it also contributed new distinction and new strength to the Roman Communion. Converts like Faber threw themselves, with the convert's proverbial intensity, into the most extreme of Roman devotions, legends, and principles; much to the amazement and disgust of the old-fashioned Romans, who found themselves regarded with coldness and indifference, as half-Catholic, at Rome, while the zealous converted extremists basked in the sunshine of Rome's approval. There is no little irony in the situation. The Vicar Apostolic of the London district warned Newman on his conversion against "books of devotion of the Italian School."[1] Faber reproduced the most Italianised lives of the saints. Bishop Ullathorne of Birmingham, himself of old Roman family, considered these Italian compositions unsuited to this country. Newman, as Superior of the Oratory, wrote to Faber, describing them as "unsuited to England and unacceptable to Protestants."[2] Accordingly the publications ceased. But Wiseman's exertions to promote Ultramontanism within the Roman Communion continued, and were most successful. Here is a letter of approval written to the Cardinal from influential quarters in Rome:—
"I can say that you have been the instrument under God, to Romanise England. … You have been able to change the whole feeling of the rising clergy, and to instil into the laity what Roman principles they possess."[3]
But if Wiseman "changed the feeling of the rising clergy," this was not done without desperate struggles on the part of the older clergy. Wiseman, whose insight into human nature was of the scantiest, chose
