FATHER LESTER, S.J.

A Memorial at Osterley
A statue at Osterley, where so much of the late Father Edmund Lester's work was done, serves to commemorate the name and labours of that apostolic priest. This statue, of Blessed Edmund Campion, S.J., has been set up by Father Lester's friends and admirers. It was blessed by the Archbishop of Westminster in the presence of a large gathering.
On the stone base of the figure is the following inscription :
The enterprise is begun; it is of God; it cannot be withstood. 1580.
B. Edmund Campion Si.
In memory of Edmund Lester, Si.
Founder of 'vterley.
Campkaires Challenge
The words quoted are from Campion's " Brag and ChMlenge " to the Privy Council, which runs as follows:
"Many innocent bands are lifted up to Heaven or you by those English students whose posterity shall never die, which beyond the seas, gathering virtue and sufficient knowledge for the purpose, are determined never to give you over, 'lint either to win you to Heaven or to die upon your pikes. We have made a league cheerfully to carry the cross you shall lay upon us, and never to despair your recovery while we have a man left to enjoy your Tyburn, or to be racked with your torments, or consumed with your prisons. The expense is reckoned; the enterprise is begun; it is of God; it cannot be withstood. So the faith was planted: so it must be restored.
A Nursery of Vocations
Speaking at Campion House, to " Our Lady's Young Priests," the Archbishop said: "You, too, have begun an enterprise, the first step on the road to the priesthood. Like your patron, Blessed Edmund Campion, give yourselves to it with all your heart and souls.
" Campion House, Osterley, is filling an important gap in the work of the Church in England. It has done a great work for God and for souls. Many vocations have been saved, and many zealous priests have been trained within its walls.
"Already 280 of the late vocations whom Father Lester helped to save have reached the priesthood. Five of them I ordained recently, and eighteen of them are working as priests in my own arch-diocese. I am proud of them.
" Take as your models Father Miguel Pro, S.J., the Mexican martyr; the Cure of Ars; and Blessed Edmund Campion, your patron. Learn from them the chief requirements in candidates for the priesthood : strong solid character, and tenacity of purpose. Cultivate the mission spirit. Think of the spiritual destitution of the millions of pagans who need apostles to carry into their darkness the unsearchablc riches of Christ."