M^MM^. 
 
 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
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 ©|ap ©DMfisli la>- 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
rom the 
 
 ighways 
 
 of llife 
 
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 THERE SHALL BE ONE FOLD AND ONE SHEPHERD " 
 
 2wocy)l 
 
 New York 
 XTbe Columbus press 
 
 I20 West 6oth St 
 
 1893 
 
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 Copyright, 1893, by ''The Missionary Society of St. 
 Paui., the Aposti^e, in the State of New York.'* 
 
 Printed at The Columbus Press, 1 20 West 60th St. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ^tIHE purpose of publishing this volume is to 
 ^ show how converts are made. Each narra- 
 tive tells of the evolution of the truth in a 
 mind acting under the influence of its provi- 
 dential environment. This accounts for the 
 striking variety of character both before and 
 after conversion. The converts differed very 
 widely from each other in their dissent from 
 Catholic truth, approached it from every direc- 
 tion, and they differ yet in the enjoyment of 
 that freedom which the unity of truth does not 
 deny them. 
 
 All kinds of converts are here, specimens of 
 our many thousands, hailing from all sections 
 of the shadowy regions of doubt and error. In 
 fact experience shows, as do these Conver- 
 sions, that men and women of our day are im- 
 pelled in their religious movements chiefly to- 
 wards the satisfaction of their personal necessi- 
 ties in the intellectual and moral order. The 
 organic form given to revealed religion by its 
 Divine Founder is readily enough accepted as 
 
Preface, 
 
 soon as the earnest seeker finds that in Catho- 
 lic truth alone can he fully satisfy the aspira- 
 tions of his soul. 
 
 The interest in these sketches is like that 
 felt in reading narratives of travel, for they tell 
 of journeys on the' highways and byways which 
 lead to truth. The Catholic reader will note 
 that the heroic part of the progress was not so 
 much in overcoming repugnance to the faith on 
 account of its mysteries as in surmounting diffi- 
 culties of a personal nature, those of family, so- 
 cial station, business, and the like. Dry didac- 
 tics make up the smaller portion of these ex- 
 periences, as they do of most conversions. 
 
 One purpose of this book is to show Catho- 
 lics by object-lessons how to help men and 
 women into the Church. Here will be seen the 
 invincible influence of soul upon soul in propa- 
 gating the truth — a burning word, a generous 
 sacrifice, a noble life. The resistless power of 
 fact, one conversion producing another, is here 
 displayed. And especially do we see here the 
 constraining power of the Printed Word, — all 
 grades of it, from the Bible to the penny cate- 
 chism. 
 
 In the hands of inquirers this is a book of 
 
Preface. 5 
 
 charts, guiding by the sun and stars of divine 
 truth, as well as by its landmarks and soundings, 
 the weary but steadfast pilgrim to the haven of 
 safety. 
 
 It need hardly be said that these Conversions 
 are authentic, both in fact and in authorship. 
 Each one was written by the person concerned, 
 except in the small number of cases where the 
 report is that of a friend. The writers' names 
 are withheld for obvious reasons. 
 
 With one exception, the subjects of these 
 narratives are not our more distinguished con- 
 verts ; nor, on the other hand, are they from 
 the ranks of the uneducated. 
 
 Here is a selection of perhaps one in a 
 hundred from the lawyers and doctors, the 
 merchants and journalists, the stock-brokers and 
 men of leisure, the actors and musicians, the 
 ministers and students for the ministry — not the 
 highest officers indeed, but a few names from 
 the long muster-roll of the rank and file of the 
 corps d' elite of humanity who have been com- 
 pelled by their intelligence and virtue to join 
 the banner of Christ unfurled by Holy Church. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 How I BECAME A CATHOLIC, 9 
 
 A Convert from Judaism, .... 28 
 
 How AN ANGLO-CaTHOLIC BECAME A ROMAN 
 
 Catholic, 34 
 
 Out of Calvinism into Truth, ... 40 
 
 My Two Conversions, ...... 47 
 
 Found in a Newspaper, 53 
 
 The Prayers of the Poor, 63 
 
 Conversion of a Jewish Family, . . . 69 
 
 A Descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers, . 71 
 
 From the Invisible to the Visible Church, 79 
 
 The Catholic Religion the greatest of 
 
 Sciences, 84 
 
 Thornton's Conversion 95 
 
 A Printer's Token of Catholic Truth, . . 97 
 
 A Page in my Life's History. — By a School- 
 Girl, 108 
 
 Enlightened by the Holy Ghost, . . .111 
 
 The Story of a Colored Man's Con- 
 version, 122 
 
 7-8 
 
From the Highways of Life. 
 
 HOW I BECAME A CATHOLIC. 
 
 INCJE I began, with some reluctance, this 
 piece of egotistical writing I have been 
 consoled by some words of Cardinal New- 
 man * which have anew fallen under my no- 
 tice. The substance of his remarks is, that when one 
 brings his own religious experience to the common stock 
 of psychological facts, egotism is true modesty, which per- 
 mits him to state what are personally his own grounds for 
 his belief, with such an assurance of their sufficiency that 
 he thinks they should suffice for others also, unless there 
 are impediments which may be invincible or not — a ques- 
 tion which he has no call to meddle with. 
 
 It is, however, less than this which I propose to do 
 in describing the process, without formally giving the 
 reasons, of my becoming a Catholic, except in short and 
 simple statements by way of explanation. 
 
 My father inherited his patronymic name from an 
 honest English mariner who, though not a Puritan, was 
 an early settler in New England. My mother inherited 
 hers from an Irish Presbyterian minister who came over 
 to Connecticut about the year 171 8 and married a lineal 
 
 * Grammar of Assejit^ chap. x. b.t the beginning. 
 9 
 
lo From the Highways of Life. 
 
 descendant of the Puritan Captain John Mason. I was 
 bred in the Congregational sect and in the strictest Cal- 
 vinistic doctrine. I am a New-Englander in heart as 
 well as by birth and descent, and I have a sincere re- 
 spect for my ancestors and the other forefathers of my 
 own country and people, so far as their civic and social 
 virtues deserve it. Their religion also I honor, inasmuch 
 as it was based on belief in the Bible, in the divinity of 
 Christ, and on sound morality. I am grateful for the 
 goodly natural heritage they have left to. their offspring, 
 and also for the Christian tradition, albeit a defective 
 one, which they have transmitted. There is no claim, 
 however, which parents can have on the religious alle- 
 giance of their offspring after the period of nonage, except 
 so far as they represent a higher and divine authority. 
 Allegiance to ancestral religion, so far as it is in any 
 way due, ought to be given to the original Christianity 
 of our Catholic forefathers in England, who were con- 
 verted from heathenism by the missionaries of the Roman 
 Church. 
 
 I never felt any sympathy with Puritanism. A spon- 
 taneous repugnance of mind and heart to this narrow, 
 harsh, and dreary system of religion sprang up in me as 
 soon as I began to have thoughts and sentiments of my 
 own. This was fostered by my reading, which I began 
 at a very early age, in history and general literature. 
 Besides this I was frequently conversing with relatives 
 and friends whose religion was of a milder and more 
 genial type, particularly with the Episcopalians. A thaw 
 had set in among the orthodox Congregationalists, un- 
 der which their Calvinism was melting away. This 
 
From the Highzvays of Life. 1 1 
 
 did not affect me much, except as it weakened the moral 
 influence which is exerted by common consent and agree- 
 ment in doctrine. I was attracted to the EpiscopaHan 
 form of Protestantism from childhood, and to no other. 
 I was famiUar w^ith it from reading EngUsh history and 
 hterature, often attending its services, and even perusing 
 some of its able works of controversial divinity. I think 
 that if I had been educated under the High-Church dis- 
 cipline, or had even been permitted to exercise the right 
 of private judgment by choosing my religion for myself, 
 I might have been practically religious during all my 
 boyhood and youth. As it was, I only made occasional 
 and fitful efforts in that direction, under the influence of 
 the emotional excitement to which young people in the 
 evangelical sects are at times liable, especially during 
 what they call " revivals." At twelve I had finished the 
 course at Phillips Academy, Andover, and before I was 
 fifteen I was entered at Amherst College. I never made 
 what is called a '* profession of religion " until some 
 months after my graduation. During my college life I 
 was inclined to look for a philosophy purely rational and 
 not specifically Christian, after the manner of Carlyle. I 
 had no expectation of joining any kind of church, much 
 less of entering the clerical profession. I was looking 
 forward to a secular profession, to gaining all honorable 
 worldly advantages and enjoyments, to acquiring wealth 
 and fame, and, in short, was building castles in Spain of 
 great magnificence. 
 
 Notwithstanding passing clouds of scepticism and 
 aberrations into the region of pseudo-rational philosophy, 
 I was too well grounded in natural theology, the evi- 
 
1 2 From the Highways of Life. 
 
 dences of Christianity, and the knowledge of the Bible 
 to be swept off from those foundations into infidelity. 
 
 It was during the first year after my graduation that 
 a crisis occurred which I look upon as really my " con- 
 version." I was shut up in solitude with my law-books, 
 looking forward to my worldly career. My thoughts and 
 aspirations were ifresistibly turned from this earthly 
 vision, w^hich vanished like " a castle in the air," toward 
 God and eternity. It was my most intense desire to be 
 completely freed from sin, to be reconciled with God, to 
 seek for him as the supreme good, to devote myself to 
 his service, and to attain the true end of my being in 
 the future life by an everlasting and perfect union with 
 God. I believed firmly that this could only be accom- 
 plished through the grace of the Divine Redeemer and 
 Mediator, Jesus Christ. It never occurred to me to im- 
 agine, or to wish that there was any way of entering in- 
 to or persevering in the state of grace, except the one 
 way of obedience to the law of God — obedience to the 
 law which commands us to believe what he has revealed, 
 to avoid what he has forbidden, and to do the good 
 works which he has prescribed through the natural con- 
 science and the precepts of the Gospel. I firmly deter- 
 mined to follow the light of truth in my mind, and to 
 obey all the dictates of conscience with the most perfect 
 fidelity possible, recognizing also the veracity of God as 
 the absolute standard of truth, and the will of God as 
 the absolute rule of right. I have never since that time 
 retracted this resolution. In virtue of it I became and I 
 remain a Catholic. It produced a great and decisive 
 change in my moral state and attitude toward God and 
 
From the Highways of Life, 1 3 
 
 the world, which has not been succeeded by any similar 
 change, and therefore I call it emphatically a " conver- 
 sion." 
 
 There was one great practical difficulty in my way 
 which my father removed by a happy inconsistency. 
 The transition from the state of death to the state of 
 life, which I had been taught in childhood must be 
 effected by an act of God under which the soul is pas- 
 sive, before one could begin to elicit any vital and salu- 
 tary acts — how could I believe or. hope that this had 
 been or would be effected ? Two or three times in my 
 past life, under the influence of religious excitement, I 
 had fancied that certain emotions w^ere an evidence that 
 I had experienced this mysterious change of heart. But 
 when this temporary excitement passed away I had al- 
 ways relapsed into the old state, and I had never even 
 asked to be admitted to the communion. I was not dis- 
 posed to let myself be deluded again by my imagination. 
 In this dilemma I was helped by a statement which my 
 father made, that a baptized person might claim all the 
 privileges of a child of God which are signified by bap- 
 tism, if he were willing to acknowdedge and ratify his 
 ow^n part in that covenant of adoption of w^hich the sac- 
 rament is the sign and seal. This imperfect, lingering 
 remnant of the Catholic doctrine of baptismal regenera- 
 tion is found in the writings of John Calvin himself; and, 
 although mostly ignored and fallen into oblivion among 
 the so-called evangelical sects, it has never wholly disap- 
 peared even from among Calvin's disciples. It was a 
 perfectly new idea to me when I heard my father pro- 
 pose it, as it were casually, in a conversation one Sunday 
 
14 From the Highways of Life. 
 
 evening. It was a very welcome one, for I was only too 
 happy to be allowed to consider myself as a child of 
 God, and to have a definite ground of belief that he 
 would recognize me as such on the condition of exercis- 
 ing filial faith, hope, love, and obedience, with contrition 
 for all former transgressions. I began at once to fulfil 
 my part of the baptismal compact, trusting in the mercy 
 of God for forgiveness and all the grace which I needed 
 in order to live as a Christian and persevere to the end. 
 
 I think that probably I did recover at that time the 
 grace w^hich I had received in baptism, and that from 
 this time forward I was united to the soul of the Catho- 
 lic Church, by faith, hope, and charity, several years before 
 I was received into her outward communion, and formally 
 absolved from all censures and sins which I had incurred 
 since my baptism in infancy. 
 
 As for difficulties and objections relating to particular 
 doctrines, and the sympathies and antipathies which I 
 have before mentioned, such as might seem to have rea- 
 sonably made me pause and examine more carefully 
 where I should find that genuine Christianity which would 
 satisfy my mind and heart, they were in abeyance. Ful- 
 filment of the obligations of baptism seemed to involve 
 allegiance to the discipline and doctrine of my hereditary 
 sect in which I had been baptized. I took it for granted 
 that this foregone conclusion would be ratified and justi- 
 fied by my future study of theology and ecclesiastical his- 
 tory. At the seminary I earnestly endeavored to throw 
 myself into the most thorough and logically coherent sys- 
 tem of Calvinistic theology. As I was intellectually hon- 
 est in this effort, and governed by a paramount love of 
 
From the Highways of Life. 1 5 
 
 truth, the result was that I found the whole system break 
 to pieces under my feet. I did not waver in my belief 
 of the truth of Christianity and of the chief articles of the 
 Catholic creed. But I rejected the Calvinistic doctrines 
 as merely human and spurious additions to the faith, or 
 travesties of genuine Christian doctrines. 
 
 Moreover, I w^as convinced by study that the Protes- 
 tant sects w^hich had organized themselves on the Presby- 
 terian basis had departed altogether from the apostolic 
 and primitive order of episcopacy, so that their claim to 
 be recognized as churches was questionable, and the 
 irregularity of their constitution was certain. 
 
 From this time my respect for the Reformation as a 
 general movement, and for all religious teachers and doc- 
 trines which were its legitimate offspring, was destroyed. 
 I looked toward the Church of the Fathers, to the succes- 
 sors of the Apostles, to that episcopal body which had in- 
 herited the divine commission of teaching and ruling, for 
 the genuine and perfect form of Christianity in respect to 
 doctrine and order. 
 
 This was the time (1840-46) when the rich literature 
 of the Oxford school obtained a wdde circulation among 
 Episcopalians in this country. It obtained many adhe- 
 rents and advocates, and the so-called Anglo-Catholic 
 movement not only rose to a great importance in Eng- 
 land, but attracted general attention and exerted great in- 
 fluence in America. From this source I gained a much 
 fuller knowledge of primitive and Catholic doctrines his- 
 torically and logically connected w^ith the one specially 
 emphasized by the High-Church party — />., the apostolic 
 succession through the episcopate. It is needless to spe- 
 
1 6 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 cify doctrines generally well known as taught in that An- 
 glican school with more or less explicitness and complete- 
 ness — a sort of semi-Catholic system, in its highest degree 
 approximating so nearly to genuine Catholicism that its 
 advocates were regarded by outside observers as ** Ro- 
 manizing." 
 
 Some little time elapsed before I reached the conclu- 
 sion that I must sever my connection with the ministry 
 and communion of the Congregationalist sect. When I 
 arrived at this conclusion I passed over to the communion, 
 and in due time into the lowest order of the ministry, of 
 the Protestant Episcopal Church, where I remained until 
 the early part of the year 1846. 
 
 This had been the church of my boyish reverence and 
 love. I had plenty of relatives and friends in it, and the 
 transition from extreme Protestantism to a Protestantism 
 half-Catholic was not so very violent when accomplished by 
 easy stages. It was not so far a cry from Geneva to Can- 
 terbury as from Geneva to Rome. I did not once con- 
 sider the idea of going to Rome, or expect ever to go there. 
 I thought that what is called in a loose kind of phrase- 
 ology ** the Anglican Communion " was a true branch of 
 the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church, of which the 
 Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Church were also 
 branches , that it had been justly and lawfully reformed in 
 some respects, and was the real continuation of the old 
 Catholic Church of England, although unfortunately es- 
 tranged and separated, in respect to external communion, 
 from its sister-churches and from the somewhat haughty 
 and unkind mother-church of Rome. 
 
 I was loyal and true to my new allegiance so long as 
 
From the Highways of Life, 17 
 
 my conscience permitted me to acknowledge it. I trav- 
 elled rapidly Romeward, following the path of Froude, 
 Allies, Faber, and Newman ; but I did not know where I 
 was going until I suddenly came upon the gate of the city. 
 I never harbored the thought of leaving my ecclesiastical 
 position until within a few weeks of the time when I 
 severed the tie which bound me to it. As soon as my 
 conscience required me to make this severance I ceased 
 to officiate in the ministry and to receive communion. 
 The last time that I officiated as a deacon in the Protes- 
 tant Episcopal Church was on Christmas day, 1845, and 
 this was the last time I communicated. On the following 
 Easter day I made my first communion in the Catholic 
 Church, and one year from that time I was ordained priest, 
 on March 25, 1847. 
 
 Nearly all the study and reading, the personal influen- 
 ces and other circumstances, which determined or affected 
 my religious course in a Catholic direction w^ere Protes- 
 tant. I read very little in Catholic books of the modern 
 period, and had but very rare and slight acquaintance with 
 Catholics, except those w^ho w^ere in a humble sphere. 
 
 There were, however, certain distinctively Cathohc im- 
 pressions made upon me, few in number and at rare in- 
 tervals, which I think worth mentioning. 
 
 At a very early age those texts of the New^ Testament 
 w^hich relate to the Holy Eucharist seemed to me to 
 teach most clearly the doctrine of the Real Presence. 
 Also the texts concerning St. Peter impressed me vividly 
 as teaching the apostoHc primacy of St. Peter and his suc- 
 cessors. Those impressions were never effaced. The first 
 Catholic book of controversy I read was Dr. Pise's Letters 
 
1 8 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 to Ada from Her Brother-in-law y which I found and 
 read in a book-store with a strange kind of delight, though 
 it seemed to me more Hke romance than reahty. Another 
 was The Controversy between Dr. Httghes and Dr. Breck- 
 enridge. I was particularly struck with one sentence in 
 which Dr. Hughes spoke of Catholicism as " a holy but 
 calumniated religian." I thought to myself that very pro- 
 bably most of the evil things I had been taught and had 
 taken for granted concerning that religion were calum- 
 nies, and I never changed my opinion afterwards. Wise- 
 man's Lectures on Science and Revealed Religion indirect- 
 ly increased my respect for the Catholic Church. The 
 edition of which I had a copy w^as published at Andover 
 under the auspices of some gentlemen of the seminary, 
 who thus did a great service by introducing the great fu- 
 ture cardinal and his works to the American public. 
 
 Other writings by Protestants, however, which were 
 very useful and instructive, by giving more correct and 
 enlightened views of the Catholic Church and her great 
 men than those which prejudice and calumny had made 
 prevalent, were Ranke's History of the Popes, Guizot's 
 History of European Civilization, review articles by Ma- 
 caulay and Stephen, Dr. John Lord's lectures, etc. I 
 remember also reading a very curious work by Salvador, 
 a French Jew of the most extreme liberal sort, in which 
 it is very strongly asserted that the Catholic religion is 
 the original and genuine Christianity, while Protestantism 
 is only a huge blunder. I have heard other intelligent 
 Jews say that if they were convinced that Jesus is the 
 true Messiah they would not hesitate a moment to join 
 the Catholic Church. 
 
From the Highways of Life, 19 
 
 The first time I ever entered a Catholic Church I was 
 taken to the old St. Patrick's Cathedral of New York by 
 my father. The first time I was present at High Mass 
 was while I was a student of the East Windsor Semi- 
 nary. I did not understand the ceremonies very well, but 
 it seemed to me that the Mass was the most august and 
 suitable form of the worship of Almighty God, and it re- 
 minded me of the pictures of Jewish ceremonial in Cal- 
 niefs Dictionary^ with which I had been familiar in child- 
 hood. This was in St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York. 
 Father Starrs was the celebrant, and Dr. Hughes, who 
 was then in his prime, preached the sermon. The next 
 day I went to prayers at the General Theological Semi- 
 nary, and for the first time the service seemed flat and 
 tame. 
 
 A scrap of Arabic poetry, quoted by Mr. Palgrave, 
 runs thus: 
 
 " Not by chance the currents flow : 
 
 Error-mazed yet truth directed, to their certain goal they go." 
 
 It may seem strange to some that the currents did not 
 bear me straight into the Catholic Church instead of by 
 the bend of AngUcanism. Yet, strange as it is to the 
 view of those who stand in a position to see the bend, 
 others who are in it do not perceive the curvature. I did 
 not regard the Anglican communion as a sect separated 
 from the Catholic Church. Neither did I regard it as the 
 entire Catholic Church, and therefore look on the Roman 
 and Greek Churches as sects in separation. If I may 
 illustrate my concept of the Church by a figure taken 
 from a material temple, I looked on the Roman Catholic 
 Church as the choir and nave, the Greek Church as a 
 
20 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 great transept, and the Anglican Church as a side-cha- 
 pel with its porch opening on another street. As I was 
 born, bred, and then dwelling on that street, it was more 
 natural and easy to go in by this side-porch to the cha- 
 pel than to go all the way around to the grand front 
 entrance. If the chapel was served by priests, and one 
 could have the sacraments and other privileges of the 
 Church in it, he would not need to pass through into the 
 nave or to distress himself because the passage was 
 barred. 
 
 So long as one holds such a vague and imperfect con- 
 ception of the essence of the Catholic Church, he can ap- 
 proach indefinitely near to it in his other conceptions of 
 doctrine and discipline without perceiving any practical 
 reason for passing over to the Roman communion. The 
 late Leonard Woods, Jr., D.D., and others have made a 
 similar approximation, and have still remained — some for 
 a long time, some until death — in one of the various 
 Presbyterian churches. So long as one considers that 
 intellectual, moral, and spiritual community in ideas, sen- 
 timents, sympathies, together with the reception of the 
 Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, in what he 
 conceives to be a valid and lawful manner, make up the 
 essential bonds of Catholic unity — i.e., that the tie which 
 binds is invisible — he can agree with the Church of Rome 
 very closely in faith, and love her devotedly, without 
 thinking of stirring from his nook in the Protestant sect 
 he belongs to. He may recognize the apostolic origin of 
 the limited primacies of Alexandria and Antioch and the 
 universal primacy of Rome, and may lament and con- 
 demn in great part the so-called Reformation. And yet 
 
From the Highways of Life. 2 1 
 
 he will not admit that he is a heretic or even a schisma- 
 tic, as he is held to be in the foro externa of the Roman 
 Church. 
 
