This was the kind of life Father Spencer began to lead on his forty-seventh birthday. For a man of his age, with habits formed, with health subject to occasional shocks, it was certainly a formidable undertaking. There was little of {354} human glory to eclipse those difficulties in the community he entered. Four foreign fathers, living in a wretched house, as yet unable to speak passable English, without a church, without friends, without funds, without influence, formed the principal portion of the community of Aston Hall. These were, Father Dominic, Father Gaudentius, Father Constantine, and Father Vincent. None of these four fathers are in the province at present. Fathers Dominic and Constantine are dead. Father Gaudentius is a member of the American province; and Father Vincent, after many years of zealous missionary work in these countries, was called to Rome, where he now holds the office of Procurator-General. They had one student, two lay brothers, and Father Spencer was to be the second of two novices. The Passionists had already been four years in England, and, through trials and difficulties, from poverty and misunderstandings, had worked their way up to the precarious position in which he found them. He was, therefore, a great acquisition to the struggling community. True, he brought no earthly riches; but he brought what was more valued, an unearthly spirit--he brought humility, docility, and burning zeal. The fathers knew him for a long time, and scarcely required proofs to convince them of his having a religious vocation, since he had practised the vows before then in a very perfect way, considering his state. He gave clear proofs of his spirit on the eve of his coming to Aston. He came, as he glories in telling Mr. Phillipps, _in formâ pauperis_. Some of his friends wished to give him the price of his habit by way of alms; he would not accept of it. He then reflected on the poverty of the Passionists, and thought it would be well if he brought even so much, whereupon he proposed to beg the money. The largest alms he intended to receive was half-a-crown. He was forbidden to do this by his director, and obeyed at once: thus giving a proof of his spirit of poverty and obedience.