OBITUARY.

Evening Star, Issue 8364, 15 November 1890, Page 4 (Supplement)

OBITUARY.

The late Francis William Newman, brother of the late Cardinal, was, like him, born at Glapham, a rural suburb of London, on June 27tb, 1805, four years after his illustrious relative. Like him, too, he received his early education at the famous private school of Dr Nicholas, at Ealing, not many miles distant from the metropolis. From that school he entered Worcester College, in the same University of Oxford. In the year 1826 Francis Newman took his 8.A., obtaining a “double first”—f.e, the highest honors in classics and mathematics. Though both the Newmans were members of the Church of England, the younger (Francis) was a zealous evangelical, after the pattern of the Wesleys and the elder Wilberforce, in whose principles the two brothers had been brought up. At the very period when John Henry Newman was becoming recognised as more and more unmistakeably the moving spirit of the High Anglican party in the Establishment, Francis William was resigning his fellowship at Balliol and declining his M.A. degree on the ground that he could no longer conscientiously assent to the Catechism, the ordination services, and sacramental teachings, nor, indeed, subscribe, as was then necessary, the thirtynine articles of the English Church, Soon after the year 1830, when his name was removed from the books of the university, Newman became a member of the sect of Plymouth Brethren—at that early date in its state of primitive simplicity, sincere sanctity, and that unity of spirit which is the bond of peace. About the same time, be farther strengthened this new attachment by marrying the daughter of a leading Brother, a baronet in the West of England, With his wife, in spite of religious divergence subsequently arising, he was fortunate enough to pass some forty years of happy union. Newman now undertook — whether on his own account or as emissary of the Bible Society, I am not sure—a missionary tour in Asiatic Turkey, where his ardor carried him so far that he is credibly stated to have had the bastinado inflicted upon him at Bagdad for distributing copies of the Scriptures. In 1534, after his return to England, he was appointed classical tutor at the Bristol College, a proprietary institution opened three years before, to supply the want of a better class day or high school. Dean Conybeare, the geologist, and aut tor, with the late Dean Howson of Chester, of the popular work on ‘ St. Paul’s Life and Letters,’ was the visitor. From the interesting autobiography of his religious opinions, published ten years afterwards (1850), ‘ Phases of Faith, or Passages in the History of My Creed,’ wo learn that his viewswerenow undergoing a change—itmuat be confessed by apparently somewhat abrupt transitions—from Evangelical to Unitarian Christianity, and from the latter to simple Theism. Of this much modified development in the nineteenth century of the Deism in the seventeenth of Joland and Shaftesbury and Lord Herbert, of Cheabary the aoknowledged representatives are F. W. Newman, Theodore Parker, Frances P. Cobbe, and Dr James Martineau. Newman’s work entitled ‘ The Soul ; its Sorrows and Aspirations,’ published in the year 1849, concludes with the following remarkable passage : of the churches, except in some small measure the fanatical (would he have included under these last the Salvation Army?), address themselves directly to the soul. Nearly all the teachers of that Gospel, which once scorned the learning of this world, confound worldly sciences—the domain of erudition—with spiritual knowledge and faith. They appeal to the intellect, not to the soul, in order to establish a spiritual religion. ... A great revolution of mind is wanted. The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, nor sermons and Sabbaths, nor history and exegesis, nor a belief in the infallibility of any book, nor in the supernatural memory of any man ; but it is, as Paul says, righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. And he who in these last is minded as Christ, is accepted with God, and shall at length be approved by men.” Are not these words, written half a century ago, evidently having their confi deuce justified more and more abundantly in our own day ? In the year 2540 Newman was invited to occupy the chair of classical and literary tutor at Manchester New College. This college, than recently transferred from tho cloistered seclusion of the cathedral city of York to the busy capital of the cotton industry in Lancashire, had been founded at the latter part of the last century-, and numbered amongst its earliest teachers the celebrated Dr Doddridge. In 1854 it was shifted to London, and in 1888 to Oxford. The college has, during the hundred years of its existence, strictly adhered to its foundation principle of “free teaching and free learning” iu theological as in secular studies. Newman had for his colleagues, among others, John Kenrick, M.A., admittedly one of the finest Greek and antiquarian scholars of his time—in his old age invited by the late Dean Stanley to be one of the Revising Committee of the New Testament; Dr James Martineau, author of ‘ Ethical Types ’ and ‘ Study of Religion,’ and, if I am not wrong, tho great chemist, Dr John Dalton. Six years subsequently to his settlement at Manchester New College, Francis Newman was chosen to succeed George Long, M.A., in the professorship of Latin at University College, London (1846). This college was the first in England to be established on the perfectly unsectarian basis, since generally adopted in the Biitish colonies. It numbered among its several hundred students in arts, laws, and medicine, Catholics, church folk, Jews, Unitarians, Quakers, and Parsecs. Among the distinguished men who were in Newman’s time on the stall of the professors may be named : Dr (now Sir) William Jenner; Augustus De Morgan, Clerk to the Royal Astronomical Society and one of the most eminent mathematicians of this century ; Dr (since Sir) Thomas Graham, the chemist, afterwards Master of the Mint; Dr William B. Carpenter, F.R.S., author of ‘ Human Physiology ’ and ‘Comparative Anatomy’; Dr Sharpey, F.R.S., the physiologist—the two last formerly students of the Edinburgh University ; Dr Creasey, whose manual is still the student’s text-book on constitutional law ; and Professor Masson (now at Edinburgh), author of tho ‘ Life and Times of Milton,’ Tho writer of this memorial must here pay, as a former pupil in F. W. Newman’s classes at that college, a tribute of heartfelt appreciation of his teaching and influence. Though occasionally rather irritable, chiefly from health, never overstrong, and a nervous system as delicate and highly strung as any woman's—it is impossible to estimate too highly what Newman could be to those who honestly did their best. To brilliant and accurate scholarship, to quite unusually wide acquaintance with ancient and modern history, Newman joined such patience, kindness, and tact aa are usually supposed to be purely feminine. After the lapse of nearly forty years his old pupil oan still see, in his memory’s eye, that rarely beautiful smile mantling over tho delicate, clear-cut features, and lighting up the brilliant, lustrous eyes ; still hear the sweet and penetrating music of his voice ; still dwell in fond recollection over that indescribable charm of look and manner in which, among other qualities, he closely resembled his elder brother. Newman was likewise for some time lecturer on mathematics in the newly-opened college for ladies in Bedford square, not far from University College. This Ladies’ College was, I believe, the first of the kind founded in England; and, indeed, for some years after, if I do not err, the only institution for the higher education of women. Among his pupils there was George Eliot, then the unknown Marian Evans. She thus speaks of him in a letter to her friend Sara Hennell, dated March, 1874. “ Poor Mr Francis Newman must be aged now, and rather weary of the world. He oan hardly be expected to take in muoh novelty.” The writer of this memoir can only say, in answer, that not long previously to this date the venerable object of George Eliot’s pity was for several days a guest at his house. Thongh in the depth of a severe northern winter, and his diet rigidly vegetarian, Newman on that occasion proved almost too much for the strength of far younger folk, so incessant was his activity, both indoojra and opt ; so. untiring hia interest ip the latest novelties—some might term them “fads ” of the day;

