CARDINAL NEWMAN.
Cardinal Newman and his Influence on Religious Life and Thought. By Charles Sarolea, D.Litt. (T. and T. Clark.. 3s.) —This is one of the series of "The World's Epoch-Makers," appearing under the editorship of Mr. Oliphant Smeaton. Dr. Sarolea, who shows a remarkable knowledge of our language, treats the subject with an admirable detachment. Nowhere could we find a more impartial estimate, not of the man only, but of all the facts, mental and emotional, which condition the study of theology. We may learn from it much about Newman ; but we learn more of the great questions which Newman handled. Just now the most important, or at least the most urgent, is the real relation of Newman's religious development to the claims of Modernism. Was he really the precursor of Modernism, be who so abhorred the "Liberal" ; or was his "Development" theory an unconscious, one might say unwilling, anticipation of it? We do not always accept Dr. Sarolea's conclusions. Was it not in a "non-natural" sense that Newman put forth his Roman Catholic interpretation of the Articles ? Can it be maintained that it was actually hoped that Roman Catholics would subscribe them,—the Fourteenth, for instance, which condemns the "Treasury of Merit" theory and all the ecclesiastical system built upon it; the Twenty-fifth, with its declaration, curiously worded, but really unmistakable, about the five so-called sacraments ; and the Thirtieth, "Of both kinds " ? How are the plain words, "The Cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the Lay-people," to bo got over ?
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