ly to "think for himself," he derived from him also "those anti-erastian views of church policy which were one of the most prominent features of the Tractarian movement." And to Dr. Hawkins he owed the seeds of the doctrine of Tradition, which took such deep root, and bore such important fruit in the congenial soil of his own mind. It was the same with books. Archbishop Sumner's Treatise on Apostolical Preaching led him to give up his remaining Calvinism, and to receive the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration. From the reading of Butler's Analogy he derived two principles which he calls the underlying principles of a great portion of his teaching: harm his writings may have done in other ways, probably many persons have to thank him, as others have to thank Arnold, for having impressed this important, principle deeply on their hearts. During all this time Mr. Newman was only or mainly a recipient; but in 1826 he began to give forth : "At that time I became one of the tutors of my college, and this gave me position; besides, I had written one or two essays, which had been well received. I began to be known. I preached my first University sermon. Next year I was one of the public examiners for the B. A. degree. It was to me like the feeling of spring weather after winter; and if I may so speak, I came out of my shell; I remained out of it till 1841." He now began to "gain upon his pupils," and became intimate with Robert Wilberforce, and especially with Hurrell Froude. The influence of this gifted pupil was strong "First, the very idea of an analogy between the separate works of God, leads to the conclusion that the system which is of less importance, is economically or sacramentally connected with the more momentous system, and of this conclusion the theory, to which I was inclined as a boy, viz., the unreality of material pheno-er mena, is an ultimate resolution. Secondly, Butler's doctrine that Probability is the guide of Life, led me, at least under the teaching to which a few years later I was introduced, to the question of the logical cogency of faith, on which I have written so much." The same two intellectual principles, but recast in the creative mind of a poet, he found again in Keble's Christian Year. The first is fundamentally the same as that which Jeffrey, in a remarkable passage in his article on Mrs. Hemans, speaks of as the essence of poetry: "The fine perception of that subtle and mysterious analogy which exists between the physical and moral world; which makes outward things and qualities the natural types and emblems of inward gifts and emotions; or leads us to ascribe life and sentiment to everything that interests us in the aspects of external nature." It is characteristic of Dr. Newman's mind, highly poetical, penetrated with religious sentiment, and prone to rites and ceremonies, that this principle should have assumed to him the shape of a sacramental system, a doctrine which embraces not only what Anglicans as well as Catholics believe about sacraments, properly so called, but also the article of the communion of saints in its fulness, and likewise the mysteries of the faith." The second principle is that which may be called the groundwork of all religious belief, that divine truths must be received not purely on their own merits, so to speak, according to the greater or less degree of probability which attaches to them, but as coming to us from a Divine Person, who is the object of our faith and love. Dr. Newman has, enlarged on this theme in many of his works; and whatever 66 and more lasting than that of many teachers. Froude was an open admirer of the Church of Rome; he delighted in the notions of a hierarchical system; of sacerdotal power; of penance and mortification; of saints and their perfections; of the intrinsic excellence of virginity. To him, probably, more than even to Newman or Keble himself, we may look as the originator of what afterwards became the Tractarian Movement. But the feelings and sentiments which were afterwards to eddy into distinct views, existed at present only in a nebular state, at least in the mind of Mr. Newman. His thoughts dwelt in the region of poetry, rather than of philosophy or theology. He studied the Fathers, and undertook to write a history of the principal councils: but his chief delight in these studies was to find again in the semi-oriental philosophy of Alexandria, his favourite "mystical or sacramental" principle. "I suppose," he says, "it was to the Alexandrian school and to the early Church that I owe in particular what I definitely held about the angels. I considered them as the real causes of motion, light, and life, and of the elementary principles of the physical universe." And then he quotes, as summing up his views on this point, a passage that has often been quoted by others for its beauty : "Every breath of air, and ray of light and heat, every beautiful prospect is, as it were, the skirts of their garments, the waving of the robes of those whose faces see God." But the study of the early Church has also a deep and permanent effect on the direction o his thoughts. He learnt to consider that antiquity was