Dr. Newman received yesterday week an address of congratu- lation,
on his elevation to the Cardinalate, from the Irish Catho- lic Members of Parliament, and replied to their address in that inimitable style of perfectly unstudied simplicity and delicacy which makes it seem that not a word, hardly even the place of a word, could be altered without a jar, or without interposing a film between the mind of the hearer and the minds of those addressed. Dr. Newman told the Irish Catholics, what many of us have pro- bably heard with surprise, that he only offered to remain with the Irish Catholic University for seven years, and that he left when the seven years had expired, "from the necessities of his own con- gregation at Birmingham," that is, because the Oratory of which he was the head needed his presence. His testimony to the cordial kindness and generous help of the Irish Catholics was hearty and touching, and his gratitude that a silent memory should have been cherished amongst strangers "of a person who can only be said to have meant well, though he did little," was as fresh as if his services to Catholicism, and indirectly, therefore, to Irish Catholics, had been limited by his services to Irish University education (which were not small). Irish Catholics are far too intelligent not to feel that the service which Dr. Newman has rendered to their Church, if it were limited only to proving that so large and original a mind can move with ease and freedom within the circle of her beliefs, is hardly measurable by ordinary standards of moral value.
Previous page
