of my days, when the next world is close 
 upon me, I am recognised at last at Rome. Don't suppose 
 I am dreaming of complaint ; just the contrary. The 
 Prophet's words, which expressed my keen pain, brought, 
 because they were his words, my consolation. It is the rule 
 of God's Providence that we should succeed by failure ; and 
 my moral is, as addressed to you : " Doubt not that He will 
 use you — be brave — have faith in His love for you, — His 
 everlasting love — and love Him from the certainty that He 
 loves you." 
 
 ' 1 cannot write more today, and since it is easier thus 
 to write, than to answer your direct questions, I think it
 
 486 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 better to write to you at once than to keep silence. May 
 the best blessings from above come down upon you — and 
 they will. I am, my dear Lord Braye, 
 
 ' Yours (may I say ?) affectionately 
 
 John H. Card. Newman.' 
 
 Bishop Hedley, Lord Braye, and Mr. Hartwell Grissell 
 obtained an audience of the Holy Father early in the year 
 1883. During the interview the Pope made several inquiries 
 relative to the English Universities, and wished to know if 
 Catholics frequented them. Lord Braye, in pressing for the 
 removal of the prohibition, laid before the Pontiff a transla- 
 tion in Italian of a letter he had received from Cardinal 
 Newman, in which he had urged that a great opportunity, 
 and a great necessity, for Catholic influence at Oxford was 
 afforded by the existing state of the University. 
 
 The letter, dated November 2, 1882, is as follows : 
 
 ' The cardinal question for the moment is the Oxford 
 question. Dear Pusey is gone. Canon Liddon has mysteri- 
 ously given up his Professorship. The undergraduates and 
 Junior Fellows are sheep without a shepherd. They are 
 sceptics or inquirers, quite open for religious influences. It 
 is a moment for the Catholic Mission in Oxford to seize 
 an opportunity which never may come again. The Jesuits 
 have Oxford men and able men among them. I doubt not 
 that they are doing (as it is) great good there ; but I suppose 
 they dread the dislike and suspicion which any forward act 
 of theirs would rouse. But is it not heart piercing that 
 such an opportunity should be lost? The Liberals are 
 sweeping along in triumph, without any Catholic or religious 
 influence to stem them now that Pusey and Liddon are 
 gone. 
 
 ' This is what I feel at the moment, but, alas, it is only 
 one out of various manifestations of what may be called 
 Nihilism in the Catholic Body, and in its rulers. They 
 forbid, but they do not direct or create. I should fill many 
 sheets of paper if I continued my exposure of this fact, so 
 I pass on to my second thought. 
 
 ' The Holy Father must be put up to this fact, and must 
 be made to understand the state of things with us. 
 
 ' And I think he ought to do this ; — he should send here 
 some man of the world, impartial enough to take in two 
 sides of a subject, — not a politician, or one who would be 
 thought to have anything to do with politics. Such a
 
 FINAL TASKS (1880-1886) 487 
 
 person should visit (not a " visitorial " visit) all parts of 
 England, and he should be able to talk English. He should 
 be in England a whole summer. 
 
 ' Next, how is the Pope to be persuaded to this > by 
 some Englishman in position ; one or two so much the 
 better. They should talk French or Italian, and remain 
 in Rome some months. This would be the first step.' 
 
 It remains to add that Leo XIII. listened with great 
 interest to the letter, and said that he would place Newman's 
 views before Cardinal Manning. This letter doubtless pre- 
 pared the Holy Father's mind for the representations made 
 ten years later, which led to the withdrawal by the Holy 
 See of the law which forbade Catholics to frequent the 
 national Universities.^ 
 
 Cardinal Newman was in these years especially kind and 
 encouraging to those younger men who hoped to continue the 
 work of Catholic and Christian apologetic after he was gone. 
 The writings of Mr. W. S. Lilly had already for some time 
 engaged his close attention. He took a great interest in 
 the Catholic Truth Society, which was being organised by 
 Mr. James Britten, He used his influence to ensure fair play 
 all round in controversial writing ; and, while strongly de- 
 precating unfair special pleading on the Catholic side, went 
 out of his way to protest against Dr. Littledale's ' Plain 
 Reasons against Joining the Church of Rome,' which he 
 regarded as an untruthful book.^ 
 
 ' See the preface to Murphy's History of the Catholic Church in England 
 (Burns & Oates, 1892), in which the question is discussed and the above 
 interview mentioned. 
 
 * He protested against the book being circulated by a respectable society like 
 the Christian Knowledge Society, with the result that it was struck off their list. 
 ♦I am more than pleased,' he writes to Dean Church on December 21, 1881, 
 * with the result of my drawing attention to the Christian Knowledge Society's 
 shameful circulation of Dr. L.'s book I say " shameful " because such a Society 
 should not sanction a controversial work till it has gone through a careful revision. 
 Fifty years ago, when Blanco White's work was on the list, no complaint, as 
 I think, could lie against the Society, because he was a witness of what he said, 
 and, if he coloured facts, it was not intentionally ; but Dr. L.'s book shocks me. 
 However, for this very reason, because it thus affects me, I am sure that it will 
 also, in the same way, more or less, affect others— and I have quite sufficient 
 proofs that it has. ... I wished to protest against unfair controversy, and thereby 
 to draw attention to it. Even if half of Dr. L.'s book was true, that was no 
 excuse for the other half being untrue.'
 
 488 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Father Ignatius Ryder's book on ' Catholic Controversy ' 
 (in reply to Dr. Littledale^ received the Cardinal's especial 
 approval. I had my own share in such encouragement, and 
 the circumstances which led to it have a certain interest in 
 connection with the Cardinal's life as they brought about a 
 kind of posthumous reconciliation with my father. My father 
 died in July 1882, and though the Cardinal wrote to the 
 family and said that he had offered Mass for his soul, the 
 letter was not such as to make us feel that my father's 
 opposition to the Oxford scheme and his general attitude 
 in later years towards the leader who had been all in all to 
 him at Oxford was forgiven. In the same year I published 
 in the Nineteenth Century a dialogue called the ' Wish to 
 Believe,' and it was partly the interest in it expressed by 
 the Cardinal to a common friend which made me expand it 
 into a book. The Cardinal read it in its enlarsred form. 
 
 On Christmas Day I received the following letter from 
 him with ' A happy Christmas to you ' written across the 
 first page : 
 
 ' Dec. 20th, 1884. 
 
 ' Dear Wilfrid Ward, — I thus familiarly address you on 
 the plea that I was familiar with your Father before you 
 were born ; also because when an old man feels, as I do 
 after reading your book, great pleasure in the work of 
 another, he may speak of its author and to its author, with 
 a freedom not warranted by personal intimacy. But my 
 fingers move slow, and by this slowness so puzzle my brain 
 that I lose the thread of what I want to say. 
 
 ' I do really think your Essay a very successful one, and 
 I have more to say of it than I have room or leisure to say 
 it in. 
 
 ' First you are dramatic, which is a quality of great 
 excellence in a dialogue. It would never do for your argu- 
 ments to profess to be irrefragable, and your opponent simply 
 to be convinced by them. Also, it is the only way in which 
 you can secure a fair and complete hearing for him, and his 
 side of the question debated. 
 
 ' Next, you are outspoken and bold. You are not afraid 
 of enunciating what so many will consider a paradox. You 
 have the advantage, (and this enables you to be bold) of 
 knowing that you have no chance of hazarding any state- 
 ment which a rigid Catholic critic could accuse as censurable 
 This is what makes controversy to a Catholic so difficult.
 
 FINAL TASKS (1880-1886) 489 
 
 ' As to the matter and main argument of your Essay, it 
 seems to me you mean to say that the same considerations 
 which make you wish to believe are among the reasons 
 which, when you actually do inquire, Lead you prudently to 
 believe, thus serving a double purpose. Do you bring this 
 out anywhere? On the contrary, are you not shy of calling 
 those considerations reasons ? Why ? 
 
 ' You seem to me to insist, with an earnestness for which 
 I doubt not you have some good reason, on the difference 
 between believing and realizing (which is pretty much, 
 I suppose, what in the "Grammar of Assent" I have called 
 " Notional " and " Real " assent) and to be unwilling freely to 
 grant from the first that there must be more grounds in 
 reason to a religious mind, whereas in fact a religious mind 
 must always master much which is unseen to the non- 
 religious ; (not that there is any real difference of view 
 between us) — thus you allow of two men with the same 
 evidence and equal reasoning powers \i€\x\^ prima facie likely 
 to come to the same conclusion, whereas I should say to 
 Darlington ' " Stop there— I can't allow that a religious man 
 has no more evidence, necessarily, than a non-religious." I 
 wonder whether I make myself intelligible. It is only the 
 mode of your stating and arguing on this point which I do 
 not comfortably follow. And you may have reasons I do 
 not know. 
 
 ' I am very tired. . ^ours affectly, 
 
 J. H. Card. Newman.' 
 
 Marginal note. 'You have expressed just what I want 
 p, 192. " A man who looks," &c.' 
 
 To his criticism I replied that while — as he noted in his 
 remark written after the letter was finished — I had actually 
 said what he wanted, the form of my argument called 
 primarily for the delineation of those qualities in the religious 
 mind which made the same facts in some instances more 
 significant to it than they were to the non-religious. That 
 those same qualities also made the mind see additional 
 evidence I had admitted. But both results had to be stated. 
 
 I was asked at this time by the English Catholic bishops 
 
 to give some lectures on modern unbelief at the great College 
 
 of Ushaw, near Durham, in which the future priests for the 
 
 north of England are educated. It was in January 1885, 
 
 ' One of the speakers in the dialogue.
 
 490 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 while paying a visit to Bishop Vaughan at Salford, that I 
 arranged to do this, and, encouraged by Cardinal Newman's 
 letter of the previous month, I wrote to ask if I might call on 
 him on my homeward way through Birmingham, and talk 
 over the general plan of the lectures with him before deliver- 
 ing them. He responded most kindly, and on January 31 
 I arrived. Much of our conversation was of interest. But 
 the most interesting thing to me was that when we talked 
 of my father, while he remained quite unmoved when I 
 told him that my father's love for him had never changed, he 
 was very greatly moved on learning that my father had 
 wanted me to read philosophy and theology at the Bir- 
 mingham Oratory in order to be under his influence. This 
 touched the mainspring of the long estrangement. Want 
 of trust had struck deeper than mere opposition, and an 
 unmistakable sign that very much of the old confidence in 
 the value of his guidance had remained, did far more to 
 obliterate past resentment than the knowledge of any 
 merely affectionate feeling on my father's side. 
 
 I subjoin a selection from the record of our talks together 
 made by me at the time : 
 
 ' I arrived at Birmingham on the afternoon of Friday 
 J any 30th, and having first left my portmanteau at the 
 " Plough and Harrow " went to the Oratory. I asked for 
 Father Norris, as I thought he could tell me best what was 
 the most likely hour for the Cardinal to see me, but I had 
 not been waiting three minutes in the guest room when the 
 Cardinal himself appeared. He walked without a stick, but 
 feebly and with effort I thought. He first asked " Where is 
 your luggage ? Of course you must stay with us some days." 
 I said it was at the Hotel and he wanted to send for it, but 
 I said it was unpacked already, and thanking him very much 
 added that the " Plough and Harrow" was so very near that 
 being there was almost like being in the Oratory. He then 
 said " What are your plans ? What are your movements ? 
 Can you stay at least over next Tuesday. Tomorrow is a 
 busy day with many and the next day is Sunday, and they 
 would be disappointed not to make your acquaintance. 
 Father Somebody (I forget who) is not coming back till 
 Monday and he would be so sorry to have missed you." All 
 this was evidently meant to show that the invitation was 
 bona fide, but I had to say that I was obliged to be in London
 
 FINAL TASKS (1880-1886) 491 
 
 on Saturday evening. He then arranged that I should stay 
 for dinner. " We will have a good talk tomorrow morning," 
 he .said. " Though, thank God, I am wonderfully well, I am 
 not at all strong, and I have to be careful as to when and 
 how long together I talk." He then asked me about the 
 lectures I was proposing to give at Ushaw on Modern 
 Infidelity, about which I had already written to him. I said 
 that my great difficulty was that 1 felt, from all that I had 
 seen of young men of 18 and 19 in Catholic Schools, that 
 the first step in making them understand the danger at all or 
 take any intelligent interest in the subject, must involve such 
 an exposition both of the reality of unbelief as an existing 
 fact and of its plausibility from a certain point of view, as at 
 first to shake the faith of my hearers possibly, or at least to 
 take away from it, in some cases, its security and repose. 
 He replied that he was very glad I saw this danger, and that 
 being alive to it was the best security that I should be on 
 my guard in the matter. " I have just been corresponding 
 with Dr. Cavanagh," he said, "on this very subject. He 
 wrote to ask m.y advice as to putting infidel difficulties before 
 young Catholics, and I put before him the very thing you 
 are now saying. I think no one could tread safely on such 
 delicate ground as the foundations of faith with young men 
 of the age of 18 to 22, who was not on his guard as to the 
 danger of unsettling their minds too much and so doing 
 more harm than good." " Still," I said, " you think such 
 lectures desirable ? " " Not only desirable," he replied, " but 
 indispensable. I am only pleased, and I confess rather sur- 
 prised, to learn that Ushaw is alive to the importance of this 
 work. I had thought it sleepy and deficient in intellectual 
 vigour. Young men must be prepared with answers to the 
 intellectual difficulties they will meet with in the world, or in 
 many cases where the strength of the agnostic position is 
 first felt by them in the absence of a very special grace their 
 faith will go suddenly and completely." 
 
 ' He then said that to him it had always seemed that the 
 whole question between belief and unbelief turned upon the 
 first principles assumed, and the great difficulty is that you 
 must assume something ; and yet how are you to prove that 
 our assumptions are right and the infidel's wrong ? " In try- 
 ing to prove you must have assumptions, thus it is vain to 
 attempt to prove your assumptions. If a man says to me 
 conscience does not to me carry any intimation of a Holy 
 God, Christianity does not appeal to me as satisfying my 
 highest nature ; many of its details seem to be contrary to
 
 492 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 the instincts of my better nature, e.g., eternal punishment and 
 original sin ; an eternal destiny seems to me out of propor- 
 tion to human nature ; we are ' over gude for banning and 
 over bad for blessing ' — if I say a man comes to me with 
 these first principles I can't answer him, and I certainly can't 
 prove to him Christianity or Theism are true ; I can only 
 say I think differently and that I believe him to be wrong." 
 I asked him if he did not believe that a man was responsible 
 for his first principles and that wrong first principles were, 
 to a great extent, the outcome of a wrong habit, morally 
 blameworthy in the long run, though perhaps hie et nunc 
 invincible ? " I quite agree with you," he replied, " and that is 
 what you must urge on your young men. Rut of course 
 you would have a difficulty in convincing an infidel that he 
 was to blame for first principles which seem to him only 
 common sense. I remember being with a dear friend of 
 mine shortly before he died and urging on him the testimony 
 our own consciousness bears to the divinity of Christ's 
 message, and he only replied that he found no such testimony 
 in his consciousness, nor did he in any sense feel a yearning 
 for immortality, which was supposed by some to be a proof 
 that we are to look for it ; he rather felt that his time was 
 over and that he wished to go to rest : ' edisti satis lusisti satis 
 atque bibisti, tempus abire tibi.' " The Cardinal then con- 
 tinued to talk on in this hypothetically sceptical vein until 
 dinner time. " I could talk to you for half an hour," he said, 
 "on the common sense of worldliness and the folly of other 
 worldliness. This life is secure and before us. The Christian 
 ideal of life is disproportionate to our nature as we see it. 
 It is based on unreal enthusiasm. Let us make sure of what 
 is before us. Let us perfect our nature in all its aspects 
 and not give the abnormal and unnatural preponderance to 
 the ethical aims which Christianity demands. We speak 
 of our nature as testifying to Christianity. But is this true ? 
 Is it not only a mood which so testifies .'' Does not the 
 calm sober study of mankind and of human nature as a 
 whole lead us to wish for a mens sana in corpore sano, a 
 nature healthy and well developed in its artistic, its intel- 
 lectual, its scientific, its social capacities, as well as in its 
 moral ? Is not the ideal Christian life a very risky venture, 
 based perhaps on a conclusion due to prejudice and fanati- 
 cism ? This is at least too possible a hypothesis to make it 
 wise to venture all in the supposition that Christianity is true 
 and give up the certain pleasures of this life for what is at 
 best so uncertain." He went on in this way for some time,
 
 1^ 
 
 FINAL TASKS (1880-1886) 493 
 
 and soon I was beginning to press him for advice as to the 
 way in which I should deal with any young man who came 
 to me and talked in a similar strain, when the bell rang for 
 dinner. 
 
 ' " We have talked longer than I expected," he said, 
 " but 1 have much more to say if you will come here at 1 1 
 tomorrow morning." 
 
 ' His memory seemed then hazy and he asked if I knew 
 my room, having forgotten that I was not staying in the 
 i house. After dinner the fathers sat round in a semicircle in 
 
 the recreation room. I talked to Father Ryder and a Scotch 
 Father whose name I forget, the Cardinal sitting silent, but 
 occasionally asking what I said if I referred to matters which 
 interested him. He could not hear clearly, apparently, at 
 the distance 1 was from him. After about twenty minutes 
 I in the recreation room, he got up and committed me to the 
 
 charge of Father Ryder, saying that he hoped to see me at 
 II next day. His manner struck me as indicating that he 
 was tired. He smiled little and his face had that critical 
 and rather unhappy look which one sees in some of his 
 photographs. 
 
 ' I arrived at the Oratory punctually at 1 1 o'clock on 
 Saturday morning, and the Cardinal appeared in a very few 
 minutes. I was at once struck by the change in his manner, 
 by an increase of animation and a new brightness in the 
 eye and sweetness of expression. He began at once : " I 
 have been thinking a great deal about you and your lectures, 
 and as my memory is not good now, I will at once mention 
 some of the points which have occurred to me as possibly 
 useful for you. First let us go back to the question of first 
 principles. Of course there can from the nature of the 
 case be no direct proof that one set of first principles is 
 sound, another unsound. But there may be indirect proofs. 
 You may show your young man that if there is a certain 
 earnest and philosophical frame of mind which leads to 
 truth in various subject matters, it is probable that under 
 normal circumstances such a frame of mind will also lead to 
 the adoption of sound first principles. So far as the sceptical 
 habit of mind goes with want of depth and earnestness, you have 
 a strong argument against the probability of sceptical first prin- 
 ciples." He then added after a pause, " I am only suggesting a 
 line of thought for you, you must develop it and illustrate it." 
 I was going to speak, but he said : " Let me now go to another 
 point I have thought of for you lest I forget it. My memory 
 is getting so bad. Take now the other side of the question.
 
 494 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Take the first principles assumed by the unbelievers — the 
 undeviating uniformity of nature, the unknowableness of all 
 but phenomena, the inherent impossibility of knowing about 
 God, the derivation of conscience from association of ideas. 
 These are all, or nearly all, pure assumptions, and I should 
 be inclined to say that if (which God forbid) our belief in 
 God Himself were a pure assumption void of any proof, we 
 should be acting not one whit less unreasonably in holding 
 to our religion than these men in the unbelief they adhere to, 
 based on pure assumptions, entirely unproved." After a few 
 other points we got on the question of miracles, in connection 
 with Huxley's denial of their possibility as being (if they 
 occurred) breaches of nature's uniformity. This he said was 
 far more unreasonable than Matthew Arnold's well-known 
 saying, " The great objection to miracles is that they don't 
 occur." " Now," he said, " I want to ask your opinion 
 of this argument which has occurred to me. I take this 
 paper-knife, I push the inkstand with it. Here is distinctly, 
 through the action of my free will an interference with 
 the laws of nature. If these laws were left to themselves, 
 the knife would remain still and the inkstand unmoved. 
 Take a stronger case, I fire a gunpowder train. See what 
 a tremendous effect I produce in changing the ordinary 
 course of nature. Now, surely it is little to grant that if 
 there be a God, He can do what I can do ; and yet, so far as 
 we know, a miracle amounts to no more than this. Is that 
 a good argument?" I said that I thought I had much better 
 listen and learn than try to pass criticisms on his arguments. 
 " No." he insisted, " I want to know. What I feared was 
 that if it has not already been thought of, there must be some 
 flaw in it Have you seen it anywhere ? " I said that 
 Mansel in his Bampton Lectures gives substantially the same 
 argument, speaking of the chemist's power of modifying the 
 normal action of natural bodies, and Mill in his religious 
 essays, from the opposite standpoint, to some extent, admits its 
 validity. " That relieves me," he said ; " I feared that if none had 
 thought of it, it was not very probable it could be sound." 
 I then said that what I thought would be urged on the other 
 side was this : — When you move the knife and the inkpot, 
 according to the modern phenomenist school, your action is 
 only a part of Nature's uniformity, and not an exception to 
 it. The act of your will is due to physical conditions of the 
 brain ; those conditions are determined by physical ante- 
 cedents — health, climate, the objects surrounding and acting 
 on you, &c., &c, ; thus the change which you determine is depart
 
 FINAL TASKS (1880-1886) 495 
 
 of the constant cycle of cause and effect in the phenomena 
 world, and no exception to it. Of course, if free will is 
 admitted, then it is an exception, but they do not admit it. 
 The action of God on the other hand is supposed to be due 
 to no physical antecedents, and thus is actually an interference. 
 Of course their theory is a great assumption, but your action 
 in moving the paper knife can fit in with their assumption 
 and God's cannot. It seemed to me that he did not get hold 
 of this point, tho' it may be that I failed to grasp his 
 answer. He seemed a trifle irritated, and said : " I only 
 contend that what man can do God can do." We then got 
 on rather lighter subjects, and I alluded to the sceptic's 
 definition of faith as "a quality of mind by which we are 
 enabled to believe those things which we know to be untrue." 
 He liked it and said " I wish you would make a book of 
 such sayings. I remem.ber arguing with an Evangelical 
 friend once, and I gave him a text to answer ; he hesitated 
 and said : ' That is a very unevangelical part of Scripture ' ! " 
 [I have forgotten the text] He soon went back to the 
 lectures. " I would be very particular," he said, " in press- 
 ing on the attention of the young men, the nature of the 
 proof they are to expect on religious subjects. They must 
 not expect too much. Butler somewhere compares the 
 imperfection of the religious argument to the imper- 
 fection of a ruined castle. In many cases the shape of the 
 castle is quite as clearly determined by the ruin which 
 remains as it would be were the castle whole. And so with 
 the proofs of natural and revealed religion. There is enough 
 capable of expression to indicate the shape and character of 
 the proof, though it is in detail very imperfect." After 
 saying one or two more things, he said : " This is all I have 
 to say to you about your lectures, and I shall pray heartily 
 for their success. And now I want to talk to you a little 
 about your father. I wish you could let me know, for it 
 would be news to me, the real secret of our estrangement 
 latterly. He seemed determined to differ from me. I knew 
 too well how much he had the advantage of me in theo- 
 logical reading — he had begun earlier and had given more 
 time to it — to wish to differ from him. I followed him in all I 
 could. But he seemed determined to make the most of our 
 points of difference. I endorsed one of his letters: 'See 
 how this man seeketh to find a quarrel against me.' Can 
 you tell me more of it?" I did not like to go into 
 many particulars, but I said : " Well, as you ask me — 
 does not the history of the Home & Foreign Review
 
 496 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 suggest something to your mind ? " " But surely," he said, 
 " your father never thought I agreed with Acton and 
 Simpson ? " " Not entirely," I said, " but he thought they 
 were a great danger to the Church, and that they gained 
 support from your countenance." " But I never really 
 countenanced them," he said. " Still I could fancy that 
 your father may have thought some of their views the out- 
 come and result of my views ; and that I ought explicitly to 
 have disclaimed all solidarity with them. I own I was angry 
 with him for not seeming to see the importance of avoiding 
 the danger of alienating such able men from the Church. 
 And perhaps I erred on the opposite side. I say it partly in 
 praise, but perhaps partly in blame of myself, that I had 
 a great tenderness for those learned men and excellent 
 scholars, and wished to do all I could to prevent our losing 
 the great advantage which might accrue to the Catholic cause 
 from their services which we should lose if they were simply 
 treated as rebels. But from first to last my opinions were with 
 your father on the questions they raised, tho' I was angry 
 with his tone. Then again, what did he mean by saying to 
 Allies (who repeated it to me) directly the ' Apologia ' came 
 out : * There I told you so ' .'' — ' so ' meaning that I was 
 unsound in my opinions." I said that I thought things ran 
 so high in those days that there was occasionally a want of 
 perspective in my father's way of looking at things — tho' 
 of course it was not for me to speak of the actual points at 
 issue. He seemed at times to exaggerate the importance of 
 things important in the abstract, and not to see that practi- 
 cally people were not logical enough to make the things in 
 question so important in them. For instance, where certain 
 deci-ions of the Holy See were practically accepted, it was 
 possible that his occasionally laying such stress as he did on 
 their actual infallibility, which was at least a matter disputed, 
 might practically give the Pope's words less rather than more 
 weight, as raising a dispute and arousing party feeling. 
 
 * I then said that his affection for the Cardinal had never 
 diminished. " In one sense I knew that," he said, smiling. 
 " In fact I think his theory was that I was all the more 
 dangerous because I was so attractive — that I was a sort 
 of syren of whose fascination all should beware." But by 
 degrees I convinced him that my father's reverence for him, 
 as well as his affection, had never diminished. I told him 
 that my father had wanted me to go to Edgbaston to be 
 under his influence, as he thought I could judge for myself 
 in points of theological difference between them, and that his
 
 
 
 / ^♦^^ ^y^ *^ ^ y^-^- /i y 
 
 Facsimile of the first and last pages of a Letter from 
 Cardinal Newman to Mr. Wilfrid Ward
 

 
 FINAL TASKS (1880- 1886) 497 
 
 personal influence would be invaluable. This touched and 
 surprised the Cardinal extremely. He seemed at first almost 
 incredulous. "It pleases and ojratifies me much to hear that," 
 he said. I told him also — which pleased him — that my father 
 said to me on his death bed : " If ever I recover, one lesson I 
 hope I have learnt in all the pain I have suffered, is that of 
 being gentler and more tolerant. There is an inevitable and 
 natural difference between one mind and another for which I 
 have never made enough allowance." After a little further 
 conversation the Cardinal said : " It has been a real pleasure 
 to me to have this talk with you about your father, and 1 
 hope you will not forget me and will pray for me," Then 
 he gave me as a parting present the last edition of " The 
 Grammar of As.sent " with the added note about eternal 
 punishment.' I sent a letter afterwards thanking him for 
 his kindness, and he wrote in reply : " It pleases me very 
 much to find that you take so kindly the real affection I 
 have for you which has come to me as if naturally from 
 the love I had for your father. You can give me in return 
 your prayers, which I need much." ' 
 
 In the following years I paid several visits to the Cardinal, 
 and had opportunities of learning his views on the questions 
 which so painfully interested him. His mind was perfectly 
 clear, but I gained more by way of confirmation or correction 
 of the inferences from his own writings which I put before 
 him, than from lengthened discourse on his own part, for 
 which he had not sufficient energy. Readers familiar with 
 the last chapter of the * Apologia,' the ' Letter to the Duke 
 of Norfolk,' and the preface to the 'Via Media,' will find 
 little in my recollections for which these works will not 
 have prepared them. Yet, as they make some points more 
 explicit, they are perhaps worth setting down.'^ 
 
 His special anxiety was for two classes of men — first 
 the inquiring minds among his own fellow-countrymen who 
 
 ' On the first page he wrote : ' With the afifectionate regards of John II. 
 Card. Newman,' adding my name and the date. 
 
 ^ These notes are not, like the preceding ones, a contemporary record. I 
 have written them freely, and here and there filled in lactime from the Cardinal'-s 
 own writings. He approved an article which I published in 1S90 in the 
 Nittetceitth Century, under the influence of my intercourse with him, called ' New 
 Wine in Old Bottles,' and he expressed a desire that I should, after his death, 
 deal with the papers he left relating to the philosophy of religion. I mention 
 these facts as my justification for setting down my impressions of his meaning, 
 which here and there go beyond his actual words. 
 
 VOL. II. K K
 
 498 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 shrank from the movement of reh'gious thought towards 
 agnosticism. He felt that the CathoHc Church could give 
 them a support which they could find nowhere else. The 
 visible Church, with its unbroken tradition, appealed alike 
 to the imagination and the reason as bearing witness to 
 religious truth against the unbelieving world. Yet if those 
 very difficulties against the Christian faith which gave power 
 to the agnostic movement were not appreciated by Catholic 
 theologians, inquiring minds who had been affected by that 
 movement could find no home within the Church. In spite 
 of its immense prima facie claims as the immemorial guar- 
 dian of Christian dogma, as the ark rising above the flood 
 of human speculation, its doors would be closed to such 
 men. It would appear to them to demand beliefs which 
 were impossible. 
 
 The other class consisted of persons of the same kind 
 who were already within the Church — men whose studies 
 made them familiar with the main currents of modern 
 thought and the trend of scientific and historical research, 
 and who found traditional theological expositions on certain 
 matters — expositions handed down from pre-scientific times — 
 inadequate to the needs of the hour. There was a real 
 danger lest such men might cease to be Catholics if the 
 theological schools did not become more closely alive to 
 problems which were exercising the minds of so many. 
 
 Two things seemed to him immediately desirable : first, 
 a great development of specialised research among Catholic 
 students ; and secondly, fair and candid discussion between 
 the representatives of the special sciences and the theolo- 
 gians. He wished the theologians of the age to be them- 
 selves thinkers, or even if possible men of science ; for the 
 real trend of scientific research, and its demands, apart from 
 cases where absolute demonstration was possible, could only 
 adequately be appreciated by men with a scientific training. 
 Only men so trained could do justice to the absolute necessity 
 of certain concessions on the part of theology. He dreaded 
 the decay of theology, which must come if theologians ceased 
 to be genuine thinkers, as they had been in the Patristic and 
 Medieval Church, and if they became mercl}', as it were, 
 lawyers well versed in precedent, who recorded what the
 
 FINAL TASKS (18S0-1886) 499 
 
 schools had or had not regarded as obligatory, forgetting that 
 the data of many problems had now changed and the weight 
 of evidence accordingly shifted. It was active thought which 
 he desiderated among them — not a change of theological 
 principles, but their more intelligent application. And he 
 regarded specialists as the only trustworthy witnesses as to 
 where modification was really necessary in the existing teach- 
 ing. Yet he found that in many quarters theology was mainly 
 a matter of memory, with little accompaniment of candid 
 thought. He deprecated such a fashion, among other 
 reasons, because it alienated the acutest minds altogether 
 from theology — men of the stamp of some of the principal 
 writers in the old Home and Foreign Review. Some thinkers 
 who might have been considerable theologians under a more 
 tolerant and enlightened regime would revolt from a system 
 of red-tape. They would become free-lances instead of 
 useful soldiers. They would break loose from the restraint of 
 ancient tradition and the caution attaching to the scientific 
 method, and indulge in speculative theories prompted by the 
 thought of the day, but far more at variance with the traditions 
 of the schools than the real necessities of the case demanded. 
 A thoroughly able theology, on the whole conservative, yet 
 taking account of what was generally acknowledged among 
 the representatives of science, would be a great power to 
 hold such speculation in check. And it would be a most 
 valuable weapon in the hands of ecclesiastical authority. 
 Men of goodwill would be ready to defer to it, especially if 
 it were enforced by authority, even when it was somewhat 
 more conservative than their own personal views. But a 
 theology which took no account of much that the scientific 
 experts thought to be highly probable, or even certain, 
 must cease to be respected by those who were alive to 
 the situation. And many would react against it, claiming 
 complete freedom of thought. If authority enforced with 
 penalties the acceptance of a very limited theological out- 
 look, he greatly feared, among some of the ablest specialists 
 and thinkers, either avowed separation from the Church or 
 some insincerity in their professions of allegiance. 
 
 At the same time, while deeply anxious for the free 
 and fair discussion that was required in order to form a 
 
 K K 2
 
 500 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 body of theoloofical thought, adequate to the needs of the 
 later nineteenth century as that of St. Thomas was to those 
 of the thirteenth, the Cardinal was most tender and scrupu- 
 lous as to scandalising weaker brethren. Some theological 
 treatises might have to be as new in form as were those of 
 St. Thomas Aquinas in his own time ; but minds must be 
 gradually prepared for them. Startling language was a 
 crime in his eyes. What he deprecated was not considera- 
 tion for the less reflective and more simple minds, which are 
 heedless of modern problems, but the seeming identification 
 of the theology and learning of the Church with the limited 
 horizon of such minds — as though the thoughts of Catholics 
 were to be practically determined by those who knew and 
 saw less, in opposition to those who knew and saw more. 
 In general he held the true policy for the training of a nine- 
 teenth-century theologian to be in the first place a full 
 study of the ancient masters, with a view to forming the 
 Christian mind on a basis largely uniform in its spirit, yet 
 taking cognisance of varieties of mind and intellect in the 
 past. A mind so formed in early youth would, in assi- 
 milating the results of the special studies of our own time, 
 not be likely to drift from its ancient moorings or to fall 
 into excesses in speculation. He hoped that the greater 
 tolerance of the new Pope as contrasted with Pius IX. 
 might afford an opportunity for the developments which 
 were so indispensably necessary, and this hope cheered his 
 declining years. He was always in sentiment on the con- 
 servative side in theology, feeling the great religious truths 
 handed down by Christian tradition to be by far the most 
 positively important. Yet there were concessions to modern 
 knowledge which were simply necessary, however little the 
 result contributed to positive religion. This necessity was 
 quite clear to the expert few ; and he dreaded the action 
 of zealous men who did not see it, or regarded those who 
 did see it as disloyal to the Church. He welcomed those 
 decisions of authority which laid stress in general terms 
 on the duty of adhering to traditionary Christian thought, 
 but he also welcomed the comparative absence in the early 
 utterances of Leo XIII. of specific theological pronounce- 
 ments on subjects on which the data of progressive sciences
 
 FINAL TASKS (1880-1886) 501 
 
 were relevant, and at the same time were not yet ascertained 
 with sufficient precision to ensure adequacy or even perfect 
 accuracy of statement. He never forgot, amid all his exhor- 
 tations on behalf of obedience to authority, that theologians 
 did not allow infallibility even to the reasonings on which 
 infallible definitions were based ; while many authoritative 
 decisions laid no claim at all to infallibility. Their adequacy 
 depended on the conscientious use, by those in power, of the 
 scientific means supplied by Providence for elucidating the 
 grave problems before them. He regarded as a sign of the 
 decay of theology the language used by some zealous but 
 loose writers in respect of authoritative decisions, — language 
 which seemed to imply that the ecclesiastical authorities were 
 directly inspired, and that therefore careful and accurate 
 theological reasoning was needless on their part in framing 
 such decisions. Whether they were wise or not, they had 
 indeed to be deferred to ; but this did not make it less 
 urgently necessary to do all that could be done to secure 
 that a wise course should be taken in framing them. And 
 as a Cardinal — one of the Holy Father's official advisers— 
 this matter now came within the range of his own personal 
 duties. 
 
 His general feeling as to the necessity of basing Christian 
 thought on that of the great masters in theology, is shown in 
 the draft of a letter written to Leo XHI. himself in the early 
 years of his pontificate — whether it was sent I cannot say — 
 welcoming his Encyclical on the Philosophy of St. Thomas 
 Aquinas on the ground that at a time of new theories it 
 was all-important to remember the great thinkers of old. 
 
 From Cardinal Newman to His Holiness Leo XHI. 
 
 ' I hope it will not seem to your Holiness an intrusion 
 upon your time if I address to you a few lines to thank you 
 for the very seasonable and important encyclical which you 
 bestowed upon us. All good Catholics must feel it a first 
 necessity that the intellectual exercises, without which the 
 Church cannot fulfil her supernatural mission duly, should be 
 founded upon broad as well as true principles, that the mental 
 creations of her theologians, and of her controversialists and 
 pastors should be grafted on the Catholic tradition of philo- 
 sophy, and should not start from a novel and simply original
 
 5o:! LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 tradition, but should be substantially one with the teachinGf 
 of St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, St. Anselm, and St. Thomas, 
 as those great doctors in turn are one with each other. 
 
 * At a time when there is so much cultivation of mind, so 
 much intellectual excitement, so many new views, true and 
 false, and so much temptation to overstep the old truth, we 
 need just what your Holiness has supplied us with in your 
 recent pastoral, and I hope my own personal gratitude for 
 your wise and seasonable act may be taken by your Holiness 
 as my apology, if I seem to outstep the limits of modesty and 
 propriety in addressing this letter to your Holiness. 
 
 ' Begging the Apostolical Benediction,' &c. 
 
 It is interesting to note that it was this Encyclical which 
 led the present Cardinal Mercier to establish in Louvain 
 University a school in close harmony with Cardinal 
 Newman's views — the Institut de St. Thomas — which aimed 
 at that combination of theology with the science of the day 
 which St. Thomas himself achieved under the very different 
 conditions of the thirteenth century. 
 
 By the year 1884 the prospect of going in person to 
 Rome had practically passed from the Cardinal's mind. 
 He felt that he must do what he could at home to promote 
 the interests he most cared for. One point on which, as we 
 have seen, he felt that the teaching in the Catholic schools, 
 at that time generally received, needed some reconsideration, 
 was the Inspiration of Scripture. The bearing of recent 
 criticism on this question had to be weighed. Another urgent 
 matter was the treatment of the intellectual grounds for 
 religious belief in such a way as to command the attention of a 
 generation in which agnosticism was an increasing tendency. 
 He wrote in the Nineteenth Century \r\ 1883 on the Inspiration 
 of Scripture, as being a burning question of the hour. And 
 on the second question circumstances called on him to speak 
 in 1885. 
 
 On the ' Inspiration ' question he wrote very cautiously. 
 He did enough to indicate the direction in which reconsidera- 
 tion was desirable and possible. He pointed out that, from 
 the very fact that at the Councils of Trent and the Vatican 
 ' faith and morals ' were more than once specified as the 
 sphere in which Holy Scripture teaches the truth, there was
 
 FINAL TASKS (1880-1886) 503 
 
 evidently some sense in which the Church regarded Inspiration 
 as applying to matters of faith and morals which did not 
 equally apply to matters of fact. Yet he did not for this 
 reason exclude the facts of Scripture as a whole from the 
 guarantee of Inspiration, for those facts were the story of 
 Divine Providence in its dealings with the world and con- 
 tained the matter for Christian Faith. The main facts 
 narrated in Holy Writ which bear on Faith were guaranteed 
 by Inspiration. But the guarantee was not such as to cover 
 all facts narrated.^ 
 
 ' The most significant passage in the Essay runs as follows : 
 
 ' And now comes the important question, in what respect are the Canonical 
 books inspired ? It cannot be in every respect, unless we are bound de fide to 
 believe that "terra in aeternum stat," and that heaven is above us, and that 
 there are no antipodes. And it seems unworthy of Divine Greatness, that the 
 Almighty should, in His revelation of Himself to us, undertake mere secular 
 duties, and assume the office of a narrator, as such, or an historian, or 
 geographer, except so far as the secular matters bear directly upon the revealed 
 truth. The Councils of Trent and the Vatican fulfil this anticipation ; they 
 tell us distinctly the object and the promise of Scripture inspiration. They 
 specify " faith and moral conduct " as the drift of that teaching which has the 
 guarantee of inspiration. What we need, and what is given us, is not how 
 to educate ourselves for this life ; we have abundant natural gifts for human 
 society, and for the advantages which it secures ; but our great want is how 
 to demean ourselves in thought and deed towards our Maker, and how to gain 
 reliable information on this urgent necessity. 
 
 ' Accordingly, four times does the Tridentine Council insist upon " faith and 
 morality" as the scope of inspired teaching. It declares that the " Gospel" is 
 "the Fount of all saving truth and all iiistntction in ;/iorais" that in the 
 written books and in the unwritten traditions, the Holy Spirit dictating, this 
 truth and instruction are contained. Then it speaks of the books and traditions, 
 " relating whether to faith or to morals " and afterwards of " the confirmation of 
 dogmas and establishment of tnorals." Lastly, it warns the Christian people, 
 "in matters of faith and morals" against distorting Scripture into a sense of 
 their own. 
 
 ' In like manner the Vatican Council pronounces that Supernatural Revelation 
 consists " /« rebus divinis,'" and is contained ^^m libris scriptis et sine scripto 
 traditionibus " ; and it also speaks of " petulantia ingenia " advancing wrong 
 interpretations of Scripture " in xchws fidei et moruin ad aedificationem doctrinac 
 Christianae pertinentium." 
 
 ' But while the Councils, as has been shown, lay down so emphatically the 
 inspiration of Scripture in respect to "faith and morals," it is remarkable that 
 they do not say a word directly as to its inspiration in matters of fact. Yet are 
 we therefore to conclude that the record of facts in Scripture does not come 
 under the guarantee of its inspiration ? We are not so to conclude, and for this 
 plain reason :— the sacred narrative, carried on through so many ages, what is 
 it but the very matter for our faith, and rule of our obedience ? what but that
 
 504 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Newman's want of complete familiarity with the usual 
 phraseology in Catholic text-books made it possible for theo- 
 logians to attack his expressions with some effect. And his 
 article is for this reason not likely ever to find acceptance in 
 the schools. Yet it did much to clear the issues in the eyes 
 of thoughtful men. And his position conceded less to modern 
 criticism than the view now adopted in many ecclesiastical 
 seminaries. But in place of admitting occasional ' error ' in 
 matters of fact or obiter dicta (as Newman called them), 
 the recognised technical phraseology denies all 'error' to 
 Scripture ' rightly interpreted.' Under the head of interpre- 
 tation certain historical and scientific statements are treated 
 as quotations, explicit or implicit, from secular historians of 
 the time for the truth of which the sacred writer does not 
 vouch. ' Error ' is not owned to in the technical sense, 
 but statements often characterised in popular language as 
 'errors' are admitted to exist.' 
 
 narrative itself is the supernatural teaching, in order to which inspiration is 
 given ? What is the whole history, as it is traced out in Scripture from Genesis 
 to Esdras, and thence on to the end of the Acts of the Apostles, what is it but a 
 manifestation of Divine Providence, on the one hand interpretative (on a large 
 scale and with analogical applications) of universal history, and on the other 
 preparatory (typical and predictive) of the Evangelical Dispensation? Its pages 
 breathe of providence and grace, of our Lord, and of His work and teaching, 
 from beginning to end. It views facts in those relations in which neither 
 ancients, such as the Greek and Latin classical historians, nor moderns, such as 
 Niebuhr, Grote, Ewald, or Michelet, can view them. In this point of view it 
 has God for its Author, even though the finger of God traced no words but the 
 Decalogue. Such is the claim of Bible history in its substantial fulness to be 
 accepted defide as true. In this point of view. Scripture is inspired, not only 
 in faith and morals but in all its parts which bear on faith, including matters 
 of fact.' 
 
 ' The Cardinal wrote as follows to Baron von Hiigel in connection with his 
 Essay : 
 
 ' It pleased me to think that my article in the XlXth Centwy had been 
 acceptable to you. Of course it is an anxious subject. It is easy to begin a 
 controversy and difficult to end it. And often one does not wish to say what 
 logically one is obliged to say. If, indeed, I knew exactly where to draw the 
 line in such questions, I should not have had the anxiety which I cannot even 
 now get rid of. . . . It has been a relief to my mind to find what I have written 
 approved of by those whose judgment I respect. I am surprised at some of 
 the statements in Scripture which you consider to need reconciliation, but, I 
 suppose, everyone has his own difficulties. And this fact, that the private 
 judgment of one man comes into collision with the judgment of another, leads one 
 to be suspicious of one's private views altogether.'
 
 FINAL TASKS (1880-1886) 505 
 
 A more important essay was written by Newman a little 
 later on in reply to Principal F'airbairn, the Congregationalist 
 minister. Principal Fairbairn, writing in the Co7itemporar}> 
 Reviezv in May 1885, attacked Newman's language concern- 
 ing the human reason in the ' Apologia ' and * Grammar of 
 Assent ' as sceptical.^ Dr. Fairbairn fell into the usual error 
 of supposing that, despairing of reason, Newman had thrown 
 himself for refuge into the arms of an infallible Church. 
 
 Dr. Fairbairn, like some of Newman's Catholic critics on 
 the inspiration question, derived some advantage from New- 
 man's disdain for the trammels of technical phraseology.^ 
 And it is, I think, very remarkable that when nearly eighty- 
 five years old Newman stated his position on important points 
 with a new precision. The attack stimulated his thinking 
 powers, and he wrote with point and vigour. 
 
 Newman's object, in the passages censured by Dr. 
 Fairbairn as sceptical, had, as we have already seen, been 
 absolute fidelity to fact. What was the use of giving an 
 account of professedly irrefragable reasoning on behalf of 
 Theism and Christian Faith and of infallible accuracy in the 
 working of the human reason itself in its dealings with 
 religious truth, when patent facts gave such an account the 
 lie? The human reason did as a fact, where it was 
 most actively exercised on fundamental problems, run into 
 infidelity. He had expressly denied that he regarded such a 
 use of the reason as lawful. But it was a fact to be faced. 
 And he had in the ' Apologia ' treated the Church not as a 
 
 To Falhcr Ilevvil, the American Paulisl, he writes : 
 
 ' I have been made very anxious on the subject of Inspiration. On a parallel 
 subject there is a remarkable Article in the Month. It is apropos of Father 
 Curci. Both arise out of the question of the relation of Science to Dogma. And 
 that is the question of the day. The Holy See acts always with gre.at delibera- 
 tion. If it is not moved to make a decision on certain questions, perhaps by its 
 very silence it may decide that certain questions are to be kept open.' 
 
 ' ' He has a deep distrust of the intellect,' writes Dr. Fairbairn ; ' he dares not 
 trust his own, for he does not know where it might lead him, and he will not trust 
 any other man's.' Of the Gramviar of Assent, Dr. Fairbairn writes, ' The book 
 is pervaded by the intensest philosophical scepticism.' — Contemporary Review ^ 
 May 1885, p. 667. 
 
 '^ This was partly a matter of principle. Newman held that the thinkers were 
 constantly the victims of phraseology both in philosophy and in theology, and 
 that technical language, so valuable in the interests of clearness, was ever being 
 perverted. It could not, like algebraic symbols, be left to work automatically, but 
 must be constantly tested by comparison with actual thought.
 
 5o6 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 refuge from scepticism, hedged off from the untrustworthy 
 reason, but as a standing witness to spiritual truth, whose in- 
 fluence in practice purified the reason and restrained it from 
 excesses really irrational. 
 
 He had more than once, in tracing the sources of the issue 
 of reason in belief or unbelief, ascribed that issue to the 
 different first principles from which believers and unbelievers 
 respectively started. Challenged now to defend his position 
 from the charge of scepticism, he made it clear that he re- 
 garded the adoption of irreligious principles as due not to 
 the intrinsic faults of the reasoning faculty, not to its being 
 in its own nature sceptical, but to the pressure on individual 
 minds of the generally received maxims of the evil world in 
 which we live. 
 
 * The World,' he wrote, ' is that vast community impreg- 
 nated by religious error which mocks and rivals the Church 
 by claiming to be its own witness, and to be infallible. Such 
 is the World, the False Prophet (as I called it fifty years 
 ago), and Reasoning is its voice. I had in my mind such 
 Apostolic sayings as " Love not the World, neither the 
 things of the world," and *' A friend of the world is the 
 enemy of God " ; but I was very loth, as indeed I am also 
 now on the present occasion, to prcacJi. Instead then of 
 saying " the World's Reason," I said " Reason actually and 
 historically," " Reason in fact and concretely in fallen man," 
 *' Reason in the educated intellect of England, France, and 
 Germany," Reason in " every Government and every civiliza- 
 tion through the world which is under the influence of the 
 European mind," Reason in the " wild living intellect of 
 man," which needs (to have) " its stiff neck bent," that ultra 
 " freedom of thought which is in itself one of the greatest of 
 our natural gifts," " that deep, plausible scepticism " which is 
 " the development of human reason as practically exercised 
 by the natural man." . . . 
 
 ' The World is a collection of individual men, and any 
 one of them may hold and take on himself to profess 
 unchristian doctrine, and do his best to propagate it ; but few 
 have the power for such a work, or the opportunity. It is by 
 their union into one body, by the intercourse of man with 
 man and the sympathy thence arising, that error spreads 
 and becomes an authority. Its separate units which make 
 up the body rely upon each other, and upon the whole, for 
 the truth of their assertions ; and thus assumptions and false
 
 FINAL TASKS (1880-1 886) 507 
 
 reasonings are received without question as certain truths, 
 on the credit of alternate appeals and mutual cheers and 
 imprimaturs! 
 
 The Church, as the society which constantly aims at stem- 
 ming the tide of human corruption, is also the purifier of 
 the human reason from corrupting influences, and not a 
 refuge from it on the ground that it is intrinsically sceptical. 
 The maxims of the irreligious world lead men to the gradual 
 denial of all revealed truth ; the Christian maxims preserved 
 by the Church keep it unalloyed. His article was entitled 
 ' The Development of Religious Error.' 
 
 Newman's article appeared in the Contemporary Review 
 of October 1885, and in December Dr. Fairbairn again 
 rejoined, taxing Newman more explicitly than before with 
 a sceptical view of the reasoning faculty, which Newman 
 appeared to his critic to treat as being at the mercy of 
 arbitrary assumptions.^ Newman wrote a further reply, in 
 which he made it clear that he had not used the word ' Reason' 
 in Hamilton's sense as the ' locus principiorum,' or faculty of 
 intuition. Just the contrary. It was with him the dialectical 
 faculty. But he no longer spoke of true first principles as 
 merely 'assumptions,' but as, in many cases, intuitions of 
 the vovs} The world corrupted the action of the reason by 
 
 ' 'In the province of religion,' Newman had written in his original rejjly to 
 Dr. Fairbairn, ' if [that faculty] be under the happy guidance of the moral sense, 
 and with teachings which are not only assumptions in form but certainties in fact, 
 it will arrive at indisputable truth, and then the house is .it peace ; but if it be in 
 the hands of enemies, who are under the delusion that their arbitrary assumptions 
 are self-evident axioms, the reasoning will start from false premisses, and the mind 
 will be in a state of melancholy disorder. But in no case need the reasoning 
 faculty itself be to blame or responsible, except when identified with the assump- 
 tions of which it is the instrument. I repeat, it is but an instrument ; as such I 
 have viewed it, and no one but Dr. Fairbairn would say as he does — that the bad 
 employment of a faculty was a "division," a "contradiction," and " a radical 
 antagonism of nature," and " the death of the natural proof" of a God. The eyes, 
 and the hands, and the tongue, are instruments in their very nature. We may 
 speak of a wanton eye, and a murderous hand, and a blaspheming tongue, without 
 denying that they can be used for good purposes as well as for bad.' Dr. Fair- 
 bairn's comment is that ' reason to him [Newman] had so little in it of the truth 
 that it was as ready to become the instrument of the false prophet as of the true." 
 — Contemporary Kcvitw, December 18S5, p. 850. 
 
 - 'Great faculty as reasoning certainly is,' Newman wrote in his further reply, 
 •it is from its very nature in all suljects dependent upon other faculties. It 
 receives from them the antecedent with which its action starts ; and when this
 
 5oS LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 instilling false assumptions at variance with the informations 
 of our higher faculties. This reply he proposed to publish 
 in the Contetnporary Revieiv for March. He then hesitated. 
 Old though he was, he had not lost the statesman's habit of 
 forecasting the probable effect on the various classes of his 
 readers, of what he thought of publishing. He took advice on 
 the subject of publishing the article, as he had done before 
 writing the ' Apologia,' though the present controversy was in 
 so far smaller an arena and before a very limited audience. 
 And two of the men who had loyally helped him in 1864 
 did so again now — Lord Blachford and Mr. R. H. Hutton. 
 Would further publication in reply to a young professor's 
 strictures be for one of the Cardinal's age and position 
 undignified ? At all events would not a fresh article in 
 the pages of the Review be undignified ? Yet he had to 
 think of Catholic readers, who looked for an answer from 
 him to Dr. Fairbairn's charge of scepticism. That charge 
 had also been made against portions of the ' Apologia ' 
 by Catholic writers of the scholastic type. Was it not 
 therefore quite essential for him to reply to it? How 
 would it do to leave it to his executors to publish if they 
 desired a reprint of his October article, with notes appended 
 in reply to Fairbairn's renewed assault of December? 
 
 On the other hand, Dr. William Barry, already a Catholic 
 theological professor of eminence, who had previously criti- 
 cised some of Newman's writing, had now written enthusias- 
 tically in his defence in the Contemporary Review itself. 
 Would that perhaps preclude the necessity of his defending 
 himself in the Contemporary Revieiv for the sake of Catholic 
 readers ? Perhaps he ought still to speak for their sake, 
 himself, and publish forthwith the notes appended to his 
 original article. These questions are all put in the follow- 
 ing letters to Lord Blachford, written in the month in 
 which he completed his eighty- fifth year : 
 
 antecedent is true, there is no longer in religious matters room for any accusation 
 against it of scepticism. In such matters the independent faculty which is mainly 
 necessary for its healthy working and the ultimate warrant of the reasoning act, I 
 have hitherto spoken of as the moral sense ; but, as I have already said, it has a 
 wider subject-matter than religion, and a larger name than moral sense, as 
 including intuitions, and this is what Aristotle calls vovsJ'
 
 FINAL TASKS (1880-1886) 509 
 
 * The Oratory, Birmingham : February 4th, 1886. 
 
 ' My dear Blachford, — I begin with hoping that you will 
 let me dictate a letter which I call Private. I think you can 
 advise me. 
 
 ' In the May and December numbers of the Contemporary 
 Dr. Fairbairn has two severe articles to the effect that I be- 
 came a Catholic as a refuge from scepticism. In October 
 I published an answer to the May Article in the same 
 Review, and my question is shall I also answer his second 
 (December) Article. 
 
 * I have written an answer and it is ready for the press 
 with the purpose of appearing in the Contemporary next 
 month (March). 
 
 ' At the last moment I soliloquise as follows, — " You are 
 acting unworthily of your age and your station. You have 
 made your protest in October ; that is enough. If you 
 write again you will be entering into controversy. You 
 yourself know better than any man else that your submission 
 to Rome was not made at all as a remedy against a personal, 
 nay, or against a controversial scepticism. It is only a 
 matter of time for this to come out clear to all men." 
 
 ' I feel this deeply, it would require a very brilliant 
 knock down answer to Dr. F. to justify my giving up my 
 place " as an emeritus miles " and going down into the 
 arena with a younger man. The only shade of reason for 
 my publishing it is that I wished to say in print that in 
 past years I had spoken too strongly once or twice against 
 the argument from final causes. 
 
 * I would send you the Article (which I have printed 
 for my own purpose) ; it makes about seven pages of the 
 Contemporary, if you wish to see it. There is nothing in it 
 of doctrine. Only every day is valuable if it is to come out 
 in March. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 J. H. Card. Newman.' 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham : February 6, 1SS6. 
 
 ' My dear Blachford, — Your prompt answer has just come. 
 I don't forget your eyes or that you may have to trouble 
 Lady Blachford. 
 
 ' Principal Fairbairn is a great man among the Congrega- 
 tionalists and is said to be the prospective head of their new 
 College at Oxford. At the beginning of my first (October) 
 article I said the reason of my answering him was for 
 the sake of my friends, who would wish to know how 
 I viewed his criticisms. Catholics are very sensitive about
 
 5IO LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 giving scandal, and what I wrote was not a refutation of 
 him, but an explanation in addition to what I published 
 years ago in the " Apologia." His line of argument was 
 that I did not know myself, but that he, as a by-standcr, 
 knew me better. This assumption I did not notice, but 
 employed myself in filling up the lacunse as I called them 
 of what I had already written. Hence I entitled the paper 
 "The Development of Religious Error" in illustration of the 
 latter part, the 6th, of the " Apologia." I aimed at showing 
 as an instance that to relinquish the doctrine of future 
 punishment was to unravel the web of Revelation. 
 
 ' This involved my notion of the word Reason and gave 
 rise in his second (December) Article to his arguing that 
 my definition of Reason was utterly sceptical as disconnect- 
 ing Reason with Truth. To refute this charge about my 
 sense of Reason is the main subject of my second Article 
 which I am now sending to you. 
 
 ' I should add that in a Postscript to my first Article 
 I made fun of Dr. Fairbairn saying that my view of Reason 
 was " impious." 
 
 ' I am afraid I do not retire from what I said about final 
 causes so much as I led you to think. 
 
 ' I have omitted to say that if I did not insert the Article 
 in slips which I send you I should leave it for my Executors 
 to do what they will with it. This is an additional reason 
 for feeling indifferent about its being published now. I say 
 this to show what reason I have to be indifferent whether 
 it appears in the Contemporary or not. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Card. Newman.' 
 
 Lord Blachford's judgment, on reading the proposed 
 article, was distinctly against Newman's replying in the 
 Contemporary. Newman wrote on February 9 entirely 
 concurring : 
 
 ' Many thanks for your pains and promptness. I go by 
 your judgment absolutely, and I agree with it. Also I fully 
 feel this, viz. that Dr. Fairbairn's Article is simply puzzle- 
 headed, that it does not require answering. 
 
 ' The only point I feel is the chance of scandals, i.e. 
 putting myself out of line with Catholic thought. A very 
 clever and learned theologian has just been defending me 
 with great eulogy in the Contemporary against Dr. Fairbairn, 
 acknowledging at the same time that I sometimes say 
 startling things. It is not very long since he wrote an
 
 FINAL TASKS (1880-1886) 511 
 
 unfavourable critique upon something I said, and from his 
 reputation I think he will do me a great deal of good. 
 
 * His writing a panegyric on me in the Contemporary 
 removes any necessity of my ansivering Dr. Fairbairn in that 
 publication, but the question of pleasing Catholics remains. 
 
