As, therefore, I left home so suddenly, and they could not again understand the possibility that my faith should be so suddenly established, and that, for the sake of it, I was willing to give up my home, and as you showed such emotion at learning that I was to leave you, these people had no way to account for the whole matter but imputing to us shameful guilt." From Mr. Spencer's charity before he became a Catholic we may conclude what it must have been now. It would seem that, in temporals, he had not those difficulties in the way of his conversion that beset many Protestant clergymen who depend solely on their livings. But, the sacrifices he willingly made, prove that the prospect of sheer want even would not have deterred him from following God's {210} call. A few days after his conversion he went to see the Dominican Fathers at Hinckley, and said, in conversation, "I suppose it is not lawful for me to receive the fruits of my benefice, now that I have ceased to be a minister of the Establishment." One of them said, "Certainly not." Whereupon he asked for a sheet of paper, wrote a letter to the Protestant bishop in a few minutes, resigning his cure, and simply said, as he impressed the seal, "There goes £3,000 a year." He was then wholly dependent on his father's bounty, and if unworthy motives had had any force with Earl Spencer, his son might have found himself penniless. From the allowance granted him he received monthly whilst in Rome much more than was sufficient to pay his way in the college. It was remarked, however, that the day after he got his money he had not a farthing in his possession, and on inquiry it was found that what remained from the college pension he distributed regularly among the poor. Dr. Wiseman turned the channel of his charity to a more profitable object, knowing how much he would be imposed on by the Roman beggars, and several monuments still look fresh in the chapel of the English College, which were repaired by what remained over and above what was absolutely necessary of his income. It seems as if he never could bear to be the possessor of money; he would scruple having it about him. He was known, even when a minister, to draw money out of the bank in Northampton, and give the last sixpence of it to the poor before he got to Brington.