Apologia Pro Vita Sua - John Henry Newman (book club suggestions txt) 📗

goes; and (3) that his call on me in 1841(3?) was in no sense "formal;" I had not expected it; I think he introduced himself, though he may have had a letter from Dr. Wiseman; and no "correspondence" arose in consequence. He may perhaps have sent me three letters, independent of each other, in five years; and, as far as I know, he was unaware of his part in my conversion, till he saw my notice of it in the "Apologia." NOTE ON PAGE 232. EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM THE REV. JOHN KEBLE TO THE AUTHOR.

"Nov. 18, 1844.—I hope I shall not annoy you if I copy out for you part of a letter which I had the other day from Judge Coleridge:—

"'I was struck with part of a letter from A. B., expressing a wish that Newman should know how warmly he was loved, honoured, and sympathized with by large numbers of Churchmen, so that he might not feel solitary, or, as it were, cast out. What think you of a private address, carefully guarded against the appearance of making him the head of a party, but only assuring him of gratitude, veneration, and love?' &c., &c.

"I thought I would just let you understand how such a person as Coleridge feels."

NOTE ON PAGE 237. EXTRACT FROM THE "TIMES" NEWSPAPER ON THE AUTHOR'S VISIT TO OXFORD IN FEBRUARY, 1878.

"The Very Rev. Dr. Newman has this week revisited Oxford for the first time since 1845. He has been staying with the Rev. S. Wayte, President of Trinity College, of which society Dr. Newman was formerly a scholar, and has recently been elected an Honorary Fellow. On Tuesday evening Dr. Newman met a number of old friends at dinner at the President's lodgings, and on the following day he paid a long visit to Dr. Pusey at Christ Church. He also spent a considerable time at Keble College, in which he was greatly interested. In the evening Dr. Newman dined in Trinity College Hall at the high table, attired in his academical dress, and the scholars were invited to meet him afterwards. He returned to Birmingham on Thursday morning."

NOTE ON PAGE 302. THE MEDICINAL OIL OF ST. WALBURGA.

I have received the following on the subject of the oil of St. Walburga from a German friend, the Rev. Corbinian Wandinger, which is a serviceable addition to what is said upon it in Note B. He says:—

"In your 'Apologia,' 2nd Edition, p. 302, you say you neither have, nor ever have had, the means of going into the question of the miraculousness of the oil of St. Walburga. By good chance, there has arisen a contest not long ago between two papers, a catholic and a free-thinking one, about this very question, from which I collected materials. Afterwards I asked Professor Suttner, of Eichstädt, if the defender of the miraculousness might be fully and in every point trusted, and I was answered he might, since he was nobody else but the parson of St. Walburga, Rev. Mr. Brudlacher.

"You know all the older literature of the oil of St. Walburga, therefore I restrict myself to statements of a later date than 1625.

"First of the attempts to explain the oil as a natural produce of the rock.

"Some thought of ordinary rock-oil. But the slightest experiment proves that origin, properties, and effect of the oil of St. Walburga and petroleum have nothing common with each other.

"Others thought of a salt-rock, and of solution of the salt particles. But the marble slab from which the oil drops is of Jura-chalk, and in the whole Jura is not a single particle of salt to be found, and the liquor itself does not in the least savour of salt; besides that, if this were the case, the stone must have crumbled into pieces long since, whilst it is quite massive still.

"Others thought of humour in the air, or the so-called sweating of the stones. But why does the slab which bears the holy relics alone sweat? and, why do all others beside, above, beneath it, in and out of the altar-cave, though being of the same nature, remain perfectly dry? Why should it sweat, the whole church being so dry that not a single humid spot of a hand's breadth is visible? Why does this slab not sweat except within a certain period, that is from October 12, the anniversary of depositing, to February 25, the day of the death of St. Walburga? And why does it remain dry at every other time, even at the most humid temperature of the air possible, and in the wettest years, for instance, 1866? Besides, what other stone, and be it in the deepest cave, will sweat during four or five months a quantity of liquor from six to ten Mass (a Mass = 1·07 French Litres)? If these naturalists are asked all this, then they, too, are at the end of their wits.

"To this point I add two facts which may be proved beyond any doubt; the one by unquestionable historical records, the other by still living eye-witnesses. When under Bishop Friedrich von Parsberg the interdict was inflicted on the city of Eichstädt, during all the year 1239 not a single drop of liquor became visible on the coffin-plate of St. Walburga. The contrary fact was stated on June 7, 1835. The cave was opened on this day by chance, passengers longing to see it. To their astonishment they found the stone so profusely dropping with oil, that the golden vase fixed underneath was full to the brim, whereas at this season never had been observed there any fluid. Some weeks later arrived the long-wished-for royal decree which sanctioned the reopening of the convent of St. Walburga; it was signed on that very 7th of June, 1835, by his Majesty King Louis I.