 * . . . My question is whether your judgment and my 
 judgment against an article will lie against Notes embodying 
 [the article] as appendages to the pamphlet which was to be 
 and is to be issued.' 
 
 This last suggestion was in the event acted on. The 
 pamphlet was, however, not actually published, but printed 
 for private circulation. 
 
 Meanwhile the loyal thoughtfulness of Mr. R. H. Hutton 
 prompted him to reply to Dr. Fairbairn in the pages of the 
 Contemporary, and his reply coming as a supplement to that 
 already published by Dr. Barry made any further words on 
 Newman's own part doubly unnecessary.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 LAST YEARS (1881-1890) 
 
 Father Neville has left some touching though fragmentary 
 recollections of the Cardinal's life during his last years. He 
 prefixes to them the following words giving the general 
 impression left by the Cardinal's demeanour and conversation 
 on those who lived with him— words spoken in a sermon by 
 John Henry Newman in 1828 at the funeral of his friend the 
 Rev. Walter Mayer, but ' applying,' says Father Neville, 
 * exactly to the Cardinal himself ' : 
 
 ' His was a life of prayer. The works and ways of God, 
 the mercies of Christ, the real purpose and uses of this life, 
 the unseen things of the spiritual world, were always upper- 
 most in his mind. His speech and conversation showed it. 
 ... It pleased God to show to all around him the state of 
 his heart and spirit, not only by the graces of a meek and 
 peaceable and blameless conversation (which is of course 
 displayed by all good Christians), but also by the direct 
 religiousness of his conversation. Not that he ever spoke for 
 the sake of display — he was quite unaffected, and showed his 
 deep religion quite naturally.' 
 
 But the Cardinal's profound religiousness did not pre- 
 vent a most lively interest in literary and political events. 
 In the bleak winter of 1881 he writes to Mr. Bedford : 
 
 ' The late severe weather did me no harm. I had one 
 or two brief colds, but they were such as might have been 
 in the mildest winter. I never had the thought come upon 
 me, "What an unusual winter is this!" — I mean from 
 the cold. 
 
 ' I have felt the political atmosphere far more trying. 
 I wish with all my heart that the cruel injustices which 
 have been inflicted on the Irish people, should be utterly
 
 CARDINAL NEWMAN. 
 From a riwtograpk by l-'atlicr Anthony Pollen (1889).
 
 LAST YEARS (1881-1890) 513 
 
 removed — but I don't think they go the best way to bring 
 this about' 
 
 He dreaded (as we have seen) the growth of democracy, 
 and consistently held that the Bill of 1832 was an irreparable 
 evil — ' It opened a door which can never again be shut,' he 
 said. At the time of Gladstone's renewed activity in 1885 
 he writes to Dean Church : 
 
 ' What a dreadful thing this democracy is ! How I wish 
 Gladstone had retired into private life, as he seems to have 
 contemplated some 10 years ago.' 
 
 In the same year he read the manuscript of Dean 
 Church's 'Oxford Movement' "'Charles Marriott" and 
 " Hampden" are first rate each in its own way,' he writes to 
 its author, ' All are good, and done as no one else could do 
 them.' And again : ' I think you have succeeded wonderfully 
 in your account of R. H. Froude, and marvel how without 
 knowing him you could be so correct' He greatly admired 
 the volume of Dr. James Mozley's letters which appeared in 
 the early eighties, edited by Miss Anne Mozley, but the 
 'Reminiscences' of Mr. Thomas Mozley, published in 1882, 
 were criticised by him as seriously inaccurate. ' If a story 
 cannot stand on two legs,' he remarked, ' Tom supplies a 
 third.' 
 
 Father Neville, who had been with him in Dublin at 
 the time of the Crimean war, was reminded once again of 
 Newman's rapt attention to all its details, by his similar 
 interest, during the years 1884 and 1885, i'l the war in 
 Egypt and the Soudan. 
 
 ' In 1854,' Father Neville writes, ' while still in middle life, 
 and when, after about forty years of peace, war was new to 
 the country. Dr. Newman followed in detail the anxieties and 
 successes of the Crimean War with great interest and deep 
 feeling. He watched Lord Raglan almost as a personal 
 friend, from respect for him, and from sympathy with the 
 difficulties of his position. Day by day, with the newspaper in 
 his hand, he would give as in precis to those about him, a 
 most vivid picture of what had gone on, and the sufferings of 
 the soldiers, which he described, seemed to be as pain to him- 
 self When the great chartered ship. The Prince, with its half- 
 million worth, as was said, of gifts of good things, was lost in 
 VOL. II. L L
 
 514 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 a storm the night it arrived off Balaclava, he most completely 
 broke down in tears of sorrow for the disappointment to 
 those for whom such a cargo as that had been sent. 
 
 * And such as had been his interest in the Crimean 
 War, proportionately so was it, in his last years, with the 
 Egyptian. The expedition for the relief of General Gordon 
 had all his best hopes, and his full appreciation of its 
 adventurous gallantry. When it became lost to sight in 
 the desert, he received the news of this as of a very solemn 
 occurrence. And the sacrifice of Gordon, for such he judged 
 and termed the General's fate, had the same effect upon 
 his bearing as a personal loss. He felt it as an almost un- 
 paralleled disgrace to the country. The cause and source of 
 it, so far as he could comprehend it, and spoke of it, is a sub- 
 ject which, at this date, it would be almost churlish to enter 
 upon. But to the Cardinal it was a subject of very solemn 
 reflection, of which he hardly could speak, and his strong 
 feeling about it never really died in him. All through the 
 war he kept three maps of the country hung up before 
 him that he might follow the route, and he would not after- 
 wards have them removed ; two remain to this day ' 
 
 ' Though I know no one in the Soudan, and scarcely any 
 of their relatives,' the Cardinal himself writes to Mrs. Deane 
 in February 1885, 'I am in real distress at the thought of 
 what those relatives are suffering. Neither the Crimea nor 
 the Indian Mutiny has come home to me, I don't know why, 
 as this has. Perhaps it is because the misfortune is .so 
 wanton, and on that ground makes one so indignant. Five 
 successful engagements, won at a cruel price, but all for 
 nothing.' 
 
 Having been thus profoundly moved by the Gordon tra- 
 gedy as an onlooker and an outsider, it may be imagined that 
 he learnt with a quite special feeling that, though they were 
 strangers to one another, Gordon had interchanged thoughts 
 with him on the most solemn of .subjects. General Gordon, 
 it transpired, had with him at Khartoum a copy of ' The 
 Dream of Gerontius,' in which he had marked his favourite 
 passages in pencil and underlined the name ' Gordon ' in the 
 dedication to the memory of Father Joseph. The book was 
 given by the General to Mr. Power, who sent it to a relative 
 in Ireland, who in turn offered it for the Cardinal's inspection. 
 * It is indeed,' Newman wrote in his letter of thanks for the
 
 LAST YEARS (i 881-1890) 515 
 
 volume, ' far more than a mere compliment to have my 
 name associated in the mind of the public with such a man — 
 so revered, so keenly and bitterly mourned for as General 
 Gordon.' 
 
 To Dean Church he writes as follows of the episode on 
 April 7 : 
 
 ' I have received a little book which has taken my breath 
 away. It is the property of Mrs. Murphy, who received it 
 from Mr. F. Power, her brother, and was given to him by 
 Gordon at Khartoum. So Mr. Power writes in the first page ; 
 and attests that the pencil marks, thro' the book, are Gordon's. 
 The book is the " Dream of Gerontius." ' 
 
 The Cardinal could not but feel that the love of his book 
 on the part of the heroic soldier meant that he had his own 
 death continually in view. ' What struck me so much in his 
 use of the " Dream," ' Newman writes to another friend, ' was 
 that in St. Paul's words he "died daily" ; he was always on 
 his deathbed, fulfilling the common advice that we should 
 ever pass the day as if it were our last.' 
 
 Of the Cardinal's habits as to giving in charity Father 
 Neville writes : 
 
 ' He did not like, indeed, he shunned, the ordinary wayside 
 beggar ; but poor people whom he knew, or were specially 
 recommended to him, had the advantage sometimes of a 
 large gift from him, rather than alms— an unpretending- 
 looking little box would be put into the hand, and it would 
 am.use him as he went home to think of the surprise when 
 the contents came to be seen — he was sure the poor people 
 would be glad to pay off at the shop that they might begin 
 to get credit again. Such a box might have five pounds, even 
 more. 
 
 ' He was very particular that anything given in his name, 
 after he was Cardinal, should be done without stint. But 
 this was not the way with him simply as Cardinal, for he 
 never liked half-measures in what it concerned him to do. 
 But with regard to money, there had been times after his 
 conversion when at best he could not do more than take 
 half-measures, nor as much.' 
 
 The Cardinal would not give up personal correspondence 
 with his friends until writing became quite impossible to 
 him. In letter after letter he complains of the fatigue of 
 using his hand, and when I myself saw him write only his 
 
 L L 2
 
 
 5i6 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 name and the date for an autograph book in 1885, it was 
 a process which lasted several minutes. A single letter 
 must have taken him hours at that time— though the failure 
 had of course been very gradual. I subjoin a few letters 
 of the last ten years of his life, taken almost at random, 
 yet each from some point of view characteristic. 
 
 To his old Oxford friend Canon McMullen, the Rector 
 of St. Mary's, Chelsea, who had in 1881 almost completely 
 lost his eyesight and was retiring from active work, he wrote 
 thus : 
 
 ' The Oratory, Birmingham : Feb. 24, 1881. 
 
 * My dear McMullen, — I saw your letter to your Parish- 
 ioners the other day, and that leads me to write you a few 
 lines to express my sympathy with you and my kindest 
 wishes. 
 
 ' I know the new life of calm and peace, which God 
 is giving you, will be united with trial and suffering ; but 
 I know, too, that, out of His abundant grace, He will in 
 some way or other make up to you for such burden as 
 He lays upon you, 
 
 ' However, why I write this is to say to you that I have 
 begun to say a Mass weekly for you between this and 
 Easter, and that I propose to do so, not only from my 
 true attachment to you, but especially in deep gratitude 
 for the fidelity with which you have so long and so un- 
 swervingly taken my part, through years in which I have 
 had much to try me from adverse tongues. 
 
 ' That you may be bountifully, royally recompensed by 
 our Great Master, for all your good deeds, is the constant 
 prayer of 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 John Henry Cardinal Newman.' 
 
 In this same year he sat for his picture to Millais, on 
 the occasion of a visit to London. He writes as follows to 
 Sister Maria Pia, from Rednal, on July 21 : 
 
 ' Mr. Millais thinks his portrait the best he has done 
 and the one he wishes to go down to posterity by. Every 
 one who has seen it is struck with it. He did it in a few 
 short sittings. 
 
 ' We have been shocked by the almost sudden death 
 of Dean Stanley. He had some illness or other, which 
 turned to erysipelas ; and he was carried off almost as soon
 
 LAST YEx\RS (i 881-1890) 517 
 
 as he was in danger. He was about 65, showing that old 
 men may be quite well to all appearance, yet may be gone 
 in a few days. . . . 
 
 ' I went to London and to the Oratory, then [to] the 
 Cardinal's/ and was received with great attention.' 
 
 The following two letters to his nephew, Mr, J. R. Mozley, 
 give the Cardinal's feeling in his last years on the relations 
 between Ireland and Encrland : 
 
 •i=>' 
 
 'Birmingham: Oct. 20, 188 1. 
 
 ' I am anything but a politician, whether in grasp of 
 principles or knowledge of facts. As to Ireland, judging by 
 what I saw in Ireland 20 years ago, the question between the 
 countries is not one of land or property, but of union. 
 
 ' Cromwell, and others have, by their conduct to the Irish, 
 burned into the national heart a deep hatred of England, and, 
 if the population perseveres, the sentiment of patriotism and 
 the latent sense of historical wrongs will hinder even the 
 more rational, and calm judging, the most friendly to England, 
 from separating themselves from their countrymen. They 
 are abundantly warmhearted and friendly to individual 
 Englishmen, of that I have clear experience in my own case, 
 but what I believe, though I have no large experience to 
 appeal to, is, that there is not one Anglophilist in the nation. 
 
 ' Observe, Gladstone the other day at Leeds complained 
 of the little support given him by the middle class and 
 gentry in Ireland. I think it was at the time oi the Fenian 
 rising that the Times had an article to the same effect. 
 Gladstone seemed to think them cowards : no, they are 
 patriots. 
 
 ' I knew, when in Ireland, one of the leaders of the 
 Smith O'Brien movement in i S48 ; his boast was, that from 
 Henry 11. 's time the people had never condoned the English 
 occupation. They had by a succession of risings, from then 
 till now, protested against it. 
 
 ' Our rule has been marked by a persistent forcing on 
 them English ways. Such, I suppose, was our law of pro- 
 perty, founded on the feudal system, instead of their own 
 communism. 
 
 ' About this I know very little. What I do know is 
 the stupid forcing on their Catholicism our godless edu- 
 cation. Since 1845 all English parties have been resolved 
 that primary education and University education in Ireland 
 should be without religion, except that . . . the Bible without 
 
 Cardinal Manning's.
 
 5i8 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 comment should be allowed in the primary. . . . But to 
 conclude, I can but say, we are suffering partly from " delicta 
 majorum," partly from our own. Is it too late, for one thing, 
 to give Ireland a Catholic University ? 
 
 ' Recollect Belgium, Greece, Hungary, Bulgaria, Lombardy, 
 all have got free in my lifetime.' 
 
 ' Birmingham : October 24. 
 
 • I am no politician. I have long thought that the Irish 
 would gain Home Rule in some shape, and that both because 
 of the issue of the series of past conflicts with Great Britain, 
 which seems to portend it, and because of Greece, Belgium, 
 Lombardy, Hungary and Bulgaria. But I am no advocate 
 for such issue, rather it seems to me a blow on the power of 
 England as serious as it is retributive. 
 
 ' As to the University question, it opens a question larger 
 than itself. Why has not England acted towards Ireland as 
 it has treated Scotland ? Scotland had its own religion, and 
 after a short time the attempt to impose Episcopacy on it was 
 given up, and so indulgent has been England to Scotland, 
 that even the Queen, the head of the Anglican Church, goes 
 to kirk and listens to Presbyterian preachers. On the contrary, 
 not only great sums have been poured through centuries 
 into Ireland from England by the State and by the people, 
 to force Protestantism on the Irish, but there were persecut- 
 ing laws, of which I say nothing, because the question you 
 have asked is one of property. The Irish people consider 
 the sums which the Anglo-Irish Establishment took year by 
 year from the Irish population, as the property of their own 
 Church, which Church was proscribed by English law. In 
 asking back a small portion of these confiscations (I think 
 one or two of the Anglican Irish Archbishops in my day left 
 behind them towards ;^50o,ooo apiece, on their death) they 
 have not acted unreasonably. The sums given for Protestant 
 education were as prodigious as those for religion. 
 
 ' Now what was done as regards the University ? First 
 Peel set up his godless colleges, aided by public yearly 
 grants, I am almost sure, or quite sure : then our Bishops 
 .set up in opposition their University — not at once, but 
 after it had been much and long discussed both in Catholic 
 Ireland and at Rome. We were obliged to raise ;^5,ooo a 
 year from the peasantry, and this we did for 20 years ! There 
 was no cry for money from us then. All we asked, and what 
 we could not get, little as it was, was the power of granting 
 degrees. No — we were not even to have a fair stage. At 
 length the Irish took, in defence of the peasantry, to ask for
 
 LAST YEARS (1881-1890) 519 
 
 money. By a Catholic University I mean one in which the 
 Officers and Teachers are Catholics : and I demand it for 
 Ireland because the country is Catholic. This would be 
 secured by the Bishops having a Veto on appointments.' 
 
 The thought of death was now continually with Newman, 
 and the friends and acquaintances acquired during a long 
 life were dying constantly. Lord Henry Kerr, who belonged 
 to the former category, and Mr. Eyston, the head of a well- 
 known Catholic family, who belonged to the latter, both 
 passed away in 1882. Lord Henry was James Hope-Scott's 
 brother-in-law, and his death caused some delay in the 
 appearance of the biography of Hope-Scott, in which the 
 Cardinal was specially interested. To both of these events 
 he refers in the following letters to Miss Bowles : 
 
 ' March 10, 1882. 
 
 ' It grieves me very much to see the notice of Mr. Eyston's 
 death in the paper. I can scarcely have seen him, since I 
 made his and his uncle's acquaintance on the top of a mail 
 coach in a heavy downfall of rain, but I have never forgotten 
 him, nor his name Charles, ever since. 
 
 ' How the old generation is fading away, out of sight ! 
 What a mystery is life, and how it comes home to such as 
 me to think of old Nestor's melancholy lines, " as the out- 
 burst and fall of leaves, such the generations of man." How 
 inwardly miserable must the life of man be, without the 
 Gospel, and now men are doing their utmost to destroy our 
 sole solace. . . .' 
 
 ' April 13, 1882. 
 
 ' Thank you for your affectionate Paschal greetings, which 
 I return with all my heart. I send them also to Frederick, 
 since I find you are still with him, and to Miss Bathurst and 
 her community. . . . 
 
 ' I suppose dear Lord Henry's death has thrown back the 
 printing of the Memoir. The facts, that is, Hope-Scott's 
 acts and letters, are so striking, that they carry his wonder- 
 ful character with them, and need no comment. I say 
 " wonderful," because it is rare to find a man of the world so 
 deeply religious, so holy in the inner man. A man may have 
 many good points, yet have no interior. Hope-Scott speaks 
 for himself . . . 
 
 ' I am very well, thank you, though infirm. I wish people 
 would learn the difference between the two words. Then, 
 they would not wish me to leave home.'
 
 520 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 To Sister Maria Pia. 
 
 ' B'" : July 3, 18S2. 
 
 ' I did not forget you on the Visitation, but said Mass for 
 you on two other da}-s instead, because I heard that William 
 George Ward was dying. How it was that his serious state 
 of health was not known generally before, I cannot tell, 
 but they say that it is a simple break up. His principal 
 complaint is that of which Fr. Joseph Gordon died, and that 
 was three years upon him. 
 
 ' It will be still some time before Palmer's Journal will 
 issue from the Press. I shall send it to you. It seems to me 
 very interesting — but 40 years is more than a generation and 
 I can't prophesy how it will strike most people. The Czar 
 does not appear in it, though afterwards he had Palmer to 
 dine with him. I think the book shows the impossibility of a 
 union of Greece with Anglicans, and of Greece with Rome. 
 As for the Russian ecclesiastics, he found that they had all 
 but given up the idea of unity, or of the Catholicity of the 
 Church. So far they were behind the Anglicans, who at least 
 profess belief in one Catholic Church. 
 
 ' I am very well as far as health goes — but I am more and 
 more infirm. I am dim sighted, deaf, lame, and have a diffi- 
 culty in talking and writing. And my memory is very bad. 
 
 ' I fear the enemies of the Church are all but effecting its 
 absolute fall in France. The first and second generation after 
 us will have a dreadful time of it. Satan is almost unloosed. 
 May we all be housed safely before that day ! 
 
 ' Are you not 80 now ? ' 
 
 In 1883 the news came that Dean Church's eldest 
 daughter Helen was engaged to be married to Mr. Paget, 
 afterwards Bishop of Oxford. The news gave occasion 
 for a gift to the bride's twin sister Mary, very touching in all 
 that it recalled. It is announced in the following letter to 
 her father : 
 
 ' March 28, 1883. 
 
 ' I said Mass for Helen and her husband elect this 
 morning. So did Fr. Neville. Of course it is, however glad 
 an event, a very trying one for all of you, and not the least 
 for Mary. 
 
 ' I don't suppose she will find a fiddle make up for Helen, 
 but it has struck me that you and Blachford will let me give 
 the beautiful instrument you and he gave me, to Mary. I 
 don't think she will refuse it ; I hear much of her proficiency.
 
 LAST YEARS (1881-1890) 521 
 
 'You gave it me in 1865 — and I had constant use and 
 pleasure in the use till lately — but I find now I have no com- 
 mand of it ; nay, strange to say I cannot count or keep time. 
 This is a trouble to me ; one gets an affection for a fiddle, and 
 I should not like to go without getting it a good master or 
 mistress. My friends in this house have instruments of their 
 own. So has Mary doubtless — but this would come with 
 associations in its history.' 
 
 To Sister Maria Pia. 
 
 ' June 22, 18S3. 
 
 ' As the 24th is the day on which the Achilli trial ended 
 3 1 years ago, I mean to say Mass for you in grateful remem- 
 brance of the part you had in it. 
 
 ' As to the Affirmation Bill, I tried to sign my name 
 against it, but had no opportunity, so far was I from refusing. 
 The only opportunity I had was from an anonymous Bir- 
 mingham petition to Parliament — but, when I had almost got 
 the pen in my hand, I felt that a Cardinal had no right to put 
 down his name amid a mixed multitude. And then I thought 
 *' have any clergy signed the petition ? " and " would not the 
 Bishop have told me ? " So having no hint and no means, I 
 did not express an opinion. At the same time, if you ask my 
 real thought, I should say that, tho' I wished to sign, I should 
 merely have done so because others did, not to be singular. 
 For I think it a piece of humbug, and no good would come 
 of the Bill being rejected and no harm by its passing. No 
 atheist is kept out as it is, and within the last fortnight a daily 
 paper has in earnest said that atheism ought to be considered 
 one form of theism ! (Look at pp. 36-38 of my " Idea of a 
 University.") When it was all over, some one wrote to a 
 Paper to say he had authority from me to state that I dis- 
 approved in every way of the Bill. This was not true, and I 
 was obliged to write a letter to say that I neither approved 
 of it nor disapproved — that it was a mere political bill with 
 which I had nothing to do. 
 
 ' I am sorry to hear your accounts of Princess Borghese.' 
 
 Mr. Hutton published early in the following year, in the 
 ContcDiporary Reviezv, a very appreciative criticism of some 
 of the Cardinal's writings, which he sent to the Oratory, 
 following up his gift by a letter, to which Newman thus 
 replied :
 
 522 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' May 6, 18S4. 
 
 ' My dear Mr. Hutton, — You have anticipated my letter 
 which was going to you to-day. 
 
 ' I should have written to thank you sooner, but I was like 
 a man out of breath from the action of a plunging or shower 
 bath, or rather like a baby in Martha Gunn's hands, who 
 begins to cry. Not that I did not feel your extreme kind- 
 ness, or rather indulgence, as well as the depth and force of 
 your criticism. But I am necessarily suffering from having 
 lived too long. 
 
 ' I can't expect that affectionate friends such as you (for 
 the words " affectionately yours " were in my own heart and 
 at the end of my pen before I found them in your letter) that 
 such can wait till my full years on earth have run out, before 
 they speak of me ; nor that the purveyors of gossip of the 
 past should refrain from tearing off my morbidly sensitive 
 skin, while they can, with public interest ; but turning from 
 what is accidental, I am obliged to look higher — but I am 
 too tired to bring out here my meaning. Don't suppose I 
 am strong, because my writing is clear — unless I wrote very 
 slowly, letter by letter, my writing would be unreadable. 
 
 ' Here I am but writing a letter of thanks. It is about 
 20 years since I wrote to thank you for your notice in 
 the Spectator of my "Apologia" on its first publication. I 
 daresay it was against the etiquette of the literary world, for 
 no one was kind enough to answer me but you. In conse- 
 quence I called on you at your office. I have never seen 
 you since, have I ? but, whenever in London, from the 
 gratitude I felt for the continuance of the kindness you first 
 showed in 1864, I have wished to do so. Now I suppose 
 there is no chance of my ever going to London, at least 
 for many hours. You will accept instead, I am sure, the 
 blessing of a Cardinal of Holy Church, even though you 
 cannot accept that title of " Holy " as given her in the 
 Creed. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately 
 
 John H. Card. Newman.' 
 
 The present writer saw Mr. Hutton after he received this 
 reply, which caused him some anxiety lest he had simply 
 given pain to the man whose influence he had wished to 
 serve by writing his article. He conveyed his anxiety 
 to the Cardinal in a letter which brought the following 
 characteristic note in reply :
 
 LAST YEARS (1S81-1890) 523 
 
 •May II, 1884. 
 
 ' My dear Mr. Hutton, — I am very ungrateful to you if I 
 have given you serious pain. But I do not understand you 
 so, and I feel that really you understand me. 
 
 * The shock of a shower bath turns into a feeling both 
 pleasurable and permanent, and it was a great omission in 
 me, if I did not make this clear to you. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately 
 
 John H. Card. Newman.' 
 
 To Sister Maria Pia. 
 
 'Dec. 19, 1884. 
 
 ' Your letter has just come, and I think it better to 
 send you my affectionate congratulations and Cardinalitian 
 blessing by anticipation of the Feast, than to run the risk 
 of engagements and over fatigue when the day comes. 
 
 * I don't think anything of your special mental trouble, 
 for it does not argue any want of faith, but is merely that 
 now you realize more exactly what lies before you, and 
 your enemy takes advantage of what is really a meritorious 
 state of mind to frighten you. I am reading with great 
 interest Wilfrid Ward's (son of W. G. Ward) book, " The 
 Wish to Believe," and if, when I have finished it, I like it 
 as much as I do when I am half through it, I will send it 
 to you. 
 
 ' What I am anxious about is your state of health. You 
 have never, as I think, realized that the misfortune you have 
 had is very serious. You do not now, I fear, protect yourself 
 against what may happen as you ought. I have known 
 cases, which, for want of proper habitual precaution, ter- 
 minated in sudden death. Perhaps I am quite wrong in my 
 fear that you neglect it, but, if so, I am doing no harm by 
 my mistake. 
 
 ' You are, I know, in our Lord's loving hands. You have 
 given yourself to a life of great penance for His sake, and 
 He will not, docs not, forget it. " When thou shalt pass 
 through the waters. He will be with thee, and when thou 
 shalt walk in the fire, thou shalt not be burnt," for you are 
 one of those who have taken your purgatory in this life, and 
 I rejoice tc think that, when God has taken you hence I 
 shall have one to plead for me in heaven. For me, I have no 
 sign on me of dying yet.' 
 
 I add a few specimens of his letters and notes in 1885 and 
 1886:
 
 524 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 To Dean Church. 
 
 'April 12, 1885. 
 
 • My dear Dean, — Thank you for your impressive Easter 
 Sermon. 
 
 ' It is 63 years today since I was elected at Oriel ; the 
 turning day of my life. 
 
 ' Yrs affly, 
 
 J. H. Card. Newman.' 
 
 To Miss Bowles. 
 
 'Christmas Eve, 1885. 
 
 ' Thank you for your long letter. I rejoice to find that 
 Frederick is such a support to you, and you to him. You 
 have indeed had severe trials this year past. Xmas Day 
 was the death day of my last sister, in the year I returned 
 from Rome (1879). I ^^i^l "ot forget your wish. 
 
 ' I am much weaker than this time last year, but, as far 
 as I know have nothing the matter with me. The two last 
 Christmases I have had most kind and gratifying messages 
 from the Holy Father. 
 
 ' I send you and your brother my blessing, as Christmas 
 calls for it.' 
 
 To Mr. John Pollen, who wrote to him in the course 
 of a long voyage, he thus replied : 
 
 'May 6, 1S85. 
 
 ' My dear Pollen, — Your letter of this morning is most 
 welcome, and I thank you for it. I thought it a plucky thing 
 your going all that way by yourself, and I rejoice that you 
 are back safe and sound. Though no traveller myself, I can 
 sympathise in what you tell me. I have gone through the 
 Gibraltar galleries and brought away from them at least 
 one piece of knowledge which, after all the changes in the 
 science of warfare, seems, [by] the account of poor Colonel 
 Stewart's act on running on the rock on the Nile, still to hold 
 good, that there are two ways of disabling a gun, spiking it, 
 and knocking it off the end of the trunnion. Also I recollect 
 a window in the galleries from which you looked down 800 
 feet sharp descent. 
 
 ' Well, and I sympathise with you in the strange feeling 
 of coming on deck of a morning and seeing before you 
 Cadiz, Algiers, Palermo or Ithaca, like the rounds in a Magic 
 Lantern, though the middies and the crew take it as a matter 
 of course. 
 
 ' One thing I confess lies outside my sympathy, though it 
 touches me much, and all the more, viz. your having recourse
 
 LAST YEARS (1881-1890) 525 
 
 to " The Grammar of Assent " as a refuge from the palm 
 trees and apes. My imagination will not take it in, except 
 as a pendant to that great Ch. Ch. Greek scholar who to 
 relieve himself of the excitement of the subjunctive mood, 
 used to take up a volume of the Tracts for the Times. I 
 think he told me so himself. 
 
 ' Your sketchy account of India made me understand why 
 the Russians should covet it. . . . 
 
 'When you see Lord Ripon, please to tell him how I 
 rejoice in his triumphant return. I have not written my 
 congratulations because I feel my seU passe and thereby privi- 
 leged. Indeed I am really old now. I write slowly and 
 with effort and pain, and have various small ailments which I 
 seem unable to throw off, and I am writing this as I lie upon 
 
 a sofa. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Card. Newman.' 
 
 In the same year he sent his collected works as a gift 
 to his old College, Trinity, with the following letter to 
 Dr. Percival, its president : 
 
 'May 18, 1S85. 
 
 ' My dear President, — I have been asking myself how I 
 could show that I was still mindful of the kindness done me 
 by the College in giving me a place among its Fellows, now 
 that I can no longer present myself to them in person on the 
 annual " Gaudy " ; and the bold thought has come to me that, 
 instead of myself, perhaps they would let me offer to them a 
 set of the books I have published in the course of my life. 
 
 ' I know indeed how books grow on the shelves of a 
 Library, and how precious in consequence is the space, and 
 I shall iDe content if there is room only for some of mine ; 
 still it seems a duty to offer all if I offer any, while, in order 
 to give the Librarian a choice, I send you, with this letter, a 
 complete list of them. 
 
 ' I hope you will not think me unreasonable in thus 
 writing to you. This May the i8th on which I write is the 
 anniversary of the Monday on which in 1818 I was elected a 
 member of your Foundation. 
 
 ' May your yearly Festival ever be as happy a day to you 
 all, as in 18 18 it was to me. 
 
 * I am, my dear President, 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 John H, Card. Newman. 
 
 ' P.S. Excuse my hand writing. 1 am now scarcely able 
 to form any letters.'
 
 526 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 To Dean Church. 
 
 'March 25, 1886. 
 ' My dear Dean, — Many thanks. I am going up to the 
 Duchess [of Norfolk's] Requiem Mass on Monday. How 
 I am to get thro' it, I can't tell. I hope I shall not be 
 using your house as an Infirmary — I am, not ill, but so 
 weak and sleepy. 
 
 ' Ever yrs affly, 
 
 John H. Card. Newman.' 
 
 To THE Rev. A. Spurrier. 
 
 'Dec. II, 1886. 
 
 ' I wish the state of my fingers allowed me to write a 
 sufficient, or at least a readable answer to your question. I 
 must be abrupt, because I must be short. 
 
 ' Who can have dared to say that I am disappointed in 
 the Church of Rome ? I say " dared," because I have never 
 uttered, or written, or thought, or felt the very shadow of 
 disappointment. I believe it to be a human institution as 
 well as a divine, and so far as it is human it is open to the 
 faults of human nature ; but if, because I think, with others, 
 that its rulers have sometimes erred as fallible men, I there- 
 fore think it has failed, such logic won't hold ; indeed, it is 
 the wonderful anticipation in Our Lord's and St. Paul's 
 teaching, of apparent failure [and real] success in the times 
 after them which has ever been one of my strong arguments 
 for believing them divine messengers. 
 
 ' But I can't write more. One word as to your next page. 
 Faith is a divine gift. It is gained by prayer. Prayer must 
 be patient and persevering. I have not strength to explain 
 and defend this here. God bless you.' 
 
 He exchanged some letters at the end of this year with 
 Mr. G. T. Edwards, formerly secretary to the London Evan- 
 gelical Society, and in closing the correspondence expressed 
 his own feeling that he had found in the Catholic Church the 
 fuller development of all that he had most reverenced and 
 still reverenced in the Evangelical creed of his youth. 
 
 'Feby. 24th, 1S87. 
 
 ' My difficulty in writing breaks my thoughts, and my 
 feelings, and I not only can't say, what I wish to say, but 
 also my wishes themselves fare as if a dish of cold water was 
 thrown over them. 
 
 ' I felt your letter, as all your letters, to be very kind 
 to me, and I feel very grateful to you. I don't know why 
 
 f
 
 LAST YEARS (1881-1890) 527 
 
 you have been so kind, and you have been so more and 
 more. 
 
 ' I will not close our correspondence, without testifying 
 my simple love and adhesion to the Catholic Roman Church, 
 not that I think you doubt this ; and did I wish to give a 
 reason for this full and absolute devotion, what should, what 
 can I say but that those great and burning truths which I 
 learned when a boy from Evangelical teaching, I have found 
 impressed upon my heart with fresh and ever increasing force 
 by the Holy Roman Church ? That Church has added to 
 the simple Evangelicalism of my first teachers, but it has 
 obscured, diluted, enfeebled, nothing of it. On the contrary 
 I have found a power, a resource, a comfort, a consolation in 
 our Lord's Divinity and atonement, in His real presence in 
 Communion, in His Divine and Human power, which all 
 good Catholics indeed have, but which Evangelical Christians 
 have but faintly. But I have not strength to say more. 
 
 * Thank you for the beautiful Edition of the New Testa- 
 ment. I have a great dislike to heavy books.' 
 
 There is a curious letter belonging to the same year 
 dictated in reply to one in which the Jesuit Father Hopkins 
 had recorded his experience of the anti-English feeling in 
 parts of Ireland : 
 
 ' March 3, 1887. 
 
 ' Your letter is an appalling one— but not on that account 
 untrustworthy. There is one consideration however which 
 you omit. The Irish Patriots hold that they never have 
 yielded themselves to the sway of England and therefore 
 never have been under her laws, and never have been rebels. 
 
 ' This does not diminish the force of your picture, but it 
 suggests that there is no help, no remedy. If I were an 
 Irishman, I should be (in heart) a rebel. Moreover, to clench 
 the difficulty the Irish character and tastes [are] very different 
 from the English. 
 
 * My fingers will not let me write more.' 
 
 On the same day he wrote to his cousin, Miss Emmeline 
 Deane, who was anxious to paint his picture : 
 
 ' My dear Emmeline, — It would be a great pleasure and 
 favour to me to be painted by you. These are not idle 
 words, and I should rejoice to see you. But my time is not 
 my own. It is not now my own as if I were young, and I 
 have much to do, and have no certainty when the supply of 
 time will cease, and life end. 
 
 ';
 
 528 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' You may recollect the histories of St. Bede and St. 
 Anselm. They were each of them finishing a great work, 
 and they had to run a race with time. Anselm did not finish 
 his — but Bede just managed to be successful. Anselm was 
 ^6 — but Bede was only 62. I, alas, alas, am 86. 
 
 ' What chance have I of doing my small work, however 
 much I try? and you lightly ask me, my dear child, to give 
 up the long days, which are in fact the only days I have ! 
 
 * The only days I have, because it is my misfortune not to 
 be able to read by candle-light, and at this very time, though 
 March has begun, I am anxiously waiting day by day, though 
 as yet in vain, for the morning light to be strong enough to 
 enable me to say Mass without the vain attempt to use a 
 candle. 
 
 ' I must add that now for two years I have lost the use of 
 my fingers for writing, and am obliged to write very slowly in 
 order to form my letters. 
 
 * It is all this which hinders my saying categorically 
 " yes " to your kind, and, to me, welcome question. 
 
 ' But I will say this — I am labouring to carry two volumes 
 of" St. Athanasius " through the press — I fear this will take at 
 least half a year — this must be — but I know no excuse, if it 
 suits you, why you should not write again to me then, if I 
 am then alive. 
 
 * Yours affectly, 
 
 John H. Card. Newman.' 
 
 He read in this year a short religious tale ^ by a daughter 
 of his old friend Mr. Hope-Scott, and thus wrote to its 
 author : 
 
 'June 2ist, 1887. 
 
 * My dear Josephine, — I should like to send you a long 
 letter, but my fingers won't write, and I fear you will not be 
 able to read this attempt. 
 
 ' I like your book extremely. It has great merits. You 
 have hit ofif your characters very well. Few Catholics have 
 described so well a pious dissenting Evangelical. And in 
 her way Fanny is as good as Bessie. And the contrast of 
 motives (each supernatural) which led the two into the 
 Church is excellently brought out. 
 
 ' You are somewhat ambitious in your sketch of Staples, 
 but it is good as an imagination, which requires filling out. 
 
 * There is perhaps too much direct teaching and preaching 
 in the Tale — though perhaps it could not be helped. You 
 
 ' In the Way. Burns & Oates. 
 
 I
 
 LAST YEARS (1881-1890) 529 
 
 have referred to Bishop Hay once ; I think it would have 
 been more prudent if, at the foot of the page, you had now 
 and then [given references] : " Vid. Bp. Hay," *' vid. Fr. 
 Faber," or the like. 
 
 ' Now, my dear Child, I hope this criticism will not 
 frighten you. If I was not pleased with your work, if I did 
 not think it likely to do glory to God, if I did not love you 
 and take an interest in you, I should not have written. You 
 must not be startled at my abruptness, that arises from the 
 effort and trouble with which I write. 
 
 ' I always have you and your sisters and brother in my 
 prayers. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 J. H. Card. Newman.' 
 
 Henceforth he wrote but little in his own handwriting, 
 and the following unfinished fragment to Dean Church tells 
 its own story : 
 
 •Julys, 1887. 
 
 * I was very glad to receive your letter, for I feared the 
 heat of London was telling upon you, and the Papers said 
 nothing of you good or bad. For myself, though I have no 
 complaint, " senectus ipsa est morbus," showing itself in 
 failure of sight, speech, joints, hearing.' 
 
 The last autograph letter the present writer has seen is 
 the following, written to himself on the occasion of his 
 engagement to the daughter of the Cardinal's old friend, 
 Mr. Hope-Scott, to whom the letter already cited was 
 
 addressed : 
 
 ' Sept. 28th, 1S87. 
 ' My dear Wilfrid, — What a capital letter you have sent 
 me. I rejoice to receive it, and send you gladly my con- 
 gratulations and blessing. 
 
 ' I have neither eyes to see, nor fingers to write. So these 
 lines (are they lines?) are but an ungrateful return for yours 
 and Josephine's. 
 
 ' Yours affectly, 
 
 J. H. Card. Newman.' 
 
 Other habitual tasks besides letter-writing soon became 
 impossible. The Cardinal preached for the last time on 
 January i, 1888, at the celebration of the sacerdotal Jubilee 
 of Leo Xni. The thought which had so long tried him — 
 that he had been allowed to do so little since his admission 
 VOL. II. M M
 
 530 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 to the Catholic Church up to the last years of his life— was 
 apparent in this sermon. He found in this a point of 
 sympathy with Pope Leo, who was himself (he believed) 
 an old and comparatively unknown man when the great 
 opportunity of his elevation to the Pontificate was given 
 him. It was the way of God's Providence. 
 
 ' When we look back,' he said, ' at the lives of holy men it 
 often seems wonderful that God had not employed them more 
 fully.' He pointed out the inscrutable ways of Almighty God 
 in choosing persons to do His work, Moses being eighty years 
 of age before he began his career as leader of the Israelites, 
 while St. John the Baptist was cut off at the beginning of his 
 work. After citing as instances St. Gregory Nazianzen and 
 others from ecclesiastical history, the Cardinal said : ' I do 
 not directly compare our present Holy Father with Moses, 
 but still the same rule applies in his case. He had lived a 
 long life before he was Pope ; and he has now done things 
 which it might be said no other man could do, yet it is 
 scarcely to be supposed that any one present had heard his 
 name before he was Pope. There did not seem any likelihood 
 that he would leave his Perugia bishopric, but he was found 
 as others were found, by the special providence and inspira- 
 tion of God, and we in our ignorance knew nothing of him.' 
 
 ' In conclusion,' so runs the newspaper report of the 
 sermon, ' the Cardinal thanked God, as for one of the special 
 blessings of his life, that he was allowed to stand there and 
 say a few words that day, and that by the special favour of 
 God he had lived thus long to see such a man.' 
 
 To the very last the feeling of regret for lost time would 
 at times find fresh expression. The opposition of men— of 
 good men— had for years defeated so many of his efforts. 
 And now the night was approaching and he could do but 
 little. Nevertheless, while he could not cease to feel this fact 
 keenly, he recognised how small such personal considerations 
 would look in the light of eternity. 
 
 ' As to what may be called wrongs to him, his own last 
 words on such subjects,' writes Father Neville, ' were nearly 
 these : " You must not suppose that these little affairs of 
 mine will be on the tapis in the courts of the next world." 
 This was said with a cheerfulness and gravity very expressive
 
 LAST YEARS (1881-1890) 531 
 
 of great kindness, a good conscience, and solemn thought. 
 It was said after a long silence : a silence which he resumed 
 for a considerable time. He had been speaking of his many 
 years of wasted work.' 
 
 So far as age and infirmity allowed it, the Cardinal kept 
 up his intercourse with old friends. Three meetings in the 
 last years of his life with his faithful ally and staunch sup- 
 porter Bishop Ullathorne are chronicled in that prelate's 
 Biography. On August 18, 1887, Dr. Ullathorne writes to 
 a friend as follows : 
 
 ' I have been visiting Cardinal Newman to-day. He is 
 much wasted, but very cheerful. Yesterday he went to 
 London to see an oculist. When he tries to read black 
 specks are before his eyes. But his oculist tells him there is 
 nothing wrong but old age. We had a long and cheery talk, 
 but as I was rising to leave an action of his caused a scene 
 I shall never forget. . . . He said in low and humble accents, 
 " My dear Lord, will you do me a great favour ? " " What is 
 it ? " I asked. He glided down on his knees, bent down his 
 venerable head, and said, "Give me your blessing." What 
 could I do with him before me in such a posture ? I could 
 not refuse without giving him great embarrassment. So I 
 laid my hand on his head and said : " My dear Lord Cardinal, 
 notwithstanding all laws to the contrary, I pray God to bless 
 you, and that His Holy Spirit may be full in your heart." 
 As I walked to the door, refusing to put on his biretta as he 
 went with me, he said : " I have been indoors all my life, 
 whilst you have battled for the Church in the world." ' 
 
 Again, on April 16, 1888, Dr. Ullathorne writes: 
 
 ' To-day I have been honoured with a visit from Cardinal 
 Newman, and never did he look more venerable, and show 
 more feeling. He had fixed his mind all Lent to come and 
 see me on Easter Monday. When that day came he was 
 forbidden to leave the house. To-day was bright, and he 
 came ; he was brought to my room leaning on the arms of 
 two priests, and we talked for an hour, after which he left. 
 He can no longer read, and even if he tries to sign his name 
 he cannot see what strokes he makes. But I was much 
 touched by his conversation.' 
 
 The last meeting of all was in the following July at Stone 
 convent, so long the home of Mother Margaret Hallahan and 
 
 M M 2
 
 532 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Mother Imelda. The meeting has been described by one of 
 the nuns : 
 
 'On the 1 6th of July the Connmunity received an un- 
 expected visit from the venerable Cardinal Newman, the last 
 time they were ever to enjoy that privilege. His coming had 
 been announced in the morning, and on his arrival he was met 
 at the door by the Archbishop, who gave him his arm, and 
 supported him to the Community room, where he received 
 the Religious, saying a kind word to each whom he knew. 
 He spoke of a visit he had lately made to London, and of the 
 impression which the sight of the great metropolis had made 
 on him, "like a glimpse of the great Babylon. ... It made 
 me think of the words, ' Love not the world nor the things of 
 the world.' Perhaps, however, I am too severe, and only 
 think in that way because I am an old man." After a while 
 he rose and blessed the Community and returned to the guest 
 room, still leaning on the Archbishop's arm. There he con- 
 sented to rest for a short space and take some refreshment, 
 the Archbishop pouring out tea for him and holding it to his 
 lips. To see these two venerable men thus together, one 
 waiting on the other and supporting his feebleness, was a 
 sight never to be forgotten ; and few who then saw them 
 would have predicted that the elder, and more infirm of the 
 two, would be the survivor.' ^ 
 
 Of the last two years, with the gradual failure which 
 they brought, Father Neville has left a simple and touching 
 narrative : 
 
 * According to the custom of Cardinals he said his own 
 private Mass in a private chapel, and always as early as 
 convenient to others ; for the last time, the Christmas Day 
 before he died, after which Feast he always declined to say 
 Mass himself from fear of an accident. Sight and strength 
 had already very greatly failed him, and he feared lest he 
 should overbalance in taking the chalice. Reverence forbade 
 such a risk. Nevertheless he learnt by heart a Mass of the 
 Blessed Virgin and a Mass of the Dead. One or other of 
 these Masses he repeated daily, whole or part, and with the 
 due ceremonies, for the chance that he hoped for, since his 
 sight and strength varied, that with the brighter sunlight of 
 the spring he might some day find himself in condition to 
 say Mass once again. He was determined, he said, that no 
 want of readiness on his part should cause him to miss the 
 
 ' See Life of Archbishop Ullaihorne, ii. 533. Dr. Ullathorne on resigning 
 his See was made a titular Archbishop.
 
 LAST YEARS (1881-1890) 533 
 
 opportunity should it occur. This preparation became to him 
 the great pleasure of the day, both from what he could look 
 forward to in hope, and also from the reverence that filled 
 him by the solemnity of the words and different actions. 
 This reverence would sometimes be manifest in his face and 
 voice, and sometimes he would give expression of it by word 
 to those who assisted him. He continued this preparation 
 until within two or three days of his death, August 11, 1890. 
 The hoped-for opportunity to say Mass never came. 
 
 ' Other religious privations had already come upon him. 
 First that of the daily Office in the Breviary. He had always 
 been greatly attached to the recital of the Office, and he 
 rejoiced especially in the recurrence of the Sunday and other 
 longer offices ; his favourite parts of which never palled upon 
 him as subjects for conversation. But the time came when 
 he could no longer use the Breviary, and then, by the advice 
 of Bishop Ullathorne, he substituted the Rosary in its stead. 
 What the Rosary became to him under these new circum- 
 stances, those can imagine who know what his attachment to 
 the daily Office had been ; his ready reply to a condolence on 
 his loss of the power to say it being, that the Rosary more 
 than made up for it ; that the Rosary was to him the most 
 beautiful of all devotions and that it contained all in itself 
 In time, however, the Rosary had to be abandoned, a want of 
 sensitiveness in his finger-ends disabling him from its use. 
 From far back, in the long distance of time, memory brings 
 him forward, when not engaged in writing or reading, as most 
 frequently having the Rosary in his hand.' 
 
 One by one, too, old habits and amusements had to follow 
 these devotional exercises, leaving dictation and the reading 
 of others to take their place. He was unable any longer 
 himself to preach. But when in 1889 Leo XHI. protested 
 against the erection in Rome of a statue to Giordano Bruno, 
 Cardinal Newman dictated some words to be read by one of 
 the Fathers from the pulpit, vehemently endorsing the Holy 
 Father's protest. 
 
 In the same year Englishmen were talking a good deal of 
 the conspicuous part which Cardinal Manning was taking in 
 arbitrating between masters and men in the dockers' strike. 
 The subject gl^ occasion for a pleasant exchange of letters 
 between the two English Cardinals. Father Neville speaks 
 as follows of Newman's feeling in relation to Cardinal 
 Manning's action in the matter :
 
 534 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' " What did Cardinal Newman think of that movement ? " 
 It is a subject that had not been brought before him in former 
 years, and it was not now in his power to judge of it at all 
 fully ; but he could see with great satisfaction how Cardinal 
 Manning had manifested to the whole country the interest 
 Holy Church takes in the welfare of the poor. To Cardinal 
 Newman this was a subject for rejoicing ; he therefore dictated 
 a little letter to the Cardinal Archbishop congratulating his 
 Eminence most heartily thereon. Cardinal Manning's reply 
 was as follows : 
 
 ' Archbishop's House, Westminster : September 30, 1889. 
 
 ' My dear Cardinal, — Your letter of this morning is as 
 grateful to me, as it was unlooked for ; and I thank you for 
 it very heartily. 
 
 ' I was rejoiced to see the other day the words you spoke 
 in Church about Giordano Bruno. They showed the old 
 energy of days now past for both of us. 
 
 ' Do not forget me in your prayers ; every day I remember 
 you at the altar. 
 
 ' Believe me always, 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 Henry E. Cardinal Manning.' 
 
 To the very end Cardinal Newman longed to do some 
 useful work, though the failure of his powers left him little 
 opportunity. One occasion did present itself only a few 
 months before his death. I slightly abridge Father Neville's 
 account of it : 
 
 ' It concerned a number of young Catholics employed in 
 a large manufactory where great care was taken of them, all 
 of the hands being girls. It was the rule that every one on 
 the premises should assemble at a fixed time in the working 
 hours, once a day, for religious instruction, viz. the reading 
 of Scripture with an exposition thereon by the masters them- 
 selves, who were of the Society of Friends. This rule had 
 been complied with a very long time, but when the priest of 
 the mission heard of it, he strictly forbade his own people 
 to attend, no matter how short the time. The masters 
 would not take the priest's word as final ; they would 
 like, they said, the opinion of some such liberal-minded 
 Catholic as Cardinal Newman on so unexpected a command. 
 This our Cardinal thought a call upon him to come forward, 
 and he lost no time. It was in the month of November, 
 the year before he died, a time of thick snow and thaw, 
 which obliged him to walk some little way to the works ; but 
 he would not hear of delay and drove to see the masters.
 
 LAST YEARS (1881-1890) 535 
 
 'The masters maintained very well their own religious 
 grounds for the observance of the rule, and since they could 
 not enter into the Cardinal's argument for relaxation which 
 he rested on the need of the entirety of the Creed,' he had, he 
 said, to have his wits well about him not to go wrong. That, 
 however, he rather enjoyed. The masters received what he 
 put forward with kindness and respect, and they said they 
 would talk the matter over by themselves. Anticipating suc- 
 cess, the Cardinal's first words on re-entering his carriage 
 came with pleased briskness : " If I can but do work such as 
 that, I am happy and content to live on." A few days 
 brought the good news that all difficulties had been got over 
 by a room having been set apart for the Catholics to meet in 
 for prayer by themselves — a very great privilege that is in 
 force to this day.' 
 
 Two letters written in 1889 and 1890 should be added 
 to those that have been given. One relates to the death of 
 Father Hecker, the Paulist whose efforts to interpret the 
 Catholic religion to his contemporaries in America had 
 commanded Newman's close sympathy. The other shows 
 him at the end of his long life of nearly ninety years 
 exchanging words of sympathy and fellowship with an 
 adherent of his own early Evangelical creed — Mr. Edwards, 
 and sending him his own translation of the ancient prayer, 
 used by St. Ignatius Loyola in his spiritual exercises, 
 ' Anima Christi sanctifica me. ' 
 
 To Father Hewit. 
 
 'Feb. 28th, 1S89. 
 * My dear Father Hewit, — I was very sorrowful at hearing 
 of Father Hecker's death. I have ever felt that there was 
 this sort of unity in our lives, that we had both begun a work 
 of the same kind, he in America and I in England, and I 
 know how zealous he was in promoting it. It is not many 
 months since I received a vigorous and striking proof of it in 
 the book he sent me. Now I am left with one friend less, 
 and it remains with me to convey through you my best con- 
 dolcment to all the members of your Society. 
 
 ' Hoping that you do not forget me in your prayers, 
 ' I am, dear Father Hewit, 
 
 Most truly yours, 
 
 John H. Card. Newman.' 
 
 ' His argument had ever been that heretics held part of the Creed, Catholics 
 the whole— obviously not a popular argument.
 
 536 T.IFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 To Mr. G. T. Edwards. 
 
 ' 29lh January, 1890. 
 ' My dear Mr. Edwards, — Accept my tardy Christmas 
 greetings and good wishes to you for fuhicss in faith, hope, 
 charity, gladness and peace ; for the blessings of Holy 
 Church, and of Gospel gifts, for the Communion of Saints, 
 and the Life Everlasting. [^ 
 
 * I shall venture to send you what I may call my Creed 
 over-leaf 
 
 ' Yours most truly, I 
 
 J. H. N. ] 
 
 'My Creed. '- 
 
 Soul of Christ, be my sanctification ; 
 
 Body of Christ, be my salvation ; 
 
 Blood of Christ, fill all my veins ; 
 
 Water of Christ's side, wash out my stains, 
 
 Passion of Christ, my comfort be, 
 
 O good Jesus, listen to me 
 
 In thy wounds I fain would hide 
 
 Ne'er to be parted from Thy side ; 
 
 Guard me should the foe assail me ; 
 
 Call me when my life shall fail me. 
 
 Bid me come to Thee above, 
 
 With Thy Saints to sing Thy love, 
 
 World without end. Amen.' 
 
 ' It might be said of the Cardinal,' writes Father Neville, 
 ' that he clung to life to the end. He knew how he would 
 be missed by some, and he felt for them ; and there were 
 objects and interests which he held very tenderly in mind 
 with this thought of them— what would happen in the 
 struggle which in his forecast of the future seemed likely to 
 come ? God's cause was ever in his mind. And as long as 
 he could in any way serve it he desired to stay.' 
 
 However, in the summer of 1890 it was clear that the end 
 was not far distant. Father Neville records that the Cardinal 
 was displeased with the doctors for speaking as though he 
 might yet live a year or two when they must know that it 
 was a matter of months or even weeks. Death did come 
 almost suddenly. But it was immediately preceded by a 
 somewhat remarkable momentary rally on the evening of 
 August 9, which Father Neville thus records :
 
 LAST YEARS (1881-1890) 537 
 
 'The Cardinal entered his room . . . his footstep was 
 slow yet firm and elastic ; indeed, it was not recognized as 
 his, his attendant was surprised that it was he ; soon, when 
 seen, his bearing was in keeping with his step ; — unbent, erect 
 to the full height of his best days in the 'fifties ; he was 
 without support of any kind. His whole carriage was, it may 
 be said, soldier-like, and so dignified ; and his countenance 
 was most attractive to look at ; even great age seemed to 
 have gone from his face, and with it all careworn signs ; his 
 very look conveyed the cheerfulness and gratitude of his 
 mind, and what he said was so kind ; his voice was quite 
 fresh and strong, his whole appearance was that of power, 
 combined with complete calm. . . .' 
 
 That night he was taken ill of congestion of the lungs. 
 He rose next morning, but had to go to bed again. Then 
 happened a little incident which brings before us vividly 
 his clinging and grateful memory of those who had minis- 
 tered by their kindness to his suffering temperament in days 
 of trial. I relate it in Father Neville's own words : 
 
 * A poor, an indigent person, a stranger to him, had once 
 left for him at the house door a silk handkerchief with a 
 message of respect. This was very many years before he 
 was Cardinal, and when he seemed, so to speak, much set 
 aside ; at a time, too, when he was himself very poor. Both 
 present and message were received by him as they were 
 meant, and with a solemn gravity which checked even a 
 smile. He kept the handkerchief as something he prized. 
 When he went to bed expecting to die, he had it brought to 
 him, and put it on, and, though the doctors said he might 
 as well be without it, he died with it on. He had kept it 
 quite thirty years, even more.' 
 
 The Cardinal received the last Sacraments on August 10, 
 and passed away at a quarter to nine in the evening of 
 August II, having been unconscious for most of the day. 
 The funeral was at Rednal on the 19th. He was buried 
 in accordance with the instructions he had left, in the grave 
 of his beloved friend Ambrose St. John, and on the pall was 
 his chosen motto ' Cor ad cor loquitur.' On the memorial 
 slab at his own desire were engraved the words ' Ex umbris 
 ct imaginibus in veritatem.'
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 * 
 
 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XXI 
 The following is the text of the correspondence referred to at p. 47 : 
 MoNSiGNOR Talbot to Dr. Newman. 
 
 '8 York Place, Portman Square, London: July 24, 1864. 
 
 ' My dear Dr. Newman, — I called upon you yesterday at Edgbaston, and 
 was very sorry not to find you at home. 
 
 ' One of the reasons for which I called upon you was to invite you to come to 
 Rome for next Lent to preach at my Church in the Piazza del Popolo, where you 
 would have a more educated audience of Protestants than could ever be the case 
 in England, and where they are more open to Catholic influences. 
 
 * When I told the Holy Father that I intended to invite you, he highly 
 approved of my intention, and I think myself that you will derive great benefit from 
 revisiting Rome, and again showing yourself to the Ecclesiastical Authorities 
 there, who are anxious to see you. 
 
 ' We shall have an apartment prepared for you at the English College, where 
 Doctor Neve will be very glad to receive you. 
 
 ' I am afraid that you may plead age &c. as an excuse for not taking so long 
 a journey, as some persons have told me you are likely to do, but I feel convinced 
 that you are prepared to make any sacrifice when the greater glory of God, and 
 the Salvation of Souls are concerned, and that you are prepared to forego your 
 own comfort, when the high interests of the Church are concerned, and you have 
 an opportunity to serve the Holy See. 
 
 ' To me it would be a great consolation to be able to tell the Holy Father that 
 you have accepted my invitation, and I am sure that the Blessing of the Vicar of 
 Christ will amply repay you for going so far. 
 
 ' Believe me, yours sincerely, 
 
 George Talbot.' 
 
 Dr. Newman to Monsignor Talbot. 
 
 ' The Oratorj', Birmingham : July 25, 1864. 
 ' Dear Monsignore Talbot,— I have received your letter, inviting me to preach 
 next Lent in your Church at Rome to "an audience of Protestants more educated 
 than could ever be the case in England." 
 
 ' However, Birmingham people have souls ; and I have neither taste nor 
 talent for the sort of work which you cut out for me. And I beg to decline your 
 oflFer. 
 
 ' I am, yours truly, 
 
 John H. Newman.'
 
 540 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Dr. Newman to Ambrose St. John. 
 
