CHAPTER XXI. 1864-5. AGED 45, 46. ILLNESS-CONTROVERSY WITH DR. NEWMAN-APOLOGIA-Journey TO THE SOUTH OF FRANCE-BIARRITZ-PAU-NARBONNE-THE SCHOOLBOY'S SEA-BEZIERS-PONT DU GARD-NISMES-AVIGNON UNIVERSITY SERMONS AT CAMBRIDGE · TRINITY ON SUBSCRIPTION · LETTER ON THE WORLD-WESLEY AND OXFORD - BEWICK'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY- "HE heeded not reviling tones Nor sold his heart to idle moans, Though cursed and scorn'd, and bruised with stones. THE severe illness and great physical depression with which this year began were a bad preparation for the storm of controversy which burst upon Mr. Kingsley, and which eventually produced Dr. Newman's famous "Apologia pro vita sua." The whole controversy is before the world, and no allusion would be made to it in these pages, but from the fear that silence might be construed into a tacit acknowledgment of defeat on the main question. This fact, however, must be mentioned, that it was the information conveyed to Mr. Kingsley 1864.] THE BATTLE FOR TRUTH & TRUTH ONLY. 165 of Dr. Newman's being in bad health, depressed, and averse from polemical discussion, coupled with Dr. Newman's own words in the early part of the correspondence, in which he seemed to deprecate controversy, which appealed irresistibly to Mr. Kingsley's chivalrous consideration, and put him to a great disadvantage in the issue. "It was his righteous indignation," says Dean Stanley, against what seemed to him the glorification of a tortuous and ambiguous policy, which betrayed him into the only personal controversy in which he was ever entangled, and in which, matched in unequal conflict with the most subtle and dexterous controversialist of modern times, it is not surprising that for the moment he was apparently worsted, whatever we may think of the ultimate issues that were raised in the struggle, and whatever may be the total results of our experiences, before and after, on the main question over which the combat was fought-on the relation of the human conscience to truth or to authority."* For the right understanding of Mr. Kingsley's conduct throughout, it cannot be too strongly insisted upon, that it was for truth and truth only that he craved and fought. With him the main point at issue was not the personal integrity of Dr. Newman, but the question whether the Roman Catholic priesthood are encouraged or discouraged to pursue "Truth for its own sake." While no one more fully acknowledged the genius and power of his opponent than Mr. Kingsley himself, or was more ready to confess that he had "crossed swords with one who was too strong for him," yet he always felt that the general position which he had taken up against the policy of the Roman Catholic * Funeral Sermon on Canon Kingsley, in Westminster Abbey. Church, remained unshaken.* And among those who watched the conflict there were many, including even some of his personal friends in the Roman Catholic Church, who felt he had right on his side, though they dared not say so openly in face of his powerful antagonist. Private letters, too, of generous sympathy from strangers came to cheer him-from laymen—from clergymen-even from working-men who having come in contact with the teaching of Roman Catholic priests, knew the truth of his statements. Last but not least, a pamphlet was published by the Rev. Frederick Meyrick, entitled "But is not Kingsley right, after all?” This pamphlet was never answered. For more than a year past Mr. Kingsley had been suffering from illness caused by overwork of brain, and a thorough rest and change of air had long been seriously urged upon him. At this moment, Mr. Froude, who was going to Spain on literary business, invited him to go with him, and he replies: ... *It may be doubted whether any words of Mr. Kingsley's convey a more serious accusation against the Church of Rome, than Dr. Newman's own, when speaking of the professions of Rome he warns those who make advances to her, that "we shall find too late that we are in the arms of a pitiless and unnatural relative who will but triumph in the arts which have inveigled us within her reach. for in truth she is a church beside herself. crafty, obstinate, wilful, malicious, cruel, unnatural as madmen are―or rather she may be said to resemble a demoniac-possessed with principles, thoughts, and tendencies not her own; in outward form and in natural powers what God made her, but ruled by an inexorable spirit who is sovereign in his management over her, and most subtle and most successful in the use of her gifts. Thus she is her real self only in name, and till God vouchsafes to restore her, we must treat her as if she were that evil one who governs her." (Prophetical Office of the Church, p. 101.) These words Dr. Newman formally retracted in the advertisement to an "Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine," but when first published, they expressed his deliberate opinion, and as such were accepted without remonstrance by the High Church party. 