Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman Part 2

"In the midsummer holidays, 1825, I went to pay a visit to Walter and Sarah, and it was then I first made acquaintance with John and Frank Newman. The latter was spending the Long Vacation with Mr. Mayers to a.s.sist him in teaching the young men, though he was only nineteen. Among these pupils was Charles Baring, seventeen years old, afterwards Bishop of (the Palatinate see) Durham.

"John Newman walked over from Oxford to breakfast one morning: he was then twenty-four, and a most interesting young man; but him I only saw then once, whereas his brother (Frank) was our daily companion, and took great pains in instructing Sarah (Mrs. Walter Mayers) and myself in Political Economy. His talents and piety attracted my admiration, for I had never seen such young men before. They had both been pupils of Mr. Mayers at a large school at Ealing (in which he was a master), and were considered to be converted in very early life."

Later on is another entry:--

"In the midsummer holidays of 1825" (John Henry Newman was ordained priest on 29th May, 1825), "I went to stay with Walter and Sarah Mayers, and then began my first acquaintance with John Henry Newman and his brother Frank.

The former having walked over from Oxford, seventeen miles, to breakfast, and repeating Milman's beautiful hymn from the _Martyr of Antioch_, 'Brother, thou art gone before us.'

"He was just twenty-four, and his brother Frank, who came soon after to a.s.sist Walter Mayers with his pupils ... was only twenty, but as bright a specimen of a young Oxford student as I had ever met with. They had both been considered converted in early youth, and so uncommon an event was it to me to meet with Christian young men" (men, that is, whose religion was their motive power, and not only used in the conventional and cold formality then usual in the case of so many families in England), "that my admiration knew no bounds. Of course, I told my sister Maria ... all this, and she was quite prepared to appreciate in like manner, when she went to stay at Worton the following summer."

We come now to the time which, whether for happiness or regret, inevitably enters into the lives of most men on this earth--the time when they first meet "the Woman they Never Forget." It does not follow that they are able to marry her, but it _does_ follow that, meet whom they may later, no one will ever oust from her place that first woman in their memories.

Francis Newman was only twenty-one when he first met her.

Maria Rosina Giberne was a beautiful girl, possessing special charm of manner. It was not long after his first meeting with her that Frank Newman fell pa.s.sionately in love with her. Long talks on scientific and religious subjects pa.s.sed between them. But though he cared for her, evidently her feeling for him was only that of friends.h.i.+p and interest, for when, later, he asked her to marry him, she refused. He did not, however, take this for an absolutely final decision (as in effect it was), for five or six years later, when he was on his missionary journey to Syria, and he wrote and begged her to give him a different answer, she refused him again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OVER WORTON RECTORY, OXFORDs.h.i.+RE BY KIND PERMISSION OF REV. W. H. LANGHORNE, PRESENT RECTOR OF WORTON]

The extracts that follow are from her diary of the summer at Worton in 1826--the year she first met the Newman brothers. The extracts are taken from an autobiography of hers, which was originally written in French for the nuns of the "Order of the Visitation" convent at Autun, Saone et Loire, to which she went, as professed nun, after her conversion to the Roman Church.

This is Maria Rosina Giberne's description of Worton (to which I have access by the kindness of my cousin):--

"It was a delightful place; far from towns and quite country. There I spent my days as much as possible under the trees, or in the fields sketching the lovely views. My sister had told me that Mr. Francis Newman and a friend were coming to the village to spend the vacation. I did not pay much attention, being preoccupied with this delicious solitude. In a while the two friends appeared, and I enjoyed hearing them talk, having a great respect for learned men, although far from being learned myself. I asked them questions and propounded religious difficulties which troubled me. I was struck with his (Frank Newman's) piety, which had nothing affected about it like the manner of some good people. We often talked whilst I was sketching in the fields, and he explained to me many things in Holy Scripture that I had not understood. Before leaving the village he expressed a wish that I could become acquainted with his sisters.... This idea pleased me much, and on returning home I gave our mother no peace until she gave me permission to invite two of his sisters to spend a fortnight with us.

