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[Published as a Pamphlet, Thursday, May 5, 1864.]
Part 3. History of My Religious Opinions
<to the Year 1833>
{105} [Note 1] IT may easily be
conceived how great a trial it is to me to write the following history
of myself; but I must not shrink from the task. The words, "Secretum
meum mihi," keep ringing in my ears; but as men draw towards
their end, they care less for disclosures. Nor is it the least part of
my trial, to anticipate that [my friends may], upon first reading what
I have written, <my friends may> consider much in it irrelevant
to my purpose; yet I cannot help thinking that, viewed as a whole, it
will effect what I wish it to do [Note
2].
I was brought up from a child to take great delight in reading the
Bible; but I had no formed religious convictions till I was fifteen.
Of course I had <a> perfect knowledge of my Catechism.
After I was grown up, I put on paper such [Note
3] recollections [as I had] of my [Note
4] thoughts and feelings on religious subjects, <which I
had> at the time that I was a child and a boy<,—such as had
remained on my mind with sufficient prominence to make me then
consider them worth recording>. Out of these <, written in the
Long Vacation of 1820, and transcribed with additions in 1823,> I
select two, which are at once the most definite among them, and also
have a bearing on my later convictions.
[In the paper to which I have referred, written either in the Long
Vacation of 1820, or in October, 1823, the following notices of my
school days were sufficiently prominent in my memory for me to
consider them worth recording:—] <1.> "I used to wish [Note
5] the Arabian Tales {106} were true: my imagination ran on
unknown influences, on magical powers, and talismans … I thought
life might be a dream, or I an Angel, and all this world a deception,
my fellow-angels by a playful device concealing themselves from me,
and deceiving me with the semblance of a material world."
Again, "Reading in the Spring of 1816 a sentence from [Dr.
Watts's] 'Remnants of Time,' entitled 'the Saints unknown to the
world,' to the effect, that 'there is nothing in their figure or
countenance to distinguish them,' &c. &c., I supposed he spoke
of Angels who lived in the world, as it were disguised."
<2.> The other remark is this: "I was very
superstitious, and for some time previous to my conversion" [when
I was fifteen] "used constantly to cross myself on going into the
dark." [Note 6]
Of course I must have got this practice from some external source
or other; but I can make no sort of conjecture whence; and certainly
no one had ever spoken to me on the subject of the Catholic religion,
which I only knew by name. The French master was an émigré
Priest, but he was simply made a butt, as French masters too commonly
were in that day, and spoke English very imperfectly. There was a
Catholic family in the village, old maiden ladies we used to think;
but I knew nothing but their name [Note
7]. I have of late years heard that there were one or two Catholic
boys in the school; but either we were carefully kept from knowing
this, or the knowledge of it made simply no impression on our minds.
My brother will bear witness how free the school was from Catholic
ideas.
I had once been into Warwick Street Chapel, with my father, who, I
believe, wanted to hear some piece of music; all that I bore away from
it was the recollection of a pulpit and a preacher<,> and a boy
swinging a censor.
When I was at Littlemore, I was looking over old copy-books of my
school days, and I found among them my first Latin verse-book; and in
the first page of it[,] there was a device which almost took my breath
away with surprise. {107} I have the book before me now, and have just
been showing it to others. I have written in the first page, in my
school-boy hand, "John H. Newman, February 11th, 1811, Verse
Book;" then follow my first Verses. Between "Verse" and
"Book" I have drawn the figure of a solid cross upright, and
next to it is, what may indeed be meant for a necklace, but what I
cannot make out to be any thing else than a set of beads suspended,
with a little cross attached. At this time I was not quite ten years
old. I suppose I got the idea [Note 8]
from some romance, Mrs. Radcliffe's or Miss Porter's; or from some
religious picture; but the strange thing is, how, among the thousand
objects which meet a boy's eyes, these in particular should so have
fixed themselves in my mind, that I made them thus practically my own.
I am certain there was nothing in the churches I attended, or the
prayer books I read, to suggest them. It must be recollected that
<Anglican> churches and prayer books were not decorated in those
days as I believe they are now.
When I was fourteen, I read Paine's Tracts against the Old
Testament, and found pleasure in thinking of the objections which were
contained in them. Also, I read some of Hume's Essays; and perhaps
that on Miracles. So at least I gave my father to understand; but
perhaps it was a brag. Also, I recollect copying out some French
verses, perhaps Voltaire's, against [Note
9] the immortality of the soul, and saying to myself something
like "How dreadful, but how plausible!"
When I was fifteen, (in the autumn of 1816,) a great change of
thought took place in me. I fell under the influences of a definite
Creed, and received into my intellect impressions of dogma, which,
through God's mercy, have never been effaced or obscured. Above and
beyond the conversations and sermons of the excellent man, long dead,
<the Rev. Walter Mayers, of Pembroke College, Oxford,> who was the
human means of this beginning of divine faith in me, was the effect of
the books which he put into my hands, all of the school of Calvin. One
of the first books I read[,] was a work of Romaine's; I neither
recollect {108} the title nor the contents, except one doctrine, which
of course I do not include among those which I believe to have come
from a divine source, viz. the doctrine of final perseverance. I
received it at once, and believed that the inward conversion of which
I was conscious, (and of which I still am more certain than that I
have hands and feet,) would last into the next life, and that I was
elected to eternal glory. I have no consciousness that this belief had
any tendency whatever to lead me to be careless about pleasing God. I
retained it till the age of twenty-one, when it gradually faded away;
but I believe that it had some influence on my opinions, in the
direction of those childish imaginations which I have already
mentioned, viz. in isolating me from the objects which surrounded me,
in confirming me in my mistrust of the reality of material phenomena,
and making me rest in the thought of two and two only supreme [Note
10] and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator;—for
while I considered myself predestined to salvation, I thought others [Note
11] simply passed over, not predestined to eternal death. I only
thought of the mercy to myself.
The detestable doctrine last mentioned is simply denied and
abjured, unless my memory strangely deceives me, by the writer who
made a deeper impression on my mind than any other, and to whom
(humanly speaking) I almost owe my soul,—Thomas Scott of Aston
Sandford. I so admired and delighted in his writings, that, when I was
an undergraduate, I thought of making a visit to his Parsonage, in
order to see a man whom I so deeply revered. I hardly think I could
have given up the idea of this expedition, even after I had taken my
degree; for the news of his death in 1821 came upon me as a
disappointment as well as a sorrow. I hung upon the lips of Daniel
Wilson, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, as in two sermons at St. John's
Chapel he gave the history of Scott's life and death. I had been
possessed of his <"Force of Truth" and> Essays from a
boy; his Commentary I bought when I was an undergraduate.
What, I suppose, will strike any reader of Scott's history {109}
and writings, is his bold unworldliness and vigorous independence of
mind. He followed truth wherever it led him, beginning with
Unitarianism, and ending in a zealous faith in the Holy Trinity. It
was he who first planted deep in my mind that fundamental Truth [Note
12] of religion. With the assistance of Scott's Essays, and the
admirable work of Jones of Nayland, I made a collection of Scripture
texts in proof of the doctrine, with remarks (I think) of my own upon
them, before I was sixteen; and a few months later I drew up a series
of texts in support of each verse of the Athanasian Creed. These
papers I have still.
