Dr. Samuel Newth
Am full of sorrow. My friend, mv teacher,
my comrade is dead — yea, reither, he is “alive for eyermore.” He was within sight of seyenty-seyen years of earthly life, yet to the last there was a touching youthfulness about his whole spirit and manner. In one sense he died “in his full strength, heing wholly at ease and quiet “; in another, he was as a “shock of corn fully ripe,” claimed by the Owner of the field. He has left no enemies. Those who knew him best loved him most, and amongst them I gladly reckon his students, who to-day honour him and magnify his influence in the ministry of the Gospel. From an early period he was in effect, if not in name, “Professor” Almost as soon as boyhood was past he was an acknoAyledged teacher and leader of yoimg minds. An earnest student himself, he made
34C other students earnest. At school and college alike Samuel Newth was known as an example and a stimulus. Probably there was no keener legal mind in England during the last century than the mind of Sir George Jessel, the renowned Master of the Rolls. Newth and Jessel were fellow-students at University College. They comicted for the mathematical prize, and it fell to Samuel Newth. Jessel wondered that he had not succeeded in the competition, and on asking Professor De Morgan the reason, he was informed that Mr. NcAvth had secured fifty-four marks and Jessel had secured thirty-seven. The instance is worth recalling as indicating a type of mind and a degree of industry within which lay the greatest possibilities of true learning. Dr. Newth was in the richest sense of the term a learned man. I know, from his own lips, that he has occupied twelve dilferont chairs in our Congregational colleges. Dr. Newth ahvays knew more than he was willing to acknowledge, for modesty was probably the most conspicuous feature in his manifold and harmonious character. He was incapable of boasting; and he was equally incapable of doing injustice to the merits and claims of other men.
If I were required to sum up Dr. Newth’s intellectual habits, I am not sure that I should not select the word diligence, as indicating the very spirit of his character as a student. He did nothing with a slack hand. Even ordinary appointments in life hecamo to him special responsibilities. He never threw his obligations upon other men, or fled away in a crowd. As one of the New Testament company of Revisers, he for many years illustrated this habit of diligence with great distinctness. If the attendances were published, I should be surprised if Dr. Newth’s name were not at the top of the list. He made a conscience of everything. It would seem to be impossible that he could have slurred any work which he undertook, whether it was the making of a catalogue, attendance upon a committee, the classification of a library, the preparation of a mathematical treatise, or even the writing of an ordinary letter. Everything was done as if it were the only thing he had to do. No doubt this made him a severe disciplinarian. He had no patience with indolence, or with any of the methods by Avhicli men sometimes seek to evade their duties. His severity arose from the rigour of his Own example rather than from the operation of a mere theory as to industry directed by conscience.
If I were required to sum up his religious characteristics in one word, I should have no hesitation is choosing the word devoutness. I never knew a more reverent spirit. The reverence was wondrously compounded of awe and tenderness. His prayers were full of tears. No one ever touched human sorrow with finer delicacy, or brought to bear upon it richer resources of symj)athy and consolation. I have been amazed at the gentleness, the sweetness, the thrilling sympathy of his private and social prayers. There never could be any mistake as to the depth and reality of his spiritual emotion. All his eruditicm was steeped, as it were, in a reverential spirit. His students recall with grateful delight the short and pregnant prayers with Avliich he began his most abstruse and elaborate as well as more pastoral lectures.
Of Dr. Newth as he revealed himself in the family — his beloved family of ten children — I may not say one word beyond expressing the fact that I never kneAV manliness so tender or strength so condescending.
Remembering his utter dislike of evervtliinc: merely eulogistic, I dare hardly add another word. Could he communicate with me at this moment, he would urge me to attribute all the good he was enabled to do solely to the grace of God, He would offer undivided praise to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He sought no greatness for himself. He knew no sordid ambitions. He had no greater joy than to watch the growth of his students in capacity and usefulness. Again and again he would allude to some eminent minister as “one of my boys,” always accounting the honour of such ministers as one of the main sources and reasons of his own personal comfort and joy. We shall miss our friend sorely; we shall miss him at the fireside, in the council chamber, and in every assembly called to consider the welfare of ministerial students. To have lived so as to be regretfully missed is to have lived well. “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.” Dr. Newth leaves a spotless fame and a memory that will be a stimulus to us in all our endeavours to serve the best interests of the Christian Church. In the August of 1897, as we rambled day by day on the Sussex doAvns, I saw the far-away look come into his
A PIIEACHER’8 LIFE
beautiful eyes. We watched the sea together, and wondered what shores lay beyond the deeper waters that in ghostly silence wash the island of the Here and Now, and together we read the book of the summer clouds, standing dumbly before the mystic pages whose signs cannot be wholly read by mortal eyes, and to one another we said most when we said nothing. It was wholly beautiful — so quiet, so fragrant, so like the house of God; yet a mere outline and alphabet of what he now sees in th(y homeland of the eternal summer.
