Additional Notes

Note on Page 12.
Correspondence with Archbishop Whately in 1834

{380} ON application of the Editor of Dr. Whately's Correspondence, the following four letters were sent to her for publication: they are here given entire. It will be observed that they are of the same date as my letter to Dr. Hampden at p. 57.

1.

"Dublin, October 25, 1834.
"My dear Newman,
"A most shocking report concerning you has reached me which indeed carries such an improbability on the face of it that you may perhaps wonder at my giving it a thought; and at first I did not, but finding it repeated from different quarters, it seems to me worth contradicting for the sake of your character. Some Oxford undergraduates, I find, openly report that when I was at Oriel last spring you absented yourself from chapel on purpose to avoid receiving the Communion along with me; and that you yourself declared this to be the case.

"I would not notice every idle rumour; but this has been so confidently and so long asserted that it would be a satisfaction to me to be able to declare its falsity as a fact, from your authority. I did indeed at once declare my utter unbelief; but then this has only the weight of my opinion; though an opinion resting I think on no insufficient grounds. I did not profess to rest my disbelief on our long, intimate, and confidential friendship, which would make it your right and your duty—if I did any thing to offend you or any thing you might think materially wrong—to remonstrate with me;—but on your general character; which I was persuaded would have made you incapable, even had no such close connexion existed between us, of conduct so unchristian and inhuman. But, as I said, I should like for your sake to be able to contradict the report from your own authority.

"Ever yours very truly,
"R. WHATELY." {381}

2.

"Oriel College, October 28, 1834.
"My dear Lord,
"My absence from the Sacrament in the College Chapel on the Sunday you were in Oxford, was occasioned solely and altogether by my having it on that day in St. Mary's; and I am pretty sure, if I may trust my memory, that I did not even know of your Grace's presence there, till after the Service. Most certainly such knowledge would not have affected my attendance. I need not say, this being the case, that the report of my having made any statement on the subject is quite unfounded; indeed, your letter of this morning is the first information I have had in any shape of the existence of the report.

"I am happy in being thus able to afford an explanation as satisfactory to you, as the kind feelings which you have ever entertained towards me could desire;—yet, on honest reflection, I cannot conceal from myself, that it was generally a relief to me, to see so little of your Grace, when you were at Oxford: and it is a greater relief now to have an opportunity of saying so to yourself. I have ever wished to observe the rule, never to make a public charge against another behind his back, and, though in the course of conversation and the urgency of accidental occurrences it is sometimes difficult to keep to it, yet I trust I have not broken it, especially in your own case: i.e. though my most intimate friends know how deeply I deplore the line of ecclesiastical policy adopted under your archiepiscopal sanction, and though in society I may have clearly shown that I have an opinion one way rather than the other, yet I have never in my intention, never (as I believe) at all, spoken of your Grace in a serious way before strangers;—indeed mixing very little in general society, and not overapt to open myself in it, I have had little temptation to do so. Least of all should I so forget myself as to take undergraduates into my confidence in such a matter.

I wish I could convey to your Grace the mixed and very painful feelings, which the late history of the Irish Church has raised in me:—the union of her members with men of heterodox views, and the extinction (without ecclesiastical sanction) of half her Candlesticks, the witnesses and guarantees of the Truth and trustees of the Covenant. I willingly own that both in my secret judgment and my mode of speaking concerning you to my friends, I have had great alternations and changes of feeling,—defending, then blaming your policy, next praising your own self and protesting against your measures, according as the affectionate remembrances which I had of you rose against my utter aversion of the secular and unbelieving policy in which I considered the Irish Church to be implicated. I trust I shall never be forgetful of the kindness you uniformly showed me during your residence in Oxford: and anxiously hope that no duty to Christ and His Church may ever {382} interfere with the expression of my sense of it. However, on the present opportunity, I am conscious to myself, that I am acting according to the dictates both of duty and gratitude, if I beg your leave to state my persuasion, that the perilous measures in which your Grace has acquiesced are but the legitimate offspring of those principles, difficult to describe in few words, with which your reputation is especially associated; principles which bear upon the very fundamentals of all argument and investigation, and affect almost every doctrine and every maxim by which our faith or our conduct is to be guided. I can feel no reluctance to confess, that, when I first was noticed by your Grace, gratitude to you and admiration of your powers wrought upon me; and, had not something from within resisted, I should certainly have adopted views on religious and social duty, which seem to my present judgment to be based in the pride of reason and to tend towards infidelity, and which in your own case nothing but your Grace's high religious temper and the unclouded faith of early piety has been able to withstand.

