No More Learning

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
·


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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.


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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.


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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


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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


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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


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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


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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]. I deliberately put out of my thoughts all other
works and claims, and said nothing to any one, unless I was
obliged.
But this brought upon me a great trouble. In the news-
papers there were continual reports about my intentions; I did
not answer them: presently strangers or friends wrote, begging
to be allowed to answer them; and if I still kept to my resolu-
tion and said nothing, then I was thought to be mysterious, and
a prejudice was excited against me. But what was far worse,
there were a number of tender, eager hearts, of whom I knew
nothing at all, who were watching me, wishing to think as I
thought, and to do as I did, if they could but find it out; who
in consequence were distressed that in so solemn a matter they
could not see what was coming, and who heard reports about me
this way or that, on a first day and on a second; and felt the
weariness of waiting, and the sickness of delayed hope, and did


## p. 10609 (#481) ##########################################

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
10609
not understand that I was as perplexed as they were, and being
of more sensitive complexion of mind than myself, they were
made ill by the suspense. And they too, of course, for the time
thought me mysterious and inexplicable. I ask their pardon as
far as I was really unkind to them.
I left Oxford for good on Monday, February 23d, 1846. On
the Saturday and Sunday before, I was in my house at Little-
more simply by myself, as I had been for the first day or two
when I had originally taken possession of it. I slept on Sunday
night at my dear friend's, Mr. Johnson's, at the Observatory.
Various friends came to see the last of me: Mr. Copeland, Mr.
Church, Mr. Buckle, Mr. Pattison, and Mr. Lewis. Dr. Pusey too
came up to take leave of me; and I called on Dr. Ogle, one
of my very oldest friends, for he was my private tutor when I
was an undergraduate. In him I took leave of my first college,
Trinity, which was so dear to me, and which held on its founda-
tion so many who had been kind to me both when I was a boy,
and all through my Oxford life. Trinity had never been unkind
to me. There used to be much snapdragon growing on the
walls opposite my freshman's rooms there; and I had for years
taken it as the emblem of my own perpetual residence, even unto
death, in my University.
On the morning of the 23d I left the Observatory. I have
never seen Oxford since, excepting its spires as they are seen
from the railway.
FROM the time that I became a Catholic, of course I have no
further history of my religious opinions to narrate. In saying
this, I do not mean to say that my mind has been idle, or that I
have given up thinking on theological subjects; but that I have
had no variations to record, and have had no anxiety of heart
whatever. I have been in perfect peace and contentment; I
never have had one doubt. I was not conscious to myself, on
my conversion, of any change, intellectual or moral, wrought in
my mind. I was not conscious of firmer faith in the fundamental
truths of Revelation, or of more self-command; I had not more
fervor: but it was like coming into port after a rough sea; and
my happiness on that score remains to this day without inter-
ruption.
Nor had I any trouble about receiving those additional arti-
cles which are not found in the Anglican Creed. Some of them
I believed already, but not any one of them was a trial to me.
XVIII-664


