Dr. Maturin wished him, however, to wait a year before going to Cowley, and to this he at once agreed. He wrote again to his father after getting his letter:

One of the chief reasons why I have always thought of entering Cowley is that I have always known and felt that I could not get on in a large town parish, or a parish where there are many gentry. I mean to say that I know it would be the destruction of me to go to such a place, for instance, as Richmond. Although I have been impatient enough in wishing to go there, yet I know I have been most providentially prevented from going. For I know the effect going about and being with people has upon me:-it utterly distracts me, and keeps me from thinking, etc. I even feel this for the short time that I go home at Xmas and summer. But then I don't think that such a feeling as this might mean [I ought] always to stay in a country parishfor I really feel that it does me harm being my own master, as I am here. I feel that I am much too cheeky in my preaching and teaching, and besides that I know very little about the management of a parish and what to do, so that I am sometimes really at my wits' end.

...

Mind, I don't look forward with feelings of the most perfect happiness at all to going to Cowley, for I know that I shall have to give up a great deal that I am very fond of-for instance, in a great measure grand services, which they have not there, and society. But there are other feelings which we can hardly explain-feelings that I get when I am alone, I mean, almost, if not altogether quite alone, which leave me when I have any company or pleasure. Even having

here in the summer, which I enjoyed most tremendously, I still felt often and often that I should have been much better if I had been alone.

I could not describe all those feelings, but I feel myself almost certain that they are a call from God to leave the world. I did not mention this to Father Grafton.

I am not very sorry that you think I ought to wait, because if you do not think it is neglecting a call from God, I am quite certain it will grow stronger and stronger the longer I wait, and that I may be more prepared when I see that it is God's will I should go.

I am quite certain your letter was an answer to prayer that I might be directed to do what is right.

I felt myself that it would be too great a blessing to think I should go at once. Don't you think that if I wait here another year, and then feel as much as I do now, that I should go, that I ought to try it?

Do you not think that there is no doubt that the Religious Life is the highest to which one can be called on earth? I always thought that there was no doubt about it, although God does not always call the best men to it, but those who will serve Him best in it. And sometimes does He not call men to be very near Himself, because they would not follow Him if they were far off ? I do feel so really that I should serve Him so much better there; and as to doing good, must not one do most good by devoting oneself entirely to His service by giving up the world?

After a little more than a year of waiting Basil Maturin entered the noviciate on February 22, 1873. Of the happiness of his life at Cowley little need be said here. He would often, to the end of his life, refer to his love for all his brethren there, and only

his most intimate friends could even distantly guess what the parting with them cost. In 1873 he wrote to his father:

I felt more and more certain the longer I waited, having especially your full consent, that it was the right thing for me to do; and from the experience of about six or seven months which I have had of the life, it has quite surpassed what I was prepared for. I have felt so perfectly happy since I have come here, though, of course, one must not rest in that. But I was quite prepared to be miserable for some time at first, which has been very far indeed from being the

case.

In 1876 he wrote to his father to say he had been chosen to begin a mission in Philadelphia. He explained in these letters that America and England are no distance apart, and that they were not to be distressed at his being sent. 'I shall be very disappointed if I don't get cheerful letters and if I hear Mamma has been weeping, as there is really nothing to be in the least put out about.'

He was greatly relieved by the answers he received from every member of the family:

I got all your letters this afternoon and feel so thankful at the way you have all been enabled to take the news-which of course must have been a great trial. Not one word of murmuring, which indeed I might have guessed.

And so with at any rate feigned certainty of being back in a year or two, he went off for a period of ten years.

III

In all these early letters there is no mention of the subject that so filled Father Maturin's mind later— the claims of Rome : indeed, he himself once said that at that time the question 'never even came before me.' Father Maturin often used to point out the immense importance to Catholics of Newman's work in the Anglican Church, although this was only, as it were, a side issue in the Cardinal's life. In the same way Father Maturin himself in forwarding the Catholic movement in the Anglican Church, and drawing into it members of other bodies, was unconsciously forwarding an immense movement Romeward. Many souls, led by him a certain distance, still went forward. Many others, while themselves remaining where they were, passed on to their disciples the great truths of Catholicism, which these gradually discovered were only to be realised in their fullness in the Catholic and Roman Church. An interesting case of this is to be seen in Miss Bennett, the author of 'Through an Anglican Sisterhood to Rome.'

During part of the time Father Maturin was rector of St. Clement's, Philadelphia [she writes], I was a schoolgirl attending a Quaker school in that city. There was a great movement towards the Episcopal Church on the part of the younger members of some of the old Quaker families of Philadelphia, and Father Maturin's sermons had much to do with this. We schoolgirls aged from twelve to sixteen used to go to evening church at St. Clement's when Father Maturin preached if we could. If we were not allowed to go we

bought his sermons, read them seriously, and discussed them afterwards. I remember an aunt who was convinced that I sat up at night reading trashy novels and who made a raid,' only to discover that the paper books were sermons by the rector of St. Clement's. There was very little personal attraction in this, for I do not remember any desire on the part of any of our little set to know or talk to him, but we wanted to learn about the Church, and we considered Father Maturin's sermons thrillingly interesting and quite understandable.'

The years of his life in Philadelphia seem to have been happy and fruitful. His close friend, Bishop Hall, the Bishop of Vermont, has written a short account of the effect of his work and his preaching there. A few letters written in later life from Father Maturin to the Bishop have been kept. To no one, save perhaps to Father Congreve, a still more intimate friend to his very last days, does he show more of affection and confidence than to his dearest brother,' as he invariably calls him.

You are right in assuming [Bishop Hall says in sending these pages] that we were closely associated. We were within a month of the same age, were ordained priests on the same day, though not together [the Bishop writes, of course, as an Anglican], and made our religious profession together at Cowley. From the time of his coming to America we were in most intimate companionship.

Father Maturin [writes the Bishop] was connected with St. Clement's for about ten years, from 1876 to 1886-first as one of the assistant clergy under Father Prescott, and then as rector. The parish had