Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman

lliol College, was Emeritus Professor later, and considered to be one of the most promising, brilliant men at his University. Many thought his intellect superior to

ever be any doubt of what he thought. He could not beat about the bush in his beliefs-he would not keep them secret-he did not care for unpopularity in the least. His great aim was to fight-at whatever odds- for whatever he felt by dogged conviction. He was often wrong; but never cowardly, never philandering, never vacillating. "I am anti-everything," as he said humorously of himself. And so he was. He was, in a sense, "anti-every

was to strongly influence his life for the next six years. In 1828 he was working with his brother at Littlemore; in 1829, I imagine, he met and felt s

that there may very well have been other powerful reasons which also influenced him in the matter. It was about this time that he asked my aunt, Maria Rosina Giberne, to whom he was

ides swung the former from the mooring of the Anglican Church. He could not sign her Thirty-nine Articles; he could not agree with many of her doctrines. He drifted

taught him to say daily prayers. Then, when a young man, he felt a deep dissatisfaction with this vague religious teaching he had received, and he

y work. He offered his services to the Church Missionary Society. He often stayed in Dublin with Lord Congleton. In

t the Lord would edify us together by ministering as He pleased." Lord Congleton adds: "At the moment he spoke these words I was assured m

Cronin (who in 1830 form

nk Newman was associ

nd was at the same time

ay of u

n: PHOTO OF

YRIAN MISSIO

"LIFE"

nin were led then, were: "The oneness of the Church of God, involving a fellowship large enough to embrace all saints, and narrow enough to exclude the world. The completeness

ad to offer them, Lord Congleton giving the whole of his fortune to missio

Narrative, which he kept throughout this journey to the East); Mr. Cronin; his mother Mrs. Cronin, and her daughter Nancy Cronin (to whom Lord Congleton was engaged); and Francis Newman. There was al

chest, which was Mr. Cronin's property (he was a doctor). When one thinks how the more one travels, even in these travelling-made-easy days, the more one wishes to abridge one's requirements and whittle down one's wants, it is not diffic

teresting of travel books, and very graphically written in the form of letters to his friends at h

Anchor in Steamboat

Atlantic with a south-wester, which proved a bitter dose. For nearly fifty hours we tossed, with very slow progr

stom-house officers have detained the ship so long that we are left here by the tide.... The officers were very civil. They were all amazed at the number of our packages" (as well they might be!)... "The prospect of our porterages is frightful. Th

My French having been chiefly mathematical, I

eakfast, and never speak to a peasant without raising my hat.... This vin ordinaire is not 'bad,' in the sen

ng at Marseilles on 13th October, and c

a pound, and as much bread as I can eat for 1-1/2d.... I had a provoking accident at Béziers. On our leaving the barge, the carman drove off without securing our boxes-he was in a violent passion against some girl porters (a domestic institution of Béziers).... I roared out, 'Arr

terribly rough and trying. But Mrs. and Miss Cronin had resolved to face discomforts, etc., equally

om the arches. Once we had a narrow escape. There was a sudden cry of 'A bas!' We turned and saw we were rapidly nearing an arch which would knock off our heads. The horses kept at a short canter. Old Mrs. C. was sitting quietly on deck, wholly absorbed, and never dreaming that the s

people: how to make the land sufficient for the people, how to make the people sufficient for the land-a counsel of perfection far removed from the party sp

ine vat. I then understood the Scripture metaphor.... The men seemed to have been wading in blood.... I should deprecate a whole district being dependent for its livelihood on the sale of wine.... for as some seasons are sure to be fat

of the travellers having discretion, "We make it a tacit rule never to go ten yards to see anything; for if once

14th January of the next year (1831),

ng the voyage from Marseilles landed for three days at Larnica. On the ship

ery beautiful and very funny'; that is, no doubt, because I am apt to mix up

urprise, fell on my neck and kissed both cheeks quite affectionately, I had not recognized

ed to do. Four times they set sail, and four times had to put back again into port. The captain had only an old French map "marked with crosses at certain places, the cross meaning porto, as the captain explained." He needed help, however, from his passengers to be quite sure which was which! In this ship they lived with discomfort for a whole month. Still,

.. 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 rive

, which necessitates a woman riding in an artificial, twisted position. Still, at the period at which he is writing, Early-Victori

murdher us, but I never thought to ride across a mule!'... Three times did

Her son was in terrible distress at every fall, for he was carrying his infant in

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

mother, Newman says how long their stay there would be is quite unc

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

... some pronounce it Narjili.... Narg?li 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 the Tambac, 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 e

s a popular saying, which he quotes, "A Turk cares more for the life of a cat than of a

bit if one of us would seize a part of the animal befo

ood 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 took their portion.... Peac

rrying out of Newman's precept to himself

ar at least as to encounter no needless friction. I had not then considered how seriously such chan

es 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 a permanent obstacle. I believe not; for it is not the

lusion that the meat (mutton) was certainly not good; unfortunately it formed a large proportion of the stews. One dish consisted of rice, dress

. 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.

rom 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 t

ation: D

NT TO SYRIA WITH FR

MISSION OF

RS. WEBSTER,

n as sacred characters... there are no madhouses in the land.... Certai

nvenience 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

If insanity among us is caused by strong passions in one class and by intoxication in another, while the Turkish populati

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 sleeples

e the ceremony took place in the early part of the year 1831.] went to Ladak?a to help Mr. Hamilton, whose health had more or less broken down, secure a vessel to take him to France en route for England. He dete

last she died. Immediately on hearing of her death. Dr. Cronin set out, full of sorrow at

licted, that I ask: What does the noble-hearte

anging over my pillow weeping and kissing me as a dying m

ate she was, very dear to me also, but unspeakable is the loss to others. This is the third wife ta

on medical grounds, saw no objection to the journey.... Few English ladies are in body so well adapted a

d. Francis Newman and his friends went with their

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 and divaricate on to the horse's tail, like a boy playing

Hamilton seemed absolutely unable to learn a foreign language, and this

, 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 h

s, 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,

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

travelled. We had soft chalk crumbling under foot, into which the beasts sank over their fetlocks or

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 pain

r shape and quite small are strung together crosswise by ties of rope, and under them are fastened a sort of flooring of goat-ski

. Groves, who had for so many months been anxiously waiting for their arrival, after sufferings neither few nor light on bot

PART-

ew 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, a

"private," but still they could not be termed public) and to the distribution of New Testaments, but no actual teaching is 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, wit

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, wh

ords of Mr. Groves, that "the Coming of Christ, the powers of the Holy Ghost, were truths being brought before the Church of God" when it is remembered that they had practically severed themse

fered in Bagdad, and of "the impossibility of access to the people." There were a few conv

d 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

gression, Newman gives a very graphic account of the

PERSIAN LADY AND

E,

N "MODERN TRA

CONDER (

m 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 to

how completely and practically this was understood by these Bagdad doctors, who considered that a dollar in the hand i

otions 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 fa

ention 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,

any great difficulties, as well as his own bad health (he states that he had not had a single day of r

ht English and Geography; he mentions that "into the latter" he puts "a vast mi

is and the last one in August, 1832, four months earlier. No word of his parti

a good deal more in the

than meets

altogether dead, which had been his close companion through his two years of absence), "pa

sed through the celebrated rock of Besittoun. The sculptures

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

from Constantinop

of them lose breath. His great problem is, that the weakest horse 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

y, 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

left Constantinople. Very shortly after he departed, and not very long after, all his

no doubt that it made its mark in spiritual matters in the minds of many. No doubt that it altered for some their spiritu

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 shaf

nable 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 for