(M29) At the time of the restoration of the English hierarchy, Dr. Wiseman was created a Cardinal, not so much in honor of the important act to which it was his charge to give effect, as because the Holy Father having resolved on a creation of Cardinals so eminent a man could not be overlooked. At the accession of Pius IX. there were sixty-one living Cardinals. Of these only nine were not Italians. When, on his return to Rome, after his sojourn in the kingdom of Naples, he determined to add fourteen Cardinals to the Sacred College, only four of the prelates selected were natives of Italy. The rest were, at the time, the most distinguished men of the Catholic world. Of this number Archbishop Geissel of Cologne was one, and the King of Prussia, more liberal than certain magnates of England, thanked the Holy Father, in an autograph letter, for the honor thus done to the Catholic church of his country. Since that time the Prussian monarch appears to have changed his sentiments as well as his ministry. (M30) Notwithstanding the noisy demonstrations in opposition to the Cardinal Archbishop and his brother bishops, they were allowed to pursue in peace their labors of Christian zeal. The English grumbled, as is their wont. But discovering in time that they were neither attacked nor hurt, the rights of liberty of conscience were respected, and no persecution followed what it was at first the fashion to call the “Papal aggression.” (M31) The Emancipation Bill of 1829, by which liberty of conscience, which was so proudly called the birthright of every Englishman, was extended to Catholics, tended powerfully, no doubt, to promote the development of the Catholic church. It grew also by emigration from Catholic Ireland, and there were some conversions occasionally from the Protestant ranks. It was not, however, till the decade immediately preceding the restoration of the hierarchy, that there was a very marked and decided movement of the educated and learned men of England towards the Catholic church. It is not recorded anywhere that Catholic missionaries or envoys of the Pope had penetrated into those sanctuaries of Protestant learning—the celebrated universities of Oxford and Cambridge. There, at least, there was no “Papal aggression,” and tract upon tract was issued from the press of those seats of learning, in which it was argued that the doctrines taught by the Fathers of the first five centuries were the real Christian teaching which all men were bound to accept. It appeared to have escaped the learned men of Cambridge and Oxford that these were the very doctrines so perseveringly adhered to by the long-ignored and down-trodden Catholics of England.