ROMAN CONSPIRATORS IN BIRMINGHAM.—CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH "POOR AND LOWLY" TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 68, 15 August 1874, Page 8

ROMAN CONSPIRATORS IN BIRMINGHAM.—CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH "POOR AND LOWLY" TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH.

Of all the dangerous Roman "Conspirators" in England at this moment, possibly the most dangerous are a certain body of religious men in the populous town of Birmingham. They are presided over by one who was himself once a Protestant, and the glory of the University of Oxford. I mean the " Oratorians," led by the celebrated John Henry Newman. The ' Oratorians " profess to follow in the footsteps of St. Philip Neri, the founder of their Society. He lived in an age which in very many respects closely resembled our own. Christian faith and morality were suffering, and were in danger of being destroyed in Italy at that time, not through ignorance or barbarism, but from an excessive passion for art, science, secular learning, luxury and intellectual refinement. Moreover, something very like what we call " spirit-rapping," but which was then called " sorcery, had come into vogue among the people. Society was morally corrupt throughout, to an extreme degree ; and most corrupt among the learned and refined. The corruption extended even to the clergy of the period. Happily, in our time, the clergy are faithful and pure. The poets, artists and philosophers who flourished in Italy, at that time, and their disciples, " flung a grace over sin, and a dignity over unbelief." A similar remark might not inaptly be applied to England at this moment. Ifc was under such circumstances that St. Philip Neri made his appearance in Italy, and commenced his labors as a Reformer. He had been bred to the bar, but had left it to devote himself to a still nobler pursuit. How did he go about lub business as a reformer and try to stem the tide of immorality, irreligion and rationalism, which was then running so strong ? We are told "He began with the poor. Then he went among shopmen, warehousemen, clerks in banks, and loungers in public places.- Encouraged by these luccesses, he addressed himself to men not merely careless, but of the worst kind of lives ; and them also he gained for God. All this time he was visiting the hospitals, and attending to the necessities, both bodily and spiritual, of the sick." While so engaged, he was long a mere layman. He sub. equently was ordained, and formed a religious society, the " Oratorians," which was of a somewhat peculiar kind. They had little or nothing to do with ecclesiastical matters or secular politics. They lived in obscurity, and laid special stress on prayer and meditation. They were simple in their forms of worship ; and freely admitted laymen into their fellowship. Such are the " Oratorians "in Birmingham, over whom Dr. Newman has long presided. They are Horn an " Conspirators " laboring to diffuse Catholic truth and to oppose the progress of irreligion, infidelity, and vice, among the laborious poor of Birmingham and its neighbourhood. God grant that in such a " conspiracy " they may succeed to their heart's content. They have a house in London too. "We have," says Dr. Newman, " not chosen any scene of exertion where we might make a noise. We have willingly taken that place of service which our superiors chose for us. The desire of our heart and our duty went together here. We have deliberately set ourselves down in a populous district, unknown to the greit world, and have commenced as St. Philip our founder did, by ministering chiefly to the poor and lowly. We have gone where we could get no reward from society for our deeds j nor admiration from the acute and learned for our words. We have determined through God's mercy not to have the praise and the popularity which the world can give ; but according to our founder Philip's precept "to love to be unknown." They are diligent followers of St. Philip, as St. Philip himself was a faithful follower of Christ — these Birmingham " Oratorians." When men like these are actuated by such a spirit as theirs, are mingling daily and familiarly with the poor and lowly of England, need we wonder that the Catholic religion is now making such rapid progress there. Once let the English Protestant masses, the lowly and laborious poor among them, fairly understand what the Catholic religion is, then farewell English Protestantism. Dr. Newman and his " Oratorians " are just the men to iastruct the English poor, and to undeceive them of those misconceptions about Catholicism which they sucked in with their mothers' milk, and which the Protestant pulpits have labored so successfully to confirm for the past three centuries. When Protestantism fairly gives way at home, it will not live long in the colonies, though it may live out our times. Though the English Oratoriam devote theiaselves principilly nd primarily i o the instruction and car > of the poor and lowly, their it ivJ ence is powerful with the higher oluseei of religious Proteatauta tJso,

