[Illustration: Newman]
In one of the last conversations I had the pleasure to hold with
Mr. Gladstone, I referred to the "three Newmans" and their divergent
careers. He said he never knew there were "three." He knew John Henry,
the Cardinal (as he afterwards became), at Oxford. He knew Francis
William there, who had repute for great attainments, retirement of
manner, and high character; but had never heard there was a third
brother, and was much interested in what I had to tell him. The articles
of Charles Newman I published in the _Reasoner_, and their republication
by the late J. W. Wheeler, were little known to the general public, who
will probably hear of them now for the first time.
Though I name "three Newmans," this chapter relates chiefly to the one I
best knew, Francis William, known as Professor Newman. The eldest of the
three was John Henry, the famous Cardinal. The third brother, Charles,
was a propagandist of insurgent opinion. Francis was a pure Theist, John
was a Roman Catholic, and Charles a Naturist, and nothing besides; he
would be classed as an Agnostic now. Francis William was the handsomest
He had classical features, a placid, clear, and confident voice, and an
impressive smile which lighted up all his face. John Henry manifested
in his youth the dominancy of the ecclesiastic, and lived in a priestly
world of his own creation, in which this life was overshadowed by the
terrors of another unknown. Francis believed in one sole God--not the
head of a firm. His Theism was of such intense, unquestioning devotion,
of such passionate confidence, as was seen in Mazzini and Theodore
Parker, of America. Voltaire and Thomas Paine were not more determined
Theists. In all else, Francis was human. Charles believed in Nature
and nothing more. In sending me papers to print in the _Reasoner_ on
"Causation in the Universe," he would at times say, "My mind is leaving
me, and when it returns a few months hence, I will send you a further
paper." Like Charles Lamb's poor sister, Mary, who used to put her
strait waistcoat in her basket and go herself to the asylum, when she
knew the days of her aberration were approaching, Charles Newman had
premonition of a like kind. He had the thoroughness of thought of his
family. The two brothers--the Cardinal and the Professor--united to
supply Charles with an income sufficient for his needs. The Cardinal,
though he knew Charles' opinions, readily joined.
When some questioning remark on Professor Newman was made incidentally
in the House of Commons, in consequence of his uncompromising views,
the Cardinal wrote saying that "for his brother's purity he would die,"
which, considering their extreme divergence of opinion, was very noble
in the Cardinal.
Professor Newman, I believe, wrote more books, having regard to their
variety and quality, than any other scholar of his time. Science,
history, poetry, theology, political economy, mathematics, travel,
translations--the Iliad of Homer--among them a Sanscrit dictionary. He
wrote many pamphlets and spoke for the humblest societies, regardless of
the amazement of his eminent contemporaries and associates. On questions
relating to marital morality, he did not hesitate to publish leaflets. I
published a series of letters for him in the _Reasoner_--now some fifty
years ago, so we were long acquainted. These earlier communications came
to me at a time when the authorities of University College in London,
where he was Professor of Latin, were being called upon to consider
whether his intellectual Liberalism might deter parents from sending
their sons there. But it was bravely held that the University had no
cognisance of the personal opinions of any professor. Like Professor
Key, Mr. Newman took an open interest in public affairs. Though variedly
learned, Professor Newman's style of speech, to whomever addressed by
tongue or pen, was fresh, direct, precise, and lucid.
Mr. Newman's quarto volume on Theism, written in metre, is the greatest
compendium of Theistical argument published in my time, and until Darwin
wrote, no entirely conclusive answer was possible.
Francis Newman had a travelling mind. From the time when I published his
"Personal Narrative" of his early missionary experience at Aleppo, he
grew, year by year, more rationalistic in his religious judgment. In
one of his papers, written in the year of his death, he said: "It may
be asked, 'Is Mr. Newman a disciple of Jesus?' I answer, 'Of all nations
that I know, that have a religion established by law, I have never seen
the equal to what is attributed to Jesus himself. But much is attributed
to Him--I disapprove of.' On the whole, if I am asked, 'Do you call
yourself a Christian?' I say, in contrast to other religions, 'Yes! I
do,' and so far I must call myself a Christian. But if you put upon me
the words Disciple of Jesus, meaning the believing all Jesus teaches
to be light and truth I cannot say it, and I think His words variously
unprovable. Now all disciples, when they come to full age, ought to seek
to surpass their masters. Therefore, if Jesus had faults, we, after more
than two thousand years' experience, ought to expect to surpass Him,
especially when an immense routine of science has been elaborately built
up, with a thousand confirmations all beyond the thought of Jesus."
What a progressive order of thought would exist now in the Christian
world had Mr. Newman's conception of discipleship prevailed in the
Churches!
Mr. Newman's words about myself, occurring in his work on "The Soul," I
remember with pride. They were written at a time when I had an ominous
reputation among theologians. When residing at Clifton as a professor,
Mr. Newman came down to Broadmead Rooms at Bristol, and took the chair
at one of my lectures, and spoke words on my behalf which only he could
frame. But he was as fearless in his friendship as he was intrepid in
his faith. He wrote to me, April 30, 1897, saying: "I appeal to your
compassion when I say, that the mere change of opinion on a doubtful
fact has perhaps cost me the regard of all who do not know me
intimately." The "fact" related to the probability of annihilation at
death. He regretted the loss of friendship, but never varied in his
lofty fidelity to conscience. Whatever might be his interest in a future
life, if it were the will of God not to concede it, he held it to be
the duty of one who placed his trust in Him to acquiesce. The spirit
of piety never seemed to me nobler, than in this unusual expression of
unmurmuring, unpresuming resignation.
