The next thing he notices is, that an archdeacon gave a good charge, "though against the Catholics,--a questionable topic." Mr. Spencer had no special love for Catholics; on the contrary, he thought themselves absurd, their doctrines abominable, and their ceremonies mummery. He was of the Spencer family though, and in them there was an inbred love of justice and fair-play. Lord Spencer and his son, Lord Althorp, both favoured and spoke for emancipation. They thought the Catholics aggrieved, and if they were Turks, they did not see why they should cease to be men and subjects of the English crown. That was plain common sense; besides, Mr. Spencer had not got so high in Church views as some of his friends, who favoured Catholics before their elevation and opposed them after it, to please a king. The Spencers were generously liberal in all their dealings, and even when the subject of this biography, the delight of the family, thought fit to become a Catholic, their conduct towards him was worthy of their name. We shall have to refer to this afterwards; the allusion is made now only to show that the tenour of their opinions was not the creature of a whim or an ephemeral fancy, but a grave, steady, and well-disciplined feeling. Praise be to them for it. Would that their imitators were more numerous. He has also another project on hand at this time, besides the evangelizing of his flock. He begins to build a new rectory. He gets an architect from London; has {126} suggestions from the family about the length and breadth of the apartments; others, more poetical, survey the site to give their sentiments about the view from the parlour window; the older portion have their say about the comfort of the different rooms, with regard to size, position, and plastering. Some few even make presents of articles of furniture, and a near relation gives him a beautiful bed, which commodity has many paragraphs of the journal dedicated to its praises and suitableness. The building is at last begun, and we must say something of the progress of his interior castle whilst we let the bricklayers obey the orders of the builder and architect. {127} CHAPTER V. Changes In His Religious Opinions.