on such points as Newman had complained of, he minimized their relative importance as compared with the primary principles of the faith. A little later he is anxious to send Newman a popular tract he had just received from Rome, to show him

'how mistaken he is in the idea that the popular religion of foreign Catholics consists in the B.V., Purgatory and Indulgences. Here Christ crucified is really preached, prayer, good works, every virtue, zeal for the conversion of others, mortification, the Sacraments; the B. Virgin is made subservient, secondary, and to be invoked to second our efforts. No trust in indulgences, no hope in purgatory is inculcated. This, as a popular Roman tract, might do good' (i. 384).

In this spirit Wiseman continued, in spite of the distrust of many of the old English Roman Catholics, to hold out the hand of sympathy and encouragement to Newman and his followers. He had still, however, long to wait, before he saw the result of his patient efforts, and a remarkable memorandum of 1846 is a touching record of the struggles amidst which his policy was carried out through these critical years of the Oxford Movement. He says:

'I came to England and into this district and College without a claim upon anyone's kindness or indulgence, with overrated abilities, exaggerated reputation for learning, over-estimated character in every respect. I was placed in a position of heavy responsibility and arduous labour. No one on earth knows what I went through in head and heart during my years of silent and solitary sorrow. In the house I have reason now to know that not one was working with me, thought with me or felt with me. Many an hour of the lonely night have I passed in prayer and tears by the lamp of the Sanctuary; many a long night has passed over, sleepless and sorrowful.... How seldom has a word been spoken which intimated that those who entered the College considered it as more than a mere place of boys' education, or saw in it a great engine employed in England's conversion and regeneration. What a different place it would be if all had laboured with this view, and for this purpose. But, thank God, it has done its work in spite of us; in spite of our miserable strifes and petty jealousies, and narrow views, and cold, almost sarcastic valuation of what a higher and better power was working through it.

'How few sympathized. . . . with the tone of soothing and inviting kindness, which from the beginning Roman education had taught me to adopt, the voice of compassion and charity . . . Newspaper assaults, remonstrances by letter (and from some of our most gifted Catholics), sharp rebukes by word of mouth.... were indeed my portion, as though I compromised truth and palliated error as though I narrowed the distance between the two by trying to throw a bridge over the hideous chasm, that men might pass from

one to the other. Hence when one (and, thank God! the only one) of our good converts fell back after receiving orders, I was publicly taunted with it in newspapers, and privately in every way; and when struck down and almost brokenhearted by it, I was told by a friend that he was glad of it, because it would open my eyes to the false plan on which I had gone. And yet I had been careful to consult the Holy See through Propaganda before acting in this case (i. 447).

This memorandum deserves attention for two reasons. In the first place, such a private record of Wiseman's experiences enables and compels us to do justice to the deep earnestness, and simple self-devotion, with which he was labouring to accomplish what he deemed the great mission of his lifethe reconversion of England to the Holy See. In the heat and clash of controversy we are apt, perhaps, to forget that behind all controversy, if it is to be of any value, must lie this deep personal conviction and strenuous devotion to a cause; and much as we must lament the considerable, though but partial success, of Cardinal Wiseman's policy, we cannot but honour him for the spirit displayed in the struggles which such a memorandum records, and must recognize that it was worthy of even such eminent converts as those whom it did so much to win over. But, in the next place, the memorandum throws much light upon the subsequent difficulties of Wiseman's career as Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, as it illustrates how deep-seated was the distrust entertained by numerous and influential members of his communion, respecting his policy towards the Oxford converts and his relations towards them.

'The old fashion,' Mr. Ward observes, 'was to be very slow in accepting converts, and even to discourage them. Wiseman, on the other hand, had habitually smoothed all difficulties, sanguine that what seemed from without to be an obstacle would cease to offend, after the great step had been taken. This course was severely censured by those to whose traditions it was uncongenial' (i. 447).

This was at the bottom of much of the subsequent difficulty with Dr. Errington.

But after four years more of delay and anxiety, Wiseman's reward came to him in the accession to the Roman Church, first, of Newman himself, and then of the numerous converts, clerical and lay, who followed him. Newman resisted long and obstinately the attraction which grew upon him, and several of his friends preceded him in their surrender. But at last he suddenly yielded; and there is con

siderable interest in the following account of his reception at Oscott:

'On October 31 he arrived, and the meeting between the two men was characteristic. The great Oxford leader, who had at last owned that Rome had conquered, had come, as it were, to surrender his sword to the man who had so strenuously urged surrender as his only course. Orders disowned, preferments resigned, he came in poverty and simplicity to ask for confirmation at the hands of the Bishop. His faith and conviction brought him to Oscott, but they could not untie his tongue or rid him of the embarrassment which belonged to the situation. In company with John Walker and Ambrose St. John, he was ushered into the Oscott guest-room, and in a few minutes Bishop Wiseman with Mr. Bernard Smith and Father Spencer entered the room. The embarrassment was mutual, and Wiseman could scarcely find words for more than formal inquiries about the journey. Any touch of exultation, or any expressions of commonplace and conventional congratulation, would, as all felt instinctively, outrage a situation in which the leading mind was so highly wrought that silence seemed the only possible course. The two principal figures sat almost silent, while their companions talked more readily to each other. A message which shortly announced that a boy was waiting to go to confession to the Bishop, gave Wiseman an excuse for retiring, which he accepted with significant alacrity. The confirmation was given on November 1, the feast of All Saints, and the ice was soon broken . . . . and much conversation on the past and future ensued. The old College near Oscott. . . . was ultimately handed over, free of rent, to Newman and his friends, and was to be, for the present at least, their Littlemore. They called it Maryvale' (i. 430).

