Excerpt from A Life of Cardinal Newman On the very summit of true greatness I place the great religious teachers of the Catholic Church, because they have been possessed of the noblest ideals and have devoted all the energies of their lives to their realization for the welfare of their fellow-beings. The world could do without great heroes, even without great discoverers; it cannot do without these saints of God. The world's models of true greatness are often misleading. It has often placed the diadem of glory on the brow of the tyrant who has built his throne upon the broken hearts of the people; it has often thrown the pall of oblivion over the guilty deeds of the conqueror and, because of his successful brutality, has called him great. But when the Church places her seal of approval upon a man, we may look upon him as a crown and a flower of the human race. As I throw Open the pages of history and see marching before me from far and near, from the depths of ages and the tribes and peoples of men, the saints and sages who have fought and bled in the cause of truth, I behold, walking side by side with Peter and Paul, Augustine and Bernard, Aquinas and Ignatius, radiant and serene, the face and figure of John Henry Newman, whose genius and whose holiness have enkindled a fire of truth in the heart of England which shall not be quenched forever. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.