 The one practical and decisive point which is the pivot 
 on which all turns is this : There is but one flock and 
 one shepherd, the successor of Peter, and those bishops, 
 priests, and people who are under his supreme pastoral 
 episcopate. All who are not in this fold, whether they be 
 genuine sheep and lambs, or wolves in sheep's clothing, 
 are only scattered aliens and wanderers. There are bish- 
 ops, priests, and baptized Christians in great numbers 
 who are outside the fold of Peter. But although these 
 are gathered into com.munities, and even though their 
 doctrine may be in great measure in accordance with the 
 Catholic faith, none of these communities are organic'por- 
 tions of the Catholic Church. Even on the supposition, 
 therefore, that the Protestant Episcopal Church, through 
 the Church of England, had preserved the apostolical suc- 
 cession and an external connection with the ancient Cath- 
 olic Chuich in England, and had retained the essentials 
 of the faith, this would not suffice to establish the claim 
 which is made for it by its so-called Anglo-Catholic mem- 
 bers. It is not enough to profess the Catholic faith, to 
 have received Baptism, to be a member of a religious so- 
 ciety whose clergy have received a valid ordination. The 
 law of Christ requires, moreover, that we should profess 
 the faith and receive the sacraments in the one true Church 
 whose pastors have a lawful authority under the supreme 
 jurisdiction of the Chief Pastor of the Universal Church, 
 the successor of St. Peter. 
 
 As I have said, I was about three years in reaching this 
 
22 From the Highways of Life. 
 
 conclusion. At first I regarded the Anglican branch, as I 
 esteemed it to be, of the Catholic Church as being, in 
 its ideal theory according to the interpretation of the most 
 advanced High-Churchmen, the nearest to the primitive 
 standard. Next to it w^as the Greek Church, and the 
 most removed, by human additions and alterations, the 
 Roman. By a gradu-al change I came to regard, first the 
 Greek Church as the nearest to the model of ancient 
 Christianity, and afterwards the Roman. The Anglican 
 "branch," of course, fell away from its high place in my 
 estimation more and more, as the most imperfect and 
 anomalous of all the divisions of Catholic Christendom, 
 just barely excusable from the charge of schism and 
 heresy. The party with which I sympathized looked back 
 to the epoch before the separation of East and West, and 
 looked forward to an epoch when a reunion would take 
 place, by means of an oecumenical council, when Rome 
 would abate her pretensions, modify and correct some 
 points of her doctrine and discipline, and open the way 
 to a universal reconciliation and reconstruction of Chris- 
 tendom. Briefly, and in a matter-of-fact statement, this 
 is a project of bringing Rome down to the level of Con- 
 stantinople, and all the Eastern and Western dissidents 
 up to that level. Anglicans and other Protestants have 
 often shown a hankering after fellowship with the Greeks 
 on account of their middle position between Rome and 
 Canterbury. One of the schemes for attaining this fellow- 
 ship was the location of a bishop with a small staff of 
 clergy in Constantinople to cultivate the friendship of the 
 Melchites and other Eastern sects. Dr. Southgate was 
 appointed to this mission, and he requested me to accom- 
 
From the Highways of Life. 23 
 
 pany him, which I consented to do ; but my appointment 
 was not ratified by the Missionary Committee, who dis- 
 trusted my CathoHc tendencies. While I was expecting 
 to go on this mission I had a conversation on the sub- 
 ject with Dr. Seabury. The doctor inquired whether we 
 expected to persuade the Greeks to change any of their 
 doctrines and to conform in any respect to those of the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church. I repHed that I supposed 
 the basis of agreement must be laid on the foundation of 
 the first six councils, and that the Greeks would have to 
 give up the seventh, and their doctrine and practice con- 
 cerning the cultus of the Virgin Mary, the saints, and 
 images. Upon this the doctor argued very strongly and 
 conclusively that the same reasons which establish the 
 oecumenical authority of the first six councils equally avail 
 for the seventh, and that on Catholic principles the Angli- 
 can Church had no case against the Greek Church. It is 
 plain enough that the same argument logically carried 
 out concludes for the oecumenical authority of the coun- 
 cils of Lyons and Florence, and proves that the Greeks, 
 and a fortiori the Anglicans, have no case against the 
 Roman Church. 
 
 There were other things said by Dr. Seabury which I 
 cannot distinctly remember, the effect of his whole con- 
 versation being to set my mind on a course of thought 
 and reading which carried me onward to the last position 
 which I rested in, so long as it seemed to be tenable. 
 It has been, and still is, a position occupied by a certain 
 number of the so-called Orthodox Orientals and Western 
 Protestants — viz., that certain Christian communities sepa- 
 rated from the communion of the Roman Church are in 
 
24 From the Highways of Life. 
 
 an irregular and anomalous condition, a state of secession 
 and revolt which is wrong and unjustifiable, but not de- 
 structive of the essential Catholic unity, the organic iden- 
 tity of what they call the universal church in all its parts 
 and members, which, though severely wounded, are not 
 severed. It is argued in this plea that individuals are not 
 responsible, and not to blame for the misfortune which 
 was caused by the sins of their ancestors. They may, 
 and even ought to, remain where they are, desiring, pro- 
 moting, and waiting for corporate reunion. 
 
 Surely this notion that the Roman Catholic Church 
 and the Protestant Episcopal are essentially one and the 
 same is chimerical, and needs only an exercise of common 
 sense to vanish like a bubble. However, we who were 
 playing an ingenious dramatic performance as Catholics 
 were living in a visionary, and not in the real world. It 
 needed time and hard blows to break the spell of illu- 
 sion. 
 
 In my case experience proves that our Catholicism 
 was an affair of books, of the imagination, of a certain 
 set of individuals, and not the genuine religion of the 
 Church of England and the American sect which has 
 chosen for itself the name '' Protesta7it Episcopal." These 
 communities are Protestant, although, along with extreme 
 rationalism, they tolerate a kind of Catholicism. They 
 are not only estranged from the Roman Church, but en- 
 gaged in an " irrepressible conflict " with it. I soon per- 
 ceived in my bishop (Dr. Whittingham) an intensity of 
 animosity against the Roman Church which was really 
 violent. He, like many others of his kind, was anxious 
 to make proselytes, and when one fell into his hands he 
 
 i 
 
From the Highways of Life, 25 
 
 would reconfirm him. This is but one instance among a 
 multitude of facts which prove that a cordial sympathy 
 with the actual, informing spirit of the Protestant Episco- 
 pal Church is in diametrical opposition to the Catholic 
 spirit. 
 
 I will not analyze more minutely the process which 
 wrought my total and final severance from the Protes- 
 tant connection. 
 
 John Henry Newman had just been received into the 
 Catholic Church. I had been sent to a plantation in 
 North Carolina, with symptoms which threatened a fatal 
 issue within a few months. During that winter I had 
 leisure to mature the results of the study and thought of 
 the several preceding years, and with the strongest possi- 
 ble motive to make a decision which would endure the 
 test of the divine truth and justice. From the last spit 
 of sand on which I had found a temporary footing I made 
 the leap across upon the Rock, an act which, of course, 
 I was only enabled to make by a special aid of divine 
 grace, but which, none the less, I consider as a perfectly 
 reasonable act, and one which can be justified on the 
 most satisfactory rational grounds. 
 
 In the foregoing pages I have sketched the progress 
 of my religious convictions from Protestant Christianity 
 pure and simple, in the form commonly called *' orthodox " 
 and "evangelical," through the middle ground of ** High 
 Church " and ** Anglo-Cathohc " Episcopalianism to the 
 perfect and integral Christianity of the Catholic, ApostoHc, 
 Roman Church. 
 
 The justification of this process in a rational sense con- 
 sists simply in this : that it is consequent and logical from 
 
26 From the Highways of Life. 
 
 the premises that God is; that the Godhead is in the 
 Person of Christ ; that Christ has proclaimed and estab- 
 hshed a rehgion of doctrines and precepts which is ob- 
 Hgatory, universal, and perpetual in a manner which is 
 certainly authenticated. 
 
 In respect to these premises there was no process to 
 be narrated, since I- began with and from them as un- 
 doubted certainties. Neither does a formal justification 
 of the process of concluding the logical result from the 
 admission of the premises belong to a mere piece of 
 psychological history. I have not in view to prove the 
 validity of the inferences which I draw from the assumed 
 premises any more than to prove the truth of these 
 premises. I aim only at relating the manner in which the 
 process went on in my own mind. And, in conclusion, I 
 will sum up by a simple statement of my own religious 
 convictions and beliefs as they are now, the result of 
 nearly fifty years of study and thought, taking in the 
 Theistic and Christian premises as well as the Catholic 
 conclusion. I do not doubt my own ability to make a 
 satisfactory justification of all these convictions by evi- 
 dence and reasoning, and I have heretofore written a 
 great deal on several points of this argument of justifica- 
 tion. But just now I merely intend to indicate the theses, 
 and the order in which they are arranged in the general 
 conspectus, which I should undertake to defend if I were 
 writing a complete treatise of apologetics, and which I 
 am convinced have been amply defended by many men of 
 greatly superior intellect and knowledge to my own mod- 
 erate measure of these endowments. I mean this in re- 
 spect to what is essential and substantial, for in respect to 
 
From the Highways of Life, 27 
 
 details and those relations which change with the varying 
 conditions of times, there is always a new labor of progress 
 and adaptation to be carried on, w^hich is never actually 
 complete and finished ; just as in the case of the science of 
 military defence and attack there has been a continual 
 change and improvement in artillery and fortification. 
 
 The general conspectus is included within the terms of 
 three theses : 
 
 First. Every rational and instructed man ought to be- 
 lieve in God. 
 
 Second. One who believes in God ought to believe in 
 Christ and his revelation. 
 
 Third. Whoever believes in Christ and Christianity 
 ought to believe in the Catholic Church, whose centre 
 of unity and seat of sovereignty is the Roman See of 
 Peter. 
 
A CONVERT FROM JUDAISM. 
 
 HE subject of this sketch was born over fifty 
 years ago in London (West End), England. 
 Her parents were Jews, who adhered strictly 
 to the precepts of their religion, and possess- 
 ed an abundance of the goods of this world. She re- 
 ceived a good Scriptural name, and her surname was that 
 of a near friend of our Lord of whom frequent mention is 
 made in the New Testament. She was the seventeenth 
 child in a family of eighteen, and was born blind. Un- 
 der the care of an able surgeon, after nine operations, she 
 could see imperfectly, with the aid of glasses of extraordi- 
 nary power. She was taught to read and write and sew, 
 but was never skilful in these accomplishments. During 
 her childhood her father m^oved with his family to the 
 Island of Jamaica, giving her at this time a house and 
 land, that on account of her affliction she might be well 
 provided for. This property was taken from her when, a 
 few years later, her father settled in New York and met 
 with financial reverses. 
 
 Books were her chief diversion, and she read all that 
 she could find, even borrowing of the servants, who were 
 often of the Catholic faith. These books, being mostly de- 
 votional, aroused her interest, to such a degree that she 
 sought a Catholic church and attended the services day 
 after day, hoping to learn more of this religion, to which 
 she was so strangely attracted. She literally haunted the 
 
 churches, stealing away from her home and returning at 
 
 28 
 
From the Highways of Life, 29 
 
 all hours. Finally, approaching- a priest, the Rev. Dr. Cum- 
 mings, pastor of St. Stephen's Church, and confiding her 
 difficulties to him, she asked for instruction in the Catho- 
 lic faith. Dr. Cummings very kindly placed her in charge 
 of his sister, a saintly woman, who gave her all possible 
 aid in her search after truth ; ministering also to her 
 temporal needs, of which she was quite unmindful. 
 
 With characteristic impatience she asked to be re- 
 ceived into the church without delay, which Dr. Cum- 
 mings promised on condition that she would fii;st inform 
 her parents of her intention — a most difficult task, as she 
 well knew the bitter opposition that would follow. After 
 earnest deliberation she decided upon the following plan. 
 One morning, before starting for Mass, she told one of 
 her sisters that she was about to become a Catholic, ob- 
 taining her promise that she would communicate the fact 
 to her father and mother. Having thus satisfied her con- 
 science, she returned with a light heart, informing Dr. C. 
 that she had done as he required. He therefore at once 
 baptized her, and she became a happy Christian, filled 
 with faith and zeal for the Church. Making no effort to 
 conceal her joy, when at home she sang hymns to the 
 Blessed Virgin and practised devotions most unacceptable 
 to a Jewish household. But she bore the sign of the 
 cross, and each day brought new trials. She cheerfully 
 fasted all day in order to receive Holy Communion, leav- 
 ing her home before the family were up and returning when 
 she would be unobserved at evening. One comfort after 
 another was taken from her, until at last she was forced 
 to seek temporary refuge elsewhere. Through Dr. Cum- 
 mings's kindness she was sent to a convent in Canada, 
 
30 Frofn the Highzvays of Life, 
 
 where a home had been offered her ; but after a few months 
 her father asked for her return to his home, promising 
 to care for her and allow her the privileges of her reli- 
 gion. He was extremely urgent, and she journeyed home 
 again, only to find a renewal of the experience of the 
 past. 
 
 She was again deprived of religious liberty, and again 
 left her father's house, this time never to return, except- 
 ing occasionally to see her mother, and at her father's 
 death. She was evidently unwelcome, and became as a 
 stranger to her brothers and sisters. She was unwilling 
 to receive the shelter of any institution, public or private, 
 and tried in various ways to -earn a living, working hard 
 but seldom with success. A voice of rare power and sweet- 
 ness was her one gift, but, without the means of culti- 
 vating it, was of no practical use to her. Among her 
 business enterprises was a newspaper stand, but being 
 oblivious to all that did not appear to her in the direct 
 line of vision through her extraordinary glasses, her box 
 was often emptied of her earnings by mischievous boys 
 while she was receiving money from her customers. She 
 was for several years nursery governess" in a Catholic family, 
 where the children were greatly attached to her. She 
 had for a while the care of infants from the foundling 
 asylum. She kept a small store, selling books and various 
 useful articles, but owed more in the end than she ever 
 received. Always working,/always poor, and always ac- 
 tive in charities, she served our Lord in those less fortu- 
 nate than herself, and received from her religion the great 
 consolations usually accorded to so zealous a Christian. 
 When apparently without resources of any kind, I learned 
 
From the Highways of Life, 3 1 
 
 one day that she was paying the rent for a woman in de- 
 stitute circumstances who had several small children and 
 a husband who was numbered among the ''unworthy 
 poor," for whom she probably begged. 
 
 All her life she would give of the little she possessed, 
 excepting fine wearing apparel ; when this fell to her lot, 
 she accepted it as her natural inheritance. She never 
 begged for herself, but sometimes borrowed small sums 
 when she had fasted for several days and hunger com- 
 pelled her. Those of other creeds asked : " Why does 
 not the Church take care of her ? " But she would be 
 cared for in her own way, and kind Catholic friends as- 
 sisted her, one lady paying her rent for many years that 
 she might enjoy her own little home, humble though it 
 was. Others helped her in various ways, most unexpect- 
 ed assistance arriving in times of her greatest need from 
 people far away whom she had not seen for years. One 
 day, wishing to visit a friend who lived at a distance, and 
 having no money, she went to the station and sat among 
 the waiting crowd. I do not know why she did this, as 
 it is quite contrary to the usual custom of people under 
 the circumstances. After a while, to her surprise, she 
 saw beside her on the seat a small roll of bills, and, 
 seeking an owner for it among those who sat near her, 
 she was assured by all that it did not belong to them 
 and that she had probably dropped it. The sum was 
 just what she needed, and as no one claimed it she joy- 
 fully purchased a ticket and took the train for the de- 
 sired destination. Her Jewish traits were always pre- 
 dominant, tempered and softeneA by her frequent recep- 
 tion of the Sacraments of the Church. During the latter 
 
32 From the Highways of Life. 
 
 years of her life she was afflicted with a painful and in- 
 curable disease. Her strength gradually failing, she was 
 confined to her bed and dependent entirely upon the chari- 
 ty of friends ; occasionally she informed me that she was 
 sometimes deprived of the only article of food she could 
 eat, even on one occasion being obliged to return it to 
 the grocer because^ she could not pay for it. At this junc- 
 ture her brothers and sisters came to her relief, and aid- 
 ed her to procure the comforts she needed. Her brother 
 selected a room at the Astor Hospital, it being consid- 
 ered best to remove her to that place. She reluctantly 
 consented to the change under the impression that it was 
 a Catholic institution. She was greatly distressed on dis- 
 covering her mistake, and begged to be taken to her 
 brother's house. But her stay was brief, as she died with- 
 in a week. 
 
 Two days before her death one of her former pupils 
 was impelled to go to her, a distance of many miles, 
 without knowing of her extreme illness nor of her remov- 
 al to a hospital. She was overjoyed to see her young 
 friend, who, finding her so near her end, informed her old 
 confessor, who hastened to her bedside, heard her confes- 
 sion, and requested the parish priest to give her the last 
 Sacraments. In order to reconcile her to her new 
 surroundings, her sister had been advised not to visit 
 her for a day or two, so she died as she had lived, 
 away from kindred and friends, but strengthened and con- 
 soled by the Church she had loved so well and for 
 which she had forsaken father and mother and all 
 who had been dear to her in early life. She had 
 been cared for as the lilies of the field, though she had 
 
From the Highways of Life, 33 
 
 tried to " toil and spin," and I trust she is now enjoying 
 an eternal home, "not made with hands," such as "eye 
 hath not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into 
 the heart of man to conceive," and rest such as God 
 gives to those who suffer patiently for him and serve 
 him faithfully on earth. The funeral of this poor girl 
 took place at the church in Ninety-seventh Street. Two 
 m.en bore the coffin within the door, where it was met 
 by the white-robed priest and an acolyte bearing a cen- 
 ser, who proceeded up the aisle, and following the coffin 
 were the Jewish relatives of the deceased, also two Pro- 
 testant and two Catholic friends — a most remarkable pro- 
 cession, and one never to be forgotten. It occurred to me 
 that our Lord could not but be pleased to see so many 
 children of Israel, his chosen people, assembled in his 
 church to show respect and affection for one of their own 
 who had left them to become his disciple. These relatives, 
 with one exception, followed her to her grave in a Cath- 
 olic cemeter}% having ever}^thing done according to the 
 ritual of the Church, her brother paying the expenses of 
 her funeral. May our dear Lord reward them with the 
 greatest of all gifts — the gift of faith ! 
 
 ir^iX^ 
 
HOW AN ANGLO-CATHOLIC BECAME 
 A ROMAN CATHOLIC. 
 
 O one born a Catholic, a Ritualist is a speci- 
 men , of the gejius homo altogether outside 
 the pale of his understanding, and, generally, 
 of his interest. A good, honest, uncompro- 
 mising Protestant can at once and without difficulty be 
 classified and defined as such; a Greek schismatic is a 
 Greek schismatic ; but a Ritualist, to use a somewhat vul- 
 gar but expressive proverb, is *' neither flesh, fowl, nor good 
 red herring." The name of Protestant is an insult to his 
 dignity ; a Romanist he is not. What is he ? According 
 to his own definition, he is an Anglo-Catholic, a member 
 of the third and purest branch of the universal church ; 
 according to that of his enemies. Catholic and Protes- 
 tant, he is a Protestant masquerading as a Catholic. Mas- 
 querading is perhaps a harsh word, for many, very many 
 Ritualists are most sincere, earnest men ; but the word 
 will suit our present purpose. 
 
 A Ritualist, be it remembered, differs toto coolo from an 
 old-fashioned High-Churchman, and among themselves 
 every individual *' priest " and layman differs from the 
 others. They had their origin in the famous Oxford move- 
 ment, but have in the last twenty-five years adopted very 
 generally doctrines and practices which were not con- 
 templated by the first Ritualists. One word in their favor, 
 and then this introduction may come to an end: they 
 have, by means of their "ornate services," accustomed 
 
 34 
 
From the Highways of Life, 35 
 
 the Protestant Englishmen, of all men the most bigoted, 
 to ritual, and very advanced ritual, and have been the 
 guide of many wandering, restless souls into the one fold 
 of the Catholic Church. 
 
 The subject of the present sketch was born a member 
 of an extremely Protestant and Evangelical family. Up to 
 the age of eighteen he was influenced by no High-Church 
 surroundings, but kept most strictly to the very lowest of 
 Low churches, with a Presbyterian and an Independent 
 chapel as the only permissible alternative. Being of an 
 imaginative, poetic, and intensely impressionable disposi- 
 tion, his whole soul revolted against the bare, cold, un- 
 adorned ritual of the Evangelical school. On several oc- 
 casions, while supposed to be attending worship at the 
 Presbyterian chapel on the " Sabbath " evening, he was 
 present, by stealth, at Vespers and Benediction at the ora- 
 tory of the Sacred Heart in B , his native town, or at- 
 tending *' choral evensong " at the High Church of St. 
 Peter. The old proverb about stolen pleasures was amply 
 fulfilled, though apart from the lights, music, and vest- 
 ments the services in both cases were more or less "in 
 an unknown tongue " to him. In the following year, 1879, 
 he was sent to school in Rhenish Prussia, w^here the taste 
 for Catholic ritual acquired by stealth in B was fur- 
 ther developed by frequent attendance at High Mass and 
 Solemn Vespers. The w^hole bent of his mind led him to 
 extreme reverence, to such an extent, in fact, that he was 
 taken by the peasants for a most devout Catholic. All 
 this time, however, he was utterly and entirely ignorant 
 of all Catholic, and even of all High Anglican, teaching. 
 His own mind, guided doubtless by the Spirit of God, 
 
36 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 led him to some vague, mystic comprehension of the mys- 
 tery of the Real Presence, for even in a Scotch Episcopal 
 chapel during his summer holidays he made a humble 
 obeisance every time he passed the altar, as he already 
 termed it. 
 
