CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BX5990 .073 
 
 Essays in appreciation, bv Gegrae Wiilia 
 
 oiin 
 
 3 1924 029 458 845 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029458845 
 
ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
ESSAYS 
 IN APPRECIATION 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE WILLIAM DOUGLAS, D.D., S.T.D. 
 
 Canon of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 
 New York 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 FOURTH AVENTTE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK 
 LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 
 
 igi2 
 
COPYRIGHT, I912, BY 
 GEORGE WILLIAM DOUGLAS 
 
 THE -PLIMPTON "PRESS 
 
 [W -D 'O] 
 NORWOOD. MASS-U'5-A 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 The following notice of the Reverend 
 Dr. Henry A. Coit was originally published 
 in a letter to the New York Evening Post 
 of February g, 1895; that of Sister Anne 
 Ayres was published in a sermon preached 
 on the fifty-fourth anniversary of the 
 Sisterhood of the Holy Communion, Feast 
 of the Purification, February 2, 1900, in 
 the Church of the Holy Communion, New 
 York, at the imveUing of a memorial tab- 
 let to Sister Anne. The notices of the 
 Reverend Dr. Morgan Dix and of the 
 Reverend Dr. WUliam R. Huntington 
 were prepared for special committees 
 appointed by Bishop Greer in behalf of 
 the Diocese. The Minute of Bishop Pot- 
 ter was written for a special committee 
 appointed by the Cathedral Chapter. 
 The notice of the Reverend Canon Lau- 
 rence Henry Schwab, D.D., was a Min- 
 ute prepared for a special committee of 
 
vi PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 the New York Clerical Club. The study 
 of Cardinal Newman was published in 
 The Churchman of May and June, 191 2. 
 
 The article on Bishop Doane, and the 
 review of the Revision of the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews by Two Clerks, appeared 
 in The Churchman of August 17th, 1912. 
 The article on General Booth appeared 
 in The Churchman of August 31st, 191 2. 
 
 In the case of the obituary of Dr. Dix, 
 of Dr. Huntington and of Canon Schwab, 
 I was requested to write the testimonial 
 in behalf of my colleagues on the com- 
 mittee, and their names, with mine, were 
 signed to the same: for which reason their 
 names are now given in a foot-note to each 
 testimonial, by way of historical record. 
 
 Requests from various quarters have 
 from time to time come to me for a 
 republication of these appreciations, so 
 that I am induced to assemble them in a 
 less fugitive form than that in which they 
 originally appeared. g. W. D. 
 
 Cathedral op St. John the Divine, 
 New York, September 2, 1912. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Revebend Henry A. Corr i 
 
 Sister Anne Aybes ii 
 
 The Reveeend Morgan Dix 31 
 
 The Reverend William Reed Hunhngton . 55 
 
 The Right Reverend Henry Codman Potter . 69 
 
 The Reverend Canon Laurence Henry Schwab 87 
 
 Newman Once More — A Study 97 
 
 Bishop Doane — the Poet 189 
 
 An Experiment in Conservative Revision op 
 
 THE New Testament — A Review . . . . 197 
 
 General Booth 217 
 
THE 
 REVEREND HENRY A. COIT, D.D. 
 
THE 
 
 REVEREND HENRY A. COIT, D.D. 
 
 Rector of St. PatU's School, Concord, New 
 Hampshire ' 
 
 If any man in America deserved a pub- 
 lic funeral, it was the late rector of St. 
 Paul's School. And yet I cannot but 
 feel that there was something singularly 
 appropriate in the privacy and loneUness 
 with which, from sheer stress of weather, 
 so far as friends from a distance were con- 
 cerned, his remains were laid to rest. The 
 three himdred school-boys on the spot 
 must, indeed, with their teachers, have 
 formed an imposing retinue at the bur- 
 ial; yet these were but a part of the vastly 
 larger nimaber that, under ordinary cir- 
 
 • This notice of Dr. Coit's funeral was originally pub- 
 lished in a letter to the New York Evening Post of 
 February 9, 1895. 
 
4 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 cumstances, would have thronged about 
 the bier. Very many of us older boys 
 found it to be simply impossible to reach 
 Concord in the blinding, drifting bliz- 
 zard that prevailed last Friday, block- 
 ing all roads and delaying railway trains. 
 Nevertheless, as my mind goes back 
 to the old days when I was a school-boy 
 there, it seems, I say, quite in keeping 
 with the character of our dear dead master 
 that his burial should be thus apart and 
 lonely, hidden by the snow. For was 
 there ever a great man who more instinc- 
 tively shrunk from pubhdty than Dr. 
 Coit? Never, from start to finish, was 
 it he that put himself forward; it was his 
 work that thrust him into prominence. 
 Never once, in any way, did he adver- 
 tise either the school or himself. Nay, he 
 recoiled from everything that savored of 
 notoriety with the simple delicacy of a 
 
gin. ±ie natea to snow nimseii in strange 
 places, to speak or write in them. The 
 only place where he was thoroughly him- 
 self was at his own school, among his own 
 boys, — there he was at home. It was 
 his boys and under-masters, as far and 
 wide they scattered to their homes, that 
 advertised him; as St. Paul said of his 
 disciples, "Ye are my epistle." 
 
 There is hardly time, as yet, to meas- 
 ure Dr. Coit's position among our great 
 educators and administrators, or to teU 
 the whole story of his distinguished career. 
 His high position is incontestable, — so 
 great that we can only appreciate it prop- 
 erly after the lapse of years, and by con- 
 trast with others who have worked in the 
 same field. Just now, in the shock of 
 his unexpected death, his old boys dweU 
 naturally upon the more distinctively 
 spiritual aspects of his character. I find 
 
6 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 recurring again and again to my memory 
 a verse of the Psalmist: "They shall go 
 from strength to strength, until unto the 
 God of gods appeareth every one of them 
 in Sion." This was one of his favorite 
 texts. As my mind runs back to the Httle 
 chapel, — the first one of the earUest 
 days, — I recollect how that text used to 
 crop out again and again in his sermons. 
 I did not care much for sermons in those 
 days, but somehow there was hardly ever 
 a Sunday, if "the Doctor" preached, that 
 some sentence of his did not fasten on 
 me. Though he often repeated himself, 
 the connections of his thought were so 
 various and suggestive that I did not 
 find the repetitions tiresome; and I well 
 remember how surprised and interested 
 I used to be when Sunday after Sunday 
 this same text would once more slip 
 into his thoughts: "They shall go from 
 
sirengtn to strengtn. " inis was tne very 
 thing that he wanted us to do: it was 
 what he had done himself. 
 
 Beginning with the three boys in the 
 carriage that brought him to Dr. Shat- 
 tuck's country-house, bit by bit, he had 
 built up that great school, and had built 
 up himself with it, — himself the stronger 
 as his school waxed strong, — all the 
 poetry and the sentiment of his rarely 
 gifted nature broadening down into the 
 fine virility of the tested man. We used 
 to think him narrow sometimes, but I 
 am not sure that, as we ourselves grow 
 older, we are not coming to perceive that 
 what we then esteemed "narrowness" 
 was ultimate truth of insight. It is not 
 given to many men to be thoroughly reli- 
 gious from the outset to the end of their 
 Uves. The heart of most men roams rest- 
 lessly for a long time before it rests at 
 
8 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 last in God. But Dr. Coit was religious 
 always. There was no humbug about him. 
 That is why he had such power over 
 us, in spite of ourselves. From classroom 
 and playground to the Thursday evening 
 talks and the daily chapel, that is the sort 
 of a man he was, — the religious man. 
 Here, in very truth, was a man who 
 was "alive luito God." It seemed as if 
 he never opened a book nor touched a 
 topic, nor met a boy or man, without hav- 
 ing " God in all his thoughts." And some- 
 how he never bored us. Other men bored 
 us boys with their rehgiousness, but 
 "the Doctor" never did. Rather, it ap- 
 peared as if he had merely gotten on ahead 
 of us, and that very likely we should try 
 to catch up with him by and by. The 
 pathos, the beauty, the risks, the awful- 
 ness and the joy, the prospects and the 
 power of the sincere religious hfe of the 
 
human soul, — they have been reaUzed 
 in oiu: Ufetime by this man whom we have 
 known, whom we have called our mas- 
 ter. It rests with us to follow, or to repu- 
 diate, the "secret of Jesus," for which he 
 Uved and died. This, I think, is the final 
 impression which every St. Paul's boy, 
 whether of the older time or to-day, has 
 derived from intercourse with that great 
 schoolmaster whose earthly remains were 
 laid to rest last Friday, in the pure New 
 Hampshire snows. 
 
SISTER ANNE AYRES 
 
SISTER ANNE AYRES » 
 
 On this Feast of the Purification of the 
 Blessed Virgin Mary, in the year of our 
 Lord 1900, we are gathered together in 
 this Church of the Holy Communion for a 
 special purpose known to us beforehand. 
 This is the anniversary of the Sisterhood 
 of the Holy Communion, at which time it 
 has been the custom of these Sisters to 
 kneel together, as such, at yonder altar, 
 and partake of the Body and Blood of 
 Jesus Christ our Lord; but on this occasion 
 we are invited to fix our thoughts on the 
 life and work of one particular woman, a 
 tablet to whose memory is here imveiled 
 
 • This notice was the concluding portion of the sermon 
 preached on the fifty-fourth anniversary of the Sisterhood 
 of the Holy Communion, Feast of the Purification, Febru- 
 ary 2, 1900, in the Church of the Holy Communion, New 
 York, at the unveiling of a memorial tablet to Sister Anne 
 Ayres. 
 
14 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 to-day. The Sisterhood of the Holy Com- 
 munion was founded, under God, by Anne 
 Ayres, at the suggestion of Wilham Au- 
 gustus Muhlenberg. Like all things of 
 deep spiritual import, neither he who, 
 under God, made the suggestion, nor she 
 in whose soul the suggestion lodged, per- 
 ceived beforehand what the outcome of 
 it would be. According to our Saviour's 
 parable, there was "first the blade, then 
 the ear, after that the full corn in the 
 ear." In the summer of 1845, there was 
 gathered on Sunday in the little chapel 
 of St. Paul's College, a small congrega- 
 tion, among whom, the record declares, 
 were Dr. Muhlenberg's sister, his niece, 
 and some friends who were spending their 
 vacation at College Point, Long Island; 
 and when to these Dr. Muhlenberg 
 preached a sermon on "Jephtha's Vow," 
 with an appUcation glancing at the bless- 
 
edness ot giving one's self undividedly 
 to God's service,' neither he nor his audi- 
 ence guessed that his covert and guarded 
 suggestion would ultimately bear fruit in 
 the Sisterhood of the Holy Communion; 
 yet Anne Ayres, who was one of that 
 little congregation, lived to testify that 
 then and thereby she was inspired to take 
 the successive steps which, seven years 
 afterwards, in a different place and very 
 different circumstances, resulted in the 
 formation of the Sisterhood of the Holy 
 Communion. 
 
 I do not propose to attempt to-day a 
 biography of Sister Anne Ayres, nor to 
 dwell on the three main stages of her work 
 for Christ and his Church: first, in this 
 parish of the Holy Communion, which 
 gave the name to the sisterhood which 
 
 ' See "Life and Work of Dr. Muhlenberg," by Anne 
 Ayres, p. 189: New York, Thomas Whittaker. 
 
i6 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 she founded; second, in St. Luke's Hos- 
 pital; and last of aU, in St. Johnland. I 
 hardly think that she, from her place in 
 Paradise, would care to have me empha- 
 size, before God's altar, the days of the 
 years of her earthly pilgrimage, nor the 
 temporal and temporary aspects of her 
 labor, even though the monuments thereof 
 be as notable as these. Rather she would 
 have us express our thoughts of her this 
 morning in the words of the familiar 
 saint's day hymn: 
 
 "From all Thy saints in warfare, for all Thy saints at 
 rest, 
 
 To Thee, O blessed Jesus, all praises be addressed. 
 
 Thou, Lord, didst win the battle, that they might con- 
 querors be; 
 
 Their crowns of living glory are lit with rays from Thee." 
 
 And so, instead of dwelling on the de- 
 tails of her earthly service of our Master 
 and Saviour, I desire to bring out, if I 
 can, the salient motive, the inner spirit- 
 
uai meai wnicn acmatea ner, ana wmcn 
 rendered her service, in a sense, peculiar. 
 For at the epoch when her lifework began, 
 the duty which she undertook was, in a 
 true sense, peculiar, so far at least as our 
 Anglican Communion was concerned. It 
 was laid upon Anne Ayres to revive in 
 the Protestant Episcopal Church of the 
 United States of America the ancient 
 Catholic idea of woman's undivided ser- 
 vice for Christ and His Church, whether 
 in connection with the administration of 
 divine worship in God's house, or of works 
 of mercy, or of Christian education. If 
 you will read her biography of Dr. Muhlen- 
 berg with close attention from end to end, 
 you will finally perceive what the under- 
 lying idea of her own hfe was, and what 
 were the range and the atmosphere in 
 which her spirit moved; or if you are still 
 in some doubt about it, your doubts will 
 
i8 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 be dispelled when you peruse, in the 
 volume entitled "Evangelical Catholic 
 Papers," which Anne Ayres also edited, 
 Dr. Muhlenberg's essay on "Protestant 
 Sisterhoods." 
 
 In the history of the long, large life of 
 the Church Cathohc as a whole, the work 
 of women specially set apart for Christ's 
 service has assumed, in the main, one or 
 other of three forms: First there is the 
 work of the deaconess proper, which is, 
 in its main idea, individual and single; 
 even as that of each of the three orders 
 of the Christian ministry proper, bishops, 
 priests, and deacons, is, in its main idea, 
 individual and single; and the deaconess 
 is intended to be the workfellow and 
 assistant of some particular bishop, or, 
 under the bishop, of some parish priest 
 or rector. Secondly, there is the cor- 
 porate sisterhood, whereby a nimiber of 
 
women, each of whom is for her own part 
 consecrated individually to work for 
 Christ and His Church, go further and 
 band themselves together in an Order, 
 where there is careful, corporate disci- 
 pline, with a head and members, and a 
 central home, and a visible property, and 
 an organized rule partaking of the mili- 
 tary. Here the connection with some 
 parish priest or rector, and the obedience 
 to some bishop, is less complete and con- 
 tinuous; the idea of the order is paramount, 
 and each order of sisters is likely, in pro- 
 cess of time, to acquire an entity and 
 traditions of its own. Thirdly, besides 
 these two — the single deaconess on the 
 one hand, and the corporate sisterhood 
 on the other — the vocation of women 
 set apart to Christian work in the Church 
 has taken a form which partakes of the 
 characteristics of both of the others and 
 
20 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 is intermediary between them. Of this 
 third type of the service of women in 
 the Church the Kaiserswerth Deaconess 
 Association, as established by the Lu- 
 theran Pastor FHedner, affords the best 
 known example; although lately ia the 
 Church of England, associations of women 
 have arisen, calling themselves some- 
 times deaconesses, sometimes sisters, 
 which seem to be successful instances of 
 the same general method. In this third 
 type, while the idea of the corporation is 
 kept in the backgroimd, subordinate to 
 that of the deaconess or sister as an indi- 
 vidual servant of the Church for Christ's 
 sake, nevertheless there is a recognized 
 commimity, to which the individual be- 
 longs for a longer or shorter period; and 
 this community life entails the undoubted 
 advantages of mutual sympathy and sup- 
 port, and greater imity and efficiency in 
 
SISTER ANNE AYRES 21 
 
 action; the various individuals with vari- 
 ous gifts being held together under an 
 acknowledged leader of their own kind 
 and sex, so long as they choose to remain 
 together. Each of these three main forms 
 of woman's work in the Church has its 
 evident advantages, and each also its 
 drawbacks and dangers. And imderly- 
 ing each and all of them is this main ques- 
 tion to be settled: whether the woman's 
 dedication to her work shall be for a period 
 of time, at her own discretion, or for life 
 under a vow. Among Roman Catholics 
 some of the strictest conventual orders 
 take vows for definite periods, renewable 
 from time to time; and even where the 
 vow is meant to be for life, it is neverthe- 
 less in the power of the Pope or bishop 
 to give release. And, on the other hand, 
 in the case of the Protestant Deaconess 
 Association at Kaiserswerth, and of those 
 
2 2 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 associations in our Anglican Communion 
 which resemble it, although the vows are 
 in form renewable from time to time, 
 nevertheless the spirit, and the practical 
 ideals of the association, as now devel- 
 oped and crystallized, are such that the 
 individual members, even though they be 
 Lutherans, distinctly lose caste, and are 
 considered by their associates to have 
 fallen from their true profession, if they 
 give up the regular deaconess work and 
 marry, or go back into the secular world. 
 Now, as far as our own AngHcan Com- 
 mimion is concerned, no one who is famil- 
 iar with the history of the last sixty 
 years can fail to perceive that all these 
 three types of women-workers for Christ 
 and His Church have made themselves at 
 home among us. When Sister Anne 
 Ayres was first set apart by Dr. Muhlen- 
 berg one winter evening in this church 
 
where we are now gathered, after daily 
 service was over and the congregation 
 dispersed, and only the priest and the 
 postulant were left, she on her knees before 
 the chancel rail and he in his surplice 
 within, with the good old sexton as the 
 only witness, waiting to put out the lights 
 — when, I say. Sister Anne Ayres was 
 thus set apart, she evidently had in mind 
 to found an organized body of sisters not 
 unlike the Kaiserswerth deaconesses. And 
 such, on the whole and in a general way, 
 was the character of the association which 
 she did inaugurate, and which, changing 
 somewhat with the changing years, exists 
 to-day under the name of the Sisterhood 
 of the Holy Communion. Ere long, three 
 of those who were at first associated thus, 
 desiring a stricter, closer, and more for- 
 mal organization, left the Sisterhood of 
 the Holy Communion and founded the 
 
24 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 Sisterhood of St. Mary, whose noble work 
 has likewise been widely recognized and 
 blest throughout oxu: Church in this coim- 
 try and beyond it. Meanwhile, Sister 
 Anne Ayres followed Dr. Muhlenberg him- 
 self first to St. Luke's Hospital and after- 
 ward to St. Johnland; and, though she 
 stUl worked more or less as one of the 
 Sisters of the Holy Communion, never- 
 theless, by reason of her practical inde- 
 pendence, she in effect reverted in later 
 years to what New Testament scholars 
 regard as probably the most primitive 
 of all the tjTpes of woman's formal min- 
 istry in the Christian Church, namely, 
 the single deaconess, like Phoebe com- 
 mended of St. Paul. Anne Ayres was 
 not called by this name of deaconess, for 
 she was still known as Sister Anne, and 
 was often side by side with her old asso- 
 ciates; nevertheless, her actual work, in 
 
Its comparative separateness and single- 
 ness, its dependence on the single pastor 
 alone, and in other regards easily distin- 
 guishable — her actual work was rather 
 like that which is now conducted under 
 our recent Canon of Deaconesses. And 
 in this Anne A3T:es was following not 
 merely the leading of circumstances, but 
 the final bent of Dr. Muhlenberg's mind, 
 and doubtless of her own. 
 
 Whatever their original intention may 
 have been in 1845, the ultimate feeling 
 as to the work they wished to prosecute 
 is clearly expressed in Dr. Muhlenberg's 
 paper on "Protestant Sisterhoods," which 
 was issued in 1852 : 
 
 "When the Sisterhood degenerates it wiU 
 come to an end. It depends for its continu- 
 ance wholly upon the continuance of the 
 zeal which called it into being. The unit- 
 ing principle among its members is their 
 
26 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 common affection for the object which has 
 brought them together; but there is no con- 
 straint from without on the part of the 
 Church, nor any from within, in the form of 
 religious vows or promises to one another, 
 to insure their freedom of conscience as indi- 
 viduals. Not that they hold themselves 
 ever ready to adjourn. Each and all feel 
 that they have entered upon a sacred ser- 
 vice, which they are at Hberty to quit only 
 at the demand of duty elsewhere. Hand- 
 maidens of the Lord, waiting upon his good 
 pleasure, they are not anxious for the future, 
 content to leave it in His hands. We want 
 no combinations, no v/idespread order of 
 charity, under one head or Church control, 
 nor in any way capable of holding property 
 in their own right." 
 
 Such was Sister Anne's view of her 
 vocation; and it was in strict keeping with 
 the above quoted sentiments that when 
 the course of years, duty, as she believed, 
 called her less and less to associate work, 
 and more and more to individual work, 
 
she lived more as a single worker. Far 
 be it from you or me, my brethren, to 
 say that one of these types of workers 
 that I have mentioned is better or more 
 useful than the others. Himian nature 
 has many sides, and opportimities for 
 Church work vary in their aspects and 
 demands. The wind of God, the Holy 
 Spirit that moves individual soids to this 
 task or to that, bloweth where it listeth; 
 and thou hearest the sound thereof, but 
 canst not tell whence it cometh or whither 
 it goeth. Our Church in these last fifty 
 years has found a place and function for 
 each of these methods of work; and noble 
 and notable results have been accom- 
 plished by aU these types of laborers in 
 the vineyard. Some women are called 
 of God to one of these vocations, some to 
 another; and, under certain safeguards 
 which history and experience suggest, 
 
28 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 all of these ministries are likely to be 
 wanted in the future, as they have been 
 in the past. Each type has its strong 
 points and its weak points, its peculiar 
 disabilities and limitations, and each its 
 own reward — the "name that no man 
 knoweth, save he that receiveth it." 
 
