 Under the influence of the Oxford Movement he was led to embrace the Catholic faith in 1846, and five years later, on the death of his wife Anne, daughter of John Vezard of Gloucestershire, he sought admission as a lay brother into the Society of Jesus.Urged to enter as a scholastic and to prepare for the priesthood, he said it was Our Lady's wish that he should be a lay brother.For thirty years he occupied the post of lay brother "socius" to the English provincial superior.