"Reasons for and against my Dining out in London. "For.-I. Time to remove certain anti-Catholic prejudices. "2. Sometimes an opportunity to do some positive good-but this not often. "3. Opportunity to make acquaintance with public men and with persons exercising influence. This is a very practical and positive advantage. My office and work needs such acquaintances and their goodwill. 4. Example of Our Lord, who during His public life left us an example of this kind. "5. Possessing but very few gifts, I ought to utilise such as I have for God's service-e.g., a certain manner and presence that, rendering me acceptable in general society, help to conciliate the goodwill of non-Catholics towards me and the religion I represent. "6. Having undertaken to work upon public opinion and to mix with men-is not this one of the most important ways of carrying this out? "7. I do not find that dining out dissipates my mind or exercises any sinister influence over me. I cannot, therefore, say that it is a temptation or a danger which I should shun. "8. To accept an invitation may sometimes be a real act of charity. It may be my only way of repaying a person for great service or charity to the Church—it may be a highly esteemed commendation of them, &c., &c. "9. There are people in great position, e.g., a Minister, an Ambassador, a Royal personage, a great traveller, or man of science, whose goodwill it is important to obtain. I am asked to a quiet dinner to meet them. If I refuse I shall have no other opportunity of effecting the good that seemed to be placed within my reach by the designs of Providence. Is it right and reasonable in me to lay down a rule for Providence, viz., that God may not invite me to influence any one between the hours of 8 and II p.m. over a dinner-table ? Am I to lay it down that a dinner-table is so opposed to the life I ought to lead, and is of such bad example, that I must conclude that God will never lead me, or desire me to do work for Him in this way? If yes then ought He not to have made me a monk, and given me a rule which forbids such dining out? If on the contrary He has left me free, is it not in order that I should use this freedom, wisely and rarely, according to what may appear to be His Will? "10. As to my occupations during these dinners, ¿.e., in times of silence during dinner, and after-as also in driving to and fro the whole of such time is taken up in aspirations, or in thoughts about God, or souls, or in acts of Divine Love. This seems to show that there is no great danger or attraction for me in these parties-the worst is some sensuality in eating and drinking from time to time, but this does not go very far and is not habitual. "Against.-1. Our Lord's example was evidently rare and exceptional-was certainly not an affair of even once a week. "2. The Vicars of Christ never dine out. "3. St. Charles Borromeo gave dinners indeed, and on certain occasions attended public dinners-but he never ate at them himself. "4. Cardinal Fransoni, Prefect of Propaganda, strongly dissuaded the clergy from dining out. Those Cardinals and Bishops who have a character for greater sanctity and for greater zeal in their work rarely dine out. "5. The laity, especially non-Catholics, who delight in dining out will certainly attribute my habit of dining out to the same motives of pleasure, or of worldliness, which animate them. Such an example is not, therefore, a good one to set before them. "6. My example will be followed by those of my clergy who may have a taste for society. Some will see a special reason for the Archbishop dining out, but more will see a taste for pleasure indulged, and an example given to them to do likewise. My conduct will influence many beyond my own diocese-and beyond the period of my own lifetime, which will soon close. When I went out to dinner in Rome, during Lent, one of the students said playfully, 'The Cardinal has written a little book on the sanctification of Lent, and I intend to get it and follow his example.' "7. Perhaps a better impression (religious impression will be made on the public mind by its being known that the Cardinal does not dine out, than that he is an amiable and agreeable guest wherever he goes. "8. Health will be promoted-and so far work-by avoiding these dinners and their late hours. "9. There is no doubt in my own mind but that a considerable part of the three or four hours covered by these dinners and receptions would be otherwise spent by me in prayer, spiritual reading, and work belonging to my office, and also in bed. I should probably become more spiritually-minded and therefore able to exercise a more spiritual influence in what I say, write, and do, than if I gave myself to the kind of apostolate which I might exercise in dining out. "I incline to the following conclusions : "I. Erase the rule that twice a week I am free to dine out. "2. Refuse all ordinary invitations. "3. Reserve the right to accept certain invitations, whether of Catholics or Protestants, for exceptional reasons, each to be judged on its own merits. “4. Accept certain public dinners-but not all of them --but a sufficient number to keep in touch with such public men as one meets at such dinners. Comparatively few politicians of mark go to the Hospital and Charity dinners. "N.B.-Number 3 is a very elastic clause and will need watching." It makes one feel guilty of eavesdropping to read words so intimate-words intended by the writer to meet no eye but his own. And yet surely they lay bare for us the true spirit of the man, and show us what it is very good for us to see, and what, therefore, very certainly, he would now wish us to see! Possibly some hostess who thought Cardinal Vaughan distrait, or preoccupied, or dull, may think more kindly of his memory when she learns how the pauses in the talk of the dinner-table were filled. Ꭰ CHAPTER II THE EDUCATION OF THE PRIEST LL his life Cardinal Vaughan was intensely interested in everything which concerned the education and training of the clergy. It was a subject that had filled his thoughts while still a student in Rome. He was no sooner ordained than he set off to make a journey of inspection and inquiry among the great ecclesiastical seminaries of the Continent. On his return to England it was his primary work as Vice-President of St. Edmund's, Old Hall, one of the three ecclesiastical seminaries which then sufficed for the whole of England. When he was Bishop busy life he never lost of Salford, amid all the cares of a sight of, or allowed his interest to diminish in, this supreme question, and he found time to set forth his matured views in an elaborate essay which he published as a preface to the Life of the Blessed John Baptist de Rossi in 1882. And his love of this theme lasted till the end. When the poor, tired, cramped fingers could hardly hold a pen he was still painfully working on a book which as an unfinished treatise was published after his death under the title of The Young Priest. The first thing, then, which naturally challenged his attention on his arrival at Westminster was the condition of the Diocesan Seminary. But to understand the nature |