Sermon 13. The Tree beside the Waters

"He shall be like a tree which is planted near the running waters, which shall bring forth its fruit in due season. And his leaf shall not fall off; and all whatever he shall do shall prosper." Psalm i. 3.

{243} AMONG the many images under which the good man is described in Holy Scripture, perhaps there is none more vivid, more beautiful, and more touching than that which represents him as some favoured and thriving tree in the garden of God's planting. Our original birth-place and home was a garden; and the trees which Adam had to dress and keep, both in themselves and by the sort of attention they demanded, reminded him of the peaceful happy duties and the innocent enjoyments which were the business of his life. A garden, in its perennial freshness and its soothing calm, is the best type of heaven, and its separate plants and flowers are the exactest types of the inhabitants of {244} heaven. Accordingly it is introduced into the last page of Scripture as well as into the first; it makes its appearance at the conclusion of man's eventful history as in the record of its opening. As in the beginning we read of the Paradise of pleasure, with the great river and its four separate streams, with all manner of trees, fair to behold and pleasant to eat of, and, above all, the Tree of Life,—so, in the last chapter of the Apocalypse, we are told of the river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb, which he that thirsteth may drink freely; and of the Tree of Life, bearing twelve fruits, the leaves of which were for the healing of the nations.

And, in like manner, when we turn to that portion of the sacred volume which more than any other both reveals and supports the hidden life of the servants of God in every age,—I mean the Psalter,—we find, prefixed to the collection, the Psalm from which my Text is taken, in which the obedient and just man is set before us under the self-same image; under the image of some choice specimen of the vegetable world, that innocent portion of the divine handiwork which is deformed by no fierce passions, which has no will and pursues no end of its own, and which seems created only to please the eye of man, and to be his food, medicine, and refreshment:

"Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence: but his will is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he shall meditate day and night.

"And he shall be like a tree which is planted near the {245} running waters, which shall bring forth its fruit in due season. And his leaf shall not fall off; and all whatsoever he shall do shall prosper."

This spiritual plant of God is placed by the running waters; it is nourished and recruited by the never-failing, the perpetual, the daily and hourly supply of their wholesome influences. It grows up gradually, silently, without observation; and in proportion as it rises aloft, so do its roots, with still less observation, strike deep into the earth. Thus it determinately takes up its habitation in one place, from which death alone shall part it. Year after year it grows more and more into the hope and the posture of a glorious immobility and unchangeableness. What it has been, that it shall be; if it changes, it is as growing into fruitfulness, and maturing in its fruit's abundance and perfection. Nor is that fruit lost; it neither withers upon the branches nor decays upon the ground. Angels unseen gather crop after crop from the unwearied never-failing parent, and carefully store them up in heavenly treasure-houses. Its very leaf remains green to the end; not only its fruit, which is profitable for eternal life, but its very foliage, the ordinary dress in which it meets our senses, its beautiful colouring, its rich yet delicate fulness of proportion, the graceful waving of its boughs, the musical whispers and rustlings of its leaves, the fragrance which it exhales, the refreshment which it spreads around it,—all testify to that majestic, serene beneficence which is its very nature, and to a mysterious depth of life which enables it ever to give out virtue, yet never to have less of it within. {246}

Such is the holy servant of God, considered in that condition which is both his special reward and his ordinary lot. There are those, indeed, who, for the good of their brethren, and according to the will of God, are exercised by extraordinary trials, and pass their lives amid turbulence and change. There are others, again, who are wonderfully called out of error or of sin, and have experience of much conflict within or without them before they reach the heavenly river, and the groves which line its banks. Certainly history speaks much more of martyrdom and confessorship on the one hand, and of inquiry and conversion, of sin and repentance, on the other, than of the tranquil Christian course; but history does but give the surface of what actually takes place in the heavenly kingdom. If we would really bring before us what is both the highest blessedness in God's service, and also in fact the ordinary portion of good men, we shall find it to consist in what from its very nature cannot make much show in history;—in a life barren of great events, and rich in small ones; in a life of routine duties, of happy obscurity and inward peace, of an orderly dispensing of good to others who come within their influence, morning and evening, of a growth and blossoming and bearing fruit in the house of God, and of a blessed death in the presence of their brethren. Such has been the round of days of many a pastor up and down Christendom, as even history has recorded, of many a missioner, of many a monk, of many a religious woman, of many a father or mother of a family, of many a student in sacred or profane literature,—each the centre of his own circle, and the teacher {247} of his own people, though more or less unknown to the world. This had been the blessedness of holy Job, as he sets it before us himself: "I said, I shall die in my nest, and as a palm-tree shall multiply my days. My root is opened beside the waters, and dew shall continue in my harvest. They that heard me ... to my words durst add nothing, and my speech dropped upon them. They waited for me as for rain, and they opened their mouth as for a latter shower." [Job xxix. 18-23.] It is expressed also in the words of the Canticle, which, though belonging in their fulness to our Lord Himself, yet in their measure apply to the benefits which any holy man extends to those who are within the range of his attraction: "As the apple-tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow whom I desired, and his fruit was sweet to my mouth."

