Cardinal Wiseman

Romish priests were taken out of a private Masshouse near Moorfields to be dealt with according to law." So we read in the "Universal Museum' under date of Oct. 21, 1765. As a matter of fact, there had been not one, but two Mass - houses situated in Ropemakers' Alley, Moorfields, at least twenty-nine years prior to that date. The probability is there had been an illicit chapel there for an even longer period, but existing records prove that at all events since 1736 there has always been some place in the vicinity of Moorfields where the adherents of the Roman Catholic religion might meet for worship. Since 1820 that place has been the stately and imposing church dedicated to St. Mary.

No wonder, then, that when, in the spring of the current year it became generally known that St. Mary's, Moorfields, was doomed, and that the ground upon which it stands had actually been sold, a feeling almost approaching consternation was experienced in Catholic circles. Many, whose sympathies are far from being with the form of religion. taught and practised at St. Mary's, have expressed considerable regret that what has become quite a historical landmark will soon cease to exist.

The demolition of Anglican churches in the City has gone steadily on, although the process has been stayed very considerably, thanks to the efforts of the Society

for the Protection of City Churches, of which Mr. H. C. Richards, Q.C., M.P., is the most eloquent champion. But although several Anglican churches have been razed to the ground, many more remain; St. Mary's, on the other hand, is the only Catholic church actually situated within the City. Moreover, whereas, owing no doubt to their plentifulness, the services at most of the City churches of the Establishment are very scantily patronised, those at St. Mary's are comparatively well attended. That the church has not been so well attended recently as it was in years gone by is only natural, considering the multiplication of Catholic churches in all the many suburbs surrounding the great Metropolis; none the less, it has remained the centre of much religious activity, and its day schools have more scholars now than they had twenty years ago.

There are few churches in all London occupying a more commanding situation. Facing Liverpool Street, it is in the immediate vicinity of Broad Street Station, the terminus of the North London Railway; Liverpool Street Station, the terminus of the Great Eastern Railway; and Bishopsgate, one of the busiest stations on the Metropolitan Railway. Indirectly it is its proximity to this latter station. that has proved its undoing. When, in 1874, the Metropolitan Railway was extended from Moorgate Street to Bishopsgate, Finsbury Circus and West Street were tunnelled under. Finsbury Circus is at the rear of St. Mary's, and West Street runs parallel with its south side, and the

tunnelling so shook the foundations of the church that the railway company was obliged to solidly underpin or build new foundations under the walls and pillars of the church. Unfortunately, it was not then considered necessary to compel the company to underpin the walls of the vaults under the church on which the flooring of the sacred edifice rests.

In these vaults and in the small strip of land adjoining the church repose the bodies of some 5500 Catholics-bishops, priests, and laymen-all of whom were buried there prior to 1853. The coffins are all hermetically sealed, and no protest has ever been raised against their existence from a sanitary point of view, but the church was condemned as a public danger in 1895, owing to the walls of the vaults giving way. It was, of course, then much too late to obtain any further aid from the railway company; funds, however, were soon collected to temporarily underpin the vaults with wooden beams, and plans were prepared for substantially completing the work in stone. Then Cardinal Vaughan intervened. Knowing the immense value of the land upon which the church stands, and moved by the pressing needs of Greater London, His Eminence was unwilling to sanction the expenditure of more money upon St. Mary's when funds were so urgently needed elsewhere. consequence, although a Catholic gentleman, well known for his charity, generously offered to defray all the necessary Cardinal obtained perexpenses, the mission from Rome to sell the whole site on which the church, schools, and presbytery at present stand. The sale has now taken place, the realised being £202,000, and St. Mary's is to come. down, notwithstanding the sentimental reasons in favour of its retention.

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And there are sentimental reasons in abundance. It is not merely that the church was opened for worship nine years before O'Connell obtained his Catholic Emancipation Act; not merely that it was the first Catholic Pro-Cathedral in London on the restoration of the hierarchy; far and away its greatest claim to consideration is the fact that so long as it

of two Acts passed at the instigation of William of Orange, any priest convicted of having said Mass was liable to be sentenced to death or transportation for life,

ONE OF THE MARBLE ANGELS.

and any informer who secured the conviction of a priest became entitled to a gratuity of 100. To obtain this sum a creature named Payne wormed his way into Catholic society, and professing himself desirous of embracing the Faith, was freely admitted into all the illicit chapels. Having obtained the names of several priests, he made application to Sir William Stephenson, the Lord Mayor, for warrants to arrest them. The kind-hearted Chief Magistrate of the City not only refused the application, but sent privately to warn the incriminated clergy. The worthy Payne then turned his attention to the Surrey side, and with more success, for in the "Universal Museum" of Aug. 23, 1767, we read: "Last Friday, at the Assizes at Croydon, John Baptist Moloney was tried for unlawfully. exercising the functions of a Popish priest,

and administering the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper to divers persons after the manner of the Church of Rome, where he was convicted and received sentence of perpetual imprisonment."

The following year Payne caused four more priests to be arrested and brought before the Court of King's Bench. Lord Mansfield, who presided, more humane. than the law he administered, threw every obstacle in Payne's way, insisting that he should prove, first, that the accused were priests, and secondly, that he had seen them say Mass. These proofs the informer failed to produce, so the four priests were acquitted. The next year Payne shot at higher game. He not only secured the arrest of Fathers Dillon and Fuller, but that of Dr. Talbot, titular Bishop of Bertha and coadjutor to Dr. Challoner, the then Vicar Apostolic of the London District. In his evidence he said: "At the time Sir William Stephenson was Lord Mayor, I was then officer, and hearing of two Mass-houses in the City gates, I went into Ropemakers' Alley. There is a Masshouse there which will hold, I believe, a thousand people. It was on June 2, 1765. I saw this gentleman (Bishop Talbot) dressed in white with a cross on his back, and, I believe, on his breast, with a mitre on his head." Through a fortunate error in the writ of indictment the prosecution had to be abandoned.

The trial took

On no less than four subsequent occasions were the same Bishop and priests indicted, the last time being Feb. 27, 1771. That was the final prosecution of Catholic clergymen for pursuing their sacred calling in England. place at the Old Bailey. Payne, never a model of sobriety, was hopelessly confused. He called Father Dillon "Mr. Dilton"; he called Father Fuller "Mr. Fowler"; he could only prove that Bishop Talbot administered Confirmation, not that he said Mass. In disgust, the Public Prosecutor threw up his brief, saying, "My Lord, we despair of being able to make out the charge against the defendants!"

These prosecutions, with their ignominious conclusions, created a feeling of