 In 1880 he was sent, much against the grain, to an 
 extreme Low-ChQrch college or seminary in London to 
 prepare for the ministry of the Gospel. Here, however, 
 he was fortunate enough to find two kindred spirits who, 
 like himself, revolted against the narrow bigotry and the 
 cold, bare, unadorned services of the Puritan school. 
 These two men, now clergymen in the Anglican commu- 
 nion, taught him the first rudiments of dogmatic theology, 
 that part at least which the High Anglicans have inherited 
 from the Catholic Church. In company with his friends 
 he visited, in secret, such churches as St. Alban's, Hol- 
 born; St. Faith's, Stoke Newington, and others, where he 
 heard ** advanced " dogmatic sermons such as might liter- 
 ally have been preached from Catholic pulpits. In the 
 summer of the same year he went to the Highlands of 
 Scotland, w^here he w^as thrown continually into the so- 
 ciety of two High-Church clergymen. Following their ad- 
 vice, he procured and studied carefully Sadler's Church 
 Doctrine — a book which then and for some years after 
 fully satisfied his mind as conclusive. He thus became, 
 in the fullest sense of the word, a Ritualist, accepting a 
 large measure of Catholic truth, but stopping short of 
 " Roman " doctrines. 
 
 In the autumn of 1881 he was again in B , his 
 
 health having failed through over-study in the close air of 
 London. He then for the first time, moved by some un- 
 
From the Highways of Life, 37 
 
 defined impulse, went to see a Catholic priest, who 
 
 was then in charge of the oratory at B . The 
 
 conversation was long and interesting, though he was 
 too earnest and confirmed a Ritualist to derive from 
 it any immediate benefit. One remark of the Father's 
 did, however, remain in his mind, and to it he at- 
 tributes, in a great measure, his ultimate conversion. It 
 was : '* With your knowledge of Catholic truth, you can- 
 not possibly be saved unless you become a Catholic." In 
 December, 1881, he went to Australia and Tasmania, be- 
 ing absent ten months, and being employed as a " lay 
 reader " in the Anglican communion. His duty was to 
 conduct service and to preach in an outlying mission cha- 
 pel. The preparation of his sermons led, as a matter of 
 course, to the closer study of theology ; but having, un- 
 fortunately, no better guide than Sadler, he only became 
 confirmed in his erroneous opinions. The bias of his own 
 mind led him, however, to hold doctrines the most ex- 
 treme which could possibly be held while remaining an 
 Anglican. The first and most important of these was, 
 naturally, a firm, earnest belief in the Real Presence, and, 
 in addition, a great devotion to the crucifix. On return- 
 ing to England in October, 1882, he was sent, to complete 
 his theological studies, to a High-Church college this time, 
 in a Wiltshire country town. Here Sadler again formed 
 the standard of dogmatic theology; but frequent, fasting 
 communions, Compline every evening, Sext every Saturday, 
 and the example of fellow-students made him, if possible, 
 a more extreme RituaHst than ever. 
 
 In April, 1884, his health again failing through over- 
 study, he was sent to M , in Canada. The end, though 
 
38 From the Highways of Life. 
 
 he did not know or even suspect it, was now drawing 
 near, when all his wanderings in barren pastures were to 
 end in the fold of the one true Church. So long as he 
 
 remained in M- under the influence of a very earnest 
 
 " extreme " Ritualist, with services after his own heart, he 
 was perfectly satisfied with the claims of the Anglican 
 communion to be ^ branch of the Catholic Church. When, 
 
 however, circumstances took him to O , where the 
 
 High Church was only " moderate," where disputes, bick- 
 erings, and scandals vexed the church, he began to grow 
 restless and dissatisfied, and to look longingly and wearily 
 at the perfect unity and discipline of the *' Latin " Church. 
 Human influences and the terrible strength of old associa- 
 tion deterred him yet a while longer from taking the de- 
 cisive step. At length, in the summer of 1885, he paid a 
 
 long visit to a devout Catholic family living near M . 
 
 Here he was surrounded by unseen Catholic influences, 
 which drew him nearer and nearer to the truth. He re- 
 mained none the less a consistent Anglican to the last, 
 always attending the services of his own church, and never 
 going to Mass or even joining in the family's prayers. A 
 chance conversation with a French priest once more startled 
 him with a fresh difficulty. Setting aside altogether the 
 
 question of the validity of Anglican orders. Father D 
 
 referred him to the universal consensus of the Fathers, 
 " Ubi Petriis ibi ecclesia,'' adding, " Even if your Anglican 
 orders are valid, you are none the less schismatics." 
 
 The struggle was long, fierce, and bitter. On one side 
 were peace, rest, and infallible truth ; on the other old as- 
 sociation, the ties of family and friendship, traditional sen- 
 timent, and human affection. But the end was very near 
 
From the Highways of Life. 39 
 
 at last. Returning to M m September, he was 
 
 desired by his Anglican *' director " to prepare for con- 
 fession by a retreat of three days. Kneeling humbly 
 before a crucifix, he began in all seriousness and de- 
 votion to prepare for the solemn " sacramental confession," 
 praying most earnestly to the Spirit of Truth to guide 
 him "into all truth." All the old difficulties came back 
 in greater force than ever, and, almost in despair, he 
 sought an interview with a Jesuit. He too avoid- 
 ing all discussion of the validity of Anglican orders, 
 raised a fresh difficulty, the question of '* jurisdic- 
 tion " — a question familiar to the inquirer after truth from 
 the study of dogmatic theology. He referred the matter 
 in all honesty to his director. The answer w^as that it 
 was "too long a question to go into now," but, added 
 he, " if a man begins to doubt his salvation in the 
 Church of England, the sooner he leaves it the better " 
 — good, sound advice surely, coming from a Ritualis- 
 tic " priest " to an anxious, doubting penitent. Needless 
 to say that the subject (and writer) of this paper followed 
 it at once. He put himself under the Jesuit father's in- 
 struction, and ten days later, September 28, 1885, had 
 the unspeakable happiness of receiving the " one bap- 
 tism " of the "one faith" of the "one Lord." 
 
OUT OF CALVINISM INTO TRUTH. 
 
 OU ask me to write an account of my conver- 
 sion, but, in truth, I think it is hardly worth 
 telling. If there is anything peculiar about 
 it, it ,is that what made me a Catholic w^as 
 what first made me a Congiegationalist ; my joining 
 the Catholic Church was but the compktion of that 
 act. This happened when I was nineteen years old. I 
 was born and brought up in a New England village, 
 my parents being of exemplary lives ; but my father 
 never joined church, and my mother did so only when 
 I was about eleven years old. I saw her baptized 
 in the orthodox church, and it was a great event to 
 me, being the earliest of my strong religious impres- 
 sions. Of course I considered myself as too young to 
 become a Christian, but hoped that God w^ould spare me 
 till I was old enough : there is no use for children in 
 Calvinism. At the age of nineteen I professed religion 
 and was baptized. The Bible was the cause of it. I 
 read it from earliest childhood, and, after the ripening of 
 my faculties, followed the rational process of discovering 
 the truth, proving Christianity historically and then Scrip- 
 turally, not the least argument, however, being the need I 
 found of it to keep the natural law of God. The Pil- 
 ^rhns Progress had a powerful influence on me, which 
 has ever remained — a book full of truth, of graphic nar- 
 rative, proving the need of repentance for sin. 
 
 I cannot remember that when 1 stood before the church 
 
 40 
 
From the Highways of Life, 41 
 
 committee for examination, to be admitted to membership, 
 I had a single heresy. I beheved what Christ revealed, 
 and I repented of my sins. This belief and repentance I 
 affirmed and explained to the committee with the deepest 
 sincerity, keeping" nothing back. I was accepted and 
 deemed worthy of baptism and membership, and was ac- 
 cordingly baptized. 
 
 This was a truly marvellous awakening in my life ; 
 the powerful graces then received, and the emotions 
 aroused within m.e, were the chief cause of my becoming 
 a Catholic afterwards. 
 
 I had nothing of Congregationalism in particular, but 
 only Christianity in general, yet orthodox, as we say of it 
 in New England to distinguish it from Unitarianism : hold- 
 ing the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Redemption as taught 
 in Scripture. On the hot points of human depravity, pre- 
 destination, and justification by faith alone, the church 
 committee did not examine me much. I w^as sound and 
 right on them, in the Catholic sense. As to eternal pun- 
 ishment, I believed it as firmly as Bunyan, and the ne- 
 cessity of escaping from it by faith and works. No re- 
 vival meeting had anything to do with my joining; the 
 human side of the work w^as all my ow^n. I felt perfect- 
 ly satisfied, and was convinced I had the true Christian 
 religion. And I do not think that I held explicitly to 
 any error. My whole frame of mind was shaped by the 
 Scripture. I remember that I believed firmly in baptismal 
 regeneration, because the Lord said he that believeth and 
 is baptized shall be saved. I did not know enough of 
 the Catholic Church to form any belief about it. 
 
 When, then, did my mind begin to stir on that ques- 
 
42 From the Highzvays of Life, 
 
 tion ? In my last year at college, to which I went short- 
 ly after ** becoming a Christian." Somewhere about Christ- 
 mas a college mate, a member of the Baptist Church, 
 called me aside and said : " I very much fear that I am 
 not right in my religion, and that the Catholic Church is 
 true." I replied : *' The matter is well worth investigat- 
 ing." It flashed upon me that perhaps my friend's doubts 
 were well founded. I began to study the big question 
 that very evening. The very next morning I went to the 
 miserable little Catholic book-store of the town, kept by 
 a lame man, and bought a Catholic prayer-book. Key of 
 Heaven, also The Mission- Book of St. Liguori, Challon- 
 er's Catholic Christian Instructed, and the Little Cate- 
 chism. This last was the first Catholic book I ever read. 
 Challoner I read through and found of immense help. 
 The Mission-Book helped me greatly ; I learned from it 
 that the Catholic religion is primarily interior. I expected 
 to find it mainly external. I found that for every ceremony 
 or practice sanctioned by the Church there was a reason 
 that was interior and intrinsic, and that the interior was the 
 primary object of the exterior. Right after this I read the 
 Pope and Maguire discussion, and found it useful. It was 
 lent to me by a young Catholic friend at college, since 
 then become a man of much distinction. 
 
 Another impulse, and at about the same time, came 
 from the history class. Our professor, a learned and dis- 
 tinguished man, w^as also honest with us. In the course 
 of my private study I came to know that in the fifth cen- 
 tury the pope was universally recognized in Christendom 
 as the successor of St. Peter; this was the teaching, too, 
 of our professor. Then I asked myself. Can I suppose 
 
From the Highways of Life, 43 
 
 an error on such a fundamental point believed by all 
 Christians, universally ? That cannot be. All Christendom 
 cannot err. They could not so err even humanly speak- 
 ing; four hundred years after Christ men had means of 
 knowing w^hat his Apostles taught as good as we have 
 of knowing what the first Reformers taught. They were 
 within hand's reach of the primitive Christians and still 
 in the heroic age of the religion of Christ. 
 
 What helped me all through that winter of study, ar- 
 gument, and prayer (for I prayed to God for light con- 
 tinually) was my Bible training. I had not been mis- 
 taught by my use of Scripture. I had got no errors from 
 the Bible, and it gave me no trouble in my investigations. 
 I never was an infidel. Nor had I much difficulty on the 
 score of human respect. My parents were ever kind, my 
 prospects in life were entirely undefined. I knew I had 
 to earn my own living, and I have always done it. My 
 main thought in all religious matters w^as the one that 
 took hold of me when I read Bunyan and joined the or- 
 thodox church. / was determmed to save my soul. 
 
 Yet I had a struggle ; my greatest difficulty was Papal 
 InfalHbility. My early surroundings had kept the Papal 
 question so entirely out of my way that the bearings of 
 Scripture on it had not arrested my attention. It was 
 just after the Vatican Council and the air was full of dis- 
 cussion. Although the Catholic doctrine of Infallibility is 
 as plainly in the New Testament as the Trinity is, yet I 
 spent many hard hours of debate with myself and others 
 over it. 
 
 Just here it was that I came in contact first w^ith Cath- 
 olics. I had played sometimes with a little Irish boy at 
 
44 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 school, and had known a few Irish laborers in our town, 
 and never had thought what their religion might be. Now 
 I began to look around for Catholics, and found two of 
 them, students in the college. One of them helped me 
 somewhat, explaining to me the doctrine of the Sacra- 
 ments intelligently. I never needed anything more to 
 believe that doctilne than to have it explained. Mean- 
 time the struggle about infallibility went on. Finally I 
 called on the bishop of the diocese (I remember it was 
 on Saturday) and asked him plumply: ** Can one become 
 a CathoHc and not believe in infallibility ? " " No," he 
 answered. ** Was the Vatican Council free ? " I asked, 
 knowing that the bishop had attended it. " Yes, it was," 
 he answered ; and yes he answered when I questioned 
 him as to whether that subject had been freely and suf- 
 ficiently discussed. This had a good effect on me. 
 
 Then I carefully read a book against infallibility, Qui- 
 rimis I think it was called — a book something like the 
 famous Janus. I saw that the book was unfair and fal- 
 lacious from beginning to end. I then visited a priest of 
 the city to whom the bishop had referred me. During a 
 course of several interviews we settled down to the study 
 of the typical case of Pope Honorius, fully and elaborately 
 going through the whole evidence, and at the end I was 
 completely settled in favor of the doctrine of infallibility. 
 An article in The Catholic World, by Rev. Augus- 
 tine F. Hewit, on the apostasy of Dr. Dollinger, helped 
 me very much. Rev. J. Kent Stone's Invitation Heeded 
 fell into my hands, and by the time I got through with 
 it I was as much a Catholic as I am to-day. 
 
 I was received into the Church in rather a public man- 
 
From the Highways of Life. 45 
 
 ner, the evening before I graduated, reciting the creed of 
 Pius IV. with as Uttle misgiving as the Lord's Prayer, 
 and have been in the same state of mind ever since. I 
 had had no agonies of mind in my progress to the full 
 truth, but much rational questioning of mind. Yet there 
 is one book, The Aspirations of Nature y by Rev. I. T. 
 Hecker, which, if I had had it, would have greatly smoothed 
 my way. I had more than enough of Scripture proof; 
 this book would have put Catholicity on a rational basis 
 to start with. I was really a Catholic all my life and 
 did not know it, being anchored in the Scriptures all 
 through. 
 
 It is always a curious question how much nature and 
 grace have relatively to do with a conversion. In my case 
 I am inclined to think that a special grace w^as given me, 
 because I remember, before going to college, attending a 
 lecture on the Church by an intelligent priest, which sim- 
 ply had no manner of effect whatever in inducing me to 
 examine Catholic claims. 
 
 Not to have become a Catholic when I did would have 
 been apostasy from my vows of baptism as a Congrega- 
 tionalist, and from the principles I learned in Bunyan; a 
 particularly wilful apostasy from my allegiance to Holy 
 Scriptures, and a most grievous sin. If I had not then be- 
 come a Catholic, I am persuaded I should thereby have 
 done something to shut the door of heaven against me 
 for ever. 
 
 My great difficulties were really moral ones. In the 
 course of my search I soon perceived that Catholicity is 
 a hard religion, and I was distressed with the dread that 
 I should not have the courage to live up to my conscience. 
 
46 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 How can I persevere, I thought, in that high moral Ufe 
 which this faith demands ? I conquered this difficulty (I 
 say it in no boastful spirit), as St. Augustine did, by 
 prayer. 
 
 I found my first confession very difficult and every con- 
 fession since has been difficult to me, but always benefi- 
 cial. Whose experience has not been similar, from St. 
 Augustine, yes, from Magdalen, to this day } The hard- 
 ness of the Catholic religion was a dominant impression in 
 my mind ; I was convinced that I had got as hard a re- 
 ligion in my day as Anthony of the Desert had in his. I 
 also found a difficulty in accepting fellowship in a society 
 ruled by Irish bishops and priests, as St. Augustine did in 
 St. Ambrose and the bishops and priests of his day, and 
 a fair share of the same consolations. I have got along 
 famously, but, being a Yankee, in a rather dry way. 
 
MY TWO CONVERSIONS. 
 
 T is a simple story, perhaps not worth writ- 
 ing, but how I would wish to make its 
 recital an act of thanksgiving to the good 
 God ! I was brought up in a family where 
 religion was thought but little of. My mother had at 
 one time professed the Episcopal faith, but for many years 
 had neglected it and had relapsed into that most deplor- 
 able condition of soul — indifferentism. When but a tiny 
 little girl I remember lisping the Hail Maiy at my 
 nurse's knee, for our servants were Catholics. All honor 
 be to Catholic servants ! God only knows how many con- 
 versions are wrought through the memory of the prayers 
 they taught their little charges, and the effect of their ex- 
 ample and influence. 
 
 My mother, feeling that I needed some religious train- 
 ing, sent me to a Lutheran Sunday-school not far from 
 our home. But many a time I would secretly attend Mass 
 with my Catholic nurse, instead of obeying the maternal 
 directions. I was a delicate child and ill-health prevented 
 me from attending school regularly. When it was possi- 
 ble I would leave the house unobserved and visit our Lord 
 in the tabernacle. I was then scarcely eight years old. 
 Gradually one desire began to possess me : to become a 
 Catholic. The desire grew daily, it absorbed my thoughts. 
 I become a Catholic ! But how ? I once timidly attempted 
 to broach the subject to my mother, but was frightened 
 by her almost violent opposition. I never endeavored to 
 
 47 
 
48 From the Highways of Life. 
 
 pursue the subject farther. For months I waited, and 
 meantime I fairly haunted the CathoHc church. I did not 
 have courage to speak to one of the priests. At last our 
 Lord showed me a way to come to him. Leaving the 
 chapel one day, a sweet-faced lady approached me and 
 smilingly asked me if I would say a prayer for her inten- 
 tion. Here at la^t was an opportunity to speak to a Catho- 
 lic who, perhaps, might aid me. " Oh, yes ! " I answered, 
 "but I'm not a Catholic ! " " No ? " '* Oh ! could you please 
 tell me where I could get a rosary ? I have saved all my 
 pennies. I have a prayer-book, but I want a rosary so 
 much." She took me around the corner and showed me a 
 convent, and promised if I would come there the following 
 day she would leave a rosary for me with the portress. 
 To-rnorrow was long in coming. I felt that I was draw- 
 ing nearer to God as I stood upon the steps that led to 
 the convent door. I procured the rosary, chatted with the 
 portress, told her of my great desire to become a Catholic, 
 and was most cordially invited to call again ; an invitation 
 I gladly availed myself of. Oh ! the many excuses I made 
 to leave our house. The fondness I suddenly developed 
 for playing with all the children I knew in the neighbor- 
 hood ! Anything to get to the convent, where I knew I 
 would receive aid. The nuns were kind, very kind. It 
 was remarkable, they said, to see a child so persistent in 
 her endeavors to become a Catholic. I again met the 
 kind lady who gave me the rosary. She and her friends 
 became much interested in me. 
 
 I insisted on being baptized. Of course they objected. 
 They did not feel as though they could do so without my 
 mother's consent. And it would be useless to endeavor to 
 
From the Highways of Life, 49 
 
 procure that. I did not know if I had ever been baptized. 
 If they did not have me baptized, I said I would go some 
 place else. I was determined ; baptized I must be. Fin- 
 ally, after many entreaties on my part, and much earnest 
 thought on the part of my friends, I was made a child of 
 God ; the lady who gave me the rosary acting as sponsor. 
 I was but nine years and six months old. My friend's 
 kindness did not end here ; I must make my First Com- 
 munion. After being duly prepared, a day was named. I 
 stole from our home before five o'clock one morning, car- 
 rying under my arm a white Swiss dress that was to serve 
 as the dress of the first-communicant. I found my friends 
 awaiting me. White shoes, veil, gloves, etc., articles that 
 I could not easily procure myself, were furnished by them. 
 A prie-dieu was placed in the centre of the convent chapel, 
 the father w^ho baptized me said Mass, and I received my 
 First Communion, the Bread of Angels. Returning home, 
 I met my mother at the front door ; she fancied I had 
 been to the Catholic church, and w^as extremely annoyed. 
 Unfortunately there dropped from my dress, where I had 
 concealed them, a prayer-book and catechism. I received 
 a sound scolding for what she supposed my misdeeds, but 
 she never suspected how much I had accomplished to- 
 wards my eternal salvation. 
 
 All went well for over a year. I went to school and fol- 
 lowed my rehgion faithfully. But after a while I became 
 careless, and lived in continual fear of my mother dis- 
 covering what I had done. And discover it she finally did. 
 Returning from school one day, I found her awaiting me 
 with the question, if it was true that I had been baptized 
 in the Catholic faith ? Tremblingly I confessed it. She 
 
50 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 seemed to consider it a crime, and laid the blame on the 
 innocent shoulders of our Catholic help, who, fortunately 
 for them, were no longer with us. I was sent miles away 
 to my aunt's home, where I was carefully watched over. 
 When I returned home I resumed my studies. I had for- 
 gotten the practice of my religion, or at least lost all de- 
 sire to do so. 
 
 After leaving school, and growing weary of the monoto- 
 nous home-life, I resolved to go upon the stage, and I be- 
 came an actress. I travelled, of course, almost incessantly. 
 Being seldom at home, and having but few friends with 
 me, I was often very lonely. How deeply I regret to say 
 that the Catholic faith had faded, seemingly, quite out of 
 my soul ! Yet I longed intensely for something higher, 
 holier than the world gave me. I began by going to church 
 on Sunday — to Protestant churches, of course. At that time 
 it did not make any difference. '* One religion is as good 
 as another " had become a maxim with me. Even when 
 it happened that I was travelling with Catholics, I never 
 went to their church. Many weeks passed thus. At 
 last God gave me the grace to hear his voice more 
 clearly. 
 
 It was in St. Louis, Mo. Very near the hotel I was 
 stopping at is an old Catholic Cathedral, corner of Third 
 and Walnut Streets, I believe. I went there, God alone 
 knows why, but the church was empty; there were no 
 services that afternoon. But the Blessed Sacrament was 
 there; something forced me to kneel when I passed be- 
 fore it. Then I remembered the time when I knew 
 more of this religion. Mass, Confession, Communion rose 
 confusedly before my eyes. Our Lord was speaking to 
 
\ 
 
 From the Highways of Life, 5 1 
 
 my heart, but that heart was still too worldly to listen. 
 But take one step towards God and he hurries forward 
 with outstretched arms to meet you. A week after that, 
 my first visit to the Blessed Sacrament in many years, 
 my Catholic friend with whom I was travelling began to 
 speak of religion. Once, several months before, she had 
 asked me to what church I belonged. I had answered 
 Episcopal. She laughingly told me that it was a tradi- 
 tion of the Church that if one said a thousand " Ave 
 Marias " from Spy Wednesday until Good Friday our 
 Blessed Lady would obtain by her intercession any rea- 
 sonable request we might demand of her. I mentally 
 resolved to say the " Aves." But a difficulty arose. I did 
 not have a rosary. But I could purchase one. The 
 following week we were in St. Paul, Minn. There I 
 purchased my rosary. Then the thought came, it must 
 be blessed. I wandered through the streets hoping to 
 find a Catholic church. I did not have the courage to 
 inquire for one. I passed a church, in front of which 
 was a large sign bearing the words, ** Prayer-meeting 
 during Lent every day at one o'clock." I entered ; it was 
 the church of a Methodist congregation, and many were 
 present. The almost fanatical fervor of the people 
 startled me. After the meeting closed, seeing that I was 
 a stranger, they clustered around, asking my name and 
 cordially shaking hands with me. At last I met the 
 pastor and had a long talk with him. The substance of 
 it was that he advised me to read the New Testament 
 and give myself up to Christ. Accordingly I read part 
 of the New Testament. I felt miserably. I desired 
 something. I wished to do something. I did not know 
 
52 From the HigJnvays of Life, 
 
 what. God's Holy Spirit was calling me ; I did not 
 know how to respond. 
 
