AUCKLAND NEWMAN SOCIETY

New Zealand Tablet, 4 June 1914, Page 45

AUCKLAND NEWMAN SOCIETY

) The general monthly meeting of : the Newman Society was held at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Remuera, on the 26th of last month, and was fairly well attended. Brother George, M.A., occupied the .chair, and the meeting extended its heartiest congratulations to the Catholic students who were so signally successful in the recent degree examinations. A most interesting paper, entitled ‘ The Catholic tendencies of Sir Walter Scott,’ contributed by Rev. Father Doyle, was put before the meeting. Father Doyle said in part: When we bear in mind that ‘Protestantism is the religion of British literature, and that it has become the tradition of civil intercourse and political life, that its assumptions are among the elements of knowledge, unchangeable as the modes of logic or the idioms of language, or the injunctions of good taste, or the proprieties of good manners,’ it is most remarkable to find men like Johnson, Wordsworth, Scott, and others of the’ best minds of every post-Reformation epoch, paying an involuntary, an unconscious, nay, an enforced tribute to the superiority of Catholic personages, institutions, and ideas. From Shakespeare, who is so Catholic in tone and feeling, down to Mrs. Humphrey Ward and Gilbert Chesterton, one is struck by the almost uniform respect and reverence manifested by the first-rate authors towards persons and things Catholic. One need not stress the point that tribute of esteem from men outside the pale of the Church, from men of brains who had nothing to gain and everything to lose by giving vent to such opinions, from men who gave their testimony in the teeth of popular passion and prejudice— what amounts to the same thing or even more, — unwittingly, and almost in spite of themselves, is assuredly something not to be overlooked in modern apologetics. Newman accuses Scott of being ashamed of his ‘ Catholic tendencies,’ and no one acquainted with the novelist’s works can doubt that Newman’s charge is well founded. And yet, despite all this, there is no straining after effect, no garbling of truth, nothing far-fetched, in styling Sir Walter Scott one of the heralds or forerunners of that famous Tractarian movement whose chief apostle was Newman himself. Scott, then, was very largely instrumental in bringing about the present more sensible and more tolerant attitude of Englishmen towards the Catholic Church. Of course Scott never had any such notion or intention, nor did he ever propose to himself any such result. Seemingly he had no serious doubts anent the security of his position, nor did he have any scruples against retaining his Protestant creed. He was certainly not an apostle of the great Romeward trend, in the same sense that Newman was. But for all that, it is none the less true, that, however unwittingly, he helped along the good cause by calling the attention of his readers to many of the most attractive features of old Catholic times and manners and personages by throwing a little light on the hitherto dark corners, disabusing the British mind of some of its gross, unfounded prejudices, by opening to conviction, partially at least, some of the best types of the same British mind, and so paving the way for the later work of the Tractarians. This, then, was the influence exerted by most of Scott’s novels: Wherever the author has occasion to contrast the old Catholic with the new Protestant epochs and personages, the Catholic seldom suffers by the contrast. Of course there are exceptions ; but as a rule, the reflecting and impartial reader cannot fail to observe that the author’s admiration goes out to the old regime. However, he is not to be given credit for being a -willing or even a conscious missionary for the Catholic cause. On the contrary, whatever he did, he did unwittingly. But the fact remains, nevertheless, that, nolens volens, he really did a good work for us; that he was, in a sense, one of the pioneers of the improved and decidedly more reasonable present-day sentiment of English Protestants towards the Catholic Church. Scott was by'nature, too, big hearted, too generous and tolerant and broadminded to } allow any prepossessions

of his to blind his eyes to the indubitable truth-' and had he lived in a more tolerant age or country, had he been free in every respect—financial, popular, and otherwise, tq follow his bent, without let or hindrance, no doubt he would never have deviated a hair’s breadth from the path of justice and ‘ square dealing.’ But it was a bigoted age, and a bigoted ‘people for whom he wrote, and he was not always strong enough to withstand the pressure of the times and circumstances. And so through fear of popular contempt, or disfavor, and against the promptings of his better self, he weakly made concessions to popular passion and prejudice, even permitting it occasionally to carry him to palpable extremes. In parts of The Monastery, The Abbot, The Fortunes of Nigel, The Fair Maid of Perth, Ivanhoe, and other books Scott talks like a genuine, true blue Protestant, about the ‘ usurpations of Rome,’ the erroneous, though fervent and sincere, prayers of Pother Eustace, Rome’s hostility to the Bible, and her business of buying and selling pardon for sin, etc. But more often than not, even in the above-mentioned books, the author makes the Qatholic characters hi<drgrade, high-minded, dignified, noble; and ' brave; °he shows us manly, genuine, religious, and puts real Catholic prayers and speeches into the mouths of his characters. Surely, too, we, as Catholics, must ever feel grateful to Scott for his noble and whole-hearted defence of Mary Stuart. We must not forget, either, his beautiful pen-pictures of Sir Frederick Vernon and his daughter in Fob Roy — high-minded Catholics, whose lives are governed solely by a sense of duty, and who are ready to sacrifice all for their religion and for him whom they recognise as their king. Let us remember, too, that in the Lady of the Lake he has penned one of the most tender and touching hymns to the Mother of God. The superficial observer may not be able to see much of the ‘ Catholic tendency ’ either in Scott or his works; but surely no one in the wide world was more competent to give an opinion on this subject than the illustrious patron of our Society, John Henry Newman, and he asserts that Scott did have Catholic tendencies. It has been shown clearly enough, from the author’s own works, that these tendencies are not to be found in his attitude towards Catholic doctrines and practices, but that they are to be found most decidedly in his pictures of Catholic life and character. This phase of the great novelist’s work was, as we learn from The I*resent Position of Catholics in England, Newman’s chief desideratum as an openingwedge into the stony heart of the prejudiced British Protestant nation ; and it is more than probable that it was precisely this feature the Cardinal had in mind in referring to Scott’s ‘ Catholic tendencies.’ An animated discussion followed the reading of this paper, in which all the members took part. The president then thanked the Sisters for their kindly hospitality, after which all adjourned to the chapel, where Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament was given by Father Kirrane, B.A. The next meeting will be held at St. Patrick’s Convent, and a debate, ‘ Should Scott’s works be read indiscriminately by Catholics?’ will take place.