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VIII



IN 1875; Manning's labours received their final reward: he was

made a Cardinal。 His long and strange career; with its high

hopes; its bitter disappointments; its struggles; its

renunciations; had come at last to fruition in a Princedom of the

Church。 'Ask in faith and in perfect confidence;' he himself once

wrote; and God will give us what we ask。 You may say; 〃But do you

mean that He will give us the very thing?〃 That; God has not

said。 God has said that He will give you whatsoever you ask; but

the form in which it will come; and the time in which He will

give it; He keeps in His own power。 Sometimes our prayers are

answered in the very things which we put from us; sometimes it

may be a chastisement; or a loss; or a visitation against which

our hearts rise; and we seem to see that God has not only

forgotten us; but has begun to deal with us in severity。 Those

very things are the answers to our prayers。 He knows what we

desire; and He gives us the things for which we ask; but in the

form

which His own Divine Wisdom sees to be best。'



There was one to whom Manning's elevation would no doubt have

given a peculiar satisfactionhis old friend Monsignor Talbot。

But this was not to be。 That industrious worker in the cause of

Rome had been removed some years previously to a sequestered home

at Passy; whose padded walls were impervious to the rumours of

the outer world。 Pius IX had been much afflicted by this

unfortunate event; he had not been able to resign himself to the

loss of his secretary; and he had given orders that Monsignor

Talbot's apartment in the Vatican should be preserved precisely

as he had left it; in case of his return。 But Monsignor Talbot

never returned。 Manning's feelings upon the subject appear to

have been less tender than the Pope's。 In all his letters; in all

his papers; in all his biographical memoranda; not a word of

allusion is to be found to the misfortune; nor to the death; of

the most loyal of his adherents。 Monsignor Talbot's name

disappears suddenly and for ever like a stone cast into the

waters。



Manning was now an old man; and his outward form had assumed that

appearance of austere asceticism which is; perhaps; the one thing

immediately suggested by his name to the ordinary Englishman。 The

spare and stately form; the head massive; emaciated; terrible

with the great nose; the glittering eyes; and the mouth drawn

back and compressed into the grim rigidities of age; self…

mortification; and authoritysuch is the vision that still

lingers in the public mind the vision which; actual and

palpable

like some embodied memory of the Middle Ages; used to pass and

repass; less than a generation since; through the streets of

London。 For the activities of this extraordinary figure were

great and varied。 He ruled his diocese with the despotic zeal of

a born administrator。 He threw himself into social work of every

kind; he organised charities; he lectured on temperance; he

delivered innumerable sermons; he produced an unending series of

devotional books。 And he brooked no brother near the throne:

Newman languished in Birmingham; and even the Jesuits trembled

and obeyed。



Nor was it only among his own community that his energy and his

experience found scope。 He gradually came to play an important

part in public affairs; upon questions of labour; poverty; and

education。 He sat on Royal Commissions and corresponded with

Cabinet Ministers。 At last; no philanthropic meeting at the

Guildhall was considered complete without the presence of

Cardinal Manning。 A special degree of precedence was accorded to

him。 Though the rank of a Cardinal…Archbishop is officially

unknown in England; his name appeared in public documents as a

token; it must be supposed; of personal consideration above the

names of peers and bishops; and immediately below that of the

Prince of Wales。



In his private life he was secluded。 The ambiguities of his

social position; and his desire to maintain intact the peculiar

eminence of his office; combined to hold him aloof from the

ordinary gatherings of society; though on the rare occasions of

his appearance among fashionable and exalted persons; he carried

all before him。 His favourite haunt was the Athenaeum Club; where

he sat scanning the newspapers; or conversing with the old

friends of former days。 He was a member; too; of that

distinguished body; the Metaphysical Society; which met once a

month during the palmy years of the seventies to discuss; in

strict privacy; the fundamental problems of the destiny of man。



After a comfortable dinner at the Grosvenor Hotel; the Society;

