Hush! a mourner sits in silence Within a darkened room, Where the fairest flower of summer Lies withered in her bloom. While those who move about him With footsteps sad and slow, Whisper to each other, But leave him to his woe. And down in the quiet churchyard, Where nodding grasses wave, The children gather, silent, And the sexton digs a grave. Solemnly tolls the church-bell, It counteth twenty-five-- O God! the flowers wither, And the old, old branches thrive. Solemnly tolls the church-bell, Slowly winds the train Adown the rocky hillside, Along the grassy plain; Sadly pass the bearers Into the churchyard old, Brightly falls the sunlight In glittering lines of gold; Tearfully pause the mourners Above the broken sod, And Ludwig waits beside it, A humble priest of God. NEWMAN ON MIRACLES.[53] These essays are here reprinted from the original editions of each, with only the addition of a few bracketed notes, and with some slight emendation of the wording of a few sentences of the text of a merely literary character. For many years, Dr. Newman has been a public man in the English theological world, so much so that, as he himself expressed it, “he is obliged to think aloud.” His writings have passed into the domain of English literature, and are public property. It is not now in his power to withdraw any portion of them, much as he might desire to do so. Under existing circumstances, he has judged it the better course--or, at least, the lesser evil--that they should be republished under his own eye, with such corrections in bracketed notes as will indicate what he would now correct or retract. These two essays mark very distinctly two stages in the career through which, as he fully explains in his _Apologia_, Dr. Newman has passed. The first one, written to defend the miracles recorded in the Holy Scriptures against the attacks of Hume, Gibbon, and other infidels, dates from 1825-26, while he was yet young, and a staunch Protestant, somewhat imbued with evangelical feelings, especially in the matter of _Popery_. Hence, while ably conducting the exposition and defence of the Scripture miracles, he omits no opportunity of hitting at the other miracles recorded to have occurred in the Catholic Church since the days of the apostles. In fact, he had, as he tells us elsewhere, read the work of Middleton on _The Miracles of the Early Church_, and had imbibed his spirit. He was guided also by Bishop Douglas, whose _Criterion_ he often quotes. Seventeen years of continuous study and mature thought produced their fruit in his clear and candid mind. In 1842-43, he wrote the second essay as a preface or introduction to a portion of Fleury’s _Ecclesiastical History_, then being published in an English translation.