WHY HE DID SO.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 433, 29 July 1881, Page 7

WHY HE DID SO.

(From the Baltimore Gazette.) Rev. Edward Winslow Gilliam, late Protestant Episcopal clergyman and rector of Clinton (N.C.) Church, who, in January last, resigned his charge on account of certain theological doubts, and announced his attention of becoming a Catholic, is at St. Mary's Seminary on North Pacca street, and is the guest of the Catholic Fathers connected with that institution. Mr. Gilliam went to St. Mary's on April 11, to obtain, as he says, rest from doubts of a most conflicting and torturing nature which assailed him as to the truth of the teachings of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Those doubts were brought abont by reading Episcopal books, and covered a period of seven or eight years. In an interview with a Gazette representative at St. Mary's recently, Mr. Gilliam gave a short history of his life and the causes which resulted in his defection from the Protestant Episcopal Church. He was bom in Oxford, N.C, and is the son of Dr. James C. Gil Ham, and nephew of Judge Gilliam, both of Oxford. He was educated in the town of his birth until he became seventeen or eighteen years of age, when he was sent to the University of North Carolina, where he graduated. He then returned to Oxford, where he studied law under his uncle, Judge Gilliam, but not liking the profession renounced it, and entered upon a study of theology and divinity for the Episcopal ministry under Bißhop Atkinson in 1863,' and was given the charge of a church. Shortly afterward he married, lie went from one charge to another in North Carolina, but lite ministry was not confined to that State. He filled several churcheß in Texas, on the Red River, and in 1878 or 1879 returned to North Carolina, and took charge of the Protestant Episcopal church in Clinton. He gaye

general satisfaction wherever he went, and until 1874 or 1872 he was a sound theologian and a strict believer ia the tenets of the 1 Church in whioh he was ordained. " About that time, however," to continue in his words, " I began to doubt the soundness of my faith. I was a close student of Cranmer's life, and read with the utmost care and studied Brown's thirty-nine articles, from which and Cranmer I conceived that the Eoman Catholic Church alone possessed the rightful power to interpret the meaning of the Scripture. Remember, now, that it was not from Eoman books that I drew this conception, which has now grown into a firm and irrevocable belief. It was strictly from Episcopal works, and the idea was drawn from the rules of the faith and canon, of Scripture. The rule of faith is the teaching of Scripture with regard to points essential to salvation, and the doubt rose in my mind whether it was not that the Roman Catholic teaching was the right and the Protestant Episcopal the wrong one. With regard to the canon of Scripture the doubt was whether the Roman Catholic Church was not alone empowered with authority to speak as to its interpretation and its divine derivation. These doubts began to assail me eight years ago. I bore up under them as best I could, bat they were torturing. For five or six years I continued to discharge the duties of my sacred calling, and tried to believe implicitly what I taught, but I could not. The demon of doubt was upon me, and night after night I sat up and wrote out my thoughts, and year by year enlarged them as new ideas occurred to me. All this was done secretly, and I tried as much as possible to divert the attention of my congregation from myself, so that the/ would not discover what was passing in my mind. [ think I was successful in this, and that they never knew, until I made it known that I did not believe all I said. I never mentioned it to any one ; not even my wife knew of it. I bore it as long as possible, and at last I could stand it no longer. I resigned my charge at Clinton the first of last January, and after I had got the papers upon which I had inscribed and elaborated my doubts and thoughts in good shape I went to Bishop Lyman and stated the trouble. The Bishod argued with me and presented his convictions, the teachings of the Church, &c.,but none of them would remove the difficulties, and I could think of nothing else to do but to come to Baltimore and confer with Archbishop Gibbons. The Archbishop coincided with me in the main, but corrected me on several points and advised me to do as I have done. His advice was in accordance with my desires, and I came here last Monday week to obtain rest and quiet and to read."