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Sermons Of The
Rev. Francis A. Baker,
Priest Of The Congregation Of St. Paul.
With A Memoir Of His Life

BY
Rev. A. F. Hewit.
Fourth Edition.
New York:
Lawrence Kehoe, 145 Nassau Street.
1867.

Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1865

By A. F. Hewit,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

PREFACE.

In offering the Memoir and Sermons of this volume to the friends of F. Baker, and to the public, propriety requires of me a few words of explanation. The number of those who have been more or less interested in the events touched upon in the sketch of his life and labors is very great, and composed of many different classes of persons in various places, and of more than one religious communion. I cannot suppose that all of them will read these pages, but it is likely that many will; and therefore a word is due to those who are more particularly interested, as well as to the general class of readers. I have to ask the indulgence of all my readers for having interwoven so much of my own history and my own reflections on the topics and events of the period included within the limits of the narrative. They have woven themselves in spontaneously, without any intention on my part, and on account of the close connexion between myself and the one whose career I have been describing; and I have been unable to unravel them from the texture of the narrative without breaking its threads.

I have simply transferred to paper that picture of the past, long forgotten amid the occupations of an active life, which came up again, unbidden and with great vividness, before the eye of memory, during the hours while the remains of my brother and dearest friend lay robed in violet, waiting for the last solemn rites of the requiem to be fulfilled. If I have succeeded, I cannot but think that the picture will have something of the same interest for others that it has for myself. Those who knew and loved the original, will, I hope, prize it for his sake; and their own recollections will diffuse the coloring and animation of life over that which in itself is but a pale and indistinct sketch. For their sakes chiefly I have prepared it, so far as the mere personal motive of perpetuating the memory of a revered and beloved individual is concerned. But I have had a higher motive as my chief reason for undertaking the task: a desire to promote the glory of God, by preserving and extending the memory of the graces and virtues with which He adorned one of His most faithful children. I have wished to place before the world the example of one of the most signal conversions to the Catholic faith which has taken place in our country, as a lesson to all to imitate the pure and disinterested devotion to truth and conscience which it presents to them.

Let me not be misunderstood. I do not present the example of his conversion, or that of the great number of persons of similar character who have embraced the Catholic religion, as a proof sufficient by itself of the truth of that religion. I propose it as a specimen of many instances in which the power of the Catholic religion to draw intelligent minds and upright hearts to itself, and to inspire them with a pure and noble spirit of self-sacrifice in the cause of God and humanity, is exhibited. This is surely a sufficient motive for examining carefully the reasons and evidences on which their submission to the Church was grounded; and an incentive to seek for the truth, with an equally sincere intention to embrace it, at whatever cost or struggle it may demand.

It may appear to the casual reader that I have drawn in this narrative an ideal portrait which exaggerates the reality. I do not think I have done so; and I believe the most competent judges will attest my strict fidelity to the truth of nature. If I have represented my subject as a most perfect and beautiful character, the model of a man, a Christian, and a priest of God, I have not exceeded the sober judgment of the most impartial witnesses. A Protestant Episcopal clergyman, of remarkable honesty and generosity of nature, said of him to a Catholic friend: "You have one perfect man among your converts." Another, a Catholic clergyman, whose coolness of judgment and reticence of praise are remarkable traits in his character, said, on hearing of his decease: "The best priest in New York is dead." I have no doubt that more than one would have been willing to give their own lives in place of his, if he could have been saved by the sacrifice.

In narrating events connected with F. Baker's varied career, I have simply related those things of which I have had either personal knowledge, or the evidence furnished by his own correspondence with a very dear friend, aided by the information which that friend has furnished me. I have to thank this very kind and valued friend, the Rev. Dwight E. Lyman, for the aid he has given me in this way, which has increased so much the completeness and interest of the Memoir. I am also indebted to another, still dearer to the departed, for information concerning his early history and family.

I trust that those readers who are not members of the Catholic communion, especially such as have been the friends of the subject and the author of this memoir, will find nothing here to jar unnecessarily upon their sentiments and feelings. Fidelity to the deceased has required me not to conceal his conviction of the exclusive truth and authority of the doctrine and communion of the holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church. The same fidelity would prevent me, if my own principles did not do so, from mixing up with religious questions any thing savoring of personal arrogance, or directed to the vindication of private feelings, and retaliation upon individuals with whom religious conflicts have brought us into collision. I wish those who still retain their friendship for the dead, and whose minds will recur with interest to scenes of this narrative, in which they were concerned with him, to be assured of that lasting sentiment of regard which he carried with him to the grave, and which survives in the heart of the writer of these lines.

In the history of F. Baker's missionary career, I have endeavored to select from the materials on hand such portions of the details of particular missions as would make the nature of the work in which he was engaged intelligible to all classes of readers, without making the narrative too tedious and monotonous. I have wished to present all the diverse aspects and all the salient points of his missionary life, and to give as varied and miscellaneous a collection of specimens from its records as possible. From the necessity of the case, only a small number of missions could be particularly noticed. Those which have been passed by have not been slighted, however, as less worthy of notice than the others, but omitted from the necessity of selecting those most convenient for illustration of the theme in hand. The statistics given, in regard to numbers, etc., in the history of our missions, have all been taken from records carefully made at the time, and based on an exact enumeration of the communions given. I trust this volume will renew and keep alive in the minds of those who took part in these holy scenes, and who hung on the lips of the eloquent preacher of God's word whose life and doctrine are contained in it, the memory of the holy lessons of teaching and example by which he sought to lead them to heaven.

Of the sermons contained in this volume, seventeen have been reprinted from the four volumes of "Sermons by the Paulists, 1861-64;" and twelve published from MSS. Four of these are mission sermons, selected from the complete series, as the most suitable specimens of this species of discourse. The others are parochial sermons, preached in the parish church of St. Paul the Apostle, New York. There still remain a considerable number of sermons, more or less complete; but the confused and illegible state in which F. Baker left his MSS. has made the task of reading and copying them very laborious, and prevented any larger number from being prepared for publication at the present time. I leave these Sermons, with the Memoir of their author, to find their own way to those minds and hearts which are prepared to receive them, and to do the good for which they are destined by the providence of God. May we all have the grace to imitate that high standard of Christian virtue which they set before us, as true disciples of Jesus Christ our Lord!

A. F. H.

St. Paul's Church, Fifty-ninth Street,
Advent, 1865.

CONTENTS

MEMOIR.

Memoir.

Francis A. Baker was born in Baltimore, March 30, 1820. The name given him in baptism was Francis Asbury, after the Methodist bishop of that name; but when he became a Catholic he changed it to Francis Aloysius, in honor of St. Francis de Sales and St. Aloysius, to both of whom he had a special devotion, and both of whom he resembled in many striking points of character.

He was of mixed German and English descent, and combined the characteristics of both races in his temperament of mind and body. He had also some of the Irish and older American blood in his veins. His paternal grandfather, William Baker, emigrated from Germany at an early age to Baltimore, where he married a young lady of Irish origin, and became a wealthy merchant. His maternal grandfather, the Rev. John Dickens, was an Englishman, a Methodist preacher, who resided chiefly in Philadelphia. His grandmother was a native of Georgia. During the great yellow-fever epidemic in Philadelphia, Mr. Dickens remained at his post, and his wife fell a victim to the disease, with her eldest daughter. His father was Dr. Samuel Baker, of Baltimore, and his mother, Miss Sarah Dickens. Dr. Baker was an eminent physician and medical lecturer, holding the honorable positions of Professor of Materia Medica in the University of Maryland, and President of the Baltimore Medico-Chirurgical Society. There was a striking similarity in the character of Dr. Baker and his son Francis. The writer of an obituary notice of the father, in the Baltimore Athenæum, tells us that his early preceptors admired "the balance of the faculties of his mind," and that "his classmates were attached to him for his integrity and affectionate manners." In another passage, the same writer would seem to be describing Francis Baker, to those who knew him alone, and have never seen the original of the sketch. "The style of conversation with which Dr. Baker interested his friends, his patients, or the stranger, was marked with an unaffected simplicity. Even when he was most fluent and communicative, no one could suspect him of an ambition to shine. He spoke to give utterance to pleasing and useful thoughts on science, religion, and general topics, as if his chief enjoyment was to diffuse the charms of his own tranquillity. In social intercourse, his dignity was the natural attitude of his virtue. On the part of the trifling it required but little discernment to perceive the tacit warning that vulgar familiarity would find nothing congenial in him. He never engrossed conversation, and seemed always desirous of obtaining information by eliciting it from others. Whether he listened or spoke, his countenance, receiving impressions readily from his mind, was an expressive index of the tone of his various emotions and thoughts. The conduct of Dr. Baker as a physician, a Christian, and a citizen, was a mirror, reflecting the beautiful image of goodness in so distinct a form as to leave none to hesitate about the sincerity and purity of his feelings. It therefore constantly reminded many of 'the wisdom that is from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.' The friendly sympathy and anxiety which he evinced in the presence of human suffering attached all classes of his patients to him, and he was very happy in his benevolent tact at winning the affection of children, even in their sickness." Dr. Baker was a member of the Methodist Church, and an intimate friend of the celebrated and eloquent preacher Summerfield. He was not one, however, of the enthusiastic sort, but sober, quiet, and reserved. He never went through any period of religious excitement himself, or endeavored to practise on the susceptibilities of his children. He said of himself, as one of his intimate friends testifies, "that he did not know the period when he became religious, so gradually was his life regulated by the spiritual truths which enlightened his mind from childhood." He had no hostile feelings toward the Catholic Church, and was a great admirer and warm friend of the Sisters of Charity, many of whom I have heard frequently speak of him in terms of the most affectionate respect. His benevolence toward the poor was unbounded, and he was in fact endeared to all classes of the community, without exception, in Baltimore. Francis Baker had a very great respect for his father, and was very fond of talking of him to me, during the first period of our acquaintance, when his early recollections were fresh and recent in his mind. Of his mother he had but a faint remembrance, having been deprived of her at the age of seven years. It is easy to judge of her character, however, from that of her children, and of her sister, who was a mother to her orphans from the time of her death until her own life was ended among them. Mrs. Baker's brother, the Hon. Asbury Dickens, is well known as having been for nearly half a century the Secretary of the Senate of the United States, which position he held until his death, which occurred at an advanced age a few years since.

Dr. Baker had four sons and two daughters. Only one of them, Dr. William George Baker, ever married, and he died without children: so that Dr. Samuel Baker left not a single grandchild after him to perpetuate his name or family—and of his children, one daughter only survives. Three of his sons were physicians of great promise, which they did not live to fulfil. Francis was his third son, and the one who most resembled him in character. Of his boyhood I know little, except that his companions at school who grew up to manhood, and preserved their acquaintance with him, were extremely attached to him. One of them passed an evening and night in our house, as the guest of F. Baker, but a few months before his death, with great pleasure to both. I have also heard some of the good Sisters of Charity speak of having known the little Frank Baker as a boy, and mention the fact that he was very fond of visiting them. I am sure that his childhood was an extremely happy one until the period of his father's death. This event took place in October, 1835, when Francis was in his sixteenth year, and in the fiftieth year of Dr. Baker's life. It was very sudden and unexpected, and threw a shadow of grief and sadness over the future of his children, which was deepened by the subsequent untimely decease of the two eldest sons, Samuel and William.

Francis was entered at Princeton College soon after his father's death, and graduated there with the class of 1839. I am not aware that his college life had any remarkable incidents. He was not ambitious of distinguishing himself, or inclined to apply himself to very severe study. I believe, however, that his standing was respectable, and his conduct regular and exemplary. He was not decidedly religious in his early youth. Methodism had no attraction for him, and the Calvinistic preaching at Princeton was repugnant to his reason and feelings. Whatever religious impressions he had in childhood were chiefly those produced by the Catholic Church, whose services he was fond of attending; but these were not deep or lasting. The early death of his father, and the consequent responsibility and care thrown upon him as the male head of the family, first caused him to reflect deeply, and to seek for some decided religious rule of his own life and conduct, and finally led him to join the Protestant Episcopal communion, and to resolve to prepare himself for the ministry. All the members of his family joined the same communion, and were baptized with him, in St. Paul's Church, by the rector of the parish, Dr. Wyatt. This event took place in 1841, or '42. Soon afterward, Mr. Baker formed an acquaintance with a young man, a candidate for orders and an inmate of the family of Dr. Whittingham, the Bishop of Maryland, which was destined to ripen into a most endearing and life-long friendship, and to have a most important influence on his subsequent history. This gentleman was Dwight Edwards Lyman, a son of the Rev. Dr. Lyman a respectable Presbyterian minister, of the same age with Francis Baker, and an ardent disciple of the school of John Henry Newman. At the time of his baptism, Mr. Baker was only acquainted with church principles as they were taught by Dr. Wyatt, who was an old-fashioned High Churchman. The intercourse which he had with Mr. Lyman was the principal occasion of introducing him to an acquaintance with the Oxford movement, into which he very soon entered with his whole mind and heart. In 1842, Mr. Lyman was sent to St. James's College, near Hagerstown, where he remained several years, receiving orders in the interval. During this time, Mr. Baker kept up a frequent and most confidential correspondence with him, which is full of liveliness and humor in its earlier stages, but becomes more grave and serious as both advanced nearer to the time of their ordination. It continued during the entire period of their ministry in the Episcopal Church, and during the whole subsequent life of Mr. Baker, closing with a very playful letter written by the latter, a few days before his last illness. In one of these letters, he acknowledges his obligations to Mr. Lyman as the principal instrument of making him acquainted with Catholic principles, in these warm and affectionate words: "I do not know whether you are aware of the advantage I derived from you in the earlier part of our acquaintance, by reason of your greater familiarity with the Catholic system as exhibited in the Anglican Church. The influence you exerted was of a kind of which I can hardly suppose you to have been conscious; yet I am sure you will be gratified to think it was effectual, as I believe, to fix me more firmly in the system for which I had long entertained so profound a reverence and affection. These are benefits which I cannot forget, and which (if there were not other reasons of which I need not speak) must always keep a place for you in the heart of your unworthy friend."

The nature of the later correspondence between these two friends, and their mutual influence on each other, will appear later in this narrative. There are friendships which are formed in heaven, and in looking back upon that which grew up between these two young men of congenial spirit, and in which I was also a sharer in a subordinate degree, I cannot but admire the benignant ways of Divine Providence, by which those strands which afterward bound our existence together so closely were first interwoven. I had myself met Mr. Lyman, some years before this, and felt the charm of his glowing and enthusiastic advocacy of principles which were just beginning to germinate in my own mind. Soon after Lyman's removal to Hagerstown, I made the acquaintance of Mr. Baker, a circumstance which the latter mentions in his next letter to his friend in these words, which I trust I may be pardoned for quoting ——

"The Bishop's family have a young man staying with them (Mr. H.), a convert to the Church, and one, I believe, of great promise. He was a Congregationalist minister, and Rev. Mr. B. read me a letter from him, dated about a month ago, before his coming into the Church, the tone of which was far more Catholic than that of many (alas!) of those who have been partakers of the holy treasures to be found only in her bosom. Mr. B. tells me that Church principles are silently spreading in the North, among the sects. In this place, I believe that a spirit has been raised which one would hardly imagine on looking at the surface of things, though that is troubled enough."

This letter was dated April 22, 1843.

I had just arrived in Baltimore, at the invitation of Dr. Whittingham, the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Maryland, and been received as a candidate for orders in his diocese. Mr. Baker, who was also a candidate for orders, lived just opposite the Bishops's residence, in Courtlandt street, and was pursuing his theological studies in private. I lived in the Bishop's house, and I think I met Mr. Baker there on the first evening of my arrival. We were nearly of the same age, and soon found that our tastes and opinions were very congenial to each other. Of course, I returned his visit very soon, and I became at once very intimate with his family. It was a charming place and a delightful circle. Francis, as the eldest brother, was the head of the house. His aunt, Miss Dickens, fulfilled the office of a mother to her orphaned nephews and nieces with winning grace and gentleness. A younger brother, Alfred, then about eighteen years of age, was at home, pursuing his medical studies. Two sisters completed the number of the family, all bound together in the most devoted and tender love, all alike in that charm of character which is combined from it fervent and genial spirit of religion, amiability of temper, and a high-toned culture of mind and manners, chastened and subdued by trial and sorrow. I must not pass by entirely without mention another inmate of the family, whose good-humored, joyous countenance was always the first to greet me at the door—little Caroline, the last of the family servants, who was manumitted as soon as she arrived at a proper age, always devotedly attached to her young master, and afterward one of the most eager and delighted spectators at his ordination as a Catholic priest.

The house was one of those places where every article of furniture and the entire spirit that pervades its arrangement speaks eloquently of the past family history, and recalls the memory of its departed members and departed scenes of domestic happiness. Dr. Baker had left his children a competent but moderate fortune, which was managed with the utmost prudence by Francis, who possessed at twenty-one all the wisdom of a man of fifty. There was nothing of the splendor and luxury of wealth to be seen in the household, but a modest simplicity and propriety, a home-like comfort, and that perfection of order and arrangement, regulated by a pure and exquisite taste, which is far more attractive. Mr. Baker's home was always the mirror of his mind. In later years, when he lived in his own rectory, although his family circle had lost two of its precious links, the same charm pervaded every nook and corner of the home of the survivors, the young and idolized pastor and his two sisters. His study at St. Luke's rectory was the beau ideal of a clergyman's sanctuary of study and prayer, after the Church of England model; with something added, which betokened a more recluse and sacerdotal spirit, and a more Catholic type of devotion. One might have read in it Mr. Baker's character at a glance, and might have divined that the inhabitant of that room was a perfect gentleman, a man of the most pure intellectual tastes, a pastor completely absorbed in the duties of his state, a recluse in his life, and very Catholic in the tendencies and aspirations of his soul.

Of Mr. Baker's family, only one sister has survived him. Alfred Baker died first. Like his brother, he was a model of manly beauty, although he did not in the least resemble him in form or feature. Francis Baker, as all who ever saw him know, was remarkably handsome. Those who only knew him after he reached mature age, and remember him only as a priest, will associate with his appearance chiefly that impress of sacerdotal dignity and mildness, of placid, intellectual composure, of purity, nobility, and benignity of character, which was engraven or rather sculptured in his face and attitude. Dressed in the proper costume, he might have been taken as a living study for a Father of the Church, a holy hermit of the desert, or a mediæval bishop. He was cast in an antique and classic mould. There was not a trace of the man of modern times or of the man of the world about him. His countenance and manner in late years also bore traces of the fatiguing, laborious life which he led, and the hard, rough work to which he was devoted. On account of these things, and because he was so completely a priest and a religious, one could scarcely think of admiring him as a man. His portrait was never painted, and the photographs of him which were taken were none of them very successful, and most of them mere caricatures. An ambrotype in profile was taken at Chicago for Mr. Healy the artist, which is admirable, and from this the only good photographs have been taken; but the adequate image of Father Baker, as he appeared at the altar, or when his face was lit up in preaching the Divine word, will live only in the memory of those who knew him. At the period of which I speak, he had just attained the maturity of youthful and manly beauty, which was heightened in its effect by his perfect dignity and grace of manner. His brother Alfred was cast in a slighter mould, and had an almost feminine loveliness of aspect, figure, and character. He was as modest and pure as a young maiden, with far more vivacity of feature and manner than his brother, and a more vivid and playful temperament. There was nothing, however, effeminate in his character or countenance. He was full of talent, high-spirited, generous and chivalrous in his temper, conscientious and blameless in his religious and moral conduct. He graduated at the Catholic College of St. Mary's in Baltimore, and was a great favorite of the late Archbishop Eccleston and several others of the Catholic clergy. His High Church principles had a strong dash of Catholicity in them, and he used often to speak of the "ignominious name, Protestant," which is prefixed to the designation of the Episcopal Church in this country. He was a devoted admirer of Mr. Newman, and followed him, like so many others, to the verge of the Catholic Church, but drew back, startled and perplexed, when he passed over. Two or three years after the time I am describing, he began the practice of his profession, with brilliant prospects. The family removed to a larger and more central residence, for his sake, near St. Paul's Church, where Francis was Assistant Minister. All things seemed to smile and promise fair, but this beautiful bud had a worm in it. A slow and lingering but fatal attack of phthisis seized him, just as he was beginning to succeed in his professional career. His brother accompanied him to Bermuda, but the voyage was rather an additional suffering than a benefit, and on the 9th of April, 1852, he died. It was Good Friday. He had prayed frequently that he might die on that day, and before his departure, he called his brother to him, made a general confession, desired him to pronounce over him the form of absolution prescribed in the English Prayer-Book, and received the communion of the Episcopal Church. These acts were sacramentally valueless, but I trust, without presuming to decide positively on a secret matter which God alone can judge, that his intention was right before God, and his error a mistake of judgment without perversity of will. His brother afterward felt deeply solicitous lest he might have been himself blamable for keeping him in the Episcopal communion, and grieved that he had died out of the visible communion of the Catholic Church. Still, as he was conscious of his own integrity of purpose, he tranquillized his mind with the hope that his brother had died in spiritual communion with the true Church and in the charity of God, and endeavored to aid him, as far as he was still within the reach of human assistance, by having many masses offered for the repose of his soul.

Miss Dickens died a little before Alfred, and Elizabeth Baker died some time after her brother became a Catholic, but before his ordination.

I return now to the period when Mr. Baker and all these members of his family were living a retired and happy life together in the home on Courtlandt street. I remember this time with peculiar pleasure. Mr. Baker, whom I always called Frank, as he was usually called by his friends, partly from the peculiar affection they felt for him, and also because of its appropriateness as an epithet of his character, went every day with me once or twice to prayers; and every day we walked together. When the peculiar, tinkling bell of old St. Paul's, which will be remembered by many a reader of these pages, gave notice of divine service there, we resorted in company to that venerable and unique church. It was spacious and ecclesiastical, though not regularly beautiful in its architecture. A basso-relievo adorned its architrave, and a bright gilded cross graced its tall tower. It had a handsome altar of white marble, an object of our special pride and devotion, with the usual reading-desk and pulpit rising behind it. The pulpit was a light and graceful structure, surmounted by a canopy which terminated in a cross, and having another cross surrounded by a glory emblazoned on its ceiling, just over the preacher's head. The door was in the rear of the pulpit, which stood far out from the chancel wall, and in the door was a beautiful transparency of the Ecce Homo, lighted from the chancel window, which had an Ailanthus behind it, causing a pleasing illusion in the mind of the beholder that the dirty brick pavement of the court-yard was a pretty rural garden. The chancel was large and imposing. An episcopal chair, surmounted by a mitre, formed one of its conspicuous ornaments, and two seven branched gilded gas-burners stood on the chancel rail, which were lighted at Evening Prayer, or Vespers, as we were wont to call it. In this church, the people all knelt with their backs to the altar, and facing the great door, whereat a number of us, being scandalized, determined to face about on all occasions and kneel toward the altar, which we did rigidly and in the most impressive manner, to the great annoyance of the rector, Dr. Wyatt. The tout ensemble of St. Paul's Church, especially in the dusk of evening, when the lamps were lit, was to a hasty glance quite that of a Catholic church. Catholics very frequently came in by mistake, and sometimes poor people knelt in the aisles and began saying their prayers. Others inquired of the sexton at the door if it was a Catholic church, and some persons occupying seats near the door, who frequently heard his negative response and his direction to the Cathedral, were led in consequence to think, that if St. Paul's were not a Catholic church, they too had best follow the sexton's direction and go to the Cathedral. Besides the prayers on saints' days, Wednesdays, and Fridays, at St. Paul's, there was a week-day communion service once a month. Dr. Wyatt and his congregation were Church people after the type of Bishop Hobart, disposed to sympathize in a great measure with Dr. Pusey and the Oxford divines, but in great dread of extravagant innovation. The parish was very large, and included among its members a considerable portion of the élite of Baltimore society. Strange as it may seem, however, outside a certain circle of sturdy High Church families, and especially among the more worldly class, there was a prevailing sentiment that true spiritual religion flourished more in the Methodist than in the Episcopal Church.

Although the mitred chair stood in the chancel, St. Paul's was not the bishop's cathedral, and he was not able to take in it that position and perform those acts which he felt were the proper prerogative of a bishop in the principal church of the diocese. The bishops of the Episcopal Church in this country are all in the same anomalous position, without cathedrals or strictly episcopal churches, in which, according to canon law, the see is properly located, having dependent parochial churches affiliated to the mother Church. They must either be rectors of parochial churches, by election of the vestry, or simple parishioners of one of their own subordinate presbyters, without the right of performing any official act, or even sitting in the chancel, except on occasions of convention, episcopal visitation, or something of the sort. The Bishop of New York was even for many years an assistant minister of Trinity Church. Bishop Whittingham was determined to remedy this evil, as far as possible, by establishing a parish, where his proper place would be conceded to him voluntarily by the rector and vestry. Accordingly the Mount Calvary congregation was formed, and began to worship in an old grain-warehouse. There we had early Morning Prayers, and Evening Prayers on every day when St. Paul's was closed; and thither might be seen wending their way, rain or shine, the Bishop with a suite of young ecclesiastics, gentlemen and ladies of the most respectable and cultivated class, and numbers of the more devout people, who found a real solace for their souls, amid the trials and labors of life, in daily common prayer to God. A little after, a more select room was obtained, decorated with a large black cross in the end window, and finally a church was built. We always met a great many of the Cathedral people, in the morning, going to and from Mass, and they were quite astonished at our piety. I have since learned that a number of them, observing the two young men who seemed to them so different from Protestants in their ways, began praying for us, and that a holy priest, F. Chakert, of St. Alphonsus', who died a martyr to his zeal in New Orleans, frequently said mass for our conversion.

In our frequent walks, Frank Baker and myself usually, by a tacit consent, took the direction of some Catholic church. Baltimore surpasses every other large town in the United States, except perhaps St. Louis, in the relative number, and in the dignified, imposing style of its Catholic churches and religious institutions. It is a very picturesque and beautiful city in itself, and one of its most striking features is the exterior show of Catholicity which it presents, from the conspicuous position of the numerous Catholic edifices which are distributed through the principal parts of the town; often crowning the summits of some of the high eminences with which it abounds, so that they are distinctly visible in all directions, and their bells resound loudly for a great distance. Some of the Protestant churches also, haying our ecclesiastical style of architecture, and being even surmounted by the cross, fall into the picture as accessories, and add to the impression which a stranger taking a coup-d'oeil of the city would receive. The Cathedral, a truly grand building, though built in the Moresco style, and suggesting the idea of a great mosque in an oriental city, which had been converted by some conquering crusader into a Christian temple, with its great dome and two towers, each of which is surmounted by a gilded cross, queens it majestically over the whole city. It has the finest possible situation, on very high ground, with a spacious enclosure around it, and a modest, but very appropriate archiepiscopal residence in the rear of the sanctuary, fronting on Charles street, the principal street of the court end of the town, a little below the chaste and graceful monument of white marble erected to the memory of Washington. Near by, the Redemptorist Church and Convent of St. Alphonsus, the Convent of the Christian Brothers, the large and beautiful Convent and garden of the Visitation Nuns, the Sisters' Orphan Asylum, and the little chapel and religious house of the colored Sisters of Providence, are clustered together within a very moderate area of territory. Taking the Cathedral as a point of departure, you have at the distance of about half a mile, in the most densely peopled part of the town, St. Mary's Church, and the Seminary of St. Sulpice, with its extensive gardens of many acres in extent. More toward the suburbs, there are the Lazarist Church of the Immaculate Conception, and the large Sisters' Hospital of Mount Hope, with its extensive grounds. In an opposite direction, not far from the Cathedral, is Loyola College, to which adjoins the Jesuit Church of St. Ignatius; beyond these, St. John's, and still further, near the borders of the town, the quaint and interesting St. James's Church of the Redemptorists, with a German Convent of religious ladies. In another direction, St. Vincent de Paul's is seen, with its high massive tower, and in the same quarter of the town, the Carmelites have a convent and chapel, the Redemptorists another large church and convent, called St. Michael's, and there is also the large and handsome parish church of St. Patrick, with its high altar of green marble. Following the outer circle of the city toward the harbor and fort, and returning to a point in line with St. Alphonsus', we have the Church of the Holy Cross, St. Joseph's, and St. Peter's, the latter of which has a congregation composed in great measure of converts. The deep and heavy bell of the Cathedral is repeatedly heard sending forth its booming notes at different hours of the day, answered by St. Alphonsus' and St. Vincent de Paul's, while the other bells take up the refrain in the distance, and the smaller convent bells throw in from time to time, at Angelus, Vespers, or Compline, their silvery, tinkling notes. These Catholic sounds are heard at intervals from morning till night, and the bells of some of the Protestant churches join in also, on many days during the week, ringing for prayers. The Catholic traditions of Baltimore and Maryland, interwoven with their existence from the first; the memory of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, of Archbishops Carroll and Eccleston, and of many other distinguished Marylanders among the Catholic clergy, and, lastly, the large Catholic population, and the wealth, education, and social position of a large class of the members of the Church, who have always mingled freely in society and intermarried with Protestants, specially those of the Episcopal Church—all these and other causes combine to make the Catholic religion conspicuous and powerful in Baltimore, and to keep it always confronting the adherents of other religions, whichever way they turn. It cannot be ignored or kept out of sight and mind. It must be battled with or submitted to. Hence, Protestantism in Baltimore, among the ultra-Protestant sects, has borne a character of unusually intense and persistent hatred to the Catholic Church; and a suppressed spirit of violence has pervaded the lower orders, showing itself ordinarily by slight insults offered to clergymen and religious, but occasionally bursting out in scenes of riot and bloodshed, in which not merely the rabble took part, but where gentlemen were also engaged, and men in high stations lent their influence and protection to shield and encourage the lawless violators of the peace.

