Chapter 32: 1845: Last Preparations for Conversion .
CHAPTER 32
1845: LAST PREPARATIONS
FOR CONVERSION
JOHN Henry Newman was well on his way to becoming Roman Catholic. Before taking the step of formal communion with the Roman Catholic Church, he wished to convince himself that he was not under some delusion, because he had once been persuaded into thinking of the Church of Rome as the Antichrist. The year 1845 was a year of final preparation for this momentous step. At the beginning of the year, he told Jemima, Keble, Maria Giberne, and others that he did not yet have plans for any immediate move.1 Jemima expressed grief at the approaching separation of her brother from their common religion.2 Charles Marriot found out about Newman’s situation and wrote to him, telling him that he felt Newman’s pain, yet wished to continue to be close to him, despite their differences.3
Newman continued living at Littlemore, which he dubbed Domus Sanctae Mariae, the House of Mary, but he was able to travel to visit friends with a little more ease since he had no pastoral, or college duties. In January, Newman offered encouragement to William Faber, who had been criticized in the British Magazine for his life of St. Wilfrid. Then in February the big controversy from the preceding year unfolded.
FEBRUARY CONVOCATION TO CONDEMN WARD
Dr. Wynter, the Vice-Chancellor, persisted with the plan to bring to vote three propositions at the Oxford Convocation. The first proposition sought to condemn Ward for his book and the second one sought to revoke his academic titles. Wynter and the Hebdomadal board wished to pass a third proposition, obliging a new type of Subscription to the Articles. This would require Subscription based on the interpretation of the reigning University authorities, which were liberal. A great stir surrounded the weeks preceding the Convocation. Members of the University wrote pamphlets for and against the proceedings.4 Ward’s friends advised him that he would be able to appeal to the Queen as Visitor of the University. Sir John Dodson, Queen’s Advocate, presented the opinion that depriving Ward of his degrees, or establishing a new Test, was illegal.5 According to Dodson the university granted a degree by grant from the Crown, but it did not have power to take away a degree. He also argued that the law required a cleric who subscribed to the Articles to take them in a literal and grammatical sense, not in the sense in which he believed they were originally framed, or later accepted by the university.6 The Provost of Oriel was furious at the opposition to a new Test and wished to pass it at all cost, but the Heads decided to drop the third proposition because the general opinion indicated that it was unlikely to succeed.
When the Vice-Chancellor publicly announced to withdraw the third proposition, disgruntled members of the University plotted to inflict a more severe blow to Newman and the Tractarians.7 On January 25, 1845, the fifth anniversary of the publication of Tract 90, one of the Heads of Houses proposed that a vote be taken at the next Convocation for a formal censure of the principles contained in Tract 90 and a solemn repudiation of its mode of interpreting the Thirty-Nine Articles.8 Four hundred and seventy-four votes, including those of Lord Ashley, and the Bishops of Llandaff and Chichester, were collected and presented to the Vice-Chancellor and Heads, who accepted the petition. This was the same Test under a different dress. Frederic Rogers, Newman’s former pupil, and Edward Badeley both wrote against the proposed censure of Tract 90. James R. Hope objected in a legal opinion to the censure of Tract 90, which would actually establish a practical test of opinion in the University; as proposed, the Test would be vague and extensive since it would involve matters of much controversy.9
Despite these protests, and without observing a required ten-day timetable, a proposition to censure Tract 90 was added to the Convocation on February 13. Marriot, who was Fellow and Dean of Oriel, wrote a letter of complaint to the Vice-Chancellor.10 Gladstone also wrote to the Provost of Oriel, pleading for the same practice of due deliberation used in the House of Commons.11 He appealed to the study of all of Newman’s works, not just his Tract 90, and urged that Newman’s great service to the University and the Church be recognized.
James Bowhng Mozley, Newman’s brother-in-law and friend, wrote to inform Newman of the events. Newman replied that he was, in the words of the English Churchman, “a dead man.”12 He added, “Hebdomadal Boards can do me neither good nor harm.”13 In April, James Bowhng Mozley wrote an article in the Christian Remembrancer that caused Newman to write to him: “I knew you love me, as I do you—I was not prepared for what you say—and now, as is the law of such things, I know it is just when I am losing it. You speak as if writing a funeral oration, and so it is.”14 Newman confided in Mozley that he planned to resign his Fellowship, and suggested that Mozley share this news with anyone he thought appropriate.