‘‘I am quite confident, that, however you may regard this judgment, you will give me credit, not only for honesty, but for a deeper feeling in thus laying it before you.

"May I be suffered to add, that your name is ever mentioned in my prayers, and to subscribe myself
"Your Grace's very sincere friend and servant,
"J. H. NEWMAN."

3.

"Dublin, November 3, 1834.
"My dear Newman,
"I cannot forbear writing again to express the great satisfaction I feel in the course I adopted; which has, eventually, enabled me to contradict a report which was more prevalent and more confidently upheld than I could have thought possible: and which, while it was perhaps likely to hurt my character with some persons, was injurious to yours in the eyes of the best men. For what idea must any one have had of religion—or at least of your religion—who was led to think there was any truth in the imputation to you of such uncharitable arrogance!

"But it is a rule with me, not to cherish, even on the strongest assertions, any belief or even suspicion, to the prejudice of any one whom I have any reason to think well of, till I have carefully inquired, and dispassionately heard both sides. And I think if others were to adopt the same rule, I should not myself be quite so much abused as I have been.

"I am well aware indeed that one cannot expect all, even good men, to {383} think alike on every point, even after they shall have heard both sides; and that we may expect many to judge, after all, very harshly of those who do differ from them: for, God help us! what will become of men if they receive no more mercy than they show to each other! But at least, if the rule were observed, men would not condemn a brother on mere vague popular rumours about principles (as in my case) 'difficult to describe in few words,' and with which his 'reputation is associated.' My own reputation I know is associated, to a very great degree, with what are in fact calumnious imputations, originated in exaggerated, distorted, or absolutely false statements, for which even those who circulate them, do not, for the most part, pretend to have any ground except popular rumour: like the Jews at Rome; 'as for this way, we know that it is every where spoken against.'

"For I have ascertained that a very large proportion of those who join in the outcry against my works, confess, or even boast, that they have never read them. And in respect of the measure you advert to—the Church Temporalities Act—(which of course I shall not now discuss), it is curious to see how many of those who load me with censure for acquiescing in it, receive with open arms, and laud to the skies, the Primate; who was consulted on the measure—as was natural, considering his knowledge of Irish affairs, and his influence—long before me; and gave his consent to it; differing from Ministers only on a point of detail, whether the revenues of six Sees, or of ten, should be alienated.

"Of course, every one is bound ultimately to decide according to his own judgment; nor do I mean to shelter myself under his example: but only to point out what strange notions of justice those have, who acquit with applause the leader, and condemn the follower in the same individual transaction.

"Far be it from any servant of our Master, to feel surprise or anger at being thus treated: it is only an admonition to me to avoid treating others in a similar manner; and not to 'judge another's servant,' at least without a fair hearing.

"You do me no more than justice, in feeling confident that I shall give you credit both for 'honesty and for a deeper feeling' in freely laying your opinions before me: and besides this, you might have been no less confident, from your own experience, that, long since—whenever it was that you changed your judgment respecting me—if you had freely and calmly remonstrated with me on any point where you thought me going wrong, I should have listened to you with that readiness and candour and deference, which as you well know, I always showed, in the times when 'we took sweet counsel together, and walked in the house of God as friends;'—when we consulted together about so many practical measures, and about almost all the principal points in my publications.

"I happen to have before me a letter from you just eight years ago, in which, after saying that 'there are few things you wish more sincerely than to be known as a friend of mine,' and attributing to me, in the {384} warmest and most flattering terms, a much greater share in the forming of your mind than I could presume to claim, you bear a testimony, in which I do most heartily concur, to the freedom at least of our intercourse, and the readiness and respect with which you were listened to. Your words are: 'Much as I owe to Oriel in the way of mental improvement, to none, as I think, do I owe so much as to yourself. I know who it was first gave me heart to look about me after my election, and taught me to think correctly, and—strange office for an instructor—to rely upon myself. Nor can I forget that it has been at your kind suggestion, that I have since been led to employ myself in the consideration of several subjects, which I cannot doubt have been very beneficial to my mind.'

