Brompton Oratory was kneeling at the feet of Pius IX., to whom he had been previously known. "Ah! you are one of Faber's sons," said the Holy Father, as soon as he had recognized the Oratorian, "and he is dead. He was a great loss not only to you, my child, but to the whole Church. And he is even now doing a great work by his writings."

All among us who feel most strongly their obligations to Father Faber, and cherish his name most lovingly in their hearts, may well accept the words just quoted as a sufficient acknowledgment of his claims to their respect and gratitude. If we now call attention to other utterances, less weighty though not less emphatic, it is not with the vain purpose of confirming testimony which is complete in itself, and incapable of addition from less august sources, but only to show the universality of a sentiment of which the Holy Father deigned on this occasion to be the interpreter.

We have alluded to the feeling entertained towards Father Faber by American Catholics, both among the clergy and laity, and especially to their recognition of his successful attempt to revise and enforce certain truths, and to propagate certain devotions, of which some had heretofore inadequately appreciated the value, but which these generous American Catholics had found by experience to be abundant fountains of light and grace. It would have been easy to multiply the evidences of this feeling, and it happens at the very moment of writing these lines that we find, in the last number of a valuable American periodical, an emphatic expression of it. "His writings," says this capable witness, after cordially adopting what he calls "the just eulogy" pronounced in a former number of this Review, "are too well known and too fondly esteemed, especially in the United States, for any criticisms to be called for here."* We learn also, at the same time, that the distinguished superior of the Paulist community of New York, than whom no one has a more exact knowledge of the feelings of American Catholics, being asked what effect Father Faber's writings had produced in his own country, replied:-"They have done more good in the United States than even in England." And now, if we turn from this youngest member of the great Christian family to the most ancient church of France, we shall find, in spite of the extreme dissimilarity of their past history, both religious and political, and of their national characteristics, that there is a complete coincidence in the sentiments expressed by French and American Catholics respectively towards Father Faber, and in their estimate of the value of his works.

We shall quote only two witnesses; but as one is a Jesuit and the other a Benedictine, they may be taken as adequate representa

* The Catholic World, November, 1869, p. 159. New York.

tions of the judgments of our brothers in France. Father Bouix, of the Society of Jesus, the author of the well-known "Life of Saint Theresa," published in 1863 another work, bearing this title, "Saint Joseph d'après les Saints et les Maîtres de la Vie Spirituelle." In the 18th chapter of this book Father Bouix speaks as follows, in introducing a long extract from Father Faber's "Bethlehem":"These passages are borrowed from Father Faber, of the Oratory of S. Philip Neri, in London. The author has in our own day taken his place among the masters of the spiritual life, and he is too well known to make it necessary that we should speak of him here. The extract from his book, entitled 'Bethlehem,' which we are about to put before our readers, is only a fragment of what is contained in that masterpiece on the subject of S. Joseph; so that whoever desires to learn how this writer treats the sublime distinctions and lofty titles of our glorious Patriarch must read the whole work. May S. Joseph, considering the immortal monument which Father Faber has just erected to his honour in the very city of London itself, hasten by his all-powerful intercession with God the hour in which England shall once more become the Isle of Saints." And these words, it should be observed, were written while Father Faber was still living.

The learned and pious Dom Guéranger, the Abbot of Solesmes, who has acquired by his intellectual labours so many claims to our esteem, employs language in speaking of Father Faber which is a still more exact reproduction of the eulogies pronounced by American witnesses. One passage from this writer, in which Father Faber's character as a theologian is exalted in such energetic terms, has been so generally quoted in English Catholic journals that we need not print it here; but Dom Guéranger is never weary of returning to the same theme, though familiar with all the noblest productions of his own country, and here are some of the words in which he appreciates the preaching and the life of him whose loss we mourn, though he still lives among us by his works:

Father Faber was equal to every demand made upon him, and never failed to attract audiences, who were never weary of listening to him. Always ready, he was also always rich and abundant, and always overflowing with unction. In every word which fell from him his hearers recognized the vivacity of his faith and his ardent love of God. Superior to every human motive and to every weakness, never did he suffer his word, any more than his pen, to be restrained by a merely human consideration. Never would he have consented to veil either the peremptory absoluteness of dogma, or the rigours of evangelical morality, or the maxims of spiritual life. He knew that in the throng of his hearers, Protestants were standing among Catholics, and the worldly side by side with fervent Christians; but never did the desire to obtain the unanimous approval of this mixed auditory beguile him into any of those compromises, any of those suppressions of truth, by which

some are so easily tempted. He was too full of holy pride in possessing the truth which he had learned from the Church, the only source from which men can derive truth in this lower world, to accommodate it to the taste of men who can never be anything but its humble disciples; and if sometimes he irritated a certain class of minds, resembling in this respect the Son of God and His apostles, he invincibly attracted others, captivated by the spell of that intense conviction of which his powerful language was the expression. How many heretics did he reconcile to the Church! How many sinners did he convert! How many souls long plunged in feebleness and languor did he establish in the sure and solid path of Christian perfection! Moreover, we are assured by those who were habitual hearers of his discourses, that they were the counterpart of his writings, those writings of which it is not necessary to read many pages before one is kindled by their fire and overpowered by their holy ardour.

The life of Father Faber was a reflexion of the sentiments which reigned in his heart. This soul so full of the love of God, so deeply penetrated by the mysteries of the Incarnate Word, so completely under the dominion of the supernatural element, revealed itself incessantly in the utterances and the yearnings which escaped from it. . . . . The same spirit which dwelt in S. Philip found in him a place of repose; in him we see once more the charity, the simplicity, the enthusiasm which lend such a charm to the life of that admirable saint whom the City of the Apostles celebrates by an annual festival as her second patron.