I have said that the servant of God resembles a tree, not only in his graciousness, his fruitfulness, and his repose, but also in his immobility. This is a point which may be suitably enlarged upon. Like a tree, he is confined to one place, and his duties lie at home; at home he is prized; he is the blessing and the pride of his own neighbourhood or circle; but his name will be little known beyond it, much less has he a world-wide reputation. Christendom is divided into a great number of districts, each with its own character and interests; each has its own indigenous saints; each has its own patrons, its holy men, its benefactors, its patterns. Each region or province has those within it to whom it has given {248} birth, and who in time become its teachers; who form its traditions, mould its character, and thereby separate and discriminate it from other regions. And thus it is that each part of the Catholic Church has excellences of its own which other parts have not, and is as distinct from the rest in genius and in temper as it is in place.

It is true, indeed, that in a certain sense local differences are unknown in that Religion which comes from God. What it is in one place, such it is in another, and ever must be so. The very name of Catholic is contrasted with local, and precludes any variation in revealed truth wherever it is found. This is undeniable; and St. Paul insists upon it. Christianity, he says, has destroyed all distinction of a national, or family, or party nature. He reminds us that we are citizens of one city, and partakers of one and the same new nature; and that, when old things passed away, local interests and ideas went away among them. "As many of you," he says, "as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ." There is neither Jew nor Gentile, barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free, male nor female; "for you are all one in Christ Jesus." [Gal. iii. 27, 28. Col. iii. 11.] This certainly is never to be forgotten; but it is in nowise inconsistent with the peculiarity on which I wish to insist. If St. Peter, who is the very witness and foundation of unity, has placed himself at Rome for ever, instead of wandering from kingdom to kingdom and from city to city, if he has thus given local, nay almost national attributes to the Holy See, we may be sure that there is nothing judaical, or otherwise secular {249} or carnal, if we throw ourselves heartily and with a special warmth of attachment upon the country or the place in which we personally find ourselves, drink in its particular spirit, and glory in the characteristic tokens of a Divine Presence which have been bestowed upon it. There is nothing surely contrary to the strictest evangelical purity, and the firmest maintenance of the principles of Catholicity, and the most loyal devotion to the See of St. Peter, though we gather about us our own traditions, and sit under their shadow, and delight in their fruit; nothing unbecoming, if in this country, in England, and in this part of England, which in some sense has been the heart and centre of the ancient faith, where there have been so many old Catholic families, where there are so many religious institutions, where the sacred fire has been tended and nourished in evil times so assiduously, and whence in an especial manner it has in late years burst forth again and spread far and wide,—I say, there is nothing unseemly,—least of all within these walls, and amid these most solemn and affecting duties, and on this rare occasion,—there is nothing surely strange, nothing that demands excuse, if we remind ourselves, each in his own heart, and with an appeal to each other, of what has been the aspect which the Church has worn in these parts, what are the peculiar graces which have here been given to her children, what he was, of whom we have been just now bereaved, and whose last rites have brought us together, and how he contributed to make the mind of this diocese what we find it to be.

