‘Newman … taught at an early period that self-knowledge is the basis of all religious knowledge. Whether Froude adopted or originated this doctrine, it must have stimulated his fears: for it was a proverb with him that “everyone may know worse of himself than he possibly can of Charles the Second.” In less than six months after the thanksgiving recorded above, we find him protesting (January 10, 1827) that he dares not now utter the prayers of wise and holy men, and that God has affrighted him with hideous dreams, and disquieted him with perpetual mortifications…. It is to Keble that he owes his release, for how long he knows not, from the misery in which he has been recently bound. At the same time Keble advises him to give up his ascetic self-denial, and Froude acquiesces. Though it had the colour of humility, it now appears to him to have been in reality the food of pride: self-imposed, it seems to him “quite different from imposed by the Church.” What sort of self-denials they were, and what Froude’s self-introspection implied, the reader ought to be informed for two reasons: first, because they show the fierce determination and almost bitter self-hatred with which the young man turned against himself, in his resolution to suppress his own egotism and conceit; and secondly, because Newman and Keble (or perhaps Keble instigated by Newman), thought it worth while to record the minutest of these details, and spoke of the Journal as a most valuable contribution to Tractarian literature. Froude sets down, for example, (and they print!) that he was ashamed, on one occasion, to have it known that he had no gloves; that he was ashamed, on another, that he had muddy trousers (although he would not go to the length of concealing them); that he was pleased, on another, when there was no Evening Prayer; that he felt an impulse of pleasure on finding that W. was not at Chapel one morning; that he ostentatiously hinted to S. that he got up at six o’clock; that he read affectedly in evening Chapel; that he felt an inclination to make remarks with a view to
showing how much he had thought upon serious subjects; and that once, after accidentally breaking one of W.’s windows, he felt a disposition to “sneak away.” … He seriously argues the pros and cons (“bothering” himself about it for three days), concerning the purchase of a great-coat. On the one side, there is the fact that he “wants,” i.e., needs it, which one would have thought would have been conclusive; but against this he sets the fact that he “wishes” it; and therefore it will be well to deny himself the satisfaction…. By his own confession, he occasionally made himself stupid and sleepy through his ascetic habits. But to the last he retained his admiration for them, at all events when they were imposed by external authority….
‘Why did the Editors of Froude’s Remains give to the world these extraordinary confessions?… If, indeed, Froude had taken Keble’s advice, they could not thus have made his secrets the property of posterity; for he had advised his pupil not only to give up his self-imposed asceticisms, but also to burn his confessions. But this advice was given in 1826; whereas the Remains were published in 1838. Are we wrong in inferring that during this interval, Keble may have been pushed forward by Newman his Co-editor, who taught that all religious knowledge must be based on self-knowledge? From the Letters, this seems probable…. It follows, at once, that there is very little thankfulness in Froude’s form of Christianity. The visible world seemed so full of delusion, mockery, and temptation, that a hostile or ironical attitude towards it was the only one possible. “This irony,” says James Mozley, “arose from that peculiar mode in which Froude viewed all earthly things, himself and all that was dear to him not excepted.” What was this peculiar mode? To define it briefly would be difficult. It must have recognised something of reality and goodness in those friends and allies towards whom his heart went out, and with whom he was ready to labour, to the end, for what he considered the “Truth,” freely placing his fortune, his faculties, and his last breath, at their disposal. But still, it was not the “mode” of St. Paul, nor of Keble; it was more like, though not quite like, that of Newman. It was certainly not the “mode” of the author
who wrote that “God giveth us all things richly to enjoy.” Indeed, “irony” is perhaps hardly the right word to use of the superficial self-mockery, but more profound self-hatred and self-contempt, approaching sometimes to despair, with which, in some of his self-introspective moods, Froude smites and rends himself, and his faults; yes, and his resolves to correct his faults, sometimes even pouring scorn upon himself for writing down his own good resolutions, and for thinking well of himself, in the act of doing it. “The chief reason,” he says, “for my being interested in any object, is the fact that I happen to be pursuing it,” “nor can I look with serious feeling on the miseries of anyone but my own. The blight of God is on me for my selfish life.” … Is “irony” a term quite strong enough to denote this savage, sarcastic self-laceration, which, if persisted in, would result in moral and spiritual suicide? So far, it would seem that the two friends resembled each other in almost every one of their principles of religious thought. A religion of fear; a profound sense of an awful Holiness; an absence of general loving-kindness and human-heartedness; a vast and almost servile respect for power as power; an inclination to asceticism, in the older of the two as a test of sincerity, but in the younger, rather as a means of suppressing the passions; a dread of wilfulness, and a rooted suspicion of self,—these feelings appear to have been, in both, so powerful and original, that whatever influence either might exert upon the other would result, not in changing, but in confirming and hardening; or at most, in suggesting some new application of the theories common to both.
‘We now pass to the only principle in which the two seem first to have differed, but ultimately to have agreed. This principle (if it may be so called) is that of tact or management, especially in the diffusion, colouring, and sometimes in the reservation or suppression, of religious doctrine, with a view to surmounting prejudice and instilling truth. To this, Newman (though not the first to use the word in this sense) gave the name of “economy.” There are many reasons for concluding that in this one respect Froude was passive, a simple recipient from Newman…. Froude anticipated, and endeavoured to develop precipitately, the logical
results, both of the principles which they held in common, and of those which he instilled into his friend, and also of this particular principle which alone his friend seems to have instilled into him. Such a development may be often noticed, when a strong-willed man who sees only one side of a question, takes up a plan invented by another who sees many. The inventor may be moderate; the adopter carries the invention to excess. Froude was at that time (1834) dragging Newman onwards towards Roman doctrine; but he may have submitted to learn from Newman the best method of diffusing it. He did not like the method, and therefore he called it by bad names, such as “undermining,” “poisoning,” and the like….
‘Newman’s formal usual doctrine [was] that as we cannot be sure about our own salvation, so neither can we about that of others; that we have enough to do with thinking and fearing about our own eternal concerns; that, as before God, no man can help another, for we must not only die alone but live alone, nor can there be any spiritual contact between soul and soul, in this life. Yet at least on one occasion his feelings were too strong for his dogma. When Froude drew near to death, Newman refused to fear for his sake. With him in his mind, he would not use his favourite metaphor of “grovelling worms,” to describe the relation between the human and the divine. Casting away all reserve, all doubts, and all terrors, he shoots up to a Miltonic height, in the confidence that God cannot waste this immortal soul which He has made. Thus he writes to Froude himself:
‘“It made me think how many posts there are in His kingdom, how many offices, Who says to one Do this, and he doeth it. It is quite impossible that, some way or other, you are not destined to be the instrument of God’s purposes. Though I saw the earth cleave and you fall in, or Heaven open and a chariot appear, I should say just the same. God has ten thousand posts of service. You might be of use in the central elemental fire; you might be of use in the depths of the sea.”[373]
‘The same passionate conviction, based not upon Authority or upon Scripture, but upon his own sense of what must be
right, finds expression also in a sermon written about the same time.[374]