The Express.
London, England, 1850-12-07 00:00:00

ENTHRONISATION OF CARDINAL

WISE AN.

Yesterday (u stated in put of our impression of
last evening) the ceremonial prescribed by the Roman
catholic church for the induction of an archbishop to hie
see, was performed at the church of St. George's, South-
wark.
The sombre character of St. George's derived addi.
lionel dimness (ems one of the foggiest mornings of the
' winter lesson. Nor was artificial lustre, that gorgeous
accessary to the service of the Ronan catholic church,
=nth retorted to in aid of the feeble light which glim-
mered through the windows of St. George's. For half an
hour after visitors were admitted to their seats, nothing pee-
-1 paratory was observable; the organ was bushed and the
choir saint; bat about half-past 11 the preparation'
were observable in every part of the edific', An acolyte
came in this direction with a thurifer ; another carried a
Crucifix to the spot where the prt:cession was to form. A
,shelve r was transferred from one altar to another by a third.
At length the order for forming the procession was given by
the t ding of • bell, and the attendant clergy of the new
" archdiocese " formed into regular order at its summons.
Cardinal Wiseman, robed in scarlet end white, and wear.
leg • small 'cast cap, proceeded from the sacristy,
his flowing train borne by two train bearers. After
• brief pause, at the extreme end of the nave
of the church, the choir commenced chaunting the
Hallelujah," from Beethoven's " Mount of Olives," and
11 pr.sently the protection was observed to move up
the nave in the direction of the central altar. Foremost was
j borne the eras, with lighted candles on either side, Then
came the Roman Catholic clergy subject to the new arch-
ammo's jurisdiction two by two, habited according to
their respective ranks and orders. The peculiarity of the
Oratorian costume was striking. At length the Cardinal
himself appeared, wearing a gorgeous mitre and pillium. A
canopy, fringed with silk and gold, was borne over his path
by (it was stated) the " converts" exclusively. There were
I about two huadred between the secular clergy and the vari-
ous religious orders in the procession. Lastly came Dr.
Doyle, robed in the usual sacrificial vestments, preceded by
Dr. Cox, the Rev. Mr. Cotter, and the Rev. Mr. Daniel, as
masters of the ceremony, deacon, and suo-deacon. Having
reached the screen which fronts the sanctuary, the Cardinal
was led into • small compartment at the left of the prin-
cipal altar, called the Chapel of the Bleared Eucharist,
whence, after • brief interval, the procession moved within
the sanctuary, Cardinal Wiseman kneeling at the loot of the
altar, and the celebrant clergyman ascending its steps—
assisted by the deacon and sub-deacon. The customary
form of prayer having been read, the mitre, which had been
exchanged for a scerlet cap a short time before, was for-
mally placed upon the head of the new archtiehop, whilst
the crosier, emblematic of his authority, was also placed its
his hands. He was then conducted to the archiepiscopal
chair, at the foot of which the whole body of the clergy
made the usual obeisance—kaeing the cardinal's ring in re-
eognition of his spiritual authority. The solemnities of high
mass were then proceeded with ; after which the Bull was
publicly read, in virtue of which Cardinal Wiseman assumes
the archiepiscopal jurisdiction of Westminster. The pro.
meetings closed with the presentation of an address to the
new " archbishop" and an exhortation, in which he im-
, p d upon hi. clergy the duties and obligations incidental
to their important mission.
The cardinal amen the pulpit, having the mitre on his
head and the crosier in his hand. His train was held by the
Rev. F. Searle and the 11,v. G. Wenham' the deacons, who
remained by his side in the pulpit. He addressed the
audience nearly as follows:
" In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
It is not necessary, my dearly beloved brethren, that I should
detain you long in explaining the meanie g and the purpose
of that tarred ceremony of which you have this day been a
witness. It is one so natural, so obvious, that it may be said
set to be, strictly speaking, of an ecclesiastical character. It
only employed in the more solemn forms which the church
always tuts; it le • customary and almost a spontaneous
Nude of eller expression and solemnity to any public
appointment. You are aware that in this city, that in every
eounmaweelth, those who receive any put requiring the
public exercise of function., are not merely appointed
thereto by the word of the sovereign, or of whomsoever
has the power of so appointing, but there is game publie
ceremony or form gone through whereby they are said to
be installed in their new office—that is to say, that the public
ere thereby made acquainted that from that moment forward
they enter into the actual exercise of thou duties sad the enjoy-
ment of those privileges of which they were before fully
possessed. Fur let it not be understood, dear brethren, that
when a bishop takes possession for the fleet time of his me,
or of his cathedral, that he b-comes by that act invested with
jurisdiction, or authority, or power, or prerogative of any
sort. That must come from a superior source. That must
be bestowed upon him by • competent authority. This is
only a proeleinsing to the faithful, to the clergy and flock,
that he has come publicly to discharge the duties of his
offim. It has been my happiness, to day, solemnly, and in
the pretence of God's altar, to take pomemion of that cat, of
dignity, indeed, but of heavy responaibiliry, in which it hoc
pleased the supreme power of the church to place me. I
will therefore rather content myself with explaining what
more particularly is the meaning of this function when em-
ployed in the catholic church. From its very commencement
it h.s been usual to associate the idea of the episcopal seas, es
it is called in the catholic ritual, with the exercise of 'piece-
psi jurisdiction and the discharge of pontitiml duties. When
we descend into the very catacombs themselves, we are de.
lighted, though perhaps somewhat surprised, to find, as has
been the case in some of the most recent discoveries, that in
front of the altar, and above the very tombs of martyrs, in
