It will be remembered that this mode of managing his household affairs, was the result of the trial Father Spencer made of the vows of religion in his secular state, which has been alluded to in a former chapter.
CHAPTER VIII.
Association Of Prayers For The Conversion Of England.
It was in the year 1838 that he began the great work to which his life and energies were afterwards devoted—the moving of the Catholics everywhere to pray conjointly for the conversion of England. Before this time he and a few of his friends prayed privately, said or heard masses for this intention, and encouraged one another by letters and conversations to perseverance in so holy a practice. Now he went to work on a larger scale. How this change in the working of his zeal was brought about will be best seen from a letter he wrote to Dr. Briggs in November, 1838. Before, however, quoting it, it may be well to remark that the cause of his going to France with Mr. Phillipps was that he was breaking down in health, hard-worked by two laborious missions, for which he had no assistant since Mr. Martyn's death, and that his doctor advised change of air and rest. Here is the letter:—
"London, Nov. 5, 1838.
"My Dear Lord,—I hope I shall be doing right to explain to your lordship the real circumstances of the transaction which, you may perhaps have been told, has been adverted to in The Times newspaper of Nov. 3, and some other paper since; which states, from the Gazette de France, that I have been at Paris, with Mr. Ambrose Phillipps, busy in establishing an association of prayers for the conversion of England to the Roman faith. I am certainly ready to plead guilty on this charge; but I do not find cause to repent of it. However, a good thing may be done so out of place and out of time as to make it not worth much, and it may be necessary, therefore, that I should explain myself before I am approved of in what I have been doing in Paris. In the first visit which I paid to the Archbishop on my arrival at Paris, I was saying, what I say continually, that what we want above all in England is good prayers; and that it would be a great benefit if the French would undertake to unite in prayer for us. I did not think of making any proposal for an actual arrangement of the kind till the Archbishop himself (then Monseigneur Quelin) encouraged, and almost obliged, me to do all I could by the zealous manner in which he took up the idea. He appointed that I should meet him after two days at St. Sulpice, where seventy or eighty of the clergy of Paris were to be assembled to offer him an address of thanks for a retreat which he had given them. After the business was concluded, he introduced me to them, and having explained how I came to be there, he proposed that they should undertake to pray for the conversion of England on every Thursday. The proposal was most favourably received, and I heard of its being acted upon by many offering their mass on the first Thursday. This encouraged me to go on. I obtained a circular letter of introduction to the superiors of religious houses, and visited about twenty of the principal. All of them undertook to offer their prayers as I asked them, and to write to their sister houses through France. The General of the Lazarists, and the Provincial of the Jesuits, undertook to recommend it to their brethren; but what I thought more satisfactory yet was, that all the Archbishops and bishops whom I could meet with in Paris promised to recommend the prayers in their dioceses and provinces; so that it appeared to me that there was reason to say that all France would soon be united in this prayer, and I trust other countries of Europe will follow their example. I remember, at the time when your lordship received me with much kindness at Halford House, on our speaking of the importance of prayers being regularly said for the conversion of England, and you told me of what had been done at Ushaw under your direction. I forget whether I said to you that I had then lately adopted the practice of offering my mass every Thursday regularly for that intention. I took this from the nuns of Mount Pavilion, with whom I had become acquainted the summer before, but especially what they do on Thursday, when there is high mass and exposition all the day, and a solemn act of reparation for the outrages committed against the Divine Eucharist. It seemed to me that this was a devotion peculiarly suited to the object of obtaining from Almighty God graces for England, one of whose most crying sins is; the blasphemy of the Blessed Sacrament authorized by law for three centuries.
"I had only proposed the idea, however, to a few priests of my acquaintance, to unite in saying mass for England on that day, and was rather waiting for some plan to be suggested for a general union of prayers in England by some one of authority. But, as nothing had been done, and when I found myself engaged in this pursuit at Paris, it was necessary to propose something definite, I have nothing better than to request prayers from all the faithful for England, all days and at all times, but especially to offer mass on Thursday, if they be priests and at liberty, or communion, or assistance at mass, or visits to the Blessed Sacrament, or, in short, whatever they did for God, particularly on that day, for England's conversion.
"The manner in which this request was accepted by all the good people whom I saw was most consoling to me; and it appears to me that I am bound to make it known in England, to those whose judgment is most important, and whose approval would most powerfully recommend the Catholics in England to correspond with the zealous spirit exhibited in behalf of our country by France.
"It is not for me to suggest to your lordship what might be done. I only venture to hope that you may think this matter perhaps worthy of your attention, and will perhaps mention it to the clergy as occasion may present itself. I would add, that in France the superiors of several seminaries were most ready to undertake to recommend it to the students, and it pleased me particularly to interest those communities in behalf of England, because the devotion might so well spread in that way through all classes. Would your lordship think fit to mention the subject at Ushaw? I have nowhere asked for any particular prayers to be said as that might be burdensome; but simply that this intention might be thought of at least, if nothing more was done in reference to it.
"I beg again to be excused for my boldness in thus addressing you, and am your lordship's
"Obedient humble servant,
"George Spencer."
The passage he alludes to in The Times was as follows:—