Born at Calverley, Yorkshire, and educated at Harrow. In 1832 he entered Balliol College, Oxford, and three years later, University College, having obtained one of his scholarships, and in 1836 gained the Newdigate prize by his poem, “The Knights of St. John.” He graduated A.B. in 1836, and the following year obtained a Fellowship and the Johnson Divinity Scholarship. While at Oxford he had come under the influence of the Tractarian movement, and was a diligent attendant at the Church at St. Mary’s, Oxford, of which Dr. (afterwards Cardinal) Newman was the incumbent; and after graduation translated the seven books of Opatus for the “Library of the Fathers.” He was ordained deacon in 1837, and priest two years later, and in 1843 was presented to the living of Elton, Huntingdonshire. After a visit to Rome, and an interview with Pope Gregory XVI, he was, in 1845, received into the Church of Rome. Three years later he was received into the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, and in October of the following year was appointed Superior of the Oratory in London. He published “Hymns,” 1848; “Jesus and Mary,” 1849; “Jesus and Mary,” new and enlarged edition, 1852; “The Oratory Hymn Book,” 1854; “Hymns,” 1861.

Personal

  He incidentally declared his indifference to Whigs, Tories, and Radicals, having no predilections; and so far from being hostile to born Dissenters, as such, he thought any serious orthodox Dissenter ought to pause, and consider well what he did, before he departed from “the state into which Providence had called him;” and he exonerates all born Dissenters from the sin of schism. This same regard to the will of Providence influences him in his feelings towards the Church of Rome. He is certain he will never go over to Rome, though he rather regrets not having been born in that communion. He believes both the Roman and Anglican churches to be portions of the Catholic Church. On my objecting to the manifold corruptions of the Romish Church, he admitted these, but held that they did not invalidate its authority. There are trials of the faith of the believer. This same idea of the trial of faith he applied to other difficulties, and to the seeming irrationality of certain orthodox doctrines. A revelation ought to have difficulties. It is one of the signs of its Divine origin that it seems incredible to the natural man.

  The house abounds with photographs of him. I could not help myself, notwithstanding all these facts (quoted in the letter), discerning something of the baby in them—an absence of that solid intelligence which is the natural result of a thoughtful life. As for influence upon others, that is a question which I have not solved.

  He was remarkable for his habits of order and neatness, and once, when a father remarked upon the tidiness of his room, he replied, “The napkin in the sepulchre was found folded at the resurrection.” As might be imagined from the narrative of his life, he was always distinguished for gentleness; and Father Bowden remarks that he never was severe in the manner of correcting the faults of his spiritual subjects, except possibly in matter connected with the ceremonial of divine worship. Any defect of demeanour during service, or inattention to the requirements of the rubric, he rebuked with marked severity. In the church he would have everything of the best, whether it could be seen by the congregation or not. When the new high altar of marble was put up in the Oratory, he was much dissatisfied because the back was not finished like the front, and he found fault with the altar rails for the same reason, complaining that “the side next our Lord” was not ornamented. He was very fond of children, and his correspondence contains some striking evidences of his tenderness to them. We have already spoken of his love of humor—a sense which seems naturally to accompany the poetic instinct. His room was at all hours the frequent resort of his brethren who looked upon it as a renewal of St. Philip’s “School of Christian Mirth.”

  In person, he was extremely prepossessing—of good height, slender figure, fair complexion, bright blue eyes, well-formed features, almost feminine grace…. Evening after evening, in Frederick Faber’s rooms, we spent together in reading, and comparing our impressions of our favourite poets;… was a poet himself; a man of genius, though not of that kind in which strength predominates. His nature was tender and emotional; he thought and felt in superlatives; and, though his thoughts and feelings were real and true, they were surrounded by a nimbus of artificial light…. His usual flow of spirits was great; and in conversation he was positive, sometimes paradoxical. There was in his mental nature an element of waywardness and inconstancy of which in his earlier years he was conscious. It manifested itself sometimes in a rapid change of opinion from one extreme to another; and at other times (though this never happened to myself), in his relations to particular persons.

  The friendship with F. W. Faber was at its height during these years. They had known each other at Oxford since 1833, but had not been very intimate there. They now drew together, in the thorough and enthusiastic line which they adopted in matters of Catholic devotion; and Faber was Ward’s “spiritual director” from 1853 to the end of his life. Faber threw all the gifts of high imagination and musical utterance, which had made Wordsworth recognise him early as one who should be a great poet, into the service of the Catholic Church; giving up all effort on the lines which lead to literary fame. Mr. Ward always held that the events of 1845 transformed him; and that a nature which had seemed in early years to have something of the dilettante in it, revealed at last quite unexpected depths. Few had looked in the Oxford Faber for the almost unique influence as a spiritual guide at the London Oratory, which is still in the memory of many.

Poetry

  His verses, less labored and polished than Keble’s, quite make up in natural warmth what they lack in artistic finish; and we find in them always that ease of expression which we miss in the highly wrought poems of Keble.

  The hymns which he wrote were collected and published in 1848. There were not many of them. The edition of 1849 was much enlarged, and that of 1852 contained sixty-six pieces. In 1861 the number had risen to one hundred and fifty. These hymns are so truly devotional in spirit, and so eminently appropriate to the religious use of all Christians, that they have been for a long time among the treasures of English hymnody. Editions of them have been issued, from which those that belong to the exclusive service of the Church of Rome have been eliminated, and in which the touching and exquisite lyrics which are so dear to all believers have been retained. This is in full accordance with the large desire of their author, who says this much and more in his preface.

