NEW PUBLICATIONS.
Lectures and Essays on Irish and other Subjects. By Henry Giles. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.
Besides biographical lectures on O'Connell, Curran, Dr. Doyle, Oliver Goldsmith, and Gerald Griffin, this volume contains other lectures on the spirit of Irish history, Irish social character, etc., which many of our readers have, doubtless, heard delivered by the author in his pleasant and effective style.
Mr. Giles is of Irish birth, and for many years officiated and preached as a Unitarian minister. There can be no doubt that his Irish patriotism is sincere and enthusiastic, and yet, as we read, we feel as though something were wanting. For reasons that can be perfectly well understood without detailed explanation, Irish patriotic character always appears incomplete without Catholicity. Oliver Goldsmith and the Duke of Wellington are as much of Irish birth as Dr. Doyle and Daniel O'Connell; but how much more essentially Irish to every one are the two latter than the two former. The Catholic reader of these lectures sadly misses what he feels to be most essential. Take, for instance, the lectures on O'Connell, Gerald Griffin, and Dr. Doyle, which are among the best, and he perceives the absence of an element of appreciation that nothing but Catholic sympathy could supply. These papers have high merit as oral lectures, and precisely because of this merit they fall short of their reputation when read. The effective lecture is not necessarily an effective essay. There are certain elements nowadays almost indispensable to the success of a lecture, and they happen to be precisely those which detract from its literary merit. The redundancy of anecdote is one of these elements, and Mr. Giles was strongly given to it.
The book is, nevertheless, pleasant reading, although such essays as "The Christian Idea in Catholic Art and in Protestant Culture" afford additional proof—if any were needed—of the barrenness of Protestantism in art.
Order and Chaos: A Lecture, delivered at Loyola College, Baltimore, in July, 1869. By T. W. M. Marshall, Esq. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1869.
Mr. Marshall, who is both one of the most solid and altogether the wittiest of English writers, delivered this lecture in Baltimore before a select audience, on the eve of his return to England. It is a well-reasoned argument, clothed in the author's usual choice and happy style, and spiced with a seasonable amount of his humor. Its topic is the order prevailing in the Catholic Church contrasted with the disorder which rules among the sects, as a proof that the former is of God, while the latter are of man. We quote the following extract, which contains a well-delivered blow at the disunionists:
"You are asked to believe, by those who prefer the temple of chaos to the sanctuary of God, this monstrous proposition: that although disorder is inexorably banished, as we have seen, from every other part of his dominions, as a thing abhorrent to the Divine Architect, it finds its true home and congenial refuge precisely in that spiritual kingdom of which he is at once the lawgiver and the life. Brute matter knows nothing of it; earth, and sea, and sky refuse to give it a place; the very beasts of the field obey a law which regulates all the conditions of their existence; but confusion and chaos, which can find a home nowhere else, reign, and ought to reign, in the Christian church, and in the kingdom of souls! That is the proposition which is deliberately maintained, at this hour and in this land, by men whose profession it is to teach others eternal truth. They gravely assert that religion—which, when it is divine, is a bond of union stronger than adamant, and when it is human, is the most active dissolvent, the most powerful disintegrating agent which divides and devastates modern society—gains by ceasing to be one, and that Christianity derives its chief vitality from the very divisions which make it contemptible in the sight of unbelievers, and had often provoked the scorn and derision even of the pagan world. As this statement may seem to you impossible, even in this nineteenth century, which is tolerant of all absurdities in the sphere of religion, I will quote to you the very words of one of the most conspicuous preachers of this land, who holds a high position in the hierarchy of chaos. I take them from one of your own local journals, of the second of this month, (June.) You know that of late years many Protestants, weary of their ceaseless conflicts and ashamed of their unending divisions, have begun at last to sigh for the unity which they have lost, and that in England they have even formed a society with the express object of bringing together what they ignorantly call 'the different branches of the church.' We are told, however, by the journal to which I allude, that the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, vehemently rejecting every such project, lately 'preached against the schemes of church union, whether planned by pope, protestant, or pagan'—pray understand that these are not my words—and added this characteristic dissuasive from unity. 'The strength of the Christian religion lies,' he said—in what do you suppose? in its truth, its holiness, or its peace? no, but—'in the number of the existing denominations.' The hands fall down in reading such words. 'I pray,' said He who will judge the world, 'that they may all be one as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee.' I sincerely trust, replies Mr. Beecher, that they never will be one. 'Be perfect,' said St. Paul, 'in the same mind and the same judgment.' It is much more important, rejoins Mr. Beecher, that you should maintain your divisions and perpetuate your differences, for in them lies the strength of Christianity. 'Sects,' observed the same apostle, 'are the work of the flesh.' Mr. Beecher judges them more leniently, and warns his hearers, as you see, against the mistake of St. Paul. Yes, these human teachers have come at last to this. They know so well that supernatural unity is beyond their reach, that they have come to hate it, and to call it an evil! Yet even they will not deny that it was the unity of the first Christians which conquered the heathen world; and when the victory was accomplished, and the surviving pagans had only strength enough left to beat themselves against the ground where they had fallen, they also cried out in their impotent rage, 'Execranda est ista consensio'—cursed be this unity of the Christians. They had found it to be invincible, but did not know that it was divine. Mr. Beecher dares not say openly, 'Cursed be the unity for which Christ prayed,' for even his disciples, though they can bear a good deal, could not bear that; but he is not afraid to say, 'Blessed be chaos!' 'Confusion, thou art my choice!' 'Disorder, be thou mine inheritance!' Let us wish him a happier lot, both in this world and the next."
In Heaven we know Our Own; or, Solace for the Suffering. From the French of the Rev. Father Blot, S.J. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1869.
We would call special attention to this delightful little book. The lady translator has conferred a very great service on English-speaking Catholics; nor on Catholics alone, but also on all professing Christians "of good-will," who,
"Here in the feeble twilight of this world
Groping,"
in order to satisfy one of their deepest and holiest cravings, and not having known the Catholic Church, nor therefore "the communion of saints," have turned—and most naturally—into paths which only lead to deception and despair.
The book before us supplies to "the afflicted" who mourn the loss of friends a consolation as solid as it is abundant: a proof on unshakable grounds of truths which seem to be forgotten even by some among Catholics; that human ties do survive the grave; that
"There the cherished heart is fond,
The eye the same, except in tears;"
and that the knowledge and love of creatures must necessarily form an integral part of the happiness of heaven. The reader will be astonished to see what Catholic saints and doctors have said on this subject; and what a stress they have laid on it as a part of their own hopes and anticipations. To those, too, in particular, who are tempted to despair of the departed, an antidote is here offered for this poison of their rest; an antidote which, we are sure, has long been needed by many an anxious heart.
In commending this book, then, to Catholics, we would urge them to put it as much as possible in the hands of non-Catholic friends. The success of a recent work, entitled The Gates Ajar, is evidence enough of the hunger that exists in all souls for food of this kind. And why should any be left to pick up crumbs, when a full table invites them? A perusal of In Heaven We Know Our Own may open the eyes of many to the glorious fact it is our privilege to know—that the Catholic religion embraces all truth, and alone can satisfy all the soul's cravings:
"An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink."
Mopsa the Fairy. By Jean Ingelow. With illustrations. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1869.
If the children wish to visit fairy-land, they could have no better guide than Jean Ingelow; yet even she fails to make the fairy-world half so fair or interesting as our own every-day world. However, Jack learns some good lessons in his visit to fairy-land; for he found a whole nation of fairies turned into stone for being unkind and selfish. Let the little ones take care lest the fate of the fairies befall them. The book is beautifully illustrated, and is altogether a very pleasant book for children.
Two Years before the Mast. A Personal Narrative by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. New edition. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co. 1869.
Twelve years ago we determined upon a voyage similar to that the author describes, and from a similar motive.
This recital of his two years' experience before the mast was put into our hands to deter us from going. We recollect reading it with the greatest interest, and being afterward more anxious to go than ever. After three years' experience, during which we shared all the sailor's toils and pleasures "fore and aft," we returned to a student's life. It was therefore with some curiosity we reopened this book to see what our judgment would be of this sailor's yarn as compared with our own experience.
