DISTINGUISHED CONVERTS SINCE THE REFORMATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 179, 1 September 1876, Page 7

DISTINGUISHED CONVERTS SINCE THE REFORMATION.

Marshal Turbnne, of France (1611-1675), born a Calvinist. John Walker, author of a pronouncing dictionary. Werner, a great German dramatist, who became not only a convert, but a priest. Mother Seton (Mrs. Elizabeth Seton, 1774), was born in New York, and was a daughter of Dr. Richard Bayley. She joined the Catholic Church in 1805, and founded the well-known and widely esteemed house of the Sisters of Charity at St. Joseph's, Etnmittsburg, Maryland, the Mother House of that Order in the United States. This was in the year 1809. She died in 1821 . Her grandson is Monsignor Seton, D.D. Cardinal Duperron, born at St. Lo, France, in 1556, and a Calvinist, was converted in 1575, and died in 1618. Frederick William Faber (1814 — 1863), was bom in Yorkshire, and was ordained a minister of the Established Church of England in 1836, and joined the Catholic Church in the year 1845. He was one of the large number of English converts, disciples of Drs. Newman and Pusey, who entered the Church in that and the few following years. In the year 1848 he joined the Oratory of St. Philip de Neri, and became Superior of the London Oratory at Brotnpton, where he remained till the time of his death, 1863. His works are beautiful, numerous, and very popular. The chief of them are " All for Jesus," " Growth of Holiness," " Spiritual Conferences," "Bethlehem," "The Blessed Sacrament," "Creator and Creature," and "The Precious Blood." He was also an exquisite poet, and his hymns are sung all over the English speaking world. He was a most holy priest and religious. Adelaide Anne Proctor (1827 — 1864). Miss Proctor was born in London. She was the daughter of Bryan Proctor, better known as Barry Cornwall. She wrote a number of beautiful poems, known and admired wherever the English language is spoken, and from the time of her conversion devoted herself to works of charity. Hon. and Rev. Goorge Spencer (Father Ignatius), born in 1799, and joined the Catholic Church in 1830. He was the pioneer of the great movement into the Catholic Church that has taken place of late years in England, his conversion taking place in 1830. He was the brother of Earl Althorp and uncle of Earl Spencer, resigned an income of .£3,000 a year to become a poor missionary. He was an intimate friend of Father Mathew, the great Apostle of Temperance. He died in 1864. Augustus Welby Pugin, the restorer of Gothic Architecture in modern times, and the designer of the Palace of Westminster, where the English Houses of Parliament assemble, died in 1852. The Lord Abbot of Mount St. Bernard's Cistercian Abbey of Lulworth, England, the Right Rev. Bernard Palmer, was converted to the Catholic faith in 1806, consecrated in 1849 the first Abbot in England since the Reformation. He died in 1852. Hon. and Rev. Charles Reginald Pakenham (Father Paul), born in 1821, son of the Earl of Longford, nephew of the Duke of Wellington. He entered the Catholic Church in 1850, and became a Passionist Father and devoted himself to missionary work in Dublin, dying in 1857.