The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎648v] (187/239)

FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN.
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him as a knave; and there is nothing to be gained by mincing
words in characterising theological polemics of that kind. As tor
Groves—who was apparently a milder man—he writes m the
language that is familiar to all students of evangelical diaries o
the pre-Victorian period. All his acquaintances arc given the
fixed epithet “dear,” and all events the fixed epithet pro
vidential.” Even happenings so directly opposite as death and
life are equally “ for the best.” When massacre seems imminent
‘ ‘ the Soul longs for the Courts of the Lord ’ ’ ; but when the
massacre does not take place, “the Lord graciously takes care
of us.” When there is illness in the house, it is To-day
the dear baby is very unwell, but Kitto is better. Thus the Lord
interchanges His merciful trials and merciful reliefs.” He even
sees a special divine intervention in the fact that he is able to
go to St. Petersburg on John Vesey Parnell’s yacht instead of
having to take the packet like other people.
How, a man who has been educated as Fellows of Balliol are
educated, cannot, if he is honest with himself, and thinks before
he speaks, go about talking like that. He perceives that to call
every event that occurs (£ providential, is either to confuse Pro
vidence with Causation or to deny Causation altogether. That
is one of the ways in which an education in philosophy differs in
its results from an education in dental surgery; and the difference
was reflected by Erancis Newman’s behaviour and speech, even
when he supposed himself to be, in spiritual matters, the dental
surgeon’s disciple. He did his best to fall in with the ways of
his companions. He got himself chased by a mob for distributing
copies of the New Testament in a hot-bed of Mohammedanism.
He sang hymns in public places—on board the ship, for instance,
that was carrying him to the scene of his labours. But the in
fluence of Balliol clung to him, and he was very much like a fish
out of w T ater. The hymn-singing seemed to him an absurd pro
cedure, and the flight from the Mohammedans an undignified
mode of martyrdom. He spoke and wrote of religion, not in
the jargon of Evangelicalism, but in the decent language of
educated persons. While he was detained at Aleppo because the
cholera w’as raging and the country w T as disturbed, the study of
philology occupied him not less than the propagation of the
Gospel. He was duly impressed by the remark of the Aleppo
carpenter that the English, though undoubtedly skilled in
mechanics, lacked spiritual insight. He went on thinking, in
short, wdiile the mental operations of his comrades were only
comparable to the stirring of stagnant pools.
It is not astonishing, in these circumstances, that the mis
sionary enterprise was a failure, and that a line of cleavage