Before, it had the charm of adventure untried; now it gave the pleasure of again, in imagination, riding the topsail yard-arm amid the wild storm, hauling out the "weather earing," and "sending her" off the Cape with all hands lashed to the rigging. We have never read so vivid yet truthful a description of a sailor's life. It is refreshing to see for once nautical terms correctly and naturally used. We suspect that the author's estimate of the character and religion of the people he visited has changed since he wrote. The condition of the Mexicans now, as compared with their peace and prosperity under the paternal care of the Catholic missionaries, would surely warrant it.
We heartily sympathize with the author in his desire to better the condition of seamen. They are a noble, large-hearted class of men. We never expect to meet more courageous, generous, faithful men than our comrades at sea. Yet their life, which must be full of toil and danger, is made unnecessarily hard and laborious by unjust treatment. They are over-worked and half-fed at sea, and swindled on shore. If among the various protective societies, one were organized to protect seamen from shipping masters, brutal officers, and "boarding-house runners," it would be a praiseworthy act.
The author's account of his later visit to the Pacific coast is very acceptably added to this new edition, and shows the great change that has taken place in the condition of our commerce and of our country.
Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson. Selected and edited by Thomas Sadler, Ph.D. 2 vols. 12mo. Pp. 496, 555. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co.
In the United States, it is only the readers of the literary biography of the last generation that know Henry Crabb Robinson even by name; for although he was intimately acquainted with some scores of distinguished men, and moved in the best literary society of England, he left little or nothing to recall his memory after he was dead, except the immense piles of manuscript from which these two volumes have been selected. These, we venture to predict, will enjoy a permanent place in literature, not much below the Diary of Pepys and Boswell's Life of Johnson. Mr. Robinson, however, had nothing of the Pepys or the Boswell in his character. He was a man of sharp natural faculties, excellent scholarship, abundant wit, eminent social accomplishments, and strong character. In his youth he was a foreign correspondent and sub-editor of The Times. Afterward he practised at the bar. But for the most important part of his life, covering a period of some thirty years before his death, he had no profession, and passed his time in the society of literary and other celebrities, with whom, for his extraordinary conversational powers and more sterling qualities, he was always a welcome guest. It is to his anecdotes and recollections of such men—Lamb, Wordsworth, Southey, Byron, Coleridge, Moore, Rogers, Goethe, Lady Morgan, Lady Blessington, Landor, and others—told with spirit and discretion, that the Diary and Reminiscences owe their value. The work of selection and arrangement has been performed with excellent judgment, and no one who takes up the volumes will readily lay them aside.
The Elements of Theoretical and Descriptive Astronomy; for the use of Colleges and Academies. By Charles J. White, A.M., Assistant Professor of Astronomy and Navigation in the United States Naval Academy. 16mo, 272 pp. Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger, 819 and 821 Market street. 1869.
Most writers of text-books, probably, are impelled to their task by an impression that a void exists which only can be filled by a work answering to a conception which they have formed in the course of their studies. This arises from the fact that few subjects of study can be thoroughly mastered by merely imbibing the ideas of another person, and that consequently every one who spends much time in acquiring, or particularly in teaching, any science, is obliged to think a good deal upon the subject, and hence to arrange it almost necessarily in his own mind in a different shape, and probably one better adapted to himself, than that in which it was presented to him. Finding nothing just like this among existing text-books, he naturally concludes that the really systematic arrangement has yet to be given, and by himself.
This every teacher perhaps is tempted to do; but unfortunately, the best teachers, who perceive what difficulties are met with by the mass of students, sometimes deny themselves the pleasure, or are perhaps unable to indulge in it, while others supply books suited only to a few. Sometimes, also, no void remains, having been already filled. But in this subject of astronomy there certainly was a need of a new work sufficiently precise and condensed to present salient points to the mind of the student, and form matter for a recitation, without being unnecessarily technical and uninteresting. Herschel's Outlines, though an interesting and thoroughly scientific work, and clear in its explanations, is rather fit to be read than to be studied or recited from; yet this was undoubtedly the best book for those not wishing to pursue astronomy professionally, but merely to acquire a sufficient knowledge of it for a liberal education, or to understand navigation and other branches of knowledge in which it is involved.
Mr. White's book is exactly what was wanted for this purpose, supplying all Herschel's defects for the student, being nearly or quite as clear, and much more concise. It also contains other matters which would not usually be found except in works on what is called practical astronomy, but which are necessary for any one who desires to make use of his knowledge; which end is also secured throughout by the precise and definite form in which every thing is treated. One often fancies he understands a subject, but finds that his knowledge is unavailable from not being sufficiently in detail.
The author has a thorough acquaintance with his science, and remarkable natural ability as a teacher, developed by long experience. It will be a decided waste of time for any one to undertake a similar book till the progress of science renders large additions to this absolutely necessary; and this is brought up to the actual date of publication, containing the latest results of the spectroscope, and the most recent determinations of the astronomical constants.
Diomede. From the Iliad of Homer. By William R. Smith. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
This version of the Fifth Book of the Iliad is as successful, perhaps, as any similar attempt yet made. If not as smooth and polished as Pope's, it is at least more accurate. But we venture to think that the author has mistaken the true metre for translating Homer. We believe the blank-verse of Tennyson the only one capable of rendering it adequately. Much as we appreciate the version before us, we have not yet seen any thing to equal Tennyson's "specimen translation" of the celebrated moonlight scene, (Iliad, Book viii.)
Patty Gray's Journey from Boston to Baltimore. By Caroline H. Dall. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1869.
A pleasant and interesting story of Patty's journey to and stay in Baltimore. Though Patty was a little girl, she was nevertheless a true Yankee, and thought "that people must talk and act as they did in Boston, or they could not possibly talk and act right." She thought, too, "she could never love a 'Secesh;'" still, like a dear little girl as she was, she soon learned to love her uncle Tom and other relatives dearly. If the preface had been left out, the book might be a good one for children; it certainly cannot be good for them to have all the abuses of slavery served up again and again. That evil has been done away with, and, at least as far as the children are concerned, "let us have peace."
Ecclesiastical Map of the United States of America. Arranged by Rev. E. H. Reiter, S.J., of Boston, Mass. For sale by Fr. Pustet, Bookseller and Publisher, 52 Barclay St., New York; 204 Vine St., Cincinnati, Ohio.
On this large and excellent map of the United States the seven Ecclesiastical Provinces into which the country is divided are distinguished by different ground colors, and the boundaries of the several dioceses in each province and of the vicariates apostolic are indicated by red lines. All the episcopal sees are marked by a line, either red or blue; while the archiepiscopal sees are shown by a combination of these two colors. We regard this map as a very useful publication.
Autobiography of a Shaker, and Revelation of the Apocalypse. With an Appendix. F. W. Evans, Mount Lebanon, Columbia County, N. Y. June, 1869.
No man in our day should attempt to solve the religious question without a competent knowledge of the basis of the claims of the Catholic Church to being the church of God and her faith the true Christian faith. Her claim is prior to all others as an historical fact, and must be fairly set aside before another can be allowed to come into court. The author of the above autobiography is, as is usual with the opponents of the Catholic Church, sadly lacking in this knowledge. Among other absurdities, he tells us gravely that "the Roman Catholic Church was founded by Leo the Great"! Well, after all, that is an improvement on Rev. Justin D. Fulton, of Boston, who affirms, "Romanism is the masterpiece of Satan."
The author appears to possess a smattering knowledge of several things, and an exact and thorough knowledge of none. His book is a jumble of materialism and spiritualism, of infidelity, Protestantism, and credulity.
The language attributed, on page 80, to the late Archbishop Hughes, we venture to say was drawn from the writer's imagination.
Hospital Sketches, and Camp and Fireside Stories. By Louisa M. Alcott. With illustrations. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1869. Pp. 379.
Hospital Sketches originally appeared in the columns of the Boston Commonwealth, over the signature of Tribulation Periwinkle, and are "simply a brief record of one person's experience," as an army hospital nurse. They are written in a pleasant, gossipy, natural style; the incidents, a judicious admixture of the "grave and gay," the humorous and the pathetic, being alike removed from the extremes of levity and gloom.