## p. 10610 (#482) ##########################################

10610
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
I made a profession of them upon my reception with the greatest
ease, and I have the same ease in believing them now.
I am
far of course from denying that every article of the Christian
Creed, whether as held by Catholics or by Protestants, is beset
with intellectual difficulties; and it is simple fact, that for my-
self I cannot answer those difficulties. Many persons are very
sensitive of the difficulties of Religion: I am as sensitive of
them as any one; but I have never been able to see a connec-
tion between apprehending those difficulties, however keenly, and
multiplying them to any extent, and on the other hand doubting
the doctrines to which they are attached. Ten thousand diffi-
culties do not make one doubt, as I understand the subject;
difficulty and doubt are incommensurate. There of course may
be many difficulties in the evidence; but I am speaking of diffi-
culties intrinsic to the doctrines themselves, or to their relations
with each other. A man may be annoyed that he cannot work
out a mathematical problem, of which the answer is or is not
given to him, without doubting that it admits of an answer, or
that a certain particular answer is the true one. Of all points of
faith, the being of God is, to my own apprehension, encompassed
with most difficulty, and yet borne in upon our minds with most
power.
THE LOCUSTS
From Callista'
THEY
Τ
HEY moved right on like soldiers in their ranks, stopping at
nothing and straggling for nothing; they carried a broad
furrow or wheal all across the country, black and loath-
some, while it was as green and smiling on each side of them
and in front as it had been before they came. Before them, in
the language of the prophets, was a paradise, and behind them a
desert. They are daunted by nothing; they surmount walls and
hedges, and enter inclosed gardens or inhabited houses. A rare
and experimental vineyard has been planted in a sheltered grove.
The high winds of Africa will not commonly allow the light trel-
lis or the slim pole; but here the lofty poplar of Campania has
been possible, on which the vine plant mounts so many yards
into the air, that the poor grape-gatherers bargain for a funeral
pile and a tomb as one of the conditions of their engagement.
The locusts have done what the winds and lightning could not


## p. 10611 (#483) ##########################################

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
10611
do, and the whole promise of the vintage, leaves and all, is gone,
and the slender stems are left bare. There is another yard, less
uncommon, but still tended with more than common care; each
plant is kept within due bounds by a circular trench around it,
and by upright canes on which it is to trail; in an hour the
solicitude and long toil of the vine-dresser are lost, and his pride
humbled. There is a smiling farm; another sort of vine of re-
markable character is found against the farmhouse. This vine
springs from one ro and has clothed and matted with its many
branches the four walls. The whole of it is covered thick with
long clusters, which another month will ripen. On every grape
and leaf there is a locust. Into the dry caves and pits, carefully
strewed with straw, the harvest-men have (safely, as they thought
just now) been lodging the far-famed African wheat. One grain
or root shoots up into ten, twenty, fifty, eighty, nay, three or
four hundred stalks; sometimes the stalks have two ears apiece,
and these shoot off into a number of lesser ones. These stores
are intended for the Roman populace, but the locusts have been
beforehand with them. The small patches of ground belonging
to the poor peasants up and down the country, for raising the
turnips, garlic, barley, watermelons, on which they live, are the
prey of these glutton invaders as much as the choicest vines
and olives. Nor have they any reverence for the villa of the
civic decurion or the Roman official. The neatly arranged
kitchen garden, with its cherries, plums, peaches, and apricots, is
a waste; as the slaves sit round, in the kitchen in the first court,
at their coarse evening meal, the room is filled with the invading
force, and news comes to them that the enemy has fallen upon
the apples and pears in the basement, and is at the same time
plundering and sacking the preserves of quince and pomegranate,
and reveling in the jars of precious oil of Cyprus and Mendes
in the store-rooms. They come up to the walls of Sicca, and
are flung against them into the ditch. Not a moment's hesitation
or delay: they recover their footing, they climb up the wood or
stucco, they surmount the parapet, or they have entered in at
the windows, filling the apartments and the most private and
luxurious chambers; not one or two, like stragglers at forage or
rioters after a victory, but in order of battle, and with the array
of an army. Choice plants or flowers about the impluvia and
xysti, for ornament or refreshment,- myrtles, oranges, pome-
granates, the rose and the carnation,- have disappeared. They


