THE LATE CARDINAL NEWMAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8354, 6 September 1890, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE LATE CARDINAL NEWMAN.

No. 111. fjlY " ANOTHER CHRISTIAN."] (Continued from last Saturday's supplement.) THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN NEWMAN AND CHARLES KINGSLEY. In 1801 educated England was convulsed by the most famous controversy of the present century. The Rev. Charles Kinsley, the well-known author of " Alton Locke," " Westward Ho,"and many other romance*, the " Water Babies," and other poems, and many lectures and sermons, published a paper in a popular magazine on Queen Elizabeth. In this paper he used the following words: "Truth, for its own sake, had never been a virtue with the Roman* clergy. Father Newman informs us that it need not, and on the whole ought not to be; that cunning is the weapon which Heaven has given to the Saints, wherewith to withstand the brute male force of the wicked world which marries and is given in marriage. Whether his notion be doctrinally correct or not, it is at least historically so." DR. NEWMAN DEMANDS AN EXPLANATION. It is a curious example of the force of prejudice that not only was this assertion made without the shadow of a proof, as if proof were quite unnecessary in the case of a poor Papist, but that when Mr. Kingsley was applied to by Dr. Newman to know when and where he had made this statement, Mr. Kingsley referred him to a sermon preached by Newman at St. Mary's, Oxford, years, of course, before he became a Catholic, and when his statement as to Catholic practices or doctrines had not a vestige of authority ! More :—When this sermon on " Wisdom and Innocence"from the text, Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves ; be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves" (Matt, x., 16) —is perused, it turns out that from beginning to end there is not a word about the " Roman clergy," either by that name or by any other equivalent to it. That the " church" and the " clergy" therein referred to were the church and the clergy generally, as those words were used then not only by Newman, but by the whole of the AnglerCatholic party —namely, the whole body of Christians and clergy having valid orders.

"Dr. Newman all through his argument assumes, and Mr. Kingsley never denied, that by the word "Roman" he meant Roman Catholic.

Bat, stranger still, there is nob a. sentence or a paragraph, or any combination of sentences or paragraphs, which can by any twist be made to state the doctrine attributed to Newman ! The whole thing was a myth from beginning to end, begotten of ignorance out of prejudice. We have now before us the copy of the sermon in J. H. Newman's sermons on subjects of the day, published by a well-known Protestant publishing firm (Rivingtou's, of_ London), and edited with a preface referring; to this very sermon by W. J. Copeland, 8.D., Roctor of F&rnham, Essex, a clergymen of the Church of England. When Dr. Newman wrote to Mr. Kingsley, and received in reply a letter referring him to this sermon, ho was very naturally dissatisfied. " I considered this," says Dr. Newman, "not enough, and I demanded of him to bring out his proof of his accusation in form and in detail, or to confess he was unable to do so. But he persevered in his refusal to cite any distinct passage from any writing of mine, and though ho consented to withdraw his charge, ho would not do so on the issue of its truth or falsehood, but simply on tho ground that I assured him that I had had no intention of incurring it. This did not satisfy my sense of justice. . . . Not being able then to gain redress in tho quarter where I had a right to ask it, I appealed to the public. I published tho correspondence in the shape of a pamphlet, with some remarks of my own at the end, on the course which that correspondence had taken."

"WHAT, THEN", DOES DR. NEWMAN MEAN?" To this Mr. Kingsley replied by the pamphlet which gave rise to the Apologia. In this pamphlet, which was entitled " What, then, does Dr. Newman mean?" Mr. Kingsley made a number of charges and insinuations which sent Dr. Newman into a white heat of anger and indignation. As the edition which contains the full reply to Mr. lvingsley's charges is now rather scarce, for Newman eliminated tho greater part from his second edition of tho Apologia, it will bo of interest to quote here the ipsixiima verba of thee famous charged :—" He tells his readers that on one occasion he said that lie had fears I should end in ' ono or other of two misfortunes.' 'He would either,' he continues, ' destroy his own sense of honesty, i.e., conscious truthfulness —and become a dishonest person ; or he would destroy his common sense, i.e., unconscious truthfulness, and become the slave and puppet seemingly of his own logic, really of his own fancy, I thought for years past that he had become the former, I now see that he has become the latter.' P. 20. Again,

' when I read these outrages upon common sense, what wonder if I said to myself, this man cannot believe what he is saying ?' P. '26.

" Such," continues Newman, "has been Mr. lvingsley's state of mind until lately, but now he considers that I am possessed with a spirit of ' almost boundless silliness,' of 'simple credulity, the child of scepticism,' of 'absurdity' (p. 41), of a ' self-deception which has become a sort of honesty.'"—P. '2ti. The following are direct quotations from Kinsley's pamphlet:— No one would have suspected him [Newman] to be a dishonest man, if ho had not perversely chosen to assume a style, which (as ho himself confesses) the world always associates with dishonesty."—l\ 17. " At which most of my readers will bo inclined to cry, 4 Let Dr. Newman alone after that. ... He had a human reason

once, no doubt, bub he has gambled it away. . . . True, so true," <tc.—P. 31. "I do not call this conscious dishonesty ;

the man who wrote that sermon was already mst the powbility of such, a sin." P. 41. " I have declared Dr. Newman to bo an

honest man up to February Ist, 18G4 . It depends on Dr. Newman whether ho shall sustain the reputation which he has .so recently acquired. If I give him thereby a fresh advantage in tins argument, he is most welcome to it. He need*, it terns to me, us many advantages as ]>ossiMe."