There is but one consideration, my Reverend Brethren, {250} which makes such a line of thought unsuitable on this occasion; and that is, the consideration of the person who is bringing it before you. There is no need to say that I feel deeply, what every one here must understand quite well, that I am not the person who has any right, or any power, to refer back to the history of Catholicism in these parts, or to attempt to trace the connexion of the dear and venerated priest, of whom we are now taking leave, with that history. I can scarcely do more than rewind you that there is such a characteristic history, and that there is such an intimate connexion; and I leave it to you individually, by your vivid recollection and actual experience of the past and present state of the diocese, to give a meaning to my words fuller than my own. Nay, putting aside his relation to things and persons about him, not even in his own personal character can I worthily describe the man whom I so much loved and so much admired; for it is plain that, however kind he was to me and mine, and whatever confidence he gave us, still I have never lived nor worked with him, I have never been partner in his anxieties, I have never witnessed his daily life, and am unable, except in that external aspect which is presented to a stranger, to record his virtues and his good works. And further still, who can understand, who can undertake to describe, the excellences of a holy man, except one who in good measure partakes of them, and can by sympathy enter into the spirit by which his words and his deeds have been governed? It is said in the lesson of the Office for St. Bonaventure's day, that when St. Thomas found him writing the life of St. Francis, he {251} observed, "Suffer a saint to minister to a saint"; and what is true of sanctity in those highest measures, by which upon death it merits at once the heavenly crown, is true of it in all its manifestations. As well might a man who could not read attempt to estimate some literary labour, or a man without an ear attempt to judge of music, as they presume to speak of a holy servant of God, who had not themselves that key to his thoughts and his motives which sanctity like his alone can give.

But further, even putting aside this serious consideration, after all, who among us has the power to speak of any man in the presence of his friends, without paining them by the insufficient estimate which they are sure to feel that we are taking of him? Those who have known another long, who are familiar with definite aspects of his character, with special passages of his life, with the trials which have brought him out, or the unostentatious graces which have at all times adorned him,—such persons are naturally disappointed with any account which does not do justice to their own true, though it may be their private and particular, view of him; just as intimate friends are never satisfied, or at least, are never one and all satisfied, with any portrait of him, however faithful it may be in the judgment of strangers. All that I can say for my own encouragement, in speaking to you, my Reverend Brethren, in such disadvantageous circumstances, is this:—first, that his Lordship would not have asked me in his own and your name to undertake duties, which I was not likely on the whole to discharge in a manner honourable and reverential {252} to the memory of our common friend; and next, that an external judgment, such as mine must be, is sometimes useful, whether by confirming the view which would be taken by friends, or by contributing something additional to their testimony. These considerations are my support in the duty which has been laid upon me.

The Right Reverend Dr. Weedall, the friend whom we have lost, was born September 6th, 1788 [Note 1]. He was left an orphan a few years after his birth; and at the early age of six he was sent to the school of Sedgley Park, at that time consisting of about one hundred and thirty boys, under the presidency of Dr. Kirk, a little more than thirty years after its first establishment. The history of that important place of education has been lately given to the public by a writer especially qualified for the work [Note 2]; and there is no one, I may say, who has followed his graphic narratives and his minute investigations with deeper interest and respect than myself. There is something, to my mind, exceedingly touching in watching the work of God in its silent and humble beginnings. He who is the highest, is never more awful than when He condescends to be lowest; and when I read the unpretending account, to which I am referring, of the ordinary lowly toil, the homely life, and the simple amusements of the good and faithful men who began and carried out that work amid the contempt {253} or neglect of the world, I am drawn by an irresistible sympathy to venerate the spot on which they laboured, as if the patriarch's ladder rested upon it, and Angels were thither descending and thence ascending between earth and heaven.

To this place came Henry Weedall, on the 11th of December, 1794; and if a person could be named, whom, from knowing in age, we could fancy we had seen in the simplicity and bloom of early boyhood, it would be he. I seem to be able to picture to myself an innocent child of six years old, attracting the hundred inquisitive eyes of his new companions by the refinement and delicacy of his appearance [Note 3]. He was asked a number of questions, as is usual with fresh-comers to a school; and among other accomplishments of the child, it was found that he could sing. I wish I could relate, without a familiarity unsuitable to this place and occasion, what occurred, as it has been handed down to us in the words of a priest who, much older than our friend, was then preparing for holy orders in the house. It seems to me a type of himself, and beautifully prophetic of his whole life: it was as if his Guardian Angel on that occasion took his place, and sang the destiny of sixty-five coming years, his calm duties, and the cheerful, gentle, guileless spirit with which he met them. In a sweet voice he began a song known to us all, the substance of which is a resolve and an engagement to put aside care for ever, and be happy and {254} joyful under all circumstances, and to make all persons about us happy and cheerful as ourselves. It is no wonder that his appearance, his manners, and his ways drew all our hearts to him: we are told that he soon became a universal favourite in the school [Note 4].