Newman told Pusey that if a decree were passed condemning Tract 90 it would constitute for Newman a long-awaited external circumstance to confirm his course.15 He wrote to Mrs. Bowden and Isaac Williams that there must be some meaning in all this, implying a confirmation of his departure from the Church of England.16 But Newman’s friends wished to defend him. Manning wrote to tell Newman that although he had not planned to vote in the censure of Ward, he would go to Oxford to vote for Newman: “I owe to you more than to any one living.”17
Jemima, who wrote frequently to Newman during 1845, was appalled at the cowardly persecution against her brother, a behavior that she considered “so unlike the English.”18 She knew that her brother was calm, but worried for his health, and felt the great injustice inflicted on him.19 Newman thanked his sister for her affection and sympathy, and through her thanked Anne Mozley, his sister-in-law. But he explained that people’s sympathy produced both satisfaction and pain. It caused pain due to the suffering that it produced in others, and because an increase in people’s goodwill toward him would suggest ungratefulness on his part if he were later to disappoint them.20
Although he was grateful for the signs of consideration and friendship that he received, he was almost numb from inward pain. He told Manning that he had very little interest in the results of the vote: “I have ills which Heads of Houses can neither augment nor cure. Real inward pain makes one insensible to such shadows.”21 To another friend he wrote, “But now I have no pain about ecclesiastical movements—I am too far gone for that.”22
The two Proctors of the University had power to veto a measure brought before Convocation. Richard W. Church, Newman’s friend and one of the Proctors that year, wrote to Newman a few days before the vote to tell him that he would veto the measure.23 Newman indicated to Jemima that this was likely to happen. He told her that a condemnation of Tract 90 would turn people toward Rome, but that this would not be a good motive for conversion: “Disgust makes no good converts; change of opinion is, commonly speaking, the work of a long time. People who are disgusted one way, may be disgusted the other.”24
On February 13, a snow-covered winter day, Convocation met and voted 776 to 368 to censure Ward’s book, and 568 to 511 to degrade Ward of his degrees.25 Newman was not present to vote. After the votes against Ward, voting for the third proposition to censure Tract 90 began, but as soon as it started, the two Proctors stood up and vetoed the measure. The Vice-Chancellor left the assembly amid the hissing of undergraduates. A declaration of thanksgiving with the signatures of 341 masters at Oxford was presented to the Proctors. The defeated proponents of the censure immediately called for another vote to take place in the following term, once new Proctors were appointed, but through Gladstone’s mediation, Pusey obtained assurance from the Archbishop of Canterbury that there would be no further proceedings of the sort at Oxford.26 The future Prime Minister of England and Archbishop Howley, the Head of the Church of England, had acted kindly, but it was too late.27 Newman’s course was already decided.
Although Newman’s course seemed certain, he was grateful to Pusey for informing him of the Archbishop’s words. Newman implored his friend to see things as they were: “I am as much gone over as if I were already gone. It is a matter of time only. I am waiting, if so be, that if I am under a delusion, it may be revealed to me …”28 Newman told Pusey that he looked to external events, such as the attempted censure of Tract 90, not as a cause for his actions but as confirmation.
Interest in Tract 90 was widespread. The renewed controversy over Tract 90 occasioned the revocation of Frederick Oakeley’s ecclesiastical license. The case against Oakeley was initiated by a letter which he had written to the University Vice-Chancellor in Newman’s defense. Oakeley was a High Church Anglican and Tractarian, rector of the well-known St. Margaret Street Chapel in London. His letter provoked the anger of Bishop Blomfield of London, who asked Oakeley to resign, but Oakeley resisted. Subsequently Blomfield pressed charges against Oakeley in the Court of Arches, a court of appeal under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Oakeley agonized on whether to defend himself with legal action because his decision would affect his friends, many of whom wished him to resist the bishop.29 He relied on Newman’s advice and the legal counsel from Newman’s friends, Hope and Bellasis, who paid for his legal defense. Oakeley finally decided against an appeal to the Privy Council, the highest court of appeals short of the monarch.30 Oakeley resigned his position at St. Margaret Street Chapel,31 and contrary to Bellasis’s advice did not pursue defense against the bishop’s suit. In June, Oakeley did not appear in court for his trial, nor was he represented.32 At the end of the month the ecclesiastical court found Oakeley guilty and revoked his ministerial license.33
Oakeley’s case was only one of several cases of abusive authority being used to squelch opposition among the orthodox clergy: Pusey’s censure, Newman’s forced retirement, and Ward’s degradation. But it was also part of a larger attack registered in other quarters against Tradition, namely the country parishes. This was the case with Henry William Wilberforce, who had been accused the previous year by his curate and some parishioners of altering the liturgy and teaching Roman doctrine. At Oxford, the University’s Hebdomadal Board had become a party organ instead of an impartial university office. To carry out its plans it resorted to bringing nonresidents of Oxford, who lived in the country, to come to vote in Convocation.
Despite his proven intellectual talent and moral character, Newman was disrespected and mistreated by the university authorities. Newman only felt respected by one man with authority at Oxford, Martin J. Routh, President of Magdalen College. In 1845, as on many occasions since 1837, Routh asked Newman to be examiner for the Johnson scholarship. This year Newman was obliged to decline. In his thank-you note, a grateful Newman told Routh, “You are the only person in station in Oxford who has shown me any countenance for a long course of years, and much as I know your kindness I did not expect it now.”34 This comment seemed an exaggeration, but it was in fact true. Most of those who admired Newman were undergraduates and his peers, many of whom were no longer residing at the University.
SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE OF FUTURE CONVERTS
Despite his serious misgivings about the Anglican Church, Newman was especially respectful of the duties proper to Anglican clergymen and his loyalties to the Anglican Church. In his condition as an Anglican clergyman, he was very careful of what advice he could give to Anglicans and non-Anglicans, and of the duties that he had toward his superiors. Because of this conduct Newman did not hesitate to suspend correspondence with any Anglican who joined a Roman Catholic college or stayed at a Roman Catholic institution.
The case of George Montgomery, an Irishman of English and Scottish descent, residing in Dublin, is illustrative. Montgomery, an Anglican who began a correspondence with Newman, became a Fellow of St. Columba’s College, a Roman Catholic institution. When he informed Newman, the latter replied that he would no longer be able to correspond with him. Based on Newman’s reply, Montgomery resigned from St. Columba’s College and wrote to inform Newman. In addition, Montgomery posed to Newman a qualm of conscience that other future converts had voiced to Newman: could a person with serious misgivings about the Anglican Church partake in Anglican services and receive Holy Communion in the Anglican Church without committing a sin?35 For those who thought that the Anglican Church was not the true Church, this dilemma of conscience was a pressing one. And they turned to Newman for advice.
