finds error more difficult to root out than he imagined. He bears up, however, and a letter to Mr. Phillipps will tell us what he thought; he says: "Keep England's conversion always next your heart. It is no small matter to overturn a dynasty so settled and rooted as that of error in this country; and how are we possibly to expect that we shall be made instruments to effect this, unless we become in some measure conformable to the characters of the Saints who have done such things before us? Yet let us not give up the undertaking, for as, on the one hand, no one has succeeded without wonderful labour and patience, so, on the other, none ever has failed when duly followed up. Let us not be discouraged by opposition, but work the more earnestly: and as we see people about some hard bodily exertion begin with their clothes on, but, when they find {222} the difficulty of their job, strip first the coat, then the waistcoat, then turn up their sleeves, and so on, we must do the same. God does not give success at once, because He wishes us better than to remain as we are, fettered and attached to the world. If we succeeded before all this encumbrance is stripped off, we should certainly not get rid of it afterwards." He did "turn up his sleeves," and toil, no doubt, at converting his neighbours; he opened a new mission in Dudley towards the Christmas of 1833; he first began in an old warehouse, which he fitted up with a chapel and seats, and turned one or two little houses adjoining into a sacristy and sitting-room for the priest who might come there to officiate. He goes on in this even course for the whole of the two first years of his life in West Bromwich, without any striking event to bring one part more prominently forward than another. His every day work was not, however, all plain sailing; in proportion as his holiness of life increased the reverence Catholics began to conceive for him, it provoked the persecution and contempt of the Protestants. He was pensive generally, and yet had a keen relish for wit and humour. He was one day speaking with a brother priest in his sacristy, with sad earnestness, about the spiritual destitution of the poor people around him, who neither knew God, nor would listen to those who were willing to teach them. A poor woman knocked at the sacristy door, and was ordered to come in; she fell on her knees very reverently, to get Father Spencer's blessing, as soon as she approached him. His companion observed that this poor woman reminded him of the mother of the sons of Zebedee, who came to Our Saviour _adorans_. "Yes," replied Father Spencer, with a very arch smile, "and not only _adorans_, but _petens aliquid ah eo_" Such was his usual way; he would season his discourse on the most important subject--even go a little out of his way for that purpose--with a pointed anecdote, or witty remark.