"We heaped our rudest boxes to make a wall, and on the lee side prepared a sleeping-place, stretching over it some oilskins…. We had a small supply of food in baskets…. All night the rain fell in torrents…. Our whole floor was swamped; we had to sit on carpet bags and let them get wet. Clothes, bedding, bags, baskets, were drenched, and we had to mount in the morning in the midst of rain…. The roads were river-beds…. After riding eleven hours without dismounting (the beasts never leave their walking pace)…. We had fasted the whole day, yet none of us suffered; not even old Mrs. Cronin, for whom I greatly feared."
I should add here that Francis Newman was strongly in favour of women riding astride instead of on the Early-Victorian side-saddle, which necessitates a woman riding in an artificial, twisted position. Still, at the period at which he is writing, Early-Victorian ideas about the fitness of things were so muchde rigueurthat Mrs. Cronin, when forced to ride astride, was terribly disturbed.
"'Ach, Edward,' said she to her son, 'I expected they would persecute and murdher us, but I never thought to ride across a mule!'… Three times did her mule come down with her, poor lady, and all three in dangerous places.
"None of the rest suffered so many falls, nor, I think, any of the laden beasts. Her son was in terrible distress at every fall, for he was carrying his infant in his arms … and he could not put the child down in the mud without danger to it."
Indeed, it must have been a very distressful journey for all, and not least for the poor little infant missionary! People may wonder what was the necessity of taking this last at all. [Footnote: Dr. Cronin and his wife were both engaged to come out to Mr. Groves. Then she died, and as he felt bound to fulfil his promise and did not like to leave the baby, he brought it too.] An old clergyman, however, once said to me, "I would rather take an infant in arms with me, than go all by myself on a journey abroad."
At last Aleppo was reached. In his letter, on 10th February to his mother, Newman says how long their stay there would be is quite uncertain. He "is taking daily lessons in Arabic, and speaking French."
"I am afraid you will not think the better of me when I tell you that I am become a smoker; and this though I had so great a dislike to it in England. I do not mean that I am always smoking—certainly not; but I have bought two pipes and amber mouthpieces, and all the apparatus; which shows that I am in earnest. When a man in college smoked cigars in his room, and we (the Balliol fellows) generally condemned it, I remember, in reply to my remark that a man who smoked made himself a nuisance, one of them said, 'It would not do to generalize; for in Germany the man whoobjectsto smoking is the nuisance.' … If anyone calls on me I must offer him a pipe and smoke one myself; and, conversely, when I call on anyone, I must not refuse the pipe…. The pipe fills up gaps of time, and 'breaks the ice' like an Englishman's remarks on the weather….
"Now I am in for it, I will make you perfect in the theory of smoking. We have here three sorts of pipes, of which I use but one, viz. the long straight pipe. It is generally a cherry stick, and reaches from the mouth to the ground as you sit on a low sofa. The bowl is supported in a tin frame on the ground to catch the ashes; and you smoke in ittôotôon, which means common dry tobacco…. Ladies, as far as I know, do not smoke the straight pipe, though I have seen Mussulman females, evidently of humble rank, with the long pipe and its smoking bowl protruding from under their long veil as they walked. The second sort is calledNargîli… some pronounce it Narjili…. Nargîli means a cocoa-nut, which is used in this apparatus to hold the water through which the smoke passes. Vertically out of the cocoa-nut rises a pipe which ends in a long bowl holding theTambac, which is a second species of tobacco having broadish yellow leaves worked up with wet. It needs a piece of red-hot coal laid upon it, and left there, to kindle it. Slanting out of the cocoa-nut proceeds upwards a second tube, a mere cane, which ends in the smoker's mouth. He grasps the vertical tube in his left fist, and, if sitting, rests the cocoa-nut on his knee. This is the way my hostess smokes—an elegant Levantine lady…. I cannot smoke through water; I find it demands too much work for my lungs. The third sort is theHooka, a word which, I believe, means the very long flexible tube which is here substituted for the cane, while a glass vessel, standing on the ground, does duty for the cocoa-nut. The principle of the smoking … are the same as in the Nargili…. Unless it be overdone, I think the exercise from early youth must enlarge the capacity and power of the lungs…. When people have not a second pipe to offer you, they hand the pipe from their own mouth, and to wipe the mouthpiece before you suck it would be an insult."
Newman says that the Turks are supposed to have a great tenderness for animals. There is a popular saying, which he quotes, "A Turk cares more for the life of a cat than of a man." The following curious scene was witnessed by him in a town on his way to Aleppo:—
"A goat was to be killed, and we had some chance of a bit if one of us would seize a part of the animal before it was dead.Therestood the victim and its priest.
"In front was a row of cats, sitting up with all the gravity of Egyptian gods, or like the regiment of cats which were the van of Cambyses against Egypt. On the other side a regiment of dogs. When the scarlet flood spouted on to the ground the dogs took their portion of it. I know not what etiquette or what hint from the sacrificer suddenly dispersed them: then the cats came in due order and tooktheirportion…. Peace was wonderfully kept between dogs and cats; but when it came to dividing the offal, the cats had plenty of screaming, and, I rather think, some fighting. The number of these wild cats here is a real nuisance."
In May we get another insight into the carrying out of Newman's precept to himself, always to "live in Rome as the Romans."
"I believe you know it was always our idea that we must put on native habits wherever we went, so far at least as to encounter no needless friction. I had not then considered how seriously such change may after a time affect one's own character, and the thought sometimes crosses the mind anxiously.
"We smoke. Well. I say to myself, 'I must try not to be wedded to this practice: I hope to leave it off the moment it proves inexpedient.'…. I have taken to the Syrian gown and slippers; to walk actively in these is arduous and, I suppose, very singular. Here is a question: May not my bodily habit change with it? and may not that affect my mind?… The gown is ridiculously feminine, beyond what I had been aware; not merely in length and amplitude, but above the girdle it is puffed out into twobosoms, which are used as pockets" (no doubt thesinusof the Romans). "… Some things which in company we do as seldom as possible, such as to blow the nose, or (worse still) to spit, seem to be utterly forbidden here…. The natives are reserved in the use of a pocket-handkerchief as the most fastidious English lady…. I believe Xenophon praises the Persians for never spitting in company." (Would that our own working classes could, in this respect, be more Persian in their habits!) "Are not all Eastern manners probably a plant of very ancient growth?" Then, on religion: "I did not understand till lately how unintelligible to people here is a religion which is not external and almost obtrusive. We are certainly thought much better of, because, two of our party having pretty good voices, we commonly sing praises in daily worship…. To pray standing, or, as I should rather say, lying flat, at the corners of the streets is not ostentation here: for so many do it that it has no pre- eminence…. I always looked to see a missionary church formed in these countries; but I did not foresee what I now discern, that it would not be recognized as Christians at all, but be esteemed a mere Anglicism, not by papists merely, but by Moslems too. I do not know, after all, whether that could be ever apermanentobstacle. I believe not; for it is not the name, but the goodness of Christianity that must prevail. However, the now current idea here is, that the English are very good men, but havenoreligion—which means, as I said, no exterior; and in so farourexterior inspires something of respect…. I had resolved to read the Koran through—not in the original, but in a translation—that I might get some insight into the Mussulman mind…. But I confess to you I have broken sheer down in the attempt, … the book makes no impression on my mind. I cannot find where I left off when I recur to it. That so tedious and shallow a work can meet such praises gives me a lower and lower idea of the power of mind in these nations. I now think that the Arabs are captivated by the tinkle and epigrammatic point of an old and sacred dialect, while Turks and Persians take its literary beauty as a religious fact to be believed, not to be felt. How wonderful is the power of tradition!"
