CONVERTS: A CONTRAST

New Zealand Tablet, 18 September 1913, Page 15

CONVERTS: A CONTRAST

THE METHODS OF PROSELYTISERS We (Munster News) have received the following copy of a remarkable letter from a well-known member of a religious Order in London. It was originally sent from Dublin to Dr. Long as a private letter, but the Rev. Father has got the permission of the,writer to have it published, as he feels certain it will do good, as it shows up the hollowness of the Irish Church Missionary work. The lady, we understand, is at present under instruction, and will soon be received into the Catholic Church. The extract given from Dr. Long's history of the Limerick Medical Mission is enlightening. It shows the bitter anti-Catholic spirit that possesses him when he could write such a scandalous description of the venerable Catholic Church. Of' course, it would be too much to expect that he or those of a' like turn of mind would take his correspondent's advice and read up the other side.' Colossal ignorance of the Church's teaching is a characteristic of all. such persons :

Dear Dr. Long, —As one who in the past took a deep interest in your work and sympathised with you in your troubles, I write to tell you how fearfully upset I am in my conscience in reference to that work and my own efforts in the same cause. Some time ago I was buying books, and I chanced to pick up one entitled Mrs. Ainsworth: Memoir and Letters. As the shopman was busy and could not attend to me just then, I glanced over the pages of this book. As I read I grew fascinated by its simple style and evident sincerity, though all my natural repugnance was aroused and my life-long prejudices were up in arms. It was the life story of a convert to the Catholic Church. I had never before imagined that any refined mind or any person of real intelligence could see any claim in the Romanist religion to be the true Church of Christ. I never in my life read any book written from the Roman Catholic point of view. This one I had chanced on really aroused ’my curiosity, and I bought it. I brought it home; I read it, and it fairly took my breath away. The logic of stern facts met me on every page. Here was a high-born lady, an earnest Protestant, through no priestly influence embracing a religion that I always looked upon as a mass of superstition and nonsense — it at the cost of estranging her dearest friends, giving pain to a father, mother, and husband whom she dearly loved. The story is a true one, as she was a well-known person in English society. Incidentally there are others mentioned who became converts like herself. It staggered my preconceived ideas. I grew anxious to read more, and so I bought a book called Road's to Rome. This again showed me the logic of facts. Here were people of great intelligence, of vast Protestant clergymen, versed in the Sacred Scriptures, earnest thinkers, all ending by embracing the Church of Rome. As Mrs. Ainsworth wrote to her brother, who was an Anglican clergyman, lately received into the Roman Church ; ‘lf you are right then I must be wrong.’ I' also said to myself: ‘lf all these earnest souls are right, then I must be wrong.’ I saw Dr. Newman, who died

A Roman Cardinal,

mentioned in Mrs. Ainsworth’s life, and keen curiosity made me wish to read some of his books. The bookseller told me his most interesting book was one called A polopia. I read it, - and this book completely upset me. Here I read the religious life story of a wonderful man, told in the most beautiful English I had ever read. The only Romanists I had ever com© in contact with were poor, ignorant servant girls, or the besotted