In April, Montgomery visited Newman at Littlemore in a state of distress regarding the salvation of his soul if he were to remain an Anglican any longer.36 Newman decided he should not speak with him about the subject, and instead asked Pusey to speak with him. Later Newman remarked that Pusey was too severe with Montgomery so that, half in jest, Newman told Dalgairns, “I venture to say that the said M. is the first person who has been driven out of the Church of England by the severity of her discipline.”37 In the end Montgomery became a Roman Catholic, and in 1849 was ordained a priest.
Earlier in the year Newman tried to dissuade another Anglican, Richard Stanton, from becoming Roman Catholic. Stanton, who wished to spend some time at Littlemore, was an ordained deacon and Newman advised him to submit his mind and heart to the system in which he had been raised. Unable to do so, Stanton decided to resign his position as assistant at a parish, and in June, he joined the Littlemore community. Another future convert to Roman Catholicism was Thomas Francis Knox, who obtained a B.A. at Trinity College. In March, he wrote to Newman expressing a desire to receive for the first time sacramental absolution. Newman sent him to Pusey since he was not exercising any ministerial function in the Anglican Church.38
Often those who sought Newman’s spiritual advice were his friends. Early in the year, Maria Giberne asked Newman about the propriety of attending Roman Catholic services. Newman replied that it would be a scandal unless she were a catechumen, that is, someone receiving formal instruction to become Roman Catholic. He also told her that invocations to the saints were not required by the Church of Rome.39 More importantly, since the English Church did not sanction them, Newman did not like using them. This advice was the same that he had given Miss Holmes, who continued to seek Newman’s spiritual counsel. Despite her pleadings, he insisted that he could not give her spiritual direction because she was a Roman Catholic.40
Other friends asked Newman to act as an intermediary with their families. One of these was John Dalgairns, who lived with Newman at Littlemore. He asked Newman to write on his behalf to his father regarding his becoming Roman Catholic. Newman wrote to John Dalgairns, Senior that his son was not acting rashly since for three years his son had considered the decision to become Roman Catholic.41 Newman added that after writing for The Lives of the English Saints, John had acquired a literary name. His writings not only prepared people for a future step, they gave him weight and authority. Dalgairns, Senior accepted that his son join the Roman Catholic Church and agreed with the idea for him to be ordained a priest in France.42 Newman advised Dalgairns to keep open the option of ordination at Oscott. Dalgairns was impatient to begin his studies in France. Most of all, however, Dalgairns was impatient about taking the step to communion with Rome.
CONVERTS MOVING AS A GROUP
Despite Newman’s attempts at dissuading future converts, in 1844, and even more in 1845, Littlemore became a place where future converts to Roman Catholicism visited or wrote for advice. Without planning for it, what he had hoped and prayed for occurred: a joint movement toward Rome of many Anglicans. The Movement was not so much that of a group per se but of many taking the step to Rome, some before Newman and many after.
One of the first converts in 1845 was Thomas Meyrick, author of The Family of St. Richard. In late February, Meyrick, although troubled by intellectual pride, told Newman that he was afraid of delaying entrance into the Roman Catholic Church lest the grace of the Holy Spirit pass by him. He had held back because others did so, not because he doubted the truth of the voice of Rome. He finally resolved to separate himself from those to whom he looked up, and informed Newman of his plan to enter the Roman Church, which he did shortly thereafter.43
Albany J. Christie, John Frederic’s brother and a Fellow at Oriel, heard that Oakeley had begun to think of joining the Roman Catholic Church. He learned from Oakeley that Newman wished for people to join as body rather than individually.44 Christie wrote Newman that he had some temporal advantages by remaining a Fellow, but that he set his confidence on him. In March and later in May, Christie spent some days with Newman at Littlemore.
Converts like Holmes and Tickell tried to speed up Newman’s conversion. In March, during Holy Week, George Tickell, who had converted in December 1844, wrote Newman, telling him that many people and communities prayed for him that he would receive the gift of faith in the “loving authority of the Church and of making profession of her Faith.”45 He also wished to thank Newman for having been an instrument for bringing him into the Catholic Church. Later in May, Tickell dined twice with Newman at Littlemore. On the first day, with the enthusiasm of a recent convert, he tried for two minutes to convert Newman, but he did not go any further. Newman wrote to Dalgairns, “I have kept my gun loaded and cocked, intending to discharge upon him, if he made a second attempt, but he has kept his peace.”46 Afterward, Tickell tried to do the same with Pusey.
A week later, Tickell sent Newman a miraculous medal from France with the image of the Immaculate Conception. The Virgin Mary had appeared at a chapel in Rue du Bac in Paris in 1830, and use of her medal spread very quickly. On August 22, 1845, Newman wrote the word “medal” in his diary. This was the day that he began to wear the medal around his neck.47 In 1867, following a controversy with Pusey over devotion to the Virgin Mary, Newman would tell Pusey that it was the twenty-second anniversary of the day “I saw my way clear to put a miraculous medal round my neck.” The editors of Newman’s Letters and Diaries consider it likely that with his letter Newman sent Pusey a medal with an explanatory leaflet. Otherwise the reference to the miraculous medal would not have meant something to Pusey.48
Ambrose St. John and John Dalgairns were part of a different category of future converts. They lived with Newman and were among his closest friends. In 1844, St. John was prepared to join the Roman Catholic Church, but his mother thought it would be a grave sin and opposed. In April, St. John paid a visit to his family and wrote Newman in distress due to his mother’s attitude.49 Newman greatly encouraged him, and sent him news about George Bridges, Tickell, and Montgomery; Bridges was just about to convert.
