Book excerpt: "The accepted historical picture of Frederick William Faber has often been that of a portly, ebullient, over-emotional individual, remembered chiefly as the founder of the London Oratory, for his disagreements with John Henry Newman, and for his prolific output of hymns (often triumphalist and occasionally sentimental). There is, however, a more profound side to Faber, which made him, in the opinion of one of his contemporaries, Henry Edward Manning, 'a great servant of God'." "This book presents us with the diverse, and often contradictory, strands within Faber's personal spirituality, and identifies the spiritual and intellectual processes that characterised his movement from Calvinistic Anglicanism to Ultramontane Roman Catholicism. If also explores areas of Faber's life that have not been discussed in detail before; his years within the Church of England, university life at Oxford, conversion to Roman Catholicism, foundation of the religious Order the Brothers of the Will of God, and the London Oratory."--BOOK JACKET.