The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1871-11-12

Gais.y for Nesssn Ssa:'n 's' =
Mr.. Mccarthy il a Protestant, which ac-
counts. for his characterization Of DR.. Now
man as ''This good, great, mistaken English
man."
The Atlantic deals curiously and capri
clonsly with regulations. Both these
brothers Newman. seem to me to be less
known in America than they deserve to be-
John Henry, in especial, found to be thus
comparatively ignored in the United
greatest, certainly one Of the most infiuen-
tial Englishmen Of our time. He has en-.
srayed his name dessly On be history of
his age. He has ledsPerlN Me mosSxe-
markable religious movement kind
E Ens1 fea 'os ox is o.
intellect has been acknowledge I'D
mired by,pll secS Ind parties. 81 er to-
-gethef shy comp any of eminent &pglish
men, however select in tss comp6sitien,
however splendid in iW members, and
John Henry Newman will be among the
few especially conspicuous.
Perhaps most ON realera will be of
oRsnion that sNewmatl's intellect has been
@dly msueed that his influence has been
for the most part disastrous. But no one
eny iRe Of tast t Sp'} Inis1 eaa
H'N WIZ AhhuCAkys-+TA1OU uiO uNN, ~
that q enemy ever3yet called into que!
tiops tn simple sincerity;s the blamaess'
purity Of John HepsX&N&wma purposes
and characteH<xfQf Ms he has BEEN
IsEely seen if5 6p1 0n, fofS b duties keep
[him in Birmihgo In, where he is at the
l'head of a religiouSand educational institu
ton. 1 have heard that years are telling
heavily uponship, andatset when he noE
breaches, he is istened kind ,9f
half- melancholy f1RereH hangs on
the words of . great man wndsls already
beginningsto be n portion of the past. But
ms inhuence was pow4 almost uneqgal-
led in its day, and that day has not yet
John Henry Newman threw his whole
soul, energy, genius, and, fame into the
caRse>of the Roman Catholic Church.
fssme welcomed him witlst hat cordial vel.
come she always gives to re w conner, and
she utilized him and seSAwork for him
do. -Macaulay has shownssery cfsSASge lis,
in one of his essay 8, how the Roman harch
seldom loses any one it has gained, because
1t is so skilful in finding for everybody his
proper place, and assigning him in her, SER
Twice the task he is best qualified to do, 30
that her ambition becomes his ambition,
! her Interest his interest, her conquests his
conquests. Newman appears to have been
made sort Of missionary from Rome to
the intellect and culture of the English
people. Within the Church to which he
had gone over he became an immense in
tiuence and almost unequaled power.
The Catholics delighted to have a leader
| whose intellect no one could pretend to de-
! spise, whose gifts and culture had hecn pane
gyrized in the most glowing terms, over and
| over again, by the foremost statesmen and
diyines of the Protestant Church. New
| man was appointed head of the oratory of
ST. Philip Ncri at Birmingham, and was for
| some years rector of the Roman Catholic
University of Dublin. He rarely came be-
fore the public. In all the arts that make
an orator or great preacher is strikingy
i deficient. His manner is constrained, awk-
ward, and even ungainly his voice is thin
and weak. His bearing is not impressive.
His gaunt, emaciated figure, his sharp,
eagle face, his cold, medirative eye, rather
4 repel than attract those who see him for
the first time. The matter of his discourse,
whether sermon, speech, or lecture, is al
ways admirable, and the language is con-
else, scholarly, expressive--perhaps a little
over-weighed with thought; but there is
nothing there of the orator. 1t is as
writer, and as "infldence"-I don't
| knOwsrow- better to express it-that New
| man has become famous. l doubt if We
have many better prose writer's. He is
full OF keen, pungent, satirical humor and
there is, on the other hand, n subtle vein
of poetry and of pathos, suffusing nearly
all lie writes. One of the finest and one of
the most frequently quoted passages in
modern English literature is Newman's
touching and noble apostrophe to highlands
"Saxon Bible" He has published volumes
of verse which think belong to the very
highest order of verse making that is not
genuine poetry. They are full of thought.
ceiling, pathos, tenderness, beauty OF illus
tration; they are all that verse can be
made by one who just fails to be poet. An
English critical review not long since
classed the poetical works of Dr. Newman
and George Eliottogethcr, az the nearest
approach which intellect ard culture, have
made in oar days toward the production of
genuine poetry. When Newman made his
famous attack on DR.. Achilli, an Italian
priest who had renowned the Roman
Church, and whom Newman publicly ac-
cuscd OF many crimes, the Judge who had
to sentence the accuser to the payment of Il
fine for libel, pronounced Il panegyric on
his intellect and his character such as is
rarely heard from an English Judgment
seat. Not long after, when the subject
came up somehow in the House of Com
mons, Mr.. Gladstone broke into au cncem-
ium of John Henry Newman which might