Mr. Newman's quarto volume on Theism, written in metre, is the greatest compendium of Theistical argument published in my time, and until Darwin wrote, no entirely conclusive answer was possible.
Francis Newman had a travelling mind. From the time when I published his "Personal Narrative" of his early missionary experience at Aleppo, he grew, year by year, more rationalistic in his religious judgment. In one of his papers, written in the year of his death, he said: "It may be asked, 'Is Mr. Newman a disciple of Jesus?' I answer, 'Of all nations that I know, that have a religion established by law, I have never seen the equal to what is attributed to Jesus himself. But much is attributed to Him—I disapprove of.' On the whole, if I am asked, 'Do you call yourself a Christian?' I say, in contrast to other religions, 'Yes! I do,' and so far I must call myself a Christian. But if you put upon me the words Disciple of Jesus, meaning the believing all Jesus teaches to be light and truth I cannot say it, and I think His words variously unprovable. Now all disciples, when they come to full age, ought to seek to surpass their masters. Therefore, if Jesus had faults, we, after more than two thousand years' experience, ought to expect to surpass Him, especially when an immense routine of science has been elaborately built up, with a thousand confirmations all beyond the thought of Jesus."
What a progressive order of thought would exist now in the Christian world had Mr. Newman's conception of discipleship prevailed in the Churches!
Mr. Newman's words about myself, occurring in his work on "The Soul," I remember with pride. They were written at a time when I had an ominous reputation among theologians. When residing at Clifton as a professor, Mr. Newman came down to Broadmead Rooms at Bristol, and took the chair at one of my lectures, and spoke words on my behalf which only he could frame. But he was as fearless in his friendship as he was intrepid in his faith. He wrote to me, April 30, 1897, saying: "I appeal to your compassion when I say, that the mere change of opinion on a doubtful fact has perhaps cost me the regard of all who do not know me intimately." The "fact" related to the probability of annihilation at death. He regretted the loss of friendship, but never varied in his lofty fidelity to conscience. Whatever might be his interest in a future life, if it were the will of God not to concede it, he held it to be the duty of one who placed his trust in Him to acquiesce. The spirit of piety never seemed to me nobler, than in this unusual expression of unmurmuring, unpresuming resignation.
His first wife, who was of the persuasion of the Plymouth Brethren, had little sympathy with his boldness and fecundity of thought. Once, when he lived at Park Village, Regent's Park, his friend, Dr. James Martineau, came into the room; she opened the window and stepped out on to the lawn, rather than meet him. Mr. Newman was very tender as to her scruples, but stood by his own. When I visited him, he asked me, from regard to her, to give the name of "Mr. Jacobs"—the name I used when a teacher in Worcester in 1840, where I lectured under my own name and taught under another.
On February 12, 1897, Mr. Newman wrote:—"Mv dear Holyoake,—I am not coming round to you, though many will think I am. On the contrary, I hope you are half coming round to me, but I have no time to talk on these matters." He then asked my advice as to his rights over his own publications, then in the hands of Mr. Frowde, printer, of Oxford; but with such care for the rights of others, such faultless circumspection as to the consequences to others in all he wished done, as to cause me agreeable surprise at the unfailing perspicacity of his mind, his unchanging, scrupulous, and instinctive sense of justice.
He regarded death with the calmness of a philosopher. He wrote to me April 30, 1897: "Only those near me know how I daily realise the near approach of my own death (he was then ninety-three). I grudge every day wasted by things unfinished which remain for me to do." No apprehension, no fear, and he wished I could "appear before him, with a document drawn up," by which he could consign to me the custody of all the works under his control. At the time, as he said, he might "easily be in his grave" before I could accomplish his wishes. He says in another letter that his "wife, like himself, abhorred indebtedness." He provided for the probable cost of everything he wished done. His sense of honour remained as keen as his sense of faith. He was a gentleman first and a Christian afterwards.
Mr. Gladstone told me he was under the impression that he had, in some way unknown to himself, lost the friendship of Mr. Newman, from whom he had not heard for several years; and Mr. Newman was under an impression that Mr. Gladstone's silence was occasioned by disapproval of his published views of the "Errors of Jesus"—an error of assumption respecting Mr. Gladstone into which Mr. Newman might naturally, but not excusably, fall; for Mr. Newman should have known that Mr. Gladstone had a noble tolerance equal to his own, or should personally have tested it, by letter or otherwise, before nurturing an adverse conjecture. I mentioned the matter to Mr. Gladstone, and found Mr. Newman's surmise groundless. At the same time I gave him a copy of Mr. Francis Newman's "Secret Songs" (as one copy given to me was called) which revealed to Mr. Gladstone a devotional spirit he did not, as he said, imagine could co-exist in one whose faith was so divergent to his own.
The following letter, which has autobiographical value, may interest the reader:—
"Norwood Villa, 15, Arundel Crescent,