PANEGYRIC OF THE LATE CARDINAL NEWMAN, BY THE CARDINAL-ARCHBISHOP OF SYDNEY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 2, 10 October 1890, Page 25

PANEGYRIC OF THE LATE CARDINAL NEWMAN, BY THE CARDINAL-ARCHBISHOP OF SYDNEY.

(Freeman's Journal, September 20.) THE Solemn Office and Requiem Mass for the repose of the soul o£ the late Cardinal Newman at St. Mary's Cathedral this (Thursday) morning drew together a great assemblage of the clergy and laity. Cherubim's Requiem wsb sung by the special choir, Mr. Charles Santley and Madame Christian assisting. CABDINAL MOHAN'S ADDRESS. His Eminence delivered the panegyric immediately after the Mass : — Defunctus adhuc loquitur. " Being dead yet he speßketb " — Heb. xi., 4. Few Catholic names have taken such a hold of the thoughts and affections of the English-speaking world during the past half-century as lhat of the illustrious Cardinal Newman, who, a few weeks ago was snatched from us. Though we are separated by thousands of miles from bis resting-place, yet, as his brethren in the faith, we too have come before the altar to-day to pi ay for his eternal repose, and to offer a wreath upon his tomb in proof that in Australia no less than in the home countries his singular merit is duly prized and his name cherished with esteem and love. The present age in its intellectual bearings ha) many features peculiarly its own. OutsiJe the Catholic fold, we see men, gifted with the keenest intellect, intent nat on building up the sacred edifice of truth, but on levelling to the ground the outworks and buttresses erected by our fathers in defence of science no less than of religion, and labouring, as far as in them lies, to upturn the foundations of all truth, human and divine. In many respects it is an age of ruins, and amid these ruins false scientists will set before us a phantom temple of socialistic atheism, or infidelity, or pantheism, in which selfishness and pride, the idols of a corrupt heart, claim our homage and worship. It is otberwise within the domain of the Catholic Church. She gathers her children around the altar of God! to impart to them a divine life, to instruct them in heavenly wisdom*

to unfold to them the secret of true happiness, and to lead them to their eternal destiDy. To guard His Church and to confound her enemies God chooses His own means and instruments. St. Paul from a persecutor became a vessel of election. Augustine was led from the mazes of Manicheism to be the doctor of truth. Ignatius i was called from the battle-field, and Francis Xavier from tbe plea-sure-haunts of a gay city to be, tba one a soldier of the Cross, and i * the other a hero of self-deuial on the missio nary field of India. Ho it was that from the balls of Oxford a champion of the Anglican Church, Newman, was brought to the saving fold to become a shepherd of God's people, a pillar of orthodoxy, and a shining light of Catholic truth. : Born on the 21st of February 1801, John Henry Newman at an early age entered the University of Oxford. Step by step he pursued an onward course as scholar, Fellow of Oriel College, Vice-Presi-dent of St. Alban's, tutor, examiner, and preacher, till he was justly reckoned among the mas'er minris of the University. In bis Conferences at the London Oratory in after times, he stated that as a stu- ; dent he was enraptured with the study of the fathers. From the moment that the portraits of St. Augustine and Sc. Ambrose, of St. Atbanasius and St. Gregory, were set before him, an indelible impression was made upon his mind, and thenceforward the writings of those Father! were to him a paradise of indescribable delights. His first sermons were preached in 1824, and for twenty years all that was best and noblest in Oxford was entranced by toe words of wisdom which fell from his lips. Everything that could enchant an enlightened audience seemed to be combined in his discourses—terseness of style, mastery of language, poetic fire, learning, prayerful piety, asceticism — no wonder, indeed, that the impression made upon his auditory was without a parallel in those academic halls. One who, Sunday after Sunday, heard him preach in those days, but who was in after times removed as far as possible from sympathy with his faith, tells us that " the look and bearing of tbe preacher were as of one who dwelt apart, who, though he knew his age well, did not dwell in it. From his seclusion of study, and abstinence, and prayer, from habitual dwelling in the unseen, he seemed to come forth that one day of the week to speak to others of the things he had seen and known." The " Parochial Sermons " were published in 1834. An Anglican writer tells us that " it was as if a trumpet sounded through the land : all read and all admired, even if they dissented or criticised." Principal Bhairp, professor of poetry in Oxford, describes thosa Bermons as a perfect specimen of prose poetry:— "He spoke out the truths which were within him (he says), he spoke them with all the fervour of a prophet and the severe beauty of a poet. Modern English literature has nowhere any language to compare with the style of these sermons, so simple and transparent, yet so subtle withal ; so strong, yet