It was in the year 1838 that he began the great work to which his life and energies were afterwards devoted—the moving of the Catholics everywhere to pray conjointly for the conversion of England. Before this time he and a few of his friends prayed privately, said or heard masses for this intention, and encouraged one another by letters and conversations to perseverance in so holy a practice. Now he went to work on a larger scale. How this change in the working of his zeal was brought about will be best seen from a letter he wrote to Dr. Briggs in November, 1838. Before, however, quoting it, it may be well to remark that the cause of his going to France with Mr. Phillipps was that he was breaking down in health, hard-worked by two laborious missions, for which he had no assistant since Mr. Martyn's death, and that his doctor advised change of air and rest. Here is the letter:—
"London, Nov. 5, 1838.
"My Dear Lord,—I hope I shall be doing right to
explain to your lordship the real circumstances of the
transaction which, you may perhaps have been told, has
been adverted to in The Times newspaper of Nov. 3, and
some other paper since; which states, from the Gazette de
France, that I have been at Paris, with Mr. Ambrose
Phillipps, busy in establishing an association of prayers for
the conversion of England to the Roman faith. I am
certainly ready to plead guilty on this charge; but I do not
find cause to repent of it. However, a good thing may be
done so out of place and out of time as to make it not worth
much, and it may be necessary, therefore, that I should
explain myself before I am approved of in what I have been
doing in Paris. In the first visit which I paid to the Archbishop
on my arrival at Paris, I was saying, what I say
continually, that what we want above all in England is
good prayers; and that it would be a great benefit if the
French would undertake to unite in prayer for us. I did
not think of making any proposal for an actual arrangement
of the kind till the Archbishop himself (then Monseigneur
Quelin) encouraged, and almost obliged, me to do all I could
by the zealous manner in which he took up the idea. He
appointed that I should meet him after two days at St.
Sulpice, where seventy or eighty of the clergy of Paris were
to be assembled to offer him an address of thanks for a
retreat which he had given them. After the business was
concluded, he introduced me to them, and having explained
how I came to be there, he proposed that they should undertake
to pray for the conversion of England on every Thursday.
The proposal was most favourably received, and I
heard of its being acted upon by many offering their mass
on the first Thursday. This encouraged me to go on. I
obtained a circular letter of introduction to the superiors of
religious houses, and visited about twenty of the principal.
All of them undertook to offer their prayers as I asked
them, and to write to their sister houses through France.
The General of the Lazarists, and the Provincial of the
Jesuits, undertook to recommend it to their brethren; but
what I thought more satisfactory yet was, that all the Archbishops
and bishops whom I could meet with in Paris
promised to recommend the prayers in their dioceses and
provinces; so that it appeared to me that there was reason
to say that all France would soon be united in this prayer,
and I trust other countries of Europe will follow their
example. I remember, at the time when your lordship
received me with much kindness at Halford House, on
our speaking of the importance of prayers being regularly
said for the conversion of England, and you told me of what
had been done at Ushaw under your direction. I forget
whether I said to you that I had then lately adopted the
practice of offering my mass every Thursday regularly for
that intention. I took this from the nuns of Mount
Pavilion, with whom I had become acquainted the summer
before, but especially what they do on Thursday, when
there is high mass and exposition all the day, and a solemn
act of reparation for the outrages committed against the
Divine Eucharist. It seemed to me that this was a devotion
peculiarly suited to the object of obtaining from
Almighty God graces for England, one of whose most crying
sins is; the blasphemy of the Blessed Sacrament authorized by
law for three centuries.
"I had only proposed the idea, however, to a few priests of my acquaintance, to unite in saying mass for England on that day, and was rather waiting for some plan to be suggested for a general union of prayers in England by some one of authority. But, as nothing had been done, and when I found myself engaged in this pursuit at Paris, it was necessary to propose something definite, I have nothing better than to request prayers from all the faithful for England, all days and at all times, but especially to offer mass on Thursday, if they be priests and at liberty, or communion, or assistance at mass, or visits to the Blessed Sacrament, or, in short, whatever they did for God, particularly on that day, for England's conversion.
"The manner in which this request was accepted by all the good people whom I saw was most consoling to me; and it appears to me that I am bound to make it known in England, to those whose judgment is most important, and whose approval would most powerfully recommend the Catholics in England to correspond with the zealous spirit exhibited in behalf of our country by France.
"It is not for me to suggest to your lordship what might be done. I only venture to hope that you may think this matter perhaps worthy of your attention, and will perhaps mention it to the clergy as occasion may present itself. I would add, that in France the superiors of several seminaries were most ready to undertake to recommend it to the students, and it pleased me particularly to interest those communities in behalf of England, because the devotion might so well spread in that way through all classes. Would your lordship think fit to mention the subject at Ushaw? I have nowhere asked for any particular prayers to be said as that might be burdensome; but simply that this intention might be thought of at least, if nothing more was done in reference to it.
"I beg again to be excused for my boldness in thus
addressing you, and am your lordship's
"Obedient humble servant,
"George Spencer."
