NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, 28 July 1921, Page 26

NOTES

An Intimate Document In the Apologia Newman not only crushed for ever, and immortalised by according him notoriety, the typical overbearing Protestant, Charles Kingsley, but he also laid bare to the world his own great, fearless, truth-loving soul. In an appendix to hisH>ook of devotions we find two, brief notes that shed yet more light on the personality of John Henry Newman.- Here is one, written, as he tells us, "in the prospect of death": "I wish with all my heart to be buried in Father Ambrose St. John's grave —and I give this as my last, my imperative will. (This I confirm and insist on, andpcommand.)" » Of Newman's reference to Father St. John at the end of the Apologia, George Eliot spoke with reverent wonder and with joy that in the >cold years of our times such friendship should still be possible. In the .foregoing note we. hear Newman's appeal that even the grave should not separate him" from his friend. Later he wrote, for his own epitaph: Johannes Henricus Newman l Ex Umbris et Imaginibus In Veritatem. \ ■■* . Die. A.S. 18 . Jxequiescat in pact. Ex Umbris et Imaginibus in Veritatem ! It sums up his whole life, his long striving towards the Truth, his faithful following of the "Kindly Light." Only the date to be filled in! Duly it was done when he died on the ; evening of August 11, 1890. .•

Meditations - We all know, more or less deeply, Cardinal Newman's apologetic and philosophic writings. His devotional works are too little read, and it is in them we find the inner man. Let us linger a while this week over a few passages from his Meditations. Take the pages on Christ ? s Mental Suffering: Here is a thought on the beginning of the Passion: "An evil temper of murmuring and criticism is spread among the disciples. One was the source of it, but it seems to have been spread. The thought of His death was before Him, and He was thinking of it and His burial after it. A woman came and anointed His sacred head. The action spread a soothing, tender feeling over His pure soul. It was a mute token of sympathy and the whole house was filled with it. It was. rudely broken by the harsh voice of the traitor, now for the first time giving utterance to his secret heartlessness and malice: Ut quid perditio lined 'To what purpose is this waste The unjust steward with his impious economy making up for his own private thefts by grudging honor to his Master. Thus in the midst of the sweet calm harmony of that feast at Bethany, there comes a jar and discord : all is wrong : sour discontent and distrust are spreading, for the devil is abroad.

". . . Judas having once shown what he was, lost no time in carrying out his malice. He went to the chief priests and bargained with them to betray His Lord for a price. Our Lord saw all that took place within him; He saw Satan knocking at his heart, and admitted there, and made an honored guest and an intimate. He saw him go to the priests and heard the conversation between them. lie had seen it by his foreknowledge all the time he had been about Him, and when He chose him. What we know feebly affects us far more vividly and very differentlv when it actually takes place. Our Lord had at length felt, and suffered Himself to feel, the cruelty of the ingratitude of which Pie was the sport and the victim. He had treated Judas as one of His most familiar friends. He had shown him marks of closest intimacy He had made him the purse-keeper of Himself and His followers. He had given him the power of working miracles. He had admitted him to a knowledge of the mvsteries of the Kingdom of Heaven. . He had sent him' out to preach and made him one of His own special representatives so that the Master was judged of by the conduct of His servant. A heathen, when smitten bv a friend said Et tn, Brute ! What desolation is in the sense of ingratitude! God who is met with ingratitude daily cannot Nature feel it. He took a human heart, that He might feel it in its fulness. And now 0 my God, though in Heaven, dost Thou not feel my ingratitude towards Thee?" . Christ Struck by the Soldiers "I see the figure of a man, whether voung or old I cannot; tell He may be fifty, or He may be thirty. Sometimes He looks the one sometimes the other there is something inexpr&sible about His face which 1 cannot solve, Perhaps, as He bears all burdens He bears that .of old age too. But so it % ; His face is at once most venerable, ,yet most childlike, most calm most sweet, most modest, beaming with sanctity, and yet with loving kindness. His eyes rivet me and move my heart His breath is all fragrant and transports me out of-myself. Oh, I will look upon that face for ever, and will not cease. ' , • . "And I See suddenly some one" come to Him and raise his hand and sharply strike. Him on that heavenly face. It is a hard hand, the hand of a rude man and perhaps has iron upon it. It could not be so sudden as to take , Him by surprise who knows all things past and future, and He shows no sign of re sentment, remaining calm and grave as before- but the expression of His face is marred; a' great' weal arises, and in, a little time that all-gracious Face is

hidden from me by the effects of this indignity, as if a cloud came over It. * "A hand was lifted up against the Face of Christ! Whose hand was that? My conscience tells me: ' thou art the man.' I trust it is not so with me now. But, O my soul, contemplate the awful fact. Fancy Christ before thee, and fancy thyself lifting up thy hand and striking Him! Thou wilt say, 'lt is impossible: I could not do so.' Yes, thou hast done so. When thou didst sin wilfully, then thou hast done so. He is beyond pain now : still thou hast struck Him, and had it been in the days of His flesh, He would have felt pain. Turn back in memory, and recollect the time, the day, the hour, when by mortal sin, by scoffing at sacred things, by profaneness, or by dark hatred of this thy Brother, or by acts of impurity, or by deliberate rejection of God's voice, or in any other devilish way, known to thee, thou hast struck The All-holy-One." • To realise all the beauty and perfection of those sentences they must be read aloud and slowly. At his prose one can only wonder: it is inimitable: it has the qualities of a great work of art: we look at it as we have looked at the Apollo Belvedere, at Giotto's Campanile, at San Marco: we listen to it as we listened to Lohengrin, to Antonelli singing E Lucevan le Stelle, to John McCormack singing that lovely ballad of Yeats'. Perhaps John Morley, a maestro di color chi mnno in such matters, said the right word when he pronounced Newman to be the most winning writer of English that ever lived. But the beauty is not merely formal : it penetrates deeply : it is of the heart, because from the heart. What sympathy, what insight, what spirituality there is in those few passages of devoutmeditation on the mental pain of Christ! The more one reads the more one admires and marvels, and feels. And it is but a page taken at random from so many similarly beautiful pages of a wonderful and intimate book.