Camp and Fireside Stories, though more pretentious in style and elaborate in plot, are not, in our opinion, of equal merit.
Bible History; containing the most remarkable events of the Old and New Testament. Prepared for the use of Catholic Schools in the United States. By Rev. Richard Gilmour. With the approbation of the Most Reverend J. B. Purcell, D.D., Archbishop of Cincinnati. Cincinnati and New York: Benziger Bros. 1869. Pp. 336.
We can heartily recommend this as an excellent "intermediate" text-book in sacred history. Nor must we omit a special commendation of the publishers, who, as far as the paper and typography are concerned, are deserving of all praise. The illustrations are numerous, always pertinent to the text, and, generally speaking, satisfactory. An appendix contains "Maxims from the Sacred Scriptures," "The Christian Doctrine as seen in the Narrations of the Bible," and "A Bird's-Eye View of the Holy Land," the key to which last, strange to say, omits the city of Jerusalem.
The Letters of Placidus on Education. London: Richardson & Son. For sale by The Catholic Publication Society, New York.
We commend these Letters of Placidus to the careful consideration of educators. They are from the pen of a sound Catholic, an accomplished scholar, and one who evidently speaks from a thorough experience. Some, indeed, may think them bold in places; but all will find them to contain suggestions worthy of their deepest attention.
The Emerald. An Illustrated Literary Journal. Vol. III. New York: The Emerald Publishing Company. 1869. Pp. 412.
This volume, in many respects superior to its predecessors, comprises an immense amount of interesting and entertaining reading matter, and is profusely illustrated.
The Office of Vespers; Containing the Order of the Vesper Service, the Gregorian Psalm Tones harmonized, with the Psalms for all Vespers during the year pointed for chanting. By Rev. Alfred Young. New York: The Catholic Publication House. 1869.
Father Young has given us, we are glad to see, strictly Gregorian melodies, both in the ritual of the vesper service and in the psalm tones, such as are to be found in authorized editions of the Antiphonale Romanum. This is something we commend with all our heart. The melodies commonly found in our "choir books," "vesperals," and "services," are for the most part so garbled, both in the inflections and arrangements, as to leave very little of the original Gregorian tone standing. The chief merit of the book, however, consists in a new division of the tones, and of the psalms, by which but one pointing of the psalms is needed for chanting any one of the tones with their varied concluding cadences. Father Maugin attempted something of this kind in his Roman Vesperal, but succeeded only in reducing the different pointings to four. The simplicity of Father Young's arrangement cannot fail to be appreciated by organists as well as by the singers. With his book in our choirs we need not be condemned to hear the tiresome repetition of the same five psalms sung to the same five tones on every Sunday and festival in the year. We hope the author will find sufficient success with the present publication to give us, as he proposes, the Hymnal and Antiphonal. With these we can have our vespers chanted as they should be, in their truly effective style and religious spirit, in comparison to which our so-called "musical vespers" are tame, unmeaning, and, spiritually, unprofitable.
The Two Women: A Ballad. By Delta. Milwaukee: The Wisconsin News Company. 1868.
This somewhat curious effusion gave us much pleasure as we read it. The smoothness and grace of the verse, and sometimes the diction, too, remind us strongly of Tennyson.
The Life of Henry Dorie, Martyr. By the Abbé Ferdinand Baudry. Translated by Lady Herbert. London: Burns, Oates & Co. For sale by The Catholic Publication Society, New York.
This neat little book is full of interest, as giving not only an admirable sketch of its noble hero, but also a view of the Corea and its inhabitants, for which the reader will be grateful who is eager to know more of that strange region, and the wondrous work that is doing there.
The Catholic Publication Society has just published a new and complete classified catalogue of all the American and English Catholic books now in print. To be had free on application at 126 Nassau Street.
The Catholic Publication Society has in press and will publish in a few weeks: The Writings of Madame Swetchine, 1 vol. 12mo, $1.50, uniform with Life of Madame Swetchine. Hymns and Songs for Catholic Children, containing the most popular Catholic hymns for every season of the Christian year, together with May songs, Christmas and Easter carols, and for the use of Sunday-schools, sodalities, etc.
THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. X., No. 56.—NOVEMBER, 1869.
THE LIFE OF FATHER FABER.[34]
In the life of Father Faber there was no sudden and violent change from the excitement of worldly affairs to the quiet of the cloister, no striking intervention of divine Providence, such as that which in a single day converted Ignatius from a courtier to a saint. He suffered, it is true, from spiritual conflicts and that rupture of natural ties which for so many converts to the faith is little short of a species of martyrdom; but the tender piety which beams from all his maturer devotional works seems to have filled his heart from boyhood, and his progress from heresy to faith was like the gradual development of a seed planted in his breast in early youth. Yet it is hardly in the Faber family that we should have looked for a phenomenon like this. They were of Huguenot origin, and proud of their religious ancestry; and their exiled forefathers, who settled in England after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, we may fairly presume were honored in the family as confessors of the faith. The grandfather of the subject of these pages was the Reverend Thomas Faber, vicar of Calverley, in Yorkshire. Frederick William was born at the vicarage, on the 28th of June, 1814. His father, Mr. Thomas Henry Faber, was soon afterward appointed secretary to the Bishop of Durham, and removed with his family to the episcopal domain of Bishop Auckland. Durham had not yet lost its dignity as a County Palatine, and in the glories of the ancient city, where the bishop held his court with all the pomp and something of the power of royalty, there was much to impress a warm poetical imagination, like that of young Faber. The poetical faculty was afterward fostered by the beautiful scenery of the Lake country, when he was sent to school at Kirkby Stephen, in Westmoreland. There it was his chief delight to ramble alone among the hills and meres, and fancy the chases filled again with deer, the forests resounding with the hunter's horn, the ruined halls and castles resonant with feast and song, and the deserted abbeys vocal with prayer and chant. He shows his familiarity with this region in some of his published verses. Subsequently, he studied at Harrow, under Doctor Longley, afterward Archbishop of Canterbury, by whose kindness and influence he was reclaimed at a time when he had adopted infidel views. He gave himself with all his heart to the study of English literature; but the classics got rather less attention from him than they deserved, and his career at Oxford, where he was matriculated at Baliol College, in 1832, cannot be called a brilliant one. He was a man of scholarly tastes and of scholarly attainments as well, yet in certain of the highest requirements of the university he seems to have fallen short; for we hear of his failing once or twice, not indeed in his examinations, but in competition for a distinguished place. The fact probably was, that he applied himself with undue partiality to favorite studies, such as poetry and divinity. He was remarkable even at this time for graces of person and manner, fine conversational powers, and a rare faculty of attracting friends, notwithstanding a certain dangerous keenness in his perceptions of the ludicrous, coupled with great frankness in the expression of his feelings. "I cannot tell why it is," said one of his schoolmates at Harrow, "but that Faber fascinates every body." This remark was repeated to him afterward, and filled him with a sense of obligation to use the gift in promoting God's glory.
The temporary eclipse of faith to which we have alluded was of very short duration; and when he came to Oxford, he was keenly alive to religious impressions, with a strong Calvinistic tendency. The tractarian movement, however, was just beginning, and Faber became an enthusiastic admirer—"an acolyth," as he expressed it—of John Henry Newman, who was then preaching at St. Mary's, Oxford. He did not make Mr. Newman's acquaintance till several years later; but under his influence he forgot his evangelicalism, and threw himself eagerly into the great movement for the revival of church principles as expounded in the Tracts for the Times. "Transubstantiation has been bothering me," he wrote to a friend; "not that I lean to it, but I have seen no refutation of it. How can it be absurd and contradictory to the evidence of our senses, when they cannot by any means take cognizance of the unknown being, substance, which alone is held up as the subject of this conversion?"
This tendency toward Catholic truth was but slight, however, and evanescent. There came a reaction in the course of a little while, and Mr. Faber wrote to one of his friends:
"I have been thinking a great deal on the merits and tendency of Newmanism, and I have become more than ever convinced of its falsehood.... What makes me fear most is, that I have seen Newman himself growing in his opinions; I have seen indistinct visions become distinct embodiments; I have seen the conclusion of one proposition become the premiss of a next, through a long series: all this is still going on—to my eyes more like the blind march of error than the steady uniformity of truth—and I know not when it will stop."