Besides his unworldliness, what I also admired in Scott was his
resolute opposition to Antinomianism, and the minutely practical
character of his writings. They show him to be a true Englishman, and
I deeply felt his influence; and for years I used almost as proverbs
what I considered to be the scope and issue of his doctrine,
"Holiness before [Note 13]
peace," and "Growth [is] the only evidence of life."
Calvinists make a sharp separation between the elect and the world;
there is much in this that is parallel or cognate [Note
14] to the Catholic doctrine; but they go on to say, as I
understand them, very differently from Catholicism,—that the
converted and the unconverted can be discriminated by man, that the
justified are conscious of their state of justification, and that the
regenerate cannot fall away. Catholics on the other hand shade and
soften the awful antagonism between good and evil, which is one of
their dogmas, by holding that there are different degrees of
justification, that there is a great difference in point of gravity
between sin and sin, that there is the possibility and the danger of
falling away, and that there is no certain knowledge given to any one
that he is simply in a state of grace, and much less that he is to
persevere to the end:—of the Calvinistic tenets the only one which
took root in my mind was the fact of heaven and hell, divine favour
and divine wrath, of the justified and the unjustified. The notion
that the regenerate and the justified were one and the same, and that
the regenerate, as such, had the gift {110} of perseverance, remained
with me not many years, as I have said already.
This main Catholic doctrine of the warfare between the city of God
and the powers of darkness was also deeply impressed upon my mind by a
work of a very opposite character [Note
15] <to Calvinism>, Law's "Serious Call."
From this time I have given [Note
16] a full inward assent and belief [to] the doctrine of eternal
punishment, as delivered by our Lord Himself, in as true a sense as I
hold that of eternal happiness; though I have tried in various ways to
make that truth less terrible to the reason [Note
17].
Now I come to two other works, which produced a deep impression on
me in the same autumn of 1816, when I was fifteen years old, each
contrary to each, and planting in me the seeds of an intellectual
inconsistency which disabled me for a long course of years. I read
Joseph Milner's Church History, and was nothing short of enamoured of
the long extracts from St. Augustine <, St. Ambrose,> and the
other Fathers which I found there. I read them as being the religion
of the primitive Christians: but simultaneously with Milner I read
Newton on the Prophecies, and in consequence became most firmly
convinced that the Pope was the Antichrist predicted by Daniel, St.
Paul, and St. John. My imagination was stained by the effects of this
doctrine up to the year 1843; it had been obliterated from my reason
and judgment at an earlier date; but the thought remained upon me as a
sort of false conscience. Hence came that conflict of mind, which so
many have felt besides myself;—leading some men to make a compromise
between two ideas, so inconsistent with each other,—driving others
to beat out the one idea or the other from their minds,—and ending
in my own case, after many years of intellectual unrest, in the
gradual decay and extinction of one of them,—I do not say in its
violent death, for why should I not have murdered it sooner, if I
murdered it at all?
I am obliged to mention, though I do it with great reluctance,
another deep imagination, which at this time, the autumn of 1816, took
possession of me,—there can be {111} no mistake about the fact;[—]
viz. that it was [Note 18] the
will of God that I should lead a single life. This anticipation, which
has held its ground almost continuously ever since,—with the break
of a month now and a month then, up to 1829, and, after that date,
without any break at all,—was more or less connected[,] in my
mind[,] with the notion<,> that my calling in life would require
such a sacrifice as celibacy involved; as, for instance, missionary
work among the heathen, to which I had a great drawing for some years.
It also strengthened my feeling of separation from the visible world,
of which I have spoken above.
In 1822 I came under very different influences from those to which
I had hitherto been subjected. At that time, Mr. Whately, as he was
then, afterwards Archbishop of Dublin, for the few months he remained
in Oxford, which he was leaving for good, showed great kindness to me.
He renewed it in 1825, when he became Principal of Alban Hall, making
me his Vice-Principal and Tutor. Of Dr. Whately I will speak
presently, for from 1822 to 1825 I saw most of the present Provost of
Oriel, Dr. Hawkins, at that time Vicar of St. Mary's; and, when I took
orders in 1824 and had a curacy at [Note
19] Oxford, then, during the Long Vacations, I was especially
thrown into his company. I can say with a full heart that I love him,
and have never ceased to love him; and I thus preface what otherwise
might sound rude, that in the course of the many years in which we
were together afterwards, he provoked me very much from time to time,
though I am perfectly certain that I have provoked him a great deal
more. Moreover, in me such provocation was unbecoming, both because he
was the Head of my College, and because<,> in the first years
that I knew him, he had been in many ways of great service to my mind.
He was the first who taught me to weigh my words, and to be
cautious in my statements. He led me to that mode of limiting and
clearing my sense in discussion and in controversy, and of
distinguishing between cognate ideas, and of obviating mistakes by
anticipation, which to my {112} surprise has been since considered,
even in quarters friendly to me, to savour of the polemics of Rome. He
is a man of most exact mind himself, and he used to snub me severely,
on reading, as he was kind enough to do, the first Sermons that I
wrote, and other compositions which I was engaged upon.
Then as to doctrine, he was the means of great additions to my
belief. As I have noticed elsewhere, he gave me the "Treatise on
Apostolical Preaching," by Sumner, afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury, from which I learned [Note
20] to give up my remaining Calvinism, and to receive the doctrine
of Baptismal Regeneration. In many other ways too he was of use to me,
on subjects semi-religious and semi-scholastic.
It was Dr. Hawkins too who taught me to anticipate that, before
many years were over there would be an attack made upon the books and
the canon of Scripture. I was brought to the same belief by the
conversation of Mr. Blanco White, who also led me to have freer views
on the subject of inspiration than were usual in the Church of England
at the time.
There is one other principle, which I gained from Dr. Hawkins, more
directly bearing upon Catholicism, than any that I have mentioned; and
that is the doctrine of Tradition. When I was an Undergraduate, I
heard him preach in the University Pulpit his celebrated sermon on the
subject, and recollect how long it appeared to me, though he was at
that time a very striking preacher; but, when I read it and studied it
as his gift, it made a most serious impression upon me. He does not go
one step, I think, beyond the high Anglican doctrine, nay he does not
reach it; but he does his work thoroughly, and his view was <in
him> original [with him], and his subject was a novel one at the
time. He lays down a proposition, self-evident as soon as stated, to
those who have at all examined the structure of Scripture, viz. that
the sacred text was never intended to teach doctrine, but only to
prove it, and that, if we would learn doctrine, we must have recourse
to the formularies of the Church; for instance to the {113} Catechism,
and to the Creeds. He considers, that, after learning from them the
doctrines of Christianity, the inquirer must verify them by Scripture.
This view, most true in its outline, most fruitful in its
consequences, opened upon me a large field of thought. Dr. Whately
held it too. One of its effects was to strike at the root of the
principle on which the Bible Society was set up. I belonged to its
Oxford Association; it became a matter of time when I should withdraw
my name from its subscription-list, though I did not do so at once.
It is with pleasure that I pay here a tribute to the memory of the
Rev. William James, then Fellow of Oriel; who, about the year 1823,
taught me the doctrine of Apostolical Succession, in the course of a
walk, I think, round Christ Church meadow: I recollect being somewhat
impatient on [Note 21] the
subject at the time.