 'The Oratory: July 25, 1864. 
 ' Monsignor Talbot came on Saturday before I returned. Only Austin saw 
 him. William was sulky at his name. Edward said he would not go to any of 
 those bumptious Romans. He sat and talked with Austin in the boy's Refectory. 
 He asked what I thought of Catholic boys going to Oxford. He was quite 
 against it, but the Catholic gentry were "worldly." He wished me to preach 
 some Lent sermons at Rome. Austin said I preached here, but he said "Oh, 
 but this is a very different thing ; educated people " &c. What is Brummagem 
 to Monsignor Talbot but a region of snobs? yet souls are souls, your Right 
 Reverence. He went on to ask what I did; did I read? Austin said he did 
 not know ; but he saw me take out books from the Library.' 
 
 The following is the text of the " questions " concerning higher educa- 
 tion for English Catholics referred to at p. 66, and of Mr. Gaisford's 
 reply to them in a letter to Dr. Grant, Bishop of Southwark : 
 
 ' December 4th, 1S64. 
 
 ' I. Is there anything in the English University education, which it seems to 
 you impossible, or very difficult, to give in our Catholic Colleges, by any 
 practicable addition to, or variation of their present system or condition ? Please 
 to state in what it consists. 
 
 ' 2. What would you say is the exact meaning of scholarship as the peculiar 
 characteristic of University education ? 
 
 ' 3. What are the studies in which a Catholic youth going to a Protestant 
 University would be engaged during his course in it ? 
 
 ' 4. Would he acquire a greater knowledge than he could in a [Catholic] 
 College : 
 
 (a) of modern languages, as French, Italian, and German ? 
 
 [b) of foreign literature ? 
 
 \c) of history, geography, art, and other general subjects of information ? 
 
 « 5. Have you observed or heard on any good authority that in competitive 
 examination, according to proportion of numbers, the Catholics have fallen below 
 Protestant aspirants, whether in military or administrative competition ? 
 
 ' 6. Has it similarly come under your notice that, attending to ratio of numbers 
 at the Bar, from the Bench downwards, or in any other learned profession 
 persons brought up in a University have shewn a decisive superiority over those 
 educated in Catholic establishments ? 
 
 * 7. Putting aside all questions of tone and manner, and considering the 
 average of young men who annually go into the world from the University and of 
 those who finish their studies exclusively among Catholics, does any superiority 
 in solid learning and good education manifest itself in the first above the second ? 
 
 ' 8. Supposing a young Catholic, whose education had been carried on in one 
 of our Colleges to the extent professed to be taught there, were to go for three 
 years to a Protestant University, in what respect and to what extent do you sup- 
 pose that his education would be found advanced and his character better formed ? 
 
 ' 9. And more specifically, do you consider that the chances of improvement 
 in moral and religious condition would be increased during that interval, and that 
 the probability is that he would be found better grounded in faith, in piety, and 
 moral feeling, at the end than he was at the beginning of that term ? 
 
 ' 10. Considering the present condition of belief in the truths of revelation 
 among leading minds in the Universities, do you think that the intercourse natural
 
 APPENDICES 541 
 
 between the learned and able men of the University, with younger minds and 
 inexperienced scholars, would not necessarily weaken the faith in these ? 
 
 * II. Would it be possible, not to say expedient, to guard such impressionable 
 minds, especially where there was an ardour for learning, by weakening or 
 destroying all confidence on the part of youth in those whom they are otherwise 
 expected to respect and submit their judgment to? 
 
 ' 12. Why is the demand in favour of University education, according to your 
 way of viewing it, to be limited to the laity ? 
 
 • 13. If there be a higher, a nobler, and a more useful education to be attained 
 at a University than can possibly be given in a Catholic College (unless such 
 College is established in a Protestant University), why should the Clergy be 
 deprived in England alone of those signal advantages ? 
 
 ' 14. Ought the principle to be admitted that the laity should be more highly 
 educated than their clergy, considering the reproaches too readily cast on the latter 
 for lagging in the progress of knowledge and solid attainments ? 
 
 ' 15. May it not be justly considered (i) that if no danger of loss of faith or 
 morals exists for a layman, a fortiori there can be none for an Ecclesiastic ? 
 (2) that the mixture of virtuous and fervent Ecclesiastical scholars will sustain and 
 encourage their former College companions? 
 
 * 16. Is it not true that, although we treat the Universities as though great 
 national institutions for lay education, they are no less, or perhaps in the main, 
 the Protestant substitutes for Ecclesiastical Seminaries, and form in reality the 
 places in which all the clergy of the Church of England are educated ? Are not 
 all the Archbishops and Bishops of England and in great measure of Ireland, all 
 the dignitaries, certainly of England, and the vast bulk of the parochial clergy of 
 the Established Church educated there ; and has not the fruit of such education 
 been on the whole to produce a clergy most hostile in feeling and most heterodox 
 in doctrine in their attitude towards the Catholic Church ? 
 
 ' 17. Do you think that, such being the case, it would be worthy of the 
 Catholic Church and its pastors, believing themselves to be under the guidance of 
 the Holy Spirit, to surrender the highest education of their children, or of their 
 Ecclesiastical students, to the teaching and guiding of such a body of men ? 
 
 '18. Is not the great teaching body of the University composed of Protestant, 
 consequently heretical, clergymen ; and do you think that the Bishops ought to 
 advise the Holy See to commit the final training, and the finishing touch of the 
 formation of mind and heart of the children of God's people, to the hands of those 
 who have publicly declared and professed to hold that belief in the most solemn 
 and consoling doctrines, and observance of the most beautiful practices of devotion 
 in the Church, arc damnable and idolatrous ? 
 
 '19. Or do you think it possible for a professor or teacher holding the Holy 
 Catholic Church in contempt, and perhaps execration, from day to day to lecture 
 upon even indifferent topics without almost involuntarily allowing his feelings to 
 escape from any amount of watchful guardedness, and insinuate themselves int^ 
 the susceptible minds or imaginations of a few unnoticed Catholic pupils ? 
 
 • 20. On the whole, after considering all these questions and the answers 
 which you have no doubt conscientiously given them in the presence of God, 
 looking at the whole state of Europe and of England, and weighing in the 
 balance of the Sanctuary the opinions, political, scientific, social, and moral, in 
 conflict through the world, do you believe lliat should a consideral)le body of 
 young Catholics receive education in Protestant Universities, the result will 
 be the formation of a future Catholic body more conscientious, more orthodox,
 
 542 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 more religious, more devout, and more pure than we can obtain by any other 
 process of education ? And that should the decision be now in favour of 
 Protestant University education, our successors, and the future heads of Catholic 
 families, will feel thankful to God and believe that His Providence has guided 
 and blessed the decision ? ' 
 
 Mr. Gaisford to the Bishop of Southwark. 
 
 ' December nth, 1864. 
 
 ' The Dublin Review in an article given to Dr. Manning objects to 
 Oxford on the ground that it would " indefinitely postpone all efforts towards 
 founding purely Catholic Colleges for higher lay education." I answer that my 
 wants are pressing and that the foundation of a College takes years. I consider 
 myself responsible that my son shall be brought up first as a Catholic Christian, 
 secondly as an English gentleman, and though I hope that I am ready to take 
 advice from wiser men, I decline to shift my responsibility on anyone. 
 
 ' I will now make a few remarks upon some of the printed questions. 
 
 ' Question 2. I am no scholar myself, but, being asked to define the word 
 "Scholarship" I should say that a good Greek Scholar is one who has an 
 accurate and critical knowledge of Greek— I believe that the term is applied at 
 Oxford exclusively to Greek and Latin, and I think that the Catholic Seminaries 
 are inferior in Scholarship to Oxford. Much has been done for Greek literature 
 in this century, by Porson, Bloomfield, Maltby, and others, — my own father 
 among them, but I know of no English Catholic who has contributed. 
 
 '4. In modern languages, foreign literature, history, &c., I daresay Oscott is 
 not inferior. 
 
 ' 5 & 6, I have not watched the competitive examinations, but I know of no 
 leading English Catholic Barrister. 
 
 • 7. I cannot put aside tone and manner. 
 
 ' 8. He would gain a knowledge of the world (I use the term in a good sense). 
 His character would be better disciplined by being thrown in a large society, he 
 would have better choice of friends with whom he would live hereafter and with 
 whom I should wish him to live. My own Oxford friends have always stood by 
 me. There is no doubt that Catholic young men make a bad show in London 
 society; at the best clubs they were pretty sure to be blackballed, and why? 
 Not on religious grounds. What does the Travellers' Club care for a man's 
 religious opinions? Nothing, — but it knows that the Catholics are exclusively 
 educated, have little in common with its other members, and would be a bore, 
 and so they are rejected, and rightly. London ladies say the same : "Excellent 
 young man, but a bore ; we don't know what to say to him, nor he to us." 
 Catholic gentlemen are now more numerous and I want to see them take their 
 proper position in the world, and I believe that the prejudices against our religion 
 would rapidly diminish if we were better known and mixed more freely with our 
 equals. 
 
 ' 9. I see no reason why at Oxford he should be less well grounded in faith — 
 the Oratorian Fathers would see to this. 
 
 'II. What is to become of my son at 18 if he does not go to Oxford? 
 There must always be danger to him, and I think he runs less risk at Oxford 
 than elsewhere ; the bane of the old Catholics has been lying about idle at their 
 parents' houses, or lounging on the Continent to pass the time between boyhood 
 and manhood.
 
 APPENDICES 543 
 
 * 12, 13, 14, 15. I give no opinion on education of the clergy, but if it be 
 thought inexpedient that they should go to Oxford and that therefore their 
 education may be inferior, I don't see why the laity should be under-educated 
 because the clergy can't have equal advantages. 
 
 ' 16. Yes, but though the Protestant clergy are hostile, I don't think they 
 despise or execrate our religion — there are exceptions however. 
 
 * 19. I should not consider a youth's faith endangered by attending an Oxford 
 Professor's lectures on indifferent subjects. 
 
 ' 20. I expect great advantages from Oxford. This question would have been 
 fairer if put thus : "With these advantages would the future Catholic be likely to 
 be less conscientious, less orthodox, &c. ? " I answer *' No." 
 
 ' And now, my dear Lord, I ask your pardon if I have written too openly ; 
 I thought over your questions most seriously, but I have written my answer 
 currente calaiiio, my only object being that you should know just what I think 
 on the subject.' 
 
 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 Extract from the Weekly Register, April 6, 1867, referred to at 
 p. 140. 
 
 Our Roman Letter. 
 
 ' Rome : March 28. 
 • •••••• 
 
 ' I cannot, of course, help alluding to what is a subject of common conversation 
 in those ecclesiastical circles here which are interested in the progress of Catholicism 
 in England. I should hesitate to do so but for the fact that a correspondent has 
 the duty of caring for nothing but offences against good taste and violations ot 
 secresy. I do so, however, the more readily because there are sure to be a dozen 
 reports about it in England, and because I have it in my power to put together 
 what I have collected from more sources than one. When the Bishop of Birming- 
 ham applied to the Propaganda respecting the mission of a high class at Oxford, 
 the Congregation of Cardinals considered the project with every wish to approve 
 a scheme which had already been known to be a desire of the Metropolitan. At 
 this particular time, however, his Grace neither interfered directly nor indirectly, 
 and I can safely say that the previous expression of his wish had been limited 
 strictly to the very natural desire — common to his Grace with all good English 
 Catholics -that Oxford and Cambridge should be the seats of energetic missions. 
 What the Bishop of Birmingham's application really amounted to does not seem 
 to have been perceived by more than one Cardinal of the Congregation, who, 
 knowing English matters rather intimately, expressed the need for a very guarded 
 consent to the application. As Cardinal Barnabo has with his own lips declared 
 that the question of Dr. Newman's going to Oxford was not the question that came 
 before the Propaganda, I presume that there must be every credit given to his 
 statement. The Congregation did not, therefore, find it necessary to limit the 
 consent in a matter which might not enter into the meaning of the application ; but 
 the result of this consent has been the entrusting of the new mission to Dr. Newman. 
 The Catholic Press has been busily occupied with this matter, and the Holy Father 
 is well accjuainted with what is going on in England, as are the Cardinals of the 
 Propaganda, more than one of whom reads English newspapers. And, the Holy
 
 544 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Father, knowing in what results this consent of the Congregation was likely to issue, 
 
 has thought right to override the consent of the Congregation, and to inhibit the 
 
 proposed mission of Dr. Newman. It is almost needless to say— for anyone who 
 
 knows the prevailing spirit of Rome— that this distinguished man has no longer in 
 
 Roman opinion, the high place he once held. It could hardly be otherwise, after 
 
 the sermon on the Temporal Power, certain passages of the " Apologia," and the 
 
 having allowed his great name to l)e linked with that of one of the bitterest haters 
 
 of Rome in the dedication of Mr. Oxenham's translation of Dr. Dollinger's " First 
 
 Ages of the Church." Now, when the Church is tossed about as it is, and when 
 
 Germanising is its deadliest danger, the mere shadow of a suspicion of Germanising, 
 
 however unfounded, please God, it may really be, could hardly save any man, 
 
 however great and illustrious as a Catholic, from having confidence in him 
 
 greatly shaken. The decision of the Holy Father does not, however, amount to 
 
 more than this. Good soldier of the faith as Dr. Newman has been, and devoted 
 
 Catholic as he still doubtless is, a mission of so delicate a nature as that proposed 
 
 for Oxford could not safely be entrusted to one who has compromised himself in 
 
 the opinion of Rome by certain statements, and who, though no doubt undeservedly, 
 
 is leaned upon by the Germanising school of younger Catholics in England as their 
 
 strongest staff. Only an Ultramontane without a taint in his fidelity could enter 
 
 such an arena as that of Oxford life with results to the advantage of the faith in 
 
 England. 
 
 ' Much will, no doubt, be said about this in England. The Anglican papers of 
 the mosquito or flea tribe, such as the Church Times and the Church Review and 
 gnats of the Union Review school, will, no doubt, make a great commotion, and 
 be very ready— for Anglicans of the advanced school love slander as Mrs. Gamp 
 loves her bottle— to throw the blame on a very illustrious personage. It is not for 
 me to be so impertinent as to vindicate beforehand that unflinching leader of the 
 Church in England ; all I may do is to deny, point blank, that that illustrious 
 personage had directly or indirectly had anything to do with it. Failing this 
 accusation, they will probably have recourse to another. It will be said that the 
 distinguished prelate who, with so much credit to his country, represents Catholic 
 England at the Papal Court, had had the ear of the Holy Father in this matter. 
 The objection is in substance as old as the oldest heresy. Everywhere have heretics 
 profanely said, that they appeal from Rome drunk to Rome sober. Unhappily Dr. 
 Newman himself has said what comes to the same thing in the " Apologia " having 
 in mind, one may believe, a miserable calumny of Dr. Dollinger. But pcue these 
 people, great or little, one may say that there are, as there have ever been, thousands 
 of Catholics, as well distinguished as not distinguished, who, when the Shepherd 
 of the Church so speaks and decides, look, and have ever looked, upon such utter- 
 ances as warnings to save the faithful from pastures which, however fair they may 
 appear, may be in certain circumstances only a kind of poison. At any rate, on a 
 road along which it is very easy to get fast in a bog or to fall over a precipice, it 
 is better for poor, simple men, to follow one St. Austin, or one St. Bernard, or 
 one St. Alphonsus, in childlike faith, than a whole army of Dr. DoUingers.' 
 
 On the Address to Newman from the laity wliich the above letter 
 called forth, Newman writes as follows to Mr. F. R. Ward : 
 
 'April 26, 1867. 
 '. . . Iquiterecognise what you sayofits indirect effect — and that effect, though 
 in another way, is as satisfactory as the demonstration of kindness and confidence 
 made to mc personally. It is intolerable that we should be placed at the mercy
 
 APPENDICES 545 
 
 of a secret tribunal, which dares to speak in the name of the Pope, and would 
 institute, if it could, a regime of espionage, denunciation and terrorism. But the 
 danger is as great as the evil is intolerable, and I trust that the Address will have the 
 effect of throwing back its aggressive action, though I do not for an instant think 
 that one repulse will put an end to it. What we want is an organ ; it is grievous 
 that we have hitherto failed in gaining one. The Chronicle threw off ill, and is 
 not Catholic enough in its composition to be a Catholic organ. But that it has 
 formed an alliance with Protestant writers has been simply because it could not 
 form for itself a strong and broad basis enough among Catholics. Any how, one 
 may lament that the common feehngs of the body of English Catholics have no 
 representative in the periodical press. ' 
 
 When asked in this same year for advice as to young Catholics going 
 to Oxford, Newman wrote as follows : 
 
 ' Dec. 8, 1867. 
 
 ' In answer to your question whether a parent can send a son to Oxford without 
 sin, I can but say that no general rule can be given, and that it depends on the 
 particular case. When you ask how you should determine about your own boy, 
 I will tell you just what I feel. 
 
 'Against your sending him lie the following weighty reasons : 
 
 ' I. The Holy See has spoken as strongly as it could speak on the danger of 
 sending youths to Oxford. As to the trickery which has been employed in 
 gaining that decision I don't see that that invalidates the /r/wa/aae force of it. 
 The Pope speaks in a matter, which, as the rescript says, is entirely within his 
 province — for he is speaking of occasions of mortal sin, and danger of eternal 
 salvation. 
 
 '2. We must recollect St. Paul's strong words, "Obey them that have the 
 rule over you . , . and submit yourselves, for they watch for your souls as those 
 w-ho must give account." 
 
 ' 3. There is a certain instinct which the Church (and the Holy See as being 
 its executive) has, which is ever to be taken into account as something over and 
 above and independent of the imperfection of the human organs and ministers. 
 The chance is that it will turn out right, even when very bad means have been 
 used in the course of its action. 
 
 '4. Then, for my own judgment, what made me so willing that the Oratory 
 should go to Oxford, except that I thought the position of young Catholics there 
 perilous unless there were some strong religious community entrusted with the 
 Mission ? 
 
 ' 5. A new point is introduced by the very fact of the serious ecclesiastical 
 dissuasive. A boy of tender conscience goes there knowing his being there 
 is unrecognised, disliked by the Holy See and his Bishops. This is a bad start 
 in life for him. Is it not likely to harm his faith, temper of obedience, ever 
 afterwards ? 
 
 '6. Whoever sends his son to Oxford, is responsible for the example and 
 precedent which he sets for others. 
 
 ' Fully as I feel these considerations, I do not deny there may be extraordinary 
 cases which would oblige me in the confessional to allow that it was no sin in a 
 particular father sending a particular youth to Oxford. 
 
 ' r. There may be a choice of difficulties :— e.g. Woolwich or London may 
 be a worse place for a boy's faith and morals than Oxford — yet the alternative 
 may be between one and the other. 
 
 VOL. II. N N
 
 546 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 < . 
 
 ' 2. It may be an alternative between diligence, a cheerful obedience at 
 Oxford, and idleness, or despondency and disappointment, if [a boy is] refused 
 [leave] to go there. 
 
 ' Other cases are supposable, in which I should boldly take on myself the 
 responsibility of recommending a youth to be sent to Oxford. 
 
 ' As the Bishops take up a very [important] part in dissuading, so a priest in the 
 confessional can but allow. Vou must be the decider. As to your boy, I do not 
 at present know enough of him, to say that his case would be thus exceptional 
 — though I fear there would be great difliculty in making him work if he does 
 not go. 
 
 «J. H. N.' 
 
 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XXV 
 
 The following letters should be read with those cited in the text of 
 this chapter : 
 
 F. Ambrose St. John to Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' May 1867. 
 
 ' I said Mass yesterday at S. Ignazio, and then went straight to Father 
 Perrone, whom I found in the Library. He, like them all, began preaching 
 against mixed education as though you were an Apostle of it, forsooth ! This is 
 the fourth person, (he also a Consultor of Propaganda) who has held forth to me 
 on the subject, and the dear, good Pope, with his most truly kind and loving 
 countenance, (there was not a fraction of sharpness about him) did the same ; so 
 that I cannot help feeling it is a very disagreeable repetition. 
 
 ' When then Father Perrone stopped, I told him I had had all that before, 
 and having now seen the Pope I hoped there was an end of it, for it was altogether 
 a false report. I also laid it on to Propaganda, and said it was not fair to say the 
 Bishop was in fault. Propaganda was in fault for granting a leave which was 
 wholly nugatory. He said he hoped you would found an Oratory at Oxford 
 though you did not go yourself. This, I said, I thought very improbable, but, 
 waiving that subject which had been abundantly discussed elsewhere, I had come 
 to ask his advice about what I had heard in two quarters respecting the Rmiibler. 
 He said he knew all about it. He had read the passage (he did not say he had 
 been consulted upon it) and thought he recollected it. He said you had seemed 
 to say that there were times when the true doctrine lay only in the people, — this 
 was depriving the Church of her function as a teacher. I said I was sure you 
 meant no such thing as that, but were engaged mainly upon an historical view of 
 the matter, and were saying only what Baronius had said, but I said I would 
 rather not attempt myself to speak on the subject. "What would you, a friend 
 who knows Father Newman to be sound in doctrine at heart, have him do ? " 
 He said : "Take occasion to write on some other subject, and bring this in and 
 explain the controverted passages." This, I said, would never do. You would, 
 by so doing, only expose yourself to fresh misunderstanding. It would be like 
 attacking an enemy in the dark. When there had been reports before, I knew 
 you over and over again expressed your readiness to answer any questions plainly ; 
 that you ought to have the passages put before you with plain statements like :
 
 APPENDICES 547 
 
 "this is wrong, and must be retracted." "This may be misunderstood, and 
 must be explained." Then you would know what to do. Would he extract for 
 me such passages? Ves, he would, and if you would send your answers to him, 
 /id would settle the matter by saying : " I guarantee Father Newman's faith to 
 be sound in the matter in question." This he said would be quite sufficient. 
 " Well, then," I went on to say, " would he as Consultor of Propaganda undertake 
 to plead Father Newman's cause there." Then he looked cunning, and said that 
 was not the way to do things there. They would say: " You have been put up 
 to this, and come as a petitioner for your friend," and would look with suspicion 
 on what he said. Let me have something to say, and let them come to me, then 
 I shall have so much more weight as being consulted than as a petitioner. So 
 the matter ended, and I am to borrow for him the Kaiiibler. Talbot has one, 
 but I cannot ask him. I must go and try. Perrone said I should find one at the 
 Scotch College. I have not yet had time to ask. Then after breakfast I went to 
 Cardinal de Luca, the ablest (so to say) of all the Cardinals, with the best chance 
 of being (so it is said) the next Pope. He reads English, has a great admiration 
 of your writings, and no one can make him a partisan. This is Neve's account. 
 Well, he is a small man with a most intelligent eye which goes through you and 
 makes you at home at once. Unlike everybody else, when I came in, he didn't 
 preach, listened most attentively to all I had to say, asked a great many questions 
 about Oxford, about examinations for London, Woolwich, &c., expressed his 
 sympathy for parents with sons, and then I told him the state of parties at 
 Oxford, what you might do ; how you had Ijeen misunderstood and your 
 charitable love of souls turned against you, and I mentioned the newspaper 
 report, &c. " Yes," he said, " I know all about that. Who is that Martin ? ' 
 Is he an oblate?" "No," I said, " I believe not, — a Deacon studying here by 
 himself in Rome." "Oh." Then he began to ask questions. " What could be 
 done ? Could a College be founded in Oxford for Catholic students with 
 Catholic Professors ? " I mentioned the difficulty you apprehended, at the same 
 time saying generally that I was most grateful to His Eminence for really entering 
 into the difficulties of education in England, and I would take the liberty of 
 reading to him your opinion. So I pulled out the Italian translation of your 
 opinion about Oxford Education, saying I had the original in your writing. He 
 at once pounced on the original and said : " I prefer this. I read English." So 
 I left it with him. Pie asked if I knew anything of the German Universities, 
 mentioning Bresiau (I remember now). I then spoke of Bonn, said what the 
 Jesuits had done, &c. " Ah," he said, " you ought to inform yourself thoroughly 
 about Bonn. There is a Jesuit Father — Father Bozzio — here from Bonn ; 
 you ought to go to him and find out all about it." I said : " If ii was any good 
 I would go home by Bonn." He said it would be very important to inform 
 myself about the matter and to write to him and lay proposals before him. 
 " Something," he said, " must be done, and as to a Catholic University, it was 
 an absurdity in the present state of things. But," he said, " I must warn you of 
 one thing ; the Holy See will never act against the wishes of the Episcopate of a 
 country." I said I feared the Archbishop would always be contrario to any- 
 thing whatever connected with Oxford. He thought he would not be unreason- 
 able, and for himself he saw nothing better than a Catholic College. There 
 would be difficulties, but difficulties must be faced. Would P'ather Newman take 
 any part in it ? I said "you had been so [misunderstood] in what you had already 
 
 ' Mr. Martin, who had divulged the 'secret instruction' in the Weekly 
 Register , vide supra, p. 140. 
 
 N N 2
 
 s 
 
 548 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 done I hardly thought you would." " Oh," he said, "you must have courage. 
 What had happened had done you no harm at all." After many more very kind 
 words we parted, I to see Father Bozzio and talk to him about Bonn,— he to read 
 and meditate on your opinion. Meanwhile I think to myself •' Cui bono ? " Here 
 is a friend, a high friend, a clever friend. But what can he do ? He is one and 
 everybody else is the other way. He says as an initiatory step you must gain 
 Manning ! ! ! ' 
 
 Father Ambrose St. John to Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' May loth, 1S67. 
 ' Dearest Father,— What a time letters take. We have as yet no answer to 
 all our letters and conversations with this and that Eminenza. I am afraid now of 
 going too far, and you must spend a telegram upon me if you want me to act, for 
 I feel I cannot get on without distinct orders from you. Father Perrone says the 
 way to clear up the i'?a;«/V£;;- matter is for me to go to Cardinal Barnabo, who 
 made the accusation de novo to me, and say : " Will your Eminence let me have the 
 incriminated passages?" Then, having got them, I send them to you. Father 
 Perrone in the meantime is looking over the article with an English-speaking 
 Father, and will send you such passages as he thinks require explanation, and 
 will also send you what he thinks the explanation ought to be. Then you will 
 write your explanations to Propaganda, Propaganda will appeal to Perrone, who 
 will then pronounce upon them. This will settle the whole matter. Perrone i^ 
 very anxious to keep it quiet that he is doing this for you, for if it gets out he will 
 be considered as your friend, and then they would not consult him as being 
 biassed by his friendship for you. Perrone says (just looking over the Article 
 with me) that he thinks in one sense your words are true and in another false. 
 The faithful never (properly speaking) teach, they are merely a living record of a 
 tradition taught them. He repeated this many times. Well then, I said (to find 
 out his meaning clearly), there may be times or countries where the actual teachers 
 were for some reason silent or taught falsely ; and then a private Christian would in 
 those times keep his faith on the tradition of the faithful. No, he said, that is 
 not the right way to put it, the teachers always taught the truth and were 
 known by Catholics to teach the truth, but from a kind of policy— he used the 
 word "politica," then rejected it and flourished his hand in the air, and made me 
 understand there were reasons why they did not uphold Catholic doctrine. He 
 mentioned St. Cyril, who never once uses the word " consubstantial " or speaks 
 in terms against the Arians and yet was the great defender of the true faith. . . 
 lie said Father Newman when he has written on these questions looks at them 
 not as wc who have been brought up in the Catholic Faith from our childhood. 
 He meant, I think, you viewed them (though with the best intentions) historically, 
 as a person not wholly in the secret would do. Then he took me to Father 
 Cardella. He wailed till Perrone was out of the room and then said : " I don't 
 like to say it before him, but I don't agree with him in his view of 
 the Article." He (Cardella) was extremely indignant it should have been 
 brought up again— he said that it was raking out buried matters ; then he said : 
 " I wrote some notes at the time in defence of Father Newman's view, in answer 
 to Franzelin (the Jesuits' great man) who had cited the Rambler article and 
 attacked it." He has given me the lithograph of Franzelin's lecture, and I will 
 copy it and send it you. It is too long to-day. I asked coolly for Cardella's own 
 notes — he had not preserved them, nor did he want it known that he had given 
 me Franzelin's lithograph, " for," he said, 'we must keep peace with our own
 
 APPENDICES 549 
 
 people, though I wish to serve Father Newman in any way in my power." He 
 gave me several other instances of his good-will towards you, and I am to see 
 him again.' 
 
 The following is the Memorandum referred to at p. i8o, drafted 
 by Mr. William Palmer on behalf of the Oratorian Fathers, which was 
 sent in Italian to Cardinal Barnabo on May i6, 1867 : 
 
 ' It has been objected to us by your Eminence and by others besides (members 
 too of the S. Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith) that certain pas- 
 sages of an article in the Rambler, having been delated by a Bishop to the 
 S. Congregation of the Index, as long ago as 1S60, and Father Newman having 
 been called upon by authority to explain statements cither heterodox or as some 
 say even "heretical," he has never yet explained. 
 
 ' If this were simply so, it would be no wonder that he should have been mis- 
 trusted as heterodox, or at least as disobedient, and suspected as if capable of 
 manceuvring to encourage mixed education in England in spite of the judgments 
 of the S. Congregation and of the Holy Father against it. 
 
 ' But in point of fact Father Newman, immediately on hearing of the call 
 made upon him, addressed to the late Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, — 
 Cardinal Wiseman — then at Rome, the following letter "... 
 
 ' This letter was certainly received by the Cardinal as it was shown by him to 
 persons still living ; but (to whatever cause the failure may have been owing) no 
 answer to it from the Cardinal himself, nor any written or verbally delivered in his 
 name, was ever received by Dr. Newman ; only he was told briefly some months 
 later by Monsignor Manning (then Provost of Westminster) that "the affair of 
 the Rambler had been settled.'''' 
 
 'Since then, however, influential writers and something like a party in 
 England have not ceased to utter and to circulate suspicions and imputations 
 against Father Newman as if he were heterodox, and even the greatest adversary 
 of orthodoxy ; at the same time they have deprecated with warmth his being sent 
 to Oxford not merely for any bye reason of alleged insincerity or disobedience in 
 the question of mixed education, but honestly and avowedly for fear of his being 
 successful as a missionary and converting Protestants to a spurious Catholicism 
 more pernicious than Protestantism itself And here at Rome not only do we 
 hear Father Newman spoken of by members of the Sacred Congregation and by 
 others as having been under a cloud and as suspected of persistent opposition 
 to the wishes and judgments of the S. Congregation and of the Holy Father 
 in the matter of mixed education ; but we find also that the article in the 
 Rambler above alluded to, and its author, have been denounced as heterodox 
 by Roman Professors in full class, and in lectures which are lithograplied and 
 sold. 
 
 ' It becomes therefore our duty, as sent to offer explanations on his behalf, to 
 petition that now, at least, the article of the Rambler with the passages marked, 
 as originally denounced, and with that Italian translation on the presumption of 
 the accuracy of which explanation was called for, may be communicated to Father 
 Newman by the same authority which calls upon him to explain. 
 
 'If he should be able to explain satisfactorily a double question will still 
 remain respecting the Oxford Mission. 
 
 ^ The text of the letter is given at p. 171.
 
 550 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' First, whether the Bishop has judged well or ill in regarding Oxford as pre- 
 eminently the place for a Mission, and in selecting Father Newman as the 
 
 Missionary most fitted by his antecedents to be sent thither ; and 
 
 « Secondly, whether (apart from any suspicion of heterodoxy or disobedience 
 in the Missionary) the fact that the very existence of a Mission at Oxford, and 
 still more its being placed under Father Newman (nay, even his keeping a 
 superior Grammar School at Birmingham), may tend in particular cases to attract 
 Catholics to Oxford, is a sufficient reason for eitlier suppressing the Oxford 
 Mission altogether, or at least ostracising that particular Missionary whom, on 
 general grounds, the Bishop selects as the fittest person to send there. 
 
 ' On neither of these questions when once they are disentangled from those 
 personal suspicions and imputations with which they have hitherto been mixed 
 up from the first, is it becoming for Father Newman or for us to enter ; they relate 
 to tlie interests of the Catliolic Church in England viewed either as a community 
 within itself, or in its relation to a great heterodox nation or empire in the midst 
 of which Divine Providence has placed it as a little leaven, for the purpose, as 
 we may hope, of leavening the whole. 
 
 ' But until all personal suspicions, not only of heterodoxy, but also of oppo- 
 sition and disobedience on the matter of mixed education, and the confusion and 
 misconceptions thence arising, both in England and here too, as it seems, at Rome, 
 have been completely dispelled and until sunshine has broken through that "cloud " 
 under which we are seen by some to be, we cannot but regret and think it hard 
 that when the question of encouraging Catholics to study or discouraging and all 
 but prohibiting them from studying in the Protestant Universities was first raised 
 in England (being raised too in connection with rumours and suspicions about 
 Father Newman), and when the opinions of many other Ecclesiastics, converts 
 especially, were sought by the late Cardinal to lay before the Bishops, it was not 
 thought necessary or advisable to ask Father Newman also, as one among the rest, 
 what his views on the subject really were. 
 
 ' We have certainly been sent to offer explanations not on behalf of the Bishop 
 of Birmingham, but on behalf of Father Newman and the Oratory ; still as the 
 Bishop also was desirous and urgent that we should come, we think it proper, 
 before leaving Rome, to offer to Your Eminence and to Propaganda a Memorandum 
 as to the manner in which the Bishop seems to ourselves to have acted towards 
 Father Newman and the Oratory, so that we may not, by our silence, be open 
 hereafter to a suspicion of having behaved as if we were indirectly complainant 
 against him. 
 
 ' The Bishop clearly did not understand Propaganda (however strongly it might 
 discourage Catholics from studying in Protestant Universities) to discountenance 
 his wish to improve the Oxford Mission (although no doubt any improvement 
 small or great of that Mission might incidentally and in some degree tend to attract 
 Catholics to Oxford) ; on the contrary, he supposed that he was rather commended 
 for having opporltmely treated ("opportune cum illo egeres de Missione," &c.) 
 with Father Newman with a view to his undertaking the Oxford Mission, 
 and directed in case Father Neiuman declined it, still to send some able priest 
 to Oxford. 
 
 ' The Bishop, in making his second overture to Father Newman, communicated 
 
 to him this portion of the letter (then recently received from Propaganda) as 
 
 favourable to Father New7nan''s acceptance of the Oxford Mission. And Father 
 
 Newman at length consented ; not, however, unless permission could be obtained 
 
 for the new Oratory which he should found in connection -with the Mission at
 
 APPENDICES 551 
 
 Oxford to remain during his own life and for three years after his death subordinate 
 to the Oratory at Birmingham, />-(?;« which he did not contemplate (as the Bishop 
 wrote afterwards to the Propaganda) transferring hiviself absohitely to Oxford. 
 
 ' The Bishop's application for this permission having been mistrusted, as if 
 implying some indirect view towards mixed education, he wrote a statement at 
 length of the circumstances of the Oxford Mission, appending also that whole 
 passage of the former letter of the Propaganda which he had communicated to 
 Father Newman as one reason among others for him not to persist in declining 
 the Mission. 
 
 ' After some time the permission petitioned for was granted, but " conditionally 
 and provisionally," and with an Instruction appended, that, " if the Bishop 
 perceived Father Newman to contemplate transferring his residence to Oxford he 
 was gently and courteously to dissuade him." 
 
 ' This clause, being based, seemingly, on the Bishop's own words respecting 
 Father Newman's intentions in a former letter, was not taken to imply a denial 
 and retractation of the main point which had been petitioned for, and which had 
 apparently been granted. For certainly neither the Bishop nor Father Newman 
 had contemplated that while undertaking the Mission with cure of souls at Oxford, 
 and founding there an Oratory to be subordinate to that of Birmingham, he 
 should be fettered either as to the frequency, or the length, of those stays in 
 Oxford which he might find to be desirable. The Bishop, therefore, thought that 
 on the sense of this clause he had need to ascertain more distinctly the intention 
 of Propaganda. And in the meantime, expecting to be himself before long at 
 Rome, and seeing the clause to be of the nature of a private Instruction, he did 
 not think it necessary, or proper, to communicate it, when he communicated the 
 rest of the letter to Father Newman. 
 
 * Father Newman then issued a Prospectus, embodying a letter from the Bishop, 
 inviting contributions from Catholics towards the foundation of an Oratory, and 
 the building of a Church at Oxford. On which immediately misconceptions and 
 misinterpretations arose as before ; and an anonymous article in a newspaper, 
 written from Rome, detailed, as if from some authentic sources of information, the 
 views and acts and motives of the Propaganda, imputing to it and to the Holy 
 Father himself, grave suspicions against Father Newman, not only of persistent 
 disobedience in the matter of mixed education, but also of heterodoxy, and 
 announcing that, if permission had been given to found a Church and Oratory at 
 Oxford, it had been clogged with such conditions and reservations as would 
 render it innocuous ; and, in particular, that there was an express stipulation 
 that P'ather Newman himself should not reside there. 
 
 ' After this the Bishop felt himself obliged to communicate to Father Newman 
 that reserved clause or Instruction, the substance of which (whether in its true 
 sense or otherwise) had already appeared in the newspaper. And hence there 
 was an additional reason for the Bishop's wishing and urging that some one should 
 be sent from the Oratory at Birmingham to offer at Rome on behalf of Father 
 Newman whatever explanations might be desired.'
 
 552 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 The following letters referred to at p. 299 should be read, in addition 
 to those in the text, as illustrating Newman's state of mind during the 
 progress of the Vatican Council and after its prorogation : 
 
 Dr. Newman to Mr. Hope-Scott. 
 
 ' The Oratory : Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, January i6th, 1870. 
 
 ' As to the Council, as far as I can make out, it stands thus : — Two hundred 
 Bishops, many of them distinguished men, stand out — 400 or 500 have taken the 
 popular view — but in this way. Manning found himself with perhaps a smaller 
 number than Mgr. Dupanloup. A middle party rose, eclipsing the two extremes, 
 as it was sure to do. This middle party was for a compromise. Mgr. Manning 
 has thrown himself upon or into this middle party, joining them and raising the 
 terms of the compromise— and in this way, I suspect, the full 400 or 500 are made 
 up. The terms he is trying for are that "The Pope is inerrable in matters de 
 fide ' — this is veiy far short of Ward's wishes or Manning's, but further than 
 Mgr. Dupanloup would grant. 
 
 ' It has another difficulty. Since you cannot make a division in the Pope's 
 divine gift, and say he is infallible only in part of the things in which the Church 
 is infallible, to pass a decree that the Pope is infallible in matters de fide is to say 
 that in all matters not de fide there is nowhere any gift of infallibility — but this is 
 contrary to the Gallican notion, which, lodging the gift in the Church, not the 
 Pope, enlarges the subject matter of the gift, taking in, for instance, infallible 
 condemnation of books. Therefore, though I know Manning's proposition is 
 what I have said, still it can't pass. Time is everything — but the Ultras are 
 hurrying on.' 
 
 April ist, 1870. 
 ' My dear Hope-Scott, —Does not the present position of Catholic affairs in 
 high quarters show the gteat mistake which Catholics who are not ultras, have 
 made in not supporting some journals to represent them? Things would never 
 have come to their present pass, if we had our Univers and Tablet. For myself, 
 if I want at any time to put in a letter, I have no whither to go, unless I betake 
 myself to some Protestant publication. 
 
 ' Ward supports, I suppose, Tablet as well as Dublin — and the London 
 Oratory too — but no one does anything for any London Congregation which takes 
 the other side, or any London periodical of moderate sentiments. 
 
 ' I think, whatever happens, a sort of Catholic alliance should be formed with 
 the French and German Bishops, and Yankee Bishops for time to come — each 
 country standing by itself, yet having an understanding with each other. You set 
 up the Guardian, which has done its work well — you should help in setting up a 
 Catholic Guardian. 
 
 ' I fear by some mistake my bulky letter was not prepaid. 
 
 ' Ever yours afTly. , 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 Dr. Newman to Miss Holmes. 
 
 ' The Oratory : Easter Day, 1870. 
 ' My dear Miss Holmes, — All good Easter wishes to you. I am glad you are 
 in London. My poor Bishop is in sad desolation at my letter having got out, but
 
 APPENDICES 553 
 
 had nothing to do with the catastrophe. A lady to his surprise he found showing 
 it about Rome — but he had nothing to do with her getting hold of it — and no one 
 knows how she got it. 
 
 ' I felt it a sacred duty to tell him all my mind. Whom could I speak to but 
 my Bishop? I spoke to no one else. No one whatever saw my letter here, but 
 one person — and I could not send it without the eye of another over it — and he 
 and I kept a profound secret about it. No — it is one of those wonderful things, 
 which cannot distress one, because simply it was in no sense one's own doing. I 
 only wish, since the letter was to get out, I had introduced into it the awful text, 
 which is so much forgotten, " who shall scandalize one of these little ones, who 
 believe in Me, it were better that a millstone should be tied round his neck, 
 and he cast into the sea." What call have we to shock and frighten away the 
 weak brothers for whom Christ died ? 
 
 ' Thank you for your prayers — Don't suppose I am cast down — not a bit of.it. 
 
 And, thank God, I am very well. 
 
 ' Ever yrs affly., 
 
 John H. Newman. 
 < P.S. — Let me know when you want me to lend you anything.' 
 
 To Father John Walford, S.J. 
 
 ' The Oratory : May 19th, 1870. 
 
 ' My dear Father Walford, — Thank you for your affectionate letter. It is very 
 pleasant to us to find }ou remember our Novena, and again that you take an 
 interest in my new book, which was very difficult to write, yet without being easy 
 to read. 
 
 ' Difficulties, such as my nephew's, are, as you know, not uncommon. It is 
 a delicate thing to answer them without knowing something of the objector, for 
 what is apposite for one is unsuitable to another. 
 
 'I. As to the wonderful revival of religion in the Established Church, I 
 certainly think it comes from God. If so, it must tend, as it visibly does tend, to 
 the Church's benefit. One cannot conceive the generation which is brought up 
 under it, when they come to maturity and to power, resting satisfied with the 
 Anglican system. If their fathers, the present generation, yearn for unity, and for 
 communion with St. Peter, much more will their children. 
 
 ' There is nothing to prove that the present race of Catholicizing Anglicans is 
 in bad faith ; and there is much to show on the other hand that they are in good 
 fauh. 
 
 ' It is possible indeed that the next generation may go off into Liberalism— as 
 Hale and Chillingworth, the disciples of Laud. But I rather hope that Holy 
 Church will arrest and win them over by her beauty and sanctity, her gentleness, 
 serenity, and prudence. 
 
 ' Anyhow we need not say that Anglicans at this time cast out devils through 
 Beelzebub ; rather they are like the man of whom Our Lord said : " Forbid him 
 not," &c. 
 
 ' 2. As to my nephew's fears about the definition of the Pope's Infallibility, 
 while they art but fears, they are not arguments ; and they never will become 
 arguments, because he says he has no expectations that they will ever be fulfilled. 
 
 To Sister I\L\ria Pia. 
 
 ' July 14, 1870. 
 * My dear Sister Pia, — I write on the 37th anniversary of the commencement 
 of the Oxford Movement. I am quite well, thank you — I have not been so well
 
 554 I^IFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 for years, nay, I can't tell when. I have not written to you because I have had 
 nothing to say, though I ought to have thanked you for your so kindly contriving 
 to give me a claim on your community's prayers. Of course, as life goes on, or 
 rather as death approaches, that is what one wants most, and after death also. 
 Don't fancy all the vulgarities of the Tablet annoy me personally. First, I never 
 see them ; next, I had such a seasoning of the like when I was an Anglican that 
 I am hardened against them ; thirdly they do me good by disgusting people, who 
 in consequence take my part. My "Grammar" has been well spoken of 
 generally. Fr. Harper is my friend, but he has a right to criticize the book, 
 especially so far forth as it is not in coincidence with the Jesuit Traditions. 
 
 ' I am very well, except when I move al)out. That tries me. Lately, in 
 execution of long promises, I went from home from Monday to Saturday, visiting 
 Mr. Church, my cousin Louisa Deane (whom I had not seen for 26 years), 
 IL Wilberforce, and George Copeland ; and was certainly not the better for it. 
 George Copeland, who, as you must know, is utterly paralysed except in his head, 
 which is as full of vigorous thought as ever, inquired much after you. I had never 
 seen his daughters before. They are suffering from their Father's long illness. He 
 showed me your first oil painting, which he praised very much. 
 
 ' This leads me to thank you, as I do sincerely, for the precious presents which 
 you are sending me by Fr. M. I have given you (with some others) a Mass a 
 week since January — indeed have done the like for years. 
 
 ' Ever yrs affectly. in Xt. 
 
 John H. Newman. 
 
 ' Fr. Ambrose will tell me about you. He is knocked up by the heat and 
 work, and thirsty for the High Alps.'' 
 
 To Mr. Ornsby. 
 
 'August 21, 1870. 
 ' I am neither for France or Prussia, but for peace. I can't help pitying 
 exceedingly Louis Napoleon— he has done a great deal for France, and a great 
 deal for the Church, a great deal for England —but Englishmen, Catholics and 
 Frenchmen are all ungrateful to him. That his basis is hollow, and personal 
 government is a shame and worse, is true — but what claim had he but his uncle's 
 name, what rule of government but his uncle's traditions, what warrant but 
 success like his uncle's ? He did what he could — he has risen up to a great 
 height, and his fall is tragical, more tragical than his uncle's. But it is an old 
 story, "ToUuntur in altum, ut lapsu graviore cadant." He went in for a great 
 prize, and he got it, but only on conditions— and he had no right to complain if 
 the wheel of fortune turns on, and he necessarily is underneath now l)y that same 
 law of revolution which made him at one lime at the top.' 
 
 To Miss Bowles. 
 
 ' April 30, iSjt. 
 • ....•••• 
 
 * As to Catholic boys, the great evil is the want of a career — when they get to 
 the top form, they fall back and are idle, as having nothing to look out for. They 
 need a University. This is no fault of Catholicism, but, as far as I know, of one 
 man. Cardinal Wiseman was in favour of Oxford — till some one turned him 
 round his finger — and then he brought out a set of questions addressed to Catholic 
 gentlemen, one of which was " Do you wish your sons better educated than your 
 priests?" as a reason against their going to Oxford. This was one chief reason
 
 APPENDICES 555 
 
 why it was decided that Catholic youths might not have a career. There are 
 those who wish Catholic women, not nuns, to have no higher pursuit than that of 
 dress, and Catholic youths to be shielded from no sin so carefully as from 
 intellectual curiosity. All this is the consequence of Luther, and the separation 
 off of the Teutonic races — and of the imperiousness of the Latin. But the Latin 
 race will not always have a monopoly of the magisterium of Catholicism, We 
 must be patient in our time ; but God will take care of Ilis Church— and, when 
 the hour strikes, the reform will begin. Perhaps it has struck, though we can't 
 yet tell.' 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 June 8, 1S72. 
 
 ' You may say from and for me three things to anyone you please. 
 
 ' (i) That I never have by word or act advocated the scheme of a Catholic 
 College at Oxford, though many have attributed such a scheme to me. What 
 alone I took part in was the establishment of an Orator}' there to protect Catholic 
 youths residing in Protestant Colleges. 
 
 ' (2) And what I advocated then I advocate now. In a hard matter and in a 
 choice of difficulties, I would rather have Catholic youths in Protestant Colleges 
 at Oxford with a strong Catholic Mission in the place, than a Catholic College. 
 
 ' (3) And I thought and think that the Bishops took an unadvisalile step, and 
 brought the whole Catholic body in England into a great difficulty, when on 
 March 23, 1S65, they discountenanced, to the practical effect of a prohibition, 
 the residence of Catholics at Oxford. 
 
 ' Moreover, since the Archbishop (Manning) or Dr. Ward may maintain that 
 I have now softened what I said in my private letter to a friend, part of a sentence 
 of which was shown to the Archbishop, I here quote the whole sentence 
 unmutilated, as it stood in my letter, that you may have your answer pal. 
 
 ' " If I were upon the rack, and forced to name some scheme or other for 
 Catholic University education, when nothing satisfactory is possible, I should not 
 propose a Catholic University, for I think our present rulers would never give us 
 a real one ; nor a Catholic College at Oxford, for such a measure at the present 
 moment would be challenging controversy and committing Catholic theologians 
 most dangerously in the religious difficulties of the day ; but I should say that the 
 Bishops ought to have let things alone seven years ago, and that, in our present 
 straits, they will do best to undo their own work, and to let Catholics go to 
 Protestant Colleges, (without their formal sanction) and to provide a strong 
 Mission worked by theologians, i.e. a strong Jesuit Mission, to protect the Catholic 
 youth from the infidelity of the place." 
 
 ' As to Father St. John, he has advocated in his late remarks a Catholic 
 College at Oxford ; but he adds, (I believe, for he may have some troui)le in 
 finding his paper) that no youths had gone to Oxford lately who did not lose by 
 the absence of a strong ecclesiastical superintendence.'
 
 556 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 The following letters (see p. 379) were addressed by Newman to 
 persons who were tried by the definition of 1870 : 
 
 To Sir William Cope, Bt. 
 
 ' Deer. Toth, 1871. 
 
 ' My dear Sir William, — I have wished to write to you ever since I received 
 your most interesting letter in October — but, as often as I thought of it, I found 
 also I had nothing worth saying. Still I will not let your letter pass away, 
 without assuring you at least, how fully I enter into it, and how truly I feel and 
 respect your difficulties. 
 
 ' Divine Providence has allowed the act of last year for some good purpose, and 
 we must submit to His will. For myself, I see the doctrine implied in the 
 conduct of the Roman See, nay of the Catholic Church, from the first, but I am 
 not of course blind to the difficulties in detail which it has to encounter. The 
 dogma seems to me as mildly framed as it could be — or nearly so. That the Pope 
 was infallible in General Council, or when speaking -with the Church, all 
 admitted, even Galileans. They admitted, I think I may say, that his word ex 
 cathedra was infallible, if the Bishops did no more than keep silence. All that 
 is passed last year, that in some sense he may speak per se, and his speech may be 
 infallible — I say in some sense, because a Bishop who voted for the dogma tells 
 me that at the time an explanation was given that in one sense the Pope spoke 
 pe7- se, and in another sense not fer sc. 
 
 ' All these questions are questions for the theological school — and theologians 
 will, as time goes on, settle the force of the wording of the dogma, just as the 
 courts of law solve the meaning and bearing of the Acts of Parliament. 
 
 ' I don't think it should interfere, whatever perplexity it may cause, with the 
 great fact that the Catholic Church (so called) is the Church of the Apostles, the 
 one fold of Christ. 
 
 ' I have written as my course of thought has taken me, without premeditation 
 — hoping, if what I have said is worth nothing else, it will at least show that I 
 have not forgotten your anxieties. 
 
 ' I am, my dear Sir William, 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 To Mr. Willis Nevins. 
 
 ' June 16, 1872. 
 
 ' I think we must make a broad distinction between an initial or prima facie 
 and ultimate, formal, and ex cathedra decision of ecclesiastical authority. As 
 there are decisions of Councils which are not infallible — so there are decisions of 
 Popes. I believe the Popes at first said strong things against Aristotle's 
 philosophy. Pope Zozimus is said to have been taken in by the Pelagians. 
 John the XXII. professed views about the present state of the Saints which he 
 himself retracted before his death ; which his successor contradicted in a brief or 
 bull issued on purpose ; which the Council of Florence has made heretical. 
 Pope Vigilius too is in some such scrape. 
 
 'The question then is whether you can properly say that Honorius, in 
 countenancing the Monothelite doctrine, spoke ex cathedra. Now here recollect
 
 APPENDICES 557 
 
 that Popes do not decide on matters at the very beginning of a controversy, but 
 at the end. It runs its course and then the Holy See speaks. The dogma of 
 two Wills was not decided till forty years after Honorius's death — Monothelitism 
 was no heresy in Honorius's time, any more than the double personality was a 
 heresy before Nestorius. Ideas and words have to be defined, and they cannot 
 be defined till controversy clears the matter. The great Council of Antioch in 
 364 condemned the Homoousion, which the Nicene Council has made the test of 
 orthodoxy. On the first blush of the matter a great deal might be said for 
 Honorius's view, and recollect his great object was to heal a schism from which the 
 Church suffers even now, which at the time was a great help to Mahommetanism. 
 That he was hasty, injudicious, intellectually hazy, one may grant. The 
 question is whether he was intending to teach the Catholic Church — was he not 
 rather experimentalizing ? Is it not the part of a Lawyer or a Controversialist 
 to argue from mere words or acts, and not to throw one's mind into the times, 
 and to try to place ourselves in Honorius's place ? I think Dcillinger wants 
 imagination, considerateness, charity. 
 
 ' Poor Honorius died in peace. There was no popular general outcry against 
 him, as in the case of John XXII.— was there ? I think not. This either shows 
 his act was not a public one, or that it was so metaphysical a point, or 
 grammatical even, that the delicate sense of Catholics was not shocked by it. 
 Recollect St. Cyril holds the formula of the " One Incarnate nature of the Word." 
 We all explain him in an orthodox sense. ... I am far from certain that in like 
 manner we should not clear Honorius, though he boldly said beyond mistake 
 " one will," but for what happened after. 
 
 « Why don't we ? let us see why. Honorius dies in peace. And his 
 memory, I think, was safe till the 6th General Council — a space of forty years. 
 Meanwhile the controversy went on ; the Church gaining light, but its con- 
 troversialists showing a great deal of angry zeal. The question became a party 
 question. It was decided, and rightly, against Honorius, as in a former age it 
 was decided against Cyril ; but Honorius fell into hands not so kind as Cyril 
 found. 
 
 *The forty years, which were necessary for a dogmatic decision, served to 
 intensify the zeal of its promoters against those who had stood in its way. 
 Honorius was pronounced a heretic. Recollect what that really means— not that 
 he in his own person was heretical, but that he originated or promoted heresy. 
 I know some or many theologians say otherwise — but I never can hold that 
 Origen was a heretic, though he is so often called such. He is made a symbol 
 of that heresy which was found after his day among his followers, and is 
 anathematized as such — I think Honorius was a heretic in the sense in which 
 Origen is. 
 
 'Here I am speaking of what in matter of fact is my own opinion— that 
 1 lonorius in his own person was not a heretic — at the same time, if he was, that 
 does not show that he has taught heresy ex cathedra any more than Balaam or 
 Caiaphas were excluded from being divine oracles because they were personally 
 in pagan or Judaic error. 
 
 ' Nothing good will come of the Alt-Catholic movement, unless a strengthen- 
 ing of infidelity or some form of Protestantism be good. No strengthening of 
 the Church of England, of the Via Media, or of the Branch Theory will come 
 of it, 
 
 ' Very truly yours, 
 
 John H. Newman.'
 
 558 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 To Mr. Arthur Arnold. 
 
 ' Sept. 22, 1872, 
 
 • I have no confidence I brought out my meaning adequately in my letter to 
 you. I recollect, on reading it over, I noticed clauses which might have been 
 expressed better — for instance, in the last two lines, written along the page, I 
 recollect I seemed to confuse inspiration with " adsistentia " — the Apostles were 
 inspired — the Pope is not. What he " defines " or explains in Catholic doctrine is 
 gained by him by human means such as the advice of theologians, etc., — but in 
 the last step, a Divine Hand is over him, keeping him in tether, so that he cannot 
 go beyond the truth of revelation. He has no habit on what is called *' donum 
 infusum " of infallibility, but when he speaks ex cathedra, he is restrained /;-<? re 
 nata, pro hac vice. 
 
 • I am told those are highfliers who say much more than this, and there are 
 those, learned men, who wish to bring in a higher doctrine — but Perrone, whose 
 book is the theological hand book for students in this day, says " Nee enim sive 
 Rom. Pontificis, sive concilii oecumenici infallibilitas media excludit ad veritatem 
 de qua agitur assequendam, quippe, non per modum infusi doni, sed per modum 
 praesidii, sive ut ajunt adsistentiae, Deus illam promisit " t. 2, p. 541, Ed. 1841. 
 
 ' Again : " Nunquam Catholici docuerunt donum infallibilitatis a Deo ecclesiae 
 tribui per modum inspirationis " ibid. p. 253. 
 
 ' Again, the recent definition says that the Pope has that infallibility which the 
 Church has — but as Perrone says above ^^ Never have Catholics taught that the 
 gift is an inspiration." 
 
 ' I think I have unintentionally shown you in these last sentences, to which I 
 have been led on, how difficult it is to do justice to the subject in a few words.' 
 
 The following letter was printed in the Guardian in reply to an 
 attack by Mr. Capes published in that journal : 
 
 ' Sept. 1872. 
 
 ' Sir, — I cannot allow such language as Mr. Capes uses of me in yesterday's 
 Guardian to pass unnoticed, nor can I doubt that you will admit my answer to it. 
 I thank him for having put into print what doubtless has often been said behind 
 my back ; I do not thank him for the odious words, which he has made the 
 vehicle of it. 
 
 ' I will not dirty my ink by repeating them ; but the substance, mildly stated, is 
 this : — that I have all along considered the doctrine of tlie Pope's Infallibility to 
 be contradicted by the facts of Church History, and that though convinced of this, 
 I have in consequence of the Vatican Council forced myself to do a thing that I 
 never, never fancied would befall me when I became a (Roman) Catholic : — viz. : 
 forced myself by some unintelligible quibble to fancy myself believing what really 
 after all in my heart I could not, and did not believe, and that this operation and 
 its result had given me a considerable amount of pain. 
 
