[Illustration: CARDINAL NEWMAN.] _MAYNARD'S ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES.--SPECIAL NUMBER_ SELECTIONS FROM THE PROSE WRITINGS OF JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN _FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS_ [Illustration] NEW YORK CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. COPYRIGHT, 1906, by MAYNARD, MERRILL, & CO. CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 5 CHARACTER SKETCHES: Saul 13 Early Years of David 28 Basil and Gregory 45 Augustine and the Vandals 56 Chrysostom 84 THE TURK: The Tartar and the Turk 111 The Turk and the Saracen 122 The Past and Present of the Ottomans 143 UNIVERSITIES: What is a University? 155 University Life: Athens 163 Supply and Demand: The Schoolmen 180 The Strength and Weakness of Universities: Abelard 186 MISCELLANEOUS: Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle's Poetics 200 The Infinitude of the Divine Attributes 218 Christ upon the Waters 222 The Second Spring 229 St. Paul's Characteristic Gift 251 NOTES 269 INTRODUCTION It has come to be universally admitted that Cardinal Newman fulfills his own definition of a great author: "One whose aim is to give forth what he has within him; and from his very earnestness it happens that whatever be the splendor of his diction, or the harmony of his periods, he has with him the charm of an incommunicable simplicity. "Whatever be his subject, high or low, he treats it suitably and for its own sake.... He writes passionately because he feels keenly; forcibly, because he conceives vividly; he sees too clearly to be vague; he is too serious to be otiose; he can analyze his subject, and therefore he is rich; he embraces it as a whole and in its parts, and therefore he is consistent; he has a firm hold of it, and therefore he is luminous. "When his imagination wells up, it overflows in ornament; when his heart is touched, it thrills along his verse. He always has the right word for the right idea, and never a word too much.... "He expresses what all feel but cannot say; and his sayings pass into proverbs among his people, and his phrases become household words, idioms of their daily speech, which is tessellated with the rich fragments of his language, as we see in foreign lands the marbles of Roman grandeur worked into the walls and pavements of modern palaces."