A GREAT ENGLISHMAN.

Evening Star, Issue 8772, 12 March 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

A GREAT ENGLISHMAN.

[From Our London Correspondent.]

London, January 22,

A fortnight ago, a friend meeting Cardinal Manning, asked him how he was. "Thank you," said His Eminence, with a smile, "I am quietly slowing into the station." THE END, It was not until Wednesday evening that the household of the Cardinal came to the conviction that ho was dying. He was able to say a word or two now and then to those about him. Ho followed to the full the religious ministrations which Bishop Vaughan, of Salford, offered at his bedside. He even apoke about his medicine, and generally waa cheerful. But Bomewhat after seven o'clock next morning, just when day light was fitruggling to appear, there came a change. "I'll go down to tho chapel to say mass," said Dr Vaughan. "Do, thank you," Eaid the Cardinal; and these were his last words before unconsciousness overtook him. Canon Johnson, tho private secretary of His Eminence, gave the Cardinal tho last blessing of the Roman Church. Then life flowed away, and almost before Dr Vaughan had finished his celebration of mass the great prelate was with his fathers. A more touching, because so simple, death-bed scene could not bd imagined. On his sick-bed the Cardinal received intelligence of the severity of the illness of the Duke of Clarence and Avondale. With absolute self-forgetfulness he expressed his deep sorrow for the young Prince ; and later in the day, when a slight improvement in the condition of His Royal HighneßS was reported, His Eminence ejaculated, with such fervor and strength as he could command, " Thank God !" LYING IN STATE. Last night (writes one of the London • Star's' staff) I stood by the bier of Cardinal Manning in the awful quietude of tho death chamber. The thin ascetic, face, repoaiDg on its' purple, gold-fringed pillow, wore an j exquisita expression of placidity. The Cardinal must have yielded up his life in the gentlest of breaths, so sweet is the smile on his lips, so supremely contented is the iook he wears. A priestly garb clothed the shrunken, emaciated figure. Above the face rose the dome - like, ugly mitre of his ep'uoopal office, the Cardinal's ring adorned his gloved right hand, and at his feet lay the great hat of the cardinalate. Henry Edward Manning goes i to his grave woaring the harness he wore in i life—the alb, the chasuble, and the stole of his priestly functions. The Cardinal lay on a large purple-velvet cushion fringed with gold, whilst another cushion of smaller size I supported his bead. The Cardinal looked as if he were asleep. The ugly head cloth keeping the lower jiw in its place had been removed, and the worn intellectual profile stood oat dear cut and pronounced. Then I noticed that the hands were joined over the breast, the upraised finger, lips touching, in a pathetio attitudo of prayer. The hands were encased in purple gloves. Purple, purple everywhere, from the wall hangings to the Cardinal's shoes and gloves. I had expected to see a whole heap of flowers and wreaths, but there was not one. An edict had gone forth against the use of flowers in the death chamber, THE FDNEEAL. A chill black fog hung over London yesterday whilst the obsequies of the great Cardinal were being celebrated with much magnificence at the Oratory. It lasted till all was over at Kensal Green, and then as the mourners turned homewards suddedly lifted. The afternoon remained grey and quiet, but the heavy pall of mourning, symbolised by a blackness that oould be felt had disappeared, and people took up the burden of life again more cheerfully. The orowde that followed the funeral procession through the streets were transformed into a multitude at the oemetery. The dusk was dosing in, and the

ohill wintry look of everything added a deeper pathos to the scent. The light was dim as the bishops, priests, afld monks took their station round the grave. A great bf asi cross shone out through the gloom, and the next moment the gleaming brass of the coffin mountings scintillated and flashed as the bearers, with slow and reverent step, carried the dead Cardinal to his restingplace. There was a solemn hush for a brief space, and then began the sorrowful dirge. 1 fiesurreotio sum et vita,' sang the choir of priests. Intenseandexquisiteasthemusicwas intheOratory, it waseven moreexquisitenow. As the 'Requiem asternam'welled forth, a harsh, grating sound breaking rudely in upon the flow of melody told that the coffin was sinking to its rest. A mellow light from a hundred tapers half dispelled the gloom. Incense rose in delicate spirals to the roof, The profound love in which the Catholio priesthood held the Cardinal was evidenced by the painful emotion around. The officiating Bishop (Clifton) recited the prayers for the dead in a voice in which " tears were audible," and not a few of the devoted clerics were weeping. WITHOUT MONEY AND WITHOUT DEI3T3. Twice in his life large gifts of money were pressed on Cardinal Manning by bis flock, and, besides, many wealthy persons made him their almoner. Addressing a meeting on the occasion of hia episcopal jubilee in 1890, His Eminence Baid: " Much has passed through my hands in these twentyfive year*}. Nothing has stayed under this roof—all has gone to the work entrusted to me. My desire is to die as a priest ought—without money and without debts, He has done so.

