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INTRODUCTION xix
down. He thought that he was dying, and the sacrament of Extreme Unction was administered; but he recovered. All sorts of unkind remarks were made; it was even said, and believed, that Faber had strangled one of his monks. He was ordained to the priesthood on April 3, 1847, the anniversary of his father's death, and on Easter day said his first Mass. His preaching became very popular. It is said that within a few months only one Protestant family remained in all that parish, and that the Protestant church had only a clerk and two drunken men as regular communicants.
In 1848, Father Newman returned to England, and became superior of the Oratory at Bayswater; and Faber's " Community of the Brothers of the Will of God" were received into that congregation. It was shortly after this, while staying on the east coast of Yorkshire for his health, that he wrote his first two hymns, " Mother of Mercy" and " The Blessed Sacrament."
The following year the Congregation of the Oratory took on itself the task of continuing the series of Lives of the Saints which Faber had begun some time before, and which, owing to some misunderstanding, was suspended. The same year an Oratory was established in London, on King William Street, Strand. At first the community consisted of six Fathers and two novices. In 1854, new buildings were |
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