He was the
ruler of Roman Catholic England, and he would rule. The nature of
Newman's influence it was impossible for him to understand, but
he saw that it existed; for twenty years he had been unable to
escape the unwelcome itterations of that singular, that alien,
that rival renown; and now it stood in his path, alone and
inexplicable, like a defiant ghost. 'It is remarkably
interesting,' he observed coldly, when somebody asked him what he
thought of the Apologia: 'it is like listening to the voice of
one from the dead.' And such voices, with their sepulchral
echoes, are apt to be more dangerous than living ones; they
attract too much attention; they must be silenced at all costs.
It was the meeting of the eagle and the dove; there was a
hovering, a swoop, and then the quick beak and the relentless
talons did their work.
Even before his accession to the Archbishopric, Manning had
scented a peculiar peril in Newman's Oxford scheme, and so soon
as he came into power, he privately determined that the author of
the Apologia should never be allowed to return to his old
University. Nor was there any lack of excellent reasons for such
a decision. Oxford was by this time a nest of liberalism; it was
no fit place for Catholic youths, and they would inevitably be
attracted there by the presence of Father Newman.
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