A number of the Catholic churches here described have been built since the year 1842. The general appearance of the city, however, and the relative number of Catholic institutions, was the same. It was a very interesting place to me from its novelty, and very well known to my new friend and companion, Frank Baker. We perambulated the town and reconnoitred all its environs, penetrating into every nook and corner where there was the smallest chance of finding something to be seen. The Catholic churches underwent a repeated and thorough visitation and scrutiny, by turns. An indefinable attraction drew us to those sacred places, and made us linger and loiter in them without ever growing weary. I know now what it was. It was the power of that Sacred Presence which once drew the disciples and the multitudes after it, when visibly seen, and which now attracts the soul by its invisible charm in the Blessed Sacrament. We never went to mass or to any Catholic service, because we were forbidden to do so by the bishop. We never sought out any Catholic priests, or encountered any, except twice by accident. We read no Catholic books of controversy or devotion, never knelt to pray before the altar, and did not know or suspect where we were going. But the influence of grace was acting most powerfully during those moments in which we were hanging about the altar, and unconsciously drinking in its sacred influence. Our favorite place was the chapel of St. Mary's College, and the Calvary behind it, where the clergy of the Sulpitian Society are buried. This is the sweetest Catholic shrine I have ever visited. The Calvary was not open to visitors, but for some reason we were never interfered with, although we went very often, and remained by the hour. Perhaps our guardian angels knew the future, and led us there unwittingly to ourselves. Our Lord foresaw it, if they did not, and was thinking of the day when one of the two would be there in company with all the clergy of the diocese in a spiritual retreat, and the day when the other, in that same chapel, would be consecrated to the service of the sanctuary. [Footnote 1]

[Footnote 1: Father Baker was ordained sub-deacon and deacon in that chapel, a few days before his ordination to the priesthood in the Cathedral.]

Many of those who participated in that retreat will recall the recollection of it, on reading these pages.

Archbishop Kenrick, the sage of our American hierarchy and one of its saints, that perfect model of a prelate according to the ancient type of the purest Catholic times, the pattern of ecclesiastical learning, Episcopal dignity and vigilance, apostolic zeal, sacerdotal gentleness, and Christian humility, reminding one of the character ascribed by historians to Pope Benedict XIV., sat at the head of his venerable clergy in the sanctuary during all the exercises. Of the clergymen present, some had been forty years in the priesthood, and one at least was ordained by Archbishop Carroll. Some are now bishops, or have modestly declined the offered mitre. I was then a priest, and was assisting F. Walworth in giving the retreat, and Mr. Baker was but just received into the Church. He came to visit me at the spot where we had passed so many pleasant hours in years gone by, and to pay his respects to the excellent Sulpitians by whom his brother had been educated, and to the other clergymen whose brother and associate he aspired to become in due time. He was welcomed most tenderly by the warm-hearted Sulpitians, and greeted with an ardent interest and respect by the clergy and young ecclesiastics who were gathered in that sacred retreat of science and piety. Several of these good clergymen have since spoken of that retreat, which so many circumstances combined to make unusually pleasant, as among the most cherished recollections of their lives. Since I have been betrayed into this long digression by the associations connected with St. Mary's Chapel, I will venture to add one other little incident, of which I have been several times reminded by the venerable President of Mount St. Mary's College. One afternoon, just at sunset, the preacher concluded his discourse by a description of the death of a holy priest, contrasting the glory of his successfully accomplished ministry with that of the hero in the merely secular and temporal order. At the peroration, the parting beams of the sun irradiated a tall marble monument over the grave of a well-known Sulpitian priest, behind the chancel window, in full view of the audience, but unseen by the preacher, and gave an illustration of his words most affecting and impressive to those who witnessed it. It was emblematic, also, of that noble life which was to be accomplished and brought to such a beautiful close, within twelve short years, by that dear companion and friend who was just then on the eve of leaving all to follow Christ, and whose generous heart was swelling with the first emotions of his divine vocation, long since secretly inspired into him while haunting the blessed resting-place of those holy priests. But I have anticipated what was yet in the unknown and undreamed-of future, when we two ardent and enthusiastic youths were yielding our imaginations to the poetic and religious charm which was the precursor of more earnest and durable convictions.

St. Mary's was our favorite resort, but we were also impressed in a different way by the austere and monastic aspect of St. James's, where the Redemptorist Fathers, then newly established, had their convent; and I remember that we often conversed about that order with great curiosity and interest. We watched intently the building of St. Alphonsus' Church, and wandered through the sanctuary and sacristy and garden, and into the shop where the lay-brothers and other artificers were at work, occasionally, to our great delight, greeted by these good brothers, who probably took us for priests, as we were then ordained and dressed in long cassocks, with their salutation in German, Gelobt sey Jesus Christus.

Another object of great interest to us was a monument to the memory of a former pastor, in St. Patrick's Church, bearing the simple and touching inscription:

"To The Good De Moranville."

This unfeigned tribute of affection to the memory of a good and holy priest did more in a few moments to efface from my mind the effect of the calumnies I had heard from childhood against the Catholic clergy, than a volume of controversy could have done.

Mr. Baker took me also to visit the monument erected to Sister Ambrosia by the City of Baltimore. This lady, the daughter of the venerable Mrs. Collins, who died at the age of nearly one hundred years, and was one of those who welcomed Mr. Baker most warmly into the Catholic Church, and the sister of the Very Rev. Mr. Collins, of Cincinnati, was universally regarded as a saint, both by Catholics and Protestants. She had been very intimate in Dr. Baker's family, and attended his two elder sons during their last illness. She fell herself a victim to her charity in attending the sick in the hospitals, leaving the sweet fragrance of her sanctity to linger in the memories of those who knew her. We visited also the graves of those brothers of Mr. Baker whose death had produced so great a change in his character and prospects. They were buried in a Methodist grave-yard, adjoining the beautiful Green Mount Cemetery. Francis had erected a marble tombstone to their memory, on which was carved a cross, and the Catholic inscription, Requiescant in pace. When I returned to Baltimore, after my ordination to the Catholic priesthood, I revisited the spot, but found the cross and prayer had been removed. When I had the opportunity of asking Mr. Baker for an explanation of this, he informed me that he had removed them of his own accord, because he thought it an indelicate intrusion on the religious sentiments and feelings of those to whom the burial-place belonged, to leave there a Catholic inscription.

Meanwhile we were studying and reading regularly. Bishop Whittingham had a very fine and extensive library, and was constantly supplied with the choicest books and periodicals of the Anglo-Catholic party. The remarkable movement led by Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman was at its height. In this country we were somewhat behindhand, and were following at some distance in the wake of the most advanced English leaders, so that the later developments rather took us by surprise. We were reading Mr. Newman's earlier works, and only partly aware of the great change taking place in himself and others. The accusation of Romanizing was treated as a calumny, and we had no thought of any thing except bringing our own Church up to what we thought to be the Catholic level, and endeavoring to establish an intercommunion between it and the Roman and Greek Churches through mutual consultation and concession, and a return to the supposed state of things "before the separation of East and West." At least this is true of us in Maryland, whatever might have been the case with a small number elsewhere. Probably the effort to make the Protestant Episcopal Church take the attitude of being Catholic was never made more earnestly and with better hope of success than in Maryland. The bishop headed the movement, and, besides the clergymen already in his diocese who were ready to second him, he attracted thither a number of young men who were devoted to his person and who sympathized in his views. I have no wish to speak disrespectfully or unkindly of Dr. Whittingham. He has always been a most violent opponent of the Catholic Church, and he has seen fit, like some others of the clergy of his peculiar stripe, to break off all intercourse with those who have left his communion to join it. I do not, however, attribute to him any personal animosity as the motive for this, but merely a mistaken religions zeal. He was always very kind and generous to his young clergymen, strict and self-denying in his life, and laborious in the fulfilment of his official duties. His vigorous administration infused a new energy and activity into the Episcopal Church in his diocese, and gave a powerful impetus to what was called the "Catholic" movement. A periodical entitled The True Catholic, Reformed, Protestant, and Free, was established, under the care of Hugh Davey Evans, a learned lawyer and very able theological disputant. A college, conducted by young men trained at the celebrated St. Paul's College, Flushing, by Dr. Muhlenberg, was founded at a beautiful and extensive old country-seat, known as "Fountain Rock," near Hagerstown, and a school, called "St. Timothy's Hall," near Baltimore. The bishop and a large number of his clergy went about dressed in long cassocks; altars, crosses, frequent services, ecclesiastical forms and observances, and other outward signs and accompaniments of an approximation to Catholic doctrines and rites, were to be seen everywhere. The Protestant Episcopal Church was loudly proclaimed to be the Catholic Church of the country, and, in a word, the theory taught in the Oxford Tracts and in the earlier writings of Mr. Newman was sought to be put in actual practice. An unusual number of the clergy were unmarried men, and the project of founding a monastic order was entertained by several. Those were stirring times. Of course opposition was excited in the bosom of the Episcopal Church. The Low Churchmen formed a strong and active minority in the Convention, and did their utmost to thwart the projects of the bishop. Very spicy debates took place in consequence, and as there were very able and distinguished men among the lay delegates, who brought all their legal skill and forensic eloquence into play, the sessions of the Convention were often intensely interesting and exciting. The pulpit, the newspapers, and controversial pamphlets were employed in the warfare by both sides, and the community generally, outside of the Episcopal Church, were quite alive with interest in the questions discussed.

We had a little society called the "Church Reading Society," of which Mr. Evans was president, and Mr. Baker and myself were members, where certain prayers for Catholic unity were offered, and papers bearing on the topics which interested us were read by the members in turn. The different seasons of the ecclesiastical year were very strictly observed, especially Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Holy Week. The English press was at that time pouring forth a stream of books of devotion and sacred poetry, sermons and spiritual instructions, borrowed or imitated from the treasures of Catholic sacred literature. There was a tide setting strongly backward toward the faith and practice of ancient times, and we surrendered ourselves to its influence, without thinking where it would eventually land us. We had no thought of ever leaving the communion to which we belonged. Never, in any of our conversations, did we even speak of such a thing as possible, or call in question the legitimate claim of the authority, under which we were living, to our obedience. We did not sympathize with the bishop and the larger number of the clergymen of our theological party in their sentiment of hostility and antipathy to the Roman communion. The common ground taken was that the Roman Catholic bishops in England and the United States are schismatical intruders upon the lawful jurisdiction of the English and Anglo-American bishops of the Protestant succession. Bishop Whittingham maintained the stronger ground that the Roman Church throughout the world is schismatical and all but formally heretical. He retained the old spirit of vehement dislike and opposition to the See of Rome and every thing in the doctrine and policy of the church connected with the Papal supremacy, which characterized the old divines of the Church of England. He had in his mind an ideal of the primitive Church, according to which he wished and hoped that a Reformed Catholic Church should be reconstructed by the common consent of all the bishops of the world, and which should absorb into itself all the Christian sects. This idea is necessarily common to all who profess to hold Catholic principles in the Anglican communion. The profession of the doctrine of unity in one, visible, Catholic Church, of itself qualifies the isolation of any body of Christians from the great Christian family, as an anomalous and irregular condition. A return to unity or union of some kind must necessarily become an object of desire and effort. So long as one maintains that the Anglican Church is essentially Catholic, he must maintain also that the Roman Church is in some way wrong in refusing to recognize it, and that the Greek Church is likewise wrong in refusing to do so. Hence he must look on some concessions to be made by both Churches as the necessary condition of the reunion of Christendom. So far, all who profess to be "Anglo-Catholics" must agree. But when the question becomes, how much concession must be made to the Anglican communion, or how much concession must be made by her, how far the Greek Church, the Roman Church, or the Anglican Church have erred; and upon what basis of doctrine and ecclesiastical polity they are to be reformed or restored to union, the agreement is ended. Each individual attributes as much or as little error and corruption to other Churches, or his own Church, as suits his own notions. Each one, or each separate clique, has a peculiar ideal of the true Catholic Church. One may regard the Anglican Church as almost perfect, and wish to bring all Christendom to imitate it. Another finds his beau ideal in the Greek Church. Another regards his own Church as very defective, and the Roman Church as the most perfect, desiring that the Holy See should only abate just enough of its claims to let in Greeks without any acknowledgment of their schismatic contumacy, and Anglicans without giving up that they are in heresy and destitute of any legitimate episcopacy.

It is impossible to draw any exact line of demarcation between the adherents of these different views. At the same time, we may say that, in a general sense, one class held the Anglican Church as paramount in its claim of allegiance, and the Church Catholic as subordinate; while the other held the Church Catholic to be paramount, and the Anglican Church subordinate. With the first class, Catholic principles and doctrines were taken hold of as a means of strengthening and exalting the Protestant Episcopal Church as such, and giving her a victory over the rest of Christendom; with the other class, they were embraced in a spirit of deep sympathy with universal Christendom, and with the view of bringing back the Protestant world to the great Christian family.

The first class alone can be relied on as devoted adherents of Anglicanism, and they only hold a strong polemical position against the claim of the Roman See to unconditional submission. The other class have their minds and their hearts open to all Catholic influences. They advance continually nearer and nearer in belief and sympathy to the great Catholic body, and great numbers of them pass over to the Catholic communion. Hence we find that almost all the bishops and dignitaries who have joined in the Oxford Movement have belonged decidedly to the first class, and have always tried to hold the second class in check. The few who have belonged to the second class, such as Bishop Ives and the Archdeacons Manning and Wilberforce, have eventually found allegiance to the Anglican Church incompatible with the paramount claims of the Church Catholic, and have openly renounced it.

But while it is evident that the position of decided and determined hostility to Rome is absolutely necessary, as Mr. Newman long ago remarked, to High Church Anglicanism, it is equally evident that it is the most narrow, inconsistent, and inconsequent position taken by any class of Protestants. It cuts them off from all real sympathy and community of feeling with the great Catholic body; and although there may be a pretence of sympathy with the Oriental Church, it is a mere pretence, and a most illogical and baseless one. It cuts them off equally from all the rest of Protestant Christendom. Yet, it is only the Catholic and Greek Churches which offer a solid and substantial basis for those doctrinal and hierarchical principles which make their only distinctive character; and it is only the Protestant portion of their Church, and its close intellectual, social, political, moral, and religious alliance with the other Protestant Churches, which gives them any standing, influence, or power in the world. A man of liberal, enlarged, and Christian temper of mind, cannot live in such narrow limits or breathe such a confined air. He must have communion with something greater than the Protestant Episcopal Church. If he regards the great Catholic Church as essentially corrupt, he must sympathize with the Protestant Reformation. If the ground which, as I shall presently show, the High Church bishops maintain, is correct, then the continental Protestants were bound to come out when they did and form new churches. Where were they to get bishops? How were they to preserve the continuity of organization and the apostolic succession? The Church of England did not admonish them of the necessity of doing so. She did not proffer them episcopal ordination. But she made common cause with them, and supported them in their revolt, invited them over to England, and gave them places in the English Church, sent delegates to their great Calvinistic Synod of Dort, and in other ways lent them sanction and countenance, without breathing a hint that she was a whit better than they. Arguments from Scripture and ancient authors in favor of three orders and a liturgy may be very solid and conclusive, but they are also very petty and miserable when they are made the basis of arrogant claims by those whose very existence sprang from the assumption that the universal episcopate had betrayed its trust and apostatized from the true doctrine of Christ. The learned William Palmer has seen the necessity of justifying the attitude of the continental Protestant Churches, and therefore concedes to them, on the plea of necessity, valid ordination and a legitimate constitution. An Anglican, who is a thorough and consistent opponent of Rome, ought to take common ground with Protestants. One who turns his back on Protestantism, and abjures the Reformation, ought to make common cause with Rome and the Catholic Church, even though he as yet holds the opinion that his communion is a true and living branch of the Church of Christ.

It may seem strange to those who have never studied or sympathized in the Oxford movement, that men who adopted certain fundamental Catholic principles did not at once embrace the faith and submit to the authority of the Catholic Church, but remained a long time in the Episcopal communion, or even deliberately chose it, after having passed their early life in some other Protestant sect. This seems strange to those who have always been Catholics, and equally strange to the majority of Protestants. So much so, that we have been suspected, and by many fully believed to have been all along concealed Roman Catholics, working in the Episcopal Church for the purpose of "Romanizing" it. A few days before I was received into the Catholic Church, a near and venerable relative of mine said to me: "I am very glad you have become a Catholic, for I can respect a sincere Roman Catholic, but I cannot respect a Puseyite; you will now sail under your true colors. When will H. B. (a cousin of mine, who is an Episcopalian clergyman) do the same thing?"

The truth of the matter is, that we all had imbibed such an intense prejudice from our early education against the Roman Church, that we were appalled at the thought of joining her communion. When certain Catholic truths began to dawn upon our minds, it was indistinctly. To those who were bred in the Anglican Church, it was the natural and obvious course to remain there as long as their consciences would permit. To others, it was natural to look for a resting-place in that communion of which our own particular sects were only offshoots, with which educated people of English descent are so familiar through the history and literature of our native language, whose services many of us had frequently attended from childhood, and where many of us likewise had relatives and friends. It is a small matter to go from one Protestant sect to another, in itself considered, and it is no wonder that any orthodox Protestant should prefer the Episcopal Church to any of the religious bodies which have seceded from it. Besides this, there was a via media offered to us by a great body of divines in the Episcopal Church, between Rome on the one hand and Protestantism on the other, which appeared to be exactly the thing we wanted. I acknowledge that I was too easily allured by this specious pretence, and failed to examine with due care the claims of the Church in communion with the See of Rome to be the true and only Church of Christ. I do not think Mr. Baker, notwithstanding that his prejudices were far less than mine, ever gave the subject serious and careful consideration, until long after he had become an Episcopalian minister. We knew too little, however, of the subject, to feel any conscientious obligations in that direction. I can truly say that I never for one moment deliberated on the question of becoming a Catholic, even when I had the fear of death before my eyes, until after I left Baltimore in the autumn of 1845. I never heard from Mr. Baker, up to that time, a word which betrayed the existence in his mind of any practical doubt about his duty in this respect. The growth of Catholic principles in our minds was gradual. By degrees, the mists of misrepresentation, prejudice, and ignorance which obscured the Catholic Church and her doctrines were dissipated and vanished. Our feelings of veneration and love for the great Church of Christendom increased. Still, as long as we were not convinced that actual communion with the Church of Rome and submission to her supremacy was necessary, jure divino, to the catholicity of any local Church, we remained firm in our allegiance to the ecclesiastical authority of our bishop. This is only an instance of what was going on in the case of many both in England and the United States. And it appears from this statement, that whereas all the disciples of the Oxford movement began on essentially the same ground, and that, one which implied strong and decisive opposition to Rome, one portion of them progressed continually, and another remained stationary or retrograded, thus producing separation and division in the ranks. What I wish to show now is, that those who progressed were logically compelled to do so by the principles of the movement itself, and that those who remained stationary, although they held a position which was necessary to the maintenance of Anglicanism, were illogical and inconsequent.

The advocates of the claim of the Church of England to be the only legitimate and Catholic Church in England, and of the same claim for the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, were obliged to make out some case against the bishops of these two countries who were under the jurisdiction of the Roman See and who proclaimed themselves to be the only lawful and Catholic bishops, sustained as they were in this claim by all the other bishops of Western Christendom. The possession of the titles and temporalities of the ancient sees in England by the Established Church naturally suggested the plausible pretext that the Church of England of to-day is the legitimate successor of the Church of England before the separation under Henry VIII. Hence, other bishops, exercising episcopal functions within the dioceses of the bishops of the Church of England, are schismatical intruders, and their congregations are schismatical. The same principle was extended to the United States, on the plea that the Bishop of London had episcopal jurisdiction over the English colonies, and moreover that the Protestant Episcopal bishops were first on the ground, and had acquired possession before the "Romish" bishops, as they chose to call them, came. Now this theory is forced to answer one question: Are the bishops of France, Spain, &c., the legitimate Catholic bishops of those countries, and is their communion the true and only Catholic Church there, or not? Is this question answered in the affirmative? Then, who are the Catholic bishops in Canada, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Texas, and California? Who went first to China and India? Are the Anglican bishops in these places schismatical intruders or not? If not, why not? And if not, why are Roman Catholic bishops schismatical intruders in London and New-York? The Protestant Episcopal Churches of England and the United States pay no attention whatever to any claim of jurisdiction by the Catholic Church in any part of the world, but seek to thrust themselves in and make converts wherever they can. In order to justify this attitude, and at the same time to profess Catholic principles, it is necessary to maintain that the entire Roman communion is schismatical and heretical, and the Protestant Episcopal Church is the true and only Catholic Church, at least in Western Christendom. This idea is the real animus of the Protestant Episcopate, and its highest expression is found in the opinion so common among Protestants, and held even by Mr. Newman some years after he commenced the Oxford Tracts, that the Pope is Antichrist. The charges of the English bishops, especially those delivered after the publication of the Oxford Tract No. 90, all breathe this spirit. Bishop Elliott, of Georgia, in a sermon preached at the consecration of the missionary bishops, Boone and Southgate, in St. Peter's Church, Philadelphia, in 1843 or '44, spoke of the Catholic missionaries as "dealing out death instead of life" to the heathen. Bishop Whittingham held this view, and "Tridentine Schismatic" was one of the appellations he gave to the Rev. Dr. White, of Baltimore, in a pamphlet which he published against that gentleman. In his Annual Address for 1846 he speaks of me and other converts in the following language: "The lapse of several prominent members of our English sister, and of one even in our own little band, into the defilements of the Romish communion, has but too far justified others in sounding the note of alarm," &c.[Footnote 2] The language he made use of in one of his addresses was such, that Mr. Baker, then one of his presbyters, positively declined to read it for him in the Convention, his own voice being too weak to do so. The Rev. A. C. Coxe, now a bishop, published a poem on the occasion of the ordination of the present Bishop of Newark to the diaconate, in Rome, entitled "Hymn of the Priests, to lament one of their number who has been sacrilegiously reordained a deacon, after abjuring the Catholic communion, at Rome." In contrast with this is the following, which was copied into the True Catholic for December, 1843. [Footnote 3]

[Footnote 2: Journal of Convention of Maryland, 1846, p. 25.]

[Footnote 3: Journal of Convention of Maryland, 1846, p. 383.]

Conversion Of A Popish Priest To The Catholic Church At Chicester.

The Cathedral, Sunday, October 15.

In residence, the Lord Bishop, the very Rev. the Dean, the Ven. Arch-deacon Webber, and the Rev. Charles Webber, can. res. We have to record this week one of the most interesting ceremonies ever performed within the walls of this sacred edifice, namely, the public admission of a clerical convert from the Church of Rome, into the bosom of the Holy Catholic Church in this country. The morning prayers were chanted by the Rev. J. P. Roberts, Sub-dean. The Te Deum and Jubilate was Boyce in A. At the ending of the Litany, the Bishop and the Dean proceeded to the altar, while the choir performed Weldon's Sanctus; after which (the penitent, Mr. Vignati, an Italian gentleman, who had been for two years a priest in the Romish Communion, standing without the rails) the bishop addressed the congregation in the following words:—

"Dearly beloved, we are here met together for the reconciling of a penitent (lately of the Church of Rome) to the Established Church of England, as to a true and sound part of Christ's Holy Catholic Church. Now, that this weighty affair may have its due effect, let us, in the first place, humbly and devoutly pray to Almighty God for his blessing upon us in that pious and charitable office we are going about.

"Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings with Thy most gracious favor, and further us with Thy continual help, that in this, and all other our works begun, continued, and ended in Thee, we may glorify Thy holy name, and finally by Thy mercy obtain everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"Almighty God, who showest to them that be in error the light of Thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness, grant unto all them that are or shall be admitted into the fellowship of Christ's religion, that they may eschew those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."

Then was read a part of the 119th Psalm, from verses 161 to 168, with the Gloria Patri.

After which the dean read the following lesson from Luke xv.:—"Then drew near unto him the publicans and sinners for to hear Him; and the Pharisees and Scribes murmured, saying, this man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which was lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it he layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing; and when he cometh home he calleth together his friends and his neighbors, saying unto them, rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance."

After this the nine first verses of the 115th Psalm was sung by the choir. Then the bishop, sitting in his chair, spake to the penitent (who was kneeling) as follows:—

Dear brother, I have good hope that you have well weighed and considered with yourself the great work you are come about before this time: but inasmuch as with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation; that you may give the more honor to God, and that this present congregation of Christ here assembled may also understand your mind and will in these things, and that this your declaration may the more confirm you in your good resolutions, you shall answer plainly to those questions, which we, in the name of God, and of His Church, shall propose to you touching the same.

Art thou thoroughly persuaded that those books of the Old and New Testament, which are received as Canonical Scriptures by this Church, contain sufficiently all doctrine requisite and necessary to eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ?—I am so persuaded.

Dost thou believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth &c.—All this I steadfastly believe.

Art thou truly sorrowful that thou hast not followed the way prescribed in these Scriptures for the direction of the faith and practice of a true disciple of Christ Jesus?—I am heartily sorry, and I hope for mercy through Christ Jesus.

Dost thou embrace the truth of the Gospel in the love of it, and steadfastly resolve to live godly, righteously, and soberly in this present world, all the days of thy life?—I do so embrace it, and do so resolve, God being my helper.

Dost thou earnestly desire to be received into the communion of this Church, as into a sound part of Christ's Holy Catholic Church?—This I earnestly desire.

Dost thou renounce all the errors and superstitions of the present Romish Church, so far as they are come to thy knowledge?—I do, from my heart, renounce them all.

Dost thou, in particular, renounce the twelve last Articles added in the Confession, commonly called "The Creed of Pope Pius IV.," after having read them, and duly considered them?-I do, upon mature deliberation, reject them all, as grounded upon no warrant of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.

Wilt thou conform thyself to the Liturgy of the Church of England, as by law established, and be diligent in attending the prayers and other offices of the Church?—I will do so by the help of God.

Then the bishop standing, said: "Almighty God, who hath given you a sense of your errors, and a will to do these things, grant also unto you the strength and power to perform the same, that He may accomplish His work, which He hath begun in you, through Jesus Christ. Amen."

The Absolution.—Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, who, of his great mercy, hath promised forgiveness of sins to all them that with hearty repentance and true faith turn unto Him, have mercy upon you, pardon and deliver you from all your sins, confirm and strengthen you in all goodness, and bring you to everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Then the bishop, taking him by the hand, said: "I, Ashurst Turner, Bishop of Chichester, do, upon this thy solemn profession and earnest request, receive thee into the Holy Communion of the Church of England, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen."

Then was said the Lord's Prayer, all kneeling, after which as follows:—O God of truth and love, we bless and magnify Thy holy name for Thy great mercy and goodness in bringing this Thy servant into the communion of this Church; give him, we beseech Thee, stability and perseverance in that faith, of which he hath, in the presence of God and of this congregation, witnessed a good confession. Suffer him not to be moved from it by any temptations of Satan, enticements of the world, scoffs of irreligious men, or the revilings of those still in error; but guard him by Thy grace against all these snares, and make him instrumental in turning others from the errors of their ways, to the saving of their souls from death, and the covering a multitude of sins. And in Thy good time, O Lord, bring, we pray Thee, into the way of truth all such as have erred and are deceived; and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to Thy flock, that there may be one flock under one Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen.

Then the bishop addressed the person admitted, saying: "Dear brother, seeing that you have, by the goodness of God, proceeded thus far, I must put you in mind that you take care to go on in that good way into which you are entered; and for your establishment and furtherance therein, that if you have not been confirmed, you endeavor to be so the next opportunity, and receive the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. And may God's Holy Spirit ever be with you. Amen. The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your heart and mind by Christ Jesus. Amen."

Thus ended this most interesting ceremony; after which the communion service went on, at which the bishop and dean officiated. Weldon's Sanctus, B. Brown's Kyrie, and Child's Creed in G. The sermon was preached by the dean, from Luke 15th, ch. 4th, 5th, and 6th verses, of which we need not say much here, as we hope it will shortly be published by Mr. W. H. Mason, by permission of the dean, he having been requested so to do. Anthem, "O Lord, our Governor."—Kent.—Church Intelligencer.

The Roman Church is throughout the pages of the True Catholiccharged with idolatry, and in one passage which I had marked, but cannot now find one reason given why Episcopalians cannot attend Catholic services is, because by so doing they participate in idolatry. On the other hand, Protestant ministers are never required to make any such abjuration as the one above cited, on being received into the English Church. The Church of England formerly gave Archbishop Leighton episcopal ordination, he being a Scottish Presbyterian minister, and the Crown gave him jurisdiction in Scotland over the Presbyterian clergy and congregations, without requiring any reordination or any new profession of faith. So now, a German Lutheran minister alternately with an English Episcopalian, is ordained for the Jerusalem bishopric, with authority to receive under his care both English and German ministers and congregations.

