CHAPTER XI. THE VICTORIAN AGE (1850-1900)Among the religious writers of the age the first place be-
longs unquestionably to Cardinal Newman. Whether we
consider him as a man, with his powerful yet gracious per-
sonality, 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 guid-
ance; second, his desire to find and to teach the truth of re-
vealed 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 con-
troversial 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 theApologia, which is a kind
of spiritual biography.
At the age of fifteen Newman had begun his profound