I do not believe this to be the way that the All-wise and All-good Maker of us all has ordained for the discovery of the Healing Art which is one of His greatest gifts to man.
Two years later at a Meeting at Prince’s Hall on the 26th of June, 1884, with Lord Shaftesbury in the Chair, the Cardinal in a single pregnant sentence dissipated the vivisectors’
constant careless confusion of the totally different moral acts of killing animals and torturing them.
“It is clear,” he said, “that the words ‘kill and eat,’ and the dominion which the beneficent Maker of all things has given to man over the lower creatures, does not justify the infliction of exquisite torment in the name of Science.”
At that time Lord Shaftesbury was the greatest representative of the Church of England and the Cardinal the acknowledged head of the Church of Rome in this country and as they earnestly agreed in condemning the practice of vivisection as wicked and abominable, it becomes impossible for those who support it to bring to its defence any authorities on conduct at all comparable with that of these two great and good men.
The Cardinal gave the impression of a consciously eminent ecclesiastic, who was determined to lift his Church into greatness in England by all lawful means in his power; his appearance was ascetic, distinguished, and memorable; he was manifestly a man of direct nobility of life, and most lofty purpose—a great statesman for his Church, leading an austere and detached life as an example in every detail for the faithful in his community—a prince of the Roman Church fulfilling his august function conspicuously and faultlessly in full view of a critical public. [16]
His care for the poor and the noble simplicity of his life found its most eloquent evidence at his death in the discovery that his entire worldly possessions amounted to sixty-eight pounds.
He had laid up his treasure where no rust and moth doth corrupt.
CHAPTER IV: ROBERT BROWNING
VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-VIVISECTION SOCIETY
died the 12th of december, 1889