In July, Newman and his party were still at Aleppo. By now they had become well accustomed to the native foods, but had at last come to the conclusion that the meat (mutton) was certainly not good; unfortunately it formed a large proportion of the stews. One dish consisted of rice, dressed with butter and salt This is called "Piláu" (pronounced "ow"), and apparently is the same as that common in Russia to-day, which isdelicious.
"This piláu is, fundamentally, rice dressed with butter and salt: the rice is thrown into boiling water, and is boiled for twenty minutes only. This is the highest luxury of the Bedouins. We saw a company of them dine on it. They scraped the hot outside of the rice with the tips of their fingers, squeezed it into a ball in their hand, and shot the ball into their mouth. The dexterity of this, so as not to burn their fingers, miss their mouths, nor drop about their garments, is astonishing…. Carrots with lemon or sour milk make delicious fritters…."
It was during this month that the news came to them from Bagdad that Mr. Groves (who, it will be remembered, had been there for some time, expecting them later to join him) had just lost his wife from plague; that she had been the only one who had caught the disease. Newman himself, about this time, had a sharp attack of fever. Dr. Cronin was much alarmed about him; indeed, he believed him to be dying, and leeched his temples and bled his right arm. Then he tried calomel, and he said that he had resolved on opening his temporal artery if his pulse had kept as rapid as at first it was.
[Illustration: DR. CRONINONE OF THOSE WHO WENT TO SYRIA WITH FRANCIS NEWMAN IN 1830BY KIND PERMISSION OF MRS. CRONINPHOTO BY MESSRS. WEBSTER, CLAPHAM COMMON]
In Aleppo, he tells us in one of his letters home, "madmen are looked on as sacred characters… there are no madhouses in the land…. Certainly in England the results of turning all the mad loose would be awful.
"But when one sees the entire satisfaction there is here with so ugly and revolting a state of things, and the inability people have to conceive the inconvenience of it… I am driven to speculate…. Is insanity excessively rare here, so that outrages, if they do occur, are naturally very few? or is the insanity… always of the imbecile kind? Or is insanity, at its worst, mollified by the respectful treatment which it meets, as vicious horses by kindness?
"… Here is a people without lunatic asylums. Well, their lunatics are few or harmless; what a comfortable coincidence! If insanity amongusis caused by strong passions in one class and by intoxication in another, while the Turkish populations are nearly free from both… it implies a higher average morality…. Add to this there are no abandoned women here."
Five months after the first attack of fever Newman was taken ill of a far worse one, which gave a great shock to his nervous system. He was in real danger of losing his life this time, possibly because, Dr. Cronin being absent, there was no one to treat him. He suffered, too, greatly from continual sleeplessness. When he was recovering, Dr. Cronin, who by now had returned, ordered horse exercise for him, and Mr. Parnell very generously bought a horse for him.
In December, 1831, Mr. and Mrs. Parnell [Footnote: Mr. Parnell meant to have been married to Miss Cronin at Bordeaux, but this was found to be impossible, so he was obliged to wait till they reached Aleppo, where the ceremony took place in the early part of the year 1831.] went to Ladakîa to help Mr. Hamilton, whose health had more or less broken down, secure a vessel to take him to Franceen routefor England. He determined to see him safely on board. Mrs. Parnell also insisted on coming with her husband. But the travelling was rough, and she had had a bad fall from her ass, and besides had been ill and had no doctor at hand.
Mr. Hamilton went away in the ship, but Mrs. Parnell became more and more weak, until at last she died. Immediately on hearing of her death. Dr. Cronin set out, full of sorrow at the loss of his sister, to see if he could be of any help to Mr. Parnell. Newman writes:—
"The brother and mother here are so deeply afflicted, that I ask: What does the noble-hearted bridegroom suffer, but so lately a bridegroom?
"I am astounded at the reverse. Two months back she was hanging over my pillow weeping and kissing me as a dying man; now am I in youthful vigour, and she is in her grave.
"What a meek and quiet spirit was she, active to laboriousness, though refined in person. Affectionate she was, very dear to me also, but unspeakable is the loss to others. This is the third wife taken from those whom I desired as comrades: one died in Dublin, one in Bagdad, now one in Ladakîa….
"Noblameagainst Mr. P. ought to be mixed with sympathy for this melancholy event. His wife's brother, on medical grounds, saw no objection to the journey…. Few English ladies are in body so well adapted as she was to bear the inconveniences, the long weariness, or the dangerous exposures of Turkish travel."
At last the time was come for the journey to Bagdad. Francis Newman and his friends went with their own horses, and with European saddles and stirrups.
"The native broad travelling saddle overlaps the animal's sides like a table, and tilts both ways. To get up at the side without help is a feat almost impossible. Many a time Mr. Parnell got off to search after some article of food or convenience for old Mrs. Cronin. To get up again, his most successful way was to make a run from behind anddivaricateon to the horse's tail, like a boy playing at leap-frog; but the beast was always frightened, and bolted before he was well on. You will imagine the rest!… but we were all equally ludicrous, and indeed it is quite a serious inconvenience."
The next entry mentions the return of Mr. Parnell. He told them that Mr. Hamilton seemed absolutely unable to learn a foreign language, and this undermined his spirits and health, and made him a depressing companion.
On 25th April Newman and his friends started from Aleppo. They had not anticipated such serious difficulties as befell them during this journey. In the first place, they were not aware of the habits of the camel (at all events, his habits in the spring of the year). They found to their consternation that they work from two or three in the morning and travel till ten. Many people, not natives, had assured them that camels never travel by night, so they were the more unprepared for this unwelcome fact. The night travelling might not have mattered for younger people, but on old Mrs. Cronin the discomfort fell heavily. She had to be "forced out of her bed at one o'clock in the midst of the sharp cold of the night, and then have to ride when she ought to sleep. The effect of it on her (for she did not sleep by day) frightened us so much that at last we bought the drivers over to our hours…. The caravanserai at Aintab is so disagreeable a place for Mrs. Cronin that we enquired for a private house, and… we have hired one at the absurd price of three-halfpence sterling! It has a large grassy yard, very convenient for our horses, We have now only four, with the ass…."
However, they were not long at Aintab, for they were summoned before the Governor and accused of selling four Turkish Testaments. Then, being unable to deny having done so, the Governor said, "You must leave Aintab immediately." He provided camels, and they had perforce to go, as they had been so dictatorially bidden. But this was not all. A mob of fanatics beset them, followed them out into the country, and then pelted them with stones—first with small ones, but later with bigger ones, which could easily have stunned anyone who was hit by them. Presently a man galloped up and tried to seize Newman's horse's bridle, but he beat him off with an umbrella. Some of the crowd called out that the Governor had ordered them to be killed.