How thoroughly his mind and heart were taken up with religious problems we can see in almost every letter. One of the correspondents to whom he seems to have expressed himself with the fullest freedom was Mr. John Brande Morris, and to him he writes, in 1834:
"When, after writing to you, and one or two other relations and friends, I turn to pen a letter to my literary intellectual friends, you cannot conceive how weak and uninteresting the topics of discussion become. It is like one of Tom Moore's melodies after an Handelian chorus, at once ludicrous and disgusting from its inferiority."
He read a great deal of religious biography, and when he saw "the maturity of faith and the religious perfection to which many good men arrive so early," he felt disheartened at his own condition. "It is true," he said, "I have often had hours of ecstatic, enthusiastic devotion; but the fever has soon subsided, and my feelings have flowed on calmly and soberly in their accustomed channels." He looked for the fruits of his faith and found none. Yet in his ignorance of what constitutes the true spiritual life, Faber, in his earnest search after perfection, was doubtless much nearer to God than the evangelical saints whose condition he so envied. He was soon surrounded at Oxford by a little circle of admirers, who made him, in some sort, the exemplar and guide of their religious life. He was about twenty or twenty-one years of age when he began a systematic effort to improve the opportunities for doing good which he believed had thus been providentially opened to him. "I proceeded," he wrote soon afterward, "to dictate, to organize, so to speak, a system of aggressive efforts in favor of religion; and under my guidance a number of prayer-meetings was speedily established; and by God's grace I was enabled to do it with little noise or ostentation." In another letter he describes the perplexity which he suffered during a vacation visit to one of his disciples, who had "declined from his Christian profession," and manifested an unregenerate fondness for the pleasures of life, balls, theatres, etc., which are generally so attractive to the young. Mr. Faber had little difficulty in reasserting his influence; but his friend's father had "a violent prejudice against what he called 'the humbug of evangelicals,'" and strongly disapproved of the enthusiastic views of the little Oxford coterie. Mr. Faber could not hold his tongue and let the son alone; he trembled at the thought of breeding domestic dissension; and he could not break off his visit without giving offence. It would be interesting to know how he got out of the difficulty, but he does not tell us.
There soon came a time when he discovered that, however Calvinism might answer for seasons of religious excitement and spiritual exaltation, it was not fit for the daily food of the soul. He could not always be at a prayer-meeting or an exhortation. Secular studies exacted most of his time, and he felt then that there was nothing for him to lean upon. Another change in his religious views was the inevitable consequence. He had been for some time an admiring student of the works of George Herbert; Herbert led him on to Bishop Andrewes; the necessity of sacraments, the prerogatives of the church, the "penitential system of the primitive church," and "the girdle of celibacy and the lamp of watching" became subjects of frequent recurrence in his letters; he confessed that "the evangelical system feeds the heart at the expense of the head," and "makes religion a series of frames of feeling;" and before long we find him quoting with approbation the writings of Dr. Wiseman. He was indeed steadily advancing toward the Catholic Church, though he was far enough from suspecting it. In June, 1836, he writes:
"Newman is delivering lectures against the Church of Rome. I have just come from a magnificent one on Peter's prerogative. He admits the text in its full literal completeness, and shows that it makes not one iota for the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome."
It was well that he was getting even by these slow degrees to a more comfortable faith; for in his university career he was destined to suffer, just at this time, several severe trials. He had carried off, in 1836, the prize for a poem on The Knights of St. John; but in the examination for his degree he made a comparative failure, his name appearing only in the second class, and, as a consequence of this misfortune, he was also defeated in a contest for a fellowship in his own college. To divert his mind from this double mortification and recruit his exhausted strength, he made a short visit to Germany with his brother, the Reverend Francis A. Faber. Soon after his return, he secured a fellowship at University College, and also carried off the Johnson divinity scholarship, for which there was a strong competition. His position being now secure, he began to prepare himself zealously for orders. He made the acquaintance of Doctor Newman, and joined in his scheme for compiling the Library of the Fathers, undertaking, as his share of the work, to translate the Books of St. Optatus against the Donatists. He obtained a few pupils, and during the vacation accompanied a small reading party to Ambleside, near the head of Windermere. There he was fortunate enough to form a friendship with Wordsworth, and used to spend long days rambling with the poet over the neighboring mountains—Wordsworth muttering verses in the intervals of conversation. His correspondence is full of admiring allusions to Wordsworth's poetry, "Well or sick," he says, "cheerful or sad, I can almost always get happiness and quiet and good resolves out of the old poet—God bless him! One may hang on one sonnet of his by the hour, like a bee in a fox-glove, and still get sweetness." His opinions of some other famous poets would be declared unquestionably heterodox. He wrote to his brother from Italy in 1843:
"I spent a delicious evening at Fiesole, yesterday, and not being, as I had feared, tormented by a single thought of the execrable rebel and heretic, Milton, I had nothing to disturb the beautiful tranquillity of the sunset, and the rosy mists of the garden-like Valdarno.... England has no 'need' of Milton: how can a country have need of any thing, policy, courage, talent, or any thing else, which is unblessed of God; and how can any talent in any subject-matter be blessed by the Eternal Father for one who, in prose and verse, denied, ridiculed, blasphemed the Godhead of the Eternal Son? Milton (accursed be his blasphemous memory) spent a great part of his life in writing down my Lord's divinity—my sole trust, my sole love; and that thought poisons Comus."
For Byron, "the beast who thrust Christ into company with Jove and Mohammed"—Byron, "trampling under foot his duties to his country, and scorning the natural pieties," his antipathy amounted to loathing. "I must say that I cannot comprehend the anomaly which strikes me both in guide-books and conversation of quoting and praising men like Milton and Byron, when a man professes to love Christ and to put all his hopes of salvation in him."
Mr. Faber's old master at Harrow, Doctor Longley, now Bishop of Ripon, ordained him deacon in 1837, and Bishop Bagot promoted him to the priesthood at Oxford in 1839. Meanwhile, he had spent the long vacations at Ambleside, assisting there in parochial work, and preaching twice a week, and the rest of the year he had passed among his books at Oxford. A devoted Anglican at this time, and full of hope that the movement guided by Pusey, Newman, and their associates would revolutionize the whole English establishment, he had gone so far toward Catholicism that when, just after his ordination as priest, he made a second visit to the continent, he wrote to the Rev. J. B. Morris the following curious letter from Cologne:
"I fear you will think me a sad Protestant. I determined, and so did M——, to conform to the Catholic ritual here. We both of us got Mechlin breviaries at Mechlin, and go to church pretty regularly every day to say the hours, and we say the rest of the hours as the priests do, in carriages, or inns, or anywhere. Also, I have been tutorized in the breviary by a very nice priest, a simple-hearted, pious fellow with little knowledge of theology. But it all will not do. The careless irreverence, the noise, the going in and out, the spitting of the priests on the altar-steps, the distressing representations of our Blessed Lord—I cannot get over them. The censing of the priests, the ringing of bells, the constant carrying of the blessed sacrament from one altar to another—this I can manage; because I can say psalms meanwhile. But at best, when I can get away into a side chapel with no wax virgins in it, and no hideous pictures of the Father, I cannot manage well."
The idea that Anglicans were excommunicate from Western Christendom was a terrible distress to him. "Would you not like," he writes to the same friend, "to spend six months among the Munich disciples of Möhler, Döllinger, etc., etc.? Of course I shall know more of all this when I have travelled. I shall strive to realize all such little ways of impeded communion as are unstopped. It will surely do me good, if no one else."
He soon had the coveted opportunity for more extended travel; for in 1841, he went abroad as tutor to a young gentleman from Ambleside, and spent six months journeying through the countries bordering on the Mediterranean and the Danube, Styria, the Tyrol, and Northern Germany. Memorials of this interesting tour are found in some of his published poems and in a volume called Sights and Thoughts in Foreign Churches and among Foreign Peoples, which appeared in 1842, dedicated to Wordsworth. Into this book the author introduced many reflections upon religious matters, chiefly in the form of conversations with an imaginary representative of mediæval Christianity, as well as of Mr. Faber's own Catholic feelings, whom he calls "the Stranger." The volume closes with a dream, in which the author conducts the stranger through English cathedrals, with their bare altars and empty niches. "The stranger regarded them with indignation, but did not speak. When we came out of the church, he turned to me, and said in a solemn voice, somewhat tremulous from deep emotion, 'You have led me through a land of closed churches and hushed bells, of unlighted altars and unstoled priests. Is England beneath an interdict?'"
