Monday, October 14.—The Abbate Melia, Dr. Baldacconi's intended successor, came to sing songs, and breakfast at the college, and went down with me to the port. Mr. Bodenham came with us, too. We waited from 9 till 10.20 before they set off. They seemed to fear the wind. When we got out it was a most stormy passage to Folkestone, of three hours. I stood up all the way, holding on, talking with M. Crawley, of the Hotel, Albemarle Street, except we were nearly sick. We swung through the narrow walk of Folkestone Harbour, and were at once smooth, and soon on England's soil. It was a long work passing the Custom House, but we got off by a train at 3.49. I set Mr. Melia down at Pagliano's, where we found Dr. Walsh (of Halifax), and had tea. Sisk and Mgr. Eyre came in by good fortune, and I went with them home to their quarters at the Chelsea chapel-house.

Tuesday, October 15.—Said mass at 8½. Then went to try Dr. Chambers, who is out of town. Then to Spence House, and saw Appleyard. By his advice, I determined to go to Windsor to-day, the Queen being just now away. I called on Father Lithgoe, and attended a meeting of ladies at Sisk's, then off by the Great Western Railway to Slough, and so to Windsor. I saw Caroline at Lady Grant's, where she lodges, close to the Castle, where I dined at 8, first having seen Sarah at the Castle, and the Prince of Wales, with whom she was playing. He is a weakly-looking child of four, but noble and clever looking. He behaved prettily to us all in going off to bed.

Wednesday, October 16.—After sleeping at the Castle Inn, I walked to the Catholic chapel at Chrom, attended last Sunday by Louis-Philippe, who charmed them all. I said mass, and then Mr. Wilson took me in a gig a mile on to call on Mr. Riley, at Forest Hill. He was out. I thence called to Windsor, and was with Sarah from 12 to 1½, while the children were asleep. Then went down to Eton, called on Mr. Coleridge, then walked about the well-known places, the chapel, the cloisters, where I left a card on Wilder, now a fellow. I went and mused over the place which once was Godley's, but all is levelled. I stood by the oak-tree there, saw the boys assembling for 3 o'clock school, and talked to some. I brought back many a scene thirty years and more ago. At 3, started back and dined with Sisk. After dinner we went to see Mrs. Bagshawe and Mrs. Jauch back in an omnibus.

Thursday, October 17.—Mass at 8½. Went to see Dr. Watson, whom I found to be my former friend, fellow of St. John's. It was a good account of me, thank God. Then to Mr. Nerincx, at Somers Town. Then to Mr. Morel, at Hampstead, and Mrs. Sankey, near him; then called at the Sardinian Chapel, and home to dine, and sit the evening with Sisk.

Friday, October 18.

(This journal breaks off here, and is not resumed.)

CHAPTER XIV.
Close Of His Career In Oscott; And His Religious Vocation.

During the year 1845 his attention was greatly occupied with the converts that were coming daily into the Church through the Oxford movement. As Father Spencer was not a mover in it, and as its history has been written over and over by different members of it, it would be superfluous to give anything like a sketch of it in such a work as this. Father Spencer seemed to have great interest in Dr. Newman, as also Dr. Ward, Canon Oakeley, and Father Faber. Many of them go to Oscott, some to be received, and some to make their studies for the Church; and in the beginning of the year 1846 he writes that he had twelve who were Anglican clergymen assisting at his mass one day in Oscott, and that there were three more who might have been, but were unable to come.

He takes advantage of the Feast of St. Pius V. to preach his famous sermon on Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones. In a few days he assists at the ordination of the present Bishop of Northampton, the Right Rev. Dr. Amherst. A number of converts received orders at the same time, and Father Spencer had the pleasure of assisting at the ceremony. He resumes his Journal in May, 1846, and we find these two entries in it:

"Tuesday, June 9.— We had news to-day of the death of Pope Gregory XVI. on the 1st of June, after fifteen years and four months' pontificate. God grant a holy successor, full of fortitude and love, especially for England."

"June 22. News of Cardinal Feretti being Pope (Pius IX.). The brave Bishop of Imola, who stopped the progress of the insurgents in 1831. I am perfectly satisfied."

He went into retreat at Hodder under the direction of Father Clarke, S.J., and the result of that retreat was that he became a Passionist. We shall give a letter he wrote to Mr. Phillipps at the time, in which he gives a full account of how this was brought about.

"St. Benedict's Priory, Feast of St. John Cantius,
"Oct. 22, 1846.

