CHAPTER I.

His First Days In The Church.

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, made them hide their heads, except when forced into public notice by efforts to break their shackles. The religion that civilized England, and consecrated every remarkable spot in it to the service of God, had become a thing of the past, and the relics of Catholic piety that studded the land were looked upon as the gravestones of its corse, or the trophies of vanquishing Protestantism. Not only was Catholicity supposed to be dead in England, but its memory was in execration; nurses frightened the children with phantoms of monks, and mountebank preachers took their inspiration from the prejudices they had imbibed in childhood. The agitation about the _Veto_, and the Debates on the Catholic question, which filled the public mind about the year 1830, and for some ten years before, showed that Catholicity had not died, but only slept. The Catholics emerged from their dens and caverns; they bought and sold, spoke and listened, like their neighbours; and the King was not afraid of a Catholic ball when he took his next airing {200} in Hyde Park. The Catholic Church had been barely given leave to eke out its declining days, with something like the indulgence allowed a condemned criminal, when, to the astonishment of all, it sprung up with new vigour, and waxed and throve in numbers and in position. It was considered worth a hearing now, and faith came by hearing to many, who would have been horrified before at opening by chance such an antichristian thing as a Catholic book. A conversion, then, rather stunned than embittered the relatives of the convert. The full tide of Tractarianism had not yet set in, and the systematic pitchforks of private persecution and stately rebuke, that were afterwards invented to stop it, were not so much as thought of. The conversion of the Honourable George Spencer happened in those peculiar times. His family were partially prepared for it, for fluctuating between so many religious opinions as he had been for so long, and earnest, too, in pushing arguments to their furthest length, it was often half suspected that he would go to Popery at last. There he was now, a child of the Catholic Church, shrived and baptized according to her ritual. His die was cast. He was fixed for ever. His wandering was at an end. With the exception of his house-keeper, who laid her down to die for sheer affliction at the news, we are not aware that many others were much moved by what they considered his defection. Doubtless, his father and the immediate family circle felt it deeply; his Protestant vagaries had caused them sleepless nights and silent afternoons, and the Church of which he became a member was not likely to seem less absurd to them than it once seemed to himself. But then he was incorrigible; there was no use talking to him; he would have his own way, and there was what it led to.

Lord Spencer was always favourable to Catholics, but it was in the spirit of generosity to a fallen, or justice to an injured people. He never dreamt his own son would be one of the first to reap the benefit of the measures he advocated in Parliament. The letter he received from Leicester in January, 1830, must have been a shock indeed. Besides, a member of this aristocratic house descending to such a level {201} must be considered a family disgrace--an event to be wept over as long as there was one to glory in the name of Spencer, or feel for its _prestige_. Taking all these things into account, and many other minor considerations, it would be no wonder if Mr. Spencer was treated with harshness, and banished Althorp for ever. Nothing of the kind. His father was very considerate; and liberal, too, in making a provision for his son's future maintenance. George himself was received on friendly terms by every branch of the family, and, so far from avoiding him or mortifying him, they seemed all to have respected his sincerity. He wrote to Dr. Walsh, the Vicar Apostolic of the central district, immediately after his reception into the Church, placing himself as a subject at his lordship's disposition. Mr. Spencer's idea was to be ordained as soon as possible, and come back to his own parish to preach, like St. Paul, against his former teaching. This intention was checked by the Bishop's writing word for him to put off his first Communion a little longer, and to come and meet his Lordship in Wolverhampton towards the middle of February. This letter he received in F. Caestryck's, in Leicester, three days after his reception. He thinks the arrangement excellent. He spent a fortnight in the priest's house at Leicester, and he used often to say that this good priest's way of settling difficulties, though it might look unsatisfactory, was the very best thing that ever occurred to him. He made Mr. Spencer fully aware of the great dogma of the Church's infallibility before he received him. F. Caestryck was one of those good emigre priests who were well up in the Church's positive and moral theology, but cared very little for polemics. Whenever Mr. Spencer asked him "Why was anything such a way in Catholic teaching?" the old man simply replied: "The Church says so." This was very wise at such a time; the period for reasoning and discussion was passed, and the neophyte had to be taught to exercise the faith he had adopted now. He learnt the lesson very well, and was saved from the danger of arguing himself out of the Church again, as some do who do not leave their private judgment outside the Church-door, at their conversion.

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Scarcely anything is so remarkable as the readiness with which, on his reception, he laid down all notions of his being a minister of God. One short extract from a letter to his housekeeper, enclosing money from Leicester, to pay bills, will illustrate this: "If you have an opportunity, tell those who choose to attend, that I have acknowledged the authority of the Catholic Church, and therefore resigned my ministry for the present. If they care for my advice, tell them to send for Mr. Foley (the priest at Northampton), and hear him as the minister of God." This letter was written before he was a week a Catholic, and it promises well for his future that he does not arrogate to himself the office of teacher before he is commissioned, much less before he is sufficiently instructed. Many, in their first fervour, make false steps in the way he avoided which it is often difficult to retrace. The glow of happiness at finding one's self in _the Church_ ought to be allowed to subside, and to allow the newborn judgment to be capable of discretion, before beginning to dabble in theology.