His first wife, who was of the persuasion of the Plymouth Brethren, had
little sympathy with his boldness and fecundity of thought. Once,
when he lived at Park Village, Regent's Park, his friend, Dr. James
Martineau, came into the room; she opened the window and stepped out on
to the lawn, rather than meet him. Mr. Newman was very tender as to her
scruples, but stood by his own. When I visited him, he asked me, from
regard to her, to give the name of "Mr. Jacobs"--the name I used when
a teacher in Worcester in 1840, where I lectured under my own name and
taught under another.
On February 12, 1897, Mr. Newman wrote:--"Mv dear Holyoake,--I am not
coming round to you, though many will think I am. On the contrary, I
hope you are half coming round to me, but I have no time to talk on
these matters." He then asked my advice as to his rights over his own
publications, then in the hands of Mr. Frowde, printer, of Oxford; but
with such care for the rights of others, such faultless circumspection
as to the consequences to others in all he wished done, as to cause
me agreeable surprise at the unfailing perspicacity of his mind, his
unchanging, scrupulous, and instinctive sense of justice.
He regarded death with the calmness of a philosopher. He wrote to me
April 30, 1897: "Only those near me know how I daily realise the near
approach of my own death (he was then ninety-three). I grudge every day
wasted by things unfinished which remain for me to do." No apprehension,
no fear, and he wished I could "appear before him, with a document drawn
up," by which he could consign to me the custody of all the works under
his control. At the time, as he said, he might "easily be in his grave"
before I could accomplish his wishes. He says in another letter that
his "wife, like himself, abhorred indebtedness." He provided for the
probable cost of everything he wished done. His sense of honour remained
as keen as his sense of faith. He was a gentleman first and a Christian
afterwards.
Mr. Gladstone told me he was under the impression that he had, in some
way unknown to himself, lost the friendship of Mr. Newman, from whom he
had not heard for several years; and Mr. Newman was under an impression
that Mr. Gladstone's silence was occasioned by disapproval of his
published views of the "Errors of Jesus"--an error of assumption
respecting Mr. Gladstone into which Mr. Newman might naturally, but not
excusably, fall; for Mr. Newman should have known that Mr. Gladstone had
a noble tolerance equal to his own, or should personally have tested
it, by letter or otherwise, before nurturing an adverse conjecture. I
mentioned the matter to Mr. Gladstone, and found Mr. Newman's surmise
groundless. At the same time I gave him a copy of Mr. Francis Newman's
"Secret Songs" (as one copy given to me was called) which revealed to
Mr. Gladstone a devotional spirit he did not, as he said, imagine could
co-exist in one whose faith was so divergent to his own.
The following letter, which has autobiographical value, may interest the
reader:--
"Norwood Villa, 15, Arundel Crescent,
"Weston-super-Mare.
"March 22, 1893.
"Dear Mr. George Jacob Holyoake,--I had no idea of writing to Mr.
Gladstone, yet am glad to hear that you gave him my 'Secret Hymns.'
Probably my contrast to my brother, the late Cardinal, always puzzled
him. That we were in painful opposition ever since 1820 had never
entered his mind, much less that this opposition made it impossible to
me to endure living in Oxford, which also would have been my obvious
course.
"I did send my 'Paul of Tarsus' to Mr. Gladstone, which partially opened
his eyes. For my brother's first pretentious religious book was against
the Arians, which I _think_ I read at latest in 1832. Mr. Gladstone has
_written_ that my brother's secession to Rome was the greatest loss that
the English Church ever suffered. Of what kind was the loss my little
book on 'Paul' indirectly states, in pointing out that, as our English
New Testament shows, Paul in his own episode plainly originated the
doctrine, three centuries later _called_ Arianism, and held by all the
Western Church until young Athanasius introduced his new and therefore
'false' doctrine.
My brother, with Paul's epistle open before him, condemned the doctrine
of Arian, and did not know that it was the invention of Paul, and
thereby prevailed in the whole Western Church. Moreover, I read what I
cannot imagine met Mr. Gladstone's eyes, that 'It is not safe to quote
any Pre-Athanasian doctrines concerning the Trinity, since the _Church_
had not yet taught them how to express themselves.' After this, _could_
Mr. Gladstone, as a decent scholar, mourn over my brother's _loss_ to
the Church? I hope Mr. Gladstone can now afford time to read
something of the really early Christianity. He will find the Jerusalem
Christianity perishing after the Roman revolt, and supplanted by Pauline
fancies (not Christian at all) and by Pauline morality, often better
than Christian. To me our modern problem is to eschew Pauline fancies
and further to improve on Pauline wisdom.
"But since I have reached the point of being unable to take Human
Immortality as a Church axiom, I cannot believe that the problem is
above fully stated, or that Christianity deserves to become coetaneous
with man's body.
"Perhaps I ought to thank you more, yet I may have said too much.--Yours
truly,
"F. W. Newman."
One day as Mr. Newman was leaving my room in Woburn Buildings, he looked
round and said: "I did not think there were rooms so large in this
place"; and then descending the stairs, as though the familiarity of the
remark was more than an impulse, he said: "Do you think you could join
with me in teaching the great truth of Theism?" Alas! I had to express
my regret that my belief did not lie that way. Highly as I should think,
and much as I should value public association with Mr. Newman, I had to
decline the opportunity. If the will could create conviction, I should
also have accepted Mazzini's invitation--elsewhere referred to--for
Theism never seemed so enchanting in my eyes as it appeared in the lives
of those two distinguished thinkers who were inspired by it.