 But my duty to-day is a simple one: 
 to single out and emphasize the partic- 
 ular type of character and of task which 
 belonged to this woman whose noble 
 name we distinguish for commemoration, 
 and the tablet to whose memory we 
 to-day unveil. And what I desire to say 
 in conclusion is this: I chose my text 
 because it suggested, as I believe, the 
 key-note of the character of Sister Anne 
 Ayres. Just in proportion as our work 
 for Christ is a separate and single work, 
 not supported by definite and indissoluble 
 ties to some large organization, just in 
 
SISTER ANNE AVRES 29 
 
 that proportion, if we are to succeed and 
 to persevere, do we need to realize what 
 our text expresses — the absolute near- 
 ness of God to the soul, and the absolute 
 dependence of each single soul on God. 
 "All live unto Him." "My soul hangeth 
 on Thee." Here is where the reaUy de- 
 vout Romanist and the reaUy devout 
 Protestant meet on common ground — 
 John Bxmyan, and John Wesley, and John 
 Keble, with Xavier and Loyola and Fran- 
 gois de Sales and Fenelon. You may 
 criticise these men, for they were human; 
 you may differ from them, for they were 
 fallible; but you cannot deny that, one 
 and all, they were permeated through and 
 through by the consciousness of God our 
 Father; that day by day and hour by hour 
 they "looked to Him." And such, too, 
 was Anne Ayres. This it was which 
 enabled her to be true to her vocation up 
 
30 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 to the very end without resting on those 
 outward helps of association and daily 
 rule which most of us require to keep us 
 straight and true. It seemed as if she 
 never met a human being, without first 
 saying secretly to herself that ejacula- 
 tion of the saint: "In whatsoever way 
 Thou wiliest, bind me faster to Thee." 
 In her was manifested the power of the 
 personal recollection of God to reinforce 
 and fructify the other powers of mankind; 
 and there lay the secret of her pervasive 
 influence over her fellows. Other people 
 might tell them, but she first made them 
 feel that for each and all of us there is 
 but one life to live, and that directly with 
 God. "As the eyes of a maiden unto the 
 hand of her mistress, so her eyes looked 
 unto the Lord her God." 
 
THE REVEREND MORGAN DIX 
 
THE REVEREND MORGAN DIX 
 
 On Saturday, May 2, a.d. igo8, at a 
 meeting of the Clergy who were present 
 at the funeral of the Rev'd Morgan 
 Dix, S.T.D., LL.D., D.C.L., late Rector 
 of Trinity Church, New York, the un- 
 dersigned were appointed by the Rt. 
 Rev'd David H. Greer, D.D., Bishop 
 Coadjutor of the Diocese, as a Com- 
 mittee to draft resolutions or a Minute, 
 expressive of the feelings of those pres- 
 ent and of those unavoidably absent, in 
 view of our recent bereavement.' What 
 we say can but imperfectly convey an 
 idea of the depth of the impression made 
 
 ' The names of the Conunittee were: 
 
 William T. Manning, 
 William R. Huntington, 
 J. Lewis Pabks, 
 George William Douglas, 
 William M. Grosvenor. 
 
34 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 by the sudden departure of this distin- 
 guished man, who was also to many of 
 us brother, pastor, and friend. Events 
 of this importance call forth more than 
 the grief naturally caused by the visit of 
 death to the house: they shock men by 
 the consciousness that a treasure jointly 
 owned by large numbers has been taken 
 from their hands, and that a force potent 
 for good throughout the community has 
 been withdrawn to a higher sphere. He , 
 whom we have lost may be said to have 
 belonged to the whole Church, and to the 
 people at large; he was a link whereby 
 men of divers names and vocations and 
 origin were united, in one way or another, 
 in the great household of God which is 
 larger than any parish, or city, or diocese, 
 and even than any nation. 
 
 We think of him first as a representa- 
 tive of the Diocese of New York in the 
 
REVEREND MORGAN DIX 35 
 
 General Convention of our American 
 Church, where for years he presided in 
 the House of Deputies with rare dignity, 
 courtesy, and justice; and with that char- 
 acteristic intellectual poise and spiritual 
 detachment which commanded the con- 
 fidence and regard of his associates. Al- 
 though in matters ecclesiastical he was a 
 man of strong personal convictions evi- 
 dent to aU, no one could accuse him of 
 unfair partisanship in the presidential 
 chair, and poUtical wire-puUing was to 
 him impossible. Even when gainsaying 
 an antagonist, his opposition did not leave 
 a sting, — so much so, that in his later 
 years many of his theological opponents, 
 in our Communion and in other Commun- 
 ions, struck hands with him in a feeling 
 of true fellowship, having learned from 
 him a lesson of agreement in contro- 
 versy, and of tolerant devotion to the com- 
 
36 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 mon cause which it is never too late to 
 learn. As a debater in the Convention 
 his speech was always weighty; for his 
 thought was clear and his words were 
 few, though charged, when necessary, 
 with a fire that was none the less effec- 
 tive because it was kept down. And 
 these same traits had long previously 
 manifested themselves in the councils 
 and committees of the Diocese of New 
 York, and in all the various organiza- 
 tions, educational, civic, and eleemosy- 
 nary, of which he was a member. To 
 many of these as Rector of Trinity Church 
 he belonged e% officio; but he brought to 
 them not merely the prestige of his great 
 position, but the influence of his high 
 personal character, of his regularity and 
 faithfulness. 
 
 We think of him next as Rector of the 
 mother church of New York, the most 
 
REVEREND MORGAN DIX 37 
 
 important parish in this country, whose 
 wealth, inherited from earlier days and a 
 different national regime, has rendered 
 the corporation of "The Rector, War- 
 dens, and Vestrymen of Trinity Church, 
 New York," the most potent parochial 
 organization, for good or evil, in the world. 
 When Morgan Dix became its Rector two 
 generations ago, although this parish was 
 even then relatively a power in the land, 
 it was, from the standpoint of our time, 
 "the day of small things." Dr. Dix 
 came to it in the truest sense a citizen to 
 the manner bom; representing the best 
 results so far of the social, academic, and 
 professional culture of this community. 
 With the exception of less than three 
 years, he had lived his life and done his 
 work as a school-boy, as a collegian, as 
 a seminarian, and as an ecclesiastic, in 
 the city of New York; whereas among his 
 
38 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 most noted contemporaries few were city 
 born. It is proverbial that the sons of 
 rich men and of great men seldom enhance 
 the station which they inherit; but Dr. 
 Dix added ten talents to his inherited ten, 
 and that in full view of the community 
 which held in recollection his father's 
 record of civic and personal distinction. 
 In the words of the Psalmist, "God heard 
 his vows, and gave him the heritage of 
 those that fear God's name." The faith 
 which dwelt first in his father and his 
 mother was in him also, — a blessed pre- 
 destination to the life of faith, to which 
 he was not disobedient in the patient, 
 laborious years of a long career. To the 
 end his early home explained him; yet he 
 outgrew it as a strong man should, grow- 
 ing from strength to strength; although 
 the sweet memories of it, and the sense 
 of the everlasting value of the home, 
 
REVEREND MORGAN DIX 39 
 
 clung to him. As a boy he knew the joys 
 of social refinement and ample means, 
 the wit and wisdom of the intellectual life 
 fraught with historic associations. He 
 had behind him a strong mother and a 
 patriotic father who, between them, cre- 
 ated an atmosphere for their son, wherein 
 the quaUty of the scholar and the artist 
 blended with something of the soldier 
 who feared God but not man, and imder- 
 stood that duty is stern. His father was 
 a public man, and it was an industrious 
 home, with the same habits of quiet punc- 
 tuality which were afterward to character- 
 ize the Rector of Trinity Parish throughout 
 his life. Fond of frolic with his inti- 
 mates, and possessed of abounding humor 
 to oil the wheels of labor, young Dix 
 seemed nevertheless from the start to be 
 enlisted like a soldier to accept as a matter 
 of course the tasks of a vast routine. For 
 
40 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 little things and great things he was alike 
 conscientiously responsible, and wonderful 
 for equanimity and quiet nerves. 
 
 Upon the Christian Ministry he entered 
 with evident awe, and a certain conse- 
 quent severity is visible in the portrait 
 of him by Huntington, painted after the 
 full rectorship of Trinity Parish had been 
 laid upon his shoulders. From that day 
 forward his influence radiated from the 
 posts whence the true priest's influence 
 always radiates: the altar and the pulpit. 
 Whatever Morgan Dix was elsewhere 
 began from what he was in the pulpit 
 and at the altar. No breath of scandal- 
 ous suspicion, no attribution of wrong 
 motives ever tarnished his name. He 
 bore the message, and he had the mind of 
 Christ. Over in England, in those days 
 — the days that followed the Tractarian 
 Movement — it was said of Oxford that 
 
REVEREND MORGAN DIX 41 
 
 the most remarkable thing about it was 
 not the architecture and traditions, but 
 the nimiber of men you met in the streets 
 and quadrangles whom you knew to be 
 unworldly, "setting their affections on 
 things above, not on things on the earth"; 
 and such was the inevitable impression 
 that Dr. Dix made on aU who knew him. 
 A lady who at that period met him, 
 vmobserved, as he was walking his accus- 
 tomed way to his ofl&ce of a weekday, 
 said of him, "Ah, you can see in his 
 face that he is determined to keep the 
 devil down." He had a profound sense 
 of the supernatural. And to this was 
 added the inimitable impression of intel- 
 lectual and moral certainty, of religious 
 conviction. "He knew Whom he had 
 believed." While many of his contempo- 
 raries were shifting their theological posi- 
 tions from time to time under the stress 
 
42 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 of new influences, early in his ministry 
 he took his position promptly, and kept 
 it thereafter on the whole. Standing on 
 what he felt was a theological terra firma, 
 he did his best work and dealt his best 
 blows at an age when most clergymen 
 are beating the air; and always his pre- 
 dominating zeal was for the glory of God 
 and the salvation of souls. His real 
 work in those days was his cure of 
 souls, in which he developed an intense 
 spiritual energy; and, besides this, to 
 vindicate for oiu* American Church her 
 title-deeds as a child of the mother 
 Church of England, and thereby her 
 title to the inheritance, the spirit, and 
 the aims and obUgations of the Church 
 Catholic and Apostolic, wherein we afl&rm 
 our belief in the Creeds. To Dr. Dix's 
 mind the Via Media of the Oxford Trac- 
 tarians was not a theory, but a fact, pre- 
 
REVEREND MORGAN DIX 43 
 
 served in our Prayer Book and realized 
 among us. He was sure that the An- 
 gUcan Church went into the crucible of 
 the Reformation as the Church of Eng- 
 land, and came out of it as the Church 
 of England, and planted afterward in 
 America this Church of ours as a true 
 daughter of the ancient stock. There- 
 fore when he spoke of the CathoUc 
 Church and churchmen of earher ages — 
 of a Leo, or a Gregory, or an Augustine, 
 or a Chrysostom — it was as of his own 
 forbears in the ministry of Christ to 
 men. His mind was attuned to Holy 
 Scripture as expounded by the early 
 Fathers, and their prayers and the early 
 Liturgies fell naturally from his lips, — 
 so naturally, that there was no book of 
 private devotions which he preferred to 
 Bishop Andrewes's in the original Greek 
 and Latin, where the expressions of the 
 
44 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 Scriptures and the Fathers and the 
 Liturgies are fused in one. Withal he 
 had an innate sense of law. He never 
 practised any ritual which he did not 
 beheve to be lawful in this land and 
 Church of ours, and his supreme care was 
 for the beauty of holiness. No one could 
 doubt that who ever heard him pray. By 
 the bedside of the sick he might at first 
 sight be esteemed somewhat cold and 
 reserved, a trifle constrained in manner; 
 but when he fell upon his knees aU that 
 passed away, and there came into his 
 voice in prayer a beseeching, penetrating 
 tone which, once heard, could never be 
 forgotten. Then you knew that Dr. Dix 
 watched for souls, as they that must give 
 account. And, unlike many clergymen, he 
 was able to carry this same beseeching, 
 penetrating tone into his rendering of the 
 public prayers, so that his intoning of the 
 
REVEREND MORGAN DIX 45 
 
 Church Service was a model in its easy 
 naturahiess and sweetness. He did not 
 "sing," he "said" the prayers, in the true 
 sense of the old Prayer Book rubric. And 
 the rare recollection of mind and concen- 
 tration of spirit with which he celebrated 
 Holy Communion made one feel as if 
 so it must have been said in the Cata- 
 combs by the martyrs, ere they went forth 
 to the lions. When he entered the pul- 
 pit there was something of the same. 
 Bishop Hobart in the pulpit of Trinity 
 Church had rendered the former style of 
 conventional eloquence impossible; and 
 when Dr. Dix followed him, after an inter- 
 val, through all the pulpits of the parish 
 the knell of the old embroidered sermon 
 was sounded. Alike in the chapels and 
 the mother church the effect was notice- 
 able on all his assistants of the terse, 
 incisive beauty of the Rector's style and 
 
46 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 his English undefiled. No man in Amer- 
 ica could make words serve him with finer 
 skill than Morgan Dix, and to those who 
 knew the Enghsh tongue and literature 
 his sentences were packed with subtle 
 allusions and references that were a con- 
 stant charm even on the printed page; 
 but when he spoke from the pulpit there 
 was, when he was at his best, the added 
 power of a voice that could be resonant 
 and sharp with reprobation, or full of 
 melody and tenderest appeal. Withal he 
 possessed the power of the true judge's 
 charge to the jury; his statement of the 
 case was the best of arguments. 
 
 It is impossible in this Minute to tell 
 the story of his multiform activities, or 
 even to allude to all of them, or to the 
 books he published. We have dwelt 
 rather on his more personal traits of char- 
 acter, for another generation will know 
 
REVEREND MORGAN DIX 47 
 
 nothing of these; but we have known 
 them, and now we feel their loss. Men- 
 tion must at least be made of his work in 
 promoting the organization of the Sisters 
 of St. Mary, whose director he was for 
 years, and for whom he composed the 
 Book of Hours, which of its kind is a land- 
 mark in this country, and indicates the 
 range and accuracy of Dr. Dix's Hturgical 
 knowledge and taste. Dr. Muhlenberg 
 had led the way, and had developed the 
 idea of Sisterhoods up to a certain point; 
 but it was chiefly Dr. Dix, with the sanc- 
 tion of Bishop Horatio Potter and the 
 weight of Trinity Church, who reaUy 
 secured for Sisters, in the conventual 
 sense of the term, a place and a hearing in 
 our American Church. For scholarship 
 proper he had Uttle time, though the 
 disposition and tools of the scholar were 
 amply his; and in his earher ministry his 
 
48 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 published commentaries on St. Paul's 
 Epistles to the Romans, Galatians, and 
 Colossians gave testimony to his bent. 
 He was often in those days the object of 
 scurrilous abuse, and was accused of 
 Romanizing; whereas in fact he gave to 
 Tractarianism a steady base in America, 
 and proved once more the truth of the 
 observation that few who studied the 
 Scriptures deeply have gone over from 
 our Communion to the Church of Rome. 
 For the improvement of Church Music, 
 and the progress among us of the Choral 
 Service, he did more than will ever be 
 known; for into this, in his unobtrusive 
 way, he threw the whole influence and the 
 resources of his parish; and somehow 
 many clergymen and laymen, who would 
 not have Uked such music or such methods 
 for themselves, seemed to feel that it was 
 well and proper for Trinity Parish to show 
 
REVEREND MORGAN DIX 49 
 
 what might be done in that line if anybody 
 had the means and a mind to. 
 
 When he came to his parish in 1862, 
 besides Trinity Church there were only 
 St. Paul's and St. John's and Trinity 
 Chapel; with their Churchyards which, 
 when there was a move to sell them as 
 valuable real estate, his ardent sense of 
 the Christian's duty to the dead enabled 
 him to have preserved as silent witnesses, 
 amidst this world's business, to our faith 
 in the Ufe of the world to come. But al- 
 though Dr. Dix's administration was thus 
 conservative, he was keen to perceive that 
 the main task of a rich church should be 
 among the poor. Not only did he, as 
 Assistant Rector, reside in a house in 
 Hubert Street among the poor; not only 
 did he, as Rector, insist for many years 
 on living in the old Varick Street Rectory 
 long after that neighborhood had been 
 
so ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 deserted by the fashionable; not only did 
 he find his greatest happiness in his day- 
 school and Sunday-school and house-to- 
 house visiting among the poor ; but during 
 his rectorship it began to be his vestry's 
 policy to establish new mission chapels, 
 besides Trinity Chapel and St. Agnes' 
 which ministered rather to the well-to-do. 
 Hence arose St. Chrysostom's and St. 
 Augustine's Chapels; and St. Cornelius' 
 for the soldiers on Governor's Island; 
 while All Saints', Henry Street, and St. 
 Luke's, Hudson Street, and finally the 
 Church of the Intercession far uptown, 
 were one by one taken under Trinity's 
 fostering care. Meanwhile the chancel 
 of Trinity Church was enlarged and beau- 
 tified by the Astor-memorial reredos; 
 St Paul's and St. John's Chapels were 
 renovated and embellished; and the old 
 Rectory in Varick Street was transformed 
 
REVEREND MORGAN DIX 51 
 
 into a Hospital, as the condition on which 
 the Rector would consent to move up- 
 town to the new Rectory adjacent to 
 Trinity Chapel. Dr. Dix's personal gifts 
 to charitable objects were unstinted, but 
 little published: his own left hand hardly 
 knew what his right hand did. Further- 
 more, in the progress of the years, much 
 of what is now known as the Settlement 
 idea of parish work was anticipated in 
 Trinity Mission House and the oper- 
 ations of the Trinity Church Association. 
 These works do follow him. Now that 
 he has been withdrawn from us, by 
 these his monuments shall we renew our 
 memories of him with respect and admi- 
 ration and the tender regard that belong 
 to one who was faithful in the oppor- 
 tunities of a manifold career, cahn under 
 frequent misunderstandings and misrep- 
 resentations, courageous in adversity, and 
 
52 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 most beloved by those who knew him 
 best. 
 
 The home circle is sacred: we may not 
 there intrude. But it is a matter of com- 
 mon knowledge that all children took to 
 him instinctively, and he loved their ways, 
 fuU of the spirit of Ahce in Wonderland. 
 By his talents for drawing with pen and 
 pencil, and of musical improvisation, he 
 was able to engage the fancy of all child- 
 like spirits, young or old. With his wife 
 and children we sympathize in their sor- 
 row, praying that both they and we, 
 with him who has gone before to Para- 
 dise, may be found at last in Christ, heirs 
 together of the grace of life. 
 
 Brethren, the time is short. The hues 
 which Copernicus traced for his own 
 tombstone were a favorite prayer of 
 Dr. Dix's, and they furnish for ourselves 
 a fitting close to this insufl&cient sketch 
 
REVEREND MORGAN DIX 53 
 
 of the great and noble soul, our brother 
 in the Ministry, who has gone to his last 
 account: 
 
 Non parem Pauli gratiam require, 
 Veniam Petri neque posco, sed quam 
 In Crucis ligno dederas latroni 
 Sedulus oro. 
 
THE REVEREND WILLIAM REED 
 HUNTINGTON, D.D., D.C.L., L.H.D. 
 
THE REVEREND WILLIAM REED 
 HUNTINGTON, D.D., D.C.L., L.H.D.i 
 
 The undersigned,! a Committee ap- 
 pointed by the Bishop of New York to 
 draft a Minute on the death of the 
 Rev. William Reed Himtington, D.D., 
 D.C.L., L.H.D., late rector of Grace 
 Church, New York, cannot find words 
 to express the thoughts and feeUngs 
 which crowd for utterance. To his 
 mourning family we offer our heartfelt 
 sjonpathy; and there is a general sense 
 of emptiness, not only in the diocese of 
 New York, but in our whole American 
 
 1 Obituary Minute adopted by the Committee of 
 Clergymen appointed by the Bishop of New York. The 
 names of the Committee were: 
 
 George William Douglas, 
 
 William T. Manning, 
 
 J. Lewis Paeks, 
 
 Eknest M. Stires, 
 
 CoRNELTOS B. Smith. 
 
S8 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 Church, now that this great man is 
 gone. For his was a personahty singu- 
 larly exuberant in natural gifts of intel- 
 lect and spirit; moreover, the grace of 
 God abounded in him. He was great 
 as a seer and prophet; as an organizer 
 and administrator; as an ecclesiastical 
 statesman; as a master of the Enghsh 
 tongue, thinking incisively and speaking 
 winged words, most powerful in parha- 
 mentary debate; as a pastor of troubled 
 souls; as a friend of his fellows, faithful 
 to the uttermost. He never shirked a 
 burden which belonged to him, and he 
 shared unselfishly the burdens of many 
 others. His long career was marked by 
 rare consistency: one always knew where 
 to find him. Keenly alive to the weak- 
 nesses of men and the evils of the day, he 
 was nevertheless no pessimist; rather he 
 was persistently hopeful of men and things, 
 
WILLIAM REED HUNTINGTON 59 
 
 and at three-score and ten he was still 
 ready for vast enterprises, manifesting in 
 manifold activities his unique resource- 
 fulness. 
 
 In social intercourse his humor and alert 
 intellectuahty were sweetened by the 
 gentleness of spirit which was never 
 quite hidden beneath his mantle of nat- 
 ural reserve. He did not ask for sym- 
 pathy, but was quick to extend it to all 
 who opened to him a tnily troubled 
 heart. Sincere himself to the very core, 
 he elicited sincerity from every one with 
 whom he had to do; and many who had 
 felt in him something of the shrewd 
 Puritan, bred in the nipping and the eager 
 air of Eastern Massachusetts, foimd in 
 Dr. Himtington, when sorrow fell upon 
 them, a pastor of souls whose touch was 
 like an angel of mercy. 
 
 He wovild not wish us to dwell here on 
 
6o ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 the achievements of his life, so uncom- 
 monly successful, so thorough in its serv- 
 ice. But at least mention must be made 
 of his work in the General Convention for 
 the enrichment of the Prayer Book, and 
 for its more flexible use; of his Kfelong 
 zeal for Church imity; of his splendid 
 part in the upbuilding of the New York 
 cathedral; and of the exhibition, in and 
 through his great parish, of what the "In- 
 stitutional Church" might be when the 
 proper man and the proper circumstances 
 meet, and there is the strength of wiU 
 not to let worship be overborne by clubs 
 and classes. 
 
 It was a characteristic act of his when, 
 at the period of Hfe fixed in his mind 
 beforehand, he tendered his resignation 
 as rector of Grace Church. In his own 
 lion-heart he did not feel superannuated; 
 but if his Vestry thought that his day was 
 
WILLIAM REED HUNTINGTON 6i 
 
 done, he was willing to retire. And when 
 they signified their unwillingness to let 
 him go, with the gladsome energy of inte- 
 rior conviction he buckled on his harness 
 once again. Equally characteristic was his 
 use of the fund which, at this jimcture, 
 was raised for him as a personal testi- 
 monial from admiring parishioners. A 
 stranger to the situation and the man 
 might have deemed it ungracious on his 
 part to decline to use the income of that 
 fimd for himself, so long as he was able 
 to continue at his post; but his friends 
 recognized that it was simply the sternly 
 conscientious Christian man — with a 
 touch of the old Puritan in him coming out 
 once more in the sweet guise of self-denial 
 — refusing to divert to his personal 
 comfort, even if deserved, the largess 
 of his people, which, in his judgment, 
 would be better devoted to God's poor. 
 
62 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 That one act of his, m its rigid charitable- 
 ness, wrought more for the cause of Christ 
 in this community than many larger 
 bounties more widely advertised. 
 
 In any account of him one trait can- 
 not be passed over: his instinctive fac- 
 ulty for leading men. Real leadership is 
 rare. Most men, it has been remarked, 
 enjoy the luxury of being commandeered 
 in thought and action. But every now 
 and then a man appears who is born to 
 lead. The man himself could not tell 
 how he does it. He simply is. And some- 
 how, even if his associates at times mis- 
 trust his judgment, they find positive 
 deHght in following him notwithstanding. 
 Who lives shall see the end of the mat- 
 ter; but this man feels sure beforehand, 
 and never quails. He does not accom- 
 pUsh his effects by ingenuity or subtlety, 
 or by the arts of petty diplomacy; but in 
 
WILLIAM REED HUNTINGTON 63 
 
 broad, sudden ways he does what he wants 
 and says what he means, and chooses 
 from his followers the right man for the 
 right place, and goes ahead. You may not 
 say that he possesses this or that single 
 quality conspicuously; you may rather 
 say that of some of those who co-operate 
 with him as his deputies. But although 
 the deputies may even seem to surpass 
 the master in separate qualities of brain 
 or of morale, nevertheless he dominates 
 and guides, and in his presence dissent is 
 seldom audible. Not that he has an over- 
 weening and disagreeable ambition to 
 impress himseK, but there is an aura of 
 personality about the master which sUences 
 opposition and secures compliance and 
 fealty. This is sometimes so even if the 
 leader be not a supremely good man; but 
 when genuine goodness is superadded to 
 the rest, then the effect is beyond compare. 
 
64 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 And such was Dr. Huntington. What 
 rendered him, as a leader, most difl&cult 
 to withstand, was his intrepid righteous- 
 ness. Those who opposed him were 
 obliged to feel that their own desires 
 must be purged of much dross before 
 they could compete with his. His strength 
 was as the strength of ten, because his 
 heart was pure. It was his uncommon 
 personal integrity, his entire truthfulness, 
 that fused in him what to many seemed 
 to be the contradictory tendencies of his 
 temperament, radical and conservative. 
 On the one hand, he could not bear that 
 men of the present should halt and stumble 
 over the rubbish of the past; and this 
 made him radical in the eyes of some. 
 On the other hand, he had too keen a 
 sense of the continuity and vital force 
 of human history, and of ecclesiastical 
 institutions, to be willing to break rashly 
 
WILLIAM REED HUNTINGTON 65 
 
 with real traditions; so that he often sur- 
 prised by his conservatism people who 
 expected him to be radical. Yet both 
 radicals and conservatives, when they 
 were personally thrown with this great 
 leader, ended by applying to him the say- 
 ing of the prophet Micah : " He hath shewed 
 thee, man, what is good." 
 
 He saw men and things always in the 
 mirror of eternity, and therefore he was 
 a man of prayer. From the pulpit of 
 Grace Church he made his hearers feel 
 that they were set apart awhile from 
 the flowing of time, and were dealing 
 with the Hfe that shall always be. We 
 • ■ must find our minimiun of faith not out- 
 side of us, but in us; not in the old learn- 
 ing or experience of others, nor in any 
 science outside of us to-day, but withia 
 the heart of whatever science or experi- 
 ence we have made or own. He would 
 
66 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 shake religion from its wrappings for us. 
 
 New York will be a different place 
 without him. We want these pubUc souls 
 — men who, as Carlyle says, know God 
 otherwise than by hearsay, and can 
 tell us what divine work is actually to be 
 done here and now in the streets of New 
 York, and not of a different work which 
 behooved to be done in old Judea — men 
 of whom no infidel would ever think what 
 Voltaire is reported to have said of the 
 preacher MassUlon: "It is in vain you 
 try to preach to me, for you are not 
 really my enemy." Dr. Huntington, like 
 the rest of us, was overwhelmed by the 
 awful mystery of Hfe and death, of past 
 and present and the world to come; yet 
 in it all there was for him but one control- 
 ling question : What is the mind of Christ 
 about it? and what the great, unresting, 
 merciful Heart of the Universe? Dr. 
 
WILLIAM REED HUNTINGTON 67 
 
 Huntington was sure that Jesus knows: 
 that whoso hath seen Him hath seen the 
 Father; and that by His life we have the 
 Hght of the knowledge of the glory of God 
 in the face of Jesus Christ. Therefore 
 with the absorption of a tireless, effect- 
 ive man, as a disciple of Jesus, loving the 
 work more than the rewards, he went 
 about doing good; and his works do fol- 
 low him. He might have been a bishop; 
 but he preferred to lead from lower down; 
 and from his metropoHtan parish his influ- 
 ence penetrated to the comers of our com- 
 monwealth, and far beyond. His vision 
 was so vast of the possibilities of religion 
 in our time that he could not but be im- 
 selfish: he would not keep for himself 
 what was meant for mankind. For him 
 human life, in Church and out of Church, 
 is a perpetual education in living with 
 God and loving God; and to be alive to 
 
68 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 beautiful things and do heroic deeds — 
 to smile and suffer and forbear; to choose 
 what is hard rather than what is easy, 
 and what is pure rather than impure, 
 here on earth for a little while — is to 
 perform the first act of that everlasting 
 drama which is eternal hfe with God. 
 So, as he spoke to us and acted in our midst, 
 we could see the gandia certaminis in his 
 face; as when, in Tennyson's allegory of 
 the Round Table, Sir Galahad answers 
 to the protests of his king, who would 
 withhold him from his arduous quest: 
 
 "But I, Sir Arthur, saw the Holy Grail. 
 I saw the Holy Grail, and heard a cry — 
 O Galahad, and O Galahad, follow me." 
 
THE RIGHT REVEREND HENRY 
 CODMAN POTTER 
 
 SEVENTH BISHOP OF NEW YORK 
 
THE RIGHT REVEREND HENRY 
 CODMAN POTTER 
 
 On Tuesday, September 15, 1908, at a 
 regular quarterly meeting of the Chapter 
 of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 
 New York, the undersigned ^ were ap- 
 pointed a Committee to draft a Minute 
 expressive of the Chapter's feelings in 
 view of the death of our Bishop, the 
 Rt. Rev. Henry Codman Potter, D.D., 
 LL.D., D.C.L., at Cooperstown, N.Y., 
 on Tuesday, July 21.' 
 
 The shock of his death came to the 
 members of our Chapter at a season when 
 we were widely scattered, yet the lapse of 
 time has but made us more conscious of 
 
 ' The names of the Committee were: 
 
 George F. Nelson, 
 George William Douglas, 
 Ernest Voorhis. 
 
72 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 the difl&culty of giving adequate expres- 
 sion to the sentiments that fill our hearts. 
 For Bishop Potter was no ordinary man — 
 no ordinary ecclesiastic. He was cast 
 in a large mould, with a robust personal- 
 ity distinctly his own; as has been amply 
 declared by the numerous letters and tes- 
 timonials, from home and abroad, which 
 have been published concerning him. 
 It is not the duty of this Cathedral 
 Chapter to attempt to trace the outlines 
 of his long, laborious, and successful life, 
 whether as pastor, as preacher, as secre- 
 tary of the House of Bishops, as assistant 
 bishop, or as the ecclesiastical head of 
 this most important and difl&cult diocese, 
 which requires a greater variety of epis- 
 copal abilities than any other in our Amer- 
 ican Church. Beginning his career in 
 the counting-house of a mercantile con- 
 cern in Philadelphia, early in life he 
 
REV. HENRY CODMAN POTTER 73 
 
 turned of his own accord to the calling of a 
 Christian minister; for which, beside the 
 preparation of his distinguished parent- 
 age, he had, as the sequel showed, a 
 distinct vocation of his own from Jesus 
 Christ, the Shepherd and Bishop of our 
 souls. And on everything that he touched 
 from youth to old age he left his mark. 
 Endowed with rare social gifts, aristo- 
 cratic in his tastes and of cultured breed- 
 ing, he was heartily democratic in his 
 s)mapathies, with a strong sense of civic 
 duty guided and controlled by his con- 
 sciousness of responsibility as an ambas- 
 sador of Christ. As shown by his Yale 
 Lectiures on "The Citizen in his Relation 
 to the Industrial Situation," he despised 
 the spirit of social caste; and the ideal of 
 social brotherhood aroused his energies 
 to practical effect throughout his min- 
 istry. To his mind, this was a part of 
 
74 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 his prophetic function. Although, as has 
 been well said of him, he loved to be alone 
 with his Bible and Prayer Book, brood- 
 ing over life's mysteries and problems; 
 although, wise man that he was, he was 
 reticent of much that his large heart and 
 fair mind knew of the backwaters and 
 eddies of hiunan enterprise and morality; 
 although he denied himself many an oppor- 
 tunity to teU aU that he beUeved to be 
 true, and much that was dear to him, — 
 nevertheless in times of political emer- 
 gency, national or local, and in moments 
 of social derangement, he was never silent 
 when speech from him was really called 
 for, and he had an intense sense of social 
 compunction. All through his life lay- 
 men who were in close companionship 
 with him set singular value on his friend- 
 ship and felt the spell of his personal 
 charm; and there are obscure country 
 
REV. HENRY CODMAN POTTER 75 
 
 homes and rectories where his visits were 
 an event, as the coming of one who, 
 though he was a citizen of the great world 
 of which they saw Uttle, yet found their 
 simple firesides so truly interesting that 
 they miss him now. He always aimed to 
 get so in touch with every man, and with 
 every party of men, that they might be 
 sure of his sympathy as their father in 
 God, who entered into their life. He 
 never tried to hide the breadth and vigor 
 of his natiu-al tastes, his simple enjoyment 
 of God's world; but all men could see that 
 he held himself in the leash of self-denial, 
 wearing the yoke of Christ. It was felt 
 that he really sought to use this world, 
 as not abusing it; for the fashion of this 
 world passeth away. Masterful by nat- 
 ural disposition, and possessed during his 
 manifold career of many opportimities of 
 mastery, he tried faithfuUy to rule by love, 
 
76 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 and by the power of good judgment and 
 the patient expectation of good will on 
 the part of those with whom he had to 
 do. With the statesman's genius for 
 perceiving the time-spirit — the momen- 
 tary reactions and tendencies of men and 
 things which no mere man can stem — 
 he would qmckly take the lead when he 
 saw opportunities of civic usefulness for 
 those who caU themselves Christians; 
 with the result that the Bishop of New 
 York became, during his episcopate, a 
 more potent factor than ever before in 
 this community of vast organizations and 
 strong individualities. In him the per- 
 sonality promoted the ofl&ce, and the ofl&ce 
 sanctioned the personality. Beside the 
 influence of his charm and irapressiveness 
 in personal intercourse, he was an accom- 
 pHshed speaker in the pulpit and on the 
 platform, imiting ease with earnestness, 
 
REV. HENRY CODMAN POTTER 77 
 
 grace with dignity, a lambent wit with 
 unfeigned sympathy. Hence among all 
 who came within his range there is a feel- 
 ing that a noble figure has vanished from 
 our midst. 
 
 And in matters more strictly ecclesias- 
 tical, after twenty-five years of compara- 
 tive concord in his diocese, by virtue of 
 his fair-mindedness, he might truly have 
 made his own the remark of the late Bishop 
 Wnberforce of Oxford, England: "I should 
 scorn to be the bishop of a party, because 
 I am a bishop of the Church of Christ." 
 In a very real, though different, sense 
 Bishop Potter did for his diocese what 
 John Henry Newman, in his farewell 
 sermon to his congregation at Littlemore, 
 hinted that he had done for them; he 
 interpreted his diocese to itself; reflected 
 and made vivid and energetic the disposi- 
 tion and desires and views of the people 
 
78 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 committed to his care: "read their wants 
 and feeHngs to them, and comforted them 
 by the very reading." 
 
 Such were the quahties that rendered 
 Bishop Henry Codman Potter impress- 
 ive in this cathedral; which, by the coin- 
 cidence of time, will be his monument, 
 since it came into visible being during 
 his episcopate, and here his body shall be 
 entombed. In view of his fine apprecia- 
 tion of the beautiful and the imposing, it 
 is fitting that his monument should be 
 a feature of what he hoped would be a 
 great and solemnizing temple to God Most 
 High. According to its constitution, this 
 cathedral is intended to be a house of God 
 for all people, and it was indeed to all the 
 people that our Bishop addressed himself. 
 He desired the cathedral to be a conse- 
 crated acknowledgment of human rela- 
 tionship in the presence of the Heavenly 
 
REV. HENRY CODMAN POTTER 79 
 
 Father, and under the sign of the Cross. 
 After returning from Europe several years 
 ago, speaking of the scheme for cathedral 
 work and maintenance, the Bishop said: 
 "I am confirmed in my opinion that our 
 plans regarding the new cathedral which 
 our Church is building in this city are 
 wise. I refer to the endowment feature. 
 I attended service in St. Paul's Cathedral, 
 in London, only a few Sundays ago, and I 
 witnessed a most impressive spectacle — 
 eight thousand people gathered under the 
 great dome to worship. There was the 
 'cabby' in his fustian jacket, the porter 
 and the railroad man, rubbing elbows 
 with the aristocracy of Great Britain. 
 That is essentially the cathedral idea." 
 
 Indeed, in the Bishop's ideas for the 
 cathedral that same underlying feeling 
 for the people and about the people was 
 ever present, which, in a different connec- 
 
8o ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 tion, h-e expressed so beautifully in his 
 memorable address on the occasion of the 
 unveiling of the monument to the soldier 
 dead of New York on the field of Get- 
 tysburg. "There is," he said, "no great- 
 ness in the people equal to a great vision 
 in an emergency, and with a great courage 
 with which to seize it. And that, I main- 
 tain, was the supreme glory of the heroes 
 whom we commemorate to-day. Do you 
 tell me that they were unknown, that they 
 commanded no battalions, determined no 
 policies, sat in no military councils, rode 
 at the head of no regiments? Be it so! 
 All the more are they the fitting repre- 
 sentatives of you and me — the people." 
 
 It was with such feelings for the people 
 that our Bishop went on with the building 
 of this cathedral, and gathered about him 
 the Cathedral Chapter. He wanted his 
 cathedral church to help the Church gen- 
 
REV. HENRY CODMAN POTTER 8i 
 
 erally to rise above the mere parochial 
 spirit of a previous generation, and, like 
 St. Paul, "to be all things to all men, 
 that we may by all means save some." 
 He wanted us to be deeply interested in 
 the sociological field of the Church; to 
 study the causes and the symptoms of 
 poverty, and of general misfortune and 
 demoralization, whether of rich or poor. 
 His conception of the Christian ministry 
 was broad and thorough, and he wanted 
 his cathedral to become the focus of the 
 activities of all his ministers, clerical and 
 lay, imparting the consecration of the 
 altar to occupations that too often are 
 scattered and unconscious of such conse- 
 cration. He wanted the cathedral to be 
 the "unifying centre" of all those activ- 
 ities of his people which are diocesan in 
 their scope; and, so far as in him lay, he 
 hoped to make it a symbol of that larger 
 
82 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 Christian unity for which, to-day more 
 than ever, the Christian denominations 
 are praying and working. He wanted 
 our Cathedral Chapter to foster the mis- 
 sionary spirit at home and abroad. Under 
 the Bishop as the Chapter's head, he 
 wanted us to be a college (in the original 
 sense of the old Latin term) of learned, 
 versatile, tactful, and sincere ministers 
 of the faith of the Gospel, with diversi- 
 ties of gifts but the same Spirit; rightly 
 dividing the word of truth; co-operating 
 in good works; devoting our combined 
 energies of study and reflection and prayer 
 and ministration so as to put our Church 
 and diocese in touch with the vast op- 
 portunities of this metropolis — with the 
 wants alike of the toiling masses and of 
 the learned and leisured few. He wanted 
 our worship to be free for all and an edu- 
 cation to all; uplifting; echoing and ex- 
 
REV. HENRY CODMAN POTTER 83 
 
 pressing day by day the appeal of Christ 
 our Master: "Come unto Me, all ye that 
 labor and are heavy laden, and I will give 
 you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and 
 learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in 
 heart: and ye shall find rest imto your 
 souls. For My yoke is easy, and My 
 burden is Ught." 
 
 All this our Bishop wanted of his Cathe- 
 dral Chapter; and he wanted it, not as an 
 artificial acquisition of his mind reflecting 
 what others had desired and what he had 
 elsewhere seen, but as the true expression 
 of his own personality, the ideal which 
 long experience had wrought in him as 
 he grew in grace, and in the knowledge of 
 our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 
 Having felt hitherto the fascination of 
 his presence, the impress of his mind in 
 all these matters, we gather now to offer 
 our grateful and respectful tribute to his 
 
84 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 distinguished memory; for God has called 
 him to the larger life. Missing his famil- 
 iar form, conscious of our loss, it is our 
 duty and privilege to go forward in his 
 spirit, and do our parts in the work which 
 he laid upon us. That work shall be our 
 constant reminder of him, until our day 
 is done. And the harder we labor at our 
 several tasks, the better shall we appre- 
 ciate the scope and the devotion to duty 
 of our great Bishop, who for twenty-five 
 years bore on his shoulders a burden of 
 responsibihty and toil that would have 
 overborne ten ordinary men. To the 
 end he bore it well, and made no sign, 
 until under the stress of it his physical 
 strength suddenly gave way. To the 
 very end his keen and hearty humor, his 
 consideration for others, his cheerinesS 
 — he was the least worried person in his 
 sickroom — his rare vitality, his broad 
 
REV. HENRY CODMAN POTTER 85 
 
 interest in general affairs, and his indom- 
 itable patience prevailed. 
 
 To his wife and children we offer our 
 respectfxil sympathy, praying that in God's 
 good time, when the harvest is ready, we 
 and they and he whom now we mourn 
 may aU be gathered into the heavenly 
 gamer. Grant him, O Lord, eternal rest, 
 and may perpetual light shine on him. 
 
THE REVEREND CANON 
 LAURENCE HENRY SCHWAB 
 
THE REVEREND CANON 
 LAURENCE HENRY SCHWAB > 
 
 Laurence Henry Schwab was born in 
 New York in 1857, and was a son of Gustav 
 Schwab and his wife Catherine Elizabeth 
 von Post. He was graduated from Yale 
 College in the class of 1878; and, after 
 studjdng for Holy Orders at the Union 
 Theological Seminary, New York, and at 
 the Divinity School in Philadelphia, he 
 was ordered deacon by Bishop Horatio 
 Potter in 1881. He served as curate to 
 the Rector of St. Michael's Church, New 
 York, 1881-82. He was then ordered 
 priest, and served at Grand Island, 
 Nebraska, 1882-83; after which he was 
 
 ' This minute was written at the request of the fol- 
 lowing Committee of the New York Clerical Club: 
 
 George William Douglas, 
 LoRiNG W. Batten, 
 Henry Mottet. 
 
go ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 associated with the Reverend Dr. William 
 R. Huntington, as curate at All Saints' 
 Church, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1883- 
 84. Hence he passed successively to cu- 
 racies in New York City at the Church of 
 the Nativity, 1884-86, and at St. Mark's 
 Chapel, 1886-88. In 1888 he became 
 Rector of St. Mary's Church, Manhattan- 
 ville; and, in 1899, of the Church of the 
 Intercession, New York. Failing health 
 compelled him to resign his rectorship 
 in 1903; whereafter, for short periods, he 
 took charge of churches at New Windsor, 
 on the Hudson, and at Sharon, Connecti- 
 cut. Meanwhile, on Bishop Henry C. 
 Potter's nomination, he became a canon 
 missioner at the Cathedral of St. John 
 the Divine. He died on the Sunday after 
 Ascension, May 28, 191 1, leaving a widow 
 and one son. 
 It is a short record, but full of signifi- 
 
LAURENCE HENRY SCHWAB 91 
 
 cance to all who knew him. Both his 
 first sermon and his last were delivered 
 on Ascension Day; and in spite of con- 
 stant physical weakness, his life was a 
 continual ascension, mentally and spirit- 
 ually, from strength to strength. This 
 present account of him has specially to 
 do with his association with this Club, 
 which he valued greatly, and for which 
 his fitness was recognized by us all. His 
 utterances here, like his numerous arti- 
 cles in periodicals and newspapers, were 
 characterized by scholarly tastes and 
 intense mentaUty, which his modesty 
 and fine reserve could not conceal. He 
 was a bom historian, and his mind 
 was full of wide and just historical com- 
 parisons whereby his view of present 
 concerns was illuminated, and any dis- 
 position to personal prejudice was sweet- 
 ened and uplifted by a note of personal 
 
92 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 detachment. His piety was sincere and 
 deep, for he was a man of prayer. These 
 traits appeared in his sermons, which were 
 more and more convincing, and more and 
 more spiritual, as his brief Ufe neared 
 its earthly close. In familiar intercourse 
 none could converse with him without 
 being impressed by his rare integrity and 
 truthfulness, by his exquisite purity, and 
 by his affectionateness, wistful and gentle. 
 Withal there was in his eye, and in his 
 whole demeanor, a suggestion of the 
 power of righteous wrath which the Psalm- 
 ist includes in his portrait of the Good 
 Man: "He doth abhor that which is evil" 
 — the same trait which in the Apocalypse 
 is attributed to the risen Jesus: "the 
 wrath of the Lamb." Thus he seemed 
 to have a better right than most of us to 
 use, as he so constantly did, the language 
 of St. Paul; for he was not afraid of all 
 
LAURENCE HENRY SCHWAB 93 
 
 that is involved in the quest of righteous- 
 ness and truth: he had counted the cost, 
 and was ready for the sacrifice. To him 
 the inner world was real, substantial; 
 and Paul's zeal — the zeal of the chmber 
 from grace to grace — belonged to him by 
 right of conquest. 
 
 He could not have been the minister of 
 Christ to our time that he actually was — 
 to, and ia, our time — without experi- 
 encing reUgious difficulties on his own 
 accoimt. He knew and felt what Modern- 
 ism means. Two years ago he volunteered 
 to an intimate friend the information that 
 at one time he had serious doubts as to 
 one point of our Creed. He had troubles 
 about prayer and God's answers to it. 
 The Higher Criticism troubled him with 
 fears that he might not be sure that he 
 knew as much of the life and utterances 
 of Jesus Christ as he had formerly believed 
 
94 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 that the New Testament declares. Never- 
 theless, he did not flinch; and to those 
 who knew what went on in his soul, it 
 was helpful to behold how he kept the 
 faith. It was most appropriate that he 
 had been commissioned by the family of 
 Bishop Henry C. Potter to write his biog- 
 raphy; for the Bishop admired and loved 
 him, and he understood and loved the 
 Bishop, and entered into the pubUc spirit 
 and the civic sense of that great citizen- 
 churchman. But this task, like most of 
 his other earthly tasks, Canon Schwab 
 was compelled to leave ;mfinished — an 
 uncompleted manuscript — to the great 
 loss of our Church. 
 
 Perhaps the last touch of tragedy was 
 given to his life by his inabiUty to share 
 our cathedral work just at the moment 
 when the opportunities of it were enlar- 
 ging for us all. That work appealed to 
 
LAURENCE HENRY SCHWAB 95 
 
 the whole of him — to his historic informa- 
 tion; to his instinct of social service; to 
 his desire for a large Christian unity; to 
 his S)Tnpathy with aU sorts and condi- 
 tions of men; to his yearning for great 
 things for the spirit of man as the candle 
 of the Lord; to his appreciation of wor- 
 ship in its noblest forms. But the joy 
 and privilege of participating in our cathe- 
 dral opportimities was, like so much else, 
 withheld from him. 
 
 In conclusion, may we not lift the veil 
 of privacy just far enough to say, as a 
 simple sign of his natural affiliation with 
 aU things himian, that he came to his 
 death on this wise? The Friday after 
 Ascension Day and his last sermon at 
 the cathedral, he returned to Sharon, 
 apparently in good health for him. As 
 usual he had spent Simday evening with 
 his wife, each quietly reading. About 
 
96 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 nine o'clock he stepped out on the veranda 
 of his cottage to breathe the fresh air 
 and look at the stars, and to make sure 
 that his pet dog was aU right for the 
 night. There, without warning, he was 
 taken with a hemorrhage. His wife lifted 
 him back into the room, but he soon lost 
 consciousness, and in less than an hour 
 he passed to his long home. 
 
 Shall we say that the struggle naught 
 availed? He knew, and knows, better 
 than that. To those whom he allowed 
 to share his inner life he brought his own 
 conviction home: that failure and falling 
 short are no ground for despair: that, as 
 Browning puts it, at last Paracelsus sees; 
 since with God there is no waste. God 
 gathers up the fragments, and the reapers 
 are the angels. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE: 
 A STUDY 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE: 
 
 A STUDY 
 
 I 
 
 Do you remember Schumami's bit of 
 music which he entitled Warum — Why? 
 — that elusive snatch of poignant, plain- 
 tive melody, which expresses a soul's 
 surprise over the mysterious problem of 
 its life? I can think of no better motto 
 for Cardinal Newman's life, as it is por- 
 trayed in Wnfred Ward's recent volumes.' 
 
 This article is not intended as a critique 
 of the latest biography of Newman, but 
 rather as an expression of certain feelings 
 and impressions with which I have laid 
 the volumes down. As one thinks of that 
 marvellous career as a whole, one wonders 
 why Newman's imique personality was 
 
 ' "The Life of John Henry, Cardinal Newman," by 
 Wilfred Ward. 2 volumes. Longmans, 1912. 
 
loo ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 so winning yet so unhappy, so widely 
 influential yet so abortive. From early 
 youth to extreme old age this man of 
 extraordinary vitaHty possessed, by com- 
 mon consent, the very genius of reUgion. 
 "God was in all his thoughts." This 
 personal recollection of God reinforced 
 and fructified aU his other powers, tinged 
 his Hterary style, and was the secret of 
 his influence. Others might tell us, but 
 he made us feel that for each of us there 
 is, in substance, but one Hf e to live — the 
 life with God. "As the eyes of a maiden 
 imto the hand of her mistress, even so his 
 eyes waited upon the Lord our God." 
 From early youth, he writes, "I believed 
 that the inward conversion of which I 
 was conscious (and of which I am still 
 more certain than that I have hands and 
 feet) would last into the next life, and that 
 I was elected to eternal glory. This 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE loi 
 
 belief helped in confirming me in my mis- 
 trust of the reality of material phenomena, 
 and making me rest in the thought of 
 two, and two only, absolute and lumi- 
 nously self-evident beings — myself and 
 my Creator." * And far on toward middle 
 age, in his "Grammar of Assent," he 
 speaks of "the reality of conversion as 
 cutting at the root of doubt, providing 
 a chain between God and the soul that is 
 with every link complete. I know I am 
 right. How do you know it? I know that 
 I know." 2 Furthermore, all his life long, 
 vmder whatever circimistances, he was 
 conscious that he had a mission in the 
 world — "a great work to do in England." 
 Why, then, was he so continuously im- 
 happy, without and within? and why, 
 from any standpoint of earthly resialts, 
 did he so continuously fail? In spite of 
 
 > Vol. I., p. 30. ' "Grammar of Assent," p. 197. . 
 
I02 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 his splendid popularity — of the multi- 
 tudes who loved him, and were grateful 
 to him, though they never even saw 
 him — why, from first to last, did he 
 arouse such antagonism? And why, at 
 stage after stage, from his own point of 
 view — from the standpoint of his inten- 
 tions and overt aims — was his Ufe, not 
 only so sad, but so ineffectual? Why 
 did he puzzle people in general? and 
 why were most of his best friends always 
 uneasy about him? For it would seem 
 as if, of all his many friends, only three 
 were never really uneasy about him, and 
 always elicited his absolute confidence — 
 gave him, in the human sense, entire 
 satisfaction: Frederick Rogers and R. W. 
 Church and Ambrose St. John — two of 
 them Anglicans to the last; the third an 
 Anglican who went over to the Church 
 of Rome with Newman, and was with 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 103 
 
 him in the Oratory. Of course, in the 
 first place, it is a case of "The Hour 
 and the Man." The Tractarian Move- 
 ment, as a whole, shows that the Church 
 of England was ready for Newman. The 
 epoch foimd a voice in him — something 
 which neither Keble nor Palmer nor 
 Pusey could say, he had to say; and 
 England wanted to have it said, even 
 though Newman himself had hardly said 
 it before he changed his mind and moved 
 on further than England could follow. 
 
 But if we would understand and do 
 justice to Newman as a personaUty, and 
 if we would explain why his influence has 
 been so helpfvil to ourselves, our analysis 
 of his character and career must be deeper 
 and more intimate. Our question there- 
 fore resolves itself into three, each of 
 which is equally appUcable throughout 
 the two great divisions of his career, 
 
104 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 first in the Church of England, and after- 
 wards in the Roman Catholic Church. 
 
 First, why was Newman's Ufe not 
 only so abortive of the results which 
 he intended, but so out of harmony, 
 at every stage, with his immediate 
 siUTOundings? 
 
 Secondly, why did he so constantly 
 puzzle his associates and arouse such 
 personal antagonism, although he was so 
 greatly admired? 
 
 Thirdly, why, nevertheless, was New- 
 man's personal influence in his genera- 
 tion so pervasive and so powerful? and 
 what was the real nature of his influ- 
 ence? 
 
 Someone has remarked of Hamlet that 
 the reason why Shakespeare's play has 
 held the stage is, that Hamlet is inscru- 
 table. Newman is elusive, but he is not 
 inscrutable, in the sense of Hamlet; and 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 105 
 
 the more one ponders his life and writ- 
 ings, the more one seems to find a sufl&- 
 cient explanation of him. 
 
 Newman was perpetually out of agree- 
 ment with his surroimdings, whether 
 Anglican or Roman CathoUc, because he 
 was by nature one of the most individual 
 persons that ever Uved. His aloofness 
 was as instinctive as his insight was thor- 
 ough. No matter whom he might be 
 thrown with, he reacted. He could not 
 but play a lone hand. He had it in him 
 to be a leader of men, but at every crisis 
 he sacrificed his leadership to his deter- 
 mination to stand alone. In aU human 
 movements party combinations are gen- 
 erally necessary ia order to accomplish 
 practical results; but Newman could not 
 work with any party — could not "give 
 to a party what was meant for mankind." 
 
io6 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 As Father Ryder puts it, "he had too keen 
 a sense of individuaUty to enforce the 
 necessary drill." What he wrote to Sis- 
 ter Maria Pia, in his sixty-ninth year, is 
 an accurate description of his whole 
 career: ^ "Like St. Gregory Nazianzen, I 
 like going on my own way, and having 
 my time my own. . . . Put me into 
 ofiScial garb, and I am worth nothing; 
 leave me to myself, and every now and then 
 I shall do something. Dress me up, and 
 you will soon have to make my shroud 
 — leave me alone and I shall live my 
 appointed time. Now do take this in, 
 as a sensible mm." His own verse, "Thou 
 couldst a people raise, but couldst not 
 rule," was applicable to himself, he tells 
 us. 2 His sympathies were of the strong- 
 est and sweetest, and his abihty to under- 
 stand and appreciate another's point of 
 
 1 Vol. 11., p. 281. 2 Vol. II., p. 3S3. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 107 
 
 view was extraordinarily keen; but his 
 personal independence was indomitable. In 
 this respect his own description of himself 
 was accurate: "He rested in the thought 
 of two, and two only, absolute and lumi- 
 nously self-evident beings — himself and 
 his Creator." Hence his strong objection 
 to those who, as he expressed it, "strove 
 to narrow the terms of communion," ' 
 and unduly to curtail among Roman 
 Catholics the liberty of thought which 
 he believed to be the Catholic's birth- 
 right. He thought of every Christian as 
 in the same direct relation with God as 
 he himself was; and therefore his sense 
 of shortcomings and imperfections which 
 God permits within the Church no more 
 impaired his conviction of the Church's 
 divine mission, than his sense of the evU 
 in the world diminished his certainty of 
 
 > Vol. I., p. 24. 
 
io8 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 God's providence. He was not intoler- 
 ant of wide differences within the Chris- 
 tian pale. Within large limits he wanted 
 to live and let live. In this regard his 
 complaint, first against the Anglican 
 Church authorities and afterwards against 
 the Roman Catholic authorities, was the 
 same: that they had no use for some of 
 the best and most loyal children of the 
 Church. What he said against the 
 Church of England, in his sermon on 
 "The Parting of Friends," was quite con- 
 sistent with what he repeatedly said 
 later against the Church of Rome. In 
 his judgment neither the one nor the 
 other encouraged free debate among loyal 
 experts. "Truth is wrought out," he 
 said, "by many minds working freely 
 together." i "It is individuals, and not 
 the Holy See, that have taken the initia- 
 
 1 Vol. I., p. 23. Cp. II., p. 49. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 109 
 
 tive and given the lead to the Catholic 
 mind in theological inquiry." ' For his 
 own part, he beUeved that he was claim- 
 ing for himself no other welcome than had 
 been willingly accorded for centuries to 
 freedom of debate in the mediaeval schools 
 as to the problems of their time; and it 
 was because he nowhere obtained for 
 himself such freedom — the freedom which 
 he was eager to accord to his fellow- 
 Churchmen — that, wherever he was, all 
 his Ufe long there was a note of discord. 
 He must still go on wistfully seeking the 
 home welcome which haply none of us 
 shall completely find, tUl we arrive at 
 "the Jerusalem above, which is free, the 
 mother of us all." Whether, if he could 
 have foreseen that he would be as lonely 
 in the Roman Church as he was in the 
 Anglican, he would ever have left the 
 
 • Vol. II., p. 39. 
 
no ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 Anglican Church, is an unanswerable in- 
 quiry. Liddon and Pusey and Keble 
 and R. W. Church conjectured that he 
 would not; but no one can be sure. Prob- 
 ably it was a matter that would have 
 been determined by his decision as to 
 whether the sacrament of Holy Com- 
 munion, as administered in the Church of 
 England, did, or did not, assure to him 
 the presence of Christ. ' In John Ing- 
 lesant, Mr. Shorthouse gives us an im- 
 aginary portrait of one who found the 
 sacramental presence as truly in the Eng- 
 Ush as in the Roman rite. Whether 
 Newman could have been an Inglesant we 
 shall never know. But it is impossible 
 not to raise the question when, as late as 
 1868, we come across Canon Irvine's 
 pathetic description of his unexpected 
 meeting with Newman at Littlemore, as 
 
 ' Cp. Vol. I., p. 577. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE iii 
 
 the aged priest was visiting unbeknown 
 his old home: ^ 
 
 "I was passing by the church at Little- 
 more when I observed a man very poorly 
 dressed leaning over the lych gate crying. 
 He was to all appearances in great trouble. 
 He was dressed in an old gray coat with the 
 coUar turned up and his hat pulled down 
 over his face as if he wished to hide his fea- 
 tures. As he turned toward me I thought it 
 was a face I had seen before. The thought 
 instantly flashed through my mind it was 
 Dr. Newman. I had never seen him, but I 
 remembered Mr. Crawley had got a photo of 
 Dr. Newman. I went and told Mr. Craw- 
 ley I thought Dr. Newman was in the village, 
 but he said I must be mistaken, it could not 
 be. I asked him to let me see the photo, 
 which he did. I then told him I felt sure it 
 was [he]. Mr. Crawley wished me to have 
 another look at him. I went and met him 
 in the churchyard. He was walking with 
 Mr. St. John. I made bold to ask him if 
 
 1 Vol. n., p. 206. 
 
112 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 he was not an old friend of Mr. Crawley's, 
 because if he was I felt sure Mr. Crawley 
 would be very pleased to see him; as he was 
 a great invalid and not able to get out him- 
 self, would he please to go and see Mr. Craw- 
 ley? He instantly burst out crying and said, 
 'Oh no, oh no!' Mr. St. John begged him 
 to go, but he said, 'I cannot.' Mr. St. John 
 asked him then to send his name, but he said, 
 'Oh no!' At last Mr. St. John said, 'You 
 may tell Mr. Crawley Dr. Newman is here.'" 
 
 With this clue — the indomitable indi- 
 viduality of the man — we can f oUow his 
 course without confusion, and we can 
 imderstand why three of his friends at 
 least were never fundamentally per- 
 plexed about him. When he turns to 
 Frederick Rogers, or to R. W. Chiurch, or 
 to Father St. John, he always finds that 
 they have the same confidence as ever in 
 his intellectual and moral sincerity, and 
 "cof ad cor loquitur.'" To the end they 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 113 
 
 manifested to him the trust and forbear- 
 ance and sympathetic comprehension 
 which it had always been Newman's 
 dream to find in his ecclesiastical supe- 
 riors, but which, whether in the Anglican 
 or in the Roman Church, he generally 
 failed to obtain. For these three friends 
 of his perceived that from crisis to crisis 
 his course throughout was like a series of 
 the subtlest chemical reactions, in which 
 he was fundamentally consistent with 
 himself. Newman was always Newman. 
 Gladstone brought this out far on in 
 Newman's career as a Roman Catholic, 
 when, in their discussion about Vatican- 
 ism and the Pope's Infallibility, Glad- 
 stone pushed Newman to the wall and 
 drew from him this confession: "If I am 
 obliged to bring religion into after-dinner 
 toasts (which indeed does not seem quite 
 the thing), I shall drink, — to the Pope, 
 
114 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 if you please, — still to conscience first, 
 and to the Pope afterwards." ' Private 
 judgment was still, as always, to Newman 
 the most sacred function of the human 
 soul — the ultimate court of appeal — 
 "providing," as he said in the passage 
 already quoted from his "Grammar of 
 Assent," "a chain between God and the 
 soul that is with every link complete. I 
 know I am right. How do you know it? 
 I know that I know." Nor did he have 
 merely the courage to assert this to a 
 Protestant: he advocated it also in con- 
 troversy with Roman Catholics. Wit- 
 ness his article in the Rambler, "On 
 Consulting the Faithful in Matters of 
 Doctrine," to which, in a letter to Sir 
 John Acton, June 20, i860, he alludes 
 thus: 2 "I wrote an Article on the right of 
 the Laity to be consulted; and, as you 
 
 1 Vol. II., p. 404. 2 Vol. I., p. 636, cp. I., p. 502. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 115 
 
 know, I thereby incurred a good deal of 
 odium. It was this defence of the rights 
 of the Laity which was the chief cause of 
 the Bishop's dissatisfaction with me." 
 Witness again, what he wrote in "The 
 Grammar of Assent," in 1870, when he 
 was sixty-nine years old : ' 
 
 "Conscience . . . is always what the sense 
 of the beautiful is in certain cases; it is always 
 emotional. No wonder then that it always 
 implies what that sense only sometimes 
 implies; that it always involves the recogni- 
 tion of a living object, toward which it is 
 directed. Inanimate things cannot stir our 
 affections; these are correlative with per- 
 sons. If, as is the case, we feel responsibility, 
 are shamed, are frightened, at transgress- 
 ing the voice of conscience, this imphes that 
 there is One to whom we are responsible, 
 before whom we are ashamed, whose claims 
 upon us we fear. If, on doing wrong, we 
 feel the same tearful, broken-hearted sorrow 
 
 ' Vol. II., p. 265. 
 
ii6 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 which overwhelms us on hurting a mother; 
 if, on doing right, we enjoy the same sunny 
 serenity of mind, the same soothing, satis- 
 factory delight which follows on our receiv- 
 ing praise from a father, we certainly have 
 within us the image of some person, to whom 
 our love and veneration look, in whose smile 
 we find our happiness, for whom we yearn, 
 toward whom we direct our pleadings, in 
 whose anger we are troubled and waste away. 
 These feeHngs in us are such as require for 
 their exciting cause an intelligent being: 
 'The wicked flees, when no one pursueth'; 
 then why does he flee? whence his terror? 
 Who is it that he sees in soUtude, in darkness, 
 in the hidden chambers of his heart? If the 
 cause of these emotions does not belong to 
 this visible world, the Object to which his 
 perception is directed must be Supernatural 
 and Divine." 
 
 Yet Newman's disappointment at not 
 finding anywhere at the hands of his fel- 
 low-men the reception that he wanted, 
 was as naive as that of a child. To the 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 117 
 
 end of his career he was "a prisoner of 
 hope," though his hopefulness lost its 
 original buoyancy after the failure of his 
 plans for a university in Ireland and for 
 a Roman CathoUc college at Oxford. 
 
 "I have generally got on well with juniors, 
 but not with superiors," he writes concern- 
 ing Manning.! "As to the Oxford scheme, it 
 is stiU the blessed wiU of God to send me 
 baulks. On the whole, I suppose, looking 
 through my life as a course, He is using me, 
 but really viewed in its separate parts it is 
 but a hfe of failures."^ "Well, facts alone 
 will make them recognize the fact of what 
 a laity must be in the nineteenth century if 
 it is to cope with Protestantism." ' "The 
 Anglican Church has been a most useful 
 breakwater against scepticism. ... At pres- 
 ent it upholds far more truth in England 
 than any other form of reUgion would, and 
 than the Roman CathoHc Church could." ^ 
 
 ' Vol. II., p. 87. » Vol. II., p. 69. 
 
 2 Vol. n., p. 67. « Vol. I., p. 651. 
 
ii8 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 "There has been a tradition among the Ital- 
 ians that the lay mind is barbaric — fierce 
 and stupid — and is destined to be outwitted, 
 and that fine craft is the true weapon of 
 Churchmen. When I say the lay mind, I 
 speak too narrowly — it is the Saxon, Teuton, 
 Scandinavian, French mind." ' "But the 
 Latin race will not alwaj^s have a monopoly 
 of the magisterium of CathoHcism." ^ 
 
 While he was an Anglican, Newman's 
 instinctive disposition to react against 
 his surroundings, whatever they might 
 be, manifested itself first toward the 
 Evangelicals; although to the end of his 
 life some of their phrases and forms of 
 thought were habitual with him. Next, 
 while England was seething with the 
 new thought of natural science, Newman 
 was prompted to revive in Churchmen the 
 standards and the spirit of the primitive 
 Church. Hence he was a contributor to 
 
 1 Vol. II., p. 141. !> Vol. II., p. sss. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 119 
 
 the Tracts for the Times, although in them 
 he played a lone hand, as usual, and was 
 a thorn in the side of Palmer, who origi- 
 nated the Tracts. Ere long it became 
 evident that for Newman the primitive 
 Church principles, as he understood them, 
 were insufl&cient; and, by way of farther 
 reaction, he must superimpose on them 
 some mediaeval habits of mind; by which 
 combination of primitive with mediaeval 
 ratiocination, he tried to find the Via 
 Media which seemed to him to be the in- 
 tention of the Church of England at the 
 Reformation. But in this neither Con- 
 servatives nor Liberals could run far with 
 him; and so the first act of his Hfe's drama 
 was concluded — a drama, but not a tra- 
 gedy, when we consider, on the one hand, 
 the wonderful revival of personal religion, 
 and of attachment to the Church of Eng- 
 land, to which Newman's genius for piety 
 
120 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 had contributed; and, on the other hand, 
 the exquisite beauty of character and 
 humility of spirit which Newman's pain- 
 ful conflict had developed in himself. 
 For, in spite of some superficial appear- 
 ances to the contrary, he had become 
 humble. In him we find a man who, 
 though egotistical, could be humble be- 
 cause he was unselfish. He had the char- 
 ity which seeketh not her own. In his 
 verses from Italy, "Lead, kindly Light," 
 written just before the Tractarian Move- 
 ment had begxm, as Newman looked back- 
 ward over his early years he confessed, 
 "Pride ruled my will"; but by the time 
 when he dehvered his sermon on "The 
 Parting of Friends," he had grown to be 
 truly humble. He went on exercising his 
 private judgment with the same integrity; 
 but he had counted the cost, and he did so 
 ever afterward as a bravely humble man. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 121 
 
 '"With me it is a very small thing that I 
 shoxild be judged of you, or of man's judg- 
 ment: yea, I judge not mine own self. 
 He that judgeth me is the Lord." 
 
