VI.

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN.

The

The transition from John Keble to John Henry Newman is easy. We are now to consider the latter of these two great men, and his well-known hymn, "Lead, Kindly Light, Amid the Encircling Gloom." This hymn has been translated into several different languages, and is sung all over the globe. man who wrote it was one of the remarkable men of the nineteenth century. When Cardinal Newman died (in 1890) one of the most picturesque and interesting figures of our era passed away from earth. I confess to a feeling of more than ordinary. diffidence in attempting to sketch the story of his life, for, while I recognize the marvelous gifts of the man, and honor him for his attainments and his character, I cannot avoid the thought that his gifts might have been more wisely used, and so more have been accomplished by him for the glory of God and the good of men.

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN was born in the city of London February 21, 1801. His father was a banker, engrossed in business. His mother was of French Protestant extraction, a devout and godly woman. He was brought up to take great delight in the Bible and to read books of Calvinistic theology. At the age of fifteen he was the subject of a marked religious experience, concerning which he wrote more than half a century afterwards, "I believed that the inward conversion of which I was then conscious (and of which I still am more certain than that I have hands and feet) would last into the next life, and that I was elected to eternal glory."

The higher religious life upon which he then entered was an earnest one, although the books which he read were narrow in their outlook and well suited to inflame partisan zeal.

His college course at Oxford was not extraordinary and

did not result in great scholastic distinction, partly because just before his graduation his father failed in business, and it was necessary for him to push rapidly towards securing his degree, which came to him at the age of nineteen. Two years afterwards he was successful in winning a fellowship at Oriel, which meant for him financial independence so long as he chose to remain at Oxford, and, what was of even greater value, the privilege of association upon terms of intimacy with the brilliant and rising leaders of that intellectual world.

In order to understand his subsequent career it will be necessary to understand some of the moving forces of the time.

A new age was dawning-an age of liberalism-an age of enfranchisement. Men had long believed in the divine rights of kings and of priests and of a favored aristocracy. From that they had reacted, and were then thinking more of certain equal rights as between man and man. Besides, the Church had been brought into a condition of degradation. Mr. Gladstone tells us that its services were unparalleled for baldness and lifelessness and wretchedness, that they would have shocked a Brahmin or a Buddhist, and that the people were content to have it so. Many parsons drew their salaries from the Church's endowments who did no spiritual work-in fact, they were incapable of doing spiritual work-and religion suffered greatly in consequence.

Under such circumstances it was certain that the Church would be attacked; and it was equally certain that champions would spring forth for her defense.

When the time of this conflict came, John Henry Newman was thirty-two years old, full of intellectual vigor and swayed with a mighty enthusiasm. This was in the year 1833.

Ten Bishoprics of the Irish Church had been suppressed by Parliament and their endowments appropriated to other uses, and the Roman Catholic emancipation act had been passed, partially undoing the wrongs of generations. The justice of that act seems to us perfectly clear, for, in addition to its repeal of legal provisions which were so iniquitous that by common consent no attempt was made to enforce them, the provision that Roman Catholics should sit in Parliament,

provided they were duly elected thereto, was perfectly right and proper, for, as Archbishop Whately was wont to say, "To exclude any class of men from public offices in consequence of their religion is to make Christ's a kingdom of this world, which He and His disciples distinctly and expressly disclaimed; and besides to tempt persons to profess a religion they believe to be false, in order to insure their worldly advancement, would be to hold out a premium to hypocrisy and false profession."

The rising spirit of liberalism, however, was in danger of going too far. And it did go too far when the head of the English Government publicly said to the bishops that they would do well to set their house in order, implying that spoliation of the English Church might be very near at hand.

At this juncture a band of noble and of earnest men rose to stand by the Church-to defend it from external attack and to purify it from internal disease. Ere long, however, this band separated into two divisions, with Whately and Arnold on the one side and Keble and Newman on the other. Arnold was a noble specimen of Christian manhood. Whately was true, through and through, and of immense intellectual power. Keble was the idol of Oxford-a scholar, a poet and a saint. Newman was the gifted preacher, swaying the undergraduate crowds who thronged to hear him with the spell of a matchless eloquence.