class one .meets with in our Mission meetings; low, ignorant, and degraded, full of deceit, who eat our soup and take our money, and then go out and boast that they did not pay the least attention to what was going on. So narrow was my view that I never dreamt that there were clever, keen minds, saintly characters, and intensely religious souls belonging to the Roman Church. I firmly believed what you wrote in your history of the Limerick Medical Mission that 'the word of God and the" holy spirit of God alone can successfully overcome the power of Rome as a system full of arrogance and hypocrisy, of superstition and idolatry, of tyranny and darkness, and deliver from her paralysing slavery human souls, leading them into the enjoyment of the light and liberty of the children of God.' The scales have fallen from my eyes, and these words which I gloried in repeating to my friends now stand out before me as . Totally Devoid of Truth. If the word of God and the holy spirit of God can deliver souls from Rome, then why do they not do so? On reading .these Catholic books I see the word of God and the spirit of God doing quite the opposite. Men and women of the most exalted intelligence, steeped in the knowledge of the Bible, after years of the.most earnest prayer for light and guidance, joining the Church of Rome by the hundred—l might say by the thousand—giving up home and friends, breaking the dearest ties of love and friendship, laying aside wealth and position and embracing lives of poverty and hardship. What could make great minds do this except the spirit of God ? What could sustain them under the afflictions their change of religion brought upon them except the love of their Maker and the righteousness Christ implanted in their souls? What has the spirit of God done for our side? I look in vain for converts from Rome from the intelligent or earnest classes of Romanists. I have looked over a number of annual reports of our Irish Church Missions, and in vain did I try to find any real return for all the expenditure of money and earnest work. It never struck me before how exceedingly vague is all the information given in these reports—even your own. A Roman Catholic comes to me, say, and puts before me his mighty list of most distinguished people who have publicly joined his church and asks me for my list of converts. I have none to give, at -least none whose motives of conversion would for a moment stand investigation. I can only point to such statements as A large number of Roman Catholics were converted'; ' The light is spreading rapidly among Roman Catholics '; 'Several Roman Catholics now know their Saviour and have given up the superstitions , of Rome.' Could anything be more unsatisfying than these vague statements? No Names Particulars—no proofsjust simple assertions, which convince no one. As to the Roman Catholic priests one hears of as coming over, an experience I had in Liverpool always makes me fight shy of these gentlemen. I was stopping with friends—and earnest workers in the cause of mission work among Roman Catholics. They were elated. A priest had given up his persuasion and was preaching against Rome in one of the city churches. My "friends brought me to listen to him. He looked a coarse man, and to my mind a very dissipated one. But he could talk well. He aroused great enthusiasm by the usual tale of the wickedness of priests, monks, and nuns, and the blindness and ignorance of Roman Catholics in general. We went the next night. A number of hymns were sungmore than usualbut the ex-priest was . not making his appearance. Then a young clergyman came into the pulpit to announce that the rev. gentleman had taken suddenly ill. There were murmurs of sympathy, but much louder murmurs of disappointment. When I look back on it all now in the light of my present knowledge I wonder how I, who considered myself a pure-minded woman,' could sit there listening to this man's revolting descriptions of the alleged crimes of Roman Catholic priests and nuns, not only listenhig but keenly enjoying it, and then feeling disappointed