From Sedgley Park he was removed [Note 5], in June, 1804, to old Oscott College, where he received his education for the priesthood [Note 6]. This occupied close upon ten years. At the age of twenty-four, on the 26th of May, 1812, he was ordained sub-deacon; on the 15th of April following, deacon; and priest on the 6th of April, 1814. During the first years of his priesthood, he was accustomed on Sundays to come into Birmingham, and to catechise at St. Chad's small chapel as an assistant to the well-known clergyman who held the mission. He soon gained reputation as a preacher, the personal gifts, which we all recollect so well, fitting him especially for the office; and he was often selected to fill the pulpit on special occasions [Note 7]. {255}

In course of time he became Vice-president of the College [Note 8]; and in 1825, on the consecration [Note 9] of Dr. Walsh as coadjutor to Dr. Milner, he succeeded him as its President. At this time he was thirty-seven years of age.

He remained in this office till the year 1840, during which time he planned and raised the magnificent pile of buildings in which we are now assembled: which was soon to be illustrated by so much genius, and has since been associated with such memorable ecclesiastical events. It was the great work of his life, and will be his memorial to posterity.

In 1840, on the new arrangement of the Apostolic Vicariates, he was nominated to one of those in the north; but his heart was in his old work and on his old scene of action, and his excellent judgment told him, that to begin life over again in a new sphere at the age of fifty-two, was neither desirable in itself nor suited to him. He had no wish to lose the vantage-ground on which he stood, and from which he could command the co-operation in such services as might remain to him, of the many Catholics who had successively been trained up {256} under his eye. He was quietly exerting an influence throughout Catholic England, and Oscott was a centre far more favourable to its extension than that which was offered to him elsewhere. He understood also, as all his friends would understand, that his calling was for a college life,—for the quietness and peace, for the opportunities of devotion, for the gradual formation of young minds, for the literary leisure, which a place of education afforded him. Like the Venerable Bede, it seems to be his vocation to live and die in the cloister. What should he do, with his graceful attainments, his delicate sensitiveness, his modest and unassuming simplicity, in the rude world, amid duties which, though they involved far higher ecclesiastical dignity and spiritual privilege, were intended for men of commanding minds, and of force as well as firmness of character? Like the trees in the parable,—with the fig-tree, and the olive, and the vine,—he was loth to leave "his sweetness and delicious fruit, his richness, and the wine which cheereth God and men," to be promoted over the other trees. If there was a man to be found who fulfilled the image with which I opened this discourse,—if there was any one who ought not to be transplanted, and was too useful in his present place to need it,—it was the heavenly-minded priest of whom I am speaking. Not only then from that sincere humility which was pre-eminently his, and was his motive principle on this occasion, but with calm prudence, he betook himself to the Apostolic Throne, and succeeded in gaining from Pope Gregory permission to decline the high honour which had been intended for him. The Pope, however, struck with his saintliness of {257} character, told him that "he should not let him off so easily another time." [Note 10]

At this date he had been President of Oscott College for fourteen or fifteen years: he was now to be absent from the dear home of his youthful studies and his sacerdotal labours for not much short of the same time. During these years he was upon the mission at Hampton, Leamington, and Handsworth. In 1853 he returned to the College, where he has continued till his death.

As regards this latter portion of his history, which we all know so well, I am enabled to avail myself of your Lordship's circular letter.

"There can be very little doubt," that letter says, "but that the illness in which our venerated friend and brother in Christ so long suffered and lingered was brought on through that constant application of mind, that untiring solicitude of heart, and that unceasing energy of will, with which he devoted his declining years to the interests of the College over which he presided. In his vigour of life he raised that College up in its splendour, and, at the voice of obedience, left it prospering; at the same voice of obedience he returned again to it, in its hour of difficulty, and expended on its service all the energies of life that yet remained to him. God blessed his work, and now He has been pleased to take the workman."

