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THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA

Ecclesial Themes in the Mediterranean Writings of John Henry Newman (December 1832-July 1833)

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to the Faculty of the

School of Theology and Religious Studies

Of The Catholic University of America

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree

Doctorate in Sacred Theology

Michael T. Wimsatt

Washington, D.C.

2016

Ecclesial Themes in the Mediterranean Writings of John Henry Newman (December 1832-July 1833)

Michael T. Wimsatt, S.T.D.

Director: John T. Ford, C.S.C., S.T.D.

A decade after becoming a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, in 1822, John Henry

Newman decided in the fall of 1832 to accompany his close friend Richard Hurrell

Froude (1803-1836), and Froude’s father, Archdeacon Robert Hurrell Froude (1771-

1859) on a Mediterranean voyage that began in early December. Originally envisioned as an opportunity for Richard Hurrell, whose health was fragile, to avoid the harsh

English winter, and for Newman to enjoy a brief respite from academic life, the seven- month voyage held much more in store for Newman on his first excursion outside his native England than he expected.

While abroad Newman wrote 85 poems and 47 letters documenting both the sites he visited as well as his oft-restless interior state. These letters and verses document a decisive evolution on the personal level as well as the theological. Developments in his thought during his voyage are particularly evident in his reflections on the Church. On the personal level, he was displeased with the educational situation at Oriel College; on the theological level, he was distressed by the doctrinal relativism that was then emerging in the Church of England. These issues found voice in his letters and verses through his reflections on the early Church as well as the universal aspect of the Church that

Newman was seeing close at hand for the first time.

Although scholars have long recognized that Newman’s Mediterranean voyage was a pivotal time in his life, comparatively little study has been devoted to its importance for his theological development. This dissertation examines Newman’s theological reflections during this pivotal time with particular attention to the major ecclesial themes that surfaced while abroad and were later significant for the Oxford

Movement. Accordingly, this dissertation makes a two-fold contribution: first, historical—by a detailed treatment of a neglected period in Newman’s life; second, theological—by investigating his theological thought during this period. In sum, by investigating oft-neglected writings, this dissertation highlights not only essential aspects of the Oxford Movement, but also sheds light on the ecclesial concerns that eventually prompted Newman’s conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1845.

This dissertation by Michael T. Wimsatt fulfills the dissertation requirement for the doctoral degree in Systematic Theology approved by John T. Ford, C.S.C., S.T.D., as Director, and by John P. Galvin, Dr. Theol., and Christopher Ruddy, Ph.D., as Readers.

______John T. Ford, C.S.C., S.T.D., Director

______John P. Galvin, Dr. Theol., Reader

______Christopher Ruddy, Ph.D., Reader

ii Acknowledgements

I am deeply indebted to Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz and the people of the

Archdiocese of Louisville who have made the possibility of doctoral studies a reality through characteristic generosity. During my time of study I was also fortunate to benefit from the hospitality of Monsignor Peter J. Vaghi and the good people of Little Flower Catholic Church in

Bethesda, Maryland, whose kindness merits mention here.

Likewise I am compelled to offer deep admiration and thanks to Fr. John Ford, C.S.C. for his persistent charity in nurturing this work through his extraordinary knowledge of John Henry

Newman, which was always combined with the deeply humane and pastoral spirit that best nourishes the theological enterprise.

Without the noble legacy of the Sulpician Fathers, from whom I received priestly formation, I must also confess that this effort would have been impossible. In particular I thank

Fr. Robert Leavitt, P.S.S, Fr. Gladstone Stevens, P.S.S., and Fr. Hy Nguyen, P.S.S. for their personal witness to the enduring virtues of communauté éducatrice.

With deep love and awe I bow humbly in the direction of the domestic church from which I took my first steps in the Christian life. My mother and father and two sisters have been, and continue to be, a most sure foundation before whom I can never been sufficiently grateful.

Finally, I thank God always for his goodness. His wonders I have known, not least of all, in the person of John Henry Newman, whose abiding presence has marked these labors from beginning to end. Were it not for the kinship I have enjoyed with this future saint, I have no doubt that my efforts would have met ultimately with frustration and futility. Instead, his company has been both light and warmth from the first word to the last. I write now in the sure and certain hope that his company may outlive this earthly life and accompany me into the next.

iii Table of Contents

I. Introduction 1

A. Dissertation 4 B. Contribution 6

II. John Henry Newman: A Short Biography 8

A. Early Years 8 B. Anglican Years 19 C. Catholic Years 25

III. Newman’s Mediterranean Voyage: Background 31

A. Richard Hurrell Froude 32 B. John Keble 39 C. Mary Newman 47 D. Edward Hawkins 55 E. The Arians of the Fourth Century 60 F. “Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle’s Poetics” 69

IV. Voyage Beginnings 76

A. November 80 B. December 88

V. Far from Home-Malta, Naples, and Rome 127

A. January 127 B. February 139 C. March 146 D. April 156

VI. Sicilian Crisis 168

A. May 168 B. June 177 C. “The Pillar of the Cloud” 186 D. Return 193

VII. “The Religious Movement of 1833” 212

A. Assize Sermon 213 B. The Movement Begins 215 C. Froude 232

iv D. Via Media 237 E. Tract XC 244

VIII. Influence of the Mediterranean Writings 248

A. Sermons 248 B. Conversion 262 C. Fiction 270 D. “On the Characteristics of Poetry” 274 E. Biglietto Speech 279

IX. Conclusion 284

A. Understanding Newman 284 B. Newman and Poetry 287 C. Toward a Theology of Mystery 290

X. Appendix I: Map of Voyage 298

XI. Appendix II: Table of Writings 299

XII. Bibliography 303

v Introduction

It was said there is a silence which can be heard, which can be felt. Anyone who had been at sea, and who had for days and nights heard the billows beating at the sides of the vessel, and then came into port, knew what a strange stillness it was when the continued noise of the billows had ceased. When a bell stopped there was a kind of fulness of silence which was most grateful from the contrast. So it was in comparing the tumult and irritation of mind, which they felt in their long seeking for peace, with the joy experienced when they had found it. It was the rich reward of their long anxieties.1

These words were part of a sermon—somewhat indelicately titled “On Receiving a Batch of Converts from Anglicanism”—that John Henry Newman (1801-1890) preached at St. Ann’s,

Leeds, on 5 July 1851, on the reception of twenty-one men and women into the Roman Catholic

Church—among them seven former clerics of the Church of England.2

As with many of Newman’s presentations, his words that day contained multiple layers of meaning. On the surface, his words alluded to the men and women who were to be received into the Roman Catholic Church that day; these listeners were presumably attentive to the sounds and silences that accompany the spiritual life, sensitive to the billows suffered along the way and hopeful for the surreal peace of coming into port.3 Presumably these listeners were mindful of

Newman’s own reception into the Roman Catholic Church six years prior. His reception manifested similar metaphorical elements, inasmuch as he had a personal upheaval, which included rejection by strangers as well as former friends. After venturing on a voyage into the

1 John Henry Newman, Sayings of Cardinal Newman (London: Burns & Oates, 1890), 5; hereafter cited: Sayings.

2 Rev. Richard Ward, late Vicar of St. Saviour’s, Leeds; the Rev. Thomas Minster, late Vicar of St. Saviours; the Reverends J. C. L. Crawley, S. Rooke, and Coombes, all Curates of St. Saviour’s; the Rev. W. H. Lewthwaite, Incumbent of Clifford, near Tadcaster; the Rev. W. Neville, Manager of St. Saviour’s Orphanage. See Sayings, 5.

3 Newman spoke of his entrance into the Roman Catholic Church in similar terms in his Apologia pro Vita Sua (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1976), 238; hereafter cited: Apologia.

2 unknown, he arrived in port, finding there a peace he might have hoped for, but could not have anticipated.

Though his audience at St. Ann’s might have understood the resonance of Newman’s words with his own experience, perhaps few if any appreciated the reality of the imagery he used to begin his homily. This imagery reflected his Mediterranean voyage some twenty years earlier

(1832-1833), when he left his native England for the first time at thirty-one years of age for seven months abroad. Though a small window of time chronologically—in comparison to a life that spanned almost ninety years—his time at sea exercised a long-lasting effect on the remaining years of his long life.

Not only did Newman’s life span nearly the entirety of the nineteenth century, his writings seem to encompass, or at least make contact with, the thought and spirit of every preceding Christian century. His life and works constitute a profound reservoir of religious insight where prominent theological minds of his own century and ours have found and continue to find inspiration and guidance. Although Newman’s major works—particularly his An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845) and his An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of

Assent (1870)—have frequently been studied by theologians, to date, his Mediterranean voyage

(December 1832-July 1833) has often been viewed as an interlude—even a vacation—from his more serious theological work.

A decade after becoming a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, Newman decided to accompany his Oriel colleague and close friend, Richard Hurrell Froude (1803-1836), and

Froude’s father, Archdeacon Robert Hurrell Froude (1771-1859) on a Mediterranean voyage that began in early December 1832. Originally envisioned as an opportunity for Richard Hurrell, whose health was fragile, to avoid the harsh English winter, and for Newman to enjoy a respite

3 from academic life, his seven-month excursion outside England held much more in store for

Newman than he initially expected.

While abroad, Newman wrote 85 poems and 47 letters documenting both the sites he visited—often with astonishment—as well as his oft-restless interior state. These letters and verses record a decisive evolution on the personal level as well as on the theological.

On the personal level, he was displeased with the educational situation at Oriel College; on the theological level, he was distressed by the doctrinal relativism that was emerging in the Church of England. These issues found expression in his letters and verses through his reflections on the early Church as well as on the universal aspect of the Church that Newman was seeing close at hand for the first time.

Newman returned to Oxford on Tuesday, 9 July 1833. The following Sunday, 14 July,

John Keble (1792-1866), a fellow of Oriel and a future leader in the Oxford Movement, delivered his Assize Sermon entitled “National Apostasy”—which targeted the English government’s political encroachment upon the Church’s identity and independence. Although

Newman in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1864), credited Keble’s sermon as marking the inception of the Oxford Movement, many of the theological themes that surfaced in Newman’s

Mediterranean writings were to shape not only the Tracts for the Times (1833-1841) but also the initial years (1833-1845) of the Oxford Movement as a whole.1

1 As an Anglican, Newman was associated with the first dozen years (1833-1845) of the Oxford Movement; the effects of the Movement continue to the present among the “Catholic Party” in the Anglican Communion. See George Rowell, ed., Tradition Renewed: The Oxford Movement Conference Papers, Princeton Theological Monographs: Book 3, (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishing, 1986).

Dissertation

After a biographical overview of Newman’s life, this dissertation consists of four sections. The first section (Chapters I and II) examines the years immediately prior to

Newman’s Mediterranean voyage (December 1832-July 1833) with emphasis on his gradual disassociation from Evangelicalism and his gradual acceptance of “High Church” theology; particular attention is given to the ecclesial themes that were emerging in Newman’s mind prior to his voyage. Among the key factors in this section are Newman’s friendships with other

Fellows of Oriel, particularly Richard Hurrell Froude, who accompanied him on the

Mediterranean voyage, as well as John Keble, and Edward Hawkins. Another significant relationship was between Newman and his youngest sister Mary, whose unexpected death in

January of 1828 reverberated throughout the rest of his life. Two of Newman’s writings are briefly considered in this section: his first book, The Arians of the Fourth Century as well as his essay, “Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle’s Poetics.” These works not only capture important elements of Newman’s views prior to these years, but also help to establish a template for his reflections during his time at sea.

After describing his motivations, state of mind and ecclesial perspective at the beginning of his Mediterranean voyage, the second section of this dissertation examines Newman’s day-by- day writings—especially his letters and poems—as indicators of the direction of his theological thought in general and his views about the Church in particular. Again the emphasis is on the ecclesial themes that Newman saw as significant during his voyage. This section consists of three chapters: Chapter III gives special emphasis to relevant events and writings in the days in

November leading up to his departure, as well as his early impressions of the voyage during the month of December. Chapter IV studies Newman’s letters and verses during January, February,

March and April, when he had lengthy stops in Malta, Naples and Rome. Newman’s unfolding impressions of Rome are of particular interest in light of his transformed perspective of the

Eternal City later in life. Chapter V follows Newman throughout May, June and the early days of July, beginning with his solitary departure from Rome to return to Sicily, where a near-fatal illness cast the entire voyage in a different light. In the wake of this life-altering experience, a humble reflection at sea produced the most memorable lines of all the verses written during his voyage and helped to situate Newman’s resolute return to England for the beginning of a new chapter in his life that would also be a new chapter for the Church of England.

The third section of this dissertation (Chapter VI) considers the ecclesial themes that surfaced during Newman’s voyage in relation to the theological positions that he later advocated during the early stages of the Oxford Movement—especially those he recorded in his subsequent reflections on his voyage in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1864) and his posthumously published

Autobiographical Writings. This treatment of the Oxford Movement begins with Newman’s return to England in early July and Keble’s delivery of the Assize Sermon on 14 July 1833 (the starting point of the Oxford Movement). Three elements in particular are considered in this chapter: first, the death of Hurrell Froude in 1836 and his influence on Newman as well as on the

Oxford Movement; second, the evolution of Newman’s notion of the Via Media from its inception to its unanticipated demise; third, the final treatise of the Tractarian Movement, Tract

XC, in which Newman claimed that the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England were compatible with Roman Catholic doctrine.

The fourth section of this dissertation (Chapter VII) correlates the ecclesial themes that emerged in Newman’s Mediterranean writings and situates their importance in relation to five of his other writings. First, some of Newman’s sermons are considered in light of images that

6 apparently stemmed from his Mediterranean voyage. Second, Newman’s 1845 conversion is examined in light of his voyage, particularly his illness in Sicily in May 1833; though strong aspects of continuity exist between the two events, their relationship is rarely treated in most biographical accounts of Newman’s life. Third, the protagonists of Newman’s two novels, Loss and Gain (1848) and Callista (1855) are discussed in an effort to highlight both possible autobiographical elements and the presence of various Mediterranean themes. Finally two writings are considered which include relevant commentaries on the Mediterranean letters and verses. The first, “On Poetry,” an address given in 1851, represents a refined articulation of

Newman’s view of poetry in general and so sheds light on the poems he wrote during his voyage.

The second, Newman’s Biglietto speech on the occasion of his elevation to the Cardinalate in

May of 1879, was not only his own brief appraisal of his mission as a member of the Church, but also a commentary on the Mediterranean writings, written nearly five decades earlier.

Contribution

Although scholars have long recognized that Newman’s Mediterranean voyage was a pivotal event in his life, comparatively little study has been devoted to its importance for his theological development. Newman’s theological reflections during this time resurfaced in the major ecclesial themes that not only carried over into the Oxford Movement, but also shaped its ultimate direction. These oft-neglected writings also shed light on the ecclesial concerns that eventually prompted Newman’s conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1845.

This dissertation draws short of suggesting that Newman’s Mediterranean voyage represents a window through which his entire life can be neatly interpreted. A more modest, and hopefully more realizable, outcome is to illustrate that Newman’s entire life cannot be understood completely without due consideration of those seven months he was away from his

7 native land. In this light, it is apparent that his Mediterranean voyage was an invaluable opportunity for Newman to see the world and to understand it better. A second consequence, perhaps just as important though largely unintended, was that the voyage gave Newman an invaluable opportunity to re-envision his native England and to try to understand her more completely. Having never left her shores before and having spent the greater part of the previous decade almost exclusively in the academic life of Oxford, Newman was in need of an appropriate vantage point from which to consider his own localized, and at times idealized, world, and to understand his place in it. The Mediterranean voyage gave him such a vantage point by taking him—not only out of England, but—out of himself for seven months, only to return him at the end, a different person than he was at the beginning.

Chapter One: John Henry Newman: A Short Biography

Early Years

John Henry Newman was born to John (1767-1824) and Jemima Fourdrinier Newman

(1772-1836) on Saturday, 21 February 1801, at 80 Old Broad Street in London. On 9 April he was baptized in the Anglican Church of St. Benet Fink. His father, a banker, was the son of a grocer from Cambridgeshire who had moved to London to raise his family. Of that day and time in England, Zeno commented:

Napoleon was the rising sun in Europe and threatened both England and the whole Continent. England was at war with France and at the same time suffered from the effects of the Industrial Revolution. More and more working-class people moved from the country to the towns. They were worked to death in the mines and the “dark Satanic mills”. By an Act of Parliament their unions, called Combinations, had been declared illegal. Communications between villages and towns was hampered by bad roads and slow means of travel. Neither railways nor the steam engine had been invented, and the first iron ship had been launched only ten years previously. A horse was still the fastest means of travel on land. There was no welfare state, and the fear of epidemics was prevalent.1

Two years prior to John Henry’s birth and just after the death of his own father, John

Newman married Jemima, the descendent of French Huguenots and the only daughter in a family otherwise filled with boys. According to Meriol Trevor, “The Fourdriniers were perhaps of slightly higher social standing than the Newmans, but both families were good bourgeois, rising with every generation to more importance in the English scene.”2

In 1803, the Newmans moved to 17 Southampton Street in Bloomsbury. By then two more children had joined the family: Charles (1802-1884) and Harriet (1803-1852). In 1805, the

Newmans welcomed their youngest son Francis (1805-1897). In these early years of John

1 Bro. Zeno, John Henry Newman: His Inner Life (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1987), 9; hereafter cited: Zeno, Newman.

2 Meriol Trevor, Newman: The Pillar of the Cloud (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962), 7; hereafter cited Trevor, Pillar.

8 9

Henry’s life another family residence left an indelible impression upon his memory: his family’s country house at Ham (which still remains) was the site of many favorite recollections for the young family. One particular memory was etched in the mind and heart of John Henry:

In the autumn of 1805 a child of four lay in his cot and stared at the candles stuck in the windows of his home, flames against the dark, in celebration of the victory of Trafalgar. It was one of the first events that John Henry Newman remembered by its date in history, at once definite and mysterious. Light within and darkness outside, victory far off at sea: the image remained in his mind.3

The Newman family’s residence at Ham was short-lived; they left for good in September of

1807; yet Ham House became a recurring symbol for Newman, especially for its associations with an idyllic time in his life: “Years later he wrote that when he dreamed of heaven, as a boy, it was always Ham. Happy the man to whom heaven is home.”4

In the same year the Newman family welcomed a fifth child, Jemima (1808-1879), John

Henry entered Ealing School on 5 May 1808. Once outside a pleasant home life, a cautious reserve, even timidity, defined Newman’s early years at the private boarding school in Ealing.

Such reserve, which only narrowly concealed an honest naiveté became a recurring theme throughout Newman’s life as a student. In spite of his reserve, his genuineness and sincerity toward his peers won him many friends. Such qualities would have the same effect throughout his life. A number of these early school companions enjoyed some connection with John Henry throughout his life.

In 1809 the Newman family welcomed the youngest, Mary (1809-1828). This last addition to the family, eight years younger than the firstborn, enjoyed a preternaturally strong connection with her eldest brother. The mutual understanding that existed between the oldest brother and the youngest sister exercised a disproportionate influence on Newman’s

3 Ibid., 3

4 Ibid., 6.

10 development both personally and theologically at a critical juncture in his life. Mary’s legacy would be undimmed despite her early death.

John Henry’s many native gifts began to surface during his years at Ealing. His ready intellect and his willingness to engage his mental faculties portended great promise. Emerging creativity offered a fine balance to what might have otherwise been an overly rational intellect.

In addition to playing the violin, an interest in literary pastimes became a staple for the young student:

He attempted original compositions in prose and verse from the age of eleven, and in prose showed a great sensibility and took much pains in matters of style. He devoted to such literary exercises and to such books as came in his way, a good portion of his play-time; and his school-fellows have left on record that they never, or scarcely ever, saw him taking part in any game.5

One stimulant for John Henry’s creative interest was a collection of the Arabian tales.

Newman was not alone in being influenced by these tales of heroism and intrigue.

By the first decade of the nineteenth century the Arabian Nights Tales had reached a peak of popularity among the children of England’s literate classes. Eastern mystery, genies, magic, invisible worlds, tyranny, cruelty to women, thrilled and disturbed the imaginations of many generations of the young. The tales were staple childhood reading of future poets—Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Keats, all conceded the debt they owed to the Arabian stories for the growth of their imaginative talent.6

As with other future poets, John Henry discovered at an early age an emerging affinity for poetry. This gift manifested itself in an ability to shape words, both spoken and written, in a way that both voiced his own inspiration and held the power of inspiring others. While

5 John Henry Newman (hereafter JHN), Autobiographical Writings, edited by Henry Tristam (New York, NY: Sheed & Ward, 1957), 29; hereafter cited: AW. Since Newman prepared his “autobiographical writings” for a future biographer, he often described himself in the third person.

6 John Cornwell, Newman’s Unquiet Grave: The Reluctant Saint (New York, NY: Continuum International, 2010), 21.

Newman’s most prolific forays into verse came to birth in one brief season as a traveler on the

Mediterranean,7 poetry was in many ways a part of his life, even if a less immediate one, from beginning to end. Not incidental to his early exposure to poetry was the personal interest of his father. John Henry’s youngest brother Francis remembered that their father

learned his morality more from Shakespeare than from the Bible. But whatever he [his father] was, he was not irreligious. He believed in God and admired certain religious books.8

This interest in lyricism within the Newman family manifested itself at an early age for John

Henry in both reading and writing—not as a replacement for religious identity, as his brother’s observation may suggest, but as a meaningful counterpoint and creative outlet. John Henry’s great fondness for hymns became a constitutive part of his early childhood. In these hymns, he found an unshakeable gravity of meaning and witnessed the close proximity of creative word and music that provided a meeting place for poetry.

During his childhood, Newman developed an interest in collecting his own personal writings, oftentimes in an effort to document the contours of his young life.9 Not infrequent among his writings were what amounted to his earliest attempts at verse-writing. According to

Zeno,

The style and language of his poems betray the influence of the Evangelical school—as do many of his early writings—but these thoughts express his real feelings, the feelings of a clever boy of fifteen who wishes to lead a truly Christian life.10

7 Newman departed England on 8 December 1832 and returned to Oxford on 9 July 1833.

8 Zeno, Newman, 12.

9 See Zeno, Newman, 17.

10 Ibid., 24. Zeno’s observation presents a central theme for Newman’s entire life, that of honesty in one’s own interior life; such interiority is the forum in which one encounters the presence of God in a language that, if not outright poetry, yearns beyond the reaches of ordinary prose.

The idyllic years of John Henry’s childhood and early adolescence hastened to an end on 8

March 1816 with the closure of his father’s bank—a bankruptcy connected in large part with the financial upheaval that accompanied the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars. John Newman found himself unemployed and while his subsequent employment at a brewery in Alton,

Hampshire, alleviated some of the financial strain, his income was not enough to keep all of the

Newman children under one roof. The three daughters of John and Jemima were sent to their grandmother’s cottage at Norwood. Though on the surface John Henry’s schooling at Ealing was relatively unaffected by the change in circumstances, the fact that he was forced to remain at

Ealing for the summer instead of rejoining his family was, nevertheless, a hardship.

After spending the summer away from family as well as from his fellow students, an inward change began to take hold of John Henry during the fall term at Ealing. Questions of a religious nature were beginning to surface. A member of the Church of England from his baptism, he received from his parents a fondness for the Bible as a source of spiritual nourishment, while religious identity remained mostly casual and customary. Walter Mayers

(1790-1828), an Anglican clergyman and classics instructor at Ealing, influenced John Henry strongly with Calvinistic tendencies. Mayers also introduced Newman to the writings of Thomas

Scott (1747-1821), an Evangelical theologian who inspired in Newman a newfound interest in the spiritual life and the unfolding meaning of his own existence before God; as he later described this new stage in his religious development:

When I was fifteen (in the autumn of 1816), a great change of thought took place in me. I fell under the influences of a definite Creed, and received into my intellect impressions of dogma, which, through God’s mercy, have never been effaced or obscured.11

11 JHN, Apologia pro Vita Sua (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1976), 2; hereafter cited Newman, Apologia.

During the entire summer John Henry spent at Ealing, a sense of solitude weighed upon him. Away from family and friends, the heaviness of life seemed a reminder of both the nearness of God and at the same time an absence of God. A feverish illness came upon him; not grave, but sufficient to relegate him to the sick room for a time. According to Trevor, “Now the family disaster, the uncertainty of the future, loneliness and feverish sickness, suddenly opened an abyss in his happy and active life.”12 The abyss experienced in 1816 was not to be the final such event in his life; the experience of coming out of an abyss into light on the other side came to characterize Newman’s life. As Hermann Geissler has observed:

The first conversion led Newman to the One who is the true light. And of this first conversion followed many more steps of purification and maturation, which brought this light to shine ever more. The one who wants to come to light, must be willing to convert. He must leave behind his I-world and be open to God himself. Today is the conversion of the way to the light.13

The young man who emerged from this temporary abyss was not only more mature, but more resolute regarding his religious identity. Reflecting upon these days in his Apologia pro

Vita Sua, a half-century later, Newman remembered:

I am obliged to mention, though I do it with great reluctance, another deep imagination, which at this time, the autumn of 1816, took possession of me,— there can be no mistake about the fact; viz. that it would be the will of God that I should lead a single life. This anticipation, which has held its ground almost continuously ever since,—with the break of a month now and a month then, up to 1829, and, after that date, without any break at all,—was more or less connected

12 Trevor, Pillar, 15.

13 “Die erste Bekehrung führte Newman zu dem hin, der das wahre Licht ist. Und auf diese erste bekehrung folgten viele weitere Schritte der Läuterung und der Reifung, die dieses Licht immer mehr zum Strahlen brachten. Wer zum Licht kommen will, muss bereit sein, sich zu bekehren. Er muss seine Ich-Welt hinter sich lassen und sich öffnen für Gott. Auch heute ist die Bekehrung der Weg zum Licht.” Hermann Geissler, “’Zehntausend Schwierigkeiten machen keinen Zweifel’: Der Glaubensweg von Kardinal John Henry Newman,” Die Tagespost, 22, 21 Februar 2009. http://www.newmanfriendsinternational.org/bibliography/?p=2895

in my mind with the notion, that my calling in life would require such a sacrifice as celibacy involved; as, for instance, missionary work among the heathen, to which I had a great drawing for some years. It also strengthened my feeling of separation from the visible world, of which I have spoken above.14

Zeno identified Newman’s attraction to celibacy as having a two-fold rationale: “His feeling of isolation from the visible world and his conviction of a call, comparable with the call heard by a

Catholic boy, to lead a life of total dedication to God by becoming a priest.”15 Both the “feeling of isolation” as well as the “conviction of a call” would remain overwhelming themes for

Newman, even into his time as a student at Oxford.

Newman left Ealing School on 21 December 1816, and matriculated as a commoner at

Trinity College Oxford, though he was unable to move in until the following June when a set of rooms became vacant. The twilight of 1816 found Newman an introspective seeker after the truth, mindful of great changes on the horizon. Mayers was quick to counsel him in a letter written on the eve of the new year: “Tomorrow will commence a New Year may it be propitious to you about to embark on the tempestuous ocean of life−not I hope without a Helm.”16

When the sixteen-year-old Newman began the Michaelmas term in the fall of 1817, he stood out amongst the crowd for more reasons than simply his youth. His academic discipline and personal restraint were viewed with suspicion by his more rambunctious peers. His reluctance to take part in the periodic bacchanals known as “Gaudies” and his outright refusal to participate in the drunkenness that habitually accompanied such parties only led to him being

14 JHN, Apologia, 5.

15 Zeno, Newman, 25.

16 AW, 30

15 targeted all the more.17 Trevor suggested something more than ambivalence toward drink behind

Newman’s actions:

Perhaps there was a psychological necessity for them; the irrational getting its own back on the over-reasonable and common-sensical attitude of the day. But Newman, whose imagination never lost touch with the mysterious side of the world, was under no such necessity. His control was not simply the result of external habit, but of his own deepest will.18

This deep engagement with the visible as well as the invisible world gave Newman a rare perspective on not just academic life, but also the world. His young age belied such a nuanced perspective, but much like his former classmates at Ealing, his companions at Oxford soon came to appreciate his kind and genuine friendship.

In May of 1818, Newman was elected a Scholar of Trinity. Later that year in October,

Newman turned to verse-writing in a formal capacity. Along with his close friend, John William

Bowden (1798-1844), Newman contributed to a

verse ‘romance’ called St Bartholomew’s Eve, which was ‘founded on the Massacre of St Bartholomew. The subject was the issue of the unfortunate union of a Protestant gentleman with a Catholic lady, ending in the tragical death of both, through the machinations of a cruel fanatical priest . . . Newman was responsible for the theology of the poem, which was strongly anti-Catholic.19

17 The expression “Gaudies” is derived from the Latin: Gaudeamus (“Let us rejoice”).

18 Trevor, Pillar, 25.

19 Ian Ker, John Henry Newman: A Biography (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1988), 11; hereafter cited: Ker, Biography. The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre began on 24 August 1572, when King Charles IX of France ordered the assassination of Protestant leaders in Paris, thereby kindling mob violence that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Protestants throughout France. St. Bartholomew's Eve: a tale of the sixteenth century, in two cantos (1821) is available at: http://archive.org/details/bartholomew00newmuoft.

Newman’s earliest poems—which he collected in Verses on Various Occasions (1867) and dedicated to Edward Badeley20—date from 1818. There is no reference in these Verses to St.

Bartholomew’s Eve, nor is there any note of anti-Catholicism in his other poems dating from the same era. In fact, one observes an increasing identification with Catholic themes in a number of his early writings. The first poem he included in Verses on Various Occasions, “ Solitude,” written at Oxford during the Michaelmas term of 1818, well reflects his temperament, if not his aspirations; the poem began:

There is in stillness oft a magic power To calm the breast, when struggling passions lower; Touch’d by its influence, in the soul arise Diviner feelings, kindred with the skies.21

Consistent with his seemingly ever-present emphasis upon the invisible world, Newman had recourse to angelic beings later in the poem:

The Angels’ hymn, —the sovereign harmony That guides the rolling orbs along the sky, — And hence perchance the tales of saints who view’d And hear Angelic choirs in solitude.

In this poem, Newman moved past a sense of isolation from the world to a sense of prayerful solitude, a subtle but decisive step in his life. The warmth of his family through occasional visits and letters lent an important sense of balance during his early years at Oxford.

His mother reminded him of his place in the family in a letter dated 11 December 1819.

We shall be most happy when the day arrives which shall again collect us all together under the roof that sheltered you in your infancy, which naturally recalls

20 Edward Lowth Badeley (1803/4-1868), a graduate of Brasenose (1823) and recipient of an MA (1828), was called to the bar in 1841; he became a Roman Catholic in 1852 in the wake of the Gorham case; he served as an assistant counsel for Newman during the Achilli trial and later advised Newman that Kingsley’s apology was inadequate—advice that prompted Newman to write his Apologia pro Vita Sua (1864).

21 John Henry Newman, Verses on Various Occasions (Denville, NJ: Dimension Books, 1993), 1; hereafter cited: VVO.

many pleasing recollections of all your infantine ways so dear to silly Parents, and which form so agreeable a contrast to all your present mature opinions, and manly forms.22

As his teenage years drew to an end, Newman found himself quite at home in the academic world. He wrote to his younger brother Francis on 17 August, 1820:

Here at Oxford I am most comfortable. The quiet and stillness of everything around me tends to calm and lull those emotions, which the near prospect of my grand examination and a heart too solicitous about fame and too fearful of failure are continually striving to excite.23

In the months that followed, Newman began studying for his “grand examination”—sometimes more than twelve hours a day. Coupled with the anxieties of preparation were the struggles of wanting earthly success without being ambitious or self-seeking. As his father teetered closer to bankruptcy while managing a Clerkenwell brewhouse, Newman broke down during his examinations in November 1820. Though several years younger than most other degree candidates, expectations for the bright, young scholar were unanimously high. When the results were posted,

His name did not appear at all on the Mathematical side of the paper, and in Classics it was found in the lower division of the second class of honours, which at that time went by the contemptuous title of the “Under-the-line’, there being as yet no third and fourth classes.24

Newman thus gained his Bachelor of Arts degree without any distinction. In the midst of this unexpected disappointment, he sought to discern the will of God and accept this painful setback.

After all, his poor performance had been the result of nerves rather than intellect or even

22 JHN, The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman 1:71; hereafter cited; LD.

23 LD 1: 82.

24 AW, 47.

18 preparation. According to Meriol Trevor, “Morally his present defeat did more for him than success. Meeting the blow with courage, he suddenly matured from youth to manhood.”25

Shortly after Newman returned to Oxford in 1821, his father was faced with bankruptcy.

The house on Southampton Street along with its contents was sold. The family moved to

Kentish Town. By Easter, Newman had decided to pursue Anglican orders, instead of the legal career his father had originally advocated. Newman’s poor examination performance considerably dimmed any prospect of a legal career anyway. As visions of his future career clarified, and as he regained confidence, he decided in November, 1821 to stand for a fellowship at Oriel College the following spring. Mindful of the need for a balanced perspective in discerning the future, John Newman cautioned his son in a letter written on 6 January 1822,

Take care; you are encouraging a morbid sensibility and irritability of mind, which may be very serious. Religion, when carried too far, induces a mental softness. No one’s principles can be established at twenty. Your opinions in two or three years will certainly, certainly, change. I have seen many instances of the same kind. You are on dangerous ground. The temper you are encouraging may lead to something alarming. Weak minds are carried into superstition, and strong minds into infidelity; do not commit yourself, do nothing ultra. Many men say and do things, when young, which they would fain retract when older, but for shame they cannot.26

By Easter, the twenty-one year old Newman found fresh purpose in the new challenge. A quiet trust in himself and in God sustained him in the days leading up to his examination for the

Oriel fellowship. Where before, Newman had seemed nearly assured of success, this time the odds were much less favorable. For five days Newman labored. On the evening of 11 April,

Newman finally rested content that he had exerted himself well and was satisfied that his nerves had remained steady. The follow morning the news was official: John Henry Newman had been

25 Trevor, Pillar, 31.

26 AW, 82.

19 elected Fellow of Oriel. February 12 would remain through his earthly days as a day of gratitude. By any estimation, it was a decisive turning point in his life.

Anglican Years

After becoming a Fellow of Oriel, Newman was ordained a deacon of the Church of

England on 18 June 1824. He accepted the curacy of Saint Clement’s, a parish whose elderly vicar needed assistance. On Saturday, 3 July, the day before he officially assumed his responsibilities, he acted on a recurring impulse by inquiring in London about the prospect of becoming a foreign missionary:

On Thursday I called at the Church Missionary House, relative to the questions I asked them by anonymous letter last March. They say weakness of voice, shortness of sight, want of eloquence, are not sufficient impediments. Indeed the Stations most deficiently filled are such as, requiring scholastic attainments, do not require bodily vigour &c.27

This inclination toward a ministry beyond his native shores would remain with Newman during his time at St. Clement’s. Even as the likelihood of becoming a missionary became increasingly remote, Newman later judged himself by his willingness to give up all earthly comforts for a life of evangelical itinerancy. On Tuesday, 21 February 1826 he wrote:

How is it I think so little, to what I did, about going as a Missionary? I fear thoughts of theological fame, desire of rising in the Church &c counteract my desire for missionary employment. What I want is a humble, simple, upright, sincere, straightforward mind. I am full of art and deceit, double dealing, display.28

In retrospect though, Newman’s first pastoral work could hardly have come at a better time. As Jean Daniélou observed, “Pastoral ministry is a great teacher of what is true.”29 At St.

27 AW, 201.

28 AW, 208

29 Jean Daniélou, The Lord of History: Reflections on the Inner Meaning of History (Cleveland, OH: Meridan Books, 1968), 222.

Clement’s, a growing working-class parish, Newman applied himself with vigor and dedication to his flock through his preaching and his care for the sacramental life of his parishioners. Less than two months into his tenure at St. Clement’s, he received word of his father’s illness.

Arriving on Sunday morning, 25 September, Newman spent the next few days with his father who died on the following Wednesday. The coolness that existed between father and son in the years before his father’s passing at the age of fifty-nine ushered in a sense of regret in John

Henry, who subsequently acknowledged his great debt to his father and a deep admiration for his character and example.

The death of his father brought to the surface many questions about the meaning of life;

Newman asked in a letter on Sunday, 3 October: “Can a man be a materialist who sees a dead body? I had never seen one before.”30 Questions regarding his own mortality were coupled with uncertainties regarding his own vocation; on Wednesday, 6 October, he wrote:

Performed the last sad duties to my Father. When I die, shall I be followed to the grave by my children? My Mother said the other day she hoped to live to see me married, but I think I shall either die within a College walls, or a Missionary in a foreign land—no matter where, so that I die in Christ.31

After his father’s death, Newman, as the eldest son, became more involved with the well- being of his family. Shortly after the passing of his father, he expressed these words of consolation to his mother on 18 October 1824:

I hope my sisters will have some poetry to show me, when I come home at Christmas. Tis a great blessing that we are all so fond of each other—and a high privilege that we have all (I trust) been turned into the way of peace and life . . . Here we can rejoice only ‘with trembling.’ The time may be comparatively distant, but still the days will come, when one after another we shall drop away like leaves from the tree; but, being as we trust in Christ, we shall meet one and

30 AW, 203.

31 Ibid.

all in heaven to part no more . . . we shall meet, as our hope is, him, whom we have just lost.32

The following year on Trinity Sunday, 29 May 1825, Newman was ordained a priest of the

Church of England. He continued his labors at St. Clement’s until the following January, when he agreed to become a Tutor of Oriel later that spring. His two years of pastoral work at St.

Clement’s had opened his eyes to the qualities necessary for being a faithful minister.

Newman brought a similar ministerial approach to his work as a Tutor. The extent to which he was invested in his labors became apparent in the fall of 1827 when another grave illness befell him. While acting as a University examiner, a task he had undertaken with great exertion, he fell ill with a terrible headache as the result of complete fatigue. Shortly after the calendar year turned, Newman was still recovering when the greatest tragedy of his life up to that time took place. On 5 January 1828, his dearest sibling Mary died suddenly. 33 Taken ill only on upon the eve of her death, Mary’s otherworldly charm and saintly innocence became a poet’s muse for Newman for many years, not least of all during his travels on the Mediterranean.

Scarcely had his family buried its youngest member when Walter Mayers, Newman’s mentor at

Ealing, also died. Newman preached at his funeral.

For the next several years, Newman indulged his scholarly interest in the Fathers of the

Church. In the summer of 1830, when the Provost of Oriel, Edward Hawkins (1789-1882), acted against Newman on the basis of philosophical differences concerning the tutorial system, the

32 LD 1: 195.

33 Newman continued to struggle for many years to cope with Mary’s passing. His loss of Mary contrasted with his often tenuous relationships with his other siblings. Charles (1802-1884), who was alienated from the family in the 1820s was supported by family members for many years and lived the last decades of his life in seclusion. Harriet (1803-1882) ceased communications with Newman after his entrance into the Roman Catholic Church. Francis (1805-1897) penned a critical memoir of his eldest brother in 1891. Jemima (1808-1879) was critical of Newman’s conversion, though she did not sever relations with him altogether.

22 opportunity emerged for a greater investment in his personal studies, as well as his pastoral work at St. Mary’s, the University Church of Oxford. The immediate result of Newman’s in-depth study of the Church Fathers was that in June of 1831 he began work on what later became his first book: The Arians of the Fourth Century. The book was finished the following July. Shortly afterward, Newman was invited to accompany another fellow of Oriel, Richard Hurrell Froude

(1803-1836), who had likewise been phased out of his role at tutor, along with his father on a

Mediterranean voyage.

As the calendar year 1832 drew to a close, a quite exhausted Newman was in need of a period of rest following the writing of his book on the Arians.34 As he later wrote in his

Apologia Pro Vita Sua,

At this time I was disengaged from College duties, and my health had suffered from the labour involved in the composition of my Volume. It was ready for the Press in July, 1832, though not published till the end of 1833. I was easily persuaded to join Hurrell Froude and his Father, who were going to the south of Europe for the health of the former.35

Newman’s interest in accompanying his good friend was compounded by the potential of visiting the birthplaces of great classical thought as well as the foundations of Christianity. As a keen student of the Latin and Greek classics, a Mediterranean voyage promised a first-hand encounter with the great intellectual and religious centers that had helped to shape Newman’s entire academic career. Taken as a whole this three-fold opportunity was irresistible.

Newman’s Mediterranean voyage began on 8 December 1832 and ended on 9 July 1833.

Intimations of his interior wrestling and glimpses of his theological thinking found voice in the

34 JHN’s Arians of the Fourth Century, which is available at: http://www.newmanreader.org/works/arians/index.html, was criticized by a number of his academic peers.

35 Apologia, 38.

23 eighty-five poems and forty-seven letters he sent to England during his journey. By the time he returned to England, Newman, then age thirty-two, had penned a volume-worth of poems; in fact, Newman wrote during his Mediterranean voyage—with the exception of “The Dream of

Gerontius”36—almost all the poems that comprised his poetic corpus. On his arrival at Iffley37 on 9 July 1833, Newman was a man newly-charged; according to Ian Ker, “However, although all his hair had come out on his return home (which had meant having to wear a wig), he was not only ‘quite recovered’ (except for weakness in his joints), but he was ‘better now’ than he had ever been all the seventeen years he had been in Oxford.”38 Newman’s colleagues testified to the changed man:

His joy at being well again and home, and his delight at being at last in the thick of the battle about which he had dreamed for so long, gave him such an extraordinary vitality that friends in Oxford found it difficult to recognize the man they had known. He had ‘a supreme confidence’ in a ‘momentous and inspiring’ cause . . .39

Newman’s folio of poems was the most immediate testimony to this life-changing encounter and chronicled the myriad passageways by which his life had been transformed.

36 “The Dream of Gerontius” (1865) portrays the final moments of a person poised on the doorstep of eternity and the drama that unfolds in preparation of the final passage to new life. This poem capitalizes on Newman’s lifelong meditation upon the interplay between the visible and the invisible, the seen and the unseen. Fittingly, a guardian angel—one of Newman’s recurring muses—plays a central role. The poem was received far more favorably than Newman expected; such acclaim gave Newman the much-needed encouragement that collecting his verses into a single volume would be a worthwhile endeavor. Verses on Various Occasions appeared two years later.

37 At that time, Newman’s immediate family lived at Iffley, a village approximately two miles south of the city-center of Oxford.

38 Ker, Biography, 83-84.

39 Ibid., 85-86.

On 14 July 1833, John Keble (1792-1866) preached the Assize Sermon on “National

Apostasy,” a rallying cry for clergy and faithful alike to acknowledge the atrophied state of the

Church of England and a challenge to work for renewal. Afterwards Newman and his companions advocated ecclesial autonomy from the state as well as a retrieval of those aspects of

Catholicity which comprised the heart of their national Church. The chief tool wielded by

Newman and friends was the Tracts for the Times. From the moment Newman published the first Tract on 9 September 1833, until the final tract on 25 January 1841, the Oxford Movement grew both in members and momentum—all the while furthering the High Church renewal of

Anglicanism as the true Via Media between the doctrinal diminutions of continental

Protestantism and the devotional excesses of Roman Catholicism.

In truth, the liabilities of his Via Media had been evident several years before Newman’s publication of the final tract in 1841. As his personal survey of the early Church grew in breadth and depth, Newman found his position in the Church of England to be increasingly untenable.

The first step in this process of reconsideration was a physical move: in September of 1841,

Newman relocated to Littlemore, a village three miles southeast of the center of Oxford. There he lived a quasi-monastic life and continued both his academic studies as well as his spiritual discernment. The second step, though largely symbolic, was for many the more decisive: on 18

September 1843, Newman resigned as vicar of St. Mary’s. The following week he preached his last sermon as an Anglican. By then it was perhaps inevitable that Newman’s departure from the

Church of England would follow; on 3 October 1845, Newman resigned as Fellow of Oriel. The following week, on 9 October, Newman was received into the Catholic Church at Littlemore by the Italian Passionist priest Dominic Barberi (1792-1849).

Catholic Years

Just as Newman’s return from the Mediterranean had taken place at a propitious hour, so did his conversion come about in an auspicious era for the Roman Catholic Church in England.

At that time, vast numbers of Irish Catholics were fleeing their native land on account of the

Great Famine. As they poured into cities throughout England, the numbers of Catholics were instantly multiplied—at least tenfold. The most visible name in a modest, though growing body of converts from Anglicanism, Newman became something of a Roman Catholic authority overnight. According to Joseph Pearce,

The reception of John Henry Newman in to the Catholic Church in 1845 heralded a new dawn of the Faith in England. It would, in fact, be no exaggeration to say that Newman’s conversion was the very birth of the English Catholic Revival. Before Newman, the Catholic presence in England had withered to such a degree that only the remnant of the old recusant families still carried the Faith from one beleaguered and persecuted generation to the next. These courageous adherents to the “old Faith” bore the Catholicism in their hearts and in their homes, but they were effectively excluded from bringing it into public life. After Newman’s conversion, however, Catholicism became a major intellectual presence in English cultural life, and, in Newman’s wake, thousands of Englishmen followed his example and converted in droves.40

The major project undertaken by Newman during the year preceding his conversion was

An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845). His groundbreaking consideration of ecclesial development was very much the fruit of his own discernment of religious truth and where it might be found. The events of 1845 were a clear rupture in Newman’s life that resulted in severed relationships with friends and family, not to mention his complete break with the

Church of England. Yet as these events concerned the inner man, Newman’s decision to become a Roman Catholic was not a conclusion reached by a man determined to become someone else.

Rather, having plumbed the depths of the meaning as well as the mission of the one Church of

40 See the Foreward to Erich Przywara, The Heart of Newman (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2010), ix; hereafter cited: Przywara: Heart of Newman.

Christ, Newman’s conversion was an effort to remain faithful to himself, and in doing so, to remain faithful to God. According to Keith Beaumont,

The Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine constitutes a major contribution to Christian, and in particular to catholic, theology. In view of the historical context, it was inevitable that the work should be compared—in particular at the time of the Modernist crisis in the early years of the twentieth century—to Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, published just fourteen years later, in 1859. The idea of change is central to the thought of both men; but in other respects, their ideas differ radically and are almost, one might say, diametrically opposed. In the Darwinian conception of evolution, a living organism can change indefinitely, so as to possess in the end merely the most infinitesimal resemblance to its origin. For Newman, the process of development conjugates change and continuity, innovation and fidelity to an origin or point of departure. In a celebrated passage of the Essay—of which all too often, alas, only the last sentence is quoted out of context—the author declares that if what he calls the “idea” of Christianity changes, it is in order to remain faithful to itself.41

The lens through which one might easily view the second half of Newman’s life is his effort to remain faithful to himself—which required him to remain true to God and to the Church as well.

On 1 September 1846, Newman left England for Rome to further his studies for the

Roman Catholic priesthood and to discern his future ministry upon his return to England. In

January of 1847, while still in Rome, Newman decided to become an Oratorian and set about laying the groundwork for a future English Oratory. On 30 May, Newman was ordained a

Roman Catholic priest. Shortly afterward he began his Oratorian Novitiate at Santa Croce; upon its completion he returned to England, arriving at the very end of 1847.

By 1851, Oratories had been established in Birmingham and London, not without considerable difficulty. To compound the challenges of the fledgling religious community, legal action was taken against Newman in November of 1851. In the previous year, a former

Dominican priest, Giacinto Achilli gave a series of lectures hostile to the Roman Catholic

41 Keith Beaumont, Blessed John Henry Newman: Theologian and Spiritual Guide for Our Times (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2010), 47-48.

Church in England. Newman, who was lecturing at the time in Birmingham on the position of

Catholics in England, took it upon himself to respond to the pernicious accusations of Achilli, in the process he mentioned the scandalous personal history of the apostate priest.42 In reply,

Achilli brought a libel suit against Newman. While the veracity of Newman’s claims was eventually sustained, the legal proceedings demanded considerable effort on his part personally and financially. Newman was eventually found guilty and fined £100, a relatively small sum beside the considerable legal fees he had accrued. A collection was soon taken up, part of which came from international donors inspired by Newman’s example.

Simultaneous with the Achilli trial and the difficulties connected with establishing the

Oratory, Newman expended enormous energy toward the creation of a Catholic University in

Ireland. From the beginning of his tenure as Rector in 1854, Newman was routinely thwarted by the ambivalence and at times outright obstruction of some of the Irish bishops, Newman finally resigned as the first rector of the Catholic University in 1857. Newman also accepted an invitation from Cardinal Wiseman to supervise a new translation of the Bible. Newman’s efforts however, much like those in Ireland, ended in a fiasco. After learning that the American hierarchy was sponsoring an English translation of the Bible and seeing no need for two English translations, Wiseman abandoned the Bible translation project—without informing Newman of his decision. Meanwhile, Newman had spent considerable time and money in arranging for a translation that was aborted.

In 1859 Newman agreed to become the editor of The Rambler in an effort to save the publication from ecclesiastical censure; again the outcome was disastrous. After publishing an article, “On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine,” Newman’s groundbreaking, though

42 Achilli, whose exact dates of birth and death are unknown, was suspended from the Dominicans in 1825 for immorality.

28 poorly-received and little understood work, he was asked to step down from editorship. By

1860, Newman’s labors seemed ill-fated at every turn.

In January 1864, an Anglican clergyman, Charles Kingsley (1819-1875), attempted to capitalize on Newman’s misfortune, both calling into question Newman’s veracity as well as making a broad-sweeping charge of moral ineptitude against Catholic clergy. Some wondered if

Newman would even respond. Others rumored that Newman might be considering a return to the Church of England. Seemingly no one, even Newman, could have predicted the dramatic response that followed his rejoinder to Kingsley. Newman labored body and spirit for long hours carefully crafting his reply, which was published in fascicles from April to June, 1864, becoming the classic work Apologia Pro Vita Sua. His candor and deep faith won the hearts of friend and foe alike.

Newman’s public rehabilitation continued throughout the late sixties and early seventies as the aging scholar produced some of his richest works on behalf of the Church: An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (1870)43 and A Letter to the Duke of Norfolk (1875)44; these writings secured his reputation as a premier intellect of his day and a voice of influence reaching Catholic and Protestant alike. Newman’s resurgence at home was eventually complemented by a generally favorable recognition in Rome. His erudite and balanced treatment of papal primacy and infallibility in the context of the First Vatican Council’s debate on the authority of the

Roman Pontiff won Newman more admiration than he might have originally guessed.

In any case, with the papal transition in 1878 from Pius IX to Leo XIII, a man with substantial regard for the English Oratorian was now the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic

Church. On 15 March 1879, Newman received official notice that the pope was offering him the

43 http://www.newmanreader.org/works/grammar/index.html

44 http://www.newmanreader.org/works/anglicans/volume2/gladstone/index.html

Cardinalate. Having been assured that on account of his age he would be allowed to remain in

England rather than to relocate to Rome, Newman left for Italy on 16 April to receive the

Cardinal’s biretta. Newman chronicled his motivations for accepting the Cardinalate in a letter to his nephew, Henry Williams Mozley (1842-1919), on 25 July 1879.

Tho’ the chance of a Roman residence was the main anxiety I felt at the notion of my being Cardinal, it was the dignity, publicity, and ceremonial state which mainly and directly distressed me; for it would be, I felt, such a new life and this led to my protesting against the efforts of my friends to bring me before the Pope, last year. However, they persisted, and the Pope was more than willing—rather, as I make it out, it was his act, and he only used the English applications as a suitable introduction to his moving. Then he sent me a letter in which he said he wished to give me ‘a solemn and public testimony’ of his great opinion of me, using strong words. When I came, he showed me such wonderful attention, that I don’t like to mention it, but it astonished all there. It was this attitude, so to speak, of the Pope, which obliged me to sacrifice my own feelings. For 20 or 30 years ignorant or hot-headed Catholics had said almost that I was a heretic~I knew well that the theology of Rome, and the theologians of Rome, were on my side, i.e. either as sanctioning me or as allowing me. I knew and felt that it was a miserable evil that the One True Apostolic Religion should be so slandered as to cause men to suppose that my portrait of it was not the true—and I knew that many would become Catholics, as they ought to be, if only I was pronounced by Authority to be a good Catholic. On the other hand it had long riled me, that Protestants should condescendingly say that I was only a half Catholic, and too good to be what they were at Rome. I therefore felt myself constrained to accept.45

On 12 May 1879 Newman gave his famed “Biglietto Speech” after receiving the ceremonial notification of his cardinalatial election. On 1 July he returned home to England from his final journey beyond her shores.

Receiving a hero’s welcome upon his return home, Newman was restored once and for all to his well-deserved place as a national treasure. With what little energy that remained, he continued to write and occasionally preach. He managed to visit Oxford and Trinity College again in 1880. On 26 June 1881, he preached at the London Oratory. For many years Newman

45 LD 29: 160-161.

30 had lamented the loss of close friends whose lives had drawn to a close before his. In a wistful letter to Lord Blanchard on 31 May 1875, he stated: “Sometimes I have thought that like my

Patron Saint, St John I am destined to survive all my friends.”46 Peter Boyce has commented on this waiting:

He had learned this calm but active waiting himself, relying on the power and merciful love of Him who guides all things by His wise providence. As a young man of twenty-one, under the stress of an important examination, a coat of arms in a stained glass window of Oriel College caught his eyes. It had the soothing words: Pie repone te. Newman did not despair. He did not end his days a sad or disappointed old man. He had struggled for the cause of truth all his life. He even saw advantages in the open confrontation of his own age, which is the same in ours.47

The end of Newman’s earthly life came on 11 August 1890, after receiving the last sacraments on the previous day.

There were no last words. Newman went out of this world as quickly and quietly as he went in and out of the rooms in it, surprising people who expected formality. When he died he was wearing round his neck an old silk handkerchief which he did not need but liked to wear, because a poor person had given it to him in that grievous time thirty years ago when everything seemed to fail and crumble under his hands. 48

46 LD 27: 305.

47 Peter Boyce, “The Enduring Relevance of Newman’s Vision of Hope,” in Conoscere Newman: Introduzione alle opere, a cura del Centro Internazionale degli Amici di Newman, Relazioni del Colloquio internazionale, 19-20 febbraio 2001 (Rome: Urbaniana University Press, 2002), 15-33.

48 Meriol Trevor, Newman: Light in Winter (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1963), 645.

Chapter Two

Newman’s Mediterranean Voyage: Background

If one grants that Newman’s voyage on the Mediterranean between 8 December 1832 and

9 July 1833 presents an interpretative key for understanding many of the major themes in his life, then to appreciate the events and places of the seven month window when Newman left England for the first time, one needs to consider the events of the years immediately prior to his travels.

The following pages attempt to clarify the hopes and challenges of the years 1828 to 1833, as a prelude to his journey on the Mediterranean and the work that Newman accomplished.

While Newman came into his own as a scholar at an early age, as evidenced by his election as a Scholar of Trinity College at seventeen and as a Fellow of Oriel College at twenty- one, the ease which comes with social maturity came a bit later in life. Part of his social growth came courtesy of the nearly two years he spent as a minister at St. Clement’s, where he came to understand and appreciate not only the local parishioners, but also himself. In addition to his time at St. Clement’s, increasing responsibilities at Oriel College helped to secure his place as a member of a community—no longer as a youthful prodigy, but as a fraternal peer. Maisie Ward described this change in Newman:

Meanwhile Newman was a silent figure in the Common Room. We shall find all through his life overwhelming shyness resulting in a chilly silence among people he did not know or like, and expansiveness, a winning and joyous manner that won all hearts when he found himself among friends and intimates . . . . He came out of his shell, he says of himself, in 1826 when enjoying his friendships and holding some position in his college and the University.1

1 Maisie Ward, Young Mr. Newman (New York, NY: Sheed & Ward, 1948), 76-77; hereafter cited: Ward, Newman. 31 32

As Newman emerged from within himself and as future possibilities for ministry and scholarship began to present themselves, he came into contact with a number of people and events that changed his life.

Richard Hurrell Froude

In 1822, Richard Hurrell Froude (1803-1836) went up to Oriel College as a commoner.

No one could have suspected then the influence this enigmatic figure would exercise on John

Henry Newman as well as on the Oxford Movement. To this day, Hurrell Froude, who hardly ever used his first name, remains an elusive character. As Piers Brendon observed,

The Oxford Movement has exerted an unremitting attraction on scholars. The mass of primary material, both printed and in MS, has nourished a vast historiography. The main picture is clear: the lines are firmly drawn and unlikely to be much altered. Only one major figure remains partially in shadow—Hurrell Froude.2

Froude’s upbringing was considerably different than that of Newman, who came from a middle-class London background and knew considerable financial struggle both before and after his father’s death, when Newman had labored to support his family. The eldest of eight children,

Froude’s background was that of a gentleman and his hobbies of riding, shooting and sailing, reflected as much. His father, Robert Hurrell Froude (1770-1859) was the Archdeacon of Totnes and Rector of Dartington in Devon. According to Marvin O’Connell, Froude “had the quick intelligence of his father, with something also of his mother’s delicacy and imagination.”3

Unlike Newman, the Froude’s connection with Oriel was well established.

2 Piers Brendon, Hurrell Froude and the Oxford Movement (London: Paul Elek, 1974), ix; hereafter cited: Brendon, Hurrell Froude.

3 Marvin R. O’Connell, The Oxford Conspirators: A History of the Oxford Movement 1833-1845 (London: Collier-MacMillan, 1969), 100; hereafter cited: O’Connell, Oxford Conspirators.

No doubt Archdeacon Froude had heard of the growing pre-eminence of Oriel from the Coleridge family, but he probably sent his sons there primarily because he had been there himself and he wanted to continue the family tradition. To have Keble as Hurrell’s tutor was an incalculable bonus.4

Froude was elected a Fellow of Oriel on 31 March 1826. In the months and years that followed, Newman developed friendships with both Froude and Keble. According to William

Barry,

It was Froude that made Newman and Keble really known to each other; he [Froude] boasted of it as the one good thing he had ever done. It was certainly the most important.5

In many ways, Froude’s acquaintance with Keble helped prepare him for later interactions with

Newman, who shared a similar introspective nature with Keble, one that strongly contrasted with the ebullient Froude. According to Brendon,

If the friendship was of slow growth on Keble’s part, Froude’s conversion to ‘Kebleanism’, as he called it, was immediate. Froude was not so much influenced by Keble’s traditional theology as by the evident holiness of his life and the saintliness of his personality.6

Froude would come to see many of the same characteristics he valued in Keble in

Newman.

As for Froude himself, his entire person seemed to be built upon a restless temperament and a contagious enthusiasm for life. His Oxford friends, Isaac Williams (1802-1865) and

William Copeland (1804-1885), “likened his character to that of Hamlet. He burnt himself out

4 Brendon, Hurrell Froude, 41. That John Keble (1792-1866) was Froude’s tutor proved to be a remarkable asset for Newman as well.

5 William Barry, Cardinal Newman (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1927), 35; hereafter cited: Barry, Cardinal Newman.

6 Brendon, Hurrell Froude, 50.

34 quickly and his life had about it a dramatic unity and intensity.”7 The impulsive aspects of

Froude’s personality tended to overshadow an otherwise brilliant mind and a devout faith. In any case, Froude’s frank demeanor was anything but disingenuous and in many ways he proved to be very much a product of his day.

It is important to realize that Froude’s heroic attempts at self-sanctification were to a great extent an expression of his Romantic temperament if one is to appreciate the full force of his impact in a Romantic era. Froude’s Romantic predilections, perhaps first animated by his mother and not discouraged by the patriarchal austerity of his father, were fostered by the spirit of the age.8

Froude’s embodiment of the spirit of Romanticism was echoed even in his appearance:

He was young, of good birth, tall, handsome and with a superb presence which suggested to his contemporaries such adjectives as brilliant, bright, burning, beautiful and riant. Froude’s voice was especially delightful. Froude was immediately attractive to strangers. When Bishop Phillpotts first met him, at a dinner party at Dartington Hall in 1831, he singled him out of the company for favourable comment in his notebook.9

Part of Froude’s genius was his ability to shape subtly—through his own dynamic vision of the world—the outlook of those around him—an ability to nurture the aspirations of those around him that would inspire not only people, but also movements.

Both Newman and Anthony Froude were to remark, in almost the same words, that Hurrell was a man far more than a theologian. This was a significant comment: for the Oxford Movement was generated to a very great extent by the friction of mind on mind, of personality on personality. Its human interest is at least as considerable as its theological. Froude’s beliefs were of course important. But it was the incisiveness of his mind, with its spontaneity, its paradoxicality and its extempore manifestations of genius and the catalytic nature of his ‘bright and beautiful’ personality—in a word, his ethos—which were to be his most essential contributions to the Movement.10

7 Ibid., 27.

8 Ibid., 26.

9 Ibid., 27.

10 Ibid., 37.

In the end, these attributes of Froude burned so brightly as to endure well after his earthly life ended.