Newman teased Ambrose St. John about his long and out-of-fashion name; he addressed him with the affectionate Latin word carissime (dearest), as he also addressed Henry Wilberforce.50 Writing to the latter he said, “Tell St. John I have just got his letters—and tell him that his letters are like violets, in my forlorn estate. How thankful I ought to be that if I lose some friends I gain others. His account of himself is cheering.”51 Both St. John and Dalgairns had gone to visit their respective families; Newman was alone at Littlemore.
During 1845, a concerned Newman followed the steps of Frederick Sellwood Bowles, who had resided for some time at Littlemore. Bowles had gone to the Isle of Wight, where he was trying to study the basics of religion. He felt ignorant about religion and was determined to read a book by Thomas Scott, recommended by Newman. But Bowles needed to be under someone’s care, so Newman asked Henry Wilberforce and Robert F. Wilson to take Bowles in at their rectories. Newman told them that Bowles needed to rest and study at his leisure.52 By association with Mrs. Bowles and her son, Newman thought of Mrs. Lockhart and her son. Newman spoke to a friend about Lockhart, who had left Littlemore to become Roman Catholic and had entered the Institute of Charity, a religious community.53 Lockhart’s mother, who had been worried about her son’s intentions of becoming Roman Catholic, was happy to see a year later that her son was calm, and very cheerful, as well as interested in the family. She began to show an inclination to the Church of Rome, and was eventually received the following year.54
After further correspondence between Newman and Bowles, Newman advised Bowles to be frank with his mother, and to sort out his religious beliefs before returning to Littlemore. Newman, who wrote to him with the affection of a father, did not wish to exert undue influence over him.55 At first Mrs. Bowles thought Newman had not been transparent with her as far as his views went. Newman defended himself; he had tried to inform her through her son of his resignation from St. Mary’s before it was made public.56 Mrs. Bowles, whose daughter Emily had become Roman Catholic in 1843, was worried that her son too would become Roman Catholic, but she apologized to Newman for any unkind words conveyed in a letter to her son.57 She trusted that Newman acted seeking the glory of God, and that God would lead her son to his eternal salvation.
Newman maintained the desire not to leave the Church of England based on his private judgment alone. This subject came up in correspondence with Edward B. Fortescue, a friend of Henry Wilberforce who visited Newman a few times in 1844–1845. Fortescue was quite unsettled about remaining Anglican, and he told St. John that he expected as many as 100 would follow Newman.58 When Newman heard about this he commented that Fortescue’s mindset and Oakeley’s increasing direction toward Rome were a comfort to him inasmuch as they were a confirmation of his own desire to move to Rome with a large group of men.59 Fortescue and his wife did become Roman Catholics, but many years later.
When advising prospective converts, Newman was careful to point out the need for them to give sufficient warning to family members and those under their care. This was the case with John Moore Capes, an Anglican clergyman who was on the verge of joining the Roman Catholic Church. He had written to Newman for advice. Newman replied to Capes that for six years he (Newman) had the growing conviction that the Church of England was in schism, but he had considered it his duty to set himself against his conviction. He had only shared his thoughts with Frederic Rogers and Henry Wilberforce.60 In a follow-up letter, Newman pointed out that a clergyman should not surprise people with news of abandoning his church because this would be unfair to a congregation. A congregation had a right to know that its spiritual guide has a set of opinions which they implicitly trust.61 Newman wrote to Capes, “I feel very strongly indeed on the point of clergymen stepping as it were from their pulpit into another communion.”62 Newman led by example; he had stepped down from St. Mary’s in September 1843. But Capes could not wait. In June he was received into the Roman Catholic Church, and his wife followed him some time afterward.
Newman’s advice to Capes was one of many proofs of the respect that he had for both his duties in the Anglican Church and also for Anglican congregations. At the same time, he was mindful of people’s rights. Capes had spent a big part of his fortune building a church in Bridgewater. Newman thought that, out of justice, it should not be taken away and suggested that Pusey speak on Capes’s behalf to the diocesan authorities. Newman considered it to be another thing if Capes wished to give up the church on his own.63 Newman later praised Capes’s sacrifice in his Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England; Capes remained a layman, leaving behind his means of subsistence.64
Another convert to Roman Catholicism was Michael Watts-Russell, a clergyman who wrote to Newman in June. Watts expressed the same reasons for conversion as Newman: he thought the Roman Catholic Church was the true Church established by Christ and believed the Anglican Church to be in schism. Watts thought that the Anglican Church retained, by God’s mercy, a valid sacrifice and consequently true sacraments, but that it had forfeited the daily sacrifice and the reservation of the Sacrament in churches. Watts believed in the authority and influence of the Roman See, but had no doubt regarding the validity of his Orders, so he had no plans to leave the Anglican Communion. However, upon hearing of Newman’s imminent conversion, Watts felt bewildered:
[S]ince I have heard that you Sir, whom I can never look upon but as my Father, have been taught by God that it is time to go elsewhere, I feel oppressed with a sense of forlornness in being deserted, and my heart bounds to follow your steps …65
Watts did not wish to act rashly and asked Newman, whom he saw as an instrument for the reconciliation of the Anglican Church with Rome, for advice. At the end of August, Watts visited Newman in Littlemore. Watts and his family would be received into the Church of Rome in November 1845.
