John Henry Newman

“ From Charterhouse school he proceeded to Oriel College, Oxford, where he became the pupil, and subsequently the intimate friend, of John Henry Newman. In 1831 he was ordained, and became, in 1836, rector of Cholderton, Wiltshire. He was, from its beginning, a strong supporter of the Tractarian movement, and after contributing for some time to the British Critic, the chief organ of the movement, succeeded Newman as editor in 1841. ”

“ What is it, my dear Mary?"
"'Relics ye are of Eden's bowers,'" said she.
"Why, sir, that was precisely your own reason just now," said Charles to his father.
"There's more than that," said Mrs. Reding, "if I knew what it was."
"He thinks the scent more intellectual than the other senses," said Mary, smiling.
"Such a boy for paradoxes!" said his mother.
"Well, so it is in a certain way," said Charles, "but I can't explain. Sounds and scents are more ethereal, less material; they have no shape—like the angels."
Mr. Malcolm laughed. "Well, I grant it, Charles," he said ”

“ The saintly life has never been more faithfully followed than by John Henry Newman. It is due to his life more than to his doctrines or his presentation of them that so marked a change of public opinion has occurred about Newman and about his Church. After all, men judge creeds by the characters they produce rather than by the logical consistency of their doctrines. That the pendulum of public opinion about Roman Catholics in England has swung back from violent antipathy to sympathetic admiration is due in large measure to the saintly life of John Henry Newman. ”

“ I always was on my guard in the pulpit of saying anything which looked towards Rome; and therefore all his rhetoric about my "disciples," "admiring young gentlemen who listened to me," "fanatic and hot-headed young men, who hung upon my every word," becomes simple rubbish.
I have more to say on this point. This writer says, p. 14, "I know that men used to suspect Dr. Newman—I have been inclined to do so myself—of writing a whole Sermon, not for the sake of the text or of the matter, but for the sake of one simple passing hint—one phrase, one epithet." ”

“ I saw one when I was a boy at Carthage. So unlike your noble Roman Saliares, or your fine portly priest of Isis, clad in white, breathing odours like spring flowers; men who enjoyed this life, not like that sour hypocrite. He was as black as an Ethiopian, and as withered as a Saracen, and he never looked you in the face. And, after all, the fellow must die for his religion, rather than put a few grains of golden incense on the altar of great Jove. Jove’s the god for me; a glorious, handsome, curly god—but they are all good, all the gods are good. ”

“ Thomas Mozley, there is a description of Maria Rosina in later life. He says she was "tall, strong of build, majestic, with aquiline nose, well-formed mouth, dark penetrating eyes, and a luxuriance of glossy black hair. She would command attention anywhere.... She was very early the warmest and most appreciative of Newman's" (John Henry Newman's) "admirers.... Her great power lay in the portraits she did in chalks.... Besides many portraits of Newman himself ... she drew a portrait of old Mr. Wilberforce...." ”

“ Great is the Baptism set before you, a ransom to captives, forgiveness of transgressions, death of sin, new-birth of the soul, garment of light, holy indissoluble seal, chariot to heaven, delight of paradise, pledge of the kingdom, gift of adoption ”

“ We beseech Thy goodness, Thou lover of men, that by the mystery of Thy Holy name, thou wilt repel and restrain all the adverse and wicked spirits and powers, for Thou hast called Thy servants, who come from darkness to light, from death to life, from error to acknowledgment of truth, and from worship of idols to the knowledge of Thee, O God of truth. ”

“ If I climb up into heaven, Thou art there; if I go down to hell, Thou art there also." Where life is, there is He; and though it be but the life of death—the living death of eternal torment—He is the principle of it. ”

“ Do not we "look one upon another," yet perform nothing? Do we not all confess the peril into which the Church is come, yet sit still each in his own retirement, as if mountains and seas cut off brother from brother? ”