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This marks the close of perhaps the chief Act in the drama of Wiseman's life. He played in many respects a more conspicuous part afterwards, as Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster,' and displayed new powers as a public man and an ecclesiastical statesman. But the earnestness, the foresight, the originality, the policy he exhibited during the ten years from 1835 to 1845 will remain, perhaps, his highest title to honour. There is much of interest in the details given by Mr. Ward of Newman's relations with Wiseman after his conversion, and Newman repeatedly expressed his sense of what he owed to Wiseman's encouragement and friendliness. I trust,' he says to him two years afterwards, I may say you will never have cause to be sorry for having put confidence in me, or will ever find me other than most desirous to the best of my power to further the great Catholic objects, of which in England your Lordship is the chief, or rather the only, promoter' (i. 456).

But having thus endeavoured to illustrate the general

nature of Wiseman's action in the critical years of the Tractarian movement, we must pass to the chief events of his subsequent career. In 1847 he was appointed Vicar Apostolic of the London District, and devoted his energies to stimulating the work of his Church among the poor and the criminal classes. The principal means he seems to have trusted to,' says Mr. Ward,' were a more vivid faith and keener missionary zeal among the clergy, and the establishment in his district of religious communities of men and women' (i. 503). He himself often preached the annual Clergy Retreat. He invited Newman and Faber to give a mission in London in 1848. He put into practice a scheme he had long cherished of employing itinerant missionaries to arouse the religious zeal of the various towns they visited. In two years he had founded ten religious communities in the London District-one of them being the London Oratory-and he had the satisfaction of seeing converts join the religious orders and work side by side with the hereditary Catholics. There existed, however, among the London clergy a school resolutely opposed to what they looked upon as the Romanizing and innovating spirit of the new Vicar Apostolic:

'They resented active interference on the part of any Vicar Apostolic, and they objected in particular to Wiseman's introduction of new devotions and institutions. The restoration of the longexpelled images to the churches, the introduction of Jesuits and other religious orders, the multiplication of practices of devotion to the Blessed Virgin and Blessed Sacrament, were all novelties. And they met with opposition' (i. 512).

He

But while prosecuting these spiritual labours, the effect of which was perhaps somewhat exaggerated by his enthusiasm, he was informed, in July 1850, of the Pope's intention to confer on him the dignity of Cardinal. The feelings with which he received the news were naturally very mixed. feared that it would involve his leaving England for ever, and would thus, as he expressed it, 'bind him in golden fetters for life, and cut off all his hopes, all his aspirations, all his life's wish to labour for England's conversion in England, in the midst of the strife with heresy, and the triumphs of the Church' (i. 521). Some of the language he used to friends seems, indeed, quite overstrained and unreal.

'Though I resign myself,' he wrote to Father Faber, 'to what comes with authority from above, I cannot but feel that this is either a judicial visitation well deserved, that, having done God's work here so poorly and negligently, I am removed from it (with honour, indeed, to prevent scandal), and so it will be given to a better

husbandman; or else this accumulation of position and distinction is a reward here below for services too ill-rendered, and too much spoilt by pride, to deserve any better' (i. 522).

However, his apprehensions of removal from England were soon to be relieved. On his reception at Rome in September, it was intimated to him by the Pope that the immediate restoration of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy in England was contemplated, and that he would himself be appointed to the office of Archbishop of Westminster. The Pope's Brief re-establishing the Hierarchy was, in fact, dated September 29, 1850, and on October 7 Wiseman announced the event to English Catholics by a Pastoral from out of the Flaminian Gate of Rome.' Five days afterwards he started for England, without the slightest suspicion that he had set the country aflame by what was speedily denounced as 'the Papal Aggression.' The story of that panic is well told by Mr. Ward, and it is not pleasant reading. It was bad enough for the leading newspapers, beginning with the Times, to lose their heads so completely; but it was really scandalous that the Prime Minister of the day, and the Lord Chancellor, should have been among the first to excite the popular feeling, and that the Bishops, with scarcely an exception, should have set the example of the most violent and even abusive language. On the basis of the religious toleration which had been formally accorded to the Roman Catholic religion in England, the measure adopted by the Pope was unavoidable. Only twenty years before, Roman Catholics had been, by a great and conspicuous act of legislation, emancipated from civil and political disabilities, and their right to the public profession of their religion had thus been solemnly established. But as Lord Lyndhurst said in the House of Lords: They tolerated the Catholic Prelates, and they knew that those Prelates could not carry on their Church establishments, or conduct its discipline, without holding communication with the Pope of Rome. No Roman Catholic Bishop could be created without the authority of a Bull' (i. 563); and Lord John Russell himself, the Prime Minister, whose letter to the Bishop of Durham was the immediate cause of the explosion, had himself said:

'It does not appear to me that we can possibly attempt to prevent the introduction of the Pope's Bulls into this country. There are certain Bulls of the Pope which are absolutely necessary for the appointment of Bishops and Pastors belonging to the Roman Catholic Church. It would be quite impossible to prevent the introduction of such Bulls' (i. 563).