Fortunately for the English college,—and fortunately, perhaps we should add, for England,—he was not yet to depart for the field of his great labor. To use his own modest words, he was found to be at hand in 1826, when some one was wanted for the office of vice-rector of the English college, and so was named to it; and when, in 1828, the worthy rector, Dr. Gradwell, was appointed bishop, Dr. Wiseman was, by almost natural sequence, named to succeed him.
Thus he continued to drink in the spirit of catholicity, and devotion, and steadiness in faith, of which Rome is the fountain on earth. With reverent affection he traced out the mementos of primitive Christianity, the tombs of the martyrs and saints, the altars and hiding-places and sacred inscriptions of the catacombs. These holy retreats had for him a fascination such as no other spot even in Rome possessed. Again and again he recurs to them in his writings, lingering fondly around the hallowed precincts, and inspiring his readers with the love for them that burned so ardently in his own breast. One of the last pieces that came from his pen was the little story of a martyr's tomb, which we have placed in this number of our magazine.
Other studies were not neglected. While his companions were indulging in the mid-day sleep, which almost everybody takes in Rome, he was at his books. Often he passed whole nights in study, or walking to and fro, in meditation, through the corridors of the English college. The seasons of vacation he would often spend collating ancient manuscripts in the Vatican library, and one of the fruits of that labor was his Horae Syriacae, published when he was only twenty-five years old. In the same year (1827), he was appointed—though without severing his connection with the English college—professor of oriental languages in the Roman university. It is no doubt to these two events that he alludes in the following extract from his "Recollections" of Leo XII., though he tells the story as if he had been only a witness of the circumstances: "It so happened," he says, "that a person connected with the English college was an aspirant to a chair in the Roman university. He had been encouraged to compete for it, on its approaching vacancy, by his professors. Having no claims of any sort, by interest or connection, he stood simply on the provision of the papal bull, which threw open all professorships to competition. It was but a secondary and obscure lectureship at best; one concerning which, it was supposed, few would busy themselves or come forward as candidates. It was, therefore, announced that this rule would be overlooked, and a person every way qualified, and of considerable reputation, would be named. The more youthful aspirant unhesitatingly solicited an audience, at which I was present. He told the Pope frankly of his intentions and of his earnest wish to have carried out, in his favor, the recent enactments of his Holiness. Nothing could be more affable, more encouraging, than Leo's reply. He expressed his delight at seeing that his regulation was not a dead letter, and that it had animated his petitioner to exertion. He assured him that he should have a fair chance, 'a clear stage and no favor,' desiring him to leave the matter in his hands.
"Time wore on; and as the only alternative given in the bull was proof, by publication of a work, of proficiency in the art or science that was to be taught, he quietly got a volume through the press—probably very heavy; but sprightliness or brilliancy was not a condition of the bull. When a vacancy arrived, it was made known, together with the announcement that it had been filled up. All seemed lost, except the honor of the pontiff, to which alone lay any appeal. Another audience was asked, and [{121}] instantly granted, its motive being, of course, stated. I was again present, and shall not easily forget it. It was not necessary to re-state the case. 'I remember it all,' the Pope said most kindly; 'I have been surprised. I have sent for C——, through whom this has been done; I have ordered the appointment to be cancelled, and I have reproved him so sharply that I believe it is the reason why he is laid up to-day with fever. You have acted fairly and boldly, and you shall not lose the fruits of your industry. I will keep my word with you and the provisions of my constitution.' With the utmost graciousness he accepted the volume—now treasured by its author, into whose hands the copy has returned—acknowledged the right to preference which it had established, and assured its author of fair play.
"The Pope had, in fact, taken up earnestly the cause of his youthful appellant; instead of annoyance, he showed earnestness and kindness; and those who had passed over his pretensions with contempt were obliged to treat with him and compromise with him on terms that satisfied all his desires. Another audience for thanksgiving was kindly accorded, and I witnessed the same gentle and fatherly temper, quietly cheerful, and the same earnest sympathy with the feelings of him whose cause had been so graciously carried through. If this young client gained no new energies, gathered no strength from such repeated proofs of interest and condescension; if these did not both direct and impel, steer and fill, the sails of his little bark through many troubled waters; nay, if they did not tinge and savor his entire mental life, we may write that man soulless and incapable of any noble emotions."