"My Dear Ambrose,—Yesterday, for the first time this long time, I heard where you were, and that you were within reach again of a Queen's head. This was from Mrs. Henry Whitgrave, next to whom I sat at dinner yesterday, at the Clifford Arms, Great Heywood, after the opening high mass of the new chapel there, which she and her husband came from Rugeley to attend. I determined not to lose another day in writing to you, lest you should hear from others, which I should not be pleased with, the news I have to give about myself. Perhaps you have already heard of it; but it is not my fault that you have not had the news from me. The news in question is that I am going to become a Passionist. You have frequently told me your persuasion, that what would be for my happiness would be to join a religious institute, and therefore I am confident you will rejoice with me at my prejudices being overcome, my fond schemes of other plans of my own set aside, and this good step at length determined on; though I can imagine that you will perhaps regret that the body which I join is not that with which you are most connected yourself, the Institute of Charity. Surprised I dare say you will not be much. Many others have received the declaration of this intention without any surprise, and only told me that they had been used to wonder how I did not long ago take such a step. You will only be surprised and wonder how I have come to this mind, after such decided purposes, as I have always expressed the contrary way. I can only say, Glory be to God, to our Blessed Lady, and St. Ignatius. It was entirely owing to the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius, which I have gone through twice, and only twice, in private and alone in the effective way. Once was at Louvain, where you parted from me two years ago to go to Königswinter, and the other time was this summer, when I went for a retreat at Hodder Place, under your friend Father Thomas Clarke, who is Master of Novices there. For two or three days in the course of the former of these retreats, I was brought (for the first time) to doubt whether I ought not to give up my own ideas, and take to the regular established course of entering religion; and the old Jesuit who directed me in that retreat, when I expressed these new ideas, seemed at first to think they would lead to this conclusion. But I suppose I was not ripe for it, or God's time was not come. It ended by his telling me to put aside all those thoughts, and go on as I was. So I did, and was without any idea of the kind till the middle of this second retreat, which I entered with no view but to get on better where I was for another year. The same meditations raised up again the same battle within me as at Louvain, and I saw no way but to go into the matter, and make my election according to the rules given by St. Ignatius; which, if they were applied more often to questions of importance which people have to settle, ah! we should have many resolutions come to different to what are come to in the world. I soon came to determine for a change of state; then came the question which body to choose, and for a whole day nearly this was working my thoughts up and down. I could see no prospect of deciding between the two which came before me at first and for which I found my feelings and my judgment alternately inclining me—these were the Jesuits and the Institute of Charity. I saw no prospect of making up my mind that day, though Father Clarke told me now was the time for such a choice, and not when I had gone out again into the world, and I knew that God whom I had sought in solitude would give me light. At last, when I had just finished my last meditation of that portion of the retreat, and still could not settle, I thought I must have recourse after the retreat was over to Father Dominic, as a neutral judge, to help me to choose between the other two; when, in a minute, as in the fable of the two men who found the oyster and called in the third to judge between them, I saw that Father Dominic himself was to have me, such as I was, and all my doubts vanished. Father Clarke came soon afterwards to pay me his daily visit, and confirmed my choice with a manner and tone as unhesitating as the choice itself had been, and would not let me afterwards give way to the fear of any difficulties, saying, once for all, when I was questioning how I could get over some of them, 'Well, if you do not get over them, God has been deceiving you.' How I extol now and praise the practice of spiritual exercises, and St. Ignatius, the great founder of the system of them, and the Jesuits in their conduct of them, as exemplified in Father Clarke, whose way with me so completely gave the lie to what people are disposed to think, that the Jesuits must bring everything and everybody to themselves when they get them into their hands. I intend to express my sense of obligation to them and St. Ignatius, by taking his name as my future designation, after I am admitted to the religious habit. So I hope in time I may come to be known no more by my own name, but by that of Ignatius of St. Paul. And as God gives me this nomen novum may he add the manna absconditum, and make me in spirit as different from what I have been as in name. It is a great satisfaction that all this was settled without Father Dominic or any Passionist having a hint of it, till I went up to London three days after the retreat, to tell him of the determination I had made. The next day I came back to Oscott, and told Dr. Wiseman. He was, of course, surprised at the news, and at first seemed to think I could not be really in earnest, but ever since has acted in the most considerate and kind manner towards me. My move, I am sorry to think, must entail on him and dear Bishop Walsh serious inconveniences, not so much for the loss of my services where they had placed me, for I hope if I live I may serve them better as I shall be circumstanced hereafter, as I was doing little at Oscott, but from the withdrawal of my funds, which I fear may take place perhaps even to their entire amount, but certainly in great part. Not that any part goes to the congregation (of the Passion); thank God, I am received there in formá pauperis and all which remains to me would be left to the Bishop; but my dear brother seems quite determined to make my vow of poverty as much one in earnest as it can be; and so, bitter as that part of the trial is, God bless him for it! I think I must have told you how my income came to me. My father left me a certain capital quite independently, which went long ago to building churches, and £300 a year to be paid to me as long as I did not put it out of my own power, in which case it was to be in the power of my brother, now living, and other trustees, to be employed to my advantage. My late brother gave me as much more of his own free will, and this brother has hitherto continued this, but now says that he cannot give it to support Catholicity; and as he will not use it himself, it is to go for my lifetime to religious and charitable purposes such as he thinks fit. So half of my money is clean gone, and the other half depends upon what interpretation the law puts on the terms of my father's will. Bishop Wiseman takes this so beautifully and disinterestedly, that I trust the loss he thus bears for God's sake will be more than amply compensated to him. My sister, Lady Lyttelton, takes my change beautifully."

