The Kingsley Anniversary

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 12, 1 April 1925, Page 25

The Kingsley Anniversary

\ * The - fiftieth anniversary of Charles Kings- \ ley’s death has been marked by - many com- ' K V.hemorative articles in the press, and some |i A debate, as to his influence on the general I;' movement for social reform in England. It ■ ilj .is to his credit that he used:his undoubted ii : literary powers to expose and denounce many .; |i'; of the social abuses and injustices of his time, , |l but the suggestion, that he was a pioneer, of ip modern Socialism is very wide of the mark. II - He was described as a “Radical parson’’ in l! : days when most parsons were “true blue” . vi Tories, but there was at the same time a Iff strong element of old English Conservatism in his’character, and in our own time he ; ; might well have been found among the more moderate supporters of Mr. Baldwin. Catholic critics, -while fully recognising his claim •; to . a high place among the makers of Vici torian literature, and his zeal for the better- :|| ment of the' workers and the poor, must deeply regret that, with all his readiness to | pose as one. of the “progressive” men of his •§.: time, he never emancipated himself from ;l; the old-fashioned and out-of-date English form of Protestant bigotry. It is no exag- | ■ geration to say that in his long life he never outgrew the narrow hostility to all Catholic t:-" ideals and the utter ignorance of the real meaning of Catholicity that characterised the England of his early youth. Anti-Catholic Writings. I' He had an intense dislike for all things I; • Catholic, apd the result was that he saw’ li. everything Catholic through a discoloring N > and distorting medium. When Montalemli 'herb’s life of St. Elizabeth was a literary event that made her story known even in ! • Protestant England, he wrote his Saint’s s:■ Tragedy, a travesty of her life, with an array of notes that set forth his strange ideas of Catholic faith and practice, as an antidote to the popular praise of the sainted princess. His Hypatia was less a historical novel fl an | a tract against monasticism and a libel on I; St. Cyril, of Alexandria. But the most famous and the most popular of all his worksa book that still is reprinted in edition after ; edition —the romance of Westward Ho ! —is | permeated by hostility to Catholicism, and I - lias perhaps done in recent times more than Jp; any other book written in English to peril. petuate the old ill-wiil to the Church in this country. No one denies that from a purely I: literary point of view it is a masterpiece, ;|i but this makes it all the more deplorable that the whole book should be an anti-Cath- ' olio controversial tract disguised as a hisIjp torical novel, with endless examples in its H pages of misleading argument and ignorant or prejudiced misrepresentations of historical i fact and of Catholic doctrine and practice. Unhistorical Fictions. |||. t . .In Westward Ho! Kingsley writes with a combined hatred and contempt for the Oath|pt/; olics of the period in which his story is laid. , Campion is one of the historical figures that I appear in it. He is one of the men of y: 1 Elizabethan days who is best known to us by his writings and the record-of the time. :.|j Catholics , count him a saint and a martyr, M| but everyone who knows his -true story re- ;> h cognises that he : was a man of the highest • character, a scholar and a gentleman in the rlj'j ‘ truest t sense of that much-abused .word. .In ill; Westward Ho ! he appears as a clumsy, Iffe boorish fellow, a skulking hypocritical knave, ’

