II

NEWMAN AS PREACHER

In the early 80's a man whose name was written high among the prophets of light in nineteenth century literature spoke thus:

"The name of Cardinal Newman is a great name to the imagination still; his genius and his style are still things of power. . . . Forty years ago he was in the very prime of life; he was close at hand to us of Oxford; he was preaching in St. Mary's pulpit every Sunday; he seemed about to transform and to renew what was for us the most national and natural institution in the world, the Church of England. Who could resist the charm of that spiritual apparition, gliding in the dim afternoon' light through the aisles of St. Mary's, rising into the pulpit, and then, in the most entrancing of voices, breaking the silence with words and thoughts which were a religious music,-subtle, sweet, and mournful?"

Thus spoke Matthew Arnold who in the forty intervening years had turned his helm into strange seas and for whom the great Tractarian had long ceased to be a loadestar; but the enchantment of his manner, his style, his voice, still haunted his memory.

Others, too, who had felt that same enchantment, Gladstone and Manning, Doyle and Shairp, spoke of it in later days as something they could never forget, so potent was it and so beautiful. And Froude, whose brother Hurrell was the friend of Newman's bosom in young manhood and who had been led captive by the preacher's fascination only to drift far beyond his horizon

in after years, Froude, too, in a long since forgotten book recalled him, the Master, and that voice of his "so keen, so preternaturally sweet, whose very whisper used to thrill through crowded churches, when every breath was held to hear; that calm grey eye; those features so stern and yet so gentle!" Thus runs the testimony of men whom Newman's looks had subdued and his voice melted; but a later generation for whom both looks and voice have passed forever may wonder and, wondering, ask if Newman, the preacher, were as impressive as we are led to believe, or if Froude and Arnold were merely giving a local habitation and a name to some idol of their youthful worship. And was Canon Kingsley wrong, too, when he accorded to Newman the honor of being "the most perfect orator" of his generation?

[I]

Perhaps the casual observer who found himself at St. Mary's on a Sunday afternoon at four would have seen nothing that might appeal to him as unusual. He might have remarked that the church was not crowded, without being aware that the congregation was largely made up of undergraduates, who were giving up their dinner to attend. He would have looked unmoved upon the tall and stoop-shouldered preacher with his low voice, his unoratorical manner, his rapid enunciation, who scarcely raised his head but kept his eyes fastened upon his manuscript. With a shock of disappointment and surprise, he might well have asked himself if this man were actually the voice of the moral aspirations of young Oxford, if he were the head and front of the greatest spiritual movement in generations, or if, by a trick of chance, he might not be some callow curate whose diffidence must be overcome by practice.

Perhaps but few of Newman's accustomed hearers

could have made clear to our inquirer the real state of their feelings on listening to a sermon at St. Mary's. They might have felt that the veil which concealed their inner hearts from human sight had for the first time in their lives been lifted and its hidden places searched by an eye which noted minutely, relentlessly, all that it beheld. Perhaps an ambition lurked there so deeply buried as to be almost forgotten, or a desire long concealed, or a complacency too slight for notice. Awakened by the spell of the speaker's words, that ambition, that desire, that complacency, seemed to glide from their hiding places like serpents under flowers and to take on strange and repulsive shapes. The ambition became greed of power and place; the desire, lust; the complacency, the self-adulation of the Pharisee. Then, as the listener bowed his head in sudden shame at the thought that this strange man had explored the very secrets of his heart, the silver tones fell upon his ears as if the balm of Gilead were in their cadence.

"O how great a good will it be, . . . if the time shall one day come, when we shall enter into His tabernacle above, and hide ourselves under the shadow of His wings; if we shall be in the number of those blessed dead who die in the Lord, and rest from their labour. Here we are tossing upon the sea, and the wind is contrary. All through the day we are tried and tempted in various ways. ... But in the unseen world, where Christ has entered, all is peace. . . . "There is no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither any more pain; for the former things are passed away.' Nor any more sin; nor any more guilt; no more remorse; no more punishment; no more penitence; no more trial; no infirmity to depress us; no affection to mislead us; no passion to transport us; no prejudice to blind us; no sloath, no pride, no envy, no strife; but the light of God's countenance, and a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal.

proceeding out of the Throne. That is our home; here we are but on pilgrimage, and Christ is calling us home." The voice ceases; and in St. Mary's all is silence. The listener raises his head; the speaker has gone. Slowly the congregation rises and departs, to return again on the following Sunday, once more to hear that silvery voice and feel those calm gray eyes searching out the hidden places of their souls.

[II]

The man who once fell under the enchantment of Newman's sermons found it impossible to resist their appeal. And he wondered at this himself. He had heard sermons before, many a time, but somehow these were different. His ear had been soothed by rounded periods, his imagination awakened by glowing pictures of rewarded virtue, his eye pleased by graceful gestures; and the religious principles of his childhood had been stated anew with taste and discretion. And he had praised, perhaps with generous condescension, the good judgment of the preacher and the elegance and forcefulness of the sermon, quite without knowing that it lacked the one thing necessary to his heart. Thus the years had passed and he had come to regard a sermon as an essential part of divine service, an exercise of oratorical skill on the part of the preacher and of amiable acquiescence on the part of the congregation.

But with this tall, ascetic-looking Newman it was different. Here were none of the affectations of the practised speaker, the studied intonations, or the measured gestures. Indeed, there was a kind of angularity about him that in some strange way was all of a piece: with his appearance, his manner, his seeming diffidence, the almost naked simplicity of his style. Yet somehow he fascinated you; he seemed almost to be following you

around with his eyes, even though they were lowered upon his manuscript. You grew hot with shame for fear he might suddenly raise his head, point his finger at you, and say in a voice that would transfix you with its accusive calm: "Thou art the man! It is thy kiss that betrayeth Him, not thy brother's nor thy friend's, nor thy neighbor's, but thine!" Once you gave yourself up to him you could no more escape him than you could escape your shadow. His voice haunted you; the words he uttered were winged and lodged themselves in your memory, and, (triumph of the preacher) in your conscience, too. And they aroused in you emotions more poignant than any you had ever known before, shame perhaps, or fear, or grief, or remorse, and you could not stifle them or forget them, for he was always following you with his eyes, his finger pointing you out among all the world, his voice, sunk to an accusing whisper, always declaring, "Thou art the man!"

Was it any wonder that to those who had once listened, the memory of the unforgettable Seer of St. Mary's should "persist above the conquered years?"

[III]

In the Apologia Newman gives us the key to his spiritual life in his celebrated declaration that to him there were two and only two luminously self-evident beings, himself and his Creator. This realization had dwelt with him from boyhood; it was to remain with him all his long life, gaining in strength and depth with the years. He spent his days under the very eye of God, not afar off but always as if face to face, and in the light of His countenance the world grew dim, as the stars pale before the sun at dawn; its voices seemed but distant whispers faintly heard; and all its multiform realities became but pallid shadows, like things seen in dreams. It is our