"If in all this I was erroneous,—if I have misled you, or any one else, into 'the pride of reason,' or any other kind of pride,—or if I have entertained, or led others into, any wrong opinions, I can only say I sincerely regret it. And again I rejoice if I have been the means of contributing to form in any one that 'high religious temper and unclouded faith' of which I not only believe, with you, that they are able to withstand tendencies towards infidelity, but also, that without them, no correctness of abstract opinions is worth much. But what I meant to point out, is, that there was plainly nothing to preclude you from offering friendly admonition (when your view of my principles changed), with a full confidence of being at least patiently and kindly listened to.

"I for my part could not bring myself to find relief in escaping the society of an old friend,—with whom I had been accustomed to frank discussion,—on account of my differing from him as to certain principles, whether through a change of his views, or (much more) of my own,—till at least I had made full trial of private and affectionate remonstrance and free discussion. Even a 'man that is a heretic' we are told, even a ruler of a Church is not to reject, till after repeated admonitions.

"But though your regard for me does not show itself such as I think mine would have been under similar circumstances, I will not therefore reject what remains of it. Let us pray for each other that it may please God to enlighten whichever of us is, on any point, in error, and recall him to the truth; and that at any rate we may hold fast that charity, without which all knowledge, and all faith, that could remove mountains, will profit us nothing.

"I fear you will read with a jaundiced eye,—if you venture to read it at all—any publication of mine; but 'for auld lang syne' I take advantage of a frank to enclose you my last two addresses to my clergy.

"Very sincerely yours,
R.D. WHATELY." {385}

4.

"Oriel, November 11, 1834.
"My dear Lord,
"The remarks contained in your last letter do not come upon me by surprise, and I can only wish that I may be as able to explain myself to you, as I do with a clear and honest conscience to myself. Your Grace will observe that the letter of mine from which you make an extract, was written when I was in habits of intimacy with you, in which I have not been of late years. It does not at all follow, because I could then speak freely to you, that I might at another time. Opportunity is the chief thing in such an office as delivering to a superior an opinion about himself. Though I never concealed my opinion from you, I have never been forward. I have spoken when place and time admitted, when my opinion was asked, when I was called to your side and was made your counsellor. No such favourable circumstances have befallen me of late years,—if I must now state in explanation what in truth has never occurred to me in this fulness, till now I am called to reflect upon my own conduct and to account for an apparent omission. I have spoken the first opportunity you have given me; and I am persuaded good very seldom comes of volunteering a remonstrance.

"Again, I cannot doubt for an instant that you have long been aware in a measure that my opinions differed from your Grace's. You knew it when at Oxford, for you often found me differing from you. You must have felt it, at the time you left Oxford for Dublin. You must have known it from hearsay in consequence of the book I have published. What indeed can account for my want of opportunities to speak to you freely my mind, but the feeling on your part, (which, if existing, is nothing but a fair reason,) that my views are different from yours?

"And that difference is certainly of no recent date. I tacitly allude to it in the very letter you quote—in which, I recollect well that the words 'strange office for an instructor—to rely upon myself,' were intended to convey to you that, much as I valued (and still value) your great kindness and the advantage of your countenance to me at that time, yet even then I did not fall in with the line of opinions which you had adopted. In them I never acquiesced. Doubtless I may have used at times sentiments and expressions, which I should not now use; but I believe these had no root in my mind, and as such they were mere idle words which I ought ever to be ashamed of, because they were idle. But the opinions to which I especially alluded in my former letter as associated by the world with your Grace's name under the title of 'Liberal,' (but not, as you suppose, received by me on the world's authority,) are those which may be briefly described as the Anti-superstition notions; and to these I do not recollect ever assenting. Connected with these I would {386} instance the undervaluing of Antiquity, and resting on one's own reasonings, judgments, definitions, &c., rather than authority and precedent; and I think I gave very little in to this;—for a very short time too (if at all), in to the notion that the State, as such, had nothing to do with religion. On the other hand, whatever I held then deliberately, I believe I hold now; though perhaps I may not consider them as points of such prominent importance, or with precisely the same bearing as I did then:—as the abolition of the Jewish Sabbath, the unscripturalness of the doctrine of imputed righteousness (i.e. our Lord's active obedience)—the mistakes of the so-called Evangelical system, the independence of the Church; the genius of the Gospel as a Law of Liberty, and the impropriety of forming geological theories from Scripture. Of course every one changes in opinion between twenty and thirty; doubtless, I have changed; yet I am not conscious that I have so much changed, as made up my mind on points on which I had no opinion. E.g. I had no opinion about the Catholic Question till 1829. No one can truly say I was ever for the Catholics; but I was not against them. In fact I did not enter into the state of the question at all.