Such was the address which I delivered at the interment of my venerable and honoured friend. I think it better to insert it just as it was delivered, that something at least of the genuine emotion may be preserved. Dr. Newth and I often talked of an expositor in whose works we were greatly interested. For something like fifteen years Dr. Newth and Dean Vaughan had sat side by side in the New Testament Revision Company. My own connection with Dr. Vaughan was very slight, but to myself most interesting. To my great surprise I received from him a most gracious note respecting my Thursday morning service, which he had once attended
DR. SAMUEL XEWTH 3ol
whilst it was held in the Poultry Chapel. His note was characteristically generous and encouraging. Soon after that it was arranged that I should have the honour of meeting him at the house of the Rev. Samuel Minton, M.A., a well-knoAvn clergyman of the Church of England. Mr. Minton himself deserves to he remembered as one of the most enlightened and most progressive members of his class. The burning sincerity and the steadfast faithfulness of Samuel Minton I have never known to be excelled. In no poetical sense was he prepared to suffer the loss of all things that his conscience might remain un corrupted. ]Ir. Minton was the kind of man of whom martyrs are made. Once let a conviction seize his mind and heart, and it would remain there, whatever consequence of suffering and loss might ensue. Mr. Minton was wont to say that he could ruin any limited liability company in the counti-y by taking shares in it.
It was at Mr. Minton’s house that I had the honour of meeting Dean Vaughan, then Master of the Temple. What serenity was expressed in that quiet and noble face! What a gentle voice! What a friendly smile! As soon as luncheon was ended Mr. Minton started a subject for conversation, expecting each of us to make some contribution to its elucidation. If I remember aright the subject had direct reference to the spread of ritualism. I am not likely to be wrong in this recollection, because if Church questions have ever been raised within the last fifty years they have, either at the beginning or the end of their discussion, touched upon the large question of sacerdotalism. Dean Vaughan was requested to follow Mr. Minton’s introductory statement. He said he had no idea that the conversation would be so thoroughly Socratic in its method. He then expressed himself in very cautious terms, yet leaving no doubt about his own love of ritual simplicity. I do not ever remember that he said anything aphoristic, but I do distinctly remember that he deeply” impressed me by his intellectual dignity and his spiritual fearlessness and repose. I am, perhaps, more indebted to Dean Vaughan than to any other modern expositor. His books are mines of spiritual wealth. He never overpowers his readers by the weight of his own erudition. His sermons are amongst the very best specimens of expository preach-DR. SA^rUEL NEWTH ing, and cannot fail profoundly” to influence all minds that earnestly desire to know the inner meaning of spiritual things.
I have often expressed to Dr. Xewth my disappointment that the Revisers did not take greater licence in their new translation. I had been so fascinated by the rapid, fiery, graphic translations and paraphrases of the Epistles gi/en by Dean Parrar in his “Life of St. Paul,” that I wished the Revisers had followed something like the same untrammelled career. Dr. Newth told me that in the constitution of the Company there was a strong conservative element, worthily represented by the Master of the Temple. I was, indeed, aware of Dr. Vaughan’s unwillingness to obtrude any merely personal eccentricity of translation ui)on the attention of the Company. He was quite prepared to handle Demosthenes or Cicero in the freest manner, but he felt that something was due to the New Testament on the ground of reverence and custom and holy tradition. What the Dean did not dare do as a member of the Revision Company he has to a large extent done in the expositions for which he is personally responsible. Some of his translations are quaint and picturesque in a degree which might not have been acceptable to a body af revisers so variously constituted. Dr. NeAvth confirmed my impression that Dr. Vauglian was not only one of the most scholarly, but one of the most simple-hearted and devout Christians he had ever known. Dr. Newth was sorry that some place was not found in the Revision Company for the devotional services of its Nonconformist members. Everything of a devotional character was conducted by the presiding bishop, in the words of the Established Church. Dr. NcAvth would have been satisfied if any one of the Nonconformist members had been invited even to pronounce the benediction. Whatever good might have come from so simple an arrangement we can never tell; but it is happily certain that the association of such men as Vauglian and Newth, Stanley and Moulton, was fruitful in spiritual and social results.