 • I could say much, and quote much from what I have written in comment 
 upon this nasty view of me. But, not to take up too much of your room, I will, 
 in order to pluck it up " by the very roots" (to use his own expression) quote one 
 out of various passages, in which, long before the Vatican Council was dreamed 
 of, at least by me, I enunciated absolutely the doctrine of the Pope's Infallibility. 
 It is in my "Discourses on University Education," delivered in Dublin in 1852. 
 It runs as follows : — 
 
 ' " Deeply do I feel, ever will I protest, /<?/■ / can appeal to the ample testimony 
 of history to bear mc out, that in questions of right and wrong, there is nothing 
 really strong in the whole world, nothing decisive and operative, but the voice of
 
 APPENDICES 559 
 
 Him, to whom have been committed the Keys of the Kingdom, and the oversight 
 of Christ's flock. That voice is now, as ever it has been, a real authority, 
 itifallible when it teaches, prosperous when it commands, ever taking the lead 
 wisely and distinctly in its own province, adding certainty to what is probable, 
 and persuasion to what is certain. Before it speaks, the most saintly may 
 mistake ; and after it has spoken, the most gifted must obey. ... If there ever 
 was a power on earth who had an eye for the times, who has confined himself 
 to the practicable, and has been happy in his anticipations, whose words have 
 been deeds, and whose commands prophecies, such is he in the history of ages, 
 who sits on from generation to generation in the chair of the Apostles, as the 
 Vicar of Christ, and Doctor of the Church. Has he failed in his successes up to 
 this hour? Did he, in our Fathers' day, fail in his struggle with Joseph of 
 Germany, and his confederates ; with Napoleon — a greater name — and his 
 dependent Kings, that though in another kind of fight he should fail in ours? 
 What grey hairs are on the head of Judah, whose youth is renewed like the 
 eagle's, whose feet are like the feet of harts, and underneath the everlasting 
 arms ? " pp. 27-28. 
 
 'This passage I suffered Father Cardella in 1S67 or 1868 to reprint in a 
 volume, which he published at Rome. My reason for selecting it, as I told him, 
 was this, — because in an abridged reprint of the discourses in 1859 I had omitted 
 it, as well as other large portions of the volume, as of only temporary interest, 
 and irrelevant to the subject of University education. 
 
 'I could quote to the same purpose passages from my " Essay on Develop- 
 ment" 1845: "Loss and Gain" 1847: "Discourses to mixed Congregations" 
 1849 : " Position of Catholics " 1851 : " Church of the Fathers " 1857. 
 
 ' I underwent then no change of mind as regards the truth of the doctrine of 
 the Pope's Infallibility in consequence of the Council. It is true I was deeply, 
 though not personally, pained both by the fact, and by the circumstances of the 
 definition ; and when it was in contemplation I wrote a most confidential letter, 
 which was surreptitiously gained, and published, but of which I have not a word 
 to retract, the feelings of surprise and concern expressed in that letter have 
 nothing to do with a screwing one's conscience to profets what one does not 
 believe, which is Mr. Capes's pleasant account of me. He ought to know better. 
 
 'John H. Newman.' 
 
 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 The following letters (see p. 409) refer to Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet 
 on 'The Vatican Decrees' and Dr. Newman's reply to it in liis 'Letter 
 to the Duke of Norfolk' : 
 
 To Mr. de Lisle. 
 
 ' Nov. 6, 1S74. 
 • For myself, I consider he is misled in his interpretation of the ecclesiastical 
 acts of 1870 by judging of the wording by the rules of ordinary language. 
 Theological language, like legal, is scientific, and cannot be understood without 
 the knowledge of long precedent and tradition, nor without the comments of 
 theologians. Such comments time alone can give us. Even now Bishop Fessler 
 has toned down the newspaper interpretations (Catholic and Protestant) of the 
 words of tlic Council, without any hint from the Council itself to sanction him in
 
 56o LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 doing so. To give an instance of what I mean :— Broad statements, standing by 
 themselves, are open to large exceptions ;— thus, St. Cyprian and St. Augustine, 
 as the succession of great ecclesiastical authorities since, have said "out of the 
 Church is no salvation " ; yet Pius the IX, and perhaps he the first Pope, has 
 made in addition the large exception to that principle, of invincible ignorance. 
 Obedience to the Pope in like manner has, in the writings of theologians, 
 important limitations. But the subject is too large for a letter.' 
 
 To Mr. Arnold. 
 
 ' The Oratory : Dec. 8th, 1874. 
 ' No one has any authority to say I am writing against Mr. Gladstone. 
 Many friends press me— but it would be no good writing, unless I satisfied 
 myself— and, even if I did that, it still would not follow that I should be 
 satisfying other people. There are many things which you can neither avow nor 
 deny— as the old question. Had you the wickedness to knock so-and-so down — 
 and which it would take a volume to explain, and I am too old to write a volume. 
 And then it would not be pleasant to make things worse instead of making them 
 better, as would be the case if I wrote a weak pamphlet. This is about how I 
 stand.' 
 
 To Canon McMullen. 
 
 ' The Oratory : January 18, 1875. 
 
 ' Letters such as yours are a great kindness, because a great support to me. 
 I have done my best, but I do not know how it will be taken in some quarters — 
 It is a great thing therefore to be able to say to myself, whatever happens, 
 nothing can deprive me of the sympathy which these private letters express for 
 me. It is not that I have any reason for misgivings — but I have at various times 
 been so strangely misunderstood that I am thrown back upon my own conscience 
 and the testimony of friends. 
 
 ' Your letter then is of great value to me.' 
 
 To Father Jones, S.J. 
 
 'The Oratory: January 22nd, 1875. 
 « . . . Il is a great gain to me that, though I have not deserved it of you, I 
 have your letter. Great as the weariness of writing has been, my anxiety has been 
 quite as great a trial. I have never considered theology my line or my forte, 
 and have not written on it except when obliged. Under these circumstances you 
 may think how exceedingly gratified I have been to receive your letter. It is a 
 great thing to have cause to believe, that on the whole I have been prospered in 
 what I have written. Please sometimes say a prayer for an old man.' 
 
 To Mrs. W. Froude. 
 
 ' Jany. 29, 1875. 
 
 ' It is very pleasant to hear what you [both] say of my Pamphlet, which was 
 almost too much for my strength, and especially William. 
 
 ' As you and he say, we must wait to see what Archbishop Manning says — 
 meanwhile letters come in to me from all sides, approving and confirming my 
 statements. I should not like names or places mentioned, but for yourself I say 
 that I have letters of approval from Bishops Brown, Clifford, Errington, and 
 especially your own, Dr. Vaughan, from St. Beuno and Stonyhurst, from the
 
 APPENDICES 561 
 
 Dominicans of Newcastle and of Campden, from Maynooth, I'rovosl Cookson 
 . . . and various priests. The section on the Syllabus is the most opposed, 
 I am told, to Archbishop Manning, and in it I am sheltered by Fessler, whose 
 book is sanctioned by the Pope.' 
 
 To Mrs. W. Froude. 
 
 ' Feby. 23, 1875. 
 ' . . . I send you a lot of letters. You will see they are very confidential and 
 I very immodest in sending them — twenty-two, including Dr. Cullen's Pastoral. 
 This is the most important testimony I have had, as being in print and read in 
 all the Dublin Churches. He never would so have done, unless he meant to 
 sanction the substance of my Pamphlet. Dr. Purcell's (Archbishop of Cincinnati) 
 is very important too. It shows there will be some opposition to me in the 
 United States— and doubtless in England too, for some one is moving against me, 
 as regards portions of my Pamphlet, in a Catholic Liverpool Paper — but I trust 
 they will not be able to do anything to hurt my views and arguments in the 
 estimation of Protestants, by anything like a bold opposition to them. 
 
 * You will observe besides, among the letters I send, those of a Bishop, two 
 Provosts of important Dioceses, tsvo Jesuit theologians, two Dominicans, the 
 President of Maynooth, and among Ultramontanes, Bowyer and Lord Denbigh. 
 The allusion in Dr. Russell's letter to a balloon was in consequence of my saying 
 tliat I was up in one, and was as yet in danger of being entangled in chinmey 
 pots, of being lodged on some high tree, trailed along the ground, or run away 
 with into the Oerman ocean, and I could not be comfortable till I found myself 
 safely seated by my own fire-side. 
 
 * I hear good news from France. M. \'euillot is giving up the Univers — some 
 say from bad health, others because he finds his position a very ticklish one. In 
 Italy, too. Father Curci, S.J. is leaving the staff of the Civilta and wishes to set 
 up a moderate periodical at Florence, having already published a paper in which 
 he plainly announces that it is a dream to fancy that the temporal power can be 
 restored in these times, and that the Church must go back to Apostolic times. 
 Other moderate organs of religious opinion, I am told, are struggling into light in 
 Italy. 
 
 ' P.S. Thanks for the compliment you pay my crabbed "Assent."' 
 
 To Mrs. W. Froude. 
 
 'The Oratory : March 9, 1875. 
 
 ' Certainly I shall not have to write any Pamphlet. Gladstone's Vaticanism 
 is mainly against the Archbishop, not against me. 
 
 ' In a new Edition of my Letter I shall add a Postscript— but I should really 
 like to be enlightened as to what I have to answer ; for G. only denies what I 
 have said for the most part, without giving reasons why. 
 
 'To go into the Council of Constance is merely to lake up the old trite 
 controversy whi-'h has been gone through time out of mind bv the two parties, 
 each having its cut and dried answers and rejoinders. 
 
 ' The only thing that Gladstone says new is about the marriage question— that 
 I shall take up as far as 1 know anything about it. I am sorry to say there is 
 some very unpleasant case at Rome to which G. refers. Some one I believe of 
 the K. family is the principal in it, which has shocked numbers, including, I 
 hear, the Archbishop and our Bishop. It will be sure to cume out, and will be 
 
 VOL. II. O O
 
 S62 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 a scandal, if it be what I am told it is. It is said that some of our Bishops will 
 make a statement about it. The passage which Father Perrone writes, and 
 Gladstone quotes, is atrocious — but I cannot be sorry, if the case is brought out, 
 for they must be made to feel at Rome that they, as others, are exposed to the 
 public opinion of the world — but we shall have to suffer.' 
 
 To Miss Froude. 
 
 ' April 29, 1875. 
 
 *As to your first question, I should say that the word " infalHbility " has 
 never been ascribed to the Church in any authoritative document till the Vatican 
 Council — and it has been not unfrequenlly urged as an objection (and I think by 
 myself in print in former days) that the Church's " infallibility " was not defide. 
 Yet the Church acted as infallible and was accepted as infallible from the first. 
 What was the case with the Church was the case with the Pope. The most real 
 expression of the doctrine is, not that he is infallible but that his decisions are 
 " irreformabilia " and true. So that the question did not arise in the mind of 
 Christians in any formal shape, " is he infallible, and in what and how far? " for 
 all they felt was that what he said was " the voice of the Church," " for he spoke 
 for the Church," "the Church spoke in him," and what the Church spoke was 
 true. And accordingly his word was (to use a common phrase) " taken for 
 gospel," and he meant it " for gospel," he " laid down the law," and he meant 
 to " lay down the law " — he was sure he was right, no one had any doubt he was 
 right — he was " the proper person to speak and to settle the matter." This 
 (with whatever accidental exceptions) was his and the Christian world's feeling 
 in the matter — as any ordinary man now, (bigoted Protestant, if you will, acting 
 from prejudice) says " I know I am right," so the Pope would say " I know it is 
 so, and it is my duty to tell the flock of Christ so," witJioiU analyzing whether it 
 was a moral certainty, or an inspiration or a formal limited infallibility, or 
 whatever other means which was the ground of his unquestioning and his absolute 
 pereniptoriness. Honorius then or any other Pope of those times, when he chose, 
 acted 2l^ infallible and was obeyed z.?, infallible, without having a clear perception 
 that his ipse dixit arose from a gift of infallibility. 
 
 ' But again, at least the Church acted as infallible from the first, e.g. in 
 Councils, &c. — Now the Pope ever acted in company with the Church, some- 
 times before the hierarchy, sometimes after, sometimes simultaneously with, the 
 hierarchy. He always spoke as the voice of the Church. The Vatican 
 Council has decided that he is not only the instrumental and ministerial head or 
 organ of the Church, not only has a power of veto, not only is a co-operating 
 agent in de fide decisions, but that in him lies the root of the matter, that his 
 decision, viewed separate even from the Bishops, is gospel. 
 
 ' Before the Vatican Council, even Gallicans allowed that the Pope was 
 infallible, supposing the Bishops accepted his decision — and at least that Plonorius 
 would feel, supposing him led to make any ex cathedra decision, so that I deny 
 your correspondent's words, " he could not in the 7th Century actually intend to 
 exert that infallible authority, which has been dogmatically defined in the 19th." 
 Yes, he could, and though he might not be clear as to the conditions of 
 infallibility, though he might take for granted, or implicitly expect, and be sure of, 
 the concurrence of the Bishops of the world with him as a condition of the act 
 being infallible. 
 
 'The account I have given of the Council of Ephesus in " Theodoret " in 
 Historical Sketches is a further illustration of what I have tried to bring out here.
 
 APPENDICES 563 
 
 ' I might have taken a higher ground, for long before the Vatican Council, 
 though not perhaps in the time of Honorius, Popes have realized to themselves 
 their own infallibility, and from the first, as we see in the history of St. Victor, 
 St. Stephen, Si. Dionysius in the Ante-nicene times — they have acted as if 
 their word was law, without making nice distinctions. 
 
 ' When your correspondent says " Previous to the Vatican Council no doctrines 
 defined only by the Pope are absolutely to be received," I remark on the contrary 
 there was such an agreement in fact between Pope and Bishops that, when he 
 taught and was followed by the world, (as took place) it was impossible to discuss 
 whether the Bishops concurred by an act of independent judgment or by an act of 
 submission to him. Practically the Pope has taught dogmatically from the first, 
 e.g. it is not at all clear that Leo's famous Tome against Eutyches is an act of 
 infallibility ; but what is clear is that it had the effect of turning a great mass of 
 Bishops right round, as if he were infallible, and making them with him in the 
 Council of Chalcedoa use the words definitive of the two natures in One Person, 
 which he had in his Tome forced upon them. He has been from the first 
 (where history is minute enough for the purpose) the beginning and the end, he 
 has had the first and last word, of every definition. You understand me, I am 
 bringing out my view, without stopping to notice objections or opposite 
 statements. 
 
 ' Well, and now I am not sure whether I have expressed myself clearly, 
 and should like you to tell me, whether it enables you to answer your 
 correspondent. 
 
 ' But any how I am tired just now, and shall reserve your second question for 
 another letter. 
 
 ' When you write, tell me honestly that you are well, for till you are quite, I 
 think you must honestly watch over your doings.' 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 ' Rednal : July zS, 1S75. 
 
 ' I am not sure that you apprehended my answer to your first, which was, I 
 think, to this effect. " Did not the Pope exert his infallible voice in early times? 
 but if so, must he not have known himself infallible, and did he ? " I think I 
 answered thus--IIe never acted by himself — he acted in General Council, or in 
 Roman Council, with the concurrence or co-operation of some local Council, 
 or with his own counsellors and theologians ; never by himself— nor to this day 
 has he acted by himself. Now in cases of this kind, the question always arises, 
 what was, and in what lay, the essence of the act — for instance, the Holy 
 Eucharist is a sacrifice — but to this day it is an open question what is the act of 
 sacrifice, what is the constituting act, which is the sacrifice. The common 
 opinion is that the act of consecration is the act of sacrifice— but Bellarmine, 
 I think, held that it is the Priest's communion. While another opinion is that 
 the whole action from the consecration to the communion is sacrificial. I believe 
 also it is allov/able to consider that it cannot be determined, but that the whole 
 canon must be viewed as one indivisible act, (" per modum unius " is tlie theological 
 phrase) and that we cannot analyze it, as schoolmen wish to do. 
 
 ' The condemnation of Nestorius illustrates what I would say ; his doctrine is 
 first condemned by the Alexandrians — then by his own people of Syria— then the 
 Pope sends round to the principal sees of Christendom, who do the same. Upon 
 this the Pope sends him notice he must recant within ten days or he will excom- 
 municate him. After this the General Council is called and his condemnation 
 
 2
 
 S64 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWiMAN 
 
 passed— on which the Kmperor banishes }iiin. Now where and in what lay the 
 infallible voice? if they had iieen asked, I suppose, they could not have told — 
 viz. whether it lay in the whole process as being the result of it, or in the Council 
 or in the Pope, or again, taking the Pope by himself, while they would understand 
 that an infallible decision followed on his voice. Slill they would not be able to 
 say whether he spoke by his own intrinsic absolute authority, or as the voice and 
 organ of the whole Church, who spoke through him. 
 
 ' This too must be considered — that the infallibility of the Church (or of the 
 Pope) is, as far as I know, a novel phrase. The infallibility of the Church has 
 never been defined as a dogma (except indirectly in the late Vatican Council). 
 The form which the doctrine took was to say that the point in dispute, when once 
 decided, was " irreformable," it was settled once for all, it was part of the 
 Catholic faith. Therefore attention was centred in the thing, not in the person — 
 and, though of course it could not be settled for good in one certain way, unless 
 the parties settling it were infallible, this view of the subject did not prominently 
 some before the Pope or the Bishops. This is what I have meant to say on your 
 first question. 
 
 ' Your second, I think, was this — " If the Schola Theologoruni decides the 
 meaning of a Pope or a Council's words, the Schola is infallible, not Ihcy or hc.^'' 
 ' In answer to this I observe that there are no words, ever so clear, but require 
 an interpretation, at least as to their extent. Yox instance, an inspired writer 
 says that " God is love " — but supposing a set of men so extend this as to con- 
 clude — ^^ therefore \!tv&i& is no future punishment for bad men?" Some power 
 then is needed to determine the general sense of authoritative words — to determine 
 their direction, drift, limits, and comprehension, to hinder gross perversions. 
 This power is virtually the passive infallibility of the whole body of the Catholic 
 people. The active infallibility lies in the Pope and Bishops — the passive in the 
 " universitas " of the faithful. Hence the maxim " securus judicat orbis terraruni." 
 The body of the faithful never can misunderstand what the Church determines by 
 the gift of its active infallibility. Here on the one hand I observe that a local 
 sense of a doctrine, held in this or that country, is not a " sensus universitatis," — 
 and on tlie other hand the Schola Theologorum is one chief portion of that 
 universitas — and it acts with great force both in correcting popular misapprehen- 
 sions and narrow views of the leaching of the active infallibililas, and, by the 
 intellectual investigations and disputes which are its very life, it keeps the dis- 
 tinction clear between theological truth and theological opinion, and is the 
 antagonist of dogmatism. And while the differences of the School maintain the 
 liberty of thought, the unanimity of its members is the safeguard of the infallible 
 decisions of the Church and the champion of faith. 
 ' I wonder whether I haye made myself clear.' 
 
 To Henry Bedford, Esq. 
 
 ' The Oratory ; November 30, 1S75. 
 
 ' Thank you for your affectionate letter. 
 
 'I don't feel so vexed at Mr. Ward, as you are in your kindness for me. lie 
 has a right to his say— and I don't know that we had any right to expect that he 
 would sit down quiet, when I had delivered so fierce a protest against him. All 
 one can say is, that since he had the first word, he need not have determined to 
 have the last word too. However, I only wished an opportunity of making my 
 protest — that I have done — and he cannot undo the fact that I have made it — 
 and, by making it, have recorded that all Catholics do not agree with him, and 
 that he is not the spokesman for the orbis tcrraruin.
 
 APPENDICES 565 
 
 ' As to Oxford, Father Gallwey asked me to preach at the opening of the 
 Church. He, and the Jesuits all along have shown me nothing but kindness and 
 sympathy. I did not preach, because for this twenty years and more I have 
 preached nowhere but in my own Church. There have been one or two excep- 
 tions which, for one reason or other, I could not help making. Also, I am too 
 old now to preach, and have long said that even exceptions are not to be in 
 future. 
 
 ' I repeat, from first to last I have had nothing but kindness from the Jesuits. 
 It is not they who have kept me from work.' 
 
 The following is the letter referred to at p. 407 : 
 
 Mr. William George Ward to Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' Weston Manor, Isle of Wight : 20th January, 1S75. 
 
 * My dear Father Newman, — I was so engaged yesterday in business con- 
 nected with our forthcoming number that I could not give your letter my attention. 
 But I was extremely glad to see your handwriting again after some interval, and 
 am grateful also for your various kind expressions. I infer that you would 
 wish me rather to answer said letter than merely acknowledge its receipt, so I will 
 try to answer what you say point by point. I have taken up my best pen, so us 
 to minimise (not indeed doctrine but) your trouble in deciphering me. At last 
 you can throw it unread into the fire if it bores you. 
 
 ' I see most clearly and admit most readily that you had no legitimate alterna- 
 tive between either not writing at all or including in your pamphlet what y(ju 
 consider a just rebuke of our exorbitances. My grief is not that you say what you 
 say, but that you think it. 
 
 ' I feel sensibly your kind eulogy of my straightforwardness. 
 
 ' Your chief charge against me is that I " make my own belief the measure of 
 the belief of others." As these words stand they do not convey to me any 
 definite idea. But it seems to me that the difference between you and me (I do 
 not wish at all to under-rate it) may be understood by some such explanation as 
 this. 
 
 ' It has always appeared to me that a Catholic thinker or writer ought to aim 
 at this: viz., so to think and write, as he judges that the Holy See (interpreted 
 by her ofllcial Acts, and due regard being had to individual circumstances) would 
 wish him to think and write. I have often said in the Diihlin Review that 
 peace and truth are in some sense necessarily antagonistic ; that every proclama- 
 tion of a truth is a disturbance of peace. I have then gone on to say that whether 
 or no in some given case the interest of souls would suffer most by the proclama- 
 tion or the withholding of some given truth —that this question is one which 
 ordinary men (I mean not specially helped by God) cannot even appro.ximale to 
 deciding ; that consequently is one of the very chief gifts bestowed upon the 
 Pope, that in his authoritative teaching he can so decide. 
 
 ' By a further consequence, I have thought it might very often be a duty to 
 persuade Catholics (if one can) that certain beliefs are obligatory on them which 
 as yet they do not recognise. I have thought that this was one's duty, whenever 
 it should seem to one (after due deliberation) that the Holy See is desiring to 
 enforce this obligation ; and on the other hand I have always said that truths, 
 which one might think to have been infallibly declared, ought not on that account 
 to be brought forward, imless there are signs tliat the Holy See wishes them to 
 l)e now brought forward (I refer to truths other than the dogmata of the fiiith,
 
 566 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 though connected intimately with them). And I have thought that the " peace 
 and unity " which as you so truly say are the " privilege and duty of Catholics," 
 are to be sought in one way and no other, viz. in increasing among us all an 
 ex anivw deference, not only to the definitions but to the doctrinal intimations of 
 
 the Holy See. 
 
 ' I have written on at dreadful length, but I did not see how otherwise to 
 explain myself. Now I am daily more and more convinced that my aim has been 
 the true one ; but I am also daily more and more convinced that I have fallen 
 into grievous mistakes of judgment from time to time, whether as regards what I 
 have said, or (much more) my way of saying it. I may say with the greatest 
 sincerity that the one main cause of this has always appeared to me to be my 
 breach with you. Never was a man more unfit than I to play any kind of first 
 fiddle. You supplied exactly what I needed ; corrected extravagances, corrected 
 crudities, suggested opposite considerations, pointed out exaggerations of 
 language, etc. etc. When I found that you and I (as I thought) proceeded on 
 fundamentally different principles, this invaluable help was lost ; and I have 
 never been able even approximately to replace you. If you will not laugh at the 
 expression, I will say that I have felt myself a kind of intellectual orphan. I may 
 say in my own praise that my censors have complimented me on my submissive- 
 ness ; but I have always wished to submit myself much more could I have found a 
 guide whom I trusted. 
 
 ' Excuse this tremendous prolixity of egotism. It will at least show how very 
 desirous I am that you should think less ill than you do of my intellectual attitude, 
 and that your rebukes therefore should be less severe. The whole colour of my life 
 has changed, I assure you, from the loss of your sympathy. But my gratitude for 
 the past will ever remain intact. 
 
 ' Affectionately yours, 
 
 W. G. Ward. 
 
 ' I hope I am not dreadfully illegible.' 
 
 I append some further letters and memoranda (see p. 418) which 
 illustrate the thoughts which occupied Newman's mind in the years 
 covered by this chapter. The decay actual and prospective of Chris- 
 tian faith, and the thought of death and what follows after death, wer 
 subjects to which he frequently recurred. 
 
 e 
 
 To Mrs. Wilson. 
 
 'August 3, 1874. 
 
 ' I think our Lord's words are being fulfilled, " When the Son of Man cometh 
 shall He find faith upon earth ? " the plague of unbelief is in every religious com- 
 munity, in the Unitarian, in the Kirk, in the Episcopalian, in the Church of 
 England, as well as in the Catholic Church. What you want is faith, just as so 
 many persons in other communions want faith. The broad section of the Church 
 of England wants faith— you in the Catholic Church want faith. The disease is 
 the same, though its manifestations are different. 
 
 ' It is a moral disease, and therefore there must be some fault in those who 
 are afflicted with it. They ought to strive and to pray, and sooner or later they 
 would get the better of it. There is no proof they do. I wish to speak with 
 great tenderness of you, because I should be most presumptuous, if I spoke lightly 
 of temptations from which God's mercy, and that alone, has protected me,—
 
 APPENDICES 567 
 
 but as far as I see, I do not think you have with a resohite heart, and with 
 earnestness, fought the battle of your soul. I know others who, with greater 
 disadvantages than I suppose yours are, have been brave, and determined, and, 
 though they have been knocked down, have got up again, and fought on. They 
 will have their reward, and it will be great. St. Philip says, " Paradise is not 
 meant for cowards," and, when I see such instances of courage, I feel how little 
 I have myself done in that line — and I think you have done very little too. 
 
 ' It seems to me that, instead of going straightforward to your work, you 
 indulge yourself in finding fault witli priests, whom you should not come near, and 
 are not unwilling to provoke them — that you do not make the best of things, but 
 take pleasure in complaints. I may be wrong in points of detail in my view of 
 you, and beg you to pardon me, if I am— but I don't think I am wrong on the 
 whole. We cannot do without ya/V/r, and faith is the gift of God. You do not 
 seem to me to keep before your mind, and to realize, these two awful truths. 
 
 ' I have not written to you sooner because I have had so many letters to 
 write, and many requiring an immediate answer — and sometimes, when I had 
 time, I forgot to do so.' 
 
 The Intermediate State. — Memorandum. "'] 
 
 'Aug. 29, 1875. 
 
 ' A few days ago (on August 22), an old lady died^suddenly ; so suddenly 
 that her daughter had gone away for a week — and she was well enough to enjoy 
 the garden — her daughter says " quite suddenly, from the breaking of something 
 in her lungs. " She had a strange dream two nights, or one night before she died. 
 She thought her daughter, who had died in wedlock ten years since, appeared to 
 her in shining light, and said " Mother, I am permitted by God to come and 
 speak to )ou, before you leave the earth." She then asked her, "Are you in 
 heaven ? are you happy ? " " Not yet in heaven," she was answered, " but O so 
 happy ! Busy, busy for God— doing work for him." The old mother asked what 
 work? "Not employments as on earth — we see and know so differently," 
 and she added, " I cannot tell you more, than I am permitted by God." Her 
 mother asked if she knew what passes here, she said, " No, nothing since I left the 
 earth ; I remember my own life perfectly, but nothing after." Then she asked 
 by name after her husband and children, and each of her brothers and sisters. 
 This dream left the lady "perfectly radiant from henceforth." At this time she 
 "seemed quite well." 
 
 ' It seems to me a very remarkable dream, as being very unlike what would 
 occur to a Protestant, as the lady was, nay to most Catholics. First there is no 
 immediate introduction into heaven for the departed soul. Secondly (tho' nothing 
 is said of penal suffering,) there is definite mention of the " quoddam quasi 
 pratum " of St. Bede and various Holy Virgins. Thirdly there is the mention of 
 employments which cannot be described — which is a metaphysical thought strange 
 as occurring to an old lady. Fourthly the statement of the soul's ignorance of 
 what goes on here is against the grain of Protestant, not to say Catholic anticipa- 
 tions. Fifthly the vivid remembrance (contemplation) of its own past life is not 
 commonly attributed by Protestants to the separated soul. And sixthly there 
 is no suggestion, which is so familiar a thought with Protestants, not to say Catho- 
 lics, of the dead enjoying the society of their dead friends. Where did the lady 
 get the ideas which make up this dream ? And then its coming, if there is no 
 inaccuracy in the account, to warn her of her approaching death, at a time when
 
 5r,8 I.IFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 she was in no serious state of weakness or with other physical intin:iation of what 
 was coming. 
 
 * I am the more struck with the dream, because I have either long or at least 
 lately held about the intermediate state all the six points I have enumerated. 
 The first of course, because it is an article of Catholic faith— the second, since I 
 wrote in 1835 "They are at rest &c." The third I have thought about much 
 lately, our dense ignorance being painfully brought home to me by the death o^ 
 friends lately. The fourth from the silence of Scripture on the subject — of course 
 the instance of saints who enjoy the beatific vision is not in point. Nor does the 
 ignorance of the departed concerning us preclude their praying for us. The 
 fifth, as in my verses in 1832, " My home is now &c." And the sixth from the 
 circumstance of the resurrection being spoken of in Scripture as the time when 
 there is a restoration of all things, and, as we may suppose, a meeting of friends. 
 Before that, the departed, as such, are not members of the heavenly "Curia." 
 
 'Not till then, if even then : — our duty being, when we lose those who have 
 been hitherto the light of our eyes, not so much to look forward to meeting them 
 again, as to take their removal as an occasion to fix our thoughts more steadily, 
 and our love, on Him, who is the true Lover of Souls, recollecting the great 
 danger we lie under of making an idol of the creature, instead of cherishing 
 the intimate conviction that God alone can be our peace, joy, and blessedness. 
 
 ' As I am on the subject of dreams, I will mention one which was granted to 
 a young lady on her deatli bed, not so striking in its contents, nor bearing upon 
 any definite doctrines, yet well worth remembering. It is given in the words of 
 her brother. 
 
 ' " About 15 hours before she died she was with my Father and Mother, and 
 said something of the blessing it would he to be sure she was saved. My Mother 
 said something of God's mercy which made her rather eagerly disclaim any 
 'prying into the secrets of God,' and, 'she should know in His good time.' 
 Then she shut her eyes and seemed to go to sleep. All at once she opened her 
 eyes and stretched out her arms with great animation and said ' Dear I'apa, dear 
 Mamma, I have received the seal of my salvation ; we shall all meet again. Call 
 the dear boys and the dear girls.' . . . My Father and Mother both declare that 
 it was not the least like wandering of mind. Certainly afterwards all she said, 
 which was little enough, and at intervals, was like a person thinking of those 
 about her, not of her own future state. When we came in, she kissed us all, 
 saying 'I f/iuil- something to everybody.' To me she said 'God bless you, 
 dearest Fred, you have been of great use to me.' " 
 
 The following is from a letter of the same year : 
 
 ' Dec. 4, 1875. 
 
 ' I think what a severe purgatory it would be, tho" there were no pain at all, 
 but darkness, silence, and solitude, and ignorance where you were, how you held 
 together, on what you depended, all you knew of yourself being that you thoiiglit, 
 and no possible anticipation, how long this state would last, and in what way it 
 would end, and with a vivid recollection of every one of your sins from birth to 
 death, even tho' you were no more able to sin, and knew this, and though you 
 also knew you were. 
 
 ' Or again, supposing the phenomena of sleep and dreaming arise from the 
 absence of the brain's action, and the feeble, vain attempt of the soul to act with- 
 out the brain, so that without a brain one cannot think consecutively and ration- 
 ally, and that the intermediate or disembodied state, before the elect soul goes to
 
 APPENDICES 569 
 
 heaven, is a helpless dream, in which it neither can sin on the one hand, any 
 more than when a man sins when dreaming now, Init on the other cannot be said 
 to exercise intellect or to have knowledge.' 
 
 ' Sept. 10, 1876. 
 
 ' I suppose, when we are brought into the unseen state, we shall find things so 
 different from what we had expected, that it would seem as if nothing had 
 hitherto been revealed to us ; or more exactly, it will be like our first sensations 
 on personally knowing a man whom we had known hitherto only by his writings, 
 when we are led to say that he is so unlike, yet still like what we anticipated.' 
 
 To Dr. Northcote. 
 (Written after the death of Mrs. Wootten.) 
 
 'Jan. 17th, 1876. 
 
 ' My dear Northcote, — I thank you for your very kind letter which has just 
 come, and thank you also most sincerely for your intended Mass for Mrs. Wootten 
 and for me. 
 
 ' It is only a wonder she lasted so, and it has been God's great mercy that she 
 lias been kept here for us so long. As Pusey reminds me in a letter just come 
 from him, though I did not need reminding, 40 years ago she was dying every 
 winter. I have thought her going for the last year, and told Fr. St. John so. 
 She had a fall last summer year, which must have been a great shock to her — and 
 Fr. St. John's death was a great shock too of another kind — but she was herself to 
 the last, vigorous, active, and cheerful. Our boys who came around her bed as 
 familiarly as if she were up, would not believe it was her deathbed, and she was 
 conversing and giving her judgment on ordinary matters within a few hours of her 
 death. The doctor (a Protestant) said he never met a person with less fear of 
 death though she knew it was at hand. Her only anxiety was lest in dying she 
 should in any of her words or acts disedify bystanders. At three o'clock in the 
 afternoon she was as bright as usual— she suddenly fell off at six or seven — and 
 died at eleven. Her last word to me was "Jesus." 
 
 ' I am not forgetful of your sister-in-law's great family trials, those she 
 mentioned to me, and those she did not. 
 
 ' Most sincerely yours, 
 
 John U. Newman.' 
 
 To Mrs. W. Froude. 
 
 ' The Oratory : July 9, 1876. 
 
 ' My dear Mrs. Froude, — I am quite ashamed you should make so much 01 
 me. What can I have done to deserve such words as you use ? What can I have 
 said, when with you, which is worth Isy making a note of for the benefit of 
 Hurrell? This only I know, that all through my life God has mercifully given 
 me good friends, and that I never know how to be grateful enough to Him for so 
 precious a gift. 
 
 ' In proportion as you love me, you will pray for me that I may make a good 
 end. When a i.^.an gets to my age, the awful future comes before him vividly and 
 is ever haunting his thoughts. I am quite well according to all my sensations, 
 but I was quite surprised at Christchurch to find what a unity of thought and 
 feeling there was between that poor girl who was dying and myself who had 
 no illness about me. We seemed both to be going beyond tliat dark curtain 
 together.'
 
 570 
 
 T.IFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 To Sister M. Pia. 
 
 ' July 25th, 1876. 
 
 •As to 3'our pictures, where would our Church and House be witliout them? 
 They give lirilliancy to every one of our dead walls — they are evergreen plants, 
 lasting winter and summer. The only difikulty I felt about St. Jane Frances was 
 where to put her. As to St. Francis himself it is now twenty years that I have 
 had in mind to give an altar to him — but we have not yet space. I shall hail 
 your two pictures with great satisfaction when they come — and so that of dear 
 Ambrose too, which you have so thoughtfully done. 
 
 ' I went to pay ihc visits you speak of with a great effort,' and had no accident 
 except slipping down a staircase without hurting myself. This time two years 
 when I last went to Jemima I managed to dip my foot down to the wheel of the 
 rail carriage, and rolled under the wheel of a pony chaise. My ankles and knees 
 are so weak, that, for that reason alone, I dread a journey. But besides this, 
 travelling always makes me ill. I am quite well at home, but going about is a 
 great trouble to me. I was forced to take my last journey — it was to see poor 
 Eleanor, nee Bretherton, who is dying, and is leaving four children apparently 
 without means of support. It did not take many hours, and I was not with her 
 above two hours. I gladly would come to see you, if I were sure the journey 
 would not make me ill before I got to you. Pray ask your Bishop for his blessing 
 for me and all here. It is very kind in him to send me a message. I was sorry 
 to hear he was in a bad state of health. 
 
 ' To scandalize is to make to fall, or to trip up against an obstacle. We may 
 
 be religiously scandalized and irreligiously. Things which ought to scandalize are 
 
 called " scandala parvulorum " — those which ought not are " scandala Pharisae- 
 
 orum "—the words *' little ones " and " Pharisees " being allusions to Scripture. 
 
 Perhaps this isn't what you want. 
 
 ' Ever yours affly, 
 
 J. 11. N.' 
 
 ' The Oratory : Oct. 10, 1876. 
 
 ' My dear Sister Pia, — God bless you for your thoughts about yesterday. I 
 grieve indeed at your sad news and will say Mass for your intention about your 
 Brother. You never can have an idea of the worth and power of prayer, or of 
 the great efficacy of your own prayers for him and others, till you are in the 
 unseen world. He does for us " exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or 
 think according to the power that worketh in us." You must go by faith, not by 
 sight. 
 
 ' Thank you for what you say about Frank. He has formally joined the 
 
 Unitarians. My hope is that on his deathbed, God will be merciful to him, and 
 
 his belief in our Lord may revive. 
 
 ' Ever yrs affly, 
 
 John li. Newman.' 
 To Lord Blackford. 
 
 ' The Oratory : Nov. 17, 1875. 
 
 « My dear Blachford,— Your news about James Mozley shocked rne much. I 
 wrote off to his sister and his sister-in-law, but neither could give me much more 
 in the way of information than the word " paralysis " conveys. 
 
 ' It has ever been to me a terrible idea, because its first attack is so often 
 utterly without warning, and because, however slight, it is commonly, in elderly 
 
 ' Farewell visits to his relations.
 
 APPENDICES 571 
 
 men, the beginning of the end. James must be nearly 60, but of course I only 
 recollect him as a young man, and to me his life seems scarcely begun. A hasty 
 word I spoke of him broke off all intercourse between us when I became a 
 Catholic, and as I have never felt sympathy enough with his mind and views to 
 make efforts to renew it, and he has never come in my way, I have not seen him 
 for 30 years. I sent him a message on receipt of your letter about him, but 
 Caroline Johnson feels it to be imprudent as yet to deliver it to him. He is 
 getting better every day, but they are resigned to his never being (juite what he 
 was. 
 
 ' This complaint is the penance and stern memento of intellectual men. Mow 
 many in our time, who have exercised their brains, have died of it ! I used to 
 have a list, but I have given up collecting instances — among my own friends, 
 Keble, Whately, C. Marriott, G. Copeland, Ogilvie, Woodgate, E. Churton, 
 Ogle, &c. I am trying to think what James M. can have done to weaken a con- 
 stitution which everyone thought so strong. Has he been over excited and tried 
 by his metaphysical controversies, which I can conceive might be very distressing 
 to a man who had the onus of an argumentative combat with the responsibility of a 
 Chair ? or has he sat up late at nights, which I suppose is very wearing ? Even 
 from selfish motives I am always trying to find out a way of accounting in 
 individual cases for what seems so mysterious — the appearance to self and to 
 others of perfect health and ordinary strength, and then the sudden failure of 
 one's powers. 
 
 ' As to your paper, let it be only a squib or a cracker, yet such small things 
 may kindle a great fire, and this I meant when I said, I hoped you would have to 
 write again. As to your being only half a metaphysician, I don't know who is a 
 whole one, though some men have more confidence in themselves than others. 
 The assumptions of Mill are for an able man incomprehensible. For myself I 
 am very far from agreeing with many of your positions, e.g., that matter is " that 
 which occupies space"; I am utterly ignorant what matter is objectively — 
 phenomena prove that it exists, but not what it is. Therefore space is only the 
 word for the idea of a break in the continuity of phenomena, and is doubly sub- 
 jective, as depending on phenomena which are subjective and as being bowed out 
 of actual existence by the actual continuity of phenomena. Wliiie we thus differ, 
 is not metaphysical science in abeyance ? 
 
 ' But this does not help Mr. Huxley in your quarrel with him. If he would 
 be modest in his teaching, he would be tolerable, but from all I know of him, I 
 must consider him intolerant and therefore intolerable. Your argument anyhow 
 is good. You say first, we must from the analogy of self and of our experience of 
 others, i.e., men, (whom we determine to have sensation and volition from external 
 indications) determine from like indications that brute animals can feel and can 
 will. How is this conclusion to be touched as regards brute animals, without our 
 holding that our friend feels nothing when he is subjected to a surgical 
 operation ? 
 
 ' Your second position was that, tho' there was, or might be, such a 
 phenomenon as unconscious cerebration, yet, because there was, sometimes in the 
 case of man, it did not follow th;it to it was to be attributed a// that seems like 
 sensation and volition in brutes, or else we might similarly infer, that, because 
 patients under the operatiori of chloroform utter cries when the knife touches them, 
 but recollect nothing afterwards of having suffered pain, therefore none of us know 
 what pain is, however we may show signs of it.
 
 ST- 
 
 T.IFE OF CARDINAT. NEWMAN 
 
 * This is how I understood you — and I don't see how you are to be answered 
 — and I rejoice that Professor Huxley is put on the defensive. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 To Mrs. W. Froude. 
 
 ' The Oratory : Jany. 9, 1S77. 
 
 'My dear Mrs. Froude, — Thank you for your affectionate letter and dear Isy 
 for her desire to write. This is the first anniversary of Mrs. Wootten's death. 
 Father Caswall was then quite strong— attended her in her illness, and had the 
 whole administration of her will and property. He worked hard at it after his 
 wont, always busy and never seeming tired. How little we thought that he was 
 soon to be laid up by heart disease. I le went off to Norway to attend the open- 
 ing of a Church, which was a novelty there, and was seized in the midst of his 
 journey back with a sudden breathlessness at niglit, which might have proved fatal. 
 His death is now a question of months, weeks, or days. 
 
 ' He is one of four very dear friends, who were in a position to place, and did 
 place, themselves and all they had at my service ; Ambrose St. John, Joseph 
 Gordon, Mrs. Wootlen, and he. His wife was suddenly carried off by cholera at 
 Torquay. The next day he made a will in my favour. It was but a sample of the 
 devotion he has shown to me for thirty years, to me unworthy, as I may truly say. 
 
 * My only comfort in the thought of having so many friends, (for I feel I must 
 be a hypocrite, and taking them in, that they are so loving to me) is that they 
 pray for me. For where shall I be hereafter, if I have, contrary to my deserts, 
 so many " good things in my life-time " ? 
 
 .' All best wishes for the New Year to you, William, Isy and Eddie. 
 ' W. Mallock's article is very good. Father Ignatius is very much taken with 
 it. If you write, send to his sister my best New Year wishes. 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 (Signed) John II. Newman.' 
 
 A few letters on theological and controversial matters may be added : 
 To Mr. J. R. MozLEY. 
 
 ' The Oratory : April 191b, 1S74. 
 
 ' My dear John, — I have been so busy since I got your letter that I could 
 not help delaying my answer. Moreover, I was puzzled what I could have said, 
 which has so misled you as to my meaning, for certainly I give up the Catholic 
 cause, if I must rest it either on the intellectual powers which it develops in its 
 adherents, or its manifestation in them of a moral excellence undeniably superior 
 to the results of every other form of Christianity. 
 
 'My view of the drift of revelation is as follows: — the truths in the natural 
 order, which are the basis of the sciences, are few, clear, and have a ready accept- 
 ance in the world at large, though they do not admit of demonstration (as that 
 
 fact 
 every effect must have a cause) — but those which point to a system of things 
 beyond this visible world, as the law of conscience, the sense of religion &c., are 
 delicate, subtle, fitful, mysterious, incapable of being grasped, easily put down 
 and trampled under foot. 
 
 ' The initial truths of science can take care of themselves — but not so those of 
 religion and morals — and therefore, since in fact they often (though accidentally, 
 in the action of life, not that they need) come into collision with each other, the 
 weaker would assuredly go to the wall, had not the great Author of all things
 
 APPENDICES 573 
 
 interposed Lo support them by a direct and extraordinary assistance rom Ilimseli. 
 Revelation then is the aid and the completion of nature on that side of it on 
 which it is weak. ' 
 
 ' It follows that to suppose it will teach or defend those natural sciences, which 
 issue in a large organisation of human society, is to mistake the final cause of Reve- 
 lation — or rather, not to start with anticipating that it will (accidentally) oppose 
 or seem to oppose them, is to fail in apprehending duly its aim and outcome. 
 Wlien Our Lord introduces the rich man saying, " This will I do, I will pull down 
 my barns &c. and I will say to my soul, take thine ease &c.'' and then commenting 
 on his proceeding, says "Thou fool &c." He brings out emphatically the antago- 
 nism between the prosecution of the secular sciences and Revelation — not as if the 
 science of farming, not as if the enjoyment of this life, were in themselves wrong, 
 but that, as men are, that science, that enjoyment will inevitably lead to an 
 obliteration in their minds of what is higher than anything here below, unless the 
 sanctions of Revelation (or, as I should say, the Catholic Church, which is the 
 embodiment of Revelation,) arc present to support and enforce those higher 
 considerations. 
 
 'Coming back then to your two questions, as to "organisation," "reasoning" 
 <^c. I consider these to be natural products of the mind, and therefore the 
 authorities and officials of the Church make use of them, because they are men, 
 for the purposes of that Revelation of which they are the guardians and defenders 
 but in no sense profess to advance them. 
 
 ' As to your other question, the virtues peculiar to Catholics, I think there are 
 various such— but here we enter upon another large question — I do not think they 
 make a show — that is, are such as to constitute what is called a Note of the 
 Church. Our Lord Himself foretold that His net would contain fish of every kind 
 — He speaks of rulers who would be tyrannical and gluttonous — and it was one of 
 the first great controversies of the Christian Church, issuing in the Novatian schism, 
 whether extraordinary means should or should not be taken to keep the Church 
 pure— and it was decided in the negative, as (in fact) a thing impossible. Now 
 when this is once allowed, considering how evil in its own nature Haunts itself and 
 is loud, and how true virtue is both in itself a matter of the heart and in its nature 
 retiring and unostentatious, it is very difticult to manage to make a " Note of the 
 Church " out of the conduct of Catholics viewed as a visible body. Besides it 
 must be recollected that the Cluuch is a militant body, and its work lies quite as 
 much in rescuing souls from the dominion of sin as in leading them on to any 
 height of moral excellence. 
 
 ' Moreover, in the course of iSoo years it has managed to impress its 
 character on society, so that when countries fall away from its communion, the 
 virtues, which it has created in their various people and civil polities, continue on 
 by a kind of inheritance, and thus the contrast between the realm of nature and 
 the realm of grace has not that sharpness which is seen in the juxtaposition of 
 Romans I, 21-32, and Rom. XH. 
 
 'And, once more, civilisation itself, that is, the cultivation of the intellect, has 
 a tendency to raise the standard of morals, at least in some departments, as we see 
 in the history of philosophy, e.g. in the Stoics, in Juvenal, Persius, Epictetus &c. 
 and as regards the minor virtues of gentlemanlikeness ike. ike, and ihis again 
 tends to blur the contrast, which really exists between nature and grace, the 
 special characteristic of the latter lying in the motive on which actions are done. 
 
 ' This argument is more fully stated in the /dca oj a University, pp. 514 scq.
 
 574 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' Lastly, if, after these remarks, I am asked in what I conceive in matter of 
 fact consists the superiority of well-conducted Catholics over I'rotestants, I should 
 answer, in purity of intention, in faith, in humility, in contrition, in chastity, in 
 honesty, in command of the tongue. 
 
 ' Yours alTecly 
 
 John II. Newman. 
 
 To Dr. Northcote. 
 
 ' Sept. 2oth, 1S74. 
 
 ' My dear President, — It is most natural and becoming in the holy Community 
 at Westbury to be zealous in behalf of their great saint ; and gladly would I do 
 anything in my power to further the object about which they write to you. 
 Moreover, as far as my own personal feelings go, nothing would rejoice me more 
 than to find that the Holy Father had pronounced St. Francis a Doctor of the 
 Church. But it seems to me that the Holy See alone has the means of judging 
 \\ ho they are who have by their writings merited that high honour. 
 
 ' In the Canonization indeed of Saints it is intelligible to appeal even to the 
 popular voice, because sanctity can be apprehended, not only by good Catholics, but 
 by bad, nay, by those who are not Catholics at all. But none except the learned can 
 judge of learned men, and none but the Ecumenical Doctor of the Church, the 
 Holy Father himself, can pronounce about Doctors. 
 
 ' For myself and of myself your letter makes it necessary for me to speak. I 
 cannot understand why the existing assemblage of Doctors is just what it is in 
 quantity and quality. It is easy to understand why St. Gregory Nazianzen or 
 St. Augustine, St. Leo or St. Thomas, are doctors ; but why should St. Peter 
 Chrysologus, St. Isidore, or St. Peter Damian, be on the list, and St. Antoninus 
 or St. Laurence Justinian not? I cannot make out by my own wit why 
 St. Alfonso has lately been put upon the level of St. Athanasius and St. Jerome. 
 I do not even clearly understand why a woman has never been pronounced a 
 Doctor ; for, though St. Paul says they are to " keep silence in the Churches," he 
 is speaking of ecclesiastical and formal teaching, not of the supernatural gifts and 
 great works, of such a one as St. Catherine of Siena. 
 
 ' The conclusion I draw from this is plain. If I should have made such mis- 
 takes, left to myself, in determining who are Doctors and who are not, having in 
 the view the existing list, how can I possibly tell that I should be correct, if I 
 pretended to judge whether that great and beautiful Saint, St. Francis of Sales, 
 has or has not upon him the notes of a Doctor? No — these things are matters of 
 faith. What the Holy Father holds, I hold ;— I follow, I do not go before him, 
 in so deep and sacred a matter. I am sure Rev. Mother will sympathize, even 
 though she may not agree with me. 
 
 ' Ever yours very sincerely, 
 
 John II. Newman.' 
 
 To Canon Jenkins. 
 
 ' {Private.) The Oratory : Dec. 2, 1875. 
 
 « My dear Mr. Jenkins, — I return to you the forcible incisive letter which you 
 have paid me the compliment of addressing to me, and I have no difficulty in 
 saying that for years I have wondered how a high ecclesiastic and a theologian 
 could write some sentences which Cardinal Manning has written. The science 
 necessary for a theologian and the responsibility weighing upon an ecclesiastical 
 ruler, one should have thought, would have precluded indulgence in rhetoric.
 
 APPENDICES 575 
 
 ' But you have in your letter solved for nie, or at least reconciled me to this 
 anomaly, by referring to the history of Ennodius, who, a bishop (at least after- 
 wards) and (doubtless) a theologian, shows us that such a phenomenon, unhappy 
 as it may be in its consequences, is no new thing in the Church. But I do 
 not think still, that that precedent can be used for your particular purpose, or 
 that you can logically infer that Cardinal Manning ought to go on to formularize 
 the Pope's impeccability, because he has used vague language about the extent of 
 his infallibility. And I will say why. 
 
 ' First, let me say that 1 thought it was granted that the Decretales Hilde- 
 brandi were not really Ilildebrand's— but the embodiment of his general views 
 by some authors of his school after his time. 
 
 ' Next, the fourth and sixth Synods sub Symmacho are apocryphal — or at 
 least the 5th and 6th as the BoUandists show in their edition of St. Leo. 
 
 ' For the sentiment then of the sanctitas or innoccntia of the occupant of the 
 See of St. Peter we are thrown simply on Ennodius, at that time (I think) deacon 
 and secretary to Symmachus, who was ollicially employed in defending his master 
 against charges of immorality, violence etc. I am not aware that the question 
 of the teaching came in at all. When Ennodius said that the Pope, as such, was 
 officially "sanctus," he said so, not as driven to it by the necessity, or as a way 
 of defending or proving his infallibility, but as an argument in favour of his being 
 free from the imputation of those bad personal deeds which he was charged with. 
 Because then Ennodius would prove the Pope guiltless of certain definite sins by 
 the general proposition " He is impeccable," it does not at all follow that 
 Cardinal Manning will be forced on to impeccability from infallibility — for a fault 
 in teaching would not be a sin in him unless it was wilful, and even though the 
 enunciation of a doctrine were in a particular case sinful, still it might be true. 
 Infallibility and impeccability are ideas altogether separable. 
 
 ' As to your letter of Nov. 23rd I wish I entered into your difficulty as fully 
 as I attempt to do. You argue that, if the Church or the Pope has power to 
 announce to the world the word of God (as being a sufficient Authority for such 
 an act) she ought also to have power to infuse into the hearers faith in it — But 
 then 
 
 ' I. Those who, like the Anglicans, hold the infallibility 01 four or six 
 Ecumenical Councils, must allow that the Third made Theotocos a point of faith, 
 which is not in Scripture, and not known (except by that very Council) to be an 
 article of the traditional Depositum Fidei, and that the sixth Council condemned 
 the doctrine that there is but one ivtpyeta in Christ, which is again condemned 
 neither by Scripture, except by inference, nor by tradition. If she did not supply 
 grace to the hearer for the internal acceptance of the Pope's Infallibility, did she 
 for the acceptance of the Theotocos and the double energies ? 
 
 ' 2. It is said " Obey your rulers," but does not obedience require grace as 
 well as faith ? and if particular precepts are binding whicli come from the 
 Rulers of the Church, let alone the question of grace, why not doctrinal teaching 
 also? 
 
 ' 3. And further, grace is a gift of the Church, viz. : through the Sacraments, 
 and, if obedience is gained through the Sacraments, why not faith ? 
 
 ' I feel extremely the more than kind way in which you speak of mc, and you 
 must not doubt this, though I don't find the fitting words to thank you for it. 
 
 ' Most truly yours, 
 
 John II. Newman. 
 
 'P.S. — I have been so interrupted in writing this, tliat I have omitted acci-
 
 57(3 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 dentally some thoughts which would have brought out and recommended my 
 arguments more fully. 
 
 ' Kor instance, Ennodius' harangue is that of a counsel for the Pope. It 
 would seem as if he found facts to be stubborn things or thought that to go into 
 the details of the charges against his master was dangerous or wearisome, or 
 endless, so he takes a showy line and says " Can you conceive how a successor of 
 St. Peter on whom the shadow of St. Peter falls can possibly be allowed to fall 
 into sin "—(just as the counsel for a defendant might say " Here is the son of a 
 most religious and honourable family, can you fancy his doing this dishonesty?") 
 And he shews that this is his meaning by saying "It is not at all consistent with 
 that piety which we ought to feel to so great an official to question his doings 
 instead of leaving the judgment to Almighty God." 
 
 'J. H. N.' 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 ' The Oratory, Rednal : Feb. 27, 1S77. 
 
 * My dear Mr. Jenkins, — Your letter is very learned, important and interest- 
 •ng, and opens a large field for thought. I feel it to be a great compliment that 
 you address it to me — very much more than I can claim. IJut, please do not call 
 my Volume on the Arians " great," it is not even little. It was to have been, in 
 Mr. Rose's intention, the beginning of a Manual on the Councils, and the gun 
 went oft" in quite another direction, hitting no mark at all ; and then, too, I was 
 obliged to finish it by a fixed day, and had to hurry the last pages especially, till 
 I knocked myself up. 
 
 ' And now I have forgotten what I once knew, and do not recollect enough 
 to criticise you and to say whether I follow you or not in your argument. I do 
 not follow you in your interpretation of the Ephesine prohibition. In my 
 " Prophetical Office" I had taken the usual Anghcan view of it : — but, under date 
 of July 15, 1839, only two years after my book came out, I lind I had made this 
 pencil note in the margin—" I very much doubt, having now read the Acts and 
 History of the Council of Chalcedon, whether my use of it here is fair." 
 
 ' I agree with you in one thing ; though I grieve to say my antithesis to it and 
 conclusion from it is different. 
 
 ' The more one examines the Councils, the less satisfactory they are. My 
 reflection is, the less satisfactory they, the more majestic and trust-winning, and 
 the more imperatively necessary, is the action of the Holy See. 
 
 'J. H. N.' 
 
 To THE S.\ME. 
 
 ' Tlie Oratory : April 6, 1877. 
 
 ' My dear Mr. Jenkins, — I thank you heartily for your most kind and 
 sympathetic letter, and I return you your Easter greetings very sincerely. 
 
 ' Also for the valuable Easter present you sent me. 
 
 ' I am ashamed to receive so many things from you, but they will keep up 
 your memory in our library. 
 
 ' It is, as you say, a most cloudy time — clouds which both poitend ill for our 
 religious future and conceal it. What is coming ? Yet evil has often before now 
 threatened and passed away. These signs in the sky are doubtless those which 
 will precede the end in all things; yet in foimer times they have fadtd away 
 instead of becoming clearer, and so it may be now. But, whether religion is to 
 be utterly cast out or no anyliow I fear there is coming on us a time of fierce trial
 
 APPENDICES 577 
 
 for Christianity, and one is naturally led to think with compassion and anxiety on 
 the danger that will come on many of the fresh innocent souls all around us who 
 are now entering into life. 
 
 ' I am, very sincerely yours, 
 
 John H. Newman. 
 
 ' The Pope is the key note, the Bishops the third, the Priests the 5th, the 
 people the octave and the Protestants the flat 7th which needs resolving. — J. II. N.' 
 
 To Father Coleridge, 
 
 ' The Oratory : April loth, 1877. 
 
 'My dear Fr. Coleridge, — Confidential. I want to ask you a question. 
 Rivington wishes to publish a selection (say 50) of my " Parochial and Plain 
 Sermons." I have made it a condition that such only shall be selected as are able 
 to stand a Catholic censorship, knowing that the want of this hinders Catholics 
 from using them. Not that I mean to alter a word of Copeland's text of them, 
 nor that I mean it to be stated that they have an Imprimatur. But I mean to 
 publish them as from myself and not from Copeland as editor, and I mean to 
 pluck out all of those selected which have anything un-catholic in them. 
 (Perhaps you will say, " Then they will all be plucked.") 
 
 ' Now my question is this, if you will in confidence answer it. Would 
 P"r. Harper undertake the office of censor, his name being kept secret ? has he 
 time and health for it ? is he the man ? would he be fair, both to Catholics and 
 to my Sermons? 
 
 * I add below the advertisement I contemplate. 
 
 ' Most sincerely yours, 
 
 John II. Newman. 
 ' Advertisement. 
 
 'In publishing in one Volume a selection from his "Parochial and Plain 
 Sermons," the Author has been careful to follow faithfully the te.xt as it stands in 
 Mr. Copeland's Edition of them. At the same time he is glad to be able to state 
 that they do not contain a word which, as a Catholic, he would wish to alter.' 
 
