And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on
them twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
them twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v18 - Mom to Old
Every one therefore which heareth these
words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man,
which built his house upon the rock: and the rain descended,
and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that
house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon the rock. And
every one that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not,
shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon
the sand and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the
winds blew, and smote upon that house; and it fell: and great
Iwas the fall thereof.
And it came to pass, when Jesus ended these words, the mul-
titudes were astonished at his teaching: for he taught them as
one having authority, and not as their scribes.
FROM THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK
ANT
ND they brought unto him little children, that he should
touch them; and the disciples rebuked them. But when
Jesus saw it, he was moved with indignation, and said unto
them, Suffer the little children to come unto me; forbid them
not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you,
Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child,
he shall in no wise enter therein. And he took them in his
arms, and blessed them, laying his hands upon them.
And as he was going forth into the way, there ran one to
him, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what
shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto
him, Why callest thou me good? none is good save one, even
God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not kill, Do not
commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not
defraud, Honor thy father and mother. And he said unto him,
Master, all these things have I observed from my youth. And
Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said unto him, One thing
thou lackest: go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor,
and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.
But his countenance fell at the saying, and he went away sor-
rowful: for he was one that had great possessions.
## p. 10585 (#457) ##########################################
THE NEW TESTAMENT
10585
THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN
From the Gospel according to St. Luke
ND behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tempted him, say-
Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And
he said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest
thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.
And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and
thou shalt live. But he, desiring to justify himself, said unto
Jesus, And who is my neighbor? Jesus made answer and said,
A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho; and
he fell among robbers, which both stripped him and beat him,
and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance a certain
priest was going down that way: and when he saw him, he
passed by on the other side. And in like manner a Levite also,
when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other
side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he
was: and when he saw him, he was moved with compassion, and
came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on them oil
and wine; and he set him on his own beast, and brought him
to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow he took
out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said, Take care
of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, I, when I come
back again, will repay thee. Which of these three, thinkest thou,
proved neighbor unto him that fell among the robbers? And
he said, He that shewed mercy on him. And Jesus said unto
him, Go, and do thou likewise.
THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON
From the Gospel according to St. Luke
Α
ND he said, A certain man had two sons: and the younger of
them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of thy
substance that falleth to me. And he divided unto them
his living. And not many days after, the younger son gathered
all together, and took his journey into a far country; and there
he wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had
spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that country; and he
began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to one
of the citizens of that country; and he sent him into his fields to
## p. 10586 (#458) ##########################################
10586
THE NEW TESTAMENT
feed swine. And he would fain have been filled with the husks
that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. But when
he came to himself he said, How many hired servants of my
father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish here with
hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto
him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight: I am
no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy
hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But
while he was yet afar off, his father saw him, and was moved
with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven
and in thy sight: I am no more worthy to be called thy son.
But the father said to his servants, Bring forth quickly the best
robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes
on his feet: and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat,
and make merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again;
he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. Now
his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to
the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called to him
one of the servants, and inquired what these things might be.
And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath
killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and
sound. But he was angry, and would not go in: and his father
came out and intreated him. But he answered and said to his
father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, and I never trans-
gressed a commandment of thine: and yet thou never gavest me
a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: but when this
thy son came, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou
killedst for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou
art ever with me, and all that is mine is thine. But it was meet
to make merry and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and
is alive again; and was lost, and is found.
ON THE SABBATH
I
From the Gospel according to St. Mark
ND it came to pass, that he was going on the Sabbath day
A through the cornfields; and his disciples began, as they
went, to pluck the ears of corn. And the Pharisees said
unto him, Behold, why do they on the Sabbath day that which is
## p. 10587 (#459) ##########################################
THE NEW TESTAMENT
10587
not lawful? And he said unto them, Did ye never read what
David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they
that were with him? How he entered into the house of God
when Abiathar was high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which
it is not lawful to eat save for the priests, and gave also to them
that were with him? And he said unto them, The Sabbath was
made for man, and not man for the Sabbath: so that the Son of
man is lord even of the Sabbath.
And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a
man there which had his hand withered. And they watched him,
whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day; that they might
accuse him. And he saith unto the man that had his hand with-
ered, Stand forth. And he saith unto them, Is it lawful on the
Sabbath day to do good, or to do harm? to save a life, or to kill?
But they held their peace. And when he had looked round about
on them with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their
heart, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he
stretched it forth: and his hand was restored.
II
From the Gospel according to St. Luke
AND he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sab-
bath day. And behold, a woman which had a spirit of infirmity
eighteen years; and she was bowed together, and could in no
wise lift herself up. And when Jesus saw her, he called her,
and said to her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.
And he laid his hands upon her: and immediately she was made.
straight, and glorified God. And the ruler of the synagogue,
being moved with indignation because Jesus had healed on the
Sabbath, answered and said to the multitude, There are six days
in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be
healed, and not on the day of the Sabbath. But the Lord an-
swered him, and said, Ye hypocrites, doth not each one of you
on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead
him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being at
daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had bound, lo, these eighteen
years, to have been loosed from this bond on the day of the
Sabbath?
## p. 10588 (#460) ##########################################
10588
THE NEW TESTAMENT
DISCIPLESHIP
From the Gospel according to St. John
I
AM the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every
branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh it away: and
every branch that beareth fruit, he cleanseth it, that it may
bear more fruit. Already ye are clean because of the word
which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As
the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the
vine, so neither can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine,
ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the
same beareth much fruit: for apart from me ye can do nothing.
If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is
withered; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and
they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in
you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; and so
shall ye be my disciples. Even as the Father hath loved me, I
also have loved you: abide ye in my love. If ye keep my com-
mandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my
Father's commandments, and abide in his love. These things
have I spoken unto you, that my joy may be in you, and that
your joy may be fulfilled. This is my commandment, that ye
love one another, even as I have loved you. Greater love hath
no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Ye are my friends, if ye do the things which I command you.
No longer do I call you servants; for the servant knoweth not
what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things
that I heard from my Father I have made known unto you. Ye
did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that ye
should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide: that
whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it
you. These things I command you, that ye may love one another.
If the world hateth you, ye know that it hath hated me before
it hated you.
If ye were of the world, the world would love its
own: but because ye are not of the world, but I chose you out
of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the
word that I said unto you. A servant is not greater than his
lord. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if
they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But all these
## p. 10589 (#461) ##########################################
THE NEW TESTAMENT
10589
things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they
know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto
them, they had not had sin: but now they have no excuse for
their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also. If I had
not done among them the works which none other did, they
had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both
me and my Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word may
be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without
a cause. But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send
unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which pro-
ceedeth from the Father, he shall bear witness of me; and ye also
bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.
THE CONVERSION OF PAUL
From the Acts of the Apostles
B
UT Saul, yet breathing threatening and slaughter against the
disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and asked
of him letters to Damascus unto the synagogues, that if
he found any that were of the Way, whether men or women, he
might bring them bound to Jerusalem. And as he journeyed,
it came to pass that he drew nigh unto Damascus: and suddenly
there shone round about him a light out of heaven: and he fell
upon the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul,
why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord?
And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest, but rise, and
enter into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must
do. And the men that journeyed with him stood speechless,
hearing the voice, but beholding no man. And Saul arose from
the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw nothing;
and they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus.
And he was three days without sight, and did neither eat nor
drink.
Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ana-
nias; and the Lord said unto him in a vision, Ananias. And he
said, Behold, I am here, Lord. And the Lord said unto him,
Arise, and go to the street which is called Straight, and inquire
in the house of Judas for one named Saul, a man of Tarsus: for
behold, he prayeth; and he hath seen a man named Ananias
coming in, and laying his hands on him, that he might receive
## p. 10590 (#462) ##########################################
THE NEW TESTAMENT
10590
his sight. But Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard from many
of this man, how much evil he did to thy saints at Jerusalem:
and here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that
call upon thy name. But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way:
for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the
Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel: for I will shew
him how many things he must suffer for my name's sake. And
Ananias departed, and entered into the house; and laying his
hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, who ap-
peared unto thee in the way which thou camest, hath sent me,
that thou mayest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy
Ghost. And straightway there fell from his eyes as it were
scales, and he received his sight; and he arose and was baptized;
and he took food and was strengthened.
And he was certain days with the disciples which were at
Damascus. And straightway in the synagogues he proclaimed
Jesus, that he is the Son of God. And all that heard him were
amazed, and said, Is not this he that in Jerusalem made havoc
of them which called on this name? and he had come hither for
this intent, that he might bring them bound before the chief
priests. But Saul increased the more in strength, and con-
founded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is
the Christ.
And when many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel
together to kill him: but their plot became known to Saul. And
they watched the gates also day and night that they might kill
him: but his disciples took him by night, and let him down
through the wall, lowering him in a basket.
And when he was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join
himself to the disciples: and they were all afraid of him, not
believing that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him, and
brought him to the apostles, and declared unto them how he
had seen the Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him,
and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of
Jesus. And he was with them going in and going out at Jeru-
salem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord: and he spake
and disputed against the Grecian Jews; but they went about to
kill him. And when the brethren knew it, they brought him
down to Cæsarea, and sent him forth to Tarsus.
## p. 10591 (#463) ##########################################
THE NEW TESTAMENT
THE NATURE OF LOVE
From the First Epistle to the Corinthians
10591
IF
I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not
love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries
and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove
mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I bestow
all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be
burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suf-
fereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not
itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh
not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth
not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall
be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease;
whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away.
For we
know in part, and we prophesy in part: but when that which is
perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away. When
I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as
a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish
things. For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to
face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also
I have been known. But now abideth faith, hope, love, these
three; and the greatest of these is love.
IMMORTALITY
From the First Epistle to the Corinthians
BE
NOT deceived: Evil company doth corrupt good manners.
Awake up righteously, and sin not; for some have no
knowledge of God: I speak this to move you to shame.
But some one will say, How are the dead raised? and with
what manner of body do they come? Thou foolish one, that
which thou thyself sowest is not quickened, except it die: and
that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be,
but a bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other kind:
but God giveth it a body even as it pleased him, and to each
## p. 10592 (#464) ##########################################
THE NEW TESTAMENT
10592
seed a body of its own. All flesh is not the same flesh: but
there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another
flesh of birds, and another of fishes. There are also celestial
bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is
one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one
glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another
glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star
in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in
corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonor; it
is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:
it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If
there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also
it is written, The first man Adam became a living soul. The
last Adam became a life-giving spirit. Howbeit that is not first
which is spiritual, but that which is natural; then that which
is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second
man is of heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that
are earthy and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are
heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we
shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit
the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we
shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,
at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead
shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this
corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put
on immortality. But when this corruptible shall have put on
incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then
shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swal
lowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death,
where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin; and the power of
sin is the law: but thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore, my beloved brethren,
be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the
Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not vain in the
Lord.
