The Spirit of Father Faber

Father Faber (who, on his deathbed asked for Donbey), is himself, in some sort, a spiritual Dickens. Of all devotional writers, of the nineteenth century and in England, Faber is the most vital; and, if he is the most heavenly, he is also the most human. Even the critic who lays a detecting finger on a page of false sentiment presently feels the throb of a living sympathy beneath the letters. Indeed, lacking such sympathy, Dickens and Faber could not have achieved their truth to type-to such various types. Fecundity of fancy and of expression they had in common; and each, in his writing wore out, not his pen only, but the fibres of his feeling heart. "The child of his mother's prayers" was born in the June of 1814, at the Yorkshire vicarage of Calverley, and went duly to Shrewsbury, to Harrow, and to Oxford. His link-not always a very fast one-with Newman began in those eager days. At first he was drawn to the Oxford Movement, yet also repelled by it; but after his ordination the reflections of a quiet country rectory developed all that, vas Catholic in him. He was received into the Roman Church in the November of 1845. When Newman established the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Binningham, Faber became the head of the London Community, founding in King William Street, and then in Brompton, the Oratory which yet enshrines his spirit. Son of St. Philip, Apostle of Rome, he there, by voice and pen, became, what he must remain, the APOSTLE OF LONDON. Of the many books he wrote, the present volume preserves the essence. In so vast a bulk of writing as was his may be found much that is superfluous, many repetitions, some contradictions. But there is one animating spirit throughout, and that is Love. Love is all his motive power. There is nothing mechanical about his piety. It is all feeling. Men are his fellows. He invites where others drive, encourages where it is easier to scold. He says "Come" rather than" Go"; and it is just because he himself is generous that he will always receive his due. He lived to ease souls; and, in dying, promised those about him that he would pray for them that they might have " easy deaths." That is a Grace which indeed his writings, by their influence on character, have secured for myriads who never saw his face; and it IS a Grace which, he in Heaven helping, this volume shall perpetua te and extend.