one of those solemn chapels which were made for the
public service of the Christians, in the time of persecution, a
marble fixed throne or seat, facing the people, so that he who
presided, seated there, would instruct the humbler crowcs
of the persecuted followers of Christ who gathered around
him, in that, the first abode of sublime Christian truth.
And no sooner had the Christians emerged from those, their
hiding places, and either taken possession of the temples of
the heathens, or had built for themselves those Basilicas
which yet remain as a monument of early Christian Zeal,
than pursuing, as far as they could, the example of their
predecessors, they placed the episcel sl throne at the very
extremity of the church—a fixed, • stable, immoveable well-
built up throne round welch the imbrue sat, and before
which the altar stood; so that by the stebility of that seat
and the permanency of the seaioe, the everlasting unity and
rameneu of the doctrines there to be taught might be fully
and completely symholised ; and so those seats endues of
the ancient bishops of Rome preserved their character. They
still rented, in the place in which they, were occupied by the
venerated pontiffs in early ages, and we see even that she
piety of the faithful has sineeeculptored upon them the very
homilies which they recited to their flicks. Thus, then,
my brethren, nine the idea of the pontifical choir, or scat, to
be asaocisted with the discharge of the great office of a bishop,
that of teaching sound doctrine to his flock—and that word
which at first signified only that char in which he sat.
same by degrees to be synonymous with the extent of
hi. jurisdiction. Hence the ash of a bishop is the corns as
his " seat " in our own language, as it is in the Latin and
ether foreign languages in which the throne or chair of a
bishop is expressed by the tame word as the us or dieceee
over which he has jurisdiction. Hence then the word intl.
metes that • bishop's taking possession of his seat, see, or
throne, was the same as to say that he had taken possession
of the entire diocese committed to his core. And, in fact, my
be three, the connexion between being seated on the chair
and the h wine authority to teach, is so natural and obvious
that our beloved Redeem, r himself was pleased to make um
of it, acd to employ it in • manner that affords us great in-
struction; for at the time the- he was reproving the corrupt
practices of the rulers of Israel, he was pleased to say to his
followers—" Oo the chair of Moses the Scribes have sat,
whatever, therefore, they shall tell you to do, that do." In
other words—" By the fact of their being in possession of the
seat of authority which has bun held in the synagogue from
the time of Mists they have acquired • right to your obedi-
ence whenever they impose on you religious commande,"—
thouch be was obliged to add the caution—that his works
his followers were nit to imitate. Then, the tang posses-
sion of the chair implied the taking charge of that deposit
of faith, of those truths, welch each hiehop bad re-
ceived from his predecessor, and which he was bound to
hand down unimpaired. Hence, the foundation of a
church by the constitution of a new chair or see became an
object of such veneraion as to lead to the establishment of
festivals to preserve its memory, for the church yet commemo-
rates the establishment of the two great sees of Antioch and
Rome, both being founded by the same saint, the price of
she apostles; and in the catholic church to this day the
chairs of St. Peter at Antioch and at Rome are to be found
in the calendar as days of solemn observance. We know
the every church commemorated by yearly festival the
original establishment of an episcopal see, and the great St.
Augustine tells us that one church soleinnis-d the establish.
meat of an episcopal lee in another or neighbouring church.
Then, my brethren, when here we have these two combined
—when, not only the chair is taken possession of this day in
this church, but the first act of that new ecclesiastical juris-
die lon is solemnly performed which our Holy Father has
been pleased to grant to his catholic children in England—it
should undoubtedly be a day of rejoicing and thanksgiving
—not because any one given individual has been raised to
dignity or distinguished by honours which none is more
conscious than himself how little be deserves, but
became God has again restored here to us a chair,
a seat, in which catholic doctrine such as is recog-
nised by the whole catholic church is taught ; and
though, through the divine mercy, that chain of catholic
tradition which formerly had • link added to it by each
successive prelate in every see in this country, had not been
altogether broken among us—though in the humbler minis-
tration of the pastors of God's dispersed flock unity of faith
end of discipline bad been inviolably preserved—though
during that interval of three hundred years the communion
of esthetics in this country with their supreme bead, and
with the bishops of the church, has been uninterrupted;
yet surely we must tea that it is a COalalatida to us and a
print, ge to be again pat on that same tooting on which the
church, sof our catholic neighbours are; a moltion in which
the bishop acts, not merely by a simple delegated authority,
but himself holds a see in which he is directly authorised to
teach. Then, what consequences flow from this? As far
as 1 am concerned, I feel tnat I have this day taken upon
myself a solemn engagement before the altar of God; an
engagement, not which eon add strength to my previous
convictions, but which may add more solemnity to them in
the face of the church ; an engagement not to sacrifice or to
compromise any, the smallest tittle, of the faith, the glorious
faith, of the universal catholic church ; but as I have re-
ceived it so to head it down to him whom it may
pleats Almighty God to appoint as my successors
SO as to be able to say " I have preserved the faith"—that
it has not bun allowed to In weakened or perverted during
the time that it had been in my keeping ; that I have not
withdrawn from you anything committed to my char"
anything that is useful or prottabie towards your eternal,
salvation ; but endeavour, however imperfectly, still with all
seal, to keep together the sheep of God's pashas, and to