The introduction of a new order or a new congregation is so common an event now that we can hardly understand how bitter was the ill-feeling aroused by the opening of the London Oratory in a hired house in King William street in May, 1849. It was the first public church which had been served by a religious community in that diocese since the old faith was put under the feet of the English schism. Bishop Wiseman was a warm supporter of the Oratorians, but many of the secular clergy looked upon them with suspicion, doubted the discretion of a community composed entirely of converts, disapproved of the public wearing of their habit, and complained that their peculiar services, with new prayers, hymns in the vernacular, and a new style of preaching, were Methodistical, and ought to be suppressed. Experience, however, in time showed the doubters their mistake, and the diocesan clergy became not only friends but imitators of the Oratorians. A great deal of popular animosity continued to be manifested, especially during the excitement which followed the reëstablishment of the English hierarchy. The walls of London were placarded, "Down with the Oratorians," "Don't go to the Oratory," "Banishment to the Oratorians," etc.; the fathers were cursed in the streets, and even _gentlemen_ used to shout at them from their carriage-windows. The government finally issued a proclamation reviving an old statute which forbade Roman Catholic ecclesiastics to wear the habit of their order, and thenceforth the Oratorians always appeared in the streets in secular garb.
Father Faber was doing an immense amount of labor at this time, preaching, visiting the sick, giving retreats and missions, and conducting special devotions, besides employing some time in literary occupations; yet he was almost constantly a sufferer from disease, and was often obliged to cease for a while from all work whatsoever. He had long been subject to very severe and prostrating headaches, connected with which is the following remarkable incident which we shall give in his own words, written to the Countess of Arundel and Surrey on the 2d of December, 1850: