Collegiate Oxford, on the whole, objects to display any deep
personal interest in a man who became a Roman Catholic and persuaded others to become Roman Catholics ; so the committee formed to perpetuate the memory of Cardinal Newman has, not unnaturally, decided not to force on a reluctant Univer- sity a statue of the distinguished man who certainly did much more to make Oxford famous in his lifetime, than Oxford ever did to make him great. The feeling of the majority evidently was, that Roman Catholics alone could be expected to show honour to the memory of a man who had thrown his influence into the scale of the Roman Catholic Church. That is a poor and, as it seems to us, an unworthy attitude of mind. Newman was a great power in Oriel College, a great power in the University, and a great power in the world. And at least he knew distinctly how his own faith was forming itself, and discerned whither it was tending, which a great many of the present generation of Oxford teachers do not know, and never will know.
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