It was at about this date, I suppose, that I read Bishop Butler's
Analogy; the study of which has been to so many, as it was to me, an
era in their religious opinions. Its inculcation of a visible Church,
the oracle of truth and a pattern of sanctity, of the duties of
external religion, and of the historical character of Revelation, are
characteristics of this great work which strike the reader at once;
for myself, if I may attempt to determine what I most gained from it,
it lay in two points, which I shall have an opportunity of dwelling on
in the sequel; they are the underlying principles of a great portion
of my teaching. 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 <1 [Note 22]>,
and of this conclusion the theory, to which I was inclined as a boy,
viz. the unreality of material phenomena, is an ultimate resolution.
At this time I did not make the distinction between matter itself and
its phenomena, which is so necessary and so obvious in discussing the
subject. 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 {114} Faith,
on which I have written so much. Thus to Butler I trace those two
principles of my teaching, which have led to a charge against me both
of fancifulness and of scepticism.
And now as to Dr. Whately. I owe him a great deal. He was a man of
generous and warm heart. He was particularly loyal to his friends, and
to use the common phrase, "all his geese were swans." While
I was still awkward and timid in 1822, he took me by the hand, and
acted <towards me> the part [to me] of a gentle and encouraging
instructor. He, emphatically, opened my mind, and taught me to think
and to use my reason. After being first noticed by him in 1822, I
became very intimate with him in 1825, when I was his Vice-Principal
at Alban Hall. I gave up that office in 1826, when I became Tutor of
my College, and his hold upon me gradually relaxed. He had done his
work towards me or nearly so, when he had taught me to see with my own
eyes and to walk with my own feet. Not that I had not a good deal to
learn from others still, but I influenced them as well as they me, and
co-operated rather than merely concurred with them. As to Dr. Whately,
his mind was too different from mine for us to remain long on one
line. I recollect how dissatisfied he was with an Article of mine in
the London Review, which Blanco White, good-humouredly, only called
Platonic. When I was diverging from him <in opinion> (which he
did not like), I thought of dedicating my first book to him, in words
to the effect that he had not only taught me to think, but to think
for myself. He left Oxford in 1831; after that, as far as I can
recollect, I never saw him but twice,—when he visited the
University; once in the street <in 1834>, once in a room <in
1838>. From the time that he left, I have always felt a real
affection for what I must call his memory; for thenceforward [Note
23] he made himself dead to me. <He had practically indeed
given me up from the time that he became Archbishop in 1831; but in
1834 a correspondence took place between us, which, though conducted
in the most friendly language on both sides, was the expression of
differences of opinion which acted as {115} a final close to our
intercourse.> My reason told me that it was impossible [that] we
could have got on together longer <, had he stayed in Oxford>;
yet I loved him too much to bid him farewell without pain. After a few
years had passed, I began to believe that his influence on me in a
higher respect than intellectual advance, (I will not say through his
fault,) had not been satisfactory. I believe that he has inserted
sharp things in his later works about me. They have never come in my
way, and I have not thought it necessary to seek out what would pain
me so much in the reading.
What he did for me in point of religious opinion, was<,>
first<,> to teach me the existence of the Church, as a
substantive body or corporation; next to fix in me those anti-Erastian
views of Church polity, which were one of the most prominent features
of the Tractarian movement. On this point, and, as far as I know, on
this point alone, he and Hurrell Froude intimately sympathized, though
Froude's development of opinion here was of a later date. In the year
1826, in the course of a walk<,> he said much to me about a work
then just published, called "Letters on the Church by an
Episcopalian." He said that it would make my blood boil. It was
certainly a most powerful composition. One of our common friends told
me, that, after reading it, he could not keep still, but went on
walking up and down his room. It was ascribed at once to Whately; I
gave eager expression to the contrary opinion; but I found the belief
of Oxford in the affirmative to be too strong for me; rightly or
wrongly I yielded to the general voice; and I have never heard, then
or since, of any disclaimer of authorship on the part of Dr. Whately.
The main positions of this able essay are these; first that Church
and State should be independent of each other;—he speaks of the duty
of protesting "against the profanation of Christ's kingdom, by
that double usurpation, the interference of the Church in
temporals, of the State in spirituals," p. 191; and, secondly,
that the Church may justly and by right retain its property, though
separated from the State. "The clergy," he says p. 133,
"though they ought not to be the hired servants of the Civil
Magistrate, may justly retain their revenues; and the State, {116}
though it has no right of interference in spiritual concerns, not only
is justly entitled to support from the ministers of religion, and from
all other Christians, but would, under the system I am recommending,
obtain it much more effectually." The author of this work,
whoever he may be, argues out both these points with great force and
ingenuity, and with a thorough-going vehemence, which perhaps we may
refer to the circumstance, that he wrote, not in propriâ personâ,
<and as thereby answerable for every sentiment that he
advanced,> but in the professed character of a Scotch Episcopalian.
His work had a gradual, but a deep effect on my mind.
I am not aware of any other religious opinion which I owe to Dr.
Whately. For his special theological tenets I had no sympathy. In the
next year, 1827, he told me he considered that I was Arianizing. The
case was this: though at that time I had not read Bishop Bull's Defensio
nor the Fathers, I was just then very strong for that ante-Nicene view
of the Trinitarian doctrine, which some writers, both Catholic and
non-Catholic, have accused of wearing a sort of Arian exterior. This
is the meaning of a passage in Froude's Remains, in which he seems to
accuse me of speaking against the Athanasian Creed. I had contrasted
the two aspects of the Trinitarian doctrine, which are respectively
presented by the Athanasian Creed and the Nicene. My criticisms were
to the effect that some of the verses of the former Creed were
unnecessarily scientific. This is a specimen of a certain disdain for
antiquity [Note 24] which had
been growing on me now for several years. It showed itself in some
flippant language against the Fathers in the Encyclopĉdia
Metropolitana, about whom I knew little at the time, except what I had
learnt as a boy from Joseph Milner. In writing on the Scripture
Miracles in 1825-6, I had read Middleton on the Miracles of the early
Church, and had imbibed a portion of his spirit.
The truth is, I was beginning to prefer intellectual excellence to
moral; I was drifting in the direction of <the> liberalism
<of the day 1 [Note 25]>.
I was rudely awakened from my {117} dream at the end of 1827 by two
great blows—illness and bereavement.
In the beginning of 1829, came the formal break between Dr. Whately
and me; <the affair of> Mr. Peel's [attempted] re-election was
the occasion of it. I think in 1828 or 1827 I had voted in the
minority, when the Petition to Parliament against the Catholic Claims
was brought into Convocation. I did so mainly on the views suggested
to me by the theory of the Letters of an Episcopalian. Also I disliked
the bigoted "two bottle orthodox," as they were invidiously
called. <Accordingly> I took part against Mr. Peel, on a simple
academical, not at all an ecclesiastical or a political ground; and
this I professed at the time. I considered that Mr. Peel had taken the
University by surprise, that he [Note
26] had no right to call upon us to turn round on a sudden, and to
expose ourselves to the imputation of time-serving, and that a great
University ought not to be bullied even by a great Duke of Wellington.