Now for the inconsistency. The same reasons which prove the Church of Rome to be a schismatical, heretical, and apostate Church, prove that the English Church was the same before the Reformation, and that the Church of Christ had perished in Western Christendom, except as represented by the Lollards, Albigenses, Waldenses, and other precursors of the Protestants. There was really no true, visible Catholic Church existing, from which schismatics and heretics had separated, and to which they could return. Hence, the modern Episcopal Church derived its authority from no legitimate source in the past, and has really started de novo, like the Protestant Churches of Europe. This throws us back upon the theory of an invisible Church at once, and breaks up the idea of Catholicity.

For the same reason, the Oriental Churches must be regarded as schismatical and heretical. The Nestorians and Eutychians are condemned by the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, accepted by our Anglicans. The Greek Church is identical in doctrine with the Roman, except so far as the Papal supremacy is rejected by them. It disowns and condemns the Anglican Church as emphatically as does the Roman. Nevertheless, we find a number of the Protestant bishops subscribing the following letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople:—

Letter To The Greek Patriarch.

Binghamton N. Y., 1st April, 1844.

To the Editor of the True Catholic:

Dear Sir:-Having seen in print a copy, surreptitiously obtained, of the letter of our bishops, addressed to some of the Patriarchs in the East, I have thought it might be well to furnish an authentic copy, for permanent preservation in your valuable periodical, especially as it is a document of much importance. It is precisely as I myself, together with Mr. Southgate, presented it, accompanied by a Greek translation, to the Patriarch of Constantinople, who received it very graciously.
Yours, very truly,
J. J. Robertson.

To the Venerable and Right Reverend Father in GOD, the Patriarch, of the Greek Church, resident at Constantinople.

January 2, 1841.

The Episcopal Church of the United States of America, deriving its Episcopal power in regular succession from the holy Apostles, through the venerable Church of England, has long contemplated, with great spiritual sorrow, the divided and distracted condition of the Catholic Church of Christ throughout the world. This sad condition of things not only aids the cause of infidelity and irreligion, by furnishing evil-minded men with plausible arguments, not only encourages heresies and schisms in national branches of the Catholic Church, but is also a very serious impediment to the diffusion of Gospel truth among those who are still in the darkness of heathenism, or are subject to other false religions, or continue vainly to look for the coming of that Messiah, whose advent has already blessed the world.

The arrogant assumptions of universal supremacy and infallibility, of the Papal head of the Latin Church, render the prospect of speedy friendly intercourse with him dark and discouraging. The Church in the United States of America, therefore, looking to the Triune GOD for His blessings upon its efforts for unity in the Body of Christ, turns with hope to the Patriarch of Constantinople, the spiritual head of the ancient and venerable Oriental Church.

In this Church we have long felt a sincere interest. We have sympathized with her in the trials and persecution to which she has been subjected; we have prayed for her deliverance from all evils and mischiefs; and we have thanked her Divine HEAD that He has been pleased, amid all her sufferings, to maintain her allegiance to Him.

In order to attempt the commencement of a friendly and Christian intercourse with the Oriental Church, the Church in the United States resolved to send two of its Presbyters, the Rev. J. J. Robertson, and the Rev. Horatio Southgate, to reside at Constantinople. These clergymen are directed to make inquiries regarding the existing state of the Church under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople, and of the other Eastern Churches; to ascertain the relations they bear to each other, and the views they maintain in regard to the Apostolic Churches of Europe and America; to answer such inquiries as may be made of them in regard to the origin, constitution, and condition of the Church in the United States; and to do all in their power to conciliate the Christian love and regard of the Oriental Church toward its younger sister in the Western world.

After some preliminary inquiries and study of the language, they will present themselves, with this epistle of introduction (by which they are cordially recommended to the Christian courtesies and kind offices of the bishops and clergy of the Oriental Church), to the Patriarch of Constantinople, inviting him to a friendly correspondence with the heads of the Church in the United States, explaining more fully the views and objects of the Church, and inquiring whether a mutual recognition of each other can be effected, as members of the Catholic Church of Christ, on the basis of the Holy Scriptures and the first Councils, including the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, in order to a future efficient co-operation against Paganism, false religion, and Judaism.

They will make it clearly understood that their Church has no ecclesiastical connection with the followers of Luther and Calvin, and takes no part in their plans or operations to diffuse the principles of their sects. They will propose to the Patriarch such aid as the Church in the United States can supply, in the advancement of Christian education, and in the promulgation of religious truth, always avoiding the points in which the two Churches still differ, and leaving the producing of a closer mutual conformity to the blessing of God, on the friendly correspondence of the respective heads of the Churches, or to a future General Council.

Leaving a further development of these points to the oral communications of its delegates, and again recommending them to the Christian candor and affection of the Patriarch and clergy of the Oriental Church, and repeating the hearty desire and prayer of the bishops and clergy of the United States for their prosperity, we remain your brethren in Christ.

Alexander Viets Griswold,
of the Eastern Diocese, and senior of the American Church.
Benjamin Tredwell Onderdonk, of New York.
George Washington Doane, of New Jersey.
Thomas Church Brownell, of Connecticut.
Jackson Kemper, of Missouri, &c.
William Rollinson Whittingham, of Maryland.
Henry Ustick Onderdonk, of Pennsylvania.

At the recent visit of a Russian squadron to New York, the Protestant Bishop of New York invited the chaplains of the squadron to make use of one of his churches for the service of the Greek Church, although the offer was declined. Subsequently, Cossack priest, called Father Agapius, said to have letters from the Archbishop of Athens, came to New York as a missionary to the Greeks and Russians, and was accommodated with the use of two Episcopal churches. It came out subsequently that he was in bad standing in the Russian Church, and the members of the Greek Church in New York disowned him, when he threw off the mask, and published a letter where he avowed doctrines far from orthodox according to the standards of the Greek Church. Nevertheless, it was ostensibly as a regular priest of that Church that he was invited to make use of the Episcopal churches; as such the members of that church received him, and whatever changes or omissions he may have made in his public services, they were understood to be celebrated according to the Sclavonic and Greek Liturgies. Thus, there is no escaping from the fact, that High Mass according to the same rite used by Oriental Catholics as well as schismatics, was authorized in the Episcopal Church in New York, a great number of the clergy assisting.

The English Church bishops, beginning with the old English Nonjurors, have been always anxious for the recognition of the Greek prelates, and have made several attempts to gain it.

Soon after my ordination as deacon in the Episcopal Church, I was invited by Bishop Southgate to accompany him to Constantinople on a mission of this kind. The plan was to have a little ecclesiastical establishment in Constantinople, consisting of a bishop and a few priests and deacons. Although the bishop, who had been for some years a travelling missionary in the East, was married, he wished his clergy to be unmarried men, and selected only such as his associates. There was to be a chapel, where all the rites and ceremonies permitted by Anglican law were to be celebrated with as much pomp as possible. Sermons in the Oriental languages designed to attract the clergy and make a good impression of our orthodoxy, were to be preached regularly. A college and seminary for the instruction of young Oriental ecclesiastics were to be opened, with a strict understanding that they were not to be induced to leave their own communion. Extracts from the works of the Greek Fathers, and translations from Anglican divines, were to be published, with a view to bring about mutual understanding and agreement between the different Churches. Every thing was to be done to propitiate the Oriental prelates and clergy, and to bring about their recognition of our ecclesiastical legitimacy, and intercommunion between themselves and us. The Missionary Committee, who were hostile to this plan, would not confirm my appointment, regarding me as having too strong a Catholic bias to be trusted. Another young deacon was selected in my place, who had been known as a strong Puseyite, but who publicly renounced his opinions before he left the country, in a sermon, in which he came out as a strong Evangelical. The mission was never well supported, but after a few years, fell through entirely, and the bishop is now a parish rector in New York. During a visit to New York, which I made in company with Bishops Whittingham and Southgate, at the time I was expecting to accompany the latter on his mission, I called on a very distinguished and learned presbyter, who was one of the ablest and most influential leaders of the Oxford movement. He asked me if we proposed to endeavor to change the doctrines of the Greek Church. I replied, that certainly we did propose to discuss several of these doctrines with the Greek prelates, and show them that they were not doctrines appertaining to the Catholic faith, but errors and additions made without authority. He inquired what these doctrines were. I cannot recollect how many I specified, but I am sure that the doctrine respecting the cultus of the Blessed Virgin and saints was the principal one. He replied that the doctrines I specified were established by just as good authority as any others, and that it would be impossible for us to convict the Greek Church of holding any erroneous doctrine. His arguments made a great impression on my mind at the time, and helped me forward toward the Catholic Church, although this gentleman himself remained always a Protestant.

The efforts made to cultivate the friendship of the Greek Church are very significant. Let it be observed, that the bishops who signed the letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople, both distinctly repudiate the Reformation of Luther and Calvin, and consent to waive all questions of difference between the Greek and the Protestant Episcopal Churches, until they can be decided by a General Council. This reduces the gravamen of the charges against Rome to the only point of difference which exists between herself and the Greek Church; that is, to the claim of supremacy of the Roman Pontiff. This is, then, the sum and substance of the "defilements of the Romish Communion." Here lies the whole casus belli between the champions of Anglicanism and the Catholic Church. There is no hope of reconciliation on equal terms with the See of Rome and her vast communion. Therefore, a rival claim of Catholicity must be set up, and supported by every possible charge that can be made to tell against the mighty Church whose Bishop claims the dignity and authority of successor to the Prince of the Apostles. Hence the odious names of "Roman Schism," "Romanist," "Romish," "Tridentine Schism," "Popery," "Popish," and all the other party catch-words of corruption in doctrine, bondage, tyranny, idolatry, etc., which are studiously employed, in order to throw dust in the eyes of the simple and unwary. Hence the effort to appropriate the name of Catholic, and to use all the phraseology associated with it, in connection with the Protestant Episcopal communion. Rome will not abate one jot or tittle of her divine rights, or of the Catholic doctrine of which she is the principal bulwark; and she will not treat the Church of England as a branch of the Christian Church. Therefore a rival must be set up against her, backed by the power and the prestige of the English name, and, if possible, also by those of the mighty Russian Empire and the ancient Eastern Church. The Nonjurors proposed to the Eastern prelates sitting in the Synod of Bethlehem, a plan for combining against Rome under an ecclesiastical organization whose head should be the Patriarch of Jerusalem. It was scornfully rejected, together with all their other overtures. No doubt, if the Church of England and the Episcopal Church of the United States could make a combination with the Greek Church, on the basis of the Oriental standards of doctrine, it would be the most formidable rival possible to the Catholic Church. But such a union is impossible. The Providence of God does not permit heresy and schism to assume the attitude of Catholicity, but compels them to manifest their true character by disintegration. And here lies another mark of the inconsistency of the theory of those who set up this claim of rival Catholicity against Rome. The Protestant Episcopal Churches, as such, do not sanction and assert in their public and official action the claim made for them by a certain portion of their members. The utmost that can be said of them is, that they affirm and exact episcopal ordination as requisite to a complete conformity to the polity established by the Apostles. They do not, however, assert, or require their clergy to believe, the necessity of apostolic succession to the being of a Church. Their standards are so constructed as to afford a shelter and a warrant to those who hold this and several other Catholic doctrines and principles. These doctrines are not, however, officially put forward as a term of communion, or a condition for ordination. The official doctrine of a Church is limited to that which it exacts by authority and under penalty of its teachers to hold and profess. It comes down to the lowest level of doctrine, which its teachers can hold, and still be reputed sound and orthodox clergymen. Now a very low Protestantism is all that even High Church bishops can exact from candidates for the priesthood or the episcopacy. "Anglo-Catholic" doctrine is nothing but the tolerated opinion of a certain party. Therefore, on these "Anglo-Catholic" principles, and according to the doctrine and decisions of the Greek Church, the Protestant Episcopal Church is schismatical and heretical, because she enforces nothing by her authority beyond Protestantism, which is heresy according to that standard of doctrine which was universally acknowledged before the "separation of the East and West," and accepted both by Greeks and "Anglo-Catholics." According to those principles, then, which would condemn the Roman Church of heresy and schism, all Episcopal Churches in the world have fallen away from the unity of faith established by our Lord, and the Catholic Church exists no more. Hence, even an "Anglo-Catholic," if he would not be driven into the arms of pure Protestantism, and consort with those followers of Luther and Calvin who are disowned by Bishop Griswold and his associates, are forced to make common cause with Rome and her Catholic communion.

The progressive portion of those who were engaged in the Oxford movement saw and felt all this, and, therefore, in a strict consistency with their Catholic principles, and by a logical necessity, they advanced in a Romeward direction. It has been necessary to make this long explanation in order to show how matters stood at the time when Mr. Baker and myself were connected with the ecclesiastical movement in Baltimore, under Bishop Whittingham. The Oxford movement was then ten years old. The celebrated Ninetieth Tract, in which Mr. Newman took the ground that several Roman dogmas were permitted by the Thirty-nine Articles, and that the Articles were to be explained according to the Catholic sense of the general body of the Universal Church, had been some time published, and the controversy excited by it was nearly completed. Mr. Newman was about resigning St. Mary's, and soon after went into retirement at Littlemore. A great number of the ablest writers of his party had advanced very far beyond the position taken by the earlier Oxford Tracts, and by Palmer, Percival, Keble, and others, at the outset. In the United States, the ordination of the Rev. Arthur Carey had taken place, under circumstances of the most peculiar character, which deserve a passing notice.

Arthur Carey was a young student of the New York Theological Seminary, barely twenty years of age, of an English family, and descended from several bishops of the English Church. He was a youth of rare intellectual gifts and acquirements, as well as of the most gentle and lovely character. Bishop Whittingham, who had been his preceptor, said that he possessed the wisdom of a man of fifty. In some way, the suspicions of a number of the principal Low Church rectors had been excited in regard to him, and he was subjected to a most rigorous examination for orders, in which he manifested his profound theological science and his brilliant parts, together with a magnanimity of spirit which won for him a wide-spread admiration, especially among all High Church Episcopalians. In the course of his examination, he avowed the most advanced opinions of the Oxford party, and expressed his belief in the sound orthodoxy of the decrees of the Council of Trent. He was violently attacked by some members of the examining committee, and defended by others, the majority finally recommending him for ordination. Bishop Onderdonk determined to ordain him, and was proceeding in the ceremony of ordination, when he was interrupted by two doctors of divinity in gowns, who publicly protested against the ordination, and then left the church. Bishop Whittingham urged him very strongly, after his ordination, to come to his diocese, which he declined doing. About this time, I read, in manuscript, a beautiful philosophical essay on Transubstantiation, which he wrote, according to the system of Leibniz, proving the futility of all the rational arguments urged against it. The circumstances of his ordination made him suddenly famous. He was assistant minister to Dr. Seabury, at the Church of the Annunciation, and every Sunday his sermons were reported for the secular papers, with minute accounts of his appearance, and all his sayings and doings. This publicity was insufferable to him; and in a letter of his, which I saw, he said that it made life a burden to him. His constitution was extremely delicate, and weakened by close application to study. He was a boy in years, and unable to breast the moral shock which he had received. He speedily sank into a decline, and died at sea, off the Moro of Havana, whither he had been sent for the benefit of his health, his body being committed to the deep by his fellow-passengers, who were all strangers to him, and one of whom read the Burial Service over his remains. For a long time afterward, his poor father might be seen every day standing on the Battery, and gazing wistfully out to sea, with mournful thoughts, longing after the son whom he had lost. There is something in the history of Arthur Carey assimilating it to that of Richard Hurrell Froude. Each of them, in his sphere, did more than any other to arrest the anti-Roman tendency of the Oxford movement, and give it a Romeward direction. In Mr. Carey's instance, it was not the mere effect of his own personal avowal of holding Roman doctrine, but the protection given him in doing so by the bishop of the principal diocese, the directors of the General Seminary, and a large number of other bishops and clergymen, which was significant. It was this which led to the persecution of Bishop Onderdonk; and it was believed that a plan was on foot for similar attacks on the other bishops who were regarded as Puseyites.

The reader of these pages can now understand something of the nature of those stirring and exciting times in the ecclesiastical world in which Mr. Baker began his career, and of the events and questions about which we were daily conversing together. Bishop Whittingham approved of the principle of interpreting the Articles laid down in the Ninetieth Tract. On this principle, I gave my assent to them at my examination for orders, and could not otherwise have assented to them with a safe conscience. The ordination of Mr. Carey opened the way for us to go forward to the full extent of holding all the doctrines of the Council of Trent. The current of Oxford thought and literature was sweeping us in that direction. We had full access to it, and felt its power, although, as I have said, we were a good deal behind the movement, and ignorant of many things which were taking place in England. Mr. Baker was far in advance of me at the time our friendship began. He never had that feeling of hostility to the Roman Church with which so many were filled. His early education, and the knowledge he had of Catholicity and of the Catholic clergy and laity in Baltimore, preserved him from that strong prejudice which I retained from the impressions of childhood, and which he aided me greatly to overcome. Neither of us ever looked on the Roman communion as heretical, schismatical, or essentially corrupt. We adopted, at first, the prevalent idea that it was in a schismatical position in England, and in those parts of the United States where we supposed the Protestant Episcopal Church had prior possession. We dropped this notion, however, after a while; and I remember well that it was a friend of ours, who was then and is now a minister of the Episcopal Church, who drove it finally out of my head by solid and unanswerable arguments. We could not agree with the bishop and his party in their anti-Roman sentiments, and disliked the offensive use of the terms "Romish" and "Romanist." We regarded the Catholic Church as composed of three great branches—the Latin, Greek, and Anglican—unhappily estranged from each other, and all more or less to blame for the separation. We did not believe in the supremacy of the Pope, in the full Catholic sense, as constituting the e essential principle of Catholic unity, or that communion with the Holy See was necessary to the very being of a Church. We did, however, come to believe by degrees in a certain Primacy, partly divine and partly ecclesiastical, as necessary to order, and the means of preserving intercommunion among all bishops. What we regarded as errors in Roman doctrine, we looked upon as much less fundamental than those Protestant errors which pervaded so extensively our own Church; we considered them much in the same light with which Bishop Griswold and his brethren regarded the peculiar doctrines of the Greek Church, as matters to be tolerated, until all branches of the Church could meet in a general council and make a final decision upon all controversies. Considering the divided and anomalous state of Christendom, we thought that both the Roman and Anglican bishops had an equally legitimate jurisdiction over their congregations, and that we were alike Catholics, and in real communion with the Universal Church of all ages and nations. We thought it to be the duty of each one to remain in the communion where he had been baptized or ordained, and would have dissuaded any Episcopalian from joining the Roman communion, or any Roman Catholic from joining ours. I remember, one evening, after hearing an account given with great glee by a young man of the perversion of a Catholic, that Mr. Baker said, after the person in question had gone, "What a miserable story that was which M—— just related!" In my own little parish, there was an Irish servant-girl, whom I married to a young Englishman, my parishioner. I had no scruple in doing this, not reflecting that I was the occasion of the girl committing a sin against her own conscience. But when her mistress expressed great hopes of her coming over to our Church, and I began to think she might apply to me for confirmation, I carefully avoided encouraging the plan, and considered seriously what I ought to do if any such case should arise. Very strangely and inconsistently, Bishop Whittingham used to confirm the occasional perverts that fell in his way, although they had received Catholic confirmation. And this increased my difficulty. For I regarded an act of that kind as a sacrilege, and could not have been a party to it in any case, unless I had thought it right, according to my overstrained notions of obedience, to throw the whole responsibility on the bishop. As I have often said, we never entertained the thought of leaving our own Church. The conversation of those who talked doubtfully on this point was always most disagreeable to us both, although it was only in one or two instances that we fell in with any such persons.

Toward our own bishop we were strictly obedient. His violent antipathy to Rome and strong Anglican party spirit, joined with a timid, politic course of action toward the Low Church, ultra-Protestant party, prevented our giving him full and unreserved confidence. Mr. Baker had seldom the occasion of conversing much with him. I was, however, constantly in his family, and very much in his society. I confided in him as a man of integrity, a sincere and generous friend, and a just and kind superior. But, from the first, there was a barrier which I had not expected to full and unreserved confidence, and a feeling that there was a secret and fundamental difference in our apprehension of the ideas which are contained in the forms of Catholic language. I have since discovered what this difference was, and I see now that he really believed in an invisible, ideal Catholic Church only, and in no other outward, visible unity, except that which is completed in a single bishop and congregation. This explains a remark made at that time by my father, who is thoroughly acquainted with the Protestant theology, on one of the bishop's essays; that, except his doctrine of three orders in the ministry, he was a pure Congregationalist. Mr. Newman, also, held the same view, until quite a late period in his Anglican life, as appears from his "Apologia." In Bishop Whittingham's own eyes, he was himself the equivalent of the whole Catholic episcopate. Consequently, what he and his colleagues and predecessors in the Anglican Church had decreed had full Catholic authority, and was just as final and authoritative as if the whole world had taken part in it. Hence the assertion of a despotic, exclusive authority of the Anglican Church, concentrated in his person, over everyone who acknowledged his jurisdiction. He would not permit us to attend any Catholic services, or read any Catholic books, as an ordinary thing. I read the tract of Natalis Alexander on the Eucharist, and the Life of St. Francis of Sales, in his library, before he made his prohibition. Afterward, he gave me himself a volume of Tirinus's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures; and these were the only Catholic books I read while I was in his family. I was very anxious to read Möhler's "Symbolism," but I did not; nor did I read Ward's "Ideal of a Christian Church;" because he desired me not to do so. I even gave up using approved Anglican books of devotion in church, because he expressed his disapprobation of using any other book but the "Common Prayer." Mr. Baker was equally obedient with myself at that time; although afterward, when he was governed more by common-sense and a just sentiment of his own rights, he read whatever he thought proper. It was Anglican books which brought us onward toward the Catholic Church, and the attempt to live up to and carry out Anglo-Catholic principles. Those who are familiar with the Anglo-Catholic movement will understand at once what these principles and doctrines were. But for the information of others it may be proper to state them distinctly, as they were understood by Mr. Baker, and others like him, who approximated more or less toward the Catholic Church, whether they eventually joined her communion or not:

1. The visible unity of the Catholic Church.
2. The final authority of the Church in deciding doctrine, and the authority of General Councils.
3. The necessity of an Apostolic Succession, and the divine institution of the episcopate.
4. Baptismal Regeneration and Sacramental Grace.
5. The strictly sacerdotal character of the priesthood, including the power of consecrating, and of absolution.
6. The Real Presence in the Eucharist.
7. The sacrificial character of the Eucharist.
8. The propriety of praying for the dead.
9. The merit of voluntary chastity, poverty, and obedience, and of penitential works.
10. The value of ceremonies in religion, and the sanctity of holy places and holy things.

However certain persons may modify and explain certain of these doctrines, no one can deny that the general drift of the writings of the Oxford or Anglo-Catholic school, together with that of the writings of the ancient Fathers and of the earlier English divines which are translated or republished by them, was to create and strengthen a belief in these doctrines. They were allowed to be tenable without infidelity to the Anglican Church, by persons in authority and others, who were themselves lower and more Protestant in their opinions. Now, I will take for a moment the position of an Anglo-Catholic, and, upon the basis of the principles I have just enunciated, I will prove that an attitude of hostility to the Roman Church is wrong and absurd, and that the only consistent and tenable ground is that now taken by the Unionists, represented by the Union Review.

"The Latin, Greek, and Anglican branches of the Catholic Church constitute but One Visible Church, though their unity is impaired and in part interrupted by mutual estrangement. As a member of the Anglican Church, I look upon the Greek Church as essentially sound and orthodox, and, if allowed to do so, would wish to receive the sacraments, or, if a clergyman, to officiate as such, in the churches of that Rite, if I happened to be in a place where it was established. I look upon the Latin Church, whose doctrine is the same with that of the Greek Church, with the single exception of the Papal Supremacy, in precisely the same light. Whatever I may think of the extent of power claimed by the Bishop of Rome, I must allow that, in a state of perfect intercommunion between all parts of the Church, the chief place in the Catholic hierarchy and the right of presidency in a general council belong to him. It is most desirable that the Greek and Anglican Churches should be restored again to communion with the Roman Church, and all controversies respecting doctrine be definitely settled. Meanwhile, the spirit of charity ought to be cultivated, and all possible means taken to remove prejudice and misunderstanding. In the present state of confusion and irregularity, the ancient canons respecting one bishop in a city cannot be considered as binding; and therefore Roman, Greek, and Anglican congregations, formed under the authority of bishops who are in regular communion with their own branch, are equally legitimate and Catholic, wherever they may be. The decisions of the particular national synods of the Anglican branch have no final authority, and are only binding so far as they declare the doctrines of the Universal Church. They are to be interpreted in the 'Catholic sense,' and are strictly obligatory only on those who have made a promise to maintain them, and upon those only in the sense in which they are imposed by authority, under censure. It is the Catholic Church, and not the Church of England or the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, of which I am a member by baptism, and therefore I have no duties to either of those ecclesiastical organizations, except such as arise out of their relation to the great Catholic body, and are compatible with the absolute allegiance I owe to its teaching and law's."

Such I conceive to be a statement of the only view an Anglican can consistently take, unless he plants himself upon the common Protestant ground. According to this, it is ridiculous for him to abstain from going to Catholic services, reading Catholic books, and cultivating the acquaintance of Catholic clergymen and lay-people. The pretence of deposing or degrading clergymen, because they pass to the communion of Rome, is an absurd and impotent attempt at retaliation. What sin can there be in going from St. Paul's Church, where the Mass is in English, celebrated by a priest of the Anglican Rite, under the obedience of the Catholic Bishop Whittingham, to the Cathedral, where the Mass is in Latin, celebrated by a priest of the Latin Rite, under the obedience of the Catholic Archbishop Spalding? How can there be the guilt of apostasy involved in such an act? How can a person "abjure the Catholic Communion" at Rome, by joining that which is confessedly the principal branch of the Catholic Church?

A person who believes in this theory of branches may say it is inexpedient and unwise for individuals to leave their particular connection, that it perpetuates the estrangement, and that it is better to wait for the time when the "English Branch" will be reunited bodily to the parent tree. They cannot pretend, however, that this is any thing more than a matter of private opinion. The only legitimate means they have for keeping their adherents from leaving them are argument and persuasion. It avails nothing to say that if free access to Roman Catholic services and books, and, in general, free intercourse with us is permitted, and the charge of schism, violation of baptismal or ordination obligations, &c., is abandoned, we shall gain over a great number of their members. What of that? Those who adopt a theory are bound to adhere to it. If this Anglo-Catholic theory has any thing in it, it ought to be able to sustain the shock of a collision. We have nothing but argument and persuasion on our side. Why should their influence be dreaded? If Catholic principles, sympathies, and practices gravitate toward Rome, let them gravitate; it is a sign that the centre of gravity is there. That the Oxford movement did gravitate toward Rome by its original force is a plain fact, proved by the number, the character, and the acts of those who have become converts to the Catholic Church. Not that their testimony is a direct proof that the Catholic Church is divine and infallible. This rests on extrinsic, objective evidence. But it is a direct proof that the pretence of the Catholicity of the Anglican communion cannot furnish full and complete satisfaction to conscientious minds that have imbibed Catholic principles. It professed to do so; but it has failed. Those who still cling to it cannot deny that the dissemination of their views generally produces in those who embrace them, at some period of their mental history, a deep misgiving respecting the safety of their position. This is not so in the Catholic Church. Catholics, who retain a firm faith in the principles of Catholicity, and endeavor to obey their consciences, never have a misgiving that they are out of the Church, or that there is any other church which has a better claim to be regarded as the Catholic Church. If human reason has any certitude, if the human mind is governed by any fixed laws, if the concurrent judgments and convictions of great numbers of the wisest and best men have any value, if there is any such thing as logic, these considerations ought to have weight.

But I am weary of chasing this Protean phantom of Anglo-Catholicism through its shifting disguises, and its labyrinthine mazes. And I gladly return to the theme of my narrative.