By the time Newman returned to his party Mr. Cronin was lying on the ground, and his mother declared that her son was dying. He had been set upon by men who had come to attack them, and beaten with fists, clubs, and stones. They tried their best to kill him. However, to Newman's intense surprise he was not hurt inwardly, only weak from exhaustion and pain. This was an almost unhoped-for comfort, and it was even found that he could continue his journey before evening. By this time the crowd had entirely dispersed, for an official had been sent by the Governor, and eventually he was able to quiet the people and send them off. Many of the travellers' possessions were lost, many stolen, but, at any rate, though discomforts and dangers undreamt of had been theirs, at least they were none of them seriously hurt; and that in itself was a thing for which they felt infinitely thankful. At last the Euphrates was reached.
"We saw it first in splendid contrast to a chalk desert, the most odious place through which I have travelled. We had soft chalk crumbling under foot, into which the beasts sank over their fetlocks or deeper…. When we surmounted the last chalk hills the green valley of the Euphrates burst upon us.
"It runs in a lowland excavation, bounded by opposite lines of high hills…. This valley was rich in the extreme, with trees scattered in it like England; but the sides of the hills were well wooded…. The river is very turbid, as if with white clay; it is unnaturally sweet, does not taste gritty, and is painfully cold. We presume this is from the melting of snow water…. The river is deep, rapid, smooth, and (I judge) as broad as the Thames at Blackfriars…."
He thus describes the raft they were having made to take them down the river to Bagdad:—"Rough branches of trees of most irregular shape and quite small are strung together crosswise by ties of rope, and under them are fastened a sort of flooring of goat-skins blown up like bladders…. On these is fixed a deck of planks. These rafts carry enormous weights and draw very little water."
In theMemoir of Lord Congletonthe end of this journey is thus told:— "They reached Bagdad on 27th June, and were met by Mr. Groves, who had for so many months been anxiously waiting for their arrival, after sufferings neither few nor light on both sides. It is hard to realize what such a meeting would be after two such years of toil and suffering as the past had been."
No sooner had the missionary party at length settled down at Bagdad than more trouble fell upon them. Mrs. Cronin, who had suffered almost more from the troubles, discomforts, and dangers of the journey than perhaps her friends guessed, grew worse and worse. She told Mr. Groves "that she was come hither to die," and it proved to be true; for only a few days after her arrival she died, to the deep distress of her son. So already, besides the unceasing discomforts, dangers, and disasters which had befallen the missionaries, there had been the cost of these three lives— Lord Congleton's wife, Mrs. Groves, and now old Mrs. Cronin, worn out by the terrible weariness of their journeyings under such rough conditions.
There is one thing which has struck me very forcibly as regards Frank Newman'sPersonal Narrative, and it is this: Throughout the whole book there is no mention of actual missionary work—the aim and object of this journey into Syria. There are, it is true, allusions to their own private prayer-meetings (of course they were hardly what one generally understands by the word "private," but still they could not be termed public) and to the distribution of New Testaments, but no actualteachingis mentioned. Nor does Newman write his own views on the subject. The diary-letters are chiefly filled with descriptions of the "perils of the way"—it is more or less secular. To me this has always seemed strange, for there was no doubt that he was, with the others, filled with a very real religious Christian zealthen, although later his views unhappily underwent great change and alteration, until a few years before his death, when his earlier faith was restored. But this fact remains: but for one's own previous knowledge of the aim of this journey, one would hardly recognize theNarrativeas a missionary's diary at all.
In theMemoir of Lord Congletonthere is far more missionary spirit; but still, even there, there is but very little detailed information as to mission work. During their stay at Bagdad Lord Congleton and Mr. Groves did indeed "develop plans for missionary work" which it was hoped would soon prove successful. The former bought a large house in the midst of the city for mission purposes. At first they thought of working among the "Armenian and Roman Catholic Christian population," and also "among the Jews," but they found the Mohammedans in Bagdad "peculiarly bigoted." And they owned to themselves later that "Bagdad had proved a failure in a missionary point of view." Mr. Groves, who wrote theMemoir of Lord Congleton, indeed owns that, "To many who look at life superficially, these years may seem lost; but He who often leads us 'about' (Deut. xxxii. 10) … has purposes of which neither the one led, and still less the lookers-on, have any conception…. Thus to some these years of toil and sorrowwillappear a mistake."
It is impossible to doubt the earnest faith and missionary zeal of these few who had come out to "do the Lord's work" in the East. But to many Churchmen it will be difficult to reconcile the words of Mr. Groves, that "the Coming of Christ, the powers of the Holy Ghost, were truths being brought before theChurch of God" when it is remembered that they had practically severed themselves from thevisiblebody of Christ's Church on earth, and were themselves (without Divine authority as delivered once to the Apostles) celebrating each Sunday in their house the Lord's Supper.
Constant mention is made in theMemoirof the open persecution which the mission party suffered in Bagdad, and of "the impossibility of access to the people." There were a few converts to Christianity made, but only a few; and the disappointments were many and grievous.
Then, too, their party was lessened by the departure of Frank Newman and Mr. Kitto for England. No reason is to be traced for this decision of Newman's, and it is not easy to understand what it could have been. It happened during the spring months of the year 1833, and shortly after his second proposal to Maria Rosina Giberne and her second refusal. He had written begging her come out to Bagdad, marry him, and work with them there. No doubt her refusal was a bitter disappointment to him, and possibly he wished to go back to England (he said in his diary he did not know how long he might stay there), and try if he could not persuade her personally. But if he thought this, he was again disappointed, for his meeting with her (as I see from some papers written by my aunt and kindly supplied me from the Oratory, Birmingham), was of no more avail than before. She mentions having met him shortly after his return, and it is evident that it was a meeting not devoid of awkwardness on her part and disappointment on his.
To go back to the letters from Bagdad, after this digression, Newman gives a very graphic account of the rafts used for travelling on the river from Moosul.
[Illustrations: PERSIAN LADY AND PERSIAN SMOKINGDATE, 1827FROM PERSIA IN "MODERN TRAVELLER" SERIESBY JOSIAH CONDER (pub. 1830)]
"The rafts used for descending the river consist of a rude deck fastened to a flooring of blown-up goatskins…. They are used for swimming bladders as in the ancient world. They serve for barrels to carry water…. The skins are also used in the bazaars … for butter, treacle, honey, etc…. The raft is not rowed, except barely to keep it in the stream. It keeps twisting round and round, like a stone in the air;… but … you have all the freshness and life of a vast streaming river and all the tranquillity of a mere pond…. One day, a man who wished to go down the river on our raft swam to us on a goatskin…. As a Thames wherry to a Thames steamer, so is a goatskin to a raft…. It has no prow nor stern…. If driven ashore it may burst many of the skins, some of which indeed from time to time need to be blown and tied afresh…. The oars are enormous, as in English barges. In our small raft two men at a time rowed…. I cannot tell you now of Mr. Groves's plans. I have a great deal to learn. The political state of this city, from within and without, is the very reverse of satisfactory." Then there follows a sentence which seems to imply that Mr. Groves was expecting too much from his "monthlyvisits" to the Arabs in the way of moral results. Also there follows a delightful account of the native doctor's methods of dealing with his patients. He "contracts tocurethe patient … for a definite sum, which is paid to him at once. If the patient thinks the price too high, the doctor lets him get worse; and when he applies anew, of course raises his demand. Nothing can be recovered if not paid down. Mr. Cronin" (the doctor travelling with them), "with all his practice at Aleppo, got fees only once or twice the whole time. He and Groves both despair of it here."