This is not surprising, when we consider that such men as Dr. Newmar and the late Dr. Faber have taken so prominent a part in this -work, — who, so long as they remained in communion with the English Church, had sach a numerous and influential body of admiring followers among the most devout, learned, and talented members of the aristocracy of England, both male and female. The Reformation, as it is called, led to the estrangement of the upper from the lower classes of England to a degree which had never existed since the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon race to Christianity. It created a great gulf between the two classes. It broke or removed the connecting link which Protestants themselves now sorrowfully admit is missing. The revival of the Catholic religion in England will restore that " missing link" The Catholic clergy, and more especially the religious orders of Catholic men and wrmen, will be the means of bringing the upper and the humbler ranks of Englishmen together again. They have ever been the poor men's best friends, the best defenders of the weak against the strong— both in public and private life. This no doubt was the reason why, in the times of Henry the Eighth and his celebrated daughter Elizabeth, the humbler ranks of Knjjlishmen made such repented and stTouc, though unsuccessful, efforts in dofenco of the Catholic cause. Violence, fraud, and selfishness on the part of the English crown and nobility bore the humbler ranks of English Catholics down in those evil days ; f. reed them out of the Catholic Church and kept thorn out of it against their wil', till a new generati m arose who never knew what it was to be Catholics, but whose minds from their infancy were filled with malice, hatred, and revenge against the Catholic Church, by the venal newspaper and other writers, preachers, and political orators, who so long have led the English mas c es and abused their confidence. The " Reformation "of religion in England so called — or rather miscalled — lias brought a stain on the honor of the upper rank* of Englishmen, which no length of time can ever entirely efface. The world knows that at the instigation of guilty ambition, or of the most sordid of all worldly motives —pecuniary interest — the bulk of the aristocracy and wealthy classes in England in Henry, Mary, and Elizabtth's day, wheeled about without thaine or upparpnt compunction from the Catholic to the Protestant side back again, twice. Amid such scenes of baseness, the baseness of the English clergy was the most deplorable sight of all. How different was the conduct of the Kng- ] lish in the humbler ranks of life on that memorable occasion and ' especially the agricultural portion now represented by Mi* Arch, ■whom Archbishop Manning takes by the hand, as a loyal, God-fearing man. They, the bold peasantry of England — then, as now, their country's pride — retained their ancient Saxon love of liberty, and burned with indignation against the venal crew who were combined to destroy it and the Catholic Church together. They rose repeatedly in defence of both ; but their efforts were vain. They were crushed, and for three long centuries both they and tho Church have remained under the heel of the, Protestant oppressor. A bright day is now beginning to dawn upon them, however. They aud the Church aye now beginning to lift their heads and assert their rights with better prospects of complete success. It is a somewhat remarkable and significant fact, that we should see Archbishop Manning, the hero of the Catholic Church in England, standing publicly in the presence of the English people, hand in hand with Mr Arch, the representative of the bold, but long down-trodden Saxon peasantry of England. Wliile the Protestant hierarchy and other ii J rotestant men of mark hold aloof from Mr Arch in public, Archbishop Manning comes manfully forward, takes his place on the platform by the side of this sturdy champion of tbe English peasantry, and boldly avows his sympathy with him in the work which he has taken in hand, because he believes him to be a just, loyal and God-fearing man, and the advocate of a. righteous cause. Catholics of all nationalities might well unite in fervent prayer, especially at this holy season, that the Spirit of Truth would guide such men as Mr Arch and John Bright into the Catholic Church ere they die. They are Nature's true nobility ; and as poor Robert Burns said of some honest men in his time, " they hold the patent of their nobility immediately from Almighty God." The Catholic Church claims all such men as her own. They are united with her in spirit already, though not externally or visibly in her communion. A word to Catholic Ireland. She was never subjected to the humiliation of seeing her clergy seduced from their loyslty to the Church, as England was, and dearly have the Irish paid for their fidelity. But they are now taking a noble revenge on England for all the wrongs they have suffered at her hands. By Irish priests mainly, is England now being conducted back to the Catholic Churcli. This work has been well begun, but it is not finished. Let the prayers of Catholic Ireland still continue to pierce the clouds and come up before God on of behalf English Protestants — for they are anobleiace, and, in union with the Irish, will continue to rule the world. Laic.