There is hardly a country in Europe from whose theologians we might not gather testimonies as decisive as those which come to us from France and America. But our space is limited, and we have still to speak of other services which it was Father Faber's happy privilege to render to the Church. We must not, however, omit to record here another remarkable tribute, which belongs toth is part of our subject, and which claims notice, not only on account of its intrinsic value, but because hitherto it has been known only to a single individual. About a year after the publication of Father Faber's "Growth in Holiness," a work which did not, it will be remembered, obtain universal approval, the late Dr. Pagani, a man of great prudence and piety, took occasion to criticise it in unfavourable terms. He had found that some consciences were disturbed by certain expressions in this volume, and having considerable influence as a spiritual writer and director of souls, he thought himself justified in attempting to remove what at that time he considered a possible cause of offence. With this object he placed himself in communication with a gentleman who had a large intercourse with English Catholics, and requested him to state, whenever the opportunity presented itself, that he, Dr. Pagani, admitted no authority in the work entitled "Growth in Holiness,' and that no one need attach any importance to its statements. The gentleman in question, who knew that Father Faber never wrote a

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page which he had not deeply pondered, nor expressed an opinion which he had not derived from a patient study of approved theologians, received this communication with respect, and was careful not to act upon it. Several years later this gentleman was waiting one morning at a railway station in the north of England, when he heard his name eagerly pronounced by a person who had just descended from a train going in another direction. The speaker was Dr. Pagani, who had only a few moments at his disposal, which he employed in uttering with great earnestness the following words: "I am thankful to have met you. Do you remember my speaking to you some years ago about Father Faber's Growth in Holiness, and the request which I made to you with reference to that work? Well, I am anxious to retract what I said. I have since read all his works, and have lately finished The Creator and the Creature.' Ah! my dear sir, none but a doctor of the Church could have written it! What wisdom! what science! what singular elevation of mind! If you have led any one to suppose that I judged Father Faber unfavourably, pray remove the impression, and assure every one that no one venerates him more than I do." Fortunately this work of reparation was not needed, though Dr. Pagani resumed his seat in the train so rapidly that there was no time to tell him so.

It is not our purpose to attempt any critical estimate of Father Faber's works, nor is it necessary to do so. Others have judged them with an authority which we do not possess, and which determines their place in the catalogue of spiritual writings which have been added to the common treasury of the Church during the present generation. But we may be permitted, speaking only on behalf of the laity, and representing what we believe to be the general conviction of the mass of English Catholics, to allude to some of their characteristic features, and to indicate what we consider the chief benefits which private Christians have derived from them. It is well known that a certain prejudice was created in some minds by what, it cannot be denied, was a marked peculiarity of Father Faber's theological writings. People accustomed to the sober and unadorned diction of books which constituted the spiritual reading of an earlier generation, were, in some cases, both astonished and offended by a style of composition with which they were wholly unfamiliar. They had never before encountered a theologian who wrote like a poet. It was a novelty which irritated them, and which they found it difficult to pardon. What right had he to take them out of their own meagre vocabulary, which had always sufficed to express all their ideas, and speak to them in a language of which the copiousness was a puzzle, and of which the brilliancy only pained their eyes? The prophets of Israel, it is true, were poets, as he was; and so was David the king, and the inspired

seers who wrote the Book of Job and the Canticle of Canticles. Isaias was not inferior to Homer or Milton, even in his use of language; and some of the noblest passages in Shakespeare have no higher claim to our admiration than this, that they approach in sublimity certain chapters of the Old Testament. Even German critics have confessed that S. Paul, considered simply as an orator, might be fitly compared with Cicero. One of them did not fear to say, that in all the triumphs of human eloquence there is nothing to surpass the famous passage in the Epistle to the Romans which closes the eighth chapter. Some English people thought, however, that Father Faber had no right to be eloquent. It was, they deemed, a culpable innovation. Perhaps it is an answer to the objection, which we desire to treat seriously, that Father Faber could not help it. If he spoke like a poet, it was because that was his natural language. Like S. John Chrysostom, he was "golden-mouthed." Even his sermons are poems. If it was a fault, we are no more able to regret that he never corrected it than we are disposed to lament that Isaias wrote the chapter beginning, "Who hath believed our report?" or Ezechiel, that of which the first verse says: I stood by the river Chobar, and the heavens were opened, and I saw the visions of God." S. Paul did not write like S. John, though both were inspired; nor S. James like either of them. They had each his own style. Why should a man not use his gifts, especially when he makes such a use of them as Father Faber did? There is, perhaps, nothing in the English language more beautiful in colour and diction, though this was its least merit, than his marvellous description of the "Procession of the Precious Blood." Is its beauty a reproach? It seems so. we venture to rejoice that a bard was not lost to England, as Wordsworth feared, when Father Faber devoted himself to religion, though he sang a nobler song than Wordsworth ever dreamed or imagined; nor can we see any reason to grieve, because, in becoming a theologian, he did not cease to be a poet.

Yet

- If, indeed, the glitter of his sentences and the rich profusion of his imagery had been the chief or only merit of his writings, we should have regarded them with the temperate satisfaction which such works of art inspire, but we should not have searched them for instruction in holy things. This, however, is only an accidental quality in all which Father Faber wrote. His compositions were all, as is well known, the fruit of long meditation and laborious study. A more scrupulous and conscientious writer never lived, nor one who more jealously distrusted the rare facility with which he was endowed. Some who have ventured, in no unfriendly spirit, to question the accuracy of a particular theological statement, have been astonished by the flood of citations with which it was instantly justified. One who loved him with his whole heart, and sometimes