English patients when they use to their doctor the familiar phrase, "I put myself entirely in your hands," little think how completely and practically this was understood by these Bagdad doctors, who considered that a dollar in the hand is worth two promisedaftertreatment of a case, and who, when they once had patients "in their hands," held them tight!
It is clear, I think, from the following entry that Newman did not approve thoroughly of Mr. Groves's methods of learning Arabic, any more than he seems to do of his "monthly visits" to the Arabs. He says that a friend of theirs, who had recently joined them, had studied Arabic and Persian twenty-eight years, and is an accomplished Orientalist, yet he "ridicules English notions of learning." Our religion, poetry, philosophy, science, are so opposed to everything here "that, he says, nothing but long time in the country can make an Englishman intelligible on religious subjects." To confirm this theory that a perfect knowledge of the language of the people to be taught is an absolute essential in a missionary—it is known, for an absolute fact, that missionaries have been eight years in India preaching until even they became convinced that sometimes they gave a totally wrong impression of what they were trying to teach to the natives, and therefore gave up all further efforts at teaching until they had learnt the language morethoroughly, and had it at their finger's—or, to speak more correctly, tongue's—end.
Eventually Mr. Groves came to the conclusion that for a long time to come "the wisest method" was to "avoid controversy with the Moslems." He formed schools not on the ground of "attending to the rising generation," but to aid him in the language … give him opportunities of "trying his wings (as he calls it) against Christian errors, and exciting the attention of Moslems. Indeed, several (chiefly Persians) have come privately and begged New Testaments to send to their friends in Persia. At present I conceive he has nearly the whole Christian population here in his hands." And later, "Groves has not at all disappointed me, do not think that from anything I have written. He is what I expected from his book, and a great deal more. He has a practical organizing directing energy which fits him to be the centre of many persons, especially since it is combined with entire unselfishness and a total absence of personal ambition ordesireto take the lead which he does take. He is very sanguine…. I am apt to be sadly faithless, and to see nothing but difficulties."
Perhaps his lack of conviction that this effort at missionary workcouldmake its way in spite of so many great difficulties, as well as his own bad health (he states that he had not had a single day of real health since they have been at Bagdad), had something to do with his decision to return to England.
In August, 1832, Newman had a big class of boys every afternoon to whom he taught English and Geography; he mentions that "into the latter" he puts "a vast miscellany, physical, political, historical," from his knowledge and power of talk.
On 18th Sept., 1833, he left Bagdad. There is no entry in his diary between this and the last one in August, 1832, four months earlier. No word of his parting with his friends; no word of his reluctance to give up his missionary work.
But there is, I think, a good deal more in these words written on 18thSeptember than meets the eye:—
"I am on my way to England for reasons partly personal" (I think this hints at a hope not altogether dead, which had been his close companion through his two years of absence), "partly connected with the interests of my Bagdad friends,and my imagination is in England."
In his journey through Teheraun and thence to Tabreez, he passed through the celebrated rock of Besittoun. The sculptures there are said to represent the conquest of Darius Hystaspis.
"Our caravan did not go close enough to see the sculptures; we were probably half a mile off, but the muleteers were careful to point to them and talk of them. So too in going from Babylonia into Media by the ancient pass of Zagros, they were eager to draw my attention to the sculptures in lofty, apparently inaccessible rocks. 'Your uncle made those,' said a muleteer. At first I did not understand, but I found he meant by my uncle some infidel. No true believer, he said, could have done it…. The pass must be very ancient, and it is by far the noblest work I have seen in Asia."
The next letter is from Constantinople, 9th April, 1833.
"I am on my way to England, but do not know how long I may stay there." In his journey from Erzeroom to Scutari, he says he "became a mere animal"; he could only think of his horse's feet and his horse's footing. He never felt secure, for this reason: that the Tartar's horse, behind whom he rode, in the "ladder road" [Footnote: A "ladder road" is made by the horses all following each other in one track, and each trying to step in the steps made by the first horse.] beside the precipices, through the snow, "fell eleven times with him," and more than once fell over him. Frank Newman says his fear of falling prevented him from being able to admire the scenery, when, as often, it was grand and striking. "The Tartar starts at a fast walk, gets gradually into a shuffle, and studies the pace and power of all the beasts; at last he takes a sharp trot, but slackens before any of them lose breath. His great problem is, that theweakesthorse of the set (who really sets the pace) shall come in well at last…. I never imagined I could have gained a power of sleeping for an hour, or two hours, and at last even for ten minutes … in our last week, in which I had no regular night sleep. He" (the Tartar) "could not sleep, for he had two horses carrying gold … but he dozed famously while on horseback. Dr. Kidd used to tell us that the wrist, the eyelid, and the nape of the neck went to sleep before the brain—a charitable excuse for one who drops a Prayer Book in church from drowsiness. I wish I could get Dr. Kidd to tell me whether the knee does not (at least by habit) remain awake after the brain is asleep, for I never saw the Tartar loose in the saddle even when he was all nidnodding." Then comes again the suggestion of the doubt which beset Newman that the way in which his mission party at Bagdad, and some Church Missionary workers at Constantinople laboured, was not a way which could long endure. That difficulties in the future inevitably must come as lions in the path. "Constantinople itself looks to me like mere card-houses—bright blue and bright red; and they are not much better. By being perched up so steep, they force themselves on the eye…. Perhaps I am out of humour: Constantinople is so dreadfully dear to one who comes from Asia (I pay ten piastres, or half-a-crown, for my mere bed—full London price). It is also very chilly and raw…. Yet I do enjoy the bedwith sheets, it is an inexpressible luxury. How I have longed for it, but in vain, when suffering fever, to be able really to undress! But I must not write of such matters, nor of more serious ones that distract my judgment and distress me.
"I have seen the American Missionaries here. He" (Mr. Goodall) "gives himself entirely to promote theself-reformof the Armenian Church. This fundamentally agrees with what Mr. Hartley, of the Church Missionary Society, told me was the Society's proceeding against the Greek Church…. It also agrees with Groves's plan at Bagdad. I cannot censure it: I must approve it: yet I have a painful belief that it cannot long go on in the friendly way they all design…. This zeal of the Americans for Turkish Christianity is a new and striking phenomenon."
The last entry in thePersonal Narrativeoccurs on 14th April, 1833, before Newman had left Constantinople. Very shortly after he departed, and not very long after, all his connection with this two years and a half missionary journey was a thing of the past.
It had been more or less a failure as far as regards outward consequences. Of that there seems no doubt. But there is also no doubt that it made its mark in spiritual matters in the minds of many. No doubt that it altered for some their spiritual landmarks and rubicons. No doubt that the subject of this memoir came home seeing religion from a different standpoint.
Archdeacon Wilberforce reminds us in one of his sermons, preached at Westminster Abbey, that the astronomers who built the pyramids of the Nile pierced a slanting shaft through the larger pyramid, which pointed direct to the pole-star. Then, if you "gazed heavenward through the shaft into the Eastern night, the pole-star alone would have met your gaze. It was in the ages of the past; it was when the Southern Cross was visible from the British Isles. Slowly, imperceptibly, the orientation of the planet has changed. Did you now look up into the midnight sky through the shaft in the Great Pyramid, you would not see the pole-star. New, brilliant space- worlds would shine down on you. But the heavens have not altered, and the shaft of the pyramid is not lying, or unorthodox. A new view of the heavens has quietly come, for the earth's axis has changed its place."
