APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA (first published in parts, April to June 1864; re vised and republished as a whole, 1865), by Cardinal Newman, is the autobiography of a great soul. In 1845 Newman left the English for the Roman Church. Almost 20 years later Charles Kingsley included him in an incidental aspersion (Macmillan's Magazine, January 1864) of the Roman clergy's attitude toward °truth for its own- salce.° The following in terchange of letters, pamphlets and articles convinced Newman of the necessity of review ing, for an end larger than the defense of his own integrity, the whole course of his spiritual progress. This larger aim, suggested in a title that Newman can hardly have chosen without thinking of the great (Apologia' of Socrates, gives his work a deep general interest. The debate between the two English men of letters went so unquestionably to Newman that it could hardly arouse posterity; the actual im mediate issues between the two churches were too clouded by prejudice and politics to hold attention long in that form; but beneath the controversy lay an issue that remains vital; and beneath the history set forth in the book moves an eternal human quest.
The issue was the catholicity of the Church of England. To restore to the Church in which they were priests a general conscious ness of Catholic heritage, a wider view of Catholic doctrine and history, and a wider use of the sacraments was the mission of the young Newman and his friends, Keble, Pusey, and others less well known, in what came to be known as the Oxford Movement (q.v.). Working as scholars and as preachers toward this common end in various ways, they made their most direct and effective appeal in a se ries of 'Tracts for the Times' ; and their ulti mate success amounted to a reformation. That the Church of England rose from insular prej udices and political bondage to become a great national Church was due largely and directly to the Oxford Movement. The Catholic heri tage had, indeed, been cherished and followed even in the 18th century in spite of the general depression of the Church by rationalism and politics. It had animated, for instance, those missions to the New England colonies which moved and brought about the. Episcopal Church
of the United States. The consecration of the first bishop of that Church was attested in a proclamation °Omnibus ubique Catholicis.° But that consecration was by lnon-juring° bishops in Scotland. The actual ecclesiastical admin istration in England then and in Newman's time insisted, if not on a narrower view, at least on a narrower practice. The bishops gen erally, the dominant ecclesiastical party, and the religious habits of the mass of Church peo ple were far narrower than the doctrine of the Book of Common Prayer or the interpretation of the Caroline divines. The mission of New man and his friends was restoration. It suc ceeded ultimately; but meantime it met such ecclesiastical opposition as to drive some of them to the Roman Church. Newman found himself unable to read in the repudiation of some 'Tracts for the Times' and in other ecclesiastical pronouncements and measures of British bishops anything short of a repudiation of catholicity. Becoming convinced that the Church of England was not in fact Catholic, he changed his allegiance.
This is the issue underlying 'Apologia pro Vita Sue ; but vital as it remains, and deeply as it is explored, it has less appeal than the autobiography for itself. The lucidity, sweet ness and force spring from aspiration. The steady guest of the soul, set forth with a sin cerity that makes one first pity and then for get Charles Kingsley, is told with that high preoccupation which gives to a few autobiog raphies permanent hold. An accomplished reasoner, Newman understood better than most men the limitations of reasoning in effect iveness on conduct. °It has not pleased God to save His people through logic,° he quotes from Saint Ambrose on the title page of the most philosophical of his longer works, 'A Grammar of Assent.' This book inculcates systematically the right ways of the mind seek ing truth; but the 'Apologia' by narrating the stages of his own search brings it home. We need not be convinced by his arguments nor subscribe to his conclusions to be uplifted by a noble and single mind following the °kindly light° which he invokes in his famous hymn.