## p. 10593 (#465) ##########################################
THE NEW TESTAMENT
10593
FROM THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JUDE
B
UT Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he
disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against
him a railing judgment, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
But these rail at whatsoever things they know not: and what they
understand naturally, like the creatures without reason, in these
things are they destroyed. Woe unto them! for they went in
the way of Cain, and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for
hire, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah. These are they
who are hidden rocks in your love feasts when they feast with
you, shepherds that without fear feed themselves; clouds without
water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice
dead, plucked up by the roots; wild waves of the sea, foaming
out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness
of darkness hath been reserved for ever. And to these also
Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold, the
Lord came with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judg-
ment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their works
of ungodliness which they have ungodly wrought, and of all the
hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their lusts (and
their mouth speaketh great swelling words), showing respect of
persons for the sake of advantage.
But ye, beloved, remember ye the words which have been
spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; how
that they said to you, In the last time there shall be mockers
walking after their own ungodly lusts. These are they who
make separations, sensual, having not the Spirit. But ye, be-
loved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in
the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for
the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
And on
some have mercy, who are in doubt; and some save, snatching
them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear; hating
even the garment spotted by the flesh.
Now unto him that is able to guard you from stumbling, and
to set you before the presence of his glory without blemish in
exceeding joy, to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ
our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and power, before all time,
and now, and for evermore.
Amen.
XVIII-663
## p. 10594 (#466) ##########################################
10594
THE NEW TESTAMENT
THE VISION
From the Revelation of St. John the Divine
A
ND I saw a great white throne, and him that sat upon it,
from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and
there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead,
the great and the small, standing before the throne; the books
were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book
of life: and the dead were judged out of the things which were
written in the books, according to their works. And the sea
gave up the dead which were in it; and death and Hades gave
up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every
man according to their works. And death and Hades were cast
into the lake of fire. This is the second death, even the lake of
fire. And if any was not found written in the book of life, he
was cast into the lake of fire.
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven
and the first earth are passed away; and the sea is no more.
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of
heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her hus-
band. And I heard a great voice out of the throne saying,
Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell
with them, and they shall be his peoples, and God himself shall
be with them, and be their God: and he shall wipe away every
tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; neither shall
there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more: the first
things are passed away. And he that sitteth on the throne said,
Behold, I make all things new.
And there came one of the seven angels who had the seven
bowls, who were laden with the seven last plagues; and he spake
with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the
wife of the Lamb. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a
mountain great and high, and shewed me the holy city Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God:
her light was like unto a stone most precious, as it were a
jasper stone, clear as crystal: having a wall great and high; hav-
ing twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names writ-
ten thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the
children of Israel: on the east were three gates; and on the north
three gates; and on the south three gates; and on the west three
·
## p. 10595 (#467) ##########################################
THE NEW TESTAMENT
10595
gates.
And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on
them twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And he
that spake with me had for a measure a golden reed to measure
the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof. And the
city lieth foursquare, and the length thereof is as great as the
breadth and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thou-
sand furlongs: the length and the breadth and the height thereof
are equal. And he measured the wall thereof, a hundred and
forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that
is, of an angel. And the building of the wall thereof was jasper:
and the city was pure gold, like unto pure glass. The founda-
tions of the wall of the city were adorned with all manner of
precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second,
sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; the fifth,
sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth,
beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh,
jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve
pearls; each one of the several gates was of one pearl: and the
street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. And
I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God the Almighty, and
the Lamb, are the temple thereof. And the city hath no need of
the sun, neither of the moon, to shine upon it: for the glory of
God did lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb. And the
nations shall walk amidst the light thereof: and the kings of the
earth do bring their glory into it. And the gates thereof shall in
no wise be shut by day (for there shall be no night there): and
they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it;
and there shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean, or he
that maketh an abomination and a lie; but only they which are
written in the Lamb's book of life. And he shewed me a river
of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of
God and of the Lamb, in the midst of the street thereof. And
on this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bear-
ing twelve manner of fruits, yielding its fruit every month: and
the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And
there shall be no curse any more: and the throne of God and of
the Lamb shall be therein; and his servants shall do him service;
and they shall see his face; and his name shall be on their fore-
heads. And there shall be night no more; and they need no
light of lamp, neither light of sun; for the Lord God shall give
them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.
## p. 10596 (#468) ##########################################
10596
THE NEW TESTAMENT
And he said unto me, These words are faithful and true and
the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angel
to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly come to
pass. And behold, I come quickly. Blessed is he that keepeth
the words of the prophecy of this book.
And I John am he that heard and saw these things. And
when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of
the angel which shewed me these things. And he saith unto me,
See thou do it not: I am a fellow-servant with thee and with
thy brethren the prophets, and with them which keep the words
of this book: worship God.
And he saith unto me, Seal not up the words of the prophecy
of this book; for the time is at hand. He that is unrighteous,
let him do unrighteousness still: and he that is filthy, let him be
made filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him do righteousness
still: and he that is holy, let him be made holy still. Behold, I
come quickly; and my reward is with me, to render to each man
according as his work is. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the
first and the last, the beginning and the end.
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And he that hear-
eth, let him say, Come. And he that is athirst, let him come
he that will, let him take the water of life freely.
## p. 10597 (#469) ##########################################
10597
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
(1801-1890)
BY RICHARD HOLT HUTTON
N 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' Cardinal New-
man - though all his writings were more or less closely
connected with religion, even the lectures on University
Education being chiefly intended to show that no university educa-
tion could be complete which did not treat the knowledge of God as
the keystone of all human science - cannot be denied a very import-
ant place; for it was in great measure the form and grace and
variety of his literary gifts that secured for him the attention of all
English-speaking peoples, and that made him one of the princes of
the Church before he died. Cardinal Newman himself fixes on one
of the most striking of his literary gifts, the delicacy of his feeling
for words, and for the fine distinctions between related words of the
closest affinity, when he attributes to the influence of Dr. Haw-
kins (subsequently provost of Oriel) and of Dr. Whately (subsequently
Archbishop of Dublin) the habit of delicate discrimination which he
acquired under their guidance, and for which he was at one time
censured as though it had been in him a latent Jesuitism. As a
matter of fact, however, if Newman owed this faculty in any degree
to the training or suggestion of Hawkins and Whately, he soon far
surpassed his teachers. For undoubtedly Newman founded a literary
school in Oxford; the school of which in later days Matthew Arnold,
with totally different religious convictions, was one of the most dis-
tinguished members. The avowed admiration of the great poet for
Newman's style,- for its lustre, and clearness, and grace, for the
"sweetness and light" of its manner, the beauty of its rhythm, and
the simplicity of its structure,- drew the attention of numbers of less
distinguished men to the secret of its charm; and from that time
onwards the Oxford school, as we may call them,-men like the late
Principal Shairp and the late Lord Bowen,-have more or less uncon-
sciously imbued themselves with its tenderness and grace. Matthew
Arnold himself, however, never really rivaled Newman's style; for
though in his prose works he often displayed his wish to approach
the same standard, his hand was heavier and more didactic, and his
emphasis too continuous and laborious. And in his poetry Matthew
## p. 10598 (#470) ##########################################
10598
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
Arnold deviated even more widely from Newman's manner; for
though displaying many qualities which Newman had not, for the
greater elegiac verse, he missed the exquisite lightness of Newman's
touch and the deeper passion of Newman's awe and reverence. In-
deed, Arnold in his nobler poems is always greatest in bewailing
what he has lost, Newman in gratefully attesting what he has found.
Before I come more particularly to the nature of Newman's influ-
ence on English literature, we must just pass lightly over the story
of his life. John Henry Newman was born in London on February
21st, 1801, and lived till August 11th, 1890,- more than eighty-nine
years.
He was the son of Mr. John Newman, a member of the bank-
ing firm of Ramsbottom, Newman & Co. , which stopped soon after
the peace of 1815, but which never failed, as it discharged every
shilling of its obligations. His mother's maiden name was Fourdri-
nier. She was a member of one of the old Huguenot families, and
a moderate Calvinist, from whom Newman derived something of his
early bias towards the evangelical school of theology, which he stud-
ied in works such as those of Scott, Romaine, Newton, and Milner.
He early adopted Scott's axiom that holiness must come before peace,
and that "growth is the only evidence of life"; a doctrine which had
a considerable influence on his later adoption of the principle of
evolution as applicable to theology. He early read, and was much
influenced by, Law's 'Serious Call. At the age of sixteen his mind
was first possessed with the conviction that it was God's will that he
should lead a single life,-a conviction which held its ground, with
certain intervals "of a month now and a month then," up to the age
of twenty-eight, after which it kept its hold on him for the rest of
his life. He was educated at a private school, and went up to Oxford
very early, taking his degree before he was twenty. He took a poor
degree, having overstrained himself in working for it. In 1821 he is
said to have published two cantos of a poem on St. Bartholomew's
Eve, which apparently he never finished, and which has never been
republished. He tells us that he had derived the notion that the
Church of Rome was Anti-Christ from some of his evangelical teach-
ers, and that this notion "stained his imagination" for many years.
In 1822 Newman was elected to a fellowship in Oriel; where, though
"proud of his college," which was at that time the most distinguished
in the University, he for some years felt very lonely. Indeed, Dr.
Copleston, who was then the provost of his college, meeting him in
a lonely walk, remarked that he never seemed "less alone than when
alone. » Under Dr. Hawkins's influence, Newman took the first decis-
ive step from his early evangelical creed towards the higher Anglican
position. Dr. Hawkins taught him, he tells us, that the tradition of
the Church was the original authority for the creed of the Church,
## p. 10599 (#471) ##########################################
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
10599
and that the Scriptures were never intended to supersede the Church's
tradition, but only to confirm it. Combining this with his early belief
in definite dogma as underlying all revealed teaching, he entered on
the path which led him ultimately to Rome. But it was not till after
he had formed a close friendship with Richard Hurrell Froude, the
liveliest and most vigorous of the early Tractarians, which began in
1826 and lasted till the latter's early death in 1836, that his notion
concerning the identity between Rome and Anti-Christ was thoroughly
broken down. His book on 'The Arians of the Fourth Century' was
finished in July 1832, and marked for the first time Newman's pro-
found belief in the definitions of the Nicene Creed.