vaccination, vegetarianism, education, teetotalism being among a few of the numberless subjects on which he ceaselessly agitated and eloquently conversed. George Eliot thus proceeds: “ I have a sort of affectionate sadness in thinking of the interest which, in far off days, I felt in his ‘ Soul and Phases of Faith,’ and of the awe I had of him as lecturer on mathematics at the Ladies’ College.” The great author’s concluding remarks are, it must be owned, eminently expressive of the net result of the long and honorable life now closed. “ How much work he has done in the world which has left no deep conspicuous mark, but has probably entered beneficially into many lives !” Truer words could hardly be spoken of Newman.

It may be added that, daring bis many years’ abode in London, Francis Newman was a very frequent contributor to the * Westminster Review.’ This once famous organ of advanced social and religious opinion was started in tho year 1853, under the editorship of that not very successful man of business, though of multifarious talents, John Chapman. At first, and whilst Marian Evans (George Eliot) was assistant editor, it had a brilliant success, and certainly included among its contributors most of the leading literary lights of that period, such ns J. A. Fronde, W, R. Greg, Theodore Parker, J, 8. Mill, Thomas Carlyle, Harriet and James Martineau, Guiseppe Mazzini, George Lewes, Herbert Spencer, F. W, Newman, Professor Forbes, and George ElioL Among Newman’s many friends Mazzini held an honored place. At a soiree of “ The Friends of Italy,” the writer has a distinct recollection of the profound impression made upon himself by an essay read by Newman on ‘ The Place and Duty of England in Europe,’ followed by a short speech from the illustrious Italian. In common with such men as Thomas Arnold, Edward Freeman, and J. R, Green, Newman’s great abilities, fervent earnestness, and ripe scholarship were always eager for the advocacy of human freedom, irrespective of creed or nationality. The liberation of Italy and Hungary from Austrian tyranny, the emancipation of religion from State control; university reforms ; the abolition of tests ; the education and enfranchisement of women; the abolition of slavery ; the deliverance of the people from the degradation of State-controlled vice and licensed drunkenness had no more enthusiastic or uncompromising champion than Francis Newman, and that up to advanced age.

Tho last twenty years of his life were spent at the pleasant watering place of Weston-Super-Mare, on the southern shores of the Bristol Channel. Here, sometime after the death of his first wife, he again married, at upwards of three score and ten. Though now living in retirement, he was always glad to welcome a former friend of the numbers attached to him, not only by his high mental capacities and noble moral qualities, but by his genial humor and by his tender and affectionate disposition. His departure, albeit it could not in the order of nature have been much longer delayed, will leave, indeed, a blank in the many hearts who loved him. Of the two Newmans—truly a Par Noh'dt Fralrum may it not be written, in all but the very words addressed by tho elder brother to the younger on the latter’s twenty-first birthday :

They both have summoned been, As champions of the Lord ; A hitch emplor, nor lightly given, To serve as messengers of Uexvrn. Ccivis