“ I cannot exist without something to rest upon. I cannot fall back upon that drear, forlorn state, which philosophers call wisdom, and moralists call virtue. I cannot enrol myself a votary of that cold Moon, whose arrows do but freeze me. I cannot sympathize in that majestic band of sisters whom Rome has placed under the tutelage of Vesta. I must have something to love; love is my life. Why do you come to me, Agellius, with your every-day gallantry. ”

“ Is what we call the law of death anything more than the chance of disease? Is the prospect of my death, in its logical evidence,—as that evidence is brought home to me—much more than a high probability?
The strongest proof I have for my inevitable mortality is the reductio ad absurdum. Can I point to the man, in historic times, who has lived his two hundred years? What has become of past generations of men, unless it is true that they suffered dissolution? ”

“ Is your voice more manly, are its tones more eloquent, than those which have thrilled through my ears since I ceased to be a child? Can you add perfume to the feast by your wit, or pour sunshine over grot and rushing stream by your smile? ”

“ It is a thought of his, always deeply felt and many times repeated, that this visible world is but the outward shell of an invisible kingdom, a screen which hides from our view things far greater and more wonderful than any which we see, and that the unseen world is close to us and ever ready to break through the shell and manifest itself. ”

“ Nature fails, the sun shines not, and the moon is dim, the stars fall from heaven, and the foundations of the round world shake; but the Altar's light burns ever brighter; there are sights there which the many cannot see, and all above the tumults of earth the command is heard to show forth the Lord's death, and the promise that the Lord is coming. ”

“ Grant us, gracious Lord, so to eat the Flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink His Blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His body, and our souls washed through His most precious blood ”

“ Shut your ears to praise, when it grows loud: set your face like a flint, when the world ridicules, and smile at its threats. Learn to master your heart, when it would burst forth into vehemence, or prolong a barren sorrow, or dissolve into unseasonable tenderness. ”

“ How great the honour and the peace, to go hence into joy, to go through straitness into glory, to shut the eyes suddenly, by which the world is seen, to open them again forthwith, and to see Almighty God! ”

“ If, on doing wrong, we feel the same tearful, broken-hearted sorrow which overwhelms us on hurting a mother; if, on doing right, we enjoy the same sunny serenity of mind, the same soothing, satisfactory delight which follows on our receiving praise from a father, we certainly have within us the image of some person, to whom our love and veneration look, in whose smile we find our happiness, for whom we yearn, towards whom we direct our pleadings, in whose anger we are troubled and waste away. ”

“ Lead, kindly light, amid th' encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on;
The night is dark and I am far from home;
Lead Thou me on;
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me. ”

“ The reflection of sky and mountains in the lake is a proof that sky and mountains are around it, but the twilight, or the mist, or the sudden storm hurries away the beautiful image, which leaves behind it no memorial of what it was. ”

“ but there is something so very dreadful, so satanic in tormenting those who never have harmed us, and who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power, who have weapons neither of offence nor defence, that none but very hardened persons can endure the thought of it. ”

“ And even in the quietest walks of life, do not the old feel regret, more or less vividly, that they are not young? Do not they lament the days gone by, and even with the pleasure of remembrance feel the pain? ”

“ I could not be of your religion. Ye Gods! how have I been deceived! I thought every Christian was like Chione. I thought there could not be a cold Christian. Chione spoke as if a Christian’s first thoughts were goodwill to others; as if his state were of such blessedness, that his dearest heart’s wish was to bring others into it. Here is a man who, so far from feeling himself blest, thinks I can bless him! comes to me—me, Callista, a herb of the field, a poor weed, exposed to every wind of heaven, and shrivelling before the fierce sun—to me he comes to repose his heart upon. ”

“ To a short-sighted person, colours run together and intermix, outlines disappear, blues and reds and yellows become russets or browns, the lamps or candles of an illumination spread into an unmeaning glare, or dissolve into a milky way. He takes up an eye-glass, and the mist clears up; every image stands out distinct, and the rays of light fall back upon their centres. ”