He compares Dr. Newman to Mawworm, "{bidding them glory in what the world (that is, the rest of their fellow-country-men) disown, and say with Mawworm, 'I like to be despised'" (P. 17). He charges Newman with "fraud and cunning," "craftiness and deceitfulness," "doubledealing," "priestcraft," of being "mysterious, dark, subtle, designing."

NEWMAN" AS A CONTKOVKIiSIAL WRITER. Now, if there was one man in England to whom these epithets were less applicable than to another it was to Dr. Newman ; if there was a man who was open, frank, fair to a fault, if that were possible, it was Newman : if there was a controversial writer who more than any other habitually stated the adverse case fully and fairly—so fully arid so fairly, indeed, that it must have been an opponent of the rarest power who could have done it as well himself—that writer was Newman. His method of controversy was invariably to state the adverse case with appalling clearness and force, and then to demolish it. How, then, can we account for a man like Charles Kingsley. himself an author of no mean repute, a scholar, a clergyman, and a gentleman, pouring forth in a printed pamphlet such a series of accusations (of which we have given only a sample) against such a man as Newman '! • THE CAU.SK OF KINGSLKY'S ERRORS A BOUT NEWMAN. First, we have him confessing that for years he believed Dr. Newman to be a knave. So convinced of this was he, that after it had been pointed out to him by Dr. Newman that the sermon was preached at St. Mary's, Oxford, when Newman was Vicar, he still persisted in saying, " it must always be remembered that it is not a j Protestant, but a Romish sermon." That is, ho evidently considered that Newman, although holding a living in the Church of England, was actually a member of the Church of Rome ! Of course when a man of Mr. Kingsley's era had once got this notion into his head, ho was on the Took out everywhere for instances of " subtlety " and " deceit." To believe that every " Romish" priest was a " .Jesuit "was simply a matter of course, and that every Jesuit would tell any amount of lies without hesitation, was equally a matter of course. When, however, Mr. Kingsley found that Newman believed in modern miracles, and gave some credence to legends about the saints, etc., then the poor man was perplexed. He could not quite believe that a man of Newman's reputation could j bo an utter fool, but what else could he believe if he acquitted him of beingaknavo? He vibrated between one theory and the other, and, probably unconsciously, showed that he considered Newman was a little of both. Even this does not quite explain the extraordinary bitterness of Kingsley. There must have been some personal motive at work, of which we know nothingpossibly some near relative who had been " perverted," that stung him, and made him write with such extreme discourtesy. He certainly, whatever may have been the secret spring of his action, lived to wish most heartily that ho had never provoked John Henry Newman. Ho puts it very mildly when he says that he found ho "had measured swords with an opponent who was too strong for him." NEWMAN IN REPLY. Newman determined, as he says, after half-an-hour's reflection, that the only way of answering Mr. Kingsley, and removing the prejudices of which Kingsley was but one exponent, was by writing a full account of all the circumstances that had led him to leave the Church of England. This involved the looking up of old letters and papers, and the application to old friends for documents, etc. ; but meanwhile, before this could be completed, and while the "History of My Religious Opinions" whs being written, he could slay and rend poor Kingsley. This was evidently a mere diversion ; an amusement he took up as a sort of rest from the more serious portion of his work. He "goes for" him in the first pages; he drops him for a time; he goes for him again : he continues his narrative, and completes it, and then he bethinks him apparently that his adversary has nob had quite all the life knocked out of him, so he props him on his legs, and gives him a final punishment in an appendix, where he enumerates and disposes of thirty blunders, misstatements, or fallacies, which he numbers as blot one, two, etc. Why he calls them " blots," it is difficult to make out, unless it were because it is a sharp, short, explosive little word, which relieves the mind something like swearing, the sensation caused by the apologia in ENGLAND. The work appeared in weekly parts, in a paper cover, and how those pacta were

devoured, every educated man who lived in England at thab time, can well remember. It mattered nob thut in the fury and vehemence of Newman's anger, tho book was a jumble of documents and of dates, thrown together anyhow, without any index or table of contents: (it is now the most) perplexing and provoking book to review that we ever read); the narrativo was so interesting, the revelation of Newman a mind was such a wonderful study, anil the names brought in had had such a prominent place in tho great religious revolution which had taken place, that everyone read it. Poor Kingsley, as he was invariably called about that time, never attempted to answer, but went on to the Continent for a few months.