Very slowly too, sometimes, the axis of a personality changes its place. It may be that an entirely new point of view faces it. Some other view of life "swims into its ken." The mental eye can no longer see through the old means which served it in years gone by for lens. It is, as it were, looking at a new place in life's sky: for a time it is quite unable to reconcile its old ideas of religious astronomy with the new ones. What then? The sky is the same; but there are many ways of looking at it; and many spiritual atmospheres which cloud the outlook. Frank Newman could not reconcile at this time, nor in those which were coming, his old Calvinistic tendency of thought with new ideas which were forcing themselves in upon him. At the very end of life he saw the star of Christianity again, but this missionary journey which had just, for him, terminated, seemed to be more or less the rubicon which divided him from his old faith, and from the rationalism to which he drifted during the years while he was at Manchester, and University College, London.
In Francis Newman's diary is this entry:—"On June 27th, my birthday, I first saw Maria Kennaway at Escot." [Footnote: Escot, Ottery St. Mary, S. Devon, now in the possession of the present Sir John Kennaway, M.P.]
Evidently the attraction between them was mutual, for the engagement followed quickly, and they were married the same year.
Maria Kennaway was the daughter of the first Sir John Kennaway, who was born at Exeter in 1758. In 1772 he sailed to India with his brother, the late Richard Kennaway. In 1780 he received his captain's commission, and in 1786 Marquis Cornwallis made him one of his aides-de-camp. I quote fromNew Monthly Magazinefor 1836, which gave an account of some incidents in the first Sir John Kennaway's life at the time of his death. [Footnote: I am indebted for this account to the courtesy of the present Sir John Kennaway.]
[Illustration: MARIA KENNAWAYFRANCIS NEWMAN'S FIRST WIFEFrom a miniaturePHOTO BY MESSRS. WEBSTER, CLAPHAM COMMONBY KIND PERMISSION OF SIR JOHN KENNAWAY]
"In 1788 Lord Cornwallis sent him as envoy to the Court of Hyderabad to demand from the Nizam the cession of … Guntoor. In this mission he was eminently successful, not only obtaining that which he came to demand, but inducing the Nizam to enter into a treaty of offensive and defensive alliance against Tippoo Sultan. For this service His Majesty was pleased to create him a baronet (1791), and he received a mark of still further approbation from the Court of Directors (East India Company) in a vote which they passed to take out the patent of creation at the Company's expense." Later, Sir John arranged a definite peace between the Nizam's Commissioner and the Mahrattas with those of Tippoo Sultan. From this time forward Sir John remained as Resident at the Court of the Nizam. But as his health had suffered greatly from the Indian climate, he came back to England in 1794, and the East India Company voted him "the unusual grant of a pension of £500 per annum" on his retirement from official duties.
Soon after his return to England he met and married Charlotte Amyatt, and went to live at Escot, Ottery St. Mary. Here their family of twelve children was reared. Sir John, though his official life was over, yet busied himself in many local matters. He acted as deputy-lieutenant and as colonel-commandant of local militia and yeomanry. Then later, in advanced age, there fell upon him a great trouble: he lost his sight entirely. Curiously enough, his brother (who had served in the Civil Service of the East India Company) suffered the same deprivation.
Everyone who remembers her describes Maria Kennaway, Sir John's daughter, as possessing great beauty and attraction. She had hitherto spent her girlhood in the daily service of the poor around her home. She and her sisters started village schools in the neighbourhood, and taught the children constantly the religious duties in which they themselves had grown up.
Maria Kennaway—a Plymouth Sister as regards her religious profession—was a girl of deep and earnest faith. After her marriage to Francis Newman, it became a real grief to her to find that he was drifting further and further away towards agnosticism. Loving him devotedly as she did, her constant prayer was that he might return to his former faith: that the "cloud," as she called it, which was over him might be dispersed, and that he should believe as she did.
Like Moses, she never in this life saw her "Promised Land" (she never doubted that he woulddiein faith), for when she died in July, 1876 (devotedly nursed by her husband), she knew thathethought, as he bent over her at the end, that it was probably alastfarewell for both.
I give here, as it seems an appropriate place, Newman's letter (to Dr.Nicholson) on his wife's death:—
"15 Arundel Crescent, "Weston-super-Mare, "21st July, 1876.
"My dear Nicholson,
"For more than forty years I have been in possession of a heart that loved me ardently: that happiness is no more. But I kept my treasure ten years longer than I had any reason to expect. Yesterday we committed my beloved to the grave….
"I saw her declining in strength through failure of appetite, but ever hoped for finer weather and change of air to restore her. But the fine weather came too late to restore her. From want of blood her heart became fatally weak, and she died just as her brother did, the late Sir John Kennaway, through failure of the heart and consequent mortification of the feet. I now believe that local death began on the night of the 5th. Her sufferings in the feet were great, and we could do nothing to allay them. Her breathlessness (also from weakness of the heart) we could aid by fanning. She knew she could not recover, and only prayed for 'release.' Her prayer was granted early on Sunday morning, 16th July.
"Of course I feel very desolate, and to live quite alone in declining years [Footnote: Some few years later he married his first wife's devoted friend and companion who had lived with them for eleven years, and who took the greatest care of Newman till he died in 1897.] seems unnatural and unhealthful; but I cannot form any decisions at present. I am conscious of excellent health and unbroken strength, and after forty years of happy love should be very ungrateful to repine.
"By God's help I mean to be cheerful and active….
"I am, your affectionate friend,
"F. W. Newman."
This is the epitaph Newman had placed over his wife's grave:—
"With no superiority of intellect, yet by the force of love, by sweet piety, by tender compassion, by coming down to the lowly, by unselfishness and simplicity of life, by a constant sense of God's Presence, by devout exercises, private and social, she achieved much of Christian saintliness and much of human happiness.
"She has left a large void in her husband's heart.
"Obiit,16th July, 1876."
Newman always spoke of his wife as "the most affectionate and tender- hearted of mortals." There was always a very great affection between them. His letters all show this. Their married life was a long intercourse of happiness,un-"chequered by disputes." [Footnote: "Marriage is one long conversation, chequered by disputes."—R. L. Stevenson.] Still, there was not (as is shown, I think, in many ways) strong community of interests. For in all Newman's laborious philological studies—his learned lectures, articles, and researches, scriptural and literary, his speculations in the realms of deep thought—she was to all intents and purposes practically outside his mental door. She was never greatly inclined to join in the society of his learned friends; but this was more from a sense of modesty, because she was afraid of not being in sympathy with them; because she thought that she was not clever enough.
She had the greatest admiration for her husband. It is easy, of course, to understand that when Frank Newman came back from his missionary journey he was just the sort of young man who would take a girl's fancy. It was a thing not to be surprised at that she fell in love with him. She was keenly interested in home missionary work among the poor villagers of her own home. She knew that he had come through great dangers in his journey to the Holy Land as a missionary. He had not then definitely cast aside his old beliefs—that was to come later;nowhe was on the brink of it, and he was alone on this inward, personal brink.Shewould not yet be aware of it. Very probably he seemed a hero in her eyes, because of all the dangers he had braved to preach the Gospel, and because he was one of the most intellectual men of his day: had taken high honours at Oxford, and had given them up for the sake of what he believed to be right.
