A year of peace, but not of idleness, went by in the quiet of Douay.  Campion finished his theological studies and took the degree of Bachelor of Divinity, while giving lectures at the same time in the English College.  The new Chancellor of the University, a Fleming, who heard him speak on St. Michael’s day, was forced to admit that his country could not show a genius like to him.  But more than this, Edmund ascended the first steps on the altar, receiving the four minor orders and the sub-diaconate.  He was then thirty-one.  But his heart was not even yet at rest.  What he called "the abomination of the sign of the beast," the Anglican deacon’s orders, which he had received at Oxford, called for the expiation of penance.  At his first coming to Douay he had made a complete offering of himself, of his life and blood to His Lord and Master for the land he loved.  A voice within him urged him, as it had so many before and after, to go in a penitent spirit to the Holy City, and there, by the favor of the two great Apostles, to seek admission into the Society of Jesus.  He made no reserve in his obedience, leaving his future in the hands of God; but still he resolved, in case he were received, to beg his superiors to grant him the wish of his heart, and to allow him to spend himself and be spent for the restoration of the faith in England.  And before he started on his journey, he began his apostleship by urgent letters of farewell to some of his old friends, Catholic and Protestant, so full of power, that many were induced to follow his example of leaving home and all to follow Christ.  Among those to whom he wrote was his old friend, the aged Anglican Bishop of Gloucester, whom he had known and loved - Cheney, whose views were far apart from those of the other so-called bishops of Elizabeth’s new-fangled hierarchy, and from the fanatical clergy subject to him.  He was like a High Churchman of our time, believing neither in the Calvinism nor the Lutheranism of his days, and yet professing, illogically, to stand by Councils and Fathers, though, as his young friend clearly saw, both condemned his position in an heretical and schismatical body.  This letter which still exists, as Fr. Persons says, "doth so rattle up the old man of 60 years old (but yet with great modesty, and show of reverence and hearty good will) as it may easily appear how abundantly God has imparted His Holy Spirit unto him, for his letter is truly apostolic."

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Many were the friends who came out with Campion to the gates of Douay, to bid him good-bye, as he went on the road, trodden by many a Saxon king and English Saint, to the Apostles Shrine.  And, like them, his only retinue was poverty.  Begging alms by the way, he met, coming back from a tour in Italy, "an old acquaintance that had known him, in times past, in Oxford in great pomp and prosperity of the world."  The English gentleman rode by without recognizing the poor pilgrim, but something in his looks struck him and he turned back, recognized Edmund, and leaping from his horse shook warmly his old friend’s hand, pitying him deeply because sure that he had fallen among thieves.  But he was very disgusted when he found that it was only a case of practical following of Gospel counsel.  However, he held out his purse and told him to take what he wanted.  But Campion would have nothing, and, so Persons tells us (he himself was then at the University), "made such a speech unto him of the contempt of this world and eminent dignity of serving Christ in poverty, as greatly moved the man, and as also his acquaintance that remained yet in Oxford, when the report came to our ears."

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It was late in 1572 when Campion reached Rome.  Worn out with his embassage to Spain in the suite of the Pope’s nephew, St. Francis Borgia, quondam Duke of Gandia, and at that time General of the Society of Jesus, died on his return to Rome, shortly after Edmund’s arrival.  Once there, he needed a long delay before he could present himself for reception to the General, as the electors had to gather in from the foreign provinces of the Society to choose a successor.  Nor was it till April 23, of the following year, that Father Everard Mercoeur (Latinized into Mercurianus) of Liege was elected.

 

Campion was the first postulant received by the new General.  The official examiners were so completely satisfied with his answers that he was received as a novice without any further probation.  No doubt their previous knowledge all went to confirm their decision.  In fact he had come to be so well known by the various Provincials and Fathers, deputies for the election, -there was then no English Province, - that there was a contest over him, as to which should secure his service.  Campion rejoiced to think that his lot was now entirely in God’s hands, and his only prayer, and an earnest one, was, that He would, through his superiors, dispose of him when and as He willed.  The Austrian province won the day, and Prague in Bohemia was chosen as the place of his novitiate.  Thither wards he traveled in the summer, on the close of the Congregation, in company with Fr. Maggi his Provincial and several German and Spanish Fathers, as far as Vienna.  Thence he started for the novitiate with Father James Avellanedo, the confessor to the Empress, a man who had held weighty posts in Europe and India, and who told Fr. Persons in after years "how exceedingly he was edified with the modesty, humility, sweet behavior and angelic conversation of Campion which made him ever after to have a great affection for our nation."

