CHAPTER XI.

Some Of His Doings In Oscott College.

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 {271} 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 {272} 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 {273} 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 {274} 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.

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