In the beautiful little Devonshire town of Ottery St. Mary, very possibly he was the greatest man who had come across her life's path. He very evidently cared for her; the inevitable next thing seemed to be to care for him. At that time his name was in everybody's mouth. Miss Frere wrote, in 1833, that "the brother of Mr. Newman (John Henry Newman) is a young man of great promise, who has left the fairest prospect of advancement in England to go as a missionary to Persia."
At any rate, Destiny had brought them together, and they were married.
As a woman said once to me, "There is no choosing in love"—once themeetinghas happened, all free choice is at an end.
Mrs. Francis Newman was not very strong, and later in life developed greater delicacy. It will be remembered that Newman's mother and sisters were living at Oxford at this time, and he was anxious some time later to bring his bride to see them. Unfortunately she fell ill, and the treatment given for her illness proved quite a mistaken one; consequently her recovery was much slower than it need otherwise have been. The journey was, besides, a tiring one for her in her state of health. They had to go from Bristol to Oxford, for by this time Newman was settled at Bristol College as classical tutor. He had previously been tutor in Dublin for a short time.
In 1836 Francis Newman went through the ceremony of Baptism at a chapel in Bristol. I say advisedly, "went through the ceremony," for I believe both he and his brother had received the rite in early childhood, when their father was alive.
Mr. George Hare Leonard, University College, Bristol, has kindly sent me some information as regards Francis Newman's work at Bristol, as also has Mr. Norris Mathews, the City Librarian of the Municipal Public Libraries there.
From them I learn that the college at which Newman was classical tutor was, not "Queen's," as has once or twice been asserted, but Bristol College. It was founded in 1831, and only existed ten years. Mr. Hare Leonard tells me that it was held in a large house in Park Row, and that it had some very distinguished pupils, Sir Edward Fry, the late Sir George Gabriel Stokes, [Footnote: Sir George Gabriel Stokes, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge since 1849, and Fellow and President of Pembroke College, Cambridge, was born in 1819; senior wrangler, 1841. President of Royal Society 1885. Contributed many mathematical papers and lectures to the Royal Society and other societies at Cambridge University, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, etc.] and Walter Bagehot being amongst them.
At this time Newman was a member of the historic Baptist chapel at Broadmead. I think it must have been in this chapel, indeed, that he was re-baptized (as I mentioned a little earlier), and some of the congregation anticipated his becoming one of the sect of Plymouth Brethren.
Perhaps it is not generally known that Bristol College undertook to give religious instruction on Church of England lines to those boys whose parents wished it (I quote now from Mr. George Hare Leonard's letter to me): "This was not obligatory upon all, and there was a fierce attack on the college by certain of the clergy, and Bishop Gray was hostile. In 1841, under the influence of Monk (Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol), Bishop's College was founded close by, and the older and more liberal college was unable to stand the competition, and came to an end."
I quote here [Footnote: By the kindness of Miss Humphrey, Lensfield, Cambridge, who gave me this extract from a memoir of her father.] an account of the school life of the Vicar of St. Mary Redclyffe, Bristol:—
"In 1835 he went to Bristol College, a school that no longer exists, of which Dr. Jerrard, his brother William's friend and a mathematician of some note, was principal…. He remained for two years at Bristol College, and considered that when there he owed much to the teaching of Francis Newman, brother of the Cardinal, a man of charming character and great attainments (afterwards made manifest in many ways), who was then lecturer in elementary mathematics, and subsequently corresponded with him" (the Vicar of St. Mary Redclyffe) "on mathematical subjects when both had become famous."
This all seems to point, I think, to the fact that Bristol College had certainly a distinguished roll of names in its short ten years' record.
1836 was the year of Mrs. Newman's death—Francis Newman's mother. His wife was so alarmingly ill that he was not able to be present at his mother's funeral; and so the last time he saw her alive was on the occasion when he brought his bride to introduce to her at Oxford.
Miss Mozley says of his mother: "She was a woman content to live, as it were, in the retirement of her thoughts. She had an influence, though not a conspicuous one, on all about her. The trials of life had given a weight to her judgment, and her remarkable composure and serenity of temper and manner had its peculiar power. Under this gentle manner was a strong will which could not be moved when her sense of duty dictated self-sacrifice."
A month after her death Cardinal Newman had written: [Footnote:Letters of John Henry Newman, Anne Mozley.] "Of late years my mother has much misunderstood my religious views, and considered she differed from me; [Footnote: As of course she did.] and she thought I was surrounded by admirers, and had everything my own way; and in consequence I, who am conscious to myself I never thought anything more precious than her sympathy and praise, had none of it." He goes on to say: "I think God intends me to be lonely…. I think I am very cold and reserved to people, but I cannot ever realize to myself that any one loves me."
Those who have read Miss Mozley'sLife of John Henry Newmanwill remember how passionately devoted to her two sons Mrs. Newman was. Once or twice she said that though "Frank was adamant" when she had wished to get closer in touch with his interests and sympathies when he was quite a young man, yet she was alwaysquitein sympathy with her eldest son.
Probably as time went on and she saw the latter drifting ever further and further into religious views with which she had never been conversant, insensibly to herself, her manner changed when he spoke to her of how gradually the whole scope of his religion was widening and developing in a direction in which she felt it impossible for herself to follow him.
One wonders if she had had any knowledge of the growing agnosticism of her other son, but probably this was unlikely.
[Illustration: DR. MARTINEAUFROM THE PAINTING BY A. E. ELMSLIE]
In the year 1840 Francis Newman was made Classical Professor in Manchester New College. That same year saw Dr. Martineau appointed Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at the same college. It will be remembered that for thirty-seven years Manchester New College had been at York, and had now but just returned to its name-place.
Here then began the friendship which lasted unbroken until death.
Both men were keen searchers—each in his own way—after religious truth. For both it was a subject that practically affected their whole lives. But while in Martineau the result was a deep theology which found its satisfaction in the fold of Unitarianism, in Newman dogma of any sort was practically an unknown quantity. He drifted further and further from revealed religion, until many of his letters and writings became to the Christian minds of some who read them exceedingly painful. It is true that before he died Mr. Temperley Grey, the minister who attended him in his last illness, declared that there was a return to his original faith, but still nothing can alter the effect of the written word, and there is a passage in one of Newman's own letters which illustrates this fact very clearly. "It is a sad thing to have printed erroneous fact. I have three or four times contradicted and renounced a passage …but I cannot reach those whom I have misled." In those last nine words there is a world of unexpressed regret—regret which no after endeavour can eradicate. Both spoken and written words go to far mental ports, and very often-from being out of our ken—unreachable ones for us. No later contradiction can reach them and undo the once-made impression.
Martineau and Newman were not of one mind in the matter of religion. The letters which passed between them show that; but they show, too, that no dispute separated them. If for a time some painful passage in a letter of Newman's troubled his friend, the matter was dealt with with straightforward candour and unfailing forbearance and gentleness. There were no harsh words between them. Both of them were naturally, innately sweet and kindly in disposition. Even in matters of dispute which concerned that subject which occupied so large a part in both their minds, difference of opinion could not "separate very friends."
It will be remembered that the year before the regular correspondence between the two began, Martineau had written a paper criticizing Newman'sPhases of Faith.