 Travelling a great deal, I had but little time to spare. 
 But finally I found myself again before the Blessed Sac- 
 rament. I began to read prayer-books left in the pews, 
 and to make the Way of the Cross. At last I found 
 strength to answer God's voice. I would return to the 
 Church. I was a Catholic. I could return through the 
 sacrament of Penance. I began to prepare. And at 
 last, on the eve of Passion Sunday, kneeling before the 
 vicar-general of a large Western diocese, I received the 
 grace of forgiveness and the precious absolution of my 
 sins. Many kind words were said to me ; Thomas a 
 Kempis and a Challoner's catechism were given to me. 
 
 Then the struggle began in earnest. I feared I had 
 taken too hasty a step. There were so many things I 
 could not understand. But wherever I went I met kind 
 priests ; one in Ohio, whom I particularly thank for the 
 many hours of instruction and for the valuable books he 
 so kindly gave me. Little by little the mists cleared 
 away, and there was light — the wonderful light of God's 
 truth. When I again saw the dear friends who had 
 done so much to aid my conversion when I was a child 
 they told me how they had prayed for me. Though I 
 had wandered their prayers had followed me. May the 
 Sacred Heart reward them for all their kindness ! May 
 the good God bless the dear fathers who have for their 
 motto " Omnia ad majorem Dei gloriam," who first 
 brought me into the bosom of Holy Mother Church, and 
 who taught me when a child to know the Saviour, who 
 saith " Suffer little children to come unto me ! " 
 
FOUND IN A NEWSPAPER. 
 
 FEW years ago there cime to a house in 
 Texas a parcel wrapped in a newspaper. 
 The son of the house took up this wrap- 
 per in an idle moment and found it to be 
 a Catholic weekly. 
 
 All that he had heard of Catholics led him to believe 
 them to be a ** hard lot." Perhaps he had an ill-defined 
 notion that priests and nuns are not without horns. He 
 had read when younger a story of what purported to be 
 Mexican life, in which story much mention was made of 
 the ** adoration of the Virgin." He connected, in a way, 
 the Virgin of the story with Mary, the Mother of Jesus. 
 The goddess, as he called her, of the book interested him 
 deeply. He wondered much about her, and w^ould have 
 been glad to learn something more of her, instinctively 
 knowing that it would be useless to ask for information 
 from his kinsfolk or his friends. 
 
 All remembrance of the *' goddess " had not left him 
 when he took up this Catholic newspaper to read. The 
 first article to m.eet his eye was entitled ** What Catholic 
 Devotion to Mary is." He read and reread the article, 
 and for the first time understood something of what is 
 meant by the Incarnation of God the Son. And, he says, 
 the thought came to him in the words of Elizabeth, for 
 he is a diligent reader of the Scripture, '* W^hy is it that 
 the Mother of my Lord should come unto me ? " From 
 babyhood he had heard much of a saving faith in Jesus, 
 
 53 
 
54 Fro7n the Highways of Life. 
 
 Little by little, not all at once, it dawned on him that he 
 did not in the least know in what this saving faith con- 
 sisted* He blamed himself for his want of knowledge, 
 and with lowliness of heart went to his minister to be 
 instructed. 
 
 It would be impossible to put in words his amazement 
 when he discovered that the minister was as knowledge- 
 less as himself — more so, for he was enlightened some- 
 what by the article on devotion to Mary. He was told 
 to believe, and when he asked, " Believe what ? " he was 
 told to have faith. " Faith in what ? " he repeated, and 
 there was reproach in the tone of the voice that said, 
 " Are you not a behever ? " It was a circle ; and he 
 might have likened it to the buggy-wheels he saw from 
 the minister's window spinning along over the parched 
 road, scattering dust that choked and blinded. One text 
 of Scripture was now constantly in his mind : " Lord, I 
 believe ; help thou mine unbelief." 
 
 The theme of the newspaper article spoken of was 
 that of the Incarnation. The word was not a new one 
 to him. The Theosophic " craze " had mildly attacked 
 his native town. Much, at that time, had been spoken in 
 his presence of the incarnation of Buddha, and he heard 
 many inquiries as to what is Buddhism. He never heard 
 any one condemned for seeking an acquaintance with this 
 religion, and he heard many regrets that the works of 
 the disciples of Buddha w^ere not more easy of access. 
 ** For," these seekers into untruth said, " wx would get 
 just what they believe from the works of Buddhists." 
 
 Of the Incarnation of God the Son he knew nothing, 
 neither had he ever heard it spoken of. It is true that 
 
From the Highways of Life, 5 5 
 
 Christmas day was kept in the Sunday-school and at 
 home. No one, however, associated the day with the 
 Word made Flesh. At the Sunday-school there was a 
 Christmas-tree, and the superintendent, disguised as Santa 
 Claus, distributed gifts to the children. Never a word 
 was said of the Child, cradled in a manger, w^ho gave 
 that day a name and a reason for being. He sought 
 hopelessly to find out what in reality the doctrine of the 
 Incarnation is. There w^as reason for his hopelessness. 
 All he learned from his anxious inquiry was that Jesus 
 Christ as man was not at all God, though the Second 
 Person of the Blessed Trinity is. It w^as then he heard 
 of the Unitarians, and he thought them more logical 
 than were his acquaintances. 
 
 The soiled newspaper he held on to. It was precious 
 to him. Not that he had any thought of becoming a 
 Catholic, but he w^as grateful to it for having roused in 
 him a desire to know better that Jesus in whom he had 
 been told so often to believe, and who he felt he must 
 believe was God. One day he asked a friend did Catho- 
 lics believe in Jesus. He was told they did, but that 
 they adored Mary. The article on devotion to Mary was 
 very far from countenancing any adoration of her. 
 Remembering this, he denied that CathoHcs adored Mary. 
 "But they call her Mother of God," this one said tri- 
 umphantly. 
 
 It puzzled him greatly. He could not understand. If 
 Jesus was God, and Mary his mother, why was it wrong 
 to call her so? You see, he believed in the God-man; 
 the one to whom he spoke did not. He went back to 
 his newspaper. In the article that interested him was a 
 
56 From the HigJizvays of Life, 
 
 petition, ** Mary, pray for me." A thought came over 
 him to pronounce these words aloud. How would they 
 sound ? He said them with awe and cold shuddering. 
 In his ignorance he felt as though he had pronounced an 
 incantation. Not for long this. After a little while he 
 added the petition to his daily prayers. 
 
 It was now th^t he became curious to know some- 
 thing of Catholic belief. He received no encouragement 
 in the search after knowledge that he undertook. He 
 was advised not to tamper with anything Catholic. The 
 words Papist and Romanist were seldom used in his 
 town. Catholic was considered sufficiently contemptu- 
 ous. Indeed, to call one of his townsmen a Catholic 
 would have been as great an insult as you could offer 
 him. When he persisted he was offered works on the 
 Church by the Church's enemies. He said he would pre- 
 fer to have some books by Catholic authors. It was 
 sweetly innocent in the youth to believe that such books 
 would be given him. No, he was told, that would never 
 do. He would find nothing but lies in such books. 
 Catholics never told the truth about themselves. He 
 thought of the w^orks of the disciples of Buddha. But he 
 said nothing. There was an advertisement of a spare 
 number of Catholic books in his newspaper. For these 
 books he sent. 
 
 Many days had to pass before these books could come 
 to him, and he spent them, advised to do so, in search- 
 ing the Scripture. He had been used to read his Bible 
 daily, having a superstitious notion that every such read- 
 ing must necessarily advance him a step nearer heaven. 
 Now he read to learn. The wonderful first chapter of 
 
From the Highways of Life, 57 
 
 St. Luke's Gospel spoke to him as it had never spoken 
 before. He had read of the God Incarnate having 
 founded a church, but, Uke most of his *' persuasion," 
 attached Httle or no meaning to what he read. It be- 
 came clear to him now that not only had a Church been 
 founded, but that that Church was to endure for all time. 
 Not for a moment did he believe that this Church was 
 one of the w^arring sects about him. Neither did it yet 
 come to him that the Church of the Scripture was one 
 and the same with the Catholic Church. 
 
 His reading prepared him for The Faith of otcr 
 Fathers, the first of the books sent for that he read. 
 This book to him was a revelation, and a perfect one. 
 It now became nigh impossible for him to restrain his 
 indignation w^hen he heard the Church behed. Yet much 
 restraint on his part w^as necessary. He wished to be 
 further instructed in the one living faith. Had he let it 
 be known whither he was tending, obstacles that for him 
 would have been insurmountable would be laid in the 
 way of his getting knowledge. Secrecy was a thing 
 altogether hateful to him, and he suffered as an early 
 Christian suffered, forced to mole in the ground, to keep 
 hidden within him th^ precious faith confided to his care 
 till such time as he should be called on openly to con- 
 fess it. His time had not yet come. Come it would, he 
 knew, and he must patiently bide its coming. 
 
 Guided by further advertisements found on the fly- 
 leaves of his books, he procured other Catholic works. 
 These last were as carefully read as had been the first. 
 His diligence was admirable. He was very anxious to 
 meet a priest. No priest dwelt in his town ; as far as he 
 
58 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 knew, no priest had ever put foot in it. The nearest one 
 to where he Hved was some forty miles away. Greatly 
 to his joy, something happened which caused him to 
 visit the town where this priest dwelt. He had discov- 
 ered that of the idolatries and foolishnesses attributed to 
 Catholics not one was believed in or practised by them. 
 With other false ideas went the revolting picture that 
 had been limned for him of a Catholic priest. His imag- 
 ination drew for him another picture, of a falseness also. 
 He expected to meet with an angelic being. What he 
 found was a little old gentleman busily reading a black 
 bound book, clad in a long black garment which he won- 
 dered at, never having seen the like before. A whim- 
 sical thought struck him that at any rate it was not the 
 notorious scarlet robe. 
 
 Father A , without pausing in his reading, motioned 
 
 him to a chair. He sat down, a repulsed feeling over- 
 coming him. This feeling of repulsion was quickly 
 succeeded by a complacent thought that when the priest 
 knew what he came for there would be an opening of 
 arms. And he made to himself a pleasant enough 
 picture of his being welcomed as was the prodigal son. 
 The picture was not very clear as to the killing of the 
 fatted calf, for he could not readily conceive in what the 
 
 calf in this instance was to consist. At last Father A 
 
 laid down his breviary and listened to him state his case. 
 When he had ended the priest leisurely wiped his spec- 
 tacles and replaced them on his nose. Then he spoke 
 seriously and with deep reverence of God's great good- 
 ness in putting into this youth's heart a desire to know 
 the Truth ; of the immense favor it is to be one of 
 
From the Highivays of Life, 59 
 
 Christ's fold ; advised prayer and reading Catholic books ; 
 regretted that the youth lived at such a distance from a 
 Catholic church. Having said all this, the priest gave 
 him his blessing and bade him good morning. He left 
 the priest a wiser if not yet a happier youth. He had 
 learned the lesson that all converts have to learn — that 
 they can give nothing to God's Church, but that they 
 have everything to get from that Church. 
 
 Very different w^as this interview from what he 
 
 remembered of X , who left the Primitive Methodists 
 
 to become a " Hard-Shell Baptist." There had been tea- 
 
 drinkings for X , and a reception ; and he was called 
 
 Brother X , and everybody seemed to think that a 
 
 great event had taken place when X became a 
 
 "H. S. B." He desired no tea-drinkings nor any of the 
 
 other good things that had come to X , but, more 
 
 than he had any idea of*, he had looked for a warm 
 reception because his father was what the newspapers 
 call a " prominent citizen." His cheeks glowed with 
 shame because of his impertinent self-esteem, and he 
 saw his little personality dwindling into utter insignifi- 
 cance before that tremendous, everlasting fact, God's 
 Holy Catholic Church. 
 
 There had been much of alloy in the preciousness of 
 the humility with w^hich he had searched into the mys- 
 teries of the faith. It was a truer humility that guided 
 the search he continued, that governed his successful at- 
 tempt at instructing himself for the step he was deter- 
 mined on more than ever, of becoming a Catholic. He 
 was now in his nineteenth year, and his father deter- 
 mined to send him to college. The youth, with what was, 
 
6o From the Highways of Life, 
 
 perhaps, incipient ** Jesuitical craftiness," asked that he be 
 allowed to choose the colleg-e to which he should be 
 sent. His father gave his consent to this, not promising 
 lightly or because he w^as a careless father, but be- 
 cause he had confidence in his son's judgment. In 
 the newspaper which he so highly prized and so care- 
 fully preserved the' youth found the advertisement of a 
 Catholic college in an adjoining State. With many mis- 
 givings he told his father of his wish to go to the Catho- 
 lic college. To his astonishment, his father not only con- 
 sented but actually commended him for his wise choice. 
 ** The professors at this college," he said, ** are good 
 teachers, and," he added tersely, ** they'll keep you clean." 
 In a few weeks, to his not unmingled happiness, he found 
 himself in a college where all were Catholics ; that college 
 in a town where every man, woman, and child was of 
 the one fold. His happiness was only incomplete because 
 he was not as those about him were, but he consoled 
 himself with the thought that in a few days he would 
 not be the only one there without a wedding-garment. 
 
 What was his dismay when, on speaking to a priest 
 of the college about his wish to be baptized, he received 
 a decided repulse partaking somewhat of the nature of a 
 rebuff. He was told that, although sufficiently instructed 
 to be baptized, he had not his father's consent. He was 
 not of age, and before anything could be done that con- 
 sent must be obtained. He went to the president of the 
 college, only to meet with a like repulse. He was told 
 to write for his father's consent, though such writing, it 
 was added, would probably bring a summons for him to 
 return home. 
 
From the Highways of Life, 6 1 
 
 He was miserably unhappy. He almost long-ed that 
 there might be some truth in those vast mendacities, per- 
 petrated on silly, credulous folk, of inquisitorial assem- 
 blies that forced one, whether or no, into the Catholic 
 Church. In the absence of such convenient congregations 
 he saw nothing for him to do but to write to his father. 
 This he did. The answer to his petition was a refusal 
 dowmright ; a letter to make him sad, for he saw that 
 his father was sad. Other letters were written on both 
 sides, letters that seemed to have but one result — to make 
 him all but hopeless. 
 
 He suffered much. He was tortured w^ith envy of 
 others for the blessings they had, though some of them 
 held their treasures lightly — blessings in which he could 
 have no part. It was bitter anguish for him to remain 
 away, shut out from the Holy Communion his compan- 
 ions could so freely receive. At last a day came, in an- 
 swer to many prayers, that brought a letter containing 
 his father's consent. 
 
 Happy was he in his baptism, and happy is he in the 
 possession that has been given him ; happy in being an 
 instrument of good to others. In that house where he 
 had had uncanny notions of priests, in that house where 
 the first glimpse of God's great Light of Faith met his 
 spiritual gaze, in that house — the town lacking a church 
 — God's priests have entered, and there have offered more 
 than once the unceasing sacrifice. Holy Mass. 
 
 It may be objected by some one who may read this 
 true narration that the ignorance of those outside the 
 Church concerning the mystery of the Incarnation of the 
 Son of God has been exaggerated. That it has not will 
 
62 
 
 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 be sufficiently proved if such a one would put the ques- 
 tion, " What is the Incarnation ? " to almost any non- 
 Catholic ; or, if this one be not a Catholic, let him put 
 the question to himself. He will find that he is virtually 
 a Nestorian. The writer of this, while yet himself a Pro- 
 testant, heard on two different occasions preached from 
 a non-Catholic pulpit the doctrine that Christ could sin, 
 and a portion, at least, of the two congregations found 
 this a consoling doctrine — " it makes Christ so much more 
 like us." This is blasphemy, but not the writer's. 
 
 It is as true to-day as it was in the days of the Coun- 
 cil of Ephesus that he who denies the Mother denies the 
 God-Man. 
 
THE PRAYERS OF THE POOR. 
 
 MUST preface my remarks by saying that, 
 
 as most of those who are described herein 
 
 are still living, fictitious names of persons 
 
 and places will be substituted for the real 
 
 ones ; with this exception every word is true. 
 
 We were a happy little party of young men and boys 
 who used to meet on Friday evenings at No. 69 Prince 
 
 Street, in the city of A -. At No. 69 was the boarding 
 
 and day school of the' Ritualistic parish of (I shall say) 
 St. Alban's. The head-master, whom I shall call Mr. 
 Mountain, was a layman who wished to found an order 
 of teaching-brothers like those in the Catholic Church. 
 He met with little or no encouragement, however, and it 
 is just as well that he did not, because otherwise he 
 might never have had the time to consider, as he has 
 since done, his duty of submitting to the Church of Christ. 
 The boys of the school were about twenty, all told. 
 A number were English-born like Mr. Mountain, and 
 several of them were his wards. Two or three clergymen 
 besides myself — I was an Episcopal minister — were always 
 considered as belonging to the little coterie who gathered 
 there once a week to eat apple-dumplings, play games, 
 and enjoy an hour or two of interesting conversation. 
 Our chat was often about the Catholic Church and her 
 claims, and I am sure that at that time each one of us 
 was in the best of faith in holding our errors, and had 
 the truth been presented then very likely would have 
 
 63 
 
64 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 been too much blinded to have recognized it. It is of 
 the conversions which have follow^ed among us since that 
 time that I propose to write. 
 
 My own was the first. Owing to certain difficulties it 
 was decided to close the school, and Mr. Mountain and his 
 w^ards, with a number of other boys, went to the West 
 and began ranch-iife. I was thus deprived of their con- 
 genial and pleasant companionship and thrown on myself 
 far more than I had been before, and, owing to the 
 prayers and Masses which were being constantly said for 
 me, I received the great grace to become a Catholic 
 about six months after our school was closed. I say 
 nothing of the details of my ow^n conversion, as it was 
 the ordinary dreary road through Ritualism. 
 
 There was a poor Irishwoman who used to come to 
 the school every week to scrub, and I have since learned 
 that she, seeing our feeble efforts to be Catholics, devot- 
 ed herself to praying for our conversion. There were 
 many others of the same class — the poor, servants, labor- 
 ing men, and others who were acquainted with us ; these 
 faithful children of God, of whom such a multitude are 
 members of the Catholic Church, w^ere greatly interested 
 in our struggles toward the light, and offered up many 
 prayers for us. The poor old scrub-woman is since dead, 
 but in the words of one who knew her, ** No doubt she 
 is rejoicing in heaven with the angels of God at the con- 
 version of those for whom she prayed so much on earth." 
 
 A few weeks after I had been received into the Cath- 
 olic Church I had the happiness of visiting the Thres- 
 hold of the Apostles, in company with one of the young 
 men from the school. He was the second convert. He 
 
From the Highways of Life, 65 
 
 received the grace in this way : One evening we were 
 discussing rehgion, and I remember that he was very 
 bitter against the Pope and InfalHbility. " How," said he, 
 " can a man of himself teach me all truth ? " 
 
 ** He cannot," I replied, '* but in this case the Holy 
 Father is promised the assistance of the Holy Spirit, and 
 speaks not of himself, but of the Spirit of God, who 
 speaks by him." 
 
 ** I don't believe it," he answered, " and it is because 
 he has claimed such a blasphemous power that God has 
 punished the Bishop of Rome by allowing the Italians to 
 possess the city." 
 
 Seeing that there was no use of any further words on 
 the subject, I said : '* Very well, let us end our discussion 
 right here. I believe, and you do not. You are going 
 to see him whom you have abused to-night in his own 
 city, a captive in his palace. I hope you will not have 
 so bad an opinion of him when you return after to-mor- 
 row's ceremony." 
 
 The next morning, after rising early and donning the 
 customary dress-suit required, my friend went away shortly 
 after breakfast. I heard Mass as usual and prayed to the 
 blessed Mother of God for the conversion of him who 
 was so bitter against the Church. It was the anniversary 
 of the coronation of the Holy Father, celebrated in the 
 Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. 
 
 At lunch those of our boarders who had been at the 
 function were enthusiastic in their admiration. All were 
 agreed that they had been wonderfully impressed. "But 
 what was the cause of this great impression ? What 
 made it all so grand .^ " 
 
66 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 ** Oh ! it was the peacock fans," cried one. ** No, it 
 was the w^ay in w^hich the Pope was carried in his chair," 
 said another. ** I think the music had more to do with 
 it than anything else," remarked a third. And a fourth 
 was of the opinion "that it must be the way they dress 
 the Pope with the tiara and vestments." 
 
 It w^as quite am'using, and at the same time not a 
 little disgusting, to listen to these absurd reasons for the 
 great impression w^hich had been produced on these 
 sightseers. But happening to look at the face of my 
 young friend, I saw that he shared my feelings in no 
 small degree. I was surprised. 
 
 We had agreed to go and visit the catacomb of St. 
 Domatilla in the afternoon. So we provided a good sup- 
 ply of candles and, taking a carriage, started off. " Well, 
 what impressed you the most this morning ? " I asked, 
 imitating the flippant tone of those people who had been 
 discussing the subject. *' Please don't ! " he answered. 
 "I believe that Leo XIII. is the Vicar of Christ." He 
 then went on to tell me that after the Mass, when the 
 Pope was being carried out, the procession stopped for a 
 moment, and that the Holy Father, being close to him 
 as he knelt, had looked down into his face and blessed 
 him. "Yes, he blessed me; he looked into my eyes and 
 blessed me/*' 
 
 Oh ! how proud he was of that blessing. A few 
 months after, having been duly instructed, he was received. 
 This was convert number two from our circle of school 
 friends. Number three was destined to be the head- 
 master himself, Mr. Mountain. 
 