The private journal of Mr. Faber's journey abounds with evidences of the deep impressions which Catholic customs made upon him, and his secret dissatisfaction with his own cold church—a dissatisfaction of which probably he was still himself unconscious. He is at Genoa on the Feast of the Annunciation, "and not to be utterly without sympathy with the Genoese around us, we decorated our room with a bunch of crimson tulips, apparently the favorite flower, that we might not be without somewhat to remind us of her
'Who so above
All mothers shone;
The Mother of
The Blessed One.'"
In Constantinople he is impressed with the folly of patching up the Anglican succession by an alliance with the Greek Church. "Depend upon it," he writes, "cast about as we will, if we want foreign Catholic sympathies, we must find them as they will let us in our Latin mother." He witnesses a procession of pilgrims from Vienna to the shrine of the Blessed Virgin at Mariazell. "It was a bewildering sight. I thought how faith ran in my own country in thin and scattered rivulets, and I looked with envious surprise at this huge wave which the Austrian capital had flung upon this green platform of Styrian highland—a wave of pure, hearty, earnest faith." He is indignant at the desecration of Sunday by the Lutheran population of Dresden, and exclaims, "Yet year after year are we assured in England of the connection between popery and whatever is disagreeable in the foreign way of keeping Sunday. No person who has not been abroad, and heard and seen and investigated for himself, would credit the extensive system of lying pursued by English travel-writers, religious-tract compilers, and Exeter Hall speech-makers, respecting the Roman Church abroad; and whether the lies be those of wilfulness or of prejudice, ignorance, and indolence, I do not see much to distinguish in the guilt. These dirt-seekers scrape the sewers of Europe to rough-cast the Church of Rome with the plentiful defilements."
Soon after his return home, he was offered the college living of Elton, in Huntingdonshire, and at first declined it, but afterward, for a reason which curiously illustrates his conscientiousness, he determined to accept. "My chief rock of offence," said he, "is the subduing the poet to the priest." He would have given up poetry altogether, but Keble convinced him that he had no right to bury his chief talent in a napkin. To cultivate it in moderation was more difficult, and here he thought the uncongenial duties of the pastoral office would be a great help in correcting his inordinate love of literature, and keeping him within the bounds of usefulness. "I do not say you are wrong," was Wordsworth's remark on hearing his determination; "but England loses a poet."
If his reason for accepting the rectory was a strange one, his first step on taking possession was still stranger and still wiser. He determined to visit Rome and study the method pursued by the church in dealing with the souls committed to her care. "I want to go to Italy," said he, "not as a poet, or a tourist, or a pleased dreamer, but as a pilgrim who regards it as a second Palestine, the Holy Land of the West." Dr. Wiseman, then coadjutor bishop of the central district of England, gave him letters of introduction to Cardinal Acton and Dr. Grant at Rome, so that he was enabled to see much more of the charitable and religious institutions of the Christian capital than falls to the lot of the ordinary visitor. He studied Italian, in order that he might understand the numerous lives of saints in that language, and singularly enough, or providentially we should rather say, he conceived a particular devotion to St. Philip Neri, his future father. Of his visit to the room in which the saint used to say Mass he writes, "How little did I, a Protestant stranger in that room years ago, dream that I should ever be of the saint's family, or that the Oratorian father who showed it me should in a few years be appointed by the pope the novice-master of the English Oratorians. I remember how, when he kissed the glass of the case in which St. Philip's little bed is kept as a relic, he apologized to me as a Protestant, lest I should be scandalized, and told me with a smile how tenderly St. Philip's children loved their father. I was not scandalized with their relic-worship then, but I can understand better now what he said about the love, the child-like love, wherewith St. Philip inspired his sons. If any one had told me that in seven short years I should wear the same habit, and the same white collar in the streets of London, and be preaching a triduo in honor of Rome's apostle, I should have wondered how any one could dream so wild a dream."
Sensibly as he was affected by the pious practices and associations of Rome, his attachment to the Church of England was as yet unshaken. He still cherished the delusion that some way could be found of connecting the Anglican establishment with this venerable apostolic church. Controversy on such points of doctrine as indulgences, etc., he put aside. "The one thing necessary to prove," said he, "is that adherence to the holy see is essential to the being of a church: to the well-being of all churches I admit it essential." He visited the church of the Lateran on St. John's day, and knelt bare-headed in the piazza to receive the holy father's blessing. "I do not think," he writes, "I ever returned from any service so thoroughly christianized in every joint and limb, or so right of heart, as I did from the Lateran on Thursday." Afterward Cardinal Acton obtained for him the favor of a private audience with Pope Gregory XVI., the story of which he tells in the following words:
"The Rector of the English College accompanied me, and told me that, as Protestants did not like kissing the pope's foot, I should not be required to do it. We waited in the lobby of the Vatican library for half an hour, when the pope arrived, and a prelate opened the door, remaining outside. The pope was perfectly alone, without a courtier or prelate, standing in the middle of the library, in a plain white cassock, and a white silk skull-cap, (white is the papal color.) On entering, I knelt down, and again when a few yards from him, and lastly before him; he held out his hand, but I kissed his foot; there seemed to be a mean puerility in refusing the customary homage. With Dr. Baggs for interpreter, we had a long conversation; he spoke of Dr. Pusey's suspension for defending the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist with amazement and disgust; he said to me, 'You must not mislead yourself in wishing for unity, yet waiting for your church to move. Think of the salvation of your own soul.' I said I feared self-will and individual judging. He said, 'You are all individuals in the English church; you have only external communion and the accident of being all under the queen. You know this; you know all doctrines are taught amongst you, any how. You have good wishes; may God strengthen them! You must think for yourself and for your soul.' He then laid his hands on my shoulders, and I immediately knelt down; upon which he laid them on my head, and said, 'May the grace of God correspond to your good wishes and deliver you from the nets (insidie) of Anglicanism, and bring you to the true holy church!' I left him almost in tears, affected as much by the earnest, affectionate demeanor of the old man as by his blessing and his prayer. I shall remember St. Alban's day in 1843 to my life's end."
That he did not immediately embrace the truth seems to have been not the effect of cowardice, but of a genuine scruple such as he expressed to Pope Gregory. The Anglican party at this time were sanguine of their ability to bring their members, as a body, into communion with the Roman see, and Mr. Faber was doubtless conscientious in his delay, though he suffered terribly from distress of mind. "I grow more Roman every day," he writes. "I hardly dare read the Articles; their weight grows heavier on me daily. I hope our Blessed Lady's intercession may not cease for any of us because we do not seek it, since we desist for obedience' sake." He prayed at the shrine of St. Aloysius on the feast of that saint, and left the church as if speechless and not knowing where he was going. After he became a Catholic, he told Dr. Grant that on the 21st of June St. Aloysius "had always knocked very hard at his heart." Twice he took his hat to go to the English College and make his abjuration, but on each occasion some trifling circumstance interfered to prevent the execution of his purpose. He wore a miraculous medal, and he obtained some rosaries blessed by the pope. At last he went home to Elton, having suffered during his visit a degree of mental anguish which actually resulted in physical injuries that affected him all the rest of his life.