bo tender; tbe grasp of a strong man's hand, combined with the trembling tenderness of a woman's heart, expressing in a few monosyllables truths which would have cost other men a page of philosophic verbiage, laying the moat gentle yet penetrating finger on the very core of things, reading to men iheirown most secret thoughts better than they knew them themselves." He adds that those sermons " have elevated the thought and purified the style of every able Oxford man who has written since, even of those who hud least Bympathy with the sentiments they express ; but they whose good fortune it was to hear them when they were first delivered know that nothiog they have heard in the long interval can compare with the pensive grace and the thrilling pathos of the sounds, as they fell from tne lips of the great teacher." Through the energy of Newman and a zealous band of faithful associates, Oxford soon shook off the dust of two centuries and was quickened into a new life. 'Ihe lives of the English saints were compiled, the works of the early fathers were made accessible by translations, the history cf the Church began to be carefully studied, and the earlier h°resies were dragged to light in all their deformity. Above all the "Tracts for the Times" stined up to its very depths the religious feeling of the Anglican Cnurch. "Newmin's mind was world-wide," wiites a contemporary of literary faoie- ♦' Hd tudied modern thougnt and in )dem life m all its forms an. l with all its many-coloured passions. He was interested in everything that was going on in science, in politics, in literature. Nothing was too large for him, nothing too trivial, if it threw auy light on the central question, what man really was, and what was his de9iiny. He was careless about his personal proßpecis. He had no ambition to make a career or to rise to rauk and power, istill less had pleasure any seductions for him. In tbe prospectus of the " Lives of the English Saints," Dr. Newman thus wrote: — "There are special reas ms at this time for recurring to the Saints of our own dear and glorious, most favoured, yet most erring and most unfortunate England. Such a recurrence may serve to make us love our country better, and on truer grounds, than heretofore ; to teach us to invest her territory, her cities and villages, her hills and springs, with sacred associations ; to give us an insight into her present hiatoiical position in the course of the divine dispensation ; to instruct us in the capabilities of tbe English cbaiacter ; and to open upon us the duties and the hopes to which tbat Church is heir." In the year 1833 began to appear the " Tracts for the Times " io wbich Dr. Newman had a leading part. " The Tractarian movement," he tells us, "was started on the grouni of maintaining ecclesiastical authority as opposed to the Erastianism of the State. It exhibited tbe Church as the only earthly object of religioui loyalty and veneration, and the source of all spiritual power anc 7 jurisdiction and the channel of grnce." No one at that lime loved a mother more than Newman loved the Anglican Ohurch ; he bad not as yet begun to recognise tbat an institution of modern date, insular, temporary, and human could not be tbe Church of Christ. The writers of the tracts fasbioned to themselvph the Anglican Communion not such as it was, but such as it ought to b . Tbey found certain principles asserted and certain doctrints clearly taught in the first ages of the Christian faith. These principles and doctrines they boldly transferred to the Anglican Church

though she openly repudiated them, and thus in their reverence for her they clung to the figment of their own minds and not to the reality of things. The 90th tract, penned by Newman, w«s declared by the Bishop of Oxford and many other authoritative divines as an audacious attempt to Catholicise the Protestant traditions of England. In 1834, whilst studying the history of the Arian heresy, the first doubt crossed the miud of Newman aa to the Anglican Church being the Bride of Christ, lie hesitated more and more as he examined the controversies with the Donatists and the heretics of later times. In his lectures on the difficulties felt by Anglicans in Catholic teaching, Dr. Newman thus describes the doubts that now beset his mind :— " It was difficult to make out how the Butychians or Monophysites were heretics, unless Protestants and Anglicans wera heretics also ; difficalt to find argument against the Tridentine Fathers which did not tell against the Fatbars of Chalcedon ; difficult to condemn the Popes of the sixteenth century without coademning the Popes of the sth. The drama of religion and the combat of truth and error were ever one and the same. The principles and proceedings of the Church now were those of the Church then ; the principles and proceedings of heretics then were those of Protestants now. I found it so, almost fearfully. The shadow of the sth century was on the 16th. It was like a spirit rising from the troubled waters of the Old World, with the shape and lineaments of the new. The Church then, as now, might be called peremptory and stern, resolute, overbearing, and relentless ; and heretics