the true exponent of the doc trines of Christianity and the basis of the Church of England. And when he was disturbed and unsettled by various events which happened soon after in the outer world; the French Revolution of 1830; the great Reform agitation; symptoms of "liberalizing" tendencies within the Church itself, it was to the early ages that his aspirations turned. "With the Establishment thus divided and threatened, thus ignorant of its true strength, I compared that fresh vigorous power of which I was reading in the first centuries. In her triumphant zeal on behalf of that primeval mys. tery, to which I bad had so great a devotion from my youth, I recognised the movement of my spiritual Mother. Incessu patuit Dea.' The self-conquest of her ascetics, the patience of her martyrs, the irresistible determination of her bishops, the joyous swing of her advance, both exalted and abashed me. I said to myself, Look on this picture and on that; I felt affec tion for my own Church, but not tenderness; I felt dismay at her prospects, anger and scorn at her do-nothing perplexity..... As to leaving her, the thought never crossed my imagination; still I ever kept before me that there was something greater than the Established Church, and that was the Church Catholic and Apostolic, set up from the beginning, of which she was but the local presence and organ." Soon after this, in December 1832, he went to the south of Europe for some months with his friend Froude. Contrary to what might have been expected, this visit to the strongholds of Romanism had no direct effect on his religious convictions. But he had time to collect himself, and think over his position; while he was musing, the fire kindled. England was in his thoughts solely. The bill for the suppression of the Irish sees was in progress, and filled his mind: he "had fierce thoughts against the Liberals." And so when, in the following summer, he returned to England in exuberant health and vigour after his long rest, it was in the temper indicated by the motto which he chose for the Lyra Apostolica: "You shall know the difference, now that I am back again." The day after Newman's return, July 14, 1833, Keble preached his celebrated sermon on national apostasy. "The Movement" had begun. In the first stages of this movement there appears to have been less of combination and organization than is commonly supposed. The main principles on which it was based were afterwards summed up by one of the chief movers, in the following words :-"That the only way of salvation is the partaking of the body and blood of our sacrificed Redeemer: That the mean expressly authorized by him for that purpose is the holy sacrament of his Supper: That the security, by him no less expressly authorized, for the continuance and due application of that sacrament, is the apostolical commission of the bishops, and under them the presbyters, of the Church." But at first there was little concert, and no recognised leader; they fought every one for his own hand. This continued until they were joined by Dr. Pusey, "the great one,' as Dr. Newman used to call him. His great reputation and high position in the University enabled him to give "a name, a form, and a personality to what, without him, was a sort of mob;" while his hopeful, fearless nature, haunted by no intellectual perplexities, supremely confident in his own position, marked him as a leader of men. But the most active and stirring spirit was undoubtedly Newman himself. It was he who, out of his own head, began the Tracts for the Times. is distinguishing colours, the principles for which he specially contended, were:-(1.) The principle of dogma. (2.) Belief in a visible Church, in the authority of bishops, the grace of the sacraments, the religious worth of works of penance. (3.) Opposition to the Church of Rome, especially to the worship of the Virgin and the Saints. Here we come to that which gives its peculiar interest to Dr. Newman's history, viz., his relation to that Church which was drawing him, as by a kind of fascination, to his fate. He sympathized with much in her system, and had learnt from Froude to feel a personal tenderness towards her; but the old impression, that the Pope was Antichrist, though it had been removed from his reason, hung about him "like a sort of false conscience," and remained "a stain upon his imagination." The more tenderly he felt to her, the more strongly he resented what he regarded as her corruptions of the truth. He thought it his duty to write against them, and was even conscious of "a temptation to say against Rome as much as ever he could, in order to protect himself against the charge of Popery" but he felt all the time like a man who is obliged in a court of justice to bear witness against a friend. On the other hand, his confidence in the substantial truth of the charges which he brought against her, led him to believe that he might safely indulge in the freest exposition of principles which led in her direction. If men said, "This is sheer popery," "True," he answered, "we seem to be making straight for it; but go on awhile, and you will come to a great chasm across the path which makes the real approximation impossible." His effort was to get as near as he could to the brink of this chasm, and there to build up and fortify a position for the Anglican Church-a half-way house between Popery and Protestantism. In successive numbers of the Tracts, in various articles in the British Critic, but especially in a book called The Prophetical Office of the Church viewed relatively to Romanism and Popular Protestantism, he set himself to work out the "Anglo-Catholic" theory-the theory of a "Catholic" Church, standing on its own basis of antiquity and the teaching of the early Fathers, embracing much of the Roman doctrine, but free from the errors which had formed like a crust around the Romish system. He had hardly entrenched himself in this position when a horrible misgiving came over him. There was a mine beneath his feet. His foundations were unsound. His whole theory was based on this, that the most important "note" of the true Church, more important even than catholicity, is antiquity. But in August 1839 (the date remained deeply impressed on his mind), the course of his reading led him to study the Monophysite controversy of the fifth century; and there he found that in those pattern times the principle on which controversies were decided was the principle of catholic unity; in other words, the voice of the majority of Christians. The words of St. Augustine, quoted in a Review, came to him like a voice from the clouds, "Securus judicat orbis terrarum." Here, then, was antiquity pronouncing against herself, and in favour of catholicity. The Church of Rome would be found right after all. sugar-plums for good children. . . . We Englishmen like manliness, openness, consistency, truth. Rome will never gain on us till she learns these virtues, and uses them." But all this was but the bitterness of a lover impatient of imperfections in his mistress. He railed at the dominant errors of popular Romanism; but he as warmly asserted his cordial agreement with the essential parts of the Roman doctrine. But the question naturally occurred, if not to his own mind at least to the mind of others, "How can we hold Roman doctrine, and yet subscribe the Articles of the Church of England? Were they not drawn up for the very purpose of excluding Roman doctrine ?" It was to answer this question that he wrote the celebrated 90th number of the Tracts. The answer which he gives is in substance: "No, it is not so. The English Reformation was a national, not a theological movement. It was directed not against Roman doctrine, but against Papal supremacy; and its Articles were deliberately framed in loose and indecisive language, with the view of embracing as many as possible of those who still held to the old faith." And therefore he claimed for himself and his followers the utmost possible latitude in interpreting documents so framed. It was not necessary to consider in what sense they were understood and held by their writers; nor even what was the natural sense of the words: they might be taken and might be subscribed in any sense which the words could be made to bear, consistent with "catholic" doctrine. After a while the vivid imagination faded away. He felt even a doubt whether the suggestion had not come to him from below. Thus, by a strange meeting of extremes, His old convictions remained as before. But the champion of dogma and of definite he was like a man who has seen a ghost, and Church teaching struck a fatal blow at the cannot be as if he had never seen it. In dogmatism of his Church, and enunciated a this frame of mind he felt that "his main ar- principle which has proved of the greatest gument for the Anglican claims lay in the importance in forwarding the development of positive and special charges which he could liberal views. bring against Rome," and he indulged in bitter invectives against her inconsistencies, her sophistries, her ambition and intrigue. In one letter he said : "Instead of setting before the soul the Holy Trinity and heaven and hell, the Church of Rome does seem to me, as a popular system, to preach the Blessed Virgin and the Saints and Purgatory." Again: "We see it attempting to gain converts among us by unreal representations of its doctrines, plausible statements, bold assertions, appeals to the weaknesses of human nature, to our fancies, onr eccentricities, our fears, our frivolities, our false philosophies. We see its agents, smiling and nodding and ducking to attract attention, as gipsies make up to truant boys, holding out tales for the nursery, and pretty pictures, and gilt gingerbread, and physic concealed in jam, and A universal storm of indignation greeted the appearance of this Tract. To the old orthodox party it was simply an abomination. The Bishop of Oxford insisted that the series of Tracts should be stopped. Mr. Newman agreed, on condition that what had been published should not be suppressed, and on the 'understanding," afterwards disregarded, that there should be no public condemnation of his work. The evangelical party were equally furious against the impiety, the blasphemy, the rank dishonesty of signing the Articles in any but their natural sense, forgetting that only in a non-natural sense could they themselves use many of the words of the PrayerBook, or declare that it contains "nothing contrary to the Word of God."* The few "I challenge," says Dr. Newman, “in the sight of all England, evangelical clergymen generally, liberals then at Oxford joined in the cry, contending, not against the principle of latitude of interpretation, but against the one-sided character of the latitude claimed. But here, departing for a moment from the order of events, we must enter our protest against the statement made by Dr. Newman in another part of his work, that the liberals drove him from Oxford. We can only account for so incorrect a statement by supposing either that his judgment at the time was jaundiced by the sort of resentment which men often feel against the views to which they have once had leanings, or that wrath against his present antagonist renders his memory unjust to the party with whom he classes him. It may be true that three out of the four tutors who first publicly called the attention of the Heads of Houses to Tract 90, were or have since become more or less identified with the liberal party. But this, which took place in 1841, had no real connexion with the events of 1844 and 1845. It is certain that the liberals had no share in the measures which ultimately drove from Oxford one whom they regarded with distrust indeed, but with unfeigned admiration and interest. It was not the liberals who proposed a new Test, framed to exclude from the University all who adhered to the principles of the obnoxious Tract; who moved that it should be condemned by a solemn act of Convocation; who passed first a vote of censure and then a decree of degradation against Mr. Ward. When these exasperating, but otherwise ineffective measures were being carried or attempted, the leaders of the liberal party, true to their principles, were stoutly battling for liberty of speech and thought on behalf of him who was for the time their most determined opponent. Dr. Newman ought to, know well, unless he is singularly deficient in the power of estimating the true springs of action, and tracing effects to their causes, that the real force against which he had to contend,-the stream which ultimately swept him from his position, was that turbid stream of mingled two-bottle orthodoxy" and narrow Puritanism which is even now raging objicibus ruptis, if we may not rather hope that it has spent its fury, and is gradually subsiding within its banks. For a year before this Dr. Newman had been so little satisfied with his position that he had seriously doubted whether he ought not to give up the living of St. Mary's, and he only retained it in compliance with the advice of one or two intimate friends to whom he opened his mind. This doubt had gradually strengthened. Already he had found that the English Church could not stand upon antiquity alone, for she, like her sisterof Rome, maintained many doctrines, such as. the doctrine of the Trinity, which had not been publicly recognised as part of the dogmatic foundation of the Church till centuriesafter the time of the apostles. As he went. on with his theological studies, he found again, in the Arian controversy, antiquity appealing to Catholicity. His trouble returned on him. "The ghost had come a second time." He was in the misery of this new unsettlement when a second blow came upon him. The bishops, one after another, began to charge against him, in violation of what he had understood to be a promise made to him on their part. On the top of this came the Jerusalem Bishopric. A bishop of the English Church was to be appointed, who should exercise spiritual jurisdiction over any Protestant congregations which would submit to him. How could he retain office in a communion which, while it repudiated the doctrines he loved, identified itself with those it "set his teeth on edge" to hear? How could he maintain a "catholic" theory of that. church, which not only forbade any sympathy or concurrence with the Church of. Rome, but actually was "courting an intercommunion with Protestant Prussia, and the heresy of the Orientals?" He put forth a. formal protest against this measure, and then, without resigning his living, retired to Littlė-more, as to a Torres Vedras, in the hope that some day he might come forth from it, and advance again under his "Catholic" or "Anglican" banner to reconquer the Church now held in temporary subjection by the in-vading hosts of Protestantism. indeed, his hopes seem to have run higher still. What if the Anglican and the Latin Churches should agree to throw off each its errors and corruptions, and unite to form one pure and true Catholic and Apostolic Church? This were a reformation indeed. Could it be that grace was to be given to him to become a humble instrument in effecting it? Gradually these hopes vanished; and then came four years of perplexity within and persecution without; a time of darkness and sorrow, when the light was darkened in the * A small village about two miles from Oxford, part of which is in the parish of St. Mary's. Church when such a breach of trust would be laid, however wrongly, at his door, "after much sorrowful lingering and hesitation," he resigned his living, Littlemore included, and "retired into lay communion," thinking that if he could no longer command, he might still serve as a private in the ranks. heavens. It was not only that he was tor- | possible to retain an official position in our tured by that acutest of pains, the consciousness of a great design, and no power to fulfil it. His whole power of action and motion and speech was paralyzed by a deadening doubt as to his own position. He could not make up his mind to remain in a Church which was not "catholic;" he could not make up his mind to join a Church which taught the worship of the Virgin. He sought quiet and seclusion to prepare himself for the crisis of his fate; but his seclusion was invaded by prying eyes, and his quiet was disturbed by every sort of distraction and annoyance. He saw himself attacked by paltry assailants who would not have dared to cross swords with him in the hour of his strength, and whose worst assaults would have had no terrors for him if he had been sure of himself. At one time he was taunted for cowardice in not following his convictions, by persons who had never known what it was to have convictions of their own. At another time he was openly accused of being a Romanist in disguise, and reviled as a traitor and a spy. Such attacks, such taunts, such base calumnies he could meet with the scorn they deserved. But it was more difficult to bear the half-uttered reproaches of a great party left as sheep without a shepherd, and the pleadings of personal friends accustomed to look to him for light and guidance. Torn by all these contending emotions, what wonder if he dropped at last into the outstretched arms of that Church which promised to heal all wounds and remove all doubts, within whose sheltering bosom the wicked would cease from troubling, and the weary be at .rest? The steps by which he arrived at this end were simple and natural. In February 1843, he formally retracted all the hard things he had ever said against Rome, having been led to believe that her teaching, even where it seemed to differ from that of the early Church, was in fact only the projection, as it were, of the primitive doctrines on a larger ground. "The whole scene of pale, faint, distant apostolic Christianity," he thought, "was seen in Rome as through a telescope." It was unfair, then, to accuse her of magnifying the idea of the Blessed Virgin, when every other idea that of the Eucharist, for instance, which he so highly valued-was magnified in the same proportion. In September of the same year, he took a step even more important and significant. A young friend who had come to live with him at Littlemore, under a distinct promise not to leave the Church of England for at least three years, suddenly, and without notice, joined the Church of Rome. Feeling it im But it was only a temporary resting-place, where he might pause and recover strength before going hence to be no more seen. The old doubts came crowding upon his mind, and merged at last in the simple question, "Can I be saved in the English Church?" On the other hand, books were placed in his way which led him to believe that the errors which appeared to be sanctioned by Rome were no essential part of her doctrine, but mere excrescences, which might be accepted or not as he chose. All this time he was hard at his Essay on Doctrinal Development, maintaining that "the Roman additions to the primitive creed were developments, arising out of a keen and vivid realizing of the Divine depositum of faith." The rest must be told in his own words : "As I advanced," he says, "my view so cleared, that instead of speaking any more of the Roman Catholics' I boldly called them Catholics. Before I got to the end I resolved to be received, and the book remains in the state in which it was then, unfinished. "On October 8th, I wrote to a number of friends the following letter: "Littlemore, Oct 8, 1845.-I am this night expecting Father Dominic the Passionist, who from his youth has been led to have distinct and direct thoughts, first of the countries of the North, then of England. After thirty years' (almost) waiting, he was without his own act sent here. But he has had little to do with conversions. I saw him here for a few minutes on St. John Baptist's day last year. He does him admission into the one fold of Christ." not know of my intention, but I mean to ask of Strange, yet perhaps natural self-delusion, which seeks to see in an event so obviously the sequel of a long train of foregone circumstances, the work of a special providence, unaffected by secondary causes! As if the writer would never have joined the Church of Rome, had not a Passionate priest been led to have direct thoughts of the countries of the north! As if, because Father Dominic had had little to do with conversions, and did not know of his intention, no other Romish influences had been at work! For a few more weeks Mr. Newman lingered among the scenes endeared to him by so many joys and so many sorrows, so much active work, the companionship of so many loved friends. On Sunday, the 22d of November, he slept at Oxford, in the house of Mr. |