In 1832 Hurrell Froude fell ill, and Newman consented to accom-
pany him and his father on a Mediterranean voyage, undertaken
in the hope of re-establishing his friend's health. He traveled with
them for four months to the African, Greek, and Italian coasts, and
then for three months more, alone, in Sicily; where he caught mala-
rial fever, and was thought to be dying by his attendant, though he
himself was firmly convinced that he should not die, since he had "a
work to do in England. " It was during this journey and the voyage
home that he wrote most of the shorter poems first published in the
'Lyra Apostolica,' and now collected in his volume entitled 'Verses
on Various Occasions. ' During the return voyage in an orange-boat
from Palermo to Marseilles, when becalmed in the straits of Bonifa-
zio, he wrote the beautiful little poem, so well known now to all
English-speaking peoples, beginning "Lead, kindly light, amid the
encircling gloom, lead thou me on. "
On reaching home he entered at once on the Tractarian move-
ment; of which indeed he was always the leader till his own faith in
the Church of England, as the best representative of the half-way
house between Rome and the theory of "private judgment," began
to falter and ultimately perished. It was he who elaborated carefully
the theory of a via media, a compromise between the Roman Catholic
and the Protestant view of Revelation; though he himself was one of
the first to surrender his own view as untenable. In 1841, having
been often hard pushed by his own followers as to what he could
make of the Thirty-nine Articles, he published Tract 90,' the cele-
brated tract in which he contended that the Articles were perfectly
consistent with the Anglo-Catholic view of the Church of England.
Bishop after bishop charged against this tract as a final desertion
of Protestantism-which it was; and also as a thoroughly Jesuitic
explaining away of the Articles-which it was not, for the Articles
were really intended as a compromise between Rome and the Refor-
mation, and not by any means as a surrender to the views of the
Puritan party. The tract was saved from a formal condemnation by
## p. 10600 (#472) ##########################################
10600
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
convocation only by the veto of the proctors, Nobis proctoribus non
placet; and thenceforth Newman's effort to reconcile his view with
Anglican doctrine began to lose plausibility even to his own mind,
though he still preached for two years as an Anglican clergyman,
and for another two years of silence hesitated on the verge of Rome.
On October 8th, 1845, Newman was received into the Roman
Catholic Church. Within two or three years he founded the English
branch of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, and took up his residence in
Birmingham; where in 1863 he received the attack of Canon Kings-
ley, accusing him of having been virtually a crypto-Romanist long
before he entered the Roman Catholic Church, and while he was still
trying to draw on young Oxford to his views. To this he replied by
the celebrated 'Apologia pro Vitâ Suâ'; which made him for the first
time popular in England, and built up his reputation as a sincere,
earnest, and genuine theologian. In 1870 he was one of the greatest
of the opponents of the Vatican dogma of the Pope's infallibility;
not because he thought it false, but because he thought it both in-
opportune and premature, not believing that the limits within which
it would hold water had been adequately discussed. This attitude
of his made him very unpopular at the Vatican while Pio Nono was
still at the head of the Church. But in 1878 Pio Nono died; and one
of the first acts of the present Pope, Leo XIII. , was to raise Dr.
Newman to the rank of Cardinal,-chiefly I imagine, because he had
taken so strong a part in insisting on all the guarantees and condi-
tions which confined the doctrine of the Pope's infallibility within
the limits for which the more cautious Roman Catholics contended.
For eleven years he enjoyed the cardinalate; and died, as I have
said, in August 1890.
Except the poems written during his Mediterranean journey, and
the sermons preached in St. Mary's,- ten volumes of them, contain-
ing many of Newman's most moving and powerful appeals to the
heart and mind and spirit of man, the volumes published after
he became a Roman Catholic show his literary power at its highest
point; for the purely doctrinal works of his Anglican days (those, for
example, on The Arians of the Fourth Century,' 'The Via Media,'
and 'Justification by Faith') are often technical and sometimes even
frigid. Not so his chief efforts as a Roman Catholic; for Newman
seemed then first to give the reins to his genius, and to show the full-
ness of his power alike as a thinker, an imaginative writer, a mas-
ter of irony, and a poet. His chief literary qualities seem to me to
be the great vividness and force of the illustrations with which he
presses home his deepest thoughts; the depth, the subtlety, and the
delicacy of his insight into the strange power and stranger wayward-
ness of the human conscience and affections; the vivacity of his
## p. 10601 (#473) ##########################################
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
10601
imagination when he endeavors to restore the past and to vivify the
present; the keenness of his irony; not unfrequently the breadth and
raciness of his humor, and the exquisite pathos of which he was
master.
In relation to the first of these characteristics of his style, the
power which he displays to arrest attention for his deepest thoughts,
by the simplest and most vigorous yet often the most imaginative
illustrations of his drift,- every volume of his sermons, and I might
almost say nearly every sermon of every volume, furnishes telling
examples. He wants to show his hearers how much more the trust-
worthiness of their reason depends on implicit processes, of which the
reasoner himself can give no clear account, than it does on conscious
inferences; and he points to the way in which a mountaineer ascends
a steep rock or mountain-side, choosing his way, as it would seem,
much more by instinct and habit than by anything like conscious
judgment, leaping lightly from point to point with an ease for which
he could give no justification to a questioner, and in which no one
who had not trained his eye and his hand to avail themselves of
every aid within their range, could, however keen their intelligence,
pretend to follow him without disaster. Or again, let me recall that
happy and yet sad name which he gave to our great theological
libraries, "the cemeteries of ancient faith," a name which suggests
how the faith which has been the very life of a great thinker often
lies buried in the works which he has left behind him, till it re-
excites in some other mind the vision and the energy with which it
had previously animated himself. Or, best of all, consider the great
illustration which he gives us of the "development" of given germs
of living thought or truth in the minds of generation after genera-
tion, from the development of the few tones on which the spell of
music depends, into the great science and art which seem to fill the
heart and mind with echoes from some world far too exalted to be
expressed in any terms of conscious thought and well-defined signifi-
cance. Newman's illustrations are always impressive, always apt, and
always vivid.
-
_
Of the second point, which is more or less at the root of New-
man's power as a preacher, the Oxford Sermons, and the 'Sermons
addressed to Mixed Congregations' after he became a Roman Catho-
lic, contain one long chain of evidence. Let me refer first to the
remarkable Oxford sermon on 'Unreal Words,' which should be taken
to heart by every literary man, and has, I believe, been taken to heart
by not a few; though it would certainly tend as much to impose
severe restraints on the too liberal exercise of many great liter-
ary gifts, as to stimulate to their happiest use. Newman preached
this sermon when his mind was thoroughly matured,—at the age of
## p. 10602 (#474) ##########################################
10602
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
thirty-eight,—and he probably never preached anything which had a
more truly searching effect on the consciences and intellect of those
who heard him. In it he takes at once the highest ground. He
denies altogether that "words" are mere sounds which only represent
thought. Since Revelation had entered the world, and the word of
God had been given to man, words have become objective powers
either for good or for evil. They are something beyond the thoughts
of those who utter them; forces which are intended to control, and
do control, our lives, and embody our meditations in action. They
are "edged tools" which we may not play with, on pain of being
injured by them as much as helped. Truth itself has become a
"Word"; and if we do not lay hold on it so as to be helped by it to
a higher life, it will lay hold on us and judge us and condemn all
our superficial uses or abuses of thoughts and purposes higher than
ourselves. He shows us how hypocrisy consists just as much in
making professions which are perfectly true, and even truly meant
by us, but which do not corr
orrespond to our actions, as in making pro-
fessions which do not represent our interior mind at all. « Words
have a meaning whether we mean that meaning or not; and they are
imputed to us in their real meaning, when our not meaning it is our
own fault. "
Then he goes on to give a curiously searching analysis
of the hollow and conventional use which men make of great words,
from the mere wish to satisfy the expectations of others, and per-
haps from a sort of pride in being able to show that they can enter
into the general drift of thoughts which are beyond them, though
they do not really even try to make them the standard of their own
practice. He points out how glibly we shuffle our words so as to
make a fair impression on our teachers and superiors, without ever
realizing that we are demonstrating the shallowness of our own lives
by the very use of phrases intended to persuade others that we are
not shallow. The reader will find two passages in these collected
sermons- one from the Oxford sermon on 'Unreal Words,' the other
from one of the Sermons addressed to Mixed Congregations' — that
are an illustration of Newman's pungency of style, the most striking
evidence of what I have called "the depth, the subtlety, and the deli-
cacy of Newman's studies "in the strange power and the stranger
waywardness of the human conscience and affections. " Both of them
might be used equally well for the purpose of illustrating the keen-
ness of his irony. Yet the most serious drift of each is the insight
it shows into the power of the human conscience, and the wayward-
ness and sophistries of human self-deceit.
Passing to the vividness and vivacity of Newman's imagination
when he endeavors either to restore the Past, or to realize for us
with adequate force the full meaning of thoughts which pass almost
## p. 10603 (#475) ##########################################
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
10603
like shadows over the mind, when they ought to engrave themselves
deeply upon it, may be cited the wonderful picture which he has
given us in 'Callista - his tale of Christian martyrdom - of what
happened in the north of Africa during the Decian persecution of the
third century. The passage in which he describes the plague of
locusts is, even alone, a sufficient proof of the singular power of his
vision in realizing to his readers what he himself had never seen.
And I give it without further comment, because it speaks sufficiently
for itself. But, impressive as that is, it goes a very little way towards
illustrating Newman's great, though discontinuous, imaginative power.
It was a much more difficult feat to throw himself as he did into
the mind of a Greek girl, devoted, with all the ardor of a lively and
eager race, to the beautiful traditions and aspirations of her own
people, and to show the unrest of her heart, as well as the craving
of her mind for something deeper and more lasting than any stray
fragments of the more spiritual Greek philosophy. He makes us see
the mode in which Christianity at once attracts and repels her, and
the throes of her whole nature when she has to choose between a
terrible and painful death, and the abandonment of a faith which
promised her not only a brighter and better life beyond the grave,
but a full satisfaction for that famine of the heart of which she had
been conscious throughout all the various changes and chances of her
fitful, impetuous, and not unspotted life. I know nothing much more
pathetic, nothing which better reveals Newman's insight into the
yearnings and hopes and moody misgivings of a heart groping after
a faith in God and yet unable to attain it,-partly from intellectual
perplexities, partly from disappointment at the apparent inadequacy
of the higher faith to regenerate fully the natures of those who had
adopted it,—than Callista's reproaches to the young Christian who
had merely fallen in love with her, when she was looking to find a
heart more devoted to his God than to any human passion.
