R. M. Lovett '92 read his Bowdoin prize dissertation on "A Study of Cardinal Newman" in Sever Hall last night. He gave an outline of Newman's work and the development of his ideas. In closing he said:

"It was the same intense regard for and dependence upon personality that turned Newman's eyes upon himself that made his religion subjective and his thought self-conscious. Indeed it has been made a charge against him that he had too little affection for truth in the abstract. His grasp of external fact was always feeble in comparison to his perception of his own inner life. His religion always looked for its ultimate sanction to his own consciousness. This extreme subjectivity manifests itself further in a disposition to doubt the reality of the outward aspects of nature. His childish idealism took form in a belief that 'life might be a dream or I an angel and all the world a deception, my fellow angels by a playful device concealing themselves from me and deceiving me with the semblance of a material world.

This is the climax of Newman's thought as it is the end of all wisdom, - to know the living and the true God. It is the supreme triumph of his intellect, to will away the world and stand in the presence of his Creator. It is this singleness of purpose that gives to his personality its marvellous power over men, - the power of one who sees farther and clearer, whose life is wrapped up in the divine, whose meditations are of the Eternal. For it is the personality of Newman that is significant. As in his religious thought it constituted his ultimate sanction, so it will survive, when the creeds in which it wrought itself out have faded away. In one of the University sermons Newman pictures the personal influence of a teacher of truth.

The attraction,' he says, 'of unconscious holiness is of an urgent and inevitable nature, it persuades the weak, the timid, the wavering, and the inquiring; it draws forth the affection and loyalty of all who are in a measure like-minded; and over the thoughtless or perverse multitude it exercises a sovereign, compulsory sway, bidding them fear and keep silence, on the ground of its own right Divine to rule them. And for that select number who feel themselves, as it were, individually addressed by the invitation of his example: 'By degrees they would discern more and more the traces of unearthly majesty about him; they would witness from time to time his trial under the various events of life and would still find, whether they looked above or below, that he rose higher and was based deeper than they could ascertain by measurement. Then, at length, with astonishment and fear, they would become aware that Christ's presence was before them and would glorify God in His servant.' There can be no better words to describe, the power of Newman's own personality over the generation which loved him and mourns for him. True, we can no longer cry Credo in Newmanum. We cannot take his words as an Evangel. In dogmatic theology and in philosophy we must account him a reactionary force. But in the moral world he will ever be to us a revelation of the beauty of holiness. There, where, to quote Professor Royce, the intelligent man of today is praying hourly for proof that there are spiritual chains worthy enough and holy enough to bind his will and his reason - there He may be to us a Saviour if we will let him."