hed, not burned; and it is only fair to myself to say that
neither at this, nor any other time of my life, not even when I was
fiercest, could I have even cut off a Puritan's ears, and I think the
sight of a Spanish _auto-da-fe_ would have been the death of me. Again,
when one of my friends, of liberal and evangelical opinions, wrote to
expostulate with me on the course I was taking, I said that we would
ride over him and his, as Othniel prevailed over Chushan-rishathaim,
king of Mesopotamia. Again, I would have no dealings with my brother,
and I put my conduct upon a syllogism. I said, "St. Paul bids us avoid
those who cause divisions; you cause divisions: therefore I must avoid
you." I dissuaded a lady from attending the marriage of a sister who had
seceded from the Anglican Church. No wonder that Blanco White, who had
known me under such different circumstances, now hearing the general
course that I was taking, was amazed at the change which he recognized
in me. He speaks bitterly and unfairly of me in his letters
contemporaneously with the first years of the Movement; but in 1839, on
looking back, he uses terms of me, which it would be hardly modest in me
to quote, were it not that what he says of me in praise occurs in the
midst of blame. He says: "In this party [the anti-Peel, in 1829] I
found, to my great surprise, my dear friend, Mr. Newman of Oriel. As he
had been one of the annual Petitioners to Parliament for Catholic
Emancipation, his sudden union with the most violent bigots was
inexplicable to me. That change was the first manifestation of the
mental revolution, which has suddenly made him one of the leading
persecutors of Dr. Hampden, and the most active and influential member
of that association called the Puseyite party, from which we have those
very strange productions, entitled, Tracts for the Times. While stating
these public facts, my heart feels a pang at the recollection of the
affectionate and mutual friendship between that excellent man and
myself; a friendship, which his principles of orthodoxy could not allow
him to continue in regard to one, whom he now regards as inevitably
doomed to eternal perdition. Such is the venomous character of
orthodoxy. What mischief must it create in a bad heart and narrow mind,
when it can work so effectually for evil, in one of the most benevolent
of bosoms, and one of the ablest of minds, in the amiable, the
intellectual, the refined John Henry Newman!" (Vol. iii