body, whose special teachings whatever they might be were comparatively indifferent to him in comparison is proved by the strange fact that when he finally entered the Church of Rome, he did so quite unsatisfied in his mind about the doctrine of transubstantiation, and very dubious about the worship given to the Virgin and the Saints-matters the ordinary believer would find of first importance: but which to him were as nothing, secondary questions to be fitted into his scheme as best he could, so long as he could plant his foot upon the chief thing, which was the Church, the succession of the Apostles, the foundation of unbroken tradition and fact. There are many now who share that final conviction; there are many who hold Newman's former conviction that the Church of England is as Apostolic (not in character be it remembered but in this unbroken external line) as Rome :—while around stands a whole world wondering that this should have become the chief matter in the eyes of so many Christian men, and that such a mind as Newman's should have encountered what was in fact the loss of all things, the sacrifice of every prepossession, of his traditional surroundings, his previous career, his friends, almost life itself, and adopted the position of a neophyte taught and ruled by much lesser men than himself, in an atmosphere new, strange and foreign to him-for the sake of this

outside matter, a thing external to all private duty and feeling. It was as if a man had expatriated himself, bound himself in foreign laws uncongenial to him, and relinquished his home, because he thought the British constitution after the Reform Bill was no longer the British constitution as it had been before. But the metaphor is a poor one.

It

It has been suggested that Newman felt his hold of Christian truths so insecure that he fled for refuge to the authority which, so to speak, reestablished these truths on its own infallible word and made obedience a duty. We can find no trace of this theory of salvage in his works. would, it seems to us, be more true to say, that Christian truths were so entirely a matter of course in his mind, that he could push them aside for the consideration of a question which seemed to him more instantly important, ie. whether or not Rome or the Anglican Church was the divinely instituted medium for their extension— and that his convictions were so absolute that he was free to go on to other matters.

This, however, is the fact whatever the internal motive may have been. He occupied years of his life in making every attempt that reason, imagination, and that casuistry which is the mixture of both, were capable of, to demonstrate that his own Anglican Church was the Church of

God par excellence.

Not succeeding in this he fell into a curious and solemn pause no one can doubt of dejection and suffering-and finally swallowing the difficulties of doctrine, which always held a secondary place in his mind, made the great leap, and lighted upon that Rock, which was not Christ but Peter. In saying this we do not attempt for a moment to throw any doubt upon his devotion to Christ any more than we should think of accusing the Roman Catholic Church of building upon Peter alone. Of that there could be no question. As to the Redeemer of the world he was capable of no mistake. Romish or Anglican he was always a true Christian. On this point he neither admitted nor thought of any controversy. But " upon this rock will I build my church"-what was it? All his studies, all his thinkings, the course of the tide which had carried him on for years, tended towards Rome. And to Rome accordingly he went with not much less revolution of sentiment and surroundings than if he had died.

Newman was born in 1801, the son of a London merchant, and after an early education conducted chiefly at private schools, had an exceptionally brilliant career at the University, becoming eventually Fellow of Oriel in 1823 at the extraordinarily early age of twenty-two. He withdrew from the English Church in 1845, having

previously given up his post as Vicar of St. Mary's. His later life was spent in the straitest of ecclesiastical circles and in much seclusion from ordinary life, this change having alienated him from many of his dearest friends and even relationsthough with the latter, especially with his sisters, his affectionate union had been very warm in early days. He was made a cardinal in 1879, thus receiving the highest acknowledgment the Church of Rome had to give. His power of fascination and of attracting the devotion of others had always been great, and his death in 1890 called forth a burst of almost adulation such as has fallen to the fate of few of his contemporaries.

This singular mind made, as was inevitable, a very great impression upon its generation. The impression was increased by many causes, by Newman's eloquence, the charm of a beautiful style, and the high and elevated tone of reverential and pious thoughtfulness which pervaded his sermons and other non-polemical works; by the very remarkable autobiographical narrative called forth by the attack upon him made by Mr. Kingsley many years after, and in which the public found a tale of mental and spiritual development, the story of a struggle through difficulties with which the common mind could have little sympathy, which was as engrossing as any novel; and finally by his long life, prolonged beyond

the limits of ordinary existence, which hushed every criticism and made the mere fact of himhis age, his fame, his quietude which sought no honours, and the honour which at last and (as was supposed) not very willingly was accorded to him, so many elements in the national history. England and even the English Church, which he did so much to tear asunder, grew proud of Newman. A sort of indiscriminating and blind heroworship succeeded in the minds of the sons and grandsons of his contemporaries to the wonder and opposition and pain, nay horror, with which their fathers had regarded a mind so unintelligible to the common eye, and actions so injurious to all which he had begun by holding most dear. A saintly old man disarms all criticism, especially when he is one who has the golden mouth of the preacher, and who has breathed into the soul of his generation such a song as "Lead, kindly light"—one of those hymns which form a universal language. Many of his other poems embody the less satisfactory character of his mind and struggle, cravings after Church machinery and rule which are little suitable for verse. The Dream of Gerontius, his great poem, has one gleam of inspiration in the ecstasy with which the redeemed soul precipitates itself on the steps of the great white Throne, but it, too, we think is over-full of that machinery of ritual and attendant priests and