Francis Baker was ordained deacon on the 16th of February, 1845, and in the following August was appointed assistant minister of St. Paul's Church. During the interval he was performing occasional duty in assisting the rectors of different parishes in Baltimore, under the bishop's direction. His first sermon was preached in St. Paul's Church, Baltimore, on the Sunday afternoon of his ordination day, which was the Second Sunday of Lent. On the evening of the same day he preached at St. Peter's. His text was taken from the I. Epist. John, iv. 4: "And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." It was a beautiful sermon, and perfectly Catholic in its doctrine and tone. I regret that it is not extant, for I think that if it were, it would be worthy of a place among the sermons published in this volume. In it he extolled a life of virginity in glowing language, as the means of a closer union with Christ; and its whole scope was to present the lives of those who have renounced the world, as models of the highest Christian perfection. I read prayers for him that evening, and we walked home afterward together. We separated in silence, neither of us expressing his thoughts, but both seeming to feel a kind of blank and unwilling sense of disappointment, as if dimly conscious that our Catholicity was an unreal and imaginary thing. At St. Paul's Church his eloquence took the congregation completely by surprise. His quiet, unassuming character had not prepared even his friends to expect that he would manifest so much power as a preacher. From this time his reputation was fixed at the highest point, and he always sustained it. There were several very excellent preachers in the Maryland Diocese, but I believe it was generally admitted that Mr. Baker surpassed them all, and the most intellectual and cultivated people ever looked upon his sermons as affording to their minds and hearts one of the choicest banquets they were capable of enjoying. I have never known a young clergyman to be more generally and warmly admired and loved than Mr. Baker. Nevertheless, applause and popularity did not affect him in the least, and the pure mirror of his soul was never tarnished by vanity and self-complacency. Even then, his spontaneous desires and longings seemed to forecast the apostolic vocation which was in store for him. He had an ardent desire for a religious life, and was especially attracted by the character and life of Nicholas Ferrar, and by the history of the little religious community which he formed at Little-Gidding. In our walks we often conversed about the practicability of establishing a religious house which would give us the opportunity of working among the neglected masses of the people, and looked about for some suitable building for this purpose. There was a scheme talked of for establishing a monastic and missionary institute on the eastern shore of Maryland, and there were eight or ten clergymen who would have been eager to join in the enterprise if the bishop had been courageous enough to begin it. But the fear of Low Churchmen prevailed, and nothing was ever done. We very soon found that the work of "Catholicizing" the Episcopal Church in Maryland got on very slowly and miserably, through the open opposition of the Low Church party, and the dead, inert resistance of the old High Church. At an early period of Bishop Whittingham's administration, the Rev. Henry V. D. Johns, rector of Christ Church, bade him open defiance, and preserved that attitude until his death, many years afterward. The bishop preached and published two remarkably learned and able sermons on the priesthood, one of which was preached at the institution of Mr. Johns. At the close of it he exhorted the parishioners to receive their new rector as their divinely-appointed teacher, and to submit to his instructions with docility. The same night, Mr. Johns preached a sermon which contained a violent attack on the bishop's doctrine, and made a solemn declaration, sanctioned by an appeal to Heaven, that he would evermore oppose that doctrine, and preach the contrary in his pulpit. This was the signal for hostilities, and a sharp controversy arose out of the affair, which was renewed from time to time, as occasion offered. The bishop made one or two more efforts to bring out his Reformed Catholicism in sermons or charges, and then desisted, seeming to be more anxious to defend himself against the charge of Popery than to attack Protestantism. In regard to the outward ceremonial of religion, the efforts made to improve it were equally feeble and abortive. There was a miserable little church in an obscure street, called St. Stephen's, with an altar something like a marble-topped wash-stand, and some curtains covered with roughly-executed symbols, such as mitres, chalices, keys, etc., where we played a little at Catholics with so much success that a good old lady said it was worse than the Cathedral. The opposition which was excited by these innocent and absurd little ecclesiological essays were such that the parish was nearly ruined, and the rector in great alarm speedily banished all innovations, and brought his chancel and his windows back to the old-fashioned style. There was a little preaching in the surplice, a little display of crosses, and a great deal of Catholic talk in private circles, and very little else. The attempt to make the Protestant Episcopal Church in Maryland exhibit herself as the Reformed Catholic Church was a most signal failure. The True Catholic labored faithfully to defend Mr. Newman from the charge of Romanizing until he actually joined the Catholic Church, and then took to decrying him and other converts as much as possible. It then took up Archdeacon Manning, H. W. Wilberforce, and Marshall, loading its pages with extracts from their writings, until all these gentlemen followed Mr. Newman's example. What it did afterward, and whether it has survived until the present time or not, I do not know. The cassocks were silently and gradually dropped. Some of the young clergymen married, and took to walking sedately in the old paths, and others left the diocese. The few who could not unlearn or forget the Catholic principles they had imbibed, retired into themselves and kept quiet. And thus matters went back to their old condition of a sort of uneasy compromise between High and Low Church, on the basis of a common hostility to Rome.

I remember well the startling effect produced by the news of Mr. Newman's conversion. Whatever his modesty may induce him to say in disclaimer, he was the leader, the life, and the soul, of the Oxford movement: his genius and character had acquired for him in this country, as well as in England, a sway over a multitude of minds such as is seldom possessed by any living man. The news of his conversion was brought to Baltimore by Bishop Reynolds, of Charleston, who had just arrived from Europe. I heard it from Bishop Whittingham, one evening, after I had been to prayers in St. Paul's. I passed him on the steps and went out, and heard him say in a sorrowful tone, "Newman has gone." It went to my heart as if I had heard of my father's death. I did not wish to speak with anyone on the subject, for, although I was not prepared to follow him, yet I could not speak harshly or lightly of the decision of a man whose wisdom and goodness I venerated so highly, or endure to hear the comments of others. Mr. Baker and I had no opportunity to converse together very much on this matter, or indeed on any other. Our separation was at hand, under circumstances painful and trying to both. He was confined to the chamber of his brother Alfred, who was dangerously ill with the varioloid, and, of course, could neither make or receive any visits. I was obliged to leave Baltimore a few days after, for North Carolina, by the order of my physician. I took a hurried farewell of Mr. Baker, at the door of his house, with very little expectation, on either side, of ever meeting again. He had assisted me very frequently in the duties of my little parish in the suburbs, during several months of declining health, and after my departure he continued to visit the congregation and preach for them occasionally. It was during the autumn of 1845 that I left Baltimore. At the close of the Holy Week of 1846 I was received into the Catholic Church, at Charleston, S. C., and in March, 1847, I was ordained priest by the Right Rev. Dr. Reynolds, the bishop of the diocese.

Before leaving Edenton, N. C., where I resided during the previous winter, I wrote to Mr. Baker to inform him of my intention, and I continued to write to him occasionally, receiving letters from him in return, for some months afterward. The correspondence on his part soon became constrained and formal, and at last was stopped at his request. For the three years, immediately following my ordination, I saw or heard nothing of him. I continued to hope for his conversion, and often offered up the Holy Sacrifice for that intention. By degrees, however, the thought of him passed away from my mind, and I ceased to anticipate that the broken thread of our friendship would ever be re-united. I supposed that he had become permanently settled at some halting-place between Protestantism and the Catholic Church, and would live and die contentedly in his chosen position as an Episcopalian clergyman, forgetting his earlier and nobler aspirations as among the dreams of youth. For the history of his mind during this period, I am indebted to the letters which he continued to write to the bosom friend who has been already spoken of, and the information which that friend has given me personally. I am also indebted to the same source, chiefly, for the history of his progress toward Catholicity, during the entire period of seven years which elapsed before his reception into the Catholic Church. For, although I saw him repeatedly during the last three years of this period, he was extremely guarded and reserved in his language; and during our common life together, as Catholics, afterward, I never asked him for any detailed account—the subject having, in great measure, lost its interest for us both.

I have reason to believe that at the time of my conversion he had his misgivings, and indeed his first letters to me showed a disposition on his part to enter into a free discussion of the matter with me. He soon quieted these misgivings, however, and determined to throw himself heart and soul into the work of realizing Catholicity in his own Church. He even underwent a reaction which awoke a feeling of hostility to the Roman Church, and of anger against me, for having, as he expressed it, "spoiled their plans." His good and true friend of past days, who had continually encouraged and urged him on from the first to follow boldly in the footsteps of those who led the advance of the Oxford movement, would not, however, permit him to rest in this state. He was determined himself not to shut his eyes to the difficulties and perplexities of his position, and he would not allow his friend to do it. He never ceased to unbosom freely all his own doubts and disquietudes, to communicate the results of his continual reading and reflection, and to stimulate his friend to push on in the study of Catholic principles and doctrines until he had reached a final and satisfactory result. Judging from the letters of Mr. Baker which I have before me, I should think that both his misgivings about his own position and his bitter feelings toward the Roman Church gave place to a quiet resolution of adhering to the position he had taken, before Mr. Newman's conversion and that of others of lesser note had startled his repose. For two or three years his letters do not indicate a disquieted mind, but are often full of hope for the prospects of the Anglican communion. By degrees a change is manifest, and it is easy to see the progress of a conviction slowly forcing itself upon him that the Episcopal Church is essentially Protestant, and all the efforts made to place her in a Catholic light and attitude a mere illusion. The workings of a mind and heart struggling with doubt and disquiet, weary of a hollow and unreal system, weaned from all worldly hopes, detaching itself from all earthly ties, and striving after the truth and after God, become more and more manifest, until at last, after seven long years, the result is reached. I have hesitated much before determining to insert a portion of these letters in this narrative. Certain motives of delicacy toward my departed friend and others would incline me to withhold them. But their perusal has seemed to me to exhibit so much more clearly than any narrative of mine could do, the transparent purity of the heart from which they emanated, and the wonderful workings of divine grace upon it, that I have judged it best to prefer the profit of those who will read this book to private feeling. Some of them, which are merely descriptive, I have inserted, because there could be no reason for withholding them, and they will give pleasure to the friends of the writer, who value every thing which came from his pen. In regard to others, which were private and confidential, I have used the utmost caution to select only those portions which are necessary to a full exhibition of the writer's gradual progress to the Catholic Church.

I will first quote some extracts from the correspondence of an earlier period, which show the first blossoms of the later ripened fruit of Catholic faith and holiness in the pure and upright soul of Francis Baker.

From Francis A. Baker To Dwight E. Lyman.
"Baltimore, February 20, 1843.
"My Dear Dwight:
* * * * *
"Of course you have seen the letter 'Quare Impedit.' Is it not very caustic? I cannot but think it defective in the non-expression of what the writer doubtless believed, the sense in which the Council of Trent's words as to 'immolation' are true. It does not sufficiently bring out the true and unfigurative sense in which the sacrifice on the altar is the same with the sacrifice on the cross.
* * * * *
"As I go on with my studies, my dear Dwight, I become more and more attracted to them, and, I hope, more and more of a Catholic. Indeed, I seem to myself to live in a different world from that around me, and to be practical I find one of the most difficult attainments. But to be frank with you, in looking forward to the future, the situation of a parish priest seldom fills my mind. I almost always look to the monastic life in some of its modifications. It is true that on the score of fitness I have no right to look forward to such privileges; but from some circumstances which you will appreciate, my heart has been drawn more entirely from the world than most persons of my age. But the future belongs to God, and I must now prepare myself for the duties which seem pointed out to me. I have not spoken to anyone else of this long-cherished desire, and, indeed, there are at present insurmountable difficulties in the way; but I do not look upon it is as so visionary a scheme as I once did.
* * * * *
"Your brother told me of his intended repairs in his church. I am delighted to hear it. It will not be long, I hope, before such is the universal arrangement of our churches. Only one thing will be lacking (if he has a cross), the candlesticks. I have come to the conclusion that we have a perfect right to them, for they will come in by the Church common-law, as the surplice did. I do not suppose it would be proper for a priest to introduce them without his ordinary's sanction. I do wish a charge would come out recommending the Catholic usages. I don't give any weight to the cry of some about us, to wait for such things until Catholic doctrines are received. I cannot but think that such things would have a reflex influence on doctrine. While we are externally so identified with the Protestants, it will be hard to convince the world that we have any claims to antiquity or Catholicity. Pray use your influence to have a solid altar, and as large as may be."
* * * * *
"Baltimore, June 9, 1843. "It was a great disappointment to me not seeing you here at the Convention, and there has been going on here so much of interest to you. The Roman Council you have heard all about, I am sure. I was not present, of course, at any of their services or meetings, nor did I see any of their processions, but from all I have heard, and from what I have seen at other times, I think it must have been a most glorious spectacle. I do not think I am fond of pageantry, but it must have been heart-stirring to see the Church coming out of the sanctuary which she has in her own bosom, and going forth to take possession of the world in the name of her ascended Lord. Imagine a band of sixteen venerable bishops, with surpliced acolytes and vested priests, with their lights and cross and crosier, all chanting in murmuring responses some old processional chant; the effect of the whole heightened by the brightness of a May sun reflected from many a golden stole and glittering mitre! I am sure the sight would have set you crazy. Indeed, I feared myself that it would present an unfortunate contrast with our neat, dress-coat clergy. But our own Convention had far more of an ecclesiastical appearance this year than it ever had before. The daily matins at six o'clock, the Litany at nine, and the full Mass service at twelve, all seemed as if we were suddenly transplanted into some other age of the church, when she understood and realized her heavenly mission better than in these later days. Every day after the reading of the Gospel, all joined in a solemn profession of the old Nicene faith; then the Holy Sacrifice was offered, and all were allowed to partake of the Holy Mysteries."
* * * * *
"Baltimore, June 9, 1845.
"When the ordination is appointed, if possible, I will let you know; and if you are disposed to treat me better than I did you, I should be truly glad to see you here on that occasion. At all events, my dear Dwight, do not forget to pray for me. I regret exceedingly that the advantage of the regular Ember season will be lost to me, for I feel in need of all the assistance which the united prayers of the Holy Church might be expected to procure. As soon after my ordination as may be, I wish to go to work in such a department as may be assigned me by the will of God and the direction of the bishop. I wish not 'to choose my way,' but as far as possible to submit to the direction of others, my superiors; for that I believe to be the very secret of ministerial influence. In my case, however, there can hardly be any trial of virtue in this course, for with such a bishop as God has placed over us, submission is no sacrifice. I have deliberately resolved to maintain a single life, and acquainted the bishop with my determination. I think he approved of my resolution, though he dissuaded me from taking a vow to that effect. Although I acquiesced in his advice, yet I shall consider myself from the date of my ordination pledged to preserve that state, by the grace of God. All this is strictly between ourselves, for I abhor to talk about such things. I consider this a matter, in our Church at least, of strictly individual choice, and while I have no hesitation myself in adopting the course I have mentioned, I should despise myself and think but poorly of my own motives, if I should ever think less of another for exercising differently his Christian liberty."
* * * * *

The foregoing extracts are taken from letters written before the time of my leaving Baltimore, and of course, therefore, before the thought of joining the Catholic Church had entered any of our minds. Those which follow were written at various times during the period of seven years, between 1846 and 1853, which was the period of transition in Mr. Baker's mind, ending in his conversion.

"Baltimore, July 9, 1846.
"Every thing has been remarkably quiet in Baltimore for the last month. There seems to be nothing of the excitement that for a while prevailed on the subject of 'Roman tendencies' and 'perversions.' I know not whether the 'Few Thoughts' of Mr. H., which is just published here, and which I suppose you have seen, will awaken controversy; but should suppose not, from the occasion and nature of the publication, it being merely an explanation of his own course, and written immediately on the determination to take that course. I have heard the pamphlet spoken of as 'a weak production,' as 'doing Mr. H. no credit.' Are we not too apt to speak so of the work of an opponent? Of course the essay is not a learned and systematic argument, nor does it profess to be so; but it is (as it appears to me) honest, to the point, and well expressed. I speak this of the production: as an argument, it of course resolves into the great Roman plea of Visible Unity.

"I understand that a Mr. ——, a presbyter of our Church, and alumnus of the General Theological Seminary, made his public abjuration of Protestantism in St. Mary's Chapel, on Sunday last. I suppose you have seen the account of ——'s defection. I was told, a few days ago, that —— has made up his mind to 'go;' but as it was a Roman Catholic who told me, I did not know but he might be misled. Do you know any thing about it? I received, a few days ago, a letter from H. It was merely a friendly letter, without controversy, describing his mode of life, written very cheerfully and kindly. It will give me pleasure to show it to you when you come to Baltimore to see me, to which visit I look forward with great pleasure. We will then talk about all these strange events and times, and on our thoughts and feelings concerning them. Adieu, adieu, my dear friend. Let us keep close to each other; but first, close to God, and in all things obedient to His will. Again adieu, my dear, good friend."

It is easy for one who knew intimately the writer of this letter to see that his heart was sad and disquieted when he wrote it, although he does not directly say so; especially from the unusual warmth and tenderness of his expressions of attachment to his friend. About two months after he wrote it, the time came for him to pass his examination for priest's orders. The circumstances under which his examination took place redoubled this disquiet, and caused him to hesitate much about receiving ordination. In the course of his examination, he was asked if he accepted the Thirty-nine Articles. It appears that he was not able to accept the reasoning of Tract No. 90, upon which he must have gone at his ordination to the diaconate, and accordingly he replied boldly that he rejected some of the Articles, and could not in any way give his assent to them. I do not know how many of them he qualified in this way; but I know that one of them was the thirty-first, as to its second section: "Wherefore, the Sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain and guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits;" and I think, that, another was the twenty-second: "Of Purgatory," etc. A discussion arose among his examiners upon the propriety of passing him. The bishop endeavored to waive the whole question, and succeeded in preventing his rejection. The rector of St. Peter's, who was the chairman of the committee, and whose duty it was to present the candidates, declined, however, to present Mr. Baker, though, with a singular inconsistency, he privately urged him to be ordained. Mr. Baker almost resolved to stop where he was, and regretted afterward that he had not done so. He suffered himself, however, to be overruled by the authority and persuasion of the bishop, and as Dr. Wyatt also excused himself from taking the responsibility of presenting him, he was presented by another presbyter, and ordained on the 20th of September, 1846. His health as well as his spirits were impaired by these troubles; and, therefore, a short time afterward he made a trip to the North, in order to recreate both body and mind, and with the hope of driving away, by change of scene, the unpleasant thoughts which haunted him. In this he was in a measure successful. He appears to have made a resolute determination to throw himself into his ministry, and to put away all doubt from his mind. He went in search of all that was attractive and encouraging in his own communion, and his letter, giving an account of his trip, shows that his attachment to it was deepened and renewed by the impression made on him by the beautiful churches, the tasteful and decorous services, and the agreeable, intellectual men of congenial spirit with himself, described by him in such a pleasing style. It was after this journey that he wrote to me, expressing a firm determination to adhere to his chosen position, assigning for his chief reason the "signs of life" which he saw in the Episcopal Church; and he soon after, as I have said, dropped his correspondence with me, as one separated from him by a barrier which was never to be passed over.

"Baltimore, November 10, 1846. "I enjoyed my visit to the North quite as much as your or my own expectations promised. I think the jaunt was in every way beneficial to me. I spent a week delightfully in New York, where a new world, as it were, of churches was opened to me, and had a most happy (what I call) heart visit to Troy. But you will expect to hear particulars. To commence with the commencement, then, what shall I say of Trinity Church? In some respects it is far beyond my conceptions. The first impression was really overpowering. It was on Saturday morning, and but for a few minutes, and it seemed to me that both externally and internally the building was most majestic and beautiful. I next saw it on Sunday morning, to great advantage. It was communion day, and fourteen priests in their surplices were in attendance (the Convention having adjourned late the night before). The church was full, but very orderly—the music grave and fine—though I confess to you (pardon my ignorance and temerity) it was not exactly as I should have liked. It seemed to me to want impressiveness or expression. It was neither soothing, nor, to me, very grand. Dr. —— preached. I never saw the Holy Communion celebrated and administered in any church with so fine effect. The scene, when the choir was filled with the worshippers waiting for their turn to receive, was truly majestic. On that day I went away with a most agreeable impression. After I had been there, how ever, in the week, and especially as I became familiar with it, I was very conscious of the great defect and coldness of the chancel. The meanness of the altar is positively too bad; and the unmeaningness of the heavy altar-screen is curious. The window is not just up my taste; but I do not think so badly of it as some do. On the whole, I think there can be no doubt that the chancel is a failure; but the nave is very fine, and the doorway, the organ-gallery, the organ, the tower, and the side-porches most beautiful. On the afternoon of the Sunday, I went to Grace Church, listened to the music—exquisite of its kind—saw the images!!! looked at the church, and examined the stained windows. I cannot agree with you about this building. Certainly it has some beauties. The external appearance is very fine, and the single figure of our Blessed Lord, in the east window, beautiful; but I must say that the whole of the interior presented to me a look of finery, and an absence of solemnity, most unpleasant in the sanctuary. The windows were simply distressing. It will seem very Protestant after this to say it, but still it is true, that the church looked very like a Roman Catholic Church to me; perhaps it would be truer to say Romish, for it seemed to me in keeping with some things we call by this name. I was disappointed in Grace Church; for I went prepared to like it, from your representation, and from my confidence in your taste.

"Next in order of my seeing, but really, perhaps, first of all, is the Church of the Holy Communion. This is really a gem. I was there at evening prayer on a week-day, and I left with a grateful heart that it was granted me to worship there. I am not much of an architect, but the building seemed to me perfect. I at least had no fault to find with it. The services were read at the chancel rail. The canticles were chanted with the organ accompaniment. It was at once solemn and very beautiful. I said I had no fault to find. Perhaps that is too much. I do think there is an absence of warmth in the colors of the church, and of a certain grace and brightness about the chancel, which would be entirely obviated by substituting, instead of the present altar, a white or colored marble one of the same size, adorned with candlesticks and covered with a lace cloth. This, however, is to make it a perfect church for my eye, and I am not at all sure that I am right.

"I said Troy was the most agreeable place I had visited. You will not need to be told what it was which gave it this interest: the Church of the Holy Cross. Oh, how glorious that enterprise is! How perfectly devotional and elevating those services! I was made very, very happy by this visit. It seemed unearthly, and it seemed, too, a promise of better and holier days, a harbinger of returning glory to our depressed Church. Could you not introduce this service into the college. It is worth a very great effort. Nothing else can produce such an effect as the choral service. With the material you have, I should not think it would be impossible, and at nothing short of this ought you to stop. I formed a valuable acquaintance with, and had the pleasure of visiting all the clergy of the place, who are remarkably united, and who received me with Southern warmth and cordiality. I was at the Church of the Holy Cross as often as it was possible for me to be there, you may be sure, and left it at the last with real regret. I consider this visit alone fully repaid me for the journey."
* * * * *

From this time there is not a trace of disquietude with his position to be observed in his correspondence, until 1849. Under date of February, 1847, he writes to his friend, who, as it appears from his own declarations, was the only intimate friend he had among his brother clergymen:

"I still write now and then to H., but there is such a restriction on the freedom of thought and expression in speaking to him, that I have but very little interest in the correspondence; indeed I think it hardly likely long to continue; but from you there is no need or wish on my part to conceal any thing.
* * * * *
I long to leave St. Paul's. I do not say this to anyone here, for nothing is gained of talking; but to you I say that I am obliged constantly to fall back on the reflection that, until some other way is opened, my duty lies here. It is not on account of any disagreeables in my position; but there are peculiar dangers and difficulties attending it, and I cannot help fearing constantly that my life is too easy and too soft to please God. Still I see not which way to move. I think I wish to submit myself entirely to the Divine Will. I hope it will not seem impertinent, dear Dwight, to express a hope that this coming Lent may be a season of strict discipline to us both. Oh, I need it! I cannot tell you how the sense of responsibility concerning the souls of others sometimes alarms me. I can say this to you, without hypocrisy, I trust. I need to be purged by penance very, very much, to be drawn away from pride and vain-glory, and slothfulness and self-will; these are my besetting sins; and to be stirred up to diligent study, to obedience, to humility, to labor, and to prayer. I pray that I may have the grace to fulfil the work which God has put in my heart to undertake this Lent, that He would draw me away from all things else, entirely to be united to Him. It would be a most pleasant thought that we were thus entering on this penitential season together."

The following extract from a letter of June 23, 1848, shows the interest which the writer still felt in Mr. Newman:—

"Is it not encouraging to see the stir that has been raised in England about Dr. Hampden's nomination? The secular papers all call the opposition a 'Tractarian Movement.' If they mean by this that none but Tractarians are engaged in it, it is palpably false; but in another sense it is certainly true. I see clearly in the whole matter the fruits of that movement, the greater earnestness and zeal for orthodoxy, as such, so different from what would have been exhibited a quarter of a century ago. And whom are we to thank for fixing the brand of heterodoxy upon this man; so that he cannot pass off his sophisms upon an unwary Church, but the great master to worn we once looked up, to whom God gave so clear a vision of the truth and so great a zeal to uphold it? This is the fruit of a seed sown by a hand now raised up against us, one of the many gifts by which we keep him and his great faculties in remembrance, though, alas! 'we now see him no more.'"

In one of these letters Mr. Baker speaks of his desire to leave St. Paul's Church for some other field of labor. Nevertheless, he remained there six years out of the eight years of his Protestant ministry. In 1848 he received an invitation to the Church of St. James the Less, a very beautiful and costly, though small church, in the suburbs of Philadelphia, built after the style of the English Benedictine abbey-churches, and fitted up after the manner which delights the Anglo-Catholic heart. This invitation he declined, at the request of his bishop, who was naturally loth to part with him. A proposal was then made that he should found a new parish; and this, I suppose, was the plan afterward carried out at St. Luke's. This plan was postponed from time to time on account of the precarious health of Alfred Baker. Meanwhile, he devoted himself most assiduously to his private religious exercises and to his ministerial labors. I have never known a young clergyman more universally and warmly loved and admired than he was among the people of his communion. He improved sedulously his admirable gifts for preaching, and in a diocese containing a number of excellent preachers, he attained and kept the first rank. His fastidious taste and sense of propriety led him soon to drop the long cassock, and every thing else in outward dress and demeanor which had appeared singular in the first years of his ministry. He avoided controversy and all peculiarities of doctrine in his sermons, and confined himself chiefly to those truths of religion and those practical points which could be received without question by his hearers. Aside from the pastoral intercourse which he had with his people, his life was very retired. He had the ideal of the Catholic priesthood always in view, and this encompassed his discharge of ministerial duties with many practical difficulties. He felt this particularly, as he has often said, in his visits to the sick and dying, on account of the want of the proper sacraments, and the want of a real and recognized sacerdotal relation. He could not help feeling always that while theoretically he regarded himself as a Catholic priest, in point of fact he was but a Protestant minister, compelled to fall back on a system of subjective pietism, based on Lutheran doctrine, to which he had an invincible repugnance, and in which his hands were tied.

Meanwhile events were progressing in the English Church and producing their reflex action in this country. On the one hand, the Oxford movement was still going forward under new leaders, and on the other, the Protestant character of the Anglican Establishment and its American colony was exhibiting itself every day more and more decisively. The first great wave that had rolled toward Catholicity had cast up those who were foremost on its crest on the Rock of Peter. Another wave was rolling forward in the same direction, which was destined to bear on its summit still more of those who floated on the great sea of doubt and error to the same secure refuge. The first converts were given up to obloquy, and their influence in every possible way lowered or destroyed, by belittling their character, if that was possible, or, if not, by inventing specious reasons to show that the course they had taken was the result of some personal idiosyncrasy, and not the just consequence of their Catholic principles. It was stoutly asserted that the movement was not responsible for them, and that it did not of itself lead to Rome. It began again afresh with new men, new books, new projects. Again there was an advanced party; and in due time this advanced party began to move Romeward, denying as before that it would ever actually arrive at Rome. Nevertheless, many of its members, some of very high character and position, did eventually follow the earlier converts over to the Catholic Church. Others, especially those who were in stations of dignity and authority, began to recoil and retract, and call back their followers to the safer ground of the old High Church. In this country there was a sad lack of earnestness and reality on the part of the majority of those who had yielded themselves to Oxford influences, and these influences were but faintly felt by the laity. Mr. Baker was, however, deeply and sadly in earnest. He had schooled himself into submission to his soi-disant Church and bishop, and resolutely determined to believe that he could think, act, and live up to Catholic doctrines and laws where he was. He had thrown himself anew into Anglicanism, putting faith in its new leaders and the old ones who remained, and confiding in the reality and success of their efforts. Long and wearily he struggled to hold out in this course, in spite of the daily increasing evidence that it was delusive and hopeless. For long years he was tossed backward and forward on the waves of doubt and uncertainty, sometimes almost gaining a foothold on the Rock, and then dashed again backward into the sea.

Most persons, whether they are Catholics or Protestants, will wonder that Mr. Baker, having approached at first, by almost a single bound, so near the very threshold of the Catholic Church, should have waited and hesitated so long before taking the final step over its border. Those who have not felt it can hardly understand the strong spell by which the system so ably advocated by the Oxford divines captivated many minds. To those who were deeply imbued with certain Catholic prepossessions, and yet not emancipated from the old hereditary prejudice against the Roman Church, it offered a compromise which allowed them to cherish their prepossessions and yet remain in the reformed Church, where they were at home and among their friends, and free to select some and reject other Catholic doctrines and usages, according to their own private judgment and taste. It pretended to give them "a Catholicity more Catholic, and an antiquity more ancient" than those of the ancient, universal mother and mistress of churches herself. Once seduced by this specious pretence, there was no end to the ingenious arguments, wire-drawn distinctions, fine-spun theories, and plausible special pleading by which they were detained under its influence. The theory has infinite variations, and a flexibility which accommodates itself to every form of doctrine, from the lowest tolerated in the Episcopal ministry to the highest advocated in the Union Review. This influence on the mind and conscience is a very injurious one, and tends to disable them from reasoning and deciding, in a plain and direct manner, on broad and general principles. Mr. Baker became aware of this afterward, and regretted that he had permitted himself to be swayed so much by the authority of others instead of following the dictates of his own judgment and conscience. It is impossible for me to say whether he was dilatory in following the inspirations of divine grace or not. No one but God can certainly judge how much time is necessary in any individual case for the full maturing of the convictions into a distinct and undoubting faith. One thing I can assert, however, with confidence, and I believe that every one who reads the ensuing extracts from Mr. Baker's letters will share the same conviction: that he never deliberately quenched the light of the Divine Spirit, or refused to follow it from any worldly and unworthy motives. He sought for wisdom by study, prayer, and a pure life, and although he was slow in arriving at a full determination, yet he made a continual progress toward it; and when he reached it, he did not shrink from any sacrifice which obedience to God and his conscience required of him.