 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 The following are letters, some of them of considerable importance, 
 relating to the conferring of the Cardinal's Hat on Dr. Newman (see 
 p. 450). Some of them show his own feeling and the feelings of 
 English Catholics at the time. Others are the official and semi-official 
 communications on the occasion. 
 
 Cardinal Manning to Cardinal Nina. 
 
 ' The Duke of Norfolk and the Mart - is of Ripon have represented to me 
 on their own part, and on the part of Lord Petre, a strong desire, which is shared 
 in, as they state, by many of the Catholics of this country, that the Holy See 
 should manifest, by some public and conspicuous act, its sense of the singular and 
 unequalled services rendered by Dr. Newman to the Catholic Faith and to the 
 Catholic Church in England. 
 
 ' He was the chief agent in the intellectual movement which in 1833 stirred 
 the University of Oxford towards the Catholic Faith. 
 
 VOL. II. P P
 
 578 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' The fact of his submission to the Church has done more to awaken the mind 
 of Englishmen to the Catholic religion than that of any other man. Many both 
 directly and indirectly have been brought by his example to the Catholic Church. 
 His writings both before and after his conversion have powerfully contributed to 
 the rise and extension of llie Catholic literature in England and wheresoever tlie 
 English tongue is spoken. 
 
 ' The veneration for his powers, his learning, and his life of singular piety and 
 integrity is almost as deeply felt by the non-Catholic population of this country as 
 l)y the members of the Catholic Church. In the rise and revival of Catholic Failh 
 in England there is no one whose name will stand in history with so great a pro- 
 minence. Nevertheless he has continued for thirty years without any token or 
 mark of the confidence of the Holy .See: and this apparent passing over of his 
 great merits has been noted both among Catholics and non-Catholics, as 
 implying division among the faithful in England, and some unexplained mistrust 
 of Dr. Newman. It is obviously not only most desirable that this should be 
 corrected, but obviously right that Dr. Newman should be cleared of any unjust 
 suspicion. 
 
 ' He is now in his seventy-eighth year and his life cannot be long. The oppor- 
 tunity in which the Holy See could render this testimony of confidence to the 
 singular merits of Dr. Newman is therefore brief. Such an act of the Supreme 
 Authority of the Holy See would have, it is believed, a powerful effect in demon- 
 strating the unity of the Faith in England, and in adding force to the impulse 
 already given by Dr. Newman in his life, writings, and influences, to the return of 
 many to the Catholic Church. 
 
 ' Some years ago Pius IX. designed that Dr. Newman should receive Episcopal 
 consecration as Rector of the Catholic University in Ireland. 
 
 'This design was not then executed: and, when subsequently revived, 
 Dr. Newman expressed his firm resolution to refuse such a proposal. There 
 remains therefore only one mark of the confidence of the Holy See to so dis- 
 tinguished a Priest. And no greater gratification to the Catholics of England 
 could be given than l)y the elevation of Dr. Newman into the Sacred College. 
 
 ' I have felt it to be a duty, very grateful to myself, to convey to your Eminence 
 this expression of the desire of the distinguished Catholic laymen in whose name I 
 write and of those whom they represent. ' ' 
 
 The following letters were written after the announcement in the 
 Times that the honour had been ofiered and declined by Dr. Newman : 
 
 Canon Oakeley to Dr. Newman. 
 
 'Feb. 1 8, 1879. 
 ' My dear Newman, — I do not know when I have heard a piece of news that 
 has given me more pleasure than the announcement about you in Tlte 7'iines of 
 this morning. It is the answer to a prayer I have again and again made in the 
 Mass that your services to the Church might receive some public recognition in 
 j'our lifetime, for indeed I fell that in such a prayer I was asking something for 
 the Church as well as for you ; since I do not know of anything which is more 
 likely to win over to her the mind and heart of England than such an act as that 
 which our Holy Father has done in offering you the highest ecclesiastical dignity 
 
 ' The 
 neither da 
 
 : autograph copy from which the translation into Italian was made is 
 ated nor signed ; it is merely headed ' To Cardinal Nina.'
 
 APPENDICES 579 
 
 which it is in his power to bestow. Of course I could have wished, as many 
 others do, that you could have seen some way to accept it, but still the great fact 
 is that you should have received the offer. 
 
 ' Yours affectionately, 
 
 Fr. Oakeley.' 
 
 Lord Blachford to Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' Feb. i8, 1879. 
 
 ' My dear Newman, —So you refuse to be a member of the Hebdomadal Board 
 at Rome. I am very glad that the offer has been made, as it makes one think 
 pleasantly of those who made it (if one may say such a thing without disrespect). 
 And I think I should have been glad to see you a Cardinal, if you could have 
 had the office without accepting it. It is a kind of recognition, which is like 
 putting the seal to a document which is to go down to posterity — a proceeding 
 which sets things in their proper places for future history. I suppose under the 
 circumstances it would be purely honorary — as my imagination wholly refuses to 
 conceive you posting uff to Rome to work (to speak fofin Bitllese) with those 
 Italians. 
 
 ' I think I have always preferred that you should decline things— from the 
 beginning of time — and so I go on to the end. 
 
 • ••••«• 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 Blachford.' 
 
 The Marquis of Bute to Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' Feb. 19, 1879. 
 
 ' Dear and Rev. Dr. Newman, — The assertions in the newspapers that you 
 have been offered or are about to be offered the Cardinalate have assumed a form 
 which must be my excuse for writing to you upon the subject, if they are really 
 unfounded. iMy object is to implore you not to decline — I know that St. Philip 
 declined, and that you will have a tendency to do the same. But I hope that 
 you will allow some kind of weight to my opinion, as of one much younger than 
 yourself, and one who sees much more of the world, from which you live so much 
 secluded. I would most respectfully submit for your consideration whether you 
 have any moral right to decline, either for the sake ( i ) of your own labours and 
 principles, which would thus be sanctioned, and of your disciples, who have 
 admired the one and received the other, and of the general world, to whom you 
 would thus be made more useful, or (2) of the Sacred College, which you would 
 (pardon my saying so) ennoble, or (3) of the Pope, who, placed amid many 
 difficulties, calls upon you thus to stand by him. 
 
 ' Forgive me if I am thrusting myself improjjerly into your affairs, and, believe 
 me respectfully yours, 
 
 'Bute.' 
 
 Lord Coleridge, Lord Chief Justice of England, 
 to Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' Feb. 20, 1879. 
 • My dear Dr. Newman, — To-day I tliink is your birthday, and you must let a 
 dutiful and loving friend who owes you much and loves you truly— as he ought 
 indeed — send you one line of good wishes and hopes that it may please God to 
 grant you many years yet if it is as good for you as for your friends. Many and 
 happy returns of the day I send you with a full heart. 
 
 1' P 2
 
 58o LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 • I assume that the notice in the papers of the ofier to make you a Cardinal is 
 correct. Nothing could make you to us greater or higher than you are ; but it 
 may be allowed me to say that, though you could not accept it, it is a real joy and 
 satisfaction to think that the greatest worldly honour which the Church can bestow 
 has at last been offered to you. 
 
 'Always your most grateful and affectionate, 
 
 Coleridge.' 
 
 The Marquis of Ripon to Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' Feb. 20, 1879. 
 
 ' My dear Dr. Newman, — I cannot resist the impulse which prompts me to 
 tell you with what extreme satisfaction I learnt the offer which has just been made 
 to you by the Holy Father, 
 
 ' Those who like myself owe to your teaching, more than to any other earthly 
 cause, the blessing of being members of the Catholic Church, must rejoice with a 
 very keen joy at this recognition on the part of the Holy See of your eminent 
 services to the Church and to so many individual souls. 
 
 ' I do not venture to question the wisdom of your refusal to accept the dignity 
 of Cardinal, though I cannot but regret that you should have felt bound to 
 decline it. 
 
 ' I believe that this letter will reach you on your birthday ; if I am right in 
 this respect, will you allow me to offer you the heartiest good wishes. 
 
 • Believe me, ever yours sincerely and gratefully, 
 
 Ripon.' 
 
 Archbishop Errington to Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' Feb. 22, 1879. 
 
 'Very Rev. dear Dr. Newman, — I thought I had passed the time for taking 
 as much pleasure in any piece of information as I felt in reading the D. of 
 Norfolk's letter with the Resolutions of the Catholic Union in The Times of 
 yesterday. Most warmly do I congratulate you on this testimony of the Holy See 
 to the long, laborious, and wise course you have followed in the service of God's 
 Church. Scarcely less do I congratulate Catholic England on the effect this 
 testimony from his Holiness will have in guiding and stimulating the cultivation 
 of the vineyard. 
 
 ' But I won't waste your time in the expression of my own gratification, and 
 so conclude with a very earnest hope that the next news may be that you have 
 been created Cardinal, and are on your way to take your place at the Council 
 Board of the Pope. Though the expression of the wish of the Sovereign 
 Pontiff in this matter may be equally satisfactory to your own feelings (probably 
 much more) as the carrying the wish into effect, it cannot have the same fruits 
 of public utility, either now or at a later period. 
 
 ' With sincere congratulations to your Community, 
 
 ' I remain, dear Dr. Newman, 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 ^ George Errington.' 
 
 Dr Hedley, Coadjutor Bishop of Newport and Menevia, 
 
 TO Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' Feb. 24, 1879. 
 ' My dear Fr. Newman, — In common, I believe, with every English-speaking 
 Catholic, I desire to offer you my respectful congratulations, and to say how
 
 APPENDICES 581 
 
 rejoiced I am that the Holy Father has intimated his wish to make you a 
 Cardinal. 
 
 ' I cannot speak as one of the large number whom you have helped to find the 
 true Church. But I know English Catholic feeling for the last twenty-five years. 
 One of the first things that ever stirred me and lifted me up was your sermon, the 
 " Second Spring," which I read when a boy at school. Since then I can testify, 
 from personal knowledge, that the whole generation of Catholics with whom I 
 have grown up have, to a very large extent indeed, formed themselves on your 
 writings. We have longed for you to speak, we have devoured what you gave 
 us, and we have all along looked to you with pride and confidence, as to a leader 
 and a father. 
 
 ' I pray to God that He may long spare you to labour for His Church and His 
 flock. 
 
 * With great respect and devotion, 
 
 I remain, dear Fr. Newman, 
 
 Your faithful servant in Christ, 
 
 ti< J. C. HEDLIiY, O.S.B.' 
 
 Mr. Aubrey de Vere to Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' March 3, 1S79. 
 ' My dear Fr. Newman,— I cannot help writing you just a line to tell you 
 how deeply gratified I have been by the great and signal token of respect which 
 you have lately received from the highest authority on earth. It is what I have 
 long been ardently wishing for, in common, I suppose, with all English and Irish 
 Catholics, who know well how deep a debt of gratitude they owe to you, and 
 indeed in common with Catholics of all countries — I might add in common with 
 many who are not Catholics, judging from the tone in which the subject has 
 been treated in the chief journals. 
 
 ' Some of the journals speak as if the final issue were still doubtful. Should 
 this be the case I cannot but earnestly hope you will find yourself able to accept 
 the high dignity which so many would regard as itself dignified by your acceptance 
 of it, that is, always supposing your doing so imposed no burden upon you, and 
 required no alteration, permanent or temporary, in your usual mode of life. 
 
 ' Believe me ever. 
 
 My dear Father Newman, 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Aubrey De Vere.' 
 
 Dr. Newman to Dr. Brown, Bishop of Newport. 
 
 'The Oratory, Birmingham: Feb. 24, 1870. 
 
 ' My dear Lord,— ^I lose no time in thanking you for your very kind letter. 
 
 ' But so far, though not more, I may say, that the statement in T/ie Titiics 
 is incorrect, and that I have not received the ofier of a Cardinal's Hat, and there- 
 fore have not declined it. 
 
 ' In such circumstances, I have always understood silence is a duty. Certainly 
 I should account such a communication as sacred myself. 
 
 'The statement of the Catholic Union, which has done me so great a service 
 by its Resolutions, and so high and kind an honour, speaks of having " received 
 intelligence of the offer," but does not speak of my having declined a Cardinal's 
 Hat.
 
 582 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' If I am forced to speak hypothetically, I should say that I do not anticipate 
 my friends (among whom I hope you will allow me to consider your Lordship) 
 would fiiil to pardon me, if at my age I felt it impossible to migrate from 
 England to Italy. 
 
 ' I am, begging your Lordship's blessing, 
 
 ' Your faithful servant in Christ, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Dr. Ullathorne, Bishop of Birmingh.vm, to Cardinal Nina. 
 
 ' Feb. II, 1879. 
 
 ♦ Most Eminent and Reverend Lord,— After much anxious consideration I feel 
 that I shall hardly have done my duty, unless I open my mind to your Eminence 
 in regard to the Rev. Fr. Newman, to whom I have shown your gracious letter, 
 and as to whose disposition of mind in regard of accepting the Sacred Purple 
 I have carefully inquired. I am the rather moved to this, because a report has 
 been spread in London, thougli as yet it has not reached Birmingham, that this 
 sacred dignity has been offered to Fr. Newman, and thai it has been declined 
 by him. Letters have come from London, altogether unknown to the Fathers of 
 the r>irminghani Oratory, stating what I have just written. It has not been, 
 certainly, Fr. Newman's intention to decline what the Holy Father has .so 
 graciously offered, but simply to state the difficulties of his position. lie is a man 
 so modest and humble, especially to his superiors, and above all towards the Holy 
 Father, that in the letter he addressed to me, he wished simply to e.xpress his 
 sense of his own unworthiness, his advanced age, his state of health, and his un- 
 fitness for living in Rome, both on account of his age, and of his want of readiness 
 in speaking any modern language but his own. And thus he said to me : " How 
 can I possibly intimate, or in any way suggest conditions — it would be altogether 
 unbecoming." I answered : " Write your letter, and leave it to me to give the 
 needful explanations." And thus, in addition to his letter, I sent another to the 
 most eminent Cardinal Manning, in which I gave my full e.Kplanations. But 
 when tlie most eminent Cardinal, in acknowledging the receipt of the letters, said 
 that he would forward Ur. Newman's to your Eminence, without a word about 
 mine, and when I found it reported and believed in London, that Dr. Newman 
 had shrunk from and declined that very great honour, I began to fear that my 
 explanatory letter had not been sent on to Rome. 
 
 ' Wherefore, by way of precaution, I now enclose a copy of my English letter 
 to Cardinal Manning. For so many erroneous statements have reached Rome, in 
 regard of Dr. Newman's disposition of mind, that as his Bishop, knowing Ijetter 
 than most his modesty, his perfect faith and charity, knowing, moreover, the 
 great things he has done for the Church of God, and how many he has drawn 
 from heresy to the Faith, and in what esteem as a writer he is held by all, both 
 within the Church and outside it, I deem it a part of my duty, in a matter of such 
 grave moment, that his disposition of mind should not be misapprehended. And 
 if, while acting with a good intention, I err in act, I know I shall be readily 
 forgiven. 
 
 • And now, kissing your Eminence's hand in token of my reverence, I have 
 the honour to be, 
 
 ' Your Eminence's 
 
 Most humble, most devoted and obedient Servant, 
 
 »J« William Bernard, 
 
 Bishop of Birmingham.'
 
 APPENDICES 583 
 
 Translation of the official notice of the Pope's intention to confer on 
 Dr. Newman the Cardinal's Hat : 
 
 '(From the Vatican) : March 15, io7y. 
 ' Very Rev. Father, — The Holy Father deeply appreciating the genius and 
 learning which distinguish you, your piety, the zeal displayed by you in the 
 exercise of the Holy Ministry, your devotion and filial attachment to the Holy 
 Apostolic See, and the signal services you have for long years rendered to religion, 
 has decided on giving you a public and solemn proof of his esteem and good-will. 
 And to this end he will deign to raise you to the honours of the Sacred Purple, in 
 the next Consistory, the precise day of which will be notified to you in due time. 
 ' In forwarding you this joyful announcement by its fitting and prescribed 
 channel, I cannot refrain from congratulating your Paternity on seeing your merits 
 rewarded in so splendid a manner by the august Head of the Church, and I rejoice 
 in heart that I shall very soon have you as a colleague in the Sacred Senate, of 
 which you will not fail to be one of the chief ornaments. 
 
 ' Accept, I entreat you, this expression of my regard, and at the same time tlic 
 assurance of the particular esteem with which I sign myself, 
 
 ' Of your Very Rev. Paternity, 
 {From the Vatican,) 
 
 The true servant, 
 
 L. Card. Nina.' 
 
 Dr. Newman to Cardinal Nina. 
 
 ' My Lord Cardinal, — Were I to delay my answer to the very generous com- 
 munication your Eminence deigned to make to me, on the part of his Holiness, 
 until I could write what seems to be befitting and adequate to express all the 
 feeling of my heart, I fear that I should never write at all. For the longer I 
 think of it, the more generous and gracious the condescension of the Holy Father 
 seems to me, and the more deeply I feel that I am altogether unworthy of it. 
 
 ' I am overpowered, first of all, by the weight of the high dignity to whicli 
 the Holy Father condescends to raise me, and still more by the words he has 
 used to announce to me his intention, words breathing a goodness so fatherly, and 
 implying an approval the more touching and precious that it is the Vicar of Christ 
 who awards it. 
 
 ' I venture to hope that the 1 loly Father will allow me, as soon as the weather 
 becomes milder, and the journey less toilsome, to present myself before his sacred 
 person, that I may try to tell him how deeply I feel his immense goodness, and 
 may receive his apostolic blessing. 
 
 ' I cannot close this letter, my Lord Cardinal, without begging you to accept 
 the hom.agc of my profound respect and my deep-felt gratitude for the kind 
 courtesy with which you have condescended to discharge the commission of his 
 Holiness. 
 
 • I have the honour to kiss the Sacred Purple and to be 
 
 f Your Eminence's most humble and devoted servant, 
 
 John H. Newman.' 
 
 Dr. Church, Dean of St. Paul's, London, to Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' The Deanery, St. PaulV : March 12, 1879. 
 ' My dear Newman, — I too have been wailing to be certain l)efore writing to 
 you ; for I did not know how to trust the newspapers in such a matter. I heard
 
 584 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 incidcnlally yesterday from Oakeley thai he considered it certain ; and was 
 thinking of writing, when your note came. 
 
 ' I don't know how to thank you enough for writing. It is indeed quite right ; 
 one's sense of justice is satisfied, and it seems like the accomplishment of what 
 has been going on, at least in England, since the " Apologia. " It is indeed wonder- 
 ful to look back, and it is very pleasant to see what curious and genuine satisfaction 
 it gives to most intelligent and well-feeling Englishmen, even to those from whom 
 it might least be expected. I have been more than once surprised in society with 
 the hearty expression of feeling that it was 'ust what ought to be, and was the 
 proper crown and finish. 
 
 ' But now we shall not know how to behave to you. It is as if you had been 
 carried up among Dukes and Princes and great Court people and none of my old 
 friends has risen higher th-^n a Viscount, most not higher than Barons. You 
 must tell us for instance how to write to you. I know it is very absurd not to 
 know all these things by instinct — but one doesn't. 
 
 ' With all our best good wishes and heartiest rejoicings, 
 
 ' Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 R, W. Church.' 
 
 Lord Blackford to Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' March 14, 1879. 
 
 * My dear Newman, — It is very kind of you to tell me at once of the com- 
 pletion, or at least the completion of the certainty, of your Cardinalate. I am 
 very glad it is as it is. And the Pope's letter certainly shows a very pleasant 
 power of saying happily what is true. 
 
 ' I suppose it does not make a journey to Rome necessary. Certainly your 
 going to live there would have been an impossible uprooting. 
 
 • Knowing how particular you are in answering letters, I began half to think 
 that I might have said something rude, or difficult to answer — and I was the least 
 in the world relieved to get your announcement. 
 
 ' I suppose all Cardinals who are not Diocesan Bishops have to reside at 
 Rome. 
 
 * Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 Blackford.' 
 
 Dr. Clifford, Bishop of Clifton, to Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' April s, 1879. 
 ' My dear Father Newman, — I write these few lines wishing to join my voice 
 with that of all your friends in congratulating you on the honour which the Holy 
 Father has conferred upon you by nominating you a member of the Sacred College 
 of Cardinals. There are many reasons why all your friends rejoice at your 
 elevation, but the reason for which above all others they value so highly this act 
 of the Holy Father, is because they feel that by it the highest approval of Christ's 
 Vicar is set upon all that you have laboured and written for the cause of God's 
 Church. To yourself also this must be the source of great satisfaction. I 
 returned to Clifton from Rome only last night. When I saw the Holy Father he 
 spoke to me of the great pleasure he felt in making you a Cardinal, and he is 
 much gratified at hearing of the universal satisfaction with which his choice has 
 been received.
 
 APPENDICES 585 
 
 ' I sincerely hope, my dear Father Newman, that God will give you life and 
 health for some years to come still to labour for His glory, and to enjoy the 
 honour which His Vicar has bestowed upon you. 
 
 • I remain, dear Fr. Newman, 
 
 Yours most sincerely, 
 
 ^ William Clifford, 
 
 Bishop of Clifton.' 
 
 Fr. Rossi ' of the Oratory at Rome to Dr. Newman. 
 
 ' Rome, from the Vallicella : March 23, 1879. 
 
 'Very Reverend Father, — All Europe is gladdened at hearing that our Holy 
 Father Leo XHI. has resolved, for the glory of God, for the honour of the Catholic 
 Church, and as a reward of your many labours, to honour you with the high rank 
 of Cardinal, and give you as a stay and support to the Church itself. Wherefore, 
 although I am still very weak, from a serious and dangerous illness, I cannot 
 refrain from sending you my congratulations, and this for many reasons ; especially 
 for the gratitude I owe you continually. Receive then this very sincere expression 
 of my feelings : like that of the poor woman in the Gospel, who could offer to 
 the treasury of the Temple only two mites — she gave all she had, and I in my 
 insufficiency, offer with my whole heart all I can. 
 
 ' Kissing your hands and begging your holy blessing, 
 ' I am, 
 
 Your Eminence's most devoted servant, 
 
 Carlo Rossi, 
 
 Of the Oratory.' 
 
 Dr. Newman to Fr. Rossi of the Oratory at Rome. 
 ' To my excellent and very dear Father Carlo Rossi, Vallicella, Rome. 
 
 ' Birmingham : March 29, 1879. 
 ' I well knew, my dear father, that your affection towards me was so deep that 
 it would be a great joy to you that the Holy Father has deigned to raise me to the 
 high dignity of the Cardinalate. This I very well knew, and yet I feel now a 
 two-fold pleasure in receiving, under your own hand, the assurance and memorial 
 of that joy. 
 
 ' This comes to increase my joy ; happily I hope to be in Rome sooner or 
 later, and to find you freed from illness and weakness. The seeing you, and talking 
 with you, will be much better than the reading of many letters. I had never ven- 
 tured to hope that I should again see the face of your Paternity, but the mercy of 
 God has, it would seem, decreed otherwise. I hope to be with you, and to be able 
 to talk with you face to face, " that our joy may be full." 
 
 ' Believe me, very dear Father, 
 
 Ever your most loving 
 
 John H. Nkwman, 
 
 Priest of the Oratory. 
 
 ' Early in life Father Rossi was a notable Father of the Oratory in Rome, and 
 it was he who, in 1S47, was appointed by Pius IX. to teach Dr. Newman the 
 Rule of Su Philip. Father Rossi was ill and away from Rome when Dr. Newman 
 was there in January 1856, and thus they had not met in the long interval 
 between 1S47 and ib79.
 
 586 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 The following letters— the first to a non-Catholic friend, the other 
 two to his co-religionists— illustrate what has been said in the text of the 
 feelings which prompted Dr. Newman to accept the offer of the Cardinal's 
 Hat: 
 
 ^'^ ' Feb. 28, 1 879. 
 
 • Everything has two sides. Of course my accepting would disappoint these 
 men, but declining would disappoint those. And just now for the same reasons 
 would their feelings be contrary, viz., because my accepting would show the 
 closest adherence of my mind to the Church of Rome, and my declining would 
 seem an evidence of secret distance from her. 15oth sides would say: "You 
 see, he is not a Catholic in heart." 
 
 • Now this has ailed me this thirty years ; men won't believe me. This act 
 would force them to do so. So that to a man in my mental position your argu- 
 ment tells the contrary way to what you anticipate. 
 
 ' But again, as to what you kindly call my " post of deep moral value," this 
 must be viewed relatively to Unitarians, Theists and Sceptics, on the one side, and 
 Catholics and Anglicans on the other. I wish to be of religious service, such as I 
 can, to botii parties— but, if I must choose between Theists and Catholics, " blood 
 is thicker than water." You forget that I believe the Catholic religion to be true, 
 and you do not. It is not that I am insensible to and ungrateful for the good 
 opinion of Theists, but Catholics are my brothers, and I am bound to consult for 
 them first. 
 
 'J. 11. N. ' 
 
 ^'^ ' March 6. 
 
 ' I knew what gladness it would cause to you and yours to hear of the high 
 honour to be conferred on me by the Holy Father. It has a special value in my 
 case, who have suffered so much from the suspicions which have been so widely 
 prevalent about me. My writing and publishing days are over, and I am looking 
 for a far more solemn Tribunal than any on earth ; but one naturally likes the 
 good opinion of one's Catholic brethren, and it was hard to receive letters to the 
 effect that I was under a cloud, and why did I not set myself right, and why did 
 
 I take part with , and Garibaldi? Now the Pope in his generosity 
 
 has taken this reproach simply away, and it is a wonderful Providence that even 
 before my death that acquittal of me comes, which I knew would come some day 
 or other, though not in my lifetime. . . . 
 
 'J. H. N.' 
 
 (3) ' March 29. 
 
 ' Thank you also for your congratulations on my elevation. It has, as you 
 may suppose, startled and even scared me, when I am of the age when men look 
 out for death rather than any other change. 
 
 'J. II. N.' 
 
 The following is the unfinished letter to William Fronde referred to 
 in the text at p. 466. I give it as it stands with the later additions 
 in brackets and the suggestions of alternative phrases put down by the 
 Cardinal above some of the words he had at first used. Here and there, 
 however, it has been necessary to insert a few words to complete a 
 sentence. These are placed in square brackets.
 
 APPENDICES 587 
 
 ' Rome : April 29, 1879. 
 
 ' I have been much touched by your consideration for me in writing to me, 
 when you would put into shape your thoughts upon rehgion, thus putting me in 
 your affection and regard, on a level with dear Ilurrell ; and I wish I had just 
 now leisure enough and vigour of mind enough to answer your letter so thoroughly 
 as I think it could be answered, and as its delicacy and tenderness for me deserves. 
 But I will set down just as it strikes me on reading, having no books and 
 depending mainly on my memory. 
 
 ' My first and lasting impression is that in first principles we agree together 
 more than you allow ; and this is a difficulty in my meeting you, that I am not 
 sure you know what I hold and what I don't ; otherwise why should [you] insist 
 so strongly on points which I maintain as strongly as you ? 
 
 ' Thus you insist very strongly on knowledge mainly depending upon the 
 experience of facts, as if I denied it ; whereas, as a general truth and when 
 experience is attainable, I hold it more fully than you. I say " more fully," 
 because, whereas you hold that "to select, square, and to fit together materials 
 which experience has supplied is the very function of the intellect," I should [nolj 
 allow the intellect to select, but only to estimate them. 
 
 * I will set down dicta of mine, which I think you do not recollect, which are 
 to be found in my University Sermons, Essay on Development of Doctrine, and 
 Essay on Assent. 
 
 '" No one can completely define things which exist externally to the mind, 
 and which are known to him by experience." 
 
 '"Our notions of things are never simply commensurate with the things 
 themselves." 
 
 ' " It is as easy to create as to define." 
 
 * " This distinction between inference and assent is exemplified even in 
 mathematics." 
 
 ' " Argument is not always able to command our assent though it be 
 demonstration." 
 
 * " Concrete matter does not admit of demonstration." 
 
 * " It is to me a perplexity that grave authors seem to enunciate as an intuitive 
 truth, that everything must have a cause." 
 
 '"The notion of causation is one of the first lessons which we learn from 
 experience." 
 
 ' " Starting from experience, I call a cause an effective will." 
 
 ' " There are philosophers who teach an invariable uniformity in the laws of 
 nature ; I do not see on what ground of experience or reason they take up this 
 position." 
 
 ' " Gravitation is not an experience any more than is the mythological doctrine 
 of the presence of innumerable spirits in physical phenomena." 
 
 ♦ " Because we have made a successful analysis of some complicated assemblage 
 of phenomena, whicli experience has brought before us, in the visible scene of 
 things, and have reduced them to a tolerable dependence on each other, we call 
 the ultimate points of this analysis and the hypothetical facts in which the whole 
 mass of phenomena is gathered up by the name of causes, whereas they are really 
 only formulx' under which these phenomena arc conveniently represented" etc., 
 and so on. 
 
 ' You say " I doubt whether it is really possible to give a blind man a common 
 idea of a star." I have drawn out elaborately in one of my University Sermons 
 the necessity of experience from the case of a blind man attempting to write upon
 
 588 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 colours, how he might go on swimmingly at first— but before long — in spite of 
 his abstract knowledge would be precipitated into some desperate mistake. 
 
 ' I can't think you would write as you have written had you recollected in my 
 volumes passages such as these. Therefore you must let me state what, according 
 to my own view of the matter, I consider to be our fundamental difference, and 
 it is certainly so considerable and accompanied with so [much that is] simply a 
 priori and personal, that, if you really hold firmly all you say, I must with 
 
 consider 
 great grief think I shall have done all that I can do, when I have clearly 
 stated what I conceive it to be. 
 
 'We differ in our sense and our use of the word "certain." I use it of 
 minds, you of propositions. I fully grant the uncertainty of all conclusions in 
 your sense of the word, but I maintain that minds may in my sense be certain of 
 conclusions which are uncertain in yours. 
 
 ' Thus, when you say that " no man of high scientific position but bears in mind 
 that a residue of doubt attaches to the most thoroughly established scientific truths," 
 I am glad at all limes to learn of men of science, as of all men, but I did not re- 
 quire their help in this instance, since I have myself laid it down, as I had already 
 quoted my words, [that] "concrete matter does not admit of demonstration." 
 That is, in your sense of the word '* doubt," viz. a recognition and judgment 
 that the proof is not wholly complete, attaches to all propositions ; this I would 
 maintain as well as you. But if you mean that the laws of the human mind do 
 not command and force it to accept as true and to assent absolutely to propositions 
 which are not logically demonstrated, this I think so great a paradox, that all the 
 scientific philosophers in Europe would be unable by their united testimony to make 
 me believe it. That Great Britain is an island is a geographical, scientific truth. 
 Men of science are certain of it ; they have in their intellects no doubt at all 
 about it ; they would hold and rightly that a residuum of defectiveness of proof 
 attaches to it as a thesis ; and, in consequence they would admit some great 
 authority, who asserted that it was geographically joined to Norway, tho' a 
 canal was cut across it, to give them his reasons, but they would listen without a 
 
 as to 
 particle of sympathy for the great man or doubt about his hallucination, and all 
 this, while they allowed it had not been absolutely and fully proved impossible 
 that he was right. 
 
 which 
 
 • Then I go on to say, that [it is] just this, what scientific men believe of Great 
 Britain, viz. that its insularity is an absolute truth, that we believe of the divinity 
 of Christianity ; and, as men of science nevertheless would give a respectful 
 attention and a candid and careful though not a sympathetic hearing (to any man) 
 of name and standing who proposes to prove to them that Great Britain is not an 
 island, so we too, did men in whom we confide come to us stating their 
 conviction that Christianity was not true, we should indeed feel drawn to such 
 men as little as professors of science to the man who would persuade them 
 that Great Britain was joined to the continent, Init we should, if we acted rightly, 
 do our utmost, as I have ever tried to do, in the case of unbelievers, to do justice 
 to their arguments. Of course it may be said that I could not help being biassed, 
 but that may be said of men of science too. 
 
 ' I hold, then, and I certainly do think that scientific philosophers must, ix 
 they are fair, confess too, that there are truths of which they are certain, tho' 
 they are not logically proved ; which are to be as cordially accepted as if they 
 were absolutely proved, which arc to be accepted beyond their degree of 
 
 I
 
 APPENDICES 589 
 
 probability, considered as conclusions from premisses. Vou yourself allow that 
 there are cases in which we are forced and have a duty to act, as if what is but 
 possible were certainly true, as in our precautions against fire ; I go further so 
 much, not as to say that in merely possible, or simply probable cases, but 
 in particular cases of the highest probability, as in that of the insularity of 
 
 human intellect 
 Great Britain, it is a law of the thought to accept with an inward 
 
 assent as absolutely true, what is not yet demonstrated. We all observe this 
 law ; science may profess to ignore it ; but men of science observe it every day of 
 their lives, just as religious men observe it in their own province. 
 
 ' In opposition then to what you assume without proof, which you don't seem 
 to know that I have denied, even to throwing down the gauntlet in denying, I 
 maintain that an act of inference is distinct from an act of assent, and that [its] 
 strength does not vary with the strength of the inference. A hundred and one 
 eye witnesses adds strength to the inference drawn from the evidence of a hundred, 
 but not to the assent which that evidence creates. There is a faculty in the mind 
 which I think I have called the inductive sense, which, when properly cultivated 
 and used, answers to Aristotle's (ppovrtcris, its province being, not virtue, but the 
 "inquisitio veri," which decides for us, beyond any technical rules, when, how, 
 etc. to pass from inference to assent, and when and under what circumstances, etc. 
 etc. not. You seem yourself to admit this faculty, when you speak of the intellect 
 not only as adjusting, but as selecting the results of experience. Indeed I cannot 
 understand how you hold certain opinions with such strength of conviction, as 
 you[r] view of divine justice, of the inutility, if not worse, of prayer, (" it seems to 
 me impossible that I should ever etc.) against eternal punishment, against the 
 Atonement, unless you were acting by means of some mental faculty (rightly or 
 wrongly used) which brought you on to assents far more absolute than could be 
 reached by experience and the legitimate action of logic upon its results. 
 
 ' I am led to conclude then that you grant or rather hold two principles most 
 important to my view of this great matter :— first that there is a mental faculty 
 which reasons in a far higher way than that of merely measuring the force of con- 
 clusions by the force of premisses : and next, that the mind has a power of deter- 
 mining ethical questions, which serve as major premisses to syllogisms, without 
 depending upon experience. And now I add a third, which is as important as 
 any: the gradual process by which great conclusions are forced upon the mind, 
 and the confidence of their correctness which the mind feels from the fact of that 
 gradualness. 
 
 ' This too you feel as much as I should do. You say, " the communication of 
 mind with mind cannot be effected by any purely abstract process." I consider, 
 when I sum up the course of thought by which I am landed in Catholicity, that it 
 consists in three propositions : that there has been or will be a Revelation ; that 
 Christianity is that Revelation ; and that Catholicity is its legitimate expression ; 
 and that these propositions naturally strengthen the force of each. But this is 
 only how I should sum up, in order to give outstanders an idea of my line of argu- 
 ment, not as myself having been immediately convinced by abstract propositions. 
 Nothing surely have I insisted on more earnestly in my Essay on Assent, than on 
 the necessity of thoroughly suljjecting abstract propositions to concrete. It is in 
 the experience of daily life that the power of religion is learnt. You will say that 
 deism or scepticism is learnt by tliat experience. Of course ; but I am not arguing, 
 but stating what I hold, which you seem to me not to know. And I repeat, it is 
 not by syllogisms or other logical process that trustworthy conclusions are drawn,
 
 590 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 such as command our assent, but by that minute, continuous, experimental reason- 
 ing, which shows baldly on paper, but which drifts silently into an overwhelming 
 cumulus of proof, and, when our start is true, brings us on to a true result. 
 Thus it is that a man may be led on from scepticism, deism, methodism, anglican- 
 ism, into the Catholic Church, God being with him all through his changes, and 
 a more and more irresistible assent to the divinity of the Catholic Church being 
 wrought out by those various changes ; and he will simply laugh and scoff at your 
 doctrine that his evidence is necessarily defective and that scientific authorities 
 are agreed that he can't be certain. And here I must digress a moment to give 
 expression to a marvel that you should think I do not hold with [Hurrell]. " There 
 is another point in which etc. etc. he used to feel that, whoever was heartily doing 
 his best to do God's will, as far as he knew it, would be divinely guided to a 
 clear knowledge of theological truth." Why, this is what I have enunciated or 
 implied in all that I have written : — but to return. 
 
 ' You continue : — " The consciousness that they mean the same thing by the 
 same words is a consciousness growing out of experience or daily experiment. " 
 This I have virtually insisted on in a whole chapter in my Essay on Assent, in 
 which, among other instances in point, I refer to the difference of the aspects 
 under which the letters of the alphabet present themselves to different minds, 
 asking " which way does B look ? to the right or to the left ? " Moreover, it is 
 the principle of my Essay on Doctrinal Development, and I consider it emphati- 
 cally enforced in the history of the Catholic Schools. You must not forget that, 
 though we maintain the fact of a Revelation as a first principle, as firmly as you 
 can hold that nature has its laws, yet, when the matter of the Revelation [given] 
 comes to be considered, very little is set down as the original doctrine which 
 alone is de fide, and within which the revealed truth lies and is limited. As 
 Newton's theory is the development of the laws of motion and the first principles 
 of geometry, so the corpus of Catholic doctrine is the outcome of Apostolic 
 preaching. That corpus is the slow working out of conclusions by means of 
 meditation, prayer, analytical thought, argument, controversy, through a thousand 
 minds, through eighteen centuries and the whole of Europe. There has been a 
 continual process in operation of correction, refinement, adjustment, revision, 
 enucleation, etc., and this from the earliest times, as recognised by Vincent of 
 Lerins. The arguments by which the prerogatives of the Blessed Virgin are 
 proved may be scorned as insufficient by mechanicians, but in fact they are 
 beyond their comprehension, and I claim for theologians that equitable con- 
 cession that they know their own business better than others do which you 
 claim for mechanical philosophers. Cuique in arte sua credendum : I do not call 
 
 tho' 
 your friends " technical " in their mechanics, because you do call me " technical " 
 in my theology ; but I go so far as to take for my own friends what I grant 
 to yours, and should ever do (so) ; I have long thought your great men in science 
 to be open to the charge of superciliousness, and I will never indulge them in it. 
 Our teaching, as well as yours, requires the preparation and exercise of;iong 
 thought and of a thorough imbuing in religious ideas. Even were those ideas not 
 true, still a long study would be necessary for understanding them ; [when such a 
 study is given] what you call the random reasonings of theologians will be found 
 to have as clear a right to be treated with respect as those proceedings of 
 mechanical philosophers who you say are so microscopic in their painstaking. 
 Words are but the symbols of ideas, and the microscopic reasoner, who is 
 not only so painstaking, but so justly successful in his mechanics, is simply an
 
 APPENDICES 591 
 
 untaught child in questions of theology. Hence it is that we, as well as you, 
 make such account of authority, even though it he not infallible. Athanasius, 
 Gregory, Augustine, Leo, Thomas Aquinas, Suarez, Francis de Sales, Petavius, 
 Lambertini, and a host besides have from (our estimate of) their theological 
 instinct that honour with us, which, on account of their mechanical and physical 
 instincts, you accord to your men of material science. Vou say that an ordinary 
 man would think it his duty to listen to any great mechanical philosopher who 
 should bring reasons for even so great a paradox as the possibility of perpetual 
 motion ; why should such personal reverence be reserved for mechanicians alone ? 
 why not for theologians ? To none indeed of the opinions of the schools, nor to 
 the reasonings even of Councils and Popes, are we bound ; none are defide ; none 
 but may be changed. I think there was a day when the whole body of divines 
 was opposed to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception ; two great men, 
 St. Bernard and St. Thomas, threw back the reception of it for 600 years. The 
 Jesuits have reversed the long dominant opinion of St. Augustine of absolute 
 predestination, and have been confirmed by two saints, St. Francis de Sales and 
 St. Alfonso. On the other hand, sometimes a doctrine of the schools has been 
 made a dogma, that is, has been pronounced a portion of the original revelation, 
 but this, when it has occurred, has been no sudden extempore procedure, but the 
 issue of long examination and the controversy of centuries. There were circum- 
 stances in the mode of conducting the Vatican Council which I could not like, 
 but its definition of the Pope's Infallibility was nothing short of the upshot of 
 numberless historical facts looking that way, and of the multitudinous mind of 
 theologians acting upon them. 
 
 ' Wliat then you say of mechanical science, I say emphatically of theology, viz. 
 that it "makes progress Ijy being always alive to its own fundamental uncertain- 
 ties." We may allowaljly argue, and do argue, against everything but what has 
 been ruled to be Apostolic : we do (thus argue), and I grant sometimes with far 
 less temper, and sometimes with far less freedom of mind than mechanical 
 philosophers (argue) in their own province, and for a plain reason, because 
 theology involves more questions which may be called burning than physics ; but 
 if you [who] are modest before Newton and Faraday may be fierce with table- 
 turners, and the schola astronomicorum with that poor man who some years ago 
 
 maintained 
 
 said that the moon did not rotate, I think it no harm to extend an 
 indulgence towards the prejudicium or the odium theologicum, in religious 
 writers. 
 
 ' And now I go on to the relation of the will to assent, in theological 
 matters, as to which, perhaps from my own fault, I have not made my doctrine 
 quite clear to you in the passage in Loss and Gain. Vou seem to think that 
 I hold that in religion the will is simply to supersede the intellect, and that 
 we arc to force ourselves to believe against evidence, or at least in some way or 
 other not to give the mind fair play in the question of accepting or rejecting 
 Christianity. I will say then what I really meant. Now, as far as I recollect, 
 Reding says, "I sec the truth as iho' seen thro' clouds. I have real grounds 
 for believing, ?nd only floating imaginations against it; is this enough for 
 faith ? " 
 
 ' First of all, then, I had fancied that every one granted that in practical 
 matters our wishes were apt to bias our judgments and decisions, how then is it 
 strange that a Catholic Priest, as in that story, who was quite sure that there was 
 but one truth and that he possessed it, should be urgent with a youth who was
 
 592 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 within grasp of this pearl of great price, lest, under the strong secular motives 
 
 miss 
 against his acting, he might through faintheartedness lose it? But he would 
 hold, and I hold most distinctly that, tho' faith is the result of will, itself ever 
 follows intellectual judgment. 
 
 ' But again ; it must be recollected, that, since nothing concrete admits of 
 demonstration, and there is always a residuum of imperfection in the proof, it is 
 always also possible, perhaps even plausibly to resist a conclusion, even the' it be 
 one which all sensible men consider beyond question. Thus, in this day 
 especially, new lights are thrown upon historical events and characters, some- 
 times important, sometimes, as the world agrees, clever, ingenious, but not likely 
 to have a permanent value. Now here it is the common sense, good judgment, 
 (pp6vi)(Tis, which sweeps away the aggressive theory. But there are cases in which 
 judgment influences the will. Thus a tutor might say to his pupil, " I advise 
 you not to begin your historical studies with Niebuhrism or you will end by 
 knowing nothing ; depend upon it the world is not mistaken in the grand outline 
 of events. When objections come before you, consider them fairly, but don't 
 begin with doubting : " and his pupil might, by an act of the will, put from his 
 mind, at least for the time, real difficulties. 
 
 ' Still more [does this apply] to the cases, not a few, in which excited, timid, 
 narrow, feeble, or over-sensitive minds have their imaginations so affected by a one 
 single difficulty connected with a received truth that [it] decides for them their rejec- 
 tion of it against reason, evidence, authority, and general reception. They cannot get 
 over what so distresses them, and after a thousand arguments for the truth, return 
 with full confidence to their objection. Thus if a man said he was fully con- 
 vinced of the divinity of the Catholic Church, if he judged her by her rites, her 
 doctrines, her history, or her fruits, but that he could not get over the fact that 
 in the Apocalypse the dragon was red and red was the colour of the Cardinal's 
 cassocks, I should (think) it would be the duty of a friend to tell him to put this 
 difficulty aside by a vigorous act of the will, and to become a Catholic. 
 
 * This is an extreme case ; there are others more intelligible and to the point. 
 Wives may be unfaithful, but Othello ought by a strong act of the will to have 
 put aside his suspicions. Do you mean to say that a man can feel any doubt 
 whatever of the truth and affection of an old friend ? is he not in his inward 
 heart fully confident and certain of him, while he will willingly own that there is 
 a residue of doubt looking at the fact as a matter of inference and proof? Will 
 it be anything to him that a stranger who has not his experience does not feel the 
 force of them, when put into words ? That stranger will of course disbelieve, but 
 that is not reason against his own believing. You will say that cases of perfidy 
 are possible, and a man may at length be obliged to pronounce against his friend ; 
 certainly, and (false) arguments may overcome the Christian and he may give up 
 his faith, but, till such a strong conclusion has overtaken him, he will by an act 
 of the will reject, it will be his duty, as well as his impulse to reject, all doubts, 
 as a man rejects doubts about his friend's truth. And if it be said that his friend 
 is visibly present, and the object of faith invisible, there the action of supernatural 
 "race comes in, which I cannot enter upon here. It brings us into a leading 
 question of premisses, not of proof. I have said much on this point in my 
 Essay on Assent.' 
 
 i
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abbotsford, i. 260, 264,300 
 
 Academia of the Catholic Religion in 
 England founded, i. 524 ; Newman's 
 attitude towards, 525 ; first meeting 
 of, 532 ; referred to, 521, 534, 535 
 
 Achilli trial, The, i. 276, et seq. ; text 
 of Newman's indictment of Achilli, 
 279 n. ; description of Achilli, 291 ; 
 the Times and the verdict, 292 ; 
 enormous expenses of the trial, 295- 
 296 ; Newman goes up for judgment, 
 296-297 ; new trial moved for, 297- 
 300 ; refused, 300 ; subscription 
 among Catholics throughout the 
 world for his expenses, 303. New- 
 man thanks Sister Maria Pia for 
 her aid in obtaining witnesses, 
 ii. 521. Referred to, i. 7, 304, 
 31S, 318, 321, 327, 330, 546, 644. 
 ii. 412 
 
 Acton, Cardinal, i. 103, 147, 162. ii. 
 
 435 «• 
 Acton, Sir John (afterwards Lord 
 Acton), on Ultramontane writers, of 
 the nineteenth century, i. 314; his 
 first acquaintance with Newman, 
 443 ; on the study of Christian 
 origins, 443 ; early history of, 459 ; 
 his sympathy with Liberal Catholi- 
 cism, 459 ; relations with Dollinger, 
 464 ; and German liberal thought, 
 465, 467 ; desires to found an Eng- 
 lish organ of liberal Catholic opinions, 
 467 ; on the relation of theology to 
 the scientific thought of the time, 46S, 
 et seq. ; and W. G. Ward, 470 ; his 
 connection with the Hanibkr, 474, 
 et seq. ; his interview with Newman 
 on the future of the Rambler, 481, 
 et seq. ; urges Newman to become 
 editor, 491 ; on Newman's accept- 
 ance of the editorship, 492, 493 ; his 
 indignation at the announcement dis- 
 sociating Newman from the Kamhler, 
 508, et seq. ; W. G. Ward's views on, 
 517 ; on the position of a Catholic 
 Review and its duties to authority and 
 public opinion, 527, e/ seq. ; editor of 
 
 VOL. IL 
 
 Honie and Foreign Review, 537, et 
 seq. ; suspends publication of Home 
 and Foreign, 565-566 ; continues to 
 urge his views in North Biitislt 
 Revie-v, 566. Pius IX. 's opinion of, 
 ii. 167 ; his attitude towards Papal In- 
 fallibility, 215, 374, 375; Newman's 
 regard for, in spite of differences,384 ; 
 Newman's relations with, 496. Re- 
 ferred to, i. 10, 264, 438 7t., 445, 
 479. 480, 485, 495, 501, 551, 63.:;, 
 637,639. ii. 80, 143 «., 161, 173, 
 284, 401. See also Letters 
 Affirmation Bill, Newman's opinion of 
 
 the, ii. 521 
 Agnosticism, Newman anticipated an 
 age of, i. 392-393. ii. 4I5> -^^ ^eq. 
 Catholicism the only antidote to, 
 i. 410 
 Aldo Brandini, Princess, i. 155 
 Alexander, Archbishop, his poem on 
 
 Oxford in 1845, i. 6 n. 
 Alexander of Hales, i. 396 
 Alleyne, Rev. A. V., see Letters 
 Allies, T. W. , his criticism of Newman, 
 i. 20 ; and the Gorham Case, 230 ; 
 conversion of, 252 ; lectures in 
 Dublin on the ' Formation of Christ- 
 endom,' 308, 309. Referred to, 
 i. 113, 130, 300, 359«m5o5, 623. 
 ii. 78, 196, 453, 496 
 Alphonsus, St., i. 169, 171, 188. ii. 16 
 Alzog, Dr., quoted, i. 461 ; referred to, 
 
 562 
 Amherst, P'rancis (Bishop of North- 
 ampton), i. 142, 144 
 Anglican Church, Newman and the 
 Catholic movement in, i. 6, 56^^ seq. : 
 compared by Newman to Catholic 
 Church of fourth century, 42, 46-47 ; 
 disestablishment of, imminent in 
 1833, 50 ; defended by Newman in 
 his ' Prophetical Office,' 59, et seq. ; 
 Newman uses vehement language in 
 criticism of, 204 ; Newman holds it 
 to be a liulwark against infidelit)', 
 232, 259, 651. Newman thinks it 
 a great human institution, ii. 44-45 • 
 
 QQ
 
 594 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Newman's further views on, 57-58 ; 
 essentially Erastian, 116, 117 
 
 Antioch, Council of, condemned the 
 Homoousion, ii. 557 
 
 Antonelli, Cardinal, i. 358, 519, 522- 
 524, 533. i'. loi, 285 
 
 Apologetics, Catholic, i. 392, 458, 473, 
 
 474. ii. 474-476 
 * Apologia, The ' {see also Kingsley) : 
 Newman determines to write, ii. 13 ; 
 parts of the original out of print, 
 14 n. ; parts i. and ii. analysed and 
 quoted, 14-18 ; hard work en- 
 tailed in writing, 25 ; careful plan of 
 the work, 26, 27 ; change in New- 
 man's, public position after writing 
 it, l\, et seq., 358-359; New- 
 man discusses Infallibility and 
 authority of the Church in, 36-41 ; 
 last part censured by some theological 
 critics, 42-43 ; Newman disclaims per- 
 sonal anger with Kingsley, 45-46 ; 
 writes on Liberalism in second edi- 
 tion, 75 ; effect of, visible among the 
 public, 108 ; Dr. Fairbairn's attack 
 on Newman's treatment of human 
 reason in, 505 ; certain passages 
 disliked at Rome, 544. Quoted, i. 
 42, 47, 50, 250. ii. 354. Referred 
 to, i. II, 29, 79, 232, 585. ii. 67, 
 71, 72, 92, 122, 123, 203, 316, 353, 
 355> 356, 399, 400, 401, 430> 452, 
 463, 497, 508, 510, 522 
 
 Architecture, Newman on different 
 styles, i. 139, 140-141, 204;?. 
 
 Argyll, Duchess of, her death a blow to 
 Newman, ii. 387, 391 
 
 ' Arianism and ApoUinarianism,' New- 
 man's, ii. 399 
 
 'Arians of the Fourth Century, The,' 
 writing of, i. 46 ; finished, 50 ; 
 Newman exhausted by writing of, 
 296, 637 ; Diillinger on, 444. New- 
 man answers Franzelin's attack on 
 his Rambler article ' On Consulting 
 the Faithful' in a later edition, ii. 
 174. Referred to, i. 43. ii. 381, 400, 
 576 
 
 Aristotelians, Medieval, 1. 405 '■> n- 33 1 
 
 Aristotle out of favour in Rome in 
 1847, i. 165, 166. ii. 556. Adoption 
 of his philosophy by thirteenth- 
 century thinkers, i. 405 ; on the 
 magnanimous man, 409 ; his influ- 
 ence on Scholasticism, 562 ; referred 
 to, 220, 396 
 
 Arnold, Arthur, see Letters 
 
 Arnold, >fatthew, i. 309, 539. ii. 494 
 
 Arnold, Dr. Thomas (of Rugby), i. 
 
 37, 309- ii- "7 . ^ 
 
 Arnold, Thomas (junior), 1. 362, 379, 
 
 4557456 ; referred to, 542, 543, 545. 
 
 ii. 84. See also Letters 
 Arundel and Surrey, Lord and Lady, 
 
 j'e Norfolk (14th Duke) 
 Association for the Promotion of the 
 
 Unity of Christendom, ii. 81, 82, et 
 
 seq. 
 Aston Hall, i. 94M. , iii, 153 
 Athanasius, i. 51, 172, 173, 181. ii. 
 
 400, 418, 433, 478, 528 
 Athenictim, The, its comments on 
 
 the Kingsley controversy, ii. 32 
 Athenreum Club, Newman invited to 
 
 join the, 1. 60 
 Atlantis, The, \. 418, 429-437, 474, 
 
 478,482,532 
 Augustine, St. : his dictum Securus 
 judicat orbis terrarum, i. 67. ii. 455. 
 
 Dbllinger writes of him in the 
 
 Rambler di-A the ' father of Jansenism,' 
 
 i. 479; referred to, i. 139. ii. 
 
 38-39 
 ' Authority of Doctrinal Decisions,' 
 
 W. G. Ward's work on the, ii. 151 
 Avenir, The, condemnation, i. 365, 
 
 461 
 Aytoun, Rev. Mr., i. 255 «. 
 
 Bacox, Lord, i. 269, 404, 435. ii. 
 
 331 
 
 Badeley, Edward, i. 103, 284, 287, 
 
 291, 297, 298, 300, 358, 505, 647. 
 ii. 198, 204 
 Baggs, Dr., i. 553 
 Bagshawe, Mr., i. 507, 509 
 Bain, Alexander, i. 308. ii. 197 
 Baines, Bishop, Vicar-Apostolic of 
 
 Western District, i. 102. ii. 52 
 Baltimore, Archbishop of, see Kenrick 
 Bamberg, Archbishop of, i. 562 
 Barlow, Dr., of Trinity College, Dub- 
 lin, i. 366 
 Barnabo, Cardinal, i. 17, 24, 155, 347, 
 358, 451, 551- ii- 69, 124, 125, 128- 
 129, 140, 147, 148, 155, 156 n., 
 159-163, 173, 178-180, 181, 184, 
 190, 191, 193, 200, 433-435. 543, 
 549 
 Barnewall, Mr. (afterwards Sir Regi- 
 nald), i. 364 
 Baronius, Cardinal, i. 176, 178, 179, 
 
 223, 270, 530. ii. 158, 168, 546 
 Barry, Dr., i. 27 n. ii. 508, 510, 511 
 Bathurst, INIiss, ii. 316 «., 519. See 
 
 also Letters 
 Bautain, M., i. 64, 174 
 Beaumont College, ii. 444, 445 
 Bede, St., ii. 528 
 
 Bedford, Mr. IL, ii. 512. See also 
 Letters
 
 INDEX 
 
 595 
 
 Beethoven, ii. 76, 336, 349-35° 
 
 Bellarmine, i. 120. ii. 193, 404 n. 
 
 Bellasis, Edward, i. 27 w. ii. 349, 
 350 
 
 Bellasis, Henry F. (Father Lewis), ii. 
 469. See also Letters 
 
 Bellasis, Mr. Serjeant E. , visits New- 
 man at Milan, i. 142 ; and the 
 Oratory School, 455, 456. ' Gram- 
 mar of Assent ' dedicated to, ii. 154, 
 262 ; his death, 387. Referred to, 
 i. 298, 300, 363, 545, 557, 594, 595. 
 "• 73> 3^9) 39°- ^^^ "''•*"^ Letters 
 
 Bellasis, Mrs., see Letters 
 
 Benedictines, see ' Historical Sketches,' 
 ii. 
 
 Benthamism, i. 57 
 
 Bernard, St., i. 164, 171 
 
 Eerrulle, Cardinal, i. 223 
 
 Besan9on, Archbishop of, i. 137- 138, 
 184 
 
 Bianconi, Dr., i. 324 «. 
 
 Bible, The (see also Inspiration) : 
 proposed new English version of, 
 to be edited by Newman, i. 418- 
 419, 423-428 ; Newman's Prolego- 
 mena to new translation, 423-425, 
 478 ; abandonment of the scheme, 
 425, et seq. 
 
 Biblical criticism, Newman desires a 
 Commission on, ii. 477 ; referred to, 
 
 504 71. 
 
 ' Biographical Sketches ' of Kegan Paul, 
 i. 191 
 
 Biography, Newman on the importance 
 of letters as an element in, ii. 314 
 
 Biography of Newman, Materials for, 
 i. I, 29 
 
 Birmingham Oratory : idea of founding 
 an English Oratory, i. 169, et seq. ; 
 noviciate of Newman and his com- 
 panions at Santa Croce, 182-183, 
 187 ; Papal briefof foundation issued, 
 197 ; the start at Maryvale, 198- 
 199 ; project of branch houses 
 mooted, 201 ; Frederick Faber and 
 Wilfridians join, 202 ; divergences 
 between Newman and younger mem- 
 bers of, 202-204, 216 ; criticisms of, 
 by 'old Catholics,' 214-216; New- 
 man moves to Alcester Street, 216 ; 
 branch house founded in London, 
 217 ; Birmingham Oratory contrasted 
 with London Oratory, 225-226 ; the 
 ' Sermons for Mixed Congregations,' 
 228 ; « Little Oratory ' started, 264 ; 
 the move to Hagley Road, Edgbas- 
 ton, 281 ; account of formal separa- 
 tion of, from London Oratory, i. 450- 
 451 ; description of Newman's life 
 at, chapter xxx. 
 
 Birmingham Oratory School, first 
 planned at? Maryvale, i. 198 ; foun- 
 dation of the school, 452, ei seq. 
 