Dr. Newman's state of mind was very much like Mr. Faber's at this time. The two friends wrote to each other, and agreed to delay their final decision for a little while longer; and in the mean time Mr. Faber threw all his energy into his parochial duties, endeavoring to copy the methods of pastoral labor which he had gone to Rome to study. His parish was disorderly in consequence of long neglect, and what religious vitality there was in the place was found principally at the dissenting chapel. Mr. Faber relied for reformation upon preaching, and what he considered the sacraments. He cared very little for ceremonies and vestments, and compared those who would now be called ritualists to "grown-up children playing at mass, putting ornament before truth, suffocating the inward by the outward." "This is not the way to become Catholic again; it is only a profaner kind of Protestantism than any we have seen hitherto." When the surplice controversy was agitating the Established Church, he told his congregation that he usually preached in a surplice because he preferred it, but he "would preach in his shirt-sleeves if it would be any satisfaction to them." He tried to establish the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus; he published three tracts on examination of conscience; he introduced confessions, and out of the most promising of his young male penitents he formed a confraternity which used to meet at the rectory every night about twelve o'clock and spend an hour in prayer. On the vigils of great festivals, their devotions lasted two or three hours. On these nights, and also on Fridays and every night in Lent, the whole party used the discipline, each in turn receiving it from the others.
These devotional practices seem to have excited the powers of darkness; for it is related that many times while the brotherhood were assembled, mysterious disturbances were heard, often apparently just outside the door of the oratory. The house was searched with lights, but nothing was ever discovered which could account for the noises.
On Sunday afternoons, the rectory grounds were thrown open to the parish, and the clergyman mingled freely with his flock, while games of foot-ball and cricket were introduced to make the gatherings more attractive. Of course the Sabbatarians were frightfully scandalized at such proceedings; but no one could deny that a great moral improvement was soon perceptible in the parish, and the dissenters began to forsake their chapel to crowd around Mr. Faber's pulpit. His own austerities were fearful. He fasted rigorously, often eating for his dinner nothing more than a few potatoes and a herring, and in fact never taking a genuine meal except on Sunday. He wore a thick horsehair cord tied in knots about his waist. Want of food often brought upon him severe attacks of sickness, and sometimes he fainted in the church while reading prayers. In such matters as these he seems to have been his own director; but in other religious practices he governed himself a great deal by the advice of Dr. Newman. "I have a request to make," he writes to Newman in November, 1844, "which I cannot any longer refrain from making; but I shall submit at once to a No, if you will say it. I want you to revoke your prohibition, laid on me last October year, of invoking our Blessed Lady, the saints and angels. I do feel somehow weakened for the want of it, and fancy I should get strength if I did it."
It was some relief, perhaps, in this suffering of mind to give utterance to his Catholic yearnings with his pen, since he durst not pour out his whole soul in prayer. He had entered into a scheme for publishing a series of lives of the English saints, and written for it a Life of St. Wilfrid. All the volumes had caused more or less irritation; but in the Life of St. Wilfrid the Catholic tendencies of the tractarian school were developed with the utmost freedom—with so much freedom that we can hardly understand how they could have come from the pen of any man who was even nominally an Anglican. His difficulties, however, were now almost over. In the autumn of 1845, many of his friends were received into the church. Among them was Dr. Newman; and then Mr. Faber hesitated no longer. He put himself at once into communication with Dr. Wareing, the vicar apostolic of the eastern district, not to be instructed in Catholic doctrine, for that he knew and believed already; but to inquire about various minor points connected with a formal reception into the church. To abandon his work at Elton he knew would involve spiritual injury to many; and about that he felt at first some scruples. He asked advice of one whose counsel he had always followed in times of perplexity—we presume Dr. Newman. "Your own soul," he was told, "is the only consideration, and you must save that, because—"
"No," interrupted he, "I have obeyed you as a Protestant and without the 'because,' and I don't want to hear it now."
Another obstacle in his way was the state of his pecuniary affairs. He had borrowed a large sum of money for charitable and other works in his parish; and if he gave up his living, he could pay neither principal nor interest. Was it not his duty to remain rector of Elton until the debt was paid? He consulted an Anglican dignitary of his own party. "Depend upon it," was the answer, "if God means you to be a Catholic, he will not let that stand in the way." Confident, therefore, that God would provide, he wrote to acquaint his friends of his purpose, and had no sooner dispatched the letters than he received from a generous anti-Catholic gentleman, who had heard of his perplexity, a check for the full amount of the debt.
He officiated at Elton for the last time on the 16th of November. At the evening service he told his people that the doctrines he had preached to them, though true, were not those of the Church of England; he could not, therefore, remain in her communion, but must go where truth was to be found. Then he hastily descended the pulpit stairs, threw off his surplice, which he left upon the ground, and made his way as quickly as possible through the vestry to the house. For a few minutes the congregation remained in blank astonishment. The church-wardens and some others followed him to the rectory, and begged him to remain; he might preach what he pleased, and they would never question it. It was a sorrowful interview, for he loved his flock with all his heart; but he was firm in his resolve. The next morning he started early for Northampton, hoping to escape observation; but the people were on the watch at their windows; and as he passed through, they waved their handkerchiefs and cried, "God bless you, wherever you go." Mr. Faber was accompanied by Mr. T. F. Knox, a scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, and seven of his parishioners. They were all admitted into the church the same evening by Bishop Wareing, and the next day received their first communion and the sacrament of confirmation. "A new light," wrote Mr. Faber next day, "seems to be shed on every thing, and more especially on my past position—a light so clear as to surprise me; and though I am homeless and unsettled, and as to worldly prospects considerably bewildered, yet there is such a repose of conscience as more than compensates for the intense and fiery struggle which began on the Tuesday and only ended on the Monday morning following."
Owing to various circumstances, a good many recent converts had settled at Birmingham, where the church of St. Chad, under the charge of the Rev. Mr. Moore, had become a great centre of Catholic life. Mr. Faber and his companions went there, Faber accepting the hospitality of Mr. Moore, and the others disposing of themselves in various ways. They continued, however, to look up to their former pastor for direction, and he soon conceived the idea of forming them into a sort of community. With the approval of Mr. Moore and Dr. Wiseman, they took possession of a small house in Caroline street, Mr. Faber of course joining them. No definite rule was drawn up at first, but their general purpose was to assist the parochial clergy in visiting the sick, giving instruction, and similar duties. Mr. Hutchinson, who afterward became a member of the little band, has given an amusing account of a visit he paid them a few days after their establishment. Mr. Faber, terribly scorched, was standing over the fire stirring a kettle of pea-soup. There was hardly any furniture except a long deal table, a chair, knife, fork, and mug for each man, some pewter spoons with the temperance pledge stamped on them, and a three-legged table, split across the middle, at which, when he could be spared from the pea-soup, Mr. Faber was engaged writing a pamphlet on the reasons for his conversion. Up-stairs there were four small rooms, one used as a chapel, the others as dormitories. There were no bed-steads; they all slept on the floor. Such was the beginning of the Wilfridian Community, or Brothers of the Will of God, though they took no distinguishing name until some time later. At the commencement of the new year, the generosity of a friend enabled Mr. Faber to visit Italy, where he had reason to think he could obtain money for the support of the new community. During his absence, the brethren found employment with some of the Catholic tradesmen in the town, returning to Caroline street every night. The distinguished convert was of course received in Rome with great affection, especially by the ecclesiastics who had known him on his former visit. Cardinal Acton fell upon his neck and kissed him. The pope gave him a gracious interview. The English College offered him a home. The superior of the Camaldolese at Florence expressed a great desire to see him. "He was ill in bed," says Mr. Faber, "and his bed full of snuff; he seized my head, buried it in the snuffy clothes, and kissed me most unmercifully." There is, in fact, a good deal of fun now and then in Mr. Faber's letters. He tells, for instance, how "the dear old pope" refused to be angry with the Anglican Bishop of Gibraltar, who came to Rome to give confirmation, his holiness saying with a chuckle that "he really had not been aware hitherto that Rome was in the diocese of Gibraltar;" and how, in "a fit of unholy mirth," the holy father mimicked the way the English Protestants did homage, "a familiar nod with their chin, as if they had swallowed pokers." He was disappointed in the pecuniary aid which he had come abroad to seek, but the journey was productive of much spiritual comfort and improvement; and as money was soon forthcoming from another quarter, he was enabled to go back to Birmingham with a light heart, and to set about the more complete organization of the community according to a rule which he had devised during his absence. Meanwhile, arrangements had been completed for removal to more commodious quarters in Birmingham; and in the course of the year 1846 the brethren moved a second time to a fine estate at Cheadle, generously given them by Lord Shrewsbury. They named it St. Wilfrid's. Their first work here was to open a school for boys. Pupils came in rapidly; but the bigotry of the neighborhood was aroused, and the most amazing reports were circulated about the new institution. A relative of Mr. Hutchinson (who had joined the community under the name of Brother Anthony, Mr. Faber being styled Brother Wilfrid of the Humanity of Jesus) sent a Scotch physician to examine the establishment, and we suppose to report upon the sanity of the inmates. The same relative described Mr. Faber as "an ambitious villain and a hellish ruler," and declared that wherever he went in London "the finger of scorn was pointed at him." "I am said to have strangled one of my monks," wrote the "hellish ruler;" "the story is all over the land, and is believed. Mrs. R—— came to see me at St. Wilfrid's, 'to see the man;' and glaring at me in silence like a tigress, she told Lady Shrewsbury and Lady Arundel that I was quite capable of all she heard, and that her faith in it was established."
