It is, then, natural and congruous, that all who prefer Christianity to "modern philanthropy," both on account of its origin and history, of what it has done and what it is likely to do, should offer to the spiritual and ecclesiastical benefactors, whom they regard as the "salt of the earth," the grateful esteem which the world refuses to them. But among these benefactors they distinguish, not without reason, those whose ministry has presented no special feature, and has been profitable chiefly to the few with whom they had personal relations, and others whose work is destined to live after them, and who, from circumstances peculiar to their time and country, have been instruments of Divine Providence in a task of immeasurably wider dimensions, but of which their own humility did not always allow them to appreciate the magnitude. To give an example of the distinction referred to, we may ask, which of the great preachers of the age of Louis XIV., with the single exception of Bossuet, though a whole generation hung upon their lips, now exerts any appreciable influence upon human thought or action? On the other hand, the modest founder of S. Sulpice still lives, on both sides of the Atlantic, in the institutions which owe their being to his initiative. He was one of those who laboured, not for one, but for many generations. We believe that Father Faber was a workman of this class, and if we succeed in proving, as we hope to do, that the fact has been admitted by those whose judgment is least liable to error, including the Sovereign Pontiff himself, we shall have endeavoured to discharge our own share of the common debt of gratitude which English Catholics owe to the author of "The Creator and the Creature."

In order to appreciate duly Father Faber's work in the Church, it is necessary to consider what was the condition of religion in this country when he commenced his ministry. To understand what he did, we must first apprehend clearly what he had to do. If this obliges us to revive unwelcome memories, and to recall a period so unlike our own that we have some difficulty in realizing it, what is painful in this dismal retrospect will be fully compensated by the more unclouded view which we shall obtain of our actual blessings and privileges, as well as of the process by which they have been acquired. Perhaps we shall learn at the same time how they may be most securely perpetuated.

Let it be observed, since we are about to recall an epoch which is in some respects the least satisfactory in the annals of English Catholics, that it will be prudent to speak gently of faults which, if our own lot had been cast in that gloomy time, we should doubtless have shared. For more than two centuries the English Government, always aided, and often stimulated, by the bishops and clergy of the established sect, had endeavoured, with a truly diabolical perseverance, to root out every vestige of the Catholic faith. "The VOL. XIV.-NO. XXVII. [New Series.]

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criminal code of England," as a Protestant writer has recently remarked, "was, until the time of Sir Samuel Romilly, the bloodiest in Europe"; and the most ferocious articles of that exceptionally ferocious code were directed against her Catholic citizens. At the beginning of the present century, this long persecution had been so far successful, that the number of English Catholics had been reduced to a few thousands. During the greater part of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, England had become, and had remained, almost a heathen country, and the attempts which were made from time to time, whether by members of the Establishment or of other Protestant sects, to revive certain elementary Christian principles, only served to prove how universal was the spiritual trance which had fallen upon the people. But such attempts were almost always independent of the State Church, and a reaction against her lethargy and corruption. "It is an unquestionable and most instructive fact," says Lord Macaulay,* "that the years during which the political power of the Anglican hierarchy was in the zenith were precisely the years during which national virtue was at the lowest point." It was this astonishing spectacle of a once Christian nation fallen into practical heathenism which suggested to one French writer the well-known definition of Protestantism, "C'est le paganisme moins ses dieux"; and led another to ask, in spite of the partial improvement which has followed the recent revival of Catholic principles, "Qui douterait à première vue que les Anglais aient un culte?" In the midst of such a people as this, the great majority of whom were literally living "without God in the world," a few thousand Catholics, at the beginning of the present century, were the sole witnesses of that ancient faith which England had cast out. But amid the general decay of dogmatic, and even, to a considerable extent, of natural religion, the national spirit of hostility to that faith was still active and implacable. The condition of the primitive Christians with relation to the civil power was hardly more intolerable than that of English Catholics had been during many successive generations. Once they had asked the Holy See whether, on certain days of the year, they might feign an outward conformity with the State-religion, in order to save life and goods, and the answer had been in the negative. So notorious throughout Christendom were their sufferings, that when the Spanish ambassador at Rome heard a rumour, during one of the later sessions of the Council of Trent, that some of the Fathers proposed to insert a decree anathematizing the "pretended Anglican bishops," he argued against the expediency of such a decree on this account :-" All

History of England, c. ii.

+ Revue des Deux Mondes, Dec. 15, 1865.

the world knows," he says, "that Anglican bishops are impostors; but if you exasperate the English Government, you will only make the position of the English Catholics still more intolerable than it is already." And even when the hour at length arrived which removed from the children of the martyrs a portion of the burden which their fathers had endured, and policy rather than sympathy mitigated the sufferings of Catholics, they were still subject to pitiless social proscription. We have been assured by an aged Catholic, whose personal distinction made him a favourite in Protestant society, that most of his friends never suspected that he was a Catholic, and would have broken all relations with him if they had known it. Others, it is to be feared, did not scruple to make still more dangerous concessions to the world, in order to enjoy a share of its favours. They assisted in secret at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and approached from time to time the Sacrament of Penance; but, far from consenting to "give a reason for the faith that was in them," their Protestant associates could scoff at that faith with impunity in the presence of such discreet professors. Speaking generally, it was only in the private houses of the few wealthy or noble Catholics that religion removed the veil from her face, and if in still darker times such houses had been almost the sole refuge of the persecuted faith, a deep conviction of the injury which it too often suffered in their close atmosphere obliges us to confess that the protection was sometimes dearly purchased. There were, indeed, many noble exceptions, and it would not be difficult to give a long list of familiar Catholic names, among which two or three still known among us would frequently recur, by whom our holy faith was honoured in a generous and valiant spirit. It would be a grateful task to enumerate those who wisely gloried in being the servants, without affecting to be the patrons, of that divine religion which accomplished its countless victories before they came into being, and will still be renewing them when they are forgotten. But there were others of a different complexion. Feebly endowed with mental gifts, imperfectly educated, and incapable of any noble ambition; often induced by their very isolation, as well as by the original littleness of their character, to exaggerate the petty social maxims and vulgar prejudices of their class; offering a shelter to the proscribed priest rather because they had large houses than large minds, and often tempting him to doubt whether it would not be wiser to remove elsewhere the tender plant which his vocation obliged him to cherish and cultivate, even at the risk of exposing it to the rude storm which raged outside his uncongenial home; it is not surprising that religion, at length emancipated from such sorry tutelage, came forth sickly in constitution, dwarfed and crippled in some of its limbs, and shining only with a pale and intermittent light. In

