'
VI
MANNING'S appointment filled his opponents with alarm. Wrath and
vengeance seemed to be hanging over them; what might not be
expected from the formidable enemy against whom they had
struggled for so long, and who now stood among them armed with
archiepiscopal powers and invested with the special confidence of
Rome? Great was their amazement, great was their relief, when
they found that their dreaded master breathed nothing but
kindness, gentleness, and conciliation. The old scores, they
found, were not to be paid off, but to be wiped out. The new
archbishop poured forth upon every side all the tact, all the
courtesy, all the dignified graces of a Christian magnanimity. It
was impossible to withstand such treatment. Bishops who had spent
years in thwarting him became his devoted adherents; even the
Chapter of Westminster forgot its hatred. Monsignor Talbot was
extremely surprised. 'Your greatest enemies have entirely come
round,' he wrote. 'I received the other day a panegyric of you
from Searle. This change of feeling I cannot attribute to
anything but the Holy Ghost.' Monsignor Talbot was very fond of
the Holy Ghost; but, so far, at any rate as Searle was concerned,
there was another explanation. Manning, instead of dismissing
Searle from his position of 'oeconomus' in the episcopal
household, had kept him on--at an increased salary; and the poor
man, who had not scrupled in the days of his pride to call
Manning a thief, was now duly grateful.
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