The passage he alludes to in The Times was as follows:—
"The Hon. and Rev. George Spencer, brother to the present Earl, who was converted from Protestantism to the Catholic faith some years ago, has lately been passing some time at Paris, with Mr. Ambrose Phillipps, a gentleman of distinction of Leicestershire, eldest son of the late member for the northern division of the county. They have been busily occupied there in establishing an association of prayers for the conversion of this country to the Roman faith. They have had several interviews with the Archbishop of Paris on this subject, who has ordered all the clergy to say special prayers for this object in the memento. A number of the religious communities in France have already begun to follow the same practice."
This paragraph was taken up, of course, and commented upon by the second-rate papers. To be sure, the whole thing was magnified into nothing less than a grand stir for a Papal aggression, which, if it did not make the English shore glitter some day with French bayonets, was certain to cram every workshop and church with Jesuits in disguise.
The Bishops were all favourable to Father Spencer's zealous ideas; they gave him leave to speak on the subject with all the priests; they mentioned it in their pastorals: but they did not wish him to go too publicly to work, as they rather feared the spirit of the times, and did not know when another Gordon riot might arise and overthrow what they had been building up since the Emancipation. In the meantime, the work was progressing rapidly. A Dutch journal reached him which let him know that all the seminaries and convents in Holland had given their Thursday devotions for England. A good priest wrote from Geneva to say that the programme should be widened, and that all heretics and separatists ought to be included as well as England. To this Father Spencer consented after some deliberation, and in the space of about six months all the Continent were sending up prayers for England's conversion. He makes speeches at formal dinners and public meetings, and always introduces this topic; whereupon the reporters conceive a terrible rage, and puff the matter into all the taverns and offices of London, Liverpool, and Manchester. Of course, all this is accompanied with gross misrepresentations and personal abuse. Of the former point he thus speaks in a letter:—"The misrepresentations, as far as I have seen them in the public papers, by which they have endeavoured to obstruct the proposed good, are so glaring that I think all thinking persons must be benefited by reading them." "My notion was to ignore the English public altogether, and go on with my work as if it did not exist." "The opposite papers have certainly helped me and well, in making the matter as public as I could wish, without a farthing's cost to me, and in a way in which I cannot be accused of being the immediate agent of its publicity, as it was put about as though to annoy me, but they are pleasing me without intending it." This was the good-humoured way in which he took all that was personal in the journalistic tirades. It gives one an idea both of his great zeal and the great virtue with which he accompanied it.
He now writes to the Irish Archbishops, and receives very encouraging answers. So much did they enter into his sentiments that, in a meeting of the Irish episcopate in Dublin, they gave his proposals a good share of their attention, and approved of them.
This he accounted great gain. It was the prayer of the martyr for his persecutor, of Stephen for Saul, and of Our Lord for the Jews. Poor Ireland had groaned and writhed in Saxon bondage for centuries. She saw her children scattered to the winds, or ground by famine and injustice beneath the feet of the destroyer; and, at the voice of a Saxon priest, she turned round, wiped the tear from her eye, pitied the blindness of her oppressor, and offered up her sufferings to Heaven to plead for mercy for her persecutor. The cry was a solemn universal prayer, framed by her spiritual leaders, and carried to every fireside where the voice of the Church could drown the utterings of complaint. F. Spencer thought more of the prayers of the Irish than of all the Continent put together; these were good, but those were heroic. He began to love Ireland thenceforward with an ever-increasing love, and trusted chiefly to the faith and sanctity of her children for the fulfilment of his zealous intentions.
He pushed his exertions to Rome also, by writing to Dr. Wiseman, and asking him to see the devotion carried out in the Eternal City and the provinces. It met the same success as in France, Belgium, Holland, and Ireland. There is a letter extant which Dr. Wiseman wrote to F. Spencer about this time (it is dated Ash Wednesday, 1839), and it must be interesting, both for its intrinsic merit as well as the giving an evidence of the harmony of feeling and sentiment that bound the great cardinal and the zealous priest together since their first acquaintance until they both went, within a few months of each other, to enjoy the eternal reward of their labours in England and elsewhere, for God's glory:—
"Rome, Ash Wednesday, 1839.
"My Dear Friend,—I must not delay any longer
answering your kind and interesting letter. Its subject
is one which has long occupied my thoughts, though I never
contemplated the possibility of enlisting foreign Churches
in prayer for it, but turned my attention more to exciting a
spirit of prayer among ourselves. I will enter on the matter
in hand with the most insignificant part of it, that is, my
own feelings and endeavours, because I think they may encourage
you and suggest some thoughts upon the subject.
In our conference this time last year, I spoke very strongly
to the students upon the wants of England, and the necessity
of a new system in many things. One of the points on
which I insisted was the want of systematic prayer for the
conversion of England, and, at the same time, of reparation
for her defection. I observed that it is the only country
which has persisted in and renewed, in every generation,
formal acts of apostacy, exacting from every sovereign, in
the name of the nation, and from all that aspired to office
or dignity, specific declarations of their holding Catholic
truths to be superstitious and idolatrous. This, therefore,
assumes the form of a national sin of blasphemy and heresy—not habitual, but actual; it is a bar to the Divine blessing,
an obstacle of a positive nature to God's grace. It calls for
contrary acts, as explicit and as formal, to remove its bad
effects. Now what are the points on which this blasphemous
repetition of national apostacy has fastened? They are chiefly
two: Transubstantiation and the worship of the Blessed Virgin.
