Wedding, "how nearly I have agreed in William's political career,
especially in his Irish policy of the last twenty years." He accepted
the principle of Home Rule, though he thought badly of the Bill of 1886,
and predicted its failure from the day when it was brought in. The
exclusion of the Irish members was in his eyes a fatal blot, as tending
rather to separation than to that Imperial federation which was his
political ideal. But the Cardinal always held his politics in
subordination to his religion, and at the General Election of 1885 his
vigorous intervention on behalf of denominational education which he
considered to be imperilled by the Radical policy, considerably
embarrassed the Liberal cause in those districts of London where there
is a Roman Catholic vote.

It is necessary to say a word about Cardinal Manning's method of
religious propagandism. He excelled in the art of driving a nail where
it would go. He never worried his acquaintance with controversy, never
introduced religious topics unseasonably, never cast his pearls before
unappreciative animals. But when he saw a chance, an opening, a
sympathetic tendency, or a weak spot, he fastened on it with unerring
instinct. His line was rather admonitory than persuasive. When he
thought that the person whom he was addressing had an inkling of the
truth, but was held back from avowing it by cowardice or indecision, he
would utter the most startling warnings about the danger of dallying
with grace.

"I promise you to become a Catholic when I am twenty-one," said a young
lady whom he was trying to convert.

"But can you promise to live so long?" was the searching rejoinder.