Also by this time I was under the influence of Keble and Froude; who,
in addition to the reasons I have given, disliked the Duke's change of
policy as dictated by liberalism.
Whately was considerably annoyed at me, and he took a humourous
revenge, of which he had given me due notice beforehand. As head of a
house, he had duties of hospitality to men of all parties; he asked a
set of the least intellectual men in Oxford to dinner, and men most
fond of port; he made me one of the [Note
27] party; placed me between Provost This and Principal That, and
then asked me if I was proud of my friends. However, he had a serious
meaning in his act; he saw, more clearly than I could do, that I was
separating from his own friends for good and all.
Dr. Whately attributed my leaving his clientela to a wish on
my part to be the head of a party myself. I do not think that it [Note
28] was deserved. My habitual feeling then and since has been,
that it was not I who sought friends, but friends who sought me. Never
man had kinder or more indulgent friends than I have had, but I
expressed my own feeling as to the mode in which I gained them, in
this very year 1829, in the course of a copy of verses. Speaking of
{118} my blessings, I said, "Blessings of friends, which to my
door, unasked, unhoped, have come." They have come, they
have gone; they came to my great joy, they went to my great grief. He
who gave, took away. Dr. Whately's impression about me, however,
admits of this explanation:—
During the first years of my residence at Oriel, though proud of my
College, I was not <quite> at home there. I was very much alone,
and I used often to take my daily walk by myself. I recollect once
meeting Dr. Copleston, then Provost, with one of the Fellows. He
turned round, and with the kind courteousness which sat so well on
him, made me a bow and said, "Nunquam minus solus, quàm cùm solus."
At that time indeed (from 1823) I had the intimacy of my dear and true
friend Dr. Pusey, and could not fail to admire and revere a soul so
devoted to the cause of religion, so full of good works, so faithful
in his affections; but he left residence when I was getting to know
him well. As to Dr. Whately himself, he was too much my superior to
allow of my being at my ease with him; and to no one in Oxford at
this time did I open my heart fully and familiarly. But things changed
in 1826. 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. <In 1828 I became Vicar of St. Mary's.> 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.
The two persons who knew me best at that time are still alive,
beneficed clergymen, no longer my friends. They could tell better than
any one else what I was in those years. From this time my tongue was,
as it were, loosened, and I spoke spontaneously and without effort.
<One of the two,> A shrewd man [Note
29], [who knew me at this time,] said <of me, I have been
told>, "Here is a man who [Note
30], when he is silent, will never begin to speak; and when he
once begins to speak, will never stop." It was at this time that I
began {119} to have influence, which steadily increased for a course
of years. I gained upon my pupils, and was in particular intimate and
affectionate with two of our probationer Fellows, Robert I<saac>
Wilberforce (afterwards Arch-deacon) and Richard Hurrell Froude.
Whately then, an acute man, perhaps saw around me the signs of an
incipient party<,> of which I was not conscious myself. And thus
we discern the first elements of that movement afterwards called
Tractarian.
The true and primary author of it, however, as is usual with great
motive-powers, was out of sight. Having carried off as a mere boy the
highest honours of the University, he had turned from the admiration
which haunted his steps, and sought for a better and holier
satisfaction in pastoral work in the country. Need I say that I am
speaking of John Keble? The first time that I was in a room with him
was on occasion of my election to a fellowship at Oriel, when I was
sent for into the Tower, to shake hands with the Provost and Fellows.
How is that hour fixed in my memory after the changes of forty-two
years, forty-two this very day on which I write! I have lately had a
letter in my hands, which I sent at the time to my great friend, John
<William> Bowden, with whom I passed almost exclusively my
Undergraduate years. "I had to hasten to the Tower," I say
to him, "to receive the congratulations of all the Fellows. I
bore it till Keble took my hand, and then felt so abashed and unworthy
of the honour done me, that I seemed desirous of quite sinking into
the ground." His had been the first name which I had heard spoken
of, with reverence rather than admiration, when I came up to Oxford.
When one day I was walking in High Street with my dear earliest friend
just mentioned, with what eagerness did he cry out, "There's
Keble!" and with what awe did I look at him! Then at another time
I heard a Master of Arts of my college give an account how he had just
then had occasion to introduce himself on some business to Keble, and
how gentle, courteous, and unaffected Keble had been, so as almost to
put him out of countenance. Then too it was reported, truly or
falsely, how a rising man of brilliant reputation, the present Dean of
St. Paul's, Dr. Milman, admired and loved {120} him, adding, that
somehow he was <strangely> unlike any one else. However, at the
time when I was elected Fellow of Oriel he was not in residence, and
he was shy of me for years in consequence of the marks which I bore
upon me of the evangelical and liberal schools. At least so I have
ever thought. Hurrell Froude brought us together about 1828: it is one
of the sayings preserved in his "Remains,"—"Do you
know the story of the murderer who had done one good thing in his
life? Well; if I was ever asked what good deed I had ever done, I
should say that I had brought Keble and Newman to understand each
other."
The Christian Year made its appearance in 1827. It is not
necessary, and scarcely becoming, to praise a book which has already
become one of the classics of the language. When the general tone of
religious literature was so nerveless and impotent, as it was at that
time, Keble struck an original note and woke up in the hearts of
thousands a new music, the music of a school, long unknown in England.
Nor can I pretend to analyze, in my own instance, the effect of
religious teaching so deep, so pure, so beautiful. I have never till
now tried to do so; yet I think I am not wrong in saying, that the two
main intellectual truths which it brought home to me, were the same
two, which I had learned from Butler, though recast in the creative
mind of my new master. The first of these was what may be called, in a
large sense of the word, the Sacramental system; that is, the doctrine
that material phenomena are both the types and the instruments of real
things unseen,—a doctrine, which embraces <in its fulness>,
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 connexion of this philosophy of religion
with what is sometimes called "Berkeleyism" has been
mentioned above; I knew little of Berkeley at this time except by
name; nor have I ever studied him.
On the second intellectual principle which I gained from Mr. Keble,
I could say a great deal; if this were the place for it. It runs
through very much that I have written, {121} and has gained for me
many hard names. Butler teaches us that probability is the guide of
life. The danger of this doctrine, in the case of many minds, is, its
tendency to destroy in them absolute certainty, leading them to
consider every conclusion as doubtful, and resolving truth into an
opinion, which it is safe <indeed> to obey or to profess, but
not possible to embrace with full internal assent. If this were to be
allowed, then the celebrated saying, "O God, if there be a God,
save my soul, if I have a soul!" would be the highest measure of
devotion:—but who can really pray to a Being, about whose existence
he is seriously in doubt?
I considered that Mr. Keble met this difficulty by ascribing the
firmness of assent which we give to religious doctrine, not to the
probabilities which introduced it, but to the living power of faith
and love which accepted it. In matters of religion, he seemed to say,
it is not merely probability which makes us intellectually certain,
but probability as it is put to account by faith and love. It is faith
and love which give to probability a force which it has not in itself.
Faith and love are directed towards an Object; in the vision of that
Object they live; it is that Object, received in faith and love, which
renders it reasonable to take probability as sufficient for internal
conviction. Thus the argument about [Note
31] Probability, in the matter of religion, became an argument
from Personality, which in fact is one form of the argument from
Authority.
