MR. KEGAN PAUL'S APOLOGIA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 6, 13 November 1891, Page 25

MR. KEGAN PAUL'S APOLOGIA.

{Liverpool Catholic Times.)

Stxck the appearance of Cardinal Newman's " Apologia '* there hai njt been published a more deeply interesting account of a convert's religious straggles than that which appears from the pea of Mr C. Kegan Paul in the current issue of the Month anler the title, " Oonfessio Viatoris." The record of an earnest soul's battles against prejudices and doubts and its progress towards the true light of the Catholic faith must always possess an absorbing attraction ; but its attractive power is immensely increased when, as in Mr Kegan Paul's narrative, every word breathes the moat sincere conviction. This,, indeed, constitutes the great beauty and force of Mr Kegan Paul* article — that it is written with a frank, straight-forward simplicity which not only wins tbe sympathy of the reader, but convinces him that the writer's object is to tell in the most direct way the truth, and nothing bat the traih. Mr Kegan Paul is the son of an Anglican clergyman who, in his son's early childhood, ministered to the congregation of a Somersetshire village. It was not, however, from his father bat from bis mother that he received the strongest and most lasting impressions. As in so many other instances, the mother's influence in the days of boyhood was all powerful for good even amongst the anxieties and troubles of manhood. " My mother (says Mr Kegan Paul) always prayed with her children, and till long after I had grown up always cam 3 to me after I was in bed and read me a chapter in the Bible, This nightly reading is among the happiest memories of my youth.' 1 The cold formalism of the Anglican ritual had little relish for hinr, To sach an ex'ent did it excite his aversion that, though not an irreligious child, he loathad church-going. Toe first Catholic service of which he heard a description seems to have rilled his young mind witn. new ideas of the beauty of relierious worship. He thus recounts the circumstances :—: — " The first time I was conscious of a dignified church beyond the Anglican, and no mera body of dissenters, was when my mother went one Holy Thur9d«y to the Tenebrse service at Prior Park, and gave me an account of it. She had made acquaintance, how Ido not know, with a certain Father Logan, who preached the Three Hoars' devotions on that occasion. I think my mother went to Prior Park now and then for some years, and all that she told me impressed me deeply ." Even from the age of eight Mr Kegan Paul possessed and exercised a logical and analytic faculty. Some few books intended to confirm Protestants in antagonism to the Catholic Church fell into his hands, but the effect they produced upon the mind of the youthful reader was by no means that for which thsy were obviously designed. We have heard of Protestants bang converted to Catholicism by the unfair diatribes of the late Dr Littledale against the Church. Honest Protestants, capable of weighing arguments, have revolted against the injustice of his attacks. Mr Kegan Paul was animated by a similar feeling in reading controversial literature composed with a manifest anti-Catholic animus. About the age of eight or nine years he read a discussion between one of the Downside Fathers and a Protestant champion, ani it became clear to him that the advocate of Protestantism had not answered all that was advanced by his opponent. Other books, such as "The Nun," by Mrs Sherwood, and the tale " Father Clement," meant to inspire him with * horror of Catholic practices, had a distinctly opposite eff;ct. The customs which were held up to scorn he considered perfectly innocent, and ever meritorious. His leaning towards the Catholic Church was thus becoming decided, but there was no one to deepen theie early impressions. His religious instruction during his school life from eight to thirteen seems to have been slight and superficial, and from this point of view he appears to have fared little better at Eton, though the Oxford movement was then making a move throughout the country. Mr Kegan Paul, indeed, pain's a sad picture of the life led by the average boy at our great public schools :— " There ara lads who, by the grace of G-od ( have in them a natural and ingrained purity of eoul, a revolt from every wrong word and deed, an instinct against evil, vnhich preserves them in ignorant innocence through the perils of boyhood ; but, as a rule, an average English lad is neither ignorant nor inaocent. When he ceases to 6ay his nightly prayer at his mother's knee, there is no one who enforces on him the connection between religion and morals ; no one, except from the distant pulpit, ever speaks to him of his soul ; no one deals with bim individually, or attempts to help him in his special trials. A father is, as a rule, shy of his son ; tutors are apt to treat all moral transgressions as school offences, and are unwilling to see what is not forced on them, so that the boy's soul shifts for itself and for the most part fares badly. I can truly say that for the n>e years I was at Eton, between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, no one ever said a word to me about my own religious life, save alwaya my mother, but she could know nothing of a boy's dangers, and wag as one that fought the air." Proceeding from Eton to Oxford, Mr Kegan Paul felt the spell of the religious energy which the Tractanan movement had generated, i Though the set with which he mainly lived was not much, given to