The pecuniary losses his ecclesiastical superiors would sustain prevented them giving him the opposition they otherwise would. It would not look well to try to keep him out of religion, under the circumstances; and besides, Cardinal Wiseman was not the person to prevent his priests becoming religious, if he were only convinced they had a vocation.

When Father Spencer was on his way to London to consult with Father Dominic about his reception, a musket went off by accident in the carriage he was in, and the ball passed through the skylight. This gave him rather a start, and made him think a little about the shortness of life. He appears to have found Father Dominic giving a retreat to the nuns of the Sacré Coeur, who are now at Roehampton. The saintly Passionist was delighted with the news, and Father Ignatius used to say that he seemed to be more delighted still at the fact that he was not bringing a penny to the order. On his return to Oscott, the first thing we heard was that a Quaker had been converted by a sermon he preached in Birkenhead, which sermon he thought himself was about the worst he ever delivered. He meets a little opposition, however; they wish him to stay until his thoughts get settled into their original state after the retreat. He fears this to be a stratagem of the enemy, and, lest it might make him lose his vocation, he makes a vow of entering religion at or before Christmas. When this became known, nobody could in conscience oppose him, for only the Pope could dispense him from entering now.

At length everything is settled. His £300 income remains to the Bishop and his brother promises to provide for his pensioners. All things being thus arranged, he visits all the poor people about Oscott and West Bromwich, to give them a parting advice and blessing, spiritual and temporal. He writes to all his friends, packs up his books and other smaller movables, receives two converts—Laing and Walker—gets Dr. Wiseman's blessing, and has his carriage to the train, takes third class to Stafford, and on his birthday, 21st December, 1846, at 8 o'clock in the evening, arrives at Aston Hall, to enter the Passionists' noviciate.

BOOK IV.
F. Ignatius, a Passionist.

BOOK IV.
F. Ignatius, a Passionist.

CHAPTER I.
The Noviciate.

Religious orders in the Church may be compared to a vast army, composed of different regiments, with different uniforms, different tactics, and different posts in the kingdom of God, offensive and defensive, against the kingdom of Satan. The Pope is the head of all, and various generals bear rule, in his name, over the forces who have chosen them for their leaders.

Some religious orders fill chairs in universities; others are charged with the instruction of youth. Some watch by the sickbed; others ransom captive slaves, or bring consolation to the miserable in prisons and asylums. Some, again, work at the rooting out of sin and disorders at home, whilst others carry the light of the Gospel to the heathen. Some pitch their tents in deserts or mountain fastnesses, whilst a more numerous body take up their abode in the abandoned purlieus of crowded cities.

Every religious order has some one characteristic spirit, a mark by which it may be distinguished from the others. This may be called the genius of the order. It is mostly the spirit that animated the founder when he gathered his first companions around him, and drew up the code by which their lives were to be regulated. This spirit may be suited to one age and not to another; it may be local or universal; on its scope depends the existence and spread of the order; its decay or unsuitableness will portend the extinction of the body it animated.

This spirit may take in the whole battle-field of religion, and then we see members of that order in every post in which an advantage may be gained, or a blow dealt upon the enemy. It may take in some parts and leave the rest to the different battalions that are already in charge, prepared to render assistance in any department as soon as its services may be needed.

The religious order known as the Congregation of the Passion has a peculiar spirit and a special work. It was founded by Blessed Paul of the Cross in the middle of the last century, and approved by Benedict XIV., Clement XIV., and Pius VI. Its object is to work in whatever portion of the Church it may have a house established, for the uprooting of sin, and the planting of virtue in the hearts of the faithful. The means it brings to this, in addition to the usual ones of preaching and hearing confessions, is a spreading among Christians a devotion to and a grateful, lively remembrance of the Passion of our Lord. The Passionists carry out this work by missions and retreats, as well as parish work in their own houses. If circumstances need it, they take charge of a parish; if not, they do the work of missioners in their own churches. They teach none except their own younger members, and they go on foreign missions when sent by His Holiness or the Propaganda.

To keep the members of an order always ready for their out-door work, there are certain rules for their interior life which may be likened to the drill or parade of soldiers in their quarters. This discipline varies according to the spirit of each order.

