He had hoped to devote the rest of his
life to the teaching of Theology; but what sort of Theology could
he teach which would be acceptable to such superiors? He left
Rome, and settled down in Birmingham as the head of a small
community of Oratorians. He did not complain; it was God's will;
it was better so. He would watch and pray.
But God's will was not quite so simple as that. Was it right,
after all, that a man with Newman's intellectual gifts, his
devoted ardour, his personal celebrity, should sink away out of
sight and use in the dim recesses of the Oratory at Birmingham?
If the call were to come to him to take his talent out of the
napkin, how could he refuse? And the call did come. A Catholic
University was being started in Ireland and Dr. Cullen, the
Archbishop of Armagh, begged Newman to become the Rector. At
first he hesitated, but when he learned that it was the Holy
Father's wish that he should take up the work, he could doubt no
longer; the offer was sent from Heaven. The difficulties before
him were very great; not only had a new University to be called
up out of the void, but the position was complicated by the
presence of a rival institution--the undenominational Queen's
Colleges, founded by Peel a few years earlier with the object of
giving Irish Catholics facilities for University education on the
same terms as their fellow-countrymen.
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