1830 (1)
PROFESSOR F. W. NEWMAN (brother of Cardinal Newman) who had won an unusually high double First Class at Oxford, became resident tutor at Sergeant Pennefather's, Mr. Darby's brother-in-law. Here he saw a good deal of Darby who was then staying there invalided. This is what he says of him: "After taking my degree, I became a Fellow of Balliol College; and next year I accepted an invitation to Ireland, and there became private tutor for fifteen months in the house of one now deceased, whose name I would gladly mention for honor and affection-but I withhold my pen. While he paid me munificently for my services, he behaved towards me as a father, or indeed as an elder brother, and instantly made me feel as a member of his family. His great talents, high professional standing, nobleness of heart and unfeigned piety, would have made him a most valuable counselor to me; but he was too gentle, too unassuming, too modest; he looked to be taught by his juniors, and sat at the feet of one whom I proceed to describe. This was a young relative of his, a most remarkable man, who rapidly gained an immense sway over me. I shall henceforth call him The Irish Clergyman.' His bodily presence was indeed weak.' A fallen cheek, a bloodshot eye, crippled limbs resting on crutches, a seldom shaved beard, a shabby suit of clothes, and a generally neglected person, drew at first pity, with wonder to see such a figure in a drawing room. It was currently reported that a person in Limerick offered him a halfpenny, mistaking him for a beggar; and if not true, the story was yet well invented.
" This young man had taken high honors at Dublin University, and had studied for the Bar, where, under the auspices of his eminent kinsman, he had excellent prospects; but his conscience would not allow him to take a brief, lest he should be selling his talents to defeat justice. With keen logical powers, he had warm sympathy, solid judgment of character, thoughtful tenderness, and total self-abandonment. He before long took holy orders, and became an indefatigable curate in the mountains of Wicklow. Every evening he sallied forth to teach in the cabins, and, roving far and wide over mountains and amid bogs, was seldom home before midnight. By such exertions his strength was undermined; and he so suffered in his, limbs that, not lameness only, but yet more serious results were feared. He did not fast on purpose [he did fast often on purpose, for neither display nor influence], but his long walks through wild country and amongst indigent people inflicted on him much severe privation; moreover, as he ate whatever food offered itself (food unpalatable and often indigestible to him), his whole frame might have vied in emaciation with a monk of La Trappe.
" Such a phenomenon intensely excited the poor Romanists who looked on him as a genuine saint ' of the ancient breed. The stamp of Heaven seemed to them clear, in a frame so wasted by austerity, so superior to worldly pomp, and so partaking in all their indigence. That a dozen such men would have done more to convert all Ireland to Protestantism, than the whole apparatus of the Church Establishment, was ere long my conviction; though I was at first offended by his personal affectation of a careless exterior [never was a greater mistake: it was his unworldly principle and practice]; but I soon understood that in no other way could he gain equal access to the lowest orders, and that he was moved, not by asceticism nor by ostentation, but by a self-abandonment fruitful of consequences. He had practically given up all reading but the Bible, and no small part of his movement soon took the form of dissuasion from all other voluntary study. In fact, I had myself more and more concentrated my religious reading on this one Book; still I could not help feeling the value of a cultivated mind.
Against this my new eccentric friend (having himself enjoyed no mean advantages of cultivation) directed his keenest attacks.
" I remember once saying to him, To desire to be rich is absurd; but if I were a father of children, I should wish to be rich enough to secure them a good education.' He replied, If I had children, I would as soon see them break stones on the road as do anything else, if I could only secure to them the Gospel and the grace of God.' I was unable to say Amen; but I admired his unflinching consistency. For now, as always, all he said was based on texts aptly quoted and logically enforced. He made me more and more ashamed of political economy and moral philosophy and all science, all of which ought to be counted dross for the excellency of the knowledge of CHRIST Jesus our LORD. For the first time in my life, I saw a man earnestly turning into reality the principles which others professed with their lips only.
" Never before had I seen a man so resolved that no word of the New Testament should be a dead letter to him. I once said, But do you really think that no part of the New Testament may have been temporary in its object? For instance, what should we have lost if St. Paul had never written, " The cloak that I left at Troas bring with thee and the books, but especially the parchments? " ' He answered with the greatest promptitude, I should have lost something; for it was exactly that verse which alone saved me from selling my little library. No! every word, depend upon it, is from the SPIRIT and is for eternal service! ' In spite of the strong revulsion which I felt against some of the peculiarities of this remarkable man, I for the first time in my life found myself under the dominion of a superior. When I remember how even those bowed down before him who had been in the place of parents-accomplished and experienced minds-I cease to wonder in the retrospect that he riveted me in such a bondage."