The idea of a Passionist's work will lead us to expect what his discipline must be. The spirit of a Passionist is a spirit of atonement; he says, with St. Paul: "I rejoice in my sufferings, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh for His body, which is the Church." Coloss. i. 24. For this cause, the interior life of a Passionist is rather austere. He has to rise shortly after midnight, from a bed of straw, to chaunt matins and lauds, and spend some time in meditation. He has two hours more meditation during the day, and altogether about five hours of choir-work in the twenty-four. He fasts and abstains from flesh meat three days in the week, all the year round, besides Lent and Advent. He is clad in a coarse black garment; wears sandals instead of shoes; and practises other acts of penance of minor importance.

This seems rather a hard life; but an ordinary constitution does not find the least difficulty in complying with the letter of the rule. It is withal a happy, cheerful life; for it seems the nature of penance to make the heart of the penitent light and gladsome, "rejoicing in suffering." Two facts are proved by experience. First, that scarcely one ever left the order on account of the corporal austerities, though they are used as a plea to justify the step by those who lose the religious spirit. Secondly, longevity is more common amongst us than any other order, except perhaps the Cistercians, whose rule is far more severe than ours. A Passionist is bound by this rule only within the retreat, as houses of the order are called; outside, he follows the Gospel ordinance of partaking of what is set before him, and suiting himself to the circumstances in which he is placed. The Superior, moreover, has a discretionary power of granting exemptions, in favour of those who require some indulgence in consequence of illness or extra labour.

It will be seen, from this sketch, that Passionists have to lay up a stock of virtue, by a monastic life at home, in order that their ministrations for their neighbour may be attended with more abundant fruit. They unite the active and contemplative spirit, that both may help to the saving of their own souls by qualifying them better for aiding in the salvation of others.

This was the kind of life Father Spencer began to lead on his forty-seventh birthday. For a man of his age, with habits formed, with health subject to occasional shocks, it was certainly a formidable undertaking. There was little of human glory to eclipse those difficulties in the community he entered. Four foreign fathers, living in a wretched house, as yet unable to speak passable English, without a church, without friends, without funds, without influence, formed the principal portion of the community of Aston Hall. These were, Father Dominic, Father Gaudentius, Father Constantine, and Father Vincent. None of these four fathers are in the province at present. Fathers Dominic and Constantine are dead. Father Gaudentius is a member of the American province; and Father Vincent, after many years of zealous missionary work in these countries, was called to Rome, where he now holds the office of Procurator-General. They had one student, two lay brothers, and Father Spencer was to be the second of two novices. The Passionists had already been four years in England, and, through trials and difficulties, from poverty and misunderstandings, had worked their way up to the precarious position in which he found them. He was, therefore, a great acquisition to the struggling community. True, he brought no earthly riches; but he brought what was more valued, an unearthly spirit—he brought humility, docility, and burning zeal.

The fathers knew him for a long time, and scarcely required proofs to convince them of his having a religious vocation, since he had practised the vows before then in a very perfect way, considering his state. He gave clear proofs of his spirit on the eve of his coming to Aston. He came, as he glories in telling Mr. Phillipps, in formâ pauperis. Some of his friends wished to give him the price of his habit by way of alms; he would not accept of it. He then reflected on the poverty of the Passionists, and thought it would be well if he brought even so much, whereupon he proposed to beg the money. The largest alms he intended to receive was half-a-crown. He was forbidden to do this by his director, and obeyed at once: thus giving a proof of his spirit of poverty and obedience.

Notwithstanding all this, the fathers were determined to judge for themselves, and try by experiment if any aristocratic hauteur might yet lurk in the corners of his disposition. Our rule, moreover, requires that postulants be tried by humiliations before being admitted to the habit; and many and various are the tests applied, depending, as they do, on the judgment of the master of novices. One clause of the rule was especially applicable to Father Spencer: "Qui nobili ortus est genere, accuratiore et diuturniore experimento probetur; "and the strict Father Constantine, who was then the master, resolved that not a word of it should be unfulfilled. A day or two after his arrival, he was ordered to wash down an old, rusty flight of stairs. He tucked up his sleeves and fell to, using his brush, tub, and soapsuds with as much zest and good will as if he had been just hired as a maid-of-all-work. Of course, he was no great adept at this kind of employment, and probably his want of skill drew down some sharp rebukes from his overseer. Some tender-hearted religious never could forget the sight of this venerable ecclesiastic trying to scour the crevices and crannies to the satisfaction of his new master. He got through it well, and took the corrections so beautifully, that in a few days he was voted to the habit.

