"No," interrupted he, "I have obeyed you as a Protestant and without the 'because,' and I don't want to hear it now."
Another obstacle in his way was the state of his pecuniary affairs. He had borrowed a large sum of money for charitable and other works in his parish; and if he gave up his living, he could pay neither principal nor interest. Was it not his duty to remain rector of Elton until the debt was paid? He consulted an Anglican dignitary of his own party. "Depend upon it," was the answer, "if God means you to be a Catholic, he will not let that stand in the way." Confident, therefore, that God would provide, he wrote to acquaint his friends of his purpose, and had no sooner dispatched the letters than he received from a generous anti-Catholic gentleman, who had heard of his perplexity, a check for the full amount of the debt.
He officiated at Elton for the last time on the 16th of November. At the evening service he told his people that the doctrines he had preached to them, though true, were not those of the Church of England; he could not, therefore, remain in her communion, but must go where truth was to be found. Then he hastily descended the pulpit stairs, threw off his surplice, which he left upon the ground, and made his way as quickly as possible through the vestry to the house. For a few minutes the congregation remained in blank astonishment. The church-wardens and some others followed him to the rectory, and begged him to remain; he might preach what he pleased, and they would never question it. It was a sorrowful interview, for he loved his flock with all his heart; but he was firm in his resolve. The next morning he started early for Northampton, hoping to escape observation; but the people were on the watch at their windows; and as he passed through, they waved their handkerchiefs and cried, "God bless you, wherever you go." Mr. Faber was accompanied by Mr. T. F. Knox, a scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, and seven of his parishioners. They were all admitted into the church the same evening by Bishop Wareing, and the next day received their first communion and the sacrament of confirmation. "A new light," wrote Mr. Faber next day, "seems to be shed on every thing, and more especially on my past position—a light so clear as to surprise me; and though I am homeless and unsettled, and as to worldly prospects considerably bewildered, yet there is such a repose of conscience as more than compensates for the intense and fiery struggle which began on the Tuesday and only ended on the Monday morning following."
Owing to various circumstances, a good many recent converts had settled at Birmingham, where the church of St. Chad, under the charge of the Rev. Mr. Moore, had become a great centre of Catholic life. Mr. Faber and his companions went there, Faber accepting the hospitality of Mr. Moore, and the others disposing of themselves in various ways. They continued, however, to look up to their former pastor for direction, and he soon conceived the idea of forming them into a sort of community. With the approval of Mr. Moore and Dr. Wiseman, they took possession of a small house in Caroline street, Mr. Faber of course joining them. No definite rule was drawn up at first, but their general purpose was to assist the parochial clergy in visiting the sick, giving instruction, and similar duties. Mr. Hutchinson, who afterward became a member of the little band, has given an amusing account of a visit he paid them a few days after their establishment. Mr. Faber, terribly scorched, was standing over the fire stirring a kettle of pea-soup. There was hardly any furniture except a long deal table, a chair, knife, fork, and mug for each man, some pewter spoons with the temperance pledge stamped on them, and a three-legged table, split across the middle, at which, when he could be spared from the pea-soup, Mr. Faber was engaged writing a pamphlet on the reasons for his conversion. Up-stairs there were four small rooms, one used as a chapel, the others as dormitories. There were no bed-steads; they all slept on the floor. Such was the beginning of the Wilfridian Community, or Brothers of the Will of God, though they took no distinguishing name until some time later. At the commencement of the new year, the generosity of a friend enabled Mr. Faber to visit Italy, where he had reason to think he could obtain money for the support of the new community. During his absence, the brethren