 Bishops : (i) English, formation of new 
 Hierarchy, i. 191, 195, 197 ; Wise- 
 man's sanguine views as to the new 
 Hierarchy, 253 ; Newman's views, 
 260 ; and the proposed translation of 
 the Bible by Newman, 418, 428 ; 
 threaten to censure the Rai)ibler, 479, 
 480, 486, 490 ; their censure of the 
 Rambler and Home and Foreign Re- 
 view, 544. In favour of prohibition 
 of Catholics going to Oxford, ii. 65 ; 
 majority of, identify themselves with 
 Newman's 'Letter to Dr. Pusey,' 
 112 ; their letter of, to Propaganda 
 regarding the education of Catholics 
 at Oxford, 156 
 
 Bishops : (2) Irish, their opposition to 
 ' mixed education,' i. 275, 305, et 
 seq. ii. 518; not sufficiently alive 
 to the importance of University 
 Education, i. 310; their formal invi- 
 tation to Newman delayed, 321, et 
 seq., 325, ct seq. ; attitude of, towards 
 the Catholic University, 336 ; New- 
 man's visits to the Irish Bishops, 
 337-340 ; misunderstandings with 
 Newman, 354, etseq., 359-360 ; their 
 representations in Rome against 
 Newman's being made a bishop, 
 356, 385-386 ; their relations to the 
 laity, 364. ii. 397. Text of New- 
 man's letters to, announcing his 
 resignation, i. 631-633 
 
 Bishops : (3) Scotch, congratulate New- 
 man on Cardinalate, ii. 455 
 
 Bittleston, Fr. Henry, i. 321, 518. 
 ii. 140, 150, 153, 156, 158, et seq., 
 457. See also Letters 
 
 Blachford, Lady, ii. 90, 341 
 
 Blachford, Lord (Sir Frederick Rogers), 
 friend of Newman, 1833-1840, i. 217; 
 their meeting after long separation, 
 611. Deprecates sarcasm in first part 
 of ' Apologia,' ii. 18, 19 ; frequent 
 correspondence with Newman, 73 ; 
 gives Newman a violin, 75, 349 ; 
 Newman stays with, 90 ; sends 
 Newman Seeley's ' Ecce Homo,' 
 118; Newman writes to, on InfLiUi- 
 bility, 374; other letters to, 381, et 
 seq. ; receives peerage, 382, et seq. ; 
 advises Newman in his controversy 
 with Dr. Fairbairn, 508, et seq. ; con- 
 gratulates Newman on the Cardinal- 
 ate, 579, 584. Referred to, i. 61, 67, 
 200. 555. 556, 579, 625, 627. ii. 22, 
 23, 73, 100, 130, 348, 402, 520. 
 See also Letters 
 
 QQ2
 
 596 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Blennerhassett, Sir Rowland, Bt., i. 
 
 444, 565 
 Blomfield, Dr., i. 261 
 Uloxam, Dr. J. R. (Rector of Upper 
 
 Heeding),!, no. ii. 469. See also 
 
 Letters 
 Boniface, St., i. 405 
 Bonn University, ii. 547 
 Borghese, Prince, i. 154, 155 
 Borghese, Princess, ii. 521 
 Bossuet, i. 2, 3, 228. ii. 420 
 Boston — the Socinians of Boston and 
 
 Newman's ' Essay on Development,' 
 
 i. 161 
 Botalla, Fr. , ii. 409 
 Bourdaloue, i. 228 
 Bowden, Charles, i. 193 
 Bowden, Ileniy, i. 126,300. ii. 74, 93 
 Bowden, J. W., i. 33, 39, 124, 126. 
 
 "• 339 
 
 Bowden, Miss Charlotte, see Letters 
 Bowden, Mrs. J. W. , Newman visits, 
 
 i. 124; her conversion, 126 
 Bowles, F. S., i. 84,94, io3, 120, 125, 
 
 154, 182, 188, 191, 214. ii. 349- 
 
 See also Letters 
 Bowles, Miss E., ii. 47, 108, 364 n., 
 
 375, 403, 442, 446. See also Letters 
 Bowyer, Sir G. W., i. 196, 252, 256, 
 
 300. ii. 196, 561. See also Letters 
 Brabant, Duke of, i. 651 
 Bradlaugh, Charles, ii. 386 
 Bradley, Dean, i. 75 w. 
 Braye, Lord, ii. 484, 485, el scq. See 
 
 also Letters 
 Bresciano, Fr. (Rector of Collegio di 
 
 Propaganda), i. 149, 150, 153. ii. 
 
 197 
 Briggs, Bishop, 1. Ill, 133 
 Brindle, Dr., of Prior Park, i. 102, no 
 British Association meets at Oxford, 
 
 i. 190 
 British Constitution, Analysis of, by 
 
 Newman, i. 352 ; in time of war, 
 
 353. 354 
 
 British Critic, Newman editor of, 
 i- 57) 549- Newman's Essays in, 
 ii. 400 
 
 British Magazine, i. 224 
 
 Britten, Mr. James, ii. 487 
 
 Brodie, S=r B., i. 299, 546 
 
 Brougham, Lord, i. 45, 638 
 
 Brown, Dr. (Bishop of Newport), i. 
 208, 503. ii. 146, 158, 165, 171, 
 175, 176, 560, 581, 582. See also 
 Letters 
 
 Brown, Principal (of Aberdeen Univer- 
 sity), on Christian Unity, ii. 392, 
 393. See also Letters 
 
 Brownbill, Rev. Mr., i. 103, 112 
 
 Brownlow, William Robert (Bishop of 
 
 Clifton), i. 652-654. ii. 268. See 
 also Letters 
 
 Brownson, Dr. (the American publicist), 
 i. 160, 483. ii. 270 
 
 Bro7Viison^s Review, i. 160 
 
 Brunelli, Cardinal (Secretary of Propa- 
 ganda), i. 144, 148, 174, iSo, i8r, 
 
 451 
 Bruno, Giordano : Newman endorses 
 
 Leo XIII. 's protest against erection 
 
 of statue to, ii. 533-534 
 Bryce, Right Hon. James, ii. 425, 
 
 428, 429 
 Buckle, Mr., Fellow of Oriel, ii. 342 
 Burgon, Dean, i. 309 
 Burke, Edmund, ii. 44 
 Burns, i. 191, 486, 526 
 Bute, Marquess of, ii. 579. See also 
 
 Letters 
 Butler, Alban, ' Lives of the Saints,' 
 
 i. 177 
 Butler, Archer, his attack on the 
 
 ' Essay on Development ' referred to, 
 
 ii. 270 
 Butler, Edward, i. 359 n. 
 Butler, Bishop, * The Analogy,' i. 38 ; 
 
 referred to, 45, 269, 424, 620, 624 
 Byron, Lord, ii. 354, 357 
 
 ' C.^SARISM AND UlTRAMONTANISM * 
 
 (by Cardinal Manning), Gladstone 
 
 attacks, ii. 401, 402 
 'CaUista,' i. 244, 352, 353 
 Calvinism, its influence on Newman, 
 
 i- 30-32, 36, 41- ii- 343 
 
 Campbell, Lord, and the Achilli trial, 
 i. 281, 284, 290, 296, 298, 300, 303 
 
 Campion, Edmund, i. 518, 52S 
 
 Capalti, Mgr., ii. 181 
 
 Capes, F. M. , editor of the Rambler, i. 
 224, 243, 244, 474 ; his articles in 
 the Rambler, 437, et seq. ; his scheme 
 for lectures against Papal Aggression 
 agitation, 259, 260-266 ; New- 
 man's sympathy with, 437 ; New- 
 man's disapproval of his articles, 
 and attitude towards his intellectual 
 difficulties, 441, 442; left Catholic 
 Church, 437 ; died a Catholic, 
 437 n. ; referred to, 130, 164 «., 
 221, 226, 301 «., 373, 417, 445- 
 ii. 344. See also Letters 
 
 Cardella, Father, the Roman Jesuit, 
 ii. 155, 174, 179, 548, 549, 559 
 
 Cardinalate conferred on Newman, and 
 its effect, i. 14. ii. 433, et seq.; letter 
 on the subject from the Duke of 
 Norfolk, 436 ; text of Manning's 
 application for its bestowal on 
 Newman, 577 ; other letters re- 
 lating to, 578
 
 INDEX 
 
 597 
 
 Carlow College, i. 338 
 Carlyle, Thomas, ii. 316 
 Cashel, Archbishop of, sec Leahy 
 Caswall, Father Edward, i. 225. ii, 
 
 41, 53. 324, 413-414, 572 
 
 Catholic Church [see also Infallibility 
 and Papacy) : Newman's early in- 
 vectives against Rome, i. 7, 68, 
 et seq. ; Newman's view of, in re- 
 lation to unbelief, 13, 415, 570 ; 
 and Rationalism, 23 ; in Rome, 53 ; 
 condition of, in England in 1845, 
 lOi ; Newman's letter on its charac- 
 ter as one organised polity, 129- 
 130; spirit of worship in, 139-140 ; 
 rigidity of, 157; the most effectual 
 upholder of Theism and Christianity, 
 412-413 ; guardian of morals, 414- 
 415; guardian of faith, 416; Acton 
 on its position in modern society, 
 468-469 ; Veuillol's views of its rela- 
 tions to the modern world, 470 ; 
 Newman's letter to the Globe on his 
 reported dissatisfaction with, 579- 
 581 ; nature of its unity, 654. ii. 
 520 ; the great support of faith against 
 modern Agnosticism, 498 ; its wit- 
 ness to spiritual truth, 506, 507 
 
 Catholic Gazette, i. 376 
 
 Catholic Standard, Newman's letters 
 to, on the Crimean War, i. 352. Also 
 referred to, ii. 320 
 
 Catholic Truth Society, ii. 487 
 
 Catholic Union of Great Britain, ii. 
 580-581 
 
 Catholics, 'Old English' and Oxford 
 Movement, i. 100 ; out of favour in 
 Rome, 174; their character, and 
 their dislike of devotional innova- 
 tions, 204-205 ; their attitude towards 
 Oratory, 2 1 2-2 13, 215; their ex- 
 clusiveness and defective education, 
 
 452 
 
 Cavour, i. 519-520. ii. 197 
 
 Celibacy of the clergy, The ' Apologia ' 
 on, ii. 28 
 
 Celtic literature in the Catholic Univer- 
 sity of Ireland, i. 350 
 
 Certainty [see also Faith) and Catholic 
 Theology, i. 163, 442; Newman on 
 reasonableness of, 442 ; the great 
 philosophical difficulty of Catholic- 
 ism, 442, 623, et seq. ii. 43, 242, 
 245, 271, 465-466, 587-592. See 
 also ' Grammar of Assent. ' 
 
 Cesarini, Kr., i. 220 
 
 Challoner, Bishop, ii. 107 
 
 Charles, St., i. 141-142. 
 
 Charlestown, Bishop of, i. 426, 427 
 
 Charlotte, Princess, ii. 341 
 
 Chateaubriand, i. 30S, 315, 397, 461 
 
 Cheadle, St. Wilfrid's, Cotton Hall, 
 i. 202, 214, 221, 226, 235-236 
 
 Cherubini, ii. 351 
 
 Christian Obse>~'er, i. 625. ii. 434 ;/. 
 
 Christian Times, i. 255 n., 277 
 
 Christian Year, i. 57. ii. 318 
 
 Christianity, The type of primitive, 
 i. 49 ; and scientific investigation, 
 401-403, 408-409, 474 ; Newman on 
 its triple division into a philosophy, 
 a political p>ower, and a religious rite, 
 ii. 421-423 
 
 Christie, Albany, i. 21, 84, 103, I20, 
 
 132, 135. 177 
 Church, Miss Helen (Mrs. Paget), ii. 
 
 520. See also Letters 
 Church, Miss Mary, ii. 520-521 
 Church, Mrs., ii. 390 
 Church, R. W. (Dean of St. Paul's), 
 
 i. 56, 60, 79, S3, 85, 96, III, 126, 
 
 549. ii. 19, 21, 23, 73, 75, 90, 109, 
 
 205, 207, 320, 332, 348, 381, et seq., 
 
 411, 418, 425, 451, 487 «., 515, 
 
 529,554,583- See also \.^\X^x% 
 Church, Anglican, see Anglican Church 
 Church, Greek, i. 129 
 Church and State, Relations of, i. 234. 
 
 ii. 460-462 
 'Church of the Fathers,' see Historical 
 
 Sketches 
 Church Review, ii. 33 
 Churton, E., ii. 571 
 Clarendon, Lord, i. 310, 312 
 Clement of Alexandria, St., i. 47 
 Clifford, Dr. , Bishop of Clifton, i. 148. 
 
 ii. 112, 113, 123, 191, 459, 560, 
 
 584. See also Letters 
 Clifford of Chudleigh, Lord, i. no, 
 
 144, 148 n. 
 Clough, Arthur Hugh, i. 309 
 Clutton, Henry, ii. 60 
 Cockburn, Sir .\lexander, counsel for 
 
 Newman in Achilli trial, i. 291 ; 
 
 moves for new trial, 297-299 
 Coffin, Robert, i. 84, 107, in, 135, 
 
 137, 182, 191, 205, 222. ii. 142 
 Colenso, Bishop, i. 418. ii. 117 
 Coleridge, Father, S.J., ii. 77, 78, 98, 
 
 114, 123, 133, 140, 205, 442. See 
 
 also Letters 
 Coleridge, Lady, ii. 391 
 Coleridge, Lord, i. 60, 74. ii. 411, 
 
 579-580. .SVt' a/j-^ Letters 
 Coleridge, Sarah, i. 309 
 Coleridge, Sir John, gives judgment in 
 
 Achilli trial, i. 301 
 Coleridge, S. T., i. 49 
 Comber bach, Fr. , ii. 138- 1 39 
 ' Conflicts with Rome ' : Sir J. Acton's 
 article in IIo;'ic and Foreign, i. 
 
 565
 
 598 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Conscience (see also ' Grammar of 
 Assent ') : Newman's sense of God's 
 presence in, i. 30 ; its dictates certain, 
 but easily obscured, 413-415. An 
 argument for God's existence, ii. 265, 
 269 ; supremacy of, 404 ;;. 
 
 Constance, Council of, ii. 561 
 
 Conteviporary Review, Newman's ar- 
 ticle in, on ' The Development of 
 Religious Error,' ii. 505-507 ; also 
 referred to, 521 
 
 ' Conversion,' Newman's early, i. 30 
 
 Converts, Newman on, i. 134 ; their 
 faith, 218-219 ; Sir J. Coleridge on 
 their deterioration, 301 ; relations of, 
 with ' Old English ' Catholics, 452 
 
 Cope, Sir William, ii. 45. See also 
 Letters 
 
 Copeland, George, ii. 554 
 
 Copeland, W. J., referred to, i. 17, 85, 
 117, 597, 650. ii. 19, 50 n., 72, 
 90, 130, 396, 411, 434, 577. See 
 also Letters. 
 
 Copernicanism, i. 400, 404. ii. 424 
 
 Copleston, Dr., i. 37 
 
 ' Cor ad cor loquitur, ' Newman's motto 
 as a Cardinal, ii. 457 
 
 Corn Exchange Lectures, see ' Present 
 Position of Catholics ' 
 
 Coj-respondaiit, The, i. 464, 550. ii. 
 212 
 
 Cotton Hall, see Cheadle 
 
 Cowper, i. 652 
 
 Cox, Dr., President of St. Edmund's 
 College, i. 109, 616 
 
 Crabbe quoted, ii. 91, 354 
 
 Craik, G. L. , ii. 4 
 
 Crawley, Rev. Mr., Rector of Little- 
 more, ii. 206 
 
 Crimean War, Letters on, by New 
 i. 352-354. Newman's interest in, 
 
 ii- 513 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, responsible, in New- 
 man's view, for Irish hatred of 
 England, ii. 517 
 
 CuUen, A. H., see Letters 
 
 Cullen, Archbishop (afterwards Car- 
 dinal), and the ' New Ultramontane' 
 party, i. 13 ; invites Newman to be 
 Rector of the Catholic University, 
 275-276, 311 ; opponent of the 
 Queen's Colleges, 275, 305 ; educa- 
 tional ideals differ from New- 
 man's, 311, 320, 355, 366-370; 
 invites Newman to lecture in 
 Dublin, 311; translated from the 
 See of Armagh to Dublin, 316 ; 
 instalment as Archbishop of Dublin, 
 318 ; appoints officials in the Uni- 
 versity without Newman's assent, 
 321-324 ; his reliance on Newman to 
 
 overcome Irish apathy on University 
 scheme, 324 ; his delay in giving 
 Newman instructions, 325-328 ; at- 
 tends Newman's preliminary lectures, 
 327 ; arranges for public reception of 
 Newman, 32S-329 ; and the question 
 of Newman being made bishop, 330, 
 357. 3^5-386 ; proposed by the 
 Pope as Chancellor of the Univer- 
 sity, 330 ; and the University 
 Church, 347 ; objects to certain of 
 Newman's appointments, 359, 361- 
 362; his dilatoriness in correspond- 
 ing with Newman, 363-364 n. ; his 
 career and views summarised, 365- 
 367 ; his difficulties with Dr. 
 McHale's party, 370-371 ; inter- 
 view with Newman on latter's pro- 
 posed resignation, 376-377 ; New- 
 man's account of his differences 
 with, 380-384 ; his jealousy of 
 English interference in University 
 scheme, 384-385 ; and Newman's 
 final resignation of Rectorship, 445- 
 450. Reports favourably to Pius IX. 
 on Newman's writings, ii. 192; praise 
 of Newman in Lenten Pastoral of 
 1875, 408, 561. Also referred to, 
 i. 312, 329, 341, 354, 458, 484, 
 629. ii. 176, 189. See also 'L&iiGxs 
 Curci, Father, ii. 505 «. , 561 
 Curtis, Father, S.J., i. 333-334 
 
 Dalgairns, J. D., i. 84, 93, 94«., 
 
 120, 124, 135-137, 153, 157, 159. 
 
 160. 169, 171, 174, 182, 192, 198, 
 
 199, 205, 214, 216, 217, 223, 226, 
 
 549. ii. 332, 413, 481. See also 
 
 Letters 
 Darboy, Mgr., Archbishop of Paris, ii. 
 
 211 
 Darnell, Fr. Nicholas, Head Master of 
 
 Oratory School, i. 455, 456 ; resigns, 
 
 456; referred to, 214, 264 
 Darras, Abbe, Church History of, i. 
 
 472 
 Darwin, Charles, i. 470. ii. 342 
 Daunt, O'Neill, see Letters 
 Davy, Sir IL, and the Miracle of St. 
 
 Januarius, i. 1S9. Referred to, ii. 331 
 Deane, Emmeline, ii. 527. See also 
 
 Letters 
 Deane, Louisa, ii. 554 
 Deane, Mrs. , ii. 514. See also Letters 
 de Berulle, Cardinal, ii. 451 
 de Bonald, Vicomte, i. 44, 308, 460 
 deBuck, Father, i. 474, 504, 510, 634, 
 
 636 
 d'Eckstein, Baron : Newman objects to 
 
 his article for the Rambler, i. 505
 
 INDEX 
 
 599 
 
 Degenelles, Abbe, Newman's visit to, 
 
 i- 135 
 
 Delany, Bishop, i. 338, 366 
 
 Delany, Dr., Rector of University 
 College, Stephen's Green, i. 310 
 
 de Lisle, Ambrose Phillipps (formerly 
 Mr, Lisle Phillipps), i. Ill, 127, 
 128, 640. ii. 82, 115. See also 
 Letters 
 
 de Luca, Cardinal, ii. 163, 175, 179, 
 181, 547 
 
 de Lugo, the Jesuit theologian, on 
 certitude in matters of Faith, i. 163 ; 
 quoted, 169 it. ; also referred to, 
 248, 250 
 
 de Maistre, Count Joseph, i. 23, 315, 
 397. 460, 461, 464- ii- 79. 214, 
 420 
 
 Democracy Newman viewed with dis- 
 trust, ii. 118, 513 
 
 Denbigh, Earl of, i. 256. ii. 143, 485, 
 561. St-t; also Letters 
 
 de Ravignan, Pere, i. 282, 461 
 
 de Rossi, Count, i. 194, 462 
 
 De Tocqueville, i. 308 
 
 Development, Doctrinal (j-t'ea/y^ Faith): 
 Newman's philosophical theory of, i. 
 2 ; principle of, and Christian evi- 
 dences, 158; Newman re-expresses 
 his general theory in deference 
 to Perrone's criticism, 186, et set/. ; 
 its similarity to that of Moehler's 
 ' Symbolik,' 315; of Christian 
 Doctrine, 439 ; and Infallibility 
 of the Church, 441 ; Dcillinger's 
 views on, 563 ; letters of Newman 
 on, 639, 640 
 
 ' Development of Christian Doctrine, 
 Essay on ' : Newman's infinite 
 trouble in writing, i. 86, et seq. ; 
 quoted, 87, et seq. ; unfinished at 
 time of Newman's conversion, 94 ; 
 publication of, 99, 615 ; Dr. Wise- 
 man declines to have its theology 
 revised by a censor, 615; great public 
 interest in, 121 ; impression made 
 by, especially in Scotland, 156, 157 ; 
 reception in America, 159, 160; 
 reception of, by Roman divines, l6l, 
 et seq. ; French translation of, 161, 
 168, 170, et seq. ; opposition to, on 
 the part of some Roman theologians, 
 174 ; Perrone's criticisms of, 184, 
 et seq. Attacked by Dr. Brovvnson, 
 ii. 270 ; dedication of new edition, 
 426, et seq. ; Newman on criticisms 
 of, 418, et seq. Also referred to, 
 i. 43, 83, 123, 133, 223, 237, 
 425, 553- i'- 109. 559. 5^7. 590, 
 591 
 ' Development of Religious Error,' 
 
 Newman's article in Contemporary 
 Review, ii. 505, et seq. 
 
 de Vere, Aubrey, and Newman, i. 58, 
 320; quoted, 66, 231, 309. Con- 
 gratulates Newman on the offer of 
 Cardinalate, ii. 581. Also referred 
 to, i. 359 M. ii. 245. See also 
 Letters 
 
 Devotional writings by Newman, ii. 
 364, et seq. 
 
 ' Difficulties of Anglicans ' (vol. i., con- 
 taining the King William Street 
 lectures), i. 186, 187, 195, 196, 
 230, et seq., 265, 274, 654. ii. 316, 
 400 
 
 ' Difficulties of Anglicans ' (vol. ii. ), see 
 Letter to Dr. Pusey ; Letter to Duke 
 of Norfolk 
 
 ' Discipline and Influence,' see ' Histori- 
 cal Sketches ' 
 
 ' Discourses to Mixed Congregations,' 
 see Sermons 
 
 Disraeli, and the Catholic University 
 of Ireland, i. 352 n. Referred to, 
 ii. 117 
 
 Dixon, Joseph, Archbishop of Armagh, 
 
 i- 372, 375 
 
 Dmouski, ii. 197 
 
 DoUinger, Ignatius : his estimate of 
 Newman, i. 3, 444, 446 ; Newman 
 visits, 192 ; his work for Church in 
 Germany, 438 ; Newman's sympathy 
 with, 19, 439, 444, 445 ; his visits to 
 Newman, 443 ; his article in Rambler 
 denounced in Rome, 479, et seq. pa- 
 tron of Rambler, 504, 509, 510, 634 ; 
 article on his work in Home and 
 Foreign Review, 543 ; his Presi- 
 dential Address to Munich Congress 
 and its effects, 562, et seq., 640. 
 And the Old Catholics, ii. 372 ; his 
 secession, 375 ; Newman's condem- 
 nation of his secession, 379-380 ; 
 Newman's intended visit to, as a 
 Cardinal with a view to changing 
 his attitude towards Rome, 466. 
 See also i. 264, 459, 461, 464, 467, 
 474. ii. 401, 544, 557. See also 
 Letters 
 
 Dolman's Magazine, Mr. Price's article 
 in, on the Oratorian Saints' Lives, i. 
 207, 212 
 
 Dominic, Fr., i. 92, et seq. See 
 also 94, 95, 105, 123 ; see also 
 Letters 
 
 Dominicans, The, i. 124, ct seq., 144, 
 167, 16S, 169. ii. 406, 561 
 
 Donatisis, Schism of, i. 67, 616 
 
 Dotti, the Chevalier, i. 133 
 
 Douai College, i. 126 
 
 Downside, i. 222
 
 6oo 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Doyle, Sir Francis, i. 60. ii. 241, 
 
 356 
 Drane, Mother Frances Rapliael, see 
 
 Letters, ii. 480 
 ' Dream of Gerontius,' ii. 76, 78, 203, 
 
 342, 356, 514 
 Dryden, ii. 44 
 Dublin Oratory proposed, i. 345, 
 
 347. 
 Dublin Review, Wiseman's article in, 
 on Dr. Achilli, i. 278, 280 ; pro- 
 prietorship and editorship of, given to 
 VV. G.Ward by Manning, 546, et seq. ; 
 Newman refuses to write for, 548, 
 et seq. ; effect of Ward's editorship 
 on Newman, 549. Ward's articles 
 in, on Pius IX. 's utterances, ii. 82, 
 83 ; Ward's articles in, used by 
 Pusey in the ' Eirenicon,' 91 ; New- 
 man denounces attitude of, 404 ; its 
 favourable review of Newman's 
 * Grammar of Assent,' 273 ; and of his 
 ' Letter to the Duke of Norfolk,' 
 406, et seq., 565. Also referred to, 
 i. 284, 480, 489, 507, 510, 523 «., 
 537, 549, 550, 635, 637. ii. 43, 
 48, 151, 213, 425, 439, 552 
 
 Duncan, Dr., Life of, ii. 393 
 
 Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, i. 
 10, 19, 388, 550. ii. 80, 82, 83, loi, 
 123, 211. 286, 372, 552 
 
 * Durham Letter ' by Lord John Russell 
 ' on Papal Aggression,' i. 255, 318 
 
 Eaglesim, Fr. Paul, ii. 457, 468 
 
 Ealing, Newman sent to school at, i. 
 29 
 
 ' Ecce Homo,' Seeley's, reviewed by 
 Newman, ii. 118, 399 
 
 Education : ( i ) Catholic {see also Bir- 
 mingham Oratory School ; Oxford ; 
 University, Catholic, in Dublin) : i. 
 458, 515, 516. ii. /^y,etseq., 121, 
 et seq., 189, 540, 541, 542, 554, 
 
 555 . 
 
 Education: (2) mixed, Irish Episcopate 
 opposed to, i. 305 ; why feared, 
 305-311 ; difficulty of avoiding, 335, 
 336 ; Cullen's opposition to, 365 ; 
 Cullen and Newman's different con- 
 ceptions in opposing, 368, 3O9. W. G. 
 Ward's views on, ii. 63 ; policy of 
 Rome in regard to, 157, i6o, 166; 
 forced on the Irish, 517, 518 
 
 Edwards, G. T., ii. 333, 526, 535. 
 See also Letters 
 
 Egypt and Soudan War, Newman's 
 interest in, ii. 513 
 
 ' Eirenicon, The,' by Dr. Pusey, ii. 91, 
 
 et seq., ()(),etseq. Also referred to, 
 
 i. 214, 232. i'trc a/r<7 ' Letter to Dr, 
 
 Pusey ' 
 Eliot, George, ii. 355 
 Emancipation, Catholic, Newman's 
 
 views on, 1829, i. 44 
 Emly, Lord (the Right Hon. Wm. 
 
 -Monsell), i. 300, 311, 320, 321, 335, 
 
 351, 476, 550, S^T, 634. ii. 143, 
 
 145-147, 155, 196, 211, 472 
 English College, Rome, ii. 463-464 
 Ennodius, Bishop, ii. 575 
 Ephesus, Council of, ii. 105 ; referred 
 
 to, 562 
 Errington, Archbishop, i. 421. ii. 560, 
 
 580. See also Letters 
 Errington, Mr., i. 335 
 Established Church, see Anglican 
 
 Church 
 Estcourt, Canon, i. 103. ii. 56. Sec 
 
 also Letters 
 Eusebius, ii. 39 
 Evangelicals and Evangelicalism, i. 30, 
 
 36. ii. 13, 526, 527 
 Eyston, Charles, ii. 519 
 
 Faker, Frederick William, i. 19, 
 67, 84, 103, 108, 131, 133, 202, 
 205, 206, et seq., 208, 211, 213, 216, 
 220, 223, 224, 225, 228, 229-230, 
 et seq., 3S9, 417, 423, 428, 450, 451, 
 472, 495. ii. 72, 81, 91, 99, 107, 
 125, 161, 170, 172, 173. See also 
 Letters 
 
 Fairbairn, Principal, accuses Newman 
 of philosophical scepticism, ii. 505, 
 et seq. 
 
 ' Family Adventures,' Mrs. Thomas 
 Mozley's, i. 28 n. 
 
 Feilding, Viscount (j^i? Denbigh, Earl 
 of), i. 256, et seq. 
 
 Fenelon, i. 2, 3, 12. ii. 420 
 
 Fenianism, ii. 119 
 
 P'essler, Bishop, Secretary-General to 
 the Vatican Council, i. 12. ii. 373, 
 
 409, 559, 561 
 Ffoulkes, Mr., ii. 284 
 Fideism, i. 164, 174 
 Fitzgerald, Lord, i. 300, 335 
 Flanagan, Father Stanislas, i. 214, 
 
 334, 341- ii- 84 
 Flannery, Dr., Dean of the Catholic 
 
 University of Ireland, i. 324 «. 
 Foran, Nicholas (Bishop of Waterford), 
 
 i-338 
 Forbes, Bishop, of Brechin, ii. 216 
 ' Formation of Christendom, The,' by 
 
 T. W. Allies, i. 309 
 Formby, Mr., i. 108, 120, 177, 227 
 
 1
 
 INDEX 
 
 60 1 
 
 Fottrell, Mr., ii. 397, 398. See also 
 Letters 
 
 Fourdrinier, Miss Eliza, ii. 484. See 
 Letters 
 
 Fourdriniers, The, i. 27 and n., 614 
 
 Fox, Caroline, ii. 333 
 
 France, Church of, i. 314. ii. 344, 520 
 
 Franco-Prussian War, ii. 118, 119, 554 
 
 Fransoni, Cardinal, i. 144 ; ordains 
 Newman and St. John, 184 ; referred 
 to, 126, 174 
 
 Franzelin, Cardinal, attacks Newman's 
 Katubler article ' On Consulting the 
 Faithful,' ii. 174, 548 ; joins with 
 Kleutgen in writing Historical In- 
 troduction to definition of Papal 
 Infallibility, 306; referred to, iSo 
 
 Friedrich, Prof., ii. 80, 372 
 
 Froschammer, i. 465, 564 
 
 Froude, H. (junr.), i. 646, et seq. ii. 
 
 569 
 
 Froude, J. A., i. 60, 61, 189, 235, 
 239, 309. ii. I, 26, 472, 473 
 
 Froude, Miss E. M. (Baroness Anatole 
 von Hiigel), i. 644. ii. 569, 572. 
 Sec also Letters 
 
 Froude, Mrs. William, i. 86, 115, 239, 
 et seq., 301, 336, 539. ii. 90, 96, 
 465. See also Letters 
 
 Froude, R. Hurrell, Newman's friend- 
 ship with, i. 39, et seq. ; tutor of 
 Oriel, 40 ; influence of, on New- 
 man, 42 ; goes to Mediterranean 
 with Newman, 50, et seq. ; death of, 
 60 ; memoirs of, 60. His notion of 
 biography, ii. 314. Referred to, i. 
 36, 56, 57, 215, 227. ii. 333, 513, 
 587, 590. See also Letters 
 
 Froude, William, i. 22, 238, 241, 294, 
 622, et seq., 644, et seq. ii. 22, 34, 
 43, 207, 465, 466, 560, 586. See 
 also Letters 
 
 Furse, Mr., ii. 369 
 
 Gabriel, Sister Mary, ii. 387 
 
 Gabrielli, Contessa, i. 192 
 
 Gaisford, Mr., views of, on Catholics 
 
 going to Oxford, ii. 66, 542. See 
 
 also Letters 
 Galileo case, its effects on theology 
 
 and interpretation of Scripture, see 
 
 Copernicanism 
 Galitiin, Princess, i. 113 
 Gallicanism, Dollmgcr an opponent 
 
 of, i. 445. Gradual extinction of, 
 
 ii. 214. Also referred to, i. 460, 
 
 461. ii. 420 
 Gallwey, Fr. , ii. 565 
 Garibaldi, i. 526, 581 
 
 Gaskell, Mrs., ii. 355 
 
 Gaume, Abbe, i. 417, 463, 472 
 
 Gazette, The Ii-isk University, i. 347, 
 
 348» 349, 388, 396, 398. See 
 
 University Lectures 
 Genesis, Book of, article on, in 
 
 Home and foreii^n Review, i. 542, 
 
 543, 551, 561 
 Gentili, Fr. , i. 209 
 Gerard, Fr., S.J., ii. 452. See also 
 
 Letters 
 ' Gerontius, Dream of,' see ' Dream of 
 
 Gerontius ' 
 Gerson, i. 270 
 Gesu College, Rome, i. 151 
 Ghianda, Abljate, i. 143, 144, 167 
 Gibbon, Edward, i. 34, 57, 309, 523. 
 
 .ii- 44> 343. 
 
 Giberne, Miss Mary Rosina (Sister 
 Maria Pia), i. 147, 148 ; assists New- 
 man in obtaining witnesses for Achilli 
 trial, 281 -283, 289 ; also referred 
 to, 103, 112, 151, 264, 358. ii. 67, 
 412, 432, 466-467, 483, 516. See 
 also Letters 
 
 Gillis, Dr. James (Vicar Apostolic, 
 Eastern Scotland), i. 133, 156, 157. 
 See also Letters 
 
 Gillow, Dr., i. 493, 495, 496, 635 
 
 Gioberti, i. 194 
 
 Gladstone, Mrs., ii. 401 
 
 Gladstone, W. E., i. 60, 70, 523. 
 ii. 93, 117, 188, 317, 329, 332, 382, 
 397, 401, et seq., 513, 517, 559 
 
 Glion, ii. 245 
 
 Gordon, Fr. Joseph, i. 198 and w., 
 214, 263, 282, 302. ii. 78, 414, 
 514, 520, 572 
 
 Gordon, Fr. Philip, i. 198 and n., 214 ; 
 203, 204. See also Letters 
 
 Gordon, General, ii. 357, 514, 515 
 
 (jorham case, i. 230, 231 
 
 Gothic architecture, i. 229, 548 
 
 Goudon, M., i. 135, 137 
 
 Goulburn, Dean, i. 309 
 
 Graham, Sir J., i. 309 
 
 ' Grammar of Assent, Essay in Aid 
 of ' : genesis and purpose of, ii. 208, 
 244, 245, 270, 400; its analysis of the 
 grounds for Faith, 244, et seq. ; 
 Reasoning and Faith, 246, 247 ; 
 Faith and the Will, 247, 248, 276, 
 277 ; the Illative Sense, 255 ; New- 
 man's fears as to its reception, 253, 
 254 ; Empirical character ol, 262, 
 265-266 ; Philosophical value of, 
 262 ; dedication to Mr. Serjeant 
 Bellasis, 262, 267 n. ; the ' Illative 
 Sense ' and the psychology of Certi- 
 tude, 263 ; Conscience as an 
 Argument for Existence of God,
 
 6o2 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 264, 265, 274 ; Conscience and 
 the moral sense, 265 ; Leslie Ste- 
 phen attacks, in Frasei^s Magazine, 
 268 ; it accepts the argument for 
 Theism drawn from ' Order,' but 
 not from ' Design,' 269 ; the Month 
 and, 269 ; W. G. Ward welcomes, 
 in the Dtiblin Review, 271 -273, 274 ; 
 as an Apologetic work, 275 ; Real 
 and Notional assent, 336, 489 ; 
 Dr. Fairbairn regards its philosophy 
 as sceptical, 505. Also referred to, i. 
 12, 22, 158, 425. ii. 34, 346, 385, 
 
 397, 398, 525- 554, 587-590 
 Grant, Dr. Thomas (Bishop of South- 
 
 wark), i. 174, 183, 191, 331, 357. 
 
 ii. 64, 540, 542. See also Letters 
 Gratry, Pere, i. 509, 510, 634, 636. 
 
 ii. loi 
 Greek Church, the question of union 
 
 with Anglican or Catholic, ii. 520 
 Gregory Nazianzen, St., i. 374. ii. 
 
 530 
 Gregory VII., Pope (St. Hildebrand), 
 
 i. 268, 343 
 Gregory XVI., Pope, i. 123,275, 365, 
 
 461, 462, 506. ii. 100, 458 
 Griffiths, Thomas, Vicar Apostolic of 
 
 London District, i. 102, no, 133, 
 
 174, 197, 214 ;/., 216. ii. 103 
 Grissell, Hartwell de la Garde, ii. 486 
 Guardian, The, i. 484, 515, 625. ii. 
 
 45, 558 
 Guizot, i. 308 
 
 Hallahan, Mother Margaret 
 Mary, \. 295. ii. 324-325, 480. 
 See also Letters 
 
 Ham (near Richmond), Newman's 
 early days at, i. 29. ii. 337-340 
 
 Hamilton, Sir William, i. 638 
 
 Hampden, Dr., i. 57, 306. ii. 434«., 
 
 513 
 Handel, ii. 350 
 Haneburg, Abbot, i. 562 
 Hanmer, A. J., i. 570 
 Harding, Sir John, ii. 207 
 Harper, Fr. Thomas, S.J., i. 593. 
 
 235, 269, 554, 577. See also Letters 
 Harting, Mr., i. 287 
 Hawkins (Provost of Oriel), i. 37, 42, 
 
 43, 372 
 
 Hayden, Thomas, i. 350, 359 ?^ 
 
 Haydn, Johann Michael, ii. 350 
 
 Hecker, Fr. Isaac T., ii. 535 
 
 Hedley, John Cuthbert, O.S.B. (Bishop 
 of Newport), ii.,486, 581. See also 
 Letters 
 
 Hefele, Karl Joseph (Bishop of Rotten- 
 burg), ii. 371, 372, 373 
 
 Hegel, i. 308 
 
 ' Help, I^ord, the souls that Thou hast 
 made' (Newman's hymn), ii. 319- 
 320 
 
 Hennessy, Henry, i. 350, 359 «., 629 
 
 Herbert of Lea, Lady, ii. 447, 464 «. 
 See also Letters 
 
 Herbert, Sidney (afterwards Lord 
 Herbert of Lea), i. 191, 607 
 
 Hermes, Georg, i. 163, 168, 172, 
 542 n. 
 
 Hewit, Fr. , ii. 505 n. See also Letters 
 
 ' Historical Sketches,' First volume : 
 ' Historj' of the Turks,' ii. 316;;., 
 369. Second volume : 'The Bene- 
 dictine Centuries,' i. 432 ; published 
 in Atlantis, 433 ; Newman on the 
 Genius of the Benedictines, 434 ; 
 Benedictine Schools, conservative 
 habit of, 433 n., et seq. ' Church ot 
 the Fathers,' ii. 353 ; ' The Trials 
 of Theodoret,' 562 ; ' St. John 
 Chrysostom,' 511. Third volume: 
 publication of, i. 348-349 ; general 
 character o , 396. ' Discipline and 
 Influence, quoted, ii. 336-338, 340. 
 Quoted, i. 194, 195, 398 ; also re- 
 ferred to, 478. ii. 396 n. 
 
 Hoadly, Benjamin, ii. 117 
 
 Hobbes, Thomas, i. 411 
 
 Holland, Canon Scott, his recollections 
 of a visit to Newman in 1876, ii. 
 369-370. See also Letters 
 
 Holmes, Miss, i. 428. ii. 329, 412. 
 See also Letters 
 
 Holy See, The, see Papacy 
 
 Home and Foreign Review, The, i. 537, 
 ct seq. ; 565, et seq., 5S5, 637. ii. 
 49, 62, 151, 495-496, 499 
 
 ' Home Thoughts Abroad,' Newman's, 
 in the British Magazine, i. 56 
 
 Honorius I., Pope, The case of, and 
 Papal Infallibility, i. 504. ii. 235, 
 237, 556;557, 562-563 
 
 Hooker, Richard, i. 45, 411 
 
 Hope, Miss, see Letters 
 
 Hope-Scott, James R. (Hope, J. R.), 
 protests against the Gorham decision, 
 i. 230 ; joins the Catholic Church, 
 264 ; consulted by Newman in connec- 
 tion with the AchiUi trial, 278-279, 
 284. His sympathy with Newman in 
 the Kingsley affair, ii. 25 ; Newman 
 consults, as to possibility of raising 
 money for an C3xford Oratory, 51 ; 
 subscribes towards Oxford Oratory 
 and Hall, 53 ; co-operates with 
 Newman in second Oxford scheme, 
 130-131, 152, 155, 180-184; his 
 death, 389 ; Newman on his charac- 
 ter, 519. Also referred to, i. 58,
 
 INDEX 
 
 605 
 
 96, III, 166, 167, 260, 300, 305, 
 
 3". 332, 338. 341. 347, 363, 
 451, 454, 505, 605, 623, 634, 652. 
 ii- 43, 58, 65, 74, 187, 195, 197, 
 :-67, 316 «., 322, 387, 38S, 389, 
 /j.01. See also Letters 
 
 Hopkins, Father, S.J., ii. 527. See 
 also Letters 
 
 Hornyold, Bishop, Vicar Apostolic of 
 Midland District, i. 119 
 
 Hort, Dr. J. A. F., i. 469 
 
 Howard, Cardinal, ii. 448, 458, 463. 
 See also Letters 
 
 Howard, Lord Edward, ii. 143, 390 
 
 Hiigel, Baron von, ii. 504 w. See also 
 Letters 
 
 Hulst, Mgr. d', i. 466 n. 
 
 Hume, David, i. 57, 309, 625 
 
 Husenbeth, Dr., i. 616. ii. 104 
 
 Hutchison, Fr. William Antony, i. 205, 
 217, 283 
 
 Hutton, Richard Holt (editor of the 
 Spectator), on Newman's literary 
 style, i. 16 ; on Newman's poems, 
 52 ; on the final passage of the ' Essay 
 on Development,' 95 ; and the 
 ' Lectures on Difficulties of Angli- 
 cans,' 233, 252. Intervenes in the 
 Kingsley controversy, ii. 4, et seq. ; 
 his estimate of Kingsley's pamphlet 
 against Newman, 11-12; invites 
 Newman to join the Metaphysical 
 Society, 332 ; Newman's affection 
 for, 334-335, 522 ; advises Newman 
 in his controversy with Fairbairn, 
 508, 511 ; writes an appreciation ot 
 Newman's works in the Contem- 
 porary /ievieu; 52 1. Also referred 
 to, 204, 205. See also Letters 
 
 Huxley, Prof., on Newman's scepticism, 
 i. 16 ; on scientific methods and 
 traditional beliefs, 307 ; and theo- 
 logical speculation, 392 ; also re- 
 ferred to, 401. ii. 332, 333 «., 494, 
 571-572 
 
 Hyacinth, St.. i. 152 
 
 Hyacinthe, Pt;re, ii. 375. See also 
 Letters 
 
 ' Idea of a University,' sec University 
 Lectures 
 
 ' Ideal of a Christian Church,' Ward's, 
 publication and condemnation, i. 79. 
 Also referred to, ii. 7, 224 
 
 ' Idealism in Theology,' Ryder's pam- 
 phlet on, in answer to W. G. Ward, 
 ii. 224, et setj. ; Newman's share in, 
 228-229; controversy on, 229-235; 
 analysis of, 224, et seq. ; referred to, 
 406 
 
 Illative Sense, see ' Grammar of Assent ' 
 
 Immaculate Conception of the Blessed 
 Virgin, Doctrine of, its bearing on 
 the theory of development, i. 161, 
 164, 165, 1 85, 186 ; once opposed 
 by all divines, 591. ii. 225. Also 
 referred to, i. 195. ii. 297 
 
 Infallibility of the Church, i. 441. ii. 
 37, et seq. ; Papal Infallibility, 210- 
 215, 218-223, 224-228, 229, et 
 seq., 231, et seq. ; Ward's views on, 
 230-234 ; modification of his views, 
 235, 286 ; Renoufs pamphlet on the 
 Honorius case, 235 ; Newman and the 
 Honorius case, 235-236 ; Ward in 
 the Dublin on the same, 237 ; defi 
 nition of, 238-240, 279, ct seq. ', 
 Newman on the necessity for dis- 
 cussion before its definition, 282-283, 
 286-289, 295-299 ; deliberations 
 of the Vatican Council on, 300 ; 
 passing of the definition of, 303 ; 
 Mozlcy's account of the scene, 303- 
 306 ; letter of inopportunist Bishops 
 to Pius IX., 303 ; historical intro- 
 duction to the definition, by Fran- 
 zelin and Kleutgen, 306-307 ; 
 exaggerations of Neo-Ultramontanes 
 not countenanced by the Council, 307; 
 Newman's reception of the definition, 
 308-309, 371-380; Newman fears 
 evil consequences from it, 309- 
 312 ; Newman's view of its reason- 
 ableness, 376, et seq., 591 ; ' True 
 and False Infallibility,' Fessler's 
 work on, 373, 409 ; Newman's 
 views on limitations of, 552, 556, 
 et seq. ; also referred to, 10 1, 419, 
 420, 432 
 
 Infidelity, Necessity of preventing 
 spread of, i. 24 ; natural to fallen man, 
 42 ; Newman deemed it his vocation 
 to withstand, 58 ; he regarded the 
 Anglican Church as a bulwark against 
 its spread in England, 232, 259 ; 
 Newman's views as to how it should 
 be met, ii. 49-50, 491, et passim 
 
 Inglis, Sir Robert, i. 218, 219, 220 
 
 Inspiration of Scripture, \'alican 
 Council proposes to treat, ii. 281- 
 282 ; Newman's letter concerning 
 the Vatican Council Canons on the 
 subject, 293-295; Newman's article 
 in Nineteenth Century, on necessity 
 for some reconsideration of generally 
 received opinions on, 502, ct seq. 
 Also referred to, i. 418, 542;/. 
 
 ' In the Way,' by Mrs. Wilfrid Ward, 
 Newman's letter on, ii. 528-529 
 
 Ireland {see also Catholic University 
 and Bishops, Irish) : Young Ireland
 
 6o4 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 movement, i. 320, 361, 362, 367, 
 381, 382. England's ignorance of, 
 ii. 119; members of Parliamenl for, 
 congratulate Newman on Cardinalate, 
 453 ; his reply to the address, 454- 
 455 ; her wrongs a source of sorrow 
 to Newman, 512-513; character of 
 people of, 517; necessity for a 
 University for, 517-518; Established 
 Church of, how viewed by the Irish, 
 518 ; Newman's view of Home Rule 
 for, 518; never yielded to the 
 English, 527 
 Irish clergy, Newman's estimate of, 
 
 i-354 
 Irish University Bill, Gladstone's, ii. 
 
 397. 401 
 Irons, Dr. , ii. 33 
 
 Irvine, Canon, ii. 206. See also Letters 
 Isidore, St., Newman's sermon at the 
 
 Church of, in Rome, i. 154- 1 56, 
 
 170, 174 
 Italy, Union of, i. 193, et seq., 365 
 
 Jager, The Abb£, Newman's corre- 
 spondence with, i. 59, 3x4 
 
 Januarius, St., Miracle of the blood of, 
 i. 188, 189 
 
 Jebb, Sir Richard, ii. 473 
 
 Jenkins, Canon, see Letters 
 
 Jenkyns, Dr., of Balliol, i. 46 
 
 Jesuits : Newman on the wisdom of 
 their conduct in London, i. 220 ; in 
 Rome, 145. 147, 151. ?67, i68 ; 
 Ambrose St. John's admiration for, 
 153 ; Newman's objection to joining, 
 170; Neapolitan Jesuits, Newman 
 on, 188. Newman deprecates the 
 tone of the attack on Pusey's ' Eireni- 
 con ' by the English Jesuits in the 
 Month, II. 114, 115; always New- 
 man's friends, 123, 406, 409 ; their 
 proposal to foim a Catholic Uni- 
 versity College, 195, 197 ; invite 
 Newman to preach for them, 321 ; 
 Newman not in agreement with, as 
 to the best manner of dealing with 
 some theological questions of the 
 day, 398 ; their fiivourable recep- 
 tion of his ' Letter to the Duke of 
 Norfolk,' 425. Also referred to, i. 
 139, 143, 146, 171, 176 
 
 John Chryso.^tom, St., Newman's paper 
 on, i. 510; also referred to, 343. 
 
 ii- 134, 354, 430 
 Johnson, Manuel, i. 108, 126, 350,650 
 Johnson, Samuel, i. 411. ii. 44 
 Jones, Fr. , see Letters 
 Joseph II. of Austria, i. 313 n. 
 Jowett, Benjamin, i. 308, 610 
 
 ' Justification, Newman's Lectures on 
 the Doctrine of,' i. 637. ii. 400. 
 DoUinger on Newman's work on, i. 
 444 
 
 Keble, John, his influence on New- 
 man, i. 42, 54 ; his sermon on 
 ' National Apostasy,' 56 ; his 
 ' Christian Year,' 57 ; consulted by 
 Newman in writing 'Apologia,' ii. 22 ; 
 Newman's last visit to, and descrip- 
 tion of, in 1865, 92-97 ; his death, 97; 
 Newman's tribute to his sincerity, 
 98 ; his dislike of ' the aristocracy of 
 talent,' 333. Also referred to, i. 57, 
 61, 85, 130, 225, 238, 300, 312, 620, 
 622, 623. ii. 29, 72, 73, 77, 81, 90, 
 314, 318, 384. See also Letters 
 
 Keble, Mrs. , ii. 22, 94, 97 
 
 Kelly, Dr., nominated Vice-Rector of 
 Catholic University, i. 446 ; also 
 i-eferred to, 448 
 
 Ken, Bishop, i. 129 
 
 Keneham, Dr., President of Maynooth, 
 
 i- 334 
 Kenmare, Lord (3rd Earl), i. 335 ; 
 
 (Lord Castlerosse, afterwards 4th 
 
 Earl), 300, 335, 633 
 Kenrick, Archbishop (of Baltimore), 
 
 i. 303, 426-427, 428. ii. 404- 
 
 See also Letters 
 Ketteler, Bishop, of Mayence, i. 465 
 King William Street Lectures, see 
 
 ' Difficulties of Anglicans ' 
 Kingsley, Rev. Charles, i. 11, 232, 614. 
 
 His attack on Newman, ii. i, et seq. ; 
 
 Newman writes of him after his death, 
 
 45 ; also referred to, 100, 401, 421. 
 
 See also Letters and ' Apologia ' 
 Kleutgen, Fr., i. 463. ii. 307 
 Knox, Father Francis, i. 104, 160, 
 
 161, 192, 198, 199, 214. ii. 199 
 
 Lacordaire, PiiRE, Newman's sym- 
 pathy with, i. 19 ; his attitude 
 towards the modern Liberal move- 
 ment, ii. 306, 459, 464 ; resignation 
 of his scat in French Parliament, 
 463. Also referred to, i. 10, 144, 
 388, 409, 461, 470, 471, 495, 550- 
 ii. 68, 80 
 
 Laity, English Catholic, i. 497, 502, ct 
 .>V(/., 513, 553. ii. 65,69; address 
 of, to Newman in 1867, 143, et seq., 
 544) 545 ; 3-lso referred to, 67 
 
 Laity, Irish Catholic, and the new 
 intellectual movement, i. 314; how 
 regarded hy Irish ecclesiastics, 315 ;
 
 INDEX 
 
 60s 
 
 Newman's desire to give them a 
 share in government of University, 
 362-364, 3S1. ii. 397. Newman 
 on the part played by laymen in 
 Catholic Apologetic, i. 315, 397 
 
 Lake, Dean, i. 60 
 
 Lamennais, M. I'Abbe P'elicite de, i. 
 23, 175. 308, 315, 365. 460, ct seq., 
 506, 635 
 
 Landor, W. S., ii. 354 
 
 ' Lead, kindly Light,' i. 55. ii. 357, 
 
 359 
 Leahy, Dr. Patrick, Archbishop of 
 Cashel, named Vice-Rector of Catho- 
 lic University, i. 322, et seq. ; Pro- 
 fessor of Holy Scripture, 359 «. ; 
 appointed Archbishop of Cashel, 
 378 ; on Newman's resignation of the 
 Irish Rectorship, 445, ei seq. ; also 
 referred to, 324 «., 338, 370, 372, 
 379, 380. ii. 408. See also Letters 
 Leo Xn., i. 175, 365, 460, 635 
 Leo XIII., allowed Catholics to go to 
 Oxford, ii. 71 ; his election, 432 ; 
 and Newman's Cardinalate, 435, 
 436 ; tolerance of, 500 ; character of 
 utterances of, 501 ; Newman writes to 
 him on his Encyclical on the Philo- 
 sophy of St. Thomas, 501 ; his 
 jubilee, 529 ; protests against the 
 erection of a statue to Giordano 
 Bruno, 533 ; referred to, 371 n. See 
 also Letters 
 ' Letter to the Duke of Norfolk,' its 
 spirit and purport, ii. 403-406 ; its 
 reception, 405-406 ; W. G. Ward 
 and, 406-407 ; Dr. Neville, of May- 
 nooth, and, 407-409 ; Newman's let- 
 ters on, 559-566. Quoted, i. 404;?. ; 
 referred to, 12. ii. 82, 85-86 «., 
 107, 232, 308, 401, 425, 432, 497 
 * Letter to Dr. Pusey, The,' analysed, ii. 
 101-109 ; publication and reception, 
 108 109 ; reviewed in the Times, 
 109-1 1 2 ; its reception among Catho- 
 lics, 112-I13, 121, 122, 123 ; con- 
 ditions under which it was written, 
 125 ; treats of the doctrine of the Im- 
 maculate Conception, 376. Quoted, 
 i. 205, 214 n. ; referred to, 204 «., 
 232. ii. i89«., 399,421, 434«- 
 See also ' Eirenicon ' 
 Letters and extracts from letters : 
 I. Letters cf Cardinal Ne-wman to 
 Acton, Lord, i. 479, 482, 506, 511, 
 518, 523, 524, 527, 532, 634, 635, 
 636, 639 
 Alley ne, Rev. A. V., ii. 315 
 Arnold, Mr. A., ii. 55S, 560 
 Arnold, Mr. T., i. 543 
 Bathurst, Miss, ii. 326 
 
 Bedford, Mr. H., ii. 512, 564 
 Bellasis, Serjeant E., i. 453, 454, 
 
 456, 594. 595- ii- 262 
 Bittleston, Rev. H., i. 647. ii. 84, 
 
 85, 457 
 Blachford, Lord (Mr. Frederick 
 Rogers), i. 68, 70, 439. ii. 19, 
 
 23, 74. 75. 90, 374. 381, 382, 
 383, 384, 388, 389, 390, 402, 405, 
 407, 410, 413, 433. 509, 510, 570 
 
 Bloxam, Mr. J. R., ii. 285 «. 
 
 Bowden, Miss Charlotte, ii. 318 
 
 Bowles, Miss E., i. 586, 589, 612. 
 ii. 68, 69, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 
 446, 477, 478, 519, 524, 554, 555 
 
 Bowles, Mr. Frederick, i. 103, 135 
 
 Bowyer, Sir G., i. 256 
 
 Braye, Lord, ii. 485, 486 
 
 Brown, Bishop, ii. 581 
 
 Brown, Principal, ii. 393, 395 
 
 Brownlow, Bishop, i. 652. ii. 269, 
 276, 283 
 
 Capes, Mr. F. M., i. 215, 226, 244, 
 245, 246, 248, 249, 250, 259, 260, 
 262, 2S7, 301 «., 373. 440, 441. 
 442 
 
 Church, Miss Helen (Mrs. Paget), li. 
 
 318, 319 
 Church, Miss Mary, ii. 319 
 Church, R. W. (Dean), ii. 19, 21, 24, 
 
 74,75, 119, 120, 333»-.383. 385. 
 
 386, 389, 391, 392, 403. 418, 426, 
 
 427, 451, 487, 513, 515, 520, 524, 
 
 526, 529 
 Coleridge, Rev., S.J., ii. 77, Ii4> 
 
 141, 186, 205, 268, 269, 282, 294, 
 
 314, 347. 577 
 Cope, SirW., ii. 45, 556 
 Copeland, Mr. W. J., i. 117, 597, 
 
 598, 599. 613- ii- 130 
 Cullen, Cardinal, i. 326 
 Cullen, Mr. A. II., ii. 416 
 Dalgairns, Rev. J. D., i. 107, 109, 
 
 no, 124, 125, 126, 143, 148, 160, 
 
 166, 168, 169, 171, 172, 176, 178, 
 
 182 
 Daunt, Mr. O'Neill, ii. 299, 310 
 Deane, Miss E., ii. 527 
 Deane, Mrs., ii. 323 
 de Lisle, Mr. Ambrose Phillipps, ii. 
 
 82, 115, 292, 559 
 Denbigh, Earl of, i. 256 
 de Vere, Mr. Aulncy, ii. 245. 273 
 Drane, Mother Francis Raphael, ii. 
 
 344 
 Edwards, Mr. G. T., u. 333, 526, 
 
 535 .. ^ 
 
 Estcourt, Canon, 11. 56 
 Falier, Rev. P^ederick Wilfrid, i. 
 