"Moreover, let one try to gather water which is dropping from sweating stone, or glass, or metal, and let him see if it will be pure and limpid, or rather muddy, filthy, and cloudy. The oil of St. Walburga on the contrary, is and remains so limpid and crystal, that a bottle, which had been filled and officially sealed at the reopening of the cave after the Swedish invasion, 1645, preserves to this day the oil so very clear and clean as if it had been filled yesterday; an occurrence never to be observed even on the purest spring-water, according to the testimony of the royal circuit-physician (K. Bezirksarzt).

"To this testimony of a naturalist may be added that of a much higher authority. The renowned naturalist, Von Oken, surely an unquestionable expert, came one day, while he was Professor in the University of Munich, to Eichstädt on the special purpose to investigate this extraordinary phenomenon. The cave was opened to him, he received every information he wished for, and having seen and examined everything, he pronounced publicly without any reluctance that he could not explain the matter in a natural way. He took of the liquor to Munich in order to subject it to a chemical analysis, and declared then by writing the result of his researches to be that he could take it neither for natural water, nor oil, and that, in general, he was not able to explain the phenomenon as being in accordance with the laws of nature.

"Let me add the testimony of a historical authority. Mr. Sax, counsellor of the government (K. Regierungsrath), in his history of the diocese and city of Eichstädt, after he has spoken of the origin, the properties, and the effect of the oil of St. Walburga, concludes that 'they are of such a singular kind, that they not only exceed far the province of extraordinary nature-phenomena, but that they, in spite of the constant discrediting and slandering by bullying free-thinkers, preserved the great confidence of the catholic people even in far distant countries.'

"Now of the miracles. There are related by the people many thousands, but, of course, few of them are attested. In the Pastoral paper of Eichstädt, 1857, page 207, I read that Anton Ernest, Bishop of Brünn, in Moravia, announces, under Nov. 1, 1857, to the Bishop of Eichstädt, the recovery of a girl in the establishment of the sisters of charity from blindness, and sends, in order to attest the fact, the following document, which I am to translate literally:—

"'In the name of the indivisible Trinity. We, Anton Ernest, by God's and the Holy See's grace, Bishop of Brünn. After we had received, first by the curate of the establishment of the Daughters of Christian Charity in this place, and then also from other quarters, the notice that a girl in the aforesaid establishment had regained the use of her eyes miraculously in the very moment when she had a vial, containing oil of St. Walburga, offered to her, brought to her mouth and kissed, we thought it to be our duty to research scrupulously into the fact, and to put it beyond all doubt in the way of a special commission, by hearing of witnesses and a trial at the place of the fact, if there be truth, and how much of it, in the supposed miraculous healing.

"'About the report of this commission and the adjoined testimony of the physician, we have then, as prescribes the Holy Council of Trent (Sess. 25), collected the judgments of our theologians and other pious men; and as these all were quite in accordance, and the fact itself with all its circumstances lay before us quite clear and open, we have, after invocation of assistance of the Holy Ghost, pronounced, judged, and decided as follows:—

"'The instantaneous removal of the most pertinacious eyelid-cramp (Augenlied krampf), which Matilda Makara during many months had hindered in the use of her eyes and kept in blindness, and the simultaneous recurrence of the full eye-sight, phlogistic appearances still remaining in the eyes, which occurred when Matilda Makara on Nov. 7, 1856, had a vial with the oil of St. Walburga brought, full of confidence, to her mouth and kissed, must be acknowledged to be a fact which, besides the order of nature, has been effected by God's grace, and is therefore a miracle.

"'And that the memory of this Divine favour may be preserved, that to God eternal thanks may be given, the confidence of the faithful may be incited and nourished, this devotion to the great wonder-worker St. Walburga may be promoted, we order that this aforegoing decision shall be affixed in the chapel of the Daughters of Christian Charity in this place, that it shall be preserved for all times to come, and that the 7th Nov. shall be celebrated as a holiday every year in this aforesaid establishment.

"'Given in our Episcopal Residence at Brünn,

"'Nov. 1, 1857,

"'(L. S.) Anton Ernest, Bishop.'

"A second record about St. Walburga I find in the Eichstädt Pastoral paper, 1858, page 192, from which I take the following: 'The Superioress of the Convent of St. Walburga had received in summer 1858 the notice of a miraculous cure written by the Superioress of the Convent of St. Leonard-sur-Mer, Sussex. At request for an authenticated report, John Bamber, chaplain of the Convent of the Holy Infant at St. Leonard-sur-Mer, wrote about the following: "Sister Walburga had been ill fifteen months, of which five bedridden. The physician pronounced the malady to be incurable. Large exterior tumour, frequent (thrice or four times a day) vomitings were caused by the diseased pylorus. The matter was hopeless, when the Superioress on April 27 thought of using the oil of St. Walburga. The chaplain brought it on the tongue of the sick sister, and in the same moment she had a burning feeling which seemed to her to descend, and to affect especially the sick part. In a few minutes the inner smart ceased, the tumour fell off, she felt recovered. Next morning she rose,