These, consequently, are the points towards which the reparation
and, for it, the devotion of Catholics should be directed
in England. I therefore proposed, and have continued to
inculcate this two-fold devotion, to our students on every
occasion. I have for a year made it my daily prayer that I
might be instrumental in bringing back devotion to the
Blessed Eucharist, its daily celebration, frequent Communion,
and public worship in England; and, at the same time,
devotion to the Blessed Virgin, chiefly through the propagation
of the Rosary. (My reasons for the choice of the Rosary
I shall, perhaps, not be able to explain in this letter.) Allow
me to mention, as I write to you, quite confidentially, that
the idea struck me one afternoon that I happened to be
alone in the Church of St. Eustachio, observing that the
altar of the Blessed Sacrament was that of the Madonna;
this led me to earnestly praying on the subject of uniting
those two objects in a common devotion in England, and
offering myself to promote it. Several things led me to feel
strongly on the subject which, being trifles to others if not
to myself, I omit. First, as to the Blessed Eucharist, my
plan was different from yours in one respect, that, instead of
fixing on one day, I proposed to engage priests to say mass
for the conversion of England on different days, so that
every day twenty or thirty masses might be said for its conversion,
and in expiation to the Blessed Sacrament. At
such a distance from the field of action, I could do but little;
I therefore made the few priests who have left since last
year at this time put down their names for two days a month,
for mass for these purposes, intending to fill up my list as I
could. One of them, Mr. Abraham, writes that he observes
his engagement most punctually. With all deference, I submit
to you whether, while Thursday remains the day for
general prayer, every priest (for I should think none would
refuse) would choose a couple of days a month, or a day each
week, for these purposes. In a sermon in the Gesù e Maria,
last spring, I alluded to a hope I fondly cherished, that
public reparation would before long be made in England to
the Blessed Sacrament, and this brought me a letter from a
devout lady, earnestly begging I would try to have something
done in that way, and naming persons in England
most anxious to cooperate in anything of the sort. My idea
was borrowed from my excellent friend, Charles Weld, and
consisted in Quarant' Ore, not confined to one town, but
making the circuit of all England, so that by day and night
the Adorable Sacrament might be worshipped through the
year. I have proposed it to Lord Shrewsbury, for I think
it should commence with the colleges, convents, gentlemen's
chapels, and large towns, in which I trust each chapel would
consent. As the Exposition at each place lasts two days, it
would require 182 changes in the year, or, if each would
take it twice a year, 91. There are about twenty-five
religious communities and colleges; the chapels in large towns
could afford to make up other twenty-five. I think that
many pious people would like to have the Exposition, and
gladly contribute the expense, and the giro might be published
for the year in each directory. I must say I should
set myself against the common practice of keeping the
Blessed Sacrament in a cupboard in the vestry, without a
light even, and never having an act of adoration paid to it,
except at mass. Security from sacrilege must be purchased,
but not by a sort of sacrilege which it always looked to me;
the faithful should be encouraged to visit the Blessed Sacrament
during the day. Secondly, as to the devotion to the
Blessed Virgin, I proposed the forming of Confraternities
of the Rosary, and, while Saturday should be the general
day for the devotion, I would have different congregations
fix on different days, so that each day the powerful intercession
of the Blessed Virgin might be invoked upon us and
upon our labours, and reparation be made to her for the outrages
committed against her. I offered Mr. Oxley and Mr.
Procter to write a little treatise on the Rosary, if they
would disseminate it. One of my reasons for preferring the
Rosary, both for myself and English Catholics, is what ordinarily
forms an objection to it. Pride, when we come to
pray, is our most dangerous enemy, and I think no better
security can be given against it than to pray as the poor and
ignorant do. Do we then wish that God should judge us by
the standard of the wise who know their duty, or by that of
the poor little ones? If by the latter, why spurn the
prayers instituted for them, and say, 'We will not use them,
but the prayers better suited to the learned.' The 'Our
Father' was appointed and drawn up for men who said
'Lord, teach us how to pray.' It is a prayer for the ignorant,
as is the Rosary. But more of this another time. It was
my intention to have begun daily prayers for England last
St. George's Day; I was prevented from drawing them up,
but hope to begin this year. In the meantime, I took out
of our archives a printed paper, of which I enclose a copy,
showing that prayers for the conversion of England, &c.,
have in former times occupied the attention of our college,
which blessed beads, &c., for the purpose of encouraging
them, and that the Holy See conferred ample spiritual privileges
upon the practice. You will see how the Rosary is
particularly privileged. This paper, through Giustiniani, I
laid before the Congregation of Indulgences to get them renewed
for prayers for England, and was told that it would
be better to draw up something new, suited to present times,
when Indulgences would be granted. So far as to my views
and ideas before your better ones reached me, and I willingly
resign all my views and intentions in favour of yours. Now,
as to what is doing here. On the Feast of St. Thomas we
distributed to all the cardinals that came, a copy of your
sermon received that morning, with a beautiful lithograph
of St. Thomas, Cant., executed in the house at some
of the students' expense, to propagate devotion to him.
Cardinal Orioli declared that he had for years made a
memento for England in his mass, and Cardinal Giustiniani
told me the other day that every Thursday he offers up mass
for its conversion. There is a little religious weekly journal
published here for distribution among the poor, and it has
lately been in almost every number soliciting prayers for
the same purpose. Its principal editor, an ex-Jesuit, Padre
Basiaco, called on me the other evening, and told me, as a
singular coincidence, that since he was in his noviciate he
has made it a practice to pray on Thursday for that object.