In illustration, Mr. Keble used to quote the words of the Psalm:
"I will guide thee with mine eye. Be ye not like to horse
and mule, which have no understanding; whose mouths must be held with
bit and bridle, lest they fall upon thee." This is the very
difference, he used to say, between slaves, and friends or children.
Friends do not ask for literal commands; but, from their knowledge of
the speaker, they understand his half-words, and from love of him they
anticipate his wishes. Hence it is, that in his Poem for St.
Bartholomew's Day, he speaks of the "Eye of God's word;" and
in the note quotes Mr. Miller, of Worcester College, who remarks, in
his Bampton Lectures, {122} on the special power of Scripture, as
having "this Eye, like that of a portrait, uniformly fixed upon
us, turn where we will." The view thus suggested by Mr. Keble, is
brought forward in one of the earliest of the "Tracts for the
Times." In No. 8 I say, "The Gospel is a Law of Liberty. We
are treated as sons, not as servants; not subjected to a code of
formal commandments, but addressed as those who love God, and wish to
please Him."
I did not at all dispute this view of the matter, for I made use of
it myself; but I was dissatisfied, because it did not go to the root
of the difficulty. It was beautiful and religious, but it did not even
profess to be logical; and accordingly I tried to complete it by
considerations of my own, which are implied in my University Sermons,
Essay on Ecclesiastical Miracles, and Essay on Development of
Doctrine. My argument is in outline as follows: that that absolute
certitude which we were able to possess, whether as to the truths of
natural theology, or as to the fact of a revelation, was the result of
an assemblage of concurring and converging probabilities, and
that, both according to the constitution of the human mind and the
will of its Maker; that certitude was a habit of mind, that certainty
was a quality of propositions; that probabilities which did not reach
to logical certainty, might create [Note
32] a mental certitude; that the certitude thus created [Note
33] might equal in measure and strength the certitude which was
created by the strictest scientific demonstration; and that to have [Note
34] such certitude might in given cases and to given individuals
be a plain duty, though not to others in other circumstances:—
Moreover, that as there were probabilities which sufficed to create
[Note 35] certitude, so there
were other probabilities which were legitimately adapted to create
opinion; that it might be quite as much a matter of duty in given
cases and to given persons to have about a fact an opinion of a
definite strength and consistency, as in the case of greater or of
more numerous probabilities it was a duty to have a certitude; that
accordingly we were bound to be more or less {123} sure, on a sort of
(as it were) graduated scale of assent, viz. according as the
probabilities attaching to a professed fact were brought home to us,
and, as the case might be, to entertain about it a pious belief, or a
pious opinion, or a religious conjecture, or at least, a tolerance of
such belief, or opinion, or conjecture in others; that on the other
hand, as it was a duty to have a belief, of more or less strong
texture, in given cases, so in other cases it was a duty not to
believe, not to opine, not to conjecture, not even to tolerate the
notion that a professed fact was true, inasmuch as it would be
credulity or superstition, or some other moral fault, to do so. This
was the region of Private Judgment in religion; that is, of a Private
Judgment, not formed arbitrarily and according to one's fancy or
liking, but conscientiously, and under a sense of duty.
Considerations such as these throw a new light on the subject of Miracles, and they seem to have led me to re-consider the view which I
took [Note 36] of them in my
Essay in 1825-6. I do not know what was the date of this change in me,
nor of the train of ideas on which it was founded. That there had been
already great miracles, as those of Scripture, as the Resurrection,
was a fact establishing the principle that the laws of nature had
sometimes been suspended by their Divine Author; and since what had
happened once might happen again, a certain probability, at least no
kind of improbability, was attached to the idea, taken in itself, of
miraculous intervention in later times, and miraculous accounts were
to be regarded in connexion with the verisimilitude, scope,
instrument, character, testimony, and circumstances, with which they
presented themselves to us; and, according to the final result of
those various considerations, it was our duty to be sure, or to
believe, or to opine, or to surmise, or to tolerate, or to reject, or
to denounce. The main difference between my Essay on Miracles in 1826
and my Essay in 1842 is this: that in 1826 I considered that miracles
were sharply divided into two classes, those which were to be
received, and those which were to be rejected; whereas in 1842 I saw
that they were to be regarded according to their greater or less {124}
probability, which was in some cases sufficient to create certitude
about them, in other cases only belief or opinion.
Moreover, the argument from Analogy, on which this view of the
question was founded, suggested to me something besides, in
recommendation of the Ecclesiastical Miracles. It fastened itself upon
the theory of Church History which I had learned as a boy from Joseph
Milner. It is Milner's doctrine, that upon the visible Church come
down from above, from time to time [Note
37], large and temporary Effusions of divine grace. This is
the leading idea of his work. He begins by speaking of the Day of
Pentecost, as marking "the first of those Effusions of the
Spirit of God, which from age to age have visited the earth since the
coming of Christ." Vol. i. p. 3. In a note he adds that "in the
term 'Effusion' there is not [Note
38] here included the idea of the miraculous or extraordinary
operations of the Spirit of God;" but still it was natural for me,
admitting Milner's general theory, and applying to it the principle of
analogy, not to stop short at his abrupt ipse dixit, but boldly
to pass forward to the conclusion, on other grounds plausible, that,
as miracles accompanied the first effusion of grace, so they might
accompany the later. It is surely a natural and on the whole, a true
anticipation (though of course there are exceptions in particular
cases), that gifts and graces go together; now, according to the
ancient Catholic doctrine, the gift of miracles was viewed as the
attendant and shadow of transcendent sanctity: and moreover, as such
sanctity was not of every day's occurrence, nay further, as one period
of Church history differed widely from another, and, as [Note
39] Joseph Milner would say, there have been generations or
centuries of degeneracy or disorder, and times of revival, and as one
region might be in the mid-day of religious fervour, and another in
twilight or gloom, there was no force in the popular argument, that,
because we did not see miracles with our own eyes, miracles had not
happened in former times, or were not now at this very time taking
place in distant places:—but I must not {125} dwell longer on a
subject, to which in a few words it is impossible to do justice <1
[Note 40]>.
Hurrell Froude was a pupil of Keble's, formed by him, and in turn
reacting upon him. I knew him first in 1826, and was in the closest
and most affectionate friendship with him from about 1829 till his
death in 1836. He was a man of the highest gifts,—so truly
many-sided, that it would be presumptuous in me to attempt to describe
him, except under those aspects[,] in which he came before me. Nor
have I here to speak of the gentleness and tenderness of nature, the
playfulness, the free elastic force and graceful versatility of mind,
and the patient winning considerateness in discussion, which endeared
him to those to whom he opened his heart; for I am all along engaged
upon matters of belief and opinion, and am introducing others into my
narrative, not for their own sake, or because I love and have loved
them, so much as because, and so far as, they have influenced my
theological views. In this respect then, I speak of Hurrell Froude,—in
his intellectual aspect,—as a man of high genius, brimful and
overflowing with ideas and views, in him original, which were too many
and strong even for his bodily strength, and which crowded and jostled
against each other in their effort after distinct shape and
expression. And he had an intellect as critical and logical as it was
speculative and bold. Dying prematurely, as he did, and in the
conflict and transition-state of opinion, his religious views never
reached their ultimate conclusion, by the very reason of their
multitude and their depth. His opinions arrested and influenced me,
even when they did not gain my assent. He professed openly his
admiration of the Church of Rome, and his hatred of the Reformers. He
delighted in the notion of an hierarchical system, or sacerdotal power
and of full ecclesiastical liberty. He felt scorn of the maxim,
"The Bible and the Bible only is the religion of
Protestants;" and he gloried in accepting Tradition as a main
instrument of religious teaching. He had a high severe idea of the
intrinsic excellence of Virginity; and he considered the {126} Blessed
Virgin its great Pattern. He delighted in thinking of the Saints; he
had a keen [Note 41]
appreciation of the idea of sanctity, its possibility and its heights;
and he was more than inclined to believe a large amount of miraculous
interference as occurring in the early and middle ages. He embraced
the principle of penance and mortification. He had a deep devotion to
the Real Presence, in which he had a firm faith. He was powerfully
drawn to the Medieval Church, but not to the Primitive.