found employment with some of the Catholic tradesmen in the town, returning to Caroline street every night. The distinguished convert was of course received in Rome with great affection, especially by the ecclesiastics who had known him on his former visit. Cardinal Acton fell upon his neck and kissed him. The pope gave him a gracious interview. The English College offered him a home. The superior of the Camaldolese at Florence expressed a great desire to see him. "He was ill in bed," says Mr. Faber, "and his bed full of snuff; he seized my head, buried it in the snuffy clothes, and kissed me most unmercifully." There is, in fact, a good deal of fun now and then in Mr. Faber's letters. He tells, for instance, how "the dear old pope" refused to be angry with the Anglican Bishop of Gibraltar, who came to Rome to give confirmation, his holiness saying with a chuckle that "he really had not been aware hitherto that Rome was in the diocese of Gibraltar;" and how, in "a fit of unholy mirth," the holy father mimicked the way the English Protestants did homage, "a familiar nod with their chin, as if they had swallowed pokers." He was disappointed in the pecuniary aid which he had come abroad to seek, but the journey was productive of much spiritual comfort and improvement; and as money was soon forthcoming from another quarter, he was enabled to go back to Birmingham with a light heart, and to set about the more complete organization of the community according to a rule which he had devised during his absence. Meanwhile, arrangements had been completed for removal to more commodious quarters in Birmingham; and in the course of the year 1846 the brethren moved a second time to a fine estate at Cheadle, generously given them by Lord Shrewsbury. They named it St. Wilfrid's. Their first work here was to open a school for boys. Pupils came in rapidly; but the bigotry of the neighborhood was aroused, and the most amazing reports were circulated about the new institution. A relative of Mr. Hutchinson (who had joined the community under the name of Brother Anthony, Mr. Faber being styled Brother Wilfrid of the Humanity of Jesus) sent a Scotch physician to examine the establishment, and we suppose to report upon the sanity of the inmates. The same relative described Mr. Faber as "an ambitious villain and a hellish ruler," and declared that wherever he went in London "the finger of scorn was pointed at him." "I am said to have strangled one of my monks," wrote the "hellish ruler;" "the story is all over the land, and is believed. Mrs. R—— came to see me at St. Wilfrid's, 'to see the man;' and glaring at me in silence like a tigress, she told Lady Shrewsbury and Lady Arundel that I was quite capable of all she heard, and that her faith in it was established."
Humility had led Mr. Faber to defer ordination to the priesthood, and up to this time he had received only minor orders; but in the Advent season of 1846 he was raised to the subdeaconship, and at the end of the following Lent he was ordained deacon and priest by Dr. Wiseman at Oscott. The brothers could now engage much more effectively in missionary work; and as, besides having a priest among them, they received several valuable converts from time to time, they were enabled to map out a wide extent of neglected country into districts, and devote their days to a systematic visitation of every house within their limits. The crowds who came on Sundays to St. Wilfrid's soon overflowed the little chapel, and Father Faber used to preach to them in a yard near the house, or under the beech-trees in the garden. It was not unusual for him also to preach in the streets, wearing his habit or cassock and holding a crucifix in his hand.
In a few months there remained but one Protestant family in the parish, and the Protestant church was almost entirely abandoned! Brother Anthony Hutchinson wrote, "We have converted the pew-opener, leaving the parson only his clerk and two drunken men." The poor people became extravagantly fond of "Father Fable," as they used to call him; but he was not held in particular affection by the Protestant clergy, and sometimes was unwillingly involved in what he used to call "fighting and squabbling with parsons." On one occasion he was followed into the room of a sick man by a minister of the Primitive Methodists, who insisted on remaining there to hear what was said in confession, and was with great difficulty persuaded by the invalid to leave the house.