On the afternoon of the 5th January, 1847, vespers are just concluded, and the bell is rung for another function. People are hurrying up to the little chapel, and whispering to each other about the scene they are going to witness. The altar is prepared as for a feast. The thurifers and acolytes head the procession from the sacristy; next follow the religious; then Father Dominic arrayed in surplice and cope. After him follows Father Spencer, in the costume of a secular priest. He kneels on the altar step; he has laid aside long before all that the world could give him; he has thrown its greatness and its folly away as vanities to be despised, and now asks for the penitential garb of the sons of the Passion, with all its concomitant hardships. He had not yet experienced the happiness it brings: he had only begun to earn it by broken rest, fasts, and humiliations. Father Dominic blesses the habit, mantle, and cincture; he addresses a few touching words to the postulant, and prepares to vest him. In the presence of all he takes off the cassock, the habit is put on and bound with a leathern girdle, a cross is placed upon his shoulder, a crown of thorns on his head, benedictions are invoked upon him according to the ritual, the religious intone the Ecce quam bonum, Our Lord gives His blessing from the Monstrance, and the Honourable and Reverend-George Spencer is greeted as a brother and companion by Father Dominic, under the new name of Father Ignatius of St. Paul. Thus ended the function of that day, and the benisons of the rite were not pronounced in vain.

It is the custom with us to drop the family name on our reception, to signify the cutting away of all carnal ties, except inasmuch as they may help to benefit souls. A religious should be dead to nature, and his relationship henceforth is with the saints. This is why, among many religious orders of men, and nearly all of women, some saint or some mystery of religion to which the novice is specially devoted is substituted instead of the family name. In most cases, also, the Christian name is changed; this, following the example of our Lord, who changed the names of some of the Apostles, is useful in many ways, as well to typify newness of life as to help in distinguishing one from another when the aid of family names is taken away. Father Ignatius gave his reasons above for preferring this name, and events, both before and after, make us applaud the fitness of the choice.

A novice's life is a very eventless one; it has little in it of importance to others, though it is of so much consequence to himself. The coming of a postulant, the going away of a newly-made brother, the mistakes of a tyro at bell-ringing, chanting, or ceremonies, are of interest enough to occupy several recreations. The absence of soul-stirring news from without gives these trifles room to swell into importance. When the little incidents are invested with ludicrous or peculiar circumstances, they often have a sheet of the chronicles dedicated to their history by the most witty or least busy of the novices.

A postulant ran away the day after Father Ignatius was clothed; he heard the religious take the discipline, and no amount of explanations or coaxing could induce him to accustom his ear to the noise, much less his body to the stripes, of this function. The senior novice left at the same time; he was a priest, and died on the London mission the very same year as Father Ignatius. In a few days more Father Dominic caught a novice dressing his hair and giving himself airs before a looking-glass. His habit was stripped off, and he was sent to the outer world, where, perhaps, the adorning of his good looks was of more service to him than it was at Aston Hall.

It is a received tradition in the religious life that vocations which are not tried by difficulties seldom prove sea-worthy, so to speak. Before or after the novice enters, he must be opposed and disappointed in some way; he has to pay dear for the favour of serving God in this state of life, if he be destined to act any important part in the Church as a religious. Father Ignatius had his trials. He found it difficult to pick up all the minutiae of novice discipline: he suffered a little from homesickness, and these, joined to chilled feet, a hard bed, and meagre food, did not allow him to enjoy to any great extent the delightful sensation known as fervor novitiorum. He got over all this, as we see from a letter he wrote to a friend in March:—

"I am here in a state in which not a shadow of trouble seems to come, but what I cause for myself. With a little humility there is peace enough. I suppose I shall have some more troubles hereafter if I live. I have not been so well for several years. Some would have thought a Lent without a bit of meat would not have done for me; but I have seen now since Shrove Tuesday, and, in Lent or out of it, I never have been better. So in that respect, viz., my health, I suppose my trial here is satisfactory."

A rude shock was in store for his health which he little anticipated when he wrote those lines. This was the terrible year of famine in Ireland, that year which will be remembered for ever by those who lived in the midst of the harrowing scenes that overspread that unhappy country. Poor famishing creatures, who had laid their fathers or mothers, and perhaps their children, in coffinless graves, begged their way to England, and began that tide of emigration which has since peopled Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and London, with such crowds of Catholics. Every ship brought its cargo of misery, and the hapless victims were forced by their poverty to seek for lodgings in dens of vice, or employment where virtue was not paramount. They thus imbibed a poison to their morals which has not yet been completely purged out of the thousands who have had to follow the footsteps of their famine-stricken predecessors. Numbers of the poor Irish gathered around Stone and Aston; fever broke out amongst them, and the wards of the workhouse infirmaries were unable to contain even a moiety of the sufferers. Every hovel and barn had their burning occupants, and even charity itself seemed frightened from giving assistance. The priest was, of course, busy; and, fortunately for Aston, more than one priest could be had to attend the dying.