To show you to what an extent the pious custom is spreading,
the Austrian Ambassador the other evening told me that his
little boys (about seven and eight years old) prayed every
Thursday morning for the conversion of England; and that
having been asked by their mother on that day if he had
prayed for it, one of the little fellows replied, 'No, mamma;
it is not Thursday.' Surely God must intend to grant a
mercy when He stirs up so many to pray for it, and that,
too, persons having no connection with the object, except by
zeal or charity. I am going, in a day or two, to concert
with Pallotta the best means of propagating this devotion,
both in communities and among the people. I perfectly
approve of enlarging your original plan so as to embrace all
that are in error. I am in favour of giving expansion to
charities in any way, and Catholicising our feelings as much
as our faith. We are too insular in England in religion as
in social ideas. This was one of my reasons for wishing to
have the oeuvre unconnected with domestic purposes, which
would, however, be benefited by the greater energy which
the spirit of charity would receive by being extended. I
am endeavouring to excite in the students as much as I can
the missionary spirit; all the meditations are directed to
this. By the missionary spirit I do not mean merely a
parochial, but an apostolic spirit, where each one, besides
his own especial flock, takes an interest in, and exerts himself
for the benefit of the entire country, according to the
gifts he has received. Remember me in your prayers, and
believe me your sincere and affectionate friend,
"N. Wiseman."
The account given of Father Spencer's zealous labours for the conversion of England would be incomplete if something were not added to show how he succeeded in bringing persons into the Church in the locality of which he had the spiritual charge. There is no record of the number he received, and only from stray notes, from various sources, can some instances of his way of working be given. He was not a great preacher, as all knew; but there was a peculiar spirit in what he said which seemed to impress his discourse upon the hearer as if it came not from himself. This want of human eloquence was a drawback to him inasmuch as it was not likely to bring crowds to hear him. An anecdote or two will illustrate this. Once he was asked to preach in Manchester, and many Catholics who heard of it went, of course, to hear the convert who was talked and written about so much. Among the rest, one young man who had beforehand built castles in his own mind about the glowing eloquence he should hear. To his disappointment, the preacher was cold, dry, and tame. He was not too pleased, but some way or another every word took effect upon him, and he could not quit thinking of the sermon, and the peculiar way in which many things were said. The end of it was, that he became, some time after, a Passionist, and was one of those in whom Father Ignatius found great consolation, on account of the zeal he showed and continues still to show, in the pursuit of the darling objects of Father Ignatius's life. A lady was more pointed in her remarks. She went to hear him on some other great occasion, and she said:—"I saw him go into the pulpit; I heard him address the people, and I was waiting all the time thinking when will he have done talking and begin to preach, until, to my surprise, I found what purported to be a sermon coming to a conclusion, yet I can remember to this day almost everything he said."
From the little weight Father Spencer laid upon human learning in the work of conversion, one would be tempted to suppose he undervalued what he did not possess. No greater mistake could be made. He was a Cambridge first-class man, and must therefore be a good mathematical and classical scholar. He spoke Italian and French almost without a grammatical fault, and conversed very well in German. He was well read in the English Protestant divines, and knew Catholic theology with accuracy, and to an extent which his academical course would not lead us to expect. It may be said that his youth and manhood were spent over the pages of the best English writers, and in the company often of the best living authors. Althorp and Spencer House were famous for their literary coteries, and the son of an earl who patronized men of talent, and gave unmistakable proofs of great talent himself, was not one to let such opportunities pass without profit.
He trusted little, however, to the sway of intellect, and put his hope in fervent petitions for divine grace. He told Dr. Wiseman that he should apply his mind to something more practical than Syriac manuscripts, or treatises on geology, and that he would rather see him taken up with what suited a priest on the English mission as it then was. The rector, of course, took the rebuke as humility dictated; but we should certainly be sorry that he had not written his Connexion between Science and Revealed Religion, and his Lectures on the Eucharist. Spencer, to be sure, was mistaken in this; but the idea gave a bent to his mind, which he could hardly be expected to change when hampered with the work of a parish.
They who knew him well can give testimony to his high attainments, and all who ever heard him speak of himself can bear a more ample testimony still to the very low opinion he had of his own acquirements. It is no wonder that he wrote no books; the little he did publish in the way of newspaper letters and sermons during his last years in West Bromwich, did not produce much apparent effect. It is not our province to review these here, but it is well to say that the sermons rank far above his spoken ones in point of style and matter, especially the French sermon he preached in Dieppe in 1838.
The prayers, to which he chiefly trusted for the conversion of his countrymen, did not bring much evident gain. Others reaped what he sowed in this way, and he tells us in the Dieppe sermon that during a confirmation Dr. Walsh gave in that year he had 600 new converts to impose hands upon.
His field at this time was confined mostly to his conversation and example; to both of which his name and reputation added something in the eyes of the world. These gave him leave to speak at least, and procured him listeners where other priests would not obtain a hearing. And he had no small power in word and example, as all who knew him are aware, and a few incidents may serve to illustrate.
