[To THE EDITOR OF THE SPEOTATOlt."] an article entitled "Dr.

Abbott's Attack on Cardinal Newman," and referring to a book of mine called " Philo- mythus," you have attacked me. I have proved—and you have scarcely attempted to disprove it, except in one or two instances, which I will presently deal with—that Newman used language and handled evidence in a. manner which, in an ordinary man, would imply insincerity ; but I have expressed my belief that he was not consciously insincere. For this you are very angry, not so much, it would seem, because I con- .deinn Newman's language, as because I refuse to impute it to insincerity. Newman himself spoke of his own "histrionic" power ; I refuse to believe that be was, -to any great extent, histrionic. Newman called himself "at heart nearly hollow ;"

I assert that he was largely unjust to himself in this self- -condemnation, and that he was saved from being insincere and histrionic by being portentously self-deceptive. This has induced you to use expressions which, unless you go by New- man's rule of expressing "indignation" where you do not feel " anger," would seem to pass beyond the usual limits of con- troversy. You "do not think Dr. Abbott quite sincere in dis- claiming any charge against Newman of insincerity;" "Dr. Abbott takes all possible credit for formally acquitting New- man of insincerity ;" and as for the words " unfair " and -" unfairness," it would take too long to enumerate the passages in which they are either expressed or implied.

I do not propose to waste time on epithets, but to demon- strate that you are entirely wrong. I am profoundly interested in Newman, as I am in Bacon, or Mr. Gladstone, .or Hamlet. He is a psychological problem, and I wish to get at the right solution, not to call people names. I should be disgusted with myself if I could bring myself to call Newman consciously insincere, because it would be a psychological blunder. When (1884) a great living statesman was accused by another, and no mean one, of being "able to persuade him- self of anything," the intention of the accuser was certainly not to impute conscious insincerity to the former. Neither is it my intention in the case of Newman. This I will, with your permission, endeavour to explain in a special case ; but first I must ask you to allow me to correct some of your mis- takes, which have induced you to call me "unfair." Pardon me for adding that, if I trespass on your space, you are to blame, not I. Your mistakes are so numerous that the corrections must be numerous also.

"Dr. Abbott is very unfair in writing as if, at the time these essays were published, and even at the time at which New-

man's 'Apologia' was composed, there was any of the ground which certainly exists now, for attributing the marvels which are now called faith-healing' to natural, though very obscure, causes."

When I read these words, I could hardly believe my eyes. "Is it possible," I said, "that the writer has read these

essays ' ?" Surely, Sir, you cannot be ignorant that "these

essays" were not published at the same time, but at an interval of sixteen years. The former was written in 1825-26, when Newman was a Protestant passing through a phase of Liberalism ; the latter was written as an introduction to another work in 1842, and published as a separate essay in

1843, when he was practically a Romanist. Yet the fatal words occur again, when you speak of "the essays written three years before he became a Roman Catholic," and a third time in a still more compromising context :—" We hold that nine people out of ten who have read his essays would say that they very much doubted how far Newman himself, at the time he wrote these essays, believed in any one of the miracles, as miracles, except the cure of the blind man at Milan described by St. Ambrose, and the supernatural hindrance to the re- building of the Jewish Temple under the Emperor Julian."

(1.) Now for the first of your mistakes in this connection You deny that "at the time these essays were published

there was any of the ground which certainly exists now" for attributing the cures now called " faith-healing " to natural causes, and you call me "very unfair" for ignoring this fact. I answer by an extract from the earlier Protestant essay of 1826, which devotes a whole section to such miracles as may be referred to "the supposed operation of a cause known to exist." Under this heading, the writer rejects not only "the exorcism of demoniacs, which is the most frequent miracle in the Primitive Church," but also "the Cures which took place at the tomb of the Abbe Paris," on the ground that "some cures are known as possible effects of an excited imagination." If you had said that in 1826, the date of the first essay, and in 1843, the date of the second, and in 1864, the date of the "Apologia," there was not so much "ground" as there is now, I should, of course, have agreed with you ; but you see there was " ground " enough for Newman to recognise the power of the imagination in "faith-healing" very distinctly when he was a Protestant in 1826. A fortiori there was " ground " in 1843; only Newman now thought less of it, being in 1842-43 on the verge of Romanism. Surely, then, year charge of " unfair- ness " here falls to the ground; or, if either of us is "unfair," it is not I. I should like to say that I do not believe you to be unfair, but only grossly inaccurate; but if I did, you might accuse me of "taking all possible credit for formally ac- quitting" you of unfairness ; so I must leave that alone.