All our fathers were at the bed of death many times in the day. Father Gaudentius was struck down with fever, Father Vincent followed next. The duties now devolved upon Father Dominic and Father Ignatius. The poor novice was prostrated by the pestilence, after administering the last rites of the Church to many. He gets a very malignant attack, and in a few days is at the point of death. He prepared for his last passage with the most beautiful dispositions. He thanked God for the privilege of his state, and was particularly delighted at the prospect of dying a martyr to his charity. He receives the Viaticum and Extreme Unction, makes his profession as on death-bed, becomes insensible, and is given an hour to live by the doctors. The religious commence a novena, in which they are joined by the people, for his recovery. God preserved him to his brethren and their flock, for he began immediately to mend. We may form an idea of this poor community, all the active members, except Father Dominic, dying, or in feeble convalescence; their resources, perhaps, run out; and all the energy they had left taxed to its utmost to answer the calls of duty. Few as they were, they had not the least idea of sparing themselves. They still hoped to increase and multiply; but, after the example of Him who increased by dying, and likened the progress of His Church to the dying of the grain of corn in the soil of its growth.

Charitable friends came to their assistance, and amongst the rest, Earl Spencer sent a handsome sum to pay doctors' expenses for his brother. This was considerate, indeed, and as soon as Father Ignatius could manage a pen, he wrote to thank him for his charity. Numbers were deeply concerned for our novice, and two or three Catholic nobles invited him to come and stay with them during his convalescence. Father Dominic did not think him sufficiently ill to warrant his sleeping out of the house, so their kind offers were thankfully declined.

This illness was a double blow to Father Ignatius: he had just received orders from his Superior to prepare for the missions when it came on. An end was put to his preparation for the time, but he resumed the task as soon as the doctors allowed him.

During his noviciate he had two kinds of trials to endure, besides those mentioned already. Father Constantine was remarkable for his meekness and charity; but he put on extra severity for Father Ignatius. His companions tried to show him some marks of distinction, and would offer to relieve him from works that were humiliating, or likely to be galling to one of his standing. The latter trial he complained of, and he was troubled at the other because some of of the religious complained of the novice-master's severity towards him. He had some more mortifications of the kind he playfully told us a few chapters back, as affecting Father Dominic in Oscott. He was troubled with chilblains, and was obliged, in consequence, to wear shoes and stockings for a great part of his noviciate. This he looked upon as a great grievance, inasmuch as he could not live like the others. When at last the chilblains got well, and he was allowed to put on the sandals, he felt overjoyed, and even writes a letter to congratulate himself on his happiness.

He writes two or three letters, in which he notes his astonishment at the Irish being so negligent in England, who had been so regular at home. He says, they all send for the priest, and show great signs of repentance when dying; but, out of a number he attended, only one returned to the Church after recovery. "Still," he says, "it would be long till one of them would answer as the English pensioner is reported to have done on his death-bed. The minister talked much about Heaven and its happiness, but the patient coolly replied, 'It's all very well, sir; but old England and King George for me!'"

His noviciate glides quietly on to its end; and except his ordinary work of attending to a mission in Stone besides his home duties, nothing occurs to break the monotony.

At length, on the 6th of January, 1848, Father Ignatius and Father Dominic remain up after matins. We are told in the Journal, that the novice made his confession and had a long conference with his director, in preparation for the great event of his profession. Father Dominic was going off that day, but the conveyance disappointed him, he was obliged to wait till the next. That evening Father Ignatius is once more in the midst of a moving ceremony: on his knees, with his hands placed in Father Dominic's he pronounces his irrevocable consecration by the vows of his religious profession.[Footnote 10] The badges are affixed to his breast, the sacrifice is completed—and well and worthily was it carried out. It is easier to imagine than to describe the joy of the two holy friends, so long united in the bonds of heavenly charity, as they spoke that day about their first acquaintance, and wondered at the dispositions of Providence, which now made them more than brothers.

[Footnote 10: The profession on death-bed is conditional, so that if a novice recovers, after thus pronouncing his vows, he has to go on as if they had not been made.]

CHAPTER II.
His First Year As A Passionist.

Shortly after his profession, Father Ignatius was sent out on missions. The first mission he gave, with Father Gaudentius, was to his old parishioners of West Bromwich. Crowds came to hear him; some to have another affectionate look, and hear once more the well-known voice of their old pastor; others from curiosity to see what he had been transformed into by the monks. This mission was very successful, for, besides the usual work of the reconciliation of sinners, and the helping on of the fervent, there were fifteen Protestants received into the Church before its close. He gives another mission somewhere in the Borough, London, with the same companion. During this mission he hears that his style of preaching is not liked much by the Irish; he feels a little sad at this, as he fears the work may fail of success through his deficiency.

