The community was thus of the greatest service to Cardinal Wiseman, whose right-hand man Manning thenceforward be came. During the eight years of his life at Bayswater he was most active in all the duties of the priesthood, preaching, hearing confessions, and receiving converts; and he was notably zealous to promote in England all that was specially Roman and papal, thus giving offence to old-fashioned Catholics, both clerical and lay, many of whom were largely influenced by Gallican ideas, and had with difficulty accepted the restoration of the hierarchy in 185o. In 186o he delivered a course of lectures on the pope's temporal power, at that date seriously threatened, and shortly afterwards he was appointed a papal domestic prelate.
He was now generally recognized as the able and effective leader of the Ultramontane party among English Roman Catholics, acting always, however, in subordination to Cardinal Wiseman; and on the latter's death (Feb. 15, 1865) it was felt that, if Manning should succeed to the vacant archbishopric, the triumph of Ultramontanism would be secured. Such a consummation not being desired by the Westminster chapter, they submitted to the pope three names, and Manning's was not one of them. Pius IX. ignored the nominations, and appointed Manning to the archiepiscopal see. Consecrated at the pro-cathedral at Moor fields (since destroyed) by Dr. Ullathorne, bishop of Birmingham (June 8, 1865), and enthroned there (Nov. 6), after receiving the pallium in Rome, Manning began his work as archbishop by devoting himself especially to the religious education of the poor and to the establishment of Catholic industrial and reformatory schools. He steadily opposed whatever might encourage the admission of Catholics to the national universities, and so put his foot down on Newman's project to open a branch house of the Oratory at Oxford with himself as superior. He made an un successful and costly effort to establish a Catholic university at Kensington, and he also made provision for a diocesan seminary of strictly ecclesiastical type. He procured a further condemna tion at Rome of the "Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom," which advocated prayers for the accomplish ment of a kind of federal union between the Roman, Greek and Anglican Churches, and in a pastoral letter he insisted on the heretical assumption implied in such an undertaking. He also worked for the due recognition of the dignity of the secular or pastoral clergy, whose position seemed to be threatened by the growing ascendancy of the regulars, and especially of the Jesuits, whom, as a practically distinct organization within the Church, he steadily opposed.
In addition to his diocesan synods, he presided in 1873 over the fourth provincial synod of Westminster, which legislated on "acatholic" universities, church music, mixed marriages, and the order of a priest's household, having previously taken part, as theologian, in the provincial synods of 1853 and 1859, with a hand in the preparation of their decrees. But it was chiefly
through his strenuous advocacy of the policy of defining papal infallibility at the Vatican council (1869-187o) that Manning's name obtained world-wide renown. In this he was instant in season and out of season. He brought to Rome a petition in its favour from his chapter at Westminster, and during the progress of the council he laboured incessantly to overcome the opposition of the "inopportunists." And he never ceased to regard it as one of the chief privileges of his life that he had been able to take an active part in securing the definition, and in having heard with his own ears that doctrine proclaimed as a part of divine revela tion. In 1875 he published a reply to Gladstone's attack on the Vatican decrees ; and on March 15 in that year he was created cardinal, with the title of SS. Andrew and Gregory on the Coelian. He was present at the death of Pius IX. (Feb. 7, 1878) ; and in the subsequent conclave, while some Italian cardinals were pre pared to vote for his election to fill the vacant chair, he himself supported Cardinal Pecci, afterwards known as Leo XIII.
With Leo XIII. Manning found less sympathy than with his predecessor, though Manning's advocacy of the claims of labour attracted Leo's attention, and influenced the encyclical which he issued on the subject. After the Vatican council, and more especially after the death of Pius IX., Manning devoted his atten tion mainly to social questions, and with these his name was popu larly associated during the last fifteen years of his life. From 1872 onwards he was a strict teetotaller, not touching alcohol even as a medicine. His example and his zeal profoundly influ enced for good the Irish poor forming the majority of his flock; and the "League of the Cross" which he founded, and which held annual demonstrations at the Crystal Palace, numbered nearly 30,00o members in London alone in 1874. He sat on two royal commissions, the one on the housing of the working classes (1884), and the other on primary education (1886) ; and in each case the report showed evident marks of his influence, which his fellow-commissioners recognized as that of a wise and com petent social reformer. In the cause of labour he was active for many years, and in 1872 he set an example to the clergy of all the churches by taking a prominent part in a meeting held in Exeter Hall on behalf of the newly established Agricultural Labourers' Union, Joseph Arch and Charles Bradlaugh being among those who sat with him on the platform.