"Then as to my change of judgment as to the character of your Grace's opinions, it is natural that, when two persons pursue different lines from the same point, they should not discover their divergence for a long while; especially if there be any kind feeling in the one towards the other. It was not for a very long time that I discovered that your opinions were (as I now think them) but part of intellectual views, so different from your own inward mind and character, so peculiar in themselves, and (if you will let me add) so dangerous. For a long time I thought them to be but different; for a longer, to be but in parts dangerous; but their full character in this respect came on me almost on a sudden. I heard at Naples the project of destroying the Irish Sees, and at first indignantly rejected the notion, which some one suggested, that your Grace had acquiesced in it. I thought I recollected correctly your Grace's opinion of the inherent rights of the Christian Church, and I thought you never would allow men of this world so to insult it. When I returned to England, all was over. I was silent on the same principle that you are silent about it in your letter; that it was not the time for speaking; and I only felt, what I hinted at when I wrote last, a bitter grief, which prompted me, when the act was irretrievable, to hide myself from you. However, I have spoken, with whatever pain to myself, the first opportunity you have given me.

"I might appeal to my conscience without fear in proof of the delight it would give me at this time to associate my name with yours, and to stand forward as your friend and defender, however humble. I should hope you knew me enough to be sure, that, however great my faults are, I have no fear of man such as to restrain me, if I could feel had a call that way. But may God help me, as I will ever strive to fulfil my first duty, the defence {387} of His Church, and of the doctrine of the old Fathers, in opposition to all the innovations and profanities which are rising round us.

"My dear Lord,
"Ever yours most sincerely and gratefully,
"J. H. NEWMAN.

"P.S. I feel much obliged by your kindness in sending me your Addresses to your clergy, which I value highly for your Grace's sake." {388}

Note on Page 90.
Extract of a Letter from the Rev. E. Smedley,
Editor of the "Encyclopædia Metropolitana"

WHEN I urged on one occasion an "understanding" I had had with the publishers of the "Encyclopædia," he answered, June 5, 1828, "I greatly dislike the word 'understanding,' which is always misunderstood, and which occasions more mischief than any other in our language, unless it be its cousin-german 'delicacy.'"

Note on Page 185.
Extract of a Letter of the Late Rev. Francis A. Faber, of Saunderton

A LETTER of Mr. F. Faber's to a friend has just now (March, 1878) come into my hands, in which he says, "I have had a long correspondence with Newman on the subject of my uncle's saying he was 'a concealed Roman Catholic' long before he left us. It ends in my uncle making an amende. {389}

Note on Pages 194-196.

I HAVE said above, "Dr. Russell had, perhaps, more to do with my conversion than any one else. He called on me in passing through Oxford in the summer of 1843; and I think I took him over some of the buildings of the University. He called again another summer, on his way from Dublin to London. I do not recollect that he said a word on the subject of religion on either occasion. He sent me at different times several letters ... He also gave me one or two books; Veron's Rule of Faith and some Treatises of the Wallenburghs was one; a volume of St. Alfonso Liguori's sermons was another ... At a later date Dr. Russell sent me a large bundle of penny or halfpenny books of devotion," &c.