He had a keen insight into abstract truth; but he was an Englishman
to the backbone in his severe adherence to the real and the concrete.
He had a most classical taste, and a genius for philosophy and art;
and he was fond of historical inquiry, and the politics of religion.
He had no turn for theology as such. He had no appreciation of [Note
42] the writings of the Fathers, of [Note
43] the detail or development of doctrine, of [Note
44] the definite traditions of the Church viewed in their matter,
of [Note 45] the teaching of the
Ecumenical Councils, or of [Note 46]
the controversies out of which they arose. He took an eager,
courageous view of things on the whole. I should say that his power of
entering into the minds of others did not equal his other gifts; he
could not believe, for instance, that I really held the Roman Church
to be Antichristian. On many points he would not believe but that I
agreed with him, when I did not. He seemed not to understand my
difficulties. His were of a different kind, the contrariety between
theory and fact. He was a high Tory of the Cavalier stamp, and was
disgusted with the Toryism of the opponents of the Reform Bill. He was
smitten with the love of the Theocratic Church; he went abroad and was
shocked by the degeneracy which he thought he saw in the Catholics of
Italy.
It is difficult to enumerate the precise additions to my
theological creed which I derived from a friend to whom I owe so much.
He made me [Note 47] look with
admiration towards the Church of Rome, and in the same degree to
dislike the {127} Reformation. He fixed deep in me the idea of
devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and he led me gradually to believe in
the Real Presence.
There is one remaining source of my opinions to be mentioned, and
that far from the least important. In proportion as I moved out of the
shadow of <that> liberalism which had hung over my course, my
early devotion towards the Fathers returned; and in the Long Vacation
of 1828 I set about to read them chronologically, beginning with St.
Ignatius and St. Justin. About 1830 a proposal was made to me by Mr.
Hugh Rose, who with Mr. Lyall (afterwards Dean of Canterbury) was
providing writers for a Theological Library, to furnish them with a
History of the Principal Councils. I accepted it, and at once set to
work on the Council of Nicĉa. It was launching [Note
48] myself on an ocean with currents innumerable; and I was
drifted back first to the ante-Nicene history, and then to the Church
of Alexandria. The work at last appeared under the title of "The
Arians of the Fourth Century;" and of its 422 pages, the first
117 consisted of introductory matter, and the Council of Nicĉa did
not appear till the 254th, and then occupied at most twenty pages.
I do not know when I first learnt to consider that Antiquity was
the true exponent of the doctrines of Christianity and the basis of
the Church of England; but I take it for granted that Bishop Bull,
whose works [Note 49] at this
time I read, was [Note 50] my
chief introduction to this principle. The course of reading which I
pursued in the composition of my work [Note
51] was directly adapted to develope it in my mind. What
principally attracted me in the ante-Nicene period was the great
Church of Alexandria, the historical centre of teaching in those
times. Of Rome for some centuries comparatively little is known. The
battle of Arianism was first fought in Alexandria; Athanasius, the
champion of the truth, was Bishop of Alexandria; and in his writings
he refers to the great religious names of an earlier date, to Origen,
Dionysius, and others who were the glory of its see, or of its school.
The broad philosophy {128} of Clement and Origen carried me away; the
philosophy, not the theological doctrine; and I have drawn out some
features of it in my volume, with the zeal and freshness, but with the
partiality<,> of a neophyte. Some portions of their teaching,
magnificent in themselves, came like music to my inward ear, as if the
response to ideas, which, with little external to encourage them, I
had cherished so long. These were based on the mystical or sacramental
principle, and spoke of the various Economies or Dispensations of the
Eternal. I understood them [Note 52]
to mean that the exterior world, physical and historical, was but the
[outward] manifestation <to our senses> of realities greater
than itself. Nature was a parable [1 [Note
53]]: Scripture was an allegory: pagan literature, philosophy, and
mythology, properly understood, were but a preparation for the Gospel.
The Greek poets and sages were in a certain sense prophets; for
"thoughts beyond their thought to those high bards were
given." There had been a <directly> divine dispensation
granted to the Jews; <but> there had been in some sense a
dispensation carried on in favour of the Gentiles. He who had taken
the seed of Jacob for His elect people, had not therefore cast the
rest of mankind out of His sight. In the fulness of time both Judaism
and Paganism had come to nought; the outward framework, which
concealed yet suggested the Living Truth, had never been intended to
last, and it was dissolving under the beams of the Sun of Justice
<which shone> behind it and through it. The process of change
had been slow; it had been done not rashly, but by rule and measure, "at sundry times and in divers
manners," first one disclosure and
then another, till the whole <evangelical doctrine> was brought
into full manifestation. And thus room was made for the anticipation
of further and deeper disclosures, of truths still under the veil of
the letter, and in their season to be revealed. The visible world
still remains without its divine interpretation; Holy Church in her
sacraments and her hierarchical appointments, will remain<,>
even to the end of the world, only [Note
54] a symbol of those heavenly facts {129} which fill eternity.
Her mysteries are but the expressions in human language of truths to
which the human mind is unequal. It is evident how much there was in
all this in correspondence with the thoughts which had attracted me
when I was young, and with the doctrine which I have already connected
[Note 55] with the Analogy and
the Christian Year.
I suppose it was [Note 56] to
the Alexandrian school and to the early Church that I owe in
particular what I definitely held about the Angels. I viewed them, not
only as the ministers employed by the Creator in the Jewish and
Christian dispensations, as we find on the face of Scripture, but as
carrying on, as Scripture also implies, the Economy of the Visible
World. I considered them as the real causes of motion, light, and
life, and of those elementary principles of the physical universe,
which, when offered in their developments to our senses, suggest to us
the notion of cause and effect, and of what are called the laws of
nature. <This doctrine> I have drawn out [this doctrine] in my
Sermon for Michaelmas day, written not later than 1834 [Note
57]. I say of the Angels, "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." Again, I ask what would be the thoughts of a man who,
"when examining a flower, or a herb, or a pebble, or a ray of
light, which he treats as something so beneath him in the scale of
existence, suddenly discovered that he was in the presence of some
powerful being who was hidden behind the visible things he was
inspecting,<—> who, though concealing his wise hand, was
giving them their beauty, grace, and perfection, as being God's
instrument for the purpose,<—> nay, whose robe and ornaments
those objects were, which he was so eager to analyze?" and I
therefore remark that "we may say with grateful and simple hearts
with the Three Holy Children, 'O all ye works of the Lord, &c.,
&c., bless ye the Lord, praise Him, and magnify Him for ever.'"