All the while the vexing Mary Holmes continued to write Newman, sometimes daily. Finally, his patience ran out, and he told her that he would not give her any further advice or correspond with her any more. Concerning their correspondence he told her: “After your recent letters, I have come to the resolution of breaking it off altogether. I have many reasons for this. It is enough to say to you that you have no claim whatever on me to continue it. I have already given up much time and thought to you, to the loss of others who have a real claim on me.”66 He wrote to her spiritual director, George Spencer, a priest at Oscott, to inform him of the situation.67 Although Newman told Miss Holmes, “I have been patient beyond my duty,” she continued to write to him.68 This was one of the few times Newman expressed his annoyance in a personal letter. For the most part Newman responded patiently to the objections and questions posed by friends or acquaintances.
PARTING WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY
By the beginning of 1845, Newman began to part with his friends. Even if differences in religious beliefs were not an obstacle for friendly intercourse, the absence of similar engagements and circles of friends would still create a separation. Nonetheless, the previous year Keble had written to Newman that their affection would always remain the same. On February 20, 1845, the eve of Newman’s birthday, Keble sent Newman an affectionate and congratulatory letter. Keble wished to meet with Newman and recall memorable conversations they once had had with Hurrell Froude.69 Sadly, Newman did not receive any other letters from Keble until October 3 and 11 of the same year. After Newman’s conversion, he did not see Keble again until September 1865.
Pusey, however, continued to consult Newman about difficult cases of spiritual doubts that people brought to him. Concerning a woman who was dwelling too much on her sins, Newman told Pusey:
Clearly it seems to me that she ought not just now to think of our Lord’s Passion—Indeed I should have a fear, judging without knowing a person, that her mind was oppressed with over-meditation etc, and that active duties would be good for her. I think she probably is right in anticipating illness, if she does not change the course of her thoughts.70
Newman’s advice was practical; he exercised moderation in guiding souls. He advised people to be patient and act cautiously. Since Pusey was sad, thinking of his future separation from Newman, in the same letter Newman continued to prepare his friend. With reference to neglecting God’s calls, he told Pusey: “One must make no other person’s impressions a guide to oneself. I put it as an illustration. Nor am I speaking prominently about myself when I say, what I ought to say, yet shrink from saying, that I suppose Christmas cannot come again without a breakup—to what extent or to whom I do not know.”71
A date for Newman’s reception into the Roman Catholic Church was drawing near; Newman would be received before Christmas. In vain, Pusey gave his dear friend arguments to keep him in the Anglican Communion. He argued that a token of Christ’s Presence with the English Church were signs of growing life within her and the experience of the grace of the sacraments by her members.72 Newman agreed with his friend’s assertion, but he maintained that the Anglican Church was outside the Catholic Communion. Also, Newman replied that the unsettlement he produced in people was his “one overpowering distress,” which had made him physically ill the previous year; yet in proportion as his course became clearer, it was more bearable.73 In response to Pusey’s claim that Newman caused disunity among the families of converts, Newman retorted:
The disunion of families indeed remains, and it is enough to turn one’s head; but in proportion as one feels confident that a change is right, in the same proportion one wishes others to change too; and though it is any thing but my wish that they should change because I do, of course it cannot pain me that they should take my change as a sort of warning, or call to consider where the Truth lies.74
Newman’s desire to follow the truth in religion was his guiding principle, or passion, one which made his pain bearable and justified the pain which he caused others. Newman’s ethos contrasted with that of his late friend, Blanco White, who died a pantheist. Newman was appalled and saddened by White’s autobiography. Newman also criticized the superficial notion of truth conveyed in a biography on White: “[H]is biographer actually calls him in his last moments a Confessor—confessor to what? not to any opinion, any belief whatever—but to the Search after truth; ever wandering about and changing; and therefore great.”75 Newman continued, “For years I have had an increasing intellectual conviction that there is no medium between Pantheism and the Church of Rome.”76
Both White and Newman had sought religious truth, but White had ended in skepticism. Newman’s careful and persistent study led him instead to an objective truth that was greater than himself; it was Truth itself. This Truth was knowable both through reason and Revelation, and concerned not only the knowledge of God’s existence and attributes but moral law and the divinity of the Church.
The day before Pusey’s letter, Jemima had written John Henry a moving letter in which she told him that although he had sufficiently warned her, she felt great pain: “It is like hearing that some dear friend must die.”77 She begged him to reconsider, but asked him to forgive what on her part might seem inconsiderate. Newman replied to his sister that he had wanted to wait seven years and would like to wait longer, but the years were passing by and he was getting old.78 As far as his convictions went, he had reached the conclusion that by not moving he was offending God. He candidly told her that he loved ease and that he was making a large income from the sale of his sermons. He was ready to sacrifice it all only because of an imperative necessity. He again argued that with God’s grace he had been living a stricter life and had improved in many respects; how then could he at the same time be so grossly blind in a matter of such importance?79 He reasoned with his sister that at one time or another, anyone who is a heretic faces a trial, as he did, when he comes to realize his state. Jews who became Christians were cursed by their friends. Nestorians, Donatists, or Monophysites had to break all ties to return to the Christian Faith.
Newman prepared for the step he was to make, trusting that God heard the prayers many good people were making on his behalf. And he prayed every day for light: “Continually do I pray that He would discover to me, if I am under a delusion—what can I do more? what hope have I but in Him? to whom should I go? who can do me good? who can speak a word of comfort but He? who is there but looks on me with a sorrowful face? but He can lift up the light of His countenance upon me.”80
Newman was depending almost solely on his trust in God. Except for his companions at Littlemore, few understood and accepted his disposition and trial. But Newman was not angry at his sister, and he entreated her, with other spiritual considerations, to trust in God’s ways, which are beyond our human ways. He told Jemima that in October or November, at the latest, he would give up his Fellowship; since his earlier correspondence with Pusey, he had advanced the date by one month.
