The liquefaction must be, as the Neapolitans hold it to be, a miracle—a fact contrary to the laws of nature, wrought by the power of God for a purpose worthy of himself.
THE PRINCETON REVIEW ON DR. FABER.[94]
Twenty years ago, Dr. Newman delivered a series of lectures on “The Present Position of Catholics in England.” The scope of these lectures was the exposition of the English Protestant view of the Catholic Church. Dr. Newman showed, with an ability, skill, and cogency of argument, a mastery of language, a wealth of illustration, and a keenness of satire which even he has rarely equalled in his voluminous writings, what is the nature, origin, basis, and life of this view. Its sustaining power, he proves, is tradition, its basis fable, its life prejudice, its protection ignorance. We take the liberty of recommending this volume to the writer whom we are now intending to criticise, to the conductors of the distinguished review for which he writes, and to the clergy and reading laity in general of his eminently respectable denomination. The indignation to which the British Lion was roused, and the fierce assault which he made upon the illustrious athlete who entered his cage and took him by the beard of prejudice, so thick, of such ancient growth, and so venerable in his own eyes, is an evidence of the power of Dr. Newman’s arm and the efficacy of his weapon. The exposure which he made of one of the apostate traducers of the Catholic religion, after whom the English public for a while ran open-mouthed, gave occasion to a prosecution for libel, as the result of which Dr. Newman was condemned to a fine and imprisonment. It was a striking illustration and confirmation of what Dr. Newman had so boldly declared.
The consequence has been that the person whom Dr. Newman was judged by the English jury to have libelled stands just where he did before the sentence was pronounced, and that Dr. Newman himself is fawned upon by the British Lion with almost the affection which another lion felt for Androcles when he drew a thorn from his paw.
The old Protestant tradition or view about Catholics lingers still about its ancient haunts in England, and probably survives in the minds of a majority of the English people. Its force is, however, diminished, and its prestige is waning, thanks, in great part, to Dr. Newman, but in a considerable measure also to his gifted and holy friend and disciple, Dr. Faber. In the United States, the Protestant view and tradition about Catholics was colonized along with the other British institutions which the first settlers transplanted from the mother country. It has given way in part within the last quarter of a century, and with more facility than in England. Yet it still retains an extensive and strong hold upon our soil, and needs many vigorous efforts in order that it may be wholly uprooted. The article we are reviewing is an instance and an evidence of the condition in which this old Protestant view is lying at present in a large class of minds, of whom the author may be taken as a representative. On the one hand, his whole tone and line of thought and reasoning is a perfect illustration of the thesis of Dr. Newman’s lectures. On the other, his manner of speaking about Dr. Faber and his writings shows the beginning of a caving-in of the great dyke of prejudice even among the stricter and more old-fashioned Protestants. As to the way in which a Catholic should endeavor to open a breach for the tide through this heap
of sand, Dr. Newman has shown it to such perfection in his aforesaid lectures that we can only follow out and apply his method, and push forward in some new directions the work which he has substantially completed. We will, therefore, begin by a somewhat long quotation from one of these lectures, as the basis of the remarks we have to make ourselves, in which we shall endeavor to make the line of argument adopted by Dr. Newman bear more directly and in detail upon certain specific topics brought to view in the article under notice:
“PREJUDICE THE LIFE OF THE PROTESTANT VIEW.
“In attributing the extreme aversion and contempt in which we Catholics are held by this great Protestant country to the influence of falsehood and misrepresentation, energetic in its operation and unbounded in its extent, I believe in my heart I have referred it to a cause which will be acknowledged to be both real and necessary by the majority of thoughtful minds, Catholic or not, who set themselves to examine the state of the case. Take an educated man, who has seen the world, and interested himself in the religious bodies, disputes, and events of the day—let him be ever so ill-disposed towards the Catholic Church, yet I think, if he will but throw his mind upon the subject, and then candidly speak out, he will confess that the arguments which lead him to his present state of feeling about her, whatever they are, would not be sufficient for the multitude of men. The multitude, if it is to be arrested and moved, requires altogether a different polemic from that which is at the command of the man of letters, of thought, of feeling, and of honor. His proofs against Catholicism, though he considers them sufficient himself, and considers that they ought to be sufficient for the multitude, have a sobriety, a delicacy, an exactness, a nice adjustment of parts, a width and breadth, a philosophical cumulativeness, an indirectness and circuitousness, which will be lost on the generality of men. The problem is, how to make an impression on those who have never
learned to exercise their minds, to compare thought with thought, to analyze an argument or to balance probabilities. The Catholic Church appeals to the imagination, as a great fact, wherever she comes; she strikes it: Protestants must find some idea equally captivating as she is, something fascinating, something capable of possessing, engrossing, and overwhelming, if they are to battle with her hopefully: their cause is lost unless they can do this. It was, then, a thought of genius, and, as I think, superhuman genius, to pitch upon the expedient which has been used against the church from Christ’s age to our own; to call her, as in the first century Beelzebub, so in the sixteenth Antichrist; it was a bold, politic, and successful move. It startled men who heard; and whereas Antichrist, by the very notion of his character, will counterfeit Christ, he will therefore be, so far, necessarily like him; and, if Antichrist is like Christ, then Christ, I suppose, must be like Antichrist; thus, there was, even at first starting, a felicitous plausibility about the very charge which went far towards securing belief, while it commanded attention.