FRANCIS NEWMAN AND HIS RELIGION
More than one person has said to me in connection with this memoir: "If
the whole of Frank Newman's heterodox religious opinions be not given, the
book will lose half its point."
To my mind there are quite two, if not more, sides to this question. My
strongest argument, however, in favour of only dealing briefly with them
is this: It is quite true that Agnosticism more or less held its sway over
him during the years between 1834 and 1879. I am quite aware of how
tremendous a slice that is of a man's life. But it is not an overwhelming
testimony when one comes to look at it not from the worldly point of view.
There are periods in which Time--as Time--seems almost beside the mark. "A
thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday." When the Israelites had
once achieved their journey through the wilderness--nay, even through the
earlier time of tyranny amongst the Egyptians-I suppose the actual years
seemed as a dream _when one awaketh_.
I myself have known forty years pass, for someone afflicted with a
terrible mental disability, as a watch in the night, once light pierced
through the clouds of the long-darkened mental vision. Time, as sex, is
purely temporary. In this present world we cannot do without either, but
when Time itself passes for good, the old implements which were necessary
to make the clock go round will pass likewise.
So, in Newman's case, when that tremendous slice in a man's life--forty-
five years--was overpast, he sloughed off the old garments of Agnosticism,
and came back to the Christian faith professed by him in early childhood
so conscientiously--and, indeed, up to the year after his missionary
journey, 1834.
This fact influences me largely in the matter of dealing only briefly with
the time-as regards his religious professions--which lies between these
two dates, and for these reasons, which I hope to prove, carry
considerable weight.
The first is that people are mistaken in considering that it was his
religious opinions which made Newman great. The real valour of his life
was shown in the splendid aspects of Social Reform which he showed to the
world; the way of the New Citizenship, of the New Patriotism, which he was
for ever preaching and writing about. He was the Perseus of To-day whose
wholehearted efforts were spent in freeing the Andromedas from their
antiquated bonds and fetters; whose good sword was ever pointed at the
throats of the dragons which lift their ugly heads against freedom--
against reforms of all sorts; the dragons who take so long in dying.
But there are many who will regret bitterly that a man who served his
generation so splendidly as he did in these matters should ever have
written a book such as the _Phases of Faith_; for though it is undeniably
clever, yet it is not convincing; and very much of it is very painful
reading for those who do not care to wander out of the way in the
wilderness of religious speculation and doubt.
Newman declares in this book that he did not give up Christianity; yet he
gave up all that made Christianity Christianity. He said in it that he was
looking for a "religion which shall combine the tenderness, humility, and
disinterestedness that are the glories of the purest Christianity, with
that activity of intellect and untiring pursuit of truth." [Footnote: He
said once he wished for a religion which should combine the best out of
all religions in the world.]
When he mentions that, in his time, "of young men at Oxford not one in
five seemed to have any convictions at all," he seems to imply that it was
on account of the desire for a new religion; whereas it was far more
traceable to the after-effects of Calvinism and Puritanism, which have
stuck, as spiritual limpets, to England's religious rocks ever since they
first reached them. They are certainly looser in their hold than was the
case formerly, but they are there still.
_Phases of Faith_ was published in 1850. But the year before a book of far
more religious suggestiveness had come out, though that too was a book of
opposition to the accepted forms of religion, _The Soul: its Sorrows and
Aspirations_.
Regarded as a work postulating a new spiritual point of view, it was vague
and unsatisfying. It was without form and void. It desired that most
unsatisfying thing, a religion with no dogmas:--those stakes which
preserve the ground on which grow the flowers of religious truth, from
those who come but to spoil and destroy.
Yet, with all its lack of convincing power, and those parts of it which
are, like _Phases of Faith_, painful reading and profitless--to
Christians--there are here and again striking passages such as this, whose
beauty cannot fail to appeal to us: "None can enter the kingdom of Heaven
without becoming a little child. But behind and after this there is a
mystery revealed to but few; namely, if the Soul is to go on into higher
spiritual blessedness, it must become a _woman_. Yes, however manly thou
be among men, it must learn to love being dependent; must lean on God, not
solely from distress and alarm, but because it does not like independence
or loneliness.... God is _not_ a stern Judge; exacting every tittle of
some law from us.... He does not act towards us (spiritually) by
generalities ... but His perfection consists in dealing with each case by
itself as if there were no other...." And again: "The Bible is a blessed
book if we do not stifle the Holy Spirit within us."
The second reason why I touch on these religious opinions (before
mentioned) but briefly, is because of my own _strong impression_ since I
have been writing this memoir, that in that next chapter of existence upon
which Newman has now entered, he may not impossibly be nearer the Light,
the religious truth, which here he so earnestly sought, but mistakenly;
and in his regret for his own phases of religious unfaith, now cast aside,
may not wish them to be recapitulated anew. There is a certain pathetic
sentence of his, in a letter in later life, which seems to give a certain
amount of confirmation to this idea: "It is a sad thing to have printed
erroneous fact. I have three or four times contradicted and renounced the
passage ... _but I cannot reach those whom I have misled_."