I give
the passage to which I refer, in order to show how truly Newman
could read the mind of one weary of the flattery of men, and pro-
foundly disheartened by finding that even in the faith which she had
thought to be founded in Divine truth, there was not mastery enough
over the heart to wean it from the poorest earthly passion, and fix it
on an object worthy of true adoration.
For another, though a very different, illustration of the same kind
of power, I may refer to a passage in 'Loss and Gain': the story of
a conversion to Rome, in which Newman describes the reception
of his Roman Catholic convert by his mother, -the widow of an
Anglican clergyman,—when he comes to take leave of her before
formally submitting himself to the Church of Rome. The mixture of
soreness of feeling,-the distress with which the mother realizes that
## p. 10604 (#476) ##########################################
10604
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
his father's faith does not seem good enough for the son,—and of
tenderness for the son himself, is drawn with a master hand. New-
man did not often venture into the region of fiction; but when he
did, he showed how much of the poet there was in him by painting
a woman even better than he painted a man. The curiously mixed
feelings of this scene of leave-taking have never received adequate
recognition. Imbedded as it is in a story which is hardly a story,—
a mere exposition of the steps by which the craving for a final
authority on religious questions at last leads a humble and self-
distrustful mind to submit itself to the guidance of the Church which
claims an ultimate infallibility in all matters of morality and doc-
trine,- very few have come across it, and those who have, have not
succeeded in making it known to the world at large. The tenderness
and pathos of that passage seem to me almost as great as that of
the preceding one. Newman's most intimate college friend used
sometimes after his marriage, we are told, to forget whether he was
speaking to his wife or to Newman, and to call his wife Newman
and to call Newman "Elizabeth, ". a mistake very significant of the
pathetic tenderness of Newman's manner with those dear to him, and
of the depth of his feelings. Another very touching illustration of
Newman's tenderness will be found in the poem on the gulf between
the living and the dead, however dear to each other, the last twelve
lines of which were added after the death of his dear friend, Richard
Hurrell Froude.
Of the raciness of his humor, many of the 'Lectures on Anglican
Difficulties bear the most effectual evidence; but the passage which
has the greatest reputation in connection with this quality is that in
which, just after the panic on the subject of what was then called
"the Papal aggression," in 1850, Newman ridiculed in the most tell-
ing manner the screams of indignation and dread with which the
restoration of the episcopal constitution to the Roman Catholic Church
in England had been received. I doubt whether a real invasion of
England by the landing of a foreign army on our soil would have
been spoken of with half the horror which this very harmless, and
indeed perfectly inoffensive, restoration of Roman Catholic bishoprics
to England inspired. It was evident enough that the panic was more
the panic with which the appearance of a ghost fills the heart of a
timid person, than the panic with which the imminence of a physical
danger impresses us. Against physical dangers the English show
their pluck, but against spiritual dangers they only show their weak-
est side; and the great panic of 1850 was certainly the most remark-
able outburst of meaningless dismay which in a tolerably long life I
can remember. The result has, I think, proved that the actual res-
toration of the Roman Catholic episcopacy did more to remove the
## p. 10605 (#477) ##########################################
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
10605
ghostly horror with which the English people were seized in antici-
pation of that event, than any sort of reasoning could have done.
We have learned now what Roman Catholic bishops are, and on the
whole we have found them by no means terrible; indeed, often very
excellent allies against irreligion, and in social emergencies very ear-
nest friends. But when in 1850, Newman in his lectures on 'Catholi-
cism in England' described with such genuine glee the "bobs, bobs
royal, and triple bob majors" with which the English Church had
rung down the iniquitous Papal aggression, there was absolutely no
caricature in his lively description. If Newman had not been a the-
ologian, he would probably have been known chiefly as a consider-
able humorist. Some of his pictures of the high-and-dry Oxford dons
in Loss and Gain' are full of this kind of humor.
I have said nothing, of course, of Newman as a theologian,-a
capacity hardly appropriate to a book on the world's best literature.
I have always thought that he regarded the Christian religion as rest-
ing far too exclusively on the delegated authority of the Church, and
far too little on the immediate relation of the soul to Christ. But
that is not a subject which it would be either convenient or desirable
to enter upon here. Say what you will of the conclusions to which
Newman comes on this great subject, no one can deny that he dis-
cusses the whole controversy with a calmness and an acuteness which
is of the greatest use even to those whom his arguments entirely fail
to convince. But my object has been chiefly to show how great an
impression he has made on English literature; an impression which
will, I believe, not dwindle, but increase, as the world becomes more
and more familiar with the literary aspects of his writings.
Richard Holt Hutton
THE TRANSITION
From the Apologia pro Vitâ Suâ: Being a History of My Religious
Opinions >
I
HAD one final advance of mind to accomplish, and one final
step to take. That further advance of mind was to be able
honestly to say that I was certain of the conclusions at which
I had already arrived. That further step, imperative when such
certitude was attained, was my submission to the Catholic Church.
This submission did not take place till two full years after
the resignation of my living in September 1843; nor could I
## p. 10606 (#478) ##########################################
10606
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
have made it at an earlier date, without doubt and apprehension;
that is, with any true conviction of mind or certitude.
In the interval, of which it remains to speak,- viz. , between
the autumns of 1843 and 1845,-I was in lay communion with the
Church of England: attending its services as usual, and abstain-
ing altogether from intercourse with Catholics, from their places
of worship, and from those religious rites and usages, such as
the Invocation of Saints, which are characteristics of their creed.
I did all this on principle; for I never could understand how a
man could be of two religions at once.
What I have to say about myself between these two autumns
I shall almost confine to this one point,-the difficulty I was in
as to the best mode of revealing the state of my mind to my
friends and others, and how I managed to reveal it.
Up to January 1842 I had not disclosed my state of unsettle-
ment to more than three persons.
To two of them, inti-
mate and familiar companions, in the autumn of 1839; to the
third- an old friend too, whom I have also named above
-I sup-
pose when I was in great distress of mind upon the affair of the
Jerusalem Bishopric. In May 1843 I made it known, as has been
seen, to the friend by whose advice I wished, as far as possible,
to be guided. To mention it on set purpose to any one, unless
indeed I was asking advice, I should have felt to be a crime. If
there is anything that was abhorrent to me, it was the scattering
doubts, and unsettling consciences without necessity. A strong
presentiment that my existing opinions would ultimately give
way, and that the grounds of them were unsound, was not a
sufficient warrant for disclosing the state of my mind. I had no
guarantee yet, that that presentiment would be realized. Sup-
posing I were crossing ice, which came right in my way, which
I had good reasons for considering sound, and which I saw num-
bers before me crossing in safety, and supposing a stranger from
the bank, in a voice of authority and in an earnest tone, warned
me that it was dangerous, and then was silent,—I think I should
be startled, and should look about me anxiously, but I think too
that I should go on, till I had better grounds for doubt; and such
was my state, I believe, till the end of 1842. Then again, when
my dissatisfaction became greater, it was hard at first to deter-
mine the point of time when it was too strong to suppress with
propriety. Certitude of course is a point, but doubt is a progress:
I was not near certitude yet. Certitude is a reflex action; it is
-
## p. 10607 (#479) ##########################################
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
10607
to know that one knows. Of that I believe I was not possessed,
till close upon my reception into the Catholic Church. Again, a
practical, effective doubt is a point too; but who can easily ascer-
tain it for himself? Who can determine when it is that the
scales in the balance of opinion begin to turn, and what was a
greater probability in behalf of a belief becomes a positive doubt
against it?
In considering this question in its bearing upon my conduct.
in 1843, my own simple answer to my great difficulty had been,
Do what your present state of opinion requires in the light of
duty, and let that doing tell; speak by acts. This I had done; my
first act of the year had been in February. After three months'
deliberation I had published my retractation of the violent
charges which I had made against Rome: I could not be wrong
in doing so much as this; but I did no more at the time: I did
not retract my Anglican teaching. My second act had been in
September in the same year: after much sorrowful lingering
and hesitation, I had resigned my Living. I tried indeed, before
I did so, to keep Littlemore for myself, even though it was still
to remain an integral part of St. Mary's. I had given to it a
Church and a sort of Parsonage; I had made it a Parish, and I
loved it: I thought in 1843 that perhaps I need not forfeit my
existing relations towards it. I could indeed submit to become
the curate at will of another; but I hoped an arrangement was
possible by which, while I had the curacy, I might have been
my own master in serving it. I had hoped an exception might
have been made in my favor, under the circumstances; but I did
not gain my request. Perhaps I was asking what was impracti-
cable, and it is well for me that it was so.
These had been my two acts of the year, and I said, “I can-
not be wrong in making them; let that follow which must follow
in the thoughts of the world about me, when they see what I
do. " And as time went on, they fully answered my purpose.
What I felt it a simple duty to do, did create a general suspicion
about me, without such responsibility as would be involved in
my initiating any direct act for the sake of creating it. Then,
when friends wrote me on the subject, I either did not deny
or I confessed my state of mind, according to the character and
need of their letters. Sometimes in the case of intimate friends,
whom I should otherwise have been leaving in ignorance of what
others knew on every side of them, I invited the question.
## p. 10608 (#480) ##########################################
10608
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
And here comes in another point for explanation. While I
was fighting in Oxford for the Anglican Church, then indeed I
was very glad to make converts; and though I never broke away
from that rule of my mind (as I may call it) of which I have
already spoken, of finding disciples rather than seeking them, yet
that I made advances to others in a special way, I have no doubt;
this came to an end, however, as soon as I fell into misgivings
as to the true ground to be taken in the controversy. For then,
when I gave up my place in the Movement, I ceased from any
such proceedings; and my utmost endeavor was to tranquillize
such persons, especially those who belonged to the new school, as
were unsettled in their religious views, and as I judged, hasty
in their conclusions. This went on till 1843; but at that date, as
soon as I turned my face Romeward, I gave up, as far as ever
was possible, the thought of, in any respect and in any shape,
acting upon others. Then I myself was simply my own concern.
How could I in any sense direct others, who had to be guided in
so momentous a matter myself? How could I be considered in
a position, even to say a word to them, one way or the other?
How could I presume to unsettle them as I was unsettled, when
I had no
means of bringing them out of such unsettlement?