(2.) Now for the second mistake, relatively a minor one, but still of some importance. You imply that "at the time when Newman wrote these essays" on miracles, he probably did not believe in any of them as miracles, except "the cure of the blind man at Milan," and "the supernatural hindrance to the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple under the Emperor Julian."

Now, here you have omitted the very miracle which, in 1843, Newman deemed his best and strongest, the miracle of the tongueless martyrs (which he very reasonably reserves for his climax) ; you also ignore the death of Arius (supposed to have been brought about by the prayers of the Bishop of Constantinople); and you seem to have forgotten Newman's triumphant peroration at the conclusion of his Romanist essay :—" And now, after considering this miracle" (i.e., the miracle of the tongueless martyrs), "or that of the recovery of the blind Severna by the relies or the death of Arius, how unreal does the remark appear with which Douglas concludes his review of the alleged miracles of the first ages !" And then, after trampling on Douglas, he adds :—" Surely, if there are miracles prominent above others in those times, in that number are the three which I have just specified; they are great in themselves and in their fame."

It is true, of course, that in the Protestant essay of 1826 he expressly discredits some of these miracles,—e.g., the affair of Julian, in connection with which he mentions "the possi- bility of referring it to the operation of chemical causes," and that of the tongueless martyrs also ; but can you seriously continue to maintain—in the face of the quotation just alleged—that in the Romanist essay of 1843 he gave to these three miracles, as well as to the miracle under Julian, "very doubtful and hesitating support" ?

(3.) "Still more unfair is it for Dr. Abbott to read Newman's appendix to the Apologia,' written twenty years after he became a Roman Catholic, in strict connection with the essays written three years before he became a Roman Catholic, and attack him on the strength of the admission which he had made while still an Anglican, that a vast number of eccle- siaetical impostures had been palmed off on the Church as miraculous."

I do not remember any passage in which Newman admits that impostures were "palmed off on the Church ; " but I certainly did quote one passage from the Romanist essay of 1843, in which he implies that the false miracles are far more numerous than the true ones; nor do I think it was at all " unfair " to take this as representing also his opinion when he was actually within the pale of Rome. You say he made the admission "three years before he became a Roman Catholic," and" while still an Anglican." But you seem to have forgotten—(1), that the Romanist essay was not published separately, as an essay, till 1843, two years before he became a Roman Catholic ; (2), that from the end of 1841 he was on his " death-bed," as he says, so far as concerns "membership with the Anglican Church ; " (3), that in May, 1843, he writes, "I fear, as far as I can analyse my own convictions, I consider the Roman Catholic Communion to be the Church of the Apostles ; " and (4), that among the difficulties which he mentions as having kept him from openly seceding at that time to the Church of Rome, that of the ecclesiastical miracles finds no place. I may also add that when he reprinted the Pro- testant essay and the Romanist essay together in one volume in 1870, he appended notes to the former, enabling the reader to correct its utterances by the latter, but left the latter un- corrected, without a hint that in any respect it diverged from the opinions which be then (1870) held as a Romanist. He indeed adds an appendix, dated March, 1870, in which, speaking as a Romanist, he reluctantly confesses, a.bont one of his nine miracles, that "Catholics are prevented from appealing to it for controversial purposes ;" but not a word to indicate that any other portion of the essay required cor- rection in order to conform it to the truth as held by a Romanist. Moreover, in the Romanist essay he quotes Romanist authors as freely censuring a large number of ecclesiastical so-called miracles, and speaks of "so many" as "certainly not true," and of others as "rejected on all hands as fictitious and pretended," implying that Romanist as well as Protestant authorities rejected them. Lastly, a conversation recorded by Mr. A. W. Hutton in the Expositor, between him and Cardinal Newman, indicates that the Cardinal believed the ecclesiastical biographies to have been generally written with a view to pious edification, and that a great number of the miracles in them were not to be accepted as historical. On these grounds, I conceive that I was not " unfair " in assuming that even after Newman definitely entered the Church of Rome,_ he saw no reason to cancel the admission in question.

