* * * * *
‘When preaching on the Greatness and Littleness of Human Life, [Newman] refers secretly to this lofty spirit as among the men who, “by such passing flashes, like rays of the sun, and the darting lightning, give tokens of their immortality, … that they are but angels in disguise.”’[391]
From ‘The Life and Correspondence of the late Robert Southey.’ Edited by his Son. London, 1850.
Robert Southey to the Rev. John Miller, July 21, 1838.
‘The publication of Froude’s Remains is likely to do more harm than ——[392] is capable of doing. “The Oxford School” has acted most unwisely in giving its sanction to such a deplorable
example of mistaken zeal. Of the two extremes, the too little and the too much, the too little is that which is likely to produce the worst consequence to the individual, but the too much is more hurtful to the community; for it spreads, and rages, too, like a contagion.’
From ‘A Key to the Popery of Oxford,’ by Peter Maurice, B.D. London: Baisler, 1838.
‘The volumes themselves [the Remains] are highly valuable to every practical student of the human character, because they exhibit an individual in his true colours, and afford evidences of what the human mind (even with all the advantages of natural talent and education) may be brought to, when not guided by the Light which is from above. They cannot but fill the heart of every true Christian with horror, and his eye with tears, when the reflection crosses the mind that views like these are held up as a religion of a meek and lowly Saviour, and that an influence such as that exerted over the wretched object of these memoirs should be permitted to draw away any poor sinner from that open Fountain of purity and holiness which is filled with joy, peace, and love, for all that humbly visit it. There are from time to time a few gleams of light faintly discernible amidst the dark confusion of the moral wilderness; but they are transient and unsatisfactory.’
From ‘Memoirs,’ by Mark Pattison, late Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford. London: Macmillan & Co., 1885.