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There had

It was at this time that the hymn, "Lead, Kindly Light," was written. Let the story of personal experience leading up to it be told in Newman's own words. "Great events were happening at home and abroad. been a revolution in France. The great reform agitation was going on (in England). The Whigs had come into power. Lord Grey had told the bishops to set their house in order, and some of the prelates had been insulted and threatened in the streets of London. The vital question was, how were we to keep the Church from being liberalized? There was such apathy on the subject in some quarters, such imbecile alarm in others; the true principles of churchmanship seemed so radically decayed, and there was such distraction in the councils of the clergy. * * I felt affection for my own Church,

but not tenderness. I felt dismay at her prospects, anger and scorn at her do-nothing perplexity. I thought that, if Liberalism once got a footing within her, it was sure of victory. I saw that Reformation principles were powerless to rescue her. As to leaving her, the thought never crossed my imagination. Still, I ever kept before me that there was something greater than the Established Church, and that was the Church Catholic and Apostolic, set up from the beginning, of which she was but the local presence and the organ. She was nothing unless she was this. She must be dealt with strongly or she would be lost. There was need of a second reformation.

"At this time I was disengaged from college duties, and as my health had suffered from much labor I was easily persuaded to join Hurrell Froude and his father, who were going to the south of Europe.

"England was in my thought solely, and the news from England came rarely and imperfectly. The bill for the suppression of the Irish sees was in progress and filled my mind. I had fierce thoughts against the Liberals.

"When we took leave of Monsignor Wiseman he had courteously expressed a wish that we might make a second visit to Rome. I said with great gravity, 'We have a work to do in England.' I went down at once to Sicily, and the presentiment grew stronger. I struck into the middle of the Island and there fell ill of a fever. My servant thought that I was dying, and begged for my last directions. I gave them as he wished; but I said, 'I shall not die.' I repeated, 'I shall not die, for I have not sinned against light.' Before starting for Palermo I sat down on my bed and began to sob violently. My servant, who had acted as my nurse, asked what ailed me. I could only answer, 'I have a work to do in England.' I was aching to get home; yet for want of a vessel I was kept at Palermo for three weeks. * * * At last I got off in an orange boat, bound for Marseilles. the lines, 'Lead, Kindly Light.' week. I was writing verses the I reached home on Tuesday. The following Sunday, July 14th, Mr. Keble preached the Assize sermon in the University

Then it was that I wrote We were becalmed a whole whole time of my passage.

pulpit. It was published under the title, 'National Apostasy.' I have ever considered and kept the day as the start of the religious movement of 1833."

This religious movement was carried forward by means of certain publications in tract form, intended to re-establish the Church of England in the affections of the people by the revival of what was called "true Catholicism." Four doctrines were chiefly emphasized: Apostolic succession, Baptismal regeneration, the Eucharistic sacrifice, and the appeal to the Church from the beginning as the depository and witness of the truth.

By apostolic succession was meant a succession of bishops from the days of the apostles, following in their line and clothed with their authority, so that without a bishop the existence of a true Church was impossible, and only those ordained by bishops in the line of the apostolic succession were valid ministers, "and those who take upon themselves the office of the ministry without warrant from God are guilty of the sin of Korah, Dathan and Abiram, who were swallowed up in an earthquake, and of Uzziah, King of Judah, who was struck with leprosy."

The doctrine of baptismal regeneration made of baptism a transforming power, and the teaching concerning the Eucharistic sacrifice declared that in the Lord's Supper there is a real presence of the body and blood of Christ; that it is a sacrifice offered to God, and that it confers grace. And by the appeal to the Church was meant that "there are two sources of authoritative doctrine and of revealed truth of co-ordinate authority and equal importance, holy Scripture and tradition."

Of course, in the Protestant Church of England, this movement met with strong opposition. Dr. Arnold characterized it as "directing its powers to the setting up of a ritual, a name, a dress, a ceremony, a technical phraseology, the superstition of a priesthood without its power, the form of Episcopal government without its substance, a system imperfect and paralyzed, not independent, not sovereign, afraid to cast off the subjection against which it is perpetually murmuringobjects so pitiful that, if gained ever so completely, they would make no man the wiser or the better; they would lead to no good, intellectual, moral or spiritual."