Before giving Newman's letters, perhaps a few words on Martineau himself would not be out of place here. He came of an old Huguenot family. Mr. Jackson, from whose biography of him I am quoting, says that Gaston Martineau, who, tradition tells us, was a surgeon of Dieppe, came to England after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and that though first he went to London to live, yet that eventually he settled down at Norwich, and here all his children were born. The youngest of them became the father of James Martineau, the theologian. He was born in the same year as Francis Newman, and died just seven years before he did.
In the bringing up and early training of both men there was a large element of Puritanism. Many of the most severe Calvinistic doctrines held sway in Newman's home life, and even if the atmosphere was a little less thickly charged with religious thunderclouds in the early environment of Martineau, yet certainly, from all accounts, Sunday was pre-eminently a day that "hid its real meaning and brightness behind a frowning face." I cannot help quoting here a story which a little reveals the sort of religious atmosphere which brooded over the day and the point of view brought to bear on it by James Martineau's mother when he was a boy. The mother had gone to church one Sunday evening, and left word in her little home circle that they were to read the Bible.
When she came back she put the probing question to James: "What had he read?" His answer was: "Isaiah." She at once replied that he couldn't have read the whole; and he answered promptly, "Yes, mother, I have, skipping the nonsense."
From eight years old to fourteen James Martineau went, as a day scholar, to Norwich Grammar School. After school life he came to the conclusion that he wished to give his life to the ministry, and as, of course, the English universities were not open to anyone who refused to sign the Thirty-nine Articles, he was sent to Manchester College. Here it became evident to everybody that he was a student who would let nothing interfere with his work. His masters were struck by his accurate habits of mind and great perseverance in research.
In 1835 his ministry in Liverpool, as pastor in Paradise Street Chapel, began, and to his work here was joined his work at Manchester New College, which, as I mentioned before, began in 1840, the same year as Newman's own connection with the college. But when, in 1853, the college was transplanted to London, for four years Martineau continued to live as a minister in Liverpool, and yet he kept up his classes at the college (six hours by train from Liverpool).
In 1857 he was asked to come and live in town and devote his whole time to his college work, and this he agreed to do. There were not then many students, but among them were names which after years were destined to make famous, and among these were Alexander Gordon, Estlin Carpenter, and Philip Wicksteed.
In 1858 he was appointed minister to Little Portland Street Chapel. Formerly the congregation belonging to the chapel were rigid, unbending Unitarians. With the advent of Martineau began the newer, broader views of Unitarianism. Throughout the years which now were to be passed in London, Dr. Martineau's labours were unceasing as scholar, thinker, and theologian. It is said that, though he wrote and taught so much, yet he never let his reading be interfered with; he was always adding to his stores of knowledge. For fifty years he was recognized as one of the most profound thinkers of his day, as well as one of the finest writers.
The first letter from Francis Newman to Martineau, from which I quote, is dated December, 1850, from Brighton:—
Dr. Martineau from Newman.
"I seem to be out of joint with you in the two highest interests of man— Religion and Politics … I am … become a Republican by principle, for the continent Jefferson always held that constitutional monarchy was a simple impossibility in a large continental country where great armies were kept up; and I think the history of a millennium in Europe demonstrates it. All royalties were in their origin constitutional; but in the long run no dynasty ever resisted the temptation to overthrow the barriers which fenced it in.Ourliberties seem to me rightly ascribed to the fact that we are insular, and need only anavyfor protection. Sweden for the same reason is able to retain its liberties…. I think that in the order of Providence, royal power has served the purpose of uniting nations in larger masses than would else have held together.
"Where it has done this without destroying municipal organization it is clearly good in its result—as in Great Britain, Sweden, Germany; … but having served this function, it seems to me that Royalty (unless it could again become elective) has done its work, and ought not to be regretted…. On doctrinaire grounds, either to unsettle it where it works well, or to desire to enforce it where it has violated its pledges and forfeited all claims to love and devotion, seems to me a mistake similar in kind.
* * * * *
"Must not a time of weakness come when Austria is bankrupt—when an Emperor of Russia is a dotard or a child, when provinces of Russia become disaffected, or an army mutinies; or again, when France and Austria seriously fall out?… You see I am dosing you with some of my most pungent stuff, in proof that I trust your strength of stomach …
"Your affectionate friend,
In the letter which follows, Newman touches on two well-known personalities of his day—Frederica Bremer and Charles Kingsley. He mentions the fact of his having been engaged to meet Kossuth as the reason why the first attempt to meet Miss Bremer was unsuccessful. It will be remembered that Miss Bremer came to England in order to collect material for herLife in the Old World. (This year was also the date of Kossuth's first visit to our shores.) Miss Bremer was Swedish by descent, but Finnish by birth, for she was born in Finland in the year 1801.
As regards Kingsley, in 1850 he had published tracts on "Christian Socialism."Alton Lockehad already come out and met with scorn on the part of the Press, though working men—who recognized Kingsley as their truest friend—welcomed it gladly. In 1851—a year of great trouble and distress all over England—he thought out plans to drain parts of Eversley (his parish), for there had been many cases of fever there, and Kingsley was pre-eminently apracticalChristian. He was also far ahead of his time (as all great men invariably are), and he saw clearly how inseparably close in this present world is the connection between physical matters and spiritual. He recognized that if a man islivingin unsanitary conditions, it affects in a very real though inexplicable way his spiritual life. He could trace the connection in a parishioner's life history between bad drainage and drunkenness: later on—though it might perhaps be very much later on—a "bee-in-the-bonnet" of his child: and he saw in this unhappy, unfortunate Little Result the outcome of someone's sinful failure in his duty to his neighbour in years gone by, when the first insanitary conditions were allowed to live and be mighty.
In some senses drainage, therefore, has a decided effect upon the spiritual life of men and women. Everyone probably will remember Dr. Nettleship's resolute assertion, that "even a stomach-ache could be a spiritual experience."
And so Kingsley pushed forward the drainage improvements in his parish, and considered it, what in very truth it was, a fitting subject for the energies of a parish priest, at work night and day for the betterment of the souls and bodies of his parishioners.
I cannot avoid quoting here Francis Newman's own strongly expressed views on drainage of the land:—
"Now, the drains being out of sight, it is morally certain that defects will exist, or be caused by wear and tear, unseen. In one place evil liquids and gases will percolate; in another evil accumulations will putrefy. Instead of blending small portions of needful manure quickly with small portions of earth that needs it, we secure in the drains a slow putrefaction and a permanent source of pestilence; we relieve a town by imposing a grave vexation and danger on the whole neighbourhood where its drains have exit; we make the mouth of every tide river a harbour and storehouse of pollution; and after thus wasting an agricultural treasure we send across the Atlantic ships for a foul commerce in a material destined to replace it….
"It was quite notorious forty years ago that the refuse of the animal was the food of the vegetable, and ought to be saved for use, not wasted in poisoning waters. How could well-informed men delude themselves into an approval of this course? Only one explanation occurs:they despaired of returning to Nature. They assumed that we must live by artifice, and they entitled artifice 'Science.'"
I return now to the letter from Newman to Martineau:—
Dr. Martineau from Francis Newman.
"Southampton, Wednesday, "8th Oct.1851.