 Thus the key to his perpetual hopeful- 
 ness, on the one hand, and to his perpet- 
 ual discouragement and distress, on the 
 other hand, is his indomitable individual- 
 ity, exercised throughout his long life 
 in the sphere of pure religion. I have 
 always detected a resemblance in New- 
 man to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Early 
 in the Tractarian days, John Anthony 
 Froude compared Newman to Julius 
 Caesar: ' 
 
 "He was above middle height, slight and 
 spare. His head was large, his face remark- 
 ably like that of Julius Caesar. The fore- 
 head, the shape of the ears and nose were 
 almost the same. The lines of the mouth 
 
 1 "Newman's Biography," Vol. I., p. 61. 
 
122 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 were very peculiar, and I should say exactly 
 the same. I have often thought of the 
 resemblance, and believed that it extended 
 to the temperament. In both there was an 
 original force of character which refused to 
 be moulded by circumstances, which was to 
 make its own way, and become a power in 
 the world; a clearness of intellectual percep- 
 tion, a disdain for conventionaHties, a tem- 
 per imperious and wilful, but along with it a 
 most attaching gentleness, sweetness, single- 
 ness of heart and purpose. Both were formed 
 by nature to command others, both had the 
 faculty of attracting to themselves the pas- 
 sionate devotion of their friends and followers. 
 It has been said that men of letters are either 
 much less or much greater than their writ- 
 ings. ... A man of genius, on the other hand, 
 is a spring in which there is always more be- 
 hind than flows from it. . . . This was emi- 
 nently true of Newman. Greatly as his 
 poetry had struck me, he was himself aU that 
 the poetry was, and something far beyond. 
 I had then never seen so impressive a per- 
 son. . . . Nothing was too large for him, 
 nothing too trivial, if it threw light upon the 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 123 
 
 central question, what man really was, and 
 what was his destiny." 
 
 In other words, transport Julius Caesar 
 into the England of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury; make him utterly unworldly — 
 caring for nothing but the fortunes of the 
 human soul : devoted to God and the duties 
 of the soul with passionate intensity — 
 and you have Newman whether in the 
 Church of England or in the Church of 
 Rome. He is an instance of profound 
 and pure spiritual passion, as pure as pos- 
 sible for man. He thought himself im- 
 partial, but no human being can be quite 
 impartial and also profoundly impassioned 
 . — only the Perfect Man, the God-Man 
 on the Cross, has displayed to mankind 
 the combination of perfect impartial- 
 ity to the truth, with perfect passion for 
 the truth. Yet there must be passion in 
 every genuine intellectual leader of men. 
 
124 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 In this respect Newman reminds us of 
 Coxmt Paul von Hoensbroech's account 
 of himself in the Introduction to his 
 thrilling narrative, "Fourteen Years a 
 Jesuit," where he says: ^ 
 
 "But though my judgment is impartial, 
 its expression will not be dispassionate, for 
 passion only dims our vision and weakens 
 our Judgment when it takes possession of us 
 before the object has been grasped by our 
 vision and understanding. When we have 
 recognized and understood, then we may call 
 in its aid. Indeed, it would be well if con- 
 viction were more frequently upheld with 
 passion. There would be less uncertainty, 
 weakness, and insincerity in the world. 
 Many a good book would not have missed 
 its effect had it been written with more of 
 passion. How indeed would it be possible 
 to write dispassionately about that which 
 has stirred our souls to their depths?" 
 
 'Vol. I., p. xiv. Introduction. "Fourteen Years a 
 Jesuit," by Count Paul von Hoensbroech, translated by- 
 Alice Zimmern. Cassell & Co., New York, 1911. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 125 
 
 II 
 
 Not long after Newman had gone over 
 to Rome, Charles Kingsley — bluff John 
 Bull personified — accused him, in sub- 
 stance, of duplicity and Jesuitry. By his 
 inquiry, "What then does Dr. Newman 
 mean?" Kingsley signified that Newman 
 was not frank: that he always had some- 
 thing at the back of his head which he 
 did not teU. But in the judgment of 
 English people generally Newman's "Apo- 
 logia" disposed of this charge entirely. 
 Newman's reply to Kingsley was cer- 
 tainly an exhibition of his incomparable 
 intellectual dexterity; but it showed him 
 to be what R. W. Church and Rogers and 
 St. John always believed him to be — 
 quite sincere and outspoken — a trans- 
 parent character. He always meant what 
 he said; and usually his rare gift of expres- 
 
126 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 sion and illustration enabled him to say 
 what he meant. Now and then indeed, 
 like all persons who write rapidly, his 
 language was obscure; and like all who 
 are very shy, he sometimes trusted too 
 much that his correspondent would read 
 between the lines. His letter to Bishop 
 Ullathorne ' about coming to Rome for 
 the Cardinal's hat was of this kind. But 
 in general the trouble was that, inteUec- 
 tuaUy, he was not only subtle and keenly 
 sensitive to his immediate environment, 
 but he was always on the move, — back- 
 wards or forwards according to the occa- 
 sion. Even his sermons were occasional, 
 and he was a proUfic letter-writer. It is 
 said that great judges avoid writing many 
 letters lest their casual opinions should 
 conflict with their formal decisions. But 
 Newman, even in his books, was occa- 
 ' Vol. n., p. 439. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 127 
 
 sional. From moment to moment he 
 expressed his mind, but he continually 
 changed his mind, or passed to another 
 point of view; and at every move he 
 aboxmded in striking arguments for his 
 new position. Hereby he bewildered 
 slow-moving minds; and to Kingsley he 
 appeared to be — not like a bird moving 
 rapidly in the simshine — but a chame- 
 leon, standing still and changing his color 
 in order to elude the observer. Kingsley 
 did not recognize that whether Newman's 
 statements were objectively true or not, 
 they were subjectively true: that he was 
 not concealing, but uttering his mind. 
 
 Perhaps, paradoxical as it may appear, 
 the best proof of Newman's absolute 
 truthfulness was an incidental one: his 
 imwillingness to proselytize. For this the 
 Romanists never forgave him. Just at 
 first it looked as if he might do what had 
 
128 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 been expected of him. Yielding to the 
 natural desire to keep with him some of 
 his dearest friends, he did try to induce 
 Henry Wilberforce and a few others to 
 join him at once in the Church of Rome.* 
 But he soon resumed his instinctive aloof- 
 ness. Thus as early as 1850 he writes to 
 Mr. Capes: 
 
 "As far as the people are concerned our 
 line is not to attack the Church of England, 
 which is a low game." ^ 
 
 Again in i860 he writes to Canon 
 Estcourt: 
 
 "I should have the greatest repugnance 
 to introducing controversy into those quiet 
 circles and sober schools of thought which 
 are the strength of the Church of England. 
 It is another thing altogether to introduce 
 controversy to individual minds which are 
 already unsettled, or have a drawing toward 
 Catholicism. Altogether another thing in a 
 
 ' Vol. I., pp. 133-134; 618. ^ Vol. I., p. 261. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 129 
 
 place like Birmingham, where nearly every- 
 one is a nothingarian, or an infidel, a sceptic, 
 or an inquirer. Here Catholic efforts are not 
 only good in themselves, and do good, but 
 cannot possibly do any even incidental harm 
 — here whatever is done is so much gain. 
 In Oxford you would unsettle many, and gain 
 a few, if you did your most." ^ 
 
 In 1864 he writes to R. W. Church: 
 
 "I can truly say, and never wiU conceal, 
 that I have no wish at all to do anything 
 against the Establishment while it is a body 
 preaching dogmatic truth, as I think it does 
 at present." ^ 
 
 But the very trait which attested his 
 fastidious sincerity, and his respect for 
 the mind of others, led the Romanists to 
 distrust him for not being really one of 
 themselves. They had hailed his arrival 
 in their midst, because they expected him 
 to be the first-born of many brethren. 
 
 1 Vol. II., pp. S7, S8. ' Vol. II., p. 24. 
 
I30 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 If he believed in Romanism why did he 
 not bestir himself, and wield his magic 
 wand, and throw his subtle net, mitil all 
 the good Anglicans had been drawn after 
 him to Rome? When Romanists found 
 that Newman would on no account play 
 this role, they entertained almost the same 
 distrust of him that Kingsley had; so that 
 at the very time when the Anglicans were 
 coming to trust Newman, though he had 
 gone from them, the Romanists lost con- 
 fidence in him, although he had come to 
 them. They could not perceive that he 
 was as genuine and naive as ever, and that 
 he had come to Rome for his own reasons, 
 not for theirs: that, as he wrote to Canon 
 Estcoiurt, "Catholics did not make us 
 Catholics; Oxford made us CathoUcs." ' 
 The fact was that he had come to Rome 
 as an idealist, not as a realist — as a Pla- 
 
 'Vol. II., p. ST, cp. Vol. II., pp. 110-127. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 131 
 
 tonist, not as an Aristotelian; and his 
 conviction was that Rome was not yet 
 ready for most Anglicans, any more than 
 most Anglicans were ready for Rome. 
 As he had formerly believed that "there 
 was a great work for him to do in Eng- 
 land," so now he beUeved there was a 
 great work for him to do in Rome. New- 
 man was stUl Newman, reacting against 
 his environment as of old. He was now 
 bent on reforming the Roman communion, 
 just as sincerely as formerly he had been 
 bent on reforming the AngHcan commun- 
 ion. Yet can we altogether wonder that 
 Monsignor Talbot was amazed when, in 
 reply to the invitation which, with the 
 Pope's backing, he sent to Newman, to 
 come from England and preach to Prot- 
 estant visitors in Talbot's church in 
 Rome, the following tart reply was re- 
 ceived: 
 
132 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 "The Oratory, Birmingham, July 25, 1864. 
 "Dear Monsignore Talbot, — I have received your 
 letter, inviting me to preach next Lent in your church 
 at Rome to 'an audience of Protestants more educated 
 than could ever be the case in England.' 
 
 "However, Birmingham people have souls; and I have 
 neither taste nor talent for the sort of work which you 
 cut out for me. And I beg to decline your offer. 
 I am, yours truly, 
 
 John H. Newman."' 
 
 So Newman failed in Rome as he had 
 failed in England, and for a similar cause. 
 The Romanists did not relish his atti- 
 tude, and they were suspicious of his argu- 
 ments, like the Trojans with the Greeks. 
 Even when he offered them new arms 
 against the heretics — arms which he 
 himself often wielded effectively — they 
 doubted whereunto this would grow. 
 Newman desired to convert men by the 
 instrument of thought, ^ whereas the Ul- 
 tramontanes preferred to influence them 
 by other instruments than thought. So, 
 
 1 Vol. II., p. 539. 2 Vol. I., p. 122. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 133 
 
 though at first they approved his project 
 of making a new translation of the Scrip- 
 tures (with Newman's scholarship and 
 rare gift of style and sense of rhythm, how 
 interesting such a translation might have 
 been!), they soon discouraged it, and it 
 came to nothing. As the wretched years 
 went by, time and again the support 
 which had been promised him from head- 
 quarters silently sHpped away. Each en- 
 terprise in which he had thought that he 
 saw God's hand guiding him, and on which 
 he had set his heart, came to naught; 
 and now and then his grief finds some such 
 bitter record as this: 
 
 "People do not know me — and sometimes 
 they half pass me by. It has been the por- 
 tion of saints, even; and well may be my por- 
 tion. He who gives gifts is the best judge 
 how to use His own. He has the sole right 
 to do as He will, and He knows what He is 
 doing. Yet sometimes it is marvellous to 
 
134 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 me how my life is going, and I have never 
 been brought out prominently — and now I 
 am likely less than ever — for there seems 
 something of an iron form here, tho' I may be 
 wrong; but I mean people are at no trouble 
 to deepen their views. It is natural." ^ 
 "I am treated as some wild, incomprehensible 
 beast, a spectacle for Dr. Wiseman to exhibit 
 to strangers, as himself being the hunter who 
 captured it." ^ "They put me on the shelf, 
 but they can't prevent me from peeping out 
 from it." ' 
 
 Again in his diary: 
 
 '"Not understood' — this is the point. 
 I have seen great wants which had to be 
 supplied among Catholics — especially as re- 
 gards education — and of course those who 
 labored under those wants did not know 
 their state, — and did not see or understand 
 the want of all — or what was the supply of 
 the want — and felt no thankfulness at all, 
 and no consideration towards a person who 
 was doing something toward the supply; but 
 
 1 Vol. I., p. 173. 2 Vol. I., p. 569. ' Vol. I., p. 573. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 135 
 
 rather thought him restless or crotchety, or 
 in some way or other what he should not 
 be. This made me think of turning more 
 to God, if it has not actually turned me. It 
 has made me feel that in the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment is my great consolation, and that, while 
 I have Him Who lives in the Church, the 
 separate members of the Church, my supe- 
 riors, though they may claim my obedience, 
 have no claim on my admiration, and offer 
 nothing for my inward trust. I have ex- 
 pressed this feeHng, or, rather, implied it, 
 in one of my Dublin sermons, preached in 
 1856. So far well — or not iU — but it so 
 happens that, contemporaneously with this 
 neglect on the part of those for whom I 
 labored, there has been a drawiag toward me 
 on the part of Protestants. Those very 
 books and labors of mine which Cathohcs 
 do not understand, Protestants did. More- 
 over, by a coincidence, things I had written 
 years ago, as a Protestant, and the worth or 
 force of which were not understood by Prot- 
 estants then, are bearing fruit among Protes- 
 tants now. . . . And accordingly I have been 
 attracted by that sympathy to desire more 
 
136 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 of that sympathy, feeling lonely and fretting 
 under, not so much the coldness toward 
 me (though that in part) as the ignorance, 
 narrowness of mind, and self-conceit of those 
 whose faith and virtue and goodness, never- 
 theless, I at the same time recognized. And 
 thus I certainly am under the temptation of 
 looking out for, if not courting, Protestant 
 praise." '■ 
 
 How truly he had described himself 
 when he wrote to Mr. Hutton ^ that noth- 
 ing could be said about him, in praise 
 or blame, which did not "tear off his mor- 
 bidly sensitive skin"; for he had the 
 artistic temperament. Toward the close 
 of his life he spoke of Tertullian as one 
 of his two favorites — as the theological 
 genius — among the early Fathers of the 
 Church; adding, says Father Ryder, 
 "with tears in his voice, if not in his eyes, 
 how frequently the initial sin of heresy 
 
 1 Vol. I., pp. 577, 578. 2 Vol. I., p. 20. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 137 
 
 was impatience." ' Was this a hit at 
 himself? If it was, then Newman was 
 now saying to himself what Keble had 
 long before said for him: 
 
 "Why should we faint, or fear to live alone, 
 Since all alone, so Heaven has willed, we die, 
 
 Nor even the tenderest heart, and next our own 
 Knows half the reasons why we smile and sigh? " • 
 
 Meanwhile he clung to life to the end. 
 Father NeviUe writes: ' 
 
 "He knew how he would be missed by 
 some, and he felt for them; and there were 
 objects and interests which he held very 
 tenderly in mind with this thought of them 
 — what would happen in the struggle which 
 in his forecast of the future seemed likely to 
 come? God's cause was ever in his mind. 
 And as long as he could in any way serve it 
 he desired to stay." 
 
 1 Vol. n., p. 3S4- 
 
 « "The Christian Year," Twenty-fourth Sunday after 
 Trinity. 
 
 « Vol. II., p. 536. 
 
138 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 The fact was that to the great majority 
 of Roman Catholics he was not merely 
 uncongenial — that to their excessive dog- 
 matism his tendency to minimize was 
 irksome, and to their imperialism he 
 seemed too democratic — besides this, 
 many Anglicans and very many Roman 
 Catholics considered that he was sub- 
 stantially a sceptic. Dr. Fairbairn ex- 
 presses this estimate: "He has a deep 
 distrust of the intellect; he dares not trust 
 his own, for he does not know where it 
 might lead him, and he will not trust any 
 other man's. 'The Grammar of Assent' 
 is pervaded by the intensest philosophical 
 scepticism." ^ Such critics fail, I think, 
 to see the difference between scepticism 
 and the abiUty to enter into the mind of 
 the sceptic — to imagine him as a concrete 
 reality, an actual hvmian being. New- 
 
 • Vol. II., p. SOS. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 139 
 
 man himself, as we have already noticed, 
 had indeed declared that up to the time of 
 his conversion, as he was going up to 
 Oxford in 181 7, he was conscious of a 
 strong intellectual tendency to scepticism, ^ 
 and he thanked God that He shielded 
 him morally from what intellectually 
 might easily have come on him; — which 
 is equivalent to saying that in early years 
 his philosophical position was in this 
 respect like Kant's. But whether the 
 Kantian position can be properly termed 
 sceptical, or not, at any rate from the time 
 of his conversion Newman was in this 
 respect a changed man: he was not essen- 
 tially a sceptic; for he held that God was 
 the starting-point and stay of all his think- 
 ing, and he loved God with his mind.^ 
 Nor was he sceptical about the Church; 
 
 ' Vol. I., p. 31. 
 
 ' Vol. I., p. 30; qj. Vol. II., p. 265. 
 
140 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 he believed in the Church's divinity. 
 But he was keenly ahve to the human 
 element in the Church, and frightened 
 his friends by the intellectual vividness 
 and the moral earnestness with which he 
 apprehended this himian element. In 
 this regard his intellectual and moral 
 perceptions were as keen as was the fas- 
 tidiousness of his palate. (In his Oriel 
 days this abstemious man had been 
 selected to taste the wines for the college 
 cellar.) He was aware of the physical and 
 psychological and subconscious forces that 
 are at work in the human mind. He knew 
 that the best of logic is ineffective when 
 the intellectual instrument of the indivis- 
 ible man is out of working order. Aroimd 
 God as the central Object, his active mind 
 was always on the move; but, according 
 to his own attestation near the end of his 
 life, from the moment of his conversion he 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 141 
 
 never once had been sceptical about 
 God's reality, nor about his own abso- 
 lute relation to God, as of person to Per- 
 son. Surely Newman, rather than any 
 other man, is the proper judge as to 
 whether this is the true account of him- 
 self. "For a man's mind is sometime 
 wont to tell him more than seven watch- 
 men, that sit above in a high tower." ' 
 Newman's sensitive, elastic, nimble mind 
 moved too fast and too far for others to 
 keep up with him: his utterances, while 
 not indicative of scepticism on his part, 
 did doubtless appear sceptical to others; 
 for if others had said what he said, 
 they would have been sceptics; but New- 
 man's own faith was firm. He loved 
 God with all his mind and heart and 
 soul and strength. He was conscious of 
 shortcomings and infirmities, and did 
 
 ^ Ecclus. xxxvii. 14. 
 
142 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 not try to hide them; but we must accept 
 his own account of himself on the score of 
 scepticism. The bottom quahty of New- 
 man's thought, and therefore of his style 
 (for in his case the style is the man), was 
 that in theology he would not abandon 
 the scientific method upon an ethical 
 impulse. He wanted, like Wordsworth's 
 cloud, to "move altogether if he moved 
 at all." Even in his abstract thinking he 
 insisted upon holding on to both the sci- 
 entific and the ethical impulse; so that he 
 appeared sceptical to those who sacri- 
 ficed the scientific to the ethical. He 
 dreaded the ecclesiastical narrowness that 
 will not face the facts of science and of 
 modem civilization. "There is," he wrote 
 to Sir Frederick Rogers, "in particular 
 quarters a narrowness which is not of 
 God." 1 Newman's point of view was, first, 
 
 ' Vol. I., p. 439. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 143 
 
 that cold reason is by no means always 
 on the side of science, any more than 
 mysticism is always absent from scientific 
 thinking; and secondly, that some of the 
 primary perceptions and movements of 
 the intellect are quite as authoritative 
 acts as are some of our ethical decisions. 
 Here was the point of Newman's conver- 
 sion ui his seventeenth year; and his 
 whole subsequent course and influence 
 depended on it. Newman was deter- 
 mined to pursue a rational method in 
 pursuit of rehgious ideals. In his the- 
 ology, faith was not a renunciation of 
 reason: authority and iaquiry were rec- 
 oncilable; whereas, to many, faith and 
 reason are not reconcilable: credo quia 
 impossible; and to such persons Newman 
 appeared to be a sceptic. But to his 
 own Master he standeth or faUeth; and 
 we, his fellows on the transcendental way, 
 
144 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 must, in this respect, take him at his 
 word. 
 
