WHO ARE THE CONVERTS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 257, 5 April 1878, Page 3

WHO ARE THE CONVERTS.

(From the Boston Pilot.) « A few weeks ago the Episcopal organ, the CliurcJmnan, said :— " It can be shown from statistics that the larger proportion of perverts to | Rome are from the non-Episcopal bodies." As the Churchman has failed to produce the statistics since called for, it is not inappropriate for us to give a few distinguished names serving to indicate their quality, and showing that though the Catholic Church may thank all denominations for their contribution, she is under special obligation to the Episcopalian. Without leaving the United States, we might cite illustrious personages as the late Most Rev. James Roosevelt Bayley. D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore ; Most Rev. James Frederick Woon, D.D., Archbishop of Philadelphia ; Right Rev. Josue Young, D.D., late Bishop of Erie ; Right Rev. Bishop Tayler, of Hartford— all of whom were converts to the Catholic faith— L. Stillman Ives, D.D., Protestant Bishop of North Carlina, who, having seen the light of truth in the Catholic Church, renounced every earthly consideration— dignities, honours, wealth, friends— and braved contumely and insult to become a simple layman in her fold ; Very Rev. George H. Deane, VicarApostolic of the Diocese of Newark, and son of the Protestant bishop of that name ; Rev. James Kent Stone, late President of Hobart and Jlenyon College, now a Paulist father ; Revs. I. T. Hecker, Francis A. Baker, A. F. Hewitt, Edward Dwight Lymann, Episcopal clergymen of distinction and now Catholic priests ; Rev. James Clark, S.J formerly a Professor of Mathematics at West Point, later commissioned a brigadier-general in the United States army, and now President of Gonzago College, Washington; Orestes A. Brownson, L.LD., tlie distinguished reviewer, whom Lord Brougham is said to have x?v master mind of America ; "J. A. M'Master, editor of the Mem Yorlt, Freeman's Journal; General D. W. C. Clarke, of Vermont, Key. Dr. Rogers, Dr. Joshua Huntington, the well-known author of Rosemary," " Gropings after Truth," &c. ; Honourable Thomas Q^ ng 'm nator from Ohio ' and fol> some fcim e Secretary of the United mates .treasury ; Hon. Henry May, a distinguished orator, and one or the leaders ot his party in the House of Representatives ; Homer >} heaton, Esq., late of Poughkeepsie., N.Y., at first a lawyer of distinction, but actuated by zeal for the service of God, such as he then supposed to be, he devoted his wealth and talents, of a superior order, to the Irotestant ministry, until, the study of theology having opened his eyes to the falsity of his position, he was eventually led into the Catholic Church. Then there are Hon. Thomas B. Florence, of Philadelphia, for sixteen years a member of the United States House of Representatives ; Hon. Judge T. Scott, of Baltimore, and a host of other leading men of the country, a mention of whose names alone would occupy more space than our limited columns will allow, without speaking of the hundreds of highly-educated women converted to the Church within the last fifty years, and who grace all classes of _ In order to give the Episcopalians a chance for vindication, it is tair to give the following from a Protestant daily :— " But let us offset ™ t 0r losin ? Docto * s Bayley, Newman, Hecker and others. ~vir j. M Master, editor of that uncompromising Catholic paper, the w?f V l S JJ ° V) ' nal > is a son of a Presbyterian minister. The Rev. J. vv. isakewell was a successor to the Presbyterian commentator, Matthew Henry ; his son, R. N. Bakewell, became editor of the Shepherd f the Valley a Catholic paper. Father Huntington says, in his Keasons for Renouncing Protestantism,' that his theological training was at 1 nncetown. Dr. O. A. Brownson was a Congregational mini* ♦ w « the J Hewxtfc is the son of an ' Old School' Presbyterian pastor, father Wai worth is the son of Chancellor Walworth, an elder in a I resbyterian church. Judge Bunat, of Louisiana, was a Baptist. J udge Lord was a Presbyterian before he made a similar change. lrotessorsOertel,Muner,Philips,Adams,andthephilosophicalSchle<'el never went to Rome from the Episcopal Church. Dr. De Joux was |l Uivimrt pastor m Geneva. Counts Ingenheim, Stolberg, Werner, * c I aToaesa of Mecklenburg and the. Baron of Ecstein, with De Haller, Hisslinger, Henter, and Overbeck were all non-Episcopalian Protestants. Ihe recent gain of the Catholic Church of the Queen Dowager ot Bayaria was not a loss to the Episcopal Church. And Bishop Cummins allusion to the 'Marquis of Ripon with all his wealth/ leaving the Church of England for the Church of Rome is offset by the Marquis of Bute, with his greater wealth, who went to Rome from Presbytenamsm But a few months ago we read of the Rev. Dr. Ch h' >a Odlst minisfcer to Brooklyn, N.Y., going to the Catholic