^ Far above all other motives was his love to Christ. That was the root of his life, and the life of all his effort. It was a
* E. J. Campbell, in The Christian Commonwealth, xxx. 533.
I JOHN IV. 7 321
conscious, personal, realized devotion. It was too hallowed a feeling for him to speak much of. It coloured and pervaded every thought ; was an unceasing presence with him ; lay at the founda- tion of every endeavour, and was brought to bear on every action in life, on every book he read, and almost on every word he spoke.^
^ Nature had done much for Coxe, but grace did more. The personal Eeligion of the man it was, — the lingering of the dew of the morning, — which kept him so fresh and green. Such a character would else have been spoiled by popularity. The humour would have degenerated into caustic wit, the courtesy, into mere worldliness, the sense of beauty, into ?esthetic selfish- ness. The one only safeguard of a disposition exposed to so many and such various temptations was clearly the love of God. It was this which harmonized his character ; preserved him from running into extremes; saved him from secularity; kept his faculties fresh and youthful. He really loved all God's works, because he loved their Author.^
2. Love is the parent of many virtues. — In the first place, love begets justice. Not only justice of deed but justice of thought — of which we all stand even more in need. When we love anyone we are sure to judge him more fairly, to make more sound and proper excuses for him and to give all the credit due to his better motives. And even when he has deserved just condemnation, true love will not shut its eyes to his fault or close the lips of just reproach. You cannot be just to anyone whom you dislike or hate, you cannot be just and true to anyone for whom your love is not pure and true, for it is not true love that is ever blind to real faults. True love then adds to justice the quality of mercy, not sparing in the condemnation of the sin, but tender, merciful, and forgiving to the sinner. Then we find love the faithful parent of patience, forbearance, humility, and meekness, all elements of the highest humanity and sources of unspeakable blessing and peace. When we truly love, we show all these virtues in their lustre.
How can one man, how can all men, How can we be like St. Paul,
Like St. John, or like St. Peter, Like the least of all Blessed Saints ? for we are small.
* S. A. Brooke, Life and Letters of the Rev. F. W. JSoberison, 164. ^ J. W. Burgon, Lives of Twelve Qood M<:n, ii. 143. JAS.-JUDE— 21
322 THE BOND OF BROTHERHOOD
Love can make us like St. Peter,
Love can make us like St. Paul, Love can make us like the blessed
Bosom friend of all.
Great St. John, though we are small.
Love which clings, and trusts, and worships,
Love which rises from a fall. Love which, prompting glad obedience,
Labours most of all.
Love makes great, the great and small.
3. It is love that gives value and charm to all our actions. — For the love spoken of here is not merely a sentiment. It is a pure and holy affection, a controlling principle of action, a consuming, abiding life. It would be a great mistake to regard Christian love as a passion, as a state or quality of heart uncon- nected with activity, as a mere negation of enmity or dislike. A large part of its force consists in its positive aspects, of the ex- hibition of active energy in outward conduct. Its full measure is realized only when, besides restraining us from its opposite vices, it impels and directs us into that course of conduct which is con- sistent with its high and imperious claims.
•[[ " It seems to me," remarked Isabel, " that love is the leaven that leavens the whole lump. It is only when people begin to care for each other that the fineness of human nature is seen. I was horribly selfish myself till I really cared for somebody, and then I gradually became quite nice.
" As long as you don't love anybody much your character is like a garden in winter ; one virtue is under a glass shade, and another is covered over with straw, and all of them are dreadfully pinched and sickly. Then love comes by, and it is summer ; and your garden rejoices and blossoms like the rose, without your bothering about it at all." ^
^ It is hard now to represent adequately the extraordinary personal charm which so many of his contemporaries felt in John Henry Newman. The letters convey much of it, but not all. Yet the tradition of this charm is a fact which must be set down in his biography. It was a charm felt by intellectual minds and even sceptical minds, and by simple and practical men. Blanco White, Mark Pattison, Henry Wilberforce, Frederick Rogers,
1 EUen Thorneycroft Fowler, Isabel Carnaby, cli. xxiv,
I JOHN IV. 7 323
R. W. Church, and Ambrose St. John were all among his most intimate friends. The almost unique combination of tender- ness, brilliancy, refinement, wide sympathy, and holiness doubt- less went for much. He had none of the repellent quahties which sometimes make asceticism forbidding. He had an ample allowance of those human sympathies which are popularly con- trasted with asceticism. Again, he seemed able to love each friend with a peculiarly close sympathy for his mind and character and thoughtfulness for the circumstances of his life. The present writer's father — never one of the most intimate of the circle which surrounded Newman at Oxford — used to say that his heart would beat as he heard Newman's step on the staircase. His keen humour, his winning sweetness, his occasional wilfulness, his resentments and angers, all showed him intensely alive, and his friends loved his very faults as one may love those of a fascinating woman ; at the same time many of them revered him almost as a prophet. Only a year before his death, after nearly twenty years of misunderstandings and estrangement, W. G. Ward told the present biographer of a dream he had had — how he found him- self at a dinner party next to a veiled lady, who charmed him more and more as they talked. At last he exclaimed, " I have never felt such charm in any conversation since I used to talk with John Henry Newman, at Oxford." " I am John Henry Newman," the lady replied, and raising her veil showed the well-known face.^