Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/654

 MANKINO

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ICAMNINO

father's home, Copped Hall, Totteridge, Herts, Eng- land, was the son ot William Manning, M. P. for Eves- ham and Lymington and sometime governor of the Bank of England. His father's family was of an old Kentish stock, and though bom in Hertfordshire, the futm-e cardinal spent some years of his boyhood at Combe Bank, near Sevenoaks in Kent, whither his father had moved when his son was but seven years old. His motheir William Manning's second wife, was a daughter of Henrv Lannoy Hunter, who was of a French Huguenot family originally known by the name of Veneur. His father's mother was a Miss Ry- an, whose name betrays her Irish origin, and from some old diaries which have only, lately come to life it appears that she was a Catholic and faithfully prao- tised the duties of her reli^on. This fact, it would seem, was never luiown to Cardinal Manning himself, as the diaries have only been discovered since his death. After learning his first rudiments at home and at a private school at Totteridge, Henry Manning went to Harrow, in 1822, and on leaving school continued his studies for a time under a private tutor. It had at first been his purpose to follow his father in the bank- ing business and to enter Parliament. But the banker having suffered a reverse of fortune, he was fain to take a different course. In 1827 he went up to Ox- ford and entered at Balliol College. Although he no longer had a parliamentary career in view, he con- tinued to take an interest m political questions, and his natural powers of oratory soon made him con- spicuous in the debating of the Union, where he was succeeded by Gladstone in the presidency. In later life he still cherished pleasing recollections of the memorable 4ebate of 1829, when Monckton Milnes and Hallam and Sunderland came from Cambridge to prove the poetical superiority of SheUey to Byron.

These rhetorical distractions, however, did not inter- fere with his studies, and in 1830 he took a first class in classics. On leaving Oxford, he accepted a subordi- nate post in the Colonial Office, and devoted his atten- tion to questions of political economy, a study which stood him in good stead when in later years he took a prominent part in the practical discussion of social problems. But though Jhis time was in no wise wasted, he had not yet found his rightful place and his real work in life. . He had scarcely relinquished his dreams of political ambition, when he felt himself called to the service of God and his brethren. For this reason he once more went back to Oxford, where, in 1832, he was elected a Fellow of Merton College. After completing the course of reading required For orders, he was oraained to the Anglican mimstry later in the same year and preached nis first sermon in Cuddesdon Church on Christmas Day. Soon after his ordination he went to act as curate to the Rev. John Sargent, Rector of Lavin^ton-with-Graffham, Sussex, who was stricken with illness, and in taking what seemed to be a temporary work he found what was to be his home for the next seventeen years. On the death of the rector, he was presented to the living in May, 1833, by the patroness, Mrs. Sargent of Laving- ton, the mother of the Rev. John Sargent. In Novem- ber of the same year he married Caroline Sargent, the third daujghter of his predecessor in the incumbency. His marriage may be said to have had some part, how- ever indirectly, in leading him into the Catholic Church, for it brought him into a family circle that was destined to be strongly affected by the rising Homeward movement. Of the four famous Sai^eent sisters, Mrs. Heni^ Wilberforce and Mrs. George Ry- der were received mto the Church with their husbands and their children; the other two, Caroline Manning, who died in July, 1837, and her eldest sister, the wife of Samuel Wilberforce afterwards Bishop of Winches- ter, were already dead when the movement had scarce begun ; yet one of them eventually gave her husband and the other her daughter to the Church.

In his coimtry parish at Lavington, though Henry Manning had not yet attained to the fullness of the Faith, nor as yet received the sacramental grace and the spiritual powers of the Catholic pastor, he was al- ready, according to the light so far vouchsafed him, serving his Divine master and labouring for the salva- tion of souls in a true spirit of zeal and generous self- sacrifice, in the spirit that speaks in later days from the pages of his ''Eternal Priesthood" and his "Pas- toral Office". In 1841, after some years of simple parish work, a wider field was opened to him by his appointment to the office of Archdeacon of Chichester. Tne office in his case was assuredly no sinecure. The volume of charges delivered on the periodical visita- tions of the archdeaconry remains to show the in- telligent and tireless zeal with which he entered into these new duties. Here also we may find some tilings that seem to foreshadow his larger work in later years, notably the pages that bear witness to his love for God's poor, his resolute resistance to wrong, and his zeal for reforming abuses. Mean- while, all this active work was accompanied by a corresponding growth in the knowledge of Catholic truth.

The Oxford Movement was now in full swing, and some of its leaders were already, however uncon- sciously, well on their way to Rome. Newman had begun to see the light in 1839 (two years before Man- ning's appointment as archdeacon), but six more years had to elapse before his final submission to the Holy See in 1845. This fact is worth recalling here, for it reminds us that a conversion is often a matter of some time. Between the beginning of difficulties, misgiv- ings, and fears that may prove illusory ^ and the period when the misgivings oecome convictions, and duty becomes clear, a considerable time may otten elapse. It is difficult to lay down any general rule; some may see their way clear more speedily than others and may have little need to seek for outward help in coming to a decision, but where, as so often happens, the process of conviction is slow, and some wise counsel is needed, it may be a duty to confide to some competent adviser fears and misgivings which it would be a crime to pro- claim in pubUc. In such a position the most candid and consistent writer must needs speak in a different strain in his confidential letters setting forth his diffi- culties, and in letters addressed to others to whom it would be wrong to make them known. And the reader who can appreciate this position will readily understand the seeming inconsistency between tfave language of Manning's private correspondence unfold- ing conscientious perplexities and tnat of his public utterances at this time, wherein all doubt is silenced. He has been accused of remaining an Anglican after los- ing faith in Anglican teachings; and it has been alleged that he became a Catholic for motives of worldly am- bition. A change of religion for such unworthy motives is quite out of keeping with the character of the man as revealed in his letters and journals of that date, and is unintelligible if Manning nad been the astute and ambitious man imagined by his accusers. When he first began to break away from the Church of England there was no Catholic hiemrchy or cardinal archbishop in England, and the position of a vicar Apostolic could not offer any graat temptation to an ambitious Anglican archdeacon. And if we once suppose him to be so unprincipled as to change his behef or pro- fession for the sake of preferment, why should he go so far and get so little? There would certainly be less trouble and greater prospect of success in a change of course within the Church of England. An astute and ambitious Archdeacon of Chichester would have broken with the High Church party and taken a line agreeable to the men in high places. The real cause and motive of his conversion to the Church may be plainly seen in the whole histoiy of the Oxford Mx>ve- ment, as well as in his own published writings and hj&