 An excellent illustration of Newman's 
 method is furnished by his determination 
 to minimize the Pope's Infallibility; and 
 strangely enough this is the one instance 
 in his whole career where he succeeded in 
 his immediate object of endeavor; and the 
 Cardinal's hat was his reward for this, 
 since Leo XIII., unlike his successor, the 
 present Pope, sympathized with New- 
 man's attitude as a minimizer. To begin 
 with, Newman did not want the dogma of 
 InfalUbility to be promulgated by a Coun- 
 cil. He wanted to let well alone. He 
 would allow to the Pope Infallibility as 
 an abstraction; which would be about 
 equivalent to saying that while the Pope's 
 private judgment was doubtless better 
 than his own, he wished the Pope to be 
 enough of a gentleman to keep his private 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 145 
 
 judgment pretty much to himseK. If, in 
 deference to the desires of other Roman 
 Catholics, Newman were called to go fur- 
 ther than this, and to admit the Pope's 
 InfaUibiUty as an abstract proposition 
 generally binding on the faithful, in that 
 case Newman, and every other intelli- 
 gent Roman CathoHc, must be allowed 
 to interpret and apply the proposition 
 after his own fashion; and if there must 
 be a conciliar proclamation of the propo- 
 sition, Newman was bound to be allowed 
 to apply to it a minimizing interpretation 
 and to get general acceptance for his 
 minimizing. In practical application it 
 was to be explained away. In this en- 
 deavor Newman was, for the time being, 
 successful. Manning and Ward were 
 against him, and, in this case, Manning 
 for the nonce joined hands with the 
 Jesuits. Thus Newman was in England 
 
146 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 confronted with what he called, "an inso- 
 lent and aggressive faction." ^ Further- 
 more, the Roman Catholic schools of 
 Belgium, Holland, France, and Italy, 
 under the direction of the religious orders, 
 
 — true Ultramontanes almost all of them 
 
 — were against Newman. Nevertheless, 
 he won out. Canon Scott Holland, in 
 The Commonwealth, has thus described the 
 situation: * 
 
 "And there is the Holy Father himself, 
 most lovable of men, but absolutely ignorant 
 what the problem is which his own infalli- 
 bility is required to solve; utterly ignorant 
 of all the intellectual anxieties which are 
 sweeping over the minds of the laity as New- 
 man knows them; utterly unaware that there 
 are such anxieties; utterly out of touch with 
 the very situation which cries aloud for his 
 infallible authority to act. He smiles and 
 
 > Vol. II., p. 289. 
 
 ^ The Commonwealth for March, 1912, pp. 82-83. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 147 
 
 jokes his way along, and carries the Council 
 with him to declare his infallibility, by sheer 
 delight in his good-humored puns. And yet 
 you love him all the time, and are amused 
 to find that in the end he has passed the 
 definition of his own infallibility in the con- 
 trary sense to the one which he himself 
 intended. For certainly it has come out that 
 the infallibility proclaimed is to be under- 
 stood, not in the sense of the party who car- 
 ried it, but in the sense of those minimizers 
 whom they decried; so that instead of Mr. 
 W. G. Ward's vision of a Papal Bull arriving 
 every morning for your breakfast with The 
 Times and toast, there has not been really 
 one single infallible utterance in the forty 
 years that have followed the proclamation." 
 
 Thus Newman and Lord Acton and 
 Dupanloup and Montalembert and La- 
 cordaire, and the Liberal Cathohcs gen- 
 erally, prevailed at last over Manning 
 and Ward and Louis Veuillot and the 
 Ultramontanes, to whose confusion New- 
 
148 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 man was presented with the hat of a 
 Cardinal, by way of stopping people 
 from saying that "the Pope snubbed 
 him." I 
 
 But in all this Newman was Newman 
 still, reacting as before against his sur- 
 roundings and insisting on exercising his 
 own indomitable individuality. In the 
 old Tractarian days Newman had com- 
 plained that the Bishops of the Church 
 of England in matters of Christian dogma 
 uttered no certain sound: now he com- 
 plained that the universal Bishop of Chris- 
 tendom was too certain in his utterances. 
 In his Roman CathoUc surroundings New- 
 man wanted greater freedom of utterance 
 and interpretation for himself; and for 
 the moment his efforts as a minimizer 
 were crowned with Pope Leo's approval. 
 But it was only for a little while. How 
 
 'Vol.II.,p,44S. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 149 
 
 completely Newman failed in persuad- 
 ing the Roman Catholic communion to 
 stand for what he stood for, is sufficiently 
 disclosed by Pope Pius X.'s Encyclical of 
 Feb. II, 1906, where these words occur: 
 "As for the multitude, their only duty is 
 to let themselves be led, and to follow 
 their Shepherd as a docile herd." 
 
 in 
 
 It has often been remarked that after 
 he joined the Roman Catholic Church, 
 Newman passed, intellectually, under an 
 eclipse. This is hardly exact, for his 
 "Difficulties of Anglicans," "Apologia," 
 and "Grammar of Assent" are as bril- 
 liant, and in some respects as valuable, 
 as any of his productions; his "Dream of 
 Gerontius" is a poem of fine imagination 
 and great spiritual power; and his "Essay 
 on the Development of Christian Doc- 
 
150 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 trine" was epoch-making, if only because 
 it was the precursor of Modernism, and 
 profoundly influenced such men as Loisy 
 and Father Tyrrell. But, with these 
 exceptions, there does seem to be a steady 
 decline in the quality of his productions, 
 and the sermons published in his Roman 
 Catholic days do not, for the most part, 
 hold their own in comparison with the 
 "Parochial" and the "University" ser- 
 mons of his Anglican ministry. Perhaps 
 one reason for this decline was the fact 
 that this period of his life was shrouded in 
 despondency. His portraits at this time 
 are likenesses of a very unhappy man, and 
 he had too much of the sensitive, artistic 
 temperament to do justice to his natural 
 talents under such conditions. 
 
 Meanwhile he presents to us an aspect 
 which is perhaps more difficult to imder- 
 stand and analyze than any other of his 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 151 
 
 many sides. Who that has appreciated 
 the transparency of Newman's soul and 
 the force of his intellect can follow with 
 aught else than astonishment, during his 
 later Roman CathoUc period, his attitude 
 in worship? We see him now passing 
 into the Roman CathoUc atmosphere of 
 devotion, and here, as always, he is pecul- 
 iar to himself. But what an extraordi- 
 nary combination of elements and of 
 points of view does he now present to us! 
 The very sincerity of the man, and his 
 rare abihty to express the workings of his 
 soul, render him more than ever elusive. 
 Yet if we examine ourselves before we 
 examine him, we shall recognize that 
 even here we can and must go with him 
 a certain distance: that at least there is a 
 certain parallelism between what we find 
 him doing and what we do in worship. 
 For, though we Protestants are prone to 
 
152 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 forget it, there is, and always has been, 
 and always must be, a measure of accom- 
 modation in the worship of all mankind. 
 Before we charge Newman with being 
 either intellectually, or else morally, im- 
 possible and inconsistent — before we 
 assert that in his words and acts of devo- 
 tion he is untrue to his own professed 
 intellectual tenets, and to the moods of 
 his abstract argumentation, — we Prot- 
 estants must first consider carefully our 
 own attitude and expressions when we 
 pass from religious ratiocination to wor- 
 ship, whether public or private. Is there 
 not accommodation in the worship of the 
 most determined and self-repressed of 
 Protestants? Is it not true of all men's 
 words and acts of devotion that "these 
 things are an allegory," "figures of the 
 true"? "that now we see as in a mirror, 
 darkly"? Both in Roman Catholic and 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 153 
 
 in Protestant worship men have to accom- 
 modate themselves, first, to the forms and 
 symbols and expressions of the past: we 
 enter into the worship of our forefathers. 
 Furthermore, from youth to age our wor- 
 ship is a continuous process of accommo- 
 dation of our former selves to our present 
 selves: the meaning to us of our forms of 
 Divine Service varies with our years, and 
 with our experience of God and of human 
 life: each mature individual has to adapt 
 himself, as he now is, to himself as he has 
 been: he puts a new significance into the 
 old acts and words; and even in full 
 maturity he stiU, like his children who 
 worship at his side, is dealing with sym- 
 bols of the true, lifting up his heart unto 
 the Lord. Again, we must accommodate 
 ourselves to our neighbors: educated and 
 uneducated, prince and pauper, in com- 
 mon worship must sing the same hymns. 
 
154 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 say the same prayers, perform the same 
 acts. In this matter of comprehensive 
 flexibihty some good Protestants feel 
 hardly less keenly than Newman the chUly 
 rigidity of parts of the Enghsh Prayer 
 Book — the remoteness of some of our 
 Prayer Book services from the masses of 
 the people. It is by no means impossible 
 for us to understand Newman in his pref- 
 erence for the warmth and promiscuous- 
 ness of the service of a great Roman Cath- 
 olic cathedral. When he first left the 
 Church of England he thus described to 
 Henry Wilberforce his impression of the 
 worship in St. Peter's, Rome : ' 
 
 "I doubt if you will understand me, but 
 a Catholic cathedral is a sort of world, every- 
 one going about his own business, but that 
 business a religious one; groups of worship- 
 pers, and solitary ones — kneeling, stand- 
 
 ' Vol. I., pp. 140-141. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 155 
 
 ing — some at shrines, some at altars — 
 hearing Mass and communicating, currents 
 of worshippers intercepting and passing by- 
 each other — altar after altar ht up for 
 worship, like stars in the firmament — or 
 the bell giving notice of what is going on in 
 parts you do not see, and all the while the 
 canons in the choir going through matins 
 and lauds, and at the end of it the incense 
 rolling up from the high altar, and all this in 
 one of the most wonderful buUdings in the 
 world and every day — lastly, all of this with- 
 out any show or effort — but what everyone 
 is used to — everyone at his own work, and 
 leaving everyone else to his. ... It is always 
 a refreshment to the mind, and elevates it, 
 to enter a church such as St. Fidelis. It 
 has such a sweet, smiling, open countenance 
 — and the altar is so gracious and winning, 
 standing out for all to see, and to approach. 
 The taU polished marble columns, the marble 
 rails, the marble floor, the bright pictures, 
 all speak the same language. And a hght 
 dome crowns the whole. Perhaps I do but 
 follow the way of elderly persons, who have 
 seen enough that is sad [in] life to be able to 
 
156 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 dispense with officious, intentional sadness 
 — and as the young prefer autumn and the 
 old spring, the young tragedy and the old 
 comedy, so in the ceremonial of religion, 
 younger men have my leave to prefer Gothic, 
 if they wiU but tolerate me in my weakness, 
 which requires the Italian. It is so soothing 
 and pleasant, after the hot streets, to go into 
 these delicate yet rich interiors, which are 
 like the bowers of paradise or an angel's 
 chamber. We found the same in a different 
 way in Paris. It was oppressively hot, and 
 we wandered through the narrow streets in 
 the evening, seeking out the Jesuits' house. 
 When we found it, the Superior was out, and 
 we were ushered in, as into a drawing-room, 
 into so green and beautiful a garden, with 
 refreshing trees on the lawn, and quiet fig- 
 ures stealing along the walks saying their 
 office. We entered a treUised walk of vines 
 and seated ourselves on a stone bench which 
 lay on the ground." 
 
 Undoubtedly in Protestant congrega- 
 tions there are proportionately a larger 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 157 
 
 number of educated people than in most 
 Roman Catholic congregations; and the 
 average Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon mind 
 uses religious symbols more sparingly and 
 with a greater faculty of abstraction 
 than, for example, the average ItaUan; im- 
 doubtedly, furthermore, the habit of the 
 more intellectual Italians to worship con- 
 stantly with persons less educated and 
 more childish than themselves induces 
 even the more intellectual to consent to 
 forms of worship which they themselves 
 have intellectually outgrown, until fi- 
 nally their minds do not, as otherwise they 
 might, rebel against such forms. A sim- 
 ilar result may be seen among Protes- 
 tants who worship in company with their 
 children, in contrast to Protestants who 
 do not even try to adjust themselves 
 to their children in mind and soul. But 
 a candid Protestant must admit that, 
 
158 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 however simple and undemonstrative his 
 forms of public worship may be, if they 
 are to appeal to and include the people 
 generally, they must be characterized by 
 comprehensive flexibihty and a generous 
 use of symbols, and of objects to assist 
 devotion and guide the eye and fire the 
 imagination, — in short, to exercise not 
 merely the mind but the body also, and 
 to relieve the soul. At bottom we are 
 touching here the whole subject of idol- 
 atry; and any Protestant who has trav- 
 elled in the Orient, or conversed with 
 missionaries, or even visited social settle- 
 ments in our own city slums, sooner or 
 later comes to the conclusion that he must 
 revise his definition of the term idolatry. 
 Nay, before we have done with this deep, 
 difiBcult question, many of us will be 
 asking ourselves whether there are not 
 many idols in Protestant homes, and in 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 159 
 
 Protestant minds that never bow down 
 in prayer to wood or stone. Certainly 
 Bacon decided that there are. On the 
 other hand, one of our ablest American 
 professors, who has made a study of 
 childhood, declares his conviction that 
 many savages, both children and adults, 
 are not really as idolatrous as we are 
 prone to suppose. In other words, edu- 
 cation and the habit of dealing with 
 intellectual theories and spiritual abstrac- 
 tions do not necessarily remove from even 
 the most enlightened of us the tempta- 
 tion to worship false gods; and it was 
 not for naught that an Old Testament 
 prophet warned his people against "setting 
 up idols in their heart." Especially in 
 these days, when the widespread desire 
 for Christian Unity is drawing the various 
 denominations of Christians nearer to 
 each other in faith and worship, must not 
 
i6o ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 the absolute necessity of revising our 
 notions as to what will be required of us 
 in this matter of accommodation in wor- 
 ship, be more than ever in our minds? 
 
 Recognizing, therefore, the complex- 
 ity of this whole subject, when treated 
 squarely and thoroughly, we shall be 
 slow to accuse Newman of insincerity 
 when he worships as ordinary Roman 
 CathoHcs do, and even when he exer- 
 cises his amazing ability to argue in 
 their defence. Yet, no matter what par- 
 allelism there be between what Newman 
 did and what we all do — mentally and 
 spiritually, no less than by bodily signs 
 and acts — in worship, nevertheless we 
 cannot deny that before long Newman 
 becomes to us "a lost leader." There are 
 obscure and subconscious psychological 
 processes through which Newman passes 
 that we do not partake of; and his intel- 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE i6i 
 
 lect, formerly so clear, is overcast with 
 superstition. Nor can we fail to notice 
 that even now, in the midst of his recently 
 adopted Roman Catholic environment, 
 Newman is stiU Newman — still going 
 his own way, still reacting and asserting 
 his individuality. On the one hand, he 
 insists on exercising his Anglo-Saxon tem- 
 perament — the habits of non-Latin men- 
 tality. Alluding to Faber and Ward and 
 other recent and rabid converts to Rome, 
 he writes: ^ "They are in no sense spokes- 
 men for EngUsh CathoKcs, and they must 
 not stand in the place of those who have 
 a real title to such an office." When Dr. 
 Pusey in his Eirenicon quoted from 
 Roman Catholic manuals many extreme 
 expressions of devotion to the Blessed 
 Virgin Mary and the Saints, Newman 
 repHed: 
 1 Vol. n., p. 104. 
 
i62 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 "Sentiments such as these I freely surren- 
 der to your animadversion; I never knew of 
 them till I read your book, nor, as I think, 
 do the vast majority of English CathoHcs 
 know them. They seem to me like a bad 
 dream."' "I prefer English habits of be- 
 Hef and devotion to foreign, for the same 
 causes, and by the same right, which justifies 
 foreigners in preferring their own." ^ "In 
 England Catholics pray before images, not to 
 them. I wonder whether as many as a dozen 
 pray to them, but they will be the best Cath- 
 olics, not ordinary ones. The truth is, that 
 sort of aiiectionate fervor which leads one to 
 confuse an object with its representation is 
 skin-deep in the South and argues nothing 
 for a worshipper's faith, hope, and charity, 
 whereas in a Northern race, like ours, with 
 whom ardent devotional feeHng is not com- 
 mon, it may be the mark of great spirituality. 
 As to the nature of the feeHng itself, and its 
 absolute incongruity with any intellectual 
 intention of addressing the image as an im- 
 age, I think it is not difficult for any one with 
 
 > Vol. II., p. io6. 2 Vol. II., p. no. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 163 
 
 an ordinary human heart to understand it. 
 Do we not love the picture which we may 
 have of friends departed? Will not a hus- 
 band wear in his bosom and kiss the minia- 
 ture of his wife? Cannot you fancy a man 
 addressing himself to it, as if it were the 
 reality? Think of Cowper's Hnes on his 
 Mother's picture. 'Those Hps are thine,' he 
 says, ' thy own sweet smile I see ' — and then 
 'Fancy shall steep me in Elysian reverie, a 
 momentary dream that thou art She. ' And then 
 he goes on to the picture, ' My Mother,' etc." * 
 
 On the other hand, how can a man 
 like Newman, who still retains so much 
 of the Anglo-Saxon mentality, and who 
 was once indeed a Protestant — how can 
 he — though he has become a Roman- 
 ist and embraced Mariolatry and the 
 worship of saints — how can he possibly 
 be jocose about it, and, even when he 
 is at his prayers to saints, indulge in 
 persiflage? If we know ourselves at all, 
 
 1 Vol. I., p 652- 
 
i64 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 in case we ever broke into such expres- 
 sions as the following, it would mean that 
 our prayers to saints were not real prayers. 
 But Newman is so individual, and tem- 
 peramentally so sincere, that he is, towards 
 his patron saint, very much as we, in our 
 years of discretion, are towards our 
 earthly parents, whom we still respect and 
 lean on, but at the same time criticise 
 and now and then find fault with. In so 
 great and wise and saintly a man as 
 Frangois de Sales there was a Uttle of 
 this, even in his attitude toward our 
 Heavenly Father; for did he not, in all 
 seriousness, write to one of his penitents, 
 "If God tires you, tell Him that He tires 
 you"? But toward the Virgin Mary and 
 St. Philip, his patron saint, Newman 
 goes much farther than that. 
 He writes to Sister Imelda : * 
 
 > Vol. I., pp. 288-289. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 165 
 
 "I smiled at the cleverness with which 
 you are attempting to get up a miraculous 
 Image in England. Now as to your proposal, 
 I have this difficulty, that it is taxing our 
 Blessed Lady unfairly — not her power, but 
 her willingness. . . . Now what right have 
 I, for the sake of my private ends, to put your 
 Image on trial? It has done everything for 
 you, — because you have asked what you 
 ought to ask. Now you wish me to ask a 
 very hard thing, and that (in a way) selfishly, 
 and you make me say to our Lady, 'Do it, 
 under pain of your Image losing its repute.' 
 ... It is just possible, and rather more 
 than possible, that it is His blessed wiU that 
 I should suffer — and though I don't think so 
 quite so much as I did, yet somehow at first 
 sight I do not like to be unkind, if I may use 
 such a word, to your Image. ... I will not 
 get you into any more scrapes with Rever- 
 end Mother. I gladly avail myself of her 
 offer — and promise that if her Madonna 
 gains my acquittal I wiU gladly come to 
 Clifton, preach a sermon in her honor, and, 
 if it is consistent with your rules, carry her 
 in procession. . . . Thank you with all my 
 
i66 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 heart for what you are so kindly intending to 
 gain for me. Thank you also for the reproof 
 you have administered to me. I know well 
 I am an unbelieving old beast; and so perhaps 
 in this instance. Recollect, however, dear 
 Reverend Mother, that our House in Bir- 
 mingham is erected under the Invocation of 
 the Immaculate Mother of God, as beseems 
 an Oratory of St. Philip — and is dedicated 
 to her forever, and that you will not please 
 her by abusing him." 
 
 As to St. Philip Neri, and his short- 
 comings as a patron saint, this is how 
 Newman expresses himself, not in a let- 
 ter — as above about the Virgin Mary — 
 but in a prayer to God Himself: ^ 
 
 "0 my God, in Thy sight, I confess and 
 bewail my extreme weakaess in distrusting, 
 if not Thee, at least Thy own servants and 
 representatives, when things do not turn out 
 as I would have them, or expected! Thou 
 hast given me St. Philip, that great creation 
 of Thy grace, for my master and patron — 
 
 2 Vol. II., p. 365. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 167 
 
 and I have committed myself to him — and 
 he has done very great things for me, and 
 has in many ways fulfilled toward me aU 
 that I can fairly reckon he had promised. 
 But, because in some things he has disap- 
 pointed me, and delayed, I have got impa- 
 tient; and have served him, though without 
 conscious disloyalty, yet with peevishness 
 and coldness. my dear Lord, give me a 
 generous faith in Thee and in Thy servants!" 
 
 That is how he expressed himself in 
 actual prayer to God concerning St. 
 Philip; and in another place we have in 
 one of Newman's letters to Father St. 
 John, an instance of how Newman would 
 remonstrate with St. Philip himself: 1 
 
 "The case is dififerent when I think of St. 
 Philip; then I argue thus: There is just one 
 virtue which he asks for, detachment, which 
 at the same time he prevents me having. 
 There is just one thing which hinders me 
 being detached, and that is, that I have made 
 
 ' Vol. II., pp. 345-346. 
 
1 68 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 myself his servant. What wish have I for 
 Kfe, or for success of any kind, except so far 
 as and because I have this his congregation 
 on my hands? He it is who has implicated 
 me in the world, in a way in which I never 
 was before, or at least never since my mother 
 died and my sisters married. For St. Philip's 
 sake I have given up my Hberty, and have, 
 as far as the temptation and trial of anxiety 
 goes, become as secular almost as if I had 
 married. The one thing I ask of him is to 
 shield me from the extreme force of this 
 trial; and the only explanation I can suggest 
 to myself why he does not do so is that I 
 have in some way or other greatly offended 
 him. And, when I cry out to you, it is not 
 in complaint, but as signifying inarticulately 
 feehngs which are too deep for words. Please 
 God, and I hope not from pride, I will be 
 faithful to St. PhiKp, and then God will re- 
 ward me, though St. PhiKp does not. And 
 I will therefore bottle up my thoughts and 
 fancy St. Philip sajang to me what a French 
 conducteur once did, when I was looking 
 after the safety of my luggage. 'It is my 
 business, not yours.'" 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 169 
 
 When we read such utterances as 
 these and remember that they came from 
 a mature man of great intellect and high 
 spirituahty — from a man, too, who was 
 born and bred an Anglican, and in his 
 early ministry was wont to make much of 
 the reticence and reserve of our Lord 
 and of the whole New Testament in all 
 such matters — it almost seems as if New- 
 man, in his Roman Catholic days, got fi- 
 nally into much the same state of mind as 
 Count von Hoensbroech describes when 
 telling of his boyhood in his Junker 
 home in Germany, where he and his 
 plajrfeUows entered with gusto into the 
 "Mass-game": 1 
 
 "We boys were very early taught to 'min- 
 ister' at the daily Mass in our chapel. . . . 
 Only those who know the theatrical nature 
 
 ' "Fourteen Years a Jesuit," by Count von Hoens- 
 broech. Vol. I., pp. 22-23. Translation by Alice Zim- 
 mem. Cassell & Co., New York, 1911. 
 