As to his conversation, its peculiar charm consisted in the importance of its drift, and the nice sweet humour by which he rendered it agreeable. Besides, it may be safely said, that there scarcely ever was a man so happy in his illustrations, or in the homely way in which he put an argument, or answered an objection. This last property can be seen from the following passage, which is quoted from one of his letters to a newspaper:—
"I was once attacked by a stanch Church of England man, who had been an old sailor, and had lost an arm in the service, for what he thought was unworthy of my character and family, leaving my colours and changing sides. I answered him thus: Suppose you, my friend, had entered a ship bearing the King of England's flag and pennant, and gone out and fought many a battle against French cruisers, but then found out by chance that the captain of the ship was an outlawed pirate, who had no right to the colours which he wore, and was making you fight for himself, not for your king, would you let me call you a deserter if the next time you came within hail of a true king's ship you jumped overboard and swam to her? The good sailor seemed to understand me, and said no more about leaving my colours."
It was remarked that very few ever went to speak with him in earnest about their soul with any kind of docility, whom he did not succeed in bringing into the Church. Then his example was a continual sermon. He preferred the poor, not as poor wretches on whom he thought it was heroic to spend a few kind words of mawkish pity, but, in order to make them feel as if they were his brothers and sisters. He would come into their hovels, sit down with them, and even take a cup of tea there, which he might have refused at a richer place. They represented to him the person of Jesus Christ, who said, "The poor you have always with you," as a substitute for Himself.
His patience was no less wonderful. One day he was walking with a sort of bag on his shoulder, when an insolent fellow came out before him and spat in his face. His housekeeper was with him, helping to carry some articles, for he was then going to say mass in one of the little places he had opened near Bromwich. She of course fired with indignation at once, and said: "You wicked man! how dare you spit in the face of Lord Spencer's son, and he such a good gentleman? "Mr. Spencer took out his handkerchief, wiped his face, and only said to the housekeeper: "And how dare you be angry? I am proud of being treated as my dear Lord was;" and went on his way as if nothing had happened. He did not even allude to it again.
He was also very abstemious, and never took wine or spirits for a number of years; indeed, he may be said to have tasted none except as medicine since he became a Catholic, and for sometime before. His bishop told a very curious anecdote about this. Father Spencer took very little sleep, and in fact he so shortened his time of rest that often, when returning home from a sick call, he would be nodding asleep up the street, and walk like a man who had taken "a little more than was good for him." He was reported to the bishop as being seen in this state. The bishop was amused first, and then surprised; but when he found out the cause, notwithstanding that he was edified, he made the good priest sleep a little longer every night. This only shows how captious were the people he had to deal with, and how easily they might have been scandalized. Yet he was venerated by all Catholics as a saint, and Protestants began to respect him after some time as a really good man, and a server of the Lord according to his conscience. The opinion of his sanctity was not merely superficial hearsay; his brother priests, who knew him most intimately, and were not the persons to take the appearance of holiness for the reality, are all of one opinion, that his life was the life of a great saint. A student writes to Father Spencer's assistant, Rev. Mr. Elves, in 1838, from Rome, in the following terms:
"It must be a very great source of edification to you to be the companion of Mr. Spencer, and I well know he has got in you a friend willing and ready to imitate his holy example. I am sorry that illness obliges him to retire from you for the present, but it will be a consolation for you to think that he has gone to gather more strength for the contest. Many a time I have dwelt with delight on the idea of being at some future period his fellow missioner, for I feel it would be a source of zeal and fervour to me to live with such a person, and I hope and pray God my wishes may be fulfilled, and that I may have such a companion, or rather such a director, during the first years of my missionary career."
This letter must have been an answer to the account the priest sent his young friend of the holiness of his companion.
Again, Father Spencer never heeded what we call the public, as he said himself he wished to ignore its existence; and strange enough by that very means he gained its esteem. This is best illustrated by what happened on his return from France, in '38. He saw the clergy there of course go about in their soutanes and full ecclesiastical costume; and he did not see why he might not do the same. He ignored the public, put on his cassock, and went in full priestly costume everywhere. He went to towns, into trains and omnibuses, walks the streets, and he gives the result in a letter to a friend thus: "This has not procured me one disrespectful word, which is worthy of remark here, for I do not think I ever passed two or three weeks in this place without being hooted after by boys or men somewhere."
Thus we have the servant following his Master, drinking in insults as sweet draughts in silence and humility; and when he was supposed to be ground to the very earth by ignominy, gaining a respect, a love, and a reputation that is as fresh to-day in his old parish among not only those who knew him but their children who heard of him. Yes, this day, more than 25 years in distance of time, he is, if possible, more venerated and more regretted than the day he resigned the pastoral charge of West Bromwich.
The Bishop, Dr. Walsh, calls Mr. Spencer to Oscott College towards the end of April or perhaps in the beginning of May, 1839. The object of this change was, to give him the spiritual care of the students, in order that he might shape their characters, and infuse into them that apostolic spirit of which he had already given such proofs. Here is one other instance of the true way to real distinction in greatness in the Catholic Church, lying through the road humility and its concomitant virtues points out. Father Spencer sought to be unknown; he petitioned for the poorest and the most unprovided mission. In his little parish he found his earthly paradise, and the toils and troubles he went through, to make his practice keep pace with his fervour, formed the links of his happiness. He prayed, he lectured, he heard confessions; he sought the stragglers in their haunts of idleness; he had no idea of extending his sphere of action beyond the limits of his mission, and, he even made the half of that over to another, that his working could be the more effectual as its space was narrowed. Every plan he devised for doing good on a large scale was fated to become abortive. His natural means of influence he had cast aside; he gave up writing in newspapers, and let dogs bark at him without stooping to notice them; his high connections were virtually sundered when he gave up paying visits to his family; his property he divested himself of altogether, and grieved that the steward who was appointed to look after him took too much care of him, and did not let him feel what it was to be poor indeed. Here then is the young nobleman transformed into the priest, and stripped of everything, which priests who were not noble often pursue as necessary for their position; ay, thoroughly shorn to the bare condition of a priest. He was a priest and nothing more, and that is saying a great deal. If priests were always mere priests they would always be great saints. But when a priest dips his sacred character into worldly pursuits, riches, human aims and ways; when that sublime dignity he has received is trampled upon by his own self, and is saturated in the deep dye of worldliness, he ceases to be great, inasmuch as he ceases to be a priest in sentiment and action. It is often supposed that a priest has to do many things in consideration of "his cloth." Many actions that humility dictates are considered infra dig. It would be so, for instance, to carry one's own bundle, polish one's shoes, allow a navvy to spit in one's face, or a ragamuffin to tear one's coat, without handing him over to the police. St. Francis Xavier did not think it infra dig to wash his own shirt, and Father Spencer was very much of that saint's way of thinking on this and kindred points.
When, however, he had arrived at the lowest depth of humiliation he could possibly reach, like his Divine Master, he began to shine forth and to move the whole world. We have traced above how this change came about. He used to speak to every one, merely as agreeable matter of hopeful conversation, about the conversion of England, and get them also to pray for it. His crusade was quite accidental as far as his own preconceived notions were concerned. He went to France with Mr. Phillipps, much against his will, and found himself all of a sudden launched into the great work of his life, by the encouraging words of French prelates. He was not the man to lose an opportunity of doing good through lack of energy or fear of opposition. He could brave everything for God's glory. If there was anything that helped him best in his work, it was the opposition he encountered. He knew that, and therefore every new stroke levelled against him from friends or foes was a fresh impetus to new exertions. Hence he is now the correspondent of the heads of the Catholic Church at home and on the continent; all the religious orders have heard of him and his zeal for England; seculars have heard; priests, nuns, monks, all chime in with his notions; many because they were glad to have the opportunity, many because they did not wish to be behind their neighbours, and all because it was a good, holy, and laudable thing to pray for the conversion of heretics.
He says little about his property or what is being done with it in any of the letters that remain after him; but a bishop in whose diocese he lived has told us something. Mr. Spencer had from his father's will and testament £3,600 in some funds, besides an annuity of £300 for life, to which £300 were added ad beneplacitum dantis. His moderate way of living took very little from this sum every year, so all the remainder, with the interest of some years, was at the bishop's disposal. Two missions, Dudley and West Bromwich, were founded by him with this property, at least for the greater part; and the ground upon which the present college of Oscott stands was bought chiefly with what Father Spencer gave the bishop. He gave a pension to his old housekeeper, which she still receives, and whilst his property was thus doing good for others and the Church, he would not travel in a first-class carriage on the railway, and often walked from Oscott to Birmingham, in order to be able to give the fare for his journey to some persons along the way.
He had done more than this: he was in close correspondence with Dr. Gentili and Father Dominic. He paved their way, and worked upon the opinions of many whose influence was required for their introduction into England. Dr. Gentili was a personal friend of his, and so was Father Dominic; but Father Spencer thought the claims of the former somewhat stronger for reasons which can only be surmised. Mrs. Gaming, his cousin, to whose letters we owe a great deal of the information we are able to glean concerning their transactions, was the great advocate of the Passsionists. She so pressed the matter upon him that he gets rather impatient, and tells her to mind her prayers and leave these things to others. Our Fathers agreed in General Chapter, in 1839, to send a colony to England; but as there was no provision made nor opening offered, for some years more this decision, was not carried into effect. The Passionists refer their coming to England, under God, to Cardinal Wiseman, acknowledging at the same time that Father Spencer did something towards the work. He also had a good deal to do with the coming of the Trappists to Loughborough, near Mr. Phillipps's. In all these three events he works in his own quiet way, beneath the surface, writing and advising, and doing what lay in his power consistent with other duties.
He keeps up correspondence by letter with some of his old friends at college, and with one or two of the Tractarians, Mr. Palmer, the author of the "Church of Christ," among the number. An old friend of his writes to him from among the Irvingites, and Father Spencer writes to another in these terms:—"The supposed miraculous voice, to which that party (the Irvingites) attend, has named 12 men as Apostles, who expect shortly to be endued with miraculous powers to enable them to restore the Church in its perfect beauty. Drummond the banker is one. Spencer Percival, and my great friend Henry Bridgman, Lord Bradford's brother, others." It is not a little strange that this Mr. Bridgman comes into the journal of Father Ignatius's Cambridge life very frequently, and mostly in the character of a Mentor.
