In
1849 Emmeline Erle and her widowed mother move from sunny southern
Europe to cold and grimy Birmingham, England. The town is one of
great contrasts: progress and poverty, industrial expansion and murky
slums, new villas and filthy streets. Darkness and light battle in
the minds of its people: principles of freedom and tolerance struggle
with ignorance and prejudice; deep doubt of religious truth coexists
with fanaticism.
Emmeline
quickly makes friends in her new home— Lizzie, the hardworking
servant, and Daniel, the schoolboy living next door. For both
Emmeline and Daniel, Father John Henry Newman, who runs a chapel in
one of the worst sections town, becomes the most important person in
Birmingham.
Daniel
and Emmeline come to know and admire Father Newman as he tries to
help poor factory workers and to enlighten citizens blinded by
suspicion and bigotry. With him they experience the anxieties of a
cholera outbreak and the dangers of anti-Catholic riots. Caught up in
one excitement or trouble after another, the young people finally
arrive at happier times, while the walls of Father Newman's new
church, a symbol of light in a dark town, rise into the smoggy
Birmingham sky.
This
colorful and dramatic story for youth brilliantly unfolds the
panorama of Victorian England—the Industrial Revolution, the Oxford
movement, the Crystal Palace, and Prince Albert opening a new
railway. But above all, this book portrays the character and wisdom
of John Henry Newman.
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