 211, 217, 219, 220, 224, 227, 228, 
 
 229, 231
 
 6o6 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Foltrell, Mr., ii. 397 
 Fourdrinier, Miss E., ii. 484 
 Froude, Miss Isy (Baroness Anatole 
 
 von Hugel),i. 602, 606, 60S, 609. 
 
 ii. 317, 562, 563 
 Froude, Ivichard Hurrell, i. 46, 47 
 Froude, William, i. 294, 602, 612, 
 
 647, 649. ii. 207, 586 
 Froude, Mrs. W., i. 86, 115, 116, 
 
 239, 242, 312, 336, 622, 646, 649. 
 
 ii. 90, 96, 284, 308, 376, 379. 380, 
 
 560, 561, 569, 572 
 Gabriel, Sister Mary, ii. 325, 388, 
 
 414 
 Gaisford, Mr., ii. 54, 66 
 Gerard. Rev. J., ii. 452 
 Giberne, Miss Maria Rosina (after- 
 wards Sister Maria Pia), i. 112. 
 
 ii. 53, 281, 308, 341, 412, 414, 
 
 4I5> 430, 468, 4S3. 516, 520, 521, 
 
 523. 553> 570 
 G/o6t', i. 580 
 
 Gordon, Rev. Philip, i. 204 
 Hallahan, Mother Margaret, i. 289, 
 
 293. ii. 30 
 Harper, Rev. Father, i. 593 
 HerlDert, Lady, ii. 477 
 Hewit, Rev. Mr., ii. 505 ;/., 535 
 Holmes, Miss, i. 428, 601, 603,605, 
 
 606, 607, 608, 610, 612. ii. 70, 
 
 268, 275, 313, 326, 328, 329, 379, 
 
 412, 552 
 Hope, Miss, ii. 528 
 Hope-Scott, Mr. James Robert, i, 
 
 105 «., 278, 284, 287, 451, 615. 
 
 ii. 13, 25, 43, 51,59, 65, 70, 137, 
 
 152, 182, 1S8, 190, 195, 197,267, 
 
 323. 552 
 Hopkins, Rev. Father, ii. 527 
 Howard, Cardinal, ii. 448 
 HUgel, Baron von, ii. 417, 504 n. 
 Hutton, Mr. R. H., ii. 6, 12, 204, 
 
 332, 334, 335, 522, 523 
 Hyacinthe, Pere, ii. 375 
 Irish Bishops, i. 630, 631, 632, 633 
 Jenkins, Canon, ii. 198, 284, 322, 
 
 574, 576 
 Jesuits, at Farm Street, ii. 321 
 Jones, Father, ii. 560 
 Keble, Mr. J., i. 590. ii. 22, 92, 
 
 93, 94 
 Kenrick, Archbishop, i. 303, 427 
 
 Leo XHL, Pope, ii. 501 
 
 Lewis, Mr. David, i. 145, 183 
 
 MacCoU, Canon Malcolm, ii. 322, 331 
 
 McHale, Dr., Archbishop of Tuam, 
 
 i. 360 n. 
 McMuUen, Canon R., ii. 516, 560 
 Manning, Cardinal, i. 319, 363, 374, 
 
 525. ii. 88, 97, 447, 448 
 Maskell, Mrs., ii. 415, 416 
 
 Meynell, Dr. Charles, ii. 243, 256, 
 
 257, 258, 259, 260, 261 
 Mills, Rev. Austin, i. 339 
 Moriarty, Dr., Bishop of Kerry, i. 
 
 378. ii. 289 
 Mozley, Mr. J. R., ii. 479, 517, 518, 
 
 572 
 Mozley, Mrs. Jolin, i. 41, 70, 76 
 Mozley, Mrs. Thomas, i. 41, 52 
 Monro, Miss, ii. 327 
 Neville, Father William, i. 579 
 Nevins, Mr. Willis, ii. 556 
 Newman, Mrs., i. 32, 33, 44, 45, 50, 
 
 51 
 Newsham, Dr., i. 316 «. 
 Nina, Cardinal, ii. 583 
 Noble, Dr., ii. 416 
 Norfolk, Duke of, ii. 443 
 Northcote, Dr. J. S., i. 121, 302. 
 
 ii. 311, 569, 574 
 O'Hagan, John, ii. 456 
 Ornsby, Robert, i. 367, 370, 379, 
 
 446,447,448,449,581,628. ii. 
 
 49, 87, 554 
 Patterson, James Laird, ii. 134 
 Pattison, Mr. Mark, ii. 481, 482, 
 
 483 
 Penny, Mr. William Goodenough, i. 
 
 140 
 Percival, Dr., ii. 525 
 Perrone, Fr. , i. 184 «. 
 Pollen, Mr. John, i. 348, 604, 605, 
 
 643. ii. 68, 524 
 Poole, Sister Imelda, i. 286, 288, 
 
 289, 290, 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 
 
 301. ii. 29, 61, 67, 113, 266, 
 
 411,414 
 Pusey, Dr., ii. 100, loi, 102, 113, 
 
 217, 220, 223 
 Renouf, Mr. Le Page, ii. 236 
 Rogers, Sir Frederick, see Blachford, 
 
 Lord 
 Rossi, Rev. C, ii. 585 
 Russell, Dr. , ii. 42, 86 
 Ryder, Mr. George, i. 128 
 St. John, Father Ambrose, i. 86, 
 
 103, 104, 105, 114, 123, 126, 131, 
 
 202, 220, 317, 336, 337, 341, 360, 
 
 370, 371, 374 ''•, 376, 437, 545. 
 607, 609, 610, 611, 651. ii. 50, 
 60, 71, 80,95, 123, 130, 149, 154, 
 i55> 169, 253, 320, 345, 540 
 Sconce, Mrs., ii. 313 
 Sheil, Sir Justin, ii. 135 
 Simeon, Lady, ii. 192 
 Simeon, Sir John, ii. 29c, 291 
 Simpson, R., i. 4S7, 488, 505, 535, 
 
 635 
 Smith, Mr. Albert, i. 570, 654 
 Spurrier, Rev. A., ii. 526 
 Stajidard, The, ii. 290
 
 INDEX 
 
 607 
 
 Sullivan, Professor W. K. , i. 430, 
 
 432 
 Talbot, Mgr., ii. 176, 539 
 Taylor, Dr., i. 375 
 Telford, Rev. J., ii. 78 
 Thompson, Mr. Healy, i. 496 
 Ullathorne, Dr., Bishop of Birming- 
 ham, i. 492, 544, 554. ii. 184, 
 287, 426, 439 
 Vaughan, Rev. E. T., ii. 346 
 Walford, Rev. J., ii. 266, 346, 412, 
 
 444, 553 
 Walker, Canon, ii. 43, 44, 62, 228, 
 
 230, 240, 283 
 
 Wallis, Mr. John, i. 498, 628. ii. 229 
 
 Ward, Mr. F. R., ii. 544 
 
 Ward, Mrs. F. R., i. 644. ii. 
 
 283 
 Ward, Mr. W. G., i. 134, 283, 295, 
 
 490, 491, 515, 537, 547, 548, 552, 
 
 554, 555, 556, 557, 637- i'- 224, 
 
 231, 232, 273, 325 
 
 Ward, Mr. Wilfrid, ii, 488, 529 
 Wayte, Dr. S. W., ii. 428, 452 
 Wetherell, T. F., i. 540. ii. 55 
 Whitty, Rev. Robert, ii. 295, 
 
 451 
 Wilberforce, H., i. 17 ;/., 80, 82, 92, 
 93, III, 116, 117, 128, 131 «.,I3S, 
 150, 187, 188, 192, 197, 235, 236, 
 237, 238, 302, 344, 371, 372, 499. 
 573, 616, 618, 619, 621, 624. ii. 
 44, 61, 104;?., 140, 205, 207,233, 
 248, 252, 254,267, 316, 320, 321, 
 
 339, 340, 341 
 Williams, Mr. Isaac, i. 650 
 Wilson, Mrs., ii. 566 
 
 Wiseman, Cardinal, i. 123 «., 213, 
 
 331, 419, 615. ii. 171 u. 
 Wood, Mrs., i. 257 
 To other friends, i. 30, 32, 33, 34, 
 
 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 53, 54, 55, 75, 
 201, 208, 209, 222, 223, 229, 233, 
 327, 346, 347, 349, 350, 351, 364, 
 559- ii- 59, 87, 97, 9^, 200, 203, 
 275, 301, 315, 324, 325- 329, 338, 
 
 340, 347, 393 «• , 457, 467, 472 n., 
 545, 568, 586 
 
 II. Letters to Newman from 
 
 Acton, Sir John, i. 508, 522, 527, 
 
 529, 538, 539, 634 
 Bittlcston, Rev. Henry, ii. 158, 165, 
 
 172, 173 
 Blachford, Lord, ii. 579, 584 
 Bute, Marquess of, ii. 579 
 Church, R. W. (Dean), ii. 583 
 Clifford, Bishop, ii. 5S4 
 Coleridge, Lord, ii. 579 
 de Vera, Mr. Aubrey, ii. 5S1 
 
 Dollingcr, Dr., i. 444, 493 
 Frrington, Archbishop, ii. 580 
 Gillies, Dr., i. 156 
 Hedley, Bishop, ii. 5S0 
 Howard, Cardinal, ii. 448 
 Kingsley, Rev. Charles, ii, I 
 Leahy, Dr., i. 379 n. 
 Manning, Cardinal, i. 319, 332 «,, 
 
 525. ii. 88, 89, 449, 450, 534 
 Nina, Cardinal, ii. 583 
 Oakeley, Canon, ii. 578 
 Ornsby, Robert, i. 447 
 Patterson, James Laird, ii. 133 
 Pattison, Mr. Mark, ii. 481 
 Portal, Mr. Melville, i. 617 
 Ripon, Marquess of, ii. 580 
 Rossi, Rev. C, ii. 585 
 St, John, Father Ambrose, ii, 160, 
 
 163, 166, 17s, 178, 546, 548 
 Shrewsbury, Earl of, i. 353 11. 
 Simpson, Mr. Richard, i, 508, 633 
 Stanton, Rev, R, , i, 332 
 Talbot, Mgr., ii. 177, 539 
 Ullathorne, Bishop, i. 212, 331, 
 
 332 «., 545, 555. ii. 132. 
 Wallis, Mr. John, i. 633 
 Ward, Mr. W. G., i. 420, 489, 547, 
 
 556 
 Wetherell, Mr. T. F., i. 517 
 Wiseman, Cardinal, i. 330 
 
 Other Letters from 
 
 Acton, Sir John, to Richard Simpson, 
 
 i. 481 
 Bellasis, Mr. Henry, to his mother, 
 
 ii. 469 
 Bishops, the ' inopportunist,' to Pope 
 
 Pius IX., ii. 303 
 Bowles, Mr. F., to Rev. Ambrose 
 
 St. John, i. 125 
 Dominic, Fr., to the Tablet, i. 94, 
 
 95«., 105 
 Gaisford, Mr., to the Bishop of 
 
 Southwark, ii. 542 
 Holland, Canon, to Mrs. Ady, ii. 
 
 Irish Bishops to the Oratorians, i, 
 
 629 
 Manning, Cardinal, to Mgr. Talbot, 
 
 ii. 145, 148 ; to Cardinal Xina, 
 
 ii- 577 
 Norfolk, Duke of, to Mr. W. Ward, 
 
 ii. 436 
 O'Ferrall, Mr. More, to a friend, i. 
 
 361 
 Pollen, Mr. J., to Mr. W. Ward, i, 
 
 354 
 Pope, Rev, T. A., to a friend, 
 ii. 467 ; to Rev. Ignatius Ryder, 
 ii, 462
 
 6o8 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 St. John, Rev. A., to Rev. B. 
 
 Dalgairns, i. 120, 125, 137, 
 
 146, 148, 153, 154, 174. 181, 
 
 182 
 Sibour, Archbishop, to the Comte 
 
 de Montalembert, ii. 209 
 Smith, Canon Bernard, to Mr. W. 
 
 Ward, i. 96 
 Talbot, Mgr., to Cardinal Manning, 
 
 ii. 146 
 Ullathorne, Bishop, to Cardinal 
 
 Manning, ii. 440, 442, 446 ; to 
 
 Cardinal Nina, ii. 582 
 Wagner, Rev. Mr. (of Brighton), to 
 
 a friend, ii. 463 
 Wiseman, Cardinal, to Dr. CuUen, 
 
 i. 328 ; to Dr. Russell, i. 98, 
 
 99 
 
 Lewin, Mr., i. 281, 283 
 
 Lewis, David, i. 84, 113, 115, 124, 
 126. ii. 196. See also Letters 
 
 Lewis, Sir G. Cornewall, ii, 44 
 
 Liberal Catholicism : dangerous sym- 
 ptoms of, on the Continent, i. 306 ; 
 its different forms, 458, 460 ; origin 
 and progress of the movement, 460, 
 et seq. ; Lacordaire's theory of Ultra- 
 montane Liberalism, 461 ; oppo- 
 sition of Pius IX. to, 462 ; anti- 
 Christian trend of, on the Con- 
 tinent, 463, et seq. ; Lord Acton's 
 attitude towards, 467-469; W. G. 
 Ward's opposition to, 469-471 ; 
 Newman's attitude towards lea'lers 
 of the movement, 471, 477 ; leaders 
 of the movement in England, 474- 
 476. And the Encyclical Quanta 
 Cura, ii. 79 ; effect of Vatican 
 Council on, 371 ; definition of Infal- 
 libility a check to the movement, 
 419, 420 
 
 Liberalism in religious thought, New- 
 man's war against, i. 4, 8 ; at Oxford, 
 43, et seq., 312. ii. 486. Catholic 
 Church an antidote to, i. 413. 
 Newman's address on, as Cardinal, 
 ii. 459 ; views of Newman on, 460, 
 461, 462. Also referred to, i. 571. 
 ii. 209, 214 
 
 Liberatore, Fr., S.J., ii. 197 
 
 ♦ Library of the Fathers, The,' i. 57 
 
 Liddon, II. P. (Canon), his intluence 
 withdrawn from Oxford, ii. 486. 
 See also 384 
 
 Lightfoot, J. B. (Bishop of Durham), 
 i. 469 
 
 Lilly, Mr. W. S., ii. 487 
 
 Lingard, Dr., i. 635 
 
 Literature, Newman's desire to create a 
 Catholic, i. 315; and I he Church, 
 410, 411 
 
 Littledale, Dr. : Newman protests 
 against ' Plain Reasons,' ii. 487 
 
 Littlemore, i. 71, 74, 76, 79, et seq., 
 85, 115, 116, 121, 137, 150, 193, 
 203, 217, 338, 618. ii. 205, 338, 
 
 349. 431 
 
 ' Lives of the Saints,' edited by Father 
 Faber, i. 171, 206, et seq. ii. 8, et 
 seq., 420 
 
 Llandaff, Viscount (Mr. Henry Mat- 
 thews), i. 280-28 1 
 
 Locke, i. 34, 269 
 
 Lockhart, Rev. W. : his hopes for Re- 
 union, ii. 99 ; his sympathy with 
 the * Eirenicon,' ii. 102 
 
 London Oratory, first suggested, i. 
 216; a start made in King William 
 Street, 217-218; Newman's atti- 
 tude towards its beginning, 218- 
 220, 221, 227-229, 341 ; Newman 
 describes its opening, 2 20- 221 ; 
 summary of relations between Bir- 
 mingham and, 223-226 ; hymns of, 
 224-225 ; its great work, 228 ; 
 Newman delivers lectures at (cf. 
 'Difficulties of Anglicans'), 230; 
 account of its separation from Bir- 
 mingham, 450, et seq. Honours 
 Newman as Cardinal, ii. 472 ; 
 Newman visits, 517. Referred to, 
 
 i. 580 
 London University, ii. 68, 195 
 Longman, Messrs., ii. 20, 21, 23, 
 
 25 
 Loreto, i. 192, 193, 197, 198. li. 342 
 
 ' Loss and Gain,' i. 117, 191, 260. ii. 
 
 328, 336, 559, 591 . 
 Louvain University, i. 251, 276, 35 1, 
 
 355, 364, 628-629. ii. 50, 64, 
 
 502 
 Lucas, Frederick, i. 335, 337, 381, 
 
 484, 633 
 Luther, i. 623, 625 
 Lyell, Sir C, on Newman, ii. 34 
 Lyons, Dr., i. 350, 359, 629 
 ♦ Lyra Apostolica,' i. 52, 56, 224, 225. 
 
 ii. 320, 356 
 
 Macaulay, Lord, i. 142 
 
 Maccabe, Cardinal (Archbishop of 
 
 Dublin), i. 324 
 McCarthy, Mr. Florence^ Denis, i. 
 
 359«-.'379 
 MacColl, Canon, see Letters 
 McGettigan, Daniel (Archbishop of 
 
 Armagh), ii. 464 
 McHale, John (Archbishop of Tuam), 
 
 i. 322, 325, 326, 338, 360, 366, 370, 
 
 37I; 375- 379 «•, 381, 430- ii- i93- 
 See also Letters
 
 INDEX 
 
 6og 
 
 Mcintosh, Dr. (of Queen's College, 
 Belfast), i. 308 
 
 Macmrllan's Magazine, ii. I 
 
 Macmullen, Canon R. G., i. 108 «. ii. 
 516. See also Letters 
 
 Maguire, Dr., i. 253, 419 
 
 Malachi, St., Prophecies of, concern- 
 ing modern Popes, ii. 371 
 
 Mallock, Mr. W. H., ii. 572 
 
 Malta, Proposed Oratory at, i. 182 ; 
 idea abandoned, 184. Oratory at, 
 offered to Newman by Pius IX., ii. 
 218. Also referred to, i. 52, 279 n. 
 ii. 119 
 
 Manning, Henry Edward (Cardinal 
 Archbishop): his opposition to 'mixed ' 
 education and Oxford scheme, i. 12- 
 13 ; a representative of the ' New 
 Ultramontane' party, 13, 19, 24; his 
 visit to Rome in 1847, 191, 193; and 
 the Gorham case, 230 ; received into 
 the Catholic Church, 264 ; invited 
 by Newman to be Vice-Rector 
 of the Catholic University, 319 ; on 
 Newman's difficulties in Dublin, 
 363 ; consulted by Newman on new 
 English version of the Scriptures, 
 419 ; leads crusade on behalf of Tem- 
 poral Power, 521, et seq. ; suggests 
 that Acton should dissociate himself 
 from the Rambler, 523, et seq. ; helps 
 to found the Academia, 524, 525 ; and 
 the Rambler, 534, et seq. ; transfers 
 the Dublin Review to W. G. 
 Ward, 546. Opposed to an Oxford 
 Catholic College and Oratory, in 
 1864, ii. 54, 60, 64-65, 67-68, 73, 
 79, 542; denounces the A. P. U.C., 
 81-82, 91; made Archbishop, 87; 
 desires to obtain a bishopric for New- 
 man, 88-89 ; Newman attends his 
 consecration, 89-90, 161 ; his reply 
 to Pusey's ' Eirenicon,' no-112 ; and 
 the Oxford question in 1867, 122- 
 123, 135, 182, 200-203, 543-544. 
 547-548; Newman's opinion of 
 Manning's attitude towards himself, 
 125; his criticism on the address of 
 the English Catholic laity to New- 
 man in 1867, 144-146; supports 
 Ward's view of Infallibility, 15 1 ; 
 anxious for a rapprochement with 
 Newman, 181, 182; and the Oratory 
 School, 191 ; and the attempt to 
 start a Catholic University, 195-199; 
 his vow to promote definition of 
 Papal Infallibility, 210; issues pas- 
 torals in favour of Infallibility which 
 are attacked by Dupanloup, 283, 286; 
 a member of the Metaphysical 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 Society, 332, 333 n. ; his ' Cjesarism 
 and Ultramontanism,' 401-402 ; and 
 Newman's Cardinalate, 435, 438, 
 440-443, 446, et seq., 582 ; his arbi- 
 tration in the dock strikes, 533, 534. 
 Also referred to, i. 260, 311, 317, 
 329, 332 «., 357, 373, 386, 494, 
 537 "■, 551. 566, 616, 654. ii. 36, 
 97, loi, 102, 108, 109, 121, 124, 
 127, 128, 152, 155-156, 158, 164, 
 165, 170, 176, 179, 487, 517, 555, 
 560, 561, 574, 575. See also 
 Letters 
 Manzoni, Alessandro, i. 142, 143. ii. 
 
 23 
 Marriott, Charles, i. 94. ii. 377, 513, 
 
 571 
 Marshall, Rev. Henry, i. 108, 182 
 Marshall, Thomas William, i. 130. 
 
 ii. 199 
 Mai tin, Mr. (correspondent of the 
 Weekly Register), his Roman letter to 
 Weekly Register, April 6, 1867, 
 140 ; its text, 543, 544 ; also re- 
 ferred to, 151, 175, 187, 188, 192, 
 
 547 
 
 Marlineau, James, ii. 4, 395 
 
 Maryvale (Old Oscott), the first house 
 of the Oxford converts, i. 109, et 
 seq.; its history, 119; Oxford con- 
 verts' life at, 120-121, 122-126; 
 beginnings of the Oratory at, 197, 
 et seq.; Newman leaves, 214; also 
 referred to, 105, 150, 154, 157, 
 166-167, 172, 177, 190, 192, 202. 
 ii. 451 
 
 Maskell, Mrs., ii. 415-416. See also 
 Letters 
 
 Maurice, Frederick Denison, i. 312, 
 421. ii. 4 
 
 Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, ii. 
 118, 120 
 
 Mayence, Theological School of, i. 465, 
 466 n. 
 
 Mayer, Rev. Walter, i. 30. ii. 512 
 
 Maynooth. i. 334, 335, 6i5. ii. 407, 
 408, 561 
 
 Mazio, Padre, i. 147, 168. ii. 270 
 
 Mazzini. Giuseppe, i. 193, 195, 470 
 
 ' Meditations and Devotions,' extracts 
 from Newman's, ii. 364-368 
 
 Mediterranean, Voyage of Newman in 
 the, i. 51, 52 
 
 Melbourne, Lord, i. 312. ii. 53 
 
 Mellerio, Count, i. 142, 145 
 
 Mendelssohn, ii. 350-351 
 
 Mercier, Cardinal, and the scholastic re- 
 vival, i. 463. Founds the Institut de 
 St. Thomas at Louvain University, 
 ii. 502 
 
 R R
 
 6io 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Metaphysical Society, The, ii. 332, et 
 seq. 
 
 Meynell, Dr. Charles, ii. 243. See also 
 Letters 
 
 Milan, Newman's visit to, and impres- 
 sion of, i. 135-146 
 
 Mill, J. S., i. II, 169 «., 308, 417. ii, 
 44. 48, 197,494 
 
 Millais, Sir J. E., paints Newman's 
 picture, ii. 516 
 
 Mills, Fr. Austin, i. 339. ii. 41, 458, 
 540. See also Letters 
 
 Milman, Henry Hart (Dean), ii. 44 
 
 Milner, John (Vicar Apostolic of Mid- 
 land District), i. 119, 120. ii. 107, 
 148 
 
 Milner, Joseph, his Church History, i. 
 42 
 
 Milton, ii. 44, 319 
 
 ' Miracles, Essay on,' dedication of, ii. 
 383 ; referred to, 396 n. 
 
 Miracles, Newman's philosophy of, ii. 
 
 9, 342-343. 494 
 
 Mohler, Johann Adam (author of 
 the, Symbolik'), i. 308, 315, 461, 
 46s 
 
 Monde, The, and the Encyclical 
 Quanta Cura, ii. 80 
 
 Monica, St., i. 139 
 
 Monk, Maria, i. 273 
 
 Monophysites, i. 67, 237, 616 
 
 Monothelite heresy, ii. 214 
 
 Monsell, The Right Hon. William, see 
 Emly, Lord 
 
 Montalembert, Comte de, and Liberal 
 Catholicism, i. 10, 459-461 ; New- 
 man's sympathy with, 19, 315, 388, 
 471 ; his Ultramontanisni, 461 ; also 
 referred to, i. 397, 465, 474, 495, 550, 
 636. ii. 80, 83, 209, 211. See also 
 Letters 
 
 Monte Cassino, Newman visits, i. 
 188 
 
 Monteith, Robert, i. 521. ii. 52 
 
 Month, The, ii. 99, 114, 115, 205, 347, 
 
 425 
 Moran, Cardinal (sometime Bishop of 
 
 Ossory), ii. 464 n. 
 Moriarty, Dr. (Bishop of Kerry), i. 
 
 216, 311,317,320, 341, 347, 350, 
 
 354, 361 «., 366, 372, 374, 378, 
 
 382, 628. ii. 289, 401. See also 
 
 Letters 
 Morley, Viscount, of Blackburn, i. 2, 
 
 405. ii. 402 
 Morris, John Brande, i. 84, iii, 113, 
 
 120, 603 
 Morris, William, ii. 355 
 Mostyn, Bishop (Vicar Apostolic of 
 
 Northern District), i. iii 
 Moylan, Dean, i. 317 
 
 Mozart, ii. 350 
 
 Mozley, Miss Ann, i. 29. ii. 513 
 
 Mozley, James Bowling, ii. 387, 513, 
 
 570, 571 
 Mozley, Mrs. J. B., ii. 387, 388 
 Mozley, J. R., ii. 517, 519. See also 
 
 Letters 
 Mozley, Mrs. John (Jemima Newman), 
 
 i. 41, 70, 85, 618. ii. 479. See 
 
 also Letters 
 Mozley, Thomas, i. 27 «., 50. ii. 
 
 303, 513 
 
 Mozley, Mrs. Thomas (Harriet New- 
 man), i. 28, 41, 51. ii. 339. See 
 also Letters 
 
 Miiller, Max, i. 539 
 
 Munich, i. 192 
 
 Munich Brief, The, a censure of 
 Dollinger's address at the Munich 
 Congress, i. 564, et seq. ; effect of, on 
 Newman and on the intellectual 
 movement among German Catholics, 
 585. ii. 48. Newman's analysis 
 of, i. 640, et seq. 
 
 Munich Congress, The, i. 469, 562, 
 et seq. ii. 372, et seq. 
 
 Munich School, The, W. G. Ward's 
 antipathy to, i. 47 ; aims of, 459, 
 et seq. ; meets with opposition, 465 ; 
 its theological differences with School 
 of Mayence, 465 n. ; the Rambler 
 adopts its general policy, 474, 495 ; 
 its orthodoxy suspected, 564 
 
 Munro, Miss, see Letters 
 
 Murray, Dr., Archbishop of Dublin, i. 
 275. 305. 3". et seq., 334, 366 
 
 Murray, Dr., of Maynooth, ii. 152, 
 
 153 
 
 Naples : Newman's impressions of, i. 
 
 188-190 ; also referred to, 52, 
 
 279 n., 280, 283 
 Napoleon I., i. 313, 651 
 Napoleon HI., i. 519. ii. 209, 
 
 554 
 
 Nardi, Mgr., ii. 163, 164, 174 ; his visit 
 to Newman, 188, et seq. 
 
 Natio7i, The (Irish), i. 362 
 
 Neve, Mgr. (Rector of English Col- 
 lege), ii. 149, 158, 163, 164, 165, 
 
 170, I73> 538 
 
 Neville, Dr. (of Maynooth), ii. 407- 
 409 
 
 Neville, Fr. William Paine, New- 
 man's literary executor, i. I ; re- 
 ceived into the Catholic Church, 
 264. Constant companion of New- 
 man, ii. 432 ; goes to Rome with 
 Newman, 457. Quoted, i. 149,315, 
 345. 348, 385. 393, 425, 451. "•
 
 INDEX 
 
 6ii 
 
 351-353. 359-364, 439. 458-462, 
 468, 470-471, 473. 475-476, 481, 
 512, 513. 515. 530, 532, 533. 534. 
 536, 537. Also referred to, i. 27 «., 
 
 29«., 147, 193, 194. 354, 579, 648, 
 651. ii. 41,53, 107. 130, 138, 190, 
 410, 411, 453, 464 n., 465, 540. 
 See also Letters 
 Nevins, Willis, see Letters 
 New Inn Hall (Oxford), i. 646 
 Newman, Charles, ii. 317, 339 
 Newman, P'rancis William, i. 123,625. 
 
 ii- 349 
 
 Newman, Harriet, see Mrs. Thomas 
 Mozley 
 
 Newman, Jemima, see Mrs. John 
 Mozley 
 
 Newman, Mr. John, i. 27 n. 
 
 Newman, Mrs., see Letters 
 
 Newman, Rev. John Henry (afterwards 
 Cardinal), birth and parentage, i. 27 ; 
 childhood, 28 ; boyhood and school- 
 days, 29 ; his early sense of the pre- 
 sence of God in conscience, 30 ; 
 avows a tendency towards intellectual 
 scepticism, 31 ; goes up to Oxford, 
 32 ; Bowden's friendship, 33 ; Gib- 
 bon's influence on his style, 34 ; 
 graduates, 34 ; elected Fellow of 
 Oriel College, Oxford, 34 ; influence 
 on him of the Oriel Noetics, 34-36 ; 
 influence of Whately, 37, et sec]. ; 
 early friendship with Blanco White, 
 38, et seq. ; takes orders : his first 
 curacy, 38 ; appointed Vicar of St. 
 Mary's, 40 ; the death of his sister 
 Mary, 40, 41 ; reaction against 
 Liberalism and inlellectualism, 4, 
 ei seq., 41 ; influenceof the Fathers, 
 41 ; differences with the Provost on 
 the subject of the Oriel tutorship, 
 42-43 ; ' The Arians of the Fourth 
 Century,' 46-50, 80, 296, 444, 637 ; 
 Mediterranean voyage, 50 ; he writes 
 'St. Athanasius' and other poems, 
 51-62 ; ' Lyra Apostolica,' 52, 55, 
 et seq. ; visit to Rome, impressions 
 of the city, 53-54 ; illness in Sicily, 
 54 ; ' Lead, kindly Light,' 55 ; the 
 danger of English Disestablishment, 
 56 ; beginning of the Oxford Move- 
 ment, Keble's sermon on National 
 Apostasy, 56 ; ' Tracts for the Times,' 
 5, et seq., 56, et seq. ; defence of 
 Anglican Church against Erastianism, 
 4, et seq., 56, et seq. ; edits the 
 ' Library of the Fathers,' 57, and the 
 British Critic, 57, 70 ; censures the 
 appointment of Dr. Hampden, 57 ; 
 ' Sermons preached before the Uni- 
 versity of Oxford,' on the Philo- 
 
 sophy of Faith, 58-59 ; ' Lectures on 
 the Prophetical Office,' 59; ' Paro- 
 chial Sermons,' 60 ; intellectual repu- 
 tation, credo in New m annum, 60, 
 et seq. ; compared by J. A. Froude to 
 Julius Ca:sar, 61 ; personal charm and 
 power over Oxford disciples, 61-66 ; 
 description of, by Aubrey de Vere, 
 66 ; his doubts of Anglicanism, 67, 
 et seq. ; affected by Wiseman's 
 ' Schism of the Donatists,' 67, et seq. ; 
 Romanising influence of W. G. Ward 
 and the new disciples, 67, et seq. ; 
 * Sermons on Subjects of the Day,' 
 70 ; Gladstone's ' Church and State,' 
 70 ; the Roman tendency brought a 
 change in the character of the Oxford 
 Movement, 4, 71 ; Tract 90, p. ']\,et 
 seq. ; its censure by the Hebdomadal 
 Board, 72, et seq. ; the Bishopric 
 of Jerusalem, 74 ; Newman leaves 
 Oxford and retires to Littlemore, 
 75 ; his parish of Littlemore, 71, 
 74-78 ; Roman convictions, 76 ; 
 resigns vicarage of St. Mary's, 76 ; 
 retracts former criticisms of Rome, 
 76 ; sermon on the ' Parting of 
 Friends,' 76 ; edits the ' Lives ot 
 the English Saints,' 77-78; closing 
 scenes of the Oxford Movement, 79, 
 et seq. ; Ward's ' Ideal of a Chris- 
 tian Church,' 79 ; Blanco White's 
 autobiography, its effect on New- 
 man, 80-82 ; the death-bed of his 
 Anglican life, 6, 82, et seq. ; writes the 
 ' Essay on the Development of Chris- 
 tian Doctrine {q-v), 2,S^,Sb,et seq., 
 615-617 ; a visit to Littlemore 
 from Mr. Bernard Smith, 83 ; many 
 of his friends received into the 
 Catholic Church, 84 ; life at Little- 
 more, 84-85 ; resigns Oriel Fellow- 
 ship, 92 ; final steps towards Rome, 
 92, et seq. ; his reception into the 
 Catholic Church by Father Dominic, 
 94, et seq. ; subsequent meeting 
 with Dr. Wiseman, 96 ; Old Oscott 
 offered to Newman and the converts, 
 100 ; Faber and others received into 
 the Church, lOl ; intercourse with 
 old English Catholics, 101-102 ; 
 visit to Catholic Colleges, 102-103, 
 109-112 ; meets Dr. Griffiths, 102- 
 103 ; returns to Oscott, 103-105 ; 
 plans for the future, 105 ; dis- 
 trust of the converts by the 
 old English Catholics, 105 ; Fr. 
 Dominic's letter on Littlemore in the 
 Tablet, 106- 108 ; further conversions, 
 107- 109; Pusey and the converts, 
 108- 1 09 ; estrangement from old 
 
 R R 2
 
 6l2 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 friends, compensations, I12-I13 ; 
 parts with Littlemore and accepts Old 
 Oscott, 113, et seq. ; visit from Pusey, 
 114; arrives at Maryvale, 117; final 
 parting from Oxford, 116-117; 
 declines to write his reasons for 
 becoming a Catholic, 121-122 ; visit 
 from Frank Newman, 123 ; sug- 
 gested schemes for the future, 123, et 
 seq. ; Maryvale as a possible training 
 ground for Divinity students, 124 ; 
 plans for founding an English Oratory, 
 143, 144, 153, 166, 167, 169, 170, 
 174, 176; conversions of old friends, 
 127-128 ; proposed visit to Rome, 
 128-131, et seq. ; anxiety for Henry 
 Wilberforce's conversion, 12(), et seq., 
 153, 618, et seq. ; relations with W. 
 Froude (q.v.), 622-627, et passim ; 
 Pusey's illness, 131 ; Lord Shrews- 
 bury's guest at Alton Towers, 133 ; 
 journey to Rome, i^^,etseq. ; Milan 
 brings home to him the Church of 
 the Fathers, 1^8, et seq. ; his opinions 
 on Grecian and Gothic architecture, 
 1 39- 1 41 ; visits from many old 
 friends, 142 ; Rosmini and his philo- 
 sophy, 143; arrival at Rome, 144; 
 first impressions of the Collegio di 
 Propaganda Fide, 144, 145, 147, 153; 
 first audience with Pope Pius IX., i, 
 148 ; life at the Collegio di Propa- 
 ganda, 149, et seq. ; the Saint Isidore 
 Sermon, 154-156, 170, 174; mis- 
 understandings with some Roman 
 theologians, 156, et seq. ; the re- 
 ception of the ' Essay on Develop- 
 ment' in Scotland, 156-157; in 
 Rome, 158-175 ; in America, 159- 
 r6i, 168; French translation of' De- 
 velopment ' and ' Oxford University 
 Sermons,' 161, 168-174 ; Reason and 
 Faith (q.v.), 163-165, 168, 172, et 
 passim ; Rosmini and the need of a 
 new philosophy, 166 ; Roman philo- 
 sophy — scholasticism out of favour, 
 166-167 ; scheme for forming an 
 English dependency on Propaganda, 
 167, 170; publishes Latin treatise 
 on St. Athanasius, 172, 173 ; 
 Oratorian plans for future outlined, 
 176-177 ; Oratorian life, 176-179; 
 the Holy Father and the Oratorian 
 plan, 180-183 ; Roman noviciate 
 for English Oratorians, 180- 183 ; 
 receives the Orders of Subdeaconate, 
 Deaconate and Priesthood, 183- 
 184 ; visit to Oratorians at Naples, 
 188-189 ; and to the Abbey of 
 Monte Cassino, 188 ; writes ' Loss 
 and Gain,' 191 ; end of noviciate, last 
 
 days at Rome, 191 ; visit to Dol- 
 linger, 192-193 ; Italian national 
 movement, 193-196 ; inauguration 
 of the Birmingham Oratory, its first 
 community, 198-199; trials of these 
 years, 200-201 ; numerous recruits 
 and scheme for branch houses, 
 201 ; joined by the Wilfridians of 
 Cotton Hall, Cheadle, 202-205 5 
 preaches Lenten sermons in London, 
 205206 ; Faber's ' Lives of Italian 
 Saints,' 206-214 ; opposition to the 
 ' Lives ' from Bishop U Hat home 
 and English Catholics, 207-214; 
 leaves Maryvale for St. Wil- 
 frid's, Cheadle, 214; criticisms 
 of the old English Catholics on 
 the Oratorians' work, 214-216; 
 the new Oratory in Alcester Street, 
 Birmingham, 216; foundation of 
 the London Oratory, 216-221 ; 
 impetuous eagerness of the young 
 Oratorians in London, 218-221 ; 
 difficulties in regard to the future of 
 St. Wilfrid's, 221-222 ; the Ora- 
 torians and theologico - historical 
 studies, 223 ; differences of tone 
 and habit between tlie two Oratories, 
 223226 ; Oratorian poetry, 224- 
 225 ; more postulants, 226-227 ! the 
 services of Newman and other Ora- 
 torians during the Bilston cholera, 
 227 ; success of the London Orato- 
 rians, 228 ; the ' Sermons for Mixed 
 Congregations,' 228-230 ; the ' Gor- 
 ham case,' 230; lectures on the 
 ' Difficulties of Anglicans ' at the 
 King William Street Oratory, 230, et 
 seq. ; correspondence with his Angli- 
 can friends, 235, et seq. ; the High 
 Church position, 236, 237, 240 ; 
 Henry Wilberforce and his wife 
 received into the Church, 239 ; the 
 Rambler and Catholic thought and 
 expression, 243, et seq. ; his corre- 
 spondence with F. M. Capes, 247 ; 
 an honorary degree of Doctor of 
 Divinity conferred on Newman, 252 ; 
 fears concerning Wiseman's ' go- 
 ahead ' policy, 253 ; the restoration 
 of the English Hierarchy and Wise- 
 man's letter from the Flaminian 
 Gate, Rome, 253, et seq. ; the letter 
 of Lord John Russell to the Bishop of 
 Durham, 255 ; indignation meetings 
 to protest against Papal Aggression, 
 255, ^/ seq. ; Wiseman's 'Appeal to the 
 English People,' 256 ; the aggressive 
 bigotry of the English people, 257- 
 304, et passim ; Newman's attitude 
 towards it, 258-260; Capes's lectures
 
 INDEX 
 
 613 
 
 against the ' aggression ' agitation, 
 259, etseq. ; his views on the position 
 of the Established Church, 258-261 ; 
 plans proposed for meeting the 
 agitation, 262-274 ; his ' Lectures on 
 the Present Position of Cathohcs in 
 England,' 262, et seq. ; asked to found 
 a CatholicUniversity in Ireland ^q.v.), 
 275-276 ; Newman's charges against 
 Dr. Achilli, 276, 279; Achilli brings 
 action for libel against, 276, et seq. ; 
 Wiseman's article on Achilli, 278 ; 
 difficulty of collecting evidence on 
 Newman's side, 280, et seq. ; the atti- 
 tude of Judge Campbell, 281, et seq. ; 
 the Oratory moved to Hagley Road, 
 Edgbaston, 281 ; reasons for a com- 
 promise in the Achilli case, 284-285 ; 
 ' Lectures on the Scope and Nature 
 of University Education,' 290 304 ; 
 the Achilli trial commences, 290 ; 
 the verdict, 292 ; the after-effects of 
 the trial, 292, et seq. ; the first Synod 
 of Oscott, sermon on * the Second 
 Spring,' 295 ; enormous costs of 
 litigation, defrayed by the whole 
 CathoUc world, 294, 304 ; goes up 
 to London for judgment, 296 ; the 
 demand for a new trial, 297-300 ; 
 refused, 300 ; the closing scenes in 
 court, 300-304 ; death of Fr. Joseph 
 Gordon, 302 ; the Catholic Univer- 
 sity in Ireland, 8, 9, 305, et seq. ; the 
 attitude of rival factions, 305, et seq., 
 628, et seq. ; Newman's views on the 
 advance of scientific thought, the 
 secularist intellectual atmosphere of 
 the age, 306-310; the Synod of 
 Thurles, 310-31 1 ; Newman's sym- 
 pathy with the attitude of Dr. Russell 
 as contrasted with that of Dr. Cullen, 
 310, et seq. ; accepts Rectorship of 
 Irish University, 311 ; his trust in the 
 Holy See, 312-313 ; proposal to make 
 Newman a bishop, 326, et seq. ; oppo- 
 sition to the University from Irish 
 persons of influence, 334, etseq., 356- 
 358, 385-386; travels in Ireland, 
 T^yj, etseq. ; opening of the Brompton 
 Oratory, 341 ; inaugural address to 
 new University on Christianity and 
 Letters, 342 ; routine life of the Uni- 
 versity, 344, et seq. ; scheme for an 
 Oratory at Dublin, 346-347 ; builds 
 the University Church, 346-349 ; 
 preaches many of the ' Occasional 
 Sermons ' before the University, 
 348 ; the medical schools, 349 ; the 
 Atlantis, designed to aid the scien- 
 tific department in the University, 
 350, 418, et seq. ; question of State 
 
 recognition, 351, 628-629; letters 
 
 to the Catholic Standard ox\Qnxi\&z.'a. 
 War, 352-354 ; misunderstandings, 
 resigns Rectorship, 355, 362, 366, 370, 
 374, 445, ^^j^^., 629-633 ; reasons 
 for the failure, 355, et seq. ; Newman's 
 account of his differences with Dr. 
 Cullen, 365, et seq., 380-386; con- 
 nection with the Rambler under 
 Mr. Capes's editorship, 417, et seq. ; 
 asKed to undertake a new English 
 version of the Bible, 10, 418-428; 
 the American translation, 426-428 ; 
 Newman's proposed Prolegomena to 
 the English translation, 423-427 ; 
 they were to deal with the philosophy 
 of Faith, 417, et seq. ; Wiseman's tour 
 in Ireland, referred to by Newman 
 in his ' Northmen and Normans in 
 England and Ireland,' 430-432 ; 
 his Essay on 'The Benedictine Cen- 
 turies ' touches on the question 
 of theological conservatism and the 
 need for new replies to new diffi- 
 culties, 432-437 ; anxieties about 
 the Rambler, 437-443 ; relations 
 with Sir J. Acton and DiJllinger, 
 443-445 ; opening of the Oratory 
 School, 445, 450-457 ; final separa- 
 tion of the Birmingham and Lon- 
 don Oratories, 450 ; development 
 of Liberal Catholicism, 458-467 ; 
 the history of the Liberal Movement 
 on the Continent, 460-467 ; New- 
 man's connection with the movement 
 and with Acton, 467, et seq. ; Acton 
 sets forth his views in the Rambler, 
 474 ; hostility to the Rambler, the 
 English Bishops and others, 4S0, 
 et seq. ; Newman becomes editor, 10, 
 481-496, 633-637 ; resigns editor- 
 ship, 496, et seq. ; his article ' On 
 Consulting the Faithful in Matters of 
 Doctrine,' 502, et seq. ; controversy on 
 clerical education in the Rambler, 
 512-518 ; on the Temporal Power 
 of the Pope, 520, et seq. ; the 
 Rambler changes its name to the 
 Hovie and Foreign Review, 536- 
 567 ; the Munich Congress, 562, 
 et seq. ; the Munich Brief, 564, 
 641-642 ; suspension of the Home 
 and Foreign Review, 565-567 ; 
 Newman's despondency, 56S, et seq. ; 
 rumours of his approaching secession 
 from the Catholic Church, 579, et seq. ; 
 his indignant published reply, 580, 
 et seq. ; letter to Mr. Albert Smith 
 on the same subject, 654 ; sad 
 days and trials, 567-614, 643-644 ; 
 friendships of these years, 594-614;
 
 6i4 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 conversion of W. Froude's daugh- 
 ter and two sons, 644-650 ; a visit 
 to Cambridge, meeting with Mr. 
 Fisher, 647-649 ; Pusey's position at 
 this time, 649 ; a visit to Ostend, 
 651-652 ; correspondence with Mr. 
 Brownlow on graces received by 
 Anglicans and on Catholic image 
 worship, 652-653 ; to the same on 
 Transubstantiation, 653. Kingsley's 
 attack in Macmillan's Magazine, ii. 
 1-6 ; Newman's defence, 1-6 ; R. H, 
 Hutton sums up the controversy in 
 \h& Spectator, i,-b, 11-12 ; Kingsley's 
 pamphlet called ' What then does Dr. 
 Newman Mean }' "j, et seq. Newman 
 publishes the ' Apologia pro Vita 
 Sua' in weekly numbers, i. Ii. ii. 
 13-46; Dean Church and others 
 consulted while he was writing the 
 'Apologia, \\.iq,etseq ; extraordinary 
 change in public opinion wrought by 
 its publication, 3 1 , etseq.; a triumph for 
 its author, 35 ; attacks on the ' Apolo- 
 gia,' 33-34> 42-43 ; Newman's analy- 
 sis in the 'Apologia' of the intellectual 
 attitude of an educated Catholic, 36- 
 45 ; Mgr. Talbot's invitation to New- 
 man to preach at Rome declined by 
 him, 47, 539 ; abolition of tests at the 
 English Universities, 48. The ques- 
 tion of Catholics frequenting English 
 Universities, i. II. ii. 50-78, 542- 
 543 ; text of the ' questions ' on the 
 subject sent to English Catholics by 
 the ecclesiastical authorities, 540-542 ; 
 scheme for a Catholic College or 
 Hall at Oxford, 50, et seq. ; Catholics 
 discouraged from going to Oxford, 
 51 ; the Oratorians buy land at 
 Oxford with a view to providing an 
 Oratory in the city, 53, et seq. Oppo- 
 sition to the scheme, i. 12. ii. 54, 
 et seq. ; opponents appeal to Rome 
 for support, 64-65 ; the scheme 
 defeated by English Bishops and 
 Propaganda, 65-71 ; Newman's 
 reasons in favour of the Oxford 
 scheme, 70-71 ; sells his Oxford 
 land, 71 ; Wiseman's death, 72, 86 ; 
 Newman writes the ' Dream of 
 Gerontius,' 76-78 ; the Encyclical 
 Quanta C«;-(Z— Newman's views on 
 the binding force of Encyclicals, 
 79-86 ; the Association for the Pro- 
 motion of the Unity of Christendom, 
 81 ; Manning created Archbishop of 
 Westminster, 87 ; Pusey's ' Eireni- 
 con ' {q.v.), 91-92, 96, et seq.; 
 Newman's last meeting with Keble 
 and Pusey, 94-97 ; Keble's death, 
 
 97-98 ; Newman deprecates the 
 doctrinal extravagances of Faber 
 and Ward, 100, et seq. ; his reply to 
 the ' Eirenicon,' 102, et seq. ; R. W. 
 Church's article in the Times on 
 Newman's ' Letter to Dr. Pusey,' 
 109, et seq. ; the question of an Ox- 
 ford Oratory revived, 121-185, 543- 
 544 ; the sanction of Propaganda ob- 
 tained, 131 ; but he himself is by a 
 ' secret instruction ' forbidden to re- 
 side there, 139; his advice as to young 
 Catholics frequenting the Universi- 
 ties, 193, 545-546 ; an address of 
 sympathy from the English laity to, 
 143, et seq., 544-545 ; he commissions 
 two Oratorian Fathers to explain his 
 views in Rome, 1 50- 185 ; Fathers 
 St. John and Bittleston are 
 sent thither, 150-185 and 546- 
 549; Father Ryder's pamphlet 
 against Ward's ' Idealism in Theo- 
 logy,' 149, 224-228 ; the con- 
 troversy that followed, 229, et seq. ; 
 Memorandum on the Oxford ques- 
 tion sent by Oratorians to Cardinal 
 Barnabo, 549-551 ; the scheme 
 abandoned, 180-185, 192-195 ; the 
 deadlock in Catholic Higher Educa- 
 tion, 186-199, 554-555 ; fears lest the 
 Oratory School should be stopped, 
 190-192 ; Dr. CuUen's highly favour- 
 able reports to Rome on Newman's 
 writings, 192 ; Newman receives an 
 invitation to help in preparing the 
 matter for discussion at the Vatican 
 Council, 192 ; Manning's scheme 
 for Catholic University College, 
 195-198; the University College, 
 Kensington, 198-199 ; Newman's 
 ' Poems,' 204 ; his farewell visit 
 to Littlemore, 205-206. ' Essay 
 in Aid of a Grammar of Assent ' 
 (q.v.), i. 12. ii. 208, 242-265; 
 Ward's reception thereof, 271, et 
 seq. ; the Papacy and Liberalism, 
 
 208, etseq. ; the Neo-Ultramontanes, 
 
 209, et seq. Discussion on Ultra- 
 montanism and Papal Infallibility, i. 
 25. ii. 212, et seq. ; Ward's attitude, 
 230-234, 237 ; which he modifies, 
 235, et seq. ; Newman's views on the 
 question, 218-223, 231, et seq., 279- 
 312 ; Mr. P. le Page Renouf and the 
 Honorius case, 235; relations between 
 theology and the definition, 238-240, 
 279-280, 295-299 ; the necessity for 
 discussion before definition, 282-283, 
 286-289, 295-299 ; his state of mind 
 during the progress of the Council, 
 299, et seq., 552; the deliberations
 
 INDEX 
 
 615 
 
 of the Council and the passing of the 
 definition, 300, et seq. ; Newman's 
 private letter to Dr. Ullathorne 
 appears in the Standard, 289 ; 
 he speaks in it of an ' insolent 
 and aggressive faction,' 289-293 ; 
 Canons of the Council on the In- 
 spiration of Scripture, 293-295 ; 
 Newman's acceptance of the dogma 
 of Infallibility, 307, et seq., 373, 
 et seq. ; his fears as to the conse- 
 quences of the definition, 308, et seq. ; 
 letters after the Council to persons 
 tried by the definition of 1870, 379, 
 et seq., 55^-559 ; discussion about 
 Catholics frequenting Oxford re- 
 opened by Dr. Northcote, 311-312; 
 Franco- Prussian War, 554 ; home- 
 life at the Oratory, 313, et seq. ; 
 Newman's own care in writing his 
 letters, 314, et seq. ; his interest in 
 past correspondence and diaries, 
 315, et seq.; his controversial me- 
 thods compared with those of Mr. 
 Gladstone, 329 ; relations with 
 R. H. Ilutton, 332, et seq. ; asked 
 to join the Metaphysical Society, 
 332-334 ; his ideal of a happy 
 life, his home at Ham, 336-340 ; 
 memories of the past, 336, et seq. ; 
 miracles and Providence, 342, et 
 seq. ; his musical attainments, re- 
 miniscences by Mr. Bellasis, 349- 
 351 ; Father Ryder's reminiscences, 
 351 ; daily life and habits and tastes 
 in literature and theology, 352 ; his 
 position in public estimation, 358 ; 
 his memoranda and mementoes, 
 361, et seq. ; relations with R. W. 
 Church and Lord Blachford, 381, 
 et seq., et passim ; a visit from Canon 
 Scott Holland, who records his im- 
 pressions, 369-370 ; the old Catholic 
 movement and Dr. DoUinger, 372 ; 
 Mgr. Fessler's book on ' True and 
 False Infallibility,' 373, et seq. ; 
 secession of Dr. DoUinger and others, 
 375. 379> 3S0; fall of the Papal 
 Sovereignty, 380 ; revision of his 
 writings, 380 ; new honours for his 
 friends Rogers and Church, 382, 
 et seq. ; an episode in St. Paul's 
 Cathedral, 385-386 ; deaths of 
 many old friends, 387-391 ; corre- 
 spondence with Principal Brown on 
 Christian Unity, 392-396 ; the 
 Gladstone controversy, 397, et seq. ; 
 Gladstone's Irish University Bill, 
 397, et seq. ; Gladstone's attack 
 on Vatican decrees, 401, et seq.; 
 Newman decides to answer Glad- 
 
 stone, 402, 559, et seq. ' The 
 Letter to the Duke of Norfolk,' 
 i. 12. ii. 403, et seq. ; Ward's 
 letter to Newman thereon, 565-566; 
 Ambrose St. John's death, 409, etseq. ; 
 other losses, 413, 569, et seq. ; 
 letters on the approach of an age 
 of infidelity, 415, et seq. ; revi- 
 sion and reprints of some of his 
 works, 418-425 ; he writes an im- 
 portant introduction to the Via 
 Media, 421-425 ; elected Honorary 
 Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, 
 425-432 ; other manifestations of 
 respect, 425, et seq. ; dedication of 
 new edition of ' Development' to the 
 Fellows of Trinity, 426-429 ; a visit 
 to Trinity College, 429-431 ; elec- 
 tion of Pope Leo XIII., 432, 435 j 
 proposal that Newman should be 
 created a Cardinal, 435, et seq. ; the 
 Duke of Norfolk's reasons for 
 making the suggestion to Leo XIII., 
 436-438 ; the report that Newman 
 had refused the Hat, 443 ; text of 
 Manning's tribute to Newman, 577- 
 578 ; official offer of the Cardinalate 
 45°> 5^3 ; congratulations from 
 friends, 452, 577, et seq. ; his reasons 
 for accepting tlie honour, 586; journey 
 to Rome, audience with the Pope, 
 457 ; the Cfjnsistory, 458 ; text of the 
 address to Cardinal Newman from 
 British residents at Rome, 464 ; he 
 hopes to change the attitude of Dr. 
 DoUinger, 466 ; letter to W. Froude 
 on the reasonableness of Faith, 465, 
 586-592 ; death of W. Froude, 466 ; 
 the journey home, 467, et seq. ; final 
 tasks, 472-537 ; the reception of the 
 Cardinal at Norfolk House, 472 ; 
 visit to Trinity (Oxford), sermon at 
 St. Aloysius's Church, 473 ; corre- 
 spondence on Higher Education 
 for Catholics, 473, et seq., 484-487 ; 
 his views placed before the Pope, 
 486 ; the necessity of revising the 
 defences of Christianity, 474, et seq. ; 
 death of his sister, Mrs. John 
 Mozley, 479 ; loss of other friends, 
 480-483 ; recollections of child- 
 hood, 483 ; encourages the work of 
 Catholic and Christian Apologetics, 
 487-497 ; his interest in the writings 
 of Catholics— Mr. W. S. Lilly, 
 Father Ryder, Mr. Wilfrid Ward, 
 488-489 ; visit from Mr. Ward, 
 explanations as to past differences 
 with W. G. Ward and conversation 
 on modern unl)elief, 490-497 ; the 
 relation of Science to Theology, the
 
 6i6 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 training needed for a nineteenth- 
 century theologian, 497, et seq. ; 
 Catholic teaching on the Inspiration 
 of Scripture, 502, et seq. ; essay 
 on the ' Inspiration of Scripture ' 
 in the Nineteenth Century, 502- 
 505 ; essay on the ' Development of 
 Religious Error 'against Dr. Fair- 
 bairn, 505-507 ; Dr. Fairbairn's re- 
 joinder, and Newman's unpublished 
 reply, 507-511 ; last years, 512-537 ; 
 his interest in the Egyptian cam- 
 paign and Gordon's fate, 513, et seq. ; 
 sits for his portrait to MiUais, 516; 
 on political relations between Eng- 
 land and Ireland, 517 ; sermon at the 
 celebration of Sacerdotal Jubilee of 
 Pope Leo XIII., 529-530 ; meetings 
 with Bishop Ullathorne, 531-532 ; 
 closmg sceijes, 532, et seq. ; last days 
 and the end, 536-537 
 Newman, Mary, i. 40. ii. 483-484 
 Newsham, Dr., President of Ushaw, 
 i. 98, III, 204, 207, 209, 214, 228, 
 316 «., 419. See also Letters 
 Newton (Sir Isaac), i. 623, 641. ii. 
 
 33i> 590, 591 
 Neyraguet, Pere D., ii. i6 
 Nicaea, Council of, i. 503. ii. 377 
 Nicholas, Auguste, i. 397, 461, 462 
 Nicholas, Dr. : Newman at his school, 
 
 i. 29 
 Nina, Cardinal, ii. 438, 439, 440, 441, 
 
 443. 450. 457, 45^. 583- See also 
 Letters 
 
 Nineteenth Century, The : Newman 
 writes in, on the ' Inspiration of 
 Scripture,' ii. 502, et seq. ; also re- 
 ferred to, 356 
 
 Noble, Dr., see Letters 
 
 Nocera, i. 188 
 
 Noetics, The Oriel, i. 36, 37, 43, 57 
 
 Norfolk, Henry (15th Duke of), and 
 Newman's Cardinalate, ii. 435- 438, 
 443, 446, 450, 472-473. 577 ; his 
 letter to the biographer on the sub- 
 ject, 436. Referred to, i. 12, 232. 
 ii. 82, 390, 403, 432. See also 
 Letters 
 
 Norfolk, Lady Arundel and Surrey 
 Duchess of (wife of 14th Duke), con- 
 version, i. 228, 423. ii. 390, 526 
 
 Norfolk, Lord Arundel and Surrey 
 (I4ih Duke of) (Henry Granville), i. 
 297, 300, 332, 423, 604 
 
 Norris, Fr. John, ii. 349, 473. See 
 also dedication of present work. 
 
 North British Review, i. 566 
 
 Northcote, James Spencer, D. D. , i. 84, 
 108, 121, 131, 263, 302, 319. ii. 
 ^99, 3", 480. See also Letters 
 
 ' Notes on a Visit to the Russian 
 Church in 1840-1841,' pamphlet by 
 William Palmer, ii. 478 
 
 Oakeley, Frederick, joins Trac- 
 tarians, i. 67; leaves Oxford, 84; 
 received into the Catholic Church, 
 96 ; confirmed at Oscott, 98 ; settles 
 at St. Edmund's, Ware, 109 ; con- 
 tributes to the Rambler, 24^ ; tempo- 
 rary editor of Dublin Review, 481. 
 Also referred to, i. 103, 108, 131, 
 133, 479, 489, 549, 615. ii. 155, 181, 
 578, 579- See also Letters 
 
 O'Brien, Judge, i. 335 
 
 O'Brien, Smith, ii. 517 
 
 O'Callaghan, Dr. (Rector of English 
 College), ii. 464 n. 
 