 

Bohemia, the home of the Hussites, had then well-nigh lost its faith: and as John Huss owed his socialistic and anti-Catholic ideas to Wycliffe, Campion felt that as an Englishman he might by God’s holy providence gain some souls in that land back to the faith, "in recompense of so many thousands lost and cast away by the wickedness of Wycliffe."  The novice by his fervent life gave great edification to all, for his only thought was to serve God and to live in peace and charity with all around.  In two short months the novitiate was moved, on October 10, 1573, to Brunn in Moravia, where things were worse even than in Prague, and where the Bishop hoped that a house of prayer and penance might effect a change for the better.  There Fr. Edmund spent a year’s novitiate.  One of the novice’s duties was to catechize in the neighboring hamlets.  The results were great; but Campion was ever noted as the most successful, and he won many converts to the truth.

 

In spite of the humiliations and hard life of a Jesuit novitiate, or, rather, because Campion had thoroughly caught the spirit of a true companion and imitator of his Divine Lord, love made all that labor light.  The blessed martyr, writing to his former fellow novices, shows how he valued the trials of his probation.  "Beautiful kitchen, where the Brothers fight for the sauce pans in holy humility and charity unfeigned!  How often do I picture to myself one returning with his load from the farm, another from the market; one sweating stalwartly and merrily under a sack of rubbish, and another under some other toil!  Believe me, my dear brothers, that your dust, your brooms, your poles, your loads are beheld with joy by the angels, and get for you from God more than if they saw in your hands scepters, jewels, and gold in your purses."  Father Campion’s novice-master was made Rector of a College of Prague, and on September 7, 1571, he went to his new post taking with him his favorite pupil.  Amidst the prayerful retirement of Brunn the future martyr had been favored with a vision of Our Lady under the stately and venerable type of St. Luke’s painting at St. Mary’s Major’s, of which a copy was in the novice’s chapel. She offered to him a purple robe as a promise of his victory.

 

In the College of Prague, Edmund’s talents were at once brought into play.  He was made professor of rhetoric to the young gentlemen and nobles of Bohemia, while other humble duties were assigned to him in-doors.  He had to be the first out of bed at a very early hour of the morning, to call the community, and had to be the last up at night to see that all lights were out, and that all had retired to rest, while his recreation was often spent in helping the cook in the kitchen.  The following year, 1575, when he had taken his first vows, he set up the Sodality of Our Lady among the students, and the year

after he was moved into the convictus or boarding school, and was appointed prefect of discipline, in addition to other duties.  Never was he known to make any other difficulty to his superior, when he laid any new labor upon him, but only: "Does your reverence think I am fit to discharge that office?"  If the superior said "Yes," he accepted it without more ado.  And his companions thought it a miracle that one man could bear so many loads.

 

Amidst all his varied occupations, Blessed Campion’s fall at Oxford and his reception of Anglican orders was ever a source of trouble to him.  And it was in vain "to tell him, that which he knew right well himself, that it was no order or character at all, seeing that he that gave it to him was no true bishop, and had no more authority than a layman, and that indeed these bishops themselves did not consider that any character was given, as in Catholic ordinations, by imposition of hands."  Still, the very memory of this mark of his open apostacy made him sad and unhappy.  Nor was he ever freed from his inward grief, till the absolute order of his General came from Rome, not to trouble himself about this scruple, and, in 1578, he was ordained deacon and priest by the Archbishop of Prague.  He said his first Mass on Our Lady’s birthday.

 

Meantime news from Rome renewed all his old desires to labor directly for his native land.  The blood of martyrs had begun to flow in England.  Blessed Thomas Woodhouse, an old Marian priest, had given his life for the faith at Tyburn.  Blessed Cuthbert Mayne, the first of the illustrious band that came from the English seminaries across the water, was martyred at Launceston, on November 9, 1577.  He was of St.