Newman and Jemima exchanged other letters clarifying their positions. Newman was perplexed that what was a rule for him was not a rule for others, “as if there were two truths”—which is not the case; but he told his sister that they must submit at that moment to a sort of mystery.81 Jemima clarified that she was not judging her brother’s actions. Besides these considerations, brother and sister considered what would be the least painful way to communicate the news to Aunt Elizabeth Newman.
Among the few Anglican friends who accepted Newman’s convictions, besides Henry Wilberforce, were Maria Giberne and Mrs. Elizabeth Bowden. Mrs. Bowden did not argue with Newman. Instead she accepted his conscientious and thorough study of religious truth. She remained a close friend to him; their friendship was the continuation of Newman’s friendship with John William Bowden, her husband. That year, on the date of the birthday of both her late husband and of Newman, she wrote to Newman, “I know that we must be in your thoughts this day, and I cannot help writing to you—not that I can say anything more than you know, but it is a pleasure to me—we always used to talk of you.”82
Newman’s correspondence with Mrs. Bowden increased. As he confided more in her, she understood his views about the Church of Rome better. She told him, “There is hardly any comfort in the prospect, but I trust I am right for the present in thinking I have to do nothing but wait.”83 She kept Newman informed about her family, and also asked him to help with the preface for a book entitled Thoughts on the Work of the Six Days of Creation, which her husband had been writing before his death. After Newman wrote the draft for the short preface about the life of his friend, Mrs. Bowden suggested that he make some minor changes and add something about the friendship of her husband with Newman: “I should be sorry to speak of his entering at Oxford without alluding to the beginning of your friendship—which was, as you well know he always thought it, the most important event in his life—would you mind saying something about it?”84 Mrs. Bowden also asked Newman to place his initials to the preface.
The following month Mrs. Bowden told Newman that their mutual friend, Mrs. Charlotte Wood, widow of Samuel Francis Wood, a deceased lawyer and Tractarian, had made big strides toward Rome in little time. Mrs. Bowden added, “After all how can I think her wrong following you!”85 Mrs. Wood eventually came into the Church, in 1845, following Newman’s lead.
Newman told Maria Giberne that his convictions were as strong as they could be, although he could not tell if they were a call of reason or of conscience. He made a distinction between seeing something clearly and acting out of duty.86 He also told her of his plan to give up the Oriel Fellowship in October and to publish a book between October and Christmas to explain his beliefs: “I wish people to know why I am acting as well as what I am doing …”87 This would reduce people’s surprise and strengthen those who wished to take the same step but needed reasons. He added by way of explanation, “And I think people have a claim on me, since I said one thing formerly, now frankly to say the other.”88
During May, Maria Giberne made plans to speak personally with Newman, but due to other visits from Oakeley and the Bowdens, Newman was unable to see her. Newman was busy trying to write his final essay, but had many interruptions from visitors. Giberne grew quickly in the conviction that the Church of Rome was the true Church, and was unsure of receiving Holy Communion in the Anglican Church. Newman was surprised at the speed with which she advanced toward joining the Church of Rome: “Your mind has come on so quickly, that I cannot trace its steps and do not quite know your position.”89 Newman told her that by an extraordinary grace Christ’s Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist could be communicated to those in schism. At the same time, he advised that prior to a change it would be fitting to withdraw for some time from attending Holy Communion.90
A few weeks earlier Newman wrote to his friend, Richard William Church, who had vetoed the proposed censure of Tract 90. Newman thanked him for his kindness and courage at the February Convocation. Many years later, Newman dedicated the third uniform edition of University Sermons to Church, then Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. He explained that he had not done this earlier because he felt that an association with any work of his at that point would have been a burden. Newman thanked Church for having given a welcome ear to his anxieties in February 1841 (after the publication of Tract 90), and wrote: “[M]uch less can I lose memory of your great act of friendship, as well as of justice and courage, in the February of 1845, your Proctor’s year, when you, with another now departed, shielded me from the ‘civium ardor prava jubentium,’ [‘frenzy of his fellow citizens.’ Horace, Odes, Book III, line 2]” …91
Newman walked in a sort of spiritual darkness. He felt anxiety that he was acting based on some hidden sin or weakness that led him to wish to become Roman Catholic. In this spiritual state, he acknowledged the bittersweet praise of friends such as Rogers, James Mozley, and Blanco White. In his autobiography, White had praised Newman. Reflecting on White’s praise, Newman humbly commented that White could not be speaking of “I, this old dry chip who am worthless, but of a past I. No one has spoken well of me.”92 The former was a confession of his inner thoughts, the latter was an overstatement, but he was referring to Whately, Hawkins, the Heads of Houses, Golightly, and a large number of men at Oxford. Newman confided to his friend Wilberforce that he felt in the dark. He quoted for him words from one of his own poems: “O! may we follow undismay’d / Where’er our God shall call!”93 The words were reminiscent of his thoughts in the other poem, “Lead Kindly Light,” composed in 1833 on the eve of the Oxford Movement’s birth.
Later in the year, Newman told another friend, “In Mercy are the consequences of our actions concealed from us, that there may be room for faith, room for good deeds, room for boldness. We are all walking in the dark, and are led on in the dark.”94 Newman realized that it was not only he who could not see beyond the present moment. His friends and many of those who read his sermons were looking for their way in the midst of the doctrinal confusion and spiritual mediocrity of the moment; they were looking for religious truths that they did not find in the Anglican Church.
