In F. Ignatius we have a warm-hearted, frank, humorous Englishman, whose memory is fresh in the hearts of thousands now living. Though belonging to one of the noblest families in England, his training was simple, and his position as rector in a country parish was not so dazzling as to set him above the sympathies of those who read his life. His natural virtues were weighed down by a love of approbation that has ruined many a soul before now. He was accomplished, but not learned. Keen, sympathetic, and perceptive, but neither a philosopher nor a logician. In short, he was not set apart from the rest of humanity by any natural endowment; and yet one lays down his biography with a sense of having made acquaintance with one of the remarkable men of this century. Why? We cannot but suppose that it was because he placed every faculty under the guidance of God, who worked wonders with capacities by no means rare; and from an unready utterance brought forth fruits of conversion that probably surprised no one so much as the preacher himself.
Hon. George Spencer was the youngest child of John George, Earl Spencer, and Lavinin, daughter of Sir Charles Bingham, afterward Earl of Lucan.
Earl Spencer was successively member of parliament, one of the lords of the treasury, and first lord of the admiralty, succeeding Lord Chatham in the last-named office in the year 1794. It was while Earl Spencer was lord of the admiralty, in London, December 21, 1799, that the subject of our narrative first saw the light, or what goes by the name of light, during a December in London.
His first recollections, oddly enough, are of his six-year-old birthday, when his sister's governess, a Swiss lady, took him aside as for serious conversation, and told him of the existence of God, and some other truths of religion. Possibly he had heard these things before, but the room at Althorp where the scene took place, and the tender solicitude of the lady's manner, were ever after imprinted on his memory as if connected with a momentous occasion.
At nine years old, with his favorite brother, Frederick, be was carried in a grand equipage to Eton, and placed under the charge of a private tutor, the Rev. Richard Godley, who lived at the "Wharf," about half a mile from the college buildings. Mr. Godley's rule was a severe but blessed one, and young Spencer owed four years of marvellous innocence to its restrictions. "Egyptian bondage" he thought it, poor little fellow, that several times a day, summer and winter, be must run across the playgrounds to report himself to the tutor. He lived between two fires: the wrath of elder boys who called upon him to fag for them as he rushed through the cricket-ground, and the terror of Mr. Godley's awful countenance if he and Frederick arrived a few minutes late. "As might be expected," he says, in his autobiography, "the more we were required to observe rules and customs different from others, the more did a certain class of big bullies in the school seem to count it their especial business to watch over us, as though they might be our evil geniuses. A certain set of faces, consequently, I looked upon with a kind of mysterious dread, and I was under a constant sense of being as though in an enemy's country, obliged to guard against dangers on all sides. Shrinking and skulking became my occupation beyond the ordinary lot of little schoolboys, and my natural disposition to be cowardly and spiritless was perhaps increased. I say perhaps, for other circumstances might have made me worse; for what I was in the eyes of the masters of public opinion in the school I really was—a chicken-hearted creature, what in Eton language is called a sawney. It may be that had I been from the first in free intercourse among the boys, instead of being a good innocent one I might have been, what I suppose must be reckoned one of the worst varieties of public school characters, a mean, dishonorable one."
The experiment of close contact with other boys was too soon to be tried. Mr. Godley's influence appeared to be dangerously evangelical. "The Pilgrim's Progress" and "Alleine's Alarm" were recommended to George by his tutor's sisters, and did not find favor at Althorp in the holidays. We next hear of him at the Rev. ——'s, performing most of the duties of a footman to one or two big boys, and enduring initiation in the iniquities of public school-life. Everyone knows how valuable a prize to youthful tyrants is a child in whom innocence and moral cowardice are combined; and such a prize was George Spencer, blushing at immodest words, and ignorant of the nice distinction between thieving and orchard robbing that exists in the minds of school-boys only. Evening after evening the little boys' rooms were invaded, their occupations broken up, and persecution carried on against one or other of their set. For a little while Spencer used to find a little time of peace when, after such a turmoil, be got into bed, said his prayers, and cried himself to sleep. But the atmosphere was anti-religious, and in the course of ten days be had given up all attempt to pray. A moment of bitter self reproach awaited him. One day he was present when one of the rudest of his tormentors was dressing himself. "To my surprise," he says, "he turned to me, and with his usual civility said some such words as 'Now hold your jaw,' and then, down on his knees near the bed, and his face between his hands, said his prayers. I then saw for a moment to what I had fallen, when even this fellow had more religion than unhappy I had retained, but I had no grain of strength now left to rise. ..."
"When I had ceased attempting to maintain my pious feelings, the best consolation I had was in the company of a few boys of a spirit congenial to what mine was now become. All the time that I remained at Eton I never learnt to take pleasure in the manly, active games for which it is so famous. It is not that I was without some natural talent for such things. I have since had my time of most ardent attachment to cricket, to tennis, shooting, hunting, and all active exercises: but my spirit was bent down at Eton; and among the boys who led the way in all manly pursuits, I was always shy and miserable, which was partly a cause and partly an effect of my being looked down upon by them. My pleasure there was in being with a few boys like myself, without spirit for these things, retired apart from the sight of others, amusing ourselves with making arbors and catching little fishes in the streams; and many were the hours I wasted in such childish things when I was grown far too old for them.
"Oh! the happiness of a Catholic child, whose inmost soul is known to one whom God has charged with his salvation. Supposing I had been a Catholic child in such a situation—if such a supposition be possible—the pious feelings with which God inspired me would have been under the guidance of a tender spiritual father, who would have supplied exactly what I needed, when about to fall under the sense of unassisted weakness which I have described. He would have taught me to be innocent and firm in the midst of my trials, which would then have tended to exalt instead of oppressing my character. I would have kept my character not only clear in the sight of God, but honorable among my fellows, who soon would have given up their persecution when they found me steadfast; and I might have brought with me in the path of peace and justice many whom I followed in the dark ways of sin. But it is in vain to calculate on what I might have been had I been then a Catholic. God be praised, my losses I may yet recover, and perhaps even reap advantages from them."
So much for the sad and puny childhood of one who in after-life freed himself absolutely from the bondage of public opinion. He who can truly say, "Tu solus Domine!" has reached the sublimest height of dignity and freedom.