Though a Roman Catholic, Manning was by far the most influential cleric in England, Promoters of popular or philanthropic movements could do without the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London's support, but the countenance of the Cardinal was essential. Mr Stead knew this—no one better—and before he entered on the " Maiden Tribute " campaign he sounded Dr Manning. Whether the latter would have said "Tell the truth" hod he realised what a garbled, distorted, and exaggerated version of " facts " the enterprising editor had got hold of is, I Bhould aay, doubtful; but His Eminence stack firmly to the journalist in his direst need, and prevented him from being smothered in his own muck-heap. " The main facts arc, true, and legislation is required," His Eminence persisted to a great statesman who was rather rudely censuring him for giving support) to sensation-monger-ing. " If," wound up the noble Earl, "you'd come to mo, I could have told you the entire story was a tissue of fabrications." " My Lord," replied Manning, " I required no information on this subject. You forget I am a priest, and for thirty years heard many confessions daily." The Cardinal had influence everywhere, and sometimes would beneficently exert it. At the time of the last Egyptian trouble a certain young militia officer, a friend of Dr Manning, was most anxious to take part in the campaign, and mentioned the fact casually to His Eminence. In spite of the War Office necessarily refusing numberless applications for permission to serve, this youth was, three weeks later, at Cairo, where ho produced credentials which made the military authorities wink and blink again, especially as he was a Brown or Jones or Robinson without soc'al or political importance. The young man could fight, however, and eventually gravitated into the army proper, of which he ia now a distinguished ornament. HIS SENSE OF HUMOB. Cardinal Manning had plenty of humor and a very respectable stock of good stories. One which he told with great relish referred to his Vicar-General, Bishop Bramsto.ie, whose portrait hung in the dining room at the Palace. "A Catholic gentleman," quoth His Eminence, " once came to Bramstone and asked him to find him a wife, explaining that the lady mußt be pious, rich, beautiful, and of a suitable age. 'Sir,' replied the Bishop sternly, ' you appear to have mistaken my name. It is Bramslone, not Brimstone. I do not make matches.'" PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS, In all his personal habits save one (love of warmth) the Cardinal was as ascetic as Newman. He felt the cold (says a writer in the 'St. Jatneß's') very much as he grew older, and he laughingly compared his favorite room, which was always kept at a high temperature, to the warmer regions of the south. " This is my Riviera," he used to repeat, "and I need not travel five or six hundred miles to get there," In a private letter he say 8: "When the sun comes back, in the time when kings go out to battle, I will come to you "; and in a later one: "The kiDga have all gone forth to battle, but I dare not venture out yet." That his own simplicity of living amounted almost to asceticism is well known; and the tall venerable figure, bent with age, clad in the long black cassock, the thin keen face with its piercing eyes, surmounted by the pink birotta, formed a picture not easily forgotten. Regarding him, as far as it is possible to do so, apart from his great ecclesiastical position, he was, as before said, preeminently an Englishman; next to this, what he was most proud of was that he was an Oxford man. A POWERFUL SKETCU. The extraordinary woman who writos uuder the pseudonym of " John Law," and whoso rather repellaut story of Salvation Army life, called' Captain Lobb,' I recently mentioned to you, sends to the * Pall Mall Gazette' the following:— " My best friend is dead. The last timo I saw the Cardinal was a few days before Christmas. I waited for him in tho big room besido the chapel, and while sitting thero I noticed how old tho furniture was getting. The chair I sat in had lost an arm, and the armchair by the fire had lost a leg. The carpet was Very old, and so was tho table-cloth, A new face had met me at the door. Faithful old Newman, the butler who had served the Cardinal so long, who had been with Cardinal Wiseman, had died a few weeks previously ; and the footman had fallen down dead on the staircase while showing a visitor upstairs. I knew tho faces of those two tervants so well 1 While I was thinking about them the Cardinal came into the room. He wolked briskly to the fireplace, and would have eat down in tho armchair with the broken leg had I not drawn his attention to it. • How well you look,' I said to him. He answered 'I feel it.' Then he began to talk about labor questions, ' Tell Mr Charles Booth that I want to make his acquaintance,' he said. ' Mr Booth's work is very important. I should like to work with him.' 'Have you seen Mr Mann?' was his next question. He looked at his thin hand with the ring on it and laughed, for this labor leader in particular had a way of wringing his hand until it aohed. ' It hurts,' the Cardinal told me, 'but I like it.' We sat beside the fire talking, and I can see him now as ho looked then. The thin face, with tho kind, gentle smile on it, the bright eyes that showed his brave spirit, the clear, distinct words spoken in a low voice. These things come back to me now, and I know that ho was more than a lather to me, although he had so many to think about, and he held such a unique position in England, He was fir*t and Englishman and then a priest; and we, the heretics, forgot this latter part of the business. People will never know all that Cardinal Manning did for individuals. The peer and the docker went to him for advice, and no one was turned away. ' How do you find time for it all ?' I asked him once. ' I make time,' he «< There iB near London a Dominican convent the prioress of which knew Cardinal Manning before he became a Catholic. She speaks of the time 'when we all went over'; and how she visited Mr Manning, who was then a Puseyite clergyman, to tell him that she must join the Catholic Church as she no longer believed in the Church of England. I He told her to kneel for his blessing, and she refused to accept it. Six months after that Cardinal Manning became a Catholic. A wonderful friendship existed from that day forth between this nun, Cardinal Manning, and Cardinal Newman. Once a year, until quite lately, the two Cardinals used to meet at the convent and talk of the time «when we all went over.' Tea was placed in the little bare room, where Cardinal Newman's books are arranged in onpboards, and Cardinal Manning's photograph hangs on the wall. ' Bring a loaf,' Cardinal Newman used to say after the thin bread and butter was finished, This talk over old times always gave him an appetite. 11 At the time of the dock (strike I hap-