While Froude’s garrulous nature and easy charm won him many allies, these very same gifts also earned him his fair share of critics, both among his contemporaries as well as among subsequent commentators. Frank Turner was particularly pejorative:

Froude epitomized the person without responsibility who can and does say whatever pleases him, encountering few, if any, consequences. In that role he pressed a small circle of friends toward a radical anti-Protestant and antiestablishment position.11

Such a negative depiction of the, at times petulant, young scholar certainly has some basis in reality. Most critiques of Froude, however, seemed to be leveled as external appraisals of the man, with little regard for his interior motivations and his own self-understanding. Perhaps the reason Froude “remains partially in shadow,”12 as Brendon suggested, is the difficulty in reconciling the brash and provocative outward demeanor of Froude with the loyal and profoundly sincere friend known by many, including Newman.

Turner’s assessment of Froude attended chiefly to concerns raised by his critics while giving little or no consideration to the opinions of Froude’s many friends:

For reasons of either health or laziness, Froude’s industry never developed very fully or fruitfully. He continued to relish the display of his considerable gifts for irony and impudence.13

11 Frank Turner, John Henry Newman: The Challenge to Evangelical Religion (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 79-80; hereafter cited: Turner, Newman.

12 Piers Brendon, Hurrell Froude, ix.

13 Turner, Newman, 80.

For Turner, Froude’s wayward nature not only was his own undoing, it also subverted those around him, even Newman:

the departed friend [Froude] stood as a brilliant, prematurely extinguished flame about which in both life and remembrance Newman fluttered and circled like a moth, then destroyed himself by allowing the fire to engulf him.14

However, it is difficult to reconcile Froude the Oriel Fellow, the respected Tutor, and the fervent contributor to the Oxford Movement with deprecations such as Turner’s. At the very least, recognizing the critiques of the strong detractors of Froude gives a sense of the paradoxical aspects of the man and his ability to elicit strong reactions for good or for ill.

No portrait of Froude is complete without considering the impressions he elicited amongst his friends. Among them, Newman came to be one of the most dear. While Froude’s letters home between 1827 and 1829 have been lost, evidently he and Newman developed a strong enough kinship that Newman invited Froude to Brighton for the Christmas vacation of

1826. Though Froude ultimately declined the invitation, the fact that he had only been an Oriel

Fellow since 31 March of the same year indicates an early friendship between them. The following year,

Froude moved into the rooms above Newman in the autumn of 1827—having spent the previous year lodging over Blanco White, from whom he, Pusey and Robert Wilberforce (but not Newman) had learnt about the Roman Breviary. Newman must have seen a great deal of Froude in spite of the fact that the former was first busy and then ill during the Michaelmas term.15

The connection between Froude and Newman was further strengthened in 1828, when both lost a sibling: on 5 January 1828, Newman’s youngest sister Mary died suddenly; in April of the same year, Froude lost his brother Robert.

14 Ibid., 89.

15 Brendon, Hurrell Froude, 93.

In some ways, the closeness between Newman and Froude was built upon their seeming contradictions with admiration and friendship spanning the differences of character.

There was so much of a foundation in the contrast that Newman did always look to Froude as a standard, a test and a light, by which to judge of his own utterances. He seemed able to write nothing confidently, unless it had Froude’s imprimatur.16

Newman personally expressed the same depth of gratitude and personal influence when recalling

Froude in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua:

It is difficult to enumerate the precise additions to my theological creed which I derived from a friend to whom I owe so much. He taught me to look with admiration towards the Church of Rome, and in the same degree to dislike the Reformation. He fixed deep in me the idea of devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and he led me gradually to believe in the Real Presence. 17

From the beginning, Froude’s High Church background seemingly gave him an ecclesial bent toward catholicity, if not Rome herself. Throughout his life, the Roman Catholic Church held something of a hypnotic appeal over Froude. Though he vacillated at times between antagonism toward Rome for its perceived failures and zeal for the high premium Rome placed on metaphysical truth, the Catholic world and an accompanying ecclesial vision lay deep claim upon Froude’s heart as well as his mind.

If one of the many interests Froude bequeathed to Newman was an affinity for the

Catholic Church, a second one—not altogether unrelated—was a deeper respect not simply for poetry, but for a poetic world. Froude, like Newman, was deeply conscious of the nearness and relevance of an invisible world. For Froude, poetry was an expression of communion with such a world. According to Brendon,

16 Barry, Cardinal Newman, 36.

17 John Henry Newman (hereafter: JHN), Apologia pro Vita Sua, (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1976), 17; hereafter cited: Apologia.

Froude liked to put his intimations of divine immanence in poetic form. As a poet he was more interested in polemics than aesthetics, though he also seems to have taken the barely consistent view—an existentialist one, sired originally by the Romantics—that sincerity was a virtue and a justification in its own right. Nevertheless, Froude was quite explicit that the prime functions of poetry were religious. 18

Thus, Froude significantly influenced Newman not only as a theologian, but also as a poet.

In the summer of 1831, Newman went to Dartington to visit Froude and his family. They traveled by boat to Torbay, a borough of Devon, on the southeast coast of England facing the

English Channel. Newman later remembered his excursion with Froude,

We slept on the deck in the channel steamer. He caught cold. It was the year before the cholera, and both in it and in the year after, the Influenza raged. More people are said to have died of the latter than the former. When we got to Dartington, one after another of the family and the families intimate with the Froudes were attacked by the Influenza. In my Journal I have set down ‘July 7th Froude indisposed with the influenza.’ This was the day after we arrived. ‘July 10th Miss Froude with Influenza−11th Mr Froude with influenza−13th Miss P. Froude with influenza.’ Froude never got over this—he died near five years afterwards.19

Surrounded by illness and deprived of company, Newman availed himself of the beautiful environs by spending a great deal of time alone covering the grounds. As Trevor commented:

In this earthly paradise Newman wandered about alone, for the Froudes had all been having influenza and Hurrell was nursing his cold. Newman found the close, cornered richness fascinating, but a little suffocating; Devonshire was to remain for him always an enchanted garden, dangerously alluring.20

This impression of the beauty of Devonshire and the memory of traveling on the channel steamer were reawakened the following year. As symptoms of Froude’s continuing illness grew more

18 Brendon, Hurrell Froude, 32.

19 LD 2: 365, footnote 3.

20 Meriol Trevor, Newman: The Pillar of the Cloud (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1962) 103.

39 and more apparent, various remedies were proposed in hope of restoring his health; among them, a seasonal relocation to warmer climates, thereby avoiding the harsh English winter. As plans for a winter trip materialized during 1832, Newman was asked to reprise his role as traveling companion. Brendon commented:

Froude’s vocation remained as constant as Newman’s affection. This affection could not have been more clearly demonstrated than it was, to the surprise of Newman’s other friends, than by his willingness (after characteristic qualms of conscience) to accompany Froude (and the Archdeacon) on his health-seeking journey to the Mediterranean in the winter of 1832.21

Though it was not an offer that Newman accepted lightly, the implications of his decision to travel with the Froudes were greater than he could have ever imagined.

John Keble

John Keble (1792-1866) presents a fascinating counterpoint to Richard Hurrell Froude, and in his own way, he also came to exercise an enormous influence on John Henry Newman.

According to Wilfrid Ward, “Keble was the mystic, the saint, and the poet, with a considerable vein of speculation which might not have made itself felt in the Movement had it not been that his ideas were taken up and developed by men of greater energy and initiative than himself.”22

Born in 1792, Keble grew up in Fairfield, Gloucestershire, where his father was the vicar.

Keble, who adopted his father’s High Church tendencies, later attended Corpus Christi College,

Oxford, beginning his studies at fourteen years of age. At Corpus Christi, Keble earned great distinction for his academic excellence, achieving a double first at age eighteen. In 1811, he became a Fellow of Oriel College, where he served as both Tutor and Examiner. Aside from his

21 Brendon, Hurrell Froude, 114.

22 Wilfrid Ward, The Oxford Movement (New York, NY: Dodge Publishing, 1912), 19.

40 legendary achievements at an early age, Keble was highly regarded for his humble and unpretentious nature, a quality that was on display regardless of the audience.

On Friday, 12 April 1822, when Newman—who had just been informed of his election as

Fellow—arrived at the Oriel Common Room to meet his new colleagues, Keble humbly offered his hand to Newman in congratulation; Newman was overwhelmed. As Trevor described the scene,

Keble was barely thirty, but already as well known for his goodness as for his brilliance—at eighteen he had taken a double first and soon afterwards won two Essay prizes and an Oriel Fellowship. Yet he was the humblest and gentlest of all that brilliant circle.23

One can hardly overestimate Keble’s influence upon Newman. Even as a Roman Catholic decades later, Newman seemed to be following in Keble’s footsteps.

As a Catholic Newman was to follow Philip Neri, one of the most individual and homely of saints, and he thought that in his own English setting Keble was just such another. Small, bright-eyed, with a youthful look that lasted almost into old age, humorous to the point of oddity on occasion, hating pomposity and pretence so much he could sometimes be abrupt in manner, Keble’s kindness and goodness made it impossible for anyone to remain hostile for long.24

That Keble and Newman were “initially were shy of one another” seems to stem from their similarities.25 As Edward Short has pointed out:

Keble was High Church and Newman still had tinges of the Evangelical about him, which he only gradually outgrew. And there was an age difference of nine years. Nonetheless, the two had more in common than they might have recognized. Both were profoundly influenced by their fathers. Newman took from his father’s life a profound distrust of worldly success and Keble took from his a yearning for the High Church that he had known as a child. Both came from large, close-knit families. Both were deeply changed by the death of a beloved

23 Meriol Trevor, Newman: The Pillar of the Cloud (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1962), 45.

24 Ibid., 102.

25 Edward Short, Newman and His Contemporaries (New York, NY: T & T Clark, 2011), 35; hereafter cited: Short, Contemporaries.

sister—Newman losing his 19-year-old sister Mary when he was 27 and Keble losing his 18-year-old sister Sarah when he was 22. Both were fairly well-read and yet looked askance at the pretensions of learning undisciplined by faith. Both had a profound sense of place. Both were renowned for gentleness and courtesy, which never prevented their being ruthless when principle was at stake. Both had beautiful voices. Both were poets.26

Were it not for Hurrell Froude, who served as the bridge between the two, the symmetry between Keble and Newman might have only been appreciated from a distance. Froude’s disdain for trends towards Liberalism in the Church of England subtly found its way into the reflections of both Keble and Newman. Though Froude had learned a great deal from these two fellows at Oriel, it was his influence that began to shape them both. Moreover, both Keble and

Froude soon began to shape Newman’s ecclesial sensibilities. According to Edward Short, “For

Newman, Keble personified that hunger for catholicity which Newman never stopped hoping would motivate like-minded Anglicans to repudiate their de facto Protestant church.”27 This desire for catholicity was such that, once it had secured possession of the three men, it seemed never to let them go.

One of Keble’s most lasting contributions came through the anonymous publication in

1827 of his collection of devotional poetry: The Christian Year−a volume that became the best- selling work of poetry in the nineteenth century.28

No one was more surprised than Keble at the fantastic success of The Christian Year. The book went through ninety-two editions in its author’s lifetime and became a devotional staple to several generations.29

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid., 36.

28 Seán McLaughlin, “An Oxford Triumvirate,” 25 July 2012; available at: http://www.newmanfriendsinternational.org/newman/?p=595

29 O’Connell, Oxford Conspirators, 93.

Though wildly popular in the nineteenth century, to the modern reader the stifled and at times overtly saccharine tones of the work have a rather limited appeal. Rodney Stenning Edgecombe advised: “At the same time as we try to revise the harsh verdicts that the twentieth century has passed upon The Christian Year, we need also to reappraise the uncritical acclaim that its

Victorian readership lavished upon it.”30 An honest appraisal of the work seemingly lies somewhere in the middle.

People dipping into the volume with all their modernist and postmodernist prejudices intact will encounter an idiom apparently as faded and two- dimensional as floral keepsakes pressed in a book of Victorian album verse. And, not unsurprisingly, they will cast the volume aside with summary dismissals of its value. Repeated use, however, will to some extent habituate the reader to a style that, although it postdates the Wordsworthian revolution, has its roots in the Age of Sensibility.31

Though the Victorian manner of Keble’s work may seem at times remote and inaccessible today, one can hardly argue that he was a master of the school of poetry in his own day.

The Christian Year, which soon became publicly known as a collection of the poems of

John Keble, was intended to supplement the Book of Common Prayer as a devotional aid. For years Keble had turned to verse as an expression of his prayer life. After his ordination, Keble periodically wrote poetry to accompany various feast days of the liturgical year. As the number of these poems grew, he began to collect and organize them, at first simply for his own sake.

Eventually the idea of presenting the entire liturgical year through poetry emerged. According to

Henry Altemus, “A book of poems, breathing faith and worship at all points, and in all attitudes

30 Rodney Stenning Edgecombe, Two Poets of the Oxford Movement: John Keble and John Henry Newman (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1996), 18; hereafter cited: Edgecombe, Two Poets.

31 Ibid., 35.

43 of heavenward contemplation, within the circle of the Christian Year, would, he hoped, restore in many minds to many a benumbed form life and energy.”32

The Christian Year served a practical purpose from the moment it was published, stirring hearts toward devotion and offering direction in prayer. The collection also served a valuable symbolic role in the late 1820s by connecting religious poetry within the Romantic movement of literature. As Sheridan Gilley has observed,

The Christian Year, published in 1827, with a poem for every service of the Book of Common Prayer, made the dangerous new imaginative world of early nineteenth-century Romanticism pioneered by Sir Walter Scott and William Wordsworth safe for the Anglican tradition, in what Newman, with reference to the Caroline poets, described as the revival of the music of a school long dead in England.33

The work not only linked Keble with the Romantic poets, but also reminded Newman and others of the Metaphysical poets of the seventeenth-century such as the one time Fellow of Trinity

College, Cambridge, George Herbert (1593-1633). Though Keble was dwarfed by Herbert’s facility with verse, the echoes of a bygone age were an important recollection for readers of The

Christian Year—giving them hope, reminding them of an impulse that was as true in the nineteenth century as it was in the seventeenth.

Keble’s collection was conceived with a doxological aim in mind, to stimulate worship in his readers by stirring their hearts. Such a purpose was not just a movement toward a heightened sense of religious observance, but also a movement away from the tepid, laissez-faire attitude of the Church of England.

32 John Keble, The Christian Year (Philadelphia, PA: Henry Altemus, 1899) 6; hereafter cited: Keble, Christian Year.

33 Sheridan Gilley, “Life and writings” in The Cambridge Companion to John Henry Newman, edited by Ian Ker and Terrence Merrigan (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 5; hereafter cited: Gilley, “Life and writings.”

There was a danger, which some then foresaw [in the early nineteenth century], in the nature of this endeavor to put life into the Church; but we all now recognize the purity of Christian zeal that prompted the attempt to make dead forms of ceremonial glow again with spiritual fire, and serve as aids to the recovery of light and warmth in our devotions.34

Is it mere coincidence then, that the subtle commentary in The Christian Year on the languishing pulse of the Church of England would be paralleled in the next decade by poetry that would serve as an important tool in both the genesis and dissemination of the values of the Oxford

Movement? As Edgecombe has commented, “Keble had always suggested that Catholics were more ‘poetic,’ gave fuller scope to feeling, than Liberals.”35

Four years after “The Christian Year” appeared, Keble was appointed (in 1831) to the usual five years’ tenure of the Poetry Professorship at Oxford. Two years after he had been appointed Poetry Professor, he preached the Assize Sermon, and took for the theme “National Apostasy.” John Henry Newman, who had obtained his Fellowship at Oriel some years before the publication of “The Christian Year,” and was twenty-six years old when it appeared, received from it a strong impulse towards the endeavor to revive the spirit of the Church by restoring life and soul to all her ordinances, and even to the minutest detail of her ritual.36

On 31 January 1828, Edward Hawkins was elected Provost of Oriel College, a position for which Keble was strongly considered, although his candidacy was not supported by

Newman, who considered Hawkins a better administrator. Had Keble been elected Provost, one can envision only with great difficulty the events of 1831 and 1833 becoming at all possible. As it was, the election of Hawkins was a decisive moment for both Newman and Keble. In 1835, with his time as Poetry Professor drawing to a close, Keble became vicar of All Saints Church at

Hursley in Hampshire near the southern coast of England. Finding the bucolic scene at Hursley in keeping with both his reserved temperament and his poetic sensibilities, Keble remained at

34 Keble, Christian Year, 7.

35 Edgecombe, Two Poets, 232.

36 Keble, Christian Year, 6.

Hursley for the remainder of his life, an unwavering son of the Church of England. In 1846, he published a second volume of poems—Lyra Innocentium37—a celebration of childhood and the wisdom of youth.

One event, perhaps above all others, fully cemented the legacy of Keble for Newman. In

1827, the year in which Keble’s The Christian Year was published, Newman’s youngest sister

Mary, then only nineteen, began reading Keble’s collection of poems. In what turned out to be her hour of death, Keble’s words brought her great consolation. On 1 February 1828, Newman expressed his debt of gratitude to Keble for easing the passing of his sister:

My dear Keble, You could not have done me a more acceptable favor than you will by giving me a copy of your hymns.−They were the consolation of my dear Sister during the short illness which took her from us. She told us she had been enabled to repeat mentally some she had committed to memory, during hours of acute suffering— and when she was more at her ease she heard me repeat parts of them with great pleasure.−No one can fully enter into their meaning but those who have been in deep affliction−and your present will be to me a memorial of a season of sorrow, the extent of which I do not even yet fully comprehend, but of unspeakable comfort also.38

In the years that followed as Newman was haunted by both the beauty and the passing of his sister, poetry became a medium for expressing his grief. In the articulation of his grief was the belief, indeed the hope, that his words might one day bring consolation to distant readers.

In June of 1846, the year after his entrance into the Roman Catholic Church, Newman wrote an essay on John Keble for the London Review in which he appraised Keble not as scholar or friend, but as a poet. Newman situated the genius of Keble in his ability to renew and ennoble

37 The full title of the work, his last published collection of poems, was Lyra Innocentium: Thoughts in Verse on Christian Children, Their Ways, and Their Privileges.

38 LD 2: 55.

46 the Church of England through an appeal to the angels of her better nature, in the image of her

Catholic roots:

He [Keble] did that for the Church of England which none but a poet could do: he made it poetical. It is sometimes asked whether poets are not more commonly found external to the Church than among her children; and it would not surprise us to find the question answered in the affirmative. Poetry is the refuge of those who have not the Catholic Church to flee to and repose upon, for the Church herself is the most sacred and august of poets . . . . Now what is the Catholic Church, viewed in her human aspect, but a discipline of the affections and passions? What are her ordinances and practices but the regulated expression of keen, or deep, or turbid feeling, and thus a "cleansing," as Aristotle would word it, of the sick soul? She is the poet of her children; full of music to soothe the sad and control the wayward,—wonderful in story for the imagination of the romantic; rich in symbol and imagery, so that gentle and delicate feelings, which will not bear words, may in silence intimate their presence or commune with themselves. Her very being is poetry; every psalm, every petition, every collect, every versicle, the cross, the mitre, the thurible, is a fulfilment of some dream of childhood, or aspiration of youth. Such poets as are born under her shadow, she takes into her service; she sets them to write hymns, or to compose chants, or to embellish shrines, or to determine ceremonies, or to marshal processions; nay, she can even make schoolmen of them, as she made St. Thomas, till logic becomes poetical. Now the author of the Christian Year found the Anglican system all but destitute of this divine element, which is an essential property of Catholicism;—a ritual dashed upon the ground, trodden on, and broken piece-meal;—prayers, clipped, pieced, torn, shuffled about at pleasure, until the meaning of the composition perished, and offices which had been poetry were no longer even good prose;—antiphons, hymns, benedictions, invocations, shovelled away;— Scripture lessons turned into chapters;—heaviness, feebleness, unwieldiness, where the Catholic rites had had the lightness and airiness of a spirit;—vestments chucked off, lights quenched, jewels stolen, the pomp and circumstances of worship annihilated; a dreariness which could be felt, and which seemed the token of an incipient Socinianism, forcing itself upon the eye, the ear, the nostrils of the worshipper; a smell of dust and damp, not of incense; a sound of ministers preaching Catholic prayers, and parish clerks droning out Catholic canticles; the royal arms for the crucifix; huge ugly boxes of wood, sacred to preachers, frowning on the congregation in the place of the mysterious altar; and long cathedral aisles unused, railed off, like the tombs (as they were) of what had been and was not; and for orthodoxy, a frigid, unelastic, inconsistent, dull, helpless dogmatic, which could give no just account of itself, yet was intolerant of all teaching which contained a doctrine more or a doctrine less, and resented every attempt to give it a meaning,—such was the religion of which this gifted author was,—not the judge and denouncer, (a deep spirit of reverence hindered it,)—but the renovator, as far as it has been renovated. Clear as was his perception of the

degeneracy of his times, he attributed nothing of it to his Church, over which he threw the poetry of his own mind and the memory of better days.39

Newman’s words highlighted Keble’s ability through the alchemy of his literary imagination to recast the Anglican Church from prose to poetry. For Newman such an effort represented a catholicizing influence. His praise even envisioned The Christian Year as an evangelical effort or a missionary venture into a world sorely in need of conversion:

Such doctrine coming from one who had such claims on his readers from the weight of his name, the depth of his devotional and ethical tone, and the special gift of consolation, of which his poems themselves were the evidence, wrought a great work in the Establishment. The Catholic Church speaks for itself, the Anglican needs external assistance; his poems became a sort of comment upon its formularies and ordinances, and almost elevated them into the dignity of a religious system. It kindled hearts towards his Church; it gave something for the gentle and forlorn to cling to; and it raised up advocates for it among those, who otherwise, if God and their good Angel had suffered it, might have wandered away into some sort of philosophy, and acknowledged no Church at all. Such was the influence of his Christian Year.40

Though Newman never admitted as much in this essay, one wonders if in commenting on

The Christian Year from his vantage point as a new Roman Catholic in 1846, he recalled his own efforts during the Oxford Movement to follow in Keble’s footsteps with his own collection of poems. Though seemingly trite by today’s standards, Keble’s poems for Newman and others steeped in its subtle wisdom, were a revolutionary impulse.

Mary Newman

On 5 January 1828, Newman’s youngest sister Mary died. Her early and abrupt death at age nineteen was traumatic for Newman. From her earliest years, he had ascribed an angelic

39 JHN, Essays Critical and Historical, Volume II (New York, NY: Longmans, Green, 1895), 442-444.

40 Ibid., 445.

48 quality to Mary owing to her many gifts and virtues. As Brother Zeno pointed out, Mary had completely won him over:

Mary seems to have been the most beloved of them all . . . not only because she was young and beautiful but much more because she was highly intelligent and singularly good. However, she owed a great part of her intellectual and religious education to him [Newman].41

Though Mary had benefitted greatly from the scholarship of her oldest brother and his care in shaping both her mind and soul, her death revealed the extent to which she had also shaped

Newman’s life with her quieter gifts and noble bearing.

As would be expected in a family of six siblings, differences inevitably arose in the formative years of the Newman children, and as is often the case, contrasts in character continued to strain some family relationships well into adulthood. During her short life, Mary remained on friendly terms with all, both inside the family home and beyond. As Trevor remarked:

At that time Mary was probably the person he most loved, and his affections were always both strong and deep; it is likely too that, loving as she was to all her family and closest to Jemima, he was then first with her. When Newman was over eighty he could not think of Mary without tears coming into his eyes.42

Mary’s passing seemed especially surreal for Newman in part because for some time he had quietly wondered if her earthly life might be a short one. Such a premonition was not the result of any perceived deficiency in the state of her health, but due to an unearthly aspect to her character. He wrote to his sister Jemima on 21 February 1828:

For some time I had a presentiment more or less strong that we should lose dear Mary. I was led to this by her extreme loveliness of character, and by the circumstance of my great affection for her. I thought I loved her too well, and

41 Zeno, Inner Life, 48-49.

42 Trevor, Pillar, 72.

hardly ever dared to take my full swing of enjoyment in her dear society. It must have been in October 1826 that, as I looked at her, beautiful as she was, I seemed to say to myself, not so much “will you live?” as “how strange that you are still alive!”43

The last earthly image Newman had of Mary was of her reading Keble’s The Christian

Year, some of whose poems Mary had committed to memory. After her death, when he reclaimed the book, “he saw in it the marks of her black kid gloves.”44 In the weeks and months after her death, and even decades later, Newman found reminders of Mary at nearly every turn:

Even five months after her death he observed that not one half hour passed but Mary’s face was before his eyes. When he was sorting his letters during the long vacation, his eye was caught by Mary’s handwriting, and he had to lock the letters up and turn his thoughts another way.45

Her impression had penetrated deeply into his life at Oxford. Not long before her death, Mary had visited Oxford and he had guided her around the University. Given such memories, his return to Oriel and his academic labors meant no relief from her presence:

And now how can I summon strength to recount the particulars of the heaviest affliction with which the good hand of God has ever visited me . . . Here every thing reminds me of her. She was with us at Oxford, and I took a delight in showing here the place−and every building, ever tree, seems to speak of her. I cannot realize that I shall never see her again.46

At the time, Newman was unsure how long the world would seem infused with Mary’s presence—a feeling that explains his desire to document the impressions that remained of her.

He even recruited members of his family to assist him in retaining her memory, as if the memory

43 John Henry Newman, Autobiographical Writings, edited by Henry Tristram (New York, NY: Sheed & Ward, 1957), 213; hereafter cited: AW.

44 Trevor, Pillar, 72.

45 Zeno, Inner Life, 49.

46 AW, 213.

50 of her might soon leave them altogether. He wrote to Jemima on 9 March 1828 from Oriel

College:

Carefully take down, if you have not already, all you can recollect that dear Mary said on every subject, both during the time of her short illness and the days before. We shall else forget it. Would it not too be desirable to write down some memoranda generally concerning her—her general character and all the delightful things we now recollect concerning her? Alas, memory does not remain vivid. The more minute these circumstances, the better—To talk of her thus in the third person, and in all the common business and conversation of life to allude to her as now out of the way and insensible to what we are doing (as is indeed the case) is to me the most distressing circumstance perhaps attending our loss. It draws tears into my eyes to think that all at once we can only converse about her as about some inanimate object, wood or stone. But she shall flourish from the tomb. And in the mean time, it being but a little time, I would try to talk to her in imagination and in hope of the future, by setting down all I can think about her.47

In fact, Newman never quite recovered from Mary’s loss. On 5 January 1882, fifty-four years after her passing, Newman wrote to Maria Rosina Giberne (1802-1885):

This is the anniversary of my dear Mary’s death in 1828: an age ago; but she is as fresh in my memory and as dear to my heart, as if it were yesterday; and often I cannot mention her name without tears coming into my eyes.48

Three great changes took place in Newman’s life with the death of his sister Mary. The first was a connection between her passing and his efforts to distance himself from Liberalism.

Though Newman never abandoned his commitment to a rigorous academic life, with Mary’s passing, he recognized the dangers of losing sight of holiness and succumbing to Liberalism and its sterile presentation of the Christian life.

He employed to the full his powers of analysis and his wonderful insight into the future and discovered what would be the end if the principles of his incipient Liberalism were carried out to their logical ends. He enjoyed the quiet and the rest, necessary for hearing the inward Voice he had known so well. When at the same time death crossed his path and made him suffer as never before, the Voice

47 LD 2: 61-62.

48 LD 20: 48.

became louder and louder. He saw the vanity of intellectual excellence because death would be the absolute end of it. He realized again the paramount value of holiness, because holiness alone would last into eternal life. He knew that he, too, might be taken away suddenly and without warning. So he concluded with certainty that the only thing which lay before him was to please God. What gain would it be to please the world, to please the great, to please his intellectual friends, in comparison with that one thing: not to be disobedient to the heavenly vision.49

Such a conviction represents an important counterpoint to an early period in Newman’s life.

While at Ealing under the influence of Rev. Walter Mayers, Newman assumed a strong orientation to evangelicalism. The unrefined edges of this perspective were smoothed over by the more balanced education Newman later received at Trinity College. Liberalism, however, with its emphasis on evidentialism, relied less on faith and doctrine, and more on rational certainty. Mary’s passing helped Newman to appreciate the need to navigate between both evangelicalism and evidentialism. In some ways, this theological evolution within Newman was an initial via media that provided a framework for subsequent reflections in the following decade. In this respect, Mary’s death drew a line of demarcation within his inner constitution; he began to see the quiet threat laced within worldly success, the same success he was coming to know through his achievements at Oriel. As Meriol Trevor observed, “Mary’s going out of this world strengthened Newman’s sense of exile in it, which success had been undermining.”50

Eventually, Newman saw with his sister’s passing the extent to which she had progressed in virtue and holiness and he found within himself an emerging desire to be such an example for others.

49 Zeno, Inner Life, 50.

50 Trevor, Pillar, 76.

A second change in Newman was the emergence of a profound sensibility for the unseen.

Such an awareness was part of his life, seemingly from the beginning, but Mary’s death called forth this gift in an unprecedented way. With Mary’s passing, Newman began to trust in a communion with the unseen in the midst of a passing world in a way he had never experienced before. Concerning Mary’s death, Ferrer Blehl concludes, “The greatest spiritual effect, however, seems to have been an enlivened sense of an invisible world hidden behind the veil of this world, but more real than this world.”51 This comment was echoed by Meriol Trevor: “The loss of Mary revived all Newman’s sense of the overpowering reality of the unseen world.”52

A third change in Newman at Mary’s passing was a revelation of the overwhelming power of poetry. Her death issued to Newman a challenge to wield words with respect for such grave power, in poetry and in prose. It was a challenge Newman readily accepted, first of all for the sake of remembering his sister. Newman was haunted by the wages of time, yet he found in poetry a nearness to eternity, even a language grasping at eternity, that served as an ointment for his sorrow. He wrote to his sister Jemima on 10 May 1828 of the imperative to find words that would do justice to his interior state.

I wish it were possible for words to put down those indefinite vague and withal subtle feelings which quite pierce the soul and make it sick. Dear Mary seems embodied in every tree and hid behind every hill. What a veil and curtain this world of sense is! Beautiful but still a veil—I add some thoughts expressed in metre—would they came up to my feelings.53

51 Vincent Ferrer Blehl, Pilgrim Journey: John Henry Newman, 1801-1845 (New York, NY: Burns & Oates, 2001), 80; hereafter cited: Blehl, Pilgrim Journey.

52 Trevor, Pillar, 75.

53 LD 2: 69.

Newman’s sense of ineptitude in adequately expressing the profundity of a human life did not deter his efforts. In April 1828, he began the poem “Consolations in Bereavement”:

Death was full urgent with thee, Sister dear, And startling in his speed;− Brief pain, then languor till thy end came near− Such was the path decreed, The hurried road To lead thy soul from earth to thine own God’s abode.54

Newman ended this poem by expressing the modest sense of understanding he felt in the wake of Mary’s passing.

Death came and went;—that so thy image might Our yearning hearts possess, Associate with all pleasant thoughts and bright, With youth and loveliness; Sorrow can claim, Mary, nor lot nor part in thy soft soothing name. Joy of sad hearts, and light of downcast eyes! Dearest thou art enshrined In all thy fragrance in our memories; For we must ever find Bare thought of thee Freshen this weary life, while weary life shall be.55

From the grave, Mary again and again proved the reliable muse for Newman:

Some of his most touching poems were written about Mary. They prove that he considered the suddenness and circumstances of her death a merciful favor from Providence: her pain was short; nobody could help her; the suspense did not last long. Her image would always be associated with youth and loveliness. Everything seemed a sure sign to him that her heart was prepared for heaven.56

54 JHN, Verses on Various Occasions (Denville, NJ: Dimension Books, 1993), 26; hereafter cited: VVO.

55 Ibid., 28.

56 Richard Hutton, Cardinal Newman (London: Methuen and Co., 1891), 49; hereafter cited: Hutton, Cardinal Newman.

In spite of all the pain the premature passing of his sister introduced into Newman’s life, it unmistakably deepened his already acute perception of the earthly realities of loss and absence, of kinship and communion. He wrote in August 1828 the poem entitled, “A Picture,” reminiscing as if Mary were still at his side.

She is not gone;−still in our sight That dearest maid shall live, In form as true, in tints as bright, As youth and health could give.57

Later he professed his belief in the continuity of Mary’s abiding presence.

Such was she then; and such she is, Shrined in each mourner’s breast; Such shall she be, and more than this, In promised glory blest;58

It is a testament to Newman that his identity was so ennobled by Mary’s life and death.

As Trevor observed,

The death of Mary did for him what falling in love does for some people−opened his heart to a more sensitive sympathy with others. Sometimes, to lose a loved person, makes for a deeper understanding of love than can be realized in a relationship where there is no frustration. The pain can be fruitful.59

Newman’s ability to recognize the giftedness of Mary’s life reinforced the need, indeed the necessity, of appreciating how deeply her giftedness extended into his family and especially into

Newman himself. He wrote on 5 January 1830, the second anniversary of Mary’s passing, a poem entitled “Epiphany-Eve,” with a deep sense of the gratitude he felt for Mary’s life.

Birthday gifts, with the early year, Lo! we bring thee, Mary dear!

57 VVO, 29.

58 VVO, 32.

59 Trevor, Pillar, 76.

Prayer and praise upon thy death Twined together in a wreath, Grief and gladness, such as may Suit a solemn holiday.60

Though the bitterness of her passing never left altogether, an abiding sense of gratitude became in many ways the final impression Mary left on Newman’s life:

In one way Mary’s early death meant that Newman never lost her; and yet he lost someone who might have understood him when others turned away. But because she died when they were in perfect accord the loss made him realize to the full how much he loved her, and how lovable she was. This in itself was a check to over-intellectualism. He was forced to feel intensely just when he was putting most of his energy into thinking.61

Trevor’s insight into Newman and the sensibility for the ways in which “pain can be fruitful” revisited Newman during his voyage on the Mediterranean, when thoughts and reflections about

Mary led him to attend to the interior movements shaping his life, and ultimately to give them voice.

Edward Hawkins

Edward Hawkins (1789-1882), the eldest child of a Gloucestershire pastor, went up to St.

John’s College, Oxford, in 1803, the year following his father’s death. In 1811, he won a double first and two years later was elected Fellow of Oriel, where he remained for nearly three quarters of a century. Like Newman, Hawkins had given some thought to the legal profession. With concern for the welfare of his large family, he decided on a clerical career which promised a steadier income. Hawkins was ordained in 1818 and became an Oriel Tutor the following year.

In 1823, he was named the Vicar of St. Mary’s, the University Church of Oxford.

60 VVO, 52.

61 Trevor, Pillar, 76.

Edwards Hawkins was a deeply practical person. According to Marvin O’Connell,

“Hawkins, in short, was a man who liked order and decorum and who was willing to go to the trouble to secure them.”62 His sense of propriety was won in part by concern for his mother and twelve siblings upon the early death of his father. From an early age a paternal influence secured itself in Hawkins that made him a likely candidate for leadership, as well as an occasional recipient of the scorn of his colleagues.

After Edward Copleston (1776-1849), who had been Professor of Poetry from 1802 to

1812, and Provost of Oriel since 1814, was appointed Bishop of Llandaff in Wales, there was a two-man race to succeed him: Edward Hawkins and John Keble. Keble’s saintly reserve and unwillingness to consider anything approximating a campaign for office had the effect of tilting the scales in Hawkins’ favor. In a somewhat unexpected move, Newman cast his lot with

Hawkins, in spite of his friendship with Keble. Newman considered Hawkins “more practical and better able to bring about needed reforms in both the College and University.”63 Newman defended his preference inasmuch as “we are not electing an Angel, but a Provost.”64

Newman’s campaign for Hawkins was to have unintended consequences in the years that followed. As Trevor observed:

It was Newman’s influence that determined the younger Fellows, though Hurrell Froude, elected Fellow with Robert Wilberforce in 1826, was for Keble, whose pupil he had been. Thus Hawkins largely owed to Newman his election to the Provostship which he was to hold through half a century, dying in 1882 at the age of ninety-three. For Oxford it was to be one of the stormiest of all periods, not only because of the strife aroused by the [Oxford] Movement, but because of the changing nature of English society and education. In helping to put Hawkins

62 O’Connell, Oxford Conspirators, 80.

63 Blehl, Pilgrim Journey, 84.

64 LD 30: 107.

rather than Keble at the head of his college, Newman was unknowingly cutting his own throat, for the Provost was to prove one of the stiffest of his opponents.65

In retrospect, Newman may have regretted his decision to elect an administrator, rather than “an angel,” since in the following years, Newman found himself allied more strongly with Keble than he had ever expected.

On 31 January 1828, Edward Hawkins was elected Provost of Oriel. Because of his new position, Hawkins resigned as Vicar of St. Mary’s on 12 March. Two days later his post as Vicar was filled by John Henry Newman. Hawkins continued to have a formative influence on the new Vicar of St. Mary’s, as had earlier been the case when Newman was a curate at St.

Clement’s. Newman, though skilled as an orator, was in need of prudential balance; accordingly,

Hawkins counseled Newman about a homily he had preached at St. Clement’s:

The sermon divided the Christian world into two classes, the one all darkness, the other all light, whereas, said Mr. Hawkins, it is impossible for us in fact to draw such a line of demarcation across any body of men, large or small, because [difference in] religious and moral excellence is a matter of degree. Men are not either saints or sinners; but they are not so good as they should be, and better than they might be—more or less converted to God as it may happen. Preachers should follow the example of St. Paul; he did not divide his brethren into two, the converted and unconverted, but he addressed them all as “in Christ”, “sanctified in Him,” as having had “the Holy Ghost in their heart;” and this, while he was rebuking them for the irregularities and scandals which had occurred among them.66

Once settled in at his new post, however, Newman’s preaching at St. Mary’s became legendary.

According to Marvin O’Connell, “Nothing Newman did in his long life, no book or campaign or pronouncement, had quite the sustained effect as the sermons he preached in St. Mary’s on

65 Trevor, Pillar, 70-71.

66 AW, 77.

Sunday afternoons between 1828 and 1843.”67 While many of Newman’s gifts for preaching were natural endowments, one might say that Hawkins ultimately shaped Newman’s preaching for the better.

By the end of 1828, however, Newman’s appreciation for the Provost’s wisdom was in decline. Newman found that his expectations that he had of Hawkins during his candidacy for

Provost were premature, if not somewhat misguided. Hawkins was no longer the long-awaited visionary; Newman was no longer the unwavering disciple.

He [Newman] had expected great things from his [Hawkins] promotion to the Provostship, and had taken great interest in it, when it was in agitation. And then on the other hand from the first he had been deeply disappointed in the results of it. Nor was he the only one of the Fellows who thus felt. Such disappointment indeed in the hopes of the prospective doings of friends entertained by those who have been instrumental in placing them in posts of influence is of very common occurrence, and often involves much injustice, and even cruelty towards the objects of it; and Mr. Newman might have acted more generously towards a man to whom he owed much.68

Newman’s disappointment, merited or not, was sealed by the controversy surrounding the

Oriel Tutorial system. In the spring term of 1829, Newman, in conjunction with two of the other

Tutors, Richard Hurrell Froude and Robert Isaac Wilberforce (1802-1857), who had obtained a double first from Oriel in 1823, began to implement a revised program for carrying out their tutorial duties. Such a program rested upon regular, personal interaction between Tutor and student. Each Tutor was to be responsible for a limited number of students, exercising a direct influence that was not only academic, but also intent upon the overall well-being and moral development of each student. Such a program was precipitated by discontent with the formerly

67 O’Connell, Oxford Conspirators, 214.

68 AW, 101. In his Autobiographical Writings, which were intended for his future biographer, Newman often wrote of himself in the third person.

59 haphazard and inconsistent approaches to the Tutor-student relationship that often lapsed into ambivalent academic standards, if not outright indifference.

Newman’s much-needed reforms met with surprising resistance:

In all this he [Newman] received no sympathy from the new Provost, who, as far as he mastered Newman’s views, maintained that Newman was sacrificing the many to the few, and governing, not by intelligible rules and their impartial application, but by a system, if it was so to be called, of mere personal influence and favoritism.69

In the end, Hawkins’ predilection for the status quo subverted Newman’s efforts at every turn.

According to Ward, “Provost Hawkins, who was elected at the point at which Newman’s reforms began to bite in 1828, was anxious not to alienate the young gentry.”70 The previous approach to the Tutorial system favored the elite and well-to-do students, many of whom came to Oxford expecting to enjoy beneficial treatment courtesy of their family name. Newman’s approach was far more democratic and focused on merit and promise, rather than name and privilege.

Rather than publicly confront Newman and the other two tutors, Hawkins decided on a simple expedient: he did not assign the three tutors any more students; in effect, the incumbent tutors would be relieved of their duties by attrition. Newman explained the decision in a letter to his mother on 18 June 1830.

It is at length settled that the Provost gives us no more pupils—us three (Wilberforce, Froude, and me) and we die off gradually with our existing pupils. This to me personally is a delightful arrangement—it will materially lessen my labours, and at length reduce them within bearable limits without at once depriving me of resources which I could not but reckon upon, while they lasted. But for the College, I think it is a miserable determination.71

69 AW, 92.

70 Ward, Young Mr. Newman, 46.

71 LD 2: 244. The “resources” mentioned referred to the tutor’s salary, which Newman needed as the principal source of support for his family.

Under this arrangement, Newman’s responsibilities as an Oriel Tutor formally ended in the summer of 1832. While Newman continued to tutor his dwindling number of students, the

Provost’s decision effectively provided Newman and Froude with a fortuitous opportunity.

In the year after his relinquishing his College office, on his return from abroad, the Tract movement began. Humanly speaking, that movement never would have been, had he not been deprived of his Tutorship, or had Keble, not Hawkins, been Provost.72

The Arians of the Fourth Century

In 1828, Newman began to read the Fathers systematically in view of a possible publication about the early Church. His investigations into the early Church not only left an impression on his life in the late 1820s and early 1830s, but also influenced the remainder of his life. For Newman, the Fathers represented a great historical counterpoint through which he came to evaluate the circumstances of his own day. Patristic study also helped Newman to reconcile his considerable rational prowess with his more creative faculties. According to Trevor,

His love of music, poetry and drama kept him in the world of image and symbol, but the Fathers had the unique power of actually translating these into the world of reason, revivifying it, and relating it to action.73

The Fathers came to be for Newman a necessary chapter in his theological development, presenting him with a new world of thought with figures who would both nurture and challenge all aspects of his learning.

Newman soon realized that such grand designs for encompassing the early centuries of the Church would carry well beyond the limitations of a single work. An opportunity presented

72 AW, 96.

73 Trevor, Pillar, 19.

61 itself in 1831. Hugh James Rose (1795-1838), a graduate of Trinity College and founder of the

British Magazine, was planning to begin publication of a Theological Library, along with co- editor William Rowe Lyall (1788-1857), then Archdeacon of Colchester and later Dean of

Canterbury.

Newman accepted Rose’s proposal to write a history of the councils of the Church. He set to work on the first council, Nicea, and that was as far as he got. Indeed, he hardly got to Nicea, because his researches into the Arian controversy drove him back beyond Nicea to an investigation of the roots of the heresy and the movements of thoughts which had given rise to it. The result was his first book, The Arians of the Fourth Century.74

In the midst of his devastating critique of the Arians, Newman heaped great admiration upon a new hero, St. Athanasius, “who had defended the Nicene faith, in St Jerome’s phrase, contra mundum, against the world.”75 Identification with Athanasius as a portal to both the challenges and the opportunities of the early Church, and as the reliable linchpin of orthodoxy, invigorated

Newman’s work and challenged his own commitment to the Church.

Born at Alexandria in 296, Athanasius was educated by the same Alexander who would later become bishop of Alexandria. Shortly after Alexander’s ascension to the episcopacy in

313, Athanasius made his way into the desert to pursue the contemplative life. During this time, he came into contact with St. Anthony of the Desert. Upon his return to Alexandria, Athanasius was ordained deacon in 319 and soon began to direct his energies toward refuting the rampant

Arian heresy, a struggle that would define his remaining years. In 325, Athanasius attended the

Council of Nicaea, where he assisted Bishop Alexander. Upon Alexander’s death in 326,

74 O’Connell, Oxford Conspirators, 117.

75 Gilley, “Life and writings,” 4.

Athanasius became his successor. For seventeen of the forty-six years he served as bishop,

Athanasius was in exile from his own See.

Caught in the midst of hostilities throughout his episcopacy and often vastly outnumbered by his foes, Athanasius’s ability to unify was only truly appreciated after his passing. In

Newman’s words,

At length, when the great Confessor was removed, the Church sustained a loss, from which it never recovered. His resolute resistance of heresy had been but one portion of his services; a more excellent praise is due to him, for his charitable skill in binding together his brethren in unity. The Church of Alexandria was the natural mediator between the East and West; and Athanasius had well improved the advantages thus committed to him. His judicious interposition in the troubles at Antioch has lately been described; and the dissensions between his own Church and Constantinople, which ensued upon his death, may be taken to show how much the combination of the Catholics depended on his silent authority.76

In the years to follow, as Newman found himself situated at the epicenter of controversy, surrounded by a small band of sympathizers overwhelmed by civil and ecclesiastical antagonism, the example of Athanasius would steady Newman’s voice and pen. The genius of Athanasius in uniting the Church while at the same time confronting its foes spoke directly to the heart of

Newman.

Newman set out in the early pages of his Arians to delineate the developing Christologies of the Antiochene and Alexandrian Churches. He associated the Church of Antioch with the dual influences of Judaism in Syria coupled with heavy Platonic undercurrents. This distinct

Antiochene school maintained a “low” Christology that relegated Jesus to what Brian Daley has termed “at best an inspired prophet or a superhuman created mediator between a transcendent

76 JHN, Arians of the Fourth Century (Notre Dame, IN: Gracewing, 2001), 474; hereafter cited: Arians.

God and the world.”77 Though Alexandrian by birth, Newman associated Arius by education and outlook with the Antiochene school and its corresponding Christological emphasis. The

Church of Alexandria, by contrast, represented for Newman a “high” Christology which viewed

Jesus as truly the Son of God.

After drawing these lines between the two cities and their schools of thought, Newman introduced the great foil to St. Athanasius, Arius. Representative of the Antiochene approach though an Alexandrian by birth, Arius presented Jesus as a creature:

His teaching that the Son of God was himself created before all things, and because he is a creature can act as appointed mediator between a transcendent Creator and finite reality, stands in radical contrast to the conviction later formulated in the creed of Nicaea against Arius, and defended almost single- handedly by St Athanasius for some fifty years: that Jesus is literally God as Son, in full possession of the unique, immeasurable divine reality that also belongs to his Father and to the Spirit he sends on the Church. Christian orthodoxy, in Newman’s reconstruction of the early Church’s debates, had its first home in Alexandria, not in Antioch, and in Alexandria’s way of reading the Bible.78

For Newman, Arianism was corrupted from within by two movements that blinded its theological vision and led to its demise: skepticism and Sophism. Ironically, the same skepticism that launched the heresy of Arius also won early adherents to the movement.

This was the artifice to which Arianism owed its first successes. It owed them to the circumstance of its being (in its original form) a sceptical rather than a dogmatic teaching; to its proposing to inquire into and reform the received creed, rather than to hazard one of its own. The heresies which preceded it, originating in less subtle and dexterous talent, took up a false position, professed a theory, and sunk under the obligations which it involved.79

77 Brian E. Daley, “The Church Fathers” in Cambridge Companion, 31.

78 Ibid.

79 Arians, 26-27.

The distinction Newman drew between the dogmatic and the skeptical is a recurring insight, and one that spanned not just his work on the Arians, but also continued for decades. In

1842, in the years leading up to his conversion, Newman again reflected on the Arian opposition to orthodoxy in his Select Treatises of St. Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, in Controversy with the Arians:

The Arians perhaps more than other heretics were remarkable for bringing objections against the received view, rather than forming a consistent theory of their own. Indeed the very vigour and success of their assault upon the truth lay in its being a mere assault, not a positive and substantive teaching. They therefore, even more than others, might fairly be urged on to the consequences of their positions.80

Newman’s emphasis here on “forming a consistent theory” offers a striking insight into the foundations of his own theological vision. The inability of Arianism to articulate a coherent vision highlighted for Newman the distinction between orthodoxy and heterodoxy and deepened his own appreciation for a comprehensive teaching tradition at the heart of the Church. In his work on the Arians, Newman came to see tradition as an organic, living principle continually at work in the Church across the centuries. One can see Newman approaching Yves Congar’s description of tradition in The Meaning of Tradition: “Tradition is not merely memory; it is actual presence and experience. It is not purely conservative, but, in a certain way, creative.”81

A second invalidating characteristic of Arianism was its inherent grounding in Sophism and an accompanying malleability of principles in the name of rhetoric.

Far greater was the evil, when men destitute of religious seriousness and earnestness engaged in the like theological discussions, not with any definite

80 JHN, Select Treatises of St. Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, in Controversy with the Arians (London: J.G.F. and J. Rivington, 1842), 235; hereafter cited: Select Treatises of St. Athanasius.

81 Yves Congar, The Meaning of Tradition (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2004), 121.

ecclesiastical object, but as a mere trial of skill, or as a literary recreation; regardless of the mischief thus done to the simplicity of Christian morals, and the evil encouragement given to fallacious reasonings and sceptical views. The error of the ancient Sophists had consisted in their indulging without restraint or discrimination in the discussion of practical topics, whether religious or political, instead of selecting such as might exercise, without demoralizing, their minds. The rhetoricians of Christian times introduced the same error into their treatment of the highest and most sacred subjects of theology.82

This Arian tendency to capitalize on rhetorical skill at the expense of theological soundness was a cause of profound reflection for Newman, who eventually concluded that rhetorical skill, though important, should always be employed at the service of orthodox doctrine.

Just as Newman drew sharp distinctions between the roles played by Arius and

Athanasius and the corresponding legacies of their positions, he also distinguished between the

Arian errors and the foundations of Catholic teaching. If the waywardness of Arianism stemmed from its skeptical nature and Sophistic tendencies, the uprightness of the Fathers stemmed from their grounding in Revealed Religion:

We know well enough for practical purposes what is meant by Revealed Religion; viz. that it is the doctrine taught in the Mosaic and Christian dispensations, and contained in the Holy Scriptures, and is from God in a sense in which no other doctrine can be said to be from Him. Yet if we would speak correctly, we must confess, on the authority of the Bible itself, that all knowledge of religion is from Him, and not only that which the Bible has transmitted to us. There never was a time when God had not spoken to man, and told him to a certain extent his duty. His injunctions to Noah, the common father of all mankind, is the first recorded fact of the sacred history after the deluge. Accordingly, we are expressly told in the New Testament, that at no time He left Himself without witness in the world, and that in every nation He accepts those who fear and obey Him. It would seem, then, that there is something true and divinely revealed, in every religion all over the earth, overloaded, as it may be, and at times even stifled by the impieties which the corrupt will and understanding of man have incorporated with it. Such are the doctrines of the power and presence of an invisible God, of His moral law and governance, of the obligation of duty, and the certainty of a just judgment, and of reward and punishment, as eventually dispensed to individuals; so that Revelation, properly speaking, is an universal, not a local gift; and the distinction between the state of Israelites formerly and Christians now, and that of the

82 Arians, 32-33.

heathen, is, not that we can, and they cannot attain to future blessedness, but that the Church of God ever has had, and the rest of mankind never have had, authoritative documents of truth, and appointed channels of communication with Him. The word and the Sacraments are the characteristic of the elect people of God; but all men have had more or less the guidance of Tradition, in addition to those internal notions of right and wrong which the Spirit has put into the heart of each individual.83

Here Newman challenged directly the sectarian and esoteric positions of heresy in order to defend those truths of religion which are universal and authoritative. Newman’s view of

Revealed Religion was dependent upon witnesses who were the “appointed channels of communication with Him [God]”. For Newman, Revealed Religion and the Church Fathers, as well as their successors, were always to be understood in tandem, as allies with one another.84

In contrast to the impulse of heresy, particularly Arianism, which was to detract and subdivide, Newman found in the Fathers a desire to harmonize thought in a holistic manner.

The Fathers of the Church have come down to us loaded with the imputation of the strangest errors, merely because they united truths, which heresies only shared among themselves; nor have writers been wanting in modern times, from malevolence or carelessness, to aggravate these charges. The mystery of their creed has been converted into an evidence of concurrent heresies.85

Here Newman concluded that the obstacles to orthodoxy in the fourth century were not restricted to the early Church. A similar phenomenon was playing itself out, as Newman saw it, in his own day. The threat of heresy still lurked in the shadows. In some ways the subtlety of the threat made it even more pernicious. As Newman wrote in 1842,

The peculiar advantages of the Fathers in resisting heretical errors, is that they had to combat the errors in their original form, before men’s minds were familiarized

83 Ibid., 79-80.

84 Newman again considered the nature of “Revealed Religion” in his An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (1870).

85 Arians, 223-224.

with them, and so risked partaking of them; and also in that they lived nearer to the Apostles.86

This emphasis upon a nearness “to the Apostles” was an enormous impulse in Newman’s life and writings. This nearness “to the Apostles” represents the gift Newman received from his study of the early Church, yet it also introduced difficult questions concerning the Church of his upbringing and its own nearness to the Apostles.

In his Arians as well as in other writings, including his Mediterranean letters and verses,

Newman expressed his concern about the anti-religious hostilities of the French Revolution. For

Newman, France served as a precautionary tale—one that his own countrymen would do well to heed:

At the present day, men are to be found of high religious profession, who, to the surprise and grief of sober minds, exult in the overthrow just now of religion in France, as if an unbeliever were in a more hopeful state than a bigot, for advancement in real spiritual knowledge. But in truth, the mind never can resemble a blank paper, in its freedom from impressions and prejudices. Infidelity is a positive, not a negative state; it is a state of profaneness, pride, and selfishness; and he who believes a little, but encompasses that little with the inventions of men, is undeniably in a better condition than he who blots out from his mind both the human inventions, and that portion of truth which was concealed in them.87

Like France, England was not immune from the implications of such upheaval. Near the end of his Arians, Newman drew further parallels between Arianism in the fourth century and the state of religion in early nineteenth century England.

And so of the present perils, with which our branch of the Church is beset, as they bear a marked resemblance to those of the fourth century, so are the lessons, which we gain from that ancient time, especially cheering and edifying to Christians of the present day. Then as now, there was the prospect, and partly the presence in the Church, of an Heretical Power enthralling it, exerting a varied

86 Select Treatises of St. Athanasius, 2.

87 Arians, 84-85.

influence and a usurped claim in the appointment of her functionaries, and interfering with the management of her internal affairs . . . Meanwhile, we may take comfort in reflecting, that, though the present tyranny has more of insult, it has hitherto had less of scandal, than attended the ascendancy of Arianism; we may rejoice in the piety, prudence, and varied graces of our Spiritual Rulers; and may rest in the confidence, that, should the hand of Satan press us sore, our Athanasius and Basil will be given us in their destined season, to break the bonds of the Oppressor, and let the captives go free.88

Newman’s conclusion, that the adversaries of orthodoxy in the fourth century were resurfacing in the life of the Church, was balanced by his hope that past beacons of light and champions of

Revealed Religion might again reappear. Though these latter witnesses to Tradition might differ in appearance from their forebearers, they would be inspired by the same heart and mind.

Newman’s prayer for a new Athanasius and a new Basil to unify and guide the Church seems to be a prayer that was ultimately heard and answered, though not in the manner he had originally expected.

The Arians of the Fourth Century proved to be a landmark work in Newman’s life as a portal to his later works and reflections on the theological narrative of the early Church. In a more immediate sense, it set the appropriate stage for his Mediterranean voyage: “What Newman learned notionally about the Church during his study of the Arians of the fourth century became real for him during his Mediterranean voyage, as he traced the footsteps of the Apostles and

Fathers of the Church.”89

88 Ibid., 393-394.

89 Joseph Elamparayil, John Henry Newman’s Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church: A Contextual History and Ecclesiological Analysis (Doctoral Dissertation: The Catholic University of America, 2012), 64.

“Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle’s Poetics”

Newman’s first publication about poetry— “Poetry, with reference to Aristotle’s

Poetics”—was completed in October 1828 and published the following January in the London

Review, a short-lived publication edited by Joseph Blanco White.90 Blanco White approached

Newman in hopes of a secular contribution to the fledgling publication. Geoffrey Tillotson described the situation:

Newman took about two months to write his 11,000 words: Blanco Whites’s letter asking for the essay bears the date September 11, 1828, and his letter rejoicing over its receipt the date November 8 . . . . His essay is one unusually packed with matter, and packed with matter which is drawn from a wide and seemingly fresh reading in Greek drama and English poems and novels. And in 1828 Newman was unused to writing for print: the only things he had published so far (apart from the undergraduate poem St. Bartholomew’s Eve, of which he was part author only) . . . were three articles in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana.91

One of the immediate conclusions drawn by readers of Newman’s essay was that its methodology was far more Platonic than Aristotelian. According to Harold Weatherby, “Blanco

White accused Newman of Platonizing, and the charge is just: for Newman, in effect, converts

Aristotle’s objective and realist conception of the poet’s function into an inventive (or creative) and idealist conception.”92 Such a Platonic influence in Newman’s treatment of Aristotle’s

Poetics left the reader with an insufficient appreciation for the original themes in Aristotle’s text.

Henry Tristam observed:

90 Joseph Blanco White (José María Blanco y Crespo, 1775-1841), was the son of an Irish father and Spanish mother. He was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1799. After leaving Spain in 1810, he was ordained an Anglican priest in 1814. He later became a Unitarian

91 Geoffrey Tillotson, “Newman’s Essay on Poetry,” in John Henry Newman: Centenary Essays, edited by Henry Tristam (Westminster, MD: Newman Book Shop, 1945), 179; hereafter cited: Tillotson, “Newman’s Essay.”

92 Harold Weatherby, The Keen Delight: The Christian Poet in the Modern World (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1975), 264; hereafter cited: Weatherby, Keen Delight.

There is a remarkable boldness in treating Aristotle’s Poetics without regard to one of its central concepts, that of Katharsis; with a very definitely “platonic” conception of poetry and of the poet; and with a flat refusal to accept the high valuation which Aristotle gives to the element of plot in drama.93

Newman’s imbalanced treatment of Aristotle’s Poetics suggests his relative lack of scholarship with regard to finer aspects of Aristotle’s work as well as the youthful vigor with which he launched himself headlong into the project on short notice. Yet Newman’s essay gives helpful insights into its subject matter as well as general observations about poetry, along with a good deal of perspective on Newman himself:

He pronounces his own judgments, and asserts his own preferences, without any special regard for what had been literary orthodoxy. Thus his essay has the strength of its weakness. It is individualistic, wayward, penetrating, narrow, original. It tells us far more about Newman than about Aristotle.94

Accordingly, much more can be gained for present purposes in considering Newman’s central insights into the meaning of poetry, especially those statements and themes that colored his conception of writing in general.

Although his essay was written as a contribution to London Review, Newman’s major contribution was not presenting poetry as an endeavor detached from Christianity, but with profound implications for how one lives the Christian life. He began his essay by attempting to describe what a poet sets out to do in composing poetry. With an emphasis on an organic development that would be characteristic of a number of his later works, he attended to the catholicity of poetry in bringing many diverse elements into consonance:

Moreover, by confining the attention to one series of events and scene of action it bounds and finishes off the confused luxuriance of real nature; while, by a skillful

93 Henry Tristam (editor), John Henry Newman: Centenary Essays (Westminster, MD: Newman Book Shop, 1945), xi; hereafter cited: Tristam, Centenary Essays.

94 Ibid., xii-xiii.

adjustment of circumstances, it brings into sight the connexion of cause and effect, completes the dependence of the parts one on another, and harmonizes the proportions of the whole.95

Perhaps it should not be a surprise that Newman’s reflections on poetry should bear some academic marks of a person accustomed to theological study. The same genius for unity in teaching and doctrine that he came to value in the Church Fathers as efforts to harmonize “the proportions of the whole” was very much a hallmark of Newman’s understanding of the work of the theologian as well as the poet.

In his Arians, Newman connected the Fathers with Revealed Religion as witnesses to a divine initiative in salvation history. In his essay on Poetry, Newman broached the topic of

Revealed Religion—to suggest that poetry is an inherent aspect of its design:

Revealed Religion should be especially poetical—and it is so in fact. While its disclosures have an originality in them to engage the intellect, they have a beauty to satisfy the moral nature. It presents us with those ideal forms of excellence in which a poetical mind delights, and with which all grace and harmony are associated. It brings us into a new world—a world of overpowering interest, of the sublimest views, and the tenderest and purest feelings. The peculiar grace of mind of the New Testament writers is as striking as the actual effect produced upon the hearts of those who have imbibed their spirit. At present we are not concerned with the practical, but the poetical nature of revealed truth. With Christians, a poetical view of things is a duty,—we are bid to colour all things with hues of faith, to see a Divine meaning in every event, and a superhuman tendency.96

For Newman, both poetry and Revealed Religion are associated for the purpose of bringing “us into a new world”; accordingly, poetry cannot be without a metaphysical property, always opening up from within this world a sensibility for another world.

95 JHN, Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle’s Poetics, 9-10; hereafter cited: Poetics, available at: http://www.newmanreader.org/works/essays/volume1/poetry.html.