 O'Curry, Eugene, i. 350, 359 «., 382, 
 629 
 
 O'Dwyer, Dr., Bishop of Limerick, i, 
 310 
 
 O'Ferrall, James, i. 335, 362 
 
 O'Ferrall, More, i. 361, 633. ii. 196 
 
 Ogilvie, Dr., ii. 571 
 
 Ogle, James Adey, i. 372. ii. 571 
 
 O'Hagan, John, i. 359. ii. 456. See 
 also Letters 
 
 O'Hagan, Lord (Lord Chancellor of 
 Ireland), i. 333, 335 
 
 Old Oscott, see Maryvale 
 
 Olier, M. (founder of St. Sulpice), 
 i. 512 
 
 Oliver, Dr., ii. 104 
 
 ' On ConsuUing the Faithful in Matters 
 of Doctrine ' — article by Newman in 
 the Rambler, i. 502 ; Newman de- 
 lated to Rome for the article, 10, 
 503 ; argument of the article, 503, 
 504 ; its effect upon Newman's 
 position in Catholic body, 504 ; it 
 pained the Pope, 504. ii. 125, 
 161 ; Mgr. Talbot on the article, 
 146, 147, 165, 166; orthodoxy of the 
 article upheld by Fr. Cardella, 174 ; 
 Franzelin attacks its theology, 174; 
 St. John and Perrone urge Newman to 
 explain, 174; Newman's reply to 
 critics, 174 [see also i. 503) ; final 
 interviews of St. John in Rome 
 about, 178, 179, 180; discussed by 
 St. John and Perrone, 546, 547, 
 548 ; Fr. Cardella's opinion of, 548, 
 549 ; Oratorian Fathers' memo- 
 randum respecting, 549. Referred 
 to, i. 358, 510, 571. ii. 167 
 
 ' On the Relation of Intellectual Power 
 to Man's True Perfection,' Ward's 
 pamphlet, i. 637, et seq. 
 Oratory, see Birmingham, Dublin,
 
 INDEX 
 
 617 
 
 London, Malta, Naples, Oxford, and 
 Roman Oratory 
 O'Reilly, Father Edmund, i. 320, 359, 
 408-409, 429, 432, 548. ii. 83, 84, 
 
 O'Reilly, John, i. 317, 327, 349, 359, 
 362 
 
 Oriel College, Fellowship gained by 
 Newman, i. 34 ; Newman's career 
 at, 36 ; his Fellowship, turning point 
 in Newman's early life, 36 ; referred 
 to, 150, 199, 227. ii. 425, 426, 
 427, 524 
 
 Origen, i. 172,434- "• 39 
 
 Ornsby, Robert, i. 296, 349, 359, 361, 
 362, 367, 370, 379, 3^3, 446, 447, 
 448, 449, 545, 581- ii. 49, 50, S7. 
 See also Letters 
 
 Oscott {see also Maryvale) : the Oxford 
 converts go to, i. 96 ; confirmation 
 of Oxford converts at, 98 ; Newman 
 visits, III ; First Synod, Newman 
 preaches at, 295 ; Second Synod, 
 418. Provincial Synod of Birming- 
 ham at, ii. 35 ; Cardinal Reisach 
 visits, 127. Referred to, i. 109, 
 197. ii. 50, 197, 438, 440, 441 
 
 Ouless, Mr., ii. 425, 427, 428 
 
 Oxenham, H. N., i. 512-518, 530 
 
 Oxford {^see also Trinity and Oriel Col- 
 leges) : Newman's influence at, in 
 1838, i. 5, 6, 66, 346. And chapters 
 ii. and iii. passim. Affection for, i. 
 7, 117, 118, 139,650. ii. 48, 370. 
 Goes up to, i. 32 ; life at, 32, et scq. ; 
 Fellow of Oriel, 34 ; curate of St. 
 Clement's, 38 ; Vicar of St. Mary's, 
 40 ; resigns vicarage of St. Mary's, 
 76 ; resigns Oriel Fellowship, 92 ; 
 leaves finally, 116, 117 ; transition of 
 intellectual character of the Univer- 
 sity between 1845 and 1850, 306, 309. 
 Abolition of tests, ii. 48 ; Newman 
 visits Littlemore in 1868, 205, et seq.\ 
 visits Oxford, 429-431, 473; New- 
 man asked to preach at opening of 
 CathoUc church, 565. Also referred 
 to, i. 124, 149, 166, 170, 190, 202, 
 205, 208, 237, 248, 312, 345. ii. 
 382 and chapters ii. and iii. passim. 
 
 Oxford : education for Catholics at, 
 Newman's interest in the question, 
 ii. 48, et seq. ; Newman's views on 
 Catholics frequenting Universities, 
 50, 70, 71, 136, 149, 150, 192- 
 195, 484, 546, 547, 555 ; offer of the 
 Mission at Oxford to Oratorians, 
 land bought in view of possibility of 
 Catholic Hall and Oratory, 51, 54; 
 plan of Hall abandoned, but Oratory 
 retained, 54, 55 ; Newman's ob- 
 
 ject in opening an Oratory, 55, 
 
 58 ; appeal for funds, 58-60 ; history 
 of the opposition to Newman's going 
 to Oxford, 62-65 ; ^^i'y petition 
 Rome to be allowed to go to Oxford, 
 65 ; prohibition of Bishops and Propa- 
 ganda against Catholics going to Ox- 
 ford, 65-69 ; end of first scheme, 
 71 ; Newman buys fresh land and 
 again offered Mission, 121 ; sanc- 
 tion of Propaganda sought for an 
 Oratory — the mission of Cardinal 
 Reisach, 122; the scheme in 
 suspense, 1 29-131 ; Newman's an- 
 nouncement of Propaganda's permis- 
 sion and the appeal for funds, 13 1- 
 I3[ ; difficulties raised by the appeal, 
 1 35 '1 37, the question of a site, 
 137, 138; the 'secret instruction' 
 forbidding Newman to go to Oxford 
 and the attack on him in the Weekly 
 Register, 138-143 ; the address of 
 sympathy from the English laity, 
 143 -149 ; Newman appeals to 
 Rome, 149 - 151 ; scheme 'hung 
 up ' pending the Roman appeal, 
 152, 153; Vathers St. John and 
 Bittleston in Rome and attitude of 
 Rome, 156-180, et passim, 546, 547 ; 
 the English Bishops and Propaganda 
 on Catholics frequenting Oxford, 
 156 «., 182, 183 ; Oratorian Fathers' 
 memorandum to Propaganda, 180, 
 549, 551 ; finally dropped, 180-187; 
 text of extract from the Weekly 
 Hej^ister, 543 ; question of a Catholic 
 College again raised, 311, 312; 
 brought before Leo XIII. , 486. Re- 
 ferred to, i. II, 12. ii. 190, 198, 
 199, 200, 374 
 
 Oxford Movement : its object, i. 5 ; 
 Newman's anxiety to develop, 6 ; 
 its beginning, 56, 57 ; in Newman's 
 view an antidote to infidelity, 56, 
 
 59 ; publication of Froude's 
 ' Memoirs,' 60, 61 ; Romanising 
 influence brought to bear upon, 67, 
 71 ; Tract 90, 72-74; 'Jerusalem 
 Bishopric,' 74 ; growing suspicion of, 
 among the Heads of Houses, 74, 75 ; 
 Ward's ' Ideal of a Christian Church,' 
 79 ; Newman retires from, 79 ; first 
 conversions, 84 ; described in ' Loss 
 and Gain,' 191 ; revival of, in 1S64, 
 593. Proposal to build a church in 
 Oxford in commemoration of, ii. 54, 
 et seq. ; Newman praises Dean 
 Church's history of, 513. Also re- 
 ferred to, i. 235, 312, 387, 592. ii. 
 
 138 
 Ozanam, Frederick, i. 13, 461, 464
 
 6i8 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Pagani, Fr., letter on Fr. Faber, i. 
 
 423 
 Paget, Bishop, ii. 520 
 Palma, Mgr., i. 183, 187, 194 
 Palmer, William, helps Oratorians in 
 Rome, ii. 158 ; hands to Propaganda 
 a statement of the Oxford question, 
 170, 173, 180; interest of New- 
 man in, 520 ; draft of his memor- 
 andum to Propaganda on behalf 
 of the Oratorian fathers, 549. Also 
 referred to, i. 167. ii. 158, 163, 164, 
 176, 178, 179, 478 
 Palmerston, Lord, i. 277, 521 
 Papacy [see also Infallibility, Vatican 
 Council ; Vatican decrees) — Rome 
 approves of Catholic University 
 in Ireland, i. 8; Newman's be- 
 lief in the practical wisdom of its de- 
 cisions, 19, 388 ; Newman's loyalty 
 to, 25. ii. 279 ; papal approval 
 of Newman's writings, 192, 240 ; 
 Duke of Norfolk on Newman's 
 attitude towards, 437 
 
 Temporal Power of the {see also 
 Pius IX., and Rambler): intolerant 
 movement in defence of, i. 10 ; New- 
 man's moderate views on, 24, 520, 
 et seq., 585 ; Newman's indignation 
 at proceedings of Victor Emmanuel 
 and Cavour, 520 ; Newman's ' The 
 Pope and the Revolution,' 520, 521; 
 Newman on the attempt to make the 
 Temporal Power ^ defide,' 521, 522, 
 523 ; Manning's extreme views on 
 the Temporal Power afterwards 
 changed, 522, 525 ; Newman on the 
 suppression of the Temporal Power, 
 380 
 Papal Aggression : Mr. Capes' lectures 
 on the, i. 259 ; rising feeling in 
 England against the new Hierarchy, 
 252, 253 ; Wiseman's policy, 253 ; 
 Wiseman summoned to Rome, 253 ; 
 Wiseman's ' Flaminian Gate ' pas- 
 toral, 254 ; Wiseman made a Car- 
 dinal, and expected to reside in 
 Rome, 254 ; the Durham Letter, 
 255> 318; Protestant indignation 
 in England at the ' Flaminian Gate ' 
 pastoral, 255 ; Wiseman's courage 
 and tact on his return to England, 
 255 ; Wiseman's ' Appeal to the 
 English People,' 256 ; Newman's 
 appreciation of Wiseman's courage, 
 256 ; Newman opposed to Wise- 
 man's ' go-ahead ' policy, 257, 258 ; 
 Newman wishes Catholics to avoid 
 boasting, 257, et seq. ; Newman de- 
 precates attacks by Catholics on An- 
 glican Church, 258, 266 ; Newman 
 
 regards the new Hierarchy as prema- 
 ture, 260 ; Newman's letters to 
 Capes, 259-266 ; Newman lectures 
 in Corn Exchange on ' Present 
 Position of Catholics,' 264 ; also 
 referred to, 232 
 
 Pascal, i. 2, 3 
 
 Passaglia, Fr., i. 172, 174 
 
 Passionists : in England, i. 222 ; in 
 Rome, 145, 147, 153, 162, 184 
 
 ' Pastor Aeternus,' the Papal decree 
 containing the definition of Infalli- 
 bility, ii. 238 
 
 Patterson, James Laird, afterwards 
 Bishop of Emmaus, on Newman's 
 differences with Cardinal Cullen, i. 
 369-370. Contributes towards Ox- 
 ford Oratory, ii. 133, 134. Also 
 referred to, i. 578-579. ii. 60, 
 61, 155. See also Letters 
 
 Pattison, Mark, intimate friend of 
 Newman, ii. 348 ; Newman corre- 
 sponds with, and visits during his 
 last illness, 480-483. Also referred 
 to, i. 22, 85, 307, 309. ii. 138. See 
 also Letters 
 
 Paul III., Pope, i. 538 
 
 Paul, Kegan, Mr., i. 191 
 
 Paul, St., of the Cross, i. 162 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, founds the Queen's 
 Colleges in Ireland, i. 275 ; Irish 
 Bishops opposed to the Queen's Col- 
 leges, 305, 310 ; also referred to, 260. 
 ii. 518 
 
 Penny, Rev. W. Goodenough, mem- 
 ber of the Maryvale community, i. 
 120, 140, 198; ordained in Rome, 
 191 ; also referred to, 154, 177, 182. 
 See also Letters 
 
 Percival, Dr., President of Trinity 
 College, Oxford, ii. 452, 525. See 
 also Letters 
 
 Perrone, Fr., steadfast friend of New- 
 man in Rome, i. 18. ii. 155, 164, 548, 
 His substantial agreement with New- 
 man's theory of development, i. 162, 
 184-187 ; and on the difierence be- 
 tween moral and demonstrative evi- 
 dence, 164 ; his treatise on ' Reason 
 and Faith,' 168 ; advises Newman to 
 explain his Ratnbler zxix^^c on ' Con- 
 sulting the Faithful,' 174, 546-548; 
 interviewed by Fr. St. John about 
 Oratory at Oxford, 546-548. Also 
 referred to, i. 147, 167, 175, 420. 
 i'- '79) 562. See also 'L.ft\X.ti% 
 
 Petavius, i. 161, 250 
 
 Petre, Lord (12th Baron), ii. 145, 
 147, 196, 435, 577 
 
 Philip, St., mentioned, passim ; New- 
 man's analysis of his Rule, 178,
 
 INDEX 
 
 619 
 
 179; Rule for English Oratories, 
 180 
 
 Phillimore, Professor J. S., i. 133 
 
 Philosophy, Newman's, see ' Develop- 
 ment ' and ' Grammar of Assent ' 
 
 'Phormio,' of Terence, i. 613. ii. 
 .73. 204 
 
 Pia, Sister Maria, see Giberne 
 
 Piedmont, i. 520. ii. 197 
 
 Pius v., St., Newman and Acton 
 on Simpson's attack on, in the 
 Rambler, i. 518-530, 533, 559 
 
 Pius VII., i. 251 
 
 Pius IX. : (t) and the formation of 
 Hierarchies in England and Holland, 
 i. 195 ; and the definition of Im- 
 maculate Conception, 195 ; opposed 
 to Queen's Colleges, Ireland, 275 ; 
 and ' Liberal ' Catholics on the Con- 
 tinent, 306, 462 ; and the Munich 
 Congress, 562, 564-565. Issues the 
 ' Syllabus Errorum ' and the Ency- 
 clical Quanta Cura, ii. 79, et seq. ; 
 character of, and frequency of his 
 public utterances, 82 ; the 'Sylla- 
 bus' not his direct work, loi ; per- 
 sonal charm of, 300, 301, 302, 371 ; 
 his intervention in the contest be- 
 tween Liberals and Ultramontanes, 
 
 .371 
 
 Pius IX. : (2) and union of Italy, 
 begins his pontificate as a reformer, 
 i. 194, 462, 463 ; flees from Rome to 
 Gaeta, 194 ; returns to Rome, 195 
 
 Pius IX. : (3) and Newman — congratu- 
 lates Newman on his conversion, i. 
 103 ; on his accession sends New- 
 man special blessing, 123 ; receives 
 in audience Newman and St. John, 
 148-149 ; suggests noviciate at Rome 
 for English Oratorians, 1 80- 183 ; 
 visits English Oratorians at Santa 
 Croce, 187 ; takes up Irish Univer- 
 sity question, 328-332 ; and New- 
 man's proposed bishopric, 328-331, 
 336. ii. 578 ; Newman's admir- 
 ation of, 82, 123, 127, 301 ; and 
 Newman's proposed Mission to Ox- 
 ford, 161, 544; his interview with 
 English Oratorian Fathers in Rome, 
 166-167 ; approves of Newman's 
 writings, 192 ; invites Newman to 
 Vatican Council, 192, 281. New- 
 man out of sympathy with his policy, 
 i. 388. ii. 435. Also referred to, i. 
 192, 519. ii. 124-125, 139, 210, 
 404 «., 500, 560 
 
 riusx.,i. 558 
 
 ' Plain Reasons against Joining the 
 Church of Rome,' by Dr. Littledale, 
 Newman's protest against, ii. 487 
 
 Polding, Bishop, i. 133 
 
 Pollen, Mr. John H., i. 347-348, 354- 
 
 355. 359. 364. 387. ii- 319, 444- 
 
 See also Letters 
 Pompeii, i. 188 
 Poncia, Mrs., ii. 414 
 Poole, Mother Imelda, i. 288, 290, 
 
 293, 294, 295, 296. ii. 62, 67, 112, 
 
 266, 411, 480. See also Letters 
 Pope. Fr., Thomas Alder, ii. loi, 127, 
 
 154, 438, 441, 456-457, 463, 467. 
 See also Letters 
 
 Portal, Melville, see Letters 
 
 Power, Mr. F., ii. 514, 515 
 
 Prayer-Book, The English : its inte- 
 grity defended in the ' Tracts for the 
 Times,' i. 56 
 
 ' Present Position of Catholics, Lec- 
 tures on the,' delivered in the Bir- 
 mingham Corn Exchange ; circum- 
 stances which determined their de- 
 livery, i. 263-265 ; illustrative ex- 
 tracts from, 265-272; the summing 
 up, 272 ; the lesson to be learnt 
 by Catholics, 272-274 ; lead to 
 the Achilli trial, i. 275-276, 278- 
 279. Quoted, ii. 9. Also referred to, 
 i. 232, 275, 303. ii. 31, 316, 383, 
 
 559 
 
 Price, The Rev. Mr., i. 207-209; 211- 
 212; 213 
 
 Prior Park, i. I02, 109, no, 3S8 
 
 Privy Council gives its decision in the 
 Gorham case, i. 230 
 
 Probability {see ' Grammar of Assent ') ; 
 Newman's views similar to those 
 of De Lugo, i. 163; its meaning in 
 Newman's philosophy, 168, 169 
 
 Prolegomena, see Bible 
 
 Propaganda, Collcgio di, selected as 
 habitat for the English Oratorians 
 in Rome, i. 126 ; English Oratorians' 
 life at, 144-152, 166, 167 
 
 Propaganda, Congregation of, and 
 England, i. 167, 558-560. ii. 420. 
 Newman's idea for Oratorians to form 
 College in England as a dependency 
 of, i. 166-167, 170; Newman's criti- 
 cism of its action in intellectual con- 
 troversies, 560, 584 ; and Newman's 
 writings, 586, 588. And Catholics at 
 Oxford, ii. 68, 69 ; its sanction sought 
 for an Oratory at Oxford, 1 22 ; 
 sanctions Newman's scheme for an 
 Oratory at Oxford, 131 ; rebukes 
 Newman for preparing boys of 
 Oratory School for Oxford, 135 
 Newman complies with Propa 
 ganda's wishes, 191, 192, 193 
 ' secret instruction ' of, to forbid New- 
 man's residence at Oxford, 139, 1 87
 
 620 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 warned by Manning regarding the 
 address to Newman in 1867, 145, 
 146 ; letter of English Bishops to, 
 regarding Catholics going to Oxford, 
 156 «. ; its dissuasion of Catholics 
 from going to Oxford, 182; New- 
 man's eliorts to defend its action, 
 198, 199; and the Oxford mission, 
 550, 551. Also referred to, i. 184, 
 450, 451. ii. 72 
 
 ' Prophetical Office,' Lectures on, see 
 Via Media, \. 160. ii. 400, 418, 576 
 
 Pugin, Augustus Welby, i. 205, 257, 
 260 
 
 Punch caricatures the London Ora- 
 torians, i. 218, 252 
 
 Punishment, Eternal, Newman on 
 belief in, i. 246, ei seq., 440. ii. 
 
 510. 589 
 
 Purcel], Dr., Archbishop of Cincin- 
 nati, ii. 561 
 
 Purgatory, Newman's verses on, ii. 
 319, 320; Newman's speculations 
 about, 567, 568, 569 
 
 Pusey, Dr. Edward Bouverie {see 
 also ' Eirenicon ' and ' Letter to 
 Pusey '), the beginnings of his friend- 
 ship with Newman, i. 38 ; the 
 Tract on Baptism and the agitation 
 against Hampden, 57 ; one of the 
 leaders of the Oxford Movement, 
 6\,et seq. Newman's appreciation of 
 his work at Oxford, ii. 58 ; publishes 
 the ' Eirenicon,' 91, 99, etseq. ; meets 
 Newman at Keble's house, 92, et seq.; 
 described by Newman, 96 ; New- 
 man corresponds with him concern- 
 ing the ' Eirenicon,' lOO, ei seq. ; his 
 preaching, 370 ; his illness in 1873, 
 387, 389 ; congratulates Newman 
 on supposed refusal of Cardinalate, 
 445. Also referred to, i. 31, 85, 
 130, 237, 312, 561, 615, 622, 625, 
 649, 651. ii. 52, 121, 431, 463, 
 486, 569. See also Letters. 
 
 Quanta Cu7'a Encyclical, cf. Pius IX. 
 
 Queen's Colleges, Views of the Irish 
 Episcopate on, i. 275-276, 305 ; 
 reasons for their alarm, 305-311, 
 318 ; favoured by some Irish 
 Catholics, 324, 336 ; Newman's 
 attitude towards, 342, 390 ; also 
 referred to, 317, 345, 351, 360, 388. 
 
 ii- 157 
 Quesnel, i. 223 
 
 ' Raccolta,' The, i. 204 n. 
 
 Raglan, Lord, ii. 513. 
 
 Ram, Mgr., i. 628;?. 
 
 Rambler, The, i. 19, 109, 224, et seq., 
 
 437, et seq., 458, etseq., 478, etseq., 
 501, et seq. ii. 47, 48, 49, 62, 125, 
 186-187, 400, 434 
 
 Ranke, Von, i. 465, 467 
 
 Raper, Mr. (Senior Fellow of Trinity 
 College, Oxford), ii. 425 n. 
 
 Raphael, Mother Francis, see Drane 
 
 Ravignan, Pere de, i. 282, 461 
 
 Raynaldus, i. 223, 530 
 
 Reinkens, Dr., ii. 372 
 
 Reisach, Cardinal, ii. 122, 127, 142, 
 163-164, 178, 180, 200 
 
 Renan, Ernesi, ' Histoired'Israel,' i. 10 
 
 Renouf, Mr. Peter le Page, i. 359 n, 
 505. ii. 215, 235. See also Letters 
 
 ' Retrospective Notes [by Newman] on 
 Irish Campaign,' quoted, i. 320, et 
 seq., 357, et seq., 368, et seq., 380, et 
 seq. 
 
 Reunion, Corporate, ii. 115, et seq. 
 
 Riddell, Bishop, i. iii 
 
 Ripetti, Fr., i. 149 
 
 Ripon, Lord (Marquess of), and New- 
 man's Cardinalate, ii. 435, 577, 580. 
 See also Letters 
 
 Rock, Dr., ii. 104 
 
 Rogers, Sir Frederick, see Lord Blach- 
 ford 
 
 Romantic Movement, Part played by 
 Catholics in, i. 314 
 
 Rome, Newman's visit to, in 1833, i. 53, 
 et seq. ; journey of Newman and St. 
 John to, in 1847, 12,1, et seq. ; life of 
 Newman and his friends at, 149, et 
 seq. ; his impressions of, 153, et seq. ; 
 Oratorian noviciate at, 177, et seq. ; 
 Newman visitsagain, 450. Mission of 
 Fr. St. John on question of Oratory 
 School, ii. 135 ; mission of St. John 
 and Bittleston on the Oxford ques- 
 tion, 150, 156, et seq., 546, et seq.; 
 Newman's last visit to, when made 
 a Cardinal, 457, et seq. 
 
 Rose, St., of Lima, Oratorian life of, 
 i. 207 
 
 Rosmini, Antonio, i. 143, 162, 166, 
 171. ii. 398 
 
 Rosminians, i. 125, 222 
 
 Ross, Sir W,, i. 86 
 
 Rossi, Fr. Carlo, Novice- Master for 
 English Oratorians, i. 183. ii. 
 585 n. ; congratulates Newman on 
 Cardinalate, 585. See also Letters 
 
 Routh, Dr., ii. 74 
 
 Russell, Dr. (of Maynooth), i. 305, 
 3", 320, 334, 408-409, 537 «. ii. 
 42, 408, 561. See also Letters 
 
 Russell, Lord John, i. 255, 260 
 
 Ryan, Dr. (Bishop of Limerick), i. 
 
 334, 338, 339 
 Ryder, Fr. Henry Ignatius Dudley : his
 
 INDEX 
 
 621 
 
 notes on Newman referred to, i. 15, 
 18; and quoted, ii. 351, et seq. 
 Poetry of, i. 225. On the writing of 
 the 'Apologia,' ii. 22, et seq. ; men- 
 tioned in ' Apologia,' 41 ; his pam- 
 phlet in reply to Ward's views on 
 Infallibility, 107, 149, 153, et seq., 
 164, 190, 215, 373 ; his controversy 
 with W. G. Ward, 406 ; on New- 
 man's Cardinalate, 470 ; his ' Catholic 
 Controversy' receives Newman's 
 approval, 488. Also referred to, i. 
 199. ii. 349, 462, 493, 572. See 
 also Letters 
 
 Ryder, George Dudley, joins Catholic 
 Church, i. 84, 127, et seq. ; meets 
 Newman at Rome, 144, et seq. ; also 
 referred to, 131 «., 147, 150, 152, 
 198, 620. ii. 452. See also Letters 
 
 Ryder, Mrs., i. 127, 129 
 
 Ryder, Sir George Lisle, i. 127, 128, 
 198, 199 «. 
 
 St. Chad's, Birmingham, Newman's 
 sermon in, quoted, ii. 435 
 
 St. John, Fr. Ambrose, inseparable 
 friend of Newman, i. 7, 84, 94, 108. 
 ii. 348, 572. Received into Catholic 
 Church, i. 84 ; goes to Rome with 
 Newman, 133-147 ; life at Rome, 
 146-154 ; his influence with New- 
 man in matter of Oratorian scheme, 
 169, 174-184; ordained with New- 
 man, 184 ; their visit to Naples Ora- 
 tory, 188, et seq.; ihey leave Rome, 
 191-192; his friendship with New- 
 man, 217 ; and the Oratory School, 
 456-457. Goes ti> Rome on mission 
 about Oratory School, ii. 135; and on 
 the proposed Oxford Oratory, 149- 
 180 ; visits Littlemore with Newman, 
 206 ; begins translation of Fessler's 
 ' True and False Infallibility,' 409. 
 His illness and death, 409, et seq., 
 442, 569 ; Newman buried in same 
 grave, 537. Also referred to, i. 98, 
 103, 111, 120, 125, 167, 187, 193, 
 227, 236, 238, 297, 300, 317, 336, 
 337, 341, 358, 370, 387, 545, 618, 
 619, 627. ii. 13, 22;/., 41, 50, 71, 
 80, 84, 85, 88, 125, 130, 140, 319, 
 320, 321, 400, 554, 555. See also 
 Letters. 
 
 St. Sulpicc, i. 512 
 
 St. Wilfrid's, see Cheadle 
 
 Salamanca, i. 271 
 
 Salisbury, Lord (3rd Marquess), ii. 472 
 
 Sandhurst, ii. 63 
 
 Santa Croce, English Oratorians at, i. 
 182 
 
 Saturday Review <{MO\.ed on * Apologia,' 
 
 ii- 3? 
 Scavini, ii. 16 
 
 Scepticism, Newman's real freedom 
 from, i. 16, 30 ; his tendency to 
 intellectual, 31. Newman accused 
 of, ii. 505, 506, 507. Also referred 
 to, i. 168, 424 
 
 Scheeben, Dr., i. 563 
 
 Schlegel, Carl William Frederick, i. 
 308, 461, 507 
 
 Scholasticism, not in favour at Rome 
 in 1847, i. 166, 167, 169 n. ; re- 
 vival of, in Rome, 463 ; W. G. 
 Ward on value of, 470 ; Dollinger 
 on completeness and limitations of, 
 562, et seq. 
 
 Schola Theologoriim, Newman on the, 
 i. 653, 654. ii 373,405 n., 406, 564 
 
 Schools, Catholic, i. 452, et seq. 
 
 Schrader, Fr. : his theory of Infallibility, 
 ii. 152, 239 
 
 Schumann, ii. 350-351 
 
 Science and Religion, Analysis of New- 
 man's lectures on, i. 392, et seq., 413, 
 et seq. ; Acton on, 468, 469 ; see also 
 
 474, 551 
 
 Science and Theology, Relations of, i. 
 306, et seq., 435. Their conclusions 
 compared, ii. 5S8, 589; make pro- 
 gress by being alive to fundamental 
 uncertninties, 591 
 
 Sconce, Mrs., see Letters 
 
 Scott, Sir W. , i. 300. ii. 355 
 
 Scratton, Mr., i. 362 
 
 Scriptures, The, see Bible 
 
 Sebastopol, ii. 317 
 
 Seeley, Sir John, his ' Ecce Homo ' 
 reviewed by Newman, ii. 118 
 
 Semi-Arians, i. 237 
 
 Seminaries, Ecclesiastical, W. G. Ward 
 on teaching of theology in, i. 420, 
 et seq., 512, et seq., 528 
 
 Sermons : Newman's ' University,' 
 main object of, i. 22, 58 ; New- 
 man's own high estimate of, 159, 
 173 ; French translation, 170, et 
 seq. ; revision of, 172, 173; new 
 edition, 174; quoted, 336. ii. 14. 
 Complementary to 'Essay on Develop- 
 ment,' i. 425. New edition published, 
 1873, ii. 389. Also referred to, i. 2, 
 47, 58, 59, 162, 396, 623. ii. 243, 
 316 «., 330, 336, 346. 
 
 'Occasional,' referred to, i. lOi, 
 119;/., 521. ii. 399. The ' Second 
 Spring,' i. 295. ii. 316 n. 
 
 ' For Mixed Congregations,' i. 228, 
 230, 232. ii. 559. 
 
 ' Parochial and Plain,' i. 60, 228, 
 296, 387. ii. 19, 241, 396;/., 577.
 
 622 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ' On Subjects of the Day,' 27 ; 
 the ' Parting of Friends,' i. 76 ; 
 see also ii. 28. 
 
 Newman's notes on preaching, 335 
 
 Shairp, Principal, on Newman's in- 
 fluence at Oxford, i. 63, et seq. ; also 
 referred to, 42, 60 
 
 Shell, Sir Justin, ii. 135. See also 
 Letters 
 
 Short, Thomas, i. 372. ii. 429 
 
 Shrewsbury, Lady, i. 154 
 
 Shrewsbury, Lord, i. 133, 154, 221, 
 333. See also Letters 
 
 Sibour, Archbishop, i. 13. ii. 209, 212, 
 213, 279 
 
 Sibthorp, R. W., i. 183 
 
 Simeon, Lady, see Letters 
 
 Simeon, Sir John, i. 644. ii. 290, et 
 seq. See also Letters 
 
 Simpson, Mr. Richard, received into 
 Catholic Church, i. 84; at Milan 
 visits Newman, 142 ; one of the 
 earliest contributors to Rambler, 
 243 ; his attitude to Liberal Catholic 
 movement, 459 ; reason of Ward's 
 opposition to, 471 ; editor of 
 Rambler, 474, et seq. ; collision with 
 Hierarchy, 480 ; Newman persuades 
 him to resign editorship of Rambler, 
 480 ; his protest against the action 
 of I5ishops, 487 ; Newman urges 
 patience and caution, 488 ; begs 
 Newman to accept editorship of 
 Rambler, 488 ; his article on Tolera- 
 tion, 506, etseq. ; his exaggerated idea 
 of Newman's sympathy with himself, 
 512; his attack on St. Pius V. in 
 the RambUr, 518; decides with 
 Acton to continue Rambler as Home 
 and Foreign Review, 536, et seq. ; 
 his articles censured by Bishop Ulla- 
 thorne, 544 ; his avowal of re- 
 sponsibility for obnoxious articles in 
 Rambler, 550, et seq. ; Newman's 
 views on his aim and policy, 552, 
 et seq., 557, etseq. His death, ii. 413 ; 
 Newman's relations with, 496. Also 
 referred to, i. 19, 225, 263, 481, 
 496, SOI, 504, 509 n., 510, 523, 537, 
 548, 557. 634, et seq. li. 143 n. See 
 also Letters 
 
 Slattery, Patrick (Archbishop of 
 Cashel), Newman guest of, i. 338 
 
 Smith, Canon Bernard, i. 83, 96 
 
 Smith, Mr. Albert, i. 570, ii. 51, 53. 
 See also Letters 
 
 Socinianism in Anglican Church, i. 204 
 
 Solly, Bishop, i. 115 
 
 ' Songs of the Oratory,' i. 224, 225 
 
 Sora, Duchess of, ii. 521 
 
 Southey, ii. 354 
 
 Spectator, The, quoted, ii. 5, 6. See 
 
 also Hutton, R. PL 
 Spencer, Yx. Ignatius, i. 96, 162, 190 
 Spurrier, Rev. A., see Letters 
 Stafford Club, ii. 143, 147, 148 
 Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn (Dean of 
 
 Westminster), on Newman's writings, 
 i. 2, 60, 67, 183 
 Stanton, Fr. Richard, i. 94, 120, 182, 
 
 191, 198, 214, 332. See also 
 
 Letters 
 Stapleton, i. 562 
 Stephen Harding, St., Life of, i. 77, 
 
 208 
 Stewart, Mr. James, i. 359 «., 362. 
 Stivimen aits Maria Laach, the German 
 
 Ultramontane Review, i. 465 
 Stokes, Mr. Nasmyth, i. 502 and note 
 Stolberg, i. 461 
 Stonor, Mgr., ii. 464 «. 
 Stonyhurst, i. Ill, 222, 280, 616. ii. 
 
 57, 190, 197, 452, 560 
 Strauss, i. 418 
 Suarez, i. 250 
 Sullivan, Dr. W. K., i. 349, 350, 382, 
 
 418, 430, 629. See also Letters 
 Sumner, Bishop, ' Apostolical Succes- 
 sion,' i. 38 ; also referred to, 261,521 
 Swinburne, A. C, ii. 356, 357 
 * Syllabus Errorum,' issued in 1864, 
 
 not a direct act of the Pope, ii. 10 1 ; 
 
 modified by the Episcopate, 123, 
 
 124; Manning holds to be infallible, 
 
 151 ; also referred to, 371 
 'Symbolik,' Moehler's, i. 315 
 
 'Tablet,' The, i. 108, 183, 212, 219, 
 497> 508, et seq., 633. ii. 124, 145, 
 229, 552, 554 
 
 Tait, A. C, i. 72 
 
 Talbot, Mgr., i. 120, 127, 132, 142, 
 144, 155, 430, 555. ii. 43, 47, 69, 
 125, 144, 146, 157, <?/ seq., i^oo, 539, 
 540, 547. See also Letters 
 
 Taylor, Dr., i. 322, et seq., 329, 375. 
 See also Letters 
 
 Telford, Rev. J., see Letters 
 
 Temple Church (in London), i. 345 
 
 Temporal Power, see Papacy 
 
 Tennyson, ii. 355 
 
 Terence, Plays of, i. 29 
 
 Terence's ' Phormio,' edited by New- 
 man, ii. 73 
 
 Tertullian, i. 172. ii. 39; Newman's 
 love for, 354 
 
 Thackeray, i. 612, 625. ii. 355 
 
 Theiner, Father, i. 158, 169, 171, 
 178, 179, 184, 223 
 
 Theism {see also Religion), Proof of, i. 
 169 «. ; W. G. Ward on, 420, 421;
 
 INDEX 
 
 623 
 
 Newman on positive argument for, 
 424, 425. ii. 264, 269 
 
 Theodoret, ii. 399, 562 
 
 Theology, Newman's scheme for a 
 school of, i. 123, et seq., 166, et seq.y 
 174 ; Newman and neglect among 
 Catholics of its historical side, 123, 
 et seq. ; Newman on importance of 
 schools of, 250 ; antagonism of, to 
 science at Oxford, 306, et seq. ; New- 
 man on the meaning and scope of, 
 390, 391 ; its place in a University, 
 391 ; difficulties raised by excessive 
 theological conservatism, 432, et 
 seq, ; creative thought in, 433, et seq. ; 
 DoUinger on historical ignorance 
 displayed in teaching of, 493, et seq. ; 
 Drilliiiger on limitations imposed by 
 Aristotelian starting - point, 562. 
 Theology and the definition of 
 Papal Infallibility, ii. 209, et seq. ; 
 conclusions of Science compared by 
 Newman with those of Theology, 
 588, 589 ; and Science make pro- 
 gress by being alive to fundamental 
 uncertainties, 591. 
 
 Thomas 4 Becket, St., i. 268, 343. ii. 
 125, 200 
 
 Thonias Aquinas, St., on doctrine of 
 Immaculate Conception, i. 164 ; out 
 of favour in Rome, 165, 166 ; on the 
 proof of Theism, 169 w.; novelty of 
 his method, 435. ii. 500. Also re- 
 ferred to, i. 169, 171, 396, 405. ii. 
 38, 502 
 
 Thompson, Edward Ilealy H., i. 131, 
 263, 319, 496, SOI, et seq., 509 «. 
 Sec also Letters 
 
 Throckmorton, Sir E. , i. 133 
 
 Thucydides, i. 34 
 
 Thurle>5, Synod of, i. 275, 305, 310, 
 327 ; Newman's visit to, 337 
 
 Tickell, i. 162 n. 
 
 Tierney, Canon, i. 635. ii. 104 
 
 Tillotson, upholder of Royal supre- 
 macy, ii. 117 
 
 Times, The, and Wiseman's 'Appeal to 
 the English People,' i. 256 ; on 
 Achiili trial, 292, 301. On the 
 ' Apologia,' ii. 23, 33 ; its review of 
 Newman's answer to the ' Eirenicon,' 
 109, et seq. Also referred to, i. 273. 
 ii. 443, 446 
 
 Toole's Theatre, i. 217 w. 
 
 * Tracts for the Times,' i. 56 ; Tract 90, 
 79, 234, 616, 6i8. ii. 8, 21, 23, 24. 
 Also referred to, i. 56, 57, 74, 201, 
 261. ii. 419, 421 
 
 Trent, Council of, i. 512, 616. ii. 503 
 
 Trinity College, Dublm, i. 275, 333, 
 335- ii- 68 
 
 Trinity College, Oxford : Newman 
 enters as commoner, i. 29, 32 ; 
 elected scholar of, 33 ; Newman's 
 love of the Chapel, 139. ii. 341 ; 
 Newman made an honorary Fellow, 
 425, et seq. ; and accepts invitation to 
 visit the College, 429-431 ; honours 
 Newman on reception of Cardinalate, 
 473 ; Newman sends his collected 
 works to, 525 
 
 Trinity, Doctrine of, in relation to 
 ' Development,' i. 172 
 
 Trollope, Anthony, ii. 355 
 
 'True and False Infallibility,' by 
 Fessler, translated by Ambrose St. 
 John, ii. 373, 409 
 
 Tycho Brahe, i. 404 
 
 Tyndall, i. 401. ii. 332 
 
 Tyrrell, Henry, i. 359 //., 379 
 
 Ullathorne.Dr. (Vicar Apostolic and 
 afterwards Bishop of Birmingham), 
 and the beginning of the Oratory, i. 
 180, 181 ; his action in the matter of 
 Faber's ' Lives of the Modern Saints,' 
 207-214 ; and the Oratory School, 
 453 ; desires Newman to become 
 editor of the Rambler, 481 ; his 
 relations with Newman and the 
 Rambler, 486, 492, 495, 499, 501, 
 504, 570, 636. ii. 128, 187. Cen- 
 sures the Home and Foreign, i. 544, 
 et seq. His appreciation of Newman's 
 work, ii. 36 ; offers Newman the 
 Mission at Oxford, 51 ; his views 
 on the Oxford question undergo a 
 change, 52, 54 ; regarded as a 
 possible successor of Wiseman, 87 ; 
 identified with Newman's views in 
 his 'Letter to Dr. Pusey,' 112- 
 113 ; and the article • On Consulting 
 the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine,' 
 161-162, 171 ; his opinion on mis- 
 representations of Newman at Rome, 
 184-185, 192; and the Oxford 
 Oratory, 123, 124, 126-127, 131, 
 139, 141, 146-147. 149. 159. 160, 
 180-181, 543, 550-551 ; and New- 
 man's Cardinalate, 438-446, 582 ; 
 final meetings between Newman and, 
 531, 532. Also referred to, i. 204, 
 219, 262, 273, 383, 418, 426, 487, 
 502 «., 640. ii. 50, 51. 69, 125, 
 129, 163, 170, 194, 316, 407, 425. 
 480, 552-553, 561. See also Letters 
 
 Ultramontanism {^see also Infallibility 
 and Liberal Catholicism), i. 19, 314, 
 460, et seq. ii. 64, 371, seq. 
 
 Union Review, i. 428. ii. 1 17 
 
 Unitarians, i. 159-161, l6S
 
 624 
 
 LIFE 0¥ CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 Unity of Christendom, ii. 81-82, 392- 
 
 395 
 
 Univers, The, i. 464-465, 550. ii. 36, 
 80, 212, 403, 439 
 
 University, Catholic, for England, 
 wanted by Cardinal Barnabo, ii. 162 ; 
 attempts to found, 195-198; also 
 referred to, 189, 547 
 
 University, Catholic, in Dublin, its 
 bearing on Newman's life, i. 8-9, 
 386-388 ; its foundation decided on, 
 Newman invited to be Rector, 275- 
 276; origin of, 305-310 ; Newman's 
 acceptance of Rectorship, 311-316; 
 Newman's preliminary lectures, 316- 
 318 ; Newman's early difficulties, 
 318-320 ; question of the ap- 
 pointment of a Vice-Rector, 321- 
 323 ; formal installation of Rector 
 delayed, 321, 323 328 ; the sug- 
 gestion of making Newman a bishop, 
 328-333, 356-358, 385-386; New- 
 man goes to Ireland, 333 ; atti- 
 tude of the Irish towards the new 
 University, 333-337 ; first begin- 
 nings, 337 ; Newman visits the Irish 
 Bishops, 337-341 ; installation of 
 Newman, 341 ; opening of the School 
 of Philosophy and Letters, 341 -344 ; 
 the question of the University Church, 
 345-348 ; the University Gazette, 
 348-349 ; the Medical School, 349- 
 350 ; Celtic literature, 349-35 1 ; 
 question of State recognition, 351, 
 628-629 ; the proposed bishopric 
 for Newman witlidrawn, 357 ; diffi- 
 culties with the Irish Bishops, 359- 
 363, 628 ; want of public interest, 
 364 ; Cardinal Cullen's part in bring- 
 ing about failure, 364 371, 380- 
 384 ; Newman's proposed resignation 
 leads to his becoming non-resident 
 Rector, 374-3S0 ; its relation to the 
 English Catholics and Wiseman, 383, 
 384-386 ; final resignation of New- 
 man, 445-450, 630-633 ; also referred 
 to, 417, 418, 419, 458, 497, 568, 
 644. ii. 50, 136, 157, 186, 187, 
 454, 517, 518 
 
 University Lectures : on the ' Scope 
 and Nature of University Education ' 
 (republished as ' Idea of a Univer- 
 sity'), circumstances under which 
 prepared, i. 290, 315-316; dedica- 
 tion, 304 ; Newman asked to de- 
 liver, 311; their delivery and suc- 
 cess, 316-318; their purpose and 
 leading idea, 390-392 ; quoted, 
 313, 368-369, 375. ii. 558. Also re- 
 ferred to. i. 296, 327, 348 n., 478. ii. 
 521. 'University. Subjects Discussed 
 
 in Occasional Lectures' incorporated 
 in 'Idea of a University,' their aim 
 and scope, i. 390-398; inaugural lec- 
 ture on ' Christianity and Letters,' a 
 plea for the Classics, 342; 'Chris- 
 tianity and Physical Science,' lecture 
 on, analysed, 399-401 ; 'Christianity 
 and Scientific Investigation,' its aim 
 and argument, 401-408 ; how re- 
 ceived, 408-409; 'Lectures on 
 Literature ' mark a phase in New- 
 man's style, 409 ; main lessons urged, 
 410-413 ; ' Christianity and Medical 
 Science,' its argument, 413-416 ; re- 
 ferences to these lectures, 34, 232, 
 478, 512 
 
 Urban VIII., i. 145 
 
 Ursulines, i. 340 
 
 Ushaw, Newman visits, i. Iii; also 
 referred to, 102, 207, 316 «. , 389, 
 503. 510, 551, 616. ii. 190, 489 
 
 Vatican Council {see also Infalli- 
 bility), Newman invited by the Pope 
 to assist as a theologian, ii. 192, 281 ; 
 Newman's position in controversy 
 about, 279, et seq. ; his letter to Ur. 
 UUathorne denouncing the extrem- 
 ists, 287, et seq. ; Newman's state 
 of mind during progress of, 552, et 
 seq. 
 
 Vatican Decrees (see also Gladstone), 
 their bearing on Civil Allegiance, ii. 
 401, et seq. ; also referred to, 45 
 
 Vaughan, Herbert (afterwards Cardinal), 
 goes to Rome on Oxford question, ii. 
 64 ; his opposition to Oxford scheme 
 makes difficulties, 129. Also referred 
 to, i. 389, 514. ii. 155, 490 
 
 Vaughan, Rev. J. E., see Letters 
 
 Vavasour, Sir Edward, i. 133, 190 
 
 Ventura, Fr. , i. 171 
 
 ' Verses on Various Occasions,' by 
 Newman, i. 51. ii. 204 
 
 Veuillot, M. Louis (editor of the 
 Univers), i. lO, 12, 19, 23, 417, 
 
 463, 464, 483. ii- 38, 79. 82, 108, 
 112, 210-215, 501, 561 
 ' Via Media,' theory formulated, i. 17, 
 59 ; finally relinquished, 76. Title 
 of Anglican lectures republished in 
 1877, ii. 421 ; analysis of Preface, 
 421, et seq. ; also referred to, 374, 
 
 497 
 Victor Emmanuel seizes Papal States, i. 
 
 519, et seq. Takes up his residence 
 
 at the Quirinal, ii. 372 
 Vigilius, Pope, ii. 556 
 Vincent of Lerins recognises process 
 
 of development of doctrine, ii. 590 
 
 I
 
 INDEX 
 
 625 
 
 Wagner, Rev. Mr., of Brighton, ii. 
 463. See also Letters 
 
 Walford, Edward, i. 142 
 
 Walford, Fr. John Thomas, S.J., ii. 
 266, 444. See also Letters 
 
 Walker, Canon John, i. 96, 98, 108, 
 no, 120, 177, 178. ii. 43, 129, 
 140, 230, 349. See also Letters 
 
 Wallis, John (editor of Toilet), i. 
 484, 498, 633. ii. 229. See also 
 Letters 
 
 Walsh, Thomas (Vicar Apostolic of 
 Midland District), i. in, 133, 
 197 n. ii. 218 
 
 Walsh, William (Archbishop of Hali- 
 fax, N.S.), i. 382 
 
 Walshe, Edward H. (Bishop of Kil- 
 kenny), i. 338 
 
 Ward, Francis Ridout, ii, 85, 145. 
 See also Letters 
 
 Ward, Mrs. F. R., see Letters 
 
 Ward, Robert Plumer, i. 39 
 
 Ward, Sir Henry, i. 39 
 
 Ward, Wilfrid, lectures at Ushaw, 
 ii. 489 ; meetings and conversations 
 with Newman, 490, et seq. See 
 also Letters 
 
 Ward, Mrs. Wilfrid, ii. 528, 529 
 
 Ward, William George, on Newman's 
 influence as a leader at Oxford, i. 6, 
 60, 61 ; his estimate of the Uni- 
 versity Sermons, 59, 418 ; joins 
 Tractarians out of admiration for 
 Rome, 67, 68 ; his enthusiasm for 
 Tract 90, 72 ; publishes the ' Ideal 
 of a Christian Church,' 79 ; his con- 
 version, 84; on the proof of Theism, 
 169 n. ; one of earliest contributors to 
 the Rambler, 243 ; asked to take 
 part in Irish University scheme, 319 ; 
 entrusted by Newman with transla- 
 tion of Psalms, i. 419, 421, 422 ; on 
 Apologetics in Ecclesiastical Semi- 
 naries, 420, 421 ; his work at St. 
 Edmund's, 389, 422, 571 ; on Fr. 
 Faber's writings, 423 ; anxiety con- 
 cerning contemporary speculation, 
 445 ; his opposition to Liberal Catho- 
 licism, 458, et seq. ; his opposition 
 to Acton, 470 ; temporary editor of 
 the Dublin RevicTv, 481 ; his oppo- 
 sition to the tone and principles of the 
 Rambler, 481, 490, 495. ii. 62. His 
 reply to Oxenham's attack on eccle- 
 siastical seminaries in the Rambler, 
 i. 514, et seq. ; opposition to starting 
 of Home and Foreign Review, 537, 
 et seq ; becomes editor of Dublin 
 Review, 546, et seq. His ' Ideal ' 
 quoted in justification of Kingsley's 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 charge against Newman, ii. 7. His 
 views on ' Mixed ' Education, 63 ; 
 his opposition to the Oxford scheme, 
 64, et seq. ; denounces the A,P. U.C., 
 81, 82 ; his extreme interpretation 
 of utterances of Pius IX., 82-85, 
 loi ; counsellor of Archbishop 
 Manning, 87 ; his articles on 
 Infallibility used by Pusey in the 
 ' Eirenicon,' 91 ; Pusey's ' Eirenicon' 
 affords Newman an opportunity of 
 criticising Ward's views, 100, 
 et seq. ; consulted by Cardinal 
 Reisach on the Oxford Question, 
 122, 127 ; his renewed opposition to 
 Oxford scheme in 1867, 129; refuses 
 to sign the address to Newman in 
 1867, 144, 146 ; Mgr. Talbot's es- 
 timate of, 147 ; encouraged by a 
 party in Rome, 153. His views on 
 Papal Infallibility, i. 25. ii. 151- 
 152, 212, et seq., 224, et seq., 402, 
 552, 555. 565, et seq. ; his claims on 
 behalf of the Papacy, 225, et seq. ; 
 his reply to Fr. Ryder's attack, 230, 
 373 ; attacked by Dupanloup, 286 ; 
 a member of the Metaphysical 
 Society, 332 ; on the charm of New- 
 man's manner, 348-349 ; his admira- 
 tion of the ' Grammar of Assent,' 
 273 ; his cordial reception of the 
 ' Letter to the Duke of Norfolk,' 406, 
 et seq., 565, et seq. ; of the Preface to 
 the ' Via Media,' 425. His relations 
 with Newman, i. 19, 24, 537, 565, et 
 seq. ii. 490 ; Newman's last words 
 concerning their estrangement, 495, 
 496 ; his last illness referred to, 520 ; 
 death, 488. Also referred to, i. 39, 
 94, 113, 134, 187 «., 217 «., 218, 
 246, 262, 300, 637. ii. 36, 38, 43, 
 60, 79, 86, 104;/., 107, 155, 156, 
 164, 196, 198, 203, 374, 407, 433, 
 552. See also Letters 
 
 Ware, St. Edmund's College (Old Hall ), 
 i. 102, 109, 303, 38S, 389, 419, 514, 
 515,517,616 
 
 Wareing, William (Vicar Apostolic of 
 Eastern District, Bishop of North- 
 ampton), i. 108, 133, 208 
 
 Waytc, Dr. S. W. (President of Trinity 
 College, Oxford), ii. 426-429. See 
 also Letters 
 
 Wcale, Mr., i. 285 
 
 Weedall, Provost H. : his work at 
 Oscott, i. 98, 1 19-120; Newman 
 preaches at his funeral, 599, 601 
 
 Weekly Re^^ister, The, announces 
 Propaganda instruction forbidding 
 Newman's residence at Oxford, ii. 
 
 S S
 
 626 
 
 LIFE OF CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 140-146, 151-152, 543. 547- Re- 
 ferred to, i. 479, 510. ii. 83, 
 348 «. 
 
 Weld, Alfred, S.J., and the proposal 
 for a Catholic University College, ii. 
 195-197 
 
 Weld-Blundell, Charles, ii, 195 
 
 Weld, Charles, i. 634 
 
 Wells, Alban, i. 214 
 
 Wenham, Provost, i. 486 
 
 Wesley, Charles, ii. 357 
 
 Wesley, John, i. 45 
 
 Wetherell, Thomas F., a contributor 
 to the Rambler, i. 505 ; resigns 
 assistant editorship of Rambler, 
 508, 517, 532 ; assistant editor of 
 Home and Foreign Reznew, 537, 
 et seq. , 566. Works for an Oratory 
 at Oxford, ii. 60, 65, 68, 143. See 
 also Letters 
 
 Whately, R. (Archbishop of Dublin), 
 friend of Newman, i. 4, 43, 85 ; 
 influence of, on Newman, 36, 37, 38 ; 
 referred to, 312, 372. ii. 386. 
 
 White, Blanco, friend of Newman, i. 
 4, 22, 38, 43 ; Newman on his auto- 
 biography, 80, 81 ; attacks the 
 Catholic Church, 276, 278 ; New- 
 man lectures on, in ' Corn Exchange 
 Lectures,' i. 278 ; also referred to, 
 85, 364. ii. 76, 348, 349, 487 
 
 Whitgift, Archbishop, ii. 117 
 
 Whitty, Fr. Robert, S.J., i. 97, 99. 
 ii. 450. See Letters 
 
 Wilberforce, Arthur (Fr. Bertrand), i. 
 
 344 
 Wilberforce, Henry, friend of Newman, 
 i. 40 n. ; Newman's desire for his 
 conversion, 127, et seq., 235, et seq. ; 
 Newman's influence on, 129, et seq. ; 
 his conversion, 238, et seq. ; editor of 
 Weekly Register, 383 ; requests New- 
 man to write for PVeekly Register, 
 501 ; and Newman's resignation of 
 Rambler, e^oi, 502. His death, ii. 387, 
 389, 390, 414 Referred to, i. 17, 60, 
 68, 138, 201, 233, 259 263, 264, 
 
 295' 319. 330. 341, 344. 371. 373. 
 
 479,499. ii. 44, 104 ;/., 140, 196, 
 
 205, 248. 316, 342, 348, 413, 554. 
 
 See also Letters 
 Wilberforce, Mrs. Henry, conversion 
 
 of, i. 239 
 Wilberforce, Robert, 1. 40, 42, 108, 
 
 237, 623, 653 
 Wilberforce, Samuel, i. 40 w. 
 Wilberforce, Mrs. Samuel, i. 127 «. 
 Wilberforce, William, ii. 74, 413 
 Wilberforce, Mrs. William, ii. 413 
 Wilds, Rev. W., i. 126, 253, 258 
 Wilkins, Serjeant, i. 291, 297 
 
 Williams, Isaac, Newman visits, ii. 75, 
 338, 414. Referred to, i, 74, 599, 
 625. See also Letters 
 
 Wilson, Mrs., see Letters 
 
 Wiseman, Nicholas (Cardinal), confirms 
 Newman and Oxford converts, i. 96, 
 98 ; advises Newman to publish the 
 ' Essay on Development ' without 
 theological revision, 99, 615 ; offers 
 Old Oscott to the Oxford converts, 
 100, loi, 103, 109, 113; his rela- 
 tions to the converts, 105, et seq. ; 
 favours Newman's scheme for a theo- 
 logical seminary, 166 ; acting Vicar 
 Apostolic of London District, 197, 
 216; suggests establishment of an 
 Oratory in London, 216, 217 ; 
 preaches at its opening, 220 ; present 
 at the King William Street lectures, 
 252 ; alarm of some Catholic priests 
 at his ' go-ahead ' policy, 252 ; his 
 ' Flaminian Gate ' letter provokes 
 ' No-popery ' agitation, 254-255 ; 
 issues ' Appeal to the People of 
 England,' 256, 257 ; originator of 
 the Hierarchy scheme, 258 ; supports 
 Capes' scheme for public lectures, 
 259, 262 ; exposes Achilli in Dublin 
 Review, 278, 279, 280 ; Irish 
 Bishops object to his being Chan- 
 cellor of Catholic University, 319, 
 369, 385 ; suggests to Pius IX. that 
 Newman should be made a Bishop, 
 328-331, 356-357, 385- ii- 442. 
 Invites Newman to undertake an 
 English translation of Scriptures, 
 i. 10, 418, 426, 428 ; illness and pre- 
 occupation, 428 ; his triumphal tour 
 in Ireland, 430, 431 ; Newman's eulo- 
 gium of, in the Rambler, 431, 432 ; 
 objects to articles in the Rambler, 
 479 ; urges Newman to edit Rambler, 
 481 ; opposition to Rambler, 522, et 
 seq., 532, et seq.; pastoral on Tem- 
 poral Power referred to, 524 ; his 
 public criticism of Home and Foreign 
 Review, 539, et seq., 546, et seq., 
 553; Wiseman and Newman's ' Essay 
 on Development,' 615. Opposed to 
 Oxford Oratory, ii. 6o~6i ; death of, 
 and Newman's sermon on, 72, 86 ; 
 his action in the matter of the 
 article 'On Consulting the Faithful 
 in Matters of Doctrine,' 128, 157, 
 170-173, 179, 187, 549; Newman 
 bears testimony to his ' readiness,' 
 332, Also referred to, i. 83, 102, 
 III, 120, 124, 143, 167, 177, 181, 
 183, 207, 213, 228, 261, 297, 298, 
 314, 326, 616, 635. ii. 103, 104, 
 161, 433. See also Letters
 
 INDEX 
 
 627 
 
 Wood, Samuel, ii. 414 
 Wood, Mrs., i. 257. See also Letters 
 Woodgate, Henry, ii. 391, 414, 571 
 Woodlock, Bartholomew (Bishop of 
 
 Ardagh), ii. 464 
 Woodmason, Charles, i. 120 
 Woodmason, Mr. and Mrs., i. 94 
 Wootten, Mrs., Matron of the Oratory 
 School, i. 456. Her death, ii. 413, 
 414, 569 ; also referred to, 324, 572 
 
 Wordsworth, William, ii. 336, 354 
 Wyse, Mr., i. 308, 310 
 
 Yard, Fr., ii. 60 
 
 ZoziMUS, Pope, ii. 556 
 Zulueta, Mr., afterwards 
 Torre Diaz, ii. 192 
 
 Count de 
 
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