  There is one hymn writer to whom we owe much, and who went out from among us, with so many others, now nearly forty years ago—Frederick William Faber. Some of his beautiful hymns are spoiled by a strange sentimentalism; some are good and noble poetry. Faber was one of a family distinguished in literature.

  Faber enjoyed for a number of years the friendship of Wordsworth, to whom, as we have seen, he dedicated one of his early volumes. Upon hearing of Faber’s determination to enter the Church, Wordsworth wrote him: “I do not say you are wrong, but England loses a poet.” Whether Faber would ever have justified the application of the term poet in the high sense in which we should expect Wordsworth to use it may be doubted; but judged by any standard which it is proper to apply to sacred poetry, as such the best of his verse will take honourable rank. In “Carl Ritter,” “The Heiress of Gösting,” and the “Dream of King Crœsus,” one of his best poems, he showed some faculty for narrative verse, but he lacked originality; and when not dealing with a classical or legendary theme showed want of resource and invention. Some of his hymns, however, have become very popular, and some contain the more enduring qualities not always found in popular work.

General

  In his numerous devotional books, in all his correspondence, and in his hymns, almost all of which are of the highest order for beauty, tenderness, and spirituality, there breathes sweet humility, childlike trust in Jesus as the Savior of the lost, and the most loving submission to the Divine will. Some of his hymns have found their way into Protestant collections, such as “Hymns of the Ages,” and have met with much favour. The first of his remarkable series of spiritual books, entitled, “All for Jesus,” is the one on which his reputation as an author mainly rests; but all his books were eagerly welcomed at the time of their publication, and were immediately translated into different languages. And there is much in them which is fitted to excite healthfully the devotional feelings of the pious who are not of the Church to which he belonged, and who have no sympathy with it, to suggest to them profitable thought, and to incite them to faithfulness in the performance of duty. That which is false in them can easily be discriminated, and separated from that which is good and true.

  He was no Gallican, no rigorist, no advocate of anything that might be called Neo-Catholic or Anglo-Catholic. Even in regard to minor and accessory matters, to modes and ways in which there is great room for variation in opinion and practice, he preferred those which characterize the genius of the Italian and Spanish nations, and which seem to the colder and more reserved temperament of the English to be the most remote and foreign to their tastes and intellectual habits. He endeavored to divest himself of everything which bore the semblance of conformity even in accidentals to Anglicanism, and to throw his whole soul in what he considered to be the most perfectly Catholic mould. He outran in this many both of the old English Catholics and of his fellow-converts. Especially in regard to the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, he made himself the champion of the most exalted views concerning the power and glory of the Mother of God, and the importance of her cultus in the practical teaching and piety which is directed to the end of the conversion and perfection of souls. He followed St. Bernardine of Sienna, St. Alphonsus, and the V. Louis Grignon de Montfort, and his entire spiritual doctrine is derived from similar sources, as it were flowing from the very topmost heights of mystic contemplation, above the clouds, and far remote from the paths and ken of ordinary mortals. In his theology, which is remarkable both for accuracy and depth, he always follows those authors whose doctrine accords with the strictest criterion of Roman orthodox.

  As a spiritual pathologist F. W. Faber stands without a rival. Old Ames, in the preface to his sagacious and most practical treatise, “De Conscientia,” observes that in this department the Romanists are superior to our own writers. This certificate, coming from the author of one of the most effective polemics against Rome, the “Bellarminus Enervatus,” may be unhesitatingly accepted. Certainly it is true of Faber. The whole human subject lies open to his scrutiny. With the skill of the trained anatomist he cuts down upon the spot he wishes to lay bare, and dissects away all obstructing material. He speaks with his eye steadily on the object. He sees the reality and he tells what he sees in one of the most lucid and racy styles ever employed by an English writer. The gravity of his subject and the austerity of his judgment are relieved by the tender sympathy of a man who knows the difficulty of holy living, and by a humour which does not so much leap out in sudden flashes, as maintains throughout a steady brightness. His therapeutics are, of course, mixed—strangely mixed…. In a word, the reader must discount his Romanism; but having done so he feels he is in the company of a man who knows him as if he had lived with him all his days, and to whom the spiritual life is an actuality of vital importance. The cure of the soul is, in Faber, reduced to something like a science. He does not fall into the mistake of some writers on experimental religion, who treat the soul mechanically, and leave in the mind the impression that all one needs to do in order to attain perfection is to attend to certain rules. But hopefulness springing from a sounder source breathes through all Faber’s writings, and counsels suggested by an unrivalled knowledge of men’s actual infirmities convey encouragement and lasting help. In pure theology, also, Faber has rare excellences. His “The Creator and the Creation” is a presentation of the love of God so affecting as to be irresistible. The material which his theological insight and learning gather is transfused by his poetic genius into a form all aglow with finely controlled emotion.

  By his unceasing labours in connection with the London Oratory, by his persuasive eloquence in the pulpit, and by his numerous publications, Faber rendered signal service to the Roman Catholic cause in England. He introduced Italian forms of prayer and pious practices, some of which were at first distasteful to English Catholics of the old school, and he constantly inculcated devotion to the pope as an essential part of christian piety. The light and charming style of his spiritual treatises, which unite mystical devotion with profound theological learning, obtained for them an extraordinary popularity. His longer poetical works possess considerable merit, and the use of his beautiful hymns is almost universal in catholic churches wherever the English language is spoken.