In a letter under the date of June 4, 1849, after speaking of the probability of his leaving St. Paul's, and the uncertainty he was in in regard to his future plans, which were interfered with by the ill-health of his brother, he thus writes:

"I missed you at the Convention; indeed, there are several reasons why I did not enjoy myself at that time. It seemed to me that there were but one or two with whom I had any real sympathy. There was very little done. The bishop could not be present on account of indisposition. K. read the bishop's charge. It was able, but thoroughly and strongly Protestant. The position it took was perfectly unequivocal; and it places certain people, whose position before was sufficiently uncomfortable, in a most painful predicament. He shuts us up to the very sense of the Articles and Prayer-Book, as understood by the Reformers; and tells those who cannot submit to this, who are willing not to contradict that sense, but do not believe it, he tells them very plainly that they are obliged to leave a ministry for which they are no longer competent. The charge convinces me either that we have heretofore misunderstood the bishop, or that he has fixed himself upon a new platform. He now makes the Protestant element in our Church's teaching (which is certainly the most prominent one in her history) the most authoritative and controlling. It appears to me that he might as well have said at once that the Church of England was founded at the Reformation. May God teach us what we ought to do."

I have been told by Mr. Baker that the bishop, on some occasion, sent him his charge to look over, with the request that he would read it for him at the Convention, and that he declined reading it, on account of his strong objection to the doctrine it contained. I suppose that this must have been the charge in question. I find no other letter from this date until January 9, 1850, under which date he writes at length, and begins to unbosom himself more freely than he had done before:

"There was something in your last letter which was particularly refreshing to me. It seemed like old times, and brought an assurance of sympathy when I had begun deeply to feel the want of it. You say that my letter was not so full or like myself as some others. There was a reason why it was not so, and the same reason has delayed the answer to your last kind favor. I have had many painful and distressing thoughts, which I hardly knew how to express to any one; and it seemed a wrong and cruelty to grieve one's friends when every catholic-minded brother had so much to bear on his own account. Now that I have decided upon the course I will take, I can write more calmly, and with less risk of perplexing others. You will guess the cause of anxiety. My conviction of the truth and holiness of Catholic doctrines has not diminished since I saw you; my apprehension of what I hold is firmer and more distinct; my prejudice against some things which the Roman Church holds as catholic truths, but which we deny, has been shaken; and while this was enough to make my present position in some respects uncomfortable, the longing for a fuller measure of catholic privileges, the want of sympathy, the uncertainty, dissension, and mutability among us, and the awful greatness of the claims and promises of Rome, made me willing to entertain the thought of changing my ecclesiastical relations. On looking back upon this state of feeling, there was much that was wrong. I felt in many ways the results of past unfaithfulness; I was confused and perplexed; I was doubtful of my own sincerity. Sometimes every thing seemed uncertain to me. But whatever were the causes, and whatever the characteristics of my state of mind, I felt, upon a careful examination of myself that the only proper course for me to pursue was to institute a candid and diligent search into the claims of the Roman Church to be the Holy Catholic Church. All her claims seem to resolve themselves into that of the supremacy of the See of St. Peter, and I accordingly resolved to confine my investigations to that point. I communicated my determination to the bishop last week, and asked him whether I could continue to officiate while I was engaged in such a course. He thought I could and ought, and offered me every assistance in his power, in the way of books, advice, etc. He was wonderfully kind and forbearing, but firm in assuring me that investigation of the point would but end in conviction of the untenableness of the Roman claim. I have felt calmer since I acted thus, and propose to enter forthwith upon the study of this question, keeping it as clear as I can of exterior matters, and pushing it, if I may, to a decision. I need not, I know, ask of you the charity to continue your prayers for the Divine blessing and guidance to your perplexed friend."

"Tuesday Night.
"You will understand, from what I have been telling you of the thoughts which have occupied my mind for some time past, how the various events in the Church during the last few months have affected me. With regard to ——'s departure, I confess it was the deepest grief to me, and, in connection with other circumstances, did much to distress and unsettle me. It is one of the most afflicting things about the present controversies, these separations between friend and friend, between master and disciple; yet I know that even this is to be borne meekly and obediently, if we cannot see it to be our imperative duty to follow those we have loved and lost; and now that I have undertaken in a rational way to satisfy myself on this point I can think more calmly of our isolation and bereavement. To return to more Protestant ground (I know that it does not suit unlearned people to say what they will do, but) I feel is impossible. My conviction of the truth of the system (in opposing and barking at which Protestantism has its life and occupation) continually increases; but I think I feel that if I could be persuaded that the Divine Will made it to be my duty to remain where I am, I could submit to all the difficulties and privations of our position uncomplainingly and even cheerfully.

"Bishop Ives's movement, so far as it was intended to introduce the general practice of auricular confession, had my unrestrained sympathy. How far he meant to go in asserting its necessity, I confess myself unable to determine; but anyhow, I think he went farther than Protestant Episcopalianism will bear him out in going. It was an infinite relief to me when he came out as boldly as he did; and now that he has presented the subject anew to the Church, I feel assured that the Church will be obliged to meet the question. I confess I do not feel very hopeful as to the issue of the controversy, for it seems to me that nothing short of a miracle could dispose the mass of our people to the practice of confession. The High Churchmen will be as opposed to it as the Low Churchmen. Maryland will kick as much as Ohio. But nous verrons."

Some time after the date of this letter, Mr. Baker made a voyage to Bermuda with his brother Alfred, who was now in a deep and hopeless decline. He returned some time in the early part of the ensuing summer. One day, either a little before or a little after this voyage, I accidentally met him as I was out walking. I had returned once more to Baltimore, and was making my novitiate at the House attached to St. Alphonsus' Church. It was now nearly five years since I had seen my former friend, and three since I had received any letters from him. I was startled and pleased at our unexpected rencontre, and at the light of friendship which I saw in his face and eyes; but the pain of being separated from him was renewed. Mr. Lyman came to see me, one day, during the spring of 1850; and was much more frank and cordial in his manner than Mr. Baker, who kept a close vail of reserve over his heart until the last. I inquired of him particularly about Mr. Baker, whether he had made any retrograde movement, &c. He replied that he had rather advanced, and had become more spiritual in his preaching, advised me to visit him, and on my objecting to this on the ground that a visit might be intrusive and unwelcome, assured me of the contrary. It was through his influence that some degree of intercourse was from this time re-established between Mr. Baker and myself. A subsequent letter of Mr. Baker speaks of his visiting me, and also describes his visit to Bermuda in the following terms. The letter is dated October 24, 1850:—

"On my return from Bermuda, I found your kind and interesting letter, and felt grateful to you for the friendship which you have now continued to me for several years. I am sorry not to have seen you when you were in Baltimore, and in fact that was the only regret I felt on account of my absence from home at the time of the Convention. The Convention itself I have ceased to look forward to with any pleasure. The truth is, it always saddens me to mingle at all with the clergy promiscuously. I feel that there is so little sympathy between us, that the sense of loneliness is forced upon me more distinctly than when I keep to myself altogether. But I do not mean to write gloomily to a friend with whom I communicate so seldom, and indeed I do not complain of the want of sympathy which I feel, or blame others for it. I know that the cause of it is in myself, and I acknowledge with gratitude the great degree of indulgence, kindness, and forbearance with which I have been universally treated.

"I have felt happier lately, though I do not know why I should, for I cannot say that I have gained a satisfactory position; and when I think of dying, anxious thoughts come across me; but I have been pursuing (as my occupation allows me) my investigations into the question of the supremacy, and I wish to abide by the result, without being swayed by feeling one way or another. I have read Newman's Discourses since I received your letter. They are like all that he writes, thoughtful, earnest, holy, and deeply impressive; but I think they differ from his Parochial Sermons in having the appearance of more excited feeling, and in being more affectionate in their tone. He seems to write under a pressing anxiety to influence those he addresses, and he opens his heart more than he did of old. I think this accounts in part for an objection which I have heard brought against them, that they are not so strictly logical. He seems to me possessed with that proselyting spirit which has always appeared to me to be so divine a token about the Church of Rome, as if the constant reflection of his mind was, 'What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'

"I was deeply interested in the account of your visit to H. I too saw H., but only for a moment. We met on the road, and he stopped most kindly, and we had a minute's conversation. Of course there was nothing but commonplace. I know not how he felt, but I felt very sad.

"You may imagine that I have looked with no little interest at the progress of ecclesiastical affairs in England. The secessions lately have made a tremendous excitement—more so, I really think, than those in 1845, perhaps on account of the 'present distress.'

"I have not much of interest to tell you about Bermuda. You know it is an English colony, and I saw there for the first time the workings of the English Church. In every thing except the Morning and Evening Prayer, I think we have the advantage, particularly excepting the latter. The clergy I found a hard-working set of men, frank and cordial, and very much interested and well informed in matters relating to our Church. The churches are very plain, but have a quiet, grave, soothing air about them, the clergy mostly 'High Church,' but not after our sort, and the people seemed to me to be almost entirely devoid of a Church tone and spirit, though not irreligious. Dissent is very rife, and, I fancy, influences even members of the Church. They have a noble-hearted bishop, Bishop Field, austere, self-denying, devout, hard-working, and charitable, and by his assistance they are building a very handsome church on the island; but I found that he was not popular, that even his mode of life was objected to: he was called a Puseyite. I did not preach while I was there, but I assisted several of the clergy at the services, and once at the holy communion, in which I found the omission of 'the oblation' to have a most painful effect upon my feelings.

"I was very glad to get so full and gratifying account of your church. I do indeed congratulate you on its completion. I think you have done wonders, with so many difficulties, to succeed in so short a time, and I sincerely hope that you may find your zeal and labor repaid by an increase of your congregation, and of true devotion and earnestness among them. From your description of the church I thought it must be a very magnificent edifice, quite beyond York Minster and churches of that size; and to see so famous a building, and still more to see the kind, warm friend who ministers within it, would be so great a pleasure, that you must not be surprised if some old friends should some time make a pilgrimage there."

"January 27, 1851.
"I often feel what a relief it would be to open one's heart, and to have the sympathy and counsel of a friend who can understand one's views and feelings. But it is impossible to do so by letter, because one shrinks from coolly writing down one's thoughts, which would be expressed without effort in the warmth and freedom of conversation. Since the receipt of your letter I saw H. I had determined not to seek him, but about the beginning of this month he called on me. He was kind, but the visit was not agreeable: it was awkward. I returned his visit last week, and enjoyed being in his society. I talked with him as guardedly as I could while using any degree of frankness and cordiality. I could not consent to postpone my visit to him, as I had reason to believe that his coming to see me was providential, to assist me in the matter in which I am laboring, viz., to ascertain the Catholic Church. I asked him several questions concerning the Papal supremacy, which he answered very readily and with great ability. He gave me some assistance in pursuing my inquiries, and I promised to see him again before long. I came away feeling better for having been with him, and with a heavy conviction on my mind how little share I had in the blessing of the pure in heart.

"I find very little time to study. The duties which devolve upon me take so much of my attention, that I could find it in my heart to throw them up, were I not advised otherwise by the bishop. Besides, I know that it is only by humility and obedience and fidelity that we can arrive at the truth. O Dwight! again I ask your prayers in my behalf, especially for earnestness in seeking the truth, to make the holy vow, 'I will not climb up into my bed, nor suffer my eyelids to take any rest, until' I have an obedient spirit to obey God's will, directly it is made known.

"The course of Church matters is to me increasingly unsatisfactory. The anti-Papal movement has placed the Church of England on decidedly worse ground, if indeed it has not bound her to that decision, on rejecting which her Catholicity seems to be suspended. I do think that, after all that has happened, for bishops and people to be crying up the royal supremacy looks like accepting that supremacy to the full extent to which it has lately been claimed. What did you think of Mr. Bennett's course? To say the truth, I was not satisfied with his letters, though I felt a sympathy with the man. Pray can you tell me what ground there is for the assertion that Archdeacon Manning and Mr. Dodsworth have resigned and are on their way to Jerusalem?"
* * * * *

Some time after this, Mr. Baker was appointed rector of the new parish of St. Luke's, where he remained until he gave up the Protestant ministry, that is, for about two years. During his rectorship he removed to a pleasant residence near the site of the church, and employed himself in building a tasteful Gothic church, which he proposed to finish and decorate in accordance with his own idea of ecclesiastical propriety. It was only partially completed at the time he left it. His next letter to Mr. Lyman, who was now progressing rapidly toward the Catholic Church, and urging forward his slower footsteps, is dated

"Tuesday in Holy Week, April 15, 1851.
"I read your letter with a great deal of emotion, and was prompted to sit down and say a word in reply immediately; but as I have gone to St. Luke's, there were some duties devolving upon me which took up my time more than is usual with me. You may be assured of my sympathy in much that you feel and express. I do think that the statements of Allies's book are of a kind which ought to make a profound impression upon us, and which ought to modify very much the feelings with which we have been taught to regard the Roman communion; and I do think honestly that our Church is at present in a miserable condition, and that no good can come of denying it. As you say, it becomes at such a time a very solemn question, in view of eternity, what we ought to do. My dear Dwight, I think I am sincere when I say that to me the way of duty seems to take pains and make such an investigation as I can into the question upon which the claim of authority rests, and to abide by the result: meanwhile to live in prayer and upon such catholic truth as we are permitted to hold, imploring God to take pity upon us, and to look upon his distracted people. H. recommended me a treatise on the supremacy by the brothers Ballerini, but I find that I do not read Latin with such facility as to reap the full benefit of the perusal of such a work at present. I have therefore taken up Kenrick on the Primacy. With regard to my duties as a minister, I have thought it right to be directed from without, and I was passive in accepting St. Luke's, which was strongly urged upon me. Surely we may hope that if we faithfully and devoutly, and in a spirit of humility and obedience, work with our intention constantly directed to God's glory and the salvation of souls, He will bless and guide us. It was a comfort to me to think you remembered me and my difficulties in your Lenten exercises, and I assure you that you have been constantly remembered by your perplexed friend. I feel afraid of myself and of my own heart—afraid of taking a wrong step, afraid on account of my past sins, afraid when I look forward to the judgment of our dear Lord; and you may be sure that I find prayer my greatest comfort, the belief in the intercession of our Blessed Mother and the saints in heaven, as well as in the value of the supplications of Christians on earth, a source of real strength. Pray for me, my dear friend, that I may be enabled sincerely to appeal to God and say that His Church is the first object of my heart, and that I may be diligent and studious and obedient to His grace and to conscience.

"I see the English papers constantly, and they are full of interest. We know not what is before us; these are heart-stirring times, and we can but adore the counsel of God by which we were born in them, and anxiously seek to take the right course amid so many perplexities. I have recently read Dr. Pusey's letter to the Bishop of London. It is a very able letter, and one calculated to rouse the feelings of the Catholic-minded men in England. I confess it made me feel more hopeful.

"If it is our duty to remain where we are, it is a noble thing to be called to labor amid so many discouragements, and, surrounded by temptations, to keep the Catholic Faith whole and inviolate! Every day I feel a stronger repugnance to Protestantism, and a determination by God's help to carry out my principles consistently; but with regard to the Roman Catholic Church, I do not see how intellectually it can dispense with the theory of development, and I feel a strong suspicion of that theory. I went to see H. again, but he was in New York, and will not be back until after Easter.

"I feel that I am in a difficult and dangerous situation, but I have the comfort of knowing that I have the advice of the bishop to do as I am doing; and if I can be sure of God's blessing, by watchfulness and strictness and faithfulness I may yet be happy. I have written confidentially, and all about myself, but you will forgive me. The bell rings for prayers. Good-by."

"August 4, 1851.
"You will be anxious to know the impression made upon my mind by what I have been reading on the Roman Catholic question. On the whole, many difficulties that lay in the way have been removed, and the claims of the Roman See appear far more strongly supported by antiquity than I had ever dreamed of before. Kenrick's is, I think, a very strong book, although it has a very apologetic air; yet there was a great deal in it which seemed to me very forcible. But the book which made altogether the most decided impression on my mind was 'The Unity of the Episcopate.' The principle of unity was there unfolded in a way that was new to me, and which I think does away with a whole class of passages (and they the strongest) which are usually alleged against the Papacy.
* * * * *
"I find my greatest want to be the want of earnestness and a spiritual mind. My dear Dwight, this is not cant. I want you to pray that God would not take his Holy Spirit from me. I desire above all things to be a Catholic, and I am resolved by God's help not to give up the present investigation until I am satisfied about my duty, which at present I am not, but very, very much harassed and perplexed. May God in his good time grant us both to see clearly the way we ought to take. I saw H. a few weeks ago, and had a pleasant interview. He thinks it possible that he will leave Baltimore in September. I have sometimes felt lately as if a decision of the great question was not far off. Oh, that it may be a wise and true decision!"

A few weeks after writing this letter, Mr. Baker came very near making a decision to give up his ministry and place himself under the instruction of a Catholic priest. His conviction was not yet fully matured, or his doubts quite removed, and the wisest course would have been for him to have gone into a complete retirement for a while, in order to complete his studies, and allow his mind and conscience time to ripen into a decision. He communicated his state of mind to the bishop, and was so far overruled by him as to consent to wait a while longer, and postpone his decision. He informs his friend of all that took place at this crisis, in a long and deeply interesting letter of thirteen pages, from which I shall only make a few extracts. It is dated November 11, 1851, and is full of affection, of sadness, and of the tremulous breathings of a sensitive, delicate conscience, deeply troubled by anxiety and fear, almost ready to seek repose in the bosom of the Church, but driven back by doubt to struggle yet longer with adverse winds.

He says at the beginning of his letter:

"First let me thank you again for your expressions of kindness and affection. I assure you I thank you for them, and feel that they, together with the friendship which has lasted so long, give you a claim on my confidence and love. Nor have I been unmindful of the claim, for I have constantly thought of you, and often invoked God's aid in your behalf; and if I have not written often, it is because I am myself in great perplexity, and feel the responsibility which attaches to every word, uttered at a time like this, on subjects which concern the salvation of ourselves and others also. This was my feeling when I last wrote. I felt as if I wanted a little recollection before I could write as I wished on some points; and as I was then much occupied, I deferred writing fully until some other time. However, your letter to-day demands an immediate answer, and I proceed to give you an answer to your inquiries, and a faithful transcript of my feelings, and pray God that you may receive no injury from one who would do you good."

He states the result of his studies quite at length, summing it up in these words, which I quote as an accurate index of the degree of conviction he had at that time reached:

"The result of my thought and reading last summer was to strengthen my impression that the claims of the Roman Catholic Church on the obedience of all Christians are divine. I cannot say I felt perfectly assured."

After describing his interview with the bishop, and informing his friend that he had consented to wait, he says:

"I think I agreed to this from the fear of offending God, and from that alone. As to the frown of the world, I do not think it decided me, for I had looked the consequences of the act full in the face, and had accepted them. I was the more ready to wait, because I could not say I had no doubt of the propriety of secession."

The sequel of the letter and of its writer's history shows that this doubt was not a rational doubt, but a morbid irresolution and timidity of mind, which ought to have been disregarded. Consequently, in giving way to it, he simply fell back into a state in which he had just to go over again the same ground, and this discouraged and disheartened him, as he frankly acknowledges.

"I felt a sense of relief, partly, I believe, from having opened my mind, and partly, I suspect, at finding that the sacrifice to which I had looked forward was not then demanded. But when I considered the matter, I saw that I was just where I was before, with the whole question before me and resting on my decision. From week to week I have been willing to postpone looking my position in the face, seeking to excuse myself to my conscience by the plea of the many unavoidable demands on my time and thoughts which a new parish and a church just commenced seem to make; although I feel that the danger of such a course is that I may sink into a worldly, indifferent thing, seeking in the praise of men a reward for my treachery to God. I have seen H. but once since I saw the bishop. The visit was more constrained, because I felt I ought not to betray my feelings; indeed, I would not go to see H. unless I were afraid of resisting some design which God may have formed for me—because the intercourse has not been of my seeking, and this appearance of deceit and double-dealing is dreadful to me, and makes me feel as if I were guilty.

"I have not read any thing since my interview with the bishop. My plan is to wait and seriously consider what I ought to do. I need not tell you I am not happy. I am free from many of the annoyances which distress you, as I read no R. C. papers, and scarcely any of our own, and have no associate. I strive to live by the rule recommended by Dr. Pusey, and am almost as much isolated from Protestants as if there were none in our communion. I believe most firmly in the Sacrifice of the Mass, in the Real Presence, in the Veneration of Relics, in the Mediation of the Saints, and especially of St. Mary. I constantly beseech God to hear her supplications in my behalf, and only do not invoke her because I am not sure of the authority for doing so. I believe also in Purgatory. My difficulties are on the subject of Church authority and the Supremacy. My sympathy in doctrine, my reverence for the holy men who have gone out from us, my strong prepossessions in favor of the Roman Catholic Church, which have never left me at any period of my life, and the distress among us, all draw me to Rome; but the single question I ask myself (or strive to do so) is, whether any of these things ought to decide me, and whether the point of inquiry ought not to be—What is the Church? Partly on account of my position, and partly, dear Dwight, on account of grave deficiencies and sins in myself, I feel that I am full of inconsistencies, contradictions, apparent insincerities (perhaps real), presumptuous and fearful at the same time, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, not fully persuaded in my own mind, and not bending all my energies to become so. And now, my dear Dwight, I have only opened my heart to you, without at all thinking of the effect it would have upon you. Simply seeking, as in duty bound, to deal with you as a friend, I have let you somewhat into my heart—only somewhat, for I deeply feel that to a full understanding of my state of feeling, even in reference to this subject, it would be needful that I should kneel down and humbly confess (as it would be a comfort to do) all the many offenses in word and deed of a sinful and tangled life. I have humbled myself before you. I know not how it shall be hereafter between us, how differently you may soon look upon me from what you have been used to do; but, wherever you are, think of me as a sinner and a penitent, and as one who desires and needs your prayers.
* * * * *
"And now, my dear friend, I do not think of any thing else which I ought to say to you, but to reciprocate the earnest hope and the conviction that you express, that God Almighty may enable us together to have an abode here in that Ark which He has set up as the place of safety and peace in a lost world, and may give us together an entrance into His Presence forever. May He of His undeserved mercy grant it."

During the winter of 1851 and 1852, Mr. Baker was very much occupied with church-building, and also with the cares and anxieties of illness and death in his family, and his attention was thus drawn away in a measure from himself and from the question of the Church.

His next letter of interest was written in May, 1852, communicating the intelligence of the death of his aunt and of his brother:

"I have no doubt that you have thought your kind and patient letter deserved an earlier answer, but I have been greatly and particularly occupied ever since I received it When it came, Aunt E. was very ill, and our anxiety about her continued to increase until she was taken from us on the 31st of January. Immediately after, dear Alfred began to decline rapidly, and after an interval of some weeks of great suffering on his part, and of watching and sadness on ours, he too was taken on the 9th of April (Good Friday). You, who knew them both, and knew what place they held in our hearts, can imagine the greatness of the bereavement, and the depth of our suffering. God has supported us mercifully, and I heartily thank Him that I have so great a solace in thinking of the character of our dear departed ones; and it is at such times that I feel the consolatory nature of the doctrine of the communion of saints, and the comfort of the practice of praying for the dead. To you, who know so much of my feelings, I will not deny that the uncertainty which rests upon the question of the Church has disturbed the fixedness of my hope and faith during this sorrowful winter, but I have not been able to advance in its investigation. I now propose to resume my studies as regularly and as perseveringly as my duties will permit. You are much and often in my thoughts, and often do I wish that I could do by you the part of a faithful friend. You always have a part in my prayers, and it would be to me a great happiness to have the assurance one day that my friendship has not been without some benefit to you. I assure you I prize it, and I feel more strongly that I have more in common with you than with anyone else with whom I communicate. I have not the heart nor indeed the time to write more."

"September 15, 1852.
"I came away from Columbia with many pleasant, affectionate thoughts about you, and grateful recollections of your kindness, and you have often been in my mind since my return. You will be glad to learn that my little jaunt was of decided service to me. I have been improving in health ever since my return, and now feel quite well. I suppose by this time you have been on to the North and have returned, and, like myself, are now quietly settled down to your duties. I found my sisters much benefited by their trip to the sea-shore, and our little household has again resumed its accustomed habits. I need not tell you, dear Dwight, how glad I shall be if you will consent to come on now and pay your promised visit. You might come at the beginning of the week, and I would go and take your Sunday duties (choose a Sunday when service is all day at Columbia), and then I would return on Monday to be with you at home another week. I cannot promise to do you good, but I can offer you, at least, what you will not receive elsewhere, true and affectionate sympathy. I do most deeply feel for you in your anxieties, and in much, in very much, I feel with you. I felt when I was with you, my dear friend (now my only friend), as if the difference between us was this: that you had really come to a conclusion, while I was still of a fearful and divided mind. I felt as if there was something dishonorable and disgraceful in such a state of indecision, while there was an appearance of manliness in your boldness and determination, and I was ashamed of myself. Besides, I found myself sometimes taking the anti-Roman side in argument with you, and then I was vexed with myself for doing what I did nowhere else, and what I could not do heartily anywhere, and I seemed to myself insincere. I do not know whether you can understand me, but I want you to understand my feelings; for I do not want you to think I am insincere, and I felt so much obliged to you when you told me that you said to H. that you did not think me so. I believe uncertainty often carries the appearance of insincerity; and uncertain I own myself to be, full of sadness, full of doubt. O Dwight, what is there in such a situation to make one remain in it, if one could conscientiously leave it? What could hinder me from being a Roman Catholic but for the fear of doing wrong? I assure you, that as regards this world I have not a hope or desire, and there is nothing earthly which I could not part with this night. Nothing seems to me worth living for but the knowledge of the truth and the love of God; and that position in which I feel I should be the happiest would be where I should be certain what was truth, and could live a life hidden from the world with God. I feel concerned at finding myself writing so much about myself, and in such a strain; but I think, in reading over the letter, you will understand how I came to do it, and will pardon it.

"I have been reading lately pretty systematically on the Roman question. De Maistre and Lacordaire I have finished, and will return them to you if you wish them. They are both philosophical rather than theological, and from that fact, as well as from the French way in which they are written, I think they will be less influential with persons brought up in the school with you and me. I thought the remarks of De Maistre on the temporal power of the Popes not near so forcible as those in Brownson's Review. Thompson seems to me now, as he did before, a remarkably cogent and attractive writer. I have not finished his pamphlet as yet, but feel very much interested in it. I have procured Balmez, and Newman on Anglicanism, but have not yet read them. When I was in Philadelphia I saw Mr. ——. He called on Manning when he was in London, and had a very interesting interview. M. is about to publish another edition of his book on the Unity of the Church. I should indeed like to see it, or any thing else that Came from his hand.
* * * * *
"God bless you, my dear friend; write to me fully and freely as of old, and be sure of the affection of your friend,
"F. A. B."

"Ash Wednesday, 1853.
* * *
"The general tone of your letter, too, was sad, and that also fell in with my own feelings, for you may be sure that the stirring event of the last month has not been without a great effect on me, agitated as I was before by so many serious doubts. Well, another has gone, and that the most eminent of the party with which you and I have been identified, and you and I remain asking still what we are to do! To me the question has been of late and is now one of absorbing and pressing importance, and yet I do not know how to answer it, and in my perplexity can do nothing but pray—pray, as I have done most earnestly, for direction from on high; and my comfort, dear Dwight, is to know that you also pray for me. What I want is the heart just to stand waiting God's bidding, and, when that is given, to act without delay or taking counsel with the flesh. I should so much like to see Bishop Ives's Reasons, which I suppose will in some way be published.
* * *
I received the first number of a newspaper from New York, the Church Journal (which is most vociferously anti-Roman). —— is one of the editors. By the way, —— is also connected with this paper, and ——. I felt sorry to think of what a different spirit they once were; and yet, if the Church of Rome be not what she claims to be, the position of such men as Bishop Whittingham is the right one, and ours is untenable. However, I cannot but own that I have a drawing toward the Roman Catholic communion so strong that, if I were to be without it, I should feel as if I were not myself. I have not thought it right to go by this feeling, but it is very strong, and I confess I feel envious of Bishop Ives, when I think of him in his new home—a feeling which I often have in reference to dear H., whom I loved and reverenced so truly. (By the way, H., I hear, is either at present in Baltimore, or is about coming here, to conduct a 'mission' in the Cathedral.) I often feel afraid, my dear Dwight, in writing on such subjects, of doing wrong in expressing my feelings and thoughts, and of doing you harm; but after all, it seems not improper for friends such as we are to speak without reserve, and perhaps I have done so too little.

"I have been reading a good deal lately.
* * *
The articles on Cyprian (by Dr. Nevin) were indeed most masterly, and seemed to me to express the true doctrine of antiquity as to the primacy of the Roman See. They have caused a good deal of speculation on my part. I do not see how the writer can fail to become a Roman Catholic. I did not tell you what I thought of Newman's book; it was full of power, many most capital hits and brilliant passages, and, what is better, satisfactory explanations of difficulties. The eleventh lecture seemed to me the least successful, and I own, even after reading it, the position of the Greek Church, based on a theological theory not unlike that which is advocated by Anglo-Catholics, and much the same (as Brownson seems to think) with that held by many Roman Catholics, does seem to me a difficulty. Balmez, too, I have proceeded some way with, and am much interested in.
"I thank you for Brownson very much. I have read the number you sent me, and it has set me to thinking. His positions are bold and require some reflection; and though I find in him the consistent expression of much that I think I always believed, yet he presents many new ideas to me.
* * *
"Adieu to-night, my dear Dwight. May the blessing of Heaven be with you."

