Page:History and characteristics of Bishop Auckland.djvu/193

 166 HISTORY OF BISHOP AVOKLAND. less than twenty-four, the chief favourites being " come and mourn with me awhile," " The Precious Blood,'* " I was wandering and weary,'* and " Paradise I Paradise !" F. W. Faber was one of the principal persons concerned in bringing about that change of religious thought in England which arose from the Oxford movement of 1833. He became one of the most zealous adherents of the Tractarian party, in connection with Drs. Manning, Newman, Wilberforce, and many more, which ended in himself, as well as many others, joining the Catholic Church ; and hence, says Father Bowden in his " Memoir," " his life was divided into two parts widely distinct in character." On Monday, 17th November, 1845, he left Elton, and on the evening of the same day he and Mr. T. F. Knox, scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, his two servants, and seven of his parishioners were admitted into the Catholic Church at Northampton by Bishop Wareing. Father Bowden gives a very affecting description of his parting with his flock at Elton- He says : " The party had hoped to escape notice by starting early, but the parishioners were on the look out, and as they drove through the village every window was thrown open, and the poor people waved their handkerchiefe and sobbed out, ' God bless you, Mr. Faber, wherever you go.' " After traveUrng a few months in company with Mr. Hutchinson — ^another convert to the Church of Eome, and formerly an undergraduate of Trinity CoUege, Cambridge — and visiting the various cities and remarkable places in Italy, as well as Rome, where he was again presented to his Holiness Pope Gregory XVL, he returned to Birmingham, where he became Superior of a religious community known by the name of " Wilfridians, or brothers of the will of God," and which was composed of those who had gone over to the Catholic Church with him, and in which he took the name of Brother Wilfrid, one of the patron saints of the order. From Birmingham he removed with this commimity to Cotton Hall, which had been given to them by Lord Shrews- bury, where a most beautiful church was built from designs by Mr. Pugin, and dedicated to St Wilfrid, the necessary funds being provided by three of the Brothers, assisted by a donation of £1,000 from Lord Shrewsbury. While these arrangements were being carried out, Mr. Faber received the tonsure, and the four minor orders, from Bishop Walsh, on the 12th October, 1846. In the course of the following Advent he received from Bishop Wiseman, at Old Oscott, the order of Sub-deacon; on Passion Sunday, March 20th, he received the Diaconate; and on Holy Saturday, April 3rd, 1847, the order of Priesthood from the same Bishop, and returned the same afternoon to Cotton Hall, ** and was met," says his biographer, " at some distance from the house by the people, who took the horses out of the carriage and dragged it in triumph to St Wilfrid's; and on the following day, being Easter Sunday, he said his first Mass." Soon after the events above narrated. Dr. Wiseman was appointed Superior of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, at Old Oscott, and the whole of the Wilfridians, including Father Faber, joined that congregation, of which he was made novice master, the three years' noviciate prescribed by the Institute of the Oratory being dispensed with in his case. Shortly after this the congregation was divided between Birmingham and London. A lease was obtained of two houses in King William Street, Strand, which were fitted up as a temporary Oratory, of which Father Faber was made Superior ; " and from this time," says Father Bowden, " the history of Father Faber's life was merged in that of the London Oratory, at the head of which he remained until his death." It would take us beyond our present limits to trace his career in London as a preacher and author ; suffice it to say, that his chief interest was in his congregation, and to it his energies were almost exclusively devoted. In the "Dublin Eeview," January, 1864, his eloquence has been thus described by a distinguished ecclesiastic : — " As a preacher he possessed certain gifts beyond any one we remember to have heard. He had a facility and flexibility of mind and voice, a vividness of apprehension and of imagination, a beauty of conception and expression, — a beauty, that is, to the eye and to the ear, with a brightness of confidence, as of a man who lived in the Digitized by Google