 About six months before I became a Catholic, as al- 
 
From the Highways of Life, 67 
 
 ready related, the school was closed, and Mr. Mountain 
 and several of the older boys moved to one of the States 
 in the far West to engage in ranching. There, after 
 about three years, Mr. Mountain at last made up his 
 mind to do as we had done, and late in the fall of the 
 year he rode on horseback over eighty miles to be re- 
 ceived. When he arrived the priest of the station had 
 gone, leaving word that he was to be away for a month, 
 and the poor man journeyed back again to wait till the 
 winter was over. Then he went to the capital of the 
 State, and there made the act which he had been wait- 
 ing so long to make. A few years ago he departed this 
 life far away in the wilderness, unattended save by strangers 
 and with no priest to give him the last Sacraments. 
 Pray for him ! 
 
 Among the number who used to meet at *' 69 " was a 
 young man of twenty, who went West about a year after 
 Mr. Mountain and lived a short distance from him, and 
 whom I will call Harry. Meantime, the friend of my travels 
 in Europe joined Mr. Mountain at his ranch. Harry was 
 one of the liveliest and best-natured of all the boys, full 
 of life, wit, and at the same time possessing the rare 
 quality in persons of his temperament of not giving of- 
 fence by his antics. The same fall he was stricken down 
 with fever, and it came to the time when he was called 
 to leave this earth. My friend of the Roman experience 
 was by, and to him Harry said : " I want to be a Catho- 
 lic, as you are ; I want to become a Roman Catholic 
 now that I am dying." And so the waters of baptism 
 flowed over his soul, and he went to join the band of 
 intercessors in heaven. He is number four. 
 
68 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 The fifth one was the "Httle boy" of the school, and 
 one who was considered almost too frail for this world. 
 But years work wonders with children, both in body and 
 soul. He lived with Mr. Mountain, and now rides his 
 horse with the best of them and does his day's work 
 with the stoutest. But, better still, he has written me 
 that he could not rest until he had come to us. And 
 so at last he, as the crown of a long and tedious jour- 
 ney, received baptism. 
 
 These two — my Roman convert and " the little boy " — 
 are now scattered, and although miles from any priest 
 and without the opportunity of frequenting the Sacra- 
 ments, yet they are faithfully trying to sanctify themselves. 
 
 Our prayers have reached around the world, and we 
 have no doubt but that they had their part in obtaining 
 the conversion of one who, though not of our little band, 
 yet was indirectly connected with us, and whose conver- 
 sion has set the tongues of many of his sect to wagging. 
 
 So I have tried to show how Almighty God answers 
 prayer. Our humble Catholic friends begged our con- 
 version of God and we were converted. We have perse- 
 vered, not only in the faith but in praying for the con- 
 version of the other members of our little circle, and we 
 have won glorious victories. The work is not yet done ; 
 it still goes on, and I hope some day to be able to chroni- 
 cle the conversion of all of our school and many of the 
 friends and relations of the boys. 
 
 And now, Deo gratias ! I beg the prayers of all who 
 may read this sketch for those of our friends of **69" 
 who are yet in darkness, that their good fortune may be 
 to soon come to the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
 
CONVERSION OF A JEWISH FAMILY. 
 
 R. C was a Jewish gentleman of excellent 
 
 education and estimable character, a lawyer 
 of high repute in one of our principal towns. 
 He was married to a Protestant lady, and a 
 little family had begun to bless their household, when a 
 young infant daughter was suddenly seized with a mortal 
 illness. A Catholic young man who was studying law 
 
 with Mr. C proposed to the alarmed parents that 
 
 they should ask a Catholic priest to baptize the child, 
 holding out to them the hope that, if this were done, the 
 child would recover. 
 
 Neither one of them was a strict adherent to the 
 forms of religion which they nominally professed, and 
 both immediately assented to the young student's 
 proposal, glad to do anything which might be the 
 means of rescuing their beloved infant from immi- 
 nent death. The father went in haste to the house of a 
 priest and begged him to come at once to baptize his 
 child, promising him that if it lived it should be carefully 
 brought up in the Catholic religion. The child was bap- 
 tized; God had regard to the simple faith of the young 
 man who had promised its recovery, and to the parental 
 affection of the father and mother, to which God seems 
 to have added an incipient faith, and the infant was 
 restored to health. It lived a year, as if to show that a 
 reprieve from death had been granted solely for the pur- 
 pose of convincing the parents of the supernatural effect 
 
 69 
 
yo From the Highways of Life. 
 
 of the Sacrament. At the end of the year it again sud- 
 denly sickened and died. The father took from its neck 
 a ribbon with a Httle medal attached, and always devoutly 
 wore it as a sacred souvenir of the little child of God 
 who had been so wonderfully made a Christian and 
 taken home to the t^osom of the Father in heaven. Mrs. 
 
 C was received into the Church, and all her other 
 
 children were baptized. 
 
 From this time Mr. C appeared to be in con- 
 viction and in heart a Catholic. He was always 
 solicitous that his family should practise faithfully 
 the duties of their religion. During his wife's ab- 
 sence on a visit he had a little oratory fitted up and 
 tastefully decorated for the private devotions of the pious 
 mother and her, children. He often knelt there himself 
 before the shrine of our Lady and recited her Litany. 
 Regard for his aged Jewish parents and for the other 
 members of his family was the reason which he always 
 gave for declining to be baptized and to formally profess 
 his faith in Christ. Practically he was a Catholic cate- 
 chumen all the rest of his life. 
 
 It is thirty-five years since the writer of this nar- 
 rative heard it from the persons concerned, and he has 
 
 lately learned that before his death Mr. C received 
 
 all the Sacraments of the Church. 
 
 I 
 
A DESCENDANT OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS. 
 
 HE Story of my conversion ! Why it was so 
 simple it would not be worth telling. 
 
 This was my reply when the suggestion 
 was made to me ; but I was still asked to 
 consider it, and, thinking, it came to me that it might 
 be an act of gratitude for so great a grace, and so I 
 began to write. 
 
 In my youth I was far enough away from the Catholic 
 Church. *' A daughter of the Puritans " — for my ances- 
 tors crossed in the Mayflower — I only knew of the 
 Church to feel a supreme pity for her children as ignor- 
 ant, idolatrous, and superstitious. How I had acquired 
 these ideas I cannot tell, for neither by my parents nor 
 teachers had such things been directly said, but I sup- 
 pose the whole atmosphere of my surroundings led to it, 
 and especially the books I read. 
 
 When I was about fifteen the good providence of 
 God threw me into the society of a Catholic. She was a 
 lady of great intelligence, refined, enthusiastic, and 
 warm-hearted — indeed, one who could not fail to win 
 both respect and love. I had known her for two or 
 three months when my mother said to me one evening : 
 
 *' I have just heard that Miss H is a Catholic, and I 
 
 do not think well of your being so much with her." 
 
 ** A Catholic ! " I replied ; ** why, that is impossible. 
 She could not be a Catholic and I not know it in all 
 this time." 
 
 71 
 
T2 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 I thought it over, and made up my mind to inquire 
 about it. The next day I asked a mutual acquaintance, 
 and, to my surprise, heard that it was really so. 
 
 One, then, could be intelligent and be a Catholic ! 
 This was a new thought to me, and I made up my 
 mind to watch her every word and act, and see what a 
 Catholic really was. 
 
 I saw her now very often, and after a little while led 
 up the conversation to her faith. Now, I thought, I 
 shall see something of the superstition and idolatry of 
 Catholics. ** I wonder," I said, "that in these days one 
 like you can give up her reason and intelligence to the 
 guidance of priests." 
 
 " What if I give myself to the guidance of a divine 
 and infallible authority ? " she answered. 
 
 " Oh ! that is another thing. If there were a divine 
 and mfallible authority it would be wisdom indeed to be 
 guided by it." 
 
 " Do you believe the words of our Lord when he 
 speaks of establishing His Church ? " 
 
 ** Yes," I said ; " at least I have read them a hun- 
 dred times and know them by heart." For if there was 
 anything I felt sure of, it was my knowledge of the 
 Holy Scriptures ; from my earliest youth I had been to 
 Sunday-school twice every Sunday, and our principal 
 exercise had been reading and learning by heart the 
 New Testament and parts of the Old. 
 
 "Well," she said, "let us recall his words: 'Upon 
 this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell 
 shall not prevail against it. . . . Go ye, therefore, and 
 teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
 
From the Highways of Life. 73 
 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and 
 behold I am with you all days, even to the consumma- 
 tion of the world. . . . And the Holy Ghost, whom the 
 Father will send in my name, will teach you all thing^s, 
 and bring all things to your mind whatsoever I have 
 said to you, and He will teach you all truth.' Do you 
 remember these words of our Lord ? " 
 
 ** Yes," I said, absently, " I remember them." While 
 in my heart I said : '* Did our Lord really say all this, 
 and if He did, what does it mean?" 
 
 *' Do you remember, too," she went on, " that when 
 He sent His apostles to teach and preach He said: 'He 
 that heareth you, heareth me ; and he that despiseth 
 you, despiseth me ' ? Does not this took as if our Lord 
 left us teachers who had authority, and whom He would 
 guide always in all truth ? If they could teach error 
 would not the gates of hell have prevailed against the 
 Church of Christ ? " 
 
 I could not say anything to this, for these words of 
 our Lord were solemn words, and must mean something, 
 and what could they mean but a divine and infallible 
 authority ? 
 
 Such conversations now came often in our intercourse. 
 The subject of the Church as a divine teacher took pre- 
 cedence of all others with me ; that admitted, everything 
 else came as a matter of course. Still, I was much 
 interested in seeing what the Scriptures said of other 
 Catholic dogmas, and my surprise was great to read in 
 them all that the Church teaches in regard to Mary, the 
 Mother of Jesus. I saw that they said she was full of 
 grace, blessed among women, that the Lord was with 
 
74 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 her, and that the Holy, which should be born of her, 
 should be called the Son of God. I saw, too, that Mary 
 herself had said that all generations should call her 
 blessed. When I read these things I felt as if I had 
 read before with my eyes only, and not with my intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 But what wonderful revelations of love opened up to 
 me when I read, in this new light, the promises of our 
 Lord when he instituted the Sacrament of his Body and 
 Blood ! I wondered how I could ever have thought that 
 such strong, simple, and plain words, such solemn and 
 wonderful words, could mean nothing, or the very oppo- 
 site of what they said. 
 
 I had not as yet spoken of these thoughts and conver- 
 sations to my parents, for it all seemed so strange and 
 unexpected to me that I scarcely knew where I stood. 
 
 I still watched my friend to see what were the fruits 
 of Catholic faith. I found her life most edifying, and 
 step by step I was led on, until I felt that I must ask 
 my father for that privilege of liberty of conscience that, 
 as a Protestant, he could not reasonably refuse. 
 
 I knew that I should pain him to the heart's core, 
 and he was a most loving father; but God's claims were 
 first, and it had to be done. 
 
 How well I remember that evening when I first 
 opened my heart to him ! With the blood of the 
 Puritans in his veins, and the faith of the Puritans in 
 his heart, he walked before God, according to his light, 
 pure, upright, and devout. He had, outside of his life- 
 long prejudices, a very logical mind, and he was true 
 n-w to his principles. With a sad heart he gave me the 
 
From the Highways of Life. 75 
 
 liberty I asked, only begging that I would wait awhile 
 and read more, and talk with those whom he would 
 bring to me. 
 
 My father thought that I was influenced by the power 
 which Catholic worship has over the senses ; but though 
 I felt deeply the great beauty of the Catholic liturgy, 
 and was impressed by the music and paintings and 
 architecture, still I was too much my father's daughter 
 to be led by these things ; it would have to be the head 
 and not the heart or imagination that would take me 
 into the Church, 
 
 The Annual Conference of ministers was about meet- 
 ing, and we always entertained some of them at our 
 house. When they came and heard of my state of mind, 
 each one made an effort to enlighten me in regard to the 
 truth. The minister of the church which we attended 
 had many talks with me. My father was not always well 
 pleased with these conversations, for one of them ad- 
 mitted in one of them that he had always believed that 
 Purgatory was a very reasonable and almost necessary 
 doctrine. Another would not admit that the words, *'the 
 Church is the pillar and ground of truth," could be found 
 in the New Testament, and was very uncomfortably silent 
 when they were found. 
 
 Those were painful days, full of discussions and con- 
 troversies, in which, though my arguments prevailed, none 
 the less did my heart suffer. I think the last point was 
 reached when my mother, who followed her impulses and 
 emotions, said that she would rather see me dead than 
 to see me a Catholic. 
 
 I had before this been presented to a Catholic priest, 
 
76 From the Highways of Life. 
 
 Father Starr — so gentle, so kind-hearted ! I remember 
 well my feeling of surprise, mixed with a bit of humilia- 
 tion, when he gave me a small catechism to read and 
 study. Magnificent little catechism ! How I learned to 
 love it ! In simplest words, that a child could under- 
 stand, was the whole Christian faith given by Christ to 
 his apostles to teach and to preach. On every page was 
 text after text of Holy Scripture, the two going together 
 — the written word of God and the living voice of the 
 Church. 
 
 Time passed on, and I felt that the final step must 
 be taken. God had given me the gift of faith, and I 
 must now profess it before God and man ; so at the altar 
 of God, one Sunday after Vespers, I was made by bap- 
 tism a child of the Holy Catholic Church. I was at this 
 time about seventeen years old. 
 
 What can I say of the new life into which I now en- 
 tered ? It almost seemed as if our Lord were living in 
 the world again, and that I heard his voice day by day, 
 and received from his very hand the wondrous gift of his 
 own Body and Blood. The world with a divine and in- 
 fallible teacher, and our Lord truly present in the sacra- 
 ment of his love, was indeed a very different world ; it 
 seemed almost heaven upon earth. 
 
 Many years have passed since then, and every day I 
 have thanked God more and more for this gift above all 
 price — the gift t)f faith. 
 
 And here the story of my conversion should properly 
 end, but there are one or two incidents that happened 
 later that I would like to speak of. 
 
 About two years after my conversion my mother said 
 
From the Highways of Life. 77 
 
 to me one Sunday evening : " I have had a very strange 
 interview this afternoon. A lady met me as I came down 
 the steps of the church, and asked me if I had not a 
 daughter who had become a Cathohc. When I repHed 
 in the affirmative, she said she had two sons who had 
 become CathoHcs, and one of them was studying for the 
 priesthood. She said she thought it might be a consola- 
 tion, under the circumstances, for us to see each other 
 and talk together. She walked with me some distance, 
 and told me that although she had felt this change of 
 faith in her sons very much, still she would not, by a 
 word even, bring them back, if she could. They were 
 happy and full of peace, and she thought they could serve 
 God where they were." 
 
 I listened with interest, and was glad of the interview, 
 hoping it might be some comfort and help to my mother. 
 I had almost forgotten the whole incident, when one 
 evening, at the house of my first Catholic friend, who 
 was now married, and while we were celebrating by a 
 little festivity the baptism of a son for whom I had been 
 godmother, a gentleman called and was presented to me. 
 
 I found that he was a convert, and was soon convinced 
 that he was the son of the lady who had had that inter- 
 view with my mother. Had he, I wondered, heard my 
 name or of my conversion } He spoke of his brother, to 
 whom he was deeply attached. He was studying abroad 
 and was soon to be ordained a priest. I was very much 
 interested, for converts in those days were not so fre- 
 quently met with as now, and it was a pleasure to me to 
 hear how they had come into the Church. 
 
 Our acquaintance ripened, and ended in our receiving 
 
;8 
 
 From the HigJnvays of Life. 
 
 together another sacrament of the Holy CathoUc Church 
 — the Sacrament of Matrimony. The brother is now an 
 influential priest, whose writings are well known both 
 here and abroad. 
 
 I think I should beg pardon of my readers for intro- 
 ducing these last incidents ; but since I write as an act 
 of thanksgiving I 'could not pass over the temporal bless- 
 ings that followed my coming into the Church. For our 
 Lord's promise was truly fulfilled to me, that " every one 
 that hath left parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, 
 or lands, for the kingdom of God's sake, shall receive a 
 hundred-fold in this present time ;'* — may He grant me 
 grace so to be faithful as to obtain the rest of the pro- 
 mise — " and in the world to come, life everlasting." 
 
 SQKJMMMsm^.i'^iK^^^. 
 
FROM THE INVISIBLE TO THE VISIBLE 
 
 CHURCH. 
 
 WAS baptized in infancy, my parents being 
 members of the Episcopal Church, which I 
 was taught to respect as the ** true church." 
 My first rehgious impressions were received 
 from my mother, who used to entertain and instruct me 
 with those beautiful stories from the Bible that are so 
 wonderful and delightful to a child ; and quite early in 
 life I read the Bible through from beginning to the end, 
 obtaining a clearer idea of its contents, and perhaps a 
 greater reverence for it, than I otherwise could have done. 
 I learned nothing of Catholicity, excepting that it w^as 
 practised by the ignorant and superstitious. I became 
 conscious very early in life of my need of religion, and 
 longed to be able to call myself a Christian, not consid- 
 ering myself entitled to the name when my creed was so 
 vague and indefinite. My marriage with a Presbyterian 
 gentleman opened a field for thought and study before un- 
 known to me, and 1 read with special interest, among 
 others, some theological works of Dr. Woods, of Ando- 
 ver, and of Dr. McCosh. 1 also listened to eloquent 
 preachers, and saw and learned much sincere piety among 
 the members of this sect. Presbyterianism was there- 
 fore, to me, the first stepping-stone to Catholicity, by 
 stimulating thought in the direction of religion and giving 
 me examples of piety outside my own church. 
 
 79 
 
8o From the Highways of Life, 
 
 I tried honestly to follow the teaching of Dr. Watts 
 in the little poem : 
 
 '* Seize upon truth where'er 'tis found, 
 
 Among your friends, among your foes, 
 On Christian or on heathen ground ; 
 The flower*s divine, where'er it grows : 
 Neglect the prickles, and assume the rose," — 
 
 and I believed m an invisible church, which included all 
 in the world who honestly tried to practise the teachings 
 of our Lord. In listening to sermons I believed it 
 possible to extract some good from the most tedious (as 
 those both learned and simple often seemed to me), and 
 I think I never failed to receive this reward for patient 
 listening. I read the Bible carefully and prayerfully, mak- 
 ing my own interpretations, but I found no resting-place 
 amid the variety of sects. I saw the doctrines of Pen- 
 ance and Extreme Unction plainly written in the New 
 Testament, but it did not occur to me that they were 
 taught anywhere else, until, in conversation with a Pro- 
 testant friend on the subject, she said reproachfully, 
 " These are Catholic doctrines." In the course of time I 
 met Protestants who were interested in Catholicity and 
 who discoursed upon it frequently ; but I avoided the sub- 
 ject, and, as much as possible, the otherwise pleasant 
 friends who enjoyed these speculations. My husband, 
 however, was in earnest, and was after a few years con- 
 verted, and I was extremely distressed when he look our 
 child to Mass. 
 
 After this event 1 could not refuse to give the subject 
 due consideration, nor to read the Catholic books he was 
 
From the Highways of Life, 8 1 
 
 pleased to bring me. I also made friends among pious 
 and devoted Catholics and distinguished theologians, who 
 greatly helped to dispel the clouds that had hitherto dark- 
 ened my mind. The Church I had so long ignored rose 
 to the dignity of a Christian church, a teacher of truth 
 instead of error, and so I advanced another step on the 
 difficult road. I had given little attention to the ques- 
 tion of infallibility, which is the chief point to be decid- 
 ed ; for having once found the infallible church, her teach- 
 ings are, of course, to be accepted. And would it be 
 possible for a wise and good God to leave his creatures 
 a fallible church for their guidance ? 
 
 I did not believe the dogma of the Real Presence, as 
 I could not understand it, and I objected to devotion to 
 the Blessed Virgin. I went one evening to the Redemp- 
 torist Church in New York, with a party of Protestants, 
 to hear a sermon on devotion to the Blessed Virgin by a 
 noted priest of this order. The crowd was so great that 
 I w^as obliged to sit on one of the steps outside the 
 sanctuary. The sermon interested me, but I was chief- 
 ly attracted by the sea of upturned faces with rapt ex- 
 pression, such as I had never seen on any crowed of 
 listeners. Toward the close of the sermon the speaker 
 bade them *' kneel to the Mother of God," and I was 
 surprised to see the congregation, with one accord, fall on 
 their knees. Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament fol- 
 lowed the sermon, and again the people knelt wuth great 
 devotion, my Protestant friends doing the same, because, 
 as they afterwards said, " When you are in Rome you 
 must do as the Romans do." But I stood up, honestly 
 believing that I would dishonor God by even seeming to 
 
82 From the Highivays of Life, 
 
 kneel. A priest who was near the sacristy door request- 
 ed my husband to ask me to leave the church if I would 
 not kneel ; so I sat down and was permitted to remain. 
 
 One of our party afterwards said to me that the priest 
 would lose his influence oyer these people if even one 
 person were seen to stand during the ceremony. It w^as an 
 educated man who told me this ; he had wTitten an in- 
 teresting book ; but he was ignorant, as so many are, of 
 the Catholic religion. 
 
 A third and most important step in my conversion was 
 the pointing out by a friend of discrepancies in the Book 
 of Common Prayer — such as the teaching in the liturgy 
 of baptismal regeneration, which is opposed in the " Ar- 
 ticles "; the conferring of the power to forgive sins in the 
 ordination of the clergy, which is so little practised as to 
 be unknown to most people — a most painful discovery; 
 for, though glad to learn truth *' where'er 'tis found," I 
 was unwilling to see the structure on which I had always 
 stood show any signs of weakness. 
 
 I still considered it my duty to attend the Episcopal 
 Church, but I could not pray, and the sermons conveyed 
 no meaning to my mind. I became bewildered and un- 
 happy, apparently losing sight of the truths I had origin- 
 nally believed. One Sunday, after listening to a sermon 
 by the eloquent Dr. Hawks, I returned home in an un- 
 usually desponding frame of mind. My heart and eyes 
 were full of tears, and I said : ** Am I so insignificant 
 that God does not remember me ? Is there not some 
 little service that I could render Him, if He would remem- 
 ber me and make me a Christian y And God heard 
 me, as he heard the little boy who prayed for bread (a 
 
From the Highways of Life. 83 
 
 story told in a touching poem by Dr. Hawks). I was 
 directed that day to a priest, from whom I received in- 
 struction, and through the goodness of God I was led 
 into His holy Church. I received conditional baptism, and 
 the " Faith " I asked for '* of the Church of God." I re- 
 ceived First Communion, and I became heart and soul a 
 Catholic. 
 
