Oxford movement more deeply than any
other Catholic. As director of the chief literary organ of Catholics
during a quarter of a century he rendered services to our literature,
and overcame difficulties, which none are in a better position to
appreciate than those who are engaged in a similar work. And as
President of Oscott, he acquired the enduring gratitude of hundreds who
owed to his guidance the best portion of their training.

These personal relations with English Catholics, which have made him a
stranger to none and a benefactor to all, have at the same time given
him an authority of peculiar weight amongst them. With less unity of
view and tradition than their brethren in other lands, they were
accustomed, in common with the rest of Englishmen, to judge more
independently and to speak more freely than is often possible in
countries more exclusively Catholic. Their minds are not all cast in the
same mould, nor their ideas derived from the same stock; but all alike,
from bishop to layman, identify their cause with that of the Cardinal,
and feel that, in the midst of a hostile people, no diversity of opinion
ought to interfere with unity of action, no variety of interest with
identity of feeling, no controversy with the universal reverence which
is due to the position and character of the Archbishop of Westminster.

In this spirit the Catholic body have received Cardinal Wiseman's latest
publication--his "Reply to the Address of his Clergy on his return from
Rome." He speaks in it of the great assemblage of the Episcopate, and of
their address to the Holy Father. Among the bishops there present he
was the most conspicuous, and he was President of the Commission to
which the preparation of their address was intrusted. No account of it,
therefore, can be more authentic than that which he is able to give. The
reserve imposed by his office, and by the distinguished part he had to
bear, has been to some extent neutralised by the necessity of refuting
false and exaggerated rumours which were circulated soon after the
meeting, and particularly two articles which appeared in _The Patrie_ on
the 4th and 5th of July, and in which it was stated that the address
written by Cardinal Wiseman contained "most violent attacks on all the
fundamental principles of modern society."

After replying in detail to the untruths of this newspaper, the Cardinal
proceeds as follows:--

With far greater pain I feel compelled to advert to