The year 1845 would be Newman’s final year as an Anglican. As he told his friend Pusey, he was not moving toward Rome because of external circumstances in the English Church, nor out of expectation of personal gain in the Roman Catholic Church. His reasons were arguments based on doctrinal principles and Church History.
Summarizing Newman’s spiritual journey up to this point, one can say that various external events had served to confirm his view that the Church of England had separated from the Catholic Church and lacked its doctrinal integrity and the authority invested in St. Peter’s successors. In 1841, the creation of a joint Anglican–Lutheran See in Jerusalem had demonstrated the doctrinal errors of the English Church. In 1845, the censure and degradation of William G. Ward at the February Oxford Convocation and the failed attempt to censure Tract 90 had demonstrated the Protestant anti-dogmatic ideology of the university authorities. Bishop Blomfield’s attack on Frederick Oakeley because of his orthodoxy had further confirmed Newman’s view that the Church of England was not a branch of the true Church.
Newman began to prepare his family and friends for his inevitable separation from the Church of England and union with the Church of Rome. Many did not understand, but he patiently explained his reasons to them. During the year some friends and acquaintances also began to prepare to join the Church of Rome. Many of them sought Newman’s advice. In the end, this joint movement, albeit the sum of individuals moving to the Church of Rome, was a confirmation of Newman’s judgment. His move toward Rome would not be the result only of his “private judgment”; it would be the consensus of many men and women ultimately moved by God’s Providence.
As much as Newman acted upon reasoned convictions, his planned move to the Church of Rome depended on a spiritual process which involved waiting on God. Newman felt “solus cum solo,” alone with God. Newman felt that he was walking in the dark and awaiting some final confirmation by God that he was not deluding himself, as he had when as a young man he had accepted anti-Roman beliefs and sentiments. Newman prayed and suffered a great deal; except for some friends, he felt alone, and he felt responsible for many who had once placed their trust in him. But in the midst of his suffering, he was confident that God would show him the way.
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1LD, Vol. X, JHN to Maria Rosina Giberne (January 8, 1845), 484-85.
2LD, Vol. X, Mrs. John Mozley to JHN (January 8, 1845), 485.
3LD, Vol. X, Charles Marriot to JHN(January 13, 1845), 491.
4LD, Vol. X, Declaration, footnote, 492; “Reasons for voting against the proposed censure of certain propositions extracted from a Work lately published by Rev. W. G. Ward, M.A., Charles Marriot (January 18, 1845), 498-99; 498.
5LD, Vol. X, Opinion of Sir John Dodson, Queen’s Advocate, and Richard Bethell, Q.C. on the Legality of Ward’s Proposed Degradation (January 17, 1845), 506-07.
6Ibid., 507.
7Richard William Church, The Oxford Movement: Twelve Years 1833-1845, London, 1900, 379-80.
8LD, Vol. X, Formal Condemnation of the Tract Ninety by the University of Oxford (January 25, 1845), 511-12.
9LD, Vol. X, Legal Opinion of James Robert Hope on Censure of Tract 90 (February 8, 1845), 538-40.
10LD, Vol. X, Charles Marriot to the Vice-Chancellor (February 5, 1845), 524-26.
11LD, Vol. X, William Ewart Gladstone to the Provost of Oriel College (February 6, 1845), 526-27.
12LD, Vol. X, JHN to James Bowhng Mozley (February 5, 1845), 522.
13Ibid., 522.
14LD, Vol. X, JHN to James Bowhng Mozley (April 2, 1845), 612-13.
15LD, Vol. X, JHN to Edward Bouverie Pusey (February 6, 1845), 528-29.
16LD, Vol. X, JHN to Elizabeth Bowden (February 7, 1845), 531; JHN to Isaac Williams (February 7, 1845), 531-32; 531.
17LD, Vol. X, Henry Edward Manning to JHN (February 6, 1845), 531.
18LD, Vol. X, Mrs. John Mozley to JHN (February 7, 1845), 533.
19LD, Vol. X, Mrs. John Mozley to JHN (February 9, 1845), 541.
20LD, Vol. X, JHN to Mrs. John Mozley (February 10, 1845), 542-43; 543.
21LD, Vol. X, JHN to Henry Edward Manning (February 9, 1845), 540-41; 541.
22LD, Vol. X, JHN to Charles Miller (February 11, 1845), 545-46; 546.
23LD, Vol. X, Richard William Church to JHN (February 8, 1845), 535.
24LD, Vol. X, JHN to Mrs. John Mozley (February 11, 1845), 546-47.
25LD, Vol. X, footnote, 550.
26LD, Vol. X, William Ewart Gladstone to Edward Bouverie Pusey (February 22, 1845), 570.
27Henry Liddon, Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, II, 436-38.
28LD, Vol. X, JHN to Edward Bouverie Pusey (February 25, 1845), 573-74; 574.
29LD, Vol. X, Frederick Oakeley to JHN (May 26, 1845), 673-74.
30LD, Vol. X, F. Oakeley to JHN (April 14, 1845), 625.
31LD, Vol. X, F. Oakeley to JHN (June 3, 1845), 689.
32LD, Vol. X, Edward Bellasis to JHN (June 1, 1845), 687-89.
33LD, Vol. X, footnote, 722; quote from the British Magazine, XXVIII, 1845 (Aug.), 177-83; 183.
34LD, Vol. X, JHN to Martin Joseph Routh, President of Magdalen College (February 21, 1845), 568.
35LD, Vol. X, George Montgomery to JHN (March 10, 1845), 585-86; 586.
36LD, Vol. X, JHN to Edward Bouverie Pusey (April 17, 1845), 628-29; 629.
37LD, JHN to John Dobree Dalgairns (May 18, 1845), 662-63; 663.
38LD, Vol. X, JHN to Thomas Francis Know (March 10, 1845), 584-85.
39LD, Vol. X, JHN to Miss Maria Rosina Giberne (January 26, 1845), 515.
40LD, Vol. X, Draft of JHN to Miss Mary Holmes (February 4, 1845), 521-22.
41LD, Vol. X, JHN to John Dalgairns Senior (February 18, 1845), 564-66.
42LD, Vol. X, John Dobree Dalgairns to JHN (May 7, 1845), 650-51.
43LD, Vol. X, Thomas Meyrick to JHN (February 24, 1845), 571-72.
44LD, Vol. X, Albany James Christie to JHN (March 17, 1845), 599-600.
45LD, Vol. X, George Tickell to JHN (March 19, 1845), 607-8.
46LD, Vol. X, JHN to John Dobree Dalgairns (May 9, 1845), 651-53; 652.
47LD, Vol. X, G. Tickell to JHN (May 13, 1845), 658-59; 658; and explanatory note, ibid.
48LD, Vol. X, JHN to Edward B. Pusey (August 22, 1867), 658.
49LD, Vol. X, Ambrose St. John to JHN (April 8, 1845), 620-21; 620.
50LD, Vol. X, JHN to Ambrose St. John (April 26, 1845), 638-39; 638; JHN to Henry Wilberforce (April 27, 1845), 639-42; 639.
51JHN to Henry Wilberforce (April 27, 1845), 639-42; 639.
52LD, Vol. X, JHN to Frederick Sellwood Bowles (April 11, 1845), 623.
53LD, Vol. X, JHN to Mrs. William Froude (April 20, 1845), 634.
54LD, Vol. X, JHN to Elizabeth Bowden (May 13, 1845), 657, and footnote.
55LD, Vol. X, JHN to Frederick Sellwood Bowles (April 24, 1845, 635-36), 636.
56LD, Vol. X, JHN to Mrs. Bowles (June 17, 1845), 706-07.
57LD, Vol. X, Mrs. H. S. Bowles to JHN (July 1, 1845), 722.
58LD, Vol. X, Ambrose St. John to JHN (April 29, 1845), 643.
59LD, Vol. X, JHN to John Dobree Dalgairns (April 27, 1845), 643.
60LD, Vol. X, JHN to John Moore Capes (June 4, 1845), 690.
61LD, Vol. X, JHN to John Moore Capes (June 8, 1845), 694.
62Ibid.
63LD, Vol. X, JHN to John Moore Capes (August 13, 1845), 746-47.
64John Henry Newman, Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England, Lecture VIII, “Ignorance Concerning Catholics the Protection of the Protestant View,” 359-62; 359, available at: http://www.newmanreader.org/works/england/lecture8.html#capes.
65LD, Vol. X, Michael Watts-Russell to JHN (June 19, 1845), 710-711.
66LD, Vol. X, JHN to Miss Mary Holmes (May 31, 1845), 681.
67LD, Vol. X, JHN to George Spencer (May 31, 1845), 681.
68LD, Vol. X, JHN to Miss Mary Holmes (May 31, 1845), 681.
69LD, Vol. X, John Keble to JHN (February 20, 1845), 567.
70LD, Vol. X, JHN to Edward Bouverie Pusey (March 12, 1845), 586-87.
71Ibid., 587.
72Henry Liddon, Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, II, 448-49.
73LD, Vol. X, JHN to Edward Bouverie Pusey (March 14, 1845), 591-94; 591.
74Ibid.
75LD, Vol. X, JHN to Henry Wilberforce (April 27, 1845), 639-42; 639.
76Ibid., 640.
77LD, Vol. X, Mrs. John Mozley to JHN (March 13, 1845), 594.
78LD, Vol. X, JHN to Mrs. John Mozley (March 15, 1845), 595-98; 595.
79Ibid., 596.
80Ibid., 596-97.
81LD, Vol. X, JHN to Mrs. John Mozley (March 22, 1845), 606-07; 606.
82LD, Vol. X, Elizabeth Bowden to JHN (February 21, 1845), 569-70; 569.
83LD, Vol. X, Elizabeth Bowden to JHN (March 31, 1845), 611-12; 611.
84LD, Vol. X, Elizabeth Bowden to JHN (May 26, 1845), 671-72; 671.
85LD, Vol. X, Elizabeth Bowden to JHN (June 26, 1845), 714-15; 715.
86LD, X, JHN to Miss Maria Rosina Giberne (March 30, 1845), 609-10; 610.
87Ibid.
88Ibid.
89LD, Vol. X, JHN to Miss Maria Rosina Giberne (May 25, 1845), 670.
90Ibid.
91John Henry Newman, Oxford University Sermons, 3rd Edition, Dedication, v-vi, available at: http://www.newmanreader.org/works/oxford/index.html#dedication.
92LD, Vol. X, JHN to Henry Wilberforce (April 27, 1845), 639-42; 641.
93Ibid., 642. Words from the final stanza of “To F.W.N, A Birthday Offering” written on January 27, 1826, for Frank, his brother.
94LD, Vol. X, JHN to Edward Coleridge (July 3, 1845), 723-24; 724.