were bbifting, changeable, reserved, and deceitful, ever courting the civil power, and never agreeing together, except by its aid ; and the civil power was ever aiming at comprehensions, trying to put the invisible out of view, and to substitute expediency for faith. What was the use of continuing the controversy, or defending my position, if, after all, I was but forging arguments for Arias or Butyches, and turning devil'i advocate against the much-enduring Athanasius and the majestic Leo? Be my soul with the Saints, and shall I lift up my hand against them? Sooner may my right hand forget her cunning and wither outright, as his who once stretched it out against a prophet of God, ere I should do aught but fall at their feet in love and in worship, whose image was continually before my eyes, and whose musical words were ever in my ears and on my tongue." In 1845 Newman published the last of his Anglican writings, "An essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine." Its prefatory advertisement is dated the 6.h of October, only three days before his reception into the Church ; and a postsaript adda :— " It wa3 the author's intention and wish to have carried his volume through the Press before deciding finally on tnia step ; but when he got soma way in the printing, he recognised in himself a conviction of the truth of the conclusion to which the discusaioa leads so clear as to supersede further deliberation." In this work I p pays the following tribute to the purity of the Church's doctrine which he was so soon to embrace : " Wnen we consider the succession of &*aa during which the Catholic system has endured, the severity of tbe trial* it has undergone, tha sudden and wonderful changes without and within which hava bjfallen it, the incessant mental activity and the intellectual gifts of its maintained, tne enthusiasm which it has kindled, the fury of the controversies which have been carried oi among its professors, the impetuosity of the assaults made upoa it, the ever-increasing responsibilities t> which it tvs been committed by the continuous development of its dogmas, it is quite mc mceivabla that it should not have been broken up and lust, were it a corruption of Christianity. Yet it is still living, if there be a living religion or philosophy in the world ; vigorous, energetic, persuasive, progressive; vires acquirit eundo; it grows and is not overgrown ; it spreads out, yet is not enfeebled ; it is ever germinating, yet is ever consistent with itself." (Page 446.) , t ... The moment was now coma when Newman s great soul would be freed from spiritual bondage and restored to the light and life of God'fl children. The Spirit of God br athes when and where it wills, xiewmaa, by prayer, solitude, a id penttentitl discipline, had prepared his heart to rect-ive the inspiration of God'a grace. His home at Littlemore was in reality a re igious herwita?d. Tne venerable priest who pr^ceed-d thither to receive Newman into the Church tells us : "In the cells nothing is to be seen but poverty anl simplicity, bare walls, flior composed of a few rough bricks without carpet, a straw bed, one or two chairs, and a few books; this comprises the whole furniture. The refectory and kitchen are in the same style, all very small and very poor. One may easily guess what sort of diet was used at table : no delicacies, no wine, no ale, no liquoia, hut seldom meat, all breaUiia? an air of the strictest poverty such as I have never witnessed in Itily, or France, or in any other country where I have been. " In this penitential retreat it was his long-continued petition, as be oimsalf relates, " that the Moat Merciful would not despise the work of his own hands, nor leave him to himself, while yet his eyes were dim, and his breast laden, and he could but employ reason in the things of faith." Gjd heard hii prayer and led him out of the land of Egypt into the full light of that blessed vision of paace for which so long and so earnestly he had sighed ; and when at length, on the 9th of October, 1845, he found rest in the Catholic Church, he cried out in the overfljwiog delight of his heart, "Ob, long-sought after, tardily found, the desire of ihe eyes, the joy of the de>rt, the truth afer many shadows, the fullness after many foretastes, the home after many storms." The shock of Dr Newman's conversion was felt throughout the length aad breadth of the Anglican Establishment. The leader of the Conservative party not many years ago declared, that in this conversion the Established Church received a blow from wbich it hid ever since reeled. The distinguished leader of the Liberal party was still more emphatic : 11 A luminary had fallen," he said, "and had drawn with him a third part of the stars of the Anglican firmament." In his deep humility Newman for a time had thoughts of de?> ting himself to some secular puisuit, but at the invitation of Cardinal Wiseman, the Vicar Apostolic of the Midland district, in which Oxloid waß Bitua ed, he resolved to embrace the ecclesiastical Hta c, and with his cherished companion, Ambrose St. John, set out for Boaae. Fathi r

