DEATH OF A CONVERT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 433, 29 July 1881, Page 23

DEATH OF A CONVERT.

When will the history of the conversions of Americans to the Catholic Church be written 1 Completely, most certainly never, unless in the Book of Life. Yet there are chapters that might be unveiled to-day to the great profit and edification of souls. One of these comes to us from St. Louis in the obituary of a Jesuit priest, Father Converse, a Vermonter by birth and of Puritan ancestry. Emigrating westvt ard, like so many of the enterprising men of his section, he engaged in copper mining on Lake Superior and practiced law in Cleveland, Ohio. An honest, earnest man, he devoted himself to the study of the religions of the period and found them all Dead Sea Apples. " Keligion," says his biogrrpher in the Western Watchman, " occupied a considerable share in his thoughts, wherever be ■was and in whatever employments he was engaged. After abanclo iing the denomination of religion in which he had been reared, he drifted from one Church to another during several years, studying successively all the confessions of faith on which he could lay Lis bands, his changing opinions causing him to join quite a number of sects, but not remaining long in membership with any one. As

there were certain fundamental questions to which ha could find no satisfactory answer in any of the churches to which he had attacned himself, he became unsettled in mind and despondent ; he began to think seriously of dismissing the subject of religion from his thoughts altogether. He was in this state of mind when on Easter bunaay, 1842, he was casually passing the door of the Catholic Church m Cleveland during divine Bervice. He never had, up to that time, thought it worthy of his attention to examine the claims of the Catholic Church on rational belief, because its falsity was, throughout his life, a foregone conclusion for his mind. Out of mere curiosity he entered the Church door, and, as it happened, the priest, Key. Feter McLaughlin, was just beginning his sermon, and the subject announced was precisely the one that had long perplexed his own thoughts. The sermon shed a new light upon bis mind, and ?I*V v !1T tr * mB of thou g h t> making so great impressions on him, that he determined to see the priest when service was over and have a conversation with him. The reverend gentleman received him kindly, and their talk on questions of religion, which began at the dinner table, was actually prolonged throughout the evening and entire succeeding night. After some repose next day, Mr. Converse asked Father McLaughlin, as the man from Ethiopia riding on a chariot with the Apostle Philip beside him « preaching unto him Jesus, asked, when he was made to understand the truth : • See, here is water ; what doth hinder me from being baptised ?' Mr. Converse was, in compliance with his own earnest desire, baptised on that same day, which was Easter Monday, 1842.' He then became a Jesuit and a priest, maintaining until death and illuminating with Catholic faith, the sturdy good sense, which made him conscious of the shams in which he was educated, and which made his acceptance of the gift of faith, so easy and grateful. He held many important trusts in his order.— May he rest in peace."— Catholic Review.