I70 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 of the ceremony, with all its minutiae, its 
 liturgical utensils and vestments, its prayers, 
 recited now loudly, now in undertones, its 
 gleam of tapers and ringing of bells, its mys- 
 tical culmination in the transformation of 
 bread and wine into the body and blood of 
 Christ, can realize the impression it makes 
 on the minds of children who actually par- 
 ticipate in the celebration. But even this 
 participation in the Mass did not sufl&ce for 
 my mother. One Christmas we received as 
 a present a ' Mass-game,' consisting of all the 
 objects required for the celebration — an 
 altar, vestments, missal, and aU the uten- 
 sils — chalice, wine and water cans, candle- 
 sticks and bell, which enabled us children 
 to celebrate the Mass in play, and occasion- 
 ally to add to it a sermon. Even our sisters 
 put on the vestments, and, contrary to all 
 discipline and dogma, said Mass and preached, 
 in spite of the exhortation Mulier taceat in 
 ecclesia. If other children came to visit us, 
 we entertained them with a solemn service, 
 and choral High Mass, when our juvenile 
 vivacity often led to drastic scenes between 
 the ofiSciating priests and the faithtful con- 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 171 
 
 gregation. As this 'Mass-game' was not 
 specially made for us, but was to be had 
 by purchasing, it is probable that it is stiU 
 played in many an ultramontane household. 
 Conceive of it: the very culmination of the 
 Catholic religion, aroimd which, in the Words 
 of theologians, aU else revolves ' as aroimd the 
 sun,' the fearful mystery {tremendum mys- 
 terium), at whose celebration 'worshipping 
 angels attend,' is turned into a children's 
 game!" 
 
 In a letter to the Duke of Norfolk,^ 
 Newman remarks, "The Rock of St. 
 Peter on its summit enjoys a pure and 
 serene atmosphere, but there is a great 
 deal of Roman malaria at the foot of it." 
 Had not the malaria got hold of Newman 
 when he wrote such passages as those 
 above quoted, or as the following to Dr. 
 Pusey? Think of it, in a letter to Dr. 
 Pusey, whom, in the "Apologia," he 
 described as o Meyas! 
 
 1 Vol. II., p. 404. 
 
172 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 "So far concerning the Blessed Virgin. » 
 And now, when I could wish to proceed, 
 she seems to stop all controversy, for 
 the Feast of her Immaculate Conception is 
 upon us. . . . May that bright and gentle 
 Lady overcome you with her sweetness." 
 
 Does it not — to use Newman's own 
 remark to Pusey about Images and some 
 Romanist expressions concerning the Saints 
 and Mariolatry — does not this phrase 
 of Newman to Pusey seem "like a bad 
 dream"? Truly, Newman is now quite 
 as much of a distressing puzzle to our- 
 selves, as he was in other matters to his 
 Roman Catholic associates. 
 
 IV 
 
 We have, as far as in us lies, answered 
 in regard to Newman all save one of the 
 
 1 Vol. II., p. io8. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 173 
 
 questions with which this study began. 
 It remains to consider what the ultimate 
 secret was of Newman's influence over his 
 contemporaries who were reUgiously dis- 
 posed. For such persons the Evangel- 
 ical Movement had already accompUshed 
 much, rendering their reUgion serious and 
 intensely personal, and kindling a new 
 missionary zeal. Newman himself owed 
 much to the Evangehcals; but Newman 
 and the Tractarians had something else 
 to contribute to the rehgious hfe of the 
 Church of England, namely, their empha- 
 sis on the note of Cathohcity; their inter- 
 est in ecclesiastical antiquities; their wider 
 literary culture; and above all their keener 
 apprehension of the common social and 
 sacramental life of Christians as members 
 of the one Body whose head is Christ. 
 Dean Church bears emphatic witness to 
 this side of Newman's influence, as well 
 
174 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 as to the impression of what sainthood 
 signifies, which Newman and the other 
 authors of the "Lyra ApostoUca" revived 
 in England. 
 
 But besides all this, Newman had a 
 different and weighty message for all per- 
 sons who were rehgiously disposed, no 
 matter what their ecclesiastical connection. 
 We have to remember that for two cen- 
 turies there has been among civilized 
 mankind a noticeable change in the con- 
 sciousness of certitude; or possibly it 
 would be more exact to say that there has 
 been a change in men's idea of the range 
 of human certitude and the direction in 
 which our sense of certitude applies itself.^ 
 For a considerable period previous to New- 
 man, and throughout his time, the himian 
 intellect was chiefly engaged, and very 
 
 1 Cf . Richard Holt Hutton's essay on "Religious 
 Uncertainty." 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 175 
 
 seriously engaged, with the surface of Ufe, 
 rather than with the springs of Hfe. Under 
 the auspices of natural science a new range 
 of wholesome and unselfish interests had 
 been called to man's attention in con- 
 nection with physical objects; and these 
 interests had a certain largeness and cath- 
 oUcity and unmistakable value, though 
 there was hardly a vestige in them of deep 
 spirituaUty. Although imtainted by direct 
 moral danger, these interests manifested 
 small promise of spiritual help. While 
 not, in the conventional sense, "worldly," 
 they were not "imworldly." Or, to put 
 it differently, a new world of the super- 
 ficial imderstanding was so occupying 
 mankind, that they gave up the quest of 
 the spirit. If God was not denied. He was 
 not generally "in aU the thoughts" of 
 such men. Hereby it followed that men 
 took most of their tests of certainty 
 
176 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 from a region which is physical rather 
 than spiritual, and meanwhile a shadow 
 was cast over the true spirit of man: 
 his spiritual occupation was gone; and 
 he was less and less aware, not only 
 of religious certainty on his own part, 
 but of the quality and cogency of religious 
 certitude in comparison with the certi- 
 tude of physical science. 
 
 Now it was Newman's function to re- 
 claim spirituality for the hmnan under- 
 standing, and to compel men to recognize 
 that there is actuaUty in our religious 
 certitude, no less than in other kinds of 
 certitude. In this regard those who caught 
 the contagion of Newman's personality 
 found — at least in the sermons of his Ang- 
 lican period — the tone and teaching of 
 the New Testament about certainty in 
 religion restored to them. During this 
 period of his career Newman's tone was 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 177 
 
 the tone of Jesus Christ. Newman saw 
 Christ vivid in the New Testament, and 
 he helped us to see Him. He made Christ 
 a character as real to us as it is super- 
 human. The reasonableness, the author- 
 ity, the beauty and joy and pathos, and 
 the awful risks and prospects of man's 
 hidden religious Ufe were by Newman 
 rendered once more vital to many men 
 who, though not ignoble, had of late been 
 occupied with the surfaces of things. 
 The Rev. Mr. Campbell, of London, in 
 a sermon to Presbyterians in New York 
 last winter, said: "Ever since I was a boy 
 I have had the feeling that the spiritual 
 world is so real to me that I can almost 
 put my fist into it." Newman had the 
 same feeling, and wherever he was he made 
 multitudes feel as he did: they renewed 
 their hold on the world behind the veil, 
 and the term "real" was no longer a super- 
 
178 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 ficial term for them, with materiaUstic 
 connotation. Students of natural science 
 expressed themselves with less aversion 
 to the idea that "the spirit of man is the 
 candle of the Lord," and that ultimate 
 reality is not to be confined in terms of 
 matter. Speaking of the Uves of the 
 saints, Newman observed: ^ "The exhibi- 
 tion of a person, his thoughts, his words, 
 his acts, his trials, his features, his begin- 
 nings, his growth, his end, have a charm 
 to everyone; and where he is a saint, they 
 have a divine influence and persuasion, 
 a power of exercising and eliciting the 
 latent elements of divine grace in indi- 
 vidual readers, as no other reading can." 
 Newman himself exhibited sainthood to 
 aU who came within his reach. Withal, 
 as he remarked in his sermon on "The 
 Parting of Friends," he had a marvellous 
 
 '■ Vol. I., p. 207. 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 179 
 
 insight into the workings of the human 
 mind and will; he read men to themselves, 
 and comforted them in the reading, and 
 brought to bear on them his own over- 
 mastering desire for holiness, without 
 which no man shall see God. Like the 
 Psalmist he had the genius to put in well- 
 pruned words the intuitions of the spirit 
 — the uidefinite, subtle sentiments that 
 pierce the soiil and render it athirst for 
 God. As Richard Holt Hutton observes 
 in his essay on "The Spiritual Fatigue of 
 the World," "Christianity cannot be 
 understood in any degree without being 
 approached with a certain passion both 
 of hope and fear. The whole history 
 which led up to it, the whole history which 
 has flowed forth from it, has been a his- 
 tory of spiritual passion, and there is no 
 meaning in Christianity at all if it be not 
 true that divine passion is as deeply rooted 
 
i8o ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 in the eternal spirit as infinite reason it- 
 self." This is what Newman signified 
 when he chose for his motto the saying of 
 Augustine, "Heart speaks to heart" {Cor 
 ad cor loquitur). Scott Holland aUudes to 
 this when he speaks of the "lyrical cry" 
 in Newman; and Father Ryder "remem- 
 bers hearing an eccentric but acute critic, 
 with something of Mr. Swinburne's turn 
 for grouping poets, thus deliver himself 
 in our common room: 'Under the head 
 Poets of Passion I would put Lord Byron, 
 Charles Wesley and ' — bowing to Father 
 Newman — 'if I may be allowed to say 
 so, your Reverence.' We were aU very 
 much amused, but I have often thought 
 since that the criticism was almost as true 
 as it was grotesque." 
 
 Thus our study of Newman ends, as 
 it began, with the settled impression that 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE i8i 
 
 Newman's own intimate description of 
 himself to Sister Maria Pia was accurate: 
 "Like St. Gregory Nazianzen, I like going 
 on my own way." And the clue to his 
 whole strange course was, in large meas- 
 ure, his native independence coupled with 
 his artistic temperament. He was noble 
 and disinterested, and he worked for 
 love; but he wanted recognition and 
 himian sympathy; and for lack of these he 
 drooped, and seemed at last like a bril- 
 liant being chloroformed. Those of us 
 who beUeve ourselves to be both Catholic 
 and Protestant — or, as Dr. Muhlenberg 
 used to phrase it, those who are Evan- 
 geUcal Cathohcs — cannot but commiser- 
 ate Newman as he finished his Roman 
 Catholic career, when we compare him 
 with the Newman who had inspired and 
 helped us in his earher AngUcan days. I 
 have said that Newman's life was a 
 
i82 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 drama, but not a tragedy; and this I 
 think, is so, if one looks at the benefits 
 which Newman brought to the piety of 
 individuals, and at his influence in deepen- 
 ing the attachment of churchmen to their 
 Church throughout the Anglican commun- 
 ion. But if, on the other hand, we have 
 regard to Newman as a personal phe- 
 nomenon — to the condition of the man 
 himself at the close of his career, as con- 
 trasted with the beginning — then we 
 feel that Newman's hfe was indeed trag- 
 ical. Take, for example, first the Paro- 
 chial Sermons of the Anglican period; and 
 next, the Apologia; and lastly, the occa- 
 sional sermons which he published during 
 his Roman Cathohc period. In the first, 
 as previously remarked, Jesus Christ 
 stands out to us somewhat as He does in 
 the New Testament — a vivid Person, 
 a real, sufficient revelation in human form 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 183 
 
 of the Heavenly Father. The immediate, 
 accessible actuahty of Christ, as the New 
 Testament portrays Him, is uppermost 
 in Newman's mind, and he applies it to 
 our heart and mind and will in a most 
 solemn and searching way. At the next 
 stage of Newman's career, in the Apologia, 
 Christ seems to have withdrawn into the 
 backgroimd, and He is to a large extent 
 left out of the argument. In the third 
 stage the situation is even worse, for in 
 the place that Christ used to occupy 
 other figures have intruded — the Virgin 
 Mary and St. Philip Neri and St. Brid- 
 get, and such like. By way of definite 
 instance I will give that mentioned in the 
 striking autobiography entitled "A Soul's 
 Pilgrimage."! Dr. Charles F. B. Miel 
 narrates the disappointment with which 
 
 1 "A Soul's Pilgrimage," by Charles F. B. Miel, D.D., 
 p. 48. Jacobs, Philadelphia, 1899. 
 
i84 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 he heard Newman preach at the Oratory 
 in London on Holy Thursday. The topic 
 of Newman's sermon was the Eucharist. 
 "Every one was prepared for a great utter- 
 ance in keeping with the day and the 
 solenm subject of the discourse. I, for 
 one, was disappointed. For the preacher, 
 in giving a description of the circumstances 
 connected with the Last Supper, chose to 
 portray it, not according to the Gospels, 
 but according to the revelation of St. 
 Bridget! In the most serious manner the 
 form of the table was described, the place 
 which each of the disciples occupied, the 
 shape and position of the dishes and vases, 
 etc., etc., and all this detail was told in 
 the confident manner of one who was 
 narrating historic facts." To one who 
 knows what Newman's genius and schol- 
 arship had been, and how rare his power 
 to enlighten and pierce and elevate the 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 185 
 
 human soul — surely to such this sermon 
 in the Oratory presents the last act of a 
 tragedy. 
 
 Yet in the case of persons who in real 
 Ufe have influenced us greatly, we do not 
 strike a balance between their excellen- 
 cies and their defects: we are attracted 
 or repelled by the assembled quaUties as 
 a Uving whole; and if, on the whole, the 
 influence is good, then the weight of the 
 entire personality is imparted to such 
 goodness. So with Newman, the final, 
 prevailing impression that we carry from 
 his life is, his intense personal piety com- 
 bined with genuine distinction of mind 
 and spirit. These qualities enabled him 
 to exercise his extraordinary influence in 
 our Anglican communion, and far beyond. 
 They linger with us still while we sing his 
 hymn, "Lead, kindly Light," — that inti- 
 mate revelation of an earnest soul which 
 
i86 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 seems like an echo of the prayer with 
 which Petrarch closed his 'Secretum': 
 "May God lead me safe and whole out of 
 so many crooked ways; that I may follow 
 the Voice that calls me; that I may raise 
 up no cloud of dust before my eyes; and 
 with my mind calmed down and at peace, 
 I may hear the world grow stiU and silent, 
 and the winds of adversity die away." 
 
 In order that Newman himself may 
 strike that note for me, in closing this 
 study of his character I quote a passage 
 from the "Dream of Gerontius," a poem 
 so dear to General Gordon that he carried 
 it with him even at Khartoum. ^ Gor- 
 don's was an individuality as imique as 
 Newman's, though in a different way, 
 and quite as independent. Gordon, like 
 Newman and St. Paul, "died daily"; and 
 
 'Wilfred Ward's "Biography of Newman," Vol. II., 
 p. SIS- 
 
NEWMAN ONCE MORE 187 
 
 Newman's poem gave true expression to 
 Gordon's martial soul. Now that both of 
 them — the soldier and the Cardinal — 
 have gone to their last accotmt, we can 
 link them in this passage, where Geron- 
 tius tells of the feeling with which the 
 departing soul passes into the presence of 
 his Judge and Saviour: 
 
 Soul. 
 "I go before my Judge. Ah! . . ." 
 
 Angel. 
 
 ". . . Praise to His Name! 
 The eager spirit has started from my hold, 
 And, with intemperate energy of love, 
 Flies to the dear feet of Emmanuel: 
 But, ere it reach them, the keen sanctity, 
 With which its efHuence, like a glory, clothes 
 And circles round the Crucified, has seized, 
 And scorch'd, and shriveU'd it; and now it 
 
 lies 
 Passive and still before the awful Throne. 
 
i88 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 O happy, suffering soul! for it is safe, 
 Consumed, yet quicken'd, by the glance of 
 God." 
 
 Soul. 
 
 "Take me away, and in the lowest deep 
 
 There let me be. . . . 
 There will I sing, and soothe my stricken 
 breast, 
 
 Which ne'er can cease 
 To throb, and pine, and languish, till pos- 
 sest 
 
 Of its Sole Peace. 
 There will I sing my absent Lord and Love — 
 
 Take me away. 
 That sooner I may rise, and go above, 
 And see Him in the truth of everlasting day." 
 
BISHOP DOANE— THE POET 
 
BISHOP DOANE— THE POET 
 
 In this issue the Churchman contains a 
 letter expressive of the sincere sympathy 
 which aU friends of the Bishop of Albany 
 are feeling at this time — sympathy which 
 surely is shared by church people generally, 
 for Bishop Doane is known and honoured 
 throughout our country, and far beyond. 
 This is neither the place nor the time to say 
 more on that intimate theme; but I think 
 that even here and now something can be 
 said which will not be out of harmony with 
 what so many of us are thinking in our 
 hearts. 
 
 More than a generation ago the first 
 Bishop Doane, of New Jersey, in one of 
 the valuable footnotes to his (first) Ameri- 
 can edition of Keble's Christian Year, 
 in quoting one of Dr. CrosweU's fugitive 
 
192 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 poems, said of that notable Boston clergy- 
 man, "He has more unwritten poetry in 
 him than any man I know." That re- 
 mark might well be applied to the second 
 Bishop Doane, and I have so thought 
 of it lately. Standing before us, as he 
 now does, in noble loneliness, bereaved of 
 his last child, the many friends of the 
 Bishop of Albany are thinking of him not 
 so much as the Pastor, the Bishop, the 
 statesman, the fearless leader of men — 
 in all which characters he has been distin- 
 guished during his long career — but rather 
 in a more pathetic guise, which appeals 
 directly to our most human sympathies; 
 and it is in this connection that Bishop 
 Doane's poetic gift has been recalled to me. 
 If he had not spent himself in coimtless 
 other ways, for the Church and for the 
 world at large, there can be little doubt 
 that he would have been widely recognized 
 
BISHOP DOANE — THE POET 193 
 
 as a true poet; whereas in the stress and 
 complexity of his regular duties he has 
 been, for the most part, obliged to live 
 "with all the music in him still unsung." 
 Now and then, indeed, fugitive verses from 
 his pen have got before the pubUc, but they 
 were inadequate samples of his unwritten 
 store; although in his sermons and letters, 
 and above all in his remarkable extempore 
 addresses, there were abundant signs of 
 his poetic cast of mind. Once or twice he 
 has accomplished the difficult feat of com- 
 posing a really great hjonn, such as "An- 
 cient of Days," which has a permanent 
 place, not only in our own Hymnal, but 
 in collections of sacred song put forth by 
 other Christian denominations, both here 
 and abroad. I recollected this hymn 
 when, in a private letter, I was told of the 
 touching appearance of the aged Bishop 
 as Celebrant at Holy Communion in his 
 
194 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 little church at Northeast Harbor, about 
 the time when the funeral car was bearing 
 the remains of his beloved child to her 
 distant grave. 
 
 Since then I have called to mind another 
 poem of his, less widely known — a very 
 hiunan dociunent, bearing also character- 
 istic marks of the devout divine. Bishop 
 Doane has always been as fond of 
 animals as of mankind; and those who 
 are familiar with Dr. Brown's " Rab 
 and his Friends" and Matthew Arnold's 
 "Geist" wiU find much of the fine 
 feeling and poetry of the Scotch physi- 
 cian and the English man-of-letters con- 
 densed in these beautiful verses of our 
 American Bishop, along with notes that are 
 quite his own. For years I have had these 
 verses on a card that stands on my study 
 mantelpiece, to catch my eye in vacant 
 moments. I reproduce them here as a 
 
BISHOP DOANE — THE POET 195 
 
 fair example of the wealth of "unwritten 
 poetry" that is, and always has been, in 
 the Bishop of Albany. Possibly in this 
 hour of deep sorrow, when his closest 
 friends can but offer him the mute condo- 
 lence of clasped hands and wistful eyes, 
 he will not refuse to accept, from one less 
 intimate, this earlier utterance of himself 
 to himself, which expresses much that he 
 has been used to say to others in like 
 case; for here he says all that can be 
 said, and better than others could say it: 
 
 Bishop Doane on his Dog 
 
 "I am qxiite sure he thinks that I am God — 
 Since he is God on whom each one depends 
 For life, and all things that his bomity sends — 
 My dear old dog, most constant of all friends; 
 Not quick to mind, but quicker far than I 
 To Him whom God I know and own: his eye 
 Deep brown and liquid, watches for my nod; 
 He is more patient underneath the rod 
 Than I, when God His wise corrections sends. 
 He looks love at me deep as words e'er spake: 
 And from me never crumb nor sup will take 
 
196 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 But he wags thanks with his most vocal tail: 
 And when some crashing noise wakes all his fear, 
 He is content and quiet if I am near, 
 Secure that my protection will prevail. 
 So, faithful, mindful, thankful, trustful, he 
 Tells me what I imto my God should be." 
 
AN EXPERIMENT IN CONSERVA- 
 TIVE REVISION OF THE NEW 
 TESTAMENT 
 
 A REVIEW 
 
AN EXPERIMENT IN CONSERVA- 
 TIVE REVISION OF THE NEW 
 TESTAMENT! 
 
 Dean Beeching, of Norwich, and Arch- 
 deacon Westcott have just published a 
 tentative revision of the Authorized Ver- 
 sion of the Epistle to the Hebrews; and 
 my friend Dean Beeching, in presenting 
 me with a copy, writes me that the authors 
 "would be interested to know how it 
 strikes American opinion." I am in hopes 
 that this review will elicit some expres- 
 sions of such opinion, both from BibUcal 
 scholars and from devout readers generally; 
 since it is for the latter that this version is 
 specially intended. The authors modestly 
 caU themselves "Two Clerks." 
 
 ' The Epistle to the Hebrews : An Experiment in Con- 
 servative Revision. By Two Clerks. Cambridge Uni- 
 versity Press, 1912. 
 