 This event occurred nearly thirty-three years ago, and 
 I am more thankful for the gift of Faith than for any- 
 thing else in the world. 
 
 I cannot retrace the exact steps by which I was led 
 to believe in the presence of our Lord in the Blessed 
 Sacrament, but it was probably a simple belief in the 
 words of Holy Scripture, as literally interpreted by the 
 Roman Catholic Church : " Jesus took bread, and blessed, 
 and broke, and gave to his disciples ; and said : Take ye 
 and eat : This is my Body. And taking the chalice, he 
 gave thanks ; and gave to them, saying : Drink ye all of 
 this. For this is my Blood of the new testament, which 
 shall be shed for many for the remission of sins." After 
 having once received our Lord in the Holy Communion I 
 could no longer doubt. 
 
THE CATHOLIC RELIGION THE GREATEST 
 OF SCIENCES. 
 
 Y father was an American Unitarian, my 
 mother English and a member of the 
 Church of England. I was born in London, 
 and, naturally enough, was baptized by a 
 clergyman of the Established Church. 
 
 Soon after, however, the family removed to this 
 country, where, my father and mother both dying while 
 I was a mere child, I w^as left in the charge of his rela- 
 tives, all Unitarians, and attended their church up to the 
 age of eighteen, with the exception of one year, during 
 which my brother and myself were sent by our guardians 
 to the Episcopal church of the town, that we might 
 have an opportunity to follow the religion of our mother 
 should we desire to do so. As our acquaintance was 
 principally among Unitarians, we did not continue our 
 attendance at the Episcopal church beyond the pre- 
 scribed time ; as might, indeed, have been expected, 
 though the intention of my uncle and aunt in sending us 
 there was no doubt perfectly sincere. 
 
 Leaving home shortly after completing my college 
 course at Harvard, to engage in occupation elsewhere, I 
 was provided with a letter, among others, to the Unitar- 
 ian clergyman in the city where I was to live. The 
 amount of my interest in Unitarianism for its own sake 
 may be judged by the fact that I never delivered the 
 letter, and have not even to this day any idea where the 
 
From the Highways of Life. 85 
 
 Unitarian church is situated in that city, or where its 
 pastor hved. I suspect that the same would be the case 
 with most young men belonging to Protestant denomina- 
 tions in going to a strange place, unless they wished by 
 acquaintance in their church to obtain a start in business 
 or society. As I had all the start in business I desired, 
 and had very little inclination for society beyond that of 
 my companions in work, this motive did not suggest itself. 
 
 It was natural, however, to ^o to church somewhere 
 on Sunday, and the Catholic cathedral was the most 
 attractive place. I attended High Mass, together with 
 another young man in the same employment as myself, 
 and equally devoid, I imagine, of any religious convic- 
 tions. The music was fine, and it w^as principally for 
 the sake of it that we were so regular in our attendance ; 
 for we always took a back seat, and were too far away 
 to make much out of the ceremonies, even had we been 
 interested in them. I saw, however, our late venerated 
 cardinal — then a bishop only, for it was before his trans- 
 lation to the see of New York — and heard him preach on 
 several occasions, but probably paid Httle attention. I 
 thought at one time of getting a book to assist in fol- 
 lowing the service, but never did so. The only reason 
 was that I might know better what was going on, and 
 thus occupy myself in a more intelligent way; I had not, 
 as far as I can remember, any suspicion that the Catho- 
 lic religion could be the true one ; indeed, I did not, 
 believe there was any true religion, properly so called. I 
 believed in God, but had no faith in revelation. 
 
 I cannot see that this attendance at the cathedral 
 had any effect v/hatever on my subsequent course, unless 
 
86 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 very indirectly, as may be seen later. I had always 
 regarded the Catholic Church, not indeed with the posi- 
 tive prejudices and outrageously false notions which make 
 many Protestants oppose it so vigorously, but with a 
 kind of lofty disdain, or rather indifference ; I considered 
 it as an old fossiL, teaching, if it taught anything, some 
 false doctrines which modern enlightenment had long ago 
 exploded. It was to me Hke the Ptolemaic astronomy, a 
 system w^hich only the ignorant could accept. If the 
 matter of religion had seemed to me of vital importance, 
 of course I should have seen that false views about it 
 must be very dangerous and of vastly more consequence 
 than false astronomical theories ; but I really thought 
 that all that was important or possible to know about 
 God — in whose existence I fully believed — could be 
 found out by a short course of reasoning ; that I had 
 already gone through with this, and that probably most 
 other people had. 
 
 Humanly speaking, it does not seem likely that I 
 should have given the matter of religion any serious con- 
 sideration, at this time at least, had it not been for one 
 of my associates in work — strange to say, the only 
 person, if I remember right, with whom I had ever been 
 acquainted, in whom a belief in the Christian revelation 
 as a real, positive system was marked enough to excite 
 interest and inquiry.. He was a High-Churchman; 
 Ritualism as it is now understood was in a very unde- 
 veloped state, and the services at the little church which 
 he attended had none of the attractions for the eye and 
 ear which I found at the cathedral ; still he induced me 
 to accompany him several times. 
 
From the Highways of Life, 87 
 
 I cannot trace the exact mental steps through which I 
 passed from Unitarianism to the church of my mother. 
 Morally and spiritually, I think a great change was pro- 
 duced by a sermon which I heard at this little church 
 one evening on the text, *'You cannot serve God and 
 Mammon." I gave up the worldly ambition which had 
 been, though secretly, my principal motive for exertion, 
 and determined to do everything for God's sake alone. 
 The preacher was not a very eloquent man, and the 
 sermon was probably in itself not an extraordinary one; 
 but God's grace went with it, as it is continually work- 
 ing everywhere. 
 
 As to change of doctrine, it must be said that though 
 without any belief in definite dogma, I had still retained 
 the Protestant tradition as to the inspiration of the 
 Bible, and began to get some light from reading it. 
 Taking the Bible for a basis, it does not take very long 
 to dispose of Unitarianism, as my brother, with whom I 
 afterward carried on a long controversy by letter, was 
 quite willing to concede. The text which did more for 
 me than any other was John xiv. i.: "You believe in 
 God ; believe also in me " ; though, of course, I could not 
 be satisfied intellectually of such a great point as the 
 divinity of our Lord without a good deal of examination. 
 My heart had accepted the truth, but the head had to 
 say '' Nihil obstat " before I would move. 
 
 I returned to the church (so to speak) of my baptism 
 a month or so after the sermon of w^hich mention has 
 been made. Of course no reception was necessary ; but 
 I had to prepare for my First Communion, and therefore 
 presented myself to the pastor of our Httle church to 
 
88 From the Highzvays of Life. 
 
 receive his advice and direction. He recommended prin- 
 cipally the careful reading of the sixth chapter of 
 St. John's Gospel, and I remember feeling very anxious 
 till the Communion was made, on account of the 
 fifty-fourth verse, which I understood as meaning that it 
 was necessary for salvation. I was confirmed on the 
 feast of the Annunciation, and received the rite alone, it 
 not being the regular time. The second chapter of Eccle- 
 siasticus, which was read, made a great impression on 
 my mind. 
 
 It may probably be imagined that, having got so far 
 as to be a High-Churchman, the rest of the road was 
 easy. It might have been, but I doubt it; the "High" 
 Church is rather a dangerous substitute for the true one. 
 The friend of whom I have spoken, who had been the 
 means of bringing me thus far, still, after thirty years, 
 remains as he was then. At any rate, the way in which 
 it actually came about was by my getting some experi- 
 ence as a Low-Churchman. Moving into the Massachu- 
 setts diocese shortly after my confirmation, I naturally 
 selected as ** high " a church as possible for my regular 
 attendance, being aware of the prevailing tendency the 
 other way, and of the " low " views of the bishop. But 
 to go to the ** Church of the Advent " soon became loo 
 much trouble, especially in winter, for one living, as I 
 did, several miles from Boston ; so I finally gave up the 
 attempt, and turned over to the church of our own town, 
 whose pastor was one of the most distinguished in the 
 diocese for learning and for his ability in the pulpit. 
 
 But he was certainly very " low," and some matters 
 in the parish fell into the hands of people even lower 
 
From the Highways of Life. 89 
 
 than himself. Many of us became very " evangeHcal," 
 and some of the young men, among whom were the 
 pastor's son and myself, were roped — yes, really roped, 
 against our will — by a set of pious ladies into establish- 
 ing a regular prayer-meeting. It was held on Sunday 
 evenings in the little chapel, where we also taught 
 Sunday-school, and on another evening in the week at 
 the house of some religious person in the village, near 
 where most of the Catholics lived. Though we tried no 
 direct proselytism, I think we had some hope that a 
 Romanist or two might " experience religion " by means 
 of these village meetings. But how I, and I think most 
 of the few other young men — one exception I believe 
 there was — dreaded these performances! The ladies, no 
 doubt, liked them well enough ; but then they were not 
 required to take any active part. One of us, of course, 
 always took charge, and that was not so bad ; for then 
 you could get up your opening matter quietly at home, 
 select your chapter and prepare your remarks, and spring 
 them on the others. But imagine the misery of those 
 others, of whom you would usually be one, who, 
 especially if our great " exhorter " happened to be absent, 
 might be called on at any moment to make some 
 remarks suggested by the subject, or at least to lead in 
 prayer ! The last was not so difficult, for, after all, these 
 extempore prayers fall into a regular rut, and one soon 
 acquires a tolerable facility in them ; but the miserable 
 msincerity of pretending to speak to God, when the only 
 real desire was to get through creditably, made one want 
 to avoid them if any remarks could possibly be thought of. 
 The whole matter became very sickening; and the 
 
90 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 utter inefficacy of the system as a means to virtue and 
 spiritual life was so evident that I became anxious to find 
 some way to escape. I wanted something that the soul 
 could live on, but did not know w^here to turn for it. 
 At this time two circumstances, accidental, as it would 
 seem, and not veij notable in themselves, turned me in a 
 Catholic direction. One was a trip made with my old 
 friend to the city where we had previously lived, on the 
 occasion of which we made a visit to the cathedral 
 which I had formerly attended, but which now in some 
 way gave me other impressions than those of mere 
 admiration and curiosity. My friend was enough of a 
 Ritualist to genuflect on passing the altar ; and though I 
 did not feel like doing that, yet the distinctness with 
 which I remember it makes me think that the idea of 
 the Real Presence made a strong impression on me. 
 
 The second accident, if it may be so called, and the 
 one which actually, or at least proximately, had more to 
 do with my determination, was the reading of a book 
 of Miss Frederika Bremer's, in which she gave an 
 account of a visit to Rome, and of her there making 
 some examination of Catholic doctrine. She mentioned 
 the Catechism of the Coitncit of Trent as a book which 
 had been put into her hands. I made up my mind to 
 get this book and see what the Roman Church had to 
 say for itself. Anything seemed better than the miser- 
 able position to which I had been brought. So I got 
 the book. It was a great point to have something 
 definite to ask for, and up to this time I had not even 
 known the name of a single work treating on Catholic 
 doctrine. I did not know anything even of anti-Catholic 
 
From the Highways of Life. 91 
 
 controversy; the whole field was simply a blank. Many, 
 perhaps most Protestants are, I imagine, in that position. 
 
 I read the book at night, after everybody else had 
 gone to bed. It may seem strange to say it, but what 
 surprised me was its '' evangelical " tone. I had a gen- 
 eral idea that the Roman Church placed the means of 
 salvation in works and outward observances ; but here I 
 found the Blood of Christ and his merits put forward as 
 the one price of our redemption, as forcibly as in any 
 book I had ever read or any sermon I had ever heard. 
 What added much to its weight was that I felt sure this 
 was really Catholic teaching. Controversial books might 
 be traps to catch Protestants, in which the genuine 
 Roman doctrine was manipulated or partly concealed; 
 but here was a real official book, meant for Catholics 
 themselves. 
 
 However, I got controversial books, plenty of them, 
 and read them in the same way. I think I had got out 
 of the prayer-meetings before this ; but I was still a 
 communicant and taught in Sunday-school, and, as I did 
 not know how the thing would turn out, it was necessary 
 to be careful. I did not say or teach anythmg that I did 
 not believe, but of course kept quiet about what was 
 going on in my own mind. 
 
 The getting of the books was a matter of some 
 embarrassment. Donahoe's book-store was in rather a 
 frequented part of the city, and people who knew me 
 were likely enough to pass that way ; so before going in 
 1 would take a good look up and down the street to 
 assure myself that the coast was clear, then walk into 
 the store and make my selection. But the question then 
 
92 Fro7n the Highways of Life, 
 
 was how to get out ; one could not look up and down 
 the street from inside, and might stumble on some 
 unwelcome friend at the very doorstep. Whether any 
 such ever saw me come out I cannot tell, for I never 
 ventured to look on these occasions, but plunged ahead 
 and took my chances. 
 
 It did not appear that I was found out during the 
 year that I pursued this course of quiet reading. But at 
 last my convictions became so strong, at least of the 
 falsity of Protestantism, that I could not continue to 
 teach in Sunday-school ; and then something was sus- 
 pected. Shortly after I gave up attendance at church, 
 and told some persons confidentially of the course my 
 mind had taken, but of course tried to avoid general dis- 
 cussion and remark. This was a critical time ,• for the 
 alternative now presented was between the Catholic 
 Church and the abandonment of Christianity as a revela- 
 tion altogether. I had followed the historical road, as it 
 may be called, and had seen plainly enough by this time 
 that Christianity, if it was anything more than mere 
 human speculation, was Catholicity. And then there was 
 for awhile a time in which I lost mterest m the question; 
 how I recovered it, otherwise than by the grace of God, 
 I do not know. I was advised to consult my own pastor 
 and other clergymen. Strange to say, none of them 
 defended their own position with much vigor. My pastor 
 lent me ChiUingworth, but also Moehler's SyjJtbolis?n ; 
 the clergyman of the Unitarian church and another 
 whom I consulted, both men of distinguished ability, con- 
 tented themselves with glittering generalities ; another, a 
 neighbor of mine, an excellent and most amiable man, 
 
From the Highways of Life, 93 
 
 lent me the historical works of Eusebius and Socrates. 
 None attempted any real discussion. 
 
 All this time I had never spoken to a single Catholic 
 on the subject of religion, and hardly knew one to whom 
 I could speak. It never occurred to me to go to the 
 priest till after about sixteen months from my first start, 
 when my mind was made up as far as it could be ; by 
 which I mean that, though I did not believe,%I saw no 
 reason for not believing. The argument was as complete 
 as mere argument could be to prove the divine construc- 
 tion of the wonderful edifice at the door of which I sat 
 waiting; but practically I was not quite convinced or 
 ready to enter. The grace of God w^as what I needed ; 
 and it came through reading some of the Annals of the 
 Propagation of the Faith, I think. It moved me to act, 
 to go to the priest and ask to be received. The veil 
 w^as still between my eyes and the truth as Catholics see 
 it ; what might be behind that veil I could not tell ; 
 there was no way of telling but by trying ; it was, as 
 Cardinal Newman says, " a leap in the dark," but one 
 that reason, conscience, and the voice of God required. 
 It must come in this way, I think, to all converts who 
 have the common Protestant traditions. 
 
 I rang the priest's door-bell ; he himself came to the 
 door. " I want," I said, " to be a Catholic." I thought 
 that was all ; that he would do what was needed to 
 make me one without delay. But of course he put 
 me under instruction ; gave me books, which I already 
 was pretty well filled up with ; but his instructions, his 
 answers to my questions, did more good than all the 
 books he could have furnished. But still the old practi- 
 
94 From tJie Highways of Life, 
 
 cal obstacle remained till the very end : *' What if the 
 priest himself be insincere? how do I know but what 
 some things are being kept from me which will come 
 out when it is too late ? " Modern miracles made a 
 special difficulty, not one that was going to turn me back 
 now, for my min4 was made up to go behind that veil 
 and see. But did Catholics really believe in them ? I 
 was almost afraid to ask. The miracle of St. Januarius 
 was a thing I had to bring up, and half-expected to hear 
 that, at least, dismissed as a superstition. And then did 
 
 Father himself really abstain from meat on Friday, 
 
 or was this only something palmed off on the people ? 
 Strange to say, even after I was received, though very 
 strict about this matter, I was shamefaced about it, and 
 did not know whether Catholics were really expected to 
 be so. 
 
 I was baptized conditionally on the Feast of the 
 Assumption, 1862, having been under instruction about 
 six weeks. I had been an Episcopalian about three years 
 and a half, and was a little over twenty-three years old. 
 It took me a little time to get into Catholic ways and 
 practices, but from the day of my reception till now 
 doubt of the Catholic religion in any point, small or 
 great, has seemed as impossible, unreasonable, and absurd 
 as doubt about the truths of algebra or geometry. Re- 
 ligion, instead of being a mere matter of speculation or 
 of enthusiasm, which one must not investigate too 
 closely, has been ever since then to me the most certain 
 as wxll as infinitely the most important of all the 
 sciences. 
 
b 
 
 THORNTON'S CONVERSION. 
 
 HORNTON was a slave, bred up on the 
 Jefferson estates in Virginia, who about 
 forty years ago came into possession of 
 Bishop Reynolds, of Charleston. He was 
 an intelligent man, knew how to read, and was a 
 capable, diligent servant, thoroughly honest and trust- 
 worthy. He was a religious man and a preacher among 
 the Baptists. His curiosity was immediately excited about 
 the Catholic religion, and he used to talk with the clergy- 
 men at the cathedral whenever he could get the chance. 
 His Bible and hymn-book had got rather mixed up in 
 his memory, and he sometimes quoted verses of hymns 
 for Scriptural texts. Once he told me of a sermon he 
 had preached on the text ** Thou art Peter." ** You see, 
 I said that Peter was just like a rock, his faith was so 
 strong. And the Lord said He would build His church 
 on Peter's faith." He used to hang around the sacristy 
 and listen to sermons through the doors, which of course, 
 in South Carolina, were usually left open. Once when a 
 celebrated preacher of that day was giving a retreat, and 
 Thornton was listening to a sermon, the preacher inad- 
 vertently made a slip and spoke of Adam as having gone 
 to Abraham's bosom when he died. Thornton thought 
 he had caught infallibility in a mistake, and with sup- 
 pressed glee went to find the bishop. 
 
 ** Massa," said he, '' who died first — Adam or Abra- 
 ham ? " 
 
 95 
 
96 From the Highways of Life. 
 
 " Why, Adam, of course. What makes you ask that 
 question ? " 
 
 "Why, massa, the preacher said just now that Adam 
 when he die go to Abraham's bosom. How he do that 
 when Adam die first ? " 
 
 Thornton kept on thinking and studying out the 
 Church as well as he was able. After some time he 
 preached a sermon to his colored Baptist brethren, in 
 which he told them that there was no religion in shout- 
 ing and kicking the benches, and exhorted them to 
 amend their lives. Whereupon he was expelled from the 
 brotherhood and went no more among them. Soon after 
 I left Charleston, and saw it no more for ten years. 
 When I went there again to give a mission the old 
 cathedral, the bishop, and Thornton were gone. I was 
 informed that he had been instructed and received into 
 the Church, had lived for several years a devout Catholic, 
 and had happily departed this life. Thornton was another 
 Onesimus. 
 
A PRINTER'S TOKEN OF CATHOLIC TRUTH. 
 
 ORN in Philadelphia, and in a section of it 
 which was intensely ** Native American," 
 among my earliest recollections are scenes 
 of the riots of 1844, I being then a boy of 
 ten years. I grew up amidst the prejudices born of such 
 events, and early learned to look upon a ** foreigner" 
 with suspicion, and upon a ** Roman Catholic foreigner " 
 as one who lived in this country by tolerance, not by any 
 just right. 
 
 My father died when I had hardly emerged from in- 
 fancy, and I know little of his religious notions save 
 by tradition. My good mother was a sincere Baptist of 
 the ** Hard-shell " school, and I was early taught that 
 Sunday was a day for gloomy silence and cold dinners. 
 On Sunday mornings, at 9 o'clock, I was sent, with my 
 sisters, to the Sunday-school of the Spruce Street Baptist 
 Church, and on emerging therefrom, about half-past ten, 
 I was duly led, by my pious and watchful mother, into 
 the church, there to listen to sermons extending over an 
 hour. The only recollection of these I now have is that 
 of being unwillingly kept awake by chewing cloves, which 
 my mother carried in her pocket, I suspect, for the bene- 
 fit of my older sisters as well as of myself. Occasionally 
 I escaped this ordeal by playing " hookey " amidst the 
 tombstones of the adjoining grave-yard, to me a far 
 pleasanter place than the church, wdth its blank walls 
 and elevated pulpit. In the afternoon we again attended 
 
 97 
 
98 From the Highways of Lije, 
 
 Sunday-school ; but to this I did not object, for what 
 with the singing ; the striving for, and occasionally win- 
 ning, a prize for memorizing Scriptural verses; the "li- 
 brary books " to be taken out, and the chance to talk to 
 my boy companions, I needed no cloves to keep me 
 awake. Certainly Protestants contrive to make their 
 Sunday-schools pleasurable and attractive, if not spiritually 
 profitable, to children, and this is, I believe, one of the 
 chief methods by which the sects are recruited. 
 
 My mother was little given to talkmg about religion, 
 except to the minister when he occasionally visited our 
 house, and I do not recollect that I was taught at home 
 more of it than to say the Our Father and to sing in- 
 fantile hymns of the " Twinkle, twinkle, little star " order. 
 Of my Sunday-school training I retained only the Ten 
 Commandments and the notion that I must not ** hit the 
 other fellow when he was down " — in other words, that 
 I must do to others as I would have them do to me. 
 Of the "library books," of which I read a great many, I 
 remember only that boys who went fishing on the Sab- 
 bath were generally drowned, and that the Catholics had 
 been guilty of numberless cruel persecutions of innocent 
 Protestants, who, so far as I then learned, never retali- 
 ated. Here also I first learned of the iniquities of the 
 Inquisition, for which, of course, the Catholic Church was 
 to be held responsible. However, to this moral ballast, 
 so to speak, I owe it that during the many years I lived 
 without religion I was enabled to keep fairly before the 
 wind of my neighbors' good opinion, and even occasion- 
 ally to do some little good to my kind. 
 
