Before August, 1830, he received minor orders, and immediately after hears the news that Mary Wykes, his housekeeper, has become a Catholic. It is a singular fact that she took his conversion so to heart that she nearly died, and was yet the first to follow his example. She was delicate in health, of a respectable family in his parish, and Mr. Spencer acknowledges that he is under many obligations to her father. He settles an annuity of £25 or £30 a year upon her for life, and writes to her from the English College thus: "Pray to God to give you a tender devotion to her whom He loves above all creatures, and who of all creatures is the most pure, amiable, and exalted. I dare say you will {211} have found difficulty, as I have done, in overcoming the prejudices in which we have been brought up against devotion to the Saints of God; but let this very thing make you the more diligent in asking of God to give you that devotion to them which He delights in seeing us cultivate." On the 13th of March, _Sabbato Sitientis_, 1831, he received the Subdiaconate, This is the great step, as Catholics know, in the life of one destined for the priesthood. The Subdiaconate imposes perpetual celibacy, with the obligation of daily reciting the divine office, and it is then the young cleric is first styled Reverend. It is said that a few days after his receiving this sacred order, a message was sent him by his family not to become a priest, as it was feared his brother would have no issue, and George was looked to as the only source whence an heir presumptive could arise for the earldom. He simply answered, "You spoke too late," an answer he would have given whether or no, as he had long ago determined never to marry. It was at this time also he wrote, at the request of the Bishop of Oppido, the _Account of my Conversion_,--a work well known to English readers. {212} CHAPTER III. F. Spencer Is Ordained Priest. Father Spencer, ever since he first turned completely to the service of God, was determined to do whatever he knew to be more perfect. He did not understand serving God by halves; he thought He deserved to be loved with "all our strength, all our mind, and above all things." This he knew to be a precept, a strict command given by our divine Lord. How it was to be observed was his difficulty. He was groping in the dark hitherto, and though not making many false steps, still far from clearly seeing his way to perfection. The exactness of Catholic theology, which sifts every question to the last atom, made him meet this one face to face.