## p. 10612 (#484) ##########################################

10612
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
dim the bright marbles of the walls and the gilding of the ceil
ings. They enter the triclinium in the midst of the banquet;
they crawl over the viands and spoil what they do not devour.
Unrelaxed by success and by enjoyment, onward they go; a secret
mysterious instinct keeps them together, as if they had a king
over them. They move along the floor in so strange an order
that they seem to be a tessellated pavement themselves, and to
be the artificial embellishment of the place; so true are their
lines, and so perfect is the pattern they describe. Onward they
go, to the market, to the temple sacrifices, to the bakers' stores,
to the cook-shops, to the confectioners, to the druggists: nothing
comes amiss to them; wherever man has aught to eat or drink,
there are they, reckless of death, strong of appetite, certain of
conquest.
CALLISTA AND AGELLIUS
From Callista'
F°
OR an instant tears seemed about to start from Callista's eyes;
but she repressed the emotion, if it was such, and answered
with impetuosity:-"Your Master! - who is your Master?
what know I of your Master? what have you ever told me of
your Master?
I suppose it is an esoteric doctrine which I am
not worthy to know; but so it is: here you have been again and
again, and talked freely of many things, yet I am in as much
darkness about your Master as if I had never seen you. I know
he died; I know too that Christians say he lives. In some for-
tunate island, I suppose; for when I have asked, you have got
rid of the subject as best you could. You have talked about
your law and your various duties, and what you consider right,
and what is forbidden, and of some of the old writers of your
sect, and of the Jews before them; but if, as you imply, my
wants and aspirations are the same as yours, what have you
done towards satisfying them? what have you done for that
Master towards whom you now propose to lead me? No! " she
continued, starting up: "you have watched those wants and as-
pirations for yourself, not for him; you have taken interest in
them, you have cherished them, as if you were the author, you
the object of them. You profess to believe in One True God, and
to reject every other; and now you are implying that the Hand,


## p. 10613 (#485) ##########################################

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
10613
the Shadow of that God, is on my mind and heart. Who is this
God? where? how? in what? O Agellius, you have stood in
the way of him, ready to speak of yourself, using him as a
means to an end. ”
"O Callista," said Agellius in an agitated voice, when he
could speak, "do my ears hear aright? do you really wish to be
taught who the true God is? "
"No; mistake me not," she cried passionately: "I have no
such wish. I could not be of your religion. Ye gods! how have
I been deceived! I thought every Christian was like Chione.
I thought there could not be a cold Christian. Chione spoke as
if a Christian's first thoughts were good-will to others; as if
his state were of such blessedness, that his dearest heart's wish
was to bring others into it. Here is a man, who, so far from
feeling himself blest, thinks I can bless him; comes to me,—me,
Callista, an herb of the field, a poor weed, exposed to every
wind of heaven, and shriveling before the fierce sun, to me he
comes to repose his heart upon. But as for any blessedness he
has to show me, why, since he does not feel any himself, no
wonder he has none to give away. I thought a Christian was
superior to time and place; but all is hollow. Alas, alas! I am
young in life to feel the force of that saying with which sages
go out of it, 'Vanity and hollowness! ' Agellius, when I first
heard you were a Christian, how my heart beat! I thought of
her who was gone; and at first I thought I saw her in you, as
if there had been some magical sympathy between you and her;
and I hoped that from you I might have learned more of that
strange strength which my nature needs, and which she told
me she possessed. Your words, your manner, your looks, were
altogether different from others who came near me. But so it
was: you came, and you went, and came again; I thought it
reserve, I thought it timidity, I thought it the caution of a per-
secuted sect: but oh my disappointment, when first I saw in you
indications that you were thinking of me only as others think,
and felt towards me as others may feel; that you were aiming
at me, not at your God; that you had much to tell of yourself,
but nothing of him! Time was I might have been led to wor-
ship you, Agellius: you have hindered it by worshiping me. »
-