This was the last of these sad epistles—these outbreathings of a pure and noble, but troubled spirit, enveloped in the obscure night of doubt, and seeking wearily for the light of truth. It was written on the first day of Lent; and when that Lent had passed by, the clouds of mist had lifted from around the soul of Francis Baker, never to return. Before he wrote again to his dear friend, the coup de-grace had been given. The blow was struck suddenly and effectually, and the news of it came unexpectedly, with a startling and almost sunning effect upon his friend, through the following brief and abrupt communication—

"Baltimore, April 5, 1853.
"My Dear Dwight:—The decision is made: I have resigned my parish, and am about to place myself under instruction preparatory to my being received into the Catholic Church. I can write no more at present. May God help you.

"Your affectionate friend,
"Francis A. Baker."

This letter was followed by another, written three days after, in reply to one from Mr. Lyman.

"My Dear Dwight:—It was cruel in me to write so briefly, but if you knew what a press of duty came upon me just at once, you would pity me, and indeed now I am in such a confusion, that it takes some courage to write a line. But, my dear friend, you have been so great a help to me, that it would be worse than heathen in me not to give you one word of explanation. I decided to submit to the Catholic Church last Sunday night, and gave in my resignation to the vestry on last Tuesday morning. I went to the archbishop, and to-morrow I make my profession in St. Alphonsus' Church, before only two witnesses, the least the rubric requires. This was in compliance with the advice of the Bishop, who did not think it well to give unnecessary publicity to the act. Plain and sufficient arguments had long enough been addressed to my mind, but my conversion at last I owe only to the grace of God. It was the gift of God through Prayers, and now I can say 'Nunc Dimittis'—for 'I believe, O God! all the Holy Truths which Thy Catholic Church proposes to our belief, because Thou, my God, hast revealed them all; and Thy Church has declared them. In this faith I desire to live, and in the same, by Thy holy grace, I am most firmly resolved to die. Amen.'
* * *
"I shall prepare for the sacraments next week, but beyond that, I have formed no plans.

"My dear Dwight, I feel that I have too long resisted God's grace, and it will be one of the sins which I must now repent of. God by His merciful kindness did not suffer me to be abandoned, as, indeed, my resistance of His grace deserved, but kindly pleaded with me, and I am now at the threshold of the kingdom of God. Come with us, dear Dwight, come; God's time is the best time. May our Lord bless you and direct you. Yours affectionately,

"Francis A. Baker."

This closes the correspondence of Mr. Baker with the dear and valued friend of his youth and manhood, previous to his reception into the Catholic Church; and I have postponed the continuation of my narrative in order to complete my extracts from it, and leave the writer to tell his own touching story to the end.

Mr. Baker's conversion was the logical sequence of his former life, both intellectual and spiritual; it was the result of the accumulating light of the eleven preceding years, concentrated and brought to a focus upon the practical question of duty and obligation. The particular events which immediately preceded it, were like the stroke of the hammer on the mould of a bell, already completely cast and finished beneath it, and waiting only the shattering of its earthen shell to ring out with a clear and musical sound. "The just man is the accuser of himself," and Mr. Baker, whose deep humility made him unconscious of his own goodness, in the first vivid consciousness that the light which had led him to the Catholic Church was the light of grace, could no longer understand his past state of doubt, and reproached himself for it, as a sinful resistance to God. It is not necessary, however, to suppose that there was any thing grievously culpable in that state of doubt and hesitation.

He was right in attributing his final decision to the efficacious grace of the Holy Spirit. But this grace was only the last of a long series of graces which had prepared him to receive it. It did not change, but only perfected his habitual disposition of mind. It produced a crisis and a transformation in his soul, but it was one to which a long and gradual process had been continually tending. It was not a miracle, or a sudden revelation. Careful thought and reading, and the assiduous cultivation of his spiritual faculties had brought him to the apprehension of all the data of a rational judgment that the Catholic Church is true. The apparently sudden moment of deliberation and decision was but the successful effort of the mind and will to come into the certain consciousness of the truth already fairly proposed, and to determine to follow it. It was a supernatural grace which made this effort successful, and elevated the just conclusions of reason to the certitude of faith. But it was not a grace which superseded reason or dispensed with the reasonable grounds and evidences of an intellectual judgment and the motives of a just determination.

Mr. Baker must have been drawing near to a decision during the whole of Lent; for his mind was evidently more deeply and earnestly bent on coming to it, when I saw him in Easter Week, than ever. He called on me on the Friday evening of Easter week, and his manner was much changed. His anxiety of mind broke through the reserve he had heretofore maintained, and instead of the guarded and self-controlled manner he had preserved in former interviews, he was abrupt and outspoken. At the very outset, he expressed his feeling that the question of difference between us was one of vital importance, in regard to which one of us must be deeply and dangerously in the wrong, and desired to discuss the matter with me fully. I suppose his intention was to see me more frequently than he had done, to open his mind more fully, and to get from me all the help I could give him in making up his mind. We had a pretty long conversation on theological points, without going into the discussion of fundamental Catholic principles. The truth is, Mr. Baker had already mastered these principles, and was really settled in regard to every essential doctrine. He had no need of further study, but merely of an effort to shake off that kind of doubt which is a mental weakness, and perpetually revolves difficulties and objections which ought not to affect the judgment. The one particular point which we discussed most was in reference to some passages in the writings of St. Augustine concerning the doctrine of Purgatory—a doctrine which he had clearly stated his belief in, two years before. I answered his difficulty as well as I could at the time, promising to examine the matter more fully the next day, and to give him a written answer, which I accordingly did, but too late to be of any service to him, as the sequel will show. I left him with a strong impression that the crisis of his mind was at hand, and for that reason engaged all the members of the community to pray for him particularly. After leaving me, he called on a young lady who was very ill, and had sent for him to visit her. This young lady, who died happily in the bosom of the Catholic Church a few weeks after, had already sent for one of the reverend gentlemen of the Cathedral, and expressed to him her desire to become a Catholic, but had consented, at the request of her family, to have an interview with Mr. Baker before receiving the sacraments. When he came to her bedside, she informed him of her state of mind, and asked him if he had any satisfactory reason to allege why she should not fulfil her wish to be received into the Catholic Church before she died. He told her that he regretted very much that she had chosen to consult with him on that point, as there were reasons why he must decline giving her advice on the subject. She conjured him to tell her distinctly what he thought, and he again replied that he was not able to say any thing to her on the subject. She looked at him earnestly, and said, "I see how it is, Mr. Baker; you are in doubt yourself." Without saying another word, he left the room and the house, transpierced with a pain which he could neither endure nor remove. He turned his steps toward the Cathedral, and walked around it several times, like one not knowing where to go, and then returned to his home and his study to remain in solitude and prayer, through several anxious days and sleepless nights. He was now face to face with the certainty that he dare not promise to anyone else security of salvation in the Episcopal Church. Yet, he was a minister of that Church, and was trusting his own salvation to it. To remain in such a position longer had become impossible to a conscientious man like him. Nevertheless, he went through the duties of Sunday, and again read prayers in his church on the Monday and Tuesday mornings. He had been censured for this, by some, as if he had acted a hypocritical part, but most unjustly. Certainly, if he had asked my advice beforehand, I should have told him that he had no right to do it. But the reader of this narrative will see that his own conscience had been frequently overruled on the question of exercising the ministry in a state of doubt, and on Sunday he was still in this state, undecided what to do. He did not actually give in his resignation until after prayers on Tuesday morning, and any candid person will surely admit that he was excusable, in the agitation of the moment, for thinking that it was better to fulfil the engagements he was under to his people until the last moment, when these consisted merely in reciting a form of prayer which is very good in itself, and contains nothing contrary to Catholic doctrine.

On Tuesday, the 5th of April, Mr. Baker gave a letter of resignation to the vestry of St. Luke's Church, called on Dr. Wyatt, who was the administrator of the diocese during the bishop's absence in Europe, and then went to see the archbishop. When he was admitted to the presence of this venerable and saintly prelate, he threw himself on his knees before him, and in accents and words of the most profound humility made his submission to the Catholic Church, and implored him to receive him into her bosom. The archbishop, who knew him well by sight and by reputation, arose in haste from his chair to raise him from his knees, in a few warm and affectionate words welcomed him to his embrace, and begged him to be seated by his side and to calm himself. It was with difficulty that he could induce him to do so, for the barrier in his soul that had held it icebound for so long had given way: a torrent of repressed emotions was swelling in his bosom, and after a moment he burst into a flood of tears, the gentle and good archbishop weeping with him from sympathy. After a long and consoling conversation with the archbishop, he came over to St. Alphonsus' Church, which is near the Cathedral, to see me.

I was making a retreat that day, and was walking in the garden, when a message was sent me by the rector to go to the parlor to see Mr. Baker. As soon as he saw me, he said, abruptly, "I have come to be one of you." I invited him inside the inclosure, and he, fancying I misunderstood his words to imply that he was ready to join our religious congregation, answered quickly, "I do not mean that I wish to become a Redemptorist, but a Catholic." "I understand that," I replied; "let us go to the oratory and recite a Te Deum of thanksgiving." We did so, and then walked in the garden together for a short time. The first time I ever saw an expression of real joyfulness in his countenance was then. He was always placid, but never, so far as I could see, joyous, before he became a Catholic. To my great surprise, he chose me as his confessor. I left the time of his reception to himself, and he chose Saturday, the 9th of April, which was the anniversary of the death of his brother Alfred. On Saturday morning, I said Mass in the little chapel of the Orphan Asylum of the Sisters of Charity. Father Hecker, who was present, on account of the approaching mission, accompanied me to the chapel. After Mass, Mr. Baker made his profession, according to the old form, containing the full creed of Pius IV., and I received him into the bosom of the Church. No others were present besides the good Sisters and their little children. He had been baptized by Dr. Wyatt, and the archbishop decided that there was no reason whatever for his being conditionally rebaptized. I performed the supplementary rites of baptism, such as the anointing with holy oil and chrism, the giving of the white garment and lighted candle, etc., at his own request, in the sacristy of the Cathedral, after his sacramental confession was completed. This sacred act was accomplished in the archbishop's library. During the week after his reception, and on the Third Sunday after Easter, April 17, he was confirmed in the Cathedral by Archbishop Kenrick, and received his first communion from his hand.

The conversion of Mr. Baker made a great sensation in Baltimore, and wherever he was known. It was announced in the secular papers, and for some weeks a lively controversy arising out of it was kept up. It was the general topic of conversation in all circles, Catholic and Protestant. The sorrow of his own parishioners, of those who had loved and honored him so much while he was connected with St. Paul's parish, and especially of his more near and intimate friends, was very great. His own near relatives, and a certain number of his intimate friends, never were in the least alienated from him, but remained as closely bound to him in affection as ever, while they and he lived. The great majority of those who had been his admirers, and who had listened with delight to his eloquent preaching, always retained a great respect and esteem for him; and during his whole subsequent life, he almost invariably won a regard from those of the Protestant community who were acquainted with him, second only to that of the Catholic people to whom he ministered. There were some exceptions to this rule, however. A few persons wrote to him in the most severe and reproachful terms. The usual pitiable charge, that his religious change was caused by mental derangement, was made by those whose wretched policy has always been to counteract as much as possible the influence of conversions to the Catholic Church by personal calumnies against the converts. He was sometimes openly insulted, and much more frequently treated with coldness and neglect. Notwithstanding the respect with which so many still regarded him in their hearts, he was compelled to feel that he had become, in great measure, an alien and a stranger in the community where he had been born and bred. In a short time, his duty called him away from his native city, and, somewhat later, from his own State, into a distant part of the country. All the old associations of his early life were broken up; he had no longer an earthly home; and until his death he had, for the most part, no other ties and associations except those which were created by his religious profession and his sacerdotal office. Some six or seven persons were received into the Church soon after his conversion, three or four of whom were his parishioners; and some others may have been at a later period partly influenced by his example. But none of his intimate and particular friends were among the number, with the exception of his old and bosom friend and associate in the ministry, Mr. Lyman. His name and influence faded away, and were forgotten among the things of the past; while he, having bidden farewell to the world and taken up his cross, followed on after Christ, toward the crown he was soon to win, and was lost to the view of those among whom he had lived before, in the dust of the combat and labor of an arduous and obscure missionary career.

It is not to be supposed that Mr. Baker could hesitate long as to his vocation. He had in his youth dedicated himself to the ministry of Christ, but had mistaken a false claimant of delegated power to confer the character and mission of the priesthood, for the true one. Nine years had been spent, not uselessly; for the good example and eloquent instructions of a wise and virtuous man are always salutary; and he had been slowly preparing himself by the feeble light and imperfect grace which he had for the perfect gifts of the Catholic sacraments. He was now thirty-three years of age, in the full bloom of his natural powers, with all his holy aspirations and purposes ripened and perfected, with a thorough knowledge of Catholic theology, excepting only its specially technical and professional branches, with all the habits suited for a sacerdotal life fully established. The only doubt of his vocation in his own mind was one of humility, and when this was settled by the decision of his confessor and of his bishop, his course was clear before him. He might still have chosen to remain in his own home and family while preparing for ordination. He might have remained in his native city, or in the diocese, as a secular priest, secure of the most honorable and agreeable position which the archbishop could bestow upon him, where he could have enjoyed all those domestic comforts and elegancies to which he was accustomed, together with the society of the beloved members of his family who still remained, without in any way interfering with his proposed career as a devoted priest. He chose differently, however, and from the promptings of his own soul, which instinctively chose what was most perfect. My religious brethren and myself used no solicitations to induce him to join us. His original desire for the religious life gave him a bias toward the regular clergy. What he saw of the little band of American Redemptorists, and of the mission which was given at the Cathedral, captivated his heart with a desire to become one of their number. He thought of one thing only—what was the will of God, and the most perfect way open to him to sanctify himself and others in the priesthood. His mind was soon made up on this point. He applied to the Father Provincial of the Redemptorists, who received him without hesitation. He settled his affairs as speedily as possible, and began his novitiate at once. As soon as the proper time arrived, he divested himself of all his property for the benefit of the surviving members of his family. His library he gave to the congregation, by whom it was afterward kindly restored to him, and is now in the possession of the Paulists at New York. His only aim and desire, from this time forward, was to acquire the perfection of Christian and religious virtue. Forgetting all that was behind, he pressed forward to those things which were before, with a fixed aim and a steady, unfaltering step. He dropped into the position of a novice and a student so easily, and with such a perfectness of humility, that it seemed his natural and obvious place to be among the youths and young men who were with him. He was the favorite and companion of the youngest among them, and, it is needless to say, the delight and consolation of his superiors. After one year of novitiate and his profession, he continued for two years more studying dogmatic and moral theology, with the other accessories usually taught to candidates for orders. During this time he lost his amiable and excellent sister, Elizabeth Baker, to his great sorrow. Although his ordination was postponed much longer than is usually the case with men in his position, already so well prepared by their previous intellectual and moral training for the priesthood, he was not in the least impatient at the delay, and his long preparation gave him the advantage that he was ready at once to undertake all the most difficult and responsible duties of a matured and experienced priest. Besides this, he acquired that thorough and minute theoretical and practical knowledge of the ceremonies of the Church, and of every thing relating to the divine service of the altar and the sanctuary, for which he was afterward distinguished. He came out of his long retirement a workman thoroughly and completely furnished for his task, and imbued through and through with the spirit of the Catholic Church. I seldom saw him, and never exchanged letters with him, during all this period, each of us being absorbed in his own particular duties and occupations, at a distance from the other. As the time of his ordination approached, we were both of us, however, again in the same House, that of St. Alphonsus, in Baltimore. It was in the summer of 1856 that he finished his studies, and, having some time before received the minor orders, began his retreat preparatory to being admitted to the three holy orders. During the retreat, his companion, F. Vogien, an amiable and holy young religious—with him and the saintly prelate who ordained them, now, I trust, in heaven—was full of dread and apprehension, often weeping, and even entreating his superior to postpone his ordination. With Father Baker it was otherwise. While I was in the church, during the evening, employed in the exercises of my own retreat, I often heard him singing the most joyful of the ecclesiastical chants in the garden, and his placid, pale face was lighted up with the radiant joy of a Soul approaching to the consummation of its holiest and most cherished wishes. He was ordained sub-deacon and deacon in St. Mary's Chapel during the week before the Sunday fixed for his ordination to the priesthood. On Sunday, September 21, 1856, he was ordained priest by Archbishop Kenrick, in the Cathedral. The Archbishop celebrated Pontifical Mass, the reverend gentlemen and seminarists from St. Sulpice assisted, and the clergy were present in considerable numbers, among them his old friend, Mr. Lyman, already a priest. Everyone who knows what the Cathedral of Baltimore is, and how the grand ceremonies of the Church are performed in it, will understand how beautiful and inspiring was the scene at Father Baker's ordination. The great church was crowded to its utmost capacity, but it was by Catholics only, drawn by the desire to see one who had sacrificed so much for their own dear faith. Father Baker, as he knelt with his companion at a priedieu, dressed in rich and beautiful white vestments, after receiving the indelible character of the priesthood, to offer up with the Archbishop the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, looked more like an angel than a man. The holy and benignant prelate shed tears of joyful emotion when he embraced him at the close of the ceremony, and there was never a more delightful reunion than that which took place on that day, when the clergy met at the archbishop's table, to participate in the modest festivities of the episcopal mansion. A few days after, Mr. Lyman, Father Baker, and Myself, celebrated a solemn Votive Mass of Thanksgiving at St. Alphonsus' Church, for the signal grace we had received, in being all brought to the communion of the Holy Church and to her priesthood.

Here began the sacerdotal career, brief in time, but rich in labors and results, of Father Baker. He remained in Baltimore a few weeks, to celebrate his first Mass, and initiate himself in quiet retirement into his new priestly life and functions. The first fruit of his new priesthood was a convert to the Catholic Church, a young widow lady of highly respectable family, who was bred a Unitarian, and who had been waiting three years to be received into the Church by Father Baker. He baptized her and her two children, a few days after his own ordination. Soon after he began the missionary career, in which the greatest part of his subsequent life was employed.

It may not here be amiss to digress from the personal history of Father Baker, long enough to give some account of the nature of those missions in which he was henceforth to take so conspicuous a part, and of their introduction into this country. In doing so, I shall describe more particularly the method adopted in those missions with which I have been myself connected, without noticing any others which may differ in certain details; and this will suffice to give a correct idea of all missions, so far as their general spirit and scope is concerned.

Missions to the Catholic people have been in use for centuries in various parts of Europe. They are generally given by the members of religious congregations specially devoted to the work. The missionaries are invited by the pastor of the parish, with the sanction of the bishop of the diocese from whom they receive their jurisdiction. The exercises of the mission consist of a regular series of sermons and instructions, continued for a number of days, and sometimes for two weeks in succession, twice or oftener in the day. The course of instructions, which is given at an early hour of the morning, embraces familiar and plain but solid and didactic expositions of the commandments, sacraments, and practical Christian and moral duties. The course of sermons, given at night, includes the great truths which relate to the eternal destiny of man, which are presented in the most thorough and exhaustive manner possible, and enforced with all the power with which the preacher is endowed. Several of Father Baker's mission sermons are included in the collection published in this volume, and will serve to exhibit their peculiar style and character. Frequently, the older children receive separate instruction for about four days in succession, closing with a general confession and communion. After the mission has continued a few days, the confessionals are opened to the people, and communion is given every morning to those who are prepared to receive. At the close of the mission the altar is decorated with flowers and lights, a baptismal font is erected, the people renew their baptismal vows after an appropriate sermon has been preached, and are dismissed with a parting benediction. The sacrifice of the Mass is offered up several times every morning, according to the number of priests present; and before the evening sermon there is a short prefatory exercise, which, in the Paulist Missions, consists of the explanation of an article of the Creed, followed by the Litany of the Saints. After sermon, the Miserere or some other appropriate piece is sung, and the benediction of the Blessed Sacrament is given.

All this is very simple, consisting of nothing more than the preaching of the Word of God, the administration of the sacraments, and the performance of acts of worship and prayer, as these are ordinarily practised in the regular routine of the Catholic Church. All that is peculiar and unusual consists in the adaptation of the preaching and instructions to the end in view, and in the daily continuity of the exercises. The object aimed at is to present in one complete view all the principal truths of religion, and all the essential practical rules for living virtuously in conformity with those truths, and to do this in the most comprehensive, forcible, and intelligible manner. The class of persons for whose benefit missions are primarily intended is that portion of the Catholic people least influenced by the ordinary ministrations of the parochial clergy, although all classes, even the best instructed and most regular, share in the benefit. All necessary available means are used to awaken an interest in the mission and to secure attendance. When this is done, continuous daily listening to instruction and participation in religious exercises prevents the impressions received from passing away, the people become more and more interested and absorbed, and are carried through a process of thought and reflection upon all the most momentous truths and doctrines, which is for them equivalent to a thorough education of the mind and conscience. The general instructions given in public are applied to the individual soul by the confessor in the tribunal of penance, as the judge of guilty and the physician of diseased and wounded consciences. Sin and guilt are washed away by sacramental absolution from all who are sincerely penitent; their souls, purified and restored to grace, are refreshed and strengthened by the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, and the debt of temporal punishment due to the justice of God is removed or lightened, in proportion to the intensity of contrition and divine love excited in the soul by its own efforts to secure the grace of God, through the indulgences conceded by the supreme power of the Vicar of Christ.

The earlier sermons are directed to the end of fixing the mind on the supreme importance of religion, and alarming the conscience in regard to sin. Afterward, special vices are denounced, particular dangers and temptations pointed out, those duties which are most neglected are brought out into bold relief, and every effort made to produce a thorough reformation of life. Toward the close, the scope and aim of the sermons are to animate and encourage the heart and will by appealing to the nobler passions and the higher motives, to awaken confidence in God, to portray the eternal rewards of virtue and point out the means of perseverance. All that can impress the senses and imagination, subdue the heart, convince the reason, and stimulate the will, is brought to bear, in conjunction with the supernatural efficacy of the word and sacraments of Christ, upon a people full of faith and religious susceptibility, under the most favorable circumstances for producing the greatest possible effect. Where faith is impaired, the effect is not so certain, and slower and more tedious means have to be adopted, with less hope of success, to restore the dying root of all religion, or replant it where it is completely dead. It is moreover certain, although it may not be evident to those who are destitute of Catholic faith, that there is an extraordinary grace of God accompanying the exercises of the mission; and this was so plain to the mind of an earnest Episcopalian clergyman in New England, on one occasion, that it led him to study seriously the subject of the Catholic Church, the result of which was that he became a Catholic, at a great personal sacrifice.

Public retreats had been given from time to time in the United States, by the Jesuits and others, before the series of Redemptorist Missions was commenced. This series, which began at St. Joseph's Church, New York, in April, 1851, was, however, the first that was systematically and regularly carried on by a band of missionaries especially devoted to the work. Since that time, the number of missionaries, belonging to several distinct congregations, has increased, and the missions have been multiplied. The principal merit of inaugurating this great and extensive work belongs to F. Bernard Hafkenscheid, who was formerly the Provincial of the Redemptorist Congregation in the United States. F. Bernard, as he was always called, on account of his unpronounceable patronymic, had been for twenty years the most eloquent and successful preacher of missions in his native country of Holland and the adjacent Low Countries. Born to the possession of wealth and all its attendant advantages, but still more blessed with a most thorough religious training and the grace of early piety from his childhood, he received a finished ecclesiastical education, which he completed at Rome, where he was honored with the doctorate in theology. After his ordination, he devoted himself to the religious and missionary life in the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, in which he speedily became the most eminent of all their preachers in the Low Countries. He was able to preach the word of God with fluency and correctness in three languages, besides his native tongue: French, German, and English. But it was only in the Dutch language that he was able to exhibit the extraordinary powers of eloquence with which he was endowed, and which made his name a household word in every Catholic family in Holland. His picture was to be seen in every house; the highest and lowest flocked with equal eagerness to hear him, and, on one occasion, the king himself came to the convent to testify his respect for his apostolic character by a formal visit. His figure and countenance were cast in a mould as large as that of his great and generous soul, and his whole character and bearing were those of a man born to lead and command others by his innate superiority, but to command far more by the magnetic influence of a kind and noble heart than by authority. Father Bernard brought with him to the United States, in March, 1851, two American Redemptorists, who had been stationed for some years in England, and had scarcely landed in New York when he organized a band of missionaries, to commence the English missions. During nearly two years, he took personal charge of many of those missions, working in the confessional from twelve to sixteen hours every day, occasionally preaching when the ordinary preacher broke down, and instructing the young, inexperienced fathers most carefully in all the methods of giving sermons and instructions, and otherwise conducting the exercises of the mission in the best and most judicious manner. Father Bernard received Father Baker into the congregation, but soon afterward was recalled to Europe, where, after a long and laborious life spent in the sacred warfare, he is resting in the quiet repose and peace of religions seclusion. [Footnote 4]

[Footnote 4: Since the above was written, the news has been received of the death of Father Bernard, from the effects of a fall while descending from the pulpit.]

The superior of the English Missions, in the absence of F. Bernard, and after he ceased to direct them personally, was another Father with an unpronounceable name, F. Alexander Cvitcovicz, a Magyar, who was always called Father Alexander. It would have been impossible to find a superior more completely fitted for the position. Although he was even then past the meridian of life, and had been in former times the Superior-General of his Congregation in the United States, he cheerfully took on himself the hardest labors of the missions. It was not unusual for him to sit in his confessional for ten days in succession, for fifteen or sixteen hours each day. He instructed the little children who were preparing for the sacraments, and sometimes gave some of the morning instructions, but never preached any of the great sermons. In his government of the fathers who were under him, he was gentleness, consideration, and indulgence itself. In his own life and example, he presented a pattern of the most perfect religious virtue, in its most attractive form—without constraint, austerity, or moroseness, and yet without relaxation from the most strict ascetic principles. He was a thoroughly accomplished and learned man in many branches of secular and sacred science and in the fine arts; and in the German language, which was as familiar to him as his native language, he was among the best preachers of his order. He designed and built the beautiful Church of St. Alphonsus, in Baltimore, although he was never able to complete it according to his own just and elegant taste. For such a man to take upon himself the drudgery of laborious missions, aided, for the most part, by young men in delicate health, incapable of enduring the hardships of old, well-seasoned veterans, was indeed a trial of his virtue. He undertook it, however, cheerfully, and we went through several long and hard missionary campaigns under his direction, until at last we left him, in the year 1854, in the convent at New Orleans, worn out with labor, to exchange his arduous missionary work for the lighter duties of the parish. Father Alexander was succeeded in the office of Superior of English Missions by Father Walworth, one of the American Redemptorists, who accompanied Father Bernard from England, and who continued in that office until, with several others, he was released from his connection with the congregation by a brief of the Holy Father, in order to form a new society of missionaries.

There has never been a finer field open to missions than the one which is found in the Catholic population of the United States, and seldom has there existed a greater need of them. The missions of St. Alphonsus Liguori, the founder of the Redemptorists, and his companions, were confined to villages, hamlets, and outlying districts, remote from episcopal cities and large towns. In his rules he directs his children to labor in places of this sort, because in Italy the most neglected and necessitous part of the people is only to be found there. In this country it was not so. The great need for missions lay in cities and large towns, where dense masses of Catholics were gathered, and where churches, clergy, and religious organizations of all kinds, were inadequate to the spiritual wants of the people. A large part of the missionary work which has been accomplished has been, therefore, among those dense masses of the people in our largest churches and congregations, penetrating to the lowest strata, and bringing to bear a powerful religious influence upon the most uninstructed and negligent classes of the people. Some idea of the extent of this work may be gained from the fact that the missions given by the corps which F. Bernard organized, during seven years, from 1851 to 1858, were eighty-six in number, with an aggregate of 166,000 communions. They have been carried on on a similar scale, since that time, by the new Congregation of St. Paul, and by members of several older religious societies; so that, in the last seven years, the number of persons who have participated in the benefits of missions is, probably, nearly double the figures given above. There were other missions also given, during the first period, besides those enumerated, especially among Germans. It is, therefore, speaking within bounds to estimate the number of persons who have received the sacraments on missions, since 1851, at 500,000.

This is, however, much less than might have been done, if the number of missionaries and the facilities for attending their missions had been greater. Our Catholic population is a vast sea, where the successors of the apostolic fishers of men may cast their nets perpetually, without ever exhausting its abundance. In large towns, the population is so fluctuating and so continually increasing, that the work needs to be perpetually renewed at short intervals. There are also immense difficulties in the way of the poor people. The mass of them belong to the laboring class, and are, therefore, obliged to come to church very early, before their working hours, and again at night, after their work is done. They have no leisure, and can with difficulty rescue even the few hours necessary for listening to the instructions they so much need. Hence, many of them can get only as it were by snatches, here and there, a sermon or instruction during the course. In factory towns the case is worse. Were it not for the accommodation usually granted by the overseers, in shortening the time, and giving leave of absence, it would be impossible to give missions to the operatives in many of our factory villages. Our modern system of society leaves out of the account the wants of the soul and the duties of religion. For many, there is even the hard necessity of working all night, and all Sunday. It is, therefore, difficult enough for our poor people to attend a mission well, when there is plenty of room for them in the church, and a good chance of going to confession without waiting longer than a few hours. Very frequently, however, in our large and overcrowded parishes, the church will not hold—even when crowded to suffocation—more than from one-fourth to one-half of the parishioners. The church is frequently filled two hours before the time of service. The porch, the steps, the windows even, are crowded, and hundreds go a way disappointed. It is easy to see what a drawback this is to the success of a mission, which requires a continuous attendance at all the sermons and instructions, and to the stillness and order in the church which are necessary to enable all to hear distinctly, and to reflect on what they hear. I have seen at least four thousand persons congregated in the streets adjacent to the New York Cathedral, besides the crowd inside.

