Memoir of His Eminence Cardinal Wiseman

Book excerpt: Excerpt from Memoir of His Eminence Cardinal Wiseman: First Archbishop of Westminster, &C. &C Nearly a century has elapsed since the first attempt was made by the Legislature of England to relieve the Catholics of this country from the penal laws under which they had been oppressed since the "Reformation." The Relief Bill was followed by a storm of popular frenzy and violence, and the Metropolis was for some days delivered up to mob law. It seemed almost hopeless to expect that any further measures would be taken to grant civil rights to the depressed and insignificant body who still remained firm in their attachment to the old faith. At this juncture the Almighty's scourge fell upon a neighbouring nation, and England, who ignored and oppressed her Catholic subjects at home, opened wide her arms to receive the bands of foreign professors of that faith who fled from the tyranny of an infidel oligarchy. In return for this hospitality shown to hundreds of pious, learned, and zealous ecclesiastics, the Almighty would seem to have chosen them to commence the great work of rekindling the faith in this country, which had been brought to our Saxon forefathers by the Roman Augustine at the word of Pope Gregory. While the French refugees were at their holy labours, from the mansions of the noble and wealthy to the obscure alleys of our cities and towns, Divine Providence called forth a child from a famed city of the distant peninsula to return to the land of his fathers to prepare to take his part in the great religious revival of the commencement of the century, and to become at the middle of it the first Primate of the restored hierarchy. This child - the subject of this memoir - was Nicholas Wiseman, son of the late James Wiseman, merchant, of Waterford and of Seville, in which latter city he was born on the 2nd of August, 1802. The family of Wiseman is one of considerable antiquity, and they appear to have had lands in the county of Essex since the reign of Edward IV. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.