Also, besides the hosts of evil spirits, I considered there was a
middle race, [daimonia],
neither in heaven, nor in {130} hell; partially fallen, capricious,
wayward; noble or crafty, benevolent or malicious, as the case might
be. They [Note 58] gave a sort
of inspiration or intelligence to races, nations, and classes of men.
Hence the action of bodies politic and associations, which is so
different often [Note 59] from
that of the individuals who compose them. Hence the character and the
instinct of states and governments, of religious communities and
communions. I thought they were inhabited by unseen intelligences [Note
60]. My preference of the Personal to the Abstract would naturally
lead me to this view. I thought it countenanced by the mention of
"the Prince of Persia" in the Prophet Daniel; and I think I
considered that it was of such intermediate beings that the Apocalypse
spoke, when it introduced [Note 61]
"the Angels of the Seven Churches."
In 1837 I made a further development of this doctrine. I said to my
great [Note 62] friend, Samuel
Francis Wood, in a letter which came into my hands on his death,
"I have an idea. The mass of the Fathers, (Justin, Athenagoras,
Irenĉus, Clement, Tertullian, Origen, Lactantius, Sulpicius, Ambrose,
Nazianzen,) hold that, though Satan fell from the beginning, the
Angels fell before the deluge, falling in love with the daughters of
men. This has lately come across me as a remarkable solution of a
notion which I cannot help holding. Daniel speaks as if each nation
had its guardian Angel. I cannot but think that there are beings with
a great deal of good in them, yet with great defects, who are the
animating principles of certain institutions, &c., &c. …
Take England, with many high virtues, and yet a low Catholicism. It
seems to me that John Bull is a Spirit neither of heaven nor hell ...
Has not the Christian Church, in its parts, surrendered itself to one
or other of these simulations of the truth? … How are we to avoid
Scylla and Charybdis and go straight on to the very image of
Christ?" &c., &c. {131}
I am aware that what I have been saying will, with many men, be
doing credit to my imagination at the expense of my judgment—"Hippoclides
doesn't care;" I am not setting myself up as a pattern of good
sense or of any thing else: I am but [vindicating myself from the
charge of dishonesty.—There is indeed another view of the Economy
brought out, in the course of the same dissertation on the subject, in
my History of the Arians, which has afforded matter for the latter
imputation; but I reserve it for the concluding portion of my Reply.]
[Note 63]
While I was engaged in writing my work upon the Arians, great
events were happening at home and abroad, which brought out into form
and passionate expression the various beliefs which had so gradually
been winning their way into my mind. Shortly before, there had been a
Revolution in France; the Bourbons had been dismissed: and I believed
[Note 64] that it was
unchristian for nations to cast off their governors, and, much more,
sovereigns who had the divine right of inheritance. Again, the great
Reform Agitation was going on around me as I wrote. The Whigs had come
into power; Lord Grey had told the Bishops to set their house in
order, and some of the Prelates had been insulted and threatened in
the streets of London. The vital question was<,> how were we to
keep the Church from being liberalized? there was such apathy on the
subject in some quarters, such imbecile alarm in others; the true
principles of Churchmanship seemed so radically decayed, and there was
such distraction in the Councils [Note
65] of the Clergy. <Blomfield,> The Bishop of London of the
day, an active and open-hearted man, had been for years engaged in
diluting the high orthodoxy of the Church by the introduction {132} of
<members of> the Evangelical body into places of influence and
trust. He had deeply offended men who agreed <in opinion> with
myself, by an off-hand saying (as it was reported) to the effect that
belief in the Apostolical succession had gone out with the Non-jurors.
"We can count you," he said to some of the gravest and most
venerated persons of the old school. And the Evangelical party itself
[seemed], with their late successes, <seemed> to have lost that
simplicity and unworldliness which I admired so much in Milner and
Scott. It was not that I did not venerate such men as <Ryder,>
the then Bishop of Lichfield, and others of similar sentiments, who
were not yet promoted out of the ranks of the Clergy, but I thought
little of them [Note 66] as a
class. I thought they played into the hands of the Liberals. With the
Establishment thus divided and threatened, thus ignorant of its true
strength, I compared that fresh vigorous power [Note
67] of which I was reading in the first centuries. In her
triumphant zeal on behalf of that Primeval Mystery, to which I had had
so great a devotion from my youth, I recognized 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 affection for my own Church, but not
tenderness; I felt dismay at her prospects, anger and scorn at her
do-nothing perplexity. I thought that if Liberalism once got a footing
within her, it was sure of the victory in the event. I saw that
Reformation principles were powerless to rescue her. As to leaving
her, the thought never crossed my imagination; still I ever kept
before me that there was something greater than the Established
Church, and that that was the Church Catholic and Apostolic, set up
from the beginning, of which she was but the local presence and
<the> organ. She was nothing, unless she was this. She must be
dealt with strongly, or she would be lost. There was need of a second
Reformation [Note 68].
At this time I was disengaged from College duties, and {133} my
health had suffered from the labour involved in the composition of my
Volume. It was ready for the Press in July, 1832, though not published
till the end of 1833. I was easily persuaded to join Hurrell Froude
and his Father, who were going to the south of Europe for the health
of the former.
We set out in December, 1832. It was during this expedition that my
Verses which are in the Lyra Apostolica were written;—a few indeed
before it, but not more than one or two of them after it. Exchanging,
as I was, definite Tutorial labours [Note
69], and the literary quiet and pleasant friendships of the last
six years, for foreign countries and an unknown future, I naturally
was led to think that some inward changes, as well as some larger
course of action, was [Note 70]
coming upon me. At Whitchurch, while waiting for the down mail to
Falmouth, I wrote the verses about my Guardian
Angel, which begin with
these words: "Are these the tracks of some unearthly
Friend?" and <which> go on to speak of "the
vision" which haunted me:—that vision is more or less brought
out in the whole series of these compositions.
I went to various coasts of the Mediterranean, parted with my
friends at Rome; went down for the second time to Sicily <without
companion>, at the end of April, and got back to England by Palermo
in the early part of July. The strangeness of foreign life threw me
back into myself; I found pleasure in historical sites and beautiful
scenes, not in men and manners. We kept clear of Catholics throughout
our tour. I had a conversation with the Dean of Malta, a most pleasant
man, lately dead; but it was about the Fathers, and the Library of the
great church. I knew the Abbate Santini, at Rome, who did no more than
copy for me the Gregorian tones. Froude and I made two calls upon
Monsignore (now Cardinal) Wiseman at the Collegio Inglese, shortly
before we left Rome. <Once we heard him preach at a church in the
Corso.> I do not recollect being in a room with any other ecclesiastics, except a Priest at Castro-Giovanni in Sicily, who
called on me when I was ill, and with whom I wished to hold {134} a
controversy. As to Church Services, we attended the Tenebrĉ, at the
Sestine, for the sake of the Miserere; and that was all. My general
feeling was, "All, save the spirit of man, is divine." I saw
nothing but what was external; of the hidden life of Catholics I knew
nothing. I was still more driven back into myself, and felt my
isolation. England was in my thoughts solely, and the news from
England came rarely and imperfectly. The Bill for the Suppression of
the Irish Sees was in progress, and filled my mind. I had fierce
thoughts against the Liberals.