96 Ibid., 76.

Nonetheless, this metaphysical aspect of poetry eludes easy definition: “Poetry, according to Aristotle, is a representation of the ideal.”97 Yet the extent to which this ideal rests within the poet or the poem is far less clear: “There is an ambiguity in the word ‘poetry,’ which is taken to signify both the gift itself, and the written composition which is the result of it.”98 This blending of writer and work is a key insight; for Newman, there is no clear separation between the artist and his words. There can be in poetry then a union between the artist and words that goes even deeper than autobiography. Poetry is capable of bearing the weight of self in a way that escapes the power of ordinary speech and ordinary words. Poetry is more than a linguistic exercise undertaken by the writer: “It is the fault of the day to mistake mere eloquence for poetry; whereas, in direct opposition to the conciseness and simplicity of the poet, the talent of the orator consists in making much of a single idea.”99

While giving due attention to the more academic aspects of poetry, Newman was also deeply interested in the moral implications of the art itself.

When originality is found apart from good sense, which more or less is frequently the case, it shows itself in paradox and rashness of sentiment, and eccentricity of outward conduct. Poetry, on the other hand, cannot be separated from its good sense, or taste, as it is called; which is one of its elements. It is originality energizing in the world of beauty; the originality of grace, purity, refinement, and good feeling. We do not hesitate to say, that poetry is ultimately found on correct moral perception; that where there is not sound principle in exercise there will be no poetry; and that on the whole (originality being granted) in proportion to the standard of a writer’s moral character will his compositions vary in poetical excellence.100

97 Ibid., 64.

98 Ibid., 65.

99 Ibid., 71.

100 Ibid., 21.

Thus, Newman linked poetry with the highest form of aesthetics, while taking the opportunity to introduce the implications of poetry as likewise touching upon particular moral virtues. It is not that poetry simply orients one to virtue, but the very virtues themselves, in their own way, bear the impression of poetry.

It may be added, that the virtues peculiarly Christian are especially poetical— meekness, gentleness, compassion, contentment, modesty, not to mention the devotional virtues; whereas the ruder and more ordinary feelings are the instruments of rhetoric more justly than of poetry—anger, indignation, emulation, martial spirit, and love of independence.101

Thus, Newman situated the entire Christian moral life within an inclination toward a system of poetic virtues. He also contended that those who wield poetic words should have, at their core, a keen moral foundation.

Of course, then, we do not mean to imply that a poet must necessarily display virtuous and religious feeling; we are not speaking of the actual material of poetry, but of its sources. A right moral state of heart is the formal and scientific condition of a poetical mind. . . . On the other hand, a right moral feeling places the mind in the very centre of that circle from which all the rays have their origin and range; whereas minds otherwise placed command but a portion of the whole circuit of poetry. Allowing for human infirmity and the varieties of opinion, Milton, Spenser, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Southey, may be considered, as far as their writings go, to approximate to this moral centre. The following are added as further illustrations of our meaning. Walter Scott's centre is chivalrous honour; Shakspeare exhibits the characteristics of an unlearned and undisciplined piety; Homer the religion of nature and conscience, at times debased by polytheism. All these poets are religious.102

Though Newman repeatedly drew conclusions regarding the implications of poetry in the lives of great poets, his depiction of poetry is such that it need not, indeed should not, belong exclusively to academics. The relevance of poetry is that it speaks to the inner life of every person. According to Tillotson,

101 Ibid., 23.

102 Ibid., 74-75.

Newman’s view that poetry exists independently of composition carries psychological and religious implications which he develops. If he will not limit poetry to the written poem, it is in the interests of the inner life; and where Newman was concerned, the inner life meant the inner religious life. And the inner religious life, the inner Christian life.103

This sort of inner life is available to all Christians and challenges every Christian to be upright before God. According to Tillotson, Newman took this wisdom one step further: “The world has long been familiar with the proposition that the good poet should be a good man, but

Newman inverts it and insists that the good man should be a poet: he can become a poet by an act of the same will which made him a good man.”104

Newman took care in his work to treat the form by which poetry is composed. The consistency of form with which he wrote from an early age until late in life reflected his deep regard for an established poetic framework.

A metrical garb has, in all languages been appropriated to poetry—it is but the outward development of the music and harmony within. The verse, far from being a restraint on the true poet, is the suitable index of his sense, and is adopted by his free and deliberate choice.105

The necessity of shaping and forming the poetic word according to a pattern of the mind represents an alliance between the rational faculties and the imaginative ones. Newman’s remarkable ability to harness both of these faculties in his prose and poetry gave him a unique vantage point.

Hence it is a common praise bestowed upon writers, that they express what we have often felt, but could never describe. The power of arrangement, which is necessary for an extended poem, is a modification of the same talent, being to poetry what method is to logic. Besides these qualifications, poetical composition

103 Tillotson, “Newman’s Essay,” 189.

104 Ibid.

105 Ibid.

requires that command of language which is the mere effect of practice. The poet is a compositor; words are his types; he must have them within reach, and in unlimited abundance. Hence the need of careful labour to the accomplished poet,—not in order that his diction may attract, but that the language may be subjected to him. He studies the art of composition as we might learn dancing or elocution.106

In sum, “Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle’s Poetics” offers fascinating insights into

Newman’s reflection on the meaning and virtues of poetry. That the essay was written very early in Newman’s literary career as a writer and as a poet, suggests that further evolution was in store. Newman’s Mediterranean voyage represents the movement from a more theoretical knowledge to an experiential understanding, inasmuch as his journey came to represent an immersion in the joys and frustrations of writing poetry.

106 Poetics, 78.

Chapter 3: Voyage Beginnings

O MOST powerful and glorious Lord God, at whose command the winds blow, and lift up the waves of the sea, and who stillest the rage thereof; We thy creatures, but miserable sinners, do in this our great distress cry unto thee for help: Save, Lord, or else we perish. We confess, when we have been safe, and seen all things quiet about us, we have forgot thee our God, and refused to hearken to the still voice of thy word, and to obey thy commandments: But now we see, how terrible thou art in all thy works of wonder; the great God to be feared above all: And therefore we adore thy Divine Majesty, acknowledging thy power, and imploring thy goodness. Help, Lord, and save us for thy mercy’s asked in Jesus Christ thy Son, our Lord. Amen.1

The reprinting of The Book of Common Prayer in 1662 included a number of prayers to be recited at sea, “an indication of England’s ever-increasing sense of itself as a maritime power around the world.”2 Though Newman never referred to the above prayer in his letters or in his poetry, he was thoroughly familiar with The Book of Common Prayer. The allusion to a tendency to grow forgetful of God in times of fair weather, only to be reminded of the immediacy of God in the heart of a tempest at sea, seems a fitting caption for the perils that awaited Newman in his travels on the open waters. Though in retrospect the journey and

Newman himself seemed destined for one another, the voyage might have never happened.

On the surface, the original impetus for the journey was the poor health of Richard

Hurrell Froude. On 22 February 1832, his father, Archdeacon Froude, broached the notion of travel abroad to alleviate the strain of the harsh English winter.

If his doctor advises it, I have offered to be his companion to the Mediterranean, or any other part of the world that may be supposed to be most favorable to such a

1 Thomas Cranmer, “Prayers to be used in Storms at Sea,” in The Book of Common Prayer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 618.

2 Alan Jacobs, The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), 87.

76 77

case as his. I own my faith in the advantage[s] to be gained by going abroad is not very strong, unless they can be procured under most favorable circumstances.3

Over the next several months, the suggested travel remained only a possibility. In the fervor with which Newman pursued his book on the Arians in the spring of 1832, he seemed to give the proposed trip little thought.

On 31 July 1832, Newman finished his work on the Arians—a task that left him utterly exhausted. Finding himself without pupils to tutor, yet not ready to commence another work on the Church Fathers, Newman was coming to a clearing of sorts in his otherwise unrelenting academic life. Froude’s talent for discerning his famed friend led to a well-timed proposal; on 9

September 1832, he wrote to Newman,

You will be glad to hear that I have made up my mind to spend the winter in the Mediterranean; my Father is going with me the end of November—and we shall see Scicily [sic] and the South of Italy—we are both very anxious that you should come with us—I think it would set you up—and you might easily make arrangements.4

An unexpected scare made leaving England seem particularly attractive for Newman as well as Froude. On 24 June 1832, the first case of cholera was confirmed in Oxford; not until late November of that year was the end of the epidemic confirmed.5 Though no confirmed cases occurred in St. Mary’s parish, Newman was well aware of the fragility of his own constitution, especially given his proclivity to overwork. Froude was even more vulnerable. When Newman responded to Froude’s letter on 13 September 1832, he was clearly perplexed by the prospect:

As to your proposition for me to accompany you, it is very tempting—It quite unsettled me and I have had a disturbed night with the thought of it—indeed it

3 LD 3: 22.

4 LD 3: 92.

5 See LD 3: 75, for Newman’s Memorandum about the Cholera.

makes me quite sad to think what an evidence it has given me of the little real stability of mind I have as yet attained.6

Newman’s attempts to weigh the prospects of such a journey compounded his indecision.

Probably I never shall have such an opportunity again—I mean, that of going with a man I know so well as yourself; and going with a person older than myself, as your Father, is to me a great temptation. I am indolently distrustful of my own judgment in little matters, and like to be under orders.7

In spite of the circumspect nature of his letter, Newman clearly found the prospect tantalizing:

And if I ever am to travel, is not this the time that I am most at liberty for it? My engagements being slighter now than they have ever been these many years, and than they are likely to be hereafter—and I feel the need of it;—I am suspicious of becoming narrow-minded, and at least I wish to experience the feeling and the trial of expansiveness of views, if it were but to be able to say I had, and to know how to meet it in the case of others. And then I think I may fairly say my health requires it—not that I ever expect to be regularly well, as long as I live—it is a thing I do not think of—but still I may be set up enough for years of work for which at present I may be unequal.8

Newman followed these reflections with a flurry of questions regarding “when” and “how” such a voyage might be undertaken. Still, by letter’s end, one has the sense that the all-important

“why” regarding the voyage had grown quite clear for Newman. With time, the other details would take care of themselves.

Wasting no time in assuaging Newman’s uncertainties, Froude responded on 27

September 1832:

If we go, it will not be till the end of November; also, we shall return by April. So far from your intruding on my Father, your company will be a very great additional pleasure to him; indeed, the proposal was originated by himself.9

6 LD 3: 93.

7 Ibid. Years later, Newman commented in a brief footnote on the last line of this quotation: “my leaving them in the event at Rome and going through Sicily by myself, is a curious comment on this.”

8 LD 3: 93.

9 LD 3: 96. Richard Hurrell Froude to Newman. 79

Nonetheless Newman vacillated. On 3 October he notified Provost Hawkins of Froude’s plans, meekly identifying himself as an accomplice: “Probably I shall have to ask leave of absence from you to enable me to accompany him.”10 The following day, 4 October, Newman seemed even less sure of himself in a letter to Froude.

As to myself, I had rather postpone going, without liking to give up the prospect you have opened—so do not let me come in any way into your deliberations—as I suppose you will not. I shall probably decide on going, if you go—but have many hindrances . . . I grudge the time, the expence [sic], the trouble, the being put out of one’s way etc—But it may be a duty to consult for one’s health, to enlarge one’s ideas, to break one’s studies, and to have the name of a travelled man . . .11

On 15 October, Newman made up his mind: “It was settled, D[eo].V[olente]., that F.

[Froude] and I go to the Mediterranean.”12 On 17 October, Newman sent his former pupil,

Frederic Rogers13 (1811-1889), instructions regarding his rooms at Oriel.

Froude and I propose going abroad this winter—to return, I suppose, by Easter. So I am eager from selfish motives to secure for my rooms in the interim so respectable a tenant as yourself, lest some profane undergraduate be put in. I cannot conceive the Provost objecting to this arrangement; and therefore hope for your answer to say that you are ready to inhabit them during Lent Term;—and Easter and Act, supposing I do not return before. We intend to go, by the beginning of December, straight to Malta—whence we shall proceed either to Sicily, Italy, or any where else we please.14

By mid-October of 1832, Newman decided to go on the voyage. This decision set the stage for the November unfolding of the great project that would be undertaken during the voyage itself.

10 LD 3: 98.

11 LD 3: 99.

12 LD 3: 101.

13 Rogers took a double first and was elected Fellow of Oriel in 1833.

14 LD 3: 102. “Act” seemingly refers to the annual ceremony (Encaenia) at which honorary degrees were awarded. 80

November

The publication of Newman’s work on the Arians was made possible courtesy of an offer by Hugh James Rose, editor of the British Magazine. Rose, along with William Rowe Lyall, was the co-editor of the Theological Library, which published Newman’s The Arians of the Fourth

Century, though both co-editors were of mixed opinions regarding the work.15 Of the two, Rose was more favorable in his assessment of Newman’s book. Aware of this favorable impression,

Newman wrote confidently to Rose on 26 November suggesting a further project—by himself and Froude—for publication in Rose’s British Magazine:

We propose, if you will let us, on our return to systematize a poetry department for you—which I am sanguine will be above the ordinary run of such exhibitions, and may be useful. We shall ask for 2 pages in each Number and shall insert in that space 4 brief compositions, each bringing out forcibly one idea. You will smile at our planning such details, before you have heard a word about it—but if it interferes with [any] plan of yours of course we shall take a negative from you very lightly. Our object is, to bring out certain truths and facts, moral, ecclesiastical, and religious, simply and forcibly, with greater freedom, and clearness than in the Christian Year. I will not go onto say, with greater poetry. If it answered on trial, we should be content to carry it on ad infinitum—It might be called Lyra Apostolica.16

Newman’s mention of The Christian Year indicated his willingness to continue the spiritual renewal ushered in by Keble’s work; however, Newman seems to have envisaged a more pointed critique of the ecclesiastical situation than Keble had leveled. The proposal of poetic commentaries on the state of affairs in the Church of England strongly contrasted with

Newman’s Arians, a dense voluminous treatise on the early Church. Rose saw that the average reader would find Lyra Apostolica far more palatable and accessible than Newman’s exhaustive commentary on the Arians and was happy to accept his proposal.

15 Cf. Ian Ker, John Henry Newman: A Biography (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998), 54; hereafter cited: Ker, Biography.

16 LD 3: 119-120.

Newman then set to work before his departure to solicit additional writers for the Lyra

Apostolica. He wrote Frederic Rogers on 1 December:

As to my notion about verses, do not be surprised—I had a reason. If you do not already write them, I can only say the sooner you do the better, for while your eyes are bad, it would be an amusement. But the truth is that we have in contemplation to set up a verse department in Rose’s Magazine for all right purposes; and I am (not beating up, but) looking for recruits. Do not mention this, but we have hopes of making an effective quasi-political engine, without every contribution being of that character. Do not stirring times bring out poets? Do they not give opportunity for the rhetoric of poetry, and the persuasion? And may we not at least produce shadows of high things if not the high things themselves?17

Ultimately, Newman would be not only the originator of Lyra Apostolica, but its most frequent contributor. Publishing poems under the Greek letter δ (delta), Newman wrote 109 of the 179 poems that were published.18 The success of the venture was buoyed by the generous spirit of

John Keble, who was second only to Newman in the number of submissions to Lyra Apostolica with forty-six.

By the time the last poems of Lyra Apostolica ran in September of 1836, Newman and

Rose were sad to see it go. Newman wrote to Rose on 3 January 1837:

I was very sorry it had to stop, but the reason was simply this—The only ones I could rely on as forthcoming, were my own—and they were all written when I was abroad with the exception of two and a half. It went on then till the supply was exhausted. I should have run out sooner unless I had stimulated Keble to send some contributions.19

17 LD 3: 121.

18 In addition to Newman, the other contributors to the Lyra Apostolica were J. W. Bowden (α, alpha), R. H. Froude (β, beta), J. Keble (γ, gamma), R. I. Wilberforce (ε, epsilon), and Isaac Williams (ζ, zeta). See Vincent Ferrer Blehl, John Henry Newman: A Bibliographical Catalogue of His Writings (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1977), 108; hereafter cited: Blehl, Bibliographical Catalogue.

19 LD 6: 4.

Though driven largely by his own efforts, Newman regarded the initiative as belonging to the contributors as a whole. According to Vincent Blehl:

Upon becoming a Catholic in 1845, Newman surrendered the entire copyright of the Lyra apostolica, including his own poems, to John Keble. He considered the copyright of the Tracts for the Times written by Pusey, Keble and Isaac Williams to be their own and claimed only the remainder of the existing edition which he had printed at his own expense.20

That the Lyra Apostolica continued for nearly four years and was remembered so fondly is remarkable given the fact that the project was barely conceived before Newman’s voyage on the Mediterranean and might not have happened, had Newman begged off Froude’s invitation.

Yet, late in life, in his 1879 postscript to the re-publication of Lyra Apostolica, Newman remembered the purpose of the poems with characteristic clarity.

All . . . had one object, that of enforcing what the authors considered to be Apostolical or Primitive Christianity, at a time when its principles, doctrines, discipline, usages, and spirit seemed, in the length and breath of the Anglican Communion, to be wellnigh forgotten.21

In some ways, this driving motivation overshadowed the technical mastery of the works themselves. For Newman,

Neither the Lyra nor the Tracts were written with the profession of being finished compositions, but with the simple purpose of startling, of rousing, of suggesting thought, and of offering battle, in the cause of the Ancient Church.22

On one hand, it is perhaps surprising that Newman, temporarily retreating from academic life, would be eager to take on the challenge of writing a series of poems during his vacation- voyage. To this point in his life, he had written poetry almost exclusively for casual purposes

20 Blehl, Bibliographical Catalogue, xvii.

21 John Henry Newman, Lyra Apostolica (London: Rivingston, 1879), vi; hereafter cited: Lyra Apostolica.

22 Ibid., vii.

83 such as the amusement of friends and family. Throughout the course of his life, Newman never identified himself as a poet; if anything, he seemed to eschew the association. Although he wrote poetry from a very early age, he was always reticent about drawing attention to his poetic ability. In his dedication to Edward Badeley of Verses on Various Occasions—where he not once alluded to being a poet—he downplayed his poetry:

And I must frankly confess, as to the latter difficulty, that certainly it never would have occurred to me thus formally to bring together under one title effusions which I have ever considered ephemeral, had I not lately found from publications of the day, what I never suspected before, that there are critics, and they strangers to me, who think well both of some of my compositions and of my power of composing.23

Newman’s characterization of his poetic works as “ephemeral” was reflected in a comment that he made to his sister Jemima that “he could not write poetry ‘except in a season of idleness—

When I have been doing nothing awhile, poems spring up as weeds in fallow fields.’”24 Clearly poetry stands out in Newman’s life as an essential element of his identity, though it was rarely a priority. Lyra Apostolica was certainly unique in this regard.

It seems likely that the genesis of Lyra Apostolica was connected with the imminent sense of the unknown Newman began to feel pressing more and more deeply upon him as

November passed. Having never left his native England, he was about to enter unchartered territory. Thus he needed a project to engage him, to organize his thoughts; he needed a creative outlet to collect his creative energies and to direct what promised to be both a physical and spiritual undertaking. Lyra Apostolica represented an effort to come to terms with the uncertainty that awaited him. Meriol Trevor characterized the dynamic of these poems:

23 JHN, Verses on Various Occasions, v-vi; hereafter cited: VVO; available at: http://www.newmanreader.org/works/verses/index.html.

24 Ker, Biography, 138.

Ostensibly they were written for Rose’s British Magazine, and in fact many did appear in it, and were published in the Lyra Apostolica under the Greek sign δ. But the inspiration for them was this voyage into the unknown, image of the last voyage of death, for they began to come in Oxford, in November, when the journey was first suggested.25

It is unclear whether or not Newman viewed the poems he wrote in November of 1832 as practice for those that would follow in the months ahead, or whether the creative process of formulating the critique of his current affairs began before he left England. In any case, poems began to appear more regularly in November than at any time since Mary’s death.

Newman’s first poem was dedicated to the place he had not yet left, his native England.

On 16 November 1832, he wrote the poem “Home”, a fond tribute that began:

WHERE’ER I roam in this fair English land, The vision of a Temple meets my eyes: Modest without; within, all-glorious rise Its love-encluster’d columns, and expand Their slender arms.26

In “Home,” Newman portrayed England and her citizens through familial expressions and surprising warmth. According to Rodney Stenning Edgecombe,

Even though an almost violent urgency characterizes many of his verses, Newman’s first contribution to Lyra Apostolica is surprisingly tender. Entitled “Home,” it purports to present the Anglican Church not in its contemporary state but rather in its Catholic potentiality.27

In “Home,” Newman also reached out to his own family, to his widowed mother and her children as a personification of his native land:

Like olive plants they stand

25 Trevor, Pillar, 112; in fact, plans for the voyage went back to the previous February.

26 VVO, 62.

27 Rodney Stenning Edgecombe, Two Poets of the Oxford Movement: John Keble and John Henry Newman (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1996), 170; hereafter cited: Edgecombe, Two Poets.

Each answ’ring each, in home’s soft sympathies, Sisters and brothers. At the altar sighs Parental fondness, and with anxious hand Tenders its offering of young vows and prayers.28

Newman ended this poem with a hint of anticipation for his impending departure:

what foreign culture bears Such fruit? And I through distant climes may run My weary round, yet miss thy likeness still.29

The poem “Home” established one of the five great dialectical pairs that reappear occasionally throughout the Mediterranean writings, surfacing a point and counterpoint that would remain in tension throughout. The counterpoint of home for Newman was homelessness, manifested sometimes in the figure of the pilgrim, or sometimes by a particular figure such as

Odysseus or Moses. The juxtaposition of home and homelessness allowed Newman to introduce the Church as the true earthly home, as the haven of Christians. He regularly portrayed the

Church as a vessel at sea, as the “bark”30 or “ark”31 that bore its passengers to safety.

The feeling of emptiness found at the end of “Home” carried over into Newman’s next poem, written on 18 November, “The Brand of Cain”. Here he assigned himself the role of exile, an identity destined to be a recurring theme in the months ahead:

I BEAR upon my brow the sign Of sorrow and of pain; Alas! no hopeful cross is mine, It is the brand of Cain.32

28 VVO, 62.

29 Ibid.

30 See VVO, 86.

31 See VVO, 127.

32 VVO, 63.

These and similar lines situated Newman in a moment of tension, of an interior wrestling that did not subside merely by agreeing to join Froude at sea.

Newman’s next poem, “Zeal and Love,” dated November 20, contained a sense of self- indictment and a challenge to purify his own motives:

And would’st thou reach, rash scholar mine, Love’s high unruffled state? Awake! Thy easy dreams resign . . .

Dim is the philosophic flame, By thoughts severe unfed: Book-lore ne’er served, when trial came, Nor gifts, when faith was dead.33

Lines such as these indicated that the Lyra Apostolica would serve not only as commentary on the Church and its day, but would also awaken the interior disposition necessary for renewal.

Newman’s incisive discernment was not only directed at the world around him; it also brought him to deep personal examination, even critique. On November 25, he commented in

“The Sign of the Cross”:

WHENE’ER across this sinful flesh of mine I draw the Holy Sign, All good thoughts stir within me, and renew Their slumbering strength divine; Till there springs up a courage high and true To suffer and to do.34

This aim of bringing interior resolve to the surface, thereby engaging the self for a work to be undertaken in the world, established an important theme. The voyage would not only give

Newman an opportunity to draw this resolve to the surface of his life, it would have the effect of drawing such resolve out of him.

33 Ibid.

34 VVO, 69.

Newman wrote ten poems in the last two weeks of November 1832. Eight were written while he was still at Oxford making final arrangements for the voyage. The final two poems he wrote at Iffley, two miles southeast of Oxford; there, his poems reflected a deepening sense of what awaited. On 28 November, he wrote the poem “Bondage,” whose opening lines took up again the theme of exile of the preceding poems:

O PROPHET, tell me not of peace, Or Christ’s all-loving deeds; Death only can from sin release, And death to judgment leads.35

Newman’s invocation of the prophet spoke to the need for prophetic insight in navigating the perils of renewal and reform and shaping the hearts of potential listeners. As Edgecombe observed,

Poems like ‘Bondage’ point to a new urgency and disquiet in the would-be reformers of the English Church. It is of a piece with Newman’s characteristic way of throwing himself into a kneeling position.36

This desire to trust in providence, even in the midst of halting steps forward, found its way into Newman’s final November poem, “The Scars of Sin”. In contrast to the many dire images he used to describe setting out to sea, his final poem offered more hope than its predecessors, while deeply aware of ever-present human limitations:

My smile is bright, my glance is free, My voice is calm and clear; Dear friend, I seem a type to thee Of holy love and fear.

But I am scann’d by eyes unseen, And these no saint surround; They mete what is by what has been, And joy the lost is found.37

35 VVO, 70.

36 Edgecombe, Two Poets, 177.

This reference to the unseen, which Newman identified later in the poem as the gaze of an angel, emerges as a perfect summation for his November poems, and a point of departure for the letters and verses ahead: references to angels, to saints, to figures unseen, emerged again and again.

Certainly Newman considered Hurrell Froude and his father companions on the journey, but in no sense did he think they were the only companions making the voyage at his side. The interplay of the visible and the invisible was the second of the five major dialectical pairs that reappeared throughout the Mediterranean letters and verses.38

December

Newman’s final task before leaving England offers a startling window into the state of his mind and heart. On 2 December, he preached the last University sermon he would deliver until

1839. It was, to say the least, an auspicious moment, and the subject matter of his sermon made the occasion all the more compelling. After all, his decision to go on the voyage, at least in part, had been envisioned as being of great benefit for his future work by “providing first-hand knowledge of the sites of classical antiquity as well as an opportunity to retrace the paths of the apostles throughout the Mediterranean to Rome.”39 The subject was more a propos than he could have known.

37 VVO, 72.

38 These two counterpoints were also integral in the two sermons Newman preached while abroad, “The Immortal Soul” (delivered on Sunday, 24 February) and “Separation from the World” (delivered on Sunday, 14 April).

39 John T. Ford, John Henry Newman: Spiritual Writings, Modern Spiritual Masters Series (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2012), 12.

In his sermon, “Wilfulness, the Sin of Saul,” Newman cautioned his listeners against the dangers of unchecked self-regard: Saul was a person who capsized as the result of his own misshapen will.

Saul seems to have had no base ends in view; he was not self-deceived; his temptation and his fall consisted in a certain perverseness of mind, founded on some obscure feelings of self-importance, very commonly observable in human nature, and sometimes called pride,—a perverseness which shows itself in a reluctance absolutely to relinquish its own independence of action, in cases where dependence is a duty, and which interferes a little, and alters a little, as if with a view of satisfying its own fancied dignity, though it is afraid altogether to oppose itself to the voice of God. Should this seem, at first sight, to be a trifling fault, it is the more worth while to trace its operation in the history of Saul. If a tree is known by its fruit, it is a great sin.40

Newman’s emphasis upon the tendency toward “independence of action” is particularly revelatory. Though he never expressed public regret for his adamant stand on principles in the controversy surrounding the Tutorial system at Oriel, in 1833 he was still evaluating whether or not he had reacted as generously as he might have in respecting the opinions of the Provost,

Edward Hawkins. Was he right and charitable at the same time? Or was he right and self- seeking, or perhaps dismissive of others? Newman saw in Saul one whose self-regard ultimately turned upon its host.

The reserve and mysteriousness, which, when subordinate to such magnanimity as he possessed, were even calculated to increase his influence as a ruler, ended in an overthrow of his mind, when they were allowed full scope by the removal of true religious principle, and the withdrawal of the Spirit of God. Derangement was the consequence of disobedience. The wilfulness which first resisted God, next preyed upon himself, as a natural principle of disorder; his moods and changes, his compunctions and relapses, what were they but the convulsions of the spirit, when the governing power was lost?41

Newman was concerned that the seed of self-will would engender itself within him. Only

40 John Henry Newman, Newman’s University Sermons: Fifteen Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford, 1826-1843 (S.P.C.K, London, 1970), 158-159; hereafter cited: OUS.

41 OUS, 165. 90 through vigilance could one be on guard against the threat of an unchecked self-will. After all, it was in Saul’s great promise and personal giftedness, that he was particularly vulnerable to self- regard and narcissism. Newman was quite blunt in his sermon in suggesting that people of his day held the same high esteem for their own aptitude. Like Saul, people were liable to being poisoned by an irrational sense of their own worth, to the extent of impoverishing their reliance upon God.

With these principles fresh in the memory, a number of reflections crowd upon the mind in surveying the face of society, as at present constituted. The present open resistance to constituted power, and (what is more to the purpose) the indulgent toleration of it, the irreverence towards Antiquity, the unscrupulous and wanton violation of the commands and usages of our forefathers, the undoing of their benefactions, the profanation of the Church, the bold transgression of the duty of Ecclesiastical Unity, the avowed disdain of what is called party religion (though Christ undeniably made a party the vehicle of His doctrine, and did not cast it at random on the world, as men would now have it), the growing indifference to the Catholic Creed, the sceptical objections to portions of its doctrine, the arguings and discussings and comparings and correctings and rejectings, and all the train of presumptuous exercises, to which its sacred articles are subjected, the numberless discordant criticisms on the Liturgy, which have shot up on all sides of us; the general irritable state of mind, which is every where to be witnessed, and craving for change in all things; what do all these symptoms show, but that the spirit of Saul still lives?—that wilfulness, which is the antagonist principle to the zeal of David, the principle of cleaving and breaking down all divine ordinances, instead of building up. And with Saul's sin, Saul's portion awaits his followers,—distraction, aberration; the hiding of God's countenance; imbecility, rashness, and changeableness in their counsels; judicial blindness, fear of the multitude; alienation from good men and faithful friends; subserviency to their worst foes, the kings of Amalek and the wizards of Endor.42

Newman’s depiction of Saul echoed his critique of Arius in his book on the Arians.

There Newman criticized Arius for an inflated sense of self-worth that paralyzed his thought.

Here Newman championed David for his zeal and fidelity in much the same way as he championed the humility and virtue of Athanasius. Newman drew a line between the cancer of an unchecked self-will and the docility that comes with dependence on God and submission to

42 OUS, 174-175.

91 the divine will. This tension between self-will and selflessness provides the third great dialectic pair resounding throughout voyage months ahead.

On the day after delivering this sermon at Oxford, Newman left for Falmouth on the southwestern coast of England. Along the way, he stopped at Whitchurch, approximately sixty miles northeast of Falmouth, where he awaited the coach that would take him the rest of the way.

At Whitchurch, he wrote the first of his December poems, “Angelic Guidance”, in which he took up the same theme with which he ended the previous month’s poem, “The Scars of Sin”. Again

Newman reflected on the growing certitude of unseen companions.

ARE these the tracks of some unearthly Friend, His foot−prints, and his vesture−skirts of light, Who, as I talk with men conforms aright Their sympathetic words, or deeds that blend With my hid thought;−or stoops him to attend My doubtful-pleading grief;−or blunts the might Of ill I see not;−or in dreams of night Figures the scope, in which what is will end?43

Newman, ostensibly a solitary traveler journeying on the road to Falmouth, where he was to meet Froude and his father, had the sense that he was not alone in life.

In many ways, the image of an angel set the tone as a prevailing theme for Newman’s entire voyage; as William Barry observed:

From the day when, waiting for the ship, he asked, “Are these the tracks of some unearthly friend?” in December, 1832, until he quitted Marseilles in the following June, Newman committed to paper no less than eighty-five poems, expressing his thoughts on the life within, the saints of the Old Testament, and the hopes, fears, and resolves which, clustering round the Church and its fortunes, impelled him on his future course.44

43 VVO, 73.

44 William Barry, Cardinal Newman (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1927), 48.

The presence of angels, both in heaven and on earth, served as constant reminders to Newman of the interpenetration of the two worlds and the corresponding ubiquity of the divine in creation.

He later described his inspiration for his first Mediterranean poem: “That vision is more or less brought out in the whole series of these compositions.”45 Newman was not only conscious of the invisible in his midst, but he wanted to live in a world always infused with the spiritual. The sentiment was only reinforced by the companionship of Froude at his side. As Bro. Zeno commented:

Whoever starts reading Newman will be struck by his intense awareness of the invisible world. He lived, so to speak, his doctrine that material phenomena are both the types and instruments of real things unseen. For him the world of sense was less real than the world of the spirit: from the time when he thought life might be a dream and he an angel up to his old age this remained one of his great principles.46

Newman regarded angels not merely as quiet presences in the midst of a passing world, but as divine agents in communion with the Church on earth. As Vincent Ferrel Blehl commented on Newman’s sensibility toward angels: “We are even now surrounded by those who are destined to be our future associates in heaven, who in turn are looking with interest at us all.”47 Newman’s reflection on the angels led to a deeper consideration of their inherent mission and the implications of their response to divine initiative. In turn he was captivated by the corresponding necessity of the human choice to be an accomplice with divine will or to refuse.

His meditation on the cancerous effect of self-will carried over into reflections on angelic beings.

As Blehl remarked:

45 Apologia, 133.

46 Zeno, Newman, 270.

47 Vincent Ferrer Blehl, The White Stone: The Spiritual Theology of John Henry Newman (Petersham, MA: St. Bede’s Publications, 1993), 125; hereafter cited: Blehl, Spiritual Theology.

The sin of the angels was one and the same in all from imitation, but they were led by Lucifer. The nature of their sin was all in one, but doubtless it was especially the sin of pride. What kind of pride? Obstinancy, ambition, disobedience, arrogance?—all types, but especially reliance on a contentment in natural gifts, while despising supernatural ones.48

Accordingly, Newman’s meditation on angelic beings reflected the ongoing human drama of pride’s protest against God.

Drawing solace from his angelic company, Newman wrote to his mother from

Whitchurch, confessing a sense of vulnerability, but not without hopeful optimism:

So I am practicing for the first time the duty of a traveller, which is sorely against the grain, and have been talkative and agreeable without end. When one is at Rome (as the proverb goes) one must do as the men of Rome and now that I have set up as a man of the world, it is my vocation. I have been so hurried I have had no time to think but, at times, it seems to be miserable going away for so long. Yet I doubt, not, in after life, I shall look back on this day as a bright day and very full of interest as the commencement of one of the few recreations, which I can hope, nay or desire, to have in this world for the only cessation from labour, to which I may look without blame, ‘remaineth’ is stored up, and not here. I really do not wish (I think) that this present cessation should be anything else than a preparation and strengthening—time for future toil—rather, I should rejoice to think that I was in this way steeling myself in soul and body for it.49

Newman arrived at Falmouth around 7 am on Wednesday 5 December. The Froudes arrived the same day around 5 in the afternoon; that evening the trio dined together. In

Falmouth, Newman wrote to his mother again as well as to Edward Pusey (1800-1882) Oriel

Fellow and Regius Professor of Hebrew. In his letter to Pusey, who would later become a stalwart figure in the Oxford Movement, Newman sought to win him over to ecclesial renewal in the image of the early Church.

Men may say what they will about going by Scripture not tradition—but nature is stronger than systems. The piety and services of the Primitive Christians adds to their authority an influence which is practically irresistible, with those i.e. who are

48 Blehl, Spiritual Theology, 131.

49 LD 3: 123.

trained in right feelings and habits. And I think this was intended by the Author of all truth. And none but Primitive Christianity can bring this about, for other ages, if they have the high spirit, yet have not (of course,) the authority of the first age.50

By this time, Newman, perhaps galvanized by the contagious vigor of Hurrell Froude, decried the legacy of an early Reformer:

I see in Calvin not a Saint but a Schismatic—a man who at best is in human judgment but excusable—and who, if a Saint, yet is not displayed to us (as many men may not be who are) as such—and I see a man wanting in practical humility, the primary grace.51

On 7 December, Newman wrote his last poem from England: “Substance and Shadow” completes the interplay of worlds, both within and without. Its final lines are a call to courage:

Know thy dread gift,—a creature, yet a cause: Each mind is its own centre, and it draws Home to itself and moulds in its thought’s span All outward things, the vassals of its will, Aided by Heaven, by earth unthwarted still.52

Newman’s emphasis upon the mind as molder of the world around it struck a note of high self- regard and ambition that he again and again was to find challenged in the months ahead.

On 8 December 1833, the three travelers left Falmouth at one in the afternoon on the

Hermes. Aside from the crew, Newman and the Froudes were the only passengers on the small steamship. Though Newman’s room was quite small, “and he kept knocking his head and arms; his berth, five feet from the floor, was like a coffin and dark.”53 Space, however, was otherwise little obstacle on this first leg of the journey, with no women on board the ladies cabin was

50 LD 3: 127.

51 LD 3: 128.

52 VVO, 74.

53 Trevor, Pillar, 113.

95 unoccupied, leaving the passengers relative free reign over the ship itself. Newman lost sight of the southern tip of England, known as the Lizard, early in the evening. As his native land disappeared from sight, he wrote the aptly titled poem, “Wanderings”, which looked with bittersweet regard for the young man he left behind him.

ERE yet I left home’s youthful shrine, My heart and hope were stored Where first I caught the rays divine, And drank the Eternal Word.54

The poem ended by returning to the figure of an exile abandoning paradise:

So ever sear, so ever cloy Earth’s favours as they fade; Since Adam lost for one fierce joy His Eden’s sacred shade.55

The image of Adam as exile is particularly poignant given Newman’s emerging understanding that the man who would someday return to England would not be the same man who left. As Louis Bouyer observed,

This voyage was intended to be in the nature of a retreat before entering upon a fresh task incomparably more important than any that had so far fallen to his lot. It was with this idea in mind that Newman agreed to undertake it. But we must not interpret the word “retreat” as signifying a period of relaxation, of rest and recuperation in preparation for the toil and stress that lay ahead. We should rather speak of it, as Newman later on described the flight of the anchorites to the desert. It was anything rather than quitting the battlefield in search of a refuge of peace and tranquility. Far from that, it was a flight from a delusive peace, a peace that was no peace. Looked at in one way, it was like Jacob’s wrestling with the angel.56

54 VVO, 75.

55 VVO, 76.

56 Louis Bouyer, Newman: His Life and Spirituality (New York: Meridian Books, 1960), 128; hereafter cited: Bouyer, Newman. The account of Jacob wrestling with an angel is found in Genesis 35:1-7.

Bouyer’s appraisal of this decisive moment in Newman’s life captured the many levels on which his existence was to be engaged by his pilgrimage on the Mediterranean. Newman later reminisced about the beginnings of the voyage in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua:

Exchanging, as I was, definite Tutorial work, and the literary quiet and pleasant friendships of the last six years, for foreign countries and an unknown future, I naturally was led to think that some inward changes, as well as some larger course of action, were coming upon me.57

Newman’s enthusiasm, and to an extent naiveté, betrayed the fact that his

Mediterranean voyage was his first journey outside his native land. While he ostensibly was quite accurate in convincing himself and others that a considerable flow of poems would be forthcoming,58 the ways in which the poems came and the occurrences that elicited them were well beyond what he might have expected. According to Wilfrid Ward,

Many of the verses contain indications of a subconscious presage of the future. The thought of prophets and the leaders of great movements in the Church frequently reappear in them. These poems . . . though written hastily as outpourings of the heart, have been ranked very high by some of our best critics.59

There is very little to suggest that Newman was in any way prepared for the turmoil that awaited him and that was destined to bring forth a great metanoia in his life. As Zeno remarked:

There was something a little too rigid about the austerity of the thirty-year-old Newman. It had to be toned down a little. All the same he never deviated from his foundational principles.60

57 Apologia, 133.

58Not including Newman’s lengthy poem “The Dream of Gerontius”—a meditation on Christian death written in January of 1865—and “St. Bartholomew’s Eve”—which was co-written with John William Bowden in 1821—around four-fifths of Newman’s published poems were written during his Mediterranean voyage.

59 Wilfrid Ward, The Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman: Based on His Private Journals and Correspondence, Volume I (New York, NY: Longmans, Green, 1912), 52.

60 Zeno, Newman, 133.

Bouyer described the dramatic transition that awaited Newman:

In his contact with the world, a world till then so novel, so unfamiliar to him, the traveller felt himself an exile, and the more there was to excite his wonder and admiration, the deeper grew his sense of isolation. But at the same time he becomes conscious of some power drawing him even nearer and nearer to God, his only home, wherefrom he learns more and more clearly that He is preparing him, in all that he is going through, first to realise, and then to make known, the Word that He is waiting to declare to him.61

It was seemingly through this identification and self-understanding of being an exile that helped to provide Newman with the necessary vantage point for his poetic flowering. In effect, instead of being a mere traveler, he became more and more a pilgrim, even an exile from his native land. Such a step was accompanied by an increasing sense of longing for the comforts and company of home. This homesickness began to possess his thoughts amidst the satisfaction and exhilaration of beholding a world long regarded by Newman but previously never experienced first-hand. As Richard Hutton observed:

From the very beginning of the journey he had been full of thoughts of home. He yearned for letters, but after three months’ waiting he had received only two. He could not be reconciled to the length of time he was to be away; it made him despondent. He dreamed about his relatives, and in these dreams letters would arrive, but when he tried to read them either he could not decipher them or he would wake up. His good sense helped him not to give in to that nostalgia and return; he hoped to benefit his health, to increase his usefulness and influence. Notwithstanding the pleasure he enjoyed in seeing beautiful sights, the wonders of the pagan times, the indescribably scenery, he missed something: “aliquid desideravere oculi mei” [something for which my eyes long], he said, and he made up his mind never to leave England again.62

For Hurrell Froude, being on the water was a favorite pastime, a recreation dating from

his childhood that led to a certain ease; sailing remained for Froude a real passion into his adult

life. For Newman the relationship with water was far less regular, though not altogether

61 Bouyer, Newman, 132.

62 Richard H. Hutton, Cardinal Newman (London: Methuen, 1891), 63; hereafter cited: Hutton, Cardinal Newman.

98 disagreeable. He remembered in a letter to his sister Harriett on 29 September 1825, his fondness for spending time on the water with John William Bowden (1798-1844), Newman’s close friend from his days at Trinity College:

Bowden is in a very fine situation, exquisite in scenery. Yesterday we made an expedition in a yatch [sic] to the Needles. The distance there and back is above rather than under fifty miles. The beauty of water and land only makes me regret that our language has not more adjectives of admiration.63

Newman’s attentiveness to the world around him, from childhood, had included both persons and places. Those places dearest to his heart, as well as those he had made it a point to study, were etched in his memory and consciousness. His minimal encounters with bodies of water whetted his appetite for a new type of beauty and opened his sensibilities to a new world of imagery and themes that would broaden his descriptive powers. As Trevor observed:

He turned out a reasonably good sailor, better than Froude, and much better than the poor Archdeacon, who was in bed for some days. Newman had no more than qualms, but it was a new feeling to him, and so he was interested in it, describing it exactly.64

Coupled with the novelty of traveling by sea was the intrigue of visiting the

Mediterranean. For generations, visiting this part of the world had beguiled the English. As

Sheridan Gilley has commented,

The Mediterranean, and Italy especially, offered liberation to many wealthy and leisured or cultivated Englishmen, seeking an ancient classical culture or a refuge from disgrace or respite from illness, or just a seat under the cypresses and a life- giving sun. Byron fled there, Keats and Shelly died there, the Brownings eloped there, Ruskin found there a new imaginative world. For Newman, this journey was to be a testing and trial, but unlike a later generation of High Churchmen, he set off with no overwhelming interest in the rituals of the Roman Church, and

63 LD 1: 261. The Needles are three distinctive stacks of chalk that rise out of the sea of the western end of the Isle of Wright.

64 Trevor, Pillar, 113.

with a stronger interest in the future and foreign chaplaincies of the Church of England.65

Newman’s journey also involved a cultural shift. In the early nineteenth century, the world was divided into different spheres, partially as the result of the still-limited mobility of the vast majority of the population. According to Meriol Trevor,

Such divisions are based partly on external, partly on psychological fact; certain human characteristics are associated with geographical orientation. To nineteenth-century travellers from Northern Europe the South meant the Mediterranean, and its civilization. It seemed to them the region of the sun, of passion and all things primate and mysterious. It was also a mother-land, for from those shores had come the culture accepted in the north, and the ruins of the ancient classical world remained there; from there too the Christian religion had come, and there it still retained the form that to Englishmen was associated with the Middle Ages, an era so alien and forgotten as to turn monks into characters of romance and saints’ lives into fairy tales. Thus to go South meant to return to the childhood of the race, to the region of myth and vision, and as some might say nowadays, to the primeval images, the realms that lie so often below the threshold of consciousness. Newman was by nature a poet, a seer, and this awareness of the self embraced a wider and deeper field than that of the average man; it was not surprising that the South manifested to him inward visions, as well as an appearance to the senses and associations to the cultured mind. His long letters were full of detailed observation of people and places, politics, history, past and present, and the daily incidents and moods. The visions were more rare and are only distinguishable from the rest by the sense of mystery they created in his mind, and the way they remained in it, long after symbols.66

Trevor’s description captured the fact that Newman found himself entering a world of symbols and memory.

That Newman depicted his experiences largely through poetry was both circumstantial and seemingly necessary. His personal fascination for the cultural impact of the Mediterranean outlived his voyage; as he wrote in Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations, published in

1849:

65 Sheridan Gilley, Newman and His Age (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1990), 94.

66 Trevor, Pillar, 114.

100

How great are the old Greek lawgivers and statesmen, whose histories and works are known to some of us, and whose names to many more! How great are those stern Roman heroes, who conquered the world, and prepared the way for Christ! How wise, how profound, are those ancient teachers and sages! What power of imagination, what a semblance of prophecy, is manifest in their poets! The present world is in many respects not so great as in that old time, but even now there is enough in it to show both the strength of human nature in this respect, and its weakness.67

Of the seven months Newman was at sea, he was most prolific in letter-writing and versifying in December and June, his first and final months at sea. Of the eighty-five poems he eventually wrote during the course of his voyage, twenty-four were written in December; while thirteen of his forty-seven letters were composed that same month. Though the volume of writings from these two months was similar,68 the tone of the writings, especially the poems, was marked by significant differences.

Although the roots of the Lyra Apostolica came directly from The Christian Year, they were not a pious sequel to its forebear. As Edgecombe observed:

Needless to say, whereas the gentle obliquities of The Christian Year cut across sectarian divisions, Lyra Apostolica drove in as many wedges as it could find. The banner cry of the Movement, “Choose your side,” would admit of no partial or Laodicean commitment to the cause.69

In spite of the differences with The Christian Year, Newman envisioned his poems as extending the possibilities which lay mostly dormant in Keble’s collection.

The presence of an unresolved regionalism in The Christian Year, and the overlay of decorative dictions acquired from poets of the eighteenth century, to some extent obscure and soften the austerity and even the toughness of Keble’s vision. Newman, who initially perceived himself as a sort of popularizer and

67 John Henry Newman, Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 155-156; hereafter cited: Mixed Congregations.

68 Newman wrote only two letters in June during his journey home, but wrote thirty-seven poems—the most of any month.

69 Edgecombe, Two Poets, 168.

101

disseminator of Kebelism, took this vision (as so much else in Keble) much further than his master was willing to take it. Uncomplicated by any sort of earthly allegiance, sealed into the aureole of a beatific solipsism in which only God and himself had any self-evident reality, Newman’s poetry realized the bleakness of his vision in verse that is comparably bleak.70

One departure from Keble that was manifest in Newman’s work was a narrow latitude for beauty. Although beauty found its way to Newman through the inspiration to write, yet when it comes to the poems themselves, his verses often crystallized tersely around one or two succinct images. Keble’s works, almost all of which are considerably longer than Newman’s, abound in artistic flourishes extolling the virtues of objects or places in which beauty manifests itself. One never finds Newman lingering verbosely upon a single image as, for example, Keble did in his poem “Morning” in The Christian Year.

HUES of the rich unfolding morn, That, ere the glorious sun be born, By some soft touch invisible Around his path are taught to swell;—

Thou rustling breeze so fresh and gay, That dancest forth at opening day, And brushing by with joyous wing, Wakenest each little leaf to sing;—

Ye fragrant clouds of dewy steam, By which deep grove and tangled stream Pay, for soft rains in season given, Their tribute to the genial heaven;—71

For Newman, beauty finds place through different channels. Edgecombe observed the contrast.

Keble has a genuine attachment to natural beauty, even though he chose to refract it through the stylized lens of poetic diction. Although he makes brave efforts to remind himself of its transience and subordinate role in the scheme of things, he

70 Ibid., 256.

71 John Keble, The Christian Year (Philadelphia, PA: Henry Altemus, 1899), 10.

102

nonetheless allows the attachment to shine through, as when he claims (on what theological grounds it is impossible to say) that flowers have been exempted from the Fall. Newman, on the other hand, when he chooses to document natural beauty, lapses into an uncharacteristic preciosity, as though it were an impertinence to the two great absolutes into which he had sublimated his life.72

Newman found inspiration in the early Church as he depicted figures from the Patristic era as well as their forebearers in scripture. On the whole, he seemed to gravitate toward prophetic voices among whom he hoped, with his poems, to strike a prophetical chord. A kind of boldness characterized many of the early works, as Newman was the voice crying out from the wilderness, heading out into the open sea and the unknown fate that awaited him. The bold brevity of Newman’s poems contrasted with the generous and layered aspect of his homilies, as

Trevor noted:

The sermons, as literary creations, are like an avenue of wonderful trees; the poems stark as bits of stone in a field. Yet they have a directness and simplicity which has its own attraction.73

In some cases, the poems read like pithy proverbs, stripped of all unnecessary syllables. He closed his poem “The Saint and the Hero”, written on 10 December, with this style on display.

The Saint’s is not the Hero’s praise; — This I have found, and learn Nor to malign Heaven’s humblest ways, Nor its least boon to spurn.74

For Hurrell Froude and his father, writing was accompanied by sketching or painting as a way to pass the time and to document the sights as they unfolded. Without his violin, Newman found himself swimming in words that made their way into prayer as well into poems and letters.

72 Edgecombe, Two Poets, 180. Concerning the two great absolutes, Newman, reflecting on his conversion of 1816, described himself as resting “in the thought of two and two only absolute and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator” (Apologia Pro Vita Sua, 8).

73 Trevor, Pillar, 112.

74 VVO, 77.

103

The younger Froude, in addition to his poems, was also a diligent letter writer. His approach to the latter was somewhat in contrast with Newman. According to Piers Brendon,

The comparison is complicated by the fact that Froude and Newman were largely writing letters designed to interest different audiences—Froude was writing to Keble, his brothers and his Oxford friends, whereas the bulk of Newman’s correspondence was addressed to his mother and sisters, which accounts for its euphemistic tendency. Nevertheless, it is possible to observe certain differences in the tone of their letters, irrespective of their various destinations, which highlight the contrasts between Froude and Newman was well as illuminating their affinities. To take the last first: both were intoxicated with the beauty and horrified by the squalor of the scenes which confronted them. The health of both suffered successively from the rigours of the journey and produced corresponding moods of depression and frustration, particularly as they were conscious of missing the crucial political developments which were occurring in England. Both thought they would return better Englishmen for what they had seen abroad. With their common predilections, it is not surprising that the feelings and impressions of both men followed an extremely similar pattern, to the extent even of occasionally duplicating phraseology.75

In Newman’s letters, one often gets the sense that the writer was still coming to terms with his observations and his own place amongst them. He was reluctant to draw firm conclusions in the early letters—somewhat in contrast to the decisive tone of his poems. His letters however are replete with descriptive passages that bring out the best of his writing ability.

He included his recently written poems in his letters so that there was interplay between the poems and the letter itself. As Vincent Ferrer Blehl remarked:

Newman had a sharp eye for detail and a keen interest in all he saw and the people with whom he came in contact. He had also more than the usual power of introspection. In letters to his mother and sisters he shows his literary ability to communicate his impressions and observations as well as his emotional reactions. If it were not for the verses included in his letters, they would be of no more interest than the travel narratives of many a voyager of the last century. The verses, however, are significant in revealing the spiritual purification and development he underwent which gave meaning to the entire journey, ending in a conviction that God had a work for him to do in England.76

75 Piers Brendon, Hurrell Froude and the Oxford Movement (London: Paul Elek, 1974), 115- 116.

76 Blehl, Pilgrim Journey, 114. 104

Newman and Froude also shared a clear interest in the classical legacy of the

Mediterranean portion of their journey. Still, within their admiration was a definite favor for the

Christian foundations their journey would encounter. As Brendon observed:

Newman’s interests, like Froude’s, revolved more round the Christian than the classical remains, but their apprehensions of the past were those of the poet and the historian respectively. Newman was concerned with the sensitive chords struck in his own psyche and he even had pathetically fallacious fears that the sinful objects he saw and places he visited might corrupt him.77

This appreciation for the Christian and the Classical helps us to understand a common link between Newman and Froude and to appreciate the flowering of their friendship. Though all their artistic outlets were not identical—Froude was adept at painting, Newman was a skilled violinist—the deep interest both shared for poetry was an important aspect of their common mission at sea. In fact, the contours of their friendship are in some ways more explicable in light of their artistic interests. As John Cornwell has written:

It is in Newman’s persona as literary artist that one begins to understand his emotional attachments and dependence on particular individuals-known in Catholic ascetical theology as special or particular friendships. These attachments, in Newman’s case, are less suggestive of preludes to a homosexual relationship than to the strong same-sex literary intimacies of the previous generation, such as existed, for example, between Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey, who employed epithets of affection between each other that might appear suspect in the twenty-first century.78

On 11 December, after several days dealing with mild seasickness, Newman wrote to his mother, to express his admiration for the novel sights he had already beheld. After sailing the

Bay of Biscay along the French and Spanish coasts, the first foreign land Newman saw was Cape

77 Brendon, Hurrell Froude, 116.

78 John Cornwell, Newman’s Unquiet Grave: The Reluctant Saint (New York, NY: Continuum, 2010), 65.

105

Ortegal on the northwest corner of Spain. The Hermes was light enough to travel near the coast, granting the passengers an unequalled view of the marriage of land and sea.

I cannot describe the exquisite colour of the sea-which, tho’ in no respects strange or novel, is yet unlike any thing I have seen, unless this be a bull. In the sense I should call it a most gentleman like colour—i.e. so subdued, so destitute of all display, so sober. And then so deep and solemn, so resistlessly strong, if a colour may be so called—and the contrast between the white and indigo so striking—and in the wake of the vessel, it changed into all colours, transparent green, white, white-green, etc. As evening came on, we had every appearance of being in a warmer latitude—The sea brightened to a glowing purple inclined to lilac—the sun set in a car of gold and was succeeded by a sky first pale orange, then gradually heightening to a dusky red.79

The play of light transforming the shades and hues of the water and the coast offers an insight into the fourth major dialectical pair emerging in Newman’s Mediterranean writings. The relationship between light and darkness provided a nearly constant meditation concerning the physical world, while suggesting the tenuous interior struggle between forces of light and darkness. This juxtaposition of light and darkness was closely related to the previously mentioned pair of the visible and the invisible.80

Newman’s attentiveness to the world around him carried over into his study of those travelling with him—a number he estimated in his letter to be around sixty. His fascination with the people in whose company he traveled and those he met along the way was a prevailing theme throughout his voyage. According to Trevor, “Wherever he went Newman always got even more interested in the people than the scenery, watching and describing the men he and Froude saw in the taverns, the peasants at work, the exiled officers, and fellow travellers.”81

79 LD 3: 129.

80 The interplay of light and darkness merits its own consideration, however, because of its essential importance in later writings, particularly “The Pillar of the Cloud” written on 16 June; see VVO, 156-157.

81 Trevor, Pillar, 115. 106

The same day that Newman wrote to his mother, he also wrote the poem “Private

Judgment”, which took up a theme that reappeared many times in the years ahead. It is the first poem of the voyage in which Newman used the third-person plural:

POOR wand’rers, ye are sore distress’d To find that path which Christ has bless’d, Track’d by His saintly throng; Each claims to trust his own weak will, Blind idol!—so ye languish still, All wranglers and all wrong.82

Like many of his early voyage-poems, Newman highlighted figures in motion; he also shed light on the significance of the individual will, which is likewise in motion, for good or for ill:

Wand’rers! come home! obey the call! A Mother pleads, who ne’er let fall One grain of Holy Truth; Warn you and win she shall and must, For now she lifts her from the dust, To reign as in her youth.83

For Newman, private judgment, run amok, was above all a revolt against God, but also a protest against the Church, as “Mother”. As Newman wrote in his Discourses Addressed to Mixed

Congregations in 1849:

Either the Apostles were from God, or they were not; if they were, everything that they preached was to be believed by their hearers; if they were not, there was nothing for their hearers to believe. To believe a little, to believe more or less, was impossible; it contradicted the very notion of believing: if one part was to be believed, every part was to be believed; it was an absurdity to believe one thing and not another; for the word of the Apostles, which made the one true, made the other true too; they were nothing in themselves, they were all things, they were an infallible authority, as coming from God. The world had either to become Christian, or to let it alone; there was no room for private tastes and fancies, no room for private judgment.84

82 VVO, 78.

83 VVO, 78-79.

84 Mixed Congregations, 197.

107

This tension between Revealed Religion and Private Judgment was a recurring refrain throughout his Mediterranean writings and provides a fifth and final dialectical pair integral to the voyage.85 The interplay of these two themes was particularly important for Newman’s evolving ecclesiology given its depiction of the universal aspect of the Church which allows for communion in contrast to the impulse of the local and particular which can often lead to isolation and even skepticism.

Newman penned two letters the following day, 12 December, this time to his sisters,

Harriett and Jemima. Instead of describing the water and the shore, as he had for the mother the previous day, Newman described to Harriett life on board ship:

You must know that each berth has two sleeping shelves, one above another— which are both occupied when the vessel is full; (fancy the misery!) but we have no cabin passengers on board but ourselves, so we have our berth each to himself. Now the under shelf I shall have emptied of bedding, and arrange my luggage there. There are several little shelves too, on which I shall arrange various little articles, and books.86

He also mentioned his intention of writing several poems in the immediate future about Old

Testament figures. To Jemima, he wrote of witnessing the rocky coast of Portugal, with the coastal cliffs off Lisbon still in his sight. He clung to the far-off sights for orientation, astonished by how quickly his surroundings had become so different since he had left England.

Am I only five days sail from England? am I in Europe? Were I in the new world, I should understand it. I expect America to be different from what I am accustomed to; but is it possible that scenes so unlike home should be so near home? How is the north cut off from the south! The outline was very

85 As indicated in the preceding chapter, the significance of Revealed Religion for Newman was partially established in his The Arians of the Fourth Century and his “Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle’s Poetics.”

86 LD 3: 133.

108

magnificent as that of the rock of Lisbon but the colouring! a pale greenish red, which no words will describe.87

In addition to these two letters on the 12th, Newman wrote “The Watchmen”—a song in six stanzas, which amounted to a meditation on a nameless figure, perhaps an angel, who looks down on the course of salvation history as the might of Heaven is revealed in the midst of mortal weakness. The juxtaposition of an unseen, abiding presence in the watchmen who oversees the hand of God in the midst of great unrest set the stage in some ways for the following day’s poem,

“The Isles of the Sirens”—where he reflected on the meaning of his life through the lens of a secondary character. As Edgecombe remarked:

Sailing past the island of the sirens, Newman takes Odysseus as a pagan type of himself, attracted by a beauty that will deflect him from his course. This intense response can be attributed to Newman’s musicality: he played the violin well and felt a passionate love for the music of Beethoven.88

However, the musical theme may have come from on board the ship; according to Richard

Hutton, “Hurrell Froude in a letter home mentions that the commander of the steamer in which they sailed sang several songs, accompanying himself on the Spanish guitar, and it must have been these songs which suggested to Newman The Isles of the Sirens.”89 In any case, the unsolicited presence is depicted as the instigator of unrest:

CEASE, Stranger, cease those piercing notes, The craft of Siren Choirs; Hush the seductive voice, that floats Upon the languid wires.90

87 LD 3: 138. Newman wrote one poem daily for the next three days, before writing his next letter on 15 December.

88 Edgecombe, Two Poets, 208.

89 Richard H. Hutton, Cardinal Newman, 38-39.

90 VVO, 82.

109

The image of the siren coupled with the watchmen indicated a deep sensitivity to conflict, not just among human beings, but a greater spiritual conflict being waged in creation. Newman had seen the conflicts between Church and state in England; he also saw conflict in the new landscapes and the tension between sea and sky. He also found tension within himself, as he struggled with the direction of his own will.

Newman cried out to the heavens for help in his next poem, “Absolution.” Written on 14

December, off the coast of Cape St. Vincent, the southwestern tip of Portugal, he beseeched

God:

O FATHER, list a sinner’s call! Fain would I hide from man my fall— But I must speak, or faint— I cannot wear guilt’s silent thrall.91

The urgency of Newman’s cry seemingly stemmed from his uninterrupted time at sea, already challenging his limited reserves of patience.

Friday, 15 December, was his seventh day at sea. The passengers had hoped upon their arrival in Cádiz, Spain’s oldest continuously inhabited city, that they would be allowed to leave the ship. To the great disappointment of those on board, a visit was precluded by the presence of cholera in the city. Instead the Hermes only stopped to add more passengers and then continued its journey eastward through Cape Trafalgar en route to Gibraltar, where Newman wrote about his native land in his poem “Memory”.