And if they were unsettled already, how could I point to them
a place of refuge, when I was not sure that I should choose it
for myself? My only line, my only duty, was to keep simply to
my own case. I recollected Pascal's words, "Je mourrai seul” [I
will die alone].
words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man,
which built his house upon the rock: and the rain descended,
and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that
house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon the rock. And
every one that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not,
shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon
the sand and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the
winds blew, and smote upon that house; and it fell: and great
Iwas the fall thereof.
And it came to pass, when Jesus ended these words, the mul-
titudes were astonished at his teaching: for he taught them as
one having authority, and not as their scribes.
FROM THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK
ANT
ND they brought unto him little children, that he should
touch them; and the disciples rebuked them. But when
Jesus saw it, he was moved with indignation, and said unto
them, Suffer the little children to come unto me; forbid them
not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you,
Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child,
he shall in no wise enter therein. And he took them in his
arms, and blessed them, laying his hands upon them.
And as he was going forth into the way, there ran one to
him, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what
shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto
him, Why callest thou me good? none is good save one, even
God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not kill, Do not
commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not
defraud, Honor thy father and mother. And he said unto him,
Master, all these things have I observed from my youth. And
Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said unto him, One thing
thou lackest: go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor,
and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.
But his countenance fell at the saying, and he went away sor-
rowful: for he was one that had great possessions.
## p. 10585 (#457) ##########################################
THE NEW TESTAMENT
10585
THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN
From the Gospel according to St. Luke
ND behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tempted him, say-
Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And
he said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest
thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.
And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and
thou shalt live. But he, desiring to justify himself, said unto
Jesus, And who is my neighbor? Jesus made answer and said,
A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho; and
he fell among robbers, which both stripped him and beat him,
and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance a certain
priest was going down that way: and when he saw him, he
passed by on the other side. And in like manner a Levite also,
when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other
side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he
was: and when he saw him, he was moved with compassion, and
came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on them oil
and wine; and he set him on his own beast, and brought him
to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow he took
out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said, Take care
of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, I, when I come
back again, will repay thee. Which of these three, thinkest thou,
proved neighbor unto him that fell among the robbers? And
he said, He that shewed mercy on him. And Jesus said unto
him, Go, and do thou likewise.
THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON
From the Gospel according to St. Luke
Α
ND he said, A certain man had two sons: and the younger of
them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of thy
substance that falleth to me. And he divided unto them
his living. And not many days after, the younger son gathered
all together, and took his journey into a far country; and there
he wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had
spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that country; and he
began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to one
of the citizens of that country; and he sent him into his fields to
## p. 10586 (#458) ##########################################
10586
THE NEW TESTAMENT
feed swine. And he would fain have been filled with the husks
that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. But when
he came to himself he said, How many hired servants of my
father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish here with
hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto
him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight: I am
no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy
hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But
while he was yet afar off, his father saw him, and was moved
with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven
and in thy sight: I am no more worthy to be called thy son.
But the father said to his servants, Bring forth quickly the best
robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes
on his feet: and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat,
and make merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again;
he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. Now
his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to
the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called to him
one of the servants, and inquired what these things might be.
And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath
killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and
sound. But he was angry, and would not go in: and his father
came out and intreated him. But he answered and said to his
father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, and I never trans-
gressed a commandment of thine: and yet thou never gavest me
a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: but when this
thy son came, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou
killedst for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou
art ever with me, and all that is mine is thine. But it was meet
to make merry and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and
is alive again; and was lost, and is found.
ON THE SABBATH
I
From the Gospel according to St. Mark
ND it came to pass, that he was going on the Sabbath day
A through the cornfields; and his disciples began, as they
went, to pluck the ears of corn. And the Pharisees said
unto him, Behold, why do they on the Sabbath day that which is
## p. 10587 (#459) ##########################################
THE NEW TESTAMENT
10587
not lawful? And he said unto them, Did ye never read what
David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they
that were with him? How he entered into the house of God
when Abiathar was high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which
it is not lawful to eat save for the priests, and gave also to them
that were with him? And he said unto them, The Sabbath was
made for man, and not man for the Sabbath: so that the Son of
man is lord even of the Sabbath.
And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a
man there which had his hand withered. And they watched him,
whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day; that they might
accuse him. And he saith unto the man that had his hand with-
ered, Stand forth. And he saith unto them, Is it lawful on the
Sabbath day to do good, or to do harm? to save a life, or to kill?
But they held their peace. And when he had looked round about
on them with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their
heart, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he
stretched it forth: and his hand was restored.
II
From the Gospel according to St. Luke
AND he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sab-
bath day. And behold, a woman which had a spirit of infirmity
eighteen years; and she was bowed together, and could in no
wise lift herself up. And when Jesus saw her, he called her,
and said to her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.
And he laid his hands upon her: and immediately she was made.
straight, and glorified God. And the ruler of the synagogue,
being moved with indignation because Jesus had healed on the
Sabbath, answered and said to the multitude, There are six days
in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be
healed, and not on the day of the Sabbath. But the Lord an-
swered him, and said, Ye hypocrites, doth not each one of you
on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead
him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being at
daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had bound, lo, these eighteen
years, to have been loosed from this bond on the day of the
Sabbath?
## p. 10588 (#460) ##########################################
10588
THE NEW TESTAMENT
DISCIPLESHIP
From the Gospel according to St. John
I
AM the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every
branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh it away: and
every branch that beareth fruit, he cleanseth it, that it may
bear more fruit. Already ye are clean because of the word
which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As
the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the
vine, so neither can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine,
ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the
same beareth much fruit: for apart from me ye can do nothing.
If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is
withered; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and
they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in
you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; and so
shall ye be my disciples. Even as the Father hath loved me, I
also have loved you: abide ye in my love. If ye keep my com-
mandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my
Father's commandments, and abide in his love. These things
have I spoken unto you, that my joy may be in you, and that
your joy may be fulfilled. This is my commandment, that ye
love one another, even as I have loved you. Greater love hath
no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Ye are my friends, if ye do the things which I command you.
No longer do I call you servants; for the servant knoweth not
what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things
that I heard from my Father I have made known unto you. Ye
did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that ye
should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide: that
whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it
you. These things I command you, that ye may love one another.
If the world hateth you, ye know that it hath hated me before
it hated you.
If ye were of the world, the world would love its
own: but because ye are not of the world, but I chose you out
of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the
word that I said unto you. A servant is not greater than his
lord. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if
they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But all these
## p. 10589 (#461) ##########################################
THE NEW TESTAMENT
10589
things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they
know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto
them, they had not had sin: but now they have no excuse for
their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also. If I had
not done among them the works which none other did, they
had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both
me and my Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word may
be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without
a cause. But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send
unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which pro-
ceedeth from the Father, he shall bear witness of me; and ye also
bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.
THE CONVERSION OF PAUL
From the Acts of the Apostles
B
UT Saul, yet breathing threatening and slaughter against the
disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and asked
of him letters to Damascus unto the synagogues, that if
he found any that were of the Way, whether men or women, he
might bring them bound to Jerusalem. And as he journeyed,
it came to pass that he drew nigh unto Damascus: and suddenly
there shone round about him a light out of heaven: and he fell
upon the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul,
why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord?
And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest, but rise, and
enter into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must
do. And the men that journeyed with him stood speechless,
hearing the voice, but beholding no man. And Saul arose from
the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw nothing;
and they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus.
And he was three days without sight, and did neither eat nor
drink.
Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ana-
nias; and the Lord said unto him in a vision, Ananias. And he
said, Behold, I am here, Lord. And the Lord said unto him,
Arise, and go to the street which is called Straight, and inquire
in the house of Judas for one named Saul, a man of Tarsus: for
behold, he prayeth; and he hath seen a man named Ananias
coming in, and laying his hands on him, that he might receive
## p. 10590 (#462) ##########################################
THE NEW TESTAMENT
10590
his sight. But Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard from many
of this man, how much evil he did to thy saints at Jerusalem:
and here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that
call upon thy name. But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way:
for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the
Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel: for I will shew
him how many things he must suffer for my name's sake. And
Ananias departed, and entered into the house; and laying his
hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, who ap-
peared unto thee in the way which thou camest, hath sent me,
that thou mayest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy
Ghost. And straightway there fell from his eyes as it were
scales, and he received his sight; and he arose and was baptized;
and he took food and was strengthened.
And he was certain days with the disciples which were at
Damascus. And straightway in the synagogues he proclaimed
Jesus, that he is the Son of God. And all that heard him were
amazed, and said, Is not this he that in Jerusalem made havoc
of them which called on this name? and he had come hither for
this intent, that he might bring them bound before the chief
priests. But Saul increased the more in strength, and con-
founded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is
the Christ.
And when many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel
together to kill him: but their plot became known to Saul. And
they watched the gates also day and night that they might kill
him: but his disciples took him by night, and let him down
through the wall, lowering him in a basket.
And when he was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join
himself to the disciples: and they were all afraid of him, not
believing that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him, and
brought him to the apostles, and declared unto them how he
had seen the Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him,
and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of
Jesus. And he was with them going in and going out at Jeru-
salem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord: and he spake
and disputed against the Grecian Jews; but they went about to
kill him. And when the brethren knew it, they brought him
down to Cæsarea, and sent him forth to Tarsus.
## p. 10591 (#463) ##########################################
THE NEW TESTAMENT
THE NATURE OF LOVE
From the First Epistle to the Corinthians
10591
IF
I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not
love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries
and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove
mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I bestow
all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be
burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suf-
fereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not
itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh
not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth
not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall
be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease;
whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away.
For we
know in part, and we prophesy in part: but when that which is
perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away. When
I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as
a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish
things. For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to
face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also
I have been known. But now abideth faith, hope, love, these
three; and the greatest of these is love.
IMMORTALITY
From the First Epistle to the Corinthians
BE
NOT deceived: Evil company doth corrupt good manners.
Awake up righteously, and sin not; for some have no
knowledge of God: I speak this to move you to shame.
But some one will say, How are the dead raised? and with
what manner of body do they come? Thou foolish one, that
which thou thyself sowest is not quickened, except it die: and
that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be,
but a bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other kind:
but God giveth it a body even as it pleased him, and to each
## p. 10592 (#464) ##########################################
THE NEW TESTAMENT
10592
seed a body of its own. All flesh is not the same flesh: but
there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another
flesh of birds, and another of fishes. There are also celestial
bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is
one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one
glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another
glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star
in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in
corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonor; it
is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:
it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If
there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also
it is written, The first man Adam became a living soul. The
last Adam became a life-giving spirit. Howbeit that is not first
which is spiritual, but that which is natural; then that which
is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second
man is of heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that
are earthy and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are
heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we
shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit
the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we
shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,
at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead
shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this
corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put
on immortality. But when this corruptible shall have put on
incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then
shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swal
lowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death,
where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin; and the power of
sin is the law: but thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore, my beloved brethren,
be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the
Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not vain in the
Lord.