(4.) "But what seems to show the unfairness of Dr. Abbott's attitude most convincingly is his charge of self-deception and lubrication 'in relation to Newman's reasons for not resigning the vicarage of St. Mary's in 1842."

Another mistake. It was in 1840 that Newman wrote the letter which I characterised (and shall continue to characterise) as a, "specimen of self-deceptive lubrication." The error is more than a mere misprint, for you go on to say :—" Now, this is a case in which Dr. Abbott knows the result. The result was to delay by just a year, or a year and a half, and no more, the resignation of the living." I know nothing of the kind. The result was to delay the resignation for three years.

You go on to say :—" So far as we can judge, Newman had nothing to gain but an extended period of painful suspense by the delay,—for no one, not even Dr. Abbott, euspects him of any dislike to surrender the emoluments of the living a year or two sooner." "Not even Dr. Abbott,"—is not this " even " superfluous as applied to one who has said (" Philo- mythus," p. 259), " We know well that Newman was absolutely indijerent to pecuniary tenvptations"? But to pass that by. You seem entirely to misapprehend Newman's position in thinking that all he had to " gain " by delay was "an extended period of painful suspense." Surely to use such language is to treat Newman as though he were capable of an objectless or perverse eccentricity bordering on lunacy. What had he to " gain "! Why, as he tells us himself, he gained the advan-

tage of remaining in "his post at St. Mary's as a place of protest against Rationalism." Surely that was " gain " enough for Newman, and is intelligible enough to any one who appre- ciates in the least degree the force of his religious impulses This was a natural and a noble temptation. But, on the other side, there was the uneasy feeling that, while occupying an Anglican pulpit, he was moving his hearers towards Rome.. This uneasiness he afterwards expressed in May, 1843, when

he spoke of his "unfaithfulness to the English Church" in the words; "Is not my present position a cruelty, as well as a treachery towards the Church ?" But he felt it already in

1840, though not so keenly. It was this feeling which, in my judgment, caused him to be dissatisfied with the "leave which Keble had given him to retain St. Mary's, and which induced him to persuade himself that he was right in retaining it, by a process of reasoning at once so illogical and' yet so smoothly persuasive, that I have called it " lubrication."

You deny that he "lubricated," and imply that I am "a pedantic theorist," and guilty of "a superfluity of naughti- ness" for maintaining the contrary. Would it not have been better, instead of wasting these idle words, to point out the' error in my full analysis of the passage, and to show that Newman was not illogical but logical P I quoted (pp. 215-217y Newman's own words to the effect that no one could remain "in office in the English Church, whether Biehop or Incumbent, otherwise than in hostility to the Church of Rome ;" I stated! that, at this very time, Newman avowed that he was not "in hostility to the Church of Rome ;" and then I tried to show, how, by a process of "lubrication," Newman contrived to per- suade himself that he might nevertheless remain "in office in the English Church." Surely any one who is not under the.

spell of Newman's magnetic influence, must admit that it requires a good deal of self-deception to combine these two- incompatible opinions. My reasoning may have been wrong, but I fail to see any "unfairness " in it.

(5.) Your refusal to acknowledge my distinction between the

" system " which I condemn, and the "individual" whom entirely acquit of insincerity, you base on the ground that Newman constructed his own system "in a far truer sense than one theologian in a thousand can be said, freely to adopt and construct the system in which he ultimately rests," Here you seem to me to be misled by an exaggerated esti-- mate of Newman's theological originality. This is, of course,. the popular opinion ; but Newman himself, and facts, are against it. Newman repeatedly speaks of himself as developing not his own but Keble's convictions, "You and Keble," he

writes to Hurrell Froude, "are the philosophers and I the rhetorician ; " and many other similar statements are scattered' through the Letters." Nor can it be said that this waft

merely the exaggeration of humility. In Froude's " Re- mains " may be found the germs of almost every doctrine or project Commonly attributed to Newman. Let me give one instance. In a recent impression of the Spectator, you inserted' a letter with the heading, 'A Remarkable Forecast of Cardinal` Newman's," the purport of which was that religion would never be revived in great towns by the married clergy alone,. without the co-operation of celibate missionaries. " Con- sidering," said your correspondent, "that it was made in 1986; it is certainly a 'most remarkable forecast." Now note the following extract from a letter written three years before by Harrell Fronde to Newman (August 31st, 1833, Fronde's "Remains," Vol. I., p. 322) :—

"It has lately come into my head that the present state of things in England makes an opening for reviving the monastic- system. [I think of putting the view forward under the title of.