habits of piety, bis religious sympathies were not inactive. He was careful to attend any church at which Dr. Ptuey waa announce'! to preach, read Newman's sermons to his mother and sister in the vacations, ond, unknown to his Oxford friends, endeavoured to do some little district viaitin? amongst th<j poor in a fitful w^y, under the direc'ion of the Rev. William Kaott, Fellow of Brasenose, afterwards vicar of St. Saviour's, L3eda. In his vacations, more than in Oxforl, ho saw the High Church party at its best. Much of his time wa spent with the family of a member of his college. They held much Catholic doctrine, and adopted many Cat.ho.ic practices with a simplicity, earnest piety, and thoroughness very beautiful to witness. The eldest daughter took much interest in the attempt at a revival of Sisterhood in the Church of England, and is now a Catholic nun, of the Order of St. Dominic. The rjmiiader of the family are still satisfiel with their half-way house. Mr Regan Paul would probably have been more closely identified with tham and their opinions but for the influence exercised upon him bj Charles Kingsley, then rector of Eversley, with whom ha contracted a frieniship. Kingsley was broad, and tolerant towards every religion but the Catholic, on which he poured the whole vials of his wrath. Ha mixed with his religion eager Democratic politics, and ha endeavoured with suscess, to persuade Mr Kegan Paul that work brought the solution of all doubts. When, therefore, Mr Regan Paul took Orders in the Church of England his aim was to bec3tne a parson after Kingsley's pattern. First at Tew and then at Blox he labaured to attain this ideal. He then went abroad as a private tutor, and about a year subsequently he accepted a conductorship at chaplaincy at Etoa. Here, in dealing with the boys, the necessity of one of the principal practices of the Church soon became manifest to him, and something" vary like confession entered into the relation between many of thosa entrusted to his charge and him3elf. S. ill he was far from being a High Churchman in creed. Neologian criticism, which he read more and more, took increasing hold on him, teaching him to minimiza dogma and to hold the least possible doctrine coaipauble with a love for a somewhat stately ritual, chanted services, aui frequent celebrations of communion, in which pious remembranca of Christ's death there seemed for himself ani others great help towards a spiritual life. A college living ia Dorset was then offered to him and accepted. The bishop frankly told him that he would, if it were possible, have refused to accept a man of his opinions, but as he could not help himself ; he trusted Mr Ke^an Paul would at least continue the outward character of the services. "It struck me as most grotesque," says Mr Kegan Paul, " that the chief pastor of a diocese should have no voice whatever in the selection of the men appointed to serve under him, no power to inhibit what he considered false doctrine, and should have to appeal to the forbearance and good sense of his clergy to hinder a complete reversal of an established ritual approved by himself." In his new position Mr Kegan Paul strove hard to improve the condition of the agricultural labourer, which was then deplorable indeed ; but whilst social and political woik had been carried as far as possible, faith bad not grown firmer ; rather it hid insensibly slipped away, lie accordingly resigned his living and went to London to take up a literary life, at a moment when the whole service of the Church of England seemed to him distasteful and untrue, aod the outward scaff jlding on which he bad striven to rise to God had crumbled into nothingness, and when, though ha did not deDy -~tim nor cease to believe that a first cause existed, he was attracted by the Positivist system of Auguste Comte, the so-called Religion of Humanity. "It should in fairness be said (writes Mr Kegan Paul) that in this faith, if so it may be called, men and women live high, restrained ascetic lives, and find in Humanity an object, not self, for their devotion. Like the men of Atbeos, they would seem ignorantly, and under false names, to worship God. And or myself I may say that I doubt if I should have known the faitbi but for Positivism, wh eh gave me a rule and discipline of which I had been unaware. The historical side of Comte's tea ching btill remains in large measure true to my mind, based as it is on the teaching of the Church. Comte had the inestimable advantage of having been Catholic in his youth, and could not, even when he tried put aside the lessons he had learnt. But Auguste Comte did more for me than this. It may seem strange, but till I did so under his direction, I had never read the ' Imitation of Christ.' Comte bids all hia followers meditate on this holy book, telling them to substitute Humanity for God. The daily study of the ' Imitation ' for several years did more than aught else to bring me back to faith and faith back to me."

