CARDINAL NEWMAN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 4, 24 October 1890, Page 15

CARDINAL NEWMAN.

IN November, 1880, a leading article in the St. James" Gazette contained the statement that Cardinal Newman "h«a confined his defence to his own creed to the preposition that it is the only possible alternative toa»heism." Mr. Lilly, the Cardinal's ever devoted friend lost no time in controverting thia sweeping assertion ; and " since the secret of the authorship of the St. James' Gaeette article has leaked out," he tried to prevail upon Cardinal Newman to write a review article explaining and vindicating his true position. The Cardinal declined in the following letter :—: — " February 7, 1881. " My Dear Lilly— l thank you for your uealoua consideration for me, but it is unlike my ways, and repugnant to my feelings, to do what you recommend. My brain works too slowly and my hand too feebly to allow of my interfering, and I shall but be interfering in the work of an abler controversialist — yourself. In su'h cases I have ever left a misunderstanding to time, who, as the poet says " Solves all doubt, By bringing Truth, his glorious daughter, out." The writer in St. James 1 Gaeette ought to have known batter, and you have answered him in the Gazette, " He camp here years ago to ferret out my answer to his objections. What he said to me I did not consider said to me strictly in confidence, but, as a matter of delicacy, I so kept it ; he, on the contrary, went away and misrepresented (( don't say intentionally; what 1 said to him. After hearing his arguments I had said to him : 'Itis no good our disputing ; it is like a battle between a dog and a fish — we are in different elements,' meaning what I have said at ' Giammer of Assent,' p. 416. He went away and told his friends that I bad acknowledged that I had been unable to answer what he had Eaid. This great misinterpretation of my words he has since thrown into the formula • his only defence of Catholicity is that atheism is its alternative.' After thia misstatement was brought home to me by toe persons to whom he had made it, he proposed to come tome to have another conversation, and to ascertain whether I thought now ' what I thought ten years ago., but I declined his proposal. — Yours most truly, John H. Cardinal Newman." "It is," says Mr. Lilly, in an article which he haa contributed to the Fortnightly Review, " the last scrap of tremulous writing I ever had from him, and which, I think, must have reached me about a year ago." Neither of the two letters be >rs any date :—: — "My dear Lilly— Pray pardon my silence. I have been wanting to write to tell you with what great pleasure I have read your proof. (Chapter ii. of 'A century of Revolution.') It is a remarkable result of Darwin's work. But the more I was pleased the more I was frightened as you proceed to express your belief that the first men had tails. I think this temerarious. I can hardly write, my fingers are so weak. This is why I have written so little to you of late Most sincerely yours, •' J. H. Cabdinal Newman," Here is a line in letter No. 2 :—: — "I am too old to write ; 1 cannot hold the pen.— J. H. N." Of i he Cardinal's elocutionary powers high opinions have often been expressed. The following passage from Mr. Lilly's article goes to show how ra-e was his gift. "Someone — I cannot ca'l to mind who— mentioned to me that he was present when Newman read a chapter of one of the historical books of the Old Testament, in which there is an enumeration of a long line of kings. One reigned so many years, and then died. The next verse giveß a like account of his successor. And so throughout the chapter. One would have thought it difficult to make much of this monotonous memorial of a number of barbarous chieftains. — My informant told me that in Newman's mouth it became a most effective sermon on the ' change, decay, and emp in»6B of life,' a most penetrating application of the text, Vanitas Vanitatum. It has been my privilege upon many occasions to hear Dr, Newman's Mass. I

have heard no one else bo utter the august orisons consecrated by the highest f uncti >ns of religion." He seems to have been equally striking as a conversationalist :— Me was (say. Mr. Lilly) a talker nf supreme excellence, and with no touch of arrogauce. He loved to hear what others had to say, and would take pains to draw out trUt w*s brst iv ti ,m. and to interpret them to them-elves. He impressed me in c->nv. isition *•* the most puissant aurt fecu id mtur* with which 1 bed ever been ornugbt into intercourse, 'lhe mv. iplicity of his interests, the variety of his knowledge, hia singular power of assimilating what ha bad read and heard, of making it quiie his own, .n 1 of reproducing it with his image a d superscription stamped upon ir, >*ere most remarkable, Tnere was in his talk that ' easy vigour ' which, accordH7 R i!° . °Pe'BP e ' B well-km.wn lines, combines 'Dunham's strength and Waller s sweetness ' There was in n a grauous delicacy of touch, and a subtle Platonic irooy, which gave it an inimitable charm. I need hardly observe that Cardinal Newman never talked for talk ng's sake. ... He had always somi thing to say when he spoke; something most worthy of being said ; something which he could say as no one else could. And the light of his whole coiiv reaiion was his supreme loyalty to .ruth. In nis spoktn as in his w itt n wonis his language was a beautifully accurate jymb .1 of hiR thougot." Finally Mr. Lilly wn es, and who will controvert his words ?— " Cardinal Newman was ' a great spirit.' No such profound and keen intellect has been known among Catholics since the days of Pascal ; no euch master of language since the daya of Bossuet. Style ia one of the best indexes to character,' and in Cardinal Newman's « regal English'— to use Mr. Hutton's admirable phrase— we have a true revelation of his kingly intelligence. No other man, since the days of Shakespeare, has possessed his supreme dominion over our tongue."