MY home is now a thousand miles away; Yet in my thoughts its every image fair Rises as keen, as I still linger’d there, And, turning me, could all I loved survey.92

91 VVO, 83.

92 VVO, 85.

110

Lines such as these balance well those searing critiques of carelessness toward the Church and her faith. These lines of fondness for his homeland reminded readers of how much Newman considered to be at stake for his country. That he personified his country and made allusions to her spiritual nature indicated the extent to which he believed that the soul of England was at stake as she sought to determine her true identity. He ended “Memory” with a reminder that his own soul would one day be weighed in the balance along with a plea to be remembered by God:

And, when at length I reach the Throne of Power Ah! still unscared, I shall in fullness see The vision of my past innumerous deeds, My deep heart-courses, and their motive-seeds, So to gaze on till the red dooming hour. Lord, in that strait, the Judge! Remember me!93

As the Hermes entered the Strait of Gibraltar, Newman was able to see the African coast in the distance for a short spell before the ship headed north to dock at Gibraltar in the evening of

15 December. At Gibraltar, the Hermes was quarantined to the chagrin of all on board until

Friday 17 December. With time on board, Newman penned a letter to Edward Hawkins on the evening of the 15th; he asked Hawkins for permission to remain away from Oxford through

Easter, so that his travel plans would coincide with those of the Froudes who planned to be away through June. The following day, still aboard the Hermes, Newman, with all requisite diplomacy, informed Richard Bagot (1782-1854), Bishop of Oxford, of his plans to remain away through June. With these business matters addressed, Newman’s thoughts turned to his family.

In contrast to the formal brevity of his letters to Hawkins and Bagot, Newman wrote a lengthy letter to his mother on 16 December. He described at great lengths the otherworldly

93 Ibid.

111 impression he took from the Rock of Gibraltar. Riveted by his surroundings—“Every thing is foreign”94—he mentioned the uncertain fate awaiting his letters home.:

You will not probably hear from me again for a considerable time. Since this vessel will not get back to England till the beginning of February—and I know of no other conveyance,—tho’ I may perhaps get a letter to you overland, which however is not likely.95

Newman was equally realistic about the likelihood of receiving letters: “I shall be heartily sick of not hearing from you by the time I get to Naples, which is the first place to which letters may safely be directed.”96 In spite of the uncertainty of the mails, he sent four recently written poems to his mother, in hope that they might communicate his impressions as well as the letter itself.

Though unable to leave the ship, Newman’s next poem—“The Haven”—was a meditation on the relief of being safely in harbor after more than a week at sea:

WHENCE is this awe, by stillness spread O’er the world-fretted soul? Wave rear’d on wave its godless head While my keen bark, by breezes sped, Dash’d fiercely through the ocean bed, And chafed towards its goal.97

The image of the “keen bark” set on a self-determined course gave way to the quiet that finds the will that ultimately consents to rest in God. A sense of relief overwhelmed the writer:

But now there reigns so deep a rest, That I could almost weep.98

94 LD 3: 142.

95 LD 3: 143.

96 LD 3: 144.

97 VVO, 86.

98 Ibid.

112

The poem ended with Newman reminding himself that earthly rest is relative to the eternal one, the true haven.

‘Tis Eden neared, though not possess’d Which cherub-flames still keep.99

On 17 December, while waiting for the yellow quarantine flag to be lifted, Newman wrote two poems; both reflecting on the gift and the challenge of speech. “A Word in Season” looked for inspiration to St. Paul, who speaks “with soul of flame.”100 Newman asked himself the rhetorical question:

Shall I thus speak th’ Atoning Name, Though with a heart of stone?101

Newman’s self-challenge to speak words of inspiration carried over into the day’s second poem,

“Fair Words,” which began by noting the power of words to condemn or redeem:

THY words are good, and freely given, As though thou felt them true; Friend, think thee well, to hell or heaven A serious heart is due.102

Of particular interest in this poem is the crowning image of light used at the poem’s end.

Newman indicated his fascination with the colors of the sea and the evolving relief of the shoreline to the play of light upon the world around him. He concluded “Fair Words”:

Beware! such words may once be said. Where shame and fear unite; But, spoken twice, they mark instead A sin against the light.103

99 Ibid.

100 Ibid., 87.

101 Ibid.

102 Ibid., 88.

103 Ibid. 113

Just after noon on Monday 17 December, Newman and the other passengers were allowed to leave the ship for Gibraltar. There he was able to send a parcel containing his recently written letters and poems. After dining with Archdeacon Froude and Colonel Rogers, the travelers returned to the Hermes, which then headed out to sea. The following day he spotted the coast of Granada and even see the snow-topped peaks of the Sierra Nevada range in the distance. The following day, he penned letters to his sisters, Jemima and Harriett, describing mostly the novelty of his brief hours ashore in Gibraltar. The harsh precipitousness of the landscape and the garrison of soldiers104 in their imposing fortifications inspired Newman’s imagination. He mentioned that: “We . . . are now in the open Mediterranean—the sea without a billow, a strong contrast to the Atlantic.”105

Perhaps emboldened by the harshness of Gibraltar, Newman penned one of the most combative poems of his entire voyage on 18 December. The poem “England” was an unrelenting attack from the beginning.

TYRE of the West, and glorying in the name More than in Faith’s pure fame! O trust not crafty fort nor rock renown’d Earn’d upon hostile ground;106

His comparison of England to the fortified Rock of Gibraltar aimed at the illusions of grandeur that bely a wavering faith. According to Edgecombe,

Because the Anglican establishment seemed hand in glove with the liberal forces that had contributed to England’s economic advancement, the equation of that country with Tyre in “England” is meant ironically—Tyre, after all, was the

104 Newman noted that the garrison consisted of around 4000 men, a number that could quadruple in time of war.

105 LD 3: 146.

106 VVO, 89.

114

center of Baalism, and it was from Tyre that Jezebel came to marry Ahab. Newman, like all his fellow Tractarians, sets his face against any material prosperity that is unsupported by the Athanasian Creed.107

In the second stanza, the image of the Gibraltar was traded for the tower of Babel:

Dread thine own power! Since haughty Babel’s prime, High towers have been man’s crime.108

Latent within Newman’s critique was a seed of hope for renewal, not in prestige, but through an inspired minority:

He who scann’d Sodom for His righteous men Still spares thee for thy ten;109

Alhough the Oxford Movement was still an unnamed aspiration on the horizon, there is little doubt Newman sought to reach, not least of all through his poems, those who would be leaven for the renewal of the Church of England. Several years earlier, Newman had used a

Gibraltar-like image in a sermon entitled “Submission to Church Authority”:

That vast Catholic body, “the Holy Church throughout all the world,” is broken into many fragments by the power of the Devil; just as some huge barrier cliff which once boldly fronted the sea is at length cleft, parted, overthrown by the waves. Some portions of it are altogether gone, and those that remain are separated from each other. We are the English Catholics; abroad are the Roman Catholics, some of whom are also among ourselves; elsewhere are the Greek Catholics, and so on. And thus we stand in this day of rebuke and blasphemy— clinging to our own portion of the Ancient Rock which the waters are roaring round and would fain overflow—trusting in God—looking for the dawn of day, which “will at length come and will not tarry,” when God will save us from the rising floods, if we have courageously kept our footing where He has placed us, neither yielding to the violence of the waves which sweep over us, nor listening to

107 Edgecombe, Two Poets, 246.

108 VVO, 89.

109 Ibid.

115

the crafty invitations of those who offer us an escape in vessels not of God's building.110

The following day, 19 December, when the Hermes was again out of the sight of land,

Newman again wrote at length to his mother. He acknowledged the opportunity offered through travel by sea for reflecting on matters as they arose; in spite of all these opportunities and the quiet gratification of seeing the world, he confided to his mother a preference for the comforts of home:

Yet, however interested I have been in what I have seen, (and I do not expect to be more or as much so by any thing which is to come) yet I do not think I have ever for an instant so felt as not to have preferred, had the option been given me, to find myself suddenly back again in the midst of those employments and pleasures which befall me in the course of ordinary duty — (perhaps the moment when I first saw Cadiz with the hope of landing is an exception—)111

Though largely pleased with his impressions on the first leg of his journey, he was hypnotized by the prospect of travelling the Mediterranean and the opportunity of revisiting the tales of his childhood:

What has inspired me with all sort of strange reflections this two days is the thought that I am on the Mediterranean—for how much is implied in that one circumstance! Consider how the Mediterranean has been in one sense the seat of the most celebrated Empires and events, which have had their day upon its coasts—think of the variety of men, famous in every way in history to whom the sea has been known— Here the Romans engaged the Carthaginians—here the Phoenicians traded—here Jonah was in the storm—here St Paul was shipwrecked—here the great Athanasius voyaged to Rome and to Constantinople.112

110 John Henry Newman, “Submission to Church Authority” (originally preached on 29 November 1829), Parochial and Plain Sermons, Volume 3, Sermon 14 (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1997), 605.

111 LD 3: 155.

112 LD 3: 156.

116

After deriding the fragmented English Church in his previous work, Newman set about in his next poems—in the days leading up to Christmas—to focus on more hopeful topics and figures who served as beacons of light in their day. On December 19, the same day he wrote his mother, he penned the poem “Moses,” in which he tended to harmonize seemingly contradictory aspects of the man.

MOSES, the patriot fierce, became The meekest man on earth, To show us how love’s quick’ning flame Can give our souls new birth.113

The reconciliation of patriotism with the Christian virtues—meekness was one of the virtues identified in his work on Aristotle’s Poetics— highlighted the qualities necessary for leading the faithful during a time of exile. Still, even for Moses, the individual will must be surrendered:

Moses, the man of meekest heart, Lost Canaan by self-will, To show, where Grace has done its part, How sin defiles us still.114

Though Newman repeatedly introduced the perils of self-will in his previous writings, the gesture of restraining or even transforming the will so that “Grace may do its part,” provided a new appreciation for the work of providence. Whatever awaited him, abroad or on his return home, must be in cooperation with the will of God.

Newman’s next poem, “The Patient Church,” written off the coast of Algiers on 20

December, continued the theme of “virtues”:

BIDE thou thy time! Watch with meek eyes the race of pride and crime, Sit in the gate, and be the heathen’s jest, Smiling and self-possest.115

113 VVO, 91.

114 Ibid.

117

Here the notion of self-possession pointed to the condition necessary for the triumph of grace in a person’s self. The seasonal theme of the coming of Christ also flowed into the author’s sense of anticipation and renewal:

Wait the bright Advent that shall loose thy chain! E’en now the shadows break, and gleams divine Edge the dim distant line.116

The hopeful tone of Newman’s last two poems contrasted with the difficult conditions the travelers had been experiencing. Newman again suffered from minor seasickness, but never before had he seen conditions at sea such as those he witnessed on the evening of Friday, 21

December. Beyond the sight of land, the Hermes was buffeted by terrific swells, leaving

Newman and several others ill the following day. The ship’s engines suffered some damage and for a time stopped; after a desperate moment, they resumed functioning. For the first time in almost two weeks, Newman wrote neither letter nor poem. The following day, nearing Tunis, he wrote “Jeremiah,” a poem infused with the dire notes of the recent weather:

“WOE’S me!” the peaceful prophet cried, “Spare me this troubled life; To stem man’s wrath, to school his pride, To head the sacred strife!117

Relying again on the dichotomy of pride versus virtue, he seemingly introduced his own weariness at sea into the plight of the prophet:

“O place me in some silent vale, Where groves and flowers abound;118

115 Ibid., 92.

116 VVO, 93.

117 Ibid., 94.

118 Ibid.

118

At this point, Newman was in the midst of his longest stint at sea since the Hermes had arrived at Trafalgar; the day before arriving there, 14 December, he had written “Absolution.”

The theme of repentance was again on his mind as the Hermes passed the Italian island of

Pantellaria, located between Tunis and Sicily. On 23 December he wrote “Penance” beginning with an address in the second-person singular to an unspecified figure identified only as

“MORTAL!” He implored this figure—possibly contemporaries in the Church of England or even himself—not to dismiss “thy bitterest pangs” but to “attend the smart” and thereby

“sanctify the woe,” 119 for such is the path of rebirth and renewal.

Newman wrote again to his mother on 23 December in anticipation of arriving the following day at Malta. His letter mentioned passing the coast of Algiers and seeing the tricolor

French flag hanging from a French vessel. He could not even bear to gaze on the flag; for several years, he had associated the revolutionary events in France with the rampant hostility toward religion that all too often marked Liberalism.120 Since the Hermes was near shore,

Newman was able to see the road leading to Carthage. Though a seemingly innocuous sight, he found greater significance:

Nothing I have seen has affected me so much as this. I thought of Aeneas crossing from Sicily to Carthage, and made his voyage the type of all the commerce and intercourse which went on between Carthage and the island—I thought of the Phoenicians and Tyre—and of the Punic Wars— Those two

119 VVO, 95.

120 Two years earlier, on 20 August 1830, he had written his mother with surprising candour: The French are an awful people. How the world is set up calling evil good and good evil This Revolution seems to me the triumph of irreligion. What an absurdity it is in men saying ‘the times will not admit of an establishment,’ as if the ‘times’ were any thing else than the people—it is the people who will not admit of it. Yet coxcombs wag their head and think they have got at the root of the matter, when they assure one that the times, the spirit of the times, make it chimerical to attempt continuing the Catholic Church in France. The effect of this miserable French affair will be great in England. LD 2: 283.

119

headlands looked the same then as now—I thought of Cyprian and the glorious churches now apparently annihilated. And I recollected that only now I was looking on Africa for the last time in my life, tho’ by a good luck I had ever seen it.121

The sight of the road to Carthage and the French flag reminded Newman all too painfully of the open road that lay before the Church in Britain and the gravity of her choice regarding her identity.

On 24 December, Newman wrote “The Course of Truth,” a poem centered on the victory won through the Resurrection; he lamented the human reluctance to appreciate and to claim such a victory.

Still is the might of Truth, as it has been: Lodged in the few, obey’d, and yet unseen. Rear’d on lone heights, and rare, His saints their watch-flame bear, And the mad world sees the wide-circling blaze, Vain searching whence it steams, and how to quench its rays.122

He went on to lament his lack of sleep and the misfortune of articles overturned in the seemingly spontaneous swells at sea. The Mediterranean changed from gentle to tumultuous on short notice; however, a clearing was in store, as Malta would soon be in sight. Hoping to post his letter at Malta, he enclosed four more poems to accompany this letter to his mother.

The Hermes arrived in Malta on 24 December. As was the case in Gibraltar, the port was under quarantine because of cholera. It was with great disappointment that those on board learned that they would have to spend Christmas aboard their ship. In the evening bells could be heard ringing ashore, only making the experience more forlorn. Spending a miserable

121 LD 3: 158.

122 VVO, 97.

120

Christmas,123 Newman wrote “Christmas Without Christ,” a poem which began with a reflection on his own situation:

HOW can I keep my Christmas feast In its due festive show, Reft of the sight of the High Priest From whom its glories flow?

I hear the tuneful bells around, The blessed towers I see: A stranger on a foreign ground, They peal a fast for me.124

The second half of the poem compared the situation in which Newman found himself to the status of the Church in England, before ending by mentioning lack of appreciation of the victory of Easter.

O Britons! now so brave and high, How will ye weep the day When Christ in judgment passes by, And calls the Bride away!

Your Christmas then will lose its mirth, Your Easter lose its bloom: Abroad, a scene of strife and dearth; Within, a cheerless home!125

On Christmas day, Newman wrote a letter to his sister Harriett in which he complained of his inability to observe the feast day properly as the crew was busy taking on coal for the remainder of the voyage. He was humbled by the sight of a poor man, a “humble Romanist,” offering his prayers from the lazaretto—the quarantine station—in the direction of the shore, just

123 This was not Newman’s first unpleasant Christmas; see: Dominic Pigneri, “John Henry Newman’s Whitehall Preachership of 1828: ‘Christmas day what a nuisance!’,” Newman Studies Journal 9/2 (Fall 2012): 35-37.

124 VVO, 98.

125 VVO, 98-99.

121 as inaccessible to him as it was to Newman. Newman also mentioned seeing St. Paul’s bay while nearing Malta, the place where, according to tradition, Paul had been ship-wrecked.

The day after Christmas, the Hermes set out to sea again. Wearied at the prospect of returning to sea Newman’s next poem, “Sleeplessness,” was more autobiographical than fictional:

UNWEARIED God, before whose face The night is clear as day, Whilst we, poor worms, ‘er life’s scant race Now creep, and now delay,126

Newman’s previous letter expressed his building sense of frustration with the delays caused by quarantines; the prospect of future delays only exacerbated his restlessness:

After all however, it is undeniably a great waste of time—when life is so short, and one has so much to do. I trust my mind will flow in creations of some kind or other, when the time comes, for I know not what outward pursuit to employ them on.127

The following day, 27 December, the Hermes was again out of sight of land. Heading east toward Greece, Newman wrote “Abraham,” a poem whose title figure deliberately chose

God rather than earthly prestige:

THE better portion didst thou choose, Great Heart, Thy God’s first choice, and pledge of Gentile grace! Faith’s trust type, he with unruffled face Bore the world’s smile, and bade her slaves depart;128

Mired down by the delays and the nuisances of travel, Newman looked to Abraham as one with eyes heavenward, a solitary figure who responded graciously to God’s invitation in the midst of idolaters. Abraham was willing to severe the bonds of family and home to pursue a future that

126 VVO, 100.

127 LD 3: 165.

128 VVO, 101.

122

God alone would unfold—a course of action that Newman hoped to have the courage to do in his own life-journey.

O happy in their soul’s high solitude, Who commune thus with God, and not with earth!129

The following day, 28 December, the Hermes neared the Greek island of Zante. Before arriving Newman wrote “The Greek Fathers,” a poem which began with a cry of lament, not unlike those he had already expressed about his native land, as well as France and Carthage.

Fall’n Greece! the thought of holier days In my sad heart abides; For sons of thine in Truth’s first hour Were tongues and weapons of His power Born of the Spirit’s fiery shower, Our fathers and our guides.130

Newman was quick to claim the common patrimony of the Greek Fathers for his own tradition with a litany of praise for Clement, Dionysius, Origen, Basil, Gregory, and finally his own personal favorite, the “royal-hearted Athanase, with Paul’s own mantle blest.”131 If Newman’s spirits were lagging at Malta and in need of rejuvenation, then the approach to Greece could not have come at a better time.

Arriving on the island of Zante in the evening of Friday, 28 December, the travelers went ashore for only an hour or so before returning to the ship and setting off again. The following day the Hermes set course for the mainland. En route Newman wrote to his sister Jemima: “I am full of matter if I can bring it out.”132 He related the inconvenience of waiting in quarantine

129 Ibid.

130 VVO, 102.

131 Ibid.

132 LD 3: 166.

123 as well as the rumors of pirates hiding among the Greek isles. In spite of the doldrums of travel, there were deep and unsuspecting joys along the way—among them the thrill of surfacing from the depths of the vessel to observe new wonders.

A scene is before you as if by magic and you cannot believe it is real. Yesterday was the most delightful day I have had. At first when I saw the Spanish coast my raptures were greater—but I have overcome this turbulence and am full of joy to overflowing—for I am in the Greek sea, the scene of old Homer’s song and of the histories of Thucydides.133

Newman’s energy spilled over into euphoria:

We are at Patras. It is more than enough. I feel overpowered−really I never knew before what ecstacy was, and the dreamy relaxation after it is most delightful.134

To appreciate the experience of Newman—far from home and teeming with emotion— one must consider the indelible mark classical literature had left upon him from childhood. For

Newman, visiting the classical lands was the realization of a life-long dream. His acute memory and imagination took him back to his school-boy days of reading Homer and Virgil. On

December 29, Newman again wrote to his mother. This time he lavished details about passing

Ithaca on the journey from Patras north to the Greek island Corfu.

I could not have believed that the view of these parts would have so enchanted me. Not that I have not always had the most deepest attachment to old Homer, but I thought my imagination slow to be excited by the sight of what I have heard of. But when I was for hours within half a mile of Ithaca, as I was this morning, how shall I describe my feelings. They were not caused by any classical association, but by the thought that I now saw before me in real shape those places which had been the earliest vision of my childhood. Ulysses and Argus inhabitated the very isle I saw. It answered the description most accurately—a barren huge rock, of limestone (apparently) a dull grey poorly covered with brushwood, broken into roundish masses with deep ravines, which were the principal points where cultivation had dared to experimentalize—tho’ the sides of the hills were also turned up. Olive trees have made their appearance, the vines being cut down in the winter and invisible looking from the water. On a height in

133 Ibid., 167.

134 LD 3: 170.

124

the centre and narrowest part of the island is a height called the tower of Ulysses—We could see through the glass parts of the Cyclopean (as they are called) ruins which surmount it—their make is far anterior to the historical period—and, tradition having assigned them to Ulysses, antiquarians do not hesitate to admit the fact. Homer calls the island dear and little—and so it is—I gazed upon it by the quarter of an hour together, being quite satisfied with the sight of the rock. I thought of Ham and of all the various glimpses, which memory barely retains and which fly from me when I pursue them, of that earliest time of life when one seems almost to realize the remnant of a pre-existent state. Oh how I longed to touch the land and satisfy myself it was not a mere vision I saw before me.135

Seeing Ithaca in the distance blurred the fragile lines between reality and imagination, between the seen and the unseen. Thoughts of Odysseus ushered in a new vantage point from which to consider both the distance of home and the overwhelming sense of exile. As a boy,

Newman had learned by heart poems telling the story of Odysseus, exiled from Ithaca for twenty years. The Newman family home at Ham came to mind. As Trevor wrote,

That was when the angels hid behind the trees and perhaps walked in the garden when he was not looking. Heaven was Ham in childish dreams, and now Ithaca appeared, like a vision, a symbol of that timeless awareness our minds first inhabit, the shadow of the last, the home of eternity. In Corfu Newman collected the seeds of flowers for his mother’s garden in Iffley. The furthest reach of their voyage touched the earliest shore of memory.136

Well before passing Ithaca, the chronicles of Odysseus had crossed Newman’s mind in his poem, “Isle of the Sirens,” written off the coast of Lisbon. The song of the Sirens from

Homer’s text echoed a refrain relevant to his writings:

‘Come here, thou worthy of a world of praise, That dost so high the Grecian glory raise, Ulysses! Stay thy ship, and that song hear That none pass’d ever but it bent his ear, But left him ravish’d, and instructed more

135 LD 3: 172.

136 Trevor, Pillar, 116.

125

By us, than any ever heard before.137

Newman was mindful that unforeseen events could threaten to “stay thy ship” and that temptations to win the esteem of others and to distinguish himself would require constant vigilance, lest he succumb to the temptations of a world of praise.

In order to remain true to his present course, Newman found in Odysseus a figure to emulate. This hero’s ability to endure the myriad ebbs and flows of fortune as he sought to return home from the siege of Troy gave Newman courage. Surviving storms at sea and shipwreck with self-discipline and strong character, Odysseus held firm as those around him succumbed to Lotus-Eaters, enchantments, and even their own appetites. Not only did his restraint save his life, these qualities had at times spared the lives of others. In addition to

Odysseus, Homer had a spellbinding influence. As Adam Roberts has observed, “According to tradition, this individual was blind, a wandering poet without any great wealth or status in his own day.”138 It is little wonder that Newman and Froude were enthralled by the sight of Ithaca in the distance.

Newman wrote two poems off the coast of Ithaca. The first, a curiously vague work, entitled “The Witness,” gave no indication whom Newman had in mind as the title figure—only that such a one should,

shun the haunts of vice, Sin-feast, or heathen sacrifice; Fearing the board of wealthy pride, Or heretic, self-trusting guide,139

137 Homer, The Odyssey (London: Wordsworth Classics, 2002), Book 12: 272-283; hereafter cited: Homer, Odyssey.

138 Homer, Odyssey, xii.

139 VVO, 104.

126

The second poem, “The Death of Moses,” seems to shed light on the first; the virtuous Moses stands as witness with a crowning vision of his life’s work:

Blest scene! thrice welcome after toil— If no deceit I view; O might my lips but press the soil, And prove the vision true!140

Reflecting on the death of Moses, Newman weighed the commitment necessary for giving himself to a work that would outlive him. He longed to “press the soil,” not only at the end of his present pilgrimage but at the end of his earthly pilgrimage as well:

Ah! now they melt . . . they are but shades . . I die!—yet is no rest, O Lord! in store, since Canaan fades But seen, and not possest?141

In the case of both Odysseus and Moses, the theme of homecoming is unmistakable. As Richard

Hutton commented,

If Newman indulges for a moment in the reminiscence of that strong ideal passion for his native country which made Ulysses pine for the bare and rocky isle amidst the seductions of the isle of Calypso and the flattery of his Phaeacian hosts, it only suggests to him to paint that ideal patriotism which inspired the longing of Moses to tread the soil of Canaan in the hour of his death upon Mount Nebo, and which has so often served the Christian in place of patriotism when contemplating a home for which his soul had yearned, but the soil of which he has never trodden.142

140 VVO, 106.

141 Ibid., 107.

142 Hutton, Cardinal Newman, 39. Chapter Four: Far From Home

January

The Hermes arrived in Corfu, an Ionian island famous in Greek mythology, on the evening of Sunday, 30 December. In spite of a rainy welcome the passengers were eager for the prospect of remaining at Corfu for an entire week. For the first time since leaving England,

Newman took a few days break from writing verses. Even his letter writing dried up for a spell, save for one penned to his sister Harriett on 2 January 1833. Unsurprisingly, a lingering admiration for Homer still occupied Newman.

I have this morning been able to realize almost the Greek times, i.e.—to fancy Homer and Thucydides here—only I am astonished that they say so little about the scenery—of course they were used to it. It is such an overpowering reflection to recollect that the place looked precisely the same in their times, which it must have done.1

Newman then related some encounters with fascinating locals—an experience as integral to his travels as the wonderful landscapes. Of particular interest was the ubiquitous olive tree, which he described to Harriett at length. Several years later, on 20 February 1842, the olives in Corfu still won his admiration:

It should be recollected that in the South and East where they abstain from all animal food, even milk, they have olives abundantly. I heard at Corfu from two officers who had gone round the Morea during one of the strict fasts and could get nothing to eat but olives, that their friends complimented them on their return on their singularly good looks. Olives, I suppose, are far more nutritious than milk. I throw it out then as a question whether, when one abstains from meat, it is not right to take milk and butter, as the substitute for olives in the south.2

1 LD 3: 177.

2 AW, 219-220. Morea was the name then used for the Peloponnese peninsula.

127 128

Yet for all the charms of these locales, the homing instinct of Newman was never far away; as he confided to Harriett:

I do not think I should care, or rather I believe I should be very glad, to find myself suddenly transported to my rooms at Oriel, and with my oak sported be lying at full length on my sofa. After all, every kind of external exertion is to me an effort—whether or not my mind has been strained and wearied with the necessity of constant activity, I know not—or whether or not having had many disappointments, or suffered much from the rudeness and slights of persons I have been cast with, I shrink involuntarily from the contact of the world—and whether or not, natural disposition assists this feeling, and a perception (almost morbid) of my deficiencies and absurdities, any how neither the kindest attentions nor the most sublime sights have over me influence enough to draw me out of way, and deliberately as I have set about my present wanderings, yet I heartily wish they were over, and only endure them; and had much rather have seen them than see them, tho’ the while I am extremely astonished and almost enchanted at seeing them.3

So much was “home” in Newman’s mind and heart that occasionally while sleeping he momentarily mistook the bells of the ship for those he was accustomed to hearing at Oriel.4

Newman wrote only one poem in Corfu— “Melchizedek”—which tapped into the loneliness expressed in his recent letter to Harriett:

THRICE bless’d are they, who feel their loneliness; To whom nor voice of friends nor pleasant scene Brings aught on which the sadden’d heart can lean;5

All that was left for the ageless Melchizedek was to seek “His presence, who alone can bless.”6 Newman, who had been at sea for almost a month, was keenly aware of the pains of

3 LD 3: 177-178.

4 Anne Mozley, editor, Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman During His Life in the English Church, Volume I (New York, NY: Longmans, Green, 1903), 288.

5 VVO, 108.

6 Ibid. Under the title of “Melchizedek” is the biblical reminder: “Without father, without mother, without descent; having neither beginning of days, nor end of life” (Hebrews 7:3).

129 absence. He saw in his longing for home an analog of the deeper longing for the presence of

God at the heart of his being. Newman, like Melchizedek, was lost in foreign lands for what seemed like several lifetimes.

Fatherless, homeless, reft of age and place, Sever’d from earth, and careless of its wreck, Born through long woe His rare Melchizedek.7

The passengers of the Hermes visited Corfu for several days. Newman saw a number of

Greek Orthodox churches and regularly conversed with local people while traveling. He even had the unexpected opportunity to attend a social gathering at which he was something of a novelty.

There was a ball in Corfu while they were there which amused Newman by its incongruity; it was intended to be Greek, but English costume was thought the most fashionable, and the ball was a copy of London’s smart ways in this wild romantic place.8

Newman re-boarded the Hermes on Sunday evening, 6 January. The ship retraced its path south, passing east of Ithaca toward Patras on the mainland. Along the way Newman wrote

“Corcyra”:

I SAT beneath an olive’s branches grey, And gazed upon the site of a lost town, By sage and poet raised to long renown; Where dwelt a race that on the sea held sway,9

This poem represented a bookend of sorts to Newman’s earlier poem “The Greek Fathers” written off the coast of Zante. In that poem, he had lamented the desuetude of the Greek Church

7 VVO, 109.

8 Trevor, Pillar, 115.

9 VVO, 109. “Corcyra” is the Latin name for Corfu.

130 in the wake of its iconic figures. In “Corcyra” the lament was aimed at the loss of the classical age in Greece:

Henceforth, while pondering the fierce deeds then done, Such reverence on me shall its seal impress As though I corpses saw, and walk’d the tomb.10

“Corcyra” was the last of his poems about the classical age and one that explicitly surfaced the tensions between classical past and Christian present.

The travelers arrived at Patras, a city in northern Peloponnese, in the evening of Monday,

7 January. After a brief stop, they traveled to Zante—arriving the following morning. Off the coast of Zante, Newman wrote the poem “Transfiguration,” in which he looked three times at an unknown figure, looking once and twice without recognition or understanding.

I SAW thee once and nought discern’d For stranger to admire; A serious aspect, but it burn’d With no unearthly fire.

Again I saw, and I confess’d Thy speech was rare and high; And yet it vex’d my burden’d breast, And scared, I knew not why.11

On looking a third time the figure was recognized, though still anonymous. I saw once more, and awe-struck gazed On face, and form, and air; God’s living glory round thee blazed— A Saint—a Saint was there!12

“Transfiguration” was a good fit with his subsequent poem “Behind the Veil”, written on

9 January; the “veil” relates specifically to Moses, who was possibly the transfigured one in the previous poem. Each successive glance at an unnamed figure reveals a deeper insight, not

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid., 110.

12 Ibid.

131 earlier available to the beholder. “Behind the Veil” traced the footprints of the saints—a reference to pilgrimage:

BANISH’d the House of sacred rest, Amid a thoughtless throng, At length I heard its creed confess’d, And knelt the saints among.13

Only through repeated and deep seeing into the transfigured one can one ascertain what lies beneath the surface.

Lord, grant me this abiding grace, Thy Word and sons to know; To pierce the veil on Moses’ face, Although his speech be slow.14

The image of “the veil” gives special insight into Newman’s personality as well as his deeply personal longing for God. From the beginning of the voyage—as well as the time preceding it—his fascination with the interpenetration of the visible and the invisible prompted a longing to encounter the hidden spiritual realities in his midst. As Harold Weatherby commented, “The beauty of the physical world is embraced, but only as a symbol or economy of the invisible.”15 This image of “the veil” was particularly relevant for Newman: “A veil hides what lies behind it; to get at those invisible things it must be torn aside, no matter how beautiful it may be.”16 How to penetrate the veil, with respect for the visible world, became a great question to be answered.

13 VVO, 111.

14 Ibid.

15 Weatherby, Cardinal Newman, 122.

16 Ibid., 123.

132

On the same day that Newman wrote “Behind the Veil,” a great swell buffeted the

Hermes, and though it was not the first time that Newman was seasick, his next poem reflected his condition. As the ship approached Malta, he wrote “Judgment,” a poetic reflection about the mandate issued to David to choose between seven years of famine, three months flight from his enemies, or three days of pestilence (2 Samuel 14:12-13). Newman asked to be spared such a fate.

Save me from David’s lot, O God! And choose Thyself the woe.17

When the ship arrived again at Malta the following day, 10 January, Newman was feeling worse than usual and was confined for a time to the lazaretto along with the Froudes. Newman and the Froudes remained in Malta for the rest of January. On Tuesday 15 January Newman penned his next letter—this time to Jemima—in which he recounted his recent illness. Three days prior, the Hermes had left Malta on its return voyage to England with Newman’s letters:

I saw it [Hermes] go off with strange feelings, which I had not anticipated. I had been securely conveyed in it for 5 weeks, during which time I had never slept ashore. It was a kind of home, as having conveyed me from England—it was going back thither—and as it went off, I seemed more cast upon the world than ever I had been—and to be alone; no connexion between me and England now being in it, or any way ready made for me by which I am to get back.18

Latent in the parting between Newman and what he had referred to in “The Haven” as “my keen bark” was his longing for home in faraway places. The Hermes was a symbol of home and the

Church.

17 VVO, 112. This poem is remarkable for the interposition of the author and the biblical figure, especially given the fact that David became a recurring figure in the next few poems.

18 LD 3: 188.

133

Newman’s accommodations at the lazaretto left much to be desired. Built by the Knights of Malta along the shore and facing the harbor as a quarantine for the Turks, Newman’s room was little more than a cell:

The window of Newman’s room in the Lazaretto looked out over the room used for fumigating letters. It was like being in prison; he was locked in his room at night, though he was allowed, if he wished, to go about the harbours in a small boat during the day.19

In the coming and going of people from the lazaretto, Newman and Froude were able to piece together a fair understanding of the island nation and its Catholic population. Particularly impressed by the influence of the Roman Church upon the Catholics in Malta, Newman wrote to

Jemima, “I mention all this at length, because it exemplifies the admirable system of the Papacy as an instrument of power.”20

In his letter, Newman related the suspicions of those in the lazaretto of supernatural occurrences during the night. He and others, from inside their locked rooms, could not explain the strange noises and footsteps emanating from otherwise empty rooms in their hallway. His sensitivity to the unseen was nothing new, he later recounted in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua of routinely crossing himself upon walking into darkness as a child.21 These seemingly surreal events in the lazaretto were perhaps behind the poem written on 15 January: “Sensitiveness,” which is situated in the midst of a series of poems on David, a figure Newman routinely associated with the virtue of zeal, another of the poetic virtues delineated in his essay on

19 Michael Ffinch, Newman: Towards the Second Spring (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1992), 42.

20 LD 3: 190. Newman’s description of the Papacy as an “admirable system” is surprising; perhaps he wanted the Church of England to be “an instrument of power.”

21 Apologia, 106.

134

Aristotle’s Poetics. The introspective nature of “Sensitiveness” found Newman wanting to be more zealous—though David was not mentioned.

I step, I mount where He has led; Men count my haltings o’er;- I know them; yet, though self I dread, I love His precept more.22

16 January was a day of writing for Newman—with a letter and two poems to his credit.

His letter was to Isaac Williams (1802-1865), fellow and tutor at Trinity College, who was

Newman’s assistant at St. Mary’s and later an author of a number of the Tracts for the Times.

Newman related details of his quarantine accommodations and the difficulties of life on open waters: “O unquiet sea, you and I shall never agree.”23 His unrest carried over to self-appraisal:

I certainly am not cut out for a great politician, or as any instrument of change little or great in the Church, for it makes me wretched to be in motion—yet I suppose in these times we must all of us more or less expect to find our duty lie in agitation and tumult I seemed to realize somewhat of the cross of that blessed Apostle who was in watchfulness and weariness so often, as I lay tossed in my luxurious berth in the steam-packet—What a trial his journey to Rome must have been in a miserable vessel—but Scripture speaks so quietly and (so to say) modestly about the trials of the Saints that it requires some experience and care to find them out.24

Newman’s recognition of his limitations seemed an important counterpoint to the person who had left home six weeks earlier. Then doubts and second-guesses churned quietly, yet forcefully beneath the surface. Now he no longer concealed them:

I am for many reasons very glad that I have come out here. I think traveling a good thing for a secluded man, not so much as showing him the world, as in realizing to him the limited sphere of his own power.25

22 VVO, 113.

23 LD 3: 193.

24 Ibid.

25 LD 3: 194.

135

This letter to Williams also gave the first indication of a minor difference between Newman and

Froude. Froude wanted the Lyra Apostolica to be an explicit political commentary in contrast to

Newman’s emphasis upon the ecclesiastical climate of the day. In his letter, Newman described

Froude’s more favorable inclinations toward the Church of Rome, which strongly contrasted with Newman’s suspicious reserve.

The two poems that Newman wrote on Wednesday, 16 January, were entitled “David and

Jonathan” and “Humiliation”. In the week ahead Newman would compose four additional poems, “The Call of David”, “A Blight”, “Joseph”, and “Superstition”, before leaving the lazaretto to travel freely about the countryside. The two works bearing David’s name featured different virtues: David was identified as “Heart of fire!” and “zealous one” in “David and

Jonathan.”26 The poem “Humiliation” described its author as falling short of the burning zeal of

David yet wanting his will to move in such a direction.

Cleanse it, good Lord, from earthly leaven And make it simply Thine.27

“The Call of David” continued the meditation on the movement toward divine zeal, while inserting the intervention of divine will through the gift of prophetic anointing:

LATEST born of Jesse’s race, Wonder lights thy bashful face, While the Prophet’s gifted oil Seals thee for a path of toil.28

26 VVO, 115.

27 Ibid., 117.

28 Ibid., 118.

136

Newman’s depiction of David’s life in multiple poems identified a transformational moment in which David went from bashful youth to zealous seeker of God. Seemingly Newman was articulating his own longing for such a transformation in his life.

The poem, “The Blight,” written on 19 January, again seized upon the theme of self-will.

The loss of innocence which the writer associated with childhood occurs simultaneous with the appearance of self-will at an undisclosed moment in life. Self-will is synonymous with the title of the work and presents a barrier between the present figure and the lost childhood figure.

So now defilement dims life’s memory−springs; I cannot hear an early−cherish’d strain, But first a joy, and then it brings a pain−29

The final lines of the poem reveal the hope that with the conquest of self-will, avenues to a childlike innocence might be again restored.

Tears lull my grief to rest, Not without hope, this breast May one day lose its load, and youth yet bloom again.30

This return to youthfulness in contrast to a self-centered one, was a childlike state in which invisible realities could be more readily encountered and understood. Such a state of communion with the unseen characterized Newman’s own childhood.

And it is in the consciousness of the invisible, as something hidden by the visible−which so closely resembled what he believed as a child, and which he had rediscovered not only in Keble, but in the Fathers, and which Mary’s death had brought back to him with such startling vividness−that the idea took shape.31

On 20 January, Newman wrote to his good friend John William Bowden about his gloomy experiences in the lazaretto as well as about Maltese history. That same day he wrote

29 Ibid., 121.

30 Ibid.

31 Bouyer, Newman, 144.

137

“Joseph”, a poem similar to other poems depicting biblical figures as icons of virtue or intermediaries between heaven and earth as in his poem “Isaac”:

So we move heavenward with averted face, Scared into faith by warning of sin’s pains; And Saints are lower’d, that the world may rise.32

In “Joseph,” the mother of Christ was presented as:

O PUREST Symbol of the Eternal Son! Who dwelt in thee, as in some sacred shrine, To draw hearts after thee, and make them thine;33

In contrast to the previous day’s poem, where self-will was described as a blight, here the opposite is portrayed: Christ dwells in Joseph, who is identified as a shrine, in which there is no room for self-will.

The following day, 21 January, Newman wrote his final poem from the lazaretto:

“Superstition,” which presented a wide-sweeping critique of the state of religion in the

Mediterranean.

O LORD and Christ, Thy Children of the South So shudder, when they see The two-edged sword sharp-issuing from Thy mouth.34

Though Newman included himself with those justly consigned to fear and trembling—perhaps an allusion to the faltering of the Church of England, the poem was a lament for a paradise lost among the “Children of the South”: paradise had been traded in for superstition.

32 VVO, 124. “Isaac” was written at Valletta on 23 January 1833.

33 VVO, 122.

34 VVO, 123.

138

After receiving permission to leave the lazaretto on Wednesday, 23 January, Newman wrote to his mother on 26 January and described the beauty of St. John’s Church in Malta and discussed the decline of religion:

Every thing in St John’s Church is admirable, if it did not go quite so far−it is a beautiful flower run to seed. I am impressed with a sad presentiment, as if the gift of truth, when once lost, was lost forever—and so the Christian world is gradually becoming barren and effete, as land which has been worked out and is become sand. We have lasted longer than the South—but we are going (it appears) also. As for the number of sects, which have split off from the Church, many of them have already ended in Soc[in]ianism, a heresy ten thousand times worse than any in Rome or Constantinople.35

Newman’s final lines suggest that he perceived the decline in the state of religion as connected with a loss of the unity that characterized the early Church. Though at this time, his appreciation for the Church of Rome was limited at best, the priority he placed upon unity in 1833 hinted at his later re-evaluation of the Roman Catholic Church.

Newman’s final poem in January, “Reverses,” which was written at Valletta on the island of Malta, falls in the middle of the poems he wrote between November 1832 and June 1833, and represents a crossroad of sorts at which the tides of earthly fortune are destined to be overturned:

When the rich town, that long Has lain its huts among, Uprears its pageants vast, And vaunts-it shall not last! Bright tints that shine, are but a sign Of summer past.36

By poem’s end, a reader wonders whether the author will introduce anything that endures in the midst of all that fades. The final lines answer with the counterpoint to a passing world.

All gifts below, save Truth, but grow Towards an end.37

35 LD 3: 204-205.

36 VVO, 125.

139

February

Newman spent the final days of January seeing Malta and preparing for his trip to Italy by studying Italian. On Monday, 4 February, Newman and the Froudes learned that a steamer was departing for Naples on the following Thursday. The next day, 5 February, Newman wrote his final poem at Malta: “Hope,” a meditation on Noah and the great flood. After recounting in a straightforward manner the biblical event in the poem’s early lines, he referred to a second awaited flood:

The Lord has come and gone; and now we wait When our slight ark shall cross a molten surge; So, while the gross earth melts, for judgment ripe, Ne’er with its haughty turrets to emerge, We shall mount up to Eden’s long-lost gate.38

In contrast to many of Newman’s Mediterranean poems about the Church that looked wistfully at the past and unfavorably at the present, “Hope” was unique in that it looked to the future and though the vision of “molten surge” is bleak, the prevailing conviction of the poem is that the

“slight ark” of the Church will endure and remain, even to the gates of a long-awaited Eden.

On Thursday, 7 February, the three travelers left Malta and arrived in Messina at the eastern tip of Sicily the following morning. They spent two days in Messina, where Newman wrote two poems. The subject of the first “St. Paul at Melita” was Paul’s arrival in Italy.

SECURE in his prophetic strength, The water peril o’er, The many-gifted man at length Stepp’d on the promised shore.39

37 Ibid., 126.

38 VVO, 127.

39 Ibid., 128.

140

The poem depicted Paul arriving with purpose, even urgency.

He trod the shore; but not to rest, Nor wait till Angels came;40

This poem gives readers a sense of how Newman hoped to return to his native shores for a work that was already germinating during his time away. The same urgency assigned to St. Paul in

Newman’s poem would be a prevailing motif for the Oxford Movement.

The following day Newman wrote the poem “Messina”—which was his only

Mediterranean poem named for the town where it was written. The work began with a familiar lament.

WHY, wedded to the Lord, still yearns my heart Towards these scenes of ancient heathen fame?41

The poem then took a novel direction in the second half through a sense of fraternal kinship with bygone eras, one that is not erased by the infidelity of years.

‘Tis but that sympathy with Adam’s race Which in each brother’s history reads its own. So let the cliffs and seas of this fair place Be named man’s tomb and splendid record-stone,42

Though partly judgmental in character, Newman’s willingness to let the locales of his travels serve as a mirror into his own life represents a significant development, given his associations of

Sicily with the pagan world. As Meriol Trevor commented, “All Sicily was to him, almost more than Greece, the vision of the pagan world, the world without Christ, the natural world so full of beauty, so haunted with death. “43

40 Ibid.

41 VVO, 129.

42 Ibid.

43 Trevor, Pillar, 117.

141

The three travelers left Messina by ship on Saturday evening, 9 February and arrived the following morning they arrived in Palermo, directly west of Messina on the northern coast of

Sicily. On Monday, Newman and the Froudes made a day-trip to Egesta, stopping along the way in Calatafimi; the following day they returned to Palermo. Along the way Newman wrote the poem “Warnings”. In contrast to the fine weather, the tenor of the poem is ominous.

WHEN Heaven sends sorrow, Warnings go first, Lest it should burst With stunning might On souls too bright To fear the morrow.44

This poem is auspicious, if for no other reason than that a life-changing moment rested on

Newman’s horizon; “Warnings” presents a premonition of the crucible to come. Curiously,

Newman’s poems dried up for the next two weeks.

Newman and the Froudes overnighted in Palermo before leaving by steamer for Naples on Wednesday, 13 February. The weather crossing the Tyrrhenian Sea from Sicily to Naples was picturesque and the steamer arrived in Naples Thursday morning. For the next several days the travelers enjoyed the sights and sounds of Naples, visiting the Cathedral as well as the opera house and the museum. On 16 Saturday, Newman wrote to his sister Harriett. He wasted little time before launching into his disappointment with the city and its inhabitants.

We find a population from high to low, as it appears, immersed in the most despicably frivolity and worst profligacy, which is so much connected with religious observances as to give the city the character of a pagan worship. We find every one we come in contact with, custom house officers, shopmen, priests and populace thieves and cheats, having been subjected every step we have taken to all sorts of the most provoking impositions.45

44 VVO, 130.

45 LD 3: 211.

142

This letter to Harriett also gave the first indication of a future parting between Newman and the

Froudes. Newman expressed his interest in returning to Sicily after the travelers had seen Rome.

The Froudes were determined to return from Rome to England. Newman explained his desire to return to Sicily, mentioning specifically his enjoyment of the day trip to Egesta: “It has been a day in my life to have seen Egesta, it is hitherto the flower of our expedition.”46

Newman wrote to his sister Jemima on 19 February. In sharp contrast with his fondness for “glorious Sicily,” he again recounted his frustrations with Naples: “In Sicily you have ample plains, and the heights rise out of them at their ease, calmly and gently, with elbow room. This is the beauty of the bay of Palermo.”47 Newman’s appraisal of Sicily was enthusiastic: “Oh that I could tell you one quarter of what I have to say about it—but neither memory nor expression serve me! Wonderful place, piercing the heart with a strange painful pleasure!”48 Sicily’s attractiveness explains Newman’s later decision to return there on his own.

The day after Newman wrote to Jemima was Ash Wednesday. He stayed in Naples the following day and on Friday traveled southeast to Pompeii—a place which captivated him. Zeno described Newman’s recollection of the event almost fifty years later.

In a sermon preached in the year 1880, he remembered how he once climbed Vesuvius and saw the hot lava. There is something very awful in the lava, he said. It is very slow but very sure and very destructive. It is a kind of type of the Almighty. The lava comes; it may not come today, it may not come tomorrow, but in it slow course it is sure to come. So it is with God’s judgments: they are just as sure, though they are just as slow.49

46 LD 3: 213.

47 Ibid., 216.

48 Ibid., 219. Newman’s love of Sicily is somewhat surprising, since he wrote very little about the island either in letters or in poems during his time there.

49 Zeno, Newman, 271.

143

The following day Newman began to prepare the first of two sermons he would deliver during the voyage. On Sunday 24 February, the feast of St. Matthias, he preached at the

Ambassador’s Chapel in Naples on “The Immortality of the Soul.” This sermon presented a topic that occupied much of his Mediterranean writings; early in the sermon, he seized upon the fall of Rome.

Its ruins remain scattered over the face of the earth; the shattered works of its great upholder, that fierce enemy of God, the Pagan Roman Empire. Those ruins are found even among themselves, and show how marvelously great was its power, and therefore how much more powerful was that which broke its power; and this was the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. So entire is the revolution which is produced among men, wherever this high truth is really received.50

Newman employed the image of a veil—a staple of his Mediterranean reflections—to express the limina of the soul which must be penetrated.

And thus absorbed in the thought of the life to come are they who really and heartily receive the words of Christ and His Apostles. Yet to this state of mind, therefore to this true knowledge the multitude of men called Christians are certainly strangers; a thick veil is drawn over their eyes; and in spite of their being able to talk of the doctrine they are as if they ever had heard of it.51

Newman’s next use of the image of a veil referred to the passing world. He did not dismiss the veil as altogether irrelevant, but recognized it as a passing phenomenon.

And should it so happen that misfortunes come upon us, (as they often do) then still more are we led to understand the nothingness of this world; then still more are we led to distrust it, and are weaned from the love of it, till at length it floats before our eyes merely as some idle veil, which, notwithstanding its many tints, cannot hide the view of what is beyond it;—and we begin, by degrees, to perceive that there are but two beings in the whole universe, our own soul, and the God who made it.52

50 PPS: 15 (Volume I, Sermon 2).

51 Ibid., 16.

52 Ibid. 17. Newman described his “first conversion” as “making me rest in the thought of two and two only absolute and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator” (Apologia, 108).

144

Newman’s use of the term “veil” emphasized the dichotomy between visible and invisible worlds, while pointing to Christ as the one who passes freely beyond the veil for the sake of those who follow, overcoming the separation of worlds as the narrow meeting place of the hourglass.

Oh that there were such an heart in us, to put aside this visible world, to desire to look at it as a mere screen between us and God, and to think of Him who has entered in beyond the veil, and who is watching us, trying us, yes, and blessing, and influencing, and encouraging us towards good, day by day!53

In addition to allusions to a veil, Newman’s sermon featured a deep insight into his own inner state during the voyage that is as much autobiography as it is exhortation:

All things that we have to learn are difficult at first; and our duties to God, and to man for His sake, are peculiarly difficult, because they call upon us to take up a new life, and quit the love of this world for the next. It cannot be avoided; we must fear and be in sorrow, before we can rejoice. The Gospel must be a burden before it comforts and brings us peace.54

Newman’s mention of the “call upon us to take up a new life” seems particularly poignant given both his longing for the life he left behind and his growing conviction that he would have a “new life” on his return to England and its Church.55

On Monday, Newman journeyed to Paestum south of Naples, stopping along the way in

Salerno. In Paestum, he wrote his first poem in two weeks; “Dreams”—though written two weeks after “Warnings”—had a similar theme. Yet, where “Warnings” anticipated sorrow on the horizon, “Dreams” included a self-indictment on remembering past faults:

53 Ibid., 20.

54 Ibid., 19.

55 This last reflection gives a reader some insight into the otherwise dour tone and seeming pessimism of Newman’s letters and verses. His efforts to rid himself of worldliness demanded a sober appraisal of the wages of sin and human frailty, while visions of the future turned his fear and sorrow into rejoicing and peace.

145

OH! miserable power To dreams allow’d, to raise the guilty past, And back awhile the illumined spirit to cast On its youth’s twilight hour;56

Instead of rejecting the recollection of prior shortcomings, the author encouraged accepting them for the sake of self-understanding:

Welcome the thorn—it is divinely sent, And with its wholesome smart Shall pierce thee in thy virtue’s palmy home, And warn thee what thou art, and whence thy Wealth has come.57

As a pair, both “Warnings” and “Dreams” show Newman with a lack of reconciliation to the past as well as the future. This discontent seemingly refers to the England Newman left behind and the England to which he was preparing to return. This discontent also speaks to the lack of clarity in measuring Christian antiquity against his hopes for the future of the Church.58

After returning to Naples from Paestum, the three travelers prepared to travel by sea again. On the last day of the month, Newman wrote to his mother to tell her of their departure for Rome the next day. He expressed his surprise at not receiving any letters from home, before decrying the state of the Catholic Church in Italy. Such Roman deterioration led him to reflect upon the future of the Church of England: “I begin to hope that England is after all to be the

‘Land of Saints’ in this dark hour, and her Church the salt of the earth.”59

56 VVO, 131.

57 Ibid.

58 Even at this point, one can see how Newman’s inner turmoil set the stage for the most famous poem—“Lead, Kindly Light”—a work to be written several months later.

59 LD 3: 225.

146

March

On Friday, 1 March, Newman and the Froudes departed Naples for Rome around 7:30 in the morning. Traveling throughout the night, they arrived at Rome on Saturday evening.

Although the Froudes traveled alongside Newman for the duration of the trip, they were largely silent figures in his letters and verses. As Meriol Trevor observed,

He is always alone, even while his friends are near him; in the long succession of lyrics he does not mention them. And so, like Ulysses after an enchanted voyage, he finds himself in Rome.60

Newman’s entry into Rome produced a variety of responses. While the scenes of Rome appealed strongly to his sense of beauty and nourished his need for poetic stimuli, he was simultaneously reluctant at—perhaps incapable of—being won over completely by the ancient city. According to Bouyer:

As touching Rome, he was the first to remark on the complexity of his own feelings . . . . But a sort of puzzling ambiguity seems to hang over this grandeur which he can in no wise dispel. The sight of the ruins of old Rome side by side with the untarnished memorials of the Church of the Fathers, nay, of the Apostles themselves, and, over the whole, the blossoming of the fairylike city of the Renaissance, appeals to the Romantic in him, allures him with its incomparable beauty, but at the same times gives him a feeling of uneasiness for some cause or causes which he cannot fathom.61

In Bouyer’s depiction, Newman’s voyage was undertaken at multiple levels: he was entranced at an aesthetic level, yet his uneasiness at reconciling the Church of Rome with his own longing for an idealized version of the universal Church paralleled his own inner turmoil about the catholicity of the Church of England. In a sense, this spiritual tension seems to have provided fertile creativity for his poetry.

60 Trevor, Pillar, 50.

61 Bouyer, Newman, 136.

147

Newman found his accommodations in Rome to be the most satisfactory of all those he encountered abroad. As Ffinch has commented,

At Rome . . . Newman found he was close to people he knew. A few doors away from his apartments (six rooms, kitchen, servants’ rooms, and walk on the housetop), members of the Wilberforce family were lodging. During their time in the city the Archdeacon and his party were entertained and guided round the sites. They were able to catch up with news from home as it was possible now to obtain English newspapers.62

The following day they attended services at the English chapel before visiting St. Peter’s. On

Monday, 4 March, Newman saw the Forum, the Coliseum and St. John Lateran. In keeping with his established custom while abroad, Newman respectfully did not participate in the liturgies he attended in Rome. Such restraint however did not prevent him from commenting on the worship services. Writing to the wife of John William Bowden on 1 March 1846, Newman alluded to the effect of his experiences in Rome.

When I have been in Churches abroad, I have religiously abstained from acts of worship, though it was a most soothing comfort to go into them—nor did I know what was going on; I neither understood nor tried to understand the Mass service—and I did not know, or did not observe, the tabernacle Lamp—but now after tasting of the awful delight of worshipping God in His Temple, how unspeakably cold is the idea of a Temple without that Divine Presence! One is tempted to say what is the meaning, what is the use of it?63

In a letter to his sister Harriett on the same day, Newman related his initial impressions of the Eternal City and the conflicted relationship that he was experiencing.

And now what [can] I say of Rome, but that it is of all cities the first, and that all I ever saw are but as dust, even dear Oxford inclusive, compared with its majesty and glory. Is it possible that so serene and lofty a place is the cage of unclean creatures? I will not believe it until I have evidence of it.64

62 Ffinch, Second Spring, 43.

63 LD 9: 131.

64 LD 3: 230-231.

148

For all the splendor of Rome, Newman found himself incapable of fully embracing his new environs. Where previous stops in his journey lent themselves to clearer symbolic meanings, the complicated historical legacy of Rome clouded his affinity for the place. As Meriol Trevor commented, “Ithaca was childhood, Sicily was nature and pagan man, Rome was religion—it was at once the scene of the great triumph of the martyrs, and the place, so Newman felt, of the deepest human corruption: it contained the extremes of Christianity.”65

Though the beauty of Rome won over Newman’s eyes and even the admiration of his mind, his heart was all but impenetrable. For Newman, the beauty of Rome was a surface phenomenon or a distraction from a recurring loneliness for home. As Richard Hutton wrote,

For the first time in his life he saw Rome. But he looked only at the surface and did not search for the essence. He visited Catholic churches only to admire their architectural beauty or to hear the fascinating music or to get rid of his restlessness, his homesickness, his weariness. He could appreciate Rome’s majesty and glory; but he recognized gratefully owed to her the blessing of the Gospel, but he lamented the “superstitions” which she taught as the essential part of Christianity.66

Although Newman as a Roman Catholic travelled to Rome on several occasions, a certain degree of ambivalence toward the place remained until the end. His reservations about Rome were still intact in a letter written to the wife of John William Bowden on 30 August 1850 on the occasion of her husband’s visit:

If you go to Rome, it must be as a pilgrimage. People feel so differently, that of course I cannot answer for others—they say there is something in the air of Rome very depressing—this is acknowledged by the faculty—This was not so with me—but the moral effect is such—Such endless ruins, such wastes, dilapidation, decay—Churches once splendid, now faded and dishonored—poverty inducing a general slovenliness in their appointments and services. It is nothing but the unseen world, the haunt of Martyrs, the home of spiritual power, which sustains one there—I should shock many persons by saying so—but I no more like Rome

65 Trevor, Pillar, 118.

66 Hutton, Cardinal Newman, 61.

149

for its own sake, i.e. for what is visible, than I should like a long fast or a sharp discipline. There, so I found it, every one is about his own business—each monastery or College is its own world—so that you must depend simply on yourself, and live either in your own duties or with the Saints who are around you.67

At this point, one should note two aspects of Newman’s writings: first, he stopped writing poetry for a time; he wrote fewer poems in February than he did in December or January. In

March, he wrote only one poem and that at the close of the month. Second, in contrast, he devoted more time to his letter writing, perhaps because of the relative stability of his stay in

Rome during the month of March and the first half of April. In the three months after leaving

England, he had written twenty-one letters; all but four were to his mother and sisters. Of these four, two were written to Provost Hawkins and Bishop Bagot to notify them that he would be away longer than expected—namely through the Easter season.

After writing to his sister Harriett on 4 March, Newman wrote nine additional letters before resuming communication with his family. The first of those letters was written on 5

March to Frederic Rogers, Newman’s close friend and the only person from whom he had received a letter since leaving England, aside from his mothers and sisters. Newman’s gratitude for Rogers’ letter was considerable, not least because it had arrived during his confinement at

Malta. Newman confessed: “I long to be back, yet wish to make the most of being out of

England, for I never wish to leave it again.”68

During his time in Rome, Newman was able to peruse English newspapers and so to learn of affairs at home. Such news brought considerable enjoyment, but also disappointment as he learned of further encroachment upon ecclesial affairs by the British government. In his letter

67 LD 14: 81.

68 LD 3: 233.

150 to Rogers, Newman lamented the growing momentum of Church reform in Ireland—labeling such proposals as tantamount to sacrilege. As Brian Martin commented,

The [Church Temporalities] Bill became law in July 1833, abolishing ten sees of the established Church in Ireland and raised [sic] taxes on bishoprics, chapters and rich benefices. Previously revenues for church expenses had been levied on the general population [in Ireland] who were, of course, largely Roman Catholic. Newman and like-minded Anglicans saw the measure as interference by the State in Church affairs which had to be immediately condemned.69

The so-called Reform Bill would become law the same month that Newman returned to England.

On Thursday, 7 March, Newman wrote to John Frederic Christie (1808-1860), a former student and present Fellow of Oriel, about his longing for home:

Here again you will smile, but, now I am in for it the chance is I shall stop as long as I can, and see all that can be grasped in the time—for I sincerely hope never to go abroad again. I never loved home so well as now I am away from it—and the exquisite sights, which foreign countries supply both to the imagination and the moral taste are most pleasurable in memory, but scarcely satisfactory as a present enjoyment. There is far too much of tumult in seeing the places one has read so much about all one’s life, to make it desirable for it to continue.—I did not know before, the mind could be excited in so many various ways—but it is as much so, as if it were literally pulled about, and had now a leg twitched, and now one’s head turned.70

The sense of disorientation Newman experienced as a result of his travels carried over into a harried depiction of the virtue and the vice of Rome. After describing Rome as “the most wonderful place in the world,”71 a few lines later he lamented Rome’s superstitious character.

But then on the other hand the superstitions;—or rather, what is far worse, the solemn reception of them as an essential part of Christianity—but then again the extreme beauty and costliness of the Churches—and then on the contrary the knowledge that the most famous was built (in part) by the sale of indulgences— Really this is a cruel place.72

69 Brian Martin, John Henry Newman: His Life and Work (New York, NY: Continuum, 2000), 51; hereafter cited: Martin, Newman.

