Carlyle  recognized  the  church  as  a  vesture;  he  ac-
knowledged its  importance  as  such,  possessed  himself
of  the  reality  which  it  clothed,  and  never  bothered
to  enfold  himself  in  that  vesture,  to  maintain  it  in
wholeness  and  beauty  by  attending  or  supporting  any
church  institution.  Newman,  too,  recognized  the
church  as  a  vesture,  but  as  such  indispensable,  the
prime  concern  of  all  earnest  men,  to  be  perfected,  puri-
fied, glorified.  Carlyle  may  be  considered  the  acme  of
pious  dissent,  Newman  the  acme  of  intelligent  con-
formity.
Distinguished  from  ordinary  men  of  letters  by  his
seriousness  and  sincerity,  from  Macaulay  by  the  one-
ness, the  integrity  of  his  intellectual  and  his  religious
faculties,  and  from  Carlyle  by  the  different  practical
bearing  of  his  whole-souled  convictions,  it  was  a  life
of  struggle,  of  bitterness,  that  Newman  had  to  live.
The  term  applied  to  a  man  who  forsakes  his  religion  is
apostate;  it  is  almost  as  reproachful  and  contemptuous
as  deserter  or  traitor.  And  even  wheUxWe  remember
that  him  whom  George  III  called  traitor,  others  called
patriot,  that  an  apostate  to  one  religion  is  the  welcome
convert  to  another,  we  know  that  in  both  cases  heart-
burnings, uncertainty,  sore  wrenchings  within  oneself,
misunderstanding,  vilification,  recrimination  from
others  are  inevitably  involved.  All  these  Newman  had
to  endure.  He  endured  them  all  with  serene  calmness,
kindness,  sweetness.     He  stands  like  a  colossal,  full-  9


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  ESSAYISTS  127

surpliced  priest  in  the  midst  of  a  hurrying,  week-day,
clamorous  throng.
