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throughout our tour. I had a conversation with the Dean of Malta, a most pleasant man, lately dead; but it was about the Fathers, and the Library of the great church. I knew the Abbate Santini at Rome, who did no more than copy for me the Gregorian tones. Froude and I made two calls upon Monsignore (now Cardinal) Wiseman, at the Collegio Inglese, shortly before we left Rome. Once we heard him preach at a church in the Corso. I do not recollect being in a room with any other ecclesiastics, except a priest at Castro Giovanni, in Sicily, who called on me when I was ill, and with whom I wished to hold a controversy. As to Church Services, we attended the Tenebræ, at the Sistine, for the sake of the Miserere, and that was all. My general feeling was, "All, save the spirit of man, is divine." I saw nothing but what was external; of the hidden life of Catholics I knew nothing. I was still more driven back into myself, and felt my isolation. England was in my thoughts solely, and the news from England came rarely and imperfectly. The Bill for the Suppression of the Irish Sees was in progress, and filled my mind. I had fierce thoughts against the Liberals. The motto [prefixed to] the "Lyra Apostolica," [which we] began at Rome, shows the feeling of both Froude and myself at this time. We borrowed from M. Bunsen a Homer, and Froude chose the words in which Achilles, on returning to the battle, says, "You shall know the difference, now that I am back again."

Especially when I was left by myself, the thought came upon me that deliverance is wrought, not by the many, but by the few; not by bodies, but by persons. Now it was, I think, that I repeated to myself the words which had ever been dear to me from my school days, "Exoriare aliquis!" —now, too, that Southey's beautiful poem of "Thalaba,” for which I had an immense liking, came forcibly to my mind.

I began to think that I had a mission. There are sentences of my letters to my friends to this effect, if they are not destroyed. When we took leave of Monsignore Wiseman he had courteously expressed a wish that we might make a second visit to Rome. I said with great gravity, “We have a work to do in England." I went down at once to Sicily, and the presentiments grew stronger. I struck into the middle of the island, and fell ill of a fever at Leonforte. My servant thought that I was dying, and begged for my last directions. I gave them, as he wished; but I said, "I shall not die." I repeated, "I shall not die, for I have not sinned against light, I have not sinned against light." I never have been able to make out at all what I meant.

I got to Castro Giovanni, and was laid up there for nearly three weeks. Towards the end of May I left for Palermo, taking three days for the journey. Before starting from my inn, in the morning of May 26th or 27th, I sat down on my bed, and began to sob bitterly. My servant, who had acted as my nurse, asked me what ailed me. I could only answer him, "I have a work to do in England."

I was aching to get home; yet, for want of a vessel, I was kept at Palermo for three weeks. I began to visit the Churches, and they' calmed my patience, though I did

1 [The subjoined verses, dated Palermo, June 13th, 1833, are interesting, not only as a record of this soothing influence, but also as affording, in the judgment of many, the first indication found in Dr. Newman's writings of what are called "tendencies to Rome," tendencies of which, it is needless to add, he was then wholly unconscious :

“Oh that thy creed were sound!

For thou dost soothe the heart, thou Church of Rome,
By thy unwearied watch and varied round

Of service in thy Saviour's holy home.

:

not attend any services. I knew nothing of the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament there. At last I got off in an orange boat, bound for Marseilles. Then it was that I wrote the lines, "Lead, Kindly Light," which have since become well known. We were becalmed a whole week in the Straits of Bonifaccio. I was writing verses the whole time of my passage. At length I got to Marseilles, and set off for England. The fatigue of travelling was too much for me, and I was laid up for several days at Lyons. At last I got off again, and did not stop, night or day, (except a compulsory delay at Paris,) till I reached England and my mother's house. My brother had arrived from Persia only a few hours before. This was on the Tuesday. The following Sunday, July 14th, Mr. Keble preached the Assize Sermon in the University Pulpit. It was published under the title of "National Apostacy." I have ever considered and kept the day, as the start of the religious movement of 1833. ("Apologia,” pp. 32-35.)

VII.

THE TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

WHEN I got back from abroad I found that already a movement had commenced in opposition to the specific

I cannot walk the city's sultry streets,

But the wide porch invites to still retreats,

Where passion's thirst is calm'd, and care's unthankful gloom. 66 There, on a foreign shore,

The homesick solitary finds a friend;

Thoughts, prison'd long for lack of speech, outpour

Their tears; and doubts in resignation end.

I almost fainted from the long delay

That tangles me within this languid bay,

When comes a foe, my wounds with oil and wine to tend."

Verses on Various Occasions, p. 146.]

danger which at that time was threatening the religion of the nation and its Church. Several zealous and able men had united their counsels, and were in correspondence with each other. The principal of them were Mr. Keble, Hurrell Froude, who had reached home long before me, Mr. William Palmer of Dublin and Worcester College (not Mr. William Palmer of Magdalen, who is now a Catholic), Mr. Arthur Perceval, and Mr. Hugh Rose...

Out of my own head I began the Tracts [for the Times]. . . I had the consciousness that I was employed in that work which I had been dreaming about, and which I felt to be so momentous and inspiring. I had a supreme confidence in our cause; we were upholding that Primitive Christianity which was delivered for all time by the early teachers of the Church, and which was registered and attested in the Anglican Formularies and by the Anglican divines. That ancient religion had wellnigh faded out of the land, through the political changes of the last 150 years, and it must be restored. It would be in fact a second Reformation;—a better Reformation, for it would be a return not to the sixteenth century, but to the seventeenth. No time was to be lost, for the Whigs had come to do their worst, and the rescue might come too late. Bishoprics were already in course of suppression ; Church property was in course of confiscation; Sees would soon be receiving unsuitable occupants. We knew enough to begin preaching upon, and there was no one else to preach. I felt as on board a vessel, which first gets under weigh, and then the deck is cleared out, and luggage and live stock stowed away into their proper receptacles.

Nor was it only that I had confidence in our cause, both in itself, and in its polemical force; but also, on the other hand, I despised every rival system of doctrine and its arguments too. As to the High Church and the Low

Church, I thought that the one had no more a logical basis than the other; while I had a thorough contempt for the controversial position of the latter. I had a real respect for the character of many of the advocates of each party, but that did not give cogency to their arguments; and I thought, on the contrary, that the Apostolical form of doctrine was essential and imperative, and its grounds of evidence impregnable. . And now let me state more definitely what the position was which I took up, and the propositions about which I was so confident. These were three.

that I have

1. First was the principle of dogma: my battle was with Liberalism; by Liberalism I meant the anti-dogmatic principle and its developments. This was the first point on which I was certain. Here I make a remark: persistence in a given belief is no sufficient test of its truth, but departure from it is at least a slur upon the man who has felt so certain about it. In proportion, then, as I had in 1832 a strong persuasion of the truth of opinions which I have since given up, so far a sort of guilt attaches to me, not only for that vain confidence, but for all the various proceedings which were the consequence of it. of it. But under the first head I have the satisfaction of feeling nothing to retract, and nothing to repent of. principle of the movement is as dear to me now as it ever was. I have changed in many things, in this I have not. From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental principle of my religion. I know no other religion. I cannot enter into the idea of any other sort of religion; religion, as a mere sentiment, is to me a dream and a mockery. As well can there be filial love without the fact of a father, as devotion without the fact of a Supreme Being. What I held in 1816 I held in 1833, and I hold in 1864. Please God, I shall hold it to the end. Even when

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