 At the age of fifteen I went to reside on a farm on 
 
From the Highways of Life, 99 
 
 the .borders of Maryland, a few miles from Dover, Del., 
 where I remained about four years. The people I now 
 came in contact with were nearly all Methodists, and 
 here for the first time I witnessed what is called a 
 " shouting " Methodist revival. At first this sort of reli- 
 gious service excited curiosity, then astonishment and 
 emotion at its excessive fervor ; and indeed — helped on, 
 no doubt, by the example of youthful companions, and 
 being of a sympathetic if not religious temperament — 
 on several occasions I was brought to the verge of ** get- 
 ting religion." The next day, however, freed from the 
 spell of the eloquent " exhorter," I would fall back into 
 my normal condition. I was, perhaps, abetted in this 
 weakness also by those about me, for I observed a calm 
 worldliness about those who had *' shouted " loudest the 
 night before which greatly helped me to throw off the 
 spell; If I were asked to name the chief excitant of 
 these ** revivals," I should reply that, while undoubt- 
 edly some of the speakers were really eloquent and ca- 
 pable of exciting intense emotion in their auditors, the 
 very life and spirit of the meetings was the extraordinarily 
 fervent congregational singing. One need only to attend 
 a Southern camp-meeting and watch the effect of the sing- 
 ing to appreciate the force of some of Father Young's 
 arguments in favor of congregational singing in the Catho- 
 lic Church. Indeed, while sermons made little impression 
 on me in those days — perhaps because I had no real 
 bent toward religion, or it may be because of the fine- 
 spun theories of which the sermons were generally woven 
 — I even yet recall the pleasure with which I joined 
 my voice with those of others in giving fervent utterance 
 
lOO From the Highways of Life. 
 
 to the hymns of Watts and Wesley. Of the supernakiral 
 side of reUgion at this time I knew Httle or nothing, 
 though I possessed, in a misty way, a behef in the Holy 
 Trinity, that Jesus Christ died to save sinners, and that 
 beUef in this was sufficient for salvation ; but that church- 
 going was an ess&ntial to my eternal welfare was no part 
 of my creed. And this attitude I believe to be that of 
 thousands of decent-living Protestants, especially in our 
 large cities. 
 
 About the age of nineteen I returned to Philadelphia, 
 and began to learn the printer's trade. Being self-willed, 
 my gentle mother's exhortations and example had little 
 effect upon me, and I seldom entered a church, and when 
 I did so was indifferent as to its denomination. Soon 
 after reaching my majority I married a lady who had 
 been reared in the Episcopal faith, but who, like myself, 
 was rather indifferent to religion. We seldom attended 
 any church, spending our Sundays quietly at home in 
 reading, or else seeking recreation in out-door excursions. 
 Indeed, I think we were fair samples of the average Pro- 
 testant, looking upon religion as a mere matter of good 
 morals, not something to be cherished and lived up to 
 as of the most vital concern. Our religion was, practi- 
 cally, summed up in the desire to pay our debts and live 
 decent, inoffensive lives, and to this end church-going did 
 not appear to us a sine qua non. Holding such notions, 
 it may seem illogical, but nevertheless when our children 
 were old enough we faithfully sent them to Sunday- 
 school. One ground, perhaps, for our opinions about 
 church-going was, that we observed that the daily lives 
 and actions of punctilious church-goers, among our ac- 
 
From the Highivays of Life, loi 
 
 quaintance, were not much different from our own. In 
 other words, that their religion was mainly a Sunday 
 affair, and did not materially affect their dealings with 
 their neighbors. The following incident may illustrate 
 my meaning ; yet I by no means wish to be understood 
 as implying that this is an average sample of Protestant 
 church-goers, though I have known a good many such. 
 Sitting with a friend one Sunday evening, on the piazza 
 of a house near a country church, there came to our ears 
 the loud tones of a voice in fervent prayer or exhortation ; 
 gradually the sounds increased in loudness till they be- 
 came stentorian. Turning to me, my friend, something 
 of a wag, dryly remarked, " He's topping-off." Inquiry 
 elicited the information that the voice proceeded from a 
 farmer who had the reputation of partly filling his market- 
 baskets with small, scrubby potatoes, and '* topping-off " 
 with big ones. 
 
 In i860 I came to New York to fill a position on a new- 
 ly estabhshed daily paper. In this occupation I remained 
 about five years, and as I slept in daytime in order that 
 I might work at night, I did not during those years en- 
 ter a church save once. And that exception occurred in 
 this wise : going to my home in Brooklyn, between the 
 hours of four and five in the morning, in passing through 
 Court Street I observed a crowd of people hurrying into 
 a church. As this was a daily occurrence, and as incle- 
 ment weather seemed not to diminish the number, I was 
 curious to know what drew them. Asking a car-driver 
 one morning, I was told : '* It's first Mass they're going 
 to, sir." Soon after, on a cold, sleety morning — such a 
 morning as would cause most people to shrink from ven- 
 
I02 From the Highways of Life. 
 
 turing out — I noticed a crowd larger than usual straggling 
 along into the church. Acting on the impulse of the 
 moment, I sprang from the car on which I was riding, 
 resolved to see for myself what attractions there were in 
 a " first Mass." Passing up the steps with the people, in 
 a few moments \ stood for the first time within the 
 walls of a Catholic church. The service soon began, 
 and for awhile I watched the priest. Understanding 
 almost nothing of what was passing before me, I turned 
 my attention to the people. The first thing about them 
 that impressed me was their self-abandoned, devout atti- 
 tudes. Then for some time I sat curiously watching a 
 poor old woman passing through her fingers what I took 
 to be a black cord, and I also noticed that she occasion- 
 ally kissed some part of it and passed her hand down 
 and across her breast. While speculating as to what all 
 this meant, I suddenly heard the tinkling of a bell. 
 Straightway down upon their knees fell all the people, 
 with bowed heads. This sight and the sudden move- 
 ment — or was it the Divine Presence } — sent a thrill of 
 awe through me, and involuntarily I bowed my head, 
 though ignorant of what was transpiring. Soon after the 
 service ended, and as I passed out with the crowd I was 
 struck with the fact that it was composed mostly of 
 those who were evidently working-people. For a while I 
 thought much of what I had seen and felt, and especially 
 I wondered what there was in the Catholic religion that 
 could draw people from their comfortable beds and homes 
 at such uncanny hours ; but gradually the matter passed 
 from my mind. This was due partly, perhaps, to the fact 
 that up to this time I had not numbered among my 
 
► 
 
 From the Highways of Life, 103 
 
 friends an intelligent Catholic, nor, though all my life 
 a diligent reader of miscellaneous literature, had I read a 
 Catholic book. Occasionally I had seen a Catholic paper, 
 or read an extract from one in a secular journal, but the 
 over-vigorous and often offensive polemics, and, as it then 
 seemed to me, unwarrantable claim to possessing the 
 only trice religion, disgusted and repelled me. 
 
 But I had now reached the turning point in my life. As 
 I look back to this period I recognize the hand of God 
 directing for my good events which I then deemed great 
 misfortunes. In 1865, owing to broken health, I quitted 
 the night work and became ** reader " in a book-printing 
 office. Here I read many Catholic books while they 
 were passing through the press, especially those pub- 
 lished by the Catholic Publication Society, then recently 
 established by the Very Rev. I. T. Hecker — a work, by 
 the by, which should win him the lasting gratitude of 
 American Catholics, for through his instrumentality our 
 Catholic literature has been lifted up and greatly en- 
 riched. I also read The Catholic World, 
 
 I was now brought into mental contact with those 
 capable of enlightening me as to the real history ot the 
 Catholic Church, and also of setting clearly before my 
 mind the beauties, truth, and consistency of the Catholic 
 religion. Gradually my mind opened to and absorbed 
 these facts : first, that the Catholic Church, being the 
 only church of Christendom lor sixteen hundred years, 
 must be the one founded by Jesus Christ, and the one 
 whose doctrines were promulgated by the apostles; 
 second, that 1 found in the Apostles' Creed Avhatever 
 sound doctrines I had learned of in Protestant churches, 
 
1 04 Frojn the Highivays of Life, 
 
 and that, consequently, they must have been derived from 
 the Cathohc Church ; third, that the history of the 
 CathoUc Church was identical with that of modern 
 civilization, which was moulded by her; fourth, that he- 
 roic charity had always marked her religious orders, as is 
 splendidly illustrated by the lives of such men as St. 
 Francis and St. Vincent de Paul, who especially excited 
 my veneration ; fifth, that if abuses had at times crept 
 into the Church they were due to human weakness or 
 the meddling of laymen, but in no way invalidated the 
 Divine infallibility of her doctrines ; sixth, that she had 
 been, in the days of her greatest power, the benefactor 
 and protector of the poor and the humble. This latter 
 fact especially impressed and won me, and this impres- 
 sion has been deepened by subsequent reading upon the 
 middle ages, the monastic orders, and the guilds. In- 
 deed, I am fixed in the belief that the Catholic Church 
 can and will solve the social problems now everywhere 
 pressing for solution, and 1 rejoice exceedingly that the 
 best and brightest Catholic minds are now earnestly 
 strivmg to this end. 
 
 It was, however, no easy task to reconcile my mind to 
 accept the facts so plainly presented by Catholic writers, 
 for they completely overturned all my previous notions 
 and refuted what 1 had heretofore held as the truth. If 
 I were 10 accept as true what I was now learning, what 
 was to become of my cherished beliefs as to the Inquisi- 
 tion and its horrors; the St. Bartholomew massacre; 
 Bloody Mary; the poor Covenanters and Huguenots; the 
 malevolent Jesuits, who were stealthily striving to estab- 
 lish here, upon the ruins of our republic, a despotism 
 
From the Highways of Life. 105 
 
 similar to those upheld by them in Europe, and a host 
 of other grievances that I had been taught to lay at 
 the Church's door ? I struggled hard against admitting 
 the truth of what I now learned, arguing that Catholic 
 writers colored or suppressed the facts to suit their 
 purposes ; but the evidences accumulated — some even 
 being furnished by Protestants (about this time I read 
 Cobbett) — as I went along, and in the end I was obliged 
 to succumb. Perhaps nothing did so much to reconcile 
 me to this as the constant reading of the alwa3^s 
 temperate and fair-minded pages of The Catholic World, 
 Indeed, I do not hesitate to say that, under Providence, 
 I largely owe my conversion to the teachings of that 
 magazine, for I have never cared to read purely theologi- 
 cal or didactic writings. So far as I can now recall, 
 the first book which gave me a taste of the true flavor 
 of the Catholic spirit was Constance Sherwood, 
 
 Thus far it was the historical or human side of the 
 Church which most interested me. Her supernatural 
 side had not as yet much attracted my attention. What 
 religious ideas I had thus far imbibed had been received 
 unconsciously, and perhaps not fully assimilated. And so 
 for some years I drifted along, making no practical 
 application to myself of the precious knowledge I was 
 acquiring. But the seed was not falling upon altogether 
 barren soil, as the sequel proved. 
 
 At this period there fell upon mc long-continued 
 afflictions and sorrows — such sorrows as cause the soul, 
 however blindly, to reach out beyond its earthly tene- 
 ment for consolation. In the midst of my troubles I 
 began seriously to ask myself : *' For what was I 
 
io6 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 created ? " " Is this life the beginning and end of my 
 career?" "If there be another and a better Hfe, should 
 I not strive to attain it ? " I determined to do so. This 
 resolution once formed, I began to weigh the claims of 
 the different forms of religion of which I knew anything. 
 Study of a catechism, with frequent reference to a Bible 
 for verification, proved to me that the claims of the 
 Church to be divinely founded were substantiated, as 
 were her doctrines, by Scripture as well as by tradition. 
 I soon reached the conclusion that if any religion was 
 true it must be the Catholic religion. I resolved to seek 
 admission to the Catholic Church. Then I began to find 
 stumbling-blocks : first the confessional ; then the ** wor- 
 ship" — as I still ignorantly viewed it — of the saints (so 
 astounded was I when I first came upon the teaching of 
 the Church relative to the Mother of God that I turned 
 to a Protestant Bible to ascertain if it were the same 
 personage whom I had known simply as ** Mary, the 
 mother of Jesus," for I had never heard mention in a 
 Protestant pulpit of the Immaculate Conception). I had 
 a lingering doubt about the Real Presence, but especially I 
 was haunted with the fear that I could not really "get relig- 
 ion," as I did not feel any overwhelming religious emotion. 
 Fortunately, during these latter years I had made 
 acquaintance and gained the friendship of some intel- 
 ligent Catholics, and at this crisis I had the wise 
 counsel of a well-informed and experienced Catholic gen- 
 tleman (a publisher), who introduced me to a Lazarist 
 father then giving a mission in Brooklyn, whose advice 
 aiKl explanations were extremely helpful. I attended the 
 mission, and was much benefited therefrom. I was, 
 
From the Highivays of Life, 107 
 
 however, astonished at the character of the preaching — 
 its practical and direct simpHcity, not to say bluntness, 
 «* a spade being called a spade." I had said nothing to 
 the priest about my doubts as to '' getting religion," and 
 this still troubled me. Again I consulted my friend, and 
 he introduced me to the Bishop of Peoria, who quickly 
 convinced me that the Catholic religion was an intellec- 
 tual, not simply an emotional religion, and that it required 
 no spiritual convulsions to fit me to become a Catholic — 
 a view which has since been more fully developed to my 
 mind by reading the writings of the Very Rev. I. T. 
 Hecker, who also made clear to me that there is no 
 incongruity between Catholicity and republican institu- 
 tions. Since then, too, I have learned that the Catholic 
 religion, while not emotional in the sense in which I had 
 looked at it, is yet adapted to every cast of soul. How- 
 ever fervent of spirit one may be, his soul can here find 
 ample food. If he be fired by heroic charity, he can 
 here find wide fields for its exercise. If he be curious 
 to explore the deeps of metaphysics and ethics, he will 
 here find them almost soundless. And I have also 
 learned that to live up to the letter and the spirit of the 
 Catholic religion is no easy task. 
 
 Nothing now prevented me from following the bent 
 of my inclinations, and soon afterwards I received bap- 
 tism and was admitted to the Church. As the years roll 
 by I am more and more satisfied of the wisdom of my 
 choice, and more and more I rejoice and thank God for 
 the peace and happiness I have found. God has blessed 
 me far beyond my deserts. May he grant me the grace 
 of perseverance and a happy death ! 
 
A PAGE IN MY LIFE'S HISTORY.— BY A 
 SCHOOL-GIRL. 
 
 Y early life passed without pain or trial, with 
 the 'exception of one great blow which I 
 thought then small and trivial, but which I 
 now look back upon as my greatest cross. 
 
 Once a sudden and strange idea seized me. I had 
 heard and read a great deal about boarding-schools, and 
 happening one day to mention my desire to a dear friend, 
 she concluded she would like nothing better herself, and 
 we both accordingly agreed to ask our parents' consent. 
 So we parted full of expectation and hope. But very 
 different were the results. She was refused, while my 
 fc ther consented to let me go the following September. 
 
 Imagine my surprise and chagrin, for I was a Protes- 
 tant, when I learned that my father had chosen a 
 convent, instead of the fashionable boarding-school I 
 expected him to select. I had read many startling things 
 concerning such places, and had the most absurd ideas 
 of priests and nuns ; but as my father was inflexible in 
 his choice, I resolved to face the inevitable, and a few 
 months later found me enclosed in convent walls. 
 
 I soon found that the Sisters were very different from 
 what I had imagined. My foolish notions of them were 
 dispelled, but still I remained very distant and spoke to 
 them only when necessary. 
 
 I had never learned much of their religion, but to me 
 
 it appeared like base superstition, and I firmly resolved 
 
 io8 
 
From the Highways of Life, 109 
 
 to close my heart and mind against all that was passing 
 around me. 
 
 Two years passed away uneventfully, and I was per- 
 fectly happy and contented among my new friends. 
 
 Few changes occurred outw^ardly, but in my heart 
 strange things were happening. I could not shut my eyes 
 to the exemplary lives of the sisters and my companions. 
 I could not prevent myself from feeling the influence of 
 their gentle, joyful, and tranquil " mien, as I contrasted 
 their contentment with the disquietude of my own heart. 
 The familiarity of the youngest of my companions with 
 the great truths of which I had, up to that time, heard 
 so little, astonished me. All this interfered sadly with 
 my peace and happiness. Oh ! the struggle that was 
 going on within me. Finally, the grace of God prevailed, 
 the victory was won, and I had made up my mind to 
 become a Catholic, in spite of the pain it would cause 
 my parents and the sacrifice I knew it would cost me. 
 
 Having conquered myself, God made the rest easy, 
 and my first resolve was to make known my intentions 
 to one of the sisters. 
 
 She bade me consider seriously the step I was going 
 to take, and to commend myself to God and seek his aid 
 by prayer. I received instructions first from a sister, 
 and they were completed by the father who conducted 
 our retreat in 188-. In December I received the holy 
 Sacrament of Baptism. God had w^onderfully favored 
 me, for I had never been baptized, and now, as the 
 purifying waters were poured over me, I knew the veil 
 of sin had risen, which left me as pure and spotless as 
 an infant when first crowned with its baptismal inno- 
 
no 
 
 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 cence. To complete my joy, the next morning I received 
 the most holy Eucharist. I cannot remember how I first 
 came to believe this wonderful mystery ; however, it was 
 owing to no exertion on my part, for whenever I entered 
 the chapel a strange sensation came over me, and I 
 found myself invx)luntarily adoring my God and Saviour 
 in the tabernacle. 
 
 Two years have almost passed since then, and I have 
 never ceased to thank God for leading me to this source 
 of unbounded happiness. If by my prayers and example 
 I can induce my parents and sisters to follow my path, 
 my happiness will be complete. 
 
 I cannot bring my ** page " to a close until I have 
 expressed my gratitude to my parents for their generos- 
 ity and kindness, not only in sending me to a convent, 
 but also in giving their consent to my becoming a Cath- 
 olic so willingly ; I feel confident th^t God will not allow 
 their generosity to pass without reward. 
 
ENLIGHTENED BY THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 OU ask me to tell the story of my conversion. 
 The bishop who received me into the 
 Church said to me after hearing it : ** Never 
 tell that story to others, for they will 
 not believe it. I believe it, and that you have no choice 
 but to follow, at all cost, the extraordinary w^ay in which 
 God is leading you ; but I tell you in advance, you wall 
 need all your courage. Your friends will despise you, 
 and you will get little sympathy from the Catholics of 
 this place, who will feel distrust of one who abandons 
 her ow^n religion ; but all the same, you must go on ; 
 only ask God to give you the courage you will sorely 
 need." 
 
 The bishop's words came more than true ; but the 
 courage he bade me ask of God was not refused me, 
 and it sufficed amply for my needs. And now that the 
 lapse of time has proved that it was not an ig7iis fatuus 
 of imagination, but indeed the light of God that led me, 
 the story, it seems to me, may be told, since you ask it ; 
 the same light that made it carry conviction to my own 
 soul will impress its truth upon others who may be in 
 conditions to be benefited by it. 
 
 My life has been like a road illuminated at night by 
 lamps within whose circle of light all was clear, and by 
 which I shaped my course through the semi-obscurity of 
 the intervals until another lamp was reached. The first 
 shines out very far back, when I was a little child play- 
 
1 1 2 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 ing about the floor, while my mother entertained callers. 
 Even then the dual nature in me was in force — a nature 
 that on one hand gave me later the name of the wildest 
 tomboy of the neighborhood, that impelled me to ride 
 unbroken colts, to run, skate, dance, swim, climb to the 
 most dangerous heights ; and on the other forced me to 
 a constant undercurrent of thoughtfulness, of striving to 
 find out the why and wherefore of all that came within 
 my consciousness. 
 
 I remember, on the occasion of which I speak, how 
 trifling and petty the things that seemed so interesting 
 to these grown people suddenly appeared to me, and the 
 childish contempt they awakened. I said to myself that 
 it would be a misfortune to grow up if there were noth- 
 ing better to busy myself with. And it must have been 
 then that the first distinct consciousness of God my 
 Creator awoke in me, for as I asked myself. What shall I 
 do, then ? the answer came : " Well, I am here, and I 
 did not put myself here. Whoever made me has a 
 right to do with me what he pleases. He must have 
 made me for some good purpose. I don't know what it 
 is, but the only way I see is to use whatever power I 
 find in myself for the best use I can discover." And 
 then and there I resolved to model my own life on other 
 lines, and to strive to make my influence not only good, 
 but as far-reaching as possible. 
 
 My parents were originally Baptists, but had after- 
 wards drifted into another form of Protestant orthodoxy. 
 The Bible became very early my favorite reading. As 
 a young girl I used often to rise at half-past four in 
 the morning to give more time to the study of it. I 
 
From the Highways of Life, 1 1 3 
 
 accepted it all as literally true, and used to pray with 
 great earnestness, and often with what seemed great 
 success, for what I wanted. It appears to me now that 
 my faith was at once singularly vivid and singularly lack- 
 ing in any emotional quality. 
 
 I believed then as firmly as I do now in God my 
 Creator, in Jesus Christ my Redeemer, in the Real 
 Presence in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, in the 
 absolute right of God to make laws which it was my 
 absolute duty to obey whenever they became known to 
 me ; in judgment, hell, and heaven, and in the efficacy of 
 prayer. But all these things had taken shape in my 
 mind by processes of which I distinctly recall none but 
 that of reading the Bible. The first time I remember 
 being spoken to on the subject of religion was on the 
 occasion of a " revival " at the ** State Street Church," 
 Portland, which our family attended. I think it must 
 have been a Congregational church, but I never knew it 
 by any name but that. Coming home to dinner one day 
 my father abruptly said to me : 
 
 " Molly, where do you think you would go if you 
 should die now ? " 
 
 *' To heaven," I answered promptly. 
 
 *' But why ? " 
 
 " Because ever since I knew there was a heaven I 
 have always prayed God to save me, and Jesus said that 
 whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you shall receiv^e." 
 
 ** Yes," returned my father, " but He also said that He 
 would confess those before His Father in heaven who 
 confess Him here on earth, and deny those who deny Him." 
 
 " But I don't deny Him," said I. 
 
114 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 " Do you confess Him ? " 
 
 " How can I confess Him ? You wouldn't like me to 
 go through the streets crying out that I believe in Him, 
 would you ? " 
 
 ** I think you ought to join the church." 
 
 " I can't, because I haven't experienced religion." 
 
 ** Why don't you, then ? " 
 
 I looked at him amazed. ** Why don't I ? Because I 
 can't make myself feel the way they say you must feel. 
 I am willing to do anything, but that is all I am able to 
 promise." 
 
