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 WISEMAN

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WISEMAN

do with the turning of \\'iseman's thoughts towards the possible return of England to Catholic unity; and this was deepened by his conversations with Newman and Froude when they visited Rome in 1833. Meanwhile he was busy with the prepara- tion of his lectures "On the Connexion between Science and Revealed Religion ", which were delivered in 1835, and greatly added to his reputation, although they embodied some theories which have been super- seded since. They won unstinted praise from such critics as Bunsen, Milnes, Dollinger, Lepsius, and Cardinal Mai, and raised Wiseman to perhaps the highest point he was to attain as a student and a man of letters. His quiet life of study was indeed, though he hardly knew it, now practically at an end; and the last tliirty years of his career were des- tined to be largely taken up with an active partici- pation in the events following on the general religious reaction in Europe, of which the Oxford Movement in England was one of the most remarkable fruits. Wiseman's correspondence at this time evinces his keen and ardent sympathy with the widespread religious revival associated with such names as those of Ozanam and Lacordaire in France, Schlegel and Gorres in Germany, and Manzoni and others in Italy. He was in constant correspondence with Dollinger (whom he brought into relations with Lingard), expressed unbounded admiration for his Church History, then being published, and hoped through him to establish co-operation between German and English Catholics.

In the autumn of 183.5 Wiseman came to England for a year's .sojourn, full of fervent hopes for the future of Catholicism in that country. But he had never lived there himself under the numbing pressure of the penal laws; and it was a shock to him to realize that the long down-trodden "English papists", from whom that oppression had only recently been removed by the Emancipation Act of 1829, were not in the least ripe for any vigorous forward movement or prominent participation in pubhc life. Nor was any particular encouragement in this direction given to them in the exhortations or pastoral letters of their ecclesiastical superiors, whose chief anxiety seemed to be lest the piety of their flocks might be adversely affected by their new-born liberty of action. Wise- man's enthusia.sm, however, was not damped by the somewhat chilly atmosphere of English Catholicism. He began without delay a course of lectures, addressed alike to Catholics and Protestants, which at once attracted large audiences, and from which, wrote a well-qualified critic, dated "the beginning of a serious revival of Catholicism in England". The lectures were resumed in the following year, in the largest Catholic church in London, with even greater success. Some distinguished converts — among them the emi- nent architect Welby Pugin — were received into the Church: Wiseman was presented with a costly testimonial, and was invited to write for a popular encyclopedia an article on the Catholic Church. He gave evidence of his power as a temperate yet forcible apologist, in his admirable defence of Catholicism against a violent attack published by John Poynder — a defence which W. E. Gladstone described as "a masterpiece of clear and unanswerable argument"; and in the same year, 1836, he took the important step of founding, in association with Daniel O'Coimell and Michael Quin (who became the first editor), the "Dublin Review", with the object, as he himself stated, not only of rousing English Catholics to a greater enthusia.sm for their religion, but of exhibiting to the representatives of P^nglish thought generally the variety, comprehensiveness, and elasticity of the Catholic .system as he had been taught to regard it.

In the autumn of 1836 Wi.seman returned to Rome, and for four more years held his post of rector of the English College. While in no way slackening in the

conscientious performance of his duties, he found himself gradually more and more drawn towards, and personally interested in, the important religious movement developing in England; and this feeUng was strengthened by his intercourse with Macaulay and Gladstone, of whom he saw much when they visited Rome in 1838. He welcomed in them that spirit of outside sympathy with Catholicism which had already seemed to him so striking and encourag- ing a phenomenon in men like von Ranke, A. VV. Schlegel, and even Victor Hugo; and his correspond- ence during this period shows how in the midst of his multifarious duties in Rome he longed to be at the heart of the movement in England, working for it with all the versatile gifts at his command, and with all the personal influence which he could wield. He visited England in the summer of 1839 ; and liesides his active public engagements at that time — giving retreats at Oscott and elsewhere, preaching at the opening of the new churches which were rising all over the country, and working, in conjunction with Father Spencer, for the spread of a new spirit of prayer and piety among English Catholics — there appeared from his pen, in the "Dublin Review", the famous article on St. Augustine and the Donatists which was a turning-point in the Oxford Movement, and pressed home the parallel between the Donatists and the Tractarians with a convincing logic which placed many of the latter, in Newman's famous words, "on their death-bed as regarded the Church of England". Three months after the publication of this momentous article, Wiseman returned to Rome; but he felt himself, as his letters show, that the future of his hfe's work was to be not in Rome but in England.

In 1840 Gregory XVI raised the number of English vicars Apostolic from four to eight; and \\'iseman was nominated coadjutor to Bishop Walsh of the Central District, and president of Oscott College. After making a retreat with the Passionists he was consecrated on 4 June, in the chapel of the English College, with the title of Bishop of Melipolamus, and held an ordination service next day. He left Rome on 1 Aug., after twenty-two j-ears' residence there, and took up his residence at Oscott, which it was his design from the first to make a centre in the work of drawing the Cathohc-minded party in the Anglican Church towards Rome. No encouragement in this idea was forthcoming from his scholastic colleagues in the college, and the only support he received was in the unwavering sympathy of Father Spencer, and the enthusiasm of A. W. Pugin, a con- stant visitor at Oscott. Other distinguished men visited Wiseman there, such as Lords Spencer and Lyttelton, Daniel O'Connell, the Due de Bordeaux, and many more; and though not interested in the routine of college life, and a great bishop rather than a successful president, he gave a prestige and dis- tinction to Oscott which no one else could have done. A profound liturgist, he was nio.st particular about the proper carrying-out of the ceremonial of the Church; and his humour, geniality, and kindness made him an esijecial favourite with the younger members of the college.

On the publication of the famous Tract 90, WTitten to justify the simultaneous adherence to the Thirty- Nine Articles and to the Decrees of Trent by Angli- can clergymen, Wiseman entered upon direct corre- spondence with Newman; and after more than four years of perjilexity, doubt, and disapjiointed hopes, he had the happiness of confirming him at Oscott, sub.sequent to his reception into the Catholic Church. Btit neither Newman's own conversion, nor that of a large number of his most distingiiished disciples, sufficefl to break down the wall of reserve and sus- picion which had always separated the "Old Enghsh" Catholics, such as Lingard and his school, from the