Project for Reviving Religion in Great Towns.' Certainly], colleges of unmarried priests [who might of course retire to a living when they could and liked] would be the cheapest possible way of providing effectively for the spiritual wants of a large* population."*

(6.) Passing over other minor matters, I can only just touch on your complaint that I impute to Newman "a religion of, fear." If you desired me to continue the controversy, I could prove this point to the satisfaction of your readers, if not to. your own, in a future letter. But, obviously, such a proof could not be compressed into a single paragraph. However, you further ask : —" Is there any evidence that be ever indulged' in that superstitious and abject prostration of mind before a severe Judge of which Dr. Abbott accuses him ?" This can The same passage, omitting the words enclosed in square braekots, but without the usual, nous inclioatmg omission, is dated, in Newman' s " Letters (Vol. I., p 444), August 22nd, 1883.

be briefly answered. There is. In 1845, when Newman ex- pressed his fear that he, might be under "a judicial delusion;" when he prayed that God would not "add Himself as an adversary against" him ; and when he passionately asked, "What have I done thus to be deserted, thus to be left to take a wrong course, if it is wrong,"—I assert that Newman did feel (I do not know what you mean by 'indulged in ") an "abject prostration of mind" before a " Judge " whom I should describe, not as "severe!' but as diabolically bad. The only evidence alleged by you in disproof of my statement as to the "religion of fear" is a passage from " The Dream of Gerontius." One passage describing what the soul hopes to feel after death does not prove much as to the religion of a life ; but if importance is to be attached to a single passage, I meet you on your own ground, "The Dream of Cerontius " (" Poems," p. 341) :—

" Along my earthly life, the thought of death And judgment was to me most terrible ; I had it aye before rite, and / saw

The Judge severe, e'en in the Crucidire."

I put it to you whether, in the face of the facts and quota- tions above alleged, you can still sustain your accusation of " unfairness " P As for the charge of not being "quite sincere," you may possibly think it is in some measure indirectly met by what I have said on other points. If not, I can do no more. I am unable, because unaccustomed, to meet such a charge by any direct means, and I have no intention and no desire to make such an attempt for the first time.—I am, Sir, &a., EDWIN A. ABBOTT. Braeside, Willow Road, N.W., April 20th.

[The mistake which we made in the date of Dr. Newman's correspondence with Mr. Keble as to the question whether Newman should resign the living of St. Mary's or not, was a serious one. We carelessly wrote from memory 1842 instead of 1840, without looking either at Dr. Abbott's book or at the correspondence to verify the date. There appears to us to be no other real error in our article of last week. It is true that

we spoke of the essays on Miracles as if they were to be taken together, when, as we had been perfectly aware for a great many years back, they were published at very different dates ; but as, of course, the only real controversy concerned the second of the two essays, and whatever might be said of the second might a fortiori be said of the first so far as it affected the point in dispute at all,—as it hardly did,—it never occurred to us to distinguish between them. We spoke of the volume as it appeared in 1870, thinking, however, only of the second part of that volume and of the date of its com- position. We do not admit that Dr. Newman did think the death of Arius certainly miraculous. "The question is not," he wrote, "whether it is formally a miracle, but whether it is an event the like of which persons who deny that miracles continue will consent that the Church should be considered still able to perform. If they are willing to allow to the Church such extraordinary protection, it is for them to draw the line, to the satisfaction of people in general, between them and strictly miraculous events." That appears to us to suggest that it was to Dr. New- man's mind rather a providential than a miraculous act, and as such, no test case of ecclesiastical miracle. As for the confessors who spoke after their tongues were cut out, it is obvious that Dr. Newman gave that up as a

test case, not only before the second essay was republished in .1870, but before the appendix to the "Apologia" was written. We do not believe that any Anglican or Protestant, reading the volume as it stands, would feel satisfied that Dr. Newman

himself held with much confidence to any of the miracles, qnci miracles, except the two which we mentioned. We must

warn our readers that all or almost all the elaborate and manifold italics in Dr. Abbott's extracts from our article are his own, and. not ours.—En. Spectator]