He pays a visit to Brington in a few days, in company with F. Caestryck, and writes beforehand to his housekeeper to collect a few of his faithful listeners, that he may get them a few words of advice from a real live priest. It seems, from hints thrown out here and there in his letters, that Bishop Walsh was for his going to Rome to prepare himself for Orders. This was a drawback to his own plan, but events will show how wisely the Bishop arranged. Mr. Spencer's anxiety to be ordained at once and sent out to preach is an evidence of the strength of his faith. He imagined the Sacrament of Orders would have infused all ecclesiastical knowledge into his soul, and it was only when he had to work hard at the study of theology that he perceived the wisdom of blind submission to the judgment of his superiors. He goes to London to consult Dr. Bramston as to what he had better do, and he gives the result in a letter to Mr. Phillipps.

"London, _Feb_. 18, 1830.

"My Dear Ambrose,--I write from Bishop Bramston's study; he has left me there, and is gone to transact a little {203} business in another room. I have passed through my interview with my father, and thank God for it. His kindness was very great, joined with great depth of feeling. I will tell you more of it soon, when we meet. I shall leave London on Saturday for Northampton, where I am to be at Lady Throckmorton's till Monday. I shall then proceed to Birmingham by a coach which passes through Northampton from Cambridge, at one or two o'clock. On the next day, Tuesday, I will go to Wolverhampton, where I hope to meet you, my dear brother. I shall have plenty more to tell you then. Now, let it suffice to say that all my family and Bishop Bramston are decidedly for the Roman plan. I suppose the Lord so intends it. His will be done and His glory advanced; I will be as wax in His hand. My father has made me quite comfortable for money, and in the most prudent way. Farewell, my brother, and believe me,

"Your affectionate "George Spencer."

He expressed his gratitude, again and again, for the manner in which his family received him, especially as he knew that his late step was looked upon by them as "an unmixed evil." They were even willing to receive him as a guest wherever they might be staying except at Althorp; and, at Dr. Bramston's suggestion, he agreed to these terms, as well as made up his mind not to go to Brington again, in compliance with his father's wishes. These matters he arranged in a few days; he pensioned off one or two of his servants, he made his will about his stock of sermons, and it was, "Give them to the new incumbent, and let him do what he likes with them."

He had some difficulty in obeying his Bishop with regard to "the Roman plan," as he calls it. It was the first test of his obedience. He thought it was because the Bishop was weak enough to yield to the wishes of his family that he was sent. These wishes appeared to him to proceed from principles to which the Church's policy should not suit itself. There would be a noise made in the papers about his conversion, and his friends would have to answer {204} questions about him in inquisitive circles. His father did not wish him to go to Brington, and he himself was most anxious to use the influence he possessed over his dependants in order to their conversion. To avoid these inconveniences and clashing of motives they desired he might be absent from England for some time. Some of his friends also thought going to Rome would make him Protestant again; for, he says in a letter written a few days after his arrival in Rome, "You see now that coming to Rome does not open my eyes and make me wish myself a Protestant again. You may tell all Protestants that I am under no charm, and if anything occurs to make me see that ours is an apostate Church, I shall not, I trust, perversely suffer my fate to be bound up with hers, and consent to die in her plagues." The public parade of Catholic ceremonial had not formerly produced the best of effects upon him, and perhaps it was expected the old feelings would be revived by seeing the same things once more.

The very reasons his friends had for detaining him might urge the Bishop to hasten his departure. His anxiety to go and preach Catholicity in Brington was not quite according to prudence, for though he might know the principal dogmas of faith and believe them firmly, he still needed that Catholic instinct and mode of thought which can nowhere be imbibed so quickly or so surely as in Rome. There are many traits of Protestant _viewiness_ to be seen in his letters at this period, but,

"Quo semel imbuta est recens servabit odorem, Testa din."

It would not have been so easy to bring these properly into subjection whilst he had the thousand-and-one forms of Protestant errors seething around him, and would be forced by his zeal to seek out ways of making Catholic truth approach them. Where everything was Catholic to the very core, in might and majesty, was the best school for tutoring him into Catholic feelings and ideas. It was well also to let him see the force of prejudice, by making him experience in himself how differently things seem according {205} to the state of one's mind. If he was shocked at Rome as a Protestant, it was well to let him know that it was because he was unable to understand as a Protestant what gave him so much joy and edification, when he could see with Catholic eyes.

A courier was leaving London for Ancona, and as he did not see any reason for delay, he took a seat with him, and started for Rome on the 1st March, and arrived on the 12th, the feast of St. Gregory. He contrived to make the acquaintance of Mr. Digby in Paris, and hear mass three times during his journey, which was considered a very quickly made one in those days. He also had a very pleasing interview with Cardinal Mezzofanti in passing through Bologna.

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