“No autobiography in the English language has been more read; to
the nineteenth century it bears a relation not less characteristic than
Boswell's 'Johnson' to the eighteenth.”
Rev. Wm. Barry, D.D.
Newman was already a recognised spiritual leader of over thirty
year's standing, but not yet a Cardinal, when in 1864 he wrote the
Apologia. He was London born, and he had, as many Londoners have
had, a foreign strain in him. His father came of Dutch stock; his
mother was a Fourdrinier, daughter of an old French Huguenot family
settled in this country. The date of his birth, 21st of February 1801,
relates him to many famous contemporaries, from Heine to Renan, from
Carlyle to Pusey. Sent to school at Ealing—an imaginative
seven-year-old schoolboy, he was described even then as being fond of
books and seriously minded. It is certain he was deeply read in the
English Bible, thanks to his mother's care, before he began Latin and
Greek. Another lifelong influence—as we may be prepared to find by a
signal reference in the following autobiography, was Sir Walter Scott;
and in a later page he speaks of reading in bed Waverley and
Guy Mannering when they first came out—“in the early summer
mornings,” and of his delight in hearing The Lay of the Last
Minstrel read aloud. Like Ruskin, another nineteenth-century master
of English prose, he was finely affected by these two powerful
inductors. They worked alike upon his piety and his imagination which
was its true servant, and they helped to foster his seemingly
instinctive style and his feeling for the English tongue.
In 1816 he went to Oxford—to Trinity College—and two years later
gained a scholarship there. His father's idea was that he should read
for the bar, and he kept a few terms at Lincoln's Inn; but in the end
Oxford, which had, about the year of his birth, experienced a rebirth
of ideas, thanks to the widening impulse of the French Revolution, held
him, and Oriel College—the centre of the “Noetics,” as old Oxford
called the Liberal set in contempt—made him a fellow. His association
there with Pusey and Keble is a matter of history; and the Oxford
Movement, in which the three worked together, was the direct result,
according to Dean Church, of their “searchings of heart and communing"
for seven years, from 1826 to 1833. A word might be said of Whately
too, whose Logic Newman helped to beat into final form in these
Oxford experiences. Not since the days of Colet and Erasmus had the
University experienced such a shaking of the branches. However, there
is no need to do more than allude to these intimately dealt with in the
Apologia itself.
There, indeed, the stages of Newman's pilgrimage are related with a
grace and sincerity of style that have hardly been equalled in English
or in any northern tongue. It ranges from the simplest facts to the
most complicated polemical issues and is always easily in accord with
its changing theme. So much so, that the critics themselves have not
known whether to admire more the spiritual logic of the literary art of
the writer and self-confessor. We may take, as two instances of
Newman's power, the delightful account in Part III. of his childhood
and the first growth of his religious belief; and the remarkable
opening to Part IV., where he uses the figure of the death-bed with
that finer reality which is born of the creative communion of thought
and word in a poet's brain. Something of this power was felt, it is
clear, in his sermons at Oxford. Dr. Barry describes the effect that
Newman made at the time of his parting with the Anglican Church: “Every
sermon was an experience;” made memorable by that “still figure, and
clear, low, penetrating voice, and the mental hush that fell upon his
audience while he meditated, alone with the Alone, in words of awful
austerity. His discourses were poems, but transcripts too from the
soul, reasonings in a heavenly dialectic....”
About his controversy with Charles Kingsley, the immediate cause of
his Apologia, what new thing need be said? It is clear that
Kingsley, who was the type of a class of mind then common enough in his
Church, impulsive, prejudiced, not logical, gave himself away both by
the mode and by the burden of his unfortunate attack. But we need not
complain of it to-day, since it called out one of the noblest pieces of
spiritual history the world possesses: one indeed which has the unique
merit of making only the truth that is intrinsic and devout seem in the
end to matter.
Midway in the forties, as the Apologia tells us, twenty years
that is before it was written, Newman left Oxford and the Anglican
Church for the Church in which he died. Later portraits make us realise
him best in his robes as a Cardinal, as he may be seen in the National
Portrait Gallery, or in the striking picture by Millais (now in the
Duke of Norfolk's collection). There is one delightful earlier portrait
too, which shows him with a peculiarly radiant face, full of charm and
serene expectancy; and with it we may associate these lines of
his—sincere expression of one who was in all his earthly and heavenly
pilgrimage a truth-seeker, heart and soul:
“When I would search the truths that in me burn,
And mould them into rule and argument,
A hundred reasoners cried,—'Hast thou to learn
Those dreams are scatter'd now, those fires are spent?'
And, did I mount to simpler thoughts, and try
Some theme of peace, 'twas still the same reply.
Perplex'd, I hoped my heart was pure of guile,
But judged me weak in wit, to disagree;
But now, I see that men are mad awhile,
'Tis the old history—Truth without a home,
Despised and slain, then rising from the tomb.”
The following is a list of the chief works of Cardinal Newman:—
The Arians of the Fourth Century, 1833; 29 Tracts to Tracts for the
Times, 1834-1841; Lyra Apostolica, 1834; Elucidations of Dr. Hampden's
Theological Statements, 1836; Parochial Sermons, 6 vols., 1837-1842; A
Letter to the Rev. G. Faussett on Certain Points of Faith and Practice,
1838; Lectures on Justification, 1838; Sermons on Subjects of the Day,
1842; Plain Sermons, 1843; Sermons before the University of Oxford,
1843; The Cistercian Saints of England, 1844; An Essay on the
Development of Christian Doctrine, 1845; Loss and Gain, 1848; Discourse
addressed to Mixed Congregations, 1849; Lectures on Certain
Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching, 1850; Lectures on
the Present Position of Catholics in England, 1851; The Idea of a
University, 1852; Callista, 1856; Mr. Kingsley and Dr. Newman, 1864;
Apologia pro Vita Sua, 1864; The Dream of Gerontius, 1865; Letter to
the Rev. E. B. Pusey on his Eirenicon, 1866; Verses on Various
Occasions, 1868; An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, 1870; Letter
addressed to His Grace the Duke of Norfolk on Occasion of Mr.
Gladstone's Expostulation, 1875; Meditations and Devotions, 1893.
Biographies.—By W. Meynell, 1890; by Dr. Wm Barry, 1890; by R. H.
Hutton, 1891; Letters and Correspondence of J. H. Newman, during his
life in the English Church (with a brief autobiography), edited by Miss
Anne Mozley, 1891; Anglican Career of Cardinal Newman, by Rd. E. A.
Abbott, 1892; as a Musician, by E. Bellasis, 1892; by A. R. Waller and
G. H. S. Burrow, 1901; an Appreciation, by Dr. A. Whyte, 1901;
Addresses to Cardinal Newman, with his Replies, edited by Rev. W. P.
Neville, 1905; by W. Ward (in Ten Personal Studies), 1908; Newman's
Theology, by Charles Sarolea, 1908; The Authoritative Biography, by
Wilfrid P. Ward (based on Cardinal Newman's private journals and
correspondence), 1912.
CONTENTS
PART PAGE
I. Mr. Kingsley's Method of Disputation 1
II. True Mode of Meeting Mr. Kingsley 15
III. History of My Religious Opinions up to 1833 29
IV. History of My Religious Opinions from 1833 to 1839 57
V. History of My Religious Opinions from 1839 to 1841 101
VI. History of My Religious Opinions from 1841 to 1845 147
VII. General Answer to Mr. Kingsley 215
APPENDIX: Answer in Detail to Mr. Kingsley's Accusations 253