We must not suppose, however, that all this while he was so lost among his books as to have forgotten that land for whose conversion he was destined to labor through the best part of his life. He told a dear friend how, having to wait one day at the Sapienza for the Hebrew lecture, he went into the Church of St. Eustachio to pray; and there, before the altar of the Blessed Sacrament and the altar of the Holy Virgin Mother, the thought came into his mind that, as his native country, in the oath which she imposes upon the chief personages of the state, solemnly abjures these sacred mysteries, it was his duty to devote himself to the defense and honor of those very doctrines in England. And no one who has read his sermons and lectures and pastorals can have failed to notice the burning love for the Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin which inspired him.
The time was not yet for his mission to England; and it is so hard, when the mind has been long running in one groove, to break out of it and take a totally different course, that perhaps he might have come in time to look upon the Roman theological schools as the ultimate sphere of usefulness for which God had destined him, had he not been suddenly called forth from his studious retirement by the voice of the supreme pontiff. It was in 1827 that Leo XII. determined to institute in the church of Gesù e Maria a course of English sermons, to be attended by all colleges and religious communities that spoke the language, and by as many other persons as chose to listen. It was intended, of course, principally for the benefit of strangers. His Holiness appointed Dr. Wiseman preacher. "The burden was laid there and then," says the cardinal, describing the audience at which he received this commission, "with peremptory kindness, by an authority that might not be gainsaid. And crushingly it pressed upon the shoulders. It would be impossible to describe the anxiety, pain, and trouble which this command cost for many years after. Nor would this be alluded to were it not to illustrate what has been kept in view through this volume—how the most insignificant life, temper, and mind may be moulded by the action of a [{122}] great and almost unconscious power. Leo could not see what has been the influence of his commission, in merely dragging from the commerce with the dead to that of the living one who would gladly have confined his time to the former,—from books to men, from reading to speaking. Nothing but this would have done it. Yet supposing that the providence of one's life was to be active, and in contact with the world, and one's future duties were to be in a country and in times where the most bashful may be driven to plead for his religion or his flock, surely a command overriding all inclination and forcing the will to undertake the best and only preparation for those tasks, may well be contemplated as a sacred impulse and a timely direction to a mind that wanted both. Had it not come then, it never more could have come; other bents would have soon become stiffened and unpliant; and no second opportunity could have been opened after others had satisfied the first demand."
From this time it would seem as if England had a stronger hold upon his heart than ever. The noble purpose—which worldly men have since laughed at as a wild dream—of devoting himself to the conversion of England, became the ruling idea of his life. And often alone at night in the college chapel he would "pour out his heart in prayer and tears, full of aspirations and of a firm trust; of promptings to go, but fear to outrun the bidding of our divine Master." He offered himself to the Pope for this great work; but still the time was not come; and he was told to wait.
But if he was not to go yet himself, he had his part to perform in making others ready. He well knew that to fit his pupils for their work, he must teach them something beside theology. Englishmen were a sort of Brahmins; the missionary who went among them must go as one versed in all learning, or he would not be listened to. He saw how the natural sciences were growing to be the favorite pursuit—we may almost say the hobby—of modern scholars, and in a preface to a thesis by a student of the English college he insisted on the necessity of uniting general and scientific knowledge to theological pursuits. As another instance of the personal influence which several successive pontiffs exercised over his studies, and the many kind marks of interest which contributed to attach him so strongly to their persons, we may repeat an anecdote which he tells in reference to this little essay. He went to present it to Pius VIII., but the Holy Father had it already before him, and said, "You have robbed Egypt of its spoil, and shown that it belongs to the people of God." The same idea which he briefly exposed in this essay, he developed more fully and with great wealth of illustration in a course of lectures on the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion, delivered first to his pupils and afterward to a distinguished audience at the apartments of Cardinal Weld. It was partly with a view to the revision and publication of these lectures that he visited England in 1835.
During his stay in London, he preached a series of controversial discourses in the Sardinian chapel during the Advent of 1835, and another in St. Mary's, Moorfields, in Lent, 1836. The latter were published under the title of Lectures on the Principal Doctrines and Practices of the Catholic Church. They exhibit in a remarkable degree the qualities, so rare in polemical literature, of kindness, moderation, and charity for all men. The odium theologicum, indeed, has less place at Rome than anywhere else in the Christian world. It was at the very centre and chief school of the science of divinity that he learned to fight against error without temper, and expose falsehood without hard language. "I will certainly bear willing testimony," he says, "to the absence of all harsh words and uncharitable insinuations against others in public lectures or private teaching, or even [{123}] in conversation at Rome. One grows up there in a kinder spirit, and learns to speak of errors in a gentler tone than elsewhere, though in the very centre of highest orthodox feeling." Dr. Wiseman went back to the English college, leaving among his countrymen at home an enviable reputation for honesty, learning, and good sense.