“Departing leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.”
But the coming age will not take your wisdom—will not follow your footmarks—will experiment for itself. Tell your passionate son that the fair face he now dotes on, in ten years he
will have forgotten, and he cannot believe you. It is just as vain to believe that the section who believe in Rome will cease to do so. Roman Catholicism has some congeniality with man, and therefore Protestantism will always be in danger from it—and the more honest this Protestantism is—the more it takes its stand upon the truth and nothing but the truth—the more it relinquishes the political ascendancy it has assumed, the greater that danger will become. Cardinal Wiseman is an illustration of this. Queen Elizabeth or Oliver Cromwell would have soon put a stop to Cardinal Wiseman’s career, but they would have done so in spite of the principles of religious liberty. Now those principles are acknowledged, and England trusts in Exeter Hall—and Dr. Cumming. Protestantism may well be in danger.
One Sunday, hearing that the Cardinal was to preach at Brook Green, Hammersmith, I made the best of my way thither. The church was crowded, and I considered myself lucky in being shown by the woman who acted as pew-opener into a good seat. Yet this good luck had to be paid for. ‘A shilling, sir, if you please,’ said the woman curtseying. ‘A what?’
I repeated. ‘A shilling, sir, if you please,’ was the reply. The woman seemed to consider it so reasonable a charge that I of course complied with her request. At the same time, recollecting that for half that sum you are admitted into what I suppose is considered the dress circle in St. George’s Cathedral, I did think that sixpence would have been sufficient. The service was conducted in the usual manner. It was longer than that of the Church of England as practised at St. Barnabas, and a good deal more attractive. After mass had been celebrated, there was a hush, and immediately a procession from the side door; what the procession consisted of I cannot say. My eyes, and those of every one else, I suppose, were turned upon the Cardinal alone.
And first let me describe the Cardinal’s gown;—it was composed of rich red silk; besides he had a red cap, which he laid aside when preaching, and, in addition, he had a very handsome robe round his neck, and a lace or muslin gown of shorter extent than the red one, which came down to his feet. Only that fluent writer the Court newsman, or he who tells in the columns of the Morning Post of the finery of Drawing
Rooms, when the beauty of England prostrates itself before royalty, could do justice to the dress the Cardinal wore. Of course it was a grotesque one—but it was a finer dress than that of an English Bishop, who seems all sleeves, and if you do make an object of yourself, the more striking the object is the better—so that, as far as dress is concerned, the Cardinal beats one of our Archbishops hollow. I think also in his preaching he would be more than a match for them. Him you can hear. He is a tall, stately man. There is an air of power about him. His voice is loud, and brassy, and unpleasant, but it is not monotonous, and his action is very animated and good. He stands before the altar, and takes a text which generally forms an appropriate introduction to his discourse, and delivers a well-reasoned, argumentative address, not cut up into heads, as the manner of some is, but connected and complete. With a fine voice, the Cardinal would be a very effective preacher. As it is, he does very well. I should say he has little imagination, little sentiment, little rhetoric, but that he has great stores of learning and power of argument. He is very plausible, and
seems very earnest and sincere, he preaches principally of the peculiar doctrines of his Church; how it is the one on which God’s Spirit rests; how it is the one true guide to heaven; how it has the one true Divine utterance, to which, if man do not listen, he is lost for ever. The Cardinal has a square, massive face, with anything but a pleasant expression. He is yet in his prime. His hair is brown, his complexion fresh, but inclined to be dark. His eyes are concealed by spectacles. A fat, double chin, and large cheeks, minus whiskers, give him a very sensual appearance. But it is not a pleasant sensuality, the jolly sensuality of a Falstaff or an alderman, the sensuality suggestive of good dinners, with good company to flavour them. It is the sensuality of a proud, arrogant, and imperious monk.
Cardinal Wiseman is by birth a Spaniard, and by descent an Irishman. He was born in 1802. At an early age he was sent to St. Cuthbert’s Catholic College at Ushaw, near Durham. From thence he was removed to the English College at Rome, where he was ordained a priest, and made a Doctor of Divinity. He was Professor for a time in the Roman University, and then made
Rector of the English College at Ushaw. Dr. Wiseman came to England in 1835, and in the winter of that year delivered a Course of Lectures on the connection between Science and Revealed Religion, which, when published, obtained for him a high reputation for scholarship and learning in all divisions of the Christian church. He subsequently returned to Rome, and is understood to have been instrumental in inducing Pope Gregory XVI. to increase the Vicars Apostolic in England. The number was doubled, and Dr. Wiseman came back as coadjutor to Dr. Walsh, of the Midland District. He was appointed president of St. Mary’s College, Oscott. In 1847 he again returned to Rome. This second visit led to further preferment. He was made Pro-Vicar Apostolic of the London District, in place of Dr. Griffiths, deceased. Subsequently he was appointed coadjutor to Dr. Walsh, and in 1849, on the death of Dr. Walsh, he became Vicar Apostolic of the London District. In August he went again to Rome, not expecting, as he says, to return, ‘but delighted to be commissioned to come back’ clothed in new dignity. In a Consistory held on the 30th of September, Nicholas Wiseman was elected to the dignity of