The preaching of Father Ignatius was peculiar to himself; he cannot be said to possess the gifts of human eloquence in the highest degree, but there was a something like inspiration in his most commonplace discourse. He put the point of his sermon clearly before his audience, and he proved it most admirably. His acquaintance with the Scriptures was something marvellous; not only could he quote texts in support of doctrines, but he applied the facts of the sacred volume in such a happy way, with such a flood of new ideas, that one would imagine he lived in the midst of them, or had been told by the sacred writers what they were intended for. Besides this, he brought a fund of illustrations to carry conviction through and through the mind. His illustrations were taken from every phase of life, and every kind of employment; persons listening to him always found the practical gist of his discourse carried into their very homestead; nay, the objections they themselves were prepared to advance against it, were answered before they could have been thought out. To add to this, there was an earnestness in his manner that made you see his whole soul, as it were, bent upon your spiritual good. His holiness of life, which report published before him, and one look was enough to convince you of its being true, compelled you to set a value on what he said, far above the dicta of ordinary priests.

His style was formed on the Gospel. He loved the parables and the similes of Our Lord, and rightly judged that the style of his Divine Master was the most worthy of imitation. So far as the matter of his discourses were concerned, he was inimitable; his manner was peculiar to himself, deeply earnest and touching. He abstained from the rousing, thundering style, and his attempts that way to suit the taste and thus work upon the convictions of certain congregations, showed him that his fort did not lie there. The consequence was, that when the words of what he jocosely termed a "crack" preacher would die with the sound of his own voice, or the exclamations of the multitude, Father Ignatius's words lived with their lives, and helped them to bear trials that came thirty years after they had heard him.

Towards the end of his life, he became rather tiresome to those who knew not his spirit; but it was the tiresomeness of St. John the Evangelist. We are told that "the disciple whom Jesus loved" used to be carried in his old age before the people, and that his only sermon was "My little children, love one another." He preached no more, and no less, but kept perpetually repeating these few words. Father Ignatius, in like manner, was continually repeating "the conversion of England." No matter what the subject of his sermon was, he brought this in. He told us often that it became a second nature to him; that he could not quit thinking or speaking of it, even if he tried, and believed he could speak for ten days consecutively on the conversion of England, without having to repeat an idea.

He got on very well in the missions: he took all the different parts as they were assigned him; but he was more successful in the lectures than in the great sermons of the evening. His confessional was always besieged with penitents, and he never spared himself.

The late Cardinal, who was the chief mover in bringing the Passionists to England, wished to have a house of the order in the diocese of Westminster (then the London District), to which he had been recently translated. Father Dominic entered heartily into the project, and Father Ignatius with him. After a few weeks' negotiation, they took possession of Poplar House, in the west end of Hampstead, towards the end of June, 1848. A new foundation was, in those days, as it is still, a formidable undertaking. The ground has generally to be bought; a church and house built upon it; the necessary machinery to set it going to be provided, and all this from nothing but the Providence of God, and the charity of benefactors. Under a more than ordinary pressure of their difficulties, the house was opened, and after many changes and removals, it has finally fixed itself on the brow of Highgate Hill, under the name of St. Joseph's Retreat.

He notes in his Journal that the place in Hampstead brought some sad thoughts into his mind, as it was within sight of where his sister, Lady Georgiana Quin, died in 1823. He tells us also that he was benighted somewhere in London, and had to beg for a bed for the first time in his life. On a fine summer's day he sauntered leisurely through the grounds of Eton, ruminating over the scenes of forty years before, when he first became a child of what proved to him a novercal institution.

He was not destined to labour much, this time, for the London house. Father Dominic took the charge of it, and appointed Father Ignatius Rector of St. Michael's, Aston Hall, a post that became vacant by the death of Father Constantine. Father Ignatius thus mentions the matter in one of his letters:—

"It was just such a death as one might expect of him (Father Constantine). I was thinking and saying to some one before, he would be attending to his duties and giving directions in the house to the last. In his agony, he heard the clock strike, and, mistaking the hour for another when some bell has to ring, he asked why the bell did not ring for such a duty. It is recorded that what was most remarkable in him was his gentleness and patience; and that indeed was very striking. He must have suffered heavily to die in a lingering way by a cancer, but he never was disturbed, and went on saying mass, and doing all that was to be done, as long as he could stand to it. His loss makes, as you have heard, a great change in my position. I never dreamt of being a Superior for years to come, and thought I had come to an end, almost for life, of keeping accounts and ruling household affairs. But God's will be done. It is a great comfort, as I find, to be in the rule of good religious, to what it would be to have people under one who seek their own gain and pleasure."

Ruling, even thus, did not turn out so easy a matter; for it is recorded in the Journal, that Father Dominic gave him "a long lecture about the proper way of ruling," which he seems to have drawn down upon himself by some mistakes.