On this passage I observe first that he told me, on one occasion of my seeing him since the publication of the Apologia, that I was so far in error, that he had called on me at Oxford once only, not twice. He was quite positive on the point; it was when he was, I believe, on his way to Rome to escape a bishopric.

Secondly, my own mistake has led to some vagueness or inaccuracy in the statements made by others. In a friendly notice of Dr. Russell upon his death, it is said, in the Times:—

"Personally he was unknown to the leaders of the movement, but his reputation stood high in Oxford. He was often applied to for information and suggestion on the points arising in the Tractarian controversy. Through a formal call made by him on Dr. Newman a correspondence arose, which resulted in the final determination of the latter to join the Roman Catholic Church."

On this I remark—(1) that in 1841-5, Dr. Russell was not well known in Oxford, and it cannot be said that then "his reputation stood high" there; (2) that he never {390} was "applied to for information" by any one of us, as far as my knowledge goes; and (3) that his call on me in 1841 (3?) was in no sense "formal"; I had not expected it; I think he introduced himself, though he may have had a letter from Dr. Wiseman; and no "correspondence" arose in consequence. He may perhaps have sent me three letters, independent of each other, in five years; and, as far as I know, he was unaware of his part in my conversion, till he saw my notice of it in the "Apologia."

Note on Page 232.
Extract of a Letter from the Rev. John Keble to the Author

"Nov. 18, 1884.—I hope I shall not annoy you if I copy out for you part of a letter which I had the other day from Judge Coleridge:—

"'I was struck with part of a letter from A. B., expressing a wish that Newman should know how warmly he was loved, honoured, and sympathized with by large numbers of Churchmen, so that he might not feel solitary, or, as it were, cast out. What think you of a private address, carefully guarded against the appearance of making him the head of a party, but only assuring him of gratitude, veneration, and love?' &c., &c.

"I thought I would just let you understand how such a person as Coleridge feels."

Note on Page 237.
Extract from the "Times" Newspaper on the Author's visit to Oxford in February, 1878

"The Very Rev. Dr. Newman has this week revisited Oxford for the first time since 1845. He has been staying {391} with the Rev. S. Wayte, President of Trinity College, of which society Dr. Newman was formerly a scholar, and has recently been elected an Honorary Fellow. On Tuesday evening Dr. Newman met a number of old friends at dinner at the President's lodgings, and on the following day he paid a long visit to Dr. Pusey at Christ Church. He also spent a considerable time at Keble College, in which he was greatly interested. In the evening Dr. Newman dined in Trinity College Hall at the high table, attired in his academical dress, and the scholars were invited to meet him afterwards. He returned to Birmingham on Thursday morning."

Note on Page 302.
The Medicinal Oil of St. Walburga

I HAVE received the following on the subject of the oil of St. Walburga from a German friend, the Rev. Corbinian Wandinger, which is a serviceable addition to what is said upon it in Note B. He says:—

"In your 'Apologia' 2nd Edition, p. 302, you say you neither have, nor ever have had, the means of going into the question of the miraculousness of the oil of St. Walburga. By good chance, there has arisen a contest not long ago between two papers, a catholic and a free-thinking one, about this very question, from which I collected materials. Afterwards I asked Professor Suttner, of Eichstädt, if the defender of the miraculousness might be fully and in every point trusted, and I was answered he might, since he was nobody else but the parson of St. Walburga, Rev. Mr. Brudlacher.

"You know all the older literature of the oil of St. Walburga, therefore I restrict myself to statements of a later date than 1625.

"First of the attempts to explain the oil as a natural produce of the rock.

"Some thought of ordinary rock-oil. But the slightest experiment proves that origin, properties, and effect of the oil of St. Walburga and petroleum have nothing common with each other.

"Others thought of a salt-rock, and of solution of the salt particles. But {392} the marble slab from which the oil drops is of Jura-chalk, and in the whole Jura is not a single particle of salt to be found, and the liquor itself does not in the least savour of salt; besides that, if this were the case, the stone must have crumbled into pieces long since, whilst it is quite massive still.

"Others thought of humour in the air, or the so-called sweating of the stones. But why does the slab which bears the holy relics alone sweat? and, why do all others beside, above, beneath it, in and out of the altar-cave, though being of the same nature, remain perfectly dry? Why should it sweat, the whole church being so dry that not a single humid spot of a hand's breadth is visible? Why does this slab not sweat except within a certain period, that is from October 12, the anniversary of depositing, to February 25, the day of the death of St. Walburga? And why does it remain dry at every other time, even at the most humid temperature of the air possible, and in the wettest years, for instance, 1866? Besides, what other stone, and be it in the deepest cave, will sweat during four or five months a quantity of liquor from six to ten Mass (a Mass = 1 07 French Litres)? If these naturalists are asked all this, then they, too, are at the end of their wits.

"To this point I add two facts which may be proved beyond any doubt; the one by unquestionable historical records, the other by still living eyewitnesses. When under Bishop Friedrich von Parsberg the interdict was inflicted on the city of Eichstädt, during all the year 1239 not a single drop of liquor became visible on the coffin-plate of St. Walburga. The contrary fact was stated on June 7, 1835. The cave was opened on this day by chance, passengers longing to see it. To their astonishment they found the stone so profusely dropping with oil, that the golden vase fixed underneath was full to the brim, whereas at this season never had been observed there any fluid. Some weeks later arrived the long-wished-for royal decree which sanctioned the reopening of the convent of St. Walburga; it was signed on that very 7th of June, 1835, by his Majesty King Louis I.

Moreover, let one try to gather water which is dropping from sweating stone, or glass, or metal, and let him see if it will be pure and limpid, or rather muddy, filthy, and cloudy. The oil of St. Walburga on the contrary, is and remains so limpid and crystal, that a bottle, which had been filled and officially sealed at the reopening of the cave after the Swedish invasion, 1545, preserves to this day the oil so very clear and clean as if it had been filled yesterday; an occurrence never to be observed even on the purest spring-water, according to the testimony of the royal circuit-physician (K. Bezirksarz).

"To this testimony of a naturalist may be added that of a much higher authority. The renowned naturalist, Von Oken, surely an unquestionable expert, came one day, while he was Professor in the University of Munich, to Eichstädt on the special purpose to investigate this extraordinary phenomenon. The cave was opened to him, he received every information he wished for, and having seen and examined everything, he pronounced publicly without any reluctance that he could not explain the matter in a natural way. He {393} took of the liquor to Munich in order to subject it to a chemical analysis, and declared then by writing the result of his researches to be that he could take it neither for natural water, nor oil, and that, in general, he was not able to explain the phenomenon as being in accordance with the laws of nature.

"Let me add the testimony of a historical authority. Mr. Sax, counsellor of the government (K. Regierungsrath), in his history of the diocese and city of Eichstädt, after he has spoken of the origin, the properties, and the effect of the oil of St. Walburga, concludes that 'they are of such a singular kind, that they not only exceed far the province of extraordinary nature-phenomena, but that they, in spite of the constant discrediting and slandering by bullying free-thinkers, preserved the great confidence of the catholic people even in far distant countries.'

"Now of the miracles. There are related by the people many thousands, but, of course, few of them are attested. In the Pastoral paper of Eichstädt, 1857, page 207, I read that Anton Ernest, Bishop of Brünn, in Moravia, announces, under Nov. 1, 1857, to the Bishop of Eichstädt, the recovery of a girl in the establishment of the sisters of charity from blindness, and sends, in order to attest the fact, the following document, which I am to translate literally:—

"'In the name of the indivisible Trinity. We, Anton Ernest, by God's and the Holy See's grace, Bishop of Brünn. After we had received, first by the curate of the establishment of the Daughters of Christian Charity in this place, and then also from other quarters, the notice that a girl in the aforesaid establishment had regained the use of her eyes miraculously in the very moment when she had a vial, containing oil of St. Walburga, offered to her, brought to her month and kissed, we thought it to be our duty to research scrupulously into the fact, and to put it beyond all doubt in the way of a special commission, by hearing of witnesses and a trial at the place of the fact, if there be truth, and how much of it, in the supposed miraculous healing.

"'About the report of this commission and the adjoined testimony of the physician, we have then, as prescribes the Holy Council of Trent (Sess. 25), collected the judgments of our theologians and other pious men; and as these all were quite in accordance, and the fact itself with all its circumstances lay before us quite clear and open, we have, after invocation of assistance of the Holy Ghost, pronounced, judged, and decided as follows:—

"'The instantaneous removal of the most pertinacious eyelid-cramp (Augenlied-krampf), which Matilda Makara during many months had hindered in the use of her eyes and kept in blindness, and the simultaneous recurrence of the full eye-sight, phlogistic appearances still remaining in the eyes, which occurred when Matilda Makara on Nov. 7, 1856, had a vial with the oil of St. Walburga brought, full of confidence, to her month and kissed, must be acknowledged to be a fact which, besides the order of nature, has been effected by God's grace, and is therefore a miracle. {394}

"'And that the memory of this Divine favour may be preserved, that to God eternal thanks may be given, the confidence of the faithful may be incited and nourished, this devotion to the great wonder-worker St. Walburga may be promoted, we order that this aforegoing decision shall be affixed in the chapel of the Daughters of Christian Charity in this place, that it shall be preserved for all times to come, and that the 7th Nov. shall be celebrated as a holiday every year in this aforesaid establishment.

"'Given in our Episcopal Residence at Brünn,
"'Nov. 1, 1857,
(L. S.) ANTON ERNEST, Bishop.'

"A second record about St. Walburga I find in the Eichstädt Pastoral paper, 1818, page 192, from which I take the following: 'The Superioress of the Convent of St. Walburga had received in summer 1858 the notice of a miraculous cure written by the Superioress of the Convent of St. Leonard-sur-Mer, Sussex. At request for an authenticated report, John Bamber, chaplain of the Convent of the Holy Infant at St. Leonard-sur-Mer, wrote about the following: "Sister Walburga had been ill fifteen months, of which five bedridden. The physician pronounced the malady to be incurable. Large exterior tumour, frequent (thrice or four times a day) vomitings were caused by the diseased pylorus. The matter was hopeless, when the Superioress on April 27 thought of using the oil of St. Walburga. The chaplain brought it on the tongue of the sick sister, and in the same moment she had a burning feeling which seemed to her to descend, and to affect especially the sick part. In a few minutes the inner smart ceased, the tumour fell off, she felt recovered. Next morning she rose, assisted at the holy mass, communicated, ate with good appetite. She was quite recovered, but somewhat feeble, as people always are after a great disease. The physician, a Protestant, abode by his opinion the malady to be incurable, acknowledged, however, the healing. His words were: 'I believe the healing to be effected by the oil of St. Walburga, but how, I don't know.' As a Protestant he refused to give testimony that the operation of the oil had been miraculous.

"The report is authenticated by Thomas, Bishop of Southwark.

"Freising, Bayern,
"September 13, 1873." {395}

Note on Page 323.
Boniface of Canterbury

"WHEN I made the above reference in 1865 to Boniface of Canterbury, I was sure I had seen among my books some recent authoritative declaration on the subject of his cultus in opposition to the Bollandists; but I did not know where to look for it. I have now found in our Library (Concess. Offic. t. 2) what was in my mind. It consists of five documents proceeding from the Sacred Congregation of Rites, with the following title:—

"Emo ac Revmo Domino Card Lambruschini Relatore, Taurinen. Approbationis cultûs ab immemorabili tempore præstiti B. Bonifacio à Subaudiâ Archiepiscopi Cantuarien. Instante serenissimo Rege Sardiniæ Carolo Alberto Romæ, 1838."

Also Dr. Grant, Bishop of Southwark, has kindly supplied me with the following extract front the Correspondance de Rome, 24 November, 1851, adding "St. Boniface of Canterbury or of Savoy was beatified æquipollenter by Gregory XVI.:"—

"Le B. Boniface de Savoie, xi de ce nom, petit-fils d'Humbert iii, Archievêque de Cantorbéry. Confirmation de son culte, également à la demande du Roi Charles Albert, 7 Sept. 1838. D'abord moine parmi les Chartreux, puis Archevêque de Cantorbéry, consacré par Innocent IV. au Concile Général de Lyons; il occupa le siège 25 ans. Mort en 1270 pendant un voyage en Savoie. Son corps porté à Haucatacombe; concours des populations; miracles; son corps retrouvé intact trois siécles après sa mort. Son nom dans les livres liturgiques. Sa fête célébrée sans aucune interruption. Sur la relation de Card. Lambruschini, la S. C. des Rites le 1 Sept. 1838, décida qu'il constait de cas exceptionnel aux décrets d'Urbain VIII. p. 410." {396}