a recent review of the excellent life of Father Faber by one of his own congregation, we noticed some examples of the grotesque compromise which certain English Catholics had made with the world around them. Who can remember without shame the day when a Charles Butler was the representative of a group of such Catholics, and a thorn in the side of the venerable Milner? We should be tempted to laugh, if the recollection were not suggestive of other feelings than mirth, when we are told of churches in which the Litany of our Lady had not been publicly recited for many years, "for fear of offending Protestants"! "You converts are so enthusiastic," said the amiable wife of a Catholic peer, with a deprecating smile, to one who lamented that in England devotion to the Mother of God had shrunk to such narrow dimensions. It was Catholics of this sort who openly disapproved the restoration of the Hierarchy, lest it should disturb their tranquil relations with their wealthy Protestant neighbours. They had consorted so long with the world on its own terms, that they had learned to respect its judgments, and to fear its frown. And we know, by abundant evidence, to what they had reduced the practice of the religion of S. Anselm and S. Thomas. "Why do you complain," was the witty retort of a well-known ecclesiastic, to one who was vexed because some Protestant gamin had chalked the words "No Popery" on the walls of his church; "he has only written the truth?" But we need not dwell longer upon the disastrous results of an epoch now happily passed away. A new era has commenced for the Church in England, and two men were raised up by Divine Providence to rebuild the temple which centuries of oppression and violence had shaken to its foundations, but of which neither the world nor the devil could prevent the restoration.

When he who was afterwards the illustrious Cardinal Wiseman was first appointed by the Holy See coadjutor to the saintly Bishop Walsh, we are informed that he bound his soul before God to the faithful observance of these four resolutions in the career upon which he was about to enter: (1) to labour always to promote the honour of Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament; (2) to revive an ardent devotion to the Mother of God; (3) to do all in his power to multiply religious communities; and (4) to establish in England a society for the conversion of the heathen. If we add that it was further his purpose to encourage in English Catholics a tender veneration towards the Sovereign Pontiff, and a constant sense of his claims to their loving obedience, we shall have enumerated the objects which were especially present to the mind, and dear to the heart of this great prelate. Often have we heard from his own lips, both while he was still Rector of Oscott and at a later period, language which indicated how consistently he applied himself to what we may perhaps venture to style the peculiar mission to which

he deemed himself called. How ably and faithfully he discharged it, there is no need to tell. We are all profiting at this hour by his labours. We see, too, more and more clearly, to what end they were directed. For him there were no "foreigners" in the Church. He thought that what was true in Italy or Spain was equally true in England or America. If certain Italian devotions, which had been practised under the very eye of a long succession of holy pontiffs, and had assisted a multitude of souls to attain closer union with God, were distasteful to the English, so much the worse, in his judgment, for the English. It was precisely in order to extend and popularize such salutary devotions, which Father Faber was afterwards to recommend with irresistible persuasiveness, that Cardinal Wiseman, as we know from his own assurance, welcomed the arrival in his province of foreign ecclesiastics, every addition to whose number, whether they came from France, Italy, Belgium, or Spain, was one of his dearest consolations. And if he spoke always of the lingering prejudices and local or national prepossessions which he did so much to discourage and eradicate, with a reserve which belonged both to his character and his office, none who approached him could have any doubt how repugnant they were to his spiritual instincts. As for those who openly avowed such insular partialities, they were rather charitably endured than spontaneously welcomed by him. But, much as we owe him for his share in the auspicious revival in which he bore so conspicuous a part, the very greatness of his position set limits to his personal action, and obliged him to delegate to others the completion of the work of which he laid the foundation. His labour was to be supplemented by a man whom the providence of God had prepared for this special task, and whose station and gifts were exactly what its successful prosecution required. That man was Frederick William Faber.

In attempting, as we shall now do, to estimate Father Faber's work in the Church, not only we have no pretension to speak with any semblance of authority, but we desire to submit all our appreciations, on this as on every kindred topic, to the correction of those who do. We shall begin by avowing our undoubting conviction that the "personal influence" of Father Faber, great as it was, contributed much less to the success of the work which he accomplished than some have deemed. Agreeing most cordially with his illustrious friend Dr. Newman in our admiration of "his remarkable gifts, his poetical fancy, his engaging frankness, his playful wit, his affectionateness, his sensitive piety," and whatever else belonged to that harmonious assemblage of beautiful qualities, of which none who knew him could fail to feel the charm, and which many adversaries of the Church have generously recognized, we are quite unable to admit that they account for the place which