Humility had led Mr. Faber to defer ordination to the priesthood, and up to this time he had received only minor orders; but in the Advent season of 1846 he was raised to the subdeaconship, and at the end of the following Lent he was ordained deacon and priest by Dr. Wiseman at Oscott. The brothers could now engage much more effectively in missionary work; and as, besides having a priest among them, they received several valuable converts from time to time, they were enabled to map out a wide extent of neglected country into districts, and devote their days to a systematic visitation of every house within their limits. The crowds who came on Sundays to St. Wilfrid's soon overflowed the little chapel, and Father Faber used to preach to them in a yard near the house, or under the beech-trees in the garden. It was not unusual for him also to preach in the streets, wearing his habit or cassock and holding a crucifix in his hand.
In a few months there remained but one Protestant family in the parish, and the Protestant church was almost entirely abandoned! Brother Anthony Hutchinson wrote, "We have converted the pew-opener, leaving the parson only his clerk and two drunken men." The poor people became extravagantly fond of "Father Fable," as they used to call him; but he was not held in particular affection by the Protestant clergy, and sometimes was unwillingly involved in what he used to call "fighting and squabbling with parsons." On one occasion he was followed into the room of a sick man by a minister of the Primitive Methodists, who insisted on remaining there to hear what was said in confession, and was with great difficulty persuaded by the invalid to leave the house.
It was not only from Protestants, however, that Father Faber had to suffer annoyance; his worst troubles came from those of his own faith. About the time of his ordination he had made arrangements for the publication of a series of lives of the saints, translated from the Italian and other foreign languages, and afterward so widely known as the Oratorian Lives. A part of the literary work he did himself, but the most of it he committed to other hands, having at one time between sixty and seventy translators at work under his direction. The series began with a Life of St. Philip Neri. It reached a large sale; but so little familiar were English readers with the supernatural manifestations which abound in biographies of the chosen servants of God that exception was taken to the work in various quarters, and when the Life of St. Rose of Lima appeared, the opposition became extremely violent. It was objected that the lives of foreign saints, however edifying in their respective countries, were unsuited to England and unfit for Protestant eyes. Under the advice of Dr. Newman, who nevertheless approved of the work very cordially, the series was finally suspended. But then a reaction set in; it was discovered how much practical good the publications had done; some of those who had criticised them most severely retracted and apologized; and the translations were resumed under the auspices of the Oratorians, with whom Father Faber's community had meanwhile been consolidated.
Mr. Faber and Mr. Hutchinson, the only priests in the community at St. Wilfrid's, were on the eve of taking their vows when news arrived that Dr. Newman was coming over from Rome to establish in England the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. Father Faber was at prayer when he felt suddenly an interior call to join the new congregation. His final decision was reached only after a long interior struggle and a free conference with Bishop Wiseman. Humanly speaking, it was a great sacrifice—perhaps the greatest Father Faber ever made. Besides giving up the infant community to which he had devoted so much care, and descending at one step from the position of superior to that of novice, he had to tear himself away from a congregation which was quite as warmly attached to him as his old flock had been at Elton, to give up St. Wilfrid's, and to face the vehement opposition of his brethren in the community and the generous friends to whom he had been indebted for his foundation at Cheadle. "Giving St. Wilfrid's up," he wrote, "seems to unroot one altogether from the earth, and the future is such a complete blank that one feels as if one was going to die." "It is Elton over again," only, "in my first spoliation I kept my books and my Elton children; now I lose these two." To his surprise, however, when once his mind had been made up, the opposition of the community of St. Wilfrid's suddenly ceased. They all professed their willingness to follow him; and the result was, that the Oratorians took possession of the whole establishment. Dr. Newman came to St. Wilfrid's in February, 1848, and admitted the entire community to his congregation. "Father Superior has now left us," wrote Faber, "all in our Philippine habits with turndown collars, like so many good boys brought in after dinner. Since my admission I seem to have lost all attachment to every thing but obedience; I could dance and sing all day because I am so joyous; I hardly know what to do with myself for very happiness."
It was not thought necessary to exact from him the full period of three years' noviceship, so at the end of six months he was dispensed from the remainder and appointed master of novices. In October of the same year, the whole congregation removed from Birmingham to St. Wilfrid's; but Father Faber was not allowed to remain long in this favorite home; for in the spring he was sent with five other fathers, namely Dalgairns, Stanton, Hutchinson, Knox, and Wells, and two novices, Messrs. Gordon and Bowden, to found a new house in London. At the head of this he remained until his death, and he never saw St. Wilfrid's again but once.
The introduction of a new order or a new congregation is so common an event now that we can hardly understand how bitter was the ill-feeling aroused by the opening of the London Oratory in a hired house in King William street in May, 1849. It was the first public church which had been served by a religious community in that diocese since the old faith was put under the feet of the English schism. Bishop Wiseman was a warm supporter of the Oratorians, but many of the secular clergy looked upon them with suspicion, doubted the discretion of a community composed entirely of converts, disapproved of the public wearing of their habit, and complained that their peculiar services, with new prayers, hymns in the vernacular, and a new style of preaching, were Methodistical, and ought to be suppressed. Experience, however, in time showed the doubters their mistake, and the diocesan clergy became not only friends but imitators of the Oratorians. A great deal of popular animosity continued to be manifested, especially during the excitement which followed the reëstablishment of the English hierarchy. The walls of London were placarded, "Down with the Oratorians," "Don't go to the Oratory," "Banishment to the Oratorians," etc.; the fathers were cursed in the streets, and even gentlemen used to shout at them from their carriage-windows. The government finally issued a proclamation reviving an old statute which forbade Roman Catholic ecclesiastics to wear the habit of their order, and thenceforth the Oratorians always appeared in the streets in secular garb.
Father Faber was doing an immense amount of labor at this time, preaching, visiting the sick, giving retreats and missions, and conducting special devotions, besides employing some time in literary occupations; yet he was almost constantly a sufferer from disease, and was often obliged to cease for a while from all work whatsoever. He had long been subject to very severe and prostrating headaches, connected with which is the following remarkable incident which we shall give in his own words, written to the Countess of Arundel and Surrey on the 2d of December, 1850:
"And now I have so many things to tell you that I hardly know where to begin. Some time ago, a lady at prayer in our church thought it was revealed to her that St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi wished to confer some grazia on me in connection with my headache. Her director gave her permission to act upon this; whereupon she wrote to me, begging me when my headache came on to apply a relic of the saint to my forehead. Some days elapsed; I asked Father Francis, my director, for his leave to do this; as it was a merely temporal thing, he took some time to consider. I became ill, and had a night of great pain. I thought he had forgotten all about it, and that it would be a blameworthy imperfection in me to remind him of it. The morning after, he came to confession, and found me ill in bed; he was going away, but I knew he was going to say Mass, and so I made him kneel down by my bedside, while I put on my stole, and with considerable pain heard his confession; when he rose, I gave him the stole, and asked him to hear my confession, which he did. Afterward he said, 'Well, now, I think it would be well to try this relic.' I answered, 'Just as you please.' I was in great suffering, and very sick besides. He gave it me, and walked away to the door to say Mass. I applied the relic, a piece of her linen, to my forehead; a sort of fire went into my head, through every limb down to my feet, causing me to tremble; before Father Francis could even reach the door, I sprang up, crying, 'I am cured, I am quite well!' He said I looked as white as a sheet; I was filled with a kind of sacred fear, and an intense desire to consecrate myself utterly to God. I got up and dressed, without any difficulty, or pain, or sickness. This was on the Wednesday. On the Saturday I had another headache, but I had not asked Father Francis's leave about the relic, and felt I ought to take no steps to get rid of my cross. In the afternoon he told me I might apply it. Fathers Philip and Edward were in the room. I was on my bed; I took the relic and applied it; there was the same fire in a less degree, but no cure. I then said to the saint, 'I only ask it to go to the novena and benediction.' The cure was instantaneous; while Father Philip had such an impression that the saint was in the room, that he was irresistibly drawn to bow to her. Well, I said my office; then in an hour or so came the novena and benediction; and as soon as I returned to my room, I was taken so ill again I was obliged to go to bed. Meanwhile I had totally forgotten what the others reminded me of afterward, that two years ago Michael Watts Russell wrote to me from Florence, and said, 'The children send their love, and desire me to say they have just come from the tomb of St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi, whom they have been asking to cure Father Wilfrid's headache.'