"My dear Martineau,
"Your interesting letter was sent to me by Monday afternoon, and first told me that Miss Bremer was in London, which I learned only by a pencil note on the outside, '142 Strand.' That evening I was going to see my two sisters—one returned from the Continent, and one come from Derby. And on Tuesday morning I was engaged to come hither to meet Kossuth! So I fear I have missed Miss Bremer. But, from to-day's news, I fear there is no chance of K. arriving till next Monday or Tuesday; and I shall probably go back to-morrow. I willtryto see Miss Bremer immediately, but am much disappointed.
"I have had a little correspondence with Mr. Kingsley lately—rising out of a recent lecture of his, the practical results and practical principles of which gave me great pleasure. He says he has 'done his work' of protesting and denouncing capitalists, and now hopes to give himself toconstructionand practical creation; and much as I fear some of his generalizations, I hope great good from his purely excellent aims, and the amount of aid he can command. He agrees most heartily with my denunciation of large towns as the monster evil, and takes the matter up agriculturally thus:No country can be underfed while it returns to the soil what it takes out of it"—[The italics are my own. Is not this sentence of infinite value to us to-day?]—"for, in the long run, the soil will always give back as much as it receives. Every country impoverishes itself which pours into the rivers and sea the animal refuse which ought to be restored to the soil.
"No community can avoid this prodigality, unless its inhabitants live upon the soil. Therefore towns ought not to exceed the size at which the whole animal refuse can be economically saved and directly applied to agriculture.
"To me it seems that every reason—moral, political, agricultural, economical, sanitary—converge to this same conclusion; and I applyDelenda est Carthagoto every city in Europe.
"On the subject of masters and servants, he says, 'Masters should be considered "infamous" who hired servants by the day or week, and not by the year; or who dismissed old servants without any other reason than to lower wages; but such a thing, to be possible and effective, must bemutual. The servant must have no power to leave a good master in order toraisehis wages. But at present, while the servant is under no bonds to the master, anddoes not like to bind himself, it seems to me quite impossible to treat the masters as having any moral responsibility for the servants more than for foreigners. When we buy tea, we cannot ask whether the Chinese get a comfortable livelihood by selling it at that price.' That is an extreme and clear case to which we approach in every commercial transaction in proportion as the other party claims that the relation shall be one of mere marketing….
"Ever yours affectionately,
"Francis W. Newman."
The next letter, which is dated September, 1851, and which was written just after Newman's return from his Swiss tour, goes on with the same subject as the last, and also touches on the evils ofsuddenlyintroducing machinery; while it shows clearly that, in the long run, better wages are gained for the worker by its means—"Machinery is in every light the friend of the poor." He says very truly, "The first great want of the workmen is better morality and more thriftiness,notbetter masters or higher wages." Putting quite aside the question of whether "higher wages" are not needed by the workman, nothing can be truer at the present time than this fact, brought thus before us by Newman. Itis, beyond all question, these faults which run through the bulk of the labouring classes (as we term them)—lack of the true spirit of morality and thriftiness.
It is difficult altogether to account for the reason why the lack of these characteristics is so much to the fore to-day, or to think of the remedy which shall reach and cure them. But that it is a presence in our midst is a self-evident fact. No one who has travelled much in France (to name only one other country), but is aware how vast is the gulf which divides the ways of living of our own labouring classes and of those which obtain across the water. There, thriftiness is the rule. They use a far simpler diet, and one which the land supplies them with, and are content. There is a far more healthy tone about them, even if it be a rough one, than there is among our own poor. I am constantly in France myself (it is the country of my own ancestors), and I have never failed to be struck by the absence there, in the country, of the vice which disfigures so often the home life of our villagers. You do not see there the sights that make the streets on Saturday evening in England a degrading scene. When the French villager is happy, he can be it without the aid of drunkenness. And as far as the cultivation of the land is concerned—well, we need only look at home in our "French Farming" schemes to-day and we shall find that when we want to come "back to the land," to find out how much care and industry will bring out of it, we have to send for a Frenchman to show us his country's secrets of manuring the land, so that the soil becomes precious and will yield, even from so small a space as a quarter of an acre, incalculable riches in the way of marketable goods.
As regards what Newman says about the work_women_ of England, it is impossible to agree with him. It is most assuredly not the case in thousands of instances that "there arenogood workwomen out of work, or earning low wages," nor that "those who cannot get good wages are women who havespent their prime in idleness… and sew badly."
One has but to refer to the statistics with which the Christian Social Union supplies us, as well as other societies, to have this idea quickly negatived. Mrs. Carlyle's experiences and Mrs. Newman's were evidently involuntarily misleading.
There was a certain impulsiveness in discussing many subjects to which Newman seems to have been peculiarly subject. He was sometimes so led away by it as to dogmatize inaccurately or over-forcibly.
Dr. Martineau from Francis Newman.
"My dear Martineau,
"… In a day or two I am meditating a visit to Froude, who is in Wales, and too much in solitude." [Froude was then preparing or writing hisHistory of England. It will be remembered that Cardinal Newman's influence over him at college decided him later on taking Holy Orders, but he never went beyond the diaconate.] "Gladstone's letters just now are a powerful stimulus to public opinion…. Not the Socialists only, but numbers of workmen besides treat it asan abstract wickednessin a master to offer lower wages than are at any particular time existing. They have never any objection to ariseof wages; so I cannot say they treat the existing rate as a divinely appointed amount; but they do not see that if they are unwilling to bind themselves not to strike for a rise, they ought to concede in the master a moral right to lower…. What is to be done with those who will go on enunciating and propagating dangerous general maxims as abstract axiomatic truth?…Yourmethod of making the masters determine how manyshall entera trade will succeed; but I do not see that it will succeed in ejecting. In the years of railroad excitement the London newspapers were enormously overworked, and a great increase no doubt took place in the numbers of printers (perhaps also in their wages); now the printers for some time have been in comparative depression…. I do not contend thatalllowering of wages by masters is merciful and just, but thatsomemay be; whereas the Socialists and Co. instantly declaim againstalloranylowering, without entering into any details as to present or past history of the trade. When I said that machinery is in every light the friend of the poor, I do not think I overlooked the occasional mischief caused by itssuddenintroduction…. The effect of machinery is in the long run a steady rise of wages as well as a cheap supply of goods: the advantage to the poor is universal and permanent, the evil is partial and transitory. Moreover, the evil is immensely aggravated by their perverseness. Three generations of hand-loom weavers have been propagated in spite of the notorious misery it must cause. Machinery doesnotraise the rate of profits or interest; itdoesraise the rate of wages: compare Manchester and Buckingham in proof…. I do not think I amat allcarried into reaction by unjust attacks on capitalists, but I am very strongly by the [right or wrong] belief that the first great want of the workmen is better morality and more thriftiness,notbetter masters or higher wages. I have not dared to print half of what are my convictions on this head…. The sufferings of the poor from bad air and bad water are quite a separate chapter. High wages do little to cure this. Indeed, in Manchester the workmen habitually prefer to save a shilling a week in house rent and spend it in beefsteaks, when the shilling would have got them a healthy instead of an unhealthy lodging. Bricklayers' wages are at present high in London; what is the consequence? I have at present a bit of a dwarf wall building in my garden. The men leave their work; I complain; the builder replies: 'Men will not come to work on a Monday without much trouble.' I fear thismeansthat they drink on Sunday and are very 'seedy' on Monday morning. The very men who are excited by high wages to drinking and idleness will make a violent outcry when a fall of wages takes place, andmoreoverwill get the ear and sympathies of Maurice and Co. for their outcry."