One would have thought that a life so innocent, so active, so holy, I might say so faultless from first to last, might have been spared the visitation of any long and {258} severe penance to bring it to an end; but, in order doubtless to show us how vile and miserable the best of us are in ourselves, and, even when we are in the fulness of grace and in the fervour of charity, how many imperfections we have in thought, word, and deed; and, moreover, to give us a pattern how to bear suffering ourselves, and to increase the merits and to hasten and brighten the crown of this faithful servant of his Lord, it pleased Almighty God to send upon him a disorder which, during the last six years, fought with him, mastered him, and at length has destroyed him, so far, that is, as death has still power to destroy, since the Cross of Christ has given it its death-blow. It is for those who came near him year after year to store up the many words and deeds of resignation, love, and humility which that long penance elicited. These meritorious acts are written in the Book of Life, and they have followed him whither he is gone. They multiplied and grew in strength and perfection as his trial proceeded; and they were never so striking as at its close. When a friend visited him in the last week, he found he had scrupled at allowing his temples to be moistened with some refreshing waters, and had with difficulty been brought to give his consent; he said he feared it was too great a luxury. When the same friend offered him some liquid to allay his distressing thirst, his answer was the same. As he read to him various texts of Scripture, he came, among others, to St. Paul's reflexion on his own approaching dissolution: "Bonum certamen certavi, cursum consummavi, fidem servavi. In reliquo reposita est mihi corona justitić." "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have {259} kept the faith. Now there is laid up for me the crown of justice." When the last words were read, the holy old man burst into tears and remained awhile quite overcome. On the next time that his friend came, the day before his death, the sufferer recurred to the text, and repeated it. It had been his consolation ever since it had been read to him. At this time, though he was quivering with unintermitting convulsions, he repeated the alternate verses of the Miserere with that extreme composure, deliberateness, and measured exactness, which was so familiar with him. Within a few hours of this he died. Some time before, he had put into the hands of a friend a habit of the third order of Mount Carmel, of which he was a member, with the expression of his wish that he should be clothed in it on his death. This wish of course was carefully observed. He died at four o'clock on the morning of the 7th, last Monday, on a day of black vestments; so that his friends were able to say a Mass pro defunctis for the repose of his soul within a few hours after his departure. May God give him rest! Indeed, who can doubt that He has already granted it to him, and has taken him from the place of purification to His Eternal Presence?

He had lately entered upon his seventy-second year. For nearly ten years of his life he was at Sedgley Park. When close upon sixteen he went to Oscott College, where above forty years of his life, from first to last, have been spent. About the year 1830, at the instance of Dr. Walsh, his Bishop, he received the degree of Doctor in Divinity. On the erection of the Cathedral Chapter of Birmingham, in the year 1856, he was nominated {260} its Provost; and, shortly afterwards, he received the appointment of Domestic Prelate to his Holiness. Shortly before this he had celebrated his jubilee, on the completion of the fiftieth year of his connexion with the College.

And now, my Lord, and my Reverend Brethren, I have performed, in such way as I have been able, the duty which you have imposed upon me. We are taking our last farewell of the remains of one of the old school,—of that old school of Catholics which has characteristics so great and so special. We are committing to the grave all that is mortal of a priest of solid piety, of deep and calm devotion, of mortified life, of ever wakeful, firm conscientiousness, of a spirit truly ecclesiastical, of singular consistency, equability, perfection in conduct, of virtue which ripened thoroughly upon the tree before it has been gathered. There was nothing crude, nothing extravagant, nothing fitful, nothing pretentious, in the character of our dear and venerated friend. He was ever one and the same; ever simple, single-minded, blameless, modest, and true. You ever knew where to find him. He was an unselfish spirit, which laboured, and then let others enter into his labours. His was a discriminating judgment, which found the right place for every duty that had a claim on his attention; which enabled him freely to cultivate human learning without its encroaching on the time and interest due to sacred studies; and to consecrate himself to the inward life of religion without thereby neglecting "whatever is lovely, whatever is of good fame," in his intercourse with others. A pleasing {261} speaker, an elegant writer, with a natural playfulness of thought and manner which made him dear to friends and agreeable to all, through the whole man shone the spirit of evangelical charity, and made his gentleness and refinement seem what they really were, a growth from, or a graft upon, that pure harmony of soul which is a supernatural gift. He and his patron the venerable Dr. Walsh, the late Vicar-Apostolic of this district, fellow-disciples of Dr. Milner, entered into the intimate heart of that remarkable man, and made themselves heirs of its truest characteristic in perpetuating his devotional spirit. It was Dr. Milner, the sharp controversialist, as the world has often considered him, who set himself to soften and melt the frost which stiffened the Catholicism of his day, and to rear up, safe from our northern blasts, the tender and fervent aspirations of Continental piety. The small chapel at Maryvale, which is so well known to us all, contains the first altar dedicated in England to the Sacred Heart of our Lord [Note 11].

