FOUR GREAT ENGLISH CARDINALS

New Zealand Tablet, 20 May 1915, Page 9

FOUR GREAT ENGLISH CARDINALS

A lecture on ' Four English Cardinals' by Mr. Wilfrid Ward, of London, was given recently in the auditorium and halls of St. Ambrose College, Davenport, lowa. The lecture was given under the auspices of the lowa Lecture Bureau of the Knights of Columbus. Mr. Ward was a personal friend of Cardinal Manning, Cardinal Newman and Cardinal Vaughan. Cardinal Wiseman he remembered as a boy. Cardinal Wiseman, whose promotion to the Sacred College in 1850 was simultaneous with the re-establish-ment of the hierarchy in England, was a man of broad tastes and learning, a theologian, a musician, a connoisseur of art; he was, too, a man versed in natural science, archaeology, and Oriental studies. In spite of his studies and labors, however, Mr. Ward says, he never lost his boyishness. But if it could be said of Cardinal Wiseman that he was always a boy, it must be said of Cardinal Manning that he had never been a boy. He was the antithesis of his predecessor, with almost no sense of humor or ear for music, but no less a scholar and orator. The real Cardinal Vaughan has been known to the world only since his death. During life he had been thought proud and domineering, but his letters and journals have revealed him as a man of genuine piety and sincere humility. He was, in every sense of the word, a priest, a man of unfailing courage and zeal for justice and truth. Cardinal Newman, whom Mr. Ward esteems the most distinguished convert to Catholicism during the nineteenth century, was, during the years he dominated the life of Oxford, of wonderful cheerfulness and buoyancy. 'He always wore a smile.' Later, when Mr Ward met him, disappointments and opposition had left in his extremely sensitive soul a touch of sadness. The charm of his conversation lingered in the mind of Mr. Ward's father long after their Oxford days were over. To his wonderful gift of sympathv Mr. Ward attributed in a large measure his great influence. He appealed to the heart as well as to the head. He seemed to live always in the presence of God.