THE STYLE OF THE APOLOGIA. As a mild specimen of tho style in which Newman answered Kingsley, the following will serve:—"The Apostle bids us 'in malice be children, but in understanding be men.' I am glad to recognise in Mr. Kingsley an illustration of the first half of this precept, bub I should not be honest if I ascribed bo him any sort of fulfilment of the second." Or, again : "I wish I could speak as favourably oithor of his drifb or of his method of arguing as I can of his convictions. As to his drift, I think its ultimate point is an attack upon tho Catholic religion. It is I, indeed, whom ho is immediately insulting,—still ho views mo only as a representative, and on the whole a fair one, of a class or caste of men, to whom, conscious as I am of my own integrity, I ascribe an excellence superior to mine. He desires to impress upon tho public mind the conviction thab I am a crafty, scheming man, simply untrustworthy ; that in becoming a Catholic I have just found my right place ; that I do but justify and am properly interpreted by tho common English notion of Roman casuists and confessors ; that I was secretly a Catholic when I was openly professing to be a clergyman of the Established Church ; that so far from' bringing, by means of my conversion, when at length it openly took place, any strength to tho Catholic cause, I am really a burden to itan additional evidence of the fact that to be a pure, german, genuine Catholic, a man must be either a knave or a fool. Those last words bring me to Mr. lvingsley's method of disputation, which I must criticise with much severity—in his drift he, does bat follow the ordinary heat of controversy, but in his mode of arguing ho is actually dishonest." "He says that I am oithor a k lave or a fool, and (as wo shall seo by-and-by) he is not quite sure which, probably both. . . . If I demonstrate that 1 am nob a knave, he may exclaim, ' Oh ! bub you are a fool !' and when I domonstrato that I am not a fool, ho may turn round and retort, ' Well, then, you are a knave ! !'" " But I have not yet dono full justice to tho method of disputation which Mr. Kingsley thinks it right to adopt. Observe this first : —Ho means by a man who is 'silly,' not a man who is to be pitied, but a man who is to be abhorred. He means a man who is not simply weak and incapable, but a moral leper; a man who, if not a knave, lias everything bad about him except knavery ; nay, rather, lias together with every other vice, a spice of knavery to boot. His simpleton is one who has become such, in judgment for his having onco been a knave. His simpleton is not a born fool, but a self-made idiot, one who has drugged and abused himself into a shameful depravity ; one who, without any misgiving or remorse, is guilty of drivelling superstition, of reckless violation of sacred things, of fanatical excesses, of passionate inanities, of unmanly audacious tyranny over tho weak, meriting the wrath of fathers and mothers. This is that milder judgment, which he seems to pride himself upon as so much charity ; and, as he expresses it, 'ho does not know' why." Is there in the English languago a passage of more scathing sarcasm? Sheridan said more bitter tilings against Warren Hastings, but in a rhetorical way, that made them far inferior in force to the concentrated energy of Dr. Newman's burning sentences. .newman's appeal to his fellow-country-men'. When ho touched another chord and appealed to the justice and fair dealing which lie attributed to his countrymen, lie virtually won his case. We Englishmen thrilled with pride and joy as wo read the words, " I think Englishmen the most suspicious and touchy of mankind ; I think them unreasonable and unjust in their seasons of excitement ; but I had rather be. an Englishman (as in fact 1 am) than belong to any other race under heaven. They are as generous as they are hasty and burly ; and their repentance for their injustice is greater than their sin."

" POISONING THE WELLS."

One more extract, and we have done. He complains of Mr Kingsley for what ho calls poisoning the wells ; forsxying " I am henceforth in doubt and fear, as much as any

honest man can bo, concerning erery word l)r. Newman may write. How can 1 tell that I shall not be tho dupe of some cunning equivocation of one of the three kinds laid down as permissible by the blessed Alfonso da Liguori and his pupils, &e.," p. 44. Newman replies, "1 scorn and detest lying, and quibbling, and double-tongued practices, and slyness and cunning, and smoothies* and cant, quite as much as any Protestants hate them. . . Whatever

judgment my hearers may eventually form of me from these pages, I am confident that they will believe me in what 1 shall say in the course of thorn. I have no misgiving at all that they will be ungenerous or harsh with a man who lias been strong before the eyes of the world ; who has so many to speak of him from personal knowledge ; whose natural impulse it has been to speak out ; who has ever spoken too much rather than too little; who would have saved himself many a scrape if he had been wise enough to hold his tongue ; who has ever been fair to the doctrines and arguments of his opponents ; who has never slurred over facts and reasonings which told against himself; who has never given his name or authority to proofs which he thought unsound, or to testimony which he did not think at least plausible ; who has never shrunk from confessing a fault when ho felt that ho had committed one ; who has ever consulted for others more than for himself, who lias given up much that he loved and prized and could have retained, but that he loved honesty better than name, and truth better than dear friends."

We must apologise for these long extracts, bub the edition from which they are taken lias been out of print for a quarter of a century, and is not accessible to the vast majority of our readers.

(To be concluded in next Saturday's Supplement.;