Mr Kegan Paul found in the courae of Borne time that Positivism is a fair-weather creed which has no message for the sorry and the sinful, no restoration for the erring, no succour for the hour of death. He was further impelled towards Catholicism by the writings of Newman, which he read with those of Tennyson, Browning, Buskin, and Carlyie. Like Thomas & Kempis, Newman studied day by day, sank into his soul and changed it from a state cf desolation. The books which mainly aided him when he accepted in a more definite way than ever before the being of a God who actively, daily, and visibly interposes in His creation, were the "Grammar of Assent" by Cardinal Newman, and " Beligio Viatoris " by Cardinal Manning-

The good seed thus sown grew steadily until Mr Kegan Paul reoog* nised the force and truth of every Catholic doctrine. The end came at Beaulieu, near Loches, in France. After a conversation with him on Catholic subjects, the cure said, " But, no donbt, yon are a Catholic, Bir." The question appears to have startled him. " I was tempted," writes Mr Kegan Paul, to answer, "A pen pies " — very nearly— but the thought came with overwhelming force that this was a matter in which there was no love of nicely calcuated less or more ; we were Catholics or not ; my interlocutor was within the fold, and I without, and if without then against knowledge, agauißt warning, for I recognised that my full conviction had at last gone where m y heart had gone before ; the call of God had sounded in my ears, * nd I must perforce obey. The result was that on the 12th August Last year, at iTulbam, in the Church of the Servitee, he made his rat mission to the Church with deep thankfulness to God. Jt was ole day after Cardinal Newman's death, and the one bitter drop in a brimming cup of joy was that the deceased prelate could not know of his zecep* tion, but a few days afterwards as he knelt by the coffin at Edgbaaton and heard the Requiem said for the Cardinal, he felt that he was in a land where there was no need to tell him anything, since he seei all things in the heart of God. In the following touching wordi Mr Kegaa Paul tells of the happiness he now feels within the true fold : —

" I may say for myself that the happy tears shed at the tribunal of Penance on that 12th of August, the fervour of my first Communion were as nothing to what I feel now. Day by day the mystery of the altar seems greater, the unseen world nearer, God more a Father, Oar Lady more tender, the great company of saints more friendly, if I dare use the word, my guardian angel closer to my side. All human relationship becomes holier, all human friends dearer, because they are explained and sanctified by the relationships and friendships of another life. Sorrows have come to me in abundance since God gave me grace to enter His Church, bat I can bear them better than of old, and the blessing He has give n me outweighs them all. May He forgive me that Iso long resisted Him and lead those I love unto the fair land where he has brought me to dwell I 1 am confident it will be said, and said with truth, my experience is like that of the blind man in the Gospel who also was sure. He waa still ignorant of much, nor could he fully explain how Jesus opened his eyes, but this he could Bay with unfaltering certunty, ' One thing I know, that whereas I was blind now I see.' "