which included Professor Huxley and Professor Tyndall; Mr。 John

Morley and Sir James Stephen; the Duke of Argyll; Lord Tennyson;

and Dean Church; would gather around to hear and discuss a paper

read by one of the members upon such questions as: 'What is

death?' 'Is God unknowable?' or 'The nature of the Moral

Principle'。 Sometimes; however; the speculations of the Society

ranged in other directions。 'I think the paper that interested me

most of all that were ever read at our meetings;' says Sir

Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant…Duff; 'was one on 〃Wherein consists

the special beauty of imperfection and decay?〃 in which were

propounded the questions 〃Are not ruins recognised and felt to be

more beautiful than perfect structures? Why are they so? Ought

they to be so?' ' Unfortunately; however; the answers given to

these questions by the Metaphysical Society have not been

recorded for the instruction of mankind。



Manning read several papers; and Professor Huxley and Mr。 John

Morley listened with attention while he expressed his views upon

'The Soul before and after Death'; or explained why it is 'That

legitimate Authority is an Evidence of Truth'。 Yet; somehow or

other; his Eminence never felt quite at ease in these assemblies;

he was more at home with audiences of a different kind; and we

must look in other directions for the free and full manifestation

of his speculative gifts。



In a series of lectures; for instance; delivered in 1861it was

the first year of the unification of Italy upon 'The Present

Crisis

of the Holy See; tested by prophecy'; we catch some glimpses of

the

kind of problems which were truly congenial to his mind。 'In the

following

pages;' he said; 'I have endeavoured; but for so great a subject

most

insufficiently; to show that what is passing in our times is the

prelude of the antichristian period of the final dethronement of

Christendom; and of the restoration of society without God in

the world。' 'My intention is;' he continued; 'to examine the

present relation of the Church to the civil powers of the world

by the light of a prophecy recorded by St Paul。' This prophecy (2

Thess。 ii 3 to 11) is concerned with the coming of the

Antichrist;

and the greater part of the lectures is devoted to a minute

examination of this subject。 There is no passage in Scripture;

Manning pointed out; relating to the coming of Christ more

explicit and express than those foretelling Antichrist; it

therefore behoved the faithful to consider the matter more fully

than they are wont to do。 In the first place; Antichrist is a

person。 'To deny the personality of Antichrist is to deny the

plain testimony of Holy Scripture。' And we must remember that 'it

is a law of Holy Scripture that when persons are prophesied of;

persons appear'。



Again; there was every reason to believe that Antichrist; when he

did

appear; would turn out to be a Jew。 'Such was the opinion of St。

Irenaeus; St。 Jerome; and of the author of the work De

Consummatione

Mundi; ascribed to St。 Hippolytus; and of a writer of a

Commentary

on the Epistle to the Thessalonians; ascribed to St。 Ambrose; of

many

others; who said that he will be of the tribe of Dan: as; for

instance;

St。 Gregory the Great; Theodoret; Aretas of Caesarea; and many

more。 Such

also is the opinion of Bellarmine; who calls it certain。 Lessius

affirms that

the Fathers; with unanimous consent; teach as undoubted that

Antichrist will be a Jew。 Ribera repeats the same opinion; and

adds that Aretas; St。 Bede; Haymo; St。 Anselm; and Rupert affirm

that for this reason the tribe of Dan is not numbered among those

who are sealed in the Apocalypse。。。   Now; I think no one can

consider the dispersion and providential preservation of the Jews

among all the nations of the world and the indestructible

vitality of their race without believing that they are reserved

for some future action of His judgment and Grace。 And this is

foretold again and again in the New Testament。'



'Our Lord;' continued Manning; widening the sweep of his

speculations; 'has said of these latter times: 〃There shall arise

false Christs and false prophets; insomuch as to deceive even

the elect〃; that is; they shall not be deceived; but those who

have lost faith in 

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