• EXPLAINING - NEWMAN
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] should like, if I may, 'to 'discuss two point, in the review by Mr. J: - W.- C: Wand • of books on the oxford Movement leaders, which 'appeared in- The Specriour of April 7th. I do not write impartially, because I am an admirer of Newman, and I wish to oppose the• explanation, of Newman's character and action which are afforded by Doctor Cross and Mr. Wand. I must say immediately that I have not read Dr. Cross's book, and I therefore quote from Mr. Wand's account of it. His theory is that Newman gives a " fundamentally inaccurate account " of dins own intellectual development, and that his " secession " was due to " a weakness of character which he calls ressentinient, not resentment exactly, but that slave morality winch is Nietzsche's view was characteristic of Christianity and enabled the Christian who had forbidden himself to meet his foe in the face to content himself with a victory Over him in the imagination." I cannot but think that Dr. Cross, while not allowing Newman to be truthful about his own development, has produced a theory which is far more inaccurate than Newman's own. There is really no need to go to Nietzsche in order to explain Newman. His progress from the ria media of the Anglican Church to Home was not only logical- but-inevitable to a mind which was always open to truth. And indeed the attraction of his life to many people may be found, not, as Mr. Wand suggests, in an early and idealized portrait, but precisely in the strength with which he followed the conviction of truth, at whatever cost to himself.
Then Mr. Wand himself takes a turn at explaining this inexplicable man; he simplifies the issue, he needs no com- plicated theory. Newman seceded " because he was just afraid. He had been undeceived about the bishops ; perhaps he was not in the ark of salvation after all. To live without assurance was for him impossible." And, indeed, Newinah was neither the first man nor the last to know, as every man capable of deep religious thought knows, that it must he his plain duty as a Christian to join the Church established by Christ. This much assurance at least it is not craven to ask. Phrases about " the ark of salvation " can be uttered with a sneer, but they do not touch the multitude who are always going to Rome because there only do they see the Catholic Church in all its universality and its unity. Men do not bear opposition, scorn, pain and the loss of friends when they are motivated by fear and weakness of character. That constant pain about Newman's heart in the last days was not the pain of a coward, but of a man brave enough to suffer greatly for what he saw to be the truth.
Mr. Wand's simple explanation is in fact somewhat super- ficial. Both he and Dr. Cross are concerned- to find motives for an action which they scarcely seem to understand. While men, from this or that viewpoint, afford motives for Newman, and belittle his influence, and assail his intel• lectual integrity, - Newman himself seems to become larger and more majestic ; his spiritual force increases, rather than diminishes,' with time ; - he does not really need defending, for his detractors grow small before him. And he, too. with his sensitive intuition, his power of seeing into every heart and mind, knew every one of the, accusations and explanations that are aimed against his kind, gives the answer in his own words : "Bystanders marvel ; strangers try to analyse what it is that does the work ; they imagine all manner of human reasons and natural causes to - account for-it; because they cannot see; and Is not feel, and will not believe, what is in truth- a supematura! influence ; and they, impute to some. caprice or waywardness is mind, or to the force of nes-city, or-to-some Mysterious, insidious persuasiveness, or 'to sortie foreign enemy, or to smne dark and subtle plotting, and- they view with alarm, and. they fain would
baffle, what nothing- else . but the keen, vivid, constraining
glance of Christ's countiance. ' The Lord, turning, looked On Peter ' ; and ' as the lightening 'cometh out of the east, and appeareth even unto the west,' such is the piercing, soul-subduing look of the Son of Man. It is come, it is gone, it has d0110 its work, its abiding work, and the world is at fault to account for a. It sees the resnit ; itiaas net.pereeived, it has not eyes to see, the Divine liana." _
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