194 



The Review of Reviews. 



Not a word here, be it noted, to which the 

 extremest Protestant tx>uld object. 



HIS MINIMISING OF INFALLIBILITY. 



Nothing is more note\vorth\ in reading this story 

 of Newman's life than tlie evidence which it affords 

 of the exceeding fallibilitv of Catholics. Verily it 

 is- true that if the Cinirch of Rome be all that 

 Newman claimed lor it, no one saw better than he 

 !iow very human an institution it was. It may 

 indeed be compared to mortal man. He is the 

 Temple of God, within him dwells the Holy Ghost, 

 but it is incarnate in a body the law of whose 

 members wars against the Spirit of Christ. So it 

 is with the ('hurch as Newman conceived it. No 

 man asserts more strongh than he his faith in its 

 divine origin, inspiration and authority. Knt few 

 men have insisted more vigorously upon its limita- 

 tions, the errors, the fallibility of its members 

 < "ardinal Manning,' who figures in this book as the 



real jirotagonist of Newman, agreed with him in 

 this. How often he would say to me: "'Do not 

 fall into the mistakt- (jf confounding the utterance 

 of anv parish priest with the authentic declaration 

 of the mind of the Church." 1 used to tell him 

 t'.iat since the Bishop of Keauvais burned Jeanne 

 d'Arc as a witch whom the Infallible Pope w^as 

 hereafter to canonise as a saint, e\eryone had the 

 widest licence to reject as possibly mistaken the 

 decisions of any ecclesiastic. '• Excepting those 

 of the Pope,"' he would reply ; '' when speaking 

 ex cathedra he decides whether any disputed doc- 

 trine does or does not belong to the original deposit 

 of faith." In talking to me Manning was as much 

 a minimiser as Cardinal Newman himself. New- 

 man's fam,'>us saying, " The Rock of St. Peter on 

 its summit enjoys a pure and serene atmosphere ; 

 but there is a great deal of Roman malaria at the 

 foot of it." may Vje jjaralleled by Manning's caution 

 to me, " When you go to Rome do not judge the 

 Church bv what'xou find at the Vatican. Rather 

 judge it by the simple piety of Oberammergau. 

 For Rome is the great centre of the wirepullers of 

 the Church, and wireijullers are not the best somre 

 in which to seek the spirit of any institution." 



THE INSPIRATION OF HERETICS. 



Sjjeaking at .South Place Institute last month, I 

 <-laimed the right to blaspheme — or to appear to 

 men to blasi)henie— as the fundamental right of 

 every Christian man. Newman would have re- 

 ojiled from the i)hrase, but no one recognised the 

 truth underlying Ixjwell's dictum that "All men 

 rot orthodox mav be inspired." It was, indeed, 

 his th<'<jrv of llic ( 'hiu-ch that the initiative of in- 

 spiration was not to be kioked lor from the col- 

 lrcti\e Church. The new truth never came from 

 the Po|)e or the governing Ixxlies of the Church, 

 but alwavs from individuals who were often ac- 

 count'-d as heretical. In-foro the Church as a whole 



discovered that their heresy was God's truth. He 

 w.is lost in admiration of the '' strong-minded and 

 heterodox Tertnllian,'' and of the " scarcely ortho- 

 dox Kusebius." "Heretical questionings," ' he 

 declared in the .Apologia. ■' have been transmuted 

 bv the li\-ing power of the Church into salutary 

 truths." This is a euphuistic way of admitting 

 that the heretic often conx'erted the church to his 

 heresv. Newman himself was looked at askance as 

 heretical bv manv of tho.se in high places, or if not 

 heretical at least not exactly loyal. I Hia\ be wrong, 

 but the net impression left on my mind after read- 

 ing the account given by Mr. Ward of the difficul- 

 ties and obstacles with which Newman harl to con- 

 tend in his loval and' whole-hearted effort to serv.- 

 the Catholic Church, that of the Roman Church, 

 like the House of Israel it might te said in the 

 stinging words of the proto-martyr Stephen, who 

 bv the wav was stoned as Christ was crucified 0)1 

 a chargt- of blasphemv : — 



Yt' s-tiffnecko<l and tnicircumcised in heart and ears, 

 vo do always resist the Holy Ghost, ks your fathers 

 (lid so do ye. Whicli of the prophets have not yonr 

 fathers porsecnted':' 



To t!ie \rry last, savs Mr. Ward, tht- feeling of 

 regret for lost time would at times find fresh expres- 

 sion. The ojiposition of men — of good men — had 

 for vears defeated so many of his efforts. These 

 '■ good men " were those who occupied the chief 

 sr-ats in the Romanist synagogue. 



THE MI.SSION OF HIS LIFE. 



Newman was not made Cardinal until he was 

 seventy -eight years old. When he received the red 

 hat he made a speech in which he thus defined the 

 work to wliirli lie h.nl devoted the whole ot his 

 life : — 



For thirty, forty, fifty year.s I have re.sisted to tin- 

 best of mv poworsthe svjiiit of Liberalism in relif^ion. 

 Never did Holy Churcli need champions against it 

 more sorely than now. wlien. aha.'; I it is an error 

 ovei'spreadino;, a.s a snare, the whole earth; ;ind on 

 thi.^ tireat oeeiision, when it is natural for one who 

 iS in niv place to look out upon tlio world and npon 

 Holy Ciiurcli as in it, and upon her future, it will 

 not. I hopi\ be cvnisidered ont of place, if I renew 

 the protest against it which I have nnide so often. 



Liberalism in religion is the doetrine that there i^^ 

 \w positive truth in relisjion. but that one creed is 

 as flood as another, and this is the teaehinii which is 

 tiaininii snbstanci' and lorce daily. It i.s inconsistent 

 uith anv reeorjnition of any religion, as irMr. It 

 t.■aeln^s that all are to be tolerated, for all are matters 

 of opinion. (Vol. TI., p. 460.') 



Liberals do not teach that all religions arc true. 

 Thev say that there is some triuh in all the religions. 

 and thev affirm with Newman's writings .tuiI life 

 before their eyes that least of all in the Church of 

 Rome can they find truth inire ami imdiluted with- 

 out anv admixture of human error. .-Xnd as for the 

 intolcr.nil arrogance which claims for .my htmn.ni 

 institmion, no matter how divinely it may be in- 

 spin-il and directed, ilie right to declare that it has 



