258 EARLY REMINISCENCES Lartet. If I remember aright, Mr. Christy was there and expounded on the discoveries. There were engraved on the bones figures of the rhinoceros, the hairy elephant and the reindeer. The whole science of early man was then in its infancy, and the revelations of Lyell, Christy and Lartet and others startled the world, and made the believers in the Textual Infallibility of the Bible, of Creation and of Adam and Eve, shake in their shoes. I was vastly interested in the matter, and resolved whenever possible to visit the Vezere, and see, with mine own eyes, whether these things were as stated. It was not till thirty-five years later that I was able to accomplish this. There were in London at this time, indeed, throughout England, a number of sincere young men, very zealous for the Catholic cause. Many of them formed the Guild of S. Alban, and it was touching to see their earnestness. I do not think that there is now quite so much zeal for the cause as was then present among these young men, clerks in counting-houses, artists, university men, counter-jumpers. I may, however, be mistaken, living as I now do in the country, and out of touch with Church life in towns. The Church movement then was new, and to carry it forward it needed enthusiasm. At the present time, in the twentieth century, the cause has triumphed, in a fashion, in externals, but whether in depth of spirituality and zeal I am not in a position to judge. Crickmay was the head of the Guild of S. Alban, a most sincere, earnest Christian. One of the members I knew, B-, who afterwards went into Holy Orders, had a college acquaintance F-, who had gone over to the Roman Church, and whom also I had known. This man took B-over S. Mary-of-the-Angels, Bayswater, showed him the church, the dining-hall, the library, and cubicles ; and, as they were walking through the gallery, upstairs, " By the way," said F-, " you really must make the acquaintance of Dr. Manning." " No, thank you, I have no particular desire to see and to know him." " Nonsense ! You cannot see the play of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet left out. Oh, here is.his room." He knocked at a door, and led B-into the sitting-room of Dr. Manning. The doctor was very civil, asked B-to take a chair, and F---slipped away, saying that he would be back shortly ; he wanted to have a word with a friend.
