It is fitting that our last quotation should be one which leaves the Cardinal face to face with his faith.
Dr. Newman's poetry cannot be passed over without a word, though I am ill-fitted to do it justice. Lead, Kindly Light has forced its way into every hymn-book and heart. Those who go, and those who do not go to church, the fervent believer and the tired-out sceptic here meet on common ground. The language of the verses in their intense sincerity seems to reduce all human feelings, whether fed on dogmas and holy rites or on man's own sad heart, to a common denominator.
‘The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on.’
The believer can often say no more. The unbeliever will never willingly say less.
Amongst Dr. Newman's Verses on Various Occasions—though in some cases the earlier versions to be met with in the Lyra Apostolica are to be preferred to the later—poems will be found by those who seek, conveying sure and certain evidence of the possession by the poet of the true lyrical gift—though almost cruelly controlled by the course of the poet's thoughts and the nature of his subjects. One is sometimes constrained to cry, 'Oh, if he could only get out into the wild blowing airs, how his pinions would sweep the skies!' but such thoughts are unlicensed and unseemly. That we have two such religious poets as Cardinal Newman and Miss Christina Rossetti is or ought to be matter for sincere rejoicing.
II
To the inveterate truth-hunter there has been much of melancholy in the very numerous estimates, hasty estimates no doubt, but all manifestly sincere, which the death of Cardinal Newman has occasioned.
The nobility of the pursuit after truth wherever the pursuit may lead has been abundantly recognised. Nobody has been base enough or cynical enough to venture upon a sneer. It has been marvellous to notice what a hold an unpopular thinker, dwelling very far apart from the trodden paths of English life and thought, had obtained upon men's imaginations. The 'man in the street' was to be heard declaring that the dead Cardinal was a fine fellow. The newspaper-makers were astonished at the interest displayed by their readers. How many of these honest mourners, asked the Globe, have read a page of Newman's writings? It is a vain inquiry. Newman's books have long had a large and increasing sale. They stand on all sorts of shelves, and wherever they go a still, small voice accompanies them. They are speaking books; an air breathes from their pages.
‘Again I saw and I confess'd
Thy speech was rare and high,
And yet it vex'd my burden'd breast,
And scared I knew not why.’