Another difficulty lies in the vast number of penitents, and the small number of confessors. On many missions, confined strictly to one parish, there have been from four thousand to eight thousand communions; and, of course, that number of confessions to be heard within eleven days. At a recent mission of the Redemptorists, in New York, there were eleven thousand communions; and at one given a year or two ago, by the Jesuits, twenty thousand. Ordinarily, the number of confessors has been inadequate to the work. The people have thronged the chapel where confessions were heard, from four o'clock in the morning until night, often waiting an entire day, or even several days, before they could get near a priest. At five in the morning, each of us would see two long rows—one of men and one of women—seated on benches, flanking his confessional. At one o'clock he would leave the same unbroken lines, to find them again at three, and to leave them in the evening still undiminished. At the end of the mission there would be still the same crowd waiting about the confessionals, and left unheard, because the missionaries were unable to continue their work any longer. More than one-half these people would be persons who had not been at confession for five, ten, or twenty years, and of these a great number had seldom been at church, and still more rarely heard a sermon. Hundreds upon hundreds of adults, of all ages, have received the sacraments for the first time upon these missions, many of whom had to be taught the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, with the other elementary articles of the Creed. I have several times, at the close of a mission, seen a row of grown-up boys seated before my confessional, of that class who roam the streets, loiter about the docks, and sleep out at night, unable to read, and scarcely able to tell who made them, much less to answer the question, Who is Jesus Christ? They had come to be instructed and prepared for the sacraments, swept in by the tide which was moving the waters all around them. Of course, they needed weeks of instruction and of moral preparation, to rescue them from the abyss of ignorance and vice in which they were submerged, and make them capable of living like rational beings and Christians. With some of them, a beginning may be made, and the germ of good planted in their souls. But many have to be left as they come, because there is no provision which can be made for their instruction. In a word, the nets are so full of a multitude of fishes that they break, and there are not workmen enough to drag them ashore. The work is too overwhelming for the number and strength of those who are engaged in it. In this respect, some missions which have been given in the British provinces, have been the most complete and satisfactory of any. In St. Patrick's Church, Quebec, the vast size of the building enabled all who desired to do so to find room. Nineteen confessors were on duty, and others were appointed to instruct converts or ignorant adult Catholics. All who wished to go to confession were easily heard, without long waiting, or the accumulation of a great crowd of wearied and eager penitents pressing around the confessionals. It was the same in St. John's, where the Archbishop of Halifax and a large body of clergymen were hearing confessions constantly, although, even with this powerful aid, the missionaries broke down under the labor of preaching every day to six thousand or eight thousand persons in the great Cathedral Church, which had just been opened for service. In these places, however, the number of the people, though great, had a limit which could be reached, and the requisite number of priests were easily at the command of the bishop. In the United States, however, the work is out of all proportion to the number of priests who are either specially devoted to missions or who can be called in to aid these in their labors. The missionaries are too few to do the work alone, and the parochial clergy are too much engaged in their own duties to be able to give much of their time to additional works of charity. If it were possible to give missions simultaneously in all the churches of New York City, and if they could contain all the people, it would be easy to collect one hundred thousand Catholics together every night to hear the Word of God, and to bring from one hundred and fifty thousand to two hundred thousand to communion within fifteen days. In proportion to the population, the same results would be produced everywhere in the United States. It would require the labor of one hundred missionaries, during eight years, to give missions thoroughly to our entire Catholic population. At their commencement, however, and for some years after, there were but six or eight, and there are now, probably, not more than twenty priests continually employed in this work. The necessity for it is, nevertheless, quite as urgent as it ever has been, and the benefit to be derived from it inconceivable. There are the vast masses of people gathered in our great centers of population, exposed to a thousand demoralizing influences, and most inadequately supplied with the ordinary means of grace. All that has been done for them hitherto, is but just sufficient to develop the immense need there is for doing more, and the great blessing that attends every effort to do it. Of course, the main reliance of the Church is, and always must be, upon the bishops and parochial clergy, and I have not had the slightest intention, in any thing I have said, to exaggerate the importance of the special work of missionaries. The episcopate and priesthood were established by Jesus Christ Himself, and are absolutely essential to the very existence of the Church. Religious congregations are of ecclesiastical institution, and are only auxiliary to the pastoral office. The multiplication of churches and of priests engaged in parochial duties is the most pressing need, and in no other way can the spiritual wants of the people be adequately provided for. It will be long, however, before the bishops will be able, even by the most strenuous exertions, to make the number of churches and clergymen keep pace with the increase of the population. Meanwhile, this lack of the ordinary means of grace cannot be supplied except by missions; and even where these means are amply provided, the subsidiary and extraordinary labors of societies of priests devoted to special apostolic works are necessary, in order to give their full efficacy to the ministrations of the ordinary pastors.

Besides our great towns, and their dense mass of Catholic population, there is another extensive field of missionary work, which has of late years been successfully cultivated, and which invites still further cultivation with a promise of a rich harvest. I refer to the numerous new parishes found in the smaller cities and country towns and villages. Here a new phase of Catholic life and growth has commenced. The population is becoming settled and permanent. Catholics are making their way upward, acquiring real and personal property, blending with the body of their fellow-citizens, educating their children, and to a certain extent themselves belong to the second generation of Catholic emigrants from Europe, having been born and married in this country. In many instances, one pastor has two or more of these parishes to take care of. His time and thoughts are taken up with church-building and a multitude of other necessary duties. The country around is sprinkled over with Catholics, who have no resident priest among them. There is a vast amount of work to be done in instructing, confirming in the faith, bringing under religious and moral influence, and establishing in solid piety and morality, this interesting and hopeful class of Catholics. Nowhere have the missions been so complete and satisfactory as in parishes of this kind. The whole body of the people living in the place where the church is, can attend the sermons and receive the sacraments. Besides these, those living several miles away flock to the church as regularly as if they lived in the same street; and even from a great distance, numbers, who are usually deprived of the religious advantages of the Church, perhaps even have grown up without making their first communion, seize the opportunity with eagerness to come to the mission and remain for a few days, until they can be prepared to receive the sacraments of life. In Massachusetts alone, where congregations of this kind abound, the number of communions given in the Paulist Missions of the last five years, without counting those given in Boston, amounts to twenty-five thousand five hundred and thirty, on seventeen distinct missions, giving an average of one thousand three hundred and twenty-five to each congregation. These figures are a correct index to the numbers of the Catholic population in country towns throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and other portions of the Northern States.

The missions hitherto given have been intended immediately for the benefit of the Catholic people. Their incidental influence upon the Protestant community ought not, however, to be overlooked. Usually, our Catholic churches are so crowded by the faithful, that it is at least unpleasant, if not almost impossible for others to attend our sermons, especially on occasions of great interest. Notwithstanding this obstacle, thousands of Protestants have come at different times to hear the mission sermons, and there have usually been several converts on each large mission, sometimes as many as twenty, and on one mission, that of Quebec, fifty. Hundreds have been received into the Church, in this way, from all classes in society, among whom were two clergymen holding respectable positions in the Episcopal Church, which they gave up at a great worldly sacrifice. Besides actual conversions, a great effect has been produced in removing the prejudices and gaining the good-will of the community at large. The secular papers have almost unanimously spoken favorably of the missions. In many instances, the gentlemen and ladies of the vicinity have sent the choicest flowers of their gardens and hot-houses, to decorate the altar and baptismal font. Not only laymen, but clergymen have often manifested a wish to show kind and courteous attentions to the missionaries. Very seldom has any thing unpleasant occurred, or any annoyance been experienced—much less, indeed, than is encountered by missionaries in some other parts of the world from nominal Catholics. Employers have frequently lent their servants and work-people the means of conveyance to the church, or exempted them from a portion of their duties. It is impossible not to see how rapidly and generally the prejudice against the Catholic religion and the priesthood is melting away in this country. And this seems to warrant the hope that the time may soon come, when the faith may be preached to our separated brethren by means of missions especially intended for them, with rich results.

The favorable impression already so widely produced upon those who have heard Catholic missionaries preach, proves how much we have to hope for in this direction. This has caused, in one instance, which seems to demand some notice, an attempt to obviate this effect, by representing our manner of preaching as part of an artful plan of Rome, to deceive the minds of the people by presenting only a portion of the Catholic doctrine under plausible colors. After several missions had been given in Cambridge and Boston, where many Protestants of intelligence attended, and more would have willingly done so if there bad been room for them, the rector of a Boston church, who was present several times, preached and published a lecture, in which he attempted to explain the real spirit and object of the Paulist Congregation, by which the missions were given. The extent of the impression made is proved by the following passage in a note to the lecture:—

"One does not take pleasure in accumulating proofs that the Papal superstition still retains its most deplorable features; but as long as Protestant minds are imposed upon by the superficial fallacy that it is parting with these features, because its public speakers deliver admirable discourses, it seems to be necessary. Undoubtedly, the order of Paulists, is at present a very efficient arm of the Romish service in this country. Men say, 'Whatever Hildebrand, and the Innocents, and Torquemada may have done or said, such preaching as this is good for everybody.'" [Footnote 5]

[Footnote 5: The R. C. Principle: a "Price Lecture," &c. Boston. Dutton & Co. 1863 App., p. 39.]

On page 27 of the lecture, he says:

"One of the latest developments in the policy of her propagandism is the establishment in this country, with head-quarters in our chief city, of a new missionary order. The Paulists are the itinerants and revivalists of that shrewd mother of adaptabilities, who, in becoming all things to all men and to all women, saw a chance in America for reaping, not so much in the field where her own fathers, like Marquette and Rasles, as where Whitfield and Maffit had sown."

Throughout the lecture, the aim of the author is to show that the sound and practical preaching of the eternal truths of religion, which he is forced himself to admire, and which was so much admired by many others, is nothing but an illusive pretence, which throws a deceitful halo over a system of superstitious formalism.

I have not introduced this topic for the sake of a theological argument, but merely in view of vindicating the reputation of F. Baker, whose sermons at Cambridge made the principal impression which the lecture was intended to obviate, and forestalling a prejudice which might cast a shade over the discourses which are published in this volume.

The author of this lecture, who has been my personal friend for thirty years, and who wrote to me on the occasion of its publication to express his hope that it might not interrupt our friendship, and all the Protestants who may peruse these pages, especially those who know me, will admit that I am both competent to explain what Catholic doctrine is, and incapable of practising any dissimulation on the subject. Those who knew F. Baker, or who may learn to know him from reading this volume, will also acknowledge that his high-toned mind was incapable of yielding to any system of driveling superstition, and his chivalrous spirit of descending to any system of artful deception by paltering with words in a double sense. I ask them, therefore, not, to accept Catholic doctrine as true on our authority, but simply to believe that the testimony I give as to the doctrine we have embraced and preached, and our views and intentions in giving missions, is true; and that the doctrine, contained in the discourses of this volume, is a veritable exposition of the true Catholic faith.

The missions were commenced and have been carried on for the purpose of benefiting the Catholic people. The sermons and instructions have been the same, in doctrine and practical aims, with those which were given in Italy and other purely Catholic countries for centuries past. The congregation of Paulists was not established by any act of the hierarchy here, or of the supreme authority at Rome. It was formed by F. Baker and three other American converts, in consequence of certain unforeseen circumstances, and without any previous deliberate plan, with a simple approbation from an archbishop, and a mere recognition of the validity of that approbation on the part of Rome. Not a word of instruction or direction as to the manner of preaching, or the end to be aimed at in our labors, has ever been given by authority, but the movement has been the spontaneous act of the few individuals who began it. It is our desire, as it must be that of every Catholic priest, to bring as many persons as possible to the Catholic faith and into the bosom of the Catholic Church. We intend, therefore, to make use of all the means and opportunities in our power to present the faith and the Church to our non-Catholic countrymen, and to promote as much as possible the conversion of the American people. The Catholic Church has the mission to convert the whole world, and intends to fulfil it; and any Catholic priest who does not endeavor to do his share of the work, is recreant to the high obligations of his office. We intend to do our part, however, in promoting this great end, not by artifice or dissimulation, not by secret intrigues or plots, by fraud or violence, by undermining or attacking the civil and religious liberty enjoyed by all our citizens in common, but by argument and persuasion, by exhibiting the Church in her beauty, by prayer and good example, and by the grace of God: We have no reserves in regard either to our doctrine or our intentions, no esoteric and exoteric teaching. We present the Church and the faith as they always have been, in all times and places, one, universal, and immutable, in all their essential parts. What the Church and her doctrine are is ascertainable by all who will take pains to inform themselves, and it would be impossible for us to conceal it if we were so disposed. All that we have to fear on this head is ignorance of the real truth concerning our principles, and the misrepresentation of them by those whose knowledge of them is superficial. The author of this lecture is one of this latter class, and has hastily and without due examination put forth his own impressions of our doctrines and practices, with which he is so completely unacquainted as not even to perceive that there is any thing in them which requires any careful study or thought.

He says, p. 28: "I have heard several of these mission sermons preached. Most of them would undoubtedly be a surprise, and an agreeable one, to Protestant ears. There was a sermon on 'future punishment,' without one allusion to Purgatory." The sermon was on Hell, not on the whole subject of Future Punishment. We follow the laws of logic and rhetoric in our sermons, and confine ourselves strictly to the topic in hand; excluding all irrelevant matter. Any one who is surprised at a sermon like this, shows that he is entirely ignorant of the published sermons of our great preachers. One who supposes that the place of punishment for those Catholics who have sinned grievously, and have not truly repented before death, is Purgatory, is entirely ignorant of Catholic theology. "There was a sermon on 'Mortal Sins,' with scarcely a reference to absolution." For the same reason given above, that the preacher stuck to his subject, and the instructions on the Sacrament of Penance were given in the morning. "There was another, on the 'Close of Life,' which, from beginning to end, went to prove, in language that must have scorched every conscience not seared that listened to it—contrary to all the common Protestant impressions of Romish instruction—that there is no efficacy whatever in any or all of the Seven Sacraments to save a wicked Roman Catholic from perdition." Indeed! Then these common impressions are all incorrect. The proposition which excites so much surprise is nothing but the commonest truism, familiar to every child that has learned the catechism. To admit, however, that the lecturer found himself to have been always mistaken, and Protestants generally to have been under the same mistake concerning Catholic teaching, would have been fatal. He has no such intention. There is couched, under the language of praise which he gives to the sermon, a concealed accusation that the doctrine of the sermons does not really mean what it seems, and that the old Protestant prejudice against "Romish instruction" is, after all, correct. This concealed arrow is launched in the next paragraph: "Supposing the fundamental falsehood, as a whole, to stand unchallenged, hardly any addresses can be conceived more admirably effective to a practical and useful end in the lives of the people." That is to say, there is a fundamental falsehood which destroys their admirable effectiveness to a practical and useful end. The lecturer is making out a case against us, and preparing an indictment which shall destroy the good impression we have made on Protestant hearers. He prepares the way by ridiculing the ceremonies of Catholic worship.

"But at just that point not only all praise, but all sympathy stops short. To say nothing of the dreary array of public pantomime and incantation, sprinkling and fumigation, pasteboard sanctities and materialistic adoration, which followed, and which give one a sense of momentary mortification at being a spectator at such a mixed piece of impiety and absurdity," &c.

The point at which the lecturer is aiming here clearly comes in view. All that is spiritual in our sermons, and that seems to inculcate a real and solid piety and virtue, is mere talk, or like the one genuine watch which the mock auctioneer passes around with his pinchbeck counterfeits, to deceive his dupes the better. After a show of pure, spiritual doctrine, to furnish "a surprise, and an agreeable one, to Protestant ears," the poor Catholics are imposed upon with a set of outward shows and a routine of superstitious observances, which they are taught to believe will act upon them by a kind of magic charm, and secure them from receiving any damage to their souls and their future prospects from their sins.

The religious services which the reverend lecturer witnessed on the occasion referred to, consisted of the psalm Miserere, chanted by the choir, the hymn Tantum Ergo, and the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. What is designated by the terms "pantomime and incantation" I am at a loss to conjecture. The "fumigation" was the burning of incense, which was also had at the High Mass recently celebrated in Trinity Chapel by F. Agapius. I think, also, that I have read in the Old Testament something about censers and incense having been prescribed by the Almighty to be used in the "pantomimes and incantations" of the Jewish ritual. "Pasteboard sanctities" puzzled me for a long time. I suppose it refers to the pictures blessed at one of the morning instructions, which the lecturer has confounded with the evening sermon.

"There were yet, beyond all that, as one pondered, appalling absences from the teaching, and more fearful elements included." These strong epithets prepare us now to await the final and telling blow. First, the "appalling absences" are specified. "Can that be the true preaching of 'the Word' where the language of that Word so seldom enters in?" The reader is requested to look over a few of the sermons in this volume, and count the scriptural texts. "Could that be the true preaching of 'Christ, and Him crucified,' where any mention of the simple gospel story was almost systematically shut out?" A mere ad captandum objection. If the lecturer had heard the Creed explained throughout, he would have heard the mystery of redemption explained in its proper place. The reader is again referred to the sermons of this volume for a more complete answer to this aspersion. Now Come the "more fearful elements." These are the merit of good works, the scapular, indulgences, transubstantiation, auricular confession, purgatory, and devotion to the Blessed Virgin and Saints. The gist of the whole is contained in the following sentence:—

"Every system must be judged by its weaknesses and its errors, not merely by its better traits. They say in mechanics that the strength of a complicated piece of machinery is equal only to the strength of its weakest part. This is as true in a scheme of justification as in dynamics. Offer human nature, at its own option, various ways of securing salvation, and not more certainly will water seek the lowest spot than men will settle down to the inferior methods of escaping the pains of perdition."

What is the point of this observation? Evidently this: That we propose one way of salvation, by a truly holy life; and another way, in which, without the trouble of leading a holy life, one may save himself by a few outward observances, a mere confession of the lips, without contrition or amendment, reciting indulgenced prayers, wearing the scapular, &c. Consequently, only a few, who are of the nobler sort, will take the route of virtue and spiritual religion, while the mass will go on indulging themselves in all the sins to which they are inclined, and compound for them on the easiest terms they can make. Now, supposing this to be true, it recoils with all its force upon the one who uttered it. The whole doctrine of his lecture denies all merit to holiness and virtue, and ascribes justification solely to the personal holiness and virtue of Christ, which is appropriated by a naked act of faith. This is the Lutheran doctrine, and there cannot be a lower spot for men to settle down to, or an easier way for dispensing oneself from every thing that is painful and self-denying in the religion of the Cross. The author himself accuses (on p. 21 et seq.) nine-tenths of the New England Protestants of having slid down to such a low point that they are as bad as Romanists:—

"The first question put by about nine New Englanders out of ten, when they are urged to any particular religious duty, is whether it is necessary to their salvation, i.e. whether they shall be paid for doing it. It is essentially a Romish question.

* * *

Point to their censorious tongues, their narrow judgments, their contempt of the Lord's poor, their unlovely temper, their social and partisan prejudices, their mean dealings in business, their physical and religious selfishness: they give you to understand that sometime since they got into the ark—why should they be further converted?" Why should they, indeed, according to Luther and Calvin? Once obtain the imputation of the merits of Christ, by faith, and you have a full absolution for both the past, the present, and the future, without confession or penance; you have an inalienable right to the fruits of redemption without sacrifice or sacrament; you have a perfect righteousness and a right to an eternal reward without good works or merits; you have a plenary indulgence without even repeating "a prayer of six lines," or attending a mission; and you will go to heaven, not on the Saturday, but on the instant after your decease, without a scapular. Even the few little things that we exact from our poor, simple followers, as a price for heaven, are dispensed with. "Not more surely will water seek the lowest spot, than men will settle down to the inferior methods of escaping the pains of perdition." Let the Catholic priest tell them that they must profess the faith and enter the communion of the one true Church, at whatever sacrifice of pride, position, property, or friends, and they will find some inferior method of saving their souls and keeping this world—if they can. Let him tell them that they must confess every mortal sin, and they will settle down to some inferior method of obtaining pardon—if they can find one. Let him tell them that they must do penance, fast, abstain, give alms, mortify their passions, keep the commandments, work out their salvation, and, if they would be perfect, sell all and follow Christ, like him whose doctrine the author attempts to criticise, and they will settle down to some inferior method—if they can persuade themselves that it is at their option to do so.

"What avails it," the lecturer goes on to say, "that the preaching priest tells the congregation that sacraments and saints will not save them, and omits to mention the confessional, if the confessing priest tells them, as he does in this 'book' which he puts into their hands, quoting from the 'Roman Catechism,' that almost all the piety, holiness, and fear of God, which, through the Divine mercy, are to be found in Christendom, are owing to sacramental confession?" (Pp. 30, 31.) The priest does not omit to mention the confessional, but let this pass. If there is any meaning in this query, it is, leaving aside the question about the prayers of saints, that it is of no avail to preach the necessity of inward renovation and holiness, if "sacraments" are taught to be the necessary means of grace. Yet the lecturer quotes, on p. 25, a Homily of the Church of England, which says that we obtain "grace and remission, as well of our original sin in baptism [what! saved by 'sprinkling?'] as of all actual sin committed by us after our baptism, if we truly repent and turn unfeignedly to Him again." The same Church of England proposes also, at the option of human nature, along with the method of repenting by yourself, without extrinsic aid, the following "inferior method," by the confessional, which is pretty strongly urged on the sick man, as the best of the two. "Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which confession, the priest shall absolve him (if he humbly and heartily desire it) after this sort: Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath left power to His Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of his great mercy forgive thee thine offences: And by His authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."

Let us turn to the Catechism of the Church of England, and we shall find a little more about "sacraments," and particularly the Holy Communion.

"Qu.—What meanest thou by this word Sacrament?
A.—I mean an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us, ordained by Christ Himself, as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof.

Qu.—How many parts are there in a Sacrament?
A.—Two: the outward visible sign, and the inward spiritual grace.

Qu.—What is the outward part or sign of the Lord's Supper?
A.—Bread and wine, which the Lord bath commanded to be received.

Qu.—What is the inward part, or thing signified?
A.—The body and blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper.

Qu.—What are the benefits whereof we are partakers thereby?
A.—The strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the body and blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the bread and wine."

There are some "appalling absences from the teaching" of this Catechism and "other more fearful elements included." There is not a word about the gospel history in it, or justification by faith only. It is all Creed, Commandments, and Sacraments. Change "bread and wine" into "accidents of bread and wine," and you have in an that I have quoted a mere repetition of the Catholic Catechism. "What avails it," then, that the Episcopalian minister tells his congregation that sacraments will not save them, when he puts into their hands this catechism? &c.

I cannot follow the lecturer through the whole bead-roll of his enumeration of Catholic practices, which he has picked out of the Mission Book and gathered up in a hasty perusal of other books of devotion, or explain every thing. They are among the minor and subordinate parts of the Catholic system, and are placed in their proper relations to the more essential parts of it in Catholic practice and instruction. The lecturer has put them forward into a false perspective which distorts every thing, in order to show that they practically supplant the truth, the grace, and the morality of Christ; in order to put in a preventer which shall effectually shut off all access of our preaching of the great truths of religion to the Protestant mind. He has skillfully chosen just the very practices which are most misunderstood by Protestants, and most objectionable in their view. The chief of these, and such as are connected with Catholic dogmas, as Masses for the Dead, Devotion to the Blessed Virgin and Saints, and Indulgences, will be found fully explained in the sermons of this volume and the other volumes published by the congregation of which their author was a member, as well as in every Catholic manual. I single out, therefore, only one, and that the very one which a non-Catholic reader of the Mission Book would be most likely to stumble at, viz. The Scapular.

The author says: "I open the 'Book of the Mission,' and I find, intermixed with much that is better, such wretched directions as that *** the wearing of 'the Virgin's Scapular' around the neck (shall) guarantee the fulfilment of a promise made to one Simon Stock, an English Carmelite friar, of six centuries ago, that 'whoso should die invested with it should be saved from eternal fire.'" If this statement is to be taken in the sense of the lecturer, as a real exposition of our belief, it is very strange that we should not dispense with the confessional, as well as with preaching repentance toward God, and a holy life, and confine ourselves to the easier task of investing all Catholics with the scapular. Nothing would be further necessary then, except to keep the strings in good repair, and we might all of us take our ease, eat, drink, and be merry, while this short life lasts, secure of going to heaven at last. Human nature always settles down to the lowest optional method of escaping perdition, according to our author. It is very singular, that after hearing our sermons on the mission, and then stumbling upon this account of the scapular in a book published under our own direction, he should not have thought that there was some explanation of which it was susceptible, which would give it a meaning in harmony with our doctrine, and should not have asked for that explanation. I will give it, however, unasked, lest it should seem that his objection is unanswerable.

The scapular is a small article, made to imitate a part of the religious habit, and worn as the badge of a pious confraternity affiliated to the Carmelite Order. According to the proper and ordinary use of it, it is conferred on persons intending to live a devout life, as an exterior sign of their special consecration to the service of God under the protection of the Blessed Virgin, and of certain special graces which are given through the prayers of the holy religious of Mount Carmel, to those who fulfil the conditions faithfully. These conditions are, to observe a strict chastity according to one's state, whether married or single, and to perform certain acts of devotion. It is understood that in order to be capable of receiving these graces, a person must take care to live always in the love and fear of God, and avoid all other mortal sins as well as those which are specifically renounced by the reception of the religious habit. This implies a diligent use of the means of grace, such as prayer and the sacraments. The advantage attributed to membership in the confraternity, and gained by fulfilling its conditions, is merely, additional grace to assist one to live a Christian life, and thus to escape perdition and gain heaven. The scapular is only a symbol of this, and the only consolation a person who wears it can receive from it at the hour of death is, that it is to him a badge and emblem of the holy life he has led, and of the promise of special grace in his last moments. There is, besides this, the "Sabbatine Indulgence," as it is called, by which it is generally held, as a matter, not of faith, but of opinion, based on a private revelation, that a person may obtain a remission of the punishment of temporal pain in the other world, on the Saturday after his decease. Presupposing now the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory, and also the doctrine of Indulgences, according to which no one can enter the first unless he dies free from mortal sin, or obtain the second fully unless he is free from every stain of sin, however small; there is nothing in this pious belief prejudicial to strictness of piety or virtue. In order to escape eternal perdition, one must truly repent of every grievous sin. In order to be free from temporal punishment, one must satisfy the divine justice for past sins already remitted, and repent of all sins whatever, even the least and most trivial. The soul can never enter heaven until its holiness is consummated. Therefore the pious belief respecting the Sabbatine Indulgence cannot, without contradicting Catholic doctrine, mean more than this: that one who faithfully accomplishes all that he promises on receiving the scapular, and earnestly endeavors to purify himself from all mortal and venial sin, may hope that the removal of the stains which his soul may have at death will be accelerated by a special grace, and that, if without this special grace he would still have some short time to suffer, it may be remitted to him, or shortened, as God may see fit.

The language of Catholic books, of devotion is often free and unguarded, and therefore easily susceptible of misunderstanding when taken out of its connection and pressed into a hard literalness by those who do not understand the Catholic system in its harmony. These books are written for Catholics, who are supposed to be instructed, and to have the practical sense of their religion which enables them to take up their meaning rightly. It is also presupposed that pastors and confessors will instruct and direct those under their charge in all matters relating to practical religion, and guard them against hurtful errors or mistakes in substituting minor and subsidiary practices of devotion for solid piety and the fulfilment of the weightier matters of the law. Let anyone candidly examine into the spirit and scope of the sermons contained in this volume, and into those of the Mission Book, and he will see that those weightier matters are the ones which are insisted on. These are urged and enforced as essential with all possible earnestness; and how can it detract from the force of these exhortations, that an occasional recommendation of some particular devotions is also thrown in, which is like our Lord's counsel not to leave undone the paying tithes of mint, anise, and cummin?