Father Ignatius never gained much from correspondence, sought on his part, with leading men in the great religious movements of the period. But whenever others sought his advice, they generally became Catholics. They were disposed for truth, and he could remove objections, tell them of books, and pray for them. He broke off this kind of unasked-for correspondence at this time, but he resumed it again on a different footing, as shall be related in its place.
He had another means of doing good now, which could not come into his line while simple pastor of a country district. The college of Oscott was a place worth seeing, if not as a specimen of architecture, at least as being the stronghold of Catholicism, and the centre of a great deal of intellectual and moral training. Many of his great friends, who could not hitherto devise any plausible plea for visiting him in his retirement, could find one immediately now, from the place he dwelt in as well as the position he there held. His name was also noised abroad, and persons would feel some curiosity for the acquaintance of one who was moving heaven and earth for their conversion. Accordingly, we find that he entertains his two brothers, the then earl and his successor, on one day; Lord Lyttelton and Mr. Gladstone on another day, and so forth. Thus, that particular power he possessed in his conversation had a field upon which it could be brought into requisition, in a manner which former arrangements had debarred to him.
Several of the sermons he preached were published and distributed. There was no faculty of his, natural or supernatural, no good deed he was capable of doing, that did not come into play far better by his late transfer to Oscott. He was also practised in the drudgery of a missionary priest— that sphere of action which fills up a priest's ordinary life; and he was able from experience to teach others, not only how to prepare themselves, but how to succeed with profit to themselves and others in this work. He had also peculiar advantages here; he could give the young ecclesiastics not only the abstract rules for missionary labour, but a taste and relish for it, for very seldom can one succeed well if his tastes run counter to his duties. He did this by continuing in Oscott his old parish work; he visited the sick, brought them the sacraments; he gave a portion of every day to his favourite work, and by the incidents he came across, and the results of his labours, he raised up the young gentlemen's notions to the looking upon that as the poetic side of their ministry which is generally supposed to be the most prosaic. This is a great secret in the training of young men; to tell them best is best, and prove it to them, will convince them of course; but it will not lead them; there must be some grace, some romantic aspect put upon the thing, and then it entices them of itself. This was Father Spencer's secret, and, indeed, it might be said that it was his rule. He writes in a letter now, that he condemns asperity in controversy, and that civility and good breeding, with pity and love, is the way to confound opponents; and that he would rather see a clever argument unanswered than met with pungency and acrimony. This might be quarrelled with, for in war all things are lawful; but the real state of opinion to which he came on these matters was, that opponents were surer to be conquered by being enticed than driven. Let the Catholic religion but be seen in its native beauty, and thousands will be led to examine it.
Father Spencer's way of training young men has been already hinted at. He carried it out while he remained in his new office; he would go heartily into all their sports, make up their matches for cricket, and even give the younger ones instructions in the art. They had all a high opinion of his sanctity, and therefore the keeping of their juvenile spirits in order was not always a difficult matter. Oscott contained at the time 140 students, 30 only of whom were ecclesiastics. Among the lay students, who are mostly younger than the others, and have a notion too that because they do not intend to be priests they are not obliged to be so guarded as the rest, there were several who were not very manageable. One day a class he had in hand were rather uproarious; he quietly advised them to come to better sentiments; his words were, however, lost, and the noise was not abated. He remonstrated again, but all to no purpose. At length he got a hearing, and said: "Since I cannot correct you, and do not wish to chastise you, I shall pray to God to chastise you Himself." This, said in his sad mood, had such an effect upon the boys that it was never forgotten, and he never had the least difficulty with his class again.
On another occasion he did something in execution of his duty, which gave great offence to one of the young men. This young man grossly insulted him, in words that shocked all who were within hearing, and particularly reflected on the Father's character as a gentleman and a man of honour. The insult must have been the more galling as the person who was guilty of it was by birth and education in the position of a gentleman. One calm and placid look was the only answer from Father Spencer, which reminded many present of our Lord's look at Peter after his denial. For this anecdote and the next we are indebted to the Right Rev. Dr. Amherst.
"When he (Father Spencer) was a superior at Oscott, I had the good fortune to be under him. He frequently visited me and several of my companions in our rooms, where he would talk with greatest earnestness of the conversion of England, of the sanctification of the priesthood, and of the entire devotedness which should characterize a priest. Sometimes his visits took place late at night after we were gone to bed, when, if we were not asleep, he would sit upon a chair, a table, or the edge of the bed, and speak of his favourite themes for an hour. Once I remember awaking in the morning, after one of these visits, and expecting to find the father still seated on my bed, not perceiving that the night had passed. He had, no doubt, found that I had gone asleep, and went away quietly."
Another time one of the students, a young man about 17, who is now a zealous priest in the English Mission, happened to be out shooting somewhere. He took a shot at a blackbird, and some poor old woman was within range, and received a shot just over the eye. She cried out that she was shot, and one may imagine the embarrassment of the young student. She recovered, however; but in a year or two after the occurrence, a quack doctor applied some remedies to a new swelling in the eye, and swelling and remedies resulted in her death. There was an inquest held in Birmingham, to which the student was summoned. Whilst awaiting the day, the poor fellow was in very low spirits, as might be expected. Father Spencer went to his room to console him, and said that he had no reason to be cast down, that it was quite accidental, and permitted by God as a trial, with a great deal more. It was of little use, the poor student said, "but they might transport me." "Beautiful, beautiful," exclaimed the good Father; "fine field for the exercise of apostolic zeal among the poor convicts." "But then they might even hang me," rejoined the student. "Glorious sacrifice," said Father Spencer; "you can offer your life, though innocent in this case, in satisfaction for your other sins." Well, the student, though he thought the sentiments very high for his grade of spirituality, did not fail to profit by them, and tells the story to this day with a great deal of interest. Thus did Father Spencer work among the students, a model in all virtues, and so sweet and holy in his manner that his words went to the very heart with effect.