70 LD 3: 238.

71 Ibid., 240.

151

Newman wrote two letters on Saturday 9 March, again to former pupils. One was to

Thomas Mozley (1806-1893), a Fellow of Oriel who later became Newman’s brother-in-law.

The other was to Henry Wilberforce (1807-1873), son of the abolitionist William Wilberforce

(1759-1833); Henry become a Roman Catholic in 1850. In many respects the letters are similar, portraying the same events at sea and hopes for future travels. Newman expressed his anxiety about events at home: “I am so anxious to know what various individuals in England think of this cursed Irish spoliation bill.”73 Though many in England felt the potential Reform Bill to be a quite practical decision, Newman interpreted it negatively. As Richard Hutton observed,

From the numerous letters and verses written during this journey, we learn a great deal about his inner life. Uppermost in his mind was the sad state of the Anglican church. To his indignation, the government wanted to suppress several Irish bishoprics. He called it a crime, the “crime of demolition”. A sad presentiment took possession of him that the gift of truth was going to be lost forever: Rome had lost it long ago, England was now on the way to losing it. He considered the atrocious bill about the Irish bishoprics a humiliation for the Anglican church, nay, a sacrilege. Although the end would be victory, the church should be prepared for disasters. The anguish of his soul found an echo in his poetry. He saw the time coming when the Church of England would disappear.74

On Sunday, 10 March, Newman again attended the English chapel. During the following week, he continued his exploration of Rome, visiting various churches and on one occasion attending a concert. On Thursday he resumed letter writing, this time to George Ryder (1810-

1880), a student at Oriel and like Wilberforce, a future Roman Catholic. Again Newman’s thoughts turned to affairs at home with the conviction that battle lines were being drawn: “The

72 LD 3: 241.

73 Ibid., 247.

74 Hutton, Cardinal Newman, 61.

152 time is coming when everyone must choose his side.”75 In a surprising turn, he suggested that his time abroad, though difficult, seemed to be aiding him in choosing which side he must take.

I feel more and more the blunders one makes from acting on one’s own partial view of a subject, having neither that comprehensive knowledge nor precedents for acting which history gives us.— I am resolved, if I can help, not to move a step without some authority to back me, direct or by fair inference; and I look upon it as one good of travelling, (the same in mind as that of reading) that it takes one out of oneself, and reduces in one’s eyes both the importance of one’s own particular station and of one’s own decisions in acting in it.—Not that I have gained a vast deal in this way myself, but doubtless I have gained more than I am aware of.76

On Friday, 15 March, Newman returned to St. Peter’s, where he saw Pope Gregory XVI in passing. The following day Newman wrote to Hugh James Rose, the editor of the Lyra

Apostolica, the first of five letters that were written on successive days. Newman mentioned his desire for installments of poems to accompany upcoming summer editions of the British

Magazine. The poems would begin in June and July issues. Newman also encouraged Rose to publish the works under the disclaimer: “The Editor is not responsible for the opinions contained in it.”77

The following day in a letter to another Oriel student, Samuel Francis Wood (1809-

1843), Newman divulged his rationale for writing several letters at once.

At length after much wandering, we are settled for 5 or 6 weeks in this great city [Rome], the repose and quiet of which is favorable to the recruitment which the mind needs after seeing many sights.—And so I have made it an opportunity of writing to various friends, who have not been out of my mind, tho’ not written to before.78

75 LD 3: 249.

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid., 251. Newman’s advice seems based on his growing awareness that a conflict was on the horizon at home and that the Lyra Apostolica might be perceived by some as a sort of declaration of war.

78 LD 3: 252.

153

One of these friends was Robert Francis Wilson (1810-1888) to whom Newman wrote the following day, 18 March, and mentioned his admiration for Rome:

I cannot quite divest myself of the notion that Rome Christian is somehow under an especial shade as Rome Pagan certainly was—though I have seen nothing here to confirm it. Not that one can tolerate for an instant the wretched perversion of the truth which is sanctioned here, but I do not see my way enough to say that there is anything peculiar in the condition of Rome—and the clergy, though sleepy, are said to be a decorous set of men—they look so.79

On March 19, in a letter to E. B. Pusey, Newman’s vitriol toward the state of affairs at home overflowed:

Though all holy interests and the cause of the Church seem to lie at the mercy of bad men who have not the faith, yet we know the triumphing of the wicked is short. No good ever came (to speak as a man) from seizing on consecrated things—this spoliation scheme of the present Ministers must fall on their own heads and on their children after them—and it seems almost like a judicial blindness that they do not see this merely by a worldly sagacity.80

Newman then related the need for renewal in the Church of England to a similar need in the

Roman Church.

How fast events are going—who knows what place we shall hold this time 2 or 3 years?—But it is the case with the Church all over the world, apparently—here, and in Sicily as in England, and tho’ we shall not live to see it, can we doubt it is intended to effect the purification of that divinely founded body, for its edification in love; and for the re-union to it of those well-meaning but mistaken dissentients who at present cause so great a scandal?~By no means short of some terrible convulsion and thro’ much suffering can this Roman Church, Surely, be reformed—nothing short of great suffering, as by fire, can melt us together in England one with another.81

79 Ibid., 258.

80 Ibid., 259.

81 LD 3: 259.

154

This reference to the dim prospects of unification was the first instance in his Mediterranean letters that Newman introduced, even obliquely, such a prospect; yet such a passing mention suggests that the oneness of the Church and the imperative of unity was on his mind.

The following day, Thursday, 20 March, Newman wrote to his sister Jemima. After mentioning his fondness for the fountains and mosaics of Rome, he reflected on his recent writing:

I have been writing a great many letters, as long as this is—which, I think, does me much credit each is nearly a sermon in point of matter . . . I have done scarcely any thing in the way of poetry since I left Malta, only 5 pieces. My Muse is run dry. I have done altogether 61, and am now resting.

Newman hoped that his future travel would be a remedy for the dearth of poems courtesy of a return to “paradise”.

I am very well—and seem, if I dare boast, to be reaping the benefit of coming abroad. My Sicilian expedition will (I hope) complete the benefit. I look forward to it with great pleasure—and if I accomplish it, I am quite sure, it will be indefinitely more delightful in retrospect even than in actual performance. Think what Spring is! and in Sicily! it is the nearest approach to Paradise, of which sinful man is capable.82

In spite of Newman’s longing for Sicily, his remaining time in Rome proved beneficial.

A providential encounter took place on Sunday evening, 24 March, when Newman went to hear

Dr. Nicholas Wiseman (1802-1865) speak. Newman subsequently visited Wiseman on 3 and 5

April, along with Froude. In the spring of 1833, Wiseman was near the halfway point of his tenure as Rector of the English College in Rome, a post he held from 1828-1840. Wiseman returned to England in 1840 as coadjutor bishop of the Central District before being named

Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster in 1850, when the Roman Catholic hierarchy was restored in England.

82 LD 3: 266.

155

Wiseman, who was nearly the same age as Newman and Froude, was very engaging in his dialogue and spoke with requisite length and depth to impress the Anglican clerics. Newman and Froude found in Wiseman not only a competent Catholic counterpart, but also a reflection of their hopes and aspirations for the future of the Church. Newman’s recent reflections on the essential unity of the Church grew deeper through his meetings with Wiseman. For both

Newman and Froude, the effect was deeper than might have appeared at the time. As Trevor has remarked:

They held strongly that here was one true Faith, an objective body of doctrine handed down from the time of the Apostles, by means of a visible church with a ministry of bishops and priests, but they thought that corruption had set in everywhere, and that unity had been lost through human weakness. In this view of things any Church which retained the ancient forms and freedoms had a right to call itself Catholic. Newman and Froude had no desire to introduce Roman teaching and practice, but ardently wished to restore the damaged Catholicism of their own Church.83

Even in 1833, well before being elevated to the episcopacy, Wiseman was a person capable of speaking to the depths of Newman’s mind and heart. As Michael Walsh has commented,

It is probably fair to say that the majority of the English Catholic clergy, including the bishops, had little time for the Tractarians. Wiseman was unusual in that he took them seriously. It was an article by him in the August 1839 issue of The Dublin Review, in which he compared Anglicanism to the fourth-century Donatist schism, that so deeply affected Newman.84

Newman’s final March letter was written, as every other letter had been at month’s close, to his mother. Newman went great lengths in describing the impression of seeing the Pope in procession, an experience tempered by the uncomfortable sight of the Pontiff’s foot being reverenced publicly.

83 Trevor, Pillar, 120. The Oxford Movement, which Newman dated as beginning in 1833, incorporated the desire to restore “damaged Catholicism.”

84 Michael J. Walsh, The Westminster Cardinals: The Past and the Future (New York, NY: Continuum, 2008), 18.

156

Nor can I endure the Pope’s foot being kissed, considering how much is said in Scripture about the necessity of him that is greatest being as the least, nor do I even tolerate him being carried on high.85

The only poem Newman wrote in Rome was “Temptation.” Composed on 28 March, the focused instead on the hoped for presence of God to appear in the hour of trial.

O HOLY Lord, who with the Children Three Didst walk the piercing flame, Help, in those trial-hours, which, save to Thee I dare not name; Nor let these quivering eyes and sickening heart Crumble to dust beneath the Tempter’s dart.86

Without mentioning whether he had a particular temptation in mind, the poem presaged the next stage of his journey. With the Froude’s return to England imminent and in spite of his eagerness to return to Sicily, an impending sense of vulnerability seems to have weighed heavily upon

Newman.

April

The weather in Rome was beautiful in the final days of March. Newman continued his walking tour of the city before finishing the month at the Vatican picture gallery and the garden of the French Academy. On Tuesday, 2 April, he walked to Tre Fontane and the site of St.

Paul’s martyrdom, where he wrote the first of four April poems, “Our Future.”87 The poem cautioned against discerning the future with any sense of finality:

DID we but see, When life first open’d, how our journey lay

85 LD 3: 268. At that time, it was customary for the pope to be carried in processions in a sede gestatoria (a portable ceremonial throne).

86 VVO, 132.

87 The early lines of “Our Future” can be seen to address the Church, of which Newman was a member; the title could also refer to our future life with God; the poem seems to suggest that neither alternative is far removed from the other.

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Between its earliest and its closing day, Or view ourselves, as we one time shall be, Who strive for the high prize, such sight would break The youthful spirit, though bold for Jesu’s sake.88

Though the opening lines were written in the first person plural, the focus narrowed to a consideration of the self before God in the remaining lines, suggesting that the poem was directed, at least in part, to Newman himself.

Newman celebrated Good Friday on Friday, 5 April, at the English Chapel. In the afternoon he visited again the Sistine Chapel where he heard a performance of the Miserere. The same day he wrote two letters, one to his mother and one to his sister Harriett. In his letter to

Harriett, he confined his comments to works of art— comparing Raphael and Michelangelo. His letter to his mother mentioned his decision in traveling to Sicily to “take a servant with me, since

I am alone.”89 The letter also featured references to a theoretical difference between the Roman system and the Catholic system. Though unsure of the efficacy of the former, he confidently informed his mother that regarding the Catholic system, “I am more attached than ever.”90

Newman’s next two letters were written to Oriel Fellows, John Frederick Christie and

Henry Jenkyns (1796-1878) on 6 and 7 April respectively. Newman expressed his interest in the spring examinations at Oriel; but with little chance of receiving any news in the near future, he shared his reflections about Rome, where his days were quickly drawing to a close. In his letter to Christie, Newman compared Rome favorably to Oxford:

I shall regret Rome very much; it is a delightful place, so calm and quiet, so dignified and beautiful, that I know nothing like it but Oxford; and, as being the place of martyrdom and burial of some of the most favoured instruments of God,

88 VVO, 133.

89 LD 3: 273.

90 Ibid.

158

it has an interest and a solemn charm which no other place can possess except Jerusalem.91

As Newman prepared to leave Rome, he confessed to Christie, “As to my view of the

Romanist system, it remains, I believe, unchanged. A union with Rome, while it is what it is, is impossible; it is a dream.”92 One has the impression that such a conclusion left Newman with more regret than he might have originally expected. In his Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Newman alluded to his recalcitrance while in Rome:

The strangeness of foreign life threw me back into myself; I found pleasure in historical sites and beautiful scenes, not in men and manners . . . . My general feeling was, “All, save the spirit of man, is divine.” I saw nothing but what was external; of the hidden life of Catholics I knew nothing. I was still more driven back into myself, and felt my isolation. England was in my thoughts solely, and the news from England came rarely and imperfectly. The Bill for the Suppression of the Irish Sees was in progress, and filled my mind. I had fierce thoughts against the Liberals.93

On Tuesday, 9 April, the Froudes left Rome for Cività Vecchia (Civitavecchia) en route home. Little detail exists to account about what must have been a heavy-hearted separation. In a letter to Jemima on 11 April from Naples, Newman mentioned the Froudes’ departure against the backdrop of visiting the site of St. Peter’s martyrdom:

I had lost too my companions, and that with anticipations for the future too painful for me to mention. [[(F.’s death)]] I was going among strangers into a wild country, to live a wild life, to travel in solitudes and to sleep in dens of the earth; and all for what? For the gratification of an imagination—for an idea of the warm fancy, which might be a deceit, drawn by a strange love of Sicily to gaze upon its cities and mountains. For half an hour I may be said half to have repented of my choice — to have thrown myself out of society for a Country which I had seen in part, instead of going in company of others to the South of France—where there was much to interest the mind and which was quite new to me.94

91 Ibid., 277.

92 Ibid.

93 Apologia, 133

94 LD 3: 282.

159

Newman seemingly felt the departure of Hurrell Froude and his father sorely. Though allusions to philosophical differences regarding the mission of the Lyra Apostolica were occasionally mentioned in Newman’s letters and though Froude regarded the Roman Catholic

Church far more favorably than Newman, their parting seems more circumstantial than ideological. As Pier Brendon has commented,

Possibly Newman was discovering that travelling in company was rather a limiting, claustrophobic experience. But it seems that their difference of opinion— it did not constitute a quarrel—did not last long, for there are apparently no subsequent references to it. It is likely that an obscure inner compulsion, to which Newman never gave expression, being perhaps incapable of doing so, prompted him to take the decision to leave the Froudes. Every outward circumstance was against it.95

In contrast, Trevor saw their separation as illogical, yet not altogether absent of providential designs.

Much stranger was the complete break with the whole habit of his mind. For years all his acts had been ruled by duty and determined by circumstance, which he had accepted as God’s will. But no duty called him to Sicily. Circumstances rather suggested a return with the Froudes to the duties at home, especially with the Whigs threatening the Church with sacrilege. It was perhaps the only time in his life he acted upon an urgent wish of his own, and yet he hardly knew himself why he was so determined on it. In the end the whole adventure perfectly realized in action the psychological and spiritual crisis within, resolved the uncertainties and renewed the life in him, so that he went back to England charged with a new power. Perhaps that obscure intuition of his drove him back to the beautiful terrible island he called man’s tomb.96

Brendon drew a similar conclusion:

Yet the separation seemed to answer some deep spiritual need in Newman’s psyche. After the Froudes had set off for home, he travelled south to endure his fateful illness, his almost ritual suffering in the wilderness, the recovery from which revitalized him to such a degree that after his return to England in early

95 Brendon, Hurrell Froude, 119.

96 Trevor, Pillar, 121.

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July he was able, almost single-handed, to create and continue the Oxford Movement.97

In retrospect, Newman’s return to Sicily is fascinating not only for what transpired during his time there, but also because his decision to set out alone represents the same self-will that he had decried since leaving England, all the while trying to overcome it personally. The same willfulness set the stage for a personal drama that would recast his past and change his future.

On the same day the Froudes left for Cività Vecchia (Civitavecchia), Newman left for

Naples. Arriving in the evening the following day, Wednesday, 10 April, he continued his preparations for Sicily. Armed with cooking provisions, he planned to acquire a servant to travel with him in addition to three mules for the sixteen days he planned to spend traveling throughout

Sicily. Later in the week, as he awaited the Sarepta, the vessel which would transport him to

Sicily, he began work on the second sermon he was to deliver abroad. On Sunday, 14 April, at the English Chapel in Naples, Newman preached on “Separating Oneself from the World.”

Perhaps anxious about his impending travels, or perhaps excited by the opportunity to preach again, Newman abounded in eagerness.

How shall we succour the Church, and try each in his own place to restore those goodly customs of openly discountenancing vice and ungodliness, which once were in force, and the return of which (as one of our services expresses it) is much to be wished!—This is so serious and extensive a subject that (I cannot hope even to explain my own meaning in the short space of half an hour much less to attempt the full scriptural view of the subject).98

97 Brendon, Hurrell Froude, 120.

98 John Henry Newman, John Henry Newman Sermons: 1824-1843, Volume III, Vincent Ferrer Blehl, editor (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2010), 220; hereafter cited: JHNS. As an Anglican, Newman numbered his sermons in the order that he wrote them; this sermon was 347.

161

In this sermon, Newman sketched two types of people to avoid: heretics and “profligate

99 or unprincipled men, who happen to be professing Christians.” In the midst of threats to

Christianity that seem to be victorious, one is left with a troublesome conclusion:

Surely the Church of Christ cannot long continue as it is. What is the reason that it is breaking up all over the world and apparently vanishing but that it has neglected its discipline and so lost its strength?—The spirit goes, because the outward form is destroyed.—Can any thing be plainer than when our Lord set it up as a city on a hill , it was in order that it might be a visible power to witness His name, to preach His doctrine, and to protest against sin? What was the use of setting it up visibly in the midst of the world, if the same objects could be attained without it?100

After extolling the virtues of the visible Church, he pointed out the great ecclesial safeguard of orthodoxy—the apostles—a body which the Church of England encounters, not inherently, but by proximity:

It is our great privilege, as Englishmen, though many of us forget it, to enjoy communion with one of those branches of the Apostolic Church, which follows the primitive model. Our doctrine is like that of the first Fathers, who are the best interpreters of Scripture as being nearest to the time when it was written. Doubtless our Church is intended for great things.101

Though satisfied for the present with a proximate bond to the primitive Church and a doctrine

“like” that of the Fathers, his words contained the germ of his future dissatisfaction with anything less than the Apostolic Church.

On the same day he delivered this sermon, Newman wrote to Samuel Rickards (1796-

1865), a former Oriel Fellow who had assumed a pastorate at Ulcombe in Kent. In this letter—

99 JHNS 3: 221.

100 Ibid., 226.

101 Ibid., 226-227.

162 which was the first time that Newman wrote Rickards from abroad—he expressed a newfound fondness for Rome, now that he was no longer there:

Indeed I am very far from thinking there are not many good men among them—I like the looks of a great many of their priests—there is such simplicity, gentleness, and innocence among the Monks, I quite love them. But I fear their system must cripple their ηθος.102

Newman ended the letter tormented by his own affection:

As to Rome, I cannot help talking of it. You have the tombs of St Paul and St Peter, and St Clement—churches founded by St Peter and Dionysius (AD 260) and others in the catacombs used in the times of persecution—the house and table of St Gregory—the place of martyrdom of the above Apostles—but the catalogue is endless— O Rome, that thou wert not Rome!103

Newman’s letter to Rickards was the final occasion in which Newman spoke at any length of Rome in his Mediterranean letters. With his next letter—to Walter John Trower (1804-

1887), an Oriel Fellow who was appointed Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway in 1848—Newman shifted the focus to his much-anticipated return to Sicily:

I on my part am smit with the love of fair Sicily—not a classical love, for classical is only another word for heathen, but in Sicily I seem to see the most interesting profane country of the ancient world, Egypt excepted. Its history begins with the earliest times and lasts thro’ both Greek and Roman annals, down to the eras of the Saracen invasions and Norman chivalry. In it I read the history of all that is great and romantic in human nature, and the man in all his strength and weakness, with high aims and manifold talents corrupted by sin and humbled by continual failure.104

Since the Sarepta was a sailing vessel dependent on favorable winds, its sailing was delayed by a sirocco blowing over the Mediterranean in the direction of Naples. Newman’s letters seem to bear the impression of the ominous change in the weather.

102 LD 3: 289.

103 Ibid., 290.

104 LD 3: 291.

163

Evil is before us. Clouds seem to gather round the Church. No one can tell what his lot will be. Certainly a Clergyman’s office will be no pleasant one. Another holiday I shall never have. I will make the most of this while it is still mine.105

The following day, Wednesday, 17 April, Newman wrote two letters as the sirocco continued to beleaguer Naples; that same evening Newman felt the distant tremor of an earthquake. To his mother he confided that this might be his final letter before seeing her in person.

I have nothing particular to say; but I write, both because I wish you to hear the last of me before you see me, and because it seems likely now you will not see me so soon as I said in my last, and I do not wish you to be expecting me from day to day.106

In his second letter—to Henry Arthur Woodgate (1801-1874), Fellow of St. John’s

College, Oxford—Newman was more cavalier about his change in plans.

Can there be a greater proof that I am become a liberal a march-of-mind man, a man of the world, or by whatever title you choose to designate a character dear to your heart, than my refusing to return home with the Froudes and running down to Sicily instead?107

Newman seemed to have been somewhat surprised with himself as the reality of his solitary state became apparent.

Although the weather improved incrementally, the time of departure remained uncertain.

Newman had expected to leave on 16 April but the steamer was “so crowded that there was not even standing room on deck.”108 The extra days of rest—though marked by a respite from travel—were not altogether peaceful.

The unexpected extra days in Naples, though enjoyable, made him apprehensive. Perhaps this next stage of his travels was only an act of willfulness. The Froudes

105 Ibid., 292.

106 Ibid., 293.

107 LD 3: 297.

108 Ffinch, Second Spring, 46.

164

had attempted to dissuade him. On two nights recently there had been slight earth tremors. Was Vesuvius about to erupt? Newman looked out in expectation, but any moodiness was enveloped in mist.109

Finally, on Friday 19 April, Newman was called to board the Sarepta on short notice.

Though the easterly winds began to subside in the evening, by then he was already experiencing seasickness. The following day, fortunately, was calm. As the other passengers conversed mostly in French, he availed himself of the company of the captain, who was also an

Englishman. The Sarepta traveled throughout the evening and arrived at Messina on Sunday morning, 21 April. Where he wrote his first poem in almost three weeks. “Heathenism” focused on the possibility of providence to work even through the pagan world.

‘MID Balak’s magic fires The Spirit spake, clear as in Israel; With prayers untrue and covetous desires Did God vouchsafe to dwell;110

The following day Newman set off along with his servant Gennaro and three mules down the eastern coast of Sicily toward Taormini. Gennaro, a veteran of the Battle of Trafalgar who had spent sixteen years in the service of an English family. Subsequently, he had lived with an

English family for sixteen years. Under the present circumstances his chief impediment was having very little knowledge of Sicily, along with an occasional tendency to drink too freely.

The pair traveled roughly twenty miles on Monday, 22 April, before arriving at Taormini. The following day they resumed their trek, this time westward, traveling an additional twenty miles or so to Giarra where there stayed overnight. From Giarra, their path turned south the following day to Nicolosi, an additional twenty-plus miles. From Nicolosi there remained twelve miles to travel south before arriving at Catania on the eastern coast of Sicily. At Catania, Newman wrote

109 Ibid.

110 VVO, 134.

165 to his sister Harriett on Thursday 25 April. In his final Mediterranean letter to her, he depicted himself as “lazy from being tired.”111 After describing his tumultuous journey from Naples to

Messina, he acknowledged the comical nature of his trek across Sicily with servant and mules in tow.

I felt amused and almost ashamed of the figure I was cutting . . . yet even then my retinue seemed too princely for one who had looked forward to a Sicilian expedition as an emancipation from the greatness which attends commonly on travellers.112

Chief among the newfound enchantments of Sicily was the unparalleled landscape surrounding Taormini. Newman described the religious connotations of the superb view:

I never saw anything more enchanting than this spot—It realized all one had read of in books of the perfection of scenery—a deep valley—brawling streams— beautiful trees—but description is nothing—the sea was heard in the distance. But when after breakfast, with the advantage of a bright day we mounted to the theatre, and saw the view thence, what shall I say then? why that I never before knew that nature could be saw [sic] beautiful, and that to have seen the view thence was a nearer approach to seeing Eden, than anything I had conceived possible. Oh happy I, it was worth coming all the way, to endure the loneliness and sadness of my progress and the weariness of the voyage to see it. I felt for the first time in my life with my eyes open that I must be better and more religious, if I lived there. Never before have I brought home to my mind the reality of foreign scenery.113

The magnificence of the view spilled over into his penultimate poem in the month of April, titled appropriately “Taormini”. Written on 26 April, his appreciation for the sublime scenery was ripe with heavenly aspect.

SAY, hast thou track’d a traveller’s round, Nor visions met thee there, Thou couldst but marvel to have found This blighted world so fair?

111 LD 3: 301.

112 LD 3: 302.

113 Ibid., 303.

166

And feel an awe within thee rise, That sinful man should see Glories far worthier Seraph’s eyes Than to be shared by thee?114

On the same day that Newman wrote “Taormini,” he traveled by boat from Catania south to Syracuse, a distance of around forty miles. At Syracuse he wrote to his sister Jemima what turned out to be his last letter for almost six weeks. He described his journey from Catania—a trip affected by another sirocco, this time with heavy rains. Though hopeful of composing more verses in the coming days, he admitted that the erratic pace of his recent travels made writing more difficult.

I will here set down some verses composed last night in the boat—you will see they want ease and spirit—the truth is, I find myself in the worst cue possible for composing here, from the anxiety which attends my movements—this is the great enemy of poetry.115

Newman’s weariness was to be prolonged. As his poetry languished, so did he. After seeing the harbor of Syracuse and visiting the amphitheatre, Newman planned to return by boat to Catania. While at sea another sirocco caused the vessel to remain overnight in a cove just north of Syracuse near Agosta. The following day Newman resumed the journey north to

Catania on foot, a tiresome trek of over thirty miles. The weary troupe arrived at 11 in the evening on Monday, 29 April. Along the way, he managed to write his final April poem,

“Sympathy”—a poem which is saturated with images of the physical and spiritual side by side, of the interplay between visibility and invisibility:

SOULS of the Just, I call not you To share this joy with me, This joy and wonder at the view,

114 VVO, 135.

115 LD 3: 307.

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Of mountain, plain, and sea;116

The work took its title from the invitation to “elder Spirits strong!” to look favorably on those

Still tried by the world’s fight, ‘Tis but in looking for the day Which shall the lost unite.117

The invitation flowed into an appeal for divine favor, that sympathy for which the author most longed. The poem concluded:

Ah, Saviour! I perforce and Thine, Angel and Saint apart: Those searching Eyes are all-divine, All-human is that Heart.118

Newman seemingly felt the same “searching Eyes” to be resting upon him. Although the weeks ahead were a period of relative inactivity, from a literary standpoint, the deepest activity was really just now beginning, though it would be of the subterranean variety rather than the superficial.

116 VVO, 137.

117 Ibid.

118 Ibid.

Chapter Five: Sicilian Crisis

May

Newman did not write any poems or letters in the month of May 1833, though he might have composed countless pages to capture what transpired during those days. Writing to John

Keble on 8 June 1844, Newman recalled the mysterious confluence of events in May of 1833:

Time went on, and various things happened by which He [God] went on training me—but what most impresses itself upon me, is the strange feelings and convictions about His will towards me which came on me, when I was abroad. When I went down to Sicily by myself, I had a strong idea that He was going to effect some purpose by me. And from Rome I wrote someone, I think Christie, saying, I thought I was to be made some thing of in His hands, ‘though if not, the happier for me−’ And when I was in Sicily by myself, it seemed as if some one was battling against me, and the idea has long been in my mind, though I cannot say when it came on, that my enemy was then attempting to destroy me. A number of sins were committed in the very act of my going down by myself−to say nothing else, I was wilful, and neglected warnings--from that time every thing went wrong.1

Since Newman left England, nearly five months ago, many of the inconveniences of nineteenth-century travel had been his lot. Of the physical discomforts, seasickness, sleeplessness, cold, lack of cleanliness as well as language barriers had been recurring frustrations. Physical discomforts grew more acute during his second visit to Sicily. Fleas, barely tolerable food and a strained leg earned by strenuous treks across land only further depleted a person who was not a hearty outdoorsmen. The thought began to dawn on Newman that perhaps he was undergoing some form of purification. In addition to the willfulness of his setting out alone for Sicily he remembered that his role in the Tutorship affair was very willful,

1 LD 10: 260-261.

168 169 even to the extent of disregarding the sensibilities of those around him, particularly his superiors.

“It seems that God wished him to go through an intense purification, a very dark night.”2

One particular passage of scripture had been turning over again and again in Newman’s mind and heart. In a letter to Harriett on 25 April, he mentioned in the post script that psalm 121 which he had heard seemingly by chance during the last service he had attended before leaving

England on Sunday December 2, was now a recurring meditation.

I raise my eyes toward the mountains. From whence shall come my help? My help comes from the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth . . .

The LORD will guard you from all evil; he will guard your soul. The LORD will guard our coming and going both now and forever.3

Buried in the hypnotic appeal of Sicily with its natural beauty and classical associations, was a desperate longing for home. That Newman referred to Sicily as representative of Eden only secures the association.

For almost all of us there is some place we long to go back to, some place we experienced when we were still innocent of change and subversion, when we were still completely at home in the world, still united to outward, visible, sensible reality as a branch is united to a tree. In our memory that place will always be a symbol of wholeness and beauty, a kind of Eden for each of us . . . However, the experience of the modern exile is that he cannot go home.4

If Sicily was sort of a return to Eden for Newman, it was likewise almost from the beginning, a recognition of the absence and loss of Eden. Thoughts of his deceased sister Mary began to

2 Hutton, Cardinal Newman, 63.

3 From Psalm 121, described in the New American Bible as “a blessing given to someone embarking on a dangerous journey, whether a soldier going on a campaign or a pilgrim returning home from the temple.”

4 Weatherby, Cardinal Newman, 126.

170 wash over him as he wandered across the Sicilian terrain: “I set out walking, the mules coming after−& fell to tears thinking of dear Mary as I looked at the beautiful prospect.”5 The otherworldly beauties of Sicily, as with Mary, were “too fragile to last and, if rested in as ends, become veils to separate us from invisible reality; that the only way to get home is to leave.”6

Newman spent the final day of April 1833 resting in Catania, having arrived late the previous evening. On Wednesday May 1, he and his entourage set off for Adernò in the rain.

After a wet twenty miles they stopped at Adernò. For the first time the insects left Newman alone; he realized afterwards it was because he had the fever, but at the time he did not know it. He put down his discomfort and low feelings to lack of sleep and food and his rough journeying. The day before in Catania, unable to eat for a choking in his throat, he thought it was due to ginger. He was so unused to this kind of life that it did not occur to him that he was ill, and no doubt Gennaro thought it was all due to English gentlemanliness, always an unpredictable quality.7

On Thursday 2 May, Newman arrived at Leonforte near the heart of Sicily exhausted and ill. It was the feast day of his hero, St. Athanasius, a fact which at the time might have escaped him.8 The following day he was unable to continue. During the day he moved to a nicer inn in

Leonforte and resigned himself to staying in bed: “As I lay in bed the first day many thoughts came over me. I felt God was fighting agst me-& felt at last I knew why-it was for self will.”9

5 AW, 123.

6 Weatherby, Cardinal Newman, 126.

7 Trevor, Pillar, 128-129.

8 When his godson, Herbert Newman Mozley was born on the same day five years later, Newman quipped concerning the ill-fated anniversary to his brother-in-law, John Mozley: As Jemima has a memory for days, let her know that the 2nd of May (which Arthur said was the day) is the feast of St Athanasius. I therefore propose he should be called Athanasius Mozley--Also tell her the 2nd of May was the day (I believe) I went to school--And the day on which I was knocked up 5 years ago at Leonforte in Sicily, where I remained three days helpless (LD 6:240).

9 AW, 124.

171

Thoughts of his Oxford sermon about the pride of Saul returned with a vengeance. Newman remained in bed throughout the evening and the following day, only leaving the inn in the evening for a touch of fresh air. The next day, Sunday, was no different.

When Monday came, Newman was determined to continue onward, though there was no appreciable difference in his health. Wishful thinking only took him seven miles beyond

Leonforte, where he completely broke down. After resting for a spell with only his blue cloak between him and the ground in a hut along the way, he resumed his journey in the afternoon and arrived at Castro Giovanni where he lodged for the night. Newman remembered the events of the day in a letter to Keble in 1844.

As I lay at Leonforte, before I got to Castro Giovanni, while I was laid up, I felt this strongly−My servant thought I was dying−but I expected to recover, and kept saying, as giving the reason, ’I have not sinned against light.’ I had the fullest persuasion I should recover, that some work was in store for me. But any how when I was getting up again, after it was over, this feeling was strong upon me.10

At Castro Giovanni, a doctor attempted to bleed him with limited success. To complicate matters, the doctor’s fluency in English was as poor as Newman’s Italian. Attempts to converse in Latin were strained. After the first attempt to draw blood failed, the trusty Gennaro fainted.

The next few days were marked by limited consciousness and hazy recollection. At one point

Gennaro urged Newman to prepare a will, a suggestion Newman declined, though he did disclose the Froudes’ address in England should the unthinkable come to pass. In the event of his death, he preferred that Froude be the one to convey the news to the Newman family.

The nature of Newman’s illness is unknown: “It seemed he had fallen victim to an epidemic of gastric or typhoid fever, from which numbers of people were dying, and which was

10 LD 10: 261.

172 often accompanied by cholera.”11 Not only was the body in peril, but seemingly the soul as well.

As Zeno wrote, “He felt like Job, entirely in the power of the devil, while God was fighting against him. He saw his faults in a clear light.”12 Since Newman’s departure from England, he had been steadily journeying more and more deeply into the depths of his life. Beneath the surface anxieties that unsettled him was a greater battle: he began to feel his soul being weighed in the balance as the spiritual world became a more pressing reality than the physical one.

According to Bouyer, “What we call the material world is but the fringe, the riddling hieroglyph of the spiritual. It is something that conceals from the careless what it suggests, or half-reveals, to the thoughtful. But this spiritual world is divided, disunited.”13

Newman later wrote of his near-fatal experience:

The fever was most dangerous; for a week my attendants gave me up, and people were dying of it on all sides; yet all through I had a confident feeling I should recover. I told my Servt [servant] so, & gave as a reason . . . that “I thought God had some work for me”—these, I believe, were exactly my words. And when, after the fever, I was on the road to Palermo, so weak I could not walk by myself, I sat on the bed on the morning [of] May 26 or May 27 profusely weeping, & only able to say that I could not help thinking God had something for me to do at home.14

Newman’s conviction that “God had some work for me” paralleled a comment he had made to

Wiseman while in Rome. On their final visit, when Wiseman encouraged a future visit to Rome,

Newman had boldly responded, “We have a work to do in England.”15

11 Ker, John Henry Newman, 77.

12 Zeno, Newman, 62.

13 Bouyer, Newman, 153.

14 AW, 122.

15 Apologia, 135.

173

This near-death moment represents in many ways the apex of Newman’s voyage on the

Mediterranean. Though Patras, Greece, marked the furthest distance of Newman’s travels, it was at this critical moment in Sicily that he was as far removed as he would ever be from his home and his former life. Of this decisive moment, Zeno wrote:

It seems to have been the heroic act for which God had been waiting. Purified by illness and sorrow, by contrition and penance, there was no further danger that his extraordinary gifts, the admiration of his followers, the tremendous powers of his rare eloquence, the devotion of his countless friends, would make him proud. He was prepared; he could start his mission.16

At length Newman’s health improved, though any type of travel was a relative impossibility for several weeks. Oddly enough, one of his chief torments during these days was the tolling bells in anticipation of daily Mass at a nearby church. When he asked Gennaro to intervene, “He answered with a laugh of surprise that it should not annoy me, & of encouragement, as if making light of it. I have since thought they might suppose it was a heretic’s misery under a holy bell.”17 In the end, Gennaro won Newman over with his guileless nature and constant loyalty. As Trevor commented, “Newman still had outbreaks of obstinacy, but grew meeker as he grew weaker, till Gennaro in the end got quite the upper hand.”18

By Saturday 25 May, Newman had made several feeble attempts at walking short distances with the help of a cane. He set out the same day in a carriage for Palermo. The journey of over one hundred miles was completed in two days time with Newman arriving in

Palermo around midday on Monday 27 May. There he remained until he could begin his journey home by sea. He was forced to endure three weeks of waiting in Palermo for a vessel to take

16 Zeno, Newman, 66.

17 AW, 132.

18 Trevor, Pillar, 133.

174 him to England. In Palermo, he stayed at Page’s Hotel, a modest inn run by an Englishwoman married to an Italian. He wandered the streets of Palermo, cane in hand, visiting churches and making up for lost time by writing poetry. Thoughts of home were more painful than ever.

Especially after his recovery, in the weeks at Palermo, his homesickness tired him extremely. He could not leave the town for a long time lest he should miss a boat. The thought of home brought tears to his eyes. He found himself weeping in the dark, cool churches.19

Just as Newman had incompletely understood the significance of the tolling bells, his appreciation of the churches of Palermo was also limited. He remembered in his Apologia Pro

Vita Sua: “I began to visit the Churches, and they calmed my impatience, though I did not attend any services. I knew nothing of the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament there.”20 Later in his

Apologia, he mentioned that a favorable impression of the Church of Rome began to be formed in late May and early June that was not present in early stages of the voyage.

And, in my weary days at Palermo, I was not ungrateful for the comfort which I had received in frequenting the Churches; nor did I ever forget it. Then, again, her zealous maintenance of the doctrine and the rule of celibacy, which I recognized as Apostolic, and her faithful agreement with Antiquity in so many other points which were dear to me, was an argument as well as a plea in favour of the great Church of Rome. Thus I learned to have tender feelings towards her; but still my reason was not affected at all.21

The unexpected days of waiting gave Newman time to recover from his ordeal and also offered an opportunity to gain perspective on its deeper meanings. On one hand, he recognized a link between his Sicilian illness and two other great illnesses (1816 and 1828) that accompanied earlier conversion experiences. He regarded the first illness at age fifteen as the period in which he became a Christian, leaving aside the guise of skepticism he had been tempted to indulge. His

19 Hutton, Cardinal Newman, 63.

20 Apologia, 135.

21 Apologia, 155.

175 second illness at age twenty-six “checked an incipient liberalism, when he felt he had been coming to prefer intellectual to moral excellence.”22 Each of these three illnesses had an element of spiritual crisis. According to Trevor,

Although all three had immediate physical causes Newman felt them to be intimately connected with his psychological and spiritual state, at once precipitating and expressing what was within. Each was a death and resurrection. Now he discovered that the intellect he had begun to rely on too much was only an instrument, and could in a moment go horribly wrong, leaving him helpless. His mind was vulnerable, his heart was vulnerable; he had been relying on himself and his own powers−now sickness and death made him realize his weakness. It was a question of turning again from the world and the self to God.23

Though elements of his Sicilian illness were continuous with his earlier conversion experiences, it was clear to Newman that the events of the past month were at the same time unparalleled in gravity and in meaning. Newman became convinced that his illness was a providential gesture preparing him for what awaited him in England. As Blehl remarked,

In examining the Sicilian experience one thinks of the struggles of the hermits in the desert or of the purifications undergone by the saints before they became docile instruments in the hands of God. Certain it is that Newman penetrated into the deep recesses of his soul and found the stumbling block to the realization of his aspirations to serve God in the Church. Even though he sincerely desired to be an instrument in the hands of God, still given his activist temperament and his firm conviction of personal influence as the means of propagating the Truth, the danger was that he could become the instrument not of God’s will but of his own. It would be a subtle temptation. It seems only now was God ready to loosen the reins and let him go, chastened and submissive, protected from self-love and self- will, and on his guard against the temptations that normally come with power, success, and fame.24

Though painful to recall, Newman’s illness revealed that beneath the veil of its outward appearance, his self-will had become an obstacle between himself and God, an impediment to

22 Trevor, Pillar, 139.

23 Ibid., 76.

24 Blehl, Pilgrim Journey, 128.

176 docility. Joseph Ratzinger captured well the dilemma. “Self-will, however is in reality a subordination to the schemes and systems of a given time, and, despite appearances, it is slavery; the will of God is truth, and entering into it is thus breaking out into freedom.”25 Though

Newman, like any other mortal, wrestled with the direction of his will for the remainder of his life, his brush with death had the effect of beginning to reshape his self-will in the direction of a deeper trust in God. Again Ratzinger is particularly helpful, “Man’s enemy, death, that would waylay him to steal his life, is conquered at the point where one meets the thievery of death with the attitude of trusting love, and so transforms the theft into increase of life.26

Not only did Newman replay the sometimes hazy events of his time at Palermo, he wrote an account of the experience. On 31 August 1834, he began compiling notes for the work “My

Illness in Sicily”, which he be completed six years later on 25 March 1840. In this work,

Newman’s autobiographical honesty is coupled with an earnest desire to relate an event of the profoundest spiritual significance:

Anne Mozley, his biographer, and Dean Church, whom she consulted, were puzzled by the details, physical and psychological, he had recorded; but Newman had an instinctive feeling for reality and a suspicion of deciding what was irrelevant in experience; often in later life he had to rewrite letters to leave out personal details which it was his natural impulse to include. Having the fever and going through a crisis were all part of the same experience; it deeply affected the whole of his being and his life-perhaps that was why he did not epitomize it in a sentence, as he did the others. They had shifted his direction but this altered the attitude in which he accepted the direction, and so it was not something he passed through once, but which went on changing him.27

25 Joseph Ratzinger, Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith: The Church as Communion (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2005), 118.

26 Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1988), 97.

27 Trevor, Pillar, 139.

177

June

Though Newman’s letter-writing days at sea were all but finished, his most prolific window of time for writing poetry was upon him. To this point, December had been his most abundant month for verse-writing with a total of twenty-four poems; June easily surpassed

December with thirty-seven poems. By the time Newman set sail on the Conte Ruggiero on 12

June, the first nine were written.

In many ways, his June poems reflected a more Catholic view of the world. The month’s first work, “Relics of Saints,” upholds the Catholic notion of veneration of the saints, while

Sophism, an old foe associated for Newman with Arianism, was a foil for the Catholic position:

And hence we learn with reverence to esteem Of these frail houses, though the grave confines; Sophist may urge his cunning tests, and deem That they are earth;-but they are heavenly shrines.28

The following day’s poem reveals another major theme of the June poems. Feeling his vigor returning, Newman was overcome with a spirit of activism to begin as soon as possible the work that awaited him in England. However, it was not a spirit of activism that lay at the heart of the past month’s conversion. He knew that only through a sense of openness to grace was the divine victory to be won. “Day-Labourers” was a reminder that neither Moses nor David,

“Finish’d the work of grace, which He began;”29 the ultimate victory is still to be awaited.

List, Christian warrior! thou, whose soul is fain To rid thy Mother of her present chain;− Christ will avenge His Bride; yea, even now Begins the work, and thou Shalt spend in it thy strength, but, ere He save, Thy lot shall be the grave.30

28 VVO, 138.

29 VVO, 139.

30 Ibid., 139-140.

178

Though Newman felt that he was beginning a new work before his May illness, that work remained on the horizon. One has the sense in this June poem that the work lies no longer in gestation, but is already coming to life. Written on June 3, the poem serves as a reminder that the work coming to life was also a battle. “Warfare” consigns peace-filled days to the past.

Alas! for thou must learn, Thou guileless one! rough is the holy hand; Runs not the Word of Truth through every land, A sword to sever, and a fire to burn?31

Such images of separation and rupture carry over into the work of the following day.

“Sacrilege” presents images of the Church in the beauty of her youth, contrasted with the state of the Church in Newman’s day.

THE Church shone brightly in her youthful days Ere the world on her smiled; So now, an outcast, she would pour her rays Keen, free, and undefiled:32

As the poem unfolds, the author’s vision hearkens a return to the youthful days of the Church, though painful it may be. Many tracts that would be published during the Oxford Movement extrapolated the final lines of “Sacrilege”.

Dear brothers!−hence, while ye for ill prepare, Triumph is still your own; Blest is a pilgrim Church!−yet shrink to share The curse of throwing down. So will we toil in our old place to stand, Watching, not dreading, the despoiler’s hand.33

31 Ibid., 141.

32 VVO, 143.

33 Ibid.

179

After drawing the battle lines of the unfolding conflict, “Liberalism”, written on 5 June, identified the enemy:

YE cannot halve the Gospel of God’s grace; Men of presumptuous heart! I know you well.34

The poem struck not at the external gestures accompanying liberalism, but the very heart of the liberal impulse itself concerning religion.

for ye in heart, At best, are doubters whether it be true,35

The final blow leveled against liberalism struck at its relation with the heresies of old, many of which were indicted in Newman’s book on the Arians. As Newman writes in the final lines,

O new-compass’d art OF the ancient Foe!−but what, if it extends O’er our own camp, and rules amid our friends?36

On 5 June, Newman resumed letter-writing, this time to write the first of two June letters.

Exactly three months earlier, Newman had written to Frederic Rogers; then his thoughts had turned to the upcoming Oriel elections, which would decide whether or not Rogers would be elected an Oriel Fellow. Having learned courtesy of an English paper in Palermo the previous day of the results of the election, he wasted no time in congratulating his former pupil: “With what joy did I see in ‘Galignani’ yesterday that you were one of us.”37 Newman went on to relate the myriad and unexpected paths that had led him to Palermo. A touch of humor accompanied the joyful tone of his letter: “I have not been weather-bound or shipless, taken by

34 Ibid., 144.

35 Ibid., 145.

36 Ibid.

37 LD 3: 312.

180 the Barbary pirates, or seized as a propagandist of Liberalism.”38 After recounting his brush with death, he mentioned the extent to which even his early days in Palermo were obscured by illness:

“When I came here I could not read nor write, nor talk nor think. I had no memory, and very little of the reasoning faculty.”39

The most telling part of the letter comes at the end, where Newman appraised the merits of his decision to return to Sicily. Though his trip was seemingly marred by failure, he did not write off his May excursion as a loss:

And now you will say my expedition to Sicily has been a failure. By no means. Do I repent of coming? Why, certainly I should not have come had I known that it was at the danger of my life. I had two objects in coming -- to see the antiquities and to see the country. In the former I have failed. I have lost Girgenti and Selinunto, and I have lost the series of perfumed gardens through which the mule track near Selinunto is carried. But I have seen Taormini, and the country from Adernò to Palermo, and can only say that I did not know before nature could be so beautiful. It is a country. It passes belief. It is like the garden of Eden, and though it ran in the line of my anticipations (as I say), it far exceeded them.40

All told the letter is remarkable not just for Newman’s deep and resounding gratitude for the

Sicilian experience, but also for its hopeful tone. Perhaps no other Mediterranean writing, certainly no other letter, offered the same resonant optimism. This characteristic is perhaps the surest evidence that a real transformation had taken place.

The following day, Thursday 6 June, Newman wrote “Declension,” a poem that depicted a harmony between the active impulse toward reform as well as the docility necessary to cooperate with grace.

He wills that she should shine; So we her flame must trim,

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid., 314-315.

40 Ibid., 315.

181

Around His soul-converting Sign, And leave the rest to Him.41

This notion of docility, though contrary in some respects to Newman’s deliberate engagement and even academic classification of the world around him, in reality served to deepen not only his prayer, but his theological vision as well, insofar as a deepening trust in God clarified his viewpoint. The halting nature of his return voyage home reinforced this aspect of his life. As

Edgecombe observed,

We ought, perhaps, in fairness to the poet, remember that he is trying to some extent to recuperate the idea of passivity as a posture that can in some instances prove as useful as resolute action. Newman’s impulse was to take up codgels, and yet, finding himself blocked by circumstance and policy, he had to relearn the virtue of patience in lyric after lyric. The pattern of his journey home from the Mediterranean is a parable for the course of his subsequent career.42

On Sunday 9 June, Newman wrote his second and final June letter, this time to his mother. Newman’s letter was surprisingly short in contrast to his lengthy letter written just days earlier to Frederic Rogers. One reason for the relative brevity was that Newman did not mention his recent illness to his mother; he only obliquely acknowledged the passing of the month of May at all: “I was very idle in the versemaking way, till June, when I made a start . . . .”43 He also acknowledged that the journey from Palermo to Marseilles was occasionally delayed by calms at sea: “The Captain of a Sicilian vessel promises to sail for Marseilles tomorrow−Then again, I am told calms are common at this time of year−so I may be out at sea a long while.”44

41 VVO, 147.

42 Edgecombe, Two Poets, 248.

43 LD 3: 316.

44 Ibid.

182

As Newman eyed the uncertain Mediterranean, he continued writing verses. On Sunday

9 June, Newman wrote “The Age to Come,” a poem that again took up the theme of returning to the vigor of the early Church, courtesy of the image of a fire rekindled.

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?”45

Newman recognized that the apathetic tendency of his day will not come to represent the lasting season of the earthly Church. The future Church will resurrect the vigor of its youth.

But now, I see that men are mad awhile, And joy the Age to come will think with me:− ‘Tis the old history−Truth without a home, Despised and slain, then rising from the tomb.46

The “Age to Come” represented a key theme of his June poetry in its depiction of youthfulness and new life. One easily finds a correlation between such an emphasis and Newman’s restoration to health along with his gratitude for the gift of healing. Many of the poems written in previous months again and again sounded the refrain of the sadness of a paradise lost in both an earthly and ecclesial sense. June found Newman hopeful of a future blossoming.

On Monday 10 June, Newman traveled by donkey to the top of Monte Pellegrino just north of Palermo. The mountaintop afforded him a view of the Mediterranean with even a view to the northwest in the direction of England. The following day Newman returned to writing with “External Religion,” a poem, which in many ways is a sequel to “Liberalism” written less than a week before. “External Religion” was a reminder not only of the visible Church established by God, but also the damage inflicted by human corruption upon the edifice built upon the saints and martyrs.

45 VVO, 148.

46 Ibid.

183

But craving wealth, and feverish power, Such service now discard; The loss of one excited hour A sacrifice too hard! . . .

Where shall this cease? must crosiers fall, Shrines suffer touch profane, Till, cast without His vineyard wall, The Heaven-sent Heir is slain?47

Newman’s depiction of forces hostile to the Church as “feverish” carried a special resonance with his feverish delirium the previous month and suggested that an analogous sickness afflicts humanity left to its own devices.

Newman’s next two poems, his final ones in Palermo, “St. Gregory Nazianzen” and “The

Good Samaritan” provided illustrations of figures sustaining the edifice of external religion.

Written on 12 and 13 June respectively, he began his treatment of St. Gregory with a litany of praise extolling him for his poetic virtues.

PEACE-LOVING man, of humble heart and true What dost thou here? Fierce is the city’s crowd; the lordly few Are dull of ear!48

The presentation of a figure in counter-step with the world went on to establish the victory of this holy one against long odds and a multitude of opposition. Again an image of new life emerged.

Till that cold city heard thy battle-cry, And hearts were stirr’d, and deem’d a Pentecost was nigh.49

47 VVO, 149-150.

48 Ibid,. 151.

49 Ibid., 152.

184

“The Good Samaritan” portrayed a similarly generous and virtuous figure, though not the one readers might expect. Here the figure of light is the Church of Rome. Perhaps Newman felt compelled to extend an olive branch, though his conversion was a dozen years away.

OH that thy creed were sound! For thou dost soothe the heart, thou Church of Rome,50

For all his lingering resistance, one finds here the first indication that the Church of Rome has truly touched the depths of Newman’s life. While he made abundant references to the physical beauties of Rome, a response of such interiority had been wanting to this point. As the poem unfolded, he seemed to nod in the direction not just of the Catholic Church, but toward the people who had helped him in his darkest hour and so personifying the Church itself. Seemingly his thoughts turned toward Gennaro in the final lines.

There, on a foreign shore, The home-sick solitary finds a friend: Thoughts, prison’d long for lack of speech, out-pour Their tears; and doubts in resignation end.

I almost fainted from the long delay That tangles me within this languid bay, When comes a foe, my wounds with oil and wine to tend.51

For such a deeply human sensibility toward the Church of Rome to be the final impression that

Newman took with him as he left Italy strongly contrasted with the sentiments of the man who arrived almost four months earlier. In many ways, it was not only a last impression, it was a lasting one.

The same day that Newman penned “The Good Samaritan”, Thursday 13 June, he also bade farewell to Sicily on board an orange boat, Conte Ruggiero. For the loyal Gennaro, without

50 Ibid., 153.

51 Ibid., 153-154.

185 whom Newman almost surely would have perished, a fond farewell was in order. As Gennaro prepared to return to his wife and family in Naples, Newman expressed the depth of gratitude owed to his unlikely companion. Writing in 1840, Newman remembered Gennaro with fondness unabated:

He was humanly speaking the preserver of my life, I think. What I should have done without him, I cannot think. He nursed me as a child. An English servant never could do what he did.52

Rewarding him handsomely for his efforts, though not exorbitantly, Newman withheld his favored blue cloak, an item Gennaro had quite admired during their travels.53

With Monte Pellegrino again in view the following day, Newman wrote “Reverence” on

14 June. The poem reads as if the return to open waters resurrected within its author a sense of awe; a sentiment which ultimately points to God.

I BOW at Jesu’s name, for ‘tis the Sign Of awful mercy towards a guilty line . . .

How without fear can I behold my Life, The Just assailing sin, and death-stain’d in the strife?54

On the day Newman wrote this poem, Sunday 16 June, a calm came upon the sea, delaying further progress to Marseilles: his ship, Conte Ruggiero, was “becalmed for a whole week in the

Straits of Bonifacio”55—with Sardinia to the south and Corsica to the north.

52 AW, 138.

53 Newman kept the receipt from his purchase of the cloak ten years earlier on 1 July 1823. Of the ultimate fate of the cloak, he recorded: “My dear blue cloke, which covered me through my illness in Sicily. I kept it up to (say) 1860, when I gave it away, I forget to whom” (LD 1: 165).

54 VVO, 155.

55 Apologia, 135. The Straits of Bonifacio between Corsica and Sardinia are approximately 6.8 miles wide and hazardous due to their currents, shoals, and other obstacles.

186

“The Pillar of the Cloud”

Leaving Leonforte, Sicily, the site of his brush with death, Newman’s haste to return to

England was galvanized by a deep-seated conviction that a profound lesson had been learned.

Though he had been warned of the possibility of flagging winds delaying his journey, at the least he felt this possibility would be more favorable than the tumultuous siroccos that had resulted in seasickness. Yet, stalling at sea was more of a burden than he expected. At least in Palermo he had enjoyed the run of the town waiting for a ship heading homeward; at sea, he was left to wait without diversion and without a friend at his side. He was left to ponder at the meaning of his ill-fated affliction in Sicily and the spiritual impulses that accompanied it; as he later recalled:

My servant thought that I was dying, and begged for my last directions. I gave them, as he wished; but I said, “I shall not die.” I repeated, “I shall not die, for I have not sinned against light, I have not sinned against light.” I never have been able quite to make out what I meant.56

While Newman’s bold certitude about his survival may seem surprising, it was somewhat in keeping with the resolute determination that had shaped his adult life.

Readers of Newman’s Grammar of Assent may be inclined to think of him as the painstaking systematician and incisive logician, the master of his own words and seemingly the words of those he set out to rebut. Clearly he regarded his Mediterranean voyage as being touched by something utterly inexplicable, yet as he mentioned in his Apologia that he was

“writing verses the whole time of my passage.”57 Poetry seemingly provided him a way of coming to terms with his still baffling state of mind. As he waiting upon the waters for the winds, he was like Odysseus, who clings to the ruins of his ship, wrecked at sea.

Two nights yet, and days,

56 Apologia, 135.

57 Ibid.

187

He spent in wrestling with the sable seas; In which space, often did his heart propose Death to his eyes. But when Aurora rose, And threw the third light from her, orient hair, The winds grew calm, and clear was all the air, Not one breath stirring.58

Not only was Newman waiting for wind like Odysseus, he was also awaiting light. On

June 16, Newman wrote would become arguably the most famous of all his works: “The Pillar of the Cloud,” usually identified by its memorable opening words “Lead, Kindly Light”:

LEAD, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom Lead Thou me on! The night is dark, and I am far from home− Lead Thou me on! Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene−one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor pray’d that Thou Shouldst lead me on. I love to choose and see my path, but now Lead Thou me on! I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it Will lead me on, O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till The night is gone; And with the morn those angel faces smile Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.59

The meditation on light presented a fascinating counterpart to the days spent huddled in darkness at Leonforte, Castro Giovanni, and Palermo, in the throes of an illness that easily could have taken his life. On his first feeble attempts to walk the streets of Palermo, the light of day had been almost painful. For Newman, human life was a battlefield between the power of divine

58 Homer, The Odyssey (London: Wordsworth Classics, 2002), Book 5: 504-510.

59 VVO, 156-157.

188 grace and the temptations of the evil one, between the will of God and one’s self-will, between darkness and light.60

Though delayed in his passage through the Straits of Bonifacio, Newman had the occasion to recognize the way in which God had delivered him from enveloping darkness in

Sicily. As Richard Hutton has written,

It seems that God wished him to go through an intense purification, a very dark night. Once a beam of light dispelled the darkness for a moment when “a most consoling, overpowering thought of God’s electing love” seized him. He knew he was His.61

In many ways “The Pillar of the Cloud” represents the surfacing of the author’s deep-seated conviction that he belonged to God. For Tillotson, “The Pillar of the Cloud,”

embodies a personal confession and a personal resolution. In the crucible of that illness the Newman of the future was, if not forged, at least, fashioned. Surrender, surrender to God’s will, has now become the foundation of his spirituality.62

Conceding the centrality of surrender for Newman, one can begin to see the multivalency of such a gesture, whether it may apply to an otherwise isolated moment in one’s life or to a sweeping trajectory that encompasses the whole of a life destined for God. Though many if not most of his earlier Mediterranean poems betray an acerbic tone tinged with occasional notes of condemnation, “The Pillar of the Cloud” is surprisingly humane. The poem’s strongly pastoral tone reveals Newman writing in an effort to do justice to his own lived experience, yet also reveals him offering guidance as a shepherd of souls—a charge he held with the highest regard

60 Peter Willi, “Newman als Konvertit und Ratgeber der Konvertiten,” Forum Katholische Theologie (7 April 1991): 273-289; available at: http://www.newmanfriendsinternational.org/bibliography/?p=478#more-478.

61 Hutton, Cardinal Newman, 63.

62 Geoffrey Tillotson, “Newman’s Essay,” in John Henry Newman: Centenary Essays (Westminster, MD: Newman Book Shop, 1945), 105.

189 from his days at St. Clement’s as well as St. Mary’s. Remembering his days of suffering in

Sicily, Newman later wrote, “Indeed this is how I look on myself; very much . . . as a pane of glass, which transmit[s] heat being cold itself.” He wanted to radiate from within his desire to be of some great service to others; his service if carried out selflessly would be a safeguard against the self-will he cautioned against.

Newman’s words also betray his sensitivity and compassion toward the faltering steps made by the Christian in the direction of God. For Bouyer,

It was a thought which was always to be at the heart of his spirituality, namely, that light is only given to us gradually bit by bit, but that we are always given enough to see what we have to do next, and that when we have taken that step which has been lit up for us, we shall see the next, but only the next, step illuminated-while to attempt to see several steps ahead of the end of the path is not only futile but also self-defeating.63

Newman confirmed this perspective in a letter to an unknown correspondent on 30 August 1887:

This is one of the pregnant meanings of ’Lead Kindly Light’. The moral is contained in the words ’One step enough for me’. Beyond that one step is the province simply of Faith.64

Newman’s intense focus regarding his immediate place in life can be taken as a reference to his recent illness. Having left England with ambitious plans both for his overseas writing as well as his return to his native land, he came to understand that these well-laid plans meant little on a sickbed in a foreign land. One may think in a similar vein of the rich fool of the parable:

“This very night your life will be demanded of you” (Luke 12:20). “Lead, Kindly Light” moves the reader away from a preoccupation with the past, pleading that “past years” not be a focal point. Time then is reduced to the immediate present in which one alone is actively capable of

63 Ker, Newman, 79-80.

64 LD 31: 227.

190 expressing loving toward God. With this comes an implicit forgetfulness of both past and future.

Being is fully realized as a present preoccupation.

For Newman, light moves to the forefront of the poem and represents more subject than object, more friend than acquaintance. As Edgecombe pointed out,

The pillar is not mentioned within the body of the poem, but it nonetheless provides a dependable beacon in the heart of darkness. This is made the more discomfiting by the fact that Newman stresses the solitude of his journey, in contrast to the communality of the Israelites’. In its typological context, the darkness of the Mosaic wilderness was simply that−darkness−whereas here it registers as an enemy about to close for combat.65

For Newman, the moral life entailed an inescapable choice between the forces of light and darkness. Possessing neither darkness nor light in an absolute sense, one nevertheless is continuously faced with the choice of directing one’s life in either direction.66

The precision found in “Lead, Kindly Light” is part and parcel of Newman’s thought across the spectrum of his writings.67 The novelty of finding such precision here is that it is employed to express the self-offering made for love of God. Part of the intrinsic logic of the poem is that such abandonment to the will of God represents the certain foundation that can be

65 Rodney Stenning Edgecombe, Two Poets of the Oxford Movement: John Keble and John Henry Newman (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1996), 190.

