Excerpt from The Dawn of the Catholic Revival in England, Vol. 1 of 2: 1781-1803

In Newman's sermon on "the Second Spring" there is a well-known passage in which he depicts what he conceives would have been Bishop Milner's emotions had he seen in vision the solemn inauguration of the first Synod of the restored Hierarchy held in the year 1852. A similar contrast is alluded to by Charles Butler, the celebrated lawyer, who was Milner's contemporary, between the time when he was writing and the days of his youth, half a century earlier. In the Catholic Spectator for 1824 he says, "the writer can in his turn affirm to the youth of the present day that they can form no idea of the state of depression of the English Catholics at the time of the accession of George III., and during the ten years which followed it". Milner did not, indeed, live even to see Catholic Emancipation, but during his episcopate Mass was openly celebrated. Catholic "chapels" had been set up in many of the chief towns, Catholic schools and colleges had been established in England, and communities of monks and nuns were wearing the habits of their respective orders, and keeping their rule in its entirety: the very idea of which fifty years before would have appeared an idle dream.

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