Life of Father Ignatius of St. Paul, Passionist (The Hon. & Rev. George Spencer).

In 1844 he became so nervous and weak that he was forbidden exertion of any kind; his ailment is manifest in his tremulous handwriting. On medical advice, he takes a tour on the...

The divine attribute of Providence to which he was so fondly devoted during life guided him in his last moments. He did not intend to visit Carstairs before the 10th of October,...

After staying about three months in Naples, Spencer sets out with Barrington, to travel through Sicily, on the 27th February. The voyage was very smooth until they came to Strom...

At the Provincial Chapter, Father Ignatius was chosen Rector of St. Joseph's Retreat, The Hyde. It was also arranged that before proceeding further with his projects and schemes...

What strikes a Catholic as the most singular feature in Protestant education is the want of special training for the clergyman. A dozen young men go to the University for a doze...

We find Father Ignatius, at the beginning of the year 1851, begging in Ireland. It was not his custom to go regularly from house to house; he preferred collecting people togethe...

Incidents overlapped each other so thickly, and were of such different tendencies during the last two years of Mr. Spencer's life as a minister, that we have judged it better to...

The days of the religious life of Father Ignatius might be numbered by his trials and crosses. It was not that a goodly share fell to him, as became his great holiness; but he h...

In the December of 1827 the old scruples, that came into his head some two years before, about the Athanasian Creed revived. Perhaps it is better to give the words of the Journa...

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 co...

This chapter begins with his twenty-first birthday. He comes before us, a fine young man nearly six feet high, graceful and handsome, of independent mien, winning manners, and a...

The close and warm friendship between Father Ignatius and Mr. Phillipps has scarcely a parallel in ancient or modern history. They became acquainted in 1829; and until death sus...

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...

During the first term of his second year in Cambridge, his average hours of reading decreased; yet he had still a taste for study, and had not yet thrown aside what remained of...

The English who wintered in Naples at the same time with the Spencer family seemed to have formed, as they generally do, a special caste. They dined together, drove out together...

The work of the little missions kept Father Ignatius very much away from the community. His visits at home were like meteor flashes, bright and beautiful, and always made us reg...

His life, though perpetually floating on religious discussions and doctrinal scruples, found other matters to check its course and employ it otherwise for a few days more. The f...

Father Ignatius, for some months before his death, had a kind of sensation that his dissolution was near. He paid many _last_ visits to his old friends, and, in arranging by let...

Father Spencer, ever since he first turned completely to the service of God, was determined to do whatever he knew to be more perfect. He did not understand serving God by halve...

Father Ignatius left Rome with the Holy Fathers blessing on both his spiritual and temporal projects. On his way to Germany, whither he was bound for a twofold begging tour, he...

From the end of the year 1835 to the middle of 1836, Father Spencer was more or less engaged in newspaper controversy with some ministers. The first champion of Protestantism, o...

He lands at Dover on the 1st April, 1852, comes home, sets his house in order at the Hyde, and goes, after Holy Week, to see Father Eugene, the Provincial, at St. Wilfrid's, to...

It could scarcely be supposed that the self-denying, laborious life of F. Spencer in West Bromwich, which has been already alluded to, could be one of those effervescent fits th...

This year was so full of events interesting to Father Ignatius, that there is no leading one round which others may be grouped to head the chapter. He expected to be called to R...

It is high time that we should turn from the abstract consideration of Mr. Spencer's views, and test their efficiency by the great standard of good and evil--facts. The facts, b...

So much has to be said about the exterior actions of Father Ignatius, that one is apt, in reading them, to forget the spirit in which they were done. It is true that it is by th...

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 c...

Towards the close of the year 1834, Earl Spencer died. George, of course, felt it deeply; he loved his father with, if possible, more than filial affection, for he could look up...

The Establishment retains in her written formularies a great deal of what looks very like Catholic. She has an attempt at a profession of faith; a kind of a sacramental rite, as...

For some time we are getting glimpses of his ways of thought, or rather of his ways of expressing his thoughts. We read, "godly dispositions," "mature unto repentance," "ripe fo...