66 This logic is captured succinctly by the inscription on Newman’s memorial plaque at the Birmingham Oratory: Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem.

67 In regard to its structure and form, part of the paradox of “Lead, Kindly Light” is that for all its emphasis upon utter abandonment and disregard for self, the poem observes as strict a uniformity in measure as can be observed in Newman. The symmetry of the three stanzas is startling: in the first stanza, 43 words are spread across 6 lines, containing in consecutive lines: 11 syllables, then 4, then 10, then 4, then 10, then 10; in the second stanza, there are 44 words spread across 6 lines, containing in consecutive lines: 10 syllables, then 4, then 10, then 4, then 10, then 10; in the third and final stanza, there is an exact replication of the pattern in the second stanza, which amounts to a near mirror image of the first stanza. Of the 182 poems arranged chronologically in his Verses on Various Occasions, the “Pillar of the Cloud” is number 90, near the middle of his book and perhaps auspiciously, representing the very heart of his poetic works.

191 observed in this poem’s symmetry. Its utter simplicity and even sparseness is part of the offering of one’s self to God and a gesture in which nothing is wasted. As Edgecombe has pointed out,

Even the syntax, stripped by apostolic necessity to a hard, almost inelegant residuum, sheds its verb and is connector in ‘one step enough for me.’ The total surrender implied by the forfeit sense of destination sounds yet another note of austerity.68

The final lines, ushering in a pregnant hope with which the author leaves the reader, carry tones of resurrection and Easter joy amid the promises of angelic faces shining upon us. Though

Newman never identified the particular faces accompanying the vision, presumably his sister

Mary was among them, as well as his father. It is at once a foreshadowing of an end which is more of a beginning, and one of which the author seems to suggest only the barest of intimations exist in this life.

The theme of docility also emerges in practically every line. Just as Newman went from obstinate patient to one trusting in the hands of Gennaro, a similar docility wins out again and again in Newman’s work. Such a realization would be essential in the work awaiting Newman at home.

The revival of Catholic life and thought which he was going home to promote could easily become, and did in a sense become, a party of men devoted to certain principles of which he was the most famous exponent. He would be in imminent danger of identifying his cause with himself so that it was no longer a work of God’s but a work of his, and to someone so devoted to God’s service as he was, the way this was likely to happen was in his so ardently throwing himself into teaching and promoting ideals as to lose touch with reality in his own personal life. Newman never fell under this delusion.69

The far-reaching legacy of “The Pillar of the Cloud” is astonishing. Perhaps no one was more surprised than Newman himself. Acclaim for his poem was of the highest admiration.

68 Edgecombe, Two Poets, 191.

69 Trevor, Pillar, 141.

192

According to Hutton, “For grandeur of outline, purity of taste, and radiance of total effect, I know hardly any short poems in the language that equal them.”70 Beyond the literary praise lavished upon Newman’s poetry, there was an abiding fascination, even amongst the unlettered.

He must have savored that the spiritual import of the poem was just as satisfying to its readers as the literary skill behind it. According to Trevor, “It is a prayer, and under its general forms, intensely personal to Newman, and he could never quite get used to its extraordinary popularity with his English contemporaries.”71

On several occasions, particularly in later years as the legacy of the poem and Newman’s legacy in general, had fully blossomed in terms of appreciation, he was reluctant to offer his own reflections on the inner workings of the piece. In a letter to W.A. Greenhill on 18 January 1879,

Newman tergiversated on the motivations behind the final verses of “The Pillar of the Cloud”.

You flatter me by your question−but I think it was Keble, who, when asked it in his own case, answered that poets~were not bound to be critics or to give a sense to what they had written−and, though I am not, like him, a poet, at least I may plead that I am not bound to remember my own meaning whatever it was, at the end of almost fifty years. Any how there must be a statute of limitations for writers of Verse, or it would be quite a tyranny, if, in an art which is the expression, not of truth, but of imagination and sentiment, one were obliged to be ready for examination on the transient states of mind which come upon one when homesick or sea sick, or in any other way sensitive or excited.

In typical Newmanian fashion, even an equivocation could be particularly insightful.

One particularly unlikely historical chapter of “The Pillar of the Cloud” was the verse that came to be, having never really been in the first place. Edward Henry Bickersteth (1825-

1906), an Anglican cleric and writer, included “The Pillar of the Cloud” in a collection of poems

70 Hutton, Cardinal Newman, 44.

71 Trevor, Pillar, 138.

193 entitled Hymnal Companion to the Book of Common Prayer.72 In Bickersteth’s edition the poem contains an additional verse.

Meantime along the narrow rugged path, Thyself hast trod Lead, Saviour, lead me home in childlike faith, Home to my god, To rest forever after earthly strife in the calm light of everlasting life.73

Newman heard secondhand of the unsolicited addition and wrote to Bickersteth on 9 July 1874 before securing a copy of the Bickersteth’s edition: “It is not that the verse is not both in sentiment and language graceful and good, but I think you will at once see how unwilling an author must be to subject himself to the inconvenience of that being ascribed to him which is not his own.”74 By then it was too late. In some compilations one still finds the Bickersteth addition to Newman’s work. He protested the spread of Bickersteth’s verse in a letter on 5 April 1881 to

Edward Stuart Talbot (1844-1934):

No one likes interpolations in what he has written. It is one of the imputed crimes of Rome, which ought to have occurred to so good a Protestant. He withdrew indeed the cause of offence readily on my complaint, but it has got into various publications, and gives me great trouble in answering inquiries, even from America, about its authorship.75

Return

“The Pillar of the Cloud” was the first of the poems Newman wrote while stalled in the

Straits of Bonifacio. It was not until Saturday 22 June that his ship would finally make its way

72 The Hymnal companion to the Book of common prayer: with accompanying tunes under the musical editorship of the late Joseph Thomas Cooper, compiled by Edward Henry Bickersteth (London: Sampson Law, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1877).

73 LD 32: 78.

73 Ibid.

74 Ibid.

75 LD 29: 359.

194 through the passage between Sardinia and Corsica. By then he had penned an additional twelve poems. His poem of 17 June, “Samaria,” sought to situate the relationship between the Church of England and the Apostolic Church, while allowing for some sense of continuity in the process.

What, though their fathers sinned, and lost the grace Which seals the Holy Apostolic Line? Christ’s love o’erflows the bounds His prophets trace in His reveal’d design.76

Though the work is in many ways unremarkable, its significance lies in the fact that it is consideration of the Church of England paves the way for his other June poems, many of which focused on missionary themes and characters driven by the impulse to spread the Gospel.

Although Newman was returning from foreign lands, in June he sounded like a person preparing for a great missionary undertaking in his own country.

Each of the three poems written on Tuesday June 16 played into the emerging sense of missionary impulse. The first, “Jonah”, looked to the intervening obstacles between the prophet and his work in Ninevah. The author used language that might have also been used to describe the stifled progress of the Conte Ruggiero:

DEEP in his meditative bower, The tranquil seer reclined;77

In the poem, the lethargic posture of Jonah left him ill-equipped for the mission entrusted him by

God.

The sudden voice was heard at length, “Lift thou the prophet’s rod!” But sloth had sapp’d the prophet’s strength, He fear’d, and fled from God.78

76 VVO, 158.

77 Ibid., 159.

78 Ibid.

195

So distasteful is sloth to the divine mandate Newman went on to associate the condition with another deadly sin he had referenced many times already: “What?−pride and sloth! man’s worst of foes!”79 One gains the impression from the poem that though the stalled progress of the Conte

Ruggiero may be forgivable, the work to begin in England must not be undone by waywardness and ambiguity.

The other two poems written on 18 June, “Faith Against Sight” and “Desolation”, continued Newman’s emphasis on a work to be undertaken. In the first, the author exhorted:

Learn ye well your parts. Once more to plough the earth it is decreed, And scatter wide the seed.80

This emphasis upon human initiative in cooperation with God flowed into the second work through the lens of fulfilling one’s responsibility whether or not the consoling presence of God seems to be near. The author relied on images of the all-seeing, hidden God to suggest that the divine is never as far-removed from human affairs as one might think. After using the call of

Nathaniel and the disciples traveling to Emmaus as examples of the unsuspecting nearness of

God, Newman imported his own situation into the poem.

Or on a voyage, when calms prevail, And prison thee upon the sea, He walks the wave, He wings the sail, The shore is gain’d, and thou art free.81

The final image of liberation revealed the hope sustaining Newman’s thoughts of home, but also the desired end of the missionary intent on the liberation of captives.

79 VVO, 160.

80 VVO, 161.

81 VVO, 163.

196

Two poems were written on 19 June, “Zeal and Patience” and “Religion of Cain.” The first is part of a pair along with a poem written the following day with a similar title, “Zeal and

Meekness”. In earlier works King David was used by Newman as a model of zeal for God.82

This time he turns to St. Paul for inspiration. In “Zeal and Patience” he began by addressing

Paul directly.

O COMRADE, bold of toil and pain! Thy trial was severe, When sever’d first by prisoner’s chain From thy loved labour-sphere!83

Newman saw in Paul’s bondage an analog to his own state of quasi-imprisonment at sea and the

“languor of delay.” By poem’s end, patience emerges as the great counterpoint to zeal, the generous complement to zeal’s sharpened edge.

Lord! who Thy thousand years dost wait To work the thousandth part Of Thy vast plan, for us create With zeal a patient heart.84

“Zeal and Meekness” supplied a similar theme, this time to suggest that the sharpened edge of zeal itself must be wielded with a milder, more poetic virtue.

The gospel Creed, a sword of strife, Meek hands alone may rear; And ever Zeal begins its life In silent thought and fear.85

82 See Newman’s sermon at St. Mary’s, Oxford, the day before his departure on “The Wilfulness of Saul”, OUS: 156, and the poem “David and Jonathan” written on 16 January, 1833, VVO, 115.

83 VVO, 164.

84 Ibid., 165.

85 Ibid., 170.

197

In these two poems, Newman’s balanced treatment of zeal combined the prudence of both patience and meekness as allies for effective renewal of the Church. A younger, more impetuous

Newman was less equipped to appreciate how these softer virtues might steady the two-edged sword of the Gospel without blunting its edge.

The second poem written on 19 June, “The Religion of Cain,” was in many ways a sequel to his poem of 5 June, “Liberalism.” Then Newman rejected the tendency to “halve the truth,” thereby wagging his literary finger at those guilty parties at home: “Men of presumptuous heart!

I know you well.”86 Here Newman took up arms against those who, in the likeness of Cain, have chosen self-made paths rather than the one measured out by God.

Adam’s eldest born Has train’d our practice in a selfish rule, Each stands alone, Christ’s bonds asunder torn; Each has his private thought, selects his school, Conceals his creed, and lives in closest tie Of fellowship with those who count it blasphemy.87

On the surface, Newman seemed to condemn individualism more than liberalism. On second glance, it seems more accurate to say that in “The Religion of Cain” Newman condemned individualism as an inherent attribute of liberalism. The poem concluded with a pre-Tractarian rallying cry for a tight-knit fraternal community to return volley against these common foes:

Brothers! . . . Use their own weapons; let your words be Strong, Your cry be loud, till each scared boaster flies Thus the Apostles tamed the pagan breast, They argued not, but preach’d; and conscience did the rest.88

Here one sees in the clearest language possible that Newman envisioned the effort which would ultimately become the Oxford Movement as a retrieval of the mission of the Apostles.

86 Ibid., 144.

87 Ibid., 166.

88 Ibid., 167.

198

On Thursday 20 June, Newman continued his fervent pace of writing with three poems to his credit: “St. Paul”, “Flowers Without Fruit” and the previously mentioned “Zeal and

Meekness.” “Flowers Without Fruit” was a call to action, its title a play on the necessity for words to be accompanied by resolute deeds.

Faith’s meanest deed more favour bears, Where hearts and wills are weigh’d, Than brightest transports, choicest prayers, Which bloom their hour and fade.89

“St. Paul” focused on the Apostle whose words and actions of spreading the Gospel were so neatly bound together as to make their clear differentiation a difficult proposition. The poem took its inspiration from the opening line as stemming from a dream, in which the author meets a stranger. The unknown figure was described as “courteous” and “meek” as well as “grave” and

“stern.” In the midst of these qualities, so complementary to one another in Newman’s recent poems, one is little surprised to find by poem’s end that the figure in question is, as the title suggests, St. Paul. Such information was disclosed by an unseen voice that whispers, “St. Paul is at thy side.” These words recall the opening line of Newman’s very first Mediterranean poem,

“Angelic Guidance”, which began: “ARE these the tracks of some unearthly friend”. Such continuity goes a long way in explaining his conviction of not being altogether alone, even on the loneliest days of his voyage.

Newman wrote three poems on 21 June, the day before the doldrums on the Strait of

Bonifacio finally lifted. “Vexations,” which can be seen as a commentary on his arrested voyage, considered past and future trials to be but relative states, destined to pass. Mindful of the martyrs, whose generous return on the gift of faith far exceeded his own, the author confessed:

89 Ibid., 169.

199

This be my comfort, in these days of grief, Which is not Christ’s, nor forms heroic tale. Apart from Him, if not a sparrow fail, May not He pitying view, and send relief When foes or friends perplex, and peevish thoughts prevail?90

The final line returned to the oft-considered image of light, offering a quiet echo of the mantra

“Lead, Kindly Light,” as the author expressed the conviction to walk by the light of God’s word

“amid earth’s sun and dust”.

The second poem written on 21 June, “The Church in Prayer,” focused on St. Peter’s vision at Joppa (Acts 10:9-23), where he “gained a sight beyond his thought, the dawn of Gentile day.” The image of dawn is much in keeping with Newman’s belief that a new creation was in store upon his return to England, but at the time of its writing, the poem was a reminder that even seeming accidents, such as an ill-timed delay at sea, can hold providential significance.

Then reckon not, when perils lour, The time of prayer mis-spent; Nor meanest chance, nor place, nor hour, Without its heavenward bent.91

The final poem written on 21 June, “The Wrath to Come,” is a retrospective on

Newman’s personal religious development, beginning with an appreciation for the relative ease with which the rational faculties were applied to matters of faith.

It little cost to own the lustre clear Of truths she taught, of rite and rule she stored; For conscience craved, and reason did accord.92

In a particularly honest turn, Newman conceded the insufficiency of a solely rational approach to faith. Reason alone was susceptible to doubt, and when that temptation came upon him,

90 VVO, 171.

91 Ibid., 174.

92 Ibid., 175.

200

My mother oped her trust, the holy Book; And heal’d my pang.93

This autobiographical poem suggests the extent to which Newman’s personal religious development weighed upon his mind and heart in the waning days of his Mediterranean journey.

That he should consider the successive stages marking his own evolution reflects his understanding that a new stage of religious development was beginning.

Newman’s prolific pace of writing continued on Saturday 22 June with three more poems. Strong notes of deference to the will of God sustained the day’s first two poems,

“Pusillanimity” and “James and John.” The first poem highlighted “all thy meekness” displayed in John the Baptist in his willingness to recede at the coming of the Messiah. The second half of the poem shifted to an introspective look at the author and his aspiration to meet the providential moment with the same depth of spirit as John the Baptist.

And so on us at whiles it falls, to claim Powers that we dread, or dare some forward part: Nor must we shrink as cravens from the blame Of pride, in common eyes, or purpose deep But with pure thoughts look up to God, and keep Our secret in our heart.94

Newman offered no clear explanation of the secret suggested in the poem’s final line. However, the fact that he associated the internal state of John the Baptist in the first lines of the poem with

“meekness,” a virtue contrasted with pride in the latter half, suggests that this virtue is capable of sustaining a person’s interior constitution, where the “secret” lies.

The poem “James and John” pointed to a similar deference to the will of God, courtesy of the presumption displayed by the brother disciples who, mistakenly, already “deem the battle

93 Ibid.

94 VVO, 176.

201 won.” By the end of the poem, the brothers stand together as victors “Before the Conqueror’s throne,” though not according to the formula either had anticipated. The author concluded;

Thus God grants prayer, but in His love Makes times and ways His own.95

Together the two poems represent a coda to “Lead, Kindly Light” by depicting the necessary willingness to be formed and directed by a guide in order to advance in the spiritual life. In a poignant twist on this theme, the winds began to return the very same day, bringing the Conte

Ruggiero through the Straits of Bonifacio.

The final poem written on 22 June “Hora Novissima” looked to the last hour of life, leading the author to beseech the heavens:

Lord, grant me in a Christian land, As I was born, to die.96

Since leaving England, Newman had lamented the loss of familiar company and the comforts of home. It is a bit surprising then, and perhaps a sign of some newfound conviction, that he then asked not “that friends may be, or kindred, standing by.” Even the mother sought on the final day is not an earthly figure, but an eternal one.

But let my failing limbs beneath My Mother’s smile recline; And prayers sustain my laboring breath From out her sacred shrine.97

The poem unfolded not as if the former bonds of kin and country had been abolished, but as if new and deeper ones have taken their place, steadying the author’s place in life.

95 Ibid., 178.

96 Ibid., 179.

97 Ibid., 179.

202

On Sunday 23 Jun, after passing Corsica and Sardinia on the way to Marseilles, Newman wrote two poems “Progress of Unbelief” and “Consolation.” The first poem was a meditation on the previous poem’s mother figure, depicted as the Tree of Life, whose

Leaves are shed upon the unthankful earth, Which lets them whirl, a prey to the winds’ strife, Heartless to store them for the months of dearth. Men close the door, and dress the cheerful hearth,98

Two movements characterized the second half of the poem. First the author was revealed as one who dared the elements to seek out as a true son and servant of the Church:

Each shrivelling stalk and silent-falling leaf. Truth after truth, of choicest scent and hue,99

The second movement indicated that the Tree of Life suffers grave distress in the author’s native land,

My Country, now gross hearted grown, Waits but to burn the stem before her idol’s Throne.100

Of particular importance was the subtle and growing separation between the mother Church and the Church of England. When one considers the poem “Home” written on 16 November 1832 at

Oxford, where the author portrayed England via familial and ecclesial imagery, the evolution in thought is particularly striking.

If “Progress of Unbelief” relied on a dreadful prophetic vision, “Consolation” sought to succor one downtrodden by such a dreadful prospect. Three times in the face of “gloom or fear”, the “sudden blow”, or the “foe,” the author heard the words of Christ beseeching him to have no fear. Such words were described as being whispered and as flowing, perhaps a reference to the

98 Ibid., 181.

99 Ibid.

100 Ibid.

203 recent winds that spared the Conte Ruggiero from its listless state and so an analog of divine remedy.

Newman wrote three poems with ecclesial themes on Monday 24 June. In “Uzzah and

Obed-Edom,”101 he identified the Church as the “ark of God” bearing within it a “hidden strength.” In the depiction of Uzzah who attempted to right the ark with “a rude corrective hand,” there is a clear reference to the coercive hand of liberalism, which sought to refashion the

Church in its own image. Obed-Edom however received a blessing for his hospitable reception of the ark. In the final lines the author summarized the roles of the two men:

Read, who the church would cleanse, and mark How stern the warning runs; There are two ways to aid her ark− As patrons, and as sons102

Newman wrote again as a son of the Church in “The Gift of Tongues” in considering the gift of glossolalia. The poem begins with a recollection of his travels:

ONCE cast with men of language strange And foreign-moulded creed, I mark’d their random converse change, And sacred themes succeed.103

The author’s response to weaving in and out of foreign languages throughout his travels elicited his desire to receive such a gift for the sake of serving as a witness of faith, yet “weakness chain’d my tongue.”104 Such a reflection reminds the reader that Newman’s mastery of the

101 See 2 Samuel, chapter 6.

102 VVO, 184.

103 Ibid., 185.

104 Ibid.

204

English language was mostly employed during his journey in his letters and verses; his return to

England meant a return to his native tongue.

The day’s final poem “The Power of Prayer” turned again to a source of grace infusing the Church. But where “The Gift of Tongues” peered into a charism bestowed upon a select few, this time Newman looked at a practice open to all.

THERE is not on the earth a soul so base But may obtain a place In covenanted grace; So that his feeble prayer of faith obtains Some loosening of his chains,105

These last two poems, taken as a pair, seemed a clear indication that the work awaiting Newman in England would not be a purely academic endeavor, but a spiritual undertaking at heart.

Newman wrote two poems on Tuesday 25 June: “Semita Justorum” and “The Elements,” both of which offered a window into the heart of the author longing for God. In the first poem, he sought to know the will of God and to await the unfolding of providence.

Whene’er, in journeying on, I feel The shadow of the Providential Hand, Deep breathless stirrings shoot across my breast, Searching to know what He will now reveal,106

Newman’s emphasis upon the overwhelming reality of the unseen carries over into “The

Elements”, where he situated the visible as a meager substance before the all-encompassing reality of the invisible. The poem ended with a meditation on the seeming insignificance of humanity.

Thus God has will’d That man, when fully skill’d Still gropes in twilight dim;

105 Ibid., 186.

106 Ibid., 187.

205

Encompass’d all his hours By fearfullest powers Inflexible to him. That so he may discern His feebleness. An e’en for earth’s success To Him in wisdom turn, Who holds for us the keys of either home, Earth and the world to come.107

In many ways the language of awe surfacing in these two poems revealed the foundation for

Newman’s conviction to depend entirely on God, rather than only on himself. Such an investment of the person in God seemed to provide for him the antidote to unchecked self-will, the plague so deadly to the healthy development of the Church and to the individual growth of her members.

On Wednesday 26 June, for the first time in nearly two weeks, Newman was again in sight of land. As the Conte Ruggiero ventured slowly closer to Marseille, the same invective that came upon him off the coast of Algiers months earlier returned upon seeing the tricolor French flag returned. In the only poem, Newman wrote on 26 June, rancor for the state of religion in

France was on fully display: “FRANCE! I will think of thee as what thou wast.” He then proceeds to recall the gloried past of the eldest daughter of the Church before reflecting dismally upon her current state. As with the vision at Algiers, Newman again averted his eyes:

I dare not think of thee as what thou art Lest thoughts too deep for man should trouble me. It is not safe to place the mind and heart On brink of evil, or its flames to see, Lest they should dizzy, or some taint impart, Or to our sin a fascination be. And so in silence I will now proclaim Hate of thy present self, and scarce will sound thy name.108

107 Ibid., 189.

108 VVO, 190-191.

206

Newman’s antagonism toward the state of affairs in France predated his Mediterranean voyage by several years. A letter written to John Marriott on 15 August 1830 revealed the extent to which Newman’s indictment of France was by then unmistakable. The unlikely association between Rome and Paris was particularly telling.

It was indeed unfortunate that you should just miss witnessing such important scenes as those which have been lately acted at Paris ~ yet it is some consolation too to find oneself at a distance from the most guilty spot in the whole earth, as far as we can judge, the city of the most reprobate people. Rome has devils enough, but surely Paris has more. With all their present pretence of liberty and moderation, it seems to me that, in their manifested contempt or hatred of religion, in their misrule, in the insubordination of the youth, and the occasional excesses of their revenge, they have been faithful to the character they established 4° years ago:−though familiarity in wickedness makes men systematic−and gives order and decency to crime. At the first revolution they were wild beasts let loose; and now they are more like evil spirits. I know that sentiments like these are harsh to the many, who seem to me studiously set on making evil good and good evil−so it was in a former age, when Kings of Judah made affinity with Kings of Israel−but then there were prophets to call down fire upon the captains, and to send bears of the wood against profane children.109

Newman’s portrayal of the upheaval of religion in France courtesy of graphic biblical imagery suggested the extent to which grave consequences came from violence perpetrated against religion. One recalls for example the curse leveled against Uzzah in Newman’s poem on 24 June

“Uzzah and Obed-Edom” for attempting to right the ark. Though Newman fell short of suggesting the downfall of religion in France was prescriptive of the future for religion in

England, he seemingly did not feel that England would be immune from the fate of her neighbor across the Channel.

In the years following Newman’s Mediterranean voyage, his knowledge of the historical precedent for the Revolution in France allowed a more studied perspective. An article published

109 LD 32: 3.

207 by Newman in the British Critic in October 1837, “Fall of de la Mennais,” is particularly helpful in identifying what Newman contended was the source of hostility toward religion in France:

The Gallican principle is the vindication of the Church, not into independence, but into State patronage. The liberties of the Gallican Church are its establishment, its becoming, in Scripture language, “the servant of men.” These liberties were solemnly recognized in the articles of the famous council held in Paris in 1682, in which was confirmed the king’s claim to exercise in all churches within his kingdom, a right which he possessed but in portions of it, viz., that on a vacancy in a see, he should enjoy its revenues and its patronage till it was filled up. On the Pope's resisting the innovation, and refusing to confirm the bishops nominated by Louis, the latter, zealous of course for his Church's liberty, caused them to be consecrated and inducted into their sees on his own authority. Next, he summoned the council in question, in which it was decreed,—1. That the Pope could not interfere with the temporal concerns of princes, directly or indirectly; 2. That in spiritual matters, he was subject to a general council; 3. That the rules and usages of the Gallican Church were inviolable; and 4. That the Pope’s decision in points of faith was not infallible, unless attended by the consent of the Church. It matters little what is the wording of such resolutions, or what their precise doctrinal signification: they were aimed at the assistance afforded to religion by an external power against the pressure of the temporal power within, and they succeeded in making the king the head of the French Church, in much the same sense in which he is its supreme governor among ourselves. On the restoration of the Bourbons, Gallicanism returned with them, and its four articles were made the rule of the government schools. At first the clergy were little disposed to cooperate with the Court; but, a judicial decree in 1826 having declared the articles to be part of the fundamental laws of the kingdom, they were gradually persuaded that resistance was hopeless, and looked about how they might admit them, without committing the Church to the practical consequences.110

In this statement, Newman published in 1837, during the heart of the Oxford Movement,

Newman was surprisingly advocating, if not Ultramontanism, then at least a modest version of papal authority. Clearly he found insufficient the Gallican championing of local ordinaries and temporal rulers at the expense of the Roman Pontiff. There seems then to be a strong link between his dismissal of the prevailing socio-ecclesial tides in France in 1833 and his later treatment of Gallicanism.

110 John Henry Newman, Essays Critical and Historical: Volume I (New York, NY: Longmans, Green, 1895), 145-146.

208

On Thursday 27 June, Newman landed at Marseille. His final two Mediterranean poems were written the same day. The first poem, “Judaism,” can be read as a commentary on the state of religion in France, particularly given its proximity to the previous day’s work, “Apostasy”; this time, however, Newman traded in the eldest daughter for the eldest son.

O PITEOUS race! Fearful to look upon, Once standing in high place, Heaven’s eldest son. O aged blind Unvenerable! as thou flittest by,111

Where “Apostasy” focused upon what France was losing, “Judaism” focused upon what was already lost.

When fervent Paul was fain The accursed tree, as Christ had borne, to bear, No hopeful answer came,−a Price more rare Already shed in vain.112

Given the timing of the poem, one wonders if Newman presented the poem as a reflection on the possibility that what the Christian world was losing of its inheritance might one day be lost altogether were not great effort invested in reclaiming the beauty of the Church.

The final Mediterranean poem had the poignant title “Separation of Friends.” Given the benefit of knowing what later happened in Newman’s life, the title reminds one of his final

Anglican sermon at Littlemore on 25 September 1843 about “The Parting of Friends.” While the situation in 1843 was apparent in the title, the June 1833 title was more opaque. An addendum to the work, twelve further lines added shortly after 28 February 1836, the date of Hurrell

Froude’s death, provided some insight. Even though Newman was by June 1833 nearing his

111 VVO, 192.

112 Ibid.

209 return to the company of friends and family, “Separation of Friends” is a reminder of the fluidity of human associations in this life. The poem began by acknowledging the souls who have passed from this life and their wait for well-loved companions to join them; those souls,

who ‘neath the Altar wait Until their second birth, The gift of patience need, as separate From their first friends of earth?113

Newman portrayed the heavenly reunion as the absolute reference point for friendship; those lines written in June 1833 provided the foundation for those added upon Froude’s death.

Ah! dearest, with a word he could dispel All questioning, and raise Our hearts to rapture, whispering all was well And turning prayer to praise. And other secrets too he could declare, By patterns all divine, His earthly creed retouching here and there, And deepening every line. Dearest! he longs to speak, as I to know, And yet we both refrain: It were not good: a little doubt below, And all will soon be plain.114

The day after arriving in Marseille, Newman began the two hundred mile journey north to Lyons on Friday 28 June. After travelling for two days, he arrived at Lyons on Sunday evening 30 June. His feet and ankles badly swollen from the journey, he was forced to rest. On

1 July Newman wrote the final letter of his voyage in which he confided to his mother:

I trust when you receive this I shall not be far from you. Really it seems as if some unseen power, good or bad, was resisting my return. The thought of home has brought tears in my eyes for the last two months. God is giving me a severe lesson of patience, and I trust I am not altogether wasting the opportunity of discipline. It is His will. I strive to think that, wherever I am, God is God and I am I . . . So it is a simple trial of my patience. I am quite desolate. I am tempted

113 VVO, 195.

114 Ibid., 196.

210

to say, ’Lord, heal me, for my bones are vexed.’ But really I am wonderfully calm, and I trust from right principles. Thwarting awaits me at every step. I have had much of this ever since I left Naples.115

Newman’s conviction of being sustained by the abiding presence of God was the final impression of his Mediterranean journey. Though sorely tried in Sicily, and even in successive chapters of his homeward journey, the sense of wonderful calm even in light the appearance of being thwarted “at every step”, marked a new religious era for Newman. Had he anticipated the trials and inconveniences of travel, he might have reasonably expected the frustrations that came his way. The wonderful calm however was a new reality, an epiphany. Even the Froudes, in whose company Newman had spent the majority of the voyage, were oblivious to this newfound reality. It was a deeply personal phenomenon, because of the profound nature of the encounter between the Christian and God, in a language otherwise unintelligible, even for a poet.

On Tuesday 2 July, Newman left Lyons for Paris, where he arrived on the evening of

Friday 5 July. In his brief time in Paris, Newman developed a modest appreciation for the city, though he was indoors for practically all of the twenty-four hours he spent in the city. The following day he traveled northwest to Rouen and then continued north to the coastal town of

Dieppe, where he dined on Sunday 7 July. At three in the morning the following day he boarded a steamer heading for Brighton and that evening he was again on his native soil.

By the time he returned to England, Newman, then age thirty-two, had penned a volume- worth of poems during his voyage on the Mediterranean—with the exception of “The Dream of

Gerontius”—almost all the poems that would comprise his poetic corpus. On his arrival at

Iffley116 on 9 July 1833, Newman was a man newly-charged; according to Ker,

115 LD 4: 3.

116 At that time, Newman’s immediate family lived at Iffley, a village approximately two miles south of the city-center of Oxford.

211

However, although all his hair had come out on his return home (which had meant having to wear a wig), he was not only ‘quite recovered’ (except for weakness in his joints), but he was ‘better now’ than he had ever been all the seventeen years he had been in Oxford.117

Newman’s colleagues gave testament to the changed man:

Newman’s folio of poems and litany of letters recounting his impressions abroad bore the most immediate testimony to this life-changing experience and chronicled the myriad passageways by which his life had been transformed. Though desperately eager to be at the side of friends and family again, he did not linger in the company of those he had left behind seven months earlier. No sooner had he returned than the next chapter of his life, no less dramatic or momentous than its predecessor, was about to commence.

117 Ker, Newman, 83-84.

118 Ibid., 85-86.

Chapter Six: Oxford Movement

In the words of Jean Daniélou,

The essence of the Christian calling is this, to have seen that the moment of choice had come, that it would no longer do to settle down in a quiet life, that one had a soul to make, to meet a time of crisis, that one’s whole life and personality must be directed towards the resolution of this crisis, through the Christian mission to the world.1

These words seem to characterize the next steps in the life of John Henry Newman, who arrived in Oxford around seven in the evening on Tuesday, 9 July 1833, thus completing his Mediterranean voyage. As Wilfrid Ward observed:

Like Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle, it was a pause in routine work which led to fruitful meditation. The Church of England was at the moment in imminent peril. The Liberal party was frankly aiming at her disestablishment.2

All told, it was a ripe moment for a pilgrim and would-be prophet to return from afar. As

Meriol Trevor commented:

When Newman came back from Sicily people meeting him in the street hardly recognized him. He was very brown and thin, James Mozley wrote home. His hair all fell out and he had to wear a wig till it grew again; when it came it was darker. But the real change was the great rebound of energy which drove him through the first critical months of his new work. It was his supreme confidence in the truth of his principles which carried him on; yet even in the first excitement he would have stopped the Tracts, his own distinctive contribution, and the one which was making their ideas known in the world, rather than force his own way against the opinion of others. If Froude and Keble had not urged him on, he would have given up this weapon of incalculable power.3

1 Jean Daniélou, The Lord of History: Reflections on the Inner Meaning of History (Cleveland, OH: Meridan Books, 1968), 281.

2 Wilfrid Ward, The Oxford Movement (New York, NY: Dodge Publishing, 1912), 50.

3 Trevor, Pillar, 154.

212 213

Even Newman, never one to overestimate himself publicly, was fairly astonished by the vigor of his health on his return. A world of events had come to pass in his life since he left

England the previous December and a new world of events was beginning. In many ways the voyage was still with him. As he later remembered:

Acts of the officious character, which I have been describing, were uncongenial to my natural temper, to the genius of the Movement, and to the historical mode of its success:—they were the fruit of that exuberant and joyous energy with which I had returned from abroad, and which I never had before or since. I had the exultation of health restored, and home regained. While I was at Palermo and thought of the breadth of the Mediterranean, and the wearisome journey across France, I could not imagine how I was ever to get to England; but now I was amid familiar scenes and faces once more. And my health and strength came back to me with such a rebound, that some friends at Oxford, on seeing me, did not well know that it was I, and hesitated before they spoke to me. And I had the consciousness that I was employed in that work which I had been dreaming about, and which I felt to be so momentous and inspiring.4

Assize Sermon

It was John Keble who set the tides of renewal in motion on Sunday 14 July with his

Assize Sermon. In a solemn service before the assembled judges set to begin hearing civil and criminal cases in the upcoming court session, the mild-mannered Keble delivered a sermon, entitled “National Apostasy,” which was a unilateral assault, absent the benign formal niceties that might have otherwise been expected.

The fact was that the gentle Keble, with the childlike smile, was hurling, over their bewigged pates, a crushing indictment of the powers they represented. Like a man who has made up his mind, at all events for once in his lifetime, to speak out, Keble drew on all the weapons in his armoury sticking at nothing, either in the things he said, or in this manner of saying them. This sermon, laconically entitled National Apostasy, he sent forthwith to the printer.5

4 Apologia, 145.

5 Bouyer, Newman, 167.

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Keble’s principal target was the Reform Act of 1832, which reduced the number of bishoprics in the Anglican Church of Ireland by ten. The reduction was perceived by many at

Oxford as an attempt to control the established Church. If successful, what was to keep the same reduction from being exacted upon the Church of England? For nearly four decades, the Tories had controlled Parliament, until a Whig government was elected in 1830. Reform was in the air, politically as well as ecclesiastically. “There were popular attacks upon the bishops, most of whom opposed the Reform Bill of 1832, and the government decided as a first ecclesiastical measure to reform the over-privileged minority Protestant Church of Ireland, united to the

Church of England in 1800.”6 Ironically “the founders of a Movement whose ‘first principle was ecclesiastical liberty’ began their alliance by attempting to preserve the existing Establishment.”7

Newman regarded Keble’s sermon “as the start of the religious movement of 1833.”8 In the weeks that followed, he made every effort to disseminate Keble’s message, all the while formulating his own contributions to the cause. Writing to Hurrell Froude on 1 August, Newman disclosed that he had “begun a paper, one of a series if Rose wants them, called the ‘Church of the Fathers’ or ‘Horae Catholicae’, or some other equally clever title.”9 In a letter to Thomas

Mozley on 5 August, Newman linked his work on the Fathers and the contemporary renewal of the Church of England: “For myself, I am poking into the Fathers with a hope of rummaging forth passages of history which may prepare the imaginations of men for a changed state of

6 Sheridan Gilley, “Life and writings,” in Ian Ker and Terrence Merrigan, editors, The Cambridge Companion to John Henry Newman (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 5-6.

7 Brendon, Hurrell Froude, 94.

8 Apologia, 136.

9 LD 4: 18.

215 things, and also be precedents for our conduct in difficult circumstances.”10 Newman not only sought to bridge the early Church and the Church of his day. As Paul Johnson has commented:

“It is notable that whereas in the Reformation, the first Protestants had appealed to the early

Church against papal triumphalism, and mechanical Christianity, this new group of Christian reformers employed the early Church to illumine a path back to Rome.”11

The Movement

On Sunday 25 August, Hugh James Rose convened at his parsonage in Hadleigh a gathering of like-minded individuals, many of whom would become stalwarts of the upcoming movement. Among the disparate personalities and viewpoints, a vision came slowly into focus.

William Palmer (1803-1885) of Worcester College suggested an attempt to unite clergy under a common banner, a decisive step in the direction of what became the Tracts for the Times.

Though a suggestion was made to petition the Archbishop of Canterbury, the bishops were otherwise forgotten.12 Newman mentioned this surprising omission in a letter to John William

Bowden on 31 August.

As to the state of the Church. I suppose it was in a far worse condition in Arian times, except in the one point you mention, that there was the possibility of true- minded men becoming Bishops, which is now almost out of the question. If we had one Athanasius, or Basil, we could bear with 20 Eusebiuses.13

The group decided to begin with an appeal to the clergy of the Church of England. The crux of such an address rested upon a fundamental question, which Louis Bouyer has articulated

10 LD 4: 24.

11 Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 377.

12 On 6 February 1834, a petition signed by 7000 Anglican clergy was presented to the Archbishop of Canterbury as evidence of sweeping support for renewal.

13 LD 4: 33.

216 this way: “Was the Church merely a department of State, entrusted with the performance of functions more or less loosely defined, or was she the successor of the Apostles?”14 In many ways, this question galvanized the Oxford Movement. Newman soon gave expression to the hopes of his confreres by beginning a series: Tracts for the Times. Many of these essays would treat the decisive question: whether or not the Church of England was a department of State, or successor of the Apostles.

To some extent, the Oxford Movement was occasioned by historical developments originating outside of England. As Wilfrid Ward commented,

The Movement also had kinship and common parentage with other religious movements both in England and on the Continent. It is traceable in the last resort to the reaction on behalf of traditional Christianity which followed the French Revolution in so many countries.”15

Newman’s fear that events in England might come to mirror those across the Channel was neither irrational nor unfounded.

The prevailing intellectual climate within England was also problematic for Newman and his compatriots. According to Wilfrid Ward,

The intellectual aristocracy of the day, it was true, found itself on the side of liberalism. The Noetic school of Oxford and the best talent at Cambridge were both liberal and intellectualist in their tendency. But Newman saw in this fact a great danger to be counteracted. A party must be formed to defend the Church, —the guardian of those truths which are above reason—against the assaults of brilliant intellectuality.16

14 Bouyer, Newman, 169.

15 Ward, Oxford Movement, 7.

16 Wilfrid Ward, The Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman: Based on His Private Journals and Correspondence, Volume I (New York, NY: Longmans, Green, 1912), 43.

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For Newman, renewal of the church was the only way out of the unchecked rationalism ushered in by liberalism.

If the first organizing principle of the Oxford Movement was to reach the minds and hearts of the clergy of the Church of England and to inspire them toward renewal, the second principle was to restore the rightful legacy of the Church of England. The challenge was both inward and outward. Trevor captured the dilemma well: “The genesis of the Oxford Movement lay in its desire to free the church from this inward corruption and external servitude.”17

Resolution of the dilemma was complicated by the fact that “inward corruption and external servitude” were deeply intertwined. According to Maisie Ward, the Church of England at the time

concentrated on the temporal plums and forgot about the spiritual pie. The Establishment slept: it was the sleep of the snug rather than of the just. The slumber was, indeed, fitful. There were voices which tried to rouse the Church from its lethargy, the most insistent and influential, of course, being that of John Wesley. The impetus of Methodism, however, was so great that, after Wesley’s restraining hand had been removed in 1791, it quickly broke away from the Church of England.18

Just as Wesley could not have guessed the ultimate direction of his efforts at renewal, there was no early indication that the Oxford Movement would ultimately break ranks with the

Church of England. In fact, there were striking resemblances between Newman and Wesley.

According to Maisie Ward,

In many respects the parallel between Wesley in the eighteenth and Newman in the nineteenth century is curiously close. Both men started inside the Church of England movements that were to end outside it. Both men were Fellows of Oxford colleges; both appealed to the early Church and sought there for the purest form of Christianity; both were intense students of the Bible; both attempted to

17 Trevor, Pillar, 17.

18 Maisie Ward, Young Mr. Newman (New York, NY: Sheed & Ward, 1948), xiv.

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revive the daily services and frequent daily prayers of Catholicism; both fasted often, rose early in the morning, held an ascetic view of the Christian life; both had a group of ardent followers at Oxford; each had in that group a friend who died young (Hurrell Froude and Morgan) in part as a result of too much fasting.19

In some ways the tendency toward liberalism in the Church of England was the offspring of its unusual and dramatic evolution. According to Maisie Ward,

The Church was peculiarly a victim of its history. After the bitter religious strife of the Civil War, the Exclusion Crisis and Queen Anne’s reign, the men of the eighteenth century were pleased to welcome a period of toleration, and laxity on the part of the Establishment.20

In such a religious climate, any sense of sustained fervor became more exceptional than normative. Newman came to see latitudinarianism as leading to the edge of a theological abyss.

The Roman alternative was far more favorable than such a precipitous misstep. As Richard

Hutton commented, “If Newman had to choose between Latitudinarianism and Roman

Catholicism, he would have chosen the latter as far the more rational of the two views of revelation to any one who was convinced that a revelation had been made.”21 Writing to his brother Francis on 12 October 1840, Newman spelled out the danger of Latitudinarianism:

Latitudinarianism is an unnatural state; the mind cannot long rest in it; and especially if the fact of a revelation be granted, it is most extravagant and revolting to our reason to suppose that after all its message is not ascertainable and that the divine interposition reveals nothing. The more scepticism abounds, the more is a way made for the revival of a strong ecclesiastical authority; Christianity arose in the beginning, when the popular religions had lost their hold upon the mind. So strongly do I feel this, that, averse as the English people are to Romanism, I conceive that did their choice lie in the mere alternative they would embrace even Romanism rather than acquiesce in absolute uncertainty.22

19 Ibid., 84.

20 Ward, Young Mr. Newman, xiii.

21 Hutton, Cardinal Newman, 93.

22 LD 7: 412-413.

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Latitudinarianism in Newman’s day grew increasingly incapable of having any meaningful recourse to the idea of a universal Church. Newman addressed the matter in a sermon, “Condition of Members of the Christian Empire,” included in his 1838 collection

Sermons Bearing on Subjects of the Day:

Either Christianity is shut up in Britain, or not: if it is, Christ has no longer a Catholic Church, and then, certainly, the prophecies are not now fulfilled to us; or it does exist in other lands, and then we are bound to sympathize in the troubles which Christians there undergo for the name of Christ.23

This conviction that surfaced during the Oxford Movement found fuller expression in his

Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations (1849):

If sin is a partial evil, let its remedy be partial; but, if it be not local, not occasional, but universal, such must be the remedy. A local religion is not from God. The true religion must indeed begin, and may linger, in one place; nay, for centuries remain there, provided it is expanding and maturing in its internal character, and professes the while that it is not yet perfect. There may be deep reasons in God's counsels, why the proper revelation of His will to man should have been slowly elaborated and gradually completed in the elementary form of Judaism; but that Revelation was ever in progress in the Jewish period, and pointed by its prophets to a day when it should be spread over the whole earth. Judaism then was local because it was imperfect; when it reached perfection within, it became universal without, and took the name of Catholic.24

This emphasis upon the universality of Christianity as integral to its identity was by no means absent from Newman’s writings on the Church before his Mediterranean voyage, however the frequency of his allusions to ecclesial universality after his time abroad suggests not only a deepening of thought, but the emergence of a profound ecclesial conviction.

23 John Henry Newman, Sermons Bearing on Subjects of the Day (New York, NY: Longmans, Green, 1902), 271; hereafter cited: Subjects.

24 Mixed Congregations, 246-247.

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Implicit in the Latitudinarian mindset was the nature of the relationship between the

Church and the State in England. Such symbiosis was the result of several successive chapters of English history. The principle of Erastianism, named after the Swiss physician and theologian

Thomas Erastus (1524-1583), though the concept itself is not in his writings, referred to the claimed preeminence of the State over the Church in ecclesiastical matters. In some respects, the association had beneficially nurtured the growth of the English Church. Newman addressed the claim in an article on Primitive Christianity written for the British Magazine between 1833 and

1836.

Hitherto the English Church has depended on the State, i.e. on the ruling powers in the country—the king and the aristocracy; and this is so natural and religious a position of things when viewed in the abstract, and in its actual working has been productive of such excellent fruits in the Church, such quietness, such sobriety, such external propriety of conduct, and such freedom from doctrinal excesses, that we must ever look back upon the period of ecclesiastical history so characterized with affectionate thoughts; particularly on the reigns of our blessed martyr St. Charles, and King George the Good. But these recollections of the past must not engross our minds, or hinder us from looking at things as they are, and as they will be soon, and from inquiring what is intended by Providence.25

While Newman’s condemnation of Erastianism was absolute in principle, in fact,

Erastianism helped the Oxford Movement, inasmuch as the latter tried to become a decisive counterpoint to Liberalism. As Newman commented after becoming a Roman Catholic:

Erastianism, then, was the one heresy which practically cut at the root of all revealed truth; the man who held it would soon fraternise with Unitarians, mistake the bustle of life for religious obedience, and pronounce his butler to be as able to give communion as his priest. It destroyed the supernatural altogether, by making most emphatically Christ’s kingdom a kingdom of the world. Such was the teaching of the movement of 1833. The whole system of revealed truth was, according to it, to be carried out upon the anti-Erastian or Apostolical basis . . . . It is, in one shape or other, the prevailing subject of the early numbers of the “Tracts

25 John Henry Newman, “Primitive Christianity: What does St. Ambrose say about it?” in Essays and Sketches, Volume I, Charles Frederick Harrold, editor (New York: NY, Longmans, Green, 1948), 340; hereafter cited: E&S 1.

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for the Times,” as well as of other publications which might be named. It was for this that the writers of whom I speak had recourse to Antiquity, insisted upon the Apostolical Succession, exalted the Episcopate, and appealed to the people, not only because these things were true and right, but in order to shake off the State; they introduced them, in the first instance, as means towards the inculcation of the idea of the Church, as constituent portions of that great idea, which, when it once should be received, was a match for the world.26

The notion of a society whose vision and reality would become “a match for the world” is a dazzling phrase that offers insight into Newman’s personal aspirations for the Oxford

Movement. It became increasingly clear as more and more Tracts were written that no truce with Erastianism was possible. Newman saw the conflict between Church and State in England as similar to other stand-offs throughout history:

Is it not then abundantly plain, that, whatever be the destiny of the movement of 1833, there is no tendency in it towards a coalition with the Establishment? It cannot strengthen it, it cannot serve it, it cannot obey it. The party may be dissolved, the movement may die—that is another matter; but it and its idea cannot live, cannot energize, in the National Church. If St. Athanasius could agree with Arius, St. Cyril with Nestorius, St. Dominic with the Albigenses, or St. Ignatius with Luther, then may two parties coalesce, in a certain assignable time, or by certain felicitously gradual approximations, or with dexterous limitations and concessions, who mutually think light darkness and darkness light.27

In many ways, Newman’s efforts for most of the 1830s were consistent with Flannery

O’Connor’s literary philosophy:

When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal ways of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock—to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures.28

26 John Henry Newman, Certain Difficulties Felt By Anglicans in Catholic Teaching, Volume I (New York, NY: Longmans, Green, 1895), 102-103; hereafter cited: Difficulties.

27 Difficulties, 112-113.

28 Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press), 131.

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Newman treated the ecclesial ills of his day accordingly. To illustrate the risk latent within

Erastianism, he pointed out that the doctrine ultimately led its adherents toward a self-idolatry, in which individual members of the Church became their own autonomous authorities.

Bad as it is for a man to take the State for his guide and master in religion, or to become an Erastian, it is worse still to become a Sectarian, that is, to be his own Doctor and his own Pope. What is really meant by a “Church,” is a religious body which has jurisdiction over its members, or which governs itself; whereas, according to the doctrine of Erastus, it has no such jurisdiction, really is not a body at all, but is simply governed by the State, and is one department of the State's operations.29

For Newman, such a Church was not a Church at all. If the essence of the Church was as malleable as the Liberals suggested, then the reality of the Church was altogether different than what had been claimed for centuries: “Either no Church has been set up in the world, or it is not set up for nothing; it must have a mission and a message of its own.”30 Much of the labor of the

Oxford Movement was an effort to reveal just how inimical the Erastian vision was to the true meaning of the Church across the centuries—beginning with the Church Fathers.

Now it is very intelligible to deny that there is any divinely established, divinely commissioned, Church at all; but to hold that the one Church is realized and perfected in each of a thousand independent corporate units, co-ordinate, bound by no necessary intercommunion, adjusted into no divine organized whole, is a tenet, not merely unknown to Scripture, but so plainly impossible to carry out practically, as to make it clear that it never would have been devised, except by men, who conscientiously believing in a visible Church and also conscientiously opposed to Rome, had nothing left for them, whether they would or would not, but to entrench themselves in the paradox, that the Church was one indeed, and the Church was Catholic indeed, but that the one Church was not the Catholic, and the Catholic Church was not the one.31

29 Difficulties, 197-198.

30 Ibid., 202.

31 John Henry Newman, Essays Critical and Historical, Volume II (New York, NY: Longmans, Green, 1895), 91; hereafter cited: ECH 2.

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Just as Newman’s Mediterranean voyage had granted an experiential knowledge of the

Roman Catholic Church, his study both in the years before his departure and in the years since, provided a more integral knowledge: former illusions and prejudices became untenable and with time evaporated. He later remembered the incongruities that marked his early efforts to learn more about the Roman Catholic Church:

I knew not what to look for in them; I sought what was not there, I missed what was there; I laboured through the night and caught nothing. But I should make one important exception: I rose from their perusal with a vivid perception of the divine institution, the prerogatives, and the gifts of the Episcopate; that is, with an implicit aversion to the Erastian principle.32

The inconsistencies of Erastianism gripped his mind. Without recourse to the Roman Catholic

Church, Newman would have had no ready witness that the authority of the State could be detrimental to the divine authority in the Church. Eventually, his study of Church history permitted a deep appreciation for the enduring relevance of the Church—a relevance that was independent of the status consigned it by the state. Writing in 1848, Newman seized upon the example of St. Thomas Becket and his likeness to an earlier Doctor of the Church.

I just now mentioned St. Thomas Becket. There is at once a similarity and a contrast between his history and that of Ambrose. Each of the two was by education and society what would now be called a gentleman. Each was in high civil station when he was raised to a great ecclesiastical position; each was in middle age. Each had led an upright, virtuous life before his elevation; and each, on being elevated, changed it for a life of extraordinary penance and saintly devotion. Each was promoted to his high place by the act, direct or concurrent, of his sovereign; and each showed to that sovereign in the most emphatic way that a bishop was the servant, not of man, but of the Lord of heaven and earth. Each boldly confronted his sovereign in a great religious quarrel, and staked his life on its issue;—but then comes the contrast, for Becket's earthly master was as resolute in his opposition to the Church as Becket was in its behalf, and made him a martyr; whereas the Imperial Power of Rome quailed and gave way before the dauntless bearing and the grave and gracious presence of the great prelate of

32 Difficulties, 321-322.

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Milan. Indeed, the whole Pontificate of Ambrose is a history of successive victories of the Church over the State.33

Writing in 1850, Newman again found parallels between the past and present of the

Church—this time trading Milan for Constantinople:

The chief problem, for example, before the Church at present, is how to supply the local wants of an overgrown and disaffected population; but this, serious as it is, is no novel one. No city can threaten religious truth more fiercely than Constantinople in the fourth and fifth centuries; a city created for the very purposes of imperial luxury, hallowed by no local antiquities, the home of no religious remembrances, the abode (in the historian's words) of a “lazy and indolent populace,” the port of commerce, and (by a fortune unparalleled perhaps in any other city) the very focus of a speculative misbelief, and of the almost fanatic party which upheld it. Yet even here Christianity triumphed; triumphed so far as to maintain itself in place and authority for ages, and to be able to extend that light of religion to such as would receive it. What need have we to do more now, than to master and apply that policy (to borrow a statesman's word) which enabled the Church to achieve its early victories?34

For Newman, restoring the Church of England meant retrieving the catholicity of her roots. Just as Liberalism was a movement swayed by the evolving ethos of the day, a countervailing movement was needed to assure that the Church’s catholic foundation was not lost. For Newman, this was an effort centered in love for the Church. As Zeno commented:

His love for her [the Church] never diminished. For him it was always the Church that mattered. Hence the Oxford Movement. His tremendous efforts were all on behalf of Christ’s Church, though he had not yet seen her in her true light and mistook a shadow for the substance. As a Catholic he toiled and suffered for the Church. We may say that from 1828 onward his whole life was spent in fighting her greatest enemy, the Liberalism of the day, as he called it. This was the rationalistic spirit in religion, which threatened both Anglicanism and Catholicism.35

33 E&S 1: 90.

34 Difficulties, 55-56.

35 Zeno, Newman, 278.

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It was practically unavoidable that a great ecclesial movement with Newman at the center would likewise make a deep impression of Oxford. On 17 October 1833, Newman was elected

Dean of Oriel. Amongst the men standing alongside him in the years ahead were his companions of Oriel; without Keble and Froude at his side, the Movement, if not Newman himself, would have been adrift. As Maisie Ward commented, “The truth is that during the summer and autumn of 1833 the course of the Movement was determined by a triumvirate consisting of Newman, who held the reins, Keble, who provided the motive power, and Froude, who wielded the whip and yelled directions.”36

If Oxford was the center of the Movement of 1833 and the ensuing Tracts, such proximity did not mean that the University was beyond critique. Even Oxford—the place where

Newman’s best years were spent, the place to which he owed so much—was in need of renewal.

Near the end of his essay on Medieval Oxford, written for the British Critic in July 1838, he critiqued the state of the University:

Institutions come to nothing which are untrue to the principle which they embody; Oxford has failed in all respects, has compromised its dignity, and has done injury to its inward health and stability, as often as it has forgotten that it was a creation of the middle ages, and has affected new fashions, or yielded to external pressure.37

Though his affection for Oxford still ran immeasurably deep, the keenness of sight with which

Newman returned from abroad demanded that all aspects of his life be revisited and considered anew.

36 Ward, Young Mr. Newman, 128.

37 John Henry Newman, Historical Sketches, Volume III (New York, NY: Longmans, Green, 1909), 332.

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Around the middle of September, there began to arrive at churches in the cities and villages of England, a four-page leaflet,

printed and published by Rivingtons, and its price was one penny. But an energetic propaganda campaign saw to it that it found its way into hands that would have been little likely to order it. Such procedure was startling, but not more startling than the success which attended it.38

The first Tract was published anonymously on 9 September—though many a reader might have guessed rightly who wrote it—indeed the author would go on to write more Tracts than anyone else. The first Tract simply identified its author as a member of the fraternity of clerics:

I am but one of yourselves,—a Presbyter; and therefore I conceal my name, lest I should take too much on myself by speaking in my own person. Yet speak I must; for the times are very evil, yet no one speaks against them.

Is not this so? Do not we “look one upon another,” yet perform nothing? Do we not all confess the peril into which the Church is come, yet sit still each in his own retirement, as if mountains and seas cut off brother from brother?39

Later in Tract One, he invoked the Mediterranean theme of the necessity of choosing sides in the emerging conflict between the Church and the world, using a maritime image to describe the choice:

There was a time when he [the author of the Tract], as well as others, might feel the wish, or rather the temptation, of steering a middle course between parties; but if so, a more close attention to passing events has cured his infirmity. In a day like this there are but two sides, zeal and persecution, the Church and the world; and those who attempt to occupy the ground between them, at best will lose their labour, but probably will be drawn back to the latter. Be practical, I respectfully urge you; do not attempt impossibilities; sail not as if in pleasure boats upon a troubled sea.40

38 Bouyer, Newman, 170.

39 John Henry Newman, “Tract 1: Thoughts on the Ministerial Commission” in Tracts for the Times: 1833-1834, Volume I (New York, NY: AMS Press, 1969), 1; hereafter cited: Tracts.

40 Tracts 1: 4-5.

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A number of other Tracts also contained allusions to Newman’s Mediterranean experience. For example, Tract Eighty-five, “Lectures on the Scripture Proof of the Doctrines of the Church,” written by Newman in September 1838, strongly echoed themes from his

Mediterranean poetry; for example, in his poem, “Liberalism,” written on 5 June 1833, he stated:

YE cannot halve the Gospel of God’s grace; Men of presumptuous heart! I know you well.41

In Tract Eighty-five, there is a similar emphasis:

We say, then, to men of the day, Take Christianity, or leave it; do not practise upon it; to do so is as unphilosophical as it is dangerous. Do not attempt to halve a spiritual unit . . . You either accept Christianity, or you do not: if you do, do not garble and patch it; if you do not, suffer others to submit to it ungarbled.42

Newman’s time at sea, as expressed in his Mediterranean verses, apparently supplied a number of images for exhorting the readers of the Tracts for the Times.

Newman wrote about a third of the ninety tracts that were published between 1833 and

1841. In addition, four essays about the Church Fathers were sent to The British Magazine on 16

August 1833. In October the first of several letters on Church reform was published in The

Record. On 5 November 1833, his The Arians of the Fourth Century, written before his voyage, was published. In the midst of these activities, Newman remained the driving force behind the

Tracts—all the while exercising unparalleled influence on both his fellow writers as well as his many readers. The bold language of the Tracts was intended to shock the sensibilities of their readers and provoke them into considering routine subject matters anew. Newman was the

41 VVO, 144.

42 John Henry Newman, “Tract 85: Lectures on the Scripture Proof of the Doctrines of the Church” in Tracts for the Times: 1838-1840, Volume V (New York, NY: AMS Press, 1969), 398.

228 preeminent gadfly when it came to assailing the status quo. On the feast of All Saints in 1836, he commented on the ethos behind the Tracts:

They were written with the hope of rousing members of our Church to comprehend her alarming position, of helping them to realize the fact of the gradual growth, allowance, and establishment of unsound principles in the management of her internal concerns; and, having this object, they spontaneously used the language of alarm and complaint. They were written, as a man might give notice of a fire or inundation, to startle all who heard him, with only so much of doctrine and argument as might be necessary to account for their publication, or might answer more obvious objections to the views therein advocated.43

Over the years, as the number of Tracts began to multiply, several themes began to emerge as foundational to the Oxford Movement. Perhaps the most important was a deep affinity for all things Anglo-Catholic. Such a common refrain was much to the chagrin of more than a few contemporaries. For the most part, Newman was unapologetic, especially in the early years of the Movement. Writing in 1835 he confessed:

Many more persons, doubtless, have taken up a profession of the main doctrine in question, that, namely, of the One Catholic and Apostolic Church, than fully enter into it. This is to be expected, it being the peculiarity of all religious teaching, that words are imparted before ideas. A child learns his Creed or Catechism before he understands it; and in beginning any deep subject we are all but children to the end of our lives.44

The image of a child learning from a Catechism seems a fitting image for the efforts behind the Oxford Movement in the 1830s. For Newman, even the Church came to personify the desire to grow ever more deeply in knowledge of the truth. As Terrence Merrigan has observed,

The church which Newman relies upon to determine the legitimacy of claims to religious knowledge is a thinking church, a church engaged in a ceaseless quest to articulate the inexhaustible richness of the originating idea which is its possession. When necessary, it fixes its certitudes in the language of dogmatic propositions.

43 Tracts 3: vi.

44 Tracts 2: iv.

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But it only does this after a process of rigorous reflection nourished by a present intuition of the originating idea.45

In a letter to Thomas Kirkpatrick on 6 March 1842, Newman acknowledged that the influence of

Catholicism was almost ubiquitous in the Tracts:

The truth in Catholicism is, if I may so speak, in the air. It is being breathed. A wonderful power is abroad. The writers of the Tracts have desired that our Church should, by acting up to its Catholic principles, become a home for this Catholic spirit. But that Spirit is not quenched because we will not entertain it— and numbers are being moved, quite independently of any hand or tongue so weak as ours.46

Those influences of Catholicism most “in the air” during the Oxford Movement were the

Church Fathers and the Apostolic roots of the Catholic Church. For Newman the two were inseparable; as he remarked in an essay on Primitive Christianity, written for the British

Magazine in the mid-thirties:

The Apostolic College is the only point in which all the lines converge, and from which they spring. Private traditions, wandering unconnected traditions, are of no authority, but permanent, recognised, public, definite, intelligible, multiplied, concordant testimonies to one and the same doctrine, bring with them an overwhelming evidence of apostolical origin. We ground the claims of orthodoxy on no powers of reasoning, however great, on the credit of no names, however imposing, but on an external fact, on an argument the same as that by which we prove the genuineness and authority of the four gospels. The unanimous tradition of all the churches to certain articles of faith is surely an irresistible evidence, more trustworthy far than that of witnesses to certain facts in a court of law, by how much the testimony of a number is more cogent than the testimony of two or three. That this really is the ground on which the narrow line of orthodoxy was maintained in ancient times, is plain from an inspection of the writings of the very men who maintained it, Ambrose, Leo, and Gregory, or Athanasius and Hilary, and the rest, who set forth its Catholic character in more ways than it is possible here to instance or even explain.47

45 Terrence Merrigan, “The Image of the Word: Faith and Imagination in John Henry Newman and John Hick,” in Newman and the Word (Louvain: Peeters Press, 2000), 35.

