NEWMAN, JOHN HENRY. 



607 



in an uproar. In it Newman maintained that the 

 aim of the " Thirty-nine Articles " ot the English 

 Church was to condemn the abuses of certain 

 doctrines and not the doctrines themselves, and 

 that subscription might be made to them in a 

 Catholic though not in a Roman sense. This 

 tract was solemnly censured by the teaching body 

 of the university, and a formal retraction was 

 demanded. This was refused, but at the request 

 of the Bishop of Oxford the tracts ceased to ap- 

 pear. They were replaced, however, by other 

 forms of combat, and Newman, under the pseu- 

 donym of " Catholicus," wrote for the " Times" 

 a series of letters that intensified the conflict. 



In 1843 he resigned St. Mary's, previously re- 

 tracting publicly all the severe things he had 

 said of the Roman Catholic Church. After what 

 was practically a separation from the established 

 Church, he withdrew to the village of Littlemore, 

 about two miles from Oxford, where, in company 

 with his young friends, he led a life of the sever- - 

 est asceticism. He wrote no more, and showed 

 himself nowhere. A delicate conscience imposed 

 upon him the duty of silence until he had made 

 up his mind. The crisis came on Oct. 10, 1845, 

 when he was received into the Catholic Church 

 by Father Dominic, a member of the Passionist 

 order. The news was at first listened to with in- 

 credulity. When it became certain, the dismay 

 was indescribable, and was echoed in the leading 

 organs of public opinion. " The Anglican Church 

 reeled under it," said Lord Beaconsfield long 

 afterward, " and still reels." " It is the greatest 

 event that has occurred in England since the 

 Reformation," wrote Mr. Gladstone. 



On the advice of Dr. (afterward Cardinal) 

 Wiseman, Newman continued the monastic life 

 of Littlemore for a year longer, and then was 

 called to Oscott, where he remained till October, 

 1846. He afterward went to Rome to prepare 

 for ordination in the Catholic Church. He was 

 ordained priest and received into the congrega- 

 tion of the Oratorians. He returned to England 

 on Christmas Eve, 1847. and, after living suc- 

 cessively in different Catholic colleges, gathered 

 around him some of his old disciples and found- 

 ed with them the English Congregation of the 

 Oratory of St. Philip Neri. The new community 

 was at "first established in a dancing hall in Bir- 

 mingham, until the charity of his coreligionists 

 enabled him to erect a spacious house in 1851, at 

 Edgbaston. in the suburbs. There he led for 

 several years the life of the humblest and most 

 self-sacrificing priest, and among other deeds 

 of quiet heroism, volunteered to minister to the 

 sufferers from the cholera epidemic of 1849 at 

 Bilston. In 1850 he delivered, on the restoration 

 of the Catholic hierarchy in England, his sermon 

 on the " Second Spring," which Macaulay knew 

 by heart and used to recite in tones of enthusi- 

 asm. In the same year his calm and laborious 

 life was disturbed by a grave incident. Father 

 Hyacinth Achilli, an Italian monk who had be- 

 come a Protestant, was making violent attacks 

 on the Church he had left in different parts of 

 England. When he came to Birmingham, New- 

 man, who was then delivering his " Lectures on 

 the Position of Catholics," devoted one of them 

 to a revelation of the private life of Achilli 

 before he was compelled to leave the Catholic 

 Church. After fifteen months of silence, the lat- 



ter brought an action for 1 ibel, and Newman ob- 

 tained permission from the Court to product 

 witnesses to the truth of his assertions. They 

 came in large numbers from Italy, Malta, and 

 elsewhere, and testified to the truth'of the charges 

 of unchastity made by Newman. But the jury 

 accepted the denial of the plaintiff, and Newman 

 was fined $500 and condemned to remain in 

 prison until it was paid. The verdict was gen- 

 erally censured, and the "Times" declared that 

 henceforward Catholics had the right to say that 

 there was no justice for them in England. The 

 fine was at once paid ; but the costs of the trial 

 amounted to more than $60,000, owing to the 

 expense of bringing over so many witnesses. 

 This gave the Catholics of Europe and America 

 an opportunity of showing their admiration for 

 the illustrious convert, and a far larger sum than 

 was needed was speedily collected. 



Freed from the anxieties of this painful trial, 

 the Superior of the Oratory of Birmingham pur- 

 sued his religious mission and multiplied his la- 

 bors; for the services rendered by him to his 

 Church imposed new duties on his zeal. He had 

 become the moderator of the Catholic movement, 

 and no important work was accomplished with- 

 out his participation. In 1854 the Irish bishops 

 confided to him the task of organizing the Cath- 

 olic University of Dublin. In spite of the ob- 

 stacles that arose from the refusal of the Eng- 

 lish Government to recognize its degrees, he suc- 

 ceeded in laying the foundation of an institution 

 of which Ireland is justly proud. He returned 

 to England in 1858, and the rest of his life was 

 passed in the seclusion of his study at Edgbas- 

 ton. 



At the suggestion of Cardinal Wiseman, he 

 threw himself with great energy into the work 

 of a new translation of the Bible, and engaged a 

 body of writers to assist him. For some un- 

 known reason, this was after a time abandoned, 

 but it is hoped that the portion of the Scriptures 

 known to have been translated by Newman may 

 be found among his manuscripts. Another dis- 

 appointment was his failure to establish a branch 

 of his congregation at Oxford, the Holy See re- 

 fusing to sanction the project, on the ground 

 that it might result in attracting Catholic young 

 men to the neighboring Protestant university. 

 He now set up a school at Edgbaston, modeled 

 on the great public schools of England, which 

 has turned out many distinguished pupils. 



In 1864 occurred the event that changed the 

 whole course of English feeling in his regard. 

 Up to this period " renegade and traitor " were 

 the terms commonly applied to him on the plat- 

 form and in the press. Henceforward he was to be 

 the model of unstained honor and pure and lofty 

 character in the eyes of his countrymen of every 

 creed and class. In an article in " Macmillan's 

 Magazine," by the Rev. Charles Kingsley, oc- 

 curred the passage : " Truth for its own sake had 

 never been a virtue with the Roman clergy. 

 Father Newman informs us that it need not, 

 and on the whole ought not to be." We can not 

 enter here into the controversy that ensued, in 

 which the keen and poignant irony, the match- 

 less and polished sarcasm of the great master of 

 English prose showed at its brightest. Enough 

 to say that it produced the " Apologia pro sua 

 Vita,'" the work that forever shattered the preju- 