200 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 This revision is a result of the memorial 
 presented last year to the Archbishop of 
 Canterbirry by a deputation headed by 
 Bishop Boyd Carpenter and the Dean of 
 Norwich. The memorial was extensively 
 signed by English scholars of all denomina- 
 tions. It invited the Archbishop to 
 appoint a Comnaittee to correct the Author- 
 ized Version of the New Testament "in 
 those places where it is erroneous or mis- 
 leading or obscure." Archbishop David- 
 son, in his reply, expressed a wish that the 
 memorialists should provide a specimen 
 to exhibit the kind of revision which they 
 desired, and he suggested the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews as the specimen to be imder- 
 taken. 
 
 In the Note prefixed to their work the 
 revisers state that "this revision of the 
 A. V. is intended to be strictly conserva- 
 tive. Alterations are made only where 
 
CONSERVATIVE REVISION 201 
 
 mistranslation or needless ambiguity or 
 considerations of text appear to caU for 
 them. Further, as a general principle, 
 changes are made most sparingly in the 
 most familiar passages. At this late hour, 
 when the revision of King James has won 
 for itself acceptance with the whole EngUsh- 
 speaking race, we are convinced that if 
 changes are to be made in what have be- 
 come 'household words,' they must be 
 such as would generally escape the vm- 
 trained reader's notice. Happily it is the 
 best known passages that least require 
 alteration. In regard to the rest we have 
 not boimd ourselves by any rule. Aorists, 
 wherever they come, are treated on their 
 merits; and we have allowed ourselves 
 much liberty in the rendering of any given 
 Greek word. The pimctuation has been 
 freely modified, and so has the use of 
 italics. It is only irritating to have 'is' 
 
202 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 or 'are' printed in italics, when they are 
 not expressed in the Greek, because it is 
 not Greek usage so to do." 
 
 It is to be hoped that the Churchman 
 will in due time supply its readers with a 
 critique of this work from the standpoint 
 of accurate Greek scholarship; and then, 
 of course, the question of the most authori- 
 tative texts will come up, though this 
 question has evidently not been shirked 
 by the Two Clerks. This present review 
 is but preliminary, by way of calling atten- 
 tion to an important publication. So far 
 as our branch of the Church in America 
 is concerned, it has for some time been 
 apparent that our congregations do not 
 desire that the R. V. should be considered 
 to be, on the whole, more than an experi- 
 ment. They do not wish it to be substi- 
 tuted altogether for the A. V., which 
 unsurpassed example of style is still felt 
 
CONSERVATIVE REVISION 203 
 
 to be more inspiring in worship than any 
 other for the English race. Our General 
 Convention authorized for alternative 
 use in our churches an edition of the A. V. 
 which embodies in the margin the alter- 
 native readings of the Westminster or 
 American editions of the R. V., together 
 with others adopted by our own special 
 Committee for the Apocrypha. Subse- 
 quently our General Convention extended 
 the permission, so that now the English 
 or American R. V. may, like the Margi- 
 nal Readings Bible, be used as a substi- 
 tute for the King James Version in 
 reading the Lessons in church. Now 
 comes this new revision of the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews by Two Clerks, as part of a 
 movement to provide the Church of Eng- 
 land also with an alternative to the A. V. 
 which will be generally acceptable for 
 use in Church services. Hereby it appears 
 
204 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 that the struggle which went on so long in 
 England before the King James Version at 
 last prevailed, is now being repeated. 
 And as in Jerome's day with the Vulgate, 
 and at the Reformation with the King 
 James Bible, so now, the people generally, 
 not merely scholars, must decide. Hith- 
 erto in England, as among ourselves, the 
 R. V. has hardly got beyond the use of 
 scholars. In pubhc parochial worship of 
 the Church of England it has been imau- 
 thorized and seldom read. Especially in 
 the New Testament the authors of the 
 R. V. were too meticulous, seeming to 
 be fond of alteration for its own sake; as 
 when, for example, they changed 'foreas- 
 much then' into 'since then,' and 'boldly' 
 into 'with boldness.' These are but two 
 of almost countless instances. Thus the 
 occasional pedantry, the excessive literal- 
 ness, the halting diction, the frequent 
 
CONSERVATIVE REVISION 205 
 
 failure to perceive the difference between 
 a commentary and a vivid, vital rendering 
 in another tongue "understanded of the 
 people" — these qualities, over and above 
 the novelty of the R. V., have stood in the 
 way of its general acceptance, in spite of 
 its many improvements and indispensable 
 corrections of wrong translation. Ordi- 
 nary readers and hearers missed the rhythm 
 and the style of the familiar A. V., while 
 the obvious faults of the R. V. prevented 
 such readers and hearers from recogniz- 
 ing their debt of gratitude to modem 
 scholarship. Nevertheless discriminating 
 readers, among the laity as well as the 
 clergy, have become more and more im- 
 patient of the inaccuracies and obscurities 
 of the King James Bible. It is felt that 
 we owe it to our own sense of reverence 
 for Holy Scripture that the original 
 meaning should be conveyed to us in a 
 
2o6 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 form that is more entirely worthy and 
 intelligible. 
 
 The authors of this new version of the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews are accomplished 
 scholars, and Dean Beeching's other publi- 
 cations have already manifested a fine 
 feeling for rhythm and the best English 
 style. Whether the Two Clerks, in their 
 sample of what might be done with the 
 whole New Testament for congregational 
 use, have accomplished the extremely dif- 
 ficult feat of safeguarding the indispensable 
 good points of the R. V. while preserv- 
 ing the music and the majesty of the A. V., 
 they now leave to be decided by the 
 Christian public at large. Devout and 
 educated worshippers should make a care- 
 ful and sympathetic comparison, and give 
 this work a fair trial. Undoubtedly the 
 Two Clerks have properly swept away a 
 large part of the vexatious trifles of the 
 
CONSERVATIVE REVISION 207 
 
 R. V. which I have above referred to; yet I 
 confess that I do not think they have quite 
 escaped the same fault. For example, 
 what is the vital difference between 'by 
 whom' and 'through whom'? or between 
 'being made' and 'having become'? or 
 between 'have by inheritance obtained' 
 and 'have inherited'? Yet for myself, I 
 am disposed to say that if I had to choose 
 between this and the King James and the 
 Revised Version for use at present in our 
 pubKc services, I should on the whole 
 prefer this "Revision by Two Clerks"; 
 for here the changes which accurate 
 scholarship requires are more generally 
 not worded so as to irritate the ordinary 
 reader, who wiU often, however, be thank- 
 ful that he can now understand passages 
 which hitherto were obscure to him. The 
 slight changes in punctuation and the 
 occasional use of brackets are very helpful; 
 
2o8 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 the marginal notes and footnotes are 
 illuminating; and between the lines of the 
 brief appendices scholars wUl discern ac- 
 complished learning and patient endeavor 
 to weigh every side of complicated ques- 
 tions, although, for the sake of conserva- 
 tism and popular acceptance, the A. V. 
 has been allowed to stand except in flagrant 
 instances. Notice in the Appendix the 
 terse discussion as to the relative merits 
 of the words Covenant and Testament in 
 the difl&cult passage, Hebrews ix. 15 ff.; 
 and in reference to ii. 5, the significant 
 substitution of the words 'which is our 
 theme' for 'whereof we speak'; and the 
 suggestion that the phrase 'world to 
 come' may mean 'the not yet created 
 world' (the world in which man is living 
 here and now), i.e. 'the New Age initiated 
 by Christ,' as suggested in the margin of 
 vi. S- 
 
CONSERVATIVE REVISION 209 
 
 As examples of the version proper, 
 notice the bright light which is thrown on 
 the uncertain passage, ii. 9, by the simple 
 transposition of a comma, together with 
 the substitution of the words 'because of 
 for the words 'for the.' In iii. i, how ad- 
 mirable is the change of the words 'High 
 Priest of our profession' into 'High Priest 
 whom we profess.' How satisfying is the 
 exchange of 'that speaketh better than 
 that of Abel' for 'more eloquent than 
 Abel.' Throughout chapter vi are numerous 
 instances of slight but subtle alterations, 
 now of a word and now of punctuation, 
 which enhance the translation without 
 spoiling the diction. Some of the emenda- 
 tions, as in ix. 11, are supported by the 
 R. V. ; while in xi. 13 the Two Clerks have, 
 I think, improved on the improvement of 
 the R. v.; and in xi. 17, the alteration of 
 'offered' to 'was ready to offer' is notable. 
 
2IO ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 and certainly agrees with the Old Testa- 
 ment story which the author of this Epistle 
 is referring to. But in xii. 5, I caimot but 
 think that the whole argument shows that 
 the translation of the R. V. is right, while 
 that of the Two Clerks is wrong. Perhaps 
 no better example of the success of the 
 Two Clerks, as compared with the R. V., 
 can be found than in the respective ver- 
 sions of xi. I, which I put side by side. 
 
 Revised Version Two Clerks 
 
 Now faith is the assurance Now faith is the substance 
 
 of things hoped for, the of things hoped for, the 
 
 proving of things not seen, proving of things not seen. 
 
 For therein the elders had It was by it the elders 
 
 witness borne to them. By obtained a good report, 
 
 faith, etc. Through faith, etc. 
 
 I have chosen this particular verse because 
 it enables me to caU attention to an evident 
 slip; for Dean Beeching writes me that 
 'It was by it' should read 'By it.' For 
 purposes of comparison I select one more 
 
CONSERVATIVE REVISION 211 
 
 passage, ii. 16, where the Authorized 
 Version reads: 'For verily he took not on 
 him the nature of angels; but he took on 
 him the seed of Abraham.' 
 
 Revised Version Two Clerks 
 
 For verily not of angels For verily he taketh not 
 
 doth he take hold, but he angels for his, but he 
 
 taketh hold of the seed of taketh the seed of Abra- 
 
 Abraham. ham. 
 
 Here the R. V. renders the original more ex- 
 actly than either the Two Clerks or theA. V. 
 Few words have been more disputed by 
 conamentators than iirCkaii^dverai here. 
 But when all is said, can we do better 
 than to borrow from Bishop Andrewes 
 (Sermons, Vol. I, pp. 1-12)? "He taketh 
 not the Angels' ; but the seed of Abraham 
 he taketh." Side by side with which 
 Andrewes puts the Vulgate: "Nunquam 
 enim Angelas apprehendit, sed sem^n 
 Abrahae apprehendit" ; and gives the gloss: 
 "laying fast hold, and seizing sixrely on 
 
212 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 him. So two things it supposeth: i. a 
 flight of the one, and 2. a hot pursuit of 
 the other." And another commentator 
 interprets it: "He doth not lay hold of 
 Angels, etc., i.e. to lift them up." But I 
 am digressing. 
 
 By following the R. V. in the substitu- 
 tion of the word 'erring' for 'gone out of 
 the way,' the thorough English of the A. 
 V. is lost, and I miss the familiar allusion 
 to pathetic passages in the Psalms and the 
 Prophets. And I sometimes regret that 
 the Two Clerks did not boldly introduce 
 in the text of their version emendations 
 which they have relegated to the margin. 
 For example, in v. 7, 'save him from 
 death' might well be 'release him from 
 death'; in v. 10, 'called of God' might well 
 be 'hailed of God'; in vi. i 'principles of 
 the doctrine of Christ' might well be 
 'rudiments'; or why not have it 'first 
 
CONSERVATIVE REVISION 213 
 
 principles,' as the R. V. does, and as, ia 
 V. 12, both the R. V. and the A. V. agree 
 in doing? Surely this would make the in- 
 tention of the original clearer to ordinary 
 readers. For the same reason, in the 
 translation 'leaving the principles of the 
 doctrine of Christ,' I wish that the Two 
 Clerks had adopted the R. V., 'cease to 
 speak of the principles,' etc.; for the 
 original justifies this, and who wants any 
 Christian, adult though he be, to leave the 
 first principles of Christ's doctrine? though 
 a teacher may weU, for the moment, cease 
 to speak of them, and go on. 
 
 So far I have given instances of the 
 minute criticism and comparison to which 
 this valuable work must necessarily be 
 subjected, after the three versions before 
 us have first been read through as a whole, 
 if possible aloud. It may be noticed that 
 on page 19, in the footnote to chapter vii. 
 
214 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 27, the Two Clerks' comment is so con- 
 densed as not to be quite clear; and on 
 page 10, in the margin of ii. 16, the word 
 not appears to be lacking; and on page 13, 
 in the margin of verse 7, 'appoint' should 
 evidently read 'appointeth.' 
 
 I sincerely regret that the Two Clerks 
 have not divided the Epistle into para- 
 graphs as well as into verses. In the R. 
 V. the paragraphs are boldly indicated. 
 Doubtless the verses have become so in- 
 wrought into our habits of recollection and 
 devotion that earnest Christians would 
 deplore any edition of the Bible for pop- 
 ular use which did not indicate the 
 verses as sharply as is done in this version 
 of the Two Clerks, and also in the A. V.; 
 yet I cannot but feel that the paragraphs 
 should also be given, as in the R. V. 
 Nor do I see why both ends might not 
 be accomphshed by printing the verses 
 
CONSERVATIVE REVISION 215 
 
 as the A. V. and the Two Clerks print 
 them, while at the same time indicating 
 the paragraphs by clear division, leaving 
 a blank line between them. Just as the 
 chapters often obscure the connection of 
 the thought, so also throughout the Bible, 
 and above all in the New Testament, 
 it is difl&cult — even for an attentive 
 scholar, and much more for an ordinary 
 reader — to grasp the sequence of the 
 thought without the assistance of proper 
 paragraphs. 
 
 Exigencies of space forbid my going 
 through the whole Epistle so as to exhibit 
 the loving thoroughness of touch and 
 insight which the Two Clerks manifest 
 throughout. Although their work has of 
 necessity been largely negative, there is 
 positive proof in it that a "conservative 
 revision" of the Authorized Version is not 
 only desirable but practicable; nor have 
 
2i6 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 the Two Clerks magnified their ofl&ce in 
 the objectionable way that many of the 
 first supporters of the Revised Version 
 did. Thus on the whole I think that the 
 object of these present revisers is attained : 
 that, if the whole New Testament could be 
 so handled, the Church of England would 
 have arrived at a Via Media between the 
 A. V. and the R. V. which would be 
 generally acceptable to the English-speak- 
 ing world, bringing the people closer than 
 hitherto to the mind of the original, which 
 we venerate as God's Word. 
 
"GENERAL" BOOTH 
 
"GENERAL" BOOTH 
 
 HJE was called "General" for short. 
 His original and proper title was "Gen- 
 eral Superintendent of the Salvation 
 Army," but his simple associates could 
 not away with a title in so many words, 
 so they called him "General," and let it 
 go at that. And this true history of the 
 name he bore is typical of his whole 
 career: it was a natural evolution. 
 
 The secular newspapers have given 
 amply the details of his life, • so it is need- 
 less to repeat them here; but a repre- 
 sentative Church newspaper would be 
 unworthy of itself if it allowed his death 
 to pass unnoticed. Many of the methods 
 and much of the manners of General 
 Booth were not ours; but he had a great 
 deal to teach our Church, and some of it 
 
220 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 has evidently been learned, both by our 
 clergymen and our laymen. Through evil 
 report and good report, and in spite of 
 much physical disability, he slowly came 
 into his own. To one who is aware of 
 his beginnings and life-long limitations, 
 it seems almost grotesque that staid, 
 conservative Oxford — so jealous of her 
 learning, so hearty in her abhorrence of 
 "the Philistines" — should have conferred 
 on this man her degree of Doctor of Civil 
 Law; but Oxford did it, and Booth de- 
 served it. For into the very heart of 
 Oxford, and of aU decent England, Booth 
 had driven his own conviction that the 
 most venerable of human laws are but a 
 dead letter, imless and imtil they are 
 suffused and applied by the higher law of 
 love. All over the world there are thou- 
 sands of well-to-do people who owe it 
 to General Booth, and his blatant, con- 
 
"GENERAL" BOOTH 221 
 
 spicuous reminders, that they did not 
 quite forget "Who is my Neighbor." 
 All over the world there are hundreds of 
 thousands of unfortimates who owe it 
 to Booth, and his strange, penetrating 
 ways, that the reality of the Christ life 
 was brought home to their faith. And 
 anyone who has studied Professor WUliam 
 James's "Varieties of Religious Experi- 
 ence," knows that General Booth, for all 
 the extravagance of his expressions and 
 the uncouthness of his ways, stood upon 
 a by no means contemptible part of the 
 bed-rock of human experience. And if 
 he was to obey his Master, going into the 
 highways and hedges to compel men to 
 come in: if his message was to reach and 
 seize outrageous people of the slums — 
 not here and there a few, but thousands 
 of them — who shall say that General 
 Booth's methods were not necessary, at 
 
222 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 any rate if Booth, and not another, was 
 to do the desperate business? And who 
 but Booth did do it, or could have done it 
 as he did? 
 
 He was a religious enthusiast, and the 
 mystery was, that he was so marvellously 
 practical. His long, hooked nose and 
 Semitic head indicated his indomitable 
 will, and should have prepared us for the 
 singular combination in him of intrepid 
 idealism with courage to face the facts. 
 Far on in his career, looking backward, 
 he declared in a moment of expansion, "I 
 hungered for hell. I pushed into the midst 
 of it." His way of getting there was orig- 
 inal, imconventional to the point of re- 
 ptdsiveness to average Anglicans, and to 
 average Nonconformists and Romanists 
 as well; although Father DoUing under- 
 stood him without protest; and who shaU 
 say that John Wesley, and David Liv- 
 
"GENERAL" BOOTH 223 
 
 ingston, and Vincent de Paul, and the 
 great mediaeval and primitive mission- 
 aries — even Paul the Apostle himself — 
 would not have understood and approved 
 Wniiam Booth when he made one motto 
 out of these two: "The world for Christ," 
 and " Soup, Soup and Salvation "? Grant- 
 ing that he was a pioneer in advertising 
 and in courting publicity, can we imagine, 
 in the face of the results, that our Saviour 
 would not have said of Booth what He 
 said of others who troubled His more reg- 
 ular disciples: "He that is not against 
 us is for us"? True, even among Booth's 
 most considerate critics there are many 
 who, while rejoicing in his wonderful suc- 
 cesses and admitting his genius, not merely 
 for organizing men and women, but for 
 getting men and women to organize them- 
 selves — even many such are doubtful 
 whether his results were always econom- 
 
224 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 ically sound or religiously quite sane. 
 They admit his keen grasp of some of our 
 most difl&cult social problems; but they 
 are not yet sure that he solved these prob- 
 lems, and they fear that no successor can 
 be foimd to finish what Booth began, and 
 determine its final character. Yet what 
 great organizer or philanthropist ever 
 escaped just criticism in details? On the 
 whole, the general verdict of intelligent 
 mankind is well expressed in the letters 
 to his family by President Taft and the 
 King of England: "Only in the future 
 shall we realize the good wrought by him 
 for his fellow-creatvires." 
 
 In one respect the course of the Salva- 
 tion Army illustrates a tendency of relig- 
 ious organizations everywhere in our day. 
 General Booth began as a Christian 
 revivahst: the keynote of his message was 
 personal religion; but ere long his most 
 
"GENERAL" BOOTH 225 
 
 notable endeavours were along the lines 
 of sociology and of experiments in social 
 service, with reUgion in the background. 
 Even at the outset of the Christian dis- 
 pensation this problem came to the surface 
 with the Twelve Apostles; and the New 
 Testament indicates how they tried to 
 meet it by instituting the Seven Deacons. 
 But the problem still awaits a satisfactory 
 solution, as our "Institutional Churches" 
 testify. In all our Churches there are 
 many who think that hereby the ministers 
 of reUgion proper are undertaking to do 
 directly what, so far as they are con- 
 cerned, should be done indirectly: that 
 the minister of Christ should follow more 
 closely in the steps of Christ himself: that 
 our ministers should inspire the motives 
 for social service, rather than attempt to 
 conduct it in detail. Perhaps subsequent 
 developments of the Salvation Army, now 
 
226 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 that General Booth himself is gone, will 
 help us all to a wise determination of this 
 serious and complicated question. 
 
 When all has been said, how noticeably 
 General Booth's life exemplified the truth 
 that extremes meet! WiUiam Booth in 
 his autocracy was inteUectuaUy at one 
 with Rome in her autocracy. He did not 
 want to bother others, or to be himself 
 bothered, with questions of the intellect. 
 Someone asked how he squared the idea 
 of eternal pxmishment with his behef in 
 God's eternal love. "What's the use," 
 he answered impatiently, striking his 
 hand upon the table, "what's the use of 
 wanting to explain things, and worrying 
 about interpretations? That's how work 
 is stopped." He believed in educating 
 the outcast, but he would not see that 
 when you educate a human soul you com- 
 pel it to ask questions; and that out of 
 
"GENERAL" BOOTH 227 
 
 questions has come the spiritual stimulus 
 which advanced the world: that even 
 Christ declared that we must love God 
 with all our mind, and even He confronted 
 His disciples with a penetrating question: 
 "What think ye of Christ? Whose Son 
 is He? Whom say ye that I, the Son of 
 Man, am?" 
 
 One of his latest inventions was the 
 "Suicide Bureau," and it widens our 
 view of him when we notice how he here 
 combined some of the methods of the con- 
 fessional and the experience meeting with 
 those of the Charity Organization Society. 
 Here the wretches who were contem- 
 plating suicide were induced to open their 
 hearts and explain confidentially their mis- 
 ery to the captain of the bureau ; and we are 
 told that many men and women are now 
 living steadily in self-respect and self-sup- 
 port, who owe their rescue to this means. 
 
228 ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION 
 
 7\nd our appreciation of him is not 
 only widened but deepened when we read 
 of his scheme of clubs for lonely, people. 
 "LoneKness — did you ever think," he 
 said, "how much sorrow and wrong 
 come from it? In the great cities there 
 are thousands of lonely persons; not the 
 poor, but those who have no friends or 
 family, no place to go to where any friendly 
 spirit may be found. I want to give them 
 a place to go to where they may find some 
 congenial work to do, if they so desire." 
 
 Finally, how significantly human is 
 the fact that at the outset, when Booth 
 was hesitating to take the great leap in 
 the dark, it was his wife who gave him 
 confidence to persevere.