## p. 10614 (#486) ##########################################

10614
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
MOTHER AND SON
From Loss and Gain'
CHA
HARLES leapt from the gig with a beating heart, and ran up
to his mother's room. She was sitting by the fire at her
work when he entered; she held out her hand coldly to
him, and he sat down. Nothing was said for a little while; then,
without leaving off her occupation, she said, “Well, Charles, and
so you are leaving us. Where and how do you propose to employ
yourself when you have entered upon your new life? "
Charles answered that he had not yet turned his mind to the
consideration of anything but the great step on which everything
else depended.
There was another silence; then she said, "You won't find
anywhere such friends as you have had at home, Charles. " Pres-
ently she continued, "You have had everything in your favor,
Charles: you have been blessed with talents, advantages of edu-
cation, easy circumstances; many a deserving young man has to
scramble on as he can. "
Charles answered that he was deeply sensible how much he
owed in temporal matters to Providence, and that it was only at
His bidding that he was giving them up.
"We all looked up to you, Charles; perhaps we made too
much of you: well, God be with you; you have taken your line. "
Poor Charles said that no one could conceive what it cost him
to give up what was so very dear to him, what was part of him-
self; there was nothing on earth which he prized like his home.
"Then why do you leave us? " she said quickly: "you must
have your way; you do it, I suppose, because you like it. "
"Oh really, my dear mother," cried he, "if you saw my heart!
You know in Scripture how people were obliged in the Apostles'
times to give up all for Christ. "
"We are heathens, then," she replied; "thank you, Charles, I
am obliged to you for this:" and she dashed away a tear from
her eye.
Charles was almost beside himself: he did not know what to
say; he stood up and leaned his elbow on the mantelpiece, sup-
porting his head on his hand.
>>
"Well, Charles," she continued, still going on with her work,
"perhaps the day will come her voice faltered; "your dear
father-> she put down her work.
――――


## p. 10615 (#487) ##########################################

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
10615
"It is useless misery," said Charles: "why should I stay?
Good-by for the present, my dearest mother. I leave you in
good hands, not kinder, but better than mine; you lose me, you
gain another. Farewell for the present: we will meet when you
will, when you call; it will be a happy meeting. "
He threw himself on his knees, and laid his cheek on her
lap: she could no longer resist him; she hung over him and
began to smooth down his hair as she had done when he was
a child. At length scalding tears began to fall heavily upon his
face and neck; he bore them for a while, then started up, kissed
her cheek impetuously, and rushed out of the room. In a few
seconds he had seen and had torn himself from his sisters, and
was in his gig again by the side of his phlegmatic driver, dan-
Icing slowly up and down on his way to Collumpton.
D
THE SEPARATION OF FRIENDS
From Lyra Apostolica >
O NOT their souls who 'neath the Altar wait
Until their second birth,
The gift of patience need, as separate
From their first friends of earth?
Not that earth's blessings are not all outshone
By Eden's angel flame,
But that earth knows not yet the dead has won
That crown which was his aim.
For when he left it, 'twas a twilight scene
About his silent bier,
A breathless struggle, faith and sight between,
And Hope and sacred Fear.
Fear startled at his pains and dreary end,
Hope raised her chalice high,
And the twin sisters still his shade attend,
Viewed in the mourner's eye.
So day by day for him from earth ascends,
As dew in summer even,
The speechless intercession of his friends
Toward the azure heaven.
Ah! dearest, with a word he could dispel
All questioning, and raise.
Our hearts to rapture, whispering all was well,
And turning prayer to praise.


## p. 10616 (#488) ##########################################

10616
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
And other secrets too he could declare,
By patterns all divine,
His earthly creed retouching here and there,
And deepening every line.
Dearest! he longs to speak, as I to know,
And yet we both refrain:
It were not good; a little doubt below,
And all will soon be plain.
THE PILLAR OF THE CLOUD
(AT SEA, JUNE 16TH, 1833)
L'
EAD, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead thou me on!
-
The night is dark, and I am far from home -
Lead thou me on!
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene,-one step enough for me.
I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou
Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path; but now
Lead thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.
So long thy power hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on,
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone;
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.
AFTER DEATH
From The Dream of Gerontius>
I
WENT to sleep, and now I am refreshed:
A strange refreshment; for I feel in me
An inexpressive lightness, and a sense
Of freedom, as I were at length myself,
And ne'er had been before. How still it is!
I hear no more the busy beat of time,—
No, nor my fluttering breath, nor struggling pulse;


