In a few months there remained but one Protestant family in the parish, and the Protestant church was almost entirely abandoned! Brother Anthony Hutchinson wrote, "We have converted the pew-opener, leaving the parson only his clerk and two drunken men." The poor people became extravagantly fond of "Father Fable," as they used to call him; but he was not held in particular affection by the Protestant clergy, and sometimes was unwillingly involved in what he used to call "fighting and squabbling with parsons." On one occasion he was followed into the room of a sick man by a minister of the Primitive Methodists, who insisted on remaining there to hear what was said in confession, and was with great difficulty persuaded by the invalid to leave the house. It was not only from Protestants, however, that Father Faber had to suffer annoyance; his worst troubles came from those of his own faith. About the time of his ordination he had made arrangements for the publication of a series of lives of the saints, translated from the Italian and other foreign languages, and afterward so widely known as the Oratorian Lives. A part of the literary work he did himself, but the most of it he committed to other hands, having at one time between sixty and seventy translators at work under his direction. The series began with a _Life of St. Philip Neri_. It reached a large sale; but so little familiar were English readers with the supernatural manifestations which abound in biographies of the chosen servants of God that exception was taken to the work in various quarters, and when the _Life of St. Rose of Lima_ appeared, the opposition became extremely violent. It was objected that the lives of foreign saints, however edifying in their respective countries, were unsuited to England and unfit for Protestant eyes. Under the advice of Dr. Newman, who nevertheless approved of the work very cordially, the series was finally suspended. But then a reaction set in; it was discovered how much practical good the publications had done; some of those who had criticised them most severely retracted and apologized; and the translations were resumed under the auspices of the Oratorians, with whom Father Faber's community had meanwhile been consolidated.