This was how he went on in the ordinary routine of the work allotted to him; but his zeal could not be bounded by such a sphere, he had tried what expansion could do, and he sought by grand schemes to get other ways of doing good. His great notion was "perfection for all." "Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect," was ever ringing in his ears, and he desired to see that great counsel of our Divine Lord acted upon with more earnestness. He would do his share; he had long been living like a religious, and practising the three evangelical counsels with success. He wanted now to extend the same rule to others. Of course, he did not find many to adopt his notions, but lest priests might be considered to assume too much in condemning his plans, he was advised to put his ideas on paper, and send them to Rome. He did so, and the answer of the Roman Censor was unfavourable. This was a heavy blow, but he submitted at once, and thanked God he had superiors who could find out his faults, and knew how to correct him without human respect. We have reason to suppose this censor was no other than Dr. Wiseman, for he and Father Spencer differed a little about the introduction of religious orders into England. Father Spencer said his hope was not in religious orders, but in secular priests living the lives of religious. This was why he took no leading part in bringing Passionists or others into his country; he had a great opinion of their holiness, and wished to see them working for the conversion of England, but rather at a distance than in the field.
To add to his crosses, Dr. Baines published a pastoral towards the end of the year 1839, in which he gave no hopes of the conversion of England, and prohibited public prayers being made for that end. This was a terrible blow to poor Father Spencer; he wrote as if he did not well understand what he had to say, and the thing looked to him so uncalled-for and so uncharitable, that he was unable to explain himself. He was, however, pleased to find out afterwards that this very opposition gave new strength to the cause.
In a sermon which Father Spencer preached in Manchester, in May, 1839, he used some expressions that gave offence to Catholic principles. The drift of the discourse is that Catholics and Protestants should sacrifice everything except truth itself for peace sake. In bringing this principle into application, he says the Catholics should offer themselves open to conviction, and be ready to lay down their belief, if it could be proved not true. He uses the following words:—
"The truth of my faith as a Christian and a Catholic is, to my mind, a certainty, because I have evidence that it was taught by God, who cannot deceive nor be deceived. Will that evidence be weakened by fresh examination and discussion? and do I anyways make an unholy or a perilous concession, when I declare myself ready to renounce my belief, if it were sufficiently shown to me that the evidences on which I believe it to be divine are wrong? I embraced and hold it now, because the evidence of its truth, was, and is to my mind unanswerable. I show no doubting of its truth, but, on the contrary, I declare how little doubt I have of its truth, when I profess myself with all my heart willing to renounce it if proved not true, and to embrace any form of doctrine which shall be presented in its place on sufficient grounds of credibility. This is the spirit in which I wish all Catholics would offer themselves to discussion with our Protestant brethren."
If he meant this as a bold assertion of the certainty with which he held the Catholic faith, and would offer these terms because convinced of the utter impossibility of proving him to be wrong, it might be barely tolerated. It is a form of speech that has sometimes been used by controversialists— Maguire, for instance—but it has none the less been always considered rash. That this was the sense in which Father Spencer used it, is abundantly evident from other parts of the sermon. However, the proposition that a Catholic and a Protestant may meet on equal terms to discuss their tenets, each open to conviction by the other's arguments, is simply erroneous and scandalous, to say nothing more. We cannot do such a thing without denying the very basis of our faith. Our faith is not opinion, nor is it certainty simply. It is something more. It is a divine virtue infused into our souls, whereby we believe certain things. We must use reason to come to the evidence of faith, but faith once obtained must never be left at the mercy of the fickleness and weakness of any individual's understanding or power of argument.
To lay down the proposition we animadvert on, would be equivalent to denying the objectivity of faith altogether. Whether a Catholic reasons well or ill, answers arguments or is confounded, his faith is the same; it is not his faith simply, but the faith of the Catholic Church, the faith given by God, which no man can add to or take from. Nay, the very putting of oneself in the position here mentioned is a real tempting God, if not undermining faith itself, by laying it open to the possibility of doubt. There is no use in deceiving Protestants, therefore, by apparent concessions like the rash offer which we said might be tolerated. It is impossible; our terms are fixed, and we are fixed in them, so that it is merely an exaggeration, in its mildest form. When, therefore, Father Spencer lays it down thus, and says that it is the spirit in which he would wish all Catholics to discuss, he may be fairly taxed with the second interpretation. Whether or no, it was wrong to preach it to all Catholics. Fancy a poor woman, who could scarcely read, entering into a discussion with an educated Protestant on these terms. He was of course called to order for this sermon, but his Catholic spirit was his safeguard. He first wondered how he had been wrong, but even laymen point out his mistake to him, and a word from the Bishop is enough to make him retract. Thus he soon found out the keenness of Catholic instinct to anything coming from a priest that even grazes the brink of error.