John’s College, like Campion, and was one of those whom our blessed martyr had persuaded by letter to throw up his position, and to come out of England to Douay.  Campion learned, too, that several of his old Oxford friends had entered the Society of Jesus in Rome, of whom the best known are Robert Persons of Balliol, his biographer and future companion, Henry Garnet of New College, and William Weston of All Souls, all three of whom were in turn to be Superiors of the Society of Jesus in England.

 

Every day the Queen and her advisers grew more angry as the arrival of fresh priests became known, and several captures of Catholic priests called for more care and watchfulness.  London had become too hot to hold them.  As soon therefore as Father Persons returned, a meeting was held in a small house in Southwark to settle some grave questions before they separated.  Several priests and laymen were present.  The chief question to be discussed at the meeting was how to rebut the accusation which had gone abroad that the Jesuits had come into England for political and revolutionary ends.  It was thought enough to be prepared to deny the allegation solemnly and on oath; but just when the Fathers were bidding each other goodbye at Hoxton, before leaving London, Mr. Pound, a gentleman of rank, came deputed by the many Catholic prisoners in the Marshalsea prison, to urge in their name that some more definite measures be taken, to contradict the rumor.  He begged that a declaration written by each Father, signed and sealed, should be left in the hands of some trusty friends, to be produced and published if, after their death, these falsehoods should be urged against them.  Father Campion, taking a pen in his hand, wrote upon the end of a table in less than half an hour the declaration which was to play hereafter so important a part.  Written off without any previous study, while his friends were waiting his departure, it was so pithy, both for matter and language, as to please greatly the unprejudiced reader and sting his opponents.  In it he challenged a discussion on religion before the Council to show how it affected the State, before the University to prove its truth, and before the men of the law to show how the English statute book itself justified his creed.  He offered even to preach before the Queen.  At the same time he declared that his holy calling and the orders of superiors warned him from any matters of State.  Father Campion gave a copy to Mr. Pound; the other, which he kept for himself is now carefully treasured at Stonyhurst College.  Pound showed his to other friends, who begged to be allowed to transcribe it, and quickly it became spread about, and fell into the hands of friends and foes alike, and more than one copy was laid before the Queen’s Council.

 

At once fresh and sweeping measures of persecution were adopted, and the Catholic gentry were packed into the state prisons; and, when these were full, castles, whose ruinous state made them unfit dwellings for men, were crowded with the best and noblest of the land.  Meanwhile, well provided with horses, money and changes of disguise by the devotion of the Catholic Association, Fathers Campion and Persons bid each other good-bye, and set out each on his separate mission, full of peril, as it was full of profit.  Each was accompanied by a trusty squire, who shared his danger and served as guide.  Blessed Edmund passed through Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire, calling at gentlemen’s and noblemen’s houses, both Catholic and Protestant.  "We entered, for the most part," Persons narrates, "as acquaintance or kinsfolk of some person that lived within the house, and when that failed us, as passers-by, or friends of some gentlemen that accompanied us; and after ordinary salutations, we had our apartments, by the Catholics’ aid, in some retired part of the house, where putting on our priests’ dress, which we always carried with us, we had secret conference with the Catholics that were there, or such of them as might conveniently come, whom we always caused to prepare themselves for confession late that night.  Next morning very early we had Mass, and the Blessed Sacrament ready for such as wished to communicate, and after that an exhortation which had been prepared on horseback, and then we made ourselves ready to depart again."  When they were able to prolong their stay, they would repeat these exercises.  Such was the plan the Fathers followed.

 

Once more they came back to the south.  Campion was so hotly sought after that he dared not enter London, but he met Fr. Persons and other priests at Uxbridge.  There it was determined that Fr. Edmund should use his brilliant pen to write a Latin appeal to the Universities, where his memory was still fresh and in honor.  With the enthusiasm which formed such a large part of his character, he chose for his subject, "Heresy at its wits end," and, though the idea seemed a strange one at a time when heresy was the master of the whole material power of the realm, the Father insisted that its very activity and cruelty showed that it had no better argument to produce.  The two Fathers renewed their vows, heard each other’s confessions, and then again bade good-bye.