He arrived in Rome for the last time on the 22nd April, 1863. How strangely do his different visits to this city combine to give an idea of the stages of opinion through which his chequered life was fated to pass. In 1821, he entered it, promising himself a feast of absurdities, determined to sneer at what he did not understand, and repel by his thick shield of prejudice whatever might force itself upon him as praiseworthy. He found something in his next visit in the pagan remains to please his Protestant taste, and left it for Germany with a kind of regret. In less than ten years he is there to despise the glory of the Caesars, and thinks more of a chapel which Peter's successor has endowed or adorned, than the platforms on which the fangs of the leopard tore the flower of our martyrs. His other visits were mostly official. He came glowing with the fervour of new projects, and left with only their embers generating a new step in his spiritual progress. Rome was always Rome, but he was not always the same. Any one who takes the trouble to compare his different visits with each other cannot fail to learn a lesson that will be more telling on his mind, than what comments upon them by another's pen could produce.
The General Chapter Father Ignatius was called to attend in 1863 had to deal with subjects that deeply concerned the interests of our Order. In this Chapter, our American province was canonically erected in the United States. A colony of ten Passionists was sent to California, and the Hospice of St. Nicholas, in Paris, established. Father Ignatius had, as usual, some papers to submit to the Roman Curia. The work to which his "little missions" were devoted had not yet received the seal of the Fisherman, and, until it was so blessed, its excellence could be a subject of doubt. He did receive the pontifical benediction for this, and for the institution of a new congregation of nuns, and began to enjoy the riches of this twofold blessing before he took his departure from the Eternal City.
Father Ignatius, ever himself, did not lose sight of lesser claims on his gratitude in the greater ones his zeal proposed to him. There was a family whom he had received into the Church during the course of his labours on the secular mission. The father, and four daughters, and a son, were all baptized by him. They were his great joy. He first received one girl, then the father, then another (who dreaded to speak to him), a third, and a fourth yielded to his charity and meekness in following the workings of grace. For them he always entertained a special regard, he would stay with them when missionary work called him to a town in which they dwelled, and delighted to caress their children, edify themselves, and make himself at home in their dwellings during his stay. He obtained a rescript granting them a "plenary indulgence," signed by the Holy Father himself, which is still treasured up as a beautiful heirloom in their families. These favoured objects of his predilection were Mrs. Macky, of Birmingham; Mrs. Richardson and Mrs. Marshall, of Levenshulme, Manchester.
Before leaving Rome in 1863 he preached to nuns and schools, upon the conversion of England, with the same zeal as he did in 1850, if not with greater. That leading star lived with him; it is to be hoped it has not died with him. If the nineteenth century were an age of faith, and that the belief in God's miraculous interposition would move any to make experiments of holy wonders, we should expect to find engraved on his heart after death: "The Conversion of England!"
On June 21, after exactly two months' stay, he left the terrestrial Rome, or city of God, for ever. He arrives in London on the 3rd August, visits convents for his "crusade," now doubly dear to him; communicates his glad tidings to the infant congregations of nuns of Sutton, and holds himself in readiness for the approaching provincial chapter. The nuns here mentioned are a society established, a few years before, by our Father Gaudentius. Their primary object is the care and instruction of factory girls, their subsidiary one, the plain instruction of poor children.
Father Ignatius loved this institute. One of his common sayings was, "I do not understand how a girl with a wooden leg, no means and great docility, cannot make the evangelical vows," and he found himself at home with a sisterhood where his problem would be solved in part at least. He brought their rules to Rome, at this time, and received all the Pontifical sanctions he could possibly expect under the circumstances.
On August 21 of this year, our Provincial Chapter was held at Broadway. Here Father Ignatius was elected Rector of St. Anne's Retreat, Sutton. He entered on the office with a great deal of zeal and courage. In his first exhortation to the religious, he remarked that "new brooms sweep clean," but as he was a broom a little the worse for wear, which had been trimmed up for action after having so long lain by, the aphorism could not apply so well to him. It was nine years since he had filled the office of rector before, and the interval taught him many things regarding religious discipline which he now brought into action.
His rule might be called maternal rather than paternal, for it was characterized by the fondness of holy old age for youth. One change remarked in him, since his former rectorship, was, his spicing his gentle admonitions with a good deal of severity when occasion required it. He spoke to the community, after the evening recreation, once upon the conversion of England, and the bright look the horizon of religious opinion wore now in comparison to the time he first began his crusade. He hoped great things for England. At this part of his lecture, some ludicrous occurrence, which he did not observe, made one of the younger religious laugh. Father Ignatius turned upon him, and spoke with such vehemence that all seemed as if struck by a thunderbolt. They never heard him speak in that way before, and it was thought by many that the meek father could not "foam with indignation," even if he tried.
Towards the close of 1863 he professed several of the nuns of the Holy Family, for whom he had procured the indulgences at Rome, and he assisted at the deathbed of their first rev. mother early in 1864.