being barnacles on Scriptural tradition, were defenses erected by authority to preserve the spirit of primitive Christianity against barnacles. Newman had defended the Church of England as the Via Media—the middle road—between the theology of the Church of Rome and the theology of Calvinism. But he and his younger followers gradually came to believe that the weight of authority and permanence was on the side of Rome. Tract 90, on the Catholic doctrines in the Thirty-nine Articles, the bulwarks of the Protestant Church, raised a storm of opposition in that church. And finally in a dramatic scene at the Convocation of February 13, 1845, the Oxford Movement was snuffed out. Newman at once left the Via Media for the Via Appia and entered the Roman Catholic Church. Several years later, in 1864, he became involved in a controversy with Charles Kingsley, during which he wrote his religious autobiography, the "Apologia pro Vita Sua."[1] This famous book, though it cannot be considered a convincing refutation of the charges which Kingsley brought against Rome, was a triumphant vindication of Newman's integrity and nobility of spirit.
CARLYLE AND HIS TEACHING
With Newman, Carlyle had little sympathy. "John Henry Newman," he said, "has not the intellect of an average-sized rabbit." Carlyle's own life[2] was spent in writing the histories of great movements such as the French Revolution, and of great men such as Cromwell and Frederick the Great. He thundered forth denunciations of the evils of society. The gospel he preached was of Books, Silence, Work, and Heroes. "In Books lie the soul of the whole Past Time." "Silence is the eternal Duty of a man." "Work while it is called To-day." "Universal history is at bottom the history of the Great Men who have worked here." These doctrines you will find summed up in the Inaugural Address at Edinburgh.[3] "Carlyle," wrote George Meredith in one of the most luminous estimates[4] of the Sage of Chelsea, "Carlyle was one who stood constantly in the presence of those 'Eternal verities' of which he speaks.... The spirit
- ↑ See George Moore's "Salve," chap, xv, for a vigorous attack on Newman's style.
- ↑ For a full account see H. C. xxv, 315.
- ↑ H. C., xxv, 359.
- ↑ See "The Letters of George Meredith," Vol. II, 332.