Let it be remembered that the point is not now to prove the truth of the Catholic doctrine respecting the sacraments or any inferior rites, practices, or pious works. It is to refute the charge that by these things we subvert sound morality, solid and spiritual piety, and faith in Christ as the Author of grace and justification. This charge is untrue, irrespective of the question of the claim of the Catholic Church on faith and obedience. The author of the "Price Lecture" has made it without due study and examination, on the faith of the writers of the Church he has recently joined, and into whose views he has thrown himself by a voluntary effort, without waiting to mature the results of his own theological principles. He is capable of better things than this hasty and superficial lecture. Let him be true to the dying declaration of the great Anglican divine which he quotes with so much approbation (p. 6), "I die in the faith and Church of Christ, as held before the separation of East and West," and he will no longer be found in unworthy companionship with the revilers of the Roman Church. How much more dignified and noble is the position taken by such men as the great philosopher Leibniz, in the past, and, in the present, by the great statesman and champion of the truth of revelation and Protestant orthodoxy, Guizot! The latter does not hesitate to avow that he considers the cause of which he is a champion essentially identical with that of the Church of Rome. I agree with him, in the sense that the whole of the Christian tradition which is found in the various Christian bodies, and which constitutes the positive and objective creed which they cling to, is all preserved in the Catholic Church. I know the doctrine of Luther and Calvin, in which I was brought up, thoroughly, and I can testify that the positive portion of it, respecting the mystery of Redemption and the inward sanctification of the Holy Spirit, I retain unchanged. I know thoroughly, also, the Church principles of Reformed Episcopacy, and I retain all these unchanged. I have found also all that true and sound rationality, or respect for human reason and its certain science, together with all that high estimate of the moral virtues, which is professed by Unitarians, in Catholic theology. I have never lost any thing or been required to abdicate any thing which I had previously acquired in the intellectual or spiritual life, by embracing Catholic doctrine but have only added to it that which makes it more integral and complete. The real question of discussion is about that which is positive in the Roman Church, in addition to that which is common to her and Protestant communions, and not about those more primary articles of the Christian creed which form the basis of all religion and Christianity. It is the question, whether the Catholic Church is really the one, only Church, founded by Christ on the Supremacy of St. Peter and his Apostolic See of Rome; and is an infallible teacher in faith and morals. We do not ask other Christians to admit this before they have examined the evidence, or been convinced by its force. We ask them simply, ad interim, to do us justice, to give us a fair hearing, to observe the rules of honorable warfare in their controversies with us, and to concede our rightful claims as Christians and as free citizens. Those bigoted leaders of religious factions and their great "Fourth Estate" of unemployed clerical followers, whose occupation of hanging around the skirts of our armies is gone, and who seek to stir up a religious war, by representing Catholics as the enemies of civil and religious liberty, and the progress of the Church as dangerous to our political welfare, are beyond all reason or remonstrance. Their plans are well characterised in some of the secular papers, as more nefarious than those of the men who plotted to burn the hotels of New York. They would be better employed, and make a much more efficacious war on infidelity, if they would give missions, establish churches, and make other efforts for the instruction in some principles of religion and morality of the half-million of Protestants in the city of New York, and the other millions elsewhere, who never enter a church-door. Those Protestants who may read these pages will undoubtedly, for the most part, belong to that large class who repudiate indignantly all sympathy with men of this sort, and their schemes. And on such readers I rely confidently to judge justly and generously the pure and noble character and apostolic works of the subject of this Memoir, from his life and from his own writings. I rely on them to believe my testimony, that they will find in these a specimen of the genuine character and doctrine of the Catholic priesthood, modelled after the form proposed by the Church herself. I think they will give their approbation and sympathy to all that is done by the Catholic clergy to stem the vast and swelling torrent of impiety and immorality which threatens our political and social fabric on every side, and will acknowledge the service done to the state and society, apart from the directly religious benefit to the souls of men, by the only Church and body of clergy that has a powerful sway over great masses of the population in our country.

This long digression will, I fear, have seemed tedious, and irrelevant to the proper subject of this biographical narrative. I have thought it necessary, however, as a background to my portrait, to paint the missionary work from which the life of Father Baker receives its principal value and significance. I return now to resume the thread of his personal history, which I left at the point where he was about to commence his public sacerdotal and missionary career.

Father Baker came to the assistance of the little band who were toiling in their arduous missionary labors, in November, 1856. His first mission-sermon was preached in St. Patrick's Church, Washington, D. C., on "The Necessity of Salvation." This sermon was also the last one which he ever preached, at one of the weekly services of Lent, in the parish church of St. Paul's, New York.

The debut of Father Baker as a missionary is noticed at the Records of the Missions in the following words, which were written by the faithful friend who watched over his last moments.

"The Rev. Father Baker, a convert from Episcopalianism, and most highly respected and beloved as a Protestant minister in Baltimore, had been just ordained, and came for the first time to assist at this mission. He preached the opening sermon, which gave great satisfaction to all who heard it, and a promise that he will hereafter be a truly apostolical missionary."

One pleasing little incident of this very interesting mission was, that the President and his lady gathered and arranged a beautiful bouquet of flowers, which were sent to decorate the altar at the ceremony of the Dedication to the Blessed Virgin, which took place near the close of the mission.

After the conclusion of this mission, Father Baker was sent by his superior to Annapolis, to assist the rector of the House of Novices located there (on one of the ancient manors of the Carroll family, which had been given to the congregation by the daughter of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton), in the care of the little Catholic parish in that place. The other missionaries went South, for a series of missions to be given during the winter, and finding the work there too great for their small band of four, telegraphed from Savannah to the provincial, requesting him to send Father Baker to assist them. In compliance with this request, Father Baker was sent on immediately to Savannah, and took part in the mission given in the cathedral, at that time under the care of the saintly and apostolic Dr. Barry, then administrator, and afterward bishop of the diocese. There was but little episcopal splendor to be seen about the Savannah cathedral and residence at this time. Until within a few years previously to the mission, Georgia had been included in the diocese of Charleston. Dr. Gartland, the first bishop, had procured a suitable residence for himself and his clergy, and had purchased property with a view of erecting a handsome cathedral. A short time after his consecration, Savannah was visited by a destructive tornado, which destroyed the greater part of the fine old trees which formed the principal ornament of the place, otherwise injured the city very seriously, and unroofed the bishop's house. The yellow fever broke out about the same time, in a very virulent manner; and the bishop, as also Bishop Barron, who came there to assist him, fell a victim to the epidemic. These disasters, and the debts which pressed on the congregation, put a stop for a time to all efforts to establish matters on a suitable footing. After Dr. Barry's consecration, the old church was refitted and furnished in a way to make it quite respectable for the cathedral of a new diocese, and a spacious mansion was purchased for the episcopal residence. But at this time Dr. Barry was living, like a bishop in partibus infidelium, in a small and poor frame dwelling-house, containing only four or five rooms, and the clergy were putting up, in the best way they could, with rooms over the sacristy of the church. Just round the corner, an aged negro, with a long white beard, who was a Methodist preacher, might be seen sitting all the day long in the sun on a little stool, holding a cow by a rope around her horns, while she nibbled the grass which grew along the streets; and the old gentleman chatted with the passers-by, or prepared his sermons for the next Sunday, highly delighted at the friendly salutations which the fathers always gave him as they passed by. Every now and then a black nurse passed along the street, carrying or wheeling the little white infant of her charge; or a troop of negro boys and their young masters, playing together with the utmost familiarity. The sunny, Southern atmosphere was vocal with the merry, free-and-easy sounds of laughing, chatting mirth, or work carried on like a play without much care or hurry, so characteristic of a city in the far South. Savannah is a very beautiful and picturesque place, where, at that time, Southern life and manners could be seen at the greatest advantage; and the novelty of the scene gave it a great zest to those of our number who had not seen it before. The clergy were, most of them, old veteran missionaries, brought to this country by the celebrated Bishop England, full of rich and piquant anecdotes of their past experience among the wild, sparsely-settled regions of Georgia and the neighboring States, related with inimitable wit and humor. [Footnote 6] The mission was still further enlivened by a visit to Savannah from Archbishop Hughes, accompanied by his amiable secretary, who were making a tour of recreation to restore the archbishop's shattered health; and from Dr. Lynch, soon after appointed to the see of Charleston.

[Footnote 6: One of these good clergymen, the Rev. Peter Whelan, during the late civil war, remained a long time among our prisoners at Andersonville, and spent four hundred dollars in gold at one time in purchasing bread for their necessities.]

This mission was, however, no play-spell for the missionaries. Besides the ordinary labor of preaching and hearing the confessions of a multitude of people, it was necessary to search out the people themselves, and bring them to church to hear the sermons. At that time, the Southern towns received the débris of foreign emigration, and were filled during the winter months by a loose floating population of Northern laborers, who were without employment at home. Hence, there was a larger proportion than elsewhere of the most degenerate and demoralised class of Catholics, living in complete neglect of their religious and moral duties, and beyond the reach of the ordinary ministrations of the Church. Savannah has several suburbs and purlieus, rejoicing in the names of Yammacraw, Robertsville, and Old Fort, crowded with squalid hovels, drinking-shops, sailors' boarding-houses, and dens of thieves and smugglers, representing in a small way the scenes which Dickens delights in describing. A mission in the cathedral might be given ten times over, and the news of it never reach the denizens of these places. Accordingly, the missionaries divided the several districts between them, and undertook to beat up the quarters of sin, vice, and misery, in the hope of rescuing some of these forlorn and abandoned souls. It would hardly be safe for any one but a Catholic priest to undertake such a work, especially in the evening, and certainly no one else would have any hope of success. The work was done, however, very thoroughly, and, in consequence, the church was crowded by that class of persons who were in most need of a mission, and who had never been reached before. An immediate and extensive reformation was the result. The grog-shops were deserted, which before were filled from morning until late at night, the sound of cursing and quarrelling was hushed, the darker deeds of sin ceased, and the great mass of these poor, lost souls began to listen to the eternal truths, and to seek for the way that would bring them back to God. Many, engaged in dishonest practices, abandoned their unlawful traffic, and made restitution of their ill-gotten gains. Great numbers of those who had abandoned the sacraments, and even ceased going to church, for ten, twenty, or thirty years, came with great fervor and earnestness to confession. Some of the poor slaves also, as well Methodists as those who were Catholics, attended eagerly on the instructions of the mission. One old Methodist negress was asked by her mistress, or some one else who noticed her constant attendance, if she liked the mission; to which she replied: "Oh, Lor! yes, missus; I'se bound to be there, if I can get only one eye in, every time." Another grown-up slave girl, who had never been baptized, was most anxious to receive baptism, and induced her mistress to ask me to baptize her. I was very reluctant to do it, fearing lest she might not be sufficiently instructed and prepared in her moral dispositions to begin a really Christian life, without a longer probation; and therefore refused to baptize her during the mission. After the last sermon she went nearly frantic, and made loud exclamations that she wished to be taken out of the devil's hands, and the father would not do it, but was going away, leaving her in his power. Touched by her entreaties, and finding that her mistress had taught her the rudiments of the catechism, I instructed her for some days, and endeavored to impress upon her mind especially, that if she wished for the graces of baptism and the friendship of God, she must renounce all sin and live a good and holy life. So fearful was she that she might sin, and receive baptism unworthily, that for a day before her baptism she would not speak a word to any person, not even her mistress. She refused to speak even when she was asked about her sponsors and her baptismal dress, and her whole demeanor at her baptism was like that of one oppressed with the most intense sentiment of religious awe, and of the sacredness of the promises she was making to God. It is not to be supposed that every bad Catholic was reformed, or that, of those who were really brought to a resolution to mend their lives, all of them persevered. The hydra-headed monster of vice is not killed by a blow, nor can we hope ever to exterminate sin by any means, even those which have a divine efficacy. It is a continual warfare which we have to wage, by both spiritual and moral weapons, which the free will can always resist. God alone has coercive power over the spirit of man, and He will not exert it to compel him to obey His law. Temptations to sin ever beset the human will, especially in a corrupt, irreligious, and immoral state of society. The Catholic Church is not intended to be a society of saints who have already attained perfection, but a training and reformatory school for the human race. It has no means of charming or mesmerizing the human will into sanctity, and its gracious influences do not supersede the struggle for life which exists in the spiritual as in the natural world. It has all the means of sanctifying the human race, and of elevating men to the summit of possible human virtue, limited only by the extent to which the free human will co-operates with grace. It must actually produce these results on a great scale, in order to prove that it is the Church; because God would not have created it for this purpose, foreseeing its essential failure to fulfil its work and attain its predestined end. It is easy enough to show that the Church possesses this note of sanctity, correctly understood in this way. But it is perfectly true also that the free-will of man, by its failure and perversion, hinders the Church to a vast extent from exhibiting its regenerating and sanctifying power. Great numbers of individuals in the Catholic Church live and act in contradiction to their faith, neglect or abuse the means of grace, and dishonor religion by their conduct. The only means which the Church has of contending with this evil, and reclaiming these unworthy members from a sinful life, are moral means, acting on the mind and conscience. Missions are among the most powerful and efficacious of these means, and their efficacy is shown, not in eradicating sin, or liberating human nature from its intrinsic liability and propensity to sin, but in checking and counteracting its violence, and reclaiming a great number of individuals from its influence. If they actually do this, if they have a perceptible influence in reforming and renovating the demoralised portion of the Catholic community, heightening the restraining power of faith and conscience among the mass of the people, and producing many permanent fruits in the increase of piety and morality, they are successful, and their value is established. It is beyond a question that they do this to an extent which can only be understood by those who are engaged in them, or who have studied their working on a grand scale.

To return to the Savannah mission. I had a good opportunity to judge of its permanent fruits when, two years afterward, I returned there, and went through the same quarters of the town where we had gone to drum up the people to the mission, in making a collection for the new congregation of St. Paul. Many of the very poorest dwellings I found neat and orderly; the pious pictures blessed during the mission hanging upon the walls; the children clean and tidy; sometimes an old man sitting at the door, reading the mission-book; the wives and mothers evidently cheerful and contented, the best sign that their husbands were sober and kind; the expressions of grateful remembrance of the mission warm and frequent; the signs of moral improvement everywhere, and the church crowded on Sunday.

It is not to be supposed that the body of the Catholic congregation of Savannah were like this lowest class I have described. I have dwelt more minutely on their condition, and the good done among them, mainly because the small comparative size of the place, and the thorough visitation which was made, brought us into a more close contact with their miseries, and enabled us to see more clearly what can be done to relieve them, than is usually the case. I have wished to show what the hardest and most repulsive part of the work of the missionary is, and to give a true picture of the nature and efficacy of the means used to raise up and reform and save the most demoralised class of the Catholic population throughout the country, and especially in the large towns, where this class is most numerous. I wish, also, before resuming the particular narrative of F. Baker's life, to show what was the work for which he left the ease and elegance and attractive charm of his earlier position as an Episcopalian clergyman, fulfilling the light duty of reading prayers and preaching quiet, well-written, polished discourses for the élite of Baltimore society.

The mass of the people who were brought to the mission in Savannah by the personal visits of the fathers had never been seen in the church previously. They were the débris that the tide of emigration had deposited there, and many of them only chance-residents of the town.

The ordinary church-going congregation contained, as usual, its very large proportion of Easter communicants, with a smaller but still numerous class of devout and fervent Catholics who approached the sacraments frequently. The majority of them belonged to the humbler walks of life, although there were a considerable number whose position in worldly society was more elevated.

F. Baker arrived in Savannah, when the mission was about half over, and took his share in the labor of preaching and hearing confessions. At the close of it, after a few days' rest, three of the missionaries, of whom he was one, commenced a series of missions in one part of the diocese, and the two others began another which embraced the smaller parishes. The smaller band went to Macon, Columbus, and Atlanta, rejoining their companions subsequently at Charleston. As F. Baker went in another direction, I shall confine myself to the narrative of the missions in which he was engaged, and pass over the others, merely pausing for a moment to notice a letter written by a Protestant gentleman in Macon, to the United States Catholic Miscellany, of Charleston, as an evidence of the impression often made by missions upon the minds of candid and intelligent Protestants. The letter is as follow's:—

"In company with many of our most distinguished citizens, I have had the pleasure of hearing most of the sermons delivered, and witnessing the accompanying exercises connected with their mission, and but express the united and universal sentiment entertained, when I say that they were exceedingly interesting and instructive, and have served to dissipate many of the vulgar prejudices that hung like a mist upon the public mind, and, like a cold-damp, mildewed reason and honest judgment. Sufficient testimony of this result may be found in the fact that a number of Protestant gentlemen called upon Mr. Walworth yesterday, and urgently requested him to deliver one more sermon before his departure, which he consented to do this evening. I would send you a copy of the correspondence, but it would be too voluminous for the brevity of this letter; suffice it to say it was complimentary, no less in the act itself than in the manner in which the request was conveyed.

"I must take this occasion of expressing my gratification at the result adverted to, for though I am not a member, nor ever have been, of the Catholic Church, its piety and religious principles—the purity, integrity, ability, learning, and eloquence of its teachers and preachers—the bright links of patience, endurance, and fidelity, by which it is held to the early ages of Christianity—its unity of action, consistency of precept and practice, and conformity of theory and doctrine, as well as the great lights of intellect that have shed lustre upon it in the past and present—men whose genius has elevated them above the gloom of dying centuries to overflow history with glory—these have commended the Catholic Church favorably to my judgment; and regarding its onward progress and increasing popularity with no jaundiced sectarian eye or jealous faction-spirit, but with the extension of civilization and Christianity—I feel the pressure of no petty, vulgar prejudice in wishing it, with all other Christian organizations, 'God speed;' and if this sentiment be in hostility with Protestantism, as for myself and it I say, 'perish the connection'—'live' the enlightened liberality and intelligence of civilized and educated man.

"Yours, very truly, etc.
"Macon, December 31, 1856."

From Savannah, F. Baker, with two companions, went to give a mission in Augusta. On the pages of the Mission Records several interesting incidents of this mission are related. On the first Sunday morning of the mission, three gentlemen called on the fathers, all of whom, it appeared, were converts. One of them was called Dr. W. B., the second, his nephew, Dr. M., and the third was the overseer of Dr. B.'s plantation. This Dr. B. had been received into the Catholic Church some months previously, and had entered a Catholic church for the first time that morning. He was a man of fine and genteel appearance, with gray hair and a long, black beard, an intelligent and educated physician. So great was his excitement, and so wonderful did every thing which he saw that may appear through the magnifying glass of his imagination, that on his return home that night, at eleven o'clock, he awoke his brother and made him get up and light a fire, that he might relate the events of the day. As a sample of the proportion in which he viewed the whole, it may suffice to say that he described one of the fathers as seven and a-half feet high—at least six inches taller than the Georgia giant. The brother alluded to, also a physician and planter, made his appearance a day or two later. He was quite an elderly gentleman, with an intelligent countenance and a magnificent patriarchal beard. A painter could not find a better head for an Apostle, or for one of the ancient Bishops or Fathers of the Church than his. He was a man with an intellect like Brownson's, and full of information. He became a Catholic a few years ago from reading Brownson's Review. Since that time he has been a great champion of the Church, and, through his influence, his own family, his brother and sister, his nephew and some others, have also been converted. One of the latter was then residing in Dr. B.'s own family, and was leading a most remarkably penitential life. This gentleman (a Mr. S.), of high birth and education, was formerly a lawyer, and a married man of large property. He was renowned for his courage, and had fought with one of the most celebrated duellists of South Carolina, named R. This gentleman lost his property and was abandoned by his wife. About seven years before he had become a Catholic, he lived for a considerable time with his brother, an unprincipled and ferocious man, who scarcely allowed him a bare pittance. He was dressed in rags, was barefooted, and lived on bread which he baked himself.

After a few years, when Dr. B. had become a Catholic, and opened a small chapel on his own plantation, Mr. S. appeared there one day at Mass in his miserable plight. Dr. R. invited him to stay with him, and gave him a small office to live in, and all other things requisite for his comfort. Here he had been living ever since, leading the life of a saint, and passing a great portion of his time in reading Catholic books, especially Brownson's Review, which he knew almost by heart. The Doctor said that the only thing which could excite his anger, was to hear anyone speak against Brownson, or contradict any thing he says. As an instance of his penance, I will relate how, according to Dr. B.'s account, he attempted to pass one Lent. He had been reading the Lives of the Fathers of the Desert, and he endeavored to imitate their example precisely and to the letter. His whole food consisted of a small quantity of bread, and during the last three days he wanted to fast entirely, but Dr. B. threatened that, if he did, he would send a little negro for Father B., to excommunicate him. He was wasted to a skeleton, and did not recover the effects of his fasting for six months afterward. On one occasion, Mr. S. found a poor, sick negro, with no one to attend him, and not contented with waiting on him and taking care of him, as he was constantly in the habit of doing for all the sick within several miles' distance, he washed his feet, and, for want of a towel, wiped them with his pocket-handkerchief. It was necessary to watch him, lest he might give away his clothes to the negroes and when he needed new clothes, they were put secretly in his way, and the old ones removed.

Others in this neighborhood, who were not yet Catholics, were so well disposed that they had their children baptized. Edgefield and the country round about was formerly celebrated for the lawless and violent character of the population, for the frequency of murders, and for the bitter prejudice existing against the Catholic Church; so much so, that a priest could not obtain the Court-House to preach in. When the elder Dr. B. became a Catholic, Dr. W. B. declared that he would burn up his wife and children and his whole house before they should become Catholics, and any priest who should chance to come near him. Another gentleman, since a convert, said that, if one of his children should become a Catholic, he would take him by the heels and dash out his brains against a stone wall. Dr. M., when he went to study medicine with his uncle, the elder Dr. B., made a vow that he would never enter the chapel and never desert the faith of his fathers; and his parents told him on leaving home that, if he became a Catholic, he should never cross the Savannah River again or see their faces. After some months, he became silent and melancholy. For a while he concealed the cause, but at last, one evening he told his aunt that he could hold out no longer, and was a Catholic at heart. Shortly after receiving his medical diploma, he determined to renounce the practice of medicine, and has recently been ordained to the priesthood.

At Edgefield a lot of seven acres was purchased in the middle of the town, for a church, to be built of brown stone, in the Gothic style. Five gentlemen had already subscribed sixteen hundred dollars for the church, and Father B. was collecting for the same purpose. There was a general inclination throughout the whole town to embrace the Catholic faith, and already there is a small band of the best Catholics in the country there—souls that have been led by the great God Himself, by the wonderful ways of His most holy grace. Dr. B. has since died, and what has been the fate of the little congregation, and of the beautiful church which was commenced, during the troubles and miseries of the civil war, I know not. They have not, however, hindered the Catholics of Augusta from completing and paying for a large and costly church, the successor of a very good and commodious edifice of brick where the mission was given.

After leaving Augusta, we went to Savannah once more, and on the 29th of January went on board the little steamer Gen. Clinch, which was afterward turned into a gunboat during the civil war, to begin our voyage by the inland route to St. Augustine, Florida. This inland route has some peculiar and picturesque features. The steamer passes down the Savannah River, with its banks lined with the green and gold orange trees, until, near the mouth, it turns into its proper route, leading through a succession of small sounds, connected by narrow, serpentine rivers, where you seem to be sailing over the meadows, usually in sight of the ocean, and quite often aground for some hours at a time. The steamer was very small and very crowded, our progress very leisurely and interrupted by several long stoppages, so that our voyage was protracted for five days. It is seldom that a more motley or singular and amusing group of passengers is collected in a small cabin. Besides the three Catholic priests, who were to the others the greatest curiosities on board, we had an army lieutenant, since then the commander of a corps d'armée in the great civil war, an old wizard who was consulting his familiar spirits incessantly for the amusement or information of the passengers; a plantation doctor, a wild young Arkansas lawyer of the fire-eating type, a professor of mathematics, a crotchety, good-humored New York farmer, with very peculiar religious opinions, a young man who professed himself a universal sceptic, two or three gentlemen of education and polished manners, who were not at all singular, but appeared quite so in such an odd assemblage; and some others in no way remarkable. The cramped accommodations, the long voyage, and the usual bonhommie which prevails on such occasions were well fitted to draw out all the oddities and idiosyncrasies of the company. The spiritualist, who was an uneducated and uncouth specimen of humanity, with a great deal of native shrewdness, and a good-humored, loquacious disposition, was the center of attraction. The professor and the philosophical farmer engaged with him in a long and earnest discussion of spiritualism, which ended in his exhibiting his powers as a consulter of the spirits. Most of the passengers made trial of his skill in this respect, although his performance was the most patent of silly impostures, only amusing from its absurdity. The professor tried him sorely by asking him a question which seemed to have caused himself many an hour of anxious and fruitless thought, and which he appeared to despair of solving metaphysically: "Can God annihilate space?" The old gentleman's spirit did not appear to have investigated this question to his own complete satisfaction, for he gave him no positive answer. He was silent for a moment, with a puzzled look, evidently fearing a trap, and at last answered, "I don't know, but I guess He could if He tried; He made it, and I guess He could annihilate it." Just as the professor was going to retire to his berth, the old man took revenge by telling him that he had just been informed by the spirits that one of his children was sick of scarlet fever. The wizard left the boat at Brunswick, but as the conversation had taken a religious and philosophical turn at first, it continued in that direction, the two individuals before mentioned being the principal interlocutors. We did not join much in it, as it was evidently distasteful to several of the company, who wished to read quietly or converse on ordinary topics. Before we parted, however, one of our number took the opportunity which offered itself of having a little pleasant and rational discussion with the professor and one or two others, who were really intelligent and well-informed. On New Year's Day we remained several hours at St. Mary's, Georgia, where we found the mayor of the place to be a Catholic gentleman, of Acadian descent, and were hospitably entertained at his house. The boat passed the night at Fernandina, and the next day we went out of the St. Mary's River, across a short and dangerous stretch of ocean between a line of breakers and the shore, into the St. John's, and up that romantic river, so full of historical associations. Friday evening saw us befogged above Jacksonville, and on Saturday morning we learned to our dismay that our captain was going past our landing, and on to Pilatka, which would keep us on board his miserable little craft until the next week, and prevent the opening of the mission on the Sunday. Touching for a few moments at Fleming's Island, we found friends at the little dock, who were passing the winter on the island, and who informed us that we could go from there that afternoon to our destination. We debarked accordingly, our friend the professor in company with us, and were refreshed with a good breakfast at the hotel where our friends were lodging, and a stroll around the little island. On the arrival of the steamer, the whole party went on board and proceeded to Picolata, where we took stage-coaches for St. Augustine, arriving there on Saturday evening. About halfway between Picolata and St. Augustine there is a post-house, where, in the last Florida War with the Seminole Indians, a party of travelling actors were surprised and murdered by Indians, who dressed themselves in their fantastic costumes, and in that guise made a hostile demonstration in the neighborhood of St. Augustine.

To Americans, this old town seems to have a vast antiquity, claiming as it does the respectable age of three centuries. The Catholic church here is almost as old as Protestantism, and a brief of St. Pius V., in regard to some of the religious affairs of this colony, is still extant. There are remnants of an old wall in several places, and a large fortress built in Spanish times, and called the castle of St. Marco, where you may yet see the marks of the cannon-shot fired at the invasion of Oglethorpe from Georgia. This fort might serve as a scene for the plot of a new "Mysteries of Udolfo," it is so unlike any thing modern, and so thoroughly Spanish and mediæval. It is not, however, of a sort to make one regret the past. Its dark, damp casemates look like prisons, especially one frightful dungeon, which is a cell within a cell, without any embrasure, and admitting no light or air except that which comes through the door opening into the outer casemate. This was the cell of the greatest criminals. In one of these casemates, Wildcat, the celebrated Indian chief, was once confined with a companion. Although cruel and blood-thirsty, Wildcat was a great warrior, and a man gifted with a high order of genius, an orator, a poet, and a true cavalier of the forest. On pretence of illness, he and his companion reduced their bulk as much as possible by a low diet and purgative medicines, and by the aid of a knife, which he had secreted and used as a spike by thrusting it into the wall of soft concrete, with a rope dexterously made from strips of his bed-clothes, he clambered to the high and narrow embrasure, squeezed himself through, not without scraping the skin from his breast, and let himself down into the moat. His companion followed him, but fell to the ground, breaking his leg. Nevertheless, Wildcat carried him off, seized a stray mule, and escaped to his tribe in the forest. After the conclusion of the war, he went to Mexico, where he became the alcalde of an Indian village, and did his new country essential service by leading a body of Indian warriors, armed with Mississippi rifles, against a band of filibusters from the United States. Osceola, the half-breed king of the Seminoles, who was not only a hero, but a just and humane man, was also captured near St. Augustine, by treachery and bad faith, and confined in this fortress for a time, but afterward removed to Charleston, where he died of a broken heart. The great mahogany treasure-chest of Don Juan Menendez is still remaining in the fortress, and in one of the casemates are remnants of a rude stone altar and holy-water stoups, marking the site of a chapel. The fortress is kept in good preservation by our Government, and a noble sea-wall extends from it to the barracks at the other end of the town, which are established in an ancient Franciscan monastery. A great part of the old city is in ruins. The old Spanish families left the country when it was ceded by Spain to the United States, and the resident inhabitants are Minorcans, negroes, and a small number of settlers from the other portions of the United States. The Minorcans are descendants of a body of colonists, brought to Florida under false pretences by an English speculator, who enslaved them, and kept them for a long time in that state before they became aware that there was any way of escaping from it. When they did take courage to shake off the yoke, they removed to the Spanish colony of St. Augustine, where they retain their language, a dialect of the Spanish, with their ancient, simple character and habits. The illustrious Spanish names which some of them bear amused us greatly. Sanchez was the proprietor of a line of slow coaches. Suarez had charge of F. Madeore's farm, and Ximenes served Mass. The church is a large Spanish structure, built, as are most of the houses, of soft concrete formed from sea-shells. On a green in front of it stands the only remaining monument, erected in commemoration of the formation of the Spanish Constitution of 1814. The tower has a chime of small bells, which are rung in a most joyous, clashing style, according to the Spanish custom, for festive occasions, and with a peculiarly plaintive peal for deaths and funerals. The cemetery is called Tolomato, which was the name of an Indian village formerly occupying its site. The ruins of an ancient mission chapel are still to be seen there, where F. Roger, a French Jesuit, was murdered by an apostate Indian chief and his warriors. After killing F. Roger, the band proceeded to another chapel, called Nuestra Señora de Leche, where they found a priest just robed for Mass. He requested the chief to allow him to say Mass, and his desire was granted, the savages prostrating themselves with their faces to the ground while he performed the holy function, lest the sight of him should soften their hearts. After Mass he knelt at the foot of the altar, and received a blow from the tomahawk which made him a martyr.