Spencer, himself a convert, and remarkable no less for his piety than for noble birth, had already entered on his crusade of prayer for England. He had some time bef >re aonounced to Newman that, despite his then stern adherence to Anglicanism, he would by the force of prayer be led captive to truth, and at the very time that Newman was received into tbe Church public prayers were being off j red in Paris that God would show mercy to Eaglaad. Dr. Newman now passing through the French capital, took occasion to thank, the faithful of that great city for tbe chanty shown to his loved country, and by the instinct of bis great soul became united in the closest bonds of Bpirital friendship with the Archbishop, Monseigneur Affr6, wtio soon afterwards attained the crown of the heroism of charity, offering his life for tbe welfare of his people. Entering the Seven Hills, Newman's heart was tilled with deepest emotion. Borne was not only tbe Holy City, and its sovereign the Visible Head of Christ's Church on earth, but the whole world in those days was stirred to its depths by the marvellous policy of peace and enlightenment of Pins IX., and even the most embittered Protestant Press of England was loud in his praise. The morning after arrival in Borne Newman hastened to St. Peter's to offer tbe tribute of his heart to God at the shrine of the Prince of the Apostles. What was his surprise to find that at that very moment Pius IX., had come with bis court to celeb ra'e tbe holy sacrifice at St. Peter's ebrine. He often in after times referred to that striking scene, which to his thoughtful mind so vividly and so impressively linked together the past and the present of Holy Church. To prepare for Holy Orders, Newman entered the College of Propaganda, and he made but one request, th«t he would be treated without any indulgence as the humblest of the students. Promoted to the priesthood on the feast of St. Pbillp Neri in 1847, he and bis first companions, with the sanccion of the Sovereign Pontiff, formed themselves into a community of the religious order of the Oratory founded by St. Philip, and for a few months they took up their abode in the monastery attache i to the ancient Basilica of (Santa Croce. England, however, was to ba their fiald of spiritual labjur. In November, 1847, they set out from Borne, and Maryvale, and Birmingham, and LondoQ Boon became the theatre of their apostolate. St. Philip Neri was one of the most loveable of the Baints of the 16th century, and througbout tbe terrible trial that fell upon the Catholics of England under Qu en Elizabeth, be never ceased to pray for that country, for which he cherished a most special love. When he met in the streetß the youthful levites who were preparing for the Mission in England and fur tbe martyr's crown, he was wont to salute them with the feweet words " Balvate fiores martyrum." Before setting out from th? Seven Hills they would visit him to receive his blessing, lor all reverenced him as a saint ; and he would shed many tears that in his old age he could not himself proceed to England to be associated with them in the heroism of their enterprise. The time was now come when in his religious sons he too would enter upon the work of the evangelization of England. In one of the most beautiful of his sermons, entitled •' Tbe Second Spring," Dr. Newman thus addressed the aiSimbled clergy in Oscott : "As St. Philip was with you three centuries ago in Borne, when our temple fell, so now surely, when it is rising, it is a pleasant tccen that he should have ever set out on his travels to jou; and that, as if remembering how he inteiceded for you at home, and recognising the relations he than formed with you, he should now be wishing to have a name among you, and to be loved by you, and perchance to do you a service, here in your own l<md." In what way tbe sons of St. Philip entered upon their missionary work, Newman in another discourse thus tells us : •• It is a consolation that thus much we can Bay in our own behalf, that we have gone about St. Philip's work ia the way most likely to gain his blessing upon us, because most like his own. We have not chosen for ourselves any tc3ne of exertion where we might make & noise, but have willingly taken tbat humble place of service which our superiors chose for us. The desire of our hearts and oar duty went together here. We have deliberately set ourselves down in a populous distiict unknown to the great world, and have commenced, as Bt. Philip did, by ministering chiefly to the poor and lowly. We have gone where we could get no ruward from society for our deeds, nor admiration from tht; acute or learned for our words. W« have determined, through God's mercy, not to have the praise or the popularity that the world can give, but, according to our Fathei's own precept, to love to be unknown." Such, indeed, was the spirit with which Newman himself engaged in the work of the sacred ministry. It was his ombition to labour among the poor of Birmingham, to bieak to theru the tireal of Life, to assist them in their sickness, and to c >rnfort thsm in their sorrow. At the time when the cholera raged in BiUton, and wheu the priests in charge of thu populous district were prostrated by incessant labours, he volunteered