"They accepted the invitation, and Mrs. Newman brought her three daughters--Harriet, Jemima, and Mary. She left Harriet and Mary with us. I was much taken at once with Mary, who was nice-looking, unaffected, and only seventeen years of age. I was resolved to make friends with them, otherwise should not have been greatly attracted by Harriet who had a way I could not understand, and who embarra.s.sed me greatly by her knowledge of religious matters, because I had thought that I might be able to lead _them_ to the good way, [Footnote: In some notes she expressly says this was Frank Newman's suggestion primarily.] and behold, they seemed to know all beforehand, and often showed me that I was mistaken in my explanations.... I remember the first thing I opposed with all my might was the idea of a visible Church, and it was not till long afterwards, when I was staying with their mother in the country, that I took up this idea. It was, I think, in the winter of 1827 that I embraced this doctrine.

"Then in the summer the Newman family stayed some months at Brighton.

After John Newman's death the family had no settled home, but moved from place to place. It happened that one of Maria Rosina's married sisters was also at Brighton, and consequently it naturally followed that the two families of Newman and Giberne met often.

"Naturally we called now and then to see Mrs. Newman, who invited us one day to spend the afternoon and evening, and then, for the first time, I became acquainted with Mr. Newman, now Father Newman. It was a great pleasure, for I had heard so much about him, and I enjoyed seeing him though he spoke very little to me, and paid me no compliments or special attentions like most young men of our acquaintance, who neglected the ladies of their families. The delicate and repeated attention of Mr.

Newman to his mother and sisters therefore aroused my admiration and respect."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SKETCH OF NEWMAN FAMILY BY MARIA ROSINA GIBERNE BY KIND PERMISSION OF MR. J. R. MOZLEY.

As one faces the picture, John Henry is sitting on Mrs. Newman's right; Francis William to her left; Harriet to the right of John; Jemima below her mother.]

To my mind there speaks, in this last sentence, something unusual too as regards the writer, who, accustomed to the "compliments and special attentions" which other young men paid her, could yet appreciate and admire these delicate thoughtfulnesses which _this_ young man, who saw so much further into the inner heart and meaning of things, loved to show to his own mother and sisters instead of to other people's sisters, as was and is the ordinary way of most young men.

In some other MSS. by Maria Rosina, sent me from the Oratory, Birmingham, [Footnote: By the kindness of Father Bacchus.] there is a rather different account, in which there is mention of Frank Newman having even then shown a great tendency to free thought.

She adds: "I had not a suspicion that there was any danger of his getting to care for me, for, firstly, he was two years younger than I was; and, secondly, because I myself was occupied almost altogether with the thought of how to rid myself of the narrow religion which was becoming every day more unbearable, and also because I had no other thought for him than for Robert." (Robert Murcott was a young man belonging to a family with whom her people were intimate, and who had always wished to marry her. He went out to India, and when he died left her all his money.)

In years to come, a great and lasting friends.h.i.+p began between her and Cardinal Newman--a friends.h.i.+p which lasted unbroken to the end. When he went to Rome for the red hat, he was too ill to call and see her at Autun on his way home, but he had previously been to see her there.

The picture of the Newman family given here was drawn in chalks by her when she was a girl at a little cottage at Horspath (near Nuneham, in 1829), at which the Newmans were staying. It had been offered them by Mr.

Dornford, Fellow, tutor, and proctor of Oriel, and afterwards rector of Plymtree.

In the book, to which allusion has before been made, by Rev. Thomas Mozley, there is a description of Maria Rosina in later life. He says she was "tall, strong of build, majestic, with aquiline nose, well-formed mouth, dark penetrating eyes, and a luxuriance of glossy black hair. She would command attention anywhere.... She was very early the warmest and most appreciative of Newman's" (John Henry Newman's) "admirers.... Her great power lay in the portraits she did in chalks.... Besides many portraits of Newman himself ... she drew a portrait of old Mr.

Wilberforce...."