 The talk ended with his . advising me to go down to 
 the church and speak with the minister, which I did 
 without delay. There were a good many at the meeting 
 I attended, and those who had it in charge went from 
 one to another, inquiring into their experiences and offer- 
 ing advice. When the minister reached me he said : 
 
 " Well, my little girl, and what do you feel } " 
 
 " I don't feel anything." 
 
 " What are you here for, then ? " 
 
 ** Because my father told me I had better come," said 
 I, and then recounted to him what had taken place at 
 dinner-time. 
 
 *' Don't you feel sorry for your sins ? " he asked when 
 I had finished. 
 
 " I try never to commit any," said I. 
 
 " But you do sometimes, I suppose ? " 
 
 **Well, whenever I think I have, I am very sorry, and 
 resolve never to do so any more." 
 
 " Why are you sorry ? It is because you love God, 
 isn't it, and don't want to offend Him?" 
 
From the Highways of Life. 115 
 
 " I dont love Him ; I don't know how to. I try not 
 to disobey Him, because I know He made me, and has 
 a right to demand of me whatever He pleases, and it is 
 wrong for me to refuse." 
 
 The minister questioned me very closely, trying to 
 elicit some sentiment or some profession of love to God; 
 but while I persisted in affirming that my will w^as ready 
 to do not only whatever God commanded, but whatever I 
 thought He would prefer, still I had no love for Him at 
 all. Finally he said : 
 
 " But why don't you ask God to make you love Him ? " 
 
 *' So I have, but He never does. I suppose He isn't 
 ready yet." 
 
 '* Well, ask again, then, and we will all pray for you ; 
 for I don't see how we can admit you into the church if 
 you say you don't love God." 
 
 He appointed another meeting, which I attended, but 
 still, in spite of all the prayers, in precisely the same 
 state of mind. My case was talked over, and I was 
 labored with, and, in especial, the difficulty of receiving 
 me without proper sentiments on my part was dwelt 
 upon. 
 
 ** Well," I said at last, " if you can't receive me, you 
 can't ; but it is not my fault. I am ready to enter, and I 
 will faithfully keep all the rules, but I can't feel, and I 
 will not say I do when I don't." 
 
 On that understanding I was admitted a few days 
 later. So far as I was concerned, that step had no 
 especial, or at least no sacred, significance to me. The 
 idea of the church as the mystical body of Christ, into 
 which I was about to be grafted by baptism, or even as 
 
1 1 6 From the Highzvays of Life. 
 
 the authorized teacher of all revealed truth, had never 
 entered my mind. In a vague way I had taken it for 
 granted that all the different sects which flourished in 
 our city and elsewhere were segments of an invisible 
 circle, all of which taken together made up the Christian 
 body. One could' enter whichever pleased him best or 
 was the handiest. I looked on them as a sort of re- 
 ligious clubs, each including a number of people who 
 thought pretty much alike, or who had social affinities, 
 and to which all were eligible who were ready to keep 
 the rules and pay their dues. 
 
 Still, receiving communion was a serious matter to me. 
 I do not recall that I was explicitly taught anything on 
 this point or on any other. My Bible-reading had made 
 me aware of the peculiar sacredness with which our Lord 
 had clothed that sacrament, and that He had made its 
 reception essential, so that I looked upon it as something 
 that was required by God to be done, and done in His 
 own way. The thought was always vividly present to me 
 at the communion season that " he that receives the Lord's 
 body unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation " ; and 
 with that came the recollection of the injunction : " When 
 thou bringest thy gift before the altar, if thy brother 
 hath aught against thee, go first and be reconciled to 
 thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." It was 
 easy to rid my own heart of aught against my brother, 
 but how to get rid of his aught against me ? It was 
 often a hard and complicated matter, but I did what I 
 could about it, satisfied that nothing impossible would be 
 required of me, and in much the same way that a 
 Catholic prepares for confession. Still I found no happi- 
 
From the Highways of Life, 1 1 7 
 
 ness in it, except the peace of mind that follows an 
 unpleasant duty done. I was amazed, though, now and 
 then, that the difficulty of " first being reconciled to thy 
 brother " seemed to be less serious to others than I 
 found it. But I concluded that it was a perplexity known 
 only to themselves, as mine appeared to be unintelligible 
 to others, and anyway it was no affair of mine. 
 
 After a while I was asked to instruct a Bible class, 
 and though I was smaller and younger than many of the 
 members, and remonstrated, yet, as my elders persisted 
 in desiring it, I finally accepted it as a thing which God 
 required of me, and for the fruits of which He would 
 make Himself responsible. I must have given out some 
 curious views now and again, but the class seemed 
 pleased. I mention the circumstance here because some 
 of my pupils became so attached to me, and so much 
 under my influence, that when I found my ow^n safe 
 guide in the one true Church they showed so strong a 
 disposition to believe that I must have good grounds for 
 the step, and such a willingness to inquire for them- 
 selves, that on that ground the very unusual course of 
 reading me publicly out of the sect I had abandoned 
 was resorted to. It was done at a time when the church 
 was crowded to the doors, my own father and brother 
 being among those present, by the minister who had 
 received me. He said it was his " painful duty to pub- 
 licly excommunicate Miss , as she had seen fit to 
 
 unite herself with the Roman Catholic Church, with 
 which we have no fellowship whatever.'* 
 
 As to my conversion, it took place in this way : I had 
 a friend, the daughter of a minister, with whom I was in 
 
1 1 8 From the Highways of Life. 
 
 the habit of taking early walks. Calling for her one 
 February morning and finding her indisposed, I went on 
 alone. My road took me past the chapel that then 
 served as a pro-cathedral, and in going by I noticed that 
 the door stood open. I do not recall whether or not I 
 then knew that it 'was a Catholic church, but, wondering 
 why it was open on a week-day, I strolled in. 
 
 A few people were there already, and, as more fol- 
 lowed, I waited to see what they would do. Presently 
 the bishop, whom I knew by sight, came out and vested, 
 and I mildly speculated whether he regarded this cere- 
 mony of dress as necessary, or only as a means to 
 impress the people. I remained seated near the door, in 
 the same state of superior-minded curiosity, and moder- 
 ately interested in what I had no idea of the meaning of, 
 until the moment of consecration, when in one instant 
 my whole soul was enveloped in a flood of illumination, 
 through which I knew the august mystery that was 
 taking place and all the truths of the Catholic faith. I 
 fell on my knees, and knew myself a Catholic. 
 
 As soon as Mass was over I went to my friend and 
 asked her if she would help me to procure books which 
 would explain the ceremonies of the Catholic Church. 
 
 ** Why do you want them ? " she inquired. 
 
 " I am a Catholic," said I, " but I don't understand 
 the ceremonial." 
 
 A look of terror came over her face. " Don't say 
 that," she exclaimed, *' or you will make yourself believe 
 it is true ! " 
 
 " I wish I could make myself believe that it isn't/' I 
 answered, " for Heaven knows I don't want to be one ; 
 
From the Highways of Life, 1 19 
 
 but it is too late now. I know that the CathoHc reHgion 
 is the only true one. And as my father is fearfully pre- 
 judiced against it, I want to give him as rational an ex- 
 planation of it as I can. I know what they believe, 
 but I don't understand their forms." 
 
 She tried to dissuade me, but my light had been too 
 clear. It would have been as easy to convince St. Paul 
 before Damascus that he had any option about his future 
 course. Finding that I was beyond argument or persua- 
 sion, she finally proposed a plan that we carried out. 
 We went to the church late on the following Saturday 
 evening, I in a state of great fear lest I should be recog- 
 nized and reported to my father before I was ready to 
 explain and defend my position. My friend slipped into 
 one of the confessionals when the people were nearly all 
 gone, and asked the priest sitting there for books of in- 
 struction. He questioned her a little, and then said that 
 if she w^ere in earnest she might come in daylight, on 
 the next Monday, to the bishop's house, and they would 
 be given her. This was another stumbling-block to me, 
 for the house was in a street through which my father 
 was likely to pass many times a day, and I dreaded lest 
 he might see me. But as there was no other way, we 
 went together to keep the appointment. We asked for 
 the priest she had spoken with, but the bishop himself 
 soon came into the parlor, and with a very severe ex- 
 pression demanded : 
 
 *' What is the meaning of this that Father — — tells 
 me?" And then turning to me, he said: ** You are Mr. 
 's daughter, are you not ? I hope this is no school- 
 girl folly on your part, for your father is a friend of mine." 
 
I20 From the HigJnvays of Life, 
 
 Thereupon I told him just what had occurred to me 
 during his Mass on a morning of the past week. When 
 I had finished he said : ** Do you mean to tell me that 
 you know the truths taught in the catechism without 
 having studied it ? " 
 
 ** I don't know 'about the catechism," I answered ; " I 
 did not know there was one. I know what the Church 
 teaches, but I don't understand the ceremonies." 
 
 He instantly rang a bell and asked for a catechism. 
 When it was brought he opened it and began to ask 
 questions here and there, which without the slightest 
 hesitation I answered correctly. Several times he looked 
 at me with surprise, and finally, closing the book, he ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 ** And you say you have never seen a catechism ? " 
 
 " No, bishop, I did not know there was such a thing." 
 
 It was then that he counselled me never to repeat 
 this story, saying ,that although he accepted it as true, 
 yet it would be generally regarded as incredible. I ob- 
 tained the books I needed, and, as it was Lent, I began 
 to observe the regulations about fasting. 
 
 From my account of the manner of my baptism by 
 sprinkling when I joined the " State Street Church," and 
 my own interior conditions at the time, the bishop saw 
 serious cause to doubt if I had ever been baptized at all, 
 and decided to give me conditional baptism when I 
 should formally enter the Catholic Church. The time 
 until that day arrived was one of bitter anguish. 
 
 My chief anxiety was to spare my parents and my 
 friends as much as possible, and as obstacles multiplied, the 
 weary time of probation prolonged itself to months. For 
 
From the Highzvays of Life. 121 
 
 a time all my friends abandoned me ; if we met by chance, 
 they crossed the street to avoid me, or' became absorbed 
 in other things, so that they did not see me ; I felt Hke 
 a leper. My father, who shared the general behef that I 
 would not take the final step, told me that the day I en- 
 tered the Catholic Church I would cut myself off from 
 my home and people. 
 
 The day of my reception came at last. In the late 
 afternoon I dragged myself to the little chapel with a 
 heart so heavy that I could hardly lift my feet. I felt as 
 I should have felt had I been going to execution. No 
 one was in the chapel but an old woman, and three 
 stranger nuns w^ho had come from Montreal to found a 
 convent. They were sombre figures, all in black, kneel- 
 ing immovably side by side, but I was glad they were 
 there ; they would pray for me. I was not quite so lone- 
 ly! I think this must have been true baptism., for the 
 moment the waters flowed on my head I felt all my tor- 
 ture vanish, and for the first time a flood of joy poured 
 into my heart. As I had never felt happiness in religion 
 before, from that moment I never ceased to feel it, ex- 
 cept for one terrible hour of darkness long ago. Trials 
 have not been wanting, but none has ever been able to 
 interrupt the overpowering gratitude and joy that I am 
 a Catholic. All else in life of pleasure or of pain has 
 seemed of no account beside that one great, crowning 
 treasure. 
 
THE STORY OP A COLORED MAN'S 
 CONVERSION. 
 
 WAS 'born a slave and brought up and 
 educated in Staunton, Va. My mother is 
 a pure black, my father nearly so, having 
 some admixture of white blood. Both were 
 slaves up to the time of emancipation. My 
 parents were both /* Ironside " Baptists. They taught 
 me the total depravity of man, and that only the elect 
 (a few *' Ironsides ") would be saved. My mother could 
 read and write very well. She taught me to spell when 
 only four years of age. Also to make the script alpha- 
 bet. She also had a limited knowledge of music. 
 
 When very young I was taught to say the Our Father 
 and the little prayer, ** Now I lay me down to sleep." 
 
 There being at that time no Baptist church in our 
 town, my parents- sent us — four boys, of w^hom I was 
 the youngest, and a girl — to the Methodist Sunday-school. 
 My teacher was a Mr. Morris, who now lives in Tyson 
 Street, Baltimore. He taught me the Apostles* Creed 
 and a considerable part of the Methodist Catechism, 
 which I soon became very fond of. I afterwards entered 
 the Bible-class taught by Mr. Thomas Campbell, the 
 superintendent of the Sunday-school, also one of Staun- 
 ton's most respected citizens, and at one time superinten- 
 dent of its public schools. After tw^o years in that class 
 I became a teacher in the Sunday-school, though not yet 
 a member of any church. At the age of fourteen I 
 graduated from the public schools, and six months later 
 I joined the church called the Augusta Street Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, Rev. Robert Steele, now presiding 
 
 122 
 
From the Highways of Life, 123 
 
 elder of the Baltimore district, being pastor. I had a 
 purpose to study for the ministry, and hoped to be able 
 to do so. I commenced my course of Biblical studies 
 under Mr. Steele, continuing them under his successor, 
 Rev. Benjamin Brown, a learned Methodist divine, now 
 stationed at John Wesley's Church, Hill Street, Baltimore. 
 I also studied Bi7ineys Compend of Theology as a sort 
 of doctrinal text-book. I was always very fond of his- 
 tory, and read much of it, both ancient and modern, 
 including The Rise of Methodis7n ; also a great deal 
 about the so-called Reformation. I also studied vocal 
 music for four years under Dr. D. J. L. Braun, the most 
 noted vocalist of our section of country, and instrumental 
 music for the same length of time under Professor 
 Koerber and his son Philip. I was soon made a class- 
 leader and took charge of the young people, with gen- 
 eral charge of the Sunday afternoon prayer-meeting. 
 
 I was especially fond of the New Testament studies, 
 and these first pointed me towards the true Church. 
 More than once did I ask my instructor why the minis- 
 ters nowadays do not forgive sins ; why after baptism 
 hands were not imposed, as had been done by the 
 Apostles. The fifth chapter of St. James also caused me 
 to ask why what is there described is not now done. My 
 teacher would always evade these questions ; sometimes 
 he would speak of the Catholic Church, which claimed 
 all these, and say her clergy were deluded, blinding the 
 people, etc., etc. Afterwards I attended a Methodist 
 seminary, and, besides the usual lessons, read much of 
 Sts. Augustine and Jerome, and also' the history of the 
 Benedictines, which was exceedingly interesting to me. 
 All of this reading gradually influenced me in the right 
 direction. 
 
 As yet I had never been in a Catholic church or 
 heard a priest's voice. Meantime Catholic matters were 
 
1 24 From the Highways of Life. 
 
 often discussed among us even in class. Once we had a 
 very lively debate on the question : Were Roman Catho- 
 lics ever a holy people ? I began about this time to have 
 much curiosity about the Church, and a longing desire to 
 attend Catholic worship and hear a priest preach, and 
 this longing only grew the stronger as I continually heard 
 and read so much about the errors of the old Church, 
 and of how she had fallen from Christ. Led as much by 
 curiosity as by other human motives, I attended the 
 Catholic church of our town on Christmas day, and was 
 present at the Solemn Mass. It was St. Francis' Church, 
 Augusta Street, Staunton. I went with no expectation 
 of hearing the Gospel preached, or so much as the name 
 of Jesus mentioned. The good priest whose words 
 reached my heart that day is Rev. Father McVerry, still 
 pastor there. The sermon was, to me, very effective. 
 The preacher spoke solemnly on the sacrament of Pen- 
 ance, and how the faithful should prepare, by seeking 
 forgiveness of their sins, to receive their Lord in Holy 
 Communion. The services seemed, of course, very 
 strange to me ; but the sermon still more so. My mind 
 was so full of it that I could not help putting many 
 questions about this strange sermon to my professor, who 
 soon became worried and fretted about me. He had 
 ever been kind and indulgent towards me, but he told me 
 that he feared that I would wilfully lose my soul. He 
 declared with much feeling that he could see that my 
 ideas had got into the Roman channel. I answered that 
 I must have reached that channel through the works of 
 Wesley and the Protestant Bible, because I had never 
 till then read a Catholic book or heard a Catholic sermon 
 till that Christmas day. 
 
 At the opening of the next session, being without 
 means, I could not re-enter the seminary, and, on account 
 of what they called my ''queer ideas," was denied the 
 
From the Highways of Life, 125 
 
 help usually given so liberally in our colored Protestant 
 institutions. Through the kindness of my old professor 
 I was appointed teacher in the colored school of 
 Chambersburg, Pa. After teaching one term, and in 
 addition giving music lessons in vacation, I managed to 
 save a little money. I entered a college in Pennsylvania, 
 studying hard and remaining till my savings were gone. 
 
 A chance advertisement was, in God's providence, the 
 finishing stroke in my journey to the Church. It was .in 
 a Norristown, Pa., paper, and called for a young man to 
 teach English in a German family. I had learned Ger- 
 man in Staunton and had studied it further in Chambers- 
 burg. In my answer to the advertisement I stated that 
 I was colored ; still the family accepted me. The family 
 consisted of a German Lutheran minister, his wife, two 
 sons, and a daughter, all unable to speak a word of 
 English. I proved to be useful to them, and I also be- 
 came organist in their church. 
 
 The family became very fond of me, and the boys m 
 three months knew enough English to enter the public 
 schools. I had access to the minister's large library, and 
 became interested in the Hfe of Martin Luther. Nothing 
 had given my mind such trouble as the doctrine of the 
 Real Presence in the Eucharist. But little by little my 
 soul became satisfied and my doubts came to an end. I 
 also read here Luther's Tisch reden (Table-talk). These 
 works, with the minister's many talks on consubstantia- 
 tion and other doctrines, instead of settling my doubts, 
 led me only the more eagerly to search for truth ; which 
 no honest, fair-minded person ever earnestly did without 
 finally landing in the communion of the holy Roman 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 It was while in this family I commenced instruction 
 under a priest, which I kept up steadily for six months. 
 These first instructions I received from Father James 
 
1 26 From the Highways of Life, 
 
 Manahan, assistant priest at the Catholic church at Nor- 
 ristown. My engagement in the minister's family termin- 
 ating, I then entered the '* Delaware Association for the 
 Education of Colored People," and was appointed teacher 
 of the school at Smyrna. There I resumed my course of 
 instructions in the Catholic faith, and was in about a 
 year's time baptized in St. Polycarp's Church, Smyrna. 
 The Protestant people were furious at me. and turned me 
 out of the school. Returning to Virginia, I by chance 
 learned that my old school, in which I had taught for 
 four years, was vacant. My application was successful. 
 But as soon as it was known that I was a Catholic I 
 experienced the same opposition, and was forced to give 
 up the school. 
 
 When it became known that I had actually become a 
 Catholic, all my friends set up a howl. I could no longer 
 teach a whole term in any public school, for as soon 
 as it was discovered that I was a Catholic intrigues were 
 started which caused my dismissal. Consequently for a 
 long time I suffered greatly. After school hours some- 
 how I felt that I must share with others what I had 
 gained, the gift of faith that was so precious to my soul. 
 I do not mean that I taught Catholic doctrine in a public- 
 school building, but at my room or other convenient 
 places. Some of my dearest friends in Staunton declared 
 that since I had gone into idolatry they could no longer 
 care for me as in days past. My mother thought it 
 awful, but said little. My sister really thought I had 
 more sense than to be paying a man fifty cents every 
 week to forgive me my sins. My brother (but one being 
 alive at this time) declared that he would go to his 
 grave mourning my lost condition. ** Brother Lewis," a 
 well-known class-leader, met me about a year ago, when 
 the following conversation took place : 
 
 ** Well, brother, I am real glad to see you; I've been 
 
From the Highways of Life, 127 
 
 praying God a long time to see you." '* Mr. Lewis, I am 
 very glad that some Staunton friend gives me such a 
 kind welcome." 
 
 " But, brother, what do you mean by addressing me 
 so — Mister Lewis. You could not expect your old friends 
 to love you as they once did. You know, brother, you 
 have turned your back on Him whom you once served 
 and gone after strange gods, worshipping idols. You 
 were such a promising young man, and no doubt would 
 have been a power in our church. What ever possessed 
 you to take such a course ? " " Being concerned about 
 the salvation of my soul caused me to do as I have 
 done." 
 
 ** What do you mean ? " "I mean that since there is 
 but one faith and one baptism, there can be but one 
 church, and that must be none of John Wesley's making, 
 but the work of God. Show me the powder in John Wes- 
 ley or any other man to set up a church or religion and 
 call it Christ's." 
 
 ** Now, my brother, you don't just understand. In your 
 Church it is taught that salvation is by believing in a 
 man. Faith alone saves us." " What then will you do 
 with the passage of Scripture which says, * Faith with- 
 out works is dead ' ? " ** That's quite true, etc." 
 
 Our conversation was quite lengthy. He became 
 much interested in Catholic doctrine, and concluded that 
 if the old Church taught .all that I said she did, she 
 had never erred. He insisted that I should see his new 
 pastor, which I consented to do the next day at his 
 house. He introduced me as an old class-leader who 
 had left good old Wesley and gone to Rome. Our 
 meeting was pleasant. After nearly two hours' debate 
 on Methodism and CathoHcity; he said I had the ad- 
 vantage of him because I could argue pro and con. — 
 meaning that I was acquainted with both sides. 
 
128 From the Highivays of Life, 
 
 Our holy Mother the Church being the mother 
 and mistress of all churches, in her alone are found the 
 necessary means of salvation. To her was given the 
 command : " Go teach all nations." Ethiopia has not 
 yet received the word, although in America she stretch- 
 es forth her hands. It is the bounden duty of the Church 
 to grasp those outstretched hands and draw these poor 
 people to her bosom. 
 
 And now, if I am allowed a word about the pros- 
 pects of making Catholics of my people, I must say that 
 in Virginia and other Southern States the conversion of 
 the negro cannot be very successfully carried on by 
 white priests alone. Prejudice among my race against 
 a white man (one of the curses of slavery) still strongly 
 exists. They have no confidence in what a white man 
 says about religious questions, and think it perfectly 
 ridiculous that a white man must have charge of col- 
 ored people. Many colored people, being excessively 
 suspicious, will look upon efforts made by a white 
 clergy alone as a device to entrap them in some way 
 or other. Meantime the Protestant whites will make 
 great efforts to hinder the Catholic Church spreading 
 among the blacks. In this section a school taught by 
 a white teacher is a failure. A few colored priests, 
 noble-hearted men and good speakers, would in a few 
 years make a good showing in our State, and no 
 doubt in all the adjoining ones. 
 
 This is a brief yet complete narrative of how I 
 found the true Church. God grant that some Protes- 
 tant who reads this may be so concerned about his soul's 
 welfare as to do likewise ! 
 
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