now of one, a brilliant writer, who had been
entrusted by Newman with writing some of the _Lives of the Saints_. He
did it with great industry, but in the course of his researches he
arrived at the conviction that there was hardly anything truly
historical about his Saints and that the miracles ascribed to them
were insipid, and might be the inventions of their friends; such
legends, he felt, would take no root on English soil, at all events
not in the present generation. In consequence he informed Newman that
he could not keep his promise, or that, if he did so, he must speak
the truth, tell people what they might believe about these Saints, and
what was purely fanciful in the accounts of their lives. And what was
Newman's answer? He did not respect the young man's scruples, but
encouraged him to go on, because, as he said, people would never
believe more than half of these Lives, and that therefore some of
these unsupported legends also might prove useful, if only as a kind
of ballast.

"I rejoice to hear of your success," he writes, August 21, 1843. "As
to St. Grimball, of course we must expect such deficiencies; where
matter is found, it is all gain, and there are plenty of Lives to put
together, as you will see, when you see the whole list.

"I am rather for _inserting_ (of course discreetly and in way of
selection) the miracles for which you have not good evidence. (1) They
are beautiful, you say, and will tell in the narrative. (2) Next you
can say that the evidence is weak, and this will be bringing credit
for the others where you say the evidence is strong. People will never
go _so far_ as your narrative. Cut it down to what is true, and they
will disbelieve a part of _it_; put in these legends and they will
compound for the true at the sacrifice of what may be true, but is not
well attested."

I confess I cannot quite follow. If a man like Newman believed in
these saints and their miracles, his pleading would become
intelligible, but it seems from this very letter that he did not, and
yet he tried to persuade his young friend to go on and not to gather
the tares, "lest haply he might root up the wheat with them. Let both
grow together until the harvest." I do not like to judge, but I doubt
whether this kind of teaching could have strengthened the healthy
moral fibre of a man's conscience and have led him to depend entirely
on his sense of truth. And yet this was the man who at one time was
supposed to draw