"scrittura" containing his statement of the case. For months past the redoubtable energies of the Archbishop of Trebizond had been absorbed in a similar task. Folio "was being piled upon folio, when a sudden blow threatened to put an end to the whole proceeding in a summary manner. The Cardinal was seized by violent illness, and appeared to be upon his deathbed. Manning thought for a moment that his labours had. been in vain and that all was lost. But the Cardinal recovered; Monsignor Talbot used his influence as he alone knew how; and a papal decree was issued by which Dr. Errington was "liberated" from the Coadjutorship of Westminster, together with the right of succession to the See.
It was a supreme act of authority—a "colpo di stato di Dominiddio," as the Pope himself said—and the blow to the Old Catholics was correspondingly severe. They found themselves deprived at one fell swoop both of the influence of their most energetic supporter and of the certainty of coming into power at Wiseman's death. And in the meantime Manning was redoubling his energies at Bayswater. Though his Oblates had been checked over St. Edmund's, there was still no lack of work for them to do. There were missions to be carried on, schools to be managed, funds to be collected. Several new churches were built; a community of most edifying nuns of the Third Order of St. Francis was established; and £30,000, raised from Manning's private resources and from those of his friends, was spent in three years. "I hate that man," one of the Old Catholics exclaimed; "he is such a forward piece." The words were reported to Manning, who shrugged his shoulders. "Poor man," he said, "what is he made of? Does he suppose, in his foolishness, that after working day and night for twenty years in heresy and schism, on becoming a Catholic I should sit in an easy-chair and fold my hands all the rest of my life?" But his secret thoughts were of a different caste. "I am conscious of a desire," he wrote in his