The portrait of Maria Rosina in this volume was painted by herself in the spring of 1827, to send to her eldest brother, George Giberne (at Dhoolia, Candeish), afterwards Judge in the Bombay Presidency (East India Co.). On the back of it her brother had written in pencil:--

"Yes, here's a silent, thoughtful thing, and yet Her soft blue eye beams Eloquence: her lips Oh! who could teach his spirit to forget Their deep expressiveness, that far eclipse All that kind nature to this world hath given, All we can see of Earth, or guess of Heaven."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARIA ROSINA GIBERNE FROM A PAINTING BY HERSELF]

At this time she had taken many portraits of her friends, and I have, in my own possession, one of Miss Wigram, and one, in a riding-hat, of her sister Emily, both done in chalks, as is her picture of herself sent to her brother. Later on she went to Rome, where for twenty years she studied art and copied pictures "for the use," Mr. Mozley says, "of English chapels." Years after, when my aunt was in the convent of the Order of Visitation at Autun, she wrote an interesting letter to Cardinal Newman, which is given by Miss Anne Mozley in her _Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman_ alluding to the old days when their friends.h.i.+p, which had never wavered during all the years which had gone by, was but just beginning:--

"I do not want to talk of myself. I want to tell you of my entire sympathy with you in what you say and feel about the anniversary of dear Mary's"

(the Cardinal's youngest sister) "death." (She died 5th Jan., 1828.) "This season never comes round without my repa.s.sing in my heart of hearts all the circ.u.mstances of those few days--my first visit to your dear family.... Who could ever have been acquainted with the soul and heart that lent their expression to that face, and not love her? My sister f.a.n.n.y and I arrived at your house on 3rd January, and sweet Mary, who had drawn figures under my advice when she was staying with us at Wanstead, leant over me at a table in the drawing-room, and in that sweet voice said, 'I am so glad you are come; I hope you will help me in my drawing.'"

The next day she was taken ill at dinner, and on the ensuing evening-- dead.

She goes on to say: "Do you recollect that you and I are the only survivors of that event?"

But to go back to the end of the college life of the subject of this memoir. In the year 1828, Frank Newman was working amongst the poor at Littlemore, near Oxford. His brother [Footnote: _Reminiscences of Oriel_, by Rev. T. Mozley.] at that time was vicar of S. Mary's, the University Church, and as the hamlet of Littlemore had then no church, [Footnote: A church was built there later by Newman. In Ingram's _Memorials of Oxford_, 1838, it is said that in former days Littlemore was beautifully wooded, and that in Saxon times there was a convent (of which there still remain some ruins) which was called by the Saxon name of the "Mynchery," and which belonged to the nuns of the Benedictine Order, and the church which Alfred built on the site of the University Church of to-day, was known as early as the Conquest as "Our Lady of Littlemore."] he attended to the spiritual needs of the people there. Indeed, he considered it his duty to go there every day; and Francis worked also constantly with him in teaching the villagers. Some little time later, his mother and sisters came to live at Horspath, in Iffley village, close to Oxford. They, too, a.s.sisted in parochial matters, taught in the schools, visited the sick, and generally helped the brothers.

By this time John Henry Newman's sermons were attracting great attention in Oxford, and whenever he preached his University sermons, he had a crowded congregation of undergraduates. The college authorities, however, did not approve of his popularity with the undergraduates, and in Canon Carter's _Life and Letters of Archdeacon Hutchings_, there is a note showing this:--"I went to Christ Church in 1827.... Newman was at Oriel, and for the last two years of my time Vicar of S. Mary's. But it was the object of the college authorities to prevent our going to hear him preach, and the chapel services were so arranged as to make it impossible."

In 1829 Dr. Pusey was Professor of Hebrew and Canon of Christ Church, and as he had been for some years the close friend of Frank Newman's brothers, it was inevitable that the former should see a great deal of him at that time. He was delighted with Pusey's first books; but it was for the "pietism and rationalism" which he found in them, more than for any hint of the spirit of Churchmans.h.i.+p which distinguished his other works so much. J. H. Newman had been a tutor at Oriel College since 1826. Oriel College, Rev. Thomas Mozley tells us, was then "held to be in the very front of academic progress ... with a Provost" (Edward Hawkins) "who owed his election largely to Newman." Newman, Robert Wilberforce, and Froude were close friends. Dr. Hawkins had a strong influence over John Newman.