hia services, and so long ai tbe epidemic lasle i he attended the sick and the dying, anl brought to many of the sufferers from that dread disease the blessings of peace and reconciliation. Budden storms which menaced destruction are no novel feature in the history of the Catholic Church. When <mr Saviour entered the boat of Peter and commanded the Apostles to put out from the shore, so fierce was the tempest that fell upon the fragile barqua that those hardy fishermen of Galilee gave all up for lost. Such was the tempest of passion stirred up against the Catholic Ctiurch in England in the yea? 1850. To mark the progress of religion it had pleased the Sovereign Pontiff to restore the Hierarchy to the English Church. All the enmity and prejudices of Protestantism were at once lashed into fury. The Prime Minister in his Durham letter appealed to the masses to stand by " the glorious principles and tbe immortal martyrs of the Reformation," whilst tbe teaching of tbe Catholic Church was signalised as " mummeries of superstition and laborious efforts to confine the intellect and enslave the soul." All this was mere political chicanery on his part, as we now know from his " Recollections " ; but, at tbe time, the angry note which he sounded was caught up on all sides. All the Bishops of the Anglican establishment denounced the Catholic Hierarchy. They could hardly find words sufficient to express their abhorrence of tbia invasion yf

Popery. It was unwarranted, aggressive, insolent, intolerable, usurping, anti-Christian. As Newman himself has described the general excitement: " Spontaneously the bells of tha steeple* begii to sound. N)t by any aot of volition, but by a sort of mechanical impulse, bisbop and dean, archdeacon and canon, rector aai curate, one af cer another, each in his high tower, off they set, swinging and booming, tollin? and chiming, with narvous intenseness, and thickening emotion, and deepening volume, the old ding-dons; which has scared town and country this weary time, tolling and chiming away, jingling and clamouring, and ringing the changes on their poor half-dozro notes, all about ' the Popi9h aggression,' ' insolent and insidious,' ' atrocious and ungrateful,' < foul and offensive,' ' pestilent and horrid,' subtle and unholy.' ' Audacious and revolting,' ' contemptible and shameless,' ' malignant,' 'frightful,' ' mad,' ' meretricious.' " When in consequence of this outcry a senseless penal law was about to ba enacted against the Catholic Bishops, the Irish prelates were naked to stand aloof, and on this condition they would be exempted from the threatened penalties ; but the most Rev. Dr. Oullen, Archbishop of Armagh, in the name of the Irtsh Hierarchy, repudiated all such vain compromise, and avowed their resolve to share the lot of their English brethren. The popular excitement of thos^ days gave occasion to one of Dr. Newman's moit valuable publications, entitled " Lectures on the present position of Catholics in England." He dedicated it to the Archbishop of Armagh, and in the dedication writes :— ' Evil is never without its alleviation, aad I think I shall hive your Grace's concurrence if, in the present instance, I recognise the operation already commenced of that unfailing law of Divine Providence by whio^ all events, prosperous or adverse, are made to tend in one way or other to the triumph of our religion. The violence of our enemies ha* thrown us back upon ourselves and upon each other, and though it needed no adventitious cause to lead me to aspire to the hoaour of associating my name with that of y jut Grace, whose kindness I had already experienced soabundau'ly when I was in Borne in 1847, jet the present circumstances furnish a motive of their own for my turning my eyes in devotion and affection to the Primite of that ancient and glorioui anl much- enduring Church, the Church of Ireland, who, from her own past history, can teack her restored English sister how to persevere in the best of causes, and caa interchange with her amid trials common to both, the tenderness of Catholic sympathy and the power of Catholic intercession " A distinguished Anglican writer describes these lectures a* one of the ablest of Newman's works. " They are uot concerned," he Bays, " with the truth of Catholicism ; they do not even deny ia terms the truth of Protestantism. It is apparently a light-hearted book writtm in tremendous spirits, bubbling over with fun, decorate i with countless fancies ; yet what was the task it set itself to perform ? Nothing less than this, to roll back the great Protestant tradition ot the court, the law, of Bociety and literature ; to remove whole mountains- of prejudice; to cleanse the Protestant mind of all the slimy traces of sl.mder ; to shiver to pieces tha prejudices of centuries, and to let the whole faith of Englishmen stand forth as a boiy of doctrine and rale of life, which, though possibly false, nay, even dangerous, is yet not demonstrably founded upon the corruption of man's heart or responsible for every crime in the calendar—what a task. Tbe mastery displayed by Dr. Newman in grappling with it is beyonl praise and without precedeat." (Conclusion in our next.)