It was not only from Protestants, however, that Father Faber had to suffer annoyance; his worst troubles came from those of his own faith. About the time of his ordination he had made arrangements for the publication of a series of lives of the saints, translated from the Italian and other foreign languages, and afterward so widely known as the Oratorian Lives. A part of the literary work he did himself, but the most of it he committed to other hands, having at one time between sixty and seventy translators at work under his direction. The series began with a Life of St. Philip Neri. It reached a large sale; but so little familiar were English readers with the supernatural manifestations which abound in biographies of the chosen servants of God that exception was taken to the work in various quarters, and when the Life of St. Rose of Lima appeared, the opposition became extremely violent. It was objected that the lives of foreign saints, however edifying in their respective countries, were unsuited to England and unfit for Protestant eyes. Under the advice of Dr. Newman, who nevertheless approved of the work very cordially, the series was finally suspended. But then a reaction set in; it was discovered how much practical good the publications had done; some of those who had criticised them most severely retracted and apologized; and the translations were resumed under the auspices of the Oratorians, with whom Father Faber's community had meanwhile been consolidated.
Mr. Faber and Mr. Hutchinson, the only priests in the community at St. Wilfrid's, were on the eve of taking their vows when news arrived that Dr. Newman was coming over from Rome to establish in England the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. Father Faber was at prayer when he felt suddenly an interior call to join the new congregation. His final decision was reached only after a long interior struggle and a free conference with Bishop Wiseman. Humanly speaking, it was a great sacrifice—perhaps the greatest Father Faber ever made. Besides giving up the infant community to which he had devoted so much care, and descending at one step from the position of superior to that of novice, he had to tear himself away from a congregation which was quite as warmly attached to him as his old flock had been at Elton, to give up St. Wilfrid's, and to face the vehement opposition of his brethren in the community and the generous friends to whom he had been indebted for his foundation at Cheadle. "Giving St. Wilfrid's up," he wrote, "seems to unroot one altogether from the earth, and the future is such a complete blank that one feels as if one was going to die." "It is Elton over again," only, "in my first spoliation I kept my books and my Elton children; now I lose these two." To his surprise, however, when once his mind had been made up, the opposition of the community of St. Wilfrid's suddenly ceased. They all professed their willingness to follow him; and the result was, that the Oratorians took possession of the whole establishment. Dr. Newman came to St. Wilfrid's in February, 1848, and admitted the entire community to his congregation. "Father Superior has now left us," wrote Faber, "all in our Philippine habits with turndown collars, like so many good boys brought in after dinner. Since my admission I seem to have lost all attachment to every thing but obedience; I could dance and sing all day because I am so joyous; I hardly know what to do with myself for very happiness."
It was not thought necessary to exact from him the full period of three years' noviceship, so at the end of six months he was dispensed from the remainder and appointed master of novices. In October of the same year, the whole congregation removed from Birmingham to St. Wilfrid's; but Father Faber was not allowed to remain long in this favorite home; for in the spring he was sent with five other fathers, namely Dalgairns, Stanton, Hutchinson, Knox, and Wells, and two novices, Messrs. Gordon and Bowden, to found a new house in London. At the head of this he remained until his death, and he never saw St. Wilfrid's again but once.
The introduction of a new order or a new congregation is so common an event now that we can hardly understand how bitter was the ill-feeling aroused by the opening of the London Oratory in a hired house in King William street in May, 1849. It was the first public church which had been served by a religious community in that diocese since the old faith was put under the feet of the English schism. Bishop Wiseman was a warm supporter of the Oratorians, but many of the secular clergy looked upon them with suspicion, doubted the discretion of a community composed entirely of converts, disapproved of the public wearing of their habit, and complained that their peculiar services, with new prayers, hymns in the vernacular, and a new style of preaching, were Methodistical, and ought to be suppressed. Experience, however, in time showed the doubters their mistake, and the diocesan clergy became not only friends but imitators of the Oratorians. A great deal of popular animosity continued to be manifested, especially during the excitement which followed the reëstablishment of the English hierarchy. The walls of London were placarded, "Down with the Oratorians," "Don't go to the Oratory," "Banishment to the Oratorians," etc.; the fathers were cursed in the streets, and even gentlemen used to shout at them from their carriage-windows. The government finally issued a proclamation reviving an old statute which forbade Roman Catholic ecclesiastics to wear the habit of their order, and thenceforth the Oratorians always appeared in the streets in secular garb.