I have mentioned before that Francis Newman returned to his earlier faith
in Christianity a few years before his death.
It remains, therefore, to give the proofs which have been put into my
hands regarding this fact.
Two of his very greatest friends, Anna Swanwick and Dr. Martineau,
received from his own hands the knowledge that he wished it to be known
that he died a Christian. I shall give a quotation from one of Newman's
last letters to the former, from Miss Bruce's _Memoir of Recollections of
Anna Swanwick_. In almost illegible writing, he says:--
"If I live through this year, I hope to effect, by aid of a friend's eyes,
a third ... edition of my _Paul of Tarsus_, with grateful acknowledgment
that, in spite of a few details, I more and more come round to the
substance of the views of my honoured friend, James Martineau. Also I
close by my now sufficient definition of a Christian--'one, who in heart,
and steadily, is a disciple of Jesus in upholding the prayer called the
Lord's Prayer as the highest and purest in any known national religion.' I
think J. M. will approve this."
I should also like to add Miss Bruce's own words in this connection:--
"He" (Newman) "was drawn back at the end of his long life by the sweet
reasonableness and loving sympathy of his friend Anna Swanwick, and the
teaching of Dr. Martineau."
Also these words from a letter written by Anna Swanwick: "It is delightful
to me to think how, when the veil shall have fallen from the eyes of our
friend" (F. W. Newman), "he will love and venerate Him in Whose footsteps
he is unconsciously treading." Yet I must add here that in a letter from
Newman to Anna Swanwick (to which I had access) in 1897, there is no
definite statement of his belief in Immortality. "If God gives me
immortality, I am content. If it pleases Him to annihilate me, it is well.
Let Him do with me as seemeth to Him good."
As regards Dr. Martineau's statement, I quote now from a letter received
by me from Mr. William Tallack, who gave me particulars of a letter
written in 1903, by Mr. W. Garrett Horder, on a meeting he had with Dr.
Martineau:--
"Not more than three or four years before his death I was sitting in an
omnibus at Oxford Circus, when Dr. Martineau, accompanied by his daughter,
got in and took seats by my side. After I had confessed my pleasure at
seeing him, he said, 'I think you ought to know that the other day I had a
letter from Frank Newman saying that, when he died, he wished it to be
known that he died in the Christian faith.'"
To my mind these strong assertions that Newman wished it known that he
"died a Christian," which he wrote to two of his closest friends, speak
for themselves.
There was also another, Rev. J. Temperley Grey, who visited Newman
constantly in his last illness, and who said of his final conversion these
words, in the "In Memoriam" address he gave at Newman's funeral:--
"Of late his" (Newman's) "attitude towards Christ had undergone a great
change. He confessed to me only very recently that for years he had held
on to Christianity by the skirts of S. Paul; 'but now,' he said, 'Paul is
less and less, and Christ is more and more.' He made this statement with
an emphasis and an emotion which conveyed the impression that he wished it
to be regarded as a final testimony."
To those of us who are Christians these are strong words, showing clearly
where, in his last illness and failing strength, he had turned for final
help.
Some have called Francis Newman an atheist. But he was no atheist. A
theist for many years he was: but it was because he was unable to
reconcile certain historical difficulties, or to get rid of certain
earlier Calvinistic tendencies, or to accept certain dogmas which seemed
to him impossible of acceptation, and in this last respect he is certainly
not alone.
Mr. Temperley Grey's testimony to Newman as a fellow townsman, during his
last days at Weston-super-Mare (he died 6th Oct., 1897), shows him to us
as a man who _acted_ to his fellow men, and women, as a Christian should,
although he did not, till near the end, _believe_ as one.
"Without depreciating in the least his illustrious brother, it may truly
be said that while the one was a saint in the cloister, the other was a
saint in the very thick of life's battle. [Footnote: "Henry Newman...
stood for a spiritual Tory; while Francis Newman was a spiritual Radical"
(_Morning Leader_, October, 1897).] ... I would speak of him rather as the
neighbour and townsman who moved to and fro among us ... and whom,
distrusting at first, we ultimately reverenced and loved for his nobility
of character, his simplicity of life, his tenderness of conscience, his
devoutness of spirit, and his generosity of heart.
"Theologically we were far apart, but we were entirely with him in his
enthusiasm for righteousness, his sympathy with downtrodden and oppressed
peoples.... We were with him also in his untiring efforts to secure for
women their rightful place in the shaping of our national life, and in his
splendid protests against the tortures inflicted in the name of science on
the poor, helpless animals, our dumb brothers. To hear the old man
eloquently discourse upon these themes was to be morally uplifted....
Those of us who were admitted into the inner circle of his friends were
profoundly impressed by his devoutness. He lived as in the Presence of
God, and his prayers in the home, so simple, so trustful, so reverential,
were always a means of grace, a real refreshment.
* * * * *
"He was a true philanthropist. He championed the cause of the oppressed
everywhere.... A room in his house was set apart as a guest-chamber for
persons needing a change to the seaside, but whose circumstances barred
the way; and not a few were fresh equipped for the work and battle of
life, as a result of his thoughtful hospitality.... Francis Newman stood
by himself in his greatness, his goodness, his simplicity, and we shall
not find his like again.... Above all, our friend was a truth seeker. This
was the ruling passion of his life."
