Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/536

ENGLAND with almost every great previous English poet, and whatever may be the more balanced verdict of the future, his poetic immortality is assured. And his Catholic religion was his deepest inspiration.

The prose which grew up around the greatest Victorian poetry was worthy of its company. A brilliant group of writers as well as of thinkers in many spheres of knowledge and art appeared, and in this respect the age has surpassed the Elizabethan. The development of the novel is the most distinguishing mark of Victorian prose literature. Dickens and Thackeray follow upon Scott, with a host of other novelists, men and women, of varying grades of power, who come up to our own day. Graver forms of literature also have been many and splendid. There are the essayists, with Lamb and Hazlett as the chief; the historians with Macaulay and Carlyle, Froude, Freeman, and Green; Ruskin, with his immense and varied work upon art, economics, and the conduct of life, and whose influence, all for good, in spite of the vagaries of literary taste, is still strong and growing. The enormous extent and range of theological literature is a remarkable feature of the last fifty years, and here the writings of John Henry Newman (q.v.) stand out as a supreme "literary glory". Newman touched poetry with imagination, grace, and skill, but it is by his prose that he is recognized as a great master of English style. While all critics agree that the "Apologia" is a master-piece, and that "nothing he wrote in prose or verse is superfluous", there is some difference of opinion as to the respective literary values of his earlier and later work. R. H. Hutton, however, one of his acutest non-Catholic critics, considers that "in irony, in humor, in imaginative force, the writings of the later portions of his career far surpass those of his theological apprenticeship".

Catholic writers are now many. After long years of repression they have their full freedom in the arena of literature, and there is more than a promise that when the history of the twentieth century comes to be written many Catholic names will be found in the highest places on the roll of honor.

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 England, Established Church of. See Angli- canism.

England, John, first Bishop of Charleston, South Carolina, U. S. A.; b. 23 September, 17S6, in Cork, Ireland; d. at Charleston, 11 April, 1842. He was educated in Cork until his fifteenth year, was then taught privately for two years, and entered Carlow College, 31 August, 1803. In his nineteenth year he began to deliver catechetical instructions in the parish chapel and zealously instructed the soldiers in garrison at Cork. He also established a female re- formatory together with male and female poor schools. Out of these schools grew the Presentation Convent. He was ordained jiriest in Cork, 10 October, 1809, and was appointed lecturer at the cathedral. Wherever he preached people thronged to hear him. Pending the opening of the Magdalen Asylum he maintained and ministered to many applicants. In the same year he published the "Religious Repertory", established a circulating library in the parish of St. Mary, Shandon, and attended the city jail. In the elections of 1812 he fearlessly exerted his influence, maintaining that, "in vindicating the political rights of his country- men, he was but asserting their liberty of conscience ". In the same year he was appointed presiilent of the new diocesan College of St. Mary, where he taught theol- ogy. In 18H he vigorously and successfully assailed with tongue and i)en the insidious Veto measure which threatened disaster to the Church in Ireland. Next to O'Connell's his infiucucc was the greatest in the agitation which culminated in Catholic Emancipation. To help this cause he founded "The Chronicle" which he continued to edit until he left Ireland. In 1817 he

was appointed parish priest of Bandon. (The bigotry and prejudice of this city at that time may be con- jectured from the inscription over its gates: "Turk, Jew or Atheist may enter here, but not a Papist.") In spite of the prejudices which he found there, he soon conciliated men of every sect and party.

He was consecrated Bishop of Charleston at Cork, 21 Sept., 1820, and refused to take the customarj' oath of allegiance to the British Government, declaring his intention to become a citizen of the United States as soon as possible. He arrived in Charleston 30 Dec, 1820. Conditions were most uninviting and unprom- ising in the new diocese, which consisted of the three States of South Carolina, North Carolina, and, Georgia. The Catholics were scattered in little groups over these States. The meagre number in Charleston consisted of very poor immigrants from Ireland and ruined refu- gees from San Domingo and their servants. In 1832, after twelve years of labour. Bishop England esti- mated the Catho- lics of his diocese at eleven t h o u - sand souls: 7500 in South Carolina, 3000 in Georgia, and 500 in North Carolina. South Carolina was settled as a royal province by the Lords Proprietor-., who brought uith them the reluion of the Established Church, and it was only in 1790 that enactments im- posing religious disabilities were expunged from the constitution of the new State. Religious and social antecedents and traditions, and the resultant public opinion, were unfavourable, if not antagonistic, to the grow-th of Catholicism. The greatest need was a sufficient num- ber of Catholic clergy. This spar-sely settled section, with scattered and impoverished congregations, had not heretofore attracted many men of signal merit and ability. Bishop England faced these unfavouraljle con- ditions in a brave and determined spirit. The day after his arrival he assumed formal charge of his see, and almost immediately issued a pastoral and set out on his first visitation of the three States comprising his diocese. No bishop could be more regular and con- stant in these visitations. He went wherever he heard there was a Catholic, organized the scattered little flocks, ministered to their spiritual needs, appointed persons to teach catechism, and wherever possible urged the building of a church. During these visita- tions he preached in halls, court houses. State houses, and in chapels and churches of Protestant sects, some- times at the invitation of the pastors. When in Charleston he preached at least twice every Sunday and delivered several courses of lectures besides vari- ous addresses on special occasions. He successfully advocated before the Legislature of South Carolina the granting of a charter for his diocesan corporation, which had been strongly opposed through the machi- nations of the disaffected trustees. In 1S2G ho deliv- ered, by invitation, an eloquent discourse before the Congress of the United States. It was the first time a Catholic priest was so honoured. He was chiefly in- strumental in having the First Provincial Council of Baltimore convened, and pending this, formulated a constitution for his diocese defining its relations to civil and canon law. This was incorporated by the State and adopted by the several congregations. He

Right Rev. John En 