"After all this, I am sure I shall lose my soul if I do not serve God less lukewarmly; so please pray for me."
God had not given him, however, the favor of a permanent restoration to health. He was never well in London. "I have two vocations," he wrote to Father Bowden, "one for my body and one for my soul; and they happen to be incompatible, so the body must do the best it can, and the soul must rough-ride it for another sixty years, which is supposed to be the term of incessant headache still left me. When you and I sit toothless together, shaking our palsied heads at recreation, we shall look down upon the junior fathers who have been only thirty or forty years in the congregation with an ineffable contempt; and when my dotage comes on, I shall fancy myself still novice-master and you a refractory novice, and I shall trip you up on your crutches for mortification." For the sake of his health he was persuaded to start on a journey to Palestine; but he fell very sick on the way, and went no further than Italy. He reached Naples on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, (1851,) and entered the Oratorian church just as benediction was about to be given, "which," he says, "was jolly." In the same letter (to Father Hutchinson) he writes, "If I can get one, I will bring one of the rum things they put on the altar in Advent and Lent, when flowers are forbidden; they take my fancy hugely." He came home far from well enough to resume his work; but there was a great deal to be done, and he never had any mercy on himself. There was a country house for the congregation to be built at Sydenham Hill, and the fine new Oratory at Brompton to be erected in place of the little establishment in King William street, which the community had long ago outgrown. They took possession of the Brompton house in March, 1854. The vast cost of this great institution had been defrayed principally from the private means of the individual members, but there had been several donations—£10,000 toward the purchase of the site from a lady who wished her gift to be anonymous; £4000 from the Earl of Arundel and Surrey; and £700 collected by a committee for the erection of the church. The current expenses of the house were also defrayed from the pockets of the fathers, it being a rule of the congregation that the receipts from their churches should not contribute in any way to the support of the house, and indeed at Brompton the income of the church did not equal its expenditure.
It was while the Brompton building was under way that Father Faber began with his All for Jesus, or the Easy Ways of Divine Love, that remarkable series of spiritual works which made his name so widely known and loved throughout Europe and America. All for Jesus appeared in 1853; Bethlehem, the eighth and last of the series, was published in 1860. In the mean time, he had collected a volume of his earlier and later poems; completed his poem of Prince Amadis; published a collection of his hymns, many of which have become exceedingly popular, and finished a great deal of minor literary work. He made preparations for other books, on Calvary, The Holy Ghost, The Fear of God, and The Immaculate Heart of Mary, fragments of which appeared after his death under the title, Notes on Doctrinal and Spiritual Subjects. These various writings are too well known and too fondly esteemed, especially in the United States, for any criticism to be called for here, and we can do nothing better than copy the just eulogy which Father Bowden cites from The Dublin Review:
"We know of no one man who has done more to make the men of his day love God and aspire to a higher path of the interior life; and we know no man who so nearly represents to us the mind and the preaching of St. Bernard and St. Bernardine of Siena in the tenderness and beauty with which he has surrounded the names of Jesus and Mary."
All these exquisite works were written in the midst of the most awful physical suffering. "It is plain," he writes in 1858, "that life can't be lived at this rate. But my mind is now like a locomotive that has started with neither driver nor stoker. I can think of nothing but being seized, put on board one of her majesty's ships of war as compulsory chaplain, and carried round the world for two years. If I was on land, I should jib and come home." Bright's disease of the kidneys, gout, neuralgia—a complication, in fact, of numerous disorders, left him hardly an hour of ease, hardly a night of rest. Soon after Easter, in the year 1863, the hope of checking his disease or even notably relieving his sufferings was finally given up. He seems to have been conscious of his condition even before the physicians had pronounced their opinion. During the month of April he made one or two short journeys, but without experiencing any relief. By the middle of June he was so much worse that the last sacraments were administered. On the 28th—his forty-ninth birthday—he saw all the members of the community, one by one, recommending himself to their prayers, and leaving with each some parting gift. He rallied a little after this, and was even well enough to take one or two short drives, and to enjoy farewell visits from Cardinal Wiseman, and Dr. Newman, and many of his other friends. His mind continued perfectly clear and calm until some time in September, when attacks of delirium became frequent, and the sedatives which had been used to produce sleep lost their soothing effect. He received holy communion daily up to and including the 24th of that month. The next day his attendants were able to put him into bed, which had not been done since June; he had passed day and night in his chair, propped up with pillows. He now lay quite still, gazing at a large crucifix, and moving his eyes from one to another of the five wounds. When told that his death was near, he only repeated his favorite exclamation, "God be praised!" On the morning of the 26th, Father Rowe told him that he was going to say Mass for him. He showed by his face that he understood what was said; and just as the Mass must have ended, he turned his head a little and opened his eyes with a touching expression, half of sweetness and half of surprise. So his spirit passed away, as if in the act of realizing the picture which he had drawn in All for Jesus: "Only serve Jesus out of love, and while your eyes are yet unclosed what an unspeakable surprise will you have had at the judgment-seat of your dearest Love, while the songs of heaven are breaking on your ears and the glory of God is dawning on your eyes, to fade away no more for ever!"
We have already alluded in the first part of this article to Father Faber's elegance of appearance and manner, and from a portrait prefixed to the biography it seems that he retained his advantages of person to a late period of his life. He was remarkable for his habits of order and neatness, and once, when a father remarked upon the tidiness of his room, he replied, "The napkin in the sepulchre was found folded at the resurrection." As might be imagined from the narrative of his life, he was always distinguished for gentleness; and Father Bowden remarks that he never was severe in the manner of correcting the faults of his spiritual subjects, except possibly in matters connected with the ceremonial of divine worship. Any defect of demeanor during service, or inattention to the requirements of the rubric, he rebuked with marked severity. In the church he would have every thing of the best, whether it could be seen by the congregation or not. When the new high altar of marble was put up in the Oratory, he was much dissatisfied because the back was not finished like the front, and he found fault with the altar rails for the same reason, complaining that "the side next our Lord" was not ornamented. He was very fond of children, and his correspondence contains some striking evidences of his tenderness to them. We have already spoken of his love of humor—a sense which seems naturally to accompany the poetic instinct. His room was at all hours the frequent resort of his brethren who looked upon it as a renewal of St. Philip's "School of Christian Mirth." Father Bowden quotes the language of an old friend, who wrote at the time of Father Faber's death of "the indescribable charm of his private intercourse, of that wonderful brilliancy of conversation in which he excelled all those whose social powers have made them the idols of London society as far as they have excelled ordinary men, of the magic play of his countenance and of his voice, of the unprecedented combination of tenderness in affection, unearthliness of aim, and worldly wisdom, which characterized his private intercourse, and of his power of attracting little children and learned men, one as much as the other."
Father Bowden has told the story of this beautiful life with appreciation and affection, and with no mean literary ability. His style is direct and unaffected, and he is not given to the superfluity of pious reflection with which the biographers of religious men are so apt to retard their narratives. The volume contains a very copious selection from Father Faber's private correspondence, so that it may be considered in many portions virtually an autobiography.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF CONRAD VON BOLANDEN.