Ward's extravagance. And to none were his methods more repugnant than they were to John Henry Newman. By a singular grace, Newman escaped the convert's proverbial temptation—that of carrying new beliefs to all possible extremes. He had affinities with the Dublin Review and with Lord Acton's Journals. But he was keenly conscious of the defects of both. He thought the one lacking in regard for authority, the other in reverence for fact. He was very far from identifying himself with either.
When Ward attempted to enlist Newman in his Infallibility campaign, Newman's characteristic sincerity did not attempt to conceal the repugnance with which he viewed the proposal.
"As to writing a volume on the Pope's Infallibility it never so much as entered into my thought. I am a controversialist, not a theologian, and I should have nothing to say about it. I have ever thought it likely to be true, never thought it certain. I think, too, its definition inexpedient and unlikely; but I should have no difficulty in accepting it, were it made. And I don't think my reason will ever go forward or backward in the matter."[1]
But Newman despaired of inducing his fellow Romanists to attend to history.
- ↑ 1866, Thureau Dangin, iii. p. 111; Purcell, Manning, ii. p. 321.