## p. 10593 (#465) ##########################################
THE NEW TESTAMENT
10593
FROM THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JUDE
B
UT Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he
disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against
him a railing judgment, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
But these rail at whatsoever things they know not: and what they
understand naturally, like the creatures without reason, in these
things are they destroyed. Woe unto them! for they went in
the way of Cain, and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for
hire, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah. These are they
who are hidden rocks in your love feasts when they feast with
you, shepherds that without fear feed themselves; clouds without
water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice
dead, plucked up by the roots; wild waves of the sea, foaming
out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness
of darkness hath been reserved for ever. And to these also
Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold, the
Lord came with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judg-
ment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their works
of ungodliness which they have ungodly wrought, and of all the
hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their lusts (and
their mouth speaketh great swelling words), showing respect of
persons for the sake of advantage.
But ye, beloved, remember ye the words which have been
spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; how
that they said to you, In the last time there shall be mockers
walking after their own ungodly lusts. These are they who
make separations, sensual, having not the Spirit. But ye, be-
loved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in
the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for
the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
And on
some have mercy, who are in doubt; and some save, snatching
them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear; hating
even the garment spotted by the flesh.
Now unto him that is able to guard you from stumbling, and
to set you before the presence of his glory without blemish in
exceeding joy, to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ
our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and power, before all time,
and now, and for evermore.
Amen.
XVIII-663
## p. 10594 (#466) ##########################################
10594
THE NEW TESTAMENT
THE VISION
From the Revelation of St. John the Divine
A
ND I saw a great white throne, and him that sat upon it,
from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and
there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead,
the great and the small, standing before the throne; the books
were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book
of life: and the dead were judged out of the things which were
written in the books, according to their works. And the sea
gave up the dead which were in it; and death and Hades gave
up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every
man according to their works. And death and Hades were cast
into the lake of fire. This is the second death, even the lake of
fire. And if any was not found written in the book of life, he
was cast into the lake of fire.
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven
and the first earth are passed away; and the sea is no more.
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of
heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her hus-
band. And I heard a great voice out of the throne saying,
Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell
with them, and they shall be his peoples, and God himself shall
be with them, and be their God: and he shall wipe away every
tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; neither shall
there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more: the first
things are passed away. And he that sitteth on the throne said,
Behold, I make all things new.
And there came one of the seven angels who had the seven
bowls, who were laden with the seven last plagues; and he spake
with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the
wife of the Lamb. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a
mountain great and high, and shewed me the holy city Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God:
her light was like unto a stone most precious, as it were a
jasper stone, clear as crystal: having a wall great and high; hav-
ing twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names writ-
ten thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the
children of Israel: on the east were three gates; and on the north
three gates; and on the south three gates; and on the west three
·
## p. 10595 (#467) ##########################################
THE NEW TESTAMENT
10595
gates.
And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on
them twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And he
that spake with me had for a measure a golden reed to measure
the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof. And the
city lieth foursquare, and the length thereof is as great as the
breadth and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thou-
sand furlongs: the length and the breadth and the height thereof
are equal. And he measured the wall thereof, a hundred and
forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that
is, of an angel. And the building of the wall thereof was jasper:
and the city was pure gold, like unto pure glass. The founda-
tions of the wall of the city were adorned with all manner of
precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second,
sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; the fifth,
sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth,
beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh,
jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve
pearls; each one of the several gates was of one pearl: and the
street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. And
I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God the Almighty, and
the Lamb, are the temple thereof. And the city hath no need of
the sun, neither of the moon, to shine upon it: for the glory of
God did lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb. And the
nations shall walk amidst the light thereof: and the kings of the
earth do bring their glory into it. And the gates thereof shall in
no wise be shut by day (for there shall be no night there): and
they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it;
and there shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean, or he
that maketh an abomination and a lie; but only they which are
written in the Lamb's book of life. And he shewed me a river
of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of
God and of the Lamb, in the midst of the street thereof. And
on this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bear-
ing twelve manner of fruits, yielding its fruit every month: and
the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And
there shall be no curse any more: and the throne of God and of
the Lamb shall be therein; and his servants shall do him service;
and they shall see his face; and his name shall be on their fore-
heads. And there shall be night no more; and they need no
light of lamp, neither light of sun; for the Lord God shall give
them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.
## p. 10596 (#468) ##########################################
10596
THE NEW TESTAMENT
And he said unto me, These words are faithful and true and
the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angel
to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly come to
pass. And behold, I come quickly. Blessed is he that keepeth
the words of the prophecy of this book.
And I John am he that heard and saw these things. And
when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of
the angel which shewed me these things. And he saith unto me,
See thou do it not: I am a fellow-servant with thee and with
thy brethren the prophets, and with them which keep the words
of this book: worship God.
And he saith unto me, Seal not up the words of the prophecy
of this book; for the time is at hand. He that is unrighteous,
let him do unrighteousness still: and he that is filthy, let him be
made filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him do righteousness
still: and he that is holy, let him be made holy still. Behold, I
come quickly; and my reward is with me, to render to each man
according as his work is. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the
first and the last, the beginning and the end.
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And he that hear-
eth, let him say, Come. And he that is athirst, let him come
he that will, let him take the water of life freely.
## p. 10597 (#469) ##########################################
10597
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
(1801-1890)
BY RICHARD HOLT HUTTON
N 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' Cardinal New-
man - though all his writings were more or less closely
connected with religion, even the lectures on University
Education being chiefly intended to show that no university educa-
tion could be complete which did not treat the knowledge of God as
the keystone of all human science - cannot be denied a very import-
ant place; for it was in great measure the form and grace and
variety of his literary gifts that secured for him the attention of all
English-speaking peoples, and that made him one of the princes of
the Church before he died. Cardinal Newman himself fixes on one
of the most striking of his literary gifts, the delicacy of his feeling
for words, and for the fine distinctions between related words of the
closest affinity, when he attributes to the influence of Dr. Haw-
kins (subsequently provost of Oriel) and of Dr. Whately (subsequently
Archbishop of Dublin) the habit of delicate discrimination which he
acquired under their guidance, and for which he was at one time
censured as though it had been in him a latent Jesuitism. As a
matter of fact, however, if Newman owed this faculty in any degree
to the training or suggestion of Hawkins and Whately, he soon far
surpassed his teachers. For undoubtedly Newman founded a literary
school in Oxford; the school of which in later days Matthew Arnold,
with totally different religious convictions, was one of the most dis-
tinguished members. The avowed admiration of the great poet for
Newman's style,- for its lustre, and clearness, and grace, for the
"sweetness and light" of its manner, the beauty of its rhythm, and
the simplicity of its structure,- drew the attention of numbers of less
distinguished men to the secret of its charm; and from that time
onwards the Oxford school, as we may call them,-men like the late
Principal Shairp and the late Lord Bowen,-have more or less uncon-
sciously imbued themselves with its tenderness and grace. Matthew
Arnold himself, however, never really rivaled Newman's style; for
though in his prose works he often displayed his wish to approach
the same standard, his hand was heavier and more didactic, and his
emphasis too continuous and laborious. And in his poetry Matthew
## p. 10598 (#470) ##########################################
10598
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
Arnold deviated even more widely from Newman's manner; for
though displaying many qualities which Newman had not, for the
greater elegiac verse, he missed the exquisite lightness of Newman's
touch and the deeper passion of Newman's awe and reverence. In-
deed, Arnold in his nobler poems is always greatest in bewailing
what he has lost, Newman in gratefully attesting what he has found.
Before I come more particularly to the nature of Newman's influ-
ence on English literature, we must just pass lightly over the story
of his life. John Henry Newman was born in London on February
21st, 1801, and lived till August 11th, 1890,- more than eighty-nine
years.
He was the son of Mr. John Newman, a member of the bank-
ing firm of Ramsbottom, Newman & Co. , which stopped soon after
the peace of 1815, but which never failed, as it discharged every
shilling of its obligations. His mother's maiden name was Fourdri-
nier. She was a member of one of the old Huguenot families, and
a moderate Calvinist, from whom Newman derived something of his
early bias towards the evangelical school of theology, which he stud-
ied in works such as those of Scott, Romaine, Newton, and Milner.
He early adopted Scott's axiom that holiness must come before peace,
and that "growth is the only evidence of life"; a doctrine which had
a considerable influence on his later adoption of the principle of
evolution as applicable to theology. He early read, and was much
influenced by, Law's 'Serious Call. At the age of sixteen his mind
was first possessed with the conviction that it was God's will that he
should lead a single life,-a conviction which held its ground, with
certain intervals "of a month now and a month then," up to the age
of twenty-eight, after which it kept its hold on him for the rest of
his life. He was educated at a private school, and went up to Oxford
very early, taking his degree before he was twenty. He took a poor
degree, having overstrained himself in working for it. In 1821 he is
said to have published two cantos of a poem on St. Bartholomew's
Eve, which apparently he never finished, and which has never been
republished. He tells us that he had derived the notion that the
Church of Rome was Anti-Christ from some of his evangelical teach-
ers, and that this notion "stained his imagination" for many years.
In 1822 Newman was elected to a fellowship in Oriel; where, though
"proud of his college," which was at that time the most distinguished
in the University, he for some years felt very lonely. Indeed, Dr.
Copleston, who was then the provost of his college, meeting him in
a lonely walk, remarked that he never seemed "less alone than when
alone. » Under Dr. Hawkins's influence, Newman took the first decis-
ive step from his early evangelical creed towards the higher Anglican
position. Dr. Hawkins taught him, he tells us, that the tradition of
the Church was the original authority for the creed of the Church,
## p. 10599 (#471) ##########################################
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
10599
and that the Scriptures were never intended to supersede the Church's
tradition, but only to confirm it. Combining this with his early belief
in definite dogma as underlying all revealed teaching, he entered on
the path which led him ultimately to Rome. But it was not till after
he had formed a close friendship with Richard Hurrell Froude, the
liveliest and most vigorous of the early Tractarians, which began in
1826 and lasted till the latter's early death in 1836, that his notion
concerning the identity between Rome and Anti-Christ was thoroughly
broken down. His book on 'The Arians of the Fourth Century' was
finished in July 1832, and marked for the first time Newman's pro-
found belief in the definitions of the Nicene Creed.