Well did those two servants of God, his pupils, continue the work of Milner;—and now the last of the three has been taken away from us, and we are left to follow out the lessons and the patterns which they have given us. We do not lament their departure; we thank God that He gave them to us, and continued each of them to labour through a sufficient length of life for His glory and our edification. We do not lament their loss; for they are gone to their reward, and can do more for us by their intercessions before the Eternal Throne than by their prolonged presence on earth. We do not lament {262} their absence; for they have done their work. Every one is made for his day; he does his work in his day; what he does is not the work of any other day, but of his own day; his work is necessary in order to the work of that next day which is not his, as a stepping-stone on which we, who come next, are to raise our own work. God grant that we too may do our own work, whatever it may be, as perfectly as he did his, whom we are now consigning to the grave! God in His great mercy grant, by the sacrifice of the Immaculate Lamb, once made on the Cross, daily renewed at the Altar, through the intercession of His dear Virgin Mother, for the merits of all Saints, especially those connected with this Diocese and College,—God, the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, grant us, with unselfish hearts and pure love of Him, ever to aim at His glory, and to seek His will, and to ask for His grace, and to obey His word, labouring according to our strength, labouring to the end,—as he did, the dear friend whom we have lost,—labouring to the very end, in humility, diligence, and love!

(Preached Nov. 11, 1859, in St. Mary's, Oscott, at the Funeral of the Right Rev. H. Weedall, D.D.)

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Notes

1. "In London," says the Very Rev. Canon Macdonnell, in some notes with which he has favoured me, "his father had been contemporary with Bishop Milner, at Douay, and followed the profession of medicine."
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2. "The Very Rev. Dr. Husenbeth, V. G. Provost of Northampton.
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3. "The late Rev. Mr. Jones of Warwick Street," says the very same reverend correspondent, "who was a sort of parlour-boarder at Sedgley Park, took great notice of the child, and showed him much kindness. He became a sort of patron to him, and continued so for many years, even after his ordination."
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4. "He became a general favourite;" I still quote from Canon Macdonnell, who came to the school two years before Weedall left it: "with superiors, for docility, piety, and general good conduct; with fellow-students, for his pacific and obliging disposition. He was pointed out to me as the head boy of the school, when I went there in 1802."
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5. "He told me," says Mr. Macdonnell, "that Mr. Simkiss, the spiritual director," to whom we are indebted for the incident recorded in the foregoing page, "on Weedall leaving school, asked him how long he had been there; and when he answered nine years, Mr. S. said, that the next nine years would pass away more quickly than those."
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6. "He pursued his studies with great credit, and became a good classical scholar according to the curriculum of the college, and distinguished himself by his compositions in prose and verse. He was always regular and unostentatious, and his whole demeanour inspired respect. Both at Sedgley Park and at Oscott he distinguished himself among the students in games."
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7. "His prepared discourses were singularly beautiful. His first occasional sermon was at St. Peter's, for the schools. It was printed."
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8. Long before this he had had the teaching of the junior classes. "He was popular with his pupils," says Canon Macdonnell. "Mild and gentle, without weakness. The ecclesiastics held conferences: his displays were remarkable for eloquent language, able argument, and happy repartee. In 1818 he succeeded to the chair of theology."
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9. "Mr. Weedall preached the consecration sermon. It was a most elaborate composition, and his health gave way. He was obliged to retire from the Presidency of the College, and travel. He went to Rome and probably to other parts of Italy." Since these pages have been in type, I have received remarkable evidence of the life-long trial to which the weakness of his health subjected him.
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10. "He was certainly in Italy," says Canon Macdonnell, "between 1825 and 1840, but I cannot recollect the occasion. On this visit he went to Naples."
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11. Vide Note at the end.
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