Mrs. Temperley Grey tells me that it was always Newman's first wife's
great hope that her husband should be the means, through his ministrations
during the last part of Newman's life, of leading him back to his original
faith. Mrs. Newman used deeply to regret Newman's lack of definite belief,
but always said when the subject was raised, "Cannot they understand that
my husband is under a cloud--a mist, as it were?" Both the brothers, the
Cardinal and Francis Newman, through the greater part of their lives had
been restlessly searching for truth--for certainty--in their faith.
Calvinism had been the black cloud under which they had both been brought
up. If the _obiter dictum_ of a celebrated Cardinal in the Roman Church be
correct: "Give _me_ the child till he is seven years old, and he will be a
Jesuit all his life," then indeed it shows the tremendous power of habit,
for it was only through much tribulation, through passionate inward
wrestlings with those terrible tenets, and through many searchings of
heart, that either brother made his way out of its toils at length. The
Cardinal sought above all things Truth, through authority; no one will
forget those soul-stirring words of his in his _Apologia pro Vitâ Suâ_ in
which he speaks of the great peace that at last quieted his doubts and
fears when he was received into the Roman Church. To many of us Authority
_is_ the life-buoy which supports us "o'er crag and torrent till the night
is gone"; but Francis Newman could not believe in it. "Authority is the
bane," he would say, "of religion." He must see with his intellectual
eyes, to be saved. He must see and touch Truth for himself; his
intellectual self must be convinced, or he must stand outside the creeds
he knew--a questioner still.
But he was honest and open in his aloofness. Did it mean loss of a
distinguished brilliant worldly career (as it did at Oxford in 1830)?
Well, then the career _must_ be lost, for he could not bring himself to
sign to doctrines which he did not believe. Did it mean unpopularity, that
he held certain views on Social Reform? Well, rather than compromise,
rather than temporize, he _would_ stand out alone rather than yield an
iota of what he held to be the true Progressive Aims for People and Land.
Only--and this was a flaw, and no small one either--he often wrote his
religious opinions so openly as to pain his readers. In many of his
letters which I have read there are expressions relating to the religious
dogmas held by his correspondents which are bluntly, unrestrainedly,
bitterly used. It is true that often, at the close of a letter, there
follows a hope that he had not hurt his friends' feelings; but that he
must, at all costs, be open as to his own beliefs. But that apology only
came as an after-thought, as it were as an attempt to dress the wound
which he himself had made, and is quite unable to do away with the
impression produced by the written word. _Litera scripta manet_.
In writing on "The National Church" thirty-three years after he had
refused to sign the Thirty-nine Articles, he said, with emphasis,
"Truthfulness of the _individual_ man is essential to moral worth; but for
this very reason the _system_ of the Church must be lax in order to allow
truthfulness to individuals." This is curious reasoning, and subversive of
the idea of Unity. Still, as no one can deny that as Life implies
Progression, so as regards the Churches, the inspired words that they
should be "led into all truth" surely allow for progression also into
higher regions of knowledge and methods of teaching. To allow for this
spirit of progression Newman held that a State Church should not be tied
down to fixed conditions. "No general Church system will go so far as the
foremost minds.... All the moderate and wisest historians of the Anglican
Church have extolled its foundations. They have judged that, take it as a
whole, the Reformation went as far as the collective nation was then able
to go." That it "was necessary to reform it in the sixteenth century in
order to harmonize it with the higher intelligence of the best minds, so
far as could be done without making it useless to the inferior minds." All
this has a certain truth, but when all is said, the fact forces itself
upon one that after all it is a matter for debate whether the Reformation
was a "progressive" movement at all: whether it did not in reality delay
progression. For it is well known to-day that it was really managed by the
machinations of one of the most selfish and unprincipled of kings
[Footnote: Whose conduct at this time largely hinged on the refusal of the
Pope to grant him his wished-for divorce from Katherine.]--who was only
progressive in the matter of wives--and by his ministers, who were, many
of them, men of vile characters and greed. As to motive, it is very patent
to-day what _that_ was. It was that of the man who covets his neighbour's
goods, i.e. the lands and moneys of the monasteries and churches, and who
whitewashes his sin when his desire is satisfied. There is besides
sufficient proof to-day that the great bulk of the unrepresented nation
did _not_ regard this act of wholesale robbery as "lawful and necessary,"
nor that it "harmonized" the Church "with the higher intelligence of the
best minds."
To the end of his life (from his Oxford days to his death), of course,
Newman was never greatly in sympathy with the Anglican Church. He did not,
even at the end, own himself bound by her dogmas or obedient to her
conditions. To go further into the question is, I think, not desirable
here. It is enough to say that though _he was outside the visible Church_,
yet he was, in life and spirit, "not far off". As was said of Stanley, "he
believed more than he knew." His "life was in the right," though his
doubts and rationalism led him into unbeliefs, which only at the close of
his long life he renounced. And he had a far deeper longing for religious
truth than have many conventional Churchmen.