In 1832 Hurrell Froude fell ill, and Newman consented to accom-
pany him and his father on a Mediterranean voyage, undertaken
in the hope of re-establishing his friend's health. He traveled with
them for four months to the African, Greek, and Italian coasts, and
then for three months more, alone, in Sicily; where he caught mala-
rial fever, and was thought to be dying by his attendant, though he
himself was firmly convinced that he should not die, since he had "a
work to do in England. " It was during this journey and the voyage
home that he wrote most of the shorter poems first published in the
'Lyra Apostolica,' and now collected in his volume entitled 'Verses
on Various Occasions. ' During the return voyage in an orange-boat
from Palermo to Marseilles, when becalmed in the straits of Bonifa-
zio, he wrote the beautiful little poem, so well known now to all
English-speaking peoples, beginning "Lead, kindly light, amid the
encircling gloom, lead thou me on. "
On reaching home he entered at once on the Tractarian move-
ment; of which indeed he was always the leader till his own faith in
the Church of England, as the best representative of the half-way
house between Rome and the theory of "private judgment," began
to falter and ultimately perished. It was he who elaborated carefully
the theory of a via media, a compromise between the Roman Catholic
and the Protestant view of Revelation; though he himself was one of
the first to surrender his own view as untenable. In 1841, having
been often hard pushed by his own followers as to what he could
make of the Thirty-nine Articles, he published Tract 90,' the cele-
brated tract in which he contended that the Articles were perfectly
consistent with the Anglo-Catholic view of the Church of England.
Bishop after bishop charged against this tract as a final desertion
of Protestantism-which it was; and also as a thoroughly Jesuitic
explaining away of the Articles-which it was not, for the Articles
were really intended as a compromise between Rome and the Refor-
mation, and not by any means as a surrender to the views of the
Puritan party. The tract was saved from a formal condemnation by
## p. 10600 (#472) ##########################################
10600
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
convocation only by the veto of the proctors, Nobis proctoribus non
placet; and thenceforth Newman's effort to reconcile his view with
Anglican doctrine began to lose plausibility even to his own mind,
though he still preached for two years as an Anglican clergyman,
and for another two years of silence hesitated on the verge of Rome.
On October 8th, 1845, Newman was received into the Roman
Catholic Church. Within two or three years he founded the English
branch of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, and took up his residence in
Birmingham; where in 1863 he received the attack of Canon Kings-
ley, accusing him of having been virtually a crypto-Romanist long
before he entered the Roman Catholic Church, and while he was still
trying to draw on young Oxford to his views. To this he replied by
the celebrated 'Apologia pro Vitâ Suâ'; which made him for the first
time popular in England, and built up his reputation as a sincere,
earnest, and genuine theologian. In 1870 he was one of the greatest
of the opponents of the Vatican dogma of the Pope's infallibility;
not because he thought it false, but because he thought it both in-
opportune and premature, not believing that the limits within which
it would hold water had been adequately discussed. This attitude
of his made him very unpopular at the Vatican while Pio Nono was
still at the head of the Church. But in 1878 Pio Nono died; and one
of the first acts of the present Pope, Leo XIII. , was to raise Dr.
Newman to the rank of Cardinal,-chiefly I imagine, because he had
taken so strong a part in insisting on all the guarantees and condi-
tions which confined the doctrine of the Pope's infallibility within
the limits for which the more cautious Roman Catholics contended.
For eleven years he enjoyed the cardinalate; and died, as I have
said, in August 1890.
Except the poems written during his Mediterranean journey, and
the sermons preached in St. Mary's,- ten volumes of them, contain-
ing many of Newman's most moving and powerful appeals to the
heart and mind and spirit of man, the volumes published after
he became a Roman Catholic show his literary power at its highest
point; for the purely doctrinal works of his Anglican days (those, for
example, on The Arians of the Fourth Century,' 'The Via Media,'
and 'Justification by Faith') are often technical and sometimes even
frigid. Not so his chief efforts as a Roman Catholic; for Newman
seemed then first to give the reins to his genius, and to show the full-
ness of his power alike as a thinker, an imaginative writer, a mas-
ter of irony, and a poet. His chief literary qualities seem to me to
be the great vividness and force of the illustrations with which he
presses home his deepest thoughts; the depth, the subtlety, and the
delicacy of his insight into the strange power and stranger wayward-
ness of the human conscience and affections; the vivacity of his
## p. 10601 (#473) ##########################################
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
10601
imagination when he endeavors to restore the past and to vivify the
present; the keenness of his irony; not unfrequently the breadth and
raciness of his humor, and the exquisite pathos of which he was
master.
In relation to the first of these characteristics of his style, the
power which he displays to arrest attention for his deepest thoughts,
by the simplest and most vigorous yet often the most imaginative
illustrations of his drift,- every volume of his sermons, and I might
almost say nearly every sermon of every volume, furnishes telling
examples. He wants to show his hearers how much more the trust-
worthiness of their reason depends on implicit processes, of which the
reasoner himself can give no clear account, than it does on conscious
inferences; and he points to the way in which a mountaineer ascends
a steep rock or mountain-side, choosing his way, as it would seem,
much more by instinct and habit than by anything like conscious
judgment, leaping lightly from point to point with an ease for which
he could give no justification to a questioner, and in which no one
who had not trained his eye and his hand to avail themselves of
every aid within their range, could, however keen their intelligence,
pretend to follow him without disaster. Or again, let me recall that
happy and yet sad name which he gave to our great theological
libraries, "the cemeteries of ancient faith," a name which suggests
how the faith which has been the very life of a great thinker often
lies buried in the works which he has left behind him, till it re-
excites in some other mind the vision and the energy with which it
had previously animated himself. Or, best of all, consider the great
illustration which he gives us of the "development" of given germs
of living thought or truth in the minds of generation after genera-
tion, from the development of the few tones on which the spell of
music depends, into the great science and art which seem to fill the
heart and mind with echoes from some world far too exalted to be
expressed in any terms of conscious thought and well-defined signifi-
cance. Newman's illustrations are always impressive, always apt, and
always vivid.
-
_
Of the second point, which is more or less at the root of New-
man's power as a preacher, the Oxford Sermons, and the 'Sermons
addressed to Mixed Congregations' after he became a Roman Catho-
lic, contain one long chain of evidence. Let me refer first to the
remarkable Oxford sermon on 'Unreal Words,' which should be taken
to heart by every literary man, and has, I believe, been taken to heart
by not a few; though it would certainly tend as much to impose
severe restraints on the too liberal exercise of many great liter-
ary gifts, as to stimulate to their happiest use. Newman preached
this sermon when his mind was thoroughly matured,—at the age of
## p. 10602 (#474) ##########################################
10602
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
thirty-eight,—and he probably never preached anything which had a
more truly searching effect on the consciences and intellect of those
who heard him. In it he takes at once the highest ground. He
denies altogether that "words" are mere sounds which only represent
thought. Since Revelation had entered the world, and the word of
God had been given to man, words have become objective powers
either for good or for evil. They are something beyond the thoughts
of those who utter them; forces which are intended to control, and
do control, our lives, and embody our meditations in action. They
are "edged tools" which we may not play with, on pain of being
injured by them as much as helped. Truth itself has become a
"Word"; and if we do not lay hold on it so as to be helped by it to
a higher life, it will lay hold on us and judge us and condemn all
our superficial uses or abuses of thoughts and purposes higher than
ourselves. He shows us how hypocrisy consists just as much in
making professions which are perfectly true, and even truly meant
by us, but which do not corr
orrespond to our actions, as in making pro-
fessions which do not represent our interior mind at all. « Words
have a meaning whether we mean that meaning or not; and they are
imputed to us in their real meaning, when our not meaning it is our
own fault. "
Then he goes on to give a curiously searching analysis
of the hollow and conventional use which men make of great words,
from the mere wish to satisfy the expectations of others, and per-
haps from a sort of pride in being able to show that they can enter
into the general drift of thoughts which are beyond them, though
they do not really even try to make them the standard of their own
practice. He points out how glibly we shuffle our words so as to
make a fair impression on our teachers and superiors, without ever
realizing that we are demonstrating the shallowness of our own lives
by the very use of phrases intended to persuade others that we are
not shallow. The reader will find two passages in these collected
sermons- one from the Oxford sermon on 'Unreal Words,' the other
from one of the Sermons addressed to Mixed Congregations' — that
are an illustration of Newman's pungency of style, the most striking
evidence of what I have called "the depth, the subtlety, and the deli-
cacy of Newman's studies "in the strange power and the stranger
waywardness of the human conscience and affections. " Both of them
might be used equally well for the purpose of illustrating the keen-
ness of his irony. Yet the most serious drift of each is the insight
it shows into the power of the human conscience, and the wayward-
ness and sophistries of human self-deceit.
Passing to the vividness and vivacity of Newman's imagination
when he endeavors either to restore the Past, or to realize for us
with adequate force the full meaning of thoughts which pass almost
## p. 10603 (#475) ##########################################
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
10603
like shadows over the mind, when they ought to engrave themselves
deeply upon it, may be cited the wonderful picture which he has
given us in 'Callista - his tale of Christian martyrdom - of what
happened in the north of Africa during the Decian persecution of the
third century. The passage in which he describes the plague of
locusts is, even alone, a sufficient proof of the singular power of his
vision in realizing to his readers what he himself had never seen.
And I give it without further comment, because it speaks sufficiently
for itself. But, impressive as that is, it goes a very little way towards
illustrating Newman's great, though discontinuous, imaginative power.
It was a much more difficult feat to throw himself as he did into
the mind of a Greek girl, devoted, with all the ardor of a lively and
eager race, to the beautiful traditions and aspirations of her own
people, and to show the unrest of her heart, as well as the craving
of her mind for something deeper and more lasting than any stray
fragments of the more spiritual Greek philosophy. He makes us see
the mode in which Christianity at once attracts and repels her, and
the throes of her whole nature when she has to choose between a
terrible and painful death, and the abandonment of a faith which
promised her not only a brighter and better life beyond the grave,
but a full satisfaction for that famine of the heart of which she had
been conscious throughout all the various changes and chances of her
fitful, impetuous, and not unspotted life. I know nothing much more
pathetic, nothing which better reveals Newman's insight into the
yearnings and hopes and moody misgivings of a heart groping after
a faith in God and yet unable to attain it,-partly from intellectual
perplexities, partly from disappointment at the apparent inadequacy
of the higher faith to regenerate fully the natures of those who had
adopted it,—than Callista's reproaches to the young Christian who
had merely fallen in love with her, when she was looking to find a
heart more devoted to his God than to any human passion.