The Oratory,
Birmingham,
July 28, 1857.
MY DEAR MR. FLANAGAN,
My copies of your new History came to me last evening, and I doubt not I shall derive much instruction and pleasure from its perusal. However, I cannot help writing at once to thank you for what, on cutting open some of its pages, I find you say of myself. While the narrative preserves the sustained tone proper to history, and is written with due dignity and gravity, it is impossible not to discern in it a feeling of personal kindness towards me—and I hope I may take it as a pledge that you do not forget me and all of us here in your good prayers, (as I assure you I wish to remember you) that we may do our own work, which God has given us, in our day and in our place.

I had already promised a copy of your volumes to a French Priest, who is going to write some account of religion in England, and they shall go to him at once.

As I am writing, I am tempted to add, what I assure you is in no sense the cause of my writing, that there is just one point in your chapter which requires a remark. It is a very minute one, and relates to just one half sentence. I think it was Mr. Oakeley's view, that he might "profess all Roman doctrine" in the Church of England, or at least "hold it"—and consequently that {397} the 39 Articles allowed of it. I never took this view. I knew that they bound me in various ways to oppose the Roman doctrines, and my conscience approved of this opposition—I mean, I thought ill of various tenets and principles of the Roman Church. Accordingly in 1841, after No. 90, in a letter which the Bishop of Oxford required of me, I wrote with great violence against the doctrines received at Rome and in her communion; with violence, but if I may so say, not violently—I mean, I spoke what I internally felt, and what I was called by my Bishop to say, but what (from my love of the Roman Church) I would not have said then, (though I had said worse things in years past,) unless it had been extorted from me by what I held to be then competent authority,—and I called it in that letter a "confession," as if I could not help saying it before such a tribunal. I recollect saying to Dr. Manning at the time, "I can't help it—the Bishop asks me—I don't wish to speak against the Church of Rome—but it is a fact I think this and that of her, and I must tell out my opinions on the subject."

No. 90 then was not a resolution of the 39 Articles into the Council of Trent, but an experimental inquiry how far they would approximate to it, under the notion that the Church of Rome would have in her turn to approximate to Protestants. The Tract had no wish to force a sense upon the 39 Articles, which they would not admit, but it considered them "patient of a Catholic interpretation," and that on two grounds—(1) historically, because in fact they were drawn up so as to admit the assent of (professed) Catholics, of which Gesti's letter, which has just come to light, is a remarkable confirmation; next, logically, that is, on the assumption that the Anglican Church was a branch of the {398} Catholic—for, if so, its formularies must necessarily admit of an interpretation consistent with the Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus, of the Catholic Church, with which also, in spite of its practical and popular errors, as I called them, the Roman teaching was allowed by me to be consistent.

I never to this day have felt necessary to be dissatisfied with the drift or the substance of No. 90, though in detail there are strained interpretations.

When at length I found my objections to the Roman Creed disappearing, and that, where my heart had been, there my best and truest reason might and ought to rest also, I publicly retracted all that I had said against it up to 1841, and at once took steps for resigning my living of St. Mary's. This was in 1843.

That I let two more years pass before I submitted myself to the Church arose from my friends saying to me, and my saying to myself, "Your new views may be a delusion—and, if you act on them without a fair trial of their enduring, you may find out they are so, when it is too late."

Excuse this long account. See what it is to begin speaking about myself. I did not intend to write more than a sentence when I began.

I am, My dear Mr. Flanagan,
Yours most sincerely in Xt.,
JOHN H. NEWMAN,
Of the Oratory.

THE VERY REV.
CANON FLANAGAN.

Top | Contents | Biographies | Works | Home

Newman Reader — Works of John Henry Newman
Copyright © 2007 by The National Institute for Newman Studies. All rights reserved.