Indeed, he had won love and respect from almost everyone; "he spoke incisively, and what he said remained in the memory"--so much a part of his own strong convictions and thought did it seem to be.

Yet Francis Newman was as convincing in his _writings_, at any rate, as his better-known brother, who, as some thought, "overshadowed" him in the eyes of the world to a large extent. A friend of mine, writing to me a short time since, said that a statement had been made recently, by some one ent.i.tled to judge of the matter, that Francis was the "greater of the two brothers."

Be this as it may, certainly both were pioneers "in a world movement of reconstruction." Both were prophets in a sense. Both were mental Samsons-- giants among the crowd of those who never see a yard beyond their own narrow scope of vision. Both were inspired movers of the crusade of purity, of new and original points of view, and of reformation in the old.

It is true neither could work with the other shoulder to shoulder. _But they worked._ And it is possible to have a great brotherly affection notwithstanding strong antagonism of views which render combined work impossible.

CHAPTER III

HIS MISSIONARY JOURNEY TO THE EAST

In 1826 Francis Newman gained, as it is said, with no special effort, one of the best Double Firsts in cla.s.sics and mathematics ever known. He had a Fellows.h.i.+p in Balliol College, was Emeritus Professor later, and considered to be one of the most promising, brilliant men at his University. Many thought his intellect superior to that of his better- known brother. Many thought also, later on, that, as I have said, all his life he was more or less overshadowed by the fame of that elder brother.

Francis Newman never took his M.A. degree, and for this reason: he felt he could not conscientiously sign the Thirty-nine Articles, in which all had to profess belief. He could not reconcile this signing with his inner convictions. Rather than do violence to them he preferred being without the degree. No one could say of him that all his life long he did else than bear his convictions boldly emblazoned on his s.h.i.+eld. There could never be any doubt of what he thought. He could not beat about the bush in his beliefs--he would not keep them secret--he did not care for unpopularity in the least. His great aim was to fight--at whatever odds-- for whatever he felt by dogged conviction. He was often wrong; but never cowardly, never philandering, never vacillating. "I am anti-everything,"

as he said humorously of himself. And so he was. He _was_, in a sense, "anti-everything," and though, sometimes through the training of previous environments, sometimes through other reasons, he was "anti" things that were right and of good report, he was never against social reform--never against "the cause that needs a.s.sistance"; never against the oppressed wherever and whenever they crossed his path. Newman thus gave up his Balliol Fellows.h.i.+p, and with it--more or less--his chances of a brilliant worldly career.

Briefly stated, these are the chief events of the years that followed the taking of the Double First at Oxford. In 1827 he met Maria Rosina Giberne, who was to strongly influence his life for the next six years. In 1828 he was working with his brother at Littlemore; in 1829, I imagine, he met and felt strongly in sympathy with some of those with whom, later, the missionary journey to Syria was planned--Lord Congleton, Mr. Groves, Dr.

Cronin, and others.

People have said that Newman gave up all worldly hopes of fame for the sake of this missionary venture. It may be that that is true in part. But, for myself, I cannot help seeing too that there may very well have been other powerful reasons which also influenced him in the matter. It was about this time that he asked my aunt, Maria Rosina Giberne, to whom he was pa.s.sionately attached, to marry him, and was refused. I think it very probable that this may have been a strong reason why he wished to break up the old life and go for change abroad.

Originally there had been some idea that Francis Newman should take Holy Orders, as well as his brother. This is evidenced by a poem by the latter.

Later, contrary tides swung the former from the mooring of the Anglican Church. He could not sign her Thirty-nine Articles; he could not agree with many of her doctrines. He drifted more and more away from her. Then he fell in with Lord Congleton (then Mr. Parnell) and Mr. A. N. Groves-- both deeply religious men, though neither of them Churchmen.

Lord Congleton [Footnote: _Memoir of Lord Congleton_, by Henry Groves.]