## p. 10617 (#489) ##########################################

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
10617
Nor does one moment differ from the next.
I had a dream: yes, some one softly said,
"He's gone;" and then a sigh went round the room;
And then I surely heard a priestly voice
Cry "Subvenite"; and they knelt in prayer —
I seem to hear him still, but thin and low
And fainter and more faint the accents come,
As at an ever-widening interval.
Ah! whence is this? What is this severance?
This silence pours a solitariness
Into the very essence of my soul;
And the deep rest, so soothing and so sweet,
Hath something too of sternness and of pain,
For it drives back my thoughts upon their spring
By a strange introversion, and perforce
I now begin to feed upon myself,
Because I have naught else to feed upon.
Am I alive or dead? I am not dead,
But in the body still; for I possess
A sort of confidence, which clings to me,
That each particular organ holds its place
As heretofore, combining with the rest
Into one symmetry, that wraps me round
And makes me man; and surely I could move,
Did I but will it, every part of me.
And yet I cannot to my sense bring home,
By very trial, that I have the power.
'Tis strange: I cannot stir a hand or foot,
I cannot make my fingers or my lips
By mutual pressure witness each to each,
Nor by the eyelid's instantaneous stroke
Assure myself I have a body still.
Nor do I know my very attitude,
Nor if I stand, or lie, or sit, or kneel.
So much I know, not knowing how I know,
That the vast universe, where I have dwelt,
Is quitting me, or I am quitting it.
Or I or it is rushing on the wings
Of light or lightning, on an onward course,
And we e'en now are million miles apart.
Yet is this peremptory severance
Wrought out in lengthening measurements of space,
Which grow and multiply by speed and time?


## p. 10618 (#490) ##########################################

10618
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
Or am I traversing infinity
By endless subdivision, hurrying back
From finite towards infinitesimal,
Thus dying out of the expanded world?
Another marvel: some one has me fast
Within his ample palm; 'tis not a grasp
Such as they use on earth, but all around
Over the surface of my subtle being,
As though I were a sphere, and capable
To be accosted thus, a uniform
And gentle pressure tells me I am not
Self-moving, but borne forward on my way.
And hark! I hear a singing; yet in sooth
I cannot of that music rightly say
Whether I hear, or touch, or taste the tones.
Oh, what a heart-subduing melody!
ANGEL
Y WORK is done,
My task is o'er,
Μ'
And so I come,
Taking it home;
For the crown is won,
Alleluia,
For evermore.
My Father gave
In charge to me
This child of earth
E'en from its birth,
To serve and save,
Alleluia,
And saved is he.
This child of clay
To me was given,
To rear and train
By sorrow and pain
In the narrow way,
Alleluia,
From earth to heaven.


## p. 10618 (#491) ##########################################



## p. 10618 (#492) ##########################################


BUS
SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
B Crasch


## p. 10618 (#493) ##########################################

LAL ST
(
STON


## p. 10618 (#494) ##########################################


NEWTON


## p. 10619 (#495) ##########################################

10619
SIR ISAAC NEWTON
(1642-1727)
T HAS been said that the history of Sir Isaac Newton is also
the history of science; yet the character of his life and work
does not entirely exclude him from the category of men of
letters. While his great book the 'Principia' is written in Latin and
treats of mathematics, its tremendous scope and magnificent revela-
tions entitle it to be placed without incongruity among those works
which, like 'Paradise Lost' or the 'Divine Comedy,' have widened
men's outlook into the universe. Milton and Dante dealt with the
spiritual order of creation, Sir Isaac Newton with the material; yet
to those who perceive an almost mystical significance in numbers,—
to whom mathematics are, in a sense, gateways to the unseen,- the
author of the 'Principia' and of the Treatise on Optics' will seem
scarcely less a teacher than the poets.
The life of Sir Isaac Newton, in its harmony, in the smoothness
of its course, in the perfection of its development, seems singularly
expressive of the science to which it was dedicated. From the time
when as a village boy he made water-wheels and kite-lanterns for
his companions, to the hour when full of years and honors he passed
away, the life of Newton was a series of orderly progresses towards a
fixed goal.
He was born in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, on December 25th, 1642.