DEATH OF CARDINAL VAUGHAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12303, 22 June 1903, Page 5

DEATH OF CARDINAL VAUGHAN.

„—_ «» ——-* ';' " :-' By Telegraph.—Press Aawciatioo.-Coß'rrlsH (Received June 21. 5.30 p.m.) - ■Lond'ok, Jane 21.-. His Eminence Cardinal Hebeest Vaug,iian, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, is dead. CHARACTER sketch. Cardinal V&ughan wan bora at Gloucester on April 15, 1832. He belched to on© of %wm old county famUle3 which have through) many generations stood fast by the Church of Rome, in evil as well as in good report. Ho was educated at Stcnyharst and all a college in Belgium, and was originally designed to follow ids fathers profession. Bat then* is a particularly strong ecclesiastical bent in the family. Five of his brothers chose the priestly career, and have all risen to positions of inrtuciice and dignity, one. Roger', dying Areholshop of Sydney. En had also three; uncles in the priesthood, It is not strange, therefore, that he himself should have chosen the sacred calling. To fit himself for it fco entered St Gregory'%, hownrfue, in 18149, and after a course of study at Rome was ordained priest in 1854, being appointed Vice-President of St. Edmund's College, near Ware, Herts, im the following; year. From the first, we are told, lie felt keen interest in the heathen, under British rule. lu one sense this was shown by many a subsequent utterance of his to have been a particularly character" i&tio feeling;. He many a time cava utterance to his sens* of the mission entrusted to the Angle-Saxon race to bear aloft the torch of civilisation, and perhaps he was never more eloquent, because never more giving utterance to his inmost convictions, than when speaking in this sense, " This Englishspeaking race," be once finely said, " has been endowed by God with certain natural virtues and qualities, by aid of which it haa built un the stupendous Colossus of the British Empire. This race, so prolific by, nature, so enterprising in character, to steady in colonising and filling an the vacant regions of the earth, sc law-abiding by instinct and discipline,, so imperial in dominion and control, so sympathetic »nd reasonable in it 3 dealing with human nature —in spite of atrocities which have disgraced and still disgrace our name—this Knglisltl race lias been able to settle down among all kinds of peoples abroad, and to govern them with the smallest appeal to physical strength and the largest trust in the efficacy of moral force and common sense."

If it was natural that the man who had this strong sense of the imperial vocation of his race should think first and most of the heathen under British rule, it must not be supposed that his missionary aspirations were limited by' the bounds of the British Empire On the contrary, when he actually engaged in the work of evangelisation, it was among the coloured population of the State of Maryland. The first encouragement he received to consecrate his energies to missionary ■work was from Cardinal Wiseman. who sent him to Rome with a commendatory letter to the Pope. Then, taking with him the Papal blessing, ho travelled in North and South America to collect funds. Recalled to England by the man whom he was destined to succead on the archiepiscopal throne, be purchased a house at Mil) Hill and converted' it into a Missionary Training College, with, a single student. It was a small beginning! of a considerable work. Before long larger premises became necessary, and in 1871 the present handsome college, one of the landmarks of this part of the country, waa opened. Ho was now free to\ a more important post, and the call was not long in coming. In 1372 the see of Salford became vacant, and he was preferred to it, though he was? allowed to retain the office of SuperiorOencral of the Missionary Society which owed' its existence to his efforts. At Salford he did not fail to make his mark. Ho threw himself energetically into the movement for improving the dwellings of the poor, became prominent also as a champion of denominational education, and earnestly advocated the cause of temperance, though he was not allowed by his medical adviser permanently to remain an actual abstainer. He had been' Bishop of Salford about 20 years when he was summoned to the highest office which the Pone has at disposal in England. # That His Eminence owed nothing to his extremely influential associations' It would be unreasonable to affirm; but the mere fact of h's elevation to the Archbishopric of Westminster is sufficient proof, to those who know anvthing at all of Roman policy and practice, that he "had the capacity to perform the important and responsible duties belonging to the post. For from those whom she appoints to boar rule the Church rigorously exacts offlolencv. And if His Eminence waa no incompetent administrator, neitho. was he wantiuc in capacity as a preacher. A deep and original thinker, a brilliant rhetorician, an orator who can play upon the feelings of hig hearers as a skilled musician upon his instrument, he never pretended to be. Bat he had a presence and bearing of singala.r distinction—not the spiritual elevation of his aecetio and paintlv predecessor, but the dignity of a nature which had inherited refinement of taste and the instinct of command from many generations of ancestors. Like most of the preachers of his communion, he trained himself to nreach without the aid of MS. His command of language was adequate, and he had the distinction of enunciation which is one of the best services that elocution can do the preacher or speaker. ' On his transference to Westminster, Cardinal Vaughan did not merely make pla'n his attitude towards Socialism, but c&'tiwd ?nme stir in theological circles by his frank decoration against the validity of Anglican orders, and hv what he said about tho return of England to the Church of Rome. On this latter tonic His Eminence was only in effect repeating Ids remarkable deliverance while Bishop of Salford. Conscious that the conversion of England was the despair of many a good Roman Catholic, the Bishop set himself specially to encourage his co-religionists to hope for this great consummation. - Ton are dreaming." he represented an objector afl saving, "you are raving. T* talk of the conversion of England is childish babble, Tom are not two out of 27,000,000 of the population. You lose thousands of youi poor throughi the workhouse svstein and proselvtisra lor hundreds vou gain in the upper classes. in,** nlv. he compared the altitude or fangland towards the Roman Church during the last 300 vears with its position towards he*, to-day. and showed how closelv Dr. Vaughon watched what was going on in the Church or England, declaring that Catholic doctrines and practices are being reinstated all over the land, and the old heresies, cast out. The arch has been turned, the keystone alone W V " Westminster Cathedral, a vast and stately edifice in the Byzantine style, of which Wm first stone was laid by Cardinals Vaughaw and Logne. on June 29, 1895, is now nearly Cardinal Vatnrhan recently selected th» Right Rev. the Hon. A. C. Stanley, a connection of the Earl of Derby, and an ez-clergy--man of the Church of England, as his assiaV rait bishop. Thiis may be taken, perhaps, 00 an indication of his personal preference «fl % his successor. '■ ■■:%■'■