dinal Newman. Whether we consider him as a man, with
his powerful yet gracious personality, or as a religious reformer, who did
much to break down old religious prejudices by showing the underlying
beauty and consistency of the Roman church, or as a prose writer whose
style is as near perfection as we have ever reached, Newman is one of the
most interesting figures of the whole nineteenth century.

LIFE. Three things stand out clearly in Newman's life: first, his unshaken
faith in the divine companionship and guidance; second, his desire to find
and to teach the truth of revealed religion; third, his quest of an
authoritative standard of faith, which should remain steadfast through the
changing centuries and amid all sorts and conditions of men. The first led
to that rare and beautiful spiritual quality which shines in all his work;
the second to his frequent doctrinal and controversial essays; the third to
his conversion to the Catholic church, which he served as priest and
teacher for the last forty-five years of his life. Perhaps we should add
one more characteristic,--the practical bent of his religion; for he was
never so busy with study or controversy that he neglected to give a large
part of his time to gentle ministration among the poor and needy.

He was born in London, in 1801. His father was an English banker; his
mother, a member of a French Huguenot family, was a thoughtful, devout
woman, who brought up her son in a way which suggests the mother of Ruskin.
Of his early training, his reading of doctrinal and argumentative works,
and of his isolation from material things in the thought that there were
"two and only two absolute and luminously self-evident beings in the
world," himself and his Creator, it is better to read his own record in the
_Apologia_, which is a kind of spiritual biography.

At the age of fifteen Newman had begun his profound study of theological
subjects. For science, literature, art, nature,--all the broad interests
which attracted other literary men of his age,--he cared little, his mind
being wholly occupied with the history and doctrines of the Christian
church, to which he had already devoted his life. He was educated first at
the school in Ealing, then at Oxford, taking his degree in the latter place
in 1820. Though his college career was not more brilliant than that of many
unknown men, his unusual ability was recognized and he was made a fellow of
Oriel College, retaining the fel