pened to be at the Wade Aims* when a general strike was suggested. That night I could not sleep; for I thought if the gasstokers were called ont, and London was left in darkness, there might be bloodshed. Before eight o'olock the next morning I went to Cardinal Manning's house, ilo was in bed. "' Religion ?' asked old Newman, pointing to the ohapel. • No,' I replied,«pofitios.' "' The Cardinal isn't as young as he was,' said Newman, thoughtfully. • Never mind,' I answered, ' you mast send him np this note with his breakfast.' " Half an hour later I saw Cardinal Man' ning, and explained to him that I thought the Lord Mayor and fche Home Secretary ought to be told the state of things in East London. Then I went away to fetch a list of the dock directors. When I came back he was say log mass, I spent a long quarter of an hour looking at a book of saints. After that I had the satisfaction of seeing him drive off to the city in his carriage. " * How did you feel when the men cheered you ?' I naked him af terwafds. "«An Englishman,' he said, smiling. From that time he took a keen interest in labor questions, sympathising with the men and their leaders, but always counselling patience, insisting on law and order. Letters oatne to him about labor questions from all parts of the world. He read every item of labor news, and knew more about union meetings than the men did themselves. The Labor Commission interested him very much. He followed alt the evidence. Up to the very last he was busy writing about these things, seeing deputations, and advising individuals. •" I am heart and soul with fbc workers,' he wrote to me just before Christmas. His successor may be more popular with Citholics; for Cardinal Manning was punctilious with the faithful, and very strict with his nuns and prießta, 1 have seen the Catholics in his ante-room, have watched them kneeling to kiss his ring, and I have rejoiced in my heresies. •*' Pride has kept you from religion,' he once said to me; ' and from sin,' he added. "I looked up, and I saw that his eyes were full of tears. Of course, he was by nature an ascetic. This fact made him a priest; for Nature rules people in these things. But he knew tho world, the flesh, and the devil very well; and he gave to each its right place. He judged people by their temperament and their surroundings; and his judgment was just. If he said harsh things it was because this treatment alone would take effeot. He always preferred to use kindness. He is E[one from ub ; but he will not be forgotten. The patients in the London Hospital, whore he endowed a bed, the dock laborers, and the heretics will keep his memory fresh and green when he lies in the grave. Such a cardinal will never be seen in England again. But he will be * the Cardinal' with the English, and • our Cardinal 1 with the few who forgot the priest and loved the man." AN ANGLO JEWISH TRIBET'£, Can we Jews, too, ever forget his advocacy of tho rights of our Rusaian brethren ? He did not wait until their cause became popular, but be headed the movement in their behalf, and by action and speech contributed to its success. Despite his advanced age, he personally interested himself in the work of the Mansion House relief fund, The address presented to him on his recent ordination jubilee by the Jews of England was a slight acknowledgment of their gratitude. Manning's religion was not confined to the duties of his offioe and his own communion. And what is possible for Buch a prelate to accomplish makes one hopeful of the future. In paving the way for the great cathedral of humanity forerunners are needed to preach the text of brotherhood without distinction of creed. The old Hebrew prophets were men of this type, and Manning was not far removed from them. Let no Hebrew be narrow enough not to recognise hie debt to the gentle Catholic.