Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/519

 Wiseman testified: "The Church has not received at any time a convert who has joined her in more docility and simplicity of faith than Newman."

Wiseman had earnestly desired "an influx of fresh blood" into the Catholic Church in England. The accession of the converts due to the Oxford Movement brought it. And no doubt it accelerated the restoration of the hierarchy which had been so strongly desired by generations of Catholics. In 1840 Gregory VI had increased the number of English vicars Apostolic from four to eight. Ten years afterwards Pius IX decreed that "the hierarchy of Bishops ordinary,

taking their titles from their sees, should, according to the usual rules of the Church, again flourish in the Kingdom of England". The whole of the country was formed into one province consisting of the metropolitan See of Westminster, and the twelve suffragan sees of Southwark, Plymouth, Clifton, Newport and Menevia, Shrewsbury, Liverpool, Salford, Hexham and Newcastle, Beverley, Nottingham, Birmingham, Northampton. This restoration of the hierarchy was certainly not designed as an act of war; it was indeed "unattended by any suspicion that it would give offense to others". But it did give dire offense, and the country resounded with denunciations of what was called "The Papal Aggression". An "insolent and insidious aggression", Lord John Russell, the premier, pronounced it to be, and shortly afterwards introduced into the House of Commons a bill by which the Catholic bishops were prohibited, under penalties, from assuming the territorial titles conferred upon them by the pope. The bill became law after long and angry debates, but was, from the first, a dead letter. There can be no question that Cardinal Wiseman's appeal to the people of England largely contributed to allay the popular passion which his pastoral letter "From without the Flaminian Gate" had had no small share in exciting. Though a somewhat lengthy pamphlet, it was printed in extenso in "The Times" and in four other London newspapers, and its circulation was immense. The cardinal appealed to the "manly sense and honest heart" of his countrymen, to "the love of honorable dealing and fair play, which is the instinct of an Englishman", and he did not appeal in vain.

Cardinal Wiseman filled the metropolitan See of Westminster from 1850 to 1865, and it would be hard to overrate the greatness of his services to the Catholic cause in England. Manning truly said in the sermon preached at his funeral: "When he closed his eyes he had already seen the work he had begun expanding everywhere, and the traditions of three hundred years everywhere dissolving before it." When he began that work, there were less than five hundred priests in England; when he ceased from it there were some fifteen hundred. The number of converts during these fifteen years had increased tenfold, and fifty-five monasteries had come into being. But mere statistics give no sufficient notion of the progress made by the Catholic Church under Wiseman's rule, a progress directly due to him in large measure. Not the least important item of his service to religion was the way in which he presented the Church to his countrymen. Mr. Wilfrid Ward is well warranted when he writes: "Wiseman may claim to have been the first effectively to remind Englishmen in our own day of the historical significance of the Catholic Church, which so much impressed Macaulay, and which affected permanently such a man as Comte, which kindled the historical enthusiasm of a De Maistre, a Gorres and a Frederick Schlegel." The organization of the Catholic Church, as it now exists in England, may be said to be due to him. He himself drew up, almost entirely, the decrees regarding it for the First Provincial Synod, held at Oscott (1852). His work, indeed, was not done in the tranquility which he loved. "Without were fightings, within were fears." Some of the converts did not fuse with the hereditary Catholics, "the little remnant of Catholic England", whom they judged to be ill-educated and behind the times, and this prejudice Wiseman regarded as ungenerous, even if, to some extent, it was not unfounded. He deprecated strongly the spirit of party and sought in all gentleness, to put it down and to guide his flock into the way of peace. On the other hand, some of the old clergy, taking their stand upon the ancient ways, regarded with distrust certain innovations of discipline and devotion introduced by the more zealous of the converts. They looked upon the Oratorians as extravagant. They viewed Monsignor Manning with suspicion. It is unnecessary to enter into the dissensions which embittered Wiseman's declining years. The last two, indeed, were passed in comparative quiet, but amid much physical suffering. Not long before he died he said: "I have never cared for anything but the Church. My sole delight has been in everything connected with her."

Cardinal Wiseman's successor in the See of Westminster—the successor he desired—was the provost of his chapter, Monsignor Manning, whose episcopate lasted until 1892. They were twenty-seven years of fruitful activity, through evil report and through good report. For some time he was certainly unpopular, not only among his Protestant fellow countrymen

but among his own clergy, who did not like his strict discipline and some of whom by no means sympathized with what was called his "ultra-papalism". But gradually the prejudice against him wore off, and his great qualities obtained general recognition. It was the victory of his faith unfeigned, his deep devotion, his spotless integrity, his indomitable courage, his singleness of aim, his entire devotion to the cause which, in his heart of hearts, he believed to be the only cause worth living for. One who knew him well said of him: "He was an Archbishop who lived among his people", "the door-steps of his house were worn with