It was the success of the Liberal cause which fretted me inwardly.
I became fierce against its instruments and its manifestations. A
French vessel was at Algiers; I would not even look at the tricolour.
On my return, though forced to stop a day [Note
71] at Paris, I kept indoors the whole time, and all that I saw of
that beautiful city, was what I saw from the Diligence. The Bishop of
London had already sounded me as to my filling one of the Whitehall
preacherships, which he had just then put on a new footing; but I was
indignant at the line which he was taking, and from my Steamer I had
sent home a letter declining the appointment by anticipation, should
it be offered to me. At this time I was specially annoyed with Dr.
Arnold, though it did not last into later years. Some one, I think,
asked<,> in conversation at Rome, whether a certain
interpretation of Scripture was Christian? it was answered that Dr.
Arnold took it; I interposed, "But is he a Christian?"
The subject went out of my head at once; when afterwards I was taxed
with it I could say no more in explanation, than <(what I believe
was the fact)> that I thought I must have been alluding to [Note
72] some free views of Dr. Arnold about the Old Testament:—I
thought I must have meant, "<Arnold answers for the
interpretation.> But who is to answer for Arnold?" It was at
Rome too that we began the Lyra Apostolica which appeared monthly in
the British Magazine. The motto shows the feeling of both Froude and
myself at the time: we borrowed from M. Bunsen a Homer, and Froude
chose the words in which {135} Achilles, on returning to the battle,
says, "You shall know the difference, now that I am back
again."
Especially when I was left by myself, the thought came upon me that
deliverance is wrought, not by the many but by the few, not by bodies
but by persons. Now it was, I think, that I repeated to myself the
words, which had ever been dear to me from my school days, "Exoriare
aliquis!"—now too, that Southey's beautiful poem of Thalaba,
for which I had an immense liking, came forcibly to my mind. I began
to think that I had a mission. There are sentences of my letters to my
friends to this effect, if they are not destroyed. When we took leave
of Monsignore Wiseman, he had courteously expressed a wish that we
might make a second visit to Rome; I said with great gravity, "We
have a work to do in England." I went down at once to Sicily, and
the presentiment grew stronger. I struck into the middle of the
island, and fell ill of a fever at Leonforte. My servant thought that
I was dying, and begged for my last directions. I gave them, as he
wished; but I said, "I shall not die." I repeated, "I
shall not die, for I have not sinned against light, I have not sinned
against light." I never have been able to make out at all what I
meant.
I got to Castro-Giovanni, and was laid up there for nearly three
weeks. Towards the end of May I set off [Note
73] for Palermo, taking three days for the journey. Before
starting from my inn in the morning of May 26th or 27th, I sat down on
my bed, and began to sob bitterly. My servant, who had acted as my
nurse, asked what ailed me. I could only answer <him>, "I
have a work to do in England."
I was aching to get home; yet for want of a vessel I was kept at
Palermo for three weeks. I began to visit the Churches, and they
calmed my impatience, though I did not attend any services. I knew
nothing of the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament there. At last I got
off in an orange boat, bound for Marseilles. We were becalmed a whole
week in the Straits of Bonifacio. Then it was that I wrote the lines,
"Lead, kindly light," which have since become well known. I was
writing verses the {136} whole time of my passage. At length I got to
Marseilles, and set off for England. The fatigue of travelling was too
much for me, and I was laid up for several days at Lyons. At last I
got off again and did not stop night or day<,(excepting the
compulsory delay at Paris,)> till I reached England, and my
mother's house. My brother had arrived from Persia only a few hours
before. This was on the Tuesday. The following Sunday, July 14th, Mr.
Keble preached the Assize Sermon in the University Pulpit. It was
published under the title of "National Apostasy." I have ever
considered and kept the day, as the start of the religious movement of
1833.
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Notes
1. Part III] Chapter I
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2. wish it to do] propose to myself in giving
it to the public
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3. such] my
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4. my] the
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5. 1. "I used to wish This commenced a
new paragraph in 1865.
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6. These are the author's [ ] to here on
page 106
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7. but their name] about them
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8. the idea] these ideas
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9. against] in denial of
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10. supreme] absolute
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11. I thought others] my mind did not dwell
upon others, as fancying them
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12. Truth] truth
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13. before] rather than
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14. parallel or cognate] cognate or parallel
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15. very opposite character] character very
opposite
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16. given] held with
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17. reason] intellect
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18. was] would be
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19. at] in
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20. learned] was led
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21. on] of
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22. Footnote in 1865. <1 It is
significant that Butler begins his work with a quotation from Origen.>
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23. thenceforward] , at least from the year
1834,
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24. antiquity] Antiquity
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25. Footnote in 1865. <1 Vide Note
A, Liberalism, at the end of the volume.>
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26. he] his friends
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27. the] this
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28. it] this charge
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29. A shrewd man 1864, 1865] Mr.
Rickards edition subsequent to 1875
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30. a man who] a fellow who
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31. about] from
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32. create] suffice for
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33. created] brought about
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34. have] possess
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35. to create] for
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36. took] had taken
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37. from time to time] at certain intervals
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38. not] not
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39. as] since all occurrences in the
sentence
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40. Footnote in 1865. <1 Vide note
B, Ecclesiastical Miracles, at the end of the volume.>
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41. 2 keen] vivid
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42. had no appreciation of] set no sufficient
value on
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43. Fathers, of] Fathers, on
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44. doctrine, of] doctrine, on
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45. matter, of] matter, on
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46. or of] or on
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47. made me] taught me to
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48. launching] to launch
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49. Bishop Bull, whose works] the works of
Bishop Bull, which
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50. was] were
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51. work] volume
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52. them] these passages
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53. Footnote omitted in 1865. [1 Vid.
Mr. Morris's beautiful poem with this title.]
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54. only] after all but
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55. connected] associated
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56. I suppose it was] It was, I suppose,
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57. not later than 1834] in 1831
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58. They] These beings
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59. so different often] often so different.
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60. they were inhabited by unseen
intelligences] these assemblages had their life in certain unseen
Powers
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61. when it introduced] in its notice of
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62. my great] an intimate and dear
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63. for the passage in square brackets the
following was substituted in 1865: giving a history of my
opinions, and that, with the view of showing that I have come by them
through intelligible processes of thought and honest external means.
The doctrine indeed of the Economy has in some quarters been itself
condemned as intrinsically pernicious,—as if leading to lying and
equivocation, when applied, as I have applied it in my remarks upon it
in my History of the Arians, to matters of conduct. My answer to this
imputation I postpone to the concluding pages of my Volume.
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64. believed] held
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65. Councils] councils
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66. them] the Evangelicals
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67. power] Power
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68. Reformation] reformation
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69. labours] work
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70. was] were
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71. a day] twenty-four hours
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72. thought I must have been alluding to] must
have had in mind
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73. set off] left
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Newman Reader — Works of John Henry Newman
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