s going over to Rome reached
his friends at Oxford, their consternation seemed to be like that of
people watching the deathbed of a friend. I am sorry I saw nothing of
Newman at that time; when I sat with him afterwards in his study at
Birmingham, he was evidently tired of controversy, and unwilling to
reopen questions which to him were settled once for all, or if not
settled, at all events closed and relinquished. I could never form a
clear idea of the man, much as I admired his sermons; his brother and
his own friends gave such different accounts of him. That even at
Littlemore he was still faithful to his own national Church, anxious
only to bring it nearer to its ancient possibly Roman type, can hardly
be doubted. When he wrote from Littlemore to his friend De Lisle, he
had no reason to economize the truth. De Lisle hoped that Newman would
soon openly join the Church of Rome, but Newman answered: "You must
allow me to be honest with you in adding one thing. A distressing
feeling arises in my mind that such marks of kindness as these on your
part are caused by a belief that I am ever likely to join your
communion ... I must assure you then with great sincerity that I have
not the shadow of an internal movement known to myself towards such a
step. While God is with me where I am, I will not seek Him elsewhere.
I might almost say in the words of Scripture, 'We have found the
Messias!'..."

How true this is, and yet the same Newman went over to the unreformed
Church, because the Archbishop of Canterbury had sanctioned Bunsen's
proposal of an Anglo-German bishopric of Jerusalem, quite forgetful of
the fact that Synesius also had been bishop of Ptolemais. Again I say,
What have such matters to do with true religion, such as we read of in
the New Testament, as an ideal to be realized in our life on earth?
And it so happened that at the same time I knew of families rendered
miserable through Newman's influence, of young girls, daughters of
narrow-minded Anglicans, hurried over to Rome, of young men at Oxford
with their troubled consciences which under Newman's direct or
indirect guidance could end only in Rome. Newman's influence must have
been extraordinary; the tone in which people who wished to free
themselves from him, who had actually left him, spoke of him, seemed
tremulous with awe. I would give anything to have known him at that
time, when I knew him through his disciples only. They were caught in
various ways. I k