I give
the passage to which I refer, in order to show how truly Newman
could read the mind of one weary of the flattery of men, and pro-
foundly disheartened by finding that even in the faith which she had
thought to be founded in Divine truth, there was not mastery enough
over the heart to wean it from the poorest earthly passion, and fix it
on an object worthy of true adoration.
For another, though a very different, illustration of the same kind
of power, I may refer to a passage in 'Loss and Gain': the story of
a conversion to Rome, in which Newman describes the reception
of his Roman Catholic convert by his mother, -the widow of an
Anglican clergyman,—when he comes to take leave of her before
formally submitting himself to the Church of Rome. The mixture of
soreness of feeling,-the distress with which the mother realizes that
## p. 10604 (#476) ##########################################
10604
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
his father's faith does not seem good enough for the son,—and of
tenderness for the son himself, is drawn with a master hand. New-
man did not often venture into the region of fiction; but when he
did, he showed how much of the poet there was in him by painting
a woman even better than he painted a man. The curiously mixed
feelings of this scene of leave-taking have never received adequate
recognition. Imbedded as it is in a story which is hardly a story,—
a mere exposition of the steps by which the craving for a final
authority on religious questions at last leads a humble and self-
distrustful mind to submit itself to the guidance of the Church which
claims an ultimate infallibility in all matters of morality and doc-
trine,- very few have come across it, and those who have, have not
succeeded in making it known to the world at large. The tenderness
and pathos of that passage seem to me almost as great as that of
the preceding one. Newman's most intimate college friend used
sometimes after his marriage, we are told, to forget whether he was
speaking to his wife or to Newman, and to call his wife Newman
and to call Newman "Elizabeth, ". a mistake very significant of the
pathetic tenderness of Newman's manner with those dear to him, and
of the depth of his feelings. Another very touching illustration of
Newman's tenderness will be found in the poem on the gulf between
the living and the dead, however dear to each other, the last twelve
lines of which were added after the death of his dear friend, Richard
Hurrell Froude.
Of the raciness of his humor, many of the 'Lectures on Anglican
Difficulties bear the most effectual evidence; but the passage which
has the greatest reputation in connection with this quality is that in
which, just after the panic on the subject of what was then called
"the Papal aggression," in 1850, Newman ridiculed in the most tell-
ing manner the screams of indignation and dread with which the
restoration of the episcopal constitution to the Roman Catholic Church
in England had been received. I doubt whether a real invasion of
England by the landing of a foreign army on our soil would have
been spoken of with half the horror which this very harmless, and
indeed perfectly inoffensive, restoration of Roman Catholic bishoprics
to England inspired. It was evident enough that the panic was more
the panic with which the appearance of a ghost fills the heart of a
timid person, than the panic with which the imminence of a physical
danger impresses us. Against physical dangers the English show
their pluck, but against spiritual dangers they only show their weak-
est side; and the great panic of 1850 was certainly the most remark-
able outburst of meaningless dismay which in a tolerably long life I
can remember. The result has, I think, proved that the actual res-
toration of the Roman Catholic episcopacy did more to remove the
## p. 10605 (#477) ##########################################
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
10605
ghostly horror with which the English people were seized in antici-
pation of that event, than any sort of reasoning could have done.
We have learned now what Roman Catholic bishops are, and on the
whole we have found them by no means terrible; indeed, often very
excellent allies against irreligion, and in social emergencies very ear-
nest friends. But when in 1850, Newman in his lectures on 'Catholi-
cism in England' described with such genuine glee the "bobs, bobs
royal, and triple bob majors" with which the English Church had
rung down the iniquitous Papal aggression, there was absolutely no
caricature in his lively description. If Newman had not been a the-
ologian, he would probably have been known chiefly as a consider-
able humorist. Some of his pictures of the high-and-dry Oxford dons
in Loss and Gain' are full of this kind of humor.
I have said nothing, of course, of Newman as a theologian,-a
capacity hardly appropriate to a book on the world's best literature.
I have always thought that he regarded the Christian religion as rest-
ing far too exclusively on the delegated authority of the Church, and
far too little on the immediate relation of the soul to Christ. But
that is not a subject which it would be either convenient or desirable
to enter upon here. Say what you will of the conclusions to which
Newman comes on this great subject, no one can deny that he dis-
cusses the whole controversy with a calmness and an acuteness which
is of the greatest use even to those whom his arguments entirely fail
to convince. But my object has been chiefly to show how great an
impression he has made on English literature; an impression which
will, I believe, not dwindle, but increase, as the world becomes more
and more familiar with the literary aspects of his writings.
Richard Holt Hutton
THE TRANSITION
From the Apologia pro Vitâ Suâ: Being a History of My Religious
Opinions >
I
HAD one final advance of mind to accomplish, and one final
step to take. That further advance of mind was to be able
honestly to say that I was certain of the conclusions at which
I had already arrived. That further step, imperative when such
certitude was attained, was my submission to the Catholic Church.
This submission did not take place till two full years after
the resignation of my living in September 1843; nor could I
## p. 10606 (#478) ##########################################
10606
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
have made it at an earlier date, without doubt and apprehension;
that is, with any true conviction of mind or certitude.
In the interval, of which it remains to speak,- viz. , between
the autumns of 1843 and 1845,-I was in lay communion with the
Church of England: attending its services as usual, and abstain-
ing altogether from intercourse with Catholics, from their places
of worship, and from those religious rites and usages, such as
the Invocation of Saints, which are characteristics of their creed.
I did all this on principle; for I never could understand how a
man could be of two religions at once.
What I have to say about myself between these two autumns
I shall almost confine to this one point,-the difficulty I was in
as to the best mode of revealing the state of my mind to my
friends and others, and how I managed to reveal it.
Up to January 1842 I had not disclosed my state of unsettle-
ment to more than three persons.
To two of them, inti-
mate and familiar companions, in the autumn of 1839; to the
third- an old friend too, whom I have also named above
-I sup-
pose when I was in great distress of mind upon the affair of the
Jerusalem Bishopric. In May 1843 I made it known, as has been
seen, to the friend by whose advice I wished, as far as possible,
to be guided. To mention it on set purpose to any one, unless
indeed I was asking advice, I should have felt to be a crime. If
there is anything that was abhorrent to me, it was the scattering
doubts, and unsettling consciences without necessity. A strong
presentiment that my existing opinions would ultimately give
way, and that the grounds of them were unsound, was not a
sufficient warrant for disclosing the state of my mind. I had no
guarantee yet, that that presentiment would be realized. Sup-
posing I were crossing ice, which came right in my way, which
I had good reasons for considering sound, and which I saw num-
bers before me crossing in safety, and supposing a stranger from
the bank, in a voice of authority and in an earnest tone, warned
me that it was dangerous, and then was silent,—I think I should
be startled, and should look about me anxiously, but I think too
that I should go on, till I had better grounds for doubt; and such
was my state, I believe, till the end of 1842. Then again, when
my dissatisfaction became greater, it was hard at first to deter-
mine the point of time when it was too strong to suppress with
propriety. Certitude of course is a point, but doubt is a progress:
I was not near certitude yet. Certitude is a reflex action; it is
-
## p. 10607 (#479) ##########################################
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
10607
to know that one knows. Of that I believe I was not possessed,
till close upon my reception into the Catholic Church. Again, a
practical, effective doubt is a point too; but who can easily ascer-
tain it for himself? Who can determine when it is that the
scales in the balance of opinion begin to turn, and what was a
greater probability in behalf of a belief becomes a positive doubt
against it?
In considering this question in its bearing upon my conduct.
in 1843, my own simple answer to my great difficulty had been,
Do what your present state of opinion requires in the light of
duty, and let that doing tell; speak by acts. This I had done; my
first act of the year had been in February. After three months'
deliberation I had published my retractation of the violent
charges which I had made against Rome: I could not be wrong
in doing so much as this; but I did no more at the time: I did
not retract my Anglican teaching. My second act had been in
September in the same year: after much sorrowful lingering
and hesitation, I had resigned my Living. I tried indeed, before
I did so, to keep Littlemore for myself, even though it was still
to remain an integral part of St. Mary's. I had given to it a
Church and a sort of Parsonage; I had made it a Parish, and I
loved it: I thought in 1843 that perhaps I need not forfeit my
existing relations towards it. I could indeed submit to become
the curate at will of another; but I hoped an arrangement was
possible by which, while I had the curacy, I might have been
my own master in serving it. I had hoped an exception might
have been made in my favor, under the circumstances; but I did
not gain my request. Perhaps I was asking what was impracti-
cable, and it is well for me that it was so.
These had been my two acts of the year, and I said, “I can-
not be wrong in making them; let that follow which must follow
in the thoughts of the world about me, when they see what I
do. " And as time went on, they fully answered my purpose.
What I felt it a simple duty to do, did create a general suspicion
about me, without such responsibility as would be involved in
my initiating any direct act for the sake of creating it. Then,
when friends wrote me on the subject, I either did not deny
or I confessed my state of mind, according to the character and
need of their letters. Sometimes in the case of intimate friends,
whom I should otherwise have been leaving in ignorance of what
others knew on every side of them, I invited the question.
## p. 10608 (#480) ##########################################
10608
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
And here comes in another point for explanation. While I
was fighting in Oxford for the Anglican Church, then indeed I
was very glad to make converts; and though I never broke away
from that rule of my mind (as I may call it) of which I have
already spoken, of finding disciples rather than seeking them, yet
that I made advances to others in a special way, I have no doubt;
this came to an end, however, as soon as I fell into misgivings
as to the true ground to be taken in the controversy. For then,
when I gave up my place in the Movement, I ceased from any
such proceedings; and my utmost endeavor was to tranquillize
such persons, especially those who belonged to the new school, as
were unsettled in their religious views, and as I judged, hasty
in their conclusions. This went on till 1843; but at that date, as
soon as I turned my face Romeward, I gave up, as far as ever
was possible, the thought of, in any respect and in any shape,
acting upon others. Then I myself was simply my own concern.
How could I in any sense direct others, who had to be guided in
so momentous a matter myself? How could I be considered in
a position, even to say a word to them, one way or the other?
How could I presume to unsettle them as I was unsettled, when
I had no
means of bringing them out of such unsettlement?
And if they were unsettled already, how could I point to them
a place of refuge, when I was not sure that I should choose it
for myself? My only line, my only duty, was to keep simply to
my own case. I recollected Pascal's words, "Je mourrai seul” [I
will die alone].