Young Spencer went with Mr. Blomfield to Cambridge in the spring of 1817, and was entered fellow commoner of Trinity. He returned, immediately after being matriculated, to his f...

About the middle of April he came to London for three weeks' holidays. He calls it "a smoky odious place," and says that entering it makes him "miserable." He is soon immersed i...

Father Ignatius had an idea in his mind for a number of years, and saw no practical way in which it might be realized. He looked forward, with a pleasing anticipation, to the pr...

The events recorded in his journal at this time could very conveniently be swelled into chapters, if one had a mind to be diffuse. To trace the fortunes of the gentlemen he come...

Conversions to Catholicism were not such every-day occurrences, some thirty years ago, as they are now. The disabilities under which Catholics laboured politically, before 1829,...

On the evening of his arrival in Rome he went to the English College and presented himself to Dr. Wiseman, the late Cardinal, who was the rector. Dr. Wiseman had heard of his co...

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 i...

"In the course of September, 1812, I began a new stage of my life by entering at the Rev. ***'s, where I was, alas! too effectually to be untaught what there might be unsound in...

In 1858 we procured the place in Highgate, known now as St. Joseph's Retreat. The Hyde was never satisfactory; it was suited neither to our spirit nor its working. At last Provi...

It must not be supposed that Mr. Spencer broke away from the Establishment by the religious notions he took up at this time; on the contrary, his great hope is that he shall uni...

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...

Father Ignatius gives a retreat to the nuns of Lingdale House, and comes immediately after to Oscott, where the first Provincial Synod of the English Hierarchy was being held. H...

Spencer's thoughts now seemed perpetually fluttering around the expectation of going abroad and seeing wonders. This idea comes out at most unexpected times in the journal, it f...

Far different is the position on which Mr. Spencer enters towards the close of 1832, from that which he was promoted to in 1825. Then he took the cure of souls with vague notion...

"The 18th of May, 1808, was the important day when first I left my father's house. With a noble equipage, my father and mother took my brother Frederick and me to the house of t...

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 spir...

Seven years, according to physiologists, make a total change in the human frame, such is the extent of the renewal; and although the laws of spirit do not follow those of matter...

The kindly feelings Father Ignatius always showed for Protestants laid him open to the charge of a want of appreciation for the blessings of faith, or of not hating heresy as sa...

We group the incidents of this chapter around this sad event: some of them were the last these two bosom friends did together, and the others were occasioned by their separation.

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...

Mr. Spencer was so taken with his new birth that he tried to have all his friends and acquaintances born again after his own fashion. He made no secret, therefore, of his religi...

On the 21st of June, 1858, Father Ignatius began to give short retreats, which he designated "little missions." This was his work the remaining six years of his life; anything e...

In the year 1840 Father Spencer had the happiness of hearing that his great friend, Dr. Wiseman, was consecrated bishop, and was coming from Rome to be coadjutor to Dr. Walsh, a...

The Provincial once more sent Father Ignatius to beg on the Continent. He tried to do a double work, as he did not like to be "used up" for begging alone, and the plea of beggin...

Saint Paul gives the general history of childhood in one sentence: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child." The thoughts and ways...

Mr. Vigoreux, Rector of Brington, sent in his resignation of the living to the Bishop towards the close of the year 1824. The letters which are found among Father Ignatius's pap...

The complete levelling of his church principles left him at a loss which way to turn. The divided state of his parish, and the number of sects, seemed to be perpetually harassin...

In a letter written by Father Ignatius in December, 1854, is found the first glimpse of a new idea: the Sanctification of Ireland. This idea was suggested to him by the faith of...

"Had the public masters of the school been attentive to the advancement of the scholars in learning while negligent of their morals, and had I been making progress in my studies...

An old lady whom he visits, in illness, dozes into a stupor, and awakens unto Gospel faith. One evening he says:--"I spent this evening with a mixture of scrupulosities and comf...

"Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not; And why? it is not lessened: but thy mind, Expanded by the Genius of the spot, Has grown colossal, and can only find A fit abode wherei...