The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1921-09-10
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Brief Reviews and Notices Il
HENRY EDWARD MANNlNG: His
Life and Labors. By Shane Leslie.
P. ]. Kennedy C Sons, New York.

P. J. Kennedy G Sons, New York.
This is the task that has been wait
ing for nearly a generation for fulfill
ment-a correction referring to Pur-
cells work., of what Stead wittily de-
scribed as ''The attempt on the Life
Of Cardinal Manning" and true por-
trait of the real man in new biog-
raphy.
What a wonderful life was Cardinal
Manning's, and providentially placed
in what wonderful setting! 1t ex-
tended almost through the whole of
the most eventful century in the his
tory of the Church. He was born in
1903 and died in 1892. Through this
long and eventful period no great
question arose in Church or State that
did not receive his attention, and in
which he did not leave his impress.
He was the first great churchman who
foresaw the meaning of the Labor
problem and proposed the eternal
principles of justice for it's solution.
"a child's unnecessary tears" he de-
clared, "is a stain upon the earth"
He made his studies in Rome when
| the Holy Father was still temporal
| ruler of the Eternal City, was a lead
er in the Vatican Council, attended the
| Conclave that elected Leo XIII, lived
to see the great Pontiff of the Encyclic-
ais expound for the Catholic world his
own long-cherished ideas on the So
| cial and Labor problems, and in his
death drew from the Father of Chris
| tendon the pathetic tribute: "a great
| light of the Church has gone out. l
feel that my own hour is at hand
In all the burning questions which
| the scathing furnace of the nineteenth
century threw up for solution he was
not only abreast of his time, but far
in advance of his contemporaries; and
his projected solution of them has
been already shown to have been al
most invariably correct; for he was
| guided by two nnerring and eternal
principles: love for Christ and love
| for Christ's poor. His biographer may
we'll say that he was indeed a prophet,
and prophet in the proper, Old-Tes-
| lament sense where it meant not
merely one who foretold the future
but a divinely sent leader for the liv-
ing present.
Nothing" notes his biographer, is
more remarkable in the crossed skein
of Manning's life than his prescience
of Democracy and it's eventual alliance
with Catholic forces" Perhaps more
than any other ecclesiast of the cen
fury, excepting always Leo XIII, he
paved the way for that alliance.
More than any other prelate he i'm
pressed Leo XIII and shaped his great
Encyclicals In 1880, Vaughan wrote
to him from Rome: Cardinal Bilio
said only the other day: The Pope
was telling me that this last Encyclical
(on Slavery is Manning's. 1t was
he who put the idea into my head to
do something for the slaves. He is
a man di waste vedute, and his con-
versation is full of suggestion. I have
, written this Encyclcal in consequence
of my conversation with him
Their minds were the two greatest in
Europe to Archbishop Ireland. "Once
, elsewhere in Europe" he declared, Il
was in the presence of a mind that
seemed an image of Leo's-not re-
splendent as Leo's mind, but yet an
image of it."
The biography of such character
who played such an active role
through so long period must in any
case be interesting. AS written by
Shane Leslie it is simply fascinating.
From the first to the last there is not
a dull page in the book. There is not
dull paragraph. The interest is sus-
tanned throughout and is as compelling
in active vividness as play of Shakes
peare.
And in truth Mr.. Leslie is not mere
: ly biographer. He Is a dramatist.
We forget as we proceed that we are
reading a book about an age that is
dead and gone, and imagine that we
/, are assisting at some great drama, and
, that, too, not as idle or curious specta-
; tors, but, as the members of Greek
: chorus, feeling that we are part of the
) performance and our own interests de-
: pendent on the outcome.
: Of the volumes 500 pages only 100
are given to his Anglican life. These
are, however, of intense interest from
the moment the curtain rises on the
birth of little Henry Edward
He was born too fortunate. His ia
Their was an M. P. worth 100000 a
year. His godfather was peer. A
Bishop baptized him, and he had an
Irish grandmother named Ryan! He
went to Harrow and became captain Of
it's cricket team, to Oxford and won a
: brilliant degree. But the one great
fact that stands out of this Anglican
period of his life is that from the time
, he decided to become clergyman he
was what he always remained-a man
!. of prayer, of austere life, of penance,
and of devotion to Christ and to His
poor He spent seventeen years in a
little country parish NOR ever changed
nor wished to change his place." and
! visited every poorest family of the lit
tie flock twice month.
He was received into the Catholic
Church on Passion Sunday, 1851, anc
died on January IA, 1892. This was
Ibis Catholic life-forty-one years of
continual activity, one might say truly,
of continual battle. From 1851 on
q ward the drama is of eyer-increasing