1864.] FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF FRANCE. 167 When you "Dearest Anthony, This is too delightful. propose, what can I do but accept? ... I have always felt that one good sea voyage would add ten years to my life. All my friends say, go, but I must not be the least burden to you. Remember that I can amuse myself in any hedge, with plants and insects and a cigar, and that you may leave me anywhere, any long, certain that I shall be busy and happy. I cannot say how the thought of going has put fresh life into me." TO HIS WIFE]." PARIS: March 25.-The splendour of this city is beyond all I could have conceived, and the beautiful neatness and completeness of everything delight my eyes. Verily these French are a civilized people . . . BAYONNE, March 26.-". . . . A place utterly unlike anything I ever saw-very picturesque, with the yellow and brown jalousies to the windows, and the shipping at the bottom of the street, and the red-legged soldiers everywhere. I have seen so much since I wrote this morning, I hardly know where to begin. At Coutras, the other side of Bordeaux, I felt at once I was in a new world. Everything a month earlier than with us; the fruit trees in full flower; pink and crimson almond trees by dozens everywhere. The air strangely clear, the houses low-roofed, and covered with purple-ribbed tiles like the old Roman. . . . Into Bordeaux we did not go, but only into the Landes-for which, fancy one hundred miles of Hartford Bridge Flat, with Pinus maritima instead of Scotch fir, and a tall delicate heath unknown to me, among the common heath. Little long-woolled sheep, cows you could put under your arm, boys on stilts tending them, with sheepskin coats (wool outside) and sheepskin pads for their 'poor feet,' else they would have to have them asked after, if there was anyone to ask, which there ain't-the only birds magpies. But thrivingness and improvement everywhere; immense new plantations of the pinus, new clearings for cultivation, new smart cottages, beautiful new churches, railway stations laid out with shrubberies of foreign trees. What a go-a-head place France is! It gladdens my heart to look at it. Saw the first cork-trees about forty miles from Bayonne planted, barked all round about nine feet high for the cork. It don't hurt them, in fact they rather like it, and it gives the new wood room to expand. I saw many flowers on the banks I did not know, and maizefields, with last year's stubble in them, and plenty of our dear English 'lady's smock' in the wet meadows near here, which looked very homy. Coming off the Landes between Morceux and Dax, saw a low ridge of clouds below the other clouds, which were the Pyrenees. I could soon distinguish the line of eternal snow-could see vast arrêtes and glaciers blazing in the sun one hundred miles off-gorges that faded into infinite cloud land; peaks just cut off by the lower banks of vapour. It was an awful sight for the first time. They were intensely clear in the rainy atmosphere, and clear all but the tops of a few of the highest. After Dax they faded, as we rounded their lower outworks, which run to the sea I have just discovered a huge vulture chained to a tree in the courtyard in the rain, sulking, and poking, and dripping . . . . They have the most exquisite little yellow oxen here, rather bigger than a donkey. They put brown holland pinafores on their backs, and great sheepskin mats on their heads, where the yoke comes, and persuade them as a great favour to do a little work. But they seem so fond of them that the oxen have much the best of the bargain. God bless you all with all Easter blessings. ... BIARRITZ: April, 1864.-" A pleasant day at Biarritz. It was blowing great guns in from dead W.N.W. I never saw a finer sea, rushing through caverns and cracks in a strange sandstone full of nummulites and flat layers of flint. Flowers wonderful. Cliffs covered with white and red stocks, the same as our garden ones, and just as fine. I shall stop here for a week or so, to botanize and breathe sea-champagne. The Basques speak a lingo utterly different from all European languages, which has no analogue, and must have come from a different stock from our ancestors. The women are very pretty-brown |