.talking in a repulsive canting fashion, and abusing the confessional to get at and misuse ’family-" secrets. Kingsley even denies that Campion and those who were his companions in the English mission ran any serious risks. They went about in disguise, it is true, and had hiding places in old country houses,' but really “They found a sort of 'piquant pleasure, like -naughty, boys who have crept into a store-closet, in living in mysterious little dens in .a lonely turret, where they, were allowed by the powers that were to play as much as they chose at persecuted saints.’’ ; Blessed Ohthbert. , Mayne’s execution is mentioned, but we are''told he was hanged because he was a traitorous plotter. But the one thing proved at his trial was , simply that he had a chalice in his possession, and the judge told the jury that though they had not clear proof, “strong presumption,” was sufficient to justify their finding he was a priest. Richard Grenville, High Sheriff of . Cornwall, bullied them into- a verdict of guilty. Mayne was hanged, and Grenville was knighted for this “playing at persecution,” to use Kingsley’s word. This is one sample among many of the way in which history is disfigured and distorted into a libel on Catholicity in this “historical” novel. Kingsley and Newman. Yet we owe one great debt to Kingsley. He did the cause of Catholic truth indirectly and unintentionally one supreme service when, in an article in Macmillan’s Magazine, he suggested that Newman in particular and Catholic priests in general had little regard for the virtue of truth. Newman challenged him to make good his accusation. Kingsley replied by a quotation from one of the great Oratorian’s sermons. Newman answered that the words quoted did not bear the meaning put upon them, and in any case were not the words of a Catholic priest, but an extract from one of his Anglican sermons. Kingsley met the damaging reply by suggesting that all the same his general statement held good, and that Newman himself had acted insincerely in teaching Catholic doctrine from Anglican pulpits when he was already practically a convinced Romanist. Newman answered that the only possible reply to this was to trace fully the record of his own progress from the Church in which he was born and educated to the fold of the Catholic Church, and then came the publication of the “Apologia”—his History of My "Religious Opinions a book that ranks as a classic, that won the opinion of all England to his side in the special debate that called it forth, and that in the sixty years since its publication has led many in England and in other countries to the light, of Catholic truth.' An Attempt to Justify Kingsley. At the ’ commemorative service held in Kingsley’s former church at Eversley, the. Anglican Bishop of Winchester preached the sermon and said that in the dispute , with Newman, Kingsley was undoubtedly in the wrong. In this he echoed the verdict of public opinion at the time, and the generally accepted opinion of all * the years since then. . But in one of its editorial notes the Christian World makes an attempt to , show that this is not a correct judgment, ; and that i the

Bishop spoke unwisely. Referring ..to . his sermon it says: “That surely is to bring a graver charge against Kingsley than the facts of the case warrant. In some reminiscences of Newman, published several years ago in The Expositor, the late Bev. A. W. Hutton recalled a conversation in which the Cardinal, discussing a possible revision of the Breviary, said, fully and frankly, that the compilers of the legends had evidently preferred what they took to be edification to historical truth. 1 I remember,’ remarks Mr. Hutton; ‘ that at the time the thought occurred to me —This is only what poor Kingsley said.’ ” \ One would like to know for certain exactly what the Cardinal said, what his words were, and in what precise connection they were spoken. There is an obvious sense in which no one need object to them. One at least of the stories of the saints in the Breviary is introduced by the word “Fertur” —“It is said that,” The compilers of some of the offices in the Breviary introduce as narrative readings traditional stories of the saints without a critical investigation of their precise historical value. They have been long accepted, they are characteristic of their subject and their time, and they convey an edifying lesson. In this sense it is true that the object in view is edification rather than historical accuracy. To take an example from another book. We read the Little Flowers of St. Francis with pleasure and profit, though even a reverent critic will tell us that many of the narratives represent popular tradition, not exact history. They are tales that have grown up around a great name, but they are full of the spirit of St. Francis, and give us a light on that of his Order. Another Charge Against Newman. Now what Kingsley charged against Catholics was nothing of this kind, but something really serious. There was no question of pious and affectionate legend or edifying parable, but an accusation that truth was disregarded and men misled by false teaching. Newman found himself compelled to refute the suggestion that he himself had for years knowingly concealed his own position in order to win converts to Rome while he was disguised as a loyal member of the Anglican Church, and that Catholics would approve of this duplicity. Kingsley’s mental attitude is shown by the way in which he makes Catholics lie systematically and deliberately in his Westward Ho ! A good end justified (he imagined) in their perverse minds the evil, means of falsehood. The Christian World, writer adds: “Mr. Hutton further quoted from a letter of Newman’s, written on Kingsley’s death, in. which he practically admitted that his indignation at Kingsley’s attack was all ‘put on.’ ” Here is a belated charge made against - the great Cardinal, whose transparent honesty and scrupulous candor was above all things evident in the whole debate. There is no more utterly candid book in all literature than the Apologia. Yet now we have the story brought out that he “practically admitted” he was acting a part. We want to know more about that letter. If it has ; ever been published will the Editor of the Christian World give us a reference to it? If it is in existence, .though unpublished, can vit be produced? We have here only secondhand hearsay talk that is, refuted by" the world’s knowledge of what Newman was.— • Catholic Times, London. ‘ -V .:v ~ » .