“ Let then our symbols be words: let all thought be arrested and embodied in words. Let language have a monopoly of thought; and thought go for only so much as it can show itself to be worth in language. ”

“ He writes passionately, because he feels keenly; forcibly, because he conceives vividly; he sees too clearly to be vague; he is too serious to be otiose; he can analyze his subject, and therefore he is rich; he embraces it as a whole and in its parts, and therefore he is consistent; he has a firm hold of it, and therefore he is luminous. When his imagination wells up, it overflows in ornament; when his heart is touched, it thrills along his verse. He always has the right word for the right idea, and never a word too much. If he is brief, it is because few words suffice; ”

“ There is the calm of divine peace and joy; there is the calm of heartlessness; there is the calm of reckless desperation; there is the calm of death. None of these was the calm which breathed from the features of the stranger who intruded upon the solitude of Cæcilius. It was the calm of Greek sculpture; it imaged a soul nourished upon the visions of genius, and subdued and attuned by the power of a strong will. ”

“ The mists of evening rise up, and the heavy dews fall, but they neither bring the poison of decay to that gracious body, nor receive it thence. The beasts of the wild are roaming and roaring at a distance, or nigh at hand: not any one of them presumes to touch her. No vultures may promise themselves a morning meal from such a victim, as they watch through the night upon the high crags which overlook her. The stars have come out on high, and, they too look down upon Callista, as if they were funeral lights in her honour. ”

“ What nation has so grand, so romantic, so terrible a history? Does it not fulfil the idea of, what the nation calls itself, a chosen people, chosen for good and evil? Is it not an exhibition in a course of history of that primary declaration of conscience, as I have been determining it, “With the upright Thou shalt be upright, and with the froward Thou shalt be froward”? ”

“ Their eyes are opened; and, like the judgment-stricken king in the Tragedy, they see two suns, and a magic universe, out of which they look back upon their former state of faith and innocence with a sort of contempt and indignation, as if they were then but fools, and the dupes of imposture. ”

“ What an emptying of His glory to become man! and not only a helpless infant, though that were humiliation enough, but to inherit all the infirmities and imperfections of our nature which were possible to a sinless soul. What were His thoughts, if we may venture to use such language or admit such a reflection concerning the Infinite, when human feelings, human sorrows, human wants, first became His? What a mystery is there from first to last in the Son of God becoming man! Yet in proportion to the mystery is the grace and mercy of it; and as is the grace, so is the greatness of the fruit of it. ”

“ I may take for granted that you think with me, and with the multitude of men, that you will still live, that you will still be you. You will still be the same being, but deprived of those outward stays and reliefs and solaces, which, such as they are, you now enjoy. You will be yourself, shut up in yourself. I have heard that people go mad at length when placed in solitary confinement. ”

“ He has passed over the mountain, and has descended its side. Bristling shrubs, swamps, precipitous banks, rushing torrents, are no obstacle to his course. He has reached the brow of a hill, with a deep placid river at the foot of it, just as the dawn begins to break. It is a lovely prospect, which every step he takes is becoming more definite and more various in the daylight. ”

“ For me, while I yet lay in darkness and bewildering night, and was tossed to and fro on the billows of this troublesome world, ignorant of my true life, an outcast from light and truth, I used to think that second birth, which Divine Mercy promised for my salvation, a hard saying according to the life I then led; as if a man could be so quickened to a new life in the laver of healing water, as to put off his natural self, and keep his former tabernacle, yet be changed in heart and soul! ”

“ It is in these rich meadows, stretching round Lodi, and from thence to Verona, that the celebrated Parmesan cheese, known over all Europe for the richness of its flavour, is made. The vine and the olive thrive in the sunny slopes which ascend from the plain to the ridges of the Alps; and a woody zone of never-failing beauty lies between the desolation of the mountain and the fertility of the plain. ”