In his extremely influential A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, the primary contention of which was the conflict thesis, White wrote that "it is a duty and a pleasure to state here that one great Christian scholar did honour to religion and to himself by quietly accepting the claims of science and making the best of them.... That man was Nicholas Wiseman, better known afterward as Cardinal Wiseman.

[8] Wiseman visited England during 1835–1836 and delivered lectures on the principles and main doctrines of Catholicism in the Sardinian Chapel, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and in the church in Moorfields.

At Edward Bouverie Pusey's request, John Henry Newman reviewed them in the periodical British Critic during December 1836, treating them for the most part with sympathy as a triumph over popular Protestantism.

To another critic, who had claimed a resemblance between Catholic and pagan ceremonies, Wiseman replied admitting the likeness, and saying that it could be shown equally well to exist between Christian and non-Christian doctrines.

[7] On his arrival from Rome in 1847, Wiseman acted as an informal diplomatic envoy from the pope, to ascertain from the government what assistance England was likely to give in implementing the liberal policy with which Pius inaugurated his reign.

Residing in London in Golden Square, Wiseman threw himself into his new duties with many-sided activities, working especially for the reclamation of Catholic criminals and for the restoration of the lapsed poor to the practice of their religion.

He preached on 4 July 1848 at the opening of St George's, Southwark, an occasion unique in England since the Reformation, 14 bishops and 240 priests being present, and six religious orders of men being represented.

The papal brief establishing the hierarchy, Universalis Ecclesiae, was dated 29 September 1850, and Wiseman wrote a pastoral, dated "Given out of the Flaminian Gate of Rome, this seventh day of October, in the year of our Lord MDCCCL",[note 1] a form diplomatically correct, but of bombastic tone for Protestant ears, in which he said enthusiastically, "Catholic England has been restored to its orbit in the ecclesiastical firmament, from which its light had long vanished".

When he reached London on 11 November, the whole country was ablaze with indignation at the "papal aggression," which was interpreted to imply a new and unjustifiable claim to territorial rule.

Wiseman displayed calmness and courage, and immediately penned a pamphlet of over 30 pages titled Appeal to the English People, in which he explained the nature of the pope's action.

In July 1852, he presided at St Mary's College, Oscott over the first provincial synod of Westminster, at which Newman preached his sermon on the "Second Spring"; and at this date, Wiseman's dream of the rapid conversion of England to the ancient faith seemed capable of realisation.

But many difficulties with his own people shortly beset his path, due largely to the suspicions aroused by his evident preference for the ardent Roman zeal of the converts, and especially of Manning, to the dull and cautious formalism of the old Catholics.

It was during this visit to Rome that Wiseman projected, and began to write, the most popular book that he ever wrote, the historical romance, Fabiola, a tale of the Church of the Catacombs.

[14] Wiseman's speeches, sermons and lectures, delivered during his tour, were printed in a volume of 400 pages, showing an extraordinary power of speaking with sympathy and tact.

He was in a position to secure concessions that bettered the condition of Catholics in regard to poor schools, reformatories and workhouses, and in the status of their army chaplains.

In 1863, addressing the Catholic Congress in Mechelen, he stated that since 1830 the number of priests in England had increased from 434 to 1242, and of convents of women from 16 to 162, while there were no religious houses of men in 1830 and 55 in 1863.

On 30 January 1907, the body was removed with great ceremony from Kensal Green and was reburied in the crypt of the new cathedral, where it lies beneath a Gothic altar tomb, with a recumbent effigy of the archbishop in full pontificals.

[14] Wiseman's birthplace on Calle Fabiola in Barrio Santa Cruz, the old Jewish part of Seville, features a commemorative plaque, as does Etloe House in Leyton, London E10, where he lived from 1858 to 1864.

Cruel and unfeeling it may be pronounced by those who understand the strength of our position, and the cogency of the argument, but it is much more charitable than to leave them to the repeated sin of blaspheming God's Spouse and trying to undermine the faith of our poor Catholics.