338 A Recollection of Cardinal Newman I! 1 899 



' It was in connection with this that, in 1876 or 1877, I went to 

 Edgbaston and stayed three days at the Oratory. I do not remember 

 if at that time I kept a journal. I think not — and I may as well write 

 here my recollection of the visit. I had stopped at Edgbaston on my 

 way back from the west of Ireland, where I had been staying with La- 

 primaudaye at Treenlawr, and I had caught a toothache fishing on the 

 Lough which worried me greatly, and I remember distinctly feeling 

 as I knocked at the door that I should be thus hors de combat at the 

 moment of my coming to consult the great man. Nevertheless my 

 distress was vain, for I was shown up to him at once, and, at the instant 

 of touching his hand when he received me, my pains vanished, nor did 

 they return while I was staying in the house. Newman's was a won- 

 derful hand, soft, nervous, emotional, electric ; and I felt that a miracle 

 had been wrought. I told Father Ryder of it at the time, but he charged 

 me that I should tell no man, and I said no word of it to the Saint 

 himself. Newman, though he knew well that I had come to consult 

 him for the good of my soul, and though I had much conversation in- 

 directly with him upon spiritual things, did not attempt to argue out 

 any of the fundamental principles of religious thought, and sought to 

 influence me rather through the heart by his great kindness, and by the 

 confidence with which I was admitted to all the life of the community. 

 It was a touching sight, indeed, to see the old man taking his turn with 

 the rest to wait on us at table in the Refectory — and living his simple 

 life of piety and cheerful unselfishness. The lives of monks and nuns 

 are alone in some accordance with the life of Jesus. All the rest of 

 Christianity is an imposture and an impudent negation of Christ. 



" $th Dec. — Arrived at Sheykh Obeyd after nearly two years' ab- 

 sence. At Alexandria I had to wait some hours, and spent them in the 

 company of Hewatt and his family at Ramleh. I found the Hewatts, 

 to my surprise, very anti-Jingo about the war. There has been another 

 ' victory ' on the Modder — and another heavy loss of officers and men. 

 I am sorry to see among the killed one of Mrs. Earle's two ' splendid 

 sons,' about whom she wrote to me a month ago. She did not deserve 

 this misfortune, for she was very humane in her ideas, and hated sol- 

 diering and all its ways. 



" Anne met me at Cairo, and we went on home at once, having the 

 good luck to travel in the same carriage with Sheykh Mohammed Abdu. 

 Of all Easterns, perhaps I might say of all men, my dearest friend, 

 Mohammed Abdu, after having been imprisoned for his Liberal opin- 

 ions, and exiled by the Anglo-Khedivial restoration of 1882, has grad- 

 ually become recognized for what he is, by far the ablest and most 

 honest man in Egypt — and they have made him our Grand Mufti, the 

 highest religious authority in the vice kingdom. I gave him an acre 

 of land two years ago, and he has built himself a country house on it, 