In the beginning of September, this year, he gave his first retreat. It was to the students of Carlow College. This event gave him a fresh start in his great work. Since 1844, when he made the tour on the Continent, procuring prayers for England, his zeal in the cause seems to have slumbered somewhat. Not that he was the less anxious for the return of his countrymen to the faith of their fathers, but he did not, perhaps, see any opportunity open for moving others in a general way to help the work by their prayers. It is rather a wonderful disposition of Providence that his energies should be renewed in Ireland, and that, too, in '48. Extracts from a few letters will show how it happened. In a letter to Mrs. Canning, he says:—

"My last journey to Ireland was, in the first place, to preach a retreat in Carlow College, which was the first and only retreat I have been on alone; secondly, to beg in Dublin for our church and house; thirdly, I got full into the pursuit of prayers for England again. I had hardly expected anything could be done in this last way under the excited state of feelings in Ireland against England. I began, however, speaking in a convent in Carlow, and so warm and beautiful was the way in which these nuns took it up, that I lost no occasion after of saying mass in some convents every morning, and preaching to them upon it; and the zeal which they showed has given me a new spring to push it on in England. Accordingly, I have been preaching many times on it since I have been this time in Lancashire. I only ask now one Hail Mary a day to be said by every Catholic for the conversion of England. Here is a great field to work upon. You want to be doing something for England, I know; why not take up this object, and in every letter you write abroad or at home make people promise to do this, and make every man, woman, and child do it too. If millions would do as much as this, we should have thousands who would offer themselves up as victims to be immolated for the object, and we should have grand results. Above all, let it be done in schools at home; so that all the young may be trained to pant for this object, as young Hannibal for the destruction of Rome; and a foundation will be laid for the work to go on after we are all dead, if no fruit appears before."

In a letter to Father Vincent, he writes almost in the same strain:—

"My journey to Ireland was satisfactory in several respects to a certain degree. It answered well for begging purposes. With all their poverty, they are so generous that I made one of my best week's begging in Dublin. I hope for a great deal more in November, when I am going again to preach in Dublin, and will stay as long as I can. I picked up also one novice, not a cleric, but, I hope, a very promising lay brother. I think there will be many good subjects for us in Ireland, when we are better known there.' (In this his expectations were most signally realized.) "I also got into the pursuit of prayers for England again. I said mass, and preached after mass ten times in convents on the subject, and the zeal and charity with which it was taken up by the good religious quite gave me a new spring in that cause. I have begun preaching in England for prayers. Will you help me in this? I have been writing, with Father Dominic's approval, to our General, to obtain some indulgences for those who will join in those prayers."

In this year, Father Ignatius lost two great friends by death, Dr. Gentili and the Rev. Wm. Richmond. He had several conversations with the former, who was then giving his last mission in Dublin, and assisted on his return to England, at the death-bed of Mr. Richmond. He used to relate how this worthy man became a Catholic, as an instance of the ways of God in conversion. When Richmond was a boy, he went to see an uncle of his, who was a priest. One day he saw candles lit in the church in clear daylight. On entering, to satisfy himself that nothing was wrong, he saw his uncle issuing from the sacristy, in the most fantastic garb he ever beheld. He ran out of the church in a fright, and scarcely came near his uncle for three days. He did sum up courage enough to approach at length, and the end was that he became a priest himself, and outshone his uncle.

During the visit Father Ignatius paid to Ireland, according to promise, in the November of this year, he preached in several places on the conversion of England. He went to Maynooth, and addressed the junior students at night prayer and the seniors at morning prayer, on the same subject. He remains nearly a month in Ireland this time. He meets a few secular people who are not so kind and generous in listening to him as nuns and students. One day he begged of a gentleman, who immediately began to grope in his pocket for a coin which he should consider worthy of offering. Whilst the search was going on, Father Ignatius ventured to ask prayers for the conversion of England. "England!" said the gentleman; "I pray for England! Not I." And he turned off with a refusal, and left his petitioner to find another benefactor.

When he returned to England, he preached everywhere, to priests, nuns, and people; he wrote and spoke continually for prayers for England. The only change in his system since the former crusade was, that the prayer he asked for was defined. It was only one Hail Mary daily. This prayer he was especially fond of using; he said it for every person and everything. The antiphon of the Church, "Rejoice, Virgin Mary, thou alone hast destroyed all heresies throughout the world," was continually in his heart. The devotion of the people of Ireland to our Blessed Lady brought this out; and it was remarked by himself and others, that when once he had put the great object of his endeavours under the protection of Mary, he never cooled or slackened, but always progressed with blessings.

The last day of this year was spent as all such days of his life, since he turned thoroughly to God's service, in being awake and in prayer at midnight.