46 LD 8: 478.

47 John Henry Newman, Historical Sketches, Volume I (New York, NY: Longmans, Green, 1908), 381-382.

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In an essay written for the British Critic in 1839 on “The Theology of St. Ignatius,”

Newman emphasized the relevance of Apostolic authority on the interpretation of Sacred

Scripture.

And if the Catholic system, as a system, is brought so near to the Apostles; if it is proved to have existed as a paramount thought and a practical principle in the minds of their immediate disciples and associates, it becomes a very grave question, on this ground alone, waving altogether the consideration of uninterrupted Catholic consent, and the significant structure and indirect teaching of Scripture, whether the New Testament is not to be interpreted in accordance with that system. If indeed Scripture actually refuses to be so interpreted, then indeed we may be called on to suspend our judgment; but if only its text is not inconsistent with the Church system, there is surely greater reason for interpreting it in accordance with it than not; for it is surely more unaccountable that a new Gospel should have possessed the Church, and that, in the persons of its highest authorities, and almost in the lifetime and presence of Apostles, than that their extant writings should not have upon their surface the whole of Scripture truth.48

One senses here the extent to which Newman wrestled with questions about doctrinal authority; one also gains the clear impression that in his vision of the Church of England, the Protestant elements that had been part of its historical development since the Reformation were being deleted in favor of an Anglo-Catholic vision.

Not only were the Apostles and the Fathers points of reference for Newman’s theological pursuits in the 1830s, the Apostles and Fathers were relevant for all Christians, not just theologians. In his sermon “Feasting in Captivity,” preached on the anniversary of the consecration of a chapel on Thursday, 22 September 1842, he stated:

Let us recollect this for our own profit; that, if it is our ambition to follow the Christians of the first ages, as they followed the Apostles, and the Apostles followed Christ, they had the discomfort of this world without its compensating gifts. No high cathedrals, no decorated altars, no white-robed priests, no choirs for sacred psalmody, nothing of the order, majesty, and beauty of devotional

48 John Henry Newman, Essays Critical and Historical, Volume II (New York, NY: Longmans, Green, 1895), 261.

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services had they; but they had trials, afflictions, solitariness, contempt, ill-usage. They were “in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” [2 Corinthians 11:27]. If we have only the enjoyment and none of the pain, and they only the pain and none of the enjoyment, in what does our Christianity resemble theirs? What are the tokens of identity between us? Why do we not call theirs one religion and ours another? What points in common are there between the easy religion of this day, and the religion of St. Athanasius, or St. Chrysostom? How do the two agree, except that the name of Christianity is given to both of them?49

Again Newman presented himself as a bridge between Christian eras, spanning the distance of centuries and bringing common associations to light. One passage from his 1838

Lectures on Justification is particularly enlightening, not only for its illumination of St. Austin

(Augustine), but also for its aptness in capturing Newman himself:

St. Austin doubtless was but a fallible man, and, if in any point he opposed the voice of the Catholic Church, so far he is not to be followed; yet others may be more fallible than he; and when it is a question of difference of opinion between one mind and another, the holy Austin will weigh more, even with ordinarily humble men, than their own speculations. St. Austin contemplates the whole of Scripture, and harmonizes it into one consistent doctrine; the Protestants, like the Arians, entrench themselves in a few favourite texts. Luther and the rest, men of original minds, spoke as no one spoke before them; St. Austin, with no less originality, was contented to minister to the promulgation of what he had received. They have been founders of sects; St. Austin is a Father in the Holy Apostolic Church.50

Newman had the ability not only to contemplate, but greater still, to harmonize. Few, if any, of his day were capable of taking up the project in the way he did; but once the harmonizing “into one consistent work” was begun, Newman would never let go of the enterprise itself; nor would it turn him loose.

49 Subjects, 393-394.

50 John Henry Newman, Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1966), 60-61.

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Froude

On the surface, Richard Hurrell Froude’s visit to Oxford from 19 May to 4 June 1835 was unexceptional beyond the opportunities it presented to renew acquaintances and to re-visit the places where his best years had been spent with Newman and many others. In retrospect, however, those days were indeed precious, because, though none really expected it at the time, they amounted to Froude’s last visit to Oxford. In November of 1833, a few months after returning from the Mediterranean, he and his father sailed to the Caribbean, staying in Barbados, where it was hoped the health of the younger Froude would rally. Ultimately, it did not have the intended effect.

On 28 February 1836, after several exhaustive years of seeking to recover from his chronic poor health, Richard Hurrell Froude died. News of his passing had a devastating impact on Newman,51 who confessed his sorrow in a letter to Samuel Rickards on 1 March:

I have this day heard tidings sadder to me on the whole than I ever can hear —i.e. more intimately and permanently trying, Froude’s death. I never can have such a loss, for no one is there else in the whole world but he whom I could look forward to as a contabernalis for my whole life.52

In a letter to John Henry Bowden on 2 March 1836, Newman shared his memories of

Froude—in language similar to what he used after the passing of his sister Mary. At her death, he was transfixed by her earthly and even otherworldly goodness and tried to remember her with great detail, lest her memory escape altogether. A similar concern was evident in his recollections of Froude:

51 Little did Newman know that his mother’s life was nearing its end; on 17 May 1836, she died at the age of 63.

52 LD 5: 247. A contabernalis is a “tent-companion” or “comrade.”

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It is very mysterious that anyone so remarkably and variously gifted, and with talents so fitted for these times, should be removed. I never on the whole fell in with so gifted a person—in variety and perfection of gifts I think he far exceeded even Keble — for myself, I cannot describe what I owe to him as regards the intellectual principles of religion and morals. It is useless to go on to speak of him — yet it has pleased God to take him, in mercy to him, but by a very heavy visitation to all who were intimate with him. Yet everything was so bright and beautiful about him, that to think of him must always be a comfort. The sad feeling I have is, that one cannot retain on one’s memory, all one wishes to keep there and that as year passes after year, the image of him will be fainter and fainter.53

Particularly painful was Newman’s deep sense of personal indebtedness to Froude for the direction and inspiration Froude had given to Newman’s life. As Maisie Ward observed, “Henry

Wilberforce saw Newman weep (‘not a common thing for him’) because he could not see Froude again to tell him all he owed him.”54 Newman’s immediate reaction was to turn to poetry—an affinity shared by both men—as he wrote the final lines to his last Mediterranean poem, “The

Separation of Friends”.55

53 Ibid., 249.

54 Ward, Young Mr. Newman, 298.

55 See Chapter Five, page 46.

56 VVO, 196.

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The original work had ended abruptly; with the seamlessly added lines, the poem achieved a fitting fullness. Richard Hutton commented: “Nearly three years later it appeared that the true close had but been reserved till the friend with whom in his illness Newman had been travelling, had left him alone here to offer this “speechless intercession” on behalf of him who had departed.”57

Though his death was premature, even Hurrell Froude’s critics could not begrudge that his influence, in spite of the constraints of poor health during his last years, had been quite remarkable.58 If his literary contributions to the Tracts was considerable, the sheer impact of his theological perspective and virtuous zeal was immeasurable. Brendon summarized this impact:

In spite of the paucity of evidence it cannot be doubted that Froude’s constant epistolary exhortation to Keble and Newman pushed them and the Tracts in a more decisively Catholic direction. Froude acted as a kind of censor: nothing Protestant escaped his eye. He was alert to the slightest sign of backsliding.59

To the end of his life, Froude was shaping Newman’s thoughts: “Until a month before his death

Froude continued to advise Newman closely and to push him forward, invariably in a Catholic direction.”60

If the appended verses to “The Separation of Friends” were Newman’s final gift to

Froude, Froude also had a final gift to pass on. Newman received from Froude’s final effects, the Roman Catholic breviary which Froude had prayed during his final years. Newman would use it no less frequently, and for far longer than its previous owner. As Maisie Ward observed,

57 Hutton, Cardinal Newman, 37.

58 Brendon, Froude, 141: “Froude himself wrote Tracts 9, 59, 63 and possibly 8. He also produced ‘idea and groundwork’ of Tract 75.”

59 Ibid., 147.

60 Ibid., 176.

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So from the hand of his dead friend Newman received the book which became his constant companion, and in which the New Testament interprets the Old, the Fathers illuminate the Gospel meaning—all in a unity of incomparable beauty that grows as the Church grows. Antiphon answers to psalm, old feasts take us to the catacombs and news ones into the cities of the modern world; the early Church, the mediaeval, the modern, all are laid under tribute, each bearing its special witness yet each a part of the whole.61

Inspired by the prayers from Froude’s breviary, Newman composed his own Latin prayers which became a small addition to the growing corpus of works issuing from the Oxford Movement.

Newman’s fascination, and indeed devotion, to the Liturgy of the Hours spilled over into his sermons, as he increasingly preached on those insights into prayer derived from Froude’s breviary. As Hutton commented:

And in his volumes of sermons we find numerous passages and several entire sermons on prayer, on living in the invisible world, on uninterrupted communion with God, written with such unfeigned earnestness and undeniable reality that we must exclude all “hollowness”, all “preaching without practicing”.62

Though the breviary was a gift selected by chance, Newman exercised almost sole discretion over the fate of Froude’s extant writings. In the month following his death,

the Froude family sent Newman a collection of his papers, which consisted of sermons, Becket papers, an essay on rationalism and various other articles. These were put at the disposal of Newman and Keble to publish if they so wished. The papers were circulated among friends and their opinion solicited. Newman was hesitant about publication, but the others were in favour, and Newman acquiesced.63

Two years later, two volumes of Froude’s writings were published under the title Remains of the

Late Reverend Richard Hurrell Froude, with Newman and Keble as editors.

61 Ward, Young Mr. Newman, 302.

62 Hutton, Cardinal Newman, 83.

63 Blehl, Pilgrim Journey, 218.

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Hurrell Froude, even with the publication of his Remains, remains as magnetic and elusive in his death as he was in life. Perhaps Newman was one of the few people during

Froude’s life, capable of appreciating his undulating perspectives and seeming contradictions.

Newman’s genius for attending to nuance and observing a single matter from a variety of vantage points, allowed for a rare spirit of generosity in appraising his good, though often misunderstood friend. As Piers Brendon concluded,

Hurrell Froude continues to attract or repel, to fascinate or disgust, partly because his ambiguities are legion. He eludes definition, he conforms to no formula, he cannot be confidently fitted into any pattern. He remains in many respects the Protean enigma he appeared to contemporaries, a bundle of paradoxes searching for resolution . . . . Above all, he was a rash, unformed youth, pitted with many flaws and faults, who inspired his own distinguished tutor, profoundly influenced one of the greatest men of the nineteenth century and was integral to the etiology and development of the Oxford Movement.64

It is a historical curiosity that Froude’s many-sided persona and robust ambition paralleled the Movement he helped to initiate. Though Newman engineered and directed the

Movement more than anyone, Froude deserves credit for being the first to internalize and embody the cherished values and essential convictions regarding the Church that the Movement came to represent. If one asks the seemingly obvious question regarding what Froude’s destiny might have been had his life not prematurely ended, one suspects that Froude might have eventually found himself on the doorstep of Catholicism. As Brendon commented,

With all its imperfections his was a heroic piety. From beyond the grave it spoke eloquently to the men of his own age; its echoes linger still.65

64 Brendon, Hurrell Froude, 195-196.

65 Ibid., 197.

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Via Media

The efforts of the Oxford Movement to restore the Church of England to her apostolic state were built on a belief in her divine origins. The Church of England was perceived by

Newman and others to preserve what had been compromised by both the doctrinal diminutions of Protestantism and the devotional exaggerations of Roman Catholicism. The Church of

England was unique in her theological temperance and malleability and could navigate a via media between the Scylla and Charybdis of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. For

Newman, one virtue of the Via Media was as a bulwark against private judgment:

BY the right of Private Judgment in matters of religious belief and practice, is ordinarily meant the prerogative, considered to belong to each individual Christian, of ascertaining and deciding for himself from Scripture what is Gospel truth, and what is not. This is the principle maintained in theory, as a sort of sacred possession or palladium, by the Protestantism of this day. Rome, as is equally clear, takes the opposite extreme, and maintains that nothing is absolutely left to individual judgment; that is, that there is no subject in religious faith and conduct on which the Church may not pronounce a decision, such as to supersede the private judgment, and compel the assent, of every one of her members. The English Church takes a middle course between these two.66

Being the middle course was the Anglican genius; however, the attempt to delineate the precise implications of the Via Media took its defenders in directions that were not foreseen at the outset of the 1830s.

The first great blow to the Via Media was that Newman underestimated the extent to which his own theological vision was fundamentally shaped by Catholicism. His writings about the Arians began to secure his affinity for historical Catholicism, and his voyage on the

Mediterranean—spent in large part passing through Catholic countries—gradually softened his

66 John Henry Newman, The Via Media of the Anglican Church: Illustrated in Lectures, Letters and Tracts, written between 1830 and 1841, Volume I (New York, Longmans, Green, 1895), 128.

238 life-long anti-Catholic prejudices. Sustaining the viability of the Via Media required keeping

Roman Catholicism and Protestantism equally at arm’s length. However, both the Tracts as well as Newman’s own writings gradually began to suggest that the Via Media was at the very least asymmetrical in balancing the two alternatives. As Roman Catholicism subtly crept into his favor and as his own prejudices toward Rome began to evaporate, he encouraged others to question their anti-Roman prejudice:

If Rome has “committed fornication with the kings of the earth,” what must be said of the Church of England with her temporal power, her Bishops in the House of Lords, her dignified clergy, her prerogatives, her pluralities, her buying and selling of preferments, her patronage, her corruptions, and her abuses? If Rome's teaching be a deadly heresy, what is our Church’s, which “destroys more souls than it saves”? If Rome be “Mystery” because it has mysterious doctrines, what are we with our doctrine of the Sacraments and those greater things which are in heaven? If “commanding to abstain from meats” be a mark of Antichrist's communion, why do we observe days of fasting and abstinence, and why have our most revered teachers of times past been men of mortified lives? If Rome has put a yoke on the neck of Christians, why have not we, with our prescribed form of prayer, our Saints' Days, our Ordinances, and our prohibition of irregular preaching? If Rome is accused of assuming divine titles and powers, is not our own Church vulnerable too, considering the Bishop ordains under the words, “Receive the Holy Ghost,” and the priest has power given him “to remit and retain sins.” No; serious as are the corruptions of Rome, clear indeed as are the differences between her communion and ours, they do not lie in any prophetic criteria; we cannot prove her the enchantress of the Apocalyptic Vision, without incurring our share in its application; and our enemies see this and make use of it. I am not inventing a parallel; they see it, I say, and use it.67

In passages such as this, Newman directed a series of pointed questions at himself. It was as if he was not only trying to convince his readers, but also himself. Long convinced of the scriptural indictment of Rome seemingly levied in the book of Revelation, he began to rethink the accusation and encouraged his readers to do likewise.

67 John Henry Newman, The Via Media of the Anglican Church: Illustrated in Lectures, Letters, and Tracts, written between 1830 and 1841, Volume 2 (Longmans, Green, 1896), 219-220; hereafter cited: VM 2.

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I will say no more on this subject than this; that the 17th and 18th chapters of the Apocalypse, on which the supposed Scripture evidence against her [Roman Church] principally rests, must either be taken literally, or figuratively; now they do not apply to her unless they are taken partly in the one way, partly in the other. Take the chapters literally, and sure it is, Rome is spoken of; but then she must have literal merchants, ships, and sailors; therefore is not Papal Rome but Pagan. Take them figuratively; and then, sure it is, merchants and merchandize, may mean indulgences and traffickers in them; but then the word Rome perhaps is figurative also, as well as her merchandize. Nay, I should almost say, it must be; for the city is called not only Rome but Babylon; and if Babylon is a figurative title, why should not Rome be? The interpretation then lies between Pagan Rome which is past, and some city, or power typified as a city, which is to come; and probably may be true both ways. But, if we insist on adapting the prophecy to Papal Rome, then we are reduced to take half of the one interpretation, half of the other; and by the same process, only taking in each case the other half, we may with equal success make it London, for London has literally ships and sailors, merchants and merchandise, and is a figurative Rome, as being an Imperial City.68

Apparently Newman’s time in Rome during the spring of 1833, and his subsequent reflections on his weeks there, had the effect of winning great moderation and even affection toward Rome and its Church.

Another question posed by the Via Media was the matter of Holy Orders—a perpetual point of contention. Newman’s identification with the celibate priesthood practiced by Catholic clergy for centuries had been with him since his days at Oxford and perhaps earlier.69 Although for over a decade this affinity had remained mostly a personal decision, in the late 1830s, he began to disseminate his impressions about the validity of Anglican Orders. In an essay written for the British Critic in January 1840, he wrote:

I cannot deny, certainly, that Catholics, as well as the high Anglican school, do believe in the Apostolic Succession of ministry, continued through eighteen hundred years; nor that they both believe it to be necessary to an Apostolical

68 VM 2: 221-222.

69 See Apologia, 111. Newman mentioned his emerging conviction that he should lead a celibate life in the wake of his conversion experience in the fall of 1816: “It also strengthened my feeling of separation from the visible world, of which I have spoken above.”

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ministry; nor that they act upon their belief. But, as I have said, though so far the two parties agree, still they differ materially in their respective positions, relatively towards that Succession, and differ in consequence in their exposure respectively to the force of the objection on which I have been dwelling. The difference of position between the two may be expressed in the following antithesis:—Catholics believe their Orders are valid, because they are members of the true Church; and Anglicans believe they belong to the true Church, because their Orders are valid.70

From its inception, the Via Media had been an hypothesis intended to identify the true

Church. However, Newman’s reflections about the Church produced a different visage than the one he originally had in mind. For Newman, truth would not admit of duplicity, and the Church therefore must bear out an analogous unity. In the early pages of Newman’s essay—“Home

Thoughts Abroad”—a short story published in March 1836 about a conversation in Rome between two acquaintances about religion and Rome, the unnamed sympathizer with the Roman

Church surfaced an argument that gave his companion abrupt pause:

If Rome itself, as you say, is not to last, why should the daughter who has severed herself from Rome? The amputated limb dies sooner than the wounded and enfeebled trunk which loses it.71

This was a question that gave Newman great pause as the 1830s drew to a close and he began speaking of the Roman Church in a way that aroused the suspicions of friends and strangers alike. Mindful that the affections of the crowd were a passing phenomenon, he had been successful for many years in assuaging the fears of his coreligionists. He confessed to his sister Jemima (Mrs. John Mozley) on 25 April 1837 that his methods were more anti-Protestant than Pro-Catholic.

70 ECH 2: 86-87.

71 John Henry Newman, Discussions and Arguments on Various Subjects (New York, NY: Longmans, Green, 1891), 4.

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I call the notion of my being a Papist absurd, for it argues on utter ignorance of theology. We have all fallen back from the Reformation in a wonderful way. Any one who knew any thing of theology would not have confounded me with the Papists; and, if he gave me any credit for knowledge of theology or for clearheadedness, he would not have thought me in danger of becoming one. True it is, any one who by his own wit had gone as far as I from popular Protestantism, or who had been taught from without, not being up to the differences of things, and trained to discrimination, might have been in danger of going further; but no one who either had learned his doctrine historically, or had tolerable clearness of mind, could be in more danger than of confusing the Sun and the Moon. However, I frankly own that in some important points our Anglican differs from Popery, in others it is like it—and on the whole far more like it than like Protestantism. So one must expect a revival of the slander or misapprehension in some shape or other—and we shall never be free of it, of course.72

Whatever his success in convincing those close to him of the imperative to maintain the position of the Via Media, Newman seemed least of all capable of convincing himself. As a new decade dawned, his confidence in the Via Media seemed to be waning. In a letter to W. C. A.

MacLaurin on 26 July 1840, Newman wondered whether the Church of England was reality or illusion.

A great experiment is going on, whether Anglo Catholicism has a root, a foundation, a consistency, as well as Roman Catholicism, or whether (in the language of the day) it be ‘a sham.’ I hold it to be quite impossible, unless it be real, that it can maintain its ground—it must fall to pieces—This is a day in which mere theories will not pass current. If it be a mere theory, it will not work. If you knew Oxford, you would know that a vast number of jealous, and of keen, though friendly eyes, are upon the Anglican theory—It is being sifted, and its system drawn out, or pushed out in every direction. Nothing is allowed to remain undeveloped—but inferences are drawn, or must be refuted—questions are asked and must be satisfactorily answered—the internal consistence of the whole is being severely tested. I securely leave it to this issue~I will not defend it if it will not stand it.73

By the end of 1840, Newman’s wavering had intensified. He confessed to his longtime friend

Frederic Rogers on 25 November that the essential unity he sought seemed to lie elsewhere: “It is

72 LD 6: 61.

73 LD 7: 369.

242 quite consistent to say that I think Rome the centre of unity.”74 A month later, in another letter to

Rogers on 26 December, his conviction seemed decided: “Our divisions, we have ever had them since we left the Catholic Communion. The English Church is the mother of schism.”75

The teetering foundations of the Via Media were severely shaken on September 19, when

Newman received an essay written by Bishop Nicholas Wiseman, a Roman acquaintance from the spring of 1833. Wiseman’s article about the Donatists, which was published in the Dublin

Review, vindicated the Orthodox position of Pope Miltiades and St. Augustine, who had expressed his position in the maxim: Quapropter securus judicat orbis terrarum, bonos non esse qui se dividunt ab orbe terrarum quacumque parte orbis terrarum.76 Newman recapitulated much of Wiseman’s treatment in a letter written on 20 August 1869:

The Christian commonwealth is one organized body—from time to time local disturbances rise in it—branches of it rise up separately from the rest, and claim to be heard in matters of discipline or doctrine−they appeal to the Fathers−so did the Donatists, so did the Arians, the Monophysites, the Protestants, the Anglicans—but the Christian State, Commonwealth, Kingdom judicat securus, has the right, the power, the certitude of deciding the rights and the wrongs of the matter. How do we know that Pius ix is true Pope? Securus judicat orbis terrarum. How shall we know that the coming Council is a true Council—but by the after assent and acceptance of it on the part of that Catholic organization which is lineally descended, as one whole, from the first ages? How can we interpret the decisions of that Council, how the Pope’s decisions in any age, except by the Schola Theologorum, the great Catholic school of divines dispersed all over the earth? This is why I am a Catholic−because our Lord set up the Church−and that one Church has been in the world ever since—because in every age bodies have fallen off from her, and have shown in the event that that falling

74 Ibid., 450.

75 Ibid., 469.

76 “The entire world judges with security that they are not good, who separate themselves from the entire world in whatever part of the world.” The maxim is akin to another celebrated phrase known as the Canon of St. Vincent of Lerins, “quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum” which Newman treated in an essay written between 1833 and 1836 for the British Magazine on Primitive Christianity.

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off was death—that they tended to lose all definite faith, as bodies, (I don’t mean individuals in them, as Dr. Pusey) but as bodies−the Arians came to nought, and the Donatists—and the Greeks show no signs of life, but remain shut up as if in the sepulcher of the past—and now the Anglican Church is gradually losing any definite faith, and is upheld only by the virtue and faith of its individual members.77

Newman’s knowledge of the context of Augustine’s statement allowed for the full force of the words to be unmistakable. Just months earlier, while reading about the Monophysite heresy, Newman had unearthed a troubling historical parallel, which led him to recognize that the Via Media was critically flawed:

My stronghold was Antiquity; now here, in the middle of the fifth century, I found, as it seemed to me, Christendom of the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries reflected. I saw my face in that mirror, and I was a Monophysite. The Church of the Via Media was in the position of the oriental communion, Rome was where she now is, and the Protestants were the Eutychians.78

This parallel with Monophysitism, coupled with Augustine’s words regarding the oneness of the universal Church, convinced Newman that the Via Media was fundamentally untenable. Bruno

Forte captured well the effect of Augustine’s words on Newman:

With the words cited, Augustine had intended to reject the sectarianism of those who, separating themselves from the whole, also forfeit their relationship with the truth that unites. What was it that had so deeply impressed Newman in those words? It was the simple yet powerful idea of the unifying power of truth: truth is not to be found in any compromise, in any “Via Media.” Truth imposes itself by its own power, and demands absolute attention and obedience, uniting that which is divided in the bond which it itself imposed.79

77 LD 24: 354-355.

78 Apologia, 210-211.

79 Bruno Forte, “Historia Veritatis: On Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine” in Terrence Merrigan and Ian Ker, editors, Newman and Faith (Louvain: Peeters Press, 2004), 79-80.

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If the seeming self-indictment of Monophysitism paralyzed the feasibility of the Via Media,

Wiseman’s article on the Donatists pulverized the notion in a final coup de grâce. Hermann

Geissler has compared Newman’s reaction to the collapse of a house of cards.80

The collapse of a notion so central to the Oxford Movement left Newman in an obviously precarious situation. The next Tract written by Newman was the most audacious. For Newman, however, Tract XC was in many ways unavoidable and under the circumstances a completely reasonable conclusion, given the trajectory of the preceding eighty-nine Tracts. Though Tract

XC was not originally intended as the final tract in the formidable series of the Tracts for the

Times, in retrospect, Tract XC spelled the end of the Tractarian Movement: once published, there could be no going back.

Tract XC

By 27 February 1841, the day Tract XC was published, Newman was convinced that the

Via Media was untenable. In 1850, in his Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans, he categorized his Via Media as a form of Protestantism:

Such, then, is the Anglican Church and its Via Media, and such the practical application of it; it is an interposition or arbitration between the extreme doctrines of Protestantism on the one hand, and the faith of Rome which Protestantism contradicts on the other. At the same time, though it may be unwilling to allow it, it is, from the nature of the case, but a particular form of Protestantism. I do not say that in secondary principles it may not agree with the Catholic Church; but, its

80 Hermann Geissler, ‘“Zehntausend Schwierigkeiten machen keinen Zweifel’: Der Glaubensweg von Kardinal John Henry Newman,” Die Tagespost 22, 21 Februar 2009, 15; available at: http://www.newmanfriendsinternational.org/bibliography/?p=2895: ‘Die Theorie der „Via Media” hatte jedoch einen Haken. Liegt die Wahrheit wirklich immer in der Mitte? Bei der Beschäftigung mit der Alten Kirche erkannte Newman, dass diese Frage mit Nein zu beantworten ist. Zwischen den Arianern und Rom gab es im vierten Jahrhundert eine „Via Media”: die Semi-Arianer. Die Arianer leugneten die Gottheit Jesu. Rom lehrte, dass Jesus wahrer Mensch und wahrer Gott ist. Die Semi-Arianer behaupteten, dass Jesus nicht Gott gleich, aber Gott ähnlich ist. Die Wahrheit lag nicht bei den Semi-Arianern, sondern auf der Seite Roms. Die Theorie der „Via Media” brach wie ein Kartenhaus zusammen.’

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essential idea being that she has gone into error, whereas the essential idea of Catholicism is the Church's infallibility, the Via Media is really nothing else than Protestant. Not to submit to the Church is to oppose her, and to side with the heretical party; for medium there is none.81

Unwilling to identify the Church of England with Protestantism, Tract XC tried to interpret the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion82 as preserving an essential continuity with

Catholicism. Since their inception, a certain degree of malleability had marked the Articles, sufficient to encompass the broad range of views about the identity of the Church of England. If the Articles permitted some degree of latitude in their interpretation, why not cast them in the most favorable light possible? According to Newman, the Articles were harmonious with

Catholicism. However, in Tract LXXXII, “Letter Addressed to a Magazine on Behalf of Dr.

Pusey’s Tracts on Holy Baptism and of Other Tracts for the Times” (1837), Newman had observed: “There is nothing, then, in these words to show that the Articles are a system of doctrine, or more than the English doctrine in those points in which it differs from Romanism and Socinianism, and embraces Arminianism and Calvinism.”83

By the time Newman wrote Tract XC, his appraisal of the Articles was more or less twofold. First, the inherent ambiguities of the Articles made it difficult for a comprehensive, teaching doctrine to be found there. Second, these ambiguities were compounded by the fact that there was no competent authority in the Church of England to interpret the Articles either singly

81 Difficulties, 376-377.

82 The Thirty-Nine Articles, which were derived from the Forty-Two Articles prepared by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1553, were abolished by Queen Mary I in 1553 but restored by Queen Elizabeth I in 1558; the Articles were revised in the immediate years after the inception of Elizabeth’s reign; the final revision, the version familiar to Newman, was published in 1571.

83 “Letter to a Magazine on the Subject of Dr. Pusey’s Tract on Baptism” in Tracts 4: 193.

246 or as a whole. Accordingly, by what means could the original meaning of the Articles be safeguarded?

Newman pointed to “Article XIX” for its description of the Church: “The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men (coetus fidelium), in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered, according to Christ’s ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.”84 Commenting on this definition, Newman leveled the following challenge.

This is not an abstract definition of a Church, but a description of the actually existing One Holy Catholic Church diffused throughout the world; as if it were read, “The Church is a certain society of the faithful,” &c. This is evident from the mode of describing the Catholic Church, familiar to all writers from the first ages down to the age of this Article.85

Newman’s words seemingly echoed Augustine’s formula securus judicat orbis terrarum.

Accordingly, his commentary set the stage for his subsequent evaluation of the Articles in a

Catholic sense: “In the first place, it is a duty which we owe both to the Catholic Church and to our own, to take our reformed confessions in the most catholic sense they will admit; we have no duties toward their framers.”86 Anticipating the criticism of opponents, Newman built his argument on the latitude afforded by the Articles themselves:

The Articles are evidently framed on the principle of leaving open large questions, on which the controversy hinges. They state broadly extreme truths, and are silent about their adjustment. For instance, they say that all necessary faith must be proved from Scripture, but do not say who is to prove it. They say that the Church has authority in controversies, they do not say what authority.

84 “Tract 90: Remarks on certain Passages in the Thirty-Nine Articles” in Tracts 6: 17. Article XIX parallels Article VII of the Augsburg Confession: “The Church is the congregation of saints in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered.”

85 Ibid.

86 Ibid., 80.

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They say that it may enforce nothing beyond Scripture, but do not say where the remedy lies when it does. They say that works before grace and justification are worthless and worse, and that works after grace and justification are acceptable, but they do not speak at all of works with GOD'S grace, before justification. They say that men are lawfully called and sent to minister and preach who are chosen and called by men who have public authority given them in the congregation to call and send; but they do not add by whom the authority is to be given. They say that Councils called by princes may err; they do not determine whether Councils called in the name of CHRIST will err.87

For the majority of the members in the Church of England, the Thirty-Nine Articles represented the authoritative center, an Archimedean point of reference concerning matters of doctrine. For Newman, the Articles upon close examination revealed their inherent insufficiencies and cried out for an authority which they did not present. Once Newman was convinced, as John Coulson later wrote, that “the Via Media was a paper religion”,88 it became inevitable for him to ask whether or not the Thirty-Nine Articles were an expression of the same

“paper religion.”

87 Ibid., 81.

88 John Coulson, Religion and Imagination ‘in aid of a grammar of assent’ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 47.

Chapter Seven: The Influence of the Mediterranean Voyage on Newman’s Later Writings

William Barry remarked in his biography of Newman:

All great literature is autobiography. However impersonal its form, Hamlet soliloquizes on its high stage, regardless yet not unconscious of the audience whose thoughts he brings to a point of light, expresses, and for ever stereotypes in his own fashion. Between the age and the man there is a secret correspondence.1

John Henry Newman’s experiences during the seven months of his Mediterranean voyage remained in his memory for the rest of his life. Indeed, on account of his phenomenal acuity of mind, a whole host of images and recollections from the various stages of his life stayed with him until his last days. The events of his voyage on the Mediterranean, however, not only were carried with him throughout his life, but directly shaped many of his subsequent writings. In this way, the autobiographical details of the voyage were not confined solely to the seven months he was at sea.

Sermons

From a 21st century perspective, one might not expect Newman to have been a formidable preacher; his preaching skills were minimal at best. His high-pitched voice, his practice as an Anglican of reading his sermons, and his penchant for seldom looking up from his handwritten text would seemingly have prevented him from being an effective preacher.

Moreover, his academic prowess would seemingly be difficult to translate to the need for spiritual nourishment in his listeners. Yet for all these seeming deficiencies, Newman was widely acclaimed as a magnetic, even hypnotic, preacher; the effect on his listeners was both

1 William Barry, Cardinal Newman (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1927), 14-15. 248 249 immediate and long-lived. As the editors observed in the introduction to the Sermon Notes of

John Henry Cardinal Newman:

He held the Bible which was in his hands while he was preaching rather close to his face, for the print was small and he was short-sighted. Memory pictures him as constantly turning over its leaves, after the rather fumbling manner of an old man, while he was speaking, presumably in order to find the next passage he intended to quote. It is impossible to say whether on the whole he spoke quickly or slowly, for there was no appearance either of haste or deliberation. His manner of speaking was the same in the pulpit as on ordinary occasions; in fact, he was not preaching but conversing, very thoughtfully and earnestly, but still conversing. His voice, with its gentleness, the trueness of every note in it, its haunting tone of (if sadness be too strong a word) patient enduring and pity, has often been described by those who heard it at St. Mary's in the old Oxford days, and, judging from their descriptions, it seems to have been the same in old age as it was then. Probably the initial impression on one who heard it for the first time would be that it varied very little. This, however, was certainly not the case. Changes of expression or feeling were constantly coming over it, but so naturally and in such perfect unison with what was being said at the moment, that they were hardly noted at the time. It was only afterwards, if something had struck home and kept coming back to the mind, that one realised that it was not the words only, but something in the tone of the voice in which they were said, that haunted the memory. What is the kind of impression that Newman's sermons were likely to make on a boy or very young man who listened to them? It would probably not be long before he felt that the preacher had the power of making things seem very real. He would also be rather surprised, and perhaps half puzzled, as if it was something a little incongruous, that a man who seemed so aloof from everyday life should speak even more plainly and simply than ordinary men.2

Newman’s ability to conjure unseen realities from meticulously chosen words convinced his listeners that the pulpit from which his words issued forth was a meeting ground between the seen and the unseen; his preaching style drew into proper relief the relationship between God and the soul. According to Richard Hutton, “In a world of progress and wealth, of ‘enlightened’ views and the march of progress of the mind, it was necessary that a powerful preacher should

2 “Introduction” to John Henry Newman, Sermon Notes of John Henry Cardinal Newman, 1849- 1878, edited by Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory (New York, NY: Longmans, Green, 1913), vii-viii; hereafter cited: Notes.

250 try to isolate his hearers from their surroundings and bring them face to face with the two great realities, God and their souls.”3 In his sermons, Newman set out to facilitate this encounter.

Newman’s modest style belied the fact that his sermons were an event that captivated his audience, rather than a mere liturgical formality. Even his voice was an accomplice in the experience that often transfixed his listeners. Tolhurst commented:

It was like a mere breath of wind passing over the surface of perfectly still water. The Cardinal's voice, as is well known, was not a strong one. It was of the low and gentle kind, which in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred tends to be monotonous and even flat. But in his case the lack of volume or compass capable of changes on a large scale was made up for by a purity of tone upon which the faintest modulations told. Those who knew the Cardinal hear him while they read him, and often a passage, whether in a sermon or a lecture, comes home to them in a way it can hardly do to others, because they have the music of his voice in their memory as well as the printed words before their eyes.4

Reflections such as these suggest a certain poetic quality in Newman’s sermons. As Denis

Robinson has commented, “The sermons, in their attention to structure and the careful handling of language, had the quality of poetry.”5

To be sure, the logic of Newman’s sermons was meticulously drawn, sufficiently so to bear the scrutiny of discerning listeners. Yet in many ways the sermons, which represent a sort of meeting ground between the academic and the poet, are rare in the Newman corpus in which both schools of literature and poetry, knowledge and theology, can be heard in the same place, often side by side. As Thomas Wall observed,

3 Hutton, Cardinal Newman, 57. See Apologia, 108, for Newman’s description of two “absolute and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator.”

4 Notes, IX.

5 Denis Robinson, “Preaching” in Ian Ker and Terrence Merrigan, editors, The Cambridge Companion to John Henry Newman (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 244.

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Poetry had ample shelter under the high rafters of St. Mary’s, in Oxford, when Newman was preacher there from 1826 to 1843. Many of his hearers, some of them poets, have recorded their impressions of his preaching and it is remarkable that they speak of its wonderful effect in terms of poetry and sacred music.6

The success of Newman’s preaching was due partly to the winsome marriage between his theological reflections and the poetic images mediating their expression. Not only was the poetic sensibility far from being a distraction, it was the graceful medium that pleased the ear and stirred the heart: “Thus was poetry, meek and devoted companion of prayer, an acolyte of theology, with Newman in the pulpit of St. Mary’s.”7

To what extent did Newman employ poetry to complement the writing and delivery of his sermons? The answer is difficult to determine. For the most part, poetry seemed to exercise more control over Newman than he was capable of exercising in return. Just as poetry took on a life of its own during his Mediterranean voyage, it also exercised a remarkable influence, even though inexplicable, over many of his sermons. He suggested as much in his sermon—“The

Theory of Developments in Religious Doctrine”—in 1843:

Critical disquisitions are often written about the idea which this or that poet might have in his mind in certain of his compositions and characters; and we call such analysis the philosophy of poetry, not implying thereby of necessity that the author wrote upon a theory in his actual delineation, or knew what he was doing; but that, in matter of fact, he was possessed, ruled, guided by an unconscious idea.8

6 Thomas Wall, “The Writer and Preacher,” in Michael Tierney, editor, A Tribute to Newman: Essays on Aspects of His Life and Thought (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1945), 341; hereafter cited: Wall, “The Writer and Preacher”.

7 Ibid., 343.

8 John Henry Newman, Sermon XV, “The Theory of Developments in Religious Doctrine” (Preached on the Purification, 1843), in Newman’s University Sermons: Fifteen Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford, 1826-1843, D. M. MacKinnon and J. D. Holmes, editors (London: S.P.C.K, 1970), 322.

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Newman seems then to have been possessed by a poetic impulse that he could neither fully describe nor control.

Among the recurring elements in Mediterranean writings and his later sermons was an emphasis on the interplay between the seen and the unseen. While this dynamic was observable in Newman’s writings before the voyage, his meditation on the visible and the invisible—usually discussed in tandem, seldom isolated—began to take on a life of its own while he was at sea.

For example, his Mediterranean poetry reflected not merely on the idea of angels, but on their very presence.9 His sermons sometimes included the same conviction of angelic presence; as

Ffinch remarked:

One cannot read very far in Newman’s sermons without encountering mention of the angels, often by way of comparison. This is not surprising from his childhood imaginings about the angels until his old age when he preached so vividly about them that some parishioners left the church convinced he had seen them, Newman maintained a keen sense of and close contact with these inhabitants of the invisible world.10

Newman turned again and again to similar imagery in his sermons. So overwhelming was the impression of these two realms of reality—the visible and the invisible—that Newman on 16 July 1837 devoted an entire sermon to the topic in “The Invisible World”:

THERE are two worlds, “the visible, and the invisible,” as the Creed speaks,—the world we see, and the world we do not see; and the world we do not see as really exists as the world we do see. It really exists, though we see it not. The world we see we know to exist, because we see it. We have but to lift up our eyes and look around us, and we have proof of it: our eyes tell us. We see the sun, moon and stars, earth and sky, hills and valleys, woods and plains, seas and rivers . . . . And yet in spite of this universal world which we see, there is another world, quite as far-spreading, quite as close to us, and more wonderful; another world all around us, though we see it not, and more wonderful than the world we see, for this

9 The first of these references came in his poem “Angelic Guidance” written on 8 December 1832 at Whitworth, just before setting out to sea.

10 Ffinch, Second Spring, 122.

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reason if for no other, that we do not see it. All around us are numberless objects, coming and going, watching, working or waiting, which we see not: this is that other world, which the eyes reach not unto, but faith only.11

Newman’s vision of visible and invisible realities is all the more remarkable for its rejection of a

Manichean view in favor of a harmonious, all-encompassing reality.

Newman’s sermons were an invitation addressed to his listeners to enter into such a vision, which ultimately allowed one to see the world anew. In “The Invisible World,” Newman paused for a moment to meditate on Jacob’s heavenly vision (Gen. 28:11) and the otherwise ordinary vantage point from which Jacob beheld otherworldly splendor.

How little did he think that there was any thing very wonderful in this spot! It looked like any other spot. It was a lone, uncomfortable place: there was no house there: night was coming on; and he had to sleep upon the bare rock. Yet how different was the truth! He saw but the world that is seen; he saw not the world that is not seen; yet the world that is not seen was there. It was there, though it did not at once make known its presence, but needed to be supernaturally displayed to him.12

How easily these very same words could be used to describe those moments when Newman stopped for rest after wandering through the Sicilian countryside that held him in sustained awe.

In “The Invisible World,” Newman pointed out a sacramental significance to our interactions with the unseen: “We are then in a world of spirits, as well as in a world of sense, and we hold communion with it, and take part in it, though we are not conscious of doing so.”13

Newman’s emphasis upon the seen and unseen had the effect of making both space and time relative to eternity, as he indicated in his sermon, “The Greatness and Littleness of Human

Life,” written in 1838:

11 PPS, 860 (Volume 4, Sermon 13).

12 PPS, 862-863, (Volume 4, Sermon 13).

13 PPS, 863 (Volume 4, Sermon 13).

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Our earthly life then gives promise of what it does not accomplish. It promises immortality, yet it is mortal; it contains life in death and eternity in time; and it attracts us by beginnings which faith alone brings to an end.14

Such a portrayal of human life sets the stage for the human person as a meeting place for the visible and the invisible and so provides the opportunity for encountering the same Christ who once walked the earth in bodily form. Prose writing, for all its merits, is often inadequate for expressing such an encounter.

In his sermon—“Christ Hidden From the World”—preached on 25 December 1837,

Newman expressed this conviction.

If He is still on earth, yet is not visible (which cannot be denied), it is plain that He keeps Himself still in the condition which He chose in the days of His flesh. I mean, He is a hidden Saviour, and may be approached (unless we are careful) without due reverence and fear. I say, wherever He is (for that is a further question), still He is here, and again He is secret.15

For Newman, only by attending to invisible realities with the senses as well as the eyesight of faith, could the hidden Christ, be recognized and approached.

Though prior to his Mediterranean voyage, Newman was no stranger to earthly torment and struggle—especially his conversion experience in the fall of 1816 as well as the death of his father and his sister Mary—the fact remains that his illness in Sicily revolutionized his considerations of the meaning of a trial, whether of faith or sickness, or both. From that moment, he saw the struggles of the Christian life differently and this newfound view was certainly evident in his preaching, where he recognized and sought remedy for the weary souls gathered before him. In his sermon, “The Invisible Presence of Christ”, preached on 28

November 1841, he presented his own representation of the human dilemma.

14 PPS, 870 (Volume 4, Sermon 14).

15 PPS, 892 (Volume 4, Sermon 14).

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Man is not sufficient for his own happiness; he is not happy except the Presence of God be with him. When he was created, God breathed into him that supernatural life of the Spirit which is his true happiness: and when he fell, he lost the divine gift, and with it his happiness also. Ever since he has been unhappy; ever since he has a void within him which needs filling, and he knows not how to fill it. He scarcely realizes his own need: only his actions show that he feels it, for he is ever restless when he is not dull and insensible, seeking in one thing or another that blessing which he has lost.16

In this state of loss, trial becomes a certainty, though not without bearing an inherent choice for the one who suffers: whether or not to seek and accept the salvific grace present within the

Gospel of Christ and in the Church. To do so is not to eradicate all notions of an earthly trial, an impossibility in this life, but to understand the occasional darkness in the context of an unshaken light. As Newman stated in a note written on 16 September 1824,

Those who make comfort the great subject of their preaching seem to mistake the end of their ministry. Holiness is the great end. There must be a struggle and a trial here. Comfort is a cordial, but no one drinks cordials from morning to night.17

In the wake of Newman’s Sicilian illness, the choice of seeing the near-fatal experience as a cursed moment or a providential one, became a reality. With the writing of “The Pillar of the Cloud” on 16 June 1833, the answer as to which alternative Newman chose became clear.

Years later, Newman came to appreciate that fateful moment in greater relief. In his sermon entitled “Prejudice and Faith”, preached on 5 March 1848, Newman assured his listeners, “As faith is the fundamental grace which God gives us, so a trial of faith is the necessary discipline which He puts upon us. We cannot well have faith without an exercise of faith.”18

16 Subjects, 312.

17 AW, 172.

18 John Henry Newman, Faith and Prejudice and other Sermons (New York, NY: Sheed & Ward, 1957), 60.

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Newman gave a more systematic definition of such a trial in his sermon “Trials of Faith”:

The accidents and events of life are, as is obvious, one special way in which the calls I speak of come to us; and they, as we all know, are in their very nature, and as the word accident implies, sudden and unexpected. A man is going on as usual; he comes home one day, and finds a letter, or a message, or a person, whereby a sudden trial comes on him, which, if met religiously, will be the means of advancing him to a higher state of religious excellence, which at present he as little comprehends as the unspeakable words heard by St. Paul in paradise. By a trial we commonly mean, a something which if encountered well, will confirm a man in his present way; but I am speaking of something more than this; of what will not only confirm him, but raise him into a high state of knowledge and holiness.19

Within the trials of the Christian life also lies the opportunity of drawing strength from the knowledge that the Church likewise has suffered and continues to suffer trials throughout history. In his sermon entitled “Waiting for Christ,” given on 29 November 1840, Newman highlighted the seeming paradox of a beleaguered yet, still perpetual, Church.

Ever since Christianity came into the world, it has been, in one sense, going out of it. It is so uncongenial to the human mind, it is so spiritual, and man is so earthly, it is apparently so defenceless, and has so many strong enemies, so many false friends, that every age, as it comes, may be called “the last time.” It has made great conquests, and done great works; but still it has done all, as the Apostle says of himself, "in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling." [1 Cor. ii. 3.] How it is that it is always failing, yet always continuing, God only knows who wills it,—but so it is; and it is no paradox to say, on the one hand, that it has lasted eighteen hundred years, that it may last many years more, and yet that it draws to an end, nay, is likely to end any day. And God would have us give our minds and hearts to the latter side of the alternative, to open them to impressions from this side, viz. that the end is coming;—it being a wholesome thing to live as if that will come in our day, which may come any day.20

In many ways the trials of the Church throughout history parallel the earthly trials of the

Christian life—in Newman’s case the Mediterranean crucible.

19 PPS, 1582 (Volume 8, Sermon 2).

20 PPS, 1335 (Volume 6, Sermon 17).

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Before the Mediterranean voyage, there was little in Newman’s writing in the way of reflections on water and its attributes. After the voyage, images of water abound in his writings, particularly in his sermons. The relevancy of water to the son of an island nation was amplified in Newman by his time at sea and the parallels he came to see between the manifold states of the bodies of water upon which he traveled and the tumultuous nature of the human person. One example of this came in his sermon “Equanimity” given on 22 December 1839.

Did you ever look at an expanse of water, and observe the ripples on the surface? Do you think that disturbance penetrates below it? Nay; you have seen or heard of fearful tempests on the sea; scenes of horror and distress, which are in no respect a fit type of an Apostle's tears or sighings about his flock. Yet even these violent commotions do not reach into the depths. The foundations of the ocean, the vast realms of water which girdle the earth, are as tranquil and as silent in the storm as in a calm. So is it with the souls of holy men. They have a well of peace springing up within them unfathomable; and though the accidents of the hour may make them seem agitated, yet in their hearts they are not so. Even Angels joy over sinners repentant, and, as we may therefore suppose, grieve over sinners impenitent,—yet who shall say that they have not perfect peace? Even Almighty God Himself deigns to speak of His being grieved, and angry, and rejoicing,—yet is He not the unchangeable? And in like manner, to compare human things with divine, St. Paul had perfect peace, as being stayed in soul on God, though the trials of life might vex him.21

The nearly ubiquitous presence of water during Newman’s voyage not only provided him with an analog for the human condition, it also gave him a new way of understanding the meaning of the Church. While at sea, he had grown quite fond of those vessels that bore him safely from port to port, surviving in between the perils that were inflicted upon them from all directions. On Saturday 12 January when he paid farewell to the Hermes as it left Malta, there was a glimpse of his contemplation of the symbolic meaning of that humble vessel. He would rely on such an image repeatedly in his considerations of the Church, likewise tossed about by

21 PPS, 1002 (Volume 5, Sermon 5).

258 the tides of history and the carelessness of humanity. This image was on display in his sermon

“On the Catholic Church,” delivered on 6 January 1850.

And in such tumults—the whole world broken up so many times—present revolutions nothing to former. The deluge; describe waters—whirlpools, waterspouts, currents, rush of waters, cataracts, waves, yet the ark on them. This, the ark, the greatest of miracles. Well, it is but the acknowledged type of the Church: as this was the miracle (as we all confess) of the deluge, such that morally of the Church.22

Years later, Newman developed the image of the Church as ark by describing its ability to preserve the best elements of humanity, including those that preceded its formal foundation and were not contrary to it. In a letter to Pusey written on 16 August 1868, Newman suggested:

As to ourselves, I would not dare to take any view of God’s purposes to His Church and through His Church in past times or future—but I sometimes think that as the Ark of Noah did not hinder or destroy the flood but rode upon it, preserving the hopes of the human family within its fragile planks, so has it been with the Catholic Church—she rode upon the barbarian deluge, saving the history and literature of the past, the true religion, and the tradition of the primitive ages from being swallowed up, but she did not withstand it, as (e.g.) for an instance St Leo repulsed Attila, and influenced Genseric.23

Newman’s most elaborate treatment of the images of water and the Church came on an auspicious occasion. The Roman Catholic hierarchy was restored in England with the installation of Nicholas Wiseman on 29 September 1850 as Archbishop of Westminster. The following month on 27 October, Newman was invited to preach at St. Chad’s, Birmingham at the installation of Dr. Ullathorne as the first Bishop of the See. It was in that honored and historical moment that Newman chose to deliver the poignant sermon entitled “Christ Upon the Waters.”

In the early stages of the sermon, Newman highlighted the image of the ark enduring throughout successive chapters of salvation history.

22 Notes, 33.

23 LD 24: 126.

259

Such was the power of the Son of God, the Saviour of man, manifested by visible tokens in the material world, when He came upon earth; and such, too, it has ever since signally shown itself to be, in the history of that mystical ark which He then formed to float upon the ocean of human opinion. He told His chosen servants to form an ark for the salvation of souls: He gave them directions how to construct it,—the length, breadth, and height, its cabins and its windows; and the world, as it gazed upon it, forthwith began to criticize. It pronounced its frame quite contrary to the scientific rules of shipbuilding; it prophesied, as it still prophesies, that such a craft was not sea-worthy; that it was not water-tight; that it would not float; that it would go to pieces and founder. And why it does not, who can say, except that the Lord is in it? Who can say why so old a framework, put together eighteen hundred years ago, should have lasted, against all human calculation, even to this day; always going, and never gone; ever failing, yet ever managing to explore new seas and foreign coasts—except that He, who once said to the rowers, “It is I, be not afraid,” and to the waters, “Peace,” is still in His own ark which He has made, to direct and to prosper her course? 24

Just as God had safeguarded the integrity of the Church, all the while in the midst of a litany of dangers, Newman went on to maintain that the day’s celebration represented a divinely favored moment with cause for great rejoicing.

It is the Lord from heaven, who is our light in the gloom, our confidence in the storm. There is nothing hard to Him who is almighty; nothing strange to Him who is all-manifold in operation and all-fruitful in resource. The clouds break, and the sun shines, and the sea is smooth, in its appointed season. Such, my dear Brethren, is the thought which naturally possesses the mind on a day like this, when we are met together solemnly to return thanks to our merciful God for the restoration of the Catholic Hierarchy to the faithful of this land.25

Newman then proceeded to describe the westward voyage of the first inhabitants of the

British Isles, of those who passed “through the defiles of the mountains on the frontiers of Asia, they invaded Europe, setting out on a journey.”26 It was these same ancestors, strangers from the beginning to the light of Christianity, who “carried with them their superstitions and their sins,

24 John Henry Newman, “Christ Upon the Waters” in Sermons Preached on Various Occasions (London: Longmans, Green, 1908), 122-123; hereafter cited: “Christ Upon the Waters”.

25 Ibid., 123-124.

26 Ibid., 125.

260 their gods of iron and of clay, their savage sacrifices, their lawless witchcrafts, their hatred of their kind, and their ignorance of their destiny.”27 With these words, Newman recognized in his native land the same pagan origins whose vestiges had beguiled him passing through the Sicilian countryside. Rather than forget such pagan roots, he used them as an occasion to situate the dramatic victory of Christianity in the British Isles. For it was there that the first settlers of the land had seen fit to make their home.

Last of all, they crossed over the strait and made themselves masters of this island, and gave their very name to it; so that, whereas it had hitherto been called Britain, the southern part, which was their main seat, obtained the name of England. And now they had proceeded forward nearly as far as they could go, unless they were prepared to look across the great ocean, and anticipate the discovery of the world which lies beyond it.28

In this poetic depiction of the settlement of England, the succeeding lines would be devoted to the missionary era and the spread of the Gospel. According to Newman’s vision, it was not mortal flesh alone that crossed the Channel bearing the Good News, it was Christ himself.

I need not tell you, my Brethren, how suddenly the word of truth came to our ancestors in this island and subdued them to its gentle rule; how the grace of God fell on them, and, without compulsion, as the historian tells us, the multitude became Christian; how, when all was tempestuous, and hopeless, and dark, Christ like a vision of glory came walking to them on the waves of the sea. Then suddenly there was a great calm; a change came over the pagan people in that quarter of the country where the gospel was first preached to them; and from thence the blessed influence went forth, it was poured out over the whole land, till one and all, the Anglo-Saxon people were converted by it.29

Following his portrayal of the arrival of Christianity in England, Newman, in a master stroke, reminded his listeners that the brave souls who brought the Gospel and the sacramental

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid., 127.

261 presence of Christ across the Channel, were not nameless members of an anonymous far- removed version of Christianity. Those first missionaries bore the same Christian identity as members of the same family celebrating the restored English hierarchy.

You know its name; there can be no mistake, my Brethren; you know what that Religion was called. It was called by no modern name—for modern religions then were not. You know, my dear Brethren, what religion has priest and sacrifices, and mystical rites, and the monastic rule, and care for the souls of the dead, and the profession of an ancient faith, coming through all ages from the Apostles. There is one, and only one, religion such: it is known everywhere; every poor boy in the street knows the name of it; there never was a time, since it first was, that its name was not known, and known to the multitude. It is called Catholicism—a world-wide name, and incommunicable; attached to us from the first; accorded to us by our enemies; in vain attempted, never stolen from us, by our rivals. Such was the worship which the English people gained when they emerged out of paganism into gospel light.30

Seizing upon the same name whose gravity and truth had resulted in his conversion, Newman was reflecting his own dearly bought convictions regarding the Church in England, as well as the universal Church. What amounted to the conclusion of the sermon bore a strong resemble to the spirituality behind “The Pillar of the Cloud.” Even the sermon’s title, “Christ Upon the Waters,” suggests the poem which Newman wrote while the Sarepta waited for a breeze in the Straits of

Bonifacio. Just when he thought the doldrums would consume him, providence had intervened.

Newman assured his listeners on 27 October, that in the moment of trial, God would again come to their aid.

Fear not, therefore, dear Brethren of the household of faith, any trouble that may come upon us, or upon you, if trouble be God's will; trouble will but prove the simplicity of our and your devotion to Him. When our Lord walked on the sea, Peter went out to meet Him, and, “seeing the wind strong he was afraid.” Doubt not that He, who caught the disciple by the hand, will appear, to rescue you; doubt not that He, who could tread the billows so securely, can self-sustained bear any weight your weakness throws upon Him, and can be your immovable refuge and home amid the tossing and tumult of the storm. The waves roared round the

30 Ibid., 128-129.

262

Apostle, they could do nothing more: they could but excite his fear; they could but assault his faith; they could not hurt him but by tempting him; they could not overcome him except through himself. While he was true to himself, he was safe; when he feared and doubted, he began to sink.31

“Christ Upon the Water’s” was part historical survey, part profession of faith, and part autobiography all in one.

Conversion

In many ways, Newman’s seven months on the Mediterranean were no less than an exile.

Little could he have expected from the outset the extent to which his voyage would affect him.

That he returned weary, frail, and alone offered a physical manifestation of the exile that had been endured mentally, emotionally, and not least of all, spiritually. If it was the greatest exile of his life, it was not to be the only one. There was a continuity between his Mediterranean exile and the exile surrounding his 1845 conversion. In many ways, his first experience of exile helped to shape, as well as to make more bearable, the subsequent one. Harold Weatherby captured well the correspondence:

These same metaphors, exile and sickness, are germane to the Apologia. They are introduced first by Newman’s allusions to his Sicilian experience and are continued throughout the narrative. The search for home takes him first to the Church of England, then to the Church of Rome.32

Part of the irony surrounding Newman’s experience of exile was that he experienced such a state both before and after his conversion. Writing from San Eusebio in Rome in April 1847, during his studies prior to ordination to the Roman Catholic priesthood, Newman reflected on the difficult years preceding his conversion.

31 Ibid., 160-161.

32 Weatherby, Cardinal Newman, 128.

263

In the Church of England I had many detractors; a mass of calumny was hurled at me; my services towards that Church were misrepresented by almost everyone in authority in it. I became an exile in a solitude, where I spent some years with certain of my friends, but not even in that retreat was I safe from those who pursued me with their curiosity.33

Surface curiosity from friends and strangers was one matter to be dealt with, however, the internal estrangement, the regio disimilitudinis, was not at all dissimilar from the misgivings that plagued him during his Mediterranean voyage. It was this interior wrestling that could at times be more discouraging than his mounting sense of public isolation. Newman related his interior state in a letter to Keble on 8 June 1844.

What then is the will of Providence about me? The time for argument is passed. I have been in one settled conviction for so long a time, which every new thought seems to strengthen. When I fall in with friends who think differently, the temptation to remain quiet becomes stronger, very strong−but I really do not think my conviction is a bit shaken. So then I end as I began−Am I in delusion, given over to believe a lie? Am I deceiving myself convinced when I am not? Does any subtle meaning or temptation, which I cannot detect, govern me, and bias my judgment? But is it possible that Divine Mercy should not wish me, if so, to discover and escape it? Has He led me thus far to destroy me in the wilderness?34

Such a reflection on “the will of Providence” corresponded with the questioning that surrounded Newman’s Sicilian illness and his ensuing poem “The Pillar of the Cloud.” His illness and this poem suggest an understanding of Providence that is more than academic. As

Kathleen Dietz has suggested,

It is abundantly evident, then that for Newman Divine Providence is a religious as well as a theological term. In other words, Divine Providence is not merely a theory, but is something which is relative to us, it demands a response from us.35

33 AW, 247.

34 LD 10: 262.

35 Kathleen Dietz, “The Silent Force that Moves Time: Newman on Divine Providence”, L’Osservatore Romano, 21 March 2012, number 12, p. 7.

264

A year later Newman was sufficiently convinced of the “will of Providence” to resign his Oriel

Fellowship on 3 October 1845. In the wake of the unraveling of the Via Media, he had resisted doing so as long as possible and expressed the ultimate futility of his efforts in a letter to Lord

Charles Thynne on 18 January 1852:

If your Lordship asks me why I maintain that my communion is the Church, the answer (to me) is so plain, that I do not know what can be said against it. I felt its force when I was a Protestant, and have done my utmost to overcome it, but in vain.36

On 9 October 1845, Newman was received into the Roman Catholic Church by Blessed

Dominic Barberi. The following month on 1 November he was confirmed by Dr. Wiseman. On the surface it seemed as though Newman’s time in the wilderness would continue, as he moved into a new world absent of the consolations of Oxford and Oriel and the familiar company of former friends in ecclesial and academic circles. The Roman Catholic Church in England was ill-prepared to receive such a genius. Newman was forced to find his way anew. Writing on 8

January 1860, in the midst of a public era of ill favor, Newman mused with resignation.

I have no friend at Rome, I have labored in England, to be misrepresented, backbitten, and scorned. I have labored in Ireland, with a door ever shut in my face. I seem to have had many failures, and what I did well was not understood. I do not think I am saying this in any bitterness.37

This absence of bitterness presents an important thread of continuity. Newman did not look back with bitterness upon his years as an Anglican; as he confessed in Certain Difficulties

Felt by Anglicans, “I have only pleasant associations of those many years when I was within her

36 LD 15: 19.

37 AW, 251.

265 pale.”38 He was as diffusive in recalling his Anglican years in a letter to Charles Crawley on 21

July 1862.

For myself, my alienation from the Anglican system does not lessen my affection for its members, though they have put me into coventry, or my tender love for times and places now far away. Jacob found Laban a hard task master, and had to bear ’the drought by day and the frost by night; but for the love of Rachel, the seven years which he served for her ’seemed to him but a few days’, I served in order to gain the Pearl of great price, it was a pleasant labour, a pleasant Suffering. I look back on it with pleasure; not on Laban, but on Rachel.39

Not only were the immediate years before Newman’s voyage and even those afterwards, a time of being in the wilderness, they were also years in which he likened himself to being at sea. He apparently remembered the uncertainties of his seven months at sea and his fervent hope that the will of God would ultimately be done and that the discerning hand of the Spirit would bear him safely home. Trevor observed this theme in his letters immediately following his 1845 conversion. “In the letters he wrote afterwards, thanking friends for their prayers and congratulations, he often described himself as a man who had been thrown into the sea and found the shore much further off than he supposed−but at least he reached it.40 Newman portrayed his return to England in 1833 in similar terms; in a letter to fellow Oratorian Ambrose St. John

(1815-1875) on 20 January 1846:

You may think how lonely I am. ‘Obliviscere populum tuum et domum patris tui’ [to forget your people and your father’s house], has been in my ear for the last twelve hours. I realize more that we are leaving Littlemore, and it is like going on the open sea.41

38 Difficulties, 3.

39 LD 20: 234.

40 Meriol Trevor, Newman: Light in Winter (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1963), 338.

41 LD 11: 159. The quotation is from Psalm 45:11.

266

Though Newman’s life externally would never be the same, there was no corresponding rupture after his conversion in his internal convictions concerning the Church. His fervor for truth and his love for the Church were the same as before, only deepened by his willingness to abandon the comforts of a most satisfactory existence for an uncertain future. One of the great ends of the Oxford Movement from its inception had been to reconnect with, if not return to, the vitality of the early Church. It was this end that finally led Newman to the Church of Rome. He confessed as much in a letter to a Mrs. Herbert on 30 August 1869.

Now the very reason I became a Catholic was because the present Roman Catholic Church is the only Church which is like, and it is very like, the primitive Church, the Church of St Athanasius—I have said this in print. It is almost like a photograph of the primitive Church; or at least it does not differ from the primitive Church near so much as the photograph of a man of 40 differs from his photograph when 20. You know that it is the same man.42

It was in this steadfastness of the Roman Catholic Church that Newman discovered his own steadfast foundation and the strength not only to endure the crucible that continued after his conversion, but to find meaning in it:

The past never returns; the course of things, old in its texture, is ever new in its colouring and fashion. Ireland and England are not what they once were, but Rome is where it was; St. Peter is the same; his zeal, his charity, his mission, his gifts, are the same.43

Just as Newman’s Sicilian crucible gave way to an unprecedented peace on his homecoming, so did a lasting internal peace find Newman as his theological sojourn toward truth come to its Roman Catholic resting place. To William Maskell, he wrote on 7 January 1850,

“Nothing to my mind is a clearer proof of the divinity of the Church, than the balm it at once

42 LD 24: 325.

43 John Henry Newman, Cathedra Sempiterna, Discourse I, “The Scope and Nature of University Education,” in My Campaign in Ireland: Part One, Catholic University Reports and Other Papers (Aberdeen: A. King, 1852), 242.

267 applies to the harassed, wavering, or doubting mind. Doubts disappear.”44 Newman went further in describing the disappearance of doubts in a letter to Henry Bourne on 13 June 1848:

I can only say, if it is necessary to say it, that from the moment I became a Catholic, I never have had, through God’s grace, a single doubt or misgiving on my mind that I did wrong in becoming one. I have not had any feeling whatever but one of joy and gratitude that God called me out of an insecure state into one which is sure and safe, out of the war of tongues into a realm of peace and assurance. I shrink to contemplate the guilt I should have incurred, and the account which at the last day would have lain against me, had I not become a Catholic.45

Just as many of Newman’s followers had looked to him for guidance during the 1830’s as the Oxford Movement gained momentum, so did a chorus of both friends and strangers seek his advice on whether or not to take the same step in their lives. It was in accord with his pastoral instincts to be of whatever assistance he could, knowing full well the gravity of the decision and the public and private scrutiny that accompanied it. In many ways the Mediterranean voyage helped to launch a movement that was not only theological, but also pastoral. Though Newman had arrived at his own conversion largely through theological efforts, it was to bear many dividends in his pastoral work.

In some instances, Newman shared his pastoral wisdom even before his conversion, with those contemplating the same decision he found himself weighing at the time. In those cases, his counsel gives an invaluable insight into his own reflections at the time. He counseled Miss

Holmes on 8 March 1843:

You must be patient, you must wait for the eye of the soul to be formed in you. Religious truth is reached, not by reasoning, but by an inward perception. Any one can reason; only disciplined, educated, formed minds can perceive.46

44 LD 13: 372.

45 LD 12: 218.

46 LD 9: 274.

268

A similar letter the following decade suggested the extent to which Newman had struggled with the friendships strained as the result of his conversion and the effect those wounded relationships had on him personally. On 1 September 1854 he confided to Robert Isaac Wilberforce,

In my own case, the separation from friends was the one thing which weighed on me for two years before I became a Catholic—and it affected my health most seriously. It is the price we pay for a great good. Everyone has to give his best— there are few things, besides, which either you or I had to give; for I don’t suppose that either of us cared much for anything else.47

Newman deserves a good deal of credit for his correspondence with women in an age in which, unfortunately, their spiritual needs were often underemphasized and often dismissed.

Over the latter decades of his life a number of women wrote to him for practical advice or spiritual direction.48 Some became dear friends and others remained anonymous, such as the unknown correspondent whom Newman only addressed as “Madam” in a letter written on 3 July

1867, with a quintessential mantra of the writer: “What is meant by having faith, if you are to have nothing to try it?”49

Some correspondents found themselves in the midst of a conversion, such as Lavinia

Wilson to whom Newman promised on 29 November 1864:

You will never repent of becoming a Catholic. As a Catholic you will have many trials; but the Presence of our Lord, the Word Incarnate, in the Blessed Sacrament, which you cannot possess out of the Church, will make up for them all.50

47 LD 16: 242.

48 See Peter C. Wilcox, John Henry Newman: Spiritual Director 1845-1890 (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2013).

49 LD 23: 260-261.

50 LD 21: 325.

269

Others found themselves struggling in regard to conversion such as Catherine Anne Bathurst, whom Newman reassured on 31 December 1866:

I grieve very much that disappointment should still go with you. These things are very mysterious−but, depend on it, those with whom all goes smooth are not the happiest persons, or most dear to God.51

Many found in Newman a consoling word, and the same generous spirit that sustained him during his own great conversion experience.

Many people who were seeking certitude in their pilgrimage of faith looked to Newman, who had found in coming to port in the Roman Catholic Church. Personally, he was convinced that the answers to the many questions correspondents heaped before him was not in books, but in the prayerful discernment that had supported his life for decades. As he remarked in a letter to

Mrs. Houldsworth on 3 July 1871:

Of course you are endlessly bewildered by hearing and reading on both sides. What I should recommend you, if you ask me, is to put aside controversy and close your ears to advocates on both sides for two months, and not to open any controversial book, but to pray God to enlighten you continually, and then at the end of the time to find where you are. I think if you thus let yourself alone, or rather take care that others let you alone, you will at the end of the time see that you ought to be a Catholic. And if this is the case, it will be your duty at once to act upon this conviction. But if you go on reading, talking, being talked to, you will never have peace. God bless you and keep you and guide you, and bring you safe into port.52

“Coming into port” was a recurring motif over many chapters of Newman’s life; his use of such a metaphor crystallized his own distinctive spirituality. As David Zordan observed, “Religious

51 LD 22: 327.

52 LD 25: 353.

270 faith appears as a journey rather than as an act or particular decision. An undecipherable journey whereby one arrives at one’s destination.”53

Fiction

Concerning the theme of conversion, Newman seemingly contributed more of his own inner life in his novels than otherwise surface in his other writings. For this reason, Loss and

Gain and Callista merit closer consideration, not only for their consonant elements with

Newman’s 1845 conversion, but also with his Mediterranean conversion of 1832-1833.

Loss and Gain, published by Newman in 1848, centered on a young student at Oxford who converts to Catholicism by the end of the novel. The young Charles Reding navigates over the course of the novel the various casuistries of the many religious factions at Oxford during the

1840’s in the direction of the terra firma of Catholic orthodoxy. To the mounting consternation of friends and family, Reding weighs his motives again and again until he can no longer deny the inevitable. His deepest aspirations lie with Rome.

The Church of Rome inspires me with confidence; I feel I can trust her. It is another thing whether she is true; I am not pretending now to decide that. But I do not feel the like trust in our own Church. I love her more than I trust her. She leaves me without faith. Now you see the state of my mind.54

The novel traces the intellectual and emotional development of the pious, discerning youth unable to resist the spiritual forces at work shaping his mind and heart.

53 “La fede religiosa appare come un itinerario piuttosto che come un atto o una decisione puntuale. Un itinerario indecifrabile per chi si colloca nel suo termine d’approdo.” David Zordan, “Il modernismo e il problema della coscienza credente: John Henry Newman and George Tyrell” in: Il modernismo in Italia e in Germania nel contesto europeo, Michele Nicoletti and Otto Weiss, editors (Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino, 2010), 417-439, at 424.

54 John Henry Newman, Loss and Gain (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2012), 190; hereafter cited: L&G.

271

The correspondence between the Reding at Oxford and the Newman at sea is, at times, unmistakable. Keenly aware of the unseen forces shaping his conscience, all the while weaning himself of worldly influence, Reding is in many ways a commentary on Newman’s

Mediterranean months. Even the vocabulary bears a strong resemblance.

Charles's characteristic, perhaps above anything else, was an habitual sense of the Divine Presence; a sense which, of course, did not insure uninterrupted conformity of thought and deed to itself, but still there it was—the pillar of the cloud before him and guiding him. He felt himself to be God's creature, and responsible to Him—God's possession, not his own. He had a great wish to succeed in the schools; a thrill came over him when he thought of it; but ambition was not his life; he could have reconciled himself in a few minutes to failure.55

Reding’s logic, like Newman’s, was internal. The divine light shone not amongst the populace and in the purely academic forum of Oxford, but in the deepest recesses of his interior life. The deeper Charles ventures, the more brilliant the light becomes, until he arrives at the unshakeable determination: “Conviction is the eyesight of the mind, not a conclusion from premises.”56

When Charles finally decides to become a Roman Catholic near the end of the novel,

Newman again has recourse to his Mediterranean experience, most specifically his long-awaited return to England. Metaphors of open water and the safety of shore abound in his depiction of the event.

A VERY few words will conduct us to the end of our history. It was Sunday morning about seven o'clock, and Charles had been admitted into the communion of the Catholic Church about an hour since. He was still kneeling in the church of the Passionists before the Tabernacle, in the possession of a deep peace and serenity of mind, which he had not thought possible on earth. It was more like the stillness which almost sensibly affects the ears when a bell that has long been tolling stops, or when a vessel, after much tossing at sea, finds itself in harbour. It was such as to throw him back in memory on his earliest years, as if he were really beginning life again. But there was more than the happiness of childhood

55 Ibid., 195.

56 Ibid., 244.

272

in his heart; he seemed to feel a rock under his feet; it was the soliditas Cathedræ Petri. He went on kneeling, as if he were already in heaven, with the throne of God before him, and angels around, and as if to move were to lose his privilege.57

In that moment Charles approximates the state suggested in the lines of Newman’s most- celebrated Mediterranean verses. Just as The Pillar of the Cloud abandons regard for the past and forsakes preoccupation with what may happen in the future, so was Charles oblivious to anything beyond the present in the moments after his reception into the Church of Rome.

Reding took Father Aloysius's hand and kissed it; as he sank on his knees the young priest made the sign of blessing over him. Then he vanished through the door of the sacristy; and the new convert sought his temporary cell, so happy in the Present, that he had no thoughts either for the Past or the Future.58

Such collapsing of the past and future into the present was a quintessential mark of Newman’s experiences in the Straits of Bonifacio.

In 1855, Newman’s second novel, Callista, was published. Set in the middle of the 3rd century during the Decian persecution in a Roman province of northern Africa, the novel centered on the life of the heroine Callista. The young and gifted protagonist had just traveled from Greece, and though ably equipped not only to face the world, but to thrive in it, Callista found herself torn as her conscience weighed the merits and foundations of the pagan cult with the alluring depth and authenticity of Christianity. Inspired by the example of saintly Christian witnesses, such as the priest Caecilius (a figure inspired by St. Cyprian of Carthage), Callista spurned a suitor for the sake of pursuing the Christian life and later, during a renewed wave of persecutions, refused to offer incense to the pagan gods, choosing emphatically once to become a

Christian. Such a gesture, under the circumstances, led to her martyrdom at the end of the novel.

57 Ibid., 353.

58 Ibid., 354.

273

Like Reding in Loss and Gain, Callista was unwilling to be swayed by the prevailing logic of her day and the pressure of popular opinion could not assuage the direction of her convictions. As it was for Newman, the predominant drama in Callista’s life was between the soul and God: two unseen forces at turns distant and at turns in close proximity, though never indifferent to each other.

She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognize us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul’s response to a God who had taken notice of her soul.59

As the desire for God increasingly came to shape her thoughts and to possess her being, Callista found herself moved from the idea of the one God, as opposed to one among many, in the direction of love for the being and the person of God. Within such a step her conversion was accomplished:

“Well,” she said, “I feel that God within my heart. I feel myself in His presence. He says to me, ‘Do this: don’t do that.’ You may tell me that this dictate is a mere law of my nature, as is to joy or to grieve. I cannot understand this. No, it is the echo of a person speaking to me. Nothing shall persuade me that it does not ultimately proceed from a person external to me. It carries with it its proof of its divine origin. My nature feels towards it as towards a person. When I obey it, I feel a satisfaction; when I disobey, a soreness—just like that which I feel in pleasing or offending some revered friend. So you see, Polemo, I believe in what is more than a mere ‘something.’ I believe in what is more real to me than sun, moon, stars, and the fair earth, and the voice of friends. You will say, Who is He? Has He ever told you anything about Himself? Alas! no!—the more’s the pity! But I will not give up what I have, because I have not more. An echo implies a voice; a voice a speaker. That speaker I love and I fear.”60

59 John Henry Newman, Callista: A Tale of the Third Century (London: Longmans, Green, 1895), 293; hereafter cited: Callista.

60 Ibid., 314-315.

274

Both Reding and Callista observed, throughout the course of their respective novels, the voice of an unseen speaker, shaping minds and hearts, even transforming recollections of the past and hopes for the future. The strong semi-autobiographical themes surfacing again and again in the two novels reveal a strongly personal side of their otherwise self-effacing author and so suggest the deep and abiding influence of his Mediterranean experience.

“On the Characteristics of Poetry”

Another significant treatment of poetry by Newman was in an 1849 lecture at St. Chad’s

School in Birmingham: “On the Characteristics of Poetry.” Although more than two decades had passed since his “Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle’s Poetics,” there were significant strands of continuity. In the earlier essay he confessed: “There is an ambiguity in the word

‘poetry,’ which is taken to signify both the gift itself, and the written composition which is the result of it.”61 By 1849, this ambiguity was not resolved. If anything, Newman preferred to leave the matter unresolved, though assuring his listeners that the relevance of poetry was quite certain:

When persons came to consider what poetry was, and what a poet was, there were so many different opinions that it was very difficult to decide between them. Again, it seemed as if some authority were wanting for speaking of poetry at all, for many persons now considered that poetry was a thing of a former, a bygone age, and thought that the useful arts ought now alone to be pursued. For those who had pursued the useful arts it would be absurd not to entertain the highest reverence. But the useful arts did not cultivate the mind. This was the province of literature, of poetry, and of criticism; these refined the mind by making it what it was not before, and thus obviated the distinction between the higher and the lower classes.62

61 JHN, Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle’s Poetics, 4; hereafter cited: JHN, Poetry; available at: http://www.newmanreader.org/works/essays/volume1/poetry.html.

62 John Henry Newman, “About Poetry,” in Sayings of Cardinal Newman: A Collection of Speeches and Sermons (Birmingham: St. Chad’s Schools, 1849), 1; hereafter cited: “About Poetry.”

275

In a letter written decades later to Charlotte Wood on 5 November 1874 in gratitude for a poem she had sent to him, Newman was no less circumspect regarding facile definitions of poetry: “As to my definition of poetry I have made half a dozen in the course of years, and left the problem unsolved.”63

Though Newman did not propose a tidy definition of poetry, he clearly did not consign poetry to “a bygone age.” He set the stage early in his address for reconceiving the utility of poetry; rather than situate poetry neatly within a greater family of sciences, he was content to embellish the virtues of its autonomy:

After all, however, the useful arts were so necessary and profitable, that they still held sway; but when a man had mastered their elements, he put aside the books from which he had gleaned the information, he might, indeed, even sell them. There was no inclination to repeat their tasks, unless for the sake of perfection; there was in them no attractive beauty; they were merely the teachers of the principles of his employment. Now poetry always delighted, for poetry was the science of the beautiful. A book of poetry was one they would never part with, for it might be read with pleasure again and again. It was, emphatically, the beautiful which refined and cultivated the mind; and by long contemplation of beauty, the mind itself, so to speak, became beautiful in the process.64

This ability of poetry always to delight and to emerge with novel clarity as “the science of the beautiful” represented a masterful development within Newman’s thought on poetry. The dignity of poetry rests not merely in its proximity to beauty; rather, the capacity of poetry to receive and to draw beauty into itself, even to position itself as a home, however fleeting, for beauty, makes it stand apart: “The question with the poet was not whether what he treated of was true or consistent, so far as reasoning went, but whether it was beautiful.”65 Such reasoning had

63 LD 27: 151.

64 “About Poetry,” 1-2.

65 Ibid., 2.

276 buoyed Newman’s 1833 decision to return to Sicily rather than to return to England with the

Froude’s.

I am perhaps an unfair judge here−for wonderful as the Swiss mountains are, they so little attract me, that in 1833, to the surprise of my friends and almost in spite of their remonstrance, I preferred to go to Sicily by myself to going to Switzerland, on the ground that the former was the more beautiful.66

Associations between poetry and beauty appear consistently throughout Newman’s writings; in fact, one seldom finds either word mentioned without finding the other in close proximity. This association helps explain why Newman eschewed facile definitions of beauty in much the same way as he refused to define poetry. For a man so adept and versatile when it came to systematic characterization of principles, this reluctance to define with precision such significant realities as poetry and beauty is surprising. In his address, however, Newman was willing to address certain essential aspects of poetry.

Into the definition of beauty he would not then enter, but he would content himself with mentioning a few principal points which beauty must comprise. The first principle was harmony; nothing eccentric could be beautiful—nothing extravagant, out of the way, or far-fetched. Proportion was another characteristic; for if one object was made too prominent the effect would be similar to that of the principal figure of a fine group cast forward in shadow by the sun—it would become grotesque.67

These principles of harmony and proportion likewise represent virtues of theology, making it clear that Newman found deep resonances between the two fields. The poet, however, in a way unique from the theologian, relied largely on personal experience as the background from which to formulate a new literary creation.

66 LD 30: 107.

67 “About Poetry,” 3.

277

Newman addressed this issue in his December 1863 paper in his collection entitled

“Certainty, Intuition, and the Conceivable”:

One man can make his experience go much further than another. He can combine separate facts or truths into a consistent whole. He can abstract from facts variously, and throw his thoughts into various concrete shapes. Then they are called creations. Such is the talent (gift) of the poet, bringing into form, position, and life, what has no existence out of his own mind, yet in its matter may all be traced to his experience.68

This direct line between experience and literary creation indicates the extent to which Newman’s poems reveal the workings of his interior life as well as a commentary on his personal experiences.

In expressing the nature of poetry as something that cannot be mastered one finds that poetry orients us to something far greater. For Newman:

Poetry delights in the indefinite and various as contrasted with unity, and in the simple as contrasted with system . . . [for] it demands, as its primary condition, that we should not put ourselves above the objects in which it resides, but at their feet; that we should feel them to be above and beyond us, that we should look up to them, and that, instead of fancying that we can comprehend them, we should take for granted that we are surrounded and comprehended by them ourselves.69

This line of thought represented a significant evolution from Newman’s more systematic treatment of poetry in his essay for Blanco White. Rather than dissecting the identity and form of poetry, Newman’s 1849 lecture depicted poetry as a gravitational point of reference drawing the human person outside of the self, and ultimately toward God.

In this way, Newman also presented poetry as a means rather than an end, as a bearer of truth and beauty, though not formally truth or beauty in and of itself. Both poetry and beauty

68 John Henry Newman, The Theological Papers of John Henry Newman on Faith and Certainty, J. Derek Holmes, editor (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1976), 117.

69 John Henry Newman, Historical Sketches, Volume II (New York, NY: Longmans, Green, 1896), 386-387.

278 point to something greater than themselves: “The love of the Beautiful will not conquer the world, but, like the voice of Orpheus, it may for a while carry it away captive.”70 Newman addressed the need for a proper appraisal of poetry in his 18 October 1831 sermon “The Danger of Accomplishments,” where the severity of tone was characteristic of his pre-voyage writings:

We must never allow ourselves to read works of fiction or poetry, or to interest ourselves in the fine arts for the mere sake of the things themselves: but keep in mind all along that we are Christians and accountable beings, who have fixed principles of right and wrong, by which all things must be tried, and have religious habits to be matured within them, towards which all things are to be made subservient. Nothing is more common among accomplished people than the habit of reading books so entirely for reading's sake, as to praise and blame the actions and persons described in a random way, according to their fancy, not considering whether they are really good or bad according to the standard of moral truth. I would not be austere; but when this is done habitually, surely it is dangerous. Such too is the abuse of poetical talent, that sacred gift. Nothing is more common than to fall into the practice of uttering fine sentiments, particularly in letter writing, as a matter of course, or a kind of elegant display.71

This setting of limits however does not compromise the inherent paradox at work in poetry. Harold Weatherby in his study on John Keble and Newman as poets identified in

Newman a fascination with paradox that is quite germane to his identity as a poet: “When all is said and done it is perhaps only in the language of paradox—which is the language of mystery— that we can do justice to an art whose existence is its meaning and whose meaning its existence.”72 This emphasis on mystery remained consistent for Newman across the spectrum of his writings. Acknowledging that theology throughout history has repeatedly challenged the weight certain words can bear in upholding theological principles, so is poetry confronted with

70 John Henry Newman, Essays and Sketches, Volume III Charles Frederick Harrold, editor (New York, NY: Longmans, Green, 1948), 320.

71 PPS, 466 (Volume 2, Sermon 30).

72 Weatherby, Keen Delight, 145-146.

279 expressing in finite syllables what ultimately rests beyond the most well-placed efforts of human language.

Newman’s attempts to grasp the mystery at the heart of man occupied a central place in his thought. According to Weatherby: “We must seek out that remarkably mysterious point of intersection in the soul where knowing and making unites—where meaning, without ceasing to mean, is translated into artistic being.”73 For Weatherby as for Newman, this mysterious point of intersection can never be fully ascertained, though one may be convinced and even transformed by the belief that it does exist. Poetry is the fruit of our efforts toward this mysterious point of intersection in addition to being the effort itself.

Biglietto Speech

On 15 March 1878, Cardinal Lorenzo Nina, the Prefect of the Congregation for Studies,74 wrote to Newman to communicate the desire of Pope Leo XIII to name him a Cardinal:

The Holy Father deeply appreciating the genius and learning which distinguish you, your piety, the zeal displayed by you in the exercise of the Holy Ministry, your devotion and filial attachment to the Holy Apostolic See, and the signal services you have for long years rendered to religion, has decided on giving you a public and solemn proof of his esteem and good-will.75

So began a correspondence that eventually included a personal letter from Newman to Pope Leo.

With characteristic modesty and generosity, Newman accepted the nomination only when assured by the Holy Father that the honor was in the best interests of the English Catholic

Church and of all parties involved. After being granted the privilege of remaining in England after his elevation—rather than establishing a permanent residence in Rome as was the custom

73 Ibid., 147.

74 On 9 August 1878, Nina was appointed Secretary of State.

75 John Henry Newman, Addresses to Cardinal Newman with His Replies Etc., 1879-81, Rev. W. P. Neville, editor (New York, NY: Longmans, Green, 1905), xxi; hereafter cited: “Biglietto Speech.”

280 for cardinals who were not diocesan ordinaries—nothing remained to keep Newman from honoring the Holy Father’s request.

The spring of 1879 was not a favorable time for anyone to leave England for Rome, much less a seventy-eight year old. Deep snow had fallen throughout most of the country and there was persistent rain throughout much of Newman’s journey. He was in Rome for roughly six weeks, renting a flat in the vicinity of St. Peter’s. Three times he visited the Holy Father, though never absent the nagging cold that had plagued him for most of his journey. By the time the Consistory arrived, the cold had worsened into pneumonia. On 12 May 1879, John Henry

Newman was created a Cardinal in the first Consistory of Pope Leo XIII, fifteen months after his election to the Papacy. Newman was named Cardinal-Deacon of St. George in Velabro in the same Consistory in which the Pope’s brother, Giuseppe, also became a Cardinal.76

By eleven in the morning of May 12, the Palazzo della Pigna was filled with ambassadors and dignitaries, including a number of fellow English natives, assembled to witness the arrival of the biglietto, a sealed document formally announcing Newman’s elevation to the Cardinalate.

Once the letter was read aloud by Dr. William Clifford, Bishop of Clifton, Newman followed the custom of responding with a public address. After a token introductory line in the best Italian he could muster, Newman offered a heartfelt reflection that bore witness not only to his present thoughts, but to the larger trajectory of his efforts on behalf of the Church over his entire life.

Though sorely tried by his recent illness and with the gravity of many years telling on his lean and weary frame, Newman summoned the requisite strength and clarity to share with his audience seventeen hundred words, finely composed and fervently delivered. After paying

76 For the list of cardinals created at the consistory on 12 May 1879, see: www.catholic- hierarchy.org/event/cs1879.html.

281 tribute to the Holy Father whose magnanimity had bestowed such an honor, Newman first expressed his unworthiness before recalling the battle cry issued by the Oxford Movement almost fifty years before.

In a long course of years I have made many mistakes. I have nothing of that high perfection which belongs to the writings of Saints, viz., that error cannot be found in them; but what I trust that I may claim all through what I have written, is this,—an honest intention, an absence of private ends, a temper of obedience, a willingness to be corrected, a dread of error, a desire to serve Holy Church, and, through Divine mercy, a fair measure of success. And, I rejoice to say, to one great mischief I have from the first opposed myself. For thirty, forty, fifty years I have resisted to the best of my powers the spirit of liberalism in religion. Never did Holy Church need champions against it more sorely than now, when, alas! it is an error overspreading, as a snare, the whole earth; and on this great occasion, when it is natural for one who is in my place to look out upon the world, and upon Holy Church as in it, and upon her future, it will not, I hope, be considered out of place, if I renew the protest against it which I have made so often.77

On one hand Newman’s cry might seem to be anachronistic, merely an opportunity for an elder statesmen of the Church to revisit the glories of yesteryear. However, his introductory words, and those that followed, read like a commentary on the themes that surfaced not only in the Tracts for the Times, but also in many of his Mediterranean letters and verses, the mounting threat to religion and the Church. The 1870s had been a tumultuous decade for the Church, not least of all in Rome, which had fallen to the forces of the Kingdom of Italy at the beginning of the decade. As Wilfrid Ward commented,

The times were stirring. The destruction of the civil princedom which the Papacy had held in one form or another for a thousand years was going forward with ominous thoroughness. And it was a symbol of the final dethronement of Christian civilization, so long imminent, but now on the eve of accomplishment. The French Revolution had nearly done the work.78

77 “Biglietto Speech,” 63-64.

78 Wilfrid Ward, The Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman: Based on His Private Journals and Correspondence, Volume II (New York, NY: Longmans, Green, 1912), 208-209.

282

Newman’s words were prescient as ever and as proof that he knew and understood his foe, he set about defining the enemy against which his life had labored. Newman went on speak about Liberalism: “There never was a device of the Enemy so cleverly framed and with such promise of success.”79 In fact, Newman saw in liberalism not merely a topical, social nuisance, but a mortal threat to the work of the Church, and as such also a deadly affliction for humanity.80

What might for many have been a vague social malaise, as ubiquitous as early morning fog,

Newman described with diagnostic precision.

Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another, and this is the teaching which is gaining substance and force daily. It is inconsistent with any recognition of any religion, as true. It teaches that all are to be tolerated, for all are matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, not miraculous; and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy. Devotion is not necessarily founded on faith. Men may go to Protestant Churches and to Catholic, may get good from both and belong to neither. They may fraternise together in spiritual thoughts and feelings, without having any views at all of doctrine in common, or seeing the need of them. Since, then, religion is so personal a peculiarity and so private a possession, we must of necessity ignore it in the intercourse of man with man. If a man puts on a new religion every morning, what is that to you? It is as impertinent to think about a man's religion as about his sources of income or his management of his family. Religion is in no sense the bond of society.81

In many respects, Newman’s address followed the contours of his life: from humble beginnings to being thrust headlong into the work of a lifetime pursued with all the gifts and energies at his disposal. The speech, appropriately, did not end with the author merely laying out the ills of liberalism. In the summation, he shifted to a posture of pervasive gratitude and trust—

79 “Biglietto Speech,” 68-69.

80 Leo Scheffczyk, “Die wahre Kirche: Zur Motivation der Konversion J. H. Newmans”, Forum Katholische Theologie, 12 (1996): 163-172.

81 “Biglietto Speech,” 64-65.

283 attributes complementing the humility that was his starting point. The last lines belonging to

Newman the spiritual master, at times, the mystic, were fittingly poetic:

Such is the state of things in England, and it is well that it should be realised by all of us; but it must not be supposed for a moment that I am afraid of it. I lament it deeply, because I foresee that it may be the ruin of many souls; but I have no fear at all that it really can do aught of serious harm to the Word of God, to Holy Church, to our Almighty King, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Faithful and True, or to His Vicar on earth. Christianity has been too often in what seemed deadly peril, that we should fear for it any new trial now. So far is certain; on the other hand, what is uncertain, and in these great contests commonly is uncertain, and what is commonly a great surprise, when it is witnessed, is the particular mode by which, in the event, Providence rescues and saves His elect inheritance. Sometimes our enemy is turned into a friend; sometimes he is despoiled of that special virulence of evil which was so threatening; sometimes he falls to pieces of himself; sometimes he does just so much as is beneficial, and then is removed. Commonly the Church has nothing more to do than to go on in her own proper duties, in confidence and peace; to stand still and to see the salvation of God.82

As a testament to the consonance of Newman’s thought spanning decades and the harmonious continuity of his writing style, these final lines of the Biglietto Speech might have easily been taken from one of his Mediterranean letters sent home with his impending return to England in mind.

82 “Biglietto Speech,” 69-70.

Conclusion

I cannot say what poetry is; I know that our sufferings and our concentrated joy, our states of plunging far and dark and turning to come back to the world—so that the moment of intense turning seems still and universal—all are here, in a music like the music of our time, like the hero and like the anonymous forgotten; and there is an exchange here in which our lives are met, and created.1

In these final pages, three matters are taken up to summarize the themes as well as the pages that have gone before. The first concerns the central figure of this study, John Henry

Newman, and seeks to come to terms with his interior composition as well as his outstanding contributions to the Church. The second strives to draw some conclusion regarding the nuanced, and at times, ambiguous relationship between Newman and poetry. The third suggests a singular concept at the center of Newman’s spirituality and theology that represents not only a great contribution to the Church, but a great hope for her immediate and long-term future.

Understanding Newman

In a commentary upon biographical efforts to document his life, Pope John Paul II once reflected: “They try to understand me from outside. But I can only be understood from inside.”2

Such a maxim is likewise apt to describe the life of John Henry Newman, a life easily subdivided into many chapters yet also bearing a rugged and remarkable consistency from beginning to end.

Richard Hutton described him as follows:

No life known to me in the last century of our national history can for a moment compare with Newman’s lonely and severe and saintly life . . . . It has been carved, as it were, out of one solid block of spiritual substance, and though there may be weak and wavering lines here and there in the carving, it is not easy to detect any flaw in the material upon which the long and indefatigable labour has been spent.3

1 Muriel Rukeyser, The Life of Poetry (Ashfield, MA: Paris Press, 1996), 172.

2 From the author’s conversation with Pope John Paul II on March 7, 1996. George Weigel, Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 2005), 7.

3 Hutton, Cardinal Newman, 253. 284 285

Given a figure of such magnitude, efforts to understand Newman from the outside are both worthwhile and at times revelatory, though deeper study of the man reveals that the genius in him dwelt at the greater depths.

Any attempt to understand Newman from the inside reveals not only his outstanding intellect, which at times dominates evaluations concerning him, but also his extraordinary sensitivity to interior and exterior worlds. Such sensitivity was with him from his earliest years and did not abate in the later decades of his life. In fact, it developed in most ways into a keener understanding of reality that was uncommonly balanced in both rational and imaginative aspects.

According to Trevor,

Newman had very keen and perceptive senses which, since he did not dull them with excess or narcotics, remained acute almost into old age. He was especially alive to scents and flavours, the most delicate and easily lost of sense experiences. He had a discriminating eye for colour, a sensitive ear for music, and a great love for wild landscape and wide views. He had, in fact, all the physical and mental equipment of a poet, keenly observant of the external world and with the creative imagination which can express the mysterious union between what is outside and what is inside man. At the same time he had a mind capable of the clearest abstract reasoning, logical and mathematical. This combination is rare indeed, and when it occur one faculty almost always takes the life out of the other. Reason tends to dry up imagination, as William Blake, the most spiritually perceptive of English poets, saw with indignation. Newman had the power to be a poet or a philosopher; because he became so wholeheartedly a priest he never threw the whole force of his personality into either ability. But though this prevented him from becoming a professional in either sphere, it allowed both faculties to develop together, fertilizing each other in such a way that his mind came very close to the mind of the great Greek Fathers, and yet exercised itself in a wholly modern way upon the questions of the present age.3

Such phenomenal equanimity of mind equipped Newman for addressing the concerns of his own day as well as greater theological questions in a way that eluded the capacities of those around him, and even estranged those who could not acquiesce in his many-layered appreciation of the world around him.

3 Trevor, Light, 9-10.

286

His biographer, Wilfrid Ward, was of the opinion that the root of this sensitiveness lay in his extraordinary acuteness of perception. He saw more aspects of men and of matters than anyone else. Such penetration affected not only his intellect but his whole personality. Others could not enter into his many- sided views of person and things; they felt estranged from him and left him. This happened particularly at his conversion. At first he took every opportunity and made every excuse to keep the many friends whom he loved so much. But in spite of his encouragement, many of them could not tolerate the Catholic atmosphere about him and showed their bewilderment, their suspicion, their abhorrence, their pain. Sometimes they did not answer his letters. That is how he lost many friends for a long time or forever.4

Such aptitudes for discerning the world won Newman acclaim and admiration as well as misunderstanding and at times isolation. An unintended consequence of his giftedness was that

Newman became for those who knew him an enigmatic, and at times paradoxical, figure.

According to Merrigan,

The fact that Newman has generated such disparate opinions is testimony to the complexity of his thought and personality. It is testimony, as well, to the temptation experienced by all his commentators (and too great a temptation for some), to try and capture Newman in certain comprehensive formulae, or to regard his life under some limited (and limiting) aspect.5

Trevor concurred that Newman was at turns a man of his day and as times a man at odds with his day:

Newman always puzzled his contemporaries by being at the same time so ancient and so modern. He was at home with the Martyrs and the Fathers—and with scientists and factory girls. He practiced fasting and penance—and was an immediate and inveterate train traveller. He read St. Athanasius and Antony Trollope. He was a venerable man, but he talked the slang of the moment. Puseyites were disconcerted by his modernity, Catholics by his antiquity—for most of them had forgotten what their spiritual ancestors were like.6

4 Zeno, Newman, 261.

5 Terrence Merrigan, “The Religious and Theological Ideal of John Henry Newman, The Complexity of Newman,” in Terrence Merrigan, ed., Clear Heads and Holy Hearts: The Religious and Theological Ideal of John Henry Newman (Louvain: Peeters, 1991), 2.

6 Trevor, Light, 351.

287

The paradoxical elements of his person were only amplified by the fact that ostensibly the man was more uniform and consistent in his habit and peculiarities than his contemporaries, or for that fact most people of any age, could ever hope to be.

Newman has been called a complex and subtle character, and in the sense that he was endowed with a nature capable of manifold and various emotions and activities, this was so. But in a deeper sense he was simple, and it is his very simplicity which has deceived clever people into making a mystery of him.7

In light of such depths, and such irrefutable characteristics, the nature of Newman’s relationship with poetry is more readily understood.

Newman and Poetry

Poetry was a nearly constant presence in Newman’s life, though seldom a priority, and perhaps never a literary source of self-identification, at least inasmuch as it came to claiming the identity of poet for himself. Newman’s love for words and his prodigious gifts for wielding them, found a constant outlet in prose writing, often at an unrelenting pace, that was perhaps destined to overwhelm whatever place poetry could claim in his life. As John Cornwell has written,

Newman’s literary gifts were those of a prose writer rather than a poet. His script, in black ink, written with modest pens, barely altered from youth into old age. It was spare, forward tilting, keeping to a straight line, the loops in the small letters hardly noticeable (especially on the f’s and the h’s); no loops on the g’s, but with a tendency to flourish the d’s and the capitals. The manuscript of his hymn ‘Lead Kindly Light’, written at sea, shows the same evenness as at his desk on land.8

Given the predominance of Newman’s prose writings and the relatively marginal standing given to his poetry, one must ask what meaning do the poems have in their own right, standing for themselves. Bouyer leveled a stern, though fair, judgment:

7 Trevor, Pillar, 4.

8 John Cornwell, Newman’s Unquiet Grave: The Reluctant Saint (New York, NY: Continuum, 2010), 9.

288

We must acknowledge that the best that can be said of most of Newman’s verses is that they are not totally unworthy of his prose, as is generally the case with the greatest prose writers . . . . They are never without some distinction, but they evoke those pedestrian verses of Wordsworth where, for lack of inspiration, the great poet substitutes some gnomic considerations that are not as devoid of interest as prejudiced critics have maintained, but which, admittedly, are more dignified than truly poetical in their end-product. The only exceptions occur when a genuine insight has coupled the appropriate images with a working whose musicality in some way makes up for the neutrality of the rhythm . . . But the fact remains that there is no poem of Newman’s where some reminiscence may not be found of his vision of faith—the presence of the invisible behind the visible so characteristic of Newman’s religiosity.9

Bouyer’s critique seems rather belittling of Newman’s poetry, particularly given the long-lasting critical favor that a number of his poems have enjoyed. Yet, Newman hardly ever gave his own attempts at poetry more than a fleeting thought—at least outside of his Mediterranean voyage, during which he had grappled with the dialectical tension between self-will and selflessness, homelessness and home, private judgment and revealed religion, the visible and the invisible, and light and darkness.

In many respects, it is a small wonder that the poems are capable of standing alone within the Newmanian corpus, given the minimal attention they received from their author. Newman gave ample evidence of the latter. He expressed as much in a letter to Charles Faure on 15 May

1859:

I have been accustomed to say, that Poetry is the solace of the busy and the work of the idle. By which I mean, that to write poetry (even if a person has the gift) perfect leisure and (I may say) idleness is required. Poets live in the country, and into their disengaged minds beautiful thoughts and beautiful words come. Certainly, though I have never pretended to do more than write verses, not poetry, I have felt it true in my own case. At present, I very much regret to say, I have too heavy a pressure of business upon me, to have any of that elasticity of mind, which verse-making requires.10

9 John Henry Newman, Prayers, Verses and Devotions (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2000), xxiv.

10 LD 19: 131.

289

It is telling here that Newman cultivated an image of the poet according to the likeness of his friend John Keble, the country pastor tucked away in a modest, bucolic setting. Such a lifestyle never belonged to Newman; even his time at Littlemore was defined by a contemplative, coenobitic atmosphere and complemented by deep study. For all his poetic sensibilities,

Newman never felt himself to quite fit the part.

However, even if Newman never fully attached himself to poetry, at least in a visible and intentional way, it seems that poetry would not let him go quite so easily. “For all his rudeness to her, Poetry clung to Newman and would not be dismissed. She was with him in the pulpits of

Birmingham as she had been in Oxford.”11 Poetry was to be found creeping in across the spectrum of his writings, as if to compensate for the narrow margins to which it had been consigned.

The Cardinal’s driest page may yield the loveliest and fairest flowers of poetry, springing from what appears to be arid soil, but native to that soil and not easily detached. In pages that are burdened with meaning, you may be entertained to the most delightful musical interlude, not one that distracts from or mars the sense, but heightens and enhances it.12

In this way, the legacy of Newman’s poetry resides less in the virtues of its autonomy, as a distinct school of writings, but inasmuch as his poems represent a coherent substrata of themes and influences that subtly find their way into the whole of his writings, not only distantly informing the subject at hand, but actually shaping and inspiring from within the many diverse subjects he took up over the course of his life. According to Harold Weatherby, “Newman himself wrote theology in the manner of a poet; his principal mode of utterance is in image.”13

11 Wall, “The Writer and Preacher,” 355.

12 Ibid., 359.

13 Weatherby, Cardinal Newman, 41.

290

In fact, aside from Newman’s letters and diaries, which in thirty-two volumes span nearly the entirety of his earthly life, the poems collected in Verses on Various Occasions span a greater length of time14 than the works of any other volume or set of volumes, including those devoted to his many sermons. At times seemingly dormant and almost always subterranean, Newman’s poetic impulse emerges as a surprisingly constant refrain across the whole of his life. Though seldom occupying the spotlight, such a poetic impulse never left the stage altogether, seemingly up until the end of his life.

Toward a Theology of Mystery

Newman’s legendary sense of proportion and balance in thought and in writing served as a safeguard of sorts against the tendencies toward liberalism in religion and the unchecked rationalism that plagued his day. Such proportion and balance, however, were neither spontaneous nor accidental, an unwitting accident of his personal genius. Newman had to willfully reject the false pretenses of liberalism and rationalism at various times in his life, particularly in his twenties. Only because he had rejected such ideologies could he understand the latent risks therein disguised:

RATIONALISM is a certain abuse of Reason; that is, a use of it for purposes for which it never was intended, and is unfitted. To rationalize in matters of Revelation is to make our reason the standard and measure of the doctrines revealed; to stipulate that those doctrines should be such as to carry with them their own justification; to reject them, if they come in collision with our existing opinions or habits of thought, or are with difficulty harmonized with our existing stock of knowledge. And thus a rationalistic spirit is the antagonist of Faith; for Faith is, in its very nature, the acceptance of what our reason cannot reach, simply and absolutely upon testimony.15

14 Forty-seven years elapsed between “Solitude” (1818) and “The Dream of Gerontius” (1865).

15 John Henry Newman, Essays and Sketches: Volume I, Charles Frederick Harrold, ed. (New York: NY, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1948), 183; hereafter cited: E&S 1.

291

Such a corruption of thought, which situates the self at the center of theology, serves as the breeding ground for heterodoxy, and ultimately heresy. In such circumstances, “the idea of

Mystery, is discarded.”16

A compelling sense of mystery lies, if not at the heart, very near the center of Newman’s theology. He came close to defining such a notion in his An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of

Assent:

A mystery is a proposition conveying incompatible notions, or is a statement of the inconceivable. Now we can assent to propositions (and a mystery is a proposition), provided we can apprehend them; therefore we can assent to a mystery, for, unless we apprehended it, we should not recognize it to be a mystery, that is, a statement uniting incompatible notions. The same act, then, which enables us to discern that the words of the proposition express a mystery, capacitates us for assenting to it. Words which make nonsense, do not make a mystery.17

To be sure the pathway from apprehension to proposition to assent to mystery is a precarious path, yet it is the direction of theology, inasmuch as the inconceivable is an unavoidable, and often central, reality. Newman addressed this aspect of mystery in the second volume of his

Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching:

Theology is occupied with supernatural matters, and is ever running into mysteries, which reason can neither explain nor adjust. Its lines of thought come to an abrupt termination, and to pursue them or to complete them is to plunge down the abyss.18

Given these affirmations about the centrality of mystery, there are still significant obstacles to composing a comprehensive theology of mystery. Though Newman stopped short

16 E&S 1: 185.

17 John Henry Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 43-44.

18 John Henry Newman, Certain Difficulties felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching Considered: In a Letter addressed to the Rev. E.B. Pusey, D.D., Volume II (London: Longmans, Green, 1907), 81-82.

292 of formulating such a theology, he did base his reflections on mystery on a particular foundation in his 1849 works Discourses to Mixed Congregations:

If there be mysteriousness in her teaching, this does but show that she proceeds from Him, who is Himself Mystery, in the most simple and elementary ideas which we have of Him, whom we cannot contemplate at all except as One who is absolutely greater than our reason, and utterly strange to our imagination.19

The same Mystery, therefore, that emanates from the life of God dwells in the Church and is interwoven into the lifeblood of theology.

Though Newman was far from being the original voice behind the formulation of a theology of Mystery, it is noteworthy that in the 20th century a number of theologians spoke on the subject in a manner that bore strong resemblance to him. Two examples are particularly enlightening. In his volume one of his Theo-Logic, Hans Urs von Balthasar, juxtaposes

“Mystery” with “veil” in an association that hearkens directly to Newman.

In the end, only something endowed with mystery is worthy of love. It is impossible to love something stripped of mystery; at best it would be a thing one uses as one sees fit, but not a person whom one could look up to. Indeed, no progress in knowledge, not even when it occurs in love, may lift the veil from the beloved.20

Henri de Lubac also manifests strong continuity with Newman, particularly inasmuch as he identifies Mystery as helping to both explain and understand the Church. He writes in The

Splendour of the Church,

The mystery of the Church is all Mystery in miniature; it is our own mystery par excellence. It lays hold on the whole of us. It surrounds us on all sides, for it is in

19 John Henry Newman, Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002) 264.

20 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Logic: Theological Logical Theory: Volume I, trans. Adrian J. Walker and Graham Harrison (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius, 2001) 209.

293

his Church that God looks upon us and loves us, in her that he desires us and we encounter him, and in her that we cleave to him and are made blessed by him.21

Perhaps surprisingly, it is in the midst of these great realities, that poetry seems to be most intelligible. Even more than being intelligible, in the context of a theology of mystery, poetry proves to be ultimately quite useful. The English theologian John Coulson offers a helpful commentary on the theological utility of poetry in his work Religion and Imagination ‘in aid of a grammar of assent’.

Is there a peculiar authenticity in a religious language so metaphorically ‘dense’ as to be resistant to theological ‘reduction’? Some religious assertions of a primary kind do indeed seem linguistically similar to poetic assertions. How else are we to respond to the claim in scripture that Christ is both shepherd and lamb? His teaching in the parables, for example, on the good shepherd or on the kingdom of heaven can be understood only as we engage with the metaphors and with their interaction; the kingdom is both a seed, a leaven, a pearl, and a treasure.22

Even Newman, in his oblique manner of speaking about poetry seemed to have some sense of this. In his 1839 essay, “Prospects of the Anglican Church,” he confessed:

Poetry then is our mysticism; and so far as any two characters of mind tend to penetrate below the surface of things, and to draw men away from the material to the invisible world, so far they may certainly be said to answer the same end; and that too a religious one.23

The testimony of others helps bring these quieter aspects of poetry into proper relief; to amplify its virtues in ways that Newman was often less inclined to do. The American literary

21 Henri de Lubac, The Splendour of the Church (Ignatius Press, San Francisco: CA, 1986), 45- 46.

22 John Coulson, Religion and Imagination ‘in aid of a grammar of assent’ (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981), 17.

23 John Henry Newman, Essays Critical and Historical: Volume I (New York, NY: Longmans, Green, 1895), 291.

294 anthologist Oscar Williams has pointed out that the timeless nature of poetry strikes directly at the human longing for transcendence.

A poem is immortal not only because it continues to be read by generation after generation of readers but also because each sensitive reader, having once experienced the poem, absorbs the experience and continues to feel it always, and further, because a true poem expresses an immortal human truth. Anyone who knows how to love, or to suffer, or to think, anyone who wishes to live fully, needs and seeks poetry.24

Similar admissions flow not only from the literary world, but likewise from the theological. Yves Congar made a similar observation in his True and False Reform in the

Church, in ascribing identity to the poet:

Poets possess what priests often lack, namely, a sensibility for relating earthly things to the invisible. Poets have the gift of deep feeling and of making the secret harmonies of things apparent; they perceive dimensions that are inaccessible to others. In short, poets possess in some way an understanding of what is hidden to ordinary eyes, and they reveal its meaning. That is what makes them prophets. Poets have within them something of the divine. The Latin language spoke of both poets and prophets as vates [inspired ones].25

A similar depiction of the poet, and an implicit association with the prophet, is offered by

Walter Brueggemann in his Hopeful Imagination: Prophetic Voices in Exile:

Poets have no advice to give people. They only want people to see differently, to re-vision life. They are not coercive. They only try to stimulate, surprise, hint, and give nuance, not more. They cannot do more because they are making available a world that does not yet exist beyond their imagination; but their offer of this imaginative world is necessary to give freedom of action. The poets want us to re-experience the present world under a different set of metaphors, and they want us to entertain an alternative world not yet visible.26

24 Oscar Williams, ed., Immortal Poems of the English Language: British and American Poetry from Chaucer’s Time to the Present Day (New York, Washington Square Press, 1952), 9.

25 Yves Congar, True and False Reform in the Church (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2011), 187.

26 Walter Brueggemann, Hopeful Imagination: Prophetic Voices in Exile (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 23-24.

295

Such words are particularly enlightening, inasmuch as they help to explain both Newman’s poetic efforts in the 1830’s, as well as John Keble’s efforts in the 1820’s, to be the vehicle of ecclesial inspiration and renewal. Both poets sought to usher in a world not yet manifested to all, but already intimated in the words they put down on paper.

Karl Rahner wrote two essays on poetry that are very helpful in restoring the art of poetry to its proper place. In “Priest and Poet,” he situated the poet as a central figure in the history of salvation:

It is to the poet [Dichter] that the word has been entrusted. He is a man capable of speaking the primordial words in powerful concentration [verdichtet]. Everyone pronounces primordial words, as long as he is not sunk completely into spiritual death. Everyone calls things by their names and so continues the action of his father Adam.27

Rahner went on to suggest a dynamic realized in the poet that plays favorably upon the words

Newman chose for his memorial plaque: Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem. “To him is entrusted this word, in which realities come out of their dark hiding place into the protective light of man to his own blessing and fulfillment.”28

In his essay “Poetry and the Christian,” Rahner went so far as to identify implications of salvation in the art of poetry: “the question of how we stand with regard to poetry is a very serious and strictly Christian question, and one which merges in the question of man’s salvation.”29 His rationale for such a position stemmed from his belief that poetry represents an essential charism of Christianity, and one that must not be lost.

27 Karl Rahner, “Priest and Poet”, Theological Investigations: Volume III, pp. 294-317 (Baltimore, MD: Helicon Press, 1967), 301.

28 Ibid., 302.

29 Karl Rahner, “Poetry and the Christian,” Theological Investigations: Volume IV, pp. 357-367 (Baltimore, MD: Helicon Press, 1966), 367.

296

This does not alter the basic truth we have arrived at, that the poetic word and the poetic ear are so much part of man that if this essential power were really lost to the heart, man could no longer hear the word of God in the word of man. In its inmost essence, the poetic is a prerequisite for Christianity.30

Just as Newman found mystery to flow from the life of God, Rahner also suggested that poetry bears a divine origin: “The poetic word will never fail, because it grows out of the divine word which bears within it the inmost essence of the poetic word.”31 Or as Philip Ballinger has written, “The poet incarnates in poetry the Incarnate Christ, the enfleshed Logos who is the foundation of world and word.”32

Though at times in his own day, Newman seemed to belong to ages other than his own, on account of his saintly mien and his fluency in seemingly all ages of history, in retrospect he seems to be a man of his own day. Mindful of the hopes and ambitions of his contemporaries and at times painfully sensitive to the cultural and societal woes unfolding around him, in many ways his gifts belonged directly to the world in which he was born, lived, and died. Saintliness though bears along with it a certain timelessness that allow the present generation to reach out across the 20th and 19th centuries and claim Newman’s life and writings for our own day. Such an effort has already proved to be of great merit and promises further fruit.

Newman erfasste die großen Herausforderungen unserer Zeich−zwischen Glaube und Unglaube, zwischen der christlichen Botschaft und dem aufkommenden Relativismus, der das Christentum zu einer von vielen Möglichkeiten auf dem Supermarkt der Religionen degradiert. Er versuchte, auf diese Herausforderungen zu antworten und den Menschen Hilfen zum Glauben anzubieten. Diesem Ziel dienen etwa seine hoch aktuellen Ausführungen über Glaube und Vernunft, über die Bedeutung des Dogmas, über die Sendung und die Unfehlbarkeit der Kirche,

30 Ibid., 363.

31 Ibid., 364.

32 Philip A. Ballinger, The Poem as Sacrament: The Theological Aesthetic of Gerard Manley Hopkins (Louvain: Peeters Press, 2000), 228.

297

über die Rolle des Gewissens. Nicht ohne Grund wird Newman deshalb immer wieder „Kirchenvater der Neuzeit“ genannt.33

Inasmuch as he invested himself so intimately in his writings, he can most readily be found in the midst of them, not least of all his poems. In a 1990 presentation, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger described Newman in the following terms:

The characteristic of the great doctor of the Church, it seems to me, is that he teaches not only through his thought and speech, but also by his life, because within him thought and life are interpenetrated and defined. If this is so, then Newman belongs to the great teachers of the Church, because he both touches our hearts and enlightens our thinking. 34

33 Herman Geissler, FSO, “Exemplary Commitment to the Service of Truth.” L’Osservatore Romano 11, English edition (18 August 2004): 3.

34 Joseph Ratzinger, “One of the Great Teachers of the Church,” L’Osservatore Romano 22, English edition (1 June 2005): 9; a reprint. Originally published by International Centre of Newman Friends, 28 April 1990.

Appendix 1

Map of Newman’s Mediterranean Voyage: 1832-1833

298 Appendix 2

Tables of Newman’s Mediterranean Writings

Mediterranean Letters

DECEMBER 1 12/5 From JHN To E.B. Pusey Falmouth 2 12/8 Mrs. Newman JHN 3 12/11 JHN Mrs. Newman Hermes 4 12/12 JHN Harriet Newman Hermes 5 12/12 JHN Jemima Newman Hermes 6 12/15 JHN Edward Hawkins Gibraltar 7 12/16 JHN Richard Bagot Gibraltar 8 12/16 JHN Mrs. Newman Gibraltar 9 12/18 JHN Harriet Newman Hermes 10 12/18 JHN Jemima Newman Hermes 11 12/19 JHN Mrs. Newman Hermes 12 12/21 Frederic Rogers JHN 13 12/25 JHN Harriet Newman Malta 14 12/29 JHN Jemima Newman Zante and Patras 15 12/29 JHN Mrs. Newman Hermes JANUARY 16 1/2 JHN Harriet Newman Corfu 17 1/15 JHN Jemima Lazaretto, Malta 18 1/16 JHN Isaac Williams Lazaret, Malta 19 1/20 JHN J.W. Bowden Lazaretto, Malta 20 1/26 JHN Mrs. Newman Malta FEBRUARY 21 2/16 JHN Harriet Newman Naples 22 2/19 JHN Jemima Newman Naples 23 2/21 Harriet/Jemima JHN 24 2/28 Mrs. Newman JHN 25 2/28 JHN Mrs. Newman Naples MARCH 26 3/4 JHN Harriet Newman Rome 27 3/5 JHN Frederic Rogers Rome 28 3/6 Harriet/Jemima JHN 29 3/14 Mrs. Newman JHN 30 3/7 JHN J.F. Christie Rome 31 3/9 JHN Thomas Mozley Rome 32 3/9 JHN Henry Wilberforce Rome 33 3/14 JHN George Ryder Rome 34 3/16 JHN H.J. Rose Rome 35 3/17 JHN S.F. Wood Rome

299 36 3/18 JHN R.F. Wilson Rome 37 3/19 JHN E.B. Pusey Rome 38 3/20 JHN Jemima Newman Rome 39 3/25 JHN Mrs. Newman Rome APRIL 40 4/5 JHN Mrs. Newman Rome 41 4/5 JHN Harriet Newman Rome 42 4/6 JHN J.F. Christie Rome 43 4/7 JHN Henry Jenkyns Rome 44 4/11 JHN Jemima Newman Rome 45 4/11 John Keble JHN 46 4/14 JHN Samuel Rickards Rome 47 4/16 JHN W.J. Trower Naples 48 4/17 JHN Mrs. Newman Naples 49 4/17 JHN H.A. Woodgate Naples 50 4/25 JHN Harriet Newman Catania 51 4/27 JHN Jemima Newman Syracuse JUNE 52 6/5 JHN Frederic Rogers Palermo 53 6/9 JHN Mrs. Newman Palermo JULY 54 7/1 JHN Mrs. Newman Lyons

Mediterranean Poems

NOVEMBER 22 11/16 Home Oxford 23 11/18 The Brand of Cain 24 11/20 Zeal and Love 25 11/22 Persecution 26 11/23 Zeal and Purity 27 11/23 The Gift of Perseverance 28 11/25 The Sign of the Cross 29 11/28 Bondage Iffley 30 11/29 The Scars of Sin DECEMBER 31 12/3 Angelic Guidance Whitchurch 32 12/7 Substance and Shadow Falmouth 33 12/8 Wanderings Off the Lizard 34 12/10 The Saint and the Hero Bay of Biscay 35 12/11 Private Judgment Off Cape Ortegal 36 12/12 The Watchman At Sea 37 12/13 Isle of the Sirens Off Lisbon 38 12/14 Absolution Off Cape St. Vincent 39 12/15 Memory Off Cape Trafalgar

300 40 12/16 The Haven Gibraltar 41 12/17 A Word in Season 42 12/17 Fair Words 43 12/18 England At Sea 44 12/19 Moses 45 12/20 The Patient Church Off Algiers 46 12/22 Jeremiah Off Galita 47 12/22 Penance Off Pantellaria 48 12/24 The Course of Truth Malta 49 12/25 Christmas Without Christ 50 12/26 Sleeplessness 51 12/27 Abraham At Sea 52 12/28 The Greek Fathers At Zante 53 12/30 The Witness Off Ithaca 54 12/30 The Death of Moses JANUARY 55 1/5 Melchizedek Corfu 56 1/7 Corcyra At Sea 57 1/8 Transfiguration Off Zante 58 1/9 Behind the Veil At Sea 59 1/10 Judgment Off Malta 60 1/15 Sensitiveness Lazaret, Malta 61 1/16 David and Jonathan 62 1/16 Humiliation 63 1/18 The Call of David 64 1/19 A Blight 65 1/20 Joseph 66 1/21 Superstition 67 1/23 Isaac Valletta 68 1/30 Reverses FEBRUARY 69 2/5 Hope 70 2/8 St. Paul at Melita 71 2/9 Messina 72 2/12 Warnings Between Calatafimi and Palermo 73 2/26 Dreams Paestum MARCH 74 3/28 Temptation Frascati APRIL 75 4/2 Our Future Tre Fontane 76 4/21 Heathenism Messina 77 4/26 Taormini Magnisi 78 4/29 Sympathy Agosta JUNE 79 6/1 Relics of Saints Palermo

301 80 6/2 Day-Labourers 81 6/3 Warfare 82 6/4 Sacrilege 83 6/5 Liberalism 84 6/6 Declension 85 6/9 The Age to Come 86 6/11 External Religion 87 6/12 St. Gregory Nazianzen 88 6/13 The Good Samaritan 89 6/14 Reverence Off Monte Pellegrino 90 6/16 Pillar of the Cloud At Sea 91 6/17 Samaria Off Sardinia 92 6/18 Jonah 93 6/18 Faith Against Sight 94 6/18 Desolation 95 6/19 Zeal and Patience 96 6/19 Religion of Cain 97 6/20 St. Paul 98 6/20 Flowers Without Fruit 99 6/20 Zeal and Meekness 100 6/21 Vexations 101 6/21 The Church in Prayer 102 6/21 The Wrath to Come 103 6/22 Pusillanimity At Sea 104 6/22 James and John 105 6/22 Hora Novissima 106 6/23 Progress of Unbelief 107 6/23 Consolation 108 6/24 Uzzah and Obed-Edom 109 6/24 The Gift of Tongues 110 6/24 The Power of Prayer 111 6/25 Semita Justorum 112 6/25 The Elements 113 6/26 Apostasy Off the French coast 114 6/27 Judaism Off Marseilles Harbour 115 6/27 Separation of Friends Marseilles

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