at not hearing more. So utterly blinded' was I then by my • - _ . ' ,- - ' -"_ Ingrained Prejudice and '• Hatred ."'•' u of Rome that-I returned that night sorely disappointed. There came back with us a gentleman; who was on the .committee responsible for this 'Exposure of. ; Rome.' He was-in a very angry mood. .We asked him what was .the cause of the disappointment, for none of us in our hearts believed the .;.-' sudden "illness explanation. 'Oh,' he said, 'the fellow isimpossiblea drunken ruffian. We have had the greatest work to keep him sober. enough to speak for the last few nights, and tonight when Mr. ——— went to fetch him he' found him helplessly drunk. "All these fellows who come over to us are the same.' In his. anger he blurted out this damaging truth.. At the time I did mot see its damaging force; I only thought within myself that the Roman clergy were a bad lot altogether and the few specimens we got were an index to all the others. This was wrong and wholly illogical, but I did not realise it then. Now. with shame I see its folly, its unrighteousness and unfairness. "But I was blinded" then by my life long training in'' - ; Hatred of Everything Roman Catholic. ~/. I look back now over nearly thirty years of a mistaken life (I am not young). 1 see that life in the light T have received by my reading.'. Since I first picked up that simple life of Mrs. Ainsworth' I have read many Catholic books, among them' Catholic Belief, The Question Box —a simple penny catechism used in Catholic schools for children—and • a number of lives of converts to the Roman Church, and a light has shone in on my soul, bewildering, yet enlightening; a deep sense of shame has settled down on my } soul when I think of all I have done in my blind ignorance to draw souls Trom Rome, and I feel a thankfulness that my efforts were nearly always unsuccessful. With the .exception of about a dozen .<■-•"■ Unfortunate Children I Bought— - it causes me almost physical pain to write this-bought, I say, from drunken and disreputable parents, and sent into our homes, my whole life has been a failure as regards making converts. I thank the Saviour for this dismal failure of all my strenuous efforts,, for. I know now I was not doing God's work, but.the work of God's enemy. I remember well nearly always employing Roman CatTiolic maids with the set purpose of making them v Give Up Their Religious Persuasion. But nearly all of them, when they discovered what I was at,' gave notice and left— Got at (as I said in my anger) by their Popish priests.' 'But now I know they were got at by the dictates of their righteous conscience and by the strength of the pure, living faith that was in them. Just two pretended to be impressed, but turned out utter failures. The first told me she had long doubted her religion, but that now she was certain she was wrong in remaining so long a Roman Catholic. She attended church and prayer meetings and read her Bible eagerly. I heaped favors upon her, gave lier presents, and did all I could to make her happy and comfortable. I thought I had a treasure. . After a time she said she had made the acquaintance of a respectable Protestant young man, a groom to a gentleman; he had asked her to marry him; would I allow her out a few evenings to meet him? I rejoiced. Once married to a Protestant she would be safe and her children would all be brought up Protestants. So I let her out any time she wished—but I was a fool. A lady friend came one day and told me Maggie was not the kind of girl I thought she was'.She met her more than once walking with soldiers,, and she seemed a very loose kind of a girl,-indeed. I simply would not believe this.- I trusted the girl, and said it was a case of mistaken identity. But, alas! myiriend was right and I was wrong, for it all ended in the unfortunate girl having to enter a maternity.,- hospital, and there, under fear of death, she sent for-a Roman Catholic priest, received the Sacraments from him and got her child baptised a Catholic. I lost sight of her after, that. The other was a most demure, meek

kind of girl, who seemed lost in.astonishment at all I told her about, religion. She, £OO, attended church, family prayers, and meetings, and was seemingly most devoted to the reading of the Bible. But after a time I discovered % her to be an arrant hypocrite and a systematic thief." She disappeared one day and a considerable amount of jewellery and other things disappeared with her. Why, you may ask, do I write all this to you ? Well, I feel in the depths of my soul a longing to do something in reparation for all my past misplaced zeal. I am convinced that the Roman Church is the one true Church of Christ, and I wish to appeal to you, whom I believe to be a well-meaning Christian man, working for a wrong and very bad cause. I wish to ask you to follow my example. ■-..•_■ , " : _ -;;;."'-: Read up the Other Side. Get the life of Mrs. Ainsworth and study it. Get those other books I mention. See the startling contrast between the converts to Rome and the converts to our religion. The former are influenced alone by the love of truth, ready to suffer the loss of love and friendship and worldly possessions, men and women of saintly character and righteous lives, whose only motive is love for their Maker and the desire of possessing God in heaven. Whereas those who come to us are led by greed, by hunger, poverty or the hope of bettering

their worldly prospects. With these facts, which cannot be denied, before you, how can you-hesitate to acknowledge on which side lies the truth? Ido not intend 'to sign my name to this, as 1 am ■ hot yet a member of the Roman Church and I do not wish my friends to know "my intention as it would only mean a lot of opposition and unnecessary delay. As I have sufficient independent means,: which my friends, however angry, cannot take from me, I shall just slip over quietly to London, put myself under instruction, arid; when deemed ready make my submission - and get formally received. I have never yet spoken to a Roman Catholic; priest. It is God alone that has led, me thus far. May His name be blessed and His mercy ever praised. Do not imagine that this change "in my religious belief has cost menothing. It rends my heart with pain and sorrow. It means the severing. of lifelong friendships and the breaking of family ties; but I hear the voice of the Saviour calling, and what can I answer except ' Speak, Lord, for Thy 'servant heareth ' ? I can only follow in the footsteps, of all those heroic souls, whose lives I have been